Past Masters Seventeen
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: An anthology of twenty-four stories in the L+70 years public domain, collected from magazines and newspapers. A useful source has been The World's News, a Sydney NSW weekly which ran fiction by many authors, well-known and otherwise, and has the advantage to the compiler of clear type and hence good automatic OCR on-line. 1: The Dead Man in the Scrub / Mary Helena Fortune 2: The Dead Witness / Mary Helena Fortune 3: The Stir Outside the Café Royal / Clarence Rook 4: The Secret of the Fox Hunter / William le Queux 5: The Crock / F. Frankfort Moore 6: Sir Hector Devereux's Bet / Dorothea Conyers

PAST MASTERS

SEVENTEEN

Various Authors

Produced by "Pulpmeister", 2020

Contents

1: The Dead Man in the Scrub / Mary Helena Fortune

2: The Dead Witness / Mary Helena Fortune

3: The Stir Outside the Café Royal / Clarence Rook

4: The Secret of the Fox Hunter / William le Queux

5: The Crock / F. Frankfort Moore

6: Sir Hector Devereux's Bet / Dorothea Conyers

7: The Wrong Road / William Le Queux

8: Price of Office / Mark Allerton

9: When Rogues Fall Out / Dorothea Conyers

10: Joan's Two-seater / F. Frankfort Moore

11: The Silent Model / Carolyn Wells

12: The Guinea Smuggler / Egerton Castle

13: The Closed Door / Egerton Castle

14: The Adonis of Slagborough / Sir George Douglas, Bt

15: The Locked  Box / Don Marquis

16: His Lordship and Kitty-for-Short / Katharine Tynan

17: The Impressing of Looney Fipps / Sewell Ford

18: Overdue / Arthur Applin

19: The Fifty-First Dragon / Heywood Broun

20: The Great Corkscrew Mystery / J. J. Bell

21: The Bolchester Bank Robbery / Arthur W. Marchmont

22: Mrs. Brotherton's Adventure / Sir William Magnay, Bt.

23: At The Road Top /Halliwell Sutcliffe

24: Secret Intelligence / Violet Jacob

Cumulative Index to Series

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1: The Dead Man in the Scrub

Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander")

1833-1911

1867. One of a great many Mark Sinclair crime stories written by the prolific Irish born Australian writer, which appeared weekly for years.

SOME YEARS AGO, at the close of what had been a hot summer, two men, who had worked unsuccessfully for some months on a diggings in the Loddon District, determined to go and 'prospect' in a scrub some four or five miles off. It was a lonely and out of the way place; far from any road or settlement whatever; and, as far as the mates knew, had never been penetrated by a human foot. In his opinion, however, a few miles tramp convinced them they had been mistaken; for, after succeeding in making their way through the tangled vegetation for about two miles, they came upon a small spot of partially cleared ground, where there were evident traces of a man's labour. Two or three shallow holes had been sunk, and at a small waterhole, not far off, the stuff had been evidently cradled. Looking around for some appearance of a home or pathway near this spot― for of course the man or men who had been working here must have had some place to live in; it was not likely workers would tramp that weary scrub twice a day— they fancied that in one particular place the vegetation seemed to be less dense. But seeing no way toward that place, they made one slowly with a tomahawk; and after cutting and untangling hundreds of feet of the mallee vine, they came upon a little white tent, almost hidden in the very heart of the bushes. Here an awful scene awaited them; and if you have not heard something of the same sort yourself, I need not attempt to give you any idea of the sound made by millions of those horrible flies that collect around and revel in the decomposition of any animal life in Australia. Inside the tent, which was quite closed up, a continuous buzz, suggestive of innumerable myriads of flies, met the ears of the horrified mates, who were now quite certain that death, in some shape, inhabited this little white calico home in the mallee; indeed another of the senses already assured them that their fortitude would most likely be severely tried by the sight in store for them. What to do was the question; the tent; as I have already said, was fastened, the door being apparently secured closely inside while the slight movement one of the men made in ascertaining this fact, seemed to disturb the feasters upon the dead; they rose in such terrible clouds that through the thin calico one could see them, as they came buzzing in millions against its sides.

'What are we going to do?' asked one.

'Go back to Leggat's and tell the police,' replied his mate.

'Tell the police what, man?' inquired the first speaker, 'for all we know it may be a dog's carcase that's inside.'

His mate shook his head, 'a dog wouldn't stay in a closed up tent to die, Bill, but at any rate I wouldn't like to open the place without a policeman.'

'You know the dog might have been chained up; a digger might have leave his dog to watch inside, and maybe something prevented his coming back,' observed Bill.

'Maybe,' replied the mate dubiously, 'but at any rate we can't stop here much longer, I can't stand it.'

Bill walked around the tent, and at the back observed a small hole near the wall-plate, which he slightly enlarged with his fingers, and so enabled himself to peep into the interior. He gave but one glance, and then drawing back with horror ejaculated,

'Oh God, that's awful!'

'What is it?' eagerly enquired the other.

'Oh, it's a man lying there dead— rotten! Look for yourself, and come away for God's sake! I feel like fainting!'

Well these men tramped back these miles, and told me at the camp, and we returned, in a spring cart, to the lonely place. To avoid meddling with the door, I tore up a width of the calico, and entered to witness the most piteous and horrible sight I had seen for a long time. A man, or the remains of what had been a man, lay extended upon the floor, but in such an advanced state of decomposition as to be almost unrecognisable. He was fully dressed, and in good sound digger's clothes: his boots were nearly new, his trousers quite respectable. He had on a blue Guernsey shirt, over a good flannel one, but of course, in the consequence of the fearful state of the body, even these articles were not to be identified. The poor fellow lay as if he had fallen out of his bunk, which was close by, one arm under his forehead, but the head, detached by decomposition, had fallen partially away, and not a feature was recognisable; the abundant black hair alone being remarkable. Upon his bunk were good blankets, and in the tent was a billy, an done or two other little cooking utensils; but there was not slightest appearance of anything to eat, or of anything whatever that may have held provisions; not a scrap of paper, not a crumb of bread. Having observed this, I turned my attention to the fastening of the opening, which, in every original tent, forms the entrance, and I was astonished to find that it really had been nailed up from the inside; a stone and a few broken tacks still lay upon the ground near it, and I could readily perceive that the former had been used as a hammer. The first idea that suggested itself to my professional mind was, that of suicide; and suicide most likely induced by want, remembering the absence of anything like food in the place; or, that the poor fellow had really died of starvation, and had fastened the door with the hope of preventing his body from being devoured by dingoes, before it was discovered.

I had not time to speculate about it just at that moment, however, as my duty obliged me to remove the remains and give information to the coroner of the district as early as possible; and so, with great difficulty, we succeeded in enveloping the remains of the poor miner in one of his own blankets, and, after carrying them some distance, depositing them in the cart.

A jury was empanelled, an inquest was held, which resulted in the open verdict of 'Found dead', for the condition of the body rendered it impossible for a post mortem to be of the slightest service, and the poor fellow was buried. No one knew anything about him― no person had been aware of a digger being in the scrub, and the general impression was my first one, that he had perished of want.

I say my first one, for I soon altered my opinion, although it was not likely to be of the slightest service to the interests of justice that I did so. Almost as a matter of form, I suppose, I went to remove the tent, which had become the property of the Government; it was of so little value as to be scarcely worth the trouble; but I was glad of the opportunity to examine the place at my leisure.

Well, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in the tent, but what I have already mentioned, and a matchbox under the blankets on the bunk, which contained half-a-dozen matches, and at the bottom, pushed into the smallest space, a small piece, about a square inch, of some woollen material, apparently new. I did not believe at all that this unfortunate man had died a natural death, I was firmly convinced in my own mind that there had been foul play; and yet, had I been asked to give a reason for that conviction, I must have been silent, I had none to give. Yet, with all that, I looked for traces of murder, just as if I was absolutely certain it had been committed. The door was nailed inside: well, supposing the poor fellow himself had not nailed it, where did the person who had, find egress? Might he not have ripped a seam of the calico, and sewed it again outside? I set to work and examined the seams carefully. The tent had apparently been made by a woman, no man or tentmaker was likely to have taken the trouble to stitch so neatly; and besides the seams were all on the inside, except in one corner, where, for about two feet in length, a much rougher seam had been made upon the outside.

'Here, then,' I convinced myself, 'the murderer has got out; fastening the door inside, to leave it supposed that the man himself must have accomplished it.'

I pulled down the tent, and removed every article in it, and, as they were few, I had soon done, and took a last look around before I left. As I have before stated, the scrub was growing almost closely around the tent; and, from the length of time that had elapsed since the owner lay dead inside, the little space was untrodden; and the creeping mallee vine had enwrapped itself over and over, and under and around every near stick. Examining closely the circumscribed space of the tenting spot, I perceived a portion of dirty rag of some sort, peeping out from the vegetation, and drawing it forth, I was the possessor of a pair of old trousers, which, from the size of the dead man, might have belonged to him; they were of a large size, and he had been a tall man. There was nothing particular about them; a pair of old cast-offs evidently, nothing in the pockets, and no difference in them whatsoever from any other pair of old trousers in the world, only that from the portion least worn, at the back of the leg, a square piece had been taken for some purpose or other. It was no accidental tear, for the piece had been cut out, and the cut extended across the seam, where it was quite certain it would not have torn. So, interested in these old rags, I carefully folded them up with the rest of the dead man's property, and proceeded campwards.

Months passed on; indeed, I may say years; it must have been nearly three years before I fell over the clue to the death-tenanted home in the untrodden mallee. I had meanwhile been removed, and was, at the time I resume my story, stationed at Walhalla, a prosperous reefing township, and a great improvement upon the old alluvial 'rush': the tent was the great exception, the slab and bark erection most common, while there were many of weatherboard, and zinc roofing. In short, Walhalla was such a mining township as we may see anywhere to-day.

In passing backwards and forwards I had often noticed a snug hut that lay upon my way, or rather I had remarked the clean, bright, good-looking woman who lived there, and as it is our business to know as much as possible about everything and everybody, I was aware that she was the wife of a man named Jerry Round, who worked as a wages-man in one of the Companies. There were no children about this hut: but the woman, who might have been some twenty-five years old, was always busy; I think she took in washing.

One day, then, about this time, I was passing this hut early in the forenoon of a Saturday. Mrs Round was apparently having a grand clean out, and the dust was flying in all directions. I was going straight on as usual, when out of the door came flying a pair of dirty old trousers, which, after passing within an inch of my nose, fell directly upon the pathway before me; and there, as they lay sprawling out, covered with the dirt of a week's underground work, I saw upon the knee of one of the legs the identical patch missing from the old pair which I had still safely stowed at home in the camp!

I could have almost sworn to it the first moment my eyes lighted upon it; the pattern and colour were peculiar, and I had been too much interested not to have closely marked both; but when I came to perceive that in the patch was the very side-seam of my trousers, I had no doubt in the world about it. I stooped down, in a puzzled, bewildered sort of way, wondering to myself how that patch came upon these trousers, and what connection it had with the dead man in the mallee, and how it would all end; when, just as I was carefully, and with as little detriment to myself as I could, picking up the pants at arm's length, Mrs Round herself rushed out in a state of great excitement.

'Good gracious me, sir, I hope you didn't think I threw the old things at you a'purpose! I didn't know anyone was passing, and they were in my way when I was sweeping, and so I "chucked" them out! I hope you will excuse it, sir!'

'Oh, you need not bother your head about that, Mrs Round,' I replied, still holding the articles in my hand, 'I guessed how it was when I saw dust flying out the door; but I was just taking a fancy to this patch here; if you've done with the old trousers, I am sadly in need of a bit of woollen rag to clean up my traps, and this would be the very thing.'

'Lord, to be sure, sir; Jerry wore them down in the shaft and they would hardly hang together, but anything most is good enough for working on them drives. But wouldn't a bit of old flannel be better, sir? I could give you lots of flannel.'

'No, Mrs Round,' I replied, handing her the trousers, 'these bright buckles of ours want such a lot of rubbing you see, flannel lasts no time, while a piece of that good woollen trousering would be worth twice as much to me; so if you'll just be good enough to rip it off for me, I'll owe you a heap of thanks!'

'And welcome, sir,' she replied, going towards the hut to procure a pair of scissors, and I followed her to the door, holding, when she returned, the trousers while she ripped the piece off.

'It's been a good piece of stuff, Mrs Round,' I remarked, as she clipped and cut, 'you could not buy such a good bit of trousering on the diggings now.'

'No, sir,' replied the woman, a shade coming over her face, 'it's a bit of a pair that came from England long ago; my first husband bought them before we left home, and many a happy gathering of friends they were at!'

'Your first husband? Is it possible you've been married twice? You're very young for that.'

'Jerry and I have only been married a matter of two years,' she said, adding, with an effort to change the conversation, 'anyone can tell that it was a man that sewed this; I expect Jerry put it on while he and poor Jim were working together; it's as hard to take off as if it were nailed on.'

'And where were you then, while Round and Jim were working together?' I asked, guessing at once that 'poor Jim' meant the first dead husband.

'I was in New Zealand, sir; they came back to a rush at Carngham, and I never saw him again, he died at Sailor's Gully.'

'And you married his mate?'

'Yes, sir.' There was the shadow of old memories in the poor woman's face, as she simply gave me this information, and I had not the heart to grieve her by questions that might perhaps excite her curiosity, as well as put Round on his guard; and so, for the present, I said no more.

The patch I carried home safely, and found, as I had expected, that is was indeed the very piece which had been cut out of the dead man's trousers, and I was, of course, quite certain that the dead man of the mallee was none other than the 'poor Jim' of Mrs Round. What story did Round tell about his death, I could but wonder; and I thought long about the best means of finding this out; and the conclusion I came to was to ask Mrs Round herself, and make some reasonable excuse for so doing. So the very first time I went that way, I made it my business to time my walk down the road, so that I met her coming from the hole with a bucket of water, and as she set it down to rest herself, I stopped before her for a moment.

'Do you know, Mrs Round,' I said, affecting an air of great interest, 'I have been puzzling my head ever since I saw you last about your first husband; I believe I knew him; and your mentioned his name as 'Jim', made me almost sure of it. I believe I have seen these very same trousers on him a dozen times! You said he worked at Carngham, but he didn't die there, did he?'

'No, sir, the poor fellow died at some little out of the way gully back of Bendigo, him and Jerry were prospecting, and when Jim was taken bad, Jerry had to bring the doctor six miles through the scrub to him. But it was no use, and after he died, Jerry brought the news over to me, and bad news it was, I tell you.'

'Well, well! it is strange how things come about!' I ejaculated, 'when I saw poor Jim last, I had no idea that I should meet your acquaintance through a patch of a pair of his old pantaloons!'

'It was a sore grief to me, sir,' said Mrs Round, with a sigh, as she again lifted her pail, 'to hear that he was dead, and without my hand to smooth his blankets, or give him a drink! we were very fond of each other, and― and― to tell the truth,' she added, lifting her eyes to mine for one moment, 'I don't know how ever I came to marry Jerry at all, for poor Jim never liked him, though he was his mate!'

''Twas instinct,' I repeated to myself, as I proceeded on my way, 'little cause the poor fellow had to like him! I dare say if Mrs Round liked she could give me a good reason for this wretch murdering her poor unsuspicious husband, so that he might go and inherit his place in the affections of the betrayed wife.'

And so I was going on, thinking moodily over the affair, when my attention was attracted by a great commotion among the deep workings: people were running and shouting to one another, and all were tending toward one place, so, hastening my steps, I went in that direction too, and soon found that a frightful mining calamity had taken place, one of the drives had fallen in! From the men who had escaped I learned that the drive had fallen in only at the further end, and that, warned by the cracking of the timber, all had escaped in time, save one― it was Jerry Round.

I went down into the drive, where every exertion was being made to extricate the unfortunate man from the most terrible position that can ever be conceived: he was not buried, that would have been a merciful fate in comparison to what he endured, and my heart sicken as I looked at him. The drive had partially collapsed, and two steps more towards the shaft would have saved him; but those two steps he did not get time to make; one of the cap-pieces of the timbering had fallen right across his body, the fallen earth partially supporting it, and partially also covering his body. His head, however, was quite exposed, his eyes protruding in his great agony, and for a few minutes he was even able to speak, urging the workers for God's sake to hasten. But there was no need for that, every man worked as if his own existence depended upon speed; and, indeed, they could not be certain that at any moment farther breaks would not take place in the shaken timbering, and place themselves in the same position from which they were endeavouring to rescue their wretched mate.

A very few moments and he was extricated. But the torture he was enduring had become unbearable before that; he was insensible when they carried him upon a stretcher to his own hut, which was not far away, and where his wife met him, quite unprepared for the sight so horrible; yet, she met it with far greater composure than one might have anticipated. The medical men who were immediately summoned, declared the case of Round to be hopeless; his internal injuries precluded any expectation of a change, save the last great one; and so Mrs Round, the doctor, and I watched the bruised and broken remnant of humanity stretched out upon his own comfortable bed, comfortable, alas, to him no longer; but we only watched to see the last faint breathing cease, to return no more.

He was a dark, stoutly built man, his hair and whiskers were black as night; one of his arms, broken in two places, lay in a twisted, unnatural position beside him, and his nerveless head, rolled over helplessly to one side, was covered with blood from a wound upon his temple; from which the crimson drops still oozing, fell down over his white face, making the whole picture more horrible.

Poor Mrs Round wept silently, wiping, meanwhile, the blood gently from his face, and the death damp from his forehead. The time was not far off now. By his side sat the doctor, holding his fingers upon the wrist of the dying man; and at that moment he gave me a slight nod, unnoticed by the wife; he felt in the fluttering pulse indications of the last struggle. I was about to try and send Mrs Round upon some excuse or an errand, for the purpose of saving her the last scene, when Round opened his eyes, and with a gaze full of consciousness, rested them upon the face of his wife.

'Oh Ellen, I am dying!' he gasped, faintly, and with horror, 'I am dying, and I murdered poor Jim!' And with this last confession the last breath went away too.

He was dead! Mrs Round turned round from her dead husband, and stared at me; some instinctive certainty, I have no doubt, she felt, that I had something to do with the truth of these last words, some recollection, no doubt, of our late conversation, and a multitude of old ones, with which I had nothing whatever to do, would be sure to lend their aid in overcoming the poor woman, for the light of life faded out of her white face. She had fainted.

There was nothing that touches so mutually the feelings of a whole mining community as a sudden death from one of those fearful and frequent underground accidents, to which their calling is so liable, and which, indeed, the carelessness of the miner himself makes so much more frequent; and therefore Jerry Round was followed to the grave by every man in the place who could manage to leave his employment. Little guessed the mourners how guilty was the poor broken mortal, whose shattered remains they followed; and as I watched the sad procession winding away among the rocks and trees, true to the instincts of my profession, I quietly speculated how many of these very mourners would be likely to come within my jurisdiction, if the secrets of all hearts were known.

As I was making these heartless speculations, as you may think them, I was smoking a cigar, and leaning upon the fence which surrounded our Police camp; and the black coffin had scarcely disappeared away on the bush track, when Mrs Round herself stood before me. Poor little woman, she looked very ill; and was, at the moment I speak of, as calm-looking and nearly as white as if she had already lain down in the narrow peaceful resting-place to which they were bearing her husband. She impressed me with the idea of rigidity. It seemed as if she had hard work to keep herself calm, and, in the effort, over-produced the appearance.

'Mr Mark, I am going away to Melbourne, to-morrow,' she said, laying her hand emphatically upon my arm. 'I am going, with the few pounds we had saved, home to my friends in England. Before I go it is your duty, before God, to tell me all you know of my husband, Jim!'

'Perhaps it is,' I replied, gently, 'but of what use can it be to harrow your feelings by retailing the crimes of the past? Death has covered them all up now!'

'But death hasn't covered me up!' she replied, 'and death hasn't as yet covered up all the thoughts that have no guide unless you tell me the truth.

'I felt that she was right, and I led her into the barrack-room, where my traps were, and where I unfolded the pair of old pants which I had got near the dead man in the mallee, and with the piece she had so lately given me herself, I handed them to her. She recognised them at once, said she would have known them among a hundred, from some mending of her own upon them: and then she listened, weepingly, while I told her all about the little tent in the scrub, and its death-tenant.

'And was there no more?' she asked, 'was there nothing else you could have brought? oh, poor Jim! poor murdered Jim!'

'There was this,' I said, giving her the match-box, with the little bit of stuff in it,' and this,' I added, handing her a lock of the poor fellow's dark hair, which I had cut off, and folded in a bit of paper. Poor Mrs Round opened it, and looked at the hair; and then, after all the horrors she had heard, she pressed it to her lips. Alas! it was more than I could have done, had it belonged to the dearest and nearest I had in the world! for it had far more than usual of the smell of death which the hair of the dead always has. How could it be otherwise, considering the state of the head from which I had taken it? The piece of stuff in the match-box, too, how well she knew it!

'I sent it to him in a letter from New Zealand,' she said, 'to show him the sort of dress I had bought with the first money he sent me from Victoria!'

And so ends the story of poor Jim; his wife left the next day, as she had said, taking with her all she had left of the young husband she had followed from her home in old England; and that all was an old matchbox, a pair of worn and dilapidated trousers, and a lock of black death-tainted hair!

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2: The Dead Witness (Or, The Bush Waterhole)

Mary Helena Fortune ("Waif Wander")

1866

I CAN SCARCELY fancy anything more enjoyable to a mind at ease with itself than a spring ride through the Australian bush, if one is disposed to think he can do without any disturbing influence whatever from the outer world, for to a man accustomed to the sights and sounds of nature around him there is nothing distracting in the warble of the magpie or tinkle of the 'bell bird'. The little lizards that sit here and thereupon logs and stumps, and look at the passer-by with their heads on one side, and such a funny air of knowing stupidity in their small eyes, are such everyday affairs to an old colonist that they scarcely attract any notice from him, and even should a monstrous iguana dart across his path and trail his four feet length up a neighbouring tree, it is not a matter of much curiosity to him. A good horseman, with an easy going nag under him and plenty of time to journey at leisure through the park-like bush of Australia, has, to my notion, as good an opportunity of enjoying the Italians' dolce far niente as any fellow can have who does not regularly lie down to it.

Something like all this was coming home to me as I slowly rode through the forest of stringybark, box, peppermint and other trees that creep close up to the bold ranges which divide as it were into two equal portions the district of Kooama. I had passed fifteen miles of bush and plain without seeing a face or a roof, and now, having but a mile or two before making the station to which I was bound, I loosened the reins and let my horse take his own time. While, however, I thoroughly enjoyed the calm tranquillity of nature so unbroken around me, and felt the soothing influence more or less inseparable from such scenes, I cannot exactly say that my mind was enjoying the same 'sweetness of doing nothing' as my body. My brain was busily at work, full of a professional case, on the investigation of which I was proceeding; still, thoughts of this kind cannot be said to trouble the mind, being as enjoyable to us, I dare say, as the pursuit of game to the hunter, or the search for gold to the miner.

The facts of the case were shortly these: a young photographic enthusiast, in search of colonial scenery upon which to employ his art, had taken a room in a public-house at the township of Kooama, in which he had arranged his photographic apparatus, and where he had perfected the views taken in trips to all the places within twenty or thirty miles that were likely to repay the trouble. The young fellow, who was a gentlemanly and exceedingly handsome youth of barely twenty years of age, became a general favourite at Kooama, his kindness to the children, especially in that out of the way township, endearing him to all the parents.

Well, one day this young artist whose name was Edward Willis, left Kooama and returned no more. For a day or two the landlord of the house where he had put up thought but little of his absence, as he had upon more than one occasion before spent the night away on his excursions, but day after day passed, and they began to think it singular. He had himself expressed an intention of visiting some of the ranges to which I have alluded in search of some bolder 'bits' of scenery than he had yet acquired, but otherwise they had not the slightest clue to guide them in any attempted search for the missing youth. His decision to leave Kooama, if he had made one, must have been sudden, as nothing was removed from his room. Camera, chemicals, plates, and all the paraphernalia of a photographer's handicraft, were still scattered about just as he had left them. A week passed away— a fortnight— consumed in guesses and wonders, and then came a letter from his mother in Adelaide to the landlord, inquiring the son's whereabouts, as they were getting uneasy at not hearing from so regular a correspondent. Then it was considered time to place the thing in the hands of the police, and I was sent for.

As I was proceeding through the bush then, at the leisurely pace I have described, I heard the loud crack of a stock whip ring out like the sharp report of a rifle between me and the ranges to my left, and shortly after I heard the sound of rapidly advancing horse's hoof strokes, which was echoed and re-echoed from the rocks at either side of the horseman's route. The sound came nearer and nearer, and at last a young man, mounted on a half thoroughbred, and attired like a stock-driver or overseer on a station, galloped into the road which I was following a few yards behind me. Here he pulled up, and was soon by my side.

The freemasonry of bush travellers in Australia would scarcely admit of one passing another without speaking, on a road where one might journey for twenty miles without meeting a soul; so there was nothing singular in my addressing the newcomer with all the freedom of an old chum.

'Aren't you afraid of breaking your neck, mate,' I inquired, 'coming down those ranges at such a pace?'

'Not a bit of it,' he replied 'but at any rate I'm in a devil of a hurry, so had to risk it.'

'Bound for Kooama, I suppose?'

'Yes, I'm for the police station, and if I don't look sharp, it'll be pitch dark before I get back, so I must go on, goodbye! I'll meet you again, I dare say.'

'Stay!' I shouted, as the young fellow made a start, 'I might save you a journey, as I'm a policeman myself, and am just on my way to Kooama. Is there anything wrong your way?'

The young horseman looked at me rather suspiciously, as, of course, I was in plain clothes. I dare say he did not half believe me.

'Well,' he said, 'it's nothing very particular, and if you are going to the police station, policeman or no policeman, you can tell all I have to say as well as I can, if you will be so kind, and I shall get home before sundown yet.'

I assured him that I was really connected with the force, when he told me his errand to the camp.

'There's been the deuce of a talk at Kooama about a young picture-man who's been missing for a couple of weeks, and some think he's come to no good end. Now, I know myself that he has been on our station since he came to Kooama, for I saw him taking views over the range there, but I thought nothing of that, as it was when first he settled at Dycer's, and he has been photographing miles away since then. This afternoon, however, about ten miles from the home station, the cattle (we're mustering just now) kicked up such a devil of a row that I couldn't make it out until I concluded they had come across the scent of blood somehow. Sure enough when I came up to the mob they were bellowing and roaring like mad ones round a spot on the grass that must have been regularly soaked in blood, as it is as red and fresh looking as possible. What made it more suspicious to me was, that the place had been carefully covered up with branches, and no one would ever have noticed it, only the cattle had pawed and scraped the dead bushes quite off it. Heaven knows what might have caused it or whether it was worth mentioning but it's not far from where I saw the poor young chap. I thought I would run down to the camp and tell Cassel about it.'

'Have you mentioned it to anyone else?' I inquired.

'No,' he replied, 'I haven't seen a soul since.'

'Well, don't say a word, like a good fellow. It's very strange that I should have met you. I'm Brooke, the detective, and I'm on my way to Kooama about this very business. Will you meet me at sunrise tomorrow morning, and take me to the place?'

The young man readily promised, and I found that he was the son of a squatter whose station (called Minarra) was situated at the other side of the Rocky Ranges, to which I have so frequently alluded, and then we parted, and spurring my horse to a more rapid pace I soon reached the police camp, at Kooama, and got my horse stalled and my supper, as well as all the information I could from Constable Cassel before I turned in, which I did at an early hour.

There are a good many fellows— no matter in what anxiety of mind they may be— who are able to forego it all when their usual bedtime reminds them of sleep, and they seem to shake off their troubles with their shoes, and draw up the blankets as an effectual barrier between them and the world generally. It is not so with me, I usually carry my perplexities to bed with me, and roll and tumble, and tumble and roll, under their influence, unless some happy idea of having hit the right nail on the head in my planning soothes me into resignation to my fatigue.

So it was on the night in question; nevertheless, the sun was only beginning to shake himself out of the horizon when I met the young squatter at the appointed place, and together we proceeded to the indicated spot on Minarra station. Over the range we went and three or four miles through the primeval forest beyond, and my companion, well acquainted with the landmarks on his 'run' stopped before what appeared to be a few decaying branches fallen from a near gum tree.

'This is it,' he said, dismounting and removing the dead boughs, 'I covered it up again yesterday.'

Well, there was very little to see, a patch of blood-stained grass— the colour was very evident still— and nothing more. I looked round to see if perchance there was a view to make it worth an artist's while to visit this spot, and soon perceived that from the very place where we stood a photographer might catch a 'bit' of truly beautiful and entirely colonial scenery. At a distance of perhaps two miles the range over which we had come fell abruptly down into the plain in a succession of sheer faces of rock, while at the foot of what might be almost termed the precipice that terminated the whole, a deep gorge or gully ran almost entirely at right angles with it, up which the eye pierced through a vista of richly foliaged and fantastically gnarled trees and huge boulders of grey granite, altogether forming a scene that could scarcely fail to attract the eye of an artist.

The sun was up above the trees now, and, closely scanning the ground at my feet, I perceived at a few yards distance a something that caught his brightness and reflected it, and stooping I picked it up; it was a small, a very small, piece of glass, and just such glass too, as might have been used in a camera. But near the piece of glass, which was not far from the blood spot on the grass, I found too, what I had been searching for, which was the triangular marks of the camera stand, which I thought it barely possible might be visible. The holes were indented deeper into the grass than the mere weight of the instrument would account for, especially two of them, the third was not so visible. We covered all up again as carefully yet as carelessly as possible, and after having again cautioned the young squatter to be silent I parted with him for the present and made the best of my way to Kooama.

An hour or so later, I was very busy in the deserted room of the young artist, of which I had taken possession, and into which to avoid disturbance I had locked myself. I was quite at home among the poor young fellow's chemicals, etc., as I happened to be a bit of an amateur photographer myself, and I have found my knowledge in that way of service to me on one or two occasions in connection with my professional duties already. The table and mantelpiece were littered with unfinished plates; they were leaning against the wall, and against every conceivable thing that would form a support for them.

Naturally supposing that those last taken would be most come-at-able, I confined my search at first to the outside pictures, and before very long I fancied I was repaid for my trouble. My idea, it will readily be guessed, in searching the plates at all, was the one of finding a face or a view that might possibly be a clue in my hunt for the missing youth, or for the murderer, if murder had been done. Nothing would be more likely than that some chance encounter in his excursions might have resulted in a portrait the original of which if discovered, might be able to give some useful information.

Well, I found more than I hoped for. I lighted on a plate, only parts of which had 'come out' under the after process, and which was rubbed in several places, and had evidently been thrown aside as worthless. There were two or three duplicate copies of the same view, and among the perfected and most clear pictures which the artist had laid away more carefully by themselves, was one apparently valued, as in case of danger of damage it was 'cased' properly.

It was a truly beautiful bit of entirely Australian bush scenery; a steep, rocky bank for a background; at its foot, a still, deep waterhole reflected every leaf of the twisted old white stemmed gumtrees that hung over it and dipped their heavy branches in its dark waters, and to the left a reach of bush level, clustered with undergrowth on the slightly undulating ground, and shaded here and there with the tufty foliage of the stringybark. It was an excellent picture, every leaf had come out perfectly, and the shadows were as dark and cool as shadows could be, while the tone was all that could be wished; nevertheless on comparing this with the unfinished and imperfect one on which the artist's art had failed, my eye rested on a something in the latter which made it a hundred times more valuable to me.

In the shade of a heavy bush at the opposite side of this still, deep waterhole, there was the faint outline of a crouching human figure, an outline so faint and so shrouded in the obscurity of the faulty plate, that very likely no eye but that of a detective would have observed it, and it is more than probable that the poor lad whose art had fixed it in its place was quite unaware of its being there; but by the aid of a powerful microscope I made it out distinctly.

We all know with what perfectness to every line of its object the camera fixes its light copies, even in the greatest failures as to perfect shading and tone, and there I had this crouching and malignant looking face peering from behind a shadowy bush, as recognisable as if he had been photographed in a Collins Street or George Street studio. Steadily I set to work reproducing this hiding figure, magnifying and photographing by aid of the good camera the young artist had left behind, and I succeeded at length in completing a likeness quite clear enough for my purpose; so after taking possession of the plate holding the view of the bush waterhole, I put it and my likeness into my pocket, and locking up the room, once more sought the camp.

The likeness of the missing youth himself was given to me by the landlady of the public-house; he had given it to her a few days before he took his last walk in search of subjects for his art. Poor fellow! he was very handsome and very youthful looking; a white, sickly, noble face, with large black eyes, and a profusion of curly black hair forming a frame to a high broad forehead. I felt sick at heart as I looked at it and thought of his empty home and the red pool of blood on Minarra station.

It was late in the day when I got thus far in my search, and I was rather glad that my young squatter acquaintance did not turn up at Kooama that evening, as he had intimated an intention of doing, for I was likely to require his assistance, and did not care to trust his young gossiping propensities with my secrets any longer than was absolutely necessary.

Early on the following morning, however, he rode up to the camp, and I so arranged that we should be left alone together.

'I don't know your name, my young friend,' I was commencing, when he interrupted me.

'My name is Derrick— Thomas Derrick.'

'Well, Mr Derrick, I am sure I need not tell you upon what a serious job I am engaged, nor that it is in your interest, as well as that of the public at large, that no crime should go unpunished, all this you know as well as I do, but what you do not know as well as I do, my dear fellow, is how very little will interfere with a search such as mine, and give a criminal a chance of escaping with impunity. All this I tell you because I am going to ask your assistance, and to beg that while you are affording it to me you will keep as secret as the grave anything that may pass between us until I accomplish my object, or fail in the endeavour to do so.'

The young man promised faithful secrecy, and then I laid the picture of the bush waterhole before him.

'Is there any such place as that on your run?'

'To be sure there is; it's in Minarra Creek, about half a mile from where we found the flock.'

'I thought it likely, and now I am almost sure you will be able to tell me who that is,' and I handed him my copy of the hiding figure. He looked very much astonished, but replied immediately—

'It's Dick the Devil?'

'And who is Dick the Devil?'

'A crusty, cantankerous old wretch, one of our shepherds. Do you think he's in it!'

'Oh, of course, we are all abroad as to that yet. Where does this Dick live, and what does he do?'

'He minds a flock, and lives at an out-hut ten miles from the home station.'

'Alone, or has he a hut keeper?'

'Well, he's by himself this long time, he had two or three hut keepers, but at last we were obliged to give it up— no one would live with him.'

'Could you manage to get me in there as hut keeper without exciting his suspicion.'

'You! of course I could, he's always growling about not having one, but you could never stand it.'

'No fear of me, it won't be for long at any rate.'

Fancy me that same afternoon metamorphosed into a seedy, tired looking coon, accompanying the young squatter to Dick's hut, where he was going, or appeared to be obliged to go at any rate, with rations in a spring cart. Dick was within sight, letting his flock feed quietly fold wards, and his young employer led me to him.

'Now, you old growler, I hope you're satisfied! Here's a hut keeper for you, and I hope you'll keep your ugly temper quiet for one week at any rate.'

I should have recognised my man anywhere, sure enough; the villainous scowling face of the hider in the photograph was before me, and so determined a looking scoundrel I had not seen for a long time, familiar as I was with criminals. He was an elderly man— about fifty perhaps— low sized, and strongly built; his years told on him in a slight stoop, and grizzled, coarse hair, that but added to his rascally appearance, and his character was but too plainly traced in his low, repulsive forehead, and heavy, dark beetling brows. I could have almost sworn he was an old hand the moment I set eyes on him.

'Thank ye for nothing, Tom,' was his impudently given reply, 'you didn't send to town for a hut keeper for me, I'll swear.'

'Well, you're about right. I met him as I was coming over with your rations, and as the poor fellow looked tired and hard up, I thought I'd give you another trial.'

'You be d—―d,' was Dick the Devil's thanks, as the young fellow turned away with a 'well, so long, mate!' to me.

'Well,' said my new mate, turning to me, 'if you'll give me a hand to round up the flock, I'll get 'em all the sooner in, and then we can have a good yarn. I'm d—―d if I'm not glad to see a fellow's face again, curse such a life as this, I say!'

''Tis a slow one, I'm blessed if it ain't,' I replied, doing as he wished; 'have you no dog?'

'No, I haven't,' he snapped out at me like a pistol shot, with such a look, half of terror and half of suspicion, that I was convinced about his dog there was something more to be learned. After the billy was slung and the tea boiled, and the mutton and damper disposed of, Dick and I sat down in the still calm twilight outside the bush hut, and while puffing out volumes of tobacco smoke from dirty, black pipes managed to mutually interest ourselves, I dare say.

'Things are looking d—― bad in the country now, mate,' rapped out Dick.

'You may say it,' I replied, 'I've tramped over many a hundred miles without the chance of a job.'

'Where did you come from last?'

'Oh! I came from everywhere between this and Beechworth! I stopped at Kooama last night, there's a devil of a talk there about some murder.'

'Murder!' said Dick, with a sort of gasp, and a short quick look at me, 'what murder?'

'Some poor devil of a painter or picter-man, or something of that sort.'

'Oh, d—― them! they don't know he's murdered.'

'I see you've heard about it then. Yes, I believe you're right. I think he's only missing, and they guess he's made away with.'

'Let them guess and be d—―d to them!' said the hardened wretch, and I thought fit to drop the subject.

'Oh, my lad!' thought I to myself, 'if you only guessed who is sitting beside you, and what his object is here, wouldn't there be another pool of red blood under some tree in the Australian forest, eh?'

And then I looked at my neighbour's muscular frame and determined criminal countenance, wondering in a battle for life and death between us should I be able to come off victor. Certainly, I could at any moment lay my hand upon my trusty revolver, and dexterity and self-possession might accomplish much with the handcuffs, but let a fellow be ever so little of a coward, he must feel a little at being so entirely isolated and so self-dependent as I was at this moment.

Far out before us lay miles of almost level grass, dotted with tall-stemmed trees and patches of undergrowth. There wasn't a living soul within miles and not a sound save as night fell the scream of the distant curlew, that came, I guessed, from the vicinity of the black waterhole in the Minarra Creek, and I could not help picturing to myself the stillness of that night-gloomed water, its heavy, overhanging foliage, and the white mangled face that perhaps lay below it. Altogether I was not sorry that Dick showed no disposition to prolong the conversation, but soon turned in, and I followed his example, not, however, without placing my revolver under my hand, and when I did sleep it was, as the saying is, with one eye open.

According to a concerted arrangement between me and my young assistant, the very earliest morning brought him to the hut at full gallop. His greeting to Dick was rather abrupt.

'What the devil's the reason you're running your flock up to the rock springs every day, Dick? Connel complains you don't leave him half enough for his sheep, and here's a waterhole close under your nose.'

'Well, the cursed flock always head up that way, they're used to it and its d—― hard work to turn a thirsty mob when you've got no dog, in fact it's impossible.'

'What the deuce have you done with your dog? You had a first rater.'

'Done with him?' replied Dick, vindictively, 'cut his throat! He was always giving me twice the work with his playin' up!'

'Well, you'll have to get another somewhere, at any rate take the flock to Minarra waterhole in future.'

'I can't myself,' was the response. 'Your mate will lend you a hand for a day or two, as the water is not far away, and the flock will soon get used to it.'

I had been watching Dick as closely as I could, without being noticed by him, during this colloquy, and could easily see that he was much dissatisfied with this arrangement, but he could make no excuse, as the want of water was beginning to be complained of on all the surrounding runs, and so we headed the flock in the direction of Minarra waterhole.

There was no opportunity for conversation on the way, as Dick and I were far apart, and the sheep were feeding quietly all the way; but when we neared the water, and the flock— which, by the way, showed no anxiety whatever to go in any other direction— had mob by mob satisfied their thirst, and were scattering out over the near pasture, I approached the waterhole, and, sitting down in almost the very spot where poor young Willis must have placed his camera to take the view I had in my pocket, I took out my pipe and commenced cutting tobacco for the purpose of filling it. All the time the sheep were drinking I could see that Dick was very uneasy. He kept away entirely, but when he saw me taking it so coolly he drew up slowly.

'D—― queer place to sit down, that,' he said, 'you'll be ate up with mosquitoes.'

'No fear,' I answered, 'I'm thinking the mosquitoes have something more to their liking to eat down there.'

'Down where?'

'Oh! about the water! What a devil of a lot of ugly things must be down at the bottom there, Dick! It's very deep.'

I couldn't see the wretch, but I fancied his face was growing pale, and although I daren't look at him, neither durst I trust myself with my back to him, so, affecting an air of nonchalance I was far from feeling, I got up and faced him while I affected to be searching in my pocket for matches, my hand in reality clutching the revolver.

'I wonder if that picter-man ever took this place?' I added, 'it would look first rate.'

Dick's face flushed up with fury, he could stand the strain no longer.

'D—― the picter man!' he roared, 'what the —― are you always talkin' about him for?'

I looked at him with affected surprise.

'You get in a blessed pelter over it, mate! Anyone but me would be suspicious that you'd done it yourself!'

'And if I did —― to you?' he said, with a face fearful in its hardened ferocity. 'And if I did, you couldn't prove it— you've no witnesses!'

While he was saying this, half a dozen bubbles rose to the surface of the water directly in front of us, followed by more and more, and I do not know to this day what unaccountable influence it was that as Dick ceased speaking urged me to seize him by the wrist, and while pointing to the bubbles before him with the other hand, to whisper in reply, 'Haven't I?— Look!'

For, of course, I had no more expectation of the awful scene that followed than has my reader at this moment. A fearful, dripping thing rose to the surface— a white, ghastly face followed— and then, up— up— waist high out of the water, rose the corpse of the murdered artist!

It remained for a second or two standing, as it were, before us, with glaring, wide open eyeballs turned towards the bank on which we stood, and then, with a horrible plump, the body fell backward, the feet rose to the top, and there the terrible thing lay face upward— staring up, one might fancy, to the heavens, calling for justice on the murderer!

As I saw this awful sight, my grasp on Dick's wrist relaxed, although unconsciously I still pointed toward the white dripping terror; until it settled, as I have attempted to describe, and then Dick the Devil, with a wild cry that I shall never forget, threw both his hands up to his head and fell heavily to the ground.

To tell you how I felt in these few moments is impossible. I was horror struck. In all my experience of fearful and impressive sights, I never felt so completely stunned and awed. But it did not last long with me, for, of course, reason soon came to assure me that it required no supernatural agency to cause a corpse to rise from the bottom to the top of a waterhole, although the accounting for the way in which it had thus arisen would not be so simple.

With but a glance at the prostrate form of the insensible wretch beside me, I fired off one barrel of my revolver as a signal to young Derrick, who had promised to hang about, and I had soon the satisfaction of hearing in reply the echoed report of that young man's well given stock whip, and it was not long before he came galloping down to the side of the hole. It may be supposed that this young fellow felt even more horrified than even I, more accustomed to deaths and murders, had done, and after I had shortly explained to him how matters stood, I do not think we had two opinions about the guilt of the still insensible old miserable. Be that as it may, I was heartless and unfeeling enough to handcuff him, even while he was unconscious, not choosing to risk an attempt at escape. And then we sprinkled water over him, and used all the means within our power for the purpose of restoring him.

At length he sat up, but his first glance falling again on the floating corpse, he struggled to his feet crying, 'Oh, my God! Take me out of this! Let me out of this!'

And, one on each side of him— he partly leading— we followed him three or four hundred yards, where, under the shade of a tree, he sat down weak as a child.

'I can't go any farther,' he said. 'You'll have to take me to the camp in a cart.'

'Where's all your bounce now, mate?' I could not help inquiring, as I handed him a drop of grog out of a flask I carried. He put it tremblingly to his lips and drained it, and then, with a heavily-drawn breath, replied 'It's in h—―!'

This was awful, but he did not give us time to think, for he immediately, and without any encouragement, added, 'I'm goin' to tell you all about that lot while I'm able, for I feel all rotten like!'— and then he added again— 'like him, down below.'

We did not speak, either of us, and he went on—

'One day, that chap came pictering up yonder, and my dog playin' up as usual, runnin' the sheep wrong, he got me in a pelter, and I outs with my knife and cut his b—― throat! The young picter chap sees me, and runs to try and save the dog; but he was too late, and he ups and told me I was a villain, and a cruel wretch, and all sorts, and I told him I'd cut his too if he gave me anymore of his jaw, and when he went away I swore I'd be revenged on the cheeky pup. I watched him that day down at the Minarra waterhole, but couldn't get a good chance, and then he went home to Kooama. Well, about a week after, he was pictering down yonder.'

Here he pointed in the direction of the blood marks, and I nodded, saying, 'I know.'

'You know!' he said, turning to me with something of his old ferocity, 'how the —― do you know anything about it!'

'I know all about it,' I said in reply, 'I will finish your story for you and when I go wrong, you can set me right.'

He looked at me stupidly— wonderingly.

'Who are you?' he asked.

'I am Brooke, the detective.'

'Oh!' Dick the Devil drew a hard breath.

'Well, he was taking views with his camera near that tree there, where you covered the blood up with the bushes— you know, and you stole behind him—'

'Yes,' interrupted Dick, 'when his head was under that black rag.'

'And you struck him with something that stunned him.'

'It was a waddy,' said Dick.

'And the blow struck the camera also, capsized it, and broke it to shivers.'

'Just so!' added the wretch, a hideous glee lighting up his ferocious countenance, 'and then I took out my clasp knife and nagged his pipe, just as I did the dog's, and I asked him how he liked it, but he couldn't tell me!'

'Oh, you awful devil!' cried young Derrick, whose face I had remarked becoming paler and paler until I gave him a nobbler too, or I positively believe the poor fellow would have fainted.

'And then I carried him all the way to the hole on my back, and I got a rope and I rolled it round him in good knots, and then I tied the rope to a good sized boulder, and I rolled him and the boulder to the bottom together! But tell me now,' he added, sinking his voice to a whisper, 'how did he get up again? How ever did he get up again?'

Of course, this we can only surmise; the rope might have got damaged in the roll of rock and body down the bank, and remaining attached to the feet, had given below, and given until it allowed the unfastened part of the corpse to reach the surface, and then slackened more from the rock below until the feet also were able to find the surface. This is the most likely solution of the difficulty, for the rope, when the corpse was removed, was still found attached to both the body and the rock. Dick the Devil was punished for his crime, but where and when, it is unnecessary for me to state.

______________

3: The Stir Outside the Café Royal

Clarence Rook

1862-1915

The Harmsworth Magazine Sept 1898

Miss Van Snoop was one of the early female detectives of the popular magazines.This is, I think, the only story about her.

COLONEL MATHURIN was one of the aristocrats of crime; at least Mathurin was the name under which he had accomplished a daring bank robbery in Detroit which had involved the violent death of the manager, though it was generally believed by the police that the Rossiter who was at the bottom of some long-firm frauds in Melbourne was none other than Mathurin under another name, and that the designer and chief gainer in a sensational murder case in the Midlands was the same mysterious and ubiquitous personage.

But Mathurin had for some years successfully eluded pursuit; indeed, it was generally known that he was the most desperate among criminals, and was determined never to be taken alive. Moreover, as he invariably worked through subordinates who knew nothing of his whereabouts and were scarcely acquainted with his appearance, the police had but a slender clue to his identity.

As a matter of fact, only two people beyond his immediate associates in crime could have sworn to Mathurin if they met him face to face. One of them was the Detroit bank manger whom he had shot with his own hand before the eyes of his fiancée. It was through the other that Mathurin was arrested, extradited to the States, and finally made to atone for his life of crime.

It all happened in a distressingly commonplace way, so far as the average spectator was concerned. But the story, which I have pieced together from the details supplied— firstly, by a certain detective sergeant whom I met in a tavern hard by Westminster, and secondly, by a certain young woman named Miss Van Snoop— has an element of romance, if you look below the surface.

It was about half-past one o'clock, on a bright and pleasant day, that a young lady was driving down Regent Street in a hansom which she had picked up outside her boarding-house near Portland Road Station. She had told the cabman to drive slowly, as she was nervous behind a horse; and so she had leisure to scan, with the curiosity of a stranger, the strolling crowd that at nearly all hours of the day throngs Regent Street. It was a sunny morning, and everybody looked cheerful. Ladies were shopping, or looking in at the shop windows. Men about town were collecting an appetite for lunch; flower girls were selling 'nice vi'lets, sweet vi'lets, penny a bunch'; and the girl in the cab leaned one arm on the apron and regarded the scene with alert attention.

She was not exactly pretty, for the symmetry of her features was discounted by a certain hardness in the set of her mouth. But her hair, so dark to be almost black, and her eyes of greyish blue set her beyond comparison with the commonplace. Just outside the Café Royal there was a slight stir, and a temporary block in the foot traffic. A brougham was setting down, behind it was a victoria, and behind that a hansom; and as the girl glanced round the heads of the pair in the brougham, she saw several men standing on the steps. Leaning back suddenly, she opened the trapdoor in the roof.

'Stop here,' she said, 'I've changed my mind.' The driver drew up by the kerb, and the girl skipped out. 'You shan't lose by the change,' she said, handing him half-a-crown.

There was a tinge of American accent in the voice; and the cabman, pocketing the half-crown with thanks, smiled.

'They may talk about that McKinley tariff,' he soliloquized as he crawled along the kerb towards Piccadilly Circus, 'but it's better 'n free trade— lumps!'

Meanwhile the girl walked slowly back towards the Café Royal, and, with a quick glance at the men who were standing there, entered. One or two of the men raised their eyebrows; but the girl was quite unconscious, and went on her way to the luncheon room.

'American, you bet,' said one of the loungers. 'They'll go anywhere and do anything.'

Just in front of her as she entered was a tall clean-shaven man, faultlessly dressed in glossy silk hat and frock coat, with a flower in his buttonhole. He looked around for a moment in search of a convenient table. As he hesitated, the girl hesitated; but when the waiter waved him to a small table set for two, the girl immediately sat down behind him at the next table.

'Excuse me, madam,' said the waiter, 'this table is set for four; would you mind—'

'I guess,' said the girl, 'I'll stay where I am.'

And the look in her eyes, as well as a certain sensation in the waiter's palm, ensured her against further disturbance.

The restaurant was full of people lunching, singly or in twos, in threes, and even larger parties; and many curious glances were directed to the girl who sat at a table alone and pursued her way calmly through the menu. But the girl appeared to notice no one. When her eyes were off her plate they were fixed straight ahead— on the back of the man who entered in front of her.

The man, who had drunk a half-bottle of champagne with his lunch, ordered a liqueur to accompany his coffee. The girl, who had drunk an aerated water, leaned back in her chair and wrinkled her brows. They were very straight brows, that seemed to meet over her nose when she wrinkled them in perplexity. Then she called a waiter.

'Bring me a sheet of notepaper, please,' she said, 'and my bill.'

The waiter laid the sheet of paper before her, and the girl proceeded, after a few moments thought, to write a few lines in pencil upon it. When this was done, she folded the sheet carefully and laid it in her purse. Then, having paid her bill, she returned her purse to her dress pocket, and waited patiently.

In a few minutes the clean-shaven man at the next table settled his bill and made preparations for departure. The girl at the same time drew on her gloves, keeping her eyes immovably upon her neighbour's back. As the man rose to depart and passed the table at which the girl had been sitting, the girl was looking into the mirror upon the wall and patting her hair. Then she turned and followed the man out of the restaurant, while a pair at an adjacent table remarked to one another that it was a rather curious coincidence for a man and woman to enter and leave at the same moment when they had no apparent connection.

But what happened outside was even more curious. The man halted for a moment upon the steps at the entrance. The porter, who was in conversation with a policeman, turned, whistle in hand.

'Hansom, sir?' he asked.

'Yes,' said the clean-shaven man. The porter was raising his whistle to his lips when he noticed the girl behind.

'Do you wish for a cab, madam?' he asked, and blew upon his whistle.

As he turned again for an answer, he plainly saw the girl, who was standing close behind the clean-shaven man, slip her hand under his coat, and snatch from his hip pocket something which she quickly transferred to her own.

'Well, I'm—' began the clean-shaven man, swinging around and feeling in his pocket.

'Have you missed anything, sir?' said the porter, standing full in front of the girl to bar her exit.

'My cigarette case is gone,' said the man, looking from one side to another.

'What's this?' said the policeman, stepping forward.

'I saw the woman's hand in the gentleman's pocket, plain as a pikestaff,' said the porter.

'Oh, that's it, is it?' said the policeman, coming close to the girl. 'I thought as much.'

'Come now,' said the clean-shaven man, 'I don't want to make a fuss. Just hand back the cigarette case, and we'll say no more about it.'

'I haven't got it,' said the girl.

'How dare you? I never touched your pocket.'

The man's face darkened. 'Oh, come now!', said the porter. 'Look here, that won't do,' said the policeman, 'you'll have to come along of me. Better take a four-wheeler, eh, sir?'

For a knot of loafers, seeing something interesting in the wind, had collected around the entrance. A four-wheeler was called, and the girl entered, closely followed by the policeman and the clean-shaven man.

'I was never so insulted in my life,' said the girl.

Nevertheless, she sat back quite calmly in the cab, as though she was perfectly ready to face this or any other situation, while the policeman watched her closely to make sure that she did not dispose in any surreptitious way of the stolen article.

At the police station hard by, the usual formalities were gone through, and the clean-shaven man was constituted prosecutor. But the girl stoutly denied having been guilty of any offence. The inspector in charge looked doubtful.

'Better search her,' he said. And the girl was lead off to a room for an interview with the female searcher.

The moment the door was closed the girl put her hand into her pocket, pulled out the cigarette case, and laid it upon the table.

'There you are,' she said. 'That will fix matters so far.'

The woman looked rather surprised.

'Now,' said the girl, holding out her arms, 'feel in this other pocket, and find my purse.'

The woman picked out the purse.

'Open it and read the note on the bit of paper inside.'

On the sheet of paper which the waiter had given her, the girl had written these words, which the searcher read in a muttered undertone:

I am going to pick this man's pocket as the best way of getting him into a police station without violence.  He is Colonel Mathurin, alias Rossiter, alias Connell, and he is wanted in Detroit, New York, Melbourne, Colombo and London. Get four men to pin him unawares, for he is armed and desperate.  I am a member of the New York detective force. Nora Van Snoop.

'It's all right,' said Miss Van Snoop, quickly, as the searcher looked up at her after reading the note. 'Show that to the boss— right away.'

The searcher opened the door. After whispered consultation the inspector appeared, holding the note in his hand.

'Now then, be spry,' said Miss Van Snoop. 'Oh you needn't worry! I've got my credentials right here,' and she dived into another pocket.

'But do you know— can you be sure,' said the inspector, 'that this is the man who shot the Detroit bank manager?'

'Great heavens! Didn't I see him shoot Will Stevens with my own eyes! And didn't I take service with the police to hunt him out?'

The girl stamped her foot, and the inspector left.

For two, three, four minutes, she stood listening intently. Then a muffled shout reached her ears. Two minutes later the inspector returned.

'I think you're right,' he said. 'We have found enough evidence on him to identify him. But why didn't you give him in charge before to the police?'

'I wanted to arrest him myself,' said Miss Van Snoop, 'and I have. Oh, Will! Will!'

Miss Van Snoop sank into a cane-bottomed chair, laid her head upon the table and cried. She had earned the luxury of hysterics. In half an hour she left the station, and, proceeding to a post office, cabled her resignation to the head of the detective force in New York.

_______________

4: The Secret of the Fox Hunter

William le Queux

1864―1927

1903

IT HAPPENED three winters ago. Having just returned from Stuttgart, where I had spent some weeks at the Marquardt in the guise I so often assumed, that of Monsieur Gustav Dreux, commercial traveller, of Paris, and where I had been engaged in watching the movements of two persons staying in the hotel, a man and a woman, I was glad to be back again in Bloomsbury to enjoy the ease of my armchair and pipe.

I was much gratified that I had concluded a very difficult piece of espionage, and having obtained the information I sought, had been able to place certain facts before my Chief, the Marquess of Macclesfield, which had very materially strengthened his hands in some very delicate diplomatic negotiations with Germany. Perhaps the most exacting position in the whole of British diplomacy is the post of Ambassador at Berlin, for the Germans are at once our foes, as well as our friends, and are at this moment only too ready to pick a quarrel with us from motives of jealousy which may have serious results.

The war cloud was still hovering over Europe; hence a swarm of spies, male and female, were plotting, scheming, and working in secret in our very midst. The reader would be amazed if he could but glance at a certain red-bound book, kept under lock and key at the Foreign Office, in which are registered the names, personal descriptions and other facts concerning all the known foreign spies living in London and in other towns in England.

But active as are the agents of our enemies, so also are we active in the opposition camp. Our Empire has such tremendous responsibilities that we cannot now depend upon mere birth, wealth and honest dealing, but must call in shrewdness, tact, subterfuge and the employment of secret agents in order to combat the plots of those ever seeking to accomplish England’s overthrow.

Careful student of international affairs that I was, I knew that trouble was brewing in China. Certain confidential despatches from our Minister in Pekin had been shown to me by the Marquess, who, on occasion, flattered me by placing implicit trust in me, and from them I gathered that Russia was at work in secret to undermine our influence in the Far East.

I knew that the grave, kindly old statesman was greatly perturbed by the grim shadows that were slowly rising, but when we consulted on the day after my return from Stuttgart, his lordship was of opinion that at present I had not sufficient ground upon which to institute inquiries.

“For the present, Drew,” he said, “we must watch and wait. There is war in the air— first at Pekin, and then in Europe. But we must prevent it at all costs. Huntley leaves for Pekin tonight with despatches in which I have fully explained the line which Sir Henry is to follow. Hold yourself in readiness, for you may have to return to Germany or Russia tomorrow. We cannot afford to remain long in the dark. We must crush any alliance between Petersburg and Berlin.”

“A telegram to my rooms will bring me to your lordship at any moment,” was my answer.

“Ready to go anywhere— eh, Drew?” he smiled; and then, after a further chat, I left Downing Street and returned to Bloomsbury.

Knowing that for at least a week or two I should be free, I left my address with Boyd, and went down to Cotterstock, in Northamptonshire, to stay with my old friend of college days, George Hamilton, who rented a hunting-box and rode with the Fitzwilliam Pack.

I had had a long-standing engagement with him to go down and get a few runs with the hounds, but my constant absence abroad had always prevented it until then. Of course none of my friends knew my real position at the Foreign Office. I was believed to be an attaché.

Personally, I am extremely fond of riding to hounds, therefore, when that night I sat at dinner with George, his wife, and the latter’s cousin, Beatrice Graham, I was full of expectation of some good runs. An English country house, with its old oak, old silver and air of solidity, is always delightful to me after the flimsy gimcracks of Continental life. The evening proved a very pleasant one. Never having met Beatrice Graham before, I was much attracted by her striking beauty. She was tall and dark, about twenty-two, with a remarkable figure which was shown to advantage by her dinner-gown of turquoise blue. So well did she talk, so splendidly did she sing Dupont’s “Jeune Fille”, and so enthusiastic was she regarding hunting, that, before I had been an hour with her, I found myself thoroughly entranced.

The meet, three days afterwards, was at Wansford, that old-time hunting centre by the Nene, about six miles distant, and as I rode at her side along the road through historic Fotheringhay and Nassington, I noticed what a splendid horsewoman she was. Her dark hair was coiled tightly behind, and her bowler hat suited her face admirably while her habit fitted as though it had been moulded to her figure. In her mare’s tail was a tiny piece of scarlet silk to warn others that she was a kicker.

At Wansford, opposite the old Haycock, once a hunting inn in the old coaching days, but now Lord Chesham’s hunting-box, the gathering was a large one. From the great rambling old house servants carried glasses of sloe gin to all who cared to partake of his lordship’s hospitality, while every moment the meet grew larger and the crowd of horses and vehicles more congested.

George had crossed to chat with the Master, Mr. George Fitzwilliam, who had just driven up and was still in his overcoat, therefore I found myself alone with my handsome companion, who appeared to be most popular everywhere. Dozens of men and women rode up to her and exchanged greetings, the men more especially, until at last Barnard, the huntsman, drew his hounds together, the word was given, and they went leisurely up the hill to draw the first cover.

The morning was one of those damp cold ones of mid-February; the frost had given and everyone expected a good run, for the scent would be excellent. Riding side by side with my fair companion, we chatted and laughed as we went along, until, on reaching the cover, we drew up with the others and halted while hounds went in.

The first cover was, however, drawn blank, but from the second a fox went away straight for Elton, and soon the hounds were in full cry after him and we followed at a gallop. After a couple of miles more than half the field was left behind, still we kept on, until of a sudden, and without effort, my companion took a high hedge and was cutting across the pastures ere I knew that she had left the road. That she was a straight rider I at once saw, and I must confess that I preferred the gate to the hedge and ditch which she had taken so easily.

Half an hour later the kill took place near Haddon Hall, and of the half dozen in at the death Beatrice Graham was one.

When I rode up, five minutes afterwards, she smiled at me. Her face was a trifle flushed by hard riding, yet her hair was in no way awry, and she declared that she had thoroughly enjoyed that tearing gallop.

Just, however, as we sat watching Barnard cut off the brush, a tall, rather good-looking man rode up, having apparently been left just as I had. As he approached I noticed that he gave my pretty friend a strange look, almost as of warning, while she on her part, refrained from acknowledging him. It was as though he had made her some secret sign which she had understood.

But there was a further fact that puzzled me greatly. I had recognized in that well-turned-out hunting man someone whom I had had distinct occasion to recollect. At first I failed to recall the man’s identity, but when I did, a few moments later, I sat regarding his retreating figure like one in a dream. The horseman who rode with such military bearing was none other than the renowned spy, one of the cleverest secret agents in the world, Otto Krempelstein, Chief of the German Secret Service.

That my charming little friend knew him was apparent. The slightest quiver in his eyelids and the almost imperceptible curl of his lip had not passed me unnoticed. There was some secret between them, of what nature I, of course, knew not. But all through that day my eyes were ever open to re-discover the man whose ingenuity and cunning had so often been in competition with my own. Twice I saw him again, once riding with a big, dark-haired man in pink, on a splendid bay and followed by a groom with a second horse, and on the second occasion, at the edge of Stockhill Wood while we were waiting together he galloped past us, but without the slightest look of recognition.

“I wonder who that man is?” I remarked casually, as soon as he was out of hearing.

“I don’t know,” was her prompt reply. “He’s often out with the hounds— a foreigner, I believe. Probably he’s one of those who come to England for the hunting season. Since the late Empress of Austria came here to hunt, the Fitzwilliam has always been a favourite pack with the foreigners.”

I saw that she did not intend to admit that she had any knowledge of him. Like all women, she was a clever diplomatist. But he had made a sign to her— a sign of secrecy.

Did Krempelstein recognize me, I wondered? I could not think so, because we had never met face to face. He had once been pointed out to me in the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin by one of our secret agents who knew him, and his features had ever since been graven on my memory.

That night, when I sat alone with my friend George, I learned from him that Mr. Graham, his wife’s uncle, had lived a long time on the Continent as manager to a large commercial firm, and that Beatrice had been born in France and had lived there a good many years. I made inquiries regarding the foreigners who were hunting that season with the Fitzwilliam, but he, with an Englishman’s prejudice, declared that he knew none of them, and didn’t want to know them.

The days passed and we went to several meets together— at Apethorpe, at Castor Hanglands, at Laxton Park and other places, but I saw no more of Krempelstein. His distinguished-looking friend, however, I met on several occasions, and discovered that his name was Baron Stern, a wealthy Viennese, who had taken a hunting-box near Stoke Doyle, and had as friend a young man named Percival, who was frequently out with the hounds.

But the discovery there of Krempelstein had thoroughly aroused my curiosity. He had been there for some distinct purpose, without a doubt. Therefore I made inquiry of Kersch, one of our secret agents in Berlin, a man employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from him received word that Krempelstein was back in Berlin, and further warning me that something unusual was on foot in England. This aroused me at once to activity. I knew that Krempelstein and his agents were ever endeavouring to obtain the secrets of our guns, our ships, and our diplomacy with other nations, and I therefore determined that on this occasion he should not succeed. However much I admired Beatrice Graham, I now knew that she had lied to me, and that she was in all probability his associate. So I watched her carefully, and when she went out for a stroll or a ride, as she often did, I followed her.

How far I was justified in this action does not concern me. I had quite unexpectedly alighted upon certain suspicious facts, and was determined to elucidate them. The only stranger she met was Percival. Late one afternoon, just as dusk was deepening into night, she pulled up her mare beneath the bare black trees while crossing Burghley Park, and after a few minutes was joined by the young foreigner, who, having greeted her, chatted for a long time in a low, earnest tone, as though giving her directions. She seemed to remonstrate with him, but at the place I was concealed I was unable to distinguish what was said. I saw him, however, hand her something, and then, raising his hat, he turned his horse and galloped away down the avenue in the opposite direction.

I did not meet her again until I sat beside her at the dinner-table that night, and then I noticed how pale and anxious she was, entirely changed from her usual sweet, light-hearted self.

She told me that she had ridden into Stamford for exercise, but told me nothing of the clandestine meeting. How I longed to know what the young foreigner had given her. Whatever it was, she kept it a close secret to herself.

More than once I felt impelled to go to her room in her absence and search her cupboards, drawers and travelling trunks. My attitude towards her was that of a man fallen entirely in love, for I had discovered that she was easily flattered by a little attention.

I was searching for some excuse to know Baron Stern, but often for a week he never went to the meets. It was as though he purposely avoided me. He was still at Weldon Lodge, near Stoke Doyle, for George told me that he had met him in Oundle only two days before.

Three whole weeks went by, and I remained just as puzzled as ever. Beatrice Graham was, after all, a most delightful companion, and although she was to me a mystery, yet we had become excellent friends.

One afternoon, just as I entered the drawing-room where she stood alone, she hurriedly tore up a note, and threw the pieces on the great log fire. I noticed one tiny piece about an inch square remained unconsumed, and managed, half an hour later, to get possession of it.

The writing upon it was, I found, in German, four words in all, which, without context, conveyed to me no meaning.

On the following night Mrs. Hamilton and Beatrice remained with us in the smoking-room till nearly eleven o’clock, and at midnight I bade my host good night, and ascended the stairs to retire. I had been in my room about half an hour when I heard stealthy footsteps. In an instant the truth flashed upon me. It was Beatrice on her way downstairs.

Quickly I slipped on some things and noiselessly followed my pretty fellow-guest through the drawing-room out across the lawn and into the lane beyond. White mists had risen from the river, and the low roaring of the weir prevented her hearing my footsteps behind her. Fearing lest I should lose her I kept close behind, following her across several grass fields until she came to Southwick Wood, a dark, deserted spot, away from road or habitation.

Her intention was evidently to meet someone, so when, presently, she halted beneath a clump of high black firs, I also took shelter a short distance away.

She sat on the fallen trunk of a tree and waited in patience. Time went on, and so cold was it that I became chilled to the bones. I longed for a pipe, but feared that the smell of tobacco or the light might attract her. Therefore I was compelled to crouch and await the clandestine meeting.

She remained very quiet. Not a dead leaf was stirred; not a sound came from her direction. I wondered why she waited in such complete silence.

Nearly two hours passed, when, at last, cramped and half frozen, I raised myself in order to peer into the darkness in her direction.

At first I could see no one, but, on straining my eyes, I saw, to my dismay, that she had fallen forward from the tree trunk, and was lying motionless in a heap upon the ground.

I called to her, but received no reply. Then rising, I walked to the spot, and in dismay threw myself on my knees and tried to raise her. My hand touched her white cheek. It was as cold as stone.

Next instant I undid her fur cape and bodice, and placed my hand upon her heart. There was no movement.

Beatrice Graham was dead.

The shock of the discovery held me spellbound. But when, a few moments later, I aroused myself to action, a difficult problem presented itself. Should I creep back to my room and say nothing, or should I raise the alarm, and admit that I had been watching her? My first care was to search the unfortunate girl’s pocket, but I found nothing save a handkerchief and purse.

Then I walked back, and, regardless of the consequences, gave the alarm.

It is unnecessary here to describe the sensation caused by the discovery, or of how we carried the body back to the house. Suffice it to say that we called the doctor, who could find no mark of violence, or anything to account for death.

And yet she had expired suddenly, without a cry.

One feature, however, puzzled the doctor— namely, that her left hand and arm were much swollen, and had turned almost black, while the spine was curved— a fact which aroused a suspicion of some poison akin to strychnia.

From the very first, I held a theory that she had been secretly poisoned, but with what motive I could not imagine.

A post-mortem examination was made by three doctors on the following day, but, beyond confirming the theory I held, they discovered nothing.

On the day following, a few hours before the inquest, I was recalled to the Foreign Office by telegraph, and that same afternoon sat with the Marquess of Macclesfield in his private room receiving his instructions.

An urgent despatch from Lord Rockingham, our Ambassador at Petersburg, made it plain that an alliance had been proposed by Russia to Germany, the effect of which would be to break British power in the Far East. His Excellency knew that the terms of the secret agreement had been settled, and all that remained was its signature. Indeed, it would have already been signed save for opposition in some quarters unknown, and while that opposition existed I might gain time to ascertain the exact terms of the proposed alliance— no light task in Russia, be it said, for police spies exist there in thousands, and my disguise had always to be very carefully thought out whenever I passed the frontier at Wirballen.

The Marquess urged upon me to put all our secret machinery in motion in order to discover the terms of the proposed agreement, and more particularly as regards the extension of Russian influence in Manchuria.

“I know well the enormous difficulties of the inquiry,” his lordship said; “but recollect, Drew, that in this matter you may be the means of saving the situation in the Far East. If we gain knowledge of the truth, we may be able to act promptly and effectively. If not— well—” and the grey-headed statesman shrugged his shoulders expressively without concluding the sentence.

Full of regret that I was unable to remain at Cotterstock and sift the mystery surrounding Beatrice Graham’s death, I left London that night for Berlin, where, on the following evening, I called upon our secret agent, Kersch, who lived in a small but comfortable house at Teltow, one of the suburbs of the German capital. He occupied a responsible position in the German Foreign Office, but, having expensive tastes and a penchant for cards, was not averse to receiving British gold in exchange for the confidential information with which he furnished us from time to time. I sat with him, discussing the situation for a long time. It was true, he said, that a draft agreement had been prepared and placed before the Tzar and the Kaiser, but it had not yet been signed. He knew nothing of the clauses, however, as they had been prepared in secret by the Minister’s own hand, neither could he suggest any means of obtaining knowledge of them.

My impulse was to go on next day to Petersburg. Yet somehow I felt that I might be more successful in Germany than in Russia, so resolved to continue my inquiries.

“By the way,” the German said, “you wrote me about Krempelstein. He has been absent a great deal lately, but I had no idea he had been to England. Can he be interested in the same matter on which you are now engaged?”

“Is he now in Berlin?” I inquired eagerly.

“I met him at Boxhagen three days ago. He seems extremely active just now.”

“Three days ago!” I echoed. “You are quite certain of the day?” I asked him this because, if his statement were true, it was proved beyond doubt that the German spy had no hand in the unfortunate girl’s death.

“I am quite certain,” was his reply. “I saw him entering the station on Monday morning.”

At eleven o’clock that same night, I called at the British Embassy and sat for a long time with the Ambassador in his private room. His Excellency told me all he knew regarding the international complication which the Marquess, sitting in Downing Street, had foreseen weeks ago, but could make no suggestion as to my course of action. The war clouds had gathered undoubtedly, and the signing of the agreement between our enemies would cause it at once to burst over Europe. The crisis was one of the most serious in English history.

One fact puzzled us both, just as it puzzled our Chief at home—namely, if the agreement had been seen and approved by both Emperors, why was it not signed? Whatever hitch had occurred, it was more potent than the will of the two most powerful monarchs in Europe.

On my return to the hotel I scribbled a hasty note and sent it by messenger to the house of the Imperial Chancellor’s son in Charlottenburg. It was addressed to Miss Maud Baines, the English governess of the Count’s children, who, I may as well admit, was in our employ. She was a young, ingenuous and fascinating little woman. She had, at my direction, acted as governess in many of the great families in France, Russia and Germany, and was now in the employ of the Chancellor’s son, in order to have opportunity of keeping a watchful eye on the great statesman himself.

She kept the appointment next morning at an obscure cafe near the Behrenstrasse. She was a neatly dressed, rather petite person, with a face that entirely concealed her keen intelligence and marvellous cunning.

As she sat at the little table with me, I told her in low tones of the object of my visit to Berlin, and sought her aid.

“A serious complication has arisen. I was about to report to you through the Embassy,” was her answer. “Last night the Chancellor dined with us, and I overheard him discussing the affair with his son as they sat alone smoking after the ladies had left. I listened at the door and heard the Chancellor distinctly say that the draft treaty had been stolen.”

“Stolen!” I gasped. “By whom?”

“Ah! that’s evidently the mystery— a mystery for us to fathom. But the fact that somebody else is in possession of the intentions of Germany and Russia against England, believed to be a secret, is no doubt the reason why the agreement has not been signed.”

“Because it is no longer secret!” I suggested. “Are you quite certain you’ve made no mistake?”

“Quite,” was her prompt answer. “You can surely trust me after the intricate little affairs which I have assisted you in unravelling? When may I return to Gloucester to see my friends?”

“Soon, Miss Baines— as soon as this affair is cleared up. But tell me, does the Chancellor betray any fear of awkward complications when the secret of the proposed plot against England is exposed?”

“Yes. The Prince told his son in confidence that his only fear was of England’s retaliation. He explained that, as far as was known, the secret document, after being put before the Tzar and approved, mysteriously disappeared.

Every inquiry was being made by the confidential agents of Russia and Germany, and further, he added, that even his trusted Krempelstein was utterly nonplussed.”

Mention of Krempelstein brought back to me the recollection of the tragedy in rural England.

“You’ve done us a great service, Miss Baines,” I said. “This information is of highest importance. I shall telegraph in cipher at once to Lord Macclesfield. Do you, by any chance, happen to know a young lady named Graham?” I inquired, recollecting that the deceased woman had lived in Germany for several years.

She responded in the negative, whereupon I drew from my pocket a snap-shot photograph, which I had taken of one of the meets of hounds at Wansford, and handing it to her inquired if she recognized any of the persons in it.

Having carefully examined it, she pointed to Baron Stern, whom I had taken in the act of lighting a cigarette, and exclaimed—

“Why! that’s Colonel Davidoff, who was secretary to Prince Obolenski when I was in his service. Do you know him?”

“No,” I answered. “But he has been hunting in England as Baron Stern, of Vienna. This man is his friend,” I added, indicating Percival.

“And that’s undoubtedly a man whom you know well by repute— Moore, Chief of the Russian Secret Service in England. He came to Prince Obolenski’s once, when he was in Petersburg, and the Princess told me who he was.”

Unfortunately, I had not been able to include Beatrice in the group, therefore I had only her description to place before the clever young woman, who had, on so many occasions, gained knowledge of secrets where I and my agents had failed. Her part was always a difficult one to play, but she was well paid, was a marvellous linguist, and for patience and cunning was unequalled.

I described her as minutely as I could, but still she had no knowledge of her. She remained thoughtful a long time, and then observed:

“You have said that she apparently knew Moore? He has, I know, recently been back in Petersburg, therefore they may have met there. She may be known. Why not seek for traces of her in Russia?”

It seemed something of a wild-goose chase, yet with the whole affair shrouded in mystery and tragedy as it was, I was glad to adopt any suggestion that might lead to a solution of the enigma. The reticence of Mrs. Hamilton regarding her cousin, and the apparent secret association of the dead girl with those two notorious spies, had formed a problem which puzzled me almost to the point of madness.

The English governess told me where in Petersburg I should be likely to find either the two Russian agents, Davidoff or Moore, who had been posing in England for some unknown purpose as hunting men of means; therefore I left by the night mail for the Russian capital. I put up at a small, and not over-clean hotel, in preference to the Europe, and, compelled to carefully conceal my identity, I at once set about making inquiries in various quarters, whether the two men had returned to Russia. They had, and had both had long interviews, two days before, with General Zouboff, Chief of the Secret Service, and with the Russian Foreign Minister.

At the Embassy, and in various English quarters, I sought trace of the woman whose death was such a profound mystery, but all in vain. At last I suddenly thought of another source of information as yet untried—namely, the register of the English Charity in Petersburg, and on searching it, I found, to my complete satisfaction, that about six weeks before Beatrice Graham applied to the administration, and was granted money to take her back to England. She was the daughter, it was registered, of a Mr. Charles Graham, the English manager of a cotton mill in Moscow, who had been killed by an accident, and had left her penniless. For some months she had tried to earn her own living, in a costumier’s shop in the Nevski, and, not knowing Russian sufficiently well, had been discharged. Before her father’s death she had been engaged to marry a young Englishman, whose name was not given, but who was said to be tutor to the children of General Vraski, Governor-General of Warsaw.

The information was interesting, but carried me no further, therefore I set myself to watch the two men who had travelled from England to consult the Tzar’s chief adviser. Aided by two Russians, who were in British pay, I shadowed them day and night for six days, until, one evening, I followed Davidoff down to the railway station, where he took a ticket for the frontier. Without baggage I followed him, for his movements were of a man who was escaping from the country. He passed out across the frontier, and went on to Vienna, and thence direct to Paris, where he put up at the Hotel Terminus, Gare St Lazare.

Until our arrival at the hotel he had never detected that I was following him, but on the second day in Paris we came face to face in the large central hall, used as a reading room. He glanced at me quickly, but whether he recognized me as the companion of Beatrice Graham in the hunting field I have no idea. All I know is that his movements were extremely suspicious, and that I invoked the aid of all three of our secret agents in Paris to keep watch on him, just as had been done in Petersburg.

On the fourth night of our arrival in the French capital I returned to the hotel about midnight, having dined at the Café Americain with Greville, the naval attaché at the Embassy. In washing my hands prior to turning in, I received a nasty scratch on my left wrist from a pin which a careless laundress had left in the towel. There was a little blood, but I tied my handkerchief around it, and, tired out, lay down and was soon asleep.

Half an hour afterwards, however, I was aroused by an excruciating pain over my whole left side, a strange twitching of the muscles of my face and hands, and a contraction of the throat which prevented me from breathing or crying out.

I tried to rise and press the electric bell for assistance, but could not. My whole body seemed entirely paralysed. Then the ghastly truth flashed upon me, causing me to break out into a cold sweat.

That pin had been placed there purposely. I had been poisoned and in the same manner as Beatrice Graham!

I recollect that my heart seemed to stop, and my nails clenched themselves in the palms in agony. Then next moment I knew no more.

When I recovered consciousness, Ted Greville, together with a tall, black-bearded man named Delisle, who was in the confidential department of the Quai d’Orsay and who often furnished us with information—at a very high figure, be it said—were standing by my bedside, while a French doctor was leaning over the foot rail watching me.

“Thank heaven you’re better, old chap!” Greville exclaimed. “They thought you were dead. You’ve had a narrow squeak. How did it happen?”

“That pin!” I cried, pointing to the towel.

“What pin?” he asked.

“Mind! don’t touch the towel,” I cried. “There’s a pin in it—a pin that’s poisoned! That Russian evidently came here in my absence and very cunningly laid a deathtrap for me.”

“You mean Davidoff,” chimed in the Frenchman. “When, m’sieur, the doctor has left the room I can tell you something in confidence.”

The doctor discreetly withdrew, and then our spy said:

“Davidoff has turned traitor to his own country. I have discovered that the reason of his visit here is because he has in his possession the original draft of a proposed secret agreement between Russia and Germany against England, and is negotiating for its sale to us for one hundred thousand francs. He had a secret interview with our Chief last night at his private house in the Avenue des Champs Elysées.”

“Then it is he who stole it, after it had the Tzar’s approval!” I cried, starting up in bed, aroused at once to action by the information. “Has he disposed of it to France?”

“Not yet. It is still in his possession.”

“And he is here?”

“No. He has hidden himself in lodgings in the Rue Lafayette, No. 247, until the Foreign Minister decides whether he shall buy the document.”

“And the name by which he is known there?”

“He is passing as a Greek named Geunadios.”

“Keep a strict watch on him. He must not escape,” I said. “He has endeavoured to murder me.”

“A watch is being kept,” was the Frenchman’s answer, as, exhausted, I sank again upon the pillow.

Just before midnight I entered the traitor’s room in the Rue Lafayette, and when he saw me he fell back with blanched face and trembling hands.

“No doubt my presence here surprises you,” I said, “but I may as well at once state my reason for coming here. I want a certain document which concerns Germany and your own country— the document which you have stolen to sell to France.”

“What do you mean, m’sieur?” he asked, with an attempted hauteur.

“My meaning is simple. I require that document, otherwise I shall give you into the hands of the police for attempted murder. The Paris police will detain you until the police of Petersburg apply for your extradition as a traitor. You know what that means— Schlüsselburg.”

Mention of that terrible island fortress, dreaded by every Russian, caused him to quiver. He looked me straight in the face, and saw determination written there, yet he was unyielding, and refused for a long time to give the precious document into my hands. I referred to his stay at Stoke Doyle, and spoke of his friendship with the spy Moore, so that he should know that I was aware of the truth, until at last he suggested a bargain with me, namely, that in exchange for the draft agreement against England I should preserve silence and permit him to return to Russia.

To this course I acceded, and then the fellow took from a secret cavity of his travelling bag a long official envelope, which contained the innocent-looking paper, which would, if signed, have destroyed England’s prestige in the Far East. He handed it to me, the document for which he hoped to obtain one hundred thousand francs, and in return I gave him his liberty to go back to Russia unmolested.

Our parting was the reverse of cordial, for undoubtedly he had placed in my towel the pin which had been steeped in some subtle and deadly poison, and then escaped from the hotel, in the knowledge that I must sooner or later become scratched and fall a victim.

I had had a very narrow escape, it was true, but I did not think so much of my good fortune in regaining my life as the rapid delivery of the all-important document into Lord Macclesfield’s hands, which I effected at noon next day.

My life had been at stake, for I afterwards found that a second man had been his accomplice, but happily I had succeeded in obtaining possession of the actual document, the result being that England acted so promptly and vigorously that the situation was saved, and the way was, as you know, opened for the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, which, to the discomfiture of Germany, was effected a few months later.

Nearly two years have gone by since then, and it was only the other day, by mere accident, that I made a further discovery which explained the death of the unfortunate Beatrice Graham.

A young infantry lieutenant, named Bellingham, having passed in Russian, had some four years before entered our Secret Service, and been employed in Russia on certain missions. A few days ago, on his return to London, after performing a perilous piece of espionage on the Russo-German frontier, he called upon me in Bloomsbury, and in course of conversation, mentioned that about two years ago, in order to get access to certain documents relating to the Russian mobilisation scheme for her western frontier, he acted as tutor to the sons of the Governor-General of Warsaw.

In an instant a strange conjecture flashed across my mind.

“Am I correct in assuming that you knew a young English lady in Russia named Graham— Beatrice Graham?”

He looked me straight in the face, open-mouthed in astonishment, yet I saw that a cloud of sadness overshadowed him instantly.

“Yes,” he said. “I knew her. Our meeting resulted in a terrible tragedy. Owing to the position I hold I have been compelled to keep the details to myself— although it is the tragedy of my life.”

“How? Tell me,” I urged sympathetically.

“Ah!” he sighed, “it is a strange story. We met in Petersburg; where she was employed in a shop in the Nevski. I loved her, and we became engaged. Withholding nothing from her I told her who I was and the reason I was in the service of the Governor-General. At once, instead of despising me as a spy, she became enthusiastic as an Englishwoman, and declared her readiness to assist me. She was looking forward to our marriage, and saw that if I could effect a big coup my position would at once be improved, and we could then be united.”

He broke off, and remained silent for a few moments, looking blankly down into the grey London street. Then he said,

“I explained to her the suspicion that Germany and Russia were conspiring in the Far East, and told her that a draft treaty was probably in existence, and that it was a document of supreme importance to British interests. Judge my utter surprise when, a week later, she came to me with the actual document which she said she had managed to secure from the private cabinet of Prince Korolkoff, director of the private Chancellerie of the Emperor, to whose house she had gone on a commission to the Princess. Truly she had acted with a boldness and cleverness that were amazing. Knowing the supreme importance of the document, I urged her to leave Russia at once, and conceal herself with friends in England, taking care always that the draft treaty never left her possession. This plan she adopted, first, however, placing herself under the protection of the English charity, thus allaying any suspicions that the police might entertain.

“Poor Beatrice went to stay with her cousin, a lady named Hamilton, in Northamptonshire, but the instant the document was missed the Secret Services of Germany and Russia were at once agog, and the whole machinery was set in motion, with the result that two Russian agents—an Englishman named Moore, and a Russian named Davidoff—as well as Krempelstein, chief of the German Service, had suspicions, and followed her to England with the purpose of obtaining re-possession of the precious document. For some weeks they plotted in vain, although both the German and the Englishman succeeded in getting on friendly terms with her.

“She telegraphed to me, asking how she should dispose of the document, fearing to keep it long in her possession, but not being aware of the desperate character of the game, I replied that there was nothing to be feared. I was wrong,” he cried, bitterly. “I did not recognize the vital importance of the information; I did not know that Empires were at stake. The man Davidoff, who posed as a wealthy Austrian Baron, had by some means discovered that she always carried the precious draft concealed in the bodice of her dress, therefore he had recourse to a dastardly ruse. From what I have since discovered he one day succeeded in concealing in the fur of her cape a pin impregnated with a certain deadly arrow poison unknown to toxicologists. Then he caused to be dispatched from London a telegram purporting to come from me, urging her to meet me in secret at a certain spot on that same night. In eager expectation the poor girl went forth to meet me, believing I had returned unexpectedly from Russia, but in putting on her cape, she tore her finger with the poisoned pin. While waiting for me the fatal paralysis seized her, and she expired, after which Davidoff crept up, secured the missing document and escaped. His anxiety to get hold of it was to sell it at a high price to a foreign country, nevertheless he was compelled first to return to Russia and report. No one knew that he actually held the draft, for to Krempelstein, as well as to Moore, my poor love’s death was believed to be due to natural causes, while Davidoff, on his part, took care to so arrange matters, that his presence at the spot where poor Beatrice expired could never be proved. The spies therefore left England reluctantly after the tragedy, believing that the document, if ever possessed by my unfortunate love, had passed out of her possession into unknown hands.”

“And what of the assassin Davidoff now?” I inquired.

“I have avenged her death,” answered Bellingham with set teeth. “I gave information to General Zouboff of the traitor’s attempted sale of the draft treaty to France, with the result that the court martial has condemned him to incarceration for life in the cells below the lake at Schlüsselburg.”

___________________

5: The Crock

F. Frankfort Moore

World's News (Sydney) 30 Oct 1915

Frank Frankfort Moore (1855–1931) was an Irish dramatist, biographer, novelist and poet. Born in Limerick, Ireland, Moore worked as a journalist before gaining fame as an author of fiction

WHEN Dr. Colman prescribed "equestrian exercise" for the Reverend Septimus Maltby, curate of Butterham, he was actuated by the best intentions.

He knew that Mr. Maltby's ideal lay somewhere between those two eminent ecclesiastics, St. Simeon Stylites and Savonarola— that he was as careless of the claims of his own meal hours as ever St. Simeon was of his, and that he was as intolerant of the gaieties of Butterham as ever Savonarola was of those of Florence. He denied himself the necessaries of life simply for the sake of doing so, and (as Dr. Colman thought, though he had never said so) of being pointed to as a pattern ascetic; and he had endeavored to organise an anti-golf league, but failing, had printed at his own expense the course of sermons that he had preached against the racecourse, with a supplement dealing with football, cricket, and lawn-tennis. It was with a full knowledge of his dossier since his arrival at Butterham that Dr. Colman had prescribed for the Reverend Septimus Maltby "a course of equestrian exercise."

The doctor disliked greatly the cold smile with which Mr. Maltby received his ultimatum.

"Do you mean to convey to me your belief that unless I take equestrian exercise the consequences may be serious?" he said.

"That's exactly what I mean to convey, my friend," replied the doctor. "If you don't take my advice, look out for squalls, only don't come to me when they begin to blow. Now, good morning; I have something more serious to tackle than a parson with a pain."

Though Mr. Maltby could not at that moment imagine anything, more serious than a parson with a pain, he did not remain to reason out the matter with the doctor. He knew that the doctor was aware of his unpopularity in Butterham, where he was a curate. He meant well, his rector assured those people who objected to his lecturing them about the evil of the racecourse and the snare of the lawn-tennis net; but the rector himself never ventured to deny that his curate was a bit of a prig— the bishop affirmed that he was a whole one; but that was when Mr. Maltby had preached with quite unnecessary fervor, his lordship thought, against the introduction of the feeding-bottle into the nursery, thereby "familiarising children with the handling of a medium which was structurally identical with the symbol of inebriety."

"Prig!" was the word which sprang to the lips of the bishop when the phrase "symbol of inebriety" fell upon his ears; but "puppy" was the word that he found necessary to employ when talking over the sermon with his wife.

But the Reverend Septimus Maltby accepted his unpopularity in the light of a compliment; he even accepted his dyspepsia as a tribute to his asceticism; but if he tried to mortify the flesh, the flesh made a bold attempt to return the compliment; for on the evening after his consultation, when he was about to read the second lesson in the church, fee found the print in the sacred volume on the lectern flying about like a swarm of bees under his eyes, so that he could not make out a solitary word on the page. His head began to reel, and he put out an uncertain hand to steady himself, but, missing the carved end of the lectern, he staggered for support in a way that, slightly altering his own phrase, was structurally identical with the stagger of inebriety— and he knew it.

But he would not give in. He pulled himself together, and began:— "Here beginneth—"

But he could not go on; the words became mosquitoes this time, preventing him from being able to say what was beginning. It was in vain that he passed his hand across his eyes, the words would not curtail a single figure of the dance which they had started under his gaze.

It was a humiliating moment. The rector hastened from his stall, and whispered a word or two to a couple of the basses in the third row of the choir, and they went to the curate's assistance, while the rector covered their retreat to the vestry by reading the "Lesson for the day."

He was very nice to Mr. Maltby afterwards.

"Do not be distressed," he said. "Although it must be admitted that your involuntary movements suggested a condition that— that— I shrink from defining, yet I am convinced that all who know you will take the most charitable view of the incident. Vertigo— a sudden vertigo may easily be mistaken for— for the other. But you really must put yourself in Dr. Colman's hands— you really must."

"I consulted him yesterday," said the curate, "and he recommended equestrian exercise." He said the words clearly and without faltering, and the fear was absolutely convincing to the rector.

"Then, you must get a horse," he said definitely. "I cannot run the chance of so painful an incident as this being repeated. You must get a horse."

"Where?— where?" inquired the sufferer, looking pathetically at the untouched glass of brandy which one of the churchwardens, whose wife had something the matter with her heart, had been able to procure for him— a second churchwarden had been ungenerous enough to whisper something to his colleague about "a hair of the dog that bit him."

"Leave the where to me," said the rector, "I can easily borrow a horse for you— some sort of a horse. I know several people who have a stable full, and so would never miss one or two for a while."

"One would do for me," murmured the curate.

And it did. The rector, living ascertained that Mr. Maltby was no great horseman, wrote to his cousin, Sir Everard Lyle, who had a large and varied stable, stating some of the facts of the case, and asking him in the name of charity to let the curate have something in the way of a horse to allow of his following the prescription of his medical adviser for a few months.

He sent off this letter, and. within twenty-four hours he had received a telegram from his kinsman:—

Having nothing of kind in my stable, have arranged Simpson send right article to-morrow.

Lyle.

He hastened to make Mr. Maltby aware of his good luck—his cousin had, he said, just the horse to suit the needs of a dyspeptic clergyman who was taking equestrian exercise according to a doctor's prescription, not because of any liking on his part for riding a horse; and the animal would probably be ready to administer the first dose to him the next day.

Mr. Maltby's face wore the espression habitual to the schoolboy who is informed by the matron that his Gregory's powder is now ready.

"I am much obliged to you," he said mournfully. "I hope that the animal is not what is called spirited, Mr. Mason— not being accustomed to—"

"You may make your mind easy on that point," said Mr. Mason. "I explained to my cousin that you wanted a medicinal mount— to be taken with a teaspoonful of spirits only. If the thing has any spirits you may rely on their being so diluted as to be well within the teetotal limit. But how about your dress— you haven't gaiters, I suppose?"

Mr. Maltby shook his head. Wanting the faith of the Napoleonic soldier who had a field-marshal's baton at the bottom of his knapsack, the curate had not in his wardrobe the gaiters of the prelate. He shook his head.

"Would it be quite seemly?" he began; but the rector cut him short.

"No, it would not be quite seemly for you to appear in the saddle with the ends of your trousers curled about your knees. We cannot afford to rub any more risks, I tell you again. I will see that you are properly rigged out."

"Clerically, let me beg, Mr. Mason," said the curate persuasively.

"What do you take me for?" said the rector indignantly.

"The question is what will strangers take me for," said Mr. Maltby, with a sad smile. "I should be reluctant to have people fancy that I was an habitual horseman."

"You make your mind easy on that point; take my word for it," laughed the rector.

The result of this conference was the arrival at Mr. Maltby's lodgings of a check riding suit in a very fair state of repair. The pattern was undoubtedly a check; but it had by long wear become quite unobtrusive; even to the most imaginative of men, it could not for many years past have suggested the offering of alluring odds on a racecourse,

"It'll go well with the crock," was the comment made upon it by Mr. Mason, when he shook it out from the bottom of an old portmanteau— a relic of his undergraduate days. The moths had had a mouthful or two of it, but these depredations were fortunately in such a part of the breeches as prevented them from being at all conspicuous when the wearer was in the saddle.

That night Mr. Maltby had a dress rehearsal in front of a mirror. It did not last long, He gave a cry of horror the moment he saw himself in the glass. It was as though he had repeated the experience of the man in the German legend, who, standing in front of a looking-glass, saw not himself but a horrible demon instead. He could not have believed that so great a transformation could be effected by a change of garments. He found himself face to face, not with the ascetic churchman whom he had been accustomed to meet in this way on the friendliest terms, but a vulgar, raffish, lean-faced sharper, with a knowing expression and a fleshly leer.

He tore off the dreadful disguise— he took it for granted that it was a disguise and not a revelation— and flung it into a corner of the room; no matter what Mr. Mason might say, he would never subject himself to the humiliation of seeing again that dreadful figure that had confronted him in the glass. He sobbed himself asleep.

But the rector, with the satisfaction of feeling that he had done his duty and more than his duty in respect of his curate, passed an excellent night, and descended to his breakfast-room to read the letter which had come by the morning post from his cousin, and which he now found brought him the news that Simpson, the well-known horse-dealer of Diddleham, would send him in a horse-box by rail an animal which he could confidently recommend as highly medicinal.

I have seen the creature myself," [wrote Sir Everard Lyle], and I honestly believe him to be all that Simpson said, and rather more— in fact, I don't think I ever saw a horse that more strongly suggested physic. The stable tradition is that he was the favorite charger of William the Conqueror; but I think that this is an exaggeration; I don't believe that his memory would take him back further than Henry VIII. I fancy that he may have been ridden by Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury, and, as be began to get on in years, the irresponsible gossip of the stable associated him with the other incident. In fact, I was told by an eminent dealer in old furniture and bric-a-brac, who is supposed to be a judge of such things, that although the cabriole legs suggest the Chippendale period, he honestly believes that the thing is early Tudor, with here and there a strong Gothic tendency. But it is really quite a speculative piece, and the bold carving plainly visible on the tonneau would be highly esteemed at South Kensington or Berlin, where there is a constant demand for such articles. Indeed, my friend says it has only to be seen by Dr. Bode in order to be added to the treasures of the National Museum. Of course, on this point I am unable to offer my opinion; I have only looked at it from the standpoint of the medical prescription; and you may depend on it so far.

Simpson hopes that with a small tip to a porter he may evade the special railway rate for crockery, under which heading it would naturally be included; but as the distance is not great this is an unimportant detail; but you know what these horse-dealers, are. He is insuring the animal en route for £3 (three pounds). I remonstrated with him on account of the extravagant amount, but he says it is well to be on the safe side. In reply to my direct question he said he really saw no reason why it should not survive this week— ay, and with luck, well on into the next, so there you are. Simpson is a horse-dealer, but from what I know of him I think he may be trusted to do his best for anyone who wants a really mature animal, free from all skittish tricks, and may be ridden on a snaffle. He told me to mention that the deep depression in tge back is where the saddle goes, and that if, in tightening the girths, you hear a slight creaking sound from the interior, that tells you that you have gone far enough.

Let me know how your friend gets on— Simpson recommends a spring-board. With love to Nora and the kiddies; I suppose Tom is quite a big chap now.

Ever yours affectionately,

Everard Ponsonby Lyle.

P.S. The horse's name is Benvenuto Cellini; but he has had many aliases—Ben for short. Don't bother yourself looking him up in the stud-book. Simpson bought him with, out a pedigree, though the gipsy from whom he had him, affirmed that his great-grandfather had won the Derby in his time. I don't believe there were any Derbies in those days. Be sure you let me know how your friend gets on.

"Gets off, he means," said the rector. "I'm not quite sure that this is exactly the sort off thing we want for Maltby."

"It's a step in the right direction at any rate," said Mrs. Mason.

The rector had to attend a presentation of colors at Melanborough, a town some distance away, so he would be unable to be present in person to receive the horse. He acquainted Mr. Maltby with the fact, and told him that he would arrange with the railway company to deliver the horse to his own man— a general utility person, who, in addition to looking after the family pony, worked in the garden, and cleaned boots, and knives, and things of that sort in his spare time. He advised Mr. Maltby to make friends with the animal early— in fact, he thought that his best plan would be to mount at the railway station and ride quietly to the village— Butterham was a little over a mile from the station.

Mr. Maltby agreed to do so, and joined the rector's man at the station to await the arrival of the train with the horse-box. When the animal made his appearance, with a porter at one side and the rector's man at the other, he seemed to Mr. Maltby to be a very showy animal; but he was certainly cool and collected in spite of his railway journey. But Mr. Maltby was no great judge of the points of a horse, and when the porter and the rector's man said a word or two in its praise he did not even venture to back them up for fear of making a mistake. He watched the men throw the saddle on him— he had already a bridle in addition to the halter— and then they led him to a convenient place.

Now Mr. Maltby had occasionally ridden a horse, though without making much progress in the science of equestration, and he remembered quite enough of the preliminary details to know that he was to mount by putting his left foot in the left-hand stirrup, looking forward; and after no more than two abortive attempts, he found himself in the saddle, while a man at each side shortened the stirrups, and gave a sharp pull to each leg of his trousers, for he was clerically attired, and the act of mounting had exposed rather more of his socks than the men thought seemly.

It only required a friendly chirrup and a twitch of the rein to put the horse in motion, and before he had got out of sight of the station Mr. Maltby was experiencing something of the exhilaration of the practised horseman. His mount was going easily, showing no tendency to break either into a canter or a trot; so pleasant was the experience that Mr. Maltby thought that he could not do better than make a circuit of the country before heading him for Butterham. He would turn aside from the road at Newleigh Common, and ride across country to the border of Fringley Woods and then on the roadside again— a nice round of about five miles it would be— just long enough to make a beginning and establish a rapprochement between himself and his horse.

The first part of his intention was carried out without difficulty. He turned off the highway that skirted Newleigh Common; but the momenthis mount got upon the turf he seemed to think that he was expected to canter. This somewhat startled the rider, but the motion of the canter was so easy, that he settled down to it after a feeble attempt to check the animal. It was heading for the stream known as Newleigh Brook, and as it was eight feet wide and the bridge was quite a mile to the west it would be bound to receive a check, he thought.

But what was his horror when he felt the canter change to a rush the moment the horse sighted the stream— a crescendo rush— a sailing through the air a good yard off the saddle, and then a bump that might have been serious if he had not kept a firm hold upon the saddle in two places— he was on the other side of the stream and the horse had resumed its canter as if nothing had happened!

Mr. Maltby felt that he had been miraculously preserved from dislocation, and perhaps dissolution as well. But one experience of that sort was, he rather fancied, enough for the time being, so he persuaded his horse to edge off a little— the animal would make no further compromise— toward where there was a bridge; he had no interest in the jumping powers of the thing, nor could he honestly believe that Dr. Colman's prescription included this type of equestration. A few timely blandishments might induce it to go gently across the space that lay between the little stream and the high road to Butterham. To his delight he found that it was quite amenable to reins and reason, and he believed that he had quite mastered it by the suaviter in modo, when, after crossing the common, and skirting a little wood, known as Four Oak Knoll, a slight dip in the landscape brought him close to where, to his surprise, a small crowd had assembled, with several horses.

He wondered what this could mean— a crowd mostly of well-dressed people, ladies and gentlemen, assembling in the open country. He could not remember having seen any announcement of a public meeting to be held at this place; and he naturally became interested in an occurrence that struck him as needing an explanation. He rode close to where people were grouped about some horses, and inquired of a couple of young men with notebooks, whom he recognised as reporters on the "Gazette" and the "Weekly News," what was going on.

"Why, the East Dunton's Point to Point," one of them replied.

"Point to Point— what does Point to Point mean?" he asked, more puzzled than ever.

"Point to Point races— we'll not fail to include your name among those present, Mr. Maltby," said the other pressman with a bland smile. Mr. Maltby almost fell from his saddle.

"Please— I must beg of you to do nothing of the kind," he cried in dismay. "I had no idea—I am here by the merest chance." "Duty is duty," said the "Gazette" man, who knew about Mr. Maltby's sermons against every form of sport. "We cannot neglect to record an incident of so great interest to our readers,"

"But I have seen no race— I do not desire to see any race," cried Mr. Maltby.

"It looks very like as if you meant to take part in one, mounted as you are upon Major Carberry's Lancewood," said the reporter.

"I don't understand your allusion, sir," said Mr. Maltby. "I assure you I don't want to see any race."

"You had better hurry away then, for the horses will be off in a minute," said the "Weekly News" man, and he and his colleague moved towards the starting point.

"I assure you I don't desire to see any race," cried Mr. Maltby.

"It looks as if your horse did," said the "Gazette" man.

And he certainly seemed to speak the truth; for the animal appeared to have recognised a friend or two among the horses that were preparing to start. His head was high in the air, and his ears thrown forward. Mr. Maltby tugged at the reins as severely as was consistent with the excellent rapprochement that he had established between his horse and himself, but he paid no attention to the remonstrance; to his rider's horror he was making straight for the starting-post. Mr. Maltby tugged and tugged, but all to no purpose. He was not a dozen yards behind the seven starters when the signal was given end off they went.

And off Mr. Maltby's horse went after them.

There was a shout of remonstrance— a yell of laughter— horrid words were flying through the air, and so was the Reverend Septimus Maltby— he was soon happily beyond those voices. He had ceased to tug at the reins. He was giving all his attention to maintaining his seat; for he saw that the three horses ahead of him— he had passed the others with the greatest ease— had jumped a hedge with a ditch on the other side, and he was going straight for it. He clung to the saddle, and once more his sensation of flying was followed by a bump, and his hat vanished like a feather in the wind. On went the horse at that frightful gallop, his head stretched forward, and ventre a terre— on he went, and soon overhauled Sir William Collingham's celebrated Porcupine—on still to where a deep drain full of slimy water and about ten feet wide gleamed straight ahead— over it sailed the two horses in front, and over it sailed Mr. Maltby not a yard to the rear of the hindmost. On the slight rise beyond he lost ground, but he more than made up for it when they got upon the flat further on— he shot ahead, and running neck and neck with the foremost— Mr. Marsden's Nebuchadnezzar, for the big jump— a gate of five bars leading into a rough field surrounded by an irregular bank topped with a thick hedge. Nebuchadnezzar made no mistake; he was over the gate, apparently without an effort; but Mr. Maltby's mount had to make an effort, and of this fact Mr. Maltby was fully aware— he shut his eyes as he felt the animal pulling himself together— almost pulling his rider asunder— for the jump. Mr. Maltby was embracing his neck in affectionate appreciation of the performance at the close, but in spite of his unconventional attitude he was well aware of the fact that there was no horse in the field ahead of him; he had passed Nebuchadnezzar, and was making for a point in the surrounding bank where the hedge seemed least thick. The rise for the bank threw Mr. Maltby back into his saddle once more, and he had a fine view of the adjoining country for a second as the cunning steeplechaser changed his feet on the top and crashed his way through and alighted daintily in a broad and shallow ditch on the other side.

And now for the first time the horse seemed uncertain of what was expected of him. Previously he had simply followed his leaders, but now he was the leading horse, and though open to any suggestion he was receiving none. He was compelled to act on his own initiative; and he believed that he was acting for the best in galloping across the next field, clambering
up a high bank, and dropping into a very pleasant country lane on the other side, where he thought he had done all that was expected of him—as a matter of fact he had done a good deal more than Mr. Maltby at least had expected of him— and so fell into a pleasant trot, taking the air into his lungs.

Mr. Maltby felt more than thankful— he was actually elated— he had the very carnal sensation of having won a race; and he could not help leaning forward and patting the sleek neck of his horse. He ddid not know in what direction the lane led, but he had an instinct that as hitherto he had been guided by his horse he could not do better than leave the question of route to be decided by him.

The result was that, after proceeding along the lane for a couple of miles, cross-roads were reached, with a finger-post indicating on one arm, "To Butterham, 7 miles," and on another, "To Melanborough, 4 miles." He tried to turn the horse toward Butterham; and the horse showed signs of being quite amenable to any suggestion, but at the critical moment an open. carriage with a fine pair of horses came up, and Mr. Maltby saw with deep regret that the occupants were his bishop and his bishop's wife.

He was painfully conscious of his own appearance—hatless, his clerical collar burst at one end from the restriction of its stud, and his legs— he knew it— bare almost up to his knees! He tugged at the reins, but all to no purpose. He saw the look that came into his lordship's face when he recognised him, and the look that came into the lady's face when she had raised her double glasses while the carriage was in the act of passing. He knew
that never again would the bishop or his wife look on him in the usual way; he would ever, be a marked man in their eyes.

But he had soon something else to think of, for his horse wheeled half-way round, and complacently trotted alongside the carriage, keeping pace with it with mechanical precision.

Once more the occupants eyed him— the bishop more severely than before; but no word came from either of thtm until they had kept company for a full mile. Then the bishop shifted his place and, turning to him, said in his most commanding voice:—

"I must request, sir, that you will not ride in such close proximity to my carriage."

"I cannot help it, my lord; it is all my horse," replied Mr. Maltby.

"Then pull up your horse, sir," said his lordship.

"That is beyond my skill, my lord," said Mr. Maltby.

"Then we shall stop and allow you to proceed," said his lordship, prompted by his wife.

The carriage was stopped, and with it the curate's horse stopped; but the moment the carriage went on the horse went on in spite of the almost superhuman efforts its rider to restrain it.

The bishop was rapidly becoming very angry. At the outskirts of Melanborough, he addressed Mr. Maltby once more.

"This will not do, sir," he cried sternly; "We cannot appear at the presentation of colors in this style. You are making us appear supremely ridiculous, sir; it is not seemly."

"I will do anything you suggest, my lord," said the curate. "The animal is headstrong; it has well-nigh pulled my arms out of their sockets."

The bishop gave an exclamation of impatience— such an expression as a bishop may oocasionally use— too feeble for a layman— and on the procession went—the stately episcopal equipage, with its mounted escort in what seemed a travesty of clerical costume. The people in the streets of Melanborough stood still to gaze. They did not know what to make of it. More than once a policeman was about to take action; but apparently coming to the conclusion that the group was symbolic, refrained; and so through the gates of the Park where the presentation of colors to a Territorial regiment was to take place, the carriage went with its strange escort. But the moment that the bend in the drive disclosed its long double line of infantry standing at attention, the mounted escort left the side of the carriage, and trotted to the front of the lines, then wheeled and stood as rigid as an equestrian statue, facing the spectators, and quite undeterred by the roar of laughter that greeted this performance. The ends of the rider's trousers had by this time worked their way upward on each leg, and their perseverance was rewarded by the disclosure of a bare knee clinging to each side of the saddle.

But there came another roar—it came from the colonel this time, and its purport was:—

"Take your horse out of that, sir."

"I can't, sir," said the curate meekly.

"Take your horse out of that, sir," shouted the adjutant, waving his sword.

"Can't you see that it's out of my power?" cried Mr. Maltby piteously.

The spectators were roaring once again, and they roared still louder when a couple of the men who were keeping the ground advanced officiously upon the mounted curate, and made an honorable but vain attempt to get their hands on his horse's reins. The animal backed and evaded them quite easily, then trotted pleasantly to the end of the lines, and, wheeling once more, "took his call" from the delighted crowds.

For several minutes the comedy went on, and it only came to a close when an officer in the uniform of the Household Cavalry galloped up, and shouted:—

"How do you come to be mounted on my charger, sir? I insist on an explanation or I shall have you arrested. Steady, Lancewood!"

The curate's mount stood steadily enough, after he had sent his whinny of recognition into the air.

"If he is your horse you're welcome to him— whether he is yours or anybody else's, you're welcome to him," murmured Mr. Maltby.

"Clear the ground, for heaven's sake, Her Royal Highness is signalled," cried the colonel.

The Guardsman lifted the curate with the utmost tenderness out of the saddle, and dropped him lightly on the ground, with the collar stud that had come off in his hand, and then throwing the reins of the horse to one of the men, galloped off to meet the Royal Princess who was to present the colors.

It was his rector who hurried Mr. Maltby off the ground by a back way. Mr. Maltby was now weeping.

He tried to narrate some of his experiences of the previous hour and a half; but he was not very successful.

"It was a cruel joke for my cousin to play," said Mr. Mason; but when a railway official met him and put a telegram into his hand from Simpson, the horse-dealer of Diddleham, he learned that the joke had been an involuntary cue. It appeared that Simpson had two horses to send by rail that,day, and one was the celebrated charger Lance wood. belonging to  Major Carberry, of the Life Guards, which he had been keeping for the previous week— an animal that had won many steeplechases, and was worth something like £400. The other was the quadruped which he meant to send to Mr. Mason, and which he had over-insured at £3. The duty of labelling the horse-boxes had. been carelessly performed, so that Major Carberry found himself staring at the quadruped, while the Reverend Septimus Maltby was winning the Point to Point race, and then doing involuntary escort duty to his bishop.

When Mr. Maltby read the graphic two columns which appeared in the "Gazette" under the heading, "Strange Conduct of a Clergyman," and the column and a half in the "Weekly News" headed, "A Parson Wins the East Dunton Point to Point," he took the next train to the Shetland Islands. He never returned to Butterham; but the people who have not lost sight of him say that he is far more tolerant than he used to be, and is even contemplating taking up croquet.

__________________

6: Sir Hector Devereux's Bet

Dorothea Conyers

World's News (Sydney) 14 Dec 1918

Dorothea Conyers (1886-1949) was an Irish novelist. Her books are romantic novels set among the Irish sporting gentry.

SIR HECTOR MACNAMARA DEVEREUX rested comfortably in his cabin on the Irish mail-boat, with no sub-conscious qualms of being submarined, for it was before the days of war. On the strength of his grand aunt by marriage's surname having been given to him— Mrs. Macnamara had been his god mother— Sir Hector always said genially that he was half Irish, and had told his friends that he was going to see what was partially his own country.

He was a large, flabby man who when possible wore spats, and, being vain as to his feet, never walked with complete freedom. One of his Majesty's Ministers, he had for years taken part in heated debates as to the settling of the Irish question— those futile arguments by grown men about a land where people are ever half children, too quick to follow tempting counsel, always resentiful of a guiding hand.

A fortnight before, publicly heckled by a very little M.P. with a sing-song brogue, Sir Hector had lost his temper and declared that it was all nonsense— that he was half Irish and understood the people thoroughly, and would go over himself and return with the thing, not in a nutshell, but in his head.

"For how long?" queried the M.P., his eyes twinkling.

"For ten days," boomed Sir Hector.

"And you'll understand us thoroughly in ten days. Then I'll say no more— till you come back," and the member for Cara sat down smiling softly.

But he met Sir Hector outside and offered an even fiver against it.

Sir Hector had often been asked to stay at Castle Cahirlish, the residence of the descendants of his grand-aunt by marriage, and he wrote, kindly offering himself as a guest.

He did not take his man, but started alone. His conversation of the last two days before he left London had been of the mistakes made about a country which was really like all other countries and merely talked up, for special reasons of its politicians.

He made his farewells to a London which glittered with light, whose advertisement signs wasted brilliancy, whose people knew no rationing, and be travelled lapped in comfort, until, on a grey February day, the mail-boat stole into Kingstown, which was creeping to light out of the morning mists. Sir Hector, who loved comfort, decided to go on the second train to Cahirlish instead of by the mail. He advised the change by wire, disregarding the fact that Cahirlish Castle was twelve miles from a station, and did not trouble to inquire when the message might be delivered.

The waiter who took it glanced at the direction and said something about hoping that Tomsey's bike wouldn't be in the wars as usual, to which Sir Hector, half hearing, asked the man if he knew Cahirlish.

"My father kep' the post office," said the waiter. "An' that's why I'm wonderin'. It is eight miles from the village— easy enough if Tomsey Delane's bike is right, but if it is not he wouldn't know what shoe leather was made for that felley."

Sir Hector ate his good breakfast without qualms, in fact he scarcely thought of the matter. He took a corner seat in a crowded train and spun onwards through the lonely beauty of the southern route, his journey made pleasant by a companion, a clean-shaven, middle-aged man, who was willing to talk about Ireland.

"They've been telling me it's behind the times, that nothing would ever make the people practical. So far as I can see there is no difference in the two countries," said Sir Hector.

The clean-shaven man said nothing, rather expressively.

"Good terms— clean hotels."

"When you pass the Bog of Allen," said the other man, and paused— "I'm a country inspector not so very far from Cahirlish. We've been having a lively time. Proclaimed meetings and so on. Oh no, not all mismanagement— just Irish natures. You'll have a Iong drive to Miss Macnamara's."

Sir Hector said he expected her car was all right, and the police officer left the train at Maryborough. He smiled as be went.

Sir Hector thought that the wondrous mystic bog lands ought to be drained and reclaimed; be said so to a fellow-passenger, who said:— "Drain the Bog of Allen! Might as well try to put Hades in cold storage." At which Sir Hector was ruffled, and took quite ten minutes before he began to explain modern drainage and its wonders.

He also regretted the lack of cultivation— and opening on that was answered by "My good sir, think of the rotten scent Plough carries, and of riding through it?" And then found himself ignored as men babbled of hunting.

The grey day darkened to one of drifting clouds which blotted out the hill-tops and came low down purple and sullen to fling a bandage of stinging, fine rain upon the earth.

It was rain which came with a raw, fine cold, which drifted under the door and numbed feet and hands even is the shelter of the railway carriage.

Sir Hector found they were late at the busy junction, into which they thundered importantly. They ran on through the finest grass country in the world. As if some shop-keeper of earth had unfurled a great roll of mellow pasture and let it slip out flat and green, airing his wondrous wares— field upon field, already taking on an emerald hue, running across the vast table and to the dark feet of the Galtees.

It was late when Sir Hector left his warm carriage and stamped his feet on a wind-swept platform as he inquired for the West

Cahirlish train. West Cahirlish was the station. He then was bumped and clattered on, tired and cold, until he was roused by a sing-song note:— "West Cahirlish— change here for Skibier an' the Arnagh line."

Sir Hector extracted himself and signalled to the porter to take his suit-cases. The said porter informed him very sympathetically that the milk-cans had to be rowled, an' until the Skibier start, be couldn't touch luggage if it was God's own.

The Minister took out his own ill-humoredly, making a note of it, and, has the seething platform cleared, asked icily, that at least his things should be taken to the car for Cahirlish, which was done despite several calls for Patsy O'Leary.

After two or three minutes O'Leary returned to ask was it Walsh's jinnit or Dayly's ass, for them the only two outside and nayther knew anything about luggage. "Car for Cahirlish— Miss Macnamara. Davy met the 1.30 and wasn't best plased either, as he missed Larry Keefe's buryin'."

"It is tin mile," said the station-master, "an' more maybe— with the hills that is there."

Sir Hector checked a frantic desire to explain that gradients did not affect distance, as he waited, shivering in the misty dimness of the closing day, and instead spoke irritably of his telegram.

"If it were the one that come in for the Castle this day," said a voice, "Tomsey's bike was broke an' it is goin' up by the baker's cart in the morning."

Sir Hector groaned aloud.

"In any case the coachman is sure to come back." Sir Hector stared through the narrow gate of the station up a purposeless looking road diverting round the base of a bare hill.

"If it is Patsy he cannot," chimed in another voice, that of a youth in check tweed bicycling suit, "for he joined into the funeral at Knockabin, an' when I left the mare was peevish with tire— I seen her—" here the youth flushed a ruby red and showed a marked disposition to retreat, hastily edging away as he muttered something about his aunt's groceries, and eyeing Sir Hector unhappily.

The baronet was so wrapped in his sorrows that he scarcely noticed the words muttered by the porter. "In me eye it was bruck, but not as ye wantin' to get to Crusheen."

Sir Hector remembered this afterwards with a thrill of something resembling horror—as he realised the manner in which wires are delivered from West Cahirlish.

"And, in heaven's name, shall I have to walk?" he said piteously, so oblivious at the time of any discrepancies as to broken-down bicycles that Tomsey, his conscience pricking him, took comfort and returned to him.

"Andy Slattery's black mare," he said thoughtfully, "might make it. If there is a sphot of Andy sober, yer honor, I'll have him here in tin minnits. But he was at Crusheen an' I would not be sure I'd find even that same," he said, as he turned out.

The ten minutes slipped to half an hour, and Sir Hector was thinking of a ten-mile walk in tight boots, when a disreputable-looking side-car lurched and rattled down the road. It was drawn by a weedy-looking black mare, her coat covered with dried sweat and her head hanging sullenly, the driver shouting at her as she came.

Sir Hector and his suit-cases being piled on to the car, Andy Slattery, a blandly unsober youth with a spotty face, said, "G'out of that," and started at a gallop.

Sir Hector clung to his rocking perch desperately— but just as he imagined he had found his balance a sudden stop sent him flying ponderously into the muddy road, one suit-case following.

"It is the door of the sthables," said Andy Slattery unsteadily; "git up, yer honor."

Sir Hector climbed in silence. In silence he was driven along the aimless, wandering road, which swept down into swamps, and then turned away from the level valleys to clamp itself on to mountainous hill. It rained grey and persistently, and a chill wind whistled.

Mile by mile and yard by yard, the black mare died out— until the whip singing off her sides did not even make her switch her tail, and Sir Hector woke up to abuse her as a useless jade.

"No, but the besht hack in all Ireland," said Andy "in offended tones, "but what'd sthand Cregan Malone. Out twice last night with his friends goin' to him, and to-day, didn't he keep her from nine till three, an' the journey sixteen mile and all."

Sir Hector said coldly that if that was so this man Malone must be a callous brute, and that he would note the address and mention the matter to the S.P.C.A.

As the mare crawled languidly, Andy broke into argument concerning Cregan Malone's kind-heartedness. "Then why did he so put upon a dumb beast."

"He could not help it."

Sir Hector thundered:— "Help it," as the mare stopped and wished to know why not.

"He is dead presently," said Andy ruefully "I'd say if we left in this mare, yer honor"— he listened to Sir Hector spluttering— "at Dan Crehen's house. His jennet would take us on. The scald to that Tomsey that was so set on the buryin' he med out his bike was broke," he added, getting down to open a gate.

"He— he— deliberately—did not take the wire," gasped Hector Cavendish—"an official messenger!"

"He is courtin' the corpse's dather," said Andy placidly. "The sorra the Faste was wrong with the bike."

Andy knocked up a friendly farmer who rert something grey and small from a shed and seemed delighted to help, Andy retreating in doors for refreshment. "She is two sizes too small," said Andy, getting up. "An' it will be the mercy of God' if we do not capsize."

The jennet showed her mettle by starting with a squeal and a kick, and the car rocked down a steep abyss of darkness at twenty miles an hour.

"Aisy, Bess,' said Andy, who had darned up his patched sobriety.

"For God's sake, driver," yelled Sir Hector, "She will not kape it up," said Andy.

But as Bess, soured by untimely rousing, squealed and tore on, the powerful lights of a car accelerated to top grade glided up the road and with "Ye schamer," Andy pulled aside.

He was too late. The wing Sir Hector sat upon broke with a wrenching snarl of breaking wood, and he aimed a shower of curses.

The baronet slid into the motor, clutching at anything.

"You and your friends drunk as usual, Andy," said a voice calmly. "Out you go," and a tall man poked Sir Hector over the edge, letting him fall on to a heap of muddy grass.

"The gentleman is as sober as meself," said

Andy with dignity. "If anyone has a drop taken, me lord, it would be the chauffood."

Sir Hector rose to confront Lord Annadhew. one of the authorities whom he had come over to see. In a trembling voice he made himself known.

"Oh, by gad— Devereux," said Annadhew easily. "What bad luck. Not hurt, I hope. Fell among thieves when you met Andy, didn't you? The stuff he carries is awful. Lunch with me Friday. Hope you can both sit one side— good-night.''

With the bitter knowledge that he was considered to be drunk, Sir Hector saw the car drive on. He was beginning to wander if anyone could understand Ireland. He was weary of futile rage. It was ten when the lop-sided car reached Cahirlish, a great rambling house with a river running close by in the darkness.

Sir Hector, utterly weary, was greeted by an old, bewhiskered butler, and ushered into a low-ceiled room which glowed with warmth and comfort.

He ate and explained sleepily— he stumbled to a room which smelt of turf smoke, and slept dreamlessly until the old man roused him, sympathetically proffering condolence as to the night's misadventure.

"That Tomsey should be hunted," said James. "If ye're own self was dead an a weddin' on, Tomsey's bike 'ud be broke before he'd bring the wire to let ye know, Sir Hector."

Irritated and weary. Sir Hector came to breakfast, greeted his cousin by marriage, and looked out amazed at the beauty of Cahirlish. Miss Elisha Macnamara showed no surprise at the visit until she heard the reason— then her cackle was not melodious.

"You want to see Crowe, the members, and Father O'Loughlin and Annadhew. Oh, you've seen him? Don't see them together, Hector, and don't imagine you'll hear anything that will make you wiser. You've a feet on it?" Miss Macnamara glowed to warmth. "I hope it's not big," she said pleasantly, "but I'm glad you're a sport, Hector." At this point the telegram and a leaf of bread came in together— and Elisha Macnamara listened to the account against Tomsey— who was to be instantly reported.

"If you report Tomsey he'll only get ten witnesses to prove he wasn't there," she said, cheerfully. "And he's such a nice boy, Hector, and always has a fox in Toomvara. You can't report a good covert keeper, you know."

Sir Hector left his egg untouched for some time.

He spent busy days— he had long talks which were as salutary as froth, for, when he had finished them, he found the solid residue almost nil, and he took notes feverishly. Tomsey, who came with many telegrams, greeted him as a friend, hoping that his honor wasn't the worse of the black ill-luck of the bicycle being broke the first day, and bewailing the distance so sweetly that Sir Hector found himself, almost as a man who dreams, laying a bright half-crown in a re sponsive freckled palm, and receiving a full account of the last hunt from Toomvara in return.

When questioned as to politics, Tomsey replied that he had never seen an M.P. that could ride to hounds, so he had no mind for them, and departed blithely.

Neither could all Hector's explanations remove a slight and irritating smile from Annadhew's face.

"Thought you were old Nat Lonigan when you bumped in," he said. "You want the items of the fuss at Ardagh. I don't think the men themselves know what it was about."

Sir Hector wanted to know, heavily, if any one knew anything.

"Oh, they know a bit of sport," said the peer, and began to talk of his grey hunter.

The ten days were nearly over when a meeting was proclaimed at Ardagh, and Sir Hector drove over, full sure that he would got to the very heart of a disturbance and hear what the Irish had to say, and the dignified response of the police officer.

He drove early into a bleak, little town, which had a market square in its midst, where he found the genial young D.I., Hugh Clanchy, commanding a very small force of men.

"They've a huge crowd in, and I've 'phoned for reinforcements," said Clanchy. "If they rush us, we're done— they want to speak here and we won't have it. I'd go home if I were you, sir."

"But if you let them speak and someone debated," said Sir Hector.

"And what the dickens could you debate about— especially as they won't listen?" said Clanchy, giving an order to his men.

Big brakes be-flagged and be-drummed drew up, a couple of motors whizzed in, and an independent-minded band struck up "God Save Ireland" in all the keys it knew.

The small cordon of police was drawn across the square, and a huge crowd massed, making little swaying rushes, showing their teeth as it were, ready, if one blow came, to rush in and do murder.

"I'd get away if I were you," said Larry over his square shoulder, "When the batons begin to crack, they'll hurt us here— we're too few. Train bringing some others broken down."

The crowd increased its size and power. It passed to jeering before it took to its ugly work.

A fat little man called for free passage to the square, and the thin, dark line remained immovable.

An old woman, her grey hair loosened, jostled into a front place and with a jeer to the "polis" put her hands on her stout hips, and, coming opposite Larry, broke into derisive jigging. The low murmur of the crowds was the note which goes before a storm— mingled with "Nancy," "Well done, ould Nance."

Nancy Rae was defying the officer— Ireland showing her contempt for authority.

Larry Clanchy drew a long breath; then, without a word, his face stonily graven, he hooked up his sword, put his arms akimbo, and, with the same gravity, stood out opposite Nancy, his feet stepping deftly; the low growl gave way to silence, broken by an "Oh, my God," from Sir Hector.

Larry's feet cut the air like lightning. Nancy's stout boots clattered madly— she had been doing the slow step dance of her country.

Across the silence, shrill and sweet, broke a tuneful whistle of the wind that shakes the barley. It was taken up. Someone laughed. Someone cried "Success." In as many keys as the band, the old stirring jig tone shrilled, while the fat man in the waggonette cursed forcibly unheeded.

"He'll do ye, Nancy. She is blown. Success, Misther Clanchy. Ye ken sthep it."

"La la la la aity" lilted the jig notes. Old Nancy gasped, but stuck to it bravely. Larry jigged and his men stood keeping guard quite bravely.

Nancy Rae showed signs of stopping; marching feet sounded steadily coming from the station, and the curt bark of an order rang out.

Larry Clanchy stepped back as gravely as he stepped out, save for the heave of his chest; he was once more a decorous police officer.

Sir Hector clung to the village pump and yearned for England. "They'd have rushed us in two minutes," he heard Larry say to a superior. "Good idea, what?"

The milk-train was due for Dublin in an hour. A shaken man sent a wire to Cahirlish to have his things sent on, and caught it eagerly.

THREE DAYS later he rose to answer a question from the opposite benches.

"My right honorable friend," said the member for Cara, "may have something interesting to say on the Irish Question after his..." he caught Sir Hector's eye— and juggled the words cleverly.

Ten minutes later he opened an envelope containing a five-pound note and smiled softly.

__________________

7: The Wrong Road

William Le Queux

World's News (Sydney) 3 Feb 1923

IT WAS four o'clock in the morning in the City of Madrid when Commander the Honorable Edward Heathfield. R.N., found himself free to leave the British Embassy and walk home across the intense blackness and the brilliant whiteness of the Castilian shadows and the Castilian moonlight.

He drew his uniform coat about him with a low sigh of relief as the liveried porter closed the great door behind him— be looked up at the bright stars, lit a cigarette, and paced thoughtfully homeward along the broad Calle Fernando el Santo.

There had been an official ball at the Embassy, and he, a naval attaché, had been compelled to be there. He was so used to It all that he had ceased to think about It. The dances, the furtive glances that told so old a story to him, the Jests, the whispered scandals, the insistent passion—it was all so horribly tiresome, and he was glad that it was over and he was free to get away from the world of glitter and be by himself, quiet in the mild, moonlit January night.

To Teddy Heathfield Nature had been kind, but Chance had been cruel.

About thirty-seven, for he had advanced rapidly, he was tall and rather thin, with a dark, shaven face, which suggested the romance of fate. He looked handsome in his naval uniform, and his eyes, under their straight, classic brows and their drooping lids, could gaze at women with a dreaming, amorous meaning that would pour trouble Into the purest soul. Women seldom saw him for the first time without thinking of him when he had passed from sight.

Since the war, he had served short terms at Brussels and Washington, and some six months before he had been appointed naval attaché to the Court of Madrid. Till his arrival in Madrid, he had only a few minor love affairs, those passing flirtations which are part of the life of every young diplomat, but, alas! in an evil hour of his destiny, the bold eyes of a newcomer, roving over the brilliant crowd of a ball at the Palacio Barbarieri, had fallen upon him. and his last hour of peace had struck.

When the young and pretty Marquesa de Fontenar returned from Rome, life seemed to her very dull. She, who danced so well, drove her own car, went to the polo matches, and was seen everywhere, was not happy at heart. Don Diego Fernandez Marques de Fontenar, her husband, she described at a bad-tempered and brutal old roué, and she sighed restlessly for a happiness she had never known, her bitterness concealed beneath a mask of defiant courage and a gaiety that was feigned. Yet really the old Marques was the most well-trained and patiently enduring of maris complaisants.

At the various balls and receptions sne saw Teddy, but he bad taken no notice of her, even though she drifted near him constantly, cast glances after him, danced furiously past him, and flirted with his friends. This piqued her. and she set her white teeth. One night she determined to be presented to him. and managed to engineer it. He tried to avoid her, but was unsuccessful. He was brought against his will to her side.

She bade him call on her; he could do no less. And this friendship had now grown.

That night at the Embassy she had told him of the brutality of the old Marques, who was in Paris, and as he walked beneath the bare trees of the Paseo del Prado to his own apartment in busy Calle de Atocha, he reflected upon it all, and found himself sympathising with her.

When a woman like Gemma de Fontenar is in love, it is not easy for a man to escape.

Gemma was everything that Heathfield disliked in woman. She was handsome, it was true, but her voice was harsh, her gestures common, her attitude mannish. She was distasteful to him.

Gemma de Fontenar knew it. Her woman's intuition had told her so. But the had resolved to avenge it.

Gemma's father had been Italian, though she had been brought up in England. She had been at school at Eastbourne, and had afterwards lived with her aunt in London for several seasons.

The winter season in the gay Spanish capital passed by. They met everywhere; at the Opera, at the Real, in the Prado at the Court balls, and at the gay but exclusive parties at the various palaces of the old Spanish nobility, the Vailajo, the Patilla, the Montalvo, and the others.

She had taken up her residence in part of an old palace, the great windows of which overlooked the gardens of the Convent of Santa Isabel. The rooms were immense, vaulted, noble in form and proportion, with wonderful frescoes. Her own salon, which Terry Heathfield knew so well, was a great chamber, with deep embrasured casements. She had filled the entrances with palms and ferns and flowers, and upon the great open hearth burned big logs and pine-cones, while all about was a picturesque litter of carved oak furniture, old bronzes, armor, and bits of priceless old silver.

Gemma de Fontenar was both cultured and artistic, even though she was at heart a vampire woman. She delighted in tricking Society, which she certainly did.

One morning, Hubert Railton, a cosmopolitan wanderer, who was well known at Aix, Deauville, and af Monte Carlo, as the seasons came and went, arrived from London. and, having strolled down to the Café Suzio, in the Calle de Alcala, which is always crowded before the luncheon hour, was seated with a man named O'Brien, a King's Foreign Service Messenger, who had landed at Lisbon and was on his way back to London that afternoon.

The pair were idling in the winter sunshine at one of the little tables out on the pavement, gossiping, when of a sudden a fine car passed.

"Why, look!" cried Railton. "there's Heathfield, of the Embassy, and by Jove! with— with that woman! Fancy Heathfield motoring about with her!"

"Why not?"

"Well, my dear fellow, she's the last woman for him to have as a friend— I've met the interesting Gemma de Fontenar before the war— before she married the old Marques. I wonder what she's doing here? Heathfield should be warned against playing with fire. He'll be scorched, if he isn't careful."

"You don't like the woman? Yet I hear she Is extremely popular here in Madrid."

"So she was in Rome, and in Brussels— very popular indeed. Old Commendatory Ortini, the Italian Minister of Finance, worshipped at her shrine. The pearls she wears were a present from him. And now she ensnared Heathfleld."  And Railton, the tall, good-looking man of the world, who seemed to spend his life in wagons-lits and steamer berths, drew a long breath and tossed away the end of his cigarette.

After he had shaken hands with O'Brien, and promised that he would soon be back in London, Railton strolled across the broad Plaza and up the Calle de Atoeha, engrossed in his own thoughts.

Sight of the handsome, dark-eyed Gemma, now Marquesa de Fontenar, had caused him to ponder and bite his lip.

ONE EVENING a month later, Railton again returned to Madrid, and, after a wash at his hotel, he drove straight to the great old palace in which the Marquesa had taken up her abode.

The grave-faced Spanish man-servant who opened the door told him that his mistress was not receiving.

He took out a card, scribbled a single word in pencil upon it, and bade the man give it to the Marquesa. The man obeyed with ill-grace, but soon returned, saying that his mistress would aee him.

He was shown into a big, well-warmed room, hung with ancient tapestries and filled with gilt furniture of the Renaissance, while over all the soft rays of electricity shed a pink, mystic glow. Upon the great opes t hearth the logs threw out a welcome heat, and, as he entered, an over-fed Pekinese raised his head and regarded the stranger with big, round, wondering eyes.

A moment later the door at the opposite end of the salon opened, and she swept ina tall, willowy figure, in a pretty dance frock of pale lemon, and wearing old Ortini's pearls.

"Why have you come here?" she demanded in a quick, petulant tone. "You made a promise— and have now broken it!"

"In the circumstances, I feel justified," he replied, bowing to her as he stood before the fire.

"I was half inclined not to receive you."

"You would have done so to-morrow— if not to-night," was his slow, meaning reply, a curious smile playing upon his lips.

"But why should you thrust your presence upon me in this manner? It is not welcome, I assure you," she declared, her handsome face blanched to the lips. She was nervous, though she strove to control her apprehension.

"I am fully aware of that, my dear lady," replied the Englishman. "But the reason of my visit, I may as well at once explain, to to demand, nay. insist, that you leave Madrid before noon to-morrow!" he said, in a hard, deliberate voice, looking strangely into her fine eyes.

"You are insulting! What do you mean?"

"I have already said what I mean," he replied. "You leave Madrid before noon to-morrow, or I―"

"You want more money— you will blackmail me— eh?" she interrupted him. "I see. Your old game!" she cried, dropping into Italian in her excitement. "Benissimo! I am sick of it, and I defy you!"

"Ah!" he laughed. "That is indeed a pity," he said, also in very good Italian. "I put it to you quite calmly, cara mia, whether it is not distinctly to your own advantage to bow to the inevitable and leave Madrid tomorrow— or disobey me."

"You speak as though you were my master—you!"

"I am!" he said, in a changed voice. "I am your master. Gemma de Fontenar, and you will leave here before noon to-morrow."

"Why?"

"Because I, Hubert Railton, your master, demand it," was his answer, and he bowed low and mockingly before her.

Her brow clouded. Her glance was one of Intense hatred. She knew her fault, and she had long feared the fatal finger of fate that might one day be placed upon her. She was the most brilliant butterfly of the season in the Spanish capital, with her big white car, her dances twice a week, her charity concerts, her daily visit to the Prado, and her circle of friends at Court. And now to her had come the one man she feared, because he alone knew the falsity of it all. The man whom she had several times paid heavily for his silence.

"Do you dare to stand before me here, and defy me?" he asked.

She started back at sight of the Englishman's face, for she knew that he was in dead earnest.

Of a sudden she covered her face with her bejewelled hands, and burst into tears.

"No, Hubert! Forgive me— do?" she implored. "You are right— quite right. I have sinned against the world— against you! I admit it. But you are cruel— very cruel! There is one man here whom I love. I— I can't leave him! I love him!"

"Love! Bah!" exclaimed the tall, lean Englishman. "I know that you have set yourself out to fascinate him. You have done so. But it must end—and before noon to-morrow. I will not allow a repetition of that affair in Rome. I tell you that plainly. Now Gemma, please don't let us discuss it further!"

For some moments she remained silent.

"You really mean what you say?" she asked at last, facing him boldly, with a fierce light In her eyes. "You will not accept money, and let me stay?"

"No."

"Bene! Then I refuse to leave!"

"You do— eh? Think of poor Iturri— ruined and lying in his grave! Think of him. Gemma— you, who―"

"Bah! You are romancing." she laughed; "you are a mere common blackmailer, and that I will show to the world!" she declared, with sudden defiance.

"Very well." he said, quite calmly, and in no way perturbed by her denunciation. "I give you full warning, that if by noon tomorrow you have not left Madrid and cast Heathfield aside, then you will spend to-morrow night in a prison cell."

"What?" she shrieked wildly. "You threaten me with that! And you will be in prison also!"

"Madame— buona sera," he replied, and, bowing again, he turned on his heel and left the room.

She dashed after him, and, seizing his hand, tried to drag him back, but without avail.

Later that same night, while Railton went to the variety show at the Trianon, Heathfield, at Gemma's command, attended a great ball given by the Duchess of Beluga, at the ancient Beluga Palace. All smart Madrid was there, including two minor Royalties, several Ambassadors, and two Cardinals.

The gathering was gay and most exclusive: for to be invited to any of the Duchess's functions one must move in the circle around the throne.

Gemma, in a gown of gold tissue, looked superb amid that phantasmagoria of color, the bright dresses of the women, the smart gold-laced uniforms of the men; the flowers, the lights, the fine orchestra, and the perfect floor, all combining to create an atmosphere of irresponsible gaiety.

They danced together several times, but Heathfield noticed that she was not quite herself. Perhaps she had had unwelcome news of the impending return of her boorish old husband. How diligently the young Englishman danced attendance upon the handsome Marquesa had been remarked everywhere.

After they had had supper, Gemma declared that she was tired.

"I would love a quiet cigarette alone with you, Teddy," she said. "It is so oppressively hot here. Shall we drive to your place before I go home?"

"Certainly," he replied. Therefore she ordered her car, and a quarter of an hour later she was lolling back in his deep easy chair, with a Turkish cigarette between her full red lips, smiling her sunniest and kindliest.

"I wonder, Teddy, if you could keep a secret if I told you one?" she said presently, gazing across at him through the cigarette smoke, from beneath her half-closed eyelids.

"Of course," he replied.

"Even if that secret concerned an acquaintance of yours?"

"In diplomacy, our first duty is to keep the secret of both friend and enemy," he said, simply, as he took a fresh cigarette from the big silver box which he had one day picked up in the Grand Bazaar in Constantinople.

"Then I'll tell you." she said, stirring herself and leaning towards him. "This enemy— your friend, Hubert Railton— called upon me to-day, and— and tried to make love to me! Is it not awfully amusing?"

"What?" gasped the young Englishman, astounded and instantly angry. "That fellow Railton has attempted to make love to you! I've lately heard that he is a sheer adventurer! He is not my friend!"

"He was most amorous in his declarations," she said, wearily. "He met Don Diego, my husband, at Deauville, and knows what an unhappy life I have led," and she sighed.

Her words lashed him to fury, as she watched, well satisfied with their effect. It was the supreme moment of her triumph over him, even though he was simply a pawn in the game she had played at Rome, at Tourville, and in Paris.

"I had no idea that Railton was in Madrid. And he has really made love to you ? I—well— I hesitate to believe it, because I know I that he is always with Peggy Wilson, of the London Hippodrome."

"Well— I thought I, would tell you," said the young Marquesa, with a grin. "Ah, Teddy, you are jealous! I see it!" she went on tauntingly. "I never thought you would be, my dear old bean, or I would not have told you of his visit. It was very foolish of me. But— there— I'm always committing some absurd indiscretion."

"Not at all, Gemma. It was no indiscretion. Railton once posed as my friend, and I never dreamed that he would, in secret, endeavor to come between us. It is better that I should know," he said, hoarsely.

"So I shall leave Madrid before noon tomorrow, Mr. Railton— eh?" she murmured to herself, as later her car went on towards her home. "Well— I hardly think so. You may believe that you are my master, but you will. I fancy, find yourself mistaken!"

NEXT EVENING she had just finished dressing fur dinner, and was putting the finishing touches to her toilet before the great mirror and clasping her pearls, when her maid announced that Señor Railton had called.

"Well?" asked the tall, strong man. with darkened brow, when she entered the room to face him. "Why have you disobeyed me?"

"Because you are not my master after all."

"So you dare to take the consequences of your refusal to leave, eh?"

"I do." she laughed. "Indeed, Teddy has been out with me at Escorial all day. Won't you sit down?" she asked, with sarcasm.

"No, thanks. But I will give you one more chance, Marquesa, to part from Heathfield."

"Why have you turned against me like this? Can't you let me play my own game?" she asked. "You did so before, why not now?"

The man hesitated. He was a polished and plausible scoundrel, who lived well upon the foibles of others. Suddenly a smile played about his thin lips, and he glanced at her white neck.

"Those are pretty pearls," he said. "They are what old Ortini gave you! Let me have them, and I will go away and remain silent."

She did not speak. Her pearls were her most cherished possession, and he knew their worth. The proceeds would carry him along for another couple of years in the gay life he led. He knew that she was entirely in his hands, for he alone knew the true story of Edouardo Murri, the bank manager in Rome, who was believed to have committed suicide in despair because the bank had been ingeniously robbed of half a million lire.

"And if I give you these pearls you will go away and leave me to carry out my own wishes?" she said, slowly, in a strange voice. She, the vampire-woman, whose adamant heart and utter disregard for human sympathy were bargaining for a man's soul.

"That is my suggestion."

"Then take them," she said, in a low, tense voice. And he unclasped the rope of fine pearls, and. coiling them in his palm, placed them in his pocket in triumph.

Suddenly she turned upon him. and. with a fierce, intense look in her eyes, said:—

"If I did not love Teddy, I would never have parted with my pearls. But I love him— and you are welcome to them!"

But Railton merely smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and asked her to order a drink for him.

"Hubert, listen!" she said, when the order had been given, and the footman had closed the door. "Neither of us has a shred of respectability. I admit. We are equally culpable. It is owing: to your advice that I am what I am— the wife of a Spanish nobleman. I admit my indebtedness to you. We both of us have secrets. Let us agree in future to keep them. I am unhappy, and I love Teddy— I swear to you that I do! I would make him a good and honest wife if I were only free and could bury the past. But. alas! I— I cannot. I am not free!" And she burst into bitter tears.

Railton, the unscrupulous adventurer, saw that the pretty woman whom he had held in his grip so long was in deadly earnest. She really loved the handsome naval attaché, and she had, in consequence, given him her most treasured possession.

There was a long and painful silence. Again Hubert Railton, the handsome man who was so popular with women at the really smart resorts all over Europe, bit his lip. After all, he had been well-born, and had some shred of good principle left.

"Gemma!" he said. "We are both of us at fault. Hitherto we have been travelling upon the wrong road. But the way is open to you for honesty and an upright life in future. The sacrifice of your pearls is sufficient to show me that you really love Heathfield after all."

"But how is the way open?" she asked, eagerly.

For answer, he drew from his pocket a copy of the late edition of a newspaper, and. opening It, handed it to her.

She read the paragraph with staring eyes. Her surprise was not to be wondered at, for it was a telegram from Paris announcing that the Spanish nobleman, Don Diego Fernandez Marques de Fontenar, had died suddenly in the smoking-room of the Travellers' Club in Paris that morning.

The adventuress and the blackmailer grasped hands in silence, then the man went out.

Three months later, Gemma de Fontenar married the Honorable Edward. Heathfield, and the latter having retired from the Diplomatic Service, there is at the present moment no happier or more popular pair in all Mayfair.

________________

8: Price of Office

Mark Allerton

1881-1939

World's News (Sydney) 18 Aug 1917

"WHAT we ought to do, darling, is to get married first and then ask your dad's permission afterwards. That's as clear as anything. He'd kick up no end of a fuss no doubt. We'd have to
lump that. He might go to the length of disinheriting you. That wouldn't worry me at any rate. I know that's what we ought to do."

"But you also know that it's impossible. If only we could, dearest! But dad's bound to come round. He's bound to like you in  time."

"As a son-in-law? It'll take him at the present rate about a hundred years. What we've got to do is to get round him somehow. The point is—how?"

"Yes, that's the difficulty, Billy." Marjorie Belmont spoke despondently. Sir Gilbert Belmont was known to his world as a strong man, to his daughter as stubborn.

Once he got an idea into his head there was no getting rid of it. Success had only intensified this characteristic. With each succeeding promotion be exuded strength (or stubbornness) the more, until now, with a baronetcy and his position as head of all the permanent officials of his department, there ) was really, as Marjorie would plaintively declare to Captain Billy Honiton, no living with him at all.

For Sir Gilbert Belmont's ambition was not satisfied with his baronetcy and his exalted position. Having secured these, he turned his attention to his domestic surroundings. He discovered for the first time that his daughter was growing up— she was nineteen— that she was uncommonly good-looking (Billy told himself that she was the most beautiful creature that ever smiled so irresistibly on man), and that it was quite time she looked about her for an eligible husband.

With this last discovery Marjorie was quite in sympathy. Her choice immediately fell upon Billy Honiton. She had met Billy a year previously at a bunt ball, and they had fallen in love with each other before the last dance. Captain Honiton was thirty, boyish and keen for his years, with the bluest and frankest of eyes, and an alert and soldierly bearing.

"As handsome a couple as you might wish to see," was the verdict of Marjorie's aunt, the most indulgent of chaperons.

"But who is he?" demanded Sir Gilbert, angrily. "Nobody at all. What prospects has he got? None. I believe the fellow has a private income of about three hundred. What the devil is the use of three hundred these days?"

"You started with less," reminded his sister, "and Captain Honiton belongs to a very old family. His prospects are as good as those of any keen soldier. And you'll admit that he's keen. And clever too. Why, even the War Office has approved of his aeroplane, although I must say that this flying of his is against him."

"Of course it is," Sir Gilbert had hastily agreed. "He'll break his neck one of these days," he added with a certain complacency.

"I think Captain Honiton is a very gallant gentleman," said Miss Belmont quietly, "and I'm sure I don't see why you should set yourself against him like this. Especially as Marjorie has set her heart on marrying him."

"I tell you I won't have her marrying him," exclaimed Sir Gilbert angrily. "Marjorie is now in the position to pick and choose. There's Lord Perivale, for example—"

"A noodle— a perfect noodle!"

"A very rich man, my dear. Or young Halbert— he'll be in the next Cabinet."

"He bores me to tears."

"I am not suggesting that you should marry Mr. Halbert," said Sir Gilbert, cuttingly.

"Please don't attempt to be funny," was the cutting reply.

"I'm not trying to be funny."

"Then don't be coarse."

"My dear!" remonstrated Sir Gilbert, reddening.

"I mean it. Someone has got to speak plainly to you now and again, Gilbert. I tell you you are running the risk of spoiling Marjorie's life with your silly ambition. She is a good girl, and obedient, and I daresay she may give in to you. It is more than I would do, but she takes after her mother, poor child. Let those two young people make each other happy. Bless my soul! he's  not a beggar. Rather is he a well-known and comfortably-placed man. I'm surprised  at you!"

At that point Sir Gilbert had stalked to the door.

"I cannot discuss this any more," he had concluded. "My mind is made up."

Marjorie herself tackled him next. She approached him with even more than her usual winsomeness, but Sir Gilbert guessed her errand, and interrupted her with disconcerting directness.

"If you've come to talk to me about young Honiton," he said, releasing himself from her caress, "I don't want to hear you. The man's not good enough for you, Marjorie, and that is  an end of it."

"Not good enough! He is far too good!"  she cried, indignantly.

"A very proper thing to say, and all that sort of thing," he declared loftily. "But it isn't true. Supposing I had said, fifteen years ago, that the position I held was far too good for me! Do you think I should have been what I am now? Run away, my dear, and forget this fellow. It won't take you long."

"It will take me all my life," said Marjorie, dismally. But she went away.

And now these two felt themselves up against a stone wall.

"I'll tackle him myself," announced Billy. "I'll tackle him this very afternoon."

As he spoke he looked at the window of the Surrey mansion behind which be knew Sir Gilbert was at work.

"I'll tackle him at once," he added. "He can't eat me."

They were separated by a shrubbery and a broad lawn from the house, and Billy drew the girl towards him and kissed her.

"Whether I fail or not you've got to marry me," he said. "You've simply got to."

Marjorie raised her eyes to his. "I know," she replied.

Although Sir Gilbert Belmont had been kept from his offices in Whitehall by an attack of gout, he was hard at work in his library at home.

It was unfortunate that Captain Honiton had lighted upon a day when Sir Gilbert was more than usually worried. As everybody knows, it is the permanent officials who do the work of the Government, and Sir Gilbert was not lacking in a sense of, his responsibilities. Through no fault of his, the Government had found itself in a hole. It was an unexpected and (as yet) unexplainable hole, and the Government was unreasonably eager to hold Sir Gilbert responsible for the digging of it.

Sir Gilbert swore when the servant announced that Captain Honiton wanted to see him.

"Tell him I'm far too busy," he said, and then he thought that he might as well, once and for all, end this intolerable persecution. "No, send him up," he commanded.

Honiton entered the room briskly. In his grey flannels he presented a well-knit, presentable figure of a man.

"I'm afraid you are busy," he began.

"I am," snapped Sir Gilbert.

"Then I won't detain you five minutes."

"Make it four."

"I'll try. Of course you know that I want  to marry your daughter."

"What you want to do doesn't concern me in the least. My daughter knows my wishes in this matter."

Captain Honiton kept his temper.

"I know that I am not worthy to marry your daughter," he began again.

"Then why don't you go away and leave her alone?" burst out Sir Gilbert.

"Because I can't. And I am resolved upon marrying her. That is why I want your consent. It would make things much easier— for her."

Sir Gilbert rose to his feet. "You young jackanapes!" he cried. "You are resolved upon marrying her! God bless my soul! Go away. Go away, before I forget myself."

"I came here because I do not want you to forget Marjorie," was the quiet reply. "Curiously enough, she also wants to marry me. If you are afraid for her future, I may say that I will settle all my income on her. It was increased the other day by a legacy from an aunt."

"Oh! How much?"

Captain Honiton bit his lip. "It comes to about a hundred and fifty a year. That gives me, independent of my screw, about four-fifty a year—"

"Four-fifty!" Sir Gilbert strode towards this importunate young man. "Do you know that Marjorie could marry forty thousand a year if she liked."

"Yes, I know," said Billy, firmly. "But she doesn't like."

"How do you know?"

"She told me she'd die first."

"Die? Fiddlesticks! No; I'm firm on this point. I don't want to be rude to you, but I'm absolutely determined that Marjorie shall not make a fool of herself."

"By marrying me?"

"Yes."

Honiton flushed. "You are rude to me," he burst out, "damnably rude to me. But I've given you your chance. And let me tell you—"

"Lord Presteyn," announced the servant at the door.

Sir Gilbert turned quickly to receive his distinguished visitor, a clean-shaven, greyhaired man, one of His Majesty's Ministers.

Captain Honiton felt himself dismissed. There was nothing more to be said. From Sir Gilbert nothing was to be hoped for. With a bow he left the room.

Marjorie was waiting for him outside. Her eyes searched his questioningly. He shook his head.

"No good," said Billy. "He's adamant. We'll have to act for ourselves. I shall be here for another fortnight. It'll be that time at least before my new engine arrives. In a fortnight we can make all our arrangements. Where can we have ten minutes' chat?"

Marjorie opened the drawing-room door.

"Only ten minutes," she replied. "We mustn't make dad angrier by letting him find us here."

"IT IS A most disastrous position," said Lord Presteyn.

"Most," agreed Sir Gilbert, gloomily. "But I don't see why you should all blame my department. I'm not responsible for the Act."

"But it is incredible that there should be a deficit. Maesbrook is horrified. That's what I've come to talk to you about. We must be prepared for anything. Parliament meets in three, weeks. Maesbrook is speaking at Market Midston to-night. He's going to drop a hint about the deficit— smooth things over if he can— prepare people for what will transpire."

"What's the use?"

"Well, in three weeks the country will get used to the situation. Something else will turn up to divert attention from this calamity. If this deficit is announced like a thunderclap in the House; we'll all be in the soup. There's no use shirking the situation. And Maesbrook is the man to pull us through if anybody can. He'll pour oil on the troubled waters. He's going to hint that if there should be a deficit it is only what we owe to the cause of social reform. See?"

"Of course I see. But a year ago Maesbrook said that this bill would be a source of revenue. The Opposition. will not forget that. I'm not blaming Maesbrook, Lord Presteyn," added Sir Gilbert, "but I think it is most unjust of him to adopt this attitude towards me. I assure you, it has put me in a most undignified and—and uncomfortable position. I talk to you frankly, I—"

"Please don't. This is not the time to talk frankly," was the nervous reply. "We are in a very delicate position. Perhaps you don't quite know how delicate. You have only been Permanent Secretary a very few months. Your predecessor—"

"Well?" said Sir Gilbert sharply.

"Well, he was a very tactful man, the very soul of ingenuity. Pray don't misunderstand me, Belmont," added Lord Presteyn huriedly. "You have not yet had time to gather up the reins. But if we had only had a hint of this a week or two ago, when the Prime Minister was speaking in Martinborough, for example— Martinborough is so Sound, you know. But— well, we must see how Maesbrook gets on." Lord Presteyn sighed. "Let us hope for the best. It is inconceivable that, we should be turned out after only a couple of years of office."

Sir Gilbert swallowed painfully. He could not let pass the insinuation that had been made.

"My predecessor," he said aggressively, "had not to contend with the rush of intricate legislation that I have had to contend with. I have not had time properly to organise my department. I have not— well, what is it?"

The servant again appeared at the door.

"Mr. Verney wishes to see you, Sir Gilbert. He says that his business is most urgent."

"All right. I'll see him in ten minutes," ' said Sir Gilbert.

But, as he spoke, a young man whose elegant attire was out of keeping with his disordered appearance, brushed aside the servant, and rushed into the room.

"Mr. Verney!" remonstrated Sir Gilbert.

"Sorry. Can't be helped. Every minute is of importance," panted Mr. Verney, "There's been a mistake—a most awful mistake."

Mr. Verney recognised Lord Presteyn and
broke off embarrassed.

"Well," invited Lord Presteyn. "What is the mistake? Don't mind me,"

"I shall go into that with you later on," said Sir Gilbert, hurriedly. "Can't you see—"

"But I must tell you. Mr. Maesbrook is speaking to-night. His facts are wrong. There'll be the devil of a mess. A confounded clerk— twelve millions out— oh, my God!"

Mr. Verney sank into a chair in a state of collapse.

"I took a taxi at once. Taken me over two hours to get here. What hours! Nothing like this has ever happened before! Can't imagine how it got past. What's to be done?"

Sir Gilbert shook him roughly.

"In a word," he barked. "What's wrong?"

"That deficit of twelve millions," gasped Mr. Verney, "ought to be— five millions— on the other side."

"What?" roared Lord Presteyn. "Yes, Word of honor! Awful mistake. Office blunder. Can't explain it— yet."

"Then Maesbrook has made good!"

"Yes."

"Oh, thank Heaven!" gasped Lord Presteyn, "thank Heaven indeed!"

"But," put in Sir Gilbert with a fresh horror in his eyes, "Maesbrook, you say, is going to hint at a deficit to-night at Market Midston."

"He must be stopped."

"But how?"

"What time is it? Six? He speaks at eight. Can it be done?"

"Quick, Verney, a time-table. No, that's no use. Market Midston is nearly a hundred miles from here. Good heavens, Presteyn, what's to be done?"

"Telegraph." "It'll give the whole show away. There are scores of operators drafted into the town to-night. They'll tell each other. They'll' tell the press."

"I've got an idea," put in Verney, hurriedly.

"I met Honiton as I came in."

"What the devil can Honiton do?"

"He can fly to Market Midston with a message. He can do it in little over an hour. He keeps his own machine somewhere hereabouts, doesn't he?"

"Yes. He does. By the Lord Harry, I believe we'll save the situation yet." Sir Gilbert rushed to the door and flung it open.

"Marjorie!" he shouted. "Marjorie! Marjorie! Oh, there you are. Has Honiton gone? Where is he? I must see him at once. Where is he?"

Sir Gilbert was unable to conceal his extreme agitation, it seemed to him that Honiton suddenly appeared before him and allowed himself to be dragged into the library.

"I say, Honiton, could you fly to Market Midston under two hours?" Lord Presteyn spoke with trembling eagerness.

"Where is Market Midston?"

"In Hants. Under a hundred miles from here."

"I daresay I could."

Sir Gilbert caught his arm. "Then get ready at once. Don't delay a second. I want you to take a message to Maesbrook before he begins his speech."

Captain Honiton's eyes narrowed. "Why?" he rapped out.

"A mistake has been made in the department. It must be put right."

Honiton hesitated for a moment. His face became very stern, and his eyes shrewd. "Why?" he repeated.

"In order to save the Government."

"I'm sure," said Honiton drily, "that I have no wish to risk my neck to Save the Government—present company excepted," he added, with a smile to Lord Presteyn, whom he knew intimately.

"Look here, Billy," said Lord Presteyn, but he was interrupted.

"I reckon that Sir Gilbert and I must arrange this between us," said Honiton. "I should like a word with him alone."

Sir Gilbert hurriedly led the way into an adjoining room.

'"What, is it?" he demanded, nervously,

"I don't know the way to Market Midston," replied Honiton. "it will be dark when I get there. It is a big risk."

"You— you are used to risks," stammered

Sir Gilbert.

"I've never run one needlessly yet, though."

"This isn't a needless risk. Damn it, the life of the Government and my own reputation demand it."

"Demand it?"

"Well, implore it, if you like.

"Yes, I like that much better. I tell you what. I'll go— at a price."

"Yes, yes. how much?"

"My condition is that if I succeed you will allow Marjorie to marry me."

"Good heavens, man, this isn't the time to talk about such things—"

"I think it is," put in Honiton, quietly. "Do you agree?"

"This is blackmail!"

"Nonsense. It's a bargain."

The door of the library opened.

"If you are going you must go at once, Honiton," warned Lord Presteyn. "What on earth are you waiting for?"

"I'm waiting for Sir Gilbert's permission to marry his daughter should I succeed in getting to Midston in time," said Honiton, boldly.

"Of course he gives his permission. Why shouldn't he? Be off with you. Here's the document you must give to Maesbrook. Do  look sharp."

"What do you say, Sir Gilbert?"

For an instant Sir Gilbert hesitated. A strong man does not like to feel himself thrust into a corner. A stubborn man is apt to put up a useless resistance.

"If we fall, Belmont, we'll blame you. Don't forget that!" cried Lord Presteyn angrily. Sir Gilbert capitulated.

"All right. I agree. Only if you succeed, mind. Here's the document. For heaven's sake make haste."

Thrusting the paper into his pocket Honiton rushed from the house without a word. He sped across the lawn and over the fields in the direction of the hangar where he kept his own monoplane. As he reached the shed he shouted to his mechanics to wheel out the aeroplane.

The big doors of the hanger were thrown open, and the powerful monoplane emerged.

Quickly Honiton gave his directions, and in a few minutes the machine was ready for the air.

He clambered into the pilot's seat. The propeller roared was silent, roared again. To Honiton's trained ear the running of the engine was the sweetest music. The hundred horse-power Gnome had never failed him yet.

"Right!" he shouted above the clamor and noise. The mechanics sprang clear. With a bound the monoplane shot forward. Then, with a sound like the purring of a gigantic cat, the machine rose in the air. As Honiton swept over the hangar he saw a figure in white vigorously waving to him from the lawn of Sir Gilbert's house. He snatched his handkerchief and waved back.

THREE THOUSAND feet below Honiton saw the dim outline of the Brooklands aerodrome. He had an hour and a half in which to cover nearly ninety miles. The conditions were ideal. There was a light following wind. Although he was clad only in flannels Honiton did not feel the cold. His mind was concentrated on the task before him. The only difficulty he anticipated was in effecting a sate landing. Already the sun was low on the horizon and the sky was darkening blue. In an hour and a half it would be quite dark, save for the light of a new moon, and Honiton was not acquainted with the ground round Market Midston. Landing in the dark is the greatest danger the aviator has to face.

Even as he flew over Woking he saw that the street lumps were lit. He knew that in a few moments he would have to trust to the lights of the town alone for guidance. As he passed Aldershot he wondered if among the dark groups of men below there were any of his fellow officers of the Flying Corps, and what they would say when they heard the narrative of this strange errand. When he had left Aldershot behind he had only his compass to guide him. Now and again the lights of a tiny village not indicated in his map shone below. Then darkness again, the beating of the air as the monoplane tore through it like an ocean greyhound racing through the waves, and the roar of the engine.

Honiton had begun to look out for the landmarks by which he had been told to identify Market Midston, when his ear noted a change in the rhythmic roar of the engine. The next moment it had stopped.

The monoplane was flying high, and Honiton knew that there was no immediate cause for alarm. With a gentle gradient he glided down, hoping against hope that he would be able to restart the engine. But it was obdurate, and Honiton realised that his first care must be to effect a safe landing.

In the darkness he was scarcely able to distinguish what lay below. He knew the dangers of hedges and ditches. More difficult still was the calculating of his height. The shrouded earth leapt up towards him faster and faster. He had suddenly to swerve in order to escape a clump of trees that seemed to rush on him from nowhere. Then the nose of the monoplane plunged into a hayrick, and Honiton was flung violently from his seat.

He picked himself up, gingerly feeling his bones for fractures. To his infinite relief he had escaped with only a few bruises. But a wing of his machine was broken beyond repair. He surveyed his shattered machine with disgust and resentment. To fail when success seemed assured was bitter indeed. Ten minutes before he had smiled complacently to himself as he had noted how the machine was eating up the miles. He had allowed himself to think of Marjorie, of his triumphant return, of the prize well won. Now, Marjorie was as far off from him as ever.

He did not observe the approach of a farmer, who stopped to gaze in astonishment at what had threatened the stability of his hayrick.

"Have you hurt yourself?" demanded the man.

"Hullo!" Honiton turned on him. "No. I'm all right. Smashed the machine, though."

"So I see. I don't hold wi' them things. You might have fallen on somebody's head."

"I'm glad I didn't fall on my own. Where am I?"

"At Little Trensham."

"Station here?"

"No. Two miles to the nearest Station."

"What's that?"

"Market Midston."

"What!" Honiton flushed with excitement.

"Aye. Market Midston, sure. Two mile away."

"By all that's wonderful, I'm In luck! I want to got there by eight. It's terribly important. That's why I flew here. I've got twenty minutes. Can I get a trap?"

"Not in time. Best run for it."

"Look after my machine. I'll make it worth your while," was all that Honiton took time to say. Buttoning on his coat, he stumbled across the dark field to the road, and ran in the direction indicated by the farmer. He was trembling with the shock of his fall, but he forced himself doggedly on.

"WITHOUT SAYING any more I now call upon the Right Honorable D. I. Maesbrook to address the meeting."

The chairman sat down amid tumultuous applause which broke into a roar as Mr. Maesbrook rose to his feet.

"Mr. Chairman, my lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began.

Then he glanced with a flicker of annoyance towards the door leading on to the platform. Behind the door loud voices could be heard protesting. The door shook as though somebody had been violently propelled, against  it. The next moment it burst open, and a mud-stained, dishevelled, man could be seen pushing an official on to the platform while several attendants sought to hold him back.

"Give him that paper, you fool!" cried the man.

Mr. Maesbrook held out his hand. Silently he took the paper and laid it on his desk. Then he braced himself for his speech.

"Read it," cried Honiton, through the half shut door. "For heaven's sake, read it!"

Mr. Maesbrook hesitated. Then he glanced at the paper. He smiled slightly, and tore it into small pieces.

"All right," he said curtly. Then he began.

Honiton shrugged his houlders. He could do no more. He had won, after all. He was in time. He had carried out his part of the bargain. If Maesbrook failed to realise what the document meant that was no business of his. Followed by the angry complaints of the attendants, whom he had treated with scant ceremony, he made his way to the back of the hall. He waited to hear the speaker's apology for the failure of his Act— for the excuses which were inevitable. Instead he heard Maesbrook, his voice ringing with that emphatic triumph which is the reward of Ministers whom chance allows to carry out their promises. He waited for the glowing peroration, the shouts and bravos of enthusiatic supporters, and then he was carried by the stress of the throng into the vestibule.

He was leaving the hall when a steward caught his arm.

"Mr. Maesbrook wants to see you," he said. Mr. Maesbrook detached himself from the group of admirers in the retiring room.

"'I am much obliged to you for bringing that information," he said. "How did you get here in time?"

"I flew."

"You what?"

"I flew. I came in my monoplane. I'd have been here earlier, only the beastly engine went wrong two miles off, and I had to come down."

"You look as if you came down rather  badly."

"Oh, not so bad. The machine is smashed, though."

"But why did you do it? I got the message an hour ago."

"What's that?"

"Yes; Presteyn telephoned to me. He mentioned that a messenger had left. He seemed to forget for the moment that a telephone had been laid on to the hall. So you see—"

"Well, I'm damned!"

"I'm sorry you've had all this trouble for nothing, Mr.—"

"Captain Honiton."

"Oh. The Captain Honiton?"

"Honiton of the Royal Flying Corps."

Maesbrook held out his hand. "I'm very glad to meet you, sir," he said. "Now I know why you undertook this flight. Your sense of duty does you credit, sir. You— ah— you are one of those brave fellows of whom we— ah— we are very proud. I shall not fail to bring your performance before the notice of the— ah —proper authorities— privately, of course. Very plucky indeed."

Honiton tried to hide a broad grin. He might have told his motive, but, after all, why should he?

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, sir,"  was all he said.

Six weeks later Major Honiton was married to Miss Marjorie Belmont in St. Margaret's, Westminster. It was a very smart wedding, and among those present were Lord Presteyn and Mr. Maesbrook.

Honiton's subsequent promotion is generally regarded as sensational in its rapidity.

__________________

9: When Rogues Fall Out

Dorothea Conyers

World's News (Sydney) 10 May 1919

"IF ANYONE was to ax me for apples," said Mr. Mat Sheedy bitterly, "it would be sure to be just the hour when there were only cherries on the trees."

He looked hard at an open letter, read it again, and frowned. It ran as follows:—

General Hillyard wants a real good horse, the right thing. Well bred, up to weight, fast enough to win a hunter's race. I know you wouldn't have it yourself, but Mr. Blundell might, or Mr. Rivers, so let me know. He'd pay two-fifty or more.

"Bedam," said Mat heavily. Knowing it to be perfectly useless, he went out to walk round his ramshackle yard. The centre was several feet deep with strawy manure; coppery and noisime pools glimmered in the hollows, and behind closely closed doors, five horses stood on dirty bedding, their coats shining under their ragged rugs.

A grey mare, fired for curbs. A showy bay, back of his knees and slack of his middle. A very good-looking brown, too bad a whistler to pass even with doctoring. Sheedy reviewed them in turn, grunting at each one.

"Good enough to pass on to some brave young soldiers that is active on their feet," he muttered, "but for a chaser— Danny, is there a blood horse anywhere that could be med up?"

"Andy Talty I heard tell bought one," said Danny, the helper.

Mr. Sheedy bit a straw, and, not liking the flavor of it, spat it out before he remarked that Andy and himself were not great.

"Frindly enough as far as the time of day goes," he muttered, "but, like a badly baked pie, he's sour below."

"He should have the bay mare forgot be now," said Danny.

"There is some that never forgets except to Father Pat," said Sheedy, crossly. "But if there is a horse to be got." Then his eyes lighted. He squelched across the manure heap to pull open the door of a large shed.

"The Sultan!" he almost yelped.

"That'll sthand one gallop an that could be thraced aisy to ye," snorted Danny.

A splendid bay horse stood in the hot gloom. Deep-hearted, well let down, with fine shoulders and a lean head perfectly set on, but as he moved round he limped and stood easing one of his well-shaped fore-legs. Mat had bought him when he broke down a year before. He had patched him up twice, but before he could show him to anyone the leg had filled again.

"I'll go across," said Sheedy. "I have an idee."

He left his slated house to take a path across a brown-hued patch of bog land. The withering grasses swayed in the soft October wind. The deep gaps made by the cutting of the turf showed like black gashes with brown pools of still water below as though the cut bog's blood had gathered and lay there. A narrow road ran through the desolate bog, but Mr. Sheedy picked his way through the centre, sometimes skirting a patch of treacherous green, jumping from tussock to tussock, or across a glimmer of deep water until he reached sound ground and made for a small thatched cottage standing in a hollow with a few straggling trees round it. An attempt at a garden sent its straggling pleas to the God of flowers in the front; a few Michaelmas daisies still struggling through the grass and docks.

Andy Talty's sister had once been imbued with ambition to win a prize in a cottagers' show, but had married and gone away and never tried it in her new home, declaring flowers to be a worse trouble than childer.

Andy was a bland little man, with a perpetually greasy look, as if all his kindness had melted down and oozed out over his smiling face. His voice was low and sweet. The Taltys had been horse dealers for generations, running together in clannish fashion when anyone else was to be done, and never above selling something hopeless to each other if any member of the family was fool enough to buy it.

Andy had got rid of three to his astute brother Nat by remarking "That dam brute is no use, lave him there," and shutting the stable door, thus imbuing Nat with the idea that the animal in question was a treasure which wanted time and skilful doctoring.

Mat Sheedy whistled to announce his arrival. Andy Talty slid, he never appeared to walk, round the corner of the house and nod ded good evening. There was the faintest trace of reserve in his greeting.

Mat Sheedy wanted, ostensibly, a harness cob for a customer, with so many virtues that Andy, after a look at a grey Roman nose stuck out over a half-door, remarked thoughtfully that Mat had better be lookin' on the Elishan Fields for what he wanted, for the likes of it was not on earth.

"Unless ye could take a bit of action here and manners there an' blend up a horse," said Andy, "and paint him over with a price of two hundred guineas the ways the big dealers disguises what they wants to sell. For fifty pound what ye want isn't made, carrin' all the week and sthandin at Mass on Sundays, Mat."

"Thinkin' ye might have one I gave ye the preference," said Mat, swallowing benevolently.

"Ye'd always be the one to try to do me the good turn," returned Andy, simply. "I have a good grey drivin' cob there, but he is only an ordinary cob, just quick to harness, with a shy and a heiss at the back of his mind. Will ye step inside. Mat?"

They walked into the stuffy back parlor, which smelt of mahogany and whisky, and a decanter was produced.

Mat drank some of the fresh and fiery spirit, and ate biscuits. Since it is always polite to eat with a guest, Andy took tea.

They talked amicably of hunting and horses, of the gaps made by the war, and the difficulty of producing the right stuff.

And then Mat pulled out his letter. "Look what I could get. if I had me eye on the horse —and a bit of profit to divide with the man who found him for me."

Andy's blue eyes lit up. He knew that Mat had come over for a reason. He read the letter carefully.

"There's ye'r black mare," he said, "or the bay."

"From what is in the letter," said Mat, the man has the appearance of knowing a good horse. Betune friends, Andy, them two horses must go to buyers that'll be taken with coats and ginger. Boys have a great passion on tails," he finished emphatically, "Great entirely. "But—" he leant across the table

"There's the Sultan."

"That ye bought in open auction, a well-known racehorses," said Andy, crisply.

"He might aisily have died on me be now or gone to farrum work," said Mat. "Only ould Danny knows of him now. I have no helper. I could not be sellin' the Sultan, but if I heard tell of a friend of mine had a great blood hunter, an' brought the General here. Blood hunters bought in fairs break down, an' no word to be said. An'— there is a hundred pound in it, Andy, for yer trouble."

The fire in Andy's eyes brightened, the kindly look deepened on his face. He seemed to simmer in an oil bath of kindliness.

Mat went on talking. The bog road was almost deserted, a hooded, sheeted horse could slip along it in the dark unseen by anyone. Andy could give out that he had a good thoroughbred not on view. In fact, Danny had heard that he had one.

The two talked it over, Andy simmering softly, and finally Mat Sheedy, smiling, hurried back across the bog, to take out a sheet of flimsy paper, and pen an elaborately careful letter

"A friend of his had the very thing. A big blood horse, deep bay, sound and a great lepper. Seven year old; fast as motor-cars. The pedigree was unbeknownst, but it was stamped on the horse, an' if the buyer was knowledge able, he'd know any pedigree was but the twist of a tongue. The horse could be ready to be seen in a week or so, or any day."

The matter ran on oiled wheels. Guinane, the big dealer, communicated with his client, mentioning the fact that Sheedy had spotted two or three high-priced horses for him in his time. The Sultan, renamed Tally Ho, had his leg boiled and reboiled until the doubtful tendon lay flat and fine. He was put over a couple of banks, Mat thanking a kindly God above when the tendon still held; and finally, one dark night. The Sultan went as a sheeted ghost along the road to Ballina, to be received by Andy Talty in person and stabled in the biggest loose box.

On the following day General Hillyard arrived in a motor-car, accompanied by Guinane, a ferrety-looking youth with marvellous breeches and gaiters, and a diamond horse-shoe pin in his tie.

They looked, as in duty bound, at Sheedy's horses— the General praising them all with the heartiness of a man who knew he would never own them, until he saw the whistling brown, and this he offered to buy for a friend if it jumped, well.

The brown having acquitted himself perfectly over the banks all round, flown a stone wall, and hopped a stick, Mat parted with him for a price which left no room for profit, being anxious, as he said inwardly, to put a smooth glaze on things.

They then spun over the narrow bog road, with its yawning ditches cut clear on either side, and the marks of The Sultan's hoofs deep in the grass at the right.

Andy received them blandly. Yes, he had a great blood horse. He had bought him in it lair at Galway. Pedigree?

"They gave me one from Eclipse down to The Tetrarch," said Andy, chuckling sweetly, "but I could give as good a one meself and make it more modern like. 'There isn't a grey hair on him,' says I, when the owner rowled out The Tetrarch's name. 'There is a white patch on his quarter,' says he, an' there he had me."

General Hillyard smiled discreetly.

Andy was benevolence from head to heel, coupled with a carelessness which made Mat Sheedy nervous. What if his ally should sell him by neglecting to stupe The Sultan's leg? He shivered slightly as the horse's box was opened.

"Hatchin' a chill ye are, Mat," said Andy sympathetically, "or they do be sayin' them shivers is a sign of a troubled conscience, but Mat Sheedy wouldn't have that same."

The door swung to show The Sultan, now named Tally Ho, littered to his powerful hocks in golden wheat straw. His skin threw off a bloom. He had been fattened with discretion, so as not to look soft.

As he was wheeled round Mat saw the look on Hillyard's face which means that all was right.

The big bay was a model of what he would have been, a high-class chaser.

He was taken out and cantered, his smooth level stride eating.the level field; he acquitted himself well over two banks, a few gaps, and a wide trench, and Guinane examined him.

Mat's teeth gritted a little as the dealer's hand fluttered over the bad tendon.

"Seems a little full," he said.

"He is short of work," said Andy carelessly, "an' we done a lot of leppin' with him yestherday."

As the horse was galloped for, his wind General Hillyard stood admiring him.

"He is exactly what I have been looking for," he said blithely. "Too good just to chase foxes on over here."

Then the General went on to enlarge on various buys and one or two unfortunate occurrences.

"I never overlook being cheated." he said. "One or two people who have had me have been sorry for it afterwards, I tell you, Sheedy, for I follow things up."

Mat Sheedy said emphatically that them that'd do a dirty trick deserved what they'd get, and he did not like the way in which Andy nodded.

There was nothing to do but write the cheque. Two hundred and eighty pounds. Andy had altered the price, and Mat was wondering whether he would dare to try and keep the extra money.

"We can drop you," said Guinane. Mat felt that it was better to go. He was thanked by dealer and purchaser, and the rest of his afternoon was taken up by riding the whistling brown to the station, seeing him off with the splendid Sultan, who slipped into his box quite sound.

THE NEXT morning was fresh and fair. Light clouds played teg with a west wind, scurrying merrily across a playground of blue. Mat rode his grey to Ballina, and slipped off lightly, to greet Andy, who was blistering a big bay two-year-old.

Mat looked round to see there were no listeners.

"Well, that was great," he said happily.

"I think the gentleman liked his horse," said Andy blandly. "Did ye want anythin', Mat?"

"I came for the money," said Mat in surprise; "the hundred and eighty. It was a great deal for ye, Andy."

Andy, getting up, said, "The money for what?" as he absently wiped his tingling hands.

"For The Sultan," said Mat; "for selling me horse." Andy Talty shook his head, a puzzled air veiling his benevolence.

"For me horse," snapped Mat. "The horse that come over. The horse ye sowlt to the General."

"What horse I sowlt to the General?" said Andy. "A horse called Tally Ho. There is a racehorse called The Sultan. Didn't I hear ye name the bay I parted with Tally Ho yerself, Mat Sheedy? Maybe Danny dropped The Saltan in a boghole," said Andy, "he havin' a drop taken. I knows nothin' of him. The only horse as ye saw was Tally Ho, that nice bay, that I sowlt too cheap. But, bein' obliged to ye for the sale, I'd go to ten pound, commission, Mat, and that I'll send ye."

Mat backed away, his month sagging, his face crimson and wet. Words failed him.

"Did ye dream ye sent that old broken chaser here?" said Andy pleasantly.

Speechless, Mat stared. He had no case. To call the aid of the law would be his own damnation for evermore.

"There was the matter of a deal long ago that ye beshted me in, Mat Sheedy. Did ye ever spell quits, me boy, an' feel the letters grate on yer tongue?"

"Ye dirty hound, ye've done me," yelped Mat, leaping to his stirrup.

But on his troubled way home, being an Irishman, he grinned suddenly.

"Begripes, an' he did it nately," he said between his ravings.

Next day he received a dirty note enclosed in a letter, which set forth that it was for commission on sale of Tally Ho to General Hillyard.

The Sultan lasted two months before he broke down, Andy receiving a fervent letter of thanks for such a horse, and a request to find others like him.

"It would take Mat Sheedy to do that," said Andy softly.

__________________

10: Joan's Two-seater

F. Frankfort Moore

World's News (Sydney) 6 Aug 1927

WILLIE ANSON had a good deal to think about this afternoon, and he thought about some of it. He was not accustomed to execute large orders in the way of thinking, but from the moment he had left the offices of Messrs. Lockhart and Grimes in Upper Bedford Place, and learned from them that the property at Mallinghurst would not become his unless the Court gave its decree in his favor when the case came to be tried, he knew that he was face to face with an uneasy time. The solicitors had been so ridiculously cautious that they declined to say positively that he would win. They encouraged him to hope for about five minutes, and then, as he began to hope, they had remarked that the result was really on the lap of the gods. He interred that they wished to convey to him their experience that the result of any lawsuit was as indefinite as the toss of a coin. Only of one thing was he certain, and this was that there would be a good deal of his coin tossed about, before he had done with Messrs. Lockhart and Grimes.

Of course the property bequeathed to him by Sir George Redman had not been entailed; there was the mansion at Mallinghurst, to be sure, but that was not a family affair, it was hardly worth talking about— only a house agent would call the few acres that surrounded It a park; and the money— it would possibly work out at something like forty thousand pounds— "not so much" Mr. Grimes inserted in his partner's statement— Mr. Grimes, he saw. was a sort of brake upon the optimism of his partner— well, whatever it would amount to when the estate was cleared up— the money was in War Loans, and Sir George had been at liberty to leave it to whomsoever he wished.

But then there was that next of kin— a nephew, and he was pretty sure to contest the will. "You know, Mr. Anson, that you were in no way related to Sir George." Mr. Grimes had interpolated.

"Yes, I know that," said Willie. He did not add, as he might have done, that he also knew that his mother had been engaged to be married to the late Sir George Redman, and that the engagement had only been broken off by a foolish misunderstanding between her father and her lover. But how could any one talk of things like that in a solicitor's office?

"That would, you can understand, weigh a good deal with a jury," said Mr. Grimes. "Juries don't like a whole estate passing over to a stranger, Mr. Anson, so it was only to be expected that the nephew. Colonel Summerhill, should feel rather sore about it, and "

"There's no denying it, Mr. Anson, Sir George was somewhat eccentric before his death, and witnesses are always forthcoming in a country place— witnesses who are to swear that everything out of the common is—well, you've heard of testamentary incapacity, I'm sure. Mr. Anson."

"So you think this Colonel Summerhill will contest the will?"

"We have already received Intimation of his intention to do so— Parsons and Palmer are his solicitors. But they may not find all the evidence they look for; so that you may still have a chance."

Those were the parting words of Mr. Lockhart.

And that was how Willie Anson came to feel that he had a good deal to think about, when, after paying a surreptitious visit of curiosity to the Hampshire mansion, and its few acres of grounds which Mr. Grimes had suggested might possibly figure in a house agent's advertisement as a park, he turned aside from the high road into a very inviting country lane in the distance of which he saw the promise of a village. Beyond the furthest trees of a church spire was clearly outlined against the lovely blue sky of an April afternoon.

This was the picture which had often come before his eyes during the three years of his sojourn in Cape Colony, whither he had gone on the death of his mother. He had been private secretary to a high official, and his apartments in the official residence had given him a fine view of the gardens, with their palms and cactuses and magnificent crotons, with the bushes of glistening silver leaves at one side, and a grotesque hedge of prickly pear at the other— a glimpse of sub-tropical luxuriance of plant life, but not one that quite obscured his vision of one of the green lanes of his native Sussex. with a low range of the Downs beyond.

Hampshire was not Sussex, but he felt that the land into which he turned made a very good substitute for the real thing.

He had only viewed the mansion— Redman Place it was named— from the outside, and he had thought that it was the most beautiful house he had ever seen. It was Tudor, and not large, even with the stable buildings. The formal garden of which he had a glimpse was like a picture that he had hung over the mantelpiece in his study, six thousand miles away— only the picture showed a fair-haired English maiden sitting close to the central sundial, but the garden at which he had just glanced had for its lone central figure an elderly gardener, smoking a short black pipe.

What he felt was that that was a place worth fighting for in the Law Courts; he could sympathise with Sir Georges's nephew, who had most probably been looking forward to Inheriting it, and would not allow it to pass away from him without a struggle. Yes, what Messrs. Lockhart and Grimes had said could be easily understood; the will would be contested. For his own part, knowing as he did that Sir George had never cease to love his, Willie's, mother, he felt that he would be doing wrong to the memory of his mother, and to the loyalty of the man whom she had loved, if he were to refrain from defending that last will and testament.

The sound of a motor-horn seemed to him a sort of strident "hear, hear!" to his resolution. He went close to the hedge at the right-hand side of the lane, just where it made a hairpin turn— it was in view of this turn that the warning had come from the car— and at the sound, the moment that the car passed the bend, a child made to run right across the way, then slipped, and fell.  Willie's rush to the child was of the nature of an instinct, and his not waiting to stoop for it but giving it a roll over by getting his foot under it was a football reminiscence. He gave it one roll to safety, staggered, was touched by the mudguard, and fell with his head against the side of the tool-box on the footplate.

Not more than five seconds had elapsed from the sounding of the horn and that crash. He was lying across the road, his hat some yards away, and the child, yelling as it sat up, on this other side. The car was a two-seater. It had pulled up at the oblique angle it had made in its swerve from the obstructing child.

That was what Willie Anson saw when he found his head. He took in the whole scene in a single glance, and he had a feeling of wanting nothing more for the present, except a doze— he would be all right if only he had a doze. So he turned contentedly over on his side, and indulged in the doze of the man who has received the knock-out blow in the ring. That left "hook" of even the smallest two-seater Is a nasty thing to encounter; and Willie Anson lay there long past what would be the count of even the most indulgent referee, had any been present.

When he got rid of his impression of dozing, he found himself in bed— that was his impression of the moment, by reason of the cushions on which his head was lying—and kneeling by his side there was the nurse who had ministered to him when he had been in hospital after his previous knockout in Flanders— no, not the same nurse, another— quite different, and―

"Hallo!" he said. "What has happened? Not shrapnel. Where are the others―?"

"Don't talk," said the nurse. "Someone is coming. Your head—but I don't think it has gone deeper than the skin! That horrid child! Children are worst than chickens! Hear it yell! Shut up, you little―"

It's an right," said he. "I'm all right. I remember now. I didn't quite kick it, but it was a near thing. Oh, that's the car. How do you find the light Standard to go? I say, this is blood— no less."

"No less— rather more," said she, when he sat looking at his fingers.

"Laura mercy. Miss Joan, what ev- you been-and- done- this blessed day?" came an' inquiry from a large-sized man, who had hurried slowly up— the Horatian phrase described his gait exactly.

"You can see, Jim Ridge," said she. "That child of Kate Williams was running into the motor when this gentleman saved her life, and somehow got hit himself. I think his head must be hurt by the look of it from the back."

The man tried to get a back view of Willie's head.

"A bad job, seems to me, Miss Joan," said the man. "I suppose he knows who done it"

"I shouldn't wonder," said she.

"Nobody's fault," said Willie. "You might have run clear of the kid if I hadn't interfered."

"I'll bear witness that he said 'nobody's fault,' " said the man in a low voice, and with the sagacious leer of the cunning yokel.

"You must get into the car. If you can," said the girl, putting her hands under his left arm. "Make an effort. I don't think any bones in your head have been broken, but there's blood— you mustn't bleed to death."

"Not likely." said Willie. "Lor! Look at your cushions!"

He was quite able to move— to sit up. He thought that he had never seen a more charming face than that which was bending over him. As she stooped a wisp of her long bobbed hair touched his face.

"I don't see why I should not get on my feet," said he, and he made an heroic attempt; it succeeded when she had given the wide-mouthed yokel a pull toward his left arm, she was on his right.

"You are getting along splendidly," said she. "If you can only manage the step you're all right."

At the second attempt he did manage the step, and she picked up one of the cushions, and put it on the seat to the left of the steering wheel. He fell hack very comfortably. The yokel retrieved his hat, and brushed the dust off it with his sleeve. The girl got in at the wheel side,

"Take that brat out of the way, Jim," she said, starting the engine: for the child was still sitting on the road. It had found a black beetle, and was absorbed in its movements.

"Where are you taking me? I have a return ticket. Train at 8.10," said he. "I suppose I can have a wash and a brush up at the station."

Tm taking you to my home— not a mile away," said she. "You can have a brush and a wash-up there before you start."

And then she put in the clutch.

He had another doze before they got to the end of the lane, and turned into a broad road, with nursery gardens at one side, and a red brick house or two on the other. She drove through an entrance gate with a lodge, and up a short avenue to a house with a pillared portico and early Georgian windows. He woke in time to take it all in, though in a puzzled, muddled way.

The next thing of which he was conscious was his lying on a bed with a scent of lavender— lavender and Iodine— a puzzling mixture— about him. The beautiful girl was there, and two men, the one tall, with a military bearing, the other in his shirt sleeves, with a reddish, soppy-looking cloth in one hand and a bottle in the other.

"Hallo," said Willie. "I'm afraid I'm giving you a lot of trouble."

"That's all right," said the military gentleman. "You got a nasty knock, but nothing broken."

"Only skin," said the other man. "You've lost some blood. I've got to put a stitch or two in your scalp— that's all."

"And I can catch the 8.10 train to town?"

"Certainly, to-morrow or the day after. Why not, with care?"

"But— I've got nothing with me."

"No dress clothes, you are thinking of?"

"Rather the undress ones— if I'm to sleep here."

"Don't bother about that. You're no taller than I am," said the military man.

"Now," said the doctor, "if I had my own way I should be left alone with my patient."

"Come along, Daddy," said the girl. "I should like to watch the stitching business, but I know how nervous Mr. Smeaton is when anyone is in the room."

"Off we go," said her father. "A stitch in time, you know."

"Saves nine, so that Mr. Smeaton's five will mean a saving of forty-five exactly."

"Exactly," said the doctor, fiddling with his case of instruments.

When the stitches were adjusted, and the operator was washing his hands, Willie said:—

"If I'm to be here for some days I think I should at least know the name of the good people on whom I am billeted. Would you mind putting me wise on this point?"

"The gentleman is Colonel Summerhill, and the girl is his only daughter, Joan. Her mother is downstairs," replied the doctor.

"What?" cried Willie, raising himself much more than he should have done. "What?"

"For heaven's sake, keep quiet," said the doctor. "If you jump up like that you'll undo all my work. You will find the family a very pleasant one, believe me."

"Oh, my aunt!" muttered Willie.

And the doctor was right. Willie Anson found the family the pleasantest he had ever known. He had to remain for three days in bed, by the doctor's orders, and he was assured that he must convalesce for at least another week before submitting himself to a railway journey to London. He had written to his club to have his portmanteau sent on, so that when he left off his borrowed suit of pyjamas he was able to sit down to dinner in the regulation attire. When he was alone with his host he said:—

"I suppose you have guessed that I am the William Seymour Anson referred to in Sir George Redman's will, Colonel Summerhill?"

"I took it for granted," replied the Colonel. "You came down here to inspect your property, I suppose?"

"I don't know that it's mine," said Willie awkwardly. "I feel that it should be yours; I'll not grumble if you win the lawsuit."

"What lawsuit? I've no idea of contesting my uncle's will.  Of course, my solicitors have been urging me to do so— they see a chance of making a good thing out of it, but I'm not such a mug as to play into their hands. No, the old boy gave me to understand that he would only leave me the pictures and the cameos— if I got them I don't want anything else. If you were out after the pictures or the cameos I should fight you to my last ditch."

Willie got up from the table and walked across the room to the window. He stood there looking out ovei the trees to where a young moon was floating serenely. He was overcome by the generosity of the man whom he had defrauded— well, not exactly defrauded— out of a fortune.

That was the beginning of the happiest week of his life— up to the last day; that last day was the most wretched. He had been treated as one of the family by all the household. Colonel Summerhill was a splendid fellow, and his wife, Lady Agatha, was a charming woman. But what of Joan? Well, he spent many hours of this week in the company of Joan, and the remaining hours he spent in making resolutions to leave the next morning without passing another hour near her. When every morning came he cursed himself for his weakness, for he found it impossible to carry out his honorable resolutions.

It was when his period of convalescence had lasted ten days that his host came upon him sitting on a cold stone bench staring moodily at a bed of tulips.

"Look here, old chap," said the Colonel. "I've been watching you for the last day or two. You've something on your mind— maybe on your conscience. Is it anything that has to do with me or— or mine?"

"I'm the most wretched ass in England— in the world!" said Willie in a low voice. "I've been a puppet with a malevolent Fate pulling the strings. But I should have known that it was inevitable. I have allowed myself to fall in love with Joan."

"That's serious. She has refused you. Well, well! But it was my impression that she had a certain tenderness for you. Oh, these girls!"

"I have not spoken to her. I could not— I should have no right, for—I am engaged to marry another girl."

"Oh, that does make a difference. Of course you see that there's only one thing to be done."

"I see so much. What I do not see is how I am to do what I know I am bound to do. What I see is

"Ah, so you fancy. You no longer love the— the girl you are returning to the Cape to marry?"

"I do not think I ever loved her; and what's as bad, I don't believe that she ever loved me."

"Then how in the name of heaven―"

"She has a mother, Colonel— you know the sort of mother— who settles things."

The Colonel laughed.

"I know her— the professional match-making mother. She heard, I daresay, that you had been left this fortune?"

Willie nodded. His eyes were on the ground.

"Well, she's not the first mother who has had her way. That's the last word on the subject. She has caught you, my boy. You would do well to clear off to-morrow."

"No, to-day" cried Willie, jumping up, "To-day!"

"Perhaps— the sooner the better."

Colonel Summerhill came upon his wife in one of the greenhouses, and they had a chat together. An hour later he sought their guest. Willie was packing his portmanteau.

"I wanted to have a word with you, my boy," said he. "But the fact is that I have been thinking over this business of my uncle's will. I've heard from my solicitors, and they assure me that if I contested it I should have a good chance of succeeding. Now, you look at the thing from my point of view: I'm not a rich man―"

"I look at it from my point of view only," cried Willie. "I have felt all along that I was taking what did not belong to me. I told you so at first. I'll not touch a penny of that money. I tried to persuade myself— sophistry— rot—I was not persuaded. I can't tell you how relieved I feel."

"I'm glad to see that you take that view of the matter," said the Colonel. "And I hope you may be happy through doing the honorable thing in regard to that girl. Of course, you know that the honorable thing to do now is to cable to her telling her that you have abandoned all claim to the property."

"I suppose that must be the first thing to do. Then I'll take my passage on the Lewes Castle on Saturday and be in Capetown in a fortnight, when I can explain everything fully."

"Quite so. That is the honorable course to pursue. You have shown yourself to be a man of honor, William Seymour Anson, and you deserve to be happy. You need not bother saying good-bye to Joan. As a matter of fact, she has gone to Westerhurst on an errand for her mother."

Willie left that day for town, and sent a cablegram to Capetown the same evening, for which he disbursed the sum of forty-five shillings and ninepence.

Two days later Colonel Summerhill received a less expensive message from him.

Coming back twelve eighteen train.

Anson.

The Colonel laughed. His wife was content to smile. The telegram was left lying about, and when Joan saw it she turned rosy as a tulip— one of the roseate sort.

When the 12.18 train brought Willie Anson to Mallinghurst, he took a taxi to the house, and hurried into the hall with a yellow cable message in his hand. The Colonel read it.

Deeply regret, Millicent married Honorable Thompson this morning.

―Harriet Gleeson.

"And who is 'Honorable Thompson'?" asked Mrs. Summerhill.

"The second aide-de-camp— a decent young fellow. God bless him."

"And who is Harriet Gleeson?" asked the Colonel.

"I know who she's not," cried Willie. "She's not my mother-in-law, and never shall be. Is Joan in the garden?"

He was in the garden within a minute, and within another minute she in his arms.

________________

11: The Silent Model

Carolyn Wells

1862-1942

World's News (Sydney) 11 Nov 1916

KAY LEVERING painted vigorously at his canvas. He was an inveterate talker, and often chattered volubly as he worked.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed impatiently. "I'm in a groove! Not setting into one, but established in one; rooted, grounded, riveted, in a rut! My magazine covers are all the same— the deadly same— each month. Miss Palmer is a splendid model— couldn't ask for a better— but even with a different hat on she looks the same. I've done every possible combination and permutation of accessories. There's nothing left but a boudoir cap and furs— and that suggests a sensational Metropolitan fire."

Then he added, after a pause, "Miss Palmer, is there any other way you could do your hair?"

"I don't think so, Mr. Levering," said the pretty model in a bored voice. "I've done it in every possible way. I've copied every fashion to be found in the papers."

"By Jove! then I believe I'll do you shampooing it! I've got to have something new!"

Miss Palmer smiled faintly, but kept her pose. She was used to these outbreakings in demand of novelty.

All this happened in the morning. It was late that afternoon, almost dusk, when the foolish imitation antique knocker on Kay Levering's studio door gave forth its hard, gruff sounds.

"Come in," growled the artist, as he rose. But nobody came in, so he opened the door.

Two ladies stepped timidly into the studio.

Into Levering's quick brain flashed the line, "Kay Levering, the Celebrated Portrait Painter," and be wondered whether he would really prefer it to just "Kay Levering," which was too well known to need "Celebrated Magazine-cover Artist" after it. But he was sure these were society ladies in search of a likeness, though their dress was exceedingly simple and inconspicuous.

One of the visitors spoke. "Do you want a model?" she said.

Quick as was Levering's understanding, he was a bit floored at this. But instinct made him look appraisingly at the speaker, and then he replied courteously but cautiously, "I'm afraid I don't need one at present."

"To be sure," he thought swiftly, "she would be a change. But I doubt if the magazine editors would stand for a pleasant-faced matron of fifty on their covers."

"I'm sorry," went on the visitor, "but my niece is so anxious to pose for you!"

And then the other threw back her veil, and looked at Levering with a violet gaze that took away not only his breath, but his power of thinking. He could only talk.

"I do want a model," he exclaimed. "Indeed I do! I was thinking only to-day that I must get a model! I've painted my present one so often that I've given the public every expression of her face—every—"

"They're entirely familiar, to me," said the elder lady dryly. "I've seen them every month for years."

"Several each month," murmured Levering, jealous for his popularity.

"Yes, on various magazines. Your model is beautiful— or perhaps exceedingly pretty would be a more exact term to use."

But Levering was unheeding. He was looking at the girl before him, a model as much prettier than any of his pictures as his pictures were prettier than the models they were painted from.

"And so," serenely continued the lady in charge of affairs, "my niece, Miss Ellison, wishes to pose for you, if you care to have her do so."

Levering's intellect flashed back into his brain, where it belonged, just in time to keep him from making a fool of himself.

"I do," he said, forcing himself to speak with less velocity. "I shall be very glad to employ her— very glad. I may say it is my rule to take only models that are recommended by my personal friends, but in this case I shall be glad to make an exception. Can the young lady come to-morrow?" And then the new model smiled at him.

Now, Levering was a connoisseur in smiles. He knew their every variation. He knew their whole alphabet from Angel to Zany, and he knew them well. But this was a new one to him. It was a smile with a dimple at each end, and it completely floored him. Reason tottered on her throne, and he to put his hand to his manly brow to steady Her Majesty. In mercy, the new model ceased to smile; but then her expression of suppliance was like that of the Mater Dolorosa. There was no other resemblance, though. This girl had what is technically known as a "flower face"— Quite unlike the lady of Signor Reni's brush. This girl had blue eyes, yellow hair, pink cheeks, red lips, white teeth, and a flesh-colored skin; but in each case a peculiar perfection of tint had been chosen. This, of course, makes violets, rose-leaves, cherries, pearls, and spun gold worthless as comparison, though I once saw a beautiful pink rose that was just the color of her cheeks. But now you know what she looked like.

Then the elder lady went on. "I am Mrs.Maiden," she said, almost as if she had just come in; "and I will attend to all the details. Would you like my niece to come mornings?"

"Yes," said Levering, choking back the "and afternoons and evenings" that struggled for utterance.

"Very well; and now as to terms."

These were amicably settled, for Mrs. Maiden's calm common-sense called forth a responsively rational attitude on Levering's part, and the usual rates were agreed upon. "But there is one positive stipulation that must be made before we consider this affair settled," said Mrs. Maiden, "and if, when you hear it, you desire to withdraw from your part of the contract, you may do so."

"Heaven forbid!" murmured Levering, and Mrs. Maiden went on:—

"If you employ Miss Ellison as a model it is with the understanding that she can never speak to you."

"Is she dumb?" gasped Levering, almost struck dumb himself at this revelation.

"I decline to answer that," said Mrs. Maiden severely. "It is a stipulation that she is not to speak to you, or to anyone, while she here. Is this satisfactory?"

"Well, I should hardly say satisfactory; but if it must be— well, I'll chance it."

"You may talk to her all you wish, give directions as to her posing and all that, but she will not speak to you in reply."

"Suppose the lady elects to talk to me?" suggested Levering hopefully.

"She won't," and Mrs. Maiden shook her head positively. "But the fact of, her inviolable silence being understood, the contract may remain."

A few moments after, Levering found himself bowing the two out, and he could fairly feel the dazed and rapt expression on his own countenance. He relaxed his facial muscles sufficiently for a few short, sharp, staccato whistles, and then gave way to a volley of excited thought.

After a while he quieted down a bit and fell to putting his studio to rights. He was late at dinner that night, but he wouldn't leave hits studio until it was in that condition of neatness and order that is commonly known as apple-pie.

He expected Miss Ellison at eleven the next morning. Consequently, by ten he was in front of his easel, zealously setting his palette.

"I ought," he mused softly, "to have all new paints, and fairy brushes, and— oh, canvas is too coarse for her delicate beauty. I ought to have Ivory. Yes, I shall become a miniature painter—or how about a gold background— sort of Fra Angelico scheme— or—"

The thumping knocker caused a responsive thumping in his heart, and then Miss Ellison came in.

Again he saw that marvel face; again he gasped. "Good morning," he said blithely, regaining his departing breath just in time.

The smile came then, with its dimpled ends, but Levering had braced himself for it, and didn't give way visibly.

Demurely the model walked about, took off her hat and cloak, touched her finger-tips to the golden glory that hovered round her temples, and, going toward the model-throne, paused inquiringly for directions.

It might have been a bit embarrassing, but Levering was determined not to allow any awkwardness to mar the situation.

"Yes," he said, in his big, good-natured way; "yes, we'll go right to work. I'll do you as a Spring Maid, I think. Try this."

With his unerring instinct for effect, he laid a small wreath of wild roses lightly across her hair, and placed a huge tangle of the same blossoms in her arm.

"Hackneyed scheme," he chatted easily, as he picked up his charcoal, "but wait till you see the finish. Yes— so, Miss Ellison. Can you hold that pose?"

Not even an answering nod of assent, but a fleeting gleam of smile, told him she could, and she did.

The morning flew. Levering worked as if impelled by the force of pure genius. He blocked in his Spring Maid in Primavar colors. He caught a hovering smile, as luring as the Mona Lisa's. He fell to singing as he worked, and he even whistled softly—with him a sign of deepest concentration.

"I wish I knew your first name," he burst out suddenly. "Not that I would call you by it," he added hastily, as the dimples dropped off the ends of the smile. "But it would help to realise you, don't you know. Of course, you can't tell me, but I may guess, mayn't I? Is it Perilla?"

There was no answering expression of any sort. The pansy-blue eyes looked straight across the room and seemed not to see him.

"Ah, I thought not," he went on pleasantly. "I'm sorry. I had hoped you were the Princess Perilla. But I know now; it is Amaryllis, I'll do you next as 'Amaryllis in the Shade.' Great! Leaves and shadows of leaves on a sunny wall behind you! Oh, I say, Miss Ellison, we're going to make people sit up!"

He could scarcely tell whether his model was offended or gratified, but he didn't pause consider. He worked rapidly, almost frantically, half fearing he might never again have the chance.

At one o'clock, Miss Ellison rose calmly, dropped her flowers, stretched her lovely arms a little, and smiled.

"By Jove! I've kept you two hours without a rest! I'm a brute! Can you forgive me? I'll never do it again. Truly, I didn't—"

But the Silent Model was already sticking in her third hat-pin, and then, declining his assistance, she flung on her cloak. A smile and nod, and she was gone. He ran to the window, and saw her get into a waiting taxi-cab.

The days went by. Every week-day, except Wednesday and Saturday, Miss Ellison posed. Though the wonder of her beauty never lessened, after a time they began to feel a little more acquainted. At least, he did, and he hoped that she did, because her smiles were a little more varied and intelligible. He had learned the smile of approval, of weariness, of fearthat came only when someone knocked at the door; of relief when he refused to admit said intruder; of interest, of curiosity, of gratitude, or of reproof. The last when he overstepped, even by a hair's-breadth, the line of convention or formality.

But it was hard not to-do this.

"By Jingo, you little witch!" he burst out one day, "how do you suppose I m going to stand this? You've got to talk to me, or I'll die of plain, ordinary curiosity! Why don't you speak, you Top Blossom of an Apple Tree? Just say it's a pleasant day, or how's your mother, or anything. But say something!— You— you get on his nerves!"

The smile faded. Miss Ellison rose slowly, carefully set down the stuffed dove she had been holding against her cheek, and with a displeased frown went toward her hat.

"Oh, don't go!" cried Levering, tearing his hair— or, at least, pulling at it wildly. "I didn't mean it! I'll never ask you to speak again! Forgive me! Don't go! I don't want you to speak— I'd much rather you wouldn't. Don't go— see, I beg you—"

He fell on his knees before her, a foolish, frantic, absurd, but earnest suppliant.

Miss Ellison laughed.

Levering jumped up and glared at her. ''Don't ever do that again!" he stormed, scowling hard. "I can somehow live through your face; I can, by struggling, survive your smile; but one more laugh like that would kill me! There is a limit to a man's endurance!"

Well, of course, it was a wonderful laugh. The purling of a mountain brook, the chime of silver bells, might be used to describe it, but really it wasn't a bit like either. It was a soft, delicious, tickled little laugh, with a hint of roguishness in it, which last trait, be it known, Miss Ellison had never before exhibited in Mr. Levering's studio.

With a gracious but exceedingly dignified smile, the Silent Model returned to her pose, caressed her dove against her soft, pink cheek, and dropped her eyes to hide a twinkle that wouldn't be suppressed. Levering grew wily and pretended, not to notice all this, though his thoughts jabbered and rattled on like mad.

"Who is she, anyway?" he demanded of himself. "She's no ordinary model. I don't believe she's ever posed before. And to think I don't even know her address. It's like the song, 'I only know she came and went like something in a dream,' but she comes and goes in a taxi."

"Have you ever posed before?" he asked in a politely even tone.

Miss Ellison looked straight at him, but gave no sign of having heard him. Her glance was not vacant or unintelligent; merely placid and disinterested. Moreover, it seemed to hold a warning, and he felt if be questioned her again she would run away.

"So," quoth he to himself, "I'll talk at her till I provoke her to an answer."

"I had a model once," he observed conversationally, "who looked quite a heap like you. She had a better profile, though— I beg your pardon," as an ultra-violet ray seemed to shoot from Miss Ellison's eye. "You must forgive my talking like that. You know, to an artist, models are entirely impersonal, and we speak of a profile or facial angle as casually as we would of the colors of a sunset."

"Who-ee! my lady," he whispered to himself, in congratulation, 'that jarred you some, didn't it?" Then he chuckled, though inaudibly, to see the least deeper touch of rose on his model's cheeks and the least hint of chagrin in her disdainful smile. He put both these into his picture, and afterward read in a fool review it was "arrestive!"

After this the atmosphere became surcharged with a certain subtle consciousness on the part of both of them. A psychologist would have said they were becoming en rapport; but the plain truth was that Levering's curiosity was piqued to the utmost, and Miss Ellison knew it. Their relations were simply those of artist and model. Every week he paid her the salary agreed upon, and she took it with a smile.

His pictures were wonderful. His fame was growing, and magazines editors and art dealers besieged him, terrible as an army with banners.

None of these would he see during working hours. No fellow artist had ever seen his model, and few knew he had one. Most of those who saw his pictures assumed an entire imagination or a greatly exaggerated representation of a model.

One morning an inspiration came to Levering, and he instituted a ceremony of tea at twelve o'clock. He informed Miss Ellison gravely that she needed a mild stimulant during such a long pose.

She accepted the innovation with real delight, and made tea for them both in such a charming manner that Levering was unstably balanced on the very short step between the artistic temperament and absolute imbecility.

One morning while they were tea-drinking, a belated mail arrived. After a smile-granted permission, Levering opened a few of his letters.

"Isn't it a shame," he said thoughtfully, "how people neglect people whom they really like? Now, here's a note from my cousin, Nell Drayton, asking me why I don't come to see her."

The Silent Model smiled into her dimples, as if interested, and Levering went on: "Nell is the dearest girl, and we've always been chums, and I always mean to go and see her, but somehow I never get started. Well, my Honorable Princess Appleblossom, if you've finished your tea, suppose you drop back into that Summer Girl picture. They want it for August, and It's May already."

So you can see there was a rather nice camaraderie between them, and as Levering never really intruded on Miss Ellison's silence, their friendship, grew. Sometimes during a rest he would read poetry to her, or even was personal and confidential in his talk about himself— his real self and his aims. Then the smiles on his model's face became so eloquent and so appreciative and so sympathetic that he had to go right straight back to his work.

One morning the Silent Model came in a new mood. Usually she arrived with a demure smile of conventional politeness; but this morning she came in smiling gaily. It was a warm day in late May. She threw off her light wrap, and disclosed a bewildering summery gown of palest green, with knots of dark green velvet. A broad hat with a wreath of pink roses and white ribbon streamers sat well back on her head. Her gold hair was a-tangle, her violet eyes were shining. Her whole attitude was not demure, but glad, and gay, and almost roguish.

Levering looked at her, undecided whether to clasp her wildly in his arms— and so lose her for ever— or not— when she pirouetted up to him, caught his hands in hers and led him round the studio in a gay, light-hearted little dance. Then, as suddenly, she dropped his bands, made an adorable, saucy curtsey, and ran to her model-throne with a smile as of a child caught stealing jam.

Levering communed with himself. If, he thought rapidly, he should presume on this, and assume a better acquaintance, she might fly away home. So, though sorely against his inclination, he drew up to his easel and went silently to work.

This astonished her, and the pansy-blue eyes opened wide.

"Good work!" said Levering to himself. "Keep it up, old boy!" He worked on steadily, and the eyes grew wider and more surprised looking, and at last— yes; surely, it was the suggestion of a pout on the Cupid's bow that served her for a mouth!

"A little gayer expression, please, Miss Ellison," he said, in a business-like and purposely irritating voice.

His plan worked. His model made a distinct moue at him and then immediately assumed the desired expression of gaiety.

"A little more intelligence in your glance," Levering said wickedly, and was rewarded by a flash of anger that made him blink.

He looked at her pleasantly. "Some day," he said, "I'm going to make you very angry, and paint you as you look then. And some day"— his voice fell lower— "some day I'm going to paint you crying. A true picture of you, with those blue eyes full of unshed tears, will be a masterpiece!"

He stopped talking, his thoughts busy with the composition of this new idea, when Miss Ellison brushed her hand across her eyes and drooped her head to a new pose.

"Jove!" cried Levering. "Don't move! Don't!" He whisked a fresh canvas into place, snatched a charcoal, and began to draw the face before him. There were no tears in the violet eyes, but the rest of the face was the most beautiful picture of a sorrowing maiden ever shown to mortal eyes.

"Don't move," implored Levering, "though she hadn't. "Oh, don't! Keep it up! Think of the day you broke your first doll, the day your kitten died, the day you lost your penny—oh, think of anything doleful and sad! Gee! what a chance!"

On he worked.

At last, "Rest he said, and then with amazement he saw it was two o'clock!

"Why didn't you tell me?" he cried. "Even if you couldn't speak, you could have rested— you could have gone home— you could have— hit me, or something!"

Miss Ellison seemed to bear no ill-will. She smiled sweetly at him, left her place, and dawdled— yes, dawdled— about the room.

Levering was both bewitched and bewildered. What could she want? A tin cracker-box stood on the table. With a glad smile, Miss Ellison opened it, and immediately closed it, making a wry face, for it held old paint-tubes.

"Great jumping jinks, she's hungry!" thought Levering. "I say, Miss Ellison, it's long past your lunch-time, isn't it?"

She nodded yes, with an expectant smile. "Shall I— would you like me to— that is, could I go out and get you some crackers?"

Disappointment clouded the blue eyes; a sad little smile, without dimples, curved the red mouth; and Miss Ellison's head oscillated from side to side, indicating a very positive negative. She moved toward her cloak— and a great, preposterous idea came to Kay Levering.

"Would you— now, don't kill me— would you go to lunch with me somewhere?"

Miss Ellison beamed. Her smile so irradiated the whole place that Levering was nearly blinded. More than that, she pirouetted a few steps of the little dance she had indulged in when she first came in that morning. Then she pointed to the date on the calendar.

Levering looked, comprehending. "Oho! I'm getting there. To-day is some sort of a fête day!"

She nodded vigorously and smiled enchantingly.

"Perhaps your birthday?" And the gold head nodded like a carved Chinese mandarin.

"Well, it's the greatest day in the world for me! How old are you? I mean, many happy returns! Come on! Where shall we go?"

As she waited expectantly he named a gorgeous hostelry, but this met with a decided head-shake of refusal. A lesser restaurant shared the same fate; and then Levering said: "I know a ducky little place near here; just a tea-room, the Louisa Henrietta. Will you go there?"

A beaming smile accepted this invitation, and Levering tripped across the room on air, to get his rose-colored hat from its rose-coloured peg.

The next hour gave him much the same sensations of happiness that the Christmas pantomime used to when he was a child.

To order luncheon for his beautiful companion; to watch her exquisite pink-tipped finger as it pointed out the dishes she desired on the dainty but rather limited menu; to see her smile as he suggested a possible choice, and smilingly nod approval or dissent— all this was fascinating beyond words to tell.

He entertained her with conversation. He talked of the opera, and learned that she went often, and that their favorites were the same. He talked of travel, and found she had wandered afar. He talked of books, and found her well-read in certain fields. He talked of pictures, and there she was conversant with the best.

The hour flew, and they left the lunch-room.

"Mayn't I go home with you?" he said; but she shook such a decided negative that he apologised; and even as he spoke, she held up her finger at a passing taxi-cab. He put her in, saying casually, "Where shall I tell him to go?"

She smiled, and merely pointed straight ahead with her very useful index finger.

He sighed, but said to the driver, "Go on. The lady will give you directions after a block or so."

Her smile of gratitude and appreciation assured him that he had done the right thing.

Then he went home, and talked with himself after the manner of that mythical relation known as a Dutch uncle.

"Kay," he said kindly but firmly, "it won't do! She's a beauty and a darling, and you're crazy over her, but it won't do."

"Why not?" he asked himself belligerently. "Because you don't know anything about her." "But I— oh, hang it all! I love her!

"I don't believe it's real love—it's too sudden. And you can't marry a girl you know nothing of. You're a decent, God-fearing citizen; you come of an aristocratic and well-known family: and you can't— you mustn't— fall in love with a model."

"But she isn't like a model. She's cultured, she's—"

"How do you know she's cultured? You never even heard her speak."

"I've heard her laugh."

"Yes. I forgot that laugh for the moment. Nobody could laugh like that who wasn't all of earth's best. But it won't do, old man, and you must chuck it."

"I guess you're right. I'll chuck it."

And chuck it he did. When Miss Ellison came the next day he was the cool, polite artist, and she the calm, demure model again. He had laid aside the tearful picture and returned to the Summer Girl.

"Raise your chin the least bit, please," he  directed, and she did.

"Smile a trifle more", and she did.

But after an hour of steady work he saw her smile suddenly fade, her face droop, and— yes, a tear on her pink cheek.

"Miss Ellison!" he exclaimed, springing up. She raised her eyes to his, and they were brimming.

"Don't move!" he cried, as he dashed for his other canvas. "Those tears! Those eyes! Oh, hold that pose!"

She did, and with a few quick strokes these tears were immortalised.

"Oh!" he cried, as he flung down his brushes. "Oh, you darling!" and with two strides he was at her side and had crushed her in his arms.

"My little girl!" he cried. "My little girl! Oh, my darling, how I love you!"

Two tiny fists pounded his broad chest; two Shoulders and arms wriggled wildly in an attempt to get out of his embrace; two eyes shot angry darts into his own; but two dimples appeared at the end of the sweetest smile yet.

"You angel! No, I'll never let you go!" he cried, as if she had asked it verbally.

But then the mouth turned pathetic, the eyes turned pleading, and he had to release her or feel himself a brute.

"I'll let you go on one condition," he said, still holding her firmly; "that you speak to me. Will you speak?"

She nodded yes, and he looked at her doubtfully.

"Truly?" he said, and she crossed her heart in solemn promise.

Then he let her go; and she stood before him, hesitating, blushing; and altogether adorable.

"Speak, dear," he entreated

"I c-c-c-an't speak," she said, "b-be-be-cause I st-t-t-tutter."

"Oh, is that all?" cried Levering, infinitely relieved. "I thought you had an awful voice or a bad lisp or something really unattractive. But a simple little stammer— oh, is that all? Well, now stammer out two things, my lady. First, that you love me."

The smile was radiant.  "I I-I-I-love y-y-you!" she said, and then the smile and the smiler were gathered into a pair of outstretched arms.

"And now, dear heart. For the second stammer. What is your first name?"

One violet eye peeped from the enveloping embrace, and one dimple showed at the end of a smile. "Bib-bub-betty," she said.

"Betty, a darling name, and Bib-bub-betty is unusual and especially dear. Oh, Betty, you do love me, don't you?"

"Would I be here if I didn't?" she said, as she nestled her head on his shoulder, and curled her fingers inside his own.

"W-where's you s-stammer?" he said, stuttering himself, in sheer surprise.

"Haven't any," she returned gaily, smiling at him in pure joy. "Oh, you big, beautiful you— I'll tell you all about it. I'm Nell Drayton's friend. Auntie and I are visiting her. And you never would come to see Nell, and I wanted to meet you. And— well, yes, I wanted you to paint me, but Nell said you would use only professional models; so I played a little game. I'm a spoiled child, you know, and they had to let me. I just made them."

"But Nell Drayton— my cousin Nell?"

"Yes; you're, a nice cousin, aren't you? You haven't been to see her since we've been there. If you had, of course it would all have come out, and we should have been properly introduced. And you see, Kay, I just wanted you to paint me; so I tried this way."

"But it was risky, dearest."

"Not at all, so far as I was concerned. I can take care of myself. It has proved, risky for you, however. What will Nell say?"

"But your silence, your stammer?"

"Oh, the silence was part of my little game. I couldn't have played it otherwise. I just made Aunt Lydia bring me here that day and fix it up. How she hated to! But I make everybody do what I will. As to the stammer— that was just for fun, to see if you would love me in spite of it."

"I would indeed!" declared Levering, holding her close, "and do you know, I sort of miss it, Bib-bub-betty!".

_______________

12: The Guinea Smuggler

Egerton Castle

World's News (Sydney) 17 Oct 1914

Egerton Castle M.A., F.S.A. (1858-1920) was a Victorian era author, antiquarian, and swordsman, and an early practitioner of reconstructed historical fencing, frequently in collaboration with his colleague Captain Alfred Hutton.

THE FOLLOWING account was lately found, among other private papers, secreted behind certain oak panels in the old manor house of Wattlecombe, on the Dorset coast. It seems to have been written about the year 1816 by Squire Oldford, a former owner, and refers to the now all but forgotten business of gold smuggling.

On this subject it may be recalled here that about that period the export of gold from England was strictly forbidden. On the other hand it was in such urgent demand with the restored Bourbon Government that as much as thirty-three shillings (in French notes) was eagerly paid in France for an English guinea. The business was taken up by secret syndicates in both countries, and the actual smuggling over of gold coin confided to a few men of known probity, daring, and resourcefulness.

BY SUNDOWN on the 17th— the yacht had made better running than I expected— the high plateau of the Cotentin was already rising in the south. To avoid observation we headed up channel till full darkness, then, with lights out tacked southward again.

Before ten, pitch dark, we had rounded the cape; for there, sure enough, some three miles ahead, were my two fiery points on the crest of the cliff, to the left of Amblemont: the lime-kilns ou the barren chalky fields, kept redhot by the never failing breeze of the heights. Could more unmistakable beacon have been devised to guide a landward course on an unlighted coast? It had been my own discovery, and I had used it more than once before— though, of course, never twice with the same crew. There was no more than a gentle swell; there was no moon; all was well. Yet, somehow, as I now gazed on the steady red eyes that met mine out of the blackness from afar, all the elation I had known during our merry run suddenly left me. Why they should have struck me chill, with an indefinable yet so poignant impression is one of those matters not to be explained.

Within half an hour the dinghy's keel grated on the sandy beach, and I landed in Amblemont Cove. My man had been closely instructed to await my return; to keep wide awake, but to do nothing that might attract attention. I leaped ashore, with the help of his shoulders (the surf was nothing to trouble about); then took my solitary way.

At the foot of the cliff the tinkling of my repeater proclaimed that it was half after ten. Excellent time. Before engaging on the steep rocky lane which, through a cleft, leads upwards, I gave a last look back. Not the faintest light on board. Just the suggestion of lightness on the black of the waters: the sails of the quietly cruising yacht barely distinguishable. And now I ascended the chalky road, visibly white, even under a starless sky.

All was silent, save for the dismal howling of a dog, far away. Through that deep silence, I unconsciously inclined to walk tip-toe, thinking deeply and, in a way new to me, unpleasantly. My mind lagged behind in the cabin, where, between precarious planks, lay floating such a mass of responsibility— the fortunes of so many besides mine, and with them my good name, my whole prospects! Yes, God willing, this would be the last venture!... The howling of that dog, fitful between the pauses of the breeze, was lugubrious. My own stumbling, in the darker bends of the road, startled me. And I asked myself, why should the sight of the red lime-kiln holes— eyelike— have been so disturbing? They had never produced that impression on me before.

As the top of the cliff was reached, the wind blew keener. I had to jam my beaver firmly on my head. Of a sudden the two kilns, huge and red, burst again into sight. The place of tryst was behind them, inland; the fire-watcher's house, only habitation for many a furlong. The mighty furnaces, glowing deep at the base, lambent blue at the top, were roaring dully in their solitude. As I approached. I noted a curious change in one of them: its lambent blue had gradually merged into a lurid yellow. And even as I made my way past, a shift of the wind brought a blast of the fumes across my path, and with it an indescribable odor. I have never known the like! It penetrated my whole being, clinging to nostrils, mouth, and throat. Faugh!

A revulsion was upon me; something like anger— at least an eagerness to hurry through the work as quickly as may be and have done with it. Thus it was in an almost bullying mood that I strode towards the door of the mean, low-roofed house of the fire-keeper. The shutters— strong shutters ere required on that windy height— were closed, of course, but through chinks peered a ray here and there, and there came to me the mutter of voices within. After a rather long pause, during which the subdued talking fell into absolute silence, my peremptory knock was answered by the brusque opening of the door which led straightway into the single ground floor chamber. I knew it well already; part kitchen, part living room. Within the threshold stood a very tall man of middle age. He struck me as of half-pay military appearance, with his tight-buttoned Redingote and bristly moustache. "Baron Cassart, I assume?" I said shortly.

"Effectively— thirty-one thousand eight hundred pounds sterling," he returned, coming to business at once. That was the credential agreed upon in our correspondence: the figure of the syndicate's venture in answer to the name. I entered and closed the door. Two others who sat at a table had risen and returned bows to my salutation, but with an awkwardness I could hardly have expected in Frenchmen. My haughty English manner, no doubt, put them out of countenance. I thought it advisable to put more urbanity into my tone— though the abominable taste of the lime-burning was still angry on my palate. I looked at one of them as I said again:—

"Monsieur Lebailly, de Caen?"

They exchanged a glance and both cleared their throat. Then the other said:—

"It is I, sir."

"Thanks, and therefore." turning again to the first, "Monsieur Motteron, de la Ferte-Champeau. But I expected a fourth, Monsieur de Bauche?"

Even as I spoke, there was a fumbling at the door, and the last representative of the syndicate entered. All eyes were turned on him. From the threshold he gave a peculiar flourish of the hand— a kind of airy and agree able assurance to the company in answer to a mute inquiry. Immediately the eyes were turned back on mce

Of a truth my company was strangely distasteful. If I had disliked the baron of the military bearing, I resented the newcomer with instant detestation. A short, curiously deep-chested man, with a grey, lean face under a sweep of black hair, a wig of the very latest mode. Indeed, his whole dress heralded an aspiration to dandyism which an uneasiness of manner gendered quite unconvincing.

"Faith," he remarked, in an odd, sour voice that alone might have sufficed to damn him. "I seem, after all, to have kept the company waiting! Pardon! Excuse!" His superfine green spencer and fawn cossack-pantaloons were soiled with chalk and earth. He marked the direction of my eyes and went on: "My word, I should have done better to wait here— though these lime ovens are a sight on a dark night— I had a fall over the stones!"

He beat the dust off with his hands in a careless manner. "Pardon! Excuse!" he said again, and sat down, looking at me with his insufferable dandy smile. "To our business! Don't you think so, sir."

"Yes," I replied. "The sooner business of this kind is concluded the better for all concerned."

Without further parley we all sat round the table, three on a bench, two on chairs. I drew the candles near me.

"You, Monsieur de Bauche," I said, as I snuffed the wicks for the better light I should presently require, "will, I understand, conduct the transaction on behalf of the syndicate."

"That is the arrangement," he answered with jaunty deliberation. All four produced bulky pocket-books and spread their notes upon the table before them. I began counting and scanning; a tedious business, but necessary. The bank-notes were mostly in dix-mille, but there were not a few mille. The process took time— all the more as I examined each note with exact method, first back and front with my lens, then transparently in front of the candles. With my full experience I could at once have detected a forgery. But all were good Royal Bank of France notes.

The Frenchmen sat in complete silence; staring at me, as I now thought, with rather stupid eyes. They seemed to take no interest in the matter; in fact, they began to look openly bored. Amid such yawning and shuffling of feet, nearly an hour elapsed before the various contributions could be passed. I placed each of the four plies in separate envelopes, which were forthwith docketed with the name, and sealed with my own signet ring.

Then I got up and stretched myself. Immediately there was alacrity, a general rising. I pointed to the little pile of envelopes.

"The first part of our transaction is clear, messieurs," I said. "There lie one million one hundred and two thousand francs in French notes, against which there awaits on board my yacht thirty-one thousand eight hundred and three pounds in English gold."

I looked from one to the other as I said this. and could note the heightened gleam that came to the French eyes at these words: "English gold!" There was a movement of eagerness towards the table.

"One moment, again, if you please. We had better proceed in the accepted regular manner," I said quietly, and began inserting all the envelopes into my case, which to their obvious astonishment I locked with a key I detached from my fob. There was a transient menacing frown on the face of the man Cassart; a quick exchange of looks between him and Bauche as of one seeking direction. But the flicker of hostility died when I threw back the case on the table and went on:

"So far, good; we shall, as usual, open this again in my cabin. The exact sum waits, ready for each of you, on board. The telling, there, will not be so tedious. You have, of course, your own reckoning of the weights, and your own scales." I looked at my watch. "Past midnight, messieurs. In another hour this great transaction should be over. Meanwhile, which of you will take charge of this co-operative packet? Unlike the gold of tout-a-l'heure, it can be lightly carried by one man." I gave it a turn with the end of my stick, and assumed a new lightness of manner, from sheer reaction after the heavy attentiveness of work.

Evidently they had not settled the point, for there was a mute uncertain consultation of glances. But the matter was decisively clinched by Monsieur de Bauche, who picked up the case and buttoned it in his breast pocket with his smirk and his "Pardon! Excuse!"

We sallied forth in a body. The night was now clear of clouds and glistening with stars. Under their faint light, walking at some kind of speed was easier than it had proved during the ascent. We went along briskly, but in dead silence. Oddly enough, all the eerie feeling which I had forgotten during my spell of concentrated attention swooped on me again as we passed by the kilns. They glowed more dully; the subdued roar of only an hour ago was only a kind of murmur; and I marked— for these fiery towers had a kind of fascination for my eyes— that now both were crowned with flax-blue flame.

This march in silence, in the company of those four men, whose personality was so inexplicably antipathetic, was depressing. I forced myself to make some kind of conversation.

"You will find the climb back heavy work, Monsieur Bauche. Your pounds sterling will prove pounds avoirdupois, as we say in English."

"Bast!" the hideous voice came, with its attempt at airiness, "one never feels the weight of gold."

And from behind Cassart put in, in his unaccountably vulgar trick of speech.

"Effectively— besides none of us are weaklings... But, how remarkable mpneieur the Englishman speaks French! Astonishing!"

I made no reply for a moment. I was pursuing a new and disturbing idea. How singular that these men, belonging, as they must to a superior class of society, men of wealth and position, should all have such insufferably plebeian voices and modes of speech! At the next remark I pricked up the ear of fresh attention. It was Bauche again:—

"Yes— my faith!—it must have been a devil's business to bring this heap of shiners across the sea! Not so simple as collecting the flimsies!" I could hear him slap the bulging pocketbook on his breast. "Now, I wonder how many men monsieur may have with him— in the secret of his rose-pot?"

So alert a bird is dawning suspicion that it takes flight at the first glint or sound. But here, in truth, was more than a giant. Here was a clumsy revelation. It awakened me on the spot to hitherto unconsidered possibilities. And, almost at the same moment, as if to resolve any possible doubt about the sinister character of the company I had fallen in, there came from behind me, following upon the sound of a stumble in the dark, a muffled, blaspheming oath. It was instantly repressed, but unmistakable— unmistakable, that is, to one whose knowledge of French was as peculiar and extensive as mine. They were words of convict slang, such as no man ever used who had not learnt it in the chains of a French bagne!

At once all the fleeting vague surprise at the appearance and manner of these men— so unlike, every one of them, my correspondents of previous enterprises— all this repeated shocks of dislike, determinedly suppressed, came back upon me with overwhelming illumination. What sort of a mistake— good heavens!— had I made this time! Suspicion turned, at one leap, into conviction. Here was afoot something utterly wrong! A kind of nightmare grip seized my heart. But I must have time to think. I made answer, at last, as if suspicion was the last thing in my mind— pulling back, as I spoke, the safety-catch of the pistols in my pocket.

"How many men have I aboard ? Oh, only four— and, what did you say in the secret? Why, no, monsieur! I never take anyone into my secret. Only you four—gentlemen— and  have any knowledge of what is waiting us on board. By the way— I trust to your discretion— if any of you is acquainted with English, eh? Not a word to the crew, of course!"

My thoughts were galloping far ahead seeking for an exit. I thought of the menace to the huge stake confided to my skill and to my honor— to the lives of my unsuspecting hands on board. This expedition had failed, but no lasting harm was done yet if I could but push off in time and leave these all too suspicious companions behind. We had reached the foot of the cliff, and the low roar of the rollers was all around us. I had made up my mind.

"Very well, gentlemen, I will guide you," I resumed, with all the steadiness I could command. Then I called out: "Curtiss!"

Immediately there sprang the sound of my man's sudden rising in the boat, of his ready: ''Aye, sir. Here!"

Still closely surrounded, I advanced towards the spot; and when some twenty feet away, I stopped and called again (I had to risk something and trust that, in truth, none of them had a word of English):―

"Curtiss, keep your, weather eye open! Things are amiss here, very amiss! Get the boat-hook handy."

There was a pause. It seemed to me as if I could hear the man thinking. Then came the answer, in quite another tone, "Aye, sir, handy. You can reckon on it, sir!"

I never in my life loved the sound of quiet, manly English as I did at that moment. Yet it was in rolling French that I had to proceed:—

"Now, messieurs, you must let me direct the embarkation. The boat is small. It will require some care. Pray stop here a moment whilst I speak to the lad." I moved rapidly towards the boat, speaking loudly in everyday tones: "Stand by to shove off, Curtiss. Get her afloat, sharp!— I'll wade in!"

On the side of the beach, with the white sizzling tongues thrown forward by the break of each wave already around my feet, I  stopped and turned round— just in time to confront two black figures, one tall, the other short; to hear, in the detestable voice of Bauche, now hardened to distinct menace,

"Pardon! Excuse!" then, promptly capping it, the rasping tones of Cassart, "You seem in a sacred hurry, Anglais! But we have something to say!" And next to feel his hand close on my elbow.

At the same time, with the unnatural alertness born of the critical second, I noted another thing. Down in the hollow of the beach all was very dark, but under the clear sky, several new shadows could be seen advancing in an extended line. I was looking for two only. There were many more. There were five. The impression remains in my mind's eye. I seem, as I recall the black scene, to be able to count them. Five.

Seven men against me! And aboard, yonder, only three of mine, and those all unprepared for fight!

My left hand was free; in it my pistol lay ready. Without a word, by a sudden jerk I thrust the barrel under the chin of the ruffian that held me, and fired. Then, stooping to avoid the blow that I instinctively felt coming at my head from the other side, I doubled, took a run, and splashed my way to the boat. She was already afloat. My scrambling aboard almost capsized her, and she broached to upon the next incoming roller. Both Curtiss and I were knocked off our balance. My fall certainly saved my life, for just on the instant Bauche leaped in like a tiger, and the smashing sand-bag blow he again aimed at my head fell with a sick thud upon the thwart. And here, too. If Curtiss's weight had not been over the gunwale on the, other side, the dinghy would, of a certainty, have been overturned. Bauche fell in head-foremost over me. At the bottom of the boat his horrid instrument of secret murder was of no use; but in a second he had torn his great-coat open, and the glint of a star lit blue upon an unsheathed knife. My own weapon was still in my hand; as the blade darted I fired the second barrel. I remember the lightning thought of the moment, "A misfire— and all is lost!" But, blessings on Manton and his tight priming-covers, there was no misfire!

Unlike the huge Cassart, who had fallen without a groan, the man Bauche gave a hideous yell of rage and pain; and as he collapsed, convulsively kicking among the stretchers, he tore at his breast and exhaled his last breaths in obscene blasphemies.

Curtiss had promptly picked himself up and righted the skiff. I too regained my feet, making ready with the other pistol for further and cooler firing, while he rowed us out of reach. And now I once more became aware of something new and unexpected; something quite incomprehensible going on along the beach. The five figures of a moment ago, which I had expected to see dash up to the aid of their leaders, had receded into the blackness. But, out of the heart of the dark, there arose confused sounds of fighting, of flight and pursuit; calls, orders, cries of fury; and here and there points of yellow light marked the crack of shots.

After a minute or two— we two fairly afloat and out of reach— silence reigned once more in the cove. Curtiss rowed for all he was worth. It was not till we were a mile or so out at sea that I bethought myself of lightening the craft by lifting the odious carcase, now still and limp as a rag between the thwarts, and dropping it overboard.

Ten minutes' pulling brought us within sight of the schooner. I hailed her, under my voice, received prompt answering hail, and, passing forward with the boat-hook, made ready to grapple on, when I felt underfoot something softly resisting. I groped at the bottom of the boat and picked the thing up. My locked letter-case, dropped out of the ruffian's breast pocket— perhaps in the headlong fall over me, perhaps again during his furious struggle with death. My own letter-case... and the soft bulging of it spelt a million francs and more!

I remained a moment palsied in the midst of a tornado of thought. The bumping of the dinghy against the schooner's side awoke me. I buttoned up the packet in my breast, then hooked on, and once more boarded the deck which the scoundrels had not meant to let me tread again.

The crew, as might be expected, were all agog with curiosity. But no more did I choose to say than this: "The French coast is no fit place for an Englishman. Out with the lights again! We go back to England."

Twelve hours later my secret cargo was safely landed at Poole. No difficulty there. Dorset knew me too well. A preventive, of whatever degree, would have thought it a foolish show of zeal to inquire about luggage taken out of Squire Oldford's yacht. And, that same evening, my thirty odd belts of gold were laid, out, all through the silence and mystery of the night, under certain flagstones of my cellar in the old Manor House.

I was always the man to keep my own counsel. In matters, moreover, as delicate as gold-smuggling, the rule, even between principals, is to ask or answer as few questions as possible. Within the week, the London Bank was again possessed of its principal, and, as in due course of business, of its huge and quick earned interest— but in French paper. And I, together with the bonus which was my share, gained an increase of reputation in my line of operation, which might have proved worth wondrous things for the future. But I contemplated no future in that line.

Thirty-one thousand eight hundred pounds in minted sovereigns— safe in the house, unknown to any but me! The various aspects of a new start in life, upon such sound foundations, formed no unpleasant field of thought of an evening, by the side of a decanter, in my bachelor home. Amid these alluring speculations a sense of wonder still clung to me. What strange dispensation of fete had consigned to a hole under the lowest stone of my own house the treasure intended for the reserve vaults of the Royal Bank of France? Above all, what was the sinister story of that gang of bandits who had found means to lay so plausibly baited a trap for the capture of that mountjoy of gold on board the yacht? Well— I had escaped from the trap— by a miracle of luck— aye, and carried away the bait!

The riddle was not solved for many days. But at last the explanation came, brought by a certain bulky postal packet.

This was a set of all the principal newspapers published in the North of France during the current month, which I had instructed an agent to collect for me. I turned eagerly to those bearing a date subsequent to the 17th. Now would I know what, if anything, was said about the skirmish at the foot of Amblemont cliffs.

From the first unfolding of the wretched grey sheets, some of the names that had persistently haunted my hours of meditation sparkled out as from struck flint: Bauche— Letailly— Cassart!

The articles recounted the exploit of Vidocq— the chief of the French secret police— in capturing, at one cast of the net, nearly the whole of what was referred to as la bande Vidalin— a murderous gang of escaped convicts, it seemed, cleverly and powerfully organised. Among these accounts, one in particular put the whole case with some kind of succinctness before the reader. Oddly enough it was headed, in heavy lines:—

ONE OF THE REDOUBTABLE VIDOCQ'S FAILURES

There seems now (ran the article) every reason to think that, after all, the great policier's boasted success, so fulsomely extolled of late, in capturing of the Vidalin gang, was not so complete as his admirers would have had us believe. In the first place,

The moving spirit of the association, Vidalin himself, is still unaccounted for; he is neither among the dead nor the prisoners. But what is more deplorable, there is strong reason to believe that the numerous fragments of human bones lately discovered amid the lime burnt in the Amblemont kilns must be those of Messieurs de Bauche, Motteron, Cassart and Lebailly, whose disappearance from all human knowledge during the last week, has excited so much comment lately. It has since transpired that these four gentlemen were engaged upon a transaction of agiotage upon a colossal scale with certain English gold smugglers, who, of course, will certainly never be traced.

By what means the bande Vidalin, on whose track Vidocq had for some time been at work, became possessed of every detail of the intended deal, has not yet been made clear. But one unfortunate fact is but too evident. Vidocq may have netted, as his admirers triumphantly repeat, most of the nefarious band, but he came too late on the scene to prevent what appears to have been wholesale murder. Three of the bandits were dressed in a style which proves their purpose to have been the impersonation of their victims in order to obtain admittance to the English gold-ship. The scoundrel Grignaud, dit le Grognard, for instance, who was shot in the skirmish, might well have passed for a retired officer, such as was the unfortunate Baron Cassart. And the two others, Coupeau, alias la Calcotte, and Turtel— two as dangerous flowers-of-crime as ever escaped from chains— would anywhere have been accepted for respectable men of business, like the missing Messieurs Motteron and Lebailly. Vidalin himself, we may conjecture, must have played the part of Monsieur de Bauche.

From the latest accounts this ferocious beast— a terror for strength and determination― would appear to have shot the English emissary and to have escaped in his boat. In fine, all that Vidocq seems to have accomplished. in the way of prevention, is the actual capture of the English vessel; and that, most of our readers will admit, is hardly a matter on which we need congratulate him!

Out of all the doubts that assail me, there is but one issue; the matter must and shall rest here. No work of mine could restore this wealth to its proper owners— most of their bones are already mortar! Aye, and was not even I marked out for slaughter? No, it were idle indeed to try and straighten out this tangled affair now— the good English gold is at least in English hands.

______________________

13: The Closed Door

Egerton Castle

World's News (Sydney) 8 July 1916

"MY DEAR, I never was so amazed in all my life!"

Lady Mary looked quizzically at her companion. There was a half smile on her pretty, faded face.

"Young people are not very easy to understand nowadays,'' she remarked at last. "My grand-daughter belongs to her generation."

Mrs. Vansittart exclaimed:—

"Now, Mary, that's not fair! You just want to put me off. Agatha is not a bit like the modern girl, and everyone knows she was quite devoted to Lord Sark. Such a marriage too! Everything a woman could wish for, and a nice, good-looking youth into the bargain."

The visitor paused, and from between carefully blacked eyelashes shot a shrewd look at her hostess.

"I hear something happened up at that wild place— Larnes, where she was staying with the Glenmores, and that she wrote him an extraordinary rigmarole the other day! His mother says she's gone mad."

"The child's not mad," said Lady Mary, a little stiffly, "hasn't every woman a right to change her mind?"

"Now, Mary!"

"Well, Charlotte, you're right! It's not that. But if I told you the story, I'm afraid you, too, would think her mad."

"You don't, then?"

"No," said the other slowly, "but then I'm Scotch, you see, and— it's in our blood— we can't help believing—''

"My dear Mary," said Mrs. Vansittart, drawing her chair a little nearer, and leaning forward, "you know I'm discretion itself."

Lady Mary cast a musing glance round her attractive Mayfair drawing-room, all delicate Chippendale and rosebud chintz, a bower, just now, with spring blossoms. Then she let her gaze rest upon her contemporary's bewigged, bewhitened and berouged countenance, and wondered parenthetically if poor Charlotte imagined these outrageous repairs made her look younger.

At last she spoke, gentle satire in her eye and voice.

"Perhaps it is just as well that you should know the truth. You're bound to hear a dozen versions, all of them false. The fact is, my little Agatha met someone she liked better."

Mrs. Vansittart screamed. This was the last thing she expected.

"Better than Sark? Mary, what nonsense! "Why, how could she? And they'd only been engaged ten days, and there were no young men at Glenmores. That I ascertained for a fact!"

"Nevertheless it was somebody she met at Larnes."

"Somebody she had never met before?"

The other hesitated. Her smile flickered. "No— yes—"

"Oh, I see it all! Some undesirable— a tuppenny ha'penny, wretched little officer, no doubt, who, hearing about her and Sark, had the audacity to come after her. My dear Mary, you can't allow it for a moment. You must squash this absolutely. It's not too late. After all, the poor child is motherless, and men are not a bit of use. You'll have to act."

"I've done what I could."

"Well, what does her father say?"

"He says he won't have her teased."

"I always knew he was the most selfish creature! He's only too glad to keep her at home, I daresay. He is selfish, Mary. Why don't you get at the young man?"

"That would be difficult," said Lady Mary.

She put her Sevres cup back on the tea-tray, carefully straightened a bread and butter plate, and placed the Melon teapot under the exact centre of the urn spout, and then she said in an everyday voice:—

"He doesn't happen to be alive."

Mrs Vansittart screamed again. "Dead!" Then her voice dropped to a deep tone of gloom. "Suicide!"' And once more rebounded to the heights. "What inconceivable luck! Of course, poor Agatha's a little upset, but that will pass. I'll tell Sark—" She broke off.  "Mary, you look dreadfully mysterious. It's very unfair. You promised to tell me."

"I've been fully occupied in answering your questions, Charlotte. I don't mind telling you the story, but I'm afraid you will never understand it. If I promised, of course, I must. You know Larnes, at least by reputation. It passes for being one of the most haunted houses in all haunted Scotland. Lady Glenmore met Agatha this winter in Edinburgh—took a fancy to her, and asked her up for Easter. That was just after her engagement to Sark was announced. She accepted the invitation without consulting anyone. None of us quite knew why she said she would go. Her father thinks she was already then not quite happy in her decision."

Mrs. Vansittart scoffed.

"The with was father to the thought there, I expect!"

"I expect Agatha wanted to see Larnes," said Lady Mary; "you know how everything mystic has always attracted her."

There was a discontented murmur from the listener, that Sark would have been the very person to put a stop to all that. Once more Lady Mary had her small, private smile. She smoothed her taffeta silk lap with hands still white and soft, glittering with many old-fashioned rings.

"There was nobody up there, but just the old couple themselves and the two daughters."

"My dear, Hetty and Suky, those poor elderly Macdougal girls! How dull! Why on earth didn't they ask Sark?"

"Sark was out with his Yeomary. Agatha didn't find it at all dull. I have letters from her here somewhere. I happened to be reading them over just when you came in."

Lady Mary sought in her work-basket and drew out an envelope, adjusted her spectacles, and, spreading a closely-written sheet, began to read:—

"This is the most delightful place. I've never imagined anything like it. Fancy, darling, there's only one door to the castle still. One goes straight into the keep, just as in the old, old days, and there's the narrow stone entrance, and the rugged steps, and the rope to pull yourself up by, till you come into the great hall. Wasn't it odd? I felt the instant I arrived as If I knew it, as if it was all familiar, and all dear Lady Susan says there has been an inter-marriage— she's great on pedigrees— so perhaps it's an inherited memory—"

"My dear Mary," broke in Mrs. Vansittart, in a protesting bass, "how can you let the child batten on such nonsense?"

"It's very wild, and strange, and simple, and noble, somehow," (went on the reader, neglecting the interruption;) "to-morrow I am going over the castle. Lady Susan says nobody really knows how many secret places are hidden away, nor has anyone ever determined exactly the different ghost stories. The servants are always seeing things. There is one room particularly haunted. Those who sleep there have a most tragic sense of restless misery, although I believe nothing is seen. Lady Susan says she won't hear of my moving into it, but I want to. I am going to coax Lady Harriet. She's awfully quaint and nice. She talks and tells stories all the time, without ever stopping, which have no apparent connection with the rest of the conversation, but she's a dear."

Lady Mary put down the letter and took up another.

"This is dated Easter Sunday," she remarked.

Mrs. Vansittart, her mouth slightly open, her eyes fixed, was listening with a mixed expression of absorbed attention and raillery, which gave her the air of a rather dilapidated parrot.

Lady Mary, casting a fugitive glance at her over the top of the sheet she was unfolding, noticed a faint, palsied movement of her crony's golden head, and reflected, not without complacency, that in spite of all poor Charlotte's efforts, she herself had worn considerably better. But she was beginning to feel pleasure in her own narration, and she took up the thread of it again with alacrity.

"Easter Sunday," Agatha writes. "I've been in the haunted room, Granny dear, and it's curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland says. It's the very room I've dreamt of ever since I was quite a little girl. You remember my nightmare when I wasn't well; a great, dim room, with tapestry set into the wall, and an immense, very low bed, hung with green. How frightened I used to be of that dream! And yet there was nothing so dreadful in it, for after all, it was only that I felt there was something behind the tapestry that either wanted to get at me, or that I wanted to get at. Something that wasn't horrible, only piteous. You haven't forgotten how you laughed at me, and tried to console me by telling me you had dreamt of a blue donkey when you were a little girl, and it only meant indigestion."

Mrs. Vansittart gave a faint snort.

"The mistake," she opined, "was in letting the child go to that silly, ghostly house at all. I'm sure they gave her cockle-leeky or haggis! Enough to upset anybody's digestion."

"That couldn't have made her dream of the room before she went there," retorted Lady Mary.

"No, my dear, but it predisposed her to delusions. Go on. The next thing, I suppose, is that that fool Hetty— everyone knows she's half-witted— let the girl go and sleep there! Oh, that Scotch set, I know them! not a bawbee to their names, nothing to uphold their dignity but their gibbering ghosts!"

"The funny thing is," (pursued Lady Mary imperturbably, still reading), "that I wasn't a bit frightened of the room when I saw it. I only felt the most overwhelming desire to occupy it, and dear, kind old Hetty says—"

"What did I tell you? She ought to be shut up."

"—I may go in to-morrow night, not to-day, because of the Sabbath."

Lady Mary replaced the letter in its envelope, returned it with its fellow to the work-basket, folded her little hands, and looked at her friend.

"I did not hear from Agatha again till she had gone back to Herefordshire, and then only three lines, in which she said: 'I have broken off my engagement to Lord Sark, and it is quite irrevocable!' "

"Mary, Mary, it's mad, it's— do you mean to say it's because she saw something in that room? Do you mean—?"

"I did not have the full explanation, Charlotte, till Agatha herself came to see me last week. Then I heard all from her lips. She took possession of the room, she told me, with the same feeling of pleasure and familiarity that she had experienced when first crossing the threshold. 'It was just as if I was coming home,' she said to me. She had no sense of apprehension, it was indeed with a feeling of relief that, after an endless gossip, she saw kind, garrulous Hetty Macdougal take her departure that night, with her flat candlestick. There's nothing modern at Larnes, as you can imagine! But Agatha had a good fire and four pairs of wax candles. She sat up by that fire for some time, thinking. 'It wasn't so much thinking, Granny,' she said, 'as feeling! I was happy and yet sad, peaceful and yet wanting something. I can't quite describe it,' the child said, 'but I wasn't a bit jumpy. It was rather as if I'd just reached the one point I'd unconsciously wished for all my life, like— like when one is prepared for the first time for the Sacrament.' "

Mrs. Vansittart gave a deprecating cough. She was not pious, but she had very strong ideas on the subject of religions decorum. Lady Mary was High Church, like many Jacobites, and Mrs. Vansittart never felt herself so nearly belonging to the Elect as in her disapproval of Romish tenets.

"Agatha thought it must be past midnight when she got into bed, but she became very sleepy all at once, she told me, and bundled in without looking at her watch."

Here Lady Mary stopped, as if only just aware of the condemnatory cough, and Mrs. Vansittart, who was beginning to feel an agreeable trickle of cold water down her spine, gave an involuntary shake of her head, and tartly bade her to go on for Heaven's sake.

"She doesn't know how long she slept, or whether she dreamt." Lady Mary's voice had assumed an accent of emotion. Mrs. Vansittart gave a nervous look over her shoulder and shifted her hands. "But she woke up, sitting straight in bed, with one clear, urgent thought; she must see what was behind the tapestry. All the dreams of her childhood were upon her. There was the hanging, with the faded deer and the monstrous trees, torn just where she had always seen it torn, and patched with a bit of laurel bough in the very middle of a hound's body. She knew quite well What she had to do, for she had done it so often in her sleep. She must lift up that corner of the tapestry where it was loose. It could be pulled away from the panel, and she would see behind it the closed door. Whether she would get the door open was another question. She had never been able to. That had been her nightmare. But one thing was quite certain; she must try.

"She got out of bed," continued Lady Mary, "put on her dressing gown, thrust her feet into her slippers, and went across the room to the tapestry panel. She had left a candle burning. However brave one may be," said the old lady, with a faintly tremulous smile, "one does not go to sleep in a haunted room with the chance of waking up in the dark. Well, she put the candlestick down on the floor, and she lifted up the tapestry by the corner. True to her dream, it was loose, and, with a little effort, she drew it away from the panel. In the stone wall she saw the outline of a door."

Mrs. Vansittart gave a gulp, which she endeavored to cover by another cough. Nonsense, of course, but really a little creepy!

"Then Agatha said," the grandmother went on, "Agatha said she did feel rather as if her nightmare had come back, because some force which seemed outside herself drove her to try and open that door. 'If I had known that I should find my death on the other side, Granny, yet, I must have gone on'— those were her words— 'And at first I thought I could never move it, and all the dust got up my nose, and the tapestry kept falling back upon me, and it was a kind of agony. I wanted to cry. I wanted to get away, but I couldn't. And then I think I prayed, I don't know. Perhaps that helped, but some bolt gave way inside. I heard the clank of its fall— I suppose it was rusted through— anyhow the door came open—' "

"Don't stop," said Mrs. Vansittart in a high voice.

"The door came open," repeated Lady Mary slowly. "My dear Charlotte, such a breath of tomblike cold, such a blast as of death and the grave, 'the very breath of mortality,' she said, rushed upon her, that her courage failed her. She clapped the door to and dropped the tapestry over it and picked up her candle and went back to the fire. She couldn't go to bed again, poor child, she was frightened. She was more than half tempted, she said, to fly the room and seek refuge with Lady Hetty, but once more something stronger than her panic held her back, inexplicably, with a sense as of duty. It seemed to her, so she tried to explain it to me, as if a call were made upon her to be brave, for the sake of someone, someone unknown, who had yet always been inconceivably close to her. She sat down in the big armchair and made up the fire, and put the candle on the little table, and was just saying to herself, 'I will read,' to calm the turmoil in her pulses, when she heard steps behind her."

"Ugh!" screamed Charlotte Vansittart.

"No, she wasn't frightened then. On the instant, all that left her. It fell off her, she said, like a cloak. She was only happy— my little Agatha said— suddenly, wonderfully happy. A man came leaping into the room from that door she had opened. She heard the thud of the tapestry falling back behind him. He had heavy boots― riding boots— and a buff jerkin, she thinks, but she has only a vague impression of Jacobean garments. She saw the dust scatter from him as he came, and remembers that there wore cobwebs hanging from his sword-belt. He fell on his knees before her, and she saw his face 'as clearly,' she said, 'as I see yours now, Granny, more clearly. And I knew I had known it always, and had been wanting always to see it again!' She tried to describe it to me— locks tossed and disordered, an olive, thin face with great brown eyes. He was panting. He looked up at her, and then he said, 'Sweetheart!.. Sweetheart!.. Sweetheart!' three times."

Lady Mary paused and drew a breath, hesitated, and went on.

"Having got so far, Charlotte, I will finish the story as simply as it was told me. My poor child said her heart was beating with a rapture she could never have believed possible. It was too much for any human heart to bear. She was drawn down towards him, not by any touch of his hands, for she knows those were clasped as he knelt, as if he had been, in prayer. But she was drawn towards him by something, in herself that answered to his cry, and they kissed. A deadly cold struck at her then, and she does not remember anything any more until she found herself in Lady Hetty's bed, with that good-natured creature loudly lamenting above her, and half a bottle of vinegar spilt over her."

Mrs. Vansittart gave a flat, uncertain cackle. "Well, Mary, you have taken a rise out of me! It was just a silly dream, I suppose— though, of course, that doesn't quite explain her having fainted, does it? I daresay people do dream when they're fainting. One sees all sorts of things when one has a tooth out and gets gas! A Mary, don't be aggravating! Go on!"

"I have only a little left to tell you," said Lady Mary, "and the rest you know. It seems Hetty, not being very comfortable in her mind, had come two or three times to Agatha's door to listen. She heard a fall and went in. She found Agatha in a dead faint, and— this is the most horrible part of the story, and I don't know how you or anyone else will explain it—there was a heap of bones and fragments of a buff coat and jack-boots and a rusty sword beside the child's chair."

"Oh!— Oh! Mary! Oh, how horrible— oh, stop! Oh, I can't believe it! Dreadful, dreadful! I see it all, of course. Agatha was sleep walking. She opened that awful hiding place and dragged out the skeleton, then woke, saw the horror of it, and fainted."

"That's what the doctor said. Nevertheless I am glad to be quite certain that Agatha never saw that heap of long, long dead humanity. Agatha only remembers— wait a minute, I have still something to show you."

Once again the old lady dived into her work basket, to produce this time an unmounted photograph, which she handed to her crony with the words:—

The portrait of the seventh Lord Glenmore, by Isaac Oliver. It hangs still in the Banqueting Hall at Larnes. It is well drawn. They say it is the only life-sized portrait painted by Oliver.

"Good gracious!" said Mrs. Vansittart. She produced her gold-mounted eye-glass, stared, and exclaimed again, "Good gracious! Do you think anyone was ever as handsome as that? Why, the child fell in love with the picture! So that's the man she thought she saw?"

"That's the man she saw. The man she prefers to Lord Sark."

"Mary!"

"He's known in the family tradition as the missing Lord Glenmore."

"Missing!"

"He was never seen or heard of after he had taken the King's leave at St. James's Palace. It was believed he had perished in a sea journey, on his way back from London. The vessel in which he was supposed to have sailed had been wrecked on the coast of Leith with all hands. But now—"

"Mary, you don't mean the bones—"

"Wait a minute, I must explain a little more first. He had a young wife, whom he adored. When he was summoned to the Court in London by King James, he left her at Larnes with her infant son. There came a great pestilence in the village and castle. Nearly all the servants were stricken, and young Lady Glenmore herself; she only lived long enough to give orders that the infant heir should be removed from contagion. It was said that the clergyman even would not come near the place, and that she was buried by an old seneschal. There was also a legend," said Lady Mary slowly, "that Lord Glenmore had been seen about the place— Lord Glenmore or his wraith— a few hours after her death. No one credited the tale. That was in the year 1613. It has taken three hundred years for the truth to be known."

Mrs. Vansittart looked again at the photograph, and as her hand shook she put it down.

"I mean," said her friend, answering the rather terrified appeal in her eyes, "that it is now evident Lord Glenmore did come back, to find his wife dead; that in the agony of his despair he rushed into that secret chamber, where he had set up a kind of laboratory. He was a mystic and a student of the occult, meddled with astrology and alchemy too, for he was a friend of Robert Fludd— a celebrated Cabalist and Rosicrucian, they say. God knows what frantic task he had set himself— to brew some elixir, or call up some spirit, that would restore life to his beloved. Two or three yellowed sheets of paper were found, all marked with calculations and strange signs, and then a despairing scrawl:— 'I'd sell my soul and serve three hundred years for one last kiss!' That rash prayer was granted."

"But— my dear— I really feel," said Mrs. Vansittart feebly, "as if my head was going round. Will you give me another cup of tea, Mary? Why should Agatha?— You don't really believe that Agatha was his wife come back?"

"I don't know what to believe, but it's quite clear that Agatha is determined that she will wed no other man."

"But if he's nothing but bones?"

"Please remember, Charlotte, Agatha knows nothing about the bones. She is never to know. They told her they found the dust of the long dead, and they have given her a ring which they took from his finger. She will wear that ring, and never one of any other man."

"Poor Sark!" cried Mrs. Vansittart. She was furious, she was not convinced, but she was awed.

"Poor Agatha," said her grandmother, with a little sigh; "and yet she is not unhappy."

____________________

14: The Adonis of Slagborough

Sir George Douglas, Bt

World's News (Sydney) 31 Oct 1925

Sir George Brisbane Scott Douglas, Bt. (1856–1935) was a Scottish poet and writer, and a Baronet.

"HE will never marry her— never! Unless something altogether unexpected happens." The speaker, Ruperta Strangways, her emphatic words were addressed to Cyril Brown, and they referred to the flirtation (if I may call it so) of Arthur Edmeads and Dorothy Balcombe. It had been going on so long!

Why, as many as seven years earlier, everybody had been expecting that an engagement would be announced at the end of the winter dancing season! And yet it still hung fire. And it was not as if there was any reason for delay. Edmeads was two-and thirty, unattached, and had a good berth in the leading works in Slagborough, where his employers had formed a high opinion of his character, and abilities. As for Dorothy, she was the eldest of four fatherless sisters. Her mother was not well off, and the sooner some good fellow or other led Dorothy to the altar, the better it would be for all concerned. Besides, she was such a pretty little creature. And so good. Her character been formed in the capacity of mother's mainstay. And she had character— far more than you generally meet with in a homebred girl of twenty-five. Quite reserved, she had been given the name of Mousie as a child. But as she grew up, beneath that same quite undemonstrative manner she had developed self-reliance, unselfishness, good sense. A little treasure she would be to the man who won her. And she was so fond of Arthur. That allowed itself to be guessed, and was natural enough, considering how long he had been hanging about her. His attentions had indeed been far too marked to be misunderstood. And yet he did not come to the point. What could be the reason of this? Ruperta, who. from the vantage ground of her thirty-five years, took the deepest interest in the affairs of her friends (and even of some who were certainly not her friends), often harped upon this theme. It was not fair to Dorothy, she said. Dorothy was losing her chance in life.

Other Slagborough girls, her contemporaries, married off and she remained single, she who had the strongest reasons for marrying, for her mother's health was failing, and a part of her not large income would die with her. Edmeads was not playing the game— not acting like a gentleman. For, if he did not wish to marry the girl himself, surely the least he could do was to sheer off, and leave the ground clear for others. But whilst so definite an obstruction blocked the way, what other could come forward?

So Ruperta— labouring the point somewhat more than was necessary, as appeared to Cyril Brown. For, after all, what concern was it of hers? And what could he do to mend matters? But as a matter of fact, Ruperta, had reached a time of life when, her own affairs failing to suffice to keep her interested, she was compelled to eke them out with the affairs of other people. Thus it happened that her critics came to call her a busybody, whilst those who liked her preferred to say that she took a remarkably kindly interest in other folks' concerns.

Besides being inclined to dominate others, she was also a bit of a schemer. Her own view was that her greater experience of life enabled her to judge what was good for her young friends better than they could judge for themselves. So she would seek the confidence of younger people, to whom she would be lavish of advice. She "took up" young people, as the saying is, over whom her native force of character, together with the good position she held in Slagborough society, often enabled her to obtain considerable influence. This is a somewhat dangerous pastime. But Ruperta knew no fear. She had of late become very intimate with Dorothy Balcombe, whom she would often take with her in her car to concerts, and other entertainments. Little Dorothy, who had not had too much pleasure in life, was duly grateful. But when the older woman came to invite confidences about Arthur Edmeads, she did not find her young friend quite so responsive as she had expected.

"No, really, there is no understanding between us— of the sort you mean," Dorothy had said. Nor could anyone doubt the sincerity of those blue, eyes with the black pupils.

"Well, if there is not, then there ought to be!" Ruperta had replied with decision. And, inwardly, she had determined that forthwith there should be such an understanding. It would be for Dorothy's good, and for Arthur's good no less. And, incidentally, to bring it about would afford herself some occupation of the kind she liked.

No sooner said than acted on. Lying awake in the watches of the night, she evolved a scheme which should have the result of bringing the laggardly Arthur to the point. This scheme was simple, as all beautiful things are, and it involved the assistance of Cyril Brown. That, however, might be counted on, for Cyril was Ruperta's cousin, ten years younger than herself, and from early years she had exercised ascendancy over him.

BRIEFLY STATED, Ruperta's scheme was as follows:

Arthur Edmeads. she saw, was absorbed in his business, making his career, and meantime reposed in a sense of security that Dorothy was to be had for the asking. It was like a man to take things thus for granted! Not that Dorothy on her part was quite free from blame. For had she been just a little more of a coquette, the present state of matters would not have come about. But she was such a good— or stupid— compliant little thing as to be quite content to bide Arthur's time, and meantime to speak of him (as she had done to Ruperta) as a very kind friend of her family. A very kind friend— fiddlestick! A lover who abused his privilege— that was nearer the mark. For the credit of her sex, Ruperta was not going to tolerate, it. Well, this is what she devised.

Obviously up to this point things had gone a little too easily with Arthur. What was required to bring him to the scratch was the stimulus of a little difficulty, a little less sense of security. And how could that be so well attained as by laying on Cyril Brown to pay marked attention to Dorothy? For Cyril, be it known, was the Adonis of Slagborough— very much run after by the girls, and proportionately distrusted by the men.

Cyril Brown was indeed an extraordinarily , good-looking young fellow. And had the quality of his brains matched the classic regularity of his features, or the hyacinthine curl of his hair, he would have been formidable indeed. But,  alas! poor Cyril's moral characteristic was an amiable fatuity. Intensely conscious that the girls liked him, he returned the compliment with interest, devoting his spare time to a succession of friendships, and flirtations which were absorbing whilst they lasted. But outside that particular department, I fear that his principal interest lay in the adornment of his person. To the tailors and haberdashers of Slagborough he was indeed a prime asset, and he often declared that they ought to be glad to clothe him gratis. For when Cyril sported a snuff-brown suit with a yellow handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket, a dozen youngsters followed in his wake, ingenuously trustful that, by so doing, they, too, would participate in his glory.

It was one afternoon when she was having tea with Cyril that Ruperta first ventilated her scheme. His room was positively overcrowded with photographs of the Slagborough beauties, set on easels in silver frames, and many of them inscribed.

" 'Cyril from Maud. Irene, Gladys,' " remarked Ruperta, reading the inscriptions. "Well, you certainly have a large collection! All the same, I do not see that the prettiest girl in Slagborough has a place in it."

There was a certain dryness in her tone which Cyril found provocative.

"I know whom you mean, Ruperta," he had answered quickly, "You mean Dorothy Balcombe. No, she is not here; but then, you know, she is another fellow's property, and you know I don't poach on other men's preserves."

There was an unconscious fatuity in the way he spoke, these words which strongly appealed to Ruperta's sense of humour. But, knowing that to laugh now must be fatal to her designs, she proceeded instead to a calm, and dispassionate review of Dorothy's relations with Arthur Edmeads— which review ended with the words with which this little history begins.

Now, among many of the characteristics of the typical spoiled child, Cyril Brown had this one in particular. To tell him that something was beyond his reach, or not for him, was to make him instantly covet it. Ruperta, who had dandled him upon her knee, knew this, and turned her knowledge to account.

"I see that your conquests are all of them facile conquests, Cyril," she observed, as she lowered her pince-nez, on completing her survey of the photos; "evidently what is difficult does not attract you. Ah, well! so much the happier you!"

And she thereupon heaved a little sigh, intending to convey the impression that there were more things within her cognisance than were dreamed of in his philosophy. And, with that, she left the seed, she had just sown to take root as best it might.

On the following Sunday afternoon, Mike Rogan, a bachelor electrician employed in the same works as Edmeads, had invited his friends to a trip up the river and tea picnic on his turbine launch. All the characters in this little tale met on the occasion, and Ruperta had some further opportunity for wire-pulling. The result was that she skilfully detached Edmeads from his attendance on Dorothy by asking him to explain the working of the launch in such a manner that an uninstructed mind might understand it. This request served to mount the young engineer upon his hobby. And the result was that, as the launch rushed homeward down, the river in the gloaming, it was Cyril Brown who occupied the deck cushion at Dorothy's feet— Cyril Brown, who, by request, had brought his banjo, and was now trolling forth "The Close of a Perfect Day" to its accompaniment.

Ruperta, Strangways, who could make herself most agreeable when she chose, was still in Arthur's company.

"Dear, dear!" he testily remarked to her, "I did not think that that young fool would make such an exhibition of himself, though I have known for ever so long that he was of no use in the works."

Then, indeed, Ruperta felt that her scheme was beginning to operate. She answered innocently. '

"Are you not rather hard on my young cousin, Mr. Edmeads? Dear Dorothy is so very fond of music."

This to a man who prided himself on playing Chopin without his notes was perhaps a little rough!

"Well, we certainly have had a perfect day, or, at least, a perfect afternoon," she added beamingly.

But there was one of Mike Rogan's guests who did not think so. This, however, was not Cyril Brown.

No, for from that day forward, the Adonis of Slagborough seemed to have found one of those new interests in life which with him were periodic.

He had asked Dorothy to give him leave to call on her mother, and had been prompt to avail himself of a not very gracious permission conveyed in the form of the words "I suppose you may if you like." Evidently it was a matter of indifference to Miss Balcombe whether he called or not. But to Cyril, spoiled as he was by feminine adulation, there was a novel relish in this carelessness, and he called the next day.

"Is he not just simply beautiful?" exclaimed kind, gushing Mrs. Balcombe, the moment his back was turned.

"Dearest Mrs. Balcombe!" expostulated Ruperta, who happened to be present, "why, whoever heard of a man being described as beautiful? He is, however, a good boy," she added.

And this was all that was needed to make Arthur an ever-welcome guest at Mrs. Balcombe's flat.

"Things are going as I would have them go," soliloquised Ruperta Strangways. And for a brief period she tasted the calm satisfaction of a shaper of other people's destinies.

AT THE same time a new era began to be inaugurated in the lives of Cyril and of Arthur. Up to now Cyril had been in the doubtless very galling, but fortunately very rare, predicament of the young peers. Mountararat and Tolloller, in Gilbert's opera of "Iolanthe," satiated with the best of good things: for him success had lost its savour. And the plainness of that homely little maiden, Dorothy, was as welcome as might be a slice of a good household loaf to one who had been living for a fortnight upon wedding-cake. He recognised that he was not always welcome, and he found in that very recognition something piquant and provocative. Then Dorothy would differ from him in a dry little manner that was all her own, and he, as he himself would have phrased it, would "take it lying down." For scarcely one of Slagborough's love-sick maidens had ever differed from him.

Another change in him which now became noticeable was a love of children which he suddenly developed. Indeed, there was scarcely a new film produced in the cinemas of Slagborough but he must have Dorothy's little sisters come with him to see it. And probably this was the one point at which his devotion succeeded in touching Dorothy, who was invariably eager that the youngsters should have a good time.

Meantime Ruperta, viewing the progress of events from her position of vantage as an outsider, was beginning to say to herself from time to time, "I only hope that Cyril is not going to overdo his job. The dear boy is so insanely inflammable! And, of course, I don't wish to see him make a match of it with Dorothy. For, with those extraordinarily good looks of his, he might win almost any prize in the matrimonial lottery."

And she began to have some momentary misgivings as to the advisability of shaping the destinies of others, even when it was done for their own good.

These misgivings were materially strengthened by the conduct of Arthur Edmeads. Essentially a dark horse, Arthur took nobody into his confidence. Thus, it was some time before the trend of his present conduct made itself manifest, but, in course of time it became impossible to avoid drawing inferences from it. Either appearances belied him, then, or he was cooling towards Dorothy, wavering in his so long-established attachment. There, indeed, was the unexpected! And, strong in her self-confidence though she was, Ruperta began now to doubt the wisdom of her contrivances. For she could not deny that she appeared to have set forces in motion which it might now be difficult to control!

Now, ever since the day of the party on the river, she had been conscious of a growing change in the relations between Edmeads and herself. It was not that he showed any inclination to admire her in the sense of making love to her. She did not for a moment deceive herself as to that. But there was no doubt as to his seeking her society, and paying her the compliment of a not undeserved attention to her opinions. For there was a sense in which Ruperta was a very clever woman. It is often the cleverest people, however, that make the biggest mistakes.

It was whilst listening to the band one day in the public gardens that Edmeads took her by surprise. For she had never thought of him either as a man of very deep feeling or one who would be likely to make confidences. They were seated together upon a seat that stood somewhat apart, and were giving ear to a rendering of Edward German's Old English dances.

"A charming piece of music," remarked Ruperta, airily, "though the new conductor certainly does drive it a little hard."

It was then that Edmeads burst out.

"Let us walk about a little, if you don't mind," said he, rising to his feet, and immediately adding, "In my present frame of mind all music is an infliction— but the lighter kind doubly so."

And then, in response to an amazedly questioning glance, he proceeded to confess himself. Things, had gone wrong with him, and he had no one but himself, to blame for it. And, to cut a long story short, he told her how, whilst  he had been absorbed in an invention which he had hoped to spring upon the world, Cyril had cut him out, and his hopes for the future were dashed to the ground for ever.

Utterly astounded by the revelation of his inner life and character contained in these words, Ruperta listened in silence, whilst her conscience pricked her rather severely. And yet, so complex is human nature that a smile hovered all the time close to the corner of her lips. When she spoke, it was to pooh-pooh the idea that things could have gone so far as he supposed. But Arthur was proof against conviction.

It was, perhaps, characteristic of his grave nature to take all things too seriously. So all he said by way of reply was just this:—

"The handsomest man in Slagborough forsooth! If it had been anyone but he, I might have faced it out with some hopes of success. But, go where you will— in the works or out of 'em— you hear or every side a how irresistible the girls find him." And, after a pause, he added, with conviction, "I should like to wring his neck."

"I don't think I would do that," was Ruperta's comment, and, realising its lameness, she proposed to rejoin her friends.

ONCE SHE was left alone with her own thoughts, Miss Strangways was not slow to recognise that she had made a mess of things. It had been made, of course, with the best intentions, but none the less had been made. A deplorable mess! For here was a good man's happiness compromised; yet, in spite of this, and of her own genuine regret and alarm over the consequence of her acts, there was still present in her at intervals a certain fearful sense of joy which was bred of these proofs of her own power. Lying luxuriously awake at night, she distinctly realised that she had wrought havoc in three lives. And yet, as she grew accustomed to the thought, it soon ceased to dismay.

"Well, admitting I have done mischief," she soliloquised, "what of it? It is up to me to put things right again. That is all. And I think I can manage that!"

Her plan for doing so was by an appeal to Cyril's generosity, his sense of chivalry. "As you are strong, be merciful," she pictured herself saying. And the thought of calling Cyril strong again brought the unbidden smile within measurable distance of her lips.

Business hours at the works were scarcely well begun ere an urgent telephonic call bade Cyril lunch with her at one o'clock. It was important.

Cyril came; looking, as Ruperta could not help thinking, even handsomer than usual. For a certain air of melancholy pervaded his countenance, usually so blank of all expression. His dress was, as ever, faultless, judged by Slagborough standards, though perhaps a little over-accentuated, or Corinthian, from a severer point of view. Her task performed, the maid-servant was dismissed from the room, where the cousins were, of course, alone.

Then, in tones which might have befitted a star chamber, Ruperta began

"My dear Cyril, I want to speak to you very seriously." And, having filled his liqueur glass with Benedictine, she proceeded to open the case.

She had often pitied him, she said. Yes, pitied him— he need not look so surprised. Pitied him, because, notwithstanding that he had so much to make him enviable— as, for instance, the admiration of women and the consequent envy of men— there was, after all, involved with it a great, even a cruel, responsibility.

To all of which the Adonis of Slagborough listened with gravely tolerant dispassion. He was much accustomed to being talked to about himself by women, and he could stand a vast deal of that infliction— if, indeed, it were one.

As to the nature of that responsibility, Ruperta said, with a meaning glance, that she need not be more particular. Whereupon Cyril sighed, as who should tacitly admit that that would be quite unnecessary.

Unlike other women, what Ruperta had always most admired in her cousin was his goodness. Here he looked a little self conscious and surprised, but, after a moment or two, seemed to reflect that of that, too, there was a good deal to admire.

Think of the misery he might have entailed upon others, the havoc he might have wrought (Here the rhetorician raised her voice, and Cyril lowered his eyelids). So far, for anything Ruperta knew— in such a place as Slagborough, it was difficult not to know everything— he had steered his course with the blamelessness of a perfect Galahad.

"Oh, hardly that," simpered Cyril, who was not quite sure that he appreciated the compliment. And he coloured just a little. But Ruperta remained firm.

"Well, a Bayard, then— without reproach, at any rate." She paused. And then, with one of those swift and potent transitions which are known to masters of the art of oratory, she turned upon him almost fiercely.

And had he now, she asked him, arrived at the turning point of an immaculate career? And was he, who had so far forborne and held his hand, to yield to temptation like another man? Whence she proceeded to paint, in vivid colours, the irresistible fascination which he would naturally exercise over guileless Dorothy, and the devastation wrought by it upon, the honest heart of Arthur Edmeads.

Cyril heard her not unmoved! And, to hasten to the catastrophe, when he left Ruperta to return to the works, he left with her a promise to do his utmost to allow things between Dorothy and Arthur to revert to the state in which he had found them. It was not too late, he said, even supposing that Dorothy had cared a little for him. He would efface himself, he vowed, and all might yet be well for them, whatever it might be for him!

His hostess dismissed him with a cousinly kiss. She had gained her point more easily than she had ventured to anticipate. And, knowing, as she did, that, numerous as were the love-affairs of the susceptible Cyril, every one of them was to him quite real whilst it lasted— knowing this. I say, she felt that her young cousin had really deserved well of her by giving her his word henceforth to refrain from the pursuit of Dorothy.

Could she have known that no longer ago than the preceding evening, little Miss Balcombe had proved her troth to Arthur by formally refusing the Adonis of Slagborough, she would have taken a very different view of the case. But the fact was that Cyril could not bring himself to own up to having been rejected. That, indeed, would have been a grievous blow to a reputation which had, perhaps, been thrust upon him, but to which none the less he clung.

In a very short time the engagement of Arthur Edmeads and Dorothy Balcombe was the talk of Slagborough. And when, in times to come, Miss Strangways told an occasional intimate friend of the part she had placed in bringing it about, the story was not told exactly as it has been told in these  columns.

_________________

15: The Locked  Box

Don Marquis

1878-1937

World's News (Sydney) 11 Dec 1909

IT WAS A SMALL, oblong affair, not more than three inches wide or deep, by twice that much in length, made of some dark, hard wood; brass bound and with brass lock and brass hinges; altogether such a box as a woman might choose to keep about her room for any one of a half dozen possible uses.

Clarke did not remember that he had ever seen it prior to his unexpectedly early return from a western trip of a month's duration. He thought he would give his wife a pleasant surprise, so he did not telephone the news of his arrival to the house, but went home and entered her room unannounced. As he came in his wife hastily slipped something into the box, locked it, and put it into one of the drawers of her desk. Then she came to meet him, and he would not have thought of the matter at all had it not been for just the slightest trace of confusion in her manner.

She was glad to see him. She always was after his absences, but it seemed to him that she was exceptionally so this time. She had never been a demonstrative woman; but it seemed to Clarke that she came nearer that description on the occasion of this home-coming than ever before. They had a deal to say to each other, and it was not until after dinner that the picture of his wife hurriedly disposing of the box crossed Clarke's consciousness again. Even then he mentioned it casually because they were talked out of more important topics rather than because of any very sharp curiosity. He asked her what it was; what was in it.

“Oh, nothing!— nothing of any importance— nothing at all,” she said; and moved over to the piano and began one of his favourite airs. And he forgot the box again in an instant. She had always been able to make Clarke forget things, when she wanted to. But the next day it suddenly came to him, out of that nowhere-in-particular from which thoughts come to mortals, that she had been almost as much confused at his sudden question as she had at his previous sudden entrance.

Clarke was not a suspicious person; not even a very curious one, as a rule. But it was so evident to him that there was something in that box which his wife did not wish him to see that he could not help but wonder. Always frank with her, and always accustomed to an equal candour on her part, it occurred to him that he would ask her again, in something more than a casual way, and that she would certainly tell him, at the same time clearing up her former hesitation. But no!— why should he ask her? That would be to make something out of nothing; this was a trifle, and not worth thinking about. But he continued thinking about it, nevertheless....

Ah, he had it! What a chump he had been, not to guess it sooner! His birthday was only ten days off, and his wife had been planning to surprise him with a remembrance of some sort. Of course! That accounted for the whole thing.

With this idea in his head, he said nothing more about the box, but waited. And when dinner was over and they sat before the fire together, on the evening of the anniversary, he still forbore to mention it, expecting every moment that the next she would present him with the token. But as the evening wore away, with no sign on her part, he finally broke an interval of silence with the remark:

“Well, dear, don't keep me guessing any longer! Bring it to me!”

“Guessing? Bring you— what?” And he could see that she was genuinely puzzled.

“Why, my birthday present.”

“Why, my dear boy! And did you expect one? And I had forgotten! Positively forgotten—it is your birthday, isn't it, Dickie! If I had only known you wanted one—” And she came up and kissed him, with something like contrition, although his birthday had never been one of the sentimental anniversaries which she felt bound to observe with gifts.

“Don't feel bad about it— I don't care, you know— really,” he said. “Only, I thought you had something of the sort in that brass-bound box— that was the only reason I mentioned it.”

“Brass-bound box—why, no, I— I forgot it. I'm ashamed of myself, but I forgot the date entirely!”

But she volunteered no explanation of what the box contained, although the opportunity was so good a one.

And Clarke wondered more than ever.

What could it be? The letters of some former sweetheart? Well, all girls had sweethearts before they married, he supposed; at least all men did. He had had several himself. There was nothing in that. And he would not make an ass of himself by saying any more about it.

Only... he could not remember any old sweethearts that he wouldn't have told Agnes all about, if she had asked him. He had no secrets from her. But she had a secret from him... innocent enough, of course. But still, a secret. There was none of those old sweethearts of his whose letters he cared to keep after five years of marriage. And there was no... But, steady! Where were his reflections leading him? Into something very like suspicion? Positively, yes; to the verge of it. Until Agnes got ready to tell him all about it, he would forget that damned box!

And if she never got ready, why, that was all right, too. She was his wife, and he loved her... and that settled it.

Perhaps that should have settled it, but it did not. Certain healthy-looking, fleshy specimens of humanity are said to succumb the quickest to pneumonia, and it may be that the most ingenuous natures suffer the most intensely with suspicion, when once thoroughly inoculated.

CLARKE FOUGHT against it, cursing his own baseness. But the very effort necessary to the fight showed him the persistence of the thing itself. He loved his wife, and trusted her, he told himself over and over again, and in all their relations hitherto there had never been the slightest deviation from mutual confidence and understanding. What did he suspect? He could not have told himself. He went over their life together in his mind. In the five years of their married life, he could not have helped but notice that men were attracted to her. Of course they were. That was natural. She was a charming woman. He quite approved of it; it reflected credit upon him, in a way. He was not a Bluebeard of a husband, to lock a wife up and deny her the society proper to her years. And her very catholicity of taste, the perfect frankness of her enjoyment of masculine attention, had but served to make his confidence all the more complete. True, he had never thought she loved him as much as he loved her... but now that he came to think of it, was there not a warmer quality to her affection since his return from this last trip west? Was there not a kind of thoughtfulness, was there not a watchful increase in attentiveness, that he had always missed before? Was she not making love to him every day now; just as he had always made love to her before? Were not the parts which they had played for the five years of their married life suddenly reversed? They were! Indeed they were! And what did that mean? What did that portend? Did the brass-bound box have aught to do with that? What was the explanation of this change?

The subtle imp of suspicion turned this matter of the exchanged rôles into capital. Clarke, still ashamed of himself for doing it, began covertly to watch his wife; to set traps of various kinds for her. He said nothing more about the box, but within six months after the first day upon which he had seen it, it became the constant companion of his thoughts.

What did he suspect? Not even now could he have said. He suspected nothing definite; vaguely, he suspected anything and everything. If his wife noticed his changed manner towards her, she made no sign. If anything, her efforts to please him, her attentiveness, her thoughtfulness in small things, increased.

THERE CAME a day when he could stand this self-torture no longer, he thought. He came home from his office— Clarke was a partner in a prosperous real-estate concern— at an hour when he thought his wife not yet returned from an afternoon of call making, determined to end the matter once for all.

He went to her room, found the key to her desk, and opened the drawer. He found the box, but It was locked, and he began rummaging through the drawers, and among the papers and letters therein, for the key.

Perhaps she carried it with her. Very well, then, he would break it open! With the thing in his hand he began to look around for something with which to force the fastenings, and was about deciding that he would take it down to the basement, and use the hatchet, when he heard a step. He turned, just as his wife entered the room.

Her glance travelled from the box in his hand to the ransacked desk, and rested there inquiringly for a moment. Strangely enough, in view of the fact that he felt himself an injured husband and well within his rights, it was Clarke who became confused, apologetic, and evasive under her gaze. He essayed a clumsy lie:

“Agnes,” he began, indicating the desk, “I— I got a bill to-day from Meigs and Horner, for those furs, you know— I was sure that the account had been settled— that you had paid them, and had shown me the receipt— that you had paid them from your allowance, you know— and I thought I would come home and look up the receipt.”

It was very lame; and very lamely done, at that, as he felt even while he was doing it. But it gave him an opportunity of setting the box down on the desk almost in a casual manner, as if he had picked it up quite casually, while he began to tumble the papers again with his hands.

“The receipt is here,” she said; and got it for him.

The box lay between them, but they did not look at it, nor at each other, and they both trembled with agitation.

Each knew that the thoughts of the other were on nothing except that little locked receptacle of wood and brass, yet neither one referred to it; and for a full half minute they stood with averted faces, and fumbling hands, and played out the deception.

Finally she looked full at him, and drew a long breath, as if the story were coming now; and there was in her manner a quality of softness—almost of sentimentality, Clarke felt. She was getting ready to try and melt him into a kind of sympathy for her frailty, was she! Well, that would not work with him! And with the receipted bill waving in his hand, he made it the text of a lecture on extravagance, into which he plunged with vehemence.

Why did he not let her speak? He would not admit the real reason to himself, just then. But in his heart he was afraid to have her go on. Afraid, either way it turned. If she were innocent of any wrong, he would have made an ass of himself— and much worse than an ass. If she were guilty, she might melt him into a weak forgiveness in spite of her guilt! No, she must not speak... not now! If she were innocent, how could he confess his suspicions to her and acknowledge his baseness? And besides... women were so damned clever... whatever was in that box, she might fool him about it, somehow!

And then, “Good God!” he thought, “I have got to the place where I hug my suspicion to me as a dearer thing than my love, have I? Have I got so low as that?”

While these thoughts raced and rioted through his mind, his lips were feverishly pouring out torrents in denunciation of feminine extravagance. Even as he spoke he felt the black injustice of his speech, for he had always encouraged his wife, rather than otherwise, in the expenditure of money; his income was a good one; and the very furs which formed the text of his harangue he had helped her select and even urged upon her.

It was their first quarrel, if that can be called a quarrel which has only one side to it. For she listened in silence, with white lips and hurt eyes, and a face that was soon set into a semblance of hard indifference. He stormed out of the room, ashamed of himself, and feeling that he had disgraced the name of civilization.

ASHAMED of himself, indeed; but before the angel of contrition could take full possession of his nature, the devil of suspicion, the imp of the box, regained its place.

For why had she not answered him? She knew he cared nothing about the trivial bill, the matter of the furs, he told himself. Why had she not insisted on a hearing, and told him about the box? She knew as well as he that that was what he had broken into her desk to get!

Justice whispered that she had been about to speak, and that he had denied her the chance. But the imp of the box said that an honest woman would have demanded the chance— would have persisted until she got it! And thus, his very shame, and anger at himself, were cunningly turned and twisted by the genius of the brass-bound box into a confirmation of his suspicions.

SUSPICIONS? Nay, convictions! Beliefs. Certainties!

They were certainties, now! Certainties to Clarke's mind, at least. For in a month after this episode he had become a silent monomaniac on the subject of the brass-bound box. He felt shame no longer. She was guilty. Of just what, he did not know. But guilty. Guilty as Hell itself, he told himself, rhetorically, in one of the dumb rages which now became so frequent with him.

Guilty— guilty— guilty— the clock on the mantelpiece ticked off many dragging hours of intolerable minutes to that tune, while Clarke lay awake and listened. Guilty— guilty— guilty— repeat any word often enough, and it will hypnotize you. Guilty— guilty— guilty— so he and the clock would talk to each other, back and forth, the whole night through. If any suggestions of his former, more normal habits of thought came to him now it was they that were laughed out of court; it was they that were flung away and scorned as traitors.

She was guilty. But he would be crafty! He would be cunning. He would make no mistake. He would allow her no subterfuge. He would give her no chance to snare him back into a condition of half belief. There should be no juggling explanations. They were clever as the devil, women were! But this one should have no chance to fool him again. She had fooled him too long already.

And she kept trying to fool him. Shortly after his outburst over the furs, she began again a series of timid advances which would have struck him as pathetic had he not known that her whole nature was corroded and corrupted with deceit, with abominable deceit. She was trying to make him believe that she did not know why he was angry and estranged, was she? He would show her! He hated her now, with that restless, burning intensity of hatred known only to him who has injured another. A hatred that consumed his own vitality, and made him sick in soul and body. The little sleep he got was passed in uneasy dreams of his revenge; and his waking hours were devoted to plots and plans of the form which it should take. Oh, but she had been cunning to fool him for so long; but she should see! She should see! When the time for action came, she should see!

SOMETHING, one tense and feverish midnight, when he lay in his bed snarling and brooding and chuckling— a kind of snapping sense in some remote interior chamber of his brain, followed by a nervous shock that made him sit upright— warned him that the time for action was at hand. What is it that makes sinners, at provincial revival meetings, suddenly aware that the hours of dalliance are past and the great instant that shall send them to “the mourners' bench” is at hand? Somehow, they seem to know! And, somehow, Clarke felt an occult touch and knew that his time for action had arrived.

He did not care what came afterwards. Any jury in the world, so he told himself, ought to acquit him of his deed, when they once knew his story; when they once looked at the damning evidence of her guilt which she had hidden away for so long in the brass-bound box. But if they did not acquit him, that was all right, too. His work in the world would have been done; he would have punished a guilty woman. He would have shown that all men are not fools.

But he did not spend a great deal of thought on how other people would regard what he was about to do. As he crept down the hall with the knife in his hand, his chief sensation was a premonitory itch, a salty tang of pleasure in the doing of the deed itself. When hatred comes in where love has gone out, there may be a kind of voluptuary delight in the act of murder.

Very carefully he opened the door of her room. And then he smiled to himself, and entered noisily; for what was the need of being careful about waking up a woman who was already dead? He did not care whether he killed her in her sleep or not;— indeed, if she wakened and begged for her life, he thought it might add a certain zest to the business. He should enjoy hearing her plead. He would not mind prolonging things.

But things were not prolonged. His hand and the muscles of his forearm had tensed so often with the thought, with the idea, that the first blow went home. She never waked.

HE GOT the box, and opened it.

Inside was a long envelope, and written on that were the words:

“To be opened by my husband only after my death.”

That time had come!

Within the envelope was a letter. It was dated on the day of his return from his western trip, a few months before. He read:

“Dick, I love you!

“Does it seem strange to you that I should write it down?

“Listen, Dickie dear— I had to write it! I couldn't tell you when I was alive— but I just had to tell you, too. And now that I am dead, what I say will come to you with all of its sweetness increased; and all of its bitterness left out! It will, now that I am dead— or if you die first, you will never see this. This is from beyond the grave to you, Dickie dear, to make all your life good to you afterwards!

“Now, listen, dear, and don't be hard on me.

“When I married you, Dickie, I didn't love you! You were wild about me. But I only liked you very much. It wasn't really love. It wasn't what you deserved. But I was only a girl, and you were the first man, and I didn't know things; I didn't know what I should have felt.

“Later, when I realized how very much you cared, I was ashamed of myself. I grew to see that I had done wrong in marrying you. Wrong to both of us. For no woman should marry a man she doesn't love. And I was ashamed, and worried about it. You were so good to me! So sweet— and you never suspected that I didn't care like I should. And because you were so good and sweet to me, I felt worse. And I made up my mind you should never know! That I would be everything to you any woman could be. I tried to be a good wife. Wasn't I, Dickie, even then?

“But I prayed and prayed and prayed. 'O God,' I used to say, 'let me love him like he loves me!' It was five years, Dickie, and I liked you more, and admired you more, and saw more in you that was worth while, every week; but still, no miracle happened.

“And then one morning a miracle did happen!

“It was when you were on that trip West. I had gone to bed thinking how kind and dear you were. I missed you, Dickie dear, and needed you. And when I woke up, there was a change over the world. I felt so different, somehow. It had come! Wasn't it wonderful, Dickie?— it had come! And I sang all that day for joy. I could hardly wait for you to come home so that I could tell you. I loved you, loved you, loved you, Dickie, as you deserved! My prayers had been answered, somehow— or maybe it was what any woman would do just living near you and being with you.

“And then I saw I couldn't tell you, after all!

“For if I told you I loved you now, that would be to tell you that for five years I hadn't loved you, Dickie!

“And how would that make you feel? Wouldn't that have been like a knife, Dickie?

“Oh, I wanted you to know! How I wanted you to know! But, you see, I couldn't tell you, could I, dear, without telling the other, too? I just had to save you from that! And I just had to make you feel it, somehow or other. And I will make you feel it, Dickie!

“But I can't tell you. Who knows what ideas you might get into your head about those five years, if I told you now? Men are so queer, and they can be so stupid sometimes! And I can't bear to think of losing one smallest bit of your love... not now! It would kill me!

“But I want you to know, sometime. And so I'm writing you—it's my first love letter—the first real one, Dickie. If you die first, I'll tell you in Heaven. And if I die first, you'll understand!

“Agnes.”

_________________

16: His Lordship and Kitty-for-Short

Katharine Tynan

World's News (Sydney) 22 Feb 1919

Katharine Tynan (1861-1931) was an Irish writer, known mainly for her novels and poetry.

SOMEONE had said of his Lordship that he had a very good heart. It was one of the old ladies to whom he had been gentle and courteous beyond most fashionable young men. Of course, he had been spoilt. He had been run after and courted and flattered all his days. He was immensely rich, and big and boyish, and gay, and sweet-tempered. He had been a parti for some years and had not married despite many flirtations.

He had said to one of his old lady friends who had told him he ought to give up flirting and settle down, "But I don't hurt anyone by my flirtations. I really believe that if any woman loved me for myself I could not resist her. I never play where I might hurt someone."

He had been very serious as he said it, and his eyes had opened wide and blue with the candour of a good boy's heart in them. The old ladies went on believing in him, and dogs, and children, and poor, unconsidered people, and his tenants, and the many who were dependent on him to a greater or lesser extent.

He did not neglect the duties of his estate; he read a good deal, as though in preparation for something to come; but there was no doubt that most of his life was given up to play. Lady Augusta Warrenne, his great friend among the old ladies, often scolded him because he would not settle down and do some really important work for the State.

"God has given you a good heart, an excellent mind, and abundant opportunities of doing good," she said. "You fritter away time that should be so valuable. At twenty eight it is time to give over being a butterfly. You should marry, Archie."

His Lordship went away from his old friend a little thoughtful. Perhaps he was beginning to get a bit sick of being a butterfly. He was quite well aware that he had capacity for better things. And there was the family. He was an only child. If he died unmarried and childless the title and the estates would go to a cousin he did not esteem, to whom he would be sorry to entrust the fates of the many people who depended more or less on him. He grew ashamed when he remembered the many times he had endangered life and health. The butterfly had been one phase of him; his enjoyments had been equally in strenuous adventure. Very often he had laughed in the bright face of danger. By Jove, it would have been rough on the people if Baskerville had succeeded; it would have been rougher on the family— his Lordship was inordinately proud of the family— if Baskerville had been left to carry it on.

He thought over these things during a night journey to the Highlands. He had promised to stay a few days with the Dugdale-Smiths on his way further north. He was not sure he wanted to stay with the Dugdale-Smiths. Dugdale-Smith was a new man who went in terror of his wife. He had had no education to speak of, and was afraid to open his mouth in his wife's presence lest he should betray the fact. Lady Vera was unexceptionable in point of birth, but his Lordship had come to the conclusion that the poor devil of a rich husband had more breeding than his wife. Lady Vera had been one of his Lordship's flirtations of which he had suddenly become ashamed and rather sickened. He did not know why he was going to the Bothy instead of going on to his own Spaermuir. Anyhow it was the last time. He was going to chuck all such emptiness and settle down.

He thought during the night journey upon the girls with whom he might possibly settle down. Not one altogether pleased him. He had been a little in love here and there, but only a little— and the nicest girls had gone away and settled down with other men.

It was at Carlisle, where there was a half-hour's wait in the dreariest and blackest hour of the night, that he became aware of a little girl, not much more than a child, standing on the railway platform, having apparently alighted from his train. Her hands were full of packages. It was raining and blowing, and the fitful light of the station lamps was on her face. He passed on to the hotel with an impression of a frightened and lonely child, with very wide, dark eyes, and a little, round white chin. The glare of the electric lamps had shown him no more than that in the shadow of the girl's big hat.

While he ate his food he kept on thinking of the face. He had an absurd impulse to go back and see if someone had met her, if she had found friends. By her attitude he judged that she was going on by another train. There had been an air of lonely patience about the little figure.

There had been some queer people travelling by the train. A memory of a large, fat, dark young man, with a couple of diamond rings on his podgy fingers, somehow or other made his Lordship scurry through the remainder of his meal, to which he had done full justice. He wondered if the child had had any food. She was young to be travelling alone at night. On an absurd impulse he ordered a tea-basket to be brought to the train when it was ready to start— some chicken sandwiches with it, a particularly dainty tea-basket. The tea must be freshly-made and hot; and cream, please, not milk; a roll and butter, and a little glass jar of honey.

While he gave the order, he wondered what he should do with the tea-basket if she was not there. Well, probably there would be some other hungry travellers who would be glad of it.

There was no sign of her when he returned to the platform. She was already in the train probably, for people were taking their places. He went along by the train, glancing into the carriages as he passed. Suddenly he saw her all alone at the far end of a third-class carriage. He was sure of her, although her head was bent in dejection, and he could not see her face.

While he stood a little way off to look he noticed that one or two people tried the door and passed on. It was evidently locked. Then he became aware of the fat, dark young man standing smoking a cigar, close to the carriage, but invisible from its windows.

All at once his Lordship felt an intense desire to stamp on the young man and squash him as though he were a black beetle.

He intercepted his servant with his rugs and travelling things and the boy with the tea-basket, and stood waiting till the guard came along and unlocked the carriage door. He saw something pass from one hand to an other, as the Beetle— so his Lordship called the fat, dark young man— got into the carriage. The guard had already relocked the door when his Lordship was beside him.

"Open the door, please," he said.

"Plenty of room in the other carriages. This is engaged."

"Open the door, please."

The man stared, muttered something, and obeyed. His Lordship got in, followed by the rugs and tea-basket, books, magazines, etc.

"That's all, your Lordship," said the servant.

"Go to my carriage, and have a sleep," said his Lordship, who was always considerate to servants. And off went the train.

He had seen the girl's first glance of terror and repugnance at the beetle while he parleyed with the guard, how she had crouched into her corner; and it had made him want to fling the brute out of the window. There was no chance of getting rid of him for nearly two hours. He had settled in his corner and drawn his cap over his eyes. His Lordship wished it had been anyone else, but, perhaps, after all, it made things easier.

The girl glanced at his Lordship, and he caught a little sigh of intense relief. He moved opposite to her and spoke to her, with a manner of kind elderliness.

"I saw you on the platform," he said, "and I guessed you were travelling alone. I have a tea-basket. Please may I offer you some tea?"

She looked up at him, and her eyes seemed to search him. The flash of gratitude in them almost took away his breath. She glanced quickly, with aversion, at the sulky, huddled-up figure in the corner, and she shuddered. The brute had frightened her. His Lordship felt as though he could hardly keep his hands off him.

Presently, there were snores from that corner of the carriage, which continued till the first stopping-place, when their unwelcome companion got up and left them. No one else came into the carriage. By this time they were friends. The girl had enjoyed the dainty meal provided for her, which his Lordship pretended to share. She was knitting now, a silk necktie, about which his Lordship wondered— was it for a lover? She talked while she knitted. Presently he knew all her little story. She had a mother and a brother. They were very poor, but Robin was so clever, and he was to have all the chance they could possibly give him. He was at Winchester and was going on to Oxford. She was helping. She had been at various convents abroad, getting languages and music, and she was going now as governess to some young children— for the first time. The tie was for Robin, who was such a dear boy.

To his Lordship her simplicity was amazing. There was something in a poem he remembered

"She feared no danger for she knew no sin." She had been carefully sheltered in her mother's cottage on Dartmoor and in her Flemish convents. She explained that some one was to have met her and travelled with her from London, but there had been no one there and so she had travelled alone.

Again she glanced with a little shudder at the corner which had been occupied by the Beetle, and away again. So she had feared some danger. Her instinct had told her to beware. But she looked at him in a happy confidence.

"You should not have travelled alone." he said.

"I suppose the lady I am going to forgot. She said there would be an old family servant travelling down a Mrs. Collins. If she was there I could not discover her. And that... that... gentleman," she indicated the corner of the carriage, "frightened me. I changed at two stopping-places, but he followed me. Luckily there were always other people, the train was so full— but he stared."

"You should not have travelled alone," he said again. "I shall see you to your destination."

By the oddest of chances, she was Lady Vera Dugdale-Smith's new governess. By the time they arrived at the Highland station at eight o'clock in the morning he felt as though he had always known the little girl. Something new had come to him with the awakening of the passionate sense of protection which had sprung up in him. She was so innocent, so gentle.

Lady Vera came down to breakfast wearing the most becoming of negligees. He had no eyes for her. The breakfasted tête-à-tête Mr. Dugdale-Smith was away on business. Miss Godwin— the little girl's name was Kitty Godwin— did not appear.

"I travelled down with your new governess." he said. "She was very young to be travelling alone."

"I quite intended that Collins should come down by the same train." Lady Vera said, and her black brows frowned. "I'm afraid I forgot. I haven't seen the creature yet."

"She is charming," his Lordship said, unwisely.

"Oh! and you took care of her? How romantic! I hope she is a discreet young person."

"Perfectly."

Something had put her Ladyship out. She was distinctly snappy during breakfast. After breakfast his Lordship took his rod and west out. He spent a quiet, happily-engrossed morning with a certain amount of success. He enjoyed being alone, at least away from Vera. He detested an ill-tempered woman, and Vera had never before shown him her temper so plainly. He found himself pitying that poor devil, Dugdale-Smith.

He had started out in a mood rather chafed and resentful. As the morning went on he regained his normal contentment. He thinking a deal, of Kitty— she had told him her name was Godwin, adding, "Katharine— Kitty for short."

The name suited her. "Kitty-for-short," he said over to himself and smiled.

Some time during the morning he heard the voices of the children, and presently they discovered him and hailed him joyfully. He was always the nursery friend.

He looked round with a welcoming grin as Jock, a solemn boy with a good deal of his father in him and a secret fund of wild gaiety added, flung a couple of fat arms about his neck, scaring away a silver fin. His Lordship was not vexed about the fish. He was fond of children and had a special liking for Jock. Her Ladyship would have been much surprised if she had known how much Jock had had to do with his Lordship breaking his journey to pay them a visit.

But how he looked beyond Jock with an eager expectancy. He saw only a nurse in a neat print gown, trying to control her excited charges.

"Your new governess is resting, I suppose," he said to Nina, the ten-year-old girl, who was going to be like her mother, Nina had slipped into a place by his side with a confident air of being welcome.

"She is leaving to-night," said Nina, with a prim air. "Mummie is not satisfied with her. She is sending her away."

Jock hoo-hooed suddenly.

"I want her to stay," he said. "I like her much better than this cross old Nanna. She's pretty and she plays with me."

"Never mind, Jock," said his Lordship. "You will see her again, I should think."

His Lordship walked home with the children to lunch. He had a little conversation with Lady Vera which is outside our ken. What most concerns us is that when Kitty Godwin, veiled and with very red eyes, arrived at the railway station with her unpacked luggage, his Lordship was already there "Did you suppose you were going to have another night journey alone?" he asked, quietly.

Lady Vera was furiously angry about it all, but— "Happy's the wooin' that's not long a-doin' "; and his Lordship was characteristically impetuous in the manner of his wooing and wedding. It was quite a romance, of course. In time Lady Vera came to represent herself as having played a most benevolent fairy godmother's part in the story, and perhaps some people believed her.

Anyhow, the new Lady Annesborough was charming enough to conciliate and disarm. And his Lordship was infatuated about her. No one was better pleased than his old friend, Lady Augusta Warrenne.

"She will bring out the best that is in him," she said to some other old ladies who had always been fond of his Lordship. "We shall be justified in our belief in him. I call it a most happy romance."

_______________

17: The Impressing of Looney Fipps

Sewell Ford

1868-1946

World's News (Sydney) 2 April 1904

THE NORTH-EASTER had howled persistently over the Jersey coast for two days and nights when Cap'n Logan, thrusting head and shoulders above the trunk slide of his four-by-five cabin, read on the face of the sky and waters the signs of a break.

"She's haulin' to the nuthard, Jowls," he observed, "an' she'll be in the west 'fore noon sure's fate. Guess we'd better be gittin' up them eel-pots and makin' fer home. Alma'll be dreadful worried about us by this time."

Jowls made no response. He never did. He just sat on the bunk-edge, and purred his content, blinking in sleepy confidence at Cap'n Bunt's weather forecast. For Jowls, although first mate and crew of the Uncle Sam, was only a four-pound cat— a Thomas cat— tailless and fearless.

Having got into his oilskins, Cap'n Bunt went on deck; that is, he crawled from the tiny cabin up into the diminutive cockpit and took another squint at the weather.

"There's blue in the west, Jowls, 'nough to patch a Dutchman's 'pants. The wind has drawed, too. Tumble up, Jowls, an' we'll git under way."

Cap'n Bunt talked to his bob-tailed cat much more freely than he would had Jowls been human, for, like most old baymen, he had acquired the habit of silence. And this morning he was in a particularly good humor. Almost anyone would have been glad to escape from that stuffy little box after 48 hours of pitching and rolling. Besides, they would soon be homeward bound. He wanted to see Alma, the tall, awkward girl who had grown up to look so much as her mother had looked back in '65. Had Alma been getting lonesome again? Or had that long-legged Leander Fipps been hanging around? Cap'n Bunt's eyelids narrowed as he thought of Leander. It was only for a moment, however. A gentle, kindly nature was his. You could see that by a glance at the steady, wide set, gray-blue eyes peering out from under the rim of his yellow sou'-wester.

After much manoeuvring in the seaway Cap'n Bunt picked up his last eel-pot, dumped the wriggling mass into the car towing astern, and then, under double reefs, laid a course up the Bay for Cedarton, where were home and Alma.

"We got a thousan' clams, Jowls— that's five dollars— an' 'bout a hundred pounds o' eels— that's eight dollars more. Fair wages, eh, Jowls?"

Presumably Jowls agreed, for he curled up beside Cap'n Bunt on the windward rail and watched complacently as the Uncle Sam, her nose buried to the eye-bolts and her six inches of lee deck awash, wallowed through the waves.

Thirteen dollars! Surely he could spare a little of that to buy something for Alma on her birthday. She would be 20 next Sunday. She was a good girl, this Alma of his. Did she not keep the cottage tidy? Didn't she make her own dresses? Couldn't she play hymn tunes on the cabinet organ, and cook almost as well as her mother had cooked? And she was content to stay at home, too, even if home was only a little storey-and-a-half house on one of Cedarton's back streets. She didn't want to run off and work in a factory, leaving him alone. Yes, Alma was a good girl. It should be a new pair of shoes, perhaps.

After Cap'n Bunt had tied up to the Cedarton public wharf, sold his clams and eels, he hastened home, Jowls trotting along in his wake. Alma met him at the gate. Inspected critically, you might not have thought her either handsome or brilliant. Still, her thick hair tied atop her head with a bright ribbon, and her best Sunday dress on, she seemed to the kindly old eyes of Cap'n Bunt the embodiment of all the graces.

"We knew you was home, Dad, we saw your sail as you rounded Long Point," she said.

"We?" echoed Cap'n Bunt.

The girl blushed and looked at the ground.

"Why," yes, Dad— Leander 'n me. We— we've been married."

"Leander? Leander who?"

"Why, Leander Fipps, Dad, of course."

"What, Looney Fipps! Alma, you ain't gone an' married Looney Fipps, hev you?"

" 'Course I have. Leander's in the house there. I thought you'd be some surprised, though."

Surprised! It was hardly the word. Blank amazement, stunned comprehension, sat on the seamed, weather-beaten old face. His Alma married! And to Looney Fipps! He brushed his eyes as if to clear his vision for the better viewing of this catastrophe.

Cap'n Bunt finally allowed himself to be led into the cosey little sitting-room, where a long-legged, loose-jointed, sallow-faced young man lounged comfortably in a big rocking-chair. He of the long legs seemed to take no notice of their advent. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling in an intent, rapt gaze. On one knee was a pad of writing-paper, and he held a pencil in his hand. "S-s-sh!" Alma made a warning gesture to her father, and whispered: "Don't bother him now, he's been struck."

"Struck?" queried Cap'n Bunt. "How? Plaster fall on him?"

"Dad! You know better! He writes poetry." Alma was towing the captain by his sleeve toward the kitchen.

"But who hit him?" insisted Cap'n Bunt when the door between the two rooms had been closed.

"Oh, Dad! No one hit him; that's just what he calls it when he's going to write something. It comes on like a spell."

"Won't nothin' bring him out of it? Let him smell the camfire bottle, Alma."

Out of her own vague knowledge, Alma did her best to expound the peculiar phenomena attending the inspiration of genius. But Cap'n Bunt only shook his head in a sorrowfully dazed way.

"Yes," he admitted, "I allus knew Looney wa'n't jess right in his top-hamper, but I never did know the identical natur' of his ailment. None o' them Fippses is overbright, anyway, but they've all managed to git along, doin' one thing and another, 'cept Leander. The old man has allus supported him. What's he mean to do, now you'n' him's married?"

"Why he— he's goin' to stay here, Dad. He's brought over all his things. But he's goin' to be rich and famous, some day. He's told me all about it. The editor men, that own the magazines, they're jealous of him because he writes such fine poetry, and they won't print it. But sometime they'll just have to, and then we'll all be proud of knowin' Leander. He does write such beautiful verses. He's had some of 'em printed, too, in the 'Cedarton Banner.' An' he wrote some lovely things about me."

"Did he? Don't he cal'late to do nothin' else?"

"Why, Dad! Poets don't work like common folks."

"Don't eh?"

If Cap'n Bunt Logan had ideas of his own concerning poets, and it was probable that he did, he found difficulty in putting them into practice. Eloquently did Alma plead the cause of her newly-acquired poet-husband. "You won't be cross with him, will you, Dad? And you won't call him Looney any more. I'm goin' to get some sewin' to do, so's to make up for the extry expense, and we'll get along somehow."'

So Cap'n Bunt surrendered. But it was a bitter dose. He had always looked upon the Fippses as a shiftless, good-for-nothing lot. Looney he had always held in especial contempt. His attitude towards his new son-in-law was not cordial.

Leander Fipps, poet, did not mind. Daily he found himself slipping into a life of much ease. He was petted, waited upon, and lavishly admired by Alma, allowed to do as he pleased by her father. It pleased Leander to rise late in the forenoon, to lounge about the house all day and to read until, all hours of the night. He took possession of Cap'n Bunt's easy-chair, permitted himself to be helped first at table, and handed over the weekly paper only after he had finished it himself.

Cap'n Bunt noted that poets had good appetites and were not over-fond of using soap and water. Home lost some of its charm for the good old captain. He spent more time in his garden, sat around on the post-office steps longer than usual, and went more frequently down to the clam flats.

This state of affairs had continued for some weeks when, on returning from one of his trips, Cap'n Bunt was informed that Leander had just finished an "awfully beautiful" poem. "It's all about the sea and ships, Dad. You'll think it's just great," declared Alma. "Read it to Dad, Leander."

Leander needed but little urging. Clearing his throat he began impressively:—

"The big ship plunged through the wintry sea,

And the dolphins played about her lee."

"What's that, Leander? Dolphins?" queried Cap'n Bunt. "Don't see many dolphins in winter, do ye? P'raps you mean walruses?"

"I wrote it dolphins, and I mean dolphins," growled Leander, continuing:—

"Her wake was white, her masts were bared,

High on her bow the captain stared."

"Queer place for a ship cap'n, on the fo'c'sle," commented the critic.

"Don't care if 'tis," retorted Leander sulkily. "This is poetry."'

"Guess I'll have to take yer word fer it, Leander."

"Well, 'tis!"

As the reading of the poem proceeded Cap'n Bunt continued to discover technical errors.

"You told a minit ago about her runnin' under bare poles, an' now you talk 'bout her bellyin' sails," protested Cap'n Bunt.

"Rhymes, don't it?" argued Leander. "P'raps, but it don't make sense."

"You don't know what poetry is, anyway." Leander's temper was a short one.

"Mebby so, mebby so. 'Tain't kept me from earnin' a livin' though."

This was a home thrust which made Leander wince.

"You're an old fool," he said hotly, and kicked savagely at Jowls, who, all unconscious of the growing warmth of the debate, was sleeping peacefully on the rug between them. Jowls landed under the sofa, yowling excitedly.

"My cooky pie!" This was about the most forcible expression in Cap'n Bunt's vocabulary. He used it only under great stress of excitement. "Cooky pie!" he repeated. "You— you good-fer-nothin' young—"

"Oh, please, Dad, please don't!" interrupted Alma.

"Alma!" Cap'n Bunt's voice was stern and hoarse. "You saw him kick Jowls, didn't you?"

"Yes, Dad, but he didn't mean to; he was excited."

Leander, his face flushed angrily, said nothing. "Excited, was he? Well, well," and Cap'n Bunt paused to give expression to a grim smile, "I know somethin' that's good for that. In fact, it's good for a lot of things that ails him. It's clammin'. Young man, me an' Jowls sail to-morrer mornin' on the Uncle Sam. Now, will you go along with us an' do yer share, or will you pack up an' git out?"

This time Alma pleaded in vain. Cap'n Bunt was calm but firm; Leander must go to work or leave.

In the course of the next few hours Leander's mental state veered from dignified scorn to injured humility. At first he marched loftily out of the house, refusing to be wept over by the agitated Alma. But after a brief visit to his father's home, where Mr. Fipps, sen., received coldly his proposal to stay until Cap'n Bunt should beg him to return, he reappeared at the cottage. Well, he would starve, that's what he would do. And they should see him do it. Intent on this purpose he sat himself down in the backyard, and gazed gloomily at the chicken house.

Alma, for all her tenderness of heart, was not without a certain shrewdness of head. She dried her tears, and proceeded to make clam fritters. Martyrs may have starved themselves, under certain favorable conditions, but surely not with the scent of clam fritters— such clam fritters as Alma could fry, anyway—to tempt them from self-destruction. Supper was barely ready before Leander had relented. Finally, he begged Cap'n Bunt's pardon. He even tried to make friends with Jowls.

Cap'n Bunt viewed these overtures approvingly, but his decree stood unshaken. So Leander Fipps, poet, a roll of oilskins under his arm and dire forebodings in his heart, shipped early next morning on the Uncle Sam.

Now in a vague sort of way Leander knew that clamming, at its best,, was unpleasant, back-breaking work. He had seen the puffed, water-cracked, calloused hands of baymen. He knew the weight of a clam-rake. He had been seasick on the Bay, too. But to go clamming on the Uncle Sam! Well, it was tempting Providence, that was all. For the Uncle Sam, instead of being one of those high-bowed, stanch-ribbed Barnegat sloops which the more prosperous baymey use, was an odd, flat-bottomed, straight-sided little craft of nondescript rig, but steered by a wheel, just like a ship.

Small wonder, then, that Leander slunk aboard as one led to his doom. But it was go or starve, and Leander had tried starving. For the first time in his career he discovered what it really meant to earn his living. When the bay was smooth he stood on the rail, and worked back and forth the long, shear-like rake handles, hauling up a hatful of clams now and then and dumping them into the hold. The sun and salt water did things to his face and hands. His eyes burned. His back ached. He whined continual complaints.

"Oh, you'll be all right, soon's you git used to it, Leander," Cap'n Bunt would say encouragingly. "And then, after you git to know it real well, mebby you can write po'try about it, somethin' that'll have some sense to it."

You should have seen Leander, though, when the bay was too rough for clamming, when a sudden gale sent the white-capped rollers scudding over the shoal waters. Then Leander crawled into the cramped cabin to lie for hours, too frightened to move, too sick to eat, while the Uncle Sam, bowing an awkward salute to each wave that lifted her on its crest, and rolling like a log whenever she slid broadside down into the trough, rode out the storm.

"Might be writin' po'try now, Leander. Lots of time for it," Cap'n Bunt suggested.

"I— I don't feel like writin' poetry," groaned Leander. "I just want to die."

Two months filled with experiences like these worked a great change. A most subdued and melancholy individual had Leander become. On shore he meekly kept himself in the background. He said little about his inspired writings, but secretly he sent to various magazines and newspapers thick envelopes filled with manuscript, hoping against hope that some of it would stick.

It was late in September when, on returning from a trip to the clam flats, Cap'n Bunt and Leander were met at the wharf by Alma. She could hardly wait for the Uncle Sam to be made fast before she was aboard.

"Oh, Dad! Oh, Leander! What do you think?" "One o' them Plymouth Rock pullets of yourn started layin'?" ventured her father.

"No, no; it's about Leander."

Mr. Fipps turned as pale as he could under his sundry coats of tan, but he said no word. Dangling his rubber-booted legs over the Uncle Sam's cabin, his mouth open, all his faculties in his ears, he listened.

"I knew it would come," continued Alma, "and it has. There was a real slick lookin' feller called last Monday. 'Does Mr. Leander Fipps, the poet, live here?' says he. 'He does,' says I, 'when's he's to home. Just now he's clammin' down the Bay.' Then he told me he was a reporter for a New York paper, and he'd been sent down to find out something about the famous poet of Barnegat Bay. That's you, Leander. For two solid hours he asked questions, and I answered 'em. Wanted your picture, too, so I let him take that one you gave me last Christmas, the one where you've got a book on your lap and your hair's all mussed up. He's goin' to put it in the paper. Now what do you think of that?"

Cap'n Bunt did not know what to think, that was clear. He looked curiously at his son-in-law. Leander was standing now, his hands thrust into his pockets. He was holding his head well up. He had squared his shoulders. His chest was thrown out.

"I wisht you hadn't told him I had gone clammin'," he said reprovingly.

"You had, though, Leander."

"Well, you might have called it cruisin'. When is he goin' to print it?"

"Next Sunday, he said."

Eagerly they waited the coming of that Sunday paper. Nor was the waiting in vain. There it was, a whole quarter of a page about "The Bard of Barnegat." There was the picture, too, a little hazy as to detail, but, for all that, Leander to the life. They had printed all about where he was born, how he wrote his poems, and what he thought of the magazine editors who refused to buy them. Some of the verses were printed, top, including the "awfully beautiful" one about the dolphins in the wintry sea.

"Mr. Fipps," the article concluded, "has a most versatile genius; His muse, as it were, is ambidextrous, for he is the only poet in America who can rake clams with one hand and at the same time write a sonnet with the other. Also, he is the only living poet who can make "glimmer" rhyme with "winter," and if the State of New Jersey does not appoint him official laureate it will be because the raising of clams and cranberries has crowded out all appreciation of the finer arts."

"There!" declared Alma. "Didn't I tell you, Dad, that we should all be proud of Leander some day?"

But, after all, it was the arrival of the cheque which completed Leander's triumph, which established Leander's triumph, which established for all time, at least within domestic limits, the altar of his genius. For the sum of eight dollars the cheque was drawn— thirty-two lines of verse at twenty-five cents a line. "My cooky pie!" exclaimed Cap'n Bunt as signal of his astonishment. "Why, Leander, that's more'n you an' I could make in a week's clammin'."

Leander smiled in a superior way. "It's nothin' to what I'm goin' to make, but it's more'n I shall ever make again by clammin'."

"No, I don't s'pose you'll want to do any more rakin' along with Jowls an' me," assented Cap'n Bunt.

He was quite correct. From that day to this Leander has remained comfortably ashore, sleeping late of mornings, lounging at ease in Cap'n Bunt's big rocker, and accepting as a matter of course the unflagging devotion of Alma.

He has sold no more verses, but there's no telling when the magazine editors will conquer their envy and raise for him the straining flood-gates of fortune. The Bard of Barnegat awaits the day with unfretted soul and a good appetite.

_______________

18: Overdue

Arthur Applin

World's News (Sydney) 26 April 1902

Arthur Gustavos Trugard Applin (1883-1949) was a prolific and popular English novelist and playwright who also published under the pseudonym "Julian Swift".

"No further news of the Etruria has been received."— March 6.

"M. Marconi hopes at some future time to obtain wireless communication with all Atlantic liners during their entire passage from England to America."—March 7.

"It is apparent from these two interesting items that the day will soon have passed when the only resource left to a despairing crew on the brink of an ocean tragedy is to cast into the sea a bottle containing an account of their danger. In wireless telegraphy science has provided a more hopeful expedient."—Daily Paper.

AT THE EXTREME end of the Cornish coast, on the most southerly point of England, stand the sentinels of the Past and the Future; a great tagged rock rears its head above the sea some four miles from the shore, barren but for tufts of sickly grass, uninhabited save by the sea birds. For centuries the rock has stood amid the wild waters; once an island, green and fair, now gradually being devoured by the insatiable waves, gradually crumbling and passing with the ages from the knowledge and memory of man. Once a guide to the unwieldy ships that sailed seeking empires, a landmark to sailors, the first glimpse of homeland to wanderers; now a danger-mark to the huge black liners— a forgotten Sentinel of the Pact.

And a little inland, a small grey turret-house, with a wooden mast pointing skyward, and square glass eyes ever staring ocean ward—a little house built by man's clumsy fingers, not one-fiftieth the size of the fading rock speck on the ocean— yet it is Time's finger-mark; it is the ear of the ocean, the Sentinel of the Future.

The clouds had been driving round the Lizard point for several days, forming solid banks of blackness in the south-west, swooping across the green seas, that hourly grew more restless, and often hiding the old barren rock from the strongest telescope. The lonely watcher— one by day and one by night— in the grey house, Marconi's wireless telegraph station on the south, had long known of the approach of the storm. Ships already caught in its fierce clutches had telegraphed its advent to the watcher, and he, Jove-like, had hurled electric warnings of the danger to other boats.

And this evening, as John Priest walked along the narrow cliff path to relieve his companion tor night duty, It seemed as if Nature's great straggle were about to begin. The wind had dropped a little; the breakers, far below, ceased to throw their shining, white-foam arms upward; instead the waves heaved and rolled in large, greasy mountains. An unnatural silence had fallen, almost terrifying to the lonely human bring.

Before he reached its shelter big drops of rain began to fall; slowly, with an ugly, regular splash; flashes of lightning lit the horizon, dividing green and black.

John Priest felt the nervous excitement in the air communicate itself to his body, filling him with a vague unrest and fear.

His companion was waiting at the door.

"I'm glad you're not late," he said. "I fear even now I shall get caught in the storm before I can cover those three miles along the cliff. Good-night."

"Good-night," replied John Priest. He watched the other run swiftly down the path and along the cliffs. He felt a strange longing to call him back, to ask him to share the watch that night. The quiet threatening of the night, quivering with electricity and storm, thrilled his nerves.

"I wonder what's wrong with me?" he said aloud, and then checked himself, unpleasantly conscious of his own voice— that none could hear or answer. Quickly his companion disappeared, enveloped in clouds and darkness.

Nothing living was visible— not even a tree; not a bird on the wing; nothing. With an effort he laughed, and banged and bolted the door loudly, and entered the operating-room— the room with the square eyes facing seaward. It was a round, plainly furnished chamber, containing one comfortable sofa, a bookshelf filled with books, several maps, and charts; a list of rules and explanations concerning the working of the Marconi wireless telegraph, and in the centre of the room the instrument itself. Priest looked at his watch; eleven hours and a half of solitary confinement, practically cut off from all human communication! He leaned against the window and stand into the darkness.

He looked at the instrument, fingered it, saw all was in order, tried to keep himself busy with trifles, praying for the time to pass quickly, for the storm to come, or go. When he looked at his watch again what had seemed an hour proved fifteen minutes. Then he swore quietly at himself for a fool, and filled his pipe deliberately. As he put it to his lips a sudden blaze of light lit the room, and a terrible crash rent the air, tearing silence and the night asunder and echoing from cliff to cliff.

With the first great crash all the elements sprang to life. To the watcher it seemed as if fire, earth, air, and water were swirling and struggling through space Inextricably mixed together.

How long he watched with awe and wonder he did not know, but the rushing winds howled him into a semi-conscious sleep, in which he heard the waves rising and roaring nearer and nearer.

He awoke with a start, feeling something or some one had spoken to him. The yellow light burnt more dimly, but instinctively he glanced first at the Marconi instrument. All was in order. The tapper was silent, motionless. As he wondered what had suddenly called him the instrument clicked.

Some one had called! Whence could a message come on such a night, and from whom? Was it a trick of the storm, that yet raged and shrieked like a furious beast outside?

He drew his chair to the table and bent over the instrument and waited.

Again the little spark of light behind him, and simultaneously the click—dot—"—LE—LE— LE—DH—DH—DH," it said.

"DH!" That was no trick of the storm; yet he did not know the call. Quickly he turned to the code:—

"DH"—S.S. Delilah, mail and passenger steamer, 9000 tons Good Heavens! what did the Delilah want, and where was she? Surely, if he remembered right, she was due at Liverpool two days ago.

For an instant Priest hesitatingly watched and listened. From whence amidst the thousands of miles of mad waves was this message sent? With unsteady hand he held his machine, replied—

"Go on," and waited. No answer. He held his breath and counted the seconds.

At last an answer, "LE" again; an instant's pause, then the machine began slowly with many pauses and breaks, as if the message, flying on magnetic wings through space to the little grey turret on the Cornish coast, was battling each yard of its way with the wind, the sea, and the rain— the machine began to spell its message:—

"The Delilah—damaged by terrific seas— fear fact sinking— four hundred passengers— send help—"

Priest gasped, and his grip on the machine tightened. Delilah sinking; five hundred passengers and crew; send help! What did it mean? Breathless he waited, watching the tapper with distended eyes; it clicked, was silent, still.

The perspiration broke out on his forehead; a thousand questions flashed through his brain; his body stiffened and quivered; he felt five hundred lives in his hand— fighting death. The little square room, dimly lit with the yellow lamp-light, ceased to exist; the storm no longer roared in his ears, nor the sea spray and raindrops to beat the windows; a silence greater and more intense than the silence of the afternoon wrapped itself round him.

Flash "DH. Where are your?"

He found a difficulty in breathing— how the seconds dragged— minutes, surely, now, and no answer. Again, "Where are you?"

At last an answer: "S.S.W. of Lizard, about one hundred miles off; instruments damaged; rudder broken; can keep afloat few more hours—is help.... "

The rest was unreadable; still the tapper clicked—again, "is help—"

Help! How could he send help? He sprang from his seat, and rushed to the door and unbolted it. With a yell of triumph the wind rushed in, shaking the little house to its foundations, and hurling him back to the ground.

He had forgotten the storm! It took him some time to shut and bolt the door again; then he returned to the room bruised and wet. The lamp had been blown out, and all was dark. As be searched for the matches, he heard the click of the machine.

Hs groped his way to the table, and bent over it; he could read the message in the dark.

Still the same question: "Can you send help?"

His answer?

With horrible vividness he saw five hundred men and women huddled together on the sinking ship in the midst of the raging tempest, waiting for that answer, praying Heaven that it might be "Yes"; trusting, believing it would be "Yes."

His hand moved slowly, steadily now, as he spelt out four words in the darkness and he felt the darkness was best, through there were none  to see, or hear, or know—

"Impossible to send help."

Five hundred men tad women; husbands, wives, lovers! Children, too—five hundred. He, John Priest, safe on land in the little room, with its square eyes looking seaward, and five hundred souls far away across the boiling waters calling out to him, waiting for his massage— of life, or death.

He had sent death!

Had they received it yet? What did they think or feel? He could speak with them, but he couldn't save them!

He jumped from his chair, and rushed to the window and stared out; black, black everywhere! Impotently he beat his bands against the window, and mercilessly the rain and the wind and the sea spume beat back.

Who were they on board the boat sinking out yonder? What ties had they, what passions, bound them to the red earth and the things of the earth?

Back to his seat he rushed, and of a sudden an inspiration came. If, perchance, there was another boat anywhere near that he could telegraph to!

Hope yet; a chance of life yet!

He relit the lamp, and turned up the book giving the names of vessels fitted with wireless telegraphy. One by one he read and passed the names; all those were in port or a thousand miles away. The last boat on the list, the Scotsman, there was just a chance she might be in the English Channel, the vaguest chance, he knew; but it was possible.

Hastily he telegraphed now: "Am trying to signal Scotsman; if within distance, Will send her to help you."

He waited for an answer, but none came; had she already gone down?

If so— hastily he changed the signal call —the machine clicked —and waited. He was fighting the storm now, fighting Nature, who gives no quarter; fighting Death, who, open-mouthed, panted for 500 lives.

Why didn't she answer? Wherever she was she should receive the message! Ah, at last—

"M.S. Delilah sinking fast. Are you near enough to help?"

Presently the answer:

"Fear impossible, but will look out for her— trying to beat down Channel myself?" Then, after a long pause: "Am trying to get into communication with her."

Again Priest flashed: "For God's sake do your best— 400 passengers."

He leant back in his chair and wiped his brow. He dared not call the Delilah again; he feared lest no answer should come.

He waited, and for an instant the silence lifted, and he heard an exulting shriek from the wind and sea outside, and the house trembled. Where were those 500 souls?

Click!

Close over the table he bent, and held his breath.

"Cannot keep afloat until morning. Have you been able to send help?"

"Yes. Spoken Scotsman beating down Channel; she is looking for you. Keep afloat as long as possible. All I can do—" His lingers ceased to move, the horror of having done no more, the weakness of that message! He set his teeth.

Again the tapper moved, and now he feared what it would spell.

"Thanks; don't leave instrument. Communicate with us as long as possible, or until Delilah sinks."

He whispered a prayer as he sat before the table. "Please, God, save them, forgive and help;" and at the same time he telegraphed:—

"Shall not leave instrument. Will communicate with you until help comes."

A few minutes elapsed, and no further message was sent. Then, suddenly, with long pauses between each letter:—

"We are getting out the boats." Another pause that seemed hours. A stronger gust of wind seemed to make the little building rock. A flash of lightning momentarily filled the room with a blue glare, and the crash of thunder deafened Priest for a moment. When the last rumble died away again, he heard that the instrument was again clicking. Had he missed something during that appalling crash? "Have launched one of the boats." A pause that seemed to last for hours. Then: "Boat has overturned with 20 passengers. All lost."

Another wait longer than the first, in imagination, Priest saw men and women struggling in the relentless waves. He pictured the others huddling at the side of the helpless liner, and at each flash of lightning thought he could see the ghastly terror on pale faces.

"Good Heaven, they will drown, drown!" he cried aloud, in agony. He seemed to feel the sting of the cold water himself, and wished that he could go down with the vessel rather than endure this racking torture of waiting— waiting for what he felt was inevitable, waiting for something that he could not prevent.

Again the instrument ticked out its piteous message: "Two more boats launched; both overturned. Fear must abandon hope. Fact filling."

A long pause. Priest sat motionless, his eyes steadfast on the machine coldly ticking of approaching doom to the only man in the world who knew and could not save.

Then: "Passengers have behaved splendidly. Perfect order; no panic."

A still longer pause. Priest dropped from the chair to his knees, and began hysterically to pray, while he watched with staring eyes the tapper, and heard the click— dot— beat hammerlike into his brain.

"Passengers four hundred and forty— two fifty men, one seventy women, twenty children— remainder crew, officers "

"Save them, save them!" cried Priest, aloud, and the storm shrieked derisively. Unconsciously his fingers, convulsively touching the machine, spelt these two words, and the message was carried out into the night, over the seas, to the sinking ship.

"There is still hope," the women whispered; "he is sending for help." But the men— guessed.

"Cannot decipher your last message— stern of ship nearly under water— a matter of minutes now— passengers ask will you kindly convey to friends"— the letters danced before Priest's eyes, and became confused. He fancied he heard the voices of men and women calling— he sprang to the window and looked out. A pale grey light in the east. Was that dawn?

The tapper still clicked, but the words it spelt were confused—then it stopped. What was happening now beyond that bar of light, on the grey dawn?

Where is the Scotsman? Frantically he seized the instrument, and called  the Scotsman again.

He is answered: "Have sighted Delilah. Making for her."

One, two, three, four— how the minutes slide away, each one an hour. Ten, fifteen— the bar of light has grown; the grey dawn peeps of a sudden through the square windows of the little house, the Sentinel of the Future, and touches the cold, bare sides of the rock at sea, the Sentinel of the Past, and John Priest hears a rush and swirl of waters—and then an oppressive silence and a void. Still he watches the machine; the tapper quivers; the final message slowly spells itself:

"Have passed up and down where saw Delilah. Nothing visible, save wreckage. Scotsman."

That is the final message. The grey dawn is all over now.

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19: The Fifty-First Dragon
Heywood Broun

New-York Tribune Apr 13 1919

Journalist Heywood Broun (1888-1939) progressed from sporting reporter and war correspondent to one of the most highly regarded dramatic and literary critics in the USA.

OF all the pupils at the knight school Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy was among the least promising. He was tall and sturdy, but his instructors soon discovered that he lacked spirit. He would hide in the woods when the jousting class was called, although his companions and members of the faculty sought to appeal to his better nature by shouting to him to come out and break his neck like a man. Even when they told him that the lances were padded, the horses no more than ponies and the field unusually soft for late autumn, Gawaine refused to grow enthusiastic. The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce were discussing the case one spring afternoon and the Assistant Professor could see no remedy but expulsion.

"No," said the Headmaster, as he looked out at the purple hills which ringed the school, "I think I'll train him to slay dragons."

"He might be killed," objected the Assistant Professor.

"So he might," replied the Headmaster brightly, but he added, more soberly, "we must consider the greater good. We are responsible for the formation of this lad's character."

"Are the dragons particularly bad this year?" interrupted the Assistant Professor. This was characteristic. He always seemed restive when the head of the school began to talk ethics and the ideals of the institution.

"I've never known them worse," replied the Headmaster. "Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig. And if this dry spell holds there's no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately."

"Would any refund on the tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Cœur-Hardy?"

"No," the principal answered, judicially, "that's all covered in the contract. But as a matter of fact he won't be killed. Before I send him up in the hills I'm going to give him a magic word."

"That's a good idea," said the Professor. "Sometimes they work wonders."

From that day on Gawaine specialized in dragons. His course included both theory and practice. In the morning there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons. Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies. He had a marvellously versatile gift for forgetting things. In the afternoon he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the South Meadow and practise with a battle-ax. In this exercise he was truly impressive, for he had enormous strength as well as speed and grace. He even developed a deceptive display of ferocity. Old alumni say that it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon which had been set up for his practice. As he ran he would brandish his ax and shout "A murrain on thee!" or some other vivid bit of campus slang. It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon.

Gradually his task was made more difficult. Paper gave way to papier-mâché and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine. One sweep of the ax always did the business. There were those who said that when the practice was protracted until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly. It is possible there was malice in this charge. At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test. Only the night before a dragon had come close to the school grounds and had eaten some of the lettuce from the garden. The faculty decided that Gawaine was ready. They gave him a diploma and a new battle-ax and the Headmaster summoned him to a private conference.

"Sit down," said the Headmaster. "Have a cigarette."

Gawaine hesitated.

"Oh, I know it's against the rules," said the Headmaster. "But after all, you have received your preliminary degree. You are no longer a boy. You are a man. To-morrow you will go out into the world, the great world of achievement."

Gawaine took a cigarette. The Headmaster offered him a match, but he produced one of his own and began to puff away with a dexterity which quite amazed the principal.

"Here you have learned the theories of life," continued the Headmaster, resuming the thread of his discourse, "but after all, life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant. Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons."

"They say that those dragons down in the south wood are five hundred feet long," ventured Gawaine, timorously.

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Headmaster. "The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur's Hill. The dragon was sunning himself down in the valley. The curate didn't have an opportunity to look at him very long because he felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me. He said the monster, or shall I say, the big lizard?— wasn't an inch over two hundred feet. But the size has nothing at all to do with it. You'll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They're far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I'm told. Besides, before you go I'm going to equip you in such fashion that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world."

"I'd like an enchanted cap," said Gawaine.

"What's that?" answered the Headmaster, testily.

"A cap to make me disappear," explained Gawaine.

The Headmaster laughed indulgently. "You mustn't believe all those old wives' stories," he said. "There isn't any such thing. A cap to make you disappear, indeed! What would you do with it? You haven't even appeared yet. Why, my boy, you could walk from here to London, and nobody would so much as look at you. You're nobody. You couldn't be more invisible than that."

Gawaine seemed dangerously close to a relapse into his old habit of whimpering. The Headmaster reassured him: "Don't worry; I'll give you something much better than an enchanted cap. I'm going to give you a magic word. All you have to do is to repeat this magic charm once and no dragon can possibly harm a hair of your head. You can cut off his head at your leisure."

He took a heavy book from the shelf behind his desk and began to run through it. "Sometimes," he said, "the charm is a whole phrase or even a sentence. I might, for instance, give you 'To make the'— No, that might not do. I think a single word would be best for dragons."

"A short word," suggested Gawaine.

"It can't be too short or it wouldn't be potent. There isn't so much hurry as all that. Here's a splendid magic word: 'Rumplesnitz.' Do you think you can learn that?"

Gawaine tried and in an hour or so he seemed to have the word well in hand. Again and again he interrupted the lesson to inquire, "And if I say 'Rumplesnitz' the dragon can't possibly hurt me?" And always the Headmaster replied, "If you only say 'Rumplesnitz,' you are perfectly safe."

Toward morning Gawaine seemed resigned to his career. At daybreak the Headmaster saw him to the edge of the forest and pointed him to the direction in which he should proceed. About a mile away to the southwest a cloud of steam hovered over an open meadow in the woods and the Headmaster assured Gawaine that under the steam he would find a dragon. Gawaine went forward slowly. He wondered whether it would be best to approach the dragon on the run as he did in his practice in the South Meadow or to walk slowly toward him, shouting "Rumplesnitz" all the way.

The problem was decided for him. No sooner had he come to the fringe of the meadow than the dragon spied him and began to charge. It was a large dragon and yet it seemed decidedly aggressive in spite of the Headmaster's statement to the contrary. As the dragon charged it released huge clouds of hissing steam through its nostrils. It was almost as if a gigantic teapot had gone mad. The dragon came forward so fast and Gawaine was so frightened that he had time to say "Rumplesnitz" only once. As he said it, he swung his battle-ax and off popped the head of the dragon. Gawaine had to admit that it was even easier to kill a real dragon than a wooden one if only you said "Rumplesnitz."

Gawaine brought the ears home and a small section of the tail. His school mates and the faculty made much of him, but the Headmaster wisely kept him from being spoiled by insisting that he go on with his work. Every clear day Gawaine rose at dawn and went out to kill dragons. The Headmaster kept him at home when it rained, because he said the woods were damp and unhealthy at such times and that he didn't want the boy to run needless risks. Few good days passed in which Gawaine failed to get a dragon. On one particularly fortunate day he killed three, a husband and wife and a visiting relative. Gradually he developed a technique. Pupils who sometimes watched him from the hill-tops a long way off said that he often allowed the dragon to come within a few feet before he said "Rumplesnitz." He came to say it with a mocking sneer. Occasionally he did stunts. Once when an excursion party from London was watching him he went into action with his right hand tied behind his back. The dragon's head came off just as easily.

As Gawaine's record of killings mounted higher the Headmaster found it impossible to keep him completely in hand. He fell into the habit of stealing out at night and engaging in long drinking bouts at the village tavern. It was after such a debauch that he rose a little before dawn one fine August morning and started out after his fiftieth dragon. His head was heavy and his mind sluggish. He was heavy in other respects as well, for he had adopted the somewhat vulgar practice of wearing his medals, ribbons and all, when he went out dragon hunting. The decorations began on his chest and ran all the way down to his abdomen. They must have weighed at least eight pounds.

Gawaine found a dragon in the same meadow where he had killed the first one. It was a fair-sized dragon, but evidently an old one. Its face was wrinkled and Gawaine thought he had never seen so hideous a countenance. Much to the lad's disgust, the monster refused to charge and Gawaine was obliged to walk toward him. He whistled as he went. The dragon regarded him hopelessly, but craftily. Of course it had heard of Gawaine. Even when the lad raised his battle-ax the dragon made no move. It knew that there was no salvation in the quickest thrust of the head, for it had been informed that this hunter was protected by an enchantment. It merely waited, hoping something would turn up. Gawaine raised the battle-ax and suddenly lowered it again. He had grown very pale and he trembled violently. The dragon suspected a trick. "What's the matter?" it asked, with false solicitude.

"I've forgotten the magic word," stammered Gawaine.

"What a pity," said the dragon. "So that was the secret. It doesn't seem quite sporting to me, all this magic stuff, you know. Not cricket, as we used to say when I was a little dragon; but after all, that's a matter of opinion."

Gawaine was so helpless with terror that the dragon's confidence rose immeasurably and it could not resist the temptation to show off a bit.

"Could I possibly be of any assistance?" it asked. "What's the first letter of the magic word?"

"It begins with an 'r,'" said Gawaine weakly.

"Let's see," mused the dragon, "that doesn't tell us much, does it? What sort of a word is this? Is it an epithet, do you think?"

Gawaine could do no more than nod.

"Why, of course," exclaimed the dragon, "reactionary Republican."

Gawaine shook his head.

"Well, then," said the dragon, "we'd better get down to business. Will you surrender?"

With the suggestion of a compromise Gawaine mustered up enough courage to speak.

"What will you do if I surrender?" he asked.

"Why, I'll eat you," said the dragon.

"And if I don't surrender?"

"I'll eat you just the same."

"Then it doesn't mean any difference, does it?" moaned Gawaine.

"It does to me," said the dragon with a smile. "I'd rather you didn't surrender. You'd taste much better if you didn't."

The dragon waited for a long time for Gawaine to ask "Why?" but the boy was too frightened to speak. At last the dragon had to give the explanation without his cue line. "You see," he said, "if you don't surrender you'll taste better because you'll die game."

This was an old and ancient trick of the dragon's. By means of some such quip he was accustomed to paralyze his victims with laughter and then to destroy them. Gawaine was sufficiently paralyzed as it was, but laughter had no part in his helplessness. With the last word of the joke the dragon drew back his head and struck. In that second there flashed into the mind of Gawaine the magic word "Rumplesnitz," but there was no time to say it. There was time only to strike and, without a word, Gawaine met the onrush of the dragon with a full swing. He put all his back and shoulders into it. The impact was terrific and the head of the dragon flew away almost a hundred yards and landed in a thicket.

Gawaine did not remain frightened very long after the death of the dragon. His mood was one of wonder. He was enormously puzzled. He cut off the ears of the monster almost in a trance. Again and again he thought to himself, "I didn't say 'Rumplesnitz'!" He was sure of that and yet there was no question that he had killed the dragon. In fact, he had never killed one so utterly. Never before had he driven a head for anything like the same distance. Twenty-five yards was perhaps his best previous record. All the way back to the knight school he kept rumbling about in his mind seeking an explanation for what had occurred. He went to the Headmaster immediately and after closing the door told him what had happened. "I didn't say 'Rumplesnitz,'" he explained with great earnestness.

The Headmaster laughed. "I'm glad you've found out," he said. "It makes you ever so much more of a hero. Don't you see that? Now you know that it was you who killed all these dragons and not that foolish little word 'Rumplesnitz.'"

Gawaine frowned. "Then it wasn't a magic word after all?" he asked.

"Of course not," said the Headmaster, "you ought to be too old for such foolishness. There isn't any such thing as a magic word."

"But you told me it was magic," protested Gawaine. "You said it was magic and now you say it isn't."

"It wasn't magic in a literal sense," answered the Headmaster, "but it was much more wonderful than that. The word gave you confidence. It took away your fears. If I hadn't told you that you might have been killed the very first time. It was your battle-ax did the trick."

Gawaine surprised the Headmaster by his attitude. He was obviously distressed by the explanation. He interrupted a long philosophic and ethical discourse by the Headmaster with, "If I hadn't of hit 'em all mighty hard and fast any one of 'em might have crushed me like a, like a—" He fumbled for a word.

"Egg shell," suggested the Headmaster.

"Like a egg shell," assented Gawaine, and he said it many times. All through the evening meal people who sat near him heard him muttering, "Like a egg shell, like a egg shell."

The next day was clear, but Gawaine did not get up at dawn. Indeed, it was almost noon when the Headmaster found him cowering in bed, with the clothes pulled over his head. The principal called the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce, and together they dragged the boy toward the forest.

"He'll be all right as soon as he gets a couple more dragons under his belt," explained the Headmaster.

The Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed. "It would be a shame to stop such a fine run," he said. "Why, counting that one yesterday, he's killed fifty dragons."

They pushed the boy into a thicket above which hung a meagre cloud of steam. It was obviously quite a small dragon. But Gawaine did not come back that night or the next. In fact, he never came back. Some weeks afterward brave spirits from the school explored the thicket, but they could find nothing to remind them of Gawaine except the metal parts of his medals. Even the ribbons had been devoured.

The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed that it would be just as well not to tell the school how Gawaine had achieved his record and still less how he came to die. They held that it might have a bad effect on school spirit. Accordingly, Gawaine has lived in the memory of the school as its greatest hero. No visitor succeeds in leaving the building to-day without seeing a great shield which hangs on the wall of the dining hall. Fifty pairs of dragons' ears are mounted upon the shield and underneath in gilt letters is "Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy," followed by the simple inscription, "He killed fifty dragons." The record has never been equaled.

___________________

20: The Great Corkscrew Mystery

J. J. Bell

World's News (Sydney) 18 Nov 1916

John J Bell (1871-1934), known professionally as J. J. Bell, was a Scottish journalist and author.

AT AN EARLY HOUR of the morning, following his 93rd birthday, the Earl of Mount Cockalorum was discovered on the floor of his ancestral pantry, the family corkscrew clutched in his right hand, a peaceful smile on his noble lineaments. No pools of blue disfigured the inlaid linoleum; signs of a struggle were conspicuously absent. Yet there was the gravest of suspicions that the good old earl, as those who knew him not loved to call him, had been foully and treacherously slain. The doctor, hastily summoned, did not hesitate to state that death had been due to poison, though he declined to give the poison a name until he should have time to consult the Encyclopaedia at home.

Inspector Fussman, one of Scotland Yard's most brilliant investigators, appeared on the scene shortly after midday, and was now making inquiries in the library. All the guests and servants were present, also the doctor, the local policeman, and several neighbors who had dropped in. Among the last was a young man who would have been noticed in any gathering— he would have seen to that. His name was Henry Perkington, and, though of comparatively obscure origin, he had dared to lift his eyes to the earl's only niece, the Lady Varsalina. He stood with his back to the fire, his shoulders against the mantelpiece, apparently oblivious to the scowls directed at him by Sir Finnan Adison, the earl's only nephew and heir-apparent. Who also, by the way, fancied the Lady Varsalina.

"Thank you, that will do," said the inspector to the trembling house-tablemaid who had been the first to discover the tragedy, her alarm clock having roused her for once. "Now I wish to hear from the person who was last to see his lordship alive."

The ancient butler dragged a gouty leg forward. Behind him came Sir Finnan Adison.

"Pardon me, Inspector," Sir Finnan said, "but may I first ask the butler when the dickens wo are likely to get breakfast today?"

At these heartless words a murmur of horror and protest arose from guests and servants alike.

"If appearances go for anything," remarked Henry Perkington, with the utmost coolness, "Sir Finnan Adison has already breakfasted sumptuously— from a bottle." Half-suppressed applause greeted the young man's words, but his chief reward was a grateful glance from the Lady Varsalina.

"What does this person want here?" cried Sir Finnan. "Calves!"— this to one of the footmen— "I order you to kick him out of the castle. Quick!"

The footman looked towards the young girl who had been mistress in the castle all those long years. "Ham I to take horders from 'im, your ladyship?" he asked respectfully.

"Noodle!" shouted Sir Finnan, "do you forget that I am now the Earl of Cockalorum? Obey, or leave my service at once."

The Lady Varsalina gently interposed. She always did things awfully gently.

"Finnan," she said, "you may be the Earl of Cockalorum; but everything except the estate itself, which does not pay its way, belongs to me, My dear uncle's will—"

"Produce it!"

"All in good time, Sir Finnan, all in good time," came the quiet words from the young man at the mantelpiece.

"What the Juice " began the new earl.

The inspector spoke. "Gentlemen, we are here to investigate the mystery of—"

"There's no mystery about it," said Henry Perkington. "But go on with your ridiculous inquiries, Inspector."

The inspector looked annoyed, then, with a shrug of his shoulders, turned, to the butler.

"When did you see his late lordship alive?"

"Last night, sir."

"At what hour?" The aged servitor took out his watch, shook it, and after regarding it for thirty seconds said: "The hour would be twenty minutes be fore twelve, your worship."

"H'm! Where did you see him?"

"Here, sir— in this very room. Oh, little did I think—" The faithful soul struggled with his emotion.

"Your feelings do you credit," said the inspector kindly. "What brought you to the library at that hour?"

"A cup of cocoa. It were my dear master's custom to drink a cup of cocoa before retiring—"

"I should like one now!" interrupted Sir Finnan.

"I must respectfully request your lordship to keep silence," the inspector said sternly. "Proceed, my good man. It was your master's custom to drink a cup of cocoa, etcetera."

"It were."

"Whose make of cocoa?" the voice from the mantelpiece mildly inquired.

"Don't answer any questions but mine," said the inspector, frowning at the interrupter. "Was his lordship alone when you left him?"

"He were."

"Were all the servants save yourself in bed?"

"They was."

"And the guests?"

"Likewise."

"H'm! You keep early hours in the castle?"

"Not as a rule, sir. But yesterday bein' my poor master's birthday, the dinner turned out something hextra, and everybody, save his late lordship, went off to bed about eleven."

"Someone didn't," put in Henry Perkington.

"If you intrude again, sir, I will have you removed," said the inspector warningly. "And so, when you took the cocoa to his lordship, the house was all in quietness?"

The aged servitor hesitated. "Well, not exactly quietness, sir.'"

"What do you mean?"

"Groans, sir."

"Groans? Where were the groans?"

"In the bedrooms, sir. Nightmares I should say. If you had seen the dinner, sir— Ah—!"

"Never mind the dinner!" hissed Sir Finnan, studying with relish his heavily-spurred heel, from which dangled a piece of the butler's trousers. "What about the breakfast?"

If looks could have slain, the new earl would have expired then and there. The aged servitor was offered a chair, but preferred to stand.

"Now ask him," said Henry Perkington, "ask him what became of the cup containing the cocoa, and also where the corkscrew came in."

But Inspector Fussman's patience was exhausted. Advancing to the hearthrug, he curtly demanded: "What is your business here?"

Henry Perkington, standing in the fender, drew himself up to his full height. "I am an amateur detective," he replied with calm dignity.

For a moment the two men faced each other. Then Inspector Fussman turned to the company. "Ladles and gentlemen," he said bitterly, "I throw up the case." Taking his hat from the gas bracket, he went swiftly from the room.

"And now for breakfast," cried Sir Finnan, giving the butler a hard thrust towards the door. "But"— threateningly to Henry Perkington—"if you try to poke your nose into this affair, I'll jolly well push it in."

"Push and go!" was the brilliant retort.

"Ah, Henry, noble youth!" whispered the Lady Varsalina.

A ghastly pallor overspread the majority of the contorted features of the new earl.

"Beware everybody!" he hissed, and staggered rather than skipped from the room.

The doctor sneezed. It was his first chance of making a remark.

IT WAS the afternoon of the next day but one. All the guests had departed. Henry, having searched their boxes, had not deemed it necessary to detain any of them. Sir Finnan Adison, now Earl of Mount Cockalorum, was confined to bed with a rotten headache. The Lady Varsalina was in the strawberry garden looking for her uncle's will. Missing wills are often found in connection with strawberry marks.

In the library Henry was making investigations, and picking up clues; he was assisted by the aged butler. He had just removed from an ornament on the mantelpiece a piece of string, a hairpin, and a cigar end. He entered them in his notebook and placed them carefully in his pocket. He then passed over to the writing-table, where he picked up an antique golden snuff-box, richly jewelled. This also he put in his pocket, murmuring, "It may yet prove to be valuable."

"No word yet of the cocoa cup, James?" he pleasantly inquired of the aged butler, whose proper name was Eyekiek.

"No, sir. We wants to get hold o' that, don't we?"

"We do," said Henry, gazing thoughtfully at a fountain pen topped with a magnificent ruby, which he had just noticed. "By the way, the clock has stopped, James; and at eleven-forty, too! Curious coincidence."

The old man looked affectionately at the clock. "It have been stopped for nine years. It annoyed my master."

"Ah, indeed," said Henry, taking possession of the fountain pen. "The old earl was a lifelong bachelor, I believe?"

"He were. He hated all females except his niece. That's why he left her all the hard cash."

"There was a will, then?"

"Witnessed it myself, sir."

There was a short silence, during which Henry appeared to be thinking profoundly.

"And if there had been no will?" he asked at last.

"All would go to Sir Finnan— curse him!"

"Willingly. But now tell me, have you any theory as to what took the earl to the pantry after his being poisoned?— for I assume that the poison was administered in the cocoa, which I assume also he drank.''

The butler shook his grey head with a slight rattling sound. "If it had been the cellar— but the pantry— no, sir, I've no idea.''

"And how did he happen to have the cork-screw in his hand?"

"He must have got it in the pantry, sir. It were always there. But—"

The French window was opened, and the Lady Varsalina tripped over the step, but picked herself up almost immediately. She was wearing a trailing gown of diaphanous texture and red flannelette bolero, for the weather was still chilly. Her hair had come down on one side, which gave her a childish, appealing look. With a faint, anxious smile she said:—

"Any clues, Henry dear?" (They were now nearly betrothed.)

"Any amount, darling," was the cheerful, manly reply. "Any word of the will?"

With a sigh she shook her head, and seated herself gracefully on the hearthrug, gazing into the fireplace, where the fire had not yet being lit, owing to the coal strike. "I fear. Henry, some villainy has been at work. The last time I saw the will, it was lying behind the clock. I— I'm afraid I am penniless, Henry."

"Don't mention it, dearest." He turned to the butler, down whose face tears were running. "You may leave us, George," he said kindly, "and bring a bottle of champague. Better have a drop of port yourself while you're about it."

"May heaven reward you, Mr. Perki—"

"Not at all, not at all," said Henry, with a wave of dismissal.

Placing an almost black handkerchief to his eyes, the aged servitor trailed his gouty leg from the library.

Henry threw himself on the sofa, and uttered a blood-curdling shriek. Rising, he took from his knickerbockers a pointed object.

"What on earth—!" exclaimed Varsalina. "Why, it's Finnan's toothpick! I gave it him at Christmas, seventeen years ago— before I dreamed he could be such a wretch."

"Sir Finnan's toothpick!" repeated the young man. "This is— a clue!" He put his hand to his head. "If one only knew when last he was seen using it."

"I saw him using it in the lounge after the birthday dinner; everybody saw him."

"After the dinner!... Why, then he must have been in this room after that! Great heavens! What discovery am I about to make?" Pulling a folding opera glass from his pocket, Henry made a rapid survey of the toothpick.

"Oh, what do you suspect?" cried the maiden, attempting to rise, but falling back. "Goodness! My foot's sleeping!"

"Hit it with the poker," muttered the young man, busily searching the sofa. "Varsalina," he said suddenly, "your uncle was not alone in that fatal hour. Someone watched him sip the deleterious beverage— someone who lounged on this very sofa— so near and yet so far— and picked his teeth—"

"But poor uncle had no teeth, Henry."

The butler entered with the champagne. His countenance had gained in color.

"Shall I let it go, sir?" he respectfully inquired. "I've taken the chilly off it."

"Bong!" replied Henry, "let her pop!"

A heavy thud overhead provided a pleasing echo.

"That must be Finnan getting up," said Varsalina anxiously. "He must not find you here, Henry. He is so violent."

"I mean him to find me here," was her gallant lover's reply. "James, have the foot-men in readiness, and send for the constable. But don't bring them in until I ring the bell."

"I am sorry, sir," the ancient servitor returned respectfully, "but the bell happens to be busted. It annoyed my poor master."

"Then I'll whistle. And while you're about it,

Jamss, you may as well take a glass of—"

"May heaven—"

"Oh, don't worry about that," said Henry with a wave of dismissal.

"How generous-hearted you are, Henry!" sighed Varsalina. "How different, is your treatment of the servants from Finnan's! But oh, I wish you would not wait for Finnan to discover you here."

"I must confront him with the toothpick."

"You— you think he is guilty?"

"Don't ask me. He is your cousin. I would spare him if I could."

"Noble Henry!"

"Yes. If I solve the mystery I shall deserve a peerage. Let us hope Sir Finnan may he able to clear himself— especially of any connection with the missing will."

"Pray heaven it may be so," agreed the maiden. "Isn't a sleeping foot horrid, Henry?"

"Oh, rotten. By the way, how much did the will leave you, my darling?"

Ere she could reply the door was opened to admit the new earl.

"Good morning; I've had a ripping snooze," he remarked, smiling on them both. Then— "By jove, you know how to enjoy yourselves! Isn't there a little drop left? Not one! Confound that bell! I must get it mended one of these days."

He went to the door, opened it, and shouted: "I say, old rusty joints, fetch another bottle, and be quick about it!"

He returned and dropped into the ancestral easychair, still smiling.

"Well, Mr. Perkington, I believe I have to apologise to you. But I had had rather a thick night, and I could never stand being done out of my breakfast. Shall we let bygones be ditto— eh?" He turned to his cousin. "Not got your hair up yet, my dear."

"Sir Finnan— or, as I suppose I ought to call you, Lord Mount Cockalorum," said Henry in grave tones, and held up the toothpick, "is this your property?"

"By Jove, so it is! Thanks awfully, Perkington. Chuck it over, will you? Must have dropped it while I was talking to the old man the other night."

"The night of his demise, you mean," said Henry, with a stern gaze.

"Right oh," admitted the earl. "Poor old chap, he was pretty sick of life, but I didn't think he was so bad when I mopped up his  cocoa—"

"You— what?"

"Well, you see, it was this way. I had come downstairs about midnight to try to get something to drink, for I had finished every fluid thing in my bedroom. But everything was locked up, and I was going up again when I heard a sound from the library. So I went in and found the old chap looking jolly un comfy. We chatted for a while, and then he paid he had made up his mind to hop it. I supposed he went to bed, so when he had gone from the room I drank his cocoa— a ghastly tipple, but better than nothing— and adjourned myself. But I got mighty little sleep, owing to the beastly groaning all round— I expect it was the salmon they had at dinner, you know—"

"Excuse me," Henry interrupted coldly, "but may I ask what did you do with the cup containing the cocoa?"

"Oh, you'll find the cup in the garden. Just when I was going to put out the gas, a cat started the opening bars of 'The Rosary,' and— I lost my temper. By the way, Mr. Perkington, I lose my temper rather easily."

"So it was a cat, was it?" Henry said, with a chill irony. After a brief silence the earl, addressing his cousin, said softly:— "I'm afraid, my dear Varsy, I shall have to pull your friend's nose for him."

"Lay a finger on my nose—" began Henry.

"Thank you, but I will use the tongs."

"Oh, gents," cried the maiden, "don't quarrel!"

"I want some fizz first," said the earl.

"Sir," said Henry, from behind the couch, "perhaps you can explain your uncle's presence in the pantry, also the corkscrew in his possession."

"I can, and I shall do so when it suits me."

"Indeed! Is it possible that you are aware of the present location of your uncle's will?"

"Yes, I have it in my pocket." The earl smiled at his cousin. "The old man has left you all his investments, as you are aware, Varsy, but— on condition that you marry yours truly within six months. You don't mind?"

"Oh— Finnan!"

"Remarkably fishy!" jeered Henry. At that moment the aged servitor entered the room.

"Dr. Firgetta, my lord."

"At last!" exclaimed the earl. "Show the old bounder in, and hurry up that fizz, and, I say, bring me a workable pair of tongs."

The worthy physician pushed past the ancient servitor.

"My dear Lord Mount Cockalorum," he said, "I bring the best of news. All suspicions of foul play are happily removed. There is now no shadow of doubt that your respected uncle's untimely end was simply due to the tinned salmon which formed part of the menu of his birthday party."

"Hear, hear!" cried his lordship, with thoughtless joy.

"May I ask," sneered Henry, "what connection exists between tinned salmon, the pantry, and the corkscrew?"

Just then the aged servitor reappeared with a pair of tongs.

"Spare him," whispered the Lady Varsalina, placing her little hands tenderly round Finnan's neck.

"In answer to your question," said Dr. Fidgetts to Henry, "I should have thought it obvious to the meanest intelligence that the earl retired to the pantry to draw— his last breath."

At these words Henry grew pale.

"At least," he said with dignity, "I have acquired some valuable clues. And"— this to the Lady Varsalina— "they are worth more to me than you are."

"Schemer!" sneered the Lady Varsalina, throwing herself into the arms of the Earl of Mount Cockalorum, who yelled at the retreating Henry over her peroxide coiffure:—

"Git!"

And Henry got.

__________________

21: The Bolchester Bank Robbery

Arthur W. Marchmont

World's News (Sydney) 15 Aug 1914

An English novelist and journalist; born at Southgate, England, 1852-1923. He engaged in journalism in London and afterwards in the provinces, editing successively the North Eastern Gazette and Lancashire Daily Post.

IF the people of Bolchester had been invited to name the ten most unlikely men in that big northern industrial centre to commit a robbery, the unanimous verdict of all who knew Dick Maitland would have placed him very close to the top of the list. Rather under middle height, fair and handsome, high-spirited and clever, with very winning manners, a musician having an excellent tenor voice, and an amateur actor of marked ability, he knew everybody and was welcome everywhere, and there was not one of his countless friends, who would not have been ready to guarantee his absolute honesty. Thus the sensation was widespread when he disappeared from the Trencham branch of the Bolchester bank, and five thousand pounds were found to be missing at the same time.

The amazement of his friends was all the greater because of his very recent engagement to Elsie Carter, the pretty daughter of Richard Carter, the chief proprietor of the bank before its absorption by the big joint-stock concern, and now manager of the head office in Bolchester and one of the local directors. Elsie was scarcely less popular than Dick himself, while Mr. Carter was known to be a rich man whose fortune would certainly have gone to the young couple.

Nor was the sensation confined to Bolchester. It spread all over the north, and even some of the London papers treated the affair to big headlines, and thus stimulated the hue and cry for the missing young bank clerk.

The general opinion at first was that he had yielded to sudden temptation, as it transpired that he had been left alone at the bank in the afternoon, on the plea that he had some work to finish, and had afterwards left the keys at the manager's house, as he had done on more than one previous occasion.

But when the police discovered that he had made careful arrangements for getting away, there was little room for any doubt that the robbery had been premeditated and deliberately planned. He had taken a cab to the station, where several acquaintances had spoken to him, and all had noticed that he was carrying a heavily-laden valise. From Bolchester he had booked to Pressfield, and there had caught an express to Glasgow. After that his movements were shrouded in impenetrable secrecy, and, although the widest publicity was given to the crime, and some of the sharpest detectives in England were put on his track, and a reward of £200 offered, no clue could be picked up anywhere.

The missing money was composed of a big sum in gold, a very large number at £5, £10, and £20 notes, and a quantity of easily negotiable securities; an eloquent testimony of the shrewdness displayed in the robbery.

A few of his former friends held fast to a belief to his innocence, despite the glaring proofs, and among these was Elsie. Nothing should ever induce her to believe that he was a thief, she declared stoutly, and she and her father had more hot words in consequence, than for many years past.

"I will never hear his name again, Elsie," he said angrily. "He is a thief; and if you ever speak to the fellow again, you and I will quarrel seriously."

"He is innocent, father. I am absolutely sure of him. He is utterly incapable of such a thing as theft. I can't bear to see you so hard against him."

"Innocent!" he exclaimed with a snort of indignation. "He was alone in the bank; he knew just where to lay his hands on exactly the money he wished to take; he himself took the keys to Mr. Pollock's house; he was seen to be carrying a heavy grip, and he had made careful plans to get away. What clearer proof could anyone need?"

"I need clearer," replied his daughter resolutely. "If the facts against him were twenty times as black, I wouldn't believe him guilty. And I only wish with all my heart I could let him know that I still believe in him."

"How dare you say such a thing?"

"Because I trust him, father. And it is at such a time as this when everyone is dead against him, that I would love to show my faith in him."

"I hope you don't talk this sort of nonsense outside, child."

"Indeed I do. I tell everyone that Dick. is wrongly accused. I am as proud of him as ever; and only too proud to be able to show my trust in him now, when every hand almost is raised against him."

"You have never crossed my will before in this way, Elsie."

"I don't want to cross you; but I want you to believe in him. I love Dick will all my heart and soul, and nothing, nothing on earth could ever shake my confidence in his absolute innocence."

"You are beside yourself, child; and I warn you solemnly never to utter his name again to me. You pain me more than I can say."

Dick Maitland had been missing about a fortnight when this conversation took place, and the belief was generally held by then that he had left the country. When another week passed without a single clue being discovered, that belief strengthened into a conviction, and the excitement caused by the affair was beginning to die dow;n. Then an in cident occurred which set the whole town talking about it again.

A letter appeared in the evening papers signed "Dick Maitland."

"I ask all my friends in Bolchester to with-hold judgment upon me in connection with the bank affair. It is reported that I have left the country. I have not even attempted to leave. I am still in Bolchester, and shall remain here until my object is gained."

Instantly the public interest in the affair was as keen as ever. The original of the letter was inspected by the bank people, and the handwriting pronounced to be Dick's; a fact which the papers were prompt to announce. All sorts of suggestions were hazarded as to what the mysterious object could be.

The letter, while rallying some of his friends who had wavered, caused the police to redouble their efforts to trace him. Without any success, however, and a week later another letter appeared— a longer one.

"I know that many people believe that I am a thief," it ran; "but I am not. If I were, however, should I be alone to blame? I was a clerk in the Bolchester bank for several years; I did my duty faithfully and well for all that time; I was constantly praised by those who had to supervise my work; and I was paid—how much? Twenty-five shillings a week! Less than the wage of a dock laborer. Twenty-five shillings a week! And left alone in the bank frequently with easy opportunities of taking even a bigger amount than five thousand pounds! No blame for this attaches to the local managers. Mr. Carter used to pay far better salaries when the bank was a private concern, and has always opposed the policy of stint. He knows the danger of allowing large sums of money to pass through the hands of men who are paid less than a mill-hand and are yet expected to live and dress like gentlemen. Whose is the fault? Obviously the new directors'. And the reason? Equally obvious— dividends. These are at the rate of fifteen to twenty per-cent, upon the subscribed capital; large amounts are carried to reserve, and big sums yearly to the secret reserve. The bank is rich and prosperous, but the prosperity is achieved by this policy of stint. I am denounced as a thief: but I answer that the real responsibility lies with the directors. I charge the bank with inciting its employees to dishonesty by the system of under-payment— a most serious matter for shareholders and customers alike. I know the stinging itch of temptation, for I have seen its stealthy undermining influence at work among my fellow clerks. Think of it. It was in my power by a single act of dishonesty to take such a sum of money as would provide me for life with an income four times as great as the paltry salary that was paid to me to keep honest, and to get clear away without the slightest fear or discovery."

This second letter made an even deeper impression in Bolchester than the first. Concern was added to the mere surprise and excitement. There was truth in Dick's charge; and on all sides the policy of the bank was eagerly canvassed.

No one was more excited than Elsie, who spoke to her father about it at once, only to find him more bitter than ever.

"He is a thief, Elsie; nothing else. He is trying to cover his crime with this tirade against the bank. It only aggravates his offence," he replied angrily.

"Is what he says true, father?"

"To a certain extent, yes. But that is no excuse for theft. If anyone is dissatisfied with his position in the bank he can always leave," declared Mr. Carter, voicing the conventional attitude of employers in such a case.

"Dick is not a thief, father," she replied with the quiet insistence of conviction. "If he were, he would have left the country, as everyone thought he had. He would not have stopped in Bolchester. You will see."

"I hope I shall see him in gaol," growled the banker. "I never came across such insolent bravado in all my life. First to rob the bank, and then to try and do us all the injury he can in this way."

"But if it is the truth, father, why is it insolent to tell it?"

"You are talking of things you don't understand, child."

"Everyone is talking of them, dear, and saying what I say— even those who believe that Dick took this wretched money."

"Do you suppose I don't know it? His sole object is to stir up a prejudice against the bank so that public feeling shall be on his side when he is caught and prosecuted, as he will be."

"But you don't think it right that the clerks should be under-paid?"

"Hold your tongue. Elsie. I can't discuss the affairs of the bank with you."

"At all events it will assist you in your efforts to get the clerks better paid, father."

'Do you think I want the assistance of a thief?" he retorted indignantly, but there was more anger than truth in the retort, for the directors were already considering the matter secretly at his instance as the result of the feeling caused by Dick's letter.

Some very influential men, both shareholders and customers, had been asking pertinent questions, and were bringing pressure to bear, which was likely to yield significant results, especially when Dick wrote a third letter setting forth in detail many of the salaries paid.

As, moreover, the proprieter of one of the papers had a grudge against the bank, some editorial comments upon the disclosures were written in very unsparing terms, and an acrimonious correspondence followed, in which the whole affair was discussed from all points f view.

More than that, just when the local interest had been stimulated in this way, an enterprising London pressman came to Bolchester to write the matter up.

Bitterly incensed by this publicity, the bank directors doubled the reward for Dick's apprehension.

He took up the challenge instantly, and replied with a last letter in which, to the mystification of everyone concerned, he showed that he was in a position to learn even the secret deliberations of the directors.

"The directors of the bank have taken two steps which are to be judged side by side. Determined to regard me as a thief, they have doubled the price on my head, making it £500; hoping, no doubt, to punish me for the attention I have drawn to their policy of stint. But at the same time they have prepared in secret a scheme for increasing the salaries of many of their staff! This is the direct result of my action; for the pressure employed by many influential shareholders and customers is due solely to my exposure of the fact that an under-paid clerk of the bank can not only disappear and baffle all attempts at discovery, but can also cause the simultaneous disappearance of such a large sum as £5000. As my object has now been obtained, I am satisfied.

"A term of imprisonment, if these gentlemen persist in prosecuting me for teaching them wisdom and exposing their blunders, will be a very slight thing to me compared with the end I have gained. This is Wednesday, and before the close of the week everything will be cleared up. Incidentally, I shall render the directors a last service. I shall save them the expenditure of the £500 reward by coming forward voluntarily."

This announcement increased the general excitement a hundredfold, and all Bolchester was on the tip-toe of curiosity and speculation as to the manner in which Dick would make good his promise.

With the exception of Elsie, no one was more concerned than Mr. Carter; and they were together on the Friday night, both full of the subject and unable to think of anything else, but at the same time unwilling to risk another quarrel by any open reference to it.

Mr. Carter was endeavoring to interest himself in the evening paper, and Elsie was playing with some fancy work, when the servant came in with a card.

" 'Miss Clara Wlnton, Typist,'" exclaimed Mr. Carter, reading the card. "I don't want, to see her, Evans. Say I'm engaged."

She said she wished to see both you and Miss Elsie, sir."

"Nonsense. I can't see anyone at such a time."

"Surely you will not refuse to see me, Mr. Carter?"

It was Dick, and, with a glad cry of his name, Elsie rushed to him and put both her hands in his, her delight as intense as her father's surprise.

"Come away from that rascal's side, Elsie," thundered Mr. Carter.

But she did not obey, leaving her hand in Dick's and keeping close to him.

"My place is here, father." she said firmly.

"You trust me still, dearest?" asked Dick, his eyes lighting with love.

"With all my heart, Dick," and, braving her father's anger, she kissed him.

"Nothing else matters now," he whispered with a glad smile.

"We shall see about that," cried Mr. Carter furiously, as he rang the bell.

"If that is to send for the police, Mr. Carter, you had better hear what I have to say first. I shall not make the least attempt to escape. I have come to explain everything."

There was a pause, as Elsie looked appealingly to her father; and when the servant came he sent her away again.

"Thank you, father," said Elsie, with a sigh of relief.

"Of course you know," he said to Dick, "that I cannot hear anything you choose to say in confidence."

"I am perfectly aware of that. But I have absolutely nothing to conceal now. Your attitude shows that you regard me as a thief?"

"Yes," answered the elder man bluntly.

"Yet you have known me for some years, you believed me worthy of Elsie, you and others have repeatedly praised my work in the bank, you have abundant proofs of my honesty, and had marked me out for promotion. Are all these considerations nothing to you compared with the apparent evidence against me in this affair?"

"Nothing— nothing at all. I judge by the facts. You were alone in the bank; when Mr. Pollock left you there, the money was intact; you disappeared, and the money was then missing; you had prepared very carefully the means of escape, thus showing that you had premeditated the robbery. If you are not the thief, who is?"

"'It is all true, except on one point. I had planned very carefully all the steps I intended to take. I left the trail of my movements purposely plain as far as Pressfield, intending that they should be known. I booked for Glasgow, as you know, but left the train at the first stopping-place and instantly returned to Bolchester. I had prepared for that. As Miss Clara Winton, a typist, I had taken rooms in Wishart Street, No. 37, and had also secured in advance a situation as a girl typist with Mr. Gregory, one of the directors, and I have been at his office every day since. I am an amateur actor, you may remember, and the part was easy to play. I came here this evening in my disguise, and have only just discarded it. It was from Mr. Gregory's inadvertent statements that I learnt what the board intended to do.

"All this only blackens the case against you," interposed Mr. Carter angrily. "It proves premeditation to the hilt."

"You are mistaken. There is no case against me," replied Dick, with a confident smile. "I will show you that directly. But I wish first to appeal to you to renew your old confidence. You know, of course, that I have many friends in Bolchester; I was trusted at the bank; I was engaged to Elsie; and I enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being an honest man. I may be no saint; but do you think I am such a fool as to blacken my life, wreck my future, and even lose Elsie, for the sake of a sum of money that is no longer of the least account to me? Even if you doubt my integrity, sir, don't set me down as a lunatic."

Mr. Carter smiled scornfully. "Five thousand pounds of no account to you when your salary, was twenty-five shillings a week!"

"A month before I left the bank, my mother's sister died and left me fifty thousand pounds, Mr. Carter, perhaps that fact will influence your opinion."

"It doesn't alter the other facts."

"It heightens the improbability that a man would steal five thousand pounds when he possesses ten times that amount."

"If you do possess it."

Dick's face hardened, and he paused before replying. "It is not my habit to lie, sir. But you are Elsie's father, and it is my wish to convince you. Here is the letter from the solicitors in the matter," and he held it out.

Mr. Carter read it, and, under the pretence of studying it, tried to conceal the fact that his former opinion was very much influenced indeed.

"I don't understand it," he exclaimed at length, with a sigh of perplexity.

Dick's face lightened and he smiled. "Come, sir, admit that you don't now believe I am a thief. I am not. I give you my word of honor that there is not the least reason, except that I have attacked the bank's policy― a policy which I know you do not approve— why you should not take my hand as readily as before all this occurred;" and he held it out.

"Father!" appealed Elsie.

But Mr. Carter made no response. "I must know more, first," he said. "Where is the money you took?"

Dick shook his bead. "I must first know where I stand, Mr. Carter. A warrant has been issued for my arrest; and all that business must be stopped. That is one thing. The second is that I must be free to resume my post at the Trencham branch. That is necessary in order that people in Bolchester may be reassured about me."

"You think yourself in a position to dictate terms, then?"

"I don't think it, I know it, Mr. Carter. I have a complete answer to this charge; and one which will cover the bank with ridicule. I have no quarrel of that sort with the directors. My purpose was to give them an object lesson of the danger of under-paying the staff. That is to be remedied, and, as far as I am concerned, the matter is at an end."

Mr. Carter sat staring thoughtfully into the fire for two or three minutes. "I cannot do anything on my own authority," he said then.

"I have provided for that. I telephoned to Mr. Gregory after he had left his office to-day, using your name and asking him to come here at nine o'clock and bring two of the other directors with him."

"You used my name?" cried the elder man indignantly.

"I could not use my own, and I knew you would have to see them."

"I shall not interfere. Things must take their course," declared the banker.

There was a pause, and during the silence Mr. Gregory's card was brought to the banker. "They are here now," he said, rising.

"One word before you go to them. If I am not to be reinstated at the bank I should not remain there more than a week or so— I shall go straight from here to the police station and surrender. It will then be too late for the board to avoid the ridicule of such a fiasco as my prosecution."

Mr. Carter replied with a gesture of irritation.  "I am going to them. You will remain here, of course, You cannot leave the house, indeed."

"And Elsie?'' asked Dick, smiling again.

"She has already decided for herself," was the answer, as Mr. Carter hurried out. The instant the door closed behind him, Elsie was in her lover's arms, and there was no need for Dick to ask what her decision had been.

"It has been a terrible time, Dick. Father was mad against you."

"He is a bank manager and naturally took the bank view."

"He positively threatened to disown me if I ever spoke to you again." "

"Brave little girlie. Well, you shall have some recompense now. You shall go and tell them the truth."

"They are all determined to put you in prison."

"But there is nothing to imprison me for," and Dick laughed.

"I am as much puzzled as my father, Dick."

"Then I'll un-puzzle you. I did not take one halfpenny from the bank. All that I did was to hide it in the bank itself. I often stayed late, you know, and I took up one of the boards under the counter and put the money there. And it's there now. Of course, they did just what I intended, and jumped to the conclusion that I had stolen it. You may go and tell them; and then even they'll be able to see what silly fools they will all look if the prosecution isn't prevented. And you can say that I'm quite ready now to go and point out the hiding-place. But, mind, only, on one condition— that I am to return to work tomorrow."

Elsie ran off at once in high spirits, and Dick sat looking into the fire with a quizzical smile, completely at ease as to the result, until she returned, her pretty face beaming with delight.

"You've won, Dick, hands down. Father was splendid. He's getting ready to go with you to the Trencham branch, and the others will meet you there with Mr. Pollock.'"

"Then we'd better make the most of our time, dearest," he answered; and they made so much of it that they were only just able to jump apart as Mr. Carter came hurrying in.

The directors saw the advisability of settling the matter as Dick desired. He was duly reinstated, and a statement was issued to the effect that the whole matter had arisen through a mistake; that Dick had to go away hurriedly because he had come into a large sum of money, and, not having the keys of the safe, had put the money of the bank in a hiding place; that he had now resumed his position in the bank; and that the directors desired to express their great regret for the unfortunate error they had made, and the injustice they had done him.

The announcement of the early date of Elsie's and his marriage, followed on the next day; and in this way his justification was complete

Moreover, the revision of the clerk's salaries was carried out, in time to admit of their wedding presents being among the handsomest which the young couple received.

_______________

22: Mrs. Brotherton's Adventure

Sir William Magnay, Bt.

World's News (Sydney) 2 Oct 1915

Sir William Magnay, 2nd Baronet (1855-1917) was an English novelist.  Magnay was a son of Sir William Magnay, 1st Baronet who was Lord Mayor of London. He was a prolific novelist, and published twenty-five novels before his death; a further three were brought out posthumously.

IT WAS a red-letter day for Mrs. Brotherton, the rich contractor's widow, when she got an invitation to stay a week at Hallaton Hall, Lord Finchampton's place in Wyeshire.

Mrs. Brotherton entertained largely at her house in Mayfair, end was gradually getting to know quite a number of good people in society. She imitated, more or less successfully, the grand manner of a smart hostess, and was notorious for wearing on all possible occasions a dazzling array of jewellery. Her diamonds were very fine, and quite a vivid feature of her personality. She would as soon have thought of travelling without a change of dress as without her jewel-case, and her thirty or forty thousand pounds' worth of brilliants accompanied her wherever she went.

The Hallaton visit promised to be one of the events of her life; she made a point of announcing the approaching honor to all her acquaintances. Naturally her very pardonable bragging was received with a polite show of interest and many a subsequent sneer; if, however, the good lady guessed that, it had little or no damping effect on her elation. It could not alter the fact that she was going to stay at Lord Finchampton's historic place, where Royalty had often been entertained; she would probably find herself among a brilliant house-party; it was the social chance of her life, and that was enough for her.

She felt— although she had too much worldly wisdom to show it— deeply grateful to that smart young society blood, Harvey Bendyshe, a man who seemed to know everybody and to go everywhere. Bendyshe had been for some time one of her principal social supporters. His manners and appearance were charming and distinguished; he had by his assiduity established himself at 127 Hill Street, as major-domo, and he had crowned his usefulness by the introduction of Lord Finchampton, who soon became a frequent diner there.

"I am so glad you are going down to Hallaton, dear lady," Bendyshe said to his hostess, with a touch at subdued enthusiasm. "You'll love the place, and Finchampton is an absolutely charming and perfect host. Yes; I am so glad he has asked you; I wish I was going too, but I was at Hallaton quite lately, and, of course, dear old Finchy has a lot of people to get in during the shooting season."

"I suppose there will be a smart lot there," Mrs. Brotherton murmured.

"Sure to be," Bendyshe answered. "I fancy Lady Scrymgeour is going, and," he added with a laugh, "there will be some dressy women. But one need not give you a hint to be smart, dear lady."

The dear lady replied by a confident smile, which spoke volumes, and Bendyshe, after answering as many questions about Hallaton as tact would allow his hostess to ask, took his leave.

It had been arranged that Mrs. Brotherton was to travel down to Hallaton by the 3.45 train from town, arriving at Hallaton Road station, three miles from the Hall, at 5.30. On the morning of her departure, however, she got a wire from Hallaton to say it would be more convenient to meet her at Rustwick, which was the station before Hallaton. At Rustwick, accordingly, Mrs. Brotherton and her maid alighted in the dark of a November afternoon. A smart liveried servant met her on the platform, asked her if she was for Hallaton Hall, and conducted her through the booking-office to where a carriage and pair were waiting.

"His lordship," said the man as he settled the rugs, "is suffering from a severe attack of gout, and has not left his room to-day." Mrs. Brotherton was naturally sorry, but, after all, it did not make so very much difference to her; so long as she stayed at Hallaton the illness of her host was no great matter.

"There is a party at Hallaton?" she asked the man.

"Oh, yes, ma'am. There are several at the Hall. Lord and Lady Slinfold, Sir Hubert and Lady Wichelo, the Honorable Mr. Dawkins, and Captain Mannering."

"Oh," exclaimed the lady in a gratified tone, as she settled herself in the comfortable brougham.

"His lordship does not wish his illness to make any difference. He hopes to be about again in a day or two."

As the door shut the coachman was giving directions to the porter who had brought out the luggage. It struck Mrs. Brotherton that his voice sounded familiar, but she could not at the moment think whose it reminded her of.

And indeed she had something more interesting to occupy her thoughts, so quickly dismissed any curiosity on the subject. It was delightful to think that she was going to join a really smart house-party, and it would not be her fault, she told herself, if they failed to take their places on her visiting list. Luckily they were all strangers; fresh blood was what she wanted, and she meant to rope them all in.

So it was in a state of aggressive amiability that the ambitious lady drove up to the house.

A blaze of light, as the hall-door was thrown open, gave the new arrival a hospitable welcome; she was ushered into the drawing-room, where she found the house-party assembled. A lady rose and greeted her with an aristocratic drawl.

"How do you do? I'm afraid you have had a terribly cold journey. Will you have some tea? Isn't it sad about poor Lord Finchampton?"

"I hope he is better," Mrs. Brotherton ventured.

"Oh, yes," the lady answered, as she poured out a cup of tea; "it is nothing very serious, only, of course, it is a bore having to be shut up in one's room, don't you know? Sir Hubert has just been sitting with the poor dear man, and reports him as being very sorry for himself."

Sir Hubert came forward "All the same, he won't hear of our breaking up," he said. "He feels certain he will be about by the day after to-morrow. And in the meantime we are to make ourselves quite at home."

"Certainly." Mrs. Brotherton thought the party were showing no sign of disobeying their host's wish, and she soon found herself beginning to feel very much at her ease. There was no stiffness among her fellow-guests.

Lady Slinfold, who did the honors, made herself and all the rest known to Mrs. Brotherton; everyone paid her an amount of attention which was quite flattering to the good lady and made her already regard the whole party as her own friends. So the hour passed in free and easy chat till it was time to dress for dinner.

"Have you beard anything about Lord Finchampton?" Mrs. Brotherton asked her maid.

"Well, ma'am," she answered, "I haven't seen anybody much to ask. I don't know where the servants get to here, it is such a funny sort of place."

"What do you mean by a funny sort of place?" her mistress inquired, quite content, however, to be in the house, whatever its shortcomings.

"Well, ma'am," the maid answered, "it seems such a curious, rambling old place; more like a farm-house than a nobleman's mansion. The place, what I have seen of it, is barely furnished, but then I haven't been able to see much, for most of the doors I passed had a notice on them, 'Private,' or 'No admittance,' or 'This door is not to be opened,' and one that I tried just outside here was locked. I should say his lordship must be rather peculiar."

Mrs. Brotherton was quite prepared to accept the explanation; it was hardly to be expected that peers should be like other people; she had heard too many stories of eccentric noblemen to imagine that. And if Hallaton should be different from the ordinary country house of her experience, why it would be so much the more interesting and amusing. So, without paying any very serious attention to her maid's observations and comments on their quarters, she put on her smartest gown, decked herself with an all too liberal display of diamond ornaments, and went in a high state of contentment down to dinner. She found everybody very smart and very genial. The dinner was excellent and well served, although something was said about the absence of the butler, who was in attendance on the invalid upstairs. As the champagne circulated the party became quite hilariously jovial, and Mrs. Brotherton, no longer awed by the novelty of her surroundings, threw off her rather middle-class restraint, and became as merry as any of them. Her line was certainly to do as others did in that smart set, and these people were very smart indeed. And how delightful it was to become so quickly and easily intimate with regular society folk.

After dinner someone rather tentatively proposed a game of cards.

"Dear old Finchampton hates gambling," said Lady Slinfold, with a laugh. "Gets quite three cornered at the sight of a pack of cards, but as he is safe not to come down to-night it is a pity to lose the chance of a game."

"To-night is ours, at any rate," chimed in Sir Hubert Wichelo. "Let's have a flutter now, if we have to go back to cribbage or bagatelle or hunt the slipper to-morrow."

Everyone seemed to welcome the suggestion, and Mrs. Brotherton could not well stand out. She did not care for play, having none of the gambler's instinct in her; still, in these circumstances, when everyone was so nice to her, a stranger, she could not afford to look churlish and in her elation she felt rather inclined to cast away her natural prudence. After all, it would probably only be for one night, and if she did lose a few pounds, why, she could easily afford it. Accordingly she gaily sat down with the rest and played chemin de fer, eventually rising a loser to the tune of some seventy odd pounds.

This rather sobered her and considerably discounted the evening's enjoyment, but everyone was so friendly and sympathetic that she wished to show herself a good loser, and wrote a cheque for her losses without the slightest sign of annoyance or hesitation.

A message came down from their invalid host to bid them all good-night, hoping they had had a pleasant evening, and saying he felt so much better that he looked forward to being with them next night.

That was a satisfactory announcement, and the party broke up for the night in good spirits. It was late, and Mrs. Brotherton felt unusually tired, so tired that she almost fell asleep before she was undressed.

It had been agreed that breakfast was to be later than usual next morning; all the same Mrs. Brotherton was fairly horrified when she was roused from a deep slumber to be told by her maid that it was nearly ten o'clock.

"Ten o'clock!" she cried, almost in dismay, "why on earth didn't you call me sooner, Fisher?"

"I'm very sorry, ma'am," the maid replied, "but I overslept myself too, and only woke half an hour ago with a splitting headache."

"Haven't you brought tea?" her mistress asked, in no very good humor.

"I have just been down for it, ma'am," Fisher answered, "but I can't find anyone about. There is only a deaf old woman down-stairs, who doesn't seem to know anything about the house; so, as it was late, I thought I had better come and tell you at once."

"It is very extraordinary," Mrs. Brotherton exclaimed in a mystified tone.

"Yes, ma'am, it is, and I can't make it out at all," Fisher said significantly. "It is my belief there is something wrong here."

"Wrong? Here, at Lord Finchampton's? How can there be?" the lady cried, almost scandalised at the monstrous idea. "I don't know what you mean by saying the house is deserted. His lordship must be here; he can't move from his room."

"Well," Fisher persisted, "it is very queer; that is all I can say; there is no one to be seen or heard in the place except a deaf old woman. I don't know where his lordship

"Never mind, that will do," Mrs. Brotherton interrupted, angry at the suspicion which was beginning to force itself upon her. "Let me get dressed quickly and see what it all means. You must be absurdly mistaken."

"I hope I may be, ma'am," the maid responded in no very convinced tone.

As Mrs. Brotherton made an unusually hurried toilet she could not help an uncomfortable conviction, as she looked out of the window, that the view did not exactly suggest the grounds surrounding a nobleman's country seat. The garden, if such it might be called, was unkempt, and more suggestive of farm lands than of an historic park.

The idea made her more anxious than ever to get down quickly, and her dressing was soon accomplished.

She hurried downstairs. On her way the absence of all sign of life in the house struck chill and gave a sense of vague apprehension. She went straight to the dining-room, and gave a gasp of dismay at the sight she saw. The grate contained the burnt-out ashes of last night's fire; the table was bare; not a sign of breakfast. Mrs. Brotherton turned, and went off to seek another room where breakfast might be laid. The drawing-room was empty, and, with a dead fire in the grate. What a common, tawdry room it looked in the cold morning light.

Mrs. Brotherton hurried from room to room, only to find each one deserted, and most of them unfurnished. In desperation she returned to the diningroom and sharply rang the bell. After some delay; the deaf old Woman appeared. No satisfaction was to be got from her; she seemed to know nothing of the arrangements of the house, and, in fact, was hopelessly stupid. She knew nothing of the people who were in the house overnight, as she herself only came in as caretaker that morning. Yes; she thought there was some tea in the house, and she would get the lady a cup and some bread and butter.

By this time Mrs. Brotherton, with all her optimism, had become convinced that something was seriously wrong. But what could it be? What was the explanation? What had happened since last night, when everything had been so delightful? Certainly, when she drove up to the house the evening before the darkness had prevented her noticing its rather dilapidated surroundings. She now went out into the hall, opened the door, and passed out to take a survey of the house.

The sight was by no means reassuring. Could this low, rambling style of building, with its farm-like outhouses and general airof neglect, be the stately Hallaton of which she had heard so much? It all seemed then like a nightmare, and yet, when she recalled the incidents of the previous evening, she could not realise that there had been a hideous mistake or deception. It was all very extraordinary and mysterious, but at any rate she must have her breakfast before probing
it further. She went indoors, rather inclined now to come to the uncomfortable and humiliating, conclusion that she had been the victim of an elaborate practical joke. Her frugal meal was ready, and she sat down in bitterness of spirit to make the best of the situation.

She had scarcely taken half a dozen sips when Fisher, her maid, came in abruptly with something more than concern on her face.

"Well, Fisher, what is it now?"

"Oh, ma'am," the maid asked breathlessly, "have you got the jewellery? I can't find it anywhere."

Mrs. Brotherton started up, now thoroughly alarmed.

"The jewellery? You put it away in the case, Fisher?"

"Yes, ma'am, certainly I did last night. But now the case has gone."

"Gone!" Mrs. Brotherton rushed from the room and tore upstairs, followed by Fisher. A feverish search in the bedroom only served to confirm the terrible suspicion that hey five- and- thirty thousand pounds' worth of jewellery had been made away with. Utterly overwhelmed, poor Mrs. Brotherton sank prostrate on the sofa.

"Oh, what does it all mean?" she moaned. "What horrible trick is this? I can't have been robbed by these people; it must be a practical joke."

"I hope it may be, ma'am," Fisher responded, in no very reassuring tone.

Mrs. Brotherton was far too practical a woman to indulge in lamentations when action was called for. In a few seconds she had risen, and accompanied by Fisher, was making a search through the house. Little but empty rooms rewarded her investigation; no one was in the house save the deaf caretaker. In spite of all, however, the lady clung to the hope that things were not so bad as they looked, that a satisfactory explanation would be forthcoming.

But one thing was certain; they could not stay there; so Fisher quickly packed the trunks and went down to the village to get a conveyance to the station.

"You had better say nothing about what has happened," her mistress warned her; "we don't want to look foolish, and I daresay it will turn out to be some absurd mistake." She said this now without much conviction, for as time went on the chance of a happy explanation seemed to grow much more remote.

The village fly at length arrived, and Mrs. Brotherton set out for the station with very different feelings from those with which she had traversed the same road the night before. But she was now less concerned at the idea of a social fiasco than at the loss of her jewellery.

If she had been robbed she must lose no time in setting the London police on the scent.

Arrived at the railway, the first person whom, to her great surprise, she saw on the platform was Lord Finchampton.

His surprise even exceeded her own.

"My dear Mrs. Brotherton," he exclaimed, as he greeted her. "I'm so glad to see you so quickly recovered— and delighted you have lost no time in coming to us. But why didn't you send word? Not expecting you so early, there is nothing to meet you."

"I thought," Mrs. Brotherton blurted out in her bewilderment, "I came down to Hallaton last evening."

Lord Finchampton stared at her as though doubting her sanity. "You came to Hallaton last evening?" he repeated in wonder.

"I thought I did," the lady said with an embarrassing laugh, "and that you were laid up, Lord Finchampton."

"Laid up? Never better in my life," he answered her heartily. "I don't understand."

"I am only just beginning to understand the trick that has been played on me," Mrs. Brotherton said, as the position became plain to her in all its hideous knavery. "Then you didn't wire me to come by the three-forty-five to Rustwick station?"

"Certainly not," Lord Finchampton assured her. "You wired putting off your arrival on account of illness."

Mrs. Brotherton laughed in bitterness of spirit. "Did I? You haven't had Lord and Lady Slinfold, Sir Hubert Wichelo and Lady Wichelo, Mr. Dawkins, and Captain Mannering staying with you?"

"Don't know the people; never heard of them. Do tell me what has happened to you."

Walking up and down the platform, Mrs. Brotherton proceeded to give Lord Finchampton an account of her experiences since her arrival the previous night. "I realise now," she concluded, "that I have been the victim of a well-laid plot to rob me of my jewellery."

"And I think I can guess where you spent the night," her companion added. "At Perroit Grange, an old farm-house on my property. My agent told me some London people had taken it as a hunting-box. So it seems they were after something more valuable than foxes. It was cleverly planned, and naturally, arriving after dark you could not see the sort of place you were coming to."

"The people seemed quite smart; I was completely taken in," Mrs. Brotherton confessed miserably.

It was arranged that the victim should go over at once to Hallaton, whence the police, should be set at work.

AND NOW a strange chance made their work comparatively easy.

The evening papers came out with a sensational piece of news. There had been an accident to the Calais-Paris train, and one passenger, a well known figure in smart society, had been killed. His name was Harvey Bendyshe; and it became a matter of curious comment that he had upon his person between twenty-five and thirty thousand pounds' worth of ladies' jewellery. However much this fact may have been a puzzle to the rest of the world, it was to Mrs. Brotherton the rather startling solution of the mystery of her unpleasant experience. The jewellery was hers; she was able in due course to identify and recover it; while the society butterfly, Harvey Bendyshe, was revealed as man who had made use of his social position to rob his friends and acquaintances. when ever a chance occurred.

"I thought," said Mrs. Brotherton, when discussing the affair with her host, "the voice of the coachman who drove me from the station was familiar. It was Mr. Bendyshe in disguise."

"Ah," commented Lord Finchampton, "no doubt superintending the big, coup of which he was to take the lion's share. Those who thought they knew him best always wondered how he contrived to live in such good style. I congratulate you, Mrs. Brotherton, on getting back the bulk of your valuables, and at the same time providing a solution of the mystery which has been exercising a good any us for some time past."

_________________

23: At The Road Top

Halliwell Sutcliffe

1870-1932

World's News (Sydney) 21 March 1914

BETWEEN Ghyll Gip and Boggarty Hill, away on the high moors wide of Pendle, there stands a stout farm, known as Mailings. The Hendersons had been there— yeomen of a proud, upstanding stock— for a trifle of four hundred years or so; and they had never cared to move too quickly with the times. The railway had come within five miles of their borders long ago; they did not heed, but still rode on horseback to fairs and markets, however distant, and forgot that steam was altering the world's face and men's characters.

Their neighbors— yeomen farmers, hinds, a parson, and a squire— were much of the came mind. About them was the free wind of the moor, and old acquaintance with the open life that gives room for character to shape itself.

Across the valley lived another yeoman family, the Hirsts of Bentylands; and the Hirsts and Hendersons were friendly, though every generation had been at feud till now. The sons and daughters of the houses jested sometimes, when they supped together, about the battles and the slayings that had been; but at these times their elders touched the wood of their oak-chairs for luck, and looked grave, and wished the youngsters would not flick a late-healed sore.

Young Christopher Henderson, the heir to Mailings, fell in love with Mary Hirst— "up to the neck," as his neighbors had it— and she with him. There was nothing astonishing in this, for the two were bonnie and upstanding— "made each for t'other," so folk said. And there was high festival at Mailings to celebrate the betrothal. Hirst of Bentylands lifted his glass to Henderson's.

"Here's the staunching of an old feud, friend Henderson," he said.

"Ay, we'll marry it out of sight," answered Henderson of Mailings, forgetting this time to touch wood. "I've a liking for you, neighbor, and you've a liking for me, I fancy— it's time we'd done with the dead bones of a quarrel."

A week later Henderson bought a horse from his neighbor at Colne Market. The horse fell lame soon afterwards, and Henderson walked across to Hirst's farm.

"Yond horse you sold me was unsound, John," said Henderson, finding the other in his mistal-yard.

"Oh, ay?"

"He's fallen dead lame."

"Then he's had a fool on his back. He was sound when you swopped money for him."

"John," said the other slowly, "your lass and my lad have plighted troth. 'Twould by a pity if we differed, you end me. Own that you sold a wrong 'un, and I'll forget it. I want no money back; but I'll not have it said that I was fooled at a horse-deal and took it smiling."

"You'll have it said that you don't know bow to ride a horse when you've bought him."

"That's your last word?"

"Ay, I reckon it's all I've got to say, or thereabouts."

Henderson turned, picked his way through the litter of the yard and went down the hill. And Hirst went indoors.

"Mary," he said, finding his girl in the dairy, "all's over between you and Henderson's lad."

"Not till I hear him say it," she said, looking up from the butter she was making into pats. "Father, he's my man— there'll be no other."

"Then you'll just bide unwedded, and so I tell you."

At Mailings, Henderson had found Christopher, and spoken of the quarrel.

"So the feud's up again?" said the lad, his face hardening. "Well, we shall take our own road, if Mary's willing."

And that was the beginning of the trouble. Little by little the two houses yielded to the feud that was in their blood. The late peace— the friendly intercourse of every day, with Its hunts and supper-parties and what not—  showed flimsy and of light account. They were glad to be foes again, because the dead hand of the centuries lay heavy on them.

Christopher and his lass went lonely these days. They were looking ahead, as lovers do, not back into the yesterdays. It seemed absurd that the rights and wrongs of one horse-deal should overshadow their two lives. And yet they were not lonely, for they met by stealth along the upland roads; they knew the way of their hearts, and naught else seemed to matter. And so the months went on, until Dick Hirst— the heir to Bentylands— rode home from Colne Market one quiet April evening. The thorns were breaking leaf and thrushes were singing high and clear among the branches. It was good to be alive, he thought, as he climbed the lane that led to the trim house on the hill.

Half up the rise, where the well-spring bubbled at the roadside, he drew rein. His sister and Christopher Henderson were standing close together by the well, dipping their hands into it for bridal luck, according to the old tradition of the moor.

Hirst watched them, a grim smile on his face. They must be wading deep in love to be deaf to the clatter of hoof-beats up the road.

He waited till they had kissed and parted, saw Mary turn for a farewell wave of the hand before she went over the crest of the hill; then he got out of saddle, and Henderson glanced sharply round to see who the intruder was.

"You'll have to fight for your bridal-luck," said Dick Hirst, "and so I tell you."

"I'm content," said Henderson.

They doffed their coats; and in their faces was a queer storm-light. Then they fought. They were big men, both, hard-bitten and unyielding, and the sun had got half an hour nearer setting before Christopher Henderson hit his man on the point of the chin. Hirst fell with his head against a rock, and did not get up again; and after a while Henderson rose from kneeling beside the body, and looked round him at the empty moor.

"I've killed a man to-day," he said, a great forlornness in his voice.

As he stood there, three of Hirst's shepherds came driving a flock of sheep down from the high moors. They saw the two men— one prostrate, the other standing with bared head— and the song of the feud floated over the heather to them. In the ingle-nook o' nights they had talked often of the brave old days; and here, in dull, modern times, they saw the first battle-field of the re-awakened quarrel.

Without thought or hesitation they closed round Christopher. One he knocked aside, but the two remaining rushed him down, unknotted the kerchiefs from their necks, and tied his hands and feet. Then the three of them carried him to the house of Bentylands.

"Dead folk can bide. We'll come to fetch ye by and by, Maister Dick," said one, with a glance at the fallen man.

And in all this, had they known it, there was a return to the instincts of the race, before law and order were enforced about the moor-side. The feud was up again; they had captured the slayer of the heir to Bentylands, and took him there for such vengeance as their overlord might ask. That grim "Dead folk can bide" was in itself an admission of the old common-sense doctrine that living enemies must be attended to before dead friends.

After they had gone, Dick Hirst lay for a long while where they had left him. Then his limbs stirred; and presently he roused himself, like one coming out of a heavy slumber. He got up at last. A burning thirst was on him, and he went to the well in which his sister and Kit Henderson had lately dipped hands for bridal luck. He put his head down as a beast of the field might do, and drank.

When his thirst was ended he looked about him. He could not remember how he came here, and there seemed nothing to be done in life. So he sat down in the heather and waited for guidance of some sort.

The shepherds, returning to bring the heir's dead body home, found him sitting there in the heather. He laughed at them, in an empty way, and asked if nuts were ripe in the hazel-copse. So then a great awe fell on them, and they crossed, themselves— a thing unknown for at least a hundred years among the moor-folk— and looked at each other, and muttered that God's hand lay heavy on "young maister." Better, have died, they agreed.

At Bentylands, the master of the house and six of his sons were gathered about Christopher. The old yeoman— again the instinct of bygone centuries peeped out— did not doubt that his heir was dead, killed in the first battle of the feud. Nor was he anxious about bringing the body home until the call of vengeance had been answered.

"You killed him?" he asked.

"Yes," said Christopher. "I killed him. It was a fair fight."

"Then we will kill you. That's the old gospel, whatever our lile, wind-driven parson says on Sundays. There's a railroad not so far away, and law and order settled round the moor-side; so we dursn't do it outright now end have done wi' it. We'll find other means, I reckon."

"I'd liefer you did it now," put in Christopher. "To have a man's death at your door leaves you without any wish to live. I speak of what I know."

Old Hirst looked at his drawn face, the dull, lifeless carriage of head and limbs; and he was glad, with a fury of delight that he knew was devilish.

Mary Hirst looked on at it all from the doorway. This was the big farm-kitchen she had known from babyhood— the peat-fire on the hearth, the oatcake drying overhead on the oaken creel, the shimmer of pewter plates on the dresser— yet all the peace of it was gone. From their talk she pieced together the story of what had happened at the Lovers' Well. She needed no speech of any kind to tell her how it had fared with Christopher. And this was bridal luck!

She surmised vaguely what they would do to him, these men of hers. In her veins, too, was that wine of feud that the women of her race had drunk in days gone by. She had no hope of mercy for him.

Through her trouble the sound of a knocking on the outer door intruded. She did not heed it at the first. Then, when the sound grew deafening, she turned and opened, and saw Silas, the oldest of the shepherds, standing, there.

"Tell maister I want him," was all he said. "Tell him to step out here to, for it willn't hear telling to any, save me and him. Tell him the feud is brewing up a bonnie thunder-storm already."

Mary, in a cloud of nightmare, went into the kitchen— past Christopher, giving him never a word nor a glance, though he hungered for it. "Silas, is asking for you, father— about some sheep, I fancy."

"Sheep can wait," snarled Hirst.

So she came to his ear and whispered— told him that Silas would not be denied and was chattering of the feud. She was not young to the lore of women when their men took the road of quarrel; for the salt of many tears, and the strength of many heartaches conquered, returned along the centuries.

"I'll come," said Hirst, roused— as she knew he would be— by the hint of feud.

Silas beckoned him into the mistal-yard, and took him to the croft beyond for greater privacy. "It's this way— Maister Dick is alive as you or me."

"Thank God," said Hirst, with a sharp return to the piety he had known aforetime.

"Nay, niver give thanks too soon. He's alive— but his wits are gone. Goes like a madwit up and down the moor, and we cannot catch him. Better have died, and that I say and stick to. Fell with the back of his head on a rock, he did— there's a raw wound there— and he's lost his wits. I've known a case or two o' the sort i' my time."

Hirst of Bentylands was a proud man. This disaster that had come to his son was worse than death, as Silas the shepherd had said.

"Keep your tongue quiet, Silas," he snapped, "I would not have our neighbors know it."

As he went indoors the ancient devilry of the feud got about him once again. Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, he would take toll from Christopher for the misery he was suffering.

He went through, the warmth of the kitchen. Smell of the oat-cake drying overhead— glow of the peats on a hearth that had watched him dandle his baby sons on his knees— these were forgotten. He asked only to be revenged on Christopher Henderson, who had robbed his heir of more than life.

"Well?" he asked, standing face to face with Christopher. "We have you here at our will."

"Yes," assented Kit. "You have me here."

"With murder on your conscience."

"Yes—with a man's death on my conscience. But we fought fair."

"Then go out into the wilderness," said Hirst, with a savagery that surprised even his hard-riding sons. "Go out, and remember day and night that you've killed my son. Snow on the moor, with the east wind behind it— that, and the luck of foundered sheep, I wish you. And one word more. If ever you want to get back to the warmth o' things, there'll be the hangman waiting. We'll see to that."

"I shall never seek warmth again," said Christopher, and passed through the ruddy glow of the kitchen, out into the night.

As Hirst followed, to shut the door on him with a parting curse, he saw Mary cross the moonlit yard in the fugitive's wake. "What maid's nonsense are you at?" he asked, taking her roughly by the shoulders.

"Where my man goes, I go," she said stubbornly. "Twas never my mind to share only the good weather with him."

"A pretty tale! A lass of mine to go gipsying with a gaol-bird up the moors. Come away in, Mary." He took her back by force, and set her in the middle of the kitchen. Undoubtedly the man was possessed to-night by some ancient de vilry of feud. His ripe good nature, his tenderness for women, were gone.

"Here's your sister, lads," he said. "I caught 'er following Kit Henderson up the moor."

''Well, they were plighted," growled one of the sons. "I like her none the worse, for my part, because she sticks to her man. It isn't in nature for her to give him up because you sold a wrong 'un to Henderson of Mailings."

"Ay, all against me!" roared Hirst, with a fury that cowed all of them. "Tell me to my face, do ye, that I swopped a bad horse for Henderson's money? Well, Mary gets to her room, and I lock the door. No gaol-bird ever married yet into my family."

On the high moors, Christopher was walking, with the moonlight and his misery for comrades. The night was warm, but his heart was not, and it is the heart that measures the weather's temperature. He cared not where he went, but crossed the heathery ridges, the marshy hollows, at a headlong pace. He was striving to outstrip the knowledge that he had killed, a man to-day, and might as well have tried to out-run his own shadow.

The moon got low over Scummerstone Rigg before weariness began to find him. It seemed to him that he had travelled far in a straight line that led him to the wilderness; but, when a man has lost his way. he goes always in a circle, and his steps return, by some grace of Providence, to the homeland he has known,

When Christopher came to an upland quarry, and stumbled into shelter there to find the sleep of deep exhaustion, he thought himself leagues away from the scene of great disaster, In fact, he was within hailing distance of the house of Bentylands, and from this quarry the homestead had been built.

He slept till late afternoon. When he woke, he heard a foolish voice asking when hazel-nuts would be ripe in the copses; and, as sleep cleared away, he saw Dick Hirst looking down at him with big, vacant eyes. The superstition of the moor gathered round him. He did not doubt that a ghost stood at his elbow.

"I killed you— and you're haunting me,'' he said, getting to his feet.

"Nay, I know not. I've been up and down the moor, seeking my wits."

So Christopher, to make sure whether it were man or ghost, struck him on the face; and Dick Hirst answered with an unexpected blow that sent Kit to ground. At the end of the brief fight they faced each other; and Dick was like a man come out of dreamland, wondering what the new day's re-awakening meant.

"What did we fight about?" he asked, with a healthy laugh. "Something about Mary— but forget."

"Something about Mary," said Christopher. "Let's go down to Bentylands, Dick."

They found a well-spring on their way down, and washed the worst traces of the fight away. At the foot of the home-croft they met yeoman Hirst face to face. He was coming up for the third search that day after his straying son; and he, too, thought that he saw ghosts.

When he touched his eldest-born, to be sure that he was flesh and blood, he asked what had chanced, from start to finish of this queer adventure. And, after Kit had told him, the man tell silent, and drew apart.

"Saddle a horse for me," he said, turning sharply to his son.

When the horse was brought— Dick glad to be about usual occupations once again, after day-dreaming up the moor— old Hirst got to saddle, and rode without halt, up hill and down, until he came to Mailings. He drew rein at the porch, tethered his horse to the ring on the right hand of the door, and went in.

"Hi, friend Henderson!" he called. Henderson came out from the living-room, and withdrew a little when he saw who the guest was. But Hirst had found himself again, and would not be denied.

"I came to tell you, neighbor, that yond horse I sold you was a dead wrong 'un. Friendship can't go further."

Hirst took three minutes to consider the affair; and it seemed to him that the man was generous. "Well, I've done as much i' was time," he said stolidly. "May be 'tis i' the blood, like, when it comes to horses. A man never knows."

"Ah, you're Yorkshire."

"May be— just there or thereabouts."

"So I must ride by way of the parsonage, you say, and put the banns in?"

"I didn't say it, neighbor— but you can ride that way, if you've a mind to."

That is the plain, unvarnished tale of the re-awakened feud; and it is not forgotten on the moor-side, though Christopher Henderson has sons old enough to-day to take their fences over a rough hunting country.

____________________

24: Secret Intelligence

Violet Jacob

World's News (Sydney) 22 April 1916

(1863-1946) A Scottish writer known especially for her historical novel Flemington and for her poetry, mainly in Scots.

IT would, perhaps, have been unkind to call Mr. Percy Chudworth Lee-Hickson conceited. It was only when he grew confidential— which the best of us are apt to do at times— that he talked much about himself. And younger men, with whom he adopted the paternal attitude (he was forty-three), were sometimes impressed by him.

"Yes," he had said one afternoon to a young fellow of his acquaintance, a clerk in the House of Commons, "I don't pretend to be a genius, but I keep my eyes open and my ears too. Very little escapes me, I can tell you. I'm like a hound— put me, on the scent, and I'll 'get there somehow. Now, my mind's never sleeping— it's always on the look-out. I look into the reasons of things— the causes; It's good practice. You young fellows don't appreciate that, but none of the little signs of all that goes on are ever lost on me. I'm a sort of 'mind-scout,' you might say."

"Are you supposed to do one kind action a day?" inquired the youth, who was a little flippant, "because, If you are, you might try one on me."

"Well, so I will," said Mr. Lee-Hickson, who saw enough to suspect that he was having his leg pulled. "I shall advise you not to wear such loud socks."

Mr. Lee-Hickson himself dressed quietly; in summer principally in blue serge. He was of middle height, fair and slender, and a little bald; he strove with his baldness by means of hairwashes and by the careful training of his hair, which he applied to the thin place, as though he were training Virginia creeper. He lived in the country, but was well enough off to make occasional visits to London, which he loved dearly, and as he was a bachelor, it may be presumed that he was free from cares. His house, On the outskirts of a south country cathedral town, was a pattern of comfort. He was a good croquet player, an ardent collector of Welsh pewter, and he had just bought a small motor-car. All these things pleased him, and the knowledge of his own sagacity made a comfortable under-current to his life.

The young man with the loud socks attempted no further flippancies, and the next time that Mr. Lee-Hickson made reference to his own discernment, fee took a different tone.

"You should go into the secret service," he said, "that's the place for you. You'd be invaluable. "Why don't you apply to be taken on?"

This time Mr. Lee-Hickson had no misgivings. He felt the words to be so true that he did not suspect his companion of grinning internally at the thought of anyone of his appearance engaged in desperate deeds.

He smiled darkly. "Well," he said, "perhaps I have done so— who knows?"

He went home from the county club, where this conversation had taken place, in a reflective mood, for Ernest Darton had only voiced his own thoughts, his own convictions, Even that young ass had perceptions, it seemed, and he smoked among his pewter that evening, wondering whether destiny had been speaking to him through this unworthy medium.

He thought about it in bed, at breakfast, for days afterwards, and finally came to a tremendous resolution. He had always been interested in matters of intrigue, and he knew that the secret service was recruited from every conceivable branch of society. People of position, and people of none, people of both sexes and of all grades and professions formed part of the vast web spun round the unsuspecting public by those responsible for its safety. Why not himself? Even Henri Le Caron had, presumably, not been born with secret orders in his hand. There is a beginning to everything; and so Mr. Lee-Hickson told himself many, times in the couple of weeks that ensued before he made the plunge. And, one day, having decided to what official he should apply, he posted his letter. He gave the history of his own antecedents and position, and the capabilities which he knew himself to possess, asking to be employed (as a beginning) in even the most humble capacity. He then set about possessing his soul in patience until his deed should take effect.

Weeks passed with no result. It was a little over a month from the day of his resolution when a most unassuming envelope with a London postmark lay upon his hall table when he came in one night to dress for dinner.

He opened it with a sigh; it looked so like a bill. It had neither date, address, nor signature, and it was only when he had read it through that the meaning of its contents dawned upon him.

"On the 18th instant," the letter ran, "you will proceed to Ford Lane Station, on the Great Eastern line, arriving there before 6 p.m., when a local train due at that time will come in on a branch line. A tall lady will arrive by it, accompanied by a small King Charles spaniel. She will take the 6.25 to Harwich. You will find means to prevent her from starting by that train. Urgent (the word was thrice underlined). Destroy. You have been under consideration for some time."

Mr. Lee-Hickson stood thunderstruck. Here it was, the long-expected letter! It had come upon him so stealthily, with so little pomp or circumstance, that it took him a few minutes to collect his wits and screw up his feelings to the occasion. He had imagined something quite different. There was no proposed interview, no producing of himself for inspection. Then, as he told himself how unlikely it was that an urgent secret order would carry its origin on its face, he began to wonder at his own astonishment.

The last sentence made his head buzz. Was it an explanation of the tardy reply, or did it mean that omniscient eyes had followed him, weighing his merits, even before he had taken action? Was he known? It was a giddy thought!

To-day was the 17th. Mr. Lee-Hickson swallowed his dinner in a dream, and when this was done, he burned the letter, making cryptic notes of its contents, then went to find Bradshaw. He looked up the trains mentioned, and saw that he could get to London quite comfortably and spend a pleasant few hours before starting for Ford Lane.

He began to construct some probable situation from what he had been told. Evidently the lady was going abroad, and crossing from Harwich, and for some unaccountable reason it was imperative to delay her; it was a political matter, of course— heaven knew what might not depend on his success! He was rather surprised to see that the missing of that particular train would not prevent her from sailing that evening, but, like a wise man, he questioned nothing for which he was not responsible, and concluded that there was, no need for him to understand more than his orders. He spent the evening in a chastened beatitude, shadowed by the faint fear of being unsuccessful. Not that he really felt incapable of dealing with any matter. It was merely the preliminary shiver of the expert swimmer on the brink.

He departed for London next day, composed and resolute, having put together a rough plan of action. The dog was the key to the situation. If his mistress carried anything of vital importance she would certainly not part from it for a single moment, and he felt that the best means of delaying her would be to detain some of her property. A woman (so be reasoned) is always a slave to her pet dog, and so, by some contrivance, he must lay hands on the little beast. Short of breaking her leg or taking her purse, he could see no other way out of it. Being a devoted admirer of ladies, the first was abhorrent, to him, and unless some miracle should happen, there would be no chance of getting hold of her money. Of course, he might try to steal her purse, but the thought of being taken up as a pickpocket was too much for his courage. Better to retire once more into obscurity than that. Should he manage to get hold of her ticket, and should she only discover its loss in the train, no end would be served, for she would only have to make it good on the journey. No, unless some amazing chance presented itself, it was the dog. The waiter, who served him in the Lyons restaurant in which he lunched, was astonished, when removing his plate, to see that, though the gentleman had eaten two small cutlets, there was only one bone left.

At last the time came when Mr. Lee-Hickson was at Liverpool Street, stepping into the train. He had not spent a pleasant afternoon, for the greasy bone in his coat pocket was offensive to him, and he had kept out of any known haunt of his own for fear of meeting acquaintances who might ask awkward questions or, worse still, be going his way. He had no connection with the East of England, but one never knows one's luck in this world; certainly one's ill-luck.

As he sat in his empty compartment with his unread evening paper, he wondered rather sadly whether the next day's issue would hold his own name, whether he might get into some hideous difficulty, only to be the sport of the halfpenny press, only to have his face pictured next Sunday— heavens, how horribly!— in the spicy columns of some week-end journal.

At last the train pulled up at Ford Lane Station, and he got out. It was a little place, with the branch line he had heard of running in on the other side of the platform, which made a sort of peninsula between the main and the lesser line. There was a covered booking-office and a small waiting-room, and far up at the further end of the platform, under the shadow of a bridge that carried the high road over the permanent way, was a nondescript wooden shed with a few oil-lamps propped against it. There was only one porter, who stirred himself into temporary activity when trains came in.

Mr. Lee-Hickson laid the suit-case that he carried as a guarantee of travellership upon a bench; before starting, he had emptied it of everything that could give a clue to his identity. He informed the porter that he was going by the 6.25, and then proceeded to loiter up and down, taking stock of all that he saw. He walked as far as the bridge and noted the little shed, smiling as he noticed that the key was in the door. When some little time had been spent in looking about, he saw the signal go down on the branch line, and, with a beating heart, turned his steps with what nonchalance he could to the place where the incoming train would draw up.

Soon a puff of smoke showed round a corner, and the small train came clanking in. The third-class doors opened, disgorging a handful of country folk, and from the only first-class compartment there descended a tall, elegant figure, dressed in brown, with a beveiled hat on its head and a little spaniel under its arm.

Mr. Lee-Hickson's heart beat like a drum, as he watched the lady directing the porter, who was hauling a small trunk and a huge hat-box from the van. He could hear her telling the man that she was going by the 6.25 to Harwich.

To his immense relief the third-class passengers, one and all, filed out and took the road to the small town, whose houses began to border the road about a quarter of a mile off. Soon the newcomer's luggage had been deposited in a stack outside the ticket-office, and no one remained, in the station but himself and the stranger. He was thankful to see that the dog was not on a leash; it was evidently a well-behaved little being, for it trotted quietly after it's mistress.

Mr. Lee-Hickson had heard the porter tell her that the ticket-office would not open till ten minutes before the train arrived. Then would be the critical moment; then, when she was buying her ticket, would be the time for the deed he had to do. So far, the ground seemed to prepare well. He strolled up and down, his hands in his pockets; the porter had gone off up the road to a little cottage, evidently his own, and, no doubt, would return in time for the 6.26.

The lady sat on a bench beside the usual wayside station flower-beds, and the dog, running about, sniffed at Mr. Lee-Hickson's heels as he passed on his quarter-deck walk. He stooped and patted it, and as his fingers had just been in contact with the bone in his pocket, it licked his hand, and then followed him a little way. It was a good beginning.

At last the hands of Mr. Lee-Hickson's watch pointed to 6.15, ten minutes before train-time. The dusk was creeping on, but now that he was so close upon action Mr. Lee-Hickson had grown calm. He was only a few steps from the lady when she rose and turned towards the office, opening her bag.

Once more fortune favoured the brave, for she passed Mr. Lee-Hickson, who found himself between her and the dog. The little creature was midway between himself and the lamp-house by the bridge. At the sight of its mistress walking away it came running back and approached Mr. Lee-Hickson just as the lady disappeared into the office.

He snatched the bone from his pocket and held it out to the dog. It stopped, sniffed, took the delicious morsel in its teeth, and was lost.

At a breathless run the triumphant man carried it up the platform. It struggled, but held tightly to the bone, while Mr. Lee-Hickson, smothering it with his pocket-handkerchief, made what speed he could. He just managed to knot the silk over its head and round its neck before he reached the lamp-house. Opening the door, he shot the spaniel into the darkness, shut it, turning the key, which he dropped into his pocket, and went back, panting but exultant, down the platform. He prayed that distance and the folds of his fine bandana would stifle any outcry the innocent animal might make; cheerfully would he have given twenty pounds to be sure that the 6.23 would be up to time.

He came back to find the ticket-office still closed, and the lady studying an advertisement on the wall while she waited for it to open. The clock showed that there were still six minutes to train-time. The little ticket-window went up.

Then it was that a great idea occurred to Mr. Lee-Hickson. As she came out to the platform, ticket in hand, he took off his hat and accosted her.

"Madam," he said, "your little dog has run away."

"Oh!" she exclaimed blankly. "Oh, thank you so much! Good , heavens! Which way did he go?"

"Out there!" exclaimed Mr. Lee-Hickson, pointing to the town. "I did all I could— I whistled— you must surely have heard me?"

"Indeed I didn't," said she.

"Through that little gate out into the road; that's the way it went," he continued.

"It's too dreadful!" she cried, dropping her arms at her sides. "I must hunt for him at once. What shall I do if my train comes in before I find him?"

"It won't," said he, looking at his watch, and praying that she might not take out hers. "We have a full eight minutes more in fact. Shall we go a little way towards the town?

The dog will knew your call and it won't know mine!"

"We had better run," said she. So they ran. She was young and agile, and Mr. Lee-Hickson had to exert himself to keep up with her. They ran past the porter's cottage and past a small inn, and had got half-way to the town before they paused to call and whistle. Then they ran on again. Before them the street-lamps were beginning to be lit and to spot the dusk. The road rang with calls of "Ruby! Ruby!" and frantic whistling.

"Look at your watch again," she said, panting. "I mustn't lose that train."

"It's all right," said he, complying, "besides, they'd surely keep it a moment. They know you're going by it. We have four minutes before we need turn back— Why, there's your dog! Look! Look! Turning down between those two houses— call again!"

She called with all her might.

"I can't see him," she said, desperately. It was well within a minute of train-time. She ran on a few yards, whistled, and stopped short.

"It's no good," she exclaimed, "and I must go back. I've simply got to get on!"

She turned, and as she did so the noise of the approaching train came to her ears. Mr. Lee-Hickson had heard it before, but the sound of her own voice and her own whistling had kept it from her.

She began to run back, frantically, but they had come further than she supposed, and she was breathless from her exertions. She made a gallant run, leaving her companion standing where he was, but before she had covered half the distance she fell into a walk, keeping all her strength to shout and wave to the porter, who had returned to the platform.

But Ford Lane was a small station, and the train had only one minute's wait there. She forced herself to some semblance of a run again, but even as she did so, the guard's green flag went up and the engine started. The train moved out into the dusk to lose itself under the bridge. In spite of what he had accomplished, the next ten minutes were among the worst of Mr. Lee-Hickson's life. His companion was in a state of distraction, and it was all she could do to keep within the bounds of civility. He protested that he had not known how much his watch had lost, he abased himself, he cursed himself for his folly, he offered apologies that should have melted a stone, he felt as though drowning in a sea of hypocrisy. She was so attractive, in such a quandary, and he had, in cold blood, put her, as the vulgar say, "in the cart," ruined prospects, perhaps, to which she looked for her livelihood. No wonder she was distraught, no wonder she was resentful! Also, he was far, far from indifferent to the hateful fact that she thought him an absolute fool. But his cup was not yet drained. There might be worse to come. He had yet to prevent the awful catastrophe of the discovery of the dog. What if the porter should need some implement from the lamp-house? What if he should produce another key or break in the door? What if the spaniel should make some lamentation loud enough to reach its mistress, and be found with his silk handkerchief bound tight about its bullet head?

Mercifully, her dismay seemed to have overpowered the thought of the lost Ruby, but, at any moment, she might remember her pet. Mr. Lee-Hickson grew cold at the thought.

There was nothing for it but to brace himself for renewed action. The lady was in the telegraph office, sending a message— a cypher one, no doubt. She had not spoken to him since their return to the station, but he felt that he must, at all costs, get her out of the way, if he was to see the affair of the dog to its end. Also, he felt that the restoration of the spaniel was the one reparation in his power. He met her on the threshold of the telegraph office. His idea was to propose to escort her to the inn, where she could get some tea and rest until the next train for Harwich should arrive, while he made a more exhaustive search for the missing Ruby.

It took all the eloquence he could command to make her listen, but at last, after infinite pains, and the endurance of many biting words and allusions, he set forth once more up the road with his scornful companion. This time they did not run; they walked in a strained and bitter silence that galled Mr. Lee-Hickson to the soul. He left her in the inn parlour, and, refusing to partake of the tea she constrained herself to offer him, he went out into the dusk.

The station was again deserted, but, as it was too dark to see much, it would not have mattered had it been full. Mr. Lee-Hickson made a dash towards the bridge, and, stopping by the lamp-house, laid his ear to the door. Scratching and whining came from within.

Softly he took the heavy key from his pocket and softly he turned it in the lock. As the door opened, a thing like a miniature whirlwind dashed at his legs; he had just time to clap his ankles firmly, together and make a dive at the dog before it could dodge round them. He got it by the loose skin of its back and lifted it, struggling, to his arms. His bandana was in ribbons, and he had some difficulty in disentangling them from its collar. Mr. Lee-Hickson was a man who liked to do things artistically, and the dim light glimmering on a muddy ditch a few paces down the line showed him how to throw a glamour of realism on the episode. In its waters he rolled the outraged Ruby, mopping its shallow bed with the little brute as a housemaid mops a  flooded floor. It was not easy to get his victim consistently wet, but he did it at last. Then he started with the spluttering creature for the inn.

He burst into the parlour with the dripping bundle in his arms.

"Ruby!" cried the owner, snatching it from him.

"Poor little animal!" exclaimed Mr. Lee-Hickson, "no wonder it did not come to your whistle! It had fallen headlong into a bottomless ditch beyond the railway bridge, and it was making the most pitiful efforts to get out when I heard it cry. I am thankful I thought of going in that direction. It must have rushed back when I saw it turn down behind the  houses."

She overwhelmed him with thanks. As he met her eye he saw that she had employed some of her time crying.

It was time for flight.

"And now," he said, "you will be all right here, waiting for the seven-thirty so I will leave you. I am so infinitely relived to have found your dog, after all the trouble I have caused you. You may forgive me, but I shall never be able to forgive myself."

He spoke with a melancholy dignity— the dignity of one whose misfortune is greater than his fault— and left her.

The propitious sight of the porter back on the platform greeted him as he reached the station.

"Is there a London train due soon?" he asked, breathlessly, "if not, where can I get a motor-car, or a carriage, or a bicycle, or a—"

" 'Ere be the seven-five a-comin' in, just signalled," said the man.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Lee-Hickson.

Having some experience of official delays, Mr. Lee-Hickson was prepared to wait calmly for the recognition of his services, and it was a week after his exploit that he walked into the county club, well-pleased with life and with his own part in it. An acquaintance was sitting there, reading a letter; otherwise the place was empty.

"You seem amused," he observed, noticing his expression.

"So I am," replied the other. "Ernest Darton has run away with an heiress."

"I am really delighted," said Mr. Lee-Hickson, recalling his last conversation with the young man; "he is a very sensible, deserving youth."

"Yes, but listen to this," continued his companion, shaking with laughter. "You see, the girl's people wouldn't have it, and they decided to bolt. She was in the north and he was in London, and they were to meet at Harwich and cross to Rotterdam together. Well, the day before, he found that he'd be detained in the House of Commons too late to meet her at the time they'd settled. It wasn't safe to wire, and there wasn't time to write, as she'd already started from Wick, or some infernal place, so he got some ass of a fellow to contrive that she should miss her train at a small station, and when the next one came in Darton was in it, and they went off together. The fellow fancied himself as a detective, and thought he'd got a commission to do the job from the secret service. It's almost too good to be true. Lord! I respect Darton!"

He shook again.

When Mr. Lee-Hickson got home there was a foreign letter on the hall-table. He opened it to find the photograph of a King Charles spaniel and a visiting card. On the former was written, "With fond love from Ruby," and on the latter, "With Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Darton's compliments."

"I've paid him out for my loud socks," Darton had said, as he posted the letter.

"Ye—es," replied Mrs. Darton, without enthusiasm.

End

__________________

Cumulative Index

To Past Masters SEVENTEEN

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

W. L. Alden

Hopkins' Safe  15

Monty's Friend  15

Starkweather's Circular Hotel  15

Grant Allen

The Conscientious Burglar  P

Raymund Allen

Allah Knows Best  13

The Black Knight  13

A Happy Solution  16

The Winning Move  13

Mark Allerton

Price of Office  17

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews:

The Butler  6

Anonymous

Adventure of the Rubber Pipe  11

By a Miscalculation  12

A Detective's Story  12

The Fatal Trapdoor  15

Martin Guerre  12

The Walled Chamber  15

Arthur Applin

Overdue  17

Paul Arène

Uncle Sambuq's Fortune  15

Alice and Claude Askew:

Aylmer Vance and the Vampire  M

The Empty Chair  8

In Masquerade  16

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

J. J. Bell

The Great Corkscrew Mystery  17

J. D. Beresford

Cut-Throat Farm  15

Leslie Beresford

Black Cats For Luck  15

Diamonds for the Duchess  15

Feminine Feathers  15

Light-Fingered Looting  15

The Man in Khaki  15

Murder in Oils  14

Poker Hand  15

Understudy  15

John Bickerdyke

A Fearful Night 12

Earl Derr Biggers

Volcano-Mad 3

Harold Bindloss

The Evicting of Grainger  9

The Tempter  6

Ottwell Binns

Phantom Gold 15

The Prodigal Son, V.C. 11

The Remittance Man  15

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

Heywood Broun

The Fifty-First Dragon  17

Ellis Parker Butler

The Detective Club 7

Geoffrey's Panklaggephone 6

Egerton Castle

The Guinea Smuggler 17

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

Dorothea Conyers

Sir Hector Devereux's Bet 17

When Rogues Fall Out 17

Mrs. George Corbett

Spoofing a Detective  7

Heath Crichton

A Country House Surprise  15

The Gold Mummy  15

The Midnight Guest 15

The Mystery of the Hotel Royal  15

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

Sir George B. Douglas, Bart.

The Adonis of Slagborough  17

Patience  15

Peter Pirnie's Prison-House  16

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 Honour of Two  16

The Yellow Dog  P

Sewell Ford

The Impressing of Looney Fipps  17

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

Kenneth Grahame

The Burglars  16

William H Hamby

Cal Wood's First Case  16

Cosmo Hamilton

Proofs of  Guilt 10

The Mirror of Nature 12

The Silent Witness 5

Floyd Hamilton Hazard

Front!  13

Headon Hill

Behind the Cupboard 16

The Dragon Casket 16

The Fierce Eyes 16

The Gunman from the Underworld 16

The Sapient Monkey  9

Robert J Horton:

The Ninety-Ninth Proposal 4

Fergus Hume

Tragic Voyage  14

The Seaside Girl 15

The Blue Vase  15

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

Violet Jacob

Secret Intelligence  17

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 Mysterious Englishman  16

The Open Eye 11

The Secret of the Fox Hunter  17

Sheer Profit  P

The Wrong Road  17

Bruno Lessing

As It Happened To Moey  16

Moritsky's Ward  16

John Luther Long

Madame Butterfly 14

Sir William Magnay, Bt.

Mrs. Brotherton's Adventure  17

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

Arthur W. Marchmont

The Bolchester Bank Robbery  17

Don Marquis

The Locked  Box  17

Richard Marsh

Giving him his Chance  16

"I Have Killed a Man!"  16

The Other Man's Boots  16

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

Charles Leonard Moore

The Lion Rug 16

F. Frankfort Moore

The Crock 17

Joan's Two-seater  17

W. C. Morrow

The Mated Rubies of Kyat Pyen  16

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

The Man Who Lifted the Blind  16

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

Marmaduke Pickthall

The Poultry Yard  16

Lilian Quiller-Couch

An Exciting Week  16

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

Clarence Rook

The Stir Outside the Café Royal  17

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

Dallas Lore Sharp

The Professor's Panther 16

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

Howard Dwight Smiley

Smokeless Tobacco  16

Thorne Smith

Yonder's Henry! M

John Philip Sousa

The Conspirators M

Andrew Soutar

The Doctor Takes a Hand  6

The Story without a Title  16

F St Mars

Shadows  16

There and Back  8

Halliwell Sutcliffe

At The Road Top  17

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

Katharine Tynan

His Lordship and Kitty-for-Short  17

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" (Mary Helena Fortune)

The Dead Man in the Scrub  17

The Dead Witness  17

Monk's Mark 13

The Phantom Hearse 10

The Spirits of the Tower 10

Henry Brereton Marriott Watson

The Devil of the Marsh M

Mrs. Baillie Weaver

The Scarecrow  16

F A M Webster

No Leopards in Surbiton 5

The Schimmel Sets the Pace 6

The Secret of the Singular Cipher 6

Carolyn Wells

The Silent Model  17

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

May Wynne

The Tiara   16

Leroy Yerxa

Through the Asteroids— to Hell! 15

Arthur Leo Zagat

Beyond the Spectrum  M

Israel Zangwill

Cheating the Gallows  9

_____________________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Dead Man in the Scrub / Mary Helena Fortune

- 2: The Dead Witness /

- 3: The Stir Outside the Café Royal /

- 4: The Secret of the Fox Hunter / William le Queux

- 5: The Crock / F. Frankfort Moore

- 6: Sir Hector Devereux's Bet / Dorothea Conyers

- 7: The Wrong Road / William Le Queux
- 8: Price of Office / Mark Allerton
- 9: When Rogues Fall Out / Dorothea Conyers
- 10: Joan's Two-seater / F. Frankfort Moore
- 11: The Silent Model / Carolyn Wells
- 12: The Guinea Smuggler / Egerton Castle
- 13: The Closed Door /

- 14: The Adonis of Slagborough / Sir George Douglas, Bt

- 15: The Locked  Box / Don Marquis

- 16: His Lordship and Kitty-for-Short / Katharine Tynan

- 17: The Impressing of Looney Fipps / Sewell Ford

- 18: Overdue / Arthur Applin

- 19: The Fifty-First Dragon / Heywood Broun

- 20: The Great Corkscrew Mystery / J. J. Bell

- 21: The Bolchester Bank Robbery / Arthur W. Marchmont

- 22: Mrs. Brotherton's Adventure / Sir William Magnay, Bt.

- 23: At The Road Top /Halliwell Sutcliffe
- 24: Secret Intelligence / Violet Jacob
- Cumulative Index to Series