PAST MASTERS

THIRTEEN

2020

Compiled by "Pulpmeister"

Contents

1: Monk's Mark / "Waif Wander"

2: On Christmas Night / Guy Thorne

3: Major Marlowe's System / Guy Thorne

4: A Strange Conspiracy / E Phillips Oppenheim

5: The Black Knight / Raymund Allen

6: The Winning Move / Raymund Allen

7: Allah Knows Best / Raymund Allen

8: "If" / Barry Pain

9: Through Toil and Tribulation / Guy Boothby

10: The Eldest Born / "Ouida"

11: A New Year's Surprise / Frank Condon

12: Magic / J. Storer Clouston

13: The Fortunate Lord Fabrigas / J. Storer Clouston

14: The Trials of Tony / J. Storer Clouston

15: Front! / Floyd Hamilton Hazard

16: Nab / Lawrence Mott

17: A Shock for the Countess / C. S. Montanye

18: This Will Kill You / C. S. Montanye

19:  Ink / C. S. Montanye

20: Ivan’s Foe / C. S. Montanye

Cumulative Index to PM13

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1: Monk's Mark

"Waif Wander"

Mary Helena Fortune, 1833-1911

Shoalhaven Telegraph 27 April 1882

THE SUN DROPPED hotly still toward the western horizon in a great sea of the most brilliant hues, where, here and there, soft, white clouds floated like Islands outlined in fire. The Mangeo Range caught the glory of all this burning west on every rock and tree of its face, and became, as it were, one vast blaze of warmth and beauty. In the valley where Ryland's factory stood, near the gleaming creek, the rolling volumes of smoke that poured from the tall chimneys were tinged with red as they went up toward heaven, and every tree and bush along the green sides of the creek glowed in the glory of sunset.

On a road that wound along the sides of Mangeo, two men stood and looked down upon the valley. They looked hot and tired, and two poor swags lay on the grass at their feet. The attire of both was shabby in the extreme, and their very boots so broken as to exhibit partially the feet they vainly tried to protect.  Of these two men, the older was nearer fifty than forty— a middle-sized, largely-built man with hard features and a cold, grey eye. The beard around a sneering mouth was but the growth of a week, and was sprouting fiercely, grey and grizzled, while his hat was drawn so low over his ears that none whatever of his hair was visible.

The younger man was not more than twenty-five; was much taller than his companion, and of a lighter build. His features were decidedly Indicative of good birth, his short hair and eyes dark brown. A faintly-indicated moustache alone marked the smoothness of his face, which had a worn expression for one so young in years. While his eyes seemed persistently fixed on the collection of buildings in the valley below, those of his neighbour often watched the expression of the younger face with a sinister smile as he gazed.

The silence had lasted but a few seconds, when the elder man at length broke it.

'Well, what is your decision, my young friend?'

'I have already told it to you, Monk. I shall try and live honestly heretofore. I have, thank God, one memory yet to keep me straight— the memory of a widowed mother.'

'Bah!' sneered Monk; 'it's a pity you ever left here.  But try your luck with this honesty dodge, and see how it will stand you.'

'I am going to try it,' was the firm reply, as the speaker stooped to lift his miserable swag.

'And let me tell you its result. Every heart will be hardened against you, every door shut in your face. No sooner shall it be known that you have done a sentence in prison than you will be treated like a leper, and driven again to the society of those to whose level you have reduced yourself— In three months you will go back to the place we have come from. Honesty, Indeed! A pretty word In tho mouth of a convict.'

'Look here, Monk,' replied the young man, as be lifted his swag and tossed it over his shoulder, 'I have refrained from reproaching you with the fact that it is to your teaching I owe the disgrace of my life— the least you can do is to go your way and let me go mine in peace.'

He turned to descend toward the factory, but Monk, with the darkness of evil in his eyes, arrested him. 'Stop! We have yet a few words to exchange, Mr. Creswell. If on your march after an honest living, you should encounter me, I trust you will see the necessity of holding your tongue — It might not suit my card to have my character made too public. Should we come in contact, you had better not betray me, or my name either.'

'Should we come in contact, I shall not know you, be assured— at least, as long as you are doing no evil — but do not count on me as an accomplice. If I see you in contemplation of any villainy, no matter where It is, look to yourself. To every man I ask for work, I shall tell of my own sin— do you think I would bide yours?'

'You young scoundrel, look to yourself!' cried Monk, every evil passion in his black heart displaying itself in his face, 'for here I warn you that I will follow you over the world, and drag you out from any roof that may shelter you! I'll drag you back to a cell though you were as innocent as a dove. I swear it, and Mark Monk can keep his oath!'

He clenched both hands as he spoke, his lips being actually covered with foam as he gnashed and ground his teeth in the fierceness of his rage.

'Do your worst,' Cresswell replied, with one look of intense scorn at his late companion, ere he started at a rapid pace toward the goal of his hopes and fears, viz., the buildings down in the valley.

As he descended the hill he made a rapid survey of the place so interesting to him. There were, in addition to the factory itself, many scattered cottages surrounding it, and nestled along the banks of the running creek. One larger house than tho rest lay behind tho big chimneys and against the hill, while on one pretty and almost detached building, shining in white paint, and surrounded with a garden glowing with flowers, the outcast found himself gazing with an irresistible fascination.

'If they would only give me a chance I might yet have such a home,' the youth murmured,' and my mother might yet—' But here the young eyes filled with tears and he turned his eyes away from the cottage to seek for someone about the factory to whom he might apply for information; in this he was soon successful, a man coming out of a shed and carrying a great bundle of leaves on his shoulder replied to his questions.

'You must apply to Mr. Warrington himself, he is his own manager. That is he just coming out of the press room. This is a Tobacco factory,' and the man went on his way.

Mr. Warrington, attracted by this evident tramp and seeing by the gesture of his man, that he himself was being enquired for, waited in the gateway ho was passing until Cresswell went up to him. The proprietor was a stout, pleasant-visaged man, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a workman-like air pervading his whole manner.

'Well, my man, do you want to speak to me?'

'You are Mr. Warrington, sir?'

'I am. I suppose you are in search of employment, and you look as if you needed it. I want men among the plants, and if you can use a hoe you can go to work in the morning.'

'Oh, thank you, sir; but there is something to say before you engage me.'

'The wages, eh?' Mr. Warrington asked with a suspicious glance at the young man's face, for he had no respect whatever for 'sundowners,' and thoroughly despised a man who could carp about wages, with the toes sticking out of his boots.

'No sir, It is not the wages, it is something more serious to me than wages,' and the youth's face flushed up, while his voice trembled to that he could not for the moment control the action of his lips,

Mr. Warrington looked at him thoughtfully, and with keen discernment.

'Say what you have to say my lad, and be as quick about it as you can, for my time, as you may guess, is no idle time,'

'I beg your pardon sir, but it's such a hard thing to say. I will accept any work thankfully If you are willing to give it me, after I tell you that I am just out of gaol, after serving a long sentence, I think it would be dishonest to hide that, or perhaps it is nearer the truth, Mr. Warrington, that I would rather tell you now, than that you should discover it afterwards,'

As in a choking voice, this sad confession was made, Cresswell turned away his now pallid face (for all the blood had left it, and flown to his hard throbbing heart) and his eyes lighted again on that pretty white building in its setting of flowers.

Oh! What would be Mr. Warrington reply? Should he have to turn his back on this Eden of his hopes that seemed to hold for him his one chance of salvation? It seemed to him an hour ere the gentleman replied, yet it war scarcely a minute that Mr. Warrington remained in thought.

'For what crime were you convicted?'

'Burglary with violence, Sir.'

'Have you no relative who would assist you back into an honest way of doing?'

'No, sir. My mother—' and here he broke utterly down, and hid his face with his hands.

'There, my lad, there, go to the men's hut, that's it down by the creek. I'll never be the man to stand between any sinner and an honest life. Be a good lad, and stick to your determination of leading an honest life,' and with his own heart full, the good man turned abruptly away with the young man's heartfelt 'God bless you, sir!' ringing in his ears.

Cresswell stood there looking alter him whom he honestly considered his benefactor, absolutely stunned with a sense of his great good fortune. Permission to work among honest men once more, hopes of an eternal escape from the horrid contamination he had spent three long and weary years amidst. What a boon from heaven was this!

The pretty cottage among the flowers did not seem so far away from him now, and he looked at it again and again as he made his way toward the hut pointed out by his new employer.

He found it occupied by only one man— the cook apparently, for he was busily frying chops in a great pan. He was a short, red-headed follow, with a low-browed, dirty face, and walked with a very slight halt.

'Hallo! a new hand? he questioned. 'Has the boss taken you on, then?'

'Yes,' replied Cresswell, laying down his swag in a corner, turning his back to the cook In order to do so. While he was performing this simple operation there came such an extraordinary change over the cook's countenance had anyone been there to observe it; he looked the picture of surprise, and a low ejaculation escaped him.

'Monk, by Jove!' the ejaculation was, just as young Cresswell turned toward him again, and gladly sat down on a bench.

'Are you alone or did you bring any company with you, mate?' were the next cautious questions.

'I am quite alone.'

'Strange,' said the man we will call Jack, to himself. 'Monk must have fallen in with him somewhere, and can't be far off.'

Now, the simple cause of all this certainty and surprise was a cross of chalk that Monk had managed surreptitiously to mark on the shoulder of the young man's coat ere they parted. It had been for years a private mark between him and his pals. Jack had, however, no time to speculate much at that time, as the men now came in from work, and supper had to be roughly served on the stout table that ran along the centre of the hut, between a double row of bunks.

From the questions the now  arrival asked and the general conversation, among the half-a-dozen man at tho table, he learned a few Items of gossip an well as information about the place. The factory was called the Rylands Factory, from the name of the creek near by. The large house behind the factory was Mr. Warrington's residence, the pretty white cottage, the school-house, and residence of the teacher.

Mr. Warrington was a bachelor still, and 'awfully shook' after Mrs. Cresswell, the schoolmistress. More fool he, what good was a blind woman to any man; though, indeed, she made a wondrous good teacher, and all the children of the factory hands liked her.

Young Cresswell heard as in a dream. He tried to rise, but fell back so helplessly that, but for a clutch at the table he would have fallen backward over the bench on which he sat. For a moment his heart seemed to stop, and then went on again with great throbs that sent the blood like fire through his veins. No one observed this great agitation except Jack, the cook, and he watched the young man furtively, and with the deepest interest. In serving round the viands, previous to this he had for reasons of his own, taken an opportunity of obliterating the chalked cross from the young man's old coat, but now, as he saw the stranger had some secrets, his interest in him was greater than ever for finding out that secret, and, it possible, of turning it to good account in some way. Besides, there was that fatal cross of Mark Monk's. He was bound by it as strongly as if a halter fettered his neck — as, indeed it might do if he forgot his oath to his old pal.

With such thoughts as these, and many more unrecorded, the man washed up the dishes as the night fell. If Monk was in the neighbourhood, he would soon show himself, as one of their mates was a permanent resident at the bare distance of a mile from the factory, and, of course, knew of Jack's employment. He must keep his eyes open, and his ears, too, at well as watch the marked man.

As he wiped the last dish, he looked round, and saw that the newcomer was absent. Where could he, a stranger, have gone on the very first night of his arrival?

Had he followed the young man in the dim starlight, he would have seen him stealing with light steps toward that flower-surrounded cottage, that held for him such a strange attraction; he would have noticed the stranger avoid the latched gate, bound over the lowest part of the fence, and alight among the roses of the garden; he would have seen him move toward a low, lighted window like a shadow, and, himself hidden, watch the inside of the humble apartment with eyes so full of tears that he could only see when he dashed them away wildly with his hand.

Let us look upon the picture that he saw. At a small centre table was seated a woman of about forty-five, with her head bowed upon her hand. The light of a small lamp rested full upon her soft, brown hair so thickly streaked with grey that already it began to show that indistinct tint of lost colour that always reminds me of the growing bloom on a damson as the fruit ripens. The downcast face showed to the watcher the fine profile of a most intellectual face, with an expression of ineffable melancholy around the proud lips. In the whole attitude of this woman these was expressed both deep and despondent thought, and the youth's heart was sore within him to see the effect of four short years on the well-known form.

The door was within a few feet of him, and he softly tried the latch— it lifted easily, yet not so noiselessly but that the blind woman heard him. It was pitiful to see the helpless eyes turned toward the door as she recognised the strange movement.

'Is that you, Ann?' she asked, quickly. 'I have been waiting for you. No, It is not— who is it?'

The young man made two steps forward, and Mrs. Cresswell rose to her feet. It was pitiful to see the expression of her face where doubt, anxiety, and all the most painful emotions of the heart were visible. The youth could endure it no longer, but went close to her and placed his arm over her shoulder.

'My God!' she whispered after a second's pause, 'am I dreaming? Is it Archie?'

'It is Archie my dear mother,' he replied in a choking voice. She clung to her lost son, as a sailor clings to the spar that is his only hope of life, and then the fond arms relaxed as Archie's support her in a dead swoon. Persons who swoon from excess of happiness do not however die— Mrs. Cresswell soon recovered, and was able to listen to her son's explanation of his misfortune.

'Ah it was a foolish wish of mine to seek this country, mother, and I did it in spite of all advice. I was in Melbourne months without procuring any employment, and in an evil hour, fell in with the man Monk, I have been telling you of. I was desperate, and not hard to persuade, when he asked mo to join in an expedition in which there was little or no risk, it was to enter a house at night, where a large sum in gold was known to be secreted. You know the result. The man in charge was aroused by our movements, and tried to defend his trust; Monk struck him senseless. We were captured and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Oh mother, if you know what I suffered in that awful prison!'

'My poor lad I speak of it no more, it is all over. Let us try to make the remainder of our lives good and happy.'

It was late ore Archie left the cottage on his way back to the hut for, until Mr. Warrington had been consulted, it was not thought prudent that he should remain with his mother.

He had reached the creek and was within a stone's cast of the men's hut, when, all at once, he was arrested by the sound of a low, tremulous whistle that at intervals stopped and was repeated in a cadence with which he was too well acquainted — it was a whistle peculiar to Monk, and Archie's heart stood still for a moment, all his past terror was recalled to him by the dangerous vicinity of this man. At first he thought the whistle addressed to himself, but, remembering the terms on which they had so lately parted, he saw but little probability of that:—who then was Mark Monk summoning? what accomplice had he at Bylands?

For the purpose of discovering this in his own defence, and for the safety of his mother, the young man drew into the deep shadow of the wattles by the bank of the creek, and both watched and listened. It the starlight he could see the dark outline of the men's hut and the scattered trees that gradually thickened as the bush crept up the skirts of Mangeo, it seemed to him that the low whistle came from under the Range and he was gazing in that direction and trying to penetrate the half obscurity of the spot where the trees approached nearest the hut, when he saw a man steal from its shadow and make his way quickly in the direction where the whistle appeared to come

Archie Cresswell was active, and full of intense terror of the fatal effects that might result from this ill-omened visit, and, at all risks, he determined to try and discover its object. Keeping the line of the creek, and in shadow as well as he could, he followed the man, whom, as he neared him, he recognised as Jack the cook. As this man emerged into an open space, not a dozen yards from the creek, another man walked out from behind a tree and hailed him. It needed no moonlight for Archie to recognise this man; the shudder at his heart told him it was Mark Monk.

'Did you expect me?' Monk asked, as his accomplice joined him.

'I thought It a bare chance I'd manage to see you to night.'

'Of course I expected you. Didn't I know you'd make straight for old Drake's place, and that he'd tell you where I was?'

'But how did you know I was about?'

'Didn't I see your mark on that young chap that was engaged this evening?'

'Oh! He's here then? By Jupiter, we'll have to be careful. I put the mark on him just by chance, little thinking you'd be here.'

'What do you want to be careful for on that chap's account?' Jack asked, with curiosity.

'Why, he's that chap that got the sentence with me about the burglary business, and now he's turned on the honest dodge. The young villain had the cheek to tell me up to my face that he'd split on me if he saw me up to any games near him. Jack, that young man must be got rid of.'

'I'll do no more of that business, Monk,' the other replied, sulkily.

'You won't, eh?'

'No, I won't,' was the obstinate reply, in such loud tones that he might have been heard at the hut.

'A man— do you mark me, Jack Corrigan—a man can only be hung once,' said Monk, with a fierce glare in his evil eyes and between his set teeth.

'And he needn't be hung once unless he's a coward, Mark Monk.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean that I'll do no more of your dirty work, do your own murdering. I've not had a day's nor an hour's comfort this six years, sometimes in the night I see old Darrel's face as I saw it when I struck him down, and all for you, curse you!'

Monk looked in wonder as well as rage at the speaker thus showing himself in an entirely new aspect.

'Have you got the Governor's free pardon in your pocket that you dare me thus?' he asked, hoarsely, for he could hardly speak.

'Yes, I have,' wan the reply, and before Monk could even draw back a pistol was at his breast and discharged. He fell with a horrible imprecation, scrambled to his feet and tried to run after his murderer, fell again, and again struggled to his feet. Now he was blind and tottered, but he still ran, and, with arms out-stretched, stumbled against a human form also trying to escape round a cluster of wattle.

To this form Monk clung with the grip of death and a gurgling shout of triumph. 'I have you!' he shrieked. 'Coward, I have you, and the gallows shall have you yet. Die, and follow me to—'

The last words were uttered as he plunged his clasp-knife into the breast of his victim ; then he rolled back as his hand relaxed the grip on his weapon. The starlight saw some convulsive movements of his limbs, and a growing pool o f blood on the green grass; thon all was still around Mark Monk.

The man who had been stabbed rose, and turned to the starlight the face of Archie Cresswell. Yes, it was he, and not Jack, upon whom the murdered convict had executed his revenge. He drew the weapon from his breast, and tried to staunch the flowing blood with the shirt he tore from his arms.

His first instinct was to fly to that white home among the roses and to the helping hand that had so often soothed his pain; then his generous heart forbore to terrify the poor woman.

As Jack did not know the deed had been witnessed, and might go back to the hut, Archie dared not venture there, so, with the courage born of desperation, he ran toward Mr. Warrington's home at the back of the factory, and knocked at the door. The proprietor, being a most earnest and energetic worker, was still engaged with his books, though his servants had all retired. He opened the door himself, and asked who wanted him.

'It is I, sir, the young man you so kindly engaged this morning.. I am wounded, and came for help.'

For a moment Mr. Warrington hesitated, for he could not help remembering the youth's own confession of his antecedents, and prudence overcame his naturally generous disposition — this was but an instant, though, far at the sight of blood trickling between the youth's fingers as he pressed them to his chest, the good man set his lamp on the floor, and drew Archie into tho room he had himself been occupying.

Here his first task was to administer a glass of wine, his second to examine the wound he had reopened before he would listen to a word of explanation. Mr. Warrington was something of a surgeon, as indeed he was something of a good many more or less useful professions, and the factory being at a good distance from any medical man, he necessarily kept a good many articles in the chemist's line. He soon had the wound bound up with many assurances that Archie should not be a bit afraid, as the knife had glanced off on the ribs without touching any vital part.

'And now tell me tine whole story, my lad,' he said, as he seated the young man in a comfortable chair, and Archie told him all, including his visit to Mrs. Cresswell, and the fact of him being her son.

Wonderful!' ejaculated the good man, 'and you are the son that poor soul came out here all the way from England to search for? Could any one think of more unparalleled devotion! Helpless, and poor, and blind! Well she has had reward at last In her darkness; her faithful love has found light at last!'

How true those prophetic words were the speaker little knew when he uttered them. 'Stay and never wound her heart again, my lad, and you shall be a son to me also. Now, come, and I will show you a bed— you must regain here while I go to see about this horrible affair that will throw a shadow over the brightness of Rylands.'

How thankfully young Cresswell lay down that night let the reader guess, while Mr. Warrington, accompanied by two of his especial men, whom he knocked up, went to the man's hut. Light appeared through the small window, and, on cautiously looking in, Mr. Warrington saw a strange sight. Jack Corrigan, as Monk had called him, was shaking his fist at the body of a dead man which was stretched on the table, and on the ghastly features of which the light of the flaring candle poured. The empty spirit-bottle, tossed on the floor, a witness of the cause of the wretched being's temporary madness. He had dragged the corpse of Monk from the spot where he had died, and apparently by a rope in a noose round the helpless neck, which rope Corrigan had passed over a tie-beam, and held in one hand.

'Now who'll be hung, Mark Monk!' he cried, or rather roared, just as Mr. Warrington and his companions reached the hut.

'You'll hang me, will you? The boot's on the other foot, mate! Yo, heave ho!' And up was drawn the awful limp and bloody object to the tie beam, and swayed there to and fro for a moment, turning its awful face to one side, and the other as obeying the pendulous movement imparted by the quick elevation of the body.

At this instant the sleeping men aroused by the noise, and springing from their bunks as Mr. Warrington entered, the murderer and maniac was soon secured, and the awful object swaying under the roof, resound from his hands.

'How fortunate,' observed Mr. Warrington as he stood by Archie's bedside, and told him the result on his return home, 'how very fortunate your poor mother will know nothing of this awful event. I trust the commotion has not awakened her— indeed I fear she would be too happy to sleep tonight.'

He was wrong— Mrs. Cresswell slept well. When the sound of her son's step could be no longer heard she went into her room and fell upon her knees to thank the living Ordainer of all for his great mercies to herself and to her restored son. She recalled her breaking heart and her helpless search for him in this strange land, and the good friend Heaven had raised up to her in Mr. Warrington, in whose service she had been enabled in her blindness to earn a comfortable living.

And now, when she had lost all hopes— when her faith had been so dead that the very roses around her no longer reminded her of their Maker. He had sent her the lost one over the very threshold of her own home! Might His name be forever praised, and for ever and ever, Amen.

When the blind woman lay down in such unutterable peace as belongs not to this earth, it seemed to her as if there was no more earth only a second heaven over which the same great Ruler presided, and where all his creatures must love each other.

She did not dream of the awful scene being enacted so near her; no, she fell asleep, and dreamed of a land where there was no death, and no lost loved ones, and no blindness, and no sin. She dreamed that she was floating away on the softest and most beautiful cloud and that she could see the radiance of every star as she passed it on her glorious way to some strange and lovely land. She dreamed that, at last she reached a gate of gold, amid such a radiance of light as dazzled her newly found sight, and that as she entered, she looked back, and saw her darling Archie waving his hand toward her triumphantly from the summit of a distant peak— in her darkness her faithful soul had found light at last.

The tidings, however kindly broken to him by his now friend and benefactor, that his mother had been found dead in bed with a heavenly smile on her pale lips, was a heavy blow to Archie Cresswell, but youth is elastic as hope itself, and long after Jack Corrigan had suffered for his crime and Mark Monk's broken remains had amalgamated themselves with their mother earth, the memory of his mother was as softly fresh and lovely in his heart as the flowers that always bloomed above her treasured grave.

Mr. Warrington clung to him as a to a son and a happy future lay before the once hapless youth who had been branded with the fatal cross.

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2: On Christmas Night

Guy Thorne

(Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull, 1875 –1923)

Observer (Adelaide) 15 December 1917

IT WAS SOME days before Christmas, and the great lounge hall of the Central Hotel at Shuttleworth was full of people. was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Jobn Barlas had just arrived from London, and he sat watching the bright and animated scene.

Dozens of merry groups sat taking tea at innumerable little oak tables. On three sides of the vast place, open fires were burning and holly had already made its appearance. Everyone seemed in the highest spirits, and festival was in the air.

John Barlas, tall, lean, brown as a saddle, and going grey, watched the vivid life around him with sadness. He was not bitter, he was not envious; he was simply sad. This was the first Christmas he had spent in England for five and twenty years, and as the hand in the gallery began to play a selection of Yuletide melodies the brilliant spectacle before him faded away, as a dream, shifts imperceptibly from one scene to another.

He smelt the scent of the marigolds, the fragrant deodar trees, and the dry earth in his compound at Coonoor. The fragrance of cigarettes, cigars, and China tea changed into the odours of the bazaar— curry and fried, cakes, tamarind, and oil of mustard. The music of the band turned into the lowing of great humped bullocks, the creaking of the waterwheels, the whistle of the kites at evening, and the clatter of the happy Lancashire crowd into the calling of the parrots as they , flew in blue and scarlet regiments about the ruined temples of stone.

"Why did I come hack from India?" he thought. "What is the use of it, after all? I was happy enough there, in my way. We talked a lot about 'Home' and what we should do if we were there. I used to join in with all the rest as if I really had something to go back to. Why did I sell out of the mills? The native cotton industry was never more promising than now. I've got £50,000, but I might have made it £100,000. What was it?— sentiment, I suppose, though heavens knows I'm not a sentimental man, and my life was hard enough in my youth."

He had been sitting by the fire. He threw his cigarette into it, and strolled towards the lift. All round him he heard the dear old North country speech. It stung him as fresh winter rain stings the face of a man who has been spending a dull afternoon in a heated room, and at dusk strides out to breast the winds.

He was wearing a correctly cut morning coat and dark-grey trousers. As soon as he was in his bedroom he changed into his oldest suit, then he turned out the electric light, went to the window, and pulled up the blind.

"How things change!" he said to himself. "There was no Central Hotel when I was a lad. This place has been built upon what was once a piece of waste ground where we children played marbles and hopscotch. One might be in London as far as this hotel is concerned— though there are few hotels in town to touch it."  But as he drew up the window and leant out, he gave a sigh of relief. His room was high up at the very top of the great building. From his watch tower he saw a dark and crowded city, the streets defined by a million twinkling lamps; a city upon the banks of an inky river, a city where tall chimneys, rose into a murky sky, belching smoke. And he thought that he could hear the hum and roar of; a myriad looms— the ringing of unnumbered spindles, the clank of the self-cutting mules, the hiss of the endless leather bands.

Yes! this was Shuttleworth, after all... He heard clogs rattling over cobble stones on the dark mornings of his youth. The acrid odour of yarn came to his nostrils; and had a vision of a slim girl with a check shawl over her head coming back: from the Harrop Company's mill to the little house in the long, mean street, after, her day a work was done.

Five and twenty years gone— a quarter of a century ago!

Jenny Pennistone, small, insignificant, but with great brown eyes, had nothing to say to the shy, awkward machine minder of nineteen. She had heard, had Jenny Pennistone, that the lad who lived four houses away in Clough lane, was a bit too fond of pigeon flying, and risked his shillings on the results of the league matches— Jenny came of a serious family.

How it all came back to him!

"What's wrong wi' me, Jenny?"

"What's wrong with you? I fear the devil's howdin' you. Thou'rt ill spoken of in t' factory."

"Jenny, listen to me."

"Nay, lad, I can have no carnal talk wi' you. My feyther...."

John Barlas shut down the window with a bang. He saw those great brown eyes brimming over with unshed tears, and he remembered the wild anger which welled up in his heart and caused him to say dreadful irreparable words— words which Jenny Pennistone could never forget, words which had sent him desperately out of England to try his fortune in distant lands.

He got his overcoat, put on a cap, and passed out of the hotel. He walked down the great roaring Church street with its magnificent shops, its crowds of-people gazing into the gleaming windows, took a turn to the right down a street of solid offices, crossed. Jubilee square, where the famous Town Hall raised its tower to the sky, and caught a tram— an electric tram, now, not the horse-driven, reversible vehicle of his youth— for Clough End.

Here in the great industrial quarter of the city, where the slaves of the loom, the bobbin, and the spindle lived their days, nothing was changed. The immense seven-storied mills blazed with orange-coloured light in their innumerable small-paned windows with the rounded tops. Lorries drawn by elephantine horses moved ponderously in and out of the mill yards; the air was full of a muted thunder and vibration as if all the bees in the world were massing unseen for an attack upon the sons of men.

John Barlas sniffed at the smoky, chemical laden air. His nostrils dilated with enjoyment; he quivered with pleasure at the music of the looms.

"There's nought amiss wi' this," he muttered, falling back into the speech of his boyhood. "Happen I'll spend Christmas here, reet among it all." And there was a tear in his eye as he turned into a network of small streets to find a lodging.

APARTMENTS— that might do. The little house was in the centre of a long now of rabbit hutches similar to itself. It was not three hundred yards away from the Harrop Company's Mills

The door was opened and a pale girl of nineteen or twenty, with a mass of brown hair, stood looking at him.

"You have rooms to let? I want a bedroom and a sitting room."

The girl's eyes lighted up. "Come in," she said. "I hope we shall be able to suit you."

He entered, nearly filling the little passage, with its drab walls of varnished paper.

"They are not very grand," the girl said, looking up ,at him.

She threw open a door to the rights the door of the front parlour. It was exactly what he, expected, exactly what he had hoped for. The wanderer felt the years fall away from trim, and he had a sense of home.

"I'll take these rooms," he said.

"Would it be for a long let, sir?" Her voice was timid and anxious.

"I can't say, but for several weeks, at any rate."

"I am glad, sir: I'll go and tell father." She flitted away into the back room, and John Barlas heard her soft voice mingled with a deep angry rumble.

The girl came back a little flushed. "Would you come and see father, please?" she asked. "He's not able to get about, I am sorry."

The brown-faced man followed her into the back room. Upon an arrangement which was obviously, a couch by day and a bed by night, a bald-headed, bearded man was lying. Discontent and pain had gashed his face with deep wrinkles, the legs were twisted and useless.

"You want to take our rooms, sir?"

"I do. I think they'll suit me very well."

"Then you're easy satisfied. I wouldn't live here for five minutes if I had my way!"

"Father!" the girl said.

"I know, Mary, that's not the way to let rooms. What's your name?" he barked out, staring at John Barlas, who had begin to be interested by this strange personality.

"My name is Barlas. I've been out of England for many years. I was born in this town, and I've come back to have a look at it. I'm Lancashire bred."

"Well, you look an honest man, and you're not a flighty young fellow. You can have the rooms"— he flung it at Barlas as if he were conferring an immense favour. "Mary'll look after you," he went on; "she's a good girl, though not much to look at. She'll settle the terms with you. Good evening."

John Barlas got out of the stuffy room somehow or other, and rejoined the girl in the front parlour.

"You mustn't mind him," she said tremulously. "He suffers terribly. Oh, I am glad, I am glad you've taken the rooms!"

"I am sure I shall like them very much," Barlas answered gently. "But why are you glad?" '

"Father's taken a fancy to you, and that's everything."

Barlas smiled, he could not help it. "He shows it in a strange way," he said.

"But that's father. Time after time we've had lodgers enquiring, but father wouldn't have anything to do with them And— and— he's only got a little pension from the Harrop's Mills where he got his hurt. I can't leave him and times are hard."

She was so simple and childlike that the lonely man's heart warmed to her.

"Well," he said, "we'll see if times can't be made better. I will move in this evening."

AT 8 O'CLOCK he drove up in a cab with one suit case and a kitbag—having left the rest of his luggage at the Central Hotel. A fire was lit, a white cloth was on the round table under the gas jet in the centre of the room. The girl came in with, the Clipper he had ordered.

"Father's asleep, sir," she said. "I've been and got him some stout, which always does him good."

"Then I'll be very quiet and won't wake him up."

"That will be good of you"— she looked up in his face with a sort of mild surprise in her eyes. He saw that they were large, brown, and lustrous. He realized that this poor child had not met with much kindness on her way through the world.

Barlas sank into a curious, almost hypnotised state. He was placid, even happy. In his shabbiest clothes he wandered about Shuttleworth, looking at the Christmas preparations in the shops, tramping through the slushy snow— for the winter had set in with grim earnest— and always returning to the little house at night.

It was odd. In India he had made money rapidly from the first. He had lived a life of considerable personal luxury, far removed from the poverty of his youth in the dark northern city. Now he came back to a poor and simple life in the jerry-built house without a wish for anything more. He lived on the simplest fare, though Mary Yates was so good a cook that the rasher of cheap bacon or the Welsh rabbit at supper seemed a feast.

Every evening about nine o'clock her father was made comfortable for the night. From what Barras gathered from a chat with the panel doctor, the invalid could not live very long, though Mary was ignorant of this.

Barlas found that the girl always sat alone in her bedroom without a fire before going to bed, and it distressed him. He asked her to take pity on his loneliness, and when she had cleared away supper she got into the habit of sitting by his glowing hearth while he talked to her of India, bringing a breath of wonder and romance into her dull and uneventful life. Pretty, she certainly was not, but he was surprised by the shrewdness and intelligence of her questions when her natural shyness and timidity began to wear away. Her eyes, too, were wonderful. They reminded him...

The girl lived a life as secluded as any nun. She seemed to have no friends of her own sex, and certainly no lover ever waited at the door.

One night in his new relation as elderly friend— "Uncle" he thought to himself, "that's what I am, an unofficial uncle!"— he rallied her upon this fact.

"When is Mr. Right coming along, Mary?" he said. "I should have thought a lass like you who can cook and nurse your father and can sit here by the fireside talking to an old fogey like me, was just the girl for some nice young fellow. Surely, there's some one somewhere?"

He said it with a bluff, North Country outspokenness, and the sensitive interior of him was alarmed at the vivid blush which dyed her face and made her for the moment almost beautiful.

Little by little he drew the story from her.

"I shall never see him again," the girl faltered, staring at the glowing heart of the fire.

"Why not? Did the bounder run away and leave you, Mary?"

She shook her head. "It wasn't him," she answered, "but he was a good bit  above me. His father and mother wouldn't I hear of it."

"But if he loved you, he wasn't much good if he didn't let his father and mother stew in their own juice!"

"He couldn't help himself," said Mary, though Barlas noticed that she hardly seemed to resent the implied disparagement. "They sent him away— and, well, Mr. Barlas, it's all over, so there's no more to be said. I've got his photograph, and I look at it sometimes and think what might have been."

Barlas was touched. In the days that followed he cross-questioned her, and the pitiful little romance was laid bare. Her lover had been the son of the manager of the mill in which Mr. Yates had worked, and where he met with his accident. The boy had been packed off to Liverpool, and Mary was too proud to allow him even to correspond with her.

Christmas Day drew close at hand, and, strange to say, John Barlas realized that a prospect he had begun to face with dread was now full of quiet happiness. Beneath his somewhat rough exterior and manners, the man had sensitive and tender heart. To spend the first Christmas in England after 25 years' absence, alone in a hotel, had. seemed to him appalling. Now, at least, there was something human and friendly in his life— he could lighten little Mary's burden, at any rate.

Mary, too, despite her father's growing infirmity, and the fact that every night his pain had to be assuaged with drugs before he could sleep, was happier than she had ever been. She looked forward to her nightly chat with the tall, brown-faced man with eagerness, counting the hours until her father should go to rest and the bright moment arrived. As she got to know Barlas better, and their intimacy ripened with incredible quickness, she found herself talking to him with ease.

"I can say anything to you, Mr. Barlas," she told him one night, "though I don't know why it is."

"It's because we are friends, Mary," he answered gravely, his eyes full upon her.

For his part, Barlas was thinking how much prettier she was growing, expanding under their friendship as a flower expands beneath the sun. And her eyes, her great brown eyes with their long black lashes, they were beautiful, no less!

"Brown eyes are the most beautiful of all," said John Barlas to himself with a sigh.

On Christmas Eve Barlas raided the big glittering shops of Church street. An invalid reading stand for Mr. Yates, a pile of books also; a little gold watch upon a slender chain, and a dozen pairs of gloves for Mary, fruit and bon-bons arrived, such as never before had made their appearance at 100 Clough road. The little house overflowed with Christmas fare.

"Happen you've come into a fortune, Hester Barlas," said old Yates, his hands trembling as they strayed over the richly bound set of Dickens, the first that he had over owned. "And that watch for Mary— she's a proud lass tonight, I tell you! Eh, but you've got a good heart!"

It did not occur to Barlas to think about the goodness or otherwise of his heart, but he began to realize with a strange sense which was half joy and half fear, that something unusual, unknown since he had been a lad of nineteen— was troubling that organ.

"What a fool I am," he thought. "I'm five and forty, what girl would ever look at me? There's no fool like an old fool."

Of course he was shrewd enough to know that with his money there were many girls who would look upon him very kindly— if they knew. But Mary did not know, and if she did, Mary could never have a mercenary thought. For John Barlas knew now that Fate, or the Providence that leads the blind steps of men, had indeed brought him.

Each day he discovered new beauties in the girl as they talked together by the fireside. Her shy playfulness, her quiet sense of humour was only another charm, a decoration upon the steadfast and simple purity of her nature.

Not with a passion of youth, but with the sincere conviction of a mature and seasoned mind, John Barlas was in love.

They had been to church together, and heard the grand old Christmas hymns thundered out in the tuneful Lancashire voices. They had made a merry Christmas dinner in Mr. Yates's room— roast duck, Christmas pudding, and a bottle of Australian Burgundy— Barlas had not dared to go as far as champagne. And now the old man was sleeping more tranquilly than usual, and the other two eat alone together. Outside the snow was falling thickly. The great mills were silent, there was not a sound in the street; all the folk were within doors keeping the feast.

"I've had such a happy day; I don't know when I've been so happy, Mr. Barlas."

She looked up at him, and he saw there were tears in her sweet eyes, and at that passion flamed up in him like a torch. He rose from-his chair, and caught her to him, little featherweight as she was.

"Oh, my dear," he said, "my little girl, be always happy, be happy with me! Darling, I love you. Be my wife, and let me shield you always."

Her head had sunk upon his shoulder.

"Can you love me a little?" he went on with quick passionate utterance. "Oh, Mary, don't say that I'm too old, that you can't "

Two slim arms slid up and met round his neck. He bent his head, and his lips touched hers.

Distant, but drawing nearer, came the sound of harmonious voices.

"O come, all ye faithful. Joyful and triumphant!"

"And what about the other?" Barlas said some 20 minutes later, when the waifs had come and departed royally fed. He was kneeling by the side of her chair and holding her hands. "Darling, did you care for him very much?"

The girl's face flushed and then grew deadly pale. She burst into a torrent of leans. "Oh," she cried, "I'm a wicked girl, I'm a wicked girl."

"For God's sake, what do you mean?"

"There never was any other man! John, I made it all up! No one ever came courting me like they did other girls, so I pretended that I had a lover. I used to think about it such a lot that I almost got to believe it was true!"

"You little dear, you foolish little dear!"

"I could not help it, life was so dull. And when you asked me, I didn't know you then like I do now— it all came out naturally. But I didn't mean to deceive you, I really didn't."

He laughed aloud, a strong male laugh of triumph.

"And the photograph," he almost shouted. "What about his photograph?"

"It's here," she whispered, pulling at a thin chain round her neck and drawing out a small photograph in a circular frame of metal.

"I found it among mother's things when she died, so I wore it and then I began to imagine and make up— Oh, John, what a little fool I was!"

"No, dear, you weren't a fool in the least," he answered as he took the photograph in his hand and looked at it curiously.

It was a photograph of himself at the age of nineteen!

He recognised it instantly, and remembered the occasion on which it had been taken— to whom he had given it.

"What was your mother's name before she was married, Mary?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Jenny Pennistone."

________________________

3: Major Marlowe's System

Guy Thorne

The Sketch Jun 17 1908

Northern Miner (Qld) 20 August 1908

THERE IS QUITE a general idea, among that type of person whose holiday excursions do not reach further than the nearest watering-place to his own town, that a sojourn on the Riviera is frightfully expensive, and apt to be rather wicked, too. Monte Carlo, of course, dominates the brain of the untravelled, and the tentacles of that lovely home of sin are supposed to stretch right  along the Côte d' Azur.

The man in the street reads in the "Mondanite" column that Lord and Lady So-and-So have left tor Cannes; that the Duke and Duchess of Somewhere Else arrived at Monte Carlo; that San Remo is full to overflowing; that the King of Anywhere is shortly expected at Mentone.

There is no doubt, of course, that the great and wealthy of this world flock to the Riviera from the middle of January until the first week in April. But― and this is rather a large interjection― the ordinary person does not realise at all how many other and very ordinary persons, who by some trick or other have got the knack of it, go to the Riviera too.

The newspapers are full of the movements of those who are always en plein air do not chronicle the arrivals and departures of humbler folk at the innumerable pensions from Ventimiglia to Hyeres. Only those who themselves have traversed the gaudy pleasure-trip to Europe in its high season, and who have not much money to spend, realise that it is possible to live in the very centre of the Riviera without enormous cost― though certainly without the possibility of much excitement beyond the joys of scenery and sunshine.

Yet nevertheless it is not the sunshine and the scenery which attract most of these poorer pilgrims to the South. It is the possibility of changing a somewhat drab fortune into a splendid competence. It is, in short, the Casino at Monte Carlo which draws these anxious ones year by year to the shores of the Mediterranean.

Monte Carlo itself is an expensive place to live in, and though there are pensions there, many of them are dubious. It is in Nice that the fortune hunters sleep, and It Is from Nice that they take their daily train― generally the one-thirty, after lunch― to Prince Albert's naughty kingdom.

At the Pension Mimosa, in one of those broad by-ways which lead from the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, Major Marlowe had his bedroom, appeared generally at lunch, and sometimes at dinner. Major Marlowe was a tall, thin man, with a somewhat fixed expression in his eyes, a faded skin, and a charming, if somewhat narrow manner. He was always very well dressed. For several years he had come to the Pension Mimosa for the season.

He was a bachelor, with a nice little shooting-box near Aberdeen, and a sufficient income to enjoy a cycle of modest sport. From year to year the magnet of Monte Carlo drew him― second-class, of course, and a half-crown supplement for first-class upon the boat― to the shores of Roulette and Trente-et-Quarante. He simply could not help it.

He had been an imaginative man from his youth― so imaginative, indeed, that during the Boer War he had performed an act of great bravery because all the time he was performing it he was imagining the subsequent bestowal of the Victoria Cross, which in due course he received.

More particularly he was unable to disabuse himself of the idea that he was destined to win a fortune at the tables. He was not a particularly brave man, but he had won the Victoria-Cross because his glimpse into the future was sufficiently powerful to prevent the horror of the present. And with the same sanguine temperament he went to the Casino day after day with a small capital and no courage at all.

The result was that Major Marlowe always come back to the Pension Mimosa at Nice and when the ingratiating spinsters inquired, "What have you done to-day, Major?" he generally answered them with a gloomy shake of the head.

After two seasons of this sort of thing Major Marlowe became bitten with the tarantula of systems. He tried them all. He read Sir Hiram Maxim's books; he read everybody else's book; and an orgy of scientific punting with five-franc pieces produced nothing but disappointment.

He was, however, something of a mathematician― indeed, he had been in the Engineers― and warned by disappointment and animated by an unconquerable hope, he began to evolve systems for himself. He began to play them.

Sometimes Major Marlowe did rather well with the small stakes that he was able to afford. But it always happened that a run of luck was interrupted by the fact that he lost courage in thinking of his weekly bill at the pension, or that a run of bad luck could not be stemmed from want of capital

It therefore occurred to him that Capital was the great thief, just at the moment when he had evolved a simply perfect system. You could not lose― and he worked it out with all the plausibility of figures― provided only you had at least a hundred and twenty louis for the séance.

For himself, he said to his fellow guests at the Villa Mimosa, he needed money― he was unable to venture more then a quarter of the necessary sum. But― and this was his constant hope and suggestion― if only two or three of the ladles and gentlemen would combine to put up the necessary capital, he would be delighted to play the system for them and as partner in the syndicate, and to bring them back, if not bags of gold, yet crackling notes of the Republic.

But no one bit.

Week by week Major Marlowe saw the season growing to an end, and he one bit. He was perfectly sincere; he really believed in the infallible system, but― there was nobody else who did, and he writhed and raved every night when he got into his little bedroom on the north side of the house, to think that a fortune for himself and other people were going begging, owing to the inertia and stupidity of fools.

It was at this time that Mr. Groutling arrived at the Pension.

Mr. Groutling  was a little fat man who had added side-whiskers to his self-esteem, and made a sufficiently unpleasant object of them both. He did not explain where he had made his money, but it was quite obvious that he had some.

Each night Mr. Groutling drank champagne at dinner, and when the toy roulette-wheel was brought out in the drawing-room and all the old maiden ladies adventured their sous, he would put a half-franc upon an even chance with a lordly manner which admitted of no dispute.

Major Marlowe, who did not stay in the Pension Mimosa because he liked it or its inhabitants, and who was really a man of some family, nevertheless endured the confidences and familiarities of Mr. Groutling with a suave smile.

It was obvious that Mr. Groutling was possessed of cash. It was obvious, therefore, that if Mr. Groutling could be convinced of the infallibility of the system of Major Marlowe, Major Marlowe― and, incidentally, Mr. Groutling― would reap an enormous harvest

The thing was put to Mr. Groutling one night in the smoking-room. Columns and figures and the aid of a roulette watch were employed to demonstrate the truth.

Mf. Groutling, however, while listening with great interest, butted his cigar and made no offer to participate in the glorious opportunity provided by his military friend.

"I don't care," said Mr. Groutling,  "for any of these 'ere gambling games, unless, of course, I am bed-rock certain of making a bit over what I puts on. Of course, Major Marlowe, If you could show me that it er'd be orl right, in an actual demonstration like, I'd be with you all the time. Has it his, Major Marlowe, your figures are very convincing, but I'd like to see the thing done first, even in a small way. Then I'd join you and put in what you liked."

They were in the shabby little smoking-room of the Mimosa. The spinsters and the rest of the guests were playing bridge for coffee-beans― ten a penny― in the drawing-room.

The Major and Mr. Groutling were alone, the Major made a heroic resolution: "Mr. Groutling," he said, "If you will come with me to-morrow by the one-thirty to Monte Carlo, by two o'clock we shall be in the rooms, and I will show you in a small way the beauty and certainty of my system."

IT WAS three o'clock on the afternoon of the next day. Mr. Groutling, short, pursy, and plebeian, eat at the corner at the Cafe de Paris with Major Marlowe― tall, lean, and well-dressed. In front stretched the white façade of that marvellous Palace which everybody calls the Hell of Europe, and to which everybody goes when the slightest opportunity of doing so presents itself. The flowers, arranged in their marvellous parterres, reminded one of windows of stained glass. The pigeons cooed upon the white road. Uniformed officials stood about. Great motorcars, fall of celebrated men and overdressed ladies, went humming up to the steps of the Cercle des Étrangers. In short, Mr. Groutling sat watching, for the first time in his life, what is certainly, at that time of the year, the safest scene in the whole of the civilised world. Major Marlowe, meanwhile, was pumping in the value of his system at a gallon a stroke, and nervously fingering the three or four louis he had brought with him in order to demonstrate the truth.

"Now, I calls this reeIy 'andsome!" said Mr. Groutling. " 'Ullo! there's a Johnnie as 'as fell down an' 'urt imself!"

It was as Mr. Groutllng had said. A sallow, somewhat shabbily dressed man in black clothes had slipped upon three or four grains of the corn that people throw down for the Casino pigeons, and lay at length upon the pavement.

The man rose, wringing his right wrist with his left hand as he did so and his companion, a smartly-dressed woman, obviously of the bourgeois class― took him by the arm and led him to an adjacent table of the café in which Major Marlowe and Mr. Groutling were seated.

Now Major Marlowe knew this man. He was the chief croupier at the right-hand table as you enter the rooms, and he generally spun the ball there about this time of the afternoon, though sometimes he was transferred to other tables.

Major Marlowe listened to the conversation which was going on behind him. What he gathered from it seemed to afford him some satisfaction, for a curiously alert look came into his tired eyes, and his ears even seemed to prick up like a horse's ears, to catch more of it

Yet the conversation was quite simple. The croupier, who was due at his table in a quarter of an hour, was simply explaining to his wife that his wrist was strained, and that probably he would not be able to throw with his  accustomed freedom.

''I dare not," said the man, "ask for an indulgence this afternoon― the rooms are so full. Everybody will be there, because it's the day of the great pigeon shooting tournament. It might mean the loss of my situation. I can't stand the chance of being sacked."

"Tais-toi, Jules!" said the wife of the croupier. "Tout va bien! Courage! Tu resterus a table qu une heure!"

A few minutes after this, the seedy man left his wife and walked over to the Casino with brisk and purposeful steps.

By an odd coincidence, Major Marlowe drank up his consommation, took Mr. Groutling under his arm, and, with a great show of joviality, said, "Now, my friend, let us come and test my system."

The two men entered the Casino together.

Major Marlowe, of course, had his monthly ticket, but it was necessary to take podgy Mr. Groutling into the bureau on the left-hand side of the hall, to explain him and acquire the ordinary billet valable pour la journée. When this was accomplished, and the bewildered little man passed through the Atrium, had satisfied the black coated Cerberus at the door, and finally emerged into the Salle des Jeux, Major Marlowe saw, with a curious and satisfied thrill, that the sallow-faced croupier who had fallen down in front of the Café de Paris was just relieving a colleague and mounting the chair in front of the wheel.

It was indeed the day of the Grand Prix, and it was just then the famous pigeon-shots of Europe were contesting for the enormous money-prize the authorities of the Casino give, as a result, the tables were not too crowded, and Major Marlowe was able to obtain a seat.

"Now, Groutling," he said to his little companion, "stand behind my chair and I will show you bow my system works."

Mr. Groutling snorted. He was rather impressed by his first view of the great gambling-rooms, but he still had the inherent distrust of the small commercial man who has made a fortune for the man above him in rank who is nebulous as far as business possibilities go.

The croupier spun.

The little ball whirled round the groove of black ebony, faltered, fell and tinkled on the star-steel diamonds, and finally fell Into the slot.

"You aren't put anything on," said Mr. Groutling to Major Marlowe.

"My system," returned the Major, "never begins until the first spin is over."

With that, greatly daring, he took a whole louis from his pocket and put It on thirteen.

Thirteen turned up.

Major Marlowe calmly raked in thirty-six times his original stake.

He then put two louis upon the transversal of 13-18, and when the ball had once more fallen into its socket, his wisdom was justified. He took up five times his bet

For twenty minutes― and at Monte Carlo the roulette-wheel is spun at any table at least once a minute. Major Marlowe, carefully watching the croupier with the injured wrist, judicially placed his stakes upon the voisins which he was more or less certain that the injured wrist would throw.

The results were extraordinary. Time after time the transversals came up, and the pressing crowd around the table began to try and break the Major's luck by betting with him against the bank. Ladies In breast-plates of real diamonds and marvellous hats, their sporting gentlemen friends trying to conceal their avidity under an impassioned mask, all followed the luck of "the gentleman with a system."

They won, but tho Major won far more. Now and then a fat, podgy hand grasped the gallant soldier's arm and an excited voice breathed into his ear― "My boy, I am convinces. Bit of orl right, this. Can't I come in now?" And at every request of the sort, the Major half-turned, and said, "Be quiet, Groutling this is only a mere experimental séance, just to show you that my system can never go wrong."

At the end of half on hour Major Marlowe rose from his seat, and there was the usual rush to secure it. He took Mr. Groutling by the arm and led him into the big salon at the side where one has tea and other refreshments. They sat down together, and the waiter brought them that concoction― so alien to the truth― which is known by the Riviera title, "Whisky eau-de-seltz."

Mr. Groutling fat hands seemed even more swollen. The blue veins at his temples were painfully prominent, his little fat, dark eyes bulged out like black velvet.

"My dear Major," he said, "I never see anything like it in my life. I am your man, and I'll put up a couple of thousand pounds as soon as you like."

Major Marlowe, with his pockets full of notes and louis, smiled slyly  at his friend's eagerness.

"Did I not always tell you," he said, "that my system was a perfect one― and yet, Mr. Groutling, did you not for many days doubt it, and cast aspersions upon it?"

"Swelp me!" said Mr. Groutling, "so I did. And l am blank sorry for it. Now I knows, Major, that you are a financial genius, and I shall be proud and 'appy if you will let me hin."

The little man was trembling with excitement. The long years of grubbing toil had never produced anything so speedy in results and so glorious in the vision of immediate cash.

"Major Marlowe," said Mr. Groutling,  "I ham with you 'art and soul."

Major Marlowe drank down his whisky and soda, and paused a little. His pockets were full of the money he had won― more than he had ever won with all his systems Monte Carlo. There was a struggle in his soul.

Should be or should he not take on the little man and let him advance money for the system which he had not tried that afternoon?

Somehow or other, Major Marlowe did not quite believe in his system as much as he had done before.

The sudden winning chance, the sudden opportunity of seeing the croupier falling outside the Casino seemed to have altered all the Major's ideas.

"My dear Groutling," he said, "I do not really know whether I can let you in or not."

He rose from his seat.

"How far are you prepared to go?" he said.

"I have got three thousand francs in my pocket book," said Mr. Groutling,  "and if you like to put it on, Major, with your system, I shall be delighted for you to do so. We will go shares in the winnings."

The Major took the notes, walked out of the side room to the nearest table, and put the three thousand francs upon red― a pure even chance, though Mr, Groutling, in his ignorance of the same, thought it a calculated move.

There was a moment of suspense, and red turned up.

Major Marlowe handed four thousand five hundred francs to Mr. Groutling, put fifteen hundred in his own pocket, and without a word of explanation or farewell, strode out of the room, caught the next train back to Nice, packed up his box, and went home to his cottage at Aberdeen.

There is nobody more venomous in his phillippics against gambling than Major Marlowe  He is a shining light of the Presbyterian Conscience in his district, and many people have thought that the Major must have come into money because instead of tilling and hoeing in his own small flower-garden, Sandy Macpherson had been engaged as a permanent gardener.

Perhaps, in his retirement, Major Marlowe remembered his Voltaire― he certainly had reason to do so.  "We must cultivate our garden."

The good man had always tried to do so according to his lights. But the plot had been barren of flowers until Chance stepped in as gardener.

__________________

4: A Strange Conspiracy

E Phillips Oppenheim

1866-1946

The Boston Daily Globe Sunday Magazine, January 27, 1907

THE governor's wife rose suddenly from her chair, and waved her fan toward me. It was a summons not to be disregarded. I hastened to present myself before her.

We passed across the room, dexterously avoiding several interruptions. Directly we were by ourselves Lady Marsham's manner underwent a change.

Assured that there was no one within hearing she leaned forward in her chair and looked at me with a gleam of anxiety in her blue eyes.

"Philip," she said, "I want to ask you a question."

"There are several I should like to ask you before I leave Jamaica," I said in a low voice.

"Don't be foolish," she said. "I am in earnest."

Lady Marsham was really a very pretty woman, and I was extremely fond of her. So I looked up reproachfully.

"In earnest. I, too— am very much in earnest."

"Once and for all, Philip, I did not bring you out here to talk nonsense. Why, I'm old enough to be your mother; and—"

"Oh!"

"Don't interrupt me, please. I want most particularly to ask you a question. Have you received any anonymous letters during the last few days?"

I was honestly amazed.

"Why, yes, I have," I admitted. "Two most extraordinary ones."

"You haven't them with you by any chance?" she asked eagerly.

I felt in my breast pocket, and produced them. Here and there the terrace was lit with Japanese lanterns. I detached one, and held it so that the flame, steady enough in the breathless air, shone full upon the sheet of heavily-scented and strangely-woven note-paper. There was neither address or orthodox commencement— only a few lines hastily scrawled in a feminine but evidently disguised handwriting.

You are a stranger to me, Philip Atherstone, but I have a fancy to do you a good turn. Your passage is booked in the Aurora, which leaves Jamaica Nov. 2. If it is in any way possible for you to do so, leave instead by the Argonaut Oct. 24. If you are not able to do this, let nothing prevent you from leaving on Nov. 2. It is possible that other plans will be proposed to you. Remember my warning, and do not accept them.

The second letter, which was shorter, had only reached me two days before. It was written on the same sort of note paper, and apparently in the same handwriting.

The Argonaut has sailed, and you are still here. I hope most earnestly that you will not disregard my warning. If your life and honour are dear to you, if you ever wish to see England again, leave on the Aurora. Efforts will be made to prevent you. Disregard them. Those who will propose other plans to you are not trustworthy. These are true words, and the writer runs a risk which you know nothing of in sending you this warning. May it not be in vain.

"Well," I said, "what do you think of them?"

"Extraordinary," she declared.

"And how on earth," I asked, "did you know that I had received them?"

"Because I myself," she answered, in a low tone, "have received a precisely similar one."

"It is either a hoax," I declared, "or someone here is very anxious to see the back of me. You didn't write them yourself, did you Lady Marsham?"

She looked at me reproachfully.

"I feel convinced that the whole thing is a myth."

"And I am equally convinced," Lady Marsham said, firmly, "that it is nothing of the sort."

"At any rate," I said, "I am sure to avoid this threatened calamity, for I am most certainly sailing tomorrow on the Aurora."

"You are going direct to London?" she asked.

"As fast as steamship and express train can take me," I declared.

"Do I know her?" she asked.

"There is no her. It is just a fit of homesickness. I am longing to walk along Pall Mall, to drop into the club for lunch, to see a few old faces again, and find myself inside a London theatre."

She sighed ever so slightly.

"You are quite right, Philip. This is nothing less than banishment. If I had understood that diplomacy, as Sir William called it, was likely to turn out such a pitiful apology for a career, and— well—"

I straightened myself instinctively. Sir William was standing a few yards away from us, fumbling with his glasses. Upon his arm was a lady who was a stranger to me.

"Dear me, dear me!" he exclaimed. "I am quite convinced that her ladyship is close at hand. I regret very much that she should not have been in her place to receive you."

The lady answered him, and at the sound of her voice I rose to my feet and looked eagerly in her direction.

The voice and the speaker were alike unusual. I looked eagerly through the darkness. I could see nothing but a white face and diamonds, before whose brilliancy Lady Marsham's gems seemed but the poorest paste. But the voice, slow, deep, strangely musical, was unusual enough to provoke more than curiosity.

"Lady Marsham can scarcely be everywhere, and I for one do not blame her for desiring to escape if only for a moment from what I am afraid she must find a very thankless task."

So I saw for the first time the woman who was to become the enigma of my life. I stood on one side for a moment whilst the usual small courtesies were proceeding. Then Lady Marsham turned toward me.

"Let me present Mr. Philip Atherstone to you, Miss Hoyt," she said. "Mr. Atherstone will execute any commission in London for you. He leaves Jamaica to-morrow."

NOW in an ordinary way I am not an observant person, but Miss Hoyt was one of those young women who anywhere and at any time have the powers to rivet attention upon themselves. I had been watching her closely from the moment she had appeared, not of my own will altogether, but of necessity.

At the mention of my name there had come into her face a singular change. I was quite sure that save myself no one had noticed it. But I had heard the quick breath indrawn between her teeth, I had seen the startled light which flashed for a moment in her deep, still eyes.

"I am glad to know Mr. Atherstone," she said. "I think that I have heard of some of his work."

"It is more than likely," Sir William remarked. "Mr. Atherstone is one of those who bring water from the mountains to the cities, and build bridges in impossible places. My dear," he added, turning toward his wife, "there are others of our guests who may think our presence desirable. Will you permit me?"

Lady Marsham rose wearily up and took his arm. So I was left alone with Miss Hoyt.

"Tomorrow, then, Mr. Atherstone," she said, turning towards me at last, "you are going home."

"We sail at daybreak," I answered.

She roused herself as though with an effort, spoke of my work in Jamaica and passing lightly on to larger subjects, showed herself to be a girl of unusual intelligence, cultivated, and well-read. We talked perhaps for half an hour.

"What time does the Argonaut sail?" she asked again.

"At daybreak."

"And what time does the American boat arrive?"

"It is due about midday tomorrow," I answered, "but it is generally 12 hours late."

What satisfaction she could derive from this intelligence I could not then imagine. But she certainly seemed pleased. A gun boomed out from the point.

"What is that?" she asked, sharply.

"It is usually the signal for the arrival of the mails," I said, "but there is no steamer due tonight. Watch for the lights on the hill over there."

Presently a blue light flashed out, and immediately afterward a red one.

"Why, it's the American boat," I exclaimed, "in twelve hours before her time. Such a thing has never occurred since I have been on the island. Let us go and tell the governor."

She detained me. Her face in the moonlight seemed white and drawn, her dark eyes were filled with fear.

"Do not go," she exclaimed. "I want to talk to you!"

"By all means," I answered. "I was coming back."

"Do you know what that means?" she asked, looking fixedly at me.

"It means a very fast passage," I answered doubtfully.

"It is you," she said, "who are the cause of it."

I looked at her in blank amazement. She met my gaze without flinching.

"Yes! There are men on her who wished to intercept you. The captain has been bribed."

"To intercept me," I repeated, vaguely. "Dear Miss Hoyt, you are mistaking me, I am sure, for someone else. I am Philip Atherstone, engineer, a person of no consequence whatever. I have few friends certainly, but no enemies."

"Listen to me," she said, "listen very carefully, for I speak for your own good. Before you leave tomorrow an offer will be made to you to undertake some work for a country which you have probably never visited before. On no account must you accept this offer. Do you hear? Promise me that you will sail in the Argonaut whatever happens. They will try to tempt you. You must be resolute. Promise me that you will."

I plucked the letters from my pocket.

"You wrote these?" I exclaimed.

"Yes! You should have gone by the Aurora."

I hesitated. I was 35 years old, and had not yet outlived the love for adventure which had sent me roving over the world as soon as I had escaped from my teens. And while I hesitated I heard Lady Marsham's voice from the other end of the terrace.

"At least," I said hastily, "I will promise this. I will accept no offer without very careful consideration, from whomever it may come. And I can assure you that nothing will prevent my first visiting London."

"You will sail on the Argonaut, whatever happens?"

"Whatever happens," I repeated.

PAST THE silent white houses, I rode into the city and made my way to the hotel. A sleepy-looking clerk came out to meet me in the hall.

"There are two gentlemen here to see you, sir," he announced. "They arrived by the Manhattan tonight."

I took the letters which he had handed me, and passed on to the smoking-room. There was a babel of conversation in many languages. I stood upon the threshold for a moment looking round. Then I felt a touch upon my elbow, and a voice in my ear.

"It is Mr. Philip Atherstone, I believe!"

I had pictured to myself something sinister— the result this, no doubt, of Miss Hoyt's warnings. Almost I felt inclined to laugh at myself. The young man whose hand was already outstretched was about my age, or less, irreproachably dressed in white ducks, with dark, oval face, the complexion of a girl, and a smile which, if a little foreign in its pronouncement, was at least friendly.

"My name is Anthony. I and a friend who is with me have a matter of business to discuss with you if you can spare us a few moments."

Then rose up from before a small table, on which stood two tumblers and a bottle of champagne, a short, thick-set man, with skin as yellow as old parchment, black eyes set close together, a black beard brought to a point and black hair close-shaven to his head, standing up from the scalp like the bristles of a blacking brush.

"This is Mr. Gorrino, of whom, doubtless, you have heard," my new acquaintance said.

I endeavoured to look as though the name of Gorrino was a household word with me.

"I am at your service, gentlemen," I declared. "I will only remind you that the Argonaut sails at daybreak, and I have my clothes to change and still a little packing to do."

Mr Anthony looked around him. The room was certainly full of all sorts and conditions of people.

"If you will do us the honour," he said, "to grant us a short interview in my friend's sitting-room, we will endeavour to detain you but a few moments, whatever the upshot of our conversation may be."

Now I had stayed in the hotel more than once, but I had never yet penetrated to the part towards which I was now led. We passed along many passages and out of the back of the building. Then along a covered way through the gardens to a sort of single-storied annex which I had seen more than once, but never explored.

The annex was gloomy, and had a generally unoccupied look. I had an idea from its appearance that we were the only persons in it.

The younger man, who came last into the room, lingered for a moment with the handle in his hand. I turned sharply round in time to see him turn the lock.

He met my look of amazement with a smile which broadened into a laugh. He held the key out to me.

"Pray do not think I am endeavouring to compel a hearing from you," he exclaimed. "It is simply that I do not wish to be disturbed, and there is one who might find it to his interest to break up our little council."

He laid the key upon the table by my side, and busied himself with one of the champagne bottles.

"You will take a glass of wine with us, Mr. Atherstone— and there are cigars at your elbow."

"You are very kind," I answered. "I won't refuse, but really I should be much obliged if you would let me know the nature of this business."

"You have no idea as to its nature, then?" he asked quickly.

"None whatever! Why do you ask?"

"Come, come," Mr. Gorrino said, "we must be quite candid with our young friend. O, yes! There is a person now upon the island who might. O, yes, she might have given you one hint. Yes, indeed, we expected it."

"If you mean Miss Hoyt," I said, thoughtlessly, "all that I have heard from her is a warning to depart by the Argonaut tomorrow, and to listen to no propositions whatever which would involve any change in my plans."

I could have bitten my tongue out immediately afterwards, for the glance which passed between the two men was like silent lightening with none of its harmlessness. They seemed for the moment transformed.

The girl-like smoothness of Mr. Anthony's face, and the calm courtesy of his manner seemed rent aside. His face was convulsed with anger, his eyes had narrowed, and were evil things to look upon.

And the older man looked back at him with a fierce return of his anger, a glance at once satyr-like and full of the promise of vengeance.

All this seemed to come and go in a space of time which only a thought could measure, and then sat there once more a harmless looking fat little foreigner, with humorous eyes and bland features, and a man whose clear, fresh boyishness and light smile would have won him a second glance from any woman in the world. But my eyes were opened.

"Not that anything which Miss Hoyt said could have affected my plans in the slightest," I continued with emphasis. "They are already irrevocable."

Anthony sipped his wine and looked at me with forehead wrinkled in protest.

"We must hope, Mr. Atherstone," he said, "to hear you change that word. For frankly our purpose is to induce you to make some alteration in your plans."

"I am sorry," I said, "but it will be useless."

"Come!" he said, "we must remember that virtually we are unintroduced to you. We can scarcely hope to possess your confidence. You came into the smoking room holding letters in your hand— and I think a telegram. Will you be so good as to refer to them? It may be that the recommendation which we have asked from some of your friends are amongst them."

I looked through the little bundle at once. I opened first the cable. It was from London.

RECOMMEND SERIOUS CONSIDERATION OF ANY OFFER MADE YOU BY GOVERNMENT OF BRAZIL. MOULTON.

Now, Sir George Moulton was the head of the firm of engineers with whom I was a very junior partner, and I must admit that the reading of that cable somewhat reassured me.

"You, then," I asked, "are representing the government of Brazil?"

Anthony looked at me with wide-open eyes. Then he laughed softly.

"My friend here," he explained, "is minister of public works, and I am the private secretary to the president."

One other among my letters referred to their visit, and that was sealed and signed by a very great man. It was short enough:

My Dear Atherstone

The Brazilian minister has paid me a call today for the sole purpose of asking whether your quasi official position would stand in the way of their making you a very exceptional offer to undertake some work in Brazil. After some consideration I have decided that in your interest it is only fair to allow you a free hand. I have, therefore, supplied your address to Mr. Ferraro, who is cabling it to Brazil, and you have my best wishes should you decide to accept the offer. I am, yours most sincerely,

Powerfield.

I laid the letter and the cable down.

"I am very much flattered, gentlemen," I said, "that you should have thought it worth while to take this trouble to procure my services. Perhaps you will explain exactly what you require of me."

"Our country is passing through an era of unexampled prosperity. Large sums have been voted for public work which for many years have been neglected. We want an irrigation scheme, an aqueduct, a bridge which will be the longest in the world, and several less important matters.

"We are willing to pay, but we want the best man. We have engaged Colquhoun, and we want you to work with him. We are empowered to offer you £10,000 a year for five years, and an honorarium of £40,000 on the successful termination of your work."

"Gentlemen," I said, "this is a most extraordinary offer. I have been, it is true, successful during my last few undertakings, but I cannot help feeling that my work and experience do not warrant anything of this sort. I am really only a mining engineer, and—"

Anthony turned to me seriously.

"Mr. Atherstone," he said, "we who make you this offer have satisfied ourselves as to your fitness for the work. The offer is a bona fide one."

"Then I have no option," I answered, "but to accept it most gratefully."

"I must confess," the younger man remarked, "that we did not contemplate any different decision. It has been fortunately within our power to offer you terms which we believe to be almost unique."

"The final agreement," I remarked, "I can doubtless arrange with your minister in London."

"In London!" Anthony looked up at me as though in surprise. "But, of course. Why not!" he exclaimed. "That reminds me, though," he continued, "that we wish you to return to Brazil with us tomorrow, and discuss all details of our schemes with the president. Afterwards, if you wish, when things are on the way, you can take a few months' holiday in London."

For a moment I was back again in the residency. I saw amongst the shadows a dark, languid face. I heard her speak— every word a warning. I saw her eye, pleading, insistent.

I shook my head.

"I am afraid," I said, "that whatever happens I must visit London first. I must sail this morning on the Argonaut."

"Let me see," Anthony remarked thoughtfully. "It would mean a delay of—how long?"

"Three months at least," Gorrino said, shaking his head. "We must talk to our young friend, Anthony. The president is very impatient. We must try and persuade him."

"I am sorry," I said, "but I am really overworked. A few days in London are absolutely necessary for me."

"For rest," Anthony suggested, suavely, "what could be better than a sea voyage?"

"It is so hard to make you understand," I said slowly, "without seeming ungrateful. But indeed I am not a free agent in this matter. My passage is booked in the Argonaut, and my sailing by her has become a necessity."

Anthony shrugged his shoulders. They both seemed to regard me as a spoilt child with whom reasoning had become futile.

"At least, Mr. Atherstone," the former said, drinking up his wine, "you will always be able to say that you refused the most liberal offer ever made to a man of your youth. It will be something to be proud of. I trust you will never repent it."

I was staggered.

"I am to understand, then," I said blankly, "that your offer is withdrawn if I do not accompany you to Brazil from here?"

"It is absolutely necessary that there should be no delay at all," Anthony said. "For this reason: The government of Brazil is stable enough and soundly established, but it is not, of course, so firmly established as the government of your great European nation.

"The vote for granting the money was carried after a fierce struggle, but it is liable to be rescinded. If the works are commenced— well, the matter is ended. Nothing can be done then, of course.

"That is why the president is so anxious. Colquhoun is already there. A start must be made within the month. That is why we went to the expense of having a special steamer sent here to take you back."

There was a short silence. Both men watched me covertly. I believe that they reckoned upon my resolution giving way in the face of their quietly professed ultimatum.

This offer was amazing enough, it is true, but in the face of my cable and letter from London it was not possible to doubt its genuineness.

There remained that single moment of betrayal on the part of these two men when I mentioned Miss Hoyt's name. Yet what did that amount to? I knew nothing myself of Miss Hoyt. Beautiful women have been on the wrong side before now. So I sat reasoning the matter out, and presently Anthony drew from his pocket a roll of papers.

"I am a bungler;" he declared, with a charming air of candour. "For the moment I had forgotten that this was strictly a matter of business. Even among those who know nothing of commerce these things of course have to be put on a proper basis. Here is your formal appointment, sealed and signed. The president and the subcommittee have passed the terms which I offered you."

I glanced through the agreement. It appeared to be in scrupulous order "You have only to put that in your pocket," Anthony said, "and the thing is done."

I placed it upon the table with a sigh of regret.

"It is just what I cannot do," I said, firmly but with reluctance. "My word is passed to sail on the Argonaut. If you can suggest any means whereby I can do this and accept your offer, well and good. If not— well, I can only try to express to you my most profound regret."

They were satisfied at last that I was not to be moved. Anthony rose to his feet.

He caught up the key and moved toward the door, swinging it lightly on his forefinger. I followed him, and behind came Gorrino. He fitted the key into the lock, but seemed unable to make it turn. It seemed to me that he was trying to turn it the wrong way.

"Let me do it," I said, bending forward. "I think I know how it works."

I bent forward. Almost immediately, and like lightning, an arm was thrown round my neck. I had no time to utter a cry or strike a blow. The speed with which it was done was marvellous.

I was garrotted, and my wrists were bound together with a cord which cut deep into my flesh. The thrust must have been made and the knot tied with a single movement. Gorrino came stealthily to my side, and before I could even guess at his purpose a wet silk handkerchief was pressed against my face. The sickening fume of chloroform crept up my nostrils. There followed a buzz in my ears— then darkness.

THE RUSHING of water through my half-opened portholes was the first sound of which I was distinctly conscious. I sat up in my bunk, looked about me in amazement.

A sudden flood of memory came to me. I remembered Anthony and his friend, our interview at the hotel. I had been drugged and brought on board this steamer unconscious. It was incredible, but it was true.

Then I sprang from my bunk in a towering rage. I tore on my coat and waistcoat, and without waiting for tie or collar I pushed aside the sheet which hung in front of my door and hastened upon deck.

And face to face with me in a suit of spotless ducks and smoking a cigarette of Havana tobacco was Anthony.

"What the devil is the meaning of this?" I exclaimed. "How dare you bring me here?"

"My dear Mr. Atherstone, I do not understand. We are only carrying out our last night's arrangements."

"Don't talk such rubbish," I interrupted fiercely. "You and that other blackguard gave me chloroform and got me here somehow, but by heaven you shall suffer for it."

"But, my dear sir," he exclaimed, "you are under some extraordinary illusion. O, I am sure that you are. Last night you agreed to sail with my friend and myself for the purpose of considering a proposition to be laid before you by the minister of the country to which we belong. You were taken ill. We drank, it is true, two magnums of champagne. The night was so hot. But our starting time was fixed, delay was impossible. Consider yourself my dear Mr. Atherstone, the nature of our dilemma."

"You mean to insinuate, then, that I was drunk," I cried fiercely. Anthony was distressed.

"To-morrow," he said, "you will surely remember everything. It will be unnecessary for me to explain further."

"You will have a good deal of explaining to do, my young friend," I declared, "when I get you before an English consul."

"It is so unfortunate," he murmured, "but I do not think that there is an English consul where we are going."

"Now, between you," I said, softly, "you must contrive to tell me the truth. Where are we bound for?"

Mr. Anthony shrugged his shoulders.

"My dear sir," he said deprecatingly, "why assume that there need be any concealment about it? There should, indeed, be none. We are bound for the Island of Morcaqua!"

"Morcaqua!" I exclaimed. "And where the mischief is that?"

They looked at one another in well simulated astonishment. Gorrino even raised his fat hands.

"You do not know where Morcaqua is," he protested. "Impossible! O, impossible!"

"Geography," I remarked, "is not my forte. I must confess that I never heard of the place."

"It is amazing," Gorrino exclaimed, with a leer. "Anthony, do you hear? Our young friend here— he has never heard of Morcaqua, the island of untold riches."

"Come," I said, "let us have no misunderstandings. You have kidnapped me. You are taking me to Morcaqua. What you expect to gain from it I can't imagine. But I want to warn you of this. I'm only a civil engineer, but I belong to a country which doesn't permit these sorts of liberties with her people, and further, although I myself am of no account, I have an uncle who is a cabinet minister, and another in the foreign office. So you see, I am not altogether friendless. I demand that you make for the nearest port of any nation and land me. If you refuse— well, there will be trouble."

Anthony laid his hand lightly upon my shoulder.

"My dear Atherstone," he said, simply, "don't make us feel like jailers. You know what discipline is. Well, we are acting under orders."

"From whom?" I demanded.

"From one whose acquaintance you will soon make," he answered.

"Let me know his name," I insisted.

The two gentlemen exchanged glances. It was Gorrino who answered me.

"Why not?" he exclaimed. "Why not, indeed. It is indeed Morcaqua whom we serve. It is the ruler of Morcaqua to whom we are taking you."

They left me, and I walked to the side of the steamer and leaned over the rail. Jamaica was now but a blue mist, that far away trail of black smoke upon the horizon might very well be the Argonaut.

Who was Miss Hoyt? Who was the ruler of Morcaqua? What could possibly induce him to believe that I should be willing to work for him after an outrage so gross as this?

The philosophy of youth reasserted itself. I resigned myself to wait for events, and remembered that I was hungry. I descended the stair to my stateroom, and completed my toilet.

In the saloon Anthony and Gorrino received me with effusion. The coffee was good. The breakfast which was set before me excellently cooked. My hosts made somewhat laboured efforts at sustaining a conversation which should contain no references to the peculiarities of our position.

The humour of the thing for the first time began to dawn upon me. Anthony and Gorrino joined boisterously in the laugh which I was no longer able to repress.

I lit a cigarette, and looked thoughtfully into the cloud of blue smoke.

"On deck," Gorrino declared, suavely, "it is verra hot. Have you informed our honoured guest, my dear Anthony, that his luggage is in the stateroom next to the one in which he this morning found himself?"

"My luggage!" I exclaimed, incredulously. "What luggage?"

"You give us credit," Anthony said, softly, "for very little consideration. We wish your journey and your stay in Morcaqua to be as comfortable as possible. We consequently arranged for the whole of your luggage which was at the docks waiting shipment on the Argonaut to be transferred here."

I made my way amidships. To my surprise the whole of my belongings were there, packed in an empty stateroom.

However, I unpacked a few things, found out the bathroom, and changed into a suit of white duck. Then I went up on deck, with an armful of books, and promptly dropped them all over the place. For coming along the deck towards me was Miss Hoyt.

I found a deck chair, and spread it out for her.

"Come," I said, "you will at least be able to tell me many things which I am anxious to know. It seemed to cause you no surprise to see me here. I, on the other hand, am amazed to see you."

She looked nervously around her.

"Never mind the chair," she said. "We shall be interrupted in a moment. Have you mentioned my name to them."

"I believe that I did— to Anthony."

"I was afraid so. You see that awning and rope? I am to keep to my own deck cabin, and the little space in front of it. These may be the only words we shall have alone together during the voyage. Listen! Is there any way in which I can help you?"

"Shall I need help?" I asked. "I am going no further with these men than the first port we land at. I scarcely see what difficulty I can have in getting away."

She looked at me in faint pity.

"You underrate the cunning of these men," she said. "Morcaqua is a desolate island in a wholly unfrequented route. There will be no one to whom you can appeal. A letter to your friends I might try to dispatch."

"If you would really do me a service," I said, "for heaven's sake relieve my curiosity. I am utterly bewildered when I ask myself what possible object these men can have in making a prisoner of me like this. What use can they expect to make of me?"

"Do not ask me," she begged. "You will find out soon enough."

"At least tell me— do they expect me to work for them?"

"Assuredly. That is why you are being taken there."

"And you?" I asked. "What have you to do with such people as these?"

"Don't ask me," she begged. "Only remember what I have said. These men will take you to Morcaqua. Be on your guard when you meet their master. Do not trust him."

"The intercourse between us is not likely to be a very friendly one," I said. "But let my affairs go for the moment. Let me ask you this. Shall I see you in Morcaqua?"

"Probably as much as you desire to," she answered. "I have not been allowed to take such a journey as this for years, and if he ever knows that I tried to warn you against coming I shall never be allowed to leave the island again."

"From me," I assured her, "he never will. At least, if I am to see something of you, life in Morcaqua cannot be all misery."

"When you see the part which I have to play," she murmured, "you will forget that little speech."

"I wish I could persuade you to the contrary," I said. "Nothing could lessen my pleasure in being allowed to see you now and then."

"You should not say that," she said. "You know nothing of me. I can make no real difference to you."

"Promise me your friendship, and I shall be almost reconciled to losing my holiday, and to this extraordinary adventure."

"You had better be careful," she said, quietly. "Do you know that I am supposed to be acting as a sort of decoy? They have lost confidence in me for some reason, but that was my original position."

"I am willing," I assured her, "to be decoyed. If you say the word I will give my parole and come to Morcaqua."

"I will not say it! If you have the slightest chance of escape, seize it. If you can avoid coming to Morcaqua, even at the risk of your life— take that risk. Remember my words. Be silent now."

Barely a moment had passed before Anthony's soft voice sounded in our ears.

"So you two have met before. It is, perhaps, the renewal of an old acquaintance?"

"Miss Hoyt and I met at the government house at Jamaica," I said. Anthony bowed.

"The carpenters are busy with your awning," he said, turning to her "and need your instructions. Will you allow me to make a suggestion— if Mr. Atherstone will excuse us?"

She followed him across the deck, and presently he returned alone.

"It is very fortunate," he said, "that you are already acquainted with Miss Hoyt."

"Why so?" I asked.

"Surely you know," he said, "it is Miss Hoyt's father who is so anxious to have the honour of making your acquaintance."

EARLY ON the fifth morning of our voyage I awoke in my berth with a peculiar sense of stillness, the cause of which was readily apparent. The engines had stopped.

I dressed and hurried on deck. On the port side of the steamer was what looked to be a barren rock of an island, ornamented with a fringe of scanty herbage. Anthony, with a quiet smile, extended his hand toward it.

"Welcome," he said, "to Morcaqua!"

"What in the name of all that is marvellous," I said, "can I have been brought here for?"

A soft voice from behind answered me.

"You will know very soon."

I turned around. Margaret Hoyt was by my side.

"You will know very soon now," she said. "Look, the pinnace is coming out for us."

"The sooner the better," I answered.

"In which case," Anthony remarked suavely, "you will perhaps be so good as to see that your luggage is ready for transport to the island."

"Do you really mean," I asked, "that I am expected to land upon that rock?"

"Without doubt," Anthony answered coolly. "Mr. Hoyt is awaiting you there with impatience. We are almost a day behind time."

In a very short time Miss Hoyt and I were seated side by side in the stern seat of the pinnace.

"You have told me nothing about your father," I remarked, as we drew near to the landing place.

She looked at me again as she had looked on the balcony of the government house. Again I was conscious of potent things unsaid. I asked her no more questions. Only just before we landed her fingers sought mine for a moment.

I am not sure whether at that moment I would have exchanged my seat in that little boat for the empty stateroom in the Argonaut ploughing her way homeward.

My introduction to Margaret's father was in some respects a curious one. She herself led me to him, and I saw at once from his instinctive movement in my direction, and the curious poise of his head, that he was blind.

"Father," she said, bending over him and kissing him lightly upon the forehead. "Mr. Atherstone is here. I had no share in bringing him, as the others will doubtless tell you. If he had taken my advice he would not be here. I will leave you alone."

Mr. Hoyt extended a very white hand toward me, but he did not rise from his seat. By the side of his basket chair stood a pair of crutches.

"You are welcome to Morcaqua, Mr. Atherstone," he said, in a rich bass voice. "I am delighted that my emissaries were able to prevail upon you to pay us this visit."

"Their persuasions," I remarked, "consisted chiefly of a locked door and a chloroformed handkerchief. I have been brought here a prisoner, Mr. Hoyt. I am naturally anxious to know for what reason."

"You are joking, of course, my dear sir. The very suggestion of such means of compulsion sounds prehistoric."

"What do you want of me?" I asked, bluntly.

"You shall hear," he said. "You are a junior member of a great firm of engineers, and I am informed that a branch of your business is devoted to mining. You may wonder why I have chosen to make a summer home in what seems to be a very barren island. I will tell you. It is because these few miles of soil contain the richest gold mines in the world."

I looked around me incredulously.

"Impossible," I exclaimed. "There is not the slightest trace of auriferous soil."

"Appearances," he murmured, "are so deceptive. You will change your opinion, I am sure. Do me the favour to read this."

He handed me a few sheets of manuscript paper pinned together. I glanced them through. The language was cold and studied enough, but the story they told was Arabianesque.

It was a wonderful report of the Morcaquan gold mine, but it was unsigned. I laid it down with a little laugh.

"It is," I said, "a marvellous work of imagination."

"It will sound better," he remarked, "when your name is at the foot."

I stared at him for a moment in blank amazement Then the situation began to dawn upon me.

"You had better," he suggested, "for form's sake make a brief investigation of the island. I will send for my daughter. She shall accompany you."

He struck a bell, and a coloured servant came out, whom he dispatched in search of Margaret. She came at once, in a cool white linen dress, and swinging a large sun hat.

"I want you to show Mr. Atherstone round the island," Mr. Hoyt directed.

She beckoned to me to follow her. When we were out of sight she turned, and I saw that her eyes were full of tears. "You understand?"

"Perfectly," I answered. "I think that we will not waste our time looking for gold."

"I am so sorry," she said.

"It is not your fault," I answered, "and I think that I would rather be here than on the Argonaut, after all."

"WELL," Mr. Hoyt remarked, lifting his head as we approached.

"There is not an ounce of gold upon the island," I said.

Mr. Hoyt motioned to Margaret, and she left us.

"I will give you £20,000," he said, "to sign that report."

"If your condition," I answered, "did not prohibit such measures, I should punch your head."

He smiled.

"Exactly the answer I expected," he remarked. "Well, we shall save the money. The Press is a great power. By now it is announced in England that you have left Jamaica for the Morcaqua gold mine. That is quite sufficient for us. The signature which will adorn this report may not be yours, but I promise you that it will be a very fair imitation. I only regret," he added with a faint smile, "that it will be necessary for you to become my guest here for some time.

"Franks," he called, "my crutches."

I saw servants on their way to the little harbour with luggage, and Mr. Hoyt was himself evidently prepared for a journey.

"You mean to leave me here?" I exclaimed.

"It is regrettable, but necessary," he answered.

I was unarmed, but in any case resistance would have been absurd. There were at least a dozen men waiting for a signal from him.

An hour later there was nothing to be seen of the steamer but a thin line of smoke upon the horizon.

"MISS HOYT!"

I stopped short and stared at her in amazement. It had never occurred to me for one moment that there was the slightest chance of her having been left to share my imprisonment. Besides, I had seen her trunks go down to the beach, and herself in their wake.

Yet here she sat in a shady corner of the veranda, a book upon her lap, her dark eyes inscrutable as ever raised to mine.

"Well," she said, quietly.

"I don't understand," I faltered. "Has the steamer come back? Has your father changed his mind?"

"My stepfather," she said, "does not change his mind. The steamer was out of sight hours ago."

"But I saw you in the pinnace— and all your luggage."

She smiled faintly.

"I have had to sacrifice my wardrobe," she remarked, "but I had never any intention of leaving the island unless I was obliged— with them."

My imprisonment seemed no longer a terrible thing. It was amazing what a change had come over everything.

"What will they say when they know?" I asked.

"My stepfather— will be annoyed," she remarked calmly. "They will not know, however, until tomorrow. My maid is on board, and she will keep my  locked. My father knows that I am a bad sailor."

"Will they come back, do you think?" I asked with sudden fear.

"I think not," she answered. "Mr. Hoyt is too anxious to get to England."

"I believe you stayed for fear any harm should come to me," I ventured boldly.

"Perhaps I did," she admitted, flashing a sudden look at me. "Are you not gratified?"

"More than that," I declared; "I am reconciled."

She looked at me coldly.

"It is possible," said she, "that your detention here may not be as long, after all, as my stepfather thinks. You have very good friends in Jamaica, and they will know something of your disappearance."

"It seems to me," I answered, "that I have a very good friend here. If I was not a perfect idiot your first warning would have been sufficient to keep me out of this scrape."

She smiled.

"You admit that it is a scrape, then?"

"I admit nothing of the sort," I declared "I would rather be here at this moment than on the Argonaut."

"I am afraid, after all, that you are a very foolish person," she said. "I shall go away and leave you. It is too hot to be out of doors."

"I am quite sure that you are a very tantalizing one," I answered "When shall I see you again?"

"Perhaps— at dinner," she said. "In the meantime," she added, more seriously, "have nothing more to say than you can help to the servants, and keep your revolver in your pocket. I do not think that they would dare to try and harm you, but it is as well to run no risks."

I lit a cigar, and appropriated her vacant chair. It was astonishing how everything had changed with me. I could think of Mr. Hoyt and the trick which he had played me with positive amusement. This barren rock of an island had suddenly become to me the most desirable place in the world.

LATER ON I felt even more at peace with my absent host. Something of a sybarite himself, he had left behind him his cook with generous instructions for my comfort. Margaret came down to dinner in a white muslin gown, and if a little informal, our meal was none the less delightful. Afterwards we went out into the deep, cool darkness, and she beckoned me to follow her.

"Let us climb up the hill," she said. "We shall get a breeze there."

Once she let me help her over a difficult place, and as her hand touched mine I tried to draw her to me.

"Margaret!" I murmured.

She snatched her hand away, and flitted along the path at such a pace that I had hard work to keep anywhere near her. When I reached the summit I found her looking intently seaward. She stretched out her hand.

"Look," she said, softly, "is that phosphorus— or is it a light?"

It was hard to say. It was hard to believe, too, that I was utterly indifferent.

"Margaret," I said, "I must— I must tell you something."

"It is a light," she exclaimed suddenly. "Look!"

It was certainly a ship's light, and as though to make assurance a certainty there came to us as we stood there the sound of a gun booming over the water.

"I knew that they would send for you," she said. "After all, you see, Me Atherstone, your imprisonment has not been a long one."

"It has not been imprisonment at all," I answered.

"You will be able to leave at daybreak," she said, cheerfully.

"I shall not leave at all," I answered, boldly, "unless you come too."

"You are absurd," she protested.

I felt for her hand. It rested passively in mine.

"You will come, Margaret," I begged.

"I— I suppose I must," she faltered.

Then I took her into my arms and I blessed Mr. Hoyt and all his schemes.

IT WAS EXACTLY two months and a day before I saw Mr. Hoyt again. At 7:15 on a dull, cold morning, I stood on the dock at Liverpool, watching the passengers leave the great liner which had just arrived.

A last I saw them come down the gangway. Anthony in front and Gorrino behind helping Mr. Hoyt. I accosted them at once.

"Welcome to England, Mr. Hoyt," I said.

Gorrino shook like a jellyfish, and Anthony stared at me as one might at a ghost. Mr. Hoyt alone received the blow of my presence with perfect composure.

"You are a wonderful man— or a very lucky one, Mr. Atherstone," he said.

"There is a boat leaving for New York in two hours," I answered.

"An admirable suggestion," Mr. Hoyt declared. "By-the-bye, I am really curious to know how you got here."

"Your daughter left a note for Sir John Marsham, to be opened in case I did not leave by the Argonaut," I told him. "A government sloop came for me."

He nodded his head slowly.

"I ought to have thought of that," he murmured.

"Your daughter," I added, "is now my wife, so you see I am not afraid to tell you the truth. Might I suggest—"

I pointed to the dock, towards which the people were already hurrying. Mr. Hoyt nodded thoughtfully.

"My dear son-in-law," he said, "I wish you every happiness. Pray convey the same message to Margaret. Anthony! Gorrino!"

They moved down the landing stage, a strange, dejected-looking trio. I saw them off and Mr. Hoyt repeatedly waved his hat to me. Then I returned to breakfast with Margaret.

_________________________

5: The Black Knight

Raymund Allen

1863-1943

Strand Magazine, April 1892

Being the Account of an Exciting Game of Chess

Little is known of Raymund Allen, other than that he wrote half a dozen short stories, all involving chess, beginning with "The Black Knight" in 1892. The remaining five appeared in The Strand Magazine between 1913 and 1916. The three here are all that I can find at present.

STORM of wind and rain had come on suddenly, and, as there were no cabs to be got near at hand, there was nothing for it but to set out on foot. I was going to dine with old Colonel Bradshaw, whose acquaintance I had lately made at the local chess club, and I was due at half-past seven, so I pulled my coat collar up to my ears and started off through the muddy streets. Several times in the course of my exceedingly unpleasant walk the foulness of the weather had given rise to a wish on my part that I had invented some excuse for staying by my own comfortable fireside. Once arrived, however, the cheery welcome of the old soldier quickly dispersed all regrets for my own hearth, and restored me to the good-humour necessary for the proper appreciation of a good dinner.

Colonel Bradshaw had served in India during the time of the Mutiny, had received a severe wound in the left leg, which still caused him to limp, and had led to his comparatively early retirement from the service. He had returned to England on his retirement, and had lately leased a snug little house in our town, which he apparently intended to occupy for the rest of his days in the quiet enjoyment of peaceful obscurity. I had made his acquaintance, as I have said, at the chess club, where, I reputation of a decidedly strong player. I had not as yet encountered him over the board.

In his note of invitation, the Colonel had asked me to bring my men with me, as he had left his own at the club-rooms, on the occasion of a match for which they had been called into requisition, and it was accordingly my set of chessmen which we now arranged in the customary order of battle. To my annoyance, however, I found that one of my black knights was missing, and I cast my eyes round the room in search of some article on which we might for the occasion confer the spurs of knighthood, On the Colonel's writing-table, acting as a paperweight, I saw the very object we were in want of — a black knight. Not of the orthodox Staunton pattern, it is true, nor indeed were its grotesquely protruding eyes and maliciously grinning mouth characteristic of any pattern with which I was familiar ; but still it was undeniably a black chess knight, and would serve our turn admirably. My host hesitated, and even seemed the least trifle annoyed when I suggested the expediency of pressing it into the service. The beast certainly looked incongruous among my Stauntons, but something in his human eyes and lifelike expression of malicious humour caught my fancy, and I asked to be allowed to play with the black men. The Colonel acquiesced, but declined the privilege of first move, which usually goes with the white. We accordingly drew for the move, and I won it.

Led partly by my fancy for the black knight, and partly "to take my opponent out of the books," I began the game by making the paperweight first take the field. As I did so, I fancied my host gave a little start, and, as he certainly appeared to be annoyed at my irregular opening, I was sorry that I had begun by a move which I supposed he objected to on the ground that it generally leads to a close game. He said nothing, however, and the game was continued for some time by very ordinary moves on both sides, and presently I began to be absorbed in the study of the position and in the endeavour to gauge the strength of my opponent. For a time he seemed to play a decidedly good game, and, in spite of continuous concentration on my part, to maintain some superiority of position. Presently, however, he embarked on a series of moves which appeared to give me a decisive advantage and to have no more rational object than the capture of my swarthy champion at a ruinous sacrifice of his own pieces. This eccentric proceeding puzzled me, and, added to his previous hesitation about using the substitute, excited my curiosity. So, relinquishing the object of winning the game in the ordinary way, I devoted all my skill to the defence of my king's knight, as though it were a pièce coiffée with which I was pledged to give checkmate. Rooks were sacrificed for bishops, and bishops exchanged for inoffensive pawns, while the kings stood disregarded on their knights' squares, and the fight raged hotly round the black knight, who seemed to bear a charmed life and sprang nimbly about the board, always evading my opponent's headlong attempts at his capture. At last, in desperation, he offered the bribe of the white queen, but I obstinately refused to part at any price with my dusky cavalier, and a few moves later brought the game to a successful end with a smothered mate, the very bone of contention inflicting the deathblow.

The Colonel leaned back in his armchair and for some minutes continued silently to blow out thick clouds of smoke. After a pause, during which his brow was compressed into a frown, as though by the contemplation of some bewildering enigma to which he could not find the clue, he broke silence with the remark, that " there were more things in heaven and earth—" and then again relapsed into silence in apparent forgetfulness of my presence. As he made no further remark for some time, I rose from my seat, and, muttering something about its being late, prepared to take my leave. "Wait a moment ; look here," said the Colonel, rising to stop me with the air of a man who has formed a sudden determination, and pointing to the board, "I daresay you wonder what on earth I was driving at in that game?"

"Well, you appeared to me to be driving mainly at that outlandish black knight instead of at my king," I replied.

"Exactly, and perhaps I ought to apologise for having spoilt the game by giving way to an absurd fancy ; but if you will sit down again and refill your pipe, I will tell you a curious experience which I had many years ago in India, and which you will perhaps admit as an excuse for my eccentric play to-night."

"Nothing I should like better," I replied; "for I confess you have considerably roused my curiosity."

"Well then, I think I can partly satisfy it;" and my host threw a fresh log on to the fire, stretched himself in the chair, and began.

"I don't know whether you take any interest in such subjects as hypnotism, thought-reading, and so on ; but, if you do, you may perhaps be able to form some scientific theory to explain my story. Personally I used to be very unbelieving in such matters, but my scepticism was considerably modified by the adventure I am going to tell you of. Very well, then. On one occasion in India, many years ago, I had got leave from my regiment for a few weeks in order to join a shooting expedition which had been got up by one of my greatest friends, a man many years older than I was then, and of much higher rank in the service. When, however, I arrived at our appointed meeting-place, I found my friend, the General, preparing for a more warlike excursion against a marauding tribe who had lately been extending their cattle raids across our frontier. The shooting expedition having fallen through, I readily accepted the General's suggestion that I should accompany his force as a volunteer, and see some sport of a more exciting kind. A common risk, even when comparatively insignificant, inclines men to readier cordiality towards the companions they may shortly be going to lose, and I was soon on excellent terms with the other officers, who were as pleasant a set of fellows as I have ever met. Nothing of any interest happened till we were across the enemy's frontier and the force was encamped one night under a brilliant moon on a hill overlooking a thickly wooded valley.

"I was strolling round camp with a cigar, when I was joined by one of the younger officers, who, not being on duty, was refreshing himself after the day's march in the same way, and we continued our walk together. We stopped to admire the view at a point where we could look down on the valley, and presently we fell into an argument as to whether a bright surface which caught the moonlight in a glade of the wood below was water or a smooth slab of rock. It happened that my companion particularly prided himself on the keenness of his sight, and a few days before had won a small bet from me on the subject. I, too, thought that I had good eyes, and, feeling sure that he was wrong in his contention that he could detect a gentle ripple on the surface in dispute, I offered him a second bet that it was rock, and proposed to settle the question by myself going down to the spot. He accepted my bet, and, as he was not at liberty to leave the camp, I gaily started down the hill alone, telling him with a laugh to have the stakes ready by the time I returned, and never for a moment supposing that I was running any risk in the affair.

"I rapidly made my way down over the short grass of the hillside, and, marking the direction of the spot in question, soon plunged into the darkness of the wood, the cavernous depth of whose shadows was enhanced by an occasional glint of moonshine. I am not naturally superstitious. I have no particular aversion to midnight graveyards or haunted rooms, but I must confess I felt an uncommonly disagreeable feeling of something like dread when I got inside that wood. Everything was absolutely dead and still. Not the faintest rustle of a leaf, not the crick of an insect, nor murmur of water, but dense and awful blackness ! It excited my nerves. I almost imagined I saw black shapes moving under the trees, though it was quite impossible that anything not luminous should show against such an inky background. I felt my way cautiously, stopping constantly to hear if anything was moving near me. What cracks the twigs under my feet gave! What a resounding crash reverberated in the gloomy shades when my foot set a loose stone rolling ! My nerve was gone, and I felt horribly uncomfortable. I would gladly have paid my bet to be back again in camp, but I was bound to go through with my search now that I had once begun, and I should make myself a butt for the wit of the regiment if I turned back half-way to confess myself scared by the dark. After a longer time and with more difficulty than I had anticipated, I reached the slab of rock, for such it proved to be. Here I was clear of the trees, and I stood for a few moments in the bright moonlight, so that my friend above, who I knew would be watching for me to emerge from the shadow, might see that it was not water on which I stood. Then I turned, and struck out energetically for the camp.

"I had not, however, pushed my way far through the undergrowth when I was tripped up suddenly by what I at first took to be some stout creeper or protruding root. I fell forward on my hands, and had not time to get on my feet again before I learnt that it was no accident which had overthrown me. Before I had time to offer the least resistance, or even to titter a shout for help, I felt myself seized round the neck by a grip like a vice; a few seconds more, and I was gagged, bound, and carried off through the forest, quickly, but in silence. As soon as subsiding astonishment left room for any other sensation, I felt a paroxysm of rage, as well against my own folly in running into such a trap as against my sudden assailants, whom I cursed none the less heartily for my inability to utter a sound. The futility of passion under the circumstances gradually subdued me, if not to philosophic fortitude, at least to sufficient calmness to speculate on my probable fate and on the chances of escape. For some time I seemed to be borne down hill and over irregular ground ; then we must have emerged from the jungle on to more even ground, for the pace became quicker and smoother. This may have gone on for some twenty minutes or half an hour, and then my captors came to a halt. I was set on my feet, and my eyes and mouth released from their bandages. This change of condition did not, however, conduce to my comfort or reassurance; for, while an armed native on each side held me firmly by my pinioned arms, a third presented a huge horse-pistol at my head at a yard's distance. For a few instants I endured an agony of suspense. I involuntarily shut my eyes, and waited for the bullet to crash through my brain.

"I have met many men who have at some time or other looked death pretty closely in the face, and you must often have heard it said that a man's mind at such moments reviews in a flash long periods of past time with an almost supernatural vividness of perception, but I didn't feel anything of this. I only felt that I might be dead in another second, and then, with a determination to 'die game,' which was rather an animal sensation than an articulate thought, I set my teeth and opened my eyes to meet those of my enemy. The pistol was still directed at my head, and the grim Indian still kept his finger on the trigger. I faced him defiantly, and, as though unwilling to change a dramatic situation which interested him, he still kept the same menacing posture, while I longed for the flash and the end before my nerve should fail.

" At last he spoke. He spoke a dialect which I only imperfectly followed, but I understood him to say that if I tried to escape I should be shot on the spot. I felt no confidence that I was not being reserved for a more horrible death, but the instinct of self-preservation kept me passive. When at last the pistol was lowered, and I no longer stood in momentary expectation of death, I looked round me and perceived that I was in the middle of a group of some half dozen Indians, and as many horses. On to one of these latter I was lifted, and secured in the saddle by leathern thongs, my captors not choosing to give me the chance of escape by leaving me the management of my horse.

"After about an hour's hard riding, during which the rapid motion and the blowing of the cool night air on my face and hands acted as a sedative on my racked nerves, we reached the encampment of the hostile tribe against which the expedition had been sent out. And now came the strangest part of my adventures; the part which bears on my eccentric play to-night." Here Colonel Bradshaw paused to stir the smouldering log in the grate to a bright blaze, and then, staring into the fire and keeping the poker in his hands as he leaned forward in his chair, went on with his story, more slowly at first, but with growing animation of voice, which gradually rose to the eloquence of excitement as he seemed to forget his immediate surroundings, and to live once again through the distant scene he was describing.

"The human brain,'' he resumed, "is incapable, I imagine, of continuing to experience any intense sensation for very long. It reaches the maximum tension, and then one set of perceptive faculties becomes deadened. The previous incidents of the night had exhausted my capacity for fear, and, as I was led before the chief of the tribe to hear his decree concerning me, I awaited the decision with indifference. I was keenly alive to every detail of my surroundings, and noted the expression of every face, and yet I seemed somehow to have lost my own individuality; to be watching myself as an actor in a scene with which I had no personal concern, but only looked at from some outside point of view. The moon was now hidden behind a hill, but some twenty torches lit up the spot with their lurid flames. The party that had caught me had obviously been sent out to reconnoitre the movements of the English force, and the chief had been beguiling the time of their absence with nothing less than a game of chess.

"I was the less surprised at the nature of his pastime, as I knew that the game was widely spread in India, and had played it with natives myself, and knew in what points their game differed from our European rules. The chief's antagonist was a man whom I imagined, though I can't say exactly what suggested the idea, to be the priest of the tribe. He was shorter than the others, but his face suggested an extraordinarily active mind, and this, combined with his regularity of feature, would have made him a strikingly handsome type if it had not been for the fearful malignity of his expression. I wish I could give you some faint idea of that man's face, for it was the most terribly sinister face I have ever seen. His back had been turned towards me at first, but from the moment when I met the scrutiny of his black deep-set eyes, which glared on me with a look of mocking, triumphant devilry that must have been borrowed from the fiend below, I was fascinated, and could see nothing but that one diabolical face. If there is any truth in the Eastern belief in possession by evil spirits, a demon looked through that man's eyes. A shiver ran through my frame as I met his gaze, and I felt that he was exercising some subtle influence over me, against which every fibre of my body, every atom of my being, stiffened in revolt. I felt that unless I exerted the whole of my will-force in resistance to the dread spell he was casting over me, I should lose myself in his identity, and become the creature of his wicked will. It was not physical fear that I felt. I had passed through that stage, and I believe I should have met death with firmness, but I felt that my whole personality was at the death-grapple with that fearful being — a mysterious deadly struggle, fought in neither act nor word, with the powers of darkness, impersonated.

"While all this was going on in me, the chief must have been listening to an account of my capture, though I was unconscious of any words being spoken near me, till the priest turned from me to him, and, pointing to the chessboard which stood on a sort of low table, made a suggestion which at first I did not fully grasp.

Its meaning was soon made clear to me, however. I had some knowledge of their dialect, and most expressive pantomime conveyed the rest. I was to play a game of chess with the chief; the stakes, my life against a safe conduct to the English lines. Never before had I encountered so terrible an opponent, and never in the history of the royal game had so fateful an issue been fought out on the battlefield of the sixty- four squares. I took my seat opposite the chief, and the torchbearers formed a wide ring round the table, looking, as the dancing torch-flames shone on their dark faces and limbs, like so many stalwart statues of bronze. Within the circle, and a little behind the king, stood the evil priest, motionless, with folded arms, including me and the board in his keen, hateful gaze. I knew exactly where he stood before I looked at him, and again I felt the same dread fascination working on me that I had felt when I first set eyes on him. The chief moved the pieces indeed, but I was conscious in some subtle way that it was against his attendant's mind that I was pitted — that the former was scarcely more than an automaton under the thraldom of the priest's marvellous will, and the game itself only a sort of emblem or shadow of our inward contest of mind and personality.

"I played appropriately enough, with the white pieces, and the game itself might have afforded an expressive symbol of the antagonism of the light and dark races, of the clear, bright West with the mystic, sombre East, but the thought did not occur to me then. To me it was rather a struggle between the intangible powers of good and evil— a realisation in my own self of the eternal struggle of the universe. We played very slowly, and in absolute silence. No word was spoken nor sign made when either king was checked. Hour after hour the priest kept the same motionless posture behind his chief, who played with the same monotonously mechanical movement of the hand, the same vacant mesmerised expression on his face. Hour passed after hour, unmeasured by any clock, unmarked by any change except in the position of the pieces on the board. The chief, or rather the priest, played well ; and, though time after time I seemed on the point of gaining a decisive advantage, some unforeseen move always deferred my victory.

"One piece in particular repeatedly thwarted my combinations. Again and again it constituted the weak point in a series of moves which should have brought me victory. Again and again, when, after straining every faculty of my brain, I made my move and raised my eyes to watch in the priest's face the effect of a stroke to which I saw no reply, a faint mocking smile would curl for a moment his cruel lips, and the black knight would be moved once more, threatening dangers which I had overlooked, and dashing my premature hopes to the ground. It was as though some secret link existed between that particular bit of bone and the grim, ghoulish spectator of our game. Piece after piece was taken from the board and dropped on the sand at our feet ; the ranks of pawns grew thinner and thinner, but still that one black knight, now the only piece left to my antagonist, sprang over the board, evading my deep-laid plans for his capture. The opening was long passed, the wavering fortune of the middle-game had waned with the long hours to an end-game. The inexorable moment which must decide my fate was close upon me.

"I turned for a moment from the board to ease the throbbing fever of my brain. A black veil of formless mist hid the stars and gave back the earth's heat, till I gasped for breath, and drops of nervous sweat ran down my forehead. There was a stifling oppression in the still air, as in the minutes before the first lightning flash darts from the charged thunder-cloud. The chief moved, and I spurred my flagging energies once more to the study of the game. Suddenly I seemed to be gifted with extraordinary powers of calculation. I shut my eyes, and saw mentally the position change through every possible variation like the moving pattern of a kaleidoscope. I could have announced a mate. I knew, to the exclusion of any doubt, that I must win. I made my move, and then, concentrating every particle of the hatred and loathing with which the diabolical priest had inspired nae into one flashing look of defiance, I tried to hurl from me the cursed influence of his malignant spirit and to crush it into subjection to mine. His face changed with a hideous contortion of defeated evil purpose, and then the whole devil in him rose to one supreme effort in answer to mine. He passed his hand lightly across his eyes, and leaning over his chief scored his forehead with a malevolent frown, the glare of his glittering eyes seeming to pierce to the brain of the head they nearly touched. The new spell began to work on the chief. An uneasy, puzzled look came into his face, and this time it was with an uncertain, vacillating movement that he raised his hand to play. Again I looked at the priest. His expression was more bitterly mocking and more exultingly fiendish than ever as he directed my glance by a movement of his own to the hand which hovered over the board. His treacherous design was transmitted in a flash to my mind by some unexplained interaction of our brains. An illegal move with the black knight, in defiance of the rules of the game, was to snatch the nearly won victory from my grasp. I saw the fatal square on which the piece would be placed, and I felt that if it reached it I was lost. There were no spectators to whom I could appeal against the glaring illegality, unconscious, no doubt, on the part of the hypnotised chief, and I should never be able to convince him afterwards of having won unfairly. I must prevent the move.

"The struggle entered on the final phase. I had shaken off the priest's mesmeric influence over my own will ; now I must wrest the chiefs will from the same thraldom by the exertion of a counter influence. It was the critical moment, the culminating point of conflict which must at last be decisive. The chiefs hand raised the black knight slowly from the board, and as it began more slowly still to descend, I exerted all my power of will in one burst of straining endeavour to compel another move than the false one the priest intended. Every nerve in my body seemed strung to cracking. The wonderful sensation of my individuality, of the intangible essence which constitutes self, wrestling grimly for life with the demon-possessed priest, became intensified till my brain reeled. The chiefs hand came slowly, slowly down ; wavered as though uncertain on which square to place the piece. One final effort of will exhausted my faculties of brain and volition.

"The ordeal was over; light had triumphed over darkness as day had risen on night. I knew the priest's influence had been overcome, his spell cast off, without the evidence of the chess-board; I saw him fall backwards on the ground, every muscle of his body twisted in horrible contortion, as though some invisible power of the air were wreaking its vengeance on his ghastly, spasm-shaken form. The gruesome sight ended quickly, the violence of the seizure was resistless ; the muscles relaxed, the limbs stretched out, and he lay a corpse.

"How I parted from my strange entertainers I can't tell you. I only know that the chief honourably fulfilled his pledge, and that, as I galloped away with a guide for the English camp, over the fair, green earth, the woods and fields dancing to the breeze in the sunlight, the bright clouds carrying my thoughts to the depths of the blue expanse they sailed in, I experienced a new sensation of keen, ecstatic enjoyment of life for its own sake. All nature seemed to have a fuller, better meaning to me than ever before, to be the physical expression of boundless power and happiness moving with all-inclusive purpose towards some eternal end, and I myself was filled with a thrilling vitality in the consciousness of being a part of the joyous whole.''

The Colonel made along pause, and then, with a reluctant sigh, as he dismissed the wide expanse of glorious landscape which lay stretched out before his mind's eye, to return to the commonplace of his immediate surroundings, he picked up the paperweight from the board, and replacing it on the writing-table, concluded:—

"Later in the day, and after my return to the English camp, I found this little fellow in a pocket of my coat. Whether I had put it there myself or how it got there I don't know, and to what extent the incidents of the night were coloured by my own excited imagination is a chess problem I must leave to your own solution."

_____________________

6: The Winning Move

Raymund Allen

1863-1943

Leader (Melbourne) 3 January 1914

AS GRANT passed along the hall of the Bull Hotel in the assize town where circuit business called him, a young woman rose from the corner and came towards him with quick steps.

"I beg your pardon, but I think you are Mr. Grant." She spoke with an educated, distinct voice,, and her manner betrayed a struggle between shyness and a certain eager anxiety. Her face struck Grant at once as beautiful, and there was a troubled appeal in her eyes that caught his attention.

"Yes, my name is Grant. Can I do anything for you?"

"Mr. Marlin tells me that you are going to defend my brother at the assizes. He is our solicitor."

"Mr. Marlin is coming to see me this evening about your brother's case, but I don't even know your brother's name."

"Robert Smaley is my brother's name," she replied. "Mr. Marlin will be able to tell you everything about the case, but I want you to know from the first that my brother is innocent, absolutely innocent."

There was a ring of passionate sincerity in her voice, and her eyes were fixed on his face with a steadfast gaze as though to compel him to recognise that she was speaking truth.

"What is the nature of the charge against your brother, Miss Smaley?" asked Grant.

"Embezzling a sum of sixty-three pounds," she replied. A deep flush of indignant shame spread over her face, and he could see that she was struggling to keep back tears as she turned away after thanking him for listening.

GRANT had been waiting some minutes in his sitting room when Jimmy Marlin entered. He was an old school friend of Grant's, and his most faithful client among solicitors.

"I understand you are briefing me to defend one Robert Smaley for embezzlement?" Grant remarked. "His sister buttonholed me as I came into the hotel. I hope we are going to call her, for if she makes half as good an impression upon the jury, as she did upon me she ought to get her brother off."

"Yes, we shall have to call her. In fact, I fancy the verdict will very largely depend upon whether or not the jury accepts her evidence.

"She and her brother live together in a tiny little house, and they have no other people that I know of. They have always been considered thoroughly respectable, and she is devoted to him.

"The defendant Smaley is charged with embezzling sixty-three pounds odd of the moneys of the Radical Institute, of which he is assistant secretary and treasurer. Smaley gets a small salary, does all the clerical work, keeps the accounts, and collects the members' subscriptions, and hands them over periodically to a man called Johnston, who is the honorary secretary and treasurer. Then there is a caretaker, a German called Fritz Rosenau, who is what people call 'a bit of a character.' He is general handy man about the place, not a bad gymnastic instructor, can cook a bit, mark a game of billiards, and is intelligent and apparently well educated. Well, now, Johnston had made an appointment to meet Smaley at the institute on the 27th of June, last month, in the morning, to audit his accounts and take over from him the funds he held. Smaley had mentioned a day or two before that he had about sixty pounds in hand. Johnston and Smaley arrived in company at the institute, and were let in by Fritz Rosenau, who is the only person left on the premises at night. Smaley used to keep his papers and do his secretarial work at a roll top desk in what was called the games room, which, when not in use, was generally kept locked.

"On this particular morning Johnston and Smaley found the door of the games room unlocked, the lower half of one of the windows was open, there was an unfinished game of chess left standing on one of the tables, two chairs  were drawn up to the tabled there were cigarette ends lying on the floor by each chair, the roll top desk was open, and the cash box gone. Fritz was sent for, and declared that he had not been into this room since Smaley had handed him the key after locking the door at a little after nine o'clock on the previous evening. Smaley agreed that he had locked the door at about that time, and had given the key to Fritz, but he was certain that when he had left the room all the windows were fastened, that all the chairs were arranged in tidy rows. against the walls, and that none of the chess boards or men were left about. He was equally certain that he had left the cash box on the roll-top desk."

"So far," Grant interjected, "it looks more like a case against Fritz Rosenau."

''Johnston seems to have suspected both of them. He sent at once for the police detective, and with his permission Smaley telephoned for me to come and watch the investigation on his behalf. I got there before the detective, and it occurred to me that I might possibly require your services later on, so, knowing your love of the minutiae of a case, I made a sketch plan of the games room, showing the position of all the furniture and everything I could think of, including the cigarette ends, and I jotted down on a diagram the position of the chess pieces. The room is on the ground floor, but the windows are barred. I ought to have mentioned, by the way, that the roll-top desk was set from nine to ten feet away from the open window When the detective came he made a search, but found nothing incriminating. Then he proposed to search Smaley's private house. Smaley seemed rather taken aback at the suggestion, but it would have looked suspicious for him to refuse, and he and I went with Johnston and the detective. In a cupboard in the sitting room there was a cash box precisely similar to the one in Smaley's possession at the institute, and inside it fifty pounds in gold in a bag and some odd shillings loose. There is the further circumstance that Smaley was hard up at the time, and the prosecution have a letter of his to his landlord asking for time for the payment of his rent. That is the case for the prosecution."

"And a nasty, awkward case to meet, too," Grant muttered. "But what has Smaley himself got to say?"

"He says that the cash box found at his house was one of two that he bought at the same time, one for his own use and one for the purposes of the institute. As to the fifty pounds, the account is this. Miss Smaley had been employed until lately as an assistant at the public library, and while there she had been persecuted by the persistent attentions of a man who, it seemed, had conceived a sort of crazy passion for her. She always refused to let him talk to her, and she doesn't even know his name, but shortly after she had given up the library a parcel containing fifty pounds in gold was left at the Smaleys' house. There was nothing inside to indicate from whom it came except a bit of card, on which were the printed words, 'From a devoted admirer.' Miss Smaley will swear to all this part of the story, and she says that the money was put away in the cash box for safety until there should come an opportunity of returning it. Smaley's suggestion, made in answer to cross-examination in the police court, was that two members of the institute must have come in to play a game of chess between the time when he left and eleven o'clock, when the place would ordinarily be closed, and that one or both must have committed the theft."

"The suggestion of the prosecution," Grant observed, "will, of course, be that Smaley himself disarranged the furniture and set out the chess and so-on in order to have a plausible theory all ready in case he should be accused.

"Yes, that was put to him point blank in the police court. When Marlin had gone Grant took up the brief and read it carefully through. The vision of Miss Smaley's earnest, tearful eyes had pricked his conscience to a more than usually acute appreciation of counsel's obligation towards the prisoner he defends. He filled two pipes, and, with Marlin's sketch plan of the games room in front of him, settled down to think out the possibilities of the case.

Grant was himself a keen chess player, and it occurred to him that the actual position of the pieces, as recorded by Marlin, might possibly throw some light upon the matter. The chance was rather slender, but made it just worth while to get out the little folding chess board that was his inseparable travelling companion. He had the rather bad habit, not uncommon among chess players, of talking to himself while studying a position, and an unseen auditor, had there been one, might have overheard something like the following soliloquy, punctuated by reflective puffs of smoke from his pipe:

"White is a rook and bishop up, and has an overwhelming attack. Black ought to have resigned at this point, whether he did or not. If it is White's move he simply takes the pawn, and Black can only delay mate for a move or two by some useless checks. Hold on, though; wait a bit. If White takes the pawn Black escapes with a stalemate― by a stalemate or else perpetual check, which comes to the same. Well, then, White mustn't take the pawn. He is two clear pieces ahead, and needn't be in any hurry."

He had become interested in the position for its own sake, and for the moment almost forgot that it formed part of the brief for the defence of a man charged with a serious crime. It looked as though White must be able to win without any difficulty, but whatever move he tried seemed always to lead to that baffling alternative of stalemate. Or, perpetual check. He tried one move after another, only to find himself led always to the same futile drawn game. Suddenly he sprang from his chair and paced about the room in the excitement of a sudden illumination.

"That might just be us! Thank God for a judge who plays chess and has a logical mind! Only, does the position give me the foundation for the argument?"

He sat down again, and with his hands to his head concentrated all his mind on the chess board. The more difficult it was to find a move that would win the game for White, the more certain he felt that such a move was there, and the more determined he grew to find it. It was twenty, minutes past two when at last 'he threw himself back in his chair with a cry of triumph.

"Very neat, very subtle," he said aloud, as he stood on the hearthrug stretching his cramped limbs. "The rottenest-looking move on the board, but the only one to win, and leading up to three distinct sacrifices of the queen. Properly handled, it ought to win for Smaley, too, and his sister with the fine eyes."

"That is the case for the Crown, my lord," and Meggitt-Hartley sat down.

"I call the prisoner," Grant said, and a warder opened the door of the dock for Smaley to pass out to the witness box. He did not make an impressive witness. He fidgeted with his hands, pulled nervously at his moustache, and had to be told more than once to keep his voice up, so that the jury might hear what he was saying. He looked still more uncomfortable when Meggitt-Hartley began to cross-examine in a loud and aggressive voice.

"Now, I am not going to beat about the bush. I am going to put it to you quite straight. Wasn't it you who disarranged the furniture of the games room and set out the chess board and the rest, and didn't you do it for the express purpose of making it appear as though someone else had been in that room after you left? You won't accept that? Very good. Now, will you kindly tell my lord and the jury who you suggest did do all this?"

"I suggest that most probably two members of the institute came in to play chess, and that one of them committed the crime which you are trying to fasten upon me."

Grant smiled as he hastily took down the last. answer in 'his note book before he rose to re-examine. He did this very shortly, and then called Dorothea Smaley.

Her hand trembled as she took the book to be sworn, but she answered every question without the least hesitation or fencing, and if there was a slight quaver in her voice, it only enhanced the effect of perfect frankness. The cross-examination. was superficial and almost apologetic in tone.. Meggitt-Hartley knew his business better than to attempt to bully a dignified and beautiful woman when half the jury were leaning forward in their seats to observe her more closely.

The judge glanced up at the clock.

"Have you many more witnesses, Mr. Grant? I should like to finish this case to-day, if possible: but if not I propose to rise shortly after 5 o'clock."

"I have only two more witnesses, both very short, my lord. James Marlin!

"Were you in the games room of the Radical Institute about nine-twenty on the morning of 27th June last?"

"Yes."

"Was there a chess board on one of the tables, with chessmen standing upon it?"

"Yes."

"Did you make a note at the time of the position of the chessmen on the board?"

"Yes." Grant passed up to the witness a pencil diagram. "Is that the note. you made?"

"Yes."

"I put that in, my lord."

Meggitt-Hartley had been too much puzzled to know what Grant could be driving at to think of objecting to the leading form. of his questions, and the judge, looking inquiringly at Grant, addressed him in a tone of silken suavity.

"I am sure, Mr. Grant, you would not have called this evidence unless you had some entirely adequate purpose to subserve in so doing, but I confess for the moment I am greatly puzzled to divine what possible bearing it can have upon the case."

"I think, my lord, the next witness will make the matter quite clear to your lordship. Mr. Whiterill!

"I think it may assist your lordship," he continued, as the witness went into the box, "if I may be allowed to hand up this chess board on which the pieces are arranged according to the diagram produced by the last witness."

There was a moment of quite dramatic suspense as Grant rose to examine his witness. "Is your name James Whiterill? Are you the chess champion of England, and have. you won prizes in a large number of international tournaments?"

"I am sure," the judge interposed, "that we shall all accept Mr. Whiterill's name as a sufficient guarantee of authority upon the particular branch of knowledge in which he has attained to such eminence."

"Now, Mr. Whiterill, speaking as one of the greatest living authorities upon the game of chess, will you tell us whether or not in your opinion the position set up on that board could have been arrived at in the course of an actually played game of chess?"

"No, it certainly could not."

"Can you tell us how it is that you can say that so confidently?"

"Because the position is clearly an elaborately constructed chess puzzle. There is only one first move by which White can win, and afterwards White must sacrifice the queen in three different ways, according to the moves played by Black. The position is undoubtedly artificial, and could not have occurred in actual play."

The judge interposed again. "I should like you to show me the moves on the chess board, Mr. Whiterill."

He rose, and stood beside the witness box, with the chess board on the ledge. After a low-voiced colloquy with the great chess player, he resumed his seat upon the bench.

"I quite understand the technical aspect of this evidence now, Mr. Grant; and I think I can anticipate the point you propose to make upon it with the jury."

When Grant rose to address the jury in behalf of the defendant he saw that the jury had settled down to serious attention."

"The theory of the prosecution is this, that the chessboard and the two chairs drawn up to the table and the cigarette ends on the floor were all part of an elaborately arranged sham on the part of the prisoner, designed to divert suspicion .from himself and make it possible for him to take this money with impunity. Now I say that that theory of the prosecution breaks down utterly, and I will tell you why― because the prisoner never did set up those chessmen on that board. I say that Smaley cannot be the person who arranged those pieces, because his own theory of how they came there is clearly founded on a mistake. I daresay some of you gentlemen are chess players and can see it for yourselves, but, at any rate, we have got it now upon the authority of Mr. Whiterill, the chess champion of England, that the position of the pieces on that chess board is an elaborately constructed puzzle, and quite certainly is not part of a game actually played by two real players. Now, what is the suggestion of Smaley? Just let me read you one of his answers to my learned friend:― 'I suggest that most probably two members of the institute came in to play chess; and that one of them committed the crime which you are trying to fasten upon me.'

"That suggestion of the prisoner is founded on what we now know to be an entirely erroneous assumption. If the theory of the prosecution were true, Smaley must have deliberately dug a pitfall in front of his own feet and then walked into it with his eyes wide open. I ask you to follow. this rather closely, gentlemen, because I think you must see (and I venture to think that his lordship will tell you) that it does really knock the bottom out of the case for the prosecution. According to the theory of the prosecution, the whole point of Smaley's plot from the outset was that in case he should be accused he should be able to say, 'This crime must have been committed by one or other of two people who had been playing chess. Here are their two' chairs and their cigarette ends, and here's their game as they left it.' And that being the defence which, according to the prosecution, he must, so to speak, have had up his sleeve the whole time, he sets up, not a game of chess, but an elaborate problem. Either he would have set up a chess problem and suggested that someone had been in that games room studying a problem, or he would have set up a game and suggested that there had been two players; but to set up a problem in order td support the idea that a game had been played would be an act of gratuitous folly, an act simply inconceivable on the part of a. man who had the ingenuity to devise such a plot as the one the prosecution attribute to my client. No, gentlemen, I suggest to you that the prosecution have found a mare's nest, that the prisoner never invented any plot at all, that the hand that stole the cash box was the same hand that set up the chessmen, and that, whoever's hand that may have been, it was not that of the prisoner."

Grant passed on to a review of the other facts, and then worked up through the subject of the fifty pounds and the sister's evidence towards a peroration. As he turned his head for an instant towards the part of the court where Miss Smaley was sitting he saw her fine face, pale and set with suspense, following intently his speech to the jury, with her lustrous, troubled eyes fixed upon his face. He turned round again to the jury with a throb of excitement and let himself go. For some palpitating minutes he held his whole audience in the grip of real oratory, and then sank back in his seat with a flushed face. It needed a sharp tug at this gown to call his attention to a little note that had been tossed up to him from the reporters' table; a moment later he was on his feet again.

"My lord, I have this moment received a communication which I think I ought at once to pass on to your lordship."

The little scrap of paper was handed up to the judge, who turned towards the reporters' table when he had read it.

"I should like the gentleman who wrote this note to step forward. Come into the witness box, sir.

"Mr. Grant, I shall call this witness myself, and I shall allow the learned counsel on both sides to cross-examine if necessary."

An alert-eyed little man stepped briskly into the box. He was a reporter on the Daily Despatch, the leading local newspaper, and he produced a proof of the chess column that was to appear on the following Saturday.

At the top of the column was printed a chess diagram, showing the identical position that had been produced by Marlin. It was headed "End Game by Vaterland," and underneath, "White to play and win."

"Can you tell us the real name of the contributor who writes under this pseudonym?" the judge asked.

"No, my lord, but I could find out by sending to the office."

"Please get the information as quickly as possible. And now let the witness Rosenau come back into the box."

But the witness was not in court. His name was passed from constable to constable till the corridors outside reverberated with shouts of "Fritz Rosenau."

"Mr lord," reported the superintendent of police, "I am informed that the witness was seen to leave the court in a great hurry about an hour ago. The police have telephoned to the Radical Institute, but he has not returned there."

The judge turned to the jury.

"I am afraid, gentlemen, this case will have to be adjourned until to-morrow, in order that further inquiries may be made and the attendance of Fritz Rosenau obtained if possible. Of course, gentlemen, if you should have already concluded upon the evidence that you have heard that it would not be safe to convict the prisoner, it would be competent for you to say now that the prisoner is not guilty. It is a matter entirely for you."

There was a short consultation among the jurors, and then the foreman, with a face singularly devoid of intelligence, rose and said, "My lord, we are all agreed that the guilty party is the German, Rosenau."

The judge smiled a little sarcastic, smile.

"I am afraid, gentlemen, it is hardly within your province to return a verdict against a person who so far has not even been charged with any offence. Your verdict, however, as regards the prisoner whom you, have got in charge amounts to one of 'Not guilty.' The prisoner may be discharged."

The buzz of approval that rose in court was broken by a cry of relief going off into hysterical laughter, as Miss Smaley slid from her seat and fell with a thud to the floor in a dead faint.

IT WAS at the next assizes, about four months later, that Grant again found himself sitting in the same court, when a warder leant over the edge of the dock to touch his shoulder and hand him a little envelope. From its weight and metallic clink Grant recognised at once the guinea of a "docker" who desired his services for the defence.

He looked at the name on the envelope, "R. v. Fritz Rosenau."

"Good lord," he ejaculated, and then made his way to one of the cells below. Here he had his interview with the prisoner, while a constable stood motionless but watchful, outside the open door.

"I understand you want me to defend you?"

"Yes, I want you to defend me." the man replied, with a guttural German accent. "I asked for you because I knew from the last trial that you play chess, and would understand how I came to do it."

"How you came to do it?" Grant exclaimed. "Do you mean that you are going to plead guilty and want me to say something for you in mitigation of sentence?"

"Ach, no! I am not guilty. I mean how I came to set up the chessboard."

"Well, if you have a defence you had better tell me as shortly as you can what it is."

"I will tell you how it happened. I have known the chess all my life. I care not so much to play with another; I like better to make problems. One day I think I send a problem to the paper here, the Weekly Despatch, and I put it in the post. That night I lie in my bed in the dark, and I see the chess pieces move in my head. Suddenly I think I see that I have made a mistake. that my problem is all wrong. I cannot sleep. At last I can bear it no more. At three o'clock in the morning I get up and go to the games room to look at it on a board. The room is close, stuffy. I open the window. I stare long time at the board. I smoke cigarettes."

"Why were there two chairs drawn up to the table?" Grant asked, sharply.

"Ach, ja ! that is quite simple. I sit down at one side of the table. I find the light not good. I am in my own shadow. I change to the other side of the table, and I take a fresh chair because it is less trouble than to carry the other one round. I finish my cigarettes, but I must smoke. I go to my bedroom to get some more. I am away three, five minutes. When I come back the verdammte cash box is gone. I had seen it when I went into the room, but only with half my mind. I was too excited about my problem. I rush to a window to look down the street. It is daylight, but there is nobody there. I go all over the building. There is nobody there. Then I think, 'Fritz, you are only a fool, but the police will say you are a thief, and you will go to prison.' Then I wonder who can have taken the box, and how he can have got in. Then I say to myself, 'It is that Smaley; he have some way of getting in that I know not, and he think to put the blame on me, the common dog, but how can I prove it?' Then I think I had better leave the room just as it is, and the police will think there has been someone else, I never think that anyone will pay any attention to the position of the pieces; it never entered my mind. I will just tell the police I was never in the room at all. I just close the door again, and I go back to bed. And the problem was all right after all," he concluded.

"I am afraid it will be very much against you that you didn't tell the truth about' being the in the room that night, and you ran away, you know. Why did you do that?"

"I ran away when I found Mr. Marlin had copied down my problem, and I knew it would come out in the Weekly Despatch."

"Well, I will get you off if I can, but I must got back to court now."

As Grant went up the steps from the cells a sudden inspiration flashed upon his

"By Jove, what, a dullard I am Sherlock Holmes would have got there in five minutes. Sherlock Holmes ! I don't believe Watson himself could have missed it. However, better four months late than never."

He hurried back into court, and at the first convenient pause, rose to make an application.

"Will your lordship allow me to mention the case of Fritz Rosenau? It is-number ten in your lordship's calendar. I have just been instructed for the prisoner, and I think it is important in his interest that the police should make certain inquiries. My application is that the case should not be taken to-day."

"Very well, Mr. Grant, I will take it first to-morrow morning, subject to  any part heard case."'

THE NEXT morning Grant was in court, with Meggitt-Hartley, who was again for the prosecution, sitting next to him.

"I think we have got hold of the right man this time," Meggittt-Hartley remarked.

"The odd thing is that you are prosecuting the wrong man again,'' Grant replied. "I'll-bet you my docker's guinea to a threepenny bit you don't get a conviction."

"Then you must have faked up an even bigger surprise than you did at Smaley's trial."

"I have," Grant answered. "You wait."

Meggitt-Hartley began to think that Grant had been merely "rotting" him  as witness after witness left the box without any cross-examination from Grant, and when the prisoner gave his account he felt certain the jury did not believe a word of his defence.

"Mary Sullivan!"

A little wizened Irish woman, dressed in black, went into the box in obedience to Grant's call. She looked a depressing, scared little figure, but she gave her evidence with the volubility and the accent of her race. She lived at 97 Potter-street, and was the widow of Timothy Sullivan, who had died only a few weeks before.

"Will you look at that cash box, Mrs. Sullivan?" Grant said, as, at a sign from him, a constable placed, one on the ledge of the witness box.

"Had that cash box been in your husband's possession for some time before his death?"

"Yes, me lord."

"Did your husband ever tell you how he came into possession of that cash box?"

"I object, my lord," Meggitt-Hartley cried, before the witness could answer. "How can a statement by this good lady's husband be evidence?"

"What do you say to that, Mr. Grant?" the judge asked. "Isn't it mere hearsay, and, therefore, inadmissible?"

"The statement of the deceased husband, my lord, may tend to show that he had no title to property which was in his possession, and, if so, that would be a declaration against interest, and the declarant having deceased, the statement would be admissible on the authority of Higham v. Ridgway."

The judge considered for a few moments.

"Yes, Mr. Grant, I think you are entitled to get the answer of the witness, but it will depend upon the tenor of that answer whether or not it is admissible, and I may have to tell the jury to disregard it."

"If your lordship pleases. Now, Mrs. Sullivan, will you tell my lord and the jury what your husband told you as to the manner in which he became possessed of that cash box? "

"Me lorrd, me husband was a lamplighter, and he stole it out of the institute with a long pole that he used to put the light wid the money."

_______________________

7: Allah Knows Best

Raymund Allen

Leader (Melbourne) 30 January 1915,

A RAIN-laden gust of wind swept blustering into the Strand from a side street, and, with a sudden wrench, turned inside-out the umbrella with which Jack Burnside was struggling to shelter the girl who clung to his arm.

"What a climate!" he exclaimed, with feeling.

The girl answered with a laugh and looked up at her fiancé with a face whose colour was heightened to a healthy red by the buffeting of the weather, her eyes dancing with a happiness that was not to be dimmed by any such trifle as an unseasonable squall in June.

Her high spirits were infectious, and Jack Burnside laughed back at her as  he reduced the rebellious umbrella once more to reason.

"Your hat, Lena,' stands the weather better than 'my temper. Let's go and get tea at some place where we can talk without having our words 'blown, down our throats." He led her to a. ,small cafe, where the hush from the ruffling wind gave a grateful sense of comfort. The click of .a game of dominoes sounded from a corner, and there were chess boards set out on some of the tables in readiness for the customers who. later in the evening, might be expected to fill up the room. At this hour, however, there was no difficulty in finding a table out of earshot -for quiet voices, and when the waitress who had brought their tea had retired again behind her counter they were able to talk without fear of being overheard.

"Sugar, Jack? No, of course not! Cream, but no sugar― I must remember, or I shall be 'giving the show away,' as you call it, on our honeymoon. And now tell me all you have been doing. Tell me how you are getting on with Messrs. Bosford and Tunning."

"Bosford and Tunning? Fraudulent rascals! I am not getting on with them at all. I left them finally this morning." The girl looked at him with a tinge of anxiety in her expression. '"I couldn't help it, .Lena. They are rascals, and it was bound to come, sooner or later. This morning Bosford wanted me to lend a hand in one of their shady transactions, and when I refused he said that "If I wanted to come the lily-white saint over the firm I had better clear out at once― and I did."

"Then what is the position now?" "The position is 'where you was,' or worse, because this won't make it any easier to get a job. The position is just this― that I am a irecently-admitted solicitor who has chucked his first managing clerkship, and whose total capital and credit amount to somewhere about five pounds. If you were a sensible girl you would cry off our engagement."

"Sense was never my strong point," she answered, with a confident §mile. "But what about the Morton partnership? Is there really no chance?"

"My dear girl; you forget the condition. Where can I get a thousand pounds in two months, 'or at all,'. as we say in pleadings?"

Her optimism was not to be damped.

"Something else is sure to turn up. I feel certain you are going to get on― by hook or by crook."

"It would have been by crook if I had stayed with Bosford and Tunning."

Her manner sobered for a moment to a sweet seriousness.

"Don't worry, dear boy; you know I would wait for you all my life." He thanked her with his eyes, and she added, with a quick return to her lighter mood, "But meanwhile, you must let me talk pots and pans and curtains, and settle what color the drawingroom carpet is to be, and where the piano is to go."

The waitress came to remove the tea tray and replaced the chess board Lena began to setupthe pieces.

"Let me see if I can remember where they have to go. I wish we had as much money as you can play chess."

"You stole that joke from Punch, Jack criticised.

"Well, I never pretended I got it honestly," she retorted; "but if you want to come the lily-white saint over the firm you may send an acknowledgment."

Her merry spirit triumphed over the blankest of prospects, and for an hour they gave themselves up to the weaving of day dreams. None the less, it was with an anxious mind that he returned a little later to the same table, after they had made an affectionate parting in the shadow of a doorway, and he had seen her safely into her homeward-bound omnibus.

The place afforded as cheap food and shelter as was to be obtained elsewhere, and was convenient enough for a mental review of the position in which he found himself. He must make enough money to marry Lena. That was the one point settled, and his features set to a strong, almost fierce, look of determination as he tackled the question of how the resolve was to be carried out. The death of his father, little more than a month before, had thrown him on his own resources, with his solicitor's qualification as his only asset of value. He had sought counsel from his father's old friend and legal adviser, "Cast-iron" Morton, who carried inflexibility of dealing ito thd point of crankiness, and had never been known to fail by a jot in his undertakings or to bate by a tittle his claims. His pronouncement on Jack's case had been terse and characteristic.

"I owe soniething to your father. I should like the luxury of a partner with some brains. If, in the next three months, you can come to me with a thousand pounds in your hand, .I can afford to take you. Otherwise you must shift for yourself."

And Jack's first shift for himself had been the association with the firm of Bosford and Tunning, that had been severed so abruptly that morning.

The chess pieces remained as Lena had set them up at tea time. His eyes were fixed upon them absently, while his mind was busy with the question whether Morton mignt be induced to modify the impossible condition of the thousand pounds when he became aware that someone had taken the vacant chair at the opposite side of his little marble topped tab)le. As he glanced up it caused him only a mild degree of surprise to observe, from his complexion and cast of features, that the newcomer was of Indian nationality, for chess is the most cosmopolitan of games and London not the least so of cities.

"May I request the favour of a game with you?" the Indian asked, speaking with some formality, but no markedly foreign intonation, and bowing courteously as he waved a hand to indicate the chess board. His eyes were fixed on Jack's face with a curious intensity, and he awaited his answer with an earnestness of manner that seemed hardly natural to so slight an occasion. Chess was Jack's favourite form of recreation, and it was an advertisement outside of that intellectual game as one of the inducements to enter that had led him to become an occasional customer of the cafe. He was always ready to play, and the nationality of the stranger would add some extra interest to the encounter.

"I shall be glad to play. Shall we draw for first move?"

"Will you begin, as you have the White?" the Indian offered, politely. "Do we play for a stake?"

"If you prefer to, and so long as it is only a small one." pro imagined that the Indian had most probably visited the cafe before, and would propose the stake, customary among its frequenters, of a shilling. Instead, he drew from his finger a ring, and pointed, as he laid it on the table, to the plain signet ring, of small value, that Jack wore on his little finger.

"Shall we play for our rings? A less ignoble wager than for money."

Jack looked in surprise at the ring and the dark-skinned stranger. He held his knuckles towards him. "Look, the stakes are not equal. My ring is not worth thirty shillings, while yours, even if It were paste―"

The Indian drew himself up, and there was a flash of offended pride from his eyes.

"The meanest servant of the Nawab Jahandar would scorn to wear a sham, and I, Hakim Yussuf, am among his most honoured."

The hauteur of his outraged dignity looked as real as did the fiery glints from the stone of his ring, and, if shams, the one was as masterly as the other.

Jack hesitated for a few moments, and then laid his own ring on the table beside the other. His mettle was roused by the challenge, and he played well enough to risk a chance encounter with a stranger.

The Indian played cautiously, defending himself with a stubborn skill that taxed all his opponent's resources of attack. Some twenty moves or so were played on each side without any tangible advantage to either. Then the Hakim misjudged a critical position. and Jack found his opportunity to carry the Black entrenchment by assault, forcing mate a few moves later with an elegant sacrifice of a rook.

He disclosed his triumph with a polite commonplace on the luck of the game, but the Hakim seemed not in the least chagrined by his defeat. He bowed a graceful surrender and pushed the rings across the table.

"Wallahu d'alam! Truly you are a great player, and Allah knows best. The loss of my ring is a small matter but the service you were born to do me is great, and the reward I offer no mean one."

"I born to do you a service! I never met you before in my life. How can I do you any service?"

"How else than by your great skill in the greatest of games? It is written on your forehead." Again he fixed Jack's eyes with his deep inscrutable gaze. "You will come with me to the house of my master, the Nawab Jahandar, and for this night the skill with which Allah has gifted you shall he used in his service. I swear by the Prophet there is no danger, but the rest I can better explain later."

The request was a strange one, and the whole situation entirely incomprehensible to Jack's common sense. In other circumstances the touch of the romantic in his nature might have inclined him to take the risks of the adventure, but the thought of Lena and of the interview with "Cast Iron" Morton, which he intended for the next day, restrained him.

"I can't imagine how you think I could be of any use to you, and in any ease I cannot come." His eyes sought the figure of a little man seated at the far side of. the room― a Polish Jew, and a real master of the game, to whose instructions he owed his own proficiency.

"If first class chess is all you want, Levinsky over there can give me pawn and two, and I should think he would be ready to help you at a cheaper tariff than for diamond rings."

The Hakim shook his head. "Allah knows best. It is written on your forehead."

"I am sorry I am not able to oblige you," Jack answered, rather stiffly. He found it difficult to conceive how his knowledge of chess could be applied to the service of his late antagonist; and if there was not a mere pretence, hiding some darker motive, why should he refuse to enlist Levinsky? There was an uncomfortable mystery about the business, and he felt inclined to insist on returning the ring.

He said good evening, and crossed the room to where Levinsky was sitting. For a short space the Hakim stood, as though, deliberating whether to offer some fresh inducement, and then went out.

"You know all about gems, Levinsky; tell me whether that is a real diamond."

The little Jew's eyes glittered almost as brightly as the facets of the stone that he held gloatingly in his fingers.

"Real? Yes, it is real. It is magnificent." He turned it slowly to watch the sparkle of the coloured lights. "It is yours?"

"I have just won it from the Indian you saw me playing with."

Levinsky looked up with a little, cunning smile, and his fingers still played with the ring. "You old rascal, I believe you think I stole it," Jack remarked with a laugh. "It was all perfectly fair. What do you suppose I ought to get if I sold it?"

"If you part with it for less than a hundred and fifty you will be swindled."

ON leaving the cafe half an hour later, Jack turned down one of the streets that lead to the Thames Embankment. It was not the shortest way to his lodging, but the weather had cleared up and the fresh air was pleasant. A hundred and fifty pounds! He must not count his chickens too soon, but he could find no flaw in his title to the ring that was hidden in his safest pocket, and he knew Levinsky to possess a knowledge of precious stones that made his estimate likely to be fairly accurate. True, a hundred and fifty pounds would not buy the Morton partnership, but it made a world of difference, all the same. It gave a respite from immediate necessity, before the expiry of which he might hope to find employment that would bring marriage a good deal nearer than it had seemed that morning as he slammed the door of Bosford and Tunning's office behind him. And Lena's delight when he should tell her!

He was in a mood to look at the bright side of things, and he reflected that it was no small compensation for being out of a job that to-morrow he would be free to catch her on her daily walk across the Park to her morning's work―

The train of pleasant anticipations was snapped suddenly. In place of the illuminated clock face of Westminster and the whisky advertisement on the south side of the river came a sudden darkness, a clinging compression about his head and shoulders. He tried to fling out his arms, but they were imprisoned. He tried to shout, but, though his mouth was free, his voice was stifled in narrow confinement, as though he had awakened in a coffin to find himself a victim of premature burial. But he still could breathe, and the immediate fear of death by suffocation was relieved.

He felt himself lifted off his legs and laid down again on something soft. Had something fallen on him from Charing Cross bridge? Or a gas main exploded and deprived him of the senses of sight and hearing? Hardly, or he would have felt some pain. A sort of gurgle, something like that which precedes a voice through a telephone, sounded in one ear, and then the words, "I swear by the Prophet, you are in no danger."

It was the voice of the Hakim, and the same words that he had used in the cafe. Jack made another effort to use his limbs and voice, and then lay still to await what else might be in store. Presently; from the jolt and occasional impulse of his body to one side as they took the corners, he realised that he must be in a motor car. This phase lasted but a few minutes only and then he felt that he was being lifted out of the car and, as he surmised, carried into some house.

Then, almost as suddenly as it had been imposed, the restraint was removed from his limbs and senses. A dazzle of bright light made it difficult to take in quickly the new surroundings. He recovered his effective vision just in time to see an Indian servant leave the room, and carry with him some odd-shaped article that might have been made of steel and leather, the ingenious contrivance, as he guessed, by which his recent capture had been effected. Facing the chair in which he had been placed sat the Hakim, with unmoved countenance.

Jack stared at him in bewilderment. The violence of the sensations through which he had just passed had deprived him, for the time, of his full grip on reality. Keen resentment at the outrage he had been subjected to would, he felt vaguely, have been natural to the occasion; but, in fact, a pleasant sense of physical comfort, a curiosity devoid of apprehension to learn what the next turn of events would be, were his dominant sensations.

It was the Hakim who spoke first.

"I imp ore you to accept my most humble apologies." HI accompanied the words with a bow that might have swept away a hundred insults. "If you can-stifle your resentment till you have heard my explanation, I ,hall offer you substantial amends."

"Your action does seem to call for some sort of justification," Jack answered, with mild irony.

"Legally it has none whatever," the Indian answered calmly. "You have a case against me for assault and false imprisonment so clear that I should not think of resisting it. So much of the law of tort I can still remember from the days when I was a student of the Inner Temple."

"Then why, in the name of all you hold sacred, have you dragged me into this Arabian Nights' adventure?"

"You name it well," the HakIm said, with a smile. "You may well feel that your experiences would have been more appropriate to the Bagdad of Haroun al Raschid than to the present day and Park Lane. That is where you are, in the house of the Nawab Jahandar and― let me assure you again― in no kind of danger."

He rose from his chair and, in proof that his intentions were not inhospitable, placed by Jack's side a small table holding fruit and cigarettes, as though it had been set out in expectation of a guest. There seemed to be no better course than to accept the strange situation at its face value. Jack lighted a cigarette and the Hakim began his explanation.

"I, Hakim Yussu, owe my position of physician and secret, counsellor to the Nawab to what poor skill I possess in the game of chess― and now the same course threatens my destruction."

" Your destruction? I should have rather thought it threatened mine," Jack exclaimed, remembering that it was his favourite hobby that had led him into his present position. The Hakim again reassured him, and continued:

"The Nawab is devoted to the game with a passion that, perhaps, you cannot understand― that perhaps only the fiery sun of our Indian climate could engender. And the Khan of Zamin― my master's great rival in politics, as his ancestors were in war― is as mad, if you call it so, in the same way. To either a triumph on the board is as glorious as a victory in battle and the stakes they play for are sometimes as great. To-night the deciding game is to be finished in a contest between the two Courts for the surrender of a coveted bit of territory on their side against a Royal palace on ours. No mean stakes, you will concede. And, further, my own position― perhaps my life― hangs on the issue."

"Your life? On the win or loss of a mere game of chess!"

"It sounds fantastic," the Hakim admitted, "but 'East is East and West is West,' as your Kipling says. What may seem incredible in Park-lane may be commonplace in the realm of the Nawab Jahandar. It is a condition of the match that members of the household on either side may consult as to the moves that should be played. Yesterday at one point in the game that remains unfinished, the Nawab said, 'We will take their knight'. But I said, 'May I be your ransom― If we take their knight they will defeat us, but if we take the pawn there is a sure road to victory.' The Nawab insisted that his move was the right one, and I, for the sake of the great stakes was obstinate to take 'the pawn, till at last he flushed with anger and said, 'Be it so, then. You shall finish the game without my help― to your reward and honour if you win, to your disgrace if you lose.' And thus it is that I am threatened with destruction, for I had overlooked a manoeuvre of the other side. I can find no answer to, shat I foresee will be their next move. Unless you can, it may well be that my days in the sun are numbered."

"But how," Jack added, "did you come to pitch upon me as the one to help you? There may be a hundred better players in London, and one of them, Levinsky, I pointed out to you in the cafe."

Hakim Yussuf paused for a moment, embarrassed to confess to what the Englishman might .think a foolishness.

"It was thus, though to your Western mind it may seem idle superstition. This evening I thought I would visit the Inner Temple, where, as I have told you, I once was a law student. As I passed along the Strand, wondering how if Allah willed, my fate might be averted, the word 'chess' stood suddenly before my eyes. I entered, feeling that I was guided from above. I found you sitting there. In front of you was an empty chair and the pieces set in readiness, as though you expected me. Wallahu d'alam. It was surely the guiding of Allah."

"You would have done better to get Levinsky," Jack answered, with a touch of scepticism. He smiled as he. remembered that it was Lena who had set up the pieces. It added a whimsical touch to events that his lover's hand should have fired such a train of adventure. Yet, after all, the Indian might be right. Jack was not so materially minded as to doubt that the ways of Providence― or Allah― were strange, or that they might be working for his own as well as the other's good.

"Your method of seeking my help was, to put it gently, unconventional. But, since you think I can give it, I am willing to try."

"Then I hereby appoint you, as is within my authority, a member for the time being of the Nawab's household." As he spoke he held in his hand a seal with an inscription engraved in Arabia characters on the stone.

"Here is your firman, your badge of office. You need only show it if your presence should be questioned, and afterwards, if you care to, you may. keep it as a memento." He presented the seal to Jack.

"Your salary for the one night of your employment will be five hundred guineas, as much, I should think as you would get from a jury if you took proceedings. You will decide the moves that we shall play, and if you win the amount shall be doubled."

"And if I lose?"

"If you lose we take five hundred and we cry quits. But― for me― I must bow to the will of Allah."

BEFORE a low table, inlaid with exquisite workmanship in squares of gold and ebony, Jack Burnside sat striving to keep his mind concentrated on the ivory pieces. At his shoulder was Hakim Yussuf, and to one side, on a seat raised on a sort of dais to command a better view of the board, the Nawab Jahandar sat grimly watching the progress of the struggle, but offering no comment or suggestion on the play. That was Hakim's responsibility. He sat there as impassive and motionless as an image of Fate, awaiting the issue. At a similar table at the other end of the long room sat another group-the camp of the Khan of Zamin― and at long intervals, for the play was slow, an attendant marched solemnly from one board to repeat on the other each move as it was played. In forces on the board the Nawab, for whose side Jack played the Black, had some advantage― a rook against a knight on the balance and two extra pawns. But the position was intricate, and the Black king was threatened with an attack that appeared irresistible― as the following diagram will show.

It was a case where desperate risks must be ventured. Jack played his queen to a square where it could be cap lured for nothing-a Greek gift, for, if taken, he could give mate in two. It was too much to expect that the other side should fall into the shallow trap, but there was nothing better and a move had to be played. The Khan and his advisers took a long time to consider their reply, and when at last the attendant approached to register their answer on Jack's board his pulses beat quicker in the suspense of the moment. The dark fingers hovered for an instant or two over the pieces, and then Jack. found that the fatal gift was rejected. The White queen was moved to a square where she threatened mate on the next move. Jack leant forward once more to the board, and for half an hour, it might have been strained every faculty of his mind to find an answer. A check seemed the only way to avert the impending disaster, and even that, so far as he could see would only delay the inevitable end. In desperation he gave the check. It involved an offer of a rook, but again the Khan refused. The White king was moved to a place of safety, to a square where he could only be checked by the sacrifice of a rook for nothing. The checks must be kept up.

Jack accepted the inexorable logic of the case. His second rook followed the first to destruction. He leant back in his chair, when he had played the move, for a brief rest from the strain of calculation.

To his hard wrought brain there came a curious sense of unreality in his surroundings. Those Indians over there, their dark faces fixed solemnly on the little ivory figures of the chess-men, were they real? That idol-like figure of a grim Nawab, was he really part of a sane, substantial world? Or were they all parts merely of some dream-like delusion? Was he, Jack Burnside, solicitor in search of a job, really playing chess for an Indian palace and a man's life?

The attendant approached and removed a rook from the board. The sense of unreality was brushed away. Fantastic as the situation was, it was real enough, and his personal stake in the matter the Morton partnership and Lena's happiness. Spurred by the thought, he bent his mind to a final, straining effort. His brain responded. It seemed gifted with a flashing, unwonted clearness. Through a long series of checks his mental vision followed the movements of the pieces, till his pulses throbbed and fluttered at a sudden glimpse of victory. He could force a brilliant mate. Twice again he ran through the series of moves to make quite certain before, with a trembling hand, he dared to play the queen.

"Zaza wa Kadar." The last move had startled the Nawab from his assumed composure. He was glaring at the board with a light of malignant ferocity in his dark eyes.

"What does he say?" Jack asked the Hakim.

" 'Fate and destiny are against him.' He thinks we are surely mad to throw away our queen."

"Tell him that in seven more moves we shall mate them."

"Is it truly so?" the Hakim asked, and Jack nodded.

"Wallahu d'alam. It was surely the guiding of Allah."

The remaining moves on the part of White were practically forced and the game went more quickly. Jack's eyes followed the attendant as he crossed the room to communicate a move to the other side. He had exchanged a pawn that had reached the eight square for a knight and not a queen. He could see from their startled gestures and flurried consultations that the reply had taken them by surprise, and, presently, that they realised its fatal import in the game. The attendant did not return. Instead the Khan of Zamin himself rose from his seat and, with the dignity of a conquered monarch advanced to present to the Nawab Jahandar the White king in token of surrender.

LENA entered the Park at the Marble Arch, and a little further did her face lighted up with a gleam of happy recognition, as she caught sight of Jack Burnside coming towards her.

"Why, Jack! How perfectly lovely. I never thought of meeting you. But what have you been doing? You look as though you had been up all night, and, my dear boy, what have you done to your hat?"

"You've guessed it on me. I have been up all night. No, you needn't look dismayed. Everything is all right. A thousand times more than all right, Lena darling. But you have given me a time!"

"I have?"

"Yes, you. Wasn't it your hand that set up the pieces on the board?"

She looked puzzled, but she could see from his face that the mystification was a pleasant one.

"Tell me at once what you have been doing. Tell me where you have been and where you are going. Tell me in three words or we part for ever."

"I have been breakfasting with the Nawab Jahandar and the Khan of Zamin, and I am on my way to the City to arrange a deed of partnership with a man called Morton. But I see you don't believe the first word of my story, so I shan't tell you the rest."

"If you can't help being a tantalising, teasing pig, I suppose you can't. I wish you a very good morning, Mr. Burnside."

She turned away with a mock air of displeasure and walked to the nearest chair under the trees. He drew another chair up beside hers and sat down.

"If you can't help being a dear snappy, beautiful pig. I suppose you can't. But look at this."

He put an envelope into her hand and watched her expression of wonder as she examined the contents.

"One thousand and fifty pounds in genuine Bank of England notes, my golden goose! And a diamond ring and― wait a moment― you must look at this before I begin."

He gave her the seal that had been presented to him by Harim Yussuf.

"What are the words, Jack? What do they mean? What does the whole affair mean?"

"The words are 'Wallahu d'alam.' They mean 'Allah knows best.' I rather think that in the meaning of the whole affair as well."

____________________

8: "If"

Barry Pain

Daily Post (Hobart) 22 May 1909

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN seemed singularly out of place in a train that was going through Italy as fast as it could, he was aggressively English. The Mansion House should have been his background. He had the holiday cheeriness of one who has worked well. He was travelling alone, and was to join his wife and child in Cairo.

At luncheon he sat down at one of the little tables opposite to a younger man, gaunt and hungry-eyed, whose hair was already turning grey, though he was not yet out of the thirties. This younger man was also travelling alone.

"Can't get any good beer here," said the old gentleman, sadly. "Never much fancied that light kind of stuff. According to my doctor, I never ought to touch anything of the kind, but I don't take much notice of these doctors."

"No?" said the younger man with a rather wistful smile. "When I was fifteen months old the doctors said I should be dead In three hours."

"Quite so," said the old man. "And fortunately they were wrong."

"I don't think I should put it like that," said the younger man. "As a matter of fact, I don't bother much about it, but, on the whole, I rather wish they'd been right."

"What? You one of these pessimists? You surprise me. (Got me a little more of that beef, waiter.) Mind you, I can understand pessimism under certain circumstances. If a man's in bad health, if he's broken financially, if he's suffering under some severe bereavement or disappointment or disgrace, then naturally he takes a dark view of things. But the average man in an average position ought to be cheerful. What a lot there is to enjoy. Look at that now." He indicated the Italian landscape sliding past the big windows.

Weil," said his companion, "my health is excellent, I have more money than I need, I have no near ties, and no bereavement. I have no ambition, and consequently no disappointment, for disgrace, well, I happen to be of the solicitors that have not yet been struck off the rolls."

"Then, my dear chap." said the old gentleman, "you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. However, a holiday will buck you up probably. You'll be singing a very different tune before you're back in England again."

"I don't think so." said the young man. "I am not exactly on a holiday, for I am not a practising solicitor. I am not even sure that I am coming back to England."

"You should— you must," said the old gentleman. "There is no country in the world like it. Where will you to find a place that has half the advantages!"

The young man laughed.

"To be absolutely candid," he said, "I don't know where I am going. I suppose I shall make up my mind when reach Port Said. You can get to lots of places from Port Said. I dare say they haven't half the advantages of England, but then I never did care much about advantages."

"Bless my soul! What on earth do you care about, then? I point out this beautiful scenery to you, and you sniff at it."

The young man laughed. "Oh, I didn't mean to do that," he said. "It is very beautiful, but the sight of what is very beautiful never makes me cheerful. There are lots of things I care about in their degree.

"It is charming, for instance," he said, "to find a pleasant companion for this little trip across the Continent. I don't like solitude a bit, though I get a good deal of it."

"The pleasure is mutual." said the old gentleman a little awkwardly. He wiped his mouth. "If I might you a prescription," he said, "that would cure your complaint, I could do in one word."

"Would the word be work?"

"Yes," said the old gentleman, a little disappointed. "That was my idea."

Again the young man laughed.

"I've done lots of work in my time," he said. "But it wasn't any good."

He lingered over his coffee after the old gentleman had gone. Through windows he saw the strained and twisted olive trees, a scamper of black goats in the long grass, and just beyond, the intense blue of the Adriatic.

II.

In the shade of the olive yard lay a sulky, ragged, beautiful, black-haired girl. Yesterday she bad been beaten by her father. To morrow it was likely that she would be beaten again. Nominally, she was looking after the goats, but they had little of her attention, for she also had found work of no use.

It was not given to her to see the beauty around her with a stranger's eyes. It had always been about her; she had been born there. Her eyes were fixed rather on the express hurrying on its way to Brindisi. That was, for her, where the poetry lay— in getting away and finding the thing one wanted.

She wore a string of glass beads round her neck. With a petulant movement She snapped the string and let them fall Into the grass. The boy who had given them to her should not. see her wearing them. He might hope too much. Then she remembered her little sister at home, and! began picking up the beads. They would do for playthings for the child.

III.

That was all that happened. But if by a chance that train had stopped, and, stepping down from it the young man with the hungry eyes had passed under the olive trees and found that sulky, beautiful girl, there would have been two very happy lives— two lives that came to little or nothing.

_____________________

9: Through Toil and Tribulation

Guy Boothby

Australian Town and Country Journal 3 October 1906

I am deeply desirous of inflicting pain on one person. If Barbara Grant Hinton is above ground, I pray of her to read this story, a hate me the more for it.

I am perfectly aware that ninety-nine people out of every hundred will call me mad for attempting to hold a girl in England responsible for a lonely grave in the great desert of Australia, yet in spite of their opposition, I contend that I am right. Judge, therefore, between us.

It was a bright gusty morning in February on which Dr. Godfrey Halkett saw Miss Hinton for the first time, and they met on the stairs of Hooker's Building, Little Primble-street, Birmingham. The one was on professional business, the other district visiting.

Now Hooker's Building is a common lodging house of the worst type, and Little Primble street is unsavoury both in a moral and a sanitary sense. On reaching the sunshine on the third door, Dr. Halkett saw that her eyes were large and grey, and that she had a pathetic trick of lifting them. So he said she was beautiful, and likened her illogically to St Cecilia. She wore a neat tailor-made frock with a long boa of soft fur, and as she walked her bangles jingled musically.

Her poor were ungrateful; they could not appreciate frocks and gold bangles in other people; they wanted money and coals and few more insignificant trifles of that kind.

Halkett's admiration grew, and it was unique in every way. She was comparatively rich; he was desperately poor, and, though the future in Harley-street was definitely arranged, in the present he had to content himself with two rooms over a pastrycook's shop in Bath Row. He was very often miserable, for poor folk are not lucrative patients, and board and lodging accounts have to be paid regularly.

Then he fell in love, and forgot all such minor matters.

After they had met half a dozen times, Miss Hinton wrote him a delicately-scented little note, inviting him in her mother's name to dinner. He furbished up his threadbare dress suit, and went.

During the evening she sang some pathetic German folk songs, and he listened with his heart in his mouth, for he was passionately fond of music. He said her voice reminded him of his dead mother's, and her kindness completed the conquest her singing had begun.

He walked home with the world in his watch pocket, to the music of clarions and hautboys and fell asleep with the refrain of her last song running in his ears

Just a song at twilight, when tho lights are low,

And the flickering shadows softly come and go.

Though the heart be weary, sad the way and long

Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song.

The week following she arranged a tea meeting in the parish school-room on behalf of her mother's clothing club, and consulted him religiously on every item of the programme. He could not be expected to understand how dangerous she really was― his eyes warped his judgment.

They were to sing "I Would That My Love" together, and after two rehearsals he began to grasp what heaven really meant. The tea-meeting and concert were tremendous successes, am when young Dr. Halkett and "our" Miss Barbara finished their duet the applause was deafening.

The doctor made a pretty little speech a the end of the programme, attributing all the success of the entertainment to Miss Hinton.

At the churchyard gate, just as the moot was peeping over the house-tops, Godfrey Halkett asked the girl if she would be his wife. She cried on his shoulder and timidly whispered, "Yes."

He asked if she would wait three years for him? She said she would wait a hundred. Next day he spent £10 out of his savings on a ring, and she gave him a gold locket, containing her photograph, in exchange.

The first month of their engagement was pure unalloyed bliss; then Halkett announced his intention of going to Australia, where there was more scope for a young man. She cried for two days after his decision was made public, and made him promise over and over again to be true to her, vowing that whatever happened she would follow him in three years.

He sailed in the Currajong from Tilbury, and Barbara and her mother went down to see him off.

It was a thick, drizzly, miserable day in May, and they were very unhappy― his fiancée in particular. She brought all sorts of little knick-knacks to hang in his cabin, and cried incessantly as she put them up.

Then the bell sounded for friends to leave the ship, and they said goodbye behind the smoke stack. Halkett watched the tender drop astern with tears streaming down his face.

ON ARRIVAL in Adelaide he set to work. It was an uphill fight, but he was in love, and certain well-thumbed letters helped him to persevere. The gold on the locket round his neck began to tarnish, but little he cared for that― he said it was a sign of constancy.

At the end of the first year he was able to report that his prospects had improved. Because he was so much in love he could not see that his sweetheart's letters had lost something of their old ring.

At the end of tho second year, by dint of denying himself every luxury and putting by every halfpenny he could scrape together, he was able to purchase a small practice.

At the end of the third, and when he was doing well enough to risk matrimony, he received a letter announcing Mrs. Hinton's death.

Any other man would have found in this the direct hand of Providence, but he was differently constituted. Cabling his sympathies, he implored Barbara to come to him, and she replied announcing her departure.

No one will ever know how he struggled through the next six weeks. For my own part I believe he was mad. He sang the girl's praises all day long, and bored everyone with her photograph, saying, "That's the woman who waited three-years for me. God bless her!"

Because she loved flowers he rented a charming house on North Terrace overlooking the Botanical Gardens. He was able to afford a nice pair of greys and a victoria, so purchased them with a view to her comfort.

He never thought of himself― everything was for her.

Then the Cuzco was signalled from Cape Borda, and he asked me to go down with him to meet her. I went against my better judgment.

Towards midday she steamed up to the anchorage, and we went off.

I shall never forget that launch trip if I live to be a hundred. Halkett was thoroughly off his head. He laughed hysterically, he trembled, he did everything but behave like a rational being. When we got alongside he dashed up the gangway without waiting for me, so I let him 'gang his ain gait' and made for the smoking-room.

Five minutes later someone clutched me by the arm. It was Halkett; his face was the colour of dirty zinc, his lips were bloodless, his eyes glared horribly.

"Good heavens, man!" I cried, "what on earth's the matter?"

"Come away," he answered; "come away from this accursed ship! Oh, man, man, take me away before I do something desperate!"

The ship's doctor and myself saw him down the gangway to the pier, and we steamed ashore. I got him to the Pier Hotel, where he drank brandy enough to kill two men, and then said

"I suppose your curiosity's at work?"

It was, but I didn't say so. I proposed a game of billiards instead.

"Confound your billiards!" he cried. "She's thrown me over, old man, thrown me over for a titled fop she's met on board. Ha, ha! Isn't it funny? isn't it good? And Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed but a few days― but a few days, mark you, for he loved her. Do you understand me? You, there! For he loved her― ha, ha!― he loved her after working seven years for her― and she didn't jilt him!"

I QUOTE FROM the diary of a famous explorer:

Friday, December 29th. Lat.―. Long.―.

Broke camp at daybreak. The black boy, Rocca, missing. Waited three hours, but no sign; must push on. Our party now reduced to Halkett, Berkley, Wiora, and myself. All very hopeless. Still the awful desert, interminable sand, spinifex, and blue sky. Not a vestige of herbage or sign of water. Four days since we filled the leather water-bags, and now there is only one left. Heat at midday, 140deg. Country very sparsely timbered with myall, casuarinas, and white gums. Always spinifex.

Berkley very weak, Dr. Halkett anxious. The latter's, tenderness is more than womanly. Camped at sundown. 16 miles done. All very footsore.

Saturday, December 30th. Lat.―. Long.―.

Poor Berkley died an hour before dawn― unconscious for the last two hours― general weakness and falling powers. Another victim of this awful desert. Buried him in a sand hill. God rest his soul! Broke camp at midday; water reduced to four pints, no sign of more. A few crows following us. Wiora knocked up; had to abandon him, poor fellow!

Sunday, December 31st. Lat.―. Long.―.

New Year's Eve. God help us, we are In a piteous plight! Still the same sandy plains on all sides, the burning sun above and red hot sand beneath. Only two pints of water left, and then―

Halkett still the same kind soul; the man's pluck is nothing short of marvellous. He told me his trouble to-day. What a place for confidence! At midday agreed to separate in search of water. Halkett goes north-west, and I continue on in our present direction. Wonder if we are destined to meet again. A sad, sad New Year's Eve.

Monday, January 1st, 18-. New Year's Day.Lat.―. Long.―.

Water at last. Thank God for all his mercies! The rescue party, under the command of Whitmore, found me before 9 o'clock. They have been on our tracks since Saturday.

After filling the waterbags we set out to find Halkett. We followed his tracks north-west, and at nightfall came upon him lying beside a dry rock-hole and beneath a spreading Leichhardt tree― he was unconscious. We did our best to revive him, and ultimately succeeded. But he was a dying man, and wandered in his talk, imagining himself at home.

Poor follow!― poor Halkett!― the bravest, the most patient of our party.

Looking up at tho stars, with his right hand clasping a locket he always wore, he whispered

"Poor little Barbara, I wonder it she remembers!"

I tried to comfort him, but it was not needed. He seemed quite resigned, and only asked me to sing a song, a little ballad of which we were both very fond. It is well known, and the refrain runs

Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low,

And the flickering shadows softly come and go.

Though the heart be weary, sad the way and long,

Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song.

As I finished, he said softly, "It will soon be over now."

A few moments later― "God bless you, dear old friend! Good-bye!'

He was silent for nearly five minutes, and then, with a little sigh, he said:

"Though the heart be weary-weary, Barbara; very― very― weary!"

He was dead.

_______________________

10: The Eldest Born

"Ouida"

Maria Louise Rame, 1839–1908

Telegraph (Brisbane) 13 August 1904

"MANESCO!" they shouted to him across the fields. He hated the name, but they never gave him any other. As nicknames oftimes do, it wholly supplanted and replaced his own name received at baptism.

"Manesco" means handy, capable, adroit in the use of the fingers; and the sting of it lay for him in the fact that he was not and never could be this, because he had only one hand. It was cruel nickname, given in the merciless mocking sport of children; and it clung to him as unkindness always does, like a horsefly on a wound. He should nave been used to it, if time makes usage, but though so familiar it was always hateful to him. What had he done that he should have been born without his right hand?

There are people who are very able in the use of their left hand, but he had never become so. He was always awkward at his work. Some one told him that if he went to a great city, surgeons would fit on to him a 'mechanical' hand which would he almost as good as a real one. But he had never been to any city, and he did not know where to go, and he supposed that such a thing would undoubtedly be dear and cost much money, and so he never gave it any serious thought. Nature had made him with one hand, or God, or the Madonna, or somebody had done so. He might have been born blind. That would have been worse. Yes, he thought it would be worse if he were unable to see what he did, and what was around him. He would be more helpless, and lie would never have the pleasure of looking on a pretty girl's face.

There were very pretty girls in his valley. He was twenty years of age, the eldest son of his father and mother, poor peasants, never likely, to better their condition in this world, dwelling in a vale of the Veneto in a tangled greenery of mulberry vine, walnut, pumpkin, and poplar, a conical thatched roof over their toads and a glimpse of Adriatic sea between two hills a few miles to the east.

It was a hard fate that had made their eldest son one-handed. An accident in his infancy had maimed him, and rendered him in a great measure useless. He was well made, well grown, good looking, with auburn hair, dark eyes, and a classic profile. He would have been the incarnation of health and strength, but he was mutilated. A one-handed labourer is like a lame horse, a hamstrung mule. Few are the labours of the field that can be done with one hand. Even if it had been the left hand which had been lost he might have done better, but with the right one gone, how could he reap, or mow, or bind sheaves, or tie up vines, or string up maize, or chop wood?

All he could do was to tend the cattle and draw and carry water and give his brethren a sorry lame assistance. He was a strong, proud, virile youth, and his inferiority hurt him at every hour, and when the people shouted to him that nickname of Manesco his blood boiled in his veins. When the boys and men, used it he ran into them, head downward, battering like a ram, but when the girls and children shouted it, what could he do? The insults of the weak must he endured.

The worst of it was that this name had so displaced his own, which was Ubaldo, that even his brothers used it. His parents alone never wounded his ear by its irony. His mother often tried to console him, but with little effect.

"Think, dear," she said often, "misfortune it is, no doubt; but then it will  spare you a greater. They will not take you for the army."

And then he always, gave an angry snarl like a dog who loses a bone, for, just because to was ineligible, he wanted to be a soldier; just because he could not fire a musket, or draw a sabre, or ram a charge into a cannon, he pined for that which others cursed. And when he repined, or reviled his fate, his poor mother looked at him with piteous eyes of appeal which had no power on him.

"It is a pity," said a sergeant to him once, ''you would have been fine flesh for powder."

And the horrible brutality of the expression never struck him, he was absorbed in his observation of a band of conscripts who had that day passed the medical visit and reeled half drunk down the wide steep street, arm in arm, some shouting, some singing, some sobbing. Why could he not have had the privilege of being food for powder? The only privilege to which the poor are entitled!

"What maimed you?" asked the sergeant, looking at the stump which nothing was ever done to conceal, a healed bone fully displayed by the loose hempen sleeve of the shirt.

"An accident when I was little," he replied.

"But what kind of accident?"

"I never asked," he answered.

The sergeant laughed. "What dolts they are, these countrymen. The will of God, eh?" he said aloud, with a laugh, for he was no believer in those superstitions, and be had taken a glass or two of fiery liquor at the drinking shops before which the cart of Ubaldo was standing.

"No doubt," said Ubaldo, humbly and sadly, as he crossed himself. Then to got up on the shaft of his cart, gave a stout to his bullocks which they understood, the ponderous wheels turned, the wood creaked, the yoke groaned, and the wagon went slowly on up the street, the youth holding the guiding ropes in his left hand.

He had to call at a stable and have a load of manure piled up on his wagon, which was done by the ostler and took some time; it would be thought by peasants to be great waste of an occasion to let an ox-cart return empty. It was early evening when he went back along cross roads with deep wheel-ruts in them, which were overhung by pollarded oaks and nut-trees covered with wild clematis and convolvulus, and choked by myrtle and barberry and bay.

The road was beautiful, but he had no sense of that. He was only conscious of the horseflies stinging his throat and eyelids, and the mosquitoes with which the air was thick. They covered the hides of tho poor oxen and buzzed in their dilated nostrils, and on their lolling tongues and their parched mouths; but he did not think of them; they were no more to him than the wood and iron of the wagon.

It was late when he reached his home; one of his young brothers took the wearied animals to their wretched stalls, and Ubaldo sat down on the stone bench outside the door to eat the mess of beans and oil which had been saved for him as his portion of the family supper.

He ate hungrily and drank thirstily of the spring water which was bitter from the roots of trees over which it passed, and full of small flies; but he did not trouble about such little things as these. When the poor meal was over, lie went outside the porch and sat down on a bench facing the distant sea. The moon rose early, being near its full. It shone large and golden between the branches of the poplar trees. He sat still in its light, thinking, thinking of what the sergeant in the town had said. He looked at his wrist in tho moonlight

"Mother!" he called aloud.

"Aye?" she answered from the kitchen, where she was putting freshly-cut vegetables in baskets to be taken in to the town at dawn; the others had gone to their beds; her husband only being still at work, in the potato patch.

"How did I lose my hand?" he cried to her. "You must know."

"Lord, boy, why go back on that misfortune?" she answered, her head and shoulders bent over the skips of vegetables.

"Why was it?" he asked.

"What makes you think of it now?"

"A man asked me. I felt a fool not I to know. He said it was a rare pity that I was no good for the army."

"Then he was an army-man himself, I warrant."

"Well, he was; and he said I should I have made good food for powder."

He repeated this with pride, holding it to be an admiring compliment.

"The brute-toast!" cried his mother from the interior.

"Nay, he thought well of me," said Ubaldo, " and he was a fine fellow who knows ; he had medals on; and they said he had been in the war with the blacks. Mother, tell me, how did I lose my hand ?"

"An accident when you were little."

"What accident?"

She did not reply.

"Come here, mother," he cried to her.

She came slowly and stood leaning against the door; she was a woman of middle age, still handsome, though brown and lined, and growing grey from the heaviness of continual toil, and the privation of good food. She had a fine, fierce face, with eyes like a hawk's; the moon shone on the pale yellow kerchief bound about her head.

"What did it?" he asked again.

"Why vex your soul about a thing long past and gone? Well, if you must know, it was a sickle as did it, your father's sickle; you would play with it."

"Is that the truth ?"

"Why should I tell you aught but the truth?"

"How old was I?"

"Two years and a bit."

"I could not cut my hand off at that age?"

"You hurt yourself so badly that your hand was taken off down in the town; you were near your death."

He was silent: he could not doubt this simple and probable story, yet somehow he was not satisfied.

"Why did not you nor anybody tell me?" he asked.

"What is the use of dwelling on sad things? You never asked us."

"I did not think about the cause till that fine man in town spoke to me about yourself."

"Curse him for a loose-tongued chatterer! Cannot he be content with being food for powder himself? 'Tis a grand lot, surely."

She spoke in ironical contempt, but her son answered seriously.

" 'Tis a grand lot to have all the men in the market place make way for you, and all the women run out to you with stoups of wine, and the conscripts all tumble together in a panic if you look at them. I might have been such a one myself, if I had gone in the army and stayed in it long enough."

"And you might have been shot by the blacks, or killed by the stroke of the sun in a march."

"One can but die once."

She was silent, so was he; the moon shone down through the poplars and across the threshold; its light made the brown face of his mother look pale.

"Where is that sickle?" he asked, suddenly.

"The Lord knows! It must be rusty old iron many a year. Why do you ask?"

"Because if it be above ground I would break it up into bits and heat them in tho fire and curse them one by one!"

"What good would that do?"

"No good ; but it would be a pleasure. Rage burns me like thirst, and I can do nothing."

His mother was silent. At the opposite doorway the figure of his father showed black against the white light shining in the back garden where the potatoes grew.

"Woman!" he called to her, "get your packing done and go to bed. You must be up before daylight to send off the cart."

She obeyed in silence.

"Get to bed, you, 'Baldo," said the man, as he climbed the stairs with all the mould of the soil on his bare feet and ankles, and the sweat on his bare arms and throat.

Ubaldo did not immediately obey; he sat on the stone bench with his elbows on his knees, and his head on his hand, thinking, all to no purpose.  Then he got up and slammed the house door in the moon's face, and went upstairs, he also with all the dirt, and dust of the day's work upon him. He stretched himself on a pallet stuffed with grass, beside two of his brothers, under the unceiled rafters of the roof, and slept heavily and without dreams. A white owl made a loud sobbing screeching noise on the roofs, but it had no power to awaken him.

His mother did not sleep; she was afraid of that devil which had spoken in him when he had said that he would like to burn up the sickle in the fire. It was not the sickle's fault that it had maimed him.

"MANESCO!" cried a young girl to him on the morrow. She was a handsome maiden, fair as a wheat ear, with quantities of yellow hair piled up on her head, and run through with a big silver pin two centuries old, her scarlet bodice showed glimpses of her white skin; her feet and legs were bare she worked chiefly in the flax fields. She was the daughter of poor labourers; they might have married in a year or two had their respective employers consented but she would never say either yes or no, decidedly; she amused herself with his passion which was ardent, but she was afraid of the poverty which would be their lot, and she was afraid of other girls' ridicule if she accepted a one-handed suitor. Where the hands are the only means of maintenance the loss of one is beggary; and where the only power is industrial force the cripple is at a discount. Moral defects are sooner looked over amongst a peasantry than physical ones; they matter less, count for less.

"Manesco!" she cried to him, and laughed, the clear merry laughter of her eighteen years. She was going along a field in which he was minding a mixed flock of sheep and pigs, letting them crop the worthless grass grown up in the reaped furrows and preventing them from straying into the crops on either side; this was a work he could do, carrying a long rod in his left hand; but he hated it, for it was work for children or aged people, not for men.

"Do not call me by that name or I shall do you a mischief," he said fiercely.

The girl laughed again, a laugh gay as a bird's carol.

"I thought you loved me!" she cried― she had a big skip on her shoulders full of roots; her upraised hands clasped it; her form was seen in all its lithe young beauty.

"Do not play with me, Tema !" he said in his teeth. "You know— you know —but you will never answer me."

She laughed again.

He strode across the rough grassland to her side.

"I am sick of your laughter. You have laughed too long. Will you be serious? Will you take me, maimed beast that I am? You know— you know―"

"The pigs are gone into the maize," cried Tema, and she pointed to them.  He let them go.

"Answer me once for all. You are like a cat with a mouse. I suffer— oh, God, I how I suffer! I burn for you night and day."

"Pooh! Who can think of a one-handed man," said the girl with disdain. "You would starve me; and how the girls would laugh! No— no— no! I shall take a whole man and a smart soldier when I go before the priest."

Then she ran away on her naked brown feet, faster than the young pigs were running into the sprouting maize. His face grew dark; his lips grew livid ; he cursed her and his fate, and the sickle which had wounded him in his infancy. She looked back at him when she was at a distance, but he did not see her; he was lost in the bitterness of a helpless rage against his lot.

"A whole man and a smart soldier!"

Would, he not have been both but for that accursed accident in his infancy?

Then he remembered the young swine, and ran in after them, and thrashed them brutally with his rod. The sunshine, so hot and yellow, swam round him; his eyes were red with heat and burning tears; who could help him, what could help him? Nothing could give him back his hand. He should live on there, on this land where he had been born, and would see her give herself to some other, to some gay, sound, stalwart fellow, who would jeer at him as the nuptial troop went by him through the fields. He seized his maimed right wrist in his teeth and bit it till the blood flowed.

"Accursed flesh and bone!" he cried to it where he stood alone in the  rough young grass in the stillness of the summer noon. Tema looked back at him from a safe distance behind some clumps of cane which screened her from his view, saw his mad gestures, and thought to herself, her little selfish self, "It is well that I broke with him; he is a lunatic; he might have killed me, as like as not."

The pain in his wrist where he had bitten it, and the blood which flowed from it, recalled him in a measure to his senses. He knew that he was going mad, and yet he did not feel the strength in him to thrust aside this possession, to persuade his sober reason to accept his misfortune and have courage to bear it. If he had only had his right hand he would  have joined the colours, he would have carried the knapsack, he would have jingled his sabre, He would have swaggered down the country roads, the village streets, with the best of them. Tema would have been proud of him, he would have come back into his land and lived content.

"Oh, cursed fate! Oh, cursed fate!" he said between his teeth, and he watched the drops of red blood ooze from the marks his teeth had left and fall on the hot grass ; and all at once, he knew not why, a sudden light broke in on him, and he cried to the peaceful fields:

"Mother lied to me!"

Why did he think his mother had lied? He did not know. His mind was working by mere rude rough instinct. Why should she have lied? He could not tell; I but he felt sure that she had done so.

He drove the sheep and pigs indoors, for it was a hot forenoon; then lie went and found his father, who was just leaving off work to go in to his noonday meal.

"Father, how did I lose my hand?" he asked. "Yes, the stump has been bleeding. I hurt it with a billhook. How did I lose it? Say."

His father stared. "When you were little you played' with my sickle. Your mother ran to you too late."

"Is that God's truth ?"

"It is more like the devil's; but it is the truth, of course. What craze have you got on your brain? It was a bad job for you. It is a bad job for Me. You can only do a poor sort of work, not worth your bread."

Ubaldo did not reply. He saw that his father believed what he said. "By the way," said his father, "I saw you with Tema ; she is a slippery young jade. Don't hang about her. Sim will throw you over."

"Where is the sickle?"

"What sickle?"

"The one that wounded me."

The elder man laughed outright. "A bit of iron twenty years  old? You might as well ask what has become of an old broomstick ? Are you going out of your mind, you gaby?"

Then he went into the house to eat. Ubaldo was silent. He did not join the midday meal. He felt as if a swarm of wild bees was buzzing in his head.

"Mother lied," he said to himself; his father only knew what she had told him at the time. Why had she lied? He did not know, nor could he conjecture, but he was certain that she had lied. He went and sat under an ilex tree which stood on the confines of a wood above his glebe. It was a huge and aged tree; its shade was wide and cool even at that hour. He laid his head on his hand, felt the veins of his temples beat like hammers.

Every word his father had said stung him like a hornet. His work was poor, not worth his bread! Well, that he knew already; but to hear it said was worse. She was a slippery young jade; yes, that, too, he knew, but to hear that others knew and saw it was worse. His father had not meant to be cruel; he had only said what he thought; said things so obvious that he had felt the utterance of them to be no unkindness. But they were hard words to hear; they hurt like. a brood of vipers, biting naked flesh in summer grass. If he had been a soldier with a right hand on the hilt of his sabre no one would have been able to say such words to him. It was this accursed mutilation which made him of no account. He was the eldest born, but what good was that to him? He had a lower place in the family than his youngest ten-year-old brother. He was of less value.

He sat still in the drowsy torpid heat of the noon, and turned his thoughts over and over again, but never changed them or made them clearer. He felt tho smart of the stump he had wounded, but did not even cover it from the sun, or drive the flies off. What did it matter?

The hours passed; the sun left the zenith; from where he sat he saw the house door  of his home some way down beyond the maze of greenery; he saw his people come out to their afternoon labours after their sleep, one going one way, another, another; each having his appointed work. His mother only he did not see. He thought, "She is alone at the washing tank."

It was her washing day.

One of his brothers shouted his name three times, but the sound died away, unanswered. They all went on their several errands, not taking more trouble to find him. The warmth lay on the summer lands, the scene was fair and peaceful; it said nothing to him. He got up heavily on to his feel and went down the grass path between the ferns and myrtles. It toil straight to the dwelling-house. He walked through the entrance and through the kitchen out into tho back yard, where the stabling was, and the well, and the sheds for the fowls, and the two long stone tanks, moss-grown, into which water ran  continually from a spring in the hills above.

At one of these his mother stooped soaping linen; rinsed clothes were heaped in the other.

"Mother!" he said, as he crossed the pavement. She started, and let the shirt she was washing fall into the water.

"Why are you not at work?" she said, uneasily and angrily.

"My work is not worth my bread," he answered. "Why should I sweat to do it?"

She turned round and looked in disquietude at him. "You grow very strange. What is amiss with you?"

He showed her his wrist.

"There is blood on it!" she cried. "Have you hurt yourself?"

"The hurt was long ago," he answered. "You say it was the sickle."

The words were harmless, but the tone frightened her. He stood close up against her and looked her in the eyes― her fierce hawk's eyes.

"Who held the sickle?" he asked. "Who used the sickle?"

"God above us! What can you mean?"

She shrank away from him; but she was between him and the stone tank and the well, which was behind the tanks, through which the water-pipe let fall the water trickling from the hills. His left hand fell on her shoulder like a vice and held her.

"I have only one, but that will hold you till you tell the truth," he said between his teeth. "Who cut my hand?"

Her brown face grew grey.

"Answer!" he said, and his left hand clutched her and shook tor brutally to and fro.

"Oh, Lord!" she moaned, "Oh Lord!"

"Answer!"

In her terror and her remorse and astonishment, being taken unawares and conscience-stricken, she broke down in a passion of tears.

"Oh, 'twas I! 'twas 'I!" she cried piteously. 'I loved you my first-born , and you were such a beautiful fair babe, and you were full of my milk, and all mine, and I knew they would take you when you grew to be a man and make you food for powder, and I heard say that if any limb had a mischief done to it then they let the maimed life go free of the death-toll; and so, one day, when you had sucked your fill, and were sound asleep, and I had you up in the woods where I was cutting fern I chopped your little hand off, and when I saw the blood and heard your screams

He plucked up the long knife he wore out of his belt, and with his left hand he stabbed her again and again in the throat until she fell down in a heap against the stone wall, and the water and the linen were all red.

"One hand was enough for that," he said. He saw that she was dead, and was content.

____________________

11: A New Year's Surprise

Frank Condon

1882-1940

Mercury (Hobart) 11 June 1938

Frank Condon was an American screenwriter and novelist. I suspect this story was "edited" for the British/Australian market by a few minor changes, including currency, but somehow it still has a "New York" feel.

IT was one of those somewhat rare year-ends― a snowy December 31, and the wheels of the black motor-car were buried, half-way to the hubs as it stood at the kerb. The spirit of Christmas was still in the air, if you can feel the Christmas spirit by looking at red paper bells in windows; and as Jim Knight left his car he glanced for a moment at the ones in the window of the big house next to his own. Then he hurried up the steps, stamping briskly upon the wire mat, and went in; and a few moments later Fannie greeted him. Fannie was Jim's wife.

Once upon a time they had been plain Jim and Fannie Knight, lately of Birmingham. Now they were Mr. and Mrs. James Purdue Knight― people of excellent social and financial standing. And if you had asked Fannie about it― if you had said to her intimately: "Fannie, tell me the truth"― she would have confessed to you with a melancholy smile that she had lost her husband five or six years before and never expected to find him again.

Of course, Jim was still alive. He sat opposite her each morning at toast and coffee and read the "Financial News." He brought her an occasional bunch of flowers, and took her to hear Tauber. He remembered her birthdays, with dainty gifts, and on New Year's Day he made her a present of a house and lot.

Fannie knew that on each January 1st she would find a deed on the breakfast table. Furthermore, Jim would no more think of staying away from home overnight than of selling out his best securities. But in spite of these facts, if Fannie had told you her real thoughts, she would say that she had lost Jim Knight. The reason was this: Jim Knight was getting to be a big man in the City. Every now and then a be-whiskered board of directors assembled and elected James one of them. And each New Year's morning Jim gave Fannie a house and lot as a little memento.

For three years Fannie had taken the deed at the breakfast-table on the first day of the twelve-month, had kissed Jim affectionately, and had sent the deed to her safety deposit vault.

In the pocket of his coat as he ascended the steps Jim now carried a new deed. It occurred to him that he had not been as attentive to Fannie in the past few years as he might have been. He had changed, of course― grown older and more serious― and so had Fannie. He recalled with a twinge of remorse that a good many moons had gone by since he and Fannie had gone anywhere together in search of entertainment, and as be pondered the serious look left his face and he smiled.

"Why not?" he said half to himself. "We haven't done such a thing for years. I've been neglecting Fannie altogether too much, and, by George! I shall make up for it tonight. We'll go through the whole programme, from soup to nuts."

Jim explained at dinner.

"Fan." he began, "I'm going to give you a treat. It's New Year's Eve, and the City is making merry. I'm afraid I've been paying a little too much attention to business and not enough to you, so I'll try to atone for my neglect. Suppose you and I join in tonight's festivities? It's a good many years since we were in a crowd of New Year revellers. Would it suit you?"

Fannie smiled and nodded. Her grey eyes lighted up with pleasure.

"It would be splendid, Jim," she said. "I shall be glad to go."

The motor called for them shortly after eight in the evening, and they were free to go where they pleased. Presently they turned into a famous restaurant, and the haughty major-domo took something crisp from Jim's hand and found a table for them.

The place was crowded; girls with flushed faces paraded between the tables, followed by young men in evening clothes carrying paper balloons. The crash of music went on steadily. There was noise of some kind in every corner of the great room and a peculiar informality that Fannie looked upon in amazement. Jim ordered champagne. Fannie barely sipped her glass. Presently, the racket having become unbearably loud, they went away, and Jim suggested that they step into one of the theatres to see the third act of a more than usually successful and popular comedy.

THE play being over, the two revellers again joined the merry marchers. Jim was having a beautiful time, but to Fannie it seemed that something was lacking. Perhaps she reflected, she had become too mature for these gaieties. Later on they paused at the entrance of Martin's.

"Shall we go In?" Jim inquired.

"Of course, If you wish," Fannie acquiesced. There were longing thoughts of home in her mind, but she said nothing about them to Jim.

Again they were enveloped in mirth, the smoke of a thousand cigarettes, and the murmur of gay talk. Jim ordered more champagne, and gently reproved Fannie for not drinking it. Everything happened that always happened in Martin's on the last evening of the old year. Everywhere about was laughter and shouting, singing and pounding upon tables with knives and plates. Just before midnight the diners rose, and on the stroke of the hour glasses were raised and toasts called and drunk on every hand.

Jim Knight was having a splendid time, and the champagne was warming him. His eyes sparkled, and he conversed brilliantly. Some of his business friends appeared and sat at his table.

At one o'clock Fannie asked Jim it he didn't think it was time to go, and soon after the two were homeward bound in a taxicab.

"Did you have a good time, Fan?" Jim demanded as they walked up their own steps.

"Perfectly splendid." she answered, "It is such a change tor me."

"Well," Jim told himself as he undressed, "I promised I'd give Fannie a treat tonight, and I did lt. and I'm mighty glad I did."

In the morning he awakened with an unpleasant taste in his mouth and a conviction that in future he would drink fewer glasses of wine, no matter what the occasion.

Fannie had not appeared when he reached the breakfast-room, and he waited, taking from his pocket the long, white envelope― the white envelope Fannie had seen each New Year's morning for three years past. Finally she came, fresh-looking and smiling.

"Happy New Year!" Jim exclaimed.

"The same and many more, Jim dear." she said.

"Here it is," he continued, holding the envelope towards her. "Same old New Year's gift. Look it over."

"Another house." Fannie ' smiled. "You are a very ' generous husband. Jim. I'm afraid you are too good to me." She placed the deed beside her plate, and Jim watched her. He was tempted to ask her to open the envelope, but he did not, and they attacked the breakfast.

"You look a bit tired," his wife said.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite as light on my feet as I used to be," he admitted. "We couldn't have a New Year's celebration every night in the week, could we?"

"I wonder― speaking of celebrations― whether you could give me today, Jim?"

"Today?" he answered wonderingly. "Of course. I'll do whatever you want me to do. What is it?"

"I have a little plan," Fannie continued, leaning her elbow on the table and looking thoughtfully at her husband. "Last night you were my host. You took me about among the crowds, and we were very gay. Now it's my turn. Today I shall be the host, and you will come and celebrate with me. Is it a promise?"

"I'm ready when you arc," Jim said.

"I'm going out in the car and I shall call for you about eleven," Fannie continued. "It you are not ready and waiting I shall be terribly disappointed."

"You can count on me, Fan," he smiled.

"WHERE in the world are we going?" Jim asked curiously, when they had passed far to the east of the Park.

"It is a secret," his wife replied. "You will soon know everything. Surprise is half the beauty of a celebration."

The car passed through streets that grew narrower and narrower, and finally crossed the river. Now they were among the modest homes of the middle class and the poor. Little meat shops and fruit stands confronted them, and the people they saw going in and out were those who live on small incomes, scrimping and saving from necessity the year round.

"This begins to look familiar," Jim said, sitting up so suddenly that his silk hat knocked against the car roof. "Fannie, do you see anything out there that reminds you of anything?"

His wife smiled slowly.

Then the car turned into a street leading from the dingy railway. It sped between narrow, high, brown houses of the cheaper type. Fannie asked quietly: "Do you recognise this street, Jim?"

"Certainly," he answered. "It is Fairfield-avenue. Good Lord! I haven't been up here since― since―"

Then the car skimmed over towards the kerb, and the brakes screeched as it stopped.

Jim looked out. Fronting him was a darkened doorway leading into an apartment building, and on the glass was painted "No. 18." He glanced at Fannie, who was smiling.

"We get out here, Jim," she said. "We've come back home."

Fannie was first up the short flight of steps. She pushed open the outer doors of No. 18, and stood waiting for Jim. The floor beneath her feet was paved with small tiles. On either side of the hall were the shining brass letter-boxes with their black push-buttons beneath.

"By George!" said Jim, coming inside, "the old place hasn't changed the slightest bit in― in―"

"Eleven years," Fannie aided him softly.

For an instant husband and wife stood in silence, staring at the letter boxes and reading the names.

"It's our old flat," he murmured. "By George! how familiar everything looks. That's the same picture― the identical picture of the flying angel and the harp."

"You won't find it much changed," his wife replied. "And I'm glad of it."

"This is my treat, Jim," she said. "I wonder if you can remember everything that took place here? I wonder if you can recall how I pressed your blue suit because the tailor charged a shilling, and we needed our shillings; and how we turned the gas-jets low to make the penny still in the meter last longer? How poor we were, Jim, eleven years ago― and how happy!"

Something in Fannie's voice made her husband turn to her. Was this his Fannie? There was a new radiance in her eyes, and she talked quickly and almost excitedly. His wonder increased every moment.

"Jim," she went on, taking off her long gloves, "Eleven years ago today you and I had our first New Year's dinner together. We have had many others since, but I remember and love that first one best of all. How we had to scrape and hoard our little fund to prepare for it!"

Fannie's eyes shone proudly.

"I remember you that morning very distinctly. You sat in the same wicker  chair you are now occupying and waited while I got dinner ready. And," she  continued, rising to her feet, "that is exactly what you are going to do this day."

The spirit of the adventure was now in Jim's veins. He was tremendously impressed with Fannie's obvious happiness. This was a new phase of her character with which he was unfamiliar.

"Right you are, Fannie," he said, "We'll have dinner here just as we did that day."

In the kitchen Fannie was bustling about. To Jim's ears there came the rattle of crockery and the clatter of knives and forks.

"The same dinner," he said in astonishment. "What a memory you have, Fannie!"

She laughed delightedly.

"I've had fine time shopping this morning," she said. "First I came up here and paid a week's rent in advance. A man name Jacobson has charge of the apartments now, and the rent is higher, I had to pay 12/6d. Think of that! Then I shopped round in the neighbourhood just as I did for our last dinner her and― well, you wait and see if I don't do well."

Jim took his old chair at the kitchenette side of the table, and Fannie sat opposite him. He turned over his plate and picked up a small object that lay beneath it. It was a jade tie-pin, and an inexpensive one.

"Your New Year's gift," Fannie laughed. "Remember?"

Eleven years before, when Jim had turned over his plate, there had been a jade tie-pin beneath it.

"I think I'm beginning to understand, Fannie," Jim said slowly, placing the pin in his cravat.

"I've often thought of doing this very thing," Fannie said. "We were so wonderfully happy here, Jim, even though we didn't live here long. Last night you took me with you and we saw all the gay sights; but, Jim, it didn't make me happy. I was happiest of all in this little, dreary flat, when we were poor and you had to work so hard."

Jim's eyes grew suspiciously moist.

"Now you're rich and have many claims on your time, and, somehow," Fannie continued, "I seem to have dropped out of your life. When we lived here I was part of it. Interested in everything you did and eager to know your failures and successes. I was close to you, Jim. And of late years our old intimacy has gone away. I'm not complaining, and you must not think I am. You are a good, thoughtful husband, and you can't give me the time you did. I know we are getting older, Jim, but is it necessary to drift apart as the years go on? I suppose you will think I'm a sentimental idiot, but I can't help it. I have often longed to be poor again and to have you come home tired and hungry, just as you did in this place. Anyway, for this one day we are back amid our happiness, aren't we?"

While she was speaking, Jim had begun to understand completely. Now he rose, came round to where she sat, and placed his arms over her shoulders.

"Fannie," he said gently, "I love you now just as I did all years ago, and― and― I guess I've been a brute. I have permitted other things to interfere; but it won't be so in the future. I hope we won't be poor again, but I know, we will be happy." Then he kissed his wife very seriously, almost reverently, and they both laughed...

JIM'S black car presently drew up before No. 18 Fairfield Ave., and Jim and Fannie appeared. There was a new tenderness in the big man's face, and Fannie clung happily to his arm. Then paused for an instant in the doorway

"Well," Fannie laughed, "I suppose I am losing my 12/6d rent."

"Not at all, my dear," Jim answered.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"You may remember this morning at breakfast I asked you to open the envelope and look at the deed," he grinned; "but you did not do it. I took the liberty of bringing it along. I am not quite the unsentimental brute you think, Fannie dear. If you'll glance through that instrument," handing it to her, "you'll see that I've given you No 18, Fairfield Ave."

"You didn't Jim?"

"Sure I did. Bought it last week as New Year's surprise. I remember the old days, Fan. Come along. We'll be frozen."

____________________

12: Magic

J. Storer Clouston

1870-1944

Sunday Times (Perth) 4 October 1931

CURIOUSLY enough Mr. Samuel Winkler had just been reflecting on the vast advantages that would accrue to an enterprising gentleman (such as Mr. Samuel Winkler) if he could only hit upon some entirely new idea capable of commercial development. Mr. Winkler had a considerable and varied experience of business propositions, major and minor. Hitherto they had chiefly been minor, but that, he considered, was merely a matter of ill-luck. The result he also considered had been a case of ill-luck. He had made but a modest fortune so far, but that was not for lack of audacity in seizing opportunities; simply through want of enough capital to finance his best ideas, or (failing that) the lack of an idea so splendid that it would practically finance itself. But his chance would come.

He made these resections sitting in almost complete solitude in a long, brilliantly-lit, rattling carriage of a Piccadilly tube train. Outwardly he gave not indications of these ambitious thoughts, being in fact a somewhat ordinary-looking, small, stout gentle-man, bald beneath his bowler hat, very respectably dressed in dark clothing, relieved by the flash of an imitation jewel in his tie-pin and another on his left little finger. He wore a small dark moustache above a small pursed-up mouth, and rimless eye-glasses over his thoughtful eyes.

The day was Saturday and the hour mid-afternoon, which accounted for the emptiness of the long carriage, and it was this emptiness which attracted Mr. Winkler's attention to the only fellow passenger in his vicinity.

He was a small boy sitting immediately opposite, dressed in what where arguably his Sunday clothes, but evidently not belonging to the higher and more prosperous classes of society.

Mr. Winkler worshipped prosperity and the social heights generally, and after his first pensive, semi-conscious stare at the lad, be would never have given him a thought at all had it not been for a really very curious incident.

The boy was playing idly with his fingers, whistling under his breath the while. All at once, quite carelessly, almost thoughtlessly it seemed, he pulled one of his fingers off, gazed at it intently for a moment, and then replaced it on his hand. And then in a moment he drew another finger off and presently replaced that in turn.

Mr. Winkler was staring very hard indeed by this time. Nothing else happened for some moments and he had almost persuaded himself that ne must have fallen asleep for the instant and dreamed the incident, when be saw the lad begin to play with his wrist. He turned it round, and still farther round, till it completed a full circle, and then he gave it a little spin which sent it whirling like a top. Quite calmly he stopped it, thrust both hands into his pockets, and began to whistle more audibly.

"It must be a false hand!" Mr. Winkler in his bewilderment at last hit upon that obvious solution, but hardly had he thus accounted for the incident when the boy withdrew one hand from his pocket, scratched his ear for a moment, and then deliberately twisted the ear upside down. Mr. Winkler could keep Silence no longer.

"I thay!" he cried (he spoke with a slight lisp). "Your ear's turned upthide down!"

The boy smiled a boyish candid smile.

"That's roight," he beamed. "But I can turn it back again all roight― see!" And thereupon he turned it back.

"I thuppose it's a false ear― like your hand," said Mr. Winkler, becoming instinctively wary. (He began to suspect the lad would ask him for a subscription towards the cost of providing him with these expensive accessories).

"No they ain't," said the boy. " 'Ere, just touch my 'and and see."

Mr. Winkler touched it, and then snatched back his fingers in horror. The hand was as real as his own. And yet he had actually seen its fingers removed and replaced! The boy, on his part, seemed a trifle taken aback.

" 'Ullo. What's wrong?" he cried "Its quite a real 'and, really. I'm only just doing a bit of magic"

Mr. Winkler's voice rose to a crest between a squeak and a shout.

"Magic! D―d―do you mean to tell me you―you really can do magic?"

"It's a birthday present from my grandma," the lad explained with a happy smile. "Dad says it used ter run in the family. Grandma died eight years ago, but she left it to me when I was twelve years old. To-day's my birthday and so I've come in for it Ain't it great?"

Mr. Winkler stared at him in silence. Mighty thoughts were dimly surging up behind the rimless spectacles.

"What kind of other things can you do?" he asked in a moment

"I don't know all what I can do yet. I turned the kippers into bacon an' eggs and made the cat disappear up the chimley and mended a 'ole in pa's slippers so as you wouldn't never kno' there 'ad been one and there's the things you saw me a-doing of, but ain't tried much more so far."

The mighty thoughts began to take shape, and as they shaped, Mr. Winkler's eyes gleamed so knowingly through his spectacles that the boy gazed at him with a shade of apprehension.

"I ain't done nothing wrong, mister," he added hurriedly. "I brought the cat back down the chimley again― and oh, I magicked 'er a saucer of milk to mike up for it! I'd almost forgot that."

Mr. Winkler's expression altered, became benign and a little pitiful. To think of possessing those vast power and feeling afraid of anybody!

"My dear boy, I'm not blaming you," he assured him in a kindly voice, "I am only just wondering whether we couldn't do thome thing really uthefull with your magic. Now let me thee― do you think you could manage to turn things into...."

He pulled himself sharply. He had meant to say "gold", but it would never do to put the idea so crudely into the simple lad's head. He might start turning things into gold (or even into diamonds― a better idea still!) on his own account, without any previous deed of partnership. He finished his sentence rather differently.

"I mean do you think you could turn one thing into another thing?"

"I might 'ave a try," said the lad hopefully. "What about makin your 'at into a jam tart?"

Mr. Winkler instinctively pressed hi bowler more firmly on to his head. The boy seemed to be making a suspiciously magical movement with his fingers already.

"Thteady! My God, thteady!" he cried hurriedly. "Don't you start an of your magic on my hat, boy! No no, sonny. I've got a much better idea than that― very much better than that my boy."

He tilted back his hat and gaze thoughtfully into space. His astute commercial intelligence perceived certain difficulties; not at all insuperable difficulties, still the proposition required careful handling. How to secure a monopoly― make a bind in partnership― what percentage to allot the lad himself― tricky little points these, that wanted a bit of thinking out.

The boy gazed at him expectantly, and at last be broke the silence himself.

"I'd like to do 'eaps of them things you see in the movies. I'm a-going to the movies oftener now. I'm a-goin to magic my way in without 'aving I pay a tanner, I am! I 'aven't quite thought 'ow, yet, but me and Bill Dickson is movie fans, we are, and I'm a-going to magic 'im in too; you jus' see if I don't!"

Again a pitying smile hovered for moment on Mr. Winkler's face. The movies― that was all the poor boy could think of! With all the wealth of the Indies and the Bank of England and Wall-street combined awaiting the merest wave of a magical hand―

But how to secure it? Mr. Winkler came to a sudden decision. He required another head to help him, a head learned in the law. It meant splitting of profits, but what did this matter when the profits were literally infinite! Moses Mocatta was the very man: what be didn't know about the law wasn't worth knowing; and he was rich enough already to be honest. Moses was spending the week-end in Brighton. How to get to Brighton and back as nearly instantaneously as possible. Suddenly he bad an inspiration.

"You thay you thent that cat up the chimney, boy― and brought it back again? Well if you could thend the cat why shouldn't you thend other things―  me for instance?"

"Up the chimney, mister?" gasped the boy.

"No, no! But here we are coming into a station. Hop out, boy, as quick as you can and I'll explain!"

He hopped out and Mr. Winkler led the way, not to the lifts but towards the stair. They reached the stair and Samuel began to ascend, the boy at his heels. He had never ascended so much as a couple of steps of a tube staircase before, and by the time he had toiled upwards for perhaps twenty steps he was very breathless indeed.

"This will do very nithely, my boy," he panted. "I just wanted a quiet place to make a little experiment. Now, sonny, what you've got to do is this. You magic me off to the place I want to go to, give me a quarter of an hour clear, and then magic me back again, and when I get back I'll give you half-a-crown!"

The lad beamed.

" 'Alf-a-crown'― Honour bright, mister?"

"I thwear it, sonny!"

"And where am I to magic you to, mister?"

Mr. Winkler was as wary as he was enterprising. Why reveal even the smallest glimpse of his plans? The boy looked innocent enough; still one couldn't be too careful.

"Just you thay the place I want to go to."

"Roight you are," said the boy briskly, and began to wave his hands. "I magicks you to the place I want to go to!"

"You mean the place I want..." Mr. Winkler began frantically, but the deed was done.

MR. WINKLER found himself looking down the barrel of a glittering revolver. At the further end of the revolver stood a tall gentleman attired in a slouch hat, a flannel shirt, and riding breeches. On his face was a more sinister expression than Mr. Winkler had ever seen in his worst nightmare, and his lips moved silently but none the less horribly.

So far as Samuel's astonishment allowed him to grasp the background to this formidable figure. It was composed of stony mountains, a rushing torrent, and brilliant sunshine, and there was also a horse― apparently the property of the sinister gentleman. One very extraordinary feature was the dead silence that reigned. The lips of the formidable figure moved, but no sound issued, and the torrent leapt and foamed in a like stillness. But the situation was not left wholly unexplained. Overhead, in huge lettering. Mr. Winkler observed the legend,

PERISHING BILL

EVENTUATES AGAIN

This mysterious inscription served at least to identify the flannel-shirted gentleman, but left Mr. Winkler a prey to the most acute apprehension. If Bill, or his abettors, could thus murder the English language, what would they not do to the cowering individual before the muzzle of Bill's revolver?

But worse was to follow. Abruptly, Bill, the torrent, and the horse disappeared, and were replaced by a vast black hole encircled by a glittering ring. With a dreadful gasp, Samuel realised that this was the muzzle of the revolver swelled to the largeness of a volcano's crater. He tried to pray, but before he got further than the name of his Creator, the muzzle vanished as swiftly and completely as Bill and the torrent had done, and he was faced with a fresh test of nerve.

The scene was now a moonlit garden. Above a level lawn, palm trees gently waved their exotic plumes, and above the plumes the moon itself occupied nearly a quarter of the heavens.

Its size, like Bill's expression, was altogether outside Samuel's previous experience, in the foreground another figure was approaching, but this time not at all of a sinister or formidable sort. He thought in fact that he had never seen such a beautiful girl before, and for a moment not even the warning words (high overhead again)

'NEATH THE MOON'S

EFFULGENCE,

LILIAN LOVES

disturbed his appreciation of the lady's charms. Nearer and nearer he drew, her smile growing ever more enticing and her eyes more sparkling; and then with a spontaneous, bewitching gesture she opened her lovely arms, one on either side of Mr. Winkler's now shrinking form.

He shrank because he suddenly remembered Mrs. Winkler. Deeply as he loved and highly as he respected the partner of his joys, she had a most uncomfortable habit of appearing at inopportune moments, and no sympathy at all for man's frailty. He had no guarantee that she might not be the next sudden arrival, and Lilian's embrace aroused, in consequence, less thrill than it deserved.

For a moment she seemed a trifle taken aback by his mild response to her ardour, and then, with her glorious eyes beaming love through every lash, she tightened her clasp and put, so to speak, her whole back into her burning kisses.

Within a matter of seconds she had squeezed the memory of Mrs. Winkler almost out of existence, and Mr. Winkler was even beginning to hug back, when again, with mystic abruptness the scene changed.

ACROSS THE PAMPAS

THE MURDERERS FLEE

announced the legend overhead, and Samuel felt himself bumping violently, while his hands convulsively grasped a bundle of peculiarly stiff hair. Out of terror-stricken eyes he beheld a dappled steed between his knees and the turf flying backwards beneath the steed. On either side galloped a slouch-hatted figure; one he recognised as Perishing Bill, the other seemed to be his more vicious twin. And the third murderer was himself. Whom he had murdered, and why, were questions he had scarcely wits left to debate, and in fact before there was time to go into the matter thoroughly the scene had shifted again.

This time the legend read,

BUT MIKE BARNABY

AND SPIKE-HAIRED ALF

CAN RIDE SOME TOO

Still Mr. Winkler was in the saddle, no less terrified than before, even though he apparently was no longer a murderer but seemed to have joined the avengers of blood. Instead of Bill and his lawless twin, there thundered at one side a glorious fellow I with a 44 inch chest, strong and silent countenance, and eyes worthy of gazing even into Lilian's. Evidently this was Mike Barnaby, and as evidently the comic turn, on the other side was spike-haired Alf.

On they galloped, on and on across what Mr. Winkler presumed was the pampas, moving with the most extraordinary velocity, and yet always in the same dead silence. All at once two little clouds of dust rose ahead, and then, in the course of seconds developed into the fleeing forms of Bill and fellow murderer.

Swiftly they overhauled the scoundrels, and Mr. Winkler was beginning to wonder very anxiously indeed what would happen when they brought Bill to bay, when the jolting abruptly ceased and he found himself gliding smoothly through the streets of a populous city, looking out upon the throng of foot passengers from the windows of a sumptuously appointed vehicle which he put down at once as probably a Rolls-Royce. It was certainly more sumptuous than anything he had ever travelled in before, but he discovered that it also had its disadvantages.

Iron fingers gripped his elbow, and turning in his seat he met the terrible eyes of Perishing Bill.

How this gentleman had eluded such a combination as the strong, silent Mike and the facetious Alf, both of whom could ride some, he had no time to ask; nor indeed time to, weirder, for the glass had begun to splinter almost as soon as Bill's fingers pinched his elbow. As he followed the perisher's lead and cast himself down on the floor of the car, Mr. Winkler had just time to catch a glimpse of a fresh legend. It read

WILL PERISHING BILL

BE SLUGGED THIS TRIP?

MACHINE GUNS

HAVE A TRY

Samuel would have felt even more nervous than he did had it not been for the comforting thought that the scene was sure to change again before many more splinters had flown. And, in fact, it did. One moment he was crouching on the floor of the flying van; the next he had joined a small group of resolute-looking persons who were watching a still more resolute-looking individual open the door of a large safe. A glance overhead revealed the words,

INSPECTOR HARRIS

MAKES GRUESOME DISCOVERY.

WHO HAS BEEN

BUMPED OFF THIS TIME?

Mr. Winkler was thus not unprepared for the horrifying nature of the inspector's find. It did, however, give him a dizzy sensation to see Inspector Harris imperturbably drawing the bumped off victim slice by slice out of the safe. Each helping, so to speak, was partially concealed in a sheet of news-paper; nevertheless, Mr. Winkler felt heartily relieved when the last parcel was laid upon the office table and the experts gathered round the relics with stern, set faces and silent but none the less significant gestures.

Suddenly the inspector turned and pointed a lean, long finger straight at Mr. Winkler's chest. Simultaneously the other faces assumed an expression of mingled horror and triumph, while the legend above was altered into the terrible words,

"THOU ART THE MAN!"

Mr. Winkler staggered back; a feeble wail of despair was choked on his lips by the uncanny weight of silence that seemed to make sound an impossibility, the inspector's hand shot out to grasp his collar―

"I 'AVEN'T got a watch but I give year a quarter of an hour as near as I could guess it," said the voice of the bright lad.

It took Mr Winkler an appreciable time before he could quite grasp the new situation. He was back on the tube staircase with an eager young face  gazing up at him. Undoubtedly the magic was genuine enough!

"I'm a-wanting my 'Alf a crown," the boy repeated, with a touch of anxiety in his voice.

Mr. Winkler slowly put his hand into his pocket.

"Look here, my lad," said he, "you were in such a dashed hurry you didn't send me to the proper place. You'll have to have another try― Hullo, what are you going to do now?'

The boy had begun to wave his hands again. Mr. Winkler had just time to hear the words. "I'm a-goin' off to see the movies―" and then he stood alone on the stair. The boy had vanished.

____________________

13: The Fortunate Lord Fabrigas

J. Storer Clouston

Harper's Magazine, Oct 1906

SOME men were born to point the world's morals, others to adorn its tales, and the Marquis of Fabrigas to justify civilization. A Velasquez or Titian among the artists in life, he confounded pessimism by his very presence.

For who could despair of society while Fabrigas condescended to adorn it? In his youth, and indeed up till his seven-and-twentieth year or so, fame had been content to sing of him as the best-looking, best-dressed, and politest man in London. If it were permissible to breathe a gentle hint of criticism upon such a paragon, one might perhaps have said that his virtues at this period were a trifle negative; that he was content merely to stand upon a pedestal and accept with his charming smile the natural admiration of the world; that though he struck the most effective attitudes imaginable, these were rather limited in number.

But gradually a pleasant and unexpected change was noted by the epicures. His smiling silences grew shorter in duration, his smooth speech began to display by flashes a crisp and happy wit; a remarkable gift for catching the attention of society developed; he hopped, as it were, from one pedestal to another, and before the buzz of admiration had time to subside he had hopped, with a perfect dramatic instinct, upon a third. In brief, before the politest public in the world he played, with the lime-light always cunningly upon him, the part of perfect gentleman.

Look at him as he reclines (neither "lounge" nor "sit" would meet the nicety of the case) in an easy chair within the smoking-room of his club. It is an afternoon in early summer, in the very height of the season, and so appropriately does Fabrigas dress that had you the requisite sensibility you could toll the month by his trousers, the day by his waistcoat, and the time, within a couple of hours, by his tie. All the while he smokes with a characteristically graceful indolence, unconscious (apparently) of the glances of two admiring fellow members.

"Fabrigas is perfect!" said one.

The other looked at him for a moment longer, and then said slowly:

"What an extraordinary transformation! It has happened so gradually that one has grown used to it; but—there it is, the most remarkable case of development on record!"

"What do you mean?"

"I remember Fabrigas not so many years ago as a mere Adonis of the Guards:— he is now, at three-and-thirty, a wit, a man of taste, a fellow who actually displays an idea now and then; he has made an excellent speech in the House of Lords, written a tolerable pamphlet, composed a creditable poem. The Admirable Fabrigas! But how has it happened?"

Lord Fabrigas rose and came down the room. As he passed the pair he stopped for a moment, honoured them with a smiling remark or two, which if not strictly witty in themselves were at least expressed in the manner and with the cadence of a happily tongued talker, and passed on when he had spoken exactly enough to leave a pleasant flavour in the mind.

Watch him now, moving with a light step and shining boot along the pavement of Pall Mall, his figure, tall and slender, worthily encased in a creation of the greatest artist among tailors, and a cylindrical mirror of silk poised at an irresistible angle above his finely cut profile, with its trim, fair moustache and its background of precisely barbered hair. Is he not a walking contradiction of the phrases "an effete aristocracy," "gilded barbarism," and the like?

His steps at present are turned eastwards, till presently he reaches that little flat, the occupancy of which, instead of his ancestral mansion up a lane in Mayfair. has been one of his most telling strokes of genius. It is on the first floor of a building which divides a famous street into two populous, jingling thoroughfares, on the eastern fringe of club-land and flat-land; so conspicuous a situation that everybody observes the curtained windows with their boxes full of flowers and their woodwork painted blue, and asks whom they belong to— so unlikely a place for a Marquis to live that everybody having learned the tenant's name comments for some moments on the phenomenon. Thus, delicately and adroitly, he keeps obscurity at bay.

On this particular afternoon he had no sooner entered his smoking-room than a man sprang up from a chair and stood deferentially at attention, an open book still in his hand, an expression of respectful scrutiny in his eyes. By his attitude by his dress, by his little side-whiskers, he was clearly the Marquis's valet; yet he arrested attention as surely as his master. Of a good height and shape, and with good features, he was endowed besides with the eye of an enthusiast burning beneath the brow of a philosopher. Evidently he was a privileged valet, for Fabrigas, passing without remark his presence and occupation in the smoking-room, fell into a chair and pulled thoughtfully at his moustache.

"Jeenes," said he in a moment, "I think I'll have this thing shaved off. I saw a fellow in the club with a moustache almost the identical same. If they are all going to grow 'em again, there's nothing for it but clean shaving."

Jeenes looked at him critically.

"My lord, I do not think we shall remove it," he answered at length, respectfully but firmly. "It has been one of my most frequent observations that some lips were constructed by nature to carry a moustache; others were not. Yours, my lord, falls under the former category."

He spoke in perfect English, and at the same time with an air of finality that appeared to settle the question, for his lordship merely observed:

"Well, if you are quite sure of it— By the way, these trousers, now— I've noticed you've put 'em out for me twice within the last fortnight."

"Your lordship perhaps observed that the sunlight was equally diffused on both occasions?"

"I didn't," said Fabrigas; "but of course I thought you'd some good reason for it."

Jeenes respectfully tendered him the book he had been reading.

"You will find the underlined passages worth learning by heart, my lord," he suggested. "The bit dealing with the labour question might serve as the basis for a conversation should you meet the Archbishop to-night. For purposes of feminine conquest the parts marked with a red pencil should prove telling if murmured with your lordship's voice suitably lowered."

There was a certain significance in his tone that caught his master's attention.

"Gad! Jeenes," he cried, "what are you driving at now?"

A pained expression flitted across the valet's imperturbable face.

"Oh, my lord! That won't do! The occasion should have been seized— a slight rise of your lordship's eyebrows— an even voice— half of those words omitted, and the rest said somewhat thus: 'Gad! Jeenes, what now?' It has the effect of an epigram;— do you see, my lord?"

"Gad! Jeenes, what now?" repeated Fabrigas, carefully. "Yes, you are right; those should have been the words."

Acknowledging his lordship's goodness by a respectful inclination, Jeenes resumed in well-considered words:

"My lord, as a bachelor you have enjoyed such a success—such a succès, one might say— as has surpassed my highest expectations. I entered your service six years ago because I saw in your lordship the ideal Marquis of the populace, of fiction, of the stage, and of my own humble conception of what an aristocrat should be like. But if I may say so without offence, my lord, a trifling something'— a soupçon, as it were— was still required to realize the highest possibilities. We have now put that right, my lord."

He paused, but rather, it seemed, to let this portion of his homily sink in than through any fear lest its tenor should displease his noble master.

"You've been devilish serviceable, Jeenes," said Fabrigas, languidly.

"Perfectly expressed!" exclaimed Jeenes, enthusiastically. "Spoken—and I may say thought— like a lord! Now, your lordship, we must not risk the reputation we have made. And we can't keep on dazzling 'em with something new forever, my lord; that's to say, not with high-class novelties. 'Twouldn't do for the Marquis of Fabrigas to stoop to correspondenting or going on the stage. That would savour too much of advertisement, my lord."

"You're quite sure?" asked his lordship, doubtfully.

"Believe me, a twopence-in-the-pound bankruptcy is better than that! No—we must marry!"

Fabrigas started, and for a moment a shade of irritation crossed his lightly tanned, unwrinkled face.

"Look here, Jeenes," he began, "there are some matters—"

"I ask your lordship's pardon."

His lordship lit a cigarette, and ruminated for a minute or two, while his valet watched him with a slight shade of anxiety. That it was not concerned, however, with the Marquis's temporary displeasure appeared when he at length gave voice to this dictum:

"The rich women bore me; and I can't afford the poor ones."

Jeenes appeared only partially satisfied.

"Rich women bore me: poor would bust me—or words to that effect:—how's that, my lord, as a trifling verbal amendment—the sentiment of course remaining your own?"

"Yes, yes," said Fabrigas, a trifle impatiently; "but that being so, who am I to marry?"

"You will meet her at Sir Henry's table to-night, my lord. Sir Henry's butler and I have talked it over confidentially, and such influence as he has will be used to getting you to take her in to dinner. Her exact figure is three millions and some twenty thousand odd, made in South African mines, but not now invested in 'em; her age is nineteen on the 22nd of March last, and her height five feet nine, or eight, depending, on whether she is measured in her shoes or au naturel. Each item of this information, my lord, I can guarantee."

"And her name, Jeenes?"

"I beg your lordship's pardon—I had forgotten to mention it. Miss Ada Wimberley, my lord."

"Heiress of Horatio Wimberley?"

"The same, my lord."

"This promises. And her appearance?"

Jeenes's serenity for a moment deserted him.

"Oh, my lord, I was afforded a private view of her last night as she stepped, my lord, from her carriage. She is divine!"

"Hullo!" smiled Fabrigas.

"My lord, I do not exaggerate. I said to myself that moment, 'At last I have met a lady worthy of Lord Fabrigas!' Oh, your lordship, she has not left my thoughts since. If you win her, you will be the envy of Europe!"

"If?"

"'When,' I should have said. I beg your lordship's pardon."

Fabrigas reflected for a minute. Then he picked up the book.

"Underlined in red, you say?" he asked, casually.

"In red, my lord."

THE ANNOUNCEMENT of the engagement of Lord Fabrigas to Miss Ada Wimberley within ten days of her first appearance in London caused the most gratifying sensation. Once more he had done exactly the right thing, and at exactly the right time. The very lull in political events at home and complications abroad, in railway accidents and causes célèbres, which at the moment threatened to eclipse the gayety of journalists, seemed designed by Providence to reward him for his enterprise. The happy couple obtained columns of print, when at a less auspicious juncture they might have had to rest content with paragraphs. Their photographs were cut out of a dozen periodicals and pinned, pasted, or propped against a million walls; a new waltz was dedicated to her, and a new cigarette named after him. Well might they style him "the fortunate Lord Fabrigas"! His bride to be was not only beautiful and fabulously rich, but gracious and clever besides. Indeed, she quickly came to be considered almost equally with him a mark-stone showing where the tides of civilization could reach at their highest flow. Beyond that limit, gods, Martians, and the spirits of Japanese generals might conceivably attain, but surely not mortals upon this earth. In a word, this happy pair were held to typify felicity, culture, and splendour, as harmoniously united as the three legs of Manx heraldry. Who should suppose there was a cloud in their firmament? To conceive of either of them oppressed with unwelcome thoughts seemed as incongruous as to imagine a pessimistic butterfly or a chilly sunbeam. And yet when Fabrigas came into his flat one afternoon about a fortnight after the engagement was announced his brow was furrowed by an unwonted frown.

"My dressing-gown, Jeenes!" said he.

Jeenes started.

"But, my lord, Miss Wimberley expects you."

"She must be content with expectations.

"Your lordship!"

"I am beginning to grow bored."

"With that divine, that charming lady? Oh, my lord!" His valet's fervour appeared to disconcert the Marquis a little.

"An engagement is the invention of the devil, Jeenes. If I could be married to-morrow and get it over, I wouldn't mind. But, hang it! I pitched the key too high at first. She expects such a d—d lot. I hadn't bargained for making love like an operatic tenor."

"In love, my lord," said the valet, sagely, "a little license is permissible, I assure you. Cannot your lordship be natural now and then for a relief, as it were?"

"No," said his lordship. "I'm hanged if I can! I've forgotten how."

A shadow of distress passed over his servant's intelligent features; but he contented himself with merely calling the Marquis's attention to a beautiful bouquet of the rarest flowers.

"Your offering for to-day, my lord."

"Gad! you've chosen well," said Fabrigas, with a flicker of interest. "I tell you what, take that round yourself, see Miss Wimberley, and tell her I've caught a chill."

The colour rose to Jeenes's face, and his master actually heard that smooth voice stammer.

"Me see her, my lord— personally address myself to Miss Wimberley! Oh, my lord!— do you really mean it?"

"Certainly, if I tell you to. What with feeling bored and the effect of a fellow's waistcoat in Piccadilly—pea-green, Jeenes, pea-green, with a magenta tie!—Gad! I don't feel equal to writing her a note:—while if I sent a wire she'd probably come with a poultice. You'd better be quick, or you won't be back in time to massage me."

His back was turned to his servant or he would have been amazed to see the emotions surging in Jeenes's face. At first he was clearly overwhelmed at the thought of the interview; for an instant pained and even displeased at the tone of his master's reference to the poultice; and then came a rush of resolution, of inspiration, of a fervour not often seen in the countenance of Jeenes. It was the man conquering the valet.

"Very good, my lord," said he, and grasping the bouquet convulsively, hurried from the room with unsteady stride.

Remarkable indeed must have been the potency of this upheaval; for straightway running to his room, he there took razor in hand and ruthlessly removed those neat side-whiskers that had marked him ideal valet. Ten minutes later a handsome, perfectly dressed gentleman, bearing himself with a distinguished air that arrested the eyes of more than one lady passing by, and holding in his gloved hand a bouquet, stepped out of Lord Fabrigas's flat, jumped into a hansom, and drove swiftly westwards.

"Positively, Jeenes, I cannot bring myself to do it. I can hardly expect you to understand, of course, the sensitiveness of a nature like mine:—you must be content to believe that I shrink—positively shrink—from the vulgarity of the ordeal."

"I admit, my lord, it is in many points similar to the experience of the common herd—"

"Oh, devilish!" interjected Fabrigas.

"At the same time it is difficult to perceive how the antecedents of matrimony can be sufficiently varied to avoid the orthodoxy your lordship complains of. Men will be men, and women will be women—"

"Yes, women will be women:—that's the rub!" exclaimed his lordship, bitterly. "Literally, Jeenes, my coat was creased beyond recognition in the course of one— pah!— she would insist upon dubbing it a 'hug'! It suggests an orgy of winkles— a 'high tea' in the suburbs— Gad! Jeenes, it's as bad as dissent or labour members; 'pon my word it is!"

"My lord," said Jeenes, in a low voice, "had that been my coat I should never have permitted those creases to be ironed out."

The Marquis raised his finely pencilled eyebrows.

"That is the difference between Fabrigas and the herd," he condescended to explain.

The extraordinary delicacy of the Marquis's feelings may be realized when it is mentioned that for a whole week now he had preferred to eclipse his lustre within the shelter of his flat, professing in daily missives to the lady of his choice that his chill precluded his appearance even in the warm June air, rather than endure the discomforts of orthodox love-making. These billets-doux were such perfect little models of Chesterfieldian composition that apparently Miss Wimberley's affection was content to feed upon them without even making an endeavour to visit her invalid fiancé. Her answers, too, became more and more pitched in the same elegant key—a fact which, while it undoubtedly pleased Fabrigas, failed to efface the sordid recollection of his experiences. To avoid the contamination of post-marks and pillar-boxes, each of his notes was carefully despatched by hand. And on each occasion the same distinguished-looking gentleman slipped (somewhat furtively) from the flat and departed with a bouquet in a hansom.

During this week the bearing of Jeenes exhibited an odd mixture of his old calm deference, alternating with suppressed agitation. If his master's thoughts had any leisure from the contemplation of his own embarrassing case, he must have perceived that some hidden reef was disturbing the placid flow of his servant's existence; but who could expect a Fabrigas to notice a valet?

The Marquis turned and gazed at himself wistfully in the mirror.

"This infernal confinement is making me pale," he observed. "Fetch me another tie—something that blends with pallor. This thing makes me look like a corpse. It will mean changing my waistcoat too, of course. Try something with subdued buttons. And naturally I can't wear a watch-chain:—even this tie-pin is too showy for a pale man. One small pearl is positively all I can carry."

While his servant was collecting trappings to meet the case, and during the process of getting into them, Fabrigas maintained a singularly thoughtful air. Then at last, with unusual animation, he exclaimed,

"Pack for a month in Norway."

Jeenes stared. "Then, my lord, you will elope with her? A very original idea; I congratulate your lordship."

Yet he seemed to stifle a sigh.

"No; I shall elope with you."

The Marquis was smiling again, a load of care removed from his mind.

"And desert her, my lord!"

The Marquis frowned.

"'Desert' is a term confined to the most vulgar species of divorce. I choose to be free:— that is all."

"But, my lord, how will you break it to her?"

The Marquis reflected.

"Let me see— a cable from Norway, do you think? or wouldn't an unexplained disappearance be even more effective?"

He looked sharply at his servant.

"What the devil are you staring at, Jeenes?"

Jeenes recovered his composure instantly.

"I beg your pardon, my lord. Yes, a mysterious disappearance would, as your lordship suggests, occupy a prominent position in the posters for several consecutive nights."

"I did not suggest."

"Again I beg your lordship's pardon. I should have said 'implied.' "

"You're in a devilish odd humour, Jeenes," remarked Fabrigas. "Keep that waistcoat for yourself— and you might as well keep the tie-pin too."

"Thanks to your lordship's generosity, I have fifteen waistcoats and eleven tie-pins in my possession already. I cannot take further advantage of your magnanimous disposition, my lord. When do we start?"

"To-morrow."

With lowered eyes and a thoughtful air Jeenes stood for a moment silent before his master. But it only took him that moment to come to a decision.

"Can your lordship spare me for an hour this afternoon?"

"Want to say good-by to some one?" smiled Fabrigas, pleasantly. "Yes, you can go; but don't be long. I've five hundred things for you to do for me."

Jeenes moved towards the door.

"I say," said his master,— "Jeenes!"

Jeenes turned and waited in respectful silence while the Marquis hesitated.

"You quite agree that I am doing the right thing?"

It was Jeenes's turn to hesitate. Then in a voice devoid of any hint of expression he answered,

"Perfectly, my lord."

Again he moved away, and again Lord Fabrigas called him back.

"By the way, Jeenes, I notice you've shaved your whiskers. I want you to grow them again. Fact is, you look too much like a gentleman without 'em."

In perfect silence Jeenes inclined his head and withdrew on velvet feet. That afternoon the gentleman with the bouquet again left the flat.

THE MARQUIS of Fabrigas awoke from a refreshing sleep about the hour of nine next morning, and his first waking thoughts were as delicious as his slumbers. To-day he would be free; to-morrow famous! Well might he be styled "the fortunate."

"Jeenes," he murmured, "I am ready for my tea."

A man bending over a chair full of clothes straightened himself briskly.

"Very good, my lord."

The Marquis sat up in bed with astonishing alacrity.

"Who the deuce are you?" cried he.

A trim little fellow with irreproachable manners answered him suavely.

"Mr. Jeenes, my lord, 'as engaged me temporarily. I shall be 'appy to attend your lordship till you 'ave suited yourself."

"Where is Jeenes?" gasped the Marquis.

"He asked me to 'and you this letter, my lord."

The envelope was sealed with a neat monogram, the stationery a trifle more austerely perfect, if possible, than that the Marquis used himself, while the letterpress ran thus:

Dear Fabrigas,

I take the liberty of addressing you with that familiarity which one gentleman is entitled to use when corresponding- with another; since, as you will shortly gather, we shall meet on that footing in future. I do not desire to wound your feelings in any way, but I am compelled to inform you candidly that my elevation from a position in which I may say without vanity I was an unqualified success to one wherein my very refinements— my nuances, so to speak— will at the start be against me, is due entirely to your failure to occupy the latter position yourself. I destined you for immortality as the embodiment of all a Marquis ought to be. From my earliest youth it has been my dream to know and to worship a Great Aristocrat. At the age of twenty I had completed in my own mind the portrait of the nobleman I required. He was to be a mixture of George IV., Charles II., Sir Philip Sydney, and the nobleman of the contemporary novel as purveyed for the consumption of the more credulous and imaginative classes. Need I say I allude to such as have never had the acute disappointment of meeting a living nobleman? At that time I was numbered among them; but my first situation was the means of raising me to speaking terms with the aristocracy. Is it necessary to add that at five-and-twenty I had decided to commit my dreams to paper and invent what I could not discover?

At that crisis in my career I encountered yourself in the course of a week-end at the mansion of an already exploded hero. Instantly I laid my literary ambitions aside, and, as you are aware, I have devoted myself since to perfecting what appeared to me a character and a person all but ideal already.

Now, my dear Fabrigas, speaking with perfect sincerity, I may say that as the bachelor about town and in the country house you were, and will ever remain, the personification of my own and my countrymen's dreams; and I can never give you any notion of my consternation and grief when I discovered that a tincture of those sordid middle-class virtues I had so long despised were actually necessary in order that the character of the Marquis of Fabrigas should retain my veneration. To think that my hero could not treat one woman in the spirit in which Rochester treated the entire sex without arousing in me a desire to punch his head! Fabrigas, the fault is very probably my own, but on the first occasion when I—  attired in your cast-off clothing and answering to the name and title of Mr. Montague-Jeenes, secretary to his lordship— presented your bouquet to Miss Wimberley that was" (the Marquis started violently) "I secretly abjured your service. That you should not appreciate such a jewel! My faith in you was shaken, never to recover.

It is true that I continued to struggle against my heterodoxy with tolerable success so lately as yesterday. But when you proposed to desert her, my conscience, my heart, and my artistic sense revolted simultaneously. I drove straight to Park Lane, informed her of your resolution, and— consoled her. She is now aware of my true profession, which, however, she is perfectly ready to forgive, since at one period of his career the late Mr. Wimberley himself carried a basket;— when full, at his elbow; when empty, over his head. At the same time she considers that for reasons of euphony the Montague had better be retained. The ceremony will be performed at such an early hour of the morning you receive this that it will unfortunately be scarcely possible for you to attend the registrar's office; and as Mrs. Jeenes and myself start for the Continent immediately afterwards, you will be saved the fatigue of your proposed Norwegian expedition.

With kindest regards, in which my wife cordially joins, and hoping to see you at our house in Park Lane next season,

Believe me, my dear Fabrigas,

Yours very truly.

Robert Montague-Jeenes.

The fortunate Lord Fabrigas dropped the letter upon the counterpane and for the space of five minutes gazed at the contour of his feet, which he was surprised to see still so far away from him, since a curious sensation as of diminished stature afflicted him distressingly.

"Should one wear a black tie?" he wondered: "Or carry it off with a cream-colored waistcoat?"

_______________________

14: The Trials of Tony

J Storer Clouston

Saturday Evening Post, 2-23 Oct 1909

He Falls on His Feet

THE morning was remarkably fine and Lord Raymes in a mellow humour. Seated on the terrace in a basket-chair he complacently surveyed his famous Italian garden and the deer park undulating beyond.

"You look happy, Raymes," remarked Lady Custerd.

"I am a philosopher," he replied.

She seemed sceptical.

"Does that really help one to feel happy?" she inquired.

"You have just quoted an instance."

Her eyes made a circuit of the park and garden and then turned on him reprovingly.

"But you have no excuse for being discontented."

He waved his hand to indicate the scene.

"If I were not prohibited by the injunctions of my grudging forefathers from cutting down my timber, if the market price of venison made those brutes worth the expense of keeping 'em, and if I had the moral courage to convert these flower-beds into a vegetable garden I should be a well-to-do man. It is philosophy alone that enables me to make these reflections as seldom as possible."

"Oh, but Raymes, you would never dream of doing anything of the kind!"

"I have dreamt, but always awakened to bleak reality."

He looked at her steadily and added: "And then there is Tony."

Lady Custerd turned upon him with a touch of indignation.

"Tony hasn't done anything he shouldn't for a long time now!"

"For quite six months," he agreed.

"Well, what do you think of that?"

"Very ominous."

"Raymes!" she exclaimed. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Do you remember our once contemplating with a shiver those foolhardy peasants cultivating the slopes of Vesuvius?"

"Perfectly. But what—"

"An eruption must be almost due."

Lady Custerd deemed this scarcely fair. Her nephew had passed through the perils of a three years' residence at Oxford with several intervals of irreproachable conduct. All things considered, that might be called a creditable record; and as soon as Commem week was over the dear boy was returning at last to the seat of his ancestors. The occasion was surely one for joy, rather than criticism. "Of course it is a pity he hasn't taken a degree," she admitted.

His father smiled.

"He was sent to Oxford to avoid the risk."

Lady Custerd looked startled.

"But, surely, it could have done him no harm!"

"Think what it might have done the degree. There are critics abroad already, I believe."

She regarded him austerely.

"I do not pretend to understand you when you talk in this strain. But, surely, you will be glad to see your boy again?"

"Yes," he said, "he is all right to look at—the back view especially."

"Is that all you have to say!"

"No," he admitted, "I must confess frankly that I am both relieved and surprised to find Tony escaping from Oxford with only one entanglement and a paltry five hundred pounds' worth of bills. I hope, Gwendolen, you do not think me superstitious, but I assure you that ever since that poor boy exchanged his first pocket-knife for a brown-paper parcel with nothing inside, I have had a premonition that he would never be Lord Chancellor of England."

But there are plenty of other good positions," Lady Custerd began, when she was interrupted by the appearance of a footman with a telegram.

"No answer," said Lord Raymes. He dismissed the footman and gazed thoughtfully into space.

"The next blow has fallen," he observed in a few minutes.

"What blow? On whom?" she exclaimed.

"Tony; on me," he replied.

"Is that from him?"

He read the wire aloud:

Come Oxford immediately. Good news. Tony

"But he says good news!" she cried.

"He thought there was something in the brown-paper parcel," he answered.

As he spoke he rose and turned toward the house.

"But, of course, you'll go?" she asked.

"I cannot escape my fate by merely staying at home," he answered. "I must now go and pack."

"Then you are going to spend the night?"

"No."

"What are you taking with you then?"

"My check-book."

Half an hour later his lordship drove to the station, and in the early afternoon arrived at the ancient city of Oxford. As he passed through a quadrangle of his son's college he observed in a group of sunshades evidences of Commem.

"Ah, woman, woman!" he murmured.

Tony's door was opened by the devoted Algernon.

"Tony in?" his parent inquired.

"Not at this moment, but— er— I've been waiting for you all day."

"Ever since breakfast?"

"Practically."

"That was Tony's idea, I presume?"

"Yes."

"I know his handiwork," said Lord Raymes amiably. "He sent off his wire at ten-fifteen, and I suppose told you to expect me any time after nine-forty-five."

"Oh," said Algie, a trifle disconcerted, "that—er—I suppose that was rather absent-minded. But I assure you, sir, it wasn't his fault."

"I am aware of his misfortune," sighed Lord Raymes.

Algie stared.

"This one?"

"No; I don't even know her name. Who is she?"

Algernon collected himself. "I didn't really mean, sir, that it was his misfortune. In fact, it's quite the other way on."

"Her misfortune?"

"No, no, you quite misunderstand me! 'Pon my word, really you do. Tony has landed on his feet this time, and no mistake!"

"Poor devil! You don't say so?"

"Yes, rather! Such a nice little woman, and any amount of money."

"Have you seen it?"

"Oh, but she has told him. Her late husband—"

Lord Raymes was startled at last.

"A widow!" he cried.

"A ripping little widow, sir, I assure you."

"They all are," sighed his lordship.

"Hardly a trace of American accent—"

"American! I know, I know, my boy. Twenty-nine last birthday, I presume?"

"By Jove, you're exactly right, sir!"

"Comes of an ancient English family?"

"Er—yes."

"Moves in the best American and foreign society?"

"O' course, or Tony wouldn't have taken to her."

"That is a guarantee. How long has he been acquainted with this paragon?"

"Only three days. Quick work, wasn't it?"

"If I were an American, or any other sort of widow, I'd back myself to catch poor Tony in three hours."

Lord Raymes gazed thoughtfully, but apparently not unhopefully, at the ceiling. Then he lowered his eyes suddenly and inquired:

"Does she know he is a younger son?"

Algie hesitated.

"Well—er—the fact is, Lord Raymes, that's the thing dear Tony wants you to break to her. He hasn't had the—er—"

"Heart?"

"That's it; he hasn't had the heart to tell her she won't actually be a peeress."

Lord Raymes smiled again.

"But do you mean to say she hasn't looked him up in a peerage or almanac or something?"

"Well, you see, the fact is she doesn't know our English ways very well."

"And yet she moves in the best society? Well, Algie, it only shows what verdant oases there are in that desert."

Algernon looked sympathetic. Tony had often told him his father was no longer the man he had been.

"Where is she staying?" inquired Lord Raymes.

"Well, in a—er—I rather fancy it's a kind of boarding-house. But, of course, that's only because—"

"With her maid?"

"N-no, she can't have brought her maid."

"She's spending money on Tony like water, I suppose, eh?"

"Well, that's hardly her part of the business, is it?"

"Letting him spend money on her, though?

"Tony is devilish generous."

"Perfectly devilish," Lord Raymes agreed. "And the lady doesn't discourage him?"

"Do they ever?"

Lord Raymes held out his hand and shook his young friend's cordially.

"Algie," he declared, "I have hopes of you, after all."

A high-pitched feminine voice and a swish of skirts on the stairs interrupted them.

"I am ready for her," said Lord Raymes. "Thank you, Algie."

The young man felt gratified, though puzzled.

A small lady, trim-waisted and large-busted, with reddish-brown eyes and a plump and saucy face, paused in the doorway and shot his lordship a sparkling glance.

"My!" she exclaimed enthusiastically.

High over her towered the athletic form of Tony, smiling with the proud modesty of a conqueror. His face was pinker, his girth of chest greater, and his moustache decidedly developed since he wooed and won fair Emmy Ruggles; otherwise he seemed little altered.

"Mrs. Yarkles—my father," he introduced.

"So pleased to meet you, Lord Raymes— so vurry pleased," said Mrs. Yarkles. Lord Raymes bent gallantly over her hand.

"So you mean to rob me of my Tony?" he smiled.

"I mean to borrow him for a little while, Lord Raymes, with your permission," she sparkled.

"Ah," said he, "you American heiresses! You carry off our brightest and our best."

The sprightly lady turned to her betrothed.

"See there, Tony!" she cried. "That's what your poppa thinks of you! Don't that make you feel good?"

"Haw!" smiled Tony modestly, "you mustn't take everything the guv'nor says as meaning just the same as if Algie or me had said it. He's one of the best, all the same, though."

"I can see that!" rippled the heiress. "The real aristocracy, and no mistake, Tony!"

"Um," said Tony affectionately, yet a trifle awkwardly.

In his suavest accents Lord Raymes suggested:

"Supposing, Tony, you leave the charming Mrs. Winkles—"

"Yarkles!" cried the heiress.

"I beg your pardon— the charming Mrs. Yarkles and myself to enjoy a few minutes' conversation?"

"Can you trust him all alone with me, Tony?" flashed the widow.

"Oh, he's all right," said Tony seriously.

He drew his father aside for a few moments.

"I wanted to tell you more about her myself," he began.

"Thanks," said his father. "I know her perfectly already."

Tony stared.

"Knew her before, d'ye mean?"

"Some kindred spirits understand each other in five minutes."

"Oh, ah, I see— right O!"

The two young men went out, and instantaneously a curious change came over Lord Raymes' expression. He smiled upon the widow as amiably as before, but as it were, less aristocratically.

"It's no go, my dear," Lord Raymes remarked.

The lady surveyed him with a countenance that had likewise altered.

"Do you mind saying that again slowly," she requested.

He changed the form of the assurance.

"Dear lady, it is no use at all."

She drew herself up haughtily.

"I do not understand you," she replied.

Lord Raymes adjusted his manner accordingly.

"It is lucky that my dear son is marrying a fortune. That is all I meant."

"It is not what you said."

"Ah, we gay deceivers!" he smiled.

"Are you talking through your hat— or what?"

"Let us come to business," he suggested mildly. "How much do you propose to settle on my boy?"

"Well, I never!"

"Never thought of that, you mean?"

"I guess your estates are entailed, aren't they?"

"On my eldest son."

The lady showed symptoms of extreme agitation.

"But— why I thought Tony—"

She paused.

"My youngest child," he explained.

"He has deceived me!"

"Did he say he was my heir?"

"He never told me he wasn't!"

"Tony is coming on," he smiled.

The lady assumed a very sudden briskness.

"Say!" she exclaimed. "See here, what's Tony got, anyway?"

"What you provide him with."

"Nothing more?"

"His wardrobe might fetch something."

She looked at him defiantly.

"I suppose you think I'm worth millions!"

"At a rough estimate I put your income at ten dollars a week."

Mrs. Yarkles sank into an easy chair.

"Some one's been talking!"

"Only observing," he assured her.

She meditated for a few moments.

"Say, what about my injured feelings?"

He drew from his pocket his solitary article of luggage.

"How much are they injured?" he inquired.

It was about half an hour later when the two men returned to find Lord Raymes alone.

"Well, Tony," he said philosophically, "it cost a little more this time."

His son stared at him blankly, and then round the room.

"Where's she gone?"

"To her milliner's, I hope. That hat was a trifle rusty."

"I say, I'm going to look for her."

"No, my dear boy," said his father kindly, yet firmly, "you are returning home with me. You might meet another widow if I let you loose."

Algie opened his eyes.

"You don't mean it's off again?"

Lord Raymes regarded him appreciatively.

"Yes, Algie, you are certainly coming on."

"I say, you know," said Tony gloomily, "this is getting to be a bit of a bore."

"Think what it must be for the ladies," his father replied soothingly.

"Yes, by Jove!" said Algie cheerily; "just think of that, brave boy! You give as good as you get, don't you know."

"And even the giving falls on me," added Lord Raymes. Anthony regarded his comforters with newborn wisdom.

"Looked at like that, there is something in it," he agreed.

Undoubtedly Tony had fallen on his feet.

An Excellent Opening

"ARE you both asleep?" said Lady Custerd.

Two heads rose from the smoking-room lounges. At the same time Algie's feet dropped upon the floor, but Tony remained gracefully outstretched.

"No, "said Tony, "only exhausted."

"But you've hardly been out of the house today!"

"That's just it," said Algie.

"Nothin's so tirin' as thinkin'," explained Tony.

He was now fully matured and already showed every sign of fulfilling the promise of his youth. Three years spent chiefly in London, Doncaster, Newmarket, and other centres of culture and enterprise had contributed greatly to this result. His moustache was trimmed and brushed up in the most approved fashion, he had almost totally divested his vocabulary of the letter g, his complexion was rosier than ever, and all these physical allurements were now enhanced by the most perfect tailoring.

His faithful friend resembled him, if possible, more closely than ever; though, as Lady Custerd always maintained, there was "a something" about Anthony that distinguished him from the most artistic imitation.

"Dear me," she answered sympathetically, "what have you been thinking about?"

"What dear Tony's goin' to do next," said Algie.

"Well, and what have you decided?"

The twain exchanged a disconsolate glance.

"Nothin'," said Tony, and closed his eyes with the air of a man who thoroughly deserved a rest.

Ever since he left Oxford it had been his own opinion that this was really what he required. His father and certain other of his kindred might talk away as much as they liked about the necessity for his finding some means of earning a livelihood; but, as for himself, he found the mere contemplation of the various occupations they suggested quite fatiguing enough. Being the soul of good nature, he had endeavoured to satisfy his parents' aspirations by drifting in whatever direction his counsellors suggested. But what was the use when he was never allowed to get any farther? He had drifted toward the army till an unsympathetic examiner barred his way. He had floated actually into the city, but somehow or other the next wave washed him out again. In short, he had done his best to please the dear old Guv'nor, and now all he asked for was to be left alone. Yet this interminable babble about livelihood still continued.

"I call it rot," he remarked, suddenly opening his mild blue eyes.

"What is?" inquired his aunt.

"Askin' me to think of something myself. I'll do anything the Guv'nor likes; I've told him so any number of times. Why can't he find me something without all this worryin'? Today's been wasted in thinkin', and what's the result? Simply that poor old Algie and me's dead beat. It's wastin' Algie's time and it's wastin' mine."

Lady Custerd sighed and went in search of her brother-in-law. He had grown more incomprehensible than ever of late, and she had no great hopes of obtaining satisfaction: but she resolved to make a very determined effort to stir him up. Of course it was his business to find a job for dear Tony.

At her entrance Lord Raymes looked up from a letter he was reading.

"We have a humorist in our family," he observed.

"Oh," she said, "who is it?"

"James Rutland. He asks me for a couple of hundred pounds!"

"James Rutland!" she exclaimed. "I call that rather cool; and I sincerely trust, Raymes, that you won't dream of giving two hundred pounds to your second cousin— isn't he?— while your own children remain hard up."

"I must remember that argument."

"But what does he want so much money for? I always thought James Rutland was one of those queer people who live simple lives and that kind of thing."

"So he is. He wants to start poultry farming."

"Well, why not tell him you'll buy his eggs? That's much more sensible than sending him money; because you've got to have eggs anyhow."

"I had already thought of that, but unfortunately James proposes to start this venture in New Zealand."

"Then tell him you are very sorry, but you can't help him," said Lady Custerd decisively. "And now, Raymes, I do want to ask you to set yourself to think seriously of Tony's future. You must find something for the poor boy to do. I don't believe in young men having no occupation whatever; even if it was—"

He interrupted her by the liveliest exhibition of pleasure he had displayed for many years:

"I have found something!"

"What?" she cried.

"I'll send James the money if he'll take Tony, too."

"Raymes!"

"Yes, Gwendolen, two hundred pounds is a larger check than I ever expected to write again: but think of the satisfaction of feeling that one's youngest boy was only twelve thousand miles away! Hang it, it's only paying fourpence a mile for the sensation."

"You aren't serious?"

"My dear Gwendolen, it's the chance of a lifetime. James is much too hard up to refuse, and once Tony gets out there he'll never have the energy to come home."

"But poultry farming— for Tony!"

"Compare it with bankruptcy."

Lord Raymes rose and politely held the door open.

"Come," he said, "we'll launch him while our enthusiasm is at its height."

It seemed as though Anthony were never going to enjoy the repose he had earned. Within ten minutes of his aunt's departure she and his father again disturbed the quiet of the smoking-room.

"Tony, my boy," said Lord Raymes affectionately, "you are in luck's way."

"Whose way?" asked Tony.

"Luck's."

"But the race isn't run till tomorrow."

Lord Raymes merely raised his eyebrows.

"The result has been decided tonight," he replied.

Tony looked at him gravely.

"Some one's been stuffin' you up," he pronounced.

His father regarded him with an indulgence born of their prospective separation.

"I have found a billet for you," he said.

"By jove!" said Algie.

Tony took the good news in more slowly.

"For me?"

"Yes."

"A billet, you said?"

"I did."

"That's all right," said Tony, and threw up his legs again on the sofa.

"Tony!" exclaimed his aunt, "don't you want to know what it is?"

"Oh— er— by the way, yes, what is it?"

"You are going into poultry farming with your cousin, James Rutland."

Tony stared.

"James Rutland? Never met the fellow. Bit of an ass, isn't he?"

"I think you will find him excellent company," his father assured him.

Tony reflected.

"But, I say, look here, poultry farming you said; what?"

"The very thing for you!"

"But what I mean is— how d'ye do it?"

"You start with a nest egg, I believe."

"With a hen," corrected Lady Custerd. "You must get your hens first, Raymes."

Algie had been listening to this conversation with increasing consternation. At this point he could contain his feelings no longer.

"But look here, I say, don't you know," he protested, "hens ain't very high-class; what?"

"It depends on the kind of hen," said Lord Raymes with undiminished enthusiasm; "some are perfect ladies, I believe."

His sister-in-law seemed a little scandalized.

"I wish you wouldn't put it quite like that," she expostulated.

"Ah," he explained smilingly, "but then, on the other hand, some ladies are perfect hens."

"I— I don't quite follow," she hesitated.

Tony's practical mind gave the conversation a fresh turn.

"Do we eat them, or what?" he asked.

"Eventually, I believe," said his father, "but I should imagine it was optional."

"I don't want to seem a wet blanket," put in Algie, "but isn't it a little infra dig. for dear old Tony— after only just failin' to get into the Guards?"

"In this life, Algernon, one must often be contented with the next best thing."

"But I say, look here," said Tony, struck with a new and puzzling aspect of the case, "suppose they start layin' eggs; what?"

"My dear fellow," cried his parent, "that's just where you come in!"

"But hang it, I ain't a vegetarian."

"My dear boy," smiled Lady Custerd, "you sell the eggs. That's how you make your profit."

"Oh!" said Tony.

Algie remained dissatisfied.

"I call it a deuced risky kind of business, if you ask me," he observed.

"Really?" said Lord Raymes. "Now if you ask me, I should say that an animal that can be persuaded to deposit a source of revenue every morning in your hen coop without even asking for a commission is the very bird we're all looking for."

"Yes, sir, but they break so easy."

"You can't make omelettes otherwise, Algernon."

Tony had been listening to his father's arguments with an air of returning gayety.

Great business, I call it!" he exclaimed.

"D'ye mean to say you're on for it, Tony?" asked Algernon.

"Anything for a quiet life, dear boy. Where does one play this kind of game? I remember once noticin' hens near Epsom. What about trainin' em there? They'll lay as well one place as another, I s'pose."

"They do it best in New Zealand, I believe," said his father with a casual air.

"New Zealand," mused Tony; "that's a longish way off, ain't it?"

"Only twelve thousand miles."

"Beastly hot there; what?"

"One of the finest climates in the world."

"Oh, but I say, sir—"

"Remarkable for the beauty of its women," Lord Raymes interposed hastily.

"Right you are," said Tony.

"Tony!" cried his friend disconsolately. But the die was cast.

IT WAS just three weeks later that Lord Raymes and Lady Custerd found themselves dining alone together. From the fullness of her heart Lady Custerd murmured half aloud: "I suppose Tony's now right out at sea!"

"You suppose he's still quite at sea, eh?" Lord Raymes asked. "Yes, I presume one must take that for granted."

"I said that he must have sailed by now," she corrected.

"I have certainly taken every precaution I could think of. I didn't give James Rutland the chance of meeting him till three hours before the ship sailed. Hang it, James couldn't back out of it at three hours' notice!" His air grew cheerier. "Yes, Gwendolen, I think we are almost justified in regarding our dear Tony as an exile on the deep."

"Of course we all have our faults," said Lady Custerd; "but poor Tony really had much to contend with."

His father cordially agreed.

"Nature treated him shamefully; she seemed to have forgotten everything."

"Yet he had a charming disposition!"

"He would let one stroke him all day."

"And he repaid every obligation with genuine affection."

"With absolutely nothing else," Lord Raymes concurred.

"I shall long for him to come back!"

"You will have the sympathy of all New Zealand," Lord Raymes assured her.

"But it's so far for him to come!"

"Twelve thousand miles," said he. "Gad, I never dreamt I should ever get as far away from Tony as that!"

"Hullo!" said Tony.

The two disconsolate mourners stared at the apparition in silence.

"Didn't expect me back so soon; what?" it continued.

Lord Raymes was the first to recover.

"I ought to have," he confessed, "but something in this fine weather made me feel sanguine."

"Isn't the ship sailing tonight?" cried Lady Custerd.

"Oh, she's sailin' all right."

"And James Rutland?"

"He's not going either."

"Not going either? Why not?"

"Says he's got a nervous headache."

"When did it come on?" his father inquired stoically.

"It seemed to begin about two minutes after he saw me. At least he looked all right when I met him, but as soon as we started talkin' I noticed him gettin' queerer and queerer. Oh, by the way, I've got a letter from him."

His father opened it with philosophic calm. It contained only his own check for two hundred pounds and this pencilled line written in a hand that evidently quivered with the stress of strong emotion:

"Not big enough."

"I told you Rutland was an ass," said Tony.

"You were wrong," his parent replied.

"Man Proposes ..."

"THEY'RE simply lovely!" cried Dinah.

She bent her graceful little figure till her nose was deep in the vase of flowers, and luxuriously drank in their fragrance.

"They are lovely," Lady Custerd promptly agreed.

"How awfully nice of him," said the girl, with the faintest rise of colour.

"It's not every one Tony honours with these attentions, I can assure you," smiled Lady Custerd. "In fact, I never knew him to pick a flower before."

Lord Raymes' charming ward smiled, too, but at the flowers, not at Lady Custerd. She was only just eighteen, and she had never before received gifts from a tall young man with blue eyes and a brushed-up moustache, and the son of a peer, moreover.

"He is such a dear boy!" said Lady Custerd.

She felt as pleased as the girl. Miss Dinah Lowndes was very rich, indeed, and Tony's position critical. Surely if the poor boy's luck were ever going to change, now was the time!

"I don't quite understand him," said Dinah in a moment.

"Yes," his aunt admitted; "there's a wonderful depth in Tony's character."

"And yet I don't know that he strikes me as exactly deep."

"Oh, not in a bad sense! I only mean that he has a great deal in him."

The girl seemed to muse.

"I suppose he must have," she said; "but, of course, I haven't had much experience in drawing men out."

"That's the only reason, dear," Lady Custerd assured her with a confident smile. "But if you want a proof that he has romance in him, just look at these flowers!"

With happy tact the good lady left her alone with this reflection.

On the stairs she met her brother-in-law ascending with a curiously-stealthy tread, and apparently holding something concealed behind his back.

"Dinah seen the flowers?" he inquired eagerly.

"Yes. Isn't it charming of Tony?"

He smiled strangely.

"Devilish," he agreed.

"What are you holding behind your back?" she asked.

He looked round warily, and discovering no one in sight, revealed another bouquet.

"At her age one can't pile it on too thick," he remarked.

Lady Custerd started.

"What!" she cried. "You don't mean, Raymes— you can't mean it was you—?"

"My dear Gwendolen, you didn't suppose poor Tony had the sense to send her those flowers himself?"

"But, Raymes," she gasped, "that— that is deceiving the poor girl."

"All's fair in love," he quoted. "Take them!" he added hastily, and thrust the bouquet into her hands.

A young man had just appeared. He was barely twenty, slender and pleasantly good-looking, with a diffidently well-bred manner. Lord Raymes regarded him coldly.

"Well, Lawrence," he inquired, "what are you doing this morning?"

The young man's colour rose.

"Oh— er— nothing in particular," he hesitated.

"Why don't you get hold of Algie and have a game of billiards, or try the golf course? If the mowing-machine's mended, the greens ought to be cut this week."

Again the young man hesitated.

"Miss Lowndes spoke of playing golf—" he began.

"She is otherwise engaged," said his host with disconcerting promptness; "go and try Algie."

The unhappy young man retired. He began to wish sincerely that his father had not proposed to his old friend, Lord Raymes, that his son should spend a week with him. Admiral Foster had thought it would be such a pleasant change for Lawrence from a summer vacation spent at the seaside. He would meet nice people, see good society, and enjoy the enviable sensation of visiting a famous country house. But somehow or other the poor youth found himself apparently in everybody's way— except Miss Lowndes'. And circumstances seemed to conspire to keep him out of hers.

"That young fellow is getting on my nerves," said Lord Raymes. "What the deuce is one to do with him? He's shy of me and he's too brainy for Tony and Algie; and as to letting him play golf with Dinah, I'm hanged if he's going to! Nature has given Tony quite enough to contend with. I wish, Gwendolen, you'd take him away and amuse him."

"But I don't amuse him," she replied.

"Damn!" said his lordship irritably.

With his customary politeness he immediately apologized for the slip.

"Though at the same time," he said, "you must admit that marrying Tony is trying work. However, I think I've brought him up to the scratch at last."

"Really!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I'm so glad! I only hope he won't lose any more time."

"I have been perfectly frank with him," said his father. "I told him plainly his only chance was to pot her sitting."

Lady Custerd opened her eyes.

"I wish you'd express yourself intelligibly, Raymes."

"I mean," he replied, "that he must bag her before she finds him out. No woman who knew poor Tony could ever conceivably marry him. In fact, I told him so. I've just spent the most refreshing half-hour in explaining Anthony to himself. He's got to pop the question before lunch or look for another father. That was my ultimatum."

This was one of the few occasions when Lady Custerd felt sincerely relieved to think that Raymes seldom meant exactly what he said.

Yet he had evidently reported his conversation with some approximation to accuracy, for when Tony regained the shelter of the billiard-room his first words were:

"Dear boy, I'm hooked at last."

"Bravo!" cried Algie. "No gettin' out of it this time; what?"

"It's my duty," replied Tony; "I've got to take the little girl, I'm afraid."

"Jolly, rippin' little thing she is," said Algie consolingly.

"Oh, rippin' and all that— yes. And the guv'nor seems keen on it."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, I dunno; he just jawed away. Sittin' up so late doesn't agree with me. I was half asleep all the time. The guv'nor's deuced borin' when he gets on the gas."

"You don't remember what he gassed about?"

"Not a word—except something about doin' it before lunch."

"Great news!" cried Algie.

At this point they were interrupted by the diffident young man.

"Hullo!" said Tony coldly.

Lawrence regarded them without enthusiasm.

"Neither of you wants to play billiards, I suppose?"

"Not me," said Tony.

"Nor me," said Algie.

"Care for golf?"

"Not much," said Tony.

"No, thanks," said Algie.

Lawrence turned away silently.

"We're trying to think," explained Tony.

Lawrence looked at him curiously.

"Do you find it difficult?" he inquired.

The twain watched his exit in silence. They remembered he was a scholar of Balliol, and made allowances for a certain inanity in his conversation. But as for treating him like a sportsman and human being—how was it possible?

"She's pots of money, I suppose," Algie resumed.

"Oh, pots."

"Lucky man!"

Tony smiled with lordly indifference.

"All the same, it's desperate hard work proposin'," he remarked.

"At it like a sportsman! If you're in form, dear boy, it won't take you more than five minutes."

"I'm not at my best," the ardent lover confessed, "too beastly sleepy."

"Have a whisky and soda."

"Good idea!"

He sauntered toward the door.

"They're stickin' her in the drawing-room— waitin' for me now, I suppose," he explained.

"Good luck!" cried Algie. "Play you a couple of hundred up when you come back; what?"

"Right you are; you can be spottin' the red."

"There goes a deuced-fine, old-fashioned sportsman!" said Algie to himself enthusiastically. "Gad, he's the best I ever met!"

As her admirer entered the drawing-room, Dinah looked up out of a very bright pair of eyes. She knew why she had been sent to violate the solitude of that apartment. In fact, she had merely been wondering when some one else was going to appear.

"Hullo!" said Tony. "You here; what? Fust rate!"

This was a dashing beginning and fluttered the little lady's heart distinctly. A Napoleon among wooers had come to storm her fortress! Yet she remained demure.

"Yes," she smiled; "I am here."

"Right you are," quoth Tony. "Ha, ha! And so'm I. Rather a coincidence; what?"

Dashing as ever, she thought; yet somehow not quite so dangerous.

"I don't think it's so very extraordinary," she replied; and then realized with horror that this was a very ambiguous thing to say; it might be read as a tribute to her own charms.

"Well— ha— more or less, don't you know; what?"

She breathed more freely. He had let her off: yet was it through magnanimity alone?

"What do you mean by more or less?" she inquired, with a hint of twinkle in her eye.

"What do I mean? Oh, just what one—er—usually does mean, don't you know?"

She remembered his aunt's assurance. Could this be a first glimpse into the unplumbed depths of Tony's soul?

"You are too deep for me," she smiled.

"Deep; what? Me deep? Oh, hang it!"

He played with his virile moustache and gazed at her in silence out of those amiable blue eyes. Suddenly it seemed to her that their expression was remarkably like some animal's. What animal was it? She tried to think.

"Aren't you deep?" she inquired.

"Ain't I? Ha— well— I dunno."

She knew the animal now! It was a cow.

"Oh, by the way, thank you very much for the flowers," she said.

His eyes opened still wider.

"Flowers? What d'ye mean? Rottin' me, are you; what?"

Her eyes began to open now.

"The lovely flowers you sent me— didn't you?"

Dimly he began to recall something his father had told him— something he was to be sure to remember. He wished he hadn't felt so infernally sleepy; he might have known what she was talking about.

"Oh— er— by jove, yes— I know. The Guv'nor mentioned— that's to say— h'm."

The most curious suspicion stole into Dinah's mind. She asked demurely:

"Did Lord Raymes pick the flowers for you?"

Tony was puzzled, positively puzzled.

"Ha, ha!" he laughed. "Ha, ha, ha! I say, don't you know, that's goin' it pretty rapid! Ha, ha, ha!"

He flattered himself he had cleared that fence in pretty good style.

"What is the real name of those flowers?" she asked.

He went at it again courageously.

"Ha, ha, ha! Mean to say you don't know yourself; what? Ha, ha!"

"I only know the Latin name," she said gravely; "what is the English?"

This was a dreadfully difficult jump. Again he stared: for quite a minute on end now. It was beginning to get embarrassing when she was relieved to see the blue eyes blink. They blinked again, and then closed altogether. His head fell forward and then jerked up again.

"Hullo!" he said. "Goin' off to sleep, by George, ha, ha!"

Relentlessly she pushed him at the fence.

"You were telling me the name of those flowers."

"Flowers, you say; what? They were— er— daisies— a kind o' daisies. No, by Jove, not that. Er— I say, I'm awfully sleepy this morning, somehow."

Dinah's heart entirely ceased to flutter. She had discovered what was in this dangerous Tony.

"Wouldn't you like to put up your feet on the sofa?" she suggested.

Her discoveries of his qualities were not yet at an end, she found. In simple good faith he threw up his legs and laid his head upon a cushion.

"Good idea!" he said. "I say, just give me forty winks and I'll be fresh as a bird. Don't go away; I've got something to say to you; but it'll keep for five minutes."

Within ten seconds of the cessation of his voice she heard the first snore.

For a minute or two Dinah studied her slumbering wooer with a very curious expression on her pretty face. She seemed to be reconsidering something. And then a shadow darkened the French window. She turned quickly.

"Hush!" she whispered.

It was the diffident young man who entered, but at the sight of Dinah his diffidence seemed forgotten in some stronger feeling. When he spied Tony his emotion in turn altered.

"What's happening?" he asked with bated breath.

Dinah gave him a little look that uplifted Lawrence's heart strangely. She seemed to be dumbly appealing to him.

"I am waiting for a proposal," she whispered.

He gazed at her.

"Seriously?"

She nodded.

"As soon as he wakes up."

The courage of despair possessed him.

"Are you going to—?" he asked.

"What?"

"Accept him?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and Lawrence gazed harder than ever. There was something in the air—some form of wireless wave—that told him the moment was charged with possibilities. He felt the forelock of opportunity brushing against his hand. But should an impecunious young scholar of Balliol seize it? She was an heiress—dreadfully rich—and were not heiresses reserved for the younger sons of peers and such like? He had been brought up in that belief by a true-blue Tory parent.

"Have you— have you— quite decided?" he procrastinated.

"Why are you interested?" she asked.

"Because— because—" The diffident young man stopped, and then suddenly stepped boldly up to the sleeping sportsman and held his hand just above his shoulder.

"Do you want me to wake him up for you?" he demanded.

"No!" she implored him.

And then Lawrence grasped the forelock.

About five minutes later Anthony gradually awoke. There was the deuce of a funny sound in the room. Dreamily he puzzled it out. He was in bed— no, by Jove, he was on the drawing-room sofa. And there was that Lowndes girl waiting. What the deuce was she doing making a noise like that? Gad! he heard a voice! He raised his head and beheld his prospective fiancée locked fast in the arms of Lawrence Foster.

"By George— I say!" he expostulated.

They had the grace to desist, but not to look in the least ashamed of themselves. The ensuing pause was broken by the scholar of Balliol.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you," he said politely; "were you still trying to think?"

Dimly Tony began to suspect that there was something worse than queerness about this beastly fellow's manner. He decided to ignore him altogether. Directing the same steady stare upon the faithless lady, he observed:

"Dash it, you know."

"Dash what?" she inquired.

Her tone also displeased him. There was a want of respect about it.

"Well, I mean this is a bit of a bore."

"Not for me," she assured him with her daintiest smile.

"I don't call it sportin'; not while I was asleep."

"I don't think it sporting of you to go to sleep," she replied.

"I disagree," he retorted with dignity; "and, anyhow, there's no object in keepin' awake any longer, I presume; what?"

"None at all," she assured him. "You may go off again whenever you like."

A snore from that prince of sportsmen acknowledged her kindness.

His Last Chance

"BELIEVE me, sir, believe me, you do Tony an injustice!"

Lord Raymes looked dryly at the fervent advocate and then glanced at his son. Through the arch that separated the smoking-room from the billiard-room he could see Tony practicing losing hazards into the middle pocket.

"I am glad to find he still has an admirer left," he replied.

"Meanin' me?" said Algie eagerly. "Gad, sir, he has! I put a deuced high value on Tony."

"I'll let you have him for two-and-six, clothes and all," smiled Tony's parent.

Algie's pink face grew pinker and his voice sank to an impassioned murmur:

"Excuse me sayin' so, sir, but aren't you just a little too sarcastic about dear old Tony— sometimes, you know? Of course, I know you're fond of him—"

"In a purely paternal way, I assure you," his host gently interposed.

"But look here: it's not his fault he hasn't—"

"Brains?"

"Luck, I was goin' to say."

"Ah, it's want of luck he suffers from, is it?"

"Chiefly."

"It's a devilish nasty complaint, Algernon," said the old gentleman. "They sometimes have to bury people for it."

Algie's appeal grew the more earnest:

"But couldn't you do something for him? Excuse my pressing you, but he's my oldest pal, you know."

Lord Raymes looked at him curiously. He was as charming an old nobleman as you could wish to meet, but among his engaging qualities enthusiasm had never been conspicuous. Yet even he was affected by Algie's ardour.

"You are a remarkable young man, Algie," he observed. "For your sake I am almost tempted to give him another inning."

"I knew you'd be a sportsman—"

Lord Raymes interrupted him with a sedative gesture.

"Tony!" he called, "come here."

Anthony laid down his cue and came into the smoking-room.

"Dear old Algie bin puttin' in his oar?" he inquired amiably.

"Trying to, dear Tony," said his friend.

"Any luck?"

Algie glanced at Lord Raymes.

"You've a dear, kind, sportin' guv'nor; that's what you have, Tony."

Tony smiled open approval upon his father.

"It don't need a very extra big check; what?" he remarked pleasantly.

"The size makes no difference whatever."

"Good man!" said Tony.

"Because," continued Lord Raymes, "I have no intention of giving you another penny."

The two young men could not restrain an exclamation of disapproval. Yet that they did not mean to be unduly severe appeared from the charitable tenor of Anthony's next observation: "I say, Father, you can't be feelin' fit."

"I am suffering from an attack of your own complaint, Tony."

"Mine— what's that?"

"Want of luck, I understand."

Tony appeared seriously concerned.

"Anythin' happened?"

"You have, Tony; that's all."

"Me! Not— er— badly, you don't mean; what?"

"Yes, Tony, a sharp attack. I have glanced through your bills."

His son smiled reassuringly.

"Oh, the bills are nothin'. That kind of fellow is used to waitin'. It's only the I. O. U.'s that you need settle."

"I shall not settle them," replied his parent.

"Not settle a debt of honour?"

Algie appeared as horrified as his friend.

"Surely, sir," he exclaimed, "that isn't final?"

"Final," Lord Raymes pronounced with emphasis.

The two young men looked at one another miserably, and then in a subdued voice Algernon asked:

"But what's dear old Tony goin' to do?"

For a moment a sudden animation burned in the old gentleman's eye, and in a voice that rang with decision he pronounced the one word:

"Marry!"

Tony showed no answering enthusiasm.

"You've suggested that before."

"I suggest it again."

"But, dash it, I've had a go at it. I've actually been engaged once."

"Twice, Tony," corrected his friend.

"Oh, twice; so it was. That's not bad."

His father smiled acidly.

"And I bought you out of it each time."

A triumphant smile burst through the gloom of Anthony's countenance.

"Now, you see! There's an instance of my bad luck!"

"Two instances," said Lord Raymes gently; "do yourself justice, my boy."

"As to marryin' heiresses," Tony continued, "I don't know how it is, but, somehow, I never seem to get 'em in the right kind of corner. When I catch their hands I seem to lose their attention, and when I catch their attention I seem to lose their hands. There's a trick in it, I suppose."

His parent regarded him inscrutably. When he spoke it was with the same air of bland finality:

"Well, my boy, since you suffer from this distressing weakness it is clear that we must find you a problem so simple that you can't muddle it, even if you try."

"It mustn't be a woman, then."

"It is a woman."

The young men exclaimed together:

"What? You know one?"

"One," said his lordship with emphasis; "your last chance, Tony."

"Who?"

With tantalizing deliberation Lord Raymes selected a fresh cigar. Then, with a faint smile on his thin, clean-shaven lips, he inquired in a casual way:

"Did you ever by any chance happen to observe one of my female domestics who answers to the name of Mary?"

The two young men exchanged significant glances.

"I— er— have noticed her," confessed Tony; "but— er— why not stick to what we were talkin'—"

"She leaves tomorrow."

"But, I say," expostulated Tony, "I assure you there's nothin'; I've only just spoken to her once— or twice— or certainly only two or three times; you really needn't sack her!"

"I am not sacking her," said his father; "she is retiring to the front stairs. It seems that this Mary Dishett was the fortunate possessor of an uncle in the State of Minnesota. He has just died, leaving her three hundred thousand pounds."

"Three hundred thousand pounds!" exclaimed Algie in an awed voice.

"And I haven't an uncle worth sixpence!" cried Tony bitterly. "What about luck now? Who can blame me after this? It's simply luck: there's nothing else the matter that I can see. Just give me a chance like that!"

His father looked at him steadily.

"I give you this chance."

For a moment they gazed at him with wonder in their amiable blue eyes, until at length his meaning penetrated to their understandings.

"What!" cried Tony, turning very pink indeed, "you don't mean to say she was the girl you meant? You wouldn't actually let me marry Mary!"

"If the law of England gave me sufficient authority I should make you."

"But— but," stammered the unhappy young man— "but wouldn't it be morganatic?"

"Not if it took place in church."

Algie looked exceedingly serious.

"Honestly, sir, would you ask our Tony, our own dear Tony, to marry a servant?" he demanded.

"In the first place," replied Lord Raymes, "she will cease to be a servant tomorrow morning. In the second, she is a decidedly superior and sensible girl—in that respect, at least, as well equipped as our dear Tony. In the third, I see no possible alternative. I have always known that Tony belonged to the unemployable; I had begun to suspect that he belonged, also, to the unmarriable. But Providence has sent Mary, and by a chance too fortunate to be called mere accident, she has already found favour in his eyes. I suggest that he marry her."

His lordship was possessed of a singularly-dignified presence, and these weirds, uttered with extreme gravity, evidently impressed Algernon.

"By Jove, you know!" he murmured. "But haven't you any family pride, Father?"

"No, Tony. Not enough to split."

"Tony," his friend cried suddenly, "I agree with Lord Raymes! You have no choice left. It's best, dear boy; it's best. She's a ripper. And three hundred thousand pounds! I envy you, Tony!"

The friend of his youth looked at him plaintively. They were two to one against him now, and he had always disliked being in the minority. One met such queer company in minorities: fellows with dashed ideas and other forms of bounder. In a melancholy voice he made his first concession:

"I don't mind goin' the length of tossin' you for her."

"Good sportsman and all the rest of it!" cried Algie in uncontrollable admiration; "but supposin' you lost. Who's to pay your I.O.U.'s then; what?"

"I see your point," murmured Anthony.

His father watched him with a comprehending eye.

"My boy," said he, "let me advise you to go and shut yourself up for half an hour and think it over quietly. Just keep repeating to yourself, 'Three hundred thousand pounds and a pretty girl thrown in, or a pickaxe on the Yukon,' and make up your mind which alternative you prefer. There is no third choice, remember."

"You won't give me even— er— well, I don't ask for more than a thousand pounds?"

"I shall pay your passage to Alaska and that's the last penny I shall spend on you."

"Payin' it to Monte Carlo would cost you less," his son suggested.

"I am in an extravagant humour, Tony."

Tony was struck with a bright idea.

"Well, look here, then: you fork out the passage money to Alaska and leave the spendin' of it to me."

"Lead him away, Algernon."

Algie took his friend's arm and drew him toward the door, encouraging him thus:

"She's a ripper, Tony, a regular ripper! And I'll be your best man; I'll see you through it. Dear old boy, England can't afford to lose you. It's worth making any sacrifice to avoid that. You can arrange for a divorce afterward; but nail the boodle now, Tony, nail the boodle now!"

The thin, suave voice of Lord Raymes followed them.

"Three hundred thousand pounds, Tony, and a devilish worthy young woman. I couldn't do more for you if I were your tailor."

Anthony seemed sensible of his kindness.

"It is deuced good of you," he confessed.

"You are my Benjamin," replied his parent; and to this duet of mutual affection the young man retired to meditate.

"Ring the bell, will you, Algie?" requested his host, and smiled down amiably at his cigar.

"On the whole," he explained, "it might be safer to say a word to this young lady ourselves before we let Tony loose on her. He seems lacking in method."

"He is full of beans, sir, I assure you."

"I wish to prevent their becoming might-have-beens."

In a moment a footman entered.

"Tell Mary I should like to see her for a few minutes," said Lord Raymes.

"Mary Dishett, my lord, or Mary Frisk?"

"Ah, two Marys, are there? I mean the heiress, Mary Dishett."

He turned to his young guest with a smile more amiable than ever.

"Well, Algie, do you think we are going to break Tony's run of ill luck at last?"

"I hope so, sir. He's had a very tryin' life of it, has Tony."

"So has his father," observed Lord Raymes.

Algie looked pained.

"But isn't that, sir," he urged— "I say it with all deference— isn't that partly because you don't quite appreciate dear Tony?"

Lord Raymes seemed struck with the cogency of this argument.

"I believe you are right," he said deliberately. "How you illuminate a subject, Algernon!"

The door opened, and he turned with his most courteous smile.

"Ah, Mary, good-evening!"

At a glance it was apparent that Miss Dishett embodied respectability. Her age was nine and twenty, her face a guarantee of sound principles, her expression chastely reserved, and her demeanour decorous. With lowered eyes and lips respectfully compressed she articulated not without elegance:

"Thank you, my lord."

Lord Raymes indicated the most inviting chair in the room.

"Again I thank you, my lord," said this exemplary young woman, "but till tomorrow morning, which time I leaves your lordship's service, I should feel more comfortable in the species of chair I fills at prayers."

And so saying she seated herself in a fashion appropriate to the pious reminiscence.

During this brief passage the most remarkable disturbances had agitated Algie's comely countenance. Seizing the old gentleman's arm he whispered distractedly:

"Good Heavens! I say, this isn't the same girl!"

"Eh!"

"This is not the same Mary that Tony fancied!"

Lord Raymes remained calm— even complacent, it seemed.

"I am glad to hear it," he replied. "Tony's taste is atrocious."

Algie was silenced, though not quite reassured.

"Hitherto, Mary," Lord Raymes resumed, "I have not had the opportunity of congratulating you upon the good fortune that has befallen you. I am sure it could not have happened to a more deserving— er— young lady. My only regret is that it is going to deprive me of the pleasure of your society."

"In a sense, my lord," replied Miss Dishett politely, "I regret it also. I always has 'ad— 'as had, I should say— a partiality for the nobility."

This answer appeared to afford his lordship considerable satisfaction. His manner grew more confidential.

"Well, my dear girl," he inquired genially, "and what do you propose to do with three hundred thousand pounds?"

"My lord, I have a brother in need of pecuniary assistance."

My lord's face clouded.

"It is not for me to advise you, Mary; but as an elderly man with some experience of the world, I say: 'Think twice, think twice, ' Mary!"

She deliberated.

"He asks for a hundred pounds, my lord."

My lord's face cleared.

"A hundred pounds? Certainly, my dear girl, certainly send him a hundred pounds, and— er— let him understand that he must in future— ah— depend on his own exertions; as a young man should, Mary, as a young man certainly should."

"My lord, I shall take the liberty of accepting of your advice."

My lord smiled benevolently.

"Very charming of you, Mary; very charming. And now, what do you mean to do with the rest of your fortune?"

An expression of remarkable determination came into Miss Dishett's face.

"Your lordship, if I says it who shouldn't, it do seem a pity to throw away so much knowledge of the ways of the servant classes. I think of having such a 'ouse— 'aving such a house— my lord, as will require the keeping of numerous domestics of both sexes."

His lordship smiled sympathetically.

"With a view to improving their conditions— that sort of thing, eh?"

A gleam of austere purpose kindled in Miss Dishett's eye.

"With a view, my lord, of learning 'em to avoid many errors into which they falls under gentlemen and ladies unacquainted with their natural sinfulness."

"Gad!" cried he. "It might be myself speaking of the House of Lords!"

Regarding her with evidently increased respect he inquired:

"And have you got your eye on a suitable mansion?"

Her glance again sought the floor, and a little smile broke the rigidity of her lips.

"Begging your pardon, my lord, but— your lordship wasn't wanting to let, was you?"

His lordship controlled his emotions with difficulty.

"To—! Er— well, my dear girl—"

"Of course, we all knows you are 'ard up."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

He pondered.

"Then you think my little place might suit you?"

"In most ways, my lord, certainly. The steepness of the back stairs I have sometimes in the past complained of. In the future, if I was thinking of making any alterations—"

"You'd pitch 'em steeper, I suppose?"

Miss Dishett looked grave.

"Well, my lord, the footmen do need something to take the exuberance out of them."

"One lives and learns, Algie," murmured Lord Raymes.

He turned upon Mary a smile more beneficent than ever.

"Let us suppose we have established you in some suitable and— er— chaste mansion; the next thing is, how are we going to furnish it, eh?"

"I have already, my lord, decided there will be a grand piano, but no statuary."

"Capital, capital! But, my dear child, I am thinking of an article of furniture even more important than a grand piano. The happy man, Mary! You must find him: eh?"

Miss Dishett lowered her eyes.

"Such sentiments 'ave been far from my thoughts. Do I understand your lordship to mean—"

"A young fellow to share this mansion. Ha, ha! What?"

Miss Dishett looked up again.

"A young gentleman, my lord; I will have nothing less."

"Precisely, precisely, my dear girl; but why not have something more?"

The heiress permitted her virgin eyes to study his countenance for a moment. Apparently the inspection was satisfactory, for when she replied it was with an air of reciprocal confidence.

"Well, my lord, 'aving enjoyed the hospitality of the aristocracy for so long, I can't help feeling it my duty to give the titled classes the first chance."

With charming coyness she added:

"Has your lordship any names to suggest?"

Lord Raymes bent affectionately over his late housemaid and, delicately raising one of her hands, pressed it gently between his own.

"I offer you my only unmarried child."

"Gu-gu?" she exclaimed.

"Eh?"

"I beg your lordship's pardon. The name slipped out quite unintentional. It was how he was known amongst us— in what is now former days, my lord."

He smiled indulgently.

"Well, Mary, and what do you say to Gu-gu?"

"One of the best, Miss Dishett!" cried Algie. "A ripper— simply a ripper!"

Miss Dishett meditated.

"I'd have to choose the housemaids accordingly. I had promised that Mary Frisk a place, but that would have to be off."

Then, with an expression at once businesslike and demure, she addressed her prospective father-in-law:

"My lord, may I be plain with you?"

"You can never be plain, Mary," he answered gallantly, "but you may be as plain as you can. What is it? My dear boy's character? His accomplishments?"

She shook her head.

"Those do not worry me. I had not heard of them one way nor the other. It is this: Does a Honourable's coachman wear a cockade in his 'at— in 'is hat— my lord?"

"The coachman of three hundred thousand pounds wears whatever three hundred thousand pounds chooses," he replied with conviction.

"Then, my lord, I do accept of him."

"Good sportsman!" cried Algie. "Gad, you're a brace of rippers— born for one another, if you ask me."

It was this moment of triumph that the genius of Anthony selected for his reëntry. By one moist hand he led a girl radiant in blushes and golden curls and decked in the same uniform as Miss Dishett.

"Father," he cried, "Mary has consented! Who says I can't do the sportin' thing if I make up my mind and all the rest of it; what?"

Miss Dishett rose.

"My lord," she said with finality, though without emotion, "you 'ave done your best, but some luxuries is too expensive at any price, and some presents isn't worth the postage. I return 'im to you with thanks."

ALGIE ALWAYS quotes this incident as the breaking point of his friend's bad luck. Things had to mend after that; and we are happy to record that they did. His Mary's abilities proved as remarkable as the other Mary's good fortune. She is now proprietress of the most extensive steam laundry in London— an undertaking so prosperous that Tony has recently purchased his first dirigible balloon.

_____________________

15: Front!

Floyd Hamilton Hazard

1874-1947

Tumut and Adelong Times 1 May 1919

SOMEWHERE within the diminutive body of Cyrus Caesar Jones there lived a spirit which flourished like a green bay-tree, in spite of all untowards circumstances.

It was at least a third larger than Jones himself, and, for this reason, the greater part of the time, he had a firm conviction that Jones was quite a man, and equal to almost any high achievement. This belief continued even after many failures to 'get results,' because, whenever his spirit slumbered, he immediately proceeded to awaken it by methods known only to the few.

The two would then again go forward together, tandem-like, with Jones in the rear. He was an alert, practical, business man, with a large stock of knowledge dearly purchased at the University of Hard Work; and there was brick-dust in his hair. His eyes were of deep, comprehending blue, and when there was anything worth seeing he seldom closed them. His trim appearance was greatly in his favour; but for the past weeks it had availed him nothing. Was it his fault that the old firm had failed? No, it was not! Was it his fault that his weary search for another position had so far proved utterly fruitless? Again no! Was he to blame because his savings had melted away? Well, hardly!

He was standing on the curb, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-Fourth Street, in New York, moodily rehearsing in his mind his recent  experiences, as he abstractedly watched the people in the dining-room of the enormous hotel opposite.

'What a week!' His search for similar work had degenerated into a frantic scramble for any kind of work at all. And how, on nothing, pay rent and doctor's bills and acquire food and cash to go on?

'Great Heavens!' he thought.  'If only I had some cash!'

'Cash! Cash! Cash!' beat in on his brain.

'Got to have it! Can't get it!' said Jones

'Can get it!' answered Jones's spirit. 'Keep a-going. Can and will get it.'

'I'm hungry,' complained Jones.

'Shucks!' scoffed his friend. 'Pull in your belt a couple of holes!'

Fully aware that he might as well be alone in the Mojave Desert as in this locality without  money, Jones took another double reef in himself and started off up Fifth Avenue for Central Park.

'Too late for any more office-seeking,' he concluded. 'A long one at the  fountain, a little rest on one of the benches, and a three-mile walk home for you, Cyrus.'

At the edge of a pile of gutter rubbish, near Merry's, he noticed a string of pinkish beads.

'The little girl that lost them won't mind if I give them to Helen,' he mused, as he slipped them into his pocket. 'A trifling present and a doubtful one, but a big help at that. It isn't her fault that she doesn't know I'm out of work.'

He cleansed them in the fountain and placed them in the lonely security of his empty purse.

A copy of the morning's paper stuck between the slots of the bench on which he sat. He was too tired, too, harassed by doubt and fear and hunger, to read; so I he carried it with him.

'Oh, cheer up!' exclaimed his spirit, as he walked along: 'You still have a latchkey, your wife, and your baby.'

'Yes, and I'm still clear of the loan sharks,' answered Jones thankfully.

This spirit of his made him stop to sympathize with a little girl on roller-skates, who had fallen and bumped her nose, near, his home. It also nerved him to greet the doctor at the entrance to this up-to-date tenement on the east side cross street.

'Hallo, doc. How's my wife?' he genially inquired, with a sinking heart.

'All right,' was the reply. 'The crisis came at noon to-day, and ? she will recover, if you can manage the diet. But how about my bill?'

Again was Jones prompted. 'How about your bill? Why aren't you Dr. Bill?' he laughed. 'Can't let you stop treatment yet you know. See you to-morrow.'

Satisfied, the doctor left him, but there was another touch needed to almost complete his misery. Jones met the agent.

'Your rent has been overdue five days,' was this individual's pleasant salutation.

'I know it,' answered Jones nonchalantly. 'Would a check on the First Commercial do you right now?' he queried in a bantering tone.

'It would, if I could get it,' was the reply in forbidding tones.

'Well!' said Jones cheerfully. 'Don't look so grouchy! Let's all be happy. Come round and see me to-morrow night.'

His feet seemed fastened to the steps as he slowly dragged them up the five nights of stairs, but after the click of the latch-key his heavy heart was lifted by a glad cry as he entered the little three room flat.

'Cyrus! Oh, you dear! Come quickly and let me tell you close! The doctor says I will soon be well. Well! Yes! Completely and soundly well! What do you think of that?'

'Think!' he choked, as he bent over the bed arid kissed his invalid wife. 'Why Helen, darling. I can't thing for the glory of it!'

'Hooray!' shouted Jones and his spirit. 'Hooray!'

There was a wail from the crib by the bedside.

'Hallo, son!' he cried, as he caught up the baby and kissed him. 'Mommer is a goin' t' get well! D'ye hear that! Yes, sir! Listen to that and quit it— you dear little Indian!'

He drew up a chair and sat heavily upon it, the child in his arms. '

'What is it that you need tonight, dear Heart?' he inquired.

'Two prescriptions, some more port wine, milk, and eggs,' she answered. 'Oh, dearie! Sickness is so terribly expensive I just know it is costing more than your income, even with all that the people in the house have done for me.'

'Well, I'm a long way from being poor yet,' he countered. 'Poor? Well, I should say not! Can any one call me poor, with you and the baby, and a job, and a roof over it all? Poor? With me managing things? Not! Cheer up, girlie, and  see what I've got for you. It's just a little something for you to wear the next Sunday you're able to go out.'

She took the necklace and admired it. Then she held out her arms to him. 'You thoughtful, noble boy,' she. whispered. 'The days are so long without you. Kiss me before you go out for your supper, and then hurry back and talk to me.'

He rose hastily to conceal the start he had involuntarily given at her mention of supper, tenderly laid the now sleeping child in the crib, and then kissed her fondly.

'I was going to cook supper for myself,' he said, 'but I guess I might as well get it at the restaurant, while I am out after your medicine and things.'

'Oh, Cy dear! I forgot to tell you. The man was here to-day and turned off the gas. He said the bill hadn't been paid.'

'Well, what a stupid oversight on my part! I'll stop in there, and make them have it turned on again to-night.'

'How have things gone with you to-day, sweetheart? Dear me! You look completely worn out.'

'Fine!' he lied, and turned away his face. 'Now I must go, and I won't leave you alone a minute longer than I can help. Here is to-day's paper. You can read it to-morrow.'

He tossed the copy he had picked up in the park upon the bed.

When the  door closed behind him. Jones collapsed. He was all, in. Not so, however, with Jones's spirit. It took him, willy-nilly, to the druggist's, the grocer's, the dairy, and the gas office: and it forced Jones to make the four greatest 'talks' necessary for the next forty-eight hours— excepting money— with a greatly strengthened credit, an the gas-man.

'The grand smash for mine to-morrow night!' said Jones to himself, on his way back to the house.

'Decided to be my own chef, after all,' he explained when, the gas-man had left and he had finished ministering to his wife's needs. 'I concluded I liked my own cooking best.'

'What a dear, resourceful boy, you are, Cy,' said his wife with a contented sigh. 'Oh, just as soon as I am up and about again I'll get even with you for all your loving care.' She laughed happily.

Half famished as he was, Jones managed to control himself and to cook his supper before he ate it. By the time he had devoured it his whole being, was shouting for relaxation and rest. So, after rapid preparations for the night, he sought his cot, which had been set up in the little dining-room, stretched himself upon it, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

From a phantasmagoria of  doctors, sick persons, hospitals, babies, sour-faced men who refused him work, house agents, skates, little girls who had lost things, restaurants where he had eaten but could not pay, the police, jails, and the like, he was released by a cry from his wife. He awoke, and with a bound was on his feet.  It was early morning.

'What is it, Helen darling?' he cried as he rushed into the next room, fear gripping him. She was propped up by a pillow and was excitedly reading the copy of the newspaper he had given her the night before.

'My beads, Cyrus! My beads!' she exclaimed. 'Where did you get them?'

He sat weakly down upon the foot of the bed.

'Down-town,' he faltered.

'Did you buy them or did you find them?' she questioned eagerly.

'I found them near Merry's on Fifth Avenue,' he replied shamefacedly, certain that all his perfidy was now discovered.

'Oh, splendid! I just knew it! I was certain of it. Here, read that.'

He took the paper and saw:

$1,000.00 reward and no questions asked upon the return of plain necklace of sixty-nine (69) rose-tinted pearls, recently lost on Fifth Avenue, 42nd to 59th Streets. H. T. Leffingwold, Hotel Shropshire.

'Helen, it can't be true!' he gasped as the two grazed at each other, wide-eyed. 'Let me see them, quick!'

She withdrew the necklace from its hiding place under the pillow. His sleep-laden-eyes brightened as he beheld it. He examined the beads carefully and counted them.

'Pearls!'

No doubt, of it whatever in the light of his present information.

'What stupidity!' he thought. 'How rankly did I insult fortune! What a swine l am!' He sobbed from the excessive joy of his knowledge.

'Why, Cy! Aren't you sure? Aren't you glad?' exclaimed the invalid.

'Helen,' he said as he put his arms about her, 'You little know how glad I am and how fortunate we are. I'll take a day off to return them,  and I'll be back before noon; but I wouldn't trade the whole sixty-nine for you— the one I've got— money or no money.'

And the veil was drawn over the rest of it.

JONES'S home-coming on this day of all days was a triumphal progress. He and his spirit were making holiday. When his latch-key again admitted him he had receipts in full from the doctor and from his creditors of the previous night There was also a slip which recorded the fact that he had paid two months' rent in advance, properly signed by the astonished agent. In the inner pocket of his vest there was also, reposing snugly, a bank-book.

'Was it true?' she called anxiously, as he entered. 'Was it really and truly. true?'

'As true as ever was, sweet-heart,' he answered, chuckling, as he came into her presence. 'And here is another present.'

'What! A bank-book!'

'Nothing less, my dear! And it records the wealth of Helen Jones.'

'Not all of it,' she answered, flushed with joy. 'It is the very least of my possessions!' She cuddled her baby closer, and gave Jones a long, fond look through wet eyes.

'But that isn't all, dearest,' said Jones. 'I've secured another position, a much better one.'

'You have? How is that?'

'The man who owned the fifteen thousand dollars' worth of pearls paid the reward and refused to ask any questions; but I insisted in making a full explanation. We finally had a long conversation, and he incidentally mentioned that he had long needed a capable manager. He said, however, that he had searched in vain for a man of spirit and was about to give up the task in despair.'

'And what did you say to that Cy, dear?'

'I said, 'I am the man,' answered Jones truthfully. 'And what is more I succeeded in proving it to him. But that is another story.'

___________________

16: Nab

Lawrence Mott

1881-1931

World's News (Sydney) 17 May 1913

MR. ALAN MAC WITHERS, late of Inverness-shire, but at present sent out by the firm of Crowdon Brothers to take the chief engineer's berth on one of their freight ships, the Abergelly, came briskly down the hot pier. At his heels trudged two longshoremen, staggering under the load of a brass-bound sea chest, while the homeliest makeshift of a Scotch terrier that was ever whelped trotted awkwardly before, its over-bowed, stumpy legs making hard weather of heaps of wire coils, piles of lumber, and the many other odds and ends that litter a big freight pier.

"Here she is, sor!" one of the longshoremen gasped, letting his end of the chest drop. The other end came down with a crash.

"Ye're na frae Scotland, aire ye?" Mr. Mac Withers asked; but the delicate sneer was lost on the panting Irishman.

"I'll gang aboarrd her. Bide ye here till I need yon hat-box." The longshoremen stared in astonishment as the wiry Scotchman scrambled nimbly up a very steep plank, the terrier a close second. At the ship's rail Mr. Mac Withers stopped; the terrier stopped; man and dog gazed fore and aft with scrutinising eyes. Then Mr. Mac Withers looked down and the terrier looked up.

"Nab, 'tis a dirrty one—hm?" The dog's little pointed ears drooped and its wire-brushed tail wagged dispiritedly.

"She's no like our auld Aberdovey, is she, Nab?"

The terrier was dejection itself at the tone in Mr. Mac Withers's weary voice. Coal dust clung to everything. Here and there patches of white paint struggled to show through it, but almost in vain. Monotonously big winches clanked and ponderous derrick booms swung backward and forward to the biting sharp one —two—three of whistle blasts. Malays and Lascars scurried about the red-rusted iron decks, while from down No. 2 hatch came the hoarse voices of men stowing away the last of the cargo; over it all the hot afternoon sun. Gingerly picking his way, the Scotchman made for the upper-deck ladder.

"Nab, I've tellt ye mony times that ye weren't built forr trraamp ships!" he Mid, affectionately, as he stowed the terrier under his arm; "and, for sic a matter, neither am I; but times wull be muckle better, Nab— soon— if the guld Lord wulls."

When up the narrow iron ladder and on the bridge deck he released the dog. Nab scurried across. peered over the side at the slimy water, and vanished beyond the high sill of a door. He was back in a moment, whining softly.

"So-ho— the auld mon, eh?"

Just then a yellow hand was deferentially laid on Mr. Mae Withers's arm. He turned.

"Bossee Master no likee dog on ship, sir! You thinkee go Hongkong? Mebee piecee way? See Bossie Mate: talkee-talkee; telle you evelyt'ing."

Mr. Mac Withers looked the Chinaman up and flown, then took the end of the neatly plaited queue and brushed a few grains of dust from his sleeves.

"Same auld Chinese. Nab! Naething new!" The terrier squatted in the shadow of the bridge, waiting.

"You tellee Bossee Master lassam shuft veesa —no; that's Arabic. Nab, an' 'twull na be understood by sic a fule! Callee Bosses Master— quick time!"

"Steward!" bellowed a voice, "who the devil is raising that row outside?"

The Chinaman disappeared. Mr. Mac Withers made himself very comfortable in a deck chair, sad Nab crawled beneath it, The dust of the last of the day's work was settling slowly sad the blasts of ferryboats came less often as the Scotchman counted the minutes by his watch.

Skipper Wilbertsoan came out of his room, and saw the figure that smoked placidly ii the deck chair.

"Come, come, my man, you should have asked the agents for a passage. I am not empowered to do anything for you. Is that your dog?" The burly English skipper, stalwart in his authority, glared at Nab. "I do not allow dogs on my ship," he added.

"Wull, skipperr, an' hoo aire ye the evenin'? Aye, yon's ma wee bit terrierr. I was thinkin' maybe ye'd—"

"No, I cannot do anything, and I'll thank you to take yourself and your dog ashore."

The Scotchman got up slowly. "Come, Nab, we'll be gettin' our gear aboarrd." Without a look at the now thoroughly angry skipper, the wiry little man went for'ard.

"Below there, on the dock!"

"Aye, sor!"

"Fetch up ma hat-box an' stow it in the chief engineer's room. An' dinna drrop it— or I'll be down amang ye!"

Flicking his cigar ash away, Mr. Mac Withers spun on his heel and faced Wilbertson, whose face was apoplectic.

"An' I'll thank ye, skipperr, to know a chief engineer when ye see one! It isna' ma fault that the packet I cam' oot on broke a valve some thousand miles off Sandy Hook, an' so I'm a wee bit late. D'ye intend leavin' the evenin'?"

'By —―, sir! Where are your papers? Leave that chest on the main deck!" Wilbertson roared.

The Scotchman gazed at him earnestly for a moment. "Eh, mon, but the sun an' the whusky aire too much for ye! Pairsonally I'd advise ye to give up t'ane or t'itherr!"

The skipper started for the chief, but the latter stepped aside as the Englishman drove past, and pushed an envelope into his hands, Wilbertson had to read its contents.

"So you are my chief engineer?" ha said, ungraciously.

"Na, mon, I'm na 'your chief engineer,' "— mimicking the Englishman. "I've been chief engineer o' the Abergelly ever sin' I put leg  o'er her dirrty rail, and I'm in the employ o' the Messrs. Crowdon Brithers. D'ye get that  rremark— the last one? Wi'r yer kind perrmeession I'll hae my wee chestie taken ta ma rroom." He deliberately turned his back on the raging skipper, and called:—

"Below there; carry aft!"

"The dog can't go, anyway. Steward!" Wilbertson's bellow caused deck hands, stevedore, and the crew to look up. The Chinaman, appeared instantly.

"Heave that dog ashore!"

The terrier had been comfortably flattened in the deck chair's shade while the skipper and the chief engineer had each had their little say, for no orders had been given to him.

"Nab, jutst drive yon heathen awa' frae ma sicht," the little Scot commanded. Out from beneath the deck chair shot a streak of iron grey. It did not make a sound, but the Scotchman looked on, eyes a-twinkle, as the steward fled incontinently.

"Over that dog goes, if it takes all hands!" roared the skipper. "Mr. Jameson The mate came on a run.

"Vera guid, skipperr. But when Nab gangs o'er, as ye put it, ye'll hae na chief engineer, for not one hand wull I put to the machine onless my doggy bides aboarrd."

The mate looked at the skipper for further instructions.

"Have it your own way. But if I did not have to steam to-day, both you and that missing link would go ashore and stay there."

Wilbertson stamped up on the bridge, grumbling.

"A bit 'ot, chief, is the old man where dogs is concerned. 'Ates 'em somethink terrible," the, mate said, apologetically. "You will find your room a bit messed up, I am afraid, as we couldn't get Mr. Ferguson off till noon— and then he went in an ambulance," he added, grimly.

"So? An' why?"

The mate threw back his head and gurgled.

Chief-engineer Mac Withers nodded slowly. "Whusky," he said, sententiously, "is a' richt when taken in mild doses, but pairsonally I'm no sic a grreat believer in it."

The mate piloted him into the engineer's quarters in the afterhouse.

"Sakes, mon, but 'tis a kennel, no less!"

As the Scotchman took in the scene of devastation in the ex-chiefs room, and the reek of stale cigar smoke and other things met him. he "turned himself loose" (as he afterward explained to the owners). Never had the comfortably plodding, dirty, old Abergelly known so much excitement. China boys scuttled about, afraid far their lives, as the new "Housee Engineer" lashed them into superhuman efforts by the use of the most drastic flow of pidgin English that they had ever heard. In a very short time the cabin, which was comfortable enough in itself, was sweet-smelling and neat, and in smart grey overalls the chief engineer started for his engine-room, Nab following closely. At the threshold the inseparable two stopped.

Up through the rows of gratings came a blast of heat that was laden with the stench of rancid tallow and over-hot oil. The terrier curled up in the narrow alley, its little pointed ears cocked sharply forward. As the chief went slowly down the tarnished rungs he noted the unkemptness of that which was now his department, and by the time that he reached the working bed he was sarcastically furious. The second, third, and fourth engineers were there; they had not met him face to face before, but since his having faced the old man down, and the fracas about his room, the whole ship knew the sort of man they had to deal with in that new chief.

"She's a bit dirty, sir," the second began.

"Na, but she's clean— as clean as the inside of a chokit sewer," the chief blandly interrupted. "Aire ye ready to go?"

Swiftly and keenly the little man's eyes travelled over gauges, up and down, everywhere. Then he bolted into the fireroom. The telegraph jangled harshly, and the dial read "stand by." The fireroom door flew open, and Mac Withers returned, dragging the stokers' serang after him. The Indian was shaking all over.

"Ye see that marrk?— that rred marrk?" the Scot inquired. "Wull, ye see that the index is twenty poun' below it, do ye?" He grabbed the native's hand and pointed it at the pressure gauges. "Noo, let me tell ye that the firrst time I see that rred line clear o' th' index fingerr ye an' the lot o' ye wull see the rredest kind o' rred ye everr kenned. I want that twenty poun' inside the hour."

The serang vanished. Deftly Mac Withers opened the throttle a bit and watched the great rods move.

"Eh, she's tender!" he whispered to himself.

Matters went smoothly enough on the big freighter for a week, and every soul on board had a wholesome respect for the little chief engineer. From fiddley down and from tail shaft to the fireroom bulkhead the ship shone— as nearly as human muscle can make iron and steel shine. Additional wiring and bulbs brightened the dingy gloom to a cheery light at night, and the Scotchman had found several ways of economy on steam. The eccentrics had run hot for two nights, so he rigged a small oil tank with copper feed-pipes that dripped regularly. Then the thrust-block had bothered him, but, one after the other, he made shift to smooth away the difficulties until he had his engines as he wanted them.

The skipper and the mate discussed the Abergelly's speed under the new management.

"Jameson, by gad, he's getting 11, 11.3, 11.6 out of her old insides, and doing it on less coal than Ferguson used to get 10 and 10.5," Wilbertson said, grudgingly.

" 'E's a man-driver, sir," the mate answered.

"Well, it's his lookout if he kills 'em. He'll get no more at Madeira. And, by the way, we will catch the mail-boat there at this rate. I must catch her, otherwise I stand to lose"— he stopped abruptly as he saw the mate watching him curiously— "letters from home," he finished, and went to his room for a peg of whisky and soda.

That afternoon Nab came out of Mac Withers's quarters while the chief was asleep, and started on his daily tour of exploration. Up the port side and back along the starboard side he waddled, sniffing about inquisitively. He looked in the galley but disdainfully refused a bone that the Chinese cook proffered. Accept food from a "Chink"? Not he! After he had covered all the lower deck he went to the foot of the bridge-deck ladder, put his little bowed fore-legs on its bottom step, and looked longingly upward to the cool shade under the awnings.One One of the Malay quartermasters saw the odd, wistful figure, and carried Nab up. For all hands were fond of the terrier, though he was decidedly aristocratic in his choice of friends.

Nab enjoyed the breeze, and after the heat of the iron deck on his feet the change to wood was a comfortable one. He ensconced himself on the mat outside the skipper's door. Little by little the pointed ears drooped, and the bright eyes, closed. Shortly afterward Wilbert-son woke. It was stuffy in his room, so he moved out on deck in his stockinged feet and stepped on the dog.

"—— the brute! I told that Scotchman I wouldn't have it up here."

Nab, knowing that he had been in the way, wagged his tail apologetically, and held up his right paw; because his master had taught him that he was to do this when in  the wrong. Wilbertson grabbed the terrier by the scruff of the neck, and flung him aft.

"Stay where you belong, after this!" he roared.

Nab went over the rail of the bridge deck, and landed on No. 3 hatch. He was badly bruised, and when he tried to stand one of his hind legs behaved strangely. The pain in it was hard to bear. But not a whimper came from the grizzled muzzle. He got to the edge of the hatch, half dragging, half holding up the broken leg. He dared not jump. In that condition Mac Withers found him, panting but silent. Tenderly the chief engineer took the dog to his room.

"Nab," he said, as he made splints out of a cigar-box cover, and bound them round the leg—"Nab, dinna let yersel' be taken on yon deck again by ony mon but me. D'ye mind?" And the terrier licked his hand.

THERE WAS a grim look in the chief engineer's eyes as he rapped on the skipper's door.

"Come in!"

"Ye threw ma dog o'er the rrail some time back, didn't ye?"

Wilbertson had had enough "pegs" to make him ugly. He towered over the little Scotchman.

"What if I did? I did, as a matter of fact— and I'll kill the thing the next time I clap eyes on it!"

"Mony thanks, sir!"

"Only 9.5! What's this, Jameson?" asked the skipper. The Abergelly was miles behind the speed that she had shown. After the noon reading Wilbertson went below, worrying as he went. For the first time he clumped down the iron ladders— and Mac Withers was waiting for him.

"What's the matter with your speed?" the skipper shouted.

"Naething. I'll be askin' ye to tak' care for yer coat; a wee bit grease might come on't. Doin' fine, isn't she?"

"Not fine enough! She's been doing over eleven up to last evening. Why hare you slowed her down?"

Mac Withers looked at the skipper in mild and wide-eyed astonishment, and a swarthy oiler watched the two out of the corners of his eyes.

"I can get no more out of her," the Scot said, slowly.

"You can't—or you won't?"

"Either way ye choose!" Mac Withers answered, testily.

"I've a mind to log you, Mr. Mac Withers." The little man almost tiptoed up to the other.

"Log away, Maister Wilberrtson! An' what will th' ownerrs say when I rreporrt the condeetin of the engine-rroom as I found it?  Get away up where ye belong, and don't come annoyin' me. Nine point five is the best that she can do and all that she'll do ontil ye see fit to tell me pairsonally that ye were a brute to brreak a puir little dog's leg that is as bonny a terrier as ever mon owned and that kens mair than ye'll ever ken."

The chief engineer watched the skipper go with a wry smile. "So ye're anxious for speed, eh? An', If I ken a mon's face, ye're ower-anxious. Well, ye'll na get it."

That night Wilbertson paced up and down the bridge restlessly. The mate was on watch, but he discreetly said nothing.

"What had she done when you came on, Jameson?"

"Thirty-eight and a half by the log, sir. Why don't you threaten to log him?"

Jameson and the skipper had been shipmates for several years, and the mate felt that he might speak.

"Threaten the devil! That's the trouble with having a man on board that sees everything and says nothing. I've watched him snooping about the decks, and I'll lay anything you like that there isn't a speck of rust or a bit of chopped paint that he doesn't see. And at table he sits there like a graven image.''

"It is a pity that the chief engineer messes with us, sir," the mate answered soothingly. "Of course we are the brains of the ship, and—"

"Slow that drivel!" Wilbertson snapped. "Mac Withers is as fine an engineer as I ever saw, and when it comes to having him mess with 'us' as you say, why shouldn't he? We may be the 'brains of the ship,' but he's the heart."

Wilbertson took a look at the binnacle and went below, got his pipe, filled and lighted it, then went on deck and leaned against the rail.

A full moon cast its soft light over the Abergelly, and the calm sea shimmered dreamily. The moon-track was wide, and in it tiny crinkles rolled on and on.

Silently the big black freighter pushed her way; silently tan for the gurgle of waters by her deep-sunken sides, and the monotonous brrrmps, brrrmps—brrrmps! of her engines. The first strokes of the quartermaster's bell on the bridge, as he struck the hour, were at once echoed by the magical tones of the ship's bell for'ard, and the nasal wall of the Malay on lookout, "Li-ights are bri-ight, sair!" floated clearly aft.

"Puir laddie, guid dog! Eh, Nab, but ye can navigate, so ye can."

Wilbertson heard the voice by No. 3 hatch, and he went softly aft to look down. Mac Withers squatted, cross-legged, on the hatch, and the terrier moved stiffly at his knees, the bandages on its leg showing very white in the moonlight.

"Dinna ye heed, Nab; 'twull set strraight, an' ye'll be as guid as everr."

While the Englishman looked down the Scotchman took his dog tenderly in his arms. It whimpered— once.

"Eh, Nab, but we've got mony a rough day to weather. Bide a wee till—"

"Mr. Mac Withers!"

The chief looked up. "Sirr?"

"Will you come up and have a cigar— and bring your dog with you?"

"Thank ye, sirr. I'll juist change ma coat firrst."

Without the least sign of feeling the little man came aft, Nab under his arm. Somehow the Scotchman's kindness and devotion to the faithful, uncomplaining terrier had struck a new chord in Wilbertson. He remembered his kiddies, and he remembered the wee ragamuffin pup that they had brought from the street, and he remembered how he had choked its life out— because he had always hated dogs— and he also remembered his kiddies' tears.

"Sit down, chief."

Mac Withers put the terrier carefully on the floor, and then sat on the settee.

The dog haltingly crept to the Scotchman's feet.

"Ye've better manners than that, surely? Gang ower and salute the skipperr!" The keen black eyes looked up; then the dog limped across the cabin, and held up its right paw. For an instant the burly Englishman hesitated, while the terrier, balancing itself an well as it could, held out its paw. Then Wilbertson leaned forward and took it.

"Chief, I do not apologise, but I regret, and when I tell you that I was enough of a fool to lay the wife's half pay on a horse, when I was tight, and that the catching of the mail-boat at Madeira can stop it, you will understand?"

The little Scotchman straightened up.

"I'll juist hae a look below, an' see it I can't pinch a bit more out o' her."

________________

17: A Shock for the Countess

C. S. Montanye

1892-1948

Black Mask March 1923

One of the Countess d’Yls series

FROM THE TERRACES of the Chateau d’Yls, the valley of Var was spread out below Gattiere, threaded with the broad bed of the River Var, swirling over its stony reaches from its cradle in the Hautes-Alpes. The snow-crowned mountains frowned ominously down but in the valley summertime warmth prevailed— quietude disturbed only by the song of birds and the voice of the river.

On the shaded promenade of the Chateau, the pretty Countess d’Yls stared thoughtfully at the unwinding river of the dust-powdered highway, twisting off into the dim distance. Beside her, a tall, well-built young man in tweeds absently flicked the ash from his cigarette and tinkled the ice in the thin glass he held.

Once or twice he surreptitiously considered the woman who reclined so indolently in the padded depths of a black wicker chair. The Countess seemed rarely lovely on this warm, lazy afternoon.

Her ash-blond hair caught what sunshine came in under the sand-colored awning above.

Her blue eyes were dreamy and introspective, her red lips meditatively pursed. Yet for all of her abstraction there was something regal and almost imperious in her bearing; a subtle charm and distinction that was entirely her own.

“I do believe,” the Countess remarked at length, “we are about to entertain visitors.”

She motioned casually with a white hand toward the dust-filled road. The man beside her leaned a little forward. A mile or less distant he observed an approaching motor car that crawled up the road between clouds of dust.

“Visitors?”

The Countess inclined her head.

“So it would appear. And visitors, mon ami, who have come a long way to see us. Observe that the machine is travel-stained, that it appears to be weighted down with luggage. Possibly it is our old friend Murgier,” she added almost mischievously.

The face of the man in tweeds paled under its tan.

“Murgier!” he exclaimed under his breath.

The Countess smiled faintly.

“But it is probably only a motoring party up from Georges de Loup who have wandered off the main road, Armand.”

The man in tweeds had torn the cigarette between his fingers into rags. As if held in the spell of some strange fascination he watched the motor grow larger and larger.

“There are men in it!” he muttered, when the dusty car was abreast the lower wall of the Chateau. “Four men!”

The woman in the wicker chair seemed suddenly to grow animated.

“Mon Dieu!” she said in a low voice. “If it is he, that devil!”

The man she addressed made no reply, only the weaving of his fingers betraying his suppressed nervousness. The hum of the sturdy motor was heard from the drive, way among the terraces now.

There was an interlude— voices around a bend in the promenade— finally the appearance of a liveried automaton that was the butler.

“Monsieur Murgier, madame.”

The man in tweeds stifled a groan. The Countess turned slowly in her chair.

“You may direct Monsieur Murgier here, Henri.”

The butler bowed and turned away. The man in tweeds closed his hands until the nails of them bit into the palms.

“God!”

The Countess laid a tense hand on his arm.

“Smile!” she commanded.

The Monsieur Murgier who presently sauntered down the shaded promenade of the Chateau was a tall, loose-jointed individual with a melancholy mustache and a deeply wrinkled face. A shabby, dusty suit hung loosely and voluminously about his spare figure. A soft straw hat was in one hand; he was gray at the temples.

When he bowed over the slender fingers of the Countess there was a hidden glow in his somber eyes.

“To be favored by the presence of the great!” the woman murmured softly. “Monsieur, this is an honor! May I make you acquainted with the Marquis de Remec?”

She introduced the visitor to the man in tweeds, who bowed stiffly. Somewhere back around the corner of the promenade the drone of the voices of those who had been in the car sounded faintly.

“A liqueur, m’sieu?” the Countess asked. “A cigar?”

Her visitor shook his head, gazed on the peaceful panorama of the valley of the Var.

“Thank you, no. My time is limited. My journey has been a long one and I must make a start for Paris with all due haste. You,” he explained courteously, “and the Marquis will put yourselves in readiness with as much rapidity as possible. You are both my guests for the return journey!”

The man in tweeds whitened to the lips. His startled glance darted to the Countess. The woman had settled herself back in the black wicker chair again and had joined her fingers, tip to tip.

“Accompany you to Paris?” she drawled. “Are you quite serious?”

The wrinkled face of Monsieur Murgier grew inflexible, brass-like!

“Quite serious,” he replied. “You are both under arrest— for the theft of the de Valois pearls!”

FOR A WEEK, intermittently, Paris had known rain— the cold, chilly drizzle of early springtime. Because of the weather cafes and theatres were crowded, fiacres and taxis in constant demand, omnibuses jammed and the drenched boulevards deserted by their usual loungers.

From Montmartre to Montparnasse, scudding, gray clouds veiled the reluctant face of the sun by day and hid a knife-edged moon by night.

The steady, monotonous drizzle pattered against the boudoir windows in the house of the Countess d’Yls, mid-way down the Street of the First Shell. Within, all was snug, warm and comfortable. A coal fire burned in a filigree basket-grate, the radiance of a deeply shaded floor lamp near the toilette table, where a small maid hovered like a mother pigeon about the Countess, diffused a subdued, mellow glow.

The evening growl of Paris came as if from faraway, a lesser sound in the symphony of the rain.

“Madame will wear her jewels?”

The Countess turned and lifted her blue eyes.

“My rings only, Marie, if you please.”

The maid brought the jewel casket, laid it beside her mistress, and at the wardrobe selected a luxurious Kolinsky cape which she draped over an arm. The Countess slipped on her rings, one by one— flashing, blue-white diamonds in carved, platinum settings, an odd Egyptian temple ring, a single ruby that burned like a small ball of crimson fire.

When the last ring glinted on her white fingers she dropped the lid of the casket, stood and turned to a full-length cheval mirror back of her.

The glass reflected the full perfection of her charms, the sheer wonder of her sequin-spangled evening gown, the creamy luster of her bare, powdered arms, shoulders and rounded, contralto throat. Standing there, the soft light on her hair, she was radiant, incomparable, a reincarnated Diana whose draperies came from the most expert needles of the Rue de la Paix.

“I think,” the Countess said aloud, “those who go to fashionable affairs to witness and copy will have much to occupy their pencils on the morrow. My gown is clever, is it not, Marie?”

“It is beautiful!” the maid breathed.

With a little laugh the Countess took the Kolinsky cape.

“Now I must hasten below to the Marquis. Poor boy, it is an hour— or more— that I have kept him cooling his heels. Marie, suspense, they say, breeds appreciation but there is such a thing as wearing out the patience of a cavalier. The really intelligent woman knows when not to overdo it. You understand?”

“Perfectly, madame,” the maid replied.

The Countess let herself out and sought the stairs. She moved lightly down steps that were made mute by the weight of their waterfall of gorgeous carpet. Murals looked down upon her progress to the lower floor, tapestries glittered with threads of flame, the very air seemed somnolent with the heaviness of sybaritic luxury.

Humming a snatch of a boulevard chansonette, the Countess turned into a lounge room that was to the right of the entry-hall below. The aroma of cigarette smoke drifted to her. When she crossed the threshold the Marquis de Remec stood, a well-made, immaculately groomed individual in his perfectly tailored evening clothes.

“Forgive me, Armand,” the Countess pleaded. “Marie was so stupid tonight— all thumbs. I thought she would never finish with me.”

The Marquis lifted her fingers to his lips.

“How lovely you are!” he cried softly. “Ah, dear one, will you never say the word that will make me the happiest man in all France? For two years we have worked together shoulder to shoulder, side by side— for two years you have been a star to me, earth-bound, beautiful beyond all words! Two years of—”

The Countess interrupted with a sigh.

“Of thrills and danger, Armand! Of plots and stratagems, plunder and wealth! I think, mon ami,” she said seriously, “if we are successful tonight I will marry you before April ends. But wait, understand me. It will be a secret. I will still be the Countess d’Yls and you will remain the Marquis de Remec to all the world but me. Then, my friend, if either of us suffers disaster one will not drag the other down. You see?”

She seated herself beside the Marquis, considering him wistfully.

“But tonight?” he said in a stifled voice. “The de Valois affair is the hardest nut we have yet attempted to crack! Tonight we will need all of our cunning, all of our wits!”

The Countess lifted airy brows.

“Indeed?”

The Marquis leaned closer to her.

“There is not,” he explained rapidly, “only Monsieur Murgier of the Surete to consider— the knowledge that he has been blundering after us for months— but the Wolf as well! An hour ago only, Francois picked up some gossip across the river, in some dive. The Wolf steals from his lair tonight  questing the de Valois pearls! Do you understand? We must face double enemies— the net of Murgier, the fangs of the animal who sulks among the Apache brigands of the river front. And this is the task you give to set a crown upon my every hope!”

The Countess d’Yls touched his hand with her pretty fingers.

“Does the threat of Murgier and the presence of the Wolf pack dismay you?” she questioned lightly. “You, the undaunted! You who have been the hero of so many breathless adventures! Armand, you— you annoy me.”

De Remec stood.

“But this is different!” he cried. “Here I have something at stake more precious than gold or jewels— your promise! I— I tremble—”

The Countess laughed at his melodrama.

“Silly boy! We shall not fail—we will snatch the famous pearls from under the very noses of those who would thwart and destroy us. Voila! I snap my fingers at them all. Come now, it grows late. Had we not better start?”

The other glanced at his watch.

“Yes. Francois is waiting with the limousine—”

When they were side by side in the tonneau of the purring motor, the Countess glanced at the streaming windows and shivered.

“Soon it will be late spring,” she said quietly. “Soon it will be our privilege to rest city-weary eyes on the valley of the Var. I intend to open the Chateau in six weeks, mon ami. It will seem like heaven after the miserable winter and the rain, the rain!”

The car shaped a course west, then south. Paris lifted a gaudy reflection to the canopy of the frowning clouds, flashing past in its nightly pursuit of pleasure. The Countess eyed the traffic tide idly. Her thoughts were like skeins of silk on a loom that was slowly being reversed. She thought of yesterday— of the little heap of jewels in the boudoir of the villa at Trouville that had been the scene of that week-end party, of herself stealing through the gloom to purloin them— of the Marquis bound on the same errand— of their meeting— surprise— their pact and the bold, triumphant exploits they had both planned and carried out.

The red lips of the Countess were haunted by a smile.

It had all been so easy, so exciting, so simple. True, the dreaded Murgier of the Law had pursued them relentlessly but they had always outwitted him, had always laughed secretly at his discomfiture, rejoicing together over their spoils.

Now, tonight, it was the de Valois pearls— that famous coil the woman had had strung in Amsterdam by experts. Tomorrow Madame de Valois would be bewailing its loss and the necklace— the necklace would be speeding to some foreign port, safe in the possession of the agent who handled all their financial transactions.

“The Wolf!” the Countess thought.

Surely there was nothing to fear from the hulk of the Apache outlaw— a man whose cleverness lay in the curve of a knife, the slippery rope of the garrotter, the sandbag of the desperado. How could the Wolf achieve something that required brains, delicate finesse? It was only the chance that Murgier might upturn some carefully hidden clew that was perilous—

“You are silent,” the Marquis observed.

“I am thinking,” the Countess d’Yls replied dreamily.

A dozen more streets and the motor was in the Rue de la Saint Vigne, stopping before a striped canopy that stretched from the door to the curb that fronted the Paris home of Madame de Valois. The windows of the building were brightly painted with light. The whisper of music crept out. Set in the little, unlighted park that surrounded it, the house was like a painted piece of scenery on a stage.

A footman laid a gloved hand on the silver knob of the limousine door and opened it. The Marquis de Remec assisted the Countess to alight. Safe from the rain under the protection of the awning, they went up the front steps and entered the house.

“You,” the Countess instructed cautiously, “watch for Murgier and I will take care of the Wolf whelps! If the unexpected transpires we will meet tomorrow at noon in the basement of the Cafe of the Three Friends. Francois has been instructed?”

“He will keep the motor running— around the corner,” the Marquis whispered.

Then, pressing her hand: “Courage, dear one, and a prayer for success!”

To the Countess d’Yls it seemed that all the wealth and beauty of the city had flocked to the ballroom which they entered together.

Under the flare of crystal chandeliers Fashion danced in the arms of Affluence. Everywhere jewels sparkled, eyes laughed back at lips that smiled. Perfumes were like the scents of Araby on a hot, desert breeze. Conversation blended with the swinging lilt of the orchestra on the balcony— the shuffle of feet and the whisper of silks and satins filled the room with a queer dissonance.

Separating from the Marquis, the Countess, greeting those who addressed her with a friendly word, a smile or bow, promptly lost herself in the crush. Murgier’s assistants she left to the attention of de Remec. She decided, first, to mark the presence of Madame de Valois and the pearls— after that she would seek the Wolf or his agents in the throng.

After some manoeuvering the Countess discovered the location of Madame de Valois. The woman was dancing with a gray-bearded Senator— an ample, overdressed burden from whose fat neck the famous rope of pearls swayed with every step. The Countess watched the woman drift past and then turned to seek the footprints of the Wolf.

In and out among the crowd she circulated, disregarding those she knew, scanning anxiously the faces and appearance of those she had never before seen. An hour sped past before she believed she had at last discovered the man she sought. This was a beardless youth in shabby evening attire who lingered alone in a foyer that adjoined the south end of the ballroom.

Watching, the Countess touched the elbow of a woman she knew, discreetly indicated the youth and asked a question.

“That,” her friend replied, “is a Monsieur Fernier. He is a young composer of music from the Latin Quarter. Madame de Valois invited him tonight so that he might hear the orchestra play one of his own dance compositions. He is so melancholy, do you not think?”

“From the Latin Quarter,” the Countess told herself when she was alone again. “I will continue to watch you, Monsieur Fernier!”

A few minutes later the Marquis de Remec approached.

“Three agents of Murgier present!” he breathed, drifting past. “The doors are guarded. Be cautious, dear one!”

Another sixty minutes passed.

It was midnight precisely when the Countess saw the putative student from the Latin Quarter make his first move. The youth took a note from his pocket and handed it to a footman, with a word of instruction. The servant threaded a way among the crowd and delivered the message to Madame de Valois. The woman excused herself to those about her, opened the note, read it, and after several more minutes began to move slowly toward the ballroom doors. The Countess, tingling, tightened her lips. A glance over her shoulder showed her that Fernier had left the foyer.

What was the game?

A minute or two after Madame de Valois had disappeared through the doors of the ballroom the Countess had reached them. She looked out in time to behold the other woman crossing the entry-hall and disappearing through the portieres of the reception room beyond. There was no one in evidence. Certain she was on the right trail and filled with a growing anticipation, the Countess waited until the portieres opposite ceased to flutter before moving swiftly toward them.

The metallic jar of bolts being drawn, a scraping sound and then a damp, cool current of air told the Countess that without question the long, French windows in the reception room, opening out on a balcony that overlooked one side of the park, had been pushed wide. She parted the portieres cautiously and looked between them.

The chamber was in darkness— Madame de Valois was a bulky silhouette on the balcony outside— voices mingled faintly.

On noiseless feet the Countess picked a stealthy way down the room. Close to the open windows she drew back into a nest of shadows, leaned a little forward and strained her ears.

There came to her the perplexed query of Madame de Valois:

“But why do you ask me to come out here? Who are you? What is the secret you mention in your note?”

A pause— the suave, silky tones of a man:

“A thousand pardons, Madame. This was the only way possible under the circumstances. My secret is a warning— unscrupulous people are within who would prey upon you!”

“You mean?” Madame de Valois stammered.

“I mean,” the man replied, “your pearls!”

Another pause— plainly one of agitation for the woman on the balcony— then the man again:

“Madame, allow me to introduce myself. Possibly you have heard of me. Paris knows me as the Wolf! Madame will kindly make neither outcry nor move—my revolver covers you steadily and my finger is on the trigger! I will take care of your pearls and see that no one takes them. Madame will be so kind as to remove the necklace immediately!”

Madame de Valois’s gasp of dismay followed hard on the heels of a throaty chuckle. Came unexplainable sounds, the words:

“Thank you. Adieu!”

—then the woman tottering in through the open windows, a quivering mountain of disconcerted flesh, making strange, whimpering sounds.

Madame de Valois had hardly reached the middle of the reception room before the Countess was out on the balcony and was over its rail. A single glance showed her the shadowy figure of the Wolf hastening toward the gates at the far end of the park that opened on the avenue beyond.

With all the speed at her command the Countess ran to the other door in the street wall that was to the right of the house. The door was unlocked. She flung it open and surged out onto the wet pavement, heading toward the avenue, running with all speed while her fingers found and gripped the tiny revolver she had hidden under the overskirt of her evening creation.

She reached the gates at the northern end of the park at the same minute footsteps sounded on the other side of them. They gave slowly, allowing a stout, bearded man to pass between them. The Countess drew back and waited until he turned to close the gates after him.

Then she took two steps forward and sank the muzzle of her weapon into the small of his back.

“Do not trouble yourself to move, Monsieur Wolf,” she said sweetly. “Just keep facing the way you are and I will help myself to the pearls without bothering you.”

She could feel the quiver of the man’s back under the nose of the gun.

“You will die for this!” the Wolf vowed.

The Countess found the smooth, lustrous coil of Madame de Valois’s necklace in his side pocket and stuffed it hastily into her bodice.

“Possibly,” she agreed amiably. “But this is no time to discuss the question. Pay attention to what I say. If you move before two minutes elapse I will shoot you down in your tracks! Continue to keep your face glued to the— gates—  and—”

Dropping her weaponed hand, the Countess surged around the turn of the wall where the avenue joined the side street and raced across the petrol-polished asphalt toward Francois and the waiting limousine. Hazily aware of the growing tumult in the house itself, the Countess was stunned by the sudden crack of a revolver, the whistle of a bullet flying past her, the hoarse bellow of the Wolf’s voice:

“Police!… Police!… Thieves! There she goes!… In that car…”

Pausing only to fire twice at the howling Apache, the Countess, sensitive to the fact that a machine was rolling down the street toward her, climbed into the limousine.

“Quick!” she cried breathlessly. “Off with you, Francois!”

Like a nervous thoroughbred, the car sprang toward the junction of the avenue beyond. The Countess pressed her face to the rear window. The other motor was a thousand rods behind, a car with pale, yellow lamps—a police car— one of the machines of the Surete.

“Across the river!” the Countess directed through the open front glass of the limousine. “We will shake them off on the other side of the Seine!”

Across a bridge— over the night-painted river— past cafes and then into a district of gaunt, silent warehouses, the limousine panted. Twice more the Countess looked back. The pale, yellow lamps behind followed like an avenging nemesis.

“Round the next corner and slow down,” the Countess commanded crisply. “The minute I swing off, speed up and head for the open country—”

On two wheels the limousine shot around into the black gully of a narrow, cobble-paved side street. Its brakes screamed as it slowed for a minute before lunging forward again. Shrinking back behind a pile of casks that fronted one of the warehouses, the Countess laughed as the second car whirled past.

“The long arm of Murgier!” she sneered. “What rubbish!”

Still laughing a little, she moved out from behind the casks— to stiffen suddenly and dart back behind them again. A motorcycle had wheeled into the silent street and a man was jumping off it.

The Countess, frantic fingers clutching the pearls of Madame de Valois, knew it was the Wolf even before his level tones came to her.

“Mademoiselle,” the Apache said. “I know you are there. I saw the shimmer of your gown before you stepped back behind those casks. You cannot escape me. Hand the necklace over!”

“THE THEFT of the de Valois pearls?” the Countess d’Yls cried softly. “Monsieur is joking!”

Murgier, on the shaded promenade of the Chateau, touched the tips of his disconsolate mustache.

“There is really,” he said almost wearily, “no use in pretending surprise or indignation. Four days ago we bagged the Wolf— he made a full and complete confession…”

The sunlit quiet of the promenade was broken by the throaty cry of the Countess d’Yls. She jumped up, her blue eyes cold, blazing stars.

“Yes, you devil!” she said unsteadily. “Yes, Monsieur Ferret, we took the pearls— I took the pearls! The Wolf did not get them! No one else shall! I have hidden them well! Take me, take us both— jail us— you will never find the necklace— no one ever will!”

Murgier snapped his fingers twice. The men who had come up the dusty road in the travel-stained motor rounded the corner of the walk. The Countess laughed insolently at the man who faced her.

“In a measure,” Murgier said quietly, “your statement is true. No one will ever reclaim the de Valois pearls. Let me tell you something. When the Wolf made his appearance that night at the warehouse, you saved the necklace from him by dropping it into the mouth of an open cask. Is that not correct? You marked this cask so you might distinguish it again. When you foiled the Wolf your agent began a search for the cask. It had been stored away in the warehouse— there were difficulties— so far your aid has not been able to locate it— but you have hopes. Madame Countess, it is my duty to disillusion both you and—” he nodded toward de Remec “—your husband. There was one thing you over-looked—the contents of the cask in question—”

The Countess drew a quick breath, leaning forward as if to read the meaning of the other’s words.

“The contents?”

Murgier smiled.

“The cask,” he explained, “we found to be half full of vinegar. The pearls are no more— eaten up like that! Pouf! Let us be going.”

________________

18: This Will Kill You

C. S. Montanye

Thrilling Detective  Oct 1947

One of the popular "Johnny Castle" series

Chapter 1

Date With the Girl Friend

IT WAS one of those rainy autumn nights when you seemed to be looking at the blurred lights of Broadway through an even half dozen Scotches and sodas. Getting a taxi was as easy as trying to get gracious language from a harried head waiter.

I snapped up the collar on my leak-proof slicker and headed for Dufrey’s on leather. That inhospitable lift-and-drain tuckaway was half down 45th Street, a pebble’s toss from the Imperial Theater. Why Libby Hart, the principal character in my dreams, had designated that as a meet-me-there-at-nine rendezvous was a bigger question than the Middle East.

But Mrs. Hart’s only girl child had laid it on the line and didn’t like arguments. So, when I checked out of the Orbit, that high class newspaper for which I concocted various sporting page pieces, there was nothing to do but duck the drops and keep the date.

Dufrey’s, dressed up to represent an Old World Sicilian grotto, was no place for a lady like Libby to be waiting for anybody.

Its customers were the flower of the underworld, a mob of not so nice smelling tiger lilies. I had reason to know that Brian Esthay, one of the town’s toughest muscle men, owned the major slice of Dufrey’s and made it his headquarters.

In the few times I’d been there the faces of the patrons had haunted my nightmares. I walked faster, trying to beat the gal friend to its doorstep.

But there wasn’t any need to hurry. Libby was a charter member of the Ladies Never On Time Association. When I went past the circular bar in the front room there was no sign of her. Nor in the Florentine Room in the rear. Or in the foyer, or emerging from the powder room.

I took a short beer to a table and sat down. Over to the left Brian Esthay was dining a couple of pals. Esthay, a big, benevolent mug with a face like a friendly St. Bernard, was laughing heartily at one of his own gags.

Esthay was always laughing. Around the Main Stem he had a reputation for his constant good humor, wisecracks and witticisms, charity and unfailing memory for friends, near and far.

One of the “far” ones, I recalled, happened to be Dolf Callise, a dead-panned young gentleman who had acquired the unhappy habit of borrowing jewelry from wealthy people and forgetting to return it.

In fact, Callise seldom asked for the loans. He simply dropped in when the folks were out and helped himself. He had done that in the case of a Mrs.

Randall Westcott. That wealthy dowager maintained a fourteen-room Park Avenue dude ranch. Mrs. W, through Callise's visit, found herself minus a collection of jeweled trinkets insured for a mere sixty grand.

Callise promptly disappeared from the Rialto scene and I had reason to believe that big, amusing Brian Esthay was suspected by those in the know of having not only arranged Dolf Callise’s departure to an unknown address, but had profited by the Westcott glitter.

I could feel him looking at me. I finished the beer and looked back. Esthay nodded and called out:

“Come on over and sit in with us, Castle. Why the lone wolf stuff?”

I said, “Waiting for my fiancée.”

“Bring her over when she shows up, if she does,” he replied. “Personally,” he guffawed, “I can’t imagine any dame meeting you.”

“You mean— here?” I said, and he laughed harder.

A radio made thin, twittery music. The drinkers at the bar clinked their glasses and fifteen minutes seemed like fifteen minutes. I stole a peek at Esthay's pals. Not good—hard looking jobs with small amounts of chin and eyes sharp enough to shave with.

The kind that would break your arm without hesitation and then tell you to go and have it gift-wrapped.

“Hello, Johnny. I’m terribly sorry I'm late. This rain and everything delayed me. You understand, angel.”

Libby sat down before I could get up.

“Don’t use the word angel in here. Too many people have been measured for wings. And why,” I inquired, “did you select a place like this in the first place?”

“Because,” she answered, giving me one of her widest smiles, “I have to meet a man here.”

“You’ve met him.”

“Not you, silly. Another man. Buddy.”

“Buddy?”

“Bohen. He’s a sunburned sailor. You see,” Libby explained, when a waiter finally nodded over and I said ‘old-fashioned,’ and didn’t mean his Tuxedo coat, “this Buddy Bohen works on a ship called the Star of Brazil. He’s just up from a cruise to South America and he’s going to give me a lot of material for an article I’m about to write for Happy Vacation, that periodical that tells you where to go in nice language.”

“A sunburned sailor.” I looked hard at her. “Where’d you dig him up? Or did you just tear the ship apart and there he was ?”

“If you think what I’m thinking you’re thinking,” Libby said frostily, “you’re entirely wrong, cream-puff. I was introduced to Buddy by Joe Giff and I’ve known Joe since I was knee high to a bar stool.”

Brian Esthay caught my eye. He pointed at Libby with a bony forefinger. I shook my head. He went into a spasm of laughter and Libby raised her arched brows.

What’s funny, Johnny? What’s the man laughing at?”

“The story about the dentist who made his patients pay through the teeth,” I said. “For your information that’s Brian Esthay. He’s one of Manhattan’s number one bad men.”

“He’s cute.” Libby looked over. "And those people with him.”

“Members of the human race, believe it or not,” I said.

“I don’t.”

The drinks arrived and we put some of the outside chill back where it belonged. Libby was at her loveliest. She looked sleek and polished. Her dark hair was high lighted to the brimless twenty-two dollars’ worth of hatless hat on her softly waved tresses. Her eyes, like misty stars, hid behind long lashes. Her mouth was the color of ripe strawberries and her skin held a golden glow.

In her simple little black dress she looked good enough to eat with a spoon. I was willing to back her as a sure winner in any beauty derby, against the field!

"Curious,” she said, looking at a clock over the bar door. “Buddy said he’d be here at eight-forty-five. If he doesn’t show up I’m to go to his apartment. That’s why I wanted you to meet me— to go with me.”

"Sunburned sailors with apartments, in a housing shortage. It doesn’t come out even.”

"This does,” said Libby. “It’s his sister’s place and she's in Michigan.”

She went on to tell me more about the setup, but I wasn’t listening.

At that minute a girl had come in from the foyer and was heading for Brian Esthay.

She was a frail, beautiful blonde. Hair the color of strained honey was done in a swirl on her shapely little head. As she passed I got a flash of violet colored eyes, a tip-tilted nose and a full-lipped, tantalizing mouth.

She wore a party dress, something with spangles in it and a couple of diamond bracelets that lit her arm up like . the stage of the Music Hall. High heels tapped on the tiled floor. When she went past she left a trail of perfume in her wake.

“ Stratosphere ,” Libby murmured, sniffing the scent. “Thirty dollars an ounce and you smell to high heaven. Who is she, Johnny?”

“Gilda Gulden,” I answered, automatically. “One of Esthay’s lightweight feminine acquaintances. She circulates at the Forty-Four Club and shoots people in her spare time.”

Libby fished the cherry out of the bottom of her glass, looked at the clock again and said, “Let’s go up to Buddy’s apartment. I don’t like it here, too much competition. I never could tangle with a blonde and manage to keep your eyes in place.”

I paid the bar check and we passed out into the rain.

Chapter 2

Heel and Toe

THIS TIME I had better luck.  There was an empty cab in front of Dufrey’s. The hackie was about to make off when I stopped him and helped Libby Hart in.

She supplied an address in the West Fifties while I shut the door and sat down beside her.

The minute I did I got a whiff of perfume, the same aroma Gilda Gulden had exuded not many minutes before. Then, I thought, this was the taxi she had arrived in. I looked at the chauffeur’s photograph and name on the license in the slot facing the rear seat while Libby took off her slippers and pulled her nylons out at the toes.

“You’ll like Buddy,” she said confidently. “He has the most thrilling blue eyes.”

“Two?”

“You don’t have to be sardonic— or jealous.” Libby laughed under her breath. “After all, we’re not married yet.”

“A sunburned sailor with blue eyes.”

I shuddered, and kissed her. "Don’t mind me. If your literary career means tackling tars at this late hour, I’m with you all the way.”

“Good old Johnny,” Libby whispered, and kissed me back.

In about twenty minutes we had fought the battle of the red lights and were in front of an ordinary apartment house on an ordinary street.

“Shall I wait?” the hackie queried.

I gave him a buck and sent him on his way. Then I followed Libby into a vestibule and lighted matches so she could see the names in a battery of mail-boxes.

“Here it is, Johnny. Mrs. Herbert Hotchkiss. Apartment One D. First floor, no doubt.”

She used a manicured fingertip on the bell, but that wasn’t really necessary. The door was open. I held it wide and led the way down a corridor, toward the rear. The alphabet painted on the imitation fireproof doors went as far as D, where we stopped.

There was no one around. From the floors above a faint, cacophonous medley of all apartment house sounds blended into one and came down the well of the stairs.

Like the front hall door that of One D was hospitably ajar. Light, dim and subdued, came through its aperture. Libby rang the bell and then called through the door:

“Buddy! Oh, Buddy. May we come in?”

There was no answer. Her dark eyes rolled in my direction.

“Maybe he’s below deck,” I said. “Or catching twenty winks in his hammock. Let’s cruise in and see.”

A small entry hall opened onto a regulation living room. That was where the light came from. A tall, metal floor lamp stood in one corner. It boasted four bulbs but only one was turned on. Libby paused beside me while I looked around.

The room was as empty as the average chorine’s head.

“He probably stepped out to mail a letter or get his shoes shined.” I waved a hand at a nearby divan. “Might as well sit down and sweat it out.”

A trifle doubtfully the girl friend arranged her skirt on the green upholstered furniture I designated. I wandered around, looking at Mrs. Hotchkiss’ knickknacks, until I reached a short passage.

I stopped there.

On one side was the bath. On the other, the open door of what was undoubtedly the apartment’s bedroom. The subdued light from the tall lamp just about lasted until it got to the sill. In its faint shine I saw a shoe. The peculiar thing about it was that its heel was on the floor and its toe pointed straight to the ceiling!

There was a foot in it. The foot was attached to a leg and the leg was covered with dark blue cloth. I moved a step closer and took a better gander. What I saw turned me around and walked me back to Miss Hart.

“Before you step outside and faint,” I said, “make a note to tell the editor of Happy Vacation your article will be temporarily held up. From here on in this is strictly a newspaper job. I’m sorry to say that your sailor’s thrilling blue eyes are closed, forever!”

Libby jumped up with a strangled exclamation. “Johnny! You don’t—”

“I do! Sit tight while I investigate further and don’t look. I won’t be long.”

I wasn’t.

With a handkerchief to keep my prints quiet, I flicked on the wall switch. Bohen, if it was Bohen, lay flat on his back between a maple bed and a three-mirrored dressing table. He had leaked gore on the plain taupe carpet. That was natural inasmuch as somebody had been at work on his curly head with either a sap or the butt of a gun!

I hadn’t been exactly authentic about his eyes being closed. They weren’t. They were wide and staring, filled with the vague emptiness of death. When I bent closer I saw they were blue, a deep blue that matched his nautical outfit. And he was sunburned, tanned to a rich mahogany shade which even the handiwork of the Grim Reaper hadn’t been able to fade out.

Both his arms were flung wide. There hadn’t been any battle prior to his passing. The room was neat and orderly, a place for everything and everything in it.

Evidently Bohen had been washed out with eclat and finesse!

Rain pattered against the windows. I stood there sniffing the motionless air. It might have been imagination but the same scent I had first caught at Dufrey’s and then in the taxi seemed faint on the atmosphere!

I looked around curiously. Often in the past I had run into murder. Usually there was a clew or two about, something to stumble across which, in the end, hung it on the guilty party.

But the bedroom had nothing to offer. Only the dead sailor, the ooze on the carpet and that reminiscent perfume, if I wasn’t imagining it.

I went back to the frightened Libby and nodded at her wide-eyed stare.

“Curly hair?” I asked. “Sort of brownish?” and she nodded back.

There was a telephone handy. I picked that up and dialed a familiar number. A few minutes later the ice water voice of my old pal, Captain Fred Mullin of Homicide, drifted harshly across the wire. As usual, Mullin sounded annoyed. He sounded more than that when I spoke my piece.

“Castle, of the Orbit, Captain. I want to report a murder!”

I held my hand over the receiver end of the phone so Libby couldn’t hear what he roared. When he cooled a bit, I gave him the name and address and hung up.

“Can we go now, Johnny?” The girl friend shivered again and looked in the direction of the bedroom.

“You can. I’ve got to stick and greet the chief. By the way, you spoke of Bohen’s friend, a Joe Giff. Remember where he hangs out?”

Libby frowned. “I don’t know where he lives but Buddy said Joe did most of his tea tasting at Cliff Maddigan’s Club Forty-Four.”

I got her to the door, divided more osculation in two equal parts and sent her on her way with a promise to buzz her apartment the minute Mullin was through with me.

“And don’t tell anybody you were here, Lib. I’m not having you hooked into this. Powder now and I’ll see you later.”

She blew and I went back to the telephone. This time I called the paper. While I was talking to the city desk I noticed something glimmering on the carpet to the left of the divan.

After I had finished gabbing with Bill Jamison, the Orbit’s specialist in all forms of murder and mayhem, I put the telephone back and went across the room.

The thing that glimmered was a tiny round piece of yellow glass. I put it in the palm of my hand and let it blink at me. Then I tucked it in a vest pocket and a few minutes after that listened to the wail of a police car siren in the street.

Captain Mullin and his Homicide Squad gumheeled in, Mullin in the vanguard, jaw protruding. The chief wasn’t in an amiable frame of mind. He seldom was when I happened to be around. I seemed to curdle Mullin. As he did me. Which was strange because, in the final analysis, the Captain was a good cop.

He had climbed to power, bulldozing his way up from a beat on Staten Island, using the old fashioned tried and true methods of beating confessions out of suspects and hosing his pickups into lap dog submission. But with all that the Captain had rung the bell on several tough cases, playing it lucky as well as safe.

He glowered at me as I led the way to the bedroom.

“In again, Castle. What do you do, front for a funeral parlor? Every time I hear from you, you’ve got a corpse up your sleeve.”

“I’ve got big sleeves,” I said pleasantly.

Mullin’s fishy eyes played over me like a couple of scalpels. “Yeah? Well, be careful you don’t fall out of one some day.”

I stood aside in the little hall and waved a hand.

“Help yourself, Captain. It’s all yours!”

Detectives Larry Hartley and Ed Wheeler, two of Mullin’s trained seals, barged in. The captain turned a smile into a sneer. He jabbed a finger in my direction.

“I’ll take care of you later, Castle. Park it somewhere and get your facts straight. You’re gonna do a lot of oratory when I’m finished here.”

I went back to the divan. Ten minutes later “Doc” Nesbitt, the department’s star medical examiner, yawned a way in and went to work. From where I sat I could hear him talking to Mullin:

“This guy’s been dead about four hours. The amount of adrenalin produced in the blood of a person by intense fear may be so excessive that, when he is struck down, it will contract his blood vessels and arrest the hemorrhage. That causes coagulation to take place about three to five times faster than when fear does not precede the injury.”

“Yeah?” said Mullin. “What makes you think this guy was scared, Doc? With that smile on his pan.”

“I didn’t say he was. I merely stated a fact.” Nesbitt loomed up in the door. “I’ll have the basket up in a little while, after I sign the papers. Right ?”

He snapped his bag and grinned at me. Then Mullin flatfooted into the living room and over to the divan.

“All right, Castle. Start talking.”

It was almost an hour later before I got out of the place. It was still raining. Rain as cold as cheap hotel coffee.

I found an empty taxi and climbed in.

“Where to, boss?”

"Club Forty-Four,” I told the driver. “And keep your wheels on the ground.”

Chapter 3

Guys With Guns

CLUB FORTY-FOUR was well illuminated. So were a lot of its patrons. It was one of those hurdy-gurdy resorts, where the customer was always the monkey and the liquor Communistic, divided equally with water so no one would get too much.

I had a nodding acquaintance with Evie Something-or-Other. She was a friend of Beth Wheaton, my favorite switchboard operator at the office. Evie sold cigarettes and cigars out of a ribbon-decked basket. The grift must have been good.

The kid had an order in for a Cadillac coupe— if and when.

I found her sorting her merchandise in the sub-foyer. She had little russet curls, greenish eyes and a tight-lipped smile. Evie knew the book and kept to the text.

“Mr. Castle!” she exclaimed, when I rolled over. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for information,” I said. “Know a party by the name of Giff, Joe Giff?”

Evie wrinkled her nose. “That big deck swabber? Sure. What about him?”

“Would he be around?”

She shook her curls.

“Not so far.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Sure I’m sure. The first thing he does when he gets here is to make a pass at me.”

“I’ve got ten bucks to trade for his address. Or his phone number. Or a point-out.”

“I don’t know where he holes in, Mr. Castle. I can’t tell you how to get him on the chicory, either. But I can give you a knockdown if he shows up.” She laughed under her breath. “Do you know what Joe called me last night? I can’t figure what he meant. He said I was a human gimme pig. What do you suppose he meant?”

I told her I didn’t have the slightest idea and asked her to page me if Giff appeared. Then I nickeled a way into a telephone booth and called Libby Hart’s apartment.

She had gotten in and was all right. I dosed her with what had happened after she had left the Hotchkiss mortuary and was just hanging up when through the glass door I caught a glimpse of two people coming in.

One was the jocund Brian Esthay, the other the frail blond Gilda Gulden, who was hanging on his arm.

Esthay got rid of his skimmer and flogger at the coat check counter. He must have told the babe in charge some gag because she laughed fifty cents’ worth and handed him a brass check. Esthay and the dame were ceremoniously conducted to a reserved table. I opened the booth door and saw Evie wig-wagging from the mezzanine stairs.

First she pointed several times in the direction of a big lug who had just barged in. Then Evie held up ten significant fingers. I okeyed it and went after the one she pointed at.

“Mr. Giff?”

He looked surprised. “I’m him. Why?”

“The name’s Castle. I’m a friend of Miss Hart who’s a friend of Bohen. Who, I’m told, was a friend of yours.”

“What do you mean— was?”

I towed him into a nearby smoking room and shut the door. In his first mate’s uniform Joe Giff looked as large as one of the downtown skyscrapers. You could almost see him lifting a ship when the barnacles had to be scraped.

He had lots of face, not much hair and a Rock of Gibraltar jaw. He looked at me suspiciously. I told him to sit down and let him have it, briefly.

“So Buddy’s gone?” He made a noise in his throat, opening and closing his hands. “Show me the one who did it and I’ll save the State electricity! A right guy and they knock him off no sooner than he’s ashore! They warned me about this slab. They told me it was a tough town. Now I’ve lost my best pal and forty bucks. He owed me that out of the last dice game on board.”

I asked questions. Giff liked to talk.

He spun a long drawn-out yarn about some town in Brazil tagged Santander, which I found interesting after he went into minute details.

As Giff’s story unfolded it began to tie in with what had happened that night at the Hotchkiss apartment across town. It wasn’t entirely crystal-clear, but it made plenty of sense. Any guy with the ordinary amount of imagination could twist it around and make it come out even.

I tried, while Giff talked.

“And that’s about all,” he finally wound up.

“That’ll do. Thanks. Now tell me something else. You introduced Bohen to Miss Hart? How did you happen to know her?”

Giff laughed. “Me and Lib? We were neighbors back home. Her folks knew mine. I knew Lib when she was in the third grade. I used to carry her books, and the torch. Swell gal, Lib.”

“I believe you implicitly,” I said, opening the smoking room door.

“I guess I’d better wire Buddy’s sister,” Giff murmured. “After I buy a deck of cigarettes.”

He went on the prowl for Evie and I took his information to a table in the rear and mulled it over. I was still doing that when I noticed Esthay and the blonde get up and head for the lobby, the gal in the lead.

Esthay wasn’t smiling or laughing now. He looked as serious as meningitis. They passed my table and I heard him saying:

“Now, don’t get peeved, baby. I was only kidding. Listen, you can’t powder on me!”

“Can’t I?” Gilda said. “Try and stop me!”

I paid the overhead and bee-lined for the street. Brian Esthay was coming back from the curb. A taxi was pulling away from it. I didn’t know whether Esthay recognized me or not. I didn’t care. I had one ambition and sprinted to achieve it.

The clock-ark was going into second gear when I ripped open the door and joined Gilda on the rear seat.

She let out a strangled cry and swung a couple of fists in my direction. I ducked and pushed her back on the seat. The chauffeur twisted around with a what’s-this-about look.

“It’s okay, pally,” I assured him. “You know how dames are. They walk out on you.”

“Sure,” he said, and closed the glass partition.

The blonde found her voice. It was all choked up with anger and indignation.

“What’s the meaning of this outrage? Who are you?”

“Headquarters, honey.” I tried to make it sound professional and opened my coat at vest height to let her see a badge that wasn’t there. “Just a few questions, after you tell me where you’re going.”

The way I said it tamed her a trifle. She relaxed against the worn upholstery, peering at me through the gloom. Her perfume was overpowering at close range.

After a minute she said, “I’m on my way home. So what?”

“So we’ll talk when we get there. Much better than this rattletrap.”

It wasn’t far. Up half a dozen blocks and over one. I dug for the meter toll and followed her into a self-service elevator in the narrow entry hall of an apartment house that wasn’t cheap or expensive.

Gilda jabbed at a button numbered “3” and violet-eyed me as the lift went up.

“I’ve seen you around. You’re no cop!”

I let that go and got out on the third floor. She fished a key from a soft velvet bag, opened a bag and turned on lights. More of the perfume smacked me when we were in the bandbox living room of her place.

A fairly large room with colored photographs of her all over the walls. In a bathing suit at Atlantic City. In rompers on the farm. In spangles at Miami. In tweeds at the Plaza. Her roguish gallery showed every angle, as well as every curve.

I let the daguerreotypes ride and looked at the living Gilda. I liked the smartly designed gown, the Delman stilt-heeled booties with their ornate decorations, rolled over tongues studded with yellow stones.

Those stones were bits of glass the same color as the piece I had in my vest pocket. And that piece, I saw in the next glance, was an exact fit for the empty space in the left slipper’s tongue. There was a vacancy there that made a positive link for the scent I had breathed in at Mrs. Hotchkiss’s.

“Now, what’s the gimmick?” She asked it petulantly, her pretty face mask-blank.

“I want to return this.” I took out the piece of yellow glass and gave it to her. “Off your cute little brogan. You might have a job matching it.”

The violet eyes hid behind crinkly lashes. She tried to stay bland but a muscle in her white throat twitched and betrayed her.

“Where— where did you get it?”

“On the floor, not far from the dead body of Buddy Bohen. Remember him?”

Gilda sat down. She didn’t exactly sit— she seemed to collapse loosely in a chair. The long lashes flew up and her eyes stared at me, wide, wondering and full of fear.

“It’s a gag! He— you don’t mean— it can’t be—”

I let her sputter out and shrugged.

"Unfortunately for Mr. Bohen, it is true. Whether it’s unfortunate for you is going to depend on what you say. Let’s have it.”

She began to get foxy. Instead of blurting out explanations she drew into herself. Only her white, slender fingers kept weaving together in her silk lap. She coughed and bent forward.

“I haven’t anything to say to you! You’re no dick. I’ve pegged you now. You’re a newspaper reporter. I don’t talk to newspaper reporters. You can bow yourself out, smart guy! There’s the door. Use it!”

“I’ll try the phone instead.” I moved toward one that stood on a little three-tier bookcase in the corner. “Murder might be amusing to you, but the folks at Centre Street have other ideas.”

But I didn’t dial the number.

As I lifted the telephone off its prongs I heard the click of a key turning in a lock. A door opened, a draught of air blew against my angles. A couple of people came in and one of them said authoritatively:

“Hold it, kid! Put that telephone back and let’s see how high you can reach.”

Brian Esthay, a large piece of artillery featured in his right hand, and pointed in my direction, laughed under is breath as he came deeper into the room.

A step behind him, I had a narrow-eyed glimpse of one of the two thugs who had been with Esthay at Dufrey’s earlier that evening.

He, like the big man with him, was clutching a gun and peering at me, a vicious, twisted grin on his shapeless mouth.

I laid the telephone gently back in its cradle and obediently elevated both arms.

Chapter 4

Rogues’ Gallery

ESTHAY walked over to me. He took a good squint and shoved his rod back in his belt. The amusement went out of his horse-type face. He blinked once or twice.

“Why, Castle. This is funny. This is really funny!”

“Where’s the joke?” I asked, while

Esthay made a sign to the super-mouse with him to lay off and hide the firearms.

“I turned around, after Gilda left me, and got a curbside view of somebody crashing her cab. It didn’t look good. From where I stood it sort of seemed like a stick-up. Naturally I was worried. Naturally I had to pick up Louie and drop around to see what it’s all about.”

Blondie spoke for the first time. “Now you’ve seen, so take the air!” Her tone was as brittle as spring ice. Her violet eyes had turned a deep purple and her red mouth had contracted.

“Aw, baby,” Esthay started, measuring out the syrup. “I’m sorry about what I said. You know I trust you. I was only kidding.”

He would have said something else but the golden-haired Gilda laughed in his face.

“I know how much you were kidding. Why don’t you grow up and crawl out of the comic section!” She turned her gaze on me. “And get rid of this late edition. He doesn’t give me any appetite, either.”

It was a good suggestion. I reached for my hat, Louie watching me speculatively. Esthay laughed loudly.

“Not sore, Castle? It’s all in fun. Me trying to protect the little woman.” He shook with mirth. “Remind me to tell you the one about the guy who was keeping an eye on his gal friend and his pal at the same time. You’ll go into stitches.”

I put on my hat and took a couple of steps toward the door. The Gulden dame stared at me stonily. Louie’s twitching fingers ran up and down the front of his coat. Esthay, a big grin on his pan, watched me go.

“By the way, Castle,” he said, when I reached the door. “I’ve got a Police Department permit for this gun. So has Louie.”

I shut the door behind me and went down the stairs fast.

The first person I met when I got back to my own two, rooms and shower, a whistle away from the Winter Garden, was Detective Hartley. Larry smoked the best cigar a nickel ever bought and was waiting in the front seat of a prowl car. He had evidently been there for some time, which hadn’t sugared his disposition much.

“Climb in, Castle.” He threw the cigar in the gutter and opened the door.

“What now, officer?” I asked.

“The Chief. He’s not satisfied with your story. He craves more conversation. Hop in and don’t give me an argument. I’ve been staked out here for the better part of an hour.”

I got in beside him.

Twenty minutes later I was in Mullin’s office on Centre Street. The Captain looked a trifle worn around the edges, but his sneer was bright and polished and his fishy eyes still without any trace of human warmth.

“What’s on your mind, Captain?” I made it sound chummy and sat down beside his desk in a chair that needed dusting.

“You!” Mullin answered. “You haven’t come clean with me, Castle. You’re holding something back. I know you. You’d double-cross your grandmother.”

“I haven’t any.” I kept my tone light and pleasant, full of sunshine and flowers. “What do you mean, I’m holding back?”

“Your story creaks,” Mullin said.

“Since meeting you last,” I continued, “I’ve run into a few interesting facts. Care to hear them, Captain?”

The pale gray eyes began to glitter.

Mullin straightened up in his desk chair. “Yeah, what are they?”

I went back to Joe Giff’s yarn as delivered in the smoking room at the Forty-Four.

“Bohen had plenty of dough of his own,” I began. “Ten thousand bucks’ worth, I’ve just learned from a shipmate of his. Remember that. The boat they were on docked at Santander. That’s a banana port in Brazil.”

“Never mind the local color. Get to the facts.”

“Bohen had some business with a guy at Santander. He met him the first night he went ashore. And when he came back to the Star of Brazil, he didn’t have his ten grand. But he didn’t say what he had done with it.”

“Probably dropped it in some gambling joint,” Mullin said. “What else?”

“Bohen didn’t tell his pal any of the particulars. He was forty bucks short when the ship docked at the Erie Basin. He dropped that in a dice game to the party who handed me this fable. Another thing; Bohen was followed away from the pier when he left the boat. He told his friend that.”

Mullin curled an upper lip when I finished. The sneer he wore increased its shape and size.

"What kind of dream stuff is that, Castle? I’m looking for clews, not fairy tales.”

"Okay. I just thought I’d give you a motive. Figure it out. Bohen gets rid of ten thousand bucks in Santander. Guys with murder on their minds are waiting for him in Brooklyn. Add it up.”

Mullin rubbed a chin that needed shaving. It gave off a gritty, sandpaper sound.

"You told me you had a date with Bohen to get some dope on a magazine article. That you went up to his sister’s apartment to meet him. Since when have you been writing magazine articles.

I had handed him that line to keep Libby out of it. I didn’t like the way he threw it back at me.

"Since I traded in my nursing bottle for a four-fifths size. Sure, I’m interested in Bohen’s cutdown, but strictly for my sheet. I’m in the newspaper business, first and last.”

“Where have you been since you left the Hotchkiss flat?”

That was easy. “Talking to Bohen’s pal, Joe Giff, by name, at the Club Forty-Four.”

The Captain grunted again. I could see him fumbling around for something to hang on me. He couldn’t reach it and shrugged.

“Get this Giff guy down here first thing in the morning. I want to talk to him.”

I got up. “Sure. How about doing me a favor, Cap? I’d like to have Giff give the gallery a gander. Just an idea.”

"Get him down here early.”

I went home and tried to sleep it off. It wasn’t so simple. Brian Esthay, the big cannon in his hand, the sweet smelling Gilda and the shoe with its heel on the carpet and its toe pointing straight up, mixed with Libby’s frightened dark eyes, made first class nightmare material.

Dawn was rattling its milk bottles along the street when I finally corked off.

Next morning Bill Jamison came around to my desk at The Orbit. Bill had been on the prowl. He needed a shave worse than Mullin had, but his breath was full of flowers. Four Roses.

“The sailor washout is one for the aspirin division.” Jamison sat down wearily on the edge of my desk. “And Mullin has shut up like a clam.”

“Homicide had to. They don’t know any more than you do.”

Bill rolled a weary eye in my direction. “Who does know anything? You?”

I tipped back and hoisted leather to the desk. “Right. I may be wrong, but I think I’ve got this bump-off pegged correctly. I think I know the motive and who did it. In a half hour I’m going down to Headquarters with a party who's well hooked into it. What happens there will clinch it or write me off as entirely wrong.”

“Spill!” Jamison croaked avidly.

“Later. You’ve got my promise. I’ll phone you the minute the string’s around the neck of the bag.”

He went away and a couple of minutes later the phone hummed. That happened all day. It was usually some fight promoter with an undiscovered miracle man under his wing, looking for publicity.

Or a member of the free-ticket brigade. Or some visiting basketball celebrity. Or the hockey crowd with exclusive news they wanted to share with all the papers.

Beth Wheaton, the cutie of the long plugs, cooed in my ear:

“I’ve got a lady on another wire for you, Mr. Castle. Say please.”

"How do you know she’s a lady?” I answered. “Put her on— please.”

I thought it would be Libby, but it wasn’t. Gilda Gulden’s dulcet tones sounded. And dulcet was the word.

“I want to apologize for last night,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry about it.”

“That’s all right. Think nothing of it. I’m used to playing target for the underworld.”

“You see,” Gilda continued, “I’d had an argument with Brian and then you came along. I wasn’t feeling exactly happy. But I am sorry.”

She stopped. I could almost read her mind over the wire.

“You’re worried about that piece of yellow glass,” I said slowly. “Forget it. That’s private between us— if you’d care to explain to me.”

“That’s exactly why I called you. I do want to explain.” Her voice brightened considerably. “Suppose you drop in and see me around five this afternoon.”

I could feel my pulses begin to tick like nickel-plated watches. I told her that would be fine, said good-by, hung up and stared at the copy on my desk without seeing it.

Ten minutes after that Libby buzzed me. I made a lunch date with her and got my hat.

Then I picked up Joe Giff and piloted him down to the local crime clinic via subway.

Mullin let Giff lean on his ear for the better part of a half hour. After that, the Captain gave us an Annie Oakley to the Rogues’ Gallery. We went over the pictures carefully, one by one.

Joe Giff didn’t say anything for quite awhile. Then, finally, he stuck out his jaw, drew a breath and pointed.

“That’s the guy,” he announced, a ton of conviction in each word. “That’s him!”

Chapter 5

Bad Ten Minutes

SO I TOOK the daughter of the Hart family to Marty Keeler’s for lunch. It was corned-beef day at Marty’s and the cabbage addicts were out in quantity. I managed a table on the balcony with a pigeon’s-eye vista of the first and last citizens of Longacre Square, below.

Last night’s shocks still had Libby down. She was nervous and didn’t try to conceal it. I told her about Giff, omitting all references to the girl with the honey-colored hair. And I purposely refrained from mentioning my five o’clock appointment with La Gulden.

No use, I decided, throwing another worry on the fire. Libby pecked at the viands and glanced over at me. “I suppose you’re in this murder, up to your ears, Johnny, as usual,” she said.

“I’m interested, naturally. You don’t walk into a room with a body and forget all about it.”

“I suppose,” she went on dreamily, “you think you can pull another rabbit out of a hat.”

“If I lived in Danbury,” I said, “I’d make a hat out of a rabbit. I’m not thinking anything at the moment. So set your little mind at ease and put more pressure on your fork."

“Sometimes,” Libby told me, “I wonder if it’s the sensible thing to do.”

“What, Jewel of my Turban?”

“Marry you.” She sighed. “I can see you now getting out of bed in the middle of the night to find a corpse somewhere and have gunmen aiming pistols at you! What a prospect!”

I was five minutes early for the date with the gorgeous Gilda.

Once more I stepped into the dime-sized, self-service elevator, made a pass at button Number Three and started up. Once more I braked in front of Blondie’s front door. She answered at the first chime and once more I was in the band-box living room with the colored photos on the walls.

This time I didn’t look at them. I looked at Violet Eyes.

Gilda had rigged herself up like Mrs. Aster’s favorite steed for the five o’clock tete-a-tete. The housecoat she wore looked like something out of Vogue. It fitted like the wrapper on a sausage, smooth and without a wrinkle anywhere.

Gilda’s feet were bare and Gilda’s toenails were beautifully manicured. They peeked out of open-ended wedgies like white mice with red eyes. Her ankles were pretty good, too and her legs something Varga might have drawn in an inspirational moment.

All that combined with the glimmering pale gold hair, the violet eyes and the provocative, tempting mouth had the potency of a rum Collins at ten a. m.

She smoked a cigarette in a long black holder, her smile warm and friendly. She parked me on a spindly settee and asked me how thirsty I was.

“Nothing, thanks. I don’t touch the filthy stuff. Let’s,” I suggested, “get down to cases— murder cases.”

Gilda shuddered politely. Across the room was a little electric clock, wedged in among the tintypes in silver frames, on a mahogany table. I could see the topaz hands pointing to three minutes after five exactly.

Gilda let her eyes trail in the direction of the rear door in the room. That was closed. She arranged herself picturesquely in a deep-seated chair across from me and draped one slender ankle over the other.

"It was awfully sweet of you to keep that shoe ornament quiet, Johnny. You don’t mind if I call you Johnny, do you ?”

“When you say it, it sounds like music,” I murmured. “I’ve kept it quiet because I’m sure a lovely girl like you couldn’t have had anything to do with Buddy Bohen’s demise. But,” I added, “I know you were at his sister’s apartment last night.”

Gilda nodded. “For a few minutes. Every time Buddy came back from a cruise he used to champagne me at the Forty-Four. This time he called me up, said he couldn’t make it, but that he had a present for me from Haiti, a native girl’s bathing suit. He said if I could taxi up to the Hotchkiss’s he’d give it to me.”

“And you went?”

“Yes. I was only there about ten minutes. When I left he was as alive and healthy as you are.” She shuddered again. “Whoever killed him must have come in right after I left. It’s terrible! I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about him.”

"Neither could I,” I told her.

“You’re not going to mention the fact I was probably next to the last person to see Buddy alive? You wouldn’t do that. Johnny. You wouldn’t want me to have a lot of unpleasant publicity, publicity that might ruin my career. I know you wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Of course not,” I assured her.

“That’s why I didn’t want to talk to you last night, when I spotted you as a reporter.”

“What changed your mind?”

She pursed her full, crimson lips. “I’m not usually rude. After you’d gone I thought it over. I’d much rather have you as a friend, a dear friend, than an enemy.”

“Then Esthay didn't have anything to do with it?” I hinted.

“Certainly not. And don’t get Brian wrong, Johnny, just because he happened to come in with a gun. As he told you he was protecting me. Really, Brian’s so tender hearted he can’t cut the pages in a book.”

I tried to keep from smiling. “I’m wondering if you found anything up at the apartment last night,” she went on. “The paper said you were the first one in there, that you found poor Buddy. You didn’t find anything else?”

“Such as?” I asked, and clipped off short, when I heard the door in the back of the room creak open.

“Such as a small package you could put in your hip pocket,” Brian Esthay answered, coming in.

Louie was with him. looking more vicious than usual and, doing a double on the previous night, both had their heaters on exhibition, lined up on me!

I looked from Esthay’s St. Bernard face which, on occasions, also had an equine resemblance, to Louie and from there over to the glamorous Miss Gulden. “A frame?” I said, amiably.

Esthay nudged his private gunbearer. Louie told me to stand up and gave me a professional frisk, but he wasn’t looking for weapons.

Instead, his quick little hands roved over the lining of my. jacket. They took a feel of the belt I was wearing. They passed lightly but thoroughly over all the yardage of my tweeds.

“Nothing,” he announced. “Guy’s clean.”

Brian Esthay began to laugh. A low, chuckling laugh that made Gilda’s violet eyes grow suddenly shadowed.

“Look, Castle. Let’s understand each other. We’ve been on a hunt for a certain little package we know the Bohen lad brought up with him from South America. We didn’t have time to put in a good hunt for it last night. We have an idea you might have located it, because, otherwise, you would have brayed to Homicide about the glass shoe “button you found up there.”

I listened carefully, a cold chill beginning to reach from one end of my spine to the other. What Esthay said was practically a confession of murder. That he made it to me was too significant for comfort.

It reeked of the fact he didn’t intend I was to live long enough to mention it— to anyone!

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to slip some nonchalance into it, but to my own ears it sounded pretty trite.

“Don’t let’s play games, Castle. Let’s talk business. How much?”

I could have laughed in his St. Bernard face. How much? As if Brian Esthay would pay off and let me walk out of Gilda’s apartment unpunctured!

He must have got what I was thinking. A smile turned the corners of his mouth down. A minute before they had been up.

I looked at the electric clock. Seventeen minutes past five. The palms of my hands were beginning to get damp. So was the back of my neck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I repeated.

Esthay looked at Louie and shook his head, Gilda still crouched in the chair. Her eyes never left me. She leaned tensely forward. I could see her hands tighten, almost convulsively.

Esthay blew against the barrel of his Smith & Wesson.

“You don’t know anything about it? You don’t know anything about anything. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Not exactly. For instance,” I went on, making a desperate stall for time, “I’ve figured out the Bohen thing. You used him for a custom-made double-cross, Esthay, one that will go down on the records with a big black mark next to it!”

“Is that right? Let’s hear about it.”

I snapped at the invitation like a pooch at a shinbone.

“You wanted something your agent in South America had. You turned Sweet Stuff loose on Bohen.” I tossed a glance at the blonde. “You knew that Bohen had some dough, ten thousand bucks, which he’d recently inherited, so Gilda supplied the build-up. All Bohen had to do the next time he was in Santander, Brazil, was to see. a certain guy, buy a certain something, bring it back to the States and triple his money.”

Louie’s ears stuck out like a couple of small umbrellas. Esthay rubbed his nose on the back of a hand. Gilda never moved.

“Go on. Go on, Castle. I think you’re warm.”

“So Bohen followed the prescription without a slip anywhere. He met your man, closed the deal and went back to his ship. Your man wirelessed you that it was all wrapped up. Then all you had to do was tail Bohen when the Star of Brazil steamed into the Erie Basin, tail him, pick your spot and go to work on him with a jack. Easy as that.”

Nobody said anything.

“Only,” I added, “like all double-X’s, something boomeranged. You knocked Buddy off but he wasn’t wearing the stuff that night. And now you’re worried because he can’t tell you where it is and you can’t figure who’s got it.”

“Very logical. Well thought out.” Esthay began to laugh softly. “Plenty of brain work, Castle. I suppose your boozin’ friends down at Headquarters know all this, too. Or do they?”

“What do you think?”

“I think your newspaper’s going to have an opening on its sporting page," he said. “Because, Castle, Louie’s going to work you over with a cute little sap he carries up his sleeve. We’ll do that in the bathroom where it won’t be too messy. Then we’ll put you in a trunk I have ready and ship you somewhere.”

Louie licked his lips. “Say when, boss!”

“Get up, bright boy!” Esthay chuckled deep in his throat. “Before we step outside, did I tell you the one about the kid who fell out of the balcony? He landed down in the orchestra, broke his neck and—”

Gilda interrupted him. She was on her wedge slippers in the next breath. The violet-colored eyes gleamed dangerously. She whirled around on Esthay, snarling like a golden tigress.

“No you don’t! You’re not using my bathroom for an abattoir. You’re not killing him on these premises. You dope, he’s probably told somebody he was coming here!”

The cold chill had left the vicinity of my spine. I looked at Louie. He was staring open-mouthed, and bad-toothed, at the girl. She was in front of Esthay. Which made it a now-or-never opportunity.

I grabbed it!

I was out of the chair like a quarter horse. I picked up a heavy metal book-end from the table beside me. I let that fly at the front window. It went through it like a six-inch projectile.

Then I got both arms around Gilda Gulden. I remembered something about hiding behind a woman’s skirts. This was a new switch, hiding behind a Saks Fifth Avenue housecoat!

She squirmed and let out a smothered scream. I hung on, prying her away from the spot in front of Esthay. She was soft and pliable, all curves and contours. I kept thinking I was lucky Libby wasn’t there to see me embracing a strange dame. She tried to kick at my ankles. I didn’t even feel her heels. I got her as far as the radio cabinet when Esthay went into action.

“Get behind him, Louie!” he roared.

The little toughie promptly streaked for my left side. Esthay, waiting to use his rod, began to barge in from the right. I couldn’t watch both of them at the same time and hang on to Gilda who started to yell and struggle harder.

Like magic a leather-covered billy slid into Louie’s hand, probably the same instrument that had supplied Buddy Bohen with a one way ticket to a happier land.

Louie hovered closer and closer, waiting for a spot!

Esthay was snarling something through his nose.

The gun went up when Gilda wrenched herself away from me.

Lead sizzled by my chin, missing it by a hair. Plaster puffed from the wall beyond.

I let Gilda go and made a flying tackle at Esthay!

We hit the floor together—he on top.

Chapter 6

Some Time Later

FOR a couple of minutes that seemed like a couple of years the comic from Dufrey’s tried to scoop my eyes out. In his stumble he had let go of the gun. Gilda had snatched that up and was evidently using it as a persuader on the chinless Louie.

Vaguely, like a voice in a dream, I heard her saying, "Stand still, muscleman! I know how to use these things!”

So that left only Esthay. Which was plenty!

He got me by the throat. The air went out of my lungs like that in a tire running over broken glass, and black spots began to swirl in front of my eyes. My lungs felt as if they were being squeezed flat and rolled out like crepe suzettes.

So this, something told me, was the way you died, slowly, painfully, fighting for a gasp of air and not getting it!

I tried to keep slugging him with the hand his knee wasn’t on. A butterfly’s kick would have been more effective. Then, when blackness was settling down for keeps, the miracle happened.

Esthay let go!

He rolled off me. From ten thousand miles away I heard the Gulden chick telling him to get up and put up! Then I heard other sounds, such as doors being banged open, feet, big and flat, slapping on the floor.

And finally the pleased tone of no one else but Captain Fred Mullin, ten minutes late for the round-up I had phoned him about before hitting for the Gulden lair!

“Look at Castle!” Mullin exclaimed, and it was the first time I’d ever heard a note of pleasure in his voice. “He’s practically purple. Throw a pail of water on him, Ed.”

I took Libby Hart to dinner, that night, in the Flamingo Room of the staid, eminently respectable Hotel St. Clair. We had, as a guest, First Mate Joe Giff of the Coastal Line.

We sat at a table surrounded by people whose ages ranged anywhere from the early sixties to the middle eighties. Musak supplied a faint, murmuring melody, just right to talk above.

I ordered soft food and watched Giff toy with a steak large enough to saddle. Libby ate sparingly and kept her starry dark eyes speculatively on me.

“Quite a town,” Giff said, coming up for air and wiping off his chin. “Believe me, Mr. Castle, I’m glad we’re sailing with the tide in the morning. I’ll take a South American revolution and you can keep your Broadway hatchetmen.”

I shrugged. “It’s not so bad, Joe. Like a rash it breaks out every so often. And like a rash the police know what the cure is.”

“The chair for this Esthay guy and his partners.” Giff used his napkin again. “Maybe I helped a little, picking out that photograph this morning. Who did you say it was?”

“Dolf Callise. As I told Miss Hart the other night, Callise had left town with a lot of Mrs. Randall Westcott’s hygeia. He kicked out in such a hurry he didn’t give Brian Esthay his cut.”

“So,” Libby put in brightly, “Esthay dreamed up a plan whereby he could get his cut and Callise would have ten thousand American dollars.’ ’

“Exactly,” I murmured, from the good side of my mouth. “Buddy Bohen bought an attractive box of Mrs. Wescott’s diamonds which Callise had unmounted in his spare time. The rest you know.”

Giff finished the steak. For a minute I thought he was going after the bone. He pushed his plate aside and grinned.

“When the cops began to question me about Buddy and the package he brought back to the ship that night at Santander,” he said, “right away I remembered Buddy had given it to the Purser to lock up in the safe.”

“And in the safe it was,” I told the girl friend. “All ready for Customs, and the insurance company, to take charge of.”

She looked at me for a moment, in silence.

“Which is a much better place for it than in Mr. Esthay’s coat pocket,” Libby said, seriously. She frowned a little. “What’s going to happen to the blond girl with the violet-colored eyes?”

“What always happens to blondes?”

Joe Giff thought that over for a minute or two. “They get away with murder!” he decided.

“But Gilda didn’t actually have a manicured finger in Bohen’s departure,” I told him. “She’ll get something, but not too much. You know how juries are where—ah—limbs are concerned.”

“And he’s not talking about trees,” Libby said, opening her bag and taking out a handkerchief. She said, “Darling, the next time you buy me a present, how about a bottle of perfume? Some of that wonderful, wonderful Stratosphere.” I remembered—and shuddered.

“I’ll get you a vial of scent, but it won’t be that brand. Too many poignant memories.” I ran a finger around my throat.

“But you will get me some perfume?” Libby asked, in the soft, persuasive voice. “What kind?”

“The very latest,” I promised, squeezing her hand under the table. “What all the debbies go after, April in Scranton.”

__________________

19:  Ink

C. S. Montanye

Breezy Stories, July 1922

No 25 in the author's "Broadway Decameron Nights" series

SHE was just a little chorine, a pretty child with innocence limned in her piquant face, with sloe eyes that were like brown, velvet stars. Broadway knew her as Miss Feo Marr. The story of her beginnings, like so many other similar volumes, reached back to Gotham's shabby side, to gray tenements, streets that in the summer were open bake ovens, and in the winter freezing Siberian highways, filled with the frosty breath of the Hudson.

She had graduated from cabaret work into vaudeville and from vaudeville had made the next step into musical comedy. Stage managers remarked her intelligence, the rapidity with which she learned songs, her manner of assimilating “business” and dance steps. She made-up wonderfully well, was inspirational with her verve, the sheer bubbling vivacity which she displayed before the footlights. Countless of the tribe of Tired Business Men, to say nothing of Jersey deacons and amateur rounders from points West, felt sluggish pulses stir and thin blood warm at the sight of her twinkling legs, her bodily grace, the flickering sunshine of her smile that came, lingered, vanished.

It was while she was with the “Dancing Widow” at the old Knickerbocker, that Feo first became attracted by and attached to young Mr. “Happy” Osgood. The gentleman in question, a “wise money hopper” had hit the Broadway bookies hard, had cleaned up royally on a “good thing” some “guns” had uncorked at Aqueduct to run for the “family jewels.” There was nothing unconventional about their meeting. Osgood, in a box that night, had beheld Feo and had found her good to look upon. Thereafter, he had loitered about the stage entrance until she came out, had presented himself, had taxied her up to the Cafe de la Paix, there to shoot a lot of seed. Feo liked Osgood from the first; he was so good-looking, so debonair, even-tempered. He wore modish raiment with the genteel air of a Rialto leading man, was a perfect dancer, understood women and made love like they did in the movies. He was also generous to a fault— particularly after he had made a “break.”

Later, Feo was to discover that Osgood existed entirely by his wits, maintained an office in his waistcoat pocket, and was married to a girl who had left him for a motion picture director in far Hollywood. Still later it was Feo’s privilege to discover that her lover was not above engaging in shady transactions that were on the fringe of the law. Once or twice he had hinted that her assistance in some of his “deals” would be highly appreciated but Feo, despite her affection for him, steadfastly refused material aid. She felt that she could never forget one bleak evening she had known in her twelfth year. Then a couple of very tall patrolmen had entered the tenement to pinch a pickpocket who resided just across the hall. They had used their nightsticks rather vigorously when the poor wretch had tried to make a quick and furtive escape...

IT WAS a morning in August.

The hour was eleven o’clock or something more. The sunshine that poured in the open windows of the two-room and bath suite “Happy” Osgood maintained perennially on the fourth floor of the Hotel Timbledon, was hot and brassy. It painted the windows of the unprepossessing, musty hostelry that had been a gaunt sentinel on the corner of Broadway and Fifty-first Street since the day that the First Crusaders were in bib and rompers. Across a card table, being used for the more worthy purpose of holding breakfast dishes, Osgood alternately endangered his eyesight by drinking coffee with his spoon in the cup and looking sleepily across at Feo who, in her bright tan-and-green kimono, was as radiant as a summer butterfly. He watched her daintily crack one of the eggs she had boiled on the electric grill, yawned once or twice, reached for his Piedmonts, lighted one and inhaled deeply.

“Hot, isn’t it?” Osgood murmured. “Must be tough on you, baby doll, down in the show-shop.”

Feo, scooping out the egg with a bent spoon, nodded.

“Compared to it a three alarm fire is zero! Still, I don’t mind it very much. It’s better than rehearsing with a new piece or haunting the agencies.”

The reference was made to her present occupation with a summer revue current at the Ambassador. Osgood flipped the ash from his cigarette, some of his enervation patently disappearing.

“If you weren’t so damn straight-laced,” he growled, “you wouldn’t have to be swinging a foot and chirping in this kind of weather. No, the two of us could be down at Atlantic City, having a smoke roll us around in one of them boardwalk chairs. Either that or up at the Spa, making suckers out of the books and running them ragged at the faro layout in Ernie Schwartzbaum’s place. I got a deck marked that’s money from home, but I’ve got to have a rib to help me crack it and,” he sighed, “I might as well ask a Methodist minister’s wife to help me as to ask you!”

Feo smiled a little but said nothing.

“There’s no telling,” Osgood continued, “how much jack is in the pot. It’s a gold mine, ready to be worked. Not only that but it is as safe as a convent— we could pull it and walk up to a cop on any beat, laugh in his face and say, ‘The haitch with you, feller. We’ve just stuck over a nifty. Let’s see you put on the cuffs, you great big fathead, you?' That’s the kind of a pipe it is. Feo, it’s the cat’s pyjamas!”

But the girl opposite him continued to evince no particular interest and Osgood scowled.

“Lemme tell you about it,” he said heavily. “I’ve been on this for the past three days and it’s absolutely airtight. It’s such a safe best that I can take an oath and swear that if you’ll help me lam it over, I’ll be wearing Mortie Quellton as a watch charm. Quellton, mind you! And that’s no Spanish cow! It’s a cinch to call the turn!”

For the first time Feo stirred a little. Mortie Quellton. The name struck a responsive chord within her and made it vibrate like the plucked string of a violin. She knew Mortimer Quellton; everybody knew him, for Quellton had been one of the sniffing Alley hounds who had excited the envy and reluctant admiration of the Rialto by marrying a million dollars. Some four years previous, Quellton, then a “barber shop chord” baritone, singing at the cafe of the popular Milt Wimble, had become acquainted with and ultimately married a Mrs. Cary Carney, she, the wealthy widow of an interior decorator upon whom the blight of prohibition had had not the slightest effect.

Rumor tabbed Quellton as being as sharp as a razor, as being as clever as they came; becoming the husband of the former wife of the bibulous Cary Carney had proved and verified the fact. Quellton had seated himself in the soft lap of luxury. The old haunts along the White Way saw him only infrequently; he dined now at the new Park Avenue place of Monsieur the Sherry, danced at the Club Septembre and got tight in his wife’s establishment on East Seventy-first Street.

This information Feo recalled as she looked at the scowling face of her loved one.

“Want to help me?” Osgood asked.

She shook her head.

“No.”

“Give you half of what I get,” he persisted. “How about it?”

She shook her head again.

“Nope.”

“Happy” Osgood’s scowl darkened.

"Don’t!” he snapped. “You and them lily-white ideas of yours give me a pain. I haven’t levelled since Miss Lizzie won last month at Belmont. Never mind, I’ll stop off at Santanyanna’s a little later and get a hold of Beth Wildey. She’ll get down on her knees and beg me to let her string along, once I pass her the set-up.”

Feo stood, went around, hung over the back of Osgood’s chair, her arms draped loosely about his shoulders.

“My boy’s such a roughneck,” she cooed. “He gets as sore as a gumboil and goes away up in the air at the least little thing, doesn’t he?”

“You’re enough to make me nutty,” the object of her attentions said in a more amiable voice. “Can’t you ever do anything I ask you to like a regular fern?”

Feo drew a slim, pointed finger across one recently shaven cheek.

“As a matter of fact,” she stated, “I’ll help you this once and I won’t ask for a nickel kick-in if you’ll swear an oath that you’ll do something for me”

Osgood jumped up; he caught her elbows in his hands and searched her pretty face with a darting glance.

“What do you want me to do?”

Feo drew a breath. It seemed to require all of her courage to make answer. Yet her voice, when she replied, was curiously cool and calm:

“Get a divorce and marry me!”

She expected Osgood’s hands to drop away and his eyes to narrow coldly as they had invariably done on other occasions when she had made the same request. But he stared without blinking and his fingers gripped her arms the harder.

“If you mean that,” he said slowly, “I’m on! There’ll be enough cash in this to pay Horowitz and Sanger for a gilt-edge divorce decree and a couple of bones left over for a marriage license and one of them orange blossom wedding rings. Baby doll, help me stick this across, be on the level with me and I swear it will be a case of from altar to halter fifteen minutes after Horowitz pries me away from that double-crossing whiff of mine! What do you say to that?”

The brown eyes of Feo were eloquent.

“Hold me tight— just for a minute, Honey Lamb!” she crooned. “Oh, close— lose!”

It was perhaps ten minutes later before Osgood was able to briefly outline his idea. Mortie Quellton had been, it appeared, in Dutch with his wife and was on probation. His bank and better half had learned of one of Mortie’s indiscretions and while the matter had been patched up, the slightest error on Quellton’s part meant a definite and conclusive break. This break, Osgood exclaimed, meant the former cafe singer would be ousted from the lap or luxury and tossed out into the cold. It was indisputable, he declared, that Quellton would take mighty good care that his wife would have no opportunity to censure him. Yet, so the explanation ran, Mortie had never loved the woman he had married and could no more resist temptation than a starving man could a plate of steaming soup. It was upon Quellton’s known weakness for youth and pretty faces that Osgood laid the foundation for his schemes. And, as he unfolded it, the eyes of the listening Feo widened; her cheeks grew warm and flushed.

“But suppose,” she said fiercely, “he got to it before the showdown—before you butted in? I— I simply couldn’t—”

Osgood understood and smiled grimly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be Sidney on the Spot. You exit with me after the razz and that’ll be all.”

He took her lips and then consulted his watch.

“Now I gotta breeze. Remember what I told you and don't worry about nothing. I haven’t stored this for three days without knowing the words and music from the vamp to the second ending of the chorus.”

After Osgood had departed for a pool room on Thirty-sixth Street and Feo was in the privacy of her bedroom, she went retrospectively about the business of dressing. She pondered a number of things as she brushed out the mane of her umber hair, prior to dressing it. She would entice and win through the magnetic appeal of her fringed eyes, the petal-redness of her inviting mouth, the imaginative and inspiring appeal of her rounded, softly-curved body, the charm and animation of her manner. She tried to remember everything that Osgood had told her as she snapped the hooks on her brocaded silk camisole, adjusted the elastics on her pink knickers and swathed her symmetrical legs with gossamer-thin silk hosiery.

“It means so much, so much to me!” was the thought that repeated itself in her mind, like the never ending refrain of a popular song hit heard for the first time.

All afternoon she thought of it; during the evening performance of the show at the Ambassador it imitated her dance steps, lurked at her elbow.

It’s voice dwindled when she had changed to street clothes and had crept down the stage door alley. Now she was face to face with actuality. When she reached Callag’s and was seated at a table toward the rear, under the balcony, she was breathlessly aware that the curtain on the stage of her own drama was slowly rising. Osgood had told her that he had positive information that Quellton would be at Callag's around midnight. She realized the magnitude of her lover’s knowledge when, as the smoke-wreathed clock at the far end of the cafe marked midnight precisely, Mortimer Quellton threaded a way down the centre aisle and seated himself, two tables distant from her.

He wore a finely-tailored Tux, a soft silk shirt and a diamond ring that blazed like a ball of fire on the smallest finger of his left hand. Quellton was a well-built, not unattractive young man. evidently in the early thirties, whose mouth was a trifle too thin and whose eyes, small and bright, were set too close to a straightly modelled nose. Broadway had known him well in his singing days and Feo had seen him often around the Lane. Yet, with his present elegance and in his lounging, moneyed ease, she recognized but little of the former Alley hound.

Quellton ordered a drink— this, after a whispered conference with a new waiter. He wedged a cigarette in a jewelled holder and surveyed the place with idle indifference. From the frown that shadowed his face, Feo saw that he was out of temper, was morose, illy-pleased with the world in general and himself in particular. Fie drank the Pink Baboon —the latest alcoholic concoction served as a slap-in-the-face to the dictates of Mr. Volstead—and drummed on the table top nervously. It was when twenty minutes or more had elapsed that Feo decided it was high time to get busy, to take her cue and put the stage beneath her feet.

Accordingly she asked for her check; when it came she considered it carefully and then opened her handbag— to search through it first methodically, then anxiously, and finally frantically. Meantime the waiter, a fair specimen of his profession, with distrustful eyes and a bulging jaw, watched her efforts with interest.

“I'm afraid,” Feo said at length, “that I left my pocketbook back in the dressing-room at the theatre.”

“Left your pocketbook back in the dressing-room at the theatre!” the waiter mimicked.

“Either that or lost it!” Feo went on desperately. “Oh, what shall I do? I— I—”

Her servitor interrupted by taking a step closer to the table. He leaned over and let words fall from the corners of his twisted lips:

“Women, I heard that old jazz a million times! You glad-rag dolls think you can get away with apple sauce just because you’ve got a good-looking mug, neat scenery and a canary voice! I hate you cheap frails! You break through with the figure on that check and slip me a fat tip or I’ll razz you noble!”

Feo, standing, registered utter indignation.

“But I’m telling you the truth,” she protested. “You don’t suppose I would lie to you, do you ? Why should I trouble to tell an untruth to a person of your class?”

This, as she expected, aroused the full ire of the man that confronted her.

“You’re all liars!” he said with an oath. Then, raising his voice: “Dig the gilt out of your sock where I know you’ve got it hid or I’ll call a cop! Them’s the boss’s orders. Put up or get locked up. Chirp an answer!”

The answer he requested was furnished by Mr. Mortimer Quellton:

“What’s the amount of the young lady’s check?” he asked quietly.

Feo felt the thrum of her heart, the warm flush of victory, Osgood had told her that it would work out just as it had! She encountered Quellton’s raking stare, banking on the innocence written in her face; he looked for a full minute then considered the paper slip with her account on it and threw down a bill.

“There’s your money.”

The waiter looked at it with a sneer.

“How about my tip? Don’t I get no tip?”

Quellton’s ill-humor flared up in his small, bright eyes. He thrust his face forward:

“I'll give you a tip, you noisy four-flusher ! This is it: The next time you shoot off your trap to a lady in a jam, be careful some one don’t shove your teeth down your throat! On your way now before I buzz the captain!”

Without further comment the waiter turned on his heel, picked up his tray and departed.

“I have a ring here,” Feo quavered, “that -I wish you’d keep as security— until I can pay you back to-morrow. I’m with the revue at the Ambassador and I really did leave my little purse on the dressing table. Oh, I’m so ashamed—you have no idea.”

They sat down after Quellton had pulled out her chair for her.

“Don’t worry about the money,” he said kindly. “I happen to know you’re telling the truth because I saw you not two hours ago at the theatre in question. Good show— plenty of kick and nice music. Won’t you tell me your name?”

Feo did so, recalling Osgood’s instructions and adding naively:

“And you’re Mr. Quellton, aren’t you? I remember I used to see you at Wimble’s when I first went on the stage. That’s ages and ages ago now. I want you to know how grateful I am for what you did. If you hadn’t come to my rescue and helped me out, that big ham would have called an ossifer. This place isn’t what it used to be.”

She rattled ingenuously on, giving Quellton ample opportunity to appraise and study her. She saw his gaze drink her in, focus on her face, wander to her shoulders, over her rounded arms. Would she stand inspection? Her spark of hope wavered, went out, then at his next words burst into a tiny flame.

“Let’s get out of here,” Quellton murmured. “This place is enough to give you a headache.”

She tried to lend the impression that, realizing just whom he was, she was slightly awe-stricken by his favor, his attention. Feo waited while he got his smart straw hat and stick at the cloakroom window, then let him take her arm as they traded Callag’s for the pavement of the Broadway that was outside.

The Rialto, under the summer moon, was a painted city, so colorful that it might have been designed by either the great Urban or Pierre Markanoff, the famous Hungarian muralist. For all of the heat and humidity, it was as crowded as it might have been on a March night. Those of Flash Alley’s inner circle, its women, its parasites, its sharpshooters and the motley mob who were drained away by the shore and Saratoga, had been replaced in generous measure by the out-of-town visitors and vacationists who annually travelled to its Mecca, their prayer rugs ready to be thrown down in the shadow of the minarets of Longacre. The lights of a million incandescents set the night on fire, accentuated the stuffiness of the city, rivalled the promise of dawn which was not many hours distant.

Feo, Quellton’s arm holding hers, walked south. She wondered acutely what lay just ahead. Surely it was ordained she was to conquer— otherwise she would have been dismissed ere this. Had she fitted into that hiatus of Quellton’s nature that needed always the comforting snuggle of a pretty girl or woman. Was it fated that Osgood was to have the privilege of making a dent in what Quellton was known to have cached and put aside for himself out of the former Mrs. Cary Carney’s wealth? The question filled and thrilled her; a satisfactory answer meant the gratification of a dream that had been ever hers by night and day. Marrying her “Happy” was a diadem to be placed on the head of every hope that existed within her, every ardent desire and wish.

“Suppose we take a turn or two through the Park and get a breath of air?” Mortie Quellton suggested, as they passed the Palace and reached a Yellow Taxi stand, where a dozen orderly vehicles with disc wheels were strung out in line.

“I’d like to very much,” Feo answered. “Only—”

“Only what?”

“I don’t want to get you in any trouble with your wife,” she said frankly. “I’m a chorus girl you know and they’re all vamps and home-wreckers.”

Quellton’s reply was to open the door of the nearest taxi, assist her in and speak to the driver.

“My wife,” he declared, when the cab edged out into the river of nocturnal traffic, “is up at her camp in the Adirondacks. What goes on down here I take precious good care that she doesn’t learn. I'm quite capable,” he added, with a smile, “of looking out for myself and for my friends as well.”

Feo knew this wasn’t exactly the truth but kept silent. She reclined gracefully on the upholstery, glad of the faint, warm breeze the cab created by its own momentum. They passed the Winter Garden, the ugly bulk of the Timbledon; Feo looked up and saw the darkened windows of the room on the fourth floor.

In another minute they were over the threshold of Columbus Circle and in the Park, pursuing a smooth course through a floating island of darkness that was dappled with the shine of the arcs, benched with lovers who exchanged tender vows in the shadows, tenanted by those poor souls who stole out of airless tenements to sleep under the arch of the open sky.

They went up to One Hundred and Tenth street by the west drive, skirted the irregular lake near the old Block House and drifted south by the east side. Feo was able to see the darkened piles of the homes of the children of the rich, mausoleums deserted save for caretakers, silent in the humid night. Far south the Plaza was a pinnacle over the land of smart shops; to the right a glow on the clouds marked the location of Broadway. In the middle distance, to the west, the roof sign of the Century Theatre seemed to hang suspended on golden cords. Back and behind it, huddles of taller buildings made the gully of side street and avenues.

“How about a little drink?” Quellton said, his voice arousing Feo from the

lethargy into which she had slipped. She lifted her gaze to find his small, bright eyes on her face.

“I don’t mean in any of those hot Alley dives,” he hastened to add. “I’ve got a few rooms I’ve kept over from my bachelor days just a little way from here and a cellarette that has some stuff in it that I’m not ashamed to offer anyone. Wouldn’t you like something with ice in it?”

Feo dropped the lids over her eyes, tried to mask the satisfaction they might have otherwise revealed. Every new turn of events hinged accurately on “Happy” Osgood’s scheme— his plans. She had first anticipated the need of all of her wits, of ingenuity, of crafty stratagems to get him to take her to this same place he mentioned for it was at his “apartment” that Osgood contemplated a crash-in at the proper moment. Luck, to Feo, seemed so great to make her almost suspicious.

“I wouldn’t mind it at all,” she said slowly. “Only—”

“Only what?”

“Are you sure it is all right?”

Quellton touched her arm reassuringly. He passed an address to the chauffeur and laughed under his breath.

“Believe me, it is! I’m a pretty cagey person as you possibly have heard. I seldom make mistakes and, when I do, I’m ready to pay the penalty. But don’t worry— there’ll be no penalty I assure you. Like an umbrella I cover myself.”

Feo felt she could have made an appropriate reply to him and suppressed a smile of satisfaction as the taxi left the Park and a few minutes later was stopping before the narrow façade of an apartment house in a quiet side street where the darkness was a murky drugget.

Mortimer Quellton settled with the chauffeur, piloted Feo through a front door whose light had long since been extinguished. They went up a flight of stairs together, hesitated while the husband of the wealthy woman who had been Mrs. Cary Carney fumbled for his keys, and then entered the bandbox apartment, penetrating a living-room where an electric fan droned and an artificial springtime coolness prevailed. The room was furnished with a bachelorian touch; framed nudes by Castigny were on the walls, mingling with photographic posters depicting Montmartre scenes, lettered in French. The room adjoined a bedchamber and was only indifferently appointed ; its furniture had seen signal service, its rug was worn and an air of desuetude lingered over all like a venerable hag, work-weary. Its most modern furnishing was a handsome teak wood cellarette with a shiny brass lock, which Quellton used to house one of the keys on his ring.

“One minute and I’ll put together something that will make you think of Greenland on a January afternoon.” he said, taking from the cabinet several bottles before wandering off in the direction of the kitchen at the end of the hall.

“Bar-boy is one of the best roles I play!”

Feo, when she was alone, crouched her chin in the palm of her hand and turned so she might face the whirling fan. She thought of Osgood, of herself, of the significance of the chamber that contained her and shuddered a little. Money, as it invariably did, lay at the root of it. Money, it appeared, was the basis upon which everything was founded, the freshet that nourished every river, every dark and sinister stream, every bright ocean and turgid, unhealthy pool. Its possession was a curse that might never be lifted; it made Broadway what it was, purchased the affection of passion-slaves, sent men down into dark, unholy paths that twisted through the subterranean swamps. Yet, Feo reflected, it was Quellton’s money that must purchase her entire happiness, place a golden circlet on her finger, usher her through the swinging doors of Respectability, and make her dreams come true. The irony of it made her smile...

THE TRAY that Mortimer Quellton brought into the room held two frosty goblets, ornamented with the peels of lemons and the cubes of diced oranges. Feo tasted hers and found it delicious; she helped herself to a Russian cigarette and smoked pensively, while Mortie Quellton chatted, his small, bright eyes fastened first on her feet, then on her rounded legs, then on the swelling lines of her torso, her breast, and the rounded column of her throat. While he talked, Feo looked out of the open window into the street below. Her gaze idly roved its deserted length; presently she grew aware a man had turned the corner and was prowling through the shadows. There was a certain familiar swing to the shoulders, the way he held himself, that parted her lips. Nearly opposite the apartment building she saw the saunterer look up, beheld the blurred moon of his face ere he drifted past and merged with the darker darkness that was between the block’s two lamp posts.

The drinks consumed and the cigarettes burnt to their tubed stubs, Quellton got up and seated himself on the arm of Feo’s chair. His eyes were filled with a myriad of questions; he inclined forward and touched the thin, silken stuff that shrouded her shoulders.

“I guess you know you’re a winner,” he said huskily, obviously stirred by the sonnet of her beauty. “I knew you were different the minute I saw you in Callag’s. Tell me something about yourself. No, don’t! It might spoil it all.”

Feo sensed the approaching climax; her breath came more quickly; her eyes were velvet stars. All at once, under the stare he bent upon her she became a fairy, palpitant, night-crowned creature, wrapped in a bit of dawn. Followed a hush; their eyes swam together. She moved only when he had switched the electricity in the floor lamp off and felt him reach for her in the August dimness. There was another interlude of quiet. Quellton’s whispered words came from miles away:

“Oh, girl, girl―”

Then she was like a soft fire in his arms, warmer, more penetrating than the sun, knowing he breathed the odor of her skin, hair and breath—keenly sensitive to the lips that found and joined with her own....

HOURS or years later, the silence that brooded like a slumbering dragon over the chamber was cleft by the shrill clamor of the front doorbell. It was some time before the floor lamp was lighted and Mortie Quellton had stumbled into the hall. Feo knew the intruder was Osgood, her “Happy,” even before she heard his voice in the hall, saw him looming up in the doorway, looking at her with the stricken gaze of a Barrymore.

“You— Feo—” Osgood murmured brokenly. “I thought you were on the level— I thought you were square! Then Eddie Pilzer— it was his taxi that picked you both up— he told me you were here—”

Mortimer Quellton, halfway between the window and the lamp smiled thinly.

‘‘Well, so long as she is here, what are you going to do about it?”

Osgood turned to him.

“I'll even up!” he vowed. “I know you—you’re Quellton, Mortie Quellton who married Mrs. Cary Carney! I’ll even up! I guess maybe your wife would be only too happy to know what’s going on down in this dump! You can’t cop my girl and get away with it—”

It was a superb piece of acting— the perfect role of an outraged lover, broken, disillusioned, humiliated.

“You’re not going to do anything rash,” Quellton stated pleasantly.

Osgood drew a quivering breath.

“I’ll even up!” he iterated.

“No, you won’t,” Quellton differed affably. “I’ll tell you why you won’t. Suppose I did cut in on your gal? What about it? There’s three women to every one man in the world, and so you’ve got two more coming to you. Not only that, but I’m going to pay you well to keep a padlock on your tongue. I’m going to make you a present of a couple of thousand dollars. What’s a woman compared with two grands, eh?”

Feo’s throbbing blood tingled in her veins. Two thousand dollars! It was a clean-up greater than every expectation !

Mortimer Quellton had lighted a small lamp over a desk in one corner of the room; sat down before it. He spread open a green-leafed check book and, humming, fumbled in a drawer until he discovered an ornamental gold-and-silver fountain pen. This he uncapped, scratched off a check, tore it loose from the book and handed it to Osgood.

“There you are! I wouldn’t,” he advised, “try any monkey-business.”

Osgood nodded, still avoiding Feo’s burning gaze. He crossed to the door that led out into the hall, put on his checked cap and dug up his cigarettes. It was then that the cold chill of knowledge swept through her, blighting the bud and blossom of the wonderful plant of love that had reared up in her soul like a magic flower. With panic in her heart she stood, took an uncertain step forward, extended both arms.

“Happy,” she faltered.

Osgood turned casually.

“Aw, forget it!” he said curtly.

After a time the door closed.

Some time later Feo lifted her lifeless gaze and saw Quellton was beside the lamp again, fingers lifted to plunge it out....

IT WAS a week later.

In the living-room of the “apartment” out of which “Happy” Osgood had marched seven nights previous, Mortie Quellton paid his tailor, glanced at the neatly pressed pile of garments the man had delivered, and indicated the bill with a gesture.

“Just receipt it, will you?” he asked.

The man of needle and the pressing board, sat down before a desk that was in one corner of the room, spread open the bill and picked up an ornamental gold-and-silver fountain pen. He uncapped it at the same minute that Quellton caught sight of it.

“Here!” he said quickly. “Don't use that pen— use the quill.”

The tailor raised his head.

“No, why not? There’s ink in it yet.”

Quellton, as if struck by the recollection of something distinctly humorous, smiled.

“To be sure,” he agreed. “But I like my receipts to stay receipted. You see it’s a whim of mine to keep the fountain pen filled with sympathetic ink— the kind that dries up and disappears on hour or two after it is used. Really, you never know when it is going to come in handy.”

The tailor, plainly puzzled, helped himself to the quill.

______________________

20: Ivan’s Foe

C. S. Montanye

The Popular Magazine, September 7, 1924

ONCE upon a time a couple of brothers who rejoiced in the family name of Grimm knocked out enough to pay their income tax through the simple medium of throwing together fairy tales to delight a bunch of credulous kiddies. Mr. Father and Mrs. Mother, whose duty it was to read the bedtime stories to their youngsters, undoubtedly held the strong suspicion that the Grimm boys were either taking it in the wrist or smoking it in a, bamboo pipe. That, however, was in the sweet old days and times have changed. Right now there are more fairy tales in any evening newspaper than the enterprising Grimm twins hopped up for the tots and if you’re the least bit skeptical tell me what fairy tale has it on the radio, the photographs they send by wireless, the airplane flights that begin with breakfast in China and end with dinner in Brazil, the machines that give anybody a look at their own interiors and— finish it yourself. Because of this, the yarn of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Princess Kind Eyes” and “The Wicked Dwarf” are enough to make the average child throw away its cigarette, yawn and inquire where that stuff was obtained from.

This spicy narrative can’t be properly called a fairy tale even if it reads like one. For the benefit of those who weren’t seated before the first curtain let me present our hero, Prince Charming Scandrel, set the prologue in the Night-and-Day Garage, a twenty-four-hour gyp joint for the cans, and drag on Ivan the Terrible, Moe the Ogre, Winnie the Beautiful and all the rest of the characters that make merry while the plot unfolds.

To begin at the beginning, Ottie had bought the Night-and-Day Garage for a song and a dance. The trap was nearer the East River than the Hudson, had prices like those of a Rialto café private wine list and prospered under the direction of the big clown. Scandrel took to the legalized-highwayman thing like a soldier to gunpowder. Really, the way he could figure an estimate on a repair job was nothing less than remarkable. Ottie could tell how much the cost of overhauling a motor would be by sniffing the fragrance of its burning gas. He decided how much new axles would add up to by merely feeling the upholstery, and a broken rear end was always priced according to the length of the running board. The ludicrous part of it was that when the arks were given the K.O. and put on the street again they ran like a commuter for an early-morning train!"

As the proprietor of a busy garage my boy friend was a laugh. The fact that he knew absolutely nothing about the profession bothered him less than the monthly milk bill does the family cat. Ottie, certain that the thing was as simple as a kindergarten, spent most of his time rushing around doing nothing and ran his mechanics with a heavy hand and foot. An example of his directorship was presented quite vividly one afternoon between Monday and Sunday when I chanced to stop in at the garage office, a chamber that made a telephone booth look like a ballroom, and found the world’s most noted half-wit bawling out a hapless mechanic who listened to everything he said, a wrench in one hand and an egg sandwich in the other.

This party was worth anybody’s second glance. Not only was he a symphony in grease but wore overalls that could have been coasted on, had ears that resembled sails, a head that came to a point and a witless smile that seemed to tell the world he didn’t know what it was all about and cared less.

“Honest, you’d make a fish seasick!” Scandrel was raving, when I closed the door and entered. “I ought to hit you a kick, you little stiff. The next time there’s a soap convention in town I’m going to attend so I can wash my hands of you. You’re ignorant, your heels are too close to your ankles and you’re a tight connection. Are you listening?”

The mechanic shuffled his feet, took another generous bite out of the sandwich and sighed.

“I hear you. What was you saying?”

“What’s all this?” I inquired, while Ottie reached for a ledger.

“These here ignoramuses, Joe!” he moaned. “I can’t trust none of them out of my sight for more than five minutes, Eastern standard time. They’re trying to shove me into bankruptcy. This frozen knot here— Ivan Mulligan by name— is the dumbest of the lot. He knows more about rattles than Henry Ford and he repairs a mean motor, but he’s got cement looking like skimmed milk for thickness and to make it even all around he’s one of these superstitious monkeys. You talk to him.

Ask him why he lets a thirty-one dollar repair job go out for thirteen washers when the amount was plainly wrote on the ticket.”

Mulligan finished his lunch, put a crust of bread in one pocket of his overalls, scratched his ear, took out a bunch of four-leaf clovers, looked at them, put them back and giggled.

“I read the repair tag backward. Anyhow, thirteen is a lucky number and thirty-one ain’t, positively. My old gent was thirty-one years old the day they chased him out of Russia and into Ellis Island. I got a cousin in Brooklyn whose house got burned up in a fire with no insurance on Thirty-first Street and I know a party who got gunned because he had thirty-one dollars in his kick. Should there be thirty-one cars in this here―”

“Shut it off!” Ottie yelped. “You and that luck stuff bend me out of shape. You’re proving yourself more absurd than ridiculous. Make your conversation fewer and better; remember that on Saturday your pay envelope will be minus the difference between thirty-one and thirteen and get outside and line them brakes on that Curb Creeper or I’ll knock you so far there won’t be enough gasoline in the world to run a car out to bring you back!”

Ivan Mulligan fingered a chin well paved with cup grease.

“Mister, I forgot to told you that it was on the thirty-first day of three months ago that Moe Morowitz lowbrow crooked my gal off me. Don’t be telling me nothing about thirty-one. It’s a bust and there: ain’t even good-luck symbols to hold it off!”

In the act of cuffing him, Scandrel paused, glanced in my direction and lifted a brow.

“Moe Morowitz, you say? Do you mean ‘Queensboro Moe’ Morowitz, the lightweight leather pusher who’s been rurining after Benny Leonard lately?”

Mulligan nodded glumly.

“That’s him— the baby I’m going to get even with if it takes from now until beer and light wines come back!”

“And he stole your girl?” I put in. “That wouldn’t be anything unusual,”

Ottie smirked. “Any guy that will turn a trick like sending out a repair job for thirteen kisses when it’s tagged thirty-one could have his elbows swiped and wouldn’t know it until he sat down to eat. What surprises me is that he ever had a gal. What was the matter with her?”

Asking Mulligan the question was identical with hitting a nervous thoroughbred with a whip. He lost little time in getting started.

Briefly, the mechanic’s cheerful story was along somewhat familiar lines. It seemed that he had lived next door to a Stella Brady, had tumbled in love with her when a child and had grown up beside her. If Ivan was to be believed, this ringer for Eve was the most beautiful creation that had ever blossomed on the East Side. We were informed of the fact he had proposed matrimony once a month for six years and had finally been accepted. Then, so he said, he squandered his life’s savings on a diamond engagement ring, rented an apartment in Astoria and furnished it to the queen’s taste. After that he consulted a crystal gazer, found an auspicious day some two months distant and set about making arrangements to throw a wedding.

Stock stuff.

While waiting for the happy day the fair Miss Brady, at a dance, had become acquainted with Queensboro Moe Morowitz, a neighborhood socker who enjoyed high popularity and who was foot free and fancy loose. The leather pusher, so we gathered, had a charming personality, a collection of classy clothes, money enough to stop a strike and a fast line of gab. The upshot of the meeting was that the incredible Stella, being both fickle and feminine, had, in an absent-minded minute, forgotten the faithful Master Mulligan long enough to run off and change her name from Brady to Morowitz.

It was a sad, sad story but something about it amused Scandrel.

“Ha-ha!” he laughed. “So Morowitz gloms the rib and gives you a push-out, hey? You poor half-wit, you! What good will revenge do you now when he’s got the moll and they’re tied?”

Ivan made a gesture.

“They done it so quick I couldn’t have chance to think of nothing before, mister. The two of them got married on St. Patrick’s Day and it’s bad luck to hit an East Side boy on an Irish celebration. But listen. Mebbe it’ll take a week, mebbe a month, mebbe a year, but I’ll get him in the end. I’ll show him. I’ll even up!”

“Outside!” Ottie ordered. “You talk like a dime novel and we ain’t got no time to listen to all that jazz. Tear them brakes apart and if you can accidentally knock a hole in the radiator while you’re doing it, so much the better.”

The mechanic picked up his wrench, pulled up his overalls and tottered out.

“So he’s superstitious?” I murmured.

Ottie curled a lip.

“That isn’t the half of it. I don’t mind him hanging a gander’s shoe over the front door, but when he brings in one black cat on Tuesday and has a cellar full of black cats on Friday it’s time to give him the gate. Just a minute now and I’ll be with you. I’ve got to hand Central a telephone call. Er— maybe you’ve heard of this party I’m ringing up— Stephen Fosdick?”

There were few in hilarious Manhattan who didn’t know of Stephen Fosdick and of Fosdick’s sensational rise to prosperity.

In the days of brass foot rails and cracked ice Fosdick, with nothing except two hands, some brushes and a bootblack box, had started cleaning up shoes around Park Row. He had gradually saved enough to start a small factory to manufacture the same paste the shine boys put on your shoes and quickly rub off with a rag. The factory had prospered like a pickpocket at a circus, one factory had meant another, another still another, until Fosdick was reputed to be worth a hot million.

Because of the bootblack business he called his vast New Jersey estate Sunshine Corners, was rumored to be a democratic Republican who wasn’t too proud to be seen in his shirt sleeves, drink his coffee from a saucer or show up at his office with a dinner pail.

“Fosdick, eh?” I murmured.

Ottie came out of the phone book, gave the combination to the operator and grinned crookedly.

“You do ask questions, ain’t it so? Fosdick’s opening a new factory over on the East River and until his own garages are finished he wants to know can he park six of his delivery trucks here at night, how much, why and where. I’ll take him and no mistake there. Just a minute now and I’ll tool you up to the Bronx.”

There had been considerable talk around my uptown gym to the effect that Looie Pitz, the well-known fight manager, had a dark horse under contract that was going to show the Gotham fight fans a new wrinkle in the line of give and take. Pitz, poverty stricken for years, had finally hit a winner in a welterweight wonder that had packed his poke with paper and sent him on a tour of the country. Because of the travel thing nobody around the Bronx had seen or heard from him more than a postcard’s worth until he had wired from Chicago that he was due home again.

It was curiosity to learn whom Pitz had signed, how he was making out under the stress and press of wealth and what his plans were that took Scandrel and his usual sneer up to the gym in a car borrowed from those sheltered at his garage. When we reached our destination we found two motors standing at the curb in front of the gymnasium. Both were of the same brand and aroma, and both had cost in the vicinity of six thousand dollars apiece.

As we docked, the door of the second car opened and Looie Pitz, himself, alighted.

“For crying out loud!” Ottie bawled. “The kid himself back from the great souse-West and dressed like an undertaker! Look and laugh, Joe! Ain’t this a darb, I’m inquiring?”

Pitz was groomed in a cutaway coat with braided edges that hung on him like a tent. An English bowler was on a level with his eyebrows, he featured a pair of trousers with one leg longer than the other, carried a walking stick thick enough to have ended a dog fight and smoked a cigar that had three bands on it.

Scandrel’s laughter made Pitz color up. He took off his hat, looked at it, put it back and made sure his suspenders were tight all around.

“What’s the matter with me, O’Grady?”

“The matter with you?” Ottie bellowed. You’re a picture that no artist would want to paint. Look at that coat, Joe, will you? Treat yourself to the legs on them pants, and the shoes! Slant them shoes!”

“Still suffering from chronic dumbness!”

Pitz snapped, making a pass at him with the blackthorn. “You’re the kind who wouldn’t give credit to the party who invented electric light. You big sapolio— chuckle at me and I’ll summon an officer.”

“One minute!” I cut in. “This will be enough of that. Inside with you both before somebody rings for the green wagon.”

Upstairs, the reception Pitz received from the studio gang that had never taken the trouble to notice him when he went through life on ten cents, a transfer and a celluloid collar, put him in better humor. He shot his cuffs, turned his back on the still hysterical Ottie and made a break for one corner of the room where a youth who looked somewhat familiar was holding court. As they shook hands I looked the stranger over. He was a tough-looking proposition possessing a face that was his misfortune, a bugle that had evidently been Roman before it had been hammered out of shape, a pair of wise eyes, the same number of ears and a chin as square as a soap box. Pitz pried him away and introduced him with a flourish.

“Meet the new lightweight I’m managing now— Queensboro Moe Morowitz, the biggest sensation that’s hit this town since they first took down the swinging doors! This boy is guaranteed fast, so tough he uses a rock for a pillow, as clever as a ventriloquist and has more punch than a bowl of it.”

“Why not?” Morowitz muttered with a shrug. “Tell him how I take punishment and how I stand up under it. But if they’re city fellars don’t bother. I guess they heard of me.”

I expected Ottie, who never tolerated any one with more conceit than himself, immediately to go up in flames. Instead, the big buffoon amazed me by shaking the lightweight’s hand with what passed as high enthusiasm.

“Well, well, well! So you’re Queensboro Moe? Then that big boiler downstairs must be yours. I seen M. M. on the door. Am I right or wrong?”

“That’s my car and I can prove it,” the lightweight shot back. “I did buy it second-handed but if it’s a stolen job that ain’t my lookout. If the cops can’t stop these crime waves―”

“Come out of it!” Ottie hollered, producing one of his cards. “If I’m a flatfoot you’re a tenor and what a heck of a note that would be. Here’s my card. I’m running a clean and honest garage and I don’t expect your patronage— I demand it. Repair jobs are a specialty. Give us a fair trial and be convinced. When will you come in?”

“To-morrow,” was Morowitz’s answer. “Er—Looie and I just come in from Chi together and I ain’t made no garage arrangements yet. I’d rather I should do business with one of my admirers than some gypper who might think I was a lamp and try to trim me. Does Pitz do business with you too?”

“Do I look insane? Put on the pillows, Moe, and step a few frames for the benefit of the crowd.”

The product of the East Side had a sneer for the suggestion.

“Get away with the benefit stuff. I’ve got a date with my wife to take her down to Coney Island to a hot-dog show. Er— can I leave you off somewhere downtown, gentlemen?” he asked Ottie.

“Certainly,” Scandrel replied. “And on the way I’ll tell you all about the garage and how we turn out a repair job. Listen, Joe. Leave that car we come up in stay downstairs at the curb. I’ll send a mechanic over to bring it back to-night.”

“If the street cleaning department don’t beat him to it!” Pitz snickered.

True to his word, Morowitz took his big car to the Night-and-Day Garage the following afternoon for space with service, but no casualties were reported after a meeting between the lightweight and his superstitious enemy. Ottie, who enjoyed every minute of it, explained that the lubricating oil combined with the grease that Ivan Mulligan wore was a sufficient disguise to keep him from being recognized. A day or two after that a slight hint of the jilted suitor’s feelings was apparent when Morowitz dashed in from the curb, shot his bus up the runway, knocked down two car washers who were doing their best to destroy the paint on a limousine, pulled on the brakes and lighted a cigarette.

“Hey, you!” he shouted at Mulligan. “Give this craft a drink of water, fill the radiator and tighten up that rear fender— it’s noisy. Have it ready in a half an hour. I’ll be around with my wife to get it. And don’t try to push the price up. I’m Queensboro Moe Morowitz, I am. I guess you know me.”

“Yes, I know you,” Ivan mumbled, his itching fingers straying toward a hammer that Ottie promptly came out of the office to take away from him.

Once the box fighter had checked out, Scandrel tried to find out why the carpet tacks he had sprinkled along the runway hadn’t worked, added another two dozen and went back where the six-thousand-dollar car was planted.

“That crook!” Mulligan moaned, burning three of his fingers on the radiator cap. “First he steals my gal off me and then he asks me do I know him? I suppose next he’ll want to know if I’ll be sore if he kisses me.”

“Pipe down!” Ottie hissed. “Snare yourself some common sense. What if he did walk out with your sweetie? There are plenty more fish in the brook.”

“Sure, but I spent all my bait!” Mulligan moaned. “To-night I’ll go by the fortune teller I do business with. Mebbe I got a little luck coming to me that I don’t know nothing about.”

“You’ll have something coming to you that you won’t know nothing about if you don’t get back to work on that chariot!” Ottie promised. “Every time I listen to you my ears hurt me for an hour afterward. Come on inside now, Joe. I think there’s somebody in the office waiting for me.”

There was.

This was a brunet girl with eyes as dark as Easter night, lips as red as paint, though without it, and a certain charm that couldn’t be concealed by the rather shabby little gown she wore. A three-cornered but sadly worn hat was another article of her street apparel, a pair of cracked patent-leather slippers were on her little feet and her pretty hands were as devoid of rings as the telephone of any one looking for charity.

Scandrel, usually the most enthusiastic pursuer of poultry the world had ever rolled an optic at, amazed me by merely glancing at the young lady briefly and coughing slightly.

“What’s on your mind, sister?”

“I’m from Mr. Fosdick’s factory over on the river,” she explained. “This is my lunch hour and Mr. Gorman, the superintendent of the traffic department, requested me to stop in and ask if it would be convenient for you to take six of our trucks to-night.”

At this Scandrel became all business. First he looked at a calendar from which the previous month had not been removed. Then he went to the safe and dipped into three ledgers. After that he consulted the loose-leaf filing index, looked up the petty cash account, helped himself to a glass of water and jotted down a note or two on his cuff.

“Yes,” he said finally, “I think we can accommodate you but I’ll find out for sure in a minute, Cutey.”

“That isn’t my name,” the young lady smiled. “It’s Winifred— Winifred Blake.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Ottie smirked, throwing open the office door. “Hey, Luck,” he hollered at the industrious Ivan, “come here a minute, will you? I want one-two-three words with you.”

The revenge-seeking mechanic dragged up his overalls, removed a quarter of a pound of grease from his chin and shuffled in. I saw him look at Ottie and then at the employee of the Stephen Fosdick factory. Mulligan’s jaw dropped like a white hope, his eyes widened and he gaped witlessly while he nervously produced the foot of a cottontail he carried with him and began to rub it idly.

“This here young lady wants to know can we accommodate six of Fosdick’s delivery trucks, kid. Can we? Have we got room in the back of the pavilion?”

“Absolutely, certainly,” Ivan replied vaguely. “What— what did you say, mister?” he added, coming to himself with a start.

“I’m saying it now— get out!” Scandrel snarled. “You’re as cuckoo as a Swiss bird. It’s all right, Winnie,” he went on, turning back to Dark Eyes. “Tell your boss to gas them around any time to-night and we’ll find room for them. Er— I’ll look ’em over myself, personal. Maybe they’ll need a little repairing. The brakes on some delivery trucks are like women and cigarettes— some smoke and some don’t. You won’t forget to tell him it’s all O.K. here?”

The girl gave Ottie a long look and shook her head.

“No, I won’t forget. Thank you so much for the information. Good-by.”

“Goo’-by!” the voice of Ivan Mulligan mumbled behind us. “Mister, that gal has something about her that reminds me of Stella. Mebbe the way she stands, mebbe the way she walks, mebbe them black eyes of hers.”

“I’ll give you a couple myself if you don’t lay off!” Ottie roared, wheeling around and slapping him. “What are you doing in here when I told you to go out fast? You’re going from terrible to much more so. Beat it before I crack a couple of your ribs!”

“Possibly,” the astonished Mulligan murmured, under his breath, “she’s the dark female the fortune teller meant. I’ll look him up to-night after work and make sure. She’s got a job over in Fosdick’s factory and her name’s Winnie? I can remember that because it’s the same as the noise a horse makes. Mebbe―”

He dodged a chair Ottie tossed at him, picked up his wrench and went back to spoil the upholstery in Queensboro Moe Morowitz’s expensive vehicle.

Sheer curiosity if nothing else made me loiter around the establishment for the better part of an hour to see what might ensue when the fickle Stella and Ivan’s enemy appeared on the scene to reclaim the repaired roadster.

“She’ll see through him like glass,” Ottie said when I mentioned the subject. “Trust a skirt to pick a broken heart, grease and all. You can’t beat a woman— and I don’t mean because it’s against the law either. I’ve got a sawbuck that says Stella or Mary or whatever her name is, spies Ivan and recognizes him immediately. Picture the rest. Then Morowitz puts the best one of his feet forward and clouts the nozzle stiff. Is it a gamble with you at even money, Joe?”

I glanced out the office window and saw Mulligan’s complexion.

“I’ll take you for ten and, believe me, you’ll pay up if you lose!”

“As if I never did!” Ottie snarled indignantly.

Twenty more minutes dragged past before Looie Pitz’s new lightweight, wearing his better half on one arm, blew in from the street. One look was enough to reveal the faithless Stella as a person with a mind of her own and a frequent inclination to express it. She was modeled along the same lines as Winifred Blake, had coppery red hair, eyes as black as chips of anthracite and a look as cold as the bill of an Eskimo.

“Don’t miss a minute of this!” Ottie muttered, rubbing his hands. “Look at the pan on that wren. Imagine coming home to that after a hard day’s work with a pick and shovel. If you ever held a quarter out of your pay envelope she’d have private detectives following you to find out what moll you were running around with. Watch ’em now!”

Halfway over to the motor on which Ivan was putting a few finishing touches, the lightweight’s wife came to a sudden and complete stop.

“What do you mean by bringing me into a disgusting hole like this, Moe?” she demanded angrily. “Look at the grease and dirt and oil! Is this all the respect you have for me? This isn’t fit to bring a pig into!”

Morowitz nervously patted her arm.

“Ssh, baby! It’s all right. This ain’t no time to be talking about pork. Look at the hour we saved by walking down here. It is a little untidy but―”

“Untidy!” the girl screamed. “It’s disreputable! I can actually feel the oil oozing through the soles of my shoes! You needn’t bother to get the car for me. I’ll take one that runs on tracks over to Aunt Minnie’s house.”

“Baby, listen!” Morowitz pleaded. “Jump in and in two minutes―”

“Don’t you dare to baby me! And take your hand off me! On second thought I’m not even going to Aunt Minnie’s. This has given me a nervous headache. I’m going straight home. And you needn’t try and detain me, either, you bully!”

While Scandrel and myself stopped, stared and listened the girl wrenched her arm away, picked up her skirts and flounced out. She was hardly gone before the temperamental Ivan’s emotions overwhelmed him.

“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “This place ain’t fit for a pig and she ain’t going to Aunt Minnie’s either! Don’t you dare to baby me and you needn’t try and detain me, you bully!”

The sound of Mulligan’s hysterical laughter seemed to freeze the fuming Morowitz to the spot. For at least a round of minutes he glared speechlessly at the superstitious car wrecker before him. Then, yelling like an Indian, he surged forward.

“At whom are you laughing, at whom? Has it got to be that the conversation of a married man and wife ain’t private no longer? I told you that I was Queensboro Moe Morowitz but I guess you didn’t believe it. Now I’ll prove it!”

“You put in a call for an ambulance and I’ll get a crowbar!” Ottie bawled, throwing the telephone at me before leaping for the door.

Twenty steps carried the frothing pugilist across to Mulligan. Morowitz pulled back his right for the Ostermoor jolt but the punch never was delivered for the reason he couldn’t set himself on the grease-finished floor. He slipped and fell directly onto the quick guard that Ivan had thrown up. As misfortune would have it the lightweight brought his chin directly down on the mechanic’s fist and little more was necessary. Spinning around he did a nose dive under a twelve-hundred-dollar sedan, out completely as Ottie and I reached the scene together.

“Did you see that?” Ivan shouted, wildly excited. “I knocked the low life out!”

Like a tiger with its first kill the youth took a punch at both of us, threw his wrench at a startled taxicab owner who had come in to get his rig out for the evening plunder and chased two of his coworkers to the street. To get attention Ottie had to stiffen Mulligan. This done he fished Morowitz out from under the closed car.

“Oy— this is terrible!” the lightweight moaned, once he was on his feet again. “Er— if them newspaper fellars ever hear of this they’ll kid the silk shirt off me. I should croak in a Christian neighborhood. Er— keep this quiet, friends. By me it’s accidental and by you it’s a secret. Here— get yourself a new necktie or something.”

Stopping only to peel two bills from his bank roll and hand them to us, he jumped into the roadster, threw it into reverse and went out the garage with extreme speed.

“Well, I see I lose that bet we made,” Ottie mumbled, peeking at the gift bank note and discovering it was worth ten dollars anywhere. “But you never hear of me welshing on no wagers, Joe. Here— take your money and scratch it off. I’m the prince of good losers, if I do say so myself.”

He handed me the green smacker as Mulligan pulled himself up on the running board of a car, felt the spot on his jaw that had put him on ice and, to ease the ache, tied a handkerchief around his ankle.

“ ‘What do you mean by bringing me into a disgusting hole like this, Moe?’ ” he mumbled faintly. “ ‘This has given me a nervous headache.’ And I knocked him cold with one punch!”

“You’re even now,” I pointed out.

“Yeah—so get back and make a space for Fosdick’s perambulators,” Ottie ordered. “You’re creating a theyater out of my garage. I suppose you’ll be bringing in an orchestra next to give musical comedy. You pasted Morowitz, you got your revenge, so get back to work.”

Ivan checked off his teeth, pulled up his overalls and shook his head dumbly.

“That wasn’t no revenge,” he declared. “When I get him I’ve got to get him in public— I’ve got to show him up in front of a crowd.”

“You’re undoubtedly out of your mind!” Ottie snapped. “Instead of trying to lay this, boy you ought to save up your salary and send him a present for stealing that gal away and marrying her!”

To continue.

Mulligan, once he had dropped in to visit his favorite fortune teller and was given a liberal dose of the future, promptly began tripping over to Stephen Fosdick’s shoe-paste factory the minute he had tightened up the last nut of the day, had slid out of his greasy costume and had let one of the car washers spray him with a hose. As the Fosdick layout didn’t lay off until six bells, Ivan had ample time to make himself fascinating for the dark, dreamy eyes of Miss Winifred Blake. How, why, and in what manner he had been able to capture the girl’s attention was a complete mystery but the fact remained that Mulligan had escorted himself in right and was taking the little brunette places after business hours. Twice they passed the garage, Ivan strolling along like Romeo with an eye out for a balcony.

This budding romance vastly amused my egotistical boy friend, who had nothing but a sneer for the mechanic, another for the young lady herself and a couple more for love’s young dream as it was being tenderly unfolded.

“Picture a snapper like her bobbing for Grease-ball,” he giggled. “She must be minus upstairs the same as him.”

“It’s odd,” I murmured. “Miss Blake is decidedly attractive and in the entire history of our acquaintance I’ve never before known you to pass up an opportunity to impress your personality upon some attractive young lady.”

“Banana oil for that jazz, Joe! You’re rapidly approaching the verge of lunacy. What do I want to be bothering with a factory canary for when all I need is a shave and a clean collar to step out and take my pick of the debutantes? I’ve kept away from the orange blossoms too long now to topple for anything short of Fifth Avenue. The gal I wed is one who’s going to have plenty jack and who can support me in the style to which I’d like to be accustomed. So much for that. Where are you bound?”

“Up to the Bronx.”

“Wait until I borrow somebody’s car and I’ll chug you up. And that reminds me. I must ask Harry Water, the head washer, if anybody ever brung back that last truck we borrowed.”

As it was an hour at the gym when Queensboro Moe Morowitz pulled a bout with whatever sparring partners Looie Pitz could bribe to go in against him, we found half of the East Side present when we arrived in the more remote spaces of the Big Town.

“They’re packed in like sardines,” I said.

Ottie snickered.

“Yeah, but sardines are better off because they’re laying down. Ain’t that Looie over there? Trap him and we’ll get away from these bandits before they get to us. I just got three teeth filled with gold and I don’t want to take no unnecessary chances.”

Pitz, to prove he had more than one complete change of raiment, was turned out in a frock coat, a silk tile and another cane. We managed to entice him away from the gym ring and into my private office where Ottie began.

“The— now— coat, Looie. What kind of a coat do you call it— an overcoat?”

“It’s a frock coat,” Pitz explained with some pride.

“Yes, but is it an overcoat?” Ottie insisted. “Do you put a coat over it or under it and if so when?”

“It’s a frock coat!” the little fight manager repeated stubbornly.

“But is it an overcoat, Dummy? I ask you and you tell me the same thing over again.”

“You’ve heard of a frock?” Pitz hissed. “Well, this is a frock coat!”

“That’s different. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Scandrel mumbled. “How is that new lightweight terror of yours moving along? You claim that he’s as well known as Little Bo-peep but I don’t see that he’s got any more dates than a cross-eyed gal in a one-horse town. What’s the next scuffle on the book? Tell me lots.”

In reply Pitz produced a letter, opened it and coughed.

“Here’s a fight right here with a chance for a little gravy. I got this letter yesterday. It’s off Steve Fosdick, the wealthy millionaire who makes that stuff they ruin your shoes with on Sunday mornings. Fosdick says that he’s giving a big party and housewarming out at Sunshine Corners, his Jersey estate, at the end of the month as a surprise to his wife. They tell me she’s one of them society dames who’s sick in bed for a week every time she catches Steve with carpet slippers on or red suspenders. In this letter he tells me that he thinks an exhibition bout between Queensboro Moe Morowitz and somebody else will be a crash for the dailies and get him in right with his wife. He wants to know will I be willing to arrange a bout for him for three grand for the night.”

“Three thousand clinkers for an exhibition?” Scandrel chanted, licking his lips. “What do you mean—gravy? That’s a whole steak and not a chance of an error. I bet you sprained an ankle getting to a telegraph office to wire acceptance.”

Pitz smiled sadly.

“Not a chance. I broke this to Moe but he turned me down like an elevator. Benefits and exhibitions to him are the same thing as low tide to a bootlegger. And there ain’t a bit of use of trying to make him change his mind.”

With an exclamation of excitement Scandrel leaped to his feet, threw his cigarette in the trash basket and snapped his fingers excitedly.

“Hold everything! Here’s a bargain for you, Looie. I— er— know more about the plug-uglies than you do. I know how to broadgab with them and make them jump through hoops. If I can compel Morowitz to change his mind will you match him for the exhibition with a jobbie I’ve got down at my garage? This boy is the same weight, religion, color— when he’s washed clean— as Moe and a sweet set-up. I’ll give you a written guarantee that he’s never fought in a ring and is as harmless as a picture book for children. For one third of the graft I’ll fix you up and make Morowitz talk cents. Right?”

Pitz agreed with rapidity and five minutes later we were in the dressing room where the famous lightweight was cooling out after his afternoon’s romp.

“A little attention,” Ottie requested, transfixing him with a glittering orb. “What’s this I hear about you being unwilling to step an exhibition match down at Stephen Fosdick’s big place in New Jersey at the end of the month? Picking on your manager because he’s a little guy, are you? Come on now, tell me something!”

For a long minute Morowitz stared at Ottie and it was a cinch to see that he well remembered the slippery floor of the Night-and-Day Garage and knew that the big clown also recalled it quite vividly.

“Sure, I’m doing the exhibition bout. Er— I was only kidding Looie. Who do I spar with? I ain’t taking no chances with anybody outside my weight class.”

“What’s your boy’s name, Ottie?” Pitz asked, taking the center of the stage.

“Ivan Mulligan.”

“Ivan Mulligan!” Morowitz blinked and straightened up. “This is a fancy! I owe that bird a beating up. The little tramp went and let me steal his gal off him and marry her. Believe me, I’ll give him a ride!”

One hour and twenty minutes after that we were back in the garage again. Scandrel tore Mulligan away from the transmission on a motor, threw him into a corner and explained the proposition in detail.

“Will I fight Moe in public?” the mechanic cried. “Does a violin make music? That’s all I want to do—make a monkey out of him before a lot of people. I’ll fight him and I’ll lick him for nothing!”

“Er— that ain’t exactly necessary,” Ottie giggled. “Just to show you I got your interest at heart I’ll give you five dollars out of my own pocket whether or not you win, lose or draw. Pardon me while I call up Moe’s manager and tell him to go ahead with the necessary arrangements.”

“And pardon me,” Ivan broke in, “while I comb my hair and get ready to keep a date with Winnie. Such a girl— you ain’t got no idea. She won’t tell me where she lives at but she’s got a grand disposition. Last night she said I reminded her of a character in a book.”

“A parsnip in a cook book!” Ottie laughed. “You remind me of the same thing! ”

Fully familiar with the fact that Mulligan had no more chance with Morowitz in the ring than a lame man would have of winning a relay race, Scandrel allowed Ivan to do his training under the cars that were towed in to be overhauled. Looie Pitz dropped down several times to look his lightweight’s set-up over, was satisfied the mechanic was no more dangerous than pastry and at length the day before the house-warming party at Sunshine Corners came along with Mulligan shuffling into the office of the garage to beg for a holiday.

“You want a day off?” Scandrel echoed. “What do you do—lay awake at night thinking up these funny sayings?”

Mulligan looked at me and sighed.

“Listen, gentleman. First of all I got to stop in and see my fortune teller about the fight to-morrow night. For six dollars cash or two for ten dollars he tells me he’ll fix it so I win easy. In the afternoon I want I should show Winnie the animals in Central Park. She’s getting half a day off. Leave me go and I’ll work on the night shift after dinner.”

“That’s fair enough,” Scandrel admitted, after thinking it over. “But nothing doing on the zoo. With them ears of yours I ain’t taking no chances!”

This is what occurred.

Arriving at Sunshine Corners the following evening in the classiest limousine Ottie could pick out of the garage, we were met at the front door of the villa by a servant whose powdered wig, swallow-tail coat and black-silk knickerbockers overpowered Ivan with hilarity.

“You ain’t got the manners of a cow in a parlor!” Ottie snarled, cuffing him twice. “Get in order, Dizzy. Don’t you know a footman when you see one?”

“A footman?” Mulligan panted. “Well, he’d better not try to kick me!”

Displaying considerable concern over the valise that held the ring paraphernalia and the gloves he had been made a present of the previous week, Mulligan was conducted off to a subterranean billiard chamber to dress while a butler led us into a lounge room and turned us over to the self-made Stephen Fosdick, himself. The shoe-shine king turned out to be an Undersized little tomato with a weather-beaten countenance and a browbeaten manner. He put on the shoes he had taken off to rest his feet and handed us each a cigar and a nervous handshake.

“This is a little surprise party for the wife as much as a housewarming,” he explained. “I know my daughter will eat it alive because she has funny ideas about money and people putting on airs, but I’m a little worried about how the missus will take it. Florine, the wife, has got ideas of her own. If either of you are married you can understand.”

“I’m still in business for myself but I get you anyway,” Scandrel assured him. “Don’t worry a thing. As long as there’s a chance to gossip the ladies will enjoy themselves.”

“Why shouldn’t Mrs. Fosdick like it?” I inquired.

“Well, I sent out the invitations myself and I didn’t ask none of her friends,” our host explained. “The bunch up to-night are all business acquaintances of mine— the customers who buy stuff off us. I had D. S. N.—dress suits necessary— printed on every card but I forgot that a lot of the boys can’t read English. Let’s go down to the sunken garden. I’d better stay around there in case Florine sinks me.”

The full significance of what Fosdick told us became more apparent when we exchanged the villa for the outside garden. There, disporting themselves with carefree abandon, were at least ninety per cent of all the proprietors of bootblack stands in Manhattan. Really, it looked like a festival day in Naples. Not only were the Italian gardens full of shine artists, but the majority of them had brought along their wives and children and the kiddies were picking flowers, paddling in the marble fountain and having the time of their lives while six or eight of the villa’s staid serving staff circulated among them with silver trays and high complexions.

“The wife,” Fosdick explained, “ate out to-night with some of her tony friends over on Park Avenue, New York. But she’ll be in later. Ah—how does this look to you?”

Ottie patted him on the back, straightened his necktie and pulled down his vest for him.

“It’s the candy! If your wife likes children you’re in while she’s still out. Look at that little monkey over there breaking branches off that tree. What could be cuter?”

The millionaire owner of the establishment left us and a couple of minutes later Looie Pitz dropped anchor, plastered to the brow in an assortment of evening clothes which he claimed had taken his tailors three months to design and six months to stitch together.

“They’ve set up the ring in the grand ballroom,” he explained, once Ottie got through giggling. “I’ve just now examined it and Tex Rickard himself couldn’t have done a better job. I’m told the fight goes on at ten sharp so they can take the ring apart and dance on the floor afterward. Moe’s putting on his ring togs. I hope he lets your boy stay the limit so Fosdick won’t think we’re short changing him. Shall we take a walk around the grounds together?”

“And have some one see you with me and think that I’m a friend of yours?” Ottie grunted. “You got more ideas than a flapper in a jewelry store. Me and Joe are going inside to see how our hustling mechanic is getting along. I hope he don’t steal nothing and get a bad reputation.”

At ten o’clock exactly the guests were seated in the camp chairs some undertaker had supplied, a regulation referee and time-keeper were on the spot and a half dozen New York newspaper reporters wandered about, missing nothing and enjoying everything. Fosdick climbed into the ring, made a short speech in which he stated that he hoped every one would enjoy the bout and after that Scandrel with his chest out and Ivan Mulligan and seconds in tow entered and seated the mechanic in the proper corner.

As much at home as a tramp in a strawlined freight car, Mulligan sat down and remained seated until Pitz with Queensboro Moe Morowitz and their chorus boys awoke cheers by a dramatic appearance and made the roped inclosure. As they entered it the former admirer of the perfidious Stella Brady jumped up and shook a fist wildly.

“I got you now, you lowlife, you dumber!” he shrieked, to the intense amusement and pleasure of the spectators. “You should never look your mother in the face again. She won’t recognize you after tonight!”

Morowitz promptly showed his dentistry.

“Who’s a dumber? My mother won’t recognize me but there ain’t a camera made that will take a picture of you! You’re going to try and kill me but I’m going to murder you!”

Ottie in one corner and- Pitz in the other finally managed to restore some kind of order. The gong clanged a dozen times or more, an announcer delivered the Gettysburg Address, the ring was cleared with difficulty and a few minutes later the battle was on.

Sweet Rosie O’Grady!

Like two wounded leopards, goaded beyond all restraint, Morowitz and Mulligan met and clashed directly in the center of the ring. The lightweight idol of the East Side had possibly planned his attack but the etiquette of fisticuffs against the jabbing, swinging, snarling and kicking Ivan was as valueless as a blank check. From a sparring match with a few punches tossed in for good measure the affair immediately deteriorated into something one degree lower than a water-front brawl.

In a whirlwind of disorder both went to the mat— lashing out with both fists, squirming and panting epithets. As they went down the crowd got up and the gong clanged futilely. Ottie climbed through the ropes at one corner while the dismayed and alarmed Looie Pitz did the same thing at the other end of the ring. Both, with the aid of the referee, the timekeeper and six of the Fosdick servants pried them apart and dragged each back to his respective stool.

“Foul! Foul!” Pitz protested, trying to make himself heard above the tumult.

“Sit down! You craz’ wid de heat!” a swarthy gentleman in the first row of chairs roared up at him. “For ten-a cents I steek you wid a knife!”

The bell ended some of the confusion and before the ring could be properly cleared Morowitz and Mulligan were up and at it once more. The lightweight, in an admirable endeavor to end the two-man Port Arthur, set out to knock his wife’s former suitor for an immediate goal. Morowitz missed with a left to the head, was short with a right to the body in his excitement and before he could cover up it was all over. Ivan’s right glove slapped up against his chin with incredible force. The mechanic’s left glove went straight to the plexus and Queensboro Moe Morowitz went down on his face as if he had been hit with a sledge hammer!

“I got him— the crook, the loafer!” Mulligan panted, placing a triumphant foot on the shoulders of his fallen enemy. “It cost me ten dollars down at the fortune teller’s but I got my money’s worth!”

The dazed Ottie managed to get his mouth shut while some one practiced first aid on the stricken Looie Pitz.

“What do you mean, it cost you ten dollars?” Scandrel demanded.

Mulligan grinned crookedly.

“I’m telling you. The fortune teller had a couple of good-luck horseshoes— one for six dollars— two for ten. He said if I bought them I couldn’t lose. I’ve got one in each glove here and, gentleman, I win!”

Approach that if possible.

The next development in the evening’s entertainment happened hard on the rubber heels of this remarkable denouement. The expensive draperies over the main doorway of the grand ballroom were flung back an instant later and a stout woman who wore a diamond dress and enough bracelets to take a trainload of yeggs up the Hudson, appeared, took in the scene with a stupefied gaze and opened her mouth.

“What does this mean, Stephen?”

Fosdick, trying hard to smile, stood and coughed.

“A little surprise party, my dear. Some of my old business customers dropped in and we’ve just finished a highly interesting example of the manly art. As soon as the ring is taken down we’ll dance and―”

His wife helped herself to another look.

“Customers!” she screamed, fainting on the spot.

Stephen Fosdick looked at us and shook his head.

“That was Florine,” he explained colorlessly. “Something told me she wasn’t going to be pleased. Now we’ll have to get her up to her room. Where’s my daughter?”

“Right here, dad!”

A soft, well-remembered voice from the rear wheeled us around and the next watch tick found us staring at the self-styled Miss Winifred Blake who had pushed her way down the aisle.

“Daughter?” Scandrel hollered. “Don’t let yourself be deceived, Mr. Fosdick. That gal ain’t your daughter no more than she’s mine! She’s trying to get away with something because she works in your factory over on the East River!”

The attractive brunette cast a languishing glance at Ivan Mulligan and then another at us.

“Oh, dad knows all about that,” she explained. “You see, I have ideas of my own and I’ve always wanted to be loved for myself and not for father’s money. I persuaded him to let me take a position in the new factory so I could meet a plain man of the masses and be courted as a working girl and not as an heiress. Ivan, darling, take off those funny boxing gloves, come down here and let me introduce you to your future father-in-law.”

And they lived happily ever after!

End

__________

THE PAST MASTERS  ANTHOLOGY SERIES

CUMULATIVE INDEX

To Past Masters Thirteen

The PAST MASTERS series began as a one-off; to my surprise, I found some more stories, which became MORE PAST MASTERS; since then the number of PAST MASTERS anthologies has kept rising.

This index of authors is to help me avoid duplication (although it has already happened) and to help any future searchers after PD L+70 short stories not otherwise easily found.  I have chosen to use common pseudonyms (e.g. Sapper, Saki) rather than formal names, and if it starts with "de"  or "le" it is a "D" or "L"  in the index, e.g. de Brune, le Queux.  Conan Doyle is under C (the surname was legally double-barrelled, but without a hyphen.) If there is more than one story, the stories are in alphabetical order ignoring "a" or "the".

"Pulpmeister"

(Terry Walker)

The code is:  P= Past Masters; M= More Past Masters; then, logically, 3, 4 etc.

Cleve F. Adams

Flowers For Violet 4

Forty Pains 4

A.J. Alan

The Diver 5

My Adventure at Chislehurst 5

The Hair 5

H2, etc. 5

My Adventure In Norfolk  5

Grant Allen

The Conscientious Burglar P

Raymund Allen

Allah Knows Best 13

The Black Knight 13

The Winning Move 13

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews:

The Butler 6

Anonymous

Adventure of the Rubber Pipe 11

By a Miscalculation 12

A Detective's Story 12

Martin Guerre 12

Alice and Claude Askew:

Aylmer Vance and the Vampire M

The Empty Chair  8

Francis Henry Atkins

The Broken Sword  9

The Third Figure 10

Stacy Aumonier

George M

A Source of Irritation 7

Where Was Wych Street?  8

F Britten Austin

An Affair Of Honour 5

Buried Treasure 5

Diamond Cut Diamond 11

The Fourth Degree 5

The Inca's Treasure 5

The Other Side 5

Well Lost?  11

W. E. Aytoun

The Glenmutchkin Railway M

John Kendrick Bangs

Mr. Homes Shatters an Alibi  8

Robert Barr

The Great Pegram Mystery M

H Bedford-Jones

The Four Red Circles 4

Gallegher of Beaver 4

The Luck of a Cowboy 4

John Bickerdyke

A Fearful Night 12

Earl Derr Biggers

Volcano-Mad 3

Harold Bindloss

The Evicting of Grainger 9

The Tempter 6

Ottwell Binns

The Prodigal Son, V.C. 11

M. McDonnell Bodkin

A Bolt from the Blue 7

Diamond Cut Diamond 9

A Drop of Blood 9

Find the Forger  8

Hide And Seek 9

The Matchmaker 6

Murder by Proxy 7

Only a Voice 8

Over-Ruled  8

Safe Bind, Safe Find

The Slump In Silver 9

The Torpedo 8

Under His Own Hand  9

A Wrong Turning  8

Rolfe Boldrewood

Five Men's Lives for One Horse 8

The Mailman's Yarn  8

Charles G. Booth

Stag Party 11

Guy Boothby

The Family Honour 10

The Great Dives Elopement 10

A Strange Goldfield 10

Through Toil and Tribulation 13

Max Brand:

The Silent Witness P and 7

Percy James Brebner

The Cobbler 6

The Lady's Glove 6

The Man with the Carnation 6

The Missing Signorina 6

Thomas Charles Bridges

Wingfield's White Elephant 10

Ellis Parker Butler

The Detective Club 7

Geoffrey's Panklaggephone 6

Christopher Caudwell

Four Friends and Death 5

J. Storer Clouston

The Fortunate Lord Fabrigas 13

Magic 13

The Trials of Tony 13

Arthur Conan Doyle:

The Disintegration Machine 10

The New Catacomb P

When the World Screamed 12

Frank Condon

A New Year's Surprise 13

Richard Connell

Flash!  7

Loser Wins All 9

Man of a Few Words 9

One-Trip Darling 5

The Solid Gold Article 9

Mrs. George Corbett

Spoofing a Detective 7

Colonel Henry Curties

A Summer Night's Weird 6

Richard Harding Davis

In the Fog  9

Aidan de Brune

The Empty Match Box P

The Fifth Domino (as by John Morris) 12

The Gift to See Ourselves as Others See Us  8

George Allan England

Arson in the Jungle 10

Glyn Evans

"The Man Who Was—" 5

J S Fletcher

Comedy of the Grand Canal 8

The Cracksman's Catspaw 7

The Yellow Dog P

R Austin Freeman

The Great Portrait Mystery P

Tom Gallon

The Vengeance of Adam Rook  11

John Galsworthy:

Acme 3

Cosmo Hamilton:

Proofs of  Guilt 10

The Mirror of Nature 12

The Silent Witness 5

Floyd Hamilton Hazard

Front!  13

Headon Hill

The Sapient Monkey  9

Robert J Horton:

The Ninety-Ninth Proposal 4

C J Cutcliffe Hyne

The Anarchist's Scheme 6

Anchored 10

Beauty and the Beast 4

Confounded 3

Gregory Of Byzantium 3

Guaranteed Countess  8

A Lottery Duel 3

A Marriage of Convenience 3

The Men in Stone 3

Mrs. Seal McIntosh 3

Paradise Coal Boat 3

The Perfumer 3

A QC's Confession 3

The Ransom 4

The Settler-ess 3

The Ship-Breaker's Yard 3

The Tragedy of a Third Smoker P

The Traitor: 3

The Trinidad Treasure 3

A. A. Irvine:

The Fountain of Light 5

Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace:

Mr. Belton's Immunity 7

The Tea-Leaf P

Otis Adelbert Kline:

The Phantom Wolf-Hound 4

Stephen Leacock:

The Prince of Wurttenburg P

William Le Queux:

The Open Eye 11

Sheer Profit P

William J. Makin

Flight From Teheran 8

Four Guests 7

The Horror of the Loch 7

Murder off the Map 7

Supper at Midnight 5

A E W Mason

The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel P

The Ginger King P

L T Meade

Warned by a Mouse 10

L. T. Meade and Clifford Halifax

A Doctor's Dilemma  11

A Race with the Sun 10

L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace

The Arrest of Captain Vandaleur 10

The Dead Hand 3

The Face in the Dark 7

Finger Tips 3

The Secret of Emu Plain 10

Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement 3

The Yellow Flag 10

Lucy Gertrude Moberly

Black Paws 6

C. S. Montanye

Ink  13

Ivan’s Foe 13

A Shock for the Countess 13

This Will Kill You 13

Lawrence Mott

Nab  13

Talbot Mundy

Making £10,000 3

Edith Nesbit

The Mystery of the Semi-Detached M

William Edward Norris

The Willingham Van Dyke 6

David Wright O'Brien

The Money Machine M

Rats in the Belfry 9

Owen Oliver

Her Account  6

The Last Laugh 6

A Rapid Conveyance  7

The Specialist 6

E. Phillips Oppenheim

The Lady of the Morass 9

Mr. Senn's Past P

A Royal Dilemma 3

A Strange Conspiracy 13

The Tower Ghost 8

"Ouida"

The Eldest Born 13

Frank L Packard

Corporal Bob  12

Barry Pain

Albert Theodore Parish 11

Amphistamium Formosum  10

Clubs and Hearts  7

The Dog's Understudy 11

Hasheesh 11

"If"  13

Some Imitations 6

Twelve Minutes 6

Marjorie Pickthall

Mannering's Men 6

Mabel Quiller-Couch

A Condoned Crime 11

Frederic Reddale

Galleon Gold 12

C E Bechhofer Roberts:

The English Filter 7

The Last Lap 8

The Man Who Lost His Memory 7

Mrs Carnaby's Dairies 8

Murder of a Matchmaker 8

The Mystery of the Chaffeur's Suicide 7

The Radium Robbery 8

Virgin Snow 7

Morley Roberts

The Anarchist 12

The Anticipator 12

The Arbitrator 12

An Edited Story 12

The Figure-head of the "White Prince" 12

The Judgment Of Paris 12

A Man's Death 12

Her Memory 7

A Pawned Kingdom 12

The Pedestal 6

Round the World in a Hurry 12

Two Men and a River 12

The Wedding Eve 12

Theodore Roosevelt

The Wendigo M

Anthony M. Rud

Ooze 7

Damon Runyon

Tobias the Terrible P

Charles  ('Chic') Sale:

The Specialist M

"Sapper" (H C McNeile):

Will You Walk Into My Parlour? P

Perley Poore Sheehan

The Hands of Killian 12

The Murdered Wife 11

Spider Tong  M

The “Smuggler’s Daughter”—Five Reels 12

Tiger Trail 4

Adam Hull Shirk

Osiris 4

George R. Sims

Lance Warrener's Crime 11

Thorne Smith

Yonder's Henry! M

John Philip Sousa

The Conspirators M

Andrew Soutar

The Doctor Takes a Hand 6

F St Mars

There and Back  8

Sir Basil Thomson

The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser P

Guy Thorne

The Flirt 10

Major Marlowe's System 13

On Christmas Night 13

Puzzle Phyllis 6

Reward of Revenge 12

Unforeseen 5

E. Charles Vivian

Locked In P

Other Gods 6

Edgar Wallace

Bill of Scotland Yard  4

Christmas Eve at the China Dog M

A Present for Evans M

The Slane Mystery P

"Waif Wander"

Monk's Mark 13

The Phantom Hearse 10

The Spirits of the Tower 10

Henry Brereton Marriott Watson

The Devil of the Marsh M

F A M Webster

No Leopards in Surbiton 5

The Schimmel Sets the Pace 6

The Secret of the Singular Cipher 6

Ethel Lina White

Cheese P

Wax Works 7

Fred M. White

According to the Statute M

The Azoff Diamonds P

Victor L. Whitechurch

Stopping an Execution 12

Oscar Wilde

The Canterville Ghost  8

Valentine Williams

Blind Guess M

C N and A M Williamson

The Dazzle Plot  8

John Strange Winter

Hunks 12

P. C. Wren

Simple 6

Arthur Leo Zagat

Beyond the Spectrum M

Israel Zangwill

Cheating the Gallows  9

_____________________

Table of Contents

1: Monk's Mark / "Waif Wander"

2: On Christmas Night / Guy Thorne

3: Major Marlowe's System / Guy Thorne

4: A Strange Conspiracy / E Phillips Oppenheim

5: The Black Knight / Raymund Allen

6: The Winning Move / Raymund Allen

7: Allah Knows Best / Raymund Allen

8: "If" / Barry Pain

9: Through Toil and Tribulation / Guy Boothby

10: The Eldest Born / "Ouida"

11: A New Year's Surprise / Frank Condon

12: Magic / J. Storer Clouston

13: The Fortunate Lord Fabrigas / J. Storer Clouston

14: The Trials of Tony / J. Storer Clouston

15: Front! / Floyd Hamilton Hazard

17: A Shock for the Countess / C. S. Montanye

18: This Will Kill You / C. S. Montanye

19:  Ink / C. S. Montanye

20: Ivan’s Foe / C. S. Montanye

Cumulative Index to PM13