The Haunted Pipe and Other Mysteries
Date: 1890-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Crime; Mystery; Suspense; Humor
Description: Ranging from mystery and suspense to farcical comedy, this collection includes several tales of articles acquired by rival collectors Pugh and Tress: a poisoned pipe that seems to come to life when smoked, a mysterious box puzzle, a 14th century severed hand bent on murder, a deadly ring fashioned by Lucrezia Borgia. (The first three were collected in “Curios”, 1898.) In other stories, you will encounter an actor who is said to be on his deathbed many miles away, kidnappers, a gentleman burglar, and a truly unique escaped convict.
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain worldwide.

THE HAUNTED PIPE

AND OTHER MYSTERIES

RICHARD MARSH

MobileRead Edition
2021

Ranging from mystery and suspense to farcical comedy, this collection includes several tales of articles acquired by rival collectors Pugh and Tress: a poisoned pipe that seems to come to life when smoked, a mysterious box puzzle, a 14th century severed hand bent on murder, a deadly ring fashioned by Lucrezia Borgia. (The first three were collected in Curios, 1898.) In other stories, you will encounter an actor who is said to be on his deathbed many miles away, kidnappers, a gentleman burglar, and a truly unique escaped convict.

Collection compiled by ECM from magazine and newspaper archives found online.

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Richard Marsh (12 October 1857 – 9 August 1915) was the pseudonym of English author Richard Bernard Heldmann. One of the most popular and prolific authors of the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods, he is best known now for his supernatural thriller novel The Beetle. Marsh produced nearly 80 volumes of fiction and numerous short stories, in genres including horror, crime, romance and humor.

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The contents of this book were first published 1891 ~ 1916. This ebook is in the public domain worldwide.

CONTENTS:

- The Haunted Pipe
- The Puzzle
- Lady Wishaw’s Hand
- Pugh’s Poisoned Ring
- The Kit-Bag
- A First Night
- The Burglary at Berkeley Square
- The Lost Duchess
- On the Film
- Capturing a Convict

The Haunted Pipe

— I —

Randolph Crescent, N.W.

My dear Pugh, I hope you will like the pipe which I send with this. It is rather a curious example of a certain school of Indian carving. And is a present from

Yours truly,

Joseph Tress.

It was really very handsome of Tress – very handsome! The more especially as I was aware that to give presents was not exactly in Tress’s line. The truth is that when I saw what manner of pipe it was, I was amazed. It was contained in a sandalwood box, which was itself illustrated with some remarkable specimens of carving. I use the word “remarkable” advisedly, because although the workmanship was undoubtedly, in its way, artistic, the result could not be described as beautiful. The carver had thought proper to ornament the box with some of the ugliest figures I remember to have seen. They appeared to me to be devils. Or perhaps, they were intended to represent deities appertaining to some mythological system with which, thank goodness, I am unacquainted. The pipe itself was worthy of the case in which it was contained. It was of meerschaum, with an amber mouthpiece. It was rather too large for ordinary smoking. But then, of course, one doesn’t smoke a pipe like that. There are pipes in my collection which I should as soon think of smoking as I should of eating. Ask a china maniac to let you have afternoon tea out of his Old Chelsea, and you will learn some home truths as to the durability of human friendships.

The glory of the pipe, as Tress had suggested, lay in its carving. Not that I claim that it was beautiful, any more than I make such a claim for the carving on the box, but, as Tress said in his note, it was curious. The stem and the bowl were quite plain, but on the edge of the bowl was perched some kind of lizard. I told myself it was an octopus when I first saw it, but I have since had reason to believe that it was some almost unique member of the lizard tribe. The creature was represented as climbing over the edge of the bowl down towards the stem, and its legs, or feelers, or tentacula, or whatever the things are called, were, if I may use a vulgarism, sprawling about all over the place. For instance, two or three of them were twined about the bowl, two or three of them were twisted round the stem, and one, a particularly horrible one, was uplifted in the air, so that if you put the pipe in your mouth the thing was pointing straight at your nose.

Not the least agreeable feature about the creature was that it was hideously lifelike. It appeared to have been carved in amber, but some colouring matter must have been introduced, for inside the amber the creature was of a peculiarly ghastly green.

The more I examined the pipe the more amazed I was at Tress’s generosity. He and I are rival collectors. I am not going to say, in so many words, that his collection of pipes contains nothing but rubbish, because, as a matter of fact, he has two or three rather decent specimens. But to compare his collection to mine would be absurd. Tress is conscious of this, and he resents it. He resents it to such an extent that he has been known at least on one occasion to declare that one single pipe of his – I believe he alluded to the Brummagem relic preposterously attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh – was worth the whole of my collection put together. Although I have forgiven this, as I hope I always shall forgive remarks made when envious passions get the better of our nobler nature, even of a Joseph Tress, it is not to be supposed that I have forgotten it. He was, therefore, not at all the sort of person from whom I expected to receive a present. And such a present! I do not believe that he himself had a finer pipe in his collection. And to have given it me! I had misjudged the man. I wondered where he had got it from. I had seen his pipes; I knew them off by heart and some nice trumpery he has among them, too! but I had never seen that pipe before. The more I looked at it, the more my amazement grew. The beast perched upon the edge of the bowl was so like life. Its two bead-like eyes seemed to gleam at me with positively human intelligence. The pipe fascinated me to such an extent that I actually resolved to – smoke it!

I filled it with Perique. Ordinarily I use Birdseye, but on those very rare occasions on which I use a specimen I smoke Perique. I lit up with quite a small sensation of excitement. As I did so I kept my eyes perforce fixed upon the beast. The beast pointed its upraised tentacle directly at me. As I inhaled the pungent tobacco, that tentacle impressed me with a feeling of actual uncanniness. It was broad daylight, and I was smoking in front of the window, yet to such an extent was I affected that it seemed to me that the tentacle was not only vibrating, which, owing to the peculiarity of its position, was quite within the range of probability, but actually moving, elongating – stretching forward, that is, further towards me, and towards the tip of my nose. So impressed was I by this idea that I took the pipe out of my mouth, and minutely examined the beast. Really, the delusion was excusable. So cunningly had the artist wrought that he had succeeded in producing a creature which, such was its uncanniness, I could only hope had no original in nature.

Replacing the pipe between my lips I took several whiffs. Never had smoking had such an effect on me before. Either the pipe, or the creature on it, exercised some singular fascination. I seemed, without an instant’s warning, to be passing into some land of dreams. I saw the beast, which was perched upon the bowl, writhe and twist. I saw it lift itself bodily from the meerschaum.…

— II —

“Feeling better now?”

I looked up. Joseph Tress was speaking.

“What’s the matter? Have I been ill?”

“You appear to have been in some kind of swoon.”

Tress’ tone was peculiar, even a little dry.

“Swoon! I never was guilty of such a thing in my life.”

“Nor was I, until I smoked that pipe.”

I sat up. The act of sitting up made me conscious of the fact that I had been lying down. Conscious, too, that I was feeling more than a little dazed. It seemed as though I was waking out of some strange, lethargic sleep – a kind of feeling which I have read of and heard about, but never before experienced.

“Where am I?”

“You’re on the couch in your own room. You were on the floor; but I thought it would be better to pick you up and place you on the couch though no one performed the same kind office to me when I was on the floor.”

Again Tress’s tone was distinctly dry.

“How came you here?”

“Ah, that’s the question.”

He rubbed his chin – a habit of his which has annoyed me more than once before.

“Do you think you’re sufficiently recovered to enable you to understand a little simple explanation?”

I stared at him, amazed. He went on stroking his chin.

“The truth is that when I sent you the pipe, I made a slight omission.”

“An omission?”

“I omitted to advise you not to smoke it.”

“And why?”

“Because – well, I’ve reason to believe the thing is drugged.”

“Drugged!”

“Or poisoned.”

“Poisoned!”

I was wide awake enough then. I jumped off the couch with a celerity which proved it.

“It is this way. I became its owner in rather a singular manner.” He paused, as if for me to make a remark; but I was silent. “It is not often that I smoke a specimen, but, for some reason, I did smoke this. I commenced to smoke it, that is. How long I continued to smoke it is more than I can say. It had on me the same peculiar effect which it appears to have had on you. When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the floor.”

“On the floor?”

“On the floor. In about as uncomfortable position as you can easily conceive. I was lying face downwards, with my legs bent under me. I was never so surprised in my life as I was when I found myself where I was. At first I supposed that I had had a stroke. But by degrees it dawned upon me that I didn’t feel as though I had had a stroke.”

Tress, by the way, has been an army surgeon.

“I was conscious of distinct nausea. Looking about, I saw the pipe. With me it had fallen on to the floor. I took it for granted, considering the delicacy of the carving, that the fall had broken it. But when I picked it up I found it quite uninjured. While I was examining it a thought flashed to my brain. Might it not be answerable for what had happened to me? Suppose, for instance, it was drugged? I had heard of such things. Besides, in my case were present all the symptoms of drug-poisoning, though what drug had been used I couldn’t in the least conceive. I resolved that I would give the pipe another trial.”

“On yourself? Or on another party, meaning me?”

“On myself, my dear Pugh on myself! At that point of my investigations I had not begun to think of you. I lit up and had another smoke.”

“With what result?”

“Well, that depends on the standpoint from which you regard the thing. From one point of view the result was wholly satisfactory I proved that the thing was drugged, and more.”

“Did you have another fall?”

“I did. And something else besides.”

“On that account, I presume, you resolved to pass the treasure on to me?”

“Partly on that account, and partly on another.”

“On my word, I appreciate your generosity. You might have labelled the thing as poison.”

“Exactly. But then you must remember how often you have told me that you never smoke your specimens.”

“That was no reason why you shouldn’t have given me a hint that the thing was more dangerous than dynamite.”

“That did occur to me afterwards. Therefore I called to supply the slight omission.”

“Slight omission, you call it! I wonder what you would have called it if you had found me dead.”

“If I had known that you intended smoking it I should not have been at all surprised if I had.”

“Really, Tress, I appreciate your kindness more and more! And where is this example of your splendid benevolence? Have you pocketed it, regretting your lapse into the unaccustomed paths of generosity? Or is it smashed to atoms?”

“Neither the one nor the other. You will find the pipe upon the table. I neither desire its restoration nor is it in any way injured. It is merely an expression of personal opinion when I say that I don’t believe that it could be injured. Of course, having discovered its deleterious properties, you will not want to smoke it again. You will therefore be able to enjoy the consciousness of being the possessor of what I honestly believe to be the most remarkable pipe in existence. Good-day, Pugh.”

He was gone before I could say a word. I immediately concluded, from the precipitancy of his flight, that the pipe was injured. But when I subjected it to close examination I could discover no signs of damage. While I was still eyeing it with jealous scrutiny the door reopened, and Tress came in again.

“By the way, Pugh, there is one thing I might mention, especially as I know it won’t make any difference to you.”

“That depends on what it is. If you have changed your mind, and want the pipe back again, I tell you frankly that it won’t. In my opinion, a thing once given is given for good.”

“Quite so; I don’t want it back again. You may make your mind easy upon that point. I merely wanted to tell you why I gave it you.”

“You have told me that already.”

“Only partly, my dear Pugh only partly. You don’t suppose I should have given you such a pipe as that merely because it happened to be drugged? Scarcely! I gave it you because I discovered from indisputable evidence, and to my cost, that it was haunted.”

“Haunted?”

“Yes, haunted. Good-day.”

He was gone again. I ran out of the room, and shouted after him down the stairs. He was already at the bottom of the flight.

“Tress! Come back! What do you mean by talking such nonsense?”

“Of course it’s only nonsense. We know that that sort of thing always is nonsense. But if you should have reason to suppose that there is something in it besides nonsense, you may think it worth your while to make inquiries of me. But I won’t have that pipe back again in my possession on any terms – mind that!”

The bang of the front door told me that he had gone out into the street. I let him go.

I laughed to myself as I re-entered the room. Haunted! That was not a bad idea of his. I saw the whole position at a glance. The truth of the matter was that he did regret his generosity, and he was ready to go any lengths if he could only succeed in cajoling me into restoring his gift. He was aware that I have views upon certain matters which are not wholly in accordance with those which are popularly supposed to be the views of the day, and particularly that on the question of what are commonly called supernatural visitations I have a standpoint of my own. Therefore it was not a bad move on his part to try to make me believe that about the pipe on which he knew I had set my heart there was something which could not be accounted for by ordinary laws. Yet, as his own sense would have told him it would do, if he had only allowed himself to reflect for a moment, the move failed. Because I am not yet so far gone as to suppose that a pipe, a thing of meerschaum and of amber, in the sense in which I understand the word, could be haunted – a pipe, a mere pipe.

“Hullo! I thought the creature’s legs were twined right round the bowl!”

I was holding the pipe in my hand, regarding it with the affectionate eyes with which a connoisseur does regard a curio, when I was induced to make this exclamation. I was certainly under the impression that, when I first took the pipe out of the box, two, if not three, of the feelers had been twined about the bowl – twined tightly, so that you could not see daylight between them and it. Now they were almost entirely detached, only the tips touching the meerschaum, and those particular feelers were gathered up as though the creature were in the act of taking a spring. Of course I was under a misapprehension: the feelers couldn’t have been twined, though, a moment before, I should have been ready to bet a thousand to one that they were. Still, one does make mistakes, and very egregious mistakes, at times. At the same time, I confess that when I saw that dreadful-looking animal poised on the extreme edge of the bowl, for all the world as though it were just going to spring at me, I was a little startled. I remembered that when I was smoking the pipe I did think I saw the uplifted tentacle moving, as though it were reaching out at me. And I had a clear recollection that just as I had been sinking into that strange state of unconsciousness, I had been under the impression that the creature was writhing and twisting as though it had suddenly become instinct with life. Under the circumstances, these reflections were not pleasant. I wished Tress had not talked that nonsense about the thing being haunted. It was surely sufficient to know that it was drugged and poisonous, without anything else.

I replaced it in the sandalwood box. I locked the box in a cabinet. Quite apart from the question as to whether that pipe was or was not haunted, I know it haunted me. It was with me, in a figurative – which was worse than an actual – sense, all the day. Still worse, it was with me all the night. It was with me in my dreams. Such dreams! Possibly I had not yet wholly recovered from the effects of that insidious drug, but, whether or no, it was very wrong of Tress to set my thoughts into such a channel. He knows that I am of a highly imaginative temperament, and that it is easier to get morbid thoughts into my mind than to get them out again.

Before that night was through I wished very heartily that I had never seen the pipe! I woke from one nightmare to fall into another. One dreadful dream was with me all the time – of a hideous, green reptile which advanced towards me out of some awful darkness, slowly, inch by inch, until it clutched me round the neck, and, gluing its lips to mine, sucked the life’s blood out of my veins as it embraced me with a slimy hiss. Such dreams are not restful. I woke anything but refreshed when the morning came. And when I got up and dressed I felt that, on the whole, it would perhaps have been better if I never had gone to bed. My nerves were unstrung, and I had that generally tremulous feeling which is, I believe, an inseparable companion of the more advanced stages of dipsomania. I ate no breakfast. I am no breakfast-eater as a rule, but that morning I ate absolutely nothing.

“If this sort of thing is to continue, I will let Tress have his pipe again. He may have the laugh of me, but anything is better than this.”

It was with almost funereal forebodings that I went to the cabinet in which I had placed the sandalwood box. But when I opened it my feelings of gloom partially vanished. Of what fantasies had I been guilty! It must have been an entire delusion on my part to have supposed that those tentacula had ever been twined about the bowl. The creature was in exactly the same position in which I had left it the day before as, of course, I knew it would be! poised, as if about to spring. I was telling myself how foolish I had been to allow myself to dwell for a moment on Tress’ words, when Martin Brasher was shown in.

Brasher is an old friend of mine. We have a common ground – ghosts. Only we approach them from different points of view. He takes the scientific – psychological – inquiry side. He is always anxious to hear of a ghost, so that he may have an opportunity of “showing it up.”

“I’ve something in your line here,” I observed, as he came in.

“In my line? How so? I’m not pipe mad.”

“No, but you’re ghost mad. And this is a haunted pipe.”

“A haunted pipe! I think you’re rather more mad about ghosts, my dear Pugh, than I am.”

Then I told him all about it. He was deeply interested, especially when I told him that the pipe was drugged. But when I repeated Tress’s words about its being haunted, and mentioned my own delusion about the creature moving, he took a more serious view of the case than I had expected he would do.

“I propose that we act on Tress’s suggestion, and go and make inquiries of him.”

“But you don’t really think that there is anything in it?”

“On these subjects I never allow myself to think at all. There are Tress’s words, and there is your story. It is agreed on all hands that the pipe has peculiar properties. It seems to me that there is a sufficient case here to merit inquiry.”

He persuaded me. I went with him. The pipe, in the sandalwood box, went too.

Tress received us with a grin a grin which was accentuated when I placed the sandalwood box upon the table.

“You understand,” he said, “that a gift is a gift. On no terms will I consent to receive that pipe back in my possession.”

I was rather nettled by his tone.

“You need be under no alarm. I have no intention of suggesting anything of the kind.”

“Our business here,” began Brasher – I must own that his manner is a little ponderous – “is of a scientific, I may say also, and at the same time, of a judicial nature. Our object is the Pursuit of Truth and the Advancement of Inquiry.”

“Have you been trying another smoke?” inquired Tress, nodding his head towards me.

Before I had time to answer, Brasher went droning on:

“Our friend here tells me that you say this pipe is haunted.”

“I say it is haunted because it is haunted.”

I looked at Tress. I half suspected that he was poking fun at us. But he appeared to be serious enough.

“In these matters,” remarked Brasher, as though he were giving utterance to a new and important truth, “there is a scientific and a non-scientific method of inquiry. The scientific method is to begin at the beginning. May I ask how this pipe came into your possession?”

Tress paused before he answered.

“You may ask.” He paused again. “Oh, you certainly may ask. But it doesn’t follow that I shall tell you.”

“Surely your object, like ours, can be but the Spreading About of the Truth?”

“I don’t see it at all. It is possible to imagine a case in which the spreading about of the truth might make me look a little awkward.”

“Indeed!” Brasher pursed up his lips. “Your words would almost lead one to suppose that there was something about your method of acquiring the pipe which you have good and weighty reasons for concealing.”

“I don’t know why I should conceal the thing from you. I don’t suppose either of you is any better than I am. I don’t mind telling you how I got the pipe. I stole it.”

“Stole it!”

Brasher seemed both amazed and shocked. But I, who had had previous experience of Tress’s methods of adding to his collection, was not at all surprised. Some of the pipes which he calls his, if only the whole truth about them were publicly known, would send him to gaol.

“That’s nothing!” he continued. “All collectors steal! The eighth commandment was not intended to apply to them. Why, Pugh there has ‘conveyed’ three-fourths of the pipes which he flatters himself are his.”

I was so dumbfounded by the charge that it took my breath away. I sat in astounded silence. Tress went raving on:

“I was so shy of this particular pipe when I had obtained it, that I put it away for quite three months. When I took it out to have a look at it, something about the thing so tickled me that I resolved to smoke it. Owing to peculiar circumstances attending the manner in which the thing came into my possession, and on which I need not dwell – you don’t like to dwell on those sort of things, do you, Pugh? – I knew really nothing about the pipe. As was the case with Pugh, one peculiarity I learned from actual experience. It was also from actual experience that I learned that the thing was – well, I said haunted, but you may use any other word you like.”

“Tell us, as briefly as possible, what it was you really did discover.”

“Take the pipe out of the box!”

Brasher took the pipe out of the box, and held it in his hand. “You see that creature on it. Well, when I first had it it was underneath the pipe.”

“How do you mean that it was underneath the pipe?”

“It was bunched together underneath the stem, just at the end of the mouthpiece, in the same way in which a fly might be suspended from the ceiling. When I began to smoke the pipe I saw the creature move.”

“But I thought that unconsciousness immediately followed.”

“It did follow, but not before I saw that the thing was moving. It was because I thought that I had been, in a way, a victim of delirium that I tried the second smoke. Suspecting that the thing was drugged I swallowed what I believed would prove a powerful antidote. It enabled me to resist the influence of the narcotic much longer than before, and while I still retained my senses I saw the creature crawl along under the stem, and over the bowl. It was that sight, I believe, as much as anything else, which sent me silly. When I came to again, I then and there decided to present the pipe to Pugh. There is one more thing I would remark. When the pipe left me the creature’s legs were twined about the bowl. Now they are withdrawn. Possibly you, Pugh, are able to cap my story with a little one which is all your own.”

“I certainly did imagine that I saw the creature move. But I supposed that while I was under the influence of the drug, imagination had played me a trick.”

“Not a bit of it! Depend upon it, the beast is bewitched. Even to my eye it looks as though it were, and to a trained eye like yours, Pugh! You’ve been looking for the devil a long time, and you’ve got him at last.”

“I – I wish you wouldn’t make those remarks, Tress. They jar on me.”

“I confess,” interpolated Brasher – I noticed that he had put the pipe down on the table as though he were tired of holding it – “that, to my thinking, such remarks are not appropriate. At the same time, what you have told us is, I am bound to allow, a little curious. But of course what I require is ocular demonstration. I haven’t seen the movement myself.”

“No, but you very soon will do if you care to have a pull at the pipe on your own account. Do, Brasher, to oblige me! There’s a dear!”

“It appears, then, that the movement is only observable when the pipe is smoked. We have at least arrived at step No. 1.”

“Here’s a match, Brasher! Light up, and we shall have arrived at step No. 2.”

Tress lit a match, and held it out to Brasher. Brasher retreated from his neighbourhood.

“Thank you, Mr. Tress, I am no smoker, as you are aware. And I have no desire to acquire the art of smoking by means of a poisoned pipe.”

Tress laughed. He blew out the match and threw it into the grate.

“Then I tell you what I’ll do – I’ll have up Bob.”

“Bob? Why Bob?”

“Bob” – whose real name was Robert Haines, though I should think he must have forgotten the fact, so seldom was he addressed by it – was Tress’s servant. He had been an old soldier, and had accompanied his master when he left the service. He was as depraved a character as Tress himself. I am not sure even that he was not worse than his master. I shall never forget how he once behaved towards myself. He actually had the assurance to accuse me of attempting to steal the Wardour Street relic which Tress fondly deludes himself was once the property of Sir Walter Raleigh. The truth is that I had slipped it with my pocket-handkerchief into my pocket in a fit of absence of mind. A man who could accuse me of such a thing would be guilty of anything. I was therefore quite at one with Brasher when he asked what Bob could possibly be wanted for. Tress explained.

“I’ll get him to smoke the pipe,” he said.

Brasher and I exchanged glances, but we refrained from speech.

“It won’t do him any harm,” said Tress.

“What – not a poisoned pipe?” asked Brasher.

“It’s not poisoned it’s only drugged.”

“Only drugged!”

“Nothing hurts Bob. He is like an ostrich. He has digestive organs which are peculiarly his own. It will only serve him as it served me and Pugh it will knock him over. It is all done in the Pursuit of Truth and for the Advancement of Inquiry.”

I could see that Brasher did not altogether like the tone in which Tress repeated his words. As for me, it was not to be supposed that I should put myself out in a matter which in no way concerned me. If Tress chose to poison the man, it was his affair, not mine. He went to the door, and shouted:

“Bob! Come here, you scoundrel!”

That is the way in which he speaks to him. No really decent servant would stand it. I shouldn’t dare to address Nalder, my servant, in such a way. He would give me notice on the spot.

Bob came in, He is a great hulking fellow who is always on the grin.

Tress had a decanter of brandy in his hand. He filled a tumbler with the neat spirit.

“Bob, what would you say to a glassful of brandy – the real thing – my boy?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And what would you say to a pull at a pipe when the brandy is drunk!”

“A pipe?” The fellow is sharp enough when he likes. I saw him look at the pipe upon the table, and then at us, and then a gleam of intelligence came into his eyes.

“I’d do it for a dollar, sir.”

“A dollar, you thief?”

“I meant ten shillings, sir.”

“Ten shillings, you brazen vagabond?”

“I should have said a pound.”

“A pound! Was ever the like of that! Do I understand you to ask a pound for taking a pull at your master’s pipe?”

“I’m thinking that I’ll have to make it two.”

“The deuce you are! Here, Pugh, lend me a pound.”

“I’m afraid I’ve left my purse behind.”

“Then lend me ten shillings – Ananias!”

“I doubt if I have more than five.”

“Then give me the five. And, Brasher, lend me the other fifteen.”

Brasher lent him the fifteen. I doubt if we shall either of us ever see our money again.

He handed the pound to Bob.

“Here’s the brandy – drink it up!” Bob drank it without a word, draining the glass of every drop. “And here’s the pipe.”

“Is it poisoned, sir?”

“Poisoned, you villain! What do you mean?”

“It isn’t the first time I’ve seen your tricks, sir – is it now? And you’re not the one to give a pound for nothing at all. If it kills me you’ll send my body to my mother – she’d like to know that I was dead.”

“Send your body to your grandmother! You idiot, sit down and smoke!”

Bob sat down. Tress had filled the pipe, and handed it, with a lighted match, to Bob. The fellow declined the match. He handled the pipe very gingerly, turning it over and over, eyeing it with all his eyes.

“Thank you, sir – I’ll light up myself if it’s the same to you. I carry matches of my own. It’s a beautiful pipe, entirely. I never see the like of it for ugliness. And what’s the slimy-looking varmint that looks as though it would like to have my life? Is it living, or is it dead?”

“Come, we don’t want to sit here all day, my man!”

“Well, sir, the look of this here pipe has quite upset my stomach. I’d like another drop of liquor, if it’s the same to you.”

“Another drop! Why, you’ve had a tumblerful already! Here’s another tumblerful to put on top of that. You won’t want the pipe to kill you – you’ll be killed before you get to it.”

“And isn’t it better to die a natural death?”

Bob emptied the second tumbler of brandy as though it were water. I believe he would empty a hogshead without turning a hair! Then he gave another look at the pipe. Then, taking a match from his waistcoat-pocket, he drew a long breath, as though he were resigning himself to fate. Striking the match on the seat of his trousers, while, shaded by his hand, the flame was gathering strength, he looked at each one of us in turn. When he looked at Tress I distinctly saw him wink his eye. What my feelings would have been if a servant of mine had winked his eye at me I am unable to imagine! The match was applied to the tobacco, a puff of smoke came through his lips – the pipe was alight!

During this process of lighting the pipe we had sat – I do not wish to use exaggerated language, but we had sat and watched that alcoholic scamp’s proceedings as though we were witnessing an action which would leave its mark upon the age. When we saw that the pipe was lighted, we gave a simultaneous start. Brasher put his hands under his coat-tails and gave a kind of hop. I raised myself a good six inches from my chair, and Tress rubbed his palms together with a chuckle. Bob alone was calm.

“Now,” cried Tress, “you’ll see the devil moving.”

Bob took the pipe from between his lips.

“See what?” he said.

“Bob, you rascal, put that pipe back into your mouth, and smoke it for your life!”

Bob was eyeing the pipe askance.

“I dare say, but what I want to know is whether this here varmint’s dead or whether he isn’t. I don’t want to have him flying at my nose – and he looks vicious enough for anything.”

“Give me back that pound, you thief, and get out of my house, and bundle.”

“I ain’t going to give you back no pound.”

“Then smoke that pipe!”

“I am smoking it, ain’t I?”

With the utmost deliberation Bob returned the pipe to his mouth. He emitted another whiff or two of smoke.

“Now – now!” cried Tress, all excitement, and wagging his hand in the air.

We gathered round. As we did so Bob again withdrew the pipe.

“What is the meaning of all this here? I ain’t going to have you playing none of your larks on me. I know there’s something up, but I ain’t going to throw my life away for twenty shillings – not quite I ain’t.”

Tress, whose temper is not at any time one of the best, was seized with quite a spasm of rage.

“As I live, my lad, if you try to cheat me by taking that pipe from between your lips until I tell you, you leave this room that instant, never again to be a servant of mine.”

I presume the fellow knew from long experience when his master meant what he said, and when he didn’t. Without an attempt at remonstrance he replaced the pipe. He continued stolidly to puff away. Tress caught me by the arm.

“What did I tell you? There – there! That tentacle is moving.”

The uplifted tentacle was moving. It was doing what I had seen it do, as I supposed, in my distorted imagination it was reaching forward. Undoubtedly Bob saw what it was doing; but, whether in obedience to his master’s commands, or whether because the drug was already beginning to take effect, he made no movement to withdraw the pipe. He watched the slowly advancing tentacle, coming closer and closer towards his nose, with an expression of such intense horror on his countenance that it became quite shocking. Further and further the creature reached forward, until on a sudden, with a sort of jerk, the movement assumed a downward direction, and the tentacle was slowly lowered until the tip rested on the stem of the pipe. For a moment the creature remained motionless. I was quieting my nerves with the reflection that this thing was but some trick of the carver’s art, and that what we had seen we had seen in a sort of nightmare, when the whole hideous reptile was seized with what seemed to be a fit of convulsive shuddering. It seemed to be in agony. It trembled so violently that I expected to see it loosen its hold of the stem and fall to the ground. I was sufficiently master of myself to steal a glance at Bob. We had had an inkling of what might happen. He was wholly unprepared. As he saw that dreadful, inhuman-looking creature, coming to life, as it seemed, within an inch or two of his nose, his eyes dilated to twice their usual size. I hoped, for his sake, that unconsciousness would supervene, through the action of the drug, before, through sheer fright, his senses left him. Perhaps mechanically, he puffed steadily on.

The creature’s shuddering became more violent. It appeared to swell before our eyes. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the shuddering ceased. There was another instant of quiescence. Then – the creature began to crawl along the stem of the pipe! It moved with marvellous caution, the merest fraction of an inch at a time. But still it moved! Our eyes were riveted on it with a fascination which was absolutely nauseous. I am unpleasantly affected even as I think of it now. My dreams of the night before had been nothing to this.

Slowly, slowly, it went, nearer and nearer to the smoker’s nose. Its mode of progression was in the highest degree unsightly. It glided, never, so far as I could see, removing its tentacles from the stem of the pipe. It slipped its hindmost feelers onward, until they came up to those which were in advance. Then, in their turn, it advanced those which were in front. It seemed, too, to move with the utmost labour, shuddering as though it were in pain.

We were all, for our parts, speechless. I was momentarily hoping that the drug would take effect on Bob. Either his constitution enabled him to offer a strong resistance to narcotics, or else the large quantity of neat spirit which he had drunk acted – as Tress had malevolently intended that it should do – as an antidote. It seemed to me that he would never succumb. On went the creature on, and on, in its infinitesimal progression. I was spellbound. I would have given the world to scream, to have been able to utter a sound. I could do nothing else but watch.

The creature had reached the end of the stem. It had gained the amber mouthpiece. It was within an inch of the smoker’s nose. Still on it went. It seemed to move with greater freedom on the amber. It increased its rate of progress. It was actually touching the foremost feature on the smoker’s countenance. I expected to see it grip the wretched Bob, when it began to oscillate from side to side. Its oscillations increased in violence. It fell to the floor. That same instant the narcotic prevailed. Bob slipped sideways from the chair, the pipe still held tightly between his rigid jaws.

We were silent. There lay Bob. Close beside him lay the creature. A few more inches to the left, and he would have fallen on and squashed it flat. It had fallen on its back. Its feelers were extended upwards. They were writhing and twisting and turning in the air.

Tress was the first to speak.

“I think a little brandy wouldn’t be amiss.” Emptying the remainder of the brandy into a glass, he swallowed it at a draught. “Now for a closer examination of our friend.”

Taking a pair of tongs from the grate he nipped the creature between them. He deposited it upon the table. “I rather fancy that this is a case for dissection.”

He took a penknife from his waistcoat-pocket. Opening the large blade, he thrust its point into the object on the table. Little or no resistance seemed to be offered to the passage of the blade, but as it was inserted, the tentacula simultaneously began to writhe and twist. Tress withdrew the knife.

“I thought so!” He held the blade out for our inspection. The point was covered with some viscid-looking matter. “That’s blood! The thing’s alive!”

“Alive!”

“Alive! That’s the secret of the whole performance!”

“But—”

“But me no buts, my Pugh! The mystery’s exploded! One more ghost is lost to the world! The person from whom I obtained that pipe was an Indian juggler up to many tricks of the trade. He, or someone for him, got hold of this sweet thing in reptiles – and a sweeter thing would, I imagine, be hard to find – and covered it with some preparation of, possibly, gum arabic. He allowed this to harden. Then he stuck the thing – still living, for those sort of gentry are hard to kill – to the pipe. The consequence was that when anyone lit up the warmth was communicated to the adhesive agent – again some preparation of gum, no doubt – it moistened it, and the creature, with infinite difficulty, was able to move. But I am open to lay odds with any gentleman of sporting tastes that this time the creature’s travelling days are done. It has given me rather a larger taste of the horrors than is good for my digestion.”

With the aid of the tongs he removed the creature from the table. He placed it on the hearth. Before Brasher or I had a notion of what it was he intended to do he covered it with a heavy marble paperweight. Then he stood upon the weight, and between the marble and the hearth he ground the creature flat.

While the execution was still proceeding, Bob sat up upon the floor.

“Hullo!” he asked, “what’s happened?”

“We’ve emptied the bottle, Bob,” said Tress. “But there’s another where that came from. Perhaps you could drink another tumblerful, my boy?”

Bob drank it!

The Puzzle

— I —

Pugh came into my room holding something wrapped in a piece of brown paper.

“Tress, I have brought you something on which you may exercise your ingenuity.” He began, with exasperating deliberation, to untie the string which bound his parcel; he is one of those persons who would not cut a knot to save their lives. The process occupied him the better part of a quarter of an hour. Then he held out the contents of the paper.

“What do you think of that?” he asked. I thought nothing of it, and I told him so. “I was prepared for that confession. I have noticed, Tress, that you generally do think nothing of an article which really deserves the attention of a truly thoughtful mind. Possibly, as you think so little of it, you will be able to solve the puzzle.”

I took what he held out to me. It was an oblong box, perhaps seven inches long by three inches broad.

“Where’s the puzzle?” I asked.

“If you will examine the lid of the box, you will see.”

I turned it over and over; it was difficult to see which was the lid. Then I perceived that on one side were printed these words:

“Puzzle: To Open the Box.”

The words were so faintly printed that it was not surprising that I had not noticed them at first. Pugh explained.

“I observed that box on a tray outside a second-hand furniture shop. It struck my eye. I took it up. I examined it. I inquired of the proprietor of the shop in what the puzzle lay. He replied that that was more than he could tell me. He himself had made several attempts to open the box, and all of them had failed. I purchased it. I took it home. I have tried, and I have failed. I am aware, Tress, of how you pride yourself upon your ingenuity. I cannot doubt that, if you try, you will not fail.”

While Pugh was prosing, I was examining the box. It was, at least, well made. It weighed certainly under two ounces. I struck it with my knuckles; it sounded hollow. There was no hinge; nothing of any kind to show that it ever had been opened, or, for the matter of that, that it ever could be opened. The more I examined the thing, the more it whetted my curiosity. That it could be opened, and in some ingenious manner, I made no doubt – but how?

The box was not a new one. At a rough guess I should say that it had been a box for a good half-century; there were certain signs of age about it which could not escape a practised eye. Had it remained unopened all that time? When opened, what would be found inside? It sounded hollow; probably nothing at all – who could tell?

It was formed of small pieces of inlaid wood. Several woods had been used; some of them were strange to me. They were of different colours; it was pretty obvious that they must all of them have been hard woods. The pieces were of various shapes, hexagonal, octagonal, triangular, square, oblong, and even circular. The process of inlaying had been beautifully done. So nicely had the parts been joined that the lines of meeting were difficult to discover with the naked eye; they had been joined solid, so to speak. It was an excellent example of marquetry. I had been over hasty in my depreciation; I owned as much to Pugh.

“This box of yours is better worth looking at than I first supposed. Is it to be sold?”

“No, it is not to be sold. Nor” – he “fixed” me with his spectacles – “is it to be given away. I have brought it to you for the simple purpose of ascertaining if you have ingenuity enough to open it.”

“I will engage to open it in two seconds – with a hammer.”

“I dare say. I will open it with a hammer. The thing is to open it without.”

“Let me see.” I began, with the aid of a microscope, to examine the box more closely. “I will give you one piece of information, Pugh. Unless I am mistaken, the secret lies in one of these little pieces of inlaid wood. You push it, or you press it, or something, and the whole affair flies open.”

“Such was my own first conviction. I am not so sure of it now. I have pressed every separate piece of wood; I have tried to move each piece in every direction. No result has followed. My theory was a hidden spring.”

“But there must be a hidden spring of some sort, unless you are to open it by mere exercise of force. I suppose the box is empty.”

“I thought it was at first, but now I am not so sure of that either. It all depends on the position in which you hold it. Hold it in this position – like this – close to your ear. Have you a small hammer?” I took a small hammer. “Tap it, softly, with the hammer. Don’t you notice a sort of reverberation within?”

Pugh was right, there certainly was something within; something which seemed to echo back my tapping, almost as if it were a living thing. I mentioned this to Pugh.

“But you don’t think that there is something alive inside the box? There can’t be. The box must be air-tight, probably as much air-tight as an exhausted receiver.”

“How do we know that? How can we tell that no minute interstices have been left for the express purpose of ventilation?” I continued tapping with the hammer. I noticed one peculiarity, that it was only when I held the box in a particular position, and tapped at a certain spot, that there came the answering taps from within. “I tell you what it is, Pugh, what I hear is the reverberation of some machinery.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Give the box to me.” Pugh put the box to his ear. He tapped. “It sounds to me like the echoing tick, tick of some great beetle; like the sort of noise which a death watch makes, you know.”

Trust Pugh to find a remarkable explanation for a simple fact; if the explanation leans towards the supernatural, so much the more satisfactory to Pugh. I knew better.

“The sound which you hear is merely the throbbing, or the trembling, of the mechanism with which it is intended that the box should be opened. The mechanism is placed just where you are tapping it with the hammer. Every tap causes it to jar.”

“It sounds to me like the ticking of a death watch. However, on such subjects, Tress, I know what you are.”

“My dear Pugh, give it an extra hard tap, and you will see.”

He gave it an extra hard tap. The moment he had done so, he started.

“I’ve done it now.”

“What have you done?”

“Broken something, I fancy.” He listened intently, with his ear to the box. “No – it seems all right. And yet I could have sworn I had damaged something; I heard it smash.”

“Give me the box.” He gave it me. In my turn, I listened. I shook the box. Pugh must have been mistaken. Nothing rattled; there was not a sound; the box was as empty as before. I gave a smart tap with the hammer, as Pugh had done. Then there certainly was a curious sound. To my ear, it sounded like the smashing of glass. “I wonder if there is anything fragile inside your precious puzzle,Pugh, and, if so, if we are shivering it by degrees?”

— II —

“What is that noise?”

I lay in bed in that curious condition which is between sleep and waking. When, at last, I knew that I was awake, I asked myself what it was that had woke me. Suddenly I became conscious that something was making itself audible in the silence of the night. For some seconds I lay and listened. Then I sat up in bed.

“What is that noise?”

It was like the tick, tick, tick of some large and unusually clear-toned clock. It might have been a clock, had it not been that the sound was varied, every half-dozen ticks or so, by a sort of stifled screech, such as might have been uttered by some small creature in an extremity of anguish. I got out of bed; it was ridiculous to think of sleep during the continuation of that uncanny shrieking. I struck a light. The sound seemed to come from the neighbourhood of my dressing-table. I went to the dressing-table, the lighted match in my hand, and,as I did so, my eyes fell on Pugh’s mysterious box. That same instant there issued, from the bowels of the box, a more uncomfortable screech than any I had previously heard. It took me so completely by surprise that I let the match fall from my hand to the floor. The room was in darkness. I stood, I will not say trembling, listening – considering their volume – to the eeriest shrieks I ever heard. All at once they ceased. Then came the tick, tick, tick again. I struck another match, and lit the gas.

Pugh had left his puzzle box behind him. We had done all we could, together, to solve the puzzle. He had left it behind to see what I could do with it alone. So much had it engrossed my attention that I had even brought it into my bedroom, in order that I might, before retiring to rest, make a final attempt at the solution of the mystery. Now what possessed the thing?

As I stood, and looked, and listened, one thing began to be clear to me, that some sort of machinery had been set in motion inside the box. How it had been set in motion was another matter. But the box had been subjected to so much handling, to such pressing and such hammering, that it was not strange if, after all, Pugh or I had unconsciously hit upon the spring which set the whole thing going. Possibly the mechanism had got so rusty that it had refused to act at once. It had hung fire, and only after some hours had something or other set the imprisoned motive power free.

But what about the screeching? Could there be some living creature concealed within the box? Was I listening to the cries of some small animal in agony? Momentary reflection suggested that the explanation of, the one thing was the explanation of the other. Rust! – there was the mystery. The same rust which had prevented the mechanism from acting at once was causing the screeching now. The uncanny sounds were caused by nothing more nor less than the want of a drop or two of oil. Such an explanation would not have satisfied Tress; it satisfied me. Picking up the box, I placed it to my ear.

“I wonder how long this little performance is going to continue. And what is going to happen when it is good enough to cease? I hope” – an uncomfortable thought occurred to me – “I hope Pugh hasn’t picked up some pleasant little novelty in the way of an infernal machine. It would be a first-rate joke if he and I had been endeavouring to solve the puzzle of how to set it going.”

I don’t mind owning that as this reflection crossed my mind I replaced Pugh’s puzzle on the dressing-table. The idea did not commend itself to me at all. The box evidently contained some curious mechanism. It might be more curious than comfortable. Possibly some agreeable little device in clockwork. The tick, tick, tick suggested clockwork which had been planned to go a certain time, and then – then, for all I knew, ignite an explosive, and – blow up. It would be a charming solution to the puzzle if it were to explode while I stood there, in my nightshirt, looking on. It is true that the box weighed very little. Probably, as I have said, the whole affair would not have turned the scale at a couple of ounces. But then its very lightness might have been part of the ingenious inventor’s little game. There are explosives with which one can work a very satisfactory amount of damage with considerably less than a couple of ounces.

While I was hesitating – I own it! – whether I had not better immerse Pugh’s puzzle in a can of water, or throw it out of the window, or call down Bob with a request to at once remove it to his apartment, both the tick, tick, tick, and the screeching ceased, and all within the box was still. If it was going to explode, it was now or never. Instinctively I moved in the direction of the door.

I waited with a certain sense of anxiety. I waited in vain. Nothing happened,not even a renewal of the sound.

“I wish Pugh had kept his precious puzzle at home. This sort of thing tries one’s nerves.”

When I thought that, I perceived that nothing seemed likely to happen, I returned to the neighbourhood of the table. I looked at the box askance. I took it up gingerly. Something might go off at any moment for all I knew. It would be too much of a joke if Pugh’s precious puzzle exploded in my hand. I shook it doubtfully; nothing rattled. I held it to my ear; there was not a sound. What had taken place? Had the clockwork run down, and was the machine arranged with such diabolical ingenuity that a certain interval was required, after the clockwork had run down, before an explosion could occur? Or had rust caused the mechanism to again hang fire?

“After making all that commotion the thing might at least come open.” I banged the box viciously against the corner of the table. I felt that I would almost rather that an explosion should take place than that nothing should occur. One does not care to be disturbed from one’s sound slumber in the small hours of the morning for a trifle.

“I’ve half a mind to get a hammer, and try, as they say in the cookery books, another way.”

Unfortunately I had promised Pugh to abstain from using force. I might have shivered the box open with my hammer, and then explained that it had fallen, or got trod upon, or sat upon, or something, and so got shattered, only I was afraid that Pugh would not believe me. The man is himself such an untruthful man that he is in a chronic state of suspicion about the truthfulness of others.

“Well, if you’re not going to blow up, or open, or something, I’ll say good night.”

I gave the box a final rap with my knuckles and a final shake, replaced it on the table, put out the gas, and returned to bed.

I was just sinking again into slumber, when that box began again. It was true that Pugh had purchased the puzzle, but it was evident that the whole enjoyment of his purchase was destined to be mine. It was useless to think of sleep while that performance was going on. I sat up in bed once more.

“It strikes me that the puzzle consists in finding out how it is possible to go to sleep with Pugh’s purchase in your bedroom. This is far better than the old-fashioned prescription of cats on the tiles.”

It struck me the noise was distinctly louder than before; this applied both to the tick, tick, tick, and the screeching.

“Possibly,” I told myself, as I re-lighted the gas, “the explosion is to come off this time.”

I turned to look at the box. There could be no doubt about it; the noise was louder. And, if I could trust my eyes, the box was moving – giving a series of little jumps. This might have been an optical delusion, but it seemed to me that at each tick the box gave a little bound. During the screeches – which sounded more like the cries of an animal in an agony of pain even than before – if it did not tilt itself first on one end, and then on the other, I shall never be willing to trust the evidence of my own eyes again. And surely the box had increased in size; I could have sworn not only that it had increased, but that it was increasing, even as I stood there looking on. It had grown, and still was growing, both broader, and longer, and deeper. Pugh, of course, would have attributed it to supernatural agency; there never was a man with such a nose for a ghost. I could picture him occupying my position, shivering in his night-shirt, as he beheld that miracle taking place before his eyes. The solution which at once suggested itself to me – and which would never have suggested itself to Pugh! – was that the box was fashioned, as it were, in layers, and that the ingenious mechanism it contained was forcing the sides at once both upwards and outwards. I took it in my hand. I could feel something striking against the bottom of the box, like the tap, tap, tapping of a tiny hammer.

“This is a pretty puzzle of Pugh’s. He would say that that is the tapping of a death watch. For my part I have not much faith in death watches, et hoc genus omne [and all that sort of thing], but it certainly is a curious tapping. I wonder what is going to happen next?”

Apparently nothing, except a continuation of those mysterious sounds. That the box had increased in size I had, and have, no doubt whatever. I should say that it had increased a good inch in every direction, at least half an inch while I had been looking on. But while I stood looking its growth was suddenly and perceptibly stayed; it ceased to move. Only the noise continued.

“I wonder how long it will be before anything worth happening does happen? I suppose something is going to happen; there can’t be all this to-do for nothing, If it is anything in the infernal machine line, and there is going to be an explosion, I might as well be here to see it. I think I’ll have a pipe.”

I put on my dressing-gown. I lit my pipe. I sat and stared at the box. I dare say I sat there for quite twenty minutes when, as before, without any sort of warning, the sound was stilled. Its sudden cessation rather startled me.

“Has the mechanism again hung fire? Or, this time, is the explosion coming off?” It did not come off; nothing came off. “Isn’t the box even going to open?”

It did not open. There was simply silence all at once, and that was all. I sat there in expectation for some moments longer. But I sat for nothing. I rose. I took the box in my hand. I shook it.

“This puzzle is a puzzle.” I held the box first to one ear, then to the other. I gave it several sharp raps with my knuckles. There was not an answering sound – not even the sort of reverberation which Pugh and I had noticed at first. It seemed hollower than ever. It was as though the soul of the box was dead. “I suppose if I put you down, and extinguish the gas and return to bed, in about half an hour or so, just as I am dropping off to sleep, the performance will be recommenced. Perhaps the third time will be lucky.”

But I was mistaken – there was no third time. When I returned to bed that time I returned to sleep, and I was allowed to sleep; there was no continuation of the performance, at least so far as I know. For no sooner was I once more between the sheets than I was seized with an irresistible drowsiness, a drowsiness which so mastered me that I – I imagine it must have been instantly – sank into slumber which lasted till long after day had dawned. Whether or not any more mysterious sounds issued from the bowels of Pugh’s puzzle is more than I can tell. If they did, they did not succeed in rousing me.

And yet, when at last I did awake, I had a sort of consciousness that my waking had been caused by something strange. What it was I could not surmise. My own impression was that I had been awakened by the touch of a person’s hand. But that impression must have been a mistaken one, because, as I could easily see by looking round the room, there was no one in the room to touch me.

It was broad daylight. I looked at my watch; it was nearly eleven o’clock. I am a pretty late sleeper as a rule, but I do not usually sleep as late as that. That scoundrel Bob would let me sleep all day without thinking it necessary to call me. I was just about to spring out of bed, with the intention of ringing the bell so that I might give Bob a piece of my mind for allowing me to sleep so late, when my glance fell on the dressing-table on which, the night before, I had placed Pugh’s puzzle. It had gone! Its absence so took me by surprise that I ran to the table. It had gone. But it had not gone far; it had gone to pieces! There were the pieces lying where the box had been. The puzzle had solved itself. The box was open, open with a vengeance, one might say. Like that unfortunate Humpty Dumpty, who, so the chroniclers tell us, sat on a wall, surely “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” never could put Pugh’s puzzle together again!

The marquetry had resolved itself into its component parts. How those parts had ever been joined was a mystery. They had been laid upon no foundation, as is the case with ordinary inlaid work. The several pieces of wood were not only of different shapes and sizes, but they were as thin as the thinnest veneer; yet the box had been formed by simply joining them together. The man who made that box must have been possessed of ingenuity worthy of a better cause.

I perceived how the puzzle had been worked. The box had contained an arrangement of springs which, on being released, had expanded themselves in different directions until their mere expansion had rent the box to pieces. There were the springs, lying amidst the ruin they had caused.

There was something else amidst that ruin besides those springs; there was a small piece of writing-paper. I took it up. On the reverse side of it was written, in a minute, crabbed hand, “A Present For You.” What was a present for me? I looked, and, not for the first time since I had caught sight of Pugh’s precious puzzle, could scarcely believe my eyes.

There, poised between two upright wires, the bent ends of which held it aloft in the air, was either a piece of glass, or – a crystal. The scrap of writing-paper had exactly covered it. I understood what it was, which, when Pugh and I had tapped with the hammer, had caused the answering taps to proceed from within. Our taps had caused the wires to oscillate, and in these oscillations the crystal, which they held suspended, had touched the side of the box.

I looked again at the piece of paper. “A Present For You.” Was this the present – this crystal? I regarded it intently.

“It can’t be a diamond.”

The idea was ridiculous, absurd. No man in his senses would place a diamond inside a twopenny-halfpenny puzzle box. The thing was as big as a walnut! And yet – I am a pretty good judge of precious stones – if it was not an uncut diamond it was the best imitation I had seen. I took it up. I examined it closely. The more closely I examined it, the more my wonder grew.

“It is a diamond!”

And yet the idea was too preposterous for credence. Who would present a diamond as big as a walnut with a trumpery puzzle? Besides, all the diamonds which the world contains, of that size, are almost as well known as the Koh-i-noor.

“If it is a diamond, it is worth – it is worth? Heaven only knows what it isn’t worth, if it’s a diamond.”

I regarded it through a strong pocket lens. As I did so I could not restrain an exclamation.

“The world to a China orange, it is a diamond!”

The words had scarcely escaped my lips than there came a tapping at the door.

“Come in!” I cried, supposing it was Bob. It was not Bob, it was Pugh. Instinctively I put the lens and the crystal behind my back. At sight of me in my night-shirt Pugh began to shake his head.

“What hours, Tress, what hours! Why, my dear Tress, I’ve breakfasted, read the papers and my letters, come all the way from my house here, and you’re not up!”

“Don’t I look as though I were up?”

“Ah, Tress! Tress!” He approached the dressing-table. His eye fell upon the ruins. “What’s this?”

“That’s the solution to the puzzle.”

“Have you – have you solved it, fairly, Tress?”

“It has solved itself. Our handling, and tapping, and hammering must have freed the springs which the box contained, and during the night, while I slept, they have caused it to come open.”

“While you slept? Dear me! How strange! And – what are these?”

He had discovered the two upright wires on which the crystal had been poised.

“I suppose they’re part of the puzzle.”

“And was there anything in the box? What’s this?” He picked up the scrap of paper; I had left it on the table. He read what was written on it. “‘A Present For You;’ what’s it mean? Tress, was this in the box?”

“It was.”

“What’s it mean about a present? Was there anything in the box besides?”

“Pugh, if you will leave the room I shall be able to dress; I am not in the habit of receiving quite such early calls, or I should have been prepared to receive you. If you will wait in the next room, I will be with you as soon as I’m dressed. There is a little subject in connection with the box which I wish to discuss with you.”

“A subject in connection with the box? What is the subject?”

“I will tell you, Pugh, when I have performed my toilet.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“Do you propose, then, that I should stand here shivering in my shirt while you are prosing at your ease? Thank you; I am obliged, but I decline. May I ask you once more, Pugh, to wait for me in the adjoining apartment?”

He moved towards the door. When he had taken a couple of steps, he halted.

“I – I hope, Tress, that you’re – you’re going to play no tricks on me.”

“Tricks on you! Is it likely that I am going to play tricks upon my oldest friend?”

When he had gone – he vanished, it seemed to me, with a somewhat doubtful visage – I took the crystal to the window. I drew the blind. I let the sunshine fall on it. I examined it again, closely and minutely, with the aid of my pocket lens. It was a diamond; there could not be a doubt of it. If, with my knowledge of stones, I was deceived, then I was deceived as never man had been deceived before. My heart beat faster as I recognised the fact that I was holding in my hand what was, in all probability, a fortune for a man of moderate desires. Of course, Pugh knew nothing of what I had discovered, and there was no reason why he should know. Not the least! The only difficulty was that if I kept my own counsel, and sold the stone and utilised the proceeds of the sale, I should have to invent a story which would account for my sudden accession to fortune. Pugh knows almost as much of my affairs as I do myself. That is the worst of these old friends!

When I joined Pugh I found him dancing up and down the floor like a bear upon hot plates. He scarcely allowed me to put my nose inside the door before attacking me.

“Tress, give me what was in the box.”

“My dear Pugh, how do you know that there was something in the box to give you?”

“I know there was!”

“Indeed! If you know that there was something in the box, perhaps you will tell me what that something was.”

He eyed me doubtfully. Then, advancing, he laid upon my arm a hand which positively trembled.

“Tress, you – you wouldn’t play tricks on an old friend.”

“You are right, Pugh, I wouldn’t. Though I believe there have been occasions on which you have had doubts upon the subject. By the way, Pugh, I believe that I am the oldest friend you have.”

“I – I don’t know about that. There’s – there’s Brasher.”

“Brasher! Who’s Brasher? You wouldn’t compare my friendship to the friendship of such a man as Brasher? Think of the tastes we have in common, you and I. We’re both collectors.”

“Ye – es, we’re – we’re both collectors.”

“I make my interests yours, and you make my interests mine. Isn’t that so, Pugh?”

“Tress, what – what was in the box?”

“I will be frank with you, Pugh. If there had been something in the box, would you have been willing to go halves with me in my discovery?”

“Go halves! In your discovery! Tress! Give me what is mine!”

“With pleasure, Pugh, if you will tell me what is yours.”

“If – if you don’t give me what was in the box I’ll – I’ll send for the police.”

“Do! Then I shall be able to hand to them what was in the box, in order that it may be restored to its proper owner.”

“Its proper owner! I’m its proper owner!”

“Excuse me, but I don’t understand how that can be; at least, until the police have made inquiries. I should say that the proper owner was the person from whom you purchased the box, or, more probably, the person from whom he purchased it, and by whom, doubtless, it was sold in ignorance, or by mistake. Thus, Pugh, if you will only send for the police, we shall earn the gratitude of a person of whom we never heard in our lives – I for discovering the contents of the box, and you for returning them.”

As I said this, Pugh’s face was a study. He gasped for breath. He actually took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.

“Tress, I – I don’t think you need use a tone like that to me. It isn’t friendly. What – what was in the box?”

“Let us understand each other, Pugh. If you don’t hand over what was in the box to the police, I go halves.”

Pugh began to dance about the floor.

“What a fool I was to trust you with the box! I knew I couldn’t trust you.” I said nothing. I turned and rang the bell. “What’s that for?”

“That, my dear Pugh, is for breakfast, and, if you desire it, for the police. You know, although you have breakfasted, I haven’t. Perhaps, while I am breaking my fast, you would like to summon the representatives of law and order.” Bob came in. I ordered breakfast. Then I turned to Pugh. “Is there anything you would like?”

“No, I – I’ve breakfasted.”

“It wasn’t of breakfast I was thinking. It was of – something else. Bob is at your service, if, for instance, you wish to send him on an errand.”

“No, I want nothing. Bob can go.” Bob went. Directly he was gone, Pugh turned to me. “You shall have half. What was in the box?”

“I shall have half?”

“You shall!”

“I don’t think it is necessary that the terms of our little understanding should be expressly embodied in black and white. I fancy that, under the circumstances, I can trust you, Pugh, I believe that I am capable of seeing that, in this matter, you don’t do me. That was in the box.”

I held out the crystal between my finger and thumb.

“What is it?”

“That is what I desire to learn.”

“Let me look at it.”

“You are welcome to look at it where it is. Look at it as long as you like, and as closely.”

Pugh leant over my hand. His eyes began to gleam. He is himself not a bad judge of precious stones, is Pugh.

“It’s – it’s – Tress! – is it a diamond?”

“That question I have already asked myself.”

“Let me look at it! It will be safe with me! It’s mine!”

I immediately put the thing behind my back.

“Pardon me, it belongs neither to you nor to me. It belongs, in all probability, to the person who sold that puzzle to the man from whom you bought it – perhaps some weeping widow, Pugh, or hopeless orphan – think of it. Let us have no further misunderstanding upon that point, my dear old friend. Still, because you are my dear old friend, I am willing to trust you with this discovery of mine, on condition that you don’t attempt to remove it from my sight, and that you return it to me the moment I require you.”

“You’re – you’re very hard on me.” I made a movement towards my waistcoat pocket. “I’ll return it you!”

I handed him the crystal, and with it I handed him my pocket lens.

“With the aid of that glass I imagine that you will be able to subject it to a more acute examination, Pugh.”

He began to examine it through the lens. Directly he did so, he gave an exclamation. In a few moments he looked up at me. His eyes were glistening behind his spectacles. I could see he trembled.

“Tress, it’s – it’s a diamond, a Brazil diamond. It’s worth a fortune!”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Glad I think so! Don’t you think that it’s a diamond?”

“It appears to be a diamond. Under ordinary conditions I should say, without hesitation, that it was a diamond. But when I consider the circumstances of its discovery, I am driven to doubts. How much did you give for that puzzle, Pugh?”

“Ninepence; the fellow wanted a shilling, but I gave him ninepence. He seemed content.”

“Ninepence! Does it seem reasonable that we should find a diamond, which, if it is a diamond, is the finest stone I ever saw and handled, in a nine-penny puzzle? It is not as though it had got into the thing by accident, it had evidently been placed there to be found, and, apparently, by anyone who chanced to solve the puzzle; witness the writing on the scrap of paper.”

Pugh re-examined the crystal.

“It is a diamond! I’ll stake my life that it’s a diamond!”

“Still, though it be a diamond, I smell a rat!”

“What do you mean?”

“I strongly suspect that the person who placed that diamond inside that puzzle intended to have a joke at the expense of the person who discovered it. What was to be the nature of the joke is more than I can say at present, but I should like to have a bet with you that the man who compounded that puzzle was an ingenious practical joker. I may be wrong, Pugh; we shall see. But, until I have proved the contrary, I don’t believe that the maddest man that ever lived would throw away a diamond worth, apparently, shall we say a thousand pounds?”

“A thousand pounds! This diamond is worth a good deal more than a thousand pounds.”

“Well, that only makes my case the stronger; I don’t believe that the maddest man that ever lived would throw away a diamond worth more than a thousand pounds with such utter wantonness as seems to have characterised the action of the original owner of the stone which I found in your nine-penny puzzle, Pugh.”

“There have been some eccentric characters in the world, some very eccentric characters. However, as you say, we shall see. I fancy that I know somebody who would be quite willing to have such a diamond as this, and who, moreover, would be willing to pay a fair price for its possession; I will take it to him and see what he says.”

“Pugh, hand me back that diamond.”

“My dear Tress, I was only going—”

Bob came in with the breakfast tray.

“Pugh, you will either hand me that at once, or Bob shall summon the representatives of law and order.”

He handed me the diamond. I sat down to breakfast with a hearty appetite. Pugh stood and scowled at me.

“Joseph Tress, it is my solemn conviction, and I have no hesitation in saying so in plain English, that you’re a thief.”

“My dear Pugh, it seems to me that we show every promise of becoming a couple of thieves.”

“Don’t bracket me with you!”

“Not at all, you are worse than I. It is you who decline to return the contents of the box to its proper owner. Put it to yourself, you have some common sense, my dear old friend! – do you suppose that a diamond worth more than a thousand pounds is to be honestly bought for ninepence?”

He resumed his old trick of dancing about the room.

“I was a fool ever to have let you have the box! I ought to have known better than to have trusted you; goodness knows you have given me sufficient cause to mistrust you! Over and over again! Your character is only too notorious! You have plundered friend and foe alike – friend and foe alike! As for the rubbish which you call your collection, nine-tenths of it, I know as a positive fact, you have stolen out and out.”

“Who stole my Sir Walter Raleigh pipe? Wasn’t it a man named Pugh?”

“Look here, Joseph Tress!”

“I’m looking.”

“Oh, it’s no good talking to you, not the least! You’re – you’re dead to all the promptings of conscience! May I inquire, Mr. Tress, what it is you propose to do?”

“I propose to do nothing, except summon the representatives of law and order. Failing that, my dear Pugh, I had some faint, vague, very vague idea of taking the contents of your nine-penny puzzle to a certain firm in Hatton Garden, who are dealers in precious stones, and to learn from them if they are disposed to give anything for it, and if so, what.”

“I shall come with you.”

“With pleasure, on condition that you pay the cab.”

“I pay the cab! I will pay half.”

“Not at all. You will either pay the whole fare, or else I will have one cab and you shall have another. It is a three-shilling cab fare from here to Hatton Garden. If you propose to share my cab, you will be so good as to hand over that three shillings before we start.”

He gasped, but he handed over the three shillings. There are few things I enjoy so much as getting money out of Pugh!

On the road to Hatton Garden we wrangled nearly all the way. I own that I feel a certain satisfaction in irritating Pugh, he is such an irritable man. He wanted to know what I thought we should get for the diamond.

“You can’t expect to get much for the contents of a nine-penny puzzle, not even the price of a cab fare, Pugh.”

He eyed me, but for some minutes he was silent. Then he began again.

“Tress, I don’t think we ought to let it go for less than – than five thousand pounds.”

“Seriously, Pugh, I doubt whether, when the whole affair is ended, we shall get five thousand pence for it, or, for the matter of that, five thousand farthings.”

“But why not? Why not? It’s a magnificent stone – magnificent! – I’ll stake my life on it.”

I tapped my breast with the tips of my fingers. “There’s a warning voice within my breast that ought to be in yours, Pugh! Something tells me, perhaps it is the unusually strong vein of common sense which I possess, that the contents of your nine-penny puzzle will be found to be a magnificent do – an ingenious practical joke, my friend.”

“I don’t believe it.”

But I think he did; at any rate, I had unsettled the foundations of his faith.

We entered the Hatton Garden office side by side; in his anxiety not to let me get before him, Pugh actually clung to my arm. The office was divided into two parts by a counter which ran from wall to wall. I advanced to a man who stood on the other side of this counter.

“I want to sell you a diamond.”

“We want to sell you a diamond,” interpolated Pugh.

I turned to Pugh. I “fixed” him with my glance.

“I want to sell you a diamond. Here it is. What will you give me for it?”

Taking the crystal from my waistcoat pocket I handed it to the man on the other side of the counter. Directly he got it between his fingers, and saw what it was that he had got, I noticed a sudden gleam come into his eyes.

“This is – this is rather a fine stone.”

Pugh nudged my arm.

“I told you so.” I paid no attention to Pugh.

“What will you give me for it?”

“Do you mean, what will I give you for it cash down upon the nail?”

“Just so – what will you give me for it cash down upon the nail?”

The man turned the crystal over and over in his fingers.

“Well, that’s rather a large order. We don’t often get a chance of buying such a stone as this across the counter. What do you say to – well – to ten thousand pounds?”

Ten thousand pounds! It was beyond my wildest imaginings. Pugh gasped. He lurched against the counter.

“Ten thousand pounds!” he echoed.

The man on the other side glanced at him, I thought, a little curiously.

“If you can give me references, or satisfy me in any way as to your bona fides, I am prepared to give you for this diamond an open cheque for ten thousand pounds, or if you prefer it, the cash instead.”

I stared; I was not accustomed to see business transacted on quite such lines as those.

“We’ll take it,” murmured Pugh; I believe he was too much overcome by his feelings to do more than murmur. I interposed.

“My dear sir, you will excuse my saying that you arrive very rapidly at your conclusions. In the first place, how can you make sure that is a diamond?”

The man behind the counter smiled.

“I should be very ill fitted for the position which I hold if I could not tell a diamond directly I get a sight of it, especially such a stone as this.”

“But have you no tests you can apply?”

“We have tests which we apply in cases in which doubt exists, but in this case there is no doubt whatever. I am as sure that this is a diamond as I am sure that it is air I breathe. However, here is a test.”

There was a wheel close by the speaker. It was worked by a treadle. It was more like a superior sort of travelling tinker’s grindstone than anything else. The man behind the counter put his foot upon the treadle. The wheel began to revolve. He brought the crystal into contact with the swiftly revolving wheel. There was a s – s – sh! And, in an instant, his hand was empty; the crystal had vanished into air.

“Good Heavens!” he gasped. I never saw such a look of amazement on a human countenance before. “It’s splintered!”

Postscript.

It was a diamond, although it had splintered. In that fact lay the point of the joke. The man behind the counter had not been wrong; examination of such dust as could be collected proved that fact beyond a doubt. It was declared by experts that the diamond, at some period of its history, had been subjected to intense and continuing heat. The result had been to make it as brittle as glass.

There could be no doubt that its original owner had been an expert too. He knew where he got it from, and he probably knew what it had endured. He was aware that, from a mercantile point of view, it was worthless; it could never have been cut. So, having a turn for humour of a peculiar kind, he had devoted days, and weeks, and possibly months, to the construction of that puzzle. He had placed the diamond inside, and he had enjoyed, in anticipation and in imagination, the Alnaschar visions of the lucky finder.

Pugh blamed me for the catastrophe. He said, and still says, that if I had not, in a measure, and quite gratuitously, insisted on a test, the man behind the counter would have been satisfied with the evidence of his organs of vision, and we should have been richer by ten thousand pounds. But I satisfy my conscience with the reflection that what I did at any rate was honest, though, at the same time, I am perfectly well aware that such a reflection gives Pugh no sort of satisfaction.

Lady Wishaw’s Hand

— I —
THE LEGACY

It was a woman’s hand. In life, in its proper place at the end of a woman’s arm, I could easily believe that it had been beautiful. But as it lay before me on the table, amidst the heap of papers in which it had been wrapped, I am bound to say that it was not its beauty that struck me first of all. One peculiar feature about it was its extraordinary state of preservation. Some embalming process must have been employed with which I was wholly unacquainted. It looked as if it were alive. Not only so! – when, after some not inconsiderable amount of hesitation, I ventured to pick it up, it felt warm to the touch. Almost unwittingly, I pressed it – as I might have pressed a friendly hand in greeting. It seemed to return my pressure. Of course, it was all imagination. But it was imagination of rather a ghastly kind. So vivid was the delusion, that I let it fall back on the table with a start that was sufficiently real.

The hand had been severed, with what had evidently been some sharp instrument, just above the wrist. A joint or some fraction of the bone – I am no anatomist – had apparently been withdrawn, so that the skin overlapped at the end. A white skin it was. I never saw a whiter. Yet it was not a bloodless white. Indeed, it was not difficult to believe that the warm blood was circulating underneath. It was a little hand. It struck me as being exquisitely shaped. A dainty hand. The fingers were long and slender, and tapered to a point. The finger-nails were perfect. They were pink, as are the finger-nails of some young girls. It was those almond-shaped, pink, well-kept finger-nails, which, as much as anything else, gave to the hand such a curious semblance of life. The fingers and thumb were close together, so that, as it lay palm downwards the thumb was in the air, and only the finger-tips pressing against the table, the whole hand formed a sort of arch. It was a right hand. On the fore-finger was a ring. So quaint a ring that, in itself, it was a curio. It was of plain gold, clumsily fashioned, and at the back it had been beaten out by some unskilled craftsman into what had probably been intended to represent a heart-shaped shield. On it were some roughly graven words, which, at any rate without a microscope, I was unable to decipher. I attributed the ring at a rough and ready estimate to perhaps the latter portion of the fourteenth century. It seemed odd to see that ill-shaped and ancient gewgaw on the pretty finger of that dainty little hand.

It was an extraordinary legacy, even for a collector to receive. It appeared that it was a legacy – this woman’s hand. From a man, too, who had been but a shadowy acquaintance. It had reached me by a singularly matter-of-fact route – the parcels post. I wondered if the post office officials would have said anything if they had known what it was that they were carrying. With it had come a letter, in which David Wishaw informed me that his brother, Colin, was dead, of which fact I had known nothing, and cared, if possible, still less; and that it had been one of Colin’s very last requests that the hand which, according to David, had been known in the family as “Lady Wishaw’s hand,” should be sent me as a legacy. Very kind of Colin, and also of David, on my honour! David went on to say that Colin had been aware that I was a great collector of curiosities, and he had felt very strongly that “Lady Wishaw’s hand” was a curiosity that I should value. Had he indeed! Kinder still, and kinder! The hand, said David, had been an heirloom in the family. Then what on earth did the man mean by passing his family heirlooms on to me, an almost utter stranger? It had been in the family, in uninterrupted sequence, since 1382. When I read that, I wondered whether the man took me for an idiot. The hand – that hand which was lying before me on the table – had been in his family, or anybody’s family, since 1382! I doubted very much if it had not been upon a living woman’s arm, certainly, within the last six months.

What was I to do with such a legacy? I might be a collector of curiosities, a virtuoso, or a bric-à-brac hunter, which you please. But I was not a curator of an anatomical museum. The curiosities which I collected did not include detached portions of the human frame. The Messrs Colin and David Wishaw seemed both of them to have laboured under the same misapprehension. I knew a man who collected the ropes with which criminals had been hung. He was a virtuoso of a kind which I was not. Mr Colin Wishaw should have bequeathed and Mr David Wishaw should have despatched – by means of parcels post – this curiosity to him.

The ring on the finger did seem more in my way. Getting a magnifying glass, I endeavoured to make out the legend which was on the shield. The ring was old – there could be no doubt about that. It might date from 1382. The legend, in the first place, had been ill done, and in course of time it had become so worn that even with the aid of a good glass, it was difficult to decipher.

“‘I take myne owne,’ that’s what it is,” I finally decided. “It’s either ‘seke’ or ‘take’. I fancy it’s ‘take’ – ‘I take myne owne’. I wonder if that is the motto of the Wishaws? I have a good mind to write to Mr David Wishaw, and to send him back the hand, and to tell him that, with his permission, as a mark of my appreciation of his brother’s thought for me, I’ll keep the ring. I might add that, in my judgment, it would be as well if the hand were decently interred. Let’s see if I can take the ring off the lady’s finger, so that I can have a look at it at closer quarters.”

With this idea and with the intention of putting the idea into execution, I once more picked up the hand – though I own I touched it with reluctance. Holding it with my left hand, grasping the ring with the fingers of my right, I prepared to work it loose. Instantly the hand shut up! It was clenched into a fist! I do not think I ever was so startled in my life. The action was so natural, so lifelike, that, though I was in my own drawing-room, and it was broad day, and there was no one present but the hand and myself, it seemed almost as if my heart had leapt into my mouth. It was no optical delusion – the open hand had become a tightened fist. No doubt, it was owing to some muscular contraction – but it was muscular contraction of a sort I did not like. So startled was I that for some moments I could do nothing else but stare. When I could I dropped the hand as if it had been a red-hot coal. I sprang to my feet.

“I’ll send it back to Mr David Wishaw, directly after lunch, ring and all!”

I was momentarily expecting lunch to be announced. It would not do to leave the hand lying on the table open. So I hurriedly caught up the papers in which it had come, and, wrapping them about it anyhow, I put it in a cabinet which stood upon a small side table.

— II —
THE LEGEND

As I was finishing lunch, there came a knock at the hall door. Nalder went to see who it was. Nalder is a most excellent servant; one whom scarcely anything would induce to forget his place. Therefore, I was the more surprised, when, after a few minutes’ absence, he reappeared with an expression of countenance which suggested both bewilderment and pain. He was rubbing his thigh, too, in a manner which, considering that he was standing in the presence of his master, was highly unbecoming.

“What’s the matter, Nalder?”

“Well, sir, it’s Mr Brasher, sir.”

“Mr Brasher? What do you mean? What’s the matter with Mr Brasher?”

“Well, sir – nothing’s the matter with Mr Brasher, that I am aware of but – a most extraordinary thing has happened. At least, I beg your pardon, sir, it seems to me a most extraordinary thing. When I showed Mr Brasher up into the drawing-room, I noticed that the ormolu-cabinet which stands on the Chippendale tripod table was open.” This was the cabinet in which I placed Mr Colin Wishaw’s legacy. I must unintentionally have omitted to close it when I left the room. “I went to shut it, and directly I had done so, just as I was turning round, someone or something caught me in the fleshy part of the leg, and gave me such a nip, that, I do believe, there’s a piece nipped out.”

“Someone or something? What do you mean by someone or something?”

“I don’t know, sir, I really don’t. There was no one or nothing, near me, that I could see, and that’s why I say it’s a most extraordinary thing. But I never did feel anything so painful – never.”

I left Nalder still rubbing his thigh in a manner which his previous conduct had certainly given me no reason to expect from him. When I went upstairs I found Martin Brasher standing in the centre of the room with a look on his face which might have been twin brother to the look I had seen on Nalder’s.

“Pugh,” was his salutation to me as I went in, “what on earth have you got in this room of yours?”

“I have a good many things in this room of mine, as, if you had eyes, you would be able to see. What is the matter with you?”

“Upon my word, I hardly know what is the matter with me. Do you know, I was just sitting on that armchair, waiting for you, when something – it felt like somebody’s finger-nails – scratched my cheek from top to bottom. Isn’t there a scratch to be seen?”

There was, unmistakably. On his left cheek there was what was, obviously, the mark of a recent scratch.

“You’ve been in dreamland, Brasher, and scratched yourself in your dream.”

“Nothing of the kind. I tell you what, Pugh, it’s uncommonly queer! But never mind about that now; I have come to tell you that I’ve got a case at last.”

“A case of what?”

“A case for the [Psychical Research] Society – a genuine ghost. Have you ever heard of a man named Wishaw?” I had very much indeed, and very recently. But he didn’t give me a chance. He was so very full of his subject, that he went dashing on, without noticing that he had not afforded me an opportunity to answer.

“They’re a Scotch family, the Wishaws – one of those Scotch families which antedate the deluge. They have had some peculiar characters among them in their time, more peculiar than pleasant – as some of these Scotch families have had a way of having. One of the most peculiar was a woman, who lived somewhere about the close of the fourteenth century – a propitious period, especially in Scotland, for peculiar characters. She is known among them to this day, as ‘Lady Wishaw’. You know how they have that sort of thing in stories. She was the most beautiful woman that ever was – that’s of course. She was, also, the wickedest woman that ever was – that’s equally of course. She does appear to have done something to deserve a niche, as the latter, in the temple of fame. She was a thief. Such a thief that she became notorious as a thief, even in that age and land of thieves. She stole from foes and friends alike. At last, in the house of a friend, she was caught redhanded, in some more astounding theft than usual. We should have called her a kleptomaniac, I suspect, in these latter days. The term was not invented then, nor the thing. To her host she appeared to have been guilty of an act of hideous treachery. Taking upon himself, as was not uncommon in those sweet and simple days, the offices of judge, jury and executioner, there and then he hacked off her hand at the wrist. The first intimation which the Wishaws received of the latest petit faux pas in which the lady had indulged came to them in rather grisly fashion. The lady’s guilty, but, I understand, lovely member was sent to them by the host and by a special messenger. The lady herself they never saw again – at least in life. She felt, when she had lost her hand, that she had lost all that there was worth living for. She destroyed herself within the hour. Thus, as you perceive, there was ample ground why a pleasant little feud should exist, henceforth, between the whilom friends, the Wishaws and the Macfies – the host’s name was, it seems, Macfie.

“The story goes that the dismembered lady managed to convey some sort of spiritual intimation to her relatives, to the effect that they were never to cease from killing while a Macfie still remained to cumber the ground. Thenceforward, the first end and aim of the Wishaws was to kill the Macfies. And in order that they might not forget their high calling, a special injunction was laid on them that they were to keep the hacked-off hand ever with them as a sort of heirloom, and as a perpetual reminder, until the last of the Macfies was slain. Not only so. They were given clearly to understand, that should a Wishaw arise who, before the Macfies were wholly exterminated, proved unworthy, and ceased from killing, the dead hand would turn against the living man, and would measure out to him that measure which he should have measured out to the Macfies.”

“This is a queer story.” I felt that it was. “But the queerest part is still to come. I am informed, on creditable authority, that the hand was never embalmed. That nothing has been done to preserve it, of any sort or kind. That it has continued, uninterruptedly, in the possession of the Wishaws. And that, after the passage of the centuries, it still looks as fresh and as lifelike as if its original owner still had it, in the proper place, at the end of her arm.”

As to the truth of this portion of his story, touching the appearance of life which the hand possessed, I could have gone to the cabinet, taken out its contents, and given him the proof on the spot; and I may add, that I should have done it, had it not been that a contraction of the muscles of my throat seemed to keep me a fixture in my chair.

“Pugh, I mean to see that hand.” He should have seen it, then and there, had not the sensation of which I had suddenly become conscious almost amounted to strangulation. “It strikes me that there’s a clear case for the Psychical Research Society at last. I have chanced, almost by accident, upon some extraordinary stories of Lady Wishaw’s hand. It seems that the Wishaws did keep on killing the Macfies. But they were a prolific breed. As soon as a sire was struck down a son sprang up. There came a time when murder, even in Scotland, was not looked upon with such lenient eyes. Still the Wishaws pursued the even tenor of their way. More than one of them has brought himself within the clutches, and has suffered the last penalties of the law. Finally, even the Wishaws succumbed to the influence of the new spirit of the newer age. They declined to keep on murdering. In fact, they ceased to murder. When they ceased, the hand – the dead hand – Lady Wishaw’s hand, began. Pugh, I have reason to believe that, literally, for generations, the head of the family, for the time being, has been found strangled in his bed.”

Brasher paused. He stood in front of me with a dramatic gesture. With an effort I found myself able to speak.

“Where did you get that piece of information from, may I inquire?”

“Never mind where I got it from, it is so. You may take it from me that the thing was kept hushed up. It was given out that they died from a spasmodic affection of the heart. Nothing of the kind. There never was a Wishaw with a weak heart yet. At last, only two of them were left, Colin Wishaw, the head of the house, and David, his younger brother. Colin was something like a madman.” From the little I had seen of him he had struck me as being about as mad as a man could be, without being pronounced, legally and medically, insane. “He swore a great oath that he would rid himself and the family of Lady Wishaw’s hand.”

“If what you have told me is correct, Brasher, I fail to see any signs of madness in his doing that.”

“The extraordinary part of the thing was the way in which he set himself to carry out his oath. He put the hand in a coffin and buried it, coffin and all. Lady Wishaw’s hand returned to him from the grave.”

“Oh, Brasher, come!”

“So I am told. He took it with him across the Atlantic. In mid-ocean he dropped it into the sea. When he reached his hotel in New York he found it at his bedside in the morning. He cast it into a smelter’s furnace. It was waiting for him when he got home. I am credibly assured that he cooked it and ate it, only to find it on his pillow when he went to bed.”

“Brasher, your story begins to remind me of a poem which I read in my childhood days, which, if I remember rightly, was called, and appropriately, called, ‘A Horrible Tale’.”

“Wait a bit. About a fortnight ago Colin Wishaw was found dead in his bed. There was no mistake about it this time – he had been strangled. It was impossible to hush it up. An inquest was held. The verdict was, that he had been strangled by some person or persons unknown.”

If that were so, what on earth did David Wishaw mean by saying that, almost with his last breath, Colin had bequeathed, what appeared to be, par excellence, the heirloom of the Wishaws, as a legacy to me. Mr David Wishaw was a nice man, upon my word!

“The present possessor of Lady Wishaw’s hand,” continued Brasher, “is David Wishaw, the last living representative of the Wishaw strain.” Was he? He would very soon be the possessor, though he was not then. “I am going to call on Mr David Wishaw. I shall request him to allow me to examine the hand. I intend to make inquiries as to the truth of its extraordinary history. As I have told you, I have reason to believe that its truth will be made quite plain. Should that be so, I shall present the case for the immediate consideration of the Psychical Research Society. I think you will agree with me that a more remarkable case will hardly come its way.”

I quite agreed that, if – that little if – he could find evidence to prove it, it would be a remarkable case. And I was more than once on the point of informing him that, if he really desired to look at, and to examine Lady Wishaw’s hand he need go no further than where he stood. But each time, as the words had already almost escaped my lips, I again became conscious of what I can only describe as that curious and distinctly involuntary suppression of the larynx.

— III —
THE HORROR

When Martin Brasher went, he left, so to speak, his story behind. I heartily wished he had not. His story might sound incredible. It might even sound absurd. But there are men, sane men, who are entirely of opinion that it is quite within the bounds of reason to suppose that there may be what the world commonly calls spiritual manifestations – dealings between the seen and the unseen. Of such men, I avowedly, am one. And the idea that there had come to me, from such a deathbed as Colin Wishaw’s appeared to have been, a gift which was, in itself, a ghastly gift, and with which was associated such a history – the mere idea to me was full of horror.

Besides, what had prevented me from speaking? What was it that had caused that sensation of pressure about the region of my throat, and so stayed me from telling Brasher that the thing for which he was about to seek, all the time, was at his side, within reach of his arm? What had pinched Nalder? It was a ridiculous inquiry, perhaps – but what had? What had scratched Brasher’s face? What had caused the open hand to shut up into a clenched fist, before my very eyes? Was it because the hand, though dead, was living, and was still attached to a living form, though unseen?

Men are made in different fashions. Some men would have found in my situation nothing but pleasurable excitement. For my part I sat in my chair and sweated. I was unwilling to be left alone in my own drawing-room, even though it was broad day. Nothing but shame prevented me from summoning Nalder to come and keep me company.

On one point I was resolved, that Lady Wishaw’s hand would not remain in my possession. For two hours I endeavoured to summon up sufficient resolution to enable me to rise from my chair, and to go to the cabinet, and to take out the hand, and to pack it up, and to return it whence it came. As I look back upon those two hours, I am half inclined to wonder how it was that, as they have it in the nightmare stories, during their passage my hair did not turn grey. All the while I had the consciousness that something was in the room with me. Something seemed to keep stroking the back of my hand, something with the delicate touch of a dainty woman. I knew that the starch was coming out of my linen. I felt that my collar was becoming as limp as a rag. At last, with what, positively, amounted to a frenzied effort, I sprang from my seat, rushed to the cabinet, opened it, and reached out for the hand, and found that it was – not there.

There could be no question as to whether its apparent disappearance was not one of the effects of being endowed with too vivid an imagination. In the papers in which I had hastily wrapped Lady Wishaw’s hand, before going down to lunch, there was nothing at all.

“Nalder! Nalder!”

I scarcely think that I expected him to hear me call. I am under the impression that I hardly spoke above a whisper. I began to stagger toward the door, intending to go out on to the landing and call him loudly. As I turned, something was placed against my mouth. Something which felt like the slender fingers of a woman’s hand. And my lips were sealed!

— IV —
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CLUB

I dined at the club. I am unable to say how I reached it. I know that I did reach it. For me, at least, that is sufficient. I had a little table at the third window from the door. Perkins was my waiter. Perkins is not only an excellent waiter; he is, what is almost of as much importance, an excellent man. I am persuaded that Perkins and I have many things in common. He knows exactly what I like and how I like it. When he tells me what to eat, I eat it, without so much as a hint of an amendment. Never yet have I found that the house of my confidence has been builded on the sand.

I remember that, on that particular night, I had one of the finest woodcocks I ever tasted. Plain roast. I am almost inclined to believe that Perkins must have raised that bird himself, have shot it himself, have hung it himself, and have cooked it himself, he had its history so completely at his finger-ends. Brasher’s story, and my two hours’ agony, had almost faded from my mind. I do not say that the woodcock was wholly responsible, but it had certainly borne its part. I was just going to drink my second glass of champagne – I don’t care what anybody says, everybody has his own taste, and with woodcock I like champagne. I daresay, in another half minute, I should have thanked God that I was alive. The glass was still on its way to my lips when, without any sort of a warning, in an instant, there returned to me that hideous consciousness which had been with me in the afternoon, that something was in the room. I do not mean the waiters, or the diners, and that sort of thing. I wish I did. I mean something intangible, unseen.

I put down my untasted glass. A cold shiver went over me. Then I began to perspire. My feeling was one of the acutest misery. My first impulse, in spite of the woodcock, was to wish that I was dead. In that brilliantly-lighted room, with all the people about me, I was afraid. Perkins was at my side. He had his back to me, for some cause or other, at the moment. All at once he faced round to me, with quite a little twirl. To be frank it was not the kind of movement which was becoming to Perkins. One of his great charms is that he never evinces what I consider indecorous signs of haste. Of an actual twirl, as if he had been a sort of human teetotum [spinning top], I do not think that he had ever been guilty before.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

I have no doubt that I looked at him with what were a lack-lustre pair of eyes. I believe that I murmured “Eh?”

“Did you touch me, sir?”

“Touch you? What do you mean?”

“I really must ask you to excuse me, sir,” – Perkins is an educated man – “but I certainly was under the impression, sir, that you pulled my coat-tails.”

I pulled his coat-tails! A waiter’s! I had, after all, over-estimated Perkins’ intellectual powers, if he could suppose that I could be capable of such an action as that. But I said nothing. I rose from the table there and then, and went away. I daresay that Perkins imagined I was bitterly offended. I should certainly have been justified in being so. Or, perhaps, he imagined that I had suddenly gone mad. I left my second glass of champagne untasted. I did not wait for the sweets – Perkins has an exquisite taste in sweets. His sweets never give me indigestion. I said nothing about his wife. (I always inquire after Perkins’ wife – who I understand is paralysed, and as good as dead – when he has seen that I have had a creditable dinner.) I went into the smoking-room. I do not know why. I was in no mood to smoke. I take it that I went there simply because, with that intangible unseen something keeping me company, I could not go home.

Several men were in the smoking-room. Tolerably comfortable they seemed, as for a second, I stood at the door and looked round. I envied them. Their contentment with the position in life in which they found themselves placed was so transparently greater than mine. My moving to a seat seemed to create a slight sensation. Each man, as I passed him, gave a perceptible start. Again, I don’t know why, I had scarcely seated myself before I became aware that something curious was going on. I seemed to have brought with me an element of discord into the room. Those who had seemed so wholly at their ease, as I viewed them from the door, seemed, all at once, to have been attacked by a fit of the fidgets. A most pronounced fit of the fidgets, too. The attack seemed to be passing from one smoker to the other, right round the room. Under cover of an evening paper I pretended to notice nothing. But I did. Man after man sprang up in his seat and looked about him with an air of startled surprise. Pranklyn was sitting in front of me. “Plain” Pranklyn, as they call him, to distinguish him from the other Pranklyn – “Picture” Pranklyn – who has a chamber of horrors which he calls his picture gallery. Plain Pranklyn is in his seventies, and would turn the scale, I daresay, at eighteen stone. So when I say that suddenly he sprang up from his seat, as if he had been an india-rubber ball, I am aware that the language which I use is strong.

“Good God!” he exclaimed.

Everybody looked at him. All the room was in a stir.

“What is up, Pranklyn?” asked Sir Gerald Carr.

“Who was that caught hold of my hand?”

“Caught hold of your hand? What do you mean?”

“Hanged if I know what I do mean.” Pranklyn looked to me as if he were on the verge of an apoplectic fit. “I know that someone caught hold of my hand and twisted it right round.”

A man whom I don’t know spoke next:

“That’s odd. A moment before someone, or something, did exactly the same thing to me.”

“Be George!” cried old Jack Brett. “But there’s the devil in the room. I’ll swear that someone nearly pulled me hand clean off me wrist.”

“And mine!”

“And mine!”

Nearly every person present claimed to have undergone a similar experience. There were a score of men turning the smoking-room into a Bedlam. I don’t know what the committee would have said. I, for my part, sat as if I were glued to my chair. For, directly Pranklyn sprang from his seat, I felt a hand steal into mine, and fingers and a thumb clasp it about.

“Hullo,” said Carr, “what’s gone wrong with you? You don’t look well.”

I rose from my seat with a palsied start. As I did so, the hand let go.

“I’m not feeling well. I – I think that I’ll go home.” I went home, there and then. As I moved across the room, every man jack of them followed me with his eyes. I don’t know if they thought that I had bewitched them, or played some hanky-panky trick. They looked as if they did.

As I went along the passage, and down the steps, into the street, I felt someone twitching at my coat sleeve. I hailed a cab. I bade the cabman drive me home. All the time, as he drove me through the streets, I felt as if there were someone seated beside me in the cab. Someone who continually twitched me by the arm. I doubt if there was ever a sane creature in such a state of mind as I then was. Nalder let me in. He started when he saw my face.

“I hope, sir, you are not ill?”

“To tell the truth, Nalder, I’m not feeling quite the thing. I think I’ll have some brandy in my bedroom and go to bed.”

I had the strongest reluctance to go, unaccompanied, up my own staircase. I hung about in the hall until Nalder appeared with some brandy on a tray. Together we went up, he in front and I behind. I don’t know what he thought of me. He is too well-trained a servant to betray his feelings in his face. At the same time, he is possessed of too much discernment to have failed to see that my indisposition was of a peculiar kind. Especially when, under one pretext and another, I kept him in my bedroom until I was actually between the sheets in bed.

“Shall I leave the light burning, sir?”

It is a peculiarity of mine that I never can sleep where there is a light in the room. On that occasion my choice seemed to lie between the devil and the deep sea. The idea of being left in the dark filled me with a paralysis of horror. On the other hand, what might I not be destined to witness, if the room was light. I chose, mechanically, what I could only hope would turn out to be the less evil of the two.

“Leave it burning. If I find that it keeps me from sleeping, I will get out of bed and put it out.”

I did not get out of bed to put it out. Queerly enough, scarcely had Nalder turned his back, than I fell asleep. I must have done, because I remember nothing after he left the room. Nothing, that is, until I awoke. I was not troubled with a dream. I must have slept the quiet dreamless sleep of tired childhood.

— V —
THE COMING OF THE GIFT

What woke me I do not know, even to this hour. I know that I did wake, to find myself in a cold sweat of agony. Quivering under the overwhelming burden of some unknown horror. For some moments I was only conscious that the room was still lighted. At first, I seemed to have to gasp for breath. But, by degrees, the curtain of unconsciousness was partly lifted, and I became aware that something was with me in the room. What it was, I cannot say. It was something which touched me on the brow. With a light touch, such as we might use to waken a sleeper out of sleep. Only that touch was like the touch of death. I believe that it was the touch of death. Light though it was, under it I could not move. While it remained, I doubt if I breathed. I lay, as I have said, in a cold sweat of agony. When the touch was removed, I closed my eyes. I was afraid of what it was I might see. For what was a period of a few moments I suppose, nothing happened; though I never for an instant lost consciousness of the presence which was with me in the room. As I lay with my eyes fast closed, in agony, something – something tangible – fell on my cheek from above. It had something of the effect of an electric shock. With what I apprehend was an involuntary tension of the muscles of my body, I leaped out of bed on to the floor. I believe that, as I stood on the floor, I cried. Then I stretched out my arms on either side of me, as a blind man might do. Then, and only then, I opened my eyes and looked and saw. Leaning over the bed, I saw that on the pillow on which my head had just been lying was a ring.

I never had a moment’s doubt as to the ring’s identity. Having seen it once, it was one which I never could forget. It was the ring which had been on the forefinger of the hand which, according to David Wishaw, his brother Colin had bequeathed me as a legacy. The ring which the dead hand had seemed to resent my attempting to remove from its place by clenching itself into a fist. Was it possible that it was offered me as a present after all? Then, by whom? As the scriptural writers have it, my heart melted within me as I realised that it was an offering from the presence which was with me in the room.

I shrunk away. I extended my arms as if to prevent the ring from coming to close quarters. As I did so I saw a hand advancing across the pillows from the opposite side of the bed. It was the hand which, having once been seen under such circumstances as I had seen it, was no more to be mistaken than the ring. It was, indeed, the hand to which it belonged. The hand of which Brasher had told such a horrible tale. The hand which according to him had urged to murder through the centuries, and then, when its urging had failed, had murdered on its own account.

I saw the hand coming slowly across the bed. It at no time touched the pillow, but, without any visible support, was in the air at a distance above the pillow, of, perhaps, a couple of inches. I saw the dainty fingers close upon the ring. When I saw that, with a spasmodic effort I turned my face away. My glance fell upon the clock which was on the mantelshelf. I noticed, with a singular degree of vividness that, according to that clock, the time was five and twenty minutes to four.

A touch came on my arm. I started round. In front of me was the hand. It was palm uppermost. On the open palm was the ring. It was being held out for me to take. But I would have none of it – although the chance of becoming the possessor of so genuine and unique a curio was hardly likely ever to come again in my way. I slunk back. The hand followed me. It moved quicker than I did. It caught me by the hand. It pressed the ring against my palm. But still I would have none of it. I made no attempt to close my hand so as to retain the ring within my grasp.

Suddenly the something which guided and ruled the hand – never, as I have said, for a moment did I lack consciousness of the something which was there – suddenly this something seemed to become annoyed. My persistent, automatic refusal of the proffered ring seemed, in some fantastic way, to give annoyance. All at once, the hand was withdrawn. It was clenched. It was held before me in the air. I saw the ring between the little dainty fingers. Then, with an extraordinary degree of violence, it was thrown against my face.

— VI —
THE PASSING OF DAVID WISHAW

“Why are you lying there upon the floor?”

It was Brasher’s voice. I found, as he said, that I was lying in my night-shirt on the floor. I sat up. I saw that the light still burned.

“Has it gone?”

“Has what gone? What has happened to your face?”

I put my hand up to my face. When I removed it, it was dabbled with blood. It all came back to me – the extreme violence of the movement with which the hand had hurled the ring at me through the air.

“The ring!” was all I said.

“The ring? What ring?” I rose to my feet. I dimly perceived that, for some cause, Brasher was almost as much disturbed as I myself.

We looked each other in the face. “Pugh!” He caught me by the arm. His hand was shaking. “Where is Lady Wishaw’s hand?”

I looked around the room. “Is it still here?”

“Here? Where? For God’s sake don’t speak like that. Your voice is as hoarse as a crow’s.”

I felt him shiver.

“Why did you not tell me, yesterday, that you were the present fortunate possessor of Lady Wishaw’s hand?”

I said nothing. He went on. Owing to his haste, or to some other cause, he seemed to pronounce his words as if he were temporarily afflicted with an impediment in his speech.

“It’s been at its devil’s tricks again. I’ve come straight from Wishaw’s. David’s dead.”

“Dead! David Wishaw! Brasher!”

“Don’t look at me like that. You look at me as if you were looking at a ghost.” Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped his brow. “Yes, David Wishaw’s dead. He was the last of the breed. With him, all of them have gone. It seems that this morning at a quarter after three—”

“When?”

“This morning, at a quarter after three, his servants heard him screaming in his room. When they went to his aid, they could not get to him, because the door was locked. They heard him fighting and yelling within. They called to him but could get no answer. All was still when the shrieking ceased. They found the door open. They found him dead. He had been strangled. He was a strong man. He must have fought furiously for his life, because they found him lying in a hideous heap on his bed.”

“Brasher, Lady Wishaw’s hand was with me here at five and twenty minutes to four.”

“Pugh.” His jaw dropped down.

“Yes, Brasher, it was here, with me.”

“Are you sure that you are not mistaken?”

“And because I would not have the ring, which it endeavoured to force on my acceptance, it flung it in my face with such violence that it cut my face right open, as you see. I wonder if that ring is anywhere upon the floor.”

No. We searched everywhere. But it was nowhere to be found. After all, the hand had vanished with that ancient gewgaw of a ring. Acting up to the legend which seemed to me to have been inscribed upon it, Lady Wishaw’s hand had taken its own.

Pugh’s Poisoned Ring

— I —

I really don’t know what induced me to do it; it was done on the impulse of the moment – one of those impulses to which collectors, real collectors, collectors in the highest sense, are peculiarly liable; I know I am.

Pugh had left the room for a moment. I just opened his cabinet of rings. I glanced within. One of the rings particularly caught my eye. I just picked it up as he came in. Unconsciously – or almost unconsciously – as Pugh entered, I dropped the ring into my waistcoat pocket. It was the merest coincidence. Five minutes afterwards I went away.

As I was walking homewards it occurred to me that the ring was – where it was. The fact is that I slipped my fingers into my waistcoat pocket, and – found it there. It struck me that, as it was where it was, I might as well examine the thing.

I took it out. It was an engraved cameo, Italian, of about the middle of the sixteenth century; it was set in gold. I don’t suppose it was of any value, either intrinsic or fanciful. It was merely a little curio – quite a commonplace affair – the sort of thing one might almost pick up in the street. But the odd part of the affair was that it was just the ring I wanted; that struck me then, and it strikes me now, as being, in its way, peculiar.

I have a few rings of my own – Pugh fancies his collection is better than mine, but then it is notorious that Pugh is simply a conglomerate mass of vanity and ignorance – but, strangely enough, I am particularly weak, as a collector, in Italian work of the middle of the sixteenth century. The coincidence, under the circumstances, of finding that identical ring in my waistcoat pocket, was, of course, surprising. I examined the thing more closely. It was a large cream-coloured ground, with the head of a woman cut in white relief. It was not badly done – not at all. The more closely I looked into the thing, the more clearly I saw that the cameo, for a cameo, was quite a work of art. In my collection it would look uncommonly well. The woman’s head was beautiful; the face was perfectly exquisite. I slipped the ring on to my little finger to study the effect.

As I did so I was just turning into the Edgware Road. As I reached the corner I was seized with a sudden spasm of pain; it was like a sudden constriction of the heart, or, better, an acute attack of heartburn. At that moment who should come slouching along, with that habitual graceful slouch of his, but Martin Brasher. I attempted to wave my hand to him; but so severe was the spasm that I had to stagger against the railings to save myself from falling. He pulled up in front of me.

“Are you ill?” he asked.

“Do you think I’m drunk?”

It was such an absurd question to ask a man who he saw was almost fainting! Brasher’s eyes began to wander all over me – he was quite capable of thinking, in spite of visual evidence to the contrary, that I was drunk! His gaze began at the soles of my boots, and I knew that, in the course of ages, it would ascend to the crown of my hat. I was aware that nothing would escape his glance; he would be sure to perceive the ring. As the coincidence by which it came into my possession was not one of those coincidences which one is necessarily desirous of publishing to the world, I began fumbling at my little finger to get it off. Brasher immediately fixed me with his eagle eye.

“What are you doing?” he inquired.

“Trying to stand,” I said. “Brasher, would it be subjecting you to too great an inconvenience if I were to ask you to turn round and call me a cab?”

He hesitated; then, turning, he hailed a hansom. The instant his back was towards me I replaced the ring in my waistcoat pocket.

The cabman drove me home. Directly I reached Randolph Crescent I stumbled upstairs to my bedroom; I went straight to bed. That scoundrel Bob was out, as usual, so I had to undress myself. A pretty job I found it! That heartburn – I had never been subject to heartburn, but if that was not heartburn I did not know what it was – had never for one instant ceased since it had first begun. Every vein in my body seemed to be throbbing at once. My head seemed to be on the point of splitting. I supposed that I was suffering from an acute attack of indigestion, though what I had eaten or drunk to give me indigestion was more than I could think. I mixed myself a strong sleeping-draught – I felt that if I did not go to sleep at once I should go mad – and, somehow, tumbled into bed.

— II —

“Tress!” Someone seemed to be shaking me. “Tress!” Someone was shaking me. “Tress!” There could be no doubt about it, someone was shaking me to pieces. “Tress!”

I roused myself. I looked up. I found that I was lying in bed. Pugh was standing by my bedside, shaking me as though he were resolved to shake my body into its constituent parts.

“Pugh, is that you?”

“It is. You are a late sleeper, Joseph Tress. Do you know what time it is?”

“No.”

“It is nearly noon.”

Nearly noon! And I was in bed before nine o’clock the day before. I had been asleep for nearly fifteen hours, and still I felt unrested. It was that sleeping-draught had done it. It must have been too strong.

“I thought that you were never going to wake, upon this side, again – that you were in your long, last sleep. I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

I sat up in bed with some difficulty. I looked at Pugh. I noticed, for the first time, that his acidulated countenance was irradiated by what he, doubtless, meant to be a smile. It made him look as though he were suffering from an attack of jaundice.

“I had an attack of indigestion yesterday after I left you, and I took a sleeping-draught. I fancy the draught must have been too strong.”

“After you left me? An attack of indigestion? I see. Is that all?”

“What else would you have had me have?”

“Ah!”

Pugh’s “Ah!” was intended to convey a whole encyclopedia of meaning. What an idiot that man is! He drew a chair to the bedside. He sat down on it. He crossed his hands upon the handle of his stick, and leaned his chin upon his hands. He stared at me, like an owl.

“Tress, do you remember, yesterday, when I was showing you my cabinet of rings, noticing a cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, of sixteenth century Italian workmanship?”

Now I knew why he had come. Up to that moment I had forgotten all about the ring, and the odd coincidence that I had found it in my waistcoat pocket. For the second I was taken aback. I did not know what to say to him. My head felt fuddled.

“A cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, of sixteenth century Italian workmanship?”

“That’s it, exactly. I see you noticed it.”

I shook my head. I did not like to say, in so many words, I hadn’t, being as fond of truth as most men.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because, when you went, the ring went too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Only, when you had gone, I found that the ring had gone. You are sure you didn’t notice it?”

“Quite sure.”

I was driven to a lie.

“That’s odd, because I thought that I saw you pay particular attention to that particular ring – a cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, of sixteenth century Italian workmanship. You are quite sure you didn’t notice it – just think.”

“I don’t want to think; don’t I tell you I am sure?”

What did the imbecile mean by making me pile lie upon lie? Pugh rose.

“That’s odd, very odd. Well, it’s gone. I thought I’d call and tell you, because” – what he meant for a smile grew more pronounced – “that ring is possessed of peculiar properties.”

“Peculiar properties?”

“Some very peculiar properties indeed. A collector, ignorant of those properties, might not find it such an acquisition as he supposed. However, it is of no consequence, since you didn’t notice it. Good-day, Tress. I hope your indigestion will be better.”

He went. Directly he was gone I scrambled out of bed and locked the door. What an escape I had had! In the confused state of my mind, had he persisted in his questioning, I might have been worried into some fatal admission. I was in a fit state neither of mind nor of body to adequately cope with his impertinent prying.

And what did he mean by his mysterious allusions to the peculiar properties of his wretched ring? All bunkum, probably. Still, he had emphasised his words in a manner which seemed to suggest that he had intended them to mean something. An Italian ring, of the sixteenth century? I remembered, unless chroniclers lied, that certain rings of that period had been credited, in Italy, as being possessed of peculiar properties – as Pugh said, of very peculiar properties indeed.

When Brasher’s back had been turned, at the corner of the Edgware Road, I had returned the ring to my waistcoat pocket. Having made sure that the door was locked, I took up my waistcoat and looked for the ring. It was strange. It wasn’t there. I remembered, distinctly, putting the ring into the right-hand pocket. But as, then, there was no ring in that pocket I presumed that my memory betrayed me, and I had put it in the pocket on the other side. No, there was no ring in that one either. I couldn’t have been such an ass as to have put it into my watch-pocket, and in fact I hadn’t.

Then where was it? In the midst of my suffering I had torn my clothes off anyhow. It was possible that, unnoticed by me, it had found its way out of my pocket, and a refuge on the floor. I went down on my hands and knees. I peered under the bed, under the furniture; I minutely examined every square inch of the carpet. There was no ring there. It was possible that I might have lost the ring on my homeward way. I say it was possible, but it did not seem to me that it was probable. I began to be conscious of a feeling of irritation. When a collector so far yields to the enthusiasm of the moment as to borrow a specimen, he does not like to lose that specimen within half an hour of his having borrowed it. He feels that his collection has suffered a loss. Pugh had spoken of the peculiar properties of the ring. Was the act of self-abstraction one of them? Or—

A terrible suspicion flashed across my brain. Pugh, for all I knew, had shown himself into my room. He had found me asleep in bed – helpless! I knew the man. He was a man who, under certain circumstances, would stick at nothing; a man who would shrink from no trick because it chanced to be a dirty one; a man who was absolutely devoid of a sense of honesty. To add to that lot of trumpery which he calls his collection he would rob his friend. I had not the slightest doubt of it. I knew it as a positive fact.

On one occasion .he had actually stolen my Sir Walter Raleigh pipe, a priceless relic, being the identical pipe which that great man himself had smoked. When he was taken, red-handed, in his crime, he had the audacity to pretend that he had slipped the pipe into his pocket by mistake, wrapped, as it was, inside his pocket-handkerchief. Such a man was capable of anything. It was quite within the range of possibility that he had come into my bedroom, found me wrapped in the slumber of unconscious innocence, and overhauled my clothing. And then he had had the consummate hypocrisy to wake me, and to ask me, smiling all the time – I had observed his smile! – if I had noticed, in his cabinet, his wretched ring. And he had spoken of its peculiar properties! If, the next time I called at his house, he were to show me his cabinet of rings – which he would be sure to do! – and I were to see in it that ring, staring me in the face, I should feel demoralised.

The thing was to find out if he had shown himself into my room.

I rang for Bob. I rang once, I rang twice, I rang thrice; the third time I nearly broke the bell. Still no Bob. I went outside the bedroom door and bawled for him. By the time I had bawled myself hoarse, and was meditating descending to the kitchen in my nightshirt, and kicking him out of the house up the area steps, I heard, below, the sound of somebody stumbling up the stairs. Was it possible that, at that hour of the day, before I was dressed, the man was drunk? It sounded as though he was. Bump, bump, up he came; every moment I expected to hear him go bump, bump down again. At last he came blundering through the bedroom door. “What on earth, you scoundrel, do you mean by getting drunk before I’m dressed? Do you know what time it is? It isn’t noon!”

“I’m not drunk – I wish I were. I’m a dead ’un.”

“You are drunk, sir! I tell you what it is, Bob Haines, I’ve had enough of your villainy, and I’ll send you packing. Who showed Mr. Pugh up into my room?”

“Don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t, you tippling fool!”

“I tell you I’m not drunk, I’m dying. Oh! – Oh!”

Leaning against the wall, he clapped his hand to his side, and groaned. I eyed him. He did not look as though he were drunk, and to do Bob Haines justice, although he has the most capacious and constant thirst of any man I ever knew, I never saw him exhibit any signs of having drunk too much. His is a thirst which nothing shall quench.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I’ve got a pain – here! It’s heartburn! All my veins is bursting! So’s my head.” Curious. From his words and his looks, he appeared to be suffering from an attack exactly similar to that by which I had been overtaken the evening before. I turned away.

“Bob, have you been in my room this morning?”

“Once. You was asleep.”

Oh, I was, was I? Had he overhauled my clothes? What were the peculiar properties attached to that ring of Pugh’s? I did not, in spite of the new and lurid suspicions which were darkening my mind, like to charge Bob Haines then and there with stealing from me the ring which I had borrowed from Pugh in the enthusiasm of the moment. Bob was an old and, comparatively, faithful servant, as servants go – they are all thieves. I did not like to blast his career, to charge him with an act of perfidy – that is, unless the evidence against him was undeniable, and – and until my mind was settled. I myself still was feeling queer. So I sent him out of the room.

“Go away; and, if you must die, die decently, without making all that noise!”

In spite of my command I heard him groan-groaning, as he went bump-bumping down the stairs.

Hardly had he gone than someone made a thundering assault on the hall-door knocker. The door was opened. Someone entered – two persons, apparently. I heard them coming up the stairs. Not only did they come upstairs, but, without a with your leave or by your leave, or rapping at my door, or any sort of form or ceremony, they came into my room, just as I was putting on my trousers. It was that idiot Pugh, accompanied by that, if possible, still greater idiot, Martin Brasher.

“Hallo, Pugh, what have you come back for?”

“I have come back in consequence of a communication made to me by my friend Brasher, whom I chanced to encounter within a dozen yards of your doorstep. I should like to have, with your permission, five minutes’ conversation with you, in the presence of Brasher. Take a chair, Brasher; sit down.” Brasher sat down, on Pugh’s invitation.

Pugh sat down on his own.

“Mr. Tress,I should like once more to ask you – and before you answer I beg that you will bring your mind to bear upon the question – if, when yesterday I was showing you my cabinet of rings, you did not notice a cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, of sixteenth century Italian workmanship?”

What did the fellow mean by pestering me with his ridiculous questions?

“I don’t know, Pugh, what you’re driving at. I can assure you that I haven’t time, or inclination, to notice all your rubbish. I have told you, frankly, more than once, what is my opinion of that cabinet of yours.”

Pugh waved his hands in the air.

“Quite so! Just so! We are quite aware that, as you say, you have more than once shown the extent of your connoisseurship. But that is not the point. The point is, that that particular ring is missing – missing, Tress. And a further point is, that that particular ring is possessed of – peculiar properties.”

“My dear Pugh, I don’t care about its peculiar properties.”

“But I think it just as well that you should care, under the special circumstances. To begin with, that ring belonged to no less a person than Lucrezia Borgia.”

“Lucrezia Jones!”

“Not Jones, but Borgia. Have you never heard of Lucrezia Borgia, Tress? She was a person of some notoriety, though possibly, and even probably, her name may not have come your way.”

Confound his impudence; ignorant ass!

“Lucrezia Borgia, Tress, was a lady who had a partiality for getting rid of her friends, before she robbed them.”

Pausing, Pugh looked steadily at me.

“That was an age of poisoners. In southern Europe they simply swarmed. Poison was Lucrezia’s favourite method of disposing of her friends. Chroniclers tell us that, of all poisoners, she was the queen. She had as many ways of poisoning a friend as a modern chef has of cooking an egg. And one of her ways – Lucrezia’s pretty ways – was by means of poisoned rings.”

I could not help it, but I started. I know that Pugh observed the start, because he immediately indulged in his jaundiced libel on a smile.

“That ring, Tress, which was in my cabinet, and which now is missing, was one of Lucrezia’s poisoned rings.”

I turned away – I was compelled to.

“I don’t know, Pugh, what all this has to do with me, though I, no doubt, ought to thank you for imparting such valuable information.”

“Not at all, Tress, not at all. Permit me to continue. The way in which that ring works – in a poisonous sense – is by wearing it. Put it on your finger, you are poisoned.” I busied myself with the things upon the mantel-shelf, being conscious of a sense of distinct discomfort. I was aware that Pugh was regarding me intently – with unqualified enjoyment – from behind, as, I make no doubt, was that addle-headed Brasher. The plague take Pugh’s twopenny-halfpenny ring! I wished I had never seen it.

“The way in which the fair Lucrezia used to work the oracle was doubtless this: She used herself to put the ring upon the victim’s finger, in that graceful way she had – the woman’s head in white relief is Lucrezia’s own likeness – and that same instant the recipient of the lady’s generosity fell dead. The gift was probably presented in private. There was no eye there to see it given. It was slipped off the finger almost at the same instant in which the lady had slipped it on. It left no trace of its presence behind. The medical verdict was, no doubt, the contemporary equivalent for valvular disease of the heart. The victim had been slain as by a bolt from on high. That peculiarly active virtue which, if the chronicles are true, the ring once possessed, has been modified by time. Now, it does not kill – at once.”

I should like to have thrown Pugh out of the bedroom window; he was simply playing on my nerves.

“Quite recently I have had that ring examined by an eminent toxicologist. The way in which it does its work, in this present year of grace, is this: You place it on your finger – as you, for instance, Tress, might do. That same instant you feel a pain in your side.”

Almost without knowing it, I clapped my hand to my side.

“That pain is accompanied by a throbbing of all the veins in your body, and a feeling as though your head was about to split into pieces.”

The man was simply brutal. I protest that, as he spoke, the symptoms he described returned to me with all their original force.

“You must own, Tress, that it was a little odd that I should have missed the ring directly I missed you. It appears that, as you were leaving my house, Brasher chanced to meet you. It is in consequence of a communication Brasher has made to me, referring to that chance encounter, that I have ventured upon this further interview. Brasher says – I believe, Brasher, that I am right in saying that when you encountered Mr. Tress he appeared to be suffering from indisposition?”

“He did.”

“What appeared to you to be the nature of his indisposition?”

“He appeared to be suffering from a pain in his side. He was almost doubled up, and he had his hands pressed convulsively against the region of his heart.”

“Did you notice anything else?”

“I did. I noticed upon the little finger of his left hand a ring.”

“A ring? Can you tell us, Brasher, what kind of a ring it was which you noticed upon the little finger of his left hand?”

“I can. My eye was struck by it at once. First, because, although I have known Tress for many years, I never before saw him wear a ring. And, second, because the ring itself was a remarkable ring.”

“Not the sort of ring which an ordinary English gentleman would be likely to wear during his walks abroad?”

“Certainly not.”

“Describe it, Brasher.”

“It was a large oval-shaped cameo. It had a cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief.

It was set in gold, curiously chased. It struck me as being an antique, probably Italian, of the sixteenth century.”

What eyes that Brasher has!

“You are quite sure, Tress, that when, yesterday, I was showing you my cabinet of rings you did not notice a cameo ring, cream ground, woman’s head in white relief, of sixteenth century Italian workmanship?”

I sank down upon the bed. I was doubled up with pain – it had all come back again.

“Pugh, what’s the antidote?”

“The antidote, Tress? To what?”

“To that confounded ring of yours!”

“Tress!” He pretended to be shocked. Rising from his chair, he let his stick fall to the floor with a clatter. “Is it possible that you – you! can have robbed your friend, the oldest friend you have in the world! I thought you capable of most things – of palming off the most trumpery rubbish as a priceless relic – but I never thought you capable of theft, from a friend! Oh, Tress! Tress! that it should have come to this!”

He groaned – the hypocrite!

“What’s the antidote?”

“The best antidote I can recommend is, primarily, the return of the stolen property.”

“I haven’t got it!”

“Tress! Don’t add another perjury – you, who are perhaps a dying man.”

“I haven’t! I slipped it into my waistcoat pocket by mistake.”

“You slipped it into your pocket by mistake? I see. That explains how it was you didn’t notice it. That also explains how it was you happened to be wearing it when Brasher met you in the street.”

“It struck me senseless! I believe I’m dying now! I put it into my waistcoat pocket. When I looked for it this morning, it was gone. I thought – you had come in – when I was sleeping – found it – and taken it again.”

“You thought! Tress, consider! Even now your moments may be numbered!”

“Oh-h! Ring the bell, and tell them to send me up some brandy!”

Instead of doing as I requested, and as common humanity directed, he began to preach at me to Brasher.

“Brasher, this man has been my friend for over thirty years. Look at him now, and ponder! I have helped him in his collection. You know my taste, what I may call my genius for the discovery of real antiques. If it had not been for me he would not have possessed the few articles of any value which his collection now contains.”

Oh, if I had been sufficiently master of myself to kick him!

“And how does he show his gratitude? I will tell you. He breaks into my house like a highwayman, and ransacks all my most precious stores. He knows that I possess, for an amateur – a mere amateur, Brasher – one of the finest collections in Europe. He is green with envy, racked by covetous desires. He fixes his mind upon one of the finest gems in my collection, a relic for which crowned heads – crowned heads, Brasher! – might sigh in vain, and which nonetheless, so marvellously strong is my natural born instinct as a connoisseur, I picked up at a little town in Italy for less than fifteen shillings.”

“More than it was worth.”

“You hear him, Brasher, you hear him say that that was more than it was worth? But though he says it, he has sufficient knowledge, even in the midst of his wallowing ignorance, to be aware that it is of priceless value. But his knowledge goes no further. He does not know, what I, the true connoisseur, perceived at once, that in the hands of an ignorant man the ring would deal death and danger. So he steals it – from me, his friend! Within a very few minutes his misdeed finds him out. You saw him struggling with death – we see him struggling now! Brasher, look on him now, and ponder!”

“When you have quite finished, perhaps you’ll ring the bell.”

“I have not finished, but I will ring the bell. And when I have rung it, I will begin again.”

“Oh!”

Brasher rang.

“Ring again.”

He did.

“Smash the bell!”

He almost did.

“Bob’s drunk.”

Pugh turned to Brasher. He put his hands behind his back. He wagged his head.

“Like master, like man!”

“Go downstairs and kick him.”

“No, Tress, I will not go downstairs and kick him. You hear Mr. Tress, Brasher, asking me to go downstairs to kick his servant? Unfortunately, that’s the kind of man he is.”

We waited; I expected I should have to go downstairs myself. Then there was a sound of somebody coming lumbering up the stairs; I knew it was Bob. At last he blundered into the room.

“Oh!” he gasped, and collapsed against the wall.

At that same moment a paroxysm overtook me too. Pugh addressed himself to Bob.

“Well, my man, I’m sorry to see you in this condition.”

“Not so sorry as I am – I’m a dead ’un.”

Brasher took Pugh by the arm.

“It’s a curious coincidence, Mr. Pugh, but this person appears to be suffering in precisely the same manner as Mr. Tress was suffering when I encountered him yesterday evening at the corner of the Edgware Road.”

Pugh turned to me; I was literally doubled up with pain.

“And as Mr. Tress is suffering now. I have it!” Pugh snapped his fingers in the air. “Tress, do you really mean that that ring is missing – that you don’t know where it is?”

“I do.”

“Then you have taken it!” Pugh turned to Bob. “So true it is that as the master so the man. You have stolen from your master the ring which your master stole from me!”

Pugh pointed his finger at Bob as if he – Pugh – were an accusing spirit. In the midst of his agony, Bob seemed to be taken aback.

“What d’ye say?”

“I say, and I say it again, that you – you too, have dipped your hands in crime. Fit associate of such a man!”

“Look here, Pugh, I wish you wouldn’t speak of me like that to my own servant.”

“But I will, Tress, I will. I will probe, at all hazards, to the bottom of this long-drawn-out crime.” He returned to Bob. “Villain, confess your guilt. You have stolen from your master the ring of which he previously had plundered me.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t know nothing about no ring.”

“Brasher, come here; look at this man. You know something of the working of – poisons.”

“Poisons!”

Bob staggered back against the friendly wall.

“Look at this man’s face – look at it closely. Do you not perceive, in the working of the muscles of his countenance, something strange and ghastly?”

“I do,” said Brasher; “I see it most distinctly.”

He would have been a fool if he didn’t, considering the spectacle which Bob just then presented.

“Do you see a convulsive twitching?”

“I do.”

“Do you see an ashen pallor?”

“Most undoubtedly.”

“A startled look about the eyes?”

“I see all that.”

“Man, the ring which you stole from your master’s waistcoat pocket was—”

Bob gave himself away.

“What?”

“A poisoned ring.”

Bob sprang at least six inches from the ground.

“If you put that ring on your finger, though only for an instant, you are doomed.”

“Oh!” groaned Bob.

“Do you feel a pain in your side?”

Bob groaned again.

“Do you feel as if all your veins were filled with fire?”

Another groan.

“Do you feel as if your head were about to burst into a thousand atoms?”

Another groan, still louder than before.

“Wretched man, time is short. Tell us how long you wore this ill-fated gem, in order that we may, if possible, take measures to save you from the doom you have so justly merited. But first, before anything can be done, you must give me back the ring.”

“I haven’t got it.”

“Where is it then?”

Bob drew himself upright, to the best of his ability, with his back against the wall. He looked round the room with ghastly eyes.

“I never see’d such a house as this in all my days.”

“That I can easily believe, my man. And I trust that it may never be your ill-fortune to look on such another.”

As he gave vent to this fervent desire of his heart, Pugh’s eyes were fixed on me.

“I come up into this room this morning to see if master was awake. Cook had told me that he came in drunk last night.”

“She lied!” I roared.

“It was a natural error,” commented Brasher. “My own first impression, when I saw you yesterday evening at the corner of the Edgware Road, was that you were suffering from over-indulgence in strong drink.”

Thus is a man robbed of his good name! Bob went on—

“He wasn’t. He was sound asleep. I never see a man so sound asleep. I says to myself, ‘He must have raised his elbow. I know what he can swallow.’”

“You hear, Brasher, what is the servant’s opinion of the master?”

Only wait! I would have a settlement with Bob.

“There was his clothes littered all over the place. I sets to put ’em straight. As I picks up the waistcoat, something falls out of one of the pockets. It was a ring.”

“A ring,” said Pugh. “Just so – a ring!”

“It was a trumpery thing—”

“My man!” said Pugh.

“I picks it up and looks at it; it was a trumpery thing, not worth tuppence-hapenny!”

“Brasher, you hear this man – you hear him? My good fellow, that ring is a relic of the Borgias!”

“I don’t know nothing about no boarders. I says to myself when I sees it, and I says to you, that I never see a commoner-looking article.”

It sounds incredible, but I chuckled. I resolved to forgive him everything.

“The man’s ignorance,” cried Pugh, “is as colossal as the master’s!”

“It was just a dirty white stone with another stone stuck on top of it, like a woman’s head.”

“So he describes one of the finest cameos that was ever touched by an Italian graver!”

“The ring itself was brass.”

“Brass! It’s the finest gold.”

“Don’t tell me! I know gold when I see it, and I know brass. I’ve seen heaps and heaps of rings like that, and better, at fairs; pay your penny and you takes your choice.”

“Brasher, this man is like the ring – unique!”

“I takes a squint at it, and I sees it was a common-looking article, and I says to myself, ‘This ain’t worth nothing to nobody.’ I was just going to put it back in the pocket, when it comes across me, sudden, ‘This is the very ring for cook!’”

Pugh gasped.

“For cook?”

“For cook.”

“And why – why for cook?”

“Well, I don’t mind saying it, if I’ve got to say it.” Bob looked determined. “I’ve been engaged to cook – nine years, she says it is, and I’ve never given her an engagement ring yet. She’s always bothering me for one, so when I sees this ring wasn’t worth nothing to nobody, I says to myself, ‘This is the very thing for an engagement ring for cook.’”

Pugh took out his handkerchief. He wiped his brow. “The very thing for an engagement ring for cook – that relic of the Borgias – the ring which was once the property of the fair Lucrezia herself! Brasher, don’t – don’t give way. Go on, my man, go on.”

“I puts it into my pocket, and as I was going upstairs to my room, who should I see but cook.

“‘Cook,’ I says, ‘have you got half a crown?’  ‘What for?’ she says. ‘For me,’ I says. ‘No,’ she says, ‘I haven’t.’  ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I don’t quite like telling you, but the fact is, I’ve been spending a good bit of money on you lately, and it’s left me rather short.’” Bob drew the back of his hand across his lips. “I never did like giving something for nothing, no matter to who it is. ‘On me! ‘ she says. ‘I’ll believe in your spending a brass farthing on anybody but yourself when I sees it.’  ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’ve been buying you a ring.’  ‘A ring!’ she says. She turned quite yeller.”

Bob grinned. Pugh and Brasher didn’t know what to make of it at all. I knew the blackguard.

“‘Yes,’ I says, ‘I’ve been buying you one of the finest rings that ever yet you saw. Look at that now!’ I takes it out of my pocket, and I holds it out in front of her. She didn’t think nothing of it; I knew she wouldn’t. She ain’t such a fool as she looks. ‘What, that dirty, tawdry, second-hand looking thing,’ she says. ‘Why, it ain’t worth tuppence.’  ‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,’ I says. ‘That ring’s worth a whole heap of money. If I was to tell you what I gave for that ring you wouldn’t believe me. I only come on it accidental like. I calls it a handsome ring.’  ‘Well, I don’t,’ she says, ‘I calls it hideous – I wouldn’t be seen with such a thing on a finger of mine, not me!’  ‘Ah,’ I says, ‘wait till you sees it on the human hand.’ And I slips it on the little finger of my right hand – just to show it off like. Oh, my crikey!” Bob doubled himself up in the middle. “I was took with such a pain in the side I was obliged to holler. ‘What’s wrong now?’ she says. ‘Take the ring,’ I says. And I takes it off my finger, I don’t know how, and gives it her, and I makes straight for my bedroom, and I chucks myself upon the bed – I was that bad!”

Pugh looked at Bob. Then he looked at Brasher.

“Brasher, is it not strange, is it not more than strange, that in this age of so-called enlightenment there should exist in a civilised country such a master and such a man? Whether to blame more the master or the man it passes my wisdom to pronounce. It is true that the man is an ignorant creature, but then so also is the master. But it certainly, to me, does seem incredible that any creature having any pretensions, even the most shadowy pretensions, to even legal intellect, should present that priceless relic of the Borgias – Lucrezia’s own ring – to a cook!”

“But how about the cook?” inquired Brasher. “If she puts—”

The room door was thrown wide open. Mary, the housemaid, came rushing in.

“If you please, sir, I believe that cook’s a-dying!”

“A-dying, Mary?”

“She’s been up in her bedroom ever so long, and I went up to see what she was doing, because there’s nothing done for our dinner – no potatoes, nor nothing; and there she was lying on the bed, groaning awful. If you please, sir, I believe that cook’s a-dying.”

And Mary, who is a sensitive creature, at least so I should imagine, wept – I don’t know why.

“It’s the ring!” said Brasher.

We went up to cook in a body. First Mary, then Brasher, then Pugh, then me, then Bob – who apparently did not care to be left behind, though it was all that he could do to stagger. It was the ring, there was no doubt about it. That love-offering of the faithful Bob had all but done for her, if one might judge from the way in which she was behaving. I have seldom heard a woman make more noise; it had not deprived her of the use of her lungs. We heard her squealing as we came along the passage. When we entered the room her squeals redoubled.

“There is the ring!” said Pugh, pointing at her with his outstretched hand.

There was the ring, on cook’s engagement finger, the third finger of her left hand – the love-token of a faithful heart, of a nine years’ old engagement, the cameo ring, cream ground, with a woman’s head in white relief, sixteenth century Italian workmanship, that relic of the Borgias, Lucrezia’s pretty plaything. Finding herself in possession of that speaking symbol of Bob’s fond love, she had been unable to resist the temptation of seeing how it really did look upon the human hand. She had put it on to see. The immediate result was that she was lying there upon the bed.

“Brasher,” said Pugh, “if it is true that the dead are conscious of the acts of the living, how, at this moment, the great Lucrezia must be writhing in her grave!”

— III —

Well, I survived, or I should not be telling this tale; and Bob survived, and cook. And I do not know that either of us is the worse for our experience of the peculiar characteristics of the fair Lucrezia’s pretty plaything. Last week cook was married to Bob. A nicely assorted couple they bid fair to make.

Yet we might have been worse – much worse, easily. Pugh allowed me, in one of his rare moments of affability, to submit the ring to a minute examination, and I herewith acquit him of exaggerating its natural wickedness. He has his gifts in that direction; but no man could paint that diabolical illustration of mediaeval fiendishness worse than it deserved, not even Pugh. The ring itself was hollow. When you put it on your finger, directly it came into contact with the flesh, two minute needles were released, one on either side, which had sufficient penetrating force to introduce the poison, which was contained in the reservoir-like circlet, beneath the cuticle. This poison must, originally, have been of an extraordinarily active character, for, after the passage of probably more than three hundred years, it still retained sufficient of its force, so soon as the tiniest drop found its way beneath the scarf-skin, to impregnate the entire system, rushing through the veins with inconceivable rapidity, and instantly affecting the action of the heart.

In its youth it must have slain with lightning-like rapidity, since in its belated old age it could use folks as it had done Bob and cook and me.

The ring is still in Pugh’s collection, what is left of it. By the exercise of great skill and care I succeeded in taking it to pieces – wonderfully ingenious mechanism had been contrived by its criminal constructor – but I was not so successful in putting the pieces together again. Pugh says that is my stupidity, which shows his ignorance. However, there are the fragments. Should any person desire to learn what could be planned in the way of wickedness three hundred and fifty years ago, he had better give Pugh a call.

P.S. I presented cook with her engagement ring. Bob and she seemed to have a vague impression that I ought to – so I did.

The Kit-Bag

Whenever I see a kit-bag, a curious feeling comes all over me.

I was in the Metropolitan Police Force over thirty years. I have now retired on a sergeant’s pension. During the whole time I was a policeman I only once came into personal contact with anything very remarkable – I mean, out of the ordinary run of “drunks,” assaults, felonies, burglaries, and that kind of thing. On that occasion a kit-bag played a pretty conspicuous part. So, to this hour, whenever I see one, I look at it out of the corner of my eye, as it were, and I ask myself a question.

I had then joined six years. I was attached to the Hampstead division. At that time I was on night duty. The particular night on which it happened was that of the sixth of September. A Tuesday it was. I am never likely to forget it. It was nasty weather. There had been a deal of wet during the day; and though when I left home it was not actually raining, there was a touch of fog about, and it was colder than one likes to have it at that time of the year, especially night. I had had home worries. I left home, in consequence, a little later than I cared to do, for it was a good step from my place to the station-house. I was not sure my watch was quite right. Fearing that it might be later than I supposed, as I passed, I looked in at St. John’s Wood railway station to compare their clock with mine. The last train must have just come in. They seemed to be on the point of closing the premises. The booking-office was empty, with the exception of one thing, a kit-bag. It stood against the wall close to the glass doors which led into the refreshment-room. To the best of my belief, that was the first time I had ever seen a thing of the kind – that is, to notice it. I fancy they must have been novelties in those days. And I’ve never seen a larger one than that was since. It looked brand new. I don’t know how it was, but, as I said to my wife afterwards, directly I saw it I felt uncomfortable. I can’t explain it; I am not trying to; but there the feeling was.

I left the bag still in sole possession of the booking-office and hurried off to the station-house, for, as it turned out, my watch was a trifle slow. I went out with the rest of the chaps who were on the night shift.

Part of my beat lay past a row of houses which was called Quarnley Terrace. Decent-sized houses they were, standing back from the road. A strip of ground was in front of each, shut off from the public by a low stuccoed wall, surmounted by stuccoed pilasters. This was backed – at least, in most cases – by a tree or two, some shrubs, and that kind of thing, the whole forming an effectual screen.

My wife had been ill all day, and when I came away was worse. If I had not known that it would mean trouble, I should have stayed with her. Altogether, I was in a pretty state of mind; because, after all, though some people do not seem to think so, a policeman is a man. I had arranged with them at home that I should be at certain points at certain times. If anything happened, they were to bring me news at once. One of these points was the corner of Quarnley Terrace. I was hanging about there, all of a tremor of anxiety, when I saw, hurrying up Acacia Road, a girl. It was Lizzie, my wife’s sister. In another half minute she was at my side, all out of breath.

“It’s all right – it’s a boy,” she said.

“A boy!” I gasped, for the news sort of caught me in the wind. “And how’s Mary?”

“She’s all right. They’re both of them all right – doing famously. Couldn’t be better, the doctor says. But I can’t stop; I only ran out to let you know.”

She did not stop – not longer than to exchange another dozen words. Presently she was scurrying back again, and I was marching along past Quarnley Terrace.

You feel queer the first time you are a father. I dare say when you have had a dozen or so, the addition of one or two more does not much matter. But the first time you know that a baby has just been born you, it is different. At least, it was with me. You feel, all at once, that you have a new outlook on to the world. I know I did. What with thinking of the baby; and what I should call him; and whether I should make a policeman of him when his time came; and wondering how Mary was; and what she would say to me in the morning; and what I should say to her – I can tell you that I was in a nice sort of a fluster. My thoughts were not much occupied with the preservation of law and order. I dare say that I should have walked on and on, all through the night, thinking of Mary and the baby, and the baby and Mary, if, suddenly, I had not heard a sound.

It was only a little one, so slight a sound that the wonder was that, in my then mental state, I heard it at all. But I did; and, what was more, I recognised it, too. It was the click of a catch, a window-catch. It came from the house which I was passing. I glanced round. There, on the newly painted pillar, visible even in the darkness, was the number – 20. In an instant I was through the gate and was flashing my bull’s eye onto the premises.

I had not been mistaken. There, on the sill of the bow window on the first floor, was a man.

“What are you doing there?” I asked, though the question was unnecessary, since it was plain enough what he was doing he was trying to gain entrance into the house by means of the window. He had an open clasp-knife in his hand, with whose aid he had just shot back the catch of the window, which was the sound I had heard. Although I had probably taken him entirely by surprise, so far as I could see, he did not make the slightest attempt at concealment, nor did he seem to be in any way disconcerted. Indeed, he confronted me with what looked uncommonly like a smile.

He certainly did not present the type of figure which one generally associates with burglary. He was a very big man. Even in the crouching attitude which he necessarily assumed upon the windowsill, still I guessed him at over six feet. He seemed to be well dressed. At that time of night he wore a top-hat and kid gloves. He looked like a gentleman. I was presently to learn that he spoke like one.

“I’m burgling my own house,” he answered.

“Burgling your own house? What do you mean? Do you live here?”

“I do. My name is Walter Parsons, and I am the occupier of these premises.”

The name conveyed nothing to me. had only been on the beat a week or two, and knew nothing of the inhabitants. ignorant of their names, their appearance, their occupations, everything. But the speaker could hardly be aware of that. For all he could tell, I might have the history of the locality at my finger ends, and a portrait of every one of its inhabitants in my mind’s eye. He spoke with an easy assurance, which seemed to take it for granted that, as a prominent resident upon my beat, he must be a familiar figure to me, and that I knew all about him. But, in spite of that – I have been laughed at for saying it before, because I had nothing to go on then; but I say it again – there was something about my gentle man up there on the windowsill which made me doubtful.

“If you live there, why don’t you go into your own house by the proper way – through the front door?”

“Because I can’t. My wife and family are at Hastings. The place is supposed to be in charge of a caretaker, but it seems that her idea of caretaking does not include sleeping on the premises at night. I’ve been knocking and ringing for the last ten minutes.”

“I didn’t hear any knocking.”

“Didn’t you? Perhaps your attention was engaged elsewhere.”

As a matter of fact,that had been the case. Still, as I had beard the click of the window catch, it seemed to me that I ought to have heard the banging of a knocker, especially if he had been at it anything like as long as he said he had. I told him so. His reply was ironical.

“My good Mr. Constable, if you would like to try your hand at hammering, you can – till all’s blue, and all the neighbourhood showers blessings on your head. Or if you wish to arrest me for entering my own house anyhow I like – down the chimney, if I choose – you may. In the meantime, I’ve got the window open.”

He pushed it up as he spoke. “I’m going in. I’ll come and open the front door for you, and then I’ll give you every possible proof that I’m merely an in offensive householder who’s been duped by a rascally caretaker.”

He went in. I did not see how I could stop him, even if I had felt disposed to try, which I am not sure I was. A pretty figure I should have cut if I had attempted to use force to prevent him from entering his own house – as he put it himself – in any way he liked. One of my mates had had a wigging only a day or two before for what looked like over-anxiety to get up a case. I didn’t want any of that sort of thing at my address.

The man’s manner was plausibility itself; for the matter of that, so was his tale. Caretakers do not always take care; and gentlemen do sometimes have to get into their own houses by the front window. I decided to give him a chance to do as he said – open the front door and show his right to behave as he had been doing. But if that front door were not open in double quick time, then – why, then there would be trouble.

In he got; down came the window – I had rather it had not particularly as I distinctly heard him latch it. But there, again, I did not see how I could object to a man shutting his own front window. Then I waited – longer than I cared for – so long that I began to fidget. I started wondering what would happen if I really had been done. A nice sort of character I should have been made to look. I had come to the end of my patience, and was just about to begin a little assault and battery upon that door which would have roused the neighbourhood, when it opened. There stood my gentleman, with a light shining out into the hall from a room somewhere at the back.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, officer. I had to get a light. Couldn’t introduce you to pitch darkness. Come in.”

I hesitated. Our instructions were never to enter a private house when on duty except for what seemed very sufficient reasons. On the whole, I concluded that those reasons were present then. I entered. Shutting the door behind me, he led the way into a room behind – the room in which the light was. It seemed to be a sort of sitting-room, but it was in such a condition of disorder that it was not easy to tell. The furniture was covered with newspapers, and dust-cloths, and that kind of thing. So far appearances bore out his statement that the family was at the seaside. He offered a sort of apology.

“You see how things are. Nice place for a man to come home to, isn’t it? This is what happens when one’s household transfers itself to the sea.”

“How come you not to have a key?” I asked.

“That’s it. When I left Hastings this morning, I meant to return this evening; instead of which, I missed the train. So I wired to my wife and decided to come on here; when I got here, found the caretaker had taken French leave; and it was then, and only then, that I found I had come away without a key. As I didn’t propose to be kept out of my own house, I tried the window. That caretaker is a beauty.”

“Some of them are not so reliable as they might be.”

“This is one of them. Well, constable, I hope you’re satisfied. Hallo! there’s something here.”

Going to the fireplace, he took a photograph off the mantel and handed it to me.

“There you are, my portrait – Walter Parsons, Esquire – at your service. I hope that’s proof enough even for you.”

It was his portrait, and an uncommonly good likeness, too. As he put it, it did seem proof enough.

“It seems all right. I’m sorry if I’ve annoyed you; but when we see anyone trying to get through a window at this hour of the night, we’re bound to say something. I should sack that caretaker if I were you.”

“I shall. Of course, I understand that you only did your duty. Have a little whisky before you go.”

“Thank you, sir. I don’t touch spirits as a rule.”

“Then make this an exception.”

There was a bottle and some glasses on the table. He poured something out of the bottle into one of the glasses. Adding what seemed water from a jug, he handed it to me. I doubt if at that time I had drunk whisky half-a-dozen times in my life; but I thought I would have a taste just then, if only to do honour to a toast which I kept to myself – the health of a certain young gentleman, not to speak of his mother. But hardly had I touched the stuff with my lips when I put the glass back again upon the table. It was that bitter – I had never tasted anything like it.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, but it doesn’t seem right.”

He took up the glass and sniffed at it.

“It doesn’t. That caretaker again. Some pretty tricks the dear creature seems to have been play I’m afraid I’ve no other refreshment to offer you. Here’s five shillings.”

He held out two half-crowns.

“I’m obliged to you, sir; but I’d rather not take it, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind – if you don’t. You’re the first man in blue I’ve met who refused a tip. You appear to be a model officer, an all-round credit to the force.”

Whether or not he meant it, I did not know and did not care. I went along the hall. He showed me out.

Directly I was in the street again, all my doubts returned. That there was something wrong, I felt a kind of persuasion. Whether it was something that called for my interference, was another question. I decidedly had nothing to go on up to then. But whether my gentleman was or was not Mr. Walter Parsons, and whether he was or was not the rightful tenant of No. 20, Quarnley Terrace, on one point I was clear – and that was that he had something on his mind. Something unpleasant, too. There had been two or three things which I could not help but notice. One thing was that, in spite of the coolness of the night, he was in a muck of perspiration, a fact of which he seemed himself to be unconscious. When he removed his hat, it stood in beads upon his forehead, and his hair was clammy with it. Yet, while he sweated, there was an odd pallor on his face, and that though I felt sure that ordinarily he was florid. me the impression of a man who had recently had a tremendous shock. While he spoke with such an appearance of calm assurance, when he took hold of the bottle, his hand shook so that it was a wonder he did not spill the contents on the table. I had observed, too, the curious keenness with which he had watched me take up the glass, and how queerly he had started when I put it down.

“But it’s no good my fancying things,” I told myself, like some old woman. “The gentleman may have plenty of worries which have nothing to do with anyone but himself, and least of all with me. What I’ve got to do is to keep an eye upon the house – a particular eye; and if anything further happens, make sure that I am the first to know of it. While I am about it, I may as well make a note of what has happened up to now.”

I took out my pocket-book and made a note. When I had finished and was putting back the book again, all at once I felt as if the ground were slipping away from underneath my feet. My head seemed to swim; everything about me seemed to be in sudden movement; I felt as if I had no legs left to stand upon. If it had not been that I reeled back against the wall, and that that was there to support me, I believe that I should have gone with a cracker onto the ground. The sensation continued for some seconds, and while it lasted I remained propped up against the wall. If the sergeant had come along just then, he would have said I had been drinking. And so I had – about the tenth part of a small teaspoonful of whisky-and-water. What would have happened if I had taken more, was what I was beginning to wonder. When the feeling as if the end of the world had come began to fade away, there came into my mouth instead a nauseous bitterness, and my head started throbbing as if it were going to burst.

“I couldn’t feel worse if I’d been on the drink for a fortnight.”

My pocket-book had fallen onto the pavement. As I stooped forward to pick it up, another wave of giddiness swept over me. Before I could recover myself forward, I went right on to my face. By the time I was back upon my feet, I was in a nice state of mud and dirt, and in a nice rage, too. I turned and shook my fist towards No. 20.

“You – angel! So the whisky hocussed, was it? Don’t talk to me about a caretaker! You did it yourself! All right, Mr. Walter Parsons, that may be one to you – though it’s not so big a one as you intended. But before I have done with you, the laugh will be all upon the other side.”

I suppose, looking back, the stuff in the whisky, the feeling I had been done, the tumble I had had, the dirt which I had picked up from the pavement – all these things together had got into my head and caused me to make a bit of an ass of myself. It is not part of a policeman’s duty to stand in the middle of the pavement and shake his fist at people’s houses, no matter what provocation he may have received. The various little items enumerated above had combined to upset my mental as well as my physical equilibrium. When I surveyed my uniform – what I could see of it – and recognised that it was plastered with slime, and felt the dirt upon my face, I do think that made me worse than anything. In those days I prided myself on being as neat as a new pin. No one had seen a speck of unnecessary dirt upon my uniform ever since I joined the force. It did make me mad to think that I had got myself into that state through my gentleman at No. 20. I fancy that it was that almost before anything else which made me determined to be even with him some how. What I should say to the sergeant when he came along and saw the mess I was in, was more than I could tell. He would want some explanation before he could be brought to understand why or how I had laid myself flat on my face on the filthy pavement.

I had half a mind to go straight back and charge him then and there with an attempt to hocus. But a moment’s reflection showed me that I had not the slightest evidence to go upon. The contents of the bottle and glass had probably already been emptied down the sink. Or if not, I should still have to prove that he was responsible for their condition, which would be very far from easy. There might be a caretaker in the matter, after all.

“Caretaker!” I grumbled to myself, “There’s a lot of caretaker about it, I’ve no doubt. I’d like to caretaker him.”

Quarnley Terrace was situate in what was called The Grove. The Grove was perhaps half a mile in length. The whole of it was in my beat. I was reluctant to go too far away from No. 20, though I doubt if I should have been able to give a really satisfactory reason; while, on the other hand, I was conscious that if I were not careful, it might – and probably would – be worse for me. I looked at my watch. The odds were that in less than sixty seconds the sergeant would reach the point right at the other end of the road and expect to find me there awaiting him. If he did not find me, and I could furnish no adequate reason for my absence – and, under such circumstances, a sergeant has his own idea of what an adequate reason is – there would be a nice how-d’ye-do. Off I started, walking at the rate of six miles an hour, when – as before – I heard a sound.

It should be understood that everything was very still. There was no wind. It was one of those nights when the slightest unusual noise attracts one’s attention even when it is at a considerable distance. I suppose that was how I came to hear that sound then, because it was not a loud one, and it proceeded from some way behind me. It was like the falling of some solid body, as if, for instance, someone had thrown something out of a window, and it had come with a thud on to the ground. Stopping on the instant, I stood with every faculty of hearing on the alert.

Stillness. Then – something else. A swishing noise, as if a heavy body were being drawn along the pavement. I did not require to be told from whence it came. I said to myself that it came from No. 20.

Oblivious of the point at the end of the road, without a moment’s hesitation I turned and doubled back upon my tracks. As I went, I heard something else – distinctly. The closing of a door. That finished it. If Mr. Walter Parsons had been so anxious to get into his house that he had had to effect an entry through the window, why, at that hour of the night, was he already leaving it again? I tore along at the top of my speed, expecting every moment to see his figure emerge into the roadway. If it had done so, there would have been a chase. But it did not. When I reached No. 20, I paused in my impetuous career. I thought it quite possible that Mr. Parsons was hiding behind a pillar, or a shrub, or something, and might jump out and give me one before I was prepared. A man who would hocus a drink would be game for anything. But though I stood still for a moment or two, to give him a chance, nothing happened. Then, flattering myself that I was prepared for anything, I began to move through the gate into the pitch-black garden. Still nothing. I listened. If my gentleman were hiding among the shrubs, then he kept very still. It would be madness for me to search for him in that darkness; so I turned the shutter of my lantern and flashed the light about the little slip of garden. And, behold! there was nothing.

Stop! There was!

As the circle of light moved round, it passed over a flowerbed. There I let it rest. At one place the flowers were all broken and crushed, as though some heavy object which had been on them had pressed them flat against the earth. The flowers in the rest of the bed were right enough. The damage had been confined to that one part. Just in front of where the mischief was – on the front door side – there was a mark on the edge of the bed, and on the bit of grass, which looked as if it had been caused by something which had been dragged along the ground.

I closed my lantern and stood again to listen. All was silent. The house was in darkness. Not a glimmer of light at any of the windows. Nothing to show that anyone had noticed my presence, or that there was anything alive within. Under the circumstances I felt that I should be justified in pointing out to whomever might be within, that the front door had recently been opened and shut, and that something – queer or otherwise – had been playing the mischief with that front garden. Ascending the steps, I knocked smartly. No one answered.

“Come, Mr. Walter Parsons, you can’t be asleep already, so it’s no good pretending that you are. And you must have heard that knock. So you may as well take the trouble to come and see who’s here. But if you won’t, I’ll try again.”

I tried again. I brought the knocker down against the door three or four times – good, hearty blows, Still there was no sign to show that the noise I made had been audible within. I went down the steps, intending to run over the front of the house once more with my bull’s-eye,to see if anyone were peeping at me through a window, or anything of that sort. As I did so, someone spoke to me from behind.

“Why aren’t you on your point? Is there anything wrong here?”

It was my sergeant’s voice. I could not have said, just at the moment, if I was glad to hear it, or sorry.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Do you know if anyone lives here of the name of Parsons – Walter Parsons?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Is he a tall, big-made man, with a heavy moustache?”

“There is a gentleman lives here named Walter Parsons, but he’s not in the least like your description. I know him well by sight. He’s a very little man, with a brown beard; I don’t suppose he’s over five feet high.”

“Then there is something wrong. I thought as much.”

“What do you mean? Look alive! What’s happened?”

I told him what had happened, trying to look as much alive as I could manage, and to cram as much of the story as possible into the space which, so to speak, was at my command. He listened until, I suppose, he thought he had heard enough. Then he cut me short.

“That’ll do. I’ll have the rest later. The man you let go through the window is no more Mr. Parsons than I am. It strikes me you’ve done a pretty nice thing, my lad. What we’ve got to do now is to find out who your friend is, and where he is.”

Mounting the steps in his turn, the sergeant played a lively tune upon the knocker. While we were waiting for the answer which did not come, he kept shooting questions at me, commenting on my answers in a way which made me turn hot and cold at once. Sergeant Ives was a smart officer; he got nearly to the top of the tree in the force before he died; but when he chose, he had a tongue which rasped like a file.

Seeing that not the slightest apparent notice was taken of the din which he had made, he asked me still another question, the clincher.

“I suppose you haven’t been dreaming, and that you are sure the man you describe did go through the window?”

Had I been dreaming? Was I sure? My manner when I replied ought to have dispelled any fragment of doubt he might have had on that point, unless he took me for a first-class liar, or an A1 idiot, or the pair of them.

“I’m as sure that I’ve told you exactly what took place, as I am that you and I are standing here.”

“All right! Keep your temper! You’ll want all you’ve got, by the look of things, a little later on! Then if you are sure, we’ve got to get into this house somehow.”

Smash! Smash! Smash! Smash! He went again at the knocker. The wonder was he did not burst the door right in. I will lay odds he shook it. One would have thought the clatter he made would have roused the whole neighbourhood. matter of fact, hardly had he stopped bang-banging, than a window went up above our heads, and a voice called out to us.

“Who’s that making that noise down there?”

My heart went up into my mouth. I imagined that we had roused my gentleman at last; and that he would hardly shout at us in that cock-a-doodle tone of voice if he had not some sort of right to be where he was; and that, in consequence, I should be out of the wood. But I was mistaken, as a momentary upward glance proved. The window had not been opened at No. 20 at all, but at No. 19, next door, and the individual who was leaning, half out of it was not my gentleman, but somebody else entirely.

The sergeant spoke to him.

“Do you know the people who live in this house?”

“I do.”

“Is the name Parsons?”

“It is.”

“Do you know if Mr. Parsons has come home tonight?”

“I know that he hasn’t. He is staying with his family at Hastings. I had a letter from him this morning to say that they are returning on Saturday. If it had been his intention to return tonight, he would certainly have let me know.”

“Someone who calls himself Walter Parsons, and who says that the caretaker has gone out, and that he left his key behind, not long ago got into the house through the window.”

“Caretaker! key! There is no caretaker; and the key’s in my charge. Some member of my family goes into the house each day to see that everything’s all right.”

“Then if you have the key, it strikes me that you’d better come down and let us in, to see who that party is and what he’s up to.”

“I’ll be with you in half a minute.”

The speaker’s head and shoulders were withdrawn. The window through which he had thrust them was closed. We awaited his reappearance down below. And while we waited, the sergeant improved the fleeting moments by firing off in my direction some observations of an agreeable nature.

“It occurs to me, my lad, that you’ve perhaps managed to set yourself up for the rest of your life. You mayn’t be aware of it,but it’s not generally supposed to be part of a policeman’s duty to give a burglar a leg up through the window of the crib he’s engaged in cracking, though the members of the force might be more popular in certain quarters if it were.”

I let him talk. I knew better than to put in my oar. It was understood that if you let Sergeant Ives have his say all to himself, and talk himself right out, then that was about all there was to it. But if you tried talking back, why, then you might look out for ructions. Yet when he spoke to me in that strain, it was only the thought of Mary and of that new son of mine which helped me to keep my tongue back between my teeth. I endeavoured to console myself by resolving that what the sergeant was giving me I would add to the balance I owed “Mr. Walter Parsons,” and make it even – and a trifle over – with him. I was not proposing to let any man get me treated as if I were a half-baked sawney for nothing at all. There are those, maybe, who let people jump on them, and ask for more. But I am not one.

By the time the gentleman from next door put in an appearance on the scene, I was as nearly bursting with rage as I ever was in the whole course of my life. In another second or two, I should have had to open a safety-valve to let something off.

“Got the key?” asked the sergeant.

“Yes, I have the key. And I also have a bad cold. I don’t want to make it worse. I hope you’re not bringing me out of my warm bed, at this time of night, and in this sort of weather, for nothing at all.”

“Then I hope we are; friend’s sake you ought to hope so, too. You don’t want to have his house entered and robbed while it is in your charge. What’s this?”

“That’s the key. I think, under the circumstances, that perhaps you had better open the door.”

The sergeant looked at him. So did I. He was tall and thin, and wore glasses, and was about as unathletic looking a party as he well could have been. I do not fancy he had much stomach for the kind of adventure which the situation suggested. Ives took the key, put it in the door, tried to turn it – in vain.

“Is there anything patent about it? What’s the trick?”

“There is no trick. It turns quite easily from right to left.”

“Then perhaps you’ll come and turn it. There’s something in being used to a key.”

The party from No. 19 displayed evident reluctance. He was standing at the bottom of the steps, and seemed to prefer to stay there.

“It only wants a sharp twist.”

“Then come and give it the sharp twist it wants.”

The spectacled gentleman ascended the steps, it struck me, a little gingerly, as if he half expected that something would fly out of the house and spring at him. He tackled the key. But it declined to turn for him any more than for the sergeant.

‘It won’t move. That’s strange. My wife and I went over the house together only this evening; I opened the door myself. It opened quite easily then. Now there seems something wrong.’

“I’m afraid there is. Is that the only key you have?”

“The latch-key is the only one that’s wanted. The big lock is caught back.”

“It was. I expect the chap who is inside has let it go, and trapped the latch to make things surer. He doesn’t want anyone else to get in too easily while he’s there.” Ives turned to me. “You’ll have to follow him the way he went – through the window.”

In under half a minute I was on the sill – the one on which I had first caught sight of “Mr. Walter Parsons.” I had my clasp knife open and had slipped the catch of the window inside a minute. Extraordinary how insecurely windows are fastened. There is not one in a hundred which would present any difficulty to a boy who has just been breeched. Up went the sash.

“Look out for anyone going for you before you get into the room.” I was looking out. But there were no signs that anyone was conscious of my proceedings. The sergeant issued further instructions. “Directly you’re in, come straight round and open the door for us.”

Thrusting the blind aside, I shone my lantern round the room. There was no one in it. I stepped on to the floor. As had been the case in the apartment into which “Mr. Walter Parsons” had conducted me, here also practically everything which the place contained was shrouded from sight. There was nothing to suggest that it had been recently occupied, or that there had been any unauthorised interference with its contents. But that something curious was taking place somewhere about the premises I recognised immediately upon my entrance.

So soon as I had my feet upon the floor, and had let the blind fall back into its place behind me, I perceived a peculiar smell; and – what was it? Was it the sound of someone calling? Were they the cries of a person in pain? Was it some sort of animal? Or – what? There was an odd noise coming from somewhere.

I moved quickly across the room, to find the door shut and locked upon the other side. Since my gentleman must have gone through it when he came in, it was tolerably clear he must have locked it. I returned to announce my discovery.

“Something funny’s going on in here; there’s a queer smell and a queerer sound. But I can’t get out of this room, the door’s locked on the outside.”

The sergeant’s reply came short and sharp.

“Break it open. If you can’t do it by yourself, I’ll come in and help you.”

“I think I can manage to do it.”

And I did manage. I am six feet two and a half inches high, and I was not a light-weight even in those days. I took a little run and gave that door my shoulder once – twice – and the third time went clean through. It was a trifle unexpected. I had thought it would have offered more resist The consequence was that I found myself a bit mixed up with the splinters. Anyhow, I was in the hall in a brace of shakes. When I got there, the smell or something seemed to hit me in the face. The sounds which I had heard were more audible than ever. They set my nerves all of a twitter, If someone or something were not half mad with pain, or terror, or both, then I was a Dutchman. And quite close at hand.

I rushed to the hall door. The sergeant shouted to me from without

“Is that you, Coleman?”

“Yes, sir. There’s something very wrong indeed inside here, but Heaven knows what it is. I’m going to open the door.… I can’t!”

“Why can’t you?”

“The big lock’s locked, and the trap of the upper one seems jammed. I expect that chap’s taken away the key.”

“All right. I’ll come in through the window. Do nothing till I come.”

By the time I was back in the front room the sergeant was in it, too. The moment he was, he gave an exclamation.

“Why, the place is on fire!”

On fire? Of course. What an idiot I had been not to understand at once! That explained the suffocating odour – the acrid something which was stealing up our nostrils.

“Then it’s in the room at the back.”

That was the room to which I had already been introduced, in which I had been offered the hocussed whisky. We both of us hurried out into the hall to the back room door, standing for an instant to listen.

“It’s in there right enough. Can’t you hear it?”

I could. The noise of what sounded like flames was unmistakable. As we stood, there came another sound – a yell which seemed to go right through me.

“That’s not fire.”

“Someone must be burning.”

“Then it’s the chap himself.”

“The chap himself? What do you mean? How do you know? Open the door!”

I stood next to it. I turned the handles.

“It’s locked. He’s locked himself in!” I struck the panel with my hand. “Inside there! Who’s in there?”

No answer. All was still; there was only the roar of the flames.

“The man must be burning to death! You’ll have to burst the door. Only look out for yourself as you do it.”

I burst it, that time – as I only had to drive the lock back – at the first try. The room within was on the high road to become a flaming furnace. There was a horrible stench of what seemed to be some sort of burning spirit. The heat rushed out at us. It was all I could do to stand my ground while I looked for the man from whom that yell had come. He could not have been consumed to ashes while we had been standing without the door. It was incredible, impossible. Yet there was no one to be seen – no sign of anything that had ever been endowed with life.

But I did catch sight of something that made me stare. Almost everything that was in the room – tables, sideboard, chairs, all kinds of odds and ends – had been gathered into a higgledy-piggledy sort of heap in the middle of the floor. They were already blazing merrily away, bidding fair to form a sufficiently expensive bonfire. On the top, in the centre, so that the flames were rising about it on every side, was a kit-bag – if I could credit the evidence of my own senses, the identical kit-bag which I had last seen in solitary possession of the booking-office at St. John’s Wood Station, either that one or its twin brother. It stood in danger of immediate destruction. Not only was it in the midst of the blaze, but already the sides of the bag were giving forth an ominous smoke. As I watched, one of them broke into flame. I do not know what prompted me – because it was only a bag, after all – but when I saw that, I ran into the room.

“What are you doing?” cried the sergeant. “Is there anyone there?”

I did not stop to answer. The smoke was blinding and suffocating me both at once. I felt as if the floor were giving way beneath my feet, as if the skin were cracking on my face. I rushed at the blazing heap, grabbed at the handle of the bag. It was heavier than I expected, but I managed to get a good hold of it and went staggering with it to the door.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Ives. “What is it you’ve got there?”

“I don’t know.”

I did not. At that time I did not even know what the thing was called. I hauled it into the front room. Although it was no longer actually flaming, it was smoking enough to choke you. And the heat must have tried its constitution, because no sooner had I got it into the other room than one of the sides came clean away, and, with it, the contents dropped on to the floor.

“What’s that fallen out of it?” asked Ives.

I was leaning over, staring with something more than amazement.

“I believe – it’s a man!”

“A man!” Down went Ives upon his knees. The flames were beginning to come out of the next room into the passage, so that we could see quite plainly “Good Heavens! It’s Mr. Parsons! He can’t have been inside that bag.”

“He was.”

“Is this the man who got through the window?”

“He’s not in the least bit like him.”

“Then there’s been a nice game on somewhere.”

“He’s not dead.”

As I lifted his head from the floor, I felt him shudder.

“Thank goodness for that! We shall have to take him through the window and get him out of this.”

“I’ll see to that.”

I did. As the sergeant had said, he was such a little chap, I bore him in my arms as if he were a baby. With a little help from Ives, I got him out into the garden, and then into the house next door – No.19.

That’s my story. And the explanation is not the least strange part of it.

The party whom I saw get through the window was a gentleman of the name of Turndall – Philip Turndall. He was Parsons’ partner, which explained how his portrait stood so handy on the mantelpiece. Messrs. Parsons and Turndall were solicitors – a firm of good old family lawyers, with tin cases stuffed full of their clients’ title-deeds, and bonds, and shares, and that kind of thing. Mr. Turndall, who was a person of lofty notions in the money-spending line, took it into his head to treat the contents of those tin cases as if they were his own property. He raised money on them right and left without thinking it necessary to mention what he was doing to Mr. Parsons. At last discovery stared him in the face. Somebody wanted something which ought to have been in one of those cases, but happened to be elsewhere. Mr. Turndall concocted an ingenious scheme to account for its absence.

He brought his partner up to London on pretence of business. Towards evening, when the clerks had gone home, and Parsons was about to return to Hastings, he produced a bottle of champagne and suggested that the other should have a share of it to help him on his journey. Parsons consented. He had a glass. He remembered so much, and no more. much, and Beyond doubt the champagne was flavoured with the same stuff as that whisky was.

Probably Parsons was unconscious almost as soon as he had swallowed it. Turndall knew that he would continue unconscious for a considerable time. He was too nice-minded to commit murder by actual violence. So he picked up his partner off the floor and packed him into a brand new kit-bag which he might have bought for that special purpose. Parsons was small; the bag was large. Neatly folded up into a compact parcel by Turndall’s vigorous hands, room was found for him, though probably no live man was ever confined in closer quarters. Some time after the shades of night had fallen, with the kit-bag in one hand, and something containing methylated spirit in the other, Mr. Turndall went across London to his friend’s residence at No. 20, Quarnley Terrace.

His idea was to enter unobserved, and then – with the aid of that methylated spirit – to burn the house, with Mr. Parsons in it, still unconscious. When, perhaps the next day, he heard of the fire, he would have been shocked. And he would have been still more shocked on discovering that someone had been making free with the contents of those tin cases. The dreadful fact would have been revealed that Parsons was a thief. The whole shameful story would have been made too plain. The man had fled to escape the hands of justice, having first set fire to his house to conceal the evidences of his guilt. And Mr. Philip Turndall would have been regarded as an injured innocent.

Unfortunately, his game was spoiled by my happening to hear the click of the window-catch. It must have been an awkward moment for him when I flashed my bull’s-eye upon him as he crouched upon the windowsill. No wonder he perspired; the marvel was that he should have kept so cool. The kit-bag must have been in the garden all the time. It was surprising how I came to overlook it. After I went, he came out and fetched it in. That was the noise I heard. When I returned and started hammering at the door, he must have recognised that the game was completely up. While Sergeant Ives was trying to get in at the front, he got out at the back. He must have gone straight off to his own rooms; and during the rest of the night he must have had a pretty bad time. He spent part of it in writing a nice little confession on a nice little sheet of paper. In the morning the confession was found on the table, and he was a corpse on the bed – a case of felo de se.

That drugged champagne was, in a sense, possibly Mr. Parsons’ salvation. Considering his prolonged incarceration in that dreadful prison, how he had been dragged round London, and dumped down at St. John’s Wood Station while his partner refreshed himself, it was marvellous how he should have suffered no after ill effects. When I saw him a day or two later, you could not have told that anything out of the way had ever happened to him.

No. 20 was damaged, but not destroyed; Mr. Turndall had been interrupted. Mr. Parsons managed to drag things out of the quicksands amidst which his partner had got them. I understand that his firm has a high reputation in London today. He never took another partner. And every year since he has sent me something in recognition of the festive season.

My boy – he was my last – born as well as my first-born, for we have never had another child – is now a policeman, like his father was.

So now you understand how it is that, to this hour, whenever I see a kit-bag, a curious feeling goes all over me.

A First Night

— I —

“What does Shepherd say?”

“Well, he doesn’t say, right out, so much as he implies.”

I opened Shepherd’s letter, and glanced through it again.

“It is easy to see that he thinks Ruthven is in a bad way.”

“Then I shall at once get someone to take his part.”

“He says that the mere thought of such a thing would be sufficient to send Ruthven headlong into his grave.”

Trotter became excited.

“Then do you mean to tell me that I’ve only a choice between murder and suicide?”

“Shepherd puts it that Ruthven has been waiting and working all his life for such a chance, and that if now he only gets it to lose it the man will break his heart and die.”

Trotter threw himself into a chair.

“Ince, you’ll drive me mad! I consider that I’ve been badly used all through. When, at your special request, I offered the part to Ruthven—”

“There is no man upon the English stage who could act it like him.”

“Did I say there was? Good heavens, man, let me speak! When I offered the part to Ruthven, and he accepted it, there was not a word said about his being unwell. A few days afterwards, when the reading is called, he writes and says he is a little off colour, but that if I will send him his part he will show at first rehearsal. I send him his part. First rehearsal comes, and still no Ruthven! Second rehearsal, and still no Ruthven! Third rehearsal, and still no Ruthven! Until we have drifted where we are! Then you ask Shepherd to go and see the man, who has stuck himself in some remote hole in some remote corner of Scotland – as if he had done it on purpose! – and tell us what prospect there is of his putting in an appearance. Shepherd writes that there is little or none. Then you say that if I take the part away from him I shall send the man headlong to his grave.”

“That’s what Shepherd says, not I.”

“Then I say, Shepherd be hanged! I have never met the man in my life. I have never seen him act. I know nothing about him.”

“But I have seen him act, and I know something about him, and I tell you that in a part of this particular kind he would prove that he possesses something very much like genius.”

“What has that to do with it, if the man’s too ill to act? You don’t propose, I presume, that he should come on to the stage the first night without having attended rehearsal at all?”

What Trotter said was true enough. And I was quite as anxious for the success of the play as he could be. As he put it,

“Anybody would think I was the only person concerned. It’s your play, not mine!”

“My dear Trotter, don’t hit me.”

“I should like to – or somebody. I don’t know how long you mean to keep the stage waiting for rehearsal. I’m going! And after rehearsal I intend to get somebody to take his place.”

It was annoying. In writing the play, throughout it I had had Ruthven in my mind’s eye. The part of Blaise Townshend was, in no slight degree, the play. As Blaise Townshend I had felt convinced Ruthven would score a success which would make “A Story of Today” the most successful drama I had given to the public. And now it appeared that the man was so ill that, unless we postponed the production of the piece which neither Trotter nor I was disposed to do the part would have to be given to some man who, in all probability, would be no more my Blaise Townshend than I myself should be.

When we reached the theatre, and were hurrying through the passages which lead from the stage-door to the stage, someone who was standing there touched Trotter on the arm, and stopped him.

“Excuse me Mr. Trotter, I believe? I am Mr. Ruthven.”

“Mr. Ruthven!” In his surprise Trotter started back and almost trod upon my toes. Here was the man standing at our elbows whom we had supposed to be lying on a bed of sickness four hundred miles away. My personal acquaintance with him had been but slight. I had seen him act in a provincial town, and had been so struck by his performance that I had gone behind between the acts and obtained an introduction. During the three or four days I remained in the town I had met him twice or thrice again. As he stood in the uncertain light, holding his hat in his hand, his eyes fixed wistfully on Trotter’s countenance, I could not but be struck by the change in his appearance. He appeared to have shrunk to nothing. He even seemed to have lost in height. His slight, fragile figure had so decreased that one felt that if it decreased much more it would reach a vanishing-point. His face was worn, and wan, and white. Trotter stared at him in bewildered amazement so, indeed, did I.

“I may truly say, Mr. Ruthven, that this is an unexpected pleasure. I was under the impression that you were ill in bed.”

Mr. Ruthven put his hand up to his brow.

“I – I haven’t been quite well.”

Trotter turned to me. “You know Mr. Ince?”

“I ought to.”

But he did not seem as though he did. He looked at me with expressionless eyes, as though I were an entire stranger. I held put my hand to him.

“Surely, Mr. Ruthven, you have not forgotten me? I give you my word that I have not forgotten you. I would sooner see you than – anything.”

He smiled or rather I should write that he attempted to smile, because the attempt was a failure. Trotter slipped his arm through his.

“Mr. Ruthven, we are already late for rehearsal. May I ask if you have looked at your part?”

“I am letter perfect.”

He was. He went through his lines, cues and all, without a hitch. But with what an air! With the air of a man whose thoughts were far away of a man who took not the slightest interest in his surroundings. He certainly did not appear to be an actor who acted at rehearsals. Trotter came to me while he was going through one of his scenes.

“What do you think of him?” he asked.

“I think he’s ill.”

“So do I. I’m not sure that it isn’t my duty to order him straight off home to bed.”

Shortly after Ruthven joined us. Trotter made to him some half-jesting remark of the kind. He looked up at Trotter with an air of curious hesitation. As he spoke he rubbed his hands slowly one against the other.

“Why do you think I am ill? Because I don’t act? I never do until I have got my business, and sometimes not even then until the night. But” – he turned to me – “I like the part. I think I understand it. I shall make something of it. I know I shall. I ought to. It is now or never.” He repeated the last word “never!”

“Why do you say that?”

He stretched out his hands in front of him, with a little appealing gesture.

“Ah why?”

That afternoon I met Maidment of the Evening Journal. He fell in at my side. We walked together down the Strand.

“Sad news this about Ruthven.”

I looked at him.

“To what news are you referring?”

“I hear he is at death’s door.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The fellows were talking about it at the club. They talk about getting him something from the Fund. It appears that he is actually in want. Seems hard lines just when he was going to get his chance. By the way, whom are you going to put in his place?”

“I don’t know if you are aware that Mr. Ruthven is at this moment in town?”

“In town! Why, I just heard Farncombe saying that only the day before yesterday he left Ruthven dying at Pittenweem. It seems that Farncombe was golfing at St. Andrews, and Stanley found out by accident that Ruthven was close at hand. He went over and saw him.”

“My information is later than Mr. Farncombe’s. I just left Mr. Ruthven at the stage-door of the theatre. He has been attending rehearsal.”

“Attending rehearsal! Then Farncombe must have been piling it on.”

“I have heard of stranger things. Good-day.”

I left Maidment standing on the pavement. I had not advanced another two hundred yards towards Fleet Street when I almost ran into Farncombe.

“Hallo, Ince, you’re the very man I wanted to see. I say, couldn’t you spare a bit for Ruthven? It’s wanted badly enough. I know his going under just now is hard upon you, but it’s harder on him. His wife is in a dreadful state, and there isn’t enough to pay the funeral.”

I took a good long look at Mr. Farncombe. I have known him some years. He has the reputation of being a truthful man that is, as men go. I myself have certainly no reason to suppose that he is an habitual liar.

“I don’t think that a funeral will be required at least, just yet.”

“My dear fellow, he’s doomed. The doctor told me what, for the matter of that, I could see for myself that, at the most, it’s only a question of days, perhaps only of hours. It is quite possible that he’s dead already.”

“Possible, but not probable. I think not.”

“Why? Have you had news?”

“Slight news.”

“From his wife?”

“No; from Ruthven himself.”

“You don’t mean to say he has written to you? Why, when I saw him the day before yesterday, he hadn’t strength enough to raise his hand, far less to hold a pen.”

“He has now; or, at least, a few minutes ago he had.”

“A few minutes ago! What are you driving at?”

“At the facts. Which are, that I have just attended rehearsal with him, and that I have just parted with him at the stage-door of the theatre.”

“Ince, you’re joking.”

“Nothing is farther from my thoughts.”

“Do you mean to tell me that Ruthven Philip Ruthven is actually in town?”

“Unless he has just taken train again for Scotland. Which is hardly likely, since he is to rehearse again tomorrow.”

Farncombe stood stock still in the middle of the pavement. He thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets. He knit his brows. His demeanour must have struck the passengers in the Strand as strange. “Ince, there’s a mystery somewhere. I give you my word of honour that I saw Philip Ruthven the day before yesterday at Pittenweem. He was lying in bed. His wife was crying at his side. He could not speak; he could not move. At least, every attempt at movement brought on suffocation. He could only look. Such a look! If ever I saw the near presence of death upon a man’s face, I saw it then on his.”

— II —

It came – the first night. That night which means the prospect of a little fun to those in front, and which means something so very different to those behind. I make it a rule to shun the first nights of my own plays. I have a strong feeling that those are occasions on which the author is better away. That night I broke my rule.

All men say that they are not superstitious. But I fancy that, at bottom, and on occasion, we all of us are. I know that something told me that that night would be a night of disaster. I had never written a play of which I hoped greater things. I felt that I had put into it some of the best work of which I was capable. If it was a failure, then I was a failure too. And yet—

Several things worked together to bring about this unsatisfactory state of mind. But, oddly enough, they all grouped themselves about Mr. Ruthven. The more I saw of him the less I liked him. I found that this feeling of mine was shared by others. Trotter, in confidence, actually told me that he was afraid of him. He said that he never came near him without a shudder that his presence filled him with a sense of physical repulsion. This was nonsense. I told him so. But I myself was conscious, in my heart of hearts, of something of the kind. And yet the man was inoffensive. He was the most retiring of mortals. He never spoke unless he first was spoken to. He never thrust himself to the front. Indeed, I wished he would have thrust himself a little more to the front. Anything more depressing than his demeanour at rehearsals I never witnessed. He acted like a wet blanket. He was absolutely lifeless! At the eleventh hour both Trotter and I wished that we were rid of him. But Trotter wouldn’t take the initiative, and, ridiculous though it sounds, I felt I couldn’t.

“You’re the manager!” I reminded Trotter, who seemed to need reminding.

“And you’re the author!”

“You engaged him!”

“At your instigation!”

“Well, you play a leading part, and if you choose to let him spoil you, it’s your affair, not mine.”

“To listen to you anybody would think that it’s a matter of complete indifference to you if he ruins your play!”

All this was of course absurd. But the consequence was that the man retained his part.

As the night approached I worked myself into a state of fever. On the night itself I couldn’t keep away from the theatre. An irresistible fascination drew me Strandwards. I was haunted by a hideous and altogether unreasonable suspicion that, at the last moment, Ruthven would play us a trick and fail to appear. As my cab drew up at the stage-door, I put the question to the door-keeper:

“Has Mr. Ruthven arrived?”

“Just arrived, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

The man stared.

“Quite sure, sir. He just went through.”

In spite of the man’s protestation I went myself to see. I knocked at the door of Mr. Ruthven’s dressing-room. There was no answer. I knocked again. Still no answer.

“Mr. Ruthven!” I cried.

Not a sound! I turned the handle. The door opened. I stepped inside. My first impression was that the room was empty. Then, looking round, I saw that something, someone, was lying on the floor. It was a man lying all of a heap. I am not ashamed to confess that, in the already agitated state of my mind, the sight of that heap filled me with a sense of distinct discomfort.

“Ruthven!” I said, “is that you, Ruthven?”

No reply. My impulse was to seek for help. What I did was to move forward, and lay my hand upon the recumbent mass. As I did so, it moved. A face looked up at me. It was Ruthven’s. But what a face! It was the face of a man long dead. White and drawn, with great, glassy, staring eyes.

“Ruthven! Aren’t you well?”

He stood up, rising slowly like a corpse from a grave.

“I am quite well.”

He did not look well. He did not sound well either. His voice was harsh and husky. There was about him an air of wildness, of abandonment, which was altogether indescribable.

“A bit nervous, Ruthven, eh?”

“Nervous? I am not nervous. A man in my position is not likely to be nervous.” His manner changed. His voice rose like the wail of a trumpet.

“Why, tonight I will witch the world with acting. I will cut for your play a notch on the tree of fame. They shall acknowledge me at last. I will charm them” – he spoke with a degree of earnestness which I did not find altogether agreeable – “with a voice from the grave.”

I did not stay with him long. I did not find his company congenial.

“Mad!” I told myself, as I left his dressing-room. “I believe the man’s stark mad! I only hope that his madness has a method, and that he will do as he says, and pull the piece through. Hullo! What do you want here?”

This ejaculation was caused by suddenly encountering Maidment wandering about behind the scenes as though he were strolling through the halls of his fathers. “I’m going in front. I thought I’d just come round and ask you what you were going to do.”

“Do you mean now, or in ten years’ time?”

Maidment laughed. He seemed to think I was joking.

“Whom have you got to take Ruthven’s place?”

“Confound it, Maidment, you seem to be uncommonly anxious that I should get someone to take Ruthven’s place.”

He laughed again. He seemed in a laughing mood.

“How have you managed about a substitute? You must have found Ruthven’s death a little awkward.”

“Death!” I fancy I started. Maidment stared at me. “Ruthven’s death!”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“My dear fellow, you don’t mean to say that you don’t know that Philip Ruthven died last night.”

For a moment I was speechless: it was with an effort I drew myself together.

“Look here, Maidment: I have a great respect for your character, but, if you don’t take care, I shall lose it. I don’t know in what society you have been mixing lately, but it must have been in that of persons who are descendants in the right line from Ananias. I have just left Mr. Ruthven in his room. He is not in his coffin. He is dressing for the stage. If you require ocular demonstration of that fact, you shall have it, if you will only go in front and take your seat, and wait till he comes on.”

I had hardly rid myself of Maidment when Miss Stacey came up. She seemed to be in a state of excitement, and even of distress.

“Now what’s to be done?”

I sighed. No more first nights for me!

“My dear Miss Stacey, would you kindly address that question to someone else, and ask me another?”

“But I hear that Mr. Ruthven’s dead?”

“That is exactly what I hear. But Mr. Ruthven himself assures me that he isn’t. He is at present in his room, and tells me that he is in excellent health. He is engaged, my dear Miss Stacey, in doing what you ought to be doing, and that is dressing.”

Two or three other people had come up.

“What’s that? Ruthven’s not dead?

Why,” said Cardewe, “everybody’s talking about it at the club.”

“Babree, of the Herald, just told me that he had heard of it through the Central News.”

That was Charlie Gordon! He is one of those men who are always hearing things, is Gordon.

“Tom Dawson tells me that he has had it in a private wire.”

That was Rayne – Cecil Rayne. He’s another man like Gordon.

“Gentlemen, if you desire to hear Mr. Ruthven’s own testimony as to whether he is or is, not dead, I shall be happy to escort you, so that you may interview him in his dressing-room.”

“Not I!” said Gordon. “I wouldn’t for a fiver! I’m not fond of ghosts!”

Miss Stacey gave a little scream. She clasped her hands with what I imagine she thought was an effective gesture.

“Joking apart,” said Rayne, “I don’t like these stories being always told about a man. He ought to be dead, if everybody says he is. Upon my word, it’s quite upset me.”

I should have liked to box their ears. But a man cannot assault his company on the first night of his own play and before the curtain rises! Afterwards, of course, it is a different thing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, might I ask you to adjourn to your own apartments?”

They were just moving off, when who should come blundering up but Trotter. I immediately saw that he was as bad as they were and worse.

“Ince, what’s all this I hear about Ruthven? Is he dead?”

“No, my dear Trotter, he is not dead! not dead! not dead! As I have just been explaining to our friends here, he is at the present moment alive and kicking in his dressing-room. Might I venture to suggest that it would be no harm if somebody else was alive and kicking in his dressing-room as well?”

I went upstairs with him. He seemed half beside himself.

“Ince, are you sure that Ruthven’s in his dressing-room?”

“As sure as I am that you at present are in yours.”

“Are you sure it’s Ruthven?”

“Do you suggest that it’s his ghost?”

“Ince” – he caught me, with no slight pressure, by the arm – “last night I dreamt that he was dead; not once, nor twice, but over and over again. I kept on dreaming it. I saw that he was dead; I knew that he was dead. I have stayed indoors all day to get myself a little calm. Calm! Feel my pulse; I’m in something like a raging fever! As I was coming down to the theatre half-a-dozen men stopped me to tell me that Ruthven was dead.”

“My dear Trotter, would you like to step downstairs and ask the man himself if he is dead?”

“No.” He moved across the room with an unmistakable shudder. “Not for worlds! It it will be time enough to meet him when we meet upon the stage. Ince, do you know that I half believe that I am going mad?”

This was pleasant hearing! Trotter, who was at once manager and leading actor, half believed he was going mad. I myself believed in Ruthven’s madness. So that it only required that I should be attacked with sudden softening of the brain to make a trio.

On all first nights everybody behind is in a state of what may mildly be termed nervous excitement. They may not always show it, but they always are. As regards nervous excitement, that first night eclipsed the record. Of those principally concerned I was the coolest. When I mention that, to the best of my judgement and belief, my temperature was about two hundred degrees in the shade, that fact speaks volumes. I had serious thoughts, even at the last moment, of enforcing a postponement of the whole affair. But I didn’t.

The curtain rose; the play began. The scene of the first act was laid in a room in a common lodging-house in the East-end of London. There was a good deal of business. The lodgers were coming and going. The principal theme of their conversation was a great crime which had just been committed in one of the suburbs. There was one there who listened – a woman; and as she listened she knew who had done it – she recognised his workmanship. As they talked of the large reward which had been offered for the discovery of the criminal, a great hunger began to fill her soul and a desire to rise out of the depths into which she had sunk and to attain to comparative affluence by means – of the price of blood. This guilty man had been her lover. She loved him still. But she told herself that he was doomed – doomed! Someone would gain by his eternal fall; and why not she? As she went off upon her errand the man himself, against whom all men’s hands would soon be turned, came on. This was Blaise Townshend, known to his then associates as “Gentleman Jo.” He was a man who had been buffeted and torn – a genius gone wrong, an inventor none of whose inventions had attained fruition. Crammed full of ideas which seemed all to be abortions, the devil had got into him – that devil which comes to disappointed and to hungry men – and, extreme in everything, he had sunk to this – to crime.

While the opening was being played, like a restless spirit I was wandering about behind. The call was passed for Mr. Ruthven. As he came I shrank away, so marvellously did his appearance realise the creation of my fancy – the man with a devil. It was difficult to believe that this was the lifeless creature who had droned through the rehearsals. Two minutes after his entrance the house was in a tumult of applause. He had done what every actor hopes to do one day, and which scarcely one in a generation does do – he had taken his audience by storm. Instead of the disaster which I feared, it already seemed that I was within measurable distance of that stupendous, that fairy like, that world-echoing success for which we work, and of which we dream.

After Ruthven’s entrance the action moved quickly. He was left alone with the journals, whose columns were filled with the story of his crime. He gloated over the hideous details with a sort of devilish exultation. While he was thus engaged a visitor entered, an unusual visitor in those parts – a lawyer who had brought him news – news of the death of a distant relative who had died in a far-off portion of the world, and who had left him one of those immeasurable fortunes which are characteristics of the day. The lawyer had come in person to offer his congratulations. And already the shadow of the gallows was falling over him. And while the tale is being told the woman returns from her Judas-errand and hears it all. She has sold the man she loves, this ten times millionaire, for a mess of pottage. Already the avengers of blood are at his heels.

When the curtain fell the audience gave Ruthven a call which shook the theatre. It was his success, not mine; his acting which told, not that of his companions. I went on to the stage to shake him by the hand; but he walked past me as though he did not see that I was there.

“Ruthven!” I cried.

If he heard he paid no heed. Walking straight on, he vanished out of sight. His demeanour was so strange that I hardly knew what to make of it. Trotter was standing by me; he had been acting the lawyer.

“He is either a genius of the first water, er else the Old Gentleman himself. When I was telling him that story about the fortune which had been left to him, the look upon his face made my blood run cold.”

“I believe,” said Gordon, “that he is the Old Gentleman.”

“He has made me all of a tremble,” declared Miss Stacey. She had played the woman who betrayed Blaise Townshend. “I really don’t think I can go on with him again; he frightens me.”

She sank into a chair and burst into something very like hysterics. I pooh-poohed their words as nonsense. I hurried them off to their dressing-rooms, but I declined Trotter’s invitation to accompany him upstairs; I went out into the street to get a breath of air. I myself was haunted by a feeling that there was something about Ruthven which was not altogether what it should be. I had no desire to make it worse by listening to Trotter’s ravings.

That night? well, who does not know that that night was a blaze of triumph? Disaster? disaster there was none. Ruthven went on from victory to victory to a perfect triumph! The house was in a frenzy. Yet his companions on the stage, and those behind, shunned him as though he were the plague. Even I held aloof from the man who had done, who was still doing, so much for the offspring of my brain. There was something about him which certainly was strange. The last act was on. My pulse was beating like a sledgehammer. I was straining my ears to listen to the intense silence in which the house was hanging on Ruthven’s last great scene. Suddenly someone came rushing wildly towards me; it was Farncombe. He appeared to be in a state of extraordinary excitement; his coat-tails were flying in the wind; his hat was at the back of his head.

“Ince!”

It was a gasp rather than an articulate utterance. My first impression was that he was drunk, though undoubtedly he was no drunkard. He was trembling as though he could hardly stand. His eyes were unnaturally distended; his whole countenance exhibited mental disorder.

“Give – give me a chair!”

He clutched at a chair. He sank into it, trembling all the time as though he had a fit of ague. This was a case of something more than drunkenness.

“Farncombe, what is wrong?”

He seemed to struggle to speak.

“Ince” — he caught at his throat as if he were suffocating – “Ince, have you got any brandy?”

I went to Trotter’s private store and poured him out a wine-glassful. He drank it at a gulp, neat.

“Give me some more.”

I poured him out another glass. He drank that too; it seemed to do him good.

“Ince, do you think I’m mad?”

“Or drunk?”

“You think I’m drunk? I’ve been travelling all day from Scotland; I have only just arrived in town. It is therefore extremely probable that I am drunk, it being my invariable habit to get that way when I spend the day in railway trains.”

“I was only joking. What’s the matter?”

Directly I asked the question his trembling fit came back again. He looked about the room in such a way that I really began to think that he was in the early stages of delirium.

“Ince, I – I saw him!”

“Saw whom?”

“Ruthven!”

“Ruthven?”

“On the stage! Great Heaven!”

He put his hands before his face; he trembled like a leaf. The case seemed clear enough.

“Come, Farncombe, I think you would be better at home.”

He looked at me, his face as white as this sheet of paper.

“You think so? Perhaps I had. Perhaps the strain has been too great. But I must be pretty bad, because I could have sworn I saw him.”

“Of course you saw him.”

“Of course I saw him?”

I never saw such a look of astonishment upon a person’s face before.

“Where’s the mystery? If you have been in front you must have seen him. Ruthven is breaking the record. I never saw such acting.”

Farncombe had stood up, rising to his feet as if automatically. Now he sank back again as if I had struck him a blow.

“It was his ghost!”

“His ghost?”

“Ince, Ruthven’s dead!”

“Dead? You’ve got hold of that nonsensical story which is going the rounds.”

He looked at me in silence for a second or two. Then he put his hand into an inner pocket of his coat. He took out a pocketbook. From the pocket-book he took a folded paper. This he handed me. I opened it. It purported to be the medical certificate of Philip Ruthven’s death!

“Farncombe! What – what is this?”

“The doctor’s certificate.”

“Someone has been fooling you. The man is as much alive as I am.”

“Ince!” – Farncombe rose. He came close to me. He almost whispered in my ear – “I saw him die.”

“You – saw him die?”

“I saw him die. At Pittenweem, yesterday evening, at nine o’clock.”

“But – it’s impossible.”

“Ince, listen to me. The other day, when you told me that Ruthven was rehearsing, I couldn’t understand it. But I supposed that it was all right, until, a day or two ago, I had a letter from Mrs. Ruthven, asking for the loan of a sovereign. She said that Ruthven was at death’s door, and that they were absolutely penniless. I posted straight away to Pittenweem. I found things were as she said. Ince, last night he died. His wife, the doctor, and I were present. Directly afterwards I got the doctor to give me a certificate. Mrs. Ruthven was anxious that he should be brought to Kensal Green, where his little girl lies buried. And I thought that if I had the medical certificate in my pocket I could manage a whip among you fellows for the funds; and, later on, we might get up a benefit. Ince, where’s that brandy?”

He helped himself to another glass. I felt that I myself should be none the worse for one, but I did not say so.

“So today I came back again. I knew this was your first night. As I was coming along I wondered how you would manage. I wondered also why you told me that cock-and-bull story about Ruthven rehearsing. Because, as Mrs. Ruthven informed me, and as I could see for myself, he had never been out of bed since the day I saw him last. It was late when I reached town. I thought I would come and see how you were getting on. I drove straight here. When I got inside, the first person I saw upon the stage was – Philip Ruthven!”

He paused. He gave a little gasp. I also was almost reduced to gasping-point.

“I caught his eye. He caught mine. He gave me such a look!”

Farncombe covered his face. He shuddered. There was an interval of silence. Then I spoke.

“But, Farncombe, he has been rehearsing all the time.”

“You don’t mean it?”

“He has!”

“Then it was his ghost!”

“But, apart from any other consideration, how can that be, when you say that the man was actually alive?”

“Heaven knows! I don’t!”

“He is at this moment on the stage.”

“Let me get away! Let me go home! Ince, I wouldn’t meet him for a thousand pounds! If you had only seen him die!”

He hurried away. I hurried after him. As we were going the curtain fell. As it fell there rose a hurricane of applause, which seemed to shake the building. People came hurrying to and from the stage. In a moment we were in the centre of an excited crowd.

“They’re calling him,” I said.

“Calling him! Philip Ruthven! Ince, Philip Ruthven lies dead in a little room which looks out upon the sea. It it must all be some hideous dream.”

Just then Trotter came up.

“Is that you, Farncombe? Did you ever hear such a tumult? There never was such acting! No one is in it tonight but him.”

“But whom?”

“Ruthven!”

“Ruthven! Trotter” – Farncombe clutched at Trotter’s arm – “it’s Ruthven’s ghost.”

“Farncombe!”

“It is! I swear it is! Ruthven’s dead! I saw him die!”

Trotter stared; well he might.

“When?”

“Last night!”

Trotter leaned against the wall. He appeared to need its support to help him stand.

“My prophetic soul! my uncle! Ince, I told you he was dead! I knew he was. I dreamt it. I dreamt that I saw him lying dead, and I saw that the clock was just on nine.”

“Yes,” said Farncombe, “the clock was just on nine.”

“Great Jupiter! And I’ve been acting with a ghost!”

Several others joined us.

“A ghost?” said Gordon. “What’s that?”

Trotter turned to him. “We’ve been acting with a ghost the ghost of Ruthven.”

“You’re joking!”

“Ruthven’s dead. He died last night at nine. Farncombe saw him die.”

The crowd fell back. Ruthven was standing within a yard of us. The tumult still continued in the theatre. I wondered, even then, if they were calling for the author. Seldom has an author felt less inclined to bow his thanks! Ruthven’s eyes blazed like lightning. He seemed to have increased in height. At that moment his very personality would in itself have been almost sufficient to carry a scene.

“You saw him die!”

He addressed himself to Farncombe. He spoke with a strength of passion which was in uncomfortable consonance with his entire bearing. At sight of him Farncombe shrank away as, indeed, we all did.

“Ruthven!”

“Yes Ruthven!”

Ruthven stretched out his hands in front of him. He uttered his own name almost in a shriek. For a moment I thought that Farncombe was going to have a fit, or else turn tail and flee. But he did neither. Suddenly he rushed forward at the man before us.

“It’s not!” he shouted – “by the Lord! it isn’t Philip – it’s his brother! What a fool I’ve been!”

Not the least surprising incident of that night was the extraordinary change which took place in Farncombe’s bearing. Ruthven broke into a peal of discordant laughter laughter which suggested anything but merriment. He still held out his hands with the same wild gesture.

“It isn’t Philip – it’s his brother! Philip’s dead! He died last night – in misery and beggary! His life-dreams faded, his hopes all blasted! The voice which told him that his time would come proved a liar after all!”

Advancing a step or two, he addressed himself directly to Trotter and to me.

“And I – I’m a fraud! a swindler! It’s a clear case of impersonation – send for the police! I’m only Ruthven’s brother! Years ago I tried my luck upon the boards, and failed! and failed! and failed! I tried again, and failed again! I was a failure even in a booth! Ha! ha! ha! As a super I almost failed! But I knew that it was in me, all the time, if I could only get a chance, and I could only get it out. And then Philip fell ill. He had had a little better luck than mine, but he too had been kicked from pillar to post. Six months out of a shop, and six months a couple of pounds a week – that had been the sort of thing with him. I went and saw him as he lay in bed. He told me that Robert Ince had seen him act, and had offered him the big part in his new play. His chance had come at last – as he lay dying. The dream of his life was realised – when he was face to face with death. Half in joke, he put an idea into my head. He said I believed in my own powers; no one knew him up in town; why didn’t I take his part? I said nothing, but I took the scrip away and read it. As I read it I knew that my chance had come; that this was the part of which I had been dreaming; that I was fitted to a hair; that, if I could only get the chance of playing it, this time I should not fail. I told him so. He was incredulous. He wanted at least to write and suggest me as his substitute. But I knew better. I knew that it wasn’t likely that the odd man in a fit-up travelling leg-show would be allowed to create the big part in a new piece by one of the most famous dramatists of the day, at a first-rate West-end London theatre. So he let me go. And you took me for Philip. And you thought I was a stick at rehearsals. So I was. I was half-fed, I was ill-lodged, I was pretty nearly penniless. I knew that Philip was dying. I realised, a little late, the responsibility I had taken on my shoulders. My heart sank. I began to think that, after all, I should fail. But this morning I – I heard that Philip was dead, and – and I went mad, and and I came down to the theatre, and – and – You hear those shouts? You hear that noise? I’m a fraud! I’m not Philip – I’m his brother! It’s a clear case of impersonation! But I’ve not failed! Not failed!”

Just then Clifford, the acting-manager, came hurrying up.

“I don’t know if you’re aware that there’s something very like a riot in the house. I don’t know what’s the matter behind here, but nobody seems paying much attention. They’re calling for the author!”

The author went.

The Burglary
at Berkeley Square

As Mr. Nichols reached the house he paused to look at it. The contemplation of its exterior seemed to afford him some curious sort of satisfaction even at that hour of the morning, and it was long past midnight. His crush hat a little on one side of his head, a cigar in his mouth, his hands in the pockets of his dress overcoat, which was unbuttoned so as to show an expanse of white shirt beneath, he planted himself in the centre of the pavement, and, as it were, stared the house full in the face.

It was her house, the house in which dwelt the girl who had once been all the world to him. Since those days how many things had happened. Then, her father, John Cornelius, was a manufacturing chemist in a small way of business. A discovery he had made in connection with potash had brought about a revolution in his fortunes. Now he was one of England’s richest men. His daughter Gertrude had proved herself quite suited to be a rich man’s child; at the first sign of a change for the better in her father’s affairs she had thrown Tom Nichols over, choosing a pretext for her misconduct which Mr. Nichols assured himself did more credit to her ingenuity than to her candour.

Since then he had heard her name associated with different men; until now, when she was actually to be married at last, in a few hours from this her father’s mansion in Berkeley Square to the Earl of Grinstead, who was more than old enough to be her father.

It was sickening, the whole affair; but, then, so much was sickening. When he had first known Gertrude Cornelius she had lived in a small house off the Fulham Road; it was a change to this great house in London’s most fashionable square. He had seen in the papers that a great reception was to be held that night, as a sort of prelude to the wedding, at which the wedding presents were to be displayed for the world to admire. Probably the last of the guests had not long departed; only within a few minutes had the house subsided into silence, to wake again at a comparatively early hour, prepared to wrestle with the strain and excitement of an up-to-date smart wedding.

If he had appeared on the scene a little earlier, he, too, might have joined the throng; he was convinced that it would not have been difficult to obtain admission to a reception of that kind. He did not believe that they would have dared to keep him out. The wedding presents? He wondered in what part of the house they were. According to the lists which he had read in the journals they must be of great value. He noted something which had hitherto escaped his eye: a window was open – on the right of the front door. You had only to ascend the steps, climb the brick parapet; it was but a short stride to the windowsill. It was a tall, narrow French window, but there was space enough for a slender man to pass, and Tom Nichols was thin. He was, as was not in frequently the case, in a careless, reckless mood; the fashion in which he had spent the evening had not tended to make him thoughtful. With a laugh, throwing away his cigar, buttoning his overcoat, mounting the parapet, he was through the window, and in the room.

It was only after he had entered that it occurred to him to reflect what he had come for. It was rather dark. It was not easy to make out what kind of room it was, or anything it contained. Feeling in his pocket for a matchbox, he struck a light, indifferent to the fact that it might arouse suspicion if seen from without. As the match broke into flame, his eye was caught by something which lay on the floor.

Picking it up he found that it was a note, written on one side of half a sheet of note paper. He recognised the handwriting; it was from Gerald Drew, the man who had followed him in the affections of Miss Cornelius. Drew had been financially in a much better position than he had been; from that point of view it had been a step upward for Miss Cornelius. But as the family fortunes continued to ascend, the young lady had apparently come to the conclusion that she might do better even than Gerald Drew; so he also had gone by the board. That, however, relations had not entirely ceased between them seemed to be shown by the note which Mr. Nichols was holding in his hand. It began, “My dearest Gertrude,” and was couched in terms which Mr. Nichols, suddenly turned moralist, felt were not seemly as coming from a quondam lover to a lady who was immediately to become another’s bride. So strong was this feeling that he continued to stare at the note, unconscious of the way in which the match was being consumed, until it singed his fingers. Then he dropped the flickering remnant on to the floor, with an exclamation.

He was again in darkness. The contents of that note had affected him in quite a surprising manner. His impulse was to go back through the window at once, and wipe the name of Cornelius from his memory forever. What a minx the girl must be! To be receiving what practically amounted to a love letter from one man on the eve of her marriage to another! He ought to be thankful that he was well rid of such a creature – yet, somehow, he was not so thankful as he ought to have been. On the contrary, he was conscious of a strange confusion of feelings. He would have liked to have taken Gerald Drew in one hand, the Earl of Grinstead in the other, and, having knocked their heads together, have disposed of them both, in some decent manner, for ever and a day. And then, monstrous though it seemed even to himself, he would have liked to have taken that misguided young woman in his arms and kissed her. To be frank, there never had been a time when he would not have liked to do that.

As, doubtful, hesitating, he stood there in the darkness, all at once there was the sound of a door being opened softly, as by one whose desire was not to be overheard. Before he could move or attempt concealment the electric light was switched on, and there in the sudden radiance stood before him the woman who had so occupied his thoughts –Gertrude Cornelius.

Even in the midst of the amazement caused by her unexpected appearance, and by the consciousness of the very ambiguous position in which she had found him, he was struck by her beauty, She always had been pretty, but this was different. The passage of the years had developed her in a most surprising manner; he felt that he had never seen so beautiful a woman. Tall and stately, yet with something in her beauty which was both sweet and gracious; big, wonderful eyes, into which the sunshine seemed to have strayed and left a smile behind; a dainty mouth, which he always told her had been made for kissing; an exquisite nose, just aquiline enough to suggest that its owner had character; the whole surmounted by a glorious mass of chestnut hair, which crowned her as with a radiant coronal. It was not strange that she had been able to play fast and loose with the hearts of men. Her costume hinted that she had come hurriedly downstairs for some especial purpose. Dainty slippers held bare feet, only a dressing-gown covered the attire in which the maiden slept.

So circumstanced, most young women would have shown signs of perturbation at finding herself so unexpectedly confronted by a man. But Gertrude Cornelius had never, outwardly, been disturbed in her life. Not only was she possessed of a seemingly unfailing courage, Tom Nichols always had been struck by the readiness with which she adjusted herself to the unlooked-for, and by her almost supernatural presence of mind. If for a moment she flinched at the sight of the man in front of her, it was for a moment only. Very quietly, very naturally, she looked him up and down, as if, if anything, his presence rather amused her.

“Tom – Mr. Nichols – pray, what are you doing here?”

She put the question in the easiest of tones. Her self-control was much greater than his. It always had been. At the sight and sound of her he was half beside himself; he would have liked to have said and done a dozen mad things; it was with difficulty he constrained himself to answer with some sort of sense, “That is what I ask myself.”

About her delicate lips there was the suggestion of a smile. He felt that, as ever, she read him like a book, that she saw quite plainly the state of disturbance he was in. Instead of commenting on the unsatisfactory fashion in which he explained his presence there, her glance fastened on the note which he had picked up from the floor.

“What is that you have in your hand?”

Something moved him to be brutal. “It is Gerald Drew’s love-letter to you – that poor devil of a Gerald.”

There was nothing to show that she was disconcerted by his brutality, her manner could hardly have been easier. “I must have dropped it as I left the room; it was to find it that I came downstairs. Please give it to me.”

He put his hand behind his back. “Not I.”

“Mr. Nichols”

“Miss Cornelius!”

“Is this intended for a jest? You used to have a sense of humour which was peculiarly your own.”

“And you? Here’s one lover holding in his hand a letter from another lover, while you’re to be married to a third lover in a few hours time. Does that not suggest that you also have a sense of humour which is peculiarly your own”

If she winced she hid the fact.

“Am I to understand that you refuse to give me what belongs to me and not to you?”

“Why should I?”

“Why should you, indeed! If you are a person of a certain kind, your being here at this hour admits of only one explanation. Do you wish me to alarm the house, and make it known that there is a burglar on the premises?”

“As you please. If you do I shall communicate the contents of this note to the Earl of Grinstead; from what I have heard of his lordship’s character, I doubt if he is a person who will be disposed to marry a lady who receives a love-letter from another man a few hours before she becomes his wife.”

“Are your words meant to suggest blackmail?”

“Again, as you please. You spoilt my life, why should I not spoil yours?”

“The life of a man like you is not spoilt by a girl. Men of your type spoil their own lives.”

It was his turn to wince. Her words moved him to such anger that for a little more he would have taken her in his arms against her will. While he searched for a retort which would sting, she said, standing in the attitude of one who listens, “Hush! there is someone coming.”

Moving rapidly she switched off the light. Returning through the darkness, she took him by the wrist.

“Quick! we must get behind the curtain I expect it is the man who has been sent to guard the presents. He mustn’t find you here.”

She drew him behind the curtains which veiled an embrasured window. For some moments it was impossible to see who had come into the room. Apparently the newcomer was standing in the open door way, listening, making certain that within all was still and safe. Then a light shone out; it was not the light of the electric lamps, but one which was borne in the newcomer’s hand. The person who had entered the room was a girl, as slightly clad as Miss Cornelius, a fact which was revealed by the glow of the electric torch which she carried, and which she had just switched on.

At sight of her, Mr. Nichols felt his companion give a sudden movement as of surprise, and he himself was startled. He recognised in the girl a Miss Overton, Gertrude Cornelius’s cousin, whom he had known in the days gone by, and whom he had seen in the papers was to be one of the bridesmaids. What, he asked himself, could the girl be doing there at that hour of the night?

Probably the same question occurred to his companion. He was aware that she was watching what was taking place within the room with such eager interest that she seemed to be holding her breath.

The girl, holding the torch above her head, looked round the room, as if to make still more sure that she was alone. Then, seemingly convinced, she began to move quickly forward, towards a table which Mr. Nichols perceived, for the first time, was covered with a variety of articles of all sorts and kinds.

“The wedding presents!”

The words came from him as if unawares. Though uttered in the merest whisper the sound seemed to reach the girl in the centre of the room. Pausing, she turned and glanced towards the curtains; making a half step towards them, she stood and listened. As if persuaded by the perfect silence that her imagination had played her a trick, she continued her progress towards the table.

It was odd to notice the suggestion of desire which seemed to pervade her whole form as she bent hungrily over it. A greedy look came into her eyes as they passed from one object to the other. Presently, as she leaned right over it, her hand went out; when it returned it held two objects, a necklace and a bracelet. She gazed at them longingly, as if her soul yearned to possess them both. Possibly actuated by a misty notion that discretion might be the better part of valour, she put back the bracelet in its place, and, with the necklace in her hand, began to move towards the door as quickly as she had come. But it was more than Miss Cornelius could endure, to let her go scot free with one of her most cherished possessions. It may be that she had a feeling that if the girl once got away with her booty she might not find it easy to wrest it from her again. However that may have been, as the girl made for the door, Miss Cornelius moved out from behind the curtains, ex claiming, “My pearl necklace, Lily – What are you doing with my necklace?”

The girl gave a little cry of horror and surprise, yet retained sufficient presence of mind to extinguish her torch, an action to which Miss Cornelius replied by switching on the electric light. “You thief!” she cried. “You’ve taken things of mine before, but it’s too much when you try to steal my necklace—”

“Gertrude,” stammered the girl, “how – how can you say such things I – I only wanted to borrow it to look at it.”

“Borrow it! Yes, I know the kind of borrowing you mean I only let you be my bridesmaid because you begged so hard, and now that I’ve given you your dress, and everything, this is how you treat me.”

If, in the first moment of shock, the young lady lost some of her self-possession, she quickly regained it. She perceived that the curtain from behind which here cousin had appeared was still shivering.

“Who else is there?” she demanded.

“I am,” replied Mr. Nichols, and stepped out into the room.

At sight of him Miss Overton laughed; not mirthfully, but a little hysterically, and a good deal maliciously.

“Tom Nichols!” she cried. “Well, upon my word! You talk to me about being your bridesmaid, and you make an assignation, with one of your old lovers in the middle of the night a few hours before you’re going to be married! If that really does not beat anything!”

“How dare you say such a thing! – you little wretch! I’d like to beat you!”

“I daresay you would; I daresay you’d like to do a good many queer things, and you do a few. But if you don’t take care I’ll tell Lord Grinstead that I found you hidden in this room with Tom Nichols at past two o’clock in the morning; and then, unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ll never be Lady Grinstead on this side of the grave.”

If looks could kill, it is possible that there would have been an end of Miss Overton then and there; but, as they lack that power, the young lady met her cousin’s angry glances with a smile which was galling. Miss Cornelius turned to Mr. Nichols with an air which was intended to ex press righteous disdain for he: audacious and predatory relative.

“Will you be so good as to explain to Lily that her charitable surmises are absolutely baseless, and kindly tell her exactly how it was that I came to find you here?”

Mr. Nichols repeated his previous gesture; he thrust the hand which contained the note behind his back. “Why should I?”

Again Miss Overton laughed, even more maliciously than before.

“Exactly, Mr. Nichols, why should you? My dear Gertrude, you get rid of lover after lover, treating them all badly. Why should you expect one of them to treat you well? All men aren’t ways utter fools, you know! Take my advice and come to terms. Give me the necklace, and I won’t breathe a word to the Earl; but if you’d rather not give it me, I’m afraid you’ll never become a countess, dear.”

“You – you–” Miss Cornelius stopped short, as if the very force of her feelings deprived her of words. Presently she burst out. “I’ve half a mind to rouse the house and give you both in charge. Someone’s been sent to guard the presents, so I suppose he’s somewhere about the place.”

“Is he really? How droll Pray, dear, do rouse the house. I’ll tell my story, and Mr. Nichols will tell his. and then I fancy that the wedding will be postponed for ever and a day. That will be the drollest part of all.”

In his turn Mr. Nichols laughed, as if he found the girl’s impudence amusing. He observed:

“I fear, my dear Gertrude, that you’re finding yourself in an uncomfortable situation.”

“How dare you call me Gertrude!” flamed Miss Cornelius.

Her cousin replied: “My dear, why shouldn’t he? He always used to call you Gertrude, and I’ve heard you call him darling. However, you must settle a little thing like that between yourselves. What I want to know is, are you going to make me this very handsome present? You can’t imagine how I shall value it. Nor can you guess how my conscience pricks me; nor how strongly I feel that poor Lord Grinstead ought not to be allowed to go blindly into such a marriage. Nothing can ease my pangs except this necklace. Doesn’t your heart move you to make me a present of it, dear? – a thank offering, if I may call it so?”

She held the necklace close to her bosom, as if to show how precious it already was to her.

Mr. Nichols, smiling, glanced from one lady to the other; to his mind in the position there was only comedy. But that to Miss Cornelius there was more in it than comedy her attitude plainly showed. She regarded her offending and offensive cousin with an expression in her eyes which transformed her; one saw that it needed but a little more to turn her into a vindictive fury. While she hesitated, as if uncertain whether it would be better to snatch the trinket, rouse the house, or concede the young woman’s impudent demand, a most singular and unlooked-for diversion gave the affair an entirely different complexion.

The curtain which veiled the window next to that in which Miss Cornelius and Mr. Nichols had taken refuge was moved aside, and a man, appearing from behind it, advanced into the centre of the room. Quite coolly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world that he should be there; and he was quite a presentable-looking person. Probably in the early thirties, tall, well-made, under an open overcoat faultless evening dress, a crush hat in his hand; in his right eye a monocle unattached to any cord – a typical smart man of a London ballroom.

“Pardon me,” he remarked in the most colloquial of tones, “if I seemed to interrupt, but I could continue no longer under cover while my most precious bijou was in positive peril. Excuse me, but I really have a better right to that than you.”

He had approached close to Miss Overton; with a sudden rapid movement he took the pearl necklace from the astonished maiden’s hand, with a little bow which was the pink of courtesy.

“You remember me, perhaps? You, Miss Overton, I never shall forget, nor the charming conversation I had with you in the conservatory, when you gave me such an excellent catalogue of your cousin’s wedding presents, mentioning what you considered to be the approximate value of each, laying special stress on the fact that far the most valuable of them was the pearl necklace, the gift of the bride’s father. Under the circumstances you can hardly suppose that I will cede it to you, since I am Simon Pure, the professional, the expert burglar; you will not expect that I should allow myself to be beaten at my own game by a mere amateur, even in the guise of a lovely lady. Permit me to introduce myself to you, Miss Cornelius, and to you, Mr. Nichols, and, indeed, also to you, Miss Overton, since the introduction which prefaced our delightful tête-à-tête was not a formal one.”

He favoured each in turn with that graceful little inclination of the head.

“My name is Alexander Swayne. By profession I am what Society humorously calls a thief, that is, I seek my own, and take it when I can, no matter in whose possession at the moment it may chance to be. I was among the guests, Miss Cornelius, at your father’s delightful reception, uninvited, perhaps, but I was there. I interviewed the wedding presents; observing that there were several among them which belong to the class of article which I am always looking for, I decided, as Miss Overton just now so neatly put it, to borrow them. One obstacle only stood in the way – the excellent firm of private detectives, Messrs. Cayle & Ward, had sent a trustworthy representative to guard them from felonious fingers.”

“A trustworthy representative he seems to be,” exclaimed Miss Cornelius. “Since there is no sign of him down here I suppose he has gone to sleep in one of the upper rooms.”

“Miss Cornelius, you do him an injustice. His name is Macnamara; I know him well; he is a canny Scot; a finer example of the detective you could scarcely wish for. So far from his being, as you mischievously suggest, asleep in one of the upper rooms, at a distance from the treasure it is his duty to safe guard, he is asleep in this very chamber, within a hand’s reach of us; allow me to give you the ocular proof.”

Moving lightly across the room, Mr. Swayne approached a large Chesterfield couch.

“Come,” he said. The trio moved after him, as though drawn by some mesmeric spell. “You see – how you wronged him? – the good man is at his post – asleep.” Lying in such a position that, from where they had been standing, he was hidden by the ends and back of the couch, was a huge man, apparently fast asleep.

Miss Cornelius stared at him in not unnatural surprise.

“But he can’t have slept through all that has been going on”

“Indeed, but he has. The worthy fellow, supposing that he recognised in me an ancient friend, had with me a little fluid refreshment, which I was careful to flavour with a certain spice which I knew would conduce to a night’s sound rest; all three of you have cause to be thankful to me that that spice has worked like a charm. Having managed that a window should be left unfastened, I departed with the other guests, waited until the last of them had gone, and the household had retired to well-earned repose; then back I came through the unfastened window. As I had foreseen, dear Macnamara was already sleeping more soundly than he had ever done before. I was preparing to reap the fruits of my well-laid plans when, to my surprise, confusion, and, I will add, disgust, someone else came through the window which I had inadvertently left open. I hard barely time to withdraw behind a curtain before he was in the room. I supposed that it was a competitor; perhaps one of those pushing, cutting fellows who every day make things more difficult for a gentleman. Had he attempted to lay hands upon my property he would have been taught a much-needed lesson.”

Mr. Swayne drew himself up with the air of a man who desires that his manner should convey even more than his words.

“The style, however, in which he immediately struck a common match made it clear that this could be no professional rival. When he picked a note up from the floor, and you, Miss Cornelius, came in, I under stood; you both of you did your best to make me understand. Annoyance at the unauthorised intrusion of a possible rival was exchanged for a deeper feeling. Where a lovely woman is concerned my sentiments are of the finest kind. It pained me more than words can tell to learn that so fair a being could – how shall I whisper it? – be so deceitful; that within a few hours of her marriage to A, coming to look for a love letter from a sweetheart B, she should find it in the hands of a sweetheart C.

“I was constrained to ask myself, how many sweethearts can this dream of beauty have? The shock hurt me more than the presence of a competitor would have done. I had not recovered from it when I was over whelmed by another. The lights went out; the lady and her lover fled to a curtained window next to mine, and there entered the sweet maid with whom I had had such enchanting discourse such a little time before. To my horror the purport of her presence was instantly made plain; she proved herself to be that worst of all competitors – the amateur. Before my very eyes she proceeded to lay hands on my most valuable piece of property; I had had the assurance that it was the most valuable from her own lips.

“Had you, Miss Cornelius, not stopped her I certainly should. To my amazement she bore herself with a coolness which would have done credit to the most experienced practitioner; she even proceeded to turn the tables on her captor, to blackmail the prospective bride. It looked as if she would be presented – presented!–with the only one among the wedding presents which was really very much worth having. Flesh and blood could not stand that, certainly not my flesh and blood. It was impossible that I could continue a statuesque spectator of my own spoliation. I rushed to the rescue, disembarrassed Miss Overton of what – believe me, dear young lady! – would always have been a weight upon her conscience. I think it will be admitted that there stands before you a labourer who has shown himself, in all respects, to be worthy of his hire. Permit me, Mr. Nichols, Miss Overton, and Miss Cornelius, to ask you to withdraw, in order that I may be enabled in peace to bring my labours to a successful issue.”

Mr. Nichols laughed; his amusement seemed to have grown since Mr. Swayne’s appearance on the scene. There was even the suspicion of a smile in the somewhat strained expression of Miss Overton’s features. In Miss Cornelius attitude alone there was nothing to show that she was conscious of there being even the faintest flavour of humour in the air. She glowered at the speaker as if she would, if she could, have wiped him on the instant from the face of the earth. Her tone could hardly have been redolent of more crushing scorn.

“Is it possible, Mr. – I believe you said that your name was Swayne – that you are suggesting that I should, as you put it, withdraw, and so leave you to rob me at your leisure?”

“Certainly – why not?” Nothing could have been more suave than the fashion of the inquiry. Possibly it was its very suavity which caused Miss Cornelius, gasping, to look about her, as if to learn if she was asleep or waking.

“Why not! He asks why not – this expert – this expert burglar!”

She drew herself to her full height, her fists clenched at her sides, her lovely head poised haughtily upon her slender neck, presenting a charming picture of feminine wrath combined with dignity. “Mr. Swayne, you are a professional burglar by your own admission – not that the admission was needed, but you do admit it. I have not much acquaintance with persons of your sort, but as, I should imagine, you are rather out of the common run of burglars, I will treat you in an uncommon way. You are free to leave this room by the way you entered. If you go inside thirty seconds I will consider your attempted felony as if it had never been made. If, after thirty seconds, you are still here, I will alarm the household, and I will take care that you do not escape; as, I have no doubt, you are well known to the police, that will mean penal servitude for you for an uncomfortably long period of years. Now, Mr. Swayne, at once, please! Which is it to be: Do you stay or go?”

Mr. Swayne sighed delicately, as if oppressed by the weight of other people’s faults.

“Oh, Miss Cornelius, that one so fair, and false, should be so foolish!” He turned with a courteous gesture to Mr. Nichols. “I do not think, sir, that you need allow yourself to be detained any longer – if your part in the play is finished.”

Mr. Nichols, who had been continuously smiling, laughed out again; he was plainly tickled. “Since my part is finished, I’ll take your hint – and my exit. I am glad to have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Mr. Swayne. I trust that I may never hear of your figuring in a more public capacity. The broad arrow was surely never intended to decorate a figure such as yours.”

“I am, sir, entirely of your opinion.”

“Before I go let me transfer to your keeping this little note from Mr. Gerald Drew; it may serve you as safe conduct.”

He held out the half-sheet of paper.

Miss Cornelius, moving quickly forward, snatched at it, but Mr. Swayne was quicker still.

“You coward!” she cried to Mr. Nichols. Then, to Mr. Swayne, “Give me my letter!”

He merely inclined his head, keeping the hand which held the letter, as the other had done, behind his back. Mr. Nichols, moving to the window, paused to say a final word.

“My dear Gertrude–”

“Have I not already forbidden you to call me Gertrude?” flared Miss Cornelius.

“Yet to me you once were Gertrude, and to me also you once were dear; you shall be both for the very last time. My dear Gertrude, when I started on this little adventure I had no idea that it would have such an amusing sequel, nor did I suppose that I should have to thank you for so much entertainment. Take my advice and, as Mr. Swayne phrases it, withdraw; better lose a little to save a deal.” He was already half way through the window when he spoke again. “To think that your sins should have found you out in this particular way! – it is so droll!” Even after he had vanished they could hear him laughing.

“Poor Tom,” exclaimed Miss Overton.

“‘Poor Tom!’” her cousin cried. “Why is he ‘poor Tom?’ Could anybody have behaved worse than he has done?”

“Yes, dear – you. No matter how badly he behaved to you, he never could behave half as badly as you have behaved to him – and to think that you should have made an assignation with him in the middle of the night before your wedding!”

Miss Overton said this with an air of the demurest malice; the glint of a smile was in the maiden’s eyes. If one might judge from her appearance, anger held Miss Cornelius for the moment speechless. Before the moment had passed Mr. Swayne was speaking, with, in his bearing, that ever-present suggestion of delicate consideration.

“One would not wish to place the dots upon Miss Overton’s i’s – the saints forfend! But, Miss Cornelius, since it might be done, in Mr. Nichols’ words, were it not the part of wisdom to lose a little to save a deal After all, you did have a note from Mr. Drew, who writes as if he owned you – here’s proof; and in the small, wee hours you did meet Mr. Nichols, and hide with him behind a curtain. What a story for the Earl of Grinstead! I wager the marriage would be postponed. What a scandal! Despite your beauty – which, one admits, is transcendent – what gentleman of position would take such a piece of damaged goods for a wife? For a husband you’d have to look to such as Mr. Drew.

“And then – the charming Miss Overton, your cousin and your bridesmaid, coming, in the silent watches of the night, to steal your wedding presents – what a terrible tale to have to tell of so near and dear a relative! – finds you, in concealment, with a lover. Could one conceive of a story more calculated, on all accounts, to bring into disrepute your family, Miss Cornelius, which yesterday was nothing, and tomorrow proposes to be so much. It is true that your wedding presents are worth something – are worth, indeed, a deal of money, or I should not be here. Therefore, all the more on that account, you’ll be the object of universal sympathy should they be stolen. It will be the making of you, my dear young lady, in the social sense; you’ll become a heroine, not only for a day, but for the rest of your life; such a catastrophe will crown you with a halo of undying fame. The best people will speak of you as ‘the poor, dear, sweet, lovely Countess of Grinstead, who was actually robbed of her wedding presents the night before her marriage. No one will guess that it was the robbing which made you assured of becoming the Countess of Grinstead.

“Then, also, it must be borne in mind that with your father it is money, money, all the way. With a flourish of his pen he’ll be able to more than compensate you for your loss: in the full glare of the public eye he’ll do it, too, and it will redound to his own honour as well as yours, so that, even financially, your loss will be turned into gain. Do you not now see how relevant was Mr. Nichols’ axiom – for a profound axiom, in sooth, it was – that it is better to lose a little to save a deal? The night wanes, the morn approaches. Suffer me to hint that you permit me to bring my labours to their appointed close. Allow me, ladies, to open for you – the door.”

With that air of easy good breeding which seemed to be his natural heritage, he stood before them with the handle of the open door held in his hand. Miss Overton smiled modestly.

“I’ll permit you,” she said. “You’ve rather disappointed me – if you only knew how I’ve looked forward to having a pearl necklace of my own! – but you’re so droll, I You have my best wishes for a fortunate conclusion of your labours. Should opportunity offer, I shall hope to enjoy with you another tête-à-tête in someone else’s conservatory. Good-morning, Mr. Swayne.”

“Good-morning, dear Miss Overton. My hopes on the subject of a future tête-à-tête are at one with yours.”

Miss Overton passed through the open door, nodding to him as she went. On the other side of it she paused.

“Au revoir, Gertrude darling. I don’t know how long you intend to stay with Mr. Swayne; but, after what’s happened, if I were you, I’d postpone the task of fascinating him to some later date.”

Mr. Swayne waved his hand, as if to convey his approval of the maiden’s sentiments.

“Miss Cornelius, your cousin speaks sound sense. Already I am more than half under the spell of your enchantment. Since the night fades let me entreat you not – until some happier moment – to bewitch me altogether.”

Miss Cornelius looked as if she could have said a great deal, of an unflattering kind, had she chosen, but preferred to hold her peace. “You – thing!” was all she did say. Ignoring his low obeisance, she went out of the room.

It was some time after when Mr. Macnamara awoke from slumber, Daylight was streaming through the sides of the blinds. He awoke with a shock, amazed to find that he had been asleep.

“My word! Have I been asleep all through the night? I’ve never done such a thing in my life before. What’s happened? My head feels like splitting; it’s not because of what I drank last night – I hardly drank anything at all. Someone’s been playing me a trick. I hope to goodness nothing’s come to the wedding presents.” He got up from the couch to look, sinking back again with a cry of dismay. “Good heavens – they’ve gone! – practically the whole caboodle! I’m done – clean done. Someone’s played me a trick indeed. After this I might as well cut my throat, so far as any chance of doing anything at the detective game’s concerned. Hullo! What’s that?”

His ears caught a sound which came from the direction of the windows. He dropped down, so that, as before, he was screened by the ends and back of the Chesterfield. The sound continued. A blind was being moved as if someone were coming through a window into the room; footsteps came softly, yet quickly, across the carpet. Suddenly, with agility which one would hardly have expected from one of his size and build, Mr. Macnamara, springing to his feet, rushed across the room. The intruder, taken by surprise, made a dash to escape. But he was not fast enough. With his huge hands Macnamara gripped both his shoulders, addressing him as he did so with a few words of kindly advice.

“Stow wriggling, my lad; it’s a fair cop. If you take my tip, you’ll make no fuss; you’ll be sorry if you do.”

Mr. Macnamara gave him a little premonitory shake to accentuate his words. The captive was as helpless in his hands as a kitten. He was one of those ill-grown, ill-dressed, ill-fed lads who are familiar sights in London streets – an example of the true gutter-snipe; of the class from which the hooligan comes. Even in the midst of his discomfiture he did not for a moment lose his conversational gift.

“Let me go, governor; I wasn’t going to do no harm, straight I wasn’t; only I see the window open—”

“Chuck it! I know what you saw; I know all about it. Have you got anything on you with which you can put me out?”

“Not me, governor. You’re making a mistake, you really are; I’m not that sort at all. I wouldn’t go to do a thing like that, not—”

“What’s this?” Unceremoniously interrupting the young gentleman’s remarks, Mr. Macnamara, thrusting his hand into one of the pockets of his ragged jacket, produced from it an article which is known in certain circles as a “sandbag.” Mr. Macnamara observed his find with critical eyes. “I thought you might have something of this sort upon you, and it’s lucky for you you have. You’ve got to out me with this pretty little plaything of yours, and you’ve got to be quick about it, too.”

“Me out you!” exclaimed the youth, this this time in genuine amazement. “I couldn’t no more out you than—”

Lifting the lad off his feet Mr. Macnamara stood him on the Chesterfield. “You’ll manage it better up there; you’re hardly tall enough to do it from the floor. Here’s your bag. I’m going to turn my back to you; when I say ‘Now’, you out me. Now!”

Confronted by Mr. Macnamara’s broad back, the lad brought the sandbag down on his bare head with a rapidity and sureness of aim which pointed to the practised hand. Without a sound the huge man went front forward on the floor, remaining motionless, prone as he had fallen.

“That’s outed him enough, I hope, to please him,” commented the youth. “He won’t trouble about nothing for a bit. Though what his game is beats me. I lay there’s more in it than meets the eye. But there’s no time for me to stop here thinking.”

Moving to the table he began to make free with the fragments which Mr. Swayne had left, and was shovelling unconsidered trifles into his pockets, when the door opened to admit a lady of the housekeeper type. Appreciating the situation on the instant, she began to shout with the full force of a healthy pair of lungs. The youth flew to the window, dropping part of his booty and his sandbag as he went. This time the household was effectually roused. The lady told her story; Mr. Macnamara, when he regained his senses, told his.

He described how a burglar, appearing at the window, he had waited for him to enter; how he had captured him the moment he was in the room; how, while he was still engaged in a furious struggle, a confederate had come upon him unawares, like a coward, from behind, and struck him senseless. There was the open window, the sandbag, scraps of the vanished treasure, even the lady, to prove his words.

Miss Cornelius received the news of the fate of the wedding presents with surprising equanimity. Interviewing Mr. Macnamara, she listened to his story, asking, with a curious smile, when he had finished, “Are you quite sure that you did not sleep, even for a few moments, while you were keeping watch?”

Without waiting for an answer, she walked away, he staring at her with a startled air.

“What does she mean by that?” he asked himself. “I wonder how much she knows.”

•   •   •   •   •

It was one of the prettiest and smartest weddings of the season. When the company had returned to the house in Berkeley Square the bride’s father announced, having, possibly, received a hint from his daughter, that he hoped that the Earl and Countess would accept from him a cheque for the approximate value of the stolen presents. On receiving this intimation the bridegroom perceptibly brightened; hitherto his manner had seemed a trifle surly.

As the happy pair were leaving Charing Cross Station for the first stage of the wedding journey, someone slipped an envelope into the Countess of Grinstead’s hand; she was standing outside her carriage door. The Earl, at the moment, was at the other end of the station. Opening it she found that it contained a card on which was written, “A wedding present – with Alexander Swayne’s best wishes.” With the card was the half-sheet of paper on which Mr. Gerald Drew had written the note which had been the cause, in a sense, of the success of the burglary in Berkeley Square. When the Earl returned, the Countess, seated in the carriage, was dropping scraps of paper out of the opposite window.

The Lost Duchess

— I —

“Has the Duchess returned?”

“No, your Grace.”

Knowles came further into the room. He had a letter on a salver. When the Duke had taken it, Knowles still lingered.

The Duke glanced at him.

“Is an answer required?”

“No, your Grace.” Still Knowles lingered. “Something a little singular has happened. The carriage has returned without the Duchess, and the men say that they thought her Grace was in it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hardly understand myself, your Grace. Perhaps you would like to see Barnes.”

Barnes was the coachman.

“Send him up.”

When Knowles had gone, and he was alone, his Grace showed signs of being slightly annoyed. He looked at his watch. “I told her she’d better be in by four. She says that she’s not feeling well, and yet one would think that she was not aware of the fatigue entailed in having the Prince to dinner, and a mob of people to follow. I particularly wished her to lie down for a couple of hours.”

Knowles ushered in not only Barnes, the coachman, but Moysey, the footman, too. Both these persons seemed to be ill at ease.

The Duke glanced at them sharply. In his voice there was a suggestion of impatience.

“What is the matter?”

Barnes explained as best he could.

“If you please, your Grace, we waited for the Duchess outside Cane and Wilson’s, the drapers. The Duchess came out, got into the carriage, and Moysey shut the door, and her Grace said, ‘Home!’ and yet when we got home she wasn’t there.”

“She wasn’t where?”

“Her Grace wasn’t in the carriage, your Grace.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Her Grace did get into the carriage; you shut the door, didn’t you?”

Barnes turned to Moysey. Moysey brought his hand up to his brow in a sort of military salute – he had been a soldier in the regiment in which, once upon a time, the Duke had been a subaltern.

“She did. The Duchess came out of the shop. She seemed rather in a hurry, I thought. She got into the carriage, and she said, ‘Home, Moysey!’ I shut the door, and Barnes drove straight home. We never stopped anywhere, and we never noticed nothing happen on the way; and yet when we got home the carriage was empty.”

The Duke stared.

“Do you mean to tell me that the Duchess got out of the carriage while you were driving full pelt through the streets without saying anything to you, and without you noticing it?”

“The carriage was empty when we got home, your Grace.”

“Was either of the doors open?”

“No, your Grace.”

“You fellows have been up to some infernal mischief. You have made a mess of it. You never picked up the Duchess, and you’re trying to palm this tale off on to me to save yourselves.”

Barnes was moved to adjuration:

“I’ll take my Bible oath, your Grace, that the Duchess got into the carriage outside Cane and Wilson’s.”

Moysey seconded his colleague: “I will swear to that, your Grace. She got into the carriage, and I shut the door, and she said, ‘Home, Moysey!’

The Duke looked as if he did not know what to make of the story and its tellers.

“What carriage did you have?”

“Her Grace’s brougham, your Grace.” Knowles interposed:

“The brougham was ordered because I understood that the Duchess was not feeling very well, and there’s rather a high wind, your Grace.”

The Duke snapped at him:

“What has that to do with it? Are you suggesting that the Duchess was more likely to jump out of a brougham while it was dashing through the streets than out of any other kind of vehicle?”

The Duke’s glance fell on the letter which Knowles had brought him when he first had entered. He had placed it on his writing-table. Now he took it up. It was addressed:

To His Grace The Duke of Datchet.
Private! VERY PRESSING!!!

The name was written in a fine, clear, almost feminine hand. The words in the left-hand corner of the envelope were written in a different hand. They were large and bold; almost as though they had been painted with the end of the pen-holder instead of being written with the pen. The envelope itself was of an unusual size, and bulged out as though it contained something else besides a letter.

The Duke tore the envelope open. As he did so something fell out of it on to the writing-table. It looked as though it was a lock of a woman’s hair. As he glanced at it the Duke seemed to be a trifle startled. The Duke read the letter:

Your Grace will be so good as to bring five hundred pounds (500£) in gold to the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade within an hour of the receipt of this. The Duchess of Datchet has been kidnapped. An imitation duchess got into the carriage, which was waiting outside. Cane and Wilson’s, and she alighted on the road. Unless your Grace does as you are requested the Duchess of Datchet’s left-hand little finger will be at once cut off, and sent home in time to receive the Prince to dinner. Other portions of her Grace will follow. A lock of her Grace’s hair is enclosed with this as an earnest of our good intentions.

Before 5.30 p.m. your Grace is requested to be at the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade with five hundred pounds (500£) in gold. You will there be accosted by an individual in a white top-hat, and with a gardenia in his button-hole. You will be entirely at liberty to give him into custody, or to have him followed by the police. In which case the Duchess’s left arm, cut off at the shoulder, will be sent home for dinner – not to mention other extremely possible contingencies. But you are advised to give the individual in question the five hundred pounds in gold, because in that case the Duchess herself will be home in time to receive the Prince to dinner, and with one of the best stories with which to entertain your distinguished guests they ever heard.

Remember! not later than 5.30, unless you wish to receive her Grace’s little finger.

The Duke stared at this amazing epistle when he had read it as though he had found it difficult to believe the evidence of his eyes. He was not a demonstrative person as a rule, but this little communication astonished even him. He read it again. Then his hands dropped to his sides, and he swore.

He took up the lock of hair which had fallen out of the envelope. Was it possible that it could be his wife’s, the Duchess? Was it possible that a Duchess of Datchet could be kidnapped, in broad daylight, in the heart of London, and be sent home, as it were, in pieces? Had sacrilegious hands already been playing pranks with that great lady’s hair? Certainly, that hair was so like her hair that the mere resemblance made his Grace’s blood run cold. He turned on Messrs. Barnes and Moysey as though he would have liked to rend them:

“You scoundrels!”

He moved forward as though the intention had entered his ducal heart to knock his servants down. But, if that were so, he did not act quite up to his intention. Instead, he stretched out his arm, pointing at them as if he were an accusing spirit:

“Will you swear that it was the Duchess who got into the carriage outside Cane and Wilson’s?”

Barnes began to stammer:

“I – I’ll swear, your Grace, that I – I thought—”

The Duke stormed an interruption:

“I don’t ask what you thought. I ask you, will you swear it was?”

The Duke’s anger was more than Barnes could face. He was silent. Moysey showed a larger courage:

“I could have sworn that it was at the time, your Grace. But now it seems to me that it’s a rummy go.”

“A rummy go!” The peculiarity of the phrase did not seem to strike the Duke just then – at least, he echoed it as if it didn’t.

“You call it a rummy go! Do you know that I am told in this letter that the woman who entered the carriage was not the Duchess? What you were thinking about, or what case you will be able to make out for yourselves, you know better than I; but I can tell you this – that in an hour you will leave my service, and you may esteem yourselves fortunate if, tonight, you are not both of you sleeping in gaol. Knowles! take these men to a room, and lock them in it, and set someone to see that they don’t get out of it, and come back at once. You understand, at once – to me!”

Knowles did not give Messrs. Barnes and Moysey a chance to offer a remonstrance, even if they had been disposed to do so. He escorted them out of the room with a dexterity and a celerity which did him credit, and in a remarkably short space of time he returned into the ducal presence. He was the Duke’s own servant – his own particular man. He was a little older than the Duke, and he had been his servant almost ever since the Duke had been old enough to have a servant of his very own. Probably James Knowles knew more than any living creature of the Duke’s “secret history” – as they call it in the chroniques scandalouses of his little peculiarities, of his strong points, and his weak ones. And, in the possession of this knowledge, he had borne himself in a manner which had caused the Duke to come to look upon him as a man in whom he might have confidence – that confidence which a penitent has in a confessor – to look upon him as a trusted and a trustworthy friend.

When Knowles reappeared the Duke handed him the curious epistle with which he had been favoured.

“Read that, and tell me what you think of it.”

Knowles read it. His countenance was even more of a mask than the Duke’s. He evinced no sign of astonishment.

“I am inclined, your Grace, to think that it’s a hoax.”

“A hoax! I don’t know what you call a hoax! That is not a hoax!” The Duke held out the lock of hair which had fallen from the envelope. “I have compared it with the hair in my locket, and it is the Duchess’s hair.”

“May I look at it?”

The Duke handed it to Knowles. Knowles examined it closely.

“It resembles her Grace’s hair.”

“Resembles! It is her hair.”

Knowles still continued to reflect. He offered a suggestion.

“Shall I send for the police?”

“The police! What’s the good of sending for the police? If what that letter says is true, by the time I have succeeded in making a thick-skulled constable understand what has happened the Duchess will be will be mutilated!”

The Duke turned away as if the thought were frightful – as, indeed, it was.

“Is that all you can suggest?”

“Unless your Grace proposes taking the five hundred pounds.”

One might almost have suspected that the words were spoken in irony. But before he could answer another servant entered, who also brought a letter for the Duke. When his Grace’s glance fell on it he uttered an exclamation. The writing on the envelope was the same writing that had been on the envelope which had contained the very singular communication – like it in all respects, down to the broomstick-end thickness of the “Private!” and “Very pressing!!!” in the corner.

“Who brought this?” stormed the Duke.

The servant appeared to be a little startled by the violence of his Grace’s manner.

“A lady – or, at least, your Grace, she seemed to be a lady.”

“Where is she?”

“She came in a hansom, your Grace. She gave me that letter, and said, ‘Give that to the Duke of Datchet at once – without a moments delay!’ Then she got into the hansom again, and drove away.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Your Grace!”

The man seemed surprised, as though the idea of stopping chance visitors to the ducal mansion vi et armis [trespass accompanied by force and violence] had not, until that moment, entered into his philosophy. The Duke continued to regard the man as if he could say a good deal, if he chose. Then he pointed to the door. His lips said nothing, but his gesture much. The servant vanished.

“Another hoax!” the Duke said, grimly, as he tore the envelope open.

This time the envelope contained a sheet of paper, and in the sheet of paper another envelope. The Duke unfolded the sheet of paper. On it some words were written. These:

The Duchess appears so particularly anxious to drop you a line, that one really hasn’t the heart to refuse her.

Her Grace’s communication – written amidst blinding tears! – you will find enclosed with this.

“Knowles,” said the Duke, in a voice which actually trembled, “Knowles, hoax or no hoax, I will be even with the gentleman who wrote that.”

Handing the sheet of paper to Mr. Knowles, his Grace turned his attention to the envelope which had been enclosed. It was a small square envelope, of the finest quality, and it reeked with perfume. The Duke’s countenance assumed an added frown – he had no fondness for envelopes which were scented. In the centre of the envelope were the words “To the Duke of Datchet,” written in the big, bold, sprawling hand which he knew so well. “Mabel’s writing,” he said, half to himself, as, with shaking fingers, he tore the envelope open. The sheet of paper which he took out was almost as stiff as cardboard. It, too, emitted what his Grace deemed the nauseous odours of the perfumer’s shop. On it was written this letter:

My dear Hereward – For Heaven’s sake do what these people require! I don’t know what has happened or where I am, but I am nearly distracted! They have already cut off some of my hair, and they tell me that, if you don’t let them have five hundred pounds in gold by half-past five, they will cut off my little finger too. I would sooner die than lose my little finger – and – I don’t know what else besides.

By the token which I send you, and which has never, until now, been off my breast, I conjure you to help me. – Mabel.

Hereward – help me!

When he read that letter the Duke turned white – very white, as white as the paper on which it was written. He passed the epistle on to Knowles.

“I suppose that also is a hoax?” He spoke in a tone of voice which was unpleasantly cold – a coldness which Mr. Knowles was aware, from not inconsiderable experience, betokened that the Duke was white-hot within.

Mr. Knowles’s demeanour, however, betrayed no sign that he was aware of anything of the kind, he being conscious that there is a certain sort of knowledge which is apt, at times, to be dangerous to its possessor. He read the letter from beginning to end.

“This certainly does resemble her Grace’s writing.”

“You think it does resemble it, do you? You think that there is a certain faint and distant similarity?” The Duke asked these questions quietly – too quietly. Then, all at once, he thundered – which Mr. Knowles was quite prepared for – “Why, you idiot, don’t you know it is her writing?”

Mr. Knowles gave way another point. He was, constitutionally, too much of a diplomatist to concede more than a point at a time.

“So far as appearances go, I am bound to admit that I think it possible that it is her Grace’s writing.”

Then the Duke let fly at him – at this perfectly innocent man. But, of course, Mr. Knowles was long since inured.

“Perhaps you would like me to send for an expert in writing? Or perhaps you would prefer that I should send for half a dozen? And by the time that they had sent in their reports, and you had reported on their reports, and they had reported on your report of their reports, and some one or other of you had made up his mind, the Duchess would be dead. Yes, sir, and you’d have murdered her!”

His Grace hurled this frightful accusation at Mr. Knowles, as if Mr. Knowles had been a criminal standing in the dock. While the Duke had been collecting and discharging his nice derangement of epithets his fingers had been examining the interior of the envelope which had held the letter which purported to be written by his wife. When his fingers reappeared he was holding something between his first finger and his thumb. He glanced at this himself. Then he held it out towards Mr. Knowles.

Again his voice was trembling.

“If this letter is not from the Duchess, how came that to be in the envelope?”

Mr. Knowles endeavoured to see what the Duke was holding. It was so minute an object that it was a little difficult to make out exactly what it was, and the Duke appeared to be unwilling to let it go.

So his Grace explained:

“That is the half of a sixpence which I gave to the Duchess when I asked her to be my wife. You see it is pierced. I pierced that hole in it myself. As the Duchess says in this letter, and as I have reason to know, she has worn this broken sixpence from that hour to this. If this letter is not hers, how came this token in the envelope? How came anyone to know, even, that she carried it?”

Mr. Knowles was silent. He still yielded to his constitutional disrelish to commit himself. At last he asked:

“What is it that your Grace proposes to do?”

The Duke spoke with a bitterness which almost suggested a personal animosity towards the inoffensive Mr. Knowles.

“I propose, with your permission, to release the Duchess from the custody of my estimable correspondent. I propose – always with your permission – to comply with his modest request, and to take him his five hundred pounds in gold.” He paused, then continued in a tone which, coming from him, meant volumes: “Afterwards, I propose to cry quits with the concocter of this pretty little hoax, even if it costs me every penny I possess. He shall pay more for that five hundred pounds than he supposes.”

— II —

The Duke of Datchet, coming out of the bank, lingered for a moment on the steps. In one hand he carried a canvas bag, which seemed well weighted. On his countenance there was an expression which to a casual observer might have suggested that his Grace was not completely at his ease. That casual observer happened to come strolling by. It took the form of Ivor Dacre.

Mr. Dacre looked the Duke of Datchet up and down in that languid way he has. He perceived the canvas bag. Then he remarked, possibly intending to be facetious:

“Been robbing the bank? Shall I call a cart?”

Nobody minds what Ivor Dacre says. Besides, he is the Duke’s own cousin. Perhaps a little removed; still, there it is. So the Duke smiled a sickly smile, as if Mr. Dacre’s delicate wit had given him a passing touch of indigestion.

Mr. Dacre noticed that the Duke looked sallow, so he gave his pretty sense of humour another airing:

“Kitchen boiler burst? When I saw the Duchess just now I wondered if it had.”

His Grace distinctly started. He almost dropped the canvas bag.

“You saw the Duchess just now, Ivor! When?”

The Duke was evidently moved. Mr. Dacre was stirred to languid curiosity. “I can’t say I clocked it. Perhaps half an hour ago; perhaps a little more.”

“Half an hour ago! Are you sure? Where did you see her?”

Mr. Dacre wondered. The Duchess of Datchet could scarcely have been eloping in broad daylight. Moreover, she had not yet been married a year. Everyone knew that she and the Duke were still as fond of each other as if they were not man and wife. So, although the Duke, for some cause or other, was evidently in an odd state of agitation, Mr. Dacre saw no reason why he should not make a clean breast of all he knew.

“She was going like blazes in a hansom cab.”

“In a hansom cab? Where?”

“Down Waterloo Place.”

“Was she alone?”

Mr. Dacre reflected. He glanced at the Duke out of the corners of his eyes. His languid utterance became a positive drawl:

“I rather fancy that she wasn’t.”

“Who was with her?”

My dear fellow, if you were to offer me the bank I couldn’t tell you.

“Was it a man?” Mr. Dacre’s drawl became still more pronounced:

“I rather fancy that it was.” Mr. Dacre expected something. The Duke was so excited. But he by no means expected what actually came:

“Ivor, she’s been kidnapped!”

Mr. Dacre did what he had never been known to do before within the memory of man – he dropped his eyeglass.

“Datchet!”

“She has! Some scoundrel has decoyed her away, and trapped her. He’s already sent me a lock of her hair, and he tells me that if I don’t let him have five hundred pounds in gold by half-past five he’ll let me have her little finger.”

Mr. Dacre did not know what to make of his Grace at all. He was a sober man – it couldn’t be that! Mr. Dacre felt really concerned.

“I’ll call a cab, old man, and you’d better let me see you home.”

Mr. Dacre half raised his stick to hail a passing hansom. The Duke caught him by the arm:

“You ass! What do you mean? I am telling you the simple truth, My wife’s been kidnapped.”

Mr. Dacre’s countenance was a thing to be seen – and remembered.

“Oh! I hadn’t heard that there was much of that sort of thing about just now. They talk of poodles being kidnapped, but as for duchesses – You’d really better let me call that cab.”

“Ivor, do you want me to kick you? Don’t you see that to me it’s a question of life and death? I’ve been in there to get the money.” His Grace motioned towards the bank. “I’m going to take it to the scoundrel who has my darling at his mercy. Let me but have her hand in mine again, and he shall continue to pay for every sovereign with tears of blood until he dies.”

“Look here, Datchet, I don’t know if you’re having a joke with me, or if you’re not well—”

The Duke stepped impatiently into the roadway.

“Ivor, you’re a fool! Can’t you tell jest from earnest, health from disease? I’m off! Are you coming with me? It would be as well that I should have a witness.”

“Where are you off to?”

“To the other end of the Arcade.”

“Who is the gentleman you expect to have the pleasure of meeting there?”

“How should I know?”

The Duke took a letter from his pocket – it was the letter which had just arrived. “The fellow is to wear a white top-hat, and a gardenia in his button hole.”

“What is it you have there?”

“It’s the letter which brought the news – look for yourself and see; but, for God’s sake, make haste!” His Grace glanced at his watch. “It’s already twenty after five.”

“And do you mean to say that on the strength of a letter such as this you are going to hand over five hundred pounds to—”

The Duke cut Mr. Dacre short:

“What are five hundred pounds to me? Besides, you don’t know all. There is another letter. And I have heard from Mabel. But I will tell you all about it later. If you are coming, come!”

Folding up the letter, Mr. Dacre returned it to the Duke.

“As you say, what are five hundred pounds to you? It’s as well they are not as much to you as they are to me, or I’m afraid—”

“Hang it, Ivor, do prose afterwards!”

The Duke hurried across the road. Mr. Dacre hastened after him. As they entered the Arcade they passed a constable. Mr. Dacre touched his companion’s arm.

“Don’t you think we’d better ask our friend in blue to walk behind us? His neighbourhood might be handy.”

“Nonsense!” The Duke stopped short. “Ivor, this is my affair, not yours. If you are not content to play the part of silent witness, be so good as to leave me.”

“My dear Datchet, I’m entirely at your service. I can be every whit as insane as you, I do assure you.”

Side by side they moved rapidly down the Burlington Arcade. The Duke was obviously in a state of the extremest nervous tension. Mr. Dacre was equally obviously in a state of the most supreme enjoyment. People stared as they rushed past. The Duke saw nothing. Mr. Dacre saw everything, and smiled.

When they reached the Piccadilly end of the Arcade the Duke pulled up. He looked about him. Mr. Dacre also looked about him.

“I see nothing of your white-hatted and gardenia-buttonholed friend,” said Ivor.

The Duke referred to his watch:

“It’s not yet half-past five. I’m up to time.”

Mr. Dacre held his stick in front of him and leaned on it. He indulged himself with a beatific smile:

“It strikes me, my dear Datchet, that you’ve been the victim of one of the finest things in hoaxes—”

“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

The voice which interrupted Mr. Dacre came from the rear. While they were looking in front of them someone approached from behind, apparently coming out of the shop which was at their backs.

The speaker looked a gentleman. He sounded like one, too. Costume, appearance, manner were beyond beyond reproach – even beyond the criticism of two such keen critics as were these. The glorious attire of a London dandy was surmounted with a beautiful white top-hat. In his buttonhole was a magnificent gardenia. In age the stranger was scarcely more than a boy, and a sunny-faced, handsome boy at that. His cheeks were hairless, his eyes were blue. His smile was not only innocent, it was bland. Never was there a more conspicuous illustration of that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

The Duke looked at him, and glowered. Mr. Dacre looked at him, and smiled.

“Who are you?” asked the Duke.

“Ah – that is the question!” The newcomer’s refined and musical voice breathed the very soul of affability. “I am an individual who is so unfortunate as to be in want of five hundred pounds.”

“Are you the scoundrel who sent me that infamous letter?”

That charming stranger never turned a hair!

“I am the scoundrel mentioned in that infamous letter who wants to accost you at the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade before half-past five – as witness my white hat and my gardenia.”

“Where’s my wife?”

The stranger gently swung his stick in front of him with his two hands. He regarded the Duke as a merry-hearted son might regard his father. The thing was beautiful!

“Her Grace will be home almost as soon as you are – when you have given me the money which I perceive you have all ready for me in that scarcely elegant-looking canvas bag.” He shrugged his shoulders quite gracefully. “Unfortunately, in these matters one has no choice – one is forced to ask for gold.”

“And suppose, instead of giving you what is in this canvas bag, I take you by the throat and choke the life right out of you?”

“Or suppose,” amended Mr. Dacre, “that you do better, and commend this gentleman to the tender mercies of the first policeman we encounter.”

The stranger turned to Mr. Dacre. He condescended to become conscious of his presence.

“Is this gentleman your Grace’s friend? Ah – Mr. Dacre, I perceive! I have the honour of knowing Mr. Dacre, although, possibly, I am unknown to him.”

“You were – until this moment!”

With an airy little laugh the stranger returned to the Duke. He brushed an invisible speck of dust off the sleeve of his coat.

“As has been intimated in that infamous letter, his Grace is at perfect liberty to give me into custody – why not? Only” – he said it with his boyish smile – “if a particular communication is not received from me in certain quarters within a certain time, the Duchess of Datchet’s beautiful white arm will be hacked off at the shoulder.”

“You hound!”

The Duke would have taken the stranger by the throat, and have done his best to choke the life right out of him then and there, if Mr. Dacre had not intervened.

“Steady, old man!”

Mr. Dacre turned to the stranger: “You appear to be a pretty sort of a scoundrel.”

The stranger gave his shoulders that almost imperceptible shrug:

“Oh, my dear Dacre, I am in want of money! I believe that you sometimes are in want of money, too.”

Everybody knows that nobody knows where Ivor Dacre gets his money from, so the allusion must have tickled him immensely.

“You’re a cool hand,” he said.

“Some men are born that way.”

“So I should imagine. Men like you must be born, not made.”

“Precisely – as you say!” The stranger turned, with his graceful smile, to the Duke:

“But are we not wasting precious time? I can assure your Grace that, in this particular matter, moments are of value.”

Mr. Dacre interposed before the Duke could answer:

“If you take my strongly urged advice, Datchet, you will summon this constable who is now coming down the Arcade, and hand over this gentleman to his keeping. I do not think that you need fear that the Duchess will lose her arm, or even her little finger. Scoundrels of this one’s kidney are most amenable to reason when they have handcuffs on their wrists.”

The Duke plainly hesitated. He would – and he would not. The stranger, as he eyed him, seemed much amused.

“My dear Duke, by all means act on Mr. Dacre’s valuable suggestion. As I said before, why not? It would at least be interesting to see if the Duchess does or does not lose her arm – almost as interesting to you as to Mr. Dacre. Those blackmailing, kidnapping scoundrels do use such empty menaces. Besides, you would have the pleasure of seeing me locked up. My imprisonment for life would recompense you even for the loss of her Grace’s arm. And five hundred pounds is such a sum to have to pay – merely for a wife! Why not, therefore, act on Mr. Dacre’s suggestion? Here comes the constable.” The constable referred to was advancing towards them – he was not a dozen yards away. “Let me beckon to him – I will with pleasure.” He took out his watch – a gold chronograph repeater. “There are scarcely ten minutes left during which it will be possible for me to send the communication which I spoke of, so that it may arrive in time. As it will then be too late, and the instruments are already prepared for the little operation which her Grace is eagerly anticipating, it would, perhaps, be as well, after all, that you should give me into charge. You would have saved your five hundred pounds, and you would, at any rate, have something in exchange for her Grace’s mutilated limb. Ah, here is the constable! Officer!”

The stranger spoke with such a pleasant little air of easy geniality that it was impossible to tell if he were in jest or earnest. This fact impressed the Duke much more than if he had gone in for a liberal indulgence of the – under the circumstances – orthodox melodramatic scowling. And, indeed, in the face of his own common sense, it impressed Mr. Ivor Dacre too. This well-bred, well-groomed youth was just the being to realise – aux bouts des ongles [to the tips of his fingers] – a modern type of the devil, the type which depicts him as a perfect gentleman, who keeps smiling all the time.

The constable whom this audacious rogue had signalled approached the little group. He addressed the stranger:

“Do you want me, sir?”

“No, I do not want you. I think it is the Duke of Datchet.”

The constable, who knew the Duke very well by sight, saluted him as he turned to receive instructions.

The Duke looked white, even savage. There was not a pleasant look in his eyes and about his lips. He appeared to be endeavouring to put a great restraint upon himself. There was a momentary silence. Mr. Dacre made a movement as if to interpose.

The Duke caught him by the arm. He spoke: “No, constable, I do not want you. This person is mistaken.”

The constable looked as if he could not quite make out how such a mistake could have arisen, hesitated, then, with another salute, he moved away.

The stranger was still holding his watch in his hand.

“Only eight minutes,” he said.

The Duke seemed to experience some difficulty in giving utterance to what he had to say.

“If I give you this five hundred pounds, you – you—”

As the Duke paused, as if at a loss for language which was strong enough to convey his meaning, the stranger laughed.

“Let us take the adjectives for granted. Besides, it is only boys who call each other names – men do things. If you give me the five hundred sovereigns, which you have in that bag, at once – in five minutes it will be too late – I will promise – I will not swear; if you do not credit my simple promise, you will not believe my solemn affirmation – I will promise that, possibly within an hour, certainly within an hour and a half, the Duchess of Datchet shall return to you absolutely uninjured – except, of course, as you are already aware, with regard to a few of the hairs of her head. I will promise this on the understanding that you do not yourself attempt to see where I go, and that you will allow no one else to do so.” This with a glance at Ivor Dacre. “I shall know at once if I am followed. If you entertain any such intentions, you had better, on all accounts, remain in possession of your five hundred pounds.”

The Duke eyed him very grimly:

“I entertain no such intentions – until the Duchess returns.”

Again the stranger indulged in that musical little laugh of his:

“Ah, until the Duchess returns! Of course, then the bargain’s at an end. When you are once more in the enjoyment of her Grace’s society, you will be at liberty to set all the dogs in Europe at my heels. I assure you I fully expect that you will do so – why not?”

The Duke raised the canvas bag.

“My dear Duke, ten thousand thanks! You shall see her Grace at Datchet House, ’pon my honour, probably within the hour.”

“Well,” commented Ivor Dacre, when the stranger had vanished, with the bag, into Piccadilly, and as the Duke and himself moved towards Burlington Gardens, “if a gentleman is to be robbed, it is as well that he should have another gentleman to rob him.”

— III —

Mr. Dacre eyed his companion covertly as they progressed. His Grace of Datchet appeared to have some fresh cause for uneasiness. All at once he gave it utterance, in a tone of voice which was extremely sombre:

“Ivor, do you think that scoundrel will dare to play me false?”

“I think,” murmured Mr. Dacre, “that he has dared to play you pretty false already.”

“I don’t mean that. But I mean how am I to know, now that he has his money, that he will still not keep Mabel in his clutches?”

There came an echo from Mr. Dacre:

“Just so – how are you to know?”

“I believe that something of this sort has been done in the States.”

“I thought that there they were content to kidnap them after they were dead. I was not aware that they had, as yet, got quite so far as the living.”

“I believe that I have heard of something just like this.”

“Possibly; they are giants over there.”

“And in that case the scoundrels, when their demands were met, refused to keep to the letter of their bargain, and asked for more.”

The Duke stood still. He clenched his fists, and swore: “Ivor, if that villain doesn’t keep his word, and Mabel isn’t home within the hour, by God I shall go mad!”

“My dear Datchet” – Mr. Dacre loved strong language as little as he loved a scene – “let us trust to time and, a little, to your white-hatted and gardenia-buttonholed friend’s word of honour. You should have thought of possible eventualities before you showed your confidence – really. Suppose, instead of going mad, we first of all go home?”

A hansom stood waiting for a fare at the end of the Arcade. Mr. Dacre had handed the Duke into it before his Grace had quite realised that the vehicle was there.

“Tell the fellow to drive faster.” That was what the Duke said when the cab had started.

“My dear Datchet, the man’s already driving his geegee off its legs. If a bobby catches sight of him he’ll take his number.”

A moment later, a murmur from the Duke:

“I don’t know if you’re aware that the Prince is coming to dinner?”

“I am perfectly aware of it.”

“You take it uncommonly coolly. How easy it is to bear our brother’s burdens! Ivor, if Mabel doesn’t turn up I shall feel like murder”

“I sympathise with you, Datchet, with all my heart, though, I may observe, parenthetically, that I very far from realise the situation even yet. Take my advice. If the Duchess does not show quite so soon as we both of us desire, don’t make a scene; just let me see what I can do.”

Judging from the expression of his countenance, the Duke was conscious of no overwhelming desire to witness an exhibition of Mr. Dacre’s prowess.

When the cab reached Datchet House his Grace dashed up the steps three at a time. The door flew open.

“Has the Duchess returned?”

“Hereward!”

A voice floated downwards from above. Someone came running down the stairs. It was her Grace of Datchet.

“Mabel!”

She actually rushed into the Duke’s extended arms. And he kissed her, and she kissed him – before the servants.

“So you’re not quite dead?” she cried.

“I am almost,” he said.

She drew herself a little away from him:

“Hereward, were you seriously hurt?”

“Do you suppose that I could have been otherwise than seriously hurt?”

“ My darling! Was it a Pickford’s van?”

The Duke stared: “A Pickford’s van? I don’t understand. But come in here. Come along, Ivor. Mabel, you don’t see Ivor.”

“How do you do, Mr. Dacre?”

Then the trio withdrew into a little ante-room; it was really time. Even then the pair conducted themselves as if Mr. Dacre had been nothing and no one. The Duke took the lady’s two hands in his. He eyed her fondly.

“So you are uninjured, with the exception of that lock of hair. Where did the villain take it from?”

The lady looked a little puzzled:

“What lock of hair?”

From an envelope which he took from his pocket the Duke produced a shining tress. It was the lock of hair which had arrived in the first communication. “I will have it framed.”

“You will have what framed?” The Duchess glanced at what the Duke was so tenderly caressing, almost, as it seemed, a little dubiously. “Whatever is it you have there?”

“It is the lock of hair which that scoundrel sent me.” Something in the lady’s face caused him to ask a question: “Didn’t he tell you be had sent it me?”

“Hereward!!”

“Did the brute tell you that he meant to cut off finger?”

A very curious look came into the lady’s face. She glanced at the Duke as if she, all at once, were half afraid of him. She cast at Mr. Dacre what really seemed to be a look of inquiry. Her voice was tremulously anxious:

“Hereward, did – did the accident affect you mentally?”

“How could it not have affected mentally? Do you think that my mental organisation is of steel?”

“But you look so well?”

“Of course I look well, now that I have you back again. Tell me, darling, did that hound actually threaten you with cutting off your arm? If he did, I shall feel half inclined to kill him yet.”

The Duchess seemed positively to shrink from her better-half’s near neighbourhood:

“Hereward, was it a Pickford’s van?”

The Duke seemed puzzled. Well he might be!

“Was what a Pickford’s van?”

The lady turned to Mr. Dacre. In her voice there was a ring of anguish:

“Mr. Dacre, tell me, was it a Pickford’s van?”

Ivor could only imitate his relative’s repetition of her inquiry:

“I don’t quite catch you – was what a Pickford’s van?”

The Duchess clasped her hands in front of her:

“What is it you are keeping from me? What is it you are trying to hide? I implore you to tell me the worst, whatever it may be! Do not keep me any longer in suspense; you do not know what I already have endured. Mr. Dacre, is my husband mad?”

One need scarcely observe that the lady’s amazing appeal to Mr. Dacre as to her husband’s sanity was received with something like surprise.

As the Duke continued to stare at her, a dreadful fear began to loom upon his brain:

“My darling, your brain is unhinged!”

He advanced to take her two hands again in his; but, to his unmistakable distress, she shrank away from him: “Hereward – don’t touch me. How is it that I missed you? Why did you not wait until I came?”

“Wait until you came?”

The Duke’s bewilderment increased.

“Surely, if your injuries turned out, after all, to be slight, that was all the more reason why you should have waited, after sending for me like that.”

“I sent for you – I?” The Duke’s tone was grave. “My darling, perhaps you had better come upstairs.”

“Not until we have had an explanation. You must have known that I should come. Why did you not wait for me after you had sent me that?”

The Duchess held out something to the Duke. He took it.

It was a card – his own visiting-card. Something was written on the back of it. He read aloud what was written:

“‘Mabel, come to me at once with bearer. They tell me that they cannot take me home.’ It looks like my own writing.”

“Looks like it! It is your writing.”

“It looks like it – and written with a shaky pen.”

“My dear child, one’s hand would shake at such a moment as that.”

“Mabel, where did you get this?”

“It was brought to me in Cane and Wilson’s.”

“Who brought it?”

“Who brought it? Why, the man you sent.”

“The man I sent?” A light burst upon the Duke’s brain. He fell back a pace. “It’s the decoy!”

Her Grace echoed the words:

“The decoy?”

“The scoundrel! To set a trap with such a bait! My poor, innocent darling, did you think it came from me? Tell me, Mabel, where did he cut off your hair?”

“Cut off my hair?”

Her Grace put her hand up to her head as if to make sure that her hair was there.

“Where did he take you to?”

“He took me to Draper’s Buildings.”

“Draper’s Buildings?”

“I have never been in the City before, but he told me it was Draper’s Buildings. Isn’t that near the Stock Exchange?”

“Near the Stock Exchange?”

It seemed rather a curious place to which to take a kidnapped victim. The man’s audacity!

“He told me that you were coming out of the Stock Exchange when a van knocked you over. He said that he thought it was a Pickford’s van – was it a Pickford’s van?”

“No, it was not a Pickford’s van. Mabel, were you in Draper’s Buildings when you wrote that letter?”

“Wrote what letter?”

“Have you forgotten it already? I do not believe that there is a word in it which will not be branded on my brain until I die.”

“Hereward! What do you mean?”

“Surely you cannot have written me such a letter as that, and then have forgotten it already?”

He handed her the letter which had arrived in the second communication. She glanced at it, askance. Then she took it with a little gasp.

“Hereward, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a chair.” She took a chair. “Whatever – whatever’s this?” As she read the letter the varying expressions which passed across her face were, in themselves, a study in psychology. “Is it possible that you can imagine that, under any conceivable circumstances, I could have written such a letter as this?”

“Mabel!”

She rose to her feet, with emphasis:

“Hereward, don’t say that you thought this came from me!”

“Not come from you?” He remembered Knowles’s diplomatic reception of the epistle on its first appearance. “I suppose that you will say next that this is not a lock of your hair?”

“My dear child, what bee have you got in your bonnet? This a lock of my hair! Why, it’s not in the least bit like my hair!”

Which was certainly inaccurate. As far as colour was concerned it was an almost perfect match. The Duke turned to Mr. Dacre.

“Ivor, I’ve had to go through a good deal this afternoon. If I have to go through much more, something will crack!” He touched his forehead. “I think it’s my turn to take a chair.” He also took a chair. Not the one which the Duchess had vacated, but one which faced it. He stretched out his legs in front of him; he thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets; he said, in a tone which was not only gloomy but absolutely gruesome:

“Might I ask, Mabel, if you have been kidnapped?”

“Kidnapped?”

“The word I used was ‘kidnapped.’ But I will spell it if you like. Or I will get a dictionary, that you may see its meaning.”

The Duchess looked as if she was beginning to be not quite sure if she was awake or sleeping. She turned to Ivor:

“Mr. Dacre, has the accident affected Hereward’s brain?” The Duke took the words out of his cousin’s mouth: “On that point, my dear, let me ease your mind. I don’t know if you are under the impression that I should be the same shape after a Pickford’s van had run over me as I was before; but, in any case, I have not been run over by a Pickford’s van. So far as I am concerned there has been no accident. Dismiss that delusion from your mind.”

“Oh!”

“You appear surprised. One might even think that you were sorry. But may I now ask what you did when you arrived at Draper’s Buildings?”

“Did! I looked for you!”

“Indeed! And when you had looked in vain, what was the next item in your programme?”

The lady shrank still further from him:

“Hereward, have you been having a jest at my expense? Can you have been so cruel?” Tears stood in her eyes.

Rising, the Duke laid his hand upon her arm: “Mabel, tell me – what did you do when you had looked for me in vain?”

“I looked for you upstairs and downstairs, and everywhere. It was quite a large place, it took me ever such a time. I thought that I should go distracted. Nobody seemed to know anything about you, or even that there had been an accident at all – it was all offices. I couldn’t make it out in the least, and the people didn’t seem to be able to make me out either. So when I couldn’t find you anywhere I came straight home again.”

The Duke was silent for a moment. Then, with funereal gravity, he turned to Mr. Dacre. He put to him this question:

“Ivor, what are you laughing at?”

Mr. Dacre drew his hand across his mouth with rather a suspicious gesture:

“My dear fellow, only a smile!”

The Duchess looked from one to the other: “What have you two been doing? What is the joke?”

With an air of preternatural solemnity the Duke took two letters from the breast-pocket of his coat.

“Mabel, you have already seen your letter. You have already seen the lock of your hair. Just look at this and that.”

He gave her the two very singular communications which had arrived in such a mysterious manner, and so quickly one after the other. She read them with wide-open eyes.

“Hereward! Wherever did these come from?”

The Duke was standing with his legs apart, and his hands in his trousers-pockets. “I would give – I would give another five hundred pounds to know. Shall I tell you, madam, what I have been doing? I have been presenting five hundred golden sovereigns to a perfect stranger, with a top-hat, and a gardenia in his button hole.”

“Whatever for?”

“If you have perused those documents which you have in your hand, you will have some faint idea. Ivor, when it’s your funeral I’ll smile. Mabel, Duchess of Datchet, it is beginning to dawn upon the vacuum which represents my brain that I’ve been the victim of one of the prettiest things in practical jokes that ever yet was planned. When that fellow brought you that card at Cane and Wilson’s – which, I need scarcely tell you, never came from me – someone walked out of the front entrance who was so exactly like you that both Barnes and Moysey took her for you. Moysey showed her into the carriage, and Barnes drove her home. But when the carriage reached home it was empty. Your double had got out upon the road.”

The Duchess uttered a sound which was half gasp, half sigh:

“Hereward!”

“Barnes and Moysey, with beautiful and childlike innocence, when they found that they had brought the thing home empty, came straightaway and told me that you had jumped out of the brougham while it had been driving full pelt through the streets. While I was digesting that piece of information there came the first epistle, with the lock of your hair. Before I had time to digest that there came the second epistle, with yours inside, and, as a guarantee of the authenticity of your appeal, the same envelope held this.”

The Duke handed the Duchess the half of the broken sixpence. She stared at it with the most unequivocal astonishment.

“Why, it looks just like my sixpence.” She put her hand to her breast, feeling something that was there. “But it isn’t! What wickedness!”

“It is wickedness, isn’t it? Anyhow, that seemed good enough for me; so I posted off with the five hundred pounds to save your arm – not to dwell upon your little finger.”

“It seems incredible!”

“It sounds incredible; but unfathomable is the folly of man, especially of a man who loves his wife.” The Duke crossed to Mr. Dacre. “I don’t want, Ivor, to suggest anything in the way of bribery and corruption, but if you could keep this matter to yourself, and not mention it to your friends, our white-hatted and gardenia-buttonholed acquaintance is welcome to his five hundred pounds, and – Mabel, what on earth are you laughing at?”

The Duchess appeared, all at once, to be seized with inextinguishable laughter.

“Hereward,” she cried, “just think how that man must be laughing at you!”

And the Duke of Datchet thought of it.

On the Film

I do not wish to say how far a man who is fond is his joke should go, but I do say this – that there is a limit; and when it comes between you and the young lady for whom you are beginning to have feelings of a certain kind then it ceases to be a joke, and the time has come to put your foot down and let them know it.

Look at what happened to Nora and me. I had been making up my mind for the better part of three months, and we had as good as agreed that it could be managed on thirty-five shillings a week, with the early prospect of another five, when, just at that moment, as we were, so to put it, almost within the sound of wedding bells, the blow fell.

It was at a picture-show that the bomb exploded. It costs something to take a young lady about to entertainments of that class, with chocolates to go on with, and maybe an ice to follow, but when the hidden spark in a man’s breast bursts into a flame he looks upon sixpence, or even a shilling, practically as if it were nothing at all.

We were in the sixth row – fourpenny seats. We had just seen about a baby what fell over a cliff, and would have been drowned had it not been for what I should describe as a series of miraculous events. We were waiting for the next, and the screen was dark.

“What’s coming?” asked Nora, in what you might call a half a whisper, as she put another chocolate into her mouth. It’s wonderful how a girl can eat chocolates. I had nearly made up my mind that one day, if I could afford it, I would find out how much Nora really could eat – try it once, if never again. I am of an inquiring turn of mind, I am. I told her what I thought was coming.

“A comic,” I said. “You wait and you’ll see.”

Then Nora did see. “The Kiss that Failed – being the Comical History of the Mistake which Bobby Made.”

Of course, Nora fastened on the name immediately – she naturally would.

“Bobby! Your name! Do you see it?”

“Being able to read, and the print large size, I do not see how I can help it, though I’d have you know that my name’s not Bobby.”

As Miss Dickinson well knew, I was christened Robert. I can put up with Bob, but Bobby is softish, and when it comes to that I draw the line.

“But why?” she asked. “I never can understand. Bobby’s as good as Bob; I’m not sure I don’t like it better.”

Before I could so much as open my lips to reply the picture began. There was thrown upon the screen a man’s head, and I felt as if something must have happened to me. A little disturbed I suppose I was by what I will describe as Miss Dickinson’s manner, which was perhaps why, directly I saw that head upon the screen, I felt as if someone had knocked the stuffing out of me.

Looking at me was my own face on the screen!

No larks, no humbug, no lies, no nothing – just the truth! There was me sitting in the sixth row of the fourpenny seats, and there was my face staring at me from the screen. No one knows what emotion can be like till a thing happens to him like that.

“Bob!” said Nora, with a gulp which I knew was caused by having swallowed a chocolate whole.

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. If there had been I couldn’t have said it. There was a big, round face staring at me from the screen, and though it wasn’t by any means a flattering likeness there was no mistaking who it was. I had on a bowler hat, worn a little on one side, as is the latest West-end fashion. I took it off, I tipped the audience a wink, I opened my mouth – widish – I put out my tongue—

I was shocked. I really was positively shocked – I might almost say horrified. I certainly thought Nora Dickinson would have been; instead of which, while I felt that I should have to get up and leave the hall because the manners of that face were so disgusting, she began to snigger, then to litter, then to laugh, and then to roar. But, mind you, so did everybody else. And just because, so far as I could judge, that great head on the screen was pulling the most disgusting faces I have ever seen. Suddenly the head disappeared.

“Oh, Bob!” gasped Nora – she seemed to be in trouble with her breathing. “Did you ever see anything so funny? Isn’t it like you?”

The idea of her suggesting that she had ever known me behave as that head had done, especially considering the extra careful way I always had behaved in her presence, was a little too much. But before I could so much as tell her so the real picture began.

There was a sitting-room on the screen. I had a sort of horrid idea that I had seen it somewhere before. Into this sitting-room I came, my hat on my head again, and looking as if I was wondering where I was. Presently a young lady came into the room. She tiptoed to where I was, coming on me from behind. She put her arms round my neck, drew my head backwards, twisted my face round, and she kissed me.

No one who knows me can deny that delicacy is one of my strongest features. Therefore it will be understood how far it is from my wish to brag about the way in which that young lady kissed me. I will merely mention that her lips were still glued to mine when the door at the back of the room was opened again, and a male person entered. I write “male person” because, as will presently be seen, no one who witnessed his behaviour would describe him as coming within a hundred and fifty miles – and I may say farther – of being a gentleman. He was taller than I was, and broader. I may add that generally he was built on coarser lines. His conduct showed it. Instead of pausing, as a sensible person would have done, and asking for an explanation of what was taking place, he came striding; forward, right to the front, and without speaking so much as a single word he raised his hand and struck me full in the face. Once, and then again, and then a third time; at the third blow I went down like an ox that is felled. I never attempted to defend myself, not even by moving so much as a single muscle. That girl, she took her arms away and moved aside, and allowed that ruffian to take pot-shots at me as if I were a mechanical figure. Of course, I went down; anyone would have gone down. with a scoundrel hammering at his face like that. It was a horrible sight. I expected that. Miss Dickinson’s blood would have turned cold. The people screamed – with laughter, mind you. as if there was anything funny in seeing a man knocked down as if he were a ninepin – and she screamed with them.

Directly I was down I raised my head and looked round, as if I was wondering where I was, and the people, including Miss Dickinson, screamed again, as if it were the funniest sight they ever had beheld. The young lady spoke to me as if she would offer me sympathy. So soon as she did that the brawny villain took me by the collar of my coat and lifted me on to my feet, and as soon as he had got me on my feet he picked me up with both hands and used me as if I were a football, kicking me through the air right from one side of the room to the other. And just as I got there the door opened a second time, and I came right in the face of another ruffian who thought proper to enter at a moment which was most inconvenient for me. He never stopped to ask me if I had done it on purpose, or how I happened to he there just then; he just let fly at me, first with one fist and then with the other. And he hit me back to the fellow who had kicked me there. That was a pretty game. They kept kicking me back from one to the other as if I were just a plaything. Then a third person entered. and I was thrown against him.

He didn’t stop to hit me – nothing of the kind. He just caught me up somehow. dashed with me to the window and dropped me into the street. I came down on a coster’s barrow which happened to be passing, face foremost, sending his stock of goods all over the place. He picked me up and threw me at a bus, landing me on the top, bang against a passenger just as he was getting up. He caught me and threw me on the top of a house which was just handy. Some workmen on the roof of the house, not seeming to care for my being there, threw me from one to the other – there seemed to be about a mile of them – till, in their excitement, they brought down the scaffolding on which they were supposed to be working with a crash, with me underneath and all the rest of the traffic – there was a tremendous lot of traffic – pan-technicons, and motorcars, and steam lorries – as well. On the top of the pile there seemed to be about two thousand people. They began to fight with each other, and to hunt for what was underneath. And by degrees they got me out. You never saw such a spectacle as I presented. Then after a second or two the people in the hall, including Miss Dickinson, began to see that it really was me.

There I was, all mud and bruises and blacking, with my clothes all anyhow. And there was the young lady who had kissed me laughing fit to split, as if I had been the cause of the trouble. Then the picture vanished, and just as it was vanishing she stooped forward and kissed me again.

I thought that was the funniest part of it all. When the film had come to an end the people clapped, but not Miss Dickinson. The lights went up and she sat silent. Then she turned to me, and she said, in her very iciest voice – she could be icy, could Nora Dickinson:

“I think, Mr. Parker, if you don’t mind, I’ll say good night.”

She got up from her seat, and before I could stop her she walked down the row of seats in the other direction and left me sitting there. She went so quick that she was almost at the other end before I had a chance to move – and, between ourselves, for about two seconds I had half a mind not to try to move. A young lady who behaved like that was too much for me altogether. I had got to that stage when a man’s feelings are too much for his common sense. I could not let her go like that. So up I jumped, and a gentleman beside me wanted to know whose foot I thought I was treading on, and an old lady behind made some remark about my having put my stick almost in her eye. When I reached the street there was no Miss Dickinson in sight, at least not till

I had looked about me for quite a while. Then I saw her about a hundred yards off, looking round as if she might be wondering what had become of me. Then she caught sight of me as soon as I had started after her. She was walking about as hard as ever she could. She gave me a chase. She jumped on a bus, and I got on another just behind her; but her bus went faster than mine, and by the time I reached her house she had gone in and all the lights were out.

I am, I hope, as good at taking a hint as anyone. I had no wish to force myself into a house in which the lights had been put out on purpose. I stood for some seconds at the bottom of the steps, and I what I should have described as glared with what I meant to be something more than scorn and contempt. I walked six times up and down in front of the house and then I went home. By the time I got there I had made up my mind that all was over between us and what was past was gone for ever.

All the next day I never had a word from her – not so much as half a line. When I got home, as I was having supper, my sister, who has not got a grain of what I call tact, must butt in with her silly remarks, and wanted to know what I had been doing to poor dear Nora Dickinson.

“Doing to Nora Dickinson!” I simply echoed her words. I shouldn’t wonder if my glance went right through her when I stood up. “I’ve done with Nora Dickinson for ever. Don’t let her name be mentioned in my presence in this house again.”

Out into the street I went, full of that sort of scorn which turns a man’s whole life sour. As soon as I set foot on the pavement a young lady came towards me from the other side of the way.

“Mr. Parker?” she said, and, mark you, though a perfect stranger to me, she smiled.

“Mr. Parker, junior,” I told her, and I raised my hat, I dare say, a little more coldly than I quite meant.

“I have been requested to give you this letter.” And she gave me a letter, in a pale blue envelope with a monogram at the back. I knew who it was from the moment I saw it. My impulse was to put it in my pocket, and without so much as a word stride off and leave her standing there. But she wasn’t taking any.

“Won’t you open that letter, Mr. Parker?” she inquired, when she saw what I was up to. “There may be an answer.”

“Do you know who this letter is from?” I demanded.

“I do,” she said, with her chin held up – she was not a bad-looking girl. “It’s from a friend of mine.”

“Then in that case you can tell her—”

I was on the point of observing that she could tell her that all was over between us, but I changed my mind – something in that young lady’s attitude made me. I opened the envelope and I read what was in it. “If Mr. Parker has anything to say to Miss Dickinson he will find her waiting for him by the third lamp-post on the right.” There wasn’t much in it – that was every word there was inside that envelope – but what there was touched me to the heart. I knew Nora Dickinson, and I knew that every time she put pen to paper it cost her an effort to keep from filling the entire sheet. What it must have cost her to content herself with two lines! That was the first time I had ever had a communication from her for which she could find room on a single sheet of paper. I stood and I stared at those two lines, I dare say, longer than I thought, because presently the young lady asked:

“Well, Mr. Parker, is there any answer?”

I looked at her eye to eye – so far as I could see hers through a thick veil and in the gas-light – and I briefly replied:

“I will be there.”

I turned on my heel as if to leave the girl once again, but she wouldn’t let me. She put her gloved hand upon my sleeve.

“One moment, Mr. Parker,” she said. “I will convey your message to my friend. You can follow in a quarter of an hour. I trust to your honour as a gentleman not to thrust yourself upon her until the appointed time. Remember, I – we – trust you.”

I don’t remember a quarter of an hour in which the fifteen minutes seemed longer. It was rather awkward her asking me to stay where I was. I looked at my watch perhaps a dozen times, and walked off three minutes before the appointed time, going extra slow to make up for it. It was our habit to meet each other in Palmerston Road, at the third lamp-post on the right, and, sure enough, when I got in sight of it I saw her standing there. I perceived that she was not alone, but that another young lady was with her.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked myself. “Who can the stranger be?”

I strolled slowly forward, and at the proper distance I removed my hat. Miss Dickinson bowed, as did the stranger, but not a word was spoken on either side. It is all very well to stand upon your dignity, but I had soon had enough of that. I held out the note I had received.

“I believe,” I remarked, “that you sent me this?”

“I may have done,” Miss Dickinson replied, still an iceberg for coolness. “However, I do not wish to act on what I have no doubt are your feelings of remorse. I have asked you to come here because I wished to introduce to you Miss Anderson.”

She referred to the young lady at her side. who I now perceived was the one who had brought me her letter. Miss Anderson? Until she lifted her veil I could have declared that I had never seen her in my life before, but when she did that I had a shock – a frightful shock. It was a thick veil, and hung so that it quite hid her face from me. When she lifted it with the fingers of both hands I was amazed.

“Don’t say,” she remarked, as her veil was going up, “that you have never seen me before. That would be a little too much, Mr. Parker, after all that has passed between us.”

The girl’s impudence! ’Pon my word, I hardly knew if I was standing on my head or on my heels. The way in which girls do behave nowadays! When I saw who she was it was all I could do to look her in the face. She just smiled at me as if she thought I was a kind of a joke, and she held out her hand. But I didn’t take it; I only took off my hat.

“Good evening, Mr. Parker,” she said, still all smiles. “I hope you’re feeling very well. When I saw you last you were so full of fun.”

“Was I?” I told her. “That isn’t my recollection. I may have been full of something, but I’ll swear it wasn’t fun.”

“Where,” asked Miss Dickinson, in an acid tone, even for her, “did you meet Miss Anderson before? I was not aware that you knew her.”

As I looked at one of those young ladies, and then at the other, it came upon me with a sort of flash that there was something up between them. What it was I could not guess. But I had had more than enough of being made the victim of a conspiracy, so I got some of my feelings off my mind then and there.

“Miss Dickinson,” I said, “I expect you know as much about this young lady as I do, and perhaps more, since I as good as know nothing about her at all.”

“Oh, Mr. Parker!” chipped in Miss Anderson. “After our most romantic meeting, how can you speak like that? After such a chain of interesting adventures!”

“Interesting adventures, you call them!” I exclaimed. “That beats the band! Almost murdered I was, and now you‘re making fun of me.”

“Mr. Parker,” asked Miss Dickinson, speaking ‘as if something had turned her sour, “what is there between you and this young lady?”

A question like that – from her! – was too much. I did let myself go.

“There is nothing between us – less than ‘nothing, as she knows – and I believe you know too. I only saw her once in my life, and then only for a few seconds – and I don’t want to see her again. Yes, Miss Anderson, you must pardon me if I say so to your face. What took place between us two was not of a kind to cause me to desire to continue your acquaintance. I’m sorry, but there it is.” Then I turned to Nora and let her have it. “As for you. Miss Dickinson, I can’t help feeling that there is a conspiracy against me. Good evening. Miss Dickinson – and goodbye.”

I swung round on my heels and off I started. Just as I was starting I heard Miss Dickinson’s voice.

“Bobby!” Then “Bob!” But I paid not the slightest attention either to one name or the other. Then Miss Anderson said, as if she were trying not to speak too loud:

“Mr. Parker! Oh, how can you?”

But I still paid no attention, and off I went.

Then there came Miss Dickinson’s voice again:

“Bob! Oh, Bob, I do want to speak to you!”

She nearly shouted, and it sounded to me as if she wasn’t far off crying. That did go through me, the idea that she wasn’t far from that. I went so far as to turn and put to her a question.

“Did you speak to me, Miss Dickinson?”

There was nothing sour about the way in which she answered, and nothing could have been milder.

“Yes, Bob. I did. If you wouldn’t mind, there are a few words I’d rather like to say to you.”

For a moment – for one harrowing moment – I, as it were, swung in the balance. Then I caught sight of Miss Anderson’s face and I saw the grin which was on it, and that settled the question. I was not going to stop there. After what she had done already I wasn’t going to let her take another rise out of me, so I lifted my hat, I stood up straighter, and I crushed Miss Dickinson.

“If, as you say, there are a few words which you wish to say to me, I shall be obliged if you’ll put them into writing and let me have them in the form of a letter, which shall have my due consideration.”

That was a stinger. I realized as I walked away that it was perhaps more of a stinger than I had meant it to be – that is, as far as Miss Dickinson was concerned, though I should have liked to have had it twice as much of a stinger for Miss Anderson. Every time I thought of her, as they say in the books, I saw red. And that Miss Dickinson should have got herself into a conspiracy with her – that was too much – it really was.

That was a troubled night, that one, for me – the second troubled night. And it was worse than the first. I thought of Nora Dickinson left there standing beneath the lamp-post, calling out to me as if she were very nearly crying, and me marching off like a statue of scorn, with my head in the air, as hard as the nether millstone. She was in my head a good part of the next day, and her presence there didn’t seem to make my temper sweeter.

Just as I was thinking of going out to lunch, who should come in but Nora’s brother Fred. He was all right – I am bound to admit that Fred Dickinson always is – talking as if, so far as he knew, there was nothing the least bit wrong with anything in the world.

“Halloa, Bobby! Whoa, old war-horse! Who goes a-hunting today? About time for the grub stakes, isn’t it? Suppose you enter for them along o’ me? I don’t know where you take your little bit of corn, but I know one which leaves it at the post. I’ll have a tanner on it, and leave it to you to say whether I win or lose.”

A regular sportsman, Fred is. That’s the way he goes on talking all the time. The sound of his voice does me good. We went out together. We both had boiled beef with dumplings. A better bit of meat, tender and juicy, I never want to put my teeth to. We were having some cheese when Fred came, in the way of conversation, to what I knew he had been getting to all the while.

“Bob,” he began – he put both elbows on the table, with a piece of cheese in one hand and a crust in the other – “what’s up between you and Nora? Mind you, I don’t wish to interfere in your affairs or anyone’s, but I have been hearing stories which made me think that you haven’t been so well treated as you might have been.”

“No, Fred,” I said, “I have not. You can take that from me.”

“What’s this I’m told about Tommy Bashford?”

“Can’t say, Fred. Couldn’t say positively what you’ve heard. But I can tell you this – that one day, before the world is very much older, Mr. T. Bashford will get his nose pulled.”

“Got more than your nose pulled, didn’t you, Bobby?”

When Fred Dickinson said that I could have got up out of my chair and, having paid the bill – one-and-eightpence my share came to – more than I usually spend – walked out of the restaurant and left him there.

“Don’t be shirty, Bob; don’t let yourself be put out by little things, but play the man. It isn’t everyone who has the same ideas as you have.” Then he leaned forward, and he looked at me. “I went to the Walham Green movies last night – you know what I mean.”

I did know what he meant. It was at the Walham Green picture palace that I had seen that ridiculous picture, “The Kiss That Failed.” I said to Dickinson – I spoke earnestly, as it were from the bottom of my heart:

“Tell me what you think of it; that’s what I ask you to do. Speaking as one man to another, what did you think of it?”

I wasn’t altogether pleased to see the way Fred Dickinson took my question. A grin spread all over his face.

“Funniest thing I ever saw,” he said.

That took me a little aback. It wasn’t at all the sort of thing I expected from him, considering that there was something like tragedy in my very voice, to say nothing of my manner. I leaned back and I looked at him – steady.

“Funny, is it? And that’s your idea of funny!”

“Think what you looked like. Think of some of those faces you pulled. And, mind you, it was you – to the life. Bob, I thought I should have died; I never thought you had it in you. Every time I think of it, it starts me off again.”

He proved his words by nearly choking himself with a mouthful of bread and cheese. Everyone looking at him must have thought there was something wrong. He hadn’t properly got his breath back when he started off again.

“And when you come into that sitting-room, looking as if you had no more sense than a rabbit, and that girl comes in and kisses you, your face – the look which is on it – to one like me who knows you – my boy, it’s a screamer!”

He made that plain by “screaming” – I suppose he would have called it “screaming” – right then and there. I called it disgusting behaviour in a public restaurant, that’s what I called it. One gentleman in a black frock-coat, who I take it was the proprietor, came towards us. I thought he was going to put us out – straight, I did; I shouldn’t have been a bit surprised either. But I had expected something better of Fred Dickinson.

“Oh, Bob!” he went on, as it were between his gasps. “The way the girl kissed you, and you not expecting it, and not knowing what to do – oh, lor, oh, lor! I shall have a pain in the side every time I think of it. And then when Bill Mulholland turned up?”

“Who’s Bill Mulholland?” It was I who put that question.

“That’s the bloke that came into the room while the girl was kissing you. Didn’t you know him?”

“No, I did not know him. And I didn’t want to know him. Is it likely?”

“Why, I thought from the style in which he treated you that he was an old pal of yours. When, without asking any questions, he started by knocking you down, and treated you as if you were a football, and the other chap threw you out of the window—”

I stopped Fred Dickinson, and I made one point clear to him before the misunderstanding went any farther.

“One moment, Fred, before you go any farther, if you please. Do you suppose that was me he threw out of the window?”

“I don’t suppose it can have been, but it was jolly well done.”

“Well done! Do you imagine I would have allowed anyone to throw me out of a window? The whole thing was a fake, a common bare-faced fake.”

“Maybe, but it’s a jolly funny fake all the same.”

“That’s a question of opinion. Some people have their own ideas of what is funny, and there’s no discussing them. But don’t you sit there and imagine for a single moment that it really was me who was handled as I seemed to be handled in that rotten film. I was never knocked down in my life, either by Bill Mulholland or anyone else. You know me, Fred Dickinson. Do you think I’m the sort of man who would let himself be treated like that?”

“Well, it did seem to be a bit of a staggerer, I admit; but if it wasn’t you—”

“If! There’s no ‘if’ about it. That’s where the fake began. No one laid so much as a finger on me. How it was done I can’t tell you, but I’m going to find out before I’ve finished. I never saw your Bill Mulholland in all the days of my life.”

I leaned right over the table so that he could hear my words quite clearly without my having to raise my voice.

“Fred, I admit to you, as between man and man, that that young lady kissed me; before I had a chance to ask what the deuce she meant by it, she ran for her life, and I’ve never seen her again till last night, when – goodness knows how it came about – she was with your sister. They must have had a dummy to take my place. I don’t know what kind of a dummy, but they must have had some kind of a one. It was a dummy they threw out of the window. It was a dummy which came down on the coster’s barrow. I suppose it was a dummy they picked up and threw on the top of a bus. Was it likely to be me? If it wasn’t a dummy I don’t know what it was that was on the roof of the house. And what do you imagine it was that the workmen threw from one to the other till they brought down the scaffolding, and it got buried in a whole streetful of traffic? Do you mean to sit there and tell me you thought it was me? I look as if I’d been at the bottom of a ‘pile’ like you saw on the film, don’t I?”

“I don’t know what you look like. I know what I saw with my own eyes, or what I thought I saw.”

“What you thought you saw!” I rose from that table, walked out of the restaurant, and left him still sitting. At the door, just as I was going out, I met Jack Hammond. I suppose what had happened between Fred and me had put my back up enough already, because the sight of him was the finishing touch. He addressed me as if we were on terms of the greatest intimacy. Considering all things, that was about the top brick.

“Halloa, Bob, my squire of dames! What’s the time of day in your part of the world?”

I made no reply; I opened the door of the restaurant; he went in and I went after him.

“You’ll find Fred Dickinson sitting over there,” I told him, “and I expect he’ll be pleased to see you.” Fred Dickinson hailed me as I reached his table with Hammond.

“Halloa, Bob Parker, you’re back again! Have you asked Hammond what he thinks of that picture?”

“It was because of Hammond that that picture was taken. I’m going to give him something which will help him not to forget it.”

I up with my fists and I gave Jack Hammond first the left and then the right on the tip of his nose. If anyone had told me, only that morning, that I should have behaved like that in any circumstances whatever I should have told him that he did not know Bob Parker. I didn’t know him myself, and I’m sure it was a surprise to Hammond. He stepped backwards against a gentleman who was having his sweets. He got mixed up with him, and he came down backwards with his head in his rice-pudding. Then there was a pretty to-do. Hammond sang out something, Dickinson jumped up – pretty nearly everyone jumped up.

“Bob,” cried Fred, “whatever do you mean by doing a thing like that?”

“Hammond knows what I mean. Jack Hammond pretends to be a friend of mine. It was through him that I went to that picture studio, where they take the films they are going to exhibit. It was just an ordinary room, with nothing in it, only some cameras about. ‘You stand up there, Bob,’ said Jack to me, ‘and take your hat off; we’ll get some pictures of you.’ So I stood up, and then he said, ‘Pull faces; it will make it funnier.’ I didn’t know what he meant, but I did as he said. ‘That’ll do,’ he presently remarked. ‘Now stand still and keep your eyes front.’ I had no idea what the game was, and I had no idea that he was playing a low-down dirty trick on me. So I stood up and I stared. I was still at it when someone came up behind, and – I can only say to my amazement – a lady’s arm was put round my neck, and before I knew what was going to happen a lady started kissing me. She had got her arm so tight round my neck that I couldn’t get away. When I did wrench myself loose I looked round and caught my first glimpse of her; and when she saw me look at her she turned tail and ran away. That, Fred Dickinson, you can tell your sister, was the beginning and the end of that picture, and I personally had nothing to do with whatever happened afterwards. For further particulars apply to Mr. Jack Hammond. Perhaps when he has recovered from his little accident he may be able to explain to you how it came to be developed into the ‘Giant Comic’ which you saw last night. If Mr. Hammond has anything which he wishes to say to me, he knows where I am to be found, either today or at any other time he chooses.”

I tell you I made a bit of a sensation – what do you think? As for Hammond, he seemed too surprised to do anything, even to speak. And the same with Fred Dickinson. He was just helping Hammond to pick himself up when I took myself off – that time for good.

That was one of the days of my life, I don’t mind admitting it. The story got about how I had knocked Jack Hammond’s head into a gentleman’s rice pudding. I fancy Dickinson said something to him, and he said something to Dickinson. I did hear that the gentleman made him pay fourpence for the rice-pudding – and that’s how it began. I am told that before the day was through the whole air was full of tales which were being told about me – all because I had knocked Hammond’s head into that gentleman’s rice-pudding.

How things like that get about so quickly I don’t know. They knew at the office; the people there treated me with a civility which did them credit. But the thing must have got farther than the office, because, when I got home, the first thing after I’d set my nose inside the door Louisa gave me an envelope, with what I should describe as very nearly a wink.

“She brought it herself this afternoon, and she asked me to give it you the very first moment you came in. So you’ve been knocking people’s heads into other people’s rice-pudding. Nice goings-on, I must say; you’re a pretty sort, Bob Parker.”

I took the envelope up to my bedroom, where I could count on being alone, and I opened it. This is what I found inside:

My Dear Bob – Do, do forgive me, please. I can’t tell you how ashamed I am of treating you so badly – I am a wretch. But I’m so glad you knocked Jack Hammond into the rice-pudding. I don’t deserve that you should ever speak to me again, but if you would try to meet me tonight, as usual, just for five minutes, I would beg your pardon. I know what a generous heart you have, and I will try to show you that I have been more sinned against than sinning. May I sign myself, once more, if for the last time, my dear Bob, yours, N. D.

That was what was inside the envelope. I call that a letter which would move any man who was a man to the very depths of his being. If I ever moved more quickly towards that third lamp-post on the right, I don’t remember when.

She was there, though I was in advance of the usual time. I scarcely like to say more. There have been little gives and takes since then, I own it, but that was of the nature of a sacred meeting, and, as such, it lingers in my mind. We settled everything that night – every blessed thing. In six months it was to be, that we finally arranged. Thirty shillings, or thirty-five shillings, whichever it might be, that made no difference – the actual date was practically fixed.

To show what a practical nature she has, in the midst of our most romantic moments, I may mention that just after there had been passages between us of what I might describe as an unusually private nature she switched off without the least apparent effort to what was quite a different theme.

“Do you know, Bob,” she said, “I’ve been wondering if you couldn’t get anything out of those picture people – damages, I mean.”

“It’s an extraordinary fact,” I told her, “but I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. It shows how minds, when they’re in true sympathy, move in unison.”

“Oh, Bob!” she whispered. It happened that she had her hand in mine, and – well, there was a passage. Then the conversation went on, she, as it were, picking up the ball which she had started.

“I’ve been thinking things over. Jack Hammond owns that when you went to that studio you never went meaning to be taken.”

“Of course I didn’t. I had no more idea of it than a babe unborn. Jack said to me, ‘I know a place where they take pictures. A pal of mine is one of the operators. Come in and have a look at it.’ So in I went, innocent as a child.”

“So when he asked you to stand up and pull faces you had no idea he meant to make a picture of you?”

“Of course I hadn’t; is it likely? Am I the sort of person who might be expected to make a fool of myself for a lot of silly idiots to look at? What was I going to get out of it, do you think?”

“That’s it – what were you going to get out of it? And then that girl came in – Miss Anderson – bold-faced thing!”

“She did, and she kissed me. There’s no blinking the fact.”

“I say it was assault. You didn’t ask her to kiss you, did you?”

“Nora! Am I the sort of person who would be likely to do a thing like that?”

“Then I say it was an outrage. I believe she could be punished. I remember reading about a gentleman who kissed a lady in the street, a perfect stranger to him, and got three months’ hard labour.”

“I don’t know about three months’ hard labour,” I said. Nora’s tone was more positive than mine was.

“I dare say you don’t, but I do. Hussy! She deserves to smart. Anyhow, the film people could be made to pay damages, I feel sure of it, for turning the disgusting exhibition into a picture, without asking your permission. I expect they made heaps of money out of it themselves. I do think you ought to get some.”

“That’s what I can’t help thinking myself.”

“Bringing you into contempt, being kissed in a place of public entertainment, and making you look like a fool.”

“What followed was what I object to most.” I was warming up to the thing like she was. “Making out that I allowed myself to be knocked down as if I were a ninepin, as if I didn’t dare to try and defend myself.”

“As if you were a coward.” Again Nora pressed my hand. “The way you knocked Jack Hammond’s head into that man’s rice-pudding proves how much truth there is in any suggestion that you’re wanting in proper spirit.”

“And then the idea of me being thrown out of a window!”

“I call that nothing else than libellous.”

“And being knocked about in a public thoroughfare as if I were something less than a bag of straw – me, whose sense of dignity is as strong as any man’s! These film gentlemen have tried their hands on me, so I’ll try mine on them, and we’ll see what we shall see.”

Nora stood still facing me; she put both her hands upon my shoulders – there didn’t happen to be much light there – and she said:

“I do believe there’s more in you than anyone ever dreamt. Look at the way you treated Jack Hammond. If only you could make those picture people smart, wouldn’t it be splendid?”

That was on the Thursday evening. On the Tuesday evening following, when I met Nora as usual, the first remark I made to her was – or very nearly the first remark, after, of course, the usual preliminaries:

“Nora, I’ve had an offer from the British Cinematographic Polyscopic Company.”

She turned to me, and she stared.

“Bob, whatever are you talking about? The British – what did you call the company? Whatever is that?”

“That’s the film people, that’s who that is. This afternoon, just as I was back from dinner, a friendly young fellow came into the office. He said, ‘Mr. Parker?’ and before I could stop him he was shaking my hand as though he’d like to shake it off. ‘Pleased to have the pleasure of meeting you,’ he said. ‘I’m Godfrey King. I represent the British Polyscopic Company. That picture of yours is the finest stroke of humour I ever met. It made me laugh, Mr. Parker.’  ‘Glad to hear it, Mr. King,’ I told him. ‘Have you brought damages as requested?’  ‘Damages!’ he sniggered. ‘You really are too funny, Mr. Parker. – Because your own friend had a little joke with you.’  ‘Everyone has their own ideas of joking,’ I told him. ‘I’ll see the fun of this joke when I see the colour of your money.’ I went on to explain that it was my business time, and I’d be obliged if he’d take himself off if he wasn’t going to talk business. ‘But,’ he wanted to know, ‘what damages can you possibly claim?’  ‘For one thing,’ I told him, ‘I nearly lost my young lady.‘”

“Oh, Bob, did you really tell him that? What a dear you are!”

“I did tell him that, straight out, and that brought him to the point. That showed him I was in earnest. The long and the short of it was that before he went he made me a firm offer for five-and-twenty pounds.”

“Five-and-twenty pounds? Bob! Have you got the money?”

“No, I have not got the money, and that for the simple reason that I wouldn’t accept his offer. I told him that I wouldn’t accept a farthing less than fifty, and that before twelve o’clock tomorrow morning. And, mind you, I shall get it, or he’ll be sorry. Raymond Wilson, the chap who sits at the next desk to me, was once in a solicitor’s office himself. He told me that the firm he was with would take my case up on spec, and he felt sure they’d guarantee me a hundred pounds. I gave Mr. Godfrey King a hint of what Wilson had told me, and you should have seen his face, I shall be surprised if that fifty pounds isn’t in my hands before the time I mentioned.”

“Fifty pounds! Do you really and truly mean it? Why, that will very nearly buy us a home.”

“It will buy us enough of a home to start with. I’ll get some catalogues from the furniture people. I saw only the other day something about a home being fully furnished for fifty pounds.”

“It’s too good to dream of. I shan’t dare to think of it before everything’s settled.”

“That’s the proper way to look at it, Nora. I can only say I hope to let you have the news in the morning.”

•   •   •   •   •

In the morning Miss Dickinson had a telegram:

FIFTY POUNDS PAID. HAVE GOT THREE CATALOGUES.
– BOB PARKER

Capturing a Convict

— I —

“Convict’s escaped!”

“Oh? when?”

“Last night. Didn’t you hear the guns?”

I had not heard them. I don’t think Ted had heard them, either. We had not gone to bed with the intention of lying awake to listen to guns

We sat down to breakfast, Ted and I, thinking rather of the food in front of us than of the unfortunate or fortunate individual who, according to our landlord, had quitted Princetown Prison, in the small hours of the morning, without first going through the form of obtaining his host’s permission. But the landlord was full of the subject. He went on talking while we went on eating.

“They’ll catch him, safe enough. I’ve been here a few years, and I’ve seen a few of ’em escape, I tell you. But I’ve never known one that wasn’t brought back yet. You see, there’s five pounds to anyone who gives the screws the office – they call the warders ‘screws,’ them chaps up here. So pretty near everyone’s hand’s against them. And then Princetown isn’t like Millbank. You can’t drop over the wall and find a pal waiting for you round the corner. It’s when they’re out that their troubles begin. They don’t know their way about Dartmoor any more than they know their way about the moon.”

Mr. Pethick paused to take in a little breath. So Ted asked a question: “Have you heard who it is has got away?”

Mr. Pethick winked.

“They keep that dark just at first, you know. They like to lay their hands upon him before anybody gets to know who it is has tried to slip his collar. But I was told it was a ‘lifer’ – a chap who, if he’d got his rights, would have been hung. I shouldn’t be surprised if he made a bit of a fight for it before he lets them lay their hands on him.”

Ted Lane and I were staying at a certain little inn within two miles of Princetown Prison, which is not unknown to brethren of the rod and the line, and of the palette and the brush. It stands just at the junction of the tiny stream which they call the River Cowsick with the River Dart; in the heart of a country which, at least in summer, is as beautiful as it is wild. We had gone there ostensibly to sketch, but we had done a little fishing, and to tell the truth, I don’t think that we had done much of either.

I was a lazy man in those days. I don’t know that I am much more hard-working now.

But that particular day we had planned a ten-mile walk over the moor – ten miles out and ten miles home – to Erme Head. And if we felt in the mood, and not too lazy, and that sort of thing, we had vague intentions of pushing on to Red Lake, about a mile farther on.

It was good walking weather, a clear sky overhead, and just breeze enough to keep one cool; and I need scarcely observe that we did not allow the fact of a man having escaped from the convict establishment at the top of the hill to make any alteration in our plans.

The man, however, seemed to be running in Mr. Pethick’s mind. There is not much to talk about at Two Bridges except the weather, and an escape from Princetown is undoubtedly an event.

“You are sure to meet him,” our landlord remarked, as we set out. I will only hint that if I had only been as sure of this as our host professed to be, at least one of those pedestrians would have stayed at home. I am not at all sure that the stay-at-homes would not have extended to two. I am not a thief-catcher. I had no desire to earn five pounds by what Mr. Pethick had termed “giving the ‘screws’ the ‘office.’” As for the members of the criminal classes, I have always felt that the less I have to do with them, the better I am pleased. I do not know how it is with other men. It has always been that way with me. And I am sure – on that point there cannot be the slightest possible doubt! – that if I had anticipated having an interview, in the remotest and most secluded fastnesses of wild Dartmoor, with a gentleman who would have been hung “if he had had his rights,” I, for one, should have postponed that little excursion sine die. Indeed, I should not have minded if it had never come off at all.

Ted Lane, however, gave me the impression that he was not of my way of thinking. I am persuaded that if you had listened to the remarks which he made as we went along – casual remarks, as it were – you would have supposed, as I supposed at the time, that nothing would have given him greater pleasure than to capture, or recapture, all the inmates of Princetown Prison single-handed. Nor do I deny that I might have dropped a hint, a distant hint, that under certain circumstances I should do, or endeavour to do, my duty to my Queen and to my country. But when Ted Lane declares, as he since has declared, that I said that I should be only too glad, five pounds or no five pounds, to have a chance of taking the bloodstained villain by the throat, and “scrunching the life right out of him!” he libels me. I hope and I believe, in fact I know, that I would “scrunch the life” out of no man, whether convict or, so to speak, layman.

We had gone five,miles, it may be; perhaps a little more, because we had passed For Tor. We were not talking about convicts – nothing of the kind. We were in the middle of a discussion about the Whistlerian theories of art, when I turned round, the better to get a light to my pipe. As I turned I saw, or thought I saw, someone or something drop down behind a hillock some two hundred yards away. But as I continued to look steadily in that direction and saw nothing and no one, I concluded that I was mistaken, and that some chance object had deceived my eye. Having lit my pipe, I rejoined Lane, who had gone on and was a few yards ahead.

We resumed the thread of our discussion; but as we argued I could not rid myself of the impression that, after all, I might not have been mistaken, and that someone had dropped down behind the hillock. To make quite sure, I glanced backwards, over my shoulder. As I did so I gave an exclamation.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Ted.

I had stood still and turned. He also stood still and turned.

“It’s very queer,” I said, “but I could have sworn that I saw somebody peeping over the top of that hillock.”

“Which hillock?”

“That one – with the patch of gorse at the side.”

Ted looked in the direction in which I pointed.

“There’s nothing there.” It was true that there was nothing there just then; but if there had not been something there a moment before, then I had been the victim of an optical delusion, and of an optical delusion of a curious kind. But for some reason, on which I need not dwell, I did not altogether relish the idea of there being someone in that wild place who, while he was anxious to look at us, was even more anxious that we should not look at him. So I did not think it worth while to insist that I could scarcely have been twice deceived, in broad daylight, in such a very singular manner.

Ted went on talking in his light-hearted way.

“You were dreaming, my dear fellow.” He recommenced his forward march. “In Whistler’s portrait of his mother—”

My thoughts were not with Whistler’s portrait of his mother. They were behind my back. As Ted went prosing on, I gave another glance over my shoulder. What I saw – well! I do not wish to use exaggerated language, so I will not say that it made my blood run cold, but I do affirm that it did not increase my sense of comfort. I saw that a man was following us, as it seemed to me, upon his hands and knees. He must have been well on the alert, because directly I looked round he dropped down, so that he lay concealed among the ferns and grasses. But I had seen him, though he might not think it. Upon that point I had no doubt

I was at a loss as to what was the best course to pursue. I am aware that it may seem obvious enough on paper. I can only state that I did not find it quite so obvious in fact. I am not a fighting man, and what is more, I never have been. I do not know that that is anything to be ashamed of, though, to listen to some people, and to some ostensibly respectable people, you would think that it was. There is nothing I object to so much as a row; and, in fact, although I may be an artist, I am a peace-loving and peace-abiding citizen. And I defy even a cross-examining barrister to prove that I am otherwise.

After a few moments of what I will call inward meditation, I gathered myself together, moistened my lips, and said, “Ted!”

“Yes?” He looked at me. I suppose he saw that there was something in my face. “What’s up?”

“Keep cool, old man.”

“Keep cool! What do you mean?” I caught his arm.

“Don’t turn. Perhaps it would be as well not to let him think we see him.”

“See him? See whom?”

“Keep cool. Don’t get excited, Ted.” I dropped my voice to what I have seen described as a “lurid” whisper. “The gentleman who escaped from Princetown last night is just behind. He’s following us.”

I used the word “gentleman” advisedly; because, although, of course, I knew that he could not hear what we were saying, still I did not wish him even to think that we were using towards him the language of discourtesy.

I had not imagined that my observation would have had the effect it did have upon Ted Lane. He pulled up short.

“Don’t stop,” I said. “Don’t let him think we’ve noticed him.”

Ted went on again, as it seemed to me, a little hurriedly.

“You’re sure it’s the man?”

“Quite sure.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is now. When I just looked back he was rather more, perhaps, than fifty yards behind us.”

“Fifty yards? That all? Why is he following us?”

“I’m sure I don’t know why he’s following us. I say, Ted, I wish you wouldn’t walk so fast. I can scarcely keep up with you.”

“I’m not walking fast.” I did not see how he could walk much faster, unless he ran. But I said nothing. I did my best to keep at his side.

After we had walked a dozen or twenty yards at the rate of about seven miles an hour, Ted gasped out:

“What sort of man is he?”

“I didn’t see. I only just had a peep at him.”

“Look where he is!”

“Then don’t go tearing off like that.”

I caught him by the arm, to make sure that he did not walk on and leave me behind. I glanced behind. As I did so I uttered an exclamation. What I saw was enough to make any man exclaim. A truculent-looking scoundrel, apparently about eight feet high, attired in the hideous costume of a convict, was striding after us as if he were in possession of the seven league boots, and was wearing them just then.

My exclamation caused Ted to look behind him. When he saw that murderous-looking monster bearing down upon us in a manner which inevitably suggested a bloodthirsty pirate bearing down upon an inoffensive trading craft, Ted tore his arm out of my grasp, and, without giving me the slightest hint of what his intentions were, made off as fast as his legs would carry him. When that convict saw that Ted had taken to his heels, he took to his, and, of course, when he took to his heels, I also took to mine.

“Stop!” I cried to Ted. “Don’t run away from the man.”

I protest that I shouted this with the full force of my lungs, although – in this way is history told – Ted denies that I did so to this hour.

I had no idea that Ted Lane could run so fast. He simply flew over the ground. All I did was to try to catch him, and, I need scarcely observe, I had to strain every nerve if I wished to have a chance of doing that. As for that convict, no sooner had the procession started, than that audacious villain gave utterance to an ear-piercing yell, which must have been audible all the way to Princetown. When that sound fell upon Ted Lane’s ear, he stood, if possible, still less upon the order of his going even than before. He tore off the light knapsack which held his sketchbook, his palette, and his lunch, and cast it to the winds. When he let his knapsack go, of course, I let mine go too. But, merely on that account, it is absurd to suppose that I was running away from the man behind. I repeat that my sole desire was to catch Ted Lane, who was in front. And how could I expect to be able to catch him if I was more heavily weighted than he was?

That convict, instead of pausing as he might have been expected to do, to see what the knapsacks contained, came on, if anything, faster than before. He moved so much faster than I did that I already seemed to feel his outstretched hand upon my collar, which is a sufficient refutation of the ridiculous suggestion that, in the true sense of the words, I was running away from him.

So, as it was plainly a case of at once or never, I increased my already almost super-human efforts to catch Ted Lane. I gained upon him, perceptibly, inch by inch – though seldom was a man more winged by fear than he was then. I almost had him. In another second we should have been side by side, when my foot caught against some obstacle on the uneven turf, and I fell head-foremost to the ground.

What is the most natural thing for a man to do when he finds that he is falling? To try to save himself by catching hold of something. No matter what – anything that is within his reach. That is what I did. And therefore I say that, under the circumstances, Ted Lane’s simulated indignation is simply nonsense.

When I felt myself going, I did the most natural thing in the world – I made a snatch at something. I suppose it is not my fault if Ted Lane’s leg was the only thing there was to snatch. I presume that even Ted Lane himself will not venture to suggest that I put his leg where it was. Nor, when I touched his leg, if he chose to go sprawling forward on to his face, was that any affair of mine. Anyhow, he did go forward. And there we both of us lay.

“So I’ve got you!”

This observation was made in a tone of voice which induced me, after a short interval for reflection, to look round. The speaker was the gentleman – but why should I write “gentleman”? I will write it plainly. The speaker was the unmitigated ruffian who had escaped from Princetown Gaol.

I sat up, feeling a little out of sorts. In my sanguine way, I imagined that the time had not yet passed for peaceful overtures. So I spoke to the fellow as I would have spoken to an ordinary Christian.

“Good-day! Warm weather for walking.”

“I’ll make it warmer for you before I’ve done.”

That was what the crime-stained wretch replied. Yet, such was the extent and fullness of my Christian charity, still I did not wish him to look upon us as his natural enemies.

“You need not be afraid of us, my dear sir,” I remarked, in that friendly and affable way I have. “We have a fellow feeling for a fellow creature in distress, and rather than re-consign you to the dungeons which you appear to have so recently quitted—”

“Afraid of you!” he yelled. He gave a whoop which would have done credit to a Red Indian on the warpath. He also bounded about four feet from the ground.

“I am Jim Slim, the Camden Town murderer. I have slain nine people with this right hand – seven women, three men, and a boy.” His arithmetic reminded me of a dining-room waiter’s, but that is what he said. “And why should I not add you to the number of the slain?”

This inquiry was such a peculiar one, even proceeding from an escaped convict in the middle of Dartmoor, that I was induced to look more carefully at the speaker. He was quite worth looking at, from the point of view of the people who derive satisfaction from gazing at the ladies and gentlemen in the “Room of Horrors.”

A more horrible and malignant-looking scoundrel I never saw. I am not prepared to state what were his exact measurements in inches, but he was certainly head and shoulders taller than I am. I should say, if we had been placed rear to rear, that the top of my head would have reached somewhere about the middle of his back. And, what is more, he was more than broad in proportion.

But he was not only a dreadful object as regards his physical configuration, but, if the thing was possible, his attire lent to his appearance an added charm. He was, of course, clad in convict’s clothing, but, although one does not expect that clothing to be “cut” in Savile Row, one certainly does expect to see about it some sort of a fit. For instance, one does not expect to see a man of, say, seven foot in a suit of clothes which would not be large enough for a man of three foot six. The hideous miscreant in front of us had been crammed into garments which had apparently been intended for his infant brother. I don’t know, but I had always supposed that they provided even convicts with boots or shoes. This individual had neither. He had on a pair of stockings, the whole of which was scarcely large enough to contain his feet. His knickerbockers stopped short about ten inches above his knees. They looked more like curtailed bathing drawers, of novel design and pattern, than any other garment I ever saw. He had apparently cut them open at the back to induce them to meet in front, and the result was singular. He had cut his jacket open at the seams to enable him to get into it. Between the bottom of that garment and the top of his knickerbockers was a vacant space of about two feet. This was scantily covered by the ragged remnants of a parti-coloured shirt. No waistcoat was visible to the naked eye. As for hat or cap, perhaps the gentleman had come away so hastily that he had forgotten to bring that with him.

I felt that if that is the costume in which a grateful country attires her criminals, honesty may be the better policy, after all.

While Ted and I regarded the guilt-smirched scoundrel with eyes of wonder and admiration, he plunged his hand into the bosom of what, I presume, was intended for his shirt. When that hand reappeared it held what I have seen described as a “shooting-iron.” A revolver was flashed in our faces. It only needed that to make the situation perfect.

“What shall I do with you?” he demanded, in a manner which, so far as I was concerned, required no reply whatever. Ted, however, seemed to think otherwise.

“I haven’t brought much money with me; but so far as half a sovereign is concerned—”

“Half-sovereign me no half-sovereign!”

Ted ducked. He appeared to be under the impression – which, I am bound to own, I shared – that that ideal candidate for Falstaff’s ragged regiment was about to “take a shot” at him. Our new acquaintance, however, restrained his zeal.

“My dear sir,” cried Ted, “don’t fire! I assure you that my sympathy is yours. I have always been conscious that a gentleman in your position may be, if all were known, a better man—”

“Sympathy me no sympathy!” (Another duck from Ted.) “What I want,” yelled the stranger, as if he were addressing a meeting in Hyde Park, “is clothes!”

I felt that this was true; indeed, we both of us felt that this was true. But none the less, we were not prepared for what immediately followed.

“Take off your coat!”

Ted chose to take the request as being addressed to him.

“I am afraid you will find my coat too small for you.”

“The two of you take off your coats. I will sew them both together.”

The proposition did not commend itself to me as being of a practicable kind, nor as one which was likely to lead to a satisfactory result. I did not see how he proposed to provide himself with a well-fitting garment even when the two coats were sewn together. However, as Ted took off his coat, of course I took off mine. I had always regarded that man as my friend, and I was not going to desert him then. I have some consideration for the claims of friendship, whatever other men may have.

But the stranger was not content when he had got our coats.

“Take off your waistcoats,” was his next demand.

Here Ted made a stand; not such a stand as I should have made – still, he made a stand.

“You really must excuse me, my dear sir, but if you wouldn’t mind—”

“Strip!” roared the stranger.

And – well, I may say, in fact, I do say it, without the slightest hesitation, that if Ted had not stripped first, I should not have stripped: I should have remonstrated with that ruthless ruffian. I should have pointed out to him that there are circumstances which an escaped convict ought to consider even in the centre of Dartmoor. I should have done this in a manner which would have commended itself to his sense of what was right and what was wrong. But, as I have already pointed out, I am not a man to desert a friend, especially in the hour of his need. So, when Ted stripped, I stood to him, shoulder to shoulder, and I stripped too.

There was one thing – the weather was tolerably warm, and the spot was a secluded one, ten miles from anywhere, so that there was nothing to shock the proprieties. Otherwise, if I know myself, I should certainly have refrained.

I must confess, though, that I did not understand why he would not allow us to keep our socks. Even if he had sewn the two pairs together he would not have been able to get into them. And as for our shoes, the idea of his ever being able to wear them was simply ridiculous. But no, he would not even allow us to keep a pocket-handkerchief. He would only allow us to keep our hats. And that was absurd. A man cannot do much in the way of outdoor exercise if he only has a hat on. The thing would make the absence of the rest of his apparel more marked than ever.

“Take six steps to the left,” observed the stranger.

We took six steps to the left; or, rather, Ted took six steps to the left, and, of course, I followed him. I never would desert a friend.

When we had taken six steps to the left, the stranger tucked my clothes under one arm, and Ted’s clothes under the other. He turned away. He disappeared among the heather, down a winding path which led, with a sharp descent, to some lower ground upon the right.

I will not attempt to describe the feelings with which we watched him disappear. We waited for him to reappear. But we waited in vain. We saw nothing more of him, or of our clothes. We spent the greater part of that day, in the heart of Dartmoor, with “nodings on” except our hats. And what is even a Lincoln and Bennett when you have no other garments with which to keep that article in countenance?

— II —

“Stand! or we fire!”

This was the agreeable observation which was addressed to us from the rear, when we had become more than a little tired of wandering about a rough, and a rugged, and a thorny country in a state of arcadian simplicity. Our first impression was that the gentleman who had replenished his wardrobe at the expense of ours, after carefully considering the matter, desired the pleasure of our further acquaintance. Perhaps he had come back after our hats.

But our first impression was a mistaken one, as we perceived when we looked behind us.

A little distance off stood a small group of warders, evidently a search party from the prison. Their guns were raised to their shoulders, and the muzzles were pointed in our direction, with evident and obvious intent. But we had no objection to “stand.” Not the slightest. We had already been standing for some time, chiefly because we had experienced a difficulty in sitting or lying on the prickly turf with “nodings on.”

As the warders advanced they stared at us with unmistakable and increasing surprise, which conduct, on their part, was not altogether without excuse. In front of them walked a superior officer, perhaps a “chief” warder or something – I don’t know; I have myself not yet “done time.” At his side was an individual who, as he was attired in the ordinary costume of everyday life, was, apparently, a civilian. When he had come close enough to make quite sure that our attire was represented by a minus quantity, he addressed us:

“Who are you; and what are you walking about like that for?”

We told him who we were. We also told him why we were walking about like that. We explained, with a certain dignity, that we had encountered the gentleman he was in search of, and that he had relieved us of what we would charitably hope he had supposed to be our superfluities.

That officer’s surprise, for some occult reason, appeared to increase rather than to diminish.

“You don’t mean to say that you two men allowed a little man like that to strip you both stark-naked?”

Little man! I don’t know what he called a little man. I pointed out to him, with sarcastic and even cutting emphasis, that a man? seven foot six could be only called “little” in a land of giants.

“Seven foot six! Why, he scarcely tops five foot.”

Scarcely topped five foot! Then that was the most liberal five foot I ever yet encountered. I said so.

The individual who was attired in civilian costume interposed:

“If the man these gentlemen are speaking of was unusually tall, it is possible that it was Mr. Mogford, and if so—”

He got no further; because just then there came sauntering out from among the gorse and the heather “Jim Slim, the Camden Town murderer.” His appearance created a sensation. His costume, in particular, seemed to occasion almost as much surprise as ours had done. He carried under each arm a bundle of clothing. Ted Lane and I recognised those bundles without a moment’s hesitation. The fellow had been wise enough not to attempt to clothe himself with our belongings. With an air of the most perfect tranquillity he approached the group of warders. Then he stretched out his arm, letting Ted’s garments tumble to the ground, and he shook the civilian by the hand.

“How do, Pierce?” he observed. “I’m Jim Slim, the Camden Town murderer.”

He said he was – but he wasn’t. There have been moments since then when I have almost wished he had been.

The man was a lunatic – in a legal, not merely in a colloquial sense. His name was Mogford. He was residing, for the benefit of his health, in a cottage, somewhere – I cannot say exactly where; I never knew, but somewhere upon Dartmoor. The individual in civilian clothes, Mr. Pierce, was his keeper. Mr. Mogford had risen at a very early hour that morning and, unknown to his keeper, gone out upon the moor. He had not been heard of since. Mr. Pierce was looking for him when he had encountered the search party from the prison.

That lunatic, Mogford, had met that convict, who was probably then in the first ardour of his flight. The chaste beauty of the flying convict’s costume had filled his lunatic soul with longing. He had insisted upon a change of clothing. What that convict thought of the transaction history does not record. Although the fit must have left something to be desired, he probably needed but slight coercion.

Mr. Mogford, having got himself in – and very much in – his new garments, somehow, felt himself bound to act up to his attire. Coming upon us he had insisted not exactly upon another exchange, but upon rank robbery.

I have heard it whispered since that my conduct on that occasion did not exactly merit the cross for valour. I have even heard it insinuated that it showed rank cowardice for two men to allow one man to strip them to the skin. That sort of observation merely denotes inexperience. If you go to the United States, that great country, you will find that a couple of men with “shooters” can, and do, “hold-up” a whole train full of passengers, and among them men of valour.

I beg to observe, with emphasis, and without hesitation, that it is only when ten miles away from anywhere you meet a bloodthirsty, blood-guilty, gigantic, murderous, truculent, reckless ruffian, who has everything to win and nothing to lose, and who is in possession of a revolver which he shows every intention of using on the slightest possible pretext, that you learn what force of persuasion there is in a certain kind of argument.

Ted Lane may have been a coward. I wish it to be understood that I say nothing to the contrary. For myself, I spurn the paltry suggestion with the withering contempt which it deserves.