Past Masters 28
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Starting with two pulp novelettes, snf then a selection of short stories. John Haslette Vahey wrote many novels under that name, and as by John Loder; Arthur Somers Roche was a prolific pul short story writer with several series characters, and he also wrote numerous action novels. The Melville Davisson Post story is not a detective or crime tale. "Ben Bowyang" took his pen name from the cords tied above the calfs of working men to hitch the lower legs of their trousers out of the dirt. Again, these are stray stories for which I can find no digital collection or anthology already. Available on

PAST MASTERS

TWENTY-EIGHT

May 2021

Part 2

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: The Man With the Mole / J Allan Dunn

2: Li Shoon's Nine Lives / H Irving Hancock

3: The Absconder / Scott Campbell

4: From the Pit / Adam Hull Shirk

5: Justice While You Wait / Owen Oliver

6: Snake in the Grass / John Haslette Vahey

7: Lanfranc / "Ben Bowyang"

8: The Laughing Woman / Melville Davisson Post

9: Legerdemain / Arthur Somers Roche

10: The Club of One-Eyed Men / Arthur Somers Roche

11: The Dummy-Chucker / Arthur Somers Roche

Cumulative Index to Issue 28

_________________

1: The Man With the Mole (a novelette)

J Allan Dunn

1872-1941

Detective Story Magazine 10 Dec 1918

Chapter 1: Forgery.

DAZEDLY JACK SPERRY stared at the pink slip in his hand. He turned it from the front, where his stepfather's clear signature— Simeon Cairns— appeared as drafter of a check for ten thousand dollars, to the back, where showed the endorsement of John J. Sperry in handwriting so like his own that it staggered him. The check was payable to the same John J. Sperry.

The three men grouped on the side of the desk opposite to him gazed at him uncompromisingly. The one in the central chair, Simeon Cairns himself, spoke.

"That is your signature on the back of the check, is it not?"

The aggressiveness of the tone brought Sperry a little to his senses.

"It looks very much like my writing, sir. But it cannot be. I have not endorsed any check of yours for any such amount; none at all since the last payment of my allowance."

"Indeed? This is a check bearing my name, bearing a number considerably in advance of the last issued by me. I find it has been torn from the back pages of my check book, kept by me in the drawer of this desk, as you are well aware. You know this gentleman, Mr. Hilliard, president of the Agricultural National, of Longfield, and Mr. Burnside, cashier of the same institution." The speaker looked expectantly at the bank president.

"This check," said Hilliard in a dry, commercial voice," was presented to our junior paying teller, Mr. Remington, yesterday morning by this young man. He is well known to Remington and to the rest of us, as your stepson. No question was raised of identity, or of the authenticity of your signature, or of the amount of the check. Your stepson intimated to Remington that he was going into business on his own account, and that this sum had been advanced, or presented to him, as his working capital. A majority portion of it was to go toward a partnership, I understand."

Sperry gasped and then broke into expostulation. Cairns interrupted him.

"You shall have your say in a moment. Go on, Mr. Hillard."

"There is little more to say. The cash was paid out, as desired. Ordinarily the irregularity would not have been noticed for another twenty-four hours had you not requested the exact amount of your balance early this afternoon, Mr. Cairns. Upon your declaration that this check must be a forgery, we came up to see you immediately after closing hours. I understand you do repudiate this signature?"

"It is cleverly done, but it is not mine," said Cairns.

"Naturally the bank does not feel inclined to sustain this loss. We are compelled to protect ourselves, to guard ourselves against such attacks. We are, however, inclined to view the matter with an leniency equal to your own, Mr. Cairns, providing, of course, the money is restored."

"Do you hear that, Jack?" demanded his stepfather. "Restore this money, and, for your mother's sake, as well as for your own "

"But I did not cash that check," said Sperry. "I—"

The cashier's voice struck in, coldly metallic.

"You did cash a check in the bank yesterday?"

"I did. But it was one of my own. I have a balance of two hundred and fifty odd. Wait." He produced his own pocket check book while the others looked on cynically. "My balance is two hundred and sixty-three dollars. I drew a check for twenty-five dollars. There is the stub. Remington gave me two tens and a five. Look for yourselves." He flung the check book on the big library desk. No attempt was made to pick it up.

Burnside went on:

"Your balance is exactly two hundred and eighty-eight dollars. Remington states that you presented only the one check, this signed by Mr. Cairns, and took the money in five one-thousand-dollar bills and ten five-hundred-dollar bills. I am sorry for you, Sperry, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against you."

Sperry's eyes flashed and he pounded the desk with his fist.

"Do you mean to insinuate that I forged the name of Simeon Cairns and tried to appropriate ten-thousand dolars? Why, there is a hundred thousand dollars held for me in trust by my mother under my father's will."

"And not available until you are thirty five years from now. Unless, in the meantime, your mother and her advisers become convinced that you are capable of successfully applying the sum to business methods," spoke up Cairns. "And, unfortunately, she is not so convinced. You have been sowing wild oats. Jack, and this is the harvest, my lad. Why didn't you come to me frankly and own up to your entanglement?"

"All that is a lie," cried Sperry. "I am in no entanglement. You have attempted to prejudice my mother against me. You have magnified little things into wild escapades. And you would have been the last person for me to apply to for aid."

"There is no use talking that way, Jack," said Cairns with a shrug of his shoulders. "I am glad your mother is away- for the present. The issue is, are you going to restore that money? If so, I will say nothing more of it. Mr. Hilliard has expressed his will toward leniency. If you will not do the honest, repentant thing " He shrugged his shoulders once again.

"I haven't got it!" exclaimed Jack. "I never had it!"

Hilliard got up, Burnside with him.

"We cannot waste time in this matter," said the president. "We are still willing to give twenty-four hours for the return of the ten thousand dollars. If not, we shall be compelled to adopt the usual course. One way or another, the penalty must be paid. Aside from the financial loss we have no real right to countenance crime."

Jack Sperry, feeling like an animal that has suddenly found itself in a trap, looked at the three men. They were utterly aloof from him, unsympathetic. It was evident they believed him guilty, that he was in peril of arrest.

"For the sake of Mrs. Cairns, the unhappy boy's mother," Cairns said, "I will make good the loss to the bank. I do not wish a prosecution. If other means fail, I shall send you my check the first thing in the morning."

"Very well," said Hilliard coldly. "That closes the incident. Remington, of course, has been discharged. He should have detected the forgery."

"That hardly seems fair," said Cairns. "It is excellently done. But I suppose discipline must be maintained. I shall see what I can do for the young man. He should not suffer from another's crime."

Hillard and Burnside took their leave formally, Cairns seeing them to the door of his library, while Sperry, boiling with resentment, awaited his return to the desk.

The Cairn's household was a divided one. Jack Sperry's mother had remarried, and Jack had not approved the match, though he did not voice his opinion openly, understanding somewhat of his mother's nature, essentially feminine, demanding some one upon whom to lean. He had tried his best to get along with his new relation, but he resented the dominant aggressiveness of Simeon Cairns, disbelieved in his easily assumed suavity, and objected to his assumption of parental authority, his complete reorganization of the household.

Jack Sperry was twenty-five, and his own master; or he would be when fairly launched on his own career. After college he had taken up civil engineering in earnest, serving an apprenticeship with such success that he had been, offered a partnership. The capital for this he had looked to, under the terms of his father's will, as mentioned by Hilliard, from his mother. The hundred thousand dollars was his rightful heritage, leaving ample for his mother during her lifetime; an equal sum, in fact, that would supposedly revert to Sperry on her death, being meanwhile excellently invested.

Since Mrs. Sperry had married Cairns, the latter's masterful ways had, by devious methods, blocked Jack's ambitions, or so the latter fully believed. Cairns affected to treat him as a headstrong boy, using a bonhomie that Jack merely .believed a cover to his true personality. And his mother, somewhat an invalid of late, seemed more and more inclined to accept as infallible her second husband's wisdom.

More, Cairns had made the most of certain affairs, particularly one in which Jack had aided a fraternity brother to get out of a serious scrape. He had managed to imbue Mrs. Cairns with the idea that her son was still unsuited for the responsibilities of business and the handling of capital. All in all, the two rubbed together no more smoothly than do a coarse file and a rough casting. Jack's mother was wintering in Florida, and the friction between the two had been more open of late. Now had come this astounding accusation, leaving Jack gasping, like a fish in a net, at the meshes of evidence surrounding him.

Cairns came back to the desk with a frown on his face.

"Don't be obstinate, Jack," he said. "If you can't get the money, if you've applied it elsewhere, confess it to me and I'll advance it temporarily."

"You've always hated me," said Sperry. "You have tried to estrange me from my mother ; you have tried to run my affairs as well as hers. This thing is a lie, a trick, and you know it. Somewhere or other you are back of this infernal business!"

"Are you accusing the president and cashier of the Agricultural Bank, together with the paying teller, who has been forced to give up his position; together with myself, of trying to fasten a crime upon you that will, I sadly fear, break your mother's heart if not jeop- ardize her health?"

"You leave her name out of it," said Sperry fiercely.

"You forget that she is my wife, the woman I love," said Cairns with a certain dignity. "She cannot be left out of it. If you persist in your denial of this thing I shall restore the money but, after that, I shall wash my hands of it. It is not to be expected that this young— er— Remington will accept his forced loss of a job quietly. There will undoubtedly be publicity. I shall see your mother immediately in order to break the news to her as softly as possible."

"I shall see her first," broke in Sperry.

"I think not," said Cairns softly. "I had a letter from her this morning. She has left the Royal Poinciana and gone— elsewhere. Under the circumstances I do not feel justified in letting you know where that is. I shall wire her tonight of my departure, and I shall see," he went on blandly, "that whatever mail comes for you from her is, temporarily at least, withheld. Since you are resolved to stay hardened, I also remind you that your presence in this house, from this moment, is not to be tolerated."

Sperry glared at him. He believed that his stepfather's eyes were full of mockery and malice.

"You have no right," he cried hotly, "no right to hold my mail! You have no right to throw me out of my mother's house!"

"I think I should not be considered an usurper," answered Cairns. "As for yourself, you have no rights. A felon forfeits such things. Your appeal to the law might prove unfortunate. This is my house. Your mother has made it over to me in exchange for other matters."

A glaring light seemed to break through Sperry's brain, still confused from the charges, the crushing evidence against him.

"And you seek to have me disinherited," he said. "I am on to your crafty game now. It is you who are a criminal, a sneaking—"

Simeon Cairn's usually pallid face flamed crimson. He struck Sperry with his open hand, a resounding blow that left the mark of livid fingers on the latter's cheek.

Beside himself, reeling back, Sperry clutched a heavy inkstand of glass and hurled it at his stepfather. He saw it strike, saw the ink cover Cairn's face and, as the latter fell to the rug, saw crimson well out and mingle with the black of the ink. Cairns lay prone, his eyes staring. Sperry heard footsteps in the hall and realized that their voices had mounted in the rapidly culminating quarrel. "Felon!" The word surged in his brain. Now he was fairly in the mesh of circumstances.

He sprang to the door and encountered Peters, the butler with whom Cairns had supplanted the former func- tionary, as he had all the original servants. Peters, heavy, inclined to stoutness, grasped for Sperry and the latter drove home a blow with all his weight to the butler's stomach and floored him, breathless, agonized. Snatching his hat and coat from the rack, Sperry raced out into the gloom of the early evening.

Chapter 2: Flight

THE Sperry house was in the Berkshires. They had an apartment in New York also, but the Berkshire place, at Swiftbrook Bowl, was kept open usually until Christmas, though Mrs. Cairns had gone South with the first approach of fall. A street railway connected with the manufacturing town of Longfield, which was four hours from New York by the express trains.

As Sperry sped through the dusk, out of the grounds and down the road toward the car line, he saw, dear through the almost naked trees, the headlight of an approaching trolley, and raced to make connection with it, barely accomplishing his end.

In his pocket was the slim remnant of the twenty-five dollars he had drawn from the bank, some six dollars in all. His first intention of seeking his mother and attempting to establish with her his innocence, died away in hopelessness. He could raise a little money on the jewelry he wore, but not nearly enough, even if he knew where she was. His balance in the bank would undoubtedly be appropriated; at any rate checks would not be honored, and, if he dared to go where he could cash a check, he was in no mind to have them returned "No Funds." It would only add to his apparent dishonesty. Also, it would help them to trace hifn. By now the butler would have roused the police at Longfield; they would be on the alert, stations would be watched, the very trolley he was on would be searched as soon as the telephones got working!

To-morrow the threatened publicity would contain the additional news that he had murdered his stepfather. He was an outcast, a fugitive. There would be a reward on his head. One faint hope lingered, that he had not killed Cairns. He would know that by the papers. And, if that crime was spared him, he was not going to be caught, already condemned, and be put away without an attempt to establish his innocence.

Remington, the paying teller, had lied. To what end? He had been discharged. And how could he prove the man a liar, how discredit the rest of the damning evidence? Sperry burned to find Remington, to choke the truth out of him. That would mean his own immediate arrest. But there were others back of Remington. Hilliard and Burnside had been taken in by the evidence. It was Cairns who was at the bottom of all this! Yet Cairns had, undeniably, plenty of money. His balance at the bank was large. Sperry was helpless— practically penniless. And he was an outlaw.

Sperry groaned. Some one, a man he knew, leaned over from the seat back of him and asked him if he was ill.

This would not do. He forced a smile. "Ulcerated tooth," he said. "Got to have it fixed to-morrow."

The man said something commiserating and sat back again.

Sperry forced his wits to work coherently, dispassionately. The attack on Cairns, the forgery, his mother's attitude— he could not help those for the time. He had to get away or he would be irretrievably condemned, branded. If he had only taken his own roadster! But there would not have been time for that. They could have cut him off or traced him.

Swiftbrook Bowl, that fashionable resort, lay closer to New York than Longfield. And there was another station between the Bowl and Longfield.

A plan formed itself.

He swung off at a corner, about a quarter of a mile from this station, Langley Dale, and struck up an unlit side road as the trolley sped away. In half a mile he hit the railroad near a siding and dodged into a thicket. Night had practically fallen and he was safe for the present. Twenty minutes later the express for New York, ignoring Langley Dale, roared past him. Thirty minutes after that a local chugged through, bound in the opposite direction. It reached the station and stayed there for what seemed to Sperry a long time as he watched from his concealment the red tail light.

Perhaps they were searching it for him? Then the red light began to back toward him with much snorting of the engine. He crouched low, shivering. The train came to a standstill opposite him and he could see the people through the lighted windows, carefree, save for their delay, eager to get home. And he was homeless! A sense of despair seemed to numb him and he shook it off.

There was the sound of a train panting up the grade the other side of the Dale. No other passenger was due for two hours. This must be the freight he had hoped for. Probably a long line of empties going back to New York, great coal trucks, a car or two. Hope revived. It would come in between him and the local that had been backed on to the siding to let it pass.

He lay low till the searching head-light lifted over the crest of the grade, flared down the right of way, and passed him. The freight was gathering speed now but Sperry would have tried for it had it been going twice as fast.

Better to trip, to fall and be mangled, than caught, arrested, prosecuted, and condemned— a swift sequence that would inevitably follow.

Steel coal trucks were passing him, punt-shaped. The train seemed slowing down a little. He jumped and found a footing and a grip for his hands on the cold rim of a truck as he flung himself upward. In a moment he had scuttled over the edge and slid down the sloping end into a rubble of coal dust.

For the present he was safe. Hobos at this time were rarities. There would be no search of the train as it lumbered on through the darkness. Somewhere in the yards of upper Manhattan he could get off, round about midnight. He would find a subway and get far down-town in New York. There his plans ceased, save that vaguely he resolved on smothering his identity, and— if Cairns was only still alive— somehow hanging on until, by hook or crook— for surely fortune must turn some time— he could reinstate himself. If Cairns were dead? He would wait till morning for that, he tried to tell himself, huddled in the empty truck, jolted unmercifully, bruised, flung headlong with the changing motions of the train, grimed, cold, and, as the night wore on, hungry.

The vision of Cairns lying in the rug with the crimson and the ink streaking the pale face in fantastic patterns, would not leave him.

At two in the morning he found himself far downtown in Manhattan. He had bought himself two drinks of whisky and two sandwiches in a saloon on the East Side, near the river, and stopped the numbness that had begun to turn to a poignant ache between his shoulders. He could not afford to risk pneumonia from exposure. That meant a hospital and recognition, when the dirt had been cleansed from him. As soon as he could find a cheap lodging house and get some sleep, he realized that he must change his clothes. Filthy as they were from his trip, their cut and the quality of their cloth had already made him an object of suspicion. In this neighborhood they were shrewd of eye, and Sperry already felt that he had been sized up for what he was, a defaulter from his caste, a gentleman gone wrong; not a master crook, but an amateur, one to whom a reward might be attached. He managed to get some of the muck from his face and hands in the lavatory of the saloon, thankful for the sanitary paper towel. Then he went out into the streets to look for a bed.

It was bitterly cold. The searching wind blew off the river, and Sperry was glad now of the good texture of his clothes. But he ached intolerably and he longed for some shelter where he could rest and think. His thoughts would not co-ordinate. They were a jumble of what had happened, and wild conjectures as to what had led up to his entanglement. Silent, furtive figures slunk by him, slid into nauseous alleys or into such side-doors of protected saloons as he had found his own way. Some of them staggered into the uninviting doorway of rooming houses advertising "Beds for Men Only. 25c and up."

Fastidious, more from habit than present consciousness, Sperry hesitated to enter these caravanseries of the poor. His imagination, far too vivid to ease his present plight, conjured up horrors abovestairs. Further, he could not shake off the idea that he was being trailed.

"It's absurd," he told himself again and again. "If they had managed in some manner to spread the net so far already, they would not hesitate to draw in the folds." But he was out of place here, a palpable misfit, and therefore to be suspected, to be watched, to be exploited for what there might be in it. To hide successfully in such a neighborhood he must be one of those who dwelt here and dodged the law and defied it, knowing the manners and the codes of the underworld. Yet he must have some place to hide away, to sleep, to wait the coming of the morning and the announcement of the newspapers.

A vicious gust of wind, flung down a side street, pierced him as a spear might have stabbed him to the vitals. He suddenly felt sick in mind and body. "What's the use?" he asked himself bitterly, his overstrung nerves reacting. Then came the rebound. He must brace up, put on a bold front, and accept the conditions of his surroundings; he must assume a toughness and demand a bed with a swagger and a tone that would deceive any one who might want to pry into his identity. He still had most of his six dollars, and he could pay for a room to himself. Another drink would bolster his courage. The reek of it on his breath would give him, as it were, a local color.

Down an alley he saw a figure come out from a door near a distant corner, a door above which a light burned dimly. Another entered. Here was traffic, a saloon. He hurried down the alley. Close to the door was piled a clutter of empty boxes, an array of refuse and ash cans. Some one was groping among these as Sperry passed, but that person did not look at him.

"Some penniless devil looking for cast-off food," thought Sperry, and the impulse came to ask the man in for a drink and some food. But he could not do that, he told himself. He must look out for his own safety first. The man might be inquisitive. As he reached the door a burly figure came out, lurching a little as if intoxicated. Sperry saw the face under the lamp.

The upper part was shaded with the brim of a derby hat. The lower showed a firm chin and a thin-lipped mouth under a prominent nose. To the right of the lips was a prominent mole, almost black in that light, curiously, distinctively shaped. Sperry stood aside as the man passed in the direction he himself had come. Casually he watched him as he went, wondering idly if he would safely avoid the cans and boxes. The man with the mole almost brushed Sperry, and Jack was aware of a shaded glitter of searching eyes upon him, that, somehow, did not accord with the drunken gait.

Then a figure leaped from the medley of ash and refuse containers, leaped swiftly, and silently, just as the burly man went by. And, by the lamp, Sperry saw the hand of the bum he had thought of inviting to a drink, shift to a hip pocket, saw a glint of nickel, and, in sheer instinct, he flung himself upon the would-be killer, gripping the wrist of the hand that was freeing the pistol, and cruelly twisting it as he flung his forearm round the man's neck, forcing back his chin.

The gun clattered to the cobbles of the alley. The burly man with the mole had turned with a swift precision that belied intoxication and instantly shot a short, hard punch to the projecting jaw. The killer crumpled in Sperry's grasp and slid to the ground. The other coolly picked up the gun and put it into his pocket, nodding to Sperry.

"Thanks," he said. "I owe you something for that, pal."

Chapter 3: Baldy Brown

THE killer had fallen face downward on the slimy stones. The man with the mole turned him over with one foot and a hand and surveyed him keenly. The killer showed faint signs Af returning consciousness, and the other picked him up easily, much as if he was a half-stuffed sack of bran, and jammed him into a sitting posture on top of one of the ash cans, propped against the wall of the saloon. To Sperry he , said nothing until he had completed this process unaided, and had satisfactorily balanced his late opponent. Then he turned to Sperry, surveying him with a comprehensive glance.

"What were you doing in this dumping ground at this time of night?" he asked. His voice was gruff but friendly, and there was a compelling quality in it that somehow gave Sperry a hazy impression that, even if he had not grasped the killer's wrist, the burly one would have found a means to take care of himself.

"I was going to get a drink," he said. "Then I was going to find a bed somewhere."

"A shot and a flop?" said the other. "We'll fix that. Hello, you!"

The killer was coming sullenly, viciously out of his trance, glaring at the man he would have shot in the back. Then Sperry saw the hate in his eyes change to uncertainty. The man with the mole had taken off his hat, displaying a skull practically bald, and he was grinning at the killer. Front teeth liberally filled with gold shone under the lamp.

"Just why were you tryin' to bump me off, pal?" he was saying. "What's the reason? Who did you take me for, a dick? An' who're you? I'll know you next time, but I'll swear this is the first."

The perplexity in the little rat eyes of the killer deepened. He mumbled uncertainly and tried to get down from the ash can. The man with the mole set him back with a firm hand.

"What's your moniker, pard?" he persisted. "An', if there's any reason why I shouldn't bash your dial in and send you to the slab, you'd better come across with it— now!'' he cried, with a sudden ferocity and a snarl of his gold-filled teeth that made the killer shrink in terror.

"I'm Curly," the latter managed to articulate. "Curly Luke Conklin. I— say, I was in wrong, cull. I just got out of stir, see? The dick who sent me up was Jim Farrell, the low-livered crook. I swore I'd get him w'en I come down the river, an' I see you in at Dumpy's there takin' a drink, an'—"

"You thought I was what's-his-name Farrell, a dick, did you? You must be full of hop. I never met the flat-foot. I'm Baldy Brown of Chi', and I struck town three weeks ago. I ain't met with your dick pals— yet. And I don't consider it over and above easy bein' taken for one, either. Sit up, you, and take a good look at me. Do you think I look like a dick? Do you?"

His face was so venomous that even Sperry, disinterested in the controversy, drew back, but Baldy Brown suddenly put out an arm and held him with a grip of steel. Curly Conklin stuttered a denial, an absolute disclaimer.

"If I'd seen you wit your dicer off," he said; "or, if I'd piped that beauty mark "

"Never mind the beauty spot," gruffly put in Baldy. "I ain't stuck on it. Some day I'm goin' to get needled. You didn't take a good look, and, but for my young pal here, you'd have bumped me off. I've got a good mind to " He broke into a hearty laugh and shoved out a hand for Curly to grasp. "It's a good one on me after all," he said. "I'll tell the boys. Took me for a dick! Oh, Lord! We'll call it off, Curly, if you promise to wear glasses. And I'll buy three drinks of Dumpy's best right now. Come on in, both of you."

Still held by the arm, Sperry followed, willy-nilly, into the unsavory drinking shop. Perhaps a dozen men were there, at tables or at the bar. Baldly advanced to the latter between the two.

"Drinks for the house on me," he said. "No rotgut, Dumpy; open a bottle of case goods. Drinks on me. Here's Curly Conklin, just out of stir, and takes me for a dick! Oh, Lord! He was goin' to bump me off with a gat when my pal here jumps him."

The little audience, Dumpy included, roared at the jest. Evidently Baldy was popular. Curly wisely said nothing. A blear-eyed individual shuffled up close to Sperry, and the latter recognized him as one of those at the first saloon he had gone into, a man who had openly appraised him.

"This guy your pal, Baldy?" he asked.

"I said so, didn't I?" asked Baldy coldly. "And a good one. Gentleman Manning, known back in Chi as The Duke. That right, Manning?"

Sperry nodded, playing up to the role. He had to change his name. Manning was as good as any. Something told him that Baldy was a good man to tie to, a bad one to cross. The blear-eyed man undoubtedly was of that opinion.

He wilted.

"Just in from Chi, pal?" he queried ingratiatingly. "I seen youse over at The Badger's, an' I knew youse was new to the Village. Couldn't size you?"

"I was looking for Baldy," said Sperry. The man with the mole— it was shaped like a dumb-bell, Sperry noticed in the light, and it had several hairs growing from it— flashed him a look of appreciation. Sperry realized how apt was the moniker that Baldy had given him. As The Duke, his manners, his accent, would all pass unchallenged. Already what had happened that afternoon seemed far off as if in another life. Now he was Gentleman Manning of Chicago, an accepted consort of crooks, hobnobbing with them in a boozing ken. And he had shown himself a good man by defending Baldy, whom they all looked up to.

The round was soon finished and Sperry felt in his pockets to buy another, but Baldy jogged his elbow.

"That's enough," he said. "I want a talk with you, Duke, back room empty?"

"If it ain't, I'll clear it," said Dumpy with alacrity.

When they were seated and the door shut, Baldy looked quizzically at Sperry. Sperry felt the glance summing up mercilessly every line of his drawn face. He knew it was drawn and haggard. He could feel almost the hollows under his eyes. The glance took in his hands, his tie, every detail.

"Well," said Baldy at last, "what was it? Robbery or murder? Or both?"

A light from his gray eyes seemed to illumine every secret of Sperry's brain.

He tried to speak, to lick his lips. To his relief his inquisitor nodded and smiled.

"Tell me about it to-morrow, pal," he said. "You've had your drink, now I'll give you a bed. Better one than you would have found. And a bath. I said I owed you something."

"But," objected Sperry, "I haven't told you. You don't know— I won't know till morning just what "

"Then we won't worry about it till morning. I don't care what you've done. You're safe with me. And we'll talk it over after we chew in the morning. Will you come?" He held out his hand and Sperry, lost for words, gripped it and found something emanating from the grip, a magnetic, inspiring something that gave him heart to say "Thank you."

They walked out together, west and north for several blocks. Then Baldy picked up a night-hawk of a taxicab, disreputable enough in paint and cushions, but with a good engine, a roving pirate of those purlieus where speed was often necessary and well paid for.

Uptown they sped until Prince Street and Broadway was reached. Then Baldy paid and tipped his man and once more they went west, to Macdougal Street, north to Washington Square, across it, and so to one of a row of brick houses in a quiet part of Greenwich Village. Baldy let himself in with a latch-key and Sperry followed, obeying his host's gesture for silence. On the next floor Baldy opened the door of a cosy bedroom and motioned to Sperry to enter, leaving him.

Within the minute he was back again with a big towel and a suit of pajamas.

"You can make out with these," he said. "Bath is next room, to your right. Plenty of hot water. Sleep as late as you like. I'll tip you off when to get up. And don't worry, pal. It don't do a bit of good, and half the time you worry over nothing. You get a souse in hot water and turn in."

Sperry obeyed orders willingly, and, his nerves and weary body relaxed by the hot water of the bath, he subsided between the sheets upon a springy, yielding mattress and fell asleep. Nightmares assailed him, but he slept on for half a dozen restful hours. When he awoke, the wintry sun was streaming through the window of his room. For a few moments his brain remained sluggish and he lay inert, conscious of the odors of coffee and of bacon and, somewhere, a girl's fresh voice singing cheerily and sweetly in an undertone, as a |jirl will when she sings at her work.

Sperry listened and smelled with languid delight— and then in a flash the whole phantasmagoria of what had happened came rushing over him, the forged check; his stepfather lying on the floor ; the escape in the freight train; Baldy whom he had saved from the killer. He was in Baldy's house, guest of a notorious crook to whom the underworld looked up. Sperry had heard of honor among thieves. Could it be possible that gratitude was so strong a virtue among criminals? He had seen little sidelights of Baldy's character the night before— earlier that morning, rather— that spoke of a man callous and desperate. Why should Baldy have taken him into his own house, have given him a moniker, have proclaimed him a pal from Chicago?

Wide awake now, he sat up in bed and prepared to dress. His clothes were gone! Nothing that he had worn the day before remained, not even his socks or his underwear. He was as completely a prisoner as if he had been manacled. Baldy had asked him whether it had been robbery or murder or both? The master crook had appraised him inside and out and now— now what? Holding him for a reward? Holding him to turn over to the police and so curry favor for himself?

The door opened and Baldy came in, a pile of clothing over his arm that he put down on a chair while he grinned at Sperry with his gold-filled teeth.

"Didn't think you'd be awake so soon," he said. "Your stomach was the alarm clock, I guess. Bess tells me breakfast is close to ready, so you'd better slide into these togs. I've got you a complete outfit; traded off the old stuff after it was brushed up a bit, and I swapped it for this and four dollars to boot. Nearly broke Uncle David's heart, but he came through. Here it is with five-thirty-five you had, and here's your studs and links and the rest of your junk. If I was you I wouldn't wear any of it, 'cept the collar buttons."

Sperry gathered up his links, pin, tie-clip, watch, and chain and the little litter of bills in amazement, not daring to look up at the host he had so misjudged, aware that Baldy's grin held something quizzical. He slipped swiftly into his new clothes— a tweed suit of fair quality and of a fair fit, tan shoes instead of his black ones; and, coming back from the bathroom where he had found a brush and comb, announced himself to Baldy who still sat upon his bed.

"I want to thank you," he began.

"Nix on that stuff," answered Baldy. "If you owe me anything I'll give you a chance to square up later."

"You've been out this morning," said Sperry. "Did you get a paper?"

"Son," said Baldy, "outside of going in swimming, always tackle a job on a full stomach. First we eat."

There was rough kindliness in his words, but nevertheless they constituted a command; Sperry followed Baldy to the dining-room. This communicated with the kitchen whence came the fragrance of the food for which, despite his mental anxiety, Sperry's digestive system clamored.

The door opened between the two rooms and the trim figure of a girl came in, a girl so fresh, so utterly at variance with the profession and occupation of Baldy Brown, that Sperry forgot his manners. This girl, with golden hair and blue eyes, with a rounded figure lithe in fresh calico, with a merry yet tender mouth, this girl-woman of eighteen or nineteen, seemed to have walked straight out of some inspired play or operetta where she was cast for the role of a sublimated shepherdness or dairy maid. Only, the divine freshness of her complexion was all her own.

Sperry did not know why Elizabeth suggested the open country, apple blossoms, hay fields, an old-fashioned garden, and a church spire back of clustering elms. But she did, she invested that little New York room with all the atmosphere of the fields and orchards, all their fragrance, with a touch of sanctity. And it all fitted in with her voice, that Sperry had heard singing and now heard talking. This girl a crook's daughter? As she slipped a slim cool hand into his when he rose to the introduction, he was conscious of Baldy's eyes twinkling genially, proudly.

"Are you hungry?" asked the girl. "I am ravenous," and she showed a row of pearly teeth in a mouth pink as a kitten's. There was surely some magic about her, for Sperry ate and forgot his troubles while the girl passed him food, simple enough, but cooked in a way that he had not tasted for many a day, for all the craft of Cairn's chef. She said little, neither did her father talk much; and so, with the meal ended at last, they sat silent for a little while, until the girl started to clear the table!

"Can't I help?" Sperry asked, but she shook her head at him merrily and Baldy spoke.

"Bess can handle it," he said. "You and me'll have a little talk."

Instantly the atmosphere changed as if a malicious wizard had dissipated a fairy spell. Sperry's troubles crowded upon him, and the sunshine left the room as Baldy took some newspapers from a drawer in the sideboard.

"It wasn't very hard for me to pick you out, son," he said to Sperry. "John J. Sperry?" He nodded as his eyes told him he had hit the mark. "All right; it's Manning now. There ain't such a lot about you in the news, you may be a bit disappointed," he added, with a slight grin, tossing the papers across to Sperry.

And, by some quirk, Sperry was conscious of a faint disappointment. It took him a minute to find the item. It was captioned, but far from being headlined. He knew with sudden relief that he was not a murderer. Evidently some correspondent from Longfield had covered the case for nearly all the New York press and the Associated News, for the items were practically identical. The heads included: "Commits Forgery and Attempts Murder. Scion of Well-known Family Presents False Check and Tries to Kill Stepfather."

The article read:

Longfield, Massachusetts. — John J. Sperry, of Swiftbrook Bowl, the aristocratic resort of the Berkshire Hills, made a desperate attempt to take the life of hii stepfather, Simeon Cairns, the millionaire who recently married Mrs. Caroline Sperry, mother of the wayward young man who bears the same name as his late father, a well-known one in ' exclusive Berkshire circles.

It is alleged by the officers of the Agricultural National Bank of Longfield that young Sperry presented a check for ten thousand dollars, made out to and indorsed by himself, and purporting to be signed by Simeon Cairns. This check was taken from the back pages of Mr. Cairns' private check book, and the signature declared a forgery by Mr. Cairns to President Hilliard and Cashier Burnside, of the bank, in an interview at which young Sperry was present.

A quarrel ensued between Sperry and his stepfather. The Cairns' butler heard high words in the library, and, attempting to enter, was struck down by Sperry. Recovering from the blow, the butler entered the room, to find Mr. Cairns unconscious with a deep cut in his .temple from am inkstand that Sperry had flung; at him before escaping from the house.

Late this evening Mr. Cairns made a brief statement in which he said that he regretted the publicity necessary, as Mrs. Cairns, who was wintering in Florida, was in delicate health. As soon as he is able to travel, he will break the news to her personally of her son's derelictions.

"It is the reaping of the wild oats," said Mr. Cairns. "I agreed to make the money good to the bank, but this deliberate attack upon my life removes from me any false pity. I have placed the matter in the hands of the police. I believe that such viciousness should be corrected by -the methods of the law." Up to a late hour no trace of Sperry has been discovered.

As Sperry set down the papers, Baldy produced another from his coat pocket.

"You see, this isn't strictly a New York matter," he said. "They ain't apt to worry about the troubles of another State until they are requested to by that State's police. But they've played you up in Boston, and also, I imagine, in your local paper, though of course I didn't know what that was when I was buying these this morning, and I probably couldn't have got one, anyway. But here's the Boston Nation, with all the publicity any one could hope for even Baldy Brown of Chicago," he ended, with a laugh.

The story was played clear across the front of the Nation, with pictures of Sperry's mother, of Cairns, and two of Sperry himself. He, with all due caution for fear of possible libel, was excoriated unmercifully. A reward was out for him. The Massachusetts State Detectives were scouring the countryside to arrest him. He had last been seen leaving the trolley close to Langley Dale, and it was supposed he had boarded a train, though so far no direct clew had been unearthed. But the police were confident of finding him, said the article. Supposedly he. had much of the ten thousand dollars with him, and undoubtedly he would try to leave the State by land or sea. If he did, he would find his journey abruptly checked. Descriptions of him were being sent broadcast. The bank was joining in the prosecution. There was the usual flub-dub about society in general, and the many friends of Mrs. Cairfls being shocked, and the fears for the effect the news of her son's crime might have upon the mother.

Interviews with President Hilliard and Cairns and Peters, the butler, were lengthened out, and the general opinion disseminated that the events were not a sudden outbreak, but the result of a constantly growing depravity.

Sperry put down the paper with a hardened face. How rottenly unfair it was, he thought. Not a friend to speak for him! None to offset the lying insinuations of his criminal intentions, his sowing of wild oats! Well, they hadn't got him, and they shouldn't.

"Papers," broke in Baldy's voice, "slam at you, and you've got no comeback unless it's a libel suit; and that's hard shooting. Suppose you tell me your end of it?"

"What's the use?" asked Sperry sullenly. Baldy must believe him a criminal ; he had helped him out because he thought so. He might have nothing more to do with him if he convinced him differently. And how could he convince anyone?

"A whole lot of use just to get it off your chest to some one," said Baldy. "I'll tell you this much; I savvied last night this was your first job. It's a cinch you plugged this stepfather of yours. It's a cinch they've got a reward out for you. If he's a millionaire and got it in for you, he'll have New York all stirred m inside of twenty-four hours, soon as they know things are really doing. You'll have to stay Manning. And you're new to the game, they may nab you. Tell me the whole mess, and I can give you some expert advice, anyway."

Sperry hesitated and then plunged into the whole yarn. Baldy listened non-committally.

"To a jury that would sound fishy," he caid. "You've got to own up to that."

"I do," said Sperry.

"I know you ain't brought along ten thousand dollars. Whether you pulled that check or not, you've still got ninety thousand in the pot if you can ever get a chance to sit back in the game. Right now you're in wrong, in like a burglar, as they say. You're fairly safe in New York, as you are, for a day or two. I'll make a proposition to you. You can help me, as it happens. If you'll do it, I'll do what I can for you. I ain't promising you much, mind you, but I'll keep you clear of the bulls, reward or no reward. What do you say?"

Sperry hung between thoughts. He did not want to get himself deeper into the clutches of the law by joining forces with Baldy on the shady side. He did want to prove his innocence. But that seemed impossible. He was bound by ties of hospitality and friendship to Baldy. What if the latter did want some repayment? He had promised to keep him free of the police, and that was vital. And Sperry was desperate. The world had turned against him. He was helpless, save for this new friend. The sound of the girl's voice humming as she washed the last of the dishes came to him. She was an enigma. Girls could mean little in his life, yet he wanted to see more of this one, miserable as his plight was. Though he did not realize it, youth, that had been accused but not besmirched, called to youth. And the girl, after all, decided him.

"If I can do anything to help you out," he said to Baldy, "just tell me what it is."

"Good. There's something I want you to do this morning. I can't let you into everything at once. Safer for you not to know it all. By the way, can you drive a car?"

"Almost any kind on the market."

"Know the Berkshires pretty well, I suppose?"

"Yes," answered Sperry wonderingly. "From Longfield south, very well."

Baldy only nodded. Sperry had noticed that Baldy's speech held variations. When he conversed with Sperry, it was fairly grammatical and well chosen. At times it was exceedingly so. Very different from his talk at Dumpy's. Baldy was evidently no ordinary crook. All things pointed to this. The game he was engaged in would be no minor play. He was a big man, determined, clever, resourceful. There would be thrills in any enterprise he tackled. Sperry wondered what his daughter thought of him. Such a girl could not consider her father a criminal. Yet Baldy had not warned him against any special trend of talk.

"I am going to the corner to do some telephoning," said Baldy. "I'll be back in ten minutes. Then we'll go out together."

Left alone, Sperry reread the papers. Presently the girl came in and he rose. She smiled at him and told him to sit down again.

"You mustn't treat me like a girl in a play," she said. "I'm not used to it, even if I like it. Go on with your papers."

"I'm through with them," said Sperry moodily.

Infinitely milder, there was yet some of her father's penetrating quality in the glance of her blue eyes. She seemed to hesitate a moment, then spoke softly, sympathetically.

"Daddy said something to me about your trouble," she said. "We don't have any secrets between us. I heard something of what you told him just now. I couldn't help it," she added with a rising color, "though I sang. And— and I want to tell you that I believe in you."

Sperry stared at the slender fingers before he took them. She and her father had few secrets, and she believed him innocent! What sort of contradiction, what kind of paradox was she? Her flush held as he kept possession of her hand, and her eyelids drooped over her eyes. Here surely was virtue and innocence! Sperry read the riddle. Baldy was shrewd enough to let his daughter think she shared his secrets, but, hardened as he might be, the father in him wished to keep the girl in ignorance of the crimes he committed, the risks he ran. With a man of Baldy's caliber, that would not be difficult. And he had trusted to Sperry's breeding not to give him away. Though, after all, Sperry knew nothing, and the girl would not believe hearsay or even proof. She was no weakling.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you. That helps."

She raised' her eyes again.

"I am glad," she said. "And you must believe in my Daddy, too. Sometimes he does things that seem strange, but I believe in him. I know him, you see, and you don't, so I am telling you beforehand."

Sperry's chivalry couched its lance. If he could help to keep the girl's belief in her father, he would do so.

"Why wouldn't I believe in him?" he asked. "He has been very good to me." And the entrance of the man with the mole spared him any more direct statement as to his lurking belief in the latter's irregularities.

They took the subway and went downtown again. But not this time into the crime belt. First they went into a well-known cafe and sat in a leather-padded recess while Baldy gave his instructions.

"We are going to walk past a big jeweler's," he said. "I'll nudge you when we pass it. Then you are to saunter back, go in to the third counter on the right, and ask the clerk to look at some tie-clips. If the red-headed clerk is not on duty and does not attend to you, do not buy anything. If he is busy, try to gauge it so he can wait on you without making it too obvious. You can say you are expecting some one. If it goes all right, look over six clips, pick up six and handle them, no more no less. Then ask to look again at the third one. Say to him, 'I think I like the one yon showed me third the best. How much is it?' He will put it in a box which you will bring back to me here. Here is money for the clip. Now repeat my directions."

All this was said in a way that smacked of big business behind the purchase of the clip. The roll that Baldy peeled a ten from was of considerable magnitude. Sperry went over his instructions.

They strolled along for some time, until they passed a jeweler's. At the corner they parted company, and Sperry sauntered back again. It was a large place with four aisles made up by lengthy display cases of plate glass. At the back was a mezzanine gallery on which some desks showed and glass doors apparently opening back to the offices. Not many people were purchasing. The third counter was vacant in front. Back of it a red-haired clerk was arranging a tray of small jewelry. His heart beating a trifle fast, Sperry walked up the aisle toward the red-haired clerk. And then he felt a premonition. Some one was watching him.

He had believed implicitly in Baldy's assurance that he was safe in New York for a day or so ; it was impossible not to have confidence in what the man with the mole did say. But now panic siezed him. He tried to master it, to force himself to look up. At last he did. Standing by the rail of the mezzanine gallery and staring down at him, a little uncertainly, was Remington, the paying teller of the bank at Longfield; the man who had said he paid him ten thousand dollars, the man who had been discharged for doing so.

Fury surged over Sperry. He saw that recognition was not yet mutual on account of his clothes and their style, but soon it would become definite. He longed to rush up to the gallery and confront Remington. But that would mean arrest. What was Remington doing here? He had been discharged, but how had he obtained this position so soon?

Then he became conscious that others were staring at him, that he was standing in a defiant attitude, glaring at Remington. He saw the spark of recognition come into Remington's eyes, a smile of triumph begin to come on his face. The ex-paying teller leaned forward.

Sperry whirled abruptly and made for the entrance. He heard Remington saying something as the doors swung behind him, knew there was a stir in the shop; and then he threaded his way swiftly through the crowd, shuttling hurriedly to a subway entrance down which he raced, just managing to catch an express. It was a close shave. Remington held all the cards. In another moment he would have been held, and Remington would have got the reward.

For one moment the thought of treachery mastered him. Could Baldy have deliberately trapped him? But that was impossible. It did not hold water. And he was ashamed of himself for the suspicion. He got out at the next stop and made his way to the cafe, not without some fear of being tapped on the shoulder. He was no longer safe in New York. Whatever was back of Remington's lying about the check and the money was a powerful force, and he had no defence, save a vague feeling that Baldy mght aid him. But he got to the padded recess and told his tale. The man with the mole listened seriously.

"Never mind about the tie-clip," he said. "We'll manage that some other way. It is a good thing this Remington chap spotted you as soon as he did. I wouldn't have wanted them to find that box on you, or on any one. Your stepfather said he was going to get this young chap a job, didn't he? He doesn't seem to have wasted any time about it. But you must change your description if you are going to be useful to me. I am going to send you home in a taxi. Get out at Washington Square and walk over. Stay there till I come."

Sperry waited two hours before Baldy appeared. The face of the man with the mole was serious. He brought in some small packages.

"Where is Bess?" he asked.

"She went out shopping," said Sperry. "Said she'd be back soon." He had spent a delightful hour with the girl. She was surprisingly well informed, he found, and of a rare intelligence and gracious instinct. Baldy had seen to her education. When she went on her marketing tour, Sperry continued his wonderment of her in such surroundings, and then his thoughts centered on what Baldy had said about the box.

"I shouldn't have wanted them to find that box on you, or on any one." Evidently the red-haired clerk was to have put something in it beside the tie-clip. What? Information of some kind? Perhaps the numbers of a safe combination? Was Baldy planning to rob the jeweler's? But Baldy evinced no desire to give him information. The incident of the tie-clip was closed. From his packages he produced what looked like dried leaves and some dark crystals that Sperry recognized as permanganate of potash.

"Lucky your eyes are hazel," said Baldy. "I am going to change your hair-cut and then dye it— also your complexion. I am going to make a brunet out of you, young man, as soon as Bess comes in. She'll be the barber."

An hour later, after applications to his face, hands, and forearms of a solution of permanganate, after dippings of his clipped and trimmed hair into a bath of henna, with careful dabbings of the borders, Sperry looked at himself with amazement. His light brown hair was almost black, with a suggestion of dull red. And it formed a pompadour. His face was a weird purplish tint.

The girl laughed at him.

"That'll tone down to a nice even brown," said Baldy. "And it'll stand washing for a while. Now then, remember you are . Gentleman Manning of Chicago, The Duke. A swell-mob worker, specialty, ladies' jewelry. Tonight I am going to introduce you to some of the gang. They'll use you as outside man."

Sperry heard, amazed, looking at the still laughing face of the girl. Yet her eyes held the same appeal as when she had asked him to believe in her father. How could she be innocent? She must be an accomplice to listen to this talk of the underworld, to help transform him to The Duke, "swell-mob worker."

But one thing was certain, paramount. He was entirely in the power of Baldy Brown.

"Let me look at your hands," said Baldy. Sperry held them out for inspection. Baldy laid his forefinger on the corresponding digit of Sperry's left hand. The first joint was distorted, out of place.

"Baseball finger?" queried Baldy. "You had better wear gloves all you can. When you're driving, for instance. That's a give-away I can't remedy. Got to be covered up. Outside of that you are pretty well camouflaged."

The accent of the French word was excellent. Certain links between the refinement of Elizabeth and her father were apparent. Sperry wondered what the history of Baldy Brown contained, what sordid chapters had led up to his present capacity. That his name was Brown he hardly believed. But, if he had changed it for frequent aliases, the girl must have acquiesced, must have acknowledged them. It was a riddle that Sperry had to put aside. Meanwhile, at Elizabeth's suggestion — she seemed to take an artistic pride in his disguise — he applied himself with materials she provided to cleanse his nails of the telltale stain that had tinged them too darkly for nature.

All three went to a moving-picture show that afternoon. Baldy laughed heartily at the pictured triumph of a detective. Sperry went back with them.

"You'll stay with us for the present," said Baldy, "until the big job is through. It's a good cover, and Bess has taken a fancy to you."

The last sentence Sperry appreciated, but he wondered what the big job was, and what part he would take in it. Perhaps he would find out when he met the gang.

Chapter 4:  The Duke Meets The Gang

SOME day New York will be purged of the huddled-up buildings, the hidden alleys, the cellars, and the underground ways that make up the warren of the underworld. And many things will be revealed, perhaps, that no one has suspected. As long as drugs are peddled and liquor can be distilled, with or without the sanction of the government, so long will these things last, so long will they be populated by the dregs of humanity, twisted in mind and body alike, dominated by some master minds that defy the law.

It was by devious ways that Baldy and Sperry reached the rendezvous that evening. Sperry knew that he could never retrace the route. As it was, he did not penetrate to the actual meeting. As "outside-man," he remained outside the council. They passed through a fence of boards, a portion of which swung horizontally on a pivot to Baldy's touch; they traversed deep cellars, littered with debris that exuded all kinds of musty odors, lit dimly by some light to which Baldy always found a hidden switch. Once, Sperry felt certain, they passed underneath a street, slanting deep down an earthy tunnel propped by beams, traversing a level section where the smell of sewerage was abominable, then up and through another cellar to brick stairs, at the head of which a stout door showed a peephole of light in response to certain knockings of Baldy, checked by other knocks within.

On the other side squatted a man without legs, the type of cripple that infests the streets and captures from sympathetic workers more in a day than they could hard-eam in ten. He worked the opening of the door with a leather strap. Round his stumped body was a belt holstered with two automatics. He challenged the appearance of Sperry, now Manning.

"I don't know this guy," he said, in guttural tones.

"I'm vouching for him," said Baldy. "He's with me."

The dwarf hesitated, shifting a holster to the front. Baldy boiled over with sudden ferocity.

"You cut that gun bluff out with me, Squatty," he said. "Get me? I gave the signals an' you answered them. That's where you quit."

Squatty visibly cowered, yet dared to touch a button back of him. Three faint rings sounded.

"I'll have a talk with you later," said Baldy. But he stayed where he was until the figure of a man appeared coming down the passage.

"What's up?" said the newcomer, a man with beetle brows, his repellant countenance stained from cheek-bones to jaw on the left side with a port-wine mark.

"I come here with a pal," said Baldy, his voice quietly ominous, "and this remnant holds us up after I've vouched for him. This sort of stuff don't go with me, Blackberry; it don't go!"

The newcomer spread out deprecating hands.

"Chief's orders, Baldy," he said. "Any new guy's got to be passed on reg'lar."

"I'm gettin' tired of this 'Chief' stuff," said Baldy. "If we're good enough to pull stuff for a man, we're good enough to see him. This game is too much under cover to suit me. My dope was straight enough to suit the gang, wasn't it? Then, when I bring in a pal that I vouch for, the very man we're needing, I'm not goin' to have him held up when it's touch and go whether we can hold him at all. What you got to say about it, Duke?" He turned to Sperry.

"I'm not over interested in this business," said Sperry, playing up. "I don't know what there is in it for me, and I don't like working for any mysterious chiefs. I'd just as soon quit
right now." In which statement he spoke the truth. But he knew he had served Baldy's purpose.

"And if he quits, I quit with him," said Baldy. "That's where I stand, chief or no chief! And, anyway, I don't go no further in the dark. I want to know where I get off. I'm goin' to have a pow-wow with the chief before I run my neck into trouble any deeper. You heard me, Blackberry."

The man with the stain whirled on the cripple.

"What Baldy says is straight, Squatty!" he exclaimed. "You got to use some discretion. Get me?"

"I will when you tell me what that word means," said Squatty.

"It means common sense, that's what. Don't you touch that push button without good reason, or you'll get the grand razzoo! Come on, gents."

Up the passage and into a room, barren of furniture and walled with rough planks, they went at last ; it showed no door, no means of egress. One dingy electric, the bulb spotted with flies, barely showed the dimensions of the place. But Blackberry, at the far end, trod on a plank, and a section of the walling rose, through which they passed on, up a flight of stairs, and so to what was evidently the back room of the basement floor of a tenement house. Sperry glimpsed a cemented furnace room through the opening door by which Blackberry disappeared.

"Let me do the talking," said Baldy, and Sperry was content.

The place was furnished with a pallet bed covered with greasy blankets, a table, and three broken-down chairs. Soon they heard footsteps returning. Blackberry came back again with a black-mustached, stout, prosperous-looking man. The latter went to the point.

"Who's the new guy, Baldy?" he asked; "and what's this kick about the chief?"

"The last can wait," said Baldy. "You know my kick, and I ain't the only one kicking. I'll take that up inside. This is The Duke, Gentleman Manning of Chi. He's a chauffeur, and a good one. I'm vouching for him. Chi ain't healthy for him just now, on account of the wind off the lake front and him having weak lungs."

The other grinned and surveyed Sperry.

"You'll find New York a healthy coop for a lively bird," he said. "Ever live here?"

"He ran a car for a family up in Lenox," said Baldy. "They missed some ice and accused him of hiding it in the gasoline tank. He didn't. Point is, he knows the Berkshires. Savvy? Blake's got pinched, as you told me. Well, this lad can take his place."

"I guess it's all right I'll take your word for it. You'll get a five per cent divvy, Duke, of what stacks up from tonight. Does that go?"

Sperry, borne on the tide of events, nodded.

"Then come on, Baldy," said the man. "We're waiting to hear your spiel. Did you pull it off? You wait here, Duke."

They left him, and Sperry lit a cigarette and then another, wondering to what he was committed. He didn't much care. His own case seemed helpless, and he was conscious of a growing exhilaration in the dark enterprise on hand. And, holding his promise to the girl, he tried to believe in Baldy as she would have him believe. Only, not quite certain of what she did wish him to subscribe to, he made hard work of it.

He had no watch with him, and it seemed hours before Baldy came back, alone. What happened beyond the furnace room remained a mystery to Sperry.

"Come on," said Baldy. They retraced their tortuous way, by the watchful Squatty, who still sulked from his calling-down, and presently they were seated in another padded niche in a cafe, not the same one they had been in before.

"It's for to-morrow night," said Baldy. "The car's Speedwell. Know it?"

"Yes," answered Sperry truthfully.

"We'll see," said Baldy. "Taking no chances. Come along."

This time they took the subway far uptown, and walked to a garage where Baldy seemed to be well known. The Speedwell was in, and, at Baldy's suggestion, they took it out and Sperry drove into the Park. He demonstrated that he knew its mechanism as well as a Swiss watchmaker might understand the interior economy of a dollar pocket timepiece. Baldy stated himself satisfied.

"Put on those two new rear tires, Tom," he said to the attendant. "My friend will be here to take the car out to-morrow night, about nine."

"The tires seem perfectly good," said Sperry as they left the garage.

"Taking no chances," reiterated Baldy. "Come on, we'll get a snack somewhere. Bess will have gone to bed."

Not till they were back in Greenwich Village did Baldy give him further instructions.

"Get the car there at nine to-morrow," he said, "pick me up in Washington Square, where the buses stop, at ten sharp. Be driving slowly along. I'll be there. I'll not be home to-morrow. You take Bess out to Bronx Park. She wants to see the animals. Crazy about them. I've promised to take her, and haven't had time, though I'm fond of poking round there myself."

To-morrow would be a day well spent, decided Sperry— up till nine o'clock in the evening, at all events. After that, he committed himself to the unknown, and to Baldy. He felt pretty confident of Baldy's being able to protect himself and any protege.

"By the way," said Baldy, yawning, "what does this Remington look like?"

Sperry described him as best he could. "Why?" he asked when he concluded.

"Thought I saw him to-day," said Baldy. "I was in the jeweler's."

With that he went to bed and left Sperry to follow his example. Sleep did not come easily. Why did Baldy want to change two perfectly good tires for new ones? What kind of man was he who loved animals, who trusted his daughter to a new acquaintance, who consorted with the worst types of criminals, and who, Sperry was assured, was going to join in some big robbery the next night, in which affair he, Sperry, was bound by many ties of recklessness and obligation? And what about Remington? Baldy, he had found out by this time, asked no questions idly. And who was "the chief?"

He went to sleep to dream that he and Baldy were cracking a giant safe, with Elizabeth holding a hair-clipper that, somehow, served as a brilliant electric torch. And, when the safe was opened, Cairns stepped out of the shadows and arrested all three of them.

Chapter 5: The Family Vault

SPERRY had a brief chat with Baldy in the morning before the latter went away on his own business, and Sperry and Elizabeth, with a lunch packed for themselves, and ano'ther for certain special friends of the girl's at the zoo, took the subway for Bronx Park. There were not many visitors on this chilly day, but they had a rare time. Elizabeth appeared to know the keepers well, and they were given certain privileges such as standing inside the rail when the big cats were fed, and scratching the warty back of the blind hippopotamus. Sperry seemed to be living in another world of strange happenings, and he pledged himself to the present. His own trouble-time seemed very hazy, and the haze was permeated with a rosy glow born of the happenings of the moment. He and the girl became very chummy, and he told her all about his own thwarted ambitions. He told her of the exploits of his chosen profession ; how they could bridge vast chasms and make trails over great ranges ; how they could dam waters that would make deserts blossom like the rose, and advance the cause of progress.

"It's a fine profession," she said enthusiastically. "If I were a man that's what I'd like to be. Pioneers of progress, that's what you are."

"Do you think you'd like the life?" asked Sperry. He knew he was talking nonsense, speaking like this to the daughter of a master crook, himself a fugitive from justice, or at least from the law; disinherited, disgraced, about to plunge further into lawlessness. But all things seemed but the figments of a pleasant dream, and he was in no mind to wake up when he had this girl as dream-mate, this enthusiastic girl that was so wonderful a pal. He had never dreamed a girl could be like this; never met a girl who could so understand a chap, so enter into his thoughts, have the same ideas, the same hopes.

They had come to the cage of the bears and he halted.

"I wish," he said, and stopped. The bears doubtless had their dreams. And the bars were the limit of their reality. Caged!

"What?" she asked, a little shyly.

"Nothing," answered Sperry. "I was just getting broody over my luck, that's all."

"Don't do that," she said. "You trust to daddy. He— he likes you. I know it."

Sperry flung his bitter mood aside.

"Why?" he challenged her with a direct glance. She did not evade it, though her face changed slowly to the transparent hue of the petals of an American Beauty rose.

"He let you take me out to-day," she said slowly. "He has never let any other man do that." Sperry wanted to take her in his arms. There was no one in sight but the gobbling bears, busy over the buns they had brought them. The girl knew it, and he saw her eyes thank him as he refrained and kept the faith that Baldy Brown of Chi, master crook, had reposed in him. But the want remained.

"Daddy is going to help you," she said. "Perhaps it will come true, after all, your building dams and bridges."

"I hope it will all come true," said Sperry. And he saw her cheeks bloom again.

It was all wild nonsense they were talking. He realized that as they swept homeward. To-night he was to play chauffeur to a band of desperadoes. And she, was she juggling, too? Playing at make-believe, despite her surroundings, her fate, as a crippled child may pretend that it has wings?

The strangeness of the whole affair was emphasized in the preparation of dinner. Baldy himself took a hand, mashing the potatoes while Sperry concocted the salad dressing and Elizabeth broiled the thick steak and handled the rest of the concomitants. It was like a picnic, Sperry felt; the informal meals that attend great happenings. At eight o'clock they were through.

"You know my motto, son," said Baldy. "Nothing like a full meal." And, while Elizabeth was clearing and cleaning up, he gave Sperry final instructions.

"We'll pick up a man on Bleecker Street," he said. "I'll show you where. He's an outside man, like you. But not an active one. Now, when we arrive, I'll show you where to park. You hang on there till some one comes up and says : 'All right Duke.' You come back with, 'Duke Who?' If he says 'Manning,' it's all right. If any one comes up with a broken line of talk, you beat it. If a bull comes by and asks you what you are hanging around for you tell him you are chaffeur for Mr. Gamwell of the Marine Insurance Association, and you point right across the road to the fifth floor of the opposite building. Gamwell won't be there, but the lights will be on in his suite. And there'll be some one there to answer if the bull gets fresh. It'll all go straight enough."

Sperry did not doubt the smoothness of the operations from the care with which the preliminaries had been arranged. And he could, in some measure, understand the joy of the outlaw, the pitting of brain against brain, the risk, the thrill of it all.

"You take your orders from whoever gets on the front seat," said Baldy. "There'll likely be two men, perhaps three; depends on the load. I won't be with you. When you are through with the job, beat it back to the garage and make the trip home by subway and walking. Here's a key to the door."

As the cool steel met his palm, Sperry felt assured of inis position with Baldy. He was surely trusted.

"You can depend on me," he said. Elizabeth came in at the moment, through with the dishes, and the talk switched. Baldy left, and presently Sperry departed for the garage. The new tires were on, he noticed, before he sped downtown.

At Washington Square, on the south side, he picked up Baldy, and on Bleecker, the second man. At ten-thirty they parked the car on a street well downtown in the financial district. Sperry recognized the locality, strange as it was at this deserted time. The car had stopped around the corner from the jeweler's shop where he had seen Remington. There both Baldy and the other outside man got out. The latter walked up the street, but Baldy stayed to point out the lights in the fifth floor of a tall building across from where the Speedwell stood beside the curb. Then he, too, left, melted mysteriously in the shadows.

Sperry had always associated robberies with the small hours, but now he recognized that downtown life practically ceased after six-thirty. The "gang" was now at work, and he had no longer any doubt that their object was the pilfering of the vaults of the jewelry store, or that the red-haired clerk was involved as he was, in a minor capacity. He pondered over what he was to do. Baldy had asked him if he knew the Berkshires. Was he to drive the loot to some treasure-trove in the hills, there to await the disposition of the chief? He filled in the time with cigarettes and conjectures, and finally, warm in his coat and the fur robe with which the Speedwell was provided, leaned back half drowsily. No policeman broke his reverie, though one passed twice. He heard Old Trinity chime the quarters and knew that it was close to midnight before a figure came to the side of the car.

"All right, Duke?"

The voice seemed dimly familiar, though he could not place it. The man's face was muffled both with a beard and the high collar of his coat upturned, and a scarf which circled his neck. A soft-brimmed hat was pulled low down over his brows.

"Duke Who?" parried Sperry.

"Manning," replied the man and clambered to the front seat without further ado. "Round the block," he said, "slowly."

Sperry obeyed orders, conscious that the bearded man kept a sharp lookout. They met no one. Three quarters around he got the word to halt, close to an alley dividing the big block. A shadow drifted along in the obscurity of the other side of the street. The bearded man noted it.

"It's all right," he whispered. "That's our lookout. If he whistles, beat it, and stop at the corner of Broadway and Chambers."

The speaker slipped out and down and disappeared in the murky alley. He was back again in an instant. Following him came a procession of dim shapes, each bearing a heavy package that they stowed quickly in the tonneau of the car. At last two men climbed in after the bundles and pulled a rug over the loot and themselves. The bearded man got in again beside Sperry.

"Slick and quick!" he said, with a chuckle. "North, and go it."

North they went and still north, climbing up where reservoirs- gleamed among the pines, quickening their pace, plunging, lunging on to the urging of the man at Sperry's side, until, above Lake Mahopac, a front tire exploded and nearly threw them into a ditch.

No one helped him. The two men in the tonneau stood about with the third until Sperry ordered one of them to hold an electric torch on his repairing. The bearded man did as requested, throwing the ray where Sperry ordered. Once he delayed to shift it, and Sperry, sweating with his work, despite the crisp night, spoke to him sharply. The man looked at him queerly, but said nothing. At last the job was finished, and Sperry put on his gloves and started the car once more. The going was hard and the roads here and there marked for detours, so that it was after five by the clock in the front of the car before they began to climb hills with which Sperry was familiar, the hills on the other side of the ridge from Swiftbrook Bowl. But it was still dark, still far from sunrise. He had been brusquely asked if he knew the way to Galton, and had answered in the affirmative. Now they were approaching that town.

"Straight through," said the bearded man in his husky voice. "Don't turn off to Ironton. Keep on up the mountain."

Sperry obeyed. They struck a bad road, deep-rutted, slippery with mud, and the car made slow progress? One of the men behind spoke for the first time.

"Open her up, can't you? We got to get through before daylight." They passed by sleepy hamlets and hit the windy ridge at the watershed, then pitched down between wooded ravines. A clearing came, a suggestion of highland meadow strips, the sound of a foaming torrent, the outline of a steeple against a blackish sky.

"Is this Darlington?" asked the bearded man. "Then the first road to the left past the village."

They made it as the first hint of dawn showed. There was a faint difference in the quality of the light. Trees began to separate themselves. On a slope irregular ranks of tombstones developed, gray and ghastly.

The guide put a hand on Sperry's arm.

"Into the graveyard," he said.

There were no gates, only a gravel road, crisp under the tires. To the right rose a high bank in which tombs had been dug like caves, and sealed with iron doors. Their tops were rounded and turfed above the level of the bank. Here they halted. The two men got out and one of them busied himself with a skeleton key, while the second held the electric torch.

Sperry read in its arc the graven lettering in the stonework about the iron doors: "Family Tomb of Alvin Allen. 1843."

The ghouls were going to deposit the loot in the ancient monument. Doubtless all the Allens were dead, their crumbled remnants in the vault.

"Come on," said the bearded man from the ground, "lend a hand here. It's lightening strong. Want us to get nipped?"

The three of them were bearing in their packages with frantic haste. Daylight was coming. There was no time to spare lest some chore-seeking villager might see them and give an alarm. Sperry lent a hand, bearing a heavy parcel into the musty burial plade, and coming out gratefully into the fresh air for another. At last they were through. He started to mount the car.

"Confound it!" said the bearded man. "We've left the keys back there. Duke, you've got the torch. Go get them, will you, while I light up? And hurry."

Sperry went back into the charnelhouse reluctantly, but loath to suggest that he was not willing to do his share. He had held a feeling ever since they left New York that he was on probation with his passengers, that they sensed somehow that he was not an accepted and qualified member of their craft, but was tolerated only on Baldy's say-so. He could not see the keys and threw about the circle of his light. Suddenly he felt quick fanning of the close air, heard a grating sound, then the noise of the outer bar swinging into place with a dull clang, followed by the click of locks.

The ray of his lamp shone on the closed doors of the vault. He flung himself at them, pounding, kicking, without result, with hardly noise enough to reach to the road. He could barely hear the explosion of the engine as it broke into life and left him there, deliberately abandoned among the loot and the coffins of the moldering dead!

Chapter 6: Skeletons and Jewels

AFTER the first rage and sense of horror had passed, Sperry forced himself to sum up the situation calmly. He deliberately shut off the light of the electric lamp, knowing he might need it badly later. The place seemed to fill with phantoms, indignant at this outrage of their last rest. It was cold and damp. Somewhere water percolated through and dropped on the rough cement of the floor, like the tick of a clock counting his last minutes.

For he could not last very long, deliberately abandoned as he had been without hope of rescue. The air was limited, and, if any came through the door cracks or an unseen crevice, it was only enough to prolong life a short time. The place seemed to put a coating on his tongue, to choke his laboring lungs. In the absolute silence, save for the "tock-tock" of the dripping water, Sperry could hear his heart beating as he strove for control. His burial had been preconceived by the bearded man whose voice was dimly familiar, though he had seen little of the man's face, muffled as it had been by the collar of his coat, a slouch hat, and a woolen scarf. Was it just a general suspicion based on some slip he had made that showed him up plainly as not one of them— as a possible spy?

If the voice of the bearded man had been dimly familiar to him, why, in like degree, in stronger degree, for he had pot attempted any disguise of it, his own might have been familiar to this man. And he had shown his baseball finger while working on the blowout. Had he been recognized? Would they come back for him or send some one to make his arrest and claim the reward?

That was not likely, since they had left all the loot with him. He had been deliberately left to die of hunger, thirst, and lack of air.

Once more he switched on his torch and flashed it about his jail. It was bricked, the roof in the shape of a low arch, above which he had, noticed, outside, that earth, turfed at the top, was piled thick. The ray faltered and he noticed, to his horror, that the battery was fast losing strength. And, to his imagination, perhaps, but none the less real, the air seemed heavier, more vitiated. He swept the place for some tool with which to attack the bricks and dig through the dirt, at least to air, if not to freedom. He wondered whether the packages they had brought might not hold some safe-breakers' tools. While the light rapidly waned in the torch, he opened them. Most were cases made of heavy fiber, such as travelers use, strapped. Two were grips. These he handled first. One of them was full of smaller cases, which presumably contained articles of jewelry. These he did not touch. The second held a mass of gold chains and watches stripped from trays.

The battery gave only a flickering glimmer now as he attacked the sample cases. The first was a jumble of velvetcovered boxes, many of which had been opened and uncertainly closed. Among them strings of jewels, brooches, necklaces, and rings shot out streaks of many-colored light. And then the torch failed utterly. By sense of touch he went through the rest of the loot and found no tools. Mechanically he re-strapped the sample cases as his mind sought some way out.

A coffin handle?

Stumbling across the boxes, he groped his way to the stone slabs on which the caskets rested. He reached up and felt along the side of one of the grim receptacles, his fingers clutching a handle that felt as if it were made of iron, though it was pitted with rust. Apparently it had been wrought in the early days when the trappings of the dead were less elaborate in these hillside communities. It might make a good weapon with which to pick a way through the bricks and mortar if he could only get it free from the wood. That he might do with his pocket-knife.

Something moved in the mausoleum, something that sounded like the pat of a naked foot. Sperry's hair bristled, though his reasoning told him it must be made by a material thing. What was it? He listened, holding to the handle of the casket. It came again and halted. He cautiously shifted a foot and touched something, small, yielding, alive. Instantly the truth flashed upon him. It was a toad. He moved again in his relief and set his foot fair upon the creature. He slipped, clinging to the iron handle. The wood, set there almost a century ago, perhaps, exposed to damp from without and within, gave way with a soft, shuddering crash under Sperry's weight. One end of the handle still clung for a moment and then, before he could recover his balance, the whole hideous thing was upon him, rotted wood and shreds of something that once had been quick and human. Dust and crumbling shreds of cerements, blinding, choking, appalling, descended on him with a soft rush as if intent upon a smothering vengeance!

Sperry fell, half paralyzed by the horror of it, and his head struck upon some dull edge. Light flashed before his inner sight, and then — oblivion!

When he came to, his head was aching dully but persistently. There was a great weight upon his chest and he could barely breathe. He could only move his extremities feebly. How long he had been there he knew not, but his returning consciousness told him that the air was nearly exhausted and that lack of it, with the blow, with want of food and a frightful, torturing thirst, had chained him too effectually for him to think of another attempt to break through the chamber that held the long dead and the barely living. How long he had been there he had no way of telling. This was the end, or very close to it.

Tock, tock! The drip on the floor sounded on his sensitive nerves and brain cells, congested by blood sluggish and poisoned for lack of oxygen, like the blows of a sledge upon some mighty brazen gong, tolling off his last seconds. A swift vision came to him of the figures on Trinity's clock in New York, pounding the hours.

The weight on his chest turned to a pain within, an agony at each laboring breath. He was breathing carbonic gases and he longed for their complete anesthesia. He no longer wished for life nor thought coherently.

The pains ceased and a blessed ease encompassed him. He had passed the Rubicon. Light was in his eyes, a brilliant, dazzling light! Sweet air greeted his lungs. Vaguely he felt himself moving, slowly— slowly! Something was between his lips, something that burned and choked him, but trickled down his throat and started a fire of life within him. He looked up and saw the stars. Then they were obscured by a shape and he heard a voice calling his name— his own name "Jack! Jack!''

He , tried to meet the summons, sounding like the hail of some one far down a tunnel, some one he loved. The stars again! More of that life-giving fluid! And then came the light, not so dazzling. And, above it, radiant, imploring, anxious, was the face of Elizabeth.

Youth and hope and love now brought him swiftly back to life. A strong arm was about him and he sat up. Another voice blended with the girl's in low tones. It was Baldy's.

"Give him some of the soup, Bess. Here's the thermos. We'll get him into the car. I'll close up this place."

He supped the broth and tried to get to his feet. Baldy's strength supporting him on one side, the girl's hand under one elbow, he climbed up into the tonneau of a car and sank on its padded cushions with the girl beside him, rapidly recovering. Baldy was closing the tomb once more. But this time, thank Heaven, he was on the outside.

"How did you find me?" he asked.

"Don't talk until we get out of this," said Baldy. "Bess, you'll have to back out of here. I'm not an expert on these machines. Here, Jack, put away this sandwich and take another drink."

Sperry took the bread and meat and the flask and obeyed orders as the girl left him and took the front seat, her father edging over. The car reversed down the little ascent to the tomb, through the entrance of the cemetery to the main road, sped along it for perhaps a quarter of a mile, and turned into a steep lane up which it plugged through stiff mud to the hill top, turned in between the remnants of a gate, and struggled through what had once been a farmway to a standstill beside a crudely constructed cabin. A broken chimney jagged on the skyline; the windows were boarded, the door still intact.

The man with the mole got out and worked on the closed door. Sperry, almost himself again, got into the front seat with Elizabeth.

"How did you ever find me?" he asked.

"Daddy will tell you. I told you to believe in him, you know."

Seeing that her father was implicated with him in the deliberate robbery of a jewelry establishment, Sperry made no audible answer. But he took the girl's hand and pressed it. They exchanged a glance, a look that ignored all circumstance and set them on a bridge of their own, a mutual platform of appreciation and sincerity. And Sperry found himself glowing with an added resolve to protect this pure-eyed girl from all knowledge of her father's crookedness, a renewal of his desire to prove his own integrity. Something passed between them, as of a current between two wires that touch in a magnetic field, and Sperry felt a tingle that mounted to his heart and stayed there. Just then it was Elizabeth whom he credited with his rescue. Her father did not count.

Baldy came back from the open door of the shack, got a lantern from the car, and a roll of blankets, asking Sperry to bring a box packed full with papered parcels, if he was able. The girl followed them inside the cabin that held some inexpensive furniture, including a rough bed and a rusty stove.

"Sperry," said the man with the mole, "I want you to camp out here for a day or two. Here is enough to make you fairly comfortable. There is wood outside, but I would rather you did not light any fire unless you must have it. This place is just above the cemetery. I want you to watch for the man or men who come to remove the loot, and to follow them. It is barely possible you may recognize one of them. But follow them, somewhere, to where they take the stuff. Then come back to New York and let me know as fast as you can travel. Here is money."

Sperry took it somewhat confusedly. Was Baldy seeking to double cross the others? But in that case he would simply have taken the loot.

"Won't they suspect something when they find I am not there?" he asked.

"There is nothing to suspect. We are not going to interfere with the removal of the stuff. It will not be the crowd that you brought here and who left you inside. In any event, the men who come would not be astonished to find you there dead, or taken away. They do not bother themselves about any details other than those laid out for them to handle. The chief attends to the finer points and all the links. The point is, Jack, the gang is getting a bit tired of working in the dark. They want to get in touch with the chief. I am at the head of that idea. I want to have a straight talk with him myself. Hitherto he issued all orders through Blackberry and one or two others. I am no cat's-paw, and the rest follow; me. I believe this stuff in the tomb will go direct to the chief. I want to trace it. The tomb has been used before for a receiving house for the stuff. It is none of it sold to fences. The chief finances the whole proposition, and bides his time in disposing of the loot through channels known only to himself. He gets more for it that way, but the rest of us don't— not enough of the difference. Now, if they won't let me see the chief, I'm going to find out for myself who he is, and get to him. And you can help me. Will you?"

He spoke in a low voice. The girl was trying to make the shack less comfortless. Sperry gave her a glance and then answered Baldy.

"Considering you have just literally picked me out of the jaws of death, I should be worse than ungrateful not to help you. I owe you a lot."

"We'll come to a just settlement, some day, my son," said Baldy. "You'll have to sleep days and watch nights. They'll come some time after dark. I wouldn't be surprised if they bring a team of horses, as being less noticeable. I've a notion they won't go very far. That will make it all the easier for you. The gang is uneasy. There are hints that the police are closing in and they think, with me, it is time for a final divvy. Of course, I haven't so much coming as some of them, but I am, in a way, the leader in this. As it stands, if anything breaks, the chief has got the goods and we stand for the conviction. He is too well covered.

"He is a bit uneasy, too, I think. Anyway, he has ordered one last haul — I'll tell you about that when you come back to town — and then we may all split up. But there is going to be a personal talk and a regular accounting first, with the chief in person. I don't think you'll have to stick round here long. Sorry for the accommodations, but it wouldn't do for you to be seen. Now we've got to be off."

"Won't you tell me how you found me?" asked Sperry.

Baldy smiled. "I wanted to find out where this cache was. I like to have two strings to my bow. You were one of them. The other? You remember my having those two tires changed at the garage? Well, I supplied the car, and I also supplied two tires that are so marked as to make a very plain trail in the mud for any one used to following them. When the car came back without you— they left it at a downtown garage and let me know in the regular way— when they came back with a yarn about you having got cold feet and given them the slip, I suspected that they had figured you out wrong in some way. They didn't like my bringing you in the way. I did, and I imagined a grudge— and perhaps something else. Anyhow, I knew the destination was somewhere in the Berkshires. On the main road I picked up the tire marks, and I didn't lose them. Now tell me just how it all happened."

He and the girl listened while Sperry summed up the incidents briefly.

"It was the chap with the beard who did it, then?" asked Baldy. "I didn't see much of him. I was inside, and he showed only once. But we'll attend to him later. You had better lay low for a bit with the gang. And now we must be going."

He went outside to the car. Sperry looked at the girl. He seemed fairly launched in criminality, and yet this girl, daughter of Baldy Brown, appeared a thing apart from such affairs, mixed up in them as she undoubtedly was. She held out both her hands and he took them. Again the thrill mounted and took possession of him. She seemed to sway a little toward him, and the next instant her lips had met his.

They stepped apart as Baldy returned. How much he had seen, Sperry could not guess, did not think of until the car had left and he was preparing to go on watch. But he was very fully conscious of a strange, a welcome exhilaration that not al his troubles, all his desperation could modify. Elizabeth and he were living in a world apart, and that world was lit by the unquenchable hope of love.

Baldy had left him an automatic pistol, and he slipped it into his pocket, before, fortified with food and drink, braced still by the touch of the girl's lips, he put out his lantern, closed the door, and crept down the hill through leafless brush and a little grove of spectral white birches in the verge of which he crouched, amid the dried ferns, just above the mound of the vault, keeping his lonely vigil.

Chapter 7: Temptation

FOR the balance of that night and for the two nights following, Sperry watched in the birch grove above the tomb, eating and sleeping by day, holed up in the deserted farm cabin. They were long vigils with the shortening days, thirteen hours at a stretch in the darkness, with one night continual rain that forced him to light a fire the next morning and dry out his sodden clothes. But he stuck to it and was confident that no one had approached the Cemetery as no one came near his cabin. What he suffered from most was the fact that he dared not smoke while on guard, and found the lonely hours drag interminably. His great consolation was that, long before this, he would have become one of the silent occupants of the tomb, uncoffined and unepitaphed, but most effectually out of the world. And he was very far from wishing to have done with worldly affairs. His love of Elizabeth undoubtedly did much to give him a sane grip on events and furnish him with hope of ultimate rehabilitation.

Time and time again he went over everything and tried to patch things together into some kind of sequence that he could trace back, in order to discover some clew, some loophole he might use as the commencement of his own vindication. Remington! Everything came back to Remington! He was the one who had deliberately lied about the check's presentation. Cairns had stated that it was torn from the back of his check book, and Sperry suspected Cairns of furnishing this bit of the evidence. This pointed inevitably to collusion between Cairns and Remington. Moreover, Cairns had interested himself in getting Remington a fresh situation. And the bank's funds had been depleted ten thousand dollars, which Caims had at first promised to restore with altogether too much equanimity, Sperry concluded, reviewing his stepfather's demeanor.

Supposing that Remington had shared that ten thousand. Five thousand would not be much for Caims to pay as the price of getting Sperry out of grace with his mother, of accomplishing his final disinheritance, and giving Cairns full control of it, if not ultimate possession. But there might be a third man, the one who had so wonderfully imitated the signatures. Who was he?

Out in the blackness he revolved these thoughts, his mind like a squirrel in its turning-cage, and arrived at but one resolution, to seek Baldy's help to run down Remington, and, trapping him, if that were necessary, force the facts from him.

He thought of his mother, none too strong, and of what insidious poison against him Cairns by this time had succeeded in implanting in her confiding nature. There, too, he was powerless; he did not even know her address. So his heart grew bitter and hard against his transgressors. The girl was his only leaven of sweetness, and she was not of his own world, as society apportioned it. She dwelt in the tents of the wicked, and, if crime had not besmirched her, it was because she was of pure gold that may be hidden, but remains intrinsically perfect.

Baldy, too, was a man who had his qualities. Environment might have forced him into his career, as indeed it had forced Sperry. The man was one who would have made good in any surroundings, have stood out head and shoulders above his fellows. His strength was misapplied, but his virtues were still unspoiled. As friend or enemy, he would go on to the end, and Sperry felt that Baldy was his friend.

So the nights passed, and the days, and the fourth night brought action.

There was a sharp frost, the temperature dropping with the sun, until, at midnight, nested in the blankets he had been forced to bring from the cabin, Sperry was hard put to it to keep warm. He was about to get up and walk about on patrol to restore his congealing circulation, when certain noises arrested him. They were not loud— the clink of a horse's hoofs on frosty road metal, the squeak of an axle. A team was coming on toward the cemetery. This was not the main road; all the farmers of the vicinity were long ago abed.

Excitement gripped him as the sounds grew closer and turned in to the cemetery enclosure. Sperry had wriggled forward until he lay prone on the top of the curving mound that formed the roof of the tomb. The wagon stopped and two dim shapes got down. There was no moon, but the sky was clear with the frost, and the steely stars gave sufficient light to observe movement. The two men, without a word, advanced to the doors and opened them. Then the light from an electric torch sprayed out, and they went into the vault. For fifteen minutes they worked, taking out the cases and grips, and stowing them carefully in the light farm wagon. They worked in silence. If they had expected to find a recently dead body inside, they made no comment at the lack of it.

Sperry wondered why the bearded man and his two helpers had not said something about their attempt to dispose of him, or had not themselves tried to remove the supposed corpse. Was it true, as Baldy had hinted, that the type of men entrusted by the mysterious chief to handle his loot were surprised at nothing, asked no questions beyond the scope of their own directions?

While these conjectures ran through his mind, he had other things to do; to see if he could recognize these men— as Baldy had suggested he might— and to trail the wagon to its destination.

They wielded their torch skillfully and sparsely. Sperry was unable to get a glimpse of their features. One thing he noticed with satisfaction: they had a big tarpaulin in the wagon-bed which they threw over their load. It was plain that one of them, at least, knew the locality, for he led the horses up the cemetery road to where he could swing them around a loop, not wishing to attempt to back them or turn them in the narrow space, for fear of noise or mishap in the gloom. Sperry swiftly tucked away his blankets among the bracken and slipped like a lizard from the top of the tomb, gliding down to the road, and, hidden behind a big elm, waited the coming out of the wagon.

It went cautiously on down the steep pitch, the brakes set. Behind it, at a safe distance, strode Sperry. At the bottom of the hill the wagon turned north across the valley on a fairly level road, the horses put to a jog-trot. Sperry changed his pace and kept fifty yards behind without difficulty. Thus for a mile they went, and then came the long climb up the northern ridge.

Sperry knew the country well, and knew that the team would be stopped for necessary breathing half-way up the hill. He slowly closed in, and, when the wagon halted on the midway bench of the ascent, he was less than ten yards away.

He saw the striking of a match, the passing of it from one man to the other, the glow of a cigar and a pipe, and caught the scent of tobacco. He saw more— the face of one of the men, and the ruddy outline caused him to stop with a little gasp. He had not seen enough to be sure of identity, but the suggestion put his brain in a turmoil.

The two men were talking in low tones ; the heavy breathing of the winded horses was plain on the cold night air. Foot by foot, bent double, Sperry crept up to the wagon. He meant to climb over its tail board, cover himself with the tarpaulin, and get a ride to wherever it was going. This he must do, he decided, at the moment of starting up, so that whatever he might make of noise or disturbance would be covered by the natural noise of the horses and wagon in getting into action.

The driver released his foot brake, and Sperry, with a little jump, glided over the tail-board and pulled the edge of the tarpaulin over himself without attracting attention. The wagon went on up the hill and down the other side. Once again the horses broke into a trot which they kept up for mile after mile with little slackenings on minor hills. Sperry no longer felt the cold ; he was tingling with excitement. He was beginning to see a way out of his troubles— not an easy path, but a possible one.

The team slowed up and turned off the main road to a smoother one. Sperry stuck his head out from the tarpaulin. They were now in the private grounds of a well-kept estate, driving between lawns set with shrubs and groups of trees. A house showed, gray-white, no lights visible, a country place of wealth. The wagon drove on round to the back, and Sperry, his eyes constantly on the driver and his companion, got clear of the tarpaulin and edged over the tail board. Despite his care, his feet scuffed the gravel of the drive, and he instantly darted for the nearest cover, a clump of evergreens, crackly with the frost. The driver, pulling up his horses at the moment, paid no attention, but the other man swung about in his seat.

"What was that?" he demanded.

"What?"

"Something in the bushes back there!" As he spoke the man flung the ray of the torch upon the laurels. Sperry lay perdu like a rabbit, fearful that the shaking boughs would give him away. Just then a door opened, ruddy in the light.

"You've got the jumps," said the driver. "There's the boss, waiting for us. Get down and help out with the stuff."

The other obeyed, though he walked over to the evergreens and deliberately examined them. But Sperry had writhed out on the other side and chosen a fresh hiding place. The distraction of the opening door had given time for the stiff branches to cease their motion, and the man gave up his idea and proceeded to help the driver with the packages.

Sperry dodged around to one side of the big house. It was dark, save for a narrow strip of orange light where a blind had not been pulled completely down. Shrubbery grew close to the wall. The frost in the ground was hard enough to bear him without telltale footprints, he decided, and he badly wanted to have a look inside that room. He made his trip in safety, and, gripping the stone sill of the telltale window drew himself up until his eyes were on a level with the crack. The window faced a door that was just opening. A man appeared and advanced toward a massive center table. Behind him appeared the driver and his fellow, carrying the packages which they set on the table at the indication of the first man, who started to unstrap the packages as the two others turned toward the doors.

Sperry was forced to lower himself to ease the pull on his muscles. He had seen enough, yet he wanted to see more. There was plenty of time ahead of him before he could get the early train to New York. The cabin door was closed properly; the blankets well hidden, and he did not intend to go back to the cemetery.

Six times, at intervals, he hoisted himself and peered through the inch of vision space at the foot of the blind. He saw the man finally dismiss the others, heard the wagon rattle off to some stable, saw the principal open the packages, and gloat for a while over the contents. These he separated entirely from their velvet covered boxes, and placed them within a big safe that was not at first sight apparent, being covered with sliding panels made to conform with the woodwork of the walls. Then he touched a bell and the driver once again appeared, devoid of his outer clothes, addressing the first man with respect, and starting to take away the now emptied cases, grips, and jeweler's boxes.

Now Sperry was through. He could imagine the bulky stuff being burned in a furnace, but he knew where the jewels were stored, and he knew now the mysterious chief's identity. For the man who had put the loot in his safe was his stepfather, Cairns; the driver was Peters, and the helper a footman.

Here was cause for elation, yet how was he to make use of it? He himself was still an outlaw, and must act through others. Baldy was his only friend, and he was bound to Baldy by many ties. But for the Chicago crook he would be dead in the vault.

His mind, spurred by what he had seen, worked clearly now. The half-familiar voice of the bearded man was plainly recognizable in the light of all events. It had been Remington. His -own voice and his injured finger, displayed when he had fixed the tires, had given him away, despite his disguise. Just why Remington had not later removed his body he could not figure, but he did not bother with it. Evidently neither Peters nor Cairns had known of his joining the gang of which Cairns was chief. That, too, he set aside for the time.

Other parts of the pattern were forming swiftly. Cairns was a master crook, greater even than Baldy Brown, controller of a band, few of whom knew his identity. Cairns planned the robberies. His own case had been but a side issue in Cairns' campaign, though the fortune the man hoped to control was worth having. Aside from that had been the mutual dislike between Sperry and his stepfather, and the objection of the latter to having any one close to him who might suspect or clog his operations.

Remington, dismissed from the bank, had been placed in the jeweler's with a view to the robbery. The red-haired clerk was in it, too. Remington may have furnished the combination which was to have been put by the redhead into the box containing the tie-clip. That was why Remington had been on the balcony that morning— to watch for the man who would buy the tie-clip. Doubtless Remington, for his own reasons, wanted to link up all he could of Cairns' chain of operatives. Naturally he had become suspicious of Sperry's appearance in the store. Once started, he had been on the watch, and had recognized him as the driver of the Speedwell car. That would link him up with Baldy, who had furnished the car and vouched for Sperry with the gang.

Baldy must know all this. Sperry found himself in a quandary. If he accomplished the arrest of Cairns, if he could find some one who would listen to him and act, it meant the arrest of Baldy, or at least his pursuit, and Baldy would know that Sperry, whom he had befriended, had double crossed him. He had a good excuse, his own vindication, but— he had eaten Baldy's salt! More, he was himself mixed up with the gang.

Baldy's friendship might have been only the ruse to use him as a tool, to procure the driver they needed, to act as outside man— a mere matter of business. But it would not have been necessary for the man with the mole to have taken him into his own house, to have brought him into close contact with his daughter. He knew what Sperry was charged with; that was whip enough, had he wanted to use it.

Instead, he had left Sperry alone with Elizabeth, had sent them off on a jaunt.

Walking along the lonely roads, Sperry thrashed it out, and found himself at last between two questions, both concerning a woman. There was his mother to be considered, to be rescued from Cairns, to have her faith in her own son restored. And there was Elizabeth, whom he loved— a crook's daughter, but infinitely sweet. How could the two situations be reconciled?

He did not attain the solution until he boarded the early train to New York, at a station ten miles from his own home, trusting to his disguise, keeping his baseball finger well gloved.

He was going to tell Baldy everything that occurred. Crook though he was, the man was square, and he would see both sides of the case. That Baldy would double cross Cairns, having once entered his gang, he could not imagine. Baldy, sore at not meeting his principal, at being used as a cat's-paw, and Baldy playing traitor, were two very different things. But he felt sure that Baldy would find some way to help him out of his dilemma, and he was very certain that his present duty was to warn Baldy, who might be even now proclaimed as traitor to the gang by Remington. If they had not hesitated to leave him in the tomb, what might they not do to Baldy? And to Baldy's daughter? He remembered that they had merely told Baldy that he, Sperry, had given them the slip with cold feet. Were they giving the man with the mole the benefit of tnc doubt until the last job was pulled, needing his aid? Remington, recognizing Sperry, knew that Baldy lied when he called him Gentleman Manning, the Duke, from Chi.

There were a lot of tangles in the skein that all his cogitation failed to unravel ; it failed to anything but merge them into a greater snarl. Arrived at New York in midmorning, he hurried to the house in Greenwich Village, taking especial care to break the direct journey, fearful that something had gone wrong.

Elizabeth met him, smiling. Her daddy, she said, would be back at noon.

"You look worried," said the girl, "and you look— have you seen yourself in a mirror lately? You need repairs."

Sperry regarded himself. The nights in the open had made his false complexion patchy ; the dye in his hair was blotched, and a suggestion of blondness showed plainly at the 'toots.

"You also look hungry," said Elizabeth. "When did you eat last?"

It had been many hours since Sperry had tasted warm food, and he had forgotten breakfast in his hurry. The girl soon remedied that, and presently she was sitting across from him while he devoured ham and eggs and wonderful coffee, with still more wonderful biscuits

What a paradox she was, he thought; fresh with that indescribable suggestion of the open country. How could it be possible that Baldy was her father? A happy solution presented itself. Like himself, she might have only a step-father. But he hesitated to talk to her about it.

As he finished his meal she brought him a box of her father's cigars and an envelope addressed to him.

"Daddy said to give you these if you got back while he was away," she said, and left him to open the communication while she went humming off to get rid of the dishes.

Inside the envelope were two clippings from newspapers, one long, one short. Sperry took the latter first. It read:

Mrs. Simeon Cairns is now staying at the Isle of Pines, and is reported much improved in health. In connection with recent unfortunate family events, Mrs. Cairns stated to our correspondent that she had every reason to believe that these would terminate satisfactorily, particularly with regard to the status of her son, John J. Sperry, though she declared that she had no knowledge of his whereabouts, nor had he personally communicated with her.

Mr. Cairns is not expected to join her this winter. The capitalist is at present in the Berkshires at the family residence.

Here was more bewilderment! What miracle had happened to stiffen his mother's mental backbone in behalf of her son? Had nature proven more powerful than Cairns' suggestions, and had the mother risen in defense of her own flesh and blood? It seemed so. And Sperry thought he could read between the lines of the diplomatic correspondent the prophesy of a disagreement between Mr. and Mrs. Cairns, already brewing. It was good news and it heartened him. The other was not so reassuring. It was a semi-editorial from a New York daily. It was:

'It has long been evident that the series of robberies that the police have been so singularly unable to prevent or follow up are being committed by the same operatives. Each crime bears the distinct marks of inside work, coupled to skillful burglary. The police can find no trace of any endeavor to dispose of the valuables acquired, much less any clew as to who may be the criminals.

They hint vaguely at a master mind, at a powerful organization run upon strictly business principles, if crime may be styled business or allowed any principles. There, having established a hypothesis that bears some claim to being logical, they stop.

It is high time that this reign of terror be ended. Our merchants are not to be left thus unprotected. It must be admitted that some one with a fine mind for details has planned these depredations so successfully carried out. The robbery of Marshall & Co., the jewelers, is a case in point. But four days have passed, and the police acknowledge themselves helpless by their inactivity.

The Comet has before this taken a conspicuous hand in the unraveling of mysteries, as its readers will well remember. We have no desire to usurp the duties of the police, but, if they are unable to secure the services of competent detectives, the Comet stands ready, as heretofore, to volunteer the aid of their own representatives, who have already performed notably in the running down of crime.

The police have no information to give out— or will give none— which is tantamount to admitting that they lack even the clews they so often mention. To convince the public, if they need such conviction, that the Comet is zealous only for the common weal, and is not acting on unadvised impulse, we will state information that has already been unearthed by us to this effect. At least a part of this band of criminals has recently been recruited from Chicago, and it should not be supremely difficult for the commissioner to make inquiries along these lines. If the police department breaks into action that gives promise of success or, at least, of progress, the Comet will gladly remain in its preferred position as recorder of events. Otherwise its readers may expect in its columns the news of a vigorous campaign to uncover the identity of this gang of arch criminals, and bring them to justice. What further information the Comet now has, held back for obvious reasons, is at the service of the commissioner, if he wants it. If not, we will act upon it and— there will be speedy developments.

Sperry felt enmeshed in puzzles. What did this leader in the Comet mean? Baldy had seen it, of course, since he had clipped it. It looked like more danger for the man with the mole and for himself. He also was supposed to be from Chicago. Was it a subtle plan of Remington to get rid of Baldy?

That hardly seemed plausible. The Comet, Sperry, knew, had boosted its circulation enormously by previous brilliant detective work. If it gave out such clews that, as Sperry knew, were true ones, how much more did it have up the managerial sleeves?

When Baldy arrived, he did not do much to enlighten him.

"I thought you would like to see that news about your mother," he said. "So did Bess. She found the item. As for the other, don't worry about it. I don't. Now give me your news."

To Sperry's chagrin, his information did not seem to impress Baldy overwhelmingly. He laid stress only upon one part of the discovery, that Sperry had seen the jewels stowed in the safe that Cairns had installed in the library since he had assumed mastership at Swiftbrook Bowl.

"Your affairs and mine seem to run together, son," he said whimsically. "And we'll straighten out the whole mix before we get through with it, take it from me. Meantime, don't worry about Remington. I've looked out for that. You are back just in time. This trip you will be an inside man. The last job is to be pulled tonight. It is the Agricultural Bank at Longfield, and, of course, your esteemed stepfather and Remington worked out the details of this some time ago, in all probability. Also, Chief Cairns announces this as the final wind-up. He has undoubtedly seen the Comet, and read the writing on the wall. He has agreed to see certain of us as a committee after the job is done. We are to go over from Longfield to Swiftbrook Bowl by motor. You will be with the committee, and maybe you'll have a chance to tell your step-father what you think of him, and come to some agreement."

"But I'm mixed up in this," said Sperry. "Look at this disguise."

"It needs fixing," said Baldy. "Bess will do it. Remember, there are more ways than one of killing a goose and of cooking it. I'm leaving for Longfield on the one-thirty train. You come on the three-thirty. That brings you there well after dark. You know the Olympic Theater?"

"Of course. But it's closed."

"For alterations and repairs. Those repairs are being pushed just now. Night work, decorators and stage carpenters from New York. Get the idea?"

"No," said Sperry; "I'm afraid I don't."

"The Olympic Theater is five doors from the bank. Its opening runs between two stores. These have been closed out under the new lease. I fancy your stepfather is back of that lease, cleverly covered. The repairs give a fine opportunity for what has been going on; a tunnel, starting underneath the stage, runs up and under the main vault of the bank."

"But that vault is at the end of the safety-deposit department," said Sperry. "There is only a heavy rail across, and the bank is lighted at night so that any one passing can see clear down to the end of the vault."

Baldy smiled.

"Wait and see," he said. "Everything is timed for to-night. There is a grip in your room with painters' tools inside of it. Just a precaution. But you take that along and breeze right up to the theater. There's a watchman on there, one of the gang. He'll ask you 'Why didn't you show up at six o'clock?' When you answer, 'I mislaid my card and lost the train,' he'll let you through. Go up back of the stage. The curtain'll be down. There'll be a man or so working on the stage. You stick around ; they won't bother you. If they do, tell 'em you are waiting for Blackberry. When they go under the stage, you go with 'em. That'll be to bring out the stuff. It'll be shipped through the back door. But — here is your job. Don't be the last man out of the vaults or up oh the stage. As soon as there is any indication of the truck being outside, and before they open the stage doors at the back — the double scenery doors — you send up that curtain. It's automatic-hydraulic; works on the right-hand side of the stage. There's a labeled button."

He looked at Sperry keenly.

"Don't bother yourself as to why I'm asking you to do this. It's vital to my affairs and yours. I've picked you for the job. I won't put it on the grounds of gratitude for what I've done. I'm asking you to do it because no one else can handle this. It's a favor to me. If you don't believe in me, call it off right now. There may be a chance of danger in it. But if you do it nicely, that's minimized. I'll be there. Will you do it?"

With the eyes of the man with the mole boring into him, Sperry tried to retain some self judgment, and at the same time to be fair to Baldy. He came to the conclusion that Baldy smelled a trap set for him at the last instant after his usefulness was ended in connection with the job. And Elizabeth's request was plain in his ears.

"I believe in you. Won't you believe in my daddy?" Baldy was his only friend, save the girl. And gratitude did enter into it.

"I'll do it," he said. They gripped hands.

Chapter 8: The End of Baldy

SPERRY swung down the main street of Longfield at nine o'clock, bag in hand, his disguise retouched, and enlarged upon, so that he felt confident of not being recognized. He passed the bank and glanced in. Back of the main floor he could see the wide corridor behind the bronze grating where the safety-deposit boxes and the door of the great vault were clearly visible night and day. All looked as usual. He passed the watchman and went back to the stage. Two men were pottering about with saw and hammer, making a noise but doing nothing definite. One of them challenged him. ft was Curly Conklin, the killer who had tried to pistol Baldy. He did not recognize Sperry, and was satisfied with his answers.

"They're prit' nigh ready for us," he said. "They was right under the floor last night. Truck's to be here at eleven sharp. And, let me tell you, it'll be some haul. They say this is the last trick for a while, and it'll be a good one."

Sperry wondered how they could expect to get away with the loot inside of two hours, with no present signs of disturbance in the bank's interior.

"Are they going through the vault floor?" he asked Curly.

"Not much. It's a foot of steel and concrete. Couldn't make a hole big enough to work through there without giving the snap away. They're coming up in front of the door and torching that. Didn't you twig the picture? Say, that's some job of painting, I'll say. The guy that did it used to be wit' a high-class opery company. You could stand a foot in front of it an' not git wise. These hicks'll stare when they git on termorrer."

Sperry nodded.

"Good work," he said. He knew now what it was. A canvas screen, painted to represent the perspective of the last few feet of the deposit box corridor and an exact representation of the vault door, was set a few feet in advance of the vault, and gave the safe-crackers ample room to work undisturbed while the occasional patrol passed and peered in, sure that all was well. There was no premises watchman in the bank. The utter publicity was relied on. And there had been inside work again to place the screen in position, he supposed.

He leaned up against the side of the curtain, smoking, till Curly admonished him to make some noise.

"Some guys might be rubberin' an' wonderin' why they couldn't hear nuttin'," said the crook. "I'm tellin' you this gang works down to the fine points. It's a shame to bust it up. But the cops is gettin' hep, they tell me."

Presently a man appeared at the open trap in the stage and beckoned to them. Sperry followed the others down wooden steps, and then a ladder, to an earthen tunnel shored with timber, and so on up into the bank and back of the canvas screen, unpainted on that side, deftly fitted to the space. There was a smell of gas, acrid and choking, and Sperry smothered a cough. There was no sign of Baldy or of Remington, with or without his beard. The vault door was swung back, and he had no time to look for signs of the work of the oxy-acetylene torches that had been used. Some one gave a crisp command in a low whisper, and they began to carry out bags of coin and packages of bills.

Up on the stage two men started to place these in old lime barrels, stuffing the tops with excelsior. These were to be placed in the truck, Sperry gathered, together with odds and ends of scenery. There was a clock on the proscenium wall. The hands marked fifteen minutes of eleven.

Sperry looked at the great curtain, blank, unresponsive. What lay behind it? As he started for his second trip to the bank, a man stopped him.

"You ain't needed," he said. "It's all on the way, Duke. Help with them barrels. The truck'll be here any minute."

Sperry fussed around with excelsior, watching the hands of the clock creep to ten and then to five minutes of the hour. There was a sound of wheels outside. He slipped over to the proscenium and touched the button.

Up went the big canvas silently.

Some one shouted at him. "Here, what're you doin'?" Then the voice died away.

In the stage boxes were men, covering the gang with revolvers; more in the orchestra, the muzzles of their guns showing in the border lights of the stage. A man was walking down the center aisle, a big man, with authority in his manner and in the two guns he aimed.

"Up with your hands, the lot of you!" he said. "Up with them, boys! No use trying the back door. There's a truck there, but not the kind you were expecting."

More men were behind him. They swarmed over the footlights and herded up the safe-crackers, taking charge of the barrels. The backdoors were opened and more detectives stood revealed, also a patrol wagon.

"Lord!" said the snarling voice of Curly Conkling, as he glared at the big man who was in charge of the raid. "It's Jim Farrell."

Sperry gave a second look at the detective who had once sent Curly up the river, and whom Curly had mistaken Baldy for, on that night in the alley. Farrell nodded at him curtly.

"You come with us," he said.

Sperry found himself set on one side with two others. The rest were packed into the patrol wagon. The money was being taken back into the bank. Where was Baldy? What had gone wrong at the last moment?

One thing was certain. Sperry himself was in custody. To his surprise no one handcuffed him, though they wrist-manacled the two others, who, with him, were placed in two motor cars with the big man and his assistants. A third car, filled with plain-clothes men, followed .them as they sped through Longfield out into the country.  Sperry recognized the direction, and was soon sure that they were on the way to Swiftbrook Bowl.

They were going to apprehend Cairns! He felt a vicious delight in the thought. Why was he taken along? The others were doubtless members of the committee Baldy had spoken of. They must know his identity, and they wanted to use him in connection with his stepfather's arrest! To that he was willing to subscribe, but he worried about Baldy, principally about Elizabeth.

The third car with the plain-clothes men went ahead of them as they reached the Cairns' house, and the officers jumped from the vehicle and spread themselves about the residence. The big man got out at the front door with two other prisoners and two detectives. Those in Sperry's car joined the group. Farrell spoke.

"I'm going to take off the cuffs, Slim, and off you, Jerry. But don't try any monkey business. When Peters answers the door, you tell him everything's O. K., and that you're the committee, see? Once the door's open, we'll do the rest." He turned to Sperry and caught him by the arm, pressing him out of sight. The detectives stood in the shadows as Slim rang the bell, conscious of automatics covering him, and gave his message to Peters, attired as a butler.

Then there was a swift rush, with Peters knocked down as he tried to pull a gun, a glimpse of Cairns stepping haughtily into the hall and turning ghastly pale under the electrics as Farrell called on him to throw up his hands. Sperry went with the rest into the library.

"The jig's up, Cairns," said Farrell. "We've got the goods on you. If you'll slide back those wall panels so we can get the stuff from Marshall's out of your safe, with a lot of other loot you've got there, you'll save trouble for us all. Don't lower your hands. We want you, not your corpse. Just tell us the combination; that'll do."

Cairns obeyed, trembling, but with rage. He wheeled on Slim and Jerry, his eyes blazing.

"You dirty stool pigeons!" he cried. "I'll get you yet for this."

"They are not the stool pigeons, Cairns," said Farrell. "I'm the only original stool pigeon in this case, if you want to call me one— although your pal Remington was pretty nearly ready to squeal last night. We've had him tucked away safe for a few days, with Gallagher and Martin."

He suddenly took off his hat, and with it came a wig of grayish hair, smiling as he did so. Sperry looked at him open-mouthed. Farrell's head was nearly bald. But the teeth were dazzlingly white, and there was no mole. And yet?

Farrell smiled directly at him.

"I'm Baldy Brown, all right," he said. "Cairns, let me introduce you to your stepson, Jack Sperry. He's been on your payroll lately as Gentleman Manning, of Chi, also called The Duke."

Chapter 9: Jim Farrell

"I HAD to keep you out of the know, Sperry," said Farrell later, now thoroughly identified as the head of a famous agency. "You might have tipped the thing off. As for the disguise— or the camouflage, that was easy, though Curly would have bumped me on general resemblance if you hadn't been Johnny on the spot. I've got a bald head, which, is handy for wigs fitting properly. As Farrell I wear one. My front teeth are bad, and when I had one bridge made, long ago, I had some others finished up in various style. The mole was easy, letting the whiskers sprout to make it more natural.

"You've helped a lot without knowing it. Of course Bess was wise. We have few secrets between us." He grinned knowingly at Sperry.

"Now everything will be straightened out. I don't think your stepfather damaged your mother's property, and as for her, I took occasion to let her know by way of headquarters that her boy was no rascal, if her second husband was. Also I had the Comet tipped off to smooth matters for the climax. I fancy, from the reports, that your mother was rather relieved to have Cairns uncovered. She wants you to go to her, though I'm afraid your appearance will startle her. But I suppose you'll not wait for a little thing like that to stop you."

"I'm glad she knows about things," said Sperry. "I want to see her badly, but there's some one else I'd like to see first, if you don't mind."

"Who's that?" asked Farrell, no longer the Man with the Mole, lighting a cigar.

"You're not such a good detective, after all," said Sperry. "It's Elizabeth."

"Lord bless my soul, you don't say so?" There was a twinkle in Farrell's eyes. "I rather fancy she's expecting both of us to dinner. You can't go to the Isle of Pines by railroad, Sperry, and the next steamer doesn't sail for a couple of days. I've got some details to attend to. Perhaps you had better go ahead. No need to take anything but short cuts this trip, my boy."

But Sperry was gone and Farrell laid down his cigar with a laugh.

"Not such a good detective after, all!" he said softly. "Does he think I'm blind?"

________________________

2: Li Shoon's Nine Lives (a novelette)

H. Irving Hancock

1868-1922

Detective Story Magazine 5 Jan 1917

One of a series of action yarns with super-villain Li Shoon, which appeared in Detective Story Magazine.  Hancock was a once-popular author of many series for juveniles, such as The Motor Boat Club series, West Point series, Dave Darrin series and so on.

Chapter 1: The Hand Of The Dead?

SIX weeks after they were back from their Colorado adventure, Donald Carrick, seated in the carpeted section of Doctor John Fleming's wonderfully compact laboratory, uttered an exclamation of wonder. As the chemist whirled about, he beheld Carrick drawing very hard at his pipe and staring steadily through one of the windows. "

"What's going on outside, to draw such an outburst from my calm friend?" Fleming asked.

"Nothing in the gardenette before this window," responded Carrick briefly, continuing to send up great clouds of pipe smoke.

Fleming, who had started to join his friend, now turned back to a bench on which stood a test-tube rack containing liquid in a dozen test tubes, to which he had just added as many reagents.

For at least three minutes Carrick continued looking out of the window, though he saw no near object. At last, picking up the newspaper, he resurveyed what he had been reading. "That's strange," he muttered.

"Is it permissible to ask what is so strange?" Fleming inquired lightly, as he reached to an upper shelf over the bench and brought down a two-liter bottle of tenth-normal acid.

"Why, the Spokane, of the Blue Stack line, is missing — nine days overdue, and not sighted anywhere," replied Carrick. "She's a freighter, last stop San Jose de Guatemala, bound with general cargo to San Francisco. I own a bit of stock in the Blue Stack line."

"I see," said the chemist, nodding. "Looks, as if she had been lost. How do you relish a slump in the returns from and value of your stock?"

"Not particularly pleased over the prospect," responded the Master Hound, "though at the moment I was not thinking of that. Incidentally, Fleming, the Spokane carried in her strong room something over two million dollars in gold, shipped from South American banks to meet collections in San Francisco."

"But if the Spokane was wrecked," Fleming argued, "the line is hardly responsible for the value of the money."

"The value of the money, in any event, will come out of the pockets of the underwriters at San Francisco," retorted Carrick.

"Let's see," mused Doctor Fleming, clamping to a stand the burette he had just filled with acid solution, and turning around, "wasn't the steamship Halcyon, of the Red M line lost about three weeks ago in the Pacific, with two million and a half in gold on board? You are beginning to see light, I believe, Fleming," said Carrick.

"Not the light that is illuminating or irritating your mind, I fancy," replied the chemist, with a smile. "If the San Francisco underwriters have to face a loss of four million and a half dollars, it must make them peevish. Yet how does it affect you? You haven't any funds invested in marine insurance, have you?"

"Not a penny," Carrick declared promptly.

"Then—"

"But see here, Fleming," went on the Master Hound quickly, "neither steamship can have been lost in a gale, for there was no gale along the Pacific coast at the time either craft was last seen, nor for many days after. Both boats are American owned, had no munitions aboard, so could not have been blown up by submarines. Besides, none of the warring nations have submarines in those waters. It seems highly probable, therefore," that both the Spokane and the Halcyon foundered in smooth seas."

"Did neither craft carry wireless?"

"Both did," Carrick went on, his eyes gleaming. "That makes the mystery all the more dense. No distress signals were received anywhere from either craft."

"But there is" only one class of men who rob ships and then sink them, destroying their crews," the chemist objected. "Such men used to be called pirates, and pirates are extinct in these days of steam."

"That doesn't mean that a new breed of pirates couldn't spring up," Donald Carrick interposed, speaking almost impatiently for one of his equable temperament. "In fact, if piracy has been committed in these two instances, then we are bound to admit that pirates exist, or re-exist. The point, Fleming, is right here. For weeks there have been no other losses in the Pacific, from Panama up, and the only two vessels to vanish are, curiously enough, the only two that carried notable lots of gold coin."

"Does the newspaper say anything that could throw more light on the double mystery?" the chemist inquired.

"Here's the article," replied the Master Hound. "You may read it for yourself."

Hastily the chemist scanned the printed paragraphs, then shook his head, for he ha'd really learned nothing that his friend had not already told him.

"If it weren't a flat impossibility," Carrick went on musingly, "I should be tempted to say that the vanishing of the two ships has "many of the earmarks of the uncanny work of the dread Li Shoon. But that can hardly be, since we saw Li and his satellite, Weng-yu, leap to death over the edge of that Colorado precipice. More, we saw their mangled bodies lying crushed in the gully below."

"That would be proof enough of the death of most men," laughed John Fleming. "But would even such proof hold good in the case of an archfiend and a piece of cleverness like our Chinese friend, Li Shoon?"

Once more Donald Carrick picked up the paper, studying it attentively through eyes one-quarter closed.

"I could almost swear that Li was behind this job," he grumbled.

Fleming sprang to answer the telephone, but quickly swung around to say:

"Telegram for you, Carrick."

The latter moved to the instrument, listening intently. At last he said briskly:

"Send that telegram here in writing, and deliver it as speedily as you can."

Resuming his chair and his pipe, Carrick smoked harder than ever, sending up clouds of smoke, yet uttering no word. Knowing his friend well, Fleming asked no questions, but continued letting a drop at a time fall from the stopcock of the burette into a flask underneath.

Within ten minutes Tako, Fleming's Japanese servant, knocked, then entered, "handing a telegram to the Hound, then silently withdrawing. Tearing off the end of the envelope, Carrick read twice through the message on the yellow page.

"See what you think of this, Fleming," he said finally, and the chemist read:

Your two Chinese fugitives who were supposed to have leaped over the precipice several weeks ago, it turns out, did nothing of the sort. Their supposed remains in the gulch difficult of access were inspected closely yesterday. Proved to be only two stuffed dummies, in Chinese garb, that were thrown down from cave in face of cliff near top. The fugitives really jumped after fastening around their waists concealed ropes tied to roots of big bushes at edge of cliff. Bushes show marks of ropes. Signs in cave, which opens into cliff less than ten feet from top of cliff, show that four or more men, presumably Chinese, lived in cave at least two days, then regained top of cliff and escaped. Nothing has been heard from any of them. Any instructions? Do you mean to come out here to take up clews beginning at cave and gulch?

The telegram was signed by Bowers, sheriff of the Colorado county in which was the mountain precipice from which Carrick and Fleming believed they had witnessed the suicide of Li Shoon and Weng-yu.

"I never did a more foolish thing than not to investigate the two supposed bodies at the bottom of the gully," remarked Carrick, rather bitterly when he saw his chemist friend lay the sheet down.

"It would have taken hours to have reached that gully," Doctor John Fleming responded, "and the scene laid out for us was so real that I do not wonder that even you, Carrick, were fooled. Confound Li Shoon! He appears to possess the nine lives of a cat."

"Li Shoon would make a cat look foolish by comparison," retorted Carrick, more bitterly. "It seems impossible to slay him. I never really thirsted for any man's blood— not even Li's— but I am certain that it would not grieve me greatly if I were to see him cut into small pieces. Only then could I feel certain that he had ceased to girdle this suffering earth with his villainy."

"Are you going to do anything immediately in this matter?" Fleming asked.

"Nothing more than to think about it, if you mean the disappearance of the two treasure ships."

"I have finished this bench work," Fleming continued, as he lifted three racks of test tubes and some other bits of apparatus and stacked them neatly at the back of the bench. "So now, if you do not need me, I thought I would run up to Sylvia's hotel and chance a visit. If she is out, I will come right back."

"What if she has already vanished?" suggested Carrick, though he smiled, for he regarded the chance of that as slight. It was enough, though, to cause Fleming to turn a bit pale. With a spring he was at the telephone, calling up the hotel where Miss Dorrance lived. He soon heard that young lady's voice at the wire.

"If I arrive in about fifteen minutes," inquired the lover, "do I stand a good chance of being able to have a little time with you?"

"An excellent chance," laughed Sylvia.

"Ask if I may call with you?" suggested Carrick. Fleming did so, though he frowned slightly over the request. Lovers have sometimes been known to be impatient of the presence of third parties.

"You are wondering why I wish to go," Carrick continued, as Fleming hung up the receiver. "I shall not dally long, John, but I wish to warn Miss Dorrance, in my own way, against any efforts that Li Shoon's emissaries may make to lure her once more into captivity such as she was forced to endure on two other occasions."

"That will be as well," smiled the chemist thoughtfully. "Though, after what I have said to Sylvia on that very subject, I doubt if she would be likely to be trapped by anything less than downright force."

For five minutes Fleming busied himself with his toilet. Then, passing his own inspection in a mirror, he turned away just as Tako came in to report that the doctor's motor, which he had ordered brought round, stood at the door. Fleming and his friend went out, the former taking his place at the steering wheel. Quite punctually to their appointment, they presented themselves at the hotel desk to have their names telephoned up to Miss Dorrance's rooms. Two minutes later, the callers were received by the elder and the younger Miss Dorrance.

"We did not know but that you had already vanished," smiled Donald Carrick. "Unfortunately, we have news that Li Shoon, though officially dead, is again at large."

"You cannot mean it!" gasped Sylvia Dorrance, much of the color fading from her lovely face.

"It is true," replied Fleming, while Carrick pleasantly inquired:

"Has Li made any effort to get you away from your hotel again, to some point at which you might again fall into his power?"

"No," said Sylvia Dorrance, regaining most of her composure. "On the contrary, in yesterday afternoon's mail I received a much pleasanter letter and one which auntie and I have been wondering if we could not accept. It was from Elsie Duveen, one of my school chums. She and her mother are at Citrusville, California, and they have invited us to spend a few weeks with them."

"California?" quickly inquired Carrick, barely concealing his deep interest.

"Here is the note," said Miss Dorrance, rising, going to a desk, and returning with a folded, scented sheet of paper. "Perhaps you can read Elsie's horrible scrawl. I used to tell her that she had never really learned to write."

"And this is her writing — her own writing?" Carrjck inquired, as he glanced at the letter.

"There can be no mistaking Elsie's handwriting," said Miss Dorrance.

"Thank you," said Carrick, passing back the sheet after having read it through. "Miss Dorrance, may I advise you not to think of starting to California until I am able better to advise you?"

"Why— what— do you really think?" asked the young woman, in astonishment.

"Later to-day I shall be able to tell you just what I think," Donald Carrick replied, rising. "And when I advise you, I shall know!"

Most courteously he took leave of the ladies, next nodding cheerily to Doctor John Fleming, who, despite the little that he knew of the Hound's thoughts, now appeared to be a bit mystified.

As he dropped in the elevator to the office floor, Carrick said to himself :

"At present I suspect old Li Shoon of knowing all about the disappearance of the treasure ships. Inside of two or three hours I think I shall know positively whether that yellow scoundrel is now after the yellow metal of ships on the Pacific!"

Chapter 2:  Smoke From The Blue Stack

STOPPING at the office of the manager of the hotel, Carrick said: "I wish to send a telegram in your name, and will show it to you in a moment."

"I know it will be all right," said his friend the manager.

Seating himself, after the other had handed him a pad of blanks, the Hound penciled this dispatch :

Miss Elsie Duveen, Citrusville, California.

Highly important to know if you recently sent Miss Sylvia Dorrance an invitation to visit you in your present home. Kindly wire answer immediately, collect.

To this Carrick signed the name of the manager and the name of the hotel.

"Will you have this sent for me at once?" asked Carrick, tendering the money with the telegram.

"With pleasure," responded the manager, after a glance at the sheet.

"Then permit me to telephone it to the Western Union in your name, and at the same time I will call up an official in the company, asking him to see to it that both telegram and reply travel at fastest speed west and east."

Within three minutes, Carrick had secured a pledge that the telegram would be "rushed" in the livest sense of the word. The Hound thereupon turned to his friend the manager.

"When the answer comes, you will phone me at Fleming's laboratory, won't you?" he requested.

"Without fail, Carrick."

Outside, stepping into a taxi, Carrick gave the chemist's address, and was quickly back. Once admitted to the laboratory by Tako, the Hound glanced down at his pipe, resting on a table, then shook his head.

"It may turn out that I need sleep more," he mused. Removing his coat, Carrick lay down on the sofa, tossing a blanket loosely over him, for outside the winter air nipped in strong contrast to the uniform warmth of seventy degrees within. Sixty seconds after lying down, the Hound slept, nor opened his eyes until, nearly two hours later, he was disturbed by the ringing of the phone bell.

"Answer to your telegram," proclaimed a voice from the hotel, and he recognized the manager's voice. "This telegram is signed: 'J. N. Skinner, caretaker.' The dispatch reads: 'Miss Duveen and mother now absent for five weeks on trip to Hawaii; due to return in about three weeks.' "

"Thank you, old man," was Carrick's fervent acknowledgment. "The money that I left with you paid the charges both ways? Yes? Thank you. Will you be good enough to send that reply up to Miss Dorrance's room, with a copy of the telegram that I sent in your name? Will you kindly explain to Miss Dorrance that I took the liberty of wiring in your name? And will you kindly tell Miss Dorrance that, under the circumstances, I strongly advise against her taking the California trip? I am sure that she will understand."

Having adjusted matters to his satisfaction, Donald Carrick again stretched himself on the sofa, carefully covering himself.

"It must never be forgotten," he murmured to himself, "that Li Shoon is an adept at forgery, or controls the services of such an adept. Nor must it be forgotten that his yellow and brown crew know well how to secure specimens of handwriting that are to be forged. Miss Duveen did not write the letter that Sylvia Dorrance showed to me. Li Shoon did write it, or caused it to be written. Miss Dorrance must have told him something about Miss Duveen, or else Li obtained his information in other ways. Though twice the trick has proved futile, Li Shoon again sought to get Miss Dorrance where she could be easily taken in under his impelling control, and that in order to have a strong hold on Fleming and myself, compelling our remaining passive. If Li wanted Miss Dorrance under his power in California, then Li is also there, or else he used California as a headquarters. Therefore, considering all the other facts that I now know, one thing is certain: Li Shoon is behind and responsible for the vanishment of the two treasure ships. Will another or some more treasure ships vanish from the surface of the sea? Yes, unless I can succeed in interfering in season."

Having reached this conclusion, Donald Carrick closed his eyes. For something like thirty seconds he remained awake ; at the end of that brief period he was sound asleep, to be awakened only by the abrupt entrance of Doctor John Fleming, who shook the Hound brusquely by the shoulder.

"I've heard," said the chemist quietly. "So Miss Duveen's supposed note was a forgery, committed or inspired by Li Shoon in the hope of getting Sylvia finally in his power. Is there no limit to the ingenuity of that Chinese devil?"

"Apparently not," yawned Carrick, sitting up and reaching for his pipe. "And what I've learned to-day completes my reasons for knowing that Li Shoon knows all about the missing treasure ships."

"A man trained as a chemist," replied Fleming gravely, "would say that you have strong reasons for believing that you know the trend of Li's present activities, but that you lacked anything like logical proof of your suspicions."

"Let it go that way, then," said Carrick, smiling indulgently. "However, Li and his principal men must be at work on the Pacific coast, or else they wouldn't desire to lure Miss Dorrance out there, feeling that for this and the third time they can really hold her from rescue, and that her captivity will still your activities, and, through your friendship, will also induce me to quit looking for the yellow rascal's trail. For it cannot be other than Li Shoon who has conceived the idea of sending Miss Dorrance to California on a most tragic wild-goose chase. Now, my dear fellow, if your chemically trained mind can admit that Li Shoon must be in California, or operating from there, then you must be ready to concede that my next destination must also be California."

"I shall have to grant your reasoning," said Fleming. "More especially as I know you must be right, anyway."

"Ting-a-ling-ling!" called the chemist to the telephone.

"Carrick? Yes, he's here. I'll call him to the machine.

Carrick moved over, listened gravely, then directed quietly :

"Kindly deliver that message to me in writing with utmost speed. Tell the messenger to take a taxi and I'll pay for it."

Turning to the chemist, he asked: "John, how long will it take you to get ready to go to San Francisco, or some other city in California? Yes, you are to go. Oh, of course, I understand your reluctance to go far away from Miss Dorrance, but look at it in another way. The sooner we can know that sod really holds Li Shoon down in the bosom of Mother Earth, the sooner you may feel that Miss Dorrance is wholly safe. For Li will try to get hold of Miss Dorrance every time that he starts in with any new villainy. He has an obsession that she is a hostage who can be used to make us stay our hands. One of these days Li, if he secures possession of your sweet-heart again, will, in an excess of temper, remove her from this earth as a rebuke to us. So the thought causes you to look a bit pale? Then you will surely be glad to go to California with me. For this time we shall surely get Li, and we shall just as surely bring him back to New York. Here he can be convicted of murder and executed. Then, and not till then, will Miss Dorrance be safe, and may we feel that we are through with the yellow wretch and at liberty to pursue happiness in our several ways. So run along and get ready. When you wish, phone Miss Sylvia, of course. Don't forget to tell her that I am going to call on her within half an hour, with her cousin, Mr. Lawrence Semple. You never heard of that 'cousin.' I suppose not. He's in the criminal-investigation line, and a most clever and resolute fellow. Now, don't be jealous, Fleming, even if I am going to ask him to put up at the same hotel, be known as Miss Dorrance's cousin,and escort her about for a while. Semple is middle-aged, a gentleman, bald-headed, and has a wife and four children. He's a decent and cool fellow, and after I leave him at the hotel we may both feel assured as to Miss Sylvia's safety. Phone her now, if you wish, Fleming. I'm going out to meet the taxi."

Nor did Carrick have to wait long at the door. The message was delivered. Carrick, after feeing the boy, carefully read the message before he stepped inside. Then he returned to the laboratory, setting fire to the message and dropping it in the grate.

"The president of the Blue Stack line wired, asking you and me to take up the matter of the disappearance of the Spokane, as the company expects to ship treasure by other steamers of that line," the Hound went on. "You and I are offered our own fees and all expenses to take up the matter on the jump. We can hardly afford, can we, to decline an offer so liberal?"

"I can't," Fleming admitted honestly. "But you? Humph! You own more money now than you will ever spend. You're going to accept the offer, of course?"

"I shall wire my acceptance as soon as I have arranged for the safety of Miss Sylvia Dorrance. And, by the way, Fleming, Semple will be only the outward sign of Miss Sylvia's safety. He will have such help as he needs. It will be part of our expense account for the job that the Blue Stack line will pay. Why not? I shan't attempt to fool the Blue Stack people about it. Now, do you feel like going?"

Chapter 3: The Apparition of the "Budzibu."

"HE has learned to keep under cover well," grumbled the Hound, nearly a month later.

"It is time he did," agreed Fleming placidly. "He appears to have nine lives, but even nine may be lost in time. Besides, there are no more treasure ships sailing. The steamship companies have secretly instructed their masters not to accept specie shipments."

"They will resume presently," declared Carrick, rather moodily. "There will be a ship start up the coast with a whopping treasure as soon as I have found the slightest clew to Li and his scheme of operations. It would be murder and robbery to have treasure brought up the coast with a practical certainty that crew, money, and ship would be lost. But don't think I have been idle, Fleming."

"I know full well that you haven't been idle," was the chemist's grave answer. "We've put in breathless days in San Francisco, and have raked Chinatown with a fine-tooth comb. We have been in Spokane and Seattle; we've been m Los Angeles, fairly taking up the carpet of that town, prying underneath, and now we've been ten days in San Diego, and they've all been busy ones."

The two friends sat just inside the balcony of a parlor in the Del Coronado Hotel at San Diego. Of the suite, two of the rooms were chambers. There was also a dining room and bath. The balcony overlooked the salt water. Near the door to the balcony stood a mounted telescope of unusual power. Two pairs of strong field glasses rested on a table.

"Li Shoon cannot operate unless on the sea," Carrick went on reflectively. "Naturally he would not ship on a treasure craft itself. Hence he must have some vessel of his own. That vessel would have to possess speed, for, on account of the disturbances in Mexico, several United States war craft are sailing up and down the coast. Li or his lieutenants, if overhauling a treasure ship, would need speed. If, while the operation of boarding and robbing was going on, a United States war vessel were to appear, Li would have to have a good deal of speed in order to get away from some of our long-range guns. A craft of from twenty-eight to thirty knots would be needed, or safety could not be secured. That would mean a yacht, for none of the coasting vessels possess such speed. I have had all the yacht registers examined, and cannot find the slightest reason to believe that Li has chartered any craft along this coast. Where, then, did he get his vessel?"

"A submarine, perhaps?" hinted Fleming.

"There are no private ones," returned Carrick with a shrug of his shoulders.

"True, one could be built, but one could not be hidden. It would have to put in somewhere for supplies, and then its existence, even though it had been built secretly, would almost surely be known."

"There are little ports or bays along the western coast of Mexico where it could be hidden," Fleming suggested. "Mexican rebel officials could be bribed to keep the secret, and could sell supplies at outrageous prices."

"A Mexican rebel official might be bribed for most things," Carrick returned, "but it would be difficult indeed in the case of a submarine. The Mexicans of all factions are daily looking for a possible war with this country. They have no submarines, but would sell their souls to own one, for in the event of our making war upon them, their coasts would be blockaded. They would prize a submarine that they could send out on a mission of sinking blockading craft. No, there is hardly a shade of a chance that Mexican rebels would protect Li Shoon in running into one of their smaller bays or harbors, or even in appearing along the open coast. Besides, a submarine does not possess speed enough to make sure of her overtaking a liner. The chance would be too much of a hit or miss to please Li Shoon's longing for sure things. Fleming, we must find Li's craft in some above-water craft, and she must be an unusually swift one— therefore a yacht."

The chemist did not argue further. He knew that his friend was generally right in his deductions. Instead, the chemist, rising, sauntered close to the balcony, while Carrick, lounging back in his chair, blew smoke lazily toward the ceiling.

"I wonder if a yacht like that one could be fast enough?" said Doctor Fleming, a few minutes later.

Instantly the Master Hound was upon his feet, snatching up a glass and gazing intently.

"If that boat's engines match her lines," cried Carrick eagerly, "she should be good for thirty knots an hour. See! She's making for the harbor: going to put in here. I'll know in a jiffy what craft she is, and my new friend at the customhouse will hold his tongue about my inquiry, too."

Carrick seated himself at the telephone table and called for one of the officials at the customhouse. A short conversation ensued, to which Fleming did not pay much heed, for he was busy with the field glasses that he had snatched up.

"Carson will find out as speedily as possible all about that yacht," Carrick announced at last. "I shall remain here until he calls me."

"Do you wish me to motor over to the harbor?" Fleming inquired.

"No, for if that yacht be really commanded by Li Shoon or one of his lieutenants, what more could you do than show yourself and perhaps put the Chinese on their guard?"

So Fleming continued to watch. Presently he reported that the yacht had run into the harbor and had moved as though going to a pier, but obstacles prevented his seeing either the craft or her possible berth.

"She went in under good speed. I noticed that much," the chemist added.

Twenty minutes later, the phone bell rang. Carrick jotted down the information that the yacht was the Budzibu, of Dutch Sumatran register, with a Mr. Ronnvald aboard as owner, with a party of guests. A customs inspector had reported that he saw no Chinese in the crew or among the guests. The yacht had put in for oil fuel and supplies, and would put to sea again as soon as these had been obtained. The owner was cruising for pleasure, and had not decided upon his course or next port of call.

"That's unusual," Carrick added, after he had told Fleming the news he had received. "I'm going to note that craft a little closer."

Calling the office, Carrick ordered a car with closed body to be at the hotel entrance immediately.

"Come along, Fleming," requested the Hound, after examining his automatic revolver and glancing at a set of papers that he drew from an inner pocket.

The car swiftly bore them to a point from which they could examine the wharf at which the Budzibu lay. It was plain that great activity was being displayed in the loading of the yacht.

"They're filling the yacht's fuel-oil tanks with two great hose pipes," Carrick explained. "It is altogether suspicious speed. One would expect the owner and his friends to want a little time ashore after having been for days at sea. We'll take a chance or two,

Fleming. Perhaps the yacht won't sail as early as planned. I'm going to headquarters, get some policemen, and go on board. I have with me a duplicate copy of the New York warrant for the arrest of Li Shoon, Weng-yu, and Ming. We can take two officers with us in this car, and a whole motor patrol wagonload of policemen can reach the water front not far behind."

"And there will have to be some lively apologizing done if it proves that none of our fugitives are on board."

"I'm a very convincing apologizer," said the Hound, smiling. Then he leaned forward to give the chauffeur his orders. There was but brief delay with the police. Two policemen stepped into the car, and more were ordered into a patrol motor. Swift time was made to the water front. Just as the car turned into the short street leading to the wharf, Carrick uttered an exclamation of rage.

"There is the Budzibu putting out already!" he announced, pointing. The yacht was, indeed, making for open water at a speed of not less than twenty knots.

Stopping the chauffeur, Carrick jumped out to confer with the police lieutenant in the patrol motor. That lieutenant was a gem in the way of knowledge of San Diego's water front. The patrol motor returned, as useless, but one of the two policemen in the car took a seat with the chauffeur, while the lieutenant seated himself beside Carrick.

Within five minutes, the ocean-going tug Terence was steaming out of the harbor at her best speed, fourteen knots, turning south after the now vanishing Budzibu. That police lieutenant on shore with his two remaining men had most complete instructions for telegraphing. Donald Carrick, in a craft of half the speed, had begun his chase— around the world, if need be— of the Budzibu.

Yet aboard the Terence, unsuspected by one even as astute as the Master Hound, Chinese ears listened attentively to the words that passed between Donald Carrick and Doctor John Fleming, as they sat in the tiny cabin that had been turned over to them.

Chapter 4: Devotee of the Sporting Chance

"WE'RE in the open water now," announced Carrick, filling his pipe as he glanced through the cabin window. "It will be a long chase, my friend. You didn't hear my instructions to the police lieutenant, did you?"

"It was needless," replied the chemist, with a wave of his hand. "I knew that you knew what you were doing, and you didn't need my help."

"Do you believe that this fourteen-knot boat can overtake the Budzibu, with her best speed of twenty-eight knots?"

"It can if you say so and plan it," replied Fleming, with easy confidence.

"I'm not quite such a fool," replied Carrick. "The yacht Vulcan, with a best speed of twenty-nine knots, is two hundred miles up the coast, and on her way south. I ordered her, four days ago, to be fitted and sent to a little bay twenty miles north of San Diego, that I might have her at need. I gave Lieutenant Allen a message that the Vulcan's master will understand. He will chase this tug, which has wireless of an amateur order. Some time to-morrow the Vulcan will overtake us, and we'll transfer to the right boat. After that— the real chase."

"But why didn't you wait for the arrival of the Vulcan?" Fleming asked wonderingly.

"Because no one can tell what will happen to, or on, the Budzibu before to-morrow," replied Carrick gravely.

"But if you overhaul the strange yacht at sea, what then?" Fleming asked. "You have no authority to board her, and can do so only by courtesy. If Li Shoon is on board, and in charge, surely you wouldn't trust much to his courtesy."

"Events will have to provide for themselves," was the enigmatic answer, which caused the listening Chinaman, English educated though he was, to hold his breath and wonder.

It was in the wainscoting that the Chinaman stood hidden. Not only was his place of secrecy secure, but he had easy means of leaving that hiding place to go to any part of the tug. Li Shoon, knowing that Donald Carrick could always be counted upon to dog his steps, had surely left the Master Hound and his chemist comrade well watched in New York. So cleverly had the trailing work been done that, though Carrick had not once detected any sign of shadowing, their whole course since leaving New York had been closely watched.

And this Chinese member of Li Shoon's fraternity of evildoers had succeeded in secreting himself aboard the Terence because he knew when to expect the strange Budzibu in port, and also because the Terence was the fastest tug at that port. Li Shoon meant to know whether Carrick was really trailing him. In the event that Carrick tried to follow in the Terence, plans had already been laid for sendirig that tug to the bottom of the ocean!

As he listened, the stolid young Chinaman— he did not appear to be past thirty, and was dressed in white man's attire of a rough, seagoing sort, looked puzzled, but soon a wicked grin overspread his face.

"It will be rough on me," he mused. "If this tug transfers her passengers to the Vulcan, I could not hope to smuggle myself into the transfer. But Doctor Li Shoon's orders provide for the alternative of destroying the tug before help for Carrick can arrive. This tug will have to go to the bottom, with all on board, including myself, unless I can manage to provide myself, unseen, with a life preserver. No matter! My life does not count as much for the Ui Kwoon Ah-how as Carrick's does against it. I can die with our enemies."

The stolid shrug with which that was said was quite worthy of the traditions of murderous unselfishness belonging to the dreaded body, the Ui, Kwoon. Many yellow members, and some brown— lascars and Malays— had already sacrificed themselves in other treasure-amassing adventures.

"As I may have to be up a good deal to-night," Carrick presently proceeded, "I shall turn in now for forty-one or forty-two winks. And you, Fleming?"

"I am not sleepy now," returned the chemist. "I shall take the air on deck."

Doctor John Fleming passed out on deck, using his sea legs as the Terence plowed southward against the considerable swell on the water. The Master Hound was soon asleep. The watching Chinaman in the wainscoting softly opened a hitherto invisible panel that he had constructed three days before. Through the narrow slit thus made the Mongol eyes studied the sleeping face of Carrick.

"Shall I slip into the cabin and stab him?" pondered the member of the Ui Kwoon. "But Carrick has the name of being a light sleeper. I might shoot him, but the boat is rocking. If I only wounded him, and could not make good with a second shot, then my mission would be defeated. I must not lose my chance through haste. A few hours' patience, and then I can condemn all these Americans to death!"

So the panel closed as noiselessly as it had opened. Carrick slept on dreamlessly.

Five minutes later, the panel again opened. Ling Cheng, devotee of the sporting chance, had been unable to resist the temptation to bewilder and perhaps warn his enemies— the enemies of Ui Kwoon.

In his hand he held a tiny atomizer. Noiselessly he sent sprays in two or three directions into the little cabin. As the panel closed, a subtle, pleasing odor filled the room— one compounded of llang-llang and sandalwood.

And now Donald Carrick really dreamed. Some unanalyzable influence of that long-unsmelled but not-to-be-forgotten odor caused him to dream of that hidden Chinese rendezvous in the Philippines in which he had, years before, first come face to face with that prince of deadly plotters, Doctor Li Shoon.

But the dream passed, though for a few seconds the gentleman adventurer stirred uneasily in his berth. Half an hour later, the door opened to admit Doctor John Fleming. The Hound opened his eyes.

"I say, Carrick, what is this strange, baffling odor?" demanded the chemist.

"It smells like— let me see! Sandalwood, or llang-llang, o— hang it!— both of them!"

"I do catch some odor," assented Donald Carrick, sniffing. "And now it is plainer."

The next instant his features displayed a singular gravity. It was the nearest thing to terror that any man had ever seen on the Hound's face.

"I smelled that odor first on a terrible night," he went on. "It was then the dominant scent in Li's headquarters, many thousands of miles from here. But it must be imagination— here, at sea, on the Terence."

"If it is," declared Fleming seriously, "then it is odd, isn't it, that your imagination equally affects me, and I never smelled this combined, compounded odor before?"

"Yes, the scent is quite unmistakable," agreed the Hound, sitting up and drawing on his shoes. "I cannot account for it."

"Is it possible that some of that Chinese crowd can be on board this boat?" cried Fleming.

Donald Carrick surveyed his friend with a queerly quizzical smile.

Chapter 5: Wireless And Wave Crest

AFTERNOON had changed to night.

The two passengers had dined with Captain Mike Rourke. The early evening passed. Carrick and his friend were in the captain's cabin as the tugboat plowed along a few miles away from the coast.

It had been left to the bow watch to report the unlikely event of sighting the long-vanished Budsibu.

In a tight little hutch back of the boat's pilot house, the wireless operator leaned back in his chair, headpiece adjusted on the chance of picking up the signal "Q— Q— Q" at any hour during the night.

From somewhere aft on the hurricane deck a figure might have been sighted, hiding cautiously behind a lifeboat, only his head showing. It was Ling "Cheng, sometimes the devotee of the sporting chance, but now neither taking nor giving foolish chances.

Only the mate in the wheelhouse and the bow watch were observing the course or neighborhood of the craft. These two and the wireless man were the only ones visibly on duty. The door of the wireless room hung ajar.

With an evil smile, Ling Cheng studied the scene. It was one nearly to his complete liking. By the aid of a tiny flash light he cautiously read the position marked by the hands over the dial of his watch.

"From the course and the time elapsed since leaving San Diego harbor I can come very close to giving our position," he told himself, with a low chuckle. "And the wireless man need not be long in the way! Yet I must be wonderfully careful until after I have sent my own wireless word!"

After listening intently, Ling moved forward in the felt-soled shoes he had donned for this grisly work. His eyes taking in all that was to be seen, Ling glided on through the night like an apparition.

In the wireless room, eyes closed, ready after the manner of his kind to open them at the first click through his headpiece, the operator undeniably dozed. Larry Dorkins would never wake again.

There came a swift flash, a burying of steel through flesh and between vertebrae. The knife was withdrawn, again plunged and withdrawn. There were some blots of blood- on the floor, but that mattered not in Ling Cheng's design. Picking up the slight body of the late wireless man, Ling bore it to the starboard side of the hurricane deck. The boat was wallowing in a rough sea. Watching the most favorable instant, Ling cast all that was left of Larry Dorkins far out, so that it splashed in the sea and was swiftly astern on the waves.

Then Ling turned, though even his stolid disposition recoiled when he heard the incredulous, wrathful bellow of Captain Mike Rourke as that doughty master bounded from the top of the railed deck-house ladder to the deck.

Not a word was spoken, but the master came on warily, without waiting to summon help. Ling crouched and waited, gauging his man and judging that the encounter was one of life and death. Worse! Unless Ling came out victor, there was but scant chance that he could send his message over the waters!

So the two faced each other, but Mike Rourke was not the type of man to favor delayed action. Warily, yet with a bound full of latent power, the tug's master leaped at the Chinaman. Ling ducked, dodged, then struck with the knife.

But Rourke, expecting that, was not to be caught at the other end of the dagger. Instead, his right fist crashed against the Chinaman's arm, breaking it. The dagger dropped to the deck.

"One murddher is enough for ye in a night!" bellowed Rourke, as he gripped his man, holding him with one massive hand by the collar. Like an eel, Ling Cheng sought to slip out of that coat, only to find his left arm held crushingly in one of Rourke's massive hands.

"It's not gettin' away ye'll be doing!" uttered the master grimly, shaking the prisoner as if he would empty him. "Watch below, there! Bow watchman! Is that you? Send Donovan to the foot of the laddher!"

In a trice Donovan, a deck hand, scarcely less powerful looking than Rourke himself, reached the foot of the ladder and hailed.

"Here I am, wid a lad I want ye to take hold av," roared Captain Rourke, appearing with his captive. "His right forearm is broken, but break his head as well, Donovan, av he thries to give ye the slip. Even av he does give ye the slip, let it be nowhere but overboard!"

With that, and steadying himself expertly despite the lurches of the wallowing tug, Mike Rourke passed the yellow man down to Donovan, who reached up to take the human offering;

"I dunno where this yellow ape came from," announced Rourke, "but he killed Dorkins, I misthrust, an' threw him overboard. Hould him, Donovan!"

Then, still awake to all his duties as master, Rourke ran to the wheelhouse, where he gave orders to make a short turn and put about over the foam-indicated course as closely as possible. In another instant the bow watchman's hoarse tones tumbled all hands on deck.

Carrick and Doctor Fleming, barely in their cabin, noted the abrupt changing of the course, accompanied by the noise of swift orders.

"Something out of the ordinary has happened," remarked Carrick, bounding up and opening the door. He and the chemist were soon on the deck. The first very tangible object on which their gaze lighted, as displayed under a deck light, was the now rather crumpled figure of Ling Cheng in the relentless grip of Donovan.

"How did this man get aboard?" demanded Carrick, indicating the prisoner.

"Ask the captain— he don't know," retorted the deck hand. "Naythur do I. But this yellow snake threw Dorkins, the wireless man, overboard. We're putting around to foind him av it can be done."

Then a white glare shot over the waters ahead. The Terence's searchlight was being employed in the task of keeping as close as possible to the widening and gradually vanishing track of white foam left by the tug's propellers.

"Don't let that scoundrel slip away," urged Carrick, and strode forward.

Long, keen, and earnest was the quest, for Mike Rourke believed that Larry Dorkins might be still alive and swimming more or less feebly. Rourke was no man to abandon another. He was a finely competent master of his seafaring trade, and bawled his orders from the bow to the wheelhouse. Yet presently even a' man of Rourke's resource and resolve was forced to give up the quest. If Dorkins' body still floated, it had been impossible to pick up a glimpse of it on the crest of any white-capped wave or in the darker shadows of the trough of the sea. With a gulp, and a tear in either eye. Captain Rourke was at last compelled to give the order to put about and follow the course. Yet for a full three miles on the resumed southerly course that searchlight was kept playing over the waters ahead.

"D'ye see how I can do anny more av me duty?" Rourke demanded hoarsely at last.

"You have done your full duty, captain," Donald Carrick assured the tug's master.

"Then it's time to find out what we can be learning from that— begging your pardon, sir-r!— that dhirty hay-then scoundhrel. I've bro-oken his ar-rm, but I'll be breaking his hear-rt av he doesn't begin tellin' all about himself and his dhirty wor-rk!"

Chapter 6: Stranger or Pirate?

IT was time to devote some attention to Ling Cheng, for the members of the crew were giving him an unwelcome amount of consideration. Donovan was doing his best to keep his grip on the captive, and at the same time to fight off four angry deck hands who appeared bent on at least a partial lynching of the unpopular Mongol.

"Captain," shouted Donovan, "I'll be glad whin ye're relievin' me," came hoarsely from the temporary captor. "It's not much longer I'll be able to hould on to the pig-tailed reprobate."

"Avast there, lads!" bellowed Rourke, striding down the deck. "Shove off there, will ye? If it's anny wan to be killin' the yellow lowlife, I'll be doin' it mesilf. 'Twas I that caught him red-handed!"

Elbowing his way through, Captain Rourke grabbed hold of Ling, nodding to Donovan to step aside.

"Drown the heathen!" demanded the crew angrily.

"I'm not blamin' ye, lads," retorted Captain Mike Rourke, "an' maybe we'll soon be doin' that very thing. It'll all depind on the way the scoundhrel talks up an' tells what he knows. Come along wid ye, chink!"

Into the dining room Rourke dragged Ling Cheng, that being the largest room available for an inquisition. Having hurled the yellow man inside and beckoned Carrick and Fleming to follow him, Rourke carefully locked the door, dropping the key into his own pocket.

"Now, stand up, me lad, an' let me frisk ye," ordered the tug's master, forcing Ling to stand in the middle of the room away from the tables folded against the walls. Rourke ran his hands up and down over the Chinaman's clothing, without finding any weapons. Ling had left a revolver in his hiding place in the wainscoting.

"Ye've no fightin' tools on ye," Rourke conceded at last. "Now, ye yellow disgrace, talk up for yersilf. What can ye say?"

Ling Cheng shook his head, as though to convey that he did not understand.

"Ye can talk some English, all right, I'll be bound," Rourke roared at him. "Now, will ye make a good thry, or do ye prefer some av this?"

"This" was the burly fist that the master shook under the assassin's nose.

"I'm beggin yer pardon, gintlemin," Rourke continued, glancing at his passengers, "but this is a black-hear-rted murtherer, an' he killed wan av me crew. So, av he won't condescind to talk, thin the least I can do will be to trim his face for him."

"Go ahead," said Carrick, who did not see the necessity for applying the rules of ordinary humanity to one of Li Shoon's aids.

"Now will ye talk? Last call!" warned Rourke.

But the Chinaman again shook his head, whereupon Rourke let fly with his fist, hurling Ling across the room, the Chinaman folding up into a heap on the floor. After him sprang the tug's master, picking up the wretch and administering to him a shaking that threatened to dismember the wretched victim. This course was punctuated with blows that must have left welts.

"Now, thin, what's your name, your josh-house name, mind ye!" bellowed Rourke.

"Ling Cheng," came rather promptly.

" Good enough!" vouchsafed Rourke. "Now, ye've shown that ye know English, So be quick with yer other answers. How did you come to be on this boat?"

"No savee," replied Ling, trying to look perplexed.

"Ye'll savee all right whin I'm through wid ye," retorted Rourke, administering more of thje recent treatment. Ling must have ached from head to foot when Rourke hurled him to a sitting posture in a chair. "Now, thin, tell me how ye came aboard this boat!"

"Me stow awhile," chattered Ling.

"Stowed away, ye mean? All right! Why did ye do it?"

"No savee."

Smash! Whack! Ling suffered from the course in chastisement. When Rourke's question was repeated insistently, he at length answered:

"Me think you go mebbe Mexico side. Me want get there — no pay fare."

"And was that why ye murthered me wireless man?" demanded Rourke.

Again Ling Cheng was troubled by a fit of silence. Nor could Rourke's fistic persuasion induce him to talk.

"Ye'd better be tellin' me," the tug's master warned the yellow assassin. "Av ye don't, I may decide to let me crew in here. Av I do, they will get something out av ye, av it's only yer life."

But Ling persisted in remaining sullenly silent. Rourke was too big-hearted, possessed too large a sense of fair play to go beyond a certain point in manhandling even a Chinese assassin.

"Bad luck to ye, thin, for an obstinate haythen!" growled the tug's master.

"As ye won't talk at all, thin we'll l'ave it to the American courts to take it out av ye wid the electhric chair. Ye'll get that, all right, as soon as I return wid ye to the States and hand ye over to the law. In the meantime, 'tis no chance ye'll have to betther yersilf wid not speakin'. Ye've shown that ye can undherstand English, and ye'll do no eating, nor drink anny wather, until ye've loosed up the joints av yer tongue. So now I'll be takin' ye to a room that ye'll find to be as stout a brig as iver aven a decent American sailor was iver locked up in. Come on wid ye!"

Gripping Ling's collar, Rourke led him to the door, unlocked it, and stepped with his prisoner out on to deck to face the wrathful, waiting crew.

R-r-rip! Swift as a flash, the seemingly cowed Ling Cheng tore out of his jacket. "Away from the captain he bounded, diving between two deck hands.

"Gr-r-rab him!" bellowed Mike Rourke.

But all hands reached the rail too late. Leaping up there, Ling, without an instant's hesitation, dove into the sea. He sank, as though his body had been drawn in under the craft's hull.

All in one breath, Rourke gave the order to turn and put about. In a wide arc the tug obeyed her helm. Back over the course went the tug, and again the searchlight was brought into play. But the quest was in vain, and Rourke at last felt forced to give the order to go about and resume the course.

"Av he'd only done the last thrick first," grumbled Mike Rourke, "I'd still be havin' Larry Dorkins wid us in the wireless room."

"Have you any other man fitted to do the wireless work?" Carrick inquired.

"Not a one," rejoined Rourke. "'Twas that quick ye called me into ser-rvice the day that I had no time to get hold of me other wireless man, Jim Shea."

"Then I must get up to the wireless room," Carrick went on. "There must be some one listening for signals, or the master of the Vulcan would deem himself on the wrong course, and perhaps turn aside."

Fleming, with Rourke, accompanied Carrick to the wireless room, where the three men gazed solemnly at the blood-stains on the floor; but Carrick, his work of the night on his mind, sat down, adjusting the headpiece that had been so rudely wrenched from the head of Dorkins.

Not during the next hour was there a call, such as he listened for. At last Carrick, bending forward over the key, tested the apparatus. Though weak, it responded to the test.

"Q— Q — Q" signaled the Hound into the air. He waited, but no response came.

"The current doesn't drive far enough for the Vulcan to pick us up, I imagine," he commented to the chemist.

"Or else, perhaps, Li Shoon has agents on that yacht, as he had aboard this craft," Fleming suggested solemnly.

"It doesn't seem possible, and yet it may be the case," Carrick assented, after a few moments' thought. "If the Vulcan is done for, then so is our quest for the present, anyway, for she was the one and only boat of the right speed that I could find for our task."

It was after one in the morning, and Rourke had turned in, when the voice of the bow watch reached the ears of the friends in the wireless room as he hailed :

"Strange craft five points off the port bow, sir. Seems to be making off from the Mex shore, sir. Thought I saw her use her searchlight for a single, short flash, but it's dead just now."

Fleming bounded outside. Carrick, laying aside his headpiece, followed quickly. Both edged around to the port side of the wheelhouse, to find the second mate, who had turned the wheel over to a man, sweeping the shoreward horizon with a night glass.

"Can you make out anything?" Carrick asked.

"Yes, sir; there's a craft there. I can make out masts, but no hull. She must be under power, but I can't make out any smoke cloud."

"An oil burner, then?" hinted the Hound.

"Must be, sir. I'm wondering if I'd better call the captain."

"Do you think the stranger is traveling full speed?" demanded Carrick.

"Too far away to be certain, sir, but I should say she was."

"Then you would better call Captain Rourke," advised Donald Carrick quietly, while to Fleming he added, in an undertone: "If it's the Budzibu, then perhaps Ling succeeded in signaling her before fate overtook him, and she's trying to overhaul us."

" 'Trying' to overhaul us?" retorted the chemist. "She won't have to try. That greyhound can't fail to overtake this slab-hulled sea cripple! If she overhauls us, it will be a trip to the bottom for us!"

"What did you say, sir?" inquired the second mate.

"My friend was just saying," replied Carrick calmly, "that it will be a very excellent idea to call Captain Rourke and to tell him that I'm afraid we're running into more trouble than he'd be willing to believe."

"Anything more than that, sir?" persisted the watch officer.

"Isn't that enough?" demanded the Master Hound. "How strong a message does it take to call your captain from his bunk in the middle of the night? If that doesn't rout him out, just whisper the word, 'Pirates!' But hurry, my friend! Davy Jones is waiting for us at the bottom of the ocean!"

Chapter 7:  Suspicion And The Searchlight

CAPTAIN MIKE ROURKE was speedily on deck.

"What's this I'm hearin' about a pirate?" he demanded, as he picked up a pair of glasses and stood at the open port window of the wheelhouse.

"That craft over yonder," Carrick answered quietly.

"A pirate, eh?" remarked Captain Mike, taking a long look through the glass. "Don't ye call that inthresting, sir-r?"

There was no hurry in his voice or manner. On the contrary, it was plain that he by no means discredited the information that had been offered him.

The strange craft, the Budzibu, or whatever she was, remained for several minutes at about the same angle on the port bow. She was making much faster time than the Terence could do, and was plainly moving to intercept the tug.

"Would ye be afther likin' me to change the course?" asked Captain Rourke.

"What would be the use?" questioned Carrick. "That craft can overtake us, and changing the course would be interpreted as conscious flight on our part."

Nearer and nearer dashed the overtaking yacht. Her hull was now plainly visible.

"It's the Budzibu, an' no mistake," commented Captain Rourke, now out on the deck behind the wheelhouse, as he studied the stranger. "I mar-rked her well whin she came into por-rt."

"I'm going to get out of sight before she plays the searchlight on us," declared Carrick. "I might be recognized, if that yacht is bossed by the man who I think controls her movements."

"What shall I say, av we're hailed?" demanded Mike Rourke.

Carrick gave the master some general instructions.

"And on the way you handle the matter, captain," finished the Master Hound, "will probably depend the safety of your craft and of all on board."

"I'll do me best to bring ye through safely, sir-r," promised the tug's master. "It'll not be my fault av ye and yer friend come to har-rm."

"I'm not thinking of myself, nor of my friend," replied the Master Hound gravely. "Fleming and I took these chances deliberately. I shall be sorry if I am the means of bringing you and your men to grief."

"It won't be the fir-rst time that anny av us has faced throuble," rejoined Rourke. "And, av we get through wid this, it won't be the last time we'll face throuble, ayther, I'm thinking. But I thank ye for the thought av us, sir-r."

Carrick and Fleming slipped into the wheelhouse, where, away from the windows, they could slip out of sight at need.

Ten minutes later, with the yacht not more than a mile and a half distant, the broad, white band of her searchlight shot across the sky, then dropped full across the Terence.

"Shall I return the compliment by givin' her a glimpse av our own light?" queried the master, standing near the wheelhouse window.

"It could do no good," Carrick answered.

Presently Rourke reported :

"She's overhauling us right fast, sir-r, an' there goes her whistle to signal us that she'd like us to lay to for a hail."

"It would look strange if you didn't oblige," the Hound answered.

So bells jangled in the tug's engine room, and by degrees the Terence slowed down, running under reducing headway and then rolling on the waves.

"Ahoy, tug!" came the hail through a megaphone, as the yacht, also barely moving, rounded in as close as was safe. The voice from the yacht, though hailing in English, betrayed more than a trace of foreign accent. "Where are you headed, tug? What business?"

"Me own business, sure!" Rourke bawled back, in a seemingly good-humored voice, his lips to a megaphone.

"Have you any objection to answering us candidly?" came the demand.

"Surely not, since ye're askin' us in a civil way," Rourke returned. "The Red M two-stacker Pearl City is in some throuble wid her propeller shaft, and we're undher or-rders to proceed down the coast and stand by. Maybe we'll be r-reaching her be daylight, or an hour later."

"We didn't hear any wireless signals from the Pearl City," remarked the voice from the yacht suspiciously.

"Then I'm glad ye didn't, av ye're in the same business as mesilf," retorted Rourke, a grin in his voice. "I'm wanting the Pearl City job all to myself. But ye're a gintleman's yacht, aren't ye?"

"Yes."

"Then ye'll not be thryin' to take the job from me, for I want it, and ye've more speed."

"You know well enough that this is a pleasure yacht," came gruffly from the Budzibu.

"I've the best av reasons for knowin' it," Rourke retorted, good-humoredly. "You tould me so yersilf."

"I think I'll send a boat aboard of you," continued the voice from the yacht.

"Are ye in disthress?" queried Rourke.

"We are not."

"Thin ye'll sind no boat aboar-rd av us," declared Captain Mike. "Be yer own confession ye're no mon-o'-war, and ye'll put on none av the airs av wan."

"Rourke is handling it well," Carrick whispered in, "but the Budzibu is plainly suspicious. There are six life preservers in this wheelhouse, Fleming. Keep your eye on one of them if we're sunk."

"I'd sooner go to the bottom at once than prolong the agony," the chemist answered.

"Cap', sir," almost whispered the second mate, "there's a searchlight roaming the sky to the south of us."

Rourke wheeled, saw the distant flash of the new light, and took his cue.

"Ye'll have to be excusin' me, captain," Rourke bawled through the megaphone. "Av I'm not mistaken, that's our customer looking for us now to the south 'ard av here. Good-by, and thanks for the talk. Full speed ahead, Mr. Riley, as soon as the engine is turnin' well."

Instantly the second mate rang for half speed, the engine room responding. From the Budzibu there was no further hail, though two men could be made out as they stood, enveloped in caps and long coats, beside the yacht's officer on the bridge.

"Within three minutes, at the latest, we ought to know whether we are going to be safe for the present," Carrick declared, as Captain Rourke, turning his back to the yacht, leaned in over the window sill.

Second Mate Riley, leaving the wheel in the hands of a deck hand, was now busy uncovering the tug's searchlight.

"Better signal and ask what ship is to the south of us," suggested Donald Carrick, and Rourke gave the order.

"Sometimes Heaven is good to liars!" ejaculated Riley, as the unseen stranger answered with her flash light in the code. "That craft is really the Pearl City."

" 'Twas likely she would be," assented Mike Rourke. "Whin I lied to save me boat and its people, I gave the name av a steamer I knew was comin' up the coast, or was due to."

A bare quarter of a mile away, and still holding to the tug at reduced speed, the Budzibu seemed to watch as though her controlling spirits felt that their worst suspicions were about to be realized.

"How'd she be sinkin' us, av she thried it?" Rourke asked suddenly, after a glance over his shoulder.

"Probably she carries, concealed, a quick-firing cannon or two," Carrick replied. "She may even have a torpedo tube, though I would doubt that, for a tube is not easily concealed when making port."

Again the yacht's searchlight lay broadly across the tug.

"She'll not give up thinkin' bad av us," muttered Rourke.

"It'll be all r-right, sir-r, av she does nothing more than thinkin'," ventured the man at the wheel.

"But if she fires on us," suggested Rourke, "surely the noise av her guns'll be heard by the Pearl City."

"It wouldn't bother the scoundrels on that yacht to sink the Pearl City as well," Carrick answered.

"Thin I don't see much hope for us," Rourke growled. "For the boss av that yacht, 'tis plain, doesn't like the looks av us at all. See the way the sea terrier hangs at our heels."

Taking off his cap, and at infinite pains to expose only the top of his head, Carrick glanced swiftly out between Rourke's broad body and the window frame.

"She's undoubtedly going astern to rake us," declared the Master Hound gravely. "The Budzibu must mount her gun or guns forward."

Chapter 8: Danger's Haunting Look.

KEEPING just about a quarter of a mile astern the yacht followed along. The tug did not deviate from its course, nor was any one allowed to be visible on the Terence aft, for that would have looked as though the master of the tug believed the Budzibu to be dangerous.

None the less, Carrick, Fleming, and Captain Rourke had gone below. They now watched the yacht through the ports of the darkened after cabin.

"Li Shoon may decide to follow us along until he learns whether the Pearl City really needs your help," said Carrick, after a while. "If he finds that he has been fooled, Li will then not hesitate to sink both the tug and the liner."

"Why should he be such a murdhering scoundhrel?" asked Rourke.

"He's an international criminal," Carrick replied, rather evasively. "He's already wanted on a wholly provable charge of murder, so that nothing he can do would bring him to any worse punishment. He's playing a game for big stakes, and will stop at no number of murders to advance his game or to save his own skin."

"Thin maybe he's wor-rking for the dir-rty Mexicans?" suggested Mike Rourke, but Carrick did not answer. "I believe the yacht is falling astern," cried Doctor Fleming presently.

"She is losing a bit of her speed," Rourke confirmed..

Though the trio watched with night glasses, they could not at first make out the game. After a little the yacht was half a mile astern, presently a mile, then a mile and a half.

"Now she's turning in toward the coast," declared Carrick finally, whereat Rourke bounded forward to use his glass.

"Unless that craft is playing a game to fool us, thin she has given up the chase," the master of the tug announced.

Ten minutes later the trio ascended to the hurricane deck. In the darkness the Budzibu had vanished. It seemed good to be out in the open air once more. For a few moments that thought dominated over the realization that the tug had not been foully sunk.

"I wouldn't care to know that gintleman, the wan ye call Lou Shine," said Rourke grimly. "Be all ye say about him, he must have a bad conscience."

"The best and brightest conscience that you ever saw," Carrick reversed. "He has never given it the slightest use since he was born."

Presently the hull of the Pearl City was sighted. The two craft passed with hearty steam signals. At this moment Carrick was sweeping the coast-ward horizon for any sign of the lurking presence of the Budzibu, but that evil craft was not to be seen.

"I hope the Budzibu will try to run us down when we are once safe on the Vulcan," Carrick confided to his friend.

"Ah, then the Vulcan is armed?"

"When we are aboard of her we shall be more nearly on equal terms," was the Hound's response. "And the Vulcan is a knot faster than the Sumatran boat, I believe."

"May the Vulcan travel faster than she ever did before!" uttered Doctor Fleming fervently. "It doesn't seem so bad to be shot at on dry land, but looking out over this inky waste of salt water, I can't help feeling that I'd rather not be called upon to sink beneath the surface and remain under. It doesn't appeal to me as my choice of deaths."

"What is death?" mocked Carrick lightly. "Merely the end of the struggle— the wind-up of the fight. The only man who is afraid of death is the one who realizes that he hasn't played the best possible part in the fight."

"I believe," said the chemist gravely, "that I prefer tobacco to the abstruseness of philosophy."

The night being fine, though dark, the two friends remained up on the hurricane deck with their pipes until nearly two in the morning. It was now in the first mate's watch. Captain Mike Rourke had long ago gone back to his repose. A stern watch, as well as the one at the bow, had been set.

It was nearly nine in the morning when Fleming opened his eyes. The Hound was still asleep, though he opened his eyes as the chemist slid from the upper berth to the floor.

"I'm going out to see if the Vulcan is in sight," stated the chemist.

"You needn't have spoiled your sleep for that," yawned Carrick behind his hand. "I left orders that we were to be wakened at the first sign of the Vulcan."

But Fleming hastily completed his dressing and toilet, and stepped out on deck. Though there was a breeze, the weather was noticeably warmer, for the Terence was now well down the Mexican coast and the sun shone with greater brightness. Nowhere on the horizon did a sail, spar, or smokestack appear.

"Good morning, doctor," came Rourke's hearty greeting. "D'ye know, I'm all over the nightmare feelin' av the night."

"It didn't last long," said the chemist, laughing. "You went to sleep as fast as you could."

" 'Twas bad while it lasted," declared the skipper gravely. "I've been on the salt wather a good manny years, but niver did I hear of a scoundhrel as bad as the wan your friend is playin' hide and seek wid."

"If we encounter him out here, it won't be our first meeting face to face," replied Doctor Fleming.

"Is it so, now?" asked Rourke, with lively interest. "Wud ye mind tellin' me a bit about the rapscallion?"

"I'm afraid Mr. Carrick wouldn't like me to be too talkative."

"Don't you read the newspapers, captain?" demanded the voice of the Master Hound, as he came up behind them. "Some months ago there was plenty in the New York newspapers about Li Shoon, the yellow criminal who murdered a few New York millionaires after getting their property deeded to him."

"Now, I did read about that fellow," cried Rourke. "But I thought he wint to the electric chair."

"No, he escaped, and has been at large ever since," Carrick went on. "That is all I wish to say at present."

"A foremasthead showing in our wake, sir!" hailed the stern watch, in a bawling voice. The trio turned hastily. Glasses were brought into play.

"It's the foremast of a yacht, all right," cried Fleming gleefully.

"Yis, but 'tis wondherfully like the rig av the Budzibu," said Mike Rourke tensely. "Oh, well," with a shrug of his shoulders, "av she is coming up again, it won't seem as bad and dirty as it did in the night."

"If it is the Budzibu, then she evidently discovered that we had no business with the Pearl City, and she has been scouring the water for us ever since," advanced Donald Carrick. "Of course, she has sighted us by this time, for she must carry a foremast lookout."

More and more of the foremast of the pursuing craft came into sight Presently the top of the hull began to appear over the curve of the horizon. "I'd in joy bein' proved a bad guesser," asserted Captain Mike Rourke. "But I must say that the craft yondher has all the look av bein' the Budzibu an' no other!"

Chapter 9: Seeking The Trail In "Old Mex"

THE trio had retired to the after cabin, using the portholes once more. A messenger had been stationed to hasten any order to the watch officer in the wheelhouse.

Line after line of the other craft came into sight, every new glimpse confirming the suspicion that the stranger was the Sumatran yacht.

"If our suspicions are right," announced Carrick, in a steady voice, "no man now on this boat has more than a half an hour of life left."

"I've said me prayers already," retorted Rourke, "so I have a free hand for me duties. But I'm sorry for the boys undher me."

Fleming said nothing, though he puffed his pipe with a slight acceleration of speed.

"Maybe we're three fools," hinted Mike Rourke, two minutes later. "Av me memory is wor-rkin', the Sumathran boat had her deck rails painted white. "This craft has shinin' brass rails."

"That much disguise would be quite within the bounds of Li's strategy," Carrick answered. "Don't be too sanguine just yet, captain."

"A wireless question to the craft astern might settle the question," proposed Fleming.

"And that wireless would be picked up by the Budzibu if she's anywhere within a hundred miles or so," Carrick retorted, shaking his head. "The Vulcan had especial orders to use no wireless for fear it might be picked up by the enemy.

A mile nearer came the pursuing craft, then shook out a line of signal flags from the foremast.

"We're a pack av fools, I believe," uttered Rourke. "That craft wants to know av we're the Terence, an' av we are, she suggests that we lay to for the transfer av two passengers."

"It must be the Vulcan, then!" cried Fleming.

"Whether it is, or not, we may as well go out on deck," decided Carrick. "Even if it is Li Shoon's private navy, we'd go to the bottom soon, anyway."

Acting on his own judgment, Rourke ran to the wheelhouse, where he gave orders for half speed, next a full stop. Onward swept the yacht in their wake, veering to port as she came close, and stopping her own engines within hailing distance. The name plate on her wheelhouse had been obscured.

"Ahoy, Terence!" came a megaphoned voice from the yacht's bridge. "This is the Vulcan! Have you passengers for us?"

"Two av thim," answered Rourke gleefully. "An' mighty glad we are to know that ye're the Vulcan."

From the yacht a boat was lowered, manned by a mate and four men. Rourke was now busy in picking out other details in which this yacht differed from the Sumatran craft.

"Aven at that, though," declared Captain Mike, "the two boats are so much alike I'd swear they were built in the same yard at the same time."

"Come into the cabin a moment, captain," Carrick requested. Having the skipper behind a closed door, the Hound produced a bulging roll of bank notes.

"You'll find here, captain, the stipulated hire for the number of hours; also a hundred dollars for each of the mates and the chief engineer, and fifty dollars for each other member of the crew. They are to receive the money with the distinct understanding that not one of them lisps a syllable of what has taken place on this trip before sixty days from this time."

"They'll keep silent, I'll go bail," replied Rourke, "though I'm sorry ye thought me min had to be paid to hould their tongues."

"And here is a souvenir of two hundred for yourself, captain," Carrick went on, adding more bills to the pile.

At first Rourke stoutly resisted, but Carrick could be a diplomat, and in the end prevailed.

By this time the boat was alongside. Carrick and Fleming slipped over the side. Amid cheers from the tug's crew the boat slipped away. A few minutes later the Hound and the chemist signaled Rourke from the starboard rail of the Vulcan.

" 'Twas their own boat, thin," muttered Rourke. "Good luck to thim— the best. Misther Scanlon, the course is straight back to San Diego."

Amid a din of whistles the two craft parted company, the Vulcan skimming speedily south.

Carrick had, indeed, found himself among friends. Captain Mulford was a bluff, hearty skipper. His two mates, Gray and Kerrigan, were keen-looking young men. The Vulcan, a narrow-built craft of some eight hundred tons, was sure to roll in any kind of heavy sea, but her social and sleeping cabins were provided with every kind of comfort and many luxuries. Officers and crew were nattily uniformed after the naval pattern.

"This boat is in the United States naval reserve," Mulford declared proudly. "We try to keep up the best traditions on this craft. But there is one bit of information you may be able to give me, Mr. Carrick. Though my crew is large, and though I never carried more than two mates before, just as we were ready to sail the agent sent aboard a third mate and five more seamen. Mr. Olney is 'the new third mate's name. I believe he's sleeping now. He can sleep all the time for that matter, for the instructions that came with this Olney chap were that he was not to stand watch, but was to observe and learn all he wished to learn. Did ever a skipper have a queerer mate sent to him?"

"I cannot give you any information about Olney," replied Carrick gravely, and appeared to dismiss the matter from his mind. As soon as Fleming found a chance he whispered to his friend :

"Donald, do you suppose that Olney and his men represent any kind of treachery that is to be sprung later?"

"Drop the idea," counseled the Hound. "The agent through whom the charter was made is not the kind to be imposed upon. Whatever Olney's mission aboard may be, rest assured that it's an honorable one, and that the shipping agent knew what he was doing."

"I don't see a sign of a gun on board, either," Fleming continued. "If the Budzibu carries 'em, and we get at close quarters, what then?"

"In any event, Fleming, I believe that the Vulcan will prove able to take care of herself."

Further confidential conversation was cut short by the steward's call to table, where Captain Mulford joined them. The Vulcan's skipper was anxious to have his further sailing instructions in full.

"How far will your wireless reach?" asked Carrick.

"All the way to Vancouver, if need be," was the proud response.

"Then be good enough to have this signal flashed," requested Carrick, writing on a notebook page the letters: "B-B-B-F-H-G-P."

"And then " insinuated Mulford.

"That will be all," declared the Master Hound.

"That signal is being watched for in San Francisco," Carrick confided, in an undertone, as Captain Mulford turned to hand the message, with orders, to one of the table stewards, who ran out with the slip of paper. "It will tell all that I wish to say, and will start our campaign."

After luncheon Third Officer Olney appeared on deck, and was presented to the passengers by Second Officer Kerrigan. Fleming tried hard to make up his mind whether he liked Olney, who had an extremely sleepy look. The chemist could not disabuse himself of the idea that Mr. Olney was not nearly as sleepy as he looked.

The afternoon passed without incident. Fleming, noticed that two men were kept in the crow's nest and that both were vigilant in examining every visible part of the sea to the circled horizon. The Vulcan, at nearly full speed, was out of sight of the Mexican coast, the course being as nearly due south as the outlines of the invisible coast permitted. Yet, with all her speed, the yacht, burning oil under her boilers, did not leave a trail of smoke behind. There was little rattle of machinery, but a good deal of rolling in the rather brisk sea.

For three days the Vulcan continued in a generally southerly direction. In that time more than a dozen northbound and four southbound steamships were passed. Each was asked, by signal, whether another yacht, much resembling the Vulcan, had been sighted.

At first there was no news. Then some vague news came. The fourth of the southbound steamers flew several signaled messages in response to the questions that Carrick caused Captain Mulford to ask. Then both craft lay to. A boat was lowered, and, at the Hound's request, Third Officer Olney was put in charge. Carrick descended the side gangway, stepping into the boat. Fleming, not having been invited, remained on the Vulcan's spar deck, smoking his pipe placidly.

In three-quarters of an hour Carrick could be seen coming down over the steamship's side.

"We're too far south," he reported to Captain Mulford, on coming on board. "Put in to Mattanegua Bay, which you ought to reach in the hours of dark tomorrow evening. Do not approach until well after dark, and I will have further instructions ready an hour south of Mattanegua."

On an altered course sailed the Vulcan, but Fleming felt well pleased. He was satisfied that the Hound was working on definite knowledge.

At nine o'clock the next evening Captain Mulford called Donald Carrick to the bridge for a conference. The coast of Mexico was now just vaguely in sight off the starboard quarter. At reduced speed the yacht proceeded. At a quarter of ten, when she lay to, the Vulcan was not more than half a mile from the shore. Low, sloping hills rose from the beach. Seen through the night glasses, these slopes were covered with short, dense growths of what looked like scrub oak.

No sooner had the Vulcan lain to than a boat was lowered, Kerrigan being this time in charge.

"Look to your weapon," muttered Carrick. "Take two extra magazine loads with you and a full box of cartridges."

"I have them on me," Fleming answered.

"Then we'll get into the boat."

While they were being pulled toward the shore, Carrick continued to talk in an undertone.

"Never much of a port, Mattanegua Bay is now closed to commerce," he said. "The town around the bay is headquarters for some two thousand Mexican rebel troops. Calvoras, their commander, is a typical Mexican rebel— arrogant, cruel, unreasoning, and densely ignorant, but he is a power among his men. The Budzibu was seen to enter the bay, and doubtless is still there. Our task on shore is to find out all we can about the Budzibu and Li Shoon, without running into the rebels or bandits— call them which you prefer. We are landing three miles below the bay."

Chapter 10: A Hint Of The Truth

PAUSING only long enough to see the boat pushed off to return to the Vulcan, Donald Carrick turned his back on the water to inspect the jungle ahead of him. Then he tugged at Fleming's sleeve, leading the chemist not more than a hundred feet into the jungle. Now the Hound sat down as comfortably as though at his journey's end. "What's the idea?" queried Fleming, in a whisper, seating himself beside his friend.

"Both the Vulcan and the landing of the small boat may have been observed by Calvoras' lookouts, though I hope not," was the Hound's response. ' "If they have seen us, and we do not ppes- ently appear, these same lookouts will come down to the shore to investigate. Then we shall know that we have been observed."

After that the Master Hound was silent. It was so dark where they hid that the chemist, unable to see his friend's face clearly, wondered if Carrick dozed.

At length the boat reached the yacht, which soon after stood out to sea. The Vulcan was not running with lights tonight, and Fleming could hardly be sure of what he did see. Yet the moving of a shadowy mass told him that the yacht had left them behind.

Not until some time after did Carrick, after listening with his ear to the ground, rise and whisper:

"Evidently our coming was not observed. We will start on our way."

Owing to the tangled masses of shrubbery and low forest through which they moved, Donald Carrick was forced to take his course from such glimpses of the stars as he obtained. Both trod softly, taking pains not to tread on crackling brush in the undergrowth.

"In the matter of poisonous snakes, which are reported to abound here," whispered the Hound, during one of their brief halts, "you must trust entirely to luck. We could not see a snake in time to avoid it."

It seemed to Fleming as though they had walked for many hours, when Carrick suddenly brought him up short with a grip of his nearer arm. The Hound pointed ahead to a glow on the ground, distant some two hundred yards. As the two friends stood there, observing, they saw several figures flit to and fro past the dying camp fire. Fleming soon guessed that there were at least a dozen men near the fire. Carrick, from other signs that he detected, judged that there were from fifty to sixty men ahead ; probably an entire company of Mexican rebel soldiers.

A low hum of voices came to them. At last the Hound began moving forward, a cautious single step at a time. Minutes passed ere the friends again made a halt, this time within plain eye range and audible distance from the little groups in the clearing. As both Carrick and his friend spoke Spanish, they were able to comprehend the words that reached them in the Mexican jargon.

"With the three thousand new rifles, and all the cases of cartridges, my captain, our general, Calvoras, will doubtless soon begin recruiting and increase his army."

"It is even so, Lieutenant Calderas," replied the captain. "And then, when our general's new and mighty friend brings still more rifles, Calvoras will take the field, openly, and we shall sweep across Mexico. Our general has promised me that I shall soon be a colonel, and you, lieutenant, will doubtless become a major."

Lieutenant Calderas, a youth of not more than twenty-three, stroked his incipient mustache with an air of military pride.

"How many rifles are to come next time, Captain Bustanobo?"

"Our great and good friend promises not less than four thousand. He will even try to get six thousand, but he informs our general that he is obliged to buy with great care, through many agents and in small lots, that he may not excite suspicion. Within a few months we shall doubtless have fifty thousand rifles, and that, with the valor that our men exhibit, will be plenty to make Calvoras president of Mexico. Me? I shall doubtless be a general of division by that time. But, lieutenant, have you seen to it that a close watch is kept?"

"I have been on the alert, my captain. I will call Sergeant Penumbra, and he shall tell you what he is doing. Pass word for Sergeant Penumbra."

The name was uttered in tones loud enough to be heard at a distance. Soon a little, brown man came running up, though he rubbed his eyes as he came.

"Sergeant," demanded the lieutenant, "you have kept vigilant watch over the water?"

"My men have done so, excellent
lieutenant. Always two have remained standing since dark begun, their eyes turned out on the sea. They have seen no ship of any kind."

"It is well, sergeant," declared the lieutenant. "Faithfully serve the new republic of Calvoras, and you shall be rewarded. You may become a lieutenant, like myself, if you detect the coming of such a ship and report it in time. Think what it will mean to be a gentleman in the new and glorious republic."

"Never doubt my alertness, my lieutenant," begged Sergeant Penumbra, saluting and retiring when he received the signal.

"When a Mexican knows that an enemy is near, he is a marvel of watchfulness," whispered Carrick in Fleming's ear. "But sometimes the Mexican soldier is found napping on his post. That sergeant and his men have surely been making up some arrears in sleep."

"May the whole command here sleep forever!" was the doctor's pious wish.

Farther on a group of half a dozen soldiers played cards, almost silently, by the light of a second fire. Many men of the command, wrapped in their tattered rags, were now sound asleep under the stars.

"There is little to be feared from this sleepy lot," asserted the Hound. "Come, we will move around them and on toward Mattanegua. We must learn if the Budzibu is at anchor in the bay. We already have a fairly good idea of how Li Shoon, if he be here, has managed to gain asylum in this pirate's nest of a closed port. He is spending a part of his wicked plunderings in bringing in munitions of war to Calvoras. It is a clever way of gaining the hiding place and protection that he needs!"

With infinite care the Hound picked his way around the camp, under the deep shade of the trees. But on the northern side of the camp the two Americans, despite their stealth, made slight sounds that reached the ears of two Mexican sentries. This brown pair, after listening for an instant, slipped silently, on their bare feet, behind two tree trunks. Carrick and Fleming passed between the trees. Just another instant, and rifle, butts descended on their heads. Both men pitched forward to the earth, half-stunned.

"Alerta! Al numero sierte!" bawled both sentries at once. It was their way of summoning help for post No. 7. Two rifle bolts clicked ominously, and two rifle muzzles were pressed against the two dismayed captives.

In the camp, confused murmurs followed. Half a dozen soldiers ran up at once. Others could be heard following. With instant death as their portion in case of resistance, Carrick and Fleming wisely made no effort to draw their automatics. Had they been on their feet, they would have opened vigorous fire, then taken to their heels.

"Ah, we have prisoners, and Americanos, at that!" cried Captain Bustanobo, turning the rays of a lantern on the captives. "These must be they, for whom we were told to watch."

"That is hardly likely, my captain, since they did not come by ship," interposed Lieutenant Calderas gravely. "But, none the less, they are Americanos, and our brave general loves that breed so well that he sends them immediately to heaven!"

"Guard the prisoners, and kill them if they attempt to escape," ordered Captain Bustanobo briskly.

"You are taking a lot of trouble to be sure of securing two unarmed men," scoffed Carrick, in Spanish.

"Search them!" commanded Bustanobo. A dozen eager hands were stretched forth at once, as though the soldiers hoped to discover real loot. Of course, the automatics and extra magazines, as well as the cartridges, were speedily brought to light.

"Lieutenant," cried Bustanobo joyously, "you and I have long craved just such excellent revolvers. They are ours now. And men who lied to us about being unarmed will prove no more truthful in anything. I shall ask them no questions, but will take them at once to our brave general. Lieutenant, you will take command of the camp, and you will keep as close lookout as before against the coming of the expected ship. Sergeant, take a guard of ten men, and stand ready to shoot the prisoners at any sign pf a wish to escape! March!" Forward the little procession went. What Carrick and Fleming may have said, under their breaths, does not matter much. Through a seemingly endless jungle they finally arrived upon the semblance of a road, which became somewhat better as the party came within sight of the lights of the little port of Mattanegua. Now the arrest party passed a few outpost guards at frequent intervals. Then down through a street the captors marched their prisoners, halting before a large, two-story white building, before which stood at least a dozen armed guards. These saluted Bustanobo's party, permitting them to enter an oblong courtyard within. Bustanobo passed in through a guarded door, but soon reappeared, to say:

"The prisoners will follow me!"

Under his guidance, Carrick and his friend were led into a corridor and through the second door to the right. In that room stood two young officers, while a man of fifty-five, seated at a table, with a bottle and wineglasses at his elbow, turned to scowl at the prisoners.

"Welcome, my most excellent friends!" exclaimed an unctuous voice, and Li Shoon, in richest Chinese garb, appeared in a doorway.

Chapter 11:  Calvoras Takes The Helm

"HOW?" demanded General Calvoras, in a somewhat thick voice. "Then these are the two Americans whom you hoped to catch, Doctor Li?"

"The very pair!" cried the international criminal joyously. "They are the two American secret-service agents from whom you have most to fear. They have penetrated the secret of your source of supply in munitions of war. General, you will know what to do with them?"

"I shall have them shot within sixty seconds!" exclaimed Calvoras wrathfully. "Captain Bustanobo, you have heard my pleasure?"

"It shall be done at once, my general, as you say," assented the captain.

"I beg you to let them remain for a moment," pleaded Li Shoon, in sweetest Spanish. "Carrick! Fleming! You are balm against the soreness of my eyes. In my darkest moments I knew that this time would come. It was promised me by Hop How, my soothsayer. I shall reward him for this prophecy, which has come true."

Beginning with his address to the hapless prisoners, Li had dropped into English. He now continued:

"You two should have known that you could not long hope to baffle me. You had your brief triumphs, yet they lasted but moments, after all. And now all the score is settled."

"Li," spoke Carrick steadily, "you can send me to death, but I can take you with us. Your yacht is under the guns of these miscreants. In seven words I can inform this make-believe general that your yacht contains, hidden away carefully, yet discoverable, millions in gold coin that you have stolen from ships that you have afterward sunk. This braggart bogus soldier will forgive you your villainies, all except the fact of your concealing from him the enormous stores of gold coin that you have on the Budsibu. When he hears of the gold he will kill you either before or after he has seized the gold, for which he will hunt like a rat on the scent of grain. Unless you can save us, Li, you are done for as surely as we are. Think! Are your wits quick? Can you save our hides and your own?"

"Do you think I'm fool enough to carry the coin on the yacht?" taunted Li. "That would be more stupid than to smoke in a powder mill."

Calvoras, after listening in a stupid, noncomprehending way, drained another glass of wine, then rose heavily to his feet, breaking in in Spanish :

"I understand, Doctor Li Shoon, that you are talking over old grudges. Let it be so. I will leave you alone for a while. Then I will send my file of soldiers to see that these scoundrelly Americanos are taken out and shot. A quick shooting, Doctor Li, always saves bother."

The door closed, and the three were alone. Had Carrick wished, he could have sprung upon this odious Chinaman and killed him with his own hands. Li was an outlaw, without rights before man, but the Hound's mind was working fast along other lines.

As if he realized his own danger, Li glided to another door, clapping his hands smartly. In came a dozen Chinese, led by Ming, executioner to the Ui Kwoon Ah-how.

"Amuse these gentlemen," said Li, in English, but the gesture was enough, acconlpanying their leader's evil smile. At a guttural word from Ming, the yellow assistants seized upon both Americans. Immediately there began a series of horrible arm twisting and straining of joints. Fleming had the hardest work of his life in keeping his groans back. He felt like yelling hysterically. Great drops of cold sweat stood out all over his forehead, his cheeks, his entire body. Carrick's face was more immobile; he looked almost calm under the fiendish torture, though his soul writhed under every wrench. But Carrick's was the more imperturbable nature. Besides, he had had years of experience in the Oriental world.

At a word from Ming, the torture stopped. At another word three of the Chinese left the room, soon returning with implements of torture that made the comprehending Carrick shudder visibly.

"Ah! You know what is coming," said Li Shoon, smiling sweetly. "I always strive to give the best of my hospitality. And, after these machines, I have others that provide even more amusement. Oh, we shall have a rare night of it! When it is all over, then General Calvoras may send his firing squad in with the dessert, if he then thinks it worth while!"

Yet even as Ming superintended the sorting and preparation of the torture machines a heavy tread sounded at the door. In strode a Mexican captain, in heavy boots, followed by a sergeant and eight barefooted privates, all armed with rifles.

"It is by General Calvoras' orders that I take these prisoners from you, doctor," he said, with a courteous bow. "They are to be shot at once!"

"But I am not through," Li protested shrilly.

"That I regret to hear, but you will understand that I can only obey my general's orders," said the captain courteously. "Sergeant, take the prisoners! March!"

Quivering with rage at being so coolly deprived of his prized prey, Li Shoon moved swiftly from the room. The sergeant and his squad, surrounding Fleming and Carrick, marched them out of the building, through the courtyard, and up the principal thoroughfare of Mattanegua.

"Shooting is a welcome relief from what was to hive been offered us," muttered Carrick. "I have had many meetings with Li, but never saw him in such a fiendish mood as he was tonight."

He will probably have the orders revoked," suggested Fleming. "A messenger with altered orders is likely to overtake us at any moment."

As he spoke, the chemist tried to glance backward down the poorly lighted street, but a soldier jabbed him with a bayonet, forcing him to keep his eyes ahead. As the squad moved along, Mexican rebels and the populace smoked indolently in the streets, hardly turning their heads to gaze after such a familiar scene as an execution party.

Past the town and out into the woods the Mexican captain marched his party. At last he halted in a grove of tall trees.

"You will be tied, each to a tree trunk, gentlemen," he announced, "and four men will hold rifles against each of your chests. Death should be instantaneous and painless. Will you pray, or have you anything that you wish to say before you die?"

Chapter 12:  Under the Shower of Gold

"I HAVE a few courteous words, captain, that I would like to say to you and your men," Carrick replied gravely.

"Courteous words to executioners are rare, gentlemen," said the rebel captain, fondling his mustache.

"What I wish to say," Carrick went on, "is that I appreciate the fact that you are soldiers. Therefore, you must obey your orders, and I bear you no ill will. I have one request to make, and that is that you take full pains to make our deaths instantaneous. I am going to reward you for doing it, for I have gifts that our first captors overlooked. I have with me twelve hundred dollars in American gold, worth nearly twenty-eight hundred dollars in Mexican silver, and worth more than a shipload of your paper currency. I propose, captain, that this gold shall go to you and your soldiers."

As he spoke, Carrick fumbled dexterously with his clothing. In a twinkling, then, he brought forth his money belt. His nimble fingers ran along the catches over the pockets, opening them.

"Some of this money is in coin and some in American gold notes, which are as good as gold coin at any bank in the world. Captain, I propose to give your men a merry scramble for it!"

As he spoke, Carrick swiftly took hold of the belt by one end, twirled it, and hurled it far into the bushes.

As the belt flew, a golden shower of coins could" be heard dropping to the earth. Gold notes fluttered against the faces of some of the soldiers, as, with stifled cries, they raced after the fortune. Nor could even the captain resist the lure. These Mexicans had been too long without real money and on scant food.

"We've about seven seconds!" whispered Carrick, striking Fleming's arm. "Follow me like a streak."

But Fleming dallied for at least four of the precious seven seconds. He had noted that several of the soldiers had dropped their rifles to join in the hot scramble after the money. Like a hawk the chemist pounced upon the three nearest rifles and also a bandolier of cartridges that one of the soldiers had carried on his arm. Then the doctor fled.

"Good work and a happy thought!" panted Carrick, as he relieved Fleming of two of the rifles. "Now we can at least die fighting!"

But the fugitives were out of sight ere the Mexican rebel captain realized he was a victim of trickery. While still searching nervously for coins or notes, he called to his men to look after the prisoners. Each eager soldier, however, left obedience to be rendered by his fellows. When the captain finally, by the use of many curses, brought his soldiers to their senses, the captives had long vanished, and leaving not so much as a guiding sound.

Again the Master Hound had to have recourse to the stars, when he could espy them through the thick treetops. He took a generally northerly course through the thick forest, in which there was not a trace of a path to be found.

Behind them two rifle volleys crackled out. Fleming halted for a moment to chuckle noiselessly.

"I know our Mexican neighbors well enough to know what is happening and will happen," he whispered to Fleming. "The captain and his men have fired that they may be able to back up the tale they are going to tell of the execution. They will even lay out two mounds, then go back and report that we are dead. But they will search that forest until no more money can be found. Captain and men will hold their tongues as to what really happened, for they possess a secret that would hang them all."

More deliberately, now, the Hound led the way through the forest, listening all the time. When he halted again it was to say:

"Fleming, the snatching of these rifles and the cartridges was a stroke of genius! At the worst, we fear no one now, for we can go down giving as good as we get."

It was soon plain that to the north of Mattanegua, at least where the forest ran, that no rebel outposts had been stationed. Carrick, after half an hour of flight, walked with less caution until he heard the noise of an automobile moving slowly somewhere to the south-east of them. He halted to listen.

"There must be a road parallel with our course," Fleming whispered. "That car is coming our way, and seems likely to pass us within a stone's throw."

Getting his bearings, Carrick led the way forward once more, shaping his course so as to approach gradually the road that he believed to lie to the east of them.

"It's a poor enough road, judging by the car's noise," Fleming whispered, as the car passed them, to the eastward, going north. "I wonder who can have a car over here."

A minute later the car stopped. Carrick, though he did not halt, moved with greater stealth, an example that the chemist at once imitated. Soon they heard the murmur of voices, dead ahead. And next the unctuous tones of Doctor Li Shoon came to them. The wretch was talking in English, presumably that no passing Mexican should understand. Li preferred, when useful, the modern tongues to Chinese.

"I brought you here, Weng," Li was explaining, as the Americans drew near, "that there might be no danger of Calvoras knowing what I have to say. Though they apparently understand only Spanish, I am always suspicious that some of the general's officers may know too much English for our good. While I do not expect to die, I am always aware that fate may be about to press the cup to my lips. I have good news— wonderful! We now have four and a half million dollars in gold coin. You know where it is hidden."

"Yet I could not go to it," objected Weng-yu.

"I am coming to that," Li went on, with a wave of his hands. "But the news! You know that Sing Yen just came ashore from the yacht with a wireless telegram for me. It was sent from San Francisco, in our Chinese code that not a soul in the world could read outside of the Ui Kwoon Ah-how. And that code message— it is exhilarating. Barely more than a hundred miles to the south of here the steamer Sea King is proceeding slowly north against difficulties with her machinery. She has wirelessed San Diego for aid, though she can keep slowly under way unless a further break occurs in her machinery. And the San Francisco newspapers express grave concern, for the Sea King carries in her strong room the sum of eight million dollars in gold! Think of it, Weng!"

"Truly, the thought is enough to drive one out of his mind!" quivered Weng-yu. "That, with four and a half millions already hidden, is one-fourth of the whole sum needed to launch the Ui Kwoon Ah— now on its glorious work of subduing all of Asia to Chinese rule!"

"We would have had the entire fifty millions ere this, had it not been for that dog of a Carrick and his hardly less dangerous friend, Fleming," uttered Li bitterly. "The gods of our ancestors be praised that both of the meddlesome Americans now sleep in their last beds! By to-morrow forenoon, Weng, that eight millions should be ours, and all traces of our work lost under the waves. The Sea King carries fifty passengers, as well, but what are fifty more lives when the glory of Ui Kwoon Ah— how thrills our hearts?"

"Nothing whatever," declared Weng-yu, snapping his fingers. "I would kill all on the American continent to see the Ui Kwoon triumph!"

There was a third in the group— Ming. But that Mongol stood by in grave silence. His were only the deeds of blood; not his to use his brain but his hideous tools.

"Yet the gods of our ancestors may call me before my work is done as I would see it," Li Shoon continued musingly. "I have had that thought, for, though I have boasted of possessing nine lives, the number may be nearly run. Therefore,- Weng, I am giving you, now, to be hidden securely, a copy of my map showing where the four millions and a half in gold are hidden. You have seen the spot, but have not followed the navigating map closely. You know the little bay when you see it, six miles below Cape Marca on the coast of Lower California. You know as well the three trees whose trunks form a triangle. Yet you could not reach the spot again, with surety, without this map. If the gods put the cup to my lips, then you will go there and get the hidden gold, as well as that which is to be taken from the Sea King to-morrow. You know what is to be done with it. You know, also, that you are to succeed me as head of the Ui Kwoon."

Weng-yu stretched forth his hand to receive the precious paper. Before his fingers could close upon it, it was snatched away by Donald Carrick, who sprang from behind a tree.

Chapter 13: "Mexico is One Huge Trap!"

"THE gods have sent your spirit back to torment me!" gasped Li Shoon. For an instant Li's face was as near pallid as a Chinaman's may be.

But the click of a bolt as Fleming cocked one of the rifles and stood back to cover the yellow trio, was accompanied by the chemist's jeering retort:

"Spirits don't use rifles; at least, I never heard of a case."

Having tucked away the map, Carrick, too, presented the muzzle of a rifle for the inspection of the momentarily baffled ones.

"But you two were shot!" protested Li, his voice still a bit shaky. It was difficult, indeed, for him to overcome his belief that the Hound and the chemist had been duly executed.

"We came to life again," said Carrick briefly. "We came back long enough to have our reckoning with you. Doctor Li, of course you are aware that you are an outlawed man, and, therefore, any man's lawful prey."

"In America, perhaps, but not around Mattanegua," Li retorted mockingly. He had found his nerve again, though neither he nor his companions ventured to dash against rifles held by men whom they knew to be full of resolution.

"Mexican rebel law could have no terrors for me," declared the Hound coolly. "Doctor Li, have you any reasons to offer why I should not kill you?"

"Only that you do not dare kill me," mocked Li Shoon. "A single shot, and you will bring down upon you the soldiers— my friends. I will make you a proposition. Give me back the map and I will let you go."

"A wonderful favor!" exclaimed the Master Hound, with biting irony. "You will let us go— where? We are hundreds of miles from our own country, and all the Mexicans for scores of miles obey Calvoras. Wherever we go, if discovered, we are killed. It would take us weeks, even if not caught, to walk to our own country and safety."

"Is it as bad as that?" queried Li, with huge satisfaction. "You did not follow me by sea, but came overland? Then, truly, you may as well drop your rifles and ride back with us to Mattanegua. You can only be shot to death; therefore, why not be done with it?"

"Fleming, step back about six paces and cover these wretches!" commanded Carrick calmly. "If one of them stirs, kill him. Do not mind the noise of the shot. And, for preference, kill Li Shoon."

"To do so will afford me great pleasure," replied the chemist coolly.

Carrick darted east to the road. There, at the edge, he found the car. Moreover, in the tool kit he found a file and a monkey wrench. For a brief time he filed industriously against the steering rod of the motor car. Then, adjusting the wrench tightly to the rod, he snapped it.

"That is all," announced Carrick, coming back to where his friend held the yellow trio at bay. "Li, you and your friends will walk back to Mattanegua. Whoever attempts to follow us will be killed. By daylight, if we have good fortune, we can be a dozen miles from here, and farther in the jungle. Doctor Li, in the patter of this country, adios!"

At a run, Carrick and his friend disappeared, going northeast. After some three minutes of running, Carrick halted, abruptly throwing himself to the earth, where he listened with his ear against the ground, while Fleming peered behind him into the depths of the forest, through which they had come.

"I do not believe we are being followed," the Hound whispered, in his friend's ear. Now, we will see if we can find the spot on the coast for which we should aim."

For Carrick, in landing, had given orders that the Vulcan should attempt to pick them up at a point some miles north of Mattanegua, instead of south of it.

Shaping his course once more by the stars, Carrick trudged on ahead, Fleming following some dozen feet to the rear. The latter carried two of the three rifles. Carrick wore the bandolier of reserve cartridges.

Despite the season, it was almost stiflingly hot in here among the trees. Both men were bathed in perspiration by the time they reached the coast, at the point for which the Hound had aimed.

"This cannot be the place," Carrick murmured. "We are too far south, probably by at least two miles. Come in under the trees again. It would not do to walk on the beach."

So they continued on, for nearly an hour more. Then, through the trees, they beheld a little bay lighted only by the stars.

"There is our place," Carrick murmured. "We will go down to the edge of the trees and wait. If you are as footsore as I am the rest will be welcome to you."

"Welcome, indeed," murmured Fleming.

Still in the lead, Carrick had not more than emerged from under the trees when half a dozen Mexican rebel soldiers leaped to their feet, aiming their rifles.

"Para! Quien vive?" (Halt! Who goes there?) came the sharp hail.

"Company, halt!" called Carrick deliberately. Doctor Fleming, just in time, called: "Company, halt!"

Fleming made noise enough with his own feet to give some idea of men halting under the trees. From the beach he was invisible.

"Put down your guns, my men!" ordered Carrick confidently. "You are outnumbered by an American naval party. You do not wish to be wiped out? Then attempt no resistance. Obey my orders and your lives shall be spared."

As the rebel soldiers hesitated, Carrick motioned impatiently, frowning, as though he could not credit such stubbornness.

"If you do not at once drop your rifles, my men will fire and sweep you from the earth!" he cried angrily, still in Spanish. "Have none of you men families or sweethearts, that you would throw your lives away? Down with your rifles! On the ground! Now, march away from your pieces, hands up! That is right. Halt!"

Sheer bluff had won. Cowed, the Mexicans had obeyed. They now stood with the nearest a hundred feet distant from his rifle.

"Lieutenant!" hailed Carrick sharply.

"Aye, aye, sir!" from the chemist.

"Send the sergeant down here to bind these men."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Then, as the chemist appeared, Carrick added:

"You can tie their wrists behind them with their own sashes, and leave ends sufficient to tie them to the trunks of small trees.

Doctor Fleming accomplished that with a speed born of some knowledge of the art of tying. He soon had the men tightly lashed.

"Now, march!" commanded Carrick, leading the way, while Fleming, with rifle at the ready, brought up the rear. Fully six hundred feet up the wooded slope the men were led, then lashed to trees.

"It will be of equal value to gag these men," Carrick declared, so the gagging was accomplished by cutting pieces from the men's clothes and stuffing into their mouths, the tying being done with knotted strips cut from their jackets.

Patiently as dumb animals these men submitted, preferring the humiliation to the loss of their lives.

"One doesn't feel pleasant about despoiling these poverty-stricken fellows of their only clothing," murmured Carrick in English. "Fleming, have you any gold pieces?"

"A few," admitted the chemist.

"Then slip one into the trousers pocket of each prisoner," Carrick begged, next adding in Spanish his apologies to the men, and informing them that the gold was to be used in providing themselves with whole clothing.

The task ended, Carrick, striking and shading a match, glanced at his watch.

"It lacks but two hours of daylight," he announced. "If we are to escape, after all, we have but little time in which to do it."

Down the slope they ran, but soon slowed down, going on tiptoe, as they heard some body of men moving through the forest.

"Li must have got back and given the alarm!" whispered Carrick. "If so, and if this be a searching or relief party, and our gagged friends are found, then all we can do is to die game."

Dropping to the ground, moving the three rifles before them, and placing the bandolier so that either could reach for reserve cartridges, the Master Hound and the chemist awaited developments.

Up in the forest above could be heard, not very plainly, the sounds made by moving bare feet through the under- growth.

"They're halting now," whispered Carrick. "If they try to communicate with the missing outpost at this point, guess what is going to become of us."

"I never bet on sure things," Doctor Fleming replied grimly.

"Picture to yourself how the tied and gagged soldiers are struggling to free themselves that they may give the alarm at once. And they know the direction that we took!"

"Mexico is one huge trap!" sighed the doctor. "Easy to get into, but hard to get out!"

Chapter 14: The Sea Tragedy Staged

THE movements of the prowling party changed in direction. Twenty minutes later some thirty rebel soldiers, led by a young lieutenant, came out on the beach from a point to the northward. They marched down, halting on about the spot where the two Americans had captured the rebel outpost. With them was a figure more portly than is common in Mexico.

"You said there was an outpost here," hinted the voice of Li Shoon.

"They were posted here before dark," replied the lieutenant. "But they are new men, not veteran soldiers. It is plain that the rascals, finding it nearing daylight, decided that their duty was done. They have returned to Mattanegua, or else they have stolen into the woods to sleep."

The discarded half dozen rifles and bandoliers would have given a hint to the searchers, but fortunately Fleming, some minutes before, had crawled out and brought these things to the spot occupied by Carrick and himself. The two friends now listened and watched breathlessly, ready for any clash that might come.

"We are wasting time," said the lieutenant indolently. "Your Americano fugitives are making fast time through the forest, while we linger here. March!"

Away drilled the column, Li Shoon, despite his size, keeping tirelessly with them.

"There will be no more searchers here now," proclaimed Carrick, with a sigh of relief. "We must leave Li to attend to his affairs and give all our attention to our own. You might stay here, though, with the arsenal."

Exploring an inside pocket, Carrick, on the beach, brought forth a small electric flash light. Forming a shielding cone with his hands, the Hound flashed the light seaward just seven times. He waited a few seconds, then flashed the light seven more times.

After that he seated himself on the sands. Ten minutes went by ere he could discern any answer to his signals. Then something merely dark and vague appeared on the water beyond. That something came nearer and nearer, resolving itself into a swift launch, propelled by a noiseless petroleum engine. It glided in like a thing of mystery to where Carrick stood on the beach waving his arms. Some forty feet from the shore it lay to on account of shallow water.

"Who's in charge?" hailed Carrick, in a hoarse whisper.

"Kerrigan, sir. Are you ready?"

"More than ready!" came the Hound's heartfelt answer.

Over from the launch sprang two barefooted sailors, their trousers rolled up for wading.

"Take these rifles and bandoliers first,"  whispered Carrick. "They are souvenirs the doctor and I have been collecting to-night."

With Fleming's help the sailors carried the rifles and bandoliers to the launch. Then back they came, lifting the two adventurers and bearing them, dry shod, to seats at the stern of the launch. As the two sailors sprang in, the launch turned and put silently out to sea.

"And now," observed the Hound, producing pipe and pouch, "I propose to enjoy a smoke."

The doctor preferred to roll a cigarette. They lit up with shielded matches, keeping their faces turned westward that the glows might not attract attention from shore.

"Straight out for five miles," directed the Hound. "Then return to ship."

That was done. In a little more than an hour Carrick and Doctor Fleming found themselves ascending the side gangway of the Vulcan, while Captain Mulford stood on deck to receive them. The yacht lay in a little indentation of the coast line some miles south of Mattanegua. She had a single anchor out, at a spot where a curving, projecting, wooded arm of land served to shield her from direct observation from the sea.

"If you've no immediate instructions, sir, will you 'be good enough to come into my cabin?" requested Captain Mulford. By the time the two friends had seated themselves there the skipper handed Carrick a sheet of paper on which were written a lot of gibberishy words.

"What's this?" smiled Carrick, as he read: Quong king lee sing chui mien.

"That's a Chinese wireless, isn't it?" asked Captain Mulford. "Our operator took it down some time after you went ashore."

"It was intended for the operator on the Budzibu," laughed the Hound, "and he received it, as I happened to hear. This wireless was sent from San Francisco probably, and I was behind its being sent. These words have a Chinese formation, but they're code, not straight Chinese. This code messags informed Li that the Sea King, partially disabled, is coming up the coast, needing help, and the further information that she carries eight million in gold in her strong room. But the gold isn't there. The captain of the Sea King has his own orders, furnished in the navy code, and knows just what he is to do. Li Shoon will attempt to board him this coming morning, and we shall be at hand also."

After looking at his watch, Carrick exchanged a few words with the Vulcan's wireless man, next with a cabin steward on duty. Then he and Fleming went to their own cabin, where they lay down in their berths without removing more than coats and shoes.

At a few minutes after eight the wireless man knocked on the door. Springing up, the Hound threw the door open.

"The Sea King is wirelessing San Diego that her machinery is becoming more and more useless, sir, and to rush a tug to her," the operator reported. "Here is the message as I took it down."

"How far south is the Sea King?" Carrick asked, glancing at the paper.

"Twelve miles to the south'ard, sir, and making not more lhan four miles an hour."

"Has the Budzibu gone south yet?"

"She's not been sighted, sir, and must be still in Mattanegua Bay."

"There's time to spare, then," said Carrick to his friend, and hastened out to find Captain Mulford and give directions. On shore, in the top of one of the tallest trees on the projecting arm of land that hid the Vulcan, a quartermaster and a sailor kept vigilant watch.

His conference with Captain Mulford finished, Carrick returned to his cabin, selecting changes of clothing from the baggage he had brought on board. Then he hastened to one of the baths, the doctor to another.

Half an hour later, as they were dressing in their cabin, Carrick heard hurried steps on the deck overhead, followed by sounds of hoisting a launch that had been waiting tc bring the quartermaster and sailor back.

"The Budzibu has started south," said the Hound. "You may depend upon that."

Once on deck, however, they learned that Li Shoon's pirate craft had only appeared outside of Mattanegua Bay. The launch had returned to shore with

Mr. Olney, third officer, who went to the edge of the land. It was an hour later when he reappeared, signaling for the launch. Olney came on board, reporting:

"The Budzibu is now steaming south at about eight miles an hour."

At a nod from Carrick the launch was once more hoisted on board. A machinist stood by the donkey engine, ready to begin hoisting the anchor as soon as the signal should be given. Just the barest glimpse of the Sumatran yacht was had after a while. Then she passed wholly out of sight. Carrick and Fleming now took up their post at the door of the wireless room.

Another age passed ere the operator turned to say:

"Message flying."

His pencil traveled over the paper as he listened. At last he leaned sideways to hand Carrick this message taken from the air:

The master of the Sea King will lie to and prepare to receive a boarding party. He will keep all passengers and all but two of his crew between decks.

"The message came very weakly, sir," reported the operator to the flushed, frowning Hound.

"That's because Li Shoon doesn't want the message to travel far enough to attract any attention," Carrick answered.

Again the operator's pencil touched paper. He handed over the sheet, commenting :

"Evidently the reply from the Sea King."

This message read tersely:

Why the devil should I lie to for boarders?

"The Sea King's master will soon learn," was Carrick's grim word.

The answer flashed back:

Because we carry cannon, which you will see our crew uncovering. If you don't lie to immediately we shall be obliged to sink you, with your crew and passengers. If you have any regard for the lives intrusted to you, you will obey at once. You are dealing with Mexicans, who will spare or destroy you, as you merit. Will you obey, or shall we open a fire that will send you to the bottom in five minutes?

Back from the master of the Sea King came the response :

Don't fire! Have women and children on board. Will put crew and passengers below hatches and await boarding party.

Running forward, Carrick called to Captain Mulford:

"Time to get the anchor up, sir, and be under way at once. Full speed south, and straight to the Budzibu."

In a wonderfully short time the Vulcan was under way, passing out of the little inlet and out upon the broad waters of the Pacific.

"See if there are any more messages, Fleming," called the Hound, but the chemist swiftly returned with a negative answer.

Racing like a deer, the Vulcan was destined to come up within effective distance within twelve minutes. And now an unexpected thing happened, for, at a nod from Carrick, Mr. Olney stepped forward with a letter which he handed Captain Mulford. That skipper read and was astounded.

"It's all right, Mr. Olney," he exclaimed, glancing up from the letter. "This order informs me that you're Ensign Olney, United States Navy, and that the five seamen you brought aboard are United States navy seamen. Further, that when you decide to take command of this craft temporarily, I am to take your orders until the crisis is over. Go ahead, sir. I shall be up on the bridge, prepared to cary out any order I may receive from you."

Under Olney's crisp orders the forward-hatch was thrown open, and tackle swung onto a 4.7 inch naval gun that all on, board knew was there, for the track had been laid on the deck days before. With precision the gun was swung upward and laid on the track. Olney's five naval seamen, aided by the yacht's sailors, pushed the gun to position over the port bow. All was made secure, the breech opened, and a shell rammed home. With closed breech once more, Olney stood by with field glass, while a naval gunner took observations through the sights.

"Three points to starboard, sir!" Olney shouted to the bridge. Afterward he added: "And now, sir, stand in more toward shore."

Every minute brought the Vulcan closer to the spot where the Budzibu lay to, while, half a mile to the southwest of her, the Sea King lay, motionless, on the waters. Two-thirds of the way from the Sumatran yacht to the liner, two launches rode the water. They contained a total of some fifty men, lascars and Chinese, as it afterward proved. Carrick and Fleming could realize the way the Sea King's decks would run blood to the scuppers if once this piratical crew got foothold on board.

So far the Vulcan had approached without discovery, so intent were all of Li Shoon's men on the eight-million-dollar prey that they believe the Sea King to be.

But now a man in one of the launches caught sight of the racing rescuing Vulcan, and stood up in the launch, signaling violently to the Budzibu..

Chapter 15: Treasure-Trove

"A NAVAL battle between us and the Sumatran!" cried Doctor Fleming, athrill with the pepperish prospect.

Boom! sounded the Vulcan's gun. A few seconds later the watchers saw the shell strike one of the Budzibu's launches. There was a cloud of smoke, a geyser of salt water. Then the launch vanished, blown to atoms, while her late crew struggled in the water.

Boom! That shot struck fifty feet astern of the second launch, doing no harm. Wincing, Ensign Olney fired a third shell. The second launch, after a few seconds, had followed the first.

"Go in to rescue the men, pirates though they are!" Olney shouted toward the bridge. At the same time the ensign kept his gaze toward the Budzibu, for he could see that she mounted two nine-pounder guns forward, and an effective shell from either of these would be enough to sink the unarmored Vulcan.

Carrick, at the port rail, a little behind the gunners, held glasses to his eyes, as did Fleming. On the deck forward they could make out both Li Shoon and Weng-yu— could even read the astounded expressions on their yellow faces. Ten feet behind them stood Ming.

And then the all-but-incredible thing happened. The Budzibu, as though realizing the hopelessness of conflict against the Vulcan's 4.7, swung around, her bow away from the gallant intruder, as though declining conflict.

"It's strange that one of Li Shoon's temper should prefer capture!" gasped the Hound.

"Maybe he doesn't," hinted the chemist.

"But he has pointed his guns away from us."

"Watch him! Doctor Li is a man of deadly resource."

Apparently Ensign Olney's suspicions, too, had been aroused, for he abandoned his humane purpose of rescuing the launches' crews, and ordered another change in the Vulcan's course.

"What can Li Shoon do?" Carrick wondered, as he saw the 4.7 trained on the Sumatran yacht.

"He won't keep us guessing long," Fleming ventured, nor did his guess go astray.

A minute of inaction passed— a minute of the kind that lives ever afterward in men's minds. Then a tremendous, half-muffled roar shook the air. Through the forward deck of the Budzibu belched a crater of flame and smoke. Pitching like a living thing in the death throe, the Budzibu began settling by the head.

"Run in as close as you dare, sir, to rescue survivors!" shouted Ensign Olney.

Ahead forged the Vulcan, yet before she arrived the Budzibu had vanished from sight under the waters.

"Not even my gun could have worked half the havoc of that internal explosion," gasped Olney, turning to Carrick. "Your Chinese prince of crime must have given thorough thought to mining a ship like that."

While the Sea King still lay to, the Vulcan searched in vain for trace of a single survivor, either from the Budzibu or her two launches. The destruction had been complete. Li's pirates, knowing well their fate at the law's hands, if caught, had preferred to drown. All the mystery of master and owner, of the yacht's strange charter, had gone down with the Budzibu.

"Li Shoon has at last given up, by his own hand, his ninth and last life!" uttered Donald Carrick solemnly.

When all chance of saving survivors had been given up, the Vulcan ran over alongside the Sea King, lying to at a s.afe interval, to be greeted with tumultuous cheers from the liner.

"I want to tell you, Captain Bickford, that you did your part in a magnificent manner!" Donald Carrick shouted through a megaphone to the Sea King's skipper. "You will find yourself well, though not sufficiently rewarded by the Blue Stack Company when you reach Frisco. You will now, of course, proceed on your way under the speed you prefer."

With another interchange of cheers, and much blowing of whistles, the Sea King, which really carried no gold at all in her strong room, and which had acted under secret naval instructions, altered to a course farther offshore and proceeded on her homeward way.

The Vulcan kept somewhat inshore, going at full speed until she overhauled a Mexican coastwise fishing smack a few miles north of Mattanegua. To the master of that little craft Carrick shouted information as to where the half dozen soldiers of Calvoras' rebel outpost would be found tied to the trees.

From there a nearly record run was made to the spot indicated on Li Shoon's map. Between the aid furnished by that document, and what he had overheard in the talk between Li and Weng-yu, Carrick was occupied but a few hours in finding an artificial cave, wonderfully constructed and concealed, in which was found, intact, the hoard of four and a half million dollars taken from the Halcyon and the Spokane. This, money was transferred to the Vulcan, and started on the way to its rightful owners in San Francisco.

In San Francisco the ever-active reporters got wind of enough of the story so that the rest of it was given out at the Blue Stack line offices. Over the United States and the world flashed the news that Doctor Li's ninth and last life had been offered up and canceled by Li himself.

Carrick and Fleming did not linger in the city of the Golden Gate. After settling their financial affairs with the Blue Stack Company, they hastened East.

On the day of his arrival in New York, Doctor John Fleming was joyfully able to confide to his friend his hour-new marriage to Miss Sylvia Dorrance.

"I shall not again have to fear for her safety in connection with Doctor Li," Fleming declared, with a heartfelt sigh.

"For any other human being's tragic death I might feel sorrow," Donald Carrick answered. "Li Shoon's death, under even more terrible circumstances, can only fill me with entire satisfaction."

"Will the Ui Kwoon Ah-how live after this?" inquired the doctor.

"It may," replied the Master Hound, "but it will be confined to China. Only the evil genius of a Li Shoon could make the Ui Kwoon a world-wide menace, and there is but one Doctor Li born in a thousand years!"

______________________

3: The Return of Red Raven: The Absconder

Scott Campbell

(Frederick W. Davis 1858-1933)

Detective Story Magazine, 5 January, 1917

The Red Raven appeared in two 10-story series in Detective Story Magazine in the teens of the 20th Century. This is a tale from the second series.

"I'LL HAND IT to him. Mark me, Paddy, I'll hand him a good one."

Ravenswood's voice had a sinister ring, his eyes a threatening glint. "If Glidden is called on, or butts into the case, I'll woolly-eye that infernal dick to a standstill, and hand him a jolt he'll long remember. Paste that in your hat, Paddy, for reference."

"Faith, it listens good to me, Dickie, all right," Nolan vouchsafed dryly. "But can it be done so easy?"

"As easy, Paddy, as a railroad company can grant a rebate."

"Some easy!" Drogan grinned broadly. "Some easy, Dickie, for fair."

"But will there be enough in the job?" Nolan questioned, more seriously. "Will it pay, Dickie, for the cost and the risk? This swell lay-out has taken a good bit of our capital. Our store of birdseed is running low. Red Ravens fly high, mind you, and we must figure to get in right."

Ravenswood gazed at both from a swivel chair at his large roll-top desk. It stood in a handsomely furnished room on the second floor of an office building on Broadway. Two wide, plate-glass windows overlooked a side street. Both were emblazoned with large, gold-leaf letters, stating the recently established business of the occupants, or presumably so, as was true of a highly polished brass sign on the corridor door:

RELIANCE DETECTIVE BUREAU

Henry Dale, Manager

The entire interior had a corresponding veneer of probity and eminent respectability. There was another roll- top desk in the main office. A large safe occupied one corner. A case of law books stood against one of the walls. A handsome leather-top table was laden with reference books and publications bearing upon the business. A costly Persian drugget covered most of the floor. A door to the right led into a finely furnished private office. One to the left opened into a rear room, in which were other equipments and several less expensive desks, ostensibly those of men employed as private detectives by this bureau of secret criminal investigation.

"What blind could be more effective?"

Ravenswood had forcibly argued when advocating the audacious project.

"What field could be more broad and rich with possibilities? Where could safer headquarters be found? What police official, not excluding Joe Glidden himself, would even dream of such a subterfuge,  seeking in such an environment and seeming vocation a flock of thieving Red Ravens?"

Ravenswood was right. The very audacity of it rendered it reliable. Nor would lynx-eyed Joe Glidden, even, have recognized in Henry Dale, the directing genius of the artful enterprise, with his gray-streaked hair, his flowing mustache, and drooping imperial, the versatile and resourceful knave by whom he had been repeatedly outwitted and was so anxious to apprehend.

"Pay, Paddy, indeed! The game is well worth the candle," Ravenswood replied, with assurance, drawing up in his chair. "I have looked over the entire ground. I have covered every foot of it. Osgood has been the bank messenger for seven years. He's as honest as the day is long. But custom dulls the sense of responsibility and the edge of caution, Paddy, and of that we can take advantage."

"But suppose, Dickie—"

"Suppose nothing!" Ravenswood interrupted. "I am not building on suppositions, Paddy, but upon reasonable certainties. Osgood's habits are very regular. His round of collections does not vary materially after a big day in the stock market. He covers nearly the same ground. When he arrives at the Waite Building, where he invariably calls on Sage & Slocum, the bond brokers, the leather bag he carries chained to his wrist always contains from fifty to eighty thousand in cash, bonds, and negotiable securities. That surely warrants taking chances."

"Long chances, Dickie," Nolan readily admitted. "There's no denying that."

"We'll take them, then, Paddy."

"But what about his trailer, Butler, who is always close behind him, with his hands on a ready gun in each side pocket? We must figure on getting him, Dickie, as well as Osgood."

"Sure thing." Drogan appeared a bit doubtful.

"Get him, Dickie, is right, and get him first, or his canisters will start barking right off the reel."

"How can that be done?" Nolan questioned. "It's not easy to down two such chesty blokes, one with a brace of gats, and get away with the coin in broad daylight. Outside of that, Dickie, it looks easy."

"I have it perfectly planned," replied Ravenswood confidently.

"Say how, then. Out with it."

"To begin with, Paddy, there now is a vacant office adjoining those occupied by Sage & Slocum. It is directly back of the two private rooms of the firm, and the door must be passed by any one going there from the elevator or stairway."

"Faith, that's clear in my coco," Nolan nodded. "What more?"

"That vacant office must be rented. We must establish two of our red birds there, as if in legitimate business. That done— stop a bit!"

Ravenswood broke off abruptly, with a glance toward the rear door. "Call Fallon, Murdock, Badger, and Billy Green. All hands will be needed in this job. I will state my plans to all, therefore, and show you how we can pick this plum without even scratching a finger. Slip the catch lock, Paddy, and bar out in truders."

Two men, both of rugged and resolute aspect, were walking briskly up Broad Street one morning a week later, one about fifteen feet behind the other. They were approaching the heart of the financial district.

Edgar Osgood, in advance, was the trusty messenger of the Fidelity National Bank. He carried a strong leather satchel, closed with a strap and fastened to his left arm with a steel chain, concealed by his sleeve and cuff.

The other, trailing him constantly, was one of the bank detectives, David Butler, the messenger's bodyguard, or convoy, so to speak, with vigilant eyes and his hands gripping, as Paddy Nolan had said, a ready gun in each side pocket. None of the throng of men in busy Broad Street appeared to have any in terest in them.

As Osgood was approaching a corner, nevertheless, which he turned almost daily to go to the Waite Building, a Red Raven in an opposite doorway signaled to Murdock and Badger, then waiting in the side street. Guided by these signals, both men arrived at the corner just in time to pass Osgood when he turned it and strode on toward Broadway. Upon rounding the corner, however, which Butler was at that moment approaching, they pretended to resume a bitter altercation, coming quickly to ugly oaths and vicious blows, when directly in front of the bank detective.

Butler stopped short, suspecting nothing, but naturally impelled to interfere. He thrust Badger aside, crying sharply, as he separated the two men.

"Cut that! This is no place for a fight."

"Cut what?" Badger retorted, confronting him. "What are you butting in about?"

"You'll learn what for, you ruffian, unless—"

The threat on Butler's lips was never completed. He turned upon Badger while speaking, when, as quick as a flash, Murdock seized the opportunity and dropped him with a blow from one side, a blow that would have felled an ox. Then, while the few startled observers near by stood aghast, for the brutal deed was done in a dozen seconds, Murdock and Badger ran across Broad Street and entered a motor car, driven by Fallon, and in a moment they were speeding north, safe from immediate pursuit. Butler was lying on the sidewalk, senseless, blood flowing from his nose and ears.

A crowd quickly gathered. Two policemen appeared upon the scene. A physician forced his way through the throng. None knew the stricken man. The physician examined him hastily, then ordered his removal to the nearest hospital. The ambulance came and departed. The crowd dispersed, and the street resumed its customary appearance— and the first move in the knavish game was successfully made.

Ravenswood was right. Custom dulls the edge of caution. For, in the meantime, without a backward glance in search of the man supposed to be following him, and without having heard the brief disturbance around the corner, Osgood proceeded quickly to the Waite Building, where he ran up the stairs to the second floor and approached a suite of offices in the end corridor.

As he came nearer, he noticed a mason's tools and a pail of cement on the floor. At the same moment, too, a man in a long linen coat, with a pen over his ear, appeared at the open door of the recently rented office.

"Ah, it is you, Mr. Osgood!" Ravenswood could be very suave and impressive on such an occasion. "This way in, sir, if you please."

"That way?" Osgood paused involuntarily.

"Sage & Slocum are enlarging their quarters so as to include this office. Their doors are temporarily blocked by the workmen's stagings. You can enter this way, however, and—"

"Yes, yes, certainly." Osgood suspected nothing. He walked blindly into the trap. He followed Ravenswood into the office, just as a supposed clerk, Paddy Nolan, was rising from his seat at a desk. At the same moment, too, he heard the door behind him closed noisily and the sharp click of the lock— but he saw and heard no more. Drogan, darting from behind the door, felled him with a single blow of a sandbag.

Ravenswood caught him when he fell, placing him quietly on the floor, and saying, as calmly as if no desperate deed had been done: "Bring in those tools, Paddy, and the pail of cement. Our web has caught the fly. The rest should be easy."

"Like breaking straws, Dickie." Nolan laughed audibly. "Pipe the leather bag. Stuffed like a holiday bird. It has the golden goose skun a mile. Faith, Dickie, it's like money sent from home."

ii

DETECTIVE GLIDDEN spread both of his muscular hands on his broad knees and gazed grimly at the venerable cashier of the Fidelity National Bank, in whose private office he was seated about an hour after the two crimes were committed. He very soon had become, as Ravenswood had anticipated, an active and aggressive figure in the case, the result of an urgent appeal to police headquarters, and he now wore a look that challenged opposition.

"An absconder! That's what your man Osgood is, Mr. Harvey, in spite of your faith in the fellow," he was forcibly insisting. "The circumstances admit of no other conclusion. There's nothing else to it. I know what's what, all right, in a case of this kind."

"But it seems incredible, Mr. Glidden, utterly incredible." Mr. Harvey shook his head doubtfully. "Osgood has been in our employ for a dozen years. I have known him ever since he first—"

"Since the Lord made little apples, perhaps, but that has no weight with me. I can size up a job of this kind, Mr. Harvey, with half an eye."

"But our bank detective, Butler, also is—"

"Oh, I've talked with Butler," Glidden cut in gruffly. "He's down and out with a broken head. Luckily, however, his mind was clear and he told me just what came off in Broad Street. There was nothing to it."

"Do you meant that the fight—"

"That was a frame-up, nothing else," Glidden again interrupted. "It was pulled off only to detain Butler and give one of the ruffians a chance to down him. Then both of them bolted and got away in a waiting motor car, as I have learned from several observers. All this speaks for itself. The whole infernal job had been carefully planned."

"Planned by Osgood?" Mr. Harvey anxiously questioned. "Is that what you think?"

"Think be hanged! I know it was." Glidden was nothing if not positive. "Osgood took that way to elude Butler. That had to be done before he could bolt. He hired those two ruffians o turn the trick, while he pretended to- be hurrying on to the Waite Building. That, Butler states, is wher.e he was heading. But did he go there? Not by a long chalk. I have telephoned to Sage & Slocum. The bare fact that Osgood did not call on them clinches the case against him."

"Unless he was waylaid, and the victim of foul play," Harvey suggested.

"Nonsense!" Glidden growled. "It was only half a block to the Waite Building. The street was alive with people. He could not have been waylaid. That's out of the question."

"Well, you may be right. Still—"

"I know I'm right. Take it from me, Mr. Harvey, Osgood was the only man back of any foul play. He has absconded. There's nothing else to it— save to run him down and recover his plunder."

"You may be right, Mr. Glidden, but it seems utterly incredible," Mr. Harvey repeated, wringing his hands. "I could not have believed it. I had absolute faith in Osgood."

"Too much faith, far too much." Glidden arose abruptly. "Osgood has taken advantage of it, as hundreds have done under like conditions. But don't you be down in the mouth. He'll be some slick, mark me, if he can slip through my fingers. I have set the wheels in motion. He'll be nabbed in some quarter within twenty-four hours. How much did he get away with?"

"About sixty thousand dollars, as near as I now can tell. Chiefly in bonds and negotiable securities."

"We'll recover them, take it from me." Glidden jammed on his hat. "We'll get him. I'll be off with Armstrong, now, and try to pick up his trail. He may have been seen near the Waite Building. I want a word with Sage & Slocum, too, as he is known to have been heading for their office. You'll hear from me later. Now, Jack, we'll be off."

Glidden did not wait for an answer. Followed by Armstrong, who had been assisting him in the investigations already hurriedly made, he strode out of the bank and entered a waiting taxi-cab, gruffly giving the chauffeur his directions.

He had not a shadow of doubt. Uncertainty was foreign to Glidden's nature. He felt sure he was right, sure he had sized up the case correctly, and sure that he soon would be hot on the trail of the supposed absconder.

All this seemed to be entirely warranted, moreover, when he entered the Waite Building and talked with the superintendent, whom he chanced to meet on the stairway.

"One moment," said he, stopping him. "You're the man, I judge, who looks after this building."

"I am, sir. Martin Ready by name, sir," he replied.

"Do you know a bank messenger who frequently comes here, named Osgood?"

"Faith, sir, I do," Ready nodded. "I've known him for years by sight."

"Seen him lately?"

"He was here to-day, sir, along about noon."

"He was, eh?" Glidden's grim eyes lighted. "Where did you see him?"

"Turning in the end corridor, sir, on the second floor. He was going to Sage & Slocum's office, sir, I think. He often goes there."

"Do you know that he went there?"

"No, sir. I only saw him heading that way."

"How did he look? Did he appear excited, or in haste?"

"Well, he seemed in a bit of a hurry, sir, but not more than common. He always walks brisk-like."

"Did he have the leather satchel he usually carries?"

"He did, sir. I can swear to that."

"You did not see him leave the building?"

"I did not." Ready shook his head. "He left by the other door, mebbe, which leads into the court at the end of the building. He often goes that way."

"I see." Glidden's brows knit closer. "That's, all, Ready. He went through this building, Armstrong, only to avoid observation and don a disguise. I see his game. It's a safe bet that his own mother would not have known him when he went out through the end corridor."

"Not from a side of leather," Armstrong agreed, while they moved on up the stairs. "He aimed to break off his trail right here, Joe, hoping to mystify the police, or lead them to think he was killed and robbed somewhere in the building."

"Mystify be hanged!" Glidden growled derisively. "He can't blind me. I'm not to be fooled in a case of this kind. I'll trace the thieving rat, in spite of all he can do. This way to Sage & Slocum's office. We'll stop there for a moment only, then head out through the end court. There's the stairway yonder. We'll find some one, believe me, who saw him leaving and can tip us to his disguise."

Glidden found both bond brokers in their main office, but they could only repeat what they already had told him by telephone, that they had been expecting Osgood with a quantity of bonds, but that he had not delivered them, nor been seen that day by any of their clerks.

"He was seen in the adjoining corridor, nevertheless, within five minutes after Butler was assaulted," Glidden confidently informed them. "I know one man who saw him, and there may be others. If so, I want to find them."

"Try the new tenants in the next office," Mr. Sage advised. "They may have seen him."

"New tenants?" Glidden snapped like a hungry trout at the possibility suggested. "How long have they been there?"

"Less than a week."

"Do you know them, or anything about them?"

"Only that two men are occupying the office."

"What's their business?"

"I cannot say, not having inquired." Sage smiled expressively as he spoke. "They have not appeared to be doing much."

"Haven't, eh?" Glidden swung around with a growl. "I'll mighty soon find out. Go with me, Jack— but not you two gentlemen," he quickly added, when both brokers were about to follow him. "We'll look after this business. You attend to your own."

"By Jove, Joe, there may be something in it," said Armstrong, as both returned to the corridor. "New tenants, right here and at just this time, may be more than a coincidence."

"That's the very point," replied Glidden, striding to the office door. "It warrants suspicion, at least."

He tried the door and found it locked. Gazing through the keyhole, he could see a cheap chair and an ordinary flat desk, much defaced and entirely destitute of writing materials, a fact which instantly increased his suspicions. Starting up, he jerked out a ring of keys, saying, with bulldog determination:

"We'll go in there. It looks leery to me, Armstrong, and not on the level. I'll bet my roll against a bean pod— ah, this key will open it."

Glidden opened the door while speaking and stepped into the deserted office.

The pail of cement was on the floor, in one corner. Near by was a trowel and a few small tools. A plaid, woolen suit, somewhat worn, hung over the back of a chair. Upon seeing it, Glidden vented a wolfish snarl and cried exultantly:

"I was right, by thunder, as right as a rivet. That's the very suit Osgood is said to have worn. Harvey mentioned it when describing the rascal. We're hot on his trail, Jack, all right, as sure as there's skin on a lemon. But it's no lemon for me, Armstrong, not this time. You can bet on that."

"But what do you make of all this?" Armstrong questioned perplexedly, gazing around. "Why was this office rented? Who are the tenants? What's this stuff in the pail? It looks like cement."

Glidden did not reply immediately. He caught up the plaid suit and hurriedly searched the pockets, finding them empty. He then drew out the desk drawers, glancing into each and violently closing it. All were as empty as a drum. Next he strode to the window and looked down on the narrow court, then out to the near street.

"Hang it, Armstrong, it's as plain as twice two!" he cried, turning back. "It clinches my theory. No business has been done here, bar knavery. There's not a pen, pencil, or scrap of paper in the desk. It was picked up second-hand and brought here, along with the rest of these traps, only for a blind. Osgood was one of the tenants, perhaps, coming here at times in disguise, or possibly the two ruffians he had hired to down Butler this morning. That's dead open and shut."

"You think that this office was rented, then—"

"Only to provide Osgood with an immediate, temporary refuge," Glidden plunged on, interrupting. "One in which he could change his clothes, and so disguise himself as to preclude recognition and prevent being traced. There's nothing else to it— nothing, Armstrong, absolutely nothing."

"By gracious, Joe, I think you're right." Armstrong always had faith in Glidden's theories. "There certainly seems to be nothing else to it."

"Seems be hanged! It's a copper-riveted cinch," Glidden declared, glanc ing at the tools and cement on the floor. "Those things cut no ice. They were brought here only to suggest a legitimate business. The birds have flown, Armstrong, and we must get after them. We waste time in searching an empty nest. Come on. Go with me while the going is good. There's a fellow outside, I think, who can hand us something."

Glidden had caught sight of him from the window. He was in nearly the same place and position, too, when Glidden hurried down the end stairway and emerged into the narrow court, now feeling doubly sure that he was hot on the trail of the absconder.

His immediate quest, however, was a miserably clad man who was leaning against one corner of the entrance to the court, selling an occasional lead pencil to passing pedestrians. He was a pitiable-looking fellow. His hair and beard were unkempt. His garments were soiled and in rags. His eyes were protected with blue spectacles, denoting that they had in some way been injured. Glidden approached him and took a pencil, giving him half a dollar.

"That's near enough," he said gruffly. "Have a good time with it. I reckon there's not too much coming your way. How long have you been standing here, my man?"

The blue glasses, turned squarely upon the detective, seemed to light up with a look of surprise. The man chuckled audibly, eagerly pocketing the coin, while he replied huskily: "Thankee, sir! I've been right here all day. I'm here every day. It's where I pick up a living."

"Seen any men come out this way from the Waite Building?" questioned Glidden tersely.

"Only two, sir. Not many come this way. I wouldn't have known of them, sir, bar hearing them talking in the court, where they waited a minute for a taxi. They didn't see me. I was just around the corner."

"What were they saying?"

"One was telling about a swell lodging house, where he'd got a room for the other, and where he could hang out safely, the landlady not being wise to something. I don't know what he meant. They talked so low I only heard a little."

"I see." Glidden's eyes were glowing exultantly. "Do you know either man."

"I don't, sir, and that was all I heard."

"Was one of them carrying a leather bag?"

"He was, sir, the one with whiskers."

"Whiskers, eh?" Glidden laughed grimly, with a significant glance at Armstrong. "That does settle it. Did he leave in the taxi?"

"He did, sir, and the other walked up the street. That's all I can tell you— bar one thing."

"What's that, my man? Out with it."

"I know the taxi driver by sight."

"Fine! Come across."

"He's a tall man, with broad shoulders and a big, black mustache. You might find him near the Imperial. I've often seen him waiting there to pick up a passenger."

Glidden lingered to hear no more. He felt, in fact, that he had learned all that the pencil vender could tell him. He had swallowed it as easily as a Concord grape. He drew Armstrong away, crying exultantly, while he hurried him up the street:

"Hand us something was right. It was a cinch that he must have seen Osgood, if he fled through the court, as I suspected. We'll get him, Armstrong, all right. There'll be nothing to it, now, if we can round up the taxi driver."

"That should be no great task."

"No task at all." Glidden was aglow with confidence. "It will be some feather in our bonnets, all the same, if we snap bracelets on Osgood before sunset. We're hot on his trail, all right; hot on his trail and going some, Jack; going some. We'll soon get him."

It was seven o'clock, nevertheless, when Glidden, after impatiently watching in the locality mentioned, saw in Forty-second Street a taxicab driven by a powerful man of the description given him by the pencil vendor. Hailing him to the sidewalk, Glidden displayed his badge and asked gruffly:

"Did you have a passenger about one o'clock to-day, a man with a beard and carrying a leather bag?"

"I sure did, sir," the driver quickly admitted, leaning out. "I got him on a telephone call."

"Where?"

"Down near the Waite Building. He was talking with another man near the end court."

"Do you know either of them?"

"Nothing doing. I never saw them."

"Where did you take the man with a bag?"

"To a house in Columbus Avenue. I'm not sure, but I think it's quite a bang-up lodging house. I heard the man ask for the landlady."

"Do you remember the house? Can you take us to it?" questioned Glidden, as Armstrong approached.

"Sure, sir, I can," said the cabman. "Dead easy."

"Do so, then, but stop on the opposite side, and a few doors away. Get me?"

"Bet you! I'm no bonehead."

"Tumble in, Jack." Glidden pushed Armstrong into the cab. "We've got our man. We've got him, Armstrong, as sure as death and taxes. By Heaven, this was good work, Jack, though I say it, who shouldn't. We've got him, all right."

It was half past seven when the taxicab stopped nearly opposite a block of handsome brownstone dwellings. The detectives sprang out, and the cabman turned and said:

"It's the second house in the block. The name on the door is— Barnard." Glidden gazed over at the house, noting that the vestibule and hall were brightly lighted, though all of the front rooms were in darkness.

"Wait here, cabby," he said gruffly. "We have a crook to take to headquarters. Bring two policemen, Jack, and station them at the front and back door. We'll make dead sure of him. You'd better enter with me."

Five minutes passed. A burly policeman then was guarding each door. Glidden mounted the front steps and rang the bell.

iii

"IT'S WORTH it, Paddy, worth every copper of it." Ravenswood gazed at Nolan from a luxurious armchair in the handsomely furnished library.

"Think what this infernal dick has done to me and my brood of precious red birds. He's due for a jolt. I told you I'd hand him one. Mark me, Paddy, I will make Joe Glidden the laughingstock of headquarters."

"Faith, Dickie, that sure is worth something," Nolan thoughtfully allowed. "But three hundred dollars for the use of this crib—"

"It's worth it, Paddy," Ravenswood insisted. "I have a leaning, you know, toward luxury and refinement. I wanted attractive quarters in which to turn the trick. That will add to Glidden's chagrin and cut him the deeper. Wait until the force learns, Paddy, that the absconder he was running down was handed to him by the very crooks who did the job. Take it from me, he'll never hear the last of it."

"He'll beef some, Dickie, all right," Nolan grinned broadly. "But you took a long chance in bringing Osgood here. We could have left him where we downed him, and got safely away with our plunder. He might have squealed on the way."

"A man doesn't squeal, Paddy, who knows he will be instantly silenced with a blade of steel. He had no alternative but death. What matters, now, since the safe in our detective bureau, our unsuspected headquarters, contains the plunder?"

"But suppose—"

"What need?" Ravenswood cut in again. "There is no contingency on which I have not figured. I had the job itself perfectly planned; I have not provided less carefully for the sequence."

"Sure, Dickie, there's no denying that," Nolan admitted admiringly.

"It was a foregone conclusion," Ravenswood went on, "that Glidden would be called into the case, that he would immediately suspect Osgood, that he would visit Sage & Slocum, that he would learn of the new tenants in the next office, that he at once would suspect them, and— but, bah! why review it? I provided him with a soft trail, Paddy, so soft that I knew he would follow it."

"He sure has, Dickie, if—"

"There are none, Paddy. His every move has been reported by telephone. Our Red Ravens have not been idle. It is nearly half an hour since he entered the taxicab. He already may be— but have a look. Slip into the front room, Paddy, and have another look."

Nolan darted back of a portiere and disappeared. Ravenswood arose and laid aside the cigar he was smoking. He bore no likeness to Henry Dale, of the audacious detective bureau which he was planning to turn to vast advantage, nor did he resemble any personage previously assumed. His fine figure was nearly enveloped in a handsome smoking gown, from the side pocket of which, while he paused near the table, he drew a revolver, which he briefly examined.

He was doing so when Nolan hurriedly reappeared, saying, a bit excitedly: "They're here, Dickie. The taxi is waiting across the avenue. Glidden has just crossed over. He—"

Ravenswood silenced him with a gesture, pointing again to the front room.

"Wait there, in the darkness," he directed calmly. "Have things ready for me."

"Trust me for that."

"It will take me only a few minutes to hand him what's coming to him. If he ventures to—"

Ravenswood broke off abruptly. The doorbell was ringing noisily. He waved Nolan away, drew his smoking gown around him, replacing the revolver in the pocket, and then he walked out deliberately through the brightly lighted hall. There was a subtle gleam deep down in his fine eyes, however, when he opened the door and saw Glidden and Armstrong in the vestibule, and a burly policeman at the base of the steps.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said suavely. "Why—"

"Where's the landlady?" Glidden bluntly interrupted, stepping into the hall.

"Wait!" Ravenswood opposed him haughtily. "You have not been invited to enter. Mrs. Barnard is absent. I am her husband, however, and will attend to any matter concerning her."

There was a look in the eyes of the Red Raven that briefly quelled Glidden, even, for he drew back a little and said, more courteously:

"Her husband, eh? You will do as well, then. We are from headquarters. My name's Glidden."

"Glidden? Detective Glidden?"

"The same."

"I have heard of you," said Ravenswood, with subtle dryness, brows drooping. "But why do you come here in this way? This is a reputable house. I can see 'no occasion for—"

"Oh, we've got nothing on your house, Mr. Barnard, or on your estimable wife," Glidden again cut in, quite gruffly. "You're all right, no doubt, but you have been imposed on."

"Imposed on? How so?"

"You have a lodger here who is a crook, an absconder. We want him, and will do you and your house a service in taking him."

"A crook!" Ravenswood appeared greatly shocked. "Impossible! We have only one stranger here."

"Came to-day, didn't he?"

"Why, yes, he—"

"He's the one."

Glidden drew Armstrong in and closed the door. "He still is here, isn't he?"

"Why, yes, the man is in his room. But—"

"Show us the way. We'll do the rest. He—"

"One moment!" Ravenswood barred the way to the stairs, protesting firmly, with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. "You detectives may be mistaken. I suppose it is possible that even you, Detective Glidden, may be mistaken."

"Maybe, but not this time," Glidden growled impatiently. "We have a cinch case against him. Come, come, Mr. Barnard, show us to his room."

"Well, if I must." Ravenswood yielded with seeming reluctance. "But let there be no disturbance, no violence—"

"There won't be," Glidden cut in. "We'll take him as quietly as a baby takes a bottle. Get a move on."

"This way, then, but please be quiet. The house will be ruined, gentlemen, if this leaks out."

"We'll choke that off, also. It's enough for us to get our man."

"This way, then. He has our best back room. The door is ajar, I see, and I think he is reading. Yes— see for yourselves!"

Ravenswood opened the door while speaking. Neither detective saw that the key was on the outside. The large, square room was brightly lighted. Above the top of a large armchair, near the fireplace, well across the room, the back of which was turned squarely toward the door, could be seen the top of a man's head— that of the victimized bank messenger, then deeply drugged and wholly insensible. Ignorant of the last, of course, both detectives rushed into the room to seize him— when Ravenswood's voice rang out like a trumpet:

"Stop! All hands up— or there'll be a dead dick here!"

Both detectives had caught sight of the senseless man, and both swung around as if electrified. Then their hands went into the air. Ravenswood stood erect on the threshold, his disguise gone, one hand on the partly closed door, the other covering both officers with his revolver  He laughed derisively, and a half-choked roar broke from Glidden.

"Good Heaven!" he cried. "It's Ravenswood— that Red Raven leader!"

"Right!" Ravenswood's voice had a vicious snap. "I've not forgotten, Glidden, that day on the aviation field. Here's where I hand you one. You see that even you, Glidden, may blunder and be mistaken. Is this what you call a cinch case?"

"Blast you—"

"Oh, there's nothing in that!" Ravenswood laughed scornfully. "There's your man, your absconder, Glidden— but the Red Ravens did the job, and have their plunder. The Broad Street fighters were Red Ravens. The pencil vendor was another. The taxi driver is another. You see, Glidden, I fixed a soft trail for you— and you fell for it. I'll make sure that the force and the press learn all about it. Come and get us, Glidden. You know how to catch a bird. Put salt on his tail."

Ravenswood did not linger longer. He closed the door with the last and quickly turned the key, then darted down the hall stairs. He heard what he was expecting— the crash of both detectives against the door, and then the bang of a revolver, and the splintering of one of the panels. He ran down to the front door and called to the policeman.

"Glidden wants you up there. He's in a fight with three crooks in the back room."

The policeman rushed in and tore up the stairs at top speed. Ravenswood turned to the parlor door and threw off his smoking gown.

"Now, Paddy, my coat and hat," he said quickly. "This way out, lad, and lively to the taxi. Fallon will whisk us to cover. Glidden has his man— but we have the sixty thousand."

______________________

4: From the Pit

Adam Hull Shirk

1881-1931

Weird Tales, May, 1927

THE note from my Uncle Carl did not imbue me with an excess of emotion despite its conciliatory, not to say appealing tone:

"My Dear Nephews

"I need you at once and I hope you will forget any past differences and leave at the earliest possible moment. I enclose more than enough for expenses of trip. For God's sake come!"

The last sentence had been scribbled in pencil at the bottom of the typewritten communication and suggested an access of some emotion approaching fear. The address was new, for my uncle, Carl Brand, had always resided in Chicago, where his eminence as a surgeon was continually referred to in the press. Now, apparently, he had removed to Wychington, Illinois, which I ascertained by reference to the local railway office was some forty miles from the metropolis.

I considered whether to return the money or accede to his request. I recalled somewhat bitterly his coldness when, on the death of my dear mother, his own sister, a few years before, he had done no more than send formal condolences, though he knew we were in very straitened circumstances at the time. Again, a few months afterward, when I asked his assistance in obtaining a position in Chicago, he had advised me coldly enough to stay in Nevada. I had done so and by dint of hard work made myself a good berth with the Carson City Mercantile Trust Company. I thought it all over and finally came to a decision. After all, he was my only living relative. If he was in need, I could not refuse. So I obtained a leave of absence, packed a grip and took the train for Chicago. Arriving there, I found that a branch line stopped at Wychington, arriving around 9 o'clock in the evening.

The station, when the slow traveling train at last set me down there, was lighted by a single electric bulb and was already closed. Luckily it was a warm, clear night in the spring, so that walking would be no hardship, and certainly it would be necessary to walk, for there were no conveyances in sight. I had not wired Uncle Carl of my coming; I did not anticipate any difficulty in finding so distinguished an individual in a town of three thousand population where, most likely, everyone knew his neighbor's business.

The town was visible in the early moonlight, in a little valley below the traeks and some hundreds of yards distant. A few lights were visible, but quite evidently this was a "9 o'clock" village and only a garage or drug store would probably still be open. It was in the latter, attended by a sleepy-eyed clerk, that I put my inquiry regarding the whereabouts of Dr. Brand. He looked at me in some surprize and answered my question, but asked one of his own at the same time.

"You're a stranger, aren't you? He's living over at the old Raynes place."

Further inquiry elicited the information that the old Raynes place was the dilapidated and formerly untenanted mansion at the fringe of woods on the other side of the town. It appeared that my relative had rented it, and partially repaired the damage it had sustained through the years of emptiness, some three months before.

The clerk vouchsafed one more bit of information as I left the store: "Better sing out before you ring the bell— he's kind of queer, you know."

I didn't know, but could well suspect it. However, I followed the advice and "sang out" after I had reached the dark doorway, following a difficult passage through a tangle of weeds and shrubbery to the veranda.

It was an old house, almost hidden by the encroaching woods; it was, furthermore, in a sad state of disrepair which was apparent even in the kindly moonlight. Evidently Uncle Carl's efforts to restore the place had not extended beyond its interior.

I stood before the door; not a light was visible, not a sound came from within. I called loudly: "Uncle Carl— this is Tom Rance— are you awake?"

Then I rang the bell.

My friend the clerk, however, had been quite sound in his advice, for even as the bell was jangling discordantly somewhere in the bowels of the old house, the door opened and a queer face peered out. I say "queer" advisedly. That it was my uncle's I had no doubt, but I had never seen him and was scarcely prepared for the vision. He was attired in a dressing gown of faded brown; his shock of white hair was leonine and unkempt; his face was gaunt, rugged and forbidding, while his frame, despite the indication that he was a man well past fifty, was still powerful.

"So you've come, have you?"

The greeting, in a deep, sonorous voice, was hardly what I might have expected, but I decided to take things as they came and answered affirmatively.

"You are my uncle?" I asked, somewhat superfluously.

He growled out a reply, also in the affirmative. "Come in," he added, and swung the door ajar, at the same time switching on a light that revealed a hallway with a worn carpet and the woodwork black with age and grime.

My uncle led me to the living room— a large apartment, furnished with a certain degree of comfort. He sank into an easy chair and nodded me to another. A center table, littered with books and papers, mingled with certain scientific instruments, occupied a considerable part of the space.

"You were already in bed?" I asked.

"No," he answered; "I had switched off the light and was dozing here in the dark. But I'll show you to your room presently. I suppose you are tired."

"Not especially. I'm anxious to know why you sent for me; why you're living here instead of in Chicago: are you all alone?"

"I am almost alone," he admitted. "My secretary, Miss Darling, comes here every day to take dictation. I brought her from Chicago. I have no relatives besides yourself. I came here to finish a—a work on which I am engaged."

"Oh, I see. And why—?"

"I sent for you," he continued, as if I had not interrupted, "because I believe I am in danger; I need a man I could trust. I hope I can trust you?"

The observation was almost interrogative and I smiled.

"I hope you can; I didn't bring any credentials," I said, "but my record is clean where I come from."

"Tut-tut," he retorted; "quicktempered, like your mother. Well, it's all right. I haven't been particularly considerate, I know. Perhaps you will not regret coming, nevertheless—but we can go to bed now. In the morning I'll tell you all— all that you need to know."

His hesitancy, the hint of danger, of menace, rather stirred my somewhat sluggish imagination. Perhaps I should really enjoy this adventure after all. He said one thing more before showing me to the small but comfortable room where I was to sleep.

"I hope," he said, "you brought a revolver with you. Keep it handy, if you did. I sleep across the hall— if you hear anything, call; if you see anything— shoot first and ask questions afterward."

"But what—?"

"I can't tell you now— wait!"

He ambled off, and I heard the door close and a key turn in the lock. I was realty tired, in spite of my disclaimer, and in ten minutes I was asleep— nor did anything disturb my rest until the sun breaking through the windows aroused me. I looked at my watch; it was 9 o'clock, and I dressed hastily, making my toilet in the adjoining bathroom. Then I descended the stairs, lured by a sound that was incongrous after the aspect of my uncle and his abode had become firmly established in my mind. It was the voice of a woman— singing!

The owner of the voice I encountered in the lower hallway as I rounded a turn, and both the song and the singer stopped abruptly.

"Oh," she said.

I was conscious of an aureole of golden curls, a piquant face and a trim figure in a light-colored dress.

"I beg your pardon," I said, "you must be Miss Darling; I am Tom Rance, Dr. Brand's nephew; I came last night. "

This information I blurted out in a single sentence, hastily, lest I frighten away this vision of loveliness, like a butterfly in a barracks. The colors had departed from her face at the sudden encounter but flooded back again, rendering her far more lovely. She nodded in comprehension.

"My— Dr. Brand— told me you might come; I didn't know, of course— I am very happy to meet you."

She extended one dainty hand and I took it gratefully. Oh, yes, I decided, this would be an interesting adventure! I may perhaps expose a somewhat precipitate nature when I admit that already at first sight I was half in love with this girl— I who had been heart-whole and proof against the sex during my twenty-five years of life.... She was exquisite— there is no other word— delicate yet not of the fragile type; her eyes were a cornflower blue, and sincerity and wholesomeness were evident in their clear glances. I wondered what her first name might be.

"Dr. Brand is in the dining room; he has just started breakfast; you can join him." She nodded toward the door.

"Do you mean to say that you cook for him?"

She laughed ripplingly: "Oh, yes; I'm cook and secretary all in one. I run over early and get breakfast, and before leaving in the evening I get dinner. We skip lunch," she added whimsically.

I could not fathom it! This delicately beautiful girl who would have been the cynosure of all eyes on Michigan Boulevard or Fifth Avenue, satisfied to live in this out-of-the- way hole and to cook and slave for this queer old uncle of mine. It was too much to understand all at once. Perhaps, I reflected, he paid her well —or possibly he had rendered her a great service which she was trying to repay. I remembered he was a doctor—and a famous one. Well, I should leara all later on. Meanwhile a healthy appetite lured me to the dining room where Uncle Carl was ensconced behind a paper. He laid it down as I entered and nodded grimly.

"All quiet last night," I ventured, after the good-mornings were said.

"I am afraid," he returned, rather caustically, "it would not have troubled you had the house been struck by lightning."

I laughed sheepishly. "I was more tired than I thought," I said in extenuation.

"After breakfast," he declared, "I'll tell you something more about my reason for bringing you here."

I ate for a space in silenee. Finally I made another venture.

" I just met your secretary," I observed, quite casually.. "Miss Darling, isn't it? She is charming."

He looked at me for a moment with a cold and calculating gaze. Then he nodded and grunted a single word: "Humph!"

After that I desisted and we devoted our attentions exclusively to the viands which had been placed there by Miss Darling, who did not put in an appearance, much to my disappointment. Evidently she dined alone in the kitchen, probably, I decided, of her own volition.

The meal completed, Uncle Carl led the way into the living room and motioned me to a seat as before.

"I'm not going to disguise the fact," he said, abruptly, once the door was closed, "that I am living in dread of an attack; and that I sent for you because I need a strong arm in case of danger."

"What kind of attack?" I asked with almost equal abruptness. I was thinking that he was rather careless in subjecting a delicate girl like Miss Darling to such a menace, and it made me cool toward him.

He hesitated a moment. "I can not tell you that— at present— except that I mean a physical danger—combined with a mental one."

"From a man, or men?"

"I—I don't know!"

"You don't know?" I echoed his words. "I don't understand."

"I don't expect you to do so," he retorted. "All I ask is that you aid in case of— the need arising."

"And Miss Darling?" I could not help asking.

"Is well able to take care of herself."

"You mean she knows?"

"As much as— you do."

"But not," I said, shrewdly, "as much as you know?"

He did not answer. In fact he sat listening intently, and although I followed his example I could detect no untoward sound; indeed the only sound was one that brought joy to my ears—the voice of the girl, singing again. I looked at my uncle's face for some softening, but there was not the slightest relaxation in the hard lines of his craggy features, which now, by daylight, were more rugged than in the artificial light of the night before.

"Well," I said, finally, "what do you want me to do, now I'm here? How long do you wish me to stay?"

"I want you to keep on the alert, always," he said, coming quite suddenly back to - normal after the strained attitude of listening. "Have your gun handy; at night especially, I want you to help me keep watch. We will divide the time in equal parts and alternate. Tonight, for instance, you will retire at 9 o'clock and arise at 1. I will then retire."

"But I don't understand— watch for what?"

"For anything unusual that may occur. It may come in any form."

"What?"

"The danger. It may come at night; it may come in the broad daylight; it may come from within or from without. Or it may never come at all."

"Then how long do you wish me to stay?"

"Until it comes, or else until I learn by some other avenue that the danger is past. I can't explain, and if I did you wouldn't understand, Tom."

It was his first use of my given name, and somehow it warmed me toward him. I began even to feel a trace of pity for this strong man, this man with a record for high achievement in the world of science, hiding away here almost in the wilderness from a nameless dread. Then my thoughts went back to the girl.

"Who is Miss Darling?" I asked quite suddenly.

"Ah," he said, with a flicker of interest in his cold eyes. "You seem unduly interested in the young woman."

"How could I help being?— it is so odd, her being here at all and cooking—why, she could be—"

"How do you know what her motives or wishes may be?" he began almost angrily, but softened at once. "Listen, my boy," he went on, "I saved her mother once when she had been given up to die—by means of a simple operation. Five years longer she. was able to keep her with her, and she has never forgotten. They were poor and I asked no fee. She would give her life, I believe, for me."

It was as I had suspected. Yet I could not get over the feeling that he was exacting rather heavy tribute now for a charitable deed in the past. However, it was too early to make decisions; later she would perhaps tell me herself. I let it go at that and recapitulated..

"Then," I said, "you want me simply as a bodyguard; I am to keep watch at certain times by night and all the time by day. And you will tell me when I am relieved."

"That's it," he agreed. "As to your work— I do not know under what circumstances you left, but I will say this— no matter what the outcome of this affair; no matter what happens to me— you will never have to work again unless you want to."

It was generous and fairly took my breath away. I could only say "thank you," but after a moment, I added: "Count on me, Uncle Carl. I think you will understand that my having come as I did proves I had no such expectations; I felt it my duty in spite of what—"

"Yes, yes, I know," he interrupted, hastily. "It is all right."

"Well, then," I insisted, "if I'm to be of any real help to you, give me some suggestion of what form this danger may assume— of what I shall look out for."

"I told you—" he began, but I would not be put off thus easily.

"I am no child," I exclaimed. "Tell me something at least— is it man or woman?— young or old—?"

"It may be neither," he began, impressively. "I mean— there is something I can't explain. There may be one— there may be two— one I can deal with— the other— I don't know."

"Uncle Carl— what do you mean?"

But he only shook his head grimly, and turning, stalked abruptly out of the room. Was he mad? The thought flashed across my mind, but I rejected it when I remembered the girl. I went across and raised the shade from the window, which looked out upon a tangled mass of flowers and weeds, once a garden, now gone to seed. And among these disordered shrubs a form was moving— that of Miss Darling. I opened the sash with difficulty and the noise disturbed her. She looked up with a startled smile.

"Did you have a nice breakfast?" she asked.

"Heavenly," I replied. Instantly all thoughts of my uncle and his peculiar crotchet vanished from my mind. She was there, the morning was beautiful, the sun played in her hair and turned it to spun gold; the flowers became enchanted blossoms, the tangled, garden a king's pleasance.

"Wait," I called, "I'm coming out."

I shut the window and hastened around to the door, and a moment later stood beside her awkwardly in what had become a shining field of Arcady.

"Miss Darling," I said, "please tell me your given name— somehow I feel that I simply must know it."

She laughed at me, white teeth and red lips forming a combination that was irresistible. Dimples played in cheeks that bloomed with health and youth; the soft wind caught the tendrils of her golden hair and blew them distractingly across her broad low forehead.

"My first name is— Vida."

"Vida Darling— what a wonderful combination!"

I must have betrayed my feelings, so close to the surface, for she flushed and turned to the flowers in which she was apparently working, trying to bring a bit of order from the chaos of neglect.

"Are you— happy to be here?" I could not help the question.

She looked at me again, seriously enough.

"I don't know," she said. "I owe him so much— and there are things I don't understand. Perhaps I'm not quite myself at times—I forget some things.... others I remember. Yes— I'm happy enough, and" she hesitated and then smiled adorably— "I'm glad you've come— you are strong and you— you can help."

"But what is this danger?"

"I— I can't explain."

Always that phrase—both from my uncle and this girl: "I can't explain." Well, I told myself, I would do my best to find out what they had so much difficulty in explaining.

ii

THREE WEEKS of what appeared to be senseless precautions preceded the events which culminated in the strange solution of the puzzle of my uncle and his beautiful secretary.

Between watching at night and by day, I still found ample opportunity of cultivating Yida Darling, and rather to my surprize I found that my uncle made no effort to discourage a growing intimacy which could lead but to one conclusion.

Exactly three weeks from the day when I first heard her singing, I asked Yida to become my wife— and she consented. I could hardly believe it myself. It was strange enough that so attractive a girl, who, it seemed to me, possessed all the virtues, could have gone on so long without having been captured by someone. Perhaps, I decided, she had lived a secluded life. I knew she was an orphan, had had a convent education and four years before had come to my uncle. Three years before that had occurred the operation on her mother which had restored Mrs. Darling to health. So, according to Uncle Carl's words, she had been an orphan for two years. She was, as she told me, twenty-five. Although about my age, she seemed much younger than I was. Perhaps it was her innocence, her sweetness, her general air of girlishness which kept her almost a child. My good fortune in winning her promise to become my wife was still dazzling my senses when the first untoward event occurred to mar what had become an idyl for me, even if it was a nightmare to my uncle.

It. was the night of my late watch— that is, I went on duty at 1 o'clock and served till daylight. It was our custom to sit in the living room, with the door to the hallway wide open, thus commanding a view of the stairs leading to the bedrooms above. A fire in the grate made it cheerful in the big room with its littered and over-large center table. I kept my automatic at my elbow, with a dish of sandwiches flanking the weapon. Also there was a spirit lamp on which I could heat coffee to keep me awake. With plenty of books and papers, this had become quite a pleasant job, if monotonous. At times I wished something would happen to bring matters to a head. There were several reasons why I wanted to have it over and done with— not the least being that marriage between Vida and myself could hardly be considered until the trouble, whatever it might be, was at an end. Honestly, I don't think my uncle's promised financial reward for my services occurred to me. I would have been willing to go back to Nevada and work like a dog to keep Vida beside me and happy.

Some of these thoughts chased themselves through my mind that night as I sat in the living room trying to read but finding it increasingly difficult to keep my mind fixed on the printed page.

I wondered just how much Vida knew about the matter. She had told me nothing more, despite our compact and our love. If only the conventions would have permitted her to share some of those long hours with me, what a heaven it would have been! Just to have seen her sitting under the shaded glow of the reading lamp would have been the greatest joy I could conceive. Well, some day— soon, I hoped— this would come to pass— when she was my wife!

It was while this sweet dream was passing through my mind that I first heard that intermittent tapping, as of someone with a walking stick, coming slowly along a frosty road. But I doubted if it was caused by anything of the sort. It was so regular— almost like the drip of a faucet. Indeed, at first I believed that it was something of the kind; then I discarded this idea because the sound was coming nearer and nearer!

Tap-tap-tap!

Yes, it was nearer, almost at the porch, it seemed. Then it suddenlyceased, and the silence of the waning night was unbroken save for the distant crowing of a cock greeting the approaching day.

It was pitch-dark as yet; through the window, from which the curtain was drawn and the shade raised, I could see only the reflection of my own lamp and the room, of myself seated by the table; the odd optical illusion which everyone has noticed and which in times gone by suggested the famous "Dr. Pepper ghost illusion" which startled even the scientific world.

I strove to penetrate this, but without avail. It came to me uncomfortably that while exterior objects were invisible to me, I was plainly apparent to whoever or whatever might be without. I wished the shade had been drawn. But I made no move. If something were about to happen—

And at that moment came a guarded knock at the door!

I am afraid that my hair rose stiffly on my head; I know that a chill ran down my spine and that involuntarily I seized the butt of the revolver. Something in its solid coldness reassured me and I dropped down upon all fours, still holding the weapon. I did this to escape my position of high visibility through the window. Once beyond the range of the aperture, I rose to my feet and noiselessly crept into the hall. My uncle's orders had been to arouse him at the first sign of danger. But how could I do so without also alarming the visitor— whoever it might be? I decided to do my own investigating, for the time being at least. Any unusual sound, I knew, would bring Uncle Carl, always a light sleeper, down at once.

I reached the door, and with my revolver ready, the ancient chain fixed in position, opened it a crack.

"Who's there?" I whispered.

But the vision that confronted me in the darkness of the doorway, but slightly relieved by the radiance from the inner room, caused me hastily to detach the chain and swing the portal wide. Vida stood on the threshold!

Pale as a ghost she was, with an expression distorting her features that was utterly alien to them, an expression of diabolic hate, which gave place to fear and then faded as she fell forward, a dead weight, in my arms. As she did so I noted a long, dark rod or staff which she held clasped in one hand. This clattered to the floor. After all, it had been the tapping of this which I heard. I carried her to a chair. My uncle, aroused, was coming down the stairs and in a moment stood beside me. His eyes fell on the stick. He picked it up gingerly, looked at it for a moment and placed it carefully in a bookcase by the mantel.

"Vida," I whispered, "what is it?"

She was coming out of her faint and presently opened her eyes sleepily—and smiled! Then suddenly she sprang to her feet.

"Where am I?—oh, my God!—I —"

She saw my uncle and then her eyes turned to mine again and the fear departed from them.

"I must have been sleep-walking."

Yet she was fully attired; perhaps she had dressed while in a somnambulistic condition.

"Don't you recall anything?" asked Uncle Carl.

She shook her head. "No. For a moment, when I first awoke, I thought I had a hideous memory, but it must have been a dream—it's all gone now."

"It is what I had dreaded," muttered my uncle, and then got the stick from its place. "Tell me, Vida, do you remember this?"

He held it before her and she essayed to take it, but he drew it away.

"No," she answered, "what is it?"

"Nothing—I—" He paused.

"You will have to stay here now, my dear. Mrs. Bums will probably never miss you at the house where you're staying. And it is nearly daylight. If people wish to talk—they'll have to talk, that's all!"

He replaced the stick and locked the door of the bookcase carefully.

Like one in a dream, I had listened to all this and failed utterly to make sense of it. What had the stick to do with it? Why had Vida come here? —in her sleep, if that was it—and why that concentrated hatred in her face when she first arrived? Was it for my uncle? for me? I dismissed both conjectures as absurd.

We spent the remaining hours of darkness together, Vida curled in the big armchair by the fire, sleeping peacefully as a child; my uncle and I, silently smoking and listening. But nothing more occurred and the sun's rays at last slanted through the windows and chased away the last vestige of the night.

Vida, awakened by the sun, rubbed her eyes and sprang up. Memory returned quickly— memory of her experience only from the moment of her awakening in the room. All else had been blotted out.

"I'll get breakfast," she said, and vanished in the direction of the kitchen.

Uncle Carl said no more of the matter to her; but to me, while she was busy preparing the morning meal, he said, "I think matters are coming to a head. "

"How?" I asked vacuously.

"This is the first genuine proof that he—that it might reach us, no matter what safeguards are established. The dread of this has weighed upon my shoulders for months—perhaps it is better that it has come to this."

"Uncle Carl," I said, "please tell me more— how can I help, if you keep me in complete ignorance?"

He looked kindly toward me; indeed, of late, I had begun to believe that his severe exterior covered a heart of gold.

"I— do not know what to say beyond what I've already told you of this menace. To explain all would take too long—and it may not become necessary. You love Vida, of course."

"Indeed, yes; I meant to speak to you; she has promised to marry me if all goes well; that's why I'm so anxious, too. I mean, in addition to my desire to serve you—"

He smiled at my impetuous, schoolboy speech.

"It is well. She loves you, I am sure. Well, if anything happens to me— shield her against anything that may occur. Do you promise?"

"I swear it," I responded fervently.

"Good. Now be on your guard—I have an intuition that tonight may be the crisis—there may be one, there may be two-"

With this enigmatical sentence, he turned away and left me standing, my mind filled with thoughts that I could not define even to my own satisfaction.

Breakfast over, we all three went into the living room. To keep her mind occupied as well as his own, Uncle Carl gave Vida some dictation on his text-book—a labor of years, evidently—and I went out in the yard and walked through the tangle of shrubbery, wondering what to do, arriving at no conclusion.

The day passed slowly and night fell. Vida had decided to defy the conventions for the occasion, at the earnest desire of my uncle, who confided to us both his fears of some sort of attack that night.

"I would rather you were here— after what occurred last night— than that you should be absent. We must be ready— and together— when the blow falls."

Vida bowed her head in acknowledgment of the wisdom of his decision.

"You take the spare room," he said to her, "and Tom and I will watch here in the living room."

And this arrangement -was carried out. At 10 o'clock, Vida went to her room and bade me a sweet good-night as we parted- at the foot of the stairs.

"Remember, dear," I whispered, "that nothing shall harm you while I live to guard you against the world."

"I know," she breathed; "good night!"

I went back to Uncle Carl and we put out the lights at his suggestion.

"I want to draw their—his fire," he explained. "I want it over and done with at whatever cost."

As we sat in the darkness, I tried vainly to distinguish his features, but without any degree of success. He was simply a blur against the dark shadows of the room. I had my flashlight at my side, the pistol also was ready. Uncle Carl, too, was armed.

THE hours dragged by silently, measured by the ticking of the clock which pealed sonorously at the half-hourly intervals. It had just finished striking 12 when a sound broke the stillness— an unwonted sound as of someone or something stirring on the veranda without.

I felt rather than saw Uncle Carl move slightly, tensing his muscles, as did I, so I knew he had heard it, too. But neither of us spoke.

It came again, that furtive, slithering sound; one could hardly call it the sound of footsteps.

And then came a sudden gust of wind—I had not before noticed that it was blowing—the hall door, the main entrance, was open. And then I knew that, purposely no doubt, Uncle Carl had left it unlocked.

"Get ready," he breathed.

Something was coming into the hallway—I felt again that inrush of air, and it seemed like the wind off a desert, hot and uncanny. And then the darkness of the doorway to the living room was rendered even darker by a black something that filled it.

"Lights!" called Uncle Carl.

I snapped on the flashlight, directing its rays toward the door; at the same instant he switched on the room lights.

What I saw I find difficult to describe, even now, after the passage of years. A man stood in the entrance, wrapped in a black cloak. He was tall and spare. His cloak muffled all but the eyes—eyes that seemed to emit a radiance of their own, like twin streaks of green fire. And behind him loomed another shape, grotesque, dark, heavy and clumsy. It seemed somehow impalpable, so much so that then, as now, I could not determine whether it was shadow or substance. Yet it moved, I swear, separately and apart from the other figure. And I was conscious of a fetid odor, of that warm, sickening air.

"Where is she?" A dull, inhuman voice boomed from the first figure.

"Where you will never get her, you devil," screamed my uncle, and at the same instant he fired.

I followed suit as the figure lurched into the room toward him. The thing in the background seemed to grow and envelop us all for an instant but my uncle screamed to me wildly: "Tom, Tom— come beside me —here."

He was muttering some incoherent words, like an incantation, as I took up my stand beside him; and then the cloaked figure— seemingly unhurt by our fire— was upon us. The other intruder, as my uncle continued speaking in what seemed a foreign tongue, receded until it crouched, a black blur at the entrance to the room. The first figure, obviously human, whatever its companion might be, seized Uncle Carl, and as the cloak slipped from the face I saw a hideous countenance, seared as with fire, almost featureless, but cruel as hell. It wound long arms about my uncle, who seemed to have become suddenly a helpless prey to the onslaught. He seemed exhausted as by some tremendous mental effort. Not so, however, was I affected. I pumped my automatic, and as I did so was conscious of a woman's scream. Vida!

At last my shots had taken effect. The creature with the face of horror reeled and relaxed its clutch, and Uncle Carl, released from the hold, slipped into a chair, unconscious. The figure fell in a heap and I bounded across it toward the doorway. I could hear Vida's screams, and that black thing barred my passage. I can not describe it; perhaps there are no words in our vocabulary that are equal to the task.

I heard Uncle Carl, roused from his momentary stupor, call out: "Wait, Tom, wait!"

I paused for an instant, and again I heard him repeating that formula of words which now sounded like Latin phrases, but nope that were familiar to me. And as I live, before me that dark, unclean thing receded, dwindled, vanished! The strange odor, the hot breath, vanished with it and in a moment I had passed into the hall, and Vida, crumpled in a heap at the foot of the stairs, was held tightly in my arms. Thank God, she was alive.

I turned and saw my uncle stooping over the man on the floor.

He rose from his position with a look of such relief on his face that I breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

"It's over," he said. "He's dead. Take Vida into the dining room— there's nothing to fear now—and come back here."

I did his bidding. The girl was again unconscious, but breathing regularly. I placed her on a couch, which incongruously stood in the dining room, and covered her over carefully, for she was in her nightdress. I turned the lights full on, closed the door, and came back to the living room.

Uncle carl was standing looking down at the huddled form on the floor. He looked up at my approach and motioned me to come nearer.

"There lies the greatest fiend that the present century has produced," he said. "He is dead. I do not know which of us killed him.' But in any case, I will shoulder all the blame."

"There can be no blame," I interposed, "for they came like thieves in the night— it was our right to defend our property and our lives against marauders."

"Right," he admitted. "You say 'they'!" He paused and looked keenly into my faee. "You, too, saw— the other?"

"The other man?"

"It was no man," he replied; "it was nothing for which we have an accurate name. It no longer exists — it was what I can only describe as a 'familiar'.''

I shook my head. The term was one with which I had no acquaintance.

"It is a long story and you shall have it all now," he went on. "But first, we must dispose of this body— and in the morning we will see the authorities. How is Vida?"

"She seems in a trance."

"That exactly describes her condition," said my uncle. "I can revive her— perhaps I had better do that now, so that she, too, may hear all the story, of which now she knows only a part."

I followed him into the dining room to where my darling lay covered by a spread, looking angelically beautiful. Her bosom rose and fell rhythmically in what was apparently natural slumber, but I knew she was in a still deeper sleep than that induced by nature. Uncle Carl rummaged in the sideboard and brought out a bottle of ammonia.

"This will sometimes arouse the subject of a hypnotic trance," he said.

"It— she is hypnotized?"

"Yes— the devil's weapon. But the hypnotist is dead. Sometimes only the one inducing the trance can restore the patient or subject, but I think I shall succeed without him— I must do so."

He bent over the girl and spoke to her.

"Vida," he said, "awake."

He held the bottle of ammonia close to her nostrils, and then quickly handing it to me, clapped his hands loudly. To my joy, I saw the color rise in her pale cheeks, and her breast was convulsed with some untoward effort; suddenly she sat up and looked wildly about her—into my face and into Uncle Carl's. Then she burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping.

"Thank God!" breathed my uncle, and I echoed his words. In a moment I had gathered her, spread and all, in my arms, and she wept unrestrainedly on my shoulder.

Presently she ceased, and realizing for the first time the scantiness of her attire, drew away with a little cry.

"Tom— Dr. Carl— what has happened? I don't remember—"

"All is well," said my uncle. "He is dead."

"Dead! Where?"

"In the living room. Wait here, my dear, till Tom and I remove the body, and then we will have a talk. Or better, run upstairs and dress— by that time there will be nothing to disturb you in— the other room."

I took her to the door of her room and came hastily downstairs to where my uncle had already partly composed the limbs of the dead man and thrown the cloak over the evil face, evil in death as in life. Together we lifted the body and carried it into a disused room where we laid it decently on an old cot bed. Then we came back to the living room.

Vida called that she was ready and I went up and brought her down.

Then, the lights full on, the fire going, we heard from the lips of Uncle Carl the story which to this day is as strange in the telling as it is difficult to believe. But I saw— there can be no doubt!

''Seven years ago," he began, "I was in active practise in Chicago, but already I had begun to specialize almost exclusively upon diseases of the brain. Unlike some of my more hidebound confreres, I gave a great deal of attention to psychology, psycho-analysis (though the phrase was then unused, if it was known) and metaphysics. I believed firmly that somewhere there was a connection between that impalpable thing we call the soul and the material organism called brain, that somewhere between matter and mind lay the splution of our vexatious problems. Thus I became intimate with the man who lies dead in there— whose name I shall withhold, at present. He was a brilliant scholar, but his metier lay along the lines of suggestive therapeutics to even a greater degree than did mine. Hypnosis was his hobby, and he had developed it to a degree far beyond that of any of our modem operators. And he was, at heart, a devil.

"He was older than I. I knew nothing of his family, of his home life. That he was unmarried, I learned by some chance remark he made— that was all. I did not even know where he lived. But we had long discussions in either my office or his, which he frequented at irregular intervals, sometimes sitting far into the night, arguing, speculating, sometimes quarreling. He claimed that good and evil were relative terms and that moral qualities were merely the inventions of man— having no bearing on the deeper things of life. I maintained that somewhere in that mysterious organism called brain lay the controlling element that had to do with the traits of good and evil. I believed that some day I or someone else would discover the means of reaching this element, and perhaps by a psychiatric operation removing entirely the tendency to do or even think evil. He laughed at this theory. 'It is all a matter outside the brain,' he asserted, 'and I have delved into studies that will give me the ability, I hope, to control the powers of evil as one controls a horse by means of the reins and bit.'

"One night, about seven years ago, when I had already known this man for some little time, I was aroused by a ring at my doorbell. My name was on the door-plate, but I seldom had patients at home or was called on a case out of hours. Being unmarried, alone, I had not even a servant then, so I answered the door myself. On the step stood Vida."

He paused and looked toward the girl, who nodded slowly, flushing at the remembrance.

"She told me her mother was ill and begged me to come. The house was only a few blocks distant. I accompanied her, and on the way she explained that she was home temporarily from the convent and that her mother had had an 'accident.' When I saw the poor woman, I knew that the accident was in. reality nothing short of a brutal attack. I restored Mrs. Darling to consciousness, and then I demanded to know the cause of the injury— she had apparently been beaten. Both she and Vida refused at first to tell— and then, at my insistence, admitted that a man had been responsible. This man lies dead in that other room. He was the brother of Mrs. Darling— Vida's uncle.

"But the shock came when I learned the name of the devil who had thus attacked a defenseless woman simply because she begged him to desist in some practise that was becoming abhorrent to her— he lived with the mother and daughter— it was the name of my erstwhile friend and fellow investigator.

"Mrs. Darling was more seriously injured than I at first suspected, but I performed a very slight operation which saved her life.

"The gratitude of both mother and child was affecting, and we became devoted friends. I can say— now that she is no more— how deeply I learned to love Vida's mother. She was the image, in a matured way, of her daughter. And she was in every respect a wonderful woman. But I could not conceive of myself as married— I was already wedded to science. Furthermore I was considerably older than she.

"I called the brother to account the next day and told him frankly what I thought of him. He laughed like a fiend. But he heeded my warning and for a long time did not molest his sister again. Vida came to work with me as my secretary after a year or so. She has been like a daughter ever since.

"And then one day, about two years ago, that devil again attacked his sister, and from the effects of this injury she did not recover. However, a charge of murder could not be placed against him. The actual physical hurts did not directly induce death. It was the mental enmity and the horror of the man and his practises which resulted in her gradual fading away. Thus he was in every sense morally to blame. Why did I not denounce him? His sister begged me not to do so, as did Vida. And I acceded to their wishes. Then she— died."

For an instant my uncle bent his head, and Vida's eyes were suffused with tears. I reached over and put an arm about her as he resumed.

"I forgot everything then but my grief. I knew that I should have sacrificed all for my love, and now it was too late. Then came the thought of revenge. He should pay!

"No matter by what means I induced him to come to my office again in a friendly way, following the trouble and my accusations which had estranged us. I had learned things about him, meanwhile, from both women— from Vida and, before her death, from Mrs. Darling— things which were too unsavory, too horrible— yes, too transcendently terrible— to accept. He dabbled in forbidden things, and made incursions into a realm of which you can have no cognizance. The women knew only that he performed strange experiments in his laboratory and that they found dumb creatures, a black cockerel and a he-goat, which had been killed in a revolting manner. Once, they found the pentagram, with mystic symbols, sketched in chalk on the floor of his study. Always there was an indefinable, an evil odor, in his rooms. They heard him talking to himself at night— but it sounded as if he were addressing another. Once there were heavy sounds as of some altercation in which things were overturned. He had cried out, and to their questions answered only that he had knocked over a table and hurt his foot. Sometimes there was a trace of unusual heat in the rooms.

"My meetings with Mrs. Darling had been invariably at my office, where Vida was working. Oddly, her uncle had made no effort to prevent her working with me. Perhaps he was glad to be rid of her that he might carry on his experiments the more safely.

"As I say, I induced him to come to see me at my office on several occasions, and one evening shortly after his victim had passed on, we talked later than usual. I was prepared, for I too had been pursuing my studies assiduously. I drugged the wine he drank, and when he was unconscious, administered an anesthetic. I placed him on my operating table and prepared him for an operation. The brain! That was the seat of the trouble. If I could remove that evil tendency by the knife I might make him a worthy member of society, even a valuable one. Also I would prove my theory. And if I failed— well, he deserved death!

"The operation was a success— in so far that he recovered rapidly under my careful nursing. I had removed a tiny particle of the organic matter that constituted what I believed to be the seat of the emotion of evil. But I had made an error. Instead, I had removed the part which contained whatever small amount of good tendency was resident in his brain. In a word, I had constituted him a human monster a hundred times worse than before. For in the worst of us there is always some slight inclination to good; in him there now remained no redeeming feature. I began to note the effect as he recovered strength following the terrific shock of the operation, slight as it had been in some respects. He knew me, but not as in the past. He had forgotten my significance in the scheme of things, he had forgotten his sister and Vida. He had forgotten everything but that certain faces were familiar— as mine. But he was now a cruel animal. He caught the cat I kept in my office, and had I not stopped him in time would have dismembered it in sheer cruelty. He was a monster!

"I let him go. God forgive me, I let loose this hideous thing upon humanity, believing it would soon destroy itself. For a long time it disappeared and I believed that the monster was dead. Then I received a letter from— him!

"He had recovered his memory— but his evil nature was still supreme. He knew instinctively what had happened because I had often aired my theories to him. And he wished only to wreak vengeance on me. Not, he carefully explained, because he regretted losing the slight remnant of good that had remained in his consciousness but because I had tricked him and employed him as a subject for my experiment! He meant to kill me and— Vida! He bade me beware of his powers, of his hypnotic strength, by which even at a distance he could control his victims. He proved this— as you have recently had cause to know— when he subjected Vida to his will, sending her with that stick to— kill! For the stick contains a wicked blade which only a spring in the handle releases. You had not discovered it. And that blade is steeped in deadly virus. But he reckoned without Vida's essential goodness. He could not compel her hypnotically to commit a crime, for it was not in her nature to do so.

"He failed in his attempt.... but I am ahead of my story. For months he pursued us with threatening letters. For myself I cared little, but I dreaded what might come to Vida. For latterly, the letters conveyed the suggestion that she would be the one to suffer and that through her he would reach me. But as yet the manifestations, if I may so describe them, were witnessed, or felt, by me only. At night I would awake to feel a hot breath in my face; to detect a fetid odor too horrible to be endured; to become aware of something that mopped and mowed in the shadows of the room. It came, I know, like that thing tonight, from the abyss itself—from the very pits of hell! It was wearing me down even as I told myself it could not be so. At least, it was the quintessence of hate, focused upon us, and against this hideous thing even my science was helpless.

"You know now why I could not explain, Tom. You would have thought me mad! But you saw— you saw for yourself, tonight. That awful shape which shrank and vanished before the words I spoke, a formula learned at the cost of diligent research in the ancient volumes known to but few living men, remembered— thank heaven!— tonight in time to save us all. By certain incantations, creatures from that netherworld may be summoned forth, I verily believe. And by opposing words they may be driven back whence they came. You may say it was all hypnotism— that we saw only as the audiences of Hindoo fakers see their marvelous feats, such as the fabled rope trick— but I know better.

"We came here to escape, a few months ago. It. was the last stand in this unequal fight, literally good against evil. I could not touch him with the law—I waited for him to come that I might kill him and by the words I had learned, drive his evil companion back to the abyss. Then I sent for you— I needed a strong arm, Vida needed more than my frail protection— Vida who knew only that the creature once known as her uncle had become an implacable enemy.

"And, as I had hoped, on the failure of his hypnotic effort to influence Vida to slay me (for I assume he did not know of your presence here, Tom), he determined to come himself—accompanied by the dread thing— to achieve his purpose. The rest you know."

Years have passed. Vida and I have long been happily married and my uncle is dead. He never again spoke of his theory regarding good and evil and the possibility of a material operation on the brain controlling these qualities. Indeed, he retired from all active practise or even experiment following the downfall of his enemy.

Vida and I try to believe it was all a case of hypnosis developed to the nth degree. The other thing, in spite of what I saw, we can not accept. Sufficient unto their time the foul practises of those remote sorcerers of which, perchance, the man I saw slain was an unholy revenant. Steeped in blood, made hideous by sacrifices of diabolic cruelty, wrapped in the smoke from laurel, cypress and alder, protected by the magic circle of evocation and with altars crowned with asphodel and vervain, they worked their spells mayhap in the dim and shadowy past. Today they have no place, and I, for one, refuse to accept, in this respect, even the evidence of my own senses.

_____________________

5: Justice While You Wait

Owen Oliver

(Joshua Albert Flynn 1863-1933)

McClure's Magazine, June 1910

MPH! You think the law's slow, do you? So it is. So it ought to be!

No, I don't say that just because I'm a lawyer. I 'm a man first and a solicitor afterward. I sympathize with your desire to settle the matter out of hand; but I don't believe in "justice while you wait," as you put it. I've heard that phrase once before, and I never want to hear it again. Sit down and I'll tell you. Don't be nervous. I sha'n't charge it on the bill.

It happened thirty years ago, when I was a young man of six-and-twenty. I  didn't wait for things, in those days. I was sitting at my desk— this very desk — one morning, when I heard that my young brother was ill at the diggings and wanted to come home. I sailed that very afternoon. Three weeks to the day— t conveyance was slower then — I was astride a horse, in a strange country, within a few hours' ride of my brother.

I wasn't quite sure of my way, so I rode up to a sign-post that stood near a clump of trees. It was made of three strips of wood nailed in a triangle round a tree-trunk. The names had been tarred on it, but the rains had washed a good bit of them off. While I was puzzling out the remainder, half a dozen men rode out from the trees— rough-looking chaps whom I took to be cowboys— a name that I had learned only a day or two before.

"Hands up!" they shouted, and six revolvers were pointed at me.

I held up my hands, and they seized them and tied them behind my back.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Darned Britisher!" cried one, as soon as I spoke. He was a stout, jovial villain with a gingery beard. They called him Yellow Sam.

''Take you to a con-venient tree," said a huge fellow with a squint, "and string you up!"

"Trees enough here," suggested a little ferret-faced fellow to whom I took a particular dislike.

"'Tain't fair to do the boys out of their fun," objected a drunken desperado who reeled in his saddle. "Things are dull enough nowadays."

"Them as hunt have the skins," another growled.

"He's going to the camp," said a thin, very American-faced fellow who seemed to be the leader. "That's the committee's rule, and I'm not taking a hand against them"

"Nor I," said Yellow Sam. "Seen the old Colonel pip an ace at twenty yards, five times out of six; and Broken Bill ain't much worse with his shooter. 'Tain't go as you please since we elected that committee."

"More fool you to have a Vigilance Committee," the ferret-faced man remarked. " We didn't waste time over committees at Troy Town. Caught a skunk and settled a skunk, and settled him as you pleased. That was our way."

"Or passed him on to another camp," suggested Yellow Sam sarcastically. "And when he came to Rome he had to do as Rome does, not Troy. Come along, sons. You're keeping the gentleman waiting!"

They started off at a canter, driving my horse between them.

"But what have I done?" I inquired, as I jolted along.

"Taken a ticket for eternity, sonny," said the drunken man.

" But—" I began.

"Don't waste breath," the thin man interrupted. "You've got about ten minutes. If you've any special messages to send, think them over. We'll pass on your money or anything of that kind. We're not thieves, see! And we'll make up a little note to say that you met with an accident, which was much regretted, you being popular and respected. We don't need to hurt people's feelings."

"But why are you going to kill me?" I persisted.

" It's our way with thieves," he said.

"I'm not a thief!" I declared. But they all laughed; and when I repeated the statement, they laughed again.

"You're riding a stolen horse," one told me, "and that's good enough for us."

I tried to explain; but they whipped up the horses to a gallop, and all the breath was jolted out of me. You've no idea how a horse jolts when your hands are tied, and you've enough to do to keep your balance.

We soon reached a collection of log huts. "Rome" was set out on a plot of ground in front of the huts, in letters made up of large white stones, and the name was also painted on the door of the post-office. I learned afterward that the place was called "Rome Rendezvous," and was the resort of those who found the more respectable settlements too hot for them. A large hut in the center was evidently the store and bar. My captain whooped and yelled, and about forty men trooped out, headed by a sharp-faced old man with white hair and a pointed white beard. They called him "Colonel " and treated him with a good deal of rough respect. He looked at me with a kind of fierce benevolence, and patted my horse gently.

"This is a sad business," he remarked,  "—a very sad business." He shook his head.

"Caught the possum napping," the thin man explained; "not three miles from here, too!"

"Not three miles!" said the Colonel. He looked at me admiringly. "I like nerve— always did! But you can have too much of a good thing, stranger. Too much nerve spells ruin! Still, I admire it.... Hi, Jim! Bring out a cocktail, and charge it to me. Just a little tribute to nerve, sonny!" He patted the horse again. "You took him within three miles, eh?"

"By the sign," said the thin man. "Tried to bluff us, too. Rode up and pretended to be puzzling it out, as if he hadn't seen us, and looked as innocent as a baby! Quite surprised when we took him. Couldn't make out what he'd done to be treated in this harsh manner!"

The crowd roared with amusement.

"I don't know!" I shouted.

"Well," said the Colonel mildly, "you'll soon know more than we do!"

He nodded toward a man who had brought out a new rope and was making a noose at one end of it. He seemed to be familiar with the operation.

"Surely," I expostulated, "you're not going to kill an innocent man in cold blood and without hearing him?"

"Listen to him!" cried Yellow Sam; and they roared as if I had said something funny.

A man in his shirt-sleeves brought out a cocktail and held it up for me to drink. I swallowed it, though it half choked me. I saw a man standing on a ladder to adjust the rope over a branch of a tree.

"Well, boys?" the Colonel asked. "Any one got anything to say before we get to business?"

A big man with a broken nose stepped forward— an ungainly, broken-down man.

"There ain't been no trial. Colonel," he objected.

"What's the good of a trial when he's caught with the horse?" expostulated the ferret-faced man. "When I was at Troy Camp—"

The broken-nosed man held up one hand. The other hand fingered his revolver affectionately.

" If you was at Troy Camp," he said gently, "where there isn't no law against shooting as you please, you wouldn't dare so much as to breathe near me!"

"Good old Broken Bill!" some one shouted.

"And if you like to ride over to Troy Camp with me," said Broken Bill, "you can; and the one that comes back won't be asked no questions."

"Never mind about Troy Camp," the Colonel said. "That ain't the point. The question is, do we want a trial, or don't we?"

"'Tain't a question of wanting," Broken Bill objected. "It's a question of law and order. If you make rules and regulations you've got to stick to them. That's what I say."

"Vote for old Broken Bill and law and order!" the drunken man shouted boisterously.

"Well," said the Colonel, "there's law, and there's sense. Seems to me you can put the case in a nut-shell, and it don't need to be a cokernut! Here's a stranger. Here's Jim Sands' horse. Here's a rope, noose at the end, fixed up con-venient. That's sense, Bill, ain't it?"

"You can't have sense and law too," Bill growled. "And you elected to have law; and you elected a Vigilance Committee, and a president"— he bowed to the Colonel, who returned his salute gravely —"and officers." He bowed round him, and the individuals concerned returned the compliment punctiliously. "And you wrote it up on paper over the slate in the bar. 'Nobody's to be put out without a fair trial'—that's what it says. You can't keep up respect for law if you make a laughing-stock of it just because there's no sense in it — or because there is, either!"

"Well," the Colonel admitted, "there's reason in old Bill's argument. We said we'd have a trial, and a trial we'll have. But this gentleman's a good sport, I can see. I make no doubt he'll save waste of time and plead guilty; and even old Bill won't want to argue any more about it then, eh, Bill?"

" Not if he pleads guilty," Broken Bill agreed. "But I don't know as he does, and seems to me he don't." He frowned at me as if to say, "Now's your chance."

"I am not guilty," I said. "I bought the horse. I did not know that it was stolen. I—"

"Wait, wait!" cried the Colonel. "If there's got to be a trial, we'll have everything in order. Hi, boys! Leave that bit of string for a minute and come over here. There's going to be a trial."

"What's the good of a trial?" several grumbled.

"No good," said the Colonel. "But we've laid down that we'd try every one fair before we did justice on him, and it don't take long, and passes the time, and pleases old Bill!"

"Good old Broken Bill!" some one shouted; and they jostled each other into the store.

They took me in, still bound, and sat me on a packing-case. The men stood or squatted in a ring round me. The Colonel sat opposite to me in a damaged arm-chair, and directed the proceedings.

"You're first, Jim," he said. "Is it your horse?"

A quiet little man stood up and said yes.

"Anything else to say?" the Colonel asked, and the little man said no.

"You all know that this gentleman was caught with it," the Colonel went on. "I take it no one wants evidence as to that?" He looked about him, and nobody objected. "Then that's the case for the prosecution," he pronounced.

"I've got questions to ask," Broken Bill interposed.

"You can ask them afterwards," the Colonel ruled, "if you aren't satisfied when you've heard the defense."

He turned to me.

"Let's have it as short as is convenient to you," he commanded. "Who are you, where do you come from, how did you come by the horse, and any other reason why the law shouldn't take its course."

"My name is George Raikes," I said. "I am a solicitor—"

"Here!" cried the Colonel. "You've no cause to say anything against yourself. We're a fair court, and I suggest that you leave your profession out."

"That's fair," said Broken Bill, who seemed to have appointed himself as my counsel; and I resumed my defense.

"I live in London. I came out by the Scotsman three weeks ago. My brother is at Stanley Diggings. I heard that he was ill and destitute—"

"What's that?" a dirty, bloated man asked.

"Stone-broke," the Colonel explained. "The jury need not expose their ignorance of the language; there's a dictionary in the bar."

Some one pointed out in a whisper that Two-handed Dick had used the dictionary for a target and shot most of it away with one hand or the other. It was the outbreak just before the Vigilance Committee was started, they reminded the president.

"And that shows the need of law and order," said he. "Bill was quite right. You can't be too careful about these things. Sorry to interrupt you, stranger. You can go on."

"I came to West Junction by the railway," I continued, "and then to Paris Park by coach. I started from there this morning by cart, but it broke down. So I walked. When I had been walking for about an hour, I met a man. He seemed to be partly English— I mean white— and partly native."

"Half-breed," the Colonel interpreted. "All thieves."

" I didn't know that. I'm new to the country. He had that horse. He said he'd just bought it from a gentleman who let him have it cheap, and he'd sell it to me at a bargain. I was anxious to get on quickly, so I gave him one hundred and twenty dollars for it. I asked him for a receipt, but he couldn't write. That's all. It's the truth."

"Umph!" said the Colonel. "Any one got anything to say for the prosecution?"

There was a whispered consultation. Then Yellow Sam stepped forward.

"If we're going to take a yarn like that," he said, "any one can get off anything. It's only what he says, and no proof; and all I say is this: We took him on the horse, and in the old days no one wouldn't have wasted time over questions, but just shot at sight, and that's sense; and if law's against sense, let's alter the law."

There was a chorus of approval.

"You can't alter the law till the trial's over," the Colonel said. " 'Twouldn't be showing ourselves proper respect. Any one else want to show what he can do as an orator?"

He paused, but no one answered.

"Then that's the case for the prosecution," he announced. "Any one for the defense?"

"Me," said Broken Bill; "and I want to ask a few questions. Jim Sands, when did you lose this horse?"

"Sometime last night," said Jim,"— least- ways, this morning."

"Sometime's no time," said Bill. (I couldn't help fancying that he had been a lawyer!) "Do you know, or don't you?"

"Well," said Jim, "I heard him neigh 'bout four o'clock, just before it was light. Know his voice among a hundred. He must have been took then."

"Oh!" said Bill. "Why must he?"

"He couldn't have been took before," Jim apologized. "That's what I meant. You mix me up with all them questions, Bill. I ain't no lawyer, and never was!"

"Now,"— Bill turned to me,—"got any proof where you were this morning?"

"You can send to Paris Park," I said, with sudden hope. " If you fetch the man who owns the hotel, he'll be able to tell you that I slept there and—"

"Here, here!" the Colonel protested. "We can't wait for an eight hours' journey each way. It's justice while you wait in this court, stranger!"

"What's the use of a trial, if you won't let me produce evidence?" I wanted to know. But the Colonel waved me into silence and Bill into further speech. He evidently regarded the latter as my counsel.

"Got any bill or paper?" Bill suggested.

"Why, yes!" I cried. "I had a letter from a friend of my brother's. It came in at seven o'clock, just before I started. It's in my pocket— the left-hand one, inside."

Broken Bill came and fumbled in my pocket— my hands were still tied. He turned over the contents till I indicated the letter. It bore a rough postmark, with the date inserted in red ink. He handed it round for inspection, and the feeling of the court appeared to change in my favor.

"I needn't point out to you gentlemen," Bill said, "that he couldn't have took this horse after four this morning, got over there for that letter, and back again. The post arrives at Paris Park at seven, as you know. That's the case for the defense."

"And you can see from that letter that it's true, what I told you about my brother," I added. "And the other documents in my pocket"— my friend Bill had replaced them— "will show you that I'm what I say I am."

"Best say nothing about that," the Colonel advised. "A lawyer's always done something! Well, my sons, I've got to sum up, and my summing up is this. Guilty of being found in possession of a stolen horse, which is good enough to hang any man; but, seeing that he didn't steal it, he's recommended to mercy. All in favor, hold up their hands!"

All hands were held up,— the ferret-faced man delaying till Bill whispered in his ear,— and the Colonel nodded approval.

"The sentence," he said, "is that you're set free; and you can have what you like to eat and drink, and the Committee foots the bill. Every one satisfied with that?"

"Well," said Bill, "it's all right, Colonel, but not so handsome as I'd looked for from you. We've hindered him some from getting on to his sick brother, and I was half expecting you'd offer to lend him a horse— supposing, for example, I was willing to go with him and see it safe back."

"On those conditions," the Colonel said, "I'll lend him my bay mare. She's worth any two animals for fifty miles round."

"She's that," Bill agreed.

They untied me, and rubbed my cramped arms, and gave me plenty to eat and drink, and forced tobacco upon me, and were generally friendly.

The Colonel himself came and talked to me. I'd "got off very light," he said. A man who bought a strange horse from a stranger— and he a half-breed— took all risks, and it was better to hang a few innocent men than to miss hanging a horse-thief. At the same time, he added, he was not sorry that I had got off. An acquittal once in a way did not disturb the general confidence in the Vigilance Committee, but it was a thing that he would not like to see happen too often.

They all shook hands when I rode off with Broken Bill, and waved their hats, and I waved mine. Bill was moody and thoughtful. He was no talker, he informed me gruffly, and he scarcely spoke during our four hours' ride.

When we reached Stanley Diggings, I dismounted, and Bill took my horse's reins.

" If you take my advice," he said, "you'll get your brother off by the train at 4 a.m. from Sandy Flats. You'll just do it if you're sharp. Mistakes will happen, and I don't want them to hang an innocent man."

"I am deeply grateful to you," I said. "If it had not been for your belief in my innocence— I don't know why you were so sure about it!"

Broken Bill laughed a curious laugh, and whipped up the horses.

"I stole that horse myself ," he said over his shoulder, "and now I'm going to have this one!"

I thought that the Vigilance Committee might connect me with the matter, so I took my brother off by the coach at 2 a.m., as he had recovered sufficiently to travel. We caught the train, and when we left it we went straight aboard a ship for home. I didn't want to wait there for justice. I preferred to take my luck in this old-fashioned country, where we make justice wait!

_____________________

6: Snake in the Grass

John Haslette Vahey

Prolific author under at least eight pseudonyms, including "Vernon Loder"

1881-1938

The Red Magazine, 3 Feb 1922

A SINGLE street-lamp threw a circle of yellow light on the wet, glistening pavement of the Rue Rochambeau, which is not the thoroughfare known to most tourists in Paris, but an ugly and narrow little street in the vicinity of the Halles. Its rays discovered the unevenness of the decaying pavement, and showed up a blistering green shutter on a neighbouring house. Beyond that was darkness, except where, here and there, a slat of light shot out from a chink of a dilapidated blind across the racing and turbid flood in the gutters.

It had been raining heavily all day, and the rain only ceased when night fell. The sky was clearing now, but the moon had not climbed high enough to help lighten the gloomy street.

The Hotel of the Two Heads is larger, if a little less squalid, than the other mansarded old houses that line both sides of the Rue Rochambeau. It is a hotel by courtesy, a café in practice, and it is owned by a mouchard or police spy.

Too poor to attract even the cheap tourist, and too well-known among the local fraternity to attract the professional criminal, it has its clients among the raffish artisans, the midinettes who belong to the smaller houses, with a few students from foreign lands who have not lived long enough in Paris to discover the whereabouts of the true Bohemia, and still mistake a mediocre midinette for the "Mimi" of "La Bohème."

M. Hypolite Dordan is the host, a lean little man, with the face of an intelligent rat; and his wife is an obese woman with the face of an unintelligent sheep, which conveniently hides the fact that she has wit and pluck for both. It was she, in fact, who insisted that Hypolite should become a mouchard. "One understands," as she put it, in her voice of an asthmatical man, "that two cats do not watch the hole of a mouse."

The host was sitting in the café, smoking a vile Caporal cigarette and reading "L'Intransigeant," on this particular evening. The café was empty; even his wife had left the caisse to attend to some detail of domestic oversight, and the one dirty waiter was tentatively rubbing the top of a stained table, when the rumbling of wheels could be heard from the street, and M. Dordan looked up from his paper.

"It still rains, Jules?" he asked.

"No, m'sieu, it has ceased," said Jules sulkily.

"Does that draw up here by any chance?" said M. Dordan as the sound of wheels stopped opposite the door.

It did. It was a fiacre that arrived at the Hotel of the Two Heads, with a wet and tired horse, and a traveller who wished to put up at the hotel. M. Dordan learned that, when he answered a knock at the door, which had been shut against the rain. But he was amazed to note also that the traveller was a woman, young, he thought from her step, a woman who wore a raincoat and whose face was largely concealed by a thick, grotesquely patterned veil.

She spoke French with an English accent, she had two boxes, her shoes were well worn, her hat was simple and cheap, the hem of the skirt that peeped below the raincoat was somewhat frayed. A woman who dressed like that, who was English, who would stay in the Rue Rochambeau, what could she be but a governess out of work?

"I have rooms, naturally," said M. Dordan, with an impudent air. "But they are expensive, and I cannot afford to lose money in these times. Mademoiselle understands that?"

Mademoiselle apparently did. Without words she put her hand inside her raincoat, and showed a roll of notes. Dordan's eyes glittered. He became respectful, apologetic. He called loudly for madame, he sent the waiter scurrying to a bedroom, he himself helped the grumbling driver of the fiacre in with the boxes.

Mademoiselle, it appeared, had been governess with a French family, the head of which had just received some Colonial appointment. She had been paid off, she had no other post in sight. She was in search of cheap rooms, and the driver of the fiacre had recommended the Hotel of the Two Heads. natural enough, thought the host, for the driver was a friend of his own. He was content with the explanation meanwhile.

Madame, on the other hand, was not. She helped the girl off with her raincoat, and found her too pretty for her idea of an English gouvernante, all of whom, as one knew, had stuck-out teeth, faces of horses, and washed-out blue eyes. So she gave her a bedroom on the first floor that communicated with another room behind. The lock of that room was of M. Hypolite's own invention. A key stood to either side, and what was locked from inside the room could be unlocked from without.

Mademoiselle Thomson, as she called herself, was apparently satisfied. She had dined already, and was immensely fatigued. She would retire at once. Madame lighted the gas for her, cast a furtive glance at the two trunks, and bade her good-night. Then she went downstairs to consult her husband.

Her ideas were well organised. The Englishwoman had money, and no Englishwoman with money, who had lived for some time in Paris, would trust herself in that quarter, on the recommendation of the driver of a fiacre. Further, she did not look like a governess, who would not be taken on by a family of means if she were not more respectably dressed. It appeared, therefore, that she was lying, and, that being the case, she must have something to hide.

"It might be as well to sound the officials she ended. "The flics may know her, or they may want to know her, and you must gain some reputation for zeal with them, or they may take into their heads to want proofs of your activity."

"I denounced old 'Square-Head' last year," said he thoughtfully.

"A mouchard who denounces one a year is of no value, mon vieux. Go to the Sûreté and describe mademoiselle. There may be money in it, and it can do no harm."

Her husband shook his head. "If it is as you say, there may be money in it without that. At all events, I can do nothing now, for the Little Chap visits me at ten regarding the affair of which you know. No, that does not go. It will be better for you to search the room while she sleeps, and then we shall consider the matter again."

Madame agreed. Stout as she was, and stupid as she looked, there was no one in Paris who understood better how to perform such a task. She had the tread of a cat and the manual deftness of a watchmaker, the strength and ruthlessness of a panther. It was not the first time she had used her talents. Mademoiselle Thomson, in the meanwhile, had surveyed her room, and opened the door that communicated with a room beyond. Her eyes fell upon the ingenious lock, and she smiled gently. She was undoubtedly pretty, with fair hair, dark eyes, cheeks whose colour owed nothing to cosmetics. Her dark eyes sparkled again as she examined the lock.

"Invented by a clever fool!" she said to herself gaily. "To be perfect it should not have been possible to unlock from my side, but only to lock, while the other served both turns."

She shut the door and locked it, hung her raincoat where it would obscure the keyhole, and then bent over one of her trunks. She opened it with some difficulty, and took from it a little wooden box, pierced with some small holes in the lid. Diving in again, she produced a metal box of quick-drying enamels, and a brush. She placed a chair under the gaslight, sat down with the bigger box on her knee, and opened it carefully. As she turned back the lid, the head of a small snake lifted in quick anger, and struck at the fingers on the edge of the box. Mademoiselle withdrew her fingers, and deftly caught the snake behind the head with her right hand.

"Gently, Jimmie!" she said, just above her breath, her eyes dancing. "You're not dressed for the part yet."

ii

M. HYPOLITE had a little snuggery in the cellar of the hotel. A fire glowed there now, and two chairs were placed before it, while a bottle of liqueur brandy and two fine glasses decorated the table behind. A small line of casks still remained against the back wall of the room, reminding one of its former use; but these casks were now empty, and once of them was cunningly hinged, so that it became a practicable, if small, entrance from without.

At ten o'clock precisely, Jean Breuil, alias the Little Chap, joined the host by the fire, and sat to dry his wet clothes. The cask hinged down again, and presented once more its aspect of ingenuous innocence, while Jean, who was even smaller and more rat-like than M. Dordan, exchanged some low-voiced pleasantries with his friend.

"The rain has ceased at last," he said, pouring himself out a glass of brandy, and tossing it off eagerly. "If you had lain for hours in the wet grass of a park, you would know it."

"It ceased two hours ago," said Hypolite drily; "but not before it brought us a guest, about whom I am in two minds."'

Jean shrugged.

"How is that profitable?"

Hypolite explained what his wife thought, but his companion only grew angry.

"What, imbecile? These English may be anything, they may do anything. It means nothing. Our affair on hand is too big for us to muddle by thinking of such a thing. If she has money, it cannot be much. If the Sûreté want her, they can wait until we have done our job. Nom d'un pipe, we might as well turn sneak thieves at once, if we will meddle like that."

"Then we will not meddle, just yet. Lucie will see what she is. As to the other affair— how goes it?"

Jean smacked his lips. "It goes! This morning the family left for Algeria. They will be away two months. They have left five servants. They are old, save one. The keeper patrols the park at night, but he is a man of routine, and I have discovered his times and rounds. It will be necessary to have a car, fast and silent, which will drop us and return for us. One cannot have it waiting about."

"That will mean a third," said Hypolite, who was avaricious: "Unless you can do the affair alone."

"I cannot," said the other, applying himself to the brandy. "The apartments of the servants are in a wing with a narrow passage to the remainder of the house. One must wait there with a weapon, in case they take the alarm. We must take in Denier."

"No; he is too greedy. We shall have Gauchepin, if we must. He is content with little."

"Be content, mon vieux ; that we can settle to-morrow. Let me tell you that last night I made a rehearsal. I had already made a drill hole in the shutters of the library: Through it I saw a light, and I discovered that our friend the count plumes himself on his subtlety. He hides the best of his valuables behind some coal in a scuttle, also something behind books on a shelf. What fools we should have been had we attacked the safe!"

M. Hypolite grinned.

"Felicitations!" he said warmly. "You have worked wonders. It shall be to-morrow night for our affair, and I will charge myself with the procuring of a car. I trust that you have not left open that hole in the shutter? "

Jean laughed.

"But naturally, no. It is plugged, and does not show, and yet it is easily removable at need,"

"Bravo!" said the host enthusiastically. "More brandy, my excellent one!"

As they sat talking and planning below, madame left the noisy guests in the café to the care of the waiter, and made her preparations for a reconnaissance in the room of her new guest. They were simple but adequate. She put on a pair of rubber-soled shoes, a black overall, that hid her from the neck downwards, and a hanging veil, which she draped over her face. Then she went upstairs, and stood in the room communicating with mademoiselle's, and listened.

Mademoiselle did not snore. A snore is an uneasy thing, and is so easily counterfeited that night-rakers instinctively suspect it. Heavy breathing is almost as bad. But mademoiselle did not breath heavily; she was only audible to a very keen ear, and madame was content. The raincoat no longer hung over the keyhole; a glance through it was met by sheer darkness. Madame turned the key in the well-oiled lock, and opened the door without sound.

The dark veil and overall made her one with the blackness that reigned in the room. She advanced noiselessly, her hands in two of the many pockets of her overall. In each pocket was a key, the upper end neatly covered with chamois. say that anything which resisted the six keys of his invention required an explosive, and he was not very far from the truth. Among madame's other simple tools was an electric torch, with an extension, which masked the beam on all sides save one.

The lock of mademoiselle's trunk was of a very primitive pattern. The second key opened it easily. The breathing coming softly and regularly from the bed, madame gently lifted the lid of the trunk, and prepared to bring her useful torch into action, holding it so that the light should fall only on the contents of the box.

She switched it on, then knew that something had gone wrong. A spot of white light had fallen on the wall opposite. She got to her feet with unexpected quickness, and turned. A little laugh from the bed froze the marrow in her bones.

"So that's the game, is it?"

Madame gasped and grew rigid. Mademoiselle was not visible, but a ray came from the bed, and into the light of the ray there intruded a hand steadily holding an automatic pistol.

"If you have a match, you will light the gas at once," went on the voice, while madame was debating her next move. "But be careful!"

Madame did not speak yet. There was nothing that she could say with effect, but she was thinking quickly. She crossed to the gas bracket, beam and automatic following her accurately, fumbled in her pocket, and produced matches. The gas flared up, and she turned her head again towards the bed. There was an electric alarm fitted to the wall below the bracket, and she had pressed that, but her sheep's face showed no signs of relief as she faced mademoiselle.'

The English girl was sitting up in bed, fully dressed, smiling charmingly :

"Why didn't you tell me?" she said.

Madame gaped.

"Tell you what, mademoiselle?"

"But this, by example! I didn't know you were on this lay. I thought you might blow the gaff if you knew what I was."

The sentence, rendered in the argot of French criminal circles, made madame gape again. She stared for a moment, and then she laughed harshly.

"It is to laugh," she exclaimed. "Fancy me trying to put it across one of the crowd! And you didn't even tip us the wink!"

In the cellar below an electric bell had suddenly shrilled.

Dordan got up excitedly.

"She's muffed it! " he hissed. "Upstairs, quick! Follow me."

The Little Chap plunged a hand in his pocket and produced a small sandbag, Dordan gripped a life-preserver as he led his companion up a back stairway. They cursed under their breath as they ascended, for this might mean exposure and the ruin of their profitable plans.

Gaining the communicating room, they peered through the door opening, their eyes amazed. A trunk lay open in the room, the gas was full on, but madame sat on the edge of the bed, laughing and talking to the English lady, who appeared more amused than perturbed,

As they looked, mademoiselle opened the neck of her blouse and fished up what looked like a necklace of fine pearls.

"I nicked these last might," she said. "Naturally, I had to scoot. One of the flics nearly got me, so I headed here for the downy."

Jean put his hand on Dordan's arm, tugged at his sleeve, and went quickly downstairs again, M. Hypolite following him in a mood of stupefaction. When they were again ensconced in the cellar, his companion burst into a laugh.

"Isn't it épatant!" he said. "The old girl took her for a lamb, one supposes. What a bit of luck for us, though!"

"Luck?" said M. Hypolite. "I do not see it in that light. But not at all. We can't scrag her here."

"Who talks of it?" asked Jean contemptuously. "We wanted a third, and here we have one. These Anglaises have nerve,"

"And, of course, she will help us for nix!" said Dordan ironically.

"But yes," agreed Jean simply, "that is it, exactement. If we pull off this coup we can set ourselves up for life, or go elsewhere. It is a very big thing, one understands. We take this girl in, and when we have done the job we make ready for our break, and then you denounce her to the Sûreté. The lady for the Sante, ourselves for South America; mon vieux.'

M. Hypolite slapped him violently on the back.

"You have the: ideas, that is certain. I should never have thought of it. It is a plan of the utmost magnificence."

"Your old woman will have thought of it," said Jean drily. " See if she is not down here with her in a few minutes."

Monsieur Jean, alias the Little Chap, was the despair of the police agents of Paris. They had assumed for a long time that he was at the bottom of many crimes, but so far they had never been able to connect him with any. Compared with him, M. Hypolite was a child, and knew it. Madame was made of more intelligent material. She appeared in the cellar a few moments later, accompanied by the English girl, who smiled in turn at the two men.

"Good evening, gentlemen," she said gaily. "All those of one trade ought to be good friends, n'est ce pas? Madame and I are already as thick as thieves!"

"That is the right word, mademoiselle," said Jean, looking at her with admiration and drawing up a chair for her. "Honour us by sharing our fire. Mademoiselle arrives opportunely, for we discuss a business that needs one head more than the hotel of our friend M. Hypolite here."

"That's the way to get at it," said madame. "Mademoiselle here has already pinched a string of bubbles, and knows her way about. She has given me the laugh to-night."

"I compliment mademoiselle," said Jean, signing to Dordan to be silent. "Will mademoiselle have a mouthful of brandy and a cigarette while I give her some points?"

"A cigarette, thank you," said Mlle. Thomson, taking one from the case he held out.

"As regards your affairs, remember that I don't twist my fingers round trifles. I never see myself getting quodded for stealing little apples."

"Little apples! Parbleu! This is a big fruit,' said Jean. "An exotic, I assure you, and very rare."

"Put me next then," said mademoiselle, whose French now was very colloquial, but had no English accent in it, "I'm on."

Jean laughed. Madame went out and returned with two more chairs. They sat round the fire while Jean, a glass of liqueur brandy in his hand, explained what was wanted, nodded contentedly several times towards the lady, and ended by tossing off the contents of the little glass.

Mademoiselle, it appeared, was willing to join them. Only she could not drive an auto, and she wanted: two-ninths of the proceeds of the robbery as her share. Jean agreed that she should come with him for the inside work, while Dordan should drive, but he haggled over the share she demanded. It was never intended that she should touch the money, but it was essential that she should think everything on the square, so eventually he gave way, and mademoiselle became a temporary ally.

All the next day, Mademoiselle Thomson kept close to the house. Indeed, she kept to her room, and did not even see madame again until dark had come once more. Her meals had been left outside her door by the waiter during daylight, but now madame herself brought up a dainty little supper, and chatted confidentially with the English girl while she ate it.

She explained that breakfast would be brought up the following morning, whether mademoiselle returned or no. The waiter was a fool, and it was hoped that he would remain so. He had no idea that any of the inhabitants of the house lived other than honestly. Before she went out her door would be locked from the inside, and she would find exit by the communicating door, which could be locked or opened from either side. At ten o'clock madame herself would come up for her, lead her by the back stairway to the cellar, and so out.

The English girl sat and smoked for a couple of hours, waiting for her hostess's reappearance. When madame returned she found her guest habited in a tight-fitting costume of black, with the sleeves trimmed with black fur, and wearing a little cap which fitted closely to her head. They left the room locked, stole down the rear stairway, and found themselves in the cellar.

"Go out of the gate in the court," said madame, "you find yourself in a little impassé. There is an archway under one of the houses. Penetrate that, and you will find the auto waiting. And now bonne chance!"

The hinged door of the cask was lifted up, mademoiselle crawled through it. It fell behind her. A minute later and she was in the little impassé, and looking for the archway. It was very dark. It did not rain, but the sky was covered with ominous black cloud masses. The archway, when she found it, was as black as a mine. But in the road beyond a motor-car waited drawn up near the kerb. She approached close to it.

"Can you take me far, cocher?" she inquired.

"As far as the heavens," was the reply in a deep voice.

"Let us go, then," said mademoiselle, and stepped into the tonneau.

She had time for reflection as the car went quietly through the streets towards the suburbs. She did not look out of the windows at the brightly lit roadways, but sat back, her brows knitted, wholly given up to thought. As they left the town, and got out into the more open districts beyond, the car quickened pace. It drew up presently outside the gate of what looked like a suburban villa. The gate opened, as the car drew up, and a little man, who wore a top-hat, and a smart black overcoat, buttoned up to the hem, and carried a small hand-bag, opened the door of the car and got in.

"To Passy; M. le Médecin?" demanded the driver, in a voice which could have been heard in the neighbouring gardens.

"But certainly— to Monsieur Brun's," said a voice from within.

The car purred off again. The gentleman in the overcoat took off his top-hat and grinned at mademoiselle.

"This will be a most severe operation for my patient!" he observed sardonically. "I hope I shall be successful with it."

"Between us, m'sieu," said the girl, with a little laugh, "we could fail in nothing."

"I am sure of it," said Jean.

They ran out at last into what was almost open country, and presently they found themselves outside the enceinte of what appeared to be a nobleman's park. The car put them off here.. M. Hypolite was to return in an hour and a half precisely. Jean looked at his watch.

He touched mademoiselle on the arm. "I have a key for a door in the wall here. We shall wait inside until the keeper passes, This is about his time. We shall give him a hundred metres, and then we shall follow his tracks. He follows his nose interminably, like an idiot."

There was an ivy-grown door within a few paces. He opened it very quickly, and they went into the park. "He closed and locked it behind them, and they waited in silence under the rim of trees until a footfall passing over the grass told them that the keeper was on patrol. A minute later they set out quietly after him, and followed his path until it brought them within touch of a shrubbery that skirted the rear of a great house they could just see looming up against the blackness of the sky. The keeper went on. They stopped.

Mademoiselle felt lips at her ear:

"Good. He was an excellent guide. wait a moment."

Jean took off his hat and placed it on top of the nearest bush. He replaced it with a black skull-cap. He took off his coat, and placed it by the hat. Neither could be seen by the keeper on his rounds. Then he took mademoiselle by the arm and led her on, finally posting her outside the window of the library.

"Wait," he said softly. "There is an easy window à troisième. I know my way up. I will open to you in a minute."

Mademoiselle waited, motionless. Five minutes, ten minutes, then she heard a faint sound. The window was opened gently, a shutter gave back. Without waiting to be prompted, she stepped into a dark room, and was beside Jean. He moved past her, temporarily closed the window, and set the shutter in its place,

"You could have done this by yourself," said the girl in his ear.

He shrugged.

"Precisely. Only our friend is a mouchard— nominally, at least. He knows me. Short of scragging, which might cause trouble, it is better to divide. Comprenez?"

"I see," whispered the girl, "What next?"

"Follow me," he whispered back.

" But where?" she demanded.

Her hands were busy in the dark as she talked to him. She was leaning against: a console-table, and from his voice she knew that he was to the left of her. He did not speak again, but touched her arm impatiently.

She started, then followed him. He seemed to know his way perfectly though there was no light, and they found themselves presently in a passage way which led to the sleeping quarters of the servants. He stationed her there.

"Be attentive! Don't shoot unless it is necessary. They have no telephone here. It is in the library. I shall not be long."

Miraculously soft but carrying as his voice was, mademoiselle thought someone must hear them in that big, silent house. But all remained quiet. No one stirred. Beyond the baize door that separated the sleeping quarters of the domestics from the main building, sleep reigned supreme. Even the keeper would not approach again on his rounds for a full half-hour.

Jean went quickly back to the library, walked noiselessly across the magnificent Aubusson carpet, and paused under an electric light switch. He switched on several lights in turn, until he found a trio of small bulbs that were affixed to the wall near the big fireplace. Here their rays fell on a large receptacle for coal, of an antique pattern. He bent before it, and with the utmost care removed half a stone of coal. An electric torch lighted the further recesses, and he repressed a cry of anger. There was nothing behind! The count had apparently not been such a fool as he looked.

Jean bit his lip. When spying previously, he had seen the owner of the mansion hide something behind some books. He went to the shelves, and took out half a dozen books. Ah, this was better! He found in the space behind them a couple of thin jewel-cases, which contained a necklace of brilliants set in platinum and a magnificent breast-piece of emeralds. He slipped them into a pocket, and displaced further volumes. But this was not so successful, and he gave that up and began to look about the room.

Nothing escaped his eagle eye. Nothing was too commonplace to neglect. The count was evidently a gentleman who prided himself on befooling professional visitors. Still, Jean found nothing more. He bit his lips with irritation as he opened boxes, which only proved to contain cigars, sealing-wax, stamps, and other trifles. He almost stamped with annoyance when he nosed out a secret drawer in a lamp pedestal, and found it empty. Presently he drew up beside a console-table, on which stood a cheap-looking cretonne-covered box. What was that doing there. It was like one of those things in which the women of the bourgeoisie keep their hairpins.

If the count had hid his things where no one but a clever man would think of looking, this was the place. Jean put out his hand, opened the simple catch of the box, and felt within. He gave a sudden cry, and over-turned the box, which fell to the floor and collapsed. There were two stinging punctures in the flesh of his thumb, and on the floor a brilliantly coloured little snake writhed and hissed. His eyes grew large with fear and wonder as he looked at it for a few moments, before he set his heel upon it and crushed it. His cry, which had not reached to the heavily slumbering servants in their distant apartments, came faintly to mademoiselle. She left her post at once, and went swiftly to the library. She found Jean standing under the electric light, staring with a face of mingled terror and helplessness at the tiny wounds the snake had inflicted.

"What is wrong?" she whispered, going to him.

A look of relief came to his white face. He was a townsman and knew nothing of snakes. But his hand trembled all the same as he raised it and pointed to the crushed body of the little snake.

"I am bitten! " he said rapidly, " I do not know what it is."

"Harmless, perhaps," said the girl, crossing the floor. "'I was in India once as— companion— I— Good heavens!"

A little cry seemed to be forced from her, as she looked down. At that sound the perspiration suddenly stood out in beads on a face that was the colour of putty, and Jean darted to her.

"What! What?"

Her eyes became fixed, staring, her mouth dropped.

"The rainbow!" she stammered. "But this is terrible— in half an hour—"

He gave a whimper like a beaten dog.

"But no. It is impossible!"

"In half an hour," she repeated. "I know. I have seen it. What is one to do?"

He began to shudder violently, tried to speak, but could not. He put his thumb to his mouth, and began to suck at the wounds, until the girl pulled violently at his arm.

"No good. The poison is too quick. If we could get a doctor. But it would be too late."

He sank into a chair.

"Ah, comme je souffre!" he moaned, fear paralysing his limbs. "Ciel! I am in an agony. It seizes already upon my heart."

"Get up!" cried the girl. "We must telephone a doctor at once, or would you rather die?"

He essayed to stand up, but could not. He remained in his chair, staring stupidly at his hand.

"I am lost!' he said, the tears in his eyes. "I suffer dreadfully. Already my heart—"

She caught him by the arm.

"Come. You have wasted ten minutes. Courage, my friend."

She pulled at him, and he strove again to rise, straightened himself for a moment, fainted, and lay prone. Mademoiselle looked down at him, and a smile crept over her face. She picked up the collapsed box, and folded it into a flat piece of small size. It was one of those boxes beloved of Japanese conjurers. Then she picked up the crushed snake, and threw it in the fire-place.

"Wonderful what a little suggestion does!" she murmured. "The coquin appears to have felt all the pain he imagined!"

She returned to him quickly, unfastened her blouse, and drew from under it six or seven yards of strong silk cord. Turning him over, she pulled his hands behind him and lashed them together, cut the free ends and bound his ankles. She knew the value of a sharp set of teeth, and provided even for those; fixing one end of the cord about his neck, and the other end to the lashing at the back of his ankles, so that he could not bring his head forward without threatening to strangle himself. The whole operation did not occupy a minute, for every detail had been practised many times before, and when Jean, the "Little Chap," came to again, he opened his eyes on a constrained world.

They met those of the girl, who looked down laughingly.

"M'sieu," she said, "in the future, if you have opportunity, you will be wise to study nature. It will enable you to detect a grass snake next time, even if he is painted!"

Jean swore violently, but she went from him, and there was the click of the switch. The dark descended again. Struggling and swearing, he heard the shutter open, then the window, and then his frenzied curses were wasted on empty air.

Mademoiselle ran rapidly across the park. She had abandoned the automatic with which Jean had provided her, but she had substituted for it Jean's favourite little sand-bag, which was just as effective and made less noise. She shoved it in the pocket in her fur-trimmed sleeve, where she had carried her painted grass-snake and the collapsing-box, and made her way rapidly to the wall encircling the grounds. Along this she felt until she found the gate by which they had entered. Jean had left it unlocked, for convenience in getting away. She was waiting on the road little more than fifteen minutes later.

Standing there she lighted a cigarette, and looked at her wrist-watch, which had a radium-doctored dial. M. Hypolite ought to arrive soon.

The keeper passed on his rounds inside, five minutes afterwards two lamps glowed on the road, and presently the car slowed and stopped opposite.

"Is it all right?" asked M. Hypolite from his, seat.

"Oh, m'sieu," said the girl with a gasp.

"Softly! They are near."

"Who!"

He leaned towards her hastily.

"These!" said the girl, rapped him smartly on the back of the head with her sand bag, and began to cry: "Au secours! Help! Help!" as he tumbled senseless over the wheel.

She assisted him then clear of the vehicle, so that he toppled into the roadway, and waited by him until she heard someone come tearing across the dead leaves at the other side of the park wall.

"M'sieu! M'sieu!" she cried piteously; and the keeper, bursting out of the ivy-clad door, came to her side.

"What passes here, that you raise the place with your shouts?" he demanded, staring at her.

"It is that," said mademoiselle, pointing to the prone figure. "Seize and hold him, m'sieu. He has been trying to rob your house. Don't wait, but do as I bid you, and I will drive off for the police."

The keeper looked puzzled.

"How do I know?"' he said. "I did not see him—"

He was standing by the car lamp. She thrust a card under his nose.

"Imbecile! You can at least read that. Hold him, and don't let him go, on your peril!"

He stared at the card.

"Ah, that makes a difference," he said. "I am a law-abiding fellow. Your people shall know that. Saperlipopette, I shall put him away securely till they come.'

"Then hurry!" she said impatiently, and got on to the driving-seat. "I'm off."

And she was off, at an amazing pace for a lady who couldn't drive, before the keeper had got M. Hypolite on his shoulder, and had entered with him through the wall-gate, en-route to the lodge where he meant to immure him for the moment,

It was in the small hours that a car, driven at racing speed, drew up outside a telephone office, with a grinding and creaking of brakes, and a girl jumped from it, and routed out the sleepy officials. She wanted to be put through. to the Sûreté, and that in double quick time.

It seemed an age before she got through, but it was at most five minutes, and then a grave voice reached her.

"Who speaks? "

"The Gouvernante," said the girl. "I think it is your voice, Monsieur Pelitte?"

"Ah, it is mademoiselle miss, eh?" said the voice. "What goes?"

" 'The Little Chap' does, or ought to. I've roped him at last."

"Made-moi-selle!" the voice was surcharged with amazement.

"But yes," said the girl. "Send at once to the chateau of M. le Comte Meuron, and you will find him with the swag on him. His pal Dordan you will find with the keeper."

"It is," said the voice, "astonishing! But, we will send."

"At once," said mademoiselle as she rang off.

She went back to the car triumphant. A woman, an Englishwoman, she had made a score that all the police agents of Paris would envy her. There was only one fly in the ointment.

"Poor old Jimmy!" she murmured as she took the wheel. "It'll be a long time before I find another grass-snake that will bite on demand!"

_________________

7: Lanfranc

"Ben Bowyang"

(Alexander Vindex Vennard  1884–1947)

Smith's Weekly (Sydney) 26 July 1919

Popular Australian writer in the early days of The Bulletin and Smiths Weekly magazines.

THE REEK of dead shell-fish rode triumphantly on the prowling breezes that swept in from the Coral Sea. The striped poles of pearling schooners stood up like black fingers in the blue wash of the tropical night. Scraps of song, harsh and heathenish, flittered from the fo'c'sles, where Jap and Malay chanted weird tunes which tugged at one's soul like cords binding it to a barbaric past.

Lanfranc, the pearler, was seated in Connelly's bungalow high up above the sandy beach. Connelly, standing at the window suddenly turned and said, "There's someone coming this way."

Lanfranc puffed a cloud from his cigarette. "It is the police," he replied, "I have, been expecting them ever since I left the lugger."

Connelly turned quickly.

"That means you, then," he said. "They have got word from Port Moresby. Come on, your skiff's at the wharf, and perhaps you can get it to the schooner before they can spot you. I'll hold them here as long as I can and give you a show to sail for it."

Connelly started for the back door, but seeing that Lanfranc did not move, he faced around again.

"Come on, man!" he cried, "Good God! I don't want to see you arrested for murder."

The pearler calmly blew another cloud of smoke. "I have seen fat men like you in these parts, who drink too much whisky, and sit down all the time, die when they get too much excite. They choke all the same as when they hang."

And he laughed, ironically.

Connelly, the pearl-buyer, grew red in the face. It is bad enough when you are trying to help a man save his life to have him laugh at you for your pains, but when he throws in a sneer at your personal appearance it is unbearable.

"Well, you can hang, and be damned!" he snorted.

"I t'ink," replied Lanfranc," as Connelly grasped the handle of the door, "you bes' stay out there for 'bout half-hour. I'll try amuse the police."

The pearler, was still smiling when Sergeant Molloy opened the door, and he waved his. hand gaily in greeting.

"Looks as if you search for someone," he said.

A flicker of a smile cane', over the Sergeant's face, but it died away as he walked up to where Lanfranc sat.

"Yes," he replied. "I came after you."

Lanfranc slipped quickly off his seat.

"Mon Ami," he said, "you are a damn brave man to come here alone on such a mission.  So when I say that I have the wish to speak, to you for the time of a smoke first, I do not say I could kill you before you move your hand if you say 'no.' I say, 'it is my' wish,' and you—" Lanfranc finished with a wave of his hand.

Molloy knew that the pearler spoke the truth. Yet it was not fear that made him nod his head in assent to Lanfranc's questioning gaze. He knew Lanfranc and liked him, as much as a man with his clear-cut idea of life could like a careless adventurer of Lanfranc's stamp. He knew also that the pearler would not have made such a request unless he had something important, to tell, and, although it was his place to execute and not to judge, there could be no harm in hearing what the man had to say.

The smile flashed out again in Lanfranc's face when he saw the Sergeant nod his head.

"Mon ami," he said, "Brave men do not kill each other without reason. Let us sit down."

"It is three years since I met you last in Cooktown," he began, "and much has happened. I t'ink you know me well enough to know that Lanfranc is not what the good priest would call pious— no! I never go to the church. I have not confess since I was a boy. I gamble too much; and too good— perhaps.

"But no one has said to my face that I; cheat,. No one can say that Lanfranc is a coward, or that he speak lies. No!  And no one can ay that be has seen Lanfranc drunk, or"— Lanfranc inhaled in a draught of cigarette-smoke and fastened his eyes on the Sergeant's face— "or no one can say that Lanfranc has made hell for a woman. No! He is not good, but he has live clean. Is it not so, Mon Ami?"

Sergeant Molloy nodded his head. Lanfranc threw away his cigarette. "Patience, mon ami. I will speak quick. Two years ago I went ashore at Tamatoa Island. I find a good bed of shell in shallow water, and I like the place well. There was only one white man on the island who had planted rubber. I did not like Burton, as he called himself— and I do not like him yet. He was made for the cities, not the islands. But he had a girl—"

Lanfranc waved his hand at the Sergeant, who had half started up.

"Sit still! Yes! I know you met her once in Cooktown, and she was beautiful; is it not so? Edith was her name, and it was a good name. Her smile was sof' like the spring, and her eyes were all the same as the blue flower that grows under the palm trees. I have never lof any woman, and I not lof her, but I feel, like a good man when she smile on me. I t'ink she see that Lanfranc was not all bad, for she was ver' good to me. Once when I step on a stingaree in a coral pool, and the pain was like hell, she fix the foot up with a hot cloth; I t'ink it was more the touch of her cool hand, but the pain go.

"Well, one day I arrived here with some pearls and much shell, and when I return to the island I bring some little presents for her. When I go to the house I fin' a strange man there. He was good to look at, yes! But I not like his eyes. You can tell mos' things, from the eyes, if you know when to look.

"He had great idea that there was guano on the island, and I see the father already had the lust for riches on his face. They dig all the time on the high ground, and the girl talk and laugh with the stranger. I tell her one day what I t'ink about him, but she laugh at me. You know how those t'ings go— she t'ink all men as good as herself. One has to have a little piece of hell in him before he see the bad' in the res'.

"Well, one time I feel like a change, and I go for a trip to Sydney. I see many strange t'ings and live as a man should live. But at las' I feel somet'ing tell me to turn roun' and go back. So I start for the Coral seas again. One morning I land at Thursday Island and Shamo, the diver, he tell me somet'ing about the girl on Tama'toh Island that make me strike him. Afterwards we shake hands like men, and I sail and steers for the island.

In six days I step on the beach once again. I t'ink! the girl was glad to see me, but she was ver' weak. Her father was like mad, and he tell me that he try to get the priest from the mission on the mainland, for the girl wish to have the blessing of the Church. But the priest he shrug his shoulders "and refuse to come.

"I stepped on the lugger once again and sailed, for the mission. The priest say 'No' again, but I say. 'Yes!' and drop my hand on his shoulder. That good priest was hot strong and I carry him aboard the boat. We return fas', but we were in time.

"The next day we bury her under the clump of feather palms she love, so well. From that day I dive for no more pearls, but search, search, all the time."

"Well, las', week I visit Port Moresby, and step into the hotel. The place Was full— much talk, much drink. But Lanfranc has no lof' to let the whisky  make a fool of him. So I stand one side, and drink one, two glasses— not much. By and bye a man come in. He not see me, but I have no need of the whisky to make my blood run fas'. He been drinking, and he laugh, and wave, his hand at the crowd, and tell the publican to fill up the glasses.

"Everybody ver' glad to drink with the stranger, but I take, my glass and spill it on the floor before someone's dog. He see. what I do, and he turn quick. 'Damn,' he say, 'for what you do that?' I laugh and point where the dog has turned away. 'I t'ink. I had rather drink with the dog than with you,' I say, and I smile in his face.

"Men have said I am too quick with the knife, but I gave him much time. He had a revolver out before I move. Then I drew my knife quick, and I have no fear, for it was my time. It was fate. See! That stain on the blade looks good to me."

Lanfranc laid the knife down on a chair before the other man. Sergeant Molloy's hand went out mechanically to the weapon, and his. fingers ran caressingly along, the sharp edge.

"Good! good!" he muttered half to himself.

Lanfranc's finger touched the back of the Sergeant's hand for a second. "Shall we go, mon ami?" he asked softly.

Sergeant Molloy straightened up as if he were about to salute.

"No, Lanfranc, damn, it, no! I am more a man than this!"— and he touched the stripes on his sleeve.

Lanfranc's black eyes flashed with a brilliant smile.

"You have the great heart, mon ami," he said simply "I leave here to-night. You have heard that France is at war with Germany. Yes, it is so, and I return to fight for my country."

____________________

8: The Laughing Woman

Melville Davisson Post

1869–1930

The Red Book Magazine, Feb 1923

THE reader read, as he has been taught to read, with the modulated chant which the Church of England had adapted from the great Latin service. But the spirit of the man who listened was standing apart from the words he heard; it was standing in repose, in reflection.

It was a morning of early autumn. The huge, fashionable church was crowded to the very doors. Beyond the exquisite memorial windows, the sun, like a caress, lay on the fragment of parked country which had been selected by this exclusive social colony for its summer residence, and which had been pruned, beautifully, like a vine.

The man who sat on one of the altar benches of the church, with the secretaries of the British Embassy, was profoundly impressed. He looked like a fair-haired, sun-tanned English youth in the clerical dress of a novitiate of the Church of England, but he was in fact the very strangest of all those strange wards which the British Empire undertakes to train under English institutions to its will; having finished with Eton and Oxford, he was here as a summer guest of the Embassy at the country place it had taken some distance across the hills from the fashionable resort.

He sprang from the romance of a Buddhist crusade. When Dorjine, in the years before the Great War, persuaded the Dalai Lama that he could convert the Czar and all Russia to Buddhism, it was arranged for a Russian prince of the royal house to visit Tibet. This prince was given a young sister of the Lama for wife, and this son was born. And the English government, always farsighted, undertook to shape this youth, under its influence, for the head of the Tibetan government, or Dalai Lama, in its high, celibate, monastic order— the oldest, the most rigid monastic order in the world, excluding women, excluding the thought of woman.

Fair-haired and sun-tanned, in his clerical dress of the Church of England, the youth was of today and Western in his physical aspect; but within he was of yesterday and Oriental; and this Song of Solomon, rich with the sensuous imagery of the East, profoundly impressed him.

About the man within the cool spaces of the church, the symbols of this vast Western religion were displayed— of brass, of silver, of gold, of silk softened like ivory, and wonderfully embroidered.

Old, studied in the moods of human emotion, and wise were the great religious orders that had put together this majestic symbolism— as though no sense could be omitted from this worship. It stood, with its devices, before every doorway to the human heart.

Peace, an immense security, was the promise of this service to the soul of man confused by emotions. And it appalled the soul that it would soothe and comfort. Its serene pronouncement, on every ecstasy of the senses, put the soul in fear.

Vanity! Even as the priests of Buddha had assured him.

As though the whole of all human experience had been examined!

Age, crippled with failure, accepted the pronouncement; but Youth forever resisted, its white eager shoulder crowding against he door.

It resisted on this morning— not in vigor, but in a vague reflection. The man who listened to the service— the man in the first maturity of youth— was concerned with the experience of life about to be denied him.

What was this thing that he was giving up?

His confirmation into the celibate order of his Buddhist religion had been long planned, and was now, in reality, only a little way ahead. Until now he had not thought about it. He had gone carelessly, it seemed to him, like a child sentenced to a prison, with no thought, until the wall loomed at a turn of the road.

Vanity! How did he know that?

He had no experience of life. He had lived surrounded by Buddhist tutors, sequestered, like the virgins of the pagan rituals. The atmosphere of his great Oriental religious order had enveloped him— his acts, his will, the very imaginings of his heart. How did he know?

And as the voice advanced pronouncing the great love-song, human and sensuous, here, in the sacred books of this religion, the spirit of the man idled, curious, before the actual physical mystery that inspired these vivid extravagancies.

What was this love of women?

Upon it the sacred text fell back when it would seek an extreme expression; the language of this passion provided that text with its ultimate simile. And the expressions in this Oriental love-song were hot and dripping with life, fragments of the human heart.

Men using words like these had hold of something unknown in
his experience— and to remain unknown! The fact, as though unrealized until this moment, suddenly appalled him. To remain unknown!

And all at once, as though the human mystery had but now suddenly appeared before him, as though until this hour he had never thought to examine it closely, he looked eagerly over the great audience.

Two persons, midway of the church, seated near the center aisle, arrested his attention. His eager glance passed before these two persons, lingered— remained: a man at middle life and a girl.

Here in its golden lure was the mystery he renounced. And the spirit of the man, standing apart from the deep, even, level voice that filled the remote spaces of the church, profoundly regarded her.

The girl, in every aspect of her, was distinguished: the white, smartly cut gown, the filmy hat, like a web in a frame of suggested color— every detail.

And her features were alluring and exquisite: her cloud of dark hair, beautifully outlining the symmetrical forehead; the line of the eyebrow above the clean-cut arch; the chiseled nose; the lovely mouth with its dainty color, and the short upper lip incomparably exquisite and sensitive, as though divinely fashioned for the ecstasy of every human emotion. And the rich color, vaguely shadowed out, under the transparent skin, sown, as appeared to the eye, with gold flecks, was beyond any descriptive word.

She was the substance of everything lovely and distinguished. And the spirit of the man, awakened and entranced, suddenly realized that it stood here, on this morning, before an ultimate perfection of Nature.

A perfection of Nature!

The words instantly assumed an immense meaning. To produce this exquisite creature, the creative energies of Nature had been at work from the beginning, for so long a time that the human understanding staggered at the thought of it, and with ah endless patience. A perfection of Nature! But why had Nature labored to this perfection? And her great method was the mystery upon which the words of his Oriental order would presently, forever, close the door.

To some other man, under the lure of such an immense conception, this divine creature would go smiling, her arms extended.

The realization, sudden and vast, descended upon him as with the impact of a blow, and the heart in him staggered with a desolation. Exiled, excluded from this ecstasy, the life of his monastic order seemed a night of black loneliness.

If the other was vanity, what thing, appalling and awful, was this!

AND he was a man not at all lacking in attractiveness. He had the fine blond beauty of the Russian at his best. He was strong and virile, not unlike the fine figures of the Old Testament in their golden youth— David when he stood between the assembled armies with his sling; the sons of Jacob in the fields; or that one, choice and goodly, of which the Lord spoke apart in the ear of Samuel: “Tomorrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin—”

He had the curled yellow hair, the clean-cut features, the strong, proportioned body, the wide gray eyes and the serenity of these vague figures in the majestic legend. It was not possible for him to be unconscious of it. The glance, the arrested attention of women, everywhere, as with a pressure, reminded him.

He had been reminded on this very morning.

His way here lay through one of the towns to the south, and on the edge of it, in a wide meadow, a great circus with all its mammoth gilded paraphernalia was unloading— as though the wonders of fairyland were in exodus, the creatures of the Thousand and One Nights traveling out of Bagdad: a hundred white horses with their attendants; beasts, mammoth and dusky; and bespangled women.

They regarded him! And one he himself had regarded.

She lay in the thin morning sun on the top of a gilded wagon, her body prone, a bare arm extended over the border of the carved wagon-top. She too was dark, after the manner of this girl now exquisitely before him in the cool spaces of the church that the reader’s voice filled. But the dark was rich and tropical, a wild, gypsy, passionate coloring — a flower of some soft southern country, hot-blooded and impulsive, not restrained, not bred out— luxuriant and free.

She lay close to the flat top of the gilded wagon as though her body caressed it, every contour soft and pressed into the lines of the carved top as into a mold that by some sorcery lovingly received it, lovingly longed for it and held it tenderly and firm as in the gestures of a caress.

Her hair was a cloud about a face that laughed, softly with no sound, a dimpled, luminous smile packed with deviltry.

By chance, it seemed to the man, as by the sudden invisible pull of a heavenly magnet, he had looked up at her. There had been no sound, no motion, nothing to attract his eye as he passed below her in the dust of the road. And yet, suddenly, as at a command of Nature, he had looked up!

And she had laughed that laugh without a sound, without, as it seemed to him, the slightest visible evidence of a motion, as one in some fabled garden might catch the face of a bronze, above a flowering vine, that laughed. He had not paused in his stride, nor spoken; there had been no word, no gesture. And yet the laughing face that followed him, regarded him; and his head, half turned, had remained her way until the wagon of the circus had as by a curtain removed her.

He had gone on in his long walk to join the secretaries of the Embassy at the morning service of this great, impressive, fashionable Western church.

And on his way here, like Judah on his way to Timnath to shear his sheep, he had met a lure. But unlike Judah he had gone on, leaving the lure smiling by the way.

But he had not gone on in peace.

It was the deviltry of the laugh that troubled him! Out of the inconceivable charm of what hidden mystery did this laugh issue? It moved something obscure and amorphous nesting in the very fibers of his body. The man was young; the taste of the apple of the Garden was unknown to him. But from the most mysterious, the most subtle impulse in the world, this cloistered innocence could not protect him.

Nature was greater than the Buddhist ritual. What amulet had his monastic order to stand against the deviltry of this laugh?

The activities of the mind cannot be measured by the ticking of a clock. These reflections, these vivid alluring pictures, these troubled memories, passed before him in a brief, a limited portion of time.

The Oriental in him vividly realized the imagery of the greatest love-song in any language known to us.

“How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!”

And to this man with the blood of Asia in him, these words had an object and a meaning. The prince’s daughter was before him, here, wonderfully to the eye, this incomparable girl lovely and distinguished. Or was it that other, gorgeous and tropical on the top of the gilded wagon, the daughter of an Oriental nomad prince?

“Thy neck is as a tower of ivory.”

Wonderful imagery, how it fitted to the lure! A tower of ivory! The white throat under the distinguished head, the sun-browned column under the face that laughed. How well the hedonist of Syria knew the word!

The reader’s voice went on:

“And the hair of thine head like purple!”

Beautiful conception of an eye morbid for detail.

But it was true! Amazingly, inconceivably, it was true! He recalled it. Against the thin morning sun, the cloud of hair above the gilded wagon-top had a faint purple haze in it. And the hair of the heavenly creature before him, banked about her distinguished face, had a vague purple background in the light softened by the colored windows.

“How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!”

And with a great upward sweep the imaginings of his heart raced forward. What mysterious knowledge, hidden and packed with ecstasy, had inspired this sentence, this comment crowning the appraisal!

Night would soon come on.

THE man had returned through the hills, avoiding the road that he had followed on his morning journey. He wished, like every human creature, profoundly disturbed, to be alone. But he had not wandered in the open. He lay in the deep grasses at the wooded border of a hilltop. Beyond him, obscured by a forest, was the town that he had tramped through; and below was the bend of the great river, wide, marking the sweep of a vast arc of silver around the big shoulder of the forest extending like a giant’s arm to the north.

It was hot— the sudden oppressive heat of an autumn afternoon. The air was heavy. It enervated the senses like a drug. And it remained hot as the night came on, as though the world had entered a stellar space occupied by an atmosphere heated and sensuous.

He lay at full length in the hot dried grass like one overpowered by an opiate. He seemed to lie without thought and without motion. But it was merely the illusion of inertia. The lotus-eater, his hands under his relaxed head, his limbs extended, and pressing the earth beneath him like a dead weight, gives to the eye this impression of serenity, of a lifeless indolence, that his heated fancy, burning within him, awfully negatives.

The man had not found peace in the open places of the hills.

Passion carried into a solitude is elevated to a tyranny. Nature, the great enchantress, presents her drugged cup, and after it is drunken leaves the victim in the sacred groves to his fancy. And on this day her drugged cup had been swallowed brimming. The man’s fancy awfully assailed him. They appeared, these two exquisite women, in alluring visions. And so potent is the ancient drugged cup that in the man’s fancy they had the aspect and the realities of life.

They were here!

If he turned his head, one of them came and stood behind him. And if he closed his eyes, the leaves falling on his face were soft hands that touched him. They changed, these two alluring women, blended, became one exquisite creature, the distinction of the one added to the golden deviltry of the other.

And very nearly that heavenly thing appeared!

Almost, to sight and hearing, it appeared! On an immense float lay a woman under a great canopy. Beside the float a nimble creature leaped in the abandon of a wild dance.

With a supreme effort of the will, the man stumbled to his feet. In a moment he would see her, and his mind would go.

It was night. The world as by some trick of sorcery was in a blue hazy darkness. The man hurried, stumbling down the long wooded hill to the river, to the tiny boat in which he had crossed this morning when he had followed the faint path along the river to the highway skirting the town. Now returning through the hills, he descended to cross the river.

He was a long time, in the blue haze of the night, on his way down; he was haunted, followed; and confused, he kept losing the way.

The moon rose. He found the boat, released it and pulled out into the river. There was a form of light— the deep blue haze, dense and palpable, illumined by the moon as behind a cloud, enveloped the world.

He fled from an illusion that multiplied itself as in the facets of a brilliant, and peopled the night. And he fled in vain!

His boat was still obscured by the thick wooded growth that extended here into the river, when suddenly, with a great backward stroke of the oars, he stopped.

Laughter reached him!

His body lifted rigid, his fingers like steel. It was close beyond him, this laughter on the silver surface of the open water toward which his back was set. He trembled internally with panic. He knew the thing that had happened. These illusions pressing for reality had finally won a way through to forms and voices. The thing that had happened to the saints was, by some briefly recovered vigor of evil, about to happen to him!

The hot air of the autumn night lay on the river like the fume of a distillation. He knew from whence the laughter rose, and wherefore it was multiplied. It was the illusion, manifold, confused and varied, of the girl in the church, of the girl on the top of the gilded wagon; and that golden silent laughter had got now the lure of voices.

They laughed, these divine illusions; and beyond in the bend of the river they awaited him.

He would drive the boat across, with great strokes, and escape this sorcery. Perhaps they had not yet won a way into the forms of life. Disembodied voices— perhaps the thing was that!

It was not that!

His mighty thrust drove the little boat out into the open river. And the amazed man, releasing the oars in the locks, put up his arm across his face like one who would ward off a blow.

The whole sweep of the silver river flashed with the white bodies of Nereides; they were everywhere, extending through the blue moon-haze to the rocks of the shore beyond. The boat under the impetus of the powerful oar-strokes had glided almost noiselessly into the very nest of them. For a moment, as though disconcerted by this thing of a fixed reality, they cried out and withdrew, but almost immediately they returned, and a great burst of laughter rippled like a wave over the silver surface of the river.

The man sat motionless, his arm in the defensive posture across his face. And the naked creatures, with their golden laughter, swarmed down upon him. A babble confused and extending itself in every direction, rose— cries, voices, words that the amazed man was too shaken to distinguish.

They enveloped him, these siren creatures. They seized the boat, convoyed it.

It went on without the stroke of an oar. The reality of these white bodies, panting in this golden babble of sound, in this immense sweep of silver water, was beyond any conception of the human fancy. He was mad, the man stammered in his heart— or it was real.

And reality it could not be!

When could the whole water of a river be peopled with Nereides, save out of the womb of the mind?

The boat continued to advance. A hand, cool, dripping with water, touched his arm, moved along it as though it fingered upward from the throbbing peak of his heart and drew him down to the gunwale of the boat. And his eyes, released from the shield of his arm, saw a head weighted with dark hair, wet and massed like the heavy foliage of a vine, about a face that laughed.

With an immense effort the man rose, balanced himself an instant on the unsteady seat and sprang far out into the water. The moving boat had very nearly reached the opposite shore, and the long leap carried the man into the shallows. He plunged forward, gained the cover of the wood and escaped, the burst of golden laughter following him like the mingling notes of a siren chorus.

But the security which the man expected in his house did not await him.

HE seemed to arrive, awakened, in a place which he had hitherto inhabited in a sort of somnambulism. The severity of the ancient monastic order was, in a measure, maintained in this house which he occupied, situated on the grounds adjoining the summer residence of the Embassy— the wooden table, the bench, the. shelf for the sacred texts. But the spiritual essence of these things had changed; the place was desolate!

He sat down on the bench before the table. And Nature, the great enchantress, the divine guardian of life, had her mighty will with him. From the tension that had peopled the night with Nereides he felt that he had escaped. But he had, in fact, escaped from nothing. It was, only, that the Enchantress turned him a little in her drugged hands.

And a sense of loss, complete and utter, like the darkness of the pit, descended on him. The one thing, he now desperately saw it, the one only thing for which he was born and suckled, and for which he ate bread and became a man— a thing hidden until now— had on this day stepped out into the light and beckoned.

And if he failed it, the reason for his being here was ended, all the care, the patience, the endless labors of Nature, bringing him in strength to the fullness of his life, were barren; all the agony that he had given to his mother, the milk that he had drunk, the fruits of the earth that he had eaten, were wasted; he would be a thing of no account, useless to the great plan, to be broken up by the eternal forces in disgust.

And slowly, a little farther, in her drugged hands the Enchantress turned him.

And it seemed to him that his fathers sleeping in the earth approached and condemned him. The gift of life handed down to him must be passed on. To this life-line the dead clung; they reached to immortality with it. Did he break it, they would be, all, adrift to the farthest ancestor— flung off to be derelict forever in the wash of some outer darkness! They crowded around him in their awful anxiety!

And yet a little farther under the hands steeped in Lotus!

Why should the ecstasy of life be denied him?

“Joy cometh in the morning,” it is written.

At any rate, the will to joy came. He would return into the world and claim what Nature had shown him.

THE sun gilding the hilltops found him on the way. And as though the will drew what the heart longed for, it appeared. At a turn of the road in a cool deep of the wood, he came, with the abruptness of a vision, upon the girl and the man who had been before him yesterday in the church. They rode in the early morning— smart, elegant, distinguished, the horses traveling almost without a sound in the dust.

And the lure of this heavenly creature, in the dress of a boy, was even more divinely visioned: the black boots with the silver spurs, the white breeches, the shirt confined at the waist with the broad webbed belt, and the cool, beautiful, distinguished face under the polo-helmet with its chin-strap. Lovely, beyond anything that the mind could imagine, was the exquisite body of this girl.

They passed him.

The girl did not even look, but for an instant the man regarded him. And it was this glance that extinguished the hope within him. It put him immeasurably down. And he saw clearly, what he had not yesterday considered, the strength and the iron vigor of this man, the determined will, to be stopped by nothing. To take from this man what he possessed, one must pry open his dead clinched fingers.

There were men in the world, then, ruthless and determined, whose resistance he had not considered. This granite fact, with which the bubbles of his fancy must inevitably collide, he had wholly failed to realize. One passed him with the thing he wished, and he could not meet, even, the cold sweep of his eye!

Trampled under, beaten down and perplexed, the youth went on.

He had been a fool. He reflected.

This girl of wealth, of distinction, was of course inaccessibly beyond him. But the other was not. She was the nomad of a gypsy caravan, and he could win his way to her.

He went on, his heart climbing again.

This other he would search out and possess. She awaited him; he had only to find her; that golden laugh descending on him like the sun had disclosed her heart. He had been blinded and for a moment a fool! She, this other, had been the prepotent influence. She, Nature’s mysterious agencies, laboring to the purpose of her plan, had selected for him. She had dominated his imaginings, peopled the silver river, in his fancy, with a horde of white bodies tumbling in the mood of a golden laugh. He went on.

IT was mid-morning when he reached the town. Crowds of people blocked the way. Determined with his great purpose, he shouldered through.

The one long street was the theater of a barbaric pageant. Elephants, spangled riders, caparisoned horses and immense bands of music advanced. And there followed, reproduced here an inconceivable age after its reality, the visit of an Oriental beauty, in every gorgeous extravagance, to the court of that exquisite voluptuary who had immortalized, in his Song, the charms of women.

The man, winning his way through to the curb, remained a moment uncertain. The vast splendor of the pageant confused him.

On an immense float covered with a cloth of gold lay a woman fanned by two half-naked Numidian girls, under a great canopy of striped silk supported on gilded standards. And beside the float a nimble creature dressed in a riot of color and covered with bangles of brass, leaped in the abandon of a wild dance. There followed hordes of women, in every spectacular costume that a crude fancy, endeavoring to reproduce the visit of the Queen of Sheba, could imagine.

Then the fans, immense, downy and soft, moving as in rhythm above the Oriental beauty, for a moment revealed her.

And the man on the curb,— this Buddhist novitiate in the clerical dress of the Church of England, this youth,— straining forward on his toes, sprang into the street, crossed in a stride and leaped onto the float. He seized the girl’s wrist in his hand and began to pour out all the confused longings of his heart— a tumbling, passionate torrent of words.

For a moment the girl, whom he had first seen on the gilded wagon-top, was startled. Then she half rose and turned toward the gorgeous dancing woman beside the float, her face radiant with that beautiful noiseless laugh:

“Hey, Mabel!” she called, her voice crude and strident. “The pulpit Johnny that we screened last night, in the big wash, wants to wed me. Can you beat it!”

AND before the man— flung back, bruised, numb, as by the battering of a wave—there appeared in fancy a vast, immobile image of Buddha, over beyond this pageant: serene in an eternal calm, as though abominably indifferent to the soul of man, bewildered by emotions and drugging itself with dreams.

_________________________

9: Legerdemain

Arthur Somers Roche

27, 1883 – February 17, 1935)

Red Book Magazine March 1923

The first of a series of stories featuring John Ainsley, master thief,  published in Red Book Magazine.

HAVE you ever been hungry? Oh, I do not mean the lusty appetite that exercise brings, nor do I mean the faint sensation of discomfort that comes when dinner is delayed. I mean hungry! Not for an hour, not for a day, not for a week; but for a month, two months, three months! I mean a hunger that is a slow starvation, that is not content to melt the flesh and shrink the muscles, but works a fatal alchemy upon the heart and mind.

Perhaps you do not believe in such an alchemy. Nevertheless you will concede that the mind possesses great dominion over the body. And mistreated slaves overturn their harsh masters. Why should not the body, then, mistreated, destroy the mind that, ruling, has made no success of its reign? I say that it can and does. I say that no famished man will observe, after he has conquered fear, the laws that men with full stomachs have enacted.

And if you do not agree with me, starve yourself for months and learn what conscience you have left.

Conscience, and the words it conjured up before my mind! Honor, fidelity, duty! Well, I had won honor on a certain bloody meadow between two hills in France. Fidelity? For thirty years I had held the faith implanted in me in childhood. Duty? Well, in my pocket was a paper proving that I had been honorably discharged from the army of—does it matter which army? Does it matter where I was born, who were my parents, what had been, before the war, my station in life, my education?

Let it be enough that I called myself a gentleman, that I still call myself a gentleman, and that scores, even hundreds, of your so-called best people, term me such. But I was a very hungry gentleman that night, not so long ago, when I returned to the shabby, even filthy lodging-house on Thompson Street, that I called home.

My landlady was seated on a chair in the ill-smelling hall. She met my entrance with a frown. Even had I been the kind that likes to shirk an issue, I could not have avoided this one. For she rose from the rocking-chair at the rear of the hall. For a moment she would remove her watchful eye from the brood of half-grown children who played in the kitchen. Sorry as I was for myself, I was sorrier for her. Life had been harsh to me, but I had had my moments.

It was hard to believe that she had had hers. Looking at her, as she shuffled her carpet-slippered feet over the torn and stained oilcloth of the hall, one found it hard to believe that she had ever had youth, beauty and happiness. One seemed to know that she had stepped from girlhood into middle age, and that the step had not been the bounding stride of confidence, but a frightened, unplanned leap compelled by fate.

Even the flesh that shook upon her as she waddled toward me was not the firm fat of the well-fed, but the gross flesh of those who live indoors, who work too hard, and who replenish their wasted tissues with food of the wrong nutrition value. Perhaps, too, she had some malady; I know that her ankles were swollen hideously. But at the moment, weak with hunger,

I attributed everything unpleasant to the lack of food.

Without a word she held out her hand to me.

I could feel myself coloring, and marveled that there was enough red blood in my anemic system to furnish my cheeks with a blush.

There is no humiliation more painful to a gentleman than his inability to pay his debts to persons dependent for their livelihood upon his financial integrity. Red with shame, I could only stammer: "I'm sorry, Mrs. Gannon."

I suppose that years before poverty and worry and disease had left their indelible marks upon her body and character, her mouth may have been pleasant, even inviting. It must have been kissable, for although I had never seen Mr. Gannon, and vaguely understood that he had vanished from my landlady's ken a few years ago, the presence of so many young Gannons argued the bestowal of caresses upon my landlady's lips.

But now her mouth was thin and sharp, in violent contrast to the overhanging cheeks and the double chin.

Years of contact with impecunious lodgers had made a sneer of what might once have been a smile.

" 'Sorry?' " she repeated, and her shrill voice cut my very soul. "I can't pay my rent with sorrow. Not even with my own sorrow, much less a secondhand sorrow that I get from you." Her own witticism amused her, but I could see that it did not soften her. She still held out her hand.

From the room at the end of the hall one of the brood saw me. He raced toward us, stopping breathlessly.

"Make a penny disappear, Mr. Ainsley!" he cried.

"Let him make a dollar appear," suggested his mother. "If he had a penny, I'd make it disappear into my pocket," she added.

"Ain't you got a penny, Mr. Ainsley?" asked the child.

I suppose that my shame appealed to Mrs. Gannon. Anyway, she pushed the child away, harshly ordering him to go back to the kitchen. But pity for my humiliation could not make her forget her own needs.

"The rent of your room was due yesterday, Mr. Ainsley," she said. "I'm always willing to give anyone a fair chance, but with plenty of people waiting for rooms, people as is able to pay for them, you can't expect me to let you have the room free "

She told the simple truth. Even this grimy house had become attractive to me, because it afforded me shelter from the elements, because, for all its degradation, it was better than the hard benches of the park. Mrs. Gannon would have no difficulty in letting the room which I occupied, the rent of which was only a dollar a week, and yet a rental beyond my power to pay.

"Well, what you got to say?" she demanded. "It's a wonder to me that a good big strong man like you wouldn't get some kind of a job if you wanted to."

I could not debate the question with her. How make her understand that a wound, followed by illness, and the latter succeeded by eighteen months of malnutrition culminating in what promised to be actual starvation, unfitted a man for manual labor? Oh, I could work like a giant for ten minutes, but after that brief time I became as weak as a newborn kitten. But these were matters that pride kept me from divulging to Mrs. Gannon. Had pride not done so, her own lack of interest would have kept me silent. She had troubles of her own; mine did not concern her.

"Well, there ain't nothing more for me to say. If you can't pay me, you'll have to go. That's all there is to that." She put her hands on her hips and stared at

I had never in all my life done a thing which the world calls dishonorable. I should have been able to look anyone in the eye. The consciousness of virtue should have sustained my glance. Instead, it fell before her truculent glare. Then I made up my mind.

"All right, Mrs. Gannon; I'll pay you tonight," I told her.

"It's tonight now," she reminded me suspiciously.

"I mean in an hour," I explained.

She eyed me unbelievingly. Then, reluctantly, she said: "Don't think you can put anything over on me. I get my dollar in advance, like it's due, or out you go."

I nodded to her apologetically, humbly. She pursed her lips, started to say something, changed her mind and let her words become an indistinguishable murmur, turned and waddled down the hall.

I mounted the stairs. I say mounted, but I mean that I climbed them by the most desperate effort. Silver zigzag lines appeared and vanished before my eyes; tiny points of light grew into great molten moons and then faded suddenly into darkness. Nausea attacked me, and I conquered it only by a miracle of effort.

At last I reached my room on the top floor. It was hardly more than a cupboard, and the bed on which I had slept for the last several weeks was narrow, hard and unclean. There was no window: a skylight gave what light and ventilation there were. There was no chair in the room, nor any carpet. The walls had once been papered, but now there remained only a few strips; grimy, cracked plaster, met the eye on every side.

Yet even this refuge was to be denied me unless I found means wherewith to meet the debt that living in these quarters incurred. I had come to this room, stifling my contempt with difficulty. Now it was as desirable as an apartment in a palace.

Dizzily I clutched at the wall and worked my way around to the bed and sat down upon it. I was shaking and perspiring. It was bad enough to be hungry, but to be homeless also, was unendurable. Well, I would do the thing that I had sworn never to do: I would pawn the miniature, painted upon ivory, of my mother. For the oath that I had made to myself, as my other possessions passed into the hands of the pawnbroker, that I would die before I parted with the last reminder of different days, was no longer binding. My duty to Mrs. Gannon was paramount.

I had a shabby, worn-out suitcase in the room. I had thought when I came here that I owned the irreducible minimum of clothing possible to cover one's nakedness; but I had seen vanish, one by one, the articles of clothing and of the toilet that I had thought indispensable, not to luxury but to life. Now, save for a shirt, an extra pair of socks and a collar or two, the suitcase was empty— save, of course, for the ivory miniature to which I have referred.

MY dizziness passed after a moment, and I opened the case and took out the miniature. I had no idea what a pawnbroker would consider the thing worth, but I knew that it was worth millions to me; for when I should part with it, I would also part with hope.

Looking at it, my eyes blurred, not with the tears of weakness, but with the tears of grief. I seemed to see my whole life pass before me, even as they say it passes before the eyes of a drowning man. Well, I was a drowning man, sinking in the waters of failure and despair.

I saw myself as a child, winning my mother's smile by some playful prank. I saw myself at a fashionable prep' school, at college, in Paris playing the part of a wealthy young dilettante. I could neither paint nor write nor compose, but I flattered myself that I had a cultured taste for all of these. Then I saw myself reduced to sudden poverty by the failure of a trust company to which the care of the estate left me by my father had been confided. I remembered the blank bewilderment that had overcome me as I faced poverty, a bewilderment soon succeeded by confidence in my own latent abilities.

I saw myself, before I had opportunity to prove those undeveloped gifts, entering the French hospital service at the outbreak of the great war. I saw myself, a little later, transferring to the army, which later decorated me for valor. And then I saw the months that followed the war. Wounded in the last battle before the Armistice, I was discharged, as cured, six months later. Illness developed, and the last of my father's estate went to pay my hospital bills.

I saw myself seeking work. I remembered the sudden horror that swept over me when I discovered that I was incompetent. I was a dilettante and the world refuses to pay the amateur. I knew no trade, no profession. The only thing that I could do better than most people was the performance of certain tricks in sleight-of : hand. That was because few people practiced parlor magic. Even the clumsiest of professional magicians was far ahead of me in deftness and in variety.

I had in me a streak of stubbornness, that I called pride, that forbade me to trade upon my father's friendships. Like all youths who have been brought up with the idea that there will always be enough money available for their wants, I was conceited. I thought that success was an easy matter.

I will not recount all the visions that passed before me as I looked at the miniature. Suffice it, that with times hard, I got no work. And when finally I had swallowed my pride and was willing to work as a common manual laborer, illness and privation had sapped my strength. I had moved from the best hotel in New York to as shabby a rooming-house as the city held. And now my landlady threatened me with eviction.

WELL, I could at least assure myself another week of shelter.

After that— I refused to contemplate what would follow after the proceeds of my proposed transaction with the pawnbroker were gone.

I had not eaten a mouthful for forty-eight hours. Before that I had eaten scantily, not more than once a day, for six months. As a sandwich man, as an errand man when I could get a job, as guardian of motorcars parked on the city streets, I had managed to pick up enough, added to the results of frequent trips to the pawnshop, to pay my small rental, and buy myself an occasional meal. But for the last two days I had earned nothing. And I was too proud to beg. Today I was starving. I recognized that fact at last. Starvation! That, unless I yielded to the impulse of self-destruction, was my inevitable end. The battle was over, even though I might postpone surrender for a few hours longer. I, born and bred in luxury, educated in the best university in America, a connoisseur of the fine arts, would die in blackest poverty. And probably the only person to mourn my passing would be little Peter Gannon, the landlady's son, whom I had frequently amused with tricks of legerdemain.

At least, though, I would die owing nothing. So I rose, putting the miniature in my pocket, and unsteadily descended the stairs to the street. I walked uptown to Washington Square, then crossed to Sixth Avenue.

The oily gentleman with hard black eyes, with whom I had had so many little transactions in the past, looked up as the bell on the door jangled at my entrance. It was an unflourishing establishment that he ran, and one of the reasons why I patronized him was that his shop was never thronged with customers. I never was compelled to meet curious eyes.

But this evening he was engaged. He leaned across the counter whispering to a client who also looked up at my arrival. He looked away again swiftly, but not before I had time to gain an impression of shrewd eyes, a rat-trap mouth, a diamond shirt-stud, a rich fur collar and a general atmosphere of money. I wondered vaguely why one so apparently prosperous should be dickering with a pawnbroker.

And as I waited for my friend Weinberg to finish with the other man and attend to me, I somehow seemed to sense that, whatever had been the subject of their conversation before my entrance, their talk now concerned me. The fur-collared gentleman glanced over his shoulder at me, not once but two or three times, and seemed to be putting questions to my friend the pawnbroker. It seemed to me, also, that Weinberg looked at me before answering these questions.

Then Weinberg's visitor, turning his collar up so that his flashy shirt-stud was hidden, nodded abruptly to the proprietor and walked out of the shop. His hard eyes searched my face as he passed, as though he was studying me. However, he did not pause, and I promptly forgot him under stress of my negotiations with Weinberg.

I had done too much business with the pawnbroker for him to believe that there was any remote chance of my redeeming the goods which I pledged with him. I had every reason to believe that he took advantage of my poverty; yet I was too proud to open negotiations elsewhere. It was bad enough that one pawnbroker should know my extremity. I would hide it from others.

I did not haggle. I asked for ten dollars; the ivory alone was worth more than that, I believed; the silver frame in which the portrait was set must also have been worth at least ten dollars. Intrinsically, the thing, as a work of art, was worth hundreds. Sentimentally, it was priceless. But the need of Mrs. Gannon was beyond anything else. I took the five dollars that Weinberg offered, tucked the bills and the ticket in my pocket, and went out.

THE midwinter air had grown chillier with the later hours.

I shuddered as I stepped from the close atmosphere of the pawnshop upon the sidewalk.

I had promised Mrs. Gannon her money within an hour. I could keep my promise and still have time, before paying her, in which to satisfy my anguished stomach. As rapidly as I could, I walked up Sixth Avenue toward a mean little restaurant where I could dine cheaply.

I was as near to an animal as it is possible for man to be. My whole being was concentrated on the effort to conserve my energies so that I would not collapse before reaching the restaurant. So, when a man laid a hand on my shoulder, halting my feeble progress, I turned on him with a snarl. I was at the door of the place where I planned to satisfy my hunger, and a delay, even of a second, maddened me.

"Let go!" I cried.

I recognized my gentleman of the fur collar at once. He stepped slightly back, then smiled ingratiatingly.

"Take it easy, son," he said. "I want to talk to you."

I shook my head; the effort of speech was too much; I moved again toward the restaurant door. He stopped me once more.

"Wait, son," he commanded. "You want to be careful; you might kill yourself overeating. Come along with me, and I'll fix you up."

It was bad enough that Mrs. Gannon and the pawnbroker should know my abject poverty; it was shameful enough that I myself should know of my starvation; but it was worse that a man whom I had never seen, until twenty minutes ago, should accost me thus and venture impertinent solicitude. For no matter how kindly he may have meant it, I considered it an unwarranted intrusion into affairs that were strictly my own. Moreover, he had struck at more than my pride; he was interfering with the gratification of my appetite. As I have raid, I had become animal-like. Reason had completely departed from me; I was governed by my belly, not by my mind. So, like any animal balked of his food, I struck at him.

Had I not known how weak privation had made me, I would have learned it then. For he avoided my blow with ease. Indeed, exhausted by my effort, I pitched forward and would have fallen to the ground had he not caught me. The next few minutes were blurred. I dimly saw that he signaled the driver of a closed motorcar. I felt myself being assisted into the machine; I made no effort to resist. In fact, I think that I must have fallen into a stupor, for the next thing that I remembered I found myself sitting in a huge armchair. Some one was holding a spoon to my lips, and I was drinking greedily of a hot soup.

A few spoonfuls must have revived me. I sat up, pushed the spoon away and reached for the bowl from which the fur-collared gentleman—he had doffed his overcoat now—was feeding me. He did not resist, and I lifted the bowl to my mouth. It revived me, yet merely sharpened my craving for solid food.

My benefactor—at the moment I considered him such —smiled.

There was neither mirth nor kindliness possible to those thin lips, but there was a certain bleak friendliness.

"Feel better?" he asked.

He knew my condition and I did not pretend to hide it.

"I want more," I said.

He smiled again. "Wait a minute; let that soup get settled; then we'll see what you can do to a chop."

I tried to return his smile. "I'll do more things to it than you can guess," I told him.

He glanced over his shoulder at the opened door leading to the next room. He called a question, and a manservant, correctly dressed, appeared. He announced, without the slightest shade of expression, that dinner was served. His immobile countenance betrayed no trace that anything out of the usual had happened.

My host looked at me. "Can you make it?" he asked.

"Watch me," I replied.

I rose unsteadily and walked with him into the dining-room. The soup had helped me mentally as well as physically. My mind felt clarified; I was able to exercise a self-control that had been lacking in me. I did not heed his warning that I must eat sparingly.

But after his warning he tried to put me at my ease. I was surprised that the owner of such a face could possess so much tact. And as I ate, I tried to take stock of my host and his surroundings.

The man unquestionably was not a gentleman. His clothing was too garish, his jewelry too blatant. His speech, too, was coarse and sloven, and he used phrases that betokened an unfamiliarity with polite speech. His apartment, moreover, was furnished badly. The pictures on the walls clashed violently with the furnishings. I would have set him down immediately as a parvenu, possibly one of the recent species of profiteers, but for a certain furtiveness of manner. Moreover, I had first seen him in a pawnshop.

Why had he followed me? What was he? Well, I could wait for the answer. And so, forcing myself to be slow, to chew each morsel carefully, I waited for him to direct the conversation to a personal turn. As a matter of fact, there was no conversation, for I said practically nothing. He delivered a monologue, based for the most part on places he had visited, events, mostly of a sporting nature, which he had witnessed. I began to think that he was probably a gambler, perhaps a follower of the race-track.

Then, having decided that I had eaten all that it was well for me to take at this time, I followed his example and walked with him into the next room.

I noted idly that he closed and locked the dining-room door.

"Smoke?" he asked.

Perhaps I had suffered almost as much through the abstinence from tobacco as through the lack of food. Certainly his question aroused memories of sufferings that had seemed unbearable.

With the first dizzying inhalation of the cigarette he gave me,

I felt my own man once more. I had been the sport of circumstance, an inconsiderable bit of flotsam on the city’s tide. Suddenly I felt master of my own destiny.

“Drink? Cocktail? Highball? Champagne?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Never touch it,” I said. “And I thought in these days no one but millionaires had such a variety.”

“Who said I ain't a millionaire?” he demanded.

“I beg your pardon,” said I, marveling at the queer vanity of him.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I suppose, having seen me talking to Weinberg, you thought I was busted.”

“I didn’t think anything about it,” I replied.

He laughed in a peculiarly harsh, joyless tone. “I guess you were beyond thinking about anything. I took a look at you, and says I to myself: ‘This baby’s about due for the morgue.’ ”

I felt myself color. “I do look pretty badly,” I admitted. “And on top of what Weinberg had been telling you about me, it was easy to guess that I wasn’t a millionaire.”

His eyes, hard blue, narrowed. “You see things, don’t you? Tumbled right off to Weinberg wising me up about you, eh? Well, I knew right off that you were no boob. I thought you were the lad I needed; now I know it. Like a little dough?”

I laughed. Odd, how a few ounces of food change the whole world. “What do you think?” I countered.

"I'd say that you were ready to do anything to make a stake," he said.

"Almost anything." I amended.

"Fussy?" he asked.

"I'm a gentleman," I told him. The words sounded grandiloquent, absurd, as soon as I uttered them.

"Yes, I suspected as much," said my host. "Starvation hurts a gentleman's insides just like it does an ordinary roughneck's, don't it? Are you proud?"

"Suppose you explain," I suggested.

"Make it snappy, eh? All right, I will. I take If you have no friends in particular. You wouldn't be starving if you had. Am I right?"

"Go on," I said.

"If you got a chance to make money, real money, important money, you'd jump at it. Am I right?"

"Go on some more. You interest me," I smiled.

"There's a lot of money lying around this town waiting for a good man to pick it up," he said.

"Show it to me," I suggested.

"Suppose I do? Have you got nerve enough to grab it?" he demanded.

I reached for another cigarette, then drew back my hand empty. The conversation had taken a turn that mystified me. I was not sure that I wished to place myself under further obligation to my host.

"I don't think I understand," I told him.

He put his hand into a pocket and withdrew it. I don't think that ever in my life I had seen so much actual cash as he placed on a table beside him. Certainly there must have been fifteen or twenty thousand-dollar bills, and as many more of lesser denominations ranging from fifty to five hundred.

"Understand those?" He pointed to the wad of bills.

I managed to lift my eyes from the money and looked at him.

"Go on," I said again.

"I'm in business," he said slowly. "It's a new business, and there's lots of money in it. People don't lose their thirsts simply because other people pass a law."

"Bootlegging?" I suggested.

"Bright boy," he said. "Other things, too."

"Such as—" I paused.

His eyes were almost hidden between their lids now; yet I knew that their pupils studied me intently.

"How far would you travel with a man who could toss you a bunch like that on the table?" He pointed at the wad of bills. "I need a man like you, a man that can look and talk and act like a gentleman. I got ideas, but I ain't always able to put them over. You see, I know my own limits. It doesn't matter how much of a front I wear; it don't fool the people that I want to fool. And while I can pick the best guns in the business, most of them, all of them, have the same limits as myself."

I understood him. "My face is my fortune. Is that it?" I laughed.

He nodded. "You can make it your fortune. It hasn't made much of a one for you yet. Anyone can tell that you have been educated, and used to good things and all that, but where's it got you?"

"Here in your apartment, accepting charity," I replied.

He waved a disclaiming hand. "Not charity— business," he corrected me.

"Thank you," said I. "I'm glad you put it on a business basis. How much do you think the food I ate was worth?"

"What you mean?" he asked.

"I mean what I told you awhile ago: I'm a gentleman," I said, " —not a bootlegger or a crook."

His thin lips curled in a sneer. "I suppose it's better to be a gentleman and starve than a wise guy and get rich."

"I think so," I told him simply.

"There's still other ways of making money," he said. "For instance, you could run to the police, give them my address, and tell them what I've told you."

"You know that I wont," I replied. "Will this cover the cost of what I ate?"

I admit that it was ungracious, even to a confessed criminal. But after all, he had insulted me. I placed two dollars upon the table— how pitiful the amount was when laid beside his huge wad of bills— picked up my hat from the chair on which it had been dropped at my entrance, nodded to him and started for the door.

"Wait a minute," he said. "When you think this over, you'll change your mind. You'll want to find me. I wont be here. This place is rented for the night. Just go to Weinberg and tell him you want me. That's the kind of a man I am— no hard feelings."

"None here, either," I told him. "But I hardly think we'll meet again."

"Your belly's filled now. Wait till you're hungry again."

"I will," said I. And with that I walked from the apartment to find myself a moment later in Washington Square. I looked at the great clock on the Judson Tower. I could still keep my word to Mrs. Gannon. I did. Then, with two dollars left of the five that I had received from Weinberg, I climbed, more easily this time than last, to my room.

I sat down upon the bed and reviewed the last hour. And as I thought of how a cheap criminal had carried me to his lodgings, fed me, patronized me and insulted me, I was sick with shame. A man of my education and breeding, who had sunk so low in the social scale that he was open to such an insult, who was as unable to cope with the elementary facts of life as I was, was unfit to live.

It was a harsh judgment which I rendered against myself, but a just one. Incompetents clutter up the path of progress. Society, in making civilized life difficult for the incompetent, is enacting natural decrees; for nature, before society began, destroyed the incompetent. A sudden determination came to me. I had parted with the last possession that had a marketable value. Of course, I had my overcoat, but freezing was not preferable to starvation.

BUT why starve or freeze when there was an easy alternative? That is, the alternative would be easy if I were in full possession of my faculties. But if I became hungry to the point of starvation again, my faculties would be impaired, my will be gone. I could see myself begging of passers-by, even, possibly, rummaging in refuse-pails for a bone or a crust, like any famished dog.

The alternative, of swift and simple self-destruction, was infinitely preferable to such degradation. I must not let myself descend to a depth where I would lack will to adopt that alternative. I would eat again— already my stomach cried for more food, so long had I gone hungry— then walk to the water-front and rid society of one of its unfit.

I rose from the bed and opened my suitcase. I was sure that there was nothing in it that would identify Mrs. Gannon's missing lodger as John Ainsley, but I wished to be positive. Pride forbade that even after I was dead, persons who once had known me should know the humiliation of my end.

I closed the case and sat down once more upon the bed, to gather all my strength. As I sat there I thought of the man who had fed me. The display of money which he had made was assurance that he was an extremely successful criminal, probably one of those "supercriminals" who are created by the police to cover up their own incompetence.

I laughed at the idea. This man, whose name I did not know, was nothing but the most mediocre sort of person. Beyond a vicious cunning, he possessed no mentality at all. The reason for his success lay in the fact that the men opposed to him, the police, were also mediocrities. Imagine a man of real intellect devoting himself to the stupid career of crime-detection! The idea was absurd. Graduated policemen were the detectives who protected society against the schemes of such as my fur-collared friend. And while a policeman may be morally and physically an exceptional person, mentally he must be on the level of a laborer.

The supercriminal existed only in the newspapers. In reality he was such a person as my fur-collared friend. And the limitations of that person had been made clearly evident to me tonight. He knew his limitations himself, and had asked my aid to overcome them. Why, if I chose, I could be a supercriminal, a real one, not a myth invented to please the writers of newspaper headlines and their readers.

It would serve society right if I turned against it. I was a gentleman, a man qualified to act as arbiter in matters of taste and culture, a man admirably familiar with the arts. Yet the world passed me by, and preferred to bestow its honors and rewards upon a glorified grocer or a vendor of pig-iron.

It had taken ten generations of aristocratic forbears to produce me. While I did not profess to own the creative instinct, nevertheless, by sheer virtue of my family traditions, I was qualified to judge the works of creative artists and say: "This is good; that is bad."

I understood the art of good living; such as I were meant to set an example to the struggling and aspiring yokelry. Such as I were produced upon this earth to guide and instruct the common people. We were not meant to battle in tawdry ways for the gross material things of life. The supreme achievement of evolution is the gentleman; and society permits a gentleman to starve. I can conceive no harsher indictment against society.

Then I smiled at my own heat. I had had my opportunity to become a criminal earlier this evening, and had refused it. I had no intention of changing my mind, and accepting the offer of my fur-collared friend.

So, then, let me die, as a gentleman should, without repinings, or anger, or sneers, or other vulgarities. And let me die, as unfortunately I had not recently lived, upon a full stomach.

There were places in New York where one might still dine, frugally it is true, but amid clean surroundings, in an atmosphere of breeding, for the small sum that still remained to me. Such a place was Carey's, an Italian table-d'hôte restaurant south of Washington Square. Dinner could be procured there for a dollar and a half; with twenty-five cents for cigarettes, there would still be a quarter for the waiter. I regretted that the check-boy in the coat-room would be forced to get along without a gratuity from me. With my stomach filled, puffing at a cigarette, I would stroll leisurely to the west, coming at length upon a dock on the North River. After that— who knows?

There was no need to say anything to Mrs. Gannon. Tomorrow or the next day, finding my room unoccupied, she would rent it to some one else; I had paid her for a week in advance, and she would consider my departure something in the nature of an unexpected profit. There was not the slightest danger that she would report my absence to the police. She would confiscate my poor suitcase and its meager contents, and gain still another petty profit.

So I walked downstairs, much stronger than when I had done so on my way to visit "Weinberg, but still weak and hungry again. In the hall little Peter met me.

"When you goin' to make a penny disappear for me, Mr. Ainsley?" he demanded.

I smiled at him. "I'm going to make something bigger than a penny disappear, Peter,'' I told him.

"When?" he asked.

"Pretty soon," I replied.

"Will you let me see you?" he asked.

"You'll know about it," I assured him.

SMILING at my double-entendre, I left the house. And as I walked toward Carey's, my resolution grew stronger. If a man can't live as a gentleman should live, why live at all? Life is rather unendurable at best; only comfort and luxury mitigate its severity. I laughed as I passed rows of tenements. What fools these people were to continue in the prison of life! A tragically humorous thought occurred to me: suppose that these people who lived in these grimy tenements, and in similar or worse habitations all over the world, should decide to quit the bitter struggle for mere existence? Suppose, instead of going on strike, or starting riots, or turning Bolshevik, they chose by lot a certain number, and that certain number immediately killed themselves? On the next day, another number would kill themselves, and the remainder would declare publicly their intention of following the suicidal example. In a week or two society would be so alarmed that it would be offering palaces on Fifth Avenue to the poor if they would merely consent to live.

It was, I flattered myself, a quaint conceit, as sane as most revolutionary nostrums, and I was smiling as I entered Carey's. I was still smiling as I finished a very satisfactory meal, and leaning back in my chair, consumed my eighth cigarette. Life was not a complex thing, after all. At least, if one didn't find it simple, one simply stepped out of its absurd complexities.

For instance, that girl who sat across the narrow room from me would be indubitably better off if she joined me on my stroll to the dock than if she remained with the gross beast who was her dinner companion. For she patently showed that he disgusted her. Pretty, extremely so, with black hair and blue eyes and, I guessed from what appeared above the table, a charming figure, she belonged to youth, not to bloated age. And the fact that her eyes were hard and mercenary made no difference. They were so merely because advantages had been denied her. I could discern that the attentions of her companion sickened her.

Yet though I could see her shrink at the touch of his flabby hand upon her own, she did not push it away. She smiled, and apparently answered terms of endearment with verbal caresses. Unquestionably he was rich! Doubtless she was to share his wealth. Well, I was glad to be about to leave a world where such things were endured.

I raised my hand to beckon to my waiter. Then I dropped it, for into the room came my fur-collared friend, advancing to the table where sat the couple who had excited my disgusted interest, greeting them cordially, being hailed delightedly.

I wondered if these were part of the gang which I suspected must be associated with him. Then, noting a meaning glance exchanged between him and the girl, I knew that while she might be an associate of his, her gross companion was, if not already a victim, destined to be one. I postponed my departure. I had two cigarettes left; amusement would go well with my last tobacco. And inasmuch as my acquaintance of the early evening had turned his back to me as he sat down, there was no danger that my presence would interfere with his plans— provided, of course, that he had any plans, and that I had not misinterpreted the pregnant glance between him and the girl.

AS I watched the three, the gross man produced a little box from his waistcoat pocket. It was the sort of box that would contain a ring, and the sight of it evoked memories. I wondered that I had not recognized the huge-featured man before. For years ago I had more than once entered his jewelry establishment on Fifth Avenue. I knew him to be Daragon, one of the most famous jewelers of America, and one of its most notorious roués.

He had changed greatly since I had seen him striding pompously through the aisles of his fashionable establishment. Added years of loose living had brought more flesh and that dead pallor to his face. But I recognized him; the sight of the little cardboard box had aroused remembrance. I had bought trinkets in my day.

So, wondering what might be the meaning of Daragon's presence in the company of a self-confessed crook, I watched them. I saw the girl open the little package. I saw her hands tremble as she unfastened the string that tied it. I saw her lips part in a gasp of delight. I saw her turn to my friend of the earlier evening and address words that, from her manner, seemed to be appealing.

I saw my acquaintance reach for the box; though I could not see his face, I knew that his eyes were shining with ill-suppressed desire. And then, as I saw his right hand drop into the pocket of his coat, I knew what he planned to do, even before I caught a glimpse of the white object that he drew from the pocket. He planned to substitute one box for the other.

I smiled with amusement. Also I appreciated his cunning. Unquestionably he had made purchases from Daragon. Probably he had let the jeweler understand that the purchases were gifts for his sweetheart. Then he had permitted Daragon to meet his lady. The lady had smiled upon the jeweler. Daragon had seen an opportunity to combine business with pleasure, the sort of pleasure that appealed to him. And it was not unusual that, in trying to close a bargain, he should bring a jewel from his store. And the girl had been waiting for him alone; her seductions were to lull Daragon's suspicions, if any might be aroused.

I saw my friend's head shake in negation. Argument, presumably over the price of the trinket, seemed to arise. The girl pleaded with her lover. Oh, it was all well staged.

THEN, decisively, my crook shook his head. He pushed the box across the table, as though the incident were closed. Daragon argued a few minutes, seemed to make concessions which were not accepted, then slowly wrapped up the box and tied the string around it. He placed it in his waistcoat pocket. I wondered how they planned to get it away from him, to substitute the box which, underneath the table, the crook held in his right hand.

Then I saw. My friend the crook turned in his seat and pointed toward the door. Daragon looked in that direction. The girl's hand shot out; deftly it flicked from his pocket the box which he had just placed there. No one but myself was placed so that the action could have been seen. I waited for the next move, which must be the substitution of the other box.

But although the crook handed the girl the other box, Daragon's attention was not held by the incident near the door, which was nothing more than an altercation between two guests of the restaurant, an altercation arranged, I suspected, for the sole purpose of affording time and opportunity for the robbery of the jeweler.

He began to argue with the crook. His hand reached for his waistcoat pocket, to produce the jewel. But the girl had not had time to effect the substitution. She went dead white as Daragon leaped to his feet, overturning his chair as he did so. For his suspicions, never more than slumbering, I imagined, awoke to full activity.

Then, before he could attract the attention of the head waiter and the manager, I rose from my chair and walked swiftly to their table. I had no particular sympathy for the girl and her crook companion. But I had even less for Daragon. For while I watched him, I remembered some of the unpleasant tales that had been current about him in the years before the war. The girl was a thief, but Daragon was a filthy beast.

I gained their table in three strides. "You dropped something on the floor," I said. I spoke to Daragon, but I looked squarely at the girl. If she had the quick wit of her kind, I could save her.

She had it; as I bent over, groping beneath the table, her hand touched mine and slipped into it a box. In her excitement her shaking fingers relaxed their grip of the second box. I got that too. and would have been at a loss how to proceed, but for the fact that, leaning over until her face was close to mine, she whispered frantically: "The first one, the first one."

I slipped the second box swiftly into my pocket, arose and handed Daragon the first one. He took it from me. and immediately untied and opened it. He sighed with relief.

"Much obliged," he said. "For a minute I thought— damn it, I didn't think! I know that I put that box in my pocket, and it couldn't have fallen out."

"I picked it from the floor," I reminded him.

"It didn't fall there," insisted the jeweler.

"Then how did it get there?" demanded the crook.

"I don't know," said Daragon. "If I did. I'd call the police."

"What do you mean?" demanded the crook.

"I don't mean anything; I don't have to mean anything, do I? But that box didn't walk out of my pocket," snarled the jeweler.

"Are you insinuating—" began the crook.

Daragon interrupted him. "When a fifty-thousand-dollar diamond ring leaves my pocket, I can insinuate all I damn' please. If you don't like it, lump it. I was a fool to bring it down here anyway. My store is the place for me to do business."

"Better be careful," warned the crook.

"Don't worry about me. You said you'd give me forty thousand; you said you'd bring the cash here. I said I wanted fifty."

"Well, what about it?" demanded my host of the earlier evening.

"This much about it," cried Daragon. "I get suspicious, and you get sore. Well, if I'm wrong, I'll apologize. Produce forty thousand in cash, and I'll give you the ring. You'll prove your good faith, and I'll prove my regret." He waited a minute. I thought, considering the vast amount of cash that the other man had shown me earlier in the evening, that he might be able to produce forty thousand. But if he could, he evidently did not choose to do so. "I guess that will hold you," sneered Daragon. "If I didn't hate scandal, I'd call the police."

HE turned on his heel, gave me a grudging nod of thanks, and walked out of the restaurant. I stood a moment smiling at the crook.

"You certainly do need me," I laughed. Then, though having recognized me, he would have detained me, I walked over to my table. What did I, who was about to die, have in common with such a person? The thanks of himself, or of his pretty feminine companion, would not do me any good.

I paid my waiter and walked to the check-room. I will confess that I was slightly embarrassed at my inability to tip the coat-boy. But I need not have been; for Daragon, just donning his overcoat, saw me and seemed to regret his lack of courtesy. He handed the coat-boy an extra coin.

"Let me do that much," he said, "— even though you did me a shabby turn."

I stared at him. "What do you mean?" I asked.

We were at the cloak-room entrance now. Daragon jerked a fat thumb toward the dining-room.

"Don't you think I had that crook's number? It was the girl I wanted. I guessed their game, and played the come-on simply to get her where I wanted; her."

"And where was that?" I asked.

He grinned. "She's stuck on him. But I figured that if I caught them with the goods, she'd forget how stuck she was on him if I didn't prosecute. Get me?"

"I do," said I coldly.

"I suppose she dropped it, and you saw it fall. If you hadn't stepped in, I'd have had them dead to rights. Oh, well, a man can't get everything he thinks he wants."

"No," I agreed.

I stared at him: if the crook was low, and the girl was evil, this man was worse than either. And such as he lived and enjoyed living, while I, a gentleman born and bred, was about to die!

A SENSE of the monstrous injustice of life came to me. That injustice could be remedied by money. For instance, that jewel in Daragon's pocket could be turned into thousands of dollars. Even I, a gentleman, had heard, in recent months I of poverty, of "fences," those men who buy the loot of thieves; I even knew where one or two of them resided. The skirts of poverty brush the feet of criminality.

I was about to die, because I had neither productive nor constructive brains. But perhaps I had the third kind, a destructive brain. If my fur-collared friend could make a success of crime, despite the paucity of imagination which his clumsy scheme for robbing Daragon had disclosed, what a tremendous success I could achieve!

Honor? Adherence to it led me to the gutter, was about to lead me to the river!

Daragon stepped aside to let me precede him through the restaurant door. I exercised the only talent that I had, sleight-of-hand. I substituted the second box, which the girl had given me, for the one that lay in Daragon's pocket.

I nodded farewell to him— to more than him: to all the past that lay behind me. And I kissed my hand to the future. I was nothing within the law; I would be the greatest living figure outside the law. I would make the supercriminal something more than the figment of a policeman's imagination. I would bring to my new profession the brain of a gentleman, certainly fitted to cope with the intellect of a detective. I would bring to my new art the culture of an aristocrat. I would raise it from the sordid level to which such people as my fur-collared friend repressed it. I smiled cheerfully as I set out to dispose of the diamond ring gained by my legerdemain.

__________________

10: The Club of One-Eyed Men

Arthur Somers Roche

Red Book Magazine, April 1923

The second adventure of John Ainsley, master thief

IT was time for me to go to work. Seated at my table just removed from the throngs on the sidewalk, sipping my vermouth, I arrived reluctantly at this conclusion. Not that poverty pressed me! On the contrary, from the proceeds of a certain bit of legerdemain there remained to me, after paying my passage across the Atlantic, my expenses in Paris these last three months, and restoring my wardrobe to its present satisfactory condition, some ten thousand dollars.

Certainly, benefited by the exchange, I could hope to live decently for another six months at least.

Not so long ago, I would have been overjoyed at assurance of financial security for six weeks, or even six days. Indeed, sufficient food in my stomach to keep hunger away for six hours was a rare condition with me. But our ideas change with our changing prosperity. Let those who think that the mind governs material things ponder this obvious reverse.

I am, I think, one who makes up his mind quickly, and acts immediately. Certainly when I had decided that I would rather live a thief than starve an honest man, I had acted instantly. Let me say, in parenthesis, that I had not yet arrived at regret for that decision.

I acted, in this perhaps less important matter, as suddenly as I had acted on that evening when I had kissed an airy farewell to the traditions of all the Ainsleys, of whom I, John, was the first to turn to crime.

I raised my finger, and an attentive garçon leaped to my table. I paid him for my aperitif, rose, and with one stride was mingled with the crowd that surged from the Place de l’Opera; up the Boulevard des Capucines. It was an observation of the individuals who made up the crowd that had brought me to decision.

For it was springtime, and the world had come to Paris. From I my place at the table I had seen fortunes in furs and jewels pass by. The profiteers of all the world were here; and their wives and daughters and mistresses flaunted the success of their males before the others of their kind.

Swarthy Argentinians grown rich in beef and hides, shining-eyed Spaniards who had traded while Europe bled, munitions-makers from England and America— they rode and walked the streets of Paris, gross, vulgar and overfed. As, after a terrific storm, strange carcasses arise from the depths and float offensively upon the surface of the sea, so now upon the surface of society drifted weird carrion.

The sight of them, obese and opulent, made me realize that it was time for me to set about the acquisition of some of their more merchantable gauds. Not that I intended to prey directly upon these nouveaux riches! But where the carrion lies, the vulture flies. It was toward the vulture, his talons gripping choice morsels, that I would bend my energies. I would let the vulture do all the unpleasant work, and I would reap his profit.

For do not think that I had spent these months in Paris in mere stupid gratification of appetites that had been balked so long by poverty. It is true that I had indulged in sundry luxuries and pleasures, that I had lived once more as a gentleman should live, unharassed by soiling economies; but I had devoted myself studiously to thought of the future.

That that future must be outside the law I had determined. My first venture into crime had yielded me a profit so great, for such slight effort and risk, that I never for a moment considered anything but continuing upon the career that the needs of existence had made me choose. For understand that these are not the penitent confessions of a paltry pickpocket: they are the narratives of an artist.

In the apartment which I had rented, on the Rue Daunou, I had deliberately studied my problem. I had acquired all the literature dealing with criminals that I could find. And I came to the inevitable conclusion that the so-called supercriminal had never existed. For always the histories of these persons ended with the accounts of their arrests and convictions to punishments too unpleasant to contemplate. A super-criminal should be one who escaped the law completely, who died, when his time came, full of riches as well as sin.

Yet some of these men had shown a talent for crime that approached genius. I asked myself why they had finally failed, why, at the end, in the dock, they had heard the judgment of society.

The answer was obvious: no man can be stronger or cleverer than all the forces of all society. The man, then, who antagonizes these forces is a fool. A fool must fail in whatever he attempts. But the man who recognizes the difficulties before him, and takes precautions that will minimize these difficulties, increases his chance of success.

I had seen one sample of the species termed supercrook, and I knew myself to be, in every possible way, more capable of success in his profession than he. If, then, I had more ability than he, and if I so directed my energies and efforts that I would run the least risk of antagonizing the police, it seemed to me that, with a bit of luck, there was no reason why I should not prove the exception to the rule, and forever avoid exposure.

Study, in the seclusion of my Paris apartment, informed me that while I could hardly hope to improve upon the methods of some of the more famous of the historical supercrooks, I could, by applying their methods in a different fashion, avoid their errors. For the crook has no friends; neither has he any of the ordinary recourses of the law-abiding citizen. If your reputable merchant is robbed, he can complain to the nearest authority, and immediately all of society’s complicated legal machinery is set to work in his behalf. But if the thief is robbed, where may he look for redress?

To prey upon thieves: that should be my career. To wait until the vulture rose from the carrion and then to take from him his tidbits: that was my plan. I would work alone, having neither confederates nor confidants.

And now the sight of all this wealth paraded before me spurred me to action. Crooks were battening upon these parvenus. Every day the Paris papers told of robberies. The New York papers, which I received regularly, told of the continuance of the crime-wave there. Everywhere in the world thieves were plying their trade. I had mapped out my course of action; good living had restored my muscles and nerves to their former vigor; it was time for me to go to work.

I walked across the Place de l’Opera and entered a steamship agency. By great good fortune a room and bath had been surrendered half an hour ago, and it was possible for me to obtain it. So I left there in twenty minutes, the possessor of a ticket which entitled me to sail three days later from Cherbourg on the Altaria.

For of course it was necessary for me to ply my trade in my own country. It is true that I had a smattering of French, but I did not converse easily in that language. I would be handicapped at the outset, if I dealt with French criminals.

There was, it is true, a certain risk in returning to New York. My first venture into theft had been at the expense of Daragon, the Fifth Avenue jeweler. But it was not a certainty that Daragon knew who had robbed him. Moreover, looking at myself in the gilt-bordered mirror in my bedroom on the Rue Daunou, I seriously doubted if Daragon would be able to recognize me. On the evening that I had abstracted from his pocket the ring which had brought me funds wherewith once again to live like a gentleman, my hair had been long and unkempt, my cheeks sunken and ghastly white. Now there were no hollows under my eyes; my flesh was firm, and my skin was red with health. Then I had looked like a consumptive; now I looked like an athlete. I could discount any fears of recognition by the jeweler.

And there were just as many persons of ill-gotten wealth in New York as there were in Paris. I was not narrowing my opportunities by returning to a country with which I was familiar. Indeed, as I contemplated my return, I wished that I had never left New York. For now that I planned activity, it did not seem as feasible, as simple as it had seemed when I was merely studying the careers of masters of crime. I suddenly wondered, as I sat in my window, just when, where and how I would begin my operations.

For it is easy enough to speculate idly, to ascertain the weaknesses whereby others have failed, to survey the future, to state that one will do this and avoid that; but actuality differs from speculation. After all, a client must come to a lawyer before the attorney can demonstrate that other lawyers err in their handling of cases; the patient must come to the doctor before the physician can prove his new theory of diagnosis; and opportunity must come to me before I could begin the practice of my new profession.

Up to now, living comfortably and lazily, I had not given much thought to practice; I had devoted myself to theory. But the sight of all the wealth exhibited in the Place de l’Opera this spring afternoon had given a fillip to ambition. I had acted immediately. But having acted, to the extent of purchasing transportation to New York, I began to wonder to what purpose.

I couldn’t watch the papers, ascertain when a crime had been committed, and then rob the perpetrators. No one but a detective genius could hope to find out who committed the crimes in the first place. And having decided that my only safety lay in working alone, I could hardly cultivate the acquaintance of criminals, and learn their plans in advance. What had seemed, for several weeks, a most excellent theory, became suddenly almost impossible of practice.

And yet the theory was sound. I assured myself of this. Because I did not see immediately how to put it into working practice proved nothing against the theory. Still, though I cheered myself with the reflection that Opportunity is never so disguised but that keen eyes may learn her identity, I was rather depressed as, dressed for dinner, I left my apartment in order to keep an engagement with some casual acquaintances met at Maxim’s bar.

THEY were Americans, like myself, who were in Paris on business, and who had, in return for some little courtesies that I had shown them, expressed a desire that I should be their guest on a tour of Montmartre.

I met them at the appointed time. I had seen before, all that Montmartre offered, but these were pleasant chaps, gentlemen both, and it was a pleasure to associate, however casually, with one’s own kind. And they could get something of a thrill from visiting the tawdry dives with which Paris is infested.

We wound up, late at night, at the Jardin des Nymphes. I would rather have said good night at the door of this place, but did not wish to seem unappreciative of my compatriots’ hospitality. Vowing that I could not hold another glass of wine, I yielded to their importunities and entered the notorious dance-hall.

All Tenderloins are alike; the Jardin des Nymphes has its parallel in New York, in San Francisco; I presume that India and China could offer the vice-hungry visitor something similar. The underworld must make its contacts, somewhere, with the upper world on which it feeds.

And nowadays these contacts are franker than they were a dozen years ago. The so-called upper world has been invaded and conquered by barbarians; these outlanders bring to the circles to which their money has admitted them the crude tastes of the uncultured. So long as they are amused, they care not who furnishes their pleasure.

Tonight I saw pillars of finance embracing in the dance, women whose faces told their trade. I saw slant-browed youths, but yesterday from the gutter, one-stepping with women of assured social position. A philosopher, noting how assiduously the upper world courted the lower, might wonder at the pretense of difference between the two. But I was no philosopher; I was merely a very bored and tired gentleman who wished that his friends would permit him to retire to his bed.

One of my hosts ordered champagne. A moment later a bold eyed girl smiled from an adjoining table. My friends rose gallantly to the occasion; in a moment the smiling fair one had acquired two other friendly maidens, and they had crowded about our table at the edge of the dancing space. More champagne was brought, and in another few moments my two hosts were dancing with their newly acquired charmers.

I PLEADED fatigue. The lady who had selected me as her gallant sighed with relief.

“Me, I ’ave dance’ my shoes almos’ off,” she said. “I am glad that Monsieur feels not too gay.”

I looked at her; I did not even wish to talk to her. But after
all, my friends had practically invited her to join us; common
courtesy demanded speech. So we talked at random. Little by
little I drew from her bits of information about the habitués of the place. She had a brutally droll humor, and was not sparing in its use. A writer for one of the scandal papers would have reveled in the gross gossip, concerning the great and the near-great, which poured from her lips. For she knew which matron had compromised herself, which man had succumbed to harpy charms.

And then she emitted a whistle of surprise. She had become intimate with me by now. She gripped my arm, and pointed at a tall, white-haired man who was entering a box on the other side of the floor. In the bright lights that illumined the room I could see him quite clearly. Well groomed, with an easy, assured manner, a certain droop at one corner of his wide mouth seemed to indicate that of the two worlds represented here, the lower had spawned him.

“That,” said my fair informant, “is the White Eagle. Monsieur has heard of him? No?”

“Who is he?” I asked.

She shrugged her powdered shoulders. “He is the White Eagle, monsieur. If the name means nothing—” She shrugged again.

I looked again at the box across the floor. The White Eagle had sat down now, and had accepted champagne from the gentleman already there. I observed that gentleman. Gross, vulgar-seeming, his ostentation of dress and manner was only equaled by the painted and bejeweled fat old woman who was his companion. I set them down immediately as persons of immense and recent wealth.

The White Eagle turned his head, and even at that distance I understood why he bore his picturesque appellation. For his nose was a great curved beak. In profile one could not avoid noticing it. That, with his white hair, sufficiently explained his nickname.

“Who is he?” I asked of my companion again.

“Monsieur evidently does not read the Paris papers,” she commented.

“With difficulty, mademoiselle,” I admitted. “And I have been in Paris only a few months.”

“Ah, that explains.” She lowered her voice. “The White Eagle, monsieur, was tried for the theft of the Lagan jewels. He was what you call acquit’, as he has always been acquit’, every time the police try to put him in prison.”

“A criminal?” I said with interest.

She shrugged again. “It has never been prove’,” she smiled.

I nodded understanding; I felt a thrill chase up and down my spinal column. Here, perhaps, was that opportunity which I needed. For the White Eagle was hovering around that vulgar couple in the box opposite for reasons, I shrewdly surmised, connected with his profession. I was looking, then, at another of the so-called supercrooks, the class upon which I had determined to prey.

I turned to my companion. “Shall we dance?” I asked.

She was tired, but could not afford to offend. We went together upon the floor, and it was not difficult so to maneuver that we remained for fully five minutes close to the box where sat the White Eagle and his prey.

He seemed on familiar terms with his quarry. Indeed, it seemed that he and the other man were discussing some matter of business. I would have given a great deal to overhear their conversation. Some cunning swindle was in the air, I felt assured. And I was confident that I could make that swindle inure to my own profit if I could but learn its nature.

But that was impossible. I returned with my partner to our table. As I sat down, I saw the White Eagle rise, kiss with great manner the pudgy hand of the overfed woman opposite, shake hands with her gross husband— the other two must have been married ; certainly nothing but that inexorable relation would make them endure each other’s company— and leave the box.

A moment later the other two rose. The man draped about the fat and wrinkled shoulders of his companion a cape of ermine that must have cost two hundred thousand francs. He handed a bank-note to his waiter, and the servant’s forehead almost touched the floor in the excess of his gratitude.

I too rose abruptly. I pleaded a sudden headache of a severity too great to be endured. I refused, almost harshly, the offers of my two hosts to escort me home. I would not dream, I told them, of cutting short their evening’s entertainment. And so they let me go.

I gained my hat and coat from the cloak-room, and raced out into the lobby of the dance-hall in time to see the couple whom I was following enter a limousine. I hailed a taxi and bade the driver follow the car ahead. I did not wish to do anything so crude as this, but I could not follow on foot, and I wished to know where the friends of the White Eagle were stopping.

I found out in a few minutes, when their car stopped before the Meurice. I dismissed my taxi and entered into conversation with the hotel porter. From him, without difficulty, and without arousing his suspicion, I learned the name of the couple who had just entered the hotel. Then I turned and walked to my apartment in the Rue Daunou.

I FIND that one thinks better in bed than any other place. Undressed, then, with cigarettes on a stand beside me, I pondered the strange relationship which I had seen evidenced tonight.

What was the basis of the acquaintance between the White Eagle, a notorious though unpunished criminal, and Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Higgins, of Cincinnati, Ohio?

I wondered that I had not recognized the Higginses at first glance. Still, the photographs of them, which had appeared in the American and European press, had evidently been retouched to a degree. And if I had not instantly recognized the faces, I paid proper tribute to the Higgins glory by immediately identifying their names.

Who in the newspaper reading world had not heard of Josiah Higgins, who had been a multimillionaire before the war, and who was now popularly reputed to be worth at least a billion? Statisticians had estimated how many times his fortune, if reduced to dollar bills, would girdle the globe, how many times it would rebuild the Pyramids if reduced to silver coins. And other statisticians had solemnly affirmed that it cost thirty thousand dollars to dress Mrs. Higgins for breakfast, and at least a million and a quarter properly to clothe and ornament her for dinner.

Their extravagances had become a matter of international awe. Also, the queer parsimony that accompanied their extravagance was known to all the world. Higgins proudly boasted that he never gave a dollar to charity, and that he never lent money. They tipped outrageously, but Higgins haggled with his workmen, and was probably the most cordially hated employer in America.

They had assailed the gates of fashion in New York, and their rebuffs had become historic. They had failed to impress Mayfair and the Faubourgs as well as Fifth Avenue, but they did not lack for satellites. They were in a fair way toward creating a fashionable society of their own, if fashion be judged, as it frequently is, by the amount of newspaper space accorded it.

And this couple talked confidentially with such a person as the White Eagle! The thought of blackmail entered my mind, but I dismissed it at once. If the White Eagle had been threatening the millionaire, the manner of each of them would have partaken of strain. No, they had been talking business.

What business? What possible business could exist between the White Eagle and Josiah Higgins? If Higgins had had a son or daughter who could have become entangled in some underworld affair, I could understand that the White Eagle had been called upon for aid. But the couple were childless.

If Higgins were as foolish as he was unadmirable, I could have guessed at a solution of the problem that puzzled me. I could have imagined that the White Eagle was surreptitiously disposing of stolen goods to the millionaire. But Higgins was too sane to indulge in that sort of shady barter, if he were not too honest.

I tossed upon the bed; I fumed and fretted and smoked a score of cigarettes. Somewhere in this relation between the criminal and the millionaire lay an opportunity for me, if only I had eyes wherewith to see it.

For whatever the relation between Higgins and the White Eagle,
it must be something underhanded, even though I could not guess why the millionaire should descend to such a matter. The White Eagle was a crook; a crook does only crooked business, whether his partner be honest or otherwise. That is axiomatic. But where in the axiom lay a profit for me?

I awoke with a headache; I had slept little, and that little had been interrupted by dreams in which the White Eagle took a fortune from Josiah Higgins, while I looked on, powerless to abstract the fortune from the so-called supercrook.

I tried to eat breakfast; but the combination of too much wine and too little sleep had killed my appetite. I was nervous, restless, and so I went for a walk. I crossed to the Left Bank, wandering aimlessly, my mind intent on the puzzle, solution of which I felt meant profit to me, and finally found myself in the neighborhood of the Luxembourg. The walk had cleared my head, and appetite had come to me. I walked on to Foyot’s and ordered breakfast. Food put me in a more philosophical frame of mind. After all, I might be deluding myself; Higgins might have made the acquaintance of a notorious crook simply for the sake of the thrill that some people gain from such an acquaintance. At any rate, it did not behoove me to wear out my nerves in imagining problems that, having no existence, could have no solution.

And yet I was ashamed of these reflections; for after all, they were simply confessions of my own inability to meet a situation and make it yield a profit.

Despite my resolutions, then, to think no more of Higgins and the White Eagle, they were both in my mind as, turning a corner into the Rue des Saints Peres, I collided with a group of people standing before a doorway. I muttered an apology, stepped back, and noted that the person of the group with whom I had come into most violent contact— he had fallen to the ground— was blind in one eye.

I bent over swiftly, and helped him to his feet. My perfunctory apology became profuse and sincere. Seeing that he was poorly dressed, I ventured to offer him a coin. He seized it greedily, and I would have passed on, only that I noticed that the rest of the group were all blind in one eye.

Other groups stood across the street, in the street, and farther down the narrow sidewalk on which I stood. And I noticed that every single one of them suffered the same affliction: they were all blind in one eye.

I suppose that my amazed horror was reflected in my face. For the man to whom I had presented the gratuity laughed at me.

“Monsieur is amazed, yes? To see so many of us is strange?”

“Is this a hospital here?” I asked, pointing at the building before which we stood.

He shook his head. “No, monsieur, it is the home of a patron of all afflicted such as we. Monsieur has not read this morning’s Cri de Paris?”

I shook my head, and he thrust into my hand a copy of the paper, folded back to expose an advertisement. I read it lamely in my faltering French. Translated, it ran:

“A gentleman whose son, having lost an eye for France, bore his wound proudly, despite his affliction, until his death by accident recently, wishes to honor the memory of that noble son by kindnesses to those similarly afflicted. The gentleman will devote part of his large fortune to the founding and maintenance of a club for one-eyed men. It will not be limited only to those who lost their sight in the war against the cursed Boche. All men who are without the sight of one eye are eligible to the privileges of the Club. Those interested are requested to apply to Number —, Rue des Saints Peres, between the hours of nine and twelve on Wednesday.”

I read this amazing advertisement, so typically French in sentiment, and my eyes filled with tears. It was a charity a trifle too bizarre for American taste, but its kindness would appeal to the generosity of any country. I placed another coin in my informant’s palm, and hurried away from the grotesque scene.

But at the first corner I stopped, turned, and stared after a man who had passed me. It was the White Eagle; and all my interest in him, which had evaporated while I read the strange advertisement, condensed and flowed back into my brain.

And then interest became amazement, for he entered the house before which the groups of blind men stood. Immediately upon his entrance a servant came to the door and beckoned to the unfortunates. Five minutes later they were all within the house.

I waited outside, at a convenient corner. Somehow or other I could not believe that this grotesque advertisement contained all that was of interest. Of course, crooks are notoriously impulsive, given to streaks of extravagant generosity. Nevertheless, I waited. One by one, the blind men began to emerge from the house. All of them seemed happy, as though incredible good fortune had come to them. Finally the man whom I had tipped appeared. I accosted him, and he beamed upon me.

“Ah, it is my generous American!”

“Well, did you join the Club?” I asked.

“But yes, monsieur!” He almost capered in delight. As I have said, my French is feeble. Yet I managed to gather from his excited speech that all the applicants had been admitted to Club membership, that not only were there no dues, but that those members who were in need were to be granted annuities, that the Club was to have an outing upon a river steamer next week, on which occasion detailed plans were to be submitted to the membership by its benefactor.

“Did you meet the patron himself?” I asked.

“M. Armand Cochet? But surely, monsieur. A noble gentleman, white of hair, and with a manner of a prince.”

“I think I saw him enter, then,” said I. “A man with a great nose?”

“Monsieur is correct.” said the man. “And with an eye like an eagle, and the heart of a dove. Of a truth, a great man.”

“But certainly,” I agreed.

I congratulated my friend, parted from him with mutual expressions of esteem, and walked toward the river. And the farther I walked, the more incredible it seemed to me that the White Eagle, or M. Armand Cochet, could be engaged in such an astounding philanthropy as that in which I had discovered him this morning.

And yet, battling against my disbelief, was my knowledge of the impetuous kindnesses of those who live by their wits. Perhaps the White Eagle pacified his conscience by such a typically Gallic charity.

But criminals do not ordinarily invite public attention. Of course, though, I must not forget, that according to my fair companion of last night, the White Eagle had never yet been convicted of crime. Perhaps he did not fear public interest in him.

But it was among the ordinary probabilities that one or more of the applicants attracted by his bizarre advertisement should be of the criminal class. One would expect the White Eagle to be fearful of recognition by such a one. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and I suppose the White Eagle felt that those in need of charity, for the Club was obviously a charitable affair, would not be inclined to question the source of the revenues which were to be applied to their wants.

But I had given altogether too much of my thought to the White Eagle and his affairs. I confessed myself, finally, beaten. I could neither understand what could be the relation between the supercrook and the millionaire, nor why the White Eagle should institute a philanthropy. I vowed that I would think no more on these matters. If in the dealings between Higgins and the white-haired man there lay opportunity for me, I would forgo it. I would not drive myself to distraction by futile speculation. Nor would I be ashamed of my inability to strip the disguise from the figure of Opportunity. I would await her next passing, hoping that she would be more easy of recognition then.

Even though one has rented a furnished apartment, and has lived in it only a few months, one finds that little by little one has acquired a considerable quantity of possessions. I was sailing in two days; I could not afford to be willfully extravagant; so I spent the rest of this day in dealings with secondhand merchants, realizing a few thousand francs. The next day I spent in packing and shipping my trunks and in purchasing some necessaries for the trip. And the next morning, promptly at nine o’clock, I passed through the train gates at the Gare du Nord, and entered a first-class carriage.

Having seen to it that my bags were safely deposited in a corner of the carriage, I walked to the platform to watch the rest of the travelers. I strolled as far as the train gates, puffing at a cigarette. I was about to turn back when I saw, accompanied by a maid, a valet and an obsequious-seeming youth who was unquestionably the millionaire’s secretary, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins.

I had not examined the passenger-list, and so was surprised at their arrival. But beyond a natural interest at the coincidence, I should have thought very little about it, had not they been followed through the gates by a man who was blind in one eye. Not merely that, but he was indisputably one of the group with which I had collided on a corner of the Rue des Saints Peres!

I could not be mistaken; the fact that his dress was much improved, that he had been to a barber, made no difference. In that first moment of shock, when I had realized that all these loiterers on the sidewalk were blind, the features of those whom I beheld were ineradicably impressed upon my memory.

All my resolutions, that I would worry no more about Higgins and the White Eagle, left me. Indeed, I watched eagerly for the arrival of the supercrook. But he did not come, though I waited until the last moment before the train started.

I strolled through the train shortly after we pulled out from the station. The Higgins party occupied two private compartments, as I could tell from the half-opened doors. The one-eyed man shared a compartment with three other people, American tourists.

The one-eyed man, then, was not part of the Higgins entourage. He had exchanged no signs of recognition with the millionaire as they passed through the train gates, although they had been close enough to touch each other.

Puzzled, bewildered, almost frantic because I could not peer through curtains behind which, I was convinced, a play of vital significance to me was being performed, I rode to Cherbourg. I was no wiser at the end of the railway journey. Indeed, I was no wiser six days later when the Altaria was only a night out from her dock in New York.

TOURING those six days I had observed, as closely as I could without drawing attention to myself, Higgins and the one-eyed man. But although nearly every one of the first-class passengers, including myself, exchanged words, at some time or other, with the millionaire, the one-eyed man never, to my knowledge, even exchanged a look with Higgins. The one-eyed man kept to himself; whenever he walked the deck, he was alone; he never seemed to utter more than monosyllables to his table-mates in the saloon; he neither offered nor accepted hospitality in the smoke-room, but drank alone.

On the night before we landed, I attended the concert in the lounge. I sat with a couple of chance acquaintances near the door, where we watched the various arrivals, exchanged banter with them, and gossiped, after the fashion of travelers, about their manners, appearances, probable income, and flirtations during the voyage. Then, as Mr. and Mrs. Higgins passed through the wide doors, we all three gasped.

Higgins was worthy of note. His white waistcoat was fastened with emerald buttons; he wore a solitaire diamond on one hand that must have weighed a dozen carats and been worth a fortune. A solid rope of diamonds hung from his watch pocket, supporting a ruby fob.

His vulgarities had formed the basis of half the smoke-room talk during the trip, but this ostentation, in excessively bad taste, outdid anything else. But he was diffident as compared with his wife. It was not alone that her gown was cut so low that one blushed with vicarious shame, wondering that so ill-formed a woman should care to expose her muddy flesh. It was not that her jewels were so expensive, even; it was that she wore such an unbelievable number of them. She seemed plastered with precious stones, until one forgot how low her dress was cut. I had read of her jewels, but had assumed that the newspaper writers had been guilty of the usual Sunday supplement exaggeration. Now I knew that they had been restrained.

And one jewel, a pearl hanging from a chain until it rested like a round white grape upon her bosom, held my fascinated eyes. It drew my companions’ attention too, for one of them, Brokaw by name, mentioned it.

“Get the pearl?” he whispered. “Got any idea what that thing’s worth?”

I shook my head.

“I know,” he said. “I was in Maret’s on the Rue de la Paix, the day they bought it. Me,” he chuckled, “buying a thousand-franc brooch to take home to the Missus, and thinking what a hit I’d make with her! And in comes Higgins and his wife, and at the top of his lungs old Josiah declares that he’s come for the Ranee’s Pearl, and that he’s brought his check for a million francs with him. Believe me, friends, I almost died with shame to think how I’d been haggling over my little brooch. I paid what they asked, apologized for annoying them, and sneaked out. One million francs, and no matter what the exchange is, that’s money!”

I admitted that it was. “But it’s not extremely large,” I said.

“It’s as big as your eye,” he declared. "And it’s the most perfect pearl of its size in existence. I heard Maret jabbering about it. Some Indian princess went bust and sold it.” He whistled. “He’ll have to pay another chunk of money tomorrow, at the Customs, when he shows them that bit of junk. That’ll break his heart. He sure hates to spend a nickel where it wont show, the old tight-wad.”

I agreed with him, sighing as I did so, thinking how well I could use the money represented by that pearl. Indeed, the thought was so agonizing that I left the lounge long before the concert was over, seeking solace in the smoke-room.

The room was deserted, save for the one-eyed man. Unwilling to arouse any latent suspicion in him, I had hitherto refrained from accosting him. But now I nodded pleasantly to him. It was my last chance to make his acquaintance, and I had not yet given up the idea that here was opportunity.

But when I followed my nod with an invitation to join me in a pint of champagne, he brusquely refused. His one good eye shot a suspicious glance at me. I noted that that eye was gray, and that his glass eye matched the other.

Rebuffed, I made no further effort. I drank my wine, rose, took a turn around the deck, and went to my stateroom. I immediately undressed and went to bed, finally convinced that whatever the mystery of Higgins, the White Eagle and the one-eyed man, it was beyond my power to solve and profit by it.

SOMEWHERE along toward dawn, I was aroused by pounding at my door. I climbed from my bed, threw a dressing-gown over my pajamas, and opened the door. A ship’s officer stood there.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, “but would you mind coming to the lounge?”

“What’s the idea?” I asked. “Ship on fire or something?”

He smiled deprecatingly. “Nothing like that, sir, but one of the passengers has lost some jewelry. Rather a valuable trinket.”

“Well, what’s that to do with me?” I demanded.

“Nothing, sir, I hope,” he replied. “But the gentleman insists that all persons who passed by the door of his cabin tonight submit to a search. It’s Mr. Higgins, sir— his wife’s pearl; you and three other gentlemen have cabins in this corridor. To reach your rooms you have to pass by the Higgins’ suite. The steward on watch swears that no other people have entered the corridor since Mr. and Mrs. Higgins retired.”

“And because I happen to have a cabin in the same quarter of the ship with Higgins, I’m to be insulted by that swine, am I?” I cried.

The officer became more apologetic. “Swine is right, sir, but I hope you’ll make it easy for us. Of course, you have a right to refuse, but that will only cause trouble on the dock. The captain presents his compliments, sir, and hopes that you will waive your rights, and help him to avoid scandal for the ship’s sake.”

“If you put it that way, to oblige the captain— certainly,” said I.

I followed him down the corridor, across an open space and into the lounge. There were Mr. and Mrs. Higgins and their servants; also there were two Englishmen, with whom I had struck up a casual acquaintance, and to whom I nodded now. And then I saw the third of the gentlemen to whom the ship’s officer had referred. It was the one-eyed man.

WE all submitted to a search. We handed over the keys of our baggage to an officer. Half an hour later he returned with the statement that he had searched all our effects and found no trace of the missing pearl. Then one of the Englishmen did what I had been wanting to do. He walked over to Higgins.

“We’ve heard your story,” he said. “You returned from the concert, you and your wife. She took off her jewels and laid them on a table in her cabin. She then went into your cabin, to talk to you. When she returned to her own room, five minutes later, the Ranee’s Pearl was gone. Some one had opened the door and stolen it.”

“And it must have been some one in one of the cabins on the corridor,” cried Higgins.

“That’s what you say,” said the Englishman. “It doesn’t matter to a vulgar beast like you that you insult your betters. Now, we’ve all been searched, and none of us has your filthy pearl. I merely want to tell you that I’m glad you lost it, and that I hope the loss teaches you and your wife the vulgarity of ostentation. Good evening, sir.”

He turned on his heel, followed by his compatriot, and stalked, with what dignity a man in a bathrobe may achieve, from the lounge.

The one-eyed man came close to Higgins, and in rapid French assailed him. And theft, suddenly, I understood. Not Higgins’ manner told me; the plutocrat acted his part too well. But the light of one of the electric lamps flashed on the Frenchman’s face, and the mystery that had been puzzling me for a week was solved at last.

I went back to bed, neither reproaching Higgins, nor paying any attention to his perfunctory apologies. I slept soundly, happily, as one should who knows that on the morrow he will acquire a fortune.

With the other passengers I disembarked next day. I submitted to the usual examination of my baggage. I saw the reporters buzzing about the Higginses, and knew that the afternoon headlines would be devoted to the loss of the precious Ranee’s Pearl. I chuckled as I thought of the story that could be written, but would not be printed in the newspapers. You see, I had no doubt as to my success. I had pierced the disguise of Opportunity.

Outside the Customs shed I followed the porter with my baggage to a taxi. I told the chauffeur to drive my things to the Hotel Regina, took his number to assure myself of his honesty, and then waited. In a few minutes the one-eyed man arrived. His porter handed his bags to a taxi driver. The one-eyed man climbed into the cab.

And I climbed in after him. He would have expostulated, save that I pressed something against his ribs, the something being the muzzle of an automatic pistol. The driver did not see this byplay, and when I told him that I would accompany his passenger, made no objection. He closed the door upon us, climbed into his seat and started the cab.

“What do you want?” demanded the one-eyed man.

I smiled cheerfully at him. “Your right eye,” I told him. I pressed the pistol muzzle harder against his chest. “No use in crying out; it would be jail for you even if you lived,” I warned him.

There, in the center of crowded West Street, he removed his glass eye and handed it to me. At the next corner I knocked on the window, and the chauffeur stopped. I alighted, waved an airy adieu to my one-eyed friend, and strolled blithely across town, a little later to pick up a taxi and drive to the Regina.

Afraid of pursuit? Had I not already conquered the one-eyed man? Afraid of the police? Would Higgins, who had conspired at the simulation of a robbery, in order to avoid the payment of a tremendous duty, confess his own attempt at crime?

For the minute that I had discovered the whereabouts of the Ranee’s Pearl, I understood why Higgins had discussed business with the White Eagle. The millionaire’s notorious parsimony had caused him to invoke the supercrook’s aid at defrauding the Customs. That was the only possible explanation of all that had bewildered me.

How had I discovered the whereabouts of the pearl? Simply enough: the one-eyed man’s glass eye had been gray in the smoke-room; it was green when the electric light flashed upon it in the lounge. Instantly I understood why the White Eagle had printed his bizarre advertisement. Among the applicants for membership in his club, he had found the criminal willing to aid him, in his furtherance of the desire of Josiah Higgins to defraud his government.

Would the one-eyed man have returned the pearl to Higgins later on, or would he have delivered it to the White Eagle? Would there have been honor among these thieves?

Ask me some easier question. Ask me, for instance, what I did when I arrived at my room in the Regina. I will tell you: I deftly took apart the two halves of the green glass eye which had been surrendered to me, and I kissed the Ranee’s Pearl.

I had been right in my theory. Where the carrion lies, the vulture flies.

___________________

11: The Dummy-Chucker

Arthur Somers Roche

Cosmopolitan, June 1920

THERE were many women on East Fourteenth Street. With the seeing eye of the artist, the dummy-chucker looked them over and rejected them. Kindly-seeming, generously fat, the cheap movie houses disgorged them. A dozen alien tongues smote the air, and every one of them hinted of far lands of poverty, of journeys made and hardships undergone. No better field for beggary in all Manhattan’s bounteous acreage.

But the dummy-chucker shook his head and shuffled ever westward. These were good souls, but— they thought in cents. Worse than that, they translated their financial thoughts into the pitiful coinage of their birthplaces. And in the pocket of the dummy-chucker rested a silver dollar.

A gaunt man, who towered high, and whose tongue held the cadences of the wide spaces, had slipped this dollar into the receptive hand of the dummy-chucker. True, it was almost a fortnight ago, and the man might have gone back to his Western home— but Broadway had yielded him up to the dummy-chucker. Broadway might yield up such another.

At Union Square, the dummy-chucker turned north. Past the Flatiron Building he shuffled, until, at length, the Tenderloin unfolded itself before him. These were the happy hunting-grounds!

Of course— and he glanced behind him quickly— there were more fly cops on Broadway than on the lower East Side. One of them had dug his bony fingers between the shabby collar of the dummy-chucker’s coat and the lank hair that hung down his neck. He had yanked the dummy-chucker to his feet. He had dragged his victim to a patrol-box; he had taken him to a police station, whence he had been conveyed to Jefferson Market Court, where a judge had sentenced him to a sojourn on Blackwell's Island.

That had been ten days ago. This very day, the municipal ferry had landed the dummy-chucker, with others of his slinking kind, upon Manhattan's shores again. Not for a long time would the memory of the Island menu be effaced from the dummy-chucker's palate, the locked doors be banished from his mental vision. .

A man might be arrested on Broadway, but he might also get the money. Timorously, the dummy-chucker weighed the two possibilities. He felt the dollar in his pocket. At a street in the Forties, he turned westward. Beyond Eighth Avenue there was a place where the shadow of prohibition was only a shadow.

Prices had gone up, but, as Finisterre Joe's bartender informed him, there was more kick in a glass of the stuff that cost sixty cents to-day than there had been in a barrel of the old juice. And, for a good customer, Finisterre Joe's bartender would shade the price a trifle. The dummy-chucker received two portions of the crudely blended poison that passed for whisky in exchange for his round silver dollar. It was with less of a shuffle and more of a stride that he retraced his steps toward Broadway.

Slightly north of Times Square, he surveyed his field of action. Across the street, a vaudeville house was discharging its mirth-surfeited audience. Half a block north, laughing groups testified that the comedy they had just left had been as funny as its press-agent claimed. The dummy-chucker shook his head. He moved south, his feet taking on that shuffle which they had lost temporarily.

“She Loved and Lost"— that was the name of the picture being run this week at the Concorde. Outside was billed a huge picture of the star, a lady who received more money for making people weep than most actors obtain for making them laugh. The dummy-chucker eyed the picture approvingly. He took his stand before the main entrance. This was the place! If he tried to do business with a flock of people that had just seen Charlie Chaplin, he'd fail. lie knew I Fat women who’d left the twins at home with the neighbor's cook in order that they might have a good cry at the Concorde— these were his mutton-heads.

He reeled slightly as several flappers passed— just for practise. Ten days on Blackwell’s hadn’t spoiled his form. They drew away from him; yet, from their manners, he knew that they did not suspect him of being drunk. Well, hurrah for prohibition, after all! Drunkenness was the last thing people suspected of a hard-working man nowadays. He slipped his hand in his pocket. They were coming now— the fat women with the babies at home, their handkerchiefs still at their eyes. His hand slipped to his mouth. His jaws moved savagely. One thing was certain: out of to-day’s stake he’d buy some decent-tasting soap. This awful stuff that he’d borrowed from the Island—

The stoutest woman paused ; she screamed faintly as the dummy-chucker staggered, pitched forward, and fell at her short-vamped feet. Excitedly she grasped her neighbor’s arm.

“He’s gotta fit!”

The neighbor bent over the prostrate dummy-chucker. “Ep’lepsy,” she announced. “Look at the foam on his lips.”

“Aw, the poor man! ”

“Him so strong-looking, too!”

“Ain’t it the truth? These husky-looking men sometimes are the sickliest.”

The dummy-chucker stirred. He sat up feebly. With his sleeve, he wiped away the foam. Dazedly he spoke.

“If I had a bite to eat—”

He looked upward at the first stout woman. Well and wisely had he chosen his scene. Movie tickets cost fractions of a dollar. There is always some stray silver in the bead bag of a movie patron. Into the dummy-chucker’s outstretched palm fell pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. There was present to-day no big-hearted Westerner with silver dollars, but here was comparative wealth. Already the dummy-chucker saw himself again at Finisterre Joe’s, this time to purchase no bottled courage but to buy decantered ease.

“T’ank, ladies,” he murmured. “If I can get a bite to eat and rest up—”

“ ‘Rest up!’ ” The shrill jeer of a newsboy broke in upon his pathetic speech. “Rest up again on the Island! That’s the kind of a rest up you’ll get, y’ big tramp.”

“Can’t you see the man’s sick?” The stoutest one turned indignantly upon the newsboy. But the scoffer held his ground.

“Sick? Sure he’s sick! Eatin’ soap makes anyone sick. Youse dames is easy. He’s chuckin’ a dummy.”

“‘A dummy?”’

The dummy-chucker sat a bit straighter.

“Sure, ma’am. That’s his game. He t’rows phony fits. He eats a bit of soap and makes his mouth foam. Last week, he got pinched right near here ”

But the dummy-chucker heard no more. He rolled sidewise just as the cry: “Police!” burst from the woman’s lips. He reached the curb, rose, burst through the gathering crowd, and rounded a corner at full speed.

He was half-way to Eighth Avenue, and burning lungs had slowed him to a jog-trot, when a motor-car pulled up alongside the curb. It kept gentle pace with the fugitive. A shrewd-featured young man leaned from its fashionably sloped wheel.

“Better hop aboard,” he suggested. “That policeman is fat, but he has speed.”

The dummy-chucker glanced over his shoulder. Looming high as the Woolworth Building, fear overcoming the dwarfing tendency of distance, came. a policeman. The dummy-chucker leaped to the motor’s running-board. He climbed into the vacant front seat.

“Thanks, feller,” he grunted. “A li’l speed, please.”

The young man chuckled. He rounded the corner into Eighth Avenue and darted north among the trucks.

At Columbus Circle, the dummy-chucker spoke.

“Thanks again, friend,” he said. “I'll be steppin’ off here.”

His rescuer glanced at him.

“Want to earn a hundred dollars? ”

“Quitcher kidding” said the dummy-chucker.

“No, no; this is serious,” said the young man.

The dummy-chucker leaned luxuriously back in his seat.

"Take me anywhere , friend,” he said.

Half-way round the huge circle at Fifty-ninth Street, the young man guided the car. Then he shot into the park. They curved eastward. They came out on Fifth Avenue, somewhere in the Seventies. They shot eastward another half-block, and then the car stopped in front of an apartment-house. The young man pressed the button on the steering-wheel. In response to the short blast of the electric horn, a uniformed man appeared. The young man alighted. The dummy-chucker followed suit.

“Take the car around to the garage, Andrews,” said the young man. He nodded to the dummy-chucker. In a daze, the mendicant followed his rescuer. He entered a gorgeously mirrored and gilded hall. He stepped into an elevator chauffeured by a West Indian of the haughtiest blood. The dummy-chucker was suddenly conscious of his tattered garb, his ill-fitting, run-down shoes. He stepped, when they alighted from the lift, as gingerly as though he trod on tacks.

A servant in livery, as had been the waiting chauffeur downstairs, opened a door. If he was surprised at his master’s choice of guest, he was too well trained to show it. He did not rebel even when ordered to serve sandwiches and liquor to the dummy-chucker.

“You seem hungry,” commented the young man.

The dummy-chucker reached for another sandwich with his left hand while he poured himself a drink of genuine Scotch with his right.

“And thirsty,” he grunted.

“Go to it,” observed his host genially.

The dummy-chucker went to it for a good ten minutes. Then he leaned back in the heavily upholstered chair which the man servant had drawn up for him. He stared round him.

“Smoke?” asked his host.

The dummy-chucker nodded. He selected a slim panetela and pinched it daintily between the nails of his thumb and forefinger. His host watched the operation with interest

“Why?” he asked.

“Better than cuttin’ the end off,” explained the dummy-chucker. “It’s a good smoke,” he added, puffing.

“You know tobacco,” said his host. “Where did you learn?”

“Oh, we all have our ups and downs,” replied the dummy-chucker. “But don't get nervous. I ain't goin’ to tell you that I was a millionaire’s son, educated at Harvard. I’m a bum.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother you,” said his host.

“It don’t,” asserted the dummy-chucker. “Except when the police butt into my game. I just got off Blackwell’s Island this morning.”

“And almost went back this afternoon.”

The dummy-chucker nodded.

“Almost,” he said. His eyes wandered around the room. “ Some dump! ” he stated. Then his manner became business-like. “ You mentioned a hundred dollars— what for?”

The young man shrugged.

“Not hard work. You merely have to look like a gentleman, and act like—”

“Like a bum?” asked the dummy-chucker.

“Well, something like that.”

The dummy-chucker passed his hand across his stubby chin.

“Shoot!” he said. “Anything short of murder— anything, friend.”

His host leaned eagerly forward.

“There’s a girl—” he began.

The dummy-chucker nodded.

“There always is,” he interrupted. “ I forgot to mention that I bar kidnaping, too.”

“It’s barred,” said the young man. He hitched his chair a trifle nearer his guest. “She’s beautiful. She’s young.”

“And the money? The coin? The good red gold?”

“I have enough for two. I don’t care about her money.”

“Neither do I,” said the dummy-chucker; “so long as I get my hundred. Shoot!”

“About a year ago,” resumed the host, “she accepted, after a long courtship, a young man by the name of— oh, let’s call him Jones.”

The dummy-chucker inhaled happily.

“Call him any darned thing you like,” he said cheerily.

“Jones was a drunkard,” said the host.

“And she married him?” The dummy-chucker’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

“No. She told him that if he’d quit drinking she’d marry him. She stipulated that he go without drink for one year.”

The dummy-chucker reached for a fresh cigar. He lighted it and leaned back farther in the comfortable chair.

“Jones,” continued the young man, “had tried to quit before. He knew himself pretty well. He knew that, even with war-time prohibition just round the corner, he couldn’t keep away from liquor. Not while he stayed in New York. But a classmate of his had been appointed head of an expedition that was to conduct exploration work in Brazil. He asked his classmate for a place in the party. You see, he figured that in the wilds of Brazil there wouldn’t be any chance for drunkenness.”

“A game guy,” commented the dummy-chucker. “Well, what happened?”

“He died of jungle-fever two months ago,” was the answer. “The news just reached Rio Janeiro yesterday.”

The dummy-chucker lifted his glass of Scotch.

“To a regular feller,” he said, and drank. He set his glass down gently. “And the girl? I suppose she's all shot to pieces?”

“She doesn’t know,” said the host quietly.

The dummy-chucker’s eyebrows lifted again.

“I begin to get you,” he said. “I’m the messenger from Brazil who breaks the sad news to her, eh?”

The young man shook his head.

“The news isn’t to be broken to her— not yet. You see— well, I was Jones' closest friend. He left his will with me, his personal effects, and all that. So I’m the one that received the wire of his death. In a month or so, of course, it will be published in the newspapers— when letters have come from the explorers. But, just now, I’m the only one that knows it.”

“Except me,” said the dummy-chucker.

The young man smiled dryly.

“Except you. And you won’t tell. Ever wear evening clothes?”

The dummy-chucker stiffened. Then he laughed sardonically.

“Oh, yes; when I was at Princeton. What’s the idea?”

His host studied him carefully.

“Well, with a shave, and a hair-cut, and a manicure, and the proper clothing, and the right setting— well, if a person had only a quick glance— that person might think you were Jones.”

The dummy-chucker carefully brushed the ashes from his cigar upon a tray.

“I guess I’m pretty stupid to-night. I still don't see it.”

“You will,” asserted his host. “You see, she’s a girl who’s seen a great deal of the evil of drink. She has a horror of it. If she thought that Jones had broken his pledge to her, she’d throw him over.”

“ 'Throw him over?’ But he’s dead!” said the dummy-chucker.

“She doesn’t know that,” retorted his host.

“Why don’t you tell her?”

“Because I want to marry her.”

“Well, I should think the quickest way to get her would be to tell her about Jones ”

“You don’t happen to know the girl,” interrupted the other. “ She's a girl of remarkable conscience. If I should tell her that Jones died in Brazil, she'd enshrine him in her memory. He'd be a hero who had died upon the battle-field. More than that— he'd be a hero who had died upon the battlefield in a war to which she had sent him. His death would be upon her soul. Her only expiation would be to be faithful to him forever."

“I won't argue about it," said the dummy-chucker. “I don't know her. Only— I guess your whisky has got me. I don't see it at all."

His host leaned eagerly forward now.

“She's going to the opera to-night with her parents. But, before she goes, she's going to dine with me at the Park Square. Suppose, while she's there, Jones should come in. Suppose that he should come in reeling, noisy, drunk! She’d marry me to-morrow."

“I'll take your word for it," said the dummy-chucker.

“Only, when she's learned that Jones had died two months ago in Brazil—"

“She’ll be married to me then," responded the other fiercely. “What I get, I can hold. If she were Jones' wife, I'd tell her of his death. I'd know that, sooner or later, I'd win her. But if she learns now that he died while struggling to make himself worthy of her, she'll never give to another man what she withheld from him."

“ I see," said the dummy-chucker slowly. “ And you want me to—"

“There’ll be a table by the door in the main dining-room engaged in Jones' name. You'll walk in there at a quarter to eight. You'll wear Jones' dinner clothes. I have them here. You'll wear the studs that he wore, his cuff-links. Afore than that, you'll set down upon the table, with a flourish, his monogrammed flask. You’ll be drunk, noisy, disgraceful—"

“How long will I be all that— in the hotel?" asked the dummy-chucker dryly.

“That’s exactly the point," said the other. “You’ll last about thirty seconds. The girl and I will be on the far side of the room. I’ll take care that she sees you enter. Then, when you’ve been quietly ejected, I'll go over to the maitre d’hôtel to make inquiries. I'll bring back to the girl the flask which you will have left upon the table. If she has any doubt that you are Jones, the flask will dispel it."

“And then?’’ asked the dummy-chucker.

“Why, then,” responded his host, “I propose to her. You see, I think it was pity that made her accept Jones in the beginning. I think that she cares for me.”

“And you really think that I look enough like Jones to put this over?”

“In the shaded light of the dining-room, in Jones’ clothes— well, I’m risking a hundred dollars on it. Will you do it?”

The dummy-chucker grinned.

“Didn’t I say I’d do anything , barring murder? Where are the clothes?”

ONE HOUR and a half later, the dummy-chucker stared at himself in the long mirror in his host’s dressing-room. He had bathed, not as Blackwell’s Island prisoners bathe, but in a luxurious tub that had a head-rest, in scented water, soft as the touch of a baby’s fingers. Then his host’s man servant had cut his hair, had shaved him, had massaged him until color crept into the pale cheeks. The sheerest of knee-length linen underwear touched a body that knew only rough cotton. Silk socks, heavy, gleaming, snugly encased his ankles. Upon his feet were correctly dull pumps. That the trousers were a wee bit short mattered little. In these dancing-days, trousers should not be too long. And the fit of the coat over his shoulders— he carried them in a fashion unwontedly straight as he gazed at his reflection— balanced the trousers’ lack of length. The soft shirt-bosom gave freely, comfortably as he breathed. Its plaited whiteness enthralled him. He turned anxiously to his host.

“Will I do?” he asked.

“Better than I’d hoped,” said the other. “You look like a gentleman.”

The dummy-chucker laughed gaily.

“I feel like one," he declared.

“You understand what you are to do?” demanded the host.

“It ain’t a hard part to act,” replied the dummy-chucker.

“And you can act,” said the other. “The way you fooled those women in front of the Concorde proved that you ”

“Sh-sh! ” exclaimed the dummy-chucker reproachfully. “Please don’t remind me of what I was before I became a gentleman.”

His host laughed.

“You’re all right.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll have to leave now. I’ll send the car back after you. Don’t be afraid of trouble with the hotel people. I’ll explain that I know you, and fix matters up all right. Just take the table at the right hand side as you enter—”

“Oh, I’ve got it all right,” said the dummy-chucker. “Better slip me something on account. I may have to pay something ”

“You get nothing now,” was the stern answer. “One hundred dollars when I get back here. And,” he added, “if it should occur to you at the hotel that you might pawn these studs, or the flask, or the clothing for more than a hundred, let me remind you that my chauffeur will be watching one entrance, my valet another, and my chef another.”

The dummy-chucker returned his gaze scornfully.

“Do I look,” he asked, “ like the sort of man who’d steal?”

His host shook his head.

“You certainly don’t,” he admitted.

The dummy-chucker turned back to the mirror. He was still entranced with his own reflection, twenty minutes later, when the valet told him that the car was waiting. He looked like a millionaire. He stole another glance at himself after he had slipped easily into the fur-lined overcoat that the valet held for him, after he had set somewhat rakishly upon his head the soft black-felt hat that was the latest accompaniment to the dinner coat.

Down-stairs, he spoke to Andrews, the chauffeur.

“Drive across the Fifty-ninth Street bridge first.”

The chauffeur stared at him.

“Who you givin’ orders to?” he demanded.

The dummy-chucker stepped closer to the man.

“You heard my order?”

His hands, busily engaged in buttoning his gloves, did not clench. His voice was not raised. And Andrews must have outweighed him by thirty pounds. Yet the chauffeur stepped back and touched his hat.

“Yes, sir,” he muttered.

The dummy-chucker smiled.

“The lower classes,” he said to himself, “know rank and position when they see it.”

His smile became a grin as he sank back in the limousine that was his host’s evening conveyance. It became almost complacent as the car slid down Park Avenue. And when, at length, it had reached the center of the great bridge that spans the East River, he knocked upon the glass. The chauffeur obediently stopped the car. The dummy-chucker’s grin was absolutely complacent now.

Down below, there gleamed lights, the lights of ferries, of sound steamers, and— of Blackwell’s Island. This morning, he had left there, a lying mendicant. To-night, he was a gentleman. He knocked again upon the glass. Then, observing the speaking-tube, he said through it languidly.

“The Park Square, Andrews.”

An obsequious doorman threw open the limousine door as the car stopped before the great hotel. He handed the dummy-chucker a ticket.

“Number of your car, sir,” he said obsequiously.

“Ah, yes, of course,” said the dummy-chucker. He felt in his pocket. Part of the silver that the soft-hearted women of the movies had bestowed upon him this afternoon found repository in the doorman’s hand.

A uniformed boy whirled the revolving door that the dummy-chucker might pass into the hotel.

“The coat-room? Dining here, sir? Past the news-stand, sir, to your left. Thank you, sir.” The boy’s bow was as profound as though the quarter in his palm had been placed there by a duke.

The girl who received his coat and hat smiled as pleasantly and impersonally upon the dummy-chucker as she did upon the whiskered, fine-looking old gentleman who handed her his coat at the same time. She called the dummy-chucker’s attention to the fact that his tie was a trifle loose.

The dummy-chucker walked to the big mirror that stands in the corner made by the corridor that parallels Fifty-ninth Street and the corridor that separates the tea-room from the dining-room. His clumsy fingers found difficulty with the tie. The fine-looking old gentleman, adjusting his own tie, stepped closer.

“Beg pardon, sir. May I assist you?”

The dummy-chucker smiled a grateful assent. The old gentleman fumbled a moment with the tie.

“I think that’s better,” he said. He bowed as one man of the world might to another, and turned away.

Under his breath, the dummy-chucker swore gently.

“You’d think, the way he helped me, that I belonged to the Four Hundred.”

He glanced down the corridor. In the tea-room were sitting groups who awaited late arrivals. Beautiful women, correctly garbed, distinguished-looking men. Their laughter sounded pleasantly above the subdued strains of the orchestra. Many of them looked at the dummy-chucker. Their eyes rested upon him for that well-bred moment that denotes acceptance.

“One of themselves,” said the dummy-chucker to himself.

Well, why not? Once again he looked at himself in the mirror. There might be handsomer men present in this hotel, but— was there any one who wore his clothes better? He turned and walked down the corridor.

The maitre d’hotel stepped forward inquiringly as the dummy-chucker hesitated in the doorway.

“A table, sir?”

“You have one reserved for me. This right-hand one by the door.”

“Ah, yes, of course, sir. This way, sir.”

He turned toward the table. Over the heads of intervening diners, the dummy-chucker saw his host. The shaded lights upon the table at which the young man sat revealed, not too clearly yet well enough, the features of a girl.

“A lady!” said the dummy-chucker, under his breath. “The real thing!”

As he stood there, the girl raised her head. She did not look toward the dummy-chucker, could not see him. But he could see the proud line of her throat, the glory of her golden hair. And opposite her he could see the features of his host, could note how illy that shrewd nose and slit of a mouth consorted with the gentle face of the girl. And then, as the maitre d’hotel beckoned, he remembered that he had left the flask, the monogrammed flask, in his overcoat pocket.

“Just a moment,” he said.

He turned and walked back toward the corner where was his coat. In the distance, he saw some one, approaching him, noted the free stride, the carriage of the head, the set of the shoulders. And then, suddenly, he saw that the “some one” was himself. The mirror was guilty of the illusion.

Once again he stood before it, admiring himself. He summoned the face of the girl who was sitting in the dining-room before his mental vision. And then he turned abruptly to the check-girl.

“I've changed my mind,” he said. “My coat, please.”

He was lounging before the open fire when three-quarters of an hour later his host was admitted to the luxurious apartment. Savagely the young man pulled off his coat and approached the dummy-chucker.

“I hardly expected to find you here,” he said.

The dummy-chucker shrugged.

“You said the doors were watched. I couldn't make an easy getaway. So I rode back here in your car. And when I got here, your man made me wait, so— here we are,” he finished easily.

“ ‘Here we are!' Yes! But when you were there — I saw you at the entrance to the dining-room— for God's sake, why didn't you do what you'd agreed to do?"

The dummy-chucker turned languidly in his chair. He eyed his host curiously.

“Listen, feller," he said: “I told you that I drew the line at murder, didn’t I?"

“ ‘Murder?' What do you mean? What murder was involved? ”

The dummy-chucker idly blew a smoke ring.

“ Murder of faith in a woman’s heart," he said slowly. “Look at me! Do I look the sort who'd play your dirty game? "

The young man stood over him.

“Bannon," he called. The valet entered the room. "Take the clothes off this — this bum!” snapped the host. “Give him his rags."

He clenched his fists, but the dummy-chucker merely shrugged. The young man drew back while his guest followed the valet into another room.

Ten minutes later, the host seized the dummy-chucker by the tattered sleeve of his grimy jacket. He drew him before the mirror.

“Take a look at yourself, you— bum!" he snapped. u Do you look, now, like the sort of man who'd refuse to earn an easy hundred? "

The dummy-chucker stared at himself. Gone was the debonair gentleman of a quarter of an hour ago. Instead. there leered back at him a pasty-faced, underfed vagrant, dressed in the tatters of unambitious, satisfied poverty.

“ Bannon," called the host, “ throw him out! "

For a moment, the dummy-chucker's shoulders squared, as they had been squared when the dinner jacket draped them. Then they sagged. He offered no resistance when Bannon seized his collar. And Bannon, the valet, was a smaller man than himself.

He cringed when the colored elevator-man sneered at him. He dodged when little Bannon, in the mirrored vestibule raised a threatening hand. And he shuffled as he turned toward Central Park.

But as he neared Columbus Circle, his gait quickened. At Finisterre Joe’s he’d get a drink. He tumbled in his pockets. Curse the luck! He’d given every cent of his afternoon earnings to doormen and pages and coat-room girls!

His pace slackened again as he turned down Broadway. His feet were dragging as he reached the Concorde moving-picture theater. His hand, sunk deep in his torn pocket, touched something. It was a tiny piece of soap.

As the audience filed sadly out from the teary, gripping drama of “ She Loved And Lost,” the dummy-chucker’s hand went from his pocket to his lips. He reeled, staggered, fell. His jaws moved savagely. Foam appeared upon his lips. A fat woman shrank away from him, then leaned forward in quick sympathy.

“He’s gotta fit!” she cried.

“Ep’lepsy,” said her companion pityingly.

End

Cumulative Index to Past Masters 28

April 2021

An Author Index to the short stories in the Past Masters series produced by "Pulpmeister", in which the issues are identified as follows:

P:  Past Masters

M:  More Past Masters

3:  Past Masters Three

4:  Past Masters Four
etc

__________

Cleve F. Adams

Flowers For Violet 4

Forty Pains 4

Punk 22

Shrinking Violet 22

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

The Banshee 21

By a Miscalculation  12

A Detective's Story  12

The Fatal Trapdoor  15

Martin Guerre  12

My Gifted Young Friend 25

A Penny a Word 27

The Walled Chamber  15

The Wehr-Wolf: A Legend of the Limousin 27

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

All Talk 20

The Devil’s Fire 21

The Four Red Circles  4

Gallegher of Beaver  4

Harbor Hazard 21

The Luck of a Cowboy  4

The Million-Dollar Certificate  23

A Scriptural Quotation  26

The Trail of Death 23

J. J. Bell

The Great Corkscrew Mystery  17

Stella Benson

The Man Who Missed The 'Bus  18

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, 18

Christopher B. Booth

The Deviltry of Dr. Waugh  27

Guy Boothby

The Family Honour 10

The Great Dives Elopement 10

A Strange Goldfield 10

Through Toil and Tribulation 13

"Ben Bowyang" ( Alexander Vindex Vennard )

Lanfranc 28

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

Miles J. Breuer

The Amazing Power  21

Thomas Charles Bridges

Wingfield's White Elephant 10

Heywood Broun

The Fifty-First Dragon  17

K. R. G. Browne

For One Night Only 20

The Soft Spot 20

Two on the Roof 20

Ellis Parker Butler

The Detective Club 7

Geoffrey's Panklaggephone 6

Wadsworth Camp

The Obscure Move 18

Sir Gilbert Campbell, Bt

The White Wolf of Kostopchin  26

Scott Campbell

The Absconder 28

Egerton Castle

The Guinea Smuggler 17

Christopher Caudwell

Four Friends and Death  5

Mrs. W. K. Clifford

The Last Touches  24

J. Storer Clouston

The Fortunate Lord Fabrigas 13

Magic 13

The Trials of Tony 13

Arthur Conan Doyle:

The Disintegration Machine  10

The Mystery of Sasassa Valley 24

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

Clarence L. Cullen

An Alibi for Altogether Al  25

Tourists Three for Tampa   25

Colonel Henry Curties

A Summer Night's Weird  6

James Oliver Curwood

Laugh Maker  27

The Match 20

Richard Harding Davis

In the Fog  9

Aidan de Brune

Cocaine Smugglers' Catspaw 25

Drug Running Extraordinary 25

The Empty Match Box  P

The Fifth Domino (as by John Morris)  12

The Elusive Mr Chon 24

The Gift to See Ourselves as Others See Us  8

Proof of the Pudding 24

A Question of Coke 24

The Wedding Cake 24

Wiles of  Cho Chun 24

Sir George B. Douglas, Bart.

The Adonis of Slagborough  17

Patience  15

Peter Pirnie's Prison-House  16

J Allan Dunn

The Man With the Mole 28

William J. Elliott

The Comeback  27

Orville R. Emerson

The Grave  27

George Allan England

Arson in the Jungle  10

The Longest Side  14

Lost: An Echo  26

Pod Flits 24

The Tenth Question 23

Glyn Evans

"The Man Who Was—"  5

Gwyn Evans

The Croucher 18

Francis Flagg

The Dancer in the Crystal 21

The Machine Man of Ardathia 21

The Mentanicals 21

The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds 21

The Superman of Dr Jukes 21

J S Fletcher

Comedy of the Grand Canal  8

The Cracksman's Catspaw  7

The Honour of Two  16

The Yellow Dog  P

The Judge Corroborates 23

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

J. U. Giesy

Ashes of Circumstance 24

The Gravity Experiment 21

Not on the Bill  21

The Return  23

William Schwenck Gilbert

Diamonds  25

Guy Gilpatric

Gabriel's Trumpet 18

The Glasgow Smasher 21

The Lost Limerick  20

Mary, Queen of Scots  18

Pardon the French 23

Scotch and Water 20

Kenneth Grahame

The Burglars  16

George Griffith

Five Hundred Carats  18

Harlan Halsey

Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist 18

William H Hamby

Cal Wood's First Case  16

Cosmo Hamilton

The Golden Fleece 26

The Mirror of Nature 12

Proofs of  Guilt 10

The Silent Witness 5

H Irving Hancock

Li Shoon's Nine Lives  28

Frances Noyes Hart

"Contact!"  18

Julian Hawthorne

The Golden Fleece  26

Greaves' Disappearance 20

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

H. Hesketh-Prichard

Tartas the Terrible  23

Robert J Horton:

The Ninety-Ninth Proposal 4

Eric Howard

The Miracle Man  22

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

W. W. Jacobs

A Will and a Way 21

Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace:

Mr. Belton's Immunity 7

The Tea-Leaf P

Lord Kilmarnock

A Man's Hand  14

Albert Kinross

He Stoops To Conquer  21

Otis Adelbert Kline:

The Corpse on the Third Slab 20

The Demon of Tlaxpam 24

The Malignant Entity 24

The Phantom Wolf-Hound 4

The Robot Beasts 23

The Thing of a Thousand Shapes  27

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 K. Leys

The Letter With The Black Seal  24

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

Rev. C. R. Maturin

Leixlip Castle 25

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

Bannister Merwin

Silenced  23

Alice Duer Miller

Slow Poison  18

Lucy Gertrude Moberly

Black Paws 6

C. S. Montanye

Come Back to Aaron 14

Cricket's Last Hop 18

Death With Music 14

Fog is Necessary  14

Frozen Stiff 18

Hoodwinked 18

In Deep Purple 22

Ink  13

Ivan’s Foe 13

Merry Month of Mayhem 14

Opals Are Unlucky 18

A Shock for the Countess 13

This Will Kill You 13

Wings For An Angel 18

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

Ethel Watts Mumford

The Intruder 25

The Masque of Tragedy 25

Talbot Mundy

Making £10,000 3

Edith Nesbit

The Mystery of the Semi-Detached  M

Wilbur D. Nesbit

The Tale of the Tangled Telegram 27

Frederick Niven

The Queer Place  24

William Edward Norris

The Willingham Van Dyke 6

The Elusive Coronet  26

David Wright O'Brien

The Money Machine M

Rats in the Belfry 9

Rayhouse in Space 25

Till Death Do Us Part 26

Owen Oliver

Destiny  18

Her Account  6

Justice While You Wait 28

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

John Oxenham

The Missing Q.C.s  18

Frank L Packard

Corporal Bob  12

Barry Pain

Albert Theodore Parish 11

Amphistamium Formosum  10

The Centenarian 25

Clubs and Hearts  7

The Dog's Understudy 11

Hasheesh 11

"If"  13

Rose Rose 18

Some Imitations 6

Twelve Minutes 6

Frederick C Painton

The Dead Speak Once 22

Murder Suspect 22

Stool Pigeon 22

Hugh Pendexter

At the Belton Arms  26

The Dogs of Purgatory 20

Henry Pettitt

The Poet’s Ghost 26

Marjorie Pickthall

Mannering's Men 6

Marmaduke Pickthall

The Poultry Yard  16

Melville Davisson Post

The Laughing Woman  28

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

Arthur Somers Roche

The Club of One-Eyed Men 28

The Dummy-Chucker 28

Legerdemain 28

Will Rogers

Spring is Here  24

William J Rollins Jr

Chicago Confetti  21

Clarence Rook

The Stir Outside the Café Royal  17

Theodore Roosevelt

The Wendigo M

Anthony M. Rud

Green for Danger 20

The Place of Hairy Death 27

The Molten Bullet 20

The October Blight 22

Ooze 7

A Square of Canvas 20

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

Chicken King 22

The Hands of Killian 12

The Hank of Yarn 20

Monsieur De Guise 24

The Murdered Wife 11

The Red Road to Shamballah 22

Spider Tong  M

The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels 12

Tiger Trail 4

Adam Hull Shirk

The Bearded Men 20

From the Pit  28

Mandrake 20

Osiris 4

George R. Sims

Doctor Mazeppa  18

Lance Warrener's Crime 11

The Man With the Wild Eyes 20

The Silver Fox 18

Under the Mistletoe Bough  18

Howard Dwight Smiley

Smokeless Tobacco  16

Junius B. Smith

An Arc of Direction 24

Thorne Smith

Yonder's Henry! M

John Philip Sousa

The Conspirators M

Andrew Soutar

Courage  20

The Doctor Takes a Hand  6

The Story without a Title  16

Raymond S. Spears

Demons of the Cold  24

Henry Spicer

Called To The Rescue 18

Frank Stanton Jnr

The Mahogany Garden  25

F St Mars

Shadows  16

There and Back  8

Arthur Stringer

In the Wireless Room 18

Halliwell Sutcliffe

At The Road Top  17

Parson Shaw  27

Annie Swan

Aunt Caroline  14

Robert Keene Thompson

The Barber-Shop Riddle  25

Sir Basil Thomson

The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser  P

Guy Thorne / C Ranger Gull

The Flirt 10

"General Utility" 22

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

A Knight-Errant 21

John Haslette Vahey (aka "Vernon Loder")

Snake in the Grass  28

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

R. A. J. Walling

Public Sap-Head Number One 26

"Waif Wander" (Mary Helena Fortune)

Bridget's Locket  26

The Dead Man in the Scrub  17

The Dead Witness  17

Ike's Sin 23

Monk's Mark 13

The Phantom Hearse 10

The Spirits of the Tower 10

Harold Ward (aka Ward Sterling)

The Dare  27

The Devil Takes a Hand 27

The Germs of Death 27

House of the Lizard  27

The Life-Eater  27

The Long Arm of God 27

The Man Who Would Not Die  27

The Skull  27

TheUndelivered Sermon  27

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

Albert Richard Wetjen

Cannibal Isle 22

The Sovereign of the Sea  24

The Strange Adventure of Tommy Lawn 24

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

Enough Rope 25

The Great Black  14

Inside Job  14

Nagasaki Bound 26

Red Hemp 23

Signals of Storm 24

West of Guam 20

Oscar Wilde

The Canterville Ghost  8

Charles Michael Williams

The Case of Minna Lang  24

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

Farnsworth Wright

An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension  27

The Snake Fiend 25

May Wynne

The Tiara   16

Leroy Yerxa

Through the Asteroids— to Hell! 15

Arthur Leo Zagat

Beyond the Spectrum  M

Deadlock  27

Israel Zangwill

Cheating the Gallows  9

-----------------

7: Lanfranc / "Ben Bowyang"

Table of Contents

- 1: The Man With the Mole / J Allan Dunn
- 2: Li Shoon's Nine Lives / H Irving Hancock
- 3: The Absconder / Scott Campbell
- 4: From the Pit / Adam Hull Shirk
- 5: Justice While You Wait / Owen Oliver
- 6: Snake in the Grass / John Haslette Vahey
- 7: Lanfranc / "Ben Bowyang"

- 8: The Laughing Woman / Melville Davisson Post

- 9: Legerdemain / Arthur Somers Roche

- 10: The Club of One-Eyed Men / Arthur Somers Roche

- 11: The Dummy-Chucker / Arthur Somers Roche

- Cumulative Index to Issue 28