Past Masters Fourteen
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Another 15 stories in the Life + 70 Public domain, collected from newspapers and magazines. There is hard-boiled Private Eye fiction from Raoul Whitfield and C S Montanye; a spy story by William Le Queux, first published in about 1909, but which was topical again when republished in 1940; the original long short story "Madame Butterfly" from which the famous opera was taken; a Fegrus Hume short tale of vengeance in the South Pacific; and others. 1: Fog is Necessary / C. S. Montanye 2: Death With Music / C. S. Montanye 3: Merry Month of Mayhem / C. S. Montanye 4: The Great Black / Raoul Whitfie

PAST MASTERS

FOURTEEN

November 2020

Produced and Edited by Pulpmeister

(Terry Walker)

Contents

1: Fog is Necessary / C. S. Montanye

2: Death With Music / C. S. Montanye

3: Merry Month of Mayhem / C. S. Montanye

4: The Great Black / Raoul Whitfield

5: The Longest Side / George Allan England

6: Come Back to Aaron / C. S.Montanye

7: Death in the Pasig / Raoul Whitfield

8: Room 666 / Jacques Futrelle

9: Inside Job / Raoul Whitfield

10: Madame Butterfly / John Luther Long

11: Murder in Oils / Leslie Beresford

12: A Man's Hand / Lord Kilmarnock

13: Cheating The Spies! / William Le Queux

14: Aunt Caroline / Annie Swan

15: Tragic Voyage / Fergus Hume

Cumultative Index

__________________

1: Fog is Necessary

C. S. Montanye

1892-1948

The Popular Complete Stories Feb 1st 1932

JOE TRAILL was complaining loudly as the elevator came to a stop at the fifth floor. “What a place! Even the goats run the wrong way here. Boy, if I ever see Belmont Park again, I’m going to get right down on my knees and holler out for the world to hear: ‘Widener, here I am! London? I’ll sell you the whole works for a dollar twenty-nine!”

The “Canary Kid” smiled as he fitted the key to the door of their small suite. He opened the door, switched on the light, and watched

Traill wander morosely in. The Shaftesbury Hotel, on Great St. Andrew Street, north of the Strand, was unpretentious. The Kid had selected it for their brief stay because it suited his purpose, which was to be as inconspicuous as possible.

“Even the dough here,” Traill continued, “is cockeyed. Imagine calling a crown a ‘dollar’ when it’s only worth five shillings. Listen, when do we shove off? Another week around these parts, and I’ll be ready for a pine raglan. I don’t mean the kind with buttons, neither.”

The Kid lighted a cigarette, and drew the shade at the window of their small parlor. The glass reflected him darkly. The tweeds he had worn to the races at Hurst Park that afternoon had come from a tailor on Moorgate Street. In them the Kid, slender and blond, looked not unlike one of the wealthy idlers who exercised their mounts on the bridle paths of Rotten Row.

He turned away and dropped into a chair. Traill and he had lost nearly three hundred dollars on the races. The Kid smiled faintly. The unfamiliar thoroughbreds, on the turf course, had run the wrong, way for them. Like Traill, the small, wizened little crook suffering so acutely with nostalgia, he, himself, was homesick for New York. A profitless fortnight in London had made him anxious to press on.

“Tell you what I’ll do, Joseph.” The Kid spoke deliberately. “If we don’t get a break by Wednesday, we’ll run across to Paris, look that slab over, and sail from Cherbourg on the twenty-first. Fair enough?”

“Twenty-first? That’s a long way off. Paris, you say? Why go there?— ’at’s only a city of dressmakers.”

He shrugged. “You’re the head man, so I suppose I gotta keep my face shut and sit up on my hind legs whenever you snap your fingers. But get this, pal,” he added fiercely. “When I plant my dogs on Forty-second Street, they’re going to stay there permanently. On the level, you can pick up more mazuma in five minutes on the main stem than you can over here in five years. No wonder this Scotland Yard place packs such a heavy rep. The elbows don’t have to arrest nobody. Why? Because there’s nothing to steal!”

“I wonder,” the Canary Kid murmured thoughtfully.

“While you’re wondering,” Joe

Traill stated crisply, “I’m gonna wash up, hop out, and grab me off a music-hall show. I think I’ll nod in at Daly’s. Don’t you want to string along?”

The Kid shook the golden head from which his nickname had been derived. “No, I think I’ll stay here a while. I expect a visitor a little later. You go and enjoy yourself, but remember this: pockets over here are sewed up tight. Don’t make the mistake of trying to get your fingers in any of them.”

Traill grunted and left.

The Kid, alone, picked up a sporting magazine. He turned the pages idly, his attention straying. He began to think about Sir Wilfred Parish and the office at the Croydon flying field, where, the previous day, he had first glimpsed the man. Deep within him the Kid’s intuition stirred. He had no definite way of reasoning out the feeling, but he was almost certain he had one of his old, lucky hunches. The Canary Kid shrugged well-tailored shoulders and looked at his watch. It was nearly nine o’clock.

Discarding the magazine, he took a nervous turn or two around the room. Sir Wilfred Parish. Croydon to Le Bourget. After a minute the Kid went into the adjoining bedroom, and strapped on his rubber shoulder scabbard. Into the holster he pushed a flat automatic revolver, after a glance that made certain the ammunition clip was filled. Somehow the familiar feel of the weapon close to him had a soothing, inspiring touch. Once more he was the adventurer, the lone wolf prowling the danger trail. He trusted his hunches, believed implicitly in his own luck, was a fatalist in all matters of chance. And chance, he was confident, had dealt him a new hand there in the flying-field office, where he had gone for information concerning the plane schedule between England and France.

SOME fifteen minutes later a knock sounded on the door. The Canary Kid opened it. The man he admitted was a bluff, florid individual, whose bowler hat, umbrella, and shabby serge suit hinted of Bloomsbury. He selected a chair while the Kid looked his guest over speculatively. He had met James Mandeville that afternoon at Hurst Park. Mandeville had acted as his betting commissioner and, once the Kid had broached his subject, had agreed to assist him for a certain remuneration.

“Well, saying good evening to you, sir, here I am ten minutes late,” Mandeville began, uneasily fingering his bushy, dark mustache. I hurried, I did, but I was delayed a bit.”

“What did you find out?” the Kid inquired.

Mandeville unfolded a piece of note paper. With a cough he spread it out, fumbled for silver-rimmed nose glasses, and read sonorously:

“In the matter of Sir Wilfred Parish, 29 Mount Street, Mayfair. Sir Wilfred is the son of the late Marshall Parish, of Lincolnfield, and the former Betty Hammersmith. He attended―”

“I know,” the Kid interrupted. “I read that much myself this morning in Burke’s Peerage. What has Sir Wilfred been doing since five o’clock this afternoon? What have you been doing with your time and the money I gave you? Come, Mandeville.' You know the sort of information I want. Let’s have it.”

The Kid’s visitor removed his glasses and coughed again. “That I do know, sir. But why you should want Sir Wilfred investigated is beyond me. Quite. Such a fine gentleman, sir. Why, as the senior partner in his counting house on Dysart Street and with a summer place at Brighton, there don’t come no finer than Sir Wilfred, sir. Still, a job’s a job.” He sighed ponderously. “I’ve been observing him for you, sir. I’ve written down a few things here, and with your permission I’ll read them.”

He polished the glasses, set them astride his nose, and turned to his notes. While he read in a precise tone, the Kid’s mind leaped on in advance of what his caller said. Out of Mandeville’s statement the Kid seized upon certain facts. An inner satisfaction warmed him pleasantly. After all, the idle fortnight might not have been entirely wasted. One thing was certain. His old ability to recognize a thing of importance wearing the mask of triviality was unchanged. Yesterday’s hunch, he was sure, had not been false.

“And so,” the Kid said, when the other completed his reading, “Sir Wilfred Parish has reserved an after-theater table at the Hertford Gardens? I presume evening clothes are obligatory there.”

“Quite, sir.”

The Kid nodded. “Fair enough. I think that will be all, Mandeville. You might look in on me to-morrow morning. One thing else. Be a good fellow and call up the Hertford Gardens. Reserve a table for John Alden as close to eleven as you can make it.”

“Right-o, sir. Anything else?”

“You might,” the Kid said, “tell me why you carry an umbrella on a perfectly clear night.”

“It’s the fog, Mr. Alden,” Mandeville explained, using the Kid’s latest alias. “You never know when the blinking fog is going to come. Clear nights don’t mean a thing, sir. Why, I’m willing to risk a bob it will be foggy before midnight, sir. Midnight to-night, I mean.”

“You can’t get odds from me,” the Kid smiled. “I don’t know your London weather well enough. By the way, are fogs worth anything? What good are they?”

James Mandeville coughed for the third time. “Fogs,” he declared, “are necessary.”

The Kid showed him out and switched on the bedroom light. A table at Hertford Gardens meant a complete change of raiment. He turned to his steamer wardrobe trunk and laid out the necessities of evening apparel. About to shut the top drawer, from which he had taken a dinner tie, the Kid hesitated. He removed what appeared to be a flat, hammered cigarette case. For a minute he toyed with it. Once, in a New York speakeasy, the contrivance had served him well. The Kid tucked the thing into the pocket of his dinner coat and set about the business of changing his clothes.

Dapper and elegant, the Kid had slipped on a topcoat when he heard a familiar footfall in the -hotel corridor. A key scraped in the lock. Joe Traill, an inch of cigarette in one corner of his thin, furtive mouth, opened the door and came in. He stared at the Kid, who, tucking a cane under his left arm, pulled chamois gloves on his well-shaped hands.

“Strike me pink,” the small crook said in his best cockney accent, “what ’ave we ’ere? A blinkin’ toff. I say, what’s hit all about?”

“I’m suppering at Hertford Gardens,” the Canary Kid said briefly.

Traill stared harder. “Yeah? Stepping out, huh? You plaster yourself with swank and circulate around, while all I get is a load of punk vaudeville, and now the pad to sleep it off on. What a break— for me! Look. Don’t you need some one to go along and hold your horse or something?”

“This,” the Kid informed him, “is a one-man job.”

Joe Traill’s deep-set, gray,ferret eyes widened. “Job?” He moved closer to the Kid. “Job? No fooling. What’s the lay, pal?”

Smiling, the Kid buttoned his gloves and shook his head. “I don’t know myself— yet. It’s one of the old hunches, Joseph. Do you recall yesterday, when we asked about the plane schedule at the flying field? Do you remember the man we had to wait for?”

“The big punk with the high dicer, the puppy canopies, and the trick eyeglass? Let’s see what kind of a memory I got. I’ll give you eight to five I can spot him. The clerk there called him Sir Parish. Do I win or lose?”

“You cash, Joseph, my bright fellow.”

“And he’s the bloke you’re checking up on? Come clean. Kid. What is it— jewelry or currency? Better let me play ball. Only a couple of days ago I oiled up my heater. Boy, what a slippery trigger that cannon features!”

“The setting for to-night’s drama,” the Canary Kid pointed out coldly, “is the Mayfair district of this city and not Chicago.”

“Then you won’t wish me in on it?”

“I’m afraid not, Joseph. For you I recommend your downy cot. Early to bed and early to rise. Don’t forget we’re flying to Le Bourget any fine morning now. I have a feeling you’ll need all your strength for the journey.”

“I ain’t even decided if I’ll go in one of them cloud crawlers,” Traill retorted. “Still, it looks like I’m out of luck either way. I heard them tell how the channel boats are as rough as a gangsters’ convention. This is only putting a turn on the subject. Do I go with you to-night or not?”

“Not,” the Kid replied, letting himself out of the suite.

Outside, in Great St. Andrew Street, the Canary Kid saw that the wager James Mandeville had proposed would have won the other his bob. The clarity of the London night was obscured by fog. It bulked close, misty, thickly opaque, so damp the Kid felt it on his face like rain. The Strand, viewed through the yellowish curtain, was a wall of splotchy lights. To the visitor from America the night took
on an eerie, strange character.

Yet, for the watchful cabbies, the lowering of the fog helped rather than hindered their trade. With eyes long accustomed to the mist, a cabby drove his vehicle to the curb. He addressed the Kid from his box:

“Keb, sir? Tyke you anywhere you want to go, sir.”

He leaned and opened the door of his conveyance. The Kid gave him his destination, and they joined the ghostly legion of traffic wheeling across the Strand. A round of minutes, and the Canary Kid exchanged the fog-ridden night for the lighted, music-filled Hertford Gardens.

The place was a smart supper club, a rendezvous for wealth and fashion. A New York jazz orchestra played the latest Broadway hits. For a minute the Kid fancied himself back home again. He had seen London, walked its streets, attended its theaters, dined in its celebrated chop houses, and visited one of its race tracks. In all, his first five minutes within the crowded confines of Hertford Gardens made him imagine he was back, close to the throbbing heart of Broadway, more than any other thing.

The table Mandeville had reserved by telephone proved to be in a fairly desirable location near some windows. A waiter seated the Kid and took his order. It was, the Kid saw, not going to be an easy task to find Sir Wilfred Parish in the crowds. Still, the Kid was accustomed to crowds. He had a systematic way of checking them over. He began his close scrutiny of those at the tables near the main entrance. His glance ranged to the dance floor, and traveled along the far side of the place. Suddenly the Kid saw the man whom he had come to watch.

Sir Wilfred Parish’s table was the third from the last in the line almost directly opposite. Parish was alone. He sat with a glass before him, and a long cigar balanced between his fingers. One elbow rested on the edge of the table, and in the mellow light the Canary Kid saw the same strained, odd look in the man’s face that had first caught and arrested his attention the previous day. The Kid could not analyze or define the expression. Somehow it hinted of sinister matters secret in the one on whose pale, aquiline face they were so deeply engraved. For the rest. Parish was a man apparently in the late forties, a tall individual with dark, gray-sprinkled hair, a black mustache, and the poise of the true aristocrat. His evening clothes were in perfect taste. He sat watching the animated throng of dancers, and the Kid, surreptitiously regarding him, again remarked Parish’s extreme nervousness.

As the Kid rnoved his gaze he became aware almost at once of the fact he was not the only person at Hertford Gardens that night who watched Sir Wilfred Parish. A half dozen tables beyond, a youth, who was accompanied by a pretty, blond girl, divided his attention between his escort and Parish. The young man made a show of giving the girl his entire consideration, but every other minute he darted short, quick glances at Parish. What was there about Parish, the Kid mused, that had aroused him? Mandeville’s dash of biography cribbed from Burke’s book was not revealing. Sir Wilfred Parish differed but little from any other descendant of an old English family who, at the moment, held down the eminently respectable position of senior partner in his own counting house and private banking establishment. The Kid recalled several of the high lights in James Mandeville’s oral report. Again he was confident he was on the right track; that, with any degree of luck, the night would yield him a nice profit, and that his sojourn in London would not be entirely wasted.

Of a sudden. Parish signaled for his check. The Canary Kid shot a glance at the man with the pretty, blond girl. He was paying his bill, making ready to quit the place without delay. The Kid waited no longer. As luck had it his own waiter was close at hand. The Kid was hard on the heels of the two at the other table when they passed through the entry foyer and reached the fog-swept street outside the Hertford Gardens. The two conferred together in low tones. Then the youth engaged a cab and handed the girl in.

“Good night, Lucille,” he said, and shut the door.

The cab melted into the fog. The youth turned left and disappeared. A pace back from the entrance into the restaurant the Canary Kid waited. In no more than another minute Sir Wilfred Parish, draped in a voluminous waterproof, appeared on the top step. The doorman ran out and blew his whistle. A black sedan slid to the curb. Parish stepped into the car, which moved away with a purring motor.

Now, the Kid saw, the prologue to the real work of the night was over. He knew he had to move, and move rapidly. He swung around and addressed the driver of the next cab in line behind the one the blond girl had taken.

“Mount Street, No. 29,” the Kid rapped out. “Double fare if you hurry.”

The driver replied cheerfully. His whip snapped, and the vehicle rolled off. The Kid realized the advantages of a horse-drawn vehicle on such a night. Where a taxi would have had to make slow progress, due to the fog blanket, the animal between the shafts possessed some instinct of direction. They rounded a corner, clattered down an avenue, and made several more devious turns, while the Kid impatiently urged the driver to greater speed. After a time the conveyance slowed.

When the Kid looked out, he found the driver climbing down off his box. “This is Mount Street, sir. If you’ll wait. I’ll find the right house for you. It’s on this street, I’m sure. Blast the fog!” he added, with a good British oath.

“I’ll find it myself. How much do I owe you?” the Kid asked.

The cab went on, and the Canary Kid, walking Mayfair’s very exclusive pavements, presently found his destination on the corner beyond. The residence of Sir Wilfred Parish was a large stone building, behind decorative iron grilles. To the passer-by it presented an unlighted façade, standing serene in the fog as if representative of the neighborhood’s solidity. Yet, the Kid was quick to observe, the house contained the person who interested him, for, waiting at the curb was parked the black sedan that had taken Parish from the Hertford Gardens.

The Kid turned into the vestibule. The fog had its advantages. There he might work without being observed by any one in the street. He bent to the lock on the inner door, turning the knob, listening to the sound of the latch’s mechanism. There was nothing very difficult to the lock itself. The master-key he always carried with him solved its intricacies. Cautiously, he pushed the front door to an aperture large enough to glide through.

The Kid closed the door behind him, and waited until his eyes grew accustomed to the murky darkness of his surroundings. Warmth enveloped him. He strained his ears. After a long minute he heard sounds of movement on the floor above; the opening and closing of drawers, rustle of papers, a low cough. The Kid’s hand reached for and felt the flat bulge of the rubber shoulder scabbard. Then, urged on by a desire to learn how incorrect or perfect his hunch had been, he mounted a wide staircase that went up into the dim regions above.

On the first landing the Kid marked his destination. An edge of light came from under a shut door at the end of the passage. From behind this door the sounds emanated which he had heard while downstairs. With one hand on the balustrade, the Kid kept his ears attuned to the quiet of the mansion. Besides Sir Wilfred Parish, he had the servants to reckon with. James Mandeville had neglected to tell him how many inhabited the house. With a shrug the Kid moved closer to the door. He tensed himself, his automatic sliding out and into his hand. Then, after a short pause, the creak of a door opening behind him whirled the Kid around.

At the same moment something hard and ominous prodded and came to rest at a point between his shoulers. A low voice gave a sharp, quiet command:

“Stand exactly where you are! Don’t make the mistake of moving! I’ll take your weapon.’’ The Kid allowed his fingers to be emptied of his gun. “Now walk forward, and remember I will not hesitate to shoot if you attempt trickery. I want a look at you.”

The man behind him opened the shut door at the end of the passage. The Canary Kid passed into a lighted study. Its oak-paneled walls and antique furniture gave it an old-fashioned charm. But the Kid was more interested in the man who, covering him carefully with his revolver, backed him to one wall. Sir Wilfred Parish considered the Kid with a frown.

“I saw you from the window. My dear fellow, just what is your business here to-night? You’re no housebreaker. At least you do not appear so.”

“You flatter me,” the Kid murmured.

“Come, come,” Parish cut in quite crisply. “I’m in no mood for procrastination. Who are you?”

“One,” the Kid replied, “with a hunch. A rather indifferent hunch at that, it would appear.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Stop me if I bore you,” the Kid requested. “My explanation is rather whimsical. It begins yesterday morning in the office of the Croydon flying field. I had to wait quite a little, while you made inquiries concerning the first plane leaving Croydon tomorrow morning for France. I noted your look, your agitation, the care with which you booked passage and the name you gave. Perhaps I would have never thought about it again had I not seen you in the parking space when I left the office. If you remember, a limousine drove up. A stout gentleman who wore a monocle such as yours, hailed you. He addressed you as Sir Wilfred Parish.”

“Go on.”

“That,” the Kid continued, “struck me as odd. You book passage under one name, and I hear you called by another. While waiting for my taxi, I overheard the stout gentleman make a luncheon date with you at your club for to-morrow noon. Again, I thought it odd. You were flying to Le Bourget, and yet you were making luncheon dates.”

Parish smiled thinly. “You Americans,” he declared softly, “are observing chaps. What else?”

The Kid shrugged. “Nothing of any importance. I wanted to play my hunch through and find out what you were up to. That’s about all.”

The other, without relaxing his vigilance, rested against a table in the center of the study. Parish’s brows drew together in thought. He glanced at his watch and looked at the Kid meditatively. At length he spoke.

“I don’t know whether to turn you over to the police or not. Your story is ingenious. It just happens I might be able to use you.”

The Canary Kid was struck by Parish’s musing tone. He didn’t like the sound of it. There was something almost sinister in the other’s expressive face. Sir Wilfred Parish laughed under his breath.

“Yes, you might be useful to me. It would be rather amusing to have you arrested and held on a charge of bank robbery. A bit thick for you, my good fellow, but fortunate, perhaps, for me. It so happens the safe in my Dysart Street establishment was opened and cleaned out late this afternoon. If you were arrested with some of the securities and money on you―”

He broke off abruptly. The Kid, motionless against the wall, tightened his lips. All at once a ray of understanding flashed through his mind. Parish’s alias at the flying field, the luncheon date which was impossible for him to keep, his expression and nervousness. The Kid told himself it needed no high order of intelligence to put the facts together and arrive at an accurate conclusion. Sir Wilfred Parish, preparing for flight, had robbed his own safe!

Even as the Canary Kid reached his deduction he saw that the man confronting him knew that he knew. Parish’s face darkened. His gaze involuntarily flickered across the sombre study.

For the first time the Kid glimpsed the small, neat pile of luggage in one shadowy corner of the room. He drove his thoughts faster. Once, back home in the States, he had served a penitentiary sentence. All during the long, grim, gray months in that city of silent men he had vowed that never in the future would be again hear steel-barred doors clang shut behind him.

He studied Parish through narrowed eyes. The man was a worthy adversary. Parish, recovering himself, would think up some clever way to pass the buck. The Kid’s hands closed. What would his word— the word of an American crook with a prison record— avail against that of the man who faced him? The Kid realized the tightness of his predicament. There was obviously one chance in a hundred left. He decided to put the thought of gain away, and seize the slim chance of escape.

“I'd like to think it over. Holding the bag is not always pleasant. May I smoke?”

Parish, in reply, ran a hand over the Kid’s person. When he found no further weapons, the man assented. The Kid produced his hammered-silver case. Before he could open it, there was a quick and unexpected interruption. A shadow fell across the study floor. A step sounded on the threshold, and a voice uttered a sibilant command:

“Put down your gun. Sir Wilfred! Please don’t misunderstand me. It would afford me a great deal of pleasure to shoot you where you stand!”

Parish’s gun clattered loudly to the floor. The Kid, the silver cigarette case in one hand, felt a quickening beat of his pulses. After all, he told himself, there was nothing startling in the appearance of the youth who moved leisurely in from the outside corridor. He was the same individual who, with the pretty, blond girl at the Hertford Gardens, had watched Parish so intently.

“What does this mean, Morrison?” Parish asked stridently.

The intruder glanced briefly at the Canary Kid before answering. The automatic in his hand glinted in the lamplight. It was a new, shiny weapon.

“What am I doing? I am about to make my fortune. You thought you were alone this evening at the office, but you weren’t. Sir Wilfred. It happened that when I finished my accounts I had to go into old Hager’s room. I heard you in your office and, being of a curious nature, it was impossible to resist the impulse to glance in. Fancy my surprise when I saw you transferring the contents of the safe to two open bags on the floor before it. I’m quite certain I would not have thought anything of it, had it not been for your furtiveness, the look in your face.”

Parish said nothing. The Kid met the youth’s stare. Morrison, as Parish had called him, went across to the corner. Out of the luggage pile he selected two small Gladstone bags. He placed both on the table, the automatic in his hand still leveled, and spoke again:

“I believe these are the bags with the money and securities. Sir Wilfred, I might add that during the year of my employment with you I have been fully aware of your losses in the rubber market, as well as your cleverness in using your clients’ money to speculate with. I have been patient. Sir Wilfred. Patient and persevering, as one should be when one plans to leave England with a small fortune.”

“You’ll never make it, Morrison,” Parish said. “In the morning the police will be watching every vessel.”

“You would have made it,” the youth replied. “I don’t know how, but you would have gotten away. Don’t worry about me. By tomorrow night Lucille and I will be far beyond the range of Scotland Yard. Besides, Sir Wilfred, you really owe me a debt of gratitude. By relieving you of what was in the safe, I am keeping you partially honest. I think that’s about all. Oh, yes. When I leave here it might be best for you to let me go as quietly as I came in, through the front door, so obligingly left unlocked for me. Any call for the police would be as embarrassing to you as it would to me. I imagine I make myself quite clear.”

While Morrison tested the weight of the bags and arranged them so he might carry both with his left hand, the Canary Kid’s eyes wandered to the gun Parish had dropped. The Kid gauged the distance to the door and placed the position of the lamp in mind. Then, turning the silver case over in his hand, he spoke for the first time since Morrison had entered.

“Won’t you have a cigarette before you go? Nothing like a smoke to relieve tension. Sir Wilfred gave me permission, and I’m sure he’ll have no objection―”

The Kid walked across to Morrison, the case in his outstretched hand. The easy smile on his lips covered the rushing beat of his heart, the pounding pressure informing him of the split-second climax in wait. Would Morrison fall for the ruse? Would, after all, the Kid’s hunch, directed by a twist of the same capricious fate that had taken him to Mayfair, work out successfully?

“I don’t care for a cigarette,” Morrison said. “Step aside. I’ve got to be on my way.”

But the Kid was close enough now. His thumb pressed the tiny silver trigger. The lid of the case snapped open automatically, sparking the flint that exploded the case’s charge of photographer’s flash-light powder. It flared up in a greenish-yellow flame. As it went off in Morrison’s face, the Kid’s left fist smashed against his jaw. The youth tumbled back and fell across the desk. The Kid twisted the gun from the other’s hand and straightened Sir Wilfred Parish up with it. The other man’s attempt to snatch up his own discarded revolver left him with both hands elevated. The Kid reached for the two small Gladstone bags, switched out the light, and made for the door.

He had reached the front door below, and was opening it, when he heard the scream of the police whistle blown from the study window. The Kid plunged out into the swirling fog. The shrill summons of the whistle had brought results. The neighborhood was evidently well guarded. Answering whistles responded, and the Kid saw smears of approaching light through the yellowish fog.

Parish’s car was still at the curb. The Canary Kid climbed into the front seat. The somnolent chauffeur at the wheel straightened up with a gasp when the Kid’s gun nudged him.

“Drive!”

The engine coughed and sputtered. It seemed an eternity before the gears meshed. The sedan sprang away. Dim figures, running toward the house, shouted for it to stop. The Kid pressed his gun closer to the chauffeur’s side.

“Keep the gas pedal all the way down!” he ordered. “You’re taking me across town as far as the Strand. Whether or not you eat breakfast to-morrow morning depends on your intelligence. Grasp the idea? You’ll find you better do as I say.”

“I— I’ll do anything you say, sir,” the other assured him.

The Canary Kid settled back in the seat, the two bags on the floor at his feet. The full measure of his luck, and the narrowness of his escape, were too recent to be fully appreciated, but something Mandeviile had said earlier that evening echoed in his mind. The Kid looked back, thinking of his getaway.

“Fogs,” he told himself, “are necessary!”

____________________

A Johnny Castle story

2: Death With Music

C. S. Montanye

Chapter 1

Swell Night for Murder

BROADWAY had all the flash,sparkle and brilliance of a backwoods town buried deep in the sticks. Under the dimout regulations Dream Street looked like the main thoroughfare in Podunk. And to make it worse the sky was conspiring with the War Department.

There wasn’t a moon or the glimmer of a star anywhere. The whole set-up was dark as the Cotton Club’s beauty chorus.

I cut from the main boulevard, east through Fifty-first Street, heading for that resort of pleasure known to all and sundry as the Tallyho. This was a popular night-spot. One of the better columnists often referred to it as a “concentration camp with a floor show.”

The Tallyho was owned and operated by Alf Linkhart, a smart hustler who knew all the angles and most of the answers.

As first string sports writer on the Orbit I had been tipped off that afternoon that Silk McCall, a fight manager of some prominence, was about to make a deal with Andy Best to purchase Patsy Keegan, a promising young welterweight. As Keegan was right in line for a crack at the title—and figured to have a better than even chance to wrap it up—the thing was news.

I knew McCall usually hung out at the Tallyho. In fact, a phone call to the Orient Athletic Club, where Silk’s sockers trained, brought the information that McCall was at his favorite dive.

The Tallyho graced the center of the street. It was on the north side. Its big Neon sign had been turned off.

Heavy draperies muffled all the windows. Only “Seven,” the colored doorman on duty, was the same. Seven, in his gold-braided uniform, with teeth that lighted up the gloom like hundred-watt Mazdas, flashed them at me as I cantered up.

"It’s Mistuh Castle, sho’ enuf,” he greeted me. “Yo’ ain’t been around fo’ quite a while.”

“Sho’ enuf,” I said. “How’s the ivory stock market?”

"Fair to middlin’, suh.”

“Silk McCall inside?” I asked.

“Yes, suh.”

Seven opened the door and I exchanged darkness for light.

Sunburst Alley might have changed on the exterior but inwardly the Tallyho was just the same. The same rococo and cheap gilt decorations. The same tables, stamp-size dance floor, hot band and smoke haze.

Also, noise.

I had just finished trading my ten-dollar felt for a brass check when Alf Linkhart, owner of the Tallyho and expug, came down a flight of stairs that emptied into the right side of the foyer. He was a worried-looking fat guy, with a broken nose and twisted ears. His complexion, strictly Ossining, N. Y., was a hangover from a six-year vacation he had once taken there at the Government’s expense.

Linkhart saw me and headed over.

“Well, if it ain’t Johnny Castle. You haven’t been around in a long time. How’s tricks, kid?”

I got to the point. “I understand Silk McCall’s here.”

Linkhart’s small, slatted eyes retreated under their creepy lids.

“Could be. I ain’t noticed him. You sure he’s around, Johnny?”

“I was told that,” I said. “By your own doorman.”

“Stick around and I’ll ask Ben.”

Ben was Benny Grant, a small, dapper little man with false teeth and a smile to match. He managed the Tallyho for Alf Linkhart and also doubled in the role of headwaiter. Linkhart went between the heavy draperies and into the main part of the place. He had hardly left before the door of a phone booth on the south side of the foyer, opened and a red-headed girl stepped out.

She was in a costume that marked her as being part of the floor show’s dancing line, consisting of some glittering green-blue spangles and net. A little here, a little there. The gal was a looker. Her profile was swell—all the way down.

Yet I could see there was something on her mind, something that made her delicately arched brows draw together and stay that way. She stood there, looking at nothing, while she nervously chewed her lower lip. Just then Linkhart came back.

“Hello, Putzi. What are you doing around front?”

“I had to make a phone call.”

“Better watch the time,” Linkhart said. “You go on in a couple of minutes.” He shifted his cigar. “By the way, meet Johnny Castle. He writes pieces for the paper. Johnny, this is Putzi Russell.”

“Hello.” I nodded to the girl. “Glad to know you.”

She looked at me without much interest and nodded back.

The shaded lights fell on her red-gold hair, pointing it up with gleams of fire. They made the green-blue spangles shimmer. I noticed her skin was like smooth satin and her eyes a deep, lovely shade of blue.

The girl said something about having to duck and vanished through a door which I happened to know led down to the basement dressing rooms.

“I can’t find Ben Grant,” Linkhart said to me. “He’s probably downstairs. I left word for him to come up here.”

I hardly heard what Linkhart said. “Putzi Russell?” I stared at the door the green-blue spangles had faded through. “New, isn’t she?”

Linkhart nodded, clearing his throat. "I grabbed her out of one of these dance dens. You know, rhumba in six lessons. South American stuff—like bananas. She was one of the lady teachers. Imagine ! A fancy babe like her pushing Bronx bookkeepers around at so much a tangle!”

He laughed and went in between the coatroom counter and the cigar stand where the door of his office backed up.

I pushed the draperies aside. The restaurant was fairly well crowded and the floor show was about to commence. I recognized Cary Blynn, one of Tin Pan Alley’s dime-a-dozen pianists as he sidled out and took his place in front of a baby grand.

Blynn was a nice-looking boy, tall and smooth. He wore his blond hair long and brushed back. A white dinner coat and blue trousers set him off to perfection. I’d overheard that Blynn was terrific with the ladies. He couldn’t have had more dames flocking around him if he had been a basement bargain sale.

Blynn rippled the vamp of some new tune. An orange spotlight hissed down from the battery of balcony lights and a girl stepped out and into its glare.

She was very dark, very sleek, with blazing black eyes and a mouth as red as a Connecticut barn.

It didn’t take much Broadway knowledge to peg her as Lolita Diaz, a recent import from Rio.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. Ben Grant showed me his phony choppers in a broad grin.

“Silk’s upstairs in Room Two-A, Mr. Castle.”

“Thanks,” I said.

It was a cute song. Lolita knew how to put it over. She gave it all she had and a little more, smiling at her accompanist while he smiled back at her. I hung around until it ended. Four babes with bare stems breezed out for a rhythm grind and I started up the stairs.

I couldn’t explain it, but a funny feeling began to grow in the pit of my stomach.

Twice before, in the past, I’d had it. Once, the night a couple of expert targeteers from Toledo wandered into a Second Avenue drinkery and just for fun shot the joint up.

And once on an icy morning when a taxi I rode went into a skid and headed for an El pillar. It missed but stopped halfway through the front window of a delicatessen store.

I remembered picking salami out of my hair and brushing off potato salad until the medico, on the rear of an ambulance that clanged up, told me I was all right.

My scalp crawled and for no reason at all the palms of my hands began to get damp. Downstairs, the beat of the band died to a thin, monotonous note—a continual thumping like the pound of my heart.

The corridor was dimly lighted. On either side of it were private supper rooms. Sometimes speculators used them for card games. Occasionally, suckers were lured into them and clipped. Now, I saw most of the rooms were empty, with the doors standing half ajar.

I looked at the numbers as I went along and found that 2A was at the end of the hall.

There was a light over the transom, a sliver of gold along the sill. I expected to hear Silk McCall’s high, whining voice on the other side of the door. McCall was a great talker.

Over at Jacobs Beach they had a saying that McCall could talk a cripple out of his crutches.

I remember what had brought me to the Tallyho. I had known McCall for quite a while. I’d always given him a break in my sheet and he appreciated it. So much so that when anything important came up he let me have it exclusive. If he were angling for Keegan I’d know about it.

I tapped on the door.

Ben Grant hadn’t mentioned who was with Silk McCall, but it was a cinch it would be “Red” Herrin, one of McCall’s ex-heavyweights. For some time Herrin had been all through as a leather dispenser. Lately, he had been playing bodyguard to his boss. Why Silk McCall, a friendly guy, needed a strongarm everywhere he went, was one for the book.

There was no answer to my knock. I gave the panels another rap. Still no answer. I dropped a hand to the knob and turned it

The door opened and I walked in on murder!

Silk McCall, on his back, sprawled on the carpet, half under a table, half out in the open. He was dead, all right. What made him that way was the knife with the ebony handle protruding from almost the exact center of his chest.

All around McCall was an ooze of crimson. From the look of the blood I figured he hadn’t been knocked out very long.

I shut the door with a foot and took in the details of the room. Nothing was disturbed to indicate brawling. An eight-ounce bar glass stood on the table, the ice still melting in it. It was my guess that McCall’s death was as much a complete surprise to him as it was to me.

I stood looking down at him. The music drifted faintly up. So far as I knew McCall wasn’t the kind who had a lot of enemies on his tail.

Who and why? I must have stood there another minute before something caught my eye.

I followed the glitter of it along the floor and found it a foot away from where Silk lay, under the table.

It was a green-blue spangle that glinted and sparkled like a diamond in the room’s light.

I held it in the palm of my hand, thinking hard.

Then I put the spangle in my handkerchief, opened the door and went downstairs.

Chapter 2

For the Law

ALF LINKHART took the news hard. He mumbled two words around the cigar in his mouth.

“Silk— killed!” he exclaimed.

“If he isn’t,” I said, “he’s giving a pretty good imitation of a stiff with a shiv in him,”

Linkhart pawed at me. “Wait a minute, Johnny! What are you going to do?”

“Give the police something to worry about,” I said, and ducked into the phone booth.

I watched Linkhart through the glass door while I eased the call through to Centre Street and the proper parties.

McCall’s demise had shaken Linkhart down to his reclaimed rubber heels. He looked flabby and flattened. The Sing-Sing pallor turned from a rich cream to skimmed milk. His hands were shaking like a line of wash on a windy Monday.

“This’ll ruin me,” he bleated, when I hung up and stepped out of the booth. “They’ll snatch my license! What with gas and rationing, I’m having a tough time getting by. This’ll wash me up and wipe me off.”

“That was Captain Fred Mullin, of the Homicide Squad, on the wire. He’ll be up here before you can say ‘What’s the motive?’ He passed out some advance official instructions. The law says nobody is to go in that room or touch anything until he arrives.”

Linkhart shivered. “Ruined! Closed up! I might as well find a dock and jump in!”

The floor show chorus was warbling a hot number. I pushed the curtains aside and stared. Twelve not-so-bad-looking girls were cavorting in the cleared space beyond the tables. It wasn’t hard to pick out Putzi Russell. I saw her red-gold head on the right end of the dancing line.

All the costumes, if you wanted to call them that, were alike except for the color of the spangles. And Putzi’s, I noticed, was the only one that matched up with the spangle wrapped in my handkerchief.

The girls danced off and sirens wailed out-on- Fifty-first Street. The front door of the Tallyho opened. Captain Mullin with two plainclothesmen in tow loomed up in the doorway.

Over their assorted shoulders I caught a brief glimpse of Seven’s dusky face. The eyes of the dice expert resembled a pair of hard-boiled eggs looking for two slices of bread.

“Shut that door and lock it,” Mullin directed briskly. “Stay and cover it, Larry.” He turned to Linkhart. “I’ve got a squad around the building. Nobody gets out of here until I give the okay. Where’s the body?”

“Upstairs,” Linkhart choked.

“Who found it? Who phoned me?”

“I did—both items,” I said.

Captain Mullin stabbed me with a couple of pale, suspicious eyes. He was a short, stocky man, hard as nails all over. A typical old-time, club-swinging, knock-down-drag-out copper, Mullin had come up the tough way—from a beat on Staten Island to the captaincy of the Homicide Squad.

Mullin didn’t go in for fancy detecting, but he usually got plenty of results by his own methods.

“You,” he said shortly, and there was a universe of meaning in the one word.

Mullin and I didn’t sing any close harmony duets. Once, early in his career as Lieutenant, he had tried to close up a certain fight club, claiming it was a gambling dive. It happened that a couple of floaters, entirely unrelated to the place, had drifted in and staged a card game. The close was so unfair that I had written about it in the Orbit, slapping on plenty of indignation.

The charges had been squashed, and Broadway had enjoyed a laugh at Mullin’s expense.

Like elephants, the captain had a good memory. I knew he had had it in for me, trying to even off. I had hit him in his vanity, the worst possible place, for Mullin had no sense of humor. He didn’t like folks snickering at him.

We went upstairs.

I opened the door of Room 2A, and Mullin walked in slowly. His gaze shifted from the late Mr. McCall to the furnishings of the room and then back to me.

"When did you find him?”

“A few minutes before I buzzed Headquarters.”

“What did you bump him for?” Mullin growled. “What did he ever do to you?”

“Not a thing,” I said. “That’s why I didn’t kill him.”

Mullin’s colorless eyes focused on the disturbed Alf Linkhart “You kill him?”

“Not me.” Alf shook his head violently. “Silk was a pal of mine. One of my best customers. Would I be crazy enough to murder customers who come in here and spend money?”

Mullin knelt beside the corpse. He threw a handkerchief over the handle of the knife and drew it out slowly, inch by inch. In the light the long blade glittered wetly.

Mullin studied the murder weapon for a moment, put it on the table and shrugged.

“That shiv was in for keeps. He must have gone out in a hurry. How long has he been here? What time did he come in?” Mullin fired the questions fast at Linkhart. “Come on, speak up.”

Alf Linkhart did.

McCall, alone, had entered the Tallyho at twenty-five minutes after nine. He had told Linkhart he expected a friend. He asked for an upstairs room and Linkhart sent a waiter up to 2A with him.

“He ordered a single Scotch. That’s all I know about him until Castle, here, came down and told me Silk was all through.”

I raised an ear and an eye at Linkhart’s new version of McCall’s presence. A while ago Alf Linkhart had pretended he didn’t know if Silk was on the premises.

“So you were the party he expected?” Mullin said to me.

“Wrong,” I answered. “He didn’t expect me. He was to meet Andy Best here. Silk wanted to proposition Best and take over Patsy Keegan’s contract.”

“Where’s Best?”

“Apparently he didn’t show up, Captain,” I said.

“Get the waiter who served McCall,” Mullin ordered.

The waiter appeared a few minutes later. The sight of the object on the floor did things to his complexion and digestion. He turned a delicate pea-green and began to burp.

“What do you know about this?” Mullin asked.

"Not much, sir. The boss told me to take the gentleman up here. He said, ‘Scotch’ and I went down to the bar to get it. When I brought it up he was sitting in that chair, with a lot of papers on the table beside him, sort of reading through them.”

“You didn’t come in again after you served his drink?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s all.” Mullin rubbed his chin. “Lot of papers, eh?” he said, after the waiter blew.

Mullin knelt again and began searching through McCall’s clothes. He pulled out a couple of letters, a wallet well-lined with dough, a bunch of keys, two packs of cigarettes and matches. But there were no papers.

Mullin skimmed through the sheaf of money in Silk’s poke.

“Almost four Gs. That’s a lot of coin.”

"I told you he was angling to buy Keegan’s contract,” I put in. “That would take a lot of dough.”

Mullin made a routine inspection of the room. He raised the window and looked out. When he closed it Ed Wheeler, one of his plainclothesmen, came in with a wine card that had a lot of writing on the back.

“I jotted down a quick list of the guys in the main room that you might want to talk to.”

Mullin nodded. “Send them up one at a time. Who’ve you got first?”

“Corbin, the bookie.”

“Fine.” Mullin smacked his lips. “It’ll be a pleasure to rake that sharpshooter. Go get him.” Then the cold eyes flickered in my direction. “That’s all, Castle. If I want you I’ll call you. But don’t go traveling for a few days and don’t tell me you couldn’t get to the Battery because you’ve got an A card.”

I hesitated.

After all, it wasn’t my affair. Why not hand Mullin the green-blue spangle and let him take it from there? Something checked me. I couldn’t figure what it was. Maybe two lovely blue eyes. Maybe highlighted hair, soft and shiny—or two tempting red lips.

I wanted to stick around and listen in on Putzi Russell’s answer to the captain’s questions, but Mullin had other ideas.

“What are you waiting for, Castle— a good-by kiss?” he asked me.

Larry Hartley stepped aside when I went downstairs. I walked out into the dark of Fifty-first Street, continued on as far as Sixth Avenue and turned into a beer stube.

Propped up at the end of the bar I toyed with a beaker of brew, my mind working hard.

The spangle sparkled in my handkerchief when I opened it up. I frowned at it. The girl with the blue eyes had been in Room 2A that evening. Why? What for? I remembered her troubled look when she stepped out of the phone booth in the foyer. Slowly, I folded the handkerchief in half and put it back in my pocket.

After thinking things over I had decided to horn in on the McCall killing. I believed I had three good reasons. I chalked them up in order of importance.

My main reason was that first, last, and in the middle, I was a newspaperman, with the best interests of my sheet at heart. If I could find and put the digit on Silk McCall’s killer, and give it to the Orbit, so much the better.

My next reason was, it would be a pleasure to tangle with Captain Mullin again, and find out if the stuff above my eyebrows was still as good as his—or better.

My final reason concerned what might be classified as a sudden cardiac disturbance. It was cockeyed, building up a split-second interest in a dame whose nod to me had been as cold as a polar bear’s paw. But there it was and I didn’t argue.

Summed up, I saw I could toss out Reasons One and Two and still be half-witted enough to go ahead on my own. My first stop was the Orient Athletic

Club across town. That was the gym where Silk McCall’s boys trained. It was late and I didn’t expect to find anyone on deck. I didn’t—except for a night watchman.

“All locked?”

“Tight as a drum.”

“Where does Herrin hang out after hours ?”

I lined the question with a dollar bill. The watchman palmed it, pondered and let go with some tobacco juice.

“Red? He lives with Mr. McCall. At the Hotel Reginald.”

Of course. Being Silk’s strongarm, Herrin would be camped in at the fight manager’s home address.

A clock-ark buzzed me across town and uptown again to the Reginald. It was in the Forties, a rock’s heave from Lexington Avenue: There was no one around except the night clerk doing a crossword puzzle at the desk.

He listened, then spoke. “Mr. Herrin isn’t in. I know that. Somebody called the suite twice in the last hour.” He glanced at the rack back of him. “There’s McCall’s key.”

“Much obliged,” I said, and laid leather on the sidewalk, outside, again.

Captain Mullin had evidently finished quizzing the customers at the Tallyho and had let them go. They were filing out singly and in pairs when I gave Fifty-first Street a playback. I noticed the medical examiner’s car standing behind one of the prowls. The morgue wagon came around the corner and Silk McCall went away in a basket.

I camped in the vestibule of a furnished rooming house on the south side of the street and watched.

The girls of the floor show came out and hurried away. I looked for Putzi Russell, but didn’t recognize her. I didn’t think I would— with her clothes on, in the dark. More time passed and then Mullin, Hartley and some plainies tumbled out and the prowl car whined off.

I figured Mullin had left a cop on duty; that didn’t check me. I hadn’t been an old-time patron of the Tallyho for nothing. There was an alley on the east side of the building. In the Prohibition era, when the spot had been a speak, the beverages used to be delivered down that alley.

I followed it along until I came to the door at its end.

It was locked, but didn’t take a lot of trouble to open. The blade of my penknife moved the catch back and a shoulder did the rest. I walked into smelly darkness.

A lighted match showed me a flight of stairs. These led from the cellar to the dressing rooms. At the far end of the hall a couple of dim lights had been left burning. I padded along the cement until l readied the same door Putzi Russell had used earlier that evening to fade through.

Now I had to be careful. Mullin’s watchdog, in all likelihood, was planted in the foyer. Or was he? I inched the door open and gave the foyer a gander. Luck was good. It was deserted.

A light seeped out of Linkhart’s office. Someone was moving around in there. I tossed a quick look at the stairs and tiptoed fast to the door between the cigar counter and the coatroom wicket.

Alf Linkhart, at his desk, jerked his head up when I slid in and quietly shut the door behind me.

He still looked like a lump of putty. But his slatted eyes were bright and dangerous when they fastened on me. He opened the top drawer of the desk and—reached.

So did I!

My fingers wound over his wrist. I put on the pressure and helped myself to the blue-black automatic Linkhart had grabbed for. He quieted down when I let him look into the muzzle.

“Where’s Mullin’s man?” I asked. “Upstairs.”

“No capers, Linkhart,” I warned. “You were as phony as the Bell System tonight. I want a clean bill. If I don’t get it I’ll spill plenty to the captain. You know what I mean. You were upstairs with McCall just before I came in.”

Linkhart’s shapeless mouth twisted. I kept watching his hands. I didn’t want any more drawers opening, guns popping out. Alf Linkhart had a swell excuse for drilling me. He could blow me open and tell Mullin I was Silk McCall’s murderer.

The cops would love it that way. A quick crack for what looked like a tough nut and no questions asked or answered!

“What do you want?” Linkhart growled.

“How far are you in on this?” I leaned across the desk. “For my dough you’re the party who jabbed Silk with the steel.”

Linkhart shook his head. “You’re wrong, Johnny. Murder ain’t up my alley.”

“What did Mullin find out?”

Linkhart relaxed a trifle. I put his gun in my pocket and a hand over it. His slatted eyes kept watching the pocket.

“Nothing—much.”

"Was Andy Best here tonight?”

"Not that I know of.”

“You’ve got an angle,” I insisted.

For the first time he smiled. “Mebbe yes, mebbe no. Why all the interest, Johnny? You ain’t a copper—what business is this of yours?”

“I’ve declared myself in. Just because and for instance. Who killed McCall—if you didn’t, Alf ?”

“You figure it. I’m not talking.”

I moved in closer. He sat there, his chins pushed up by his collar, looking like a creamy balloon that would ssst out at the prick of a pin.

“No gab?”

“I’ll tell you this much,” he said earnestly. “This is one for the law to handle, Johnny. Look, you take my advice and leave it alone. Otherwise, you might get your good-looking pan bent out of shape. See what I mean?”

“For the law?” I said. “Okay. Now tell me where I can find Putzi Russell. Or don’t you know that one, either?”

“Putzi? Easy to answer. She has a room at the Burgoyne.”

“I’ll take this up with you later, pal,” I said and backed toward the door.

Linkhart didn’t move. He kept his gaze on the pocket while I opened the door and went through it.

The foyer outside was still empty as any last year’s love nest. I drifted rapidly out of the Tallyho by the same way I had come in.

Ten minutes later a cab dropped me at the Burgoyne.

Chapter 3

Night Ride

THE hotel was medium class. Perhaps a notch lower. It got most of its play from the theater crowd, the Times Square element, so callers there at any time of the day or night weren’t unusual. The elevator hoisted me to the second floor. There was only one corridor which split the building in the middle. Two long straight lines of numbered rooms lined the hall on either side.

As I got out of the lift a door opened and a tall, good-looking guy came walking down the hall. He didn’t wear a hat. His blond hair was brushed back and half a glance tabbed him as Cary Blynn, the piano player at the Tallyho.

"Down!” Blynn called out, when he saw the descending elevator.

When he had gone I went on to the door he had come from. The girl with the blue eyes and the red-gold hair opened at my first knock. It was Putzi Russell.

Maybe she thought it was Blynn stopping back for something.

"Oh!”

I walked into a good-sized bedroomliving room. There was a lot of furniture around. The only thing of interest around there for me was Putzi in a glamorous velvet robe that fit like her skin. At close range, with the make-up off, she was even more attractive— younger and cuter—than she had been at the night-spot.

"Remember me, Miss Russell?”

She drew the broad sash a little tighter about her curved figure. I looked deep into her eyes. A girl with eyes like hers couldn’t be guilty—of anything ! Anything, that is, outside of possessing deadly weapons. And what I gazed into were twice as dangerous as the gat in my pocket.

"You’re Mr. Castle.”

She had perfume on her hair. When she came closer I breathed it in. I wondered what business had brought Cary Blynn to see her here. Business concerning McCall and Room 2A?

It looked that way to me.

"I want to talk to you,” I began. “About what?”

“Silk McCall’s sudden death.”

A pulse throbbed in her throat The lamplight turned her hair to burnished gold. Slender fingers played with the tassels of the sash, making them swing, pendulum-like.

“You’re a copper?”

"Wrong. Newspaper. I want to help you. Maybe you don’t know it but you’re in a spot—if Mullin finds out—things.”

Her eyes widened. “What kind of— things?”

“Information. That you were in Room 2A tonight at the Tallyho. That you were with McCall—when he was dead or when he was alive. You didn’t tell Mullin that when he questioned you.”

The red lips parted. In the room adjoining, a card game was going on, and the grumble of voices and the clink of chips crept in through the transoms, noticed she had stopped swinging the sash ends.

“What makes you think I was in that room, Mr. Castle?”

“You left something. Luckily, I found it before the police did."

I opened the handkerchief and showed her the green-blue spangle. The same troubled look she had worn out of the telephone booth came back to shadow her pretty face.

“What do you want me to tell?” Her voice was low and strained.

“Who finished Silk?"

“I don’t know!” I heard the quick breath she drew. “Really, I don't know."

“You were in that room. You saw him.”

SHE didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I saw him. He was alive then. I slipped upstairs because I wanted to talk to Silk.”

“What about?”

I felt like a Centre Street bully, putting on the clamp, but I had to play it through. Mullin was nobody’s fool. Somebody else at the Tallyho might know about Putzi Russell’s visit to 2A. I had to help her. And to do it I had to be tough.

“I can’t tell you.” Her look was tragic. She was either puttingon a good act or I was wringing her out. “I swear I had nothing to do with his murder! I swear I don’t know who did it! He was alive when I left him."

I believed her.

“Did you see anyone else up there? Anyone in the room, or the corridor? Anybody pass you?”

She shook her head. “Nobody.”

“What about Blynn? I saw him a few minutes ago, outside. What was he doing here?”

She was standing, facing me. My back was to the door. I saw her eyes switch from my face and shift swiftly to a point over my left shoulder. That should have been enough warning.

But it wasn’t. Neither was the draft I felt blowing against my ankles or the steps on the carpet— behind me.

Quick, gliding, catlike steps that stopped abruptly.

Then Putzi Russell, the room, thelights and everything else—including myself—went out....

I MUST HAVE BEEN away for quite a while. When I finally broke through, I woke up lying on a blanket on a stone floor.

The first thing I saw— when objects took shape out of the nebulous haze—  were feet. Two pairs of feet in shoes that had been purchased a long time before you needed a coupon to get them.

They belonged to a couple of shabby roughs who were sitting at a table playing cards. I had a worm's-eye view of them, an earful of their moronic chatter. From the repartee I gathered that one was Sam and the other Steve.

Steve was big, built like a bridge, with a lantern jaw. That probably explained why his face lighted up every so often. Sam was shorter, but no less husky. Neither was familiar.

I looked at my surroundings. They certainly didn’t resemble the Burgoyne. All concrete. Floor, walls and ceiling of the small room were stone. I had never seen this place before. The light came from a dangling, shaded bulb suspended over the table where they played with the pasteboards.

I felt like something that had stepped out of an electric fan. My head ached dully and my mouth tasted like a musty cellar smells.

“Ten of twelve.” Sam slapped the last card down and yawned.

“That’s three bucks fifty you owe me,” said Steve.

“I know. We move at twelve. Let’s kick the sucker awake.”

Steve turned to -drop his cigarette and grind a heel on it. He saw me looking at him and grinned.

“He’s out of it.”

“Yeah?”

Sam came over and they both looked down at me. From my position on the blanket they seemed about seven or eight feet tall.

“On your pins, punk!” Steve ordered.

I DODGED his brogan and got up. The stone room rocked a little. So did I. Sam shoved me up against a wall. He reached out and picked up a piece of thin rope hanging over the back of a chair.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

He knotted the rope around my wrists. I used the old Hegeman trick of throwing out the joints so, when the final knot was tied, there was slack when I pulled them in.

“What’s the idea?” I inquired mildly.

Neither bothered to answer. Sam, meanwhile, had whipped out a dirty bandanna. He folded it into a hood and tied it over my eyes. Then somebody stuck a gun in my back.

“Start walkin’.”

I did.

Damp cold hit me in the face. The gun urged me forward, I stumbled down some steps and across a stone floor. From the sharp smell of gasoline and the slip of oil under my soles I figured I was in a garage.

"Climb in!”

I was pushed through a door and onto the rear seat of a car.

Another man was sitting there—waiting for me. I floundered around. He grabbed my arm and jerked me forward. He slammed me back against the upholstery.

Then an overhead steel door thundered up and the car rolled out.

I hadn’t any idea where I was. A few minutes later I imagined we were on an express highway. There were no lights to slow us down or stop us. Not much traffic, either. Only occasionally I heard the whirr of a car going by.

My head began to clear. I began to think better. I didn’t like it. The car and the guys in it bore too much of a resemblance to the good old carefree gang days when you were taken out for a ride and seldom brought home.

My mind went back to the room at the Burgoyne.

I was sure Putzi had no part in the snatch. She had been just as surprised
as I was at the intrusion. Then—who had sent the huskies around to pick me up?

After a while I thought I had the answer. What was the matter with Linkhart for an angle? Alf, and no one else, knew I was on my way to the Russell girl’s address.

I was confident I hadn’t been tailed at any stage of the short trip from the Tallyho to the Burgoyne.

So it must be Linkhart. Okay. What about it? A lot about it! Since he wanted me dealt with, it looked like Alf Linkhart was nervous. Nervous about the things I’d told him I was going to do. Nervous enough to want me out of the picture.

“Fair enough, Mr. Linkhart,” I said to myself. “There’s no harm in trying-!”

A half-hour must have passed. The car began to slow. It went off the smooth cement and bumped over car tracks.

“About a mile. Take the first turn to your left,” the voice of Sam said.

A mile. The last mile, maybe. The final mile for John Castle.

It was all or nothing!

I had worked the thin rope off my wrists, keeping my hand behind my back to make it look good. Now I pulled them out into full view. I had to show them, to pull off the bandanna. Jerking it away, I staked everything on speed. Speed and the element of surprise. I nailed the man on the cushions beside me with a short left that had everything I owned behind it. It tipped him back and dropped him, head down, on the floor.

STRANGELY, as he slid off the seat, my fingers brushed the coat he was wearing. The material of it felt like warm moss, soft and spongy. Funny material to make a coat of, but I wasn’t thinking of that then.

I got the door beside me open with my right hand before the two monkeys in the front were aware of what had been going on.

Sam turned, just as I got the door unlatched. I hit him so hard with my left fist that I thought I’d broken it. He yelped, but I didn’t wait to hear Steve’s reply. I fell out on the road, the car going on a short way before the brakes thudded.

In the pale moonlight I saw a fringe of woods close by.

Picking myself up, and paying no attention to the blast of fire and the slug that whistled past, I headed for the trees.

I’m sure that Alsab, in his match with Whirlaway, never turned it on the way I did. More slugs sizzled by, but all they did was to make me go faster—toward the woods— toward safety!

Chapter 4

From Headquarters

GENERALLY speaking, Bill Jamison had handled the McCall demise pretty well for the Orbit. I read the details at breakfast the next morning. There were a few items I hadn’t known about.

One, Andy Best, when questioned by Mullin, stated he had been headed off from his appointment with McCall at the Tallyho by a nine o’clock telephone call. Some guy, whose voice Best said he didn’t recognize, canceled the meeting.

Then, Mullin claimed he had a hot angle he was working on. He promised the press a break within twenty-four hours. A large order, but it made good reading.

Mullin was in his office at Headquarters when I stopped around to see him shortly after ten. The hard-hitting copper didn’t look too happy. He dug up one of his best sneers when I sat down opposite his desk.

“What’s yours, Castle?’’

“Maybe you won’t believe me, but I want to report a near-snatch. Also, the theft of my wallet with sixty bucks in it and an automatic.”

“You’ve got a license to carry firearms?” Mullin growled. I let that go and he leaned forward. “Who’s the dame that called in late last night and said you’d been picked up by a couple of gunmen and lifted out of her apartment?”

I sat up straighter. So Putzi Russell had buzzed the law! That meant she hadn’t been tied in with the two hoodlums who had lugged me off to the garage. More than ever, now, I was convinced Alf Linkhart was back of the incident.

“I haven’t the slightest idea— who called you, Captain.”

Mullin gave me a dirty look. He reached for a pad and pencil. “What are the particulars? Who heisted you?”

I told him. Mullin’s expression was bored when he jotted the facts down. That is, until I mentioned the garage. Then his colorless eyes gave me a fishy stare.

“Know where you were?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Mullin sighed. “Okay, Castle. I’ll put a man on it. I’ll let you know if anything develops.”

I could imagine how much work he’d have the department do for me. Instead of taking the brush-off and ducking, I sat further back in the chair.

“While I’m here, Captain, how about a slice out of the McCall pie? I’ve been wondering about the knife that decorated him.”

“You don’t have to. No prints. The killer wiped it clean.”

“You didn’t happen to find out where it came from?”

Mullin grinned. “Sure, I did. Right out of the Tallyho’s kitchen. So what?”

“So you must have an idea.”

“Several.” He screwed his mouth up and looked at me quickly. “I think Linkhart did it. What do you think?”

I shrugged. “My thoughts aren’t worth a thin dime. But why Linkhart?”

“Mebbe,” Mullin said slowly, “Alf and McCall were doing business together. Mebbe Linkhart didn’t like his cut, and decided to do something about it.”

“Could be.” I got to my feet. “Only I don’t think so.”

I LEFT him to mull that over, and hit uptown for the Reginald.

I was careful nobody tailed me. Nobody did. The day clerk at the hotel told me that Red Herrin was upstairs. I got out of the elevator on the ninth floor. Red, in a worn dressing gown, opened the door.

“Well, Johnny. Come on in.”

I entered a room lined with framed photographs of past and present maulers. Red, in characteristic fighting crouch, graced the wall over Silk’s flattop desk. The photo of him had been snapped a long time ago. Even in his prime Herrin hadn’t been any world shaker. Just a third-rate heavyweight with a piece of bric-a-brac under his lower lip. He was tall, redheaded, with a pair of shoulders custommade for piano moving and a pot under his belt that had swelled out in the last few months.

“Condolences, Red. Too bad about Silk.”

“Terrible, Johnny.” Herrin’s voice was dull. “I keep blamin’ myself. If I’da been with him it wouldn’ta happened.”

“How is it you weren’t?”

“I had to go over to Jersey to see my brother-in-law. He got hit by a taxi. One stem broke below the knee. I heard the news about Silk on the radio and come right back.”

“Any ideas ?”

“Not one, Johnny! I couldn’t sleep, tryin’ to dope it. All I know is Silk says he’s goin’ to the Tallyho to rumble with Andy Best. Where’s the poison in that? So I let him go.”

We talked about McCall for a few minutes more. Then I went back to the office.

“Message for you, Mr. Castle.”

Beth Wheaton, one of the switchboard operators, saw me when I went in and shoved a memo in my face. It was from Putzi Russell. It said she wanted to see me as soon as possible.

“ ‘Putzi’?” Beth laughed. “If I had a name like that I’d take something for it.”

“Yeah, what?”

"Probably gas.”

I didn’t bother to answer. Turning on my heel I started uptown.

When I arrived at the Burgoyne, the girl with the blue eyes was dressed in a neat skirt and white blouse, and she looked younger and less sophisticated than at any time I had seen her. But this time I took no chances of intruders. I closed the hall door of the bedchamber-living room and turned the key in the lock. Then I turned around and faced her.

“You’re all right?” Putzi led off.

“All in one piece—so far.” She slipped her fingers into mine and I hung on for a long minute.

“The boys who took me away from here, treated me to a drive up around Yonkers,” I said. “Somebody ought to tell them about the rubber situation. To make a short story shorter, after a couple of them were unexpectedly taken unconscious, I hopped out of the car, hid in some friendly woods and got a lift as far as a subway. A New Lots train brought me back okay.”

“You don’t think I invited those crashers in, Mr. Castle?” Her tone was worried. “They must have followed you. I couldn’t even warn you, they came in so fast.”

I sat down beside her on a four-foot divan. I could smell the perfume on her hair. It was something the angels themselves must have distilled. When she moved her shoulder brushed mine. I didn’t feel much like talking. It was enough to just sit there and admire her. Nevertheless I made a try.

“Let’s see. Last night before we were so rudely interrupted we were speaking about Blynn. Cary Blynn. I asked you what he was doing here. Remember?”

SHE turned her head. She didn’t say anything for a minute. The red lips swam before me like a couple of hothouse roses. The fifty-dollar-a-dozen kind.

“Yes, Cary was here. He left just before you came in.” She dropped her voice to a husky note. “I’ve thought it over. I do want you to help me—in case the police find out I saw McCall. So I’m going to go clean on it.”

My heart picked up a faster beat. She pushed her shoulders back against the wall. As she crossed one trim ankle over the other, I caught a glimpse of symmetrically filled silk hosiery. Or maybe it was rayon. Gorgeous in either case.

“It was about Cary that I went to see McCall,” she said.

I absorbed that. “You’re— in love— with Blynn?”

She smiled faintly. The lashes came down over the blue stars she used for eyes. She shook her head slightly.

"I like him— I have reason to. Cary Blynn’s my brother. Blynn’s my right name. Putzi Russell’s my stage name.”

“Oh!” was all I could manage.

“How much do you know about Silk McCall?” she went on, quickening her words. “You’re a sports writer. Outside of his ring activities, how much do you really know about McCall’s private life?”

“Nothing.” “Then I’ll tell you something.” She
glanced at the door as if to make sure it was still locked. Her fingers tightened over my arm. “Silk McCall and Alf Linkhart went into business together. Black market business. To sell meat. You must have read about the illegal meat-peddlers in the papers. What they do and how they do it—like the old bootlegging trade—only safer!”

That was news. I digested it. I recalled what Mullin had let drop about Alf Linkhart and McCall being in business together. The captain had already stuck his nose in it.

“Where does your brother fit in?”

I could see the pulse in her throat again, where the collar of the white blouse opened. She parted her lips.

“Silk wanted him to give up piano playing and deal in meat. Cary didn’t tell me. He told Lolita Diaz—he’s engaged to her. She got scared and came to me.”

“And you went to McCall? That’s why you slipped up to Room Two-A last night?”

Putzi nodded. She twined her fingers together nervously.

“I told Silk McCall that if he took Cary in with him I’d report him to the F.B.I. He laughed at me. I didn’t stay in the room more than a minute or two. Just long enough to warn him. He was still laughing when I left him.”

“Then you came. downstairs and popped into the telephone booth. Who were you calling?”

“I phoned Red Herrin at the Reginald. I know Red quite well. I knew he had a lot of influence with McCall. I thought maybe he’d do something for me. But he wasn’t in. I called him twice within an hour. Both times there was no answer.”

“Who do you think killed Silk?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. A warm flush tinted the velvet skin. She looked straight at me.

“I’m not sure, but if I had to lay any bets I’d put them on Linkhart as being the one. I think Silk was trying to chisel. That’s just a guess. This black market stuff is bound to cause trouble.”

A knock on the door stopped her. Putzi got up. She looked at me and from me to the door. The knock sounded again, sharper, more insistent.

“Open it,” I told her.

She did and Detective Hartley, Captain Mullin’s stooge, walked in. He saw me and raised an eyebrow, smiling with the corner of his mouth. I didn’t like anything about it—his being there, or the smile, or the way he looked at Putzi.

“You’re Miss Russell?”

Putzi stared at him. I walked in between them.

“What’s this about, Larry?”

“Police business.” Hartley’s smile broadened. “Mullin wants to re-question this dame. Any arguments?” He waited a minute or two and looked past me at the girl. “C’mon, sister. Get your hat and we’ll travel downtown together.”

Chapter 5

The Coat

WHEELER was playing watchdog at the Tallyho. Wheeler let me in some twenty minutes later when I knocked on the door. He was  so glad to see anybody that he beamed.

“Look, Castle. One of the best bars on the street and double padlocked. Tie that.”

“Tough,” I commented. “Where’s Linkhart?”

“Downtown. Mullin wanted to ask him some more question. Between the two of us, I think Alf’s guilty.”

“Who’s around?”

“Ben Grant. A porter and a cook. Why?”

“Mind if I snoop? I was here last night, as you know. I’ve got an interest in the thing.”

Wheeler laughed. “Burn this dump down and see if I care.”

I went upstairs. I checked on the private rooms along the corridor. I passed 2A and turned the corner of the hall. A gents’ washroom was on one side. On the other, an iron ladder led up to a roof scuttle.

A regulation fire department red light was beside the ladder. The word exit was painted beneath it. I climbed the ladder and looked hard at the handle of the scuttle before I turned it. I wondered if Mullin had checked it for prints.

The scuttle tipped back on well-oiled hinges and I stuck my head out of the opening. That gave me a view of the flat expanse of the night club’s tarred and graveled roof. Toward the rear of the roof, on the east side, another iron ladder, acting as a fire-escape, hugged the brick wall all the way dowm to the alley below.

I went down to the kitchen. Benny Grant and the cook were checking the stuff in one of the huge iceboxes.

“All this meat and no potatoes.”

Grant pulled a face. “The boss said we might never open again. What do you think, Castle?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Benny Grant left the cook to put the meat away and walked to the door with me.

“That stuff’s going to spoil if we have to keep it here.”

“Send it to a hospital,” I suggested. “Leave the floor show out and they’ll appreciate it. Linkhart can get all the meat he wants, I understand. What are you worried about?”

“Me— not a thing.” Grant’s double row of porcelain choppers glimmered when he laughed. “I told that to Herrin last night.”

I pulled open the kitchen door. “What did Red say?”

Grant laughed again. “Nothing much. I hear they’ve got the boss downtown now. He’d better make it good.”

“He will,” I said, and went upstairs to the foyer.

Ed Wheeler had a tabloid spread and was lapping up the gory details of the crime.

“Find anything, Castle?”

“A lot of meat. Need any?”

“Me? Nix, I’m strictly a vegetarian these days. How are you off for lettuce?”

The minute I left the Tallyho, I knew a tail had picked me up.

Down Sixth Avenue and across town. It was a swell day for walking. The only trouble was I kept thinking about Mullin and Putzi Russell. What he might dig up, what she might spill and the mess he might get her into.

It didn’t look good. The last thing I wanted was a splash of publicity for the girl with the blue eyes. And she’d get plenty if Mullin thought she was holding out on him.

The tail was a little guy in a gray suit with a snap brim, lightweight felt jauntily perched on one side of his head. He didn’t look dangerous, but I remembered the old gag about the book and its jacket. Mullin’s man? Or an agent of the people who had motored me up to Yonkers last night?

The thing began to tie together. Captain Mullin had shown interest when I mentioned being confined in a garage. Garages were places where they kept trucks. Trucks could be used to move meat. Meat had been McCall’s racket—illegal meat. One and one added up to two and left me mentally confronting Linkhart again.

The ex-con was afraid of me. Afraid of what I might know and how I might use it. The old power of the press again! I reached the Hotel Reginald and cut into it while the little bird in the gray suit was turning the corner.

This time I didn’t pause at the clerk's desk. Trying to look like a resident who knew where he was going, I stepped into the nearest elevator and said, “Ninth, please.”

There was no answer to my knock. Red had gone out. That suited me fine. Only the door was locked. I didn’t know what to do about that until I spotted a maid coming down the hall with an armful of towels.

"I’m terribly sorry,” I told her. "I’ve forgotten my key.”

She was either dumb or I looked more respectable than I imagined. Without a word she reached into her apron pocket and fished out a passkey.

“You’re welcome,” she said, taking my quarter with a smirk.

I shut the door behind me, breathing a little faster.

The framed photos of the leather pushers on the wall glowered suspiciously down at me. I let them look for a minute or two. Then I began to prowl around.

There were three rooms in all, not counting a bath. One was the late Mr. McCall’s chambre a coucher. It connected with another bedroom— Herrin’s, I crossed the threshold and pulled the shade up a little. I spied a closet.

That was what I wanted, principally. Just an ordinary closet full of clothes. Clothes, perhaps, that might contain a coat made of queer moss-like material, soft and spongy. A coat worn by the silent man, with the glass chin, on my night ride north so few hours ago. The party I had socked, head down, on the floor of the sedan.

If it had been Red Herrin, I had something to toss to Mullin. Herrin hadn’t been with McCall, but he had been in the kitchen of the Tallyho. The knife with the ebony handle had come out of that same kitchen. The knife that stuck out of Silk’s chest.

There were four suits and three sports jackets. Loud, flamboyant garments, befitting a former pug whose taste was all in his gloves. My hand touched a familiar spongy sleeve. I lifted out a checked, tan jacket. The material was unusual, to say the least. It looked like terry cloth only it was wool. Then I had a surprise.

Somewhere in the other room a door opened and closed. I dodged back of the closet door. That gave me a bias view through the bedroom to the living room. Red had come in and was throwing down a sheaf of mail.

My one idea was to get out— quick!

That was wishful thinking on my part. The way Herrin took off his hat, sat down, lighted a cigarette and began opening the letters seemed to indicate that he intended to stick around awhile. I gave the window in the room a gander. Nothing below the sill except nine stories of painted brick. I couldn’t get out of the suite without going through the living room. For five minutes, maybe ten, I stood there sweating, holding on to the jacket.

Herrin got up finally. He walked out of view. I heard him unhook a receiver, give a number to the girl on the switchboard in the lobby.

“That's right, sister,” he said. “Give me a ring when you get it. Thanks.”

He hung up and the next minute his footsteps sounded on the wood of the floor beyond the bedroom door.

He saw me before I dropped the coat. His hand slid in under his vest. I made a straight lunge for the door. Herrin whipped out a gun. I crashed into him before he could aim, much less fire it.

The jaw that had stood me in good stead last night beckoned like a lighthouse. I swung a left at it. But he was too fast. He let it flick harmlessly by with a jerk of his head. His arm went around me and the nose of the gun dug into my belly.

“Smellin’ around, Johnny? Tck-tck! You’re old enough to know what happens to guys who do that. Start reachin’ if you know what’s good for you.”

I did.

He shoved me up against the bedroom wall, drawing away a pace and keeping his gun on a heart line— my heart. The weapon looked as big as a Russian siege gun. It was probably a Luger. How he carried it around without it bulging him out of shape was a mystery.

“So you were the host who took me buggy riding last night?” I said.

He grinned crookedly. “That’s right, Johnny. If you hadn’t caught me by surprise you’d be three feet under some wet ground right now.”

“You mean if those two gorillas had brushed up on their target practice. Herrin, I’m a little sorry about all this.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’ll dust the chair off for you and have it waiting. You bumped Silk. How do you think you’re going to get away with it?”

A laugh shook him. A deep, silent laugh that wasn’t nice to listen to.

“Sure, I bumped him and I’ll bump you just as easy. I knifed McCall because he wouldn’t give me an in on the new gravy.” He nodded. “Mebbe you’re interested, Johnny. What do the cops call it— motive? That’s what my favorite tab printed this mornin’. ‘What was the motive behind the McCall slayin'?' You’ve got it now— you know more than the cops and the papers put together!”

“He wouldn’t give you an in?”

The laugh shook Herrin again. “The toad! After all I done for him. Okay. I figured it out careful. What’s to keep me from takin’ over. Linkhart? That load of baloney? Once I have Silk’s customers, prices and accounts, I can make Linkhart get down and clean my shoes. Okay. So I stick the boss and now I've got to blow you up to make it even. Say your prayers, Johnny.”

There was a quiet tap on the door. Red Herrin’s strained eyes flickered in the direction of the living room. A sidelong, hasty glance, but it was all I wanted, all I needed.

Herrin’s Luger roared like a cannon. Something scorched my face as I hung a stiff one on his glass jaw. That dazed him, so I played rough. Anything went. I stuck a knee in his abdomen and socked his face with the same amount of power I had put behind last night’s clout.

I heard the Luger bang to the floor. There was a haze in front of my eyes. Herrin’s arms were around me. He put on the pressure and I remembered Alf Linkhart saying something about keeping clear or running the chance of having my pan bent out of shape.

A body blow rocked me down to my ankle bones. Herrin slugged and I slugged back, aiming for his crockery chin. He was pounds heavier, but the pot under his belt had slowed him some, and he couldn’t take it in the face. I made a grab for his throat and got it. I hung on— like a terrier— digging my thumbs into the vulnerable spots on either side of his windpipe. Sweat rolled, down into my eyes. My breath was like a furnace in my lungs.

But I stayed with it and that did it!

We hit the floor together— I on top. There was still some fight left in him. The big gun was only inches away. I pickred it up and tapped him on the head.

Then the living-room door burst open and the little guy in the gray suit with a cop in uniform, and another lug I recognized as running with Mullin’s pack, came in....

PUTZI RUSSELL nee Blynn looked at me through the shaded table light. We were at the fashionable Spinnaker on East Fifty-fifth Street, listening to high class music and eating plenty of expensive chow.

It was the same night.

Putzi was temporarily unemployed. I had finished a busy afternoon at the Orbit, collaborating with Bill Jamison on the windup of the McCall opus. Herrin and Linkhart occupied a pair of cells, separately, and Putzi had just gotten through asking me if I’d like to be her brother’s best man Thursday morning at the Little Church Around the Corner. I told her I’d love that.

“Why not make it a double-header?” I suggested. "Maybe they’ll give us a discount.”

She looked at me. The blue eyes were certainly heavenly. Bluer than ever with the table light in them and laughter crinkling the corners.

“You're a guy in a hurry, Johnny. And I hardly know you. I don’t know you.”

“Well, I’m taking the same chance,” I said. “That’s life— chances.”

“Come on, stop being silly and let’s dance. You know, not hoofing tonight makes me feel funny.”

We got up and went out on the floor.

“I hardly ever dance and I feel funny. Look, is it a deal? I’ll give you a blueprint on my career, past and present. What else do you want?”

She smiled up at me. The satin skin was like ivory. She wore a sort of coral colored dress, cut low all around.

“Six months— to get used to you, Johnny. Fair enough?”

Maybe the customers were watching. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I stood still and my hands slid up her arms until they came to her powdered shoulders. It might have been imagination, but I had the impression the red lips were waiting for the business I gave them.

“It’s a deal!” I said.

_____________________

3: Merry Month Of Mayhem

C. S. Montanye

Thrilling Detective, August 1947

Chapter 1

Five Grand for a Job

SHE sat at a desk that was as polished as her taffy-colored hair, in the anteroom of Mayor Jonathan Hargen’s office. She was rather tall, Steve Dix decided. She wore a white blouse, unwrinkled despite the terrific noonday heat, and a powder-blue skirt. He couldn’t see her gams from the side of the desk where he stood, but he had an idea they’d be all right.

The eyes focused on him were bluer than her skirt, purple in their depths. Dix liked the way the lashes curled up in a black fringe. She didn’t use eyeshadow or any phony stuff. Even her curved, warm, red mouth was only lightly touched with lipstick.

In addition to all that, she looked intelligent, as sharp as a tack.

“The Mayor is expecting you, Mr. Dix,” she said. “Your plane must have been on time.”

“On the dot,” Dix told her.

She snapped down the lever on a sound box, pressed a button, and said in a rich, slightly husky voice, “Mr. Dix is here, Mayor Hargen.”

A crisp reply crackled out of the box. “Have him wait a minute, Miss Madlyn. Ask Payson and Leach to come up.”

Ann Madlyn nodded, smiled across at Dix, and used the telephone.

Dix sat down in a leather chair as new as the city hall. Which meant that it hadn’t been used for more than a few weeks. He wondered what Mayor Hargen wanted from him. Something important or Hargen wouldn’t have wired Dix’s Los Angeles office. Hargen wouldn’t have insisted that Dix leave everything and take the first plane to Laros, Nevada.

Dix shrugged. He had been pretty busy. This was May, and things had crowded in on him. The merry month of mayhem, he thought. People sowed the seeds of crime along with flowers. He listened absently to the girl talking over the telephone. Fascinating voice. Nice timbre, nice diction.

He fumbled for a cigarette, his mind going back to Hollywood and beautiful “Cappy” Tyne and Lou Diamond, her bodyguard. Dix had almost closed a business matter about the Excello Pictures star for Al Krakow, the producer. Mayor Hargen’s wire had kept Dix from going over to the studio and laying the facts on the line for the producer.

Al Krakow could wait. Likewise, the temperamental Cappy Tyne.

An electric fan hummed from the top of a tall, chrome tube. It sounded like a bee. Dix listened, toying with the speculation of what Mayor Hargen wanted with him. Dix had been a private eye for a couple of years now. Long enough to know his way around.

The fan blew against rich book bindings in a pickled-pine bookcase. It stirred the light Nevada air. Waves of it blew against Dix’s tanned, good-looking face. He shoved his long legs out further in front of him. The Madlyn girl finished her phone conversation.

“Hot town,” Dix stated.

“I’m used to it. I rather like it.”

He turned that over in his mind. From what he had seen of Laros since the four-motored transport had let him off at the Laros municipal airport, Dix thought her statement was open to debate.

A raw town, he decided, from his glimpse of it. A reasonable facsimile of Reno, a pocket edition of Las Vegas. A wide-open town, he understood. Card palaces and night spots, and all kinds of fancy vice for the asking.

After a while, two men came into the anteroom. They spoke to Ann Madlyn. After a glance at Dix, they went into Hargen’s office.

“Payson and Leach?” Dix asked.

Miss Madlyn nodded and moistened a postage stamp on a rubber sponge. She fixed it to an envelope. She pressed it down firmly with the heel of her slender hand. “Bob Payson,” she said, “is the highway commissioner. Leach is the city comptroller.”

Before Dix could comment, the sound box hummed, “Ask Mr. Dix to come in.”

The three politicians sat around a modernistic office that reminded Dix of the observation room in the Plantagenet Bar back in L.A. Long, glass windows were hung with Venetian blinds that shut out some of the burning sun. The walls were a delicate, pastel gray, like the color of a mourning dove. Against this background, black-glass cabinets and honey-colored furniture were set off to advantage.

Dix shook hands with Jonathan Hargen. The mayor was a fat, red-faced, typical politician. He was doing something about the bald spot on the back of his round, over-large head. Some sticky substance glistened around the edges. He had false teeth, uppers and lowers. They didn’t fit very well and clicked when he spoke.

“Dix, meet Robert Payson and Martin Leach, both part of my government.”

Payson was a mild-looking man in his middle forties. Pleasantly colorless. A type you glanced at and forgot.

Leach was different. The comptroller was a big, broad-shouldered man with a tight face. He had a brooding look under his mink eyebrows. At some time in his career his nose had been broken. It was still off-center. He had a deep cleft in his chin and a very small, thinmouth. Like the other two men, ire a seersucker suit. His could have stood a pressing.

Dix sat down at the right of Mayor Hargen’s immense, flat-topped desk. Leach got up and went to one of the black-glass cabinets. He opened it and came back with a bottle of scotch and glasses. Then he went over to a water cooler and took some ice cubes out of its rear drawer.

“Along about this time of day,” he said, “I get thirsty.”

He slopped liquor into four glasses and motioned to the water cooler for the others to help themselves.

Dix surreptitiously let most of his whisky trickle from his glass before he pressed the cooler’s spigot. He always drank sparingly at these times, for whisky and hot weather don’t mix. He took his glass back to his chair.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I sent for you,” Mayor Hargen began. “It’s about a certain party here in town. Paul Graymar. He operates a place called the Chantilly on Main Street. Ever hear of him?”

“Not that I remember,” Dix answered.

“Graymar,” Hargen went on heavily, “is a menace to the good name of our community. He has a franchise for his place, but it’s a dive. Unfortunately, he’s clever. I can’t close him up. He’s good for two more years. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Dix cooled his wrist against the glass beside him. Its icy touch felt good.

“What we want,” Martin Leach broke in a bit impatiently, “is to get something on Graymar that will let the mayor move in. That shouldn’t be hard. Graymar is as wide open as the range beyond Mount Baldy.”

Bob Payson made no comment. Hargen took it from there.

“Martin means that Graymar’s a bad hombre. I’ve heard enough and know enough to understand he’s a criminal character. We don’t want him here. He’s no asset. Personally, we three are willing to pay a substantial fee for spot evidence strong enough for us to crack down and run Graymar out of town.”

“How much is the fee?” Dix sat up straighter.

“About five thousand,” Payson said, speaking for the first time.

“But the evidence has got to be conclusive,” Leach cut in rapidly. “It’ll have to stand up before the citizens. It can’t be a phony push-out, a trumped-up charge. It’s got to be authentic, and it’s got to be filed within the next ten days.”

“Interested?” Hargen asked Dix, knuckling his red face with a pudgy hand.

“I'll try it for size.” Dix reached for another cigarette. “I’ll have to have one half the money down in advance. And I want a lot of particulars about

Graymar.”

“Both are okay.” The fat mayor opened a drawer in his desk. “Martin will have the cash for you later this afternoon. You’re staying at the Mansion House?”

“I left my bag there,” Dix replied.

“Martin will meet you at the bar there at—”

“Say four-thirty,” Martin Leach tHled in.

“And here,” Hargen continued, taking a long envelope from the drawer, “is a word picture of Graymar’s background, as much as we’ve been able to dig up.”

Dix put the envelope in his pocket without opening it. Hargen added a few more particulars. Dix felt they weren’t necessary. He had the setup pretty well in mind. Three men were trying to hang a fourth. Five Gs to make a wedge to open the way.

Dix shrugged his shoulders, wondering why he should care about their civic differences. Five grand was five grand.

“At four-thirty at the Mansion House bar,” Dix said and went out.

Ann Madlyn, riffling through some legal-looking documents, lifted her long-lashed gaze when Dix shut the door of the Mayor’s office and crossed the anteroom.

“Mr. Dix,” she said as he picked up his felt hat from the chair where he had left it. He half turned, and she shot a quick glance at the door he had elosed. Her husky voice dropped a pitch. “After dark,” she said, “this town is apt to be a bit dangerous, if you don’t know your way around. It might be a good idea to be a little careful.”

‘Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

She smiled as he went out to a gleaming, marble-tile corridor. So the girl with the taffy-colored hair was warning him. Nice of her, Dix thought.

Chapter 2

The Lady Waits

THE Mansion House was as new and as modem as the city hall. A sprawling, over- pretentious structure with a flamboyant lobby and an air that seemed to ask what Reno had that Laros didn’t have.

Dix registered. A thin, anemic-looking bellhop in a royal-purple uniform and a red, pillbox cap banged Dix’s airplane suitcase into one of the three elevators. Then he led the way down a wide, mossy-carpeted corridor.

“Right in here, sir.”

The boy pushed open the unlocked door of room three hundred and eighty- nine. He set Dix’s bag down on a luggage rack. Dix gave him half a dollar.

"What’s your name, son ?” the private eye asked.

“Felix.”

“Like it around here?”

“It’s not bad when we’re doing business. Some day this is going to be the divorce center of the country. I’ll do better when that time comes.”

Dix grinned as Felix went out. Dix shut the door and looked at his accommodations. Comfortable enough. A good-sized room and a hall with a bath at its end. A glass-enclosed shower. A big wardrobe closet stood midway between the bathroom and the bedroom. He opened his suitcase and hung up a tropical-weight suit.

His gun was in the bottom of the suitcase. A .38 caliber Bronson-Garland automatic of British manufacture. He left the rod there and put the suitcase on the wardrobe shelf.

Then he adjusted the Venetian blind and sat down to read about Paul Graymar....

MARTIN LEACH came into the Frontier Bar of the Mansion House when the topaz-faced clock over its entrance pointed to four-thirty exactly. Leach ordered two planters punches and sat down opposite Dix in a compartment. He took an envelope out of his pocket

“Twenty-five hundred dollars,” Leach said, passing it over. “I wouldn’t count it here. You’ll find it’s the right amount.”

Dix put the envelope into the inner pocket of his smartly tailored flannel coat with one word. “Thanks.”

“Have chance to read what the mayor gave you?” Leach asked.

“I glanced through it.”

“We’re only interested in results,”

Leach said. “We’ve been told that you deliver. You’re said to be the best private operator in California. You’ve been working for Excello Pictures.”

Dix looked at him curiously. “Who told you ? That was supposed to be confidential.”

“We picked it up,” Leach said carelessly. “The point is to get rid of Graymar. You won’t find us ungrateful. We can do you a lot of good.”

Dix knew what he meant. Cleaning up an assignment satisfactorily would bring Dix plenty of future business from Laros. Leach meant that when the town began to challenge Reno on divorces, there’d be plenty of scratch for any private eye if he had the right connections.

“I’m getting busy immediately,” Dix said.

Leach had another drink, then said he had an appointment to keep. Dix bought an afternoon copy of the local newspaper, the Leader, and he went up to his room.

The minute he unlocked the door, he knew that somebody had been nosing around since he had left the room an hour before.

He stood still and let his gaze wander. The prowler hadn’t closed the bottom drawer of the bureau far enough. He must have looked under the pillow of the high-mattressed bed. The George Washington counterpane wasn’t as neat as when Dix had first come in.

Dix took his suitcase down from the wardrobe shelf. He opened it and found that his gun was missing.

Dix put the suitcase back on the shelf and narrowed his eyes. After a minute, he picked up the phone and asked a sultry-voiced operator to send Felix up. He counted the money in Leach’s envelope while he waited. Then he took a five-dollar bill from his poke and folded it lengthwise.

“Somebody stopped in to visit me when I was downstairs,” Dix said when the boy came in. “Any ideas?”

Felix looked at the bill. “One or two.”

“I’ll buy them both.”

The bill changed hands.

“Lenny Sertig, the chief of police,” the bellhop revealed. “Sertig and Hen

Vasson came up about five minutes after you went down. They got your key from Ronald Bates. He’s the clerk who registered you.”

“Where’s the police headquarters?” Dix asked.

“Down two blocks, over one.”

The jail was connected with the police headquarters building, which was brick and had an authoritative look to it. Two expensive prowl cars with the town’s name and numbers painted on the doors stood at the curb, one behind the other.

Dix went into the building. A frowsy, heat-wilted police sergeant was at the high desk. He lolled back in his chair, doing things with a toothpick. He looked at Dix, yawned, and registered more interest in his second glance.

“Chief in?” said Dix.

“I guess so. Who wants to see him?”

“I do.”

“What’s the name? What’s your business?”

“Name’s Dix and my business is none of yours.”

Before the sergeant could answer him, a door to the left opened. A man came through it. He was as bald as an egg, with a thin, sharp face. He wore sloppy pants and a cowboy shirt to which a police badge was attached, and a wide belt with a holstered gun on his right hip.

“This party wants to see the chief,” the desk sergeant said. “His name is Dix, Hen.”

Hen Vasson turned around and looked Dix over. He looked him over carefully and critically, down to the last inch.

“I guess that’s all right,” Vasson spoke with a slow drawl. “Go right in, sport.” He nodded to the door he had come through.”

Dix passed him. The place he entered was a sort of waiting room to the chief’s star chamber beyond. It held a table large enough for card games, chairs, and a lumpy sofa.

Dix pushed open a half-shut door at the back and breathed in the spicy smell of pipe smoke. Chief Len Sertig was at his littered desk, his feet comfortably crossed on its open, top drawer. A blackened, corncob pipe was clamped between his gold-filled teeth. Like Vasson, he was in trousers and shirt.

Sertig reminded Dix of a bloodhound. He had the same kind of dragged-down, red-rimmed eyes, and a loose dewlap and weathered skin that hung in folds. His hair was rough and matted, his gaze impersonal and expressionless.

He was about six-feet-two. He reminded Dix of a horse-opera character. He might have stepped out of a grade B Western, the kind with which Excello Pictures paid their overhead.

“I want to report a stolen gun,” Dix said as he stood a foot away from the desk.

Sertig gave him a casual glance. He tapped his pipe empty on a run-down boot heel and set it on the desk.

“Talk to Johnson outside.”

“I’m talking to you.” Dix kept his tone amiably even. “The shooter was lifted from my room at the Mansion House while I was downstairs in the bar. I want it back.”

“What’s your name?”

“You know it. You knew it well enough to get my room key from the desk clerk. Look, Sertig, I’m here on business. I might need that gun. Hand it over.”

The police chief tilted back in his chair. A half smile began to make more creases in his leathery face. He aimed at a brass cuspidor, missed, and yawned.

“Private detective, aren’t you? We don’t like 'em in this town. I don’t know anything about your gun. Make the usual complaint with the desk sergeant, and we’ll do the best we can.”

With an effort Dix kept his temper in control. So that was it? Sertig must have known about his plane reservation. Sertig must have checked Laros’s several hotels. But why?

Dix turned on his heel and went on through to the front of the building. Hen Vasson, propped against the railing below the sergeant’s desk, gave him a stare.

“Everything all right, stranger?”

“For me but I don’t know about you boys,” Dix laughed and went out.

THE Nevada night came down like a purple curtain, suddenly and all-at- once. As if by signal, Laro,s turned on its incandescent finery. Its main thoroughfare blazed with multi-colored lights. By day, the long wide principal street had been sun-baked and deserted.

As Dix now left the police station, the street was full of people and traffic. He got the feel of Reno for the first time. Lights and vibrant movement. Fluent, restless crowds and the hum of car engines.

The Chantilly was almost diagonally across from the Mansion House. Its neon sign, an elaborate signature in gold and crimson, winked on and off. Dix leisurely waited for the traffic to stop, then crossed to the night club.

He went in to overdone decor. Pseudo-embassy stuff. Hanging tapestries, frescoed ceilings, little lamps that hung like silver stars. An orchestra whispered persuasively for the dinner guests. Later, a hot-jump, broadcast band would take over.

Dix steered his way to the hat-check counter. A little blonde with heavily carmined lips and blue eye-shadow welcomed him with a big smile. He looked at her glassy-perfect hair-do and laid his hat before her.

She gave him a brass check. He put that in his pocket, marveling at her hair. It looked as if it would break if he touched it. It looked like spun sugar. “Stranger?” she asked.

“You’ve made your point. Roll again.” Dix smiled and her eyes came up to meet his coquettishly. She had a nice figure, stream-lined, gently rounded in the right places.

“Your name is Dix,” the girl said. “You’re in from L.A.”

“What else?” Dix stopped smiling.

“There’s a lady waiting for you in the main dining room. She told me to tell you when you came in. That’s about all, except that I’m off duty at ten-after twelve.”

Dix went down some steps and into the room where the music murmured. He saw the lady almost at once at a table set for two.

“I guess I’m a little late,” he said to Ann Madlyn, pulling out the chair opposite. “You shouldn’t have waited.”

In the mayor’s office Ann Madlyn had been attractive to Dix. Now, against the colorful background of the Chantilly, she stood out like a Broadway beauty in line of scrub women. She wore a white dress. Plain, severely simple, but richly perfect.

She was hatless and her taffy-colored hair glimmered with hidden gleams. The purple in her eyes seemed accented, too. Her femininity was warm and compelling. So was the perfume that Dix caught when he shook out a napkin and smiled across at her.

“You figured I’d drift around?”

“Naturally. I counted on it.”

“That’s nice.”

He began to lose most of his afternoon annoyance. An odd anticipation tingled through him. He hadn’t felt this way since the evening he had clinched the Cappy Tyne matter after obtaining the information he had stalked down.

“Ordered?” he asked.

She hadn’t, so he did, and then she asked, “How do you like our town?”

“It’s better after dark. Native?”

She shook her head. “No, I came here from Iowa several years ago with my dad. He was general manager of Regal Silver before he died. I started doing secretarial work for Jonathan Hargen before he took office. He has a large ranch at Seven Forks, a really big spread. When the reform crowd elected him, he brought me along to City Hall.”

Dix absorbed that along with his martini. There was a hint of loyalty in her tone. Loyalty toward the red-faced, fat Mayor. Dix discounted it and asked who had found out about him in LosAngeles. She said that Leaeh had done so. Dix noticed the way she held her cocktail glass, how tapering her fingers were.

“He seems to know all about your work,” she added.

“Tell me about Leach and Payson.”

“They’re both part of Laros.” She spoke slowly, carefully. “Born and brought up here, native sons.”

“Level ?”

“Of course!” Her blue eyes flashed. “Mayor Hargen only has honest people holding office in his administration.”

“I just asked. What about this Paul Graymar they want the finger on?”

Something in her expression made Dix stop. It was like the wave of a red lantern. The look vanished instantly, and a smile replaced it. Her eyes moved to a point over Dix’s shoulder.

“Good evening, Mr. Graymar,” she said.

Chapter 3

Slugged and Framed

I GOT UP. The man who had paused beside their table, was small and nondescript. That afternoon, Dix had formed a mental picture of the man he was being paid five thousand dollars to run out of town. It was nothing like Graymar himself.

Paul Graymar in white coat and dark blue trousers could easily have been mistaken for one of the band men. Or one of the hired help. He was narrow in face, shoulders, and torso. Delicately made, with little hands and feet, but his eyes were alert enough, bright and intelligent eyes, set well back in his skull.

“Delighted.” Graymar offered Dix his hand after Ann Madlyn introduced him. “Staying long, Mr. Dix?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll like it here,” Graymar assured him. “After your first few sweats. I gave myself a week when I first arrived. Wild horses couldn’t pry me away now.”

He exchanged a few more words and wandered on to another table. Dix sat down. He wondered if the typed report on Graymar was straight stuff, or if Leach and His Honor had touched it up for their own purposes. If they were right, the little man should be measured for a noose.

It was after nine when Dix and Ann Madlyn finished their demitasses. They went out to the street. There were three taxis at the curb in front of the Chantilly.

“I’ll take you home,” Dix said, handing her into one of the cabs, then sitting down beside her.

“You forgot your hat. Or didn’t you wear one?”

The cab drove off.

“I left it there.” Dix touched the brass check in his pocket. “Always a reason for going back later. You’d better tell the hackie where you live.”

She did and turned to him quickly. “You’re going back tonight?”

“I want a better view of that sink of iniquity.” Dix laughed. “You blocked my vision. According to Hargen, Graymar’s place is a hotbed of vice. I’ve got to see for myself despite what you said this afternoon about it being dangerous. Exactly what did you mean by that?”

“We’re not entirely grown-up yet in Laros.” She made the statement sound like a quotation from a primer. “This is still the West, rough under its veneer. We’re civilized to a point. Anyone who doesn’t understand us, who walks blindly—”

She broke off. Dix breathed in the fragrance that hung around her.

“That anyone has only himself to blame if he gets cut down,” Dix said. "Fair enough. I’m getting the picture in pieces. Funny but Paul Graymar doesn’t look like a desperado.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” she said hastily.

“Or Police Chief Sertig?”

In the dusk of the cab Dix could see her eyes. Like stars in the gloom, they were looking straight at him.

“Leonard Sertig is Martin Leach’s appointment,” she said precisely. “Maybe you don’t think Sertig is what he should be. As I said before, we’re still growing. We need a man like Sertig to keep order.”

The taxi had reached the outskirts of the city. It went down a quiet street.

To Dix’s surprise, he saw a row of three-story apartment houses on the left. Neat brick-and-wood dwellings. Each had a Saguaro cactus heavy with orchidlike blooms on the front lawn.

The taxi stopped before the second house. Dix paid the driver.

“You don’t want me to wait?” the taxi man asked.

“I'll walk.”

The taxi rolled off. Dix followed Miss Madlyn up a paved walk to a white door. She took a key from her smart bag. She looked at him speculatively.

“Thank you for dinner and for bringing me home. You shouldn’t have bothered.”

There was a note of finality in her tone that told Dix he wasn’t going to be asked in.

“It was a pleasure,” he said. “I mean that.” He did. “Well, good night. I’ll be seeing you at the main place.”

“Good night, Mr. Dix.”

The white door opened and closed. A light went on in a second-floor window when he reached the sidewalk. He looked at it, shrugged his houlders, and started down the street.

Whose side was Ann Madlyn on ? Dix remembered the defensive note in her voice when Hargen had been mentioned. He thought about Paul Graymar and the hat left at the Chantilly. He decided he had better get busy and start to earn his fee.

A block beyond the row of apartment houses, the night closed in tightly. There were open stretches of terrain. The glow of Main Street was a mile and a half beyond. It might have been Dix’s imagination but it seemed cooler. He liked to walk. Somehow, it seemed to help him think better when he was in motion. He had gone no more than a half
block farther when a car came up even with him. It went on a short distance, stopped, and two men got out of it.

“Just a minute, friend,” one of the men called to Dix. “We’re looking for Over Rock Road.”

Dix stopped. He began to turn sideways to keep them both in front of him. He had the impression that they were of a similar size. They wore gray hats and had their hands in their pockets. The one who had spoken advanced. The other cut into the right. And Dix found he was between them.

“Sorry, but I’m a stranger here,” Dix started to say when a sixth sense telegraphed a warning.

The man who had cut in on him lunged forward. Dix threw himself to one side. The sap that struck at Dix viciously whizzed by his head, missing by inches.

Dix tried to grapple with the other man. Dix did get a fingerhold on his coat. This man had drawn a gun, and he ripped out an oath as he reversed the barrel in his hand to make the butt an excellent bludgeon.

His foot tripped and this accident probably saved Dix’s life. As the man went off balance, his gun butt struck Dix a glancing blow on the side of the head. Dix pitched forward, clawing at the empty air.

“Okay, Shavelle! That does it!”

Something more was said, but Dix didn’t hear it. Blackness welled up to ring him in and pull him down into its far, feathery depths. . . .

WHEN DIX STEPPED up to the hat-check counter of the Chantilly an hour later, the little blonde with the glass-like hair and the carmined mouth gave him a heavy-lidded inspection. The Chantilly was crowded now. The jump band beat it out, and voices and dancing feet mingled in vibrant overtones. The blonde drew her thinly arched brows together.

“What happened to you?”

Dix touched the patch of plaster over his right ear.

After he had snapped out of it, he had gone back to his room at the Mansion House and had fixed himself up with a drink and some home first-aid. Only his skin had been cracked. The man called “Shavelle” had probably figured for a fractured skull at least.

“My hat, if you please.” Dix handed over the brass check.

"I get off pretty soon now.” She lowered her voice, making it private between them.

"Where’ll I find Graymar?” Dix asked.

The girl looked a little disappointed and hurt. She drew a breath and touched her chin with a mahogany-tipped finger.

“What would you give to know?” she asked coyly.

"Look, darling, don’t let’s play games. Believe it or not, I’m a busy man. I’ve got work to do. Where’s your boss?”

She told him, and Dix thanked her before he went up a flight of stairs. He got a little of what Mayor Hargen had meant that afternoon when he went down a large corridor. Behind its thin partition he heard the whirr of a roulette wheel and the droning conversation of many voices. He heard the familiar click of dice ricocheting off what he knew was a rubber-sided table. He heard the clink of chips, the tinkle of ice in glasses, laughter, excited or forced.

Dix went on down to the far end of the corridor. He stopped before a door that was stenciled with the word office. Its transom was lowered, its glass painted with inner light. The door was unlocked. Dix opened it and walked in.

He shut the door behind him, stiffened to stone. It was a regulation office. A couple of desks and steel, filing cabinets kept company with a hooded typewriter on a table. Framed sporting prints were on the walls. A photograph of Jack Johnson mowing down the great Jeffries that long-ago afternoon. A picture of Sun Beau when the horse had been the nation’s leading-money inner. Pictures of stage favorites, burlesque queens. But Dix saw those things last.

H IS gaze, strained and taut, went to Paul Graymar—to where Graymar lay half behind his desk and half out on the office floor. The man was doubled up and definitely dead.

Dix moved in closer. A lamp on the desk shed triangular illumination, just enough for the private detective to see the round dark hole in the center of Graymar’s forehead. Dix studied it, shifting his glance to the pool of coagulated blood that the owner of the Chantilly had leaked.

The shoulder of Graymar’s white coat was soaked with crimson, and so was the floor behind the desk. Dix let his eyes sweep on. There didn’t seem to be any gun in evidence. There wasn't any. He was sure of that after he had investigated.

A single-door, steel safe between the windows was open. Its cash box had been yanked out and tossed into a corner. A few coins lay around. Dix used an elbow to push the safe door open wider.

He squatted in front of it. A hard, cynical smile began to twist the corners of his mouth. Mayor Hargen and his two associates had wanted Graymar run out of town. It was too late for that now. Graymar would ride away in a horizontal position. They didn’t have to worry about him any more. Graymar was completely out of their way, and their purpose had been accomplished. Whatever the purpose was!

Dix helped himself to some of the documents in the back of the safe. He skimmed through them, selecting one or two and tucking them away in his jacket. He worked fast. He didn’t want to be walked in on. He had an idea that Police Chief Sertig would like very much to find him at the safe with Paul Graymar’s body across the room.

Finally, Dix got up. Using his handkerchief to wipe his prints from the inner and the outer knobs of the door, the detective waited until the wide corridor was empty.

He started down the stairs but stopped midway. Below him, he had a view of the foyer and the hat-check counter. The blondie was busy with an out-going customer, a well-built handsome young man with inky-black hair and a Latin look. His profile was as sharply clear as that on a new coin. His smile showed a perfect line of flashing white teeth in his brown-skinned face.

He retrieved an expensive Panama hat, gave it a rakish slant, and turned to a woman. She was glancing into one of the pillar mirrors and wiping a little lipstick from the corner of her full, curved mouth.

Dix’s fingers tightened on the bronze, staircase rail. He had no trouble in recognizing Lou Diamond as the man in the Panama hat. And Cappy Tyne, the Excello Picture star, was the woman looking into the narrow mirror.

Dix’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t expected to run across either or both in Laros, Nevada.

Cappy Tyne was supremely lovely in a lime-green gown that was a chalice for all her opulent charms. She wasn’t as tall as Ann Madlyn or, to Dix’s way of thinking, as intriguing to the senses. Cappy’s charm was a sort of manufactured loveliness. Too perfect, a trifle too obvious.

She wore no hat. Her chestnut hair cascaded to her shoulders, so sleek and together that no one strand of it was visible from the others. Her oval face, almost gold in the shine of the silver lamps, looked enameled. Her eyes were a greenish-gray, elongated, lazy as a cat’s. Her figure was flawless all the
way down from shoulder to ankle.

She had, Dix knew, come a long way in the past year, up out of nowhere, a cinematic sensation, a box-office smash. Now the matter of a contract renewal with Excello Pictures was on Al Krakow’s desk. Cappy Tyne was shooting for a high take. So many pictures a year, so much per picture.

Krakow couldn’t afford to turn her down, yet there were extenuating circumstances. And it was Steve Dix who would give the producer the final word to say in the end.

Cappy Tyne took Diamond’s arm. She shifted the silver fox she carried, gave it to him, laughed at something he said, and went across the foyer and out through the main door.

Dix continued down the stairs. The check girl had her back turned in order to wedge a ticket into one of the straw hats on the rack. The manager had come up the steps from the dining room. He looked hard at Dix.

Dix went on out to the street. His mind hummed like a plucked violin string. He crossed the pavement and went into the Mansion House. There were quite a few people in the flamboyant lobby. He stopped at the desk. Bates was off and a new clerk was on night duty.

“Miss Tyne registered here?” Dix asked.

“Yes, sir.” The clerk’s tone was hearty, his smile expansive. “She has the Silver Suite on the fourth floor. She’s not in at the moment. If there’s a message—”

“There isn’t, thanks.”

Dix went to an elevator. He hadn’t bothered leaving his key when he had gone out. He fingered it when the lift slid to a stop. He opened his door, switched on a lamp on a table beside the bed, and pulled the Venetian blind as high as it would go.

Chapter 4

On the Lam

OUTSIDE, a balcony ran from one end of the building to the other. Broad, iron stairs zigzagged down from floor to floor. A few wan stars struggled mistily in the vault of the night sky. The garish reflection of the main thoroughfare was like the flame of a bonfire.

Dix stood for a minute, looking out. He went back and sat down on the edge of the bed. He took out what he had brought away from the safe in Paul Graymar’s office, a couple of letters and what might have been a cash book.

He thumbed through the book, his face shadowed. But he had turned only a few pages when he heard the elevator click to a stop and voices sound in the hall.

Footsteps came up and ended at his door. As the knob began to turn, Dix quickly put the little book and the letters under the pillow on the bed. He had hardly time to smooth the George Washington counterpane back in place before a knock, staccato and insistent, beat out on the panels of the door.

Chief Sertig and the bald-headed Hen Vasson pushed past him when Dix opened the door. Vasson, sucking on an inch of cigarette, shut the door, then turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. Sertig ambled over to Dix.

“Just stay where you are,” said the chief of police. “Don’t make any wrong moves. We’re taking a look around.”

Dix’s mouth tightened. He could feel his nerves begin to crawl and then grow taut. He looked from the leathery-faced police chief to Vasson.

“I suppose you’ve got a search warrant, or don’t you need ’em in this town?”

“And don’t talk,” Sertig ordered.

“I’ll nose around,” Vasson said.

“You’ve got the equipment to do it with,” Dix told him. “For your information, I’m working for Mayor Hargen. I think I’ll telephone him and see what he has to say about this.”

Sertig hit him with a hamlike fist when Dix started to pass him. It was a dirty blow, brought up at an angle. Unexpected and hard. Dix staggered and sat down on the bed. He caught the wooden footpost and held on. Twice in one night, a sock with a gun butt, and then a bunch of knuckles. He shook his head to clear it.

Sertig loomed up before him, big against the lamplight. “Look around, Hen. See what you can find. I'll keep this guy quiet.”

Vasson went into the hall. Dix heard him strike a match after the wardrobe door creaked open. He heard Vasson fumbling around.

Then came the baldheaded man’s exclamation: “I got it. Chief! Right here on the floor!”

Vasson came back, an open handkerchief in his hand. On top of it, Dix saw his own automatic.

Sertig grunted approval, sucking air through his teeth. "I guess that’s enough. I’m wrong all around if it ain’t the gun that washed out Graymar. You’re in, Dix. Get up and we’ll take a walk. You’re under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Dix acted fast. His foot shot up and landed with remarkable and tremendous accuracy in the pit of Police Chief Sertig’s stomach. The man belched half a scream of agony and dropped back.

Vasson, his hands busy with the handkerchief-wrapped gun, was an open target for the straight right Dix planted in his face. Dix felt Vasson’s teeth bend under the impact of the blow. Sertig’s bald-headed deputy backed all the way to the wall. He banged off it, spat blood, collided with a chair, and fell sprawling. He let go of the gun. It skidded across the floor, and Dix grabbed it.

Dix didn’t wait longer. He went through the window, taking part of the curtain with him. The broad, iron stairs were just beyond, past a series of lighted windows. He went down them fast.

That brought him to a cul-de-sac at the hotel’s rear near the garages. Dix cut down a cement ramp and hurried out to the main thoroughfare. A prowl car stood some little distance from the Mansion House. But no one was flatfooting toward it.

Dix signaled the first empty taxi that came along, passed an address to the driver, and hauled out the gun. A sniff of the barrel told its own story. So did the empty shell in its clip. Dix stowed the rod away and knit his brows. Unless he was mistaken, and Dix knew he wasn’t, the round black hole in Paul Graymar’s forehead had been made by his, Dix’s gat.

He sat back on the cab’s worn upholstery, thinking hard. The rig had angles. Somebody wanted to see that he got a breath of gas, the gas Nevada gives killers. Who? Why? Dix shook his head.

A few minutes later, the taxi pulled in at the second building in the row of apartment houses on the outskirts of town. Dix told the man to wait, went by the Saguaro cactus, and, after inspection, pressed a bell in the tiny vestibule.

Almost at once, the electrically controlled latch clicked. Ann Madlyn had her door open when he arrived upstairs. He had the impression of taffy-colored hair shimmering and haloed with light. She wore a raspberry-pink houseeoat and perhaps not much else. Mexican slippers held her small, high-arched, bare feet. She hadn’t been asleep. There was no drowsiness in her pretty face or blue eyes.

She held the door wide, shutting it after Dix came in. He stood in a room furnished as a lounge, a comfortable place of chintz and varnished reed, of cool walls about the same color as the gown Cappy Tyne had been wearing. Flowers were clustered in a white vase. A copper-base lamp made a golden glow. The rug under his feet was Indian grass, in large geometric patterns.

“Graymar’s been eliminated,” Dix spoke quickly but quietly. “Within the last hour, your police chief and Vasson had it rigged for me to be brought in and taken care of. I left them both in my room at the hotel.”

He saw her stiffen, her eyes wide and her warm mouth open. She didn’t move, but he knew she was drawing together like a steel spring.

“You’d better get in touch with Mayor Hargen.” Her husky voice wasn’t entirely steady. “I don’t know what this means.”

“I do. Get him for me, please.”

She picked up a French telephone. She called a number. She pressed one hand over the mouthpiece, staring steadily at Dix. He helped himself to a cigarette in an open, glass box. He dragged in smoke greedily as if he hadn’t had a cigarette for days.

“They don’t answer?” she asked the operator. “Are you sure? Six nine J. Keep trying, operator.”

“What about Leach?” Dix suggested. She shook her head, putting the telephone back on its cradle. The wonder had gone out of her face. The shadow of fear replaced it. a blend of sudden fear and worry. She went across to a small table-model radio, and snapped its switch.

While she waited for it to warm, she said thoughtfully, as if to herself, “Not Leach. I don’t trust him. It’s got to be Hargen. Where is he? He must be at the ranch.”

A voice coming out of the radio interrupted. A precise, well modulated, deeply pleasant voice—

“We interrupt this program to bring you an important news flash from headquarters. Paul Graymar, owner of the popular Chantilly, was shot to death in his office tonight. The police are looking for Steve Dix, a Los Angeles private detective. So far, Dix hasn’t been apprehended. His description is as follows—”

Ann Madlyn shut the radio off. Dix mashed his cigarette in a tray and pulled up his sleeve to look at his watch.

“Keep pegging away at Hargen,” he advised. “I want protection. I have an in on what this is all about Let me have your telephone number, and I’ll call you back. I left a cab at the door. I'm going back to town.”

She touched his sleeve. “Is that wise? They’ll pick you up.”

“I’ve got to. I’ve got to beat them to the draw. If Sertig trips me while the ends are untied. I’m as good as gone. They probably love lynchings in this town. Didn’t you say you weren’t quite civilized? And I’m allergic to hemp.”

Ann Madlyn’s hand stayed on his sleeve. “Wait until I get Hargen. He’ll know what to do. You can stay here.”

“Not a chance, because they know all about this charming spot. A couple of hoodlums followed us when I brought you home. Sertig’s sure to stop in. Don’t worry. I’ve been in close quarters before. This is going to work out all right, but get Hargen.”

He jotted down her telephone number and let her open the door. For an instant she stood close to him. The same fragrance he had caught at dinner reached him.

Dix laughed under his breath and took her in his arms. Her lips were warm but unstirring under the pressure of his own. He could feel the flutter of her heart, the tremble of her slender hands on his shoulders. Then her lips awoke and responded.

Dix let her go and faded down the stairs. He was afraid there was a radio in the taxi, but there wasn’t. The hackie sat slumped down under the wheel, half asleep. Dix piled into the vehicle and slammed the door to wake him up.

"Take me back to town,” Dix ordered. “I’ll tell you where to stop.” He remembered something he had forgotten to'ask the girl with the taffy hair. “You must ride a lot of guys. Know anybody named Shavelle?”

“Do I?” The driver turned his head. “A tough character, mister. Hangs out with Verne Stacey and that crowd. Used to do some box-fighting around Carson City.”

"Who’s Verne Stacey?”

"The big guy with the dough. Used to run the city hall before Hargen got elected. Stacey is out in the cold now. Only it ain’t ever very cold around here. Stacey and all his mob. “Buddy” Shavelle included, they’ve been hungry since the reform party moved in.”

Dix was interested. “Then there’s none of the old guard left?”

“One lone sucker.” The hackie snickered, mentioning a name. “Maybe they got him tied down, then mebbe not. Where did you say you want me to drop you?”

The taxi stopped a block away from the Mansion House. Dix paid the meter charge and got out. He pulled his hat down close to his eyes. He didn’t doubt that the bloodhound-eyed Sertig had a plant watching the Mansion House. From here through to the windup, Dix understood, it was a question of how lucky he’d be.

For a second time, he went along the cement ramp to the cul-de-sac at the hotel’s rear. He stood there in the shadows, searching the gloom for the sign of a sentry. Finally, he shrugged and started up the broad, iron steps.

He kept going until he reached the fourth floor. Momentarily, he expected a challenge from below and the whine of lead. But there was no sound except the nocturnal murmur of Laros. At the fourth floor, he walked the balcony to the building’s east end. The choice suites, one above the other, were located there. A softly lighted window shone like a beacon for Dix. He passed it and crouched beside a darkened window some little distance beyond it. The window was open at top and bottom.

Dix drew the lower sash up enough to climb through. He felt heavy carpet under the soles of his polished, custom-built shoes. The smell of cigarette smoke, faint and pungent, drifted to him. He waited until his eyes became accustomed to the thick murk before he crossed to a door. He stood beside it and listened.

After a minute or two, he turned the knob slowly and quietly. A few feet of passage separated him from the parlor of the Silver Suite. A hanging drapery was at its arched doorway.

Cappy Tyne, still in the lime-green dress, had arranged herself comfortably on a brocaded sofa, one symmetrical leg drawn up so that its knee dented her slinky skirt. A frosty gin drink, half consumed, stood beside her, its essence of juniper aromatic on the warm, stirless air.

Dix watcher her for a minute longer. He pushed the drape aside and walked in. Cappy Tyne sat up with a jerk. Her face was a study in conflicting emotions.

He thought she had never registered surprise and fear to more convincing degree in any screen role. He saw her knuckles whitening as her small, shapely hands gripped the divan’s arm.

Her eyes, like twin tourmalines, shone hard and very bright as they met his.

“You can’t be too surprised.” Dix continued walking until he reached the divan. “You knew I was down here.”

“I didn’t!”

He let that go and glanced around the highly decorated room. Some Hollywood stylist had probably been turned loose in it. Its silver motif, splashed with scarlet, made him think of a technicolor musical show. All it needed, Dix thought, were some under-dressed girls on some white horses.

“Where’s the bodyguard?” he asked.

Cappy Tyne shook her head. “Lou left me a little while ago. He’s gone.”

“Where?”

Her eyes began to lose some of their first fright. Like a veil, he saw the mascara lashes come down over them. She moved further back among the cushions, brushing fingers lightly over her hair.

“He didn’t say.” Her voice deepened. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? What do you want?”

Dix helped himself to a cigarette from a silver box on a table. He inhaled, smiling thinly.

“I want to know why you set me up for a pigeon. Or was it Diamond’s idea? Don’t bother to go into dramatics. You’d like to see me out of the way, safely and permanently. You knew that AlKrakow rented me to snoop. I know that you know because Krakow warned me that there was a studio leak. You were tipped in advance. So why shouldn’t you play ball with the cops down here? Sertig looks like his price tag isn’t too high.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she exclaimed defensively, getting hold of herself.

Chapter 5

A Woman’s Secret Past

I SAW that she was going to be difficult. Cappy Tyne knew most of the questions and the majority of the answers. But she didn’t know how much Dix had turned up on her in the preliminary investigations. And on that lone point, he intended to crack down hard.

“Look, sweetheart,” he said ironically, “I’m harassed. I’m in line for the gas chamber after the local gendarmes work me over with a length of hose. So I’m not going to loiter around here making small talk. Either you tell me what I want to know or—”

“Or what?”

“I get Hollywood on long distance. I tell Al what he wants to know. I don’t pull any punches. You’re through with the bioscope henceforth and forever. So take your choice.”

From the expression in her face, Dix knew she tried to decide if it were a bluff. She couldn’t. She knew something about his reputation, enough to draw her crescent-shaped brows together.

“I’d have to talk to Lou first.”

Dix laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant-sounding laugh. Like ice being broken, brittle and abrupt.

“No, darling. The only one you’ll talk to is me. And now!”

She drew a breath, and Dix knew he had won when he saw her eyes again. She arranged herself on the divan so there would be room for him beside her. Suddenly, her tenseness disappeared entirely.

“Let’s have a drink,” she said. “A nice cool Collins. I can always talk so much better with one. Be a dear and phone down to the bar. The service here is really wonderful. A waiter’ll be around before you hang up.”

After his talk with Cappy, Steve Dix rode out to a big house not many miles from town. It was a place of irrigated gardens, neat lawns, and the same sweet-smelling cactus that fronted Ann Madlyn’s apartment building. A place of interlaced shadows, of quiet, wheeling stars, and moonlight. Dix approached it diagonally. He passed a lily pool, went up some gravel, and came finally to the porte-cochere of the house.

A three-year-old automobile parked its length a little distance away. He touched its hood. Cool. It hadn’t been used for some time. He turned and went to the front door, going up some native stone steps.

A bell made a musical chime, something like the signature of a broadcasting studio. Dix stood there, his automatic back in its pigskin, shoulder holster, the plaster over his ear almost covered by his hat.

A man servant opened the door, and Dix put his foot in it, saying, “I want to see Mr. Stacey.”

Over the servant’s shoulder, he had a view of spiral stairs, of shadow-boxed paintings, cluttered luxury that combined Chinese Chippendale with English Sheraton and Adam in a promiscuous jumble.

“I don’t know whether—” the servant began to say.

A man was coming down the stairs. A big, bulky individual with frost-silvered hair, a beak for a nose, and a wide, straight-lipped mouth. He wore a natural-colored linen suit, an offset to his tanned skin. He looked as if he had just shaved, as if a valet had just finished with him. Even his white buck shoes were immaculate.

“Who is it, Jim?” he asked in a rumbling voice that seemed to have some difficulty getting out of his throat. Then he got a direct look at Dix and snapped his fingers. “That’s all, Jim.”

Dix shut the door himself. “You’re Stacey of course.”

“Come into my study.” The big man went across the hall and opened a half-shut door. “In here.”

Dix accepted the invitation slowly. The room he entered was furnished with the same mismated conglomeration of periods. A black, teakwood bar hospitably glimmered with bottles and glasses in a comer.

Verne Stacey gestured toward it with a hand. Hair curled on his fingers and along the backs of his hands. A diamond ring flashed with two-carat brilliance.

“Have a drink.”

“Thanks, I never touch the filthy stuff.” Dix went further into the room. “You know who I am?”

"Sure, the dick from L.A. I figured you’d be around before the police pick you up. Bad business for you to drop in and gun one of our leading citizens. Paul Graymar had plenty of friends. They won’t like it. They won’t like it at all.”

“You know I didn’t do it,” Dix said casually, “so don’t bother with that brand of malarky. As a matter of fact, you had a finger in the murder pie. Just what kind of a plum you were reaching for, I haven’t decided yet, Stacey. But I'll know before I leave here tonight.”

THE big man mixed himself a drink. A large shot of bourbon in a small amount of soda. No ice. He stirred it with a glass muddler and laughed.

“Sit down, Dix. Make yourself comfortable. Let’s hear your gripe. How do you tie me into this?”

Stacey put all of his weight into a red-leather chair. Dix kept on his feet.

“From certain documents your hired assassin didn’t have time to remove from the safe in Graymar’s office,” Dix said. “A few notations explaining how you had tried to buy the Chantilly with no luck. Graymar wasn't any fool. When you have a gold mine, you don’t give it up unless you have to.”

"All right. I wanted Paul’s dive,” Stacey admitted. “Not so much to make dough as to keep me interested. I’m out of politics. It’s all right to lie around and try to raise roses and tangelos, but it gets boring after a while. Sure, I wanted the Chantilly to play with.”

"Graymar was blackmailing Cappy Tyne. I have the account book with tne last payments noted.” Dix kept his tone in the same casual pitch. “You’re a friend of Lou Diamond, Cappy’s so-called bodyguard. You knew I was propositioned by Mayor Hargen. Everybody else knew it. Why shouldn’t you? And you knew that Cappy was paying Graymar through her tip-tilted nose. What did you do but join in with Diamond to knock Graymar and me off with the same stone?”

“What percentage would I get out of that?” Verne Stacey asked. “As I understand it, you were hired to run Graymar out of town.”

“Yes, but that would still leave me. And I was the one about to ruin the Tyne reputation, once and for all. Al Krakow wouldn’t sign her if I handed in the report on what I’d dug up on her. She must have appealed to you. And you decided to do something about it. You did.”

Stacey leaned back in his chair. Outside of the soft lamplight’s ring, his face didn’t look so tanned. Or maybe it was the reflection of his frosted silver hair. He finished his drink slowly, musingly. He put down the glass as a knock sounded on the door.

“Come in, Lou,” Stacey called quietly. “Don’t reach for your rod, Mr. Dix. I shoot awfully fast and seldom miss.”

A long, thin-barreled gun slid into Stacey’s hand. He had made the draw with amazing speed. Dix checked his own hand halfway to his holster. He turned slightly as the door opened and Lou Diamond came in.

Cappy’s bodyguard, as Hollywood knew the boy, had a gun drooping from his fingers. Diamond pushed the study door shut with a heel and stood silently in the background, waiting.

“Now,” Stacey said to Dix, “you are made of clay. You’re wanted for Graymar’s murder, and I caught you in here. You tried to blow me up. I beat you to the draw and shot you five times. Selfdefense, I believe it’s called. Where am I wrong?”

He laughed a chuckling, little, amused laugh. As it died away, Dix heard what he had kept his ears strained to hear. The crunch of synthetic-rubber tires on gravel and the low, throaty pulsations of an automobile arriving.

Diamond and Verne Stacey heard it, too. Their eyes flashed to the picture window at the study’s end.

“Before I left town,” Dix said carelessly, “I telephoned Miss Madlyn. I told her I was coming down here and asked her to have the mayor and a couple of other people drop in. I thought we might as well get to the bottom of this thing before the indignant gentry tripped me, presented me with a rope necktie, and strung me up in the public square. Better ask Jim to let them in.”

Dix had to admire Stacey’s calm. The big man shoved his gun under the waistband of his linen trousers. He signaled with a finger, and the weapon in Lou Diamond’s hand disappeared.

At the study door, Stacey boomed, “Let the mayor in, Jim. Have him come in here. Get the lead out of your shoes. Don’t keep His Honor waiting.”

Hargen’s false teeth clicked. His red face was redder than ever. Dix traded a nod with him and glanced at Hargen’s companions. One was Sertig. The other was the bald-headed Hen Vasson.

“There’s my man!” Sertig’s voice had a snarl in it. “There’s the party who shot Paul Graymar and kicked me in the belly!”

Hargen raised a hand and looked hard at Dix. “What’s the meaning of all this? I only came down here tonight because my secretary assured me that there’s some kind of a conspiracy afoot. I intend to get to the bottom of it. What’s it all about?”

“The death of a gambler in this spring month, this merry month of mayhem,” Dix answered whimsically.

“I just accused Mr. Stacey here of being in on the rig to goat me for his benefit. He snapped back with a gun and some fancy talk about shooting me five times in self-defense.”

“Why don’t you grow up?” Stacey said contemptuously. “Coming around here with talk like that!”

Dix shook his head. “No good, Verne. I have the whole story. I got it direct from Cappy Tyne, and it’s pure gold. Oddly, this Sertig lout has been on the level all the time. Just a dumb cluck of a cop listening to whispers in his left ear. Baldy’s whisperings. By the way, Vasson, let’s see your poke. I understand there’s a brand-new thousand-dollar bill in it. Your payoff for killing Graymar, for stealing my gun, and planting it back in my closet. Let’s take a look. Let’s make it a sporting proposition. If Stacey’s grand isn’t in your leather, I’ll turn myself in.”

Vasson’s face contorted. “You dirty louse!” he spat at Stacey. “You ratted on me!”

Stacey did a fast draw again. But this time it was not fast enough. Vasson had jerked a Luger out of his hip holster, and he started squeezing the trigger, hardly seeming to take aim.

The big gun jumped in his hand five times. He pumped a stream of lead into the big man, who, getting up from his chair, promptly dropped back into it. Stacey’s hair-fingered hand fell away from his waistband. In slow motion, it trailed across his stomach to his side, dangling loosely. Red stains mingled into one crimson circle on the left side of his linen coat.

Lou Diamond shot at Vasson twice. His aim was excited, inaccurate. Both bullets gouged the ceiling.

Hargen, petrified, let his upper plate drop, pushed it back into place with a thumb, and scuttled for cover.

Vasson, his face still a mask of frustrated fury, brandished the Luger. “I’ll croak the first guy who tries to stop me! Come on, somebody take a shot at me!”

“And I thought you had a case for me,” Sertig bleated. “I believed in you, Hen.”

Vasson continued to back up. He went past the chair where Verne Stacey sat collapsed with chin on his chest. He continued on to the screened, open window across from the picture window. He stood there for a minute longer, the threat in his hand ominous and deadly. With a shoulder he heaved the screen out of his way and straddled the sill.

“I’m borrowing your car, Hargen. I’ll leave it on the other side of the State line.”

As Vasson drew his other leg up, Dix, gliding in behind the jut of a tall bookcase, fired when the bald-headed man’s knee rose another inch. Dix shot with all the skill that had made him the envy of shooting-gallery spectators whenever he went into his act.

His first shot thudded into Vasson’s hunched figure. His second bored into the bald head. Vasson screamed and fell through the window.

“Now let’s take a look at his wallet,” Dix said, shaking the automatic, so that the last of its lazy smoke could leave the barrel before he sheathed it.

HE HAD breakfast in Ann Madlyn’s dinette. A sunny place of chromium and stream-lined cabinets. The short, frilly curtains at the windows were red, with tiny, white flowers. A canary that she called “Jake” chirped in a pagoda-shaped, black cage. The smell of sizzling bacon and bubbling coffee was very pleasant.

“I owe you a lot for saving my life,” Dix said slowly. “Stacey would have undoubtedly kept his word and punctured me last night. His Honor’s arrival was more thrilling than the coming of the Marines. Nice work on your part.”

She was dressed for the office, in cool, white sharkskin. She wore no ornaments except a freshly picked flower in her taffy-colored hair. Her eyes with the violets in their depths were crystal clear and contented. She moved, Dix observed, with all the sinuous grace of one listening to far-off music.

“Everything’s pretty apparent,” Ann Madlyn said, “except about Miss Tyne and why Verne Stacey would help her out of her trouble. What had you found out about her that was so nerve-shattering?”

Dix rubbed his palm across the small square of an embroidered tea napkin. He wondered if she had made it.

“I had to do a lot of digging into her past before I came up with it. She served three years in a Massachusetts jail for pushing an admirer out of a second-story window. It was quite some time ago. She had it covered pretty well, but you dig and dig, and after awhile you strike pay dirt.”

“And Verne?”

“The lad she pushed the other guy out for! I had to trade with her, but it’s okay.” He laughed. “I agreed to withhold my report from Krakow for the information I knew she was able to give me about Graymar, who, incidentally, had picked up the window episode that she figured in back east. He was shaking her down handsomely. I didn’t care about Excello Pictures last night, and about the renewal of her contract. I was only looking out for the lease on my own life.”

Ann Madlyn frowned. “Then this Krakow—”

“I made the trade with Cappy,” Dix said blandly, “knowing that when Graymar’s murder broke, the whole story of her past would come out with it. I don’t have to tell Al Krakow a word. All he has to do is spend a nickel for a newspaper and read about it. Which reminds me that you make delightful coffee, Miss Madlyn.”

_______________________

A Jo Gar Case

4: The Great Black

Raoul Whitfield

1896-1945

Cosmopolitan Aug 1937

THE moon-faced Chinese sitting on Jo Gar’s right made cheerful gurgling sounds as he slapped yellow palms together. The racially mixed audience in the heat-soaked Manila Theater was enthusiastic; on the stage the famous English magician Hugh Black— The Great Black— bowed gracefully to the clatter of applause and the hum of many tongues.

The ancient curtain of the theater descended slowly, rose with the famous magician still in the center of the stage, bowing. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man,— with black, wavy hair. He had poise, dignity. His movements were rapid and filled with grace.

Gesturing toward a small table near him, he stamped a foot heavily. Smoke rose from the table; there was a flutter of wings. Dozens of pigeons winged out over the audience, circling back to the stage as the curtain again descended.

There were wrinkles of fat in the neck of the aged Chinese seated beside the Island detective. He gurgled up at the winging birds.

The last one circled, dived back toward the lowering curtain, flashed under it. Jo Gar reached for one of his brown-paper cigarets. The curtain rose again, and The Great Black raised his arms above his head. Still the applause continued.

Jo Gar’s gray-green eyes smiled; he ran brown fingers through his gray hair, half raised his tall, lean body from the uncomfortable seat. And as he lifted himself, he was conscious of the fact that the figure of the magician no longer possessed grace. The Great Black was slumping— slumping downward toward the stage floor, sprawling forward now, toward the footlights!

There was a hush in the theater, and then a sudden babble. Jo Gar stood erect, staring at the motionless figure of the great magician. Two of his assistants were kneeling beside him; they lifted him from the stage floor, moved backstage as the curtain came down. The babble of excitement in the theater continued. A voice spoke to the Island detective in Tagalog, the native tongue.

“Señor Gar! You saw that. He was struck ” Hadi Ratan, lieutenant in the Manila police, was in the aisle beside Jo Gar’s seat.

The detective said calmly, “You saw something strike the magician, Lieutenant Ratan?”

Hadi Ratan’s lips curved downward. His dark eyes were narrow, aggressive. “ You think it was a faint, perhaps, Señor?” There was contempt in his tone. “You observed the way he fell? I must hurry to the rear of the theater.” He moved along the aisle.

The moon-faced Chinese plucked at Jo Gar’s coat. “You see?” he muttered. “The Great Black— he is ill, very ill!”

Jo Gar smiled. “It is so,” he said. “The performer is either very ill, or he has already— ceased to be ill.”

A small Filipino attired in dinner clothes appeared before the curtain. He raised a hand and when there was quiet spoke in a shrill, shaken voice.

“The Great Black— the management regrets— it is that the famous one— he is sick. Please— it is regrettable— you will now leave quietly.”

Jo Gar sighed. He spoke half to the moon-faced Chinese, half to himself. “I think it is that the famous one— has ceased to be ill.”

A bright-eyed mestizo winked at Jo Gar as he moved slowly along the Escolta, main business street of Manila, from the lobby of the theater toward the stage-entrance alley. Behind him the audience spilled into the street. At the stage door an elderly Filipino looked into the detective’s slant eyes, frightened.

“Señor Gar,” he breathed, and stepped aside.

“I have come to see Señor Hugh Black. He is in the dressing room?”

The elderly Filipino shivered. “It is so, Señor. If you will go to the light...”

Along a dimly lighted corridor there was an electric bulb over one of the doors. When Jo Gar reached it, he heard the sharp voice of Lieutenant Ratan within the room, which was small and hot. The detective entered; his gray-green eyes went to the lighted mirror of the dressing table, past photographs of actors and actresses hanging on the walls to the figure stretched on a Spanish-shawled couch.

As he noted the limpness of a dangling hand, he heard Hadi Ratan say, “You are the Princess Vlatchnoff? That is your stage name?”

Jo Gar looked at the woman. She was seated on a small chair at the right of the entrance door. She was very beautiful: her face was oval; her features were delicate, her eyes and hair dark.

“I am the Princess Vlatchnoff— Sonya Vlatchnoff.” Her voice was soft and husky.

Jo Gar said quietly, “Señor Black— he is dead?”

Hadi Ratan smiled, his dark eyes half closed. “I felt that you would come here, Señor Gar. It is good of you. You have often aided the Manila police. This is Doctor Montaloupe.” He gestured toward a small dark-faced man. “He was in the audience and came to the stage by way of an entrance behind the boxes. Señor Black was dead when he reached his side. A knife wound in the neck― the base of the brain.”

The doctor said, "It is a wound that might have been made by a knife."

The detective looked towards the body. "A thrown knife, doctor?"

The doctor shrugged. “There has been such impact. When I reached the magician’s side, he had been carried in here. The weapon is missing.” Sadi Ratan spoke sharply, “You recall the Princess Vlatchnoff, Señor Gar? It was she who performed the knife-throwing act just after the intermission.”

The detective nodded. His eyes went to the woman’s white face, ran over her colorful costume. It was the same costume she had worn on the stage.

The husky voice of the princess broke the silence of the dressing room. “This police lieutenant suspects me of murder, Señor Gar.” There was a strange flicker in her eyes, and then they were cold again. “I have heard of you in Shanghai. I should like you to help me.”

Sadi Ratan said: “That is very well, but I should like Señor Gar to know that Mr. Hugh Black came to the police two days ago. He feared for his life. He stated that a woman hated him, and that if death came to him it would be by a knife.”

The Princess Vlatchnoff’s hands were clenched; she was breathing quickly. The police lieutenant went on, “The knife was thrown from behind the magician. He was facing the audience. There were cabinets and mirrors on the stage for the purpose of illusion. The two assistants of The Great Black and two men who work the lights did not see the knife thrown. When I came in here Madame Vlatchnoff was alone with Mr. Black.”

The woman looked at Jo Gar and spoke huskily. “My husband was a sportsman who loved swords, knives. It was with him I learned―” She broke off.

Hadi Ratan said, “To throw a knife excellently!”

Her eyes appealed to Jo Gar. “I have not yet been accused of murder, but I am suspected of it. I should like to retain you, Señor Gar. I am not guilty of murdering this man.”

“I am not a lawyer, princess,” Jo Gar told her, “but if you wish to retain me— if you wish me to seek the murderer― ”

She said firmly, “I do.”

The detective bowed. Hadi Ratan moved toward the figure on the couch.

“The coroner will be here immediately— and two of my men. Poor devil— he was a great magician, this Black.”

“He is a great magician, lieutenant,” Sonya Vlatchnoff said quietly.

Hadi Ratan faced her. His voice was hard. “The princess chooses to doubt that Hugh Black is dead?”

Her dark eyes met Jo Gar’s. She spoke in a husky, even tone. “Yes. I choose to doubt that The Great Black is dead.”

The detective said softly, “And your reason for the doubt, Princess Vlatchnoff?”

There was silence. Then the woman said, “The dead man lying there, Señor Gar, is not The Great Black.”

Jo Gar pulled on a brown-paper cigaret, his slender figure lolling in a chair near the dead man. Don Castana, the coroner, was examining the wound; two of the police lieutenant’s men stood near the door. Hadi Ratan paced back and forth, talking in a low voice.

“And you say, Madame Vlatchnoff, that after the trick performed by The Great Black about five minutes before the end of the show— the vanishing of a girl from a tank of water— it was the magician’s habit to have himself impersonated by this dead man, unknown to the audience. This Richard Janisohn took the applause and did a few simple encore tricks. In the meantime The Great Black was dressing for the street.”

Princess Vlatchnoff nodded. “Yes,” she said. “He started it as a whim— he told me once how simple it was to fool an audience. Of course the impersonating make-up is very good. When it worked well, Hugh decided to continue the trick. It allowed him to leave the stage sooner, rest from the strain of his performance.”

Jo Gar said, “The entire company knew The Great Black was replaced by Richard Janisohn just before the end of the performance?”

The woman shrugged. “Some of us knew— I’m not sure how many. Janisohn stood in the wings for a few seconds. After the water illusion there was usually much applause. Hugh bowed from the side of the stage, walked off. Janisohn walked on in his place. That was all.”

Hadi Ratan frowned. “But not all the persons backstage knew this?”

“Very likely not.” The princess’ voice was low and calm. “We carry our own lights and operators with us— it is necessary in a performance of illusions. Some of them may never have known; certainly none of the local staff did.”

Ratan said, “But you did, Madame?”

She nodded. “To an extent.”

Jo Gar stared at his cigaret. “You mean that at times The Great Black did finish the performance?”

She said, “That is so, Señor Gar.”

Hadi Ratan swore in Tagalog. The coroner straightened up.

“The death was apparently instantaneous,” he said. “At the impact of the weapon— a knife or a dagger. The impact point was the base of the brain; the weapon drove in with much force.”

Ratan spoke swiftly. “The weapon might have been a thrown knife or dagger?”

Don Castana nodded. “Thrown or in the grip of the murderer, I should say.”

The police lieutenant regarded the Princess Vlatchnoff with narrowed eyes. “When this Richard Janisohn substituted for The Great Black tonight he took the bows, made a gesture toward a small table, stamped a foot. Smoke was released. Pigeons flew out over the audience, circled back as the curtain descended. The curtain rose again and Janisohn bowed. Then he fell forward toward the footlights. Where were you, Madame Vlatchnoff, at that time?”

“I was here in this dressing room, seated there.” She gestured toward the couch on which the body was lying.

Jo Gar smiled. “You were alone in this room at the time the dead man fell, princess?” he asked.

She said slowly, “No, I was not alone. I was there on the couch. Hugh Black was holding me in his arms.”

The lieutenant of police stared at her. “You did not tell us this before.”

“You did not ask me where I was or who was with me.”

A brown-faced policeman appeared in the dressing-room doorway, spoke to Hadi Ratan in the native tongue.

When the policeman had finished, Ratan turned to the princess. “Mr. Hugh Black has not returned to the Manila Hotel. His clothes are in the closet, and his toilet articles are still there.”

For the first time there was fear in the woman’s eyes. Ratan’s voice crackled at her.

“ Why does that frighten you, Madame?”

Her eyes met the police lieutenant’s squarely. “Because I think perhaps whoever murdered Richard Janisohn may have discovered the mistake, followed Hugh Black ” Her voice broke.

Jo Gar stood up. “Followed, you say, princess? He left you here, then?”

Her voice was steadier now. “Yes; we quarreled. He left me here. I was here when Crandon and Foxe carried Janisohn in. I was terribly shocked.”

Hadi Ratan said, “Crandon and Foxe are The Great Black’s assistants?”

She nodded. “Yes. They are English. They ran to Janisohn when he fell.”

The Manila lieutenant asked, “If you were down here when Janisohn fell, how do you know that?"

“Crandon told me they did,” she said.

The detective smiled at Hadi Ratan. “You see,” he breathed.

Hadi Ratan glared at him. “I shall see more when I talk to Crandon and Foxe.”

The coroner said, “If you are finished with the body, I shall have my men remove it, lieutenant.”

Hadi Ratan nodded.

When the body had been removed Ratan faced the woman. “You quarreled with The Great Black— why?”

Her red lips trembled. Her eyes went to Jo Gar’s. He smiled at her.

“You do not have to answer,” he said. “But it is within the power of the lieu- tenant to hold you as a material witness. Perhaps if you are frank with him...”

The woman looked at Hadi Ratan. “It is personal. Please— if you will send your men away ”

They were sent away. After a few seconds she spoke.

“We quarreled— Hugh and I— because he refused to marry me.”

Jo Gar said, “And his reason for not wishing to marry you, princess?”

“My family is of the old regime— I am a princess. Hugh’s family―” She moved her lovely hands slightly.

Hadi Ratan said with faint amusement, “But all that, Madame, is ended.”

Her voice was precise. “All that, lieutenant, never began for you. You would not understand.”

The detective spoke gently. “In any case, Hugh Black left you in anger?”

She said, “In a sort of— quiet anger.”

Hadi Ratan cleared his throat. “My men are searching for him. He is necessary, of course, to complete your alibi.”

“Alibi?” she asked.

The police lieutenant shrugged. “You are an expert in the art of throwing a dagger, a knife. I myself have witnessed your skill. I myself saw the dead man fall forward. I did not see him struck down, but with the stage lighted as it was, a thrown knife might easily have been missed. I saw few of the knives that you threw at the targets, Madame, until they struck. And with the added deception of mirrors―” He broke off, bowed, his smile sardonic. “The dead man is one Richard Janisohn, posing as The Great Black. If it should be that he were hated―”

The woman interrupted. “But I did not hate him.”

Jo Gar said, “There are other matters. Your men have found no dagger or knife. The two assistants have not been thoroughly questioned. The Princess Vlatchnoff has stated that she was in this room when Janisohn was struck down. Others were on the stage behind the man who is now dead.”

The police lieutenant moved close to the woman, pointed a brown finger at her. “It is true, is it not, that the one who is now dead was in love with you?”

“Yes!” she said quickly.

Ratan’s eyes were small. “And it is true, is it not, that you did not love him?”

Again she spoke swiftly, firmly. “Yes!”

The silence following her answer was broken by the murmur of voices in the corridor beyond the dressing room. A police-uniformed Filipino came into the room. He spoke rapidly to Hadi Ratan in Tagalog.

When he had finished Hadi Ratan hurried through the doorway. The woman turned wide dark eyes to the detective’s gray-green ones.

“I do not understand the language.”

“The police have found a knife,” said Jo Gar.

“A knife! Where?”

“In the ceiling of the corridor, princess, less than twenty feet from this door.”

The edge of a typhoon breeze was gustily slapping the city of Manila as Jo Gar and Hadi Ratan emerged from the Manila Hotel after escorting the princess to her room there.

The police lieutenant halted near his car, frowned at the detective. “Charming liar,” he said. “She will do well under guard until I verify my opinion.”

“And your opinion is?” Jo Gar asked.

Hadi Ratan shrugged. “Richard Janisohn was in love with her. He would not give her up. Hugh Black, she states, would not marry her because her family was superior to his. That, I think, is a lie. The Great Black would not marry her because he suspected Janisohn. She knew it, and she feared Janisohn. So― ”

A gust of typhoon wind rocked both men. Ratan smiled coldly at Jo Gar.

“You have been retained by her, but I do not conceal my thoughts from you. So— she struck Janisohn down with a perfectly thrown knife. Apparently, someone had attempted to murder The Great Black— that was what she wished the police to believe. But she had knowledge that Richard Janisohn was impersonating The Great Black.”

“What of her statement that she was in the dressing room with Hugh Black when Janisohn fell? And where is Black?”

Hadi Ratan’s voice was positive. “You have a fine reputation, Señor Gar. The princess”— sarcasm crept into the title— “is your client. But I think that after the princess threw the knife at the man she knew was impersonating The Great Black she went to Black’s dressing room. I think he had already departed.

“The doorman is an old Filipino by the name of Vincente Lapa. He thinks that The Great Black left the theater just before the pigeons were released— that is because of the applause he heard. The Great Black had left when Lapa heard it. That applause, you recall, was just before Janisohn fell. Almost immediately after that Madame Vlatchnoff threw her knife, unseen; reached the dressing room unseen. Her story that The Great Black was with her there is a lie.

“As for your second question: Where is The Great Black? What does a man do when he has quarreled with the woman he loves? Does he retire to his hotel room? Perhaps. Or perhaps he walks the city, visits drinking places. The police are searching for him, Señor Gar.”

“And when you find him?” Jo Gar asked.

Hadi Ratan raised palms to a flurry of warm rain. “You disagree with my theory, but you, too, have promised your client only that you will seek the murderer of the dead man. Perhaps, then, when we find this Hugh Black, he will not recall having been in the dressing room with Madame Vlatchnoff at the proper time to establish her alibi. Perhaps he will not recall it in time."

“Perhaps,” Jo Gar agreed. “Then there was the knife. Since you believe that Princess Vlatchnoff used it in killing a lover she wished to forget— how did it reach the ceiling near the dressing room?”

Hadi Ratan’s smile became grimmer. “Two men have come to me, Señor Gar. One was seated in the audience in the third row, another in the first. Each of them saw the knife after it had struck. When the assistants pulled the body behind the curtain, the knife remained in the neck.”

Jo Gar whistled. “And after that?”

“We found blood on the knife we withdrew from the corridor ceiling.”

Jo Gar nodded. “It is so. Yet The Great Black’s assistants who lifted Janisohn’s body must have seen the knife.”

Hadi Ratan’s voice was mocking. “It is so,” he replied. “Yet Madame Vlatchnoff is very beautiful, and it is not beyond possibility that they realized Janisohn was only a lover of hers— a past lover— and one who impersonated a great magician for a few minutes.”

Jo Gar whistled again. “And thus the knife was returned to the princess, fingerprints removed from the hilt. And it was she who skillfully tossed it against the corridor ceiling.”

“And why no, Señor Gar?”

Jo Gar smiled. “I can think of many reasons, lieutenant. But the rain and the wind are for younger men— men like yourself. I seek shelter. Adios”

Surprise was in Hadi Ratan’s eyes.

“Adios, Señor Gar!”

As Jo Gar closed the door of Ling Po’s shop, a bell tinkled.

The detective called, “The hour is late, and Jo Gar is regretful.”

Ling Po waddled toward Jo Gar, bowing many times. “The hour at which Señor Gar visits me— it is the best,” he stated. “You are wet, Señor.”

“It does not matter, Ling Po. Tonight I have not come to sip tea and hear wise words. I have come for help. I have been foolish tonight, Ling Pc. I have visited many shops. And hero in the shop of my good friend ”

His eyes went to a imall space on a low shelf holding many objects: dusty Buddhas; fans; strings of wooden beads.

After a few seconds he asked, “Today you sold something from the shelf?”

The wrinkles of Ling Po’s yellow skin formed a smile again. “It is as you say, Señor,” he said. “It was the small lacquer box of very fine workmanship. It brought a good price.”

“A lacquer box— and the purchaser did not bargain with you, Ling Po?”

The elderly Chinese looked at the detective with a puzzled expression. “He did not bargain, this one,” he stated.

“Some men can afford not to bargain,” said Jo Gar. His right hand buried itself in a pocket, withdrew an object, held it beneath Ling Po’s eyes. “This is the lacquer box for which the purchaser did not bargain, Ling Po?”

The eyes of the old Chinese widened.

He nodded. “It is the box,” he muttered. “I do not think that in all Manila there is another ” He stopped. “But Señor Gar, how is it that you―”

Jo Gar smiled and placed the box carefully on a counter. He said, “Please, Ling Po, do not touch the box. You see, there is still dust on a portion of it.”

The black eyes of the Chinese held an inscrutable expression. “Since you have not asked me, yet wish to know, Señor Gar— he was a tall one, the purchaser. His shoulders were broad, and he possessed great dignity. His hair was dark and rolling like the China Sea.”

Jo Gar smiled. “You perhaps recall the hour of the purchase, Ling Po?”

“It so happens that this one asked me the price of the clock of my ancestors,” said Ling Po. “My eyes went to it, and I recall the hour. Within twenty minutes the hour of eleven would strike.”

Jo Gar looked at the old clock, glanced at his wrist watch, raised his eyes to the old clock again.

“I told the tall one that the clock was not to be purchased. It has never failed by so much as a minute, Señor Gar. He bowed to me and went away.”

The detective nodded. “It is good not to sell things that have served a family well,” he said. “And was tonight the first time the purchaser of the lacquer box had come to your shop, Ling Po?”

The elderly Chinese shook his head. “Two mornings ago he visited me, Señor Gar. He did not buy, but he looked at many objects. He asked me then if my shop was open at night, and I answered that my shop was open most hours of the clock and that I slept little.”

Jo Gar nodded. “Yet you had been dozing tonight just before the purchaser of the lacquer box entered the shop?”

There was faint surprise in Ling Po’s black eyes as he nodded. “It is so. Tonight I was weary. But Señor Gar, how is it that you...” His voice trailed off.

“Tomorrow you shall know many things, Ling Po. But tonight ” Jo Gar lifted the lacquer box from the counter, moved across to the shelf. On the spot where the box had rested there was little dust. Jo Gar fitted the box at the proper angle on the shelf.

He said, “It is almost two. Long ago I should have been home in bed. Kalaa, my assistant, will be waiting up.” His gray-green eyes smiled. “The box rested there before you sold it to the tall one, Ling Po?”

Ling Po nodded. “For many months, Señor Gar. Then it is purchased, and within a few hours you return it.”

The detective removed the lacquer box from the shelf, placed it in a coat pocket. He bowed to Ling Po. “And I go now to return it to the owner, Ling Po. Tomorrow I shall visit you again.”

The elderly Chinese bowed low. “Good, Señor Gar, for in mystery there is often danger. I do not seek mystery as you do.”

“My profession requires that I seek it,” said Jo Gar. “It is so also with the profession of— magician.” He went from the shop, closing the door behind him.

The automobile Jo Gar hailed rattled along the Escolta, passing sleepy drivers of calesas. When it passed police headquarters the detective called sharply in Tagalog, “Stop! Wait for me here.”

Inside the building he went directly to the office of Lieutenant Hadi Ratan.

“You are still up, Señor Gar,” the lieutenant observed. “I advise you to return to your house and sleep.”

“You are pleased with yourself, lieutenant— and you offer me advice. May I ask why?”

“It is a pleasure to inform you, Señor Gar. The Great Black left my office only a few minutes ago. His statements did not in any way aid your client, Madame Vlatchnoff. On the contrary, his statements were damaging to her. And he did establish a perfect alibi for himself.”

Hadi Ratan was enjoying himself.

“We have established the exact time that Janisohn fell to the stage, the knife in his neck. It was eighteen minutes to eleven. At that hour the princess states that she was in the dressing room in Hugh Black’s arms. And yet, Señor Gar, The Great Black states that he left the theater before the applause intended for him and accepted by the dead man, and that at twenty minutes to eleven he was in a shop a half-mile away.”

“You have investigated his statement?” Jo Gar asked.

Hadi Ratan shrugged. “Later in the morning, when the shop will be open. But I do not doubt Hugh Black. He came to me of his own accord as soon as he heard of the murder. He tried at first to protect Madame Vlatchnoff. Then, under my questioning, he admitted that he believed she had thrown the knife, knowing Janisohn had taken his place.”

“And the reason for the murder?”

“Hugh Black had discovered that she had had an affair with Janisohn. She did not think he knew it. She no longer loved Janisohn and was afraid of him. Black believes it is possible Janisohn was attempting to blackmail her. So”— the police lieutenant shrugged— “she threw the knife, at which she has great skill.

“She lied about being with Hugh Black, thinking that she could reach him before we did, and that he would protect her. Or perhaps she did not think much about Black, believing she would never be suspected. In any case, she murdered Janisohn. I have phoned. She is being brought here now.”

Jo Gar glanced at his wrist watch. “How long has Hugh Black been gone from this office?” he asked.

Hadi Ratan said, “About five minutes.”

The detective nodded. “You told him you would investigate his statement that he had been in a certain shop at twenty minutes of eleven— after daylight?”

"Yes, Señor Gar.”

Jo Gar’s voice was soft. “This is the purchase Hugh Black made, lieutenant.” He held the lacquer box toward Hadi Ratan. “The shop was that of Ling Po, who deals in curios of the Orient,” Jo Gar went on. “I have talked to Ling Po, and he has said that a man answering the description of the magician purchased this box from him this evening at twenty minutes to eleven. He was aware of the time because the purchaser also questioned him about buying his ancestral clock.”

The detective paused. Hadi Ratan was regarding him with suspicion.

“How is it that you possess the box?”

Jo Gar smiled. “It was the only object in Hugh Black’s room at the Manila Hotel that had not been there before he left for the theater in the evening.”

Hadi Ratan frowned. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“When I accompanied my client and you to the hotel, you recall we went to Hugh Black’s room. You talked with the manager outside. The Princess Vlatchnoff informed me that she had left for the theater with Hugh Black and that the box had not been on the table near the window when they departed.”

Hadi Ratan continued to frown. “So you took it and traced it to Ling Po’s shop. Clever work, Señor Gar!” He laughed nastily. “And all you learned was that Hugh Black was not at the theater at the moment of the crime. In fact, he was merely purchasing the box he placed in his room before we arrived there.”

Jo Gar said, “It so happens that I learned more than that.” He glanced at his wrist watch again. “Before dawn,” he added, “I can turn over to you the murderer of Janisohn.”

“The murderess is now under careful guard,” Ratan told him.

Jo Gar shook his head. “The princess did not murder Janisohn. My reputation is not a small one in the Islands. Will you come with me, lieutenant?”

“Where do we go?” asked Hadi Ratan.

“To the shop of Ling Po.”

The Street of the Three Candles was little more than a narrow, curving alley, the entrance to which was almost directly opposite Ling Po’s store. Standing in the darkness of the alley, Hadi Ratan whispered impatiently, “We have been here more than thirty minutes, Señor Gar. I am tired. I shall stay with you only ten minutes ”

Jo Gar’s fingers gripped Ratan’s wrist in a signal for silence. There had been no sound of footfalls along the street, but now a bent figure came into sight. It paused before the entrance to Ling Po’s store. Shadow moved within shadow, and there was the sound of a door closing.

Jo Gar motioned Hadi Ratan to follow him and hurried across the street. In the doorway of the shop the detective’s left hand moved to a hip pocket as his right turned the knob of the door. His automatic shifted to his right hand as he entered the store.

Above the counter a light wavered, left the face of Ling Po’s ancestral clock. Even as it swung away, Jo Gar saw that the glass covering the clock’s face had been hinged to one side.

The beam from the light struck across Jo Gar’s face. Then the beam was gone.

Jo Gar said sharply, “Please stand still.”

There was a clicking sound— the beam of Hadi Ratan’s flashlight shifted high, dropped. Hadi Ratan swore.

The white light shone full on the face of Hugh Black.

Ling Po called sleepily from the rear of the shop, “What is it that happens?”

Jo Gar said grimly, “Remain quiet, Mr. Black. I have in my hand a weapon that is swifter than a knife.”

In the flare of the beam Hugh Black’s lips were twitching.

Jo Gar called, “Ling Po, it is Señor Gar. Quickly— make a light for us!”

There was silence for several seconds, and then Ling Po pattered into the room. A switch snapped; light from two bulbs whitened the interior.

Jo Gar raised his automatic, walked toward the magician. As he moved he said slowly, “This, Lieutenant Ratan, is the murderer of Janisohn!”

“You lie!” Hugh Black cried fiercely.

Jo Gar halted near the counter. “I do not lie,” he said. “The Princess Vlatchnoff loves you more than you love her, Mr. Black. She tried to protect you, even while defending herself. That is why she said you were with her in her dressing room— when Janisohn collapsed on the stage. But you were not with her.”

The Great Black stood motionless.

“You murdered Richard Janisohn,” the detective went on, “because you discovered he had had an affair with Princess Vlatchnoff. And I think you had come to hate the princess, Mr. Black. Knowing that she would be suspected, being skilled at throwing a knife ”

“You lie!” Hugh Black’s voice was hoarse. “I was not in the theater when Janisohn was murdered. I could not throw a knife if I―”

Jo Gar smiled. “You did not throw a knife, Mr. Black. You struck with it.”

“You fool!” The Great Black’s words held a smothered fury. “They have told me that he fell in full view of the audience— as he was bowing.”

Jo Gar said, “He did not fall in full view of the audience, Mr. Black. It was you who fell! It was you who with your magician’s skill produced a knife, clutched at it and the back of your neck as you sprawled to the stage!”

“Madre de Dios!” Hadi Ratan’s voice was a whisper.

Jo Gar said, “Your two assistants carried your body to one of the illusion cabinets. Janisohn hurried to you, not knowing what had happened. The assist- ants had left you. It was then that you pulled Janisohn down, Mr. Black. It was then that you knifed him!”

The ancestral clock ticked against the heavy breathing of Hugh Black and Hadi Ratan. Ling Po made no sound.

Jo Gar said almost tonelessly, “I did not believe the Princess Vlatchnoff’s story that you were with her in the dressing room. The stage-door attendant was not positive of the time he had seen you leave. There was blood on the cabinet base— stains that even the careful Lieutenant Ratan did not see.

“I was not positive that Janisohn had taken the applause for you this evening, Mr. Black. The knife found in the corridor ceiling was a trick to confuse. The princess, having murdered, would not have thrown it there. I think one of your assistants placed it there.

“And then there was the matter of the lacquer box, Mr. Black.” He watched The Great Black’s eyes widen, as fear came into them. “It puzzled me. The box was not in your room when you left with the princess for the theater. Yet it was there after Janisohn’s murder. There was still some dust clinging to the box. It had been handled carefully. I thought perhaps you considered the box— important. I was not wrong. I traced the box to this shop.”

The Great Black managed a twisted smile. “You are a fool,” he breathed. “I have been told that Janisohn fell to the stage at exactly eighteen minutes to eleven. I was just leaving this shop at twenty minutes to eleven.”

Ling Po said slowly, “It is as this one says, Señor Gar. It is so.”

Jo Gar spoke calmly. “Why did you come here this morning, Mr. Black? You broke into the shop of Ling Po. Why?”

The Great Black laughed. “I wanted to see if I was clever enough to manage an entrance. I wanted ―

Jo Gar lifted his gun arm. “Knowing Janisohn was murdered, you tell us you wished to test your skill? Play a game?”

The Great Black’s eyes were on the detective’s weapon.

Jo Gar went on, “We waited for you. Mr. Black. I knew that you would come here tonight. You came to Ling Po’s shop once before you purchased the lacquer box. You looked around carefully.

“This evening you returned. Ling Po had been dozing. You were in the store when he greeted you. You purchased a lacquer box— and because the box was important to you, it was taken to your room. That was a mistake. You should have kept the box with you.

“You were afraid that the Princess Vlatchnoff might accuse you of the murder of Janisohn, so you sought to establish an alibi, Mr. Black. You saw to it that Ling Po noticed that you departed from his shop at twenty minutes of eleven, but you did not depart at twenty minutes of eleven. For while Ling Po was dozing, you had set back the large hand of the clock fifteen minutes! It was actually five minutes to eleven when you left this shop— and you had already murdered Janisohn.”

There was silence in the room. The Great Black was swaying.

Jo Gar spoke gently. “I waited for you because I had noticed that the clock was fifteen minutes slow. I knew you would return. It must be set ahead again. It must be an accurate clock.”

There was no color in Hugh Black’s face. “The damned— box! I might have― ”

Jo Gar turned to Hadi Ratan. “He is your prisoner, Lieutenant Ratan.”

As Hadi Ratan moved toward the magician, Jo Gar watched The Great Black’s eyes. He could not read the expression in them. A confession to come? A defense? Suicide, perhaps, in a small cell? The detective suddenly felt tired.

Ling Po spoke. “Even at this dark hour, Señor Gar, there is the solace of tea.”

Jo Gar nodded and, without looking at The Great Black or Hadi Ratan, went slowly toward the rear of the shop.

____________________

5: The Longest Side

George Allan England

1877–1936

People’s Favorite Magazine November 10, 1921

“NOW SEE HERE, BOGAN,” said Cozzens, when his touring car had struck into the long, smooth, beach boulevard. “You’re my confidential right-hand man, and I can talk plainer, perhaps, than I ever have before.”

“You can,” answered Bogan— “Best-policy” Bogan, by nickname. “Must be somethin’ mighty important, or you wouldn’t be drivin’ yourself, an’ you wouldn’t of took me out, this way.”

“It is important,” admitted the politician. “And in an important deal, there’s no place like an auto. No keyholes for people to listen at in an auto. No chance for dictaphones. Give me an auto for absolute privacy, every time.”

“Correct. What’s on your mind?”

“You’ve got to find me a ‘fall guy’ for that Wheat Exchange Bank forgery and the Hinman murder that grew out of it. A good, high-class fall guy. No roughnecks.”

“What’s the idea?”

“I might as well speak right out in meeting. I’ve got to have my daughter Nadine marry Coolidge Brant.”

“Assistant district attorney, you mean?”

“Yes,” assented Cozzens. “The way things are shaping now, I’ve just got to have a string on that young man. He’s directly in line for the district attorney-ship, inside of two or three years, and I want—”

“I see,” smiled Bogan. “Honesty’s the best policy, all right. It’s a case of rip things wide open, after that, an’ get away with it clean, eh?”

“You put it rather crudely.”

“Facts is facts. I get you, the first time. An’ the daughter’s balkin’?”

“I’m afraid she is, a little. She and Brant have been going round together for over a year, but he hasn’t made good. That is, not enough to suit her. She’s got ideas about efficiency, like lots of girls these days. She won’t have him till he’s shown some real pep. The press is slamming him, some. So—”

“I’m wise. If he can land somebody right, for those stunts—”

“What I like about you, Bogan,” said the politician, “is the way you grab an idea. Well, now, can you work the law of supply and demand for me again? You’ve done it before. Can you do it once more, and do it strong?”

“Sure! How much is it worth to a man that’ll stand for the pinch an’ go through?”

“That depends,” judged Cozzens, opening the throttle a notch. His big blue car hit a livelier pace down the summer-sunlit boulevard. “Naturally I’m not looking to throw money away. I want you to put this through as cheap as you can.”

“Bargain rates won’t get a guy to stand a roar for scratch work, knockin’ a bank cashier cold, an’ bumpin’ off a business man. Them’s tall, man-size charges to go against.”

“I know it, Bogan. But, of course, he won’t be running any real risk of anything but a few years in the pen.”

“You mean the frame will be fixed so he’ll be acquitted on the murder charge, an’ will only do time for the forgery an’ assault?”

“Yes, and not much time, at that. Four or five years, and then a quiet little pardon, you know. That’s at the outside. Maybe he won’t draw more than four or five in all. Get me?”

Bogan remained silent, his thin jaws firmly set. He looked out over the bench, the surf, the careless holiday crowd, past which the car was flicking with a burrrrr of knobby tires.

“Well?” demanded the politician, “Can you fix it right?”

“Sure. If you’ll guarantee the acquittal.”

“Oh, that’ll be O. K.”

“Yes, but they never stick a guy with a small charge when there’s a big one on him. F’rinstance, if a man’s robbin’ a hen house, an’ croaks a farmer while he’s doin’ it, you never hear nothin’ o’ the petty larceny.”

“I can fix that, all right. Got to, to square the bank. They’re sorer than boiled pups, and ready to knife Brant. I’ll have him docket it as two separate cases. After the fall guy’s cleared of the murder charge, he’ll be rearrested on the others and put through.”

“I don’t see what good that’ll do,” objected Bogan. “That wouldn’t be such a devil of a big feather in Brant’s Panama.”

“It’ll be enough. I’ll see that the papers play it up right. Nadine will fall for it strong. She likes Brant, all O.K. It’s only that he hasn’t done anything much yet. You get the fall guy, Bogan, and I’ll attend to my end of it. Well, what say?”

“When do you want him?”

“Right now. And when it comes to cash—”

“I’m on!” smiled Bogan. “I know just the fella.”

“Where is he? In town, here?”

“No. New York. An’ he’s some smooth worker, too, I tell you. Show him the coin, an’ he’ll go the limit.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Cozzens decisively. “Now well get back to the office and fix you up with expense money to take the night boat down.” And Cozzens stepped on the accelerator. “Let’s get to it.”

“Right!” agreed Bogan. “We’ll do this honest an’ square. That’s always the best policy. Let’s go!”

ii

ALBERT VESTINE, Scandinavian by birth, and by profession racetrack follower, gambler, and man of various activities— all of them dubious— was wary as a partridge when Bogan called upon him by appointment. Vestine had traveled in too many cities, States, and lands, spoke too many languages, was too clever with his pen and brain, to mistake the type that Bogan represented. Besides, he knew the man personally, which made him all the more cautious.

He received Bogan in his little apartment on Lyon Avenue, the Bronx, and after a few commonplaces such as old-time acquaintances might exchange, asked him his business.

Bogan looked him over before replying. In his own way, Bogan was just as keen as this cosmopolitan with the high-domed forehead, the tendency toward baldness, the thin cheeks of unnatural pallor. As Bogan appraised him, from gray and conscienceless eyes to slim, dexterous fingers, he realized this was, indeed, the kind of man Cozzens needed.

The price Bogan knew would be high. Vestine was no “greasy-coat stiff,” to be bought for a song. On the contrary, as Bogan observed his correct linen and cravat, his fine blue suit with the almost invisible vertical stripe, his custom-made shoes, he understood that here was just what the politician had meant when he had demanded: “A good, high-class fall guy. No roughnecks.”

He thought, furthermore:

“If I can work this right, there’s promotion in it for me, and maybe a little rake-off on the side. I’ll play it for a wad o’ good, honest graft. Honesty’s the best policy, all right.”

“Well, Mr. Bogan,” inquired Vestine, “what can I do for you?”

“You know me, Al,” Bogan replied. “When I say I got a good thing, I got one.”

“Yes?”

“An’ now, I got a bundle o’ kale for you.”

“That sounds interesting,” smiled the Dane. “Sit down, and tell me all about it.” He gestured toward a chair. “How much, why, when, where, and what?”

Bogan sat down, lighted a cigar to give himself countenance— which is one of the principal uses of cigars in this world— and opened up:

“You know the burg I hail from, don’t you?”

“Somewhat. I’ve done a little business there, off and on.”

“Well, supposin’ some big guy there had to marry his daughter to an assistant district attorney, an’ she wouldn’t fall for him till he’d pulled some stunt to give him a rep, what would you advise?”

“I’d advise having the stunt pulled, by all means,” answered Vestine, likewise sitting down. His eyes were watchful, in his pale, intellectual face.

“Correct,” approved Bogan. “We’ve got to get a fall guy.”

“I see. Well?”

“There’s hefty coin in the job, an’ nothin’ more’n about four years— easy years— in the pen.”

“What’s the case?”

“Some guy forges the name of John C. Wycoff to a check on the Wheat Exchange National, for seven hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty cents, about three months ago. He’s an A-1 scratch man, an’ the name looks right. He gets a gents’ furnisher named Markwood Hinman to cash it. Hinman’s found two days later, croaked, in a hallway on Oregon Avenue. The bull’s dope it that Hinman got wise to the scratch work, an’ went to see the guy to get him to make good, or somethin’, an’ the guy bumped him off to keep him from tippin’ over the bean pot. That’s all old stuff.”

“Yes, I remember reading something about it in the papers,” agreed Vestine. “The forger cracked Hinman’s skull with brass knuckles, didn’t he? Back of the left ear?”

“That’s the case! Well—”

“What then?”

“The check’s in the bank, see? The murder jazzes the bank up, investigatin’, an’ they get wise the check’s a phony. Henry Kitching, the cashier, takes it an’ heads for the district attorney’s office to raise a roar an’ start things. He gets out of his auto on Kent Street an’ goes in through the rear alley entrance to the courthouse. He’s found slugged there, five minutes later, an’ the check’s gone. Brass knucks, again.”

“Clever!” smiled Vestine. “I suppose the criminal trailed him, and gave him what I believe is called the K. O., from behind.”

“Yes, that’s the way it looks from here. An’ that’s how the story’d be put over. But nobody was ever sloughed in for none of it.”

“I see. You mean, then, you’re looking for a scapegoat in the wilderness?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, a fall guy.”

“Oh, sure. Goat, yes— I get you. I see you’re wise. Well, then—”

“And this hypothetical goat would have to stand for all the charges, so as to establish the assistant district attorney’s reputation for brilliancy?”

“Yes, but the murder charge won’t stick, no more’n a red-hot flapjack to a greased griddle.”

“How can you guarantee that?” insisted the Dane.

“Cinch!” And Bogan, his eyes kindling with enthusiasm, pulled at his cigar. Vestine, by the way, never smoked, nor did he drink. Both things, he knew, worked on the nerves.

“Please explain?”

“Why, it’s this way,” Bogan expounded. “We’ll fix the story right, an’ copper-rivet it, so it can’t do more’n establish a strong suspicion. An’ it’s all circumstantial evidence, too. Nobody seen the guy croak Hinman or sneak up on Kitching. That’s one point. Another is, we’ll have a hand-picked jury. There’ll be at least two on that’ll stick for acquittal till New York approves of Volstead. So that’ll be a disagreement, an’ the fall guy gets away with the murder charge, all right. I’ve been into this thing pretty deep with Cozwith— the man I’m workin’ for, an’ he’ll go through with his end of it.”

“Stop beating round the bush, Bogan, I know Cozzens about as well as you do, and I know you’re asking me, for him, to take this job, I know, too, he’ll go through, if I do take it. I’ve got enough information about him to kill him politically if he tries to renege. You can’t double cross, either, or I’d have both of you on a charge of conspiracy to do an illegal act. There are three of us in on this. It’s a triangle, understand? All go through, or all collapse! I hope I make myself quite clear?”

“Oh, I get you, all right,” answered Bogan, shifting uneasily in his chair. “We’ll play this frame-up honest. That’s the best policy, every time. All you’ll have to go up for will be forgery an’ assault.”

“H’mmmm! That’s enough, I should say,” judged the Dane. He pensively brushed a tiny thread from his sleeve with manicured fingers. “How long a sentence—”

“Four years is the limit. Good conduct would cut that down a few months, too. An’ you gotta remember this, too— nix on the hard-labor stuff. You got brains, you see, an’—”

“Thank you.”

“An’ it’ll only be a job teachin’ arithmetic, or writin’ or French an’ them guinea languages, in the pen school. See?”

“Nice, pleasant little program you’ve got all mapped out for me, isn’t it?” queried Vestine.

“Sure it is! You can figure you’re workin’ on salary. So much time, so much coin. Ain’t much worse’n bein’ a college professor, at that, an’ you’ll pull down a hell of a lot more coin. We’ll have you happy, an’ Cozzens happy, an’ his daughter, an’ Brant, too— he’ll think he dug up the case, himself— an’—”

“Regular little love feast, all round, eh?” commented the gambler. “I shall consider myself quite a philanthropist— if I take the job.”

“Sure you’ll take it!” urged Bogan, with increasing eagerness. This man’s quick intelligence and grasp of the situation far exceeded his hopes. Why, things were surely coming very much his way. “You gotta! Think o’ the good you’ll do! An’ ain’t it always the best policy to be honest an’ do good? You’ll square the bank, land a rich wife for Brant, put Cozzens where he can rip things wide open, an’—”

“How about the man that really did the forgery, killed Hinman, and assaulted Kitching?” put in the Dane. “I suppose he’ll be happy, too? After I’m tried and acquitted for the killing he’ll be safe. And all the time I’m behind bars—”

“Oh, forget him! Just think what you’ll be gettin’ out of it!”

“I am thinking of that, every minute, you can rest assured. And I may as well tell you right now, I’m a high-priced man.”

“That’s the kind we’re after. No cheap stiff, but a ketch that’ll really burn some red fire in Brant’s front yard! Fine!”

“You realize, of course, it’s no joke to be what they call ‘mugged,’ and finger-printed, and sell four years of my life, and—”

“’Twon’t be four. Not over—”

“And then, after it’s all over, have to clear out—”

“You’ve cleared out before now, Vestine, or whatever your name is,” asserted Bogan. “Don’t play none o’ that injured-feelings stuff on me! You got a dozen aliases, an’ you’re as much at home in China as you are on Broadway. So we’ll tie the can to all that ‘no-joke’ stuff, an’ get down to tacks. Will you take the frame?”

“I might, if you pay me my figure.”

“Name it!” said Bogan, hands tightening on knees.

iii

“FIFTY THOUSAND dollars, spot cash.”

“Oh, hell, no!” Bogan vociferated. “That’s ridic’lous!”

“All right, then. I didn’t ask for the job. You can probably go down on the Bowery and pick up a dozen men that’ll do it for a thousand. Don’t let me detain you.”

“But see here, Vestine—”

“Of course, the fact that after Cozzens gets next to the throne he can clean up a million or two— of course that has no bearing on the case at all. Naturally, such being the prospect, you stick at fifty thousand. That’s quite characteristic of men of your stamp. Well, good evening, Mr. Bogan. Don’t slam the door as you go out.”

“I might go twenty ‘thou,’ you bein’ such a big ketch.”

“Rubles, you mean? Bolshevik money?”

“Twenty thousand good hard seeds!”

“Forty,” answered the gambler. “That’s my rock-bottom.”

“Nothin’ doin’!” declared Bogan. “Be reasonable, can’t you? Make it twenty-five, an’ say no more?”

“Twenty-five?” smiled Vestine. “See here, now. I know Cozzens, all right. He’s a good sport and likes a fair gamble almost as much as I do myself. I’ve got a proposition according to his own heart.”

“What’s that?” demanded Bogan leaning forward.

“Doubles or quits.”

“How d’you mean?”

“Double that twenty-five thousand, or not a sou. Fifty thousand or nothing. We’ll stick the book for it.”

“Gawd!” cried Bogan, and for a moment remained pondering. Into his thin-lidded eyes crept a gleam of craft, exceeding evil. Then he shot back the answer decisive:

“I’ll go you!” Much agitated, he stood up.

Calmly, as though about to pitch pennies, instead of gamble for infamy and nearly four years of his life, Vestine reached for a book on the table— The Arrow of Gold, for in his literary tastes the Dane was unimpeachable. He laid the book in front of Bogan and handed him a sharp steel paper cutter.

“One stick, each,” said he. “Right-hand page, and high last number wins. After you, my clear Alphonse.”

Bogan’s hand trembled as he made the first cut.

“Two hundred and fifty-one,” he spat, with a curse. “I’m done!”

“Never say die,” laughed Vestine. He took the knife and thrust it deep between the leaves.

“Ninety-one,” he announced, without a quiver. He seemed but mildly interested. “Two ones. That’s an even break. Come again, Bogan. Here.” And he handed back the knife.

“One forty-seven,” said Bogan, with an unsteady laugh. “That’s a seven-to-ten shot I’ve got you, or tied. Looks like you’re done!”

“If I am, I’ll go through just the same,” answered the Dane, unmoved. “This is a trifle to some games I’ve gone against, and I’ve never welshed yet.”

Again he knifed the book. Without the quiver of an eye he flung back the page.

“Eighty-nine,” he approved. “That’s good. At four years and some months that makes a safe income of about twelve thousand dollars a year. A thousand a month for conducting some little classes in congenial studies— not too bad. And when am I to arrive in your illustrious city, for what you call the pinch?”

Bogan’s lips were trembling so that he could hardly answer: “You stay right here, see? That’s half the game, lettin’ Brant nail you in New York. About ten days from now there’ll—”

“And when do I get the excellent and desirable fifty thousand?”

“Oh— let’s see— damn it all! Cozzens will raise—”

“That’s immaterial to me, my dear Bogan, so long as he raises the fifty— in legal tender, you understand. When is it to be?”

“It’s Wednesday, today, ain’t it? I’ll be back with the stuff Saturday, sure.”

“That’s perfectly all right for me. Well, then, there’s no more to be said. Must you be going so soon?”

“I— I— yes. I better be gettin’ along.”

“Good night, then. See you Saturday.”

“Good night,” said Bogan, and departed.

On the stairway he kicked himself, groaning.

“What a damn fool I was not to take him up at forty! Why, Cozzens was countin’ on fifty, anyhow. I could of knocked down ten for myself, easy as pie. If I hadn’t tried to grab the whole fifty— My Gawd, when will I learn that honesty’s the best policy, after all?”

iv

THE WEDDING was one of the most brilliant ever held at St. Simon Stylites Church. Brilliant, too, was the future of Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge Brant held to be. He, as the only son-in-law of so prominent a politician as old Dexter Cozzens; she, as the wife of a man destined in short order to erase the word “assistant” from his present title, received innumerable felicitations.

The papers gave the ceremony brilliant write-ups, and mentioned the brilliancy with which young Brant had run down— from very slight clews— the forger responsible for the death of Markwood Hinman, for the assault on Henry Kitching, and for the theft of the forged check in Kitching’s pocket.

The trial, everybody remembered, had been brilliant. Only for the unfortunate “hanging” of the jury, on account of circumstantial evidence, brilliant justice would have been done. The criminal, however— a Norwegian named Aalborg, and rather a brilliant fellow— had got four years. So everybody agreed it had all been very brilliant, especially as the criminal would have remained quite undetected had it not been for young Brant’s exceptional legal ability. The general brilliancy made everybody happy, and the papers all predicted a crushing campaign against the crime wave, a cleanup of municipal politics, and all sorts of lovely and desirable reforms.

Not the least brilliant of all developments from the case were those that before very long began to smile down on the stanch old war horse and reformer, Dexter Cozzens. His fortunes soon began to prosper, rapidly though quietly. For brilliancy of this kind is usually kept hidden under bushels— nay, even under pecks. And this, of course, is all as it should be.

Another brilliant feature of the affair, likewise unknown to the public, was the kind of instruction given at the pen by Aalborg, now known only as No. 45327. He undertook to teach the tough idea not, indeed, to shoot, but to explore mathematics, penmanship, and foreign languages. His services were recognized as exceptionally brilliant. They were willing, too. No. 45327 was never “stood out,” got all kinds of good-conduct marks, became popular with everybody from the warden down— or up, as you choose— and seemed to enjoy his work almost as if he were getting paid a thousand dollars a month for it. So brilliant a teacher he became, and so model a prisoner, that before long special privileges were extended to him; and, though confined, his punishment hung not too onerously upon his gray-clad shoulders.

Thus everything turned out most brilliantly for all hands, save for Best-policy Bogan. He, strangely enough, took scant joy of anything connected with the matter. For some reason unknown, he seemed to be cherishing a secret sorrow. But as his opinion, one way or the other, was not of the slightest importance, nobody cared.

Thus time passed, Cozzens waxed fat, Brant became powerful. Aalborg was forgotten by the world; and presently three years and seven months were gone. Then the prison gates swung open for him and he walked out— a man who had well served his purpose, a free man, with his debt to society all paid.

Society, having long since dismissed him from its mind, gave him no slightest heed. What is deader than dead news?

Another question: Does all this mean our story is completely done? Not in the least, as we shall very presently see.

v

HALF A YEAR after Aalborg’s release, Aalborg himself sent in his card to District Attorney Coolidge Brant. The card read: “John Carl Enemark.” The visitor requested only a few words in private. Brant, expansive with prosperity and power, bade the clerk usher Mr. Enemark into the private office.

“Mr. Brant,” said the visitor, laying his hat and gloves on the glass-topped desk, “I did you a great favor, just a little more than five years ago. Your conviction of me was the first case that brought you prominently into the public eye. I am not overstating the facts when I say you are now district attorney because of that case. Do you remember me?”

“Perfectly,” answered Brant, which was quite true. Vestine, Aalborg, Enemark— whatever you choose to call him— had not changed appreciably. He had grown a little higher in the forehead, perhaps, where the hair had faded; had taken on a few pounds of flesh, and showed a fresher color, that was all. His clothes still were of the quiet blue with the faint vertical stripe, that he always wore. He looked content and well-to-do. Prosperity seemed to have knocked at his door and found that door open.

“Are you amicably disposed toward me, Mr. Brant?” asked Vestine, for so we shall name him.

“Sit down, please,” invited the district attorney with a smile.

Vestine sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and waited.

“Well?” asked Brant.

“I still have a question before you, Mr. Brant. Are you amicable?”

“Perfectly. To be frank with you, Mr.— er— Enemark, I’m sorry I couldn’t send you to the chair. I did my best to, and failed. That’s all part of the fortunes of war, and I hold no ill will. So long as you go straight, and break no laws, I bear no animus.”

“Neither do I against you. I am planning to go back to Denmark in about a month. ‘My native country, thee,’ and all that sort of thing. Before I start, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“What is it?”

“I want to get married.”

Brant smiled and drummed his fingers on the desk.

“That’s very laudable,” he answered. “Marriage is often an excellent asset to a man’s success and honesty.”

“Quite so. Have I your permission to marry the young lady of my choice, under honorable conditions?”

“Certainly! Why ask me?”

“There’s a very special reason, Mr. Brant.”

“Which is—”

“She happens, at present, to be under indictment for forgery in this city, and out on bail. This forgery she committed without my knowledge or consent, in a kind of moment of inadvertence, so to speak. Her bail is two thousand dollars. I’m her bondsman— indirectly. Well?”

“Well?”

“I want the indictment quashed and the bail bond returned. She could jump bail, easily enough, and I could afford to lose two thousand dollars without serious inconvenience. But that doesn’t suit my purpose. First, because two thousand dollars is really money; and second because forgery’s an extraditable offense, and I don’t intend to have my wife a fugitive from justice. Therefore, I’m asking you to do me this favor.”

“Well, you are a cool one, I must say!” exclaimed the district attorney.

“Very true. Will you arrange the matter for me?”

“I like your nerve!”

“I’m glad of that, Mr. Brant. It’s helped you before now. Please make a note of my fiancée’s case. It’s docketed as No. 327, for the spring term. And—”

“Why, this is preposterous!” cried Brant, reaching for the push button. “Good day, sir!”

“Wait,” smiled Vestine, gently pushing back the other’s hand. “Suppose you refuse me, what then?”

“Why— why—”

“Imagine the disastrous effect on you, if the facts of my trial and conviction— the inside facts— should come out.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean,” answered Vestine, with not a trace of emotion, “that if you refuse me what I ask, I shall positively have to tell you the truth about yourself.”

“What truth?”

“Truth that you won’t want the opposition newspapers to get hold of. Will you quash the indictment?”

“Certainly not!”

Vestine sighed, as if with regret for Brant’s obstinacy.

“Too bad,” said he. “You force me to disclose facts that might so easily have remained hidden. Facts that will forever destroy your peace of mind and your confidence in— well, in certain persons you might prefer to trust. Before I tell you, I ask again whether you will do what—”

“Why, this is insanity! I should say not!”

“It can all be done very quietly. ‘No bill’ is a formula covering a multitude of errors. And I am prepared to make restitution on the check forged by the young lady. Then away we go, back to Denmark, and all is merry as the traditional marriage bell. What do you say, Mr. Brant?”

“I say this interview is ended! And do you realize you’re trying to intimidate me, to suborn justice? Do you know what the consequences of that may be to you?”

“My dear Mr. Brant, pray listen to reason,” persisted Vestine. “I assisted you in your marital program, and brought happiness to your wife and you. Now I am asking a little reciprocation, that’s all. In the name of your excellent wife, I beg you will allow another woman to become mine, free and clear.”

“See here, Enemark, or whoever you are,” rapped out the district attorney, “we’re not going to discuss this any further. My wife’s name isn’t going to be dragged into any matter by a man who—”

“Sh!” smiled the Dane imperturbably. “My good young man, I see you are one of those unfortunate beings who can’t be led, but must be driven. Well, then, on your own head be it. The fact is—”

“I don’t want to hear your ‘facts!’ I’ve heard enough, had enough of you. I advise you to go, now, before—”

“The fact is, Mr. Brant, in that famous case of yours I was what your American slang so picturesquely calls ‘the fall guy,’ that made the corner stone of your success, I was bought and paid for in the market— bought and paid for, like a herring, by your esteemed father-in-law. And the price paid for me was just exactly—”

vi

“THAT’S a damned lie!” cried Brant passionately, starting up.

“The price paid for me was just exactly fifty thousand dollars which I at once very securely invented in Danish securities,” Vestine calmly finished. He, too, stood up. “With accrued interest, and the rates of exchange as they now are, I am comfortably well off ‘in my ain countree.’ I have exchanged a life of chance and insecurity for one of respectability and competence. I no longer need continue any activities that might bring me into conflict with the law.”

“You— you—” choked the district attorney, but could articulate nothing.

“I have purchased a controlling interest in a reform newspaper at Aarhus, Denmark,” smiled Vestine. “My wife-to-be, whom you will release, will help me do uplift work— quite like yours, that is perfectly safe and pays fine dividends, as Mr. Cozzens, the Honorable Mr. Cozzens, well knows. As your humble servant and fall guy, I ask you the one favor in question.”

“Fall guy, nothing! It’s a damned lie!” Brant had grown quite livid with agitation. His hands twitched.

“Please phone the Honorable Cozzens,” requested Vestine. “Ask him to come to this office for a few minutes. And tell him to bring Best-policy Bogan with him. Say Mr. Vestine is here, spilling immense numbers of appalling beans. Go on, Mr. Brant, call your father-in-law, who ‘framed’ you to success.”

Brant gasped, paled, reached for the phone, but did not take it up. Suddenly he sat down, with an oath.

“It’s— it’s all a—”

“Of course,” laughed Vestine. “All a fairy story of mine. Hans Christian Andersen, my esteemed compatriot, isn’t in it with me as a raconteur, is he? By no means! For that reason I am so intimately acquainted with the way the first clue was fed you; with all the details leading up to the arrest; with a score of other factors in the case, as I’ll prove directly. For that reason I am—”

“Hold on!” choked Brant. “What number did you say that case was?” His eyes looked hunted. “That case you— the case of that woman?”

“My fiancée, you mean?”

“Yes, your fiancée.”’

“Ah, that’s better. It is No. 327, on the spring list. I see your memory needs refreshing. I can refresh it to any extent you may need. And you’ll attend to the matter at once?” Brant nodded.

“I’ve had enough of you,” said he hoarsely. “Get out! I wish you were both in hell!”

“On the contrary, we’re leaving it for good. Well, I’ll expect you to take action inside of twenty-four hours. That will square everything. I squared the bank, squared your highly necessitous legal record, squared myself with fifty thousand dollars of your esteemed father-in-law’s money— which really bought you your present success as well as my own— and squared your father-in-law.”

Vestine smiled at Brant, who, disarmed before him, stood there speechless and staring.

“Just one more thing before I go,” said the Dane. “This case represents a very pretty mathematical problem. It is known as the Theorem of Pythagoras. Mr. Cozzens and you and I form a triangle. Perhaps I may state it better by saying we three are the three sides of a right triangle. I insist on being the hypotenuse, or longest side. I’m the hypotenuse, because the square of the hypotenuse equals the squares of the other two sides, added. And I’m going to be squared, now. I’m going square. Hope you and the Honorable Cozzens are, too.”

Speaking, he drew from his pocket a slip of paper, a blue check, and looked at it; and as he looked, he nodded.

“No more prison for mine, thank you,” said he. “Under your law, a man can’t be twice put in jeopardy of his life or liberty for the same crime. Even though guilty, if he’s tried and acquitted, that lets him out. So I’m safe now. Therefore, I don’t mind telling you—”

“What?”

“See this check?”

“What is it?”

“It’s the one that Markwood Hinman cashed. The one that was taken from Henry Kitching, after he had been knocked cold in the alley.”

“The forged check that— that disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“But how did you—”

“Listen, my dear young man,” answered the Dane. “What I got for being the fall guy, and agreeing to be tried by you before a fixed jury— facts that your father-in-law will verify— was a good deal more than fifty thousand dollars. I got—”

“What else? What more?”

“Perpetual immunity. Now you know. But you will never dare tell the world. That would ruin you. But now you understand.”

He struck a match, lighted the check, and held it till it flared. He dropped the ashes into the wastebasket, picked up his hat and gloves, and turned toward the door.

“Here, wait a minute!” gulped Brant “What— what’s the idea? Where did you get that check— and what do you mean by immunity, if— if you aren’t the man that— that killed—”

“Ah, but I am, you see,” smiled Vestine impassively. “Good-by!”

_____________________

6: Come Back to Aaron

C. S.Montanye

Top Notch, December 1937

FOR more time than Oscar Doolittle, one of the bell hops at the gilded Hotel Ritzbilt, cared to think about, tips had been as scarce as prickly heat in the arctic circle. And the worst part of it was that Doolittle, running Eddie Elton ragged for favor in the blue eyes of Hazel, the orange-topped switchboard Venus, needed ten dollars just the same way a race horse needed a track, a plumber a leaky pipe, a bootlegger a dark night, and a tardy schoolboy a good excuse.

Thinking it over in leisure moments, Doolittle decided that nine dollars or even eight might possibly suffice. The tragedy of it was there was little chance of getting as much as one tenth of one per cent of the required amount from either Nick McBride, the dapper night clerk, or any of his companions in livery. The whole works awaited pay day and appeared as clean as a package of laundry.

Still, there were a few grains of sunshine in the dark morass of disappointment. The ten iron gentlemen were necessary if Hazel was to be taken to the annual outing of the Hotel Workers’ Association. They would cover the price of the tickets to Treasure Island on the Sound— they would buy innumerable broiled canines smeared with what the French call moutard and they would cover the bus ride to and from the rendezvous.

Likewise, with what change left Doolittle decided he could purchase a sprig of violets for Hazel or a box of candy and treat her to a few of the amusement devices the island had to offer to its patrons.

The outing was scheduled for Saturday and on Tuesday Doolittle was like a sailor lost in the middle of the Pacific without a single sail in sight.

“I hear them tell how you’re chirping about dragging Hazel to the big blowout this week-end,” Eddie Elton sneered that same evening. “What happened— wealthy uncle shuffle off to do a piece of harp strumming and willed you a couple of dollars? Come on, tell me all about it!”

Doolittle, who loved Elton in exactly the same manner an ordinary moth was enamored of a roll of tar paper, grinned witlessly.

“My business,” he mumbled, moving a couple of feet that might have won cup races if equipped with masts and rudders, “ain't nobody else’s business.”

Elton curled a lip.

"Yeah? You can bull frogs and you can kid gloves but you can’t buffalo this baby. I’m broke and so are you. You’ve been scouting around trying to make a touch so you can treat Hazel— the same as I’ve been doing. And you haven’t had the luck of a woodpecker on a tiled roof. Isn’t that so?”

Whatever answer Doolittle would have made was never to be known for exactly at the same minute the bell hop’s signal buzzed and the elegant Mr. McBride raised a finger in a request for both service and action.

“You can have her—I don’t want her!” Eddie Elton murmured, after one glance in the direction of the black onyx desk where a newly arrived feminine guest of the Ritzbilt was in the act of registering. “There’s your gold mine, Oscar. Grab your pick and shovel, and go to it!”

The lady whose three bags and hat box Doolittle picked up was anything save prepossessing or one who gave any hint of lucrative gratuities. She was thin, she was elderly, she possessed a countenance that would have caused consternation in any clock factory and she wore a blond wig decorated with coy corkscrew curls. Yet she had been assigned to one of the best suites on the third floor and Doolittle, struggling manfully with the luggage, felt a flicker of hope.

Possibly this woman was a millionairess, eccentric to the point of starvation, with enough money to buy up New Jersey and close it for good. He set the bags down in her rooms and waited patiently. Nothing was forthcoming save words.

“What is your name, boy? How long have you been employed here? Are you honest and ambitious? Do you live home with your parents? Do you go to Sunday school and can you repeat the Ten Commandments?”

So rapidly did she speak that Doolittle blinked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. “No, ma’am.”

The woman transfixed him with a pair of singularly keen eyes.

“Which is it?”

Doolittle rubbed his ears and fingered the brass buttons on his jacket.

“Both,” he answered stupidly.

“The reason I ask,” the woman went on, “is because I will have an errand for you in a day or two that will pay you ten dollars. You look like a bright, respectable little chap, who could be relied on. Are you?”

“I had a good one last winter,” Doolittle returned politely. “Chap, what I mean. Don’t forget me when you want that errand done, ma’am. I’ve been hunting for ten dollars for the last week and a half.”

The woman said she wouldn’t and Doolittle returned to the lobby walking on clouds of air. It was the work of a minute only to discover she had registered as Mrs. Brighton Early, from Chicago.

“One of those big-hearted, rich Western women,” Nick McBride ventured carelessly. “If you had more sense you could get the dollars, Oscar. Most of these exiles from that section of the country where a bird in the hand is worth two on the plate are prodigals when it comes to soothing the itching palm. Too bad you’re so thick!”

Back on the bench Eddie Elton grinned sarcastically.

“What did you get, fellar? Come on, open up the mitt and let’s pipe the plunder.”

Settling back on the bench, Oscar Doolittle stared dreamily across the lobby. He was just able to glimpse the gleaming crown of Hazel's blond head. One of her slenderly arched brows he glimpsed and a portion of her cheek that was as white as sun-washed ivory. His imagination glowed fancifully with a picture of Treasure Island, sizzling fox terriers done up in crisp rolls and a scenic railway that was a first aid to erratic digestion.

“I didn’t get any money— yet,” he replied truthfully, “but I did receive a promise— and, oh, Eddie, what a promise !”

Elton snickered and tossed a wink at a couple of his other companions in toil. They returned the wink.

“A promise, eh? Try and spend that up at Treasure Island next Saturday and see how far it goes!”

ii

THERE was no word forthcoming from Mrs. Brighton Early who stayed closer to her expensive suite than a moth to a fur coat, until that Friday noon. Then she sent for Doolittle and let a razorlike glance pass slowly over him.

“I’m going to send you down to John Street,” she began, “with a pearl necklace. It is a very valuable pearly necklace worth possibly fifty or sixty thousand dollars. You are to take it to the firm of Ford & Rattle, the large jewelers. I have just telephoned and they are expecting the necklace which I am sending to have its catch repaired. Do you suppose you can deliver it safely?”

“Do birds fly?” Doolittle answered succinctly.

The woman opened her desk and lifted out a long leather box. She opened it, glanced briefly at the coil of pearls it contained before wrapping the box in brown paper and securing it stoutly with heavy twine.

“Here is your carfare. When you return with the receipt from the jewelers I will reimburse you with the ten dollars as I promised. Let me caution you again to be careful. You will?”

“Well,” Doolittle replied diplomatically, “I haven’t ridden" in an ambulance yet!”

John Street, as information divulged, was in the lower regions of the city, a short distance from the financial district. The subways were still doing business, so Doolittle, some fifteen minutes later, shot a nickel into the noisy turnstile and boarded a southbound train.

The train was jammed and he was too small to reach the beautiful overhead straps. So he compromised by seizing the coat tails of a middle-aged gentleman with eyebrows that looked like question marks and a nose that jutted out over the waterfall of a mustache. There was another man close to him that resembled a minister. This second individual had a long, lean, melancholy visage and a chin so pointed that it could have opened any bottle of olives. He appeared to have his hands folded in prayer and Doolittle, shoving Mrs. Early’s package into his hip pocket, favored him with only a solitary glance.

All the way down to his destination, thoughts of Treasure Island and the big outing kept pace with the speed of the train. Hot dogs, scenic railways, and the delicious Hazel. A king could ask no more!

Doolittle snapped out of his trance when he reached the proper station. He alighted and headed for the stairs, but before he had placed his foot on the second step that led up to open daylight above, he made a discovery so terrifying and unnerving that he nearly fainted.

Quite by chance his hand automatically sought his back pocket. He half expected the comforting feel of Mrs. Early’s package, but instead his fingers brushed nothing except the material of his suit. With a wild cry Doolittle fumbled madly for the missing package until, in another round of dizzy seconds, the terrible truth dawned significantly and fully upon him.

Either some crook had used agile fingers or—he had lost the valuable pearls!

iii

FOR a confused minute Doolittle thought of two things. One was police headquarters, and the other the lost-and-found bureau of the underground cannery. Mature reflection, painfully agonizing, made him decide that it was better to go to Mrs. Early with the horrible news and allow her to act.

“After all,” he told himself, “the pearls belonged to her. She’d better call the cops!”

Back at the Hotel Ritzbilt, Doolittle made a miserable way into the lobby. He broke the sad news to the exquisite Mr. McBride who shook his head and he told Eddie Elton who failed to display any degree of sympathy in Doolittle’s trouble.

“So you let some dip get you for sixty thousand dollars’ worth of neck-beads?” Elton said. “Really, it’s a wonder a dumb Bennie like you gets home at night without having your elbows picked off or your eyes crooked or something. Well, you must pardon me while I guffaw. This just about bakes your outing with Hazel to a fricassee. Still, it’s only what might be expected from you.”

Doolittle turned sadly away and used an elevator. McBride had evidently phoned the news up to Mrs. Brighton Early. The woman was pacing the floor with the air of a lioness suffering from insomnia when Doolittle plucked up sufficient courage to enter.

“And I thought you could be trusted!” she snapped. “I thought you were alert. I was certain that you could be relied upon.”

“How about the police?” he stammered thickly. “Honest, we got some swell bulls in this town. I know a party who lost a valise with a pair of pajamas in it and when the flat feet got it back to him it was filled with sterling silver. I know—”

“I’ve already communicated with the law,” the woman said. “I suppose you realize I have no intention of paying you for your errand. Those pearls were worth―”

A knock on the door interrupted her. She crossed to it rather slowly and opened it. Two men entered, one briskly and one reluctantly. Doolittle, with a stab of surprise recognized the brisk one as being the same gentleman with the question-mark eyebrows whose coat tails he had clung to in the subway. And the other was the same melancholy-faced, ministerial appearing person who had stood beside him in a solemn and prayerful attitude.

“Mrs. Early?” the brisk one began, removing a familiar package from his inner pocket. “Your pearls. I might suggest that you take better care of them in the future. I just stopped in on my way to headquarters with my friend Aaron Hawks, whom you probably know.”

“You bet she knows me,” Hawks
growled. “And believe me, if they are going to job me I’ll blow like an electric fan.”

The unprepossessing countenance of Mrs. Early grew pallid.

“I— I don’t know a thing about all this,” she began. “Does this person infer―”

“I happen to be Algernon Wells,” the first speaker interrupted. “I represent the insurance company writing the policy on those pearls. In a word, we’re been rather suspicious of you, Mrs. Early. I came on from Chicago to sort of keep an eye on the jewels. I got the conversation you had over the wire this morning with Hawks here from the remarkably pretty operator downstairs. Hawks, one of the cleverest pickpockets in the business, is very familiar to me.”

“And you think―”

Wells lifted a polite hand.

“I would not want to think that you had employed Hawks to trail your messenged and relieve him of the necklace so that you might collect the insurance. I wouldn’t want to believe that, so I’m merely suggesting that you take better care of the necklace until the policy expires. Good afternoon.”

Having nothing better on hand, Doolittle followed Wells and the sharp-chinned individual into one of the lifts that was going down. He fingered an ear, shuffled his feet hopelessly and drew a breath when the car reached the lobby level.

There, in the act of alighting, the representative of the insurance company appeared to remember something.

“Oh, by the way,” he said to Doolittle, “I hope you don’t lose anything on this. Here. I owe you ten bucks. Take it and hide it in your shoe.”

He pressed a bank note into the bell hop’s nerveless hand and added a dash of explanation.

“Never mind the thanks. If you hadn’t been so— ah— easy, Hawks would have never picked the pearls and they wouldn’t have— ah— come back to Aaron, as it were. Get the point?”

Doolittle slipped the bill up his sleeve, glanced across at the switch board and found a smile.

“No, sir,” he answered. “Yes, sir.”

_________________

A Jo Gar case

7: Death in the Pasig

Raoul Whitfield

World's News (Sydney) 29 December 1937

THE ceiling fans stirred hot air and made faint creaking sounds as they turned slowly. Shrill, native voices reached the cafe from the Escolta, Manila's main street. Jo Gar kept his blue-grey eyes on the tall glass of lemonade he was sipping at intervals. It was about as hot as he had ever remembered; Baguio would be better because of the altitude. Or, perhaps, an inter-island trip would help.

He raised his eyes to the bulk of Ben Rannis and noted that, the manager of the Manila Hotel was pale, very pale.

Rannis stood near the screened doors and searched the cafe with his dark eyes'. Then he saw Jo Gar, moved swiftly towards his table.

He weighed more than two hundred; he was a powerful man. Perspiration streaked his heavy face as he pulled a chair from the table, set it down closer to the one Jo Gar occupied.

"You appear ill― and you hurry too much. What is it?"

Rannis muttered something. that sounded like a curse.  He was breathing hard; it was almost as though he had been running along the Escolta.

"The Cheyo Maru's in," he said, in his husky voice. "Got in two hours ago. Craise was aboard. He sent me a message. It was given to me over the phone by a Filipino who acted damned cheerful about it. He said, 'Meester Craise has arrived. He wishes me to tell you that information has come to him you are in great danger. It is better to leave the city at once.' Then he hung up."

Jo Gar frowned. "It was Craise's brother you killed, two months ago, I think," he said steadily.

Rannis groaned, "You know damned well it was, Jo," he replied. "And you know damned well Howard Craise is out to get me for it. One way or another. And it was an accident."

The Island detective shrugged his shoulders slightly. He smiled with his thin lips.

"You had been drinking," he reminded: "John Craise was not strong. You struck him very hard, but I feel certain you did not intend to kill him."

"He'd been drinking, too. He called me a nasty name. That all came out at the trial. Howard Craise knows all that, even if he was in England at the time.

The hotel manager's eyes narrowed; he added hoarsely:

"He'll kill me, Jo. I can't shoot. I want you to go to him, tell him how it was. He's at his brother's place― fix it up, Jo. He'll get brooding in this damned heat―"

His voice broke. Fear was gripping the big. man and Jo Gar hated to see fear in a man's eyes. He said slowly:

"I will go to him. Where will you go?"

Rannis swore. "Along the river― got to get a drink, keep away from the hotel until you see him. The heat'll get him thinking―"

He turned, went slowly from the softdrink cafe. His fingers were twitching at his sides. Jo Gar shook his head very slowly.

THERE was difficulty in getting the connection; nothing was done hurriedly in the Islands. Jo Gar held the receiver, waited. Several minutes passed. Then a voice came to him. It possessed a slightly English accent. It was a heavy-toned voice.

"Are you there? Howard Craise speaking."

The Island detective said slowly: "It is Señor Gar. You perhaps remember me in matters of the Island police. I would like to come to you, talk with you. It is the matter of your brother's death."

He paused. There was silence at the other end. Then the voice sounded again. It seemed colder in tone.

"At six, say? Here, at the house?"

"At six, thank you. I will arrive."

The Island detective left the cafe. It was almost five, but the heat was still very severe. He turned off the Escolta, moved down a harrow, winding street towards the Pasig. Behind him there was the clatter of a pony's hooves. A native voice shrilled at the animal, urging greater speed. Jo Gar stepped into an evil-smelling doorway, turned. The carromatta passed close to the broken kerbing; he saws the driver clearly. Back of the little seat, in the interior of the small, two-wheeled carriage, he saw another figure. Then the carromatta was beyond him, going rapidly towards the river Pasig.

Jo Gar stepped from the doorway, looked for another conveyance. There was none in sight. He sighed heavily. One could not answer a telephone three miles from the Escolta and yet arrive on a narrow street just off the Escolta two minutes later. For that reason Jo Gar was very anxious to keep track of the carromatta which had just passed him, bearing as a passenger Howard Craise.

IN five minutes he obtained a carramatta, gave the driver instructions. But it was a useless drive. There was no sign of the two-wheeled conveyance in which he had seen Howard Craise. After a half-hour tour of the narrow streets running towards the Pasig from the Escolta, Jo Gar descended and paid the driver.

It was slightly cooler; he would sip another iced drink, hire another carramatta and go out to the Craise house. Filipinos could gossip; he did not wish to give his last driver the opportunity to talk― not with some servant in the vicinity of the Craise home.

He had his drink, hailed a native driving a good-sized pony, and was driven at fair speed to the Craise house on the Bay. The Island of Cavite could be plainly seen; Jo stood on the wide porch and frowned at it. When the Chinese servant opened the door, however, he was smiling.

He waited less than five minutes in a large room that was almost cool. Howard Craise came downstairs rather noisily; he was medium in size with blond hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in a suit of white duck, but he did not look so cool.

Jo Gar nodded. "I will arrive directly at the object of my call," he said. "Mister Benjamin Rannis has been murdered."

He watched Craise's body jerk― watched the right hand come upward, then relax. He saw the blue eyes widen, narrow again. And then Howard Craise spoke.

"But it's only been―"

He checked himself. The Island detective nodded, smiling pleasantly.

"A very short time since you had your Filipino boy call and threaten him," he finished. "That is true."

Craise was staring at him. His fists clenched; there was sudden anger in his eyes. He spoke in a hard tone.

"Of course no servant of mine called him and threatened him. That's absurd. If it's circumstantial evidence you are counting on "

He checked himself again. Rage was in his eyes. Jo Gar bowed slightly.

"I admire the way you think, Señor," he said quietly. "Circumstantial evidence is quite unsatisfactory in the Islands, of course. I merely wanted to inform you "

The bell tinkled. Silently the Chinese servant went to the door. He opened it, stepped aside. Juan Arragon, of the City police, his fat face a brown mask, came towards them. He nodded towards Jo Gar, bowed toward Howard Craise.

"Will you be so kind as to come with me to the City?" he asked. "We have just taken the body of Mister Benjamin Rannis from the Pasig River. He is dead, knifed. You are implicated. My superiors are anxious that you―"

Craise smiled with his lips. "Frame-up, eh?" he muttered. "Of course, I'll come― Wong, my helmet!"

He moved towards the square reception hall. Juan Arragon let his eyes meet Jo Gar's.

"You do not seem surprised to learn of Mister Rannis' death," he said slowly.

Jo Gar smiled. "I had just informed Senor Craise accordingly," he said simply.

He watched Arragon's eyes narrow in surprise. The Manila police officer was no fool. He said very quietly:

"I came here very rapidly. In a machine. The body was just discovered. Yet you already knew?"

Jo Gar said slowly: "Why did you come here so quickly?"

The fat-faced officer smiled a little. His voice was very smooth as he replied:

"There was certain evidence."

The Island detective nodded. "That was my reason for coming here without 'knowing that Senor Rannis had been murdered," he said, very slowly. "There was certain evidence."

MANUELO'S was a shack not far from the , river-perhaps a hundred feet up a narrow alley. It was frequented by coolies, half-breed Spaniards, low class Filipinos, and others of the river. Manuelo himself was a small, emaciated man. He had bad teeth and a scarred face. His fingers were long and bony.

He repeated a good many times that the Americana Rannis had come in for a drink. It had been sake, he thought. He could not remember. Many rivermen had crowded his place. He said that Rannis had looked very sick. He had not stayed long. Manuelo was not sure of the time; Senor Rannis had needed air. He had gone away. No, Manuelo did not know Senor Craise. He had never come to the place.

And that wis about all. The Chinos on the junk had difficulty in talking with Gar. They were not, sure where. the body had struck the water. They pointed at the spot where Rahnis' body had been seen― the one who had gone overboard said that he thought Rannis had moved his arms a little. But not after he had reached the Americano.

After two hours along the Pasig, Jo Gar sighed and muttered to himself, "It is always so with the river Pasig. So little seen or heard. And it was not dark, even. Supposing, now, another than Howard Craise had been in the carromatta?"

He called Arragon's office from a little tobacco shop just off the Escolta. Juan's voice held an excited note.

"Come to me at once!" he urged. "Here in my office we have the murderer of Señor Rannis! He has confessed."

Ten minutes later Jo Gar entered the offfce. His eyes went from the khaki colored uniforms of the two Filipino police to the figure slumped over the desk. Juan Arragon said sharply:

"Donnell-up!"

The man raised his head, turned slightly, stared at the Island detective. Jo Gar sucked in his breath, muttered to himself.

"Marie! But they― are alike!"

This man's hair was a dirtier blond color. His eyes were bloodshot, looked larger than Senor Craise's. He was more stooped and looked older. But there was similarity― great similarity. In the carromatta, seated erect, they could have been easily mistaken.

"He is one Donnell. A sort of beachcomber," Arragon said slowly, a trace of excitement in his voice. "My men found him cowering just across the Pasig from the scene of the crime. We have the knife― he tossed it away as they closed in. He has confessed. It was a terrible scheme― he knew of his resemblance to Howard Craise. For months he has awaited the señor's return. He has threatened Señor Rannis, again and again. He got into the carromatta after siesta time to-day, drove towards Manuelo's. He knew that Senor Rannis went there. When Rannis came from the place, he followed him to the river, knifed him, dragged him across the junks― threw him overboard. He made his escape. Later, when we were bringing Senor Craise to trial, he planned to go to the señor, tell what he had done― for sufficient money. Many thousands of dollars. He would force Señor Craise to pay― and then he intended to get away with the money. And not to confess. A tremendous scheme!"

The man who resembled Howard Craise dropped his head in his arms. He cried out hoarsely:

"Let me go― into the Bay! The sharks "

He had a broken, husky voice. His body looked thinner than Craise's. Collapsed across Juan Arragon's desk, he was a pitiful figure of a beaten man.

"Do they not look alike?" Arragon asked grimly. "You see, after the murder his nerve deserted him. He went to pieces. Is it not fortunate we were careful with Senor Craise? You see, he did speak with you over the telephone."

Jo Gar nodded his head slowly. The phone bell rang. Arragon answered it. He smiled. His white teeth showed.

"I will come soon to your home, Señor Craise," he said into the mouthpiece. "I have news of importance. I will be there within the half hour."

He hung up the receiver, smiled faintly at Jo Gar.

"It was Senor Craise― asking for news," he said. His eyes fell on the slumped figure. He spoke sharply to the Filipinos, telling them to take him to a cell.

They half dragged the man to the door. Jo Gar stood aside, frowning. Arragon was smiling broadly. He rubbed his browned hands together. There was the sound of clattering as the Filipinos dragged the prisoner down the narrow stairs that led to the corridor through which they would walk to the cells.

"It is well we were not too hasty with Senor "

Arragon's voice died. A strangled scream sounded from below. There was a heavy thud-the sound of a body falling. Jo Gar jumped towards the door. The wooden stairs had a landing half way down the remaining steps were slanted in the opposite direction, hidden from his sight. There was a low groan-another crash of a body going down. He could hear heavy breathing as he started down the stairs, Arragon at his heels. On the landing they turned, stared down.

One Filipino was on his knees, holding his head with both hands. Red stained the fingers. The other was lying motionless against the corridor wall, face downward. The screened door opening on the alley just off the Escolta was wide open. The prisoner who resembled Howard Craise was gone!

JO GAR sat in the open carriage and fingered the Army Colt. His lips were pressed tightly together; he was frowning with narrowed eyes. The police search was being carried out along the big boat waterfront, not along the Pasig. Juan Arragon was thinking of the prisoner's words― "Let me gointo the Bay. The sharks "

The calesco driver pulled up the horse, twisted his brown face. Jo Gar paid the man, slipped from the carriage, moved swiftly towards the Bay. He kept close to an old stone wall on his right.

There were lights in the Craise house on the Bay. But the Island detective did not enter through the scrolled iron gate. He went through a narrow passage in the wall, moved through, the heavy, tropical growth of the garden.

He circled the big house at the rear, reached the Bay side. Stars gave faint light to the water, iii the distance he heard the muffled exhaust of a power boat. He halted, listened. The boat was. going away-but it was not so far distant. He smiled grimly, moved- more rapidly. And then, crouched low and moving swiftly, he saw the figure that had left the sand behind and was coming towards the growth near the house.

Jo Gar waited, the Colt gripped in his right hand fingers. He could see the figure now-the man was ten feet from him. The Island detective spoke quietly, sharply:

"Up― Donnell!"

The figure stiffened. Gar heard the quick intake of breath. And then the man leaped towards him.

Jo Gar stepped to one side. He struck outward and downward with the Colt. It battered heavily against the attacker's head, just over the left ear. The man dropped― rolled over on his back. He was motionless.

The Island detective drew a deep breath. He shifted the weapon, got a small flashlight from his pocket. When he looked down upon the figure, there was a hard smile in his blue-grey eyes.

"Like many tremendous schemes, Señor Craise," he said very slowly, "it has failed."

JO GAR let his eyes move from the figure of Juan Arragon to that of Arnold Carlysle. He was smiling cheerfully in spite of the heat in the police head's office.

"Senor Craise was always shrewd, cold," he said slowly. "He was not one to forget that Ben Rannis had struck his brother down. I do not believe too much in the similarity of people. But he did fool me, in Juan's office. Belladonna to enlarge the eye pupils, dirt-matted hair, no erectness like that of himself. And the changed voice. Neither Juan nor myself knew him too well, you see. And he's been away for months. This English friend of his who has confessed to imitating Craise's voice― that was a clever touch. Calling up, pretending it was Craise― with Craise passing as a beachcomber, right in Juan's office at the time And it was this Condon who answered my call to the house, of course."

Juan Arragon nodded his head slowly.

"Had Craise got back to his house― we would have been beaten," he said. "He could have received me, immaculately attired. He would have been clean changed. In a dark room I would not have noticed his eyes. But, of course, after the escape, he realised I would be busy― and that would give him more time."

Jo Gar nodded. "He murdered Rannis, just as he― as Donnell― told us. He got back to the house from the murder in time to receive me. Your Filipino guard was not too good, Juan, though it is a large place for one man to watch. Craise went out again, after you released him. There was sufficient time. He went to the Pasig, crouched along the bank-and when, your men .found him he threw the knife away. Said he was Donnell― and looked a beachcomber. After his escape he got to the big boat piers, where he hid and waited. After dark Condon met him in a power boat. He brought him to the Bay house."

Arnold Carlysle smiled faintly. "But for you, Señor Gar, we would have assumed that a man resembling Craise had tried a pretty plan and had failed. And had then preferred drowning― and the sharks."

Jo Gar said nothing. He wondered if Arnold Carlysle would have preferred it that way. But it was not for him to say.

___________________

By Jacques Futrelle, but not about S F X Van Dusen, "the Thinking Machine".

8: Room 666

Jacques Futrelle

1875-1912

Metropolitan Magazine Aug 1910

Evening Star (Boulder, WA ) 17 October 1910

'TWAS ONLY a fleeting glimpse I caught of her as she sped along the brilliantly-lighted hallway, past the half-open door of my room.  A young woman she was, with the splendid grace of youth in her carriage, lithe as a leopard, supple of limb― a young woman, and yet such a face. Youth was no longer there; it had been obliterated by the merciless hand of sorrow, but beauty there was— the cold, colorless, deadly beauty of marble. Her lips were slightly parted, great dark eyes widely distended, and it seemed to me in that bare instant there was something of fear in them, horror even. Flying tendrils of her hair, escaping from the heavy veil, coupled with the pallor of her face, gave to her a weird, witch-like appearance.

For ten, perhaps fifteen, minutes I had been standing beside my open window overlooking the adjoining roofs, breathing in deeply the clean, cool salt-tanged air swept in from the sea. I been in my room no longer than that. I had not even paused to turn on the electric lights on entering, but had gone straight to the window, opened it and had remained beside it, motionless there in the darkness.

Of late I had not been well. It was some absurd nerve trouble, accompanied by giddiness, a pounding of blood in my ears, and queer, throbbing pains in my head, which, at times, drove me well-nigh frantic. The breeze at the window was grateful; it dissipated the oppressiveness of the room, and the tormenting pains were eased.

As I say, I had been standing there some ten or fifteen minutes, staring out over the gloomy, uneven roofs below me. Perhaps you know the fascination of a single scintillating point in the darkness. Perhaps you know how it compels your attention. Well, after a little time I had noticed such a point light, a mere glint on the roof of the house twice removed. I thought at first that it was a fragment of glass shining by reflected light from some window in the hotel where I lived. For no other reason than the sheer brightness of it I continued to stare at the point of light; and seemed to become a tangible object. A revolver. The thought startled me a little. Yes, a revolver. The more I looked the more certain I grew. The light was flashed back to me by the short nickeled barrel of it, and it seemed somehow to grow clearer as I looked; l couldn't see, and yet I  knew.

Perhaps a minute passed, and then a trap-door in the roof opened suddenly, and the head and shoulders of a man appeared, darkly.  He carried a small electric light and turned it about inquiringly. Finally he stepped out on the gravel and glanced about cautiously, after which he made a tour of the roof. He paused inevitably at that point where I had seen the scintillant point  of  light, and, stooping, picked up a revolver. I had known it was a revolver, and yet a sort of shudder ran over me.

By the light he carried he examined the weapon, and I from my window fifty feet away, shrouded in the night, looked with a curiosity no degree less his. It was a singular appearing firearm, short, sturdy, and rather bulky as to barrel— indeed, it seemed to have two barrels, one above the other, in general shape not at all unlike an old fashioned Derringer pistol.... After a time the man disappeared down the trap, and gloom fell  again on the roof. The scintillant was gone. All this was before l saw the woman in the hallway.

I don't know just how many minutes had elapsed before my reverie was, broken by the quick, distinct swish-swish of skirts. That, too, startled me a little, I think; because it seemed so near, almost in the room. I whirled about. My door was half open― I had not been aware of it—and I took a couple of steps in that direction and  it was them that the woman came along the lighted hallway.  Brief as my glimpse of her was I noted every detail— the deadly pallor of her face, the terror in her dark eyes, the splendid youth of her body,

Certainly it was not more than half a minute that I stood standing at the spot where she had been, and then, impelled by nothing save curiosity, unless indeed it was a suggestion of stealth in her manner, a mocking, noiselessness in her tread, and the strangeness of her face, I went to the door and peered out.

It was a hallway without turns in the direction she had gone but she was not in sight. Obviously, then, she had entered one of the rooms beyond me. Which one? I didn't know, and besides it was no concern of mine. It was only midnight, there was nothing startling about her being there, and the fact that I had not heard a door open or close was of no consequence in itself. Yet I wondered which room she had entered. Perhaps it was simply that any imagination had been whetted by the singular incident I had witnessed on the roof.

I was just on the point of closing my door and turning on the electric lights when there came to me the muffled crash, a revolver-shot. There was no mistaking the sound. It came from somewhere down the hallway, in the direction the woman had gone. For an instant I stood still, listening, but only for an instant; then I flung my door wide and ran out. I don't know just where l intended to go, or what l intended to do. However, events their natural course shaped my decision, for the door of Room 666 burst open almost in my face and there was the woman coming out!

She paused at sight me, and snatched her veil down, hiding her features.

"What's the matter?" I demanded excitedly; "What happened?"

She didn't answer; instead she tried to dart past. Instinctively I put out both hands to stop her, and seized one of her wrists. It slipped through my fingers as a serpent might have done; I was pushed violently backward, stumbled a little, and went reeling against the wall behind me. When I straightened up again I was just in time to see the women vanishing down the stains.

I made no effort to pursue her; didn't even pause to investigate the cause of her flight. Instead I ran into my own room, three doors away, and telephoned to the office.

"Someone has been murdered in Room 666!" I explained hastily to the telephone girl. "A woman fired the shot. I tried to stop her, but she escaped and ran down stairs. She is still in the hotel. Don't let her get away."

And then, for a little tame, I don't know just what happened.  My best recollection is of a sudden, crushing return of the hideous pains in my head, due probably to the quick excitement, and a sickening weakness in my legs. I may have fallen; I don't know.

I heard the rattle and clatter of the elevator door as it opened, immediately followed by the rush of heavy feet in the hallway. I peered out. Here was the house detective, and with him Verbeck, the head night-clerk, a policeman in uniform, and a couple of frightened bell-boys.

"Did you catch the woman?" I queried, breathlessly.

"No," responded the house detective, Garron by name. "Was it you that 'phoned the office?"

I nodded.

Garron stopped still and regarded me curiously. He was tall, slight, with deep-set eyes, and the face of a ferret, done in chalk. I don't believe I've ever seen another man who shows in his countenance so little the color of life.

Suddenly he turned away and went on to Room 666, with the rest of us at his heels. The door stood wide open, and we paused at the darkened, threshold waiting for him to turn on the light. It came at last, a flood of it...

The thing I saw there wrung a scream from my lips. It was the figure of a man lying prone upon the floor, face down, with his right hand outstretched toward us, grasping a revolver.  Beside him was a dark, crimson stain, and from that, leading backward into the room, disappearing beyond the bed, was a little trail of blood. It was as if wounded, he had hauled himself across the floor. Perhaps he had been trying to reach the door. Or the telephone beside the door.

"Is he dead?" My heart leaped, and then seemed to stand still. I laid, a hand upon Verbeck's shoulder to steady myself. Garron dropped on his knees beside the prostrate, man and pressed his ear to the body, over the heart.

"He's dead all right," he said brutally. He turned the body over. Fascinated, unable to avert my eyes, I looked into the upturned face, and looking, screamed again. I believe I should have fallen had not Verbeck been there to support me.

"Do you know him?" Garron asked abruptly. "You, I mean, Mr. Meredith."

Thus directly addressed I suppose I faltered. The horror of the crimson stains, the little trail the dying man had left behind him as he crept across the floor, the agony of the dead face must have unnerved me. I remember my heart was pounding frightfully; my head seemed bursting.

"Yes, I know him," I replied, the words coming with an effort. "Frank Spencer, his name is, I have known him for years—he's an old friend of mine."

"You didn't happen to know he was stopping in the hotel?" Garron went on. His deep-set eyes were glowing into mine with a fire which suddenly aroused an unaccountable anger within me, I seemed to feel a note of accusation in the curt, abrupt questions.

"Why do you ask?" I demanded defiantly.

"If he had been an old friend, and you had known he was in the hotel where you lived, in all probability you would know the number of his room, particularly as it is only three doors away. "You 'phoned downstairs from your own," Garron explained patiently, "that someone had been murdered in room 666. You didn't mention Mr Spencer's name— only the number of his room— therefore I assume that you did not know he was in the hotel."

"No, I didn't know he was in the hotel," I replied, hesitating at the vague manace in Garron's manner. "I didn't know he was here."

Garron turned to the night-clerk.

"How long has Spencer been here, Mr Verbeck?"

"Nearly a week," was the reply.

"As a matter of fact, Garron went on, "there has been no one living this section of the hotel, I mean on this floor, for the last three or four days, except Mr Meredith here, and Mr Spencer?"

"No one at all."

"And certainly no woman?" Verbeck shook his head.

"But there was a woman," I blazed angrily. "I saw her. If you had taken the trouble to guard the entrances to the hotel instead of rushing up here where you can do a dead man no good, you might possibly have caught her."

"If the woman was in the hotel when you 'phoned to the office she has not escaped, believe me," Garron assured me quietly. "Every exit is guarded; she would not be allowed to pass."

"If she was in the hotel?" I repeated. "l say she was; I saw her."

All this time Garron had been on his knees beside the dead man. Now he rose, said something aside to the policeman, who instantly turned and stared at me from top to toe.

"We know you have beep ill, Mr. Meredith," Garron was saying with quick courtesy, "and this excitement has probably been too much for you. I would suggest that you go to your room, and if you have, any stimulant there, take it. You are as white as a sheet."

Supported by Verbeck I returned to my room. It was only a little while after that Garron rapped on the door and entered. Under the influence of a quieting potion I was quite myself again; the pains in my head had almost gone. He dropped into a chair.

"The woman?" I enquired. Did they catch her?"

He shook his head slowly.

"No woman left the hotel from the time you phoned to the office," he replied. "If she is in the hotel she will be caught, take my word for it. I should like to have a description of that woman as you remember her; and just whatever else you may know of all this."

I told him frankly, everything that' I have set down here, even to the apparently unconnected detail of a man having picked up what seemed to be a revolver on the roof two houses away. I concluded by giving him a minute description of the woman.  During all that time he said nothing, simply stared at me; stared until I came to fear a sort of hypnotic influence in the deep set eyes.

"You didn't turn on the electricity when you entered this room, and you did leave your door open?" he queried at the end.

"I didn't leave the door open," I corrected, "I remember distinctly having. closed it casually. The latch didn't latch; it swung back on its hinges."

The incident, trivial as it was, brought to me a thrill of elation.

"Why didn't you turn on your light?" he resumed, as he sat down.

"The room was hot and stuffy, I was not feeling well, and, my first thought was to open the window."

"I believe I stated the facts correctly when I said you had 'phoned downstairs that someone had been, murdered in 666, did I not?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You used the word 'murdered'?"

"As I remember it I did."

"Why?"

"I had heard the shot, I had seen the woman escape, and naturally my first thought was of murder," I explained. "I was excited when I went to the  'phone."

"But you didn't know there had been murder?"

"No, I didn't know it."

"Son say you heard the shot. You didn't by any chance hear more than one shot?"

"Only one. Was more than one fired?"

"Two shots, at least. One of them entered Spencers body in the back, just below the heart the other, embedded in the woodwork by the door, was fired from Spencer's revolver― the one he held In his hand when we found him."

There was a pause.

"If they fired simultaneously," I suggested,  "there would have been the sound of only one."

"If they had been fired simultaneously, Spencer must have been standing with his back toward his assailant, and would have been shooting in the opposite direction," Garron explained patiently.  "Therefore one of the shots must have been fired after the other."

I offered no explanation of this fact, an obvious one, now that he had called my attention to it.

"I heard only one shot," I insisted.

Suddenly the mask of courtesy dropped from Garron; his tone hardened, his deep-set eyes were alive as coals.

"You didn't enter room 666 from the time you heard the shot fired until I came upstairs?" he asked.

"No,"  I replied,

"Are you positive?"

"Absolutely positive."

"You didn't so much as lay a finger on Spencer body while you were in room with me?"

"No," I shuddered.

"Don't you know," he wait on mercilessly, "don't you know that there was no woman concerned in this affair at all?"

The question brought me to my feet, and I stood for an instant swaying giddily under the blinding anger which possessed me. I tried to speak; no words came.

"As a matter of fact, now, what motive led you to murder Spencer?" Garron demanded.

"How dare you ask me such a question?" My voice came at last. "You make a direct accusation. Why?"

"Your hand, man— your hand!" Garron exclaimed violently. "The back of it is covered with blood. I saw it when you met us at the door just after we came up here. There, by Spencer's body, I called the policeman's attention to it."

I glanced down at my right hand, amazed, speechless. Blood, yes— a great splotch of it; it seemed to expand and grow until there was a perfect crimson sea of it! How came it there? How could it have been there all that time to have passed unnoticed? So this was why Garron had suspected me from the  first, and I had not misinterpreted his brutal questions.... For a long time I remembered nothing.... When semi-consciousness came I seemed to be looking down a long, narrow passage-way, hedged with steel bars. At the end sat a chair, a man was being bound into it; he was shrieking.

When I opened my eyes a physician was sitting beside my bed.  A few minutes later I was placed under arrest, charged with the murder of Frank Spencer.

On the following day a lawyer came to see me in my cell. He found me at the tiny wash basin scrubbing the back of my hand. He asked me many questions in no way touching upon the murder, the while he studied my face, my eyes, with an expression of growing surprise.

"I think perhaps you ought to know," he said gravely, "that the pistol with which you— with which Spencer was shot was picked up on the roof of the house two doors away."

"Yes. I told Garron that I had seen a man find it."

"It was thrown from a window of the hotel," he went on. "The servant in the house who occupied the room immediately beneath the spot where the pistol fell heard it strike, and thinking that someone was trying to force the trap-door, dressed and went up to, investigate. He found the weapon which proved to be a Maxim Noiseless."

I was silent.

"It looks something like an old Derringer; the part underneath, which looks like a second barrel, is really a muffler."

"Yes, I know."

"Garron got possession of it," he continued slowly. "It was turned over to the police, and they managed to find a man who says he sold it. He will swear he sold ft to you. You paid for it personal cheque."

"If he had expected startle me with this accusation, he was disappointed. There were two shots fired in Room 666, according; to Garron; if one had been a noiseless weapon of course I could have heard only one. In a way it was a point for me."

"My boy," the lawyer said solemnly after a long time, and as he talked his stern eyes grew dim. "I've known you ever since you were a little chap.  Then, you were: sickly, nervous—a weakling. I've watched you grow into manhood with an awful fear upon me of what was coming.

"It has come. Your mother died in a sanatorium. Thank God that neither. she nor your father is alive now to know." He paused and his eyes grew stern again; his lips were rigid. "As the friend of your father I shall do the best I can for you. But there's only one thing to do— you must plead insanity!"

I came to my feet in a rage, my arms outstretched to  throttle him. Across the back of my right hand was a great crimson splotch— I shuddered, and thrust it behind me.

"You mean that you believe I am guilty!" I almost screamed. "And you've just called yourself a friend of my father."

"The circumstantial chain is complete," said the lawyer gently, "perhaps with the exception of having established a motive."

"Ah!" I exclaimed triumphantly. '"There was no motive; there could be none. That's where I shall beat them and beat you, since you believe I murdered him."

"Insane men need no motives," was the answer. "I will admit, to please you, that you believe you saw this woman you mentioned; I will even admit that you didn't remember having shot Spencer... But yon are not yourself, my   boy. The disease that wrecked your mother's life— well!"

He rose.

"I shall plead insanity when you are arraigned."

"And I shall deny it, I declared violently. "I shall prove that I am not insane."

"The minute you do you seat yourself  in the electric chair," he said gravely,  "and all the skill of all the lawyers in all the world won't save you."

AFTER a time he went away, and I lay stretched on my cot for hours,   thinking, thinking... The blood splotch still glowed crimson on my right hand. a long, narrow passage-way, hedged with steel bars. At the end of it a chair....Finally I slept.

When I awoke some great change had been wrought in me. I saw clearly the way to save myself; to rend the circumstantial net which bound me. They all believed me guilty, even my own lawyer― this friend of my father.  I would prove them mistaken, and I would prove it by evidence.

Strangely enough, I began by send for Garron. He came into my cell with only a word of greeting, seated himself opposite me with expectation burning in his deep-set eyes, his chalky face expressionless.

"It's not a confession," I told him. "I know you believe that I lied about having seen a woman pass my door, about having heard a single shot. I know that the blood-spot on my hand, coupled with the finding of a Maxim noiseless pistol, which is supposed to be mine will be damning evidence in a court of law. I know all these things; and yet I am going to ask you to save me, because I know you to be clever, and I don't believe you would do any man an injustice."

"Thank you,", he said quietly.

"In the beginning you must assume that my story of the woman is true." I continued. "You need not really believe it, but you must act as if you did believe it— act, in other words, as if you were trying to save me rather than convict me."

"I understand."

"Only one question," I rushed on with the feverish exaltation of confidence and enthusiasm in my manner, "Was any trace found of a woman by any of your men? Did you find any?"

"No," he replied. "If there was a woman she didn't leave the hotel that night; and there was not one woman in the hotel who answers the description you gave. Not even a servant," he added.  "I may say, too, that no one connected with the hotel remembers that a woman answering that description entered the building that night."

"I am not assuming that she was in the hotel; she left it and l dare say she left it within fifteen minutes of the time I saw her."

"How?" he queried curiously.

"There are always fire escapes," I suggested, "It would be only a drop of a few feet from the bottom platform to the ground, and behind the hotel at least two of these fire escapes open on an alley.

"Now the woman ran downstairs from the sixth floor, where my room is, therefore if she did get away by a fire escape it was either from the fifth floor or one below that. All the fire escapes open by window into the halls."

"I hadn't thought of that," he admitted frankly.

"As a matter of fact, when you saw the blood on my hand you were so firmly convinced of my guilt that no particular effort was made to locate the woman, except to guard the exits, was there?" I asked. "Now— we are always assuming that there was a woman— if a woman opened a window and clambered out upon a fire escape she would probably leave some trace of it,  somewhere. And, of necessity, she would be compelled to leave the window unlocked behind her."'

"Of course!" A strange expression was creeping into Garron's eyes; I was unable to read it.

"Further, it is well to remember that a woman is hampered by skirts," I continued. "That being true, she may have taken hold of the window-frame to pull herself up, and― my God, man! Don't you see? There is a chance she left a blood stain on the window frame if she did touch it."

For a minute or more Garron merely stared at me.

"In all this," he said, measuredly, at last, "we must forget, off course, the bloodstain on your hand."

"I don't forget it!" I exclaimed sharply. "Remember it. But remember, too, that I tried to stop that woman; that I even took hold of her. She wriggled away like a snake, and pushed me backwards against the wall. If— " I leaned, forward eagerly, "if there was blood on her hand, that's where I got it on mine!"

"I hadn't thought of that," Garron said again.

"You hadn't thought of any of these things, because you assumed off-hand that I was the murderer," I declared bitterly. "Yet you haven't found a motive—you never will find a motive."

Some subtle change was working in Garron's face. Had I convinced him of this new possibility? I wondered.

"I think you have a right to assume," he remarked finally, "that we didn't go as far in our investigations as we should. Believe me, now, I'll go to the end. "

"And search Spencer's room," I urged. "Search it closely, ''if that woman had dropped a handkerchief— a jewel— anything."

He nodded. A fever of madness was upon me. but it was the madness of relief... He went away, and for an hour it seemed I sat staring dully at the crimson splotch on the back of my right hand....

GARRON came again about dusk. At the sight of him I fairly leaped at the bars of my cell. He turnkey opened the door, and Garron entered, silent, inscrutable.  Good news or bad— which?

"Well?" I demanded fiercely.

"On the ledge of the window which opens to the fire-escape from the hall of the Fourth floor," he began, without preliminary, "I found certain scratches and marks which may have been made by somebody clambering out that window. The window was unlocked."

I tried to shout my joy! I couldn't; My vocal chords seemed paralysed; my body was tense.

"It so happens," Garron went on evenly, "that the, fire-escape has been recently painted. The even surface of the paint was broken by unmistakable marks of footprints— the footprints of a woman."

Again I tried to speak; there was only an inarticulate cry. Then suddenly came again those crashing pains in my head; the steel bars of the cell spun about me.

"The paving in the alley beneath the fire-escape is cement," Garron continued, "so it is impossible to say whether anyone dropped from the last landing to the ground."

"But the foot-prints!" I gasped. "They would show if the woman  was going up or down."

"They indicate that she was going down," came the cautious reply. "Also I found on one side of the window frame, at about this point where a person would take hold of it—"

"A blood-stain!" I burst out. It was too good to be true! The vision of the long narrow passageway, and at its end a chair, seemed to be fading!...

"Thank God!"

"It seemed to be a bloodstain, a small one," Garron corrected in the same unemotional voice. "I cut away the wood with the stain on it, and have turned it over to a skilled analyst for examination."

"And if he says it is a bloodstain?"

"Your story begins to sound plausible," Garron answered in the same monotonous voice. "Meanwhile , at your suggestion, I made another search of Spencer's room."

He paused and there came some perceptible change in the ferret-like face, a narrowing of the deep, glowing eyes, a tightening of the pale lips. It was warning enough.

"I found this," he added. Casually he extended his open hand. In it lay a stick-pin— a solitary ruby, surrounded by pearls... I didn't scream... again that long, narrow passageway, and at its end a chair! Here was the critical point; he had tried to trick me... If I had so much as lifted my hand to my tie!

"One of the bell-boys has identified this pin as yours," Gannon was saying.

"Mine?" I queried, and I was surprised at the cool steadiness of my voice.  "No. I have one something like it, a pearl surrounded by rubies. You'll find it somewhere in my belongings. In just what part of the room did you find this?"

"All the way across the room from I where we found Spencer," was the reply. "It had been dropped near a window— the window from which the pistol must have been thrown. It's the only, one in that room overlooking the roof; it was open."

"Seems to me it's Spencer's pin," I remarked, heedless of his other statements.  "I think I've seen him wear it. Anyway, it's of no value as a clue to the woman."

"But," Garron suggested quickly, "if the pin is yours, if it could be proved to be yours, it would be the last link needed. You wouldn't have a chance to clear yourself."

"True," I agreed, and I smiled a little. "I bought my pearls and ruby pin from Tiffany's. Perhaps there's a record there. And now this Maxim noiseless pistol," I went on. "The police are prepared to prove, I understand, that the pistol with which Spencer was killed— the one that was found on the room, is one that I bought and paid for with a personal cheque."

"Yes," he nodded.

"I did buy such a weapon a few months ago, on the eve of my departure for Germany. I paid for it with a personal cheque, and either lost it, possibly not more than three or four hundred of these pistols in existence; they are all alike and they are not numbered.

"If the woman came to the hotel to kill Spencer and she knew such thing as a noiseless pistol existed, isn't it quite possible that she too, purchased one? In that could have walked in and shot him and walked away with no one any the wiser. I heard one shot. Now we know that was the shot was fired by Spencer after he himself had been shot in the back!"

After a long time Garron nodded his understanding.

"Therefore, there remain only three things for you to do," I rushed on. "First, look through my belongings and see if you can find the stick-pin with the pearl and small rabies, " and if you don't, go to Tiffany's and satisfy yourself I bought such a pin; second, go to the gun store where I bought the noiseless pistol— it's the sole agency in New York—and see if one has ever been sold to a woman ; third, find the woman who left the bloodstain on my hand, whose footprints lead down the fire-escape. You must find that woman! You've gone so far with me; you know there is a woman—she must be found!"

I extended both hands toward him in entreaty— on the back of the right still glowed that crimson splotch! I thrust it behind me, cursing.

I DIDN'T see Garron again for more than two weeks, but the following day I received a short note from him. It was like this: — "I found the pearl ruby pin in your belongings, "It has been identified at Tiffany's as one you bought."

Three days later there came a telegram for me, dated at a small town sixty miles above New York: "Analyst reports that stain on window frame is human blood.—Garron."

That's all there was of it, but no man who has never stood in the shadow of death may know what it meant to me.

Then came a long silence, a week, ten days, and no word from Garron.  Where was he? What was he doing in the small town upstate? My lawyer, this friend of my father, came to see me. I cursed him and he went away shaking his head.

I morning of the eleventh day Garron came, inscrutable of face, silent as ever. I beat upon the bars frantically at sight of him. The turn-key admitted him; he dropped down on my cot and sat without speaking while the gaoler's footsteps died away in the distance. Then from a pocket he produced a small paper parcel. He opened it and held up a woman's glove. Some cry escaped me. I reached for it.

"Keep your hands off," he commanded sharply. "There are bloodstains on it .Your life depends upon them remaining undisturbed."

"You found the woman?" I cried.

"I found her, yes," he replied quietly. "I traced her through a photograph I found in Spencer's trunk. It was a picture of a boy, a mere baby, made by a photographer in a little town upstate. I went to that town, the photographer told me whose boy it was. The woman is that boy's mother—"

"The boy is Spencer's son? Spencer's son?" I repeated incredulously. "To my knowledge Spencer never married."

"There's the tragedy of it," Garron responded gravely. "It's the same old story— a woman who had trusted a man. The boy was born, and, in a way Spencer was fond of him. He made liberal allowances to the mother, and they lived quietly in a small town.  She is known there as Mrs Rose Warren, a widow."

"But the glove?" I demanded suddenly. "Where did you get that? What has the woman to say? Where is she now?"

"She is under arrest," Garron resumed. "She admits that she went to Spencer's room about midnight at his request, and showed me his note making the appointment for a last conference previous to his departure for a long trip abroad. He was to transfer a sum of money to her."

"And she shot him?"  I broke in fiercely.

"Her story of what happened in that room is beyond belief," Garron continued. "She tapped on the door, she says; there was no answer. She opened it and went in, closing it behind her. The room was dark. She heard some sort of noise, and spoke. After a moment came a pistol shot. She thought Spencer was  trying to kill her― remember, this is her story― and opened the door to escape. She ran almost into your arms. You seized her, she struggled free, and ran down two flights of stairs. She knew there would be an alarm, and more to hide her own shame than anything else she went through a window to a fire-escape and thence to the ground. The drop from the last platform is only about eight feet."

The tortures of hell broke loose in my brain. I rose, clasped both hands to my head, and fell prone. Garron lifted me to the cot.... after a long time he went on:

"Of course, now we know the motive for the murder. She loved this man. He had deceived her, and he was going away... at the gun store, a clerk remembered that a noiseless pistol had been sold to a woman, but it is doubtful if she could be identified after so long a time. Of course she denies this. And the glove!"

Again he held it aloft; I turned on the cot and stared at it, fascinated.

"I found it in her house," Garron went on calmly. "There had been no attempt to conceal it, or even clean it... I think that's all. I believe the woman will confess."

"And she would have let me go to the electric chair!" I complained...  A  long, narrow passage-way, hedged with steel. At its end sat a chair. A woman was being bound to it... she was shrieking!

I WAS arraigned and dismissed without trial. The woman had made further statements of a damaging nature, and despite her pitiful protestations of innocence, she was held. The chain of evidence against her was complete.

I remember only the final words of the judge who set me free... "an insane man who, by the sheer cunning of his madness, has broken down the circumstantial  evidence against himself, and proven the probable guilt of a woman now under arrest. The prisoner is discharged into the custody of his attorney."

Two days after that I went into the office of a surgeon, and held out my right hand.

"Please amputate that hand at the wrist," I requested.

He stared at me as if I were mad.

"Amputate it?" he repeated "Why?"

"It is covered with blood, and it won't come off," I told him.

MR. HOWARD MEREDITH, whose statement is set forth above, committed suicide four days after he was set free. In a short note, incoherent and barely decipherable, he said:

"It is not just that a woman should die in the electric chair.  I killed Spencer. I shot him in the back, and I thought I had killed him, then threw the pistol out of a window.  He had said I was insane, so my act was justifiable. He shot at the woman who entered in the dark, thinking it was me. I bought the stick pin in Germany. Garron is a fool; and so is the Judge who set me free."

_________________

9: Inside Job

Raoul Whitfield

Black Mask Magazine, February 1932

Hard-Boiled Omnibus (1946)

FRESNEY STOOD BESIDE THE coat-rack, pulling off his gray gloves. His eyes were on the half-moon shaped desk and his chair at the center of the inner curve, on the platform a foot above the floor. He took off his gloves slowly, stuffed them in a pocket of his tightly buttoned trench coat. His gold-headed cane he removed from an arm, hung it over the second hook of the rack. Phillips, the real estate editor, passed him and grinned with his long face.

“Nasty weather,” he said.

Fresney’s face was turned towards the large, black-lettered sign that hung on a wall of the editorial room.

“Is it?” he said in a cold voice.

The sign on the wall spelled Accuracy and was very old and dirty. Fresney’s thin, long lips curved slightly in a smile. He removed his coat, took off a gray soft hat and hung it over the hook that held his stick. At one end of the room the automatic telegraph machines were making a clatter. Two or three typewriters were working. At a glance Fresney saw that seven or eight of the dozen reporters on the staff had arrived; it was five minutes of two.

He took a pack of cigarettes from a pocket of the trench coat, walked swiftly around to his chair. It was a swivel-chair; rather battered looking. Cleve Collins, his assistant, looked up from some copy. He sat across from the city editor, on the outer curve of the half moon. There were two chairs on each side of his— copyreaders’ places. Collins said:

“Vapor said he wanted you as soon as you came in, Hugh.”

The managing editor’s name was Clinton Vaupaugh; he was called “Vapor” around the city rooms. Fresney nodded and sat down. He put a cigarette in his mouth, lighted a match by scratching a thumbnail across the phosphorous, and held the flame against paper and tobacco. His small, dark eyes looked at words on a yellow sheet of newspaper as he shook the match out. The words were: “You’re a good slave driver and a lousy city editor. I resign. Hennessy.”

Fresney lifted the paper the words were typed on as though it was something dirty. He used the tips of a thumb and forefinger and let the yellow stuff fall to the platform beside him. On another scrap of newspaper he read: “Dyke has sweet alibi and smashed head. Reedy sore— says sheet didn’t use his picture. Better give him break. In for the bulldog. Jake.”

Fresney flipped the scrap across to Cleve Collins, who was watching him closely.

“Run Dan Reedy’s face on Page 2— mark it ‘must’,” he instructed. “Give him a good boost.”

Collins blinked. “Reedy— what for?” he asked. “What did he do?”

The city editor’s eyes smiled a little. “He grabbed Jap Dyke, along with two or three other plainclothes boys,” he replied grimly. “But we’ll forget the others for the moment.”

The assistant city editor grunted. He made notes on paper. Fresney said:

“He’s feeling hurt and making it tough for Jake. We’ll use some oil.”

Collins swore very softly. Then he said:

“Vapor wants to see you when you get here, Hugh.”

The city editor nodded. “Hennessy’s quit; he didn’t like it because I told him to go after the Ware woman hard and tell her the police would be out if she didn’t talk. I think Hennessy drew a week ahead, yesterday. If he did— send Burney after the money. If Hennessy won’t pay up we’ll have him pinched.”

The assistant city editor widened his blue eyes. He was thirty-two, ten years younger than Fresney. He had a pale, thin face and his body was long and thin.

“And what’ll the police do, after they pinch Hennessy?” he asked dryly.

Fresney’s eyes were hard. “They’ll do what I tell ’em to do,” he replied.

Collins whistled very softly. Fresney looked at him sharply, then looked down at another slip of newspaper on which was scrawled: “Cresser gets hanged tonight. C. C.” The city editor looked at Collins and said slowly: “He put up a good fight, Cleve. Send Daly over to cover it— there’s a pass around here somewhere.”

Collins nodded. “Yeah. Cresser put up a good fight,” he agreed. “Damn’ little money— a wife— and with the sheet yelping for his neck—”

Fresney spoke coldly and softly: “Shut up, Cleve.”

Collins narrowed his eyes. “The wife was in to see you about fifteen minutes ago, Hugh,” he said quietly.

Fresney said: “You shut up, Cleve.”

Collins paid no attention to him. “I told her you were out of the city,” he said.

Fresney’s lips got very tight, and his eyes very small. Before he could speak Collins said:

“But she didn’t believe me.”

The city editor reached deep down in a hip pocket, twisting in his chair. He got the Colt loose, opened a drawer of the desk and slipped it inside. Cleve Collins looked down at the copy before him.

“That drawer sticks,” he reminded quietly. “You ought to have it fixed, Hugh.”

Hugh Fresney swung his chair and stood up. He smiled down at his assistant.

“It wouldn’t do you any good if I did get the works,” he said grimly. “Running this sheet takes guts.”

He looked beyond his assistant towards the groups of reporters. The Dispatch was a morning paper and was making a fight to beat the circulation of the Press. Fresney was driving his men hard, and he knew that he wasn’t exactly popular. The fact didn’t bother him.

He said to Cleve Collins: “Take on another man in Hennessy’s place— and no college stuff. And there’s a fellow getting in in a few hours to see me. His name is Slade. If I’m not here when he comes in— have him wait.”

Collins nodded and said without smiling: “Vapor wants to see you as soon as you get here, Hugh.” The city editor grinned. “Why didn’t you say so before?” he said. “There’s no damn’ system around this place.”

He walked along a side of the large room towards an office door marked: Managing Editor. Inside the door was a small anteroom. A very good-looking girl, with red hair and blue eyes, sat back of a small desk. She frowned when she saw Fresney. The city editor smiled at her; but she didn’t smile back. Fresney said:

“How about dinner tonight— late, at my place?” The girl’s expression changed just a little. “C. V. is inside,” she said coldly.

Fresney chuckled. “Lovely lady,” he said mockingly. “Just another of the mob that would like to see me lying on my back in an alley, with my eyes open.”

He went through another door, closed it behind him and stood looking down at the gray-haired figure of Clinton Vaupaugh. The managing editor was heavy, smooth-faced, handsome. He was a big man with full lips and soft gray eyes.

“It’s got to stop, Hugh,” he said very slowly. Suddenly he banged a fist on the desk behind which he sat; frowned with his whole face. “I tell you—it’s got to stop!”

The city editor smiled with his long lips, but his eyes were cold.

“Who’s whining now?” he asked with faint amusement in his voice.

Vaupaugh said grimly: “The Press had an editorial yesterday— you saw it? It doesn’t name this sheet, but it does everything but name it. It says we’re distorting the news. It claims we influenced the jury in the Cresser verdict; we hit at women— we’re ruthless, lying—”

Fresney took a cigarette from the pack and lighted it.

“The circulation department reports a daily city gain of twelve thousand in ten days,” he replied easily. “Where do you think we got that sale? It isn’t new readers. It’s right out of the Press’ pocket— we stole those readers away from them. They know it. Of course we’re scum— the whole lot of us.”

Vaupaugh took a handkerchief from a pocket, and there was an odor of perfume. He wiped his lips.

“It’s got to stop,” he repeated. “You’ve got to tone down, Hugh.”

Fresney smiled sardonically. “I haven’t started yet,” he breathed.

Vaupaugh stood up and shook a finger across the desk. He was breathing heavily and his face was pale.

“You got Cresser hanged— and you’re going after Jap Dyke the same way. You know who the man back of Edith Ware is? Bernard Kyle— one of our biggest advertisers. He called me up this morning. Lay off the Ware case— and lay off quick.”

Fresney yawned. “We can tone down a bit,” he said. “Kyle, eh? About to walk out on her, I suppose. Afraid of his wife— she just got back from Europe. And the Ware brat makes a bum attempt at suicide.”

Vaupaugh spoke in a shaken tone. “It isn’t a matter of toning down— we’re dropping the Ware suicide attempt. Dropping it, you understand?”

Fresney closed his small eyes, then opened them just a little.

“What’s wrong, Clint?” he asked very quietly.

Vaupaugh seated himself and said in a half whisper:

“My life’s been threatened— I had a phone call two hours ago. It sounded like business.”

The city editor made a snapping sound with fingers of his left hand.

“So that’s it,” he breathed. “First time your life has been threatened, Clint?”

There was irony in his words. Vaupaugh looked at him coldly.

“It’s the first time there’s ever been any real reason for the threats,” he replied. “Drop the Ware woman suicide stuff. Tone down a lot on Jap Dyke—”

Fresney straightened and stared at the managing editor.

“No,” he said in a hard voice. “Dyke’s our circulation builder— just now. A tough racketeer-gambler who went a bit too far. Mixed up with some city officials. We can’t drop Jap—”

Vaupaugh was suddenly very calm. “Drop Jap Dyke,” he said tonelessly. “I’ve changed my mind. It isn’t just a tone down— drop him! Or else—”

Hugh Fresney waited a few seconds and then repeated questioningly: “Or else?”

Vaupaugh wiped his full lips again. “Or else quit the sheet,” he said steadily.

Fresney looked at the managing editor a long time with his small eyes. Then he said:

“Like hell, Clint.”

He turned abruptly and went into the anteroom. The red-haired girl bent her head over some papers and Fresney said grimly:

“How about that late dinner?”

She didn’t answer him. He went into the big editorial room and towards his desk. As he neared it he saw Tim Slade standing close to Collins. He reached his desk, scribbled: “82 Goorley Street at six— ask for Creese— he’ll take you to back room where I feed.” He looked at Slade’s lean face and said nastily:

“That’s where he lives— you’re a dirty louse to hound him. This is the last tip I’ll give you. Take it and get the hell out of here!”

He folded the paper on which he had scribbled, tossed it across the desk. Tim Slade’s eyes flickered, and when Collins handed him the slip of paper he said grimly:

“He owes me the fifty— and if he’s got anything worth that much—he’ll pay up.”

He went along a row between desks, and Cleve Collins said:

“Did Vapor want anything special?”

Fresney nodded. “The sheet’s getting virtuous again,” he stated with grim amusement. “We’re dropping the Ware stuff— and we’re dropping Jap Dyke.”

Cleve Collins blinked at him, then whistled. Fresney said:

“We’ll play up the church convention and feature any women’s club meetings. And remember the kiddies, Cleve— remember the kiddies. Nothing like the kiddies to build circulation.”

Collins smiled grimly. Fresney called up two reporters and gave them assignments. Collins seemed to be thinking hard. After a little while he looked across at Fresney and said softly:

“It’s a little late to start playing up the kiddies, isn’t it, Hugh?”

Hugh Fresney looked at him narrowly. “It’s not too late for you, Clint,” he said very quietly. “But it’s awful damn’ late for Vapor and me!”

Tim Slade had a lean, sun-browned face, brown eyes and hair, good features. He was almost six feet tall and there was a power in his shoulders and arms that wasn’t noticeable at a glance. His movements were very quick, though they had the appearance of being slow through grace. He kept brown eyes on Fresney. Fresney said:

“Clinton Vaupaugh is yellow. He’s greedy, too. Two months ago he inherited the paper— his father died. I talked him into putting guts into it, and going after circulation. He didn’t care about the guts part, not having any himself. But a gain in circulation— that got him. He told me to go to it. I went to it. Pittsburgh hasn’t had a fighting sheet in years. For a month and a half I’ve been tearing things loose. Pounding away at old crimes and going after the new ones. A quarter of the staff has quit or been fired. We’ve got three suits against us. Hell’s about ready to pop.”

Tim Slade smiled and nodded. “Sure,” he agreed. “And what’s that got to do with me coming on from Cleveland?”

Fresney tapped his cane against the wooden floor of the back room at 82 Goorley Street.

“I didn’t know it when I sent for you— but Vaupaugh’s life has been threatened. I had a phone call at the flat, two days ago. From a booth in a local department store. A woman’s voice. She said I’d get it this week; there was nothing I could do about it— and she was just telling me so I could fix up a few things.”

Slade frowned. “Any chance of it just being a bluff?” he asked.

Fresney shook his head. “Not a nickel’s worth,” he replied. “I made a couple of mistakes.”

Slade said: “Well?”

Fresney frowned at his half-empty beer glass. Then he looked at Slade with his little eyes almost closed. He nodded his head as though in self-agreement.

“I fired a reporter named Hallam, a week ago. Vaupaugh’s secretary is a red-headed girl named Dana Jones. She and Hallam were hot for each other. Hallam didn’t like my talking to him about it, the way I did. He swung at me, and I knocked him cold. Then I fired him. He can’t get another job and he left town yesterday. He hates my insides, and so does the girl.”

Slade finished the beer. “That makes two, Hugh,” he said. “Hallam might come back.”

The city editor nodded. “And a reporter named Hennessy makes three,” he added. “I didn’t fire him— he quit. But I was going to fire him. A woman named Edith Ware tried suicide, three days ago. Reason— her lover was going to be good and stick around his wife. Reason— the wife was coming back home. I had an inside from her maid— paid fifty bucks for it. Sent Hennessy to break the woman down and make her talk. Wanted to know who the man was. Good stuff— the way I was running things. Hennessy sold out, maybe. Or maybe he just got hating me. Anyway, he wrote that I was a slave driver and a louse. He’s been drinking.”

Slade said: “A possible three.”

Fresney looked at his fingernails. “The Ware woman is the fourth. I’ve smeared her all over the sheet since she made her bum attempt at suicide. I think she uses cocaine.”

Slade nodded. “Four.”

The city editor drew a deep breath. “I’ve been ripping things wide open, Tim. There are a lot of others that might do things—and the two that count biggest. Ruth Cresser and Jap Dyke. The Cresser girl is the wife of a guy that hangs tonight. We forced the police to go the limit with him. I had four men working on his past. We played for the jury— for everything. He hangs tonight. His wife was in today.”

Slade said: “Five.”

Fresney closed his eyes. “Cresser killed two cops, maybe. Jap Dyke told him to do it, maybe. He’s bad and he’s important. The other sheets keep clear of him. We did, until we went out for circulation. Jap stabbed a kid a week ago— in one of his gambling houses. A stoolie tipped me— I’ve been playing all ends. We ran stuff that made the city detectives grab Jap. He hasn’t talked much yet, but he has an alibi. He knows that I’m city editor and that Vaupaugh is managing editor.”

Slade said very tonelessly “Six.”

Fresney looked at the man across from him and smiled. It was a hard smile.

“Six— and some others we won’t bother about,” he breathed. “I’ve crammed a lot of living into forty-two years, Tim— I guess you know that. I can smell death when it’s close, and I smell it now. One paper can’t clean up this town— not the way I went at it. That was one of the mistakes. The other is one I’ve made all my life— I like to smash people that get in my way.”

Slade said: “Sure.”

Fresney nodded, his little eyes very small.

“Man or woman— that hasn’t made any difference. That’s the other mistake— you can’t smash women out of the way, Tim. They’re the mothers of men.”

He leaned back and chuckled. Then he shrugged and battered the gold head of the cane on the table.

“I like to smash people that get in my way,” he repeated. “Women have got in my way— in the paper’s way. And when I’m finished, Tim— someone will have got in my way again.”

Slade’s brown eyes held a faintly puzzled expression. He didn’t ask the question, but the city editor answered it.

“I loaned you half the money to get started in that Cleveland agency, Tim. You’ve done well— you had it in you.”

Slade shrugged. “In another three months— I can pay you back, Hugh,” he said.

Fresney smiled narrowly. “In another three months I’ll be forgotten,” he breathed. “Forget the loan, Tim. I wired for you for just one reason. I’m going to be through— pretty quick. That doesn’t frighten me, not much. I carry a gun and a heavy stick, Tim, and if I get a break— a chance to fight— you can go on back to Cleveland. But if they get me in the back, or machine-gun me out, or mob me out— I’d like you to get at least one of ’em, Tim. See?”

Slade’s brown eyes were frowning. But he didn’t speak.

Fresney said: “You’ll be all alone, Tim. The police’ll be pleasant, but they’ll be tickled. They never knew which way I’d print stuff. And I know too much. Vaupaugh’s yellow and he hates me now, because he’s been scared. Maybe he’ll get the dose, too. Maybe not. He’ll offer a reward, but the paper won’t help you much, Tim. The staff hates me. Collins might help a little, but he’ll probably get my job, and he’ll be busy being careful he doesn’t lose it. See?”

Slade nodded. Fresney smiled and shrugged.

“You’ll be alone, Tim,” he repeated. “I’ve hurt too many humans around here.”

Slade said: “All right— I don’t mind being alone.”

Fresney looked at the private detective with a peculiar expression in his small eyes.

“You don’t think I’m going to get it, eh? Think I’ve gone yellow, like Vaupaugh?”

Slade said quietly: “You seem pretty sure, Hugh. Ever think of being a newspaper man in some other city?”

Fresney smiled grimly. “I never was good at running,” he replied. “Well— that’s all, Tim. That loan pays your fee— unless I get a chance to fight. If you look things over after, and see that I’ve hit back some—then trot on back to Cleveland and forget all this stuff.”

The city editor stood up. He patted a pocket of the trench coat, which he hadn’t removed. He looked down at Slade, smiling a little.

“I’m no damn’ angel, Tim,” he said. “I guess you know that. But I don’t like the idea of the human that gets me having things too easy.”

He held out his hand and Slade stood up. “I’ll go back to the paper behind you,” he said. “I’ll stick around for a while. You just might be wrong about things, Hugh.”

The city editor grinned and shook his head. He tossed a dollar bill on the table.

“The paper’s gone virtuous,” he stated with faint mockery. “It may save Vaupaugh’s perfumed neck, but it won’t save mine.”

Tim Slade didn’t argue the point. He’d known Fresney for five years, and the city editor had always shoved humans out of his way. If he said he was through— Slade knew he was through.

Fresney said: “Don’t come to the funeral, Tim.” His smile became a grin. “It’ll be a bum show. And you may have work to do.”

Slade nodded. “You had a good time while the racket lasted, Hugh,” he said quietly. “I’ll do what I can. But with so many hating you—”

Fresney grunted. “There may be carelessness along the line.”

He dug his left hand into a pocket of the trench coat and handed Slade a grotesquely twisted piece of lead.

“This morning, in the fog,” he said quietly, “I took an early walk—it hit a brick wall just ahead of me. Not much sound. Better keep it—might help. Over on the North Side, and the gun was silenced. Just the one shot. I got down low and stayed down for seconds, then I grabbed a cab and went home.”

Tim Slade said: “Good size— .45 maybe.”

Fresney nodded. “Maybe— doesn’t matter much. So long, Tim.”

Slade said: “Luck— and keep your chin up, Hugh.”

The city editor went from the room and down the stairs. Slade slipped the bullet in a pocket of his loose gray coat. He stood looking through the doorway, though Fresney was no longer in sight. After a few seconds he shoved his right hand in a deep pocket and touched the steel of his Colt automatic.

Then he went down the stairs and outside, watched the city editor turn a corner and head southward, towards the Ninth Street bridge. He followed along, a half square or so behind. Fresney walked rapidly, with his head up. When a truck made sharp exhaust racket, not far from the bridge, the city editor stopped and looked towards it. Then he went on.

Tim Slade bought a paper and glanced at it from time to time. It was dark when Fresney reached the other side of the bridge. The sky was gray and it was growing foggy. Slade increased his pace and got closer to the city editor. After seven or eight squares Fresney crossed Liberty Street and walked in the direction of the four-story brick building occupied by the Dispatch. The editorial rooms were on the upper floor; the presses were at street level. Slade followed to the entrance but didn’t go inside. The presses were motionless; there was a small crowd standing in the murky fog and reading a bulletin to the effect that Walter Cresser’s wife was making a last-hour appeal to the State governor, who was in Pittsburgh. The bulletin stated that Cresser was to be hanged between eleven and midnight.

Tim Slade lighted a cigarette and went into a drug store. He had a soft drink which killed the taste of the beer he had taken with Fresney. He didn’t like the taste of beer. When he’d finished the drink he got inside a booth and called Fresney. He said:

“T. S. speaking. Do you know a small man, very thin, who walks with a limp? Left leg stiff. Carries a straight, black stick.”

Fresney said: “No— why?”

Tim Slade dropped a cigarette on the floor of the booth and stepped on it.

“He tagged along across the street from you, most of the way to the building. Just now he picked up a paper a blonde gal dropped, and they went different directions.”

Fresney said in an irritated voice: “Well— what of that?”

Slade said: “Maybe nothing— but she dropped the paper when she was right beside him, and I figured he might have slipped something with something written on it— inside the paper before he handed it back.”

There was a little silence, then Fresney said:

“The mechanics of the way they work doesn’t interest me, Tim.”

Slade said: “All right— but I thought you might want to know a tip might be out that you were inside the building.” Fresney said with sarcasm: “Thanks— you think they’ll walk in and get me at my desk?”

Slade said: “I thought you might know the man.”

The city editor swore. Slade waited a few seconds, then said:

“What time are you coming out?”

Fresney swore again: “Around eleven-thirty, unless something big breaks. Take a nap, Tim— and we’ll have a drink around midnight. Ring me at eleven-fifteen.”

Slade said: “Right,” and hung up. He smiled down at the receiver grimly. His brown eyes were almost closed. When he left the booth he went to the cigar counter and bought cigarettes. He recognized one of the Dispatch reporters he had seen in the editorial room. The reporter was at the counter, talking to an older man.

“I’ve got a hunch the sheet is going to be a lot softer,” he was saying. “Tough on Fresney— he’ll hate getting soft with it.”

The reporter’s companion swore. “It’ll just be another thing for him to hate,” he said grimly. “Hating comes easy for him.”

Tim Slade went out to the street and walked past the Dispatch building again. There was a later bulletin posted— it had been pasted up on the great glass window that showed off the presses, while he was phoning. It announced that the governor had refused to reconsider the Cresser stay. Nothing more could be done.

Tim Slade moved along Liberty Street, through the fog. He nodded his head and his brown eyes were grim.

“And hating comes easy for other people, too,” he breathed very softly.

At the moment that Walter Cresser was pronounced dead by doctors at Western Penitentiary, Tim Slade was listening to a jazz band playing on the stage of the Alvin Theatre. They were doing a new number called “Your Baby’s My Baby Now.” They did it in slow tempo and when they had finished there was a lot of applause. The jazz band was the last number on the bill, and the bill was a long one. Tim Slade looked at his wristwatch, left his aisle seat and went outside. It was damply cold; the fog had thickened.

He walked to Liberty Street and moved towards the newspaper building. When he was three or four squares away an ambulance sped by, going in the same direction. It didn’t make much noise and Slade paid little attention to it.

When he neared the entrance to the Dispatch there was a crowd that wasn’t looking at bulletins. The ambulance was at the curb, and there was a black, open car with police insignia showing.

Slade closed his brown eyes slightly, shoved his way through the crowd. A uniformed officer caught him by the arm and Slade said:

“I’m on the staff— what’s wrong?”

The officer released his grip. “You’ll be writing about it,” he stated grimly and told the crowd to stop shoving.

Slade said: “Sure,” and went inside.

At the top of the first flight of wooden stairs he saw another crowd. The white of an interne’s coat showed. He went up the stairs. Cleve Collins, looking very pale, was saying:

“I heard one shot— and I heard Vaupaugh call out: ‘For God’s sake, Hugh— get him—’ Then there was another shot. I was two flights up, and I ran right down. Vaupaugh was lying where he is now— and Fresney was halfway down, moving a little, on the steps.”

Collins stopped. A plain-clothes man with a good pair of shoulders and a strong jaw said:

“What’d you do?”

Collins shrugged. “I went down there—” he pointed half the way down the stairs that led to the street level of the building— “and asked Fresney if he was shot.”

The plain-clothes man said with sarcasm: “Wasn’t that fine!”

The assistant city editor looked at him sharply. Then he said:

“Don’t be that way, Reynolds. I’m not a suspect and I’m not stupid.”

His voice was hard. Reynolds blinked at him and shrugged.

“No offense meant,” he said.

Tim Slade moved a few feet and looked down at the body of Vaupaugh. He hadn’t known the managing editor of the paper. The interne said in a fairly loud voice:

“All over, here— I’ll go in and look at the other one.”

Slade followed him into a room used by the circulation department. Hugh Fresney was stretched out on a leather divan. There was blood on his face; his head was bandaged. Five or six men were grouped around the divan. Fresney said slowly and with evident pain:

“Vaupaugh started down the stairs— something was wrong with the elevator. There was something I wanted to tell him, and I started after him. I called to him, but he didn’t hear me. Collins— my assistant— came out to tell me we’d just got a flash that Cresser had been hanged. I said I’d be back— and went down after Vaupaugh. I caught up to him on the landing of the first floor.”

The city editor paused. He spoke thickly— his mouth was cut. Slade noticed two of the paper’s reporters in the group about him. There was a police lieutenant in uniform and a man that looked like another plain-clothes detective. Fresney went on:

“The landings aren’t very well lighted— we don’t use them much. These circulation department doors were closed— the offices were dark. Vaupaugh was facing me—he had his back to this door. I was talking— there was a shot. Vaupaugh grabbed at his back and called out. I think he said: 'I’m shot— for God’s sake get him, Hugh.’ Not sure— the shot made a lot of racket. Vaupaugh staggered away from me— and there was another shot from the doorway here.”

Fresney raised his left arm and pointed towards the door of the circulation office. He spoke in a low tone.

“Vaupaugh fell and I stumbled over his body. I was trying to get my gun from the pocket I carry it in— it stuck. I went to my knees and something hit me on the top of the head. I grappled with the one who had struck me and was hit again. Then my body was swung around—I was falling. I hit the stairs and must have lost consciousness. The next thing I knew was when Collins was beside me, asking if I was shot.”

The police lieutenant said: “What did you tell Collins?”

Fresney swore. “I said I didn’t think so— but that the managing editor was. I told him the one with the gun must have got to the street. He ran on down the stairs and got the traffic cop near the theatre, a square away. The others came down and brought me up here— someone telephoned headquarters—”

Fresney closed his eyes, and the interne, beside him, said:

“Better let us run you to the hospital. You may be banged up inside. Outside it’s just a smashed head and face, and cuts and bruises on the body from the fall.”

Fresney shook his head. “I’ll come over for an examination later, in a cab. I’m all right. Vaupaugh—”

The interne shrugged. “Dead— maybe within ten seconds of the time he was hit. Looks as though the bullet got the heart, from behind.”

Fresney’s face twisted. “Damn!” he said weakly.

The police lieutenant asked: “You never got a look at the face of the fellow that cracked you, Fresney?”

The city editor shook his head. “He handled me as though he was big, strong,” he replied. “But I was almost out after the first crack— he might not have been big.”

One of the other men said: “You don’t think there were two or three of them?”

Fresney opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. He was wearing no coat; his vest was opened and his white shirt sleeves were rolled up.

“Might have been,” he said slowly. “I have the feeling there was only one.”

The police lieutenant said: “Vaupaugh’s life had been threatened, you say?”

Fresney nodded. “He told me that this afternoon.”

The one who looked like a plain-clothes man to Tim Slade spoke hoarsely:

“Yours— has it been threatened, Fresney?”

The city editor smiled a little. “Hell, yes,” he replied. “You fellows know that.”

He used his arms and sat up a little. His eyes went to one of the reporters. Collins came into the room and Fresney said to him:

“Get this in the next edition, Cleve— but save the high-lights for the final. Vaupaugh’s— last words— that sort of thing.”

He shook his head, as though thinking of Vaupaugh. His eyes rested on Slade’s face, but he didn’t appear to see him. The police lieutenant spoke grimly.

“Maybe they were trying for you— or this one fellow was trying for you, Fresney,” he said.

Fresney said thickly: “Maybe.”

The police lieutenant looked at those in the room. He frowned at Slade.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Tim Slade let his brown eyes meet the city editor’s. Fresney eased his head back to the raised portion of the divan, and twisted his face with pain. Then he smiled a little.

“He’s all right, Lieutenant,” he said. “Tim Slade— has a detective agency in Cleveland.”

The police lieutenant continued to frown. He looked at Fresney.

“What’s he doing here?” he asked.

Fresney said: “I wired for him— things looked bad for me. He’s an old friend of mine.”

The lieutenant grunted. “Bodyguard, eh?” he breathed.

Slade shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m no good at that sort of thing.”

The police lieutenant stared at him. Fresney swore and sat up again. His face was pretty badly battered. The lieutenant spoke grimly.

“Know who might have wanted to kill Vaupaugh, Fresney?”

The city editor narrowed his eyes. “No,” he said. “But he was managing editor and owner of the sheet— and a lot of people always want to kill editors.”

The police lieutenant smiled. “Know who might have wanted to kill you?” he asked.

Fresney swore huskily. He touched his bandaged head with careful fingers.

“I know a few people who might want to kill me,” he stated. “But that doesn’t say they tried.”

Collins said: “You might have been mistaken for Vaupaugh— or he might have been mistaken for you. They wanted you, Hugh— and they got him.”

The police lieutenant grunted. “Or maybe they figured one of you was about as bad as the other— and tried for you both.”

Fresney shrugged. He looked at Collins. “Better get up above, and get the story going,” he said. “Reporters from the other papers will be along soon. Treat ’em nice—but don’t tell them anything important, and avoid the truth as much as possible. Get a good obituary started for Vaupaugh.”

His words were tight, peculiar. Collins said:

“The obit’s all ready— I had Creager write it up a week ago.”

Fresney smiled grimly and the police lieutenant made clicking sounds.

“You fellows work fast,” he breathed.

Fresney looked at Collins as he turned to go from the room.

“Say that the paper will probably offer a large reward for the arrest of the killer or killers,” he said slowly. “Don’t use my picture. Play Vaupaugh’s death up as a big loss to Pittsburgh and the newspaper world.”

The police lieutenant swore. Collins nodded and started from the room. Fresney called in a voice that was thick and not very strong:

“Don’t forget the police, Cleve— they’re working hard. The dragnet’s out. The police boys all loved Vaupaugh, and they were terribly broken up over his death. When word got around that I was alive— they shouted with joy—”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Collins went from the room. Tim Slade looked at the police lieutenant, who was regarding the city editor with a grim expression in his eyes.

“Our job’s to get the killer,” he said simply. “This paper’s been pounding the police for weeks. We’ve been grafters, quitters, cowards and a lot of other things. You printed the stuff, Fresney— and the dead man okeyed it. But that doesn’t count. We’ll do our job.”

Fresney said with doubt: “Yeah? Well, anything I can do to help—”

He let his words trail off. The police lieutenant said:

“I want the names of the persons you were worried about. And any you think Vaupaugh might have been worried about.”

Fresney said: “Sure— got a pencil?”

The lieutenant said: “I can remember them.”

The city editor frowned. “Cresser was hanged a little while ago. The Dispatch thought he was guilty. We went after him. We dug up some of his past stuff. He has a wife— she’s tried to see me a couple of times. I don’t think she wanted to throw her arms around my neck. She knew Vaupaugh was the managing editor— she tried to see him, too.”

The police lieutenant said grimly: “You think a woman knocked you out and threw you down the stairs?”

Fresney smiled grimly. “You asked who might want to finish me— or Vaupaugh.”

The officer said: “All right. Go on—”

Fresney said: “You boys got Jap Dyke— but the paper had to tell you he was back in town. And the paper had to yelp that there might be graft holding off a pinch. Jap’s mob don’t love me— they didn’t love Vaupaugh.”

The police lieutenant didn’t speak. Fresney said:

“The Ware woman— the one that tried suicide. We gave her a play. There was a man in the background, and he was getting pretty scared. And nasty. The one she thought she wanted to suicide for. He was worried about his wife.”

The officer narrowed his eyes on Fresney’s and started to ask a question. But the city editor shook his head.

“In private, maybe— but you don’t get his name here.” He smiled very grimly. “He’s a big advertiser.”

The lieutenant swore. Fresney said: “I hurt pretty bad— get me a cab, Tim. I’ll go over and let the doc see if anything’s wrong inside.”

The police lieutenant frowned. Fresney said: “Then I’ve got to come back here— and get the sheet moving.”

Tim Slade went outside and moved past the covered body of Clinton Vaupaugh. A uniformed cop was on a ladder that was in place near woodwork high on the wall of the landing. He had a flashlight in one hand and he called down:

“Yeah— one hunk of lead dug in here.”

Tim Slade kept his brown eyes narrowed a little and went down the stairs. He hailed a cab, directly in front of the entrance. Two uniformed officers were keeping the crowd moving. Theatres were out and there was a lot of traffic. There was a bulletin up stating that Walter Cresser had been hanged.

A reporter and a plain-clothes man helped Fresney to the cab. The plain-clothes man said: “Mind if I go along, Fresney? The lieutenant thought you might remember something between now and the time you get back, and you could tell me.”

Fresney said wearily: “Climb in.”

Tim Slade stood near the door of the cab, and his eyes met the city editor’s. Fresney looked pretty sick.

“See what you can dig up, Tim,” Fresney said in a tired voice. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Slade smiled. “You aren’t holding anything back?” he questioned.

The city editor frowned. The plain-clothes man beside him yawned and looked bored. Fresney shook his head very slowly.

“I didn’t get a peek at the killer, Tim,” he said. “I think he made a mistake— thought Vaupaugh was me. But you might work around the building a bit— that fellow seemed to know where to lay for us. The elevator wasn’t working.”

Slade said: “Yeah— I’ll poke around the paper.”

The plain-clothes man looked straight ahead and his eyes were expressionless. His voice was that way, too.

“Sure,” he said. “It might have been an inside job.”

Inspector O’Hafey had a big head, a tall body. He was gray haired and his eyes were the same color. He looked at the papers Slade handed him, handed them back.

“Your outfit got Dunner,” he said in a husky voice. “Well, how do you figure?”

They were in the rear of the editorial room, and there was a lot of clatter up front. Most of the Dispatch staff were working on the story—there was a lot to be done. O’Hafey was doing his questioning on the spot.

Slade said: “I got a wire from Fresney. I’ve known him for five years or so. He’s a hard man, and he doesn’t scare easily.

When I got here he seemed to want to keep me under cover. His life had been threatened; he was shot at this morning. Here’s the lead.”

He handed it to the inspector, who looked at it, then handed it to a sergeant sitting beside him. Tim Slade’s browned face was expressionless.

“Fresney seemed to be pretty certain he was slated to go out,” he went on. “He named some people who hated him enough to finish him, maybe. He told me Vaupaugh’s life had been threatened, and that the managing editor was yellow. He said the policy of the paper was to be changed, because Vaupaugh was scared. The sheet was going ‘soft.’ But he thought it was too late to save his neck, though it might save Vaupaugh.”

O’Hafey said: “You’ve got a paying agency in Cleveland, yet you came on here when he wired. Why?”

Slade smiled a little. “I was a reporter here for a while, five years ago. Worked under Fresney. He set me up in business. I still owe him some money.”

O’Hafey said: “Uh-huh. What were you to do?” Slade spoke softly: “Go after whoever murdered Fresney, after they got him.”

O’Hafey blinked at Slade’s brown eyes. “After they got him?” he repeated.

Slade nodded. “He didn’t figure having a bodyguard would help much. But I tailed him back to the paper around six.” O’Hafey said: “Anything happen?”

Slade hesitated, then shrugged. “A small, thin man with a stiff left leg followed along from the North Side. He carried a black stick. When Fresney came in the building this fellow stopped and waited around near the bulletin window. I got the idea he was stalling. After a while a blonde girl came along and dropped a paper. The one with the stiff leg picked it up and handed it back to her. I got the idea that he might have passed something along with it. Couldn’t see what he did— his back was to me. They went in different directions.”

The inspector widened his gray eyes. “A tip for someone— that Fresney was inside, eh?” he muttered.

Slade shrugged. “It was just a chance. I called Fresney and asked him if he knew anyone that looked like this small, thin limper. He said no— and wanted to know why. I told him and he said he wasn’t interested in the mechanics of the kill.”

“Tough guy,” O’Hafey said. “Well, I guess we know Fresney’s tough. Wanted you to get whoever got him, eh? Working from the grave. He would like that idea.”

Slade said: “I didn’t have to tell you these things, Inspector. I’m working for Fresney, and he isn’t exactly strong for the local police. I told you so that you wouldn’t get in my way.”

The inspector frowned. Then he smiled grimly.

“Go ahead, Slade,” he agreed. “Fresney thinks we won’t care much about grabbing the one who was after him, or who killed Vaupaugh. Well, that’s true enough. But we do a lot of jobs we don’t like.”

The sergeant said quietly: “Where were you— when this murder occurred?”

Slade grinned. “Listening to a jazz band at the Alvin Theatre,” he replied.

O’Hafey looked at his big hands. “Any good?” he asked.

Tim Slade nodded. “Swell,” he replied, and stood up. “If you don’t mind I’ll go out for some coffee and a doughnut.”

The inspector nodded. “Sure,” he said.

Slade went through the editorial room and reached Cleve Collins’ side. The assistant was reading typewritten words on newspaper. Fresney had not returned yet. It was eleven forty-five. Collins looked up and Slade said:

“Pretty tough on Vaupaugh.”

Collins nodded. “I think the fellow that got him was after Hugh,” he said soberly.

Slade said: “You do? Well, he must have known he made a mistake. He heard Vaupaugh call out.”

Collins said: “Yes— and he shot again. That was the one he missed.”

Slade nodded. “Well, there are more than two bullets in a gun,” he said. “What next?”

Collins shrugged. “Fresney was going for him. He stumbled. The second bullet was meant for him, maybe. It went into the wall. The spot where they dug it out is in a line— it works out right. The killer may have thought he’d hit Fresney, or he didn’t want to try again. So he used his gun on Hugh’s head— swung him around and threw him down the stairs. Then he went down past him and into the street. He got a break— he didn’t meet anyone coming up. The theatres were out, and he got away in the crowd.”

Slade’s brown eyes looked down at a proof of a “head” that read: Dispatch Owner Slain. He nodded his head.

“That’s the way it looks,” he said.

He moved away from the curved desk, glancing at Fresney’s vacant chair. The telegraph machines were clattering and a lot of typewriters were working. Slade moved towards the private office of Vaupaugh, opened the door quietly and went inside. He closed the door behind him.

Dana Jones looked at him with eyes that were a misty blue. She was small and very pretty. Tim Slade said:

“Pardon. You’re Miss Jones, Vaupaugh’s secretary?”

Her mouth set in a straight line. Her lips were nice, not too red. She didn’t reply.

Slade smiled. “I’m Slade,” he said. “I’m not with the police or on any paper. I’m from Cleveland. Fresney sent for me. He was worried.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “What about?” she asked so steadily that he felt surprise.

“He thought maybe he was going to be killed. I’m an agency man— an old friend of his.”

She was silent again. Slade said quietly: “Some hours ago he gave me a list of those he thought might like to see him dead.”

He stopped. The girl said: “Well—”

Slade looked around at framed cartoons on the walls of the anteroom.

“Your name was one of them,” he said.

The girl’s eyes got very wide. She pressed a tiny, damp handkerchief against her lips. Slade smiled.

“That may not mean much. I’m just poking around. The police don’t know that Fresney was worried about you— not yet.”

Her eyes grew hard; she took the handkerchief away from her lips.

“Fresney wasn’t killed,” she said steadily. “What difference does it make who he’s worried about?”

Slade chuckled. “It’s a nice point,” he said. “But the police think Vaupaugh was killed by mistake. They think Fresney was slated to get the dose.”

The girl sat very motionless behind the small desk that held her typewriter.

“You think I shot Clinton by mistake, then threw Hugh Fresney down the stairs, then came back in here?” she said. There was scorn in her words.

Slade shook his head and looked at the cartoons again.

“Naturally not,” he replied. “Fresney fired a reporter named Hallam. Hallam hit him because he said something about you. Joking, I suppose. Fresney has a peculiar sense of humor. I understand you rather like Hallam.”

The girl stood up. “Bob’s out of town,” she said firmly. “He went to Chicago yesterday at noon. I saw him off.”

Slade nodded. “Trains run both ways,” he observed.

She shook her head. “He got a job on the News— a night job.

He got it by telephone. He didn’t come back. You can call the paper now— he’s probably there. You can talk with him.”

Slade grinned. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll take your word for it. But Hallam didn’t like Fresney much, did he?”

She smiled, her lips and eyes hard. “Of course not,” she said. “And I don’t like him much. And I can give you a list, too—” Slade lifted a hand in protest. “I believe you,” he interrupted. “Let’s forget the idea that the killer made a mistake. Let’s say he wanted to get Vaupaugh, and he got him. Fresney was coming for him, so he knocked him out and got away. That’s simple enough. Can you give me a list of some people who might have wanted to get the managing editor and owner of a sheet that was stepping down pretty hard in order to build circulation?” Dana Jones said: “Why should I? You’re not with the police.” Tim Slade shrugged. “You just said you could give me a list,” he reminded.

She nodded. “But I didn’t say that I would.” Slade grinned. “You’re hard to get along with,” he told her cheerfully. “Think Cresser’s wife might have worked the idea that Vaupaugh would be better dead?”

The girl sat down behind the typewriter again. She looked at him narrowly.

“Fresney’s a pretty big man for a woman to throw downstairs,” she said.

Tim Slade spoke patiently: “That fact has been mentioned several times,” he said. “But sometimes a woman gets a man to do a job for her.”

Dana Jones didn’t speak. He liked her eyes and her hands. They were both strong and decisive. She had a nice voice, even when it was hard.

Slade said: “How about the Ware woman, and the advertiser she made a bum attempt at suicide for? Either one of them might have been pretty sore.”

She nodded slowly. “Of course. And C.V. bawled out a ticket broker this morning for giving him bum seats to a show last night. The ticket broker might have been sore, too.”

Tears filled her eyes again, but she blinked them away. Slade said:

“You thought a lot of Vaupaugh?”

She looked at him for several seconds, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she said:

“No, he was pretty weak. I feel sorry for him. He was very frightened.”

Slade nodded. “He wanted the paper to make money, so he let Fresney run it his way. His way was pretty hard. They came after Vaupaugh, and he ordered the circulation building stuff stopped. But it was too late. Is that it?”

The girl said: “I suppose— that was it.”

Slade looked at the cartoons again. “How about this Hennessy?” he asked. “He was fed up with Fresney; he thought he was a slave-driver.”

The girl looked at Slade and said very slowly: “What’s the use of asking me these questions? You seem to know a lot of people who hated Fresney. Some of them might have hated Vaupaugh, too. Vaupaugh gave the orders around here—”

Slade widened his eyes. “Did he?” he asked.

She smiled a little. It was a hard smile. “And Hugh Fresney made suggestions,” she finished.

Slade said: “You’re all right. I like you.”

The girl’s blue eyes looked surprised. Then she said:

“That’s fine— can I tell mother?”

Slade grinned and turned away. But h& stopped near the door.

“Where were you when—”

He stopped as she threw up a hand. “I was sitting right in here putting powder on my nose,” she said. “And I haven’t a damn’ bit of proof of it.”

Slade chuckled. He said: “Somehow I believe you.”

He went outside and closed the door. Hugh Fresney was easing himself into his chair at the inner curve of the long copy desk. When the police inspector went close to him he waved him away. Slade went towards the desk and heard Fresney say: “Nothing wrong inside of me— give me fifteen minutes, Inspector— and then I’ll answer questions all night. I’ve got to get the last edition lined up.”

The inspector nodded and turned away. He saw Slade and beckoned to him and they went to the rear of the city room together. O’Hafey said:

“That hunk of lead we dug out of the wood in the hall here— it’s a .38 bullet. The sergeant thinks the one Fresney gave you is a .38, too.”

Slade nodded. “Might mean the same gent took another crack at Fresney— or the figure he thought was Fresney,” he breathed. “And it might not.”

The inspector nodded. “We’re bringing in everyone Fresney thinks might hate him, or Vaupaugh. We haven’t been able to find anyone who saw the killer run from the building.”

Slade said: “You haven’t found anyone who was out front, heard the shots— and didn’t see anyone run from the building?”

O’Hafey grinned. “Funny, I thought of that, too. Yeah— there was a news-kid outside. Near the bulletins— along with a lot of others. He was near the entrance and he heard the racket. He wasn’t sure it was shooting, but he sort of watched the entrance. There was a lot of traffic noise. The first person to come out, the news-kid says, was Collins. The news-kid is around fifteen years old, and seems pretty bright.”

Slade said: “Well— how about the roof?”

The inspector shrugged. “I’ve been up there. It isn’t easy. A couple of closed doors, a narrow passage, and an iron ladder for ten feet. Nothing locked, but everything closed. Only one way off—to the building on the left. A fifteen-foot drop. One of my men is trying to get down that way now. It probably can be done.”

The inspector frowned and added: “But I don’t think it was.” Slade said: “And you believe the news-kid?” O’Hafey nodded his big head. “Inside job,” he said very slowly. “The fellow knew Fresney was in here. He knew where to wait. It wasn’t very light— he heard Fresney’s voice and made a mistake because he wanted to get the city editor in the back. He wanted to get him in the back because he didn’t want to be seen. He didn’t want to be seen because Fresney knew him— and there would be a chance of him yelling his name. When he heard Vaupaugh call out, he knew he’d made a mistake. Fresney went for him and stumbled. The killer’s second shot went wild. He used his gun and shoved Fresney down the stairs.

“He didn’t shoot again, because he’d made enough racket already. But he didn’t follow Fresney down, and pass him while he was stunned. Or if he did, he didn’t go outside. There are a couple of doors he could have used on the main floor— into the space where the presses are. He could have got out three other ways. Or he could have come back upstairs.”

The inspector drew a deep breath. “That’s in return for the bullet you handed me,” he said. “It’s the way things look to me. My men are trying to find others who heard the shots— and others who saw people moving around right after they heard them. Fresney never even got the safety catch off his Colt. A full load inside. He has a permit for the gun, and when he got it, several weeks ago, he stated that he wasn’t exactly loved in this town.”

Slade nodded. “You’re going pretty strong for the theory that Vaupaugh got the dose by mistake, and that it was an inside job,” he said softly.

O’Hafey shrugged. “I’ll follow any lead,” he said. “That looks like the one to be followed right now. I want to find out who there is, in some way familiar with this newspaper plant, who thought Fresney was a louse.”

Slade nodded again. “If I dig up anything— I’ll get it to you, Inspector,” he said. “I’m just poking around— I wasn’t supposed to go to work until Fresney was killed.”

The inspector looked grim. “Do you lose much by the guy getting the wrong man?” he asked.

Slade smiled with his brown eyes almost closed. He lighted a cigarette and inhaled.

“I haven’t had time to figure it out yet,” he said. “But I don’t think I lose a thing.”

His voice held a peculiar note. He moved away, went past reporters’ desks and reached Fresney’s side. The city editor was reading copy and had a blue pencil in his right hand. His head and forehead were bandaged— and there was adhesive tape around the right corner of his mouth. He was frowning. Slade stood beside him and said softly: “You weren’t holding anything back, Hugh?” The city editor didn’t look up. He scratched out some words and said thickly:

“Just one thing, Tim.”

Slade waited, and still the city editor didn’t look up. Slade said: “What, Hugh?”

Fresney spoke softly. “I told you I didn’t know a short, thin man with a limp. I do know one. His name is Garrow. He was a stoolie for the North Side police for a while. Then he dropped out of sight. I had a tip that he wouldn’t turn up anything on the Jap Dyke mob.”

Slade whistled softly. “That might mean he was in with them.” He was silent for a few seconds, then he said very slowly: “I think he gave the tipoff that you were inside, Hugh. I think maybe I’d better look him up.”

Fresney said grimly: “He’ll be hard to find.”

Slade nodded. “You’re holding out the fact that you know this fellow— you’re not tipping the police?”

Fresney shrugged. “They can know it now,” he said. “I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t see that it would help things any.”

Slade said: “All right— not holding out anything else?”

Fresney swore and looked up. “Hell, no,” he said. “It’s the Dyke mob’s job—only they made a mistake. They got Vaupaugh instead of me. Damn’ tough on him. As for me— they’ll get me yet.”

Slade smiled with his brown eyes. “You’ll be around for a while yet,” he said. “The inspector has questions. I’m going out, but I’ll be back before you leave.”

The city editor nodded. “I’ll probably have to go down to the commissioner’s office,” he said. “If I’m not here or there— I’ll be at 82 Goorley until dawn. I think best over the strong stuff.”

Slade said: “Sleep would be better for you— you must hurt a lot.”

Fresney nodded. “I damn’ near got my neck broken,” he breathed, and went to work on the copy again.

Tim Slade walked away from the city desk and went to the elevator. He asked the operator why it hadn’t been running at the time of the killing. The operator said it had been out of order for an hour before the murder—motor trouble. It was fixed fifteen minutes after.

Slade got off at the street floor, went outside and stood near the curb for a few minutes. Then he went inside, went upstairs. A plain-clothes man was standing at one end of the landing, looking things over. He nodded to Tim. Tim went on up. When he opened the door of the anteroom to the office that had been Vaupaugh’s, O’Hafey blinked at him from the chair he was seated on.

Slade said: “Pardon, Inspector— I thought Miss Jones was alone. Wanted to ask her a question.”

O’Hafey waved a hand. “Go ahead,” he instructed.

Slade looked at Dana Jones. “With Vaupaugh dead,” he said steadily, “who inherits the paper?”

The inspector grunted. The girl said: “The family.”

Slade nodded, smiling. “Large family?” he asked.

The girl said: “Daughter and son. The son lives abroad, in Paris. He doesn’t like newspapers.”

O’Hafey said: “Man after my own heart.”

Slade smiled a little. “How about the daughter?” he asked.

Dana Jones shrugged. “She and her father didn’t get along. She lives at the Schenley Hotel— saw him once a month, maybe.”

O’Hafey sat up straight. “And they didn’t get along, eh?” he breathed. “Maybe he wouldn’t give her as much money as she wanted.”

Slade looked at the inspector, grinning. The girl frowned. “Another woman who might have killed him,” she said disgustedly. “As a matter of fact, he gave her all the money she needed. She never complained. She told me once he was a pretty good father, but she didn’t like the perfume he used.” Slade said: “Did you like it?”

The secretary’s eyes were very small. “If I were a man— I think I’d have liked it on a woman,” she replied.

O’Hafey chuckled. Slade looked around at the cartoons on the wall, then looked at Dana Jones again.

“I got very crazy about you in a hurry, Dana,” he said simply. “I’ve gone a good many years without doing that over any girl. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night, before I shove off for Cleveland?”

The girl stared at him. O’Hafey blinked. Slade said: “I’ll make you forget Hallam. You weren’t engaged, and he drank too much. Besides, all newspaper men are bums.” O’Hafey said: “What the—”

Slade smiled a little and kept his eyes on the girl. “We’ll have Vaupaugh’s murderer by dawn,” he said slowly. “And that’ll be that. How about the dinner?”

The girl said: “You’re— mad—”

Slade shook his head. “If we have the killer by dawn— will you have dinner with me?”

O’Hafey grunted. The girl said: “Yes.” Slade nodded. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll have a time.” He grinned at O’Hafey and went from the office. Fresney was calling to Collins in a loud voice:

“Where in hell’s that follow-up on Lawson’s feature?” Tim Slade went down two flights of stairs, took his time going down the next. On the landing where the murder had occurred he stood for a few seconds. The plain-clothes man had gone. Slade went to the door of the circulation department room into which Hugh Fresney had been carried. He stood with his back to it and let his eyes move along the landing. After a few minutes he went down the steps and to the street. It was twelve-fifteen by his wrist-watch. The fog was pretty bad; there was a chill in the air. Tim Slade hailed a cab and got inside.

“Schenley Hotel,” he said. “Don’t hurry— I want to think.” The cab driver stared at him, then grinned. “Sure,” he said over his shoulder. “I get that way a lot of times, but it don’t do me any good.”

Collins was slumped in his chair when Slade walked into the editorial rooms at three o’clock. He had a green shade over his eyes and he looked tired. Most of the staff had quit for the night, but the telegraph instruments were still pounding out words. Slade sat on the edge of the inner curve of the copy desk, and said:

“Hugh went home?”

Collins nodded. “He went over to the commissioner’s office, and got back here at two. He stayed around for a while, but his body was aching pretty badly. He finally got away. Then that police lieutenant came in and gave me a third degree.”

Slade said: “You?”

Collins swore, nodding. “He thought my story might have been the bunk. Someone told him I’d made a hot speech to Vaupaugh when he refused to give me a raise he’d promised six months ago. The lieutenant had found out that Hugh had made a speech for me, too. Hugh thought I should have the raise. The lieutenant had an idea I might have done for Vaupaugh and lied about how it happened, and he figured Hugh might have tried to stop the fight and got shoved down the stairs. He thought Hugh might be protecting me.” Slade grinned. “You denied it?”

Collins swore wearily. “I told him he was a crazy fool, and he said he thought he’d take me down to the station and hold me on suspicion. I said that would be fine— that Hugh would use scare-heads on it. That calmed him down a bit. He told me not to leave town and I said it was going to be tough having to cancel my trip to Japan. We didn’t get along so well, but he left about ten minutes ago.”

Slade looked at the Accuracy sign on the wall and whistled all that he could remember of “Your Baby’s My Baby Now.” Collins took off his eye-shade and swore again.

“We won’t have to smell that damn’ perfume around here any more, that’s one thing,” he muttered. “Poor devil!”

He stood up and stretched. He called one of the two reporters on hand and said that if anything big broke on the Vaupaugh murder he wanted to be called.

“And I hope nothing breaks,” he breathed. He looked at Slade and said: “Staying up all night?” Tim Slade shook his head. “I’ve only got about one thing more to do,” he said quietly.

Collins looked at Slade narrowly. “O’Hafey came over and asked some questions about you,” he said. “He seemed pretty puzzled. Wanted to know whether you were very crazy or very shrewd. Said you’d told Miss Jones you’d have Vaupaugh’s murderer by dawn, and she agreed to have dinner with you if you did. He said he figured maybe you were trying to kid him, and if that was so he didn’t like the time you’d picked.”

Slade smiled a little. Collins said: “What did Hugh mean when he tossed over that slip of paper and said you were a louse for hounding someone?”

Slade continued to smile. “He wanted you and anyone else who might be interested to think I wasn’t particularly concerned with him,” he said. “He didn’t want you to get the idea that I was a detective he’d brought on from Cleveland, because he thought he was going to get killed.”

Collins stared at him, sucked in a deep breath. There was silence in the city room, except for the clatter of the wire machines. Then the assistant city editor spoke.

“So that was it,” he muttered. “Well— what’s the idea of spreading it around now? Fresney’s still alive.”

Slade nodded. “Unless they got him on the way home,” he said steadily. “How about Miss Jones, Collins? Did Vaupaugh like her a lot?”

The assistant city editor half closed his eyes. He spoke in a hard voice.

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Tim Slade nodded and stood up. He looked at the big sign on the wall again, then at his wrist-watch.

“I’ll be moving along,” he said cheerfully. “If you stick around another hour— you’ll have something for the paper— something new.”

Collins said: “Yes?” His tone was suddenly antagonistic. “Sorry, but I need sleep. If it’s big enough they’ll buzz me, and I’ll get Fresney up.”

Slade nodded again. “Are you giving the paper a black border?” he asked.

The assistant said tonelessly without looking up: “Just the editorial page.”

Slade looked towards the telegraph machines. “Get in touch with Vaupaugh’s family yet?” he asked. “The daughter?” Collins shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “That isn’t up to me.”

Slade smiled. “So long,” he said and went from the big room. He rode the elevator down and reached the street. He made a phone call, a fairly long one. He walked along Liberty Street, turned north on Ninth. Ninth was almost deserted. Over near the bridge it was deserted.

He was halfway across the bridge when a cab passed him, going at pretty good speed. It slowed down a hundred feet or so ahead, stopped. There was the squealing of brakes, and a second cab pulled up almost the same distance behind him. No one descended from either cab. Slade said grimly: “Sure—”

He got a cigarette between his lips, struck a match. The cab ahead started backing slowly, and when it started the other one moved forward. The driver of the one coming forward was very low in his seat.

Tim Slade pulled on the cigarette and reached for his gun. He had it in his right-hand fingers when the first bullet struck the iron railing behind him. The bullet came from a gun in the cab that was moving forward. Almost instantly there was a staccato clatter from the machine that was backing. A spray of bullets battered metallically against iron— pain stabbed through Slade’s left hand as the spray went away from him.

He fired twice at the cab that was moving forward, sucked in a sharp breath and vaulted the bridge rail. As he went down he ripped buttons from his coat in getting it open and let the gun slip from his fingers. He hit the water with his body hunched, in a sitting position. The shock was pretty bad.

When he came up he was under the bridge. He struggled free of his coat, toed off his low shoes. He was a strong swimmer,, but it was a fight to keep under the bridge, against the current.

The river was high and the water was very cold. Fifty feet along he got rid of his suit coat, and that made things easier.

Another fifty feet and he was out of the worst of the current. He was weakening pretty fast, and the hand that had been hit was numbing his left arm and bothering his stroke. The cold was getting to him, too.

He used a back stroke for several seconds, then turned over and put his remaining strength in an effort to get close to the mud at the far end of the bridge. He was almost through when he felt the water become very quiet. Another twenty feet and his knees were scraping mud. He dragged himself out of the water, lay motionless for a half minute or so. Then he got to his knees, pulled himself to his feet.

He shook the water from his ears, moved along between some wooden shacks built on the mud near the steel structure of the bridge. He was shivering and his breath was still coming in deep gulps.

Twenty minutes later he was in a cab and the cab was moving across the river, towards his hotel. The cab driver had a ten-dollar bill in his pocket, and Tim Slade had a soaked handkerchief wrapped around the palm of his left hand. He lay back in the seat with his eyes closed.

In his hotel room he had three deep drinks from a thin silver flask, got into dry clothes. He used antiseptic and bandages on his left hand, got a Luger that he’d picked up during the war from one of his bags. His eyes showed pain, but his lips were smiling a little. He had no coat or hat when he went down and picked up a cab. When he’d given the address he sat back and let his body sway with it. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly, evenly.

Once he parted his lips and said: “Sure—” The fog didn’t seem to be so thick, but it had got colder. The cab driver drove very swiftly, and it didn’t take long to reach the address he had given.

The man who opened the wooden door of the two-story house had a thin scar across his forehead. Slade frowned at him, keeping his bandaged hand out of sight. He said:

“Creese upstairs? He wanted me.”

The one with the scarred forehead nodded. Slade went past him and he closed the door and bolted it. Slade said:

“Is he alone?”

The scarred one shook his head. “Jap’s with him,” he said hoarsely. “The coppers got tired of him and turned him loose.”

He went away, gesturing towards the stairs. From a rear room Slade heard voices and the clink of glasses. Upstairs everything seemed pretty quiet.

Tim Slade said very softly as he climbed the wooden stairs:

“Jap— sure—”

The door of the room was half opened. Slade shoved it open the rest of the way, with his left shoe. He walked inside. Jap Dyke was leaning across a table, elbows spread. He was a small, heavily shouldered man with eyes that slanted, and were slightly almond shaped. His skin was yellowish, and his dark hair edged high from his forehead. He was Italian, but he looked like a Japanese.

Hugh Fresney sat in a corner, on a chair without arms. The chair was tilted back, and Fresney’s brown shoes rested on a cross rung between the two front legs. Both arms hung at his sides. There were two glasses, half filled with beer, on the table across which Dyke sprawled.

Tim Slade stood near the opened door, his back to the stairs. Both hands were in the side pockets of his suit coat. He smiled at Fresney.

The city editor’s lips twitched a little. Jap Dyke said:

“What’s this?”

He had a thin tone and when he spoke his lips didn’t move very much.

Slade said: “Hello, Hugh— feel better?”

The city editor’s eyes were very small. He shook his head.

“My face isn’t so bad, but my body hurts like the devil.”

Slade nodded. “It’ll hurt worse in a couple of months,” he said very quietly.

Fresney let his shoes slip off the rung of the tilted chair. They dangled just clear of the floor.

“How’s that, Tim?” he asked.

Slade smiled very narrowly. “You missed out, Hugh,” he said quietly. “You’re going to go the way Walter Cresser went— tonight.”

The city editor’s body jerked a little. Jap Dyke lifted his chin from his spread arms and his eyes got more almond shaped.

Fresney swallowed slowly and said: “Tell us about it, Tim.”

Slade said: “You murdered Vaupaugh.”

Jap Dyke drew a deep breath, then sighed heavily. Fresney closed his eyes, then opened them again.

“It was Little Red Riding Hood who did that, Tim,” he said very quietly.

Slade smiled with his lips. His brown eyes were on Fresney’s small ones.

“You’ve been tough for a long time, Hugh,” Slade said. “Good and tough. But lately you’ve been getting bad and tough. Tonight you murdered Vaupaugh. You did it because you hated him— you’ve hated him for a long time. You’ve planned his murder for a long time. He was yellow, Hugh— but that yellowness was going to stop you from doing things with the sheet.”

Jap Dyke swore very softly, but he didn’t move his body. Fresney said grimly:

“Yes, yes— go on.”

Slade said: “You built up this stuff about your life being threatened. And Vaupaugh’s. You said the sheet had been hard— too hard. Maybe that was true, but it was hard where it didn’t count. You said Jap Dyke was after you because you’d forced the police to pull him in. He wasn’t after you, Hugh— he was with you. The sheet yelped until he was pulled in, but they didn’t have anything on him. And you knew that. It just made it look good. And even with Vaupaugh dead, they wouldn’t have anything on him, Hugh.”

Slade paused. Jap Dyke’s fingers made faint tapping sound against the table wood. Someone laughed thinly, downstairs.

Slade said: “You got me on from Cleveland, because you were ready to finish Vaupaugh, and you needed more evidence that a mistake had been made, and that someone had got the managing editor instead of you. You wanted to be sure everyone knew you were afraid. You built up a lot of little hates— some of them were real enough. Then, when Vaupaugh was leaving tonight, you went after him. You shot him in the back— and because his life had been threatened, and he still trusted you, you got a break. He didn’t think you’d shot him, so he yelled to you to get whoever had shot him. Collins heard that.”

Fresney was breathing heavily, but his eyes were still very small. Slade said:

“You knew you had him. After he yelled, you put another bullet up in the wall— in a spot that put it in line with the door you were going to use in your story. Your gun was in a pocket, loaded. I don’t know what you did with the one you used, and I don’t give a damn. Maybe Vaupaugh realized what had happened, and grabbed you. Maybe he didn’t. He might have shoved you down the stairs before he went out, or you might have just let yourself go down. You’re hard, Hugh— and you can take it. Besides you’d killed a man, and you had to make it look right. Collins found you unconscious or almost unconscious, halfway down the stairs. That’s how you murdered Vaupaugh.” Jap Dyke said: “You shouldn’t have done it, Hugh.” His voice was very low and hard. Fresney was still breathing heavily and evenly.

Slade said: “Vaupaugh was putting a check on you. He was going to run the sheet again, and you didn’t want that. You were playing politics, Hugh—you were going to play politics. You and Jap Dyke. You needed the sheet—the two of you could have done things with it. But you went too fast, and too far. And when Vaupaugh weakened you knew you’d lost. Unless he was dead. If he was dead— there was his daughter—”

Fresney let the chair tilt forward. His face twisted. Slade said:

“Take it easy— both of you! I’ve got lead ready to rip cloth— and then some more cloth!”

After a few seconds he spoke softly. “I went to the Schenley tonight and talked to Vaupaugh’s daughter. She hates you, Hugh—she hates your insides. Why? Because I told her what I figured. And she figured the same way. The chances are she would have married you, Hugh. She sort of liked you, and her father, who didn’t like you, would have been dead. She wouldn’t have known she was marrying his murderer. And you’d have had the paper, Hugh—the whole damn’ sheet to use the way you wanted.”

Fresney said in a hoarse voice: “You’re lying, Tim— you’re lying like hell. If you’d gone to her tonight and told her what you thought— she’d have laughed at you. You haven’t any evidence— you just think—”

Slade interrupted. “She didn’t laugh at me— she believed me. She had to believe me.”

Fresney said thickly: “You’re lying—”

Slade shook his head. “I called you on the phone and asked you if you knew a small man with a limp. I told you that I’d thought he had tipped that you were inside the paper. You said you weren’t interested. And then you changed the story. You did know such a man. You said his name was Garrow, and that he was working with Jap Dyke’s mob, you’d heard. He wouldn’t turn up anything against them, anyway.”

Fresney said: “Well?”

Slade’s smile faded. “There wasn’t any man with a limp. He didn’t pick up any paper and hand it to a blonde. I was just feeding you, Hugh— just seeing whether you’d use it. And you did use it, when you figured it would help.”

Fresney ran his tongue-tip over a lower lip. He looked at Jap Dyke and said: “Is he safe, Jap?”

The slant-eyed one nodded. Fresney looked at Tim Slade and spoke in a very soft voice.

“You certainly earned the money you owed me, Tim. I hate to see you get still.”

Slade tightened the grip on his Luger. “Sure,” he said with sarcasm. “But you got worried, Hugh. I was away from the paper too much. I think you had me tailed— and spotted the Schenley visit. So guns were turned loose on me, on the bridge. They didn’t take.”

Fresney smiled thinly. “That’s so, Tim,” he said. “They didn’t take.”

Slade spoke quietly. “I think the police would have got around to you pretty soon, Hugh. But they were willing to believe you were hated enough for someone to have made a mistake— and have smeared Vaupaugh instead. I wasn’t so willing to believe that.”

Fresney said steadily: “All right, Tim. You’ve made your speech. About the gun— I took on a new reporter three days ago. Jap here recommended him. He was at the bottom of the stairs, with his coat spread like a blanket. I tossed him the gun, then did the dive. It hurt like the devil. The reporter went through the pressroom and out the truck entrance. He had the gun with him. The rest was the way you’ve told us.”

Jap Dyke looked at Fresney, and Fresney nodded. Dyke called loudly and thinly:

“Terry!”

Slade shook his head. “No good,” he said. “The police have been over here since I started across the first time. They let me work it my way. Terry and the rest are downstairs— they’ve been talking and laughing once in a while. But the police guns are making them act that way. Your bunch weren’t so strong for you taking up with Fresney, anyway, Jap. They’re being good and saving their necks.”

Jap Dyke let his body roll to one side and jerked at a pocket. Slade swung his body a little and squeezed on the Luger. Dyke moaned, went to his knees and fell forward. Hugh Fresney shoved over the table and leaped for Slade.

There were pounding footfalls on the wooden stairs as Slade jerked his body to one side. Fresney’s arms were swinging; a fist struck Slade and knocked him off balance, to one side. Fresney swung and pounded at him again. Slade said hoarsely:

“Stop— it— I’ve got— a gun—”

Fresney wasn’t armed, and he hated to shoot. The city editor had fingers on his right wrist now. They swayed backward, their bodies close. Fresney twisted the gun so the muzzle slanted towards his face— then jerked Slade’s wrist. His finger slipped with the sharpness of the jerk— the gun crashed.

Fresney’s body sagged, and he slipped slowly to the floor. O’Hafey came into the room, followed by two plain-clothes men. They had drawn guns in their hands. Fresney was half propped against a wall. Slade said:

“He did it— and dropped the gun to one of Jap’s men he’d taken on as a reporter.”

One of the plain-clothes men crossed the room and bent over Dyke. He straightened and said:

“He’s dead.”

O’Hafey stared down at the city editor, and Slade said:

“He twisted my gun— and jerked my wrist. It was his way of—”

Fresney’s eyes were staring, his lips were colorless. He tried to smile.

“The kid’s— good— O’Hafey,” he said very slowly and weakly. “And I— broke him in— taught him to use his eyes—”

His eyes closed, then opened again. He said with an effort, in a hoarse whisper:

“Inside— job— but it didn’t— work—”

His head fell forward, and his eyes stayed open. O’Hafey bent down and after a few seconds said:

“Well—that’s all for him.”

Tim Slade shook his head slowly. “He was a good, tough city editor,” he said slowly. “But he got greedy.”

O’Hafey nodded. “That’s the way with a lot of good tough guys,” he philosophized. “And after they get too greedy— they get dead.”

TIM SLADE had dinner with Dana Jones. He needed someone to cut up the meat for him. He had a pretty bad left hand. It was a quiet dinner, but they got along nicely together. She’d never been to Cleveland, and they finally got around to wondering if she’d like it there. They were both fairly sure that she would.

________________

The long short story (15,000 words) which became the famous opera

10: Madame Butterfly

John Luther Long

1861-1927

Century Magazine, January 1898

1:  Sayre's Prescription

AYRE had counseled him on the voyage out (for he had repined ceaselessly at what he called their banishment to the Asiatic station) to wait till they arrived. He had never regarded service in Japanese waters as banishment, he said, and he had been out twice before. Pinkerton had just come from the Mediterranean.

"For lack of other amusement," continued Sayre, with a laugh, "you might get yourself married and—"

Pinkerton arrested him with a savage snort.

"You are usually merely frivolous, Sayre; but to-day you are silly."

Without manifest offense, Sayre went on: "When I was out here in 1890—"

"The story of the Pink Geisha?"

"Well— yes," admitted Sayre, patiently.

"Excuse me, then, till you are through." He turned to go below.

"Heard it, have you?"

"A thousand times— from you and others."

Sayre laughed good-naturedly at the gallant exaggeration, and passed Pinkerton his cigarette-case.

"Ah— ever heard who the man was?"

"No." He lighted his cigarette. "That has been your own little mystery— apparently."

"Apparently?"

"Yes; we all knew it was yourself."

"It wasn't," said Sayre, steadily. "It was my brother." He looked away.

"Oh!"

"He 's dead."

"Beg pardon. You never told us that."

"He went back; couldn't find her."

"And you advise me also to become a subject for remorse? That 's good of you."

"It is not quite the same thing. There is no danger of you losing your head for—" he glanced uncertainly at Pinkerton, then ended lamely "any one. The danger would probably be entirely with— the other person."

"Thanks," laughed Pinkerton; "that 's more comforting."

"And yet," mused Sayre, "you are hard to comfort— humanly speaking."

Pinkerton smiled at this naïve but quite exact characterization of himself.

"You are," continued Sayre, hesitating for the right word—"impervious."

"Exactly," laughed Pinkerton. "I don't see much danger to myself in your prescription. You have put it in rather an attractive light. The idea cannot be entirely disreputable if your brother Jack used it. We lower-class fellows used to call him Agamemnon, you remember."

"It is not my prescription," said Sayre, briefly, leaving the deck.

2: Mr. B. F. Pikkerton— And His Way

BUT PINKERTON not only got himself married; he provided himself with an establishment creating his menage in quite his own way and entirely for his own comfort.

With the aid of a marriage-broker, he found both a wife and a house in which to keep her. This he leased for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Not, he explained to his wife later, that he could hope for the felicity of residing there with her so long, but because, being a mere "barbarian," he could not make other legal terms. He did not mention that the lease was determinable, nevertheless, at the end of any month, by the mere neglect to pay the rent. Details were distasteful to Pinkerton; besides, she would probably not appreciate the humor of this.

Some clever Japanese artisans then made the paper walls of the pretty house eye-proof, and, with their own adaptations of American hardware, the openings cunningly lockable. The rest was Japanese.

Madame Butterfly laughed, and asked him why he had gone to all that trouble in Japan!

"To keep out those who are out, and in those who are in," he replied, with an amorous threat in her direction.

She was greatly pleased with it all, though, and went about jingling her new keys and her new authority like toys, she had only one small maid to command, until she learned that among others to be excluded were her own relatives.

There had been what her husband called an appalling horde of these at the wedding (they had come with lanterns and banners and disturbing evidences of good will), and he asked her, when she questioned him, whether she did not think they would be a trifle wearisome.

"You thing so?" she asked in turn.

"Emphatically," said her husband.

She grew pale; she had not expected quite such an answer. A Japanese would have said no, but would have left an interrogation in one's mind.

He laughed consolingly.

"Well, Ane-San" (which meant only "elder sister": there are no terms of endearment in the Japanese language), "you will have to get along without ancestors. Think of the many people who would like to do that, and be comforted."

"Who?" She had never heard of such a thing.

"People, for instance, whose ancestors have perished on the gallows, or, in America, have practised trades."

She did not understand, as often she did not, and he went on:

"I shall have to serve in the capacity of ancestors,— let us say ancestors-at-large,— and the real ones will have to go— or rather not come."

Again he had the joke to himself; his wife had gone away to cry.

At first she decided to run away from him. But this, she reflected, would not probably please her relatives, since they had unanimously agreed upon the marriage for her. Besides, she preferred to remain. She had acquired a strange liking for Pinkerton and her new way of life. Finally she undertook a weak remonstrance— a very strong one, in fact, for a Japanese wife; but Pinkerton encouraged her pretty domestic autonomy. Her airs of authority were charming. And they grew more and more so.

"Mr. B. F. Pikkerton," it was this, among other things, he had taught her to call him,—"I lig if you permit my august ancestors visit me. I lig ver' moach if you please permit that unto me."

Her hair had been newly dressed for the occasion, and she had stuck a poppy in it. Besides, she put her hand on his arm (a brave thing for her to do), and smiled wistfully up at him. And when you know what Cho-Cho-San's smile was like,— and her hand— and its touch,— you will wonder how Pinkerton resisted her. However, he only laughed at her,— good-naturedly always, and said no.

" We can't adopt a whole regiment of back numbers, you know. You are back number enough for me."

And though he kissed her, she went away and cried again; and Japanese girls do not often cry.

He could not understand how important this concession was to her. It must be confessed that he did not try to understand. Sayre, with a little partizanship, explained to him that in Japan filial affection is the paramount motive, and that these "ancestors," living and dead, were his wife's sole link to such eternal life as she hoped for. He trusted that Pinkerton would not forget this.

He would provide her a new motive, then, Pinkerton said,— perhaps meaning himself,— and a new religion, if she must have one— himself again. So when she, at his motion, diffidently undertook to clothe on the phantoms which made up her "religion," Pinkerton expounded what he called the easier Western plan of salvation— seriously, too, considering that all his communications to her were touched with whimsy. This was inevitable— to Pinkerton. After all, she was quite an impossible little thing, outside of lacquer and paint. But he struck deeper than he knew; for she went secretly to the church of the missionary who served on the opposite hill, and heard the same thing, and learned, moreover, that she might adopt this new religion at any time she chose— even the eleventh hour.

She went out joyously; not to adopt his religion, it is true, but to hold it in reserve if her relatives should remain obdurate. Pinkerton, to his relief, heard no more of it.

3: A Moon-Goddess Truly

BUT HIS WIFE'S family (the word has a more important application there than here) held a solemn conference, and, as the result of it, certain of them waited upon Lieutenant Pinkerton, and, with elaborate politeness, intimated that his course had theretofore been quite unknown in Japan. This was their oblique way of saying that it was unsatisfactory. They pointed out with patient gravity that he would thus limit his wife's opportunities of reappearing on earth in a higher form of life.

Pinkerton smilingly remarked that he was not sure that it would be best for his wife to reappear on earth in a higher form. She would probably accomplish mischief enough in this very charming one as she was in fact doing.

"Do you know," he continued to the spokesman, "that you look exactly like a lacquered tragedy mask I have hanging over my desk?'

One must have seen one of these masks to appreciate this.

But they all laughed good-naturedly, as their host had designed, and quite forgot their errand. And Pinkerton labored that they should remember it no more. This was quite Japanese. In the politest way possible he made them drink his liquors and smoke his tobacco (in the generous Western fashion), either of which operations was certain to make a Japanese very ill. This was thoroughly like Pinkerton.

They protested a deal of friendship for Pinkerton that night; but at the final conference, where Cho-Cho-San was solemnly disowned, none were more gloomily unfriendly than they who had eaten and drunken with him.

"I did the very best I could for you, little moon-goddess," said Pinkerton to his wife; "but they were proof against my best wine and tobacco."

She bent her head in reflection a moment.

"Ah, you mean— I begin learn you, Mr. B. F. Pikkerton! You mean they not proof. Aha!"

And Pinkerton delightedly embraced her.

"You are no longer a back number," he said.

"Aha! Tha' 's what I thing. Now I bed you I know what is that bag nomber!"

"Well? "

"People lig I was."

"Exactly."

"But not people lig I am? "

"No; you are up-to-date."

"I egspeg I ought be sawry?" She sighed hypocritically.

"Exactly why, my moon-maid? "

"Account they outcasting me. Aeverybody thing me mos' bes' wicked in all Japan. Nobody speak to me no more— they all outcast me aexcep' jus' you; tha' 's why I ought be sawry."

She burst into a reckless laugh, and threw herself like a child upon him.

"But tha' 's ezag' why I am not! Wha' 's use lie? It is not inside me that sawry. Me? I 'm mos' bes' happy female woman in Japan— mebby in that whole worl'. What you thing?"

He said honestly that he thought she was, and he took honest credit for it.

4: Trouble Meaning Joy

AND AFTER his going, in the whimsical delight they had practised together, she named the baby, when it came, Trouble. Every Japanese baby begins with a temporary name; it may be anything, almost, for the little time. She was quite sure he would like the way she had named him Trouble— meaning joy. That was his own oblique way. As for his permanent name,— he might have several others before,— that was for him to choose when he returned. And this event was to happen, according to his own words, when the robins nested again.

And spring and the robins had come.

ALL THIS to explain why Madame Butterfly and her baby were reclining on the immaculate mats in attitudes of artistic abandon, instead of keeping an august state, as all other Japanese mothers and babes were at this moment doing. American women, we are told, assume more fearless attitudes in the security of their boudoirs than elsewhere. Japanese women, never. Their conduct is eternally the same. It must be as if some one were looking on— always. There is no privacy for them short of the grave. They have no secure boudoirs.

But Madame Butterfly (through the courtesy of her American husband) had both these. It will therefore be argued, perhaps, that she is not a typical Japanese woman. But it is only Lieutenant Pinkerton's views about which we are presently concerned. He called her an American refinement of a Japanese product, an American improvement in a Japanese invention, and so on. And since he knew her best, his words concerning her should have a certain ex-cathedra authority. I know no more.

AND SHE and the maid, and the baby too, were discussing precisely the matters which have interested us hitherto— Pinkerton, his baby, his imminent return, etc.

Cho-Cho-San, with a deft jerk that was also a caress, brought the baby into her lap as she sat suddenly up.

"Ah, you— you think he is just like any other baby. But he is a miracle! Yes!" she insisted belligerently. "The Sun-Goddess sent him straight from the Bridge of Heaven! Because of those prayers so early— oh, so very early— in the morning. Oh, that is the time to pray!" She turned the baby violently so that she might see his eyes. "Now did any one ever hear of a Japanese baby with purple eyes?"

She held him over against the dwarfed wisteria which grew in a flat bronze koro at the tokonoma, full of purple blossoms. She addressed the maid Suzuki, who stood by, happy as herself, apparently aware that this subject must always be discussed vehemently.

"As purple as that! Answer me, thou giggler; is it not so? Speak! I will have an answer!"

Then the maid laughed out a joyous no. If she cherished the Eastern reservations concerning blue eyes and pink cheeks, it was a less heinous offense to lie about it a little than to assert it impolitely. Besides, neither she nor any one else could resist the spirits of her pretty mistress. And these spirits had grown joyously riotous since her marriage and its unfettering.

"Nor yet so bald of his head? Say so! Quickly!" she insisted, with the manner of Pinkerton— such is example!

The maid also agreed to this.

And then Cho-Cho-San flung the kicking youngster high above her, turned abandonedly over on her back (in charming, if forbidden, postures), and juggled with him there.

"But ah! you will have hair, will you not?— as long and glittering as that of the American women. I will not endure thee else." She became speciously savage. "Speak, thou beggar, speak!"

"Goo-goo," said the baby, endeavoring diligently to obey.

She shook him threateningly.

"Ah-h-h! You making that non-senze with your parent? Now what is that you speaking with me? Jap'nese? If it is, I—" She threatened him direly. But he had evidently already learned to understand her; he gurgled again. "Listen! No one shall speak anything but United States' languages in these house!Now! What you thing? You go'n' go right outside shoji firs' thing you do that!" She resumed her own English more ostentatiously,— she forgot it herself sometimes,— and pretended to pitch the baby through the fragile paper wall.

"Also, tha' 's one thing aeverybody got recomleck— account it is his house, his wife, his bebby, his maiden, his moaney— oh,— aeverything is his! An' he say, those time he go'n' 'way, that aexcep' we all talking those United States' languages when he come, he go'n' bounce us all. Well! I don' git myself bounce, Mr. Trouble! An' you got loog out you don', aha! Sa-ay, me? I thing if we doing all those thing he as' us, he go'n' take us at those United States America, an' live in his castle. Then he never kin bounce us, aha!"

5: A Song Of Sorrow― And Death― And Heaven

A BIRD FLEW to the vine in the little porch.

"Ah, Suzuki!"

But the maid had withdrawn. She clapped her hands violently for her to return.

"Now why do you go away when"— her momentary anger fled, and she laughed—"when birds flying to the wistaria? Go quickly, little maiden, and see if he is a robin, and if he has completed his nest— quickly."

The maid returned, and said that he was indeed a robin, but that he had no nest there as yet.

"Oh, how he is slow! Suzuki, let us fine 'nother robin, one that is more indus-tri-ous-an' domes-tic, aha, ha, ha!"

"They are all alike," said the girl, cynically.

"They not!-Say so!"

Suzuki giggled affirmatively. When her mistress took so violently to English she preferred to express herself in this truly Japanese fashion.

"Inform me, if you please, how much nearer beggary we are to-day than yesterday, Suzuki."

The girl had exact information for her on this subject. She said they had just seventeen yen, fifty-four sen, two rin.

"Alas— alas! How we have waste his beau-tiful moaneys! Tha' 's shame. But he will not permit that we starve— account he know we have no one aexcep' him. We all outcasted. Now loog how that is bad! So jus' when it is all gone he will come with more lig the stories of ole Kazabu. Oh lig story of Uncombed Ronin, who make a large oath that he go'n' be huge foo-el if he dress his hair until his lord arrive back from the banishment. Lo! when they cutting his hade off him, account he don' comb his hair, his lord arrive back, an' say, ' What they doing with him?— 'an' reward him great deal, account he constant ontil he 'mos' dead. So, jus' when we go'n' out on the street,— mebby to fine him,— you with Trouble on your back, me with my samisen, standing up bifore all the people, singing funeral songs, with faces, oh, 'bout 'mos' so long,"— she illustrated liberally,—"sad garments, hair all ruffled-so, dancing liddle— so,"— she indicated how she should dance,—"an' saying out ver' loud, 'O ye people! Listen, for the loave of all the eight hundred thousan' gods and goddesses! Behole, we, a poor widow, an' a bebby what got purple eyes, which had one hosban', which gone off at United States America, to naever return no more— naever! Aexcep' you have seen him? No? See! This what I thing. Oh, how that is mos' tarrible! We giving up all our august ancestors, an' gods, an' people, an' country,— oh, aeverything,— jus' for him, an' now he don' naever come no more! Oh, bow that is sad! Is it not? Also, he don' even divorce us, so that we kin marry with 'nother mans an' git some food. He? He don' even thing 'bout it! Not liddle bit! He forgitting us— alas! But we got keep his house nine hundred an' ninety-nine year! Now thing 'bout that! An' we go'n' starve bifore, aexcep' you giving us— ah-ah-ah! jus' one sen! two sen! mebby fi' sen! Oh, for the loave of sorrow, for the loave of constancy, for the loave of death, jus'— one sen! Will you please pity us? In the name of the merciful Kwannon we beg. Loog! To move your hearts in the inside you, we go'n' sing you a song of— sorrow an' death— an' heaven."

She had acted it all with superb spirit, and now she snatched up her samisen, and dramatized this also; and so sure was she of life and happiness that this is the song of sorrow and death she sang:

"Hikari nodokeki haru no nobe,

Niwo sakura-no-hana sakari,

Mure kuru hito no tanoshiki ni,

Shibashi uki yo ya wasururan.

"Sunshine on a quiet plain in spring,

The perfume of the blooming cherry-blossoms,

The joy of the gathering crowd,

Filled with love, forget the care of life."

And then, as always, abandonment and laughter.

"Aha, ha, ha! Aha, ha, ha! What you thing, liddle maiden? Tha' 's good song 'bout sorrow, an' death, an' heaven? Aha, ha, ha! What— you— thing? Speak! Say so!"

She tossed the samisen to its place, and sprang savagely at the maid.

"If that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton see us doing alig those—" ventured the maid, in the humor of her mistress.

"O-o-o! You see his eye flame an' scorch lig lightening! O-o-o! He snatch us away to the house so-so-so!"

The baby was the unfortunate subject for the illustration of this. He began to whimper.

"Rog-a-by, bebby, off in Japan,

You jus' a picture off of a fan."

This was from Pinkerton. She had been the baby then.

"Ah, liddle beggar, he di'n' know he go'n' make those poetries for you! He don' respect of you whichever. Well! I bed you we go'n' have some fun when he do. Oh, Suzuki! Some day, when the emperor go abroad, we will show him. You got say these way—"she changed her voice to what she fancied an impressive male basso: "'Behole, Heaven-Descended-Ruler-Everlasting-Great-Japan, the first of your subjecks taken his eye out those ver' blue heaven whence you are descend!' Hence the emperor loog on him; then he stop an' loog; he kin naever git enough loogs. Then he make Trouble a large prince! An' me? He jus' say onto me: 'Continue that you bring out such sons.' Aha, ha, ha! What you thing?"

The maid was frankly skeptical.

"At least you kin do lig the old nakodo wish you— for you are most beautiful."

Cho-Cho-San dropped the baby with a reckless thud, and sprang at her again. She gripped her throat viciously, then flung her. laughing, aside.

"Speak concerning marriage once more, an' you die. An' tha' 's 'nother thing. You got know at his United States America, if one is marry one got stay marry— oh, for aever an' aever! Yaes! Nob'y cannot git himself divorce, aexcep' in a large court-house an' jail. Tha' 's way with he that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton— an' me— that Mrs. B. F. Pikkerton. If he aever go'n' divorce me, he got take me at those large jail at that United States America. Tha' 's lot of trouble; hence he rather stay marry with me. Also, he lig be marry with me. Now loog! He leave me a 'mos' largest lot money in Japan; he give me his house for live inside for nine hundred an' ninety-nine year. I cannot go home at my grandmother, account he make them outcast me. Sa-ay, you liddle foolish! He coming when the robins nest again. Aha! What you thing? Say so!"

The maid should have been excused for not being always as recklessly jubilant as her mistress; but she never was. And now, when she chose silence rather than speech (which was both more prudent and more polite), she took it very ill.

6: Divine Foolery

IF PINKERTON had told her to go home, even though she had no home to go to, she would have been divorced without more ado. Perhaps she was logical (for she reasoned as he had taught her— she had never reasoned before) in considering that as he had distinctly told her not to do so, it was an additional surety for his return.

Cho-Cho-San again took up the happier side of the matter. The baby was asleep. "An' also, what you thing we bedder doing when he come?"

She was less forcible now, because less certain. This required planning to get the utmost felicity out of it— what she always strove for.

"Me?— I thing I— dunno," the maid confessed diplomatically.

"Aha, ha, ha! You dunno? Of course you dunno whichever! Well— I go'n' tell you." The plan had been born and matured that instant in her active little brain. "Jus' recomleck 't is a secret among you an' me. We don' tell that Mr. Trouble. Hoash! He don' kin keep no secret. Well, listen! We go'n' watch with that spying-glass till his ship git in. Then we go'n' put cherry-blossoms aevery where; an' if 't is night, we go'n' hang up 'bout 'mos' one thousan' lanterns— 'bout 'mos' one thousan'! Then we— wait. Jus' when we see him coming up that hill so— so— so— so," she lifted her kimono, and strode masculinely about the apartment,—"then! We hide behine the shōji, where there are holes to peep." She glanced about to find them. "Alas! they all mended shut! But"— she savagely ran her finger through the paper—"we soon make some, aha, ha, ha! So!" She made another for the maid. They illustrated this phase of her mood with their eyes at the holes. "Then we lie quiet lig mice, an' make believe we gone 'way. Better n't we leave liddle note: 'Gone 'way foraever. Sayonara, Butterfly'? No; tha' 's too long for him. He git angery those ways on the first word, an' say those remark 'bout debbil, an' hell, an' all kind loud languages. Tha' 's time, bifore he gitting too angery, to rush out, an' jump all roun' his neck, aha!" This was also illustrated.

But, alas! the maid was too realistic.

"Sa-ay! not you— jump roun' his neck jus' me."

Cho-Cho-San paused ecstatically. But the maid would not have it so. She had seen them practise such divine foolery,— very like two reckless children,— but never had she seen anything with such dramatic promise as this.

"Oh! an' what he say then," she begged, with wild interest, "an' what he do?"

Madame Butterfly was reënergized by the maid's applause.

"Ah-h-h! " she sighed. "He don' say— jus' he kiss us, oh, 'bout three— seven— ten— a thousan' time! An' amberace us two thousan' time 'bout 'mos'— tha' 's wha! he do— till we got make him stop, aha, ha, ha! account he might— might— kill us! Tha' 's ver' bad— to be kill kissing."

Her extravagant mood infected the maid. She had long ago begun to wonder whether, after all, this American passion of affection was altogether despicable. She remembered that her mistress had begun by regarding it thus; yet now she was the most daringly happy woman in Japan.

"Say more," the maid pleaded.

Cho-Cho-San had a fine fancy, and the nesting of the robins could not, at the longest, be much longer delayed now; she let it riot.

"Well,"— she was making it up as she went,—"when tha' 's all done, he loog roun' those ways lig he doing 'mos' always, an' he see sump'n', an' he say: 'Oh, 'e-lo— el-o Where you got that chile? ' I say: 'Ah— oh— ah! I thing mebby you lig own one, an' I buy 'im of a man what din' wan' no bebby with those purple eye an' bald hairs.' An' he as' me, 'What you pay?' Americans always as' what you pay. I say: ' Oh, lemme see. I thing, two yen an' two sen. Tha' 's too moach for bald bebby? ' What you thing? But tha' 's a time he saying: 'I bed you tha' 's a liar; an' you fooling among me.' Then he gitting angery, an' I hurry an' say, one las' time, 'Tha' 's right. I tole you liddle lie for a fun. I di'n' pay nawthing for him, aexcep'— sa-ay!— ' Then I whisper a thing inside his ear, jus' a liddle thing, an' he see! Aha, ha, ha! Then he say once more, las' time,— ah, what you thing, Suzuki? "

But the girl would not diminish her pleasure by guessing.

"'Godamighty!' Aha, ha, ha!"

"Tha' 's all things you know?" questioned the maid, reproachfully, " an' all things you do? "

She had a right to feel that she had been defrauded out of a proper denouement.

"Ah-h-h-h! What would you have that is more? Jus' joy an' glory foraevermore! Tha' 's 'nough. What you thing? You know that song?

"'T is life when we meet,

'T is death when we part. "

Her mistress had grown plaintive in those two lines.

"I hear him sing that," murmured the maid, comfortingly.

Her spirits vaulted up again.

"But ah! You never hear him sing— ?"

She snatched up the samisen again, and to its accompaniment sang, in the pretty jargon he had taught her (making if as grotesque as possible, the more to amuse him):

"I call her the belle of Japan— of Japan;

Her name it is O Cho-Cho-San— Cho-Cho-San;

Such tenderness lies in her soft almond eyes,

I tell you she 's just ichi ban."

"Tha' 's me— aha, ha, ha! Sa-ay— you thing he aever going away again when he got that liddle chile, an' the samisen, an' the songs, an' all the joy, an'— an' me?" And another richly joyous laugh.

"Oh, you an' the samisen an' joy— poof! " said the maid. "But the chile— tha' 's 'nother kind thing, Aexcep' be grow up, an' go 'way after his father? "

She was odiously unsatisfied. She would leave nothing to fate— to heaven— Shaka. But out of her joyous future her mistress satisfied even this grisly doubt.

"Ah-h-h! But we go'n' have more— lig steps of a ladder, up, up, up! An' all purple eyes— oh, aevery one! An' all males! Then, if one go 'way, we got 'nother an' 'nother an' 'nother. Then, how kin he, that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton, aever go 'way? Aha!"

"Yaet, O Cho-Cho-San, if you—"

Was this a new doubt? It will never be known.

"Stop! Tha' 's 'nother thing. You got call me O Cho-Cho-San, an' Missus Ben-jameen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton. Sa-ay you notize how that soun' gran' when my hosban' speaking it that aways? Yaes! 'Mos' lig I was a emperess. Listen! I tell you 'nother thing, which is 'nother secret among you an' me jus': I thing it is more nize to be call that away— jus' Missus Ben-ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton— than Heaven-Descended-Female-Ruler-Everlasting-GreatJapan, aha! Sa-ay; how I loog if I an emperess? What you thing?"

She imitated the pose and expression of her empress very well.

"If your face liddle longer you loog ezag' lig," said the maid.

But her mistress was inclined to be more modest.

"Ah, no. But I tell you who loog lig a' emperor jus' ezag' that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton, when he got that unicorn upon him, with gole all up in front an' down behine!"

And at this gentle treason there was no protest from the patriotic maid.

7: How He Didn't Understand Her Whichever!

THE BABY continued to sleep. He rather justified the praises of his mother. He was as good as a Japanese baby, and as good-looking as an American one.

Somebody was without. There was a polite and subdued clattering of clogs in the entrance.

"Gomen nasai" ("I beg your pardon").

It was a familiar, deprecatory voice, accompanied by the clapping of hands.

Cho-Cho-San smiled wearily, and called the maid.

"Oh, Suzuki, Goro the nakodo— he is without. Shaka and all the gods defend us now!"

The two exchanged glances of amusement, and the maid proceeded to admit him.

Madame Butterfly received him with the odious lack of ceremony her independent life with Pinkerton had bred. She was imperially indifferent. The go-between pointed out how sad this was to as beautiful a woman as she.

"Is it a trouble to you?" she asked, perking her head aside.

The nakodo only sighed gloomily.

Madame Butterfly laughed.

"Poor, nize liddle ole man," said she, with specious pity, in politest English; "do not trouble 'bout me. Do not arrive any more if it pains you."

"I must; you have no parents now— nor anyone. You are outcast."

"Ah-h-h! But will you not permit me to suffer the lack?"

"But you will never be married!"

"Again?"

"Well— yes, again, then."

"How tarrible!"

He took this quite seriously, and became more cheerful.

"Yes; a beautiful woman like you must have a husband."

"Yaes. Thangs; I got one. Do you perhaps mean more?"

"I mean a Japanese husband."

"Oh— ah? That will have me a month, and then divorce me? And then another, and another, and another?"

She was becoming belligerent.

"How is it better with you now?"

She recovered her good humor.

"At America one is married foraever— aexcep' the other die. Aha! What you thing? Your marriages are not so."

She had been speaking indifferently both languages, and now the nakodo, who was not apt at English, begged her to explain this in Japanese. She did so.

"Yamadori has lived long at America, and he says it is not thus. Is it not safe to rely upon his excellent wisdom?"

"No; for I, which am foolish, are wiser than both you an' he. I know. You jus' guess. Aeverybody got stay marry at United States America. No one can git divorce, aexcep' he stay in a large court-house, all full judges with long faces, an' bald on their heads, long, longtime; mebby two— four— seven year! Now jus' thing 'bout that how that is tiresome! Tha' 's why no one don' git no divorce; they too tire' to wait. Firs', the man he got go an' stan' bifore those judge, an' tell all he thing 'bout it. Then the woman she got. Then some lawyers quarrel with those judge; an' then the judges git jury, an' as' 'em what they thing 'bout it; an' if they don' know they all git put in jail till they git done thinging 'bout it, an' whether they go'n' git divorce or not. Aha! "

"Where did you learn that?" asked the old nakodo, aghast.

"Oh— ah— that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton"— she assumed a grander air "that Mr. Benja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton— my hosban'—" She smiled engagingly, and held out her pretty hands, as who should say: "Is not that sufficient? "

It was so evidently the invention of Pinkerton that it seemed superfluous to make the explanation. The nakodo said curtly that he did not believe it.

Not believe what Mr. B. F. Pinkerton had said!

Cho-Cho-San was exasperated. The engaging smile had been wasted. She flung the blue-eyed baby up before him.

"Well, then, do you believe that?"

She laughed almost malignantly. The marriage-broker gulped down this fearful indignity as best he might. He hoped there were not going to be any more such women in Japan as the result of foreign marriages. Still, even this phase of the situation had been discussed with his client.

"But Yamadori, who was bred to the law, tells me that our law prevails in such a matter, the marriage having taken place here."

She gave a gasp, and cried like a savage wounded animal:

"Yamadori— lies!"

The nakodo was silenced. She crushed the baby so fiercely to her breast that he began to cry.

"Sh!" she commanded harshly. He looked up for an incredulous instant, then burrowed his head affrightedly into her kimono. She turned upon the nakodo in magnificent scorn.

"Oh— you— foo-el! You thing he naever arrive back. Tha' 's what you thing— in secret! He? He do!"

She snatched a photograph from an easel at the tokonoma, tore the child from his hiding, and held them up together. Her purpose was quite evident.

The nakodo was thoroughly frightened. She recovered her poise— and her control of the situation.

"Now what you thing? Aha, ha, ha! Sa-ay— I bed you all moaneys he go'n' come 'mos' one millions mile for see that chile! Tha' 's what I all times praying Shaka an' the augustnesses for one chile ezag' lig him. Well, sa-ay! I got him. An' now that Mr. Ben-ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton he got come back— hoarry— even if he don' lig. He cannot stand it. But he do lig."

All her passion was gone now, and her sure gladness returned. She was nai've and intimate and confidential again.

"Sa-ay! Firs' I pray his large American God, that huge Godamighty,— but tha' 's no use. He don' know me where I live. Then I pray Shaka an' all the kaimyo of the augustnesses in the god-house. I thing they don' hear me, account they outcasted me when I marry with that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton. But"— she smiled at her pretty celestial cajolery—"I pray them so long an' so moach more than they aever been pray with bifore that they feel good all times, an'— an'—"there was finality in this—"an' 't is use. An' mebby I not all outcasted! Don' tell him. He— he laugh upon my gods, an' say they jus' wood an' got no works in them. An' he all times call the augustnesses bag nombers! Jus' he don' know till he fine out. Aha, ha, ha! "

"If he returns he will probably take the child away with him— that is his right," chanted the sad-faced nakodo.

But nothing could ruffle Madame Butterfly now. She laughed sibilantly at this owllike ignorance.

"Oh-h-h! How you don' know things! How you don' onderstan' me what I mean, whichever! Of course he take that chile away with him— of course! An' me— me also; an' Suzuki, aha! An' we go an' live in his castle for aever an' aever!"

The improbability of changing the girl's point of view began to dawn upon the slow intellect of the nakodo.

"At least, Yamadori wishes for a look-at meeting. I have promised him. Will you not grant this?"

Cho-Cho-San shook her head at him knowingly.

"An' if I do not, he not go'n' pay you one present?"

She laughed wildly, and the nakodo by a grin admitted the impeachment.

"Well,"— the spirit of mischief possessed the girl,—"sa-ay— I don' keer. Let him come. He lig for see me; I lig for see him. An' if I say I go'n' marry him, he got hoarry an' marry 'me right away. Aha! What you thing 'bout those?"

The nakodo said delightedly that that was precisely what he sought.

"Yaes; but suppose they put me in a large jail, an' got loog out between bar— so,"— she illustrated, "an' don' git nawthing for eat; he go'n' stay all times behine my side, an' comforting me? Hoi' my hand? Lemme weep upon him? I dunno. Mebby they cut my hade off me. Then he got git his hade cut off, too, an' go the road to Meido together— with— without those hade! Oh, how that is tarrible! An' suppose"— she whispered it horridly" that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton aha, ha, ha!— arrive?"

The nakodo was not sure how much of this was meant seriously. They were extremely unusual humors to him. But she had consented to the meeting, and he promptly took her at her word.

"When, then, will it please you to have me bring Yamadori?"

"When you lig— nize liddle ole friend."

The nakodo fixed that day a week.

As he was going, Cho-Cho-San laughingly asked:

"Sa-ay! How often he been marry? "

"But twice," the nakodo replied virtuously.

"An' both times divorce?"

He admitted that this was the case.

"An' both times jus' on visit from United States America— jus' liddle visit?— so long?" She spread her hands.

Under her laughing gaze it seemed best to admit it.

"Oh! he— he jus' marry 'nother for fun— whenever he thing 'bout it. Then he forgit it when he don' thing 'bout it, and marry 'nother. Say so!"

He heard her laugh again as he left the courtyard; but he had confidence in the ability of Yamadori to accomplish his purpose if he could be brought into contact with her. He was one of the modern pensioned princes of Japan, a desirable matrimonial article, and preternaturally fascinating.

8: The Bright-Red Spot In Cho's Cheeks

THE LOOK-AT meeting came about as planned. There was a distinct air of state about Madame Butterfly's house on that day. The baby, and all the frivolities that attended him, were in banishment. The apartment had been enlarged by the rearrangement of the shoji. At the head of it, statuesque in her most brilliant attire, sat Cho-Cho-San. Japanese women are accomplished actresses; and looking in upon Cho-Cho-San just at the moment of Yamadori's arrival, one would not have known her. She was as unsmiling, as emotionless, as the Dai-Butsu.

The grave ceremonies attending the advent of a candidate for matrimony went forward with almost no recognition from Cho-Cho-San until they had come to the point where they might seat themselves before her, to inspect and be inspected. Then she struck her fan against her palm, and Suzuki appeared, and set the tobaco-bon between them.

Yamadori suggested somewhat the ready-made clothier— inevitable evidence of his transformation; otherwise he was the average modern Japanese, with high-gibbeted trousers, high collar, high hat, and eyeglass. He might not converse directly with Cho-Cho-San, especially concerning the business in hand; but he was not prohibited from conferring with the nakodo about it in her presence. The rule of decorum for such an occasion simply decreed that she should be blind and deaf concerning what went on. The convenience of the arrangement is obvious. The nakodo, the representative of both parties, was happily permitted, on the part of the one, to regard what was happening as if it had not happened, and, on the part of the other, as if it had.

"She is quite as beautiful as you said," remarked Yamadori, after a careful inspection with his glass.

The nakodo nodded virtuously, and filled his pipe. His client lighted a cigarette.

Cho-Cho-San did not even smile.

"And her father, you say, was on the emperor's side in the Satsuma rebellion?"

The marriage-broker satisfied his client to the last particular of her father's bloody sacrificial end at Jokoji.

"And you have told her faithfully of me?" He paused on the last word to note its effect upon Cho-Cho-San. There was none, and he hastened to add cumulatively, "And my august family?" He paused again. But again there was no sign from the lady of the house. She was staring out over his head. "And have offered her my miserable presents?"

To each of these the broker answered lugubriously yes. "Then why, in the name of the gods, does she wait?" The nakodo explained with a sigh that she had declined his presents.

"I will send her others. They shall be a thousand times more valuable. Since I have seen her I know that the first must have been an affront."

She kept her eyes up, but Yamadori unquestionably smiled in the direction of Cho-Cho-San— as if she were a woman of joy!

The light of battle came into the stony eyes of the girl. She clapped her hands almost viciously. The little maid appeared.

"Tea!" she said.

The maid brought the tea; and with that splendid light of danger still in her eyes, Cho-Cho-San served it. With the air of a princess she put on in an instant all the charms of a mousmee. She gave back smile for smile now, and jest for jest. She begged Yamadori, with the most charming upward inflections, to put away his cigarette and take her shippo pipe, and he did it. That was Japanese, she said, her cigarettes were not. Was it not so?— with a resistless movement toward him. She let him touch her hands in the passage of the cups. She enveloped him with the perfume of her garments. She possessed him wholly in one dizzy instant.

"I will give her a castle to live in," said Yamadori, breathlessly.

The nakodo sighed. Cho-Cho-San refilled his pipe with an incomparable grace.

"Ah!" she permitted her lips to breathe— very softly.

"She shall have a thousand servants."

There was no audible response from the nakodo, but his eyes gleamed avidly.

Cho-Cho-San returned the pipe, smiling dazzlingly. It seemed almost yes with her.

"Everything her heart can wish!" cried Yamadori, recklessly.

The nakodo turned beseechingly toward the girl. She lifted her eyebrows. He did not understand. As she passed him she laughed.

"Is it enough?"

Still he did not understand.

"Have we earned the present?" she whispered.

"I will give a solemn writing," added Yamadori, fervidly.

"She still fancies herself perhaps married to the American," sighed the nakodo.

Yamadori laughed disagreeably.

"If your Excellency would condescend to explain—"

"Oh, she is not serious. A sailor has a sweetheart in every port, you know."

Cho-Cho-San whispered something to the nakodo. She still smiled.

"But she is perhaps his wife," answered he, obediently.

"Yes," said Yamadori, as if they were the same.

Cho-Cho-San whispered again.

"But the child there is a most accomplished child?" said the nakodo.

"Yes," said the traveled Japanese, with the same smile and the same intonation.

There was a distinct silence. Cho-Cho-San smiled more vividly. But her nostrils moved rapidly in and out. The nakodo grew anxious. Yamadori cast his eyes toward the ceiling, and continued:

"A sailor does not know the difference. In no other country are children esteemed as they are here. In America it is different. People sometimes deny them. They are left in a basket at some other person's door. But the person does not receive them. They are then cared for by the municipality as waifs. It is shameful to be such a child. There are great houses and many officers in each city for the care of these. They are an odious class by themselves, and can never rise above their first condition."

The nakodo glanced askance at his client. He had not the slightest objection to a man who would lie a little to win his cause, but to lie too much was to lose it.

"I myself knew a man whose child became a cripple. He sent him to the mayor of the city, saying that as the cars of the city had injured him, the city must bring him up. He was sent to the poorhouse, and afterward to the stone-quarries. It was a most piteous sight."

Cho-Cho-San bent again to the ear of the old man. There was a tremor in her voice now.

"Had he eyes of purple?" asked the nakodo.

"He was beautiful of face; but surely eyes of purple are not desirable?" Yamadori brought his own down from the ceiling and leveled them at Cho-Cho-San. She still smiled, but there was a bright-red spot in each cheek now. " But he was misshapen, and he was never known to laugh. I saw many such. I saw a child whose father had deserted it, and the mother—"

Madame Butterfly clapped her hands again. The maid appeared promptly; she had expected the summons.

"Suzuki— good Suzuki, the excellent gentlemen— the august" she swept a royal gesture toward them—"who have done us the honor to call, they wish to go hurriedly. Their shoes will you not hasten them?"

With a final brilliant smile she turned her back upon them and left the room.

"Your story of the rejected child did it," reproached the nakodo, on the way.

"I had not got to the worst," said his client, ruefully. "I meant to cite an example exactly to suit her own case."

"Lucky she turned us out when she did, then."

"What do you mean, sir?" demanded the suitor, in sudden wrath.

"Oh," said the broker, in polite haste, "I was beginning to feel— ill."

The irony of this escaped the client. Still, Goro would have had a less opinion of Yamadori if, having lied once, he had not lied again in defense of the first.

Though Yamadori came no more, he had brought the serpent to Madame Butterfly's Eden.

9: "'Bout Birds"

ONE DAY she took her courage, and the maid's too, for that matter, in both hands, and called upon the American consul. She saw the vice-consul. There was a west wind, and it was warm at Nagasaki. He was dozing. When he woke, Madame Butterfly was bowing before him. At a little distance was the maid with the blond baby strapped to her back. He was unable to account for them immediately.

"Goon night," said Cho-Cho-San, smiling amiably.

The consul glanced apprehensively about.

"Night! Not night, is it?"

They both discovered the error at the same instant.

"Ah! no, no, no! Tha' 's mis-take. Me— I 'm liddle raddle'. Aexcuse us. Tha' 's not nize, mak' mis-take. We got call you good morning, I egspeg, or how do? What you thing?"

"Whichever you like," he answered, without a smile.

Then Cho-Cho-San waited for something further from the consul. Nothing came. She began to suspect that it was her business to proceed instead of his.

"I— I thing mebby you don' know me?" she questioned, to give him a chance.

"Oh, yes, I do," declared the consul. In fact, everybody knew her, for one reason and another— her baby, her disowning, her beauty, her "American" marriage. "You are O Cho-Cho-San, the daughter—" he forgot her father's name, though he had often heard it. "You used to dance, did you not?"

"Aha! See! Tha' 's what I thing. You don' know me whichaever. I nobody's daughter; jus' Missus Ben-ja— no! Missus Frang-a-leen Ben-ja-meen— no, no, no! Missus Ben-ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton. Aeverybody else outcast me. Aha, ha, ha! I liddle more raddle'."

"Oh!" The consul was genuinely surprised, and for the first time looked with interest at the child. Cho-Cho-San, to aid him, took Trouble from the maid. Finally he politely asked her what he could do for her.

"I got as' you a thing."

She returned the baby to the maid.

"Proceed," said the consul.

"You know 'bout birds in your country?"

"Yes, something."

"Ah! tha' 's what I thing. You know aeverything. Tha' 's why your country sen' you here— account you ver' wise."

"You do me too much honor," laughed the consul.

"You— don'— know?"

She was distinctly alarmed.

"Everything? No; only a few things."

"But you know 'bout birds— robins— jus' liddle robins?"

Her inflections denounced it a crime not to know. He was not proof against this, or against these.

"Oh, yes," he said; "of course."

"Aha! Of course. Tha' 's what I all times thinging. Tha' 's mis-take, by you?"

They could laugh together now.

"Ah! Tell me, then, if you please, when do those robin nest again? Me? I thing it is later than in Japan, is it not? Account— jus' account the robin nesting again jus' now in Japan."

The consul said yes because the girl so evidently desired it not because he knew.

"Aha! Tha' 's what I thing. Later— moach later than in Japan, is it not?" Again her fervid emphasis obliged him to say yes, somewhat against his conscience.

"An'— sa-ay! When somebody gitting marry with 'nother body at your America, don' he got stay, marry?"

"Usually— yes; decidedly yes; even sometimes when he does n't wish to."

"An' don' madder where they live?"

"Not at all."

"Ah-h-h! How that is nize! Sa-ay; you know all 'bout that. What you thing?"

"Well, I know more about that than about ornithology. You see, I 've been married, but I 've never been a— a robin."

The joke passed quite unnoticed. She put her great question:

"An' no one can't git divorce from 'nother aexcep' in a large court-house full judge?"

"Yes," laughed the consul; "that is true."

"An’ that take a ver' long time?"

"Yes; nearly always. The law's delay—"

"An' sometimes they git inside a jail?"

She was so avid that she risked the very great discourtesy of an interruption— and that, too, without a word of apology. Suzuki was, for an instant, ashamed for her.

"Occasionally that happens, too, I believe."

Every doubt had been resolved in her favor.

"An' if they got a nize bebby yaet— don' they— ah, don' aeverybody lig that?"

"I did, very much. Mine is a fine boy."

"Sa-ay! He loog lig you— purple eye, bald hairs, pink cheek?"

"I'm afraid he does."

"'Fraid?"

"Glad, then."

"Oh! 'Fraid mean glad? Yaes. Tha' 's way Mr. B. F. Pikkerton talking— don' mean what he say an' don' say what he mean ezag'."

The consul laughed, but he could not quite understand the drift of her questioning.

"If people have a nize bebby alig that, they don' give him away, not to nob'y— nob'y they don' lig? What you thing?"

"I should think not!" For a moment he looked savage as a young father can.

Cho-Cho-San's face glowed. She stood consciously aside, that the consul might the better see the baby on Suzuki's back. He understood, and smiled in the good-fellowship of new parenthood. He made some play with the child, and called him a fine fellow.

"Ah! You naever seen no soach bebby, I egspeg?"

In the largess of his fellowship he declared that he had not. He had only recently been engaged in putting the same question to his friends. She had hoped, indeed, that he would go on from that and say more, the subject so abundantly merited it; but she now remembered that, in her haste to satisfy her doubts, she had neglected all those innumerable little inquiries which go to make up the graceful game of Japanese courtesy. Though she might neglect them with Pinkerton, she must not with a stranger who was obliging her.

10: Gentle Lying

"AH! HOW is that health? Also, I am sawry I woke you up, excellent, an' that I interrup' your languages. That is not a happy for the most exalted health— to be wake up an' interrup'. Therefore, I pray your honorable pardon. An'— how is that health?"

The consul said that he was quite well.

"Ah, how that is nize! An' you always sleeping well, most honorable?"

He nodded.

"Yaes— I hear you sleep. Oh! Tha' 's not joke! No, no, no!"

He had laughed, but she would never do that.

"But I do— snore, I believe— sometimes."

He was not proud of even this, of course.

"Oh! Jus' lig gen-tie bree-zes."

He said that he could not do better than adopt this charming euphemism.

"Also, how ole you gitting ver' soon? "

"Thirty."

A Japanese always adds a few years. She therefore thought him younger, and her veneration abated accordingly. But he was in fact older.

"Tha' 's also nize— ver' nize. I wish I so ole. That Mr. B. F. Pikkerton he lig me more if I older, I thing." She sighed.

"I don't know about that. The American point of view differs." But he would not meddle. "How old are you, pray?"

This was only the proper return for her courtesy. Besides, the consul was enjoying the usually dull game of decorum to-day. The girl was piquant in a most dazzling fashion.

"Me? I 'bout— 'bout—"(what he had said made her doubt a little the Japanese idea) '"bout 'mos'—  twenty-seven— when the chrysanthemum blooms again."

She was seventeen.

"Yaes, 'bout 'mos' twenty-seven" with a barely perceptible rising inflection.

He acquiesced in the fiction, but smiled at the way she hung her head and blushed; this was not the Japanese way of telling one's age (or any other gentle lie).

"You got a grandmother?" she proceeded.

"Two," alleged the consul.

"Tha' 's ver' splen-did. An' is she well in her healths also?"

"Which one?"

She passed the joke, if she saw it. No Japanese will make his parent the subject of one.

"The ole one— always the ole one firs'."

The consul felt queerly chidden.

"She was well at last accounts."

"Tha' 's nize. An' the young one?"

"The same. And now, about yours?"

"Alas! I have not that same happiness lig you. I got not ancestors whichever. They all angery account that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton, so they outcast me out the family. He don' lig that they live with him, account they bag nombers. He an' me go'n' be only bag nomber, he say. He big boss bag nomber, me jus' liddle boss bag nomber. Me? I don' got ancestors before me nor behine me now. Hence they don' show me the way to Meido when I die. Well, me? I don' keer whichever. I got hosban' an bebby tha' 's mos' bes' nize in Japan, mebby in the whole worl. An' I kin go at Nirvana by 'nother road, aha! if I moast."

The kindly consul better than she understood both the effect of this separation of her from her "ancestors," and the temperament of Pinkerton. He undertook, notwithstanding his resolution not to meddle, a tentative remonstrance. She listened politely, but he made no impression.

"You must not break with your relatives. If Pinkerton should not, should— well, die, you know, you would indeed be an outcast. If your own people would have nothing to do with you, nobody else would. It must, of course, be known to you that your— marriage with Pinkerton has put you in unfortunate relations with everybody; the Japanese because you have offended them, the foreigners because he has. What would you do in such a case? "

"Me? I could— dance, mebby, or— or die?".

But she laughed as she said it. Then she acknowledged his rebuking glance.

"Aexcuse me, tha' 's not nize? Well, it is not so easy to die as it was— bifore he came." She sighed happily.

The consul was curious.

"Why?" he asked.

"Why?— He make my life more sweet."

"But that is no reason for quarreling with your family."

"But they don' wan' me, because my hosban' don' wan' them! Henceforth I got go 'way from my hosban' if I wan' them; an' if I wan' him more bedder, I got go 'way from them. No madder whichever, I got go 'way from some one. Well, I wan' those hosban' more bedder than any. Sa-ay! Tha' 's a foanny! They make me marry with him when I don' wish him; now I am marry with him, they don' wish him. Jus', after my father he kill hisself sticking with short sword, tha' 's how we gitting so poor— oh, ver' poor! Me? I go an' dance liddle, so we don' starve. Also, I thing if somebody wish me I git married for while, account that grandmother got have food an' clothings. Well, those ver' grandmother she as' the ole nakodo 'bout it; she lig me git marry with some one. He say mans jus' as' him other day kin he git him nize wife, an' he don' know none nizer."

She paused to let the consul make sure of this fact, which he did, and then acknowledged the appreciation she had provoked with a charming smile.

"Whichever, he say he thing I don' lig him, account he America-jin, he. also remarking with me that he a barbarian an' a beas'. Well, me?— I say I don' wan' him. I 'fraid beas'. But aevery one else they say yaes— yaes, ah, yaes— he got moaney, an' for jus' liddle while I got endure him. So I say, 'Bring me that beas'.' An' lo! one day the ole nakodo he bringing him for look-at meeting. Well!—"

She paused to laugh, and so infectious was it that the consul adventurously joined her. "At firs' I thing him a god, he so tall an' beautiful, an' got on such a blue clothes all full golden things. An' he don' sit 'way, 'way off, an' jus'— talk!"

She laughed abandonedly.

"He make my life so ver' joyous, I thing I naever been that happy."

She had an access of demureness.

"Oh, jus' at firs' I frighten'; account he sit so close with me— an' hoi' my han'— an' as' if it made satin. Aha, ha, ha! Satin! Loog!"

She gave them both to him. They were deliciously pretty; but the consul was embarrassed by his possession of them. She began slowly to withdraw them, and then he let them go with regret.

"I beg your august pardon. I jus' thinging in the inside me, an' speaking with the outside. Tha' 's not nize. You don' keer nothing— 'bout— that— those?"

"What?"

He thought she meant the hands and perhaps she did.

"Jus" those— liddle— story."

"Yes, I do," declared the consul, with some relief; "it is a charming story." And it was, for Cho-Cho-San's eyes and hands took part in its telling as well as her lips.

"You mean— you lig hear more?"

"Yes." She reflected an. instant. "I thing there is no more. Jus'— yaes, jus' after while I naever git frighten' no more— no madder how close, nor how he hol' my hand."

"But then you— I beg pardon you were married? I think you said so?"

"Oh, yaes," she replied, as if that had made little difference in their situation; "I marry with him."

I think his ship was then ordered to—" She nodded.

"Alas! he got go an' serve his country. But he go'n' come back, an' keep on being marry with me. What you thing?"

The consul contrived to evade the interrogation.

"Is that why you asked about the robins?"

"Yaes; he go'n' come when the robins nest again. He? He don' naever egspeg we got this nize bebby, account I don' tell him. I don' kin tell him. I don' know where he is. But— me? I don' tell if I know, account he rush right over here, an' desert his country, an' henceforth git in a large trouble— mebby with that President United States America, an' that large Goddess Liberty Independence! What you thing?"

11: "The Mos' Bes' Nize Man"

IT WAS QUITE superfluous to point out such of her ideas as had birth in the fertile brain of Pinkerton. Certainly he had enjoyed his married life with her, but it was for another reason than hers. The consul could observe, he thought, how exquisitely amusing it had been. It was, too, exactly in Pinkerton's line to take this dainty, vivid, eager, formless material, and mold it to his most wantonly whimsical wish. It was perhaps fortunate for her that his country had had need of him so soon after his marriage.

However, the consul informed her that her fears of trouble for Pinkerton from the sources mentioned were entirely groundless. But this, to his surprise, was not pleasing intelligence. She liked to believe (as he had let her believe) that Pinkerton occupied a large space in the affairs of his country; that he was under the special patronage of the President, and the Goddess of Liberty was, perhaps, her own corollary. But it fitted his character as she had conceived it. To her he was a god, perhaps. But let it be understood that a Japanese god is neither austere nor immaculate.

"Well, whichever," she said, in some disappointment, "tha' 's a so'prise on him when he come. He all times joking with me; I make one joke upon him. Tha' 's good joke. What you thing?"

The consul shook his head. The matter began to have a sinister look. But the girl's faith was sublime.

"Ah-h-h! You?" Her inflection was one of pity for his ignorance. "Tha' 's account you don' know him, you shaking your nize head. He joking all times. Sometime I dunno if he joking, aexcep' he stop, look solemn, an' laugh. Then he make the house raddle! Oh, mebby you thing I don' joke too, also? Well, tha' 's mis-take. I make joke jus' lig him— jus' bad. One time I make joke with him 'bout run 'way to that grandmother, account I don' keer for him no more. Well— what you thing? He say ' 'Ello! Less see how you kin run fas'.' Aha, ha, ha! Tha' 's liddle joke upon me. Now I go'n' have the larges' joke upon him. Sa-ay— you got tell him, if you please, augustness, that I could n't wait, it was so long— long— long! I got tire'. So— I am marry with a great an' wise prince name' Yamadori Okyo, an' live in a huge castle with one thousan' servants, an'— an' all my hearts kin wish! Aha, ha, ha! Also, that I go'n' away to his castle with his purple-eye' bebby, to naever return no more— naever. You go'n' tell him that?"

"I would prefer not to have a hand in any further— that is, any deception," the consul objected gravely.

The girl was amazed 'and reproachful.

"Ah-h-h! Don' you lig joke? I thing aevery American do. Tha' 's not nize for me. I got be sawry I telling you all those. Alas! How that would be nize for you! You see him git angery so quick." She smote her hands together. "An' then he say those remark 'bout debbil an' hell, an' rush up the hill this away."

She again lifted her kimono, and acted it recklessly across the apartment.

"But, my dear madame—"

She came at him with a voice and movement that were resistlessly caressing. He perceived how useless it would be to protest further. He acknowledged her protean fascination.

"Ah-h-h! Please, augustness, to tell him? It will be that nize for me! Ah, you go'n' do it?— Yaes? Say so!"

The consul had capitulated to her voice and eyes. This was evident to her.

"Ah— thangs, most excellent. You the mos' bes' nize man in the worl'—"

She paused guiltily; even this purely Japanese euphemism might be conjugal treason.

"Except?" laughed the consul.

"Aexcep'," confessed the girl, with drooping head.

A smile began to grow upon her lips; when she raised her face it was a splendid laugh.

"How we have fun seeing him rush up that hill at the house"— she was frankly dissembling—"so!" She illustrated again— back and forth across the apartment. "After that— ah— after that— well— I make aeverything correc'."

She was radiantly certain that she could.

The consul remembered the saying of the professor of rhetoric that no comedy could succeed without its element of tragedy. Well, Pinkerton might have meant to return to her. Any other man probably would. He would not have been quite certain of himself. Only, that stuff about the robins sounded like one of his infernal jokes. He probably supposed that she knew what he meant farewell; but she had not so construed it. Unless Pinkerton had changed, he had probably not thought of her again— except as the prompt wife of another man. He never explained anything. It was his theory that circumstances always did this for one; it was therefore a saving of energy to permit circumstances to do it. There was a saying in the navy that if any one could forget a played game or a spent bottle more quickly than Pinkerton, he had not yet been born. Providing her with a house and money meant nothing. He would probably have given her all he had, whether it were a dollar or a thousand. But, on the other hand, if she had been one of the sudden and insane fancies which occasionally visited him, the case was altogether different, and altogether like Pinkerton; for in the person of a fascinating woman the emotion might survive the absence in question. For himself, he was quite sure— had he been Pinkerton, of course— that it would have survived something greater. And finally his own views prevailed with him as if they were Pinkerton's, and he believed that he would be delighted to return and resume his charming life with her on Higashi Hill.

He thereupon told her that Lieutenant Pinkerton's ship was under orders to stop at Nagasaki, the government rendezvous for the navy, about the first of September, to observe and report the probabilities of war with China; and he was instantly glad that he had told her.

The girl's superb joy was expressed in a long, indrawn sigh, and then silence.

But something had to be said— or done.

"I— I lig as' you 'nether thing" again dissembling, as if the talk were still at the trivialities where it began.

"Certainly," said the consul, with a smile.

"But won't you have a chair?"

He had noticed that she was trembling. She sat up unsteadily on the edge of it. And then she forgot what she had meant to ask!

"Sa-ay!—"She was still at sea. But suddenly a thought flashed in her eyes.

"All bebbies at your America got those purple eye?"

"A— yes, very many of them," said the consul, with a little surprise at her direction.

"An'— an' also bald of their head?"

"All of them, I believe, at first." He smiled, and the girl smiled back at him engagingly.

"Sa-ay, augustness, he go'n' come for see those bebby? What you thing?" Her words were like caresses.

But the rapture growing surely in the girl's face now was not reflected in that of the consul. Concern for her outweighed her fascinations for the moment.

"I— I hope so—"

She cut off his doubting incontinently.

"Sa-ay! Mebby you also don' thing he go'n' take us live in his large castle at United States America? " she challenged reproachfully.

"Did he tell you that he would that he had one?"

"No; he don' tell me— nawthing. He laugh, when I as' him, lig the house go'n' fall down. But— what you thing?"

The consul answered her quite briefly. He knew that he hurt her, but his impotent anger was at Pinkerton; he had not thought him capable of that.

"If I were to advise, I should ask you to consider seriously Yamadori's proposal, if he has really offered himself. It is a great and unusual opportunity for you— for any girl— in— in Japan."

"You— thing— those? You?"

She looked at him for an amazed and reproachful instant; then gathered her kimono in her hand, and pushed her feet into her clogs.

"Go before, Suzuki," she said gently to the maid; to the consul, sorrowfully, "Goon night."

At the door she turned with a ceremonial sweep of her draperies, looked, and came hurrying back. All the joy had returned to her face at the sincere regret— almost pain— she saw upon his. She impulsively grasped his hands— both of them.

"Once more— different— goon night, augustness." And her voice was very soft.

"Aha, ha, ha! Me? I jus' a foo-el— yaes. You?— you the mos' bes' nize man in all the whole worl'—"

She paused— smiling up at him. He understood that she wished to repeat their pretty play upon the phrase.

"Except?"

She nodded and laughed.

"Aexcep'— Ha, ha, ha!"

She hurried after the maid, laughing back at him confessingly as she went.

And, after all, the consul was glad it had ended thus. For joy is better than sorrow— always and everywhere.

WHEN THEY again reached the pretty house on the hill, Cho-Cho-San looked ruefully back over the steep road they had come.

"Oh, how that was tiresome, Suzuki! But he— when he comes, it will be jus'— one— two— three great strides! How he will rush up that hill it cost us so much sweat to climb! Lig storm with lightening and thunder! Flash! flash! flash! Bourn! bourn! bourn! An' here he is all for jus' liddle me! Then how he will stamp about— not removing his boots— spoiling the mats— smashing the fusuma— shaking the house lig earthquake animal! 'Where is she? Hah! Mans tole me she gone an' marry with a fool Yamadori! Gone me my purple-eye' bebby away.' Then I jump roun' his neck bifore he gitting too angery, an' hole his han', an' say, close with his ears: ' How do, Mr. B. F. Pikkerton? ' Aha, ha, ha! What you thing, Suzuki? "

And Suzuki said, in English, too:

"Tha' 's mos' bes' nize thing I aever see!"

12: Like A Picture Of Bunchosai

FROM THAT TIME until the seventeenth of September not a ship entered the harbor but under the scrutiny of the glass that Lieutenant Pinkerton had left at the little house on Higashi Hill to read his signals aboard. And there were very many of them, for the war was imminent. Faith had begun to strain a little with unfaith, after the first. It was very long; but on the seventeenth his ship came into the bay. So like a great bird did she come that the glass did not find her until her white-and-gold mass veered to make an anchorage. Then, all at once, the gilt name on her bow was before Cho-Cho-San's eyes. It was tragically sudden. With a hurtling cry, she fell to the floor. The little maid, with Eastern intuition, understood; but she said nothing, and did— what was best. Both she and her mistress— and all the world, for that matter— knew the comfort of this speechless, sympathetic service. And presently she was better, and could talk.

"I— I di'n' know I so— glad," softly laughed Cho-Cho-San.

But the maid had known what to expect.

"You go'n' res' liddle now, please, Oku-San! You go'n' sleep liddle— please, jus' liddle— res'— sleep?"

She drew her mistress's eyelids down, and lightly held them. Cho-Cho-San shook her off, and sprang up, revivified.

"Res'! Sleep! Not till he come!"

"Res'— peace— sleep— beauty," chanted the maid, persuasively. But her mistress would not.

"Now, hasten lig you got eagle's wings an' a thousan' feet! It will not be one hour— not one half— till he will be here. My pink kimono— widest obi— kanzashi for my hair an' poppies. I will be more beautiful than I have aever been. Flowers— alas! there are no cherry-blossoms. How that is sad! Seem lig we cannot be gay without them. In the month of the cherry-blossoms we were marry! But chrysanthemums— all of them! An' lanterns if it be black night— 'mos' one thousan'! Aha, ha, ha! His house shall be gayer than it has aever been. There shall naever again be such good occasion."

"Res' is beauty," urged the maid, holding up the mirror to her.

"Ah, Suzuki! I am beautiful— as beautiful as when he went away?"

The maid was silent— the Japanese silence which is not assent.

Cho-Cho-San snatched the metallic mirror out of her hand.

"I am!" she cried savagely. "Say so!"

She brandished the heavy mirror over the girl's head.

"I as' you to res'— peace— sleep. Tha' 's way git beautiful once more."

"Oh-h-h! 'Once more'!" The mirror crashed to the floor, and she burst into tears.

"Jus' you been too trouble'. Now you go'n' res' liddle," urged the comforting maid.

"Oh, all the gods! I cannot!— I cannot till he come. I shall die bifore."

She sorrowfully recovered the mirror.

"No— no; pitiful Kwannon, I am no longer beautiful! Waiting an' doubting make one soon sad an' old. An' how long we have wait!— how long! Oh, Shaka! But now I am happy— happier than I have aever been. Therefore shall I be more beautiful than I have aever been again. For happiness also is beauty. Ah, Suzuki, be kine with me!" She got on her knees to the maid, and laid her head at her feet. An ecstatic thought came to her. "Suzuki, you shall make me beautiful to-day, an' to-morrow the gods shall. Now we have not even time to pray them— not time to res'. Will you not? Can you not? Ah-h-h! You moast!"

She pulled the girl down to her, and whispered the last words in her ear— with her arms about her.

And the girl did. Let us not inquire how. She had never yet withstood that tone and that caress. There was a certain magic in her deft fingers, and her mistress had it all. No daintier creature need one ever wish to see than this bride awaiting anew the coming of her husband.

And when it was all done, they each took a final delighted look into the mirror. It was too small to show the whole figure, but they moved it up and down and round about until every portion had been seen. They both pronounced it very good.

"Stan' jus' that way," begged the maid, going the length of the apartment to observe. "Jus' lig those new porcelains of Kinkozan!" she declared.

"Jus" lig those ole picture of Bunchosai!" retorted Cho-Cho-San— meaning anything but that.

But— in the way of women the world over a few more touches were necessary— and it was finished.

"Now the flowers for his room! Take them all— oh, aevery one! We shall not need them again. Go— go— go! Aha, ha, ha! An' Trouble— make a picture of him! He will be Trouble no longer after to-day. He go'n' git new name— mebby Joy!— Joy!"

HER COMMANDS were obeyed. Within the appointed hour the house was decked as for a festival, and not a flower remained upon its stem. The baby had indeed become a picture; and so had Cho-Cho-San and the maid and the house.

Then they hid behind the shōji, recklessly making peep-holes with their dampened fingers, as they had planned. There was one very low down for the baby, so that he could sit on the mats,— which he did not choose to do,— and one each for the others. Cho-Cho-San sang as she fixed herself at her peep-hole so as not to disarrange her finery:

"Rog-a-by, bebby, off in Japan,

You jus' a picture off of a fan."

The maid tossed the baby like a ball into her lap.

"Aha, ha, ha!" laughed Madame Butterfly once more.

Everything was at last quite as they had planned it.

"Now let him come," she said, in a charming defiance—"let him come— quickly an'— then—"

The hour passed. Then two— four. Night fell. They ceased to chatter. Later came perfect silence; then that other silence of the dead of the night. The pulses of terror quickened. Suzuki noiselessly lighted the lanterns. Later, at a shivering gesture from her mistress, she lighted the andon in their room; then the hibachi. She had grown very cold. All night they watched. He had the careless habit of the night. But he did not come.

And all the next day they watched, and many after, quite silent now, always. The baby wondered at this, and would look inquiringly from one to the other. It was very strange to him, this new silence. The house had been full always of their laughter and chatter— the patter of their feet— the sighing of the shoji. They did nothing now but watch— and eat a little, sleep a little— less and less of these. Finally Cho-Cho-San could no longer hold the glass. She lay on the mats with the baby, while the faithful handmaid watched. Every day the faded flowers were replaced by purchased ones— cheaper and cheaper ones. Their last money went for this and the candles which renewed the lights of the lanterns each night. These were not a thousand— were not a dozen— now.

She did not think of going to him. In destroying her Japanese conventions this was the one thing that had been left. In "Onna Yushoku Mibea Bunko" ("The Young Ladies' Old Book of Decorum") she had read that the only woman who seeks a male is a yujo, a courtezan.

IN A WEEK a passenger-steamer came into the bay. They took no interest in her. But the next day, quite by accident, they saw him for the first time. He was on the deck of the strange ship. A blonde woman was on his arm. They watched quite sleeplessly all that night. A few more lanterns were lighted.

On the following morning the war-ship had disappeared from the harbor.

Cho-Cho-San was frightened. The sinking at her heart she now knew to be black doubt. Her little, unused, frivolous mind had not forecast such a catastrophe. There might have been a reason, she had conceived, for his detention aboard his ship. He was never very certain. She had not been sure that he was with her until the day before; the position of the vessel had been unfavorable for observation.

13: The Good Consul's Compassionate Lying

DEMORALIZATION set in. Even the comfort of the maid was dulled. They decided that Cho-Cho-San should go to see the good consul, while the maid and the baby remained at home to welcome him if, perhaps, he had not gone with the war-ship. They had already created this hope.

The maid helped her down the steepest part of the hill. Nevertheless, when she arrived at the consulate she was quite breathless. The consul was alone. There were no frivolities now. Each knew that the other understood.

"Me? I got— liddle heart-illness, I thing," the girl panted in excuse of her lack of ceremony and the consul's pitying stare. She looked very ill; but her smile was still tragically bright.

The consul placed her a chair. She declined it. There was a moment of conscious silence. Then he went hesitatingly to his desk, and got an envelop containing money— a large sum. He silently handed her this.

She looked at him in appealing inquiry, but she did not take the money.

"It is only— only in remembrance of the— the past. He wishes you to be always happy — as— he says he is. He confidently hopes for your good wishes and congratulations."

There was moisture in the consul's eyes, only questioning in hers. He suddenly saw that she did not understand. He decided that she never should. He did not speak again, nor did she for a space. Then:

"Happy— happy?" she murmured dizzily. "But how kin I be happy if he do not come? How kin he be— happy— if— he do not come?"

The consul was silent. He still held the money toward her. She tried to smile a little, to make him think she was indifferent concerning his answer to the question she was about to ask.

"Ah— oh— ah! You tole him 'bout— 'bout that joke that liddle joke we make on him?"

The consul pretended ignorance. She explained:

"That 'bout me go'n' marry with Yamadori, an' take his bebby 'way?"

He had to answer now:

"Oh, that was— too— too foolish to talk about seriously."

Pinkerton had been glad to hear it.

"But— you— tole him?"

She hoped now he had not.

"Well—"

He looked out of the window. He would not strike, but she would be struck.

"But you you tole him?" She had raised her voice piteously.

"Yes," answered the consul, dully, wondering what he could say next.

She gasped, and wiped her dry lips.

"Yaes; tha' 's— right. Tha' 's— what I— as' you do. An' an' what he— say?" she questioned huskily.

The consul was willing to lie as deeply as the occasion might demand. The woe in the girl's face afflicted him. He saw in her attire the pitiful preparations to welcome the husband he now knew to be a craven, and in her face what it had cost to wait for him. But in specie the lie was difficult.

"Well," he began uncertainly, "we— it all happened about as you had supposed. He got very angry, and would have rushed right up the hill, as you thought, only— only—" What next? The wish to lie had grown upon him wondrously as he went on. But invention flagged. The despatches on his desk caught his eye. "Only— he was not permitted a moment's leave while in the harbor. He had all these despatches to prepare— for— for his government the war, you know. All in cipher."

He showed them to her. A brilliant thought came into his head.

"See! They are all in his handwriting."

He had not written a line of them.

"His ship was ordered away suddenly to China; but he '11 be back here some of these fine days, and then—"

The rest was for her. At any rate, he could lie no more.

"All— all the gods in heaven bless— you," she said, sinking with the reaction.

She reeled, and he put her into the chair. Her head fell limply back, and her pallid face looked up at him with the weary eyes closed. But there was rest and peace on it, and it was still very beautiful.

Some one was approaching in haste, and he drew a screen before her.

14: The Blonde Woman

A WOMAN entered.

"Mr. Sharpless— the American consul?"

she asked, while crossing the threshold. The consul bowed.

"Can you reach my husband at Kobe— by telegraph?"

"I think so. Who is your husband?"

He took up a writing-pad as he spoke.

"Lieutenant Pinkerton of the—"

"One moment, for God's sake!"

It was too late. The eyes of the little woman in the chair were fixed on his. They even tried to smile a little, wearily, at the poor result of his compassionate lying. She shook her head for silence.

"I beg your pardon; I 'm— I am— ready—" said the consul, roughly. He made no other explanation. "Proceed."

"I should like you to send this telegram: 'Just saw the baby and his nurse. Can't we have him at once? He is lovely. Shall see the mother about it to-morrow. Was not at home when I was there to-day. Expect to join you Wednesday week per Kioto Maru. May I bring him along? Adelaide.'"

As she advanced and saw Cho-Cho-San, she stopped in open admiration.

"How very charming— how lovely— you are, dear! Will you kiss me, you pretty— plaything!"

Cho-Cho-San stared at her with round eyes— as children do when afraid. Then her nostrils quivered and her lids slowly closed.

"No," she said, very softly.

"Ah, well," laughed the other, "I don't blame you. They say you don't do that sort of thing— to women, at any rate. I quite forgive our men for falling in love with you. Thanks for permitting me to interrupt you. And, Mr. Sharpless, will you get that off at once? Good day!"

She went with the hurry in which she had come. It was the blonde woman they had seen on the deck of the passenger-steamer.

They were quite silent after she was gone— the consul still at his desk, his head bowed impotently in his hands.

Cho-Cho-San rose presently, and staggered toward him. She tried desperately to smile, but her lips were tightly drawn against her teeth. Searching unsteadily in her sleeve, she drew out a few small coins, and held them out to him. He curiously took them on his palm.

"They are his, all that is left of his beautiful moaney. I shall need no more. Give them to him. I lig if you also say I sawry— no, no, no! glad— glad— glad!" She humbly sighed. "Me? I— I wish him that happiness same lig he wish for himself— an'— an'— me. Me? I— shall be— happy mebby. Tell him I— shall be— happy."

Her head drooped for a moment. When she raised it she was quite emotionless, if one might judge from her face.

"Thang him— that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton— also for all that kineness he have been unto me. Permit me to thang you, augustness, for that same. You— you"— she could smile a little now at the pretty recollection — then the tears came slowly into her eyes—"you— the mos' bes' nize man— in all the— whole— wort'."

She closed her eyes a moment, and stood quite still.

The consul said below his breath:

"—Pinkerton, and all such as he!"

"Goon night," said Cho-Cho-San, and at the door looking back, "Sayonara," and another tired smile.

She staggered a little as she went out.

"ALAS, YOU also have seen her!" wailed the intuitive little maid, as she let her mistress in.

"An' she is more beautiful than the Sun-Goddess," answered Cho-Cho-San.

The maid knelt to take off her shoes.

"She— she thing me— jus' a— plaything."

She generously tried to smile at the maid, who was weeping. She touched her hair caressingly as she knelt.

"Don' weep for me, liddle maiden— account I disappoint— a liddle— disappoint— Don' weep for me. That liddle while ago you as' me to res'— peace— sleep," she said after a while, wearily. " Well, go 'way, an' I will— res'. Now I wish to res'— sleep. Long— long sleep. An' I pray you, loog, when you see me again, whether I be not again beautiful— again as a bride."

The maid did not go. Once more she understood her mistress.

"But— I thing you loave me?"

The girl sobbed.

"Therefore go— that I suffer no more. Go, that I res'— peace— sleep. Long— beautiful sleep! Go, I beg."

She gently took her hands and led her out.

"Farewell, liddle maiden," she said softly, closing the shoji. "Don' weep."

15: When The Robins Nest Again

SHE SAT quite still, and waited till night fell. Then she lighted the andon, and drew her toilet-glass toward her. She had a sword in her lap as she sat down. It was the one thing of her father's which her relatives had permitted her to keep. It would have been very beautiful to a Japanese, to whom the sword is a soul. A golden dragon writhed about the superb scabbard. He had eyes of rubies, and held in his mouth a sphere of crystal which meant many mystical things to a Japanese. The guard was a coiled serpent of exquisite workmanship. The blade was tempered into vague shapes of beasts at the edge. It was signed, "Ikesada." To her father it had been Honor. On the blade was this inscription:

To die with Honor

When one can no longer live with Honor.

It was in obscure ideographs; but it was also written on her father's kaimyo at the shrine, and she knew it well.

"To die with honor—" She drew the blade affectionately across her palm. Then she made herself pretty with vermilion and powder and perfumes; and she prayed, humbly endeavoring at the last to make her peace. She had not forgotten the missionary's religion; but on the dark road from death to Meido it seemed best now to trust herself to the compassionate augustnesses, who had always been true.

Then she placed the point of the weapon at that nearly nerveless spot in the neck known to every Japanese, and began to press it slowly inward. She could not help a little gasp at the first incision. But presently she could feel the blood finding its way down her neck. It divided on her shoulder, the larger stream going down her bosom. In a moment she could see it making its way daintily between her breasts. It began to congeal there. She pressed on the sword, and a fresh stream swiftly overran the other— redder, she thought. And then suddenly she could no longer see it. She drew the mirror closer. Her hand was heavy, and the mirror seemed far away. She knew that she must hasten. But even as she locked her fingers on the serpent of the guard, something within her cried out piteously. They had taught her how to die, but he had taught her how to live— nay, to make life sweet. Yet that was the reason she must die. Strange reason! She now first knew that it was sad to die. He had come, and substituted himself for everything; he had gone, and left her nothing— nothing but this.

THE MAID softly put the baby into the room. She pinched him, and he began to cry.

"Oh, pitiful Kwannon! Nothing?"

The sword fell dully to the floor. The stream between her breasts darkened and stopped. Her head drooped slowly forward. Her arms penitently outstretched themselves toward the shrine. She wept.

"Oh, pitiful Kwannon!" she prayed.

The baby crept cooing into her lap. The little maid came in and bound up the wound.

WHEN Mrs. Pinkerton called next day at the little house on Higashi Hill it was quite empty.

______________________________

11: Murder in Oils

Leslie Beresford (Charles Beresford Painter)

1878-1946

Telegraph (Brisbane) 31 January 1939

"A HORRIBLY gruesome picture, George—"

Maisie's aureole of brilliant red-gold hair flashed, caught by sunshine in the shop as she tilted her head backward appraisingly, while intently studying the unframed canvas.

"It's a perfectly wonderful piece of work, all the same," she added, almost with bated breath. "So vivid— so terribly vivid. The artist had genius, anyhow, even if he was morbid in his taste for subjects."

It was admittedly a striking picture, a painting in oils, fair-sized, and indeed so vividly done as to seem almost alive. The canvas showed a handsomely furnished room. On the carpet, and in the foreground, lay the body of an elderly man, faced downwards and hidden, apparently sprawled in death. He had seemingly been "downed" by a bronze statuette lying near on the carpet, for there was a wound at the back of the bald head. It looked to portray a case of murder, with the man who had committed it still in the room.. He was standing with his back to the corpse, and was in the act of ransacking the contents of an old carved bureau. This in turn stood against a wall, which formed a background to the picture. On this wall, immediately above the bureau, hung an antique mirror, circular in shape. In this was reflected in clear detail the agitated face of the murderer, who was peering cautious and fearfully into the mirror, as if frightened lest someone might be watching him from behind.

"I don't suppose I shall get much for it. if I'm able to sell it at all," said George Paxton. "That sort of subject isn't popular. In fact— nothing in the second-hand line seems popular these days. I'm afraid, darling, this business of ours is in a jam. If only we'd a couple of hundred quid more behind us―"

"No hope, George!" His wife shook her, head, so that again her red-gold hair flamed in the sunshine blazing in at the window of the little Bloomsbury antique-shop. It stood in a quiet street not far from the Museum, and few people came along it. Indeed, as the Paxtons watched at this moment, only one man was in sight, and he passed by the shop without seeming to know that it existed. Maisie uttered a little exclamation of impatience, seemed suddenly to have registered an idea, turned to her husband...

"If the mountain won't go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain, George dear!" she said. "We must liven this street up a bit, make the people look in that window of ours. That queer picture is just the very thing to create a stir. Let's find a place for it in the window, and see if I'm. right!"

George Paxton had gone into the second-hand and antique business because he knew a good deal about it and was an enthusiast. For few businesses are more fascinating or have more interest for a man who likes a speculative thrill. What may look like a mountain of worthless junk, to the mind of most people at a sale, may well contain a hidden pocket of gold, only realised by the astute dealer. On the other hand, even the experienced dealer may be mistaken. And George Paxton, after nearly a year here, was afraid he had been mistaken in establishing his business in this street, when forced out of an earlier tenancy elsewhere. The change had lost him most of his old customers, while bringing fresh ones here only so slowly that matter had reached a serious crisis. He had indeed been buying next to nothing of late.

He had only become owner of that strange "murder picture," as he had grown to call it, when obliging the landlord of some flats nearby. An artist-tenant had died suddenly, owing a considerable amount of rent, and the landlord was selling his few belongings to make what he could. Until this afternoon, as a matter of fact, the picture and other had been lying, where he had dumped them as valueless, at the back of his shop.

At Maisie's suggestion,  however, he now redressed the window, finding room to display the picture there in a good light, though with little hope of help from it.

To his surprise, during the next fortnight, he found himself wrong over that. People were attracted by the picture, lingering before tile shop window to gaze at it, sometimes even in little groups, discussing it. Occasionally from studying the canvas, folk became interested in other contents of the window, and that way several unexpected sales were made.

"That was a brain-wave of yours, Maisie, about that picture." he admitted to her one evening. "Nobody wants to buy it, but that doesn't matter. Why should we be anxious to sell what's, proving quite .a mascot, anyhow?"

"Oh, that reminds me, George!" she said. "I forgot to tell you that while you were out yesterday I had someone in here wanting to know how we came by that picture. At first, naturally, I wasn't Idling him. Then he explained that he was a Scotland Yard detective, and had a reason for asking, so I had to tell him."

"A Scotland Yard mail?" George stared. "Why, what made him interested in It?"

"He didn't say, though I asked him. He just took a note of the landlord's address, where the artist had lived, and went off.''

IT was closing time then, and Maisie I was just leaving to do some shopping on her way to their flat nearby, while George was staying on for an hour to finish off the monthly stock-taking and to do some accounts. In this, he forgot about the picture, and Maisie's story of the Scotland Yard man's interest in it. The shop shuttered, he had been sitting engrossed in his work for a good half-hour in the little office behind the shop, when he was startled by hearing the shop door open and close.

Peering out from the lighted office into the dark, he could see dimly the figure of a man dressed in a raincoat and a dark fell hat.

"I'm sorry, bill the shop's closed," George addressed the man rather sharply, not liking his appearance or his intrusion.

"You're serving me, all the same, and— quickly, too!" the man retorted, just as sharply, and moving forward towards the counter.

George, apprehensive, had moved forward, too. standing behind the counter and over the till, which he judged to be the intruder's objective, intending to raid it. The other, however, astounded him by his next remark:

"I want that oil-painting out of your window. I'll give you a couple of quid for it."

"Not to-night," George retaliated, wondering what could be behind this, and added: "In any case, you wouldn't get the picture at that price. If you want it come along in the morning and we'll discuss the deal."

"I want that picture here and now!" snapped the man. "So come round and get it, without any funny business about price. If you don't―"

While the man was speaking George had switched on the shop lights. At once, seriously startled now, he realised two things. One was that the man had him covered by the muzzle of a stubby little pistol. The other, equally sinister in its effect on Georges mind, was the sight of the man's face, now fully revealed by the light.

Here, in living flesh, he was confronted by the same evil face, so vividly portrayed in oils by the dead painter of that picture. Here was unquestionably the man reflected in that mirror, the murderer of that painted scene. Whatever it meant, George wasted not an instant in self-preservation. The man indeed, doubtless not expecting agility and strength in a shopkeeper, was taken completely by surprise when George, vaulting the counter, was upon him. Surprise was only momentary, however, and he tackled with the frenzy of unbridled fury, presently getting George undermost on the floor, despite his struggles, forcing free at last his right hand which held the stubby gun. He was in the act of bringing the revolver down on his victim's face, when the shop door was flung wide, and George felt his opponent torn violently from above him.

Breathless, dazed and astounded, he sat up. The man of the picture, livid and struggling impotently, was having handcuffs slipped over his wrists by one of three men who surrounded him. Another man, with a round and genial face, helped George to rise.

"No harm done, I hope?" he was saying; "I'm Inspector Wensby and I'm afraid I owe you an apology. We've used you to help us catch a suspect, but we had meant to be earlier on the scene and warn you in time. Things went a. bit astray from the way we'd reckoned, that's all."

That murder in oils, George and Maisie Paxton discovered in the end, was proof of murder In reality, an unsolved crime of months since, when a wealthy old business director had been done to death in his flat at Regent's Park. The police had indeed given up all hope of tracing the murderer until Inspector Wensby had set eyes on that picture in the Paxton's shop window.

The artist must obviously have witnessed the scene as he had painted it, though how it was impossible to say, since he had died. It could only he surmised that, witnessing it, he had reasons for not telling the police and being mixed up in the case. Why he had reproduced the scene in paint was also a mystery, which his death left for ever unsolved. The inspector, anyhow, acting on inspiration, had found ways of letting the murderer— a well-known, crook— hear of his portrait in the Paxton's window, counting on him giving himself away by coming to the shop and trying to get it to destroy it, the police being there to wait for him. As the inspector had said, their plans went a little awry, though not so badly as to miss their man.

So far as the Paxtons were concerned the publicity which the shop received in connection with the affair ended all their worries. Dealers and collectors came from curiosity and were quick to note from his stock that George knew his job and thereafter "Paxton" became a regular resort of the kind of customers whom George had almost despaired of attracting.

________________

The gloves are off...

12: A Man's Hand

Lord Kilmarnock

1876-1928

Tumut and Adelong Times (NSW) 12 July 1901

I AM NOT a very romantic person as a rule, but I admit I was pleased when I received such a very tangible proof of the affection of my fiancé. Charlie and I had been engaged for a year, but he had been spending a month at Cannes in the capacity of chaperon to his sister; hence it was gratifying to me that the very day of his arrival in England he should send round his servant with a neat little parcel and the intimation that he would wait on me the next morning as soon as he had had his hair cut.

I opened the parcel, and to my delight discovered it contained a dozen pairs of the very best evening twelve-button length gloves, bought in the Rue d'Antibes at Madame Lang's, who knows my size— a small 5J— and fits me as nobody else does in the world.

I confess it struck me that such a manifestation of affection on Charlie's part was somewhat unusual. We are generally considered to be rather a platonic pair of lovers, and we do our best to foster the idea. We both hate obtrusive sentiment. Still, I admit I was touched, and made up my mind to be very amiable the next morning. This, indeed, would not be difficult, for I had not seen Charlie for a whole month, and we always manage to amuse ourselves. You see, we understand each other. We are endowed with a reciprocal perspicacity in conversation, and are both blessed with a sense of humour. We also consider that we are rather clever. I am not sure that smart would not be a better description. Charlie says I ought to have been a detective, and I rather liked the idea. I've read such a lot of stories about lady detectives, and they always seem to have lots of nice clothes and plenty of easy.

The nest morning came, and with it Charlie, and with Charlie his sister. I was surprised at this. She is a nice girl, but wanting in tact. She and Charlie make a very handsome couple. They are both very tall, and beautifully made. She is rather masculine. I daresay that's why Charlie took a fancy to me. I am essentially feminine, and quite small. Indeed, some people consider us an ill-matched pair; but what does it matter? One isn't supposed to dance with one's husband.

It struck me that Ethel— Charlie's sister— was a little embarrassed. It was unlike her, but I took it to be the dawning of tact. Perhaps she had learnt something in Prance. It was a cold day and she wore a fur jacket and muff.

"Such a contrast to the Sunny South," she said, taking off her gloves and warming her hands at the fire. Beyond the weather she seemed to have little to say, but sat looking at Charlie, watching him, it struck me, and I wondered why.

He, on the other hand, seemed in boisterous spirits, almost too boisterous I thought; but I remembered the gloves, and took it as a compliment. Another delicate attention which I noticed was that out of his breast-pocket peeped the corner of a silk handkerchief I had given him. Really he was growing quite gallant. He was wearing my gage d'amour next his heart.

He rattled on in great form, saying how he had enjoyed his time abroad, and then, with a haste that seemed almost guilty, assuring me that he was delighted to be— home again. Still, he could not refrain from retailing all— or some— of his adventures, and game me a most amusing account of the carnival and the battle of flowers. He also related with great gusto how he and his sister had gone in dominos to a masked ball, and how he had introduced her to his friends as a man. Some had been taken in— she is six feet two— whilst some had been sceptical; but what pleased him most was the remark made to her by a precocious youth of eighteen.

"Oh, I know you are a man by your hands!"

It seemed to me rather hard on Ethel to relate his story, but she laughed good-humouredly, and I thought she was going to join in the conversation. All she could find to say, however, was: "It is cold in England."

Charlie sneezed.

"There, you've gone and caught a cold," said she. "You will go wearing the same clothes you did on the Riviera."

"Rubbish!" said Charlie, but he sneezed again. Ethel rose, and reluctantly remembering that we might want to be left alone, held out her hands once more to the fire for a final warm.

"I must be off," she said.

"Must you?" said I perfunctorily.

"Yes," said she, and took her leave.

When she had almost reached the door Charlie sneezed violently, and hastily whipped his handkerchief out of his pocket. As he did so, a white pair of five-button gloves fell to the floor. Mine was not the only gage he wore next his heart. I must do him the justice to say that he showed no trace of confusion, and with a presence of mind I admired greatly he stooped and picked them up.

"Here, Ethel," he said, "you're going off without your gloves."

It was beautifully done, I couldn't have done it better myself ; but I know a pair of sixes when I see them.

Ethel was less skilled in strategy. Her tell-tale hands were still bare, but she showed her surprise and clutched her muff. Then realising, she backed him up. But she blushed and stammered as she thanked him. I did not move a muscle. I flatter myself my facial control is as perfect as Charlie's.

"At last— she's gone," said he.

"Yes, at last," said I.

"I'm afraid," said he ungratefully, "my dear sister is wanting in tact."

"Perhaps," I admitted; "but she is improving under your tuition."

For a moment there was a pause, Then Charlie came towards me.

"Anyhow, she's gone now," he said.

"Wait!" said I. I felt certain things wanted explaining.

"Why wait?" he asked.

"I'm afraid of catching your cold," said I, temporising. We sat down. Charlie sneezed.

"Once a wish," said I incautiously.

He forced a second edition, and remarked, "Twice a―"

But retribution overtook his deceit. He succumbed to a third and genuine sneeze.

"Three times for a cold," said I hastily. "I shall give you a dose of ammoniated quinine."

Charlie hates ammoniated quinine.

"It's nothing," said he testily.  I rose and went to my medicine-chest.  "Don't be silly," he added.

I returned with the dose.

"Drink it up," I said sternly.

He obeyed abjectly— so abjectly that I fancied my manner must have told him something. He scarcely made a grimace. I took this as a good omen. He was evidently penitent, and I prepared for my second dose— but not quinine this time.

"You seem to have had a very good time at Cannes," I commenced.

"Yes," said he.

"You had nobody to give you quinine there?" said I.

"No," said he, "nobody."

I slackened my attack, he looked so uncomfortable.

"Or to look after you generally?" said I. "I hope you didn't gamble?"

"No, indeed I didn't!" with great emphasis.

"Never once— on your honour?"

"On my honour," said he. I believed him. He seemed relieved; I suppose he thought I had done my cross-examination.

"It's an awful bore— a cold," said he cheerfully.

"It has its disadvantages," said I.

"I don't think it's really infectious,' said he tentatively.

"It is certainly contagious,' I replied stonily. He seemed checked.

"You haven't, thanked me for my present," he said. This was indelicate of him ; but I made excuses. The end justifies the means, and he was desperate.

"I was waiting till we were alone," I said demurely. A little encouragement is always advisable.

"Well, we're alone now," said he, rising.

"Yes," said I,  "and now... I thank you."

Naturally he was disappointed, but I think a glimmer of the truth dawned on his mind.

"You are hard on a fellow," he said.

"I don't want to catch your cold," I replied so simply that he relapsed into a state of doubt. There was another pause while he sneezed again. This justified my apprehensions and gave him heart of grace. He sat down again, very close to me, and said:

"All right, I'll wait."

"Everything comes," I quoted, "to him who knows how to wait."

It would not do to let him despair. A little tantalising was a good preparation for what was to follow. He took my hand, encouraged.

"Still, it's rather hard— after a whole month," he said.

"And you'll probably be infectious for a week at least," said I cruelly.

"Oh, hang!" said he. Then I unmasked my guns. When a young man becomes explosive, it means he is sufficiently penitent and ashamed of himself to stand a lecture.

"Who gave you that pair of gloves?" I asked. He started in his surprise. I had caught him off his guard. But in a moment himself.

"What pair of gloves?" said he.

"The pair you dropped," I answered.

"Why, they were my sister's," said he, lying fluently. But he blushed. I waited a moment. Then I said: "I know you're a man by your hands."

"Oh, hang!" said he again, baffled. I let his defeat sink in. Then I continued:

"Who gave them to you?"

"Nobody," said he, so glibly and cheerfully that it was evidently the truth.

"Then you stole them?"

"I'm not a thief," he answered, with such pompous self-righteousness that I could not think he lied.

"Why don't you say you found them?" said I.

"Because it's a bit too thin," said he candidly. I considered a while. There was only one alternative, and it did not please me.

"You gave me your word of honour you hadn't gambled," I said.

"Nor I have."

"Can one win without gambling?" I asked.

He blushed crimson, seeing that I had guessed.

"You can't deny that you gambled," I. said. "And you gave me your word," I added brutally.

"There was nothing to lose," said he defending his honour.

"That's as it may be," I said.

"But, anyhow, I won."

This was self-evident ; but it did not seem to me to mend matters. There is only one way to win a pair of gloves.

"Perhaps you've lost, too," I said.

"How?" he asked uneasily.

"It's a question of whether the game is worth the candle."

He was silent.

"A pair of gloves against―?" I hesitated.

"Against what?" he asked.

"Against a pair of lips."

"On the contrary," said he flippantly, "it was a pair of lips against a pair of lips.' This showed spirit. He was not so crushed as I thought. He laughed, and this sealed his fate. I remained silent while I thought out an elaborate revenge. I saw very clearly the extent of his offending, but I was not disposed to take it very seriously. He had evidently been led into a Riviera flirtation, had found the lady asleep, had kissed her, and won the gloves. The most serious part of the business was that she had given him a pair of her own, and that he carried them about on his person.

Still, that might only be that ho had forgotten them, and that they had lain neglected in his pocket. I adopted this comfortable theory, and decided merely to punish him severely. I could not break off our engagement, for I was really very fond of him. Only distinctly he must be punished. While my thoughts were thus occupied I remained silent. After a few minutes he became fidgety and nervous. He sneezed again. I held my tongue obdurately— my plan was scarcely ripe.

"I say," he said at last, "won't you forgive me?"

"I do not propose," I said, "to terminate our engagement."

This relieved him a little, but he was still anxious.

"No," said I said meditatively, "I hold you to your word, but you must undergo a term of expiation."

"What! You won't postpone―?"

"I shall not alter the date of our wedding, but for a year from this day, or rather from the day when you kissed her,  for I am not exacting— you will have to exist without any intermediate osculation whatever."

"Oh, I say!" he protested.

I let the idea soak in. "But suppose I break off the engagement?" he said defiantly.

"There will be a fashionable breach of promise suit," I replied.

He flinched.

Again there was silence. I saw I had won. He was thinking out his defence. I smiled. At last he seemed about to speak; but he only sneezed. You might have heard a pin drop. I became drowsy, and it was quite an effort to listen when finally he spoke.

"She was asleep at the time," he said apologetically. This was obvious on the face of it, and I wondered he had not thought of anything better to urge. Still, it suggested a possibility to my mind. The fact might not be a palliative.

"Where?" I asked drowsily, but my suspicions were ungrounded.

"In a hammock," he answered confidently.

I felt I wished I was in one. It is just the place for one in the dreamy state I felt in. I must have dozed off than. Anyhow, I remember nothing more till I awoke suddenly with the sound as of a pistol-shot in my ears. As I looked up I saw Charlie bending over me with his handkerchief in his hand. His sneeze had awakened me in time.

"This time you've lost," I said, smiling.

"Hang this beastly climate!" said he, blowing his nose.

"And I win a pair of gloves," I added.

"I sent you a dozen this morning,' said he sulkily.  He know he deserved to be punished.

"Yes, but I only want one pair now."

"All right,' said he. "Twelve buttons, I suppose?"

"No— five," said I.

"Five!' he exclaimed, surprised.

"Yes— five," I answered.

"All right," he assented, taking out my notebook and writing, "Five buttons— size 5J."

"No— six!" said I viciously.

"Six! You said five just now."

"Five buttons— but size No. 6," I said,

"But you take―"

"Size No. 6," (emphatically).

"All right," said he. "Or six and a quarter, I'm not sure."

"Both, if you like."

"No— I only want one pair."

"What colour?"

"Formerly white," I said, looking him straight in the face. He saw I had been hurt, and he winced, for the memory of his offending hurt him too. He was not unkind— only weak— and he saw I understood and forgave him. We were both very near unusual emotion— but his sister entered at this moment.

"O Charlie," said she anxiously, "I've called to see if you are thinking of going home." She had not taken off her gloves; they were black suede. I smiled at her ingenuousness. I think Charlie noticed it too.

"I'm ready in a minute," he replied, going up to her.

Then he spoke to her in a low voice, and she handed him something from her muff. He returned to me, and she went and looked out of the window. Even she scented a reconciliation.

"I'll pay my debt now," said Charlie, handing me the gloves— the gloves he had won at Cannes. I was gratified at his intelligence, for I silently drew them on. They were fortunately six at least. I held up my hands, and he laughed. They looked grotesque.

"I shall keep them," I said, "in reproachful remembrance of what was, I hope, a passing madness. And if ever I have reason to suspect a return of your delinquency I shall wear them all day as a warning."

"The threat is sufficient," he answered. "I was a brute, but you are an angel. I could never bear to see your dear little hands distorted by such gigantic coverings."

This was gross exaggeration, but I let it pass. If they had been his sister's now...

Two minutes later Charlie sneezed again, and Ethel looked round. I was taking a dose of ammoniated quinine. It is always as well to guard against contagion.

____________________

13: Cheating The Spies!

William Le Queux

1864-1927

Mercury (Hobart) 3 February 1940

(first published circa 1909)

A CURIOUS episode in my own somewhat uneventful life has quite recently had its denouement― an episode so unusual that it is, perhaps, worth placing on record.

One bitter winter's evening three years ago, wet, tired, and hungry, I turned my long grey touring car into the yard of the old White Hart, at Salisbury, and descended with eager anticipation of a big fire and comfortable dinner. My man Bennett and I had been on the road since soon after dawn, and we yet had many miles to cover. Two months before I had mounted the car at the garage of a great London hotel and set out upon a long and weary 10,000 mile Journey in England; not for pleasure, as you may imagine, but purely upon business. My business to be exact, was reconnoitring from a military standpoint all the roads and by-roads lying between the Tyne and the Thames, in order to write the book which had considerable success, called-"The Invasion of 1910".

For two months we had lived upon the road. When we started it was late and pleasant Autumn. Now, it was bleak, black winter,-and hardly the, kind of weather to travel in for 12 or 14 hours daily in an open car. Day after day, week after week, the big "sixty" had roared along, ploughing the mud of those ever-winding roads of England until we had lost all count of the days of the week, my voluminous notebooks were gradually being filled with valuable data, and the nerves of both of us were becoming so strained that we were victims of insomnia.

In a great portfolio in the back of the car I carried the six-inch ordnance map of the whole of the east of England, divided into many sections, and upon these I was carefully marking out, as a result of my survey, the weak points of our land in case an enemy invaded our shores from the North Sea. All telegraphs, telephones, and cables from London to Germany and Holland I was especially noting, for would not the enemy's emissaries, before they attempted to land, seize all means of communication with the metropolis? Besides all this, I collected a quantity of other valuable information.

In this work I had been assisted by half a dozen of the highest officers of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, as well as other well-known experts― careful, methodical work prior to writing, my forecast of what must happen to our beloved country In case of invasion.  The newspapers had referred to my long journey of inquiry, and often when I arrived in a town, our car, smothered in mud, yet its powerful engine running like a clock, was the object of public curiosity, while Bennett, with true chauffeur-like imperturbability, sat immovable; utterly regardless of the interest we created.

He, was a gentleman driver, and the best man at the wheel l ever had. When we were in a hurry he would travel a mile a minute over an open road, sounding his siren driven off the fly-wheel, and scenting police traps, with the happy result that we were never held up for exceeding the limit. We used to take it in turns to drive― three hours at a time.

On that particular night when we entered Salisbury from the Wincanton road, having come up from Exeter. It had been raining unceasingly all day, and we presented a pretty plight in our yellow fisherman's oilskins which we had bought weeks before in King's-Lynn as the only means of keeping dry-dripping wet and smothered to our very eyes in mud.

After a hasty wash I entered the, coffee-room, and found that I was the. sole diner save a short, funny, little old lady in black bonnet and cape, and a young, rather pretty, well-dressed girl, whom I took to be her daughter, seated at a table a little distance away. Both glanced at me as they entered, and I saw that ere I was half through my meal their interest in me had suddenly Increased.  Without doubt, the news of my arrival had gone round the hotel; and the waiter had informed the pair of my identity. It was then eight o'clock, and I had arranged with Bennett that, after a rest, we would push forward at 10.30, by Marlborough, as far as Swindon, on our way to Birmingham.

The waiter had brought me a couple of telegrams, and having finished my meal, I was seated alone by the smoking-room fire enjoying a cigarette and liqueur. Indeed, I had almost fallen asleep, when the waiter returned, saying:

"Excuse me, sir, but there's a lady outside in great distress. She wants to speak to you for a moment, and asks if she may come in."

He presented a card, and the name upon it was "Mrs. Henry Bingham."

A little surprised, I nevertheless consented to see her, and in a few moments the door reopened, and the younger of the two ladies I had seen at dinner entered.

She bowed to me as I rose, and then, evidently in a state of great agitation, she said:

"I must apologise for disturbing you, only― only I thought perhaps you would be generous enough, when you have heard of our difficulty, to grant my mother and me a favour."

"If I can be of any assistance to you I shall be most delighted, I'm sure," I answered, as her big, grey eyes met mine.

"Well," she said, "looking me straight in the face, "the fact is that our car, has broken down― something wrong with the clutch, our man says― and we can't get any further-tonight. We are on our way to Swindon-to my husband, who has met with an accident and is in. hospital, but― but,― unfortunately, there is no train to-night. Your chauffeur has told our man that you are just leaving for Swindon, and my mother and I have been wondering-well-whether we might encroach upon your good-nature and beg seats in your car?"

"You are quite welcome to travel with me, of course," I replied without hesitation, "but I fear that on such a night it will hardly be pleasant to travel in an open car."

"Oh, we don't mind that a bit," she assured me. "We have lots of water-proofs and things. It is really most kind of you. I had a telegram at four o'clock this afternoon that my husband had been taken to the hospital, and naturally I am most anxious to be at his side."

"Naturally," I said, "I regret very much that you should have such cause for distress. Let us start at once. I shall be ready in ten minutes.".

While she went back to her mother, I went out into the yard where the headlights of my big "sixty" were gleaming.

"We shall have two lady passengers to Swindon, Bennett," I said, as my chauffeur threw away his cigarette and approached me.  "What kind of car have the ladies?"

"A twenty-four. It's in the garage up yonder. The clutch won't hold, it seems. But their man's a foreigner, and doesn't speak much English. I suppose I'd better pack our luggage tighter so as to give the ladies room?"

"Yes; do so. And let's get on the road as soon as possible."

"Very well, sir," responded the man, as he entered the car and began packing our suit-cases together; while almost immediately the two ladles emerged, the elder one, whose voice was harsh and squeaky, and who was, I noticed, very deformed, thanking me profusely.

We stowed them away as comfortable as possible, and just as the cathedral chimes rang out 10:30 the ladies gave parting injunctions, to. their chauffeur, and we drew out of the yard.

I apologised for the dampness and discomfort of an open car, and briefly explained my long journey and its object; but both ladies― the name of the queer little old widow, I understood to be Sandford― only laughed and reassured me that they were all right.

That night I drove. With the exhaust opened and roaring and the siren shrieking, we sped along through the dark, rainy night up by Old Sarum, through Netheravon, and across Overton Heath into Marlborough without once changing speed or speaking with my passengers. As we came down the hill from Ogbourne, I had to pull up suddenly for a farmer's cart, and turned, asking the pair behind how they were faring. As I did so l noticed that both of them seemed considerably flurried, but attributed it to the high pace we had: been travelling when I had so suddenly pulled up on rounding the bend.

Three-quarters of an hour later I deposited them at their destination, The Goddard Arms, in Old Swindon and, descending, received their profuse thanks, the elder lady giving me her card, with an address in Earl's Court Rd., Kensington, and asking me to call on her when in London.

It was then half an hour past mid-night, but Bennett and I resolved to push forward as far as Oxford, which we did, arriving at The Mitre about 1.30, utterly fagged and worn out.

Next day was brighter, and we proceeded north to Birmingham, and across once again to the East Coast, where the bulk of my work lay.

ABOUT A FORTNIGHT went by. With the assistance of two well-known staff-officers I had been reconnoitring the country around Beccles, In Suffolk, which we had decided upon as a most important strategical point, and one morning I found myself at that old-fashioned hotel, The Cups, at Colchester, taking a day's rest. The two officers had returned to London and I was again alone.

Out in the garage I found a rather smart, good-looking man in navy serge chatting with Bennett, and admiring my car. My chauffeur, with pardonable pride, had been telling him of our long journey, and as I approached, the stranger informed me of his own enthusiasm as a motorist.

"Curiously enough," he added, "I have been wishing to meet you in order to thank you for your kindness to my mother and sister the other night at Salisbury. My name is Sandford― Charles Sandford― and. If I'm not mistaken, we're members of the same club― White's."

"Are we!" I exclaimed. "Then I'm delighted to make your acquaintance."

We lounged together for half an hour, smoking and chatting, until presently he said:

"I live out at Edwardstone, about ten miles from here. Why not come out and dine with me tonight? My place isn't very extensive, but it's cosy enough for a bachelor. I'd feel extremely honoured if you would. I'm all alone. Do come."

Cosmopolitan that I am, yet I am not prone to accept the invitations of strangers. Nevertheless, this man was not altogether a stranger, for was he not a member of my own club? Truth to tell, I had become bored by the deadly dullness of country hotels, therefore I was glad enough to accept his proffered hospitality and spend a pleasant evening.

"Very well," he said. "I'll send a wire to my-housekeeper, and I'll pilot you in your car to my place this evening, We'll start at seven, and dine at eight― if that will suit you?"

And so it was arranged.

BENNETT had the whole of the day to go through the car and do one or two necessary repairs, while Sandford and myself idled about the town. My companion struck me as an exceedingly pleasant fellow, who, having travelled very extensively, now preferred a quiet existence in the country, with a little hunting and a little shooting in due season, to the dinners, theatres, and fevered haste of London life.

The evening proved a very dark one, with threatening rain, as we turned out of the yard of The Cups, Sandford and I seated behind. My friend directed Bennett from time to time, and soon we found ourselves out on the Sudbury road. We passed through a little place which I knew to be Heyland, and then turned off to the right, across what seemed to be a wide stretch of bleak open country.

Over the heath we went, our head-lights glaring far before us, for about two miles, when my friend called to Bennett:

"Turn to the left at the cross-roads."

And a few minutes later we were travelling rather cautiously up a rough by-road, at the end of which we came to a long, old-fashioned house― a farmhouse evidently transformed into a residence.

The door was opened by a middle-aged, red-faced manservant, and as I stepped within the small hall, hung with foxes' masks, brushes, and other trophies, my friend wished me a hearty welcome to his home.

The dining-room proved to be an old-fashioned apartment, panelled from floor to ceiling. The table, set for two, bore a fine old silver candelabra, a quantity of antique plate, and adorned with flowers, was evidently the table of a man who as comfortably off.

We threw off our heavy coats and made ourselves cosy beside the fire, when the servant, whom my host addressed as Henry, brought in the soup. The meal proved a well-cooked and well-chosen one, and I congratulated him on his cook.

"I'm forty, and for twenty years I was constantly on the move," he remarked with a laugh. "Nowadays I'm glad to be able to settle down in England."

A moment later I. heard the sound of a car leaving the house.

"Is that my car?" I asked, rather surprised.

"Probably your man is taking It round to the back in order to put it under cover. Hark! It has started to rain."

To me, however, the sound, growing fainter, was very much as though Bennett had driven the car away.

The wines which Henry served so quietly and sedately were of the best, but both my host and I drank little.

Sandford was telling me of the strange romance concerning his sister Ellen and young Bingham― a man who had come into £8,000 a year from his uncle, and only a few days later had met with an accident in Swindon, having been knocked down by a train at a level crossing.

Presently, after dessert, our conversation ran upon ports and their vintages, when suddenly my host remarked:

"I don't know whether you are a connoisseur of brandies, but I happen to have a couple of rather rare vintages. Let's try them."

I confessed I knew but little.

"Then I'll teach you how to test in future," he laughed, adding: "Henry, bring up those three old cognacs, a bottle of ordinary, brandy, and some liqueur glasses."

In a few minutes a dozen little glasses made their appearance on a tray, together with four bottles of I brandy; three unlabelled,, while the fourth bore the label of a well-known brand.

"It is not generally known, I think, that one cannot test brandy with any degree of accuracy by the palate," he said, removing his cigar.

"I wasn't aware of that," I said.

"Well, I'll show you," he went on, and taking four glasses in a row, he poured a little spirit out of each of the bottles into the bottoms of the glasses. This done, he twisted each glass round, in order to wet the inside with the spirit, and the surplus he emptied into his finger-bowl. Then, handing me two, he said: "Just hold one in each hand till they're warm. So."

And, taking the remaining two, he held one in the hollow of each hand.

For a couple or three minutes we held them thus, while he chatted about the various vintages. Then we placed them in a row.

"Now," he said, "take up each one separately and smell it."

I did so, and found a most pleasant perfume, each, however, quite separate and distinct; as different as eau-de-Cologne is from lavender water.

"This," he said, after sniffing at one glass, "is 1815― Waterloo year― a magnificent vintage; and this," he went on, handing me the second glass, "is 1829― very excellent, but quite a distinct perfume, you notice; the third is 1864― also good. Of the 1815 I, very fortunately, have two bottles. Bellamy, in Pall Mall, has three bottles, and there are, perhaps, four bottles in all Paris. That is all that's left of it. The fourth― smell it― is the ordinary brandy of commerce,"

I did so, but the odour was nauseating after the sweet and distinct perfume of the other three.

"Just try the 1815," he argued, carefully pouring out about a third of a glass of the precious pale gold liquid and handing it to me.

I sipped it, finding it exceedingly pleasant to the palate. So old was it that it seemed to have lost all its strength. It was a really delicious liqueur― the liqueur of a gourmet, and assuredly a fitting conclusion to that excellent repast.

"I think I'll have the '64," he said, pouring out a glass and swallowing it with all the gusto of a man whose chief delight was the satisfaction of his stomach.

I took a cigarette from the big silver box he handed to me, and I stretched out my hand for the matches... Beyond that, curiously enough, I recollect nothing else.

But stay! Yes, I do.

I remember seeing, as though rising from out a hazy grey mist, a woman's face― the countenance of a very pretty girl about eighteen, with big, blue, wide-open eyes and very fair, silky haired girl whose eyes bore in them a hideous look of inexpressible horror.

Next Instant, the blackness of un-consciousness fell upon me,

WHEN I recovered I was amazed to find myself in bed, with the yellow wintry sunlight streaming into the low, old-fashioned room. For some time― how long I know not― I lay there, staring at the diamond-paned window straight before me, vaguely wondering what had occurred.

A sound at last struck the right chord of my memory― the sound of my host's voice exclaiming cheerily:

"How do you feel, old chap? Better, I hope, after your long sleep. Do you know it's nearly two o'clock in the afternoon?"

Two o'clock!

After a struggle I succeeded in sitting up in bed.

"What occurred?" I managed to rasp. "I― I don't remember."

"Why, nothing, my dear fellow," declared my friend, laughingly. "You were a bit tired last night, that's all; so I thought I wouldn't disturb you."

"Where's Bennett?"

"Downstairs, with the car. Waiting till you feel quite right again."

I then realised for the first time that I was still dressed. Only my boots and collar and tie had been removed.

Much puzzled, and wondering, whether it were actually possible that I had taken too much wine, I rose to my feet and slowly assumed my boots,

Was the man standing before me a friend-or was he an enemy?

I recollected most distinctly sampling the brandy, but beyond that, absolutely nothing.

At my host's orders, Henry brought me up a refreshing cup of tea, and after a quarter of an hour or so, during which Sandford declared that "such little annoying incidents occur in the life of every man," I descended, and found Bennett waiting with the car before the door.

As I grasped my host's hand in farewell, he whispered confidentially:

"Let's say nothing about it in future. I'll call and see you in town in a week or two― lf I may?"

Mechanically, I declared that I should he delighted, and mounting into the car, we glided down the drive to the road.

My brain was a whirl, and I was in no mood to talk. Therefore, I sat with the frosty air blowing upon my fevered brow as we travelled back to Colchester,

"I didn't know you intended staying the night, sir, "Bennett ventured to remark just before we entered the town.

"I didn't, Bennett."

"But you sent word to me soon after we arrived telling me to return at noon today. So I went back to The Cups, and spent all this morning on the engines."

"Who gave you that message?" I asked quickly.

"Mr. Sandford's man, Henry."

I sat in silence. What could it mean? What mystery was there?

As an abstemious man, I felt quite convinced that I had not taken too much wine. A single liqueur-glass of brandy certainly could never have produced such an effect upon me. And, strangely enough, that girl's face, so shadowy, so sweet, and yet so distorted by horror, was ever before me.

THE week after the curious incident, having completed my survey, I found myself back in my flat in Queen Anne's Mansions, my journey at last ended. Pleasant, indeed, it was to sit again at one's own fireside after those wet, never ending, muddy roads upon which I had lived for so long, and very soon I settled down to arrange the mass of material I had collected and write the book.

A few days after my return, in order to redeem my promise and to learn more of Charles Sandford, I called at the address of the queer old hump-backed widow in Earl's Court Rd.

To my surprise I found the house in question empty, with every evidence of it having been to let for a year or more. There was no mistake in the number― it was printed upon her card. This discovery caused me increasing wonder.

What did it all mean?

Through Spring and Summer I sat in my rooms overlooking St. James' Park, constantly at work upon my forecast of The Invasion of 1910. The technicalities were many and the difficulties not a few. One of the latter― and perhaps the chief one― was to so disguise the real vulnerable points of our country, which I had discovered on my tour with military experts, as to mislead any enemy who might seek to make use of the information I conveyed. The book, to be of value had, I recognised, to be correct in detail, yet at the same time it might suppress all facts that might be of use to a foreign power.

As it was, readers of this narrative may remember, its proposed publication was the subject of a heated discussion in the House of Commons, and, by the Prime Minister, my action in writing the hook was declared injudicious and calculated to arouse alarm both at home and abroad.

Nevertheless, it duly appeared in a London daily newspaper, and, being translated into over 20 foreign languages, I may presume that it was widely read.

The incident near Colchester had nearly passed from my mind when one night about a year afterwards I chanced to be having supper with a lady friend in the Savoy when at the table on the opposite side of the big room sat a smart, dark-haired young man, with a pretty girl in turquoise blue.

As I looked across, our eyes met. In an instant I recollected that I had seen that countenance somewhere before. Yes. It was actually the face of that nightmare of mine after sampling Sandford's old cognac! I sat there staring at her like a man in a dream. The countenance was the sweetest and most perfect I had ever gazed upon. Yet why had I seen it in my unconsciousness?

I noticed that she started. Then, turning her head, she leaned over and whispered something In her companion. Next moment, pulling her cloak about her shoulders, she rose, and they both left hurriedly.

What could her fear imply? Why was she in such terror of me. That look of horror which I had seen on that memorable night was again there― yet only for one single second.

My impulse was to rise and dash after the pair; yet, not being acquainted with her, I should only, by so doing, make a fool of myself and also annoy my lady friend.

And so for many days and many weeks the remembrance of that sweet face and dainty figure ever haunted me. I took a year's holiday, spending the greater part of the summer on a friend's yacht in the Norwegian fjords, and afterwards up in Spitzbergen and along the bleak coasts of Arctic Lapland, where civilisation is at an end and the thermometer seldom rises above freezing-point. Yet could not get away from that face and the curious mystery attaching to lt.

ON my return home I was rung up next day on the telephone by my friend. Major Carmichael, of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, who had been one of my assistants in preparing the Invasion. At his urgent request I went round to see him in Whitehall, and on being ushered into his office was introduced to a tall, dark-bearded man, whose name I understood to be Shayler.

"My dear fellow!" exclaimed the major, "forgive me for getting you here in order to cross-examine you, but both Shayler and myself are eagerly in search of some information. You recollect those maps of yours, marked with all sorts of confidential memoranda relating to the East Coast, facts that would he of the utmost value to the German War Office― what did you do with them?"

"I deposited them here. I suppose they're still here," I replied.

"Yes. But you'll recollect my warning long ago, when you were reconnoitring. Did you ever allow them to pass out of your hands?"

"Never. I carried them in the portfolio, the key of which was always on my chain."

"Then what do you think of these?" he asked, walking to a side table where lay a pile of 20 or 30 glass photographic negatives; and taking up one of them, he handed it to me.

I held it up to the light― it was a photograph of one of my own maps! The plan was the section of country about Weybourne, in Norfolk― an ideal landing place for German troops! Upon it I saw notes in my own handwriting, the tracing of the telegraph wires, with the communications of each wire, and dozens of other facts of supreme importance to the invader.

"Great Heavens!" I gasped, "Where did you get that?"

"Shayler will tell you, my dear fellow!" answered the major, "It seems that you've been guilty of some sad indiscretion."

"I am attached to the special political department at New Scotland Yard," explained the dark-bearded man. "Two months ago a member of the Secret Service in the employ of our Foreign Office made a report from Berlin that a young girl named Gertie Drew, living in a Bloomsbury lodging house, had approached the German military attaché, offering for £3,000 to supply him with photographs of all the confidential plans of our eastern counties. The attaché had reported to the War Office in Berlin, hence the knowledge obtained by the British secret agent. The matter was at once placed in my hands, and since that time I have kept careful observation upon the girl― who has been a photographer's assistant― and those in association with her. The result is that I have, fortunately, managed to obtain possession of these negatives of your annotated plans."

"But how?" I demanded.

''By making a bold move," was the detective's reply. "The Germans were already bargaining for these negatives when I became convinced that the girl was only the tool of a man who had also been a photographer, and who had led a very adventurous life― a man living away in the country, under the name of Charles Sandford."

"Sandford!" I gasped, staring at him. "What is the girl like?"

"Here is her portrait," was the detective's reply.

Yes! It was the sweet face of my dream!

"What have you discovered regarding Sandford?" I asked presently, when I had related to the two men the story of the meeting at Salisbury, and also my night's adventure,

"Though born in England, and adopting an English name, his father was German, and we strongly suspect him of having on several occasions sold information to Germany.  Yesterday, feeling quite certain of my ground, I went down into Essex with a search warrant, and made an examination of the house. Upstairs I found a very complete photographic plant, and concealed beneath the floor-boards in the dining-room was a box containing these negatives, which they were just about to dispose of. The man had got wind that we were keeping observation upon him, and had already fled. The gang consisted of an old hump-backed woman, who posed as his mother; a young woman whom he said was his married sister, but who. was really the wife of his manservant; and the girl Drew, who was his photographic assistant."

"Where's the girl? I suppose you don't intend to arrest her?"

"I think not. If you saw her, perhaps you might induce her to tell you the truth. The plot to photograph those plans while you were insensible was certainly a cleverly-contrived one, and it's equally certain that the two women you met in Salisbury only travelled with you in order to be convinced that you really carried the precious maps with you."

"Yes," I admitted, utterly amazed. "I was most cleverly trapped."

THAT afternoon Gertie Drew, the neat-waisted girl with the fair face, walked timidly into my room, and together we sat for fully an hour, during which time she explained how the man Henry had abstracted the portfolio from my, car, substituting an almost exact replica, prior to sending Bennett back to Colchester, and how, at the moment of my unconsciousness― as he was searching me for my key― she had entered the dining-room, when I had opened my eyes and, staring at her, had accused her of poisoning me. She knew she had been recognised, and that had caused her alarm in the Savoy.

That Sandford had managed to replace the portfolio in the car and abstract the replica next day was explained, and that he had held the girl completely in his power was equally apparent. Therefore I have since obtained for her a situation with a well-known firm of photographers in Regent St.,  where she now remains.

The hump-backed woman and her pseudo-daughter have never been seen since, but a couple of months ago there was recovered from the Alster, in Hamburg, a body of a man, whose head was fearfully battered, and whom the police, by the aid of a photograph, identified as Charles Sandford, the man with whom I shall ever remember partaking of that peculiarly seductive glass of 1815 cognac.

_________________

14: Aunt Caroline

Annie Swan

1859-1943

Casino and Kyogle Courier (NSW) 13 November 1909

Annie Swan was a popular and prolific Scottish author

I HAVE HAD several Scotch pupils at Fleetwood, most of them interesting and attractive girls. But the flower of my Scotch flock was undoubtedly Flora Macgregor, the one daughter of a Scotch laird who had his castle among the wilds of Inverness-shire.

I well remember that the communications regarding the coming of Flora were all addressed to me by a lady who signed herself Caroline Macgregor, and whom I at first naturally thought to be her mother. She wrote in an old-fashioned and formal style, and I gathered from her letters that she had old-fashioned and formal ideas about the upbringing of children.

She informed me that I had been recommended to her by Lady Garthland, whose daughters were at Fleetwood and that from all she had heard she believed I was a suitable person to have the care of young gentlewomen such as her niece Flora Macgregor.

'I do not much approve of boarding schools,' she wrote in one of her lengthy epistles. 'My observation has convinced me that the young women educated at them acquire but little knowledge and a great deal of superficial nonsense. But it has become advisable that my niece should leave home for a time; her father— my brother—has agreed that she should be sent to Fleetwood for a year.'

I took an unaccountable aversion to Miss Caroline Macgregor through the perusal of her epistles, which was certainly unreasonable and absurd, as I had never seen her. Afterwards, however, when I did see her, I had no reason to change my mind.

My new pupil came South with the Garthland girls, in charge of Sir Malcolm Garthland himself, who was going to Constantinople on diplomatic business. I met the party at King's Cross, and took them down to Fleetwood. I found my new pupil rather older than I expected. She was sixteen, but beside the very youthful Garthlands looked quite grown up.

I could not at first make up my mind whether to call her pretty or not. She was tall, slender, and rather dark, with a lovely clear, ruddy tint on her cheek, and her eyes were as blue as the forget-me-not. They were very large and questioning and serious, though when her face lit up they shone like wells of water in the sun. Her expression was rather sad," even hard in repose. She did not look like the Garthlands, who came from an exceptionally happy home, and who clung about their handsome father as if they would never let him go. She was not well dressed, though her clothes were made of expensive material.

The hand of Miss Caroline Macgregor, spinster, was visible in everything pertaining to Flora, her niece. I do not set this down in malice, or with any intent to impugn the good taste of spinsters in general. I am one myself, and it has been my good fortune to know many elegant and charming women who have remained unmarried from choice, but among these I do- not number Caroline Macgregor. I was very busy, of course, at the beginning of the term, and thinking my new pupil was all right with the Garthlands, I paid but little heed to her.

It was only after had got everything into full working order again that I had time to turn myself, if I may use that expression, and begin to think about my new pupil. There is generally a good deal of home-sickness among them at first to which I am accustomed so that, beyond speaking a cheering and sympathetic word as opportunity offers, I do not much concern myself with them.

I was sitting in my sanctum one afternoon, looking complacently over my books, which had never been in a more satisfactory state, when suddenly glancing out of the window, I beheld Flora Macgregor sitting on a little rustic seat under a beech tree. I was astonished to see her there, for that little space cleared just beneath my windows, and that particular seat, were supposed to be sacred to me, and nobody went there without my express sanction or invitation. She was sitting quite still, with her hands on her lap and her hat lying on the sward at her feet. She was looking straight before her, and though the view was considered very fine in its way, exhibiting all the picturesque features of a truly English landscape, I saw that she was totally unconscious of it.

I have never seen in a human face a look of such intense and sorrowful yearning, and it smote me to the heart. I rose up hastily, opened the French window, and stepped out, startling her with my foot on the gravel below the window. I was at her side before she could rise.

'Sit down, dear child,' I said, as kindly as I knew how; for I felt that I had not done all my duty by her. 'I have been watching you from the window. Now tell me what makes you look so sorrowful. I do not like anybody to look so at Fleetwood. I hope you are not unhappy here.'

'Oh no,' she said, faintly. 'Everybody is very kind. I like it much better than I expected.'

'Why come here by yourself, and sit so broodingly? It is not like a young girl. Will you not tell me, my dear, of what-you are thinking?'

I laid my hand on hers, and she turned to me, looking intently into my face. What she read there I know not, but suddenly a sob, which seemed to come from the deep recesses of her heart, parted her lips, and she began to tremble from head to foot. I saw that she was trying to control herself, which she presently did, and looked at me rather timidly.

'You are home-sick, my dear,' I said, cheerfully. 'I understand it all very well, but in a few weeks you will feel better. I have even had pupils who were home-sick for Fleetwood after they left it.'

She smiled, and the change that passing smile made on her face reminded me of the sun gleaming suddenly on some dark mountain lake. The Garthlands are like that. They were always talking about Fleetwood.

'It isn't that,' she said, frankly, evidently feeling at home with me. 'It is that I have had no letter from papa since I came.'

'But your aunt has written, has she not?'

The lip curled a little, and the smile died out of her face.

'Yes, Aunt Caroline writes every week, but I cannot read her letters; they are so like her. I would give them all for a line from papa, and I know she is keeping him from writing. I felt that she would.'

I looked at her in astonishment.

'My dear, that is a very strange thing to say. Why should your aunt keep him from writing? Probably he is too busy. Gentlemen generally are too busy to write any but business letters.'

She smiled a little incredulously. 'Papa is not very busy; he is only partridge shooting just now. I was thinking of it before you came. I used to go with him on the moors before Aunt Caroline came. She said it was not lady-like, and made papa bid me stop at home. Mamma did not think it unladylike, and she knew a great deal better.'

I sat silent a moment, feeling rather perplexed. I knew nothing at all of the history of the Macgregors, but I saw that I was face to face with one of those painful family matters which are so difficult to deal with.

'How long is it since your mother left you?'

'Two years— it is like two hundred; and I am quite sure she would be living now but for Aunt Caroline. I have told her so, and papa too; it was for saying that that I was sent to school.'

I did not know whether to ask any more questions, but thought it better not. I could only hear one side from Flora, and the young do not always see clearly; at least, they are inclined to judge hastily and harshly through lack of experience. I tried to interest her in other things, but always her talk drifted back to her home, and I saw that the child's heart was fain for her own country. I tried not to think harshly of Caroline Macgregor, who no doubt acted according 6 t, and had the child's interests at heart; but somehow my sympathies refused to keep company with my better judgment, They were entirely on Flora's side.

I watched her pretty closely daring the next few days, and though to please me she tried to apply herself cheerfully to her tasks, the questioning, wistful look did not leave her eyes. I then took it upon myself to write a few lines to her father. Some days afterwards I received a letter from Miss Macgregor, which rather astonished me. She began it quite abruptly :

The letter you addressed to my brother came all right to Dram, but I have nor given it to him. I am sorry to hear that Flora is so stupidly fretting, though it does not greatly surprise me. As to her father writing, it was agreed before she left home that he should not write. The effect of his letters would simply be to unsettle the child still more. You may consider this rather hard, but I would beg to remind you that you are not competent to judge, and that whatever Flora may have told you, the story has another side. She is at that age when strict discipline is generally necessary, in her case absolutely so, her disposition and character being more trying than is common, I must beg of you to attend to my wishes in this matter, and not encourage Flora in her headstrong and rebellious disposition. She has the misfortune to be an only child, and her mother was sinfully indulgent to her. I have written thus frankly to you, a stranger, because I would wish to guide you somewhat in your dealing with my niece, of whom I hope to hear better accounts at no distant date.

I have seldom received what the Scotch call such a-good 'down-setting', and I will not deny that I did not much like it. I said nothing, however, to Flora, and some little time afterwards I received some further light on the matter from dear Lady Garthland, who, passing through London to join her husband in Turkey, came down to see her girls.

She was a very sweet and gracious person, who created an atmosphere of cheerfulness and grace wherever her lot was cast. I did not feel that she would misunderstand or resent my asking cautiously what sort of a person was Miss Caroline Macgregor, of Drum. She shook her head as she listened to my question.

'Caroline Macgregor is a very strange woman, Miss Grainger, and she ought never to have been taken back to Drum.'

'Did she live there before, then? Has it not always been her home?'

'No; she kept house for Malcolm Macgregor before his marriage, which she bitterly resented. It was quite a romantic story. Macgregor met his wife abroad, at Nice, I believe, where she was acting as companion to an English lady. She was the daughter of a clergyman, a native of the Channel Islands, and there was a good deal of French blood in her veins. A sweet creature, she was lacking, perhaps in any very strong quality, but there is no doubt that she made Macgregor happy, and that he has been a changed man since her death.'

'His sister did not much approve of his wife, then ?' I suggested.

'No, she took the most unaccountable dislike to her from the first; and was at no pains to conceal it. She resented the marriage, to begin with, because it dethroned her from her position as mistress of Drum. Macgregor made the mistake of thinking it possible they might all lire together and be happy— a risky experiment at all times, but in this case simple lunacy, nothing less.'

'Was it tried?'

'It was; and-for two years poor Mrs; Macgregor suffered it.

'Before Flora was born she got into such a poor state of health that the doctors feared she would never recover. They could not understand her listlessness and apathy. She seemed to have no desire to live. It was I— and a bold woman I was to do it— who suggested to them that the cause was to be found in the person of Caroline Macgregor.'

'And what came of it? I asked with intense interest.

'Oh, it took a' good while to convince Macgregor, for he is rather fond of his sister, and proud of her too. She is considered one of the handsomest women in the North, and men do not see things so quickly as we do. He is a great sportsman, and spends little of his time in the house. Naturally he wants that time to be peaceful and happy, and I must say he deserves it, for he is as good-hearted a man as ever breathed. '

'And did he send her away?'

'Well, yes ; but not far enough. There is a little dower-house in the grounds, not a mile from Drum, and to it, after several stormy scenes, she retired; But it was a mere farce, for she was never out of Drum. She told me herself that, her presence was absolutely necessary there, for Mrs. Macgregor knew nothing of the conduct of a large establishment, and was totally at the mercy of her servants.

'I told her that was Macgregor's own outlook now, but she did not see it; and it's my belief that she worried the poor thing into her grave. Of course, when she died, Miss Macgregor shut up the dower-house and took up her old place in Drum, and now the warfare is about to begin, only it will be active hostility this time, for Flora has a good bit of her father's nature in her, and will stand up for her own. I must say I foresee nothing but troublous times for Drum.'

'Has Miss Macgregor no means of her own?'

'Means, my dear— more than she will ever spend in this world. But she wants to live at Drum, and at Drum she will live in peace or war.'

'Um! I think Mr. Macgregor owes a duty to his daughter first, don't you, Lady Garthland?'

'Indeed I do. My husband is furious over it. Caroline Macgregor is a woman he cannot stand. But we must allow them to fight their own battles, having enough to do with our own. How do you find Flora? Not the rebel her aunt paints her.'

'She has been most exemplary so far, and her disposition is very lovable.'

'So we think,' said Lady Garthland, with a sigh. 'Come up to Garth next July, and then you can see for yourself. If Sir Malcolm and I are not at home, Sybil will be delighted to do the honours.'

I had not heard a story so interesting to me for a long time, and I pondered much and often on what was likely to be the outcome of it all.

I HAD FLORA Macgregor at Fleetwood the whole year. At Easter she and I had a little trip-together to the Channel Islands, which were hallowed to the child as the birthplace of her mother. During that brief holiday I had the fullest opportunity of studying her character, and I grew to love her very dearly. She had a fine, sensitive, highly strung nature, generous to a fault; her temper was quick and passionate, but not sullen or resentful; for hasty word , or action she was quick to apologise and anxious to atone. With careful guidance and loving sympathy she would develop into a splendid woman, but I trembled to think what might be the consequences were she left to the tender mercies of her Aunt Caroline. I dreaded her return to Drum, though there was a visible brightening of her  whole appearance as breaking-up day approached. She travelled as she had come, with the Garthlands, and I was to follow later on, when I had paid my usual midsummer visit to Judith Sale.

I arrived at Garth on the ninth of August, in the full tide of preparation for the twelfth. I arrived at Garth on the ninth of August, in the full tide of preparation for the twelfth. Sir Malcolm and Lady Garthland had arrived, and the house was full. I was exceedingly anxious, of course, to see Flora ; they told me Drum was within driving distance of Garth, and that we should go one day; but there never seemed time to make the excursion.

Shall I ever forget those golden days among the heather, a revelation of a life of which I had never dreamed? It was a happy home, fall of mirth and jollity, from morn till night, yet not given up, like some, to selfish enjoyment. There was still some sympathy, some practical and kindly thought for the suffering and the needy, and many hearts blessed the name of Garthland.

One wet day there came driving up to Garth, about lunch-time, a smart dog-cart, in which sat two figures encased in waterproofs, with high-peaked hoods drawn over their headgear, and the rain dripping off them everywhere. A few venturesome spirits were on the moors, but the house was more than usually lively, and the arrival of the new-comers was hailed with delight.

It was Macgregor of Drum and his daughter Flora, looking rosy and lovely after a sixteen-mile drive through the hills in blinding rain. She ran to me before any of the others, clinging to me with an affection not stimulated or affected, but real and very precious to me.

I saw Mr. Macgregor regarding her with evident surprise on his dark, handsome face. He was a great giant of a man, well and powerfully built, and the kilt he wore seemed to make him look even taller and more striking. He appeared to me at first sight a rather awe-inspiring figure, but there was a softness in his eye, a mobile curve about the mouth which indicated the gentler side of the rugged northern character.

'She would give me no peace till I brought her, Miss Grainger,' he said, as he gave me a great grasp of the hand. 'How do you do, ma'am? I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and our errand to-day is to see when we can bid yon welcome to Drum.'

'We have been talking of it every day,' I replied. 'I can come, I suppose, whenever it Is convenient for you.'

'Well, suppose we stay till it fairs, if Lady Garthland has no objection, and you can get your gear together and go back with us; would that do?'

'I thought only of coming to spend the day.'

'Oh, nonsense ; we don't have folk spending the day at Drum. We must have a week of you at least, though I question if even that will satisfy the bairn.'

So the matter s was settled, and after tea that very day we departed, I being very reluctantly spared from Garth.

The rain had cleared, and a royal sunset blazed all down the sky as we drove into the Drummairn valley, at the head of which stood the mansion-house of Drum. I had thought the rounded heather clad hills, and the thick birch woods surrounding Garth, scenery beyond compare, but now I was introduced to something grander arid more awe-inspiring. Indeed, it so moved me that I could not speak.

The valley was long and narrow, and watered by a wide brawling stream, from whose banks the mountains rose sheer up bare at their crests, but glowing purple where the heather grew. The solemn peaks seemed to touch the sky, washed clean by the rain, and now shining upon us radiantly. As we neared the head of the glen it widened considerably, and became densely wooded— the beginning, I was told, of the famous deer forest of Drain. The house itself, not unlike a royal residence, came upon us quite suddenly through a gap in the trees.

As was natural, I thought much of Miss Caroline Macgregor as we drove, anticipating my meeting with her with the liveliest curiosity, not unmixed with a certain amount of trepidation. I had no fault, however, to find with her greeting. Her manners were those of a gentlewoman of the old school, stiff, polished, but scrupulously courteous. She was one of the handsomest women I have ever seen; but her flashing eye was cold and critical in its glance, and her very smile seemed to have a chilling effect. That first evening I saw that there was only between aunt and niece a kind of armed neutrality. Flora was summarily dismissed to bed at nine o'clock, and I saw that she went in a very rebellious mood.

When we were left alone, Miss Macgregor turned to me with her faint, chilling smile, which always struck me as being more disagreeable than a frown.

'You see how perverse the child is, how very rude to me, Miss Grainger, 'she said, pointedly. 'I regret very much that her year at Fleetwood has wrought but little improvement.'

'I can only say that I found her docile, obedient, most exemplary in every way, and aha was a universal favourite.'

'That is very extraordinary,' she replied, coolly. 'But there are people,' I believe, who keep their best manners for strangers.'

I have never felt such an antipathy towards any .human being, as I did at that moment towards Miss Caroline Macgregor.

'I am willing to make every allowance for her,' she began, after a moment, but the metallic tones of her voice belied her more gracious words. 'The taint was in the blood to begin with, and it is impossible to quite overcome that.'

'What taint?' I asked, flatly, 'Did you not know that her mother was partly French?'

'Yes, and I have heard that she. was a very sweet and charming woman.'

'Who was your authority?'

'Lady Garthland.'

'Oh, Grace Garthland!— a sweet smile; and a gracious word are enough for her. She has no discrimination of character.'

'Things are not well in Drum, Miss Grainger,' said Macgregor in his honest, blunt way. 'I hear from Lady Garthland and other folk that your judgment is very sound— and I like your face.

'What am I to do between the lassie and her aunt? Can't you say something, Miss Grainger? Do you not see there is not likely to be peace in Drum between the two?'

'I see that quite plainly. Before I say what I think, Mr. Macgregor, will you tell me quite frankly :can your sister afford to live away from Drum? Has she any means?'

'Yes, indeed she can. Her tocher was fifteen thousand pounds and she has never taken a husband to spend it for her. It's twenty by now or more, and she has some houses as well.'

'Then there is only one course open to you, and you must take it. Tell her that as there is no prospect of them getting on together, Flora must now take her place as mistress of Drum.'

'That's the matter in a nutshell. God bless you, Miss Grainger. I'll do it.'

At dinner that evening there was some talk of our driving to the moors to . join the gentlemen's lunch— a harmless little diversion, of which the ladies availed themselves every day at Garth.

'You have need to stop at home, Flora, and learn to mend your manners ; you are too young to be lunching with the gentlemen; you are pert enough, in all conscience, without that,' said the aunt.

I do not know what came over the woman to speak out so boldly before Macgregor about his own bairn. Flora burst in to tears.

I saw that Macgregor's face was very dark as he rose from the table. ' Stay here a minute, Caroline,' he said. 'I have something to say to you. And you, Miss Grainger. I wish you to hear what I have to say. I see, Caroline, that Flora and you will never get on, and that there never will be any peace in this house. Flora is seventeen, and ought to be able to see to things. It will be better for you to go either to Portmaree or Fort Augustus to live, and that speedily. I'm sick of this, and it cannot be the bairn's fault always.'

'Ye are doited, Macgregor. How could a bairn like Flora see after Drum?'

'You must take me at my word. I mean it.'

I saw Miss Caroline's anger gradually rising, and when she spoke it was to cast a slight on Flora's mother, which was more than Macgregor could stand. So, the storm rose and raged.

Next day, in high dudgeon, Miss Macgregor departed with all her gear to her own house of Portmaree, which I was happy to hear was five and thirty miles distant from Drum, And from that day to this she has never crossed the threshold of her brother's door.

_____________________

15: Tragic Voyage

Fergus Hume

1859-1932

Great Southern Herald (Katanning) 19 June 1912

WHEN THE Black Venus was piled up on Tongabalin reef, I was the sole survivor of those she carried. Captain, mate, and five Kanakas went under. The skipper's wife would have shared the same fate, but that she died two hours before the wreck in the most tragic fashion. In plain English, she was murdered, and I was a helpless witness to the crime. Blame destiny for the improbability of this story, as she worked it out with relentless dexterity. For reasons beyond me, destiny brought Lucas, his wife, and the other man together; and the resultant catastrophe was the logical outcome of such contiguity. To my mind, no tragedy of fiction can parallel this real incident for horror.

I fell in with the Black Venus while idling at Auckland; and, weary of ten months' sojourn in New Zealand I thought to vary existence by making for the South Seas. At Queen Street Quay I found this fruit schooner bound for Samoa, and on the impulse of the moment I shipped in her for the Islands. Afterwards, I regretted my precipitation, as it brought me into contact with grim things I had other wise avoided.

Captain Lucas owned the boat, and had with him his wife― a pretty, dark-haired woman, full of frivolity and chatter. She admitted to thirty-five, but from lack of brains looked ten years younger. Lucas adored her, and she seemingly returned his affection; for when we weighed anchor, she was nursing him through an attack of ague, which confined him to his bunk. As he was unable to take active command, and the crew consisted entirely of Kanakas, it was necessary that a white man should engineer the lot. Then it was that John Randall came on the scene.

Notwithstanding his looks― for he was under-sized, slim and delicate― he had plenty of strength and a gunpowder temper. Minus an eye, he wore a dirty-green shade over the empty socket; and this, in conjunction with bushy red hair and beard, gave him a sinister appearance. His voice was gruff, and he spoke little, holding himself aloof for those of his own colour, and bunking aft with the natives. With his short stature, large head and hirsute face, he was more like a gnome than a human being, but his credentials were excellent; so, pressed for time, Lucas rated him as mate, after a hurried interview in the darkened cabin. Next day we sailed at noon, and I found myself fully committed to the adventure.

WE HAD fair winds and pleasant days of sunshine as we climbed towards Capricorn, and the somewhat chilly air of the extreme south gave place to genial warmth. So mild were the nights that, avoiding the discomfort of a narrow birth, I made shift to sleep on deck, wrapped in a rug.

Under purple sky, and constellations burning like moons, the schooner furrowed through a phosphorescent sea of milky light. The splendour and calm of silent hours appealed strongly to my romantic vein, and I rarely went below save to meals. Nor did Lucas encourage me to frequent the saloon, as his health, showed no signs mending, and he preferred to be left alone with his wife.

Being thus solitary, I made advances to Randall and with some difficulty conquered his misanthropic prejudices. After a time he became more familiar, and we used to chat amiably when the sun flamed overheard, or the moon rode low on the heaving waters. I found him well-read, shrewd and intelligent; but from his habit of lapsing into silence during some animated conversation, I concluded that he had something on his mind. If this was so, he showed no disposition to make a confidant of me; so there was ever a bar between us. Save that he was Scotch by nationality, and a sailor by .profession, I knew nothing about the dour creature.

Sometimes, weary of nursing her husband, Mrs. Lucas would come on deck, when Randall, markedly avoiding her society, would withdraw to the forecastle.  This she noticed and commented on.

"What a boor," she said contemptuously. "I wonder you can make a companion of him, Mr. Ferris."

"Oh, Randall is by no means a boor, Mrs. Lucas. On the contrary he is very intelligent; and as you are otherwise engaged, I think myself fortunate in having him to talk to." '

"Who is he?" she asked suddenly, "with, a dark look-tin her face.

"John Randall, mate of the Black Venus, I presume."

"Oh, yes; but where does he come from? I don't like him," she went on, without waiting for an answer. "If I had been with my husband, he should never, have shipped with us, but the engagement was made during my absence."

"He is a good seaman, Mrs. Lucas."

"He is a boor," she said angrily. "I don't like him, and I am glad to see that he has the sense to keep away from the saloon."

Shortly afterwards she went below, and left me to my reflections.

I could not but think that her manner was of the strangest; but I had no opportunity to exchange words on this with Randall, for he avoided my company for three days.

On the evening of the third day he addressed me abruptly on irrelevant subjects. I was then leaning over the taffrail, watching the waves, swirl past into the black night. A pale moon glimmered amid a wrack of flying clouds; and as the wind whistled through cordage and against canvas, the ship vibrated like a gigantic harp. It was then that Randall placed himself at my elbow, and made some trifling observation on the beauty of the night.

"We will lift Tongabalin in five days," said he casting a look aloft,  "if we don't have dirty weather in the meantime."

"Are we likely to have a gale?"

"I don't like the looks of those banked clouds, to the nor'-west," was his answer; "it may blow great guns within the next twenty-four hours.''

"The schooner is staunchly built."

"What matter if she is or no?" he retorted brutally. "She may go to the bottom with every soul of us for all I care. Are you married?"

The abruptness of the question took away my breath, and in my astonishment I could only shake my head as an answer before. he continued his speech.

"Thank God for that, Mr. Ferris. A word in your ear, sir. Women are devils!"

"Are you married, Randall? Do you speak from experience?"

"Aye to both questions," he said gloomily. "Ten years ago I had a wife and bairn at Port Chalmers. D'ye know that place?"

"Yes; it is in Otago."

"Just so: the port of Dunedin. I bided there three years with as pretty a wife as you ever saw. Then I was skipper of a steamer that traded to Clutha River: and she always welcomed me back so warmly that I never suspected anything  was wrong."

"What was the matter?" I asked, interested in the man and his story.

"Why," said he, tugging at his beard. "the mate of a Union steam ship came taigling after my wife, and she encouraged him. Aye, wedded wife and mother as she was, I blame her, not him. The man was well enough, with a feather-headed wife, who lived up Signal Hill way. He was fond of her till my lass drew his heart away, and took up with the black-visaged loon to my lasting sorrow."

"How did it end ?"

"In the usual way, sir. The mate's wife died, and mine went off with him. I was up the Clutha at the tame, and returned to find his wife dead and buried, and minis fax away with him."

"Did you follow them?"

"Aye," he said, with an oath. "I tracked them to Frisco, but the trail gave out at Los Angeles, and I could not strike it again. I had that my pouch which would have parted them far enough had I found them. But they escaped, and I returned to Port Chalmers, to find my bairn dead― killed, man, by the loss of its mother."

He turned away with a sob, before I could offer him any consolation.

The man was more human than I had thought, and I felt sorry for his shattered life. It was plain that his heart was broken.

That night I saw him no more, but afterwards he referred to the subject with an evil smile.

"D'ye mind what I told you two nights ago?" said he abruptly.

"Yes, about―"

"Eh, I see you ken fine," he said, his Scotch accent becoming more pronounced with his excitement.

"What think you yon woman deserves?"

"Punishment."

"An' she'll hae it! By the Almichty! I'll lay her dead at my feet. Bide a wee, Mr. Ferris, an' ye'Il see hell let loose!"

Ascribing his language to a sense of his wrongs, I took no notice of it; but I little expected how fearfully his words would be fulfilled within the next twenty-four hours.

We were now in sight of Tongabalin, which, loomed dimly on the weather-bow. Scarcely were we off the island when the long-expected storm descended in all its-fury. The vessel leaped like a stag through the seething waters, and in the dim twilight I could see livid streaks of foam on the black waves. Lucas was better, and made a vain effort to come on deck, but the bitter chill of the atmosphere drove him under hatches, racking with new pains. I followed shortly, leaving Randall gripping the wheel in a whirl of flying foam.

Pale, but composed, Mrs. Lucas sat beside her husband at the far end of the saloon. The pair were wedged into a corner with cushions, and looked haggard in the yellow light which streamed from the swinging lamp. The schooner dipped, and rolled, and creaked, and strained, till I. thought every plank of her would be riven asunder; but, confident in the seamanship of Randall, I turned in without fear to snatch a brief rest.

Lucas cursed his bad luck in not being able to take active command; but that was out of the question, for the poor creature was writhing with pain, as we saw from his blue lips and distorted features.

As I fell asleep, there came a lull in the storm, and the vessel rolled heavily in the trough of the sea. Oblivious of the outer world, I slept as calmly amid that tumult of waters as though I were safe on shore. Suddenly I was wakened by a voice-by Randall's voice, with the strong Scotch accent, denoting excitement. Guessing that something was wrong, I leaped from my berth, and wrenched open the door. The storm had recommenced, but not with its former fury, though the ship reeled and staggered under the hammer of the waves.

Clinging to the jambs of the door, I thrust forward my head, and saw a sight in the saloon which struck a blow at my heart.

Lucas, with outspread arms, pale, and drawn-looking, was leaning against the wainscoting; while his wife, on her knees, was gripping the table with both hands. Livid with dread, they eyes Randall, who filled the doorway at the foot of companion. I nearly cried out when I clapped eyes on him; for the man was clean-shaven and close-cropped, with the green patch torn off, and with eyes blazing― I speak advisedly― literally blazing in his head. But if I found a difficulty in recognising him, the others did not. They knew him, and he them, as I learned from their looks and his speech.

"Oh, ye may well gae down on your hunkers," he vociferated to the terrified woman. "I hae come up wi' ye after mony days―I, Mungo Dawson, your betrayed husband!"

"Oh, heavens! Mercy!"

"Mercy, ye fausse jade! Aye, ye I shall hae mercy,' an' fra him." He shot out one long arm at Lucas, who, thus being directly appealed to, found his tongue.

"What do you mean?" he gasped, the sweat running down his lean cheeks.

"Judgment, ye Judas― judgment too, yon Jezebel! Read ye this letter fra your daid wife."

"No! no!" shrieked Mrs. Lucas, trying to snatch the letter, as it was flung in a ball across the swinging cabin. "It is false! Don't! don't!"

"Eh, ye weel ken what the puir thing wrote," snarled her husband. "To get quit o' her, ye poisoned her. D'ye hear, ye lying crittur? Ye poisoned her wi' loodnum, t' be free to rin awa' wi' yon scoundrel. She left yon letter for me, tellin' the truth, an' sayin' ye should hae your way. I followed ye to Frisco, and lost ye; but noo I hae ye in me grip, an' by Heaven, he ye sinned wi' shall judge ye."

"It's a lie!" screamed the wretched woman. "I never― I never―"

"You did," said Lucas, shrinking from her as she clung to his knees. "This letter is from my dead wife. I loved her well till you came between us with your devilish arts. You knew I would not go with you while she was alive, and so you poisoned her."

"An' killed the bairn wi' neglect," mumbled Randall between his teeth.

"She knew you poisoned her," continued Lucas fiercely, "and thinking my heart was yours, she died for my sake. Here she implores Dawson to let us go free! Ah! and I have been with you for ten years, you― you infamous wretch!"

"For your sake, for your sake," cried Mrs. Lucas brokenly, "I― I did kill her. I― I loved you."

She sprang up, and made as to throw herself on Lucas, but he thrust her back with a look of horror.

"Die! die! you deserve to die!" he cried, his voice rising above the hurly-burly of wind and wave.

"Aye, she shall die! Ye hae judged her," roared Randall, whipping out a derringer; and before I could spring forward, a shot of red flame flashed across the cabin. Without a cry, Mrs. Lucas fell with a thud on the floor, shot through, the head.

"Randall," I cried, hurling myself forward, "what have you done?"

"Justice!" he cried wildly.  "I tauld ye the first o' the story; here is the end of it. Lucas, ye lying Judas, I forgie the sin; for, by my soul, this nicht ye gang tae hell, as she has gane before ye."

Shaking his fist at Lucas, who was now little better than a gibbering idiot, he rushed on deck, leaving his enemy a helpless heap on the floor of the cabin. Dreading his present frame of mind, I rushed after him, and emerged into the full fury of the, gale. As in a dream, I saw Randall hurl aside the man at the wheel, and whirl the spokes rapidly. Clinging to the weather-rigging, I poised myself on the reeling deck, and sprang forward; whereat Randall struck me fair between the eyes, and I toppled over.

When I regained my legs, the natives were trying to tear Randall from the steering gear, but he kept them at bay with his revolver in one hand, while he spun the wheel with the other. Casting glance over the side, I saw the white caps of the waves spouting over the reef, whither the madman was heading the schooner. Twice his revolver jetted flame, and two Kanakas rolled into the scuppers. The next instant the Black Venus crashed on the reef, and I was shot info the boiling surf.

To this day I do not know how I reached shore. By the mercy of God, I gripped a floating spar, and so escaped death. Of those eight human beings, I alone survive. Randall, his false wife and false friend, were fathoms deep in the gulf of the sea, together with five harmless natives.

And so ended my tragic voyage in the Black Venus. I have no wish to take another in such company.

End

The Past Masters  Anthology Series

Cumulative Index

To Past Masters Fourteen

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

Raymund Allen

Allah Knows Best 13

The Black Knight 13

The Winning Move 13

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews:

The Butler 6

Anonymous

Adventure of the Rubber Pipe 11

By a Miscalculation 12

A Detective's Story 12

Martin Guerre 12

Alice and Claude Askew:

Aylmer Vance and the Vampire M

The Empty Chair  8

Francis Henry Atkins

The Broken Sword  9

The Third Figure 10

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

Diamond Cut Diamond 11

The Fourth Degree 5

The Inca's Treasure 5

The Other Side 5

Well Lost?  11

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

Leslie Beresford

Murder in Oils  14

John Bickerdyke

A Fearful Night 12

Earl Derr Biggers

Volcano-Mad 3

Harold Bindloss

The Evicting of Grainger 9

The Tempter 6

Ottwell Binns

The Prodigal Son, V.C. 11

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

Charles G. Booth

Stag Party 11

Guy Boothby

The Family Honour 10

The Great Dives Elopement 10

A Strange Goldfield 10

Through Toil and Tribulation 13

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

Thomas Charles Bridges

Wingfield's White Elephant 10

Ellis Parker Butler

The Detective Club 7

Geoffrey's Panklaggephone 6

Christopher Caudwell

Four Friends and Death 5

J. Storer Clouston

The Fortunate Lord Fabrigas 13

Magic 13

The Trials of Tony 13

Arthur Conan Doyle:

The Disintegration Machine 10

The New Catacomb P

When the World Screamed 12

Frank Condon

A New Year's Surprise 13

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 Fifth Domino (as by John Morris) 12

The Gift to See Ourselves as Others See Us  8

George Allan England

Arson in the Jungle 10

The Longest Side 14

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

Jacques Futrelle

Room 666   14

Tom Gallon

The Vengeance of Adam Rook  11

John Galsworthy:

Acme 3

Cosmo Hamilton:

Proofs of  Guilt 10

The Mirror of Nature 12

The Silent Witness 5

Floyd Hamilton Hazard

Front!  13

Headon Hill

The Sapient Monkey  9

Robert J Horton:

The Ninety-Ninth Proposal 4

Fergus Hume

Tragic Voyage  14

C J Cutcliffe Hyne

The Anarchist's Scheme 6

Anchored 10

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

Lord Kilmarnock

A Man's Hand  14

Otis Adelbert Kline:

The Phantom Wolf-Hound 4

Stephen Leacock:

The Prince of Wurttenburg P

William Le Queux:

Cheating The Spies!  14

The Open Eye 11

Sheer Profit P

John Luther Long

Madame Butterfly 14

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

Warned by a Mouse 10

L. T. Meade and Clifford Halifax

A Doctor's Dilemma  11

A Race with the Sun 10

L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace

The Arrest of Captain Vandaleur 10

The Dead Hand 3

The Face in the Dark 7

Finger Tips 3

The Secret of Emu Plain 10

Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement 3

The Yellow Flag 10

Lucy Gertrude Moberly

Black Paws 6

C. S. Montanye

Come Back to Aaron 14

Death With Music 14

Fog is Necessary  14

Ink  13

Ivan’s Foe 13

Merry Month of Mayhem 14

A Shock for the Countess 13

This Will Kill You 13

Lawrence Mott

Nab  13

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

A Strange Conspiracy 13

The Tower Ghost 8

"Ouida"

The Eldest Born 13

Frank L Packard

Corporal Bob  12

Barry Pain

Albert Theodore Parish 11

Amphistamium Formosum  10

Clubs and Hearts  7

The Dog's Understudy 11

Hasheesh 11

"If"  13

Some Imitations 6

Twelve Minutes 6

Marjorie Pickthall

Mannering's Men 6

Mabel Quiller-Couch

A Condoned Crime 11

Frederic Reddale

Galleon Gold 12

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

The Anarchist 12

The Anticipator 12

The Arbitrator 12

An Edited Story 12

The Figure-head of the "White Prince" 12

The Judgment Of Paris 12

A Man's Death 12

Her Memory 7

A Pawned Kingdom 12

The Pedestal 6

Round the World in a Hurry 12

Two Men and a River 12

The Wedding Eve 12

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

The Hands of Killian 12

The Murdered Wife 11

Spider Tong  M

The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels 12

Tiger Trail 4

Adam Hull Shirk

Osiris 4

George R. Sims

Lance Warrener's Crime 11

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

Annie Swan

Aunt Caroline  14

Sir Basil Thomson

The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser P

Guy Thorne

The Flirt 10

Major Marlowe's System 13

On Christmas Night 13

Puzzle Phyllis 6

Reward of Revenge 12

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

"Waif Wander"

Monk's Mark 13

The Phantom Hearse 10

The Spirits of the Tower 10

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

Victor L. Whitechurch

Stopping an Execution 12

Raoul Whitfield

Death in the Pasig 14

The Great Black  14

Inside Job  14

Oscar Wilde

The Canterville Ghost  8

Valentine Williams

Blind Guess M

C N and A M Williamson

The Dazzle Plot  8

John Strange Winter

Hunks 12

P. C. Wren

Simple 6

Arthur Leo Zagat

Beyond the Spectrum M

Israel Zangwill

Cheating the Gallows  9

_____________________

Table of Contents

- 1: Fog is Necessary / C. S. Montanye
- 2: Death With Music / C. S. Montanye
- 3: Merry Month of Mayhem / C. S. Montanye
- 4: The Great Black / Raoul Whitfield
- 5: The Longest Side / George Allan England
- 6: Come Back to Aaron / C. S.Montanye
- 7: Death in the Pasig / Raoul Whitfield
- 8: Room 666 / Jacques Futrelle
- 9: Inside Job / Raoul Whitfield
- 10: Madame Butterfly / John Luther Long
- 11: Murder in Oils / Leslie Beresford
- 12: A Man's Hand / Lord Kilmarnock
- 13: Cheating The Spies! / William Le Queux
- 14: Aunt Caroline / Annie Swan
- 15: Tragic Voyage / Fergus Hume
- Cumultative Index