Past Masters forty three
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Sixteen short stories in the Life Plus 70 Public Domain, from pulp magazines, newspapers and the like: 1: The Miraculous Revenge / George Bernard Shaw 2: A Bundle of Banknotes / Elliott Flower 3: Beating The Law / Ellis Parker Butler 4: The Green Devil / F St Mars 5: Trapped / C. S. Montanye 6: Rings of Dust / Scott Campbell 7: Eyes of Blue / Arthur P Hankins 8: Adjudged Incompetent / Ernest M Poate 9: The Sealed Envelope / Christopher B. Booth 10: A Point of Testimony / Carolyn Wells 11: The Stolen Gems / Carolyn Wells 12: Girl of the Goat-God / Arthur Leo Zagat 13: A Footlight Flash / Sylvan

PAST MASTERS

FORTY-THREE

September 2021

Part 3

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: The Miraculous Revenge / George Bernard Shaw

2: A Bundle of Banknotes / Elliott Flower

3: Beating The Law / Ellis Parker Butler

4: The Green Devil / F St Mars

5: Trapped / C. S. Montanye

6: Rings of Dust / Scott Campbell

7: Eyes of Blue / Arthur P Hankins

8: Adjudged Incompetent / Ernest M Poate

9: The Sealed Envelope / Christopher B. Booth

10: A Point of Testimony / Carolyn Wells

11: The Stolen Gems / Carolyn Wells

12: Girl of the Goat-God / Arthur Leo Zagat

13: A Footlight Flash / Sylvanus Cobb Jr

14: The Man of Science / Jerome K Jerome

15: Blackman's Wood / E Phillips Oppenheim

16: The Cat of Chiltern Castle / Mary Sharon

Cumulative Index 31-43

______________________

1: The Miraculous Revenge

George Bernard Shaw

1856-1950

Time March 1885

Unusual short story by Bernard Shaw. He wrote only a few short stories, and five forgotten novels. He is best known for his plays, and his contrarian debates.

I ARRIVED in Dublin on the evening of the 5th August, and drove to the residence of my uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop. He is, like most of my family, deficient in feeling, and consequently averse to me personally. He lives in a dingy house, with a sidelong view of the portico of his cathedral from the front windows, and of a monster national school from the back. My uncle maintains no retinue. The people believe that he is waited upon by angels. When I knocked at the door, an old woman, his only servant, opened it, and informed me that her master was then officiating in the cathedral, and that he had directed her to prepare dinner for me in his absence. An unpleasant smell of salt fish made me ask her what the dinner consisted of. She assured me that she had cooked all that could be permitted in His Holiness' house on a Friday. On my asking her further why on a Friday, she replied that Friday was a fast day. I bade her tell His Holiness that I had hoped to have the pleasure of calling on him shortly, and drove to a hotel in Sackville Street, where I engaged apartments and dined.

After dinner I resumed my eternal search— I know not for what: it drives me to and fro like another Cain. I sought in the streets without success. I went to the theatre. The music was execrable, the scenery poor. I had seen the play a month before in London, with the same beautiful artiste in the chief part. Two years had passed since, seeing her for the first time, I had hoped that she, perhaps, might be the long-sought mystery. It had proved otherwise. On this night I looked at her and listened to her for the sake of that bygone hope, and applauded her generously when the curtain fell. But I went out, lonely still.

When I had supped at a restaurant, I returned to my hotel, and tried to read. In vain. The sound of feet in the corridors as the other occupants of the hotel went to bed distracted my attention from my book. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had never quite understood my uncle's character. He, father to a great flock of poor and ignorant Irish; an austere and saintly man, to whom livers of hopeless lives daily appealed for help heavenward; who was reputed never to have sent away a troubled peasant without relieving him of his burden by sharing it; whose knees were worn less by the altar steps than by the tears and embraces of the guilty and wretched: he had refused to humour my light extravagancies, or to find time to talk with me of books, flowers, and music. Had I not been mad to expect it? Now that I needed sympathy myself, I did him justice. I desired to be with a true-hearted man, and to mingle my tears with his.

I looked at my watch. It was nearly an hour past midnight. In the corridor the lights were out, except one jet at the end. I threw a cloak upon my shoulders, put on a hat, and left my apartment, listening to the echoes of my measured steps retreating through the deserted passages. A strange sight arrested me on the landing of the grand staircase. Through an open door I saw the moonlight shining through the windows of a salon in which some entertainment had recently taken place. I looked at my watch again: It was but one o'clock; and yet the guests had departed. I entered the room, my boots ringing loudly on the waxed boards. On a chair lay a child's cloak and a broken toy. The entertainment had been a children's party. I stood for a time looking at the shadow of my cloaked figure upon the floor, and at the disordered decorations, ghostly in the white fight. Then I saw that there was a grand piano still open, in the middle of the room.

My fingers throbbed as I sat down before it, and expressed all that I felt in a grand hymn which seemed to thrill the cold stillness of the shadows into a deep hum of approbation, and to people the radiance of the moon with angels. Soon there was a stir without too, as if the rapture were spreading abroad. I took up the chant triumphantly with my voice, and the empty salon resounded as though to an orchestra.

"Hallo, sir!"

"Confound you, sir—"

"Do you suppose that this—"

I turned; and silence followed. Six men, partially dressed, and with dishevelled hair, stood regarding me angrily. They all carried candles. One of them had a bootjack, which he held like a truncheon. Another, the foremost, had a pistol. The night porter was behind trembling.

"Sir," said the man with the revolver, "may I ask whether you are mad, that you disturb people at this hour with such a noise?"

"Is it possible that you dislike it?" I replied, courteously.

"Dislike it!" said he, stamping with rage. "Do you suppose we enjoy it?"

"Take care; he's mad," whispered the man with the bootjack.

I began to laugh. Evidently they did think me mad. Unaccustomed to my habits, and ignorant of music as they probably were, the mistake, however absurd, was not unnatural. I rose. They came closer to one another; and the night porter ran away.

"Gentlemen," I said, "I am sorry for you. Had you lain still and listened, we should all have been the better and happier. But what you have done, you cannot undo. Kindly inform the night porter that I am gone to visit my uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop."

I strode past them, and left them whispering among themselves. Some minutes later I knocked at the door of the Cardinal's house. Presently a window on the first floor was opened; and the moonbeams fell on a grey head, with a black cap that seemed ashy pale against the unfathomable gloom of the shadow beneath the stone sill.

"Who are you?"

"I am Zeno Legge."

"What do you want at this hour?"

The question wounded me. "My dear uncle," I exclaimed, "I know you do not intend it, but you make me feel unwelcome. Come down and let me in, I beg."

"Go to your hotel," he said sternly. "I will see you in the morning. Good night." He closed the window.

I felt that if I let this rebuff pass, I should not feel kindly towards my uncle in the morning, nor, indeed, at any future time. I therefore plied the knocker with my right hand, and kept the bell ringing with my left until I heard the door-chain rattle within. The Cardinal's expression was grave as he confronted me on the threshold.

"Uncle," I cried, grasping his hand, "do not reproach me. Your door is never shut against the wretched. I am wretched. Let us sit up all night and talk."

"You may thank my position and not my charity for your admission, Zeno," he said. "For the sake of the neighbours, I had rather you played the fool in my study than upon my doorstep at this hour. Walk upstairs quietly, if you please. My housekeeper is a hard-working woman: the little sleep she allows herself must not be disturbed."

"You have a noble heart, uncle. I shall creep like a mouse."

"This is my study," he said, as we entered an ill-furnished den on the second floor. "The only refreshment I can offer you, if you desire any, is a bunch of raisins. The doctors have forbidden you to touch stimulants."

"By heaven!" He raised his finger. "Pardon me: I was wrong to swear. But I had totally forgotten the doctors. At dinner I had a bottle of Graves ."

"Humph! You have no business to be travelling alone. Your mother promised me that Bushy would come over with you."

"Pshaw! Bushy is not a man of feeling. Besides, he is a coward. He refused to come with me because I purchased a revolver."

"He should have taken the revolver from you, and kept to his post."

"Why will you persist in treating me like a child. Uncle? I am very impressionable, I grant you; but I have gone round the world alone, and do not need to be dry-nursed through a tour in Ireland."

"What do you intend to do here?"

I had no plans; and instead of answering I shrugged my shoulders and looked round the apartment. There was a statuette of the Virgin upon my uncle's desk. I looked at its face, as he was wont to look in the midst of his labours. I saw there eternal peace. The air became luminous with an infinite network of the Jewelled rings of Paradise descending in roseate clouds upon us.

"UNCLE," I said, bursting into the sweetest tears I had ever shed, "my wanderings are over. I will enter the Church, if you will help me. Let us read together the third part of Faust, for I understand it at last."

"Hush, man," he said, half rising with an expression of alarm.

"Do not let my tears mislead you. I am calm and strong. Quick, let us have Goethe—"

"Come, come. Dry your eyes and be quiet. I have no library here."

"But I have— in my portmanteau at the hotel," I said, rising. "Let me go for it. I will return in fifteen minutes."

"The devil is in you, I believe. Cannot—"

I interrupted him with a shout of laughter. "Cardinal," I said noisily, "you have become profane; and a profane priest is always the best of good fellows. Let us have some wine; and I will sing you a beer song."

"Heaven forgive me if I do you wrong," he said; "but I believe God has laid the expiation of some sin on your unhappy head. Will you favour me with your attention for a while? I have something to say to you, and I have also to get some sleep before my hour for rising at half-past five."

"My usual hour for retiring— when I retire at all. But proceed. My fault is not inattention, but over susceptibility."

"Well, then, I want you to go to Wicklow. My reasons—"

"No matter what they may be," said I, rising again. "It is enough that you desire me to go."

"Zeno! Will you sit down and listen to me?"

I sank upon my chair reluctantly. "Ardour is a crime in your eyes, even when it is shown in your service," I said. "May I turn down the light?"

"Why?"

"To bring on my sombre mood, in which I am able to listen with tireless patience."

"I will turn it down myself."

I thanked him, and composed myself to listen in the shadow. My eyes, I felt, glittered. I was like Poe's raven.

"Now for my reasons for sending you to Wicklow. First, for your own sake. If you stay in town, or in any place where excitement can be obtained by any means, you will be in Swift's Hospital in a week. You must live in the country, under the eye of one on whom I can depend. And you must have something to do to keep you out of mischief and away from your music and painting and poetry, which, Sir John Richards writes to me, are dangerous for you in your present morbid state. Second, because I can entrust you with a task which, in the hands of a sensible man, might bring discredit on the Church. In short, I want you to investigate a miracle."

He looked attentively at me. I sat like a statue.

"You understand me?" he said.

"Nevermore," I replied, hoarsely. "Pardon me," I added, amused at the trick my imagination had played me, "I understand you perfectly."

"I hope you do. Well, four miles distant from the town of Wicklow is a village called Four Mile Water. The resident priest is Father Hickey. You have heard of the miracles at Knock?"

I winked.

"I did not ask you what you think of them, but whether you have heard of them. I see you have. I need not tell you that even a miracle may do more harm than good to the Church in this country, unless it can be proved so thoroughly that her powerful and jealous enemies are silenced by the testimony of followers of their heresy. Therefore, when I saw in a Wexford newspaper last week a description of a strange manifestation of the Divine Power which was said to have taken place at Four Mile Water, I was troubled in my mind about it. So I wrote to Father Hickey, bidding him give me an account of the matter if it were true, and, if not, to denounce from the altar the author of the report, and to contradict it in the paper at once. This is his reply. He says— well, the first part is about Church matters: I need not trouble you with it. He goes on to say—"

"One moment. Is that his own handwriting? It does not look like a man's."

"He suffers from rheumatism in the fingers of his right hand; and his niece, who is an orphan, and lives with him, acts as his amanuensis.'"

"Stay. What is her name?"

"Her name? Kate Hickey."

"How old is she?"

"Tush, man, she is only a little girl. If she were old enough to concern you, I should not send you into her way. Have you any more questions to ask about her?"

"None. I can fancy her in a white veil at the rite of confirmation, a type of faith and innocence. Enough of her. What says the Reverend Hickey of the apparitions?"

"They are not apparitions. I will read you what he says. Ahem!

" 'In reply to your enquiries concerning the late miraculous event in this parish, I have to inform you that I can vouch for its truth, and that it can be confirmed not only by the inhabitants of the place, but by every person acquainted with the former situation of the graveyard referred to, including the Protestant Archdeacon of Baltinglass, who spends six weeks annually in the neighbourhood. The newspaper account is incomplete and inaccurate. The following are the facts: About four years ago, a man named Wolfe Tone Fitzgerald settled in this village as a farrier. His antecedents did not become known, and he had no family. He lived by himself, was very careless of his person, and when in his cups, as he often was, regarded the honour neither of God nor man in his conversation. Indeed, if it were not speaking ill of the dead, one might say that he was a dirty, drunken, blasphemous blackguard. Worse again, he was, I fear, an atheist; for he never attended Mass, and gave His Holiness worse language even than he gave the Queen. I should have mentioned that he was a bitter rebel, and boasted that his grandfather had been out in '98, and his father with Smith O'Brien. In the end, he went by the name of Brimstone Billy, and was held up in the village as the type of all wickedness.

" 'You are aware that our graveyard, situated on the north side of the water, is famous throughout the country as the burial place of the nuns of St. Ursula, the hermit of Four Mile Water, and many other holy people. No Protestant has ever ventured to enforce his legal right of interment there, though two have died in the parish within my own recollection. Three weeks ago, this Fitzgerald died in a fit brought on by drink, and great hullabaloo was raised in the village when it became known that he would be buried in the graveyard. The body had to be watched to prevent its being stolen and buried at the cross-roads. My people were greatly disappointed when they were told I could do nothing to stop the burial, particularly as I of course refused to read any service on the occasion. However, I bade them not interfere, and the interment was effected on the 14th of July, late in the evening, and long after the legal hour. There was no disturbance. Next morning, the entire graveyard was found moved to the south side, of the water, with only one newly-filled grave left behind on the north side: and thus they both remain. The departed saints would not lie with the reprobate. I can testify to it on the oath of a Christian priest; and if this will not satisfy those outside the Church, everyone, as I said before, who remembers where the graveyard was two months ago, can confirm me.

" 'I respectfully suggest that a thorough investigation into the truth of this miracle be proposed to a committee of Protestant, gentlemen. They shall not be asked to accept a single fact on hearsay from my people. The ordinance maps show where the graveyard was, and anyone can see for himself where it is. I need not tell your Eminence what a rebuke this would be to those enemies of the Holy Church that have sought to put a stain on her by discrediting the late wonderful manifestations at Knock Chapel. If they come to Four Mile Water they need cross-examine no one. They will be asked to believe nothing but their own senses.

" 'Awaiting your Eminence's counsel to guide me further in the matter, I am, etc.'

"Well, Zeno," said my uncle, "what do you think of Father Hickey now?"

"Uncle, do not ask me. Beneath this roof I desire to believe everything. The Reverend Hickey has appealed strongly to my love of legend. Let us admire the poetry of his narrative, and ignore the balance of probability between a tale told by a Christian priest and a whole graveyard swimming across a river in the middle of the night and forgetting to return."

"Tom Hickey is telling no lie, sir. But he may be mistaken."

"Such a mistake amounts to insanity. It is true that I myself, awaking suddenly in the depth of the night, have found myself convinced that the position of my bed had been reversed. But on opening my eyes the illusion ceased. I fear Mr. Hickey is mad. Your best course is this: send down to Four Mile Water a perfectly sane investigator; an acute observer; one whose perceptive faculties, at once healthy and subtle, are absolutely unclouded by religious prejudice. In a word, send me. I will report to you the true state of affairs in a few days, and you can then make arrangements for transferring Hickey to the asylum."

"Yes, I had intended to send you. You are wonderfully sharp; and you would make a capital detective if you could only keep your mind to one point. But your chief qualification for this business is that you are too crazy to excite the suspicion of those whom you may have to watch. For the affair may be a trick. If so, I hope and believe that Hickey has no hand in it. Still, it is my duty to take every precaution."

"Cardinal, may I ask whether traces of insanity have ever appeared in our family?"

"Except in you and in my grandmother, no; and you resemble her personally. Why do you ask?"

"Because it has often occurred to me that you are, perhaps, a little cracked. Excuse my candour; but a man who has devoted his life to the pursuit of a red hat; who accuses everyone else besides himself of being mad; and who is disposed to listen seriously to a tale of a peripatetic graveyard, can hardly be quite sane. Depend upon it, Uncle, you want rest and change. The blood of your grandmother is in your veins."

"I hope I may not be committing a sin in sending a ribald on the Church's affairs," he replied, fervently. "However, we must use the instruments put into our hands. Is it agreed that you go?"

"Had you not delayed me with this story, which I might as well have learned on the spot, I should have been there already."

"There is no occasion for impatience, Zeno. I must first send to Hickey to find a place for you. I shall tell him that you are going to recover your health, as, in fact, you are. And, Zeno, in Heaven's name be discreet. Try to act like a man of sense. Do not dispute with Hickey on matters of religion. Since you are my nephew, you had better not disgrace me."

"I shall do you infinite credit."

"I wish you would, although you would hardly be an acquisition to the Church. And now I must turn you out. It is nearly three o'clock, and I need some sleep. Do you know your way back to your hotel?"

"I need not stir. I can sleep in this chair. Go to bed, and never mind me."

"I shall not close my eyes until you are safely out of the house. Come, rouse yourself, and say good night."

THE FOLLOWING is a copy of my first report to the Cardinal:

My dear Uncle,

The miracle is genuine. I have affected perfect credulity in order to throw the Hickeys and the countryfolk off their guard with me. I have listened to their method of convincing sceptical strangers. I have examined the ordnance maps, and cross-examined the neighbouring Protestant gentlefolk. I have spent a day upon the ground on each side of the water, and have visited it at midnight. I have considered the upheaval theories, subsidence theories, volcanic theories, and tidal wave theories which the provincial savants have suggested. They are all untenable. There is only one scoffer in the district, an Orangeman; and he admits the removal of the cemetery, but says it was dug up and transplanted in the night by a body of men under the command of Father Tom. This also is out of the question. The interment of Brimstone Billy was the first which had taken place in four years, and his is the only grave which bears a trace of recent digging. It is alone on the north bank, and the inhabitants shun it after nightfall. As each passerby during the day throws a stone upon it, it will soon be marked by a large cairn. The original graveyard, with a ruined stone chapel still standing in its midst, is now all on the south side— except the single grave of Brimstone Billy. You may send down a committee to investigate the matter as soon as you please. There can be no doubt as to the miracle having actually taken place, as recorded by Hickey. As for me, I have grown so accustomed to it that if the county Wicklow were to waltz off with me to Middlesex, I should be quite impatient of any expressions of surprise from my friends in London.

Is not the above a business-like statement? Away, then, with this stale miracle. If you would see for yourself a miracle which can never pall, a vision of youth and health to be crowned with garlands forever, come down and see Kate Hickey, whom you suppose to be a little girl. Illusion, my lord cardinal, illusion! She is seventeen, with a bloom and a brogue that would lay your asceticism in ashes at a flash. To her I am an object of wonder, a strange man bred in wicked cities. She is courted by six feet of farming material, chopped off a spare length of coarse humanity by the Almighty, and flung into Wicklow to plow the fields. His name is Phil Langan; and he hates me. I have to consort with him for the sake of Father Tom, whom I entertain vastly by stories of your wild oats sown at Salamanca. I exhausted all my authentic anecdotes the first day, and now I invent gallant escapades with Spanish donnas, in which you figure as a youth of unstable morals. This delights Father Tom infinitely. I feel that I have done you a service by thus casting on the cold sacerdotal abstraction which formerly represented you in Katie's imagination a ray of vivifying passion.

What a country this is! A Hesperidean garden: such skies! Adieu uncle, adieu.

Zeno Legge

Behold me, then, at Four Mile Water, in love. I have been in love frequently, but not oftener than once a year had I encountered a woman who affected me as seriously as Katie Hickey. She was so shrewd, and yet so flippant! When I spoke of art she yawned. When I deplored the sordidness of the world she laughed and called me 'poor fellow!' When I told her what a treasure of beauty and freshness she had she ridiculed me. When I reproached her with her brutality she became angry, and sneered at me for being what she called a fine gentleman. One sunny afternoon we were standing at the gate of her uncle's house, she looking down the dusty road for the detestable Langan, when she said:

"How soon are you going back to London?"

"I am not going back to London, Miss Hickey. I am not yet tired of Four Mile Water."

"I'm sure Four Mile Water ought to be proud of your approbation."

"You disapprove of my liking it, then? Or is that you grudge me the happiness I have found here? I think Irish ladies grudge a man a moment's peace."

"I wonder you have ever prevailed on yourself to associate with Irish ladies, since they are so far beneath you."

"Did I say they were beneath me, Miss Hickey? I feel that I have made a deep impression on you."

"Indeed! Yes, you're quite right. I assure you I can't sleep at night for thinkin' of you, Mr. Legge. It's the best a Christian can do, seein' you think so mighty little of yourself."

"You are triply wrong, Miss Hickey: wrong to be sarcastic with me, wrong to pretend that there is anything unreasonable in my belief that you think of me sometimes, and wrong to discourage the candour with which I always avow that I think constantly of myself."

"Then you had better not speak to me, since you say I have no manners. '

"Again! Did I say you had no manners? The warmest expressions of regard from my mouth seem to reach your ears transformed into insults. Were I to repeat the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, you would retort as though I had been reproaching you. This is because you hate me. You never misunderstand Langan, whom you love."

"I don't know what London manners are, Mr. Legge, but in Ireland gentlemen are expected to mind their own business. How dare you say I love Mr. Langan?"

"Then you do not love him?"

"It is nothing to you whether I love him or not."

"Nothing to me that you hate me and love another?"

"I didn't say I hated you. You're not so very clever yourself at understandin' what people say, though you make such a fuss because they don't understand you." Here, as she glanced down the road again, she suddenly looked glad.

"Aha!" I said.

"What do you mean by 'Aha!' "

"No matter. I will now show you what a man's sympathy is. As you perceived just then, Langan— who is too tall for his age, by the way— is coming to pay you a visit. Well, instead of staying with you, as a jealous woman would, I will withdraw."

"I don't care whether you go or stay, I'm sure. I wonder what you would give to be as fine a man as Mr. Langan."

"All I possess: I swear it! But solely because you admire tall men more than broad views. Mr. Langan may be defined geometrically as length without breadth; altitude without position; a line on the landscape, not a point in it."

"How very clever you are!"

"You do not understand me, I see. Here comes your lover, stepping over the wall like a camel. And here go I, out through the gate like a Christian. Good afternoon, Mr. Langan. I am going because Miss Hickey has something to say to you about me which she would rather not say in my presence. You will excuse me?"

"Oh, I'll excuse you," said he boorishly. I smiled, and went out. Before I was quite out of hearing, Kate whispered vehemently to him, "I hate that fellow."

I smiled again, but I had scarcely done so when my spirits fell. I walked hastily away with a coarse threatening sound in my ears like that of the clarinets whose sustained low notes darken the woodland in Der Freischutz. I found myself presently at the graveyard, now on the south side of the water. It was a barren place, enclosed by a mud wall with a gate to admit funerals, and numerous gaps to admit the peasantry, who made short cuts across it as they went to and fro between Four Mile Water and the market town. The graves were mounds overgrown with grass; there was no keeper; nor were there flowers, railings, or any of the conventionalities that make an English graveyard repulsive. A great thornbush, near what was called the Grave of the Holy Sisters, was covered with scraps of cloth and flannel, attached by peasant women who had prayed before it. There were three kneeling there as I entered, for the reputation of the place had been revived of late by the miracle; and a ferry had been established close by, to conduct visitors over the route taken by the graveyard. From where I stood I could see on the opposite bank the heap of stones perceptibly increased since my last visit, marking the deserted grave of Brimstone Billy. I strained my eyes broodingly at it for some minutes, and then descended the river bank and entered the boat.

"Good evenin' t'your honour," said the ferryman, and set to work to draw the boat hand over hand by a rope stretched across the water.

"Good evening. Is your business beginning to fall off yet?"

"Faith, it never was as good as it mighta been. The people that comes from the south side can see Billy's grave— Lord have mercy on him!— across the wather; and they think bad of payin' a penny to put a stone over him. It's them that lives towrst Dublin that makes the journey. Your honour is the third I've brought from south to north this blessed day."

"When do most people come? In the afternoon, I suppose?"

"All hours, sur, except afther dusk. There isn't a sowl in the counthry ud come within sight of that grave wanst the sun goes down."

"And you, do you stay here all night by yourself?"

"The holy heavens forbid! Is it me stay here all night? No, your honour: I tether the boat at siven o'clock, and lave Brimstone Billy— God forgimme!— to take care of it t'll mornin'."

"It will be stolen some night, I'm afraid."

"Arra, who'd dare come next or near it, let alone stale it? Faith, I'd think twice before lookin' at it meself in the dark. God bless your honour, and gran'che long life."

I had given him sixpence. I went to the reprobate's grave and stood at the foot of it, looking at the sky, gorgeous with the descent of the sun. To my English eyes, accustomed to giant trees, broad lawns, and stately mansions, the landscape was wild and inhospitable. The ferryman was already tugging at the rope on his way back (I had told him I did not intend to return that way), and presently I saw him make the painter fast to the south bank, put on his coat, and trudge homeward. I turned towards the grave at my feet. Those who had interred Brimstone Billy, working hastily at an unlawful hour and in fear of molestation by the people, had hardly dug a grave. They had scooped out earth enough to hide their burden, and no more. A stray goat had kicked away a corner of the mound and exposed the coffin. It occurred to me, as I took some of the stones from the cairn and heaped them so as to repair the breach, that had the miracle been the work of a body of men, they would have moved the one grave instead of the many. Even from a supernatural point of view, it seemed strange that the sinner should have banished the elect, when, by their superior numbers, they might so much more easily have banished him

IT WAS ALMOST dark when I left the spot. After a walk of half a mile, I recrossed the water by a bridge, and returned to the farmhouse in which I lodged. Here, finding that I had had enough of solitude, I only stayed to take a cup of tea. Then I went to Father Hickey's cottage.

Kate was alone when I entered. She looked up quickly as I opened the door, and turned away disappointed when she recognized me.

"Be generous for once," I said. "I have walked about aimlessly for hours in order to avoid spoiling the beautiful afternoon for you by my presence. When the sun was up I withdrew my shadow from your path. Now that darkness has fallen, shed some light on mine. May I stay half an hour?"

"You may stay as long as you like, of course. My uncle will soon be home. He is clever enough to talk to you."

"What! More sarcasms! Come, Miss Hickey, help me to spend a pleasant evening. It will only cost you a smile. I am somewhat cast down. Four Mile Water is a paradise, but without you it would be a little lonely ."

"It must be very lonely for you. I wonder why you came here."

"Because I heard that the women here were all Zerlinas, like you, and the men Masettos, like Mr. Phil— where are you going to?"

"Let me pass, Mr. Legge. I had intended never speaking to you again after the way you went on about Mr. Langan today; and I wouldn't either, only my uncle made me promise not to take any notice of you, because you were— no matter. But I won't listen to you any more on the subject."

"Do not go. I swear never to mention his name again. I beg your pardon for what I said; you shall have no further cause for complaint."

She sat down, evidently disappointed by my submission. I took a chair, and placed myself near her. She tapped the floor impatiently with her foot. I saw that there was not a movement I could make, not a look, which did not irritate her.

"You were remarking," I said, "that your uncle desired you to take no notice of me because—"

She did not answer.

"I fear I have offended you again by my curiosity. But, indeed, I had no idea that he had forbidden you to tell me the reason."

"He did not forbid me. Since you are so determined to find out—"

"No, excuse me. I do not wish to know, I am sorry I asked."

"Indeed! Perhaps you would be sorrier still to be told. I only made a secret of it out of consideration for you."

"Then your uncle has spoken ill of me behind my back. If that be so, there is no such thing as a true man in Ireland. I would not have believed it on the word of any woman alive save yourself."

"I never said my uncle was a backbiter. Just to show you what he thinks of you, I will tell you, whether you want to know it or not, that he bid me not mind you because you were only a poor mad creature, sent down here to be out of harm's way."

"Oh, Miss Hickey!"

"There now, you have got it out of me!— and I wish I had bit my tongue out first. I sometimes think that you have a bad angel in you."

"I am glad you told me this," I said gently. "Do not reproach yourself for having done so, I beg. Your uncle has been misled by what he has heard of my family, who are all more or less insane. Far from being mad, I am actually the only rational man named Legge in the three kingdoms. I will prove this to you, and at the same time keep your indiscretion in countenance by telling you something I ought not to tell you. It is this. I am not here as an invalid or a chance tourist. The Cardinal, a shrewd if somewhat erratic man, selected mine from all the long heads at his disposal to come down here and find out the truth of Father Hickey's story. Would he have entrusted such a task to a madman, think you?"

"The truth of— who dared to doubt my uncle's word? And so you are a spy, a dirty informer!"

I started. The adjective she had used, though probably the commonest expression of contempt in Ireland, is revolting to an Englishman.

"Miss Hickey," I said, "there is in me, as you have said, a bad angel. Do not shock my good angel— who is a person of taste— quite away from my heart, lest the other be left undisputed monarch of it. Hark! The chapel bell is ringing the angelus. Can you, with that sound softening the darkness of the village night, cherish a feeling of spite against one who admires you?"

"You come between me and my prayers," she said hysterically, and began to sob. She had scarcely done so when I heard voices without. Then Langan and the priest entered.

"Oh, Phil," she cried running to him, "take me away from him! I can't bear—" I turned towards him, and showed him my dogtooth in a false smile. He felled me at one stroke.

"Murder!" exclaimed the priest.

"He's an informer," sobbed Kate. "He came down here to spy on you, Uncle, and to try and show that the blessed miracle was a make-up. I knew it long before he told me, by his insulting ways. He wanted to make love to me."

I rose with difficulty from beneath the table, where I had lain motionless for a moment.

"Sir," I said, "I am somewhat dazed by the recent action of Mr. Langan, whom I beg, the next time he converts himself into a fulling-mill to do so at the expense of a man more nearly his equal in strength than I. What your niece has told you is partly true. I am indeed the Cardinal's spy, and I have already reported to him that the miracle is a genuine one. A committee of gentlemen will wait on you tomorrow to verify it, at my suggestion. I have thought that the proof might be regarded by them as more complete if you were taken by surprise. Miss Hickey: that I admire all that is admirable in you is but to say that I have a sense of the beautiful. To say that I love you would be more profanity. Mr. Langan: I have in my pocket a loaded pistol, which I carry from a silly English prejudice against your countrymen. Had I been the Hercules of the plowtail and you in my place, I should have been a dead man now. Do not redden: you are safe as far as I am concerned."

"Let me tell you before you leave my house for good," said Father Hickey, who seemed to have become unreasonably angry, "that you should never have crossed my threshold if I had known you were a spy— no, not if your uncle were the Pope himself."

Here a frightful thing happened to me. I felt giddy, and put my hand to my head. Three warm drops trickled over it. Instantly I became murderous. My mouth filled with blood; my eyes were blinded with it; I seemed to drown it in. My hand went involuntarily to the pistol. It is my habit to obey my impulses instantaneously. Fortunately, the impulse to kill vanished before a sudden perception of how I might miraculously humble the mad vanity in which these foolish people had turned upon me.

"And let me tell you," Langan was saying, "that if you think yourself handier with cold lead than you are with your fists, I'll exchange shots with you, and welcome, whenever you please. Father Tom's credit is the same to me as my own; and if you say a word against it, you lie."

"His credit is in my hands," I said. "I am the Cardinal's witness."

"There is the door," said the priest, holding it open before me. "Until you can undo the visible work of God's hand your testimony can do no harm to me."

I bowed to Kate and walked out. It was so dark that I could not at first see the garden gate. Before I found it, I heard through the window Father Hickey's voice saying, "I wouldn't for ten pounds that this had happened, Phil. He's as mad as a march hare. The Cardinal told me so."

I RETURNED to my lodging and took a cold bath to cleanse the blood from my neck and shoulder. The effect of the blow I had received was so severe that even after the bath and a light meal I felt giddy and languid. There was an alarm clock on the mantelpiece: I wound it, set the alarm for half-past twelve, muffled it so that it should not disturb the people in the adjoining room, and went to bed, where I slept soundly for an hour and a quarter. Then the alarm roused me, and I sprang up before I was thoroughly awake. Had I hesitated, the desire to relapse into perfect sleep would have overpowered me. Although the muscles of my neck were painfully stiff, and my hands unsteady from my nervous disturbance, produced by the interruption of my first slumber, I dressed myself resolutely, and, after taking a draught of cold water, stole out of the house. It was exceedingly dark; and I had some difficulty in finding the cowhouse, whence I borrowed a spade, and a truck with wheels, ordinarily used for moving sacks of potatoes. These I carried in my hands until I was beyond earshot of the house, where I put the spade on the truck and wheeled it along the road to the cemetery.

WHEN I approached the water, knowing that no one would dare to come thereabout at such an hour, I made greater haste, no longer concerning myself about the rattling of the wheels. Looking across to the opposite bank, I could see a phosphorescent glow, marking the lonely grave of Brimstone Billy. This helped me to find the ferry station, where, after wandering a little and stumbling often, I found the boat, and embarked with my implements. Guided by the rope, I crossed the water without difficulty, landed, made fast the boat, dragged the truck up the bank, and sat down to rest on Billy's grave.

For nearly a quarter of an hour I sat watching the patches of jack-o'- lantern fire, and collecting my strength for the work before me. Then the distant bell of the chapel clock tolled one. I rose, took the spade, and in about ten minutes uncovered the coffin, which smelt horribly. Keeping to hind ward of it, and using the spade as a lever, I contrived with great labor to place it on track.

I wheeled it without accident to the landing place, where, by placing the shafts of the truck upon the stern of the boat and lifting the foot by main strength, I succeeded in embarking my load after twenty minutes' toil, during which I got covered with clay and perspiration, and several times all but upset the boat. At the southern bank I had less difficulty in getting truck and coffin ashore, and dragging them up to the graveyard.

IT WAS NOW past two o'clock, and the dawn had begun— so that I had no further trouble from want of light. I wheeled the coffin to a patch of loamy soil which I had noticed in the afternoon near the Grave of the Holy Sisters. I had warmed to my work; my neck no longer pained me; and I began to dig vigorously, soon making a shallow trench, deep enough to hide the coffin with the addition of a mound. The chill pearl-colored morning had by this time quite dissipated the darkness. I could see, and was myself visible, for miles around. This alarmed me, and made me impatient to finish my task. Nevertheless, I was forced to rest for a moment before placing the coffin in the trench. I wiped my brow and wrists and again looked about me. The tomb of the holy women, a massive slab supported on four stone spheres, was gray and wet with dew. Near it was the thornbush covered with rags, the newest of which were growing gaudy in the radiance which was stretching up from the coast on the east. It was time to finish my work. I seized the truck, laid it alongside the grave, and gradually prized the coffin off with the spade until it rolled over into the trench with a hollow sound like a drunken remonstrance from the sleeper within. I shoveled the earth round and over it, working as fast as possible. In less than a quarter of an hour it was buried. Ten minutes more sufficed to make the mound symmetrical, and to clear the traces of my work from the adjacent sward. Then I flung down the spade and sighed with relief.

But I recoiled as I saw that I was standing on a barren common, covered with furze. No product of man's handiwork was near me except my truck and spade and the grave of Brimstone Billy, now as lonely as before. I turned toward the water. On the opposite bank was the cemetery— with the tomb of the holy women, the thorn bush with its rags stirring in the morning breeze, and the broken mud wall. The ruined chapel was there too, not a stone shaken from its crumbling walls, not a sign to show that it and its precinct were less rooted in their place than the eternal hills around!

I looked down at the grave with a pang of compassion for the unfortunate Wolfe Tone Fitzgerald, with whom the blessed would not rest. I was even astonished, though I had worked expressly to this end. But the birds were astir, and the cocks crowing. My landlord was an early riser. I put the spade on the truck again and hastened back to the farm, where I replaced them in the cowhouse. Then I stole into the house, and took a clean pair of boots, an overcoat, and a hat. These, with a change of linen, were sufficient to make my appearance respectable. I went out again, bathed in the Four Mile Water, took a last look at the cemetery back in its original site, and walked to Wicklow, whence I travelled by the first train to Dublin.

SOME MONTHS later, at Cairo, I received a packet of Irish newspapers, and a leading article, cut from The Times, on the subject of the miracle. Father Hickey had suffered the meed of his inhospitable conduct. The committee, arriving at Four Mile Water the day after I left, had found the graveyard exactly where it had formerly stood. Father Hickey, taken by surprise, had attempted to defend himself by a confused statement, which led the committee to declare finally that the miracle was a gross imposture. The Times, commenting on this after adducing a number of examples of priestly craft, remarked, 'we are glad to learn that the Rev. Mr. Hickey has been permanently relieved of his duties as the parish priest of Four Mile Water by his ecclesiastical superior. It is less gratifying to have to record that it has been found possible to obtain two hundred signatures to a memorial embodying the absurd defence offered to the committee, and expressing unabated confidence in the integrity of Mr. Hickey.'

_____________________

2: A Bundle Of Banknotes

Elliott Flower

1863-1920

The Red Book Magazine, April 1912

THE Citizens' Association provided the marked bills. The Citizens' Association had no thought of permanent separation from these bills, but you never can tell.

They were given to State's Attorney Morrill, and the State's Attorney gave them to Stephen Colgate who gave them to Alderman Ben Rayner. That is where the trouble began.

Theoretically, Alderman Rayner was then very cleverly caught. He had made certain improper proposals to Mr. Colgate, with regard to some legislation then pending and Mr. Colgate had reported the matter to the State's Attorney.

Mr. Morrill was of the opinion that the bribe money should actually pass, but he no fund upon which he could draw to provide it, and it was clearly no part of Mr. Colgate's business to do so. The Citizens' Association provided it, however, and it actually did pass. Colgate said so, and Grattan, a special officer from the State's Attorney's office, corroborated him. The transfer was unobtrusively and expeditiously made in the lobby of a hotel.

Theoretically, as already observed, Rayner was caught, but when he was arrested the money had mysteriously disappeared and not even the big manila envelope that had contained it could be found. It was inexplicable. True, the alderman had been allowed to walk to his own office, two blocks distant, before the arrest was made, but he had been shadowed all the way, had entered no shop or hallway, loitered nowhere, spoken to no one. Nevertheless, the money was gone, and Rayner, of course, maintained that he knew nothing about any money or any big manila envelope— never heard of either. Furthermore, he made many and dire threats, but he was presently appeased— rather too easily appeased, the State's Attorney thought.

"Smooth fellow!" reflected that official. "Slipped the cash to some one else the first thing, but we'll get him when the marked bills show up!"

For the evidence in hand, while it might be morally convincing, fell somewhat short of being legally convincing, and the bills were necessary.

If, however, the State's Attorney could have seen Rayner just about that time he would have been convinced of the fallacy of at least a part of his surmise, for Rayner was then engaged, metaphorically speaking, in running round in circles in his own office. Nor was it the indignity of his arrest that troubled him! No one outside of the State's Attorney's office knew or would know of that, and he had been released with such explanation and apology as were possible in the circumstances.

There were excellent reasons why he was willing to let it go at that, too! Nothing incriminating had been discovered, but the course pursued was evidence of a disquieting suspicion, and disquieting suspicions are dangerous things to be allowed to roam at large. There would be time enough later to worry about that, however; just now, the thing that so perturbed Rayner was the sad fact that he knew no more about what had become of the missing money than State's Attorney Morrill did.

ii

DAN BRANN, better known as "Slick," after jostling Rayner and deftly removing the large envelope from his pocket, slipped unobtrusively into the hotel bar, where he had an engagement to begin the preliminary work of "trimming a sucker."

Dan had once been a pickpocket, but he had discovered early that he could make more with his head than he could with his fingers, so he had turned his attention to confidence games. Still, he occasionally succumbed to the fascination of the old pursuit. In this particular instance he had seen the big envelope surreptitiously passed from one man to the other, and he had become possessed of a desire to know what it contained.

He had the envelope now, but he was still ignorant of its contents. Nor did he have immediate opportunity to investigate. His prospective victim— Henry Rusk by name— was awaiting him at the bar. Henry had some foolish idea of getting rich in a hurry, and Dan was preparing to convince him of the foolishness of it. To this end, it was Dan's purpose to entertain Henry right royally, and he did so. They parted some hours later with mutual expressions of esteem. Dan could easily have possessed himself of Henry's watch and pocketbook and whatever else of value he carried at this time, but he forbore. He was playing a bigger game now, and there would be more in Henry later.

Fatigued by a strenuous "business" day, during the latter part of which libations had been plentiful, Dan dropped into a cafe for a quiet and restful moment before going home, but he found himself seated at a table with a slightly inebriated individual who felt the need of companionship. Dan was annoyed at first but the man was entertaining, and there was relaxation in a conversation that had no "business" purpose to be kept in view. They had several drinks and then journeyed elsewhere, "to see if the lights were lit." They were.

Somewhat later, in another cafe, Dan became suddenly conscious of the fact that some one was eyeing him keenly, and this is always accepted as an evil omen by men in his profession. It may be said to be a particularly bad omen when the tensely interested individual is a "plain-clothes man" who is smarting under the humiliation of having failed to make a case upon the occasion of a previous arrest, and Dan foresaw possible trouble. He instinctively felt in his pockets for whatever there might be that ought not to be there, and his hand encountered the big envelope. He was still ignorant of its intents, but it was a reasonable presumption that they ought not to be found in his possession.

Awaiting a favorable opportunity, he slipped the envelope to his befuddled companion. "Just keep that for me," he cautioned. "I'll be back in a minute." Then he got up and sauntered out.

His reasoning was most plausible. If permitted to leave, it would be evident that there was nothing to fear, and he could saunter back a few minutes later. If followed and searched in an effort to "get something on him," nothing of an incriminating or suspicious nature would be found, and, if he then deemed it unwise to go back, a little watchfulness would enable him to rejoin his companion when the latter emerged. Anyhow, circumstances made the envelope an unusually dangerous possession for him just then.

Unfortunately, Dan overlooked one contingency. He was wanted on a definite charge, not on general principles, and, being followed out, he was quietly taken into custody and escorted to a police-station. Some little exploit of his, that he had forgotten in the press of other matters, had come to the notice of the authorities.

iii

A DULL, gray morning, a great thirst and a headache were the three things of which Alfred Cass was first conscious when he awoke. Having grumbled at the day, assuaged the thirst, and eased the head by immersing it in cold water, he was in a position to give some thought to the evening before.

He was hazy with regard to much of it. There had been a dinner, with champagne.

"And champagne always throws me!" he reflected. "I'm a fool to touch it."

As a matter of fact, he seldom did touch it. Indeed, he was not what would be called a drinking man, for, while not a teetotaler, the occasions when he imbibed at all were infrequent. But the preceding evening certainly had been one of them. There had been a good deal of champagne at the dinner, and nothing so quickly went to his head. He had left for home early, however, and then— and then—

"Who was that fellow I met?" he mused. "I was clear enough when we got together, but I don't remember hearing his name. We hit up a pretty lively pace, though ; and on top of the champagne—" He shook his head solemnly. "I just get a glimmer here and there!" he pursued doubtfully. "Seems to me he gave me something to keep for him, and the next thing I remember somebody was telling me it was time to close up and I was arguing that I'd got to wait for my friend to come back. And they laughed derisively— By George !" he exclaimed, rolling suddenly from the bed upon which he had thrown himself after his ablutions. "By George! Didn't come back, hey! Told me to wait there for him, did he? No wonder they laughed ! That's the old trick. I wonder what he got!"

He pattered across the room in pajamas and bare feet and extricated his vest from a pile of clothing. "Watch here, all right!" he assured himself. "Money in the change pocket, too ! He was no piker anyway!" He reached for the coat and drew from an inside pocket a large manila envelope.

"By George!" he ejaculated. "Gave me something after all! Now, what's the answer to that? Did he work some confidence game on me or— what?"

He dropped the envelope and dug into the pocket again. Then he investigated other pockets, finally drawing from one of them a bill-fold. Opening this, he counted the money it contained.

"Seems to be all that I have any right to expect— after last night," he commented, "but what the devil was his game, who is he, where did he leave me and what became of him?"

He picked up the envelope, examined it from every angle and side, and shook his head hopelessly. There was not a word of either writing or printing on it. After a moment of hesitation, he opened it, glanced at the contents, pinched himself, took another look, very carefully deposited it on a table, went to the washstand, soused his head again, and returned to make a further examination.

"I guess it's real money," he muttered. "It looks like it and feels like it. Perhaps he was Aladdin and I touched his lamp."

He took the bills from the envelope and counted them. There was a total of $1,250 in bills ranging from five dollars to one hundred dollars in value.

"Now, what do you make of that?" he pondered. "Not a word of identification or explanation, and I don't know him from Adam! No wonder he told me to wait! But why didn't he come back? Why didn't he— Oh, what's the use? Twelve hundred and fifty dollars just handed to me, and I thought the days of fairies were past!"

He sat on the edge of the bed and puzzled over the problem for a long time. It was certainly perplexing. So far as he knew, it was possible for him quietly to appropriate the cash, but, to do him justice, he never even contemplated such a course. He wanted to find the owner and return it. But how?

"Oh, I'll put it in the bank and advertise," he decided at last in desperation.

" 'Gentleman who gave twelve hundred and fifty dollars to'— No, that won't do; there'd be a million claiming it. 'Gentleman who inadvertently passed a large sum of money to a stranger in— ' But I don't know where it was. 'Man who handed stranger a large manila envelope on Thursday evening can have same by describing contents.' Yes, that or something along that line will do."

Having thus decided, he dressed himself, made a memorandum of the sum the envelope contained, deposited all but fifty dollars of it with his own account, and put his advertisement in both a morning and an afternoon newspaper.

"I wonder if that will bring action," he mused when this was done.

There was action, all right, but it was not in the line that he expected. His reference was to the advertisement, and the advertisement accomplished nothing.

Dan Brann, reading it in his cell, muttered: "That sounds like my gazabo. Must have been something worth while in that envelope, but what? And how could I claim it, even if I was out?"

Alderman Rayner, reading it, reflected, "That might be the envelope I lost, but how would I look claiming it, with things as they are now?"

State's Attorney Morrill, reading it, saw nothing significant, for it never occurred to him that the envelope had been lost; but he did find something very significant in the deposit, immediately reported to him by the bank, of twelve hundred dollars in marked bills, and action followed promptly.

iv

LUCAS Kirkham, lawyer, found Alfred Cass awaiting him in his office when he came back from lunch, and Cass was much perturbed.

"Nasty mess!" he grumbled. "I can't make it out at all."

"What?" asked Kirkham.

"Why, they've got me tangled up in some boodle business," explained Cass. "You see, they put up a job on Rayner— gave him some marked bills that somehow got away before they could arrest him, and now they're saying I got them."

"Well?" queried Kirkham.

"Well," sighed Cass, "I guess I did."

"Guess!" exclaimed Kirkham. "Don't you know?"

Cass shook his head. "They found them in my bank," he admitted, "and the bank says I deposited them."

"Did you?" asked Kirkham.

"I don't know," answered Cass. "I deposited some bills. For all I know, they may have been marked. I didn't notice, but I don't imagine the bank would lie about a little thing like that."

"Where did you get them?" persisted Kirkham.

"I don't know," replied Cass. "That's what makes it so awkward."

"Don't know!" repeated Kirkham in amazement.

"Oh, I have a sort of glimmering idea," returned Cass, "but it's only a glimmer. Some saloon or buffet or cafe or something, but that's as near as I can get to it."

"Must have had a lovely evening!" commented Kirkham.

"Yes," agreed Cass. "I feel that way."

"Do you know who gave you the money?" asked Kirkham.

"No," answered Cass. "He was a stranger to me."

"Oh, back up!" objected Kirkham disgustedly. "People don't pass out bundles of banknotes in that loose way."

"This fellow did," maintained Cass. "That's what makes it look so bad. I can't explain."

"I should say not!" assented Kirkham.

"Nobody would believe me," pursued Cass.

"I don't," said Kirkham.

"But it's quite true, I assure you!" insisted Cass. "Sounds silly, I know, but it's true, and I want you to get me out of the hole."

"A man that you don't know," reviewed Kirkham, "actually gave you a large sum of money, for no purpose whatever, in a place that you can't remember."

"That's it," asserted Cass, "only he told me to keep it for him."

"And never came back."

"No. Very careless of him, it seems to me."

"Very," agreed Kirkham, ironically. "And mighty awkward for me."

"I should think so."

"You see," complained Cass, "they want me to confess, and I can't."

"It's very sad," admitted Kirkham.

"Suppose you begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story."

Cass began with the banquet and told all that he could remember of the evening, which wasn't much when he got to the really important part of it.

Kirkham was silent for a few minutes after Cass had concluded.

"I believe you," he then announced. "It's so infernally improbable that I've got to believe you, for no sane man would invent such a crazy yarn in these circumstances; he'd get up something more plausible. But mighty few people reason my way."

"I know it," sighed Cass.

"Have you told anyone else?"

"No," answered Cass. "What was the use ?"

"No use," admitted Kirkham. "Worse than no use, in fact, for it's so absurdly improbable that it would raise a presumption of guilt in the mind of the average man. What did you tell Morrill?"

"Nothing at all. I took the lofty ground that his impertinent inquiry into my private business affairs was wholly unjustified."

"You had nerve," commented Kirkham.

"That's what he seemed to think," returned Cass, "but what else could I do on the spur of the moment?"

"Nothing else," replied Kirkham.

"He argued," Cass went on, "that the possession of the marked bills and my interview with Rayner—"

"Oh, you know Rayner, do you?" interrupted Kirkham.

"Why, yes. I had an interview with him in his office only a little while before the bills disappeared. That's what makes it look so bad."

"Say!" snorted Kirkham, "if you had set out with the deliberate intention of inextricably entangling yourself you couldn't have done it better."

"I don't believe I could," agreed Cass. "But you like that kind of a case, don't you?"

"This one suits me too well," grumbled Kirkham. "Anything else?"

"No, I don't think of anything."

"Oh, you must have done something else that would make the case against you a little more convincing," suggested Kirkham sarcastically.

"No, nothing else," replied Cass, after a moment of thought, "and my business with Rayner was perfectly proper. He'll testify to that."

"A lot of weight his testimony will carry in this case!" retorted Kirkham. "If we could induce him to testify against you, it might help a little, but—"

"Oh, well, let's clean up the few remaining details. Are you under arrest?"

"No," answered Cass. "I was simply taken to the State's Attorney's office, questioned, and then allowed to depart; but I fancy I'd find myself in custody mighty soon if I tried to leave town."

"Very likely," rejoined Kirkham. "They've got you in a pretty tight place with the marked bills, but they want to get a little closer connection between you and Rayner. There's a weak link there. You've done your best to strengthen it; but it isn't quite strong enough yet. Rayner's the man they're after, and they've got to connect you with him."

"They can't," put in Cass.

"Never mind that now!" returned Kirkham. "They've got you in a tight place, and we can't stand on your uncorroborated Arabian Nights tale.  We can't even suggest it unless we can get something to back it up. Now, if we, could find this mysterious stranger—"

"I've advertised for him," volunteered Cass.

"Oh, you have!"

"Yes. I advertised that the man who gave me the manila envelope could—"

"Where is that envelope?" interrupted Kirkham.

"Why, it has probably found its way into the furnace with other waste paper by this time."

"Morrill didn't get hold of it, then?"

"No."

"I'd rather like to have it myself," reflected Kirkham, "but I'd hate to have it fall into Morrill's hands. Perhaps it's just as well that it's out of the way. Go on with your advertisement."

"Oh, I just said that he could have it by describing contents," explained Cass. "That ought to bring him, don't you think?"

"Why, yes," agreed Kirkham, "if he's tired of liberty and wants to go to jail. It would bring an honest man, but there's something more than a reasonable presumption, you know, that whoever had the money is not an honest man and would not care to be called upon to explain how he came by it. I don't think he'll show up. He could clear you, of course, but so, in all probability, could Rayner."

Cass nodded gloomily. "I see the point," he said. "They'd incriminate themselves, if they so much as gave the money a pleasant look."

"So we've got to play a lone hand," added Kirkham. "Theoretically, we should go after the guilty man or men; practically, with the State's Attorney against us, we've got all that we can do to get you clear without bothering about them. We can't tell the truth, so we've got to devise some way to overcome the odds against us. Do you suppose you could get hold of one of those marked bills?"

"I've got several of them in my pocket," replied Cass.

"Great Scott !" exclaimed Kirkham.

"I kept out fifty dollars when I made the deposit," said Cass.

"I was thinking," returned Kirkham, "how lucky it was for you that Morrill didn't have you searched."

"I wasn't even arrested," explained Cass, "— only questioned."

"Nursing the case in the hope of getting the connecting link," commented Kirkham. "You don't happen to have anything else incriminating about you, do you?"

"No-o," replied Cass, "I don't think of anything."

"You couldn't think of anything a little while ago," retorted Kirkham, "but you had the bills."

"I'm not very bright to-day," apologized Cass. "You see, it was quite some night, and I'm not used to that sort of thing."

"Well, let's see the bills. It's not safe for you to carry them, anyway."

The mark, a small red "c" in one corner, was easily discovered, although it would have passed unnoticed by anyone not searching for it.

"New bills," commented Kirkham. "Were they all new?"

"Yes," answered Cass.

"Oh, well," remarked Kirkham, "new bills are plentiful, and we'll get a few more."

v

STATE'S Attorney Morrill was reviewing the case with Stone, one of his assistants. "Of course," he admitted, "Cass is not a man that one would ordinarily suspect of this sort of thing, but we've got the goods on him. His general reputation is in his favor— very much in his favor— and I've felt it advisable to handle him gingerly, but the marked bills were found in his possession. They were given to Rayner and were next seen when Cass deposited them to his own credit. But we can't connect the two as we should, if we are to get Rayner. Their interview is significant, in view of the other circumstances, but still carries no great weight. Lots of people have entirely proper business relations with Rayner, and the explanation given is wholly plausible. Moreover, I can't find that there has ever been more than a slight business acquaintance between the two or that they have ever met more than two or three times.

"So we've mighty little but the marked bills, which hit Cass hard enough but do not reach Rayner as directly as—"

The telephone interrupted him, and he found the cashier of the Merchants' Trust Bank on the other end of the line.

"Some of those marked bills have turned up," said the cashier.

"What!" cried Morrill. "Why, they turned up in the Atlas bank yesterday!"

"Can't help that," returned the cashier. "We've got two twenties, marked just as you said."

"Yes, yes, of course," agreed Morrill, suddenly remembering that fifty dollars of the marked money was still unaccounted for. "I'll be over directly to see you about it."

He turned again to his assistant and repeated what the cashier had said.

"Perhaps," he concluded, "perhaps when we trace these bills we'll get a little more light on the subject. I'll go over—"

The telephone rang again, and now he found a vice-president of the Northern National Bank at the other end of the line.

"Some of those marked bills—" began the vice-president.

"Hold on! Hold on!" exclaimed Morrill.

"What's the matter?" asked the banker.

"Don't tell me you've got some, too!" expostulated Morrill.

"Well, we have," returned the banker.

"How many?" asked Morrill.

"A five and a ten," replied the banker.

Morrill made a hasty mental calculation. "But that's more than there are!" he objected.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded the banker.

"Nothing! Nothing at all!" answered Morrill. "I'm coming right over to see you."

It was disconcerting, to say the least. The bills proved to be new ones, marked precisely like the others. The two in the possession of the Merchants Trust had been found in a department store deposit, but they could not be traced beyond that. The department store people had not been looking for marked bills and could not say from whom these had been received.

The Northern National had received its bills from two different sources, but here again it was impossible to trace them further. And the marked bills now accounted for came to a total slightly in excess of what it should be.

Morrill, puzzling over this situation, called up his office and was informed that three other banks reported the discovery of marked bills. He expressed his feelings in terms too strong to be recorded here, and later, when some of the banks first reporting announced the discovery of additional marked bills, he used even more lurid language. It may be admitted, too, that a dark suspicion crossed his mind, but the most painstaking investigation failed to reveal any tangible basis for it.

"And how," he pondered gloomily, "are you going to convict a man on marked bills when everybody has them and there are more in circulation than there are of the other kind?"

Alderman Rayner, meeting Cass on the street a little later, made casual mention of a rumor that the latter intended to give a considerable sum to charity.

"Twelve hundred and fifty dollars," replied Cass.

"Twelve hundred and fifty!" repeated Rayner, as if it rather hurt him to mention that particular sum.

"Yes," returned Cass. "Why not?"

"It's a lot of money," sighed the alderman.

"A sort of trust fund that nobody has claimed," explained Cass.

"Is it, now?" rejoined the alderman.

"Why, yes," answered Cass. "Don't you think it's the right thing to do in such circumstances?"

The alderman seemed to be having a severe mental struggle, but he finally managed to reply indifferently, "Oh, yes, certainly!" and passed on.

Shortly afterward, however, he might have been heard to murmur bitterly, "Twelve hundred and fifty! Twelve hundred and fifty! Now, ain't that generous of him?"

And certain others, finding something significant and fascinating in the figures, echoed the sentiment.

________________

3: Beating The Law

Ellis Parker Butler

1869-1937

The Red Book Magazine  April 1912

An argument against counting your chickens before they are hatched

FORTUNE had been unkind to old Ashbel Clute. She had piled up twenty-eight million dollars for him, and had failed to give him eternal life on earth for the enjoyment of the dollars; and then, when he first began to feel the pain in his side, she permitted the legislators of the state to pass the inheritance tax law. As old Ashbel figured on the back of an envelope just how much of his money the state would take as inheritance tax when he died, his hard face grew harder and his lip lifted at one corner in a snarl. For three days he sat in his office with the snarl on his face, and his eyes on a crack in the wall plaster, and then he walked across to Dr. Wightman's office and had himself examined.

"You have lived temperately and frugally," said the physician, "and that is in your favor. But this disease—"

"How long have I to live?" asked Ashbel Clute. "I didn't come here to hear a lecture. I'll pay you your fee without that. I want to know how long I have to live."

"If you would let me explain the disease, I could make myself clearer to you," said the physician.

"How long have I to live?" insisted Ashbel.

"Unless you hasten things by fast living, which I do not think you will," said the physician with a slight smile, "you will live six years at least; probably seven; possibly ten. Except for this trouble you are as sound as a nut."

"Humph! What's your charge?"

"Five dollars."

"Here's two. That's enough. I wish I could earn two dollars as easily."

Ashbel Clute returned to his office, stopping on the way to get Henry Lane, his lawyer.

"Henry," he said when they were in the office and the door closed, "I'm getting to be an old man."

"Nonsense, Ashbel!" said the lawyer. "You are good for twenty years yet."

"Henry," said Ashbel, "I've worked hard. I've earned a rest. I'm going to retire."

"You! Why, you could no more retire, Ashbel, than I could stop breathing, and if you did, it would be for the same reason. Man, it would kill you to give up affairs."

"I'm an old man, Henry. I'm going to let the young ones do the work. It's time for me to take a rest. Let them do the hard work. They'll get the money when I die."

"What will you do with yourself if you give up managing your affairs?"

"I'll sport around. I've never had much pleasure, Henry. I'll loaf a little."

The lawyer laid back his head and laughed aloud.

"You'll loaf!" he cried, as he looked at the cruel mouth and hard blue eyes, "That's a good one, Ashbel. You'll loaf for about ten minutes. But what did you want me for?"

Ashbel rubbed his knees slowly.

"I want you to draw up incorporation papers, Henry, for the Clute In vestment Company," said the old man. "How much indebtedness can a corporation have in this state, Henry?"

"Two-thirds the capital stock," said lawyer.

"Make the capital stock forty-five millions, then," said Ashbel, "in one-hundred-dollar shares. I'll take one share and each of my children will take a fifth. Nine millions each, except Doris, Make her portion one share less."

"To allow for your one share," said Lane.

"The objects of the company," said Ashbel, in the same dry tone, "are to own and deal in real-estate, personal property, stocks, bonds—"

"I understand," said the lawyer. "You wish it to have the fullest latitude allowed by the law."

"That's it," said Ashbel. "I want to turn all my property over to it. And then draw up a note, Henry, for twenty-eight millions, payable to me. I'll have the company sign it when I turn over my property to it."

He rubbed his knees slowly again and looked at the crack in the wall, "Make that note payable one day after date, Henry," he said. "And — I think I'll be president of the company, Henry. And you can make George, Vice-President, and Walter, Secretary- Treasurer."

There were other minor details he gave the lawyer, for Ashbel Clute knew his affairs to the smallest detail and liked to attend to every detail himself, and when the lawyer left he remained in his chair, slowly rubbing his knees and staring at the crack in the wall, with a frown on his forehead. He went over his plans again and again, but could find no flaw in them. The incorporation of an investment company was perfectly legal. He could lend his sons and daughters the money required by law as paid-in capital in the company, taking their notes. He could sell all his holdings in real-estate and stocks and bonds and other securities and personal property to the company, and take one note from the company for the full amount. All the notes would be made payable one day after date, and under the state law a note, unless legally pressed for payment within that time, became null and void at the end of five years. With six years to live, and probably seven, and possibly ten, Ashbel Clute would, by allowing the notes to become outlawed, die worth only the clothes on his back and one lone share, worth one hundred dollars, in the Clute Investment Company. His children would have received each one-fifth of his fortune, and there would be no inheritance tax to pay whatever. He would beat the law.

If the legality of the transfer were questioned the notes given him could be shown as adequate and legal payment for the property. It was no one's business but his own if he allowed the notes to be outlawed, any mere than if he put a good apple in a drawer and allowed it to rot. By holding one lone share he was entitled to attend all meetings of the company, and he had so long dominated his children, ruling them with an iron hand, he had no doubt his word would still be law in the management of the affairs. In fact, he would have himself appointed manager for the company at its first meeting.

When he arose from his chair he smiled grimly. It is something pleasant to beat the law.

THAT NIGHT he called the children together at his home on Shady Avenue and explained the object of the Clute Investment Company. George and Walter, their faces younger replicas of their father's own face, understood instantly. Kate, keen eyed and long nosed, nodded her head as point after point of the plan was brought out. Margaret, the flashy daughter, asked a question now and then. It was she who asked: "But what about the income, father? The company will begin earning an income the moment you turn the property over to it. Do the stockholders divide that?"

"No, they don't!" said Ashbel. "I mean to have a salary as manager of the company. That will take care of the income."

"That's only right, Mag," said George, frowning at her. "Father isn't dead yet. He is doing this to save us the inheritance tax. You might be grateful."

"Oh, grateful!" she said. "I'm as grateful as you are. I only wanted to know. This is all business, isn't it?"

"It certainly is business," said Kate, who had been whispering with her husband. "We have a right to know the details, if we are to give our notes. A note is money, as long as it is valid. Will you tell me this, father: If the value of the stocks and bonds you turn over should depreciate within five years, and you hold the company's note, you could sue on it, couldn't you? Of course I'm not suspicious, father, but James and I have money of our own. If any one but you proposed this I wouldn't go into it. We take the securities at your own valuation, and give our note—"

"Kate!" said Doris appealingly. She was the only one of the children that greatly resembled her dead mother, and that was, no doubt, the reason she had elected to remain unmarried and keep house for her father, while the others made homes of their own. "Kate, don't you see father is doing this for us?"

"I'm doing it to beat a law made by a rascally lot of parasites and grafters who never did an honest day's work in their lives," said Ashbel Clute without emotion. "Populists and grangers who want to rob any man that gains a few honest dollars! You are a sensible girl, Kate. Don't let anyone rob you. Money is money."

"I don't believe anyone robs me of much," said Kate laughingly, but her laugh was the mirthless laugh of the Clutes.

They all drew up to the table while Ashbel ran over his list of investments and holdings. There was not a suspicious stock or bond in the lot. Most of the stocks were in companies Ashbel himself had helped form, owning land that was increasing in value and that would increase more rapidly as the years passed. That he owned these stocks was no surprise to his children; they were all stockholders in the same companies. They checked off their father's list with the careful coldness of strangers. They appreciated his feelings in the matter of the inheritance tax; they felt the same as regards all taxes. Even Doris, under her father's advice, went down to the tax assessor's office each year and swore off her taxes.

Ashbel's children were not infants, as the law defines infants. They ranged in years from George, the eldest, who was fifty, to Doris, who was thirty, and all of them were wealthy in their own names, aside from what their father should leave them. George and Walter had married well, choosing wives as close-fisted as themselves. Kate and Margaret had married men chosen by their brothers, Kate a bank cashier in the bank of which Walter was President, and Margaret, after a long flirtation with Roscoe Lane which almost became a scandal, had married a man double her years and as grasping as herself. Doris alone remained single.

On the whole, the Clute family was highly respected in Westcote. The men worked hard and women and men alike dressed well and attended church regularly and gave to the church in proportion to what their means were supposed to be. Once each year each of the married sons and daughters gave a reception, to repay the social obligations they had incurred during the past twelve-month, and these receptions were notable events, well planned and well carried out. To outward view the Clute family was a happy, hard-working, contented group, bound together by the closest ties. As a matter of fact each son and daughter was jealous of the rest, and the father was suspicious of all of them. They thought of nothing but money and, except Doris, knew little but money.

"This is the portrait of George we had done in Berlin," Mrs. George would say. "The artist wanted a thousand dollars, but we managed to get it for seven hundred and fifty."

As soon as Ashbel Clute could afford it, when he was a young man, he had built himself a house that was the pride of the town. He set the amount to be spent for the house at twenty thousand dollars— an immense sum in Westcote at that day— and he did this without a qualm. He could afford it, and the Clutes were never slow to spend large amounts to good purpose. But once having decided he wanted a twenty-thousand-dollar house, Ashbel Clute made his own deals with lumber dealers and hardware men. He got the lowest price and then began a slow process of beating down that price, saving penny by penny. Then he picked out each foot of lumber himself, rejecting ten boards to take one. He chose his foundation brick in the same way, going over brick after brick at the yards until he had the pick of all on hand. He lived with the house as it grew out of the ground. If a carpenter struck a nail and the nail flew off, Ashbel hunted in the sand and clay until he found it again, and put it back in the nail keg. He was paying for the nails himself. In the end he had a house the architect had estimated at twenty thousand dollars, and it had cost him just fifteen thousand dollars. The five thousand invested in low grade coal land bought twenty-five acres. He put sheep on the land and made it pay its taxes and a little more while he waited for the better grade coal in the vicinity to exhaust itself. It might be twenty years before the coal land had an enhanced value; it might be two hundred years; but a Clute was always a Clute. Some Clute would reap the benefit. It was thus Ashbel builded his fortune. He had imagination, and his great imagining was that some day the Clutes would be as great as the ancient Fuggers or the modern Rothschilds. And so they would, and will be, unless the fortune begun by old Ashbel is torn and gnawed to rags by income and inheritance taxes.

Rebecca Clute, his wife, had been an able and a cheerful helpmate. Very stout and very good-natured, she enjoyed saving a penny as thoroughly as Ashbel, but she did it in the whole-hearted manner of a good woman of Holland, with much chaffing and laughter. When Ashbel entered a shop to make a purchase the clerks tried to slip to the back; when Rebecca entered they crowded to be the one to  wait on her. With three maids in her house she would scrub the stoop stairs herself because the maids were wasteful of the soft soap which was made, under Rebecca's own supervision, of the waste fat accumulated during the winter. For society she cared not a rap, but she liked to have callers, and to talk with them about her household affairs, her maids and her children. She had a big heart, and she loved her children and Ashbel dearly, and she would sometimes weep at the tale told her by a begging tramp, and then cut him a thick slice of bread. Before he received it, however, her economical feelings would take control, and she would give him the outside crust of yesterday's loaf, without butter. But she had been dead ten years when Ashbel formed the Clute Investment Company. Ashbel never spoke of her after the funeral, but he mourned her every day of his life. The children mourned her also, deeply and sincerely.

THE five years following the formation of the Clute Investment Company passed rapidly, as years do when one grows older. Once each year Ashbel, as President, called a meeting of the stock-holders of the company, and reported what he had done as Manager. With the meeting of the third year he began giving the children a share of the income of the company; the balance he reinvested for the company itself. Not a word was said by anyone of the notes the company had given him, or of the notes given him by the children. No interest was paid on them, and nothing was done to suggest the notes existed, and they were outlawed by limitation at the end of the fifth year. Not a word was said in criticism of the management of the company. At the annual meetings Ashbel reported the increase in the value of the company's holdings : one million dollars one year, two-and-a-quarter millions the next, and so on, and gave them the total value as nearly as he could compute it. The same officers were elected each time, and the meeting adjourned for a year.

The fifth year ended ; the notes were outlawed, and Ashbel went once more to his physician.

"This pain in my side—" he began.

"We must expect it to be worse now," said Dr. Wightman. "We are five years older than when you were here last. You should have had regular treatment."

"But it isn't worse," said Ashbel. "It is no worse— maybe it is some better. I feel pretty good for an old man, I guess."

The physician examined Ashbel again, and very carefully.

"Mr. Clute," he said, when he had thumped him and stethoscoped him and tried all his tests, "you are a remarkable man. You have a body like a steel engine and a constitution like a horse. How many years did I give you?"

"Six years. That was five years ago."

"I'll give you as many as you want now. You can live to be one hundred, or a hundred and ten, if you take care of yourself. How long have you had this pain in your side?"

"Always," said Ashbel. "Since I was a boy, anyway."

"You did not tell me that before," said Dr. Wightman. "You led me to believe it was a new pain."

"Yes," said Ashbel, "I wanted to make it as bad as I could. I wanted to know the shortest time I had to live. So I look healthy to you?"

"Absolutely," said the physician.

"That's good," said Ashbel without emotion. "How much do I owe you?"

"Five dollars."

"Here's two dollars. I wish I could earn money as easy as that."

The next annual meeting was held in Ashbel's dingy little office as usual. Ashbel made his report. He told his sons and daughters the assets of the Clute Investment Company had increased by over three million dollars during the year since the last annual meeting. He told them the cash income, not reinvested, was about eight hundred thousand dollars.

"I'm an old man now," he said, and George, who believed he would be the head of the family and manager of the Clute fortunes when his father retired, and who had been waiting impatiently for the day, moved forward in his chair.

"I'm an old man, and I can't live long. I've lived here in Westcote all my life, and I've made my money here and near here. Times have changed since I began life here as a young man, George. Business is not the same."

"Very true, father," said George.

"When I was a young man," continued Ashbel, "what a man earned was his own. He was respected for it, but times have changed. I've never done anything for this town."

"You have helped build it up," said Walter. "You have been a good citizen."

His father looked at him coldly.

"I've been a good business man, Walter," he said, "and I'm a better business man to-day than any of you. I'm going to vote myself that eight hundred thousand dollars, and I'm going to give the town of Westcote a park— a million dollar park— Clute Park."

George's jaw fell. Walter half arose from his chair. Kate and Margaret turned ghastly white.

"I hear a motion that eight hundred thousand dollars be paid the Manager of the Company," said Ashbel.

"I don't make any such motion!" snapped Henry, and looked at his brothers and sisters. All shook their heads but Doris.

"Doris?" said Ashbel questioningly.

"I make the motion," said Doris.

"Margaret seconds it?" said Ashbel, looking at her with harsh eyes.

"Oh, well, I'll second it," said Margaret nervously.

Ashbel put the motion.

"No!" said George promptly and firmly, and Walter, Kate and Margaret echoed him. Only Doris voted as her father wished.

"Carried!" said Ashbel with his grim smile.

"Father," said George, very white but as hard and cool as usual, "you can't do that. I— we don't wish to offend you, but business is business. You can't vote away our money when the majority is against you."

"Your money!" said Ashbel, swinging about in his chair and looking George in the eye. "Your money! It's my money. I'm not dead yet. Not yet!"

"No, father," said Walter suavely, "and we are all thankful you are spared to us, to help us with your advice. But you are not as young as you were, father. Business to-day requires keen minds, and even a mind like yours grows dull with age. Look at this reasonably, father. Would you, even ten years ago, have thought of giving a million dollars for a park as a present to the city? It's not business; it's folly."

Ashbel looked at Walter and saw his son's firm jaw set as his own had set many a time when his will had been contested.

"Walter is right," said George. "We know you were offered a million and a half for the timber land in Grosjean County a few months ago, and you refused it. It was worth half a million more to the Red Star Company than to anyone else because they were on the ground with their mill. They had to go elsewhere. You couldn't get a million for that timber land from anyone else. That was poor business."

"The land will be worth two millions in twenty years," said Ashbel.

"Oh, don't argue!" said Kate impatiently. "Father, we have decided it is time we took the management of our affairs into our own hands. You are old now, and this notion of throwing away a million dollars for a park is but one instance of what old men will do. You will get into the hands of sharpers and thieves, and they will rob you right and left. We have talked it over, and we are going to elect George President and Manager of the Company."

Ashbel stood up. His eyes blazed and his hand trembled. He pointed to the door.

"Get out!" he cried. "Get out! Get out of this office, and if you ever come in here again, I'll throw you out ! I'm old, am I? I'm a senile old idiot, tottering into the grave, am I? I—"

His voice failed from very anger.

"Father—" said George, but Ashbel took him by the shoulder and thrust him toward the door. The younger man tottered and fell on one knee, putting out one hand to save himself. Ashbel pushed Walter with both his hands, and beat on his back with fury. Kate put up one arm to shelter her face, and then they all crowded into the hall, for their father had picked up the heavy iron seal of the Clute Investment Company.

He stood a moment glaring at the door, and then his lip raised in a snarl and he dropped into his chair and stared at the crack in the plaster wall. They had taken from him his one reason for living, the management of his great properties. They had not delayed one day beyond the time they must, but had pushed him out of his own. What did they care for him? They coveted his money. They used the tool he had contrived as an instrument to save them a part of his fortune as a wedge to pry him out of his rights. They were ingrates. They had waited until they were sure of his money and then had cast him aside like an old shoe.

He sat handling the iron seal and staring at the crack when the door was opened.

"Father!"

He looked around. It was Doris.

"I have come to you," she said. "I love you, father."

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" Ashbel snapped. "You want to get something out of me, like the rest. What do you want? I've one share of stock in the company; is that what you want? Take it. I'm an old imbecile pauper."

His lifted upper lip trembled. Doris ventured farther into the room and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Father," she said, "you are not a pauper. I have my share in the company, and that is yours. I hate the way they acted. Isn't there some way you can take my money out and— and—"

There was no way, for Ashbel had seen to that, but in another moment Doris was sobbing on her father's shoulder, and the old man was patting her arm, as if she, and not he, was the injured one.

"Come home," she said. "Come home and rest."

"Home?" said Ashbel. "I have no home. I'm a pauper."

"Don't talk that way, father," pleaded Doris. "How can you be a pauper when I have so much? I'll give it all to you. I can give my share in the company to you. I don't want it, father. As long as we have the old home, where mother was so happy—"

"We have no home," said Ashbel. "The company has a home. I transferred that with the rest. They can vote us out of it."

"But they would not do that!" cried Doris with horror. "Not out of the home you built; not out of the home where they were born!"

Ashbel laughed with a sneering intake of breath.

He was right. He had no home, and before a month was up George let him know it. He put the matter on the sanest grounds. The old home was expensive to keep up and unnecessarily large for one man and one daughter. George himself had never built, and he had a large family. He required a larger house than the one he was living in. The other children thought as he did. The company had offered to sell him the house, and he had bought it.

For a week Ashbel did not leave the house. He wandered from one room to the other. He seemed to be failing rapidly. He would enter a room and seat himself in a chair where his wife had sat, and look at the walls and the pictures on them, and then he would walk into another room and do the same, or he would sit on the porch, looking out over the river, with a chair close beside him, as if his wife still sat there. To tear an old man from the home he has known the better part of his life is the utmost cruelty, and Ashbel was not losing his home only, but the investments that were like living, breathing friends to him. The Gold Ridge Coal Company he had created and nursed through its infant ailments as he had nursed George and Walter. He knew every vein and nerve in its body. These companies and investments, he knew now, had been as much his children as the children of his loins, and they had been taken from him by his other children. Doris trembled when she saw her father's state. He did not go to his office for a week, and at night she could hear him pacing the floor of his bedroom.

One day, early in the second week, Doris brought him her stock in the Clute Investment Company, signed on the back for transfer to him. He look it and let it lie in his lap as if unheeded, while he looked out over the river. George and the other children had ceased their visits to the house entirely. At length Ashbel put out his hand and touched Doris' arm.

"You are a good girl, Doris," he said; "you are like your mother."

It was the greatest word of affection he had spoken to any of his children for years, and Doris' eyes filled.

"Have Peter harness up," he said after a minute.

"Where are you going, father?" asked Doris.

"To see Walter. Walter is Secretary. Walter will have to make the transfer." "You won't have words with him?"

"I have words with no one, now. What is my word worth?"

He drove to Walter's office, but before the coachman drew up before the door he changed his mind and ordered Peter to drive to his own office. He remembered that Walter did not have the company seal, and without it he could not issue the transferred stock. He climbed the stairs slowly and unlocked his door. The seal lay where he had left it on the day of the stormy meeting, on his desk, and he picked it up and put it in his pocket. Then he paused and looked at his iron safe. Slowly and carefully he turned the combination knob and swung open the door. He unlocked the small wooden drawer and took out the note the company had given him, and the notes given him by his children.

When he walked down the stairs he was another man. The stoop in his broad shoulders that had come since the stormy meeting was gone; his eyes were stern and hard again, and his jaw was set as of old.

"To Walter's," he said.

He left the stock and the seal with Walter's cashier, and walked firmly across the sidewalk to his carriage.

"To Lane's," he told Peter.

"Henry," he said, when he sat by the lawyer's desk, "I want you to draw up a deed of gift to the Town of Westcote, from me, for the old Griscome property, to be used and held as a public park. I want you to buy that land for me. I'll pay a million or anything under a million. Get it as low as you can. And I want you to draw up a will for me. I'm getting old, Henry."

"Oh, you're good for twenty years yet," said the lawyer. "You look younger to-day than you did ten years ago. "But I thought that you had transferred all your property to the Clute Investment Company?" the lawyer added.

"In this will," said Ashbel, ignoring the question, "I want to give all I own, every cent and stiver of it, to my daughter Doris. Make the will short, and make it unbreakable, Henry. And you might say, somewhere, I'm giving her all because of my love and affection for her. You can do that, can't you, Henry?"

"Certainly I can."

"And, Henry," said Ashbel, putting his hand in his breast pocket and drawing forth the note the Clute Investment Company had given him, "just notify this company to pay this note. With interest, Henry. And let 'em know if it is not paid in ten days or some satisfactory settlement made, I'll begin suit."

The lawyer took the note and looked at it quizzically, while a wry smile spoiled the contour of his mouth. The note was for twenty-eight million dollars, due one day after date, signed by the Clute Investment Company, and the date was over five years old, but Henry Lane placed it in his safe as carefully as if there were no law outlawing a note in five years. He handled it as if it were worth its face value. And it was. It was not an outlawed note, worth only the value of the paper on which it was written. Embossed upon it was the seal of the Clute Investment Company, and under the laws of the state a note bearing a seal was valid for twenty years!

"Ashbel," said Henry Lane as he turned back from the safe, "when was that seal placed on that note?"

"I don't know, Henry, I don't know!" said Ashbel, shaking his head. "I can't remember. I'm getting old, Henry. I'm almost senile, Henry. Some things I can't seem to remember at all."

__________________

4: The Green Devil

F St Mars

Adventure  28 Feb 1922

Frank Howard Atkins (1882–1921) was a British author who wrote more than 180 short stories, most of which were published in pulp magazines between 1908 and 1935, mostly as by "F. St. Mars".

Here we sit in a branchy row,

Thinking of beautiful things we know,

Dreaming of deeds that we meant to do,

All complete— in a minute or two—

Something noble, and wise, and good,

Done by merely wishing we could.

We've forgotten, but— never mind.

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.

(Road Song of The Bandar-log.)

TO BE called green is bad enough, but to be christened a monkey as well— a monkey that is green, a green monkey! One might imagine that was almost too much.

However, in Mona's case, the green was less than skin deep. A mixture of black and yellowish hairs on his back gave him that greenish appearance. His under-pays, as well as his fine brushed back side-whiskers, were a rich orange any beast could be proud of, as also a narrow forehead-band. For the rest, he was black— skull-cap, face, hands, and feet, all black; black, too, according to all who had dealings with him, was his heart. Certainly black was his scowl— his scowl that would not rub off. Finally, he taped about eighteen inches, and had a tail just as long besides.

Not that Mona had always been ebon of expression and character, so to speak. In his youth he knew irresponsible fun and frolic, as irrepressible as many such did now in the troop that he led. He had only become soured with age, like many who are not monkeys, the result of too often finding himself "done," or "left," and too seldom right— if one may so put it. The result, too, of being considered good to eat by so many of the wild kindred. Besides— well, what would you? He was the leader of a troop of monkeys. Surely that was excuse enough for anything— forty and four monkeys, mark you.

Mona dropped twenty feet through the top branches of the towering wild fig tree as if he were going to commit suicide and have done with it. Casually he hooked out a long black hand, caught a clinging rope-like liana, swung, reswung, and came to anchor in a sitting position upon a big bough beside a young male monkey of his own ilk.

The latter had been at business with something, and now hastily, with absurd expressions of fear, tried to cover the fact up. Mona stood up, slid one skinny hand under the chin of the other from behind, jerked the latter's head upward and back- ward, and gave him one long diabolical look deep down into his eyes from above. Only one look, mind you, but it was enough. That young citizen of monkeydom removed, not slowly, very, very quietly, and without saying a word, leaving behind him the half of a banana that he had evidently so much prized as to hide. Mona finished it in contemplative silence, as one who had the right.

Thereafter Mona scratched, peered round under his scowling ridged brows, with something of the quickness of a bird, and all but the calculating intelligence of a man, and walked off, with his peculiar flat-footed, high-rumped gait, to where the swish and sway of leaves below hinted that some members of his troop were enjoying them- selves.

From branch to creeper, vine to bushy twig, tendril to main trunk, he dropped, and swung, and slid, and sprang as easily as a man going down his own stairs, and ten times more gracefully.

He beheld a group of the younger generation of green monkeys— absolutely effervescing with mischief and fun— greatly excited over plunder in the shape of bananas they were stealing— in stealthy rushes— from a planted clearing in the forest down below. And Mona might so far have forgotten himself as to grin at the thought that the risk— every moment a monkey spends in the open is a risk— should be theirs; but the spoil— which he now prepared to take from them— was going to be his. It was characteristic, however, of the old ruffian's almost cautious cunning that he should first glance upward.

Then— then he fell, clean, sheer, and instantly off his perch, down through the branches, with a swishing crash, as if he had been shot.

A DOUR and silent beast at all times, Mona did not say anything at all— then. No need perhaps. All knew that crash and its meaning. Every monkey in sight leaped or dived for cover as if each were a portion of a single exploding shell; and mothers, gathering up little ones to their breasts, sprang with one hand and two feet as surprisingly nimble, or apparently as nimble, as the rest with all four.

Now if you had been standing anywhere within a quarter of a mile of that spot you could scarce have failed to hear a rushing noise in the air. Looking up, you would have beheld, as it were, a mighty barb falling out of the brazen sky. That barb was a living one, and if it had continued its head-long dive earthward to its logical conclusion, it would have precisely struck in its course and that exactly on the back of the neck, one crusty old, cunning old green monkey named Mona, if— Exactly.

Mona, as we know, held other views as to the use of the back of his neck than as a perch for a tearing, rending, tiger-clawed, martial, crested eagle, which was the name this living barb sailed under really. He, Mona (bother our language), had, also as we know, flung himself to the ground— about the only time in his life that he regarded actual terra-firma with anything but deep suspicion— and though there was nothing to prevent the eagle from continuing its dramatic plunge to him there, Mona knew very well she would not.

The eagle, in fact, suddenly produced at the last moment great round wings; checked herself instantly, just when it seemed too late— and that was magic enough indeed— and swept away in one direction on one grand masterly curve, while Mona bolted for the nearest tree in the other direction. The eagle would have dashed herself to pieces else; but her thin scream was vibrant with rage, and a warning to Mona concerning the future.

Mona's passage treeward was considerably accelerated by a little, lean, lithe jackal, ever ready to chase or to fly, a snapper up of unfortunates, an attender of the dead.

Fortunately for Mona, however, that precise corner of "the dark continent" knew two kinds of jackals, unlike as could be; and this one was, so to say, the other kind, the side-striped one. Had it been mesomelas of the silver-black back, Mona's long tail would have been snapped off long ere he reached that tree— acacia aribica of the vile five or six inch thorns, it was— whereon, sitting in the prickliest part of one of the prickliest trees in a land of prickles, he made demon grimaces at the open-mouthed jackal below, and the martial eagle, now "waiting on," like a floating mote on the eye, above, and back again.

Mona stamped his hands presently when the jackal loped away; and still more at the patient, deadly speck floating in wide circles overhead, because it would not go away. His patience was the patience of all the monkey folk— nil. His temper short as his own memory. Yet it did seem absurd that, in the end, a glossy, self-confident bird no bigger than a starling, whose name was drongo shrike, should turn up and drive the mighty eagle from that vicinity.

Escaping thence from that tree, crab fashion by reason of those thorns afore- mentioned, Mona, half an hour from his hurried entry into same, sought his very own, but by no means loving, flock.

HE WAS fully aware the while, as his hurry attested, that, if either of his besiegers came back and caught him on the hop, so to speak, they would have handed him out death quick as a snow-flake melts outside a pastry-cook's shop. Monkey meat being, as the saying is in the wild, everybody's meat— some compare it to chicken, others to veal— and monkeys absolutely refusing to mind their own business, and trying to play man with only the glimmerings of a soul to do it upon as they do, monkeys, you will note, find the wild world hard and cruel.

By what form of semi-human reasoning Mona followed, and found, his fickle companions I do not profess to understand. Certain it is, however, they did not help him; for, as happens so often, what had been precocious smartness, sharpness, cheek, intelligence, mischief, roguery, sleight (and light) of finger, exaggerated nimbleness of body and mind, all but human intelligence foiled by more than childish waywardness, forgetfulness, fitfulnes, uncertainty, pettishness, overaffection, absurd affectation in youth, had in age developed into smoldering red-hot temper, cunning, bullying bluster, selfish, sullen, wicked spite.

Certain it is, too, Mona did not trail by scent— he, who like all monkeys probably, could do little more with his nose than man himself. But he knew where they had gone, and he went there, and the manner of his going was sufficiently startling for anybody.

Difficult it is to estimate his speed, except to be sure that it was considerable. Difficult, also, to picture to you that amazing gait of his, the flying aerial march of all the monkeys when they travel, which must be seen to be understood.

Never once did he touch ground, never once check, never once falter or pause in his long flying dives from forest spire to mid-level; in his unerring aim at tendril, or vine, or across the giddy spaces, in his almost rocket-like ascents to the overworld of the forest's green roof again, quick nearly as his sensational descents; in his dizzy leaps and almost as dizzy tight-rope gallops along lianas suspended between heaven and earth; in his faultless trapezing, his effortless vaults athwart the green cliffs— his calm, his perfect balance, made possible, I feel sure, by his long tail, which, though not a prehensile "fifth hand" in the sense that the tails of South African monkeys are, nevertheless more than paid for its board and lodging, so to speak, by making Mona almost everything in the air short of a bird.

More amazing even, could it have been more apparent, more startling, had it not been glossed over in such a natural, matter-of-fact way, was the manner in which, without fear, Mona encountered and eluded danger. Such "close calls" would have made a man's hair curl for half a day, and have shattered his nerve for a week. If they affected the monkey at all it was but a passing phase, and scarce noticeable. So it is often in the wild, and makes the wild creatures so hard to understand, the scene so bare, to unseeing eyes, of episode.

As thus, when, negotiating a vine at full speed, Mona found that, one foot ahead, it ceased to be a vine and became a green tree snake. The sheer fall into vacuity to avoid this horror was no more startling in its unhesitating instantaneousness than in the almost magic facility with which a bush-rope, forty feet below, was selected, caught hold of, and swung from to the next. As again when, remembering almost always to—

Lend no rotten bough thy strength—

one such snapped beneath him as he plunged headlong into a forested ravine, but recovered, by changing hands, on another branch almost without a check in his stride. As again, too, when a Bateleur eagle, red of face and claw and heart, slid along with him as he crossed the surface of that apparently endless green sea that represented the primeval forest roof.

In this case, the unhesitating "side step" to a red and waxen blossom that collapsed under his weight, as, in turn, he left it for a mass of draped and bearded lichen, which, crumbling beneath him, left him dodging round a tree-bole there to vanish utterly, because, clapped against the bark "frozen," he became, once momentarily hidden, merely merged into his motionless green surroundings.

WHEN Mona finally sighted his fickle flock, they were on the edge of one of those large clearings in the otherwise unbroken impenetrable (except for elephant paths) primeval forest, for which no one has ever yet been able to account. He came straight from more than religious gloom among the towering columnar juniper trunks under the wondrous unbroken green canopy of gigantic branches interlaced for miles into white-hot, blinding sunlight, and it made him blink. But he saw instantly that since it had left him, probably for dead, it had amalgamated with another troop, making a band now nearly a hundred strong, instead of about fifty.

It was that hour, the hottest, most glaring of the twenty-four, when all nature is silent, gasping, or asleep. Only the rustle of a resplendent banded trogan on a branch, fluttering his wings in defiance of the molten sun, and very far away up the slope a sound, unspeakably eerie in its strangeness, as if the very wood gods themselves were playing long-drawn, ringing notes upon the rims of giant glasses, broke the utter stillness— the constantly repeated cry of some hornbill, possibly on guard near his tree-bole nest. But how can I tell you? How with hard, cold, machine-made pen make you see?

There is a glamor about the wonderland of the African primeval forest, through which one walks like a little child through Fairyland, every turn revealing fresh marvels, every glance giving up beauty hitherto unthought of, every vista disclosing secrets almost beyond our dreams.

It was characteristic of Mona and his deep suspicion of all things— warranted enough, it may readily be— that he took good care to see before being seen. Typical of him personally that, while furtively scowling every way around with his quick, almost bird-like sharpness, he should creep closer and closer to the monkey troop feeding upon beans planted— it was base exaggeration to call it cultivated— by some natives in the clearing. A few individuals were at business, too, with the fallen fruit— marula apples, perhaps— under a tree on the edge of both forest and crops.

From his final, unseen perch in this latter tree, Mona looked down upon the green backs of the feeders below. It is quite possible for monkeys to be conscious of wrong-doing. Those out among the crops were very much on the alert. Those beneath the tree not so much so.

These latter numbered five— two old females, concerned as to the welfare of babes in arms, whose eternal look of tired surprise Mona could see quite plainly as they clung to their mother's breast upside down; two gamboling, very young males, and one young female in her prime. Her the old reprobate watched.

But as he watched he fed, and as he fed he wastefully let fall, as monkeys and many birds do, much of that fruit he plucked. Used perhaps to the falling of fruit as much through birds as by natural growth, those below began to pick up what Mona let fall. Gradually all five were directly beneath him, till suddenly the fact seemed to strike the semi-human intelligence of the brute for the first time.

Filling his cheek pouches and having eaten his fill, Mona did not stop gathering fruit, but continued, dropping each handful thoughtfully, and watching, with old-man-like, wrinkled brows, the squabbling that began to take place over his largesse. Gradually, as he picked fruit, he soundlessly, stealthily let himself down.

His arrival, dropping like a stone among them on the heels of the last handful, was as unexpected as it was dramatic. Nor did he give them any time for recovery.

It has always seemed to be a matter for remark that those wild folk who are most ruthlessly persecuted by their neighbors should themselves be the most ruthless to their own kind. Take our own rabbit as a case in point. So it was with Mona.

His venomous dart at the nearest young male monkey, his vicious bite, that left a red flank gash, followed as instantly by his rebounding like a rubber ball to the second, his cuffs at the mothers— quick as a snake's stroke they seemed— and, before all four had vanished, scampering in terror, his remorseless galloping drive of the young female before him up into the towering foliage that flanked the clearing round "like cliffs of riven obsidian," was all as unnecessarily merciless as it was amazingly quick.

HALF-WAY up a giant juniper Mona stopped to peer down and— back. His abduction of his young bride— a member of the other troop, by the way— was one thing. His power to hold her against the wrath to come another. He saw the leader of the other troop, a very fine young male green monkey in his prime, come racing over, the ground in the blinding sunlight; saw him swarming up the great tree-trunk at a hand-gallop and without a check, and knew that he had absconded with that leader's favorite.

Swiftly he turned and drove the female before him, still upward, and ever up, as if he would seek the very forest spires. She would have broken back had she dared, but the expression on old Mona's black face was diabolical and no thing to trifle with.

Suddenly he stopped. Suddenly they both stopped. A very peculiar and eerie sound was emanating from the dense mass of foliage at the great tree's summit, where the mighty branches, reaching always upward for the light, found it at last and spread out in a dense tangle on all sides, intertwined with creepers and the branches of its neighbors. It was as though the very gods of the forests themselves were perched aloft there crooning the "Songs of the Primeval Woods."

"Muruh-muruh-muruh rrrrmuh rrrrmuh- muruh quo-quo quo-qup-rrrr," now rising and swelling in weird chorus, now falling and dying away like the moan of the sad wind, it rang through the woods, as uncanny a chant as was ever listened to by "demon lover" in enchanted halls.

It was, as a matter of fact, the song of a party of Colobus monkeys, whose beautiful long black-and-white slashed fur and tails could now be seen on the overworld roof of the forest, moving to and fro above.

Mona dashed ahead, was as promptly met by the old male leader of the handsomest of all the monkeys, with bared teeth and warning abuse, turned, and dashed a little way down again; the path was barred; but that feud could wait. The other could not.

One has heard the saying "red-hot devils" often enough, perhaps; but this, this battle that followed on the roof of the forest between the two rival leaders of the green monkeys was the thing itself in the very flesh. By the same token, it is hopeless to describe it properly. Mind, up there in that dizzy place, there was no room for error— a slip, a false step meant one clean abysmal dive of at least one hundred feet and a crumpled death upon the black, moist earth below.

Nor was the fight like unto the fighting of other beasts. Half-human, half-animal, it was wholly demoniacal. In the vicious, short, lightning chops with the yellow teeth, the frenzied "clinches," the snake-twist "breaks away," the tense wrestles, the fiendish "worrying," the coughing curses— in everything, except actual fact, it was the battle of fiends, " of fiends incarnate, not little beasties of the wild at all.

The younger beast had the agility of his opponent, had, too, maybe, slightly the strength over him; but not the devil's own cunning that lived back of the smoldering, bloodshot orbs of old Mona.

Suddenly the old villain wrenched at his opponent's tail. The other as suddenly chopped round to break that hold, cut his thin knuckles to the bone, but, for one briefest fraction of time, that twisting bite left the younger animal's throat open to the foe. And Mona was there— both black, gripping, vice-like hands and all cutting teeth— he was there quick as light.

Back swayed the younger, inch by tense, forced, foaming inch, inch by clutching, choking, toppling inch.  Then— over— down.

For half a dozen awful seconds they hung— and swung— Mona alone holding a creeper, which was life, with his right foot, wrenching the clutching black hands away that clung to him, biting the fingers that held. Then— ah!

A scream, a falling streak, a crash as the younger monkey shot through some climbing fern, a marvelous clutch, swing, drop, crash, clutch, swing again, and the soft thud on the earth below.

MONA, sick and giddy, pulled himself up, swayed, coughed, and drove his new mate before him in the wake of the now fast disappearing monkey troop to a safer place.

Night, swiftly marching over the tree-tops, caught him suddenly, as night does in those parts, before he could recover sufficient strength to overtake the hurrying double troop.

Torn and red and weak, his sure cunning still held, however, and he chose a night's roosting-place in a tremendous Phoenix palm. Nay, more, he pulled the tail of a nesting pigeon, and, when she faced around to retaliate, he stole her eggs. He put his hand into a hole and brought out a young woodpecker. It the two devoured. They finished with nuts.

Huddled together, they faced the hours of dreadful night. Ere the extraordinary squeak chorus of the hyrax had ceased— those amazing dwarf-hoofed animals which ran about the trees like squirrels— they heard the hair-raising, persistent screaming that tells of monkeys being harassed by leopards, and Mona knew how the troop, bereft of his cunning leadership, had chosen an evil camping-place, and suffered. They heard the claws of a serval cat scratching on the palm trunk, but not liking it, or its leaves, retired again with low, feline curses.

Then, the gray chill dawn, with all its wonderful bird choruses, the majesty of the sun that rent the mists, and Mona, cunning, calm, swinging along unerringly, his bride before, returning this time, thrice welcomed to his shivering, leaderless troop and the troop of his deceased foe.

_________________

5: Trapped

C. S. Montanye

1892-1948

Detective Story Magazine 26 Aug 1919

IT was not that Lily Anstey contemplated stealing through any desire to gratify a wish for pretty frocks, furs, or jewels. None of these things supplied the motive for her taking the position of secretary and assistant to Mrs. Glen-Martin. It was simply that Lily had found the maintaining of a family consisting of invalid mother and numerous small brothers and sisters, too great for her to shoulder. She knew how futile it was to slave six days at a counter for a wage that barely sufficed to cover the amount of her mother's medicine. And the stenography and typewriting she had learned at a free evening school, while perhaps accurate enough to satisfy a lady whose correspondence was not voluminous, was not of a quality high enough to wring a substantial salary from any business concern that might employ her.

Lily had planned carefully. She understood that by getting into the household of the wealthy Mrs. Glen-Martin she could bide her time and await an opportunity for a haul sufficient to send her mother to the outdoor sanitarium the doctor recommended, and to put bread into the mouths of her sisters and brothers. So hardened by contemplation of her first false step had Lily become, that she felt no shame, no pangs of conscience stirring, no elation or despair. Even if she was apprehended she felt she did not care particularly, if only the proceeds of her coup might be put to the use for which she intended them.

Her pretty face, intelligence and respectful deference had won the position for her front all applicants answering the newspaper advertisement inserted by Mrs. Glen-Martin, and promptly she found herself installed in a miniature office on the second floor front of the large Park Avenue dwelling.

Lily's duties were not arduous. In the morning she sorted her employer's mail, separating the wheat, in the form of personal letters, from the chaff, represented by bills, advertising matter, invitations, illiterate letters begging charity, and a hundred other similar communications. The better part of the morning hours were devoted to the taking down of her employer's dictation and the typing of her work. The afternoon usually brought an hour or two in the smart shopping district of the city, whither she went with Mrs. Glen-Martin to assist and transport the purchases from store to motor. For the rest she answered the telephone, kept track of the household expenses, handled the engagement diary, and undertook whatever light tasks might occur at the moment. For this she received a hundred dollars a month.

Had she not been weighted down by the burden of her cares, Lily would have liked to have stayed on. As it was she saw in the position only a chance for plunder. The work was congenial and her employer very kind. Mrs Glen-Martin was an elderly widow of wealth. Shrewd, capable, energetic, with a mind and will of her own, she was not a difficult mistress to get along with, and Lily liked her. The employer was small, thin, with shining white hair, keen black eyes and a quick, nervous grace that belied the years she laid claim to.

Sitting before her typewriter, in the morning sun flood, Lily wondered what delayed her employer. She was trying to decide when to steal what, at last, she intended to steal. For three days she had been in the employ of Mrs. Glen-Martin, and this time had not been entirely profitless. For one thing she had definitely decided what she was to steal. Lilly had by chance come across an old leather-bound notebook in her desk. Idly running through it she had chanced across a notation written in Mrs. Glen-Martin's hand and headed "Combination of wall safe in boudoir." The figures she had jotted down on a scrap of paper.

The jewels of her employer aroused Lily's hopes. She had seen a goodly portion of them, and Rosalie, the upstairs maid, had once innocently mentioned the fact they were kept in the boudoir wall safe. All Lily waited now was the opportunity.

Her ruminations were abruptly terminated by the appearance of Mrs. Glen-Martin, who entered smiling her usual good-morning smile, and seated herself in the broad armchair where she invariably scanned her correspondence.

"I feel singularly tired this morning, Miss Anstey. If you will bring your notebook and pencil upstairs, I will dictate in the boudoir. There I can rest on the chaise longue and dictate in comfort."

Obediently Lily gathered up the implements of her profession, followed Mrs. Glen-Martin into a tiny elevator, alighted on the floor above, traversed a richly carpeted corridor, and entered a charmingly appointed boudoir with an old rose and ivory color scheme.

Mrs. Glen-Martin seated herself on a French day bed, placed her accumulation of mail on a white table before her, and, telling the girl to sit down, picked out the first letter to be answered.

Mrs. Glen-Martin dictated only after deep thought, and Lily had ample time to allow her curious gaze to roam the room. Here it was she was to take the first false step of her life. Her eyes fastened at length on the polished steel face of a small wall safe, causing a thrill to tingle within her. The safe, placed some five feet from the floor level, was sunk in the plaster of the wall and was located between a dainty vanity dresser and a tall bureau with curved legs.

All during the hour of dictation, Lily's fascinated gaze reverted to it and she fancied herself standing beside it, clicking off the combination, which even now was in the bosom of her waist.

Another hour passed swiftly by before Mrs. Glen-Martin completed her last note and looked up at Lily with an odd smile as the girl attained her feet, snapping her notebook close.

"What is listed on my engagement book for this afternoon, Miss Anstey?"

Lily turned to it.

"Nothing until five-thirty, when the milliner is to call with your summer hats."

Mrs. Glen-Martin nodded.

"Very well. Please tell Frederick to have the town car ready after luncheon. And if any one telephones you may say I have gone to my daughter at Tarrytown. I expect to return no later than five."

Lily inclined her head, aware of a leaping excitement within her. She knew now the location of the safe, the combination was hers, and before her lay an afternoon in which she might work unhampered.

At two o'clock precisely Mrs. Glen-Martin's limousine appeared at the door. Some ten minutes later, unobserved at the window of the office, Lily saw Frederick, the liveried chauffeur, hand his mistress into the machine, listen to some lengthy explanation, and then touch his cap as he climbed back to his seat at the wheel, shifting the gears.

The car disappeared around the corner, its siren wailing. When it was out of sight Lily's pulses began to throb dully. She had not before realized the vast difference between the plotting of the imagination and the actual carrying out of planned schemes. Abruptly she dropped the curtain, slowly drew the paper on which she had copied the combination from her waist, and crossed to the door, to stand listening. From very far below came the rattle of crockery, the sound of a voice uplifted in song, a voice she recognized as belonging to Rosalie, the maid— the one person from whom she feared possible interruption.

Satisfied the coast was clear, Lily stole out into the hallway, reflecting that, even if discovered by the maid, she had a plausible excuse for her presence in Mrs. Glen-Martin's boudoir. She would say she had returned for something left there during the morning.

The upper landing attained, Lily listened again before stepping quickly into the boudoir. She was surprised at the rapid pulsing of her heart, her strange excitement and her uneven breathing.

Quickly she crossed to the wall safe, and with fingers that trembled despite her efforts to keep them steady, laid hold of the cold knob of the dial. Again she listened, head averted, breath now coming in gasps. Then, reassured all continued to be well, she lifted the copy of the combination, turned to the steel face of the small safe and slowly clicked off its cryptic code.

Three times in her nervousness she failed to make the combination exactly, but success crowned her efforts on the fourth attempt. Sounded a harsh, metallic click, the door yielded to her tug, and, swinging open, revealed to her swimming gaze, a shallow, lacquered Chinese jewel box, the lid of which was pushed open by the accumulation of gems within it.

Quivering in every limb, suddenly beset with an odd fear, a palpitating realization that her act placed her beyond the pale, Lily shot a glance over her hunched shoulder, as if fearful of the unseen presence of her employer.

With an effort she mastered her emotion, helped herself to whatsoever her fingers encountered at random, stuffed the loot hastily into her blouse, closed the door of the safe, and twirled the dial knob to throw the combination off.

Down the stairs and into the office again, she was in the act of pinning on her hat when the sudden racket of a stopping motor outside took her to the window. In a little panic she saw the town car of her employer halt. The door opened and Mrs. Glen-Martin alighted and turned to the brownstone steps, ascending them unhurriedly.

What had brought her employer back? Lily could not know, but she was thankful that the woman had not returned five minutes earlier. Turning to a convenient mirror she dabbed some powder on her cheeks, using it to hide her heightened color.

Hardly had she seated herself at the typewriter and began to click off a letter when the doorway framed the slight figure of her employer.

"I returned," said Mrs. Glen-Martin, removing her hat, "to dictate a letter I forgot to give you this morning. As it is of some importance I hurried back."

She seated herself close to the desk. Lily opened her notebook, thumbed it rapidly, found a blank page and caught up her pencil, wondering if the clamor of her heart and the fire in her cheeks seemed suspicious.

"You may leave the name and address blank for the moment," Mrs. Glen-Martin enunciated in a colorless, placid voice, "and start with the body of the letter. Ready? Begin it: 'My dear friend: I am writing to ask just what you would do if you were in my position. Yesterday evening I chanced across something which made be extremely dubious, so dubious of my— ' By the way Miss Anstey, address this to Inspector John Burke, Police Headquarters, 240 Center Street, New York, New York."

Lily wrote the name and address, something cold and sinister replacing the heat waves that suffused her.

While she was seeking to think clearly Mrs. Glen-Martin's voice intruded again.

"To continue. Where was I, please?"

"Dubious of my—" Lily repeated.

Her employer half shut her eyes, as if thinking.

"Oh, yes.  'So dubious of my new secretary and her interest in the small wall safe I have in my boudoir that I determined to— ' "

With a strangled cry Lily dropped her pencil, turning a face from which every vestige of color had been suddenly drained.

"You— you— know!"

With perfect composure Mrs. Glen-Martin nodded.

"Yes, I know— now. Until I entered this room a few minutes ago I only knew some one had found that old notebook in your desk, in which I once jotted down the safe's combination. I distinctly saw the indentations left by a lead pencil that had written a copy of the figures on a piece of paper placed on an opposite page. That was last evening, and it was only by the veriest chance I came across the book while looking for a blotter. I wondered, Miss Anstey, if you had taken the trouble to copy off the numbers. I determined to learn. So this morning I had you come to the boudoir to see if you were interested in the location of the safe. Noticing you were unable to keep your gaze off it, I concocted this Tarrytown trip so you might believe you would have a free afternoon."

She paused to look at the tell-tale bulge in the blouse of the girl.

"Now, my dear," she continued, a chill note creeping into her voice, "I know you are either a professional thief or one driven to stealing by the sting of necessity. I hope for your sake you are not the former. If you are— But enough of this. I should like to hear the story, the whole story, truthfully told, of course."

Sobbing, aroused at last to the enormity of her crime, the whole miserable story tumbled from Lily's lips. Nothing did she spare herself. Then, fumbling in her waist, she extracted the pilfered baubles and laid them on the desk, while her tears fell fast.

When the her narrative had been spoken, Mrs. Glen-Martin inclined her head slowly.

"I believe your story because, you see, I make it a point to have the home connections of my employees investigated when they come to me. The fact that have an ill mother and that the support of brothers and sisters falls on you, lent color to my theory when I first located the notebook with the pressure pencil marks. Now I want you to look me squarely in the eyes. I pride myself on being a fairly competent judge of people, and young girls especially, and I am sure you not only regret your false step but you will never again attempt anything dishonest. Look me in the eyes and solemnly swear you will never steal again. Do this and I will forgive and forget. If not you may complete that letter to Inspector Burke!"

Lily dashed the tears from her eyes and uttered the desired promise in a hushed but broken voice.

"I am glad," her employer said, "that that is over. Now I have something to say to you. I have told one of the organizations in which I am director look to your mother's case. She will be taken care of and sent to the mountains. The children, I feel, will be well looked after by you. Your salary here is ample to—"

"You— you are too good," Lily faltered.  "But— but I cannot stay here now after"— she indicated the glimmering jewels on the desk top—"after I— I stole those—"

Mrs. Glen-Martin smiled faintly.

"Don't worry about 'those,' " she interrupted. "When I decided you were about to pay my safe a visit, I removed my own jewel casket and put in a box of rubbish. Those are the wonderful glass 'jewels' that go with my daughter's masquerade costume."

______________

6: Rings of Dust

Scott Campbell

(Frederick W. Davis, 1858-1933)

Detective Story Magazine 2 Dec 1919

IT was after three o'clock when Mr. Walter Carson, private detective, responding to an urgent telephone call from Lieutenant Joe Donlin of the city force, entered the main office of Sheldon & Fiske, bankers and stock brokers, whose spacious business quarters adjoined the second-floor rear corridor of the Hadley Building. The Stock Exchange had closed for the day. The streets in the throbbing heart of the financial district were alive with departing speculators, with bankers, brokers, and weary floor operators hastening to their respective offices.

Consternation and dismay reigned in the office of Sheldon & Fiske. It was showed in the faces of the firm members, the clerks, that of a tall, sallow young man seated near one of the windows, and even in the stern, dark countenance of a private detective employed there named James Logan, who was at that moment interrogating a slender, graceful, pale-faced girl in the senior partner's private office.

Walter Carson knew him slightly. He frowned perceptibly, and glanced at Logan, a bit sharply through the partly open door, and then he turned to the grave-faced police lieutenant who had hastened to join him.

"What's the idea, Joey?" he asked quietly. "Why did you send for me? Logan seems to have charge of the case,

"Logan be hanged!" Donlin muttered, scowling. "I wouldn't bank on his ability, or on Logan himself, as far as that goes, even though this firm has confidence in him, and he's been employed here for years. You've worked with me on many a case during our years of friendship, and I thought maybe you'd like to take a hand in this. It promises to be good. But I don't like the way things are going," he earnestly added, voice lowered.

"You mean?" Carson eyed him more intently.

"I know Arthur Boyd. I've known him since he was a lad in knickerbockers," said Donlin impressively. "He's as square as any I know. But he's in wrong, I fear, and I hope you can dig out the truth. I'm morally sure he did not commit this robbery in spite of the incriminating circumstances and Logan's evident determination to fasten the crime upon him."

"What are the incriminating circumstances?" Carson inquired.

"Boyd is employed as bank messenger by the Fidelity Trust Company," Donlin quietly explained. "He left the bank about two o'clock with eighty thousand dollars in Liberty Bonds for this firm. They were wanted before three o'clock as collateral for a big stock-market transaction. Boyd came straight from the bank. It's less than ten minutes' walk. As a precaution against an accident or the bare possibility of a hold-up he was trailed by one of the bank clerks, Frank Morton, that chap seated near the window. He is the last person by whom Arthur Boyd was seen, as far as we know."

"Seen where?" Carson questioned

"Boyd did not wait for the elevator," Donlin proceeded. "He hastened up the front stairway and around to the rear corridor. Morton was only a few yards behind him. When about to follow Boyd around the corner from the side corridor, however, he collided violently with a man just turning the corner. He stopped to apologize and was briefly detained."

"You mean where the collision occurred?"

"Exactly. It then was only a few steps to this office, and Morton sup- posed that Boyd, whom he had briefly lost sight of, already had entered it. He waited about fifteen minutes for him, thinking he was detained here for some reason, and then he entered and learned that Boyd had not been here. He had disappeared. He was mysteriously missing, also eighty thousand in Liberty Bonds,' Donlin pointedly added. "Morton states—"

"One moment." Carson checked him quietly. "I'll question Morton myself, Joey, if I decide to butt into the case. Aren't the police at work on it?"

"A general alarm has been sent out, with orders to arrest Boyd, if possible, but Logan is the only detective now on the case," Donlin explained. "Knowing Boyd so well, however, and believing him quite incapable of such a crime, I came here to learn the facts, if possible, hoping to set him right."

"I get you, Joey." Carson's fine, clean-cut face had hardened slightly. "Who is that very pretty girl Logan is questioning so sharply?"

"Logan be hanged!" Donlin repeated, frowning again. "Threats and intimidation are his chief assets. Her name is Clara Ward. She's Sheldon's stenographer. She was with him in his private office yesterday afternoon, when he telephoned to the bank and arranged for the bonds to be sent here at two o'clock to-day."

"Alone with him?" Carson inquired.

"Yes. I happen to know, too, that she and Boyd are lovers, and that they are saving up to get married. Logan is making capital of that, the dirty cur, and of the fact that she—"

"Wait!" Carson's grave eyes took on a momentary gleam. "Don't butt in, Joey, whatever I say or do. I'll see what I can make of the case."

"Good on your head!" Donlin whispered. "More power to you!"

Walter Carson did not reply. He had no eye for the furtive scrutiny of the clerks in the spacious main office, several of whom knew him by sight, and were aware of his enviable reputation as a private detective. He had been watching the fair, agitated girl in the adjoining room, white with distress and indignation under Logan's merciless grilling, with which neither member of the firm, both seated near by, had ventured to interfere. Carson walked that way and paused at the partly open door, unobserved by Logan, who was standing with his back toward it.

"You're quite friendly with Boyd, Miss Ward, aren't you?" he was curtly asking. A strong-featured, dark man, he was, close upon forty, whose searching scrutiny of the agitated girl was not without singular sinister qualities.

"Yes, Mr. Logan, I admit that I am," she replied. Her lips were quivering, and her hands tensely gripped the chair back of which she was standing. "But that has no bearing upon—"

"That's enough! Merely answer my questions," Logan interrupted. "Isn't it a fact that you two are planning to be married?"

"Yes, that is our intention," Miss Ward again admitted. She drew up her girlish figure a bit haughtily, then flushed slightly, though he was a stranger to her, when she saw Carson intently regarding her.

"Did you see Boyd last evening?" Logan demanded.

"I did. He spent the evening at my home."

"Did you tell him what you had heard?"

"I don't know what you mean." Miss Ward gazed at him perplexedly. "Heard about what?"

"You know what I mean." Logan shook his finger at her with sinister assurance. "Don't try to evade me. You were the only person with Mr. Sheldon in his private office when he telephoned about the bonds, weren't you?"

"I think so." Clara hesitated for an instant. "I admit that I heard him telephone about them."

"Except the two members of the firm, then, you are the only person employed here who knew anything about them. You are, in fact, the only person who could have supplied the information that made this robbery possible."

"But I know nothing about it. I—"

"Wait!" Logan cut in sharply. "Tell me the truth. Didn't you tell Arthur Boyd last evening that the bonds were to be sent here to-day?" he sternly demanded.

"I did not."

"You must have told him."

"I did not!' Miss Ward repeated, with a flash of passionate indignation. "I would not do such a thing. I would not be guilty of such treachery as you imply. The bonds were not mentioned last evening. You—"

"Stop right there!" Logan commanded, striding nearer to her. "The transfer of those bonds, as well as the precise time, must have been known in advance or this robbery could not have been committed. The difficulties were anticipated. Boyd knew about the bonds, and he knew also that he would be sent here with them. His plans were carefully laid. He darted ahead of Morton and into the rear corridor. He knew how he could elude him from that point and get away with the bonds."

"But—"

"There aren't any buts," said Logan snappily. "You are the one who made this crime possible. You told him about the bonds. Come across with the truth, now, instead of with lies and evasions, or I'll arrest you at once and—"

He stopped involuntarily, for the trembling girl, alarmed by his threatening gaze and his harsh accusations, had covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

Walter Carson had waited only to learn precisely what Logan suspected. He had been coldly viewing him from head to foot— chiefly his feet, in fact, and the rug under them, when the browbeating detective strode forward and confronted the agitated girl. He now stepped into the room, and nodded to both members of the firm, with whom he was slightly acquainted.

"Slow down, Logan," he advised a bit curtly. "Don't go so fast, or you may land in a ditch."

Logan turned as if pricked with a knife. He now saw Carson for the first time. He flushed hotly for a moment, then went white with sudden resentment upon seeing Lieutenant Donlin at the open door. He knew the two were close friends, and he at once guessed that Donlin had secretly sent for the private detective.

"What's the big idea, lieutenant?" he demanded, frowning darkly. "Did you think I couldn't handle this case alone?"

"It doesn't matter who handles it," Mr. Sheldon quickly interposed, scenting trouble. "The main thing, Logan, is to learn the facts and to insure the arrest of Arthur Boyd as quickly as possible. If Detective Carson can aid you we will be very glad of it."

"Mr. Sheldon is right," Carson said approvingly. "I'm not here to butt in needlessly, Logan, or to rob you of any laurels. This girl, however, appears to me to be telling the truth."

"That's your opinion, eh?' Logan forced an incredulous smile to his frowning face.

"Decidedly."

"I don't agree with you. How do you account for Boyd's disappearance?"

"I cannot yet account for it," Carson frankly admitted. "The fact that he came nearly to the door of this office, however, seems to indicate that he intended to deliver the bonds," he pointedly argued. "Furthermore, if he'd been bent upon eluding Morton he could have done so out of doors much more easily than in the office building, assuming that he had no confederate here. He would not have waited until he reached the adjoining corridor, so near his destination, before undertaking it."

"By Jove, there's something in that," Sheldon declared.

"Nonsense!" Logan growled derisively. "It's a lame argument, Mr. Sheldon, infernally lame, in view of all of the circumstances."

"Why so?" asked Carson.

"Because Boyd is the only reasonable suspect," Logan forcibly insisted. "Why is he missing? Who else could have stolen the bonds, or known anything about them? It's absurd to suppose that he was waylaid and robbed in the adjoining corridor, through which persons are almost constantly passing. The disturbance would have been heard, and his body would have been left there. Crooks would not have delayed to remove it. Boyd is the thief, all right, the only thief—"

Carson interrupted him. "Even if you are right, Logan," he said, "Boyd's disappearance must be explained. He could not have retraced his steps and left the building by the stairway and door to the street, or Morton must have seen him."

"That's true," Logan quickly agreed with him. "That's precisely what I claim."

"And there is no exit from the farther end of the rear corridor," Carson added. "I noticed that when I came in. Nor is it probable that he had a confederate in any adjoining office, who would have hidden him until he could escape undetected, or in disguise."

"No, surely not," Logan again agreed. "That's wholly improbable."

"He must, nevertheless, have found some way of escape," Carson declared perplexedly. "He would not have remained in the building. Mr. Sheldon, is there any way to reach the paved court back of the building, which leads out to the side street?" he inquired quite abruptly.

"Only through a narrow entry back of our main office and the adjoining one," Sheldon told him. "There's a stairway leading down to a rear door, but Boyd could not have gone that way," he quickly added. "He would have had to pass through our main office, or the adjoining one, in order to reach the rear entry."

"By Jove, I have it!" Logan suddenly cried, eyes lighting. "I've been a lunk- head; or I'd have thought of it. The office next to this one is vacant."

"Vacant!" Carson echoed, gazing at him.

"It's not been occupied for weeks," Logan said hurriedly. "Boyd must have known it. His duties bring him here almost daily. He may have taken advantage of it and fled that way. We can find out by going there," he said, leading the way.

"Have you a key?" Carson questioned, following him. He appeared oblivious to the grateful gaze of the pale, anxious girl for whom he had interceded.

"No, no key," Logan replied as they hurried through the main office. "But I'll send for the superintendent. He has one." The police lieutenant followed them and both members of the firm came also. There was a brief delay in the corridor. The door of the vacant office was locked, and Carson tried vainly to open it.

"I guess you're right, Logan," he remarked. "There's no dust on the knob. This office has been entered recently."

"It's a safe gamble, now, that I'm right." Logan's dark eyes had a gleam of covert exultation. "I thought you'd soon agree with me. Boyd knew of this, and took advantage of it. He could easily have got a key. The building is an old one, and the locks on the office doors are not of the latest make."

"Far from it," Carson observed.

"Boyd has stolen the bonds, all right, and made his getaway."

"There now seems to be no reasonable doubt of it, Logan."

Carson appeared blind to the cloud of disappointment that had settled on the face of the police lieutenant. He was gazing a bit sharply through the dimly lighted corridor, noting that the door of the vacant office was about twenty feet from the entrance to it, and between it and that of the bankers' main office, which was some six yards beyond

Something on the floor, too, had caught Carson's eye, and he presently drew back a little to furtively gaze down at it. It was hardly perceptible. No one else had observed it. It was a dark gray ring faintly inscribed on the faded bare floor. It was about ten inches in diameter, and somewhat broken in places, though the circle was nearly perfect.

Not until after the superintendent had arrived and opened the vacant office, into which Logan hastened with the others, did Detective Carson make a closer inspection of the dim gray circle He bent quickly and touched it with his finger, then glanced at the tip of it.

"Dust!" he muttered, brows knitting. "Gray dust, or powder. By Jove, that's a bit singular. A ring of dust!"

Carson did not linger to speculate upon it. He obliterated it with his foot, then hastened into the office. He trod on a key which the janitor had found in the lock and forced out upon the floor inside. Bending to pick it up Carson discovered on the floor in the nearest corner another faint gray ring, almost the same as that in the corridor.

Two rings of dust!

Detective Carson was puzzled. He wondered what had caused them, and why they were there. Two rings of dust, one in the vacant office, the other near by in the corridor, with a locked door between them, presented a problem not easily solved in a moment. Carson's attention was almost immediately diverted, moreover, by a cry from Detective Logan, who had found on the floor to the rear a soft felt hat and a plaid coat and vest, which evidently had been discarded hurriedly.

"These, Carson, may clinch it," Logan cried, displaying them. "If they are Boyd's he must have come here before committing the robbery."

"Why before?" asked Donlin, frowning. "What's the idea?"

"Idea!" Logan echoed derisively. "Isn't it perfectly plain?"

"Plain to you, maybe, but not to me," rasped the lieutenant.

"I'll make it plain, then. He could not have brought them when he came with the bonds or Morton must have seen them," Logan pointed out. "He must have come earlier. He left other garments, of course, to be worn when he fled, so that no definite description could be sent out. He took no great risk of their being discovered in a vacant office. He had a disguise, too, most likely, and was well made up when he bolted."

"But would he have left these here to fix the crime upon him?" Donlin demanded.

"Fix it be hanged! These are not needed to prove him a thief," Logan declared. "They would have been a needless burden to him when he fled. That's why he left them. One sleeve of the coat is nearly inside out, showing that he removed it in a hurry. See for yourself, Carson." He turned again to the detective. "In his haste, too, he may have left something in his pockets."

"Possibly," the detective admitted.  "Search them."

Logan hastened to do so. He could find only a few small sheets of paper in the inside vest pocket, on each of which were some typewritten memoranda relating to several speculative stocks most active on the market, with a list of their recent fluctuations.

"These certainly tell the story, Carson," he said, while both examined them. "Boyd wanted money to get married. He has been speculating secretly. We may find that he is deep in debt, and perhaps guilty of other thefts from the bank. This was a last desperate step, a temptation he could not resist. He cast all by the board and—"

"One moment," Carson interrupted. "Let's make sure these are his, Logan, and then I will concede that you're right. Morton will recognize the garments, of course, if they are those Boyd wore when he was seen last. Let's make sure of it."

They were not long in doing so. He made doubly sure of it, in fact, after all had returned to the banker's office. For not only Frank Morton, but Clara Ward, also, the latter weeping bitterly, immediately identified Boyd's hat and garments. Then was added the last straw to the disappointment and chagrin of Lieutenant Donlin. For Walter Carson's face, clouded for some little time with mingled doubt and perplexity, had turned more hard and severe.

"That's evidence enough for me, Logan, with some to spare," he said brusquely.

"I thought you'd agree with me." Logan grinned broadly.

"There's nothing else to it," Carson retorted. "Boyd has turned crook, and the sooner the wheels are thoroughly set in motion, the sooner the rascal will be rounded up. You'd better hasten to police headquarters, Logan, and report all of the facts. Not a moment should be lost. I would go with you, bar other important duties. You'd better accompany him, lieutenant, and see that nothing is overlooked."

Carson turned with the last and glanced sharply at Donlin, and Logan seemed to approve of the immediate step. He lingered only to ask quietly, with a furtive glance at the weeping girl:

"Do you think we had better arrest her?"

"No need of it, not the slightest," said Carson. "Boyd is playing a lone hand. I feel sure of that."

"I'll be off at once, then," said Logan. "Going with me, lieutenant?"

"Sure!" Donlin complied with remarkable alacrity, in view of their recent verbal tilt and his grim dislike for the speaker. "Surest thing you know!"

Detective Carson had, indeed, other duties. He did not hurry away, however, after the departure of Lieutenant Donlin and Logan. He turned abruptly to Morton, instead, whom Logan had detained during the investigations, and drew him aside.

"About that man with whom you collided in the corridor," he said quietly. "Do you know him?"

"I do not," said Morton. "He was a stranger."

Logan said you lost sight of Boyd while waiting to apologize," Carson told him pointedly.

"I did rather more than that, Mr. Carson, for I supposed that Boyd already had entered this office," Morton frankly admitted. "I did not dream that he had other designs, or that anything could befall him almost at the door of his destination."

"What more did you do?"Carson inquired.

"The man was carrying a box of cigars," Morton explained. "It knocked from his hand when I collided with him. The cover flew open, and the cigars were scattered over the floor. I waited to help him pick them up, as the fault seemed to be more mine than his."

"H'm, I see!" Carson's brows knit a little closer. "Did you have any talk with the man?"

"Only relating to the mishap. He did not resent it. He was quite polite, in fact, and gave me three of the cigars. Here they are," Morton added, taking them from his pocket.

"Very good of him," Carson observed dryly, while he examined them. "They appear to be of good quality. May I have one?" he asked smiling. "My case is empty."

"Surely!" Morton eagerly assented. "Keep all of them if you like."

"No, indeed, thank you. I may not like them. Besides, one will serve my purpose as well as three," Carson told him, with subtle significance. "I'm not a heavy smoker. That's all, Morton."

He put the cigar in his pocket instead of lighting it, and Morten hurriedly departed to return to the bank. He was about to follow him, too, seeing both members of the firm engaged in the private office, but a hand timidly touched his arm.

"Do give me one moment, Mr. Carson, before you go," Miss Ward requested, when his gaze met her tearful blue eyes. "May I say something to you?"

"Why, certainly." Carson took her hand for a moment.

"First I want to thank you for having had confidence in me," Clara Ward said gratefully. "I hardly knew what I said while Mr. Logan questioned me. He was very harsh and unjust."

"Logan isn't quite all a man should be," Carson told her.

"It was very kind of you to intercede, and to believe I was telling the truth."

"I knew that you were. Logan, however, is not very discerning."

"I want to tell you, too, if I may, that you are terribly mistaken," Clara digressed with pathetic earnestness. "I am sure, absolutely sure, that Arthur Boyd did not commit this robbery. He is incapable of such a crime. You would be sure of it if you knew him as I do. We were soon to be married. He would not wreck all of our cherished hopes and fond anticipations with such a dreadful deed," she said, sobbing softly. "I know you are mistaken, Mr. Carson, terribly mistaken, in suspecting—"

"Hush!" Carson checked her gently and placed his hand on her arm. "You are a very loyal girl, and I hope all of your sweet anticipations may very soon be realized. Whisper!" He smiled a bit oddly and gazed intently at her. "If I am mistaken, terribly mistaken, Miss Ward, you may be sure of at least one thing— that I will soon discover it! I must go now."

Carson did not wait for an answer, or to note the effect of his somewhat enigmatical assertion. His fine face turned ominously severe when he returned to the corridor, however, and his narrowed eyes had a threatening gleam. He strode quickly to the door of the vacant office, examined the corridor floor, and then that of the bare, deserted room. The faint ring of gray dust remained in the corner. Near the middle of the room, and in the corridor as well, were several marks and scratches, quite inconspicuous, which he inspected with a lens.

Abruptly Carson arose, and went into the back hallway, noting faint gray spots on the floor and on the back stairs, which he quickly descended. He found the lower back hall half filled with mason's tools, a few bags of cement, two barrels of lime, some short planks, and a piece of soiled canvas.

Carson saw the occasion for all this upon reaching the narrow court. Repairs were being made in a part of the foundation wall of the old building. Several laborers were at work on the floor below the street. Beyond the door from which he had emerged the court was obstructed with large stones, empty barrels and planks, some dirty wooden pails, a quantity of dry cement, and a pile of sand. Near by was a bed of mixed cement, from which a laborer was filling one of the pails.

A large, roughly clad man of about fifty, with red hair and a florid, somewhat grim and sinister face, was watching him. His gray eyes turned quickly upon the detective, however, when he came from the rear door,

"That's enough for now, Rafferty," he said gruffly, as the laborer turned to take the pail of cement inside the building.

"Are you the boss here?" Carson inquired. He had heard, and had approached him.

"I am, sor," was the reply. "I'm the conthractor, Martin Gaffrey."

"How long have you been here?" Carson glanced at his watch. It was half past four. "Were you here in the court about two hours ago?"

"I was," Gaffney nodded quickly. "I'm here near all the time. What about it?"

"A robbery has been committed," Carson told him. "I want to learn whether the crook fled this way. Did you see a man come from that door?"

"A robbery, is it?" Gaffney's narrow eyes took on a searching squint. "Faith, it's amazing, sor, what men are afther doing these days. That door is not used much, sor, save to bring out rubbish and the like. I wouldn't have noticed him, maybe, but for that."

"You did see a man, then?"

"I did, sor," Gaffney nodded. "He's the only one I've seen, bar you, sor."

"What time was it?"

"I 'd say near three o'clock. He came out in a hurry, and went out to the side street. That's the last I saw of him."

"Can you describe him?"

"After a fashion, though I didn't notice him much," said Gaffney. "He was a medium-built man, with brown whiskers, I'm thinking, and he was lugging a small leather bag."

"I see." Carson frowned thoughtfully. "How was he clad?"

"He wore a dark overcoat and a stiff black hat, as I remember, though I'll not be dead sure," Gaffney informed him. "I didn't take much notice of him."

"Your description of him will help," said Carson. "I'm trying to trace him. Did you happen to see which way he went after reaching the side street?"

"He turned east, sor," said Gaffney promptly. "I'm sure of that."

"He's the man, all right," replied Carson: "Many thanks, Mr. Gaffney. I'll look farther."

He did not look back to see whether Gaffney had any further interest in him, as he hurried out of the narrow court. He glanced at the brick wall of an adjoining building and saw that the ground floor was occupied by an express company, also that a man at a desk near one of the windows was busily writing. Carson entered a moment later and beckoned him away from the window.

"I want to learn whether you saw a man leave the opposite building about three o'clock," he explained. "Were you at work here at that time?"

"I've been here since dinner," was the reply. "All I've seen was two men with a covered wagon. They backed it in to get some cement."

"About three o'clock?" Carson inquired.

"Just about that," said the other. "They backed up to the door and put several bags of cement into the wagon."

"Did you see any name on it?"

"I did not. One of the men was quite tall, with a square-cut black beard. I didn't notice the other particularly. It must have been all right, I think, for the boss of the job, named Gaffney, was directing them. They are the only men I've seen, except a half dozen laborers employed there."

"Thanks!" said Carson. "Pardon me for detaining you."

It was half past eight that evening when Mr. Walter Carson approached the door of a modest wooden house in Brooklyn. Quietly he mounted the steps and rang the bell. He did not come from the street. He stole from behind the house and through a narrow side yard, where the strip of lawn and a clump of shrubbery were wet with the mist of the dismal night. The front rooms of the house were in darkness.

Carson's summons was not immediately answered. About three minutes passed before the door was opened, when the tall figure and dark face of Detective Logan were discernible in the dimly lighted hall.

"Good evening, Logan," said Carson affably. "Got a few minutes for me? I was over this way, and thought I'd drop around here. I hardly expected to find you, however, seeing your home was dark, I want to talk with you about that bond robbery."

"What about it?" Logan eyed him sharply. "Come in, Carson. I was half asleep over an evening paper. My wife's gone to the movies."

"I'll not remain long," Carson told him, as he followed him to a sitting room and took a chair. "No, I'll not smoke, Logan, thank you."

The latter tendered a box of cigars. "Lieutenant Donlin telephoned me that you reported all of the facts of the case at headquarters."

"Surely," Logan nodded, lighting a cigar. "There is nothing to the case now except to get the crook."

"I agree with you." Carson drew up a little in his chair.

"But getting the crook, Logan, does not consist of getting Arthur Boyd," he pointedly added.

"What do you mean?" Logan lurched forward, brows knitting, and gazed more sharply at him. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just what I say, Jim," Carson told him familiarly. "Boyd is not the crook."

"You be hanged!" growled Logan. He laughed derisively, but his dark face was losing its color. "Sure, he's the crook. Why do you think he isn't?"

"Because of several discoveries l made after you and Lieutenant Donlin left me," Carson informed him. "I think you know the man I suspect, as you are employed in that building, and you may be able to help me find him to-night, as well as his confederates. There were three or four, at least, in the job."

"What are you handing me?" Logan demanded more seriously. "Come across. I don't get you. What discoveries did you make?"

"Enough to convince me, Jim, that Boyd was knocked out and robbed immediately after Morton lost sight of him."

"Rats! That's absurd," said Logan snappily. "I already told you why that could not have been done."

"I know, nevertheless, that it was done." Carson's voice hardened slightly. "Not only that it was done, but also how it was done."

"You'll have to show me."

"To begin with, then, I questioned Morton more closely," Carson said deliberately. "Morton was stopped in the side corridor by a man who dropped a box of cigars. It opened, and the cigars were scattered over the floor. That was a suspicious circumstance. A box of cigars is ordinarily carried in a wrapper. The cover is secured, moreover, in either case, and would not open easily. I got one of the cigars from Morton, intending to try to trace the man by it, but I have found it isn't necessary. Morton was detained in that way only to prevent him from seeing what was done in the rear corridor."

"What do you think was done there?" Logan demanded, staring fixedly at the detective's face.

"Two or more men were waiting for Boyd," Carson proceeded. 'Not in the corridor, but in that vacant office. They were clad like the laborers at work in the basement. They had a pail partly filled with cement, a saw horse or two, and a short plank. They knew just when Boyd was approaching. The man with the cigars was waiting and watching. He put them wise. The saw horse and plank then were quickly put in the rear corridor, also the pail of cement, between the door of the vacant room and that of Sheldon's office. All this served to partly obstruct the way, and to lead Boyd to immediately believe what he was told."

"What was he told?"

"I don't know just what it was, but that's not material. One of the supposed masons could have told him that repairs were being made in Sheldon's office, that the door was blocked temporarily with a staging, and that he could enter only by going through the vacant room. Naturally, seeing reasonable evidence of such a yarn, Boyd at once stepped into the vacant office."

"You think he did, eh?" Logan spoke with a smile, but it very plainly was forced, and his drawn face was almost hueless.

"I know that he did," Carson asserted. "The moment he entered, too, he was knocked out by a man waiting behind the door. The articles mentioned were quickly returned to the vacant office, and the door closed and locked."

"Very clever, I'm sure, if that is right," Logan said sneeringly. "But I don't believe it."

"I know it is right, or very near it," Carson insisted.

"How did you find it out?"

"I found two rings of dust left by the pail, which had stood in some dry cement before it was used for the knavish job," Carson told him. "They were left by the edge of the chimes around the bottom of the pail. They showed me the way. They pointed to laborers downstairs where I knew that work was being done. I went down and questioned Gaffney, the boss, who tried to make me believe that he had seen Boyd leaving the building. I knew he was lying, of course, after what I had discovered, which convinced me that he was one of the crooks."

"It did, eh? Logan's lips took an ugly downward slant.

"Surely! The crooks had overlooked the faint rings of dust, also slight scratches caused by the legs of the saw horses, when hurriedly moved. They overlooked them in their haste to finish the job and get away with Boyd.

"Get away with him?"

"Exactly. He was taken away in a covered wagon by the rascals. They backed it in near the rear door, and put the body into it undetected by concealing it with empty cement bags, all of which could have been done in thirty seconds. One was a tall man, with a square-cut black beard. That, Logan, is how the job was done."

Detective Logan did not reply for a moment. He stared with lowering gaze at his companion's face, as if undecided what to say.

"I guess that won't stand washing," he said at length. 'How could Gaffney have learned anything about the bonds? How could—"

"I'll tell you how," Carson interrupted. "Not all the men who wear a badge, Logan, are on the level. You left spots of gray on the rug when you stood accusing Sheldon's stenographer, and there were flecks of dry cement on the edges of your shoe soles. You were the man with the square-cut black beard. You helped put Boyd in the wagon. I did not suspect you, however, until I fathomed those rings of dust, and learned—"

"You don't mean—"

"I mean just what I say!" Carson cut in with sudden severity. "You, Logan, were the big finger in this job. You heard Sheldon telephone about the bonds. You rang Gaffney and others into the crime. You put the typewritten sheets into Boyd's vest pocket. I don't know where he is now, but you yourself will tell me very soon."

"I'll see you hanged first," cried Logan.

"You must have felt very sure you were not suspected, since you would let Gaffney and the others come here tonight with the bonds, which you did not dare to retain in your possession. Oh, I know they are here! Keep your seat, Logan, for you cannot escape. Donlin and a dozen policemen are waiting outside. We have been watching here since dark, expecting a move of some kind. You and your confederates are cornered Oh, they are bound to try it, eh? Well, well, that will end it."

Loud cries, a pistol shot, and then a triumphant shout from Lieutenant Donlin, these from outside the house had caused Carson's sudden digression. He arose and took handcuffs from his pocket.

Detective Logan, ghastly white, had leaped up from his chair— but an automatic in Carson's hand had him covered, and he did not so much as utter one word of protest.

IT WAS ELEVEN o'clock when Mr. Walter Carson arrived home; he was given a telephone number that he had been requested to call up. He smiled, as if deeply pleased, and proceeded to do so— when the following, mingled with sobs of gratitude and delight, came over the wire:

"This is Clara Ward talking. I want to thank you, Mr. Carson— oh, so much! I— I just can't wait till I see you. You have made us happy— oh, so happy! I can never repay you for what you have done. Arthur is here with me. He has told me all. I'm glad Mr. Sheldon has the bonds, and that all the real robbers are in prison."

______________

7: Eyes of Blue

Arthur P Hankins

1880-1932

Detective Story Magazine, 2 Dec 1919

MY name is Ace Keck. I was among those present when they pinned it on me, but was not consulted in the matter. I learned later that I was too busy at the time to take notice. The baptismal water was dripping down into my right eye, and I was telling them about it at the top of my voice. And I came out of the deal Ace Keck for life.

Does shoplifting pay? Well, if you're after statistics don't interview any department-store managers. They'll smile in a superior way and say: "Of course not. How absurd! We lose a belt, a silk handkerchief, a necktie now and then. But pay— ridiculous!"

Uh-huh— I know all about that!

Let me tell you how it paid me one thousand bucks once upon a time. I'd been working Frisco a month.

I? Certainly. You thought all shoplifters were women, didn't you. Well, I shave regularly every morning, anyway, and I don't lie flat on the ground and roll over seven times to get on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. I was working with Battleship Kate, out of Cincinnati, however, for a woman and a man make a most invincible team. But Kate doesn't figure in this yarn.

In one big store entitled "Fisher & La Moure" I was beginning to have a hunch the dicks were onto us. Still, all was quiet as two p.m. on the day they buried my Aunt Samantha; and, as Fisher & La Moure alone were paying me about ten bucks a day, I didn't like to play the piker and drop them from our list. I was working the side-flap suit case, the artificial third arm, the false parcel, and the false-bottomed, hinged-flap gladstone bag. The pickings were fine, and, with only a hunch that the store detectives had their eyes on me, I stuck around. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was resting in my room at the Palace after a hard week's work.

The Palace? Surest thing you know! Let me inform you that I was wearing clothes during the proper hours, and an astrakhan coat over them, and had a hired car with my own chauffeur.

The ten a day Fisher & La Moure were donating to my placid life was not a quarter of the pickings. Well, I'm in my room at the Palace when I'm called to the phone by the office.

"Gentleman to see you, Mr. Keck," says the clerk.

"Card?" I asked.

"He has no card, Mr. Keck. He gives the name of John Smith."

I studied.

"Where have I heard that name before?" I laughed. Of course it was some old pal that had got onto my hangout and probably wanted to touch me for a ten-spot. Poor old John Smith— he certainly has to work overtime.

"Send Mr. Smith up, please," I told the clerk.

And a little later the bell boy ushered into my suite Mr. Dick la Moure, junior partner of Fisher & La Moure, almost my chief benefactors.

"Have a seat, Mr. Smith," I invited politely, "a drink of Scotch, a cigar, a match, and an ash tray."

I could see by the look in his eyes that he had no idea I knew who he was. But he knew who I was— that was dead certain. So everything was comfortable and satisfactory. He declined my hospitality, all but the chair. The calmer of the pair of us was not Mr. Richard la Moure, of Fisher & La Moure.

He was not over thirty-five, with a face that looked younger, a healthy skin, a good eye— well, just about the sort of a man I'd always wanted to look like; and I might have made it stick if they hadn't taken advantage of me when my eye was full of water that time.

La Moure didn't look like the sort of man who clears his throat before plunging into a matter. But he did it now, and was ill at ease all over; and I knew that whatever was afoot I had the psychological jump on him from the start.

"My name is not John Smith," he began. I tried to look interested. "It is Richard la Moure. I'm junior partner of the firm of Fisher & La Moure."

I politely lifted my eyebrows. He waited, ready to grab me and dash a glass of water in my face, Then he laughed nervously.

"You're like flint, Mr. Keck," he said. "Let's have no more horseplay. I know you, and it seems now that you know me. Our store detectives pointed you out to me some weeks ago. About all that, though, I have nothing to say. In fact, I have come to you with another matter entirely. If you take any more goods from our stock after what I have to tell you— why, let the best man win. But just at present I want to engage you to— to do a little job of shoplifting for me. And I assure you the pay will satisfy you."

"I know you smoke," I said. "I've seen you. Please make this little gathering as harmonious as possible."

He laughed and lighted one of our twenty-five-cent Havanas. And after that he was more at ease. From a vest pocket he took an oval trinket that resembled a half-grown poker chip after a hearty meal. He tossed it on the table. From its oval surface a perfect human eye looked up at me. Curious, I picked it up and examined it carefully. It was a work of art, no kidding— hand-painted, natural as life— a living blue orb, it seemed.

"Painted by a famous miniature artist on ivory," murmured Mr. la Moure. "There is in the hands of a certain detective in this city a miniature similar to this one. But, though the eye is blue, as is the one you hold, the painting he has is of another person's eye. The mountings are identical. The miniature that the detective has is his best clew in the unraveling of a recent murder mystery. I want you to go to him, pretend that you know a person whose eye has been reproduced on ivory, and ask to see the one he has, in the hope that you may be able to help solve the mystery. Notice of the eye clew has been printed in the papers, which will account for your knowledge of the miniature being in the detective's possession.

He paused.

"Yes?" I urged softly. "You are the most expert shoplifter in the United States, they tell me," he went on. "I want you to get possession of the eye in this detective's hands, and substitute for it the one you now hold."

I looked up quickly. The eyes of the junior partner of Fisher & La Moure were blue. "Can you do it?"

"All depends on the luck I have, and on— the detective."

"Jefferson Mercer," he said.

"Oh! Well— er— you couldn't just as well make it some one else, could you?" I laughed.

He smiled. "If it were one of the regular city force," I told him, "for ten dollars, payable when the job's done, I'd guarantee to gouge an eye out of his head, and substitute this one, even if his eyes were black. But I think that if I were to consent to approach Mr. Jefferson Mercer with this little trick up my sleeve, my price would be one thousand dollars, half in advance, the other half to be forfeited if I couldn't pull it off."

La Moure pulled out a roll of yellow-backs so big that I became diffident in their company, and began peeling them off till twenty-five of them blinked up at me and whispered: "Hello, Papa Keck !"

I disdained to look at them. Instead, I gave the ivory trinket closer examination, turning it over in my hand. On the concave side was a metal button.

"Why, it's a cuff button," I remarked.

"Yes," said Dick la Moure.

"Suppose you tell me something of its history," I suggested.

His lips straightened. "What was it curiosity killed?" he asked.

"But I'm not a monk," I reminded him. "There's your five hundred dollars, he said. "Am I to put it back in my pocket ?"

"I think mine is large enough," I said, and I gathered those beautiful asters into a bouquet and put them in a dark place to keep them cool.

"When?"

He stirred. "Monday morning will be the best time to approach him," he said. "He— he doesn't know you, of course?" It was a question.

"Please let's don't get personal, Mr. la Moure," I said soothingly. "I know him. If he knows me he's taking a very deceptive way of showing it, as I've passed him several times in the streets. A dick of Mercer's type, Mr. la Moure, never knows a gentleman of my profession till— well, till events bring them together. In other words, Mercer may know me, and he may not. I'm taking that chance. That's one reason why it costs you so much."

"Then if he does know you you mean that, even when you go to him with this thing in mind, he won't allow you to become aware that he knows you?"

"Darn him, he won't!" I said. "So you see, the odds are always against the— I almost called myself a name!"

La Moure rose.

"And what shall I do with the eye I get from Mercer?" I asked. "Bring it to me at my apartment," he said, as he gave me one of his cards.

"I thank you for your confidence in me," I ventured as I followed him in my graceful manner to the elevator. He made no reply as he passed into the cage.

TEN MINUTES afterward the bell boy brought in the files of the San Francisco papers, dating back to a month before; and for the rest of that afternoon I was a busy man. I learned that a man whose identity was still a mystery had been found by the side of the road near Golden Gate Park with a bullet hole in his brain. One scrap of identifying evidence found upon him was a single ivory cuff button on which was painted a blue human eye— the left. In the right cuff was a plain gold button. Another piece of evidence was the upper fifth of a sheet of typewriter paper, containing the letterhead of the firm of Fisher & La Moure, Architectural Department. There was no writing on it whatsoever.

Fisher & La Moure, I learned later, conducted an architectural and ready-made house department. You could buy a submarine of Fisher & La Moure, I guess, if you had the price. But as a shoplifter I'd confined my activities to gloves, waists, neckwear, silk stockings, novelties, et cetera, and, though an old hand in the game, I had not yet risen to lifting ready-made houses from the counters of department stores. Naturally an investigation was made in the architectural department of Fisher & La Moure. The paper glibly told me this, then left me dripping at the mouth with curiosity. So far as further news of the case from the papers was concerned, there was nothing doing.

I can't say that I relished the task before me, for this Jefferson Mercer was an ingenious bird, but I relished those yellow certificates. So at ten o'clock Monday morning, with my third arm in good working order in my right coat sleeve, and the right arm I'd been born with under my coat and ready to pick up any loose eyes that might be carelessly mislaid, I sauntered languidly into Mercer's office, my campaign all mapped out.

I was dressed as a working man, a hod carrier, if closely quizzed; and as my mother was an actress, and my father a poker shark, I had hopes of getting by with the Paddy stuff. My artificial hand was covered with a bandage. There was a little dried blood showing through the none-too-clean cloth. It had come out of my regular arm at the insistence of a needle point. A girl that couldn't have had much salary left after she'd settled with her hairdresser and manicurist asked me if I'd just come in for luck, or did I wish to interview Mr. Mercer.

I replied that, since I'd seen her, it was plain that luck hadn't deserted me, but that my original idea in passing those portals was to set eyes on a real detective just once in my life.

"Your name, please?" Oh, say, can't they pull that stuff!

"Michael O'Halloran," I suggested.

"And what did you wish to see Mr. Mercer about, Mr. O'Halloran?"

"Blue eyes," I says. Hers were blue. She showed them to me slantwise. I don't look so awful bad even in overalls.

"I'll tell Mr. Mercer," she said, and took thirty-seven steps on her leather stilts to a door marked "Private," ten feet from her desk. "Mr. Mercer will see you," she confided in the voice of a dentist's confederate when she ties the bib about your neck.

I took one good look into the dark eyes of that big detective fellow. Something hurt me at the back of my skull. It was his glance just working its way through to see if that was a fly on the wall behind me, or just a speck, "You're Irish, Mr. O'Halloran?" he asked pleasantly.

"No, Swede," I said— for an Irishman has to be funny.

"Oh, I see. County Cork or County Sligo? Which?"

"County jail," I flipped out boldly.

He laughed. "What about blue eyes, Mr. O'Halloran?" he said.

My mother had sung Irish songs for beer swillers in a garden where no roses grew. She came from the old sod. I wasn't hard pressed to slip just a tiny bit of brogue here and there in my speech, as I told Mercer my little tale. No need for details. A wealthy employer and benefactor of mine had had his eye transferred to ivory, and I'd lost track of him for several years, and so on, and so on, till, from his safe, the dick brought the blue eye and placed it on the desk between us.

"The eye, Mr. O'Halloran," said this clever bird, "has been aptly termed the window of the soul. I have been reading up on the subject of eye paintings. It is an old fad, recently revived. A famous miniature artist of London tells us that it is possible for him to take portraits of a person's two eyes, and, with these as his only guide, reproduce a recognizable likeness of the face of the owner of the eyes from which the portraits were made.

"If this is the case, and investigation has convinced me that there is no little truth in the statement, you will readily see what a valuable clew I have in this painted eye. If I can only obtain a close view of the eye from which this portrait was made, I am confident that I can identify the person. But what connection the owner of the eye had with the dead man remains, of course, to be seen. At any rate, the association must have been rather close, for a man would scarce wear on a cuff button the eye of a mere acquaintance."

There lay that confounded eye before me. The eye I was to substitute for it lay moist and warm in my hidden hand. I must pick up the eye on the table with my left hand. Then I must distract Mercer's attention elsewhere while I made the switch. Now I knew that I'd have done better not to have brought along the false arm. I could have held the substitute in my hand, picked up the eye desired with the same hand, and made the switch as I pretended to replace it on the desk. All with the same hand— see? But I had been taking no chances with this bird. I listened, showing interest, as he rambled along. As yet I hadn't found the nerve to pick up the ivory button. The back of my head still hurt me.

He ceased speaking presently, and pushed the ivory toward me.

"But you haven't examined it," he said. "Do so. I'm anxious to add to my information on the subject by noting whether or not you can tell if it is the likeness of your friend's eye."

My left hand plucked the thing from the polished surface of the desk. And I was stuck. How I wished now that I'd left my old third arm out of the deal! But how was I to know this Ike would pass the thing to me so readily? I'd come prepared for any emergency. Now the substitute was in my right hand, hidden under my coat. And the eye I wanted was in my left hand; and those black eyes of his were boring through the wall behind my head to see if his stenographer was flirting over the telephone.

"Stung!" I said to myself. "Absolutely stung, Ace Keck!"

And stung I was. I could only lay the eye back with a sigh, and say: "It ain't his, I'm certain, Mr. Mercer. No, that'll never be his eye, I know."

There was one chance left for my old third arm. If he'd leave the eye on the table a moment, and—  but he didn't. He scooped it up and took it back to his and the curtain dropped on Act One.

BACK IN the Palace I threw that old cork arm at the wall, then got it, doubled up its fist, and handed myself one in the jaw.

"That for you," I said. 'Get a third leg for yourself, and walk on it to the cuckoo house. There's always room there for one more, Ace Keck!"

That evening I called on Dick la Moure at his department out in the Richmond district.

"Heavens!" he gasped, when I'd told him my tale of woe. "I thought you of all men on earth would not bungle such a job. Tell me how you came to fail."

"That," I said, "would cost you about twenty-five thousand dollars, and I'd spend the remainder of my days about two jumps beyond the reach of brother and sister department-store workers No, let's talk about something else. Surely all is not lost."

He flopped heavily into a deep leather chair, and rested his forehead with a hand.

"There may be one more chance," he added finally. "Just one. I'll have to tell you, I suppose, what I didn't intend to.

"Mercer has made arrangements with Mr. Fisher, my partner, to go to the architectural department to-morrow and inspect the eyes of all our employees there. He is to pose as an eye expert, and will be presumed by our employees to have been hired by the firm to make tests of our workers' eyes, to see if our lighting arrangement is all that it should be. Architectural drawing, as you may imagine, is a severe strain on one's eyes. We have always tried to look out for the welfare of our people. So Mercer's rather clever scheme will seem to them quite plausible.

"Posing as an optometrist he will examine the eyes of all our draughtsmen and draughtswomen through an optical instrument. The clew of the ivory eye points to our architectural department, as you have perhaps learned by now. With all conflicting influences excluded Mercer will be able to look directly into the eyes of all of us; and I'll warrant that if the person he is after is in that department, he'll be able to find the eye from which the painting that he has was made."

"The eyes of all of us," I repeated innocently.

"Yes," he said after a pause. "Mr. Fisher, in agreeing to the plan, told Mercer of his own secret interest in detective work. To throw off all suspicion he volunteered to subject his own eyes to the test, and volunteered for me as well."

I looked up with a roving glance.  Yes, the eyes of the junior partner of the firm of Fisher & La Moure were blue.

"And my second chance?" I asked.

"Mercer will doubtless have the ivory eye along with him to make comparisons," he replied. "If you can't make the substitution to-morrow in our store while he's testing eyes, we'll never have another chance."

"Will he take it out of his pocket, though?" I asked.

"He will if he thinks he has found an eye to match it," snapped La Moure.

"The switch must be made before that," I remarked casually. He said nothing, but lapsed into gloom. "A dip might turn the trick," I suggested.

"What is a dip?" he asked.

"He's a shoplifter with only an elementary education, doing outside work and hoping for advancement," I enlightened him. "In short, a pickpocket."

"Do you know any?"

"Oh, no, I wouldn't say that. But I might meet some policeman on the street, and ask him if he knew anybody that knew an honest and deserving pickpocket looking for an odd job in his line."

"Would the cleverest pickpocket have a chance with an experienced man like Mercer?"

"Well, bartenders are not altogether without their little sidelights on life," I said. "I once saw a dip steal a cat from behind a bar, go out in the street, and come back and trade the bartender's own cat to him for a round of drinks. There had been several rounds before that, though, and this bartender wasn't just what you'd call an aloof person."

"Suppose you try it," he said, smiling. "It seems to me that when the detective is looking through the instrument would be a mighty good time for a— a dip to go through his clothes. He could pose as an employee of the store, you know."

"Why, you're simply wonderful, Mr. la Moure," I said. "I had much the same idea in mind. But another time when you have a little job like this on hand," I hinted, "instead of picking a man who's made a life study of— er— people like myself, select Hiram Hicks of Hicksville, or Norton van Yorick of New York City. Either will do. But fight shy of dicks like this Mercer, and of that fellow who figures in the cartoons of the day as the ultimate consumer. For under the hats of such Wisdon finds her throne."

"You're something of a philosopher, Keck," he said, smiling wearily.

"I'm worse than that," I said. Then I looked out the window and added, soft voiced: "But tell me— is it necessary for you to look into Mercer's eye through the instrument?"

He didn't answer immediately, and when I looked around I faced an angry glare. But it faded, and he said:

"So long as Mr. Fisher has suggested it, it would scarce be wise for me to refuse."

Then I left him, promising to have a dip on hand at the appointed hour next day. Dressed as my own dear normal self, with a red rose in my lapel— a weakness of mine— I put in an appearance at Dick la Moure's private office next morning. We were alone.

"Where's your— er— dip?" he asked, looking up nervously.

"I spoke to several cops about that dip," I said. "They told me not to spread it around for fear the force would be reduced, and some of their friends would lose jobs, but that there wasn't a crook of any character in town. I hated to raise a dispute, but during the time I was talking the matter over with them I saw no less than three plain-clothes men, a corporation lawyer and a dealer in butter and eggs."

He smiled. But at once his face grew grave.

"You couldn't get one, then. What in Heaven's name am I to do?"

"I've decided to keep the home fires burning," I said.

"I don't just follow you."

"In other words, then, to collect all of that thousand dollars myself, and beware of entangling alliances."

"Can you pick Mercer's pockets?"

"There you go again," I warned him, "Has the chief instructor in mathematics at Harvard forgotten how to cut an apple so that James, John and Jane will each have an equal share?"

"But you can't go into the architectural department and pose as an employee," he pointed out. "Mercer will recognize your face."

"I can't," I agreed. "I must wait outside until he gets to going good with his eye examinations, then stroll leisurely in behind him, conversing genially with you. We pause behind Mercer, quite close to him. We're so interested, you understand."

"But, Keck, you worry me. Mercer will surely learn that— And some of our employees may see you at work on him."

"Why worry? Hair dye has advanced since the war. Try this cigar while we think it over."

I passed him one and held a lighted match for him.

"But wait," I said. "Isn't it about time for Mercer's arrival?"

He reached for his watch. "Why— why— Surely I didn't forget my watch this morning."

"Is this it?' I asked, and let one of these thin little gold-wafer timepieces slip down my wrist into my hand.

"Why, where did you find it?" he asked, gasping.

"In your pocket."

He grinned foolishly. They hate a thing like that.

"Pardon me," I said, "but isn't your tie pin coming out?"

He reached for his cravat. His tie pin had already come out.

"Where is it?" he demanded, half angry, half interested.

"You can search me," I told him.

"Do you mean that literally?"

"Surely," and I approached him with hands held over my head. Eager as a boy, he frisked me like an elephant hunting for a peanut in his ration of hay. He did not find his pin.

I pressed a tiny spring on the under side of my coat lapel, and his pin dangled on a hook and thread from the center of the rose I wore.

"I guess you'll do," he said. I'll see if Mercer has arrived."

"Just a moment," I interposed. "Has it occurred to you what might happen to me if I get caught while putting on this performance?"

"That's your look-out," he retorted.

"Undoubtedly," I replied. "I pulled off the first act blindly, did my best, and failed. But act number two is a little more difficult still. There'll be too many witnesses. I've earned my five hundred, and got it. But I've decided it's going to take a pretty good reason to get me to try for that other bunch of kale."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Frankly, I must be told why I'm to get that ivory eye from Mercer. I'm an honest shoplifter. I'm not aiding and abetting the escape of a murderer, Mr. la Moure."

"What do you mean by that?" flashed at me.

"Blue eyes," I told him meekly.

He laughed a little bitterly and sat down.

"Keck," he said, "when you go out there to the architectural department you'll see a blue-eyed girl. Back in New York she had two suitors— one of them the man who was found dead in Golden Gate Park, Floyd Graff. An artist friend of the three painted the eyes of all of them; and for sentimental reasons they changed them around so that the girl wore in one cuff the eye of one of the men, and in the other cuff the eye of the other one. One of them— the man found dead— followed her when she came to San Francisco. What he did against her she has not told me. But he persecuted her. I only know that— that—

"Well, I went to her apartment when she was away and managed to distract her landlady's attention. I got an ivory eye— the eye of the suitor who is still alive— the man back in New York. You have it now. It must be substituted for the eye found on the dead man before Mercer gets a chance to compare that one with— with—"

"The girl's eyes?" I murmured.

"Yes," he said.

"The role of Cupid always has appealed to me," I told him after a pause. "Go see if Mercer has come."

Mercer had arrived with his apparatus, and a little later Dick la Moure and I left for the architectural rooms. We paused near the entrance. A dozen or more pen-and-ink artists of both sexes were at work over capacious tables. At a smaller table near the center of the room stood Jefferson Mercer, his back toward us, arranging his paraphernalia for the tests. I stepped back partially out of sight and watched through a glass panel beside the door.

Fisher, the white-haired old senior partner, was at the detective's side. When all was ready he cleared his throat, called attention, and told his people what was on the cards, gradually working up to an oratorical outburst about fifteen times as long as necessary. While all concerned waited for the old bird's vocabulary to fail him I took a slant at a dame who seemed to be giving me a lengthy once-over from where she was perched on a high stool.

She was an apricot. Other pretty women might be peaches, but after one look at that unbelievable gold-red hair of hers no one would have thought of a peach. It was like the last touch of the sun on a distant California mountain covered with chaparral. The sun on the sea gives the mountain its wonderful hues as day dies— maybe the sun had caught the trick of playing on this girl's great blue eyes so that the miracle was recorded in her copper hair.

But I was in error. She was not enraptured with my manly physique. A look at Dick la Moure, beside me, convinced me as to the fortunate object of her regard. And Dick was looking at her as an artist looks at a pool of water mottled with splashes of sun and the shadows of wild-grape leaves overhead. Her lips, red as the berries of the California holly, were slightly parted. A pucker, half of perplexity, half of growing worry, crossed her brow. Her eyes were blue as tropic bays made wells by jungles all about. I had seen those eyes. But where? La Moure touched my arm.

I stepped back farther out of sight.

"Keep in the background," he said. "I'll tell you when your chance is good."

It was five minutes afterward that he gave the whispered signal. Then, conversing amiably— at least on my part, for he was white of face and almost speechless— we walked in side by side. Mercer's broad back was toward me.

A man sat across the table from him. The two of them were squinting at each other through some sort of optometrist's instrument. As we approached Mercer told the man to rise. While the detective was penciling some fake data in a notebook old Fisher, master of ceremonies, called:

"You next, please, Miss Hearn."

And, casting one appealing look at La Moure, the girl with the hair of the mountain top arose and went toward Mercer. A vise closed on my arm. whisper grated in my ear:

"Lord! Keck, get it now— now—  now!" Her eyes were blue. I pulled him along. Behind Mercer we stopped. The girl sat down, her red A hoarse lips still parted, her skin like snow. She placed an eye to her end of the instrument. end. Mercer leaned toward his

"Good Lord!" breathed La Moure again. "Keck! Keck!"

I couldn't stand to hear his misery. I took a step, and, with the blue eye La Moure had given me in my hand, I went straight for the lower right-hand pocket of Mercer's vest. I had known I'd find it there. It lay in my palm, moist and warm, in the flirt of a linnet's tail. And in its place reposed the substitute. Outside again La Moure grasped my coat sleeve.

"Did you— did you—"

I laid the miniature in his hand. He took one long look at it. I did the same. A great sigh of relief escaped him as he slipped it in his pocket. I knew now why I thought I'd seen the eyes of the girl of the mountain top before.

"You'd better go now," suggested Dick la Moure quite impolitely.

"No use," I said. "I'll stick around and see the finish. If I were you I'd hide that eye right now," I added.

He was paying little attention. His eyes were on the girl.

We waited. I knew from his movements that Mercer was secretly holding in his hand the eye I had given him, and was comparing it with the girl's. La Moure sighed gratefully as Mercer bade her rise, and old Fisher called another victim before the lens.

"You may go now, Mr. Keck," said La Moure once more, his voice trembling with a new thrill. "I'll meet you in the office and settle up."

I glanced in at Mercer. I saw him lean his head sidewise from his glass and point a finger across the table at a slim young man who was gazing dutifully into the other end of the instrument.

"That will be enough, Mr. Fincastle," came Mercer's clicking tones. The man's eyes left the instrument. He found himself staring across the table at Mercer's leveled finger.

"Hal Fincastle," Mercer's tones rang out, "when did you leave New York City?"

"I— I— why, about three months ago," the young man faltered, his face blanching.

"Why did you kill Floyd Graff?"

The detective shot the question with the precision of a rifle bullet. Fincastle staggered, then fell back in his chair. His countenance was like putty.

"Because he slandered Miss Hearn," he muttered.

Mercer held up the piece of ivory I had just slipped into his vest pocket.

"This is your eye, isn't it?"

"I— think so." He

"You are under arrest."

Mercer turned and looked at me, grinning. "Much obliged, Keck," he remarked. "In another five minutes I'd have had to pick your pocket. I've been trying to get hold of this eye—" he glanced down at the ivory in his hand—"ever since Mr. la Moure took it from Miss Hearn's apartment."

He was about to say something else when there was a diversion. La Moure had walked over to the girl, and was taking her in his arms, right in front of us all. She was crying.

"What was the reason you wouldn't marry me?" he demanded.

"My— father— was in the penitentiary once, and— and Floyd Graff said he would keep me from marrying—"

She came to a dead stop, blushed, and lowered her eyes.

He passed his hand over that wonderful hair.

"Is that all?" he exclaimed, drawing a long breath.

I collected the five hundred from La Moure, and had the doubtful satisfaction of waving it under Mercer's nose.

________________

8: Adjudged Incompetent

Ernest M Poate

1884-1935

Detective Story Magazine 9 April 1921

DOCTOR R. TOWNSEND GORHAM sat alone; and, because his mind was at peace, his craggy, deep-lined countenance wore that cheerfully piratical smile which belied its public gravity and decorum.

The doctor's deep-set eyes roved idly; he was finding great pleasure in the warm reds and browns of his private room, indubitably his once more. He looked at a formidable, red-sealed document upon his desk, the title deeds of the "property known as Sea View Lodge," and reflected that said property was his own, free and unencumbered. He opened his bank book caressingly and read its last credit entry aloud: "Fifty thousand dollars!" And he smacked his lips thereafter, and his cynical leer. would have sat well upon Beelzebub.

True, deeds and money had accrued in fashions best not examined too closely; but that troubled the doctor not at all. Luxuriously relaxed, he chewed the butt of an imported panatela, and, like the rich man in the Bible, fell to sketching out his future plans.

The reputation of Sea View Lodge—"A Modern Sanatorium for the Treatment of Chronic Functional Disorders; Doctor R. Townsend Gorham, Proprietor and Resident Physician"— had been something blown upon of late. Well, that was mere unjust rumor, and the doctor grinned again to think how a published case history of his last patient would have substantiated that rumor. But Mr. Aloysius O'Brine, though more than fifty thousand dollars poorer for his transactions with Doctor Gorham, could be trusted to keep silent for his own sake; and the public memory is short enough.

Sea View Lodge must lie low for a year or two, that was all. The doctor would employ a resident physician, some brilliant, impecunious young man with highest college and hospital honors. There are many such. And the name of R. Townsend Gorham, proprietor, should disappear from the "literature" of Sea View. The doctor would lower his rates— he could afford to now— and fill the house with honest, undistinguished folk such as count pennies and may be lured anywhere by judicious reductions. And Sea View Lodge should minister to them soberly, sedately, honestly, through the medium of a new resident of unquestioned character, until its reputation should be rehabilitated thoroughly.

And then— well, then it would go hard, but Doctor R. Townsend Gorham, re-emergent from obscurity, should better his own villainies.

So he planned, licking in his lips lustfully at thought of the wealthy patients who should one day be lured to Sea View Lodge to pay with careless checks for those "extras" which Doctor Gorham knew so well how to manipulate. He saw himself finally established; one of those physicians to the very rich, so great that their names never appear in print save when appended, in machine-gun salvos, to bulletins setting forth the condition of some dying plutocrat.

A knock at the door shattered his bubble.

"Come in!" called the doctor, blinking in mild regret at memory of its iridescent hues.

A nurse entered, crisply white, a black band upon the cap which crowned her yellow hair.

"Well?" The word was curt enough, but its tone carelessly kind, so that the woman smiled. Her blue eyes held an honest loyalty that accorded oddly with brassy, retouched hair and faded, over-massaged face. Whatever Doctor Gorham's faults— and they were many— his people served him gladly.

"Somebody to see you, doctor. He says his name is Smith, but I don't believe it. He looks— rich!"

"Oh!" said Doctor Gorham and permitted himself to smile. "A man who looks rich, and says his name is Smith! Dear, dear! I'm afraid the fellow has come here for no good purpose. We must send him away," he finished virtuously. "We don't need the money just now." He paused; then: "But you may as well bring him in for a minute."

"Yes, doctor," replied the nurse, uncomprehendingly obedient. She was not unused to Doctor Gorham's odd remarks. She was his instrument; so sure of her was the doctor that he neither bridled his tongue before her nor troubled to explain his nefarious purposes.

She withdrew and presently returned with the stranger; a slight man, pale, thin-lipped, and precise, immaculate.

"Mr.— ah— Smith?" inquired Doctor Gorham, his craggy face decorous and sedate. "And how can I serve you, sir?" His manner was dignified, suave, irreproachably professional, so that the stranger's close-set black eyes wavered and fell as in disappointment. The doctor's strange green, rust-flecked eyes examined his guest with care. Then he grinned at the other's comically baffled look.

"Mr. Smith" looked up in time to catch the full value of that humorously conscienceless leer, and brightened visibly thereat.

"Ah!" he murmured. "Perhaps I was not misled, after all."

He rubbed the tip of his nose, which was sharp, blue-white, and translucent, then picked an imaginary fleck of lint from his inhumanly spotless blue serge coat. Then he drew forth a snow-white handkerchief and wiped his hands daintily. Appraising these mannerisms, Doctor Gorham picked up the title deeds and bank book which still lay on his desk, put them into a drawer, locked the drawer, and mechanically pocketed its key.

"This bird got his money by robbing babies' banks," he decided silently, for he was no mean psychologist. Then, aloud and rather contemptuously:

"Suppose we tell our real names first. Mine's Gorham. Then we can get down to cases."

Mr. Smith fidgeted, rubbed his long, sharp nose, smiled thinly.

"Well, you see," he began. "The fact is—" He stopped, and his little black eyes ran about the room and came to rest on the open window. The door was shut. Maliciously Doctor Gorham rose and closed the window also. At once the stranger began to breathe faster. His handkerchief came out once more; he mopped a high, narrow forehead.

"I— isn't it very close in here?" he asked, fumbling at his collar.

Doctor Gorham grinned once more.

"You want privacy, don't you?" His tone was unfeeling. "Go ahead, now; I'll keep your secret."

Mr. Smith walked to the door and opened it, using a handkerchief so that his hand did not touch the knob. He stood there a moment, breathing deep, and turned.

"I can't talk here," he asserted. "You — I— Mr. A. J. O'Brine tells me that your walls have ears. Will you come for a drive with me?"

Doctor Gorham laughed out loud.

"I am an honest man," said he, but his expression belied the words. "However, if your conscience is uneasy, come along!" He rose, took hat and gloves from a closet, and led the way out of the house.

"We can walk down by the water," he suggested. "We'll be perfectly safe there."

The other shook his head, stubbornly suspicious.

"I'd rather drive out a ways," he insisted.

The doctor shrugged. "Have it your own way. This your car?" And he climbed into a small roadster. "Aren't you afraid of being traced by the license number?"

Mr. Smith smiled in thin pride. "Not my car," he explained. "It belongs to a man named— ah— Smith."

He mounted to the driver's seat, pulled on thick gloves, and started his engine. They swung out of the grounds of Sea View Lodge and drove in silence for two or three miles.

At last the car struck off into an unfrequented lane and stopped at the roadside. The stranger climbed down, and Doctor Gorham followed, observing with interest how open fields stretched away on every side and rendered any unseen approach impossible. He could contain his amused curiosity no longer.

"Well," demanded the doctor, "what is it? Arson, murder, or treason? Surely you wouldn't take all these precautions for anything less."

The other rubbed his nose, produced Detective Story Magazine another snowy handkerchief, unfolded it, and wiped his hands. "I shall now explain," said he precisely.

"It's about time!" drawled Gorham.

"Ah! What I am about to say is under the seal of professional confidence, doctor."

"Oh, the devil! I keep that seal in my office. Get to it, man— get to it!"

"Ah! I desire to consult you regarding my nephew and ward, whose health alarms me greatly."

At that the doctor unleashed his Satanic leer. The rust-red flecks seemed to dance in his green irises.

"Too healthy, is he? And now I will have his name, and yours— or go home!"

The other writhed, wet his lips, mopped his forehead, mumbled something. Then, seeing that the doctor was contemptuously adamantine, he yielded.

"Ah! Why, yes— certainly, doctor. I was about to explain. I am Peter van der Meer, Third. My nephew is Oswald Lodge Standish."

He rang out the names like patents of nobility.

"Humph!" said the doctor. "Never heard of either of you. G'wan— shoot !" His tone held disgust.

Van der Meer's lips tightened; his sharp nose seemed to grow sharper, its blue-white tip more transparent. But he continued evenly.

"My nephew is a very peculiar young man; delicate, dreamy, nervous. He lacks judgment; he is an idealist." He made of the word an epithet. "Of late he has fallen into the hands of a very dangerous group, and their unsound theories have obsessed him. The boy comes of age very soon. He will then inherit— ah, a very considerable fortune, of which I have the honor to be trustee. And the boy threatens to dissipate it all, to place his entire estate in the hands of a 'board' of men, to be used for the furtherance of impractical 'reforms.' "

The speaker sighed. "Poor Oswald! I fear that his mind is permanently unbalanced."

"Humph!" repeated Doctor Gorham. "It's his money, isn't it? Why not let him go to the devil in his own way?"

And then, as the other stammered incoherent platitudes: "Don't lie to me, man! You're afraid to give an accounting of trust funds, and you know it. Now, go on from there."

Van der Meer wiped his hands with care. "I admit nothing," he stated precisely. "But let us assume what you choose. The point is, my nephew is of unsound mind; he should be under surveillance."

"Adjudged incompetent, you mean— with Peter van der Meer, Third, as committee of his person and estate? Well, commit him, then. New York's full of alienists. Why pick on me?"

"Ah! Why— well, you see, there's a d-difference of opinion—"

"Humph!" said Doctor Gorham. "It takes you the longest time to get to the point! You want me to drive the boy crazy for you. Is that it?"

The beady eyes made a circuit. Finding the fields empty, Mr. van der Meer leaned forward.

"I want you to arrange matters so that my poor, afflicted nephew can be kept safe and given proper care at your institution."

"Can't be done. Sea View isn't a licensed house, and I won't take any chances with the State Hospital Commission. Let's go."

The other writhed. An unhealthy, blue-white shine came upon his pale face.

"Oh, doctor— help me!" he begged. Doctor Gorham had turned toward the waiting car. Now he hesitated for a moment then swung sharply back.

"Help you?" he repeated, smiling maliciously. "Well, not for love, my friend! I don't like a hair of your head."

"How— how much?"

The doctor leered. "Aha! That's where you should have begun. Old Doctor Gorham, that's me; specialist in all sorts of dirty work. Terms, cash in advance. How much have you got?"

"I— I'll give you a thou— five thousand dollars!"

Doctor Gorham laughed outright.

"Cigarette money! I don't have a flat rate for this sort of thing; I prefer to work on a percentage basis. Just how much does your nephew inherit? And mind"— as Van der Meer's eyes shifted craftily—"mind, I'll have this checked up myself. And if I find you've lied to me I'll have no more to do with you!"

Cowed by the other's dominance, Mr. van der Meer looked down, wet his lips, and wiped his hands again.

"About two million dollars," he answered sulkily. "I cannot say exactly without making a schedule."

"Humph! Put the boy in my hands, and I'll engage to have him adjudged insane by disinterested experts, committed to some licensed house for the insane— any one you like— and kept there for, say, six months. After that it'll be up to you to keep him in, if you can. There's my offer; in return I'll take ten per cent of the money involved— cash in advance."

Van der Meer threw up his hands with a ludicrous, desperate squeak. "Two hundred thousand dollars! Impossible!"

"As you like. I can afford to eat meat twice a week without your help. But whoever gave you the impression that I was a cheap crook?"

"Don't go yet, doctor! Wait one minute. Aloysius O'Brine dropped a hint about you."

Gorham turned back, grinning. "Aloysius O'Brine! Yes, yes, yes. And what did that dear Aloysius say about me?"

"He said you were smart as a whip, doctor, but— but— but that you'd bear watching."

"Humph! He tried-to crook me. I take it you accept my terms?"

The other nodded reluctantly.

"Well, Vandy, play square with me, and I'll deliver. But, if you try to double-cross me, as O'Brine did, you'll find yourself in a tight place! Yes, yes, yes; in a very tight place!"

The doctor's lips still smiled, but his strange green, rust-flecked eyes were cold and menacing.

At his words Van der Meer flinched visibly, thrusting out his hands defensively. Sweat sprang out on his narrow forehead; he breathed faster; his eyes ran over the open fields as though to reassure him of freedom.

"A— a tight place!" he whispered fearfully, and wiped lips and forehead. "No, no!"

Then, recovering somewhat: "Absurd, doctor! Naturally I will carry out my obligations."

"You'd better," said Doctor Gorham grimly. And to himself: "He was frightened when I shut that window in the office; and now he throws a fit because I talk about tight places. I have that bird's number; and Heaven help him if he tries to crook me!" The doctor was indeed a practical psychologist. "All right, then," he went on, aloud. "Bring your nephew to Sea View in a week; say next Friday. I'll be ready for him then. And bring along two hundred thousand dollars, certified check or currency; otherwise he goes right— back— home!"

Mr. van der Meer groaned, rather like a man who watches the surgeon, knife  in hand, approaching his leg, but he made no further protest.

The two drove back to Sea View in silence, and as Doctor Gorham climbed out of the little car his companion checked him.

"How shall I persuade Oswald to come here?" The doctor grinned once more,  widely, evilly.

"That," he replied, "is your business."

The mask of professional suavity dropped swiftly over his face, so that it became gravely sympathetic, confidence-inspiring.

"I shall give your dear nephew my very particular care, and we must hope for the best. Yes, yes, yes! Good day, Mr.— ah— Smith!"

Back in his office Doctor Gorham summoned his head nurse. "Thirty will have to be done over," he announced. "I'm going to the city, to pick out the— ah— decorations. I want the furniture and rugs cleared | away before I get back."

And he departed for New York, to return late that afternoon with the tonneau of his car full of queer-shaped packages.

Thirty was the apartment at Sea View Lodge set aside for really profitable patients, the sort of thing which, in high-priced sanatoria, corresponds to the "bridal suite" of hotels and ocean liners. It was empty now, as, indeed, the whole third floor was empty; and Doctor Gorham rejoiced thereat, because of his projected alterations. He carried his packages to the third floor, and thence, by way of a step-ladder and trapdoor, to the unfinished attic above. Here, overall-clad and alone, he crawled about on the unfloored joists until he had located apartment thirty.

With knife and saw he hacked ruthlessly at the lath beneath him until six-inch holes gaped in the ceilings of its bedroom and bath. Then he cut similar openings at opposite corners of the sitting-room ceiling. Working by the light of an electric flash lamp the doctor set into each opening a short, wide-mouthed horn of black rubber, the smaller end of which was stopped by a diaphragm. When all four were in place and well anchored with strips of surgeon's plaster he attached insulated wires to binding posts upon the base of each, and twisted the wires into a loose cable as he crawled toward the north side of the house. With his head bumping a rafter and collecting many cobwebs therefrom the doctor tied a weight to his cable, of which some sixteen feet remained, and lowered it cautiously between two studs which he selected by counting from the northwest corner. Then he crawled laboriously back to the scuttle and lowered himself through. Still overalled, tools in pockets, and one last package under his arm he descended the stairs to his own private office on the second floor. Here, on the north side, a bookcase stood between two windows. The doctor took down an armful of books, exposing plaster, for the case was backless. He tapped with a hammer to locate the studding, then cut a small hole in the wall and groped therein with a long-necked hook. His intent face and deft, slender fingers gave him an odd resemblance to some surgeon operating through a small incision upon a serious case.

Presently his exploring tenaculum stopped moving. Then the doctor drew it out, and with it came the bight of his loosely-twisted cable. At this he pulled gently, until the wrappings about its end appeared. He cut the string, and the weight, released, dropped down between lath and siding.

Doctor Gorham unwrapped his last package. From it he took an ordinary telephone transmitter, without a base, a dry-cell battery, and a four-way switch such as is used in small private-wire installations. These he connected with his wires, leaving all at the back of the bookcase shelf. Then he sighed, dusted his hands, and called his head nurse.

She entered to find the doctor gazing lovingly upon his handiwork. It was a task well within the capabilities of a man who had specialized in electrotherapy; yet, he thought, it was not without ingenuity.

"First clean up this mess," he told the nurse. "Then, in five minutes, take this phone. Move the switch here onto the first button, and say 'Hello,' then on the second, third, and fourth, in order, saying 'Hello' each time."

"Yes, doctor."

Incuriously obedient, the tired, brassy-haired woman began to pick up bits of plaster while Doctor Gorham went out and upstairs to apartment thirty.

He entered the bare sitting room, whose floor was powdered with the plaster loosed by his work in the attic, and grinned up at the two black horns set in opposite corners of its ceiling. Then he placed himself in the inner doorway and waited patiently.

Five minutes.

Then suddenly: "Hello, doctor!" came a voice from the empty bedroom. And louder: "Hello, doctor!" came from the bathroom; and, "Hello, doctor !— Hello, doctor!" blared from the sitting room, right in his ears.

The voice of that empty room was loud, hoarse, sepulchrally inhuman, so that even the man who had given space a tongue flinched therefrom. It reverberated from the walls until Doctor Gorham, staring straight at the black horns of its issuance, fancied that it came from the thin air.

"Good !" said the doctor softly. "Excellent! Yes, yes, yes. Bedroom, bath, sitting room, in that order. Come along, Oswald; we're waiting on you!" And he rubbed his hands together, smiling satanically.

He locked apartment thirty and carried off the keys. He went to his office, where the nurse had already cleared away all marks of his work, and replaced the books in their case so that his private telephone was hidden. And then, and not till then, he took off his overalls, washed, and went down to his solitary dinner. It was after nine o'clock.

Next morning early the doctor and his head nurse went into an executive session. Up in apartment thirty Doctor Gorham labored with paste brush and wall paper while his faithful aide steadied a wabbling step ladder. In an hour or two fresh squares of stiff paper covered all the ceiling holes. Then the nurse departed to test again the hidden telephone amplifiers. The hoarse, unnatural voice was muted slightly, but still distinct, and its source was even more indeterminate than before, so that Doctor Gorham looked upon his work and found it good.

"Clean up here yourself," he told the nurse. "I'll have the decorators come in the morning; and then I want you to special them. Stick right close. Say the boss is awful particular; say you're afraid they'll steal the plumbing; say you want to learn the trade— I don't care what you do. Only see that nobody pokes holes in my patches or gets too curious round this suite. Understand ?"

"Yes, doctor."

The nurse bobbed a blonded head, and her sagging, over-massaged face set into lines of uncomprehending determination.

ON THURSDAY Mr. van der Meer opened formal negotiations through his family physician, a very eminent practitioner.

"Sending you a patient," announced this worthy. "Boy about twenty. Nothing much the matter with him. Bit anemic. Needs rest. Light exercise; liberal diet; no medication. Understand ?"

Listening to the gruff, authoritative tones, Doctor Gorham grinned into his telephone.

"Gosh, how he hates it!" he thought. "Wonder how dear Vandy persuaded old Jefferson to send the boy to me?" And aloud:

"Yes, doctor. Yes, yes, yes. I can make room for him to-morrow, I think."

"Huh! Guess you can! Name's Standish. G'by!"

"He loves me not," remarked the doctor placidly. He knew that Doctor R. A. C. Jefferson, like most of his colleagues, considered Sea View Lodge a swindle and its proprietor no better than a quack; but in the imminence of two hundred thousand dollars that seemed of no importance.

At eleven o'clock on Friday Oswald Lodge Standish appeared, emergent from a huge imported limousine, accompanied by his uncle and attended by a valet and a nurse. Doctor Gorham received him at the steps, irreproachably suave, virtuously grave.

"This is the patient? Yes, yes, yes. How do you do, my boy? We'll take good care of you here; get you on your feet in no time. Yes, yes, yes! You'll want to rest, of course. Nurse, take Mr. Standish to his rooms. And this is—"

He turned to Peter van der Meer, hand outstretched, face a courteous blank. "Some relative, perhaps? Ah, yes; an uncle. Come with me, Mr. Standish. Oh, Van der Meer? Pardon me. Just come to my office, please, until I get a brief history of the case."

He led the way to his private room, and Van der Meer followed dubiously. Within, the doctor turned upon his visitor a face composed to such grave decorum, shining with such simple goodness of heart, that the latter was visibly agitated.

"Have I made a mistake, after all?" he muttered.

Doctor Gorham smiled. His decorous mask slipped aside, and a leering devil peeped from behind it.

"Not unless you forgot my money."

Peter van der Meer sighed, in mingled relief and anguish.

"No, I have it," he answered, clutching his breast with both hands.

"Cash in advance," said the doctor bluntly, and tapped his desk with a finger tip.

Slowly, moving with painful reluctance beneath the physician's eye, Mr. van der Meer produced a packet of bills; crisp, beautiful yellow ones, whose denominations caused Doctor Gorham to lick his lips avidly. He laid them carefully down, one at a time, and as each left his thin, caressing fingers his tight lips drooped more ruefully, his pale face turned paler, as though with each bill went more of his heart's blood. Doctor Gorham watched contemptuously.

"You enjoy spending, don't you, Vandy?" he said jeeringly, as he snatched the last bill from the other's lingering clutch, swept the whole sum into his desk drawer, locked the drawer, and pocketed its key. "That's that," he went on, rising. "Go home now— and take that nurse and that valet along with you. I've got help enough. And stay away until I send for you."

The other picked imaginary specks from his speckless clothes. He fidgeted, wiped his hands daintily, wet his lips.

"But— but," he whispered, "how are you going to manage it?"

"That's my business."

"I demand to know! I have paid out this enormous sum, and what guarantees have I?"

The strange green, rust-flecked eyes beat down the black ones. "Why, none at all, Vandy dear. But you needn't be alarmed; I'm an honest crook. And while we're on the subject, let me warn you again: Live up to your bargain; don't try to renege or you will find yourself in— a— tight— place, Vandy!"

The visitor gasped and shivered; sweat rimed his forehead. Evidently the picture called up by Doctor Gorham's words was unpleasant, even alarming. "I— I wish you would not call me 'Vandy,' " he muttered, striving by petulance to recapture his shaken poise.

The doctor smiled, then sobered, and ushered his guest out formally.

"Good day, Mr. van der Meer! It has been a pleasure to meet you. I wish it might have been in less distressing circumstances. Yes, yes, yes!"

He shook hands impressively, then watched his departing guest wipe both hands over and over, as though to cleanse them of his touch. At the sight the rust-red flecks seemed to dance in the clear green of his eyes, but his face remained sober and sympathetic.

At last he turned and went upstairs to ingratiate himself with his latest patient.

Oswald Standish proved to be a dreamy, ineffectual youth, now somewhat resentful. The doctor read him swiftly and accurately; this boy might sulk, but he would submit to domination for lack of the initiative to combat it. Rather than make a real effort to satisfy his desires he would solace himself with daydreams.

With the rare tact of the practiced physician Doctor Gorham soon had his patient at ease, and mounted upon the hobby of which Van der Meer had told him.

Listening with half an-ear to the boy's incoherent expositions of illogic, Doctor Gorham planned out his campaign. Oswald Standish was an impractical dreamer; so much was essential. With a few soothing remarks, and the veiled suggestion that capital, which he wished to destroy, might retaliate upon Oswald Standish, the doctor left his patient and repaired to his own office.

There he gathered up the money Van der Meer had left, pocketed his bank book and the deeds to Sea View Lodge, and drove to New York. Before he returned his own proper bank account had been reduced to five thousand dollars, Sea View Lodge had been mortgaged to its full value, for cash, and the doctor had made deposits in seven different banks, and under as many names, aggregating two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

On the way home, "Vandy dear will try to crook me," he remarked to himself. ''I saw it in his little rat-eye. But I fear he'll have trouble in getting his money back, now!"

At Sea View Lodge a placid routine prevailed. A few unimportant patients came and were housed downstairs; but Doctor Gorham kept the third floor vacant, save for apartment thirty. There Oswald Lodge Standish remained, passably content, reading radical literature and writing never-to-be-published pamphlets.

He got no medication, but the doctor visited him twice daily, spent long hours with him, took him for walks, listened sympathetically to his theories, ingratiated himself, until the boy was charmed.

Doctor Gorham was in no haste to act; he had been paid in advance, and his patient's guardian settled the bills weekly, including "extras" of colossal size and ingenious diversity.

So for a month. Then came a letter from Peter van der Meer, asking after his nephew's health, "for it will soon be necessary for him, if physically able, to assume the administration of his own property."

Doctor Gorham read, and grinned. "Physically— the devil!" he remarked, he had the habit of soliloquy. "Vandy's getting impatient. Oh, well— it's time to start, anyhow."

He sent for his charge nurse, and they two went into executive session. That afternoon the doctor sat with his patient in the living room of apartment thirty. For the hundredth time young Standish was outlining the world's future.

"And then the proletariat will be free!" he finished. "Ha, ha, ha!"

Out of the empty air a raucous, ghostly, sneering laugh mocked his conclusion. Oswald started.

"Wh-what was that?" he demanded.

"What was what?" asked Doctor Gorham calmly. "Somebody laughed. There it is again!"

That sardonic "Ha, ha, ha!" rang out again, like the laughter of the damned, and Oswald Standish clutched at the doctor's arm, chattering. "There! Hear that? Wh-what— where is it?"

"My dear boy, you're overwrought. Calm yourself! There's no one here; you can see for yourself. Come; we'll take a little walk. You've been staying in too much; it makes you nervous."

And throughout a three-mile tramp Doctor Gorham lectured to his patient upon electricity, wireless telegraphs, and telephones— a safely indifferent subject surely, and one to calm shaken nerves.

Next day, during the doctor's morning visit, a harsh, shrill voice pealed out of nothing with shocking abruptness.

"Capital will hound you," it announced. "Capital will kill you!"

Doctor Gorham was talking. He finished his remark placidly, quite oblivious of the interruption, but Oswald leaped upright.

"Listen!" he cried. "Listen? My dear boy, what is it? Your nerves are all unstrung. I hear nothing."

"There's somebody— s-something— in this room!"

The doctor shook his head gravely, but rose.

"Come," said he, obviously humoring an absurd whim, "we'll search."

And so they searched all three rooms, but found nothing. The doctor talked wisely of obsessions and phobias—  sounding words, that conveyed no meaning to his patient— and finished jokingly:

"Why, it's absurd! One would think somebody was using a wireless telephone on you!"

But Oswald's answering laugh rang hollow.

And so the campaign went on. At unexpected moments, day or night, hollow  voices issued from space, mocking Oswald Standish.

"Capital is hounding you!" they asserted. "We'll get you!" they said gloatingly. 'We'll punish you! Ha, ha, ha!"

Such were the voices during the day when Doctor Gorham sat with his patient but never seemed to hear them.

But of nights, when the doctor sat alone in his office, they were deeper, gruffer, more threatening: and what they said was mostly unprintable.

Another month went by, with Oswald Standish growing thinner and more agitated day by day. He ceased to talk of the commonwealth and devoted his time to silent brooding.

At times he burst into pitiful pleadings, striving to convince his physician, or the brassy-haired nurse, that these were real voices which haunted him.

They both listened patiently and made soothing, noncommittal replies.

At last he sent for the doctor.

"I've figured it out now," he declared. "I begin to understand. Capital's been spying on me, doctor. Capital is afraid of me. I'm being hounded over the wireless telephone. They threaten me; they call me horrible names in the night. It's all a plot against me, and I think my uncle's mixed up in it. I want you to help me— to do something!"

Doctor Gorham listened, all sympathy, murmured platitudes, prescribed a sedative, and then went straight to his office and put in a call for New York.

"Mr. van der Meer?" when at last a thin voice came back over the wire, "I'm afraid I can't keep your nephew here any longer.... What? Better?" He grinned to himself. "No, I'm sorry to say he's worse. I fear his mind is giving way.... Yes, he ought to be committed. Select any two alienists you like, or ask Doctor Jefferson to do it for you, and send them out here to examine him. I really don't think the boy is fit to come to the city just now."

Next day the examiners in lunacy appeared. They were capable men, of unimpeachable standing, and Doctor Gorham received them with sorrowful confidence.

"A sad case, gentlemen. Of reclusive makeup, dreamy, impractical, full of vague theories. And lately he's been hallucinating actively. Yes, yes, yes. Imagines 'capital' is hounding him."

The alienists made a joint examination, Doctor Gorham listening gravely. There was a conspiracy against him, declared Oswald Standish. The Capitalist Ring was tormenting him, abusing him, threatening him, over the wireless telephone. He felt strange sensations all over his body; they were putting electricity on him. They called him names.

"Don't you hear them, right now ?"

Doctor Gorman shook his head.

"He's really hallucinating now," he thought. "The poor mutt! I only meant to make them think he was crazy."

He felt a swift prick of compunction. "But after all," he comforted himself, "the boy must have been due for it. I've only hurried matters a bit; my stunts would never have upset a normal mind. He's got dementia praecox, all right. The poor kid was doomed, without my help."

The alienists completed their tests and sent Oswald back to his rooms.

"Not a doubt of it, Doctor Gorham," declared the senior. "A clear case of dementia praecox."

He produced a blue-covered pamphlet and began to write. "Not suicidal or assaultive, is he? No. Well, keep him here to-night. I'll have the petition made out, and Judge Rohan can sign the commitment in the morning. I'd suggest Bloomingdale Yes, doctor?"

His colleague nodded.

"Quite so. They'll send after him to-morrow, then. Afternoon, Gorham."

They departed, and Doctor Gorham, muttering under his breath, donned overalls, collected tools, and called to his head nurse. "Move Oswald down to twenty-one," he ordered. "Right away. Special him there."

As soon as the third floor was vacated he climbed to the attic and tore out his installation viciously. Descending to his office, he disconnected battery and transmitter, and wrapped the whole devilish contrivance into a bundle. Then he carried the bundle to the waterside— for by now it was dark— and flung it from a rock into the Sound.

"There!" he muttered. "And I wish Peter van der Meer were with you.... I wish I'd never meddled with this thing!"

And he walked back to Sea View Lodge with his head down.

NEXT DAY Oswald Standish was taken away, mumbling to himself and picking at his fingers. But his uncle, Peter van der Meer, did not come after him, nor did he send a check for the boy's last week at Sea View. Doctor Gorham was disgusted, but unsurprised.

"The small-time thief!" said he sweetly. "The hide's gone; but he'll save the tail if he can."

And he resigned himself to wait, determined to sue for his account at the end of two weeks.

The fortnight passed, and the doctor called up the office of the sheriff of New York County, to make sure that Van der Meer had been appointed committee of his nephew's person and estate.

He had, three days before.

As Doctor Gorham hung up his charge nurse knocked and entered. "There's a— a man to see you, doctor."

She was pushed aside. A Semitic person, dressed in something nobby and cheap, entered, walked up to the doctor's desk and tapped him on the shoulder with a folded paper.

"Served," said he, grinning, and departed forthwith. Doctor Gorham unfolded the document.

" 'Summons and complaint,' " he read. "Humph! 'Peter van der Meer, as committee of the person and estate of Oswald Lodge Standish, an incompetent... Damages in the sum of two hundred fifty thousand dollars… for malpractice, in that said incompetent person became a lunatic because of the improper medical treatment and wilful negligence of...' "

Doctor Gorham laid down the summons carefully.

"Malpractice!" he repeated, grinning reluctantly. "Malpractice is right; but he can't prove it. And if he did, he couldn't find the money. But just think of it! The black-hearted, welshing thief! Ye gods! Are there no honest crooks?"

_________________

9: The Sealed Envelope

Christopher B. Booth

1889-1950

Detective Story Magazine 9 April 1921

1:  The Missing Packet

A SHAFT of sunlight, darting A through an open place in the jagged sky line of office buildings, bathed the big, luxurious office in its rays, gleaming upon Samuel. P. Weaver's silvered hair and accentuating each haggard line of the banker's finely chiseled features. He turned away from the wide window which looked down upon "Bankers' Row," as if to hide his anguish from the probing light.

Within ten minutes he seemed to have aged ten years. His shoulders, by custom possessing an almost military erectness, drooped dejectedly like those of an old man, broken and beaten, as he slumped into the chair beside his desk. Many who called him "the human icicle" would have looked on in incredulous amazement could they have seen the tears which came to his eyes as he stared into the face which smiled at him from the silver frame. The picture was the massive desk's only ornament and his daily shrine.

"How can you smile, Bennie Lou?" he whispered. It wrenched his heart to know that the events of the day would blot out that smile, just as at that moment a smudgy cloud of smoke stifled the sunshine which had poured in through the window, leaving the room as dreary and as dark as Weaver's own thoughts. Her smile was very much like sunshine.

The face of the photograph was a feminine counterpart of the banker's: the same pride, the same force of character were there, despite the delicately rounded features. It was a habit of Samuel P. Weaver's, in the privacy of this big room, where much of the financial history of the West had been made, to talk to his daughter as if she were present in the flesh.

"Another hundred thousand I've made for you to-day, Bennie Lou," he would say after a coup. "I'm going to make you the richest girl in the West, my dear." Samuel P. Weaver was wise in his way, but not wise enough to realize that happiness is not always weighed on the money scales.

The banker's fingers, tightly laced in a paroxysm of anguish, parted, and he fumbled for the second time at the button which was innocently concealed within the desk carvings. The spring released, he slid open the secret drawer, peering into its shallow recesses as if hoping that his eyes had tricked him and that the packet was still there.

The drawer was empty; the sealed manila envelope was, as he already knew, gone! "I must get it back— I must!" he declared. "I must undo this terrible thing; I must get it back."

Instantly his mind turned to Philip Jordan, criminal investigator par excellence, whose shrewd brain had solved a number of matters for the Gibraltar Trust Company. He and Jordan were personal friends.

"I don't dare call Jordan," he said to himself. "He would ferret out the truth of the whole miserable business in five minutes— and no one must know, Jordan least of all."

With Philip Jordan his profession of criminal investigator, a sort of scientific sleuth, was only a hobby. He was a rich man and a vice president of the Gibraltar Trust Company, one of the dozen men immediately concerned with the loss of the sealed manila envelope.

The missing packet, which could be thrust into a coat pocket without making a perceptible bulge, contained a document worth millions of dollars and Samuel P. Weaver's prestige as a banker. On the desk top reposed a package from which the wrapping of plain paper had been torn and hastily replaced ; from the edges there peeped the color of yellow— as yellow as the minted gold which the certificates represented. The package contained a fortune in thousand-dollar bills, yet Weaver, who loved gold with almost a Midas-like mania, pushed it from him with a shudder.

The banker— the human icicle— lowered his head within the pillow of his outflung arms, and his shoulders were convulsed by a dry, silent sob.

2:  Walter Thornton Resigns.

AT WINDOW No. 5 of the Gibraltar Trust Company, labeled "Receiving Teller, S to Z," where Walter Thornton presided, the stream of depositors had been reduced to a mere trickle.

Thornton tossed aside his pen and suspended from the grilled opening the metal sign: "Apply at Window No. 4."

"Take care of my deposits for a few minutes, Reynolds," he called to the teller in the adjoining cage. "I'll be back soon."

Reynolds sneered as the sliding metal gate clicked shut behind Thornton.

"Guess he's going in to chin old Weaver," he said in a loud aside to the man at Window 3. "Hanged if I wouldn't hate to be holding a job through pull— I'd drive a truck first."

Thornton flushed, for he overheard the remark, as it was intended that he should. He had heard it before— but he wouldn't hear it much longer. He rapped at the door of President Weaver's private office and turned the knob in response to the muffled "Come!" from the other side.

He stopped on the threshold with an exclamation of concern at sight of the financier's haggard countenance, for the banker had not been able to mask the tortured ferment of his thoughts.

"Mr. Weaver, you are ill!"

"Nothing of the sort," snapped 'the banker. "Come in and shut the door. What can I do for you? Make it brief, for I am very busy this afternoon."

"Mr. Weaver, something has happened," insisted Thornton.

"Nothing that concerns you, young man," replied Weaver tartly. "Please tell me quickly what you want."

"Perhaps I had better see you at another time."

"Now's as good as any, You want another raise, I suppose. Well, you won't get it."

"No, Mr. Weaver, I don't want another raise, but I am resigning from the bank, to take effect on the first of the month," replied Thornton.

"And of course," said Weaver with a tinge of sarcasm, "this is far too important a matter to have taken up with Mr. Davidson; it is, to be sure, a sad blow to the bank."

Thornton flushed, for he did not need to be told that his career in the bank had been a failure.

"Ordinarily, I would have taken it up with Mr. Davidson, but there is a personal element which enters into the matter, and—"

"Personal element?" interrupted the banker, frowning. "You mean that you want me to help you into a new position? Of course, if I can do anything for the nephew of my old friend, the late senator, I will do it."

"No, it isn't that," answered Thornton almost bitterly. "Too many people have been doing things for me because I am 'Senator Thornton's nephew.' The job in the bank here was given not to Walter Thornton, but to 'Senator Thornton's nephew.' I think possibly I might have gone ahead here if I hadn't had it constantly hurled at me, said behind my back, and to my face: 'He keeps his job because he is Senator Thornton's nephew.'

"It takes the starch out of a chap to be denied any individuality of his own, to be forever classed as a dependent on a relative's success, I am now thirty-two years old and an able-bodied man, and— it's time I was paddling my own canoe."

The banker looked at Thornton with new interest, for he had always considered him with tolerant pity, contrasting the youngster's likable good nature with the aggressive driving force of the uncle.

"What woke you up, Walter?" he asked kindly.

"I can't support a wife on my income," said Thornton.

"You can't, eh?" retorted Weaver sarcastically. "You have a salary of thirty dollars a week from the bank and the five thousand a year that your uncle left you. You can't support a wife on a hundred and thirty dollars a week? Preposterous! I supported a wife on twenty a week." He had a banker's characteristic notion of economics.

"I should say," amended Thornton, "that I cannot support her in the manner to which she is accustomed— the girl, Mr. Weaver, is— is Bennie Lou, and—"

The bank president glanced at the picture of his daughter as if he expected to see her lips move and deny this absurd statement. He knew that Walter Thornton had been a frequent visitor at the Weaver ménage, but he had considered him only as an old family friend, certainly not as a possible suitor. For the moment he forgot about the missing manila envelope.

"Do you mean to tell me, young man, that you've had the nerve— you a thirty-dollar-a-week bank clerk, without either prospects or ambition— to ask my daughter to share your comparative poverty?" he demanded accusingly. "Your entire income would not buy her clothes."

"Perhaps I did not have the right— from your viewpoint," replied Thornton. "I had determined not to ask her, but— I forgot that I was poor— I forgot everything, Mr. Weaver, except that I loved Bennie Lou. I am not a fortune hunter— I don't want your money. I don't even want the job that you gave me because I was 'Senator Thornton's nephew.' My resignation takes effect on the first."

"And what profession, may I ask, is now to profit from your talents?" demanded the banker in a hostile tone.

Thornton smiled grimly, for he knew that an explosion was to follow.

"Mr. Weaver," he said calmly, "I am entering a private-detective agency."

The banker searched Thornton's face for some hint of humor as his own features purpled.

"A detective!" he exclaimed. "You stand there and in all seriousness tell me that my daughter is about to marry a— a detective?"

"So she says," replied Thornton with a tender smile at the photograph on the desk. To his mind's fancy, she nodded encouragingly.

"Is it a dishonorable profession? Perhaps it is hardly on the social plane with a bank president, but I might remind you, Mr. Weaver—" He stopped in confusion, on the brink of an impertinence.

"Go ahead, say it!" commanded the banker. "I'm not a bit ashamed of the fact that I got my start in life driving a horse car; I'm a self-made man and proud of it. But a detective— ye gods! What ever put such an asinine notion into your head? The papers would laugh the Weaver family out of Chicago. Does Bennie Lou know of this crazy notion of yours?"

"She does, and she thinks the work I am interested in is what I should do. I don't see why you should be so antagonistic about it. There's Jordan; his fees are enormous, and he is received everywhere socially. The papers haven't laughed him out of town."

"I hope you are not trying to put yourself in the same class with Jordan," retorted Weaver witheringly. "He's a scientific investigator— a scientist, in fact, not an ordinary detective. Besides, he had money, and his work is more or less a hobby with him. You have no experience for such work; it takes study and training.

"Sit down, Walter; sit down," he continued more kindly. "If Bennie Lou has made up her mind that you are essential to her happiness, I might as well try to dam Niagara as to argue with her. But a detective— tut! tut! That will never do— never! That's just a juvenile notion that you have carried with you over into manhood. Every youngster has a sneaking notion that he would make a famous detective.

"Humph! I guess I'd better put you into the loans and discounts department as. Fortner's assistant, and, a little later, have the directors give you a vice presidency."

Thornton shook his head.

"No, I've made up my mind, and it may not be such a wild idea as you think, I have been interested in criminology for several years, and for the past few months Tom Braddigan of the detective bureau has been taking me around evenings, when he was working on cases. He is a capable routine man and knows police methods thoroughly. He says I'll make a good partner, and we are going into partnership."

"Bosh!" said Weaver. "This Braddigan is working you; he's going to let you pay the office rent and use your social connections to bring in business. That's his game. Forget it; you go into loans and discounts Monday morning."

"No," declared Thornton doggedly, "I'd rather be a detective on my own merits than a bank vice president because I was Samuel P. Weaver's son-in-law."

The picture of Bennie Lou seemed to nod a hearty "bravo."

The banker eyed the younger man appraisingly, and for the first time he saw the aggressive thrust of the jaw, the steadiness of the gray eyes, the somehow capable look about him. Accustomed as he was to sizing up men, he wondered why it was that he had always seen "Senator Thornton's nephew" and not Walter Thornton, the man.

"A detective—" he began, but his voice stopped abruptly as he glanced down at the secret drawer, whose yawning emptiness brought back a poignant. realization of his troubles. He glanced from the drawer again to Walter Thornton's face.

"Why not?" he thought. "I don't dare call in Jordan; he'd see through the whole thing in a moment. The boy might do it— I believe he would; anyhow he'd keep his tongue. I'm going to risk it."

"Sit down, Walter," he said aloud. "You're going to get a chance to practice your new profession sooner than you expected."

3: His First Case

THE bank president stroked his close-cropped gray mustache with a long but blunt forefinger— a combination of the artistic and the practical— as he carefully chose his words. He had every reason to be careful.

"Walter," he said, "there has disappeared from my custody a sealed manila envelope which contains a document worth millions of dollars— and my future as a banker."

With an uplifted motion of the hand he silenced the exclamation which hovered on Thornton's lips.

"Do not interrupt me," he commanded. "I will tell the story in my own way and explain all that it is necessary for you to know.

"As you are perhaps aware, I am head of a syndicate of Western bankers which is lending money to a number of European enterprises. That much you have seen in the newspapers. It was, of course, necessary that we know in precise detail just how our money was to be spent, so that we could be assured of the safety of our investments.

"Donald P. Henderson arrived yesterday, after an exhaustive trade survey in Europe, with a plan which called for a loan of millions, many millions, to one of our recent allies. This nation had entrusted him with a document of sixty closely typewritten pages which contained their closely guarded trade secrets, explaining in detail just how they expect to rebuild war-shattered world commerce.

"To the average individual those sixty typewritten pages are so much waste paper, but to a rival trade nation it is worth a fortune big enough to tax your credulity— millions!"

"And it is gone— stolen?' asked Thornton.

"Yes; that envelope, entrusted to my care, is gone. It is now in the hands of an adventurer, who is taking it to Europe for sale to the highest bidder. It means for me the lost confidence of my fellow bankers— and ruin!"

"And you 'are going to trust me, an inexperienced—"

"Yes, Walter, I am going to trust you, and you must not fail that trust— not if you love Bennie Lou, for it means my happiness— and hers.

"Mark this, Thornton: You must handle this matter alone— absolutely alone. There must not be so much as the breath of publicity. No one must know, except you and me. Even if you recovered the packet— if my fellow bankers knew that I was not to be trusted with important papers— that knowledge would destroy me."

"But there is Jordan," suggested Thornton. "Why not call him in? He is a personal friend— a man whom you can trust."

For just an instant the banker's eyes wavered. "I had thought of that," he replied slowly. "Jordan sailed for Havana yesterday."

"But you say that you know the man who has the packet," protested Thornton. "Surely the logical thing to do would be to call in the police and—"

"Have every newspaper reporter in Chicago prying into the affair before dark," said Weaver, finishing the sentence. "I tell you, Walter, there must be no publicity.

"I have thought it all out, my boy, and my way is the only way. The man who has this paper is a certain freelance adventurer, an unscrupulous soldier of fortune who calls himself Jules Cartier. He makes a very comfortable living by extremely devious methods— anything from blackmail up. He followed Henderson here from Europe, made three efforts to rob Henderson on shipboard, tried to bribe him, and failed. Henderson delivered the envelope to me yesterday. This morning at ten o'clock the other members of the syndicate met here in my office and went over the document. Then I sealed it in a plain manila envelope— a fresh envelope— and pressed the signet of my ring into the wax.

"And then— but the details of its disappearance are of no importance. Cartier has the envelope. He is at the Crescent Hotel, and has, I think, absolutely no suspicion that he will be followed. The fact that he will be more or less off his guard should make your task easier."

Thornton meditatively rubbed his chin.

"As I see it," he said, "what I am to do is to get Cartier alone and force him to return the envelope— by force."

"Only it will not be so easy as it sounds," replied the banker. "He will not give it up without a struggle. It's worth at least a million to him, perhaps more. He'll put up a fight; don't minimize the seriousness of the task, for Cartier is a resourceful man."

Thornton arose from his chair, and, hands plunged into his pockets, paced the room for a moment in deep abstraction.

"How am I to be certain that I have the right envelope?" he asked. "From all I know now, Cartier might hand me any sort of a manila envelope, and I wouldn't know the difference. Could you show me, with a duplicate, the exact appearance of the stolen packet?"

Weaver nodded approvingly; the boy was no fool. He took from his desk a heavy envelope and filled it with sixty pages of blank onion-skin paper; then he glued fast the flap, applied a splotch of wax, and pressed his signet ring, a thing of peculiar design, into the hardening circle.

"Just like that," he said.

Thornton studied the envelope carefully and thrust it into his pocket.

"Mr. Weaver," he said solemnly, "I shall do my best— my dead, level best."

"You— you must do more than that," answered the banker, his voice breaking. 'You must not fail— for my sake, for Bennie Lou's sake— you must not fail!"

He reached forward uncertainly for the package of currency on his desk. He touched it with a grimace of distaste as he hurriedly but securely rewrapped it. His action was perhaps a trifle furtive, as if he did not wish Thornton to see its contents.

But Thornton, with his eyes leaving the ashen face of Samuel P. Weaver for the encouraging smile of the photograph, did not notice.

"And," said Weaver slowly, "when you have recovered the sealed envelope you will give Cartier this— this package."

Almost mechanically Thornton took the small bundle. "Yes," he said, his tone a vow, "I must not— and I will not fail!"

4:  Why Did Weaver Lie?

HURRYING toward the Dearborn Club, where he lived, Thornton paused at the corner of Michigan Boulevard, waiting for an ebb in the flow of traffic. A nippy breeze scurrying playfully from Lake Michigan, which sparkled from across the flat stretch of Grant Park, had caused him to turn up the collar of his overcoat, and he stood, gazing abstractedly into space as his ulster billowed about his six feet two of robust body. A dark-blue roadster with a girl at the wheel drew up to the curb before he was aware of its approach.

"Are you emulating Rodin's 'Thinker?' " she asked. "Or did father expel you from the bank? It's a full hour before closing time; I was just driving down to pick you up to get a personal report on the day's developments. Did— did you see father? Was it unpleasant?"

She dimpled bewitchingly as he pressed her hand ardently, gazing into her eyes with worshipful admiration.

"Bennie Lou,' he whispered, "you are the most—"

The color of her cheeks was not entirely due to the vigorous Chicago atmosphere.

"Yes, you've said it before— and I like to hear it, too, but tell me about father— you saw him?"

"Yes, I saw him, Bennie Lou."

"Did he—"

"Yes, he did— at first, and he was right at that. I had no right, with my petty little income to—"

"I refuse to listen to that again, Walter Thornton!" she exclaimed. "That's all been settled— money isn't everything. It's nothing— nothing compared to— to happiness. And, if it will ease your mind any, my dear, let me tell you that— that you spoke just in time to save me from the humiliation of asking you!"

Then she stopped the motor.

"Now tell me about father?" she demanded, her eyes crinkling humorously at the corners. "Did you tell him about— the detective agency?"

"It startled him, of course, but he got over that, too; he even gave me a job of sleuthing to do."

"Did he— really!" exclaimed Bennie Lou. "Gracious, that is a Surprise! You know when I saw you standing here on the curb an hour before bank-closing time I was a little afraid that you and father had quarreled. So he capitulated and gave you a case? Tell me about it— this instant!"

"I— I haven't time, Bennie Lou." Thornton feared that she would confound him with her eager questions, and the details of his assignment from her father was not his secret to tell. "I've got to hurry up to the club and get some things. I'm in a terrible rush— some other time."

"I'll drive you over," she promptly replied, "and you can tell me on the way." He climbed into the car beside her, gazing admiringly at the capable way in which she got the motor into motion and nosed through the traffic. She had a knack for practical things, and, like her father, her efficiency carried her through. She accomplished the feat of being a thoroughly modern girl without sacrificing any trait of feminine loveliness.

"There isn't much to tell," he said with disarming carelessness. "Some rather important papers disappeared from the bank, and your father gave me the job of getting them back."

"Are you sure that daddy isn't playing a joke on you?" she warned. "He might do that, you know, to try your mettle."

There arose before Thornton's mental vision the picture of Weaver's drawn, haggard face.

"No, Bennie Lou," he said with unconscious solemnity, "I'm quite certain that it isn't a joke— it's a serious enough matter."

"You are hiding something from me, Walter Thornton!" she charged. "I can sense it; why can't you tell me?"

He was glad that the club was so near, for it gave him the chance to evade the issue.

"I've got to rush along, dear," he said hurriedly. "I've got to pick up some things here at the club and get busy. I can't afford to disappoint your father."

"Of course you can't— and you won't," she declared loyally. "You must let me know the very instant that you get the papers back— the very instant! I'll be waiting for the phone to ring."

Standing on the club steps, he watched the blue car until it disappeared around the corner.

"The luckiest man in the world— that's me," he murmured.

Thornton entered the club and made his way to his rooms on the fourth floor. The walls were lined with book-cases, and there was a practical flat-top desk. Most of the volumes were expert treatises by celebrated criminologists, He had taken up his work very seriously— a seriousness which had caused Braddigan, his prospective partner, trained as he was in the hard and unlettered school of the police force, to grin tolerantly.

Rummaging through his trunk, Thornton found his automatic pistol. It was a gift from Braddigan, and, truth to tell, smuggled from the central-district property room— the trophy of a gunman's war. A Maxim silencer was attached to the stubby barrel, one of those silent agencies of death, the sale of which was prohibited by law.

Thornton also retrieved a bunch of skeleton keys, likewise a souvenir from Braddigan, taken from an expert burglar who had fallen into the clutches of the headquarters man. The ex-bank teller expected to commit burglary before the night was over.

Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was not yet five o'clock. He did not wish to visit Cartier's rooms at the hotel until evening, when, the chances were, Cartier would be out. He decided to lunch at the club. Descending the stairs, Thornton stopped as if frozen in his tracks.

Ascending the steps was Philip Jordan, the man whom Weaver had told him had sailed for Havana.

Jordan, keen observer that he was, saw the blank, open-mouthed expression on Thornton's face.

"Hello, Walter," he said. "What's the idea of staring at me as if I were a ghost?"

"Aren't— aren't you in Cuba?"

Thornton asked foolishly. "Oh, of course," laughed Jordan. "I'm standing in the bar of the La Palma Hotel sipping a gin rickey."

"It was silly for me to say that," said Thornton lamely, "but Mr. Weaver said— that is, I thought he said— you had sailed for Havana yesterday."

"You must be hearing things, young fellow," replied Jordan. "He couldn't very well have said that, for I saw him at lunch to-day."

"You— you saw him at lunch— today!" exclaimed Thornton, and, as Jordan gazed at him with a perplexed frown at his perturbation, he added: "You're right— I must be hearing things."

"Humph!" grunted Jordan, eying him curiously.

Thornton walked slowly downstairs. Weaver had deliberately lied to him! Why had Weaver lied?

Again and again he revolved this question over in his mind. He had realized at the outset that Weaver had not been entirely frank with him— had been keeping something back— and it had vaguely disturbed him.

He was tempted to rush to the telephone and demand an explanation from the banker. He rejected the impulse, but unpleasant suspicions began to force themselves upon him.

Try as he would, he could not banish that persistent, disturbing question:

"Why had Weaver lied?"

5: Events Thick And Fast

THE table at which Thornton seated himself in the club grill was directly against one of the marble columns which supported the ceiling. He had finished his meal and was smoking his cigar when he heard Weaver's name spoken. It came from the table hidden from his view, but he at once recognized the bass rumble of Harrison Gregory, a trader in the stock market.

"I understand that old 'Silent Sam' Weaver got knicked pretty bad in Fisk Steel yesterday," Gregory was saying.

"Yes, so I heard," replied his companion. "I was told that he dropped a couple of hundred thousand. You know, Gregory, Weaver is either a very rich man or a big bluff— and I can't make up my mind which. I'm beginning to suspect that most of his wealth is on paper. He's had a couple of bad ones recently, and he had several big blocks of rail stocks when rails began to hit the toboggan. I've got a notion that we're going to hear a loud crash in the vicinity of the Gibraltar Trust Company some of these days."

Thornton's cigar dropped from his fingers to the ash tray as he sat limply in his chair. The soil of suspicion had already been turned when he discovered that Philip Jordan had not gone to Cuba, as Weaver had declared. The seed of doubt— even doubts which he tried to reject as mean and disloyal to the father of the girl he loved— began to sprout and grow with the furious rapidity of Jack's bean stalk.

It was easy to construct a theory to fit the suspicion: Trade secrets worth millions of dollars, entrusted to the care of a man whose reputed fortune was but a fading myth, and the temptation to rehabilitate his finances at the cost of his honor.

Despite his determination not to harbor these suspicions, Thornton found himself analyzing the possible motives which had influenced Weaver. To have selected a bank teller with more or less visionary notions of being a detective to cope with a situation where there was so much at stake was decidedly suspicious to say the least. Especially so when a trusted and capable friend like Philip Jordan was available.

He knew that Jordan was one of the vice presidents of the Gibraltar Trust Company. Could it be that Weaver had sold the packet, and, wishing with a sudden conscience-stricken reaction for its return, feared that Jordan would instantly sift out the truth? Could it be, on the other hand, that he would weave a fabulous story of theft, and, wishing to make some pretense of recovering it, had assigned the task to a man whose inexperience was a reasonable guarantee that he would fail? Or, again, was it that he had, acting in a sincere desire for the packet's return and in a desperate effort to save himself from opprobrium, chosen the one man whose lips would be sealed by the love for his daughter?

As he recalled Weaver's earnestness, his patently sincere anguish, he rejected the possibility that the banker hoped him to fail. He was a little ashamed at the course which he had allowed his thoughts to follow, for it seemed disloyal to Bennie Lou.

"I don't give a hang what the circumstances are— I know Weaver's square," he told himself with an earnest but not entirely convincing insistence. "I'm going to get back the envelope— I'm going to get it back!"

A little less than an hour later he was in the crowded lobby of the fashionable Crescent Hotel.

A word of inquiry at the desk elicited the information that Jules Cartier was quartered in room 928. Stepping to the house telephone, he asked to be connected with No. 928; he held his finger on the hook, ready to close the connection if there should be a responding click from the other end of the wire.

But there was no answer. Jules Cartier, as luck would have it, was out. Presently he registered and requested a room on the ninth floor.

The clerk twirled the register, glanced at his room schedule, and nodded. "Yes, Mr. Thornton," he said with stereotyped politeness, "I can give you number nine-four-seven."

Ushered to his room by the dollar-hungry bell hop, Thornton dismissed him quickly and opened his bag. He thrust the automatic pistol into his overcoat pocket and balanced the ring of skeleton keys in his palm, selecting the one which nearest approximated the key of the door to his own room.

He knew that the same master key would unlock all doors on the ninth floor corridors. A moment of experiment with his own lock determined his selection. Stepping boldly into the hall, he approached No. 928 with the carelessness of a guest going to his own room.

The bolt shot back as he twisted the key and entered Cartier's suite— sitting room, bedroom, and bath.

Thornton had no real thought of finding the sealed envelope in Cartier's luggage. He realized that there was small chance that the man would trust it off his own person, although there was, of course, the possibility that he might have left it in the hotel office for safekeeping. But he was overlooking no chances; besides, he intended to be secreted in the room when Cartier returned. The surprise must be complete.

A single dim light from the high ceiling only partially shattered the darkness of the bedroom, but it was sufficient to show the two traveling bags, the only pieces of luggage.

Hastily, but none the less thoroughly, Thornton sifted their contents, but found nothing. While he still knelt beside the open traveling bag a key rattled in the lock.

Cartier must be returning.

As he hastily kicked shut the grip, Thornton found the picture still clutched in his fingers; he thrust it into his coat pocket as he made a flying leap for a hiding place in the clothes closet.

6: A Man With A Kick

HUMMING a French love song, Jules Cartier entered the room. He strode across the floor, removing his coat from his massive, muscular shoulders. For so large a man he moved with a lithe grace which belongs only to the man in the pink of physical condition. It was not hard to see that his life was one of adventure. It was written in his face, in the cold cunning of the slate-gray eyes, and the scars which criss-crossed his heavy, immobile features betrayed it— the sort of scars that are left only by the point of a rapier ripping into the flesh. Paris and Berlin knew of his prowess as a duelist.

Thornton heard his approach and knew that he was headed toward the clothes closet. He gripped the automatic and held it in readiness.

"Put 'em up— quick !" he commanded crisply as the door, propelled by Cartier's hand, swung back and the two men faced each other. Cartier drew back, and his mustache, the tightly waxed points rearing proudly on either side of his nose, twitched with a smile— the smile of the man who has steeled himself to nonchalant bravado when staring into gun muzzles. Obediently he raised his hands, but at the same time measured the distance to the wall telephone.

"So this ess robbery, eh?" he demanded calmly. "Quite bold, it ess, too, in one of ze city's mos' fashionable hotels. I regret zat ze loot must be so small pay for ze risk."

"Not so loud," warned Thornton threateningly. "Put a muffler on that fog-horn voice of yours or I'll have to shut you up. This gun of mine is silent but sure."

"Ah, yes," replied Cartier, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, "I haff notice ze silencer— mos' modern, you American brigands. Ziss ess my firs' experience, but I had ze notion zat you were a rough lot, wearing ze black mask and swinging ze slung shot. Instead, I find zat he might be quite ze gentleman, yet quite so villainous as ze Balkan brigands.

"I dislike to incur ze displeasure of so ze vindicative a bandit, but most of ze cash I haff ess in travelers' checks, and you cannot cash them. Only a couple of hundred or so, and—"

Thornton paid mental tribute to the man's astounding coolness, but at the same time it angered him.

"I don't want your money, Cartier, any more than I want your persiflage," he snapped. "I'm no hotel thief and I think that you know it. We're going to save a good deal of time if you tell me where to find the manila envelope that I have come for."

The interested, perhaps rather forced, smile fled from Cartier's face, and his swarthy countenance became even more dark with rage.

"So?" he said, struggling to contain the bellow of anger which tugged at his vocal cords. "That ess what you have come for, eh? I rather suspected it— what ze American ess please to call— ze hunch. So, Monsieur Weaver hass giff me ze double cross. Ze cur— ze yellow dog!"

Thornton's blood ran aflame, despite the fact that Cartier's accusation merely verified his own obscure suspicions.

"Silence!" He made a menacing movement with his revolver. "Not a word about Weaver! I didn't come here for that. I came for the manila envelope and I'm going to take it from you— dead or alive!"

"And, I suppose," he replied with an unpleasant grimace, "that Monsieur Weaver neglected to send ze money— ze money zat I haff pay him as ze price of ze papers? So? He keep ze money and I giff up ze papers."

Thornton recalled the packet which Samuel P. Weaver had given him, and he sickened at the thought that within his own pocket was the price of the banker's perfidy. Yes, the packet must contain the bribe money— the chain of evidence was complete. Bennie Lou's father was— a crook!

"I have the money in my pocket, curse you!" he said to Cartier. "You'll get it just as soon as I get that packet. Quick, now— I'm in no mood for trifling !"

The eyes of the two men clashed, Thornton's burning hot with anger and Cartier's gleaming cunningly from between lowered lids. Cartier was the calmer of the pair.

At last his gaze dropped. "You win, monsieur," he said. "You have the advantage, and I am unarmed, If you will permit me to lower ze arms I will giff you ze paper."

Thornton thrilled with the realization of victory. It had been simple and— he had not failed Bennie Lou and her father. Fate had been most kind to him, he thought.

Cautiously he kept his eyes on Cartier's hands as the man lowered his arms and reached for his breast pocket. Thornton, as the coat was thrown back, saw the top of the manila envelope. Cartier's fingers began withdrawing it slowly and reluctantly, as if on the verge of changing his mind and fighting for its possession.

So intent was Thornton on watching the man's hands that he forgot to watch the sudden shifting of his weight as he balanced himself on the balls of his feet and then Cartier's right foot shot upward with the sureness of a pugilist's fist. The toe of the heavy boot caught Thornton a sickening blow on the wrist, numbing the muscles of the arm and hand.

With a grunt of pain and dismay, he saw his automatic go hurtling from his hand, describing a wide arc toward the ceiling. Walter Thornton had received his first lesson in savate, the very ungentle French art of foot boxing. Both men leaped for the gun, and their bodies struck with a dull impact.

For a moment they swayed, locked in desperate embrace, before Thornton, tripped by a rug, fell to the floor. They were well matched, but Thornton's shoulders, famous in the football history of a half dozen years before, were a little less broad than those of the professional soldier of fortune.

Cartier fought brutally, taking every advantage, for he was a master of all the subtle, and not entirely approved, arts of offensive and defensive. His fingers darted to Thornton's throat, tearing viciously at the flesh; the American was handicapped by knowing nothing except clean fighting.

Thornton, in final desperation, resorted to his knowledge of jujutsu, but he found the Frenchman's mastery of Japanese wrestling tactics outmatched his own. The struggle was strangely silent. Except for the labored breathing, the soft thud of shoe or elbow struck against the heavy carpet, or the sickening smack of bare knuckles against flesh, there was no sound. Cartier, his muscles swelling beneath his clothing until a vest button broke its thread and rolled across the floor, to click faintly against the baseboard, with one supreme effort dragged Thornton's arm forward and buried his teeth into the knuckles between the fingers.

Mercilessly the jaws clamped down until the man's teeth cut through the flesh and it seemed that tendon and bone would snap. The pain was excruciating, and Thornton felt his muscles relax.

There are limits to human endurance. Cartier was quick to follow up his advantage. He reached for Thornton's throat and closed down upon the windpipe until Thornton felt himself being smothered beneath a blanket of darkness which was carrying him away to oblivion. Suddenly the torturing pressure was relieved, but further resistance was for the moment impossible. Feebly he tried to struggle to his elbow as Cartier freed him to reach for the pistol.

Thornton was not quick enough, for Cartier had the weapon and brought the butt to the side of Thornton's head, just above the right temple. A shudder ran through Thornton's frame, and his body grew limp as the blow struck.

Jules Cartier grunted in satisfaction.

"I should haff keel him, perhaps," he muttered, "but it ess hard to keel a brave man. Brave— ah, yes, but just as a child in my hands. Ze fool! To think he could outwit me— me! Ha!"

Expertly he examined the swelling lump which arose from the side of Thornton's head. "Jules Cartier knows where to strike. A leetle lower and as et ess, ze long sleep— five, six hours."

Getting to his feet, Cartier paused at the mirror to take stock of his own injuries; they consisted of one well blackened eye, one badly split lip, and various purpling spots where Thornton's fists had left their souvenir.

"For zat," he muttered, "I collect ze damages for assault." He ran his hand into Thornton's pocket and found the package of currency. "I keep ze packet and ze money, too," he chuckled. "Zat ess for ze double cross."

Then he notified the manager of the hotel that he had just captured a burglar in his room.

The manager, accompanied by the house detective, rushed to the ninth floor, wringing his hands and pleading that the matter be given no publicity. To this request Jules Cartier most heartily agreed. Within four minutes a police ambulance had carted Walter Thornton off to the city hospital, a police prisoner under guard.

7: A Friend In Need

THE night superintendent of the city hospital, Doctor Fred Parker, was making his round of inspection when the ambulance gong sounded in the driveway outside. Then the entrance door opened, and the young interns entered with a stretcher, followed by Patrolman O'Reilly, who was the officer on the case.

"What have we got here, officer?" asked Doctor Parker. "Faith, doctor," answered the patrolman, "an' we've got th' desprit robber here. He was afther tryin' to stick up a feller in th' Crescent Hotel. Now phwat do you think of that, doctor, a stick-up in th' swell Crescent! He's a husky lad, this bird, but th' hotel guest was too much for the bucko, an' there he is, laid out with a bump on his head as big as an egg. I'm afther thinkin' that it'll be a few years before he's robbin' any more hotels."

Doctor Parker tossed back the sheet and stared down into the white face of Walter Thornton.

"Hotel robber!" he exclaimed in indignant disgust. "Say, how do you coppers get that way? Hotel robber my eye! This man is Walter Thornton— Merton '13. You've heard of Thornton, the famous Merton athlete. No? Well, he happens to be a nephew of the late Senator Thornton. If he's a hotel robber I am the King of Siam. Come along while I rush this case to the operating room, and tell me about it. This looks like a possible fracture to me, and I'm going to work on this case myself."

Patrolman O'Reilly followed the stretcher into the operating room and told the hospital superintendent what he knew.

Parker heard the story through, and breathed a sigh of relief as he discovered that the wound on Thornton's head was only a bad contusion and not the fracture that he had feared.

"He's all right; there's no danger, thanks to the fact that he wasn't hit a fraction of an inch lower. A mighty narrow squeak that," said the doctor. "He's going to have one mighty big headache, but there's no danger. Now, officer— you said your name's O'Reilly, eh?— if you're the intelligent policeman that you look to be you'll trot right back to the Crescent Hotel and entwine the affectionate arm of the law about the neck of the libelous gentleman who tried to stuff the police and the hotel with the story about Walter Thornton being a burglar. The only thing Thornton ever stole in his life was a base when he was playing with the Merton nine.

"It's some sort of a frame-up as sure as you're wearing brass buttons. Thornton's got a job in a bank downtown, has an income from his uncle's estate, and is way up in society. Burglar— rot! You had better get back to the Crescent, O'Reilly, as soon as you can."

The patrolman paused uncertainly, and finally compromised by calling the central district. The night lieutenant ordered him back to the Crescent to pick up Cartier for detention. When he had seen Thornton trundled to a private room and placed in the care of a competent nurse, Doctor Parker repaired to his office and consulted the telephone directory.

While his social world had been a different one from that of Walter Thornton, he had always followed the life of his college hero through the newspapers. In the devious whisperings which get about he had heard Walter's name linked with that of Bennie Lou Weaver. Moreover, the doctor was a well-informed young man and knew that Thornton worked in Sam Weaver's bank, and that Sam Weaver and Senator Thornton had been close friends.

Securing a telephone directory, he found the number of the Weaver Lakeshore Drive home.

It was Bennie Lou, waiting eagerly for the tinkle of the telephone, as she expected to hear from Walter, who answered. The enthusiasm of her "hello" was dampened as she heard the strange voice on the wire.

"No," she replied in answer to Doctor Parker's query, "my father is not in just now. Do you wish to leave a message ?"

"I wanted to tell him," replied the hospital superintendent, "that one of the men in his bank has been brought to the city hospital slightly injured, but Mr. Thornton—"

"Oh!" exclaimed the pained voice at the other end of the wire. "You— you mean that Walter Thornton is injured? Is— is— please tell me at once just how badly he is injured."

Her tone was eloquent of her deep-felt solicitude— that anguish of voice which women use only when concerned about the safety of those who are very near and dear to them.

Doctor Parker's eyebrows arched upward, and his lips puckered into a silent whistle.

"So the gossips were right," he thought. "Bennie Lou Weaver! Thornton's a lucky dog!"

"No, Miss Weaver," he replied in the professionally reassuring tone, "it is nothing serious. He is still unconscious, but—"

"Unconscious!" she repeated. "And you say that is not serious! Thank you so much for calling. I will be at the hospital just as quickly as an automobile can get me there. See that he has every comfort— spare nothing. I will be there in three quarters of an hour."

Doctor Parker gently replaced the receiver on its hook.

"Gosh!" he grinned. "I think I'd let myself be rapped over both temples if it would do that for me."

But the hospital superintendent did not stop at that. He kept the wires hot until he had gotten into communication with the chief of detectives and the chief of police. He pleaded, cajoled, blustered, threatened, and finally won his point. The heads of the police department agreed that the police guard should be removed and that Thornton, when he recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital, should be released upon his own recognizance.

Doctor Parker had again proved the truth of the adage that "a friend in need is a friend indeed."

8: Mystery Plus

SLOWLY Walter Thornton opened his eyes and stared at the dead white ceiling of the hospital room. As he painfully turned his head he gazed into the tenderly anxious eyes of Bennie Lou.

"Walter!" she whispered, stroking the back of his hand with her palm. "I was so afraid— so afraid that I was going to lose you. Oh, my dear!"

Thornton pressed her fingers, for the moment oblivious of everything except that Bennie Lou was beside him.

Slowly he began to piece together the events of the past few hours, and, with a pang of self-accusation, realized that he had failed.

"Bennie Lou," he whispered, "I am a rotten detective— rotten!"

"I should say you were!" she whispered back, putting her cheek down to his. "If you were any sort of a detective at all, you would have detected by this time that— that I want to be kissed."

But Thornton was not such a fool detective that he could not follow up a clew when it was given to him.

"Now, little lady," he said, "if you will retire to the corridor, and if we can induce the hospital attendants to give me my clothes, I'm going to get busy and make an effort to clear up this awful muddle."

When Thornton got into his clothes he found, to his chagrin, that he was as weak as water. His own reflection in the mirror as he tied his cravat danced drunkenly before his vision. In addition to the throbbing of his head, he discovered that his left shoulder had been badly wrenched in his struggle with Cartier. When he moved his arm sickening pains shot through the protesting tendons.

He had massaged his cheeks with his palms to bring the color back to his face, but as he stepped into the hall, where Bennie Lou was waiting, the girl was quick to see his distress.

"Walter," she said, "you are in no condition to go ahead alone; you are in terrible pain. I can see it in your face. You must let me go with you— you must! Maybe I can help. We ought to be partners in everything. Of course I know that it is one of father's business secrets, but—"

"No; I will send you home in a taxi. As soon as I get hold of another gun I'm going out on the trail of a very rough gentleman by the name of Jules Cartier, and I'll lay good odds that he won't have the chance to use the savate on me again!"

"Walter, I insist—"

Her plea was interrupted by the appearance of Doctor Parker.

"Miss Weaver," he began hurriedly, "you are wanted on the phone in my office. Some one at your home is calling, and I think it is very important."

"It must be father," replied Bennie Lou. "I left word with the butler that Mr. Thornton had been hurt and that I was coming to the hospital. Come on, Walter, the phone is on the way to the exit."

As she hurried down the hall Doctor Parker waited for Thornton, who was following more slowly.

"It's not her father," he whispered in Thornton's ear; "it's the butler, and he's very much excited. I'm afraid that something very unpleasant has, happened at the Weaver home. Perhaps I should not have called her, but the man was very insistent."

"You mean you're afraid something has happened to Mr. Weaver?" Thornton demanded anxiously.

"I don't know a thing, Thornton; I'm only guessing. The butler was mighty excited— that much is certain."

Thornton quickened his step and reached Parker's office as Bennie Lou was hanging the receiver back on its hook. Her hands reached toward Thornton.

"Walter," she whispered, "it's— it's about father— something has happened to him— something terrible has happened to him!"

Thornton hurried to her side. "You mean he is— is—" he began, hesitating to use the tragic word.

"I don't know, Walter— I don't know. Sikes, our butler, told me that father has— has disappeared !"

"Disappeared!" exclaimed Thornton. "How— ?"

"I don't know. Sykes says that he has disappeared from the house. That is all that Sykes knows, except— except—"   She stopped with a shudder.

"Yes," urged Thornton.

"Except," she whispered, "that Sykes has found a— a crimson-stained handkerchief!"

"If Cartier has— has done this I'll kill him with my bare hands!" declared Thornton between clenched teeth.

"I knew that it had something to do with all this mystery! You must tell me now, Walter— you must. I'm not a child, and I have a right to know."

"Come, Bennie Lou," he said gently, "we will go home."

As he turned toward the door he saw Parker, who was trying to make it appear that he had overheard nothing, but the strained look on his face gave him away. "Not a word of this, Parker, please," he requested.

"Not a word of what?" asked Parker like the true gentleman that he was, "And— Thornton, old man, if there is anything I can do command me. The Sphinx is a regular magpie compared to me."

In front of the hospital Thornton hailed a passing taxi, and he and Bennie Lou got inside. The pain in his shoulder, now that reaction from the shock of the alarming telephone message had passed, was growing more acute, and he struggled to keep back a groan.

"Walter," she asked in a faint voice which she fought to keep calm, "do— do you think father's life is in danger?"

"I don't know," he answered truthfully, because she would, he knew, prefer the truth.

"Sykes asked me if he should notify the police," she went on, "and I told him to wait— until we got there."

He nodded approval.

"Don't you think you should tell me now? I think you will find that I can be brave."

"I have already found that, Bennie Lou," he said tenderly, his hand dropping to hers.

At the sound of the motor coming up the drive, Sykes was at the open door. The butler's eyes were wide with horror, his face blanched, and his hands twisting incessantly.

"Perhaps, Bennie Lou," said Thornton gently, "I had best talk to Sykes alone."

"No; I must hear what he has: to say. Go ahead, Sykes, tell us everything— tell us quickly."

"There's scarcely anything to tell, Miss Weaver," said the butler. "Your father came home only a few minutes after you had gone to the hospital— he and Mr. Stanley, his nephew, and another man. They went at once to the library— before I had a chance to deliver your message, Miss—"

"Who was the third man?" demanded Thornton quickly. "I don't know, sir," replied Sykes.

"Describe him," Thornton said.

"Well," began Sykes doubtfully, "he was a sort of tallish man, very well dressed— evidently a gentleman, sir. I had never seen him before. A full-faced, clean-shaven man, sir, who limped a little."

"Not Cartier," said Thornton to himself with a sigh of relief. "Go on, Sykes."

"It must have been two hours later," went on the butler, "when I rapped on the door of the library; there was a call for Mr. Weaver. When there was no response I opened the door and— Mr. Weaver was gone!"

"That is no cause for alarm," declared Thornton, disgusted that Bennie Lou should have been alarmed on so small a pretext. "He probably just stepped out, that's all."

"But," protested Sykes, "Mr. Weaver's hat and coat were still in the library, the French windows were open, one of the chairs was overturned and broken and— and I found one of Mr. Weaver's monogrammed handkerchiefs on the floor— covered with fresh crimson stains."

Except for a convulsive closing of her hands, Bennie Lou gave no sign how deeply the blow had struck; she loved her father with a deep, though calm, devotion.

"And there was no sign of either Mr. Stanley or the other man?" demanded Thornton.

"No, sir, they were gone, too; I think they must have all gone through the French windows. They are not in the house, of that I am sure, for I searched it thoroughly before I called Miss Weaver at the hospital."

Thornton feared that beneath her calm Bennie Lou was near the breaking point, and he sought to relieve her anxiety.

"The chances are that our fears are entirely groundless," he said. "Mr. Weaver may have worn another hat, and a case of nose bleed would readily account for the handkerchief. He and Mr. Stanley may have strolled over to one of the neighbors after the third man departed."

"I have already called the neighbors, whom Mr. Weaver occasionally visits. I did that before notifying Miss Weaver," said Sykes.

Bennie Lou smiled wanly.

"It is considerate of you, Walter, to try and save my feelings that way," she said, "but I know that something terrible has happened, and I know that it is a link in the chain of circumstances that sent you to the hospital. I feel it— I know it!" Sykes looked up uncertainly.

"Do you think the police should be called in?" he suggested.

Thornton had been debating this very point. He recalled Weaver's insistence that the police should not be consulted concerning the stolen manila envelope, but the disappearance of the millionaire president of the Gibraltar Trust Company was quite another matter. If, on the other hand, the suspicion of abduction, possibly foul play, should be found groundless, the banker would be more than annoyed.

"Not for the present, Sykes," he decided. 'You may retire now, and Miss Weaver and I will discuss the matter. We do not wish to plunge Mr. Weaver into a mystery until we are sure that a mystery exists. Say nothing about it to any one."

As Sykes bowed himself from the room Bennie Lou turned to Walter.

"W-what do you think— what do you honestly think?" she demanded. "You do think that it has something to do with this Jules Cartier?"

"If your father has left this house unwillingly, yes," he said. "That he left unwillingly I am not so sure. Stanley was here with him, and Stanley is a husky lad; surely, if there had been any sort of a struggle, Stanley would have found a way to make an outcry. Granting that the man who came here to-night with your father and Stanley was an— an enemy, how could he have overpowered both of them?"

"Walter," she demanded, "you owe it to my peace of mind to tell me what it all means. You only heighten my fears by your silence."

"Perhaps you are right, Bennie Lou," he said slowly. After all there could be no harm in telling her only what he actually knew, and he could and would not, of course, torture her with his own private suspicions.

"I myself know little more than I told you this afternoon downtown. A sealed manila envelope, containing an important document worth a vast sum of money, disappeared while in your father's custody. It's safe return is of vital importance to your father. It is in the hands of a man named Jules Cartier, and your father selected me to get it back. It is highly important that its recovery be accomplished with utmost secrecy. Your father depended upon me to accomplish the packet's return, and— well, you know how badly I have bungled the job."

"You did your best, my dear," she told him warmly. "What do you propose doing now?"

"I've got to find Jules Cartier— if I can," he said.  "But, of course, I can't go rushing off until I have taken steps to find out what has happened to your father. I think I will get in touch with my prospective partner, Mr. Braddigan, and let him handle that end of it. Braddigan need know nothing about the missing manila envelope, and he will keep a closed mouth if it develops that your father is safe— no chance of Braddigan being tempted to hand the newspaper boys a good story. Cartier has probably given me the slip, although Parker at the hospital told me that, thanks to his personal emergency treatment, I recovered consciousness several hours before I would have been expected to. It's a slim chance, but I've got to take it."

A spell of dizziness came over him, and he groped for the back of a supporting chair.

"Walter, you can't go alone," said Bennie Lou earnestly. "If you are going I shall go with you."

"No—"

"And I say yes," she answered with equal positiveness. "I have a feeling somehow that I'm going to be able to help."

9: "The Bird Has Flown"

USING the phone in Weaver's study, Thornton called the detective bureau and got Braddigan on the wire.

"Walter speaking, Tom," he said cautiously, not daring to risk the eavesdropping ear of the switchboard operator at headquarters, who was not averse, he had heard, to passing out tips to the newspaper reporters in exchange for an occasional five-dollar bill.

"Meet me at the Crescent Hotel within half an hour— very important."

"Aw, have mercy on a guy," rumbled the protesting voice of the detective. "Make it to-morrow. I've been up two nights workin' on a case, an' I'm just dyin' for a few winks. Th' old eyelids feel like they had a coupla window weights tied onto 'em."

"Sorry, Tom, but it can't be helped. It's too important to let a little thing like sleep interfere.  You'll meet me?"

"Yeah, I'll meet you," grudgingly agreed Braddigan. "Thirty minutes, huh?"

When Thornton's taxi sped southward on Michigan Avenue toward the Crescent, Bennie Lou was seated beside him, for no amount of protest had been able to deter her. Braddigan was waiting for him just inside the lobby entrance. Thornton drew the square-toed, square-jawed detective to one corner and told him all that it was necessary to know, and Braddigan, in answer to Thornton's pleas for caution, promised to use discretion.

As the headquarters man lumbered off through the revolving doors, Thornton saw him depart with the confidence that, if Samuel P. Weaver had been kidnapped, he would be found before daylight.

When Braddigan had gone, Thornton made his way to the hotel desk. The clerk, who had been on duty only two hours, did not recognize him as the guest who had figured in the escapade earlier in the evening.

In answer to Thornton's questions concerning Cartier, he frowned in annoyance. Another man from police headquarters, eh?" he demanded, and Thornton took no trouble to disillusion him. "Confound it, how many of you fellows are coming around to bother us about that man? I've already told two or three of you that Mr. Cartier checked out half an hour after the rumpus in his room. If that isn't plain enough, I'll write it out for you."

Slowly Thornton returned to the taxi, where Bennie Lou was waiting. "It's as I feared," he said heavily. "He's gone— the bird has flown. The man has outwitted me. He left the hotel right after he knocked me out, and is probably well on his way to the Atlantic coast by this time. It's a safe bet that he shook the dust of Chicago from his shoes and took the first train east."

"You mean that he plans to sail for Europe?"

"Yes, that is undoubtedly what he would do. You see, the envelope contains some important trade secrets which he will have to sell in Europe. He'll want to get the first boat across."

"That means that he would go to New York," reasoned Bennie Lou.

"Not necessarily. He could go to Canada or to Boston, but most people would sail from New York. Anyhow, Bennie Lou, there is no use in holding post mortems— he's gone, and finding him, once he is in New York, would be a good deal like hunting the proverbial needle in the haystack."

"Don't give up so quickly," said Bennie Lou. "I think I have a plan. There are not a great many trains leaving for New York late in the evening or during the night, are there?"

"The last crack train leaves at five o'clock. There is no other until eleven o'clock, a slow, poky collection of cars that consumes twenty-eight hours of time. You know, the railroads have not returned to the competitive methods that were stopped by the war. If Cartier did not get the eleven o'clock train he would have to wait over until nine o'clock in the morning. I happen to know that because one of the fellows at the club was trying to make a hurry-up trip to New York the other day."

"Then he's been gone only a little longer than an hour!" exclaimed Bennie Lou.

"Might as well be a day," replied Thornton weakly, for a new spell of dizziness had seized him as his shoulder throbbed with renewed pain.

"Walter," said Bennie Lou slowly, "isn't there a government mail train leaving here for New York about midnight?"

"None that carry passengers," he replied. "I believe there is a solid mail train which leaves at midnight, but that isn't going to do us any good, because they wouldn't let us on board if we had a hundred tickets. No, Bennie Lou, I'm afraid that we'll have to admit that I have bungled things hopelessly."

"But if we could get aboard," she insisted eagerly, "we would overtake the passenger train, wouldn't we?"

"Surely ; we would pass them, probably somewhere in Ohio, but there's no use to—"

"It's a good thing I came along, Walter Thornton," said Bennie Lou. "You have evidently 'forgotten that Henry Wadsworth is my uncle, and—"

"And superintendent of railway mail service," Thornton cut in. "I'd have never thought of that. Do you suppose he would fix it up so that I could get aboard the mail train?"

"He might arrange it so that we could get aboard," she replied. "You forget that it's 'We & Company' now. And," she added defensively, "you would have thought of it yourself if your head was not fairly splitting open with pain. You stay right here in the taxicab and rest while I go into the hotel and call up Uncle Henry. It will be some time, for I am afraid that he will be very obstinate."

Thornton felt so weak and faint that he agreed to wait in the cab while she telephoned. Bennie Lou went to a public telephone booth and called her uncle's home. After a wait of some minutes his voice answered drowsily from the other end of the wire.

"This is Bennie Lou, Uncle Henry," she explained. "There's a mail train to New York about midnight, isn't there ?"

"What's the matter, child?" he demanded. "Why are you calling me up at this time of night? Yes, there's a mail train to New York at midnight."

"Listen, Uncle Henry," she went on hurriedly. "This is not a joke or a prank. It is very important that Walter Thornton and I overtake the passenger train which left Chicago at ten o'clock, and the only way we can do it is for you to arrange for us to take passage on the mail train."

"What madcap thing is this?" he demanded sternly. "Are you and Walter Thornton planning—"

"Oh, it's not an elopement, Uncle Henry," she reassured him. "Father had some important papers stolen, and he sent Walter to get them back. The man who has the papers hit Walter on the head and has gone to New York. Walter simply must overtake the ten o'clock train, and he is too ill to travel alone. I am going with him. Please, Uncle Henry, you must not disappoint me— it is important. You know that I wouldn't ask you unless it were important. I am not a flighty, foolish girl."

"All women are flighty and foolish," grumbled Wadsworth. "I don't know what to say, Bennie Lou. Of course I could arrange it, although it is strictly against the rules. The mail train carries a coach for the train crew, and you could ride there, but— hang it all, if your father has had papers stolen why doesn't he turn matters over to the police. He ought to have better sense. In facet, I very much doubt if he knows anything about your part in it. I've a good notion to call him up and—"

"Please don't argue with me, Uncle Henry," she pleaded. "I wouldn't ask you unless I knew that it was for the best. Father is— is not at home, and I have to use my own judgment."

She purposely made no mention of her father's disappearance to her uncle, for she feared that he would become so excited over the news that she would lose her request for permission to ride on the mail train. Besides, Thornton, in sending Braddigan in search of her father had done all that could be done for the present.

There was a moment of silence, and Bennie Lou could almost see her uncle tugging meditatively at his long, snow-white mustache as he debated.

"Bennie Lou," he said finally, "if I did not know you for the sensible, level-headed young woman that you are I certainly would not think of it, but— if it's half as important as you think it is I guess you are justified. Mind you, I think your father has a good lecture coming in permitting you to get mixed up in a matter of this sort, but— you always could twist me around your finger.

"I haven't time to get down to the station myself, but I'll call up the office and arrange it so that they will let you on board the mail train."

"Thank you, Uncle Henry," she said gratefully. "I'll give you a bear hug and ten kisses when I see you."

"I'd break every regulation in the post-office department for a bribe like that," said Uncle Henry gallantly.

10. Another Failure

THE train crew eyed the two lone passengers with frank curiosity. The conductor approached them with a smile.

"This is the first time within my knowledge that this train has carried passengers," he said. "I have instructions to pull the bell cord for a stop at any point you may desire. You wish to overtake No. 8, I understand. I think we should overtake them shortly after we cross the Indiana line into Ohio. You must be quite anxious to get No. 8. Missed it and your baggage is on board, I presume?"

Thornton ignored the trainman's desire for information and closed his eyes. Bennie Lou was staring out of the window, watching the thinning lights which flashed past as the mail train, clattering over the switches, began to leave the city behind.

The conductor went on about his own business. As the speeding locomotive roared on through the night Thornton dozed fitfully, moaning occasionally as the restless shifting of his body against the back of the chair car prodded his throbbing shoulder to painful protest. The girl, very much awake and very thoughtful, watched over him as a mother might watch over a feverish child.

It was morning, and the engine was racing toward the rising sun when the conductor again approached them.

"We pass No. 8 at the next station," he told them,

"We will have plenty of time to change trains?" asked Thornton. "Yes; under the block rules the passenger will not be allowed to follow us for five minutes. No. 8 will be on the siding and will pull into the station after we pass."

"All right," said Thornton, "let us off at the next station."

The conductor reached for the air cord, and the hiss of the signal as the air valves opened and closed was answered by two short blasts of the locomotive whistle ahead. Almost at once the train began to slacken its wind-splitting speed, the brakes bit against the wheels, and, a few seconds later, the last car stopped opposite the railroad station.

As Thornton and Bennie Lou stepped to the platform they saw the overtaken passenger train a few yards behind them, puffing with seeming impatience on the side track. When the mail, again in motion, had cleared the block, the passenger nosed its way over the switch.

"Let's make for the chair cars," suggested Thornton. "If Cartier is on board he is sure to be back in one of the Pullmans, and we don't want to run the chance of his seeing me until we are ready to act."

Seated within the train, Bennie Lou robbed him of the elation which he felt at their having accomplished the feat of overtaking No. 8.

"Walter," she said, "we don't want to be floating in the clouds until we know that we have succeeded. We don't know that Cartier is on this train— we only hope so. And if he is, we haven't got the sealed envelope. How are we going to get it? You are in no condition to take it from him by force, even if you could get by with force on a crowded train, which, of course, you cannot. You can't walk right up to Cartier, hit him over the head, and take the envelope out of his pocket. We've got to use strategy."

"Yes," he agreed glumly, "it looks very much as if we had gone on a wild goose chase. But there must be some way— there's got to be. Well, the first thing is to find out if Cartier is on the train. How am I going to do that without his seeing me? I mustn't put him on his guard."

It was Bennie Lou who found a solution to the problem, and Thornton had to admit, with a combined feeling of pride and chagrin, that it was she who was furnishing all the initiative. His own throbbing brain seemed almost incapable of functioning. Across the aisle was a man in rough clothing, evidently some sort of a mechanic, going to work, for he had with him a suit of overalls tied into a careless bundle.

"There's the answer," whispered Bennie Lou. "Try to buy or borrow that man's denims. You can put them on, rub some smut on your face, and walk back through the Pullmans as if you were looking for a leak in the steam pipes. Cartier would never give you a second glance."

Thornton promptly accepted this suggestion and crossed the aisle to open negotiations for the overalls.

"I want to make a little bargain with you," he began. "I see that you have—"

The man edged away suspiciously, and Thornton smiled.

"Oh, I'm no bunko steerer," he said; "I haven't just found a diamond ring under the seat that I'm going to try and sell you. But it happens that you have a suit of overalls, and I want to buy them. You can have them back, free of charge, in fifteen or twenty minutes."

"What's the matter with you— nuts ?" grunted the man, eying Thornton suspiciously. "Whatcha want with a suit of overalls?"

Thornton saw that he would have to give some plausible reason if he was to make the deal.

"Well, I'll tell you," he said, lowering his voice confidentially. "I'm looking for a man back in the Pullmans and I want to get my eye on him without his seeing me. Understand?"

The possessor of the coveted overalls thawed and grinned.

"Aw, I see— you're a detective. Sure, you can have the overalls and welcome, and there ain't no charge, either. I've got a nephew what was chief of police in Camden, Ohio."

Taking the overalls back to the washroom, Thornton put them on. Then, tugging open the window, he rubbed his hands on the outside of the car, accumulating enough coal soot to cover his hands and face. The mirror told him that his disguise was effective.

Reaching the Pullmans, he slouched through the aisles, giving himself ample time to study every face. Travel was very light, and less than half of the sections were occupied. As he reached the last car his heart grew heavy with disappointment. There were but six people in the car, and none of them even remotely resembled Jules Cartier. Crestfallen, he returned to the chair car after removing the overalls and washing the grime from his face.

"He's not on the train?" exclaimed Bennie Lou when she saw the disappointment in Thornton's face.

"No, dear, he's not on the train. Our hunch was wrong, and our luck stopped when we managed to get the mail train. I guess we couldn't reasonably expect such a fortuitous run of luck, anyway. He probably hid out in Chicago and will take the extra-fare train this. morning, or he may go to Canada. I don't see any use of going ahead to New York."

"You might watch the steamers," she suggested.

"That might be a bare chance," he said, "but I don't feel very optimistic. We'd as well go back to the Pullmans and make ourselves comfortable. Even if we decide to turn back and return to Chicago we can't get a train in the other direction for several hours."

"Suppose we think things over before we do anything," Bennie Lou urged. They went back to the first Pullman, and Thornton engaged a compartment, where he could lie down. From a doctor on the train, whom Bennie Lou had identified by his oblong satchel, she had procured a sedative.

The medicine soothed Walter, and he slept more or less fitfully.

He was still asleep when the dining-car porter made his sonorous announcement: "Breakfast now served in th' dinin' car."

Wondering whether or not she should awaken him, Bennie Lou decided that he needed rest more than he needed food. She made her way to the diner alone.

11: Bennie Lou Wins

THE dining-car steward crooked his finger and motioned to the only vacant chair in the car as Bennie Lou entered. She seated herself and ordered her breakfast, vaguely noting that her breakfast vis-a-vis was an elderly man. His gray hair just showed from over the top of a newspaper which he was reading. Presently he lowered the paper, and his eyes met Bennie Lou's with the unconscious admiration of a man who knows a pretty face when he sees one.

He was a man of apparently sixty years, and his stooped shoulders hinted at the fatigue of heavy burdens too long sustained. He sat for some time gazing thoughtfully at the flying landscape; suddenly he smiled and chuckled.

The smile was strangely youthful and elated, incongruous with the dejected slope of the wide shoulders. His lips were moving beneath his gray-sprinkled beard. His long, strong fingers touched the breast of his coat as if to reassure himself that something precious was still there, while his hand groped beneath the lapel.

Slowly, almost reverently, he withdrew an envelope and weighed it in the palm of his hand as a man might feel the heft of something precious.

Absently, Bennie Lou saw him fingering the packet as a connoisseur might fondle the most beloved gem of his collection. And then she saw the splotch of wax as the back of the envelope was held before her eyes. It was sealed with her father's signet ring!

The envelope in the man's hand was an exact counterpart of the envelope which reposed in the bosom of her dress— the envelope which Walter Thornton had showed to her and which, at the moment when his mind had turned to other matters, she had thrust into her waist.

The man across the table must be the person whom Walter had referred to as Cartier. It was evident now, with her suspicions aroused, that he was not as old as he seemed at first glance. In fact, he had rather neglected his role, and the shoulders, in his elation over contemplation of the treasure in his hand, took on something of their normal erectness. The eyes, which had been glazed and dull, were now bright with vitality.

"What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" murmured Bennie Lou in a tremulousness of excitement. Her first impulse was to rush back to the Pullman where Walter Thornton slept and to tell him that she had penetrated Cartier's clever disguise, but she hesitated.

She knew that Walter, in his weakened condition, was no match for the big Frenchman, and, as Walter had so discouragingly reminded her, they had no legal right to overpower Cartier and take the packet from him by force— even were it possible. Strategy! That seemed the only answer. It was evident that Cartier considered himself safe. The fact that he was openly displaying the envelope and forgetting his rôle of the old gentleman showed that he considered himself beyond the reach of his possible pursuers.

"Ze million dollaire!"' exclaimed Cartier under his breath, but the girl heard the words. "Ah, ze great riches! I cannot resist ze temptation to again see ze wonderful secret!"

His big fingers moved toward a table knife, which he evidently intended as a letter opener. But the engineers who built this particular stretch of roadbed had conspired against Jules Cartier. How interwoven are the small and seemingly inconsequential details which go into the making of life's general scheme! The economical decision of a chief engineer to skirt the edge of a stalwart cliff rather than tunnel through its heart of solid rock and the future happiness of people whom he had never seen were intimately interwoven.

The train struck the big curve which half looped Bald Knob, and the cars swayed wildly. The dining car, tailing the train, careened crazily, like the small boy who is the "cracker" of the school-day game of "Snap the Whip."

So violent was the pitch of the car that the dishes slid over the tablecloth and the steward in the aisle did an ungraceful dive, sprawling to the floor, cursing the engineer, who had failed to check his speed for the kink in the rails. Bennie Lou's coffee cup was thrown into her lap, staining her gown, and Jules Cartier was pitched forward in his chair. As he reached out his hands to sustain his balance the sealed envelope fell to the table, skated across the cloth, and dropped into the girl's lap.

Chance had put the stolen packet into her hands!

There was not a moment to lose, Quickly she bent below the edge of the table, screened from Cartier's view, and drew from her waist the duplicate packet. She straightened with a nervous, excited little laugh, and handed Cartier— the duplicate envelope. The original she clutched between her trembling fingers, hiding it in the folds of her skirt.

"This— this is yours, is it not?" she said.

Cartier's face had paled at even the thought of the precious document leaving his possession.

"Oui, mademoiselle. Merci!"

Bennie Lou was leaning forward again, dabbling at the coffee stain on her skirt as an excuse to hide the packet more securely when Cartier continued with his task of opening the envelope.

His frown of annoyance over the roughness of American travel had faded, and the satisfaction returned to his face, but only for a moment. Almost reverently he pressed back the flap and drew forth the contents. As he slowly removed the forty sheets of onion-skin paper, a look of amazed disbelief suffused his features. The papers were as virgin of the written word as the day they had left the paper mill— the envelope contained only forty sheets of blank paper!

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed in his anguish. "I haff been what ze American say— ze double cross!"

In the act of rising, Bennie Lou was unable to fight off the temptation of viewing Cartier's stupefaction.

"I haff been trick!" he went on, talking to himself in an audible undertone. "I haff been trick by ze Monsieur Weaver— Weaver haff giff me ze double cross!"

Bennie Lou's own face at these words became no less ashen than those of Cartier. Now she understood— understood why Walter Thornton had tried to shield her from the truth— the horrible, miserable, humiliating truth— that her father was a crook and had sold the document!

Vaguely she recalled her father's hints at curtailing expenses, and accused herself for her own extravagance. She fought back the tears which came to her eyes. But her grief was tempered by the realization that she had won— that she had saved the Weaver honor!

12: The Battle in the Vestibule

WHEN Bennie Lou got up from the table Jules Cartier stared from the manila envelope to her white, set face. His eyes suddenly widened, and with a curse he shoved back his chair and was at the girl's heels. Bennie Lou, in sudden panic, was aware of the pursuit, and knew that it portended dire things. As she reached the vestibule between the diner and the connecting Pullman his face became very hard and cruel. He seized her roughly by the arm.

"And now, mademoiselle, I must ask you to return my packet," he demanded. "You almost got by with it, eh? You almost fooled me."

"Packet!" exclaimed Bennie Lou. "I don't know what you are talking about. Release my arm this instant!"

His fingers only imbedded themselves in her flesh the more cruelly.

"You haff fooled me for ze leetle moment," he went on with an unpleasant grin, "but ze real envelope which you haff taken from me haff a little ink splotch on it, where ze fountain pen haff leaked. So leetle a thing haff giff you away. Come, ze packet— I am in no mood for trifling."

His pressure increased on her arm until she almost screamed in pain, but he quickly clapped his hand over her mouth to prevent the outcry.

"I dislike, mademoiselle, to search a woman," he said in her ear, "but you haff force me to it. Give me ze envelope or I'll tear zat waist from: your pretty shoulders!"

His fingers tortured her unmercifully, but she struggled stubbornly.

Walter Thornton, awakening and impatient at Bennie Lou's long absence, . had slipped toward the rear of the train to see that she was all right.

As he peered onto the vestibule which separated the last Pullman from the diner he saw Bennie Lou as she writhed in the cruel embrace of Cartier.

With a shout of anger he flung open the door and darted forward. Bennie Lou heard his shout and saw him rushing toward her, Cartier, faced by a new and more formidable foe, released his hold on the girl and plunged toward Thornton.

Walter, in his weakened condition, was no match for his antagonist, but he rushed in and grappled.

"Make for our Pullman!" he shouted at Bennie Lou, but she could not move, fascinated by the struggle of such uneven odds. It did not occur to her that the little electric button imbedded in the side of the vestibule would summon a porter.

"My antagonist of last night," said Cartier as he recognized Thornton, "I beat you once, I can do it again."

As the two men lunged back and forth within the narrow space, Cartier's foot trod upon the spring, which released the floor over the car steps, and the section, some three and a half feet square, flew up automatically like the lid of a jack-in-the-box.

Below was the speeding, rippling surface of the tracks.

Back and forth over this opening the men fought; a plunge of the foot, and one of their bodies would go hurtling through space to a horrible death.

Thornton was quickly getting the worst of it, for Cartier fought with a desperate viciousness which showed no quarter. When it seemed that Walter could stand up no longer under the terrible punishment that he was receiving the train struck a curve, and the cars rocked wildly.

Bennie Lou was flung to the opposite side of the vestibule, and her shoulder struck the glass panel of the door, splintering it with a loud crash. Those jagged edges gave her an inspiration. She snapped off a piece of the glass and leaped forward, driving the sharp point into the side of Cartier's neck.

With a cry of pain, the man's hands loosened their hold on Thornton's throat.

Walter took speedy advantage of this brief respite and hurled himself forward with renewed effort. As Cartier dodged and swayed his body from the waist to escape the impact of Thornton's fist, he forgot the open vestibule floor, and his foot shot down through the aperture as his fingers slipped from the handrail, and he dropped down to the steps and thudded to the cinders below. Bennie Lou buried her face in her hands to blot out the vision.

"We— we have killed him!" she whispered.

Thornton, opening the door, grasped the handrail and leaned out over the edge of the car. The train, having slowed down for the heavy curve, was running less than twenty miles an hour. He saw Cartier, now yards to the rear,  stagger to his feet and plunge forward as if to give pursuit to the train.

"We haven't killed him, Bennie Lou," said Thornton, "but I'll bet a good deal of money that he won't run any foot races for a while. Did you get the envelope, or will I have to stop the train and go back and take it away from him?"

"Yes, I've got it, Walter— I've got it!"

Bennie Lou handed Thornton the sealed manila envelope, exclaiming: "Walter! We've won— we've won!"

"You mean you have won, Bennie Lou— you are the bravest girl in the world."

And, perhaps just to prove that she wasn't, she crept into his arms and sobbed happily against his coat.

13: Weaver's Confession

HIS face strained and anxious Silent Sam Weaver sat erect with a start as the sound of the automobile chugging up the driveway came to his ears. His face was nearly as white as the linen bandage which encircled his forehead.

"See if it is them, Sykes. It must be them," he said to the butler. "Bring them to me here at once."

A moment later Bennie Lou came flying through the hall into the library, followed by Walter Thornton.

"Bennie Lou!" exclaimed the perturbed parent with a sigh of relief. "You are safe, thank God! What made you do this wild thing? And as for you, Thornton, I am angry and ashamed of you that you would permit it. Uncle Henry has told me about it— taking the mad trip."

"It wasn't Walter's fault that I went," defended Bennie Lou, "'but— but perhaps it was best that I did. We— we got back the stolen envelope."

"Yes, we got it back— or rather Bennie Lou did," said Thornton as he took the sealed packet from his pocket and presented it to the banker.

Weaver's hands trembled a little as he took the envelope.

"T am glad to have it back," he said huskily, "but I wouldn't endure the worry concerning my little girl that I have suffered in the last dozen hours for twice what it is worth." Bennie Lou slipped to her father's side and took his hand in hers.

"Daddy," she whispered, "I know everything, and so does Walter. I didn't intend to pry, and neither did Walter, but we know. Oh, daddy, why did you do it? I would rather give up the house, the servants, everything— than that. You've got it back now, and everything is all right. I know that you did it for me, for you've always wanted to make me so rich, but—"

The bank president frowned. "Give up the house, the servants?" he repeated. "What are you saying?"

"Cartier let it out, daddy," she said brokenly. "He told us how you had— had—"

"How I what?" demanded Weaver with a voice that was almost a shout. "He told you that I had sold him the packet, you mean? Nonsense!"

"I think we had best discuss the matter no further, Mr. Weaver," said Thornton in a strained voice. "I did my best to keep it from Bennie Lou, but she would go along with me— I was quite weak and suffering great pain. The packet is recovered, and your honor is saved. Suppose that we drop the matter."

"I should say we won't drop it!" exclaimed Weaver. "Do you two people think that I— that I sold the contents of that envelope for— for a paltry fifty thousand dollars? Honestly, do you?"

Thornton was upset at his vehemence. Bennie Lou's eyes grew once more bright with happiness.

"We've been making a terrible mistake, Walter," she said joyously. "Explain, daddy, explain!"

"Humph!" replied the banker. "This is a pretty how-do-you-do! So you thought that you were about to marry the daughter of a crook, eh, Thornton? And it made no difference to you -

"Not a particle, sir," replied Thornton, flushing uncomfortably. "All men are tempted sometimes. I— I heard about your losses in Fisk Steel and—"

"And straightaway you were convinced that I'd sold out for— for fifty thousand dollars," interrupted Weaver sarcastically.

"I didn't know how much money was in the package," said Thornton, now thoroughly convinced that he had done the banker a terrible injustice.

"Young man," said Weaver slowly, "I made my start in this city driving a horse car. Every dollar I've got is an honest dollar, my enemies to the contrary notwithstanding. Perhaps I have been hard and grasping at times, but I was cruel only to those who would have been cruel to me. Before I would violate a trust I'd go back and drive a trolley car!

"I see that you two suspicious infants are entitled to a full explanation. Cartier, perhaps, said that he had bought the packet from Weaver, eh? Well, he told the truth. He did."

"But I thought you said that—"

"Just a moment, young man; hear me through. Jules Cartier, as I told you, followed that packet from Europe, and when he found that he could not get it by force he resorted to trickery. He knew that the document was in my office. All he needed was a man who could gain entrance to my office— and he found him.

"He found, in that shrewd way that is his, a young man of radical views and told him that this envelope contained secrets— an international plot in which Wall Street and the banking fraternity were to join— secrets which were to crush the soviet movement in this country. Cartier is skillful of tongue, and he induced the young man to enter my office and get the packet. He was the one person besides myself who knew of the secret drawer in my desk, where I keep valuable papers for instant reference. In exchange for the packet he accepted fifty thousand dollars, which was to be used in spreading radical propaganda in this country. He wanted not one cent for himself. I say this in justice to him, because— the young man was my nephew, Stanley Weaver.

"Stanley has a signet ring like mine; it was his father's— both rings were presents from my father and Stanley's father.

"Stanley let Cartier see the documents, and then, at Cartier's suggestion, resealed them with the ring which was a mate to mine. But the fact that Stanley had acted without criminal intent did not relieve me of the stigma. I would have been branded as a man not to be trusted with important secrets. The nation whose trade secrets would have been lost would have demanded my elimination from the banking world— and I would have been eliminated.

"I did not want Jordan to know what had happened because Jordan would, I am sure, have demanded my resignation as president of the Gibraltar Trust Company. As for my stock market losses, they were small— nothing. The usual fortunes of the financier. Besides, Fisk Steel went up twelve points while you two children were riding about the country in mail trains, and I don't think that Bennie Lou need to worry about washing her own dishes."

"But," demanded Thornton, "your disappearance— the wound on your forehead. We thought Cartier—"

"Had slugged me, eh?" cut in the banker, his face saddening. 'Poor Stanley! The boy became quite unbalanced when he found that he had been made the cat's-paw of an unscrupulous adventurer. I placed him in the care of a physician, and Doctor Royce and I brought him home last night. Royce was the third man whom Sykes told you about. While we were trying to induce Stanley to go willingly to a sanitarium for a rest he became quite violent and tried to do away with himself. He had a revolver, and, in the struggle to disarm him, I got a nasty clout on the head. Then he leaped through the French windows, and Royce and I pursued him. I had left my hat and coat behind. When we overtook Stanley, nearly a dozen blocks away, we bundled him into a taxi and drove him to a sanitarium. There! You have the whole story."

"And now it's our turn," Bennie Lou said exultingly.

The banker chuckled with pride as the details of the adventure were unfolded.

"As for you, Walter," said Weaver, "you've got spunk and a level head. If you would put the same vim and enthusiasm into the banking business that you have showed in the past hours you'd make good. I'd like to give you a real job— on your own merits."

Thornton smiled ruefully.

"Mr. Weaver," he said, "I think I'll try it. I've come to the conclusion that I couldn't be a worse banker than a detective. It's Bennie Lou, not myself, who is the detective."

And Samuel P. Weaver proved at that moment that the powers of deduction seemed to run in the family. He deduced with great accuracy that Walter and Bennie Lou wanted to be alone.

_________________

10: A Point of Testimony

Carolyn Wells

1869-1942

Adventure, Oct 1911

The return of Bert Bayliss, private detective extraordinary, and his imaginary Dr. Watson, "Harris"

BERT BAYLISS was the funniest detective you ever saw. He wasn't the least like Vidocq, Lecoq or Sherlock, either in personality or mentality. And perhaps the chief difference lay in the fact that he possessed a sense of humor, and that not merely an appreciative sense, either. He bad an original wit and a spontaneous repartee that made it well-nigh impossible for him to be serious.

Not quite, though, for he had his thinking moments; and when he did think, he did it so deeply yet rapidly that he accomplished wonders.

And so he was a detective. Partly because it pleased his sense of humor to pursue a calling so incongruous with his birth and station, and partly because he couldn't help it, having been born one. He was a private detective, but none the less a professional; and he accepted cases only when they seemed especially difficult or in some way unusual.

As is often the case with those possessed of a strong sense of humor, Bayliss had no very intimate friends. A proneness to fun always seems to preclude close friendships, and fortunately precludes also the desire for them. But as every real detective needs a Dr. Watson as a sort of mind- servant, Bert Bayliss invented one, and his Harris (he chose the name in sincere flattery of Sairey Gamp) proved competent and satisfactory. To Harris Bayliss propounded his questions and expounded his theories, and being merely a figment of Bayliss' brain, Harris was always able to give intelligent replies. Physically, too, young Bayliss was far from the regulation type of the prevalent detective of fiction.

No aquiline nose was his, no sinister eyebrows, no expression of omniscience and inscrutability. Instead, he was a stalwart, large-framed young man, with a merry, even debonair face, and a genial, magnetic glance. He was a man who inspired confidence by his frankness, and whose twinkling eyes seemed to see the funny side of everything.

Though having no close friendships, Bayliss had a wide circle of acquaintances, and was in frequent demand as a week-end visitor or a dinner guest. Wherefore, not being an early riser, the telephone at his bedside frequently buzzed many times before he was up of a morning.

Every time that bell gave its rasping whir Bayliss felt an involuntary hope that it might be a call to an interesting case of detective work, and he was distinctly disappointed if it proved to be a mere social message. One morning just before nine o'clock the bell wakened him from a light doze, and taking the receiver, he heard the voice of his old friend Martin Hopkins talking to him.

"I want you at once," the message came; "I hope nothing will prevent your coming immediately. I am in Clearbrook. If you can catch the nine-thirty train from the City, I will meet you here at the station at ten o'clock. There has been murder committed and we want your help. Will you come?"

"Yes," replied Bayliss. "I will take the nine-thirty. Who is the victim?"

"Richard Hemmingway, my lifelong friend. I am a guest at his house. The tragedy occurred last night, and I want you to get here before anything is touched."

"I'll be there! good-by," and hanging up the receiver, Bayliss proceeded to keep his word.

"You see, Harris," he said, silently, to his impalpable friend, "Martin Hopkins is a gentleman of the old school and a man whom I greatly admire. If he calls me to a case requiring detective investigation, you may be sure it's an interesting affair and quite worthy of our attention. Eh, Harris?"

The imaginary companion having agreed to this, Bayliss went calmly and expectantly on his way.

At the Clearbrook station he was met by Mr. Hopkins, who proposed that they walk to the house in order that he might tell Bayliss some of the circumstances.

"Mr. Hemmingway was my oldest and best friend," began Mr. Hopkins," and, with my wife and daughter, I've been spending a few days at his home. He was a widower, and his household includes his ward, Miss Sheldon, his nephew, Everett Collins, a housekeeper, butler, and several under servants. This morning at six o'clock, the butler discovered the body of Mr. Hemmingway in his library, where the poor man had been strangled to death. Clapham, that's the butler, raised an alarm, at once, and ever since then the house has been full of doctors, detectives and neighbors. We are almost there now, so I'll tell you frankly, Bayliss, that I sent for you to look after my own interests. You and I are good friends, and you're the best detective I know. The evidence seems, so far, to point to some one in the house, and among those addle-pated, cocksure detectives now on the case it is not impossible that I may myself be suspected of the crime."

"What!" cried Bert Bayliss in amazement.

"Just that," went on the old man, almost smiling. "Hemmingway and I have had large business transactions of late, and as a big bundle of securities has disappeared from his safe, it may look as if I had a hand in the matter."

"I can't quite take that seriously, Mr. Hopkins, but I'll be glad to look into the case and perhaps I can give justice a boost in the right direction. You've no further hints to give me? "

"No, the hints all point one way, and you'll discover that for yourself soon enough." They walked together up the short path that led to the house of the late Richard Hemmingway.

CLEARBROOK was a small settlement of well-to-do society people, who wished to live near but not in New York. The houses were rather pretentious, with well-kept grounds, and picturesque flower-beds, but Bert Bayliss paid little attention to the landscape as he hurried to the Hemmingway mansion. Once in the drawing-room, Bayliss was presented by Mr. Hopkins to his wife and daughter, also to Miss Sheldon and Mr. Collins.

It was surely a tribute to the young man that all these people, who were fully prepared to treat the detective with a supercilious hauteur, were won at once by his affable and easy demeanor and involuntarily greeted him as a man of their own class and standing.

Mrs. Estey, the housekeeper, was also in the room, and at the moment of Bayliss? arrival, Coroner Spearman was about to begin his preliminary queries of investigation. Quite content to gain his knowledge of the case in this way, Bayliss settled himself to listen.

"Harris," he said silently to his faithful friend, "these are all refined and sensitive people, but, excepting Mr. Hopkins, not one shows a deep or abiding grief at the death of this gentleman. Therefore I deduce that with most of them the loss is fully covered by inheritance."

"Marvelous, my dear Bayliss, marvelous!" replied Harris correctly.

At the command of the coroner, Clapham, the butler, was summoned to give his account of the discovery of the body.

"I came down-stairs at twenty to six, sir," said the pompous but deferential Englishman, "and it would be about six when I reached the master's library. The door was closed, and when I opened it I was surprised to find one of the lamps still burning, the one by the desk, sir. By its light I could see the master still sitting in his chair. At first I thought he had come down-stairs early, to do some work; then I thought he had been working there all night; and then I thought maybe something was wrong. These thoughts all flew through my mind in quick succession, sir, and, even as I thought them, I was raising the blinds. The daylight poured in, and I saw at once my master was dead, strangled, sir."

"How did you know he was strangled?" asked the coroner.

"Because, sir, his head was thrown back and I could see black marks on his throat."

"What did you do then?"

"First I called Mrs. Estey, who was already in the dining-room, and then, at her advice, I went to Mr. Collins' door and knocked him awake. He hurried downstairs, sir, and he said—"

"Never mind that. Mr. Collins will be questioned later. "

"Harris," said Bayliss silently to his friend, "that coroner is no fool."

"No," said Harris.

"If that is all the account of your finding of Mr. Hemmingway's body," continued Mr. Spearman, " tell us now what you know of Mr. 'Hemmingway's movements of last evening."

"He was in his library all the evening," said Clapham. "He went there directly after dinner, and gave me orders to admit three gentlemen that he expected to call. He told me, sir, that I need not wait up to let them out, as they would stay late, and he would see them to the door himself. The three gentlemen came, sir, between nine and ten o'clock. They came separately, and after I had shown the last one into Mr. Hemmingway's library I did not go to the room again— until this morning. I went to bed, sir, at about eleven o'clock, and at that time they were still there, as I heard them talking when I left the dining-room, sir."

"Good servant, Harris," commented Bayliss; "if this household is broken up, he'll have no trouble in finding a new situation and yet— is he just a trifle too fluent? "

"Perhaps," said Harris agreeably.

Mrs. Estey simply corroborated Clapham's story, and was followed by Everett Collins, who had been the next to appear upon the scene of the tragedy.

Bayliss looked at this young man with interest. He was not of an attractive personality, though handsome and well set up. He had the physical effects of an athlete, but his face was weak and his glance was not straightforward.

"He impresses me as untrustworthy," Bayliss confided to Harris, "and yet, confound the fellow, there's something about him I like."

"Yes," said Harris.

Mr. Collins had little to say. He had been wakened by Clapham from a sound sleep and had hastily run down-stairs to find his uncle indeed dead, and evidently strangled. As to his own movements the night before, he had spent the evening out, had returned at about half-past eleven, had let himself in with his latch-key and had gone to bed. He had noticed that the library door was closed, and he could not say whether any one was in the room or not.

Miss Ruth Sheldon testified to the effect that she had played bridge with Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins and Miss Ethel Hopkins until about eleven, when they had all retired. The Hopkins family corroborated this, and all agreed that they had heard no sound of any sort down-stairs after reaching their rooms.

"It was Mr. Hemmingway's habit," volunteered Miss Sheldon, "if he had late callers, to let them out himself, to close the front door quietly after them, and then to go up to his room with great care in order not to disturb any of us who might be asleep. He was most thoughtful of others' comfort, always."

THE members of the household having been heard, Mr. Spearman turned his attention to some others who sat in a group at a small table. One of these was the lawyer, Mr. Dunbar. He simply stated that he had full charge of Mr. Hemmingway's legal affairs, and was prepared to make an accounting when required. But he added that his client's business with him was not extensive, as the late financier was accustomed personally to look after all such matters as did not require actual legal offices.

Mr. Hemmingway's private secretary, George Fiske, testified that he was in the habit of coming to Mr. Hemmingway's home every day from ten o'clock to four. He had left as usual the day before, at four o'clock, and knew of nothing unusual regarding his employer or his business matters at that time. Fiske had been sent for earlier than usual on this particular morning but could throw no light on the affair. He knew the three men who called, and they were three of the richest and most influential citizens of Clearbrook, who were more or less associated with Mr. Hemmingway in some large financial interests. As a confidential secretary, Mr. Fiske courteously but firmly declined to go into details of these matters at present.

There seemed to be no reason to suspect any one whose name had been mentioned so far, and the coroner next turned his attention to the possibility of an intruder from outside, who had forced an entrance after the three gentlemen had departed and before Mr. Hemmingway could have left his library.

But investigation proved that the windows were all securely fastened and that the front door shut with a spring lock which could be opened only from the outside by a latchkey. No one, save those who were already accounted for, possessed a latchkey, and as no doors or windows had been forced, it began to look to the coroner as if the evidence pointed to some one inside the house as the criminal.

The doctor declared that Mr. Hemmingway had died between twelve and one o'clock and the three men who had called, being asked over the telephone, asserted that they left the house about midnight. One of these, Mr. Carston, had tarried after the others and had talked a few moments with Mr. Hemmingway at his door, but though this would seem to make Mr. Carston the last person known to have had speech with the dead man, nobody dreamed for a moment of suspecting him. Bayliss' eyes traveled over the assembled listeners.

"Pshaw," he said silently to Harris, "there are too many suspects. Granting the criminal was in the house, it might have been any of the servants, any of the guests, the ward or the nephew. Every one of them had opportunity, for, apparently, after midnight the callers were gone and every one in the house was sound asleep except the victim and the criminal. But the fact of strangulation lets out Mrs. and Miss Hopkins, who are too slender and delicate for such a deed. That big, athletic Miss Sheldon might have done it, had she been inclined; that gaunt, muscular housekeeper could have accomplished it; and as to the men, young Collins, old Mr. Hopkins and that complacent butler are all capable of the deed, physically. So, Harris, as we've heard the facts of the case, we'll now hunt for clues and theories."

"Marvelous, Bayliss, marvelous!" breathed Harris with deep admiration.

ii

REACHING the library, Bayliss found the Precinct Inspector busily going through the papers in Mr. Hemmingway's desk. Inspector Garson had heard of the clever Bert Bayliss and was glad to meet him, though a little embarrassed lest the city detective should look upon his own methods as crude.

With the coroner's permission the body of the dead man had been removed, but otherwise no changes had been made in the room. Bayliss glanced interestedly about. There were no signs of a struggle. The position of several chairs showed the presence of callers who had evidently sat around in conversation with their host. The desk, though not especially tidy, showed only the usual paraphernalia of a man of business.

By themselves, in an open box, had been laid the articles taken from the dead man's pockets. Bayliss looked at, without touching, the watch, the bunch of keys, the knife, the pencil, the pile of small coins and the handkerchiefs, which, together with a few papers, comprised the contents of the box.

Then Bayliss looked swiftly but minutely at the desk. The fittings of handsome bronze were of uniform design and rather numerous. Every convenience was there, from pen-rack to paste-pot. There were a great variety of pens, pencils and paper-cutters, while many racks and files held a profusion of stationery, cards and letters.

Yet everything was methodical; the plainly labeled packets of letters, the carefully sorted bills and the neat memoranda here and there, all betokened a systematic mind and a sense of orderly classification.

"The motive was, of course, robbery," said the Inspector, as several others followed Bayliss into the library, "for though everything else seems intact, a large bundle of securities, which Mr. Dunbar knows were in Mr. Hemmingway's safe last Friday, are now gone."

"Oh, those," said George Fiske; "I didn't know you looked on those as missing. I have them at my own rooms."

"You have?" said the surprised Inspector. "Why did you not state that fact when interviewed by Mr. Spearman?"

"Because," said the young man frankly, "I didn't consider that the time or place to discuss Mr. Hemmingway's finances. I was his confidential secretary, and though prepared to render an account at any time, I am careful not to do so prematurely. The bonds in question are at my home because Mr. Hemmingway gave them to me last Saturday to keep for him temporarily. Here is a list of them."

FISKE took a card of figures from his pocket-book and handed it to the Inspector, who glanced at it with satisfaction and approval.

"You did quite right, Mr. Fiske," he said, "and I'm glad the securities are safe. But then what in your opinion could have been the motive for the deed of last night?"

Fiske made no reply, but the expression on his face seemed to imply, against his will, that he could say something pertinent if he chose.

"Might it not be, Harris," whispered Bayliss, "that that young man overestimates the confidentialness of his secretaryship at this crisis?"

"H'm," said Harris.

Meanwhile the Inspector was rapidly looking over a sheaf of opened letters, each of which bore at its top the rubber-stamped date of receipt.

"Whew!" he whistled, as he read one of these documents. He then looked furtively at George Fiske, who was occupied with some clerical work which had to be done at once. Without a word Inspector Garson handed the letter to Bert Bayliss, signifying by a gesture that he was to read it.

After a glance at signature and date, Bayliss read the whole letter:

Sunday Afternoon, September 9th.

My Dear Mr. Hemmingway:

After our talk of yesterday morning, I feel that I must express more fully my appreciation of your declaration of confidence in me, and my gratitude therefor. I was so surprised when you asked me to act as executor of your will that I fear I was awkward and disappointing in my response. But, believe me, dear sir, I am deeply grateful for your trust in me, and I want to assure you that I shall perform all the duties of which you told me, to the very best of my ability, though I hope and pray the day is far off when such need shall arise. I am not a fluent talker and so take this means of telling you that a chord of my nature was deeply touched when you asked me to assume such a grave responsibility.

I am. of course, at your service for further discussion of these matters, but I felt I must formally assure you of my gratitude for your kindness and of my loyalty to your interests.

As to the revelation you made to me, it was so sudden and such a surprise, I can not bear to think your suspicions are founded on the truth; but as you requested, I will observe all I can, without seeming intrusive or curious. I have in safe keeping the papers you entrusted to my care, and I hope our present relations may continue for many happy years. Faithfully yours,

George Fiske.

With his usual quick eye for details, Bayliss noted that the letter was dated two days before (that is, the day before the murder, which occurred Monday night); it was postmarked at the Clearbrook post-office Sunday evening, and had therefore, been delivered to Mr. Hemmingway by the first post Monday morning. This was corroborated by the rubber stamped line at the top of the first page, which read: "Received, September 10 ."

The letter was among a lot labeled "To be answered," and it seemed to Bayliss a very important document.

"I think," he said aloud to the Inspector, "that we would be glad to have Mr. Fiske tell us the circumstances that led to the writing of this manly and straightforward letter."

George Fiske looked up at the sound of his name. "Has that come to light?" he said, blushing a little at being thus suddenly brought into prominence. "I supposed it would, but somehow I didn't want to refer to it until some one else discovered it."

"Tell us all about it," said Bayliss, in his pleasant, chummy way, and at once Fiske began.

"Last Saturday morning," he said, "Mr. Hemmingway had a long talk with me. He expressed his satisfaction with my work as his secretary and kindly avowed his complete trust and confidence in my integrity. He then asked me if I would be willing to act as executor of his estate, when the time should come that such a service was necessary. He said it was his intention to bring the whole matter before his lawyer in a few days, but first he wished to be assured of my willingness to act as executor. He told me, too, that he would add a codicil to his will, leaving me a moderate sum of money. All of this was on Saturday morning, and when I left at noon, as I always do on Saturdays, he gave me a large bundle of securities, and also his will, asking me to keep them for him for a few days."

"You have his will, then?" asked Inspector Garson quickly.

"I have; and also the bonds of which I have given you a memorandum. They are all at your disposal at any time."

"Then Mr. Hemmingway died without adding the codicil to his will in your favor," observed Bayliss.

"Yes," replied Fiske, "but that is a minor matter in the face of the present tragedy."

Bayliss felt slightly rebuked, but he couldn't help admiring the manly way in which Fiske had spoken.

"AND this conversation occurred on Saturday," went on Mr. Garson. "You took occasion to write to Mr. Hemmingway on Sunday?"

"I did," agreed Fiske. "I was so surprised at the whole thing that I was unable to express myself at our interview. I am always tongue-tied under stress of great surprise or excitement. So I sat down Sunday afternoon and wrote to Mr. Hemmingway. I mailed the letter Sunday evening and he had already received it when I reached here on Monday morning, at ten o'clock, as usual."

"Did he refer to your letter?" asked Bayliss.

"Yes; he said he was glad I wrote it, and that he would answer it on paper that I might also have his sentiments in black and white. Then he said we would discuss the matter more fully after a day or two, and we then turned our attention to other matters."

"And this revelation he made to you?" queried Inspector Garson, running his eyes over the letter.

Mr. Fiske hesitated and looked not only embarrassed but genuinely disturbed.

"That, Mr. Garson, I want to be excused from telling."

"Excused from telling! Why, man, it may help to elucidate the mystery of Mr. Hemmingway's death!"

"Oh, I hope not, I hope not!" said Fiske, so earnestly that both Bayliss and the Inspector looked at him in surprise.

"You do know something," said Mr. Garson quickly, "that may have a bearing on the mystery, and I must insist that you tell it."

"It is because it may seem to have a bearing that I hesitate," said Mr. Fiske gravely. "But, to put it boldly, as I told you I am not fluent under stress of excitement; in a word, then, Mr. Hemmingway implied to me, that— that he had a half-defined fear that sometime his life might— might end suddenly."

"In the way it did?"

"Yes, in that way. He feared that some one desired his death, and that was the reason he asked me to care for his will and his valuable securities for a few days."

"Why were these things not in a safety deposit vault?" asked Bert Bayliss.

"They have been; but a few days ago Mr. Hemmingway had them brought home to make some records and changes, and as it was Saturday he could not send them back then, so he gave them to me. I have a small safe at home, and of course I was willing to keep them for him."

"Then Mr. Hemmingway feared both robbery and murder," said Bayliss, and Mr. Fiske shuddered at this cold-blooded way of putting it.

"Yes, he did," said the secretary frankly.

"And whom did he suspect as his enemy?"

"That I hope you will allow me not to answer."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fiske," broke in the Inspector, "but you have knowledge possessed by no one else. You must, therefore, in the interests of justice, tell us the name of the man whom Mr. Hemmingway feared."

"The man," said George Fiske slowly, "is the one who inherits the bulk of Mr. Hemmingway's fortune."

"Everett Collins, his nephew? "

"His wife's nephew," corrected George Fiske. "Yes, since I am forced to tell it, Mr. Hemmingway feared that Mr. Collins was in haste to come into his inheritance, and— and—"

"You have done your duty, Mr. Fiske," said Inspector Garson, "and I thank you. I quite appreciate your hesitancy, but a crime like this must be punished, if possible, and you need not appear further in the matter. After your evidence the law can take the whole affair into its own hands, and justice will be swift and certain."

iii

THE law took its course. Although circumstantial evidence was lacking, the statement of George Fiske and the undoubted opportunity and evident motive, combined, caused the arrest of Everett Collins.

The will, when produced, left nearly all the estate to him, and as he was known to be a thriftless, improvident young man, the majority of those interested felt convinced that he was indeed the villain.

The property of the late Mr. Hemmingway, however, was of far less amount than was generally supposed, and also, the large fortune which he had in trust for his ward, Miss Sheldon, had dwindled surprisingly. But this, of course, was in no way the fault of the nephew, and it was thought that Mr. Hemmingway had perhaps been unfortunate in his investments. George Fiske became executor, as desired by the late millionaire, but probate of the will was deferred until after Everett Collins should have been tried at the bar of justice.

Collins himself was stubbornly quiet. He seemed rather dazed at the position in which he found himself, but had nothing to say except a simple assertion of his innocence.

"And he is innocent, Harris!" declared Bert Bayliss soundlessly. "No villain ever possessed that simple straightforward gaze. Villains are complex. That man may be a spendthrift and a ne'er-do-well, but I'll swear he's no murderer, and I'll prove it!"

"Marvelous, Bayliss, marvelous!" said Harris.

Bayliss had come to Clearbrook on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Collins was arrested.

On Wednesday afternoon Bayliss shut himself up alone in the library to clue-hunt, as he called it. Acting on his conviction that Collins was innocent, he eagerly sought for evidence in some other direction. Seating himself at Mr. Hemmingway's desk, he jotted down a few notes, using for the purpose a pencil from the pen-tray in front of him.

HE LOOKED at the pencil abstractedly, and then he suddenly stared at it intently.

"A clue!" he said mentally to Harris. "Hush, don't speak," though Harris hadn't. "I sure have a clue, but such a dinky one! "

He looked at the pencil as at a valuable curio. He glanced about the desk for others, and found several. In a drawer he found many more. They were all of the same make and same number, and while those on the desk were all more or less well sharpened, those in the drawer had never yet been cut.

"Oh!" said Bayliss, and putting carefully into his pocket the pencil he had used in making his notes, he began scrutinizing the waste-basket.

There were not many torn papers in it, but the top ones were letters, envelopes or circulars, each torn once across. On top of these were some chips of pencil cedar and a trifle of black dust.

As if collecting precious treasure, Bayliss, with extreme care, lifted out the top layer of torn envelopes and, without disarranging the tiny wooden chips and black lead scrapings, laid all in a box, which he then put in a small cupboard and, locking its door, put the key in his pocket. Then he returned to the desk and picked up the packet of letters which had been received on Monday and from which Mr. Fiske's letter had been taken. There were about a dozen of them and he looked with interest at each one. Every one was cut open the same way, not by a letter-opener, but with shears— a quick clean cut, which took off a tiny edge along the right-hand end. Each was stamped at the top with the rubber "Received" stamp in red ink.

"Clever, clever villain!" mused Bayliss. "I say, Harris, he's the slickest ever! And nobody could have found him but Yours Truly."

"Marvelous!" murmured Harris.

Then straight to Inspector Garson Bayliss marched and asked to see the letter that Mr. Fiske wrote to Mr. Hemmingway.

Receiving it, he stared at it steadily for a moment, then, going to the window, scrutinized it through a lens.

Moved by an excitement which he strove not to show, he returned it to Mr. Garson, saying: "You've no doubt, I suppose, as to the genuineness of that letter and all that it means and implies."

"No, I haven't," said Mr. Garson, looking straight at the young man. "I have wondered whether there could be anything wrong about Fiske, but that letter is incontrovertible evidence of his veracity."

"Why couldn't it be faked?" persisted Bayliss.

"I've thought of that," said Mr. Garson patiently, "but it's too real. Whether it was written Sunday or not, it was positively posted Sunday evening and it was positively delivered to Mr. Hemmingway Monday morning. The postmark proves that. Then Mr. Hemmingway opened it, for it is cut open precisely the way he cuts open all his letters, and he dated it with his own dating-stamp, and put it with his lot 'To be answered.' Can anything be more convincing of Fiske's good faith?"

"And yet," said Bert Bayliss, "it is a faked letter, and George Fiske's the murderer of Richard Hemmingway! "

"My dear sir, what do you mean?"

"Just what I say. Richard Hemmingway never saw this letter!" ,

"Can you prove that? "

"I can. Look at the envelope closely with this lens, in a strong light. What do you see between the letters of Mr. Hemmingway's name? "

"I see"— the Inspector peered closer—"I see faint pencil-marks."

"Can you make out what they spell?"

"No— yes— 'G-e-o'— is it ' George Fiske'?"

"It is, though not all the letters are discernible. Fiske wrote this letter on Sunday and mailed it on Sunday, but— he addressed it to himself, not to his employer."

"Why?" exclaimed Mr. Garson in amazement.

"Listen. He addressed it with a very soft pencil to himself, and traced the address very lightly. It reached his boarding-house Monday morning, of course, and then he erased the pencil-marks and boldly wrote Mr. Hemmingway's name in ink. Then he cut off the end, in precisely the way Mr. Hemmingway opens his letters, and put the whole thing in his pocket. All day he carried it in his pocket (I am reconstructing this affair as it must have happened), and at four o'clock he went home with the missive still there.

"Late Monday night he returned. After the three visitors, had left, he strangled Mr. Hemmingway. You know he's an athlete, and his employer was a frail old man.

"And then he used the rubber stamp on his own letter and tucked it into the bunch of 'To be answered.' Then he rifled the safe, with Mr. Hemmingway's own keys, turned off all the lights but one and swiftly and silently went home to bed. The rest you know."

"Mr. Bayliss, I can scarcely believe this!" said Inspector Garson, fairly gasping for breath.

"What, you can't believe it when the villain has written his own name as damning evidence against himself?"

"It must be," said the Inspector, again scrutinizing the faint trace of pencil-marks. "But why did he do it?"

"Because he wanted to be executor and thus be able to convert into cash the securities he has stolen."

"He returned those."

"Only a few. Oh, it was a clever and deep-laid scheme! Fiske has quantities of bonds and other valuable papers entirely unaccounted for and which, as sole executor, he can cash at his leisure, all unknown to any one."

"How did you discover this?"

"By the simplest clue. I chanced to notice on Mr. Hemmingway's desk a pencil, freshly sharpened, but sharpened in a totally different way from those sharpened by the man himself. I looked at all the other pencils on his desk, at the one taken from his pocket and at one in his bedroom— they are all sharpened in exactly the same way, with numerous long careful shaves, producing a whittled pyramid. The pencil I spoke of— here it is— is sharpened by only five strong, clean cuts, making a short exposure of cut wood, quite different from the long point of wood in the others. Then I looked in the waste-basket, which at your orders had not been touched since the discovery of the crime, and on top I found the chips and lead-dust of this very pencil. They were on top of some torn envelopes whose postmarks proved they had come in Monday evening's mail, which reaches the Hemmingway house about six-thirty. Hence, whoever sharpened that pencil did it after six- thirty o'clock Monday night, and before the discovery of Mr. Hemmingway's dead body."

Mr. Garson listened breathlessly. "And then?" he said.

"And then," went on Bayliss, "I looked around for some pencils sharpened like that, and found several on and in Fiske's desk in the library. The pencil might have been borrowed from Fiske's desk, but it was sharpened right there at Mr. Hemmingway's desk after half-past six o'clock. Fiske, as you know, testified that he left at four and did not return until Tuesday morning."

BAYLISS' deductions were true. Confronted suddenly with the story and with the traced envelope, Fiske broke down completely and confessed all. He had been planning it for weeks, and had the decoy letter ready to use when Mr. Hemmingway should have a large amount of bonds in his own home safe. The whole story of the Saturday morning interview was a figment of Fiske's fertile brain, and of course Mr. Hemmingway had no suspicions of his nephew. Fiske had known of the expected callers, had watched outside the house until the last one went away and then, running up the steps, had stopped Mr. Hemmingway just as he was closing the door and requested a short interview. Innocently enough Mr. Hemmingway took his secretary into the library, and, while waiting for his fell opportunity, Fiske talked over some business matters. While making a memorandum, Mr. Hemmingway broke his pencil-point, and, unthinkingly, Fiske obligingly sharpened it.

"And to think," murmured Bayliss to Harris, "that little act of ordinary courtesy proved his undoing!"

"Marvelous, Bayliss, marvelous!" said Harris.

________________

11: The Stolen Gems

Carolyn Wells

Sunday Magazine, 13 Sept, 1914

Carolyn Wells, in her early days, enjoyed writing burlesques and spoofs of detective stories: here is another. Published in an unidentified newspaper, and found in Internet Archive.

I MAY as well own up that I have ever been an omnivorous reader of detective stories. But wait a minute— don't let that prejudice you against me. Statistics prove that some of our most desirable citizens are addicted to the same vice; and I know of a luminous member of the English Parliament who neglected an important meeting of his peers to finish a thrilling murder yarn— and he was twice my age.

Well, anyway, the more I read, the more I felt sure that I was a Heaven-born detective, as omniscient as any, and that, given opportunity, I could deduce and detect and decipher with the best of them, and I was convinced that, compared to me, Sherlock Holmes would figure as a feeble-minded snail.

But never came opportunity. I was alert for a chance; but chance eluded me with the elusion of a cubist picture.

However, I am by nature optimistic; so as I walked along my usual morning route from my home to my office I quoth blithely to myself, "I believe something will happen today, something mysterious or thrilling." I said this every morning to the same interested audience; so the fact that something did happen is not so much a coincidence as a proof of the old saw. "All things come to him who waits."

My daily way took me the whole length of Myrtle avenue, the principal residential street of our lovely little village of Rosebrook. The residences were not pretentious: mostly shingly, greenish cottages or bungalowly effects; but all with acreage of veranda.

On one of the verandas, vine-trimmed and wicker-furnished, I saw a golden-haired young person seated on a top step, weeping as if her heart would break, if indeed it were not already broken. She wore a pink frock and a Higher Efficiency Apron of the intricate and enveloping type pictured in the Better Home magazines.

I HESITATED, as any gentleman ought to. Should I intrude on her woe, or should I politely ignore it, and cross the street in order to pass by on the other side? But as paused two blue eyes appeared above the handful of wet handkerchief, and their expression was so appealing that I fairly jumped toward her.

It was perhaps twenty feet from the sidewalk to the porch; but I stayed not for brake and I stopped not for stone, and I most certainly should have swum the Esk River if it had been in my way.

"What is it?" I cried. "Can't I help you?"

"Oh, Sir— a thief— my— my gems! They are all stolen!"

Hah! My chance at last!

"Your gems!" I exclaimed. "Stolen! Who took them?"

These speeches were not altogether in accord with the technic of Poe, Doyle, and Gaboriau— but I was greatly excited.

"A horrid t-t-tramp! Oh, find my gems, or— or catch the awful man and pip-pup-punish him!"

"Fear not!" I cried dramatically. "I will track the miscreant to his lair! I will recover your gems!"

"You c-c-can't," she sobbed. "He r-ran away with them! Oh, Doodie will feel so sorry for me!"

She was growing hysterical, and I saw I must calm her with rational arguments. I took out a notebook.

"Madam," I said, "unless you control yourself and answer my questions, I cannot help you to recover your lost property."

"Or punish the thief!" she put in quickly: and I marveled at the spirit of revenge in this little, doll-faced Niobe.

The countenance she lifted to mine was of the rose-leaf variety, and the tears sprinkled here and there upon it were like shining dewdrops.

"First, who is Doodie?" I asked, anxious to get her family history.

"He's my husband," she said, with the prideful air of a kitten who has just been elected president of something. "We've been married six weeks and two days and a half!"

"And his real name?"

"Mr. J. Merrivale Young. He's cashier in the bank."

"Yes, I know him by sight."

"Oh, isn't he beautiful?" and a rapturous smile chased away the tears for a moment.

"Beautiful!" I agreed. "But now will you describe your gems, that were stolen? What were they? What size? What value? How many?"

I always ask questions in bunches— like asparagus. I can't help it. And I think one gets more and better answers that way.

"Oh, they were the finest I ever saw! Just one great cluster— a big one in the middle, and eight, a little smaller, all around it. I never saw such perfect gems as mine— and now they're all gone— gone forever! Oh, Doodie!"

"How did it happen? When? Where did you keep them? Haven't you a safe? Was the house unguarded?"

"They were on a kik-closet sh-shelf," and she began to sob again, "the kik-closet in the huh-hall."

"Wasn't it locked? Tell me the circumstances. How do you know it was a tramp? How did he get in? How—"

"Don't talk so f-fast. You flutter me. Wait a minute and I will t-tell you. I was in the kitchen. I have studied Domestic Science, you know; so of course I do all my own housework."

"All your own housework! You, such a slip of a—"

"Yes; but it's no trouble at all, with the newfangled paper cookers and fireless napkins— oh, you've got me all confused! I mean— but, anyway, I was in the kitchen, and the doorbell rang, and I flew to the front door; for I thought it might be Doodie-coming back to kiss me again, or something like that— and— boohoo! and there was an awful, horrible, big tramp!"

"Ferocious looking?"

"Oh, yes, and frightful, and threatening! He said for me to give him something to eat, and b-be kuk-quick about it!"

"You poor little thing!"

"I didn't dare refuse; so I went back to the kitchen to make him a sandwich, and— boohoo! — when I came back he had gone, and the hall closet door was wide open— and I looked— and all my gems were gone! Oh, Doodie will feel so bad!"

I was terribly disappointed. I had so long hoped for a complicated case to solve by clever deductions, and here was a plain, simple jewel robbery, where even the thief was no mystery— though of course his identity was not yet established, and incidentally he had not yet been caught.

"I will find him and get back your property," I said; but I felt little enthusiasm in the case, as a case. My enthusiasm was all for the pretty little victim— and it was doubtless misplaced at that, and would find little favor in the eyes of her Doodie.

"Oh, do you think you can find him right away?" she said dubiously. "You see, I expect an old schoolmate. She's coming to lunch with me today, and I wanted her to see my gems. I know they're finer than hers!"

"Well, I may not get them back in time for that. But." and then I recollected my role, "let me look for clues."

SHE took me at once to the hall closet, whose door stood wide open. A small safe was on the floor, and above it were a couple of shelves.

"There's my silver safe," she said proudly. "It was a wedding present. Nobody knows the combination but me and Doodie. You see," with a heavenly blush, "we use a little love-word of our own."

"Well, a tramp couldn't know that, surely," I returned. "And were your gems in the safe?"

"No, they were on the shelf above."

"Very careless of you."

"Oh, don't say that! I didn't think— well, Doodie often tells me I'm careless— oh, he'll be so sorry for me!"

"Of course he will. I'm sorry myself. What were your gems worth?"

"Doodie says they're worth their weight in radium; but I think he meant that for a joke."

"I think so too; unless they were very large. Were they?"

"Well," she considered prettily, "the whole cluster across was about this big," and she held up two rosy forefingers at least six inches apart.

"What!" I exclaimed. "Were they Koh-i-nurs?"

"No," she said, looking puzzled, "they were mine."

"But what a size! How big was each one?"

"About as big as a silver dollar," and the blue eyes looked truthfully into mine.

"Whew! I guess I'd better go straight to Head-quarters with this!"

"Then can you catch that tramp?" And the same blue eyes shone ferociously.

"I hope so. I'm sure. He never could dispose of such wonderful things as those!"

"Oh, don't you think so?"

It might have been my imagination, but I thought I detected a note of disappointment in her tone. At any rate, it was mysterious.

"I'll just look for clues first myself," I said, "before the Headquarters men come in and muddle up the case."

"Oh, look!" she cried. "He left horrid fingermarks on the white painted shelf! I must get my Leopard Spot Cleaner right away and wash them off."

"No, no!" I prevented. "Oh, you little ignoramus, those are what we'll catch him by!"

"Catch him by!" she marveled. "Oh, can you? How in the world—"

"Why, I have to see if this fingerprint matches a recorded print in the Rogues' Gallery."

"Oh, yes, I see. Well, just take the shelf—"

Easily she removed the shelf from its cleats, and gave me the wide, white-painted boards bearing the tell-tale prints.

"Run!" she cried. "Hurry! Take that to Forequarters, or whatever you call it, and match it up with a villain, and put him in jail— in jail!" Her white teeth fairly gritted in her wrath at the wretched criminal.

"And see," for I was still sleuthfully searching, "here are heelmarks on your hall floor!"

Sure enough, the new and shiny parquetry showed distinct prints of nail-studded heels.

"But," I exclaimed, with a cautionary idea of heading her off, "I can't take the floor with me."

"Wait a minute," she said capably, and snatching a pad and pencil from the telephone table she sat down on the floor cross legged, like a dainty little Turkess, and rapidly sketched an exact copy of the hallmark— I mean heelmark.

"There!" and she tilted her head entrancingly to one side, to view her work. "I'm so glad I took that ten-lesson course in Artistic Drawing by Mail! Now go and catch him, and put him in jail!"

I went.

THE story raised a hue and cry at Police Headquarters, I can tell you! They took the cupboard shelf and the paper sketch and studied them with lenses and T-squares and things like that.

An alarm was sent out, and all three of Rosebrook's police force were given instructions to hunt down the thief.

And he was soon found. Constable O'Flaherty telephoned very shortly that he had found the man lying alongside a fence in a vacant lot.

"Asleep?" the Sergeant asked over the telephone.

"No Sorr, divil a bit! He's groanin' sumpin' fierce!"

"What's the matter with him?"

"I dinnaw, Sorr. He's beggin' fer a docther."

Now Rosebrook boasted a recent acquisition of a small but very modern and up-to-date hospital. It had been built and furnished by the vigorous if not entirely harmonious efforts of the Improving Ladies' Society, and it was just ready for its first patient.

Wherefore, its spick and span new ambulance was sent for the suffering denizen of the Underworld, and the afflicted one was arrested and succored at the same time.

Hurried to the hospital, he was put into one of the immaculate white beds, like a twentieth century Christopher Sly. The doctors triumphantly diagnosed his malady as acute and serious stomach trouble, and worked hard in their contradictory ways to save his life.

When they at last felt sure that they had vanquished the Rider of the Pale Horse the patient was too weak and ill to talk. But the inexorable arm of the law  brought the white shelf and the pencil drawing to make the all-absorbing tests.

The prints were identical, both thumb and heel resending nobly, and the patient was a doomed man. But he was still too ill to be questioned; so Mrs. Young was sent for to identify him beyond all mariner or possibility of doubt.

"That's the man!" she cried, almost hysterical in her excitement. "That's the thief who took my gems, even while I was getting him some food! Oh, what shall we do with him? There is no punishment bad enough!" She clenched her rosy, dimpled fists and stamped one of her tiny patent leather pumps.

"Don't you think we had better send for your husband, Mrs. Young?" inquired the admiring Sergeant.

The doll face beamed. "Oh, please do! Can you? I thought the bank wouldn't let Doodie out till closing time, or I should have telephoned him myself. "

'Oh, yes, the bank will excuse him on such an important matter."

"Maybe they won't think it's so important," and the big blue eyes looked appealingly up into the grizzled face of the old Sergeant.

"I'm sure they will," I said, determined to get into the game. "I'll telephone at once."

AS the case was mine, defectively shaking, I wanted the glory of telling Mr. Young that I had succeeded in bringing it to a triumphant conclusion. To be sure, we didn't have the jewels yet; but when the thief could be questioned of course he must tell where he had concealed them.

Even as I was getting the bank on the wire O'Flaherty came to me, looking mystified. "The guy's came to," he whispered, "and he vows he swallered thim jools!"

"What?" I cried. "Why, he couldn't! They were enormous stones!"

"Says he did," repeated the Irishman doggedly.

"Nonsense! He's out of his head," I said, and then as I heard the bank's response I asked for J. Merrivale Young, and got him.

"Will you come over to the hospital?" I said. "Your wife is here—"

"What? Dolly! Oh— oh! What is it? Is she dead? Oh, tell me, Man! End my suspense—"

"Hush up!" I cried, angry at his thus spoiling my dramatic effect. "Mrs. Young is all right. But a thief entered your house this morning

"Entered the house! Oh, poor little Dolly— poor little Baby Dolly! She must have—"

"Will you keep quiet? I tell you your wife is all right. But the thief stole her jewels—"

"Stole what? My wife hasn't any jewels."

"Yes, yes, her big cluster of large jewels."

"What are you talking about? She doesn't own any such thing!"

I was thoroughly scared. Could it be that naughty little popinjay had wonderful jewels, of which her husband knew nothing? But no, she had repeatedly referred to Doodie's intense sympathy with her woe. Was her husband Doodie? Yes, she had said he was. And a bride of six weeks would scarcely be intriguing with another man. Could the little thing be crazy?

But while these thoughts raced through my brain I calmly said to the young gentleman, "Well, come over here, anyway," and hung up.

He came.

THE two Youngs met, and for a time there was nothing else doing. A reunion after years of absence couldn't have been more touchingly strenuous. In each other's arms they were lost to the world for twelve ecstatic minutes.

Then various onlookers said, "Ahem!" and the pair reluctantly returned to earth.

"Now, Dolly Ducky, what's it all about?"

"Why, you see, Doodie," and she nestled closer into his arms, and stroked his pink, young cheek, "an awful tramp came, and scared your little Dolly Dovey mos' to deff!"

"Lublums! The baddy man! We'll have him put in jail— a big, black jail!"

"Yes, that's just what I said. But— oh, Doodie Dumpkins, he stole my gems!"

"Oh, Dolly Winkums, did he? Those wonderful gems! He ought to have a life sentence! I suppose they wouldn't give him a death sentence?"

"Oh, Doodie, they must punish him fearful, mustn't they?"

"Look here, Mr. Young," and I admit I lost my patience at last, "you said your wife had no gems!"

"I beg your pardon, Sir, I said she had no jewels."

"Tut-tut," said the Sergeant sternly. "Be careful, Mr. Young! This is no time for quibbling!"

Dolly looked as if she would strike the speaker. "What do you mean?" she cried. "My Doodie isn't quibbling!"

"What was stolen from you, Madam?"

"My gems— my graham gems that I made for luncheon all myself— nine of 'em— in a round pan— one big one in the middle, and eight little ones all around—"

A perplexed-looking doctor came in. "The patient insists he swallowed those gems—" he began.

But I heard no more. I was already out in the street, and continuing my uneventful way to my office.

_________________

12: Girl of the Goat-God

Arthur Leo Zagat

1895-1949

Dime Mystery Magazine, November 1935

Roy Glashan's Library, 2017

1: Swamp Terror

OUT of the night a scream rose, high and thin and quivering. For a long minute it held, a scarlet thread of sound. Then it ended, and there was nothing but the rustle of breeze-stirred foliage and the shrill grating of the crickets, screeching an obbligato to terror.

Rose Loran was icily motionless, staring across vague lamplight at the black oblong of the window through which the shriek had come. In her cold hands the dishes she had just removed from the cluttered supper table rattled tinnily, shivering with the uncontrollable tremble of her slight frame. A precariously balanced tumbler jittered against the edge of the tray, toppled, smashed to the floor. The kitchen door behind the girl crashed open.

"What was it?" Aunt Faith chattered. "Rose! Where— I thought you..."

Rose twisted, the older woman's gibbering fright paradoxically restoring control over muscles momentarily paralyzed by the horror of that scream. Faith Loran, tall and spare, her drawn, thin face ash-colored and twitching, clung to the door-jamb. Her grey, tired eyes were wide-pupilled, staring, and her gaunt neck was corded with fear.

"I— I don't know." The words rasped Rose's parched throat. "Someone in the garden. Someone— it— it didn't sound like anything human."

"The— the garden." The woman's pallid lips parted only slightly to let out the whispered syllables. "Elmer... I sent Elmer... to the well."

"Oh Aunt Faith!" The exclamation was sharply rebuking. "In the dark! When you know he can hardly see in bright sunlight!"

But there was relief in Rose's voice, too. Now she understood that scream. The decrepit old man who was their one servant had stumbled, fallen hard, and screamed. That was all it was. There was no reason for this fear that tore at her, that squeezed her pounding heart. Rose turned, snatched up the lamp from the table, started for the great arched opening at the other end of the high-ceilinged, huge dining hall.

"Rose!" Aunt Faith's bony fingers clutched her biceps, digging in with convulsive strength. "Rose! Where are you going?"

"Out to Elmer. He's hurt. I've got to..."

"No!" It was a tenuous, almost voiceless gust of sound. "Don't go out there! Don't go out there— in the dark."

"The dark!" Rose jerked away, exasperatedly. "I'm not a child. I'm not afraid of the dark."

She was, though. She was eerily terrified by the moonless murk out there. Aunt Faith had made her afraid of it, in the past few weeks. The way her aunt had insisted on locking all the doors and windows at nightfall; the way she would stand for hours staring out into the sightless gloom— these things had their effect on the girl's nerves. She began to believe that her aunt expected to see something— dreadful...

Only yesterday Rose had told Walter about Faith's queer behavior. Big shouldered, stalwart Walter Parton, the man who loved her and whom she loved. He had laughed, and then suddenly a tender fierceness had masked his broad-planed face. "Why don't you let me take you away from all this, Rose?" he had growled. "From this rotting house and this half-crazy aunt of yours."

"I can't, Walter," the girl had sobbed. "Why do you keep coming back and asking me? You know I can't marry you. You know I can't marry anyone. I daren't."

"I'll keep coming back, and I'll keep asking you till you say yes." How she had wanted to snuggle into those great arms of his, to feel his lips on hers! But she had pulled away and had told him to go, and he had climbed into his roadster and driven it away at reckless speed toward his home in Loranton. And she had gone slowly back to the shadows of Loran Hall and to the dread that had settled down upon it...

The dim gleam of her lamp could not fill the vast expanse of the entrance foyer. It slid over the lower steps of a baronial staircase, along papered walls whose intricate patterns were faded and drab, stopped at the patinated, dark oak of a towering door. Rose went to the portal, tugged at its heavy bolt.

Aunt Faith was alongside her, was plucking fearfully at her sleeve. "Don't open it. For God's sake don't open it."

The girl thrust her shoulder against the aged spinstress, shoved her away. "Please, Aunt Faith. You're hysterical. Elmer..." The bolt came out of its socket, and the heavy door creaked slowly inward to her pull. The lamp-flame flickered, sent a filament of black smoke curling upward, then burned steadily in the lifeless air. A rotted board in the floor of the broad porch sagged under Rose's slight weight. The roof-high pilasters fronting the house were a row of pallid, gigantic spectres marching away on either side into obscurity. A peculiar, hushed oppression closed in on her, and the pungent aroma of lush greenery was in her nostrils, tainted with the miasmic breath of Gorham's Swamp that held the Loran Estate within the crescent sweep of its putrescent bog.

Rose hesitated, listening tautly. The night walled in the sphere of her feeble light, and reptilian tendrils of uncared for vegetation crawled over the verandah edge. A sound bubbled up through the sibilant sea of rural silence, a burbling, liquid moan. The girl's head jerked to it and it came again.

"Elmer! Where are you, Elmer?" Thick-clustered, rank foliage took her cry, swallowed it. Brambles tore at her dress as she ran down the thudding path, rosebush thorns sliced the skin of her bare arms. Rose stopped suddenly, her heart pounding.

Ahead something entered the rim of light, something that was moving. Something that writhed, agonizingly, and then was still.

"Elmer!" Rose could only whisper the name as dread clutched at her larynx. She drove herself a hesitant step forward— and then her feet went out from under her, sliding in the slippery mud. She rolled, got to her knees.

The lamp, jarred from her hand, had miraculously landed upright in the muck. Its light painted Elmer Stone's wrinkled face, twisted and almost unrecognizable. His face was drawn into lines of agony. His chest was a weltering horror of ripped overall cloth purplish with viscid, glutinous blood that spilled out of a deep and horrible gash torn raggedly through his breast. The memory of a bull-gored farmer she had seen once, years ago, came to Rose's fainting mind. This jagged wound was like that. But there was no bull inside the high iron fence Faith had insisted on erecting around the place, and whose tall gate she made a ceremonial of locking at dusk. There was no animal of any kind... What then, could have done this?

A bubbling moan pulled her staring gaze back to the tortured countenance. Elmer's eyelids were blue, ghastly membranes drawn tight over the bulging round of his old eyes. His seamed skin was wax-pale with the filming of death. But his blue lips twisted and words came bubbling out.

Rose bent closer, shuddering. Meaningless sounds came out of writhing agony. "Goat goatem..." Meaningless sounds that suddenly were drowned by a spew of blood. The racked body arced with a spasm of uttermost anguish, flung over in its final, terrible convulsion. A lax arm flopped down in the mud and lay still. Elmer Stone didn't move any more. Rose knew that he would never move again.

"The goat— the goat man," a wire-edged voice screamed over Rose's head and splintered into high-pitched laughter, into a cacchination utterly mad. "The piper has come for his pay."

The girl surged to her feet, swung about to face her aunt. Faith Loran's head was thrown back. The crazed laugh shrieked from her wide-open, contorted mouth. One thin, satin-sleeved arm was thrust stiffly out in front of her and a bony forefinger pointed rigidly— not at the shattered corpse but at something beyond. Rose whirled and saw a pallid, grotesque specter the lamplight just reached.

Panic struck at Rose for a frantic, ghastly moment, and then she knew what it was at which the spinstress pointed. A statue of Pan the wood-god, haunched on shaggy goat legs, reed pipes at his saturninely grinning mouth. Curving horns jutted out of the touselled disorder of the carved hair. Horns. Good God! Was the stain darkening one of them only moss or...

"The night—," Faith screeched between peals of crazed laughter—"The night of the Lorans... only us left to pay the piper. We who did not dance must pay him... The sins of the fathers—"

Rose couldn't see the stone pedestal on which Pan squatted, but she knew what Aunt Faith meant. There was a rhyme graven into it, a lilting rhyme from over whose deep, angular letters a boyish Walter Parton had once scraped green slime so that they could read:

Dance ye mornyng, dance ye noon,
Dance ye sunlit hours away.
Length'nyng shadowes tell that soone
I will come to ask my paye.

The old woman's screaming laugh tore at Rose's nerves. It was harder to bear than even the sight of the mutilated corpse at her feet.

The Lorans had danced. God knew they had danced! Roy Loran the second had brought to the paradise the first Roy had carved out of wilderness, carousing young bloods and complaisant ladies from the distant city. Roy the third, Faith's father and Rose's grandsire, had added new and terrible vices to the orgies of Loran Hall. He had died raving, calling down curses on the fourth Roy, who had killed Rose's parents in a drunken, wild auto ride and disappeared into the unknown.

"The bill is overdue and we must pay—" Pan seemed to be listening to Faith Loran's wild cries with his cocked head. He seemed amused, with cruel lines around his mouth belying his grin, with evil puckering his tiny eyes... Suddenly Rose felt that she was going as mad as Faith.

"Stop it," she screamed. "Stop it." Her hand struck out and its palm slapped stingingly across her aunt's sere cheek. "Stop it."

The shrill laugh cut off, something like reason returned to the woman's staring eyes. She touched the red blotch left on her cheek by the girl's blow. "What happened to him?" she said haltingly. "Oh, Rose. What could have done it?"

The girl shuddered. "Gored," she whispered. "A bull..."

Faith shook her head. "No bulls anywhere near. And the gate is locked. Look." She clawed at her breast, pulled out a black ribbon through the seam of her blouse. A twisted, archaic key hung at its end. "I locked it and the only key has been with me all the time."

"But— what then...?" Rose shuddered, made herself look down again at Elmer. At the ground around the tragic heap drenched by water spilled from the bucket he had been carrying, by water and by...

She was staring, staring unbelieving at the trampled mire. At black mud trampled and churned by feet whose imprints were glaringly, starkly plain in the light of the lamp set down among them. At sharply defined indentations that were filling with a slow seep of red-tinted moisture.

They were unmistakable. They were prints of cloven hooves. Of hooves too small to be a bull's or a cow's. They might have been made by goat feet....

A liquid ripple of shrill melody skirled out of the darkness, clotting the girl's thoughts. It changed to laughter— a sound of shrill, mocking glee. Such weird laughter as Pan's pipes might make if Pan were laughing into them.

Something darted across the light— a small stone smashing into the lamp. Its chimney crashed and darkness blotted out the scene.

"The goat man," Faith screamed. "Oh God..."

A vast, formless bulk surged out of the darkness! Rose whirled, leaped into a frantic, desperate run. She sped up the path on the wings of fear. She ran endlessly through dank blackness filled with the stinging whiplash of unpruned branches, with the tripping tangle of untended vines. A hoarse breath panted behind her, and the thud, thud of ponderous, pursuing feet. Always behind her, and closer, closer...

The house loomed ahead, its facade vaguely luminous. Across its porch Faith's vague form flitted, wild arms flailing above her head. She vanished into the gaping black maw of the open portal, and suddenly the dark oblong was narrowing, narrowing...

"Don't," Rose screamed. "Don't close it. Don't close the door on me!" Her frantic feet pounded on wood, the single shallow step to the verandah, and something twitched at her dress from behind. A savage, bestial howl roared in her ears. A chattering howl of triumph.

2: Living Nightmare

THE feral roar goaded the frantic girl to a frenzied leap. It carried her across the porch and through a narrow opening left by the closing door. Metal, the rusted lockbolt, gashed her arm, but she squeezed through. She sprawled, breathless, and heard the dull thud of the shutting door, the rattle of its bolt, the sound of a heavy body against it. A sound like rock pounding against the wood. The house shook to the impact, but the great door held.

"The window," Faith screamed. "The window in the dining hall. The shutter."

Rose jerked around, staggered to her feet. She dived through blackness into the great room where they ate, flung herself across the floor to the open window. Her hand clawed for the handle of the iron shutter that had been put there for protection against Indian attack when the hall was built. She pulled at it, tugged it down. Feet pounded outside, and a face glared in at her. Small eyes glittered malevolently under a leathery low forehead. She glimpsed wide-nostrilled, swarthy features, a pointed, straggly beard, and then the clanging metal cut them off from her vision.

Rose pushed the hooked fastening home, reeled, clutching the sill to keep from falling. She pulled great sobbing breaths into her tortured lungs, and fought nausea twisting her stomach, fought madness swirling within her skull. Mad! She must be mad! For she had thought horns had projected from the brow of that evil countenance. She had thought it the visage of Pan, come alive.

Pan, alive and malevolent! It was her nightmare suddenly become real, the nightmare from which time and again had driven her into shrieking wakefulness, and left her trembling in her bed.

When she had been a lonely little child in this great house with only those two for company— her granite-faced grandfather with the agonies of hell smouldering in his eyes, and her dour-visaged aunt— she had used to pretend the sculptured godlet was a rollicking playmate, her own 'boy-friend.' When Walter Parton had come to play with her, there had been the three of them. Then had come the grandfather's last, terrible night, his shouted obscenities booming through the hollow emptiness of Loran Hall, booming through the locked door behind which she had cringed, shaken and terrified.

After it was over, after the old man had shouted his last curse and his profane lips were forever sealed, Aunt Faith had come to the cowering, white-faced fifteen-year-old. Trembling, distressed, she had told the girl the wild history of her ancestors.

The founder of the line had come here from the sea. He had purchased the good land from one Stannard Gorham for a song, leaving Gorham only the useless swamp. He had brought workmen from far away Providence to erect this mansion. When it was finished he had married a girl twenty years his junior. She had died giving birth to his son.

As if in defiance of Fate the first Loran had lavished all the luxuries the time afforded on his heir. There had been money to buy them with, gold money and silver from some mysterious, apparently inexhaustible store. Coins of alien mintage, some green and worn, some brightly new. The men who had built Loran Hall settled on Roy Loran's land. Loranton became a thriving community. Stannard Gorham repented of his bargain, came demanding restitution. He crawled away, after a while, broken in body and mind by that which had been done to him.

The inevitable had happened. Rose's great-grandfather had grown up a waster and a profligate. His son, the man whom Death had just claimed, had outdone him. And his oldest son had attained the apex of evil— and brought the house crashing down. The last that had been heard of the fourth Roy Loran, of Rose's Uncle Roy, was a report of his death in a speakeasy brawl on New York's Bowery. Grandfather had refused to claim the body.

"He said Potter's Field was too good for him," Faith had finished. "And that is the way the Loran line ended. We are all that are left and the Loran heritage must die with us. Love and children are not for us."

It had dawned on Rose why Faith had never married. "Oh," she had sobbed. "Let's go away from here. Let's go away from this awful place."

"We can't," the woman had replied. "My poor darling, we can't. Grandfather has willed the Hall to us and what's left of the estate. But that is all there is. There isn't any money left. Those who went before us have danced, and we must pay the piper."

It was then that Rose understood why Stannard Gorham had astonishingly appeared during the festivities of the second Roy's marriage and presented the statue of Pan as a peace-offering. A peace-offering! He had mockingly placed his threat and his curse on the very lawn of his enemy. It was his hand that had graven that verse:

Dance ye mornyng, dance ye noon,
Dance ye sunlit hours away.
Length'nyng shadowes tell that soone
I will come to ask my paye.

And when she had at last sobbed herself to exhausted sleep the dream had first terrified her... The smell of goat-flesh in blackness... A leering, lustful face close above her own— a man-face that was also the bearded and horned visage of a goat... Calloused, irresistible hands gripping her shoulders, forcing her down. A hairy, repulsive hide pressed against her skin, flaying her with its shaggy roughness...

The next day Rose, white-faced, her eyes downcast, a slime of evil seeming to her to foul her slender body, had sent Walter away. He had returned again and again through the three long years, and again and again she had dismissed him.

Each time she had fled to her room, weeping, reviling the fate that denied love to her...

A fumbling rasp along the edge of the shutter at which she stared seemed to scrape the raw edges of her throbbing nerves. The corrugated metal bent inward a bit. Rose glanced frantically around the room, searching for some weapon, for anything that might serve to put up a futile battle against the dread thing that sought entrance. There was nothing...

Dull pound of ponderous footfalls pulled her gaze back to the window. They faded. Had the killer, the— goat man— given up? Was he baffled by the defences Aunt Faith's senile mania had erected against him? Against him! She had known, then, that he was coming! How had she known?

He was not gone! Rose whirled to the sound of his probing fingers at the chamber's other window. He was making a circuit of the house. He was searching for a way in...

The archway to the foyer filled with light, and then Faith was standing in it. From somewhere she had drawn courage, and she was again prim, stiffly erect in lustrous black satin, a high-boned collar jabbing into the parchment dryness of her skin, grey hair pulled tightly back from a brow whose fine mesh of wrinkles it could not smooth. The lamp in her hand was rock-steady. But her eyes were veiled. Rose knew that the dull curtain hid fear. Fear that had been a brooding threat for days, that was now a livid reality.

"Rose! Did...?"

"No. I got the shutter down in time. Aunt Faith— we've got to get help. We can't stay here with— that— outside."

"Help! How?" The thin line of her mouth twisted with what might have been a bitter smile. "We dare not go— out there. And the telephone was taken out last week. They wouldn't let us have a telephone without paying for it. Our credit isn't good any more."

"Credit! But you had money. You sold the last of the silver..."

"And bought food with it. Wasted it on food we'll never eat. He'll get in... Rose... he'll find a way to get in. We can't escape him."

It wasn't so much what she said that sent chills shivering up Rose's spine; it was her tone, dull, flat, utterly hopeless. Pregnant with the same grim fatalism with which she had once said, "We must never marry. We must die friendless and alone."

"He! What— who is he? Who is the man with the horned head?" The question was wrung from her. "You know, Aunt Faith. You have been expecting this."

A muscle twitched in the sunken, age-yellowed cheek. "I? How should I know? The Lorans had many sins and many enemies. For each sin an enemy. Perhaps— a horned head! Have you forgotten your Shakespeare, child? Have you forgotten that horns on a man's forehead are the brand of a cuckold?"

A cuckold— a betrayed husband. What was the story of Uncle Roy's last escapade before the one that had ruined him? Of the girl he had met in the swamp— the wife of Gant Gorham...?

Gant Gorham! Elmer's gasping, unintelligible message came back. Gant Gorham! Was it that he had tried to say? Had he been accusing the descendant of Stoddard Gorham who lived in the morass that was his inheritance, alone and half-mad in some foul shack on an island of harder ground? Rose had never seen him, but...

"Aunt Faith! I can get help. I can get Walter! The roof— it's copper! I'll build a fire up there. Walter will see it. He'll come..."

"No. It isn't any use. The roof isn't high enough..."

"It is. I've been up there and I could see his house over the trees between."

Action, any action, was a relief from dread. Rose ran into the kitchen, snatched up an armful of firewood, matches. She was out in the foyer again, was running up the great staircase, through a passageway, up narrower steps. She wanted no light, every inch of the old house was familiar. Here was the ladder to the roof.

She got the heavy trapdoor open. Wind beat in on her from the black pall of a cloud-filled sky. A storm wind. She dropped her kindling on the flat roof. Her shaking hands made a small tent of the firewood sticks. She fumbled in the little pocket of her frock for the matches.

The rustle of breeze-tossed leaves came to her, and a curious pattering like the quick beat of raindrops. But it wasn't raining yet. Rose rose to her feet, ran toward the parapet overlooking the garden. Reached it and leaned over the crumbling rail. Jagged lightning split the clouds, and the tangled brush below was vivid with blue glare.

Vivid and alive with movement. The pattering came from down there, the rapid scamper of many feet. Another lightning streamer showed. Rose knew what made it. Little animals, dozens of them, were running through the brush, running toward the house. Small black beasts. One of them was in the path. Rose gasped. It was a goat, an ebony skinned, bearded goat. But there was something grotesque about it. Something weirdly wrong.

Not in its shape or the manner of its pattering run. In its color. In the color of its horns and its hooves. They were not grey as a normal goat's should be. They were brightly golden. They were gilded... The beast vanished, and the beat of its weird feet came up from the porch.

She must have been mistaken. Some freak of the fitful lightning had deluded her... There was another— a female. Its horns, too, gleamed, indescribably eerie.

Rose's hands clenched on the rail, her fingers trembling. For a moment she could not move, could not think. The murdered man, the weird pursuing figure, had already made that garden a place of fear. But it was something other than that now. It was an enclosure visited by an ancient terror, invaded by beings that were goat-form and yet were not goats. Tag ends of shivery legends slid across her pulsing brain, traditions of whispered horror. They were under her, just under her, filling the broad verandah of Loran Hall, their hoofs making a small thunder on its rotting boards. A thunder nearer than the mutter of the approaching storm.

Then there was another sound. All her life she had heard it, but in this moment it seared her with appalling dismay. The sound of creaking hinges came up to her— the creak of the great door's opening hinges. She could not be mistaken...

And there were voices. Faith's harsh accents, and a bass rumble she could not recognize... But it could be only the voice of Elmer's murderer!

Oh God! It had been Faith who had sent old Elmer out to his death! It had been Faith who but for her own frantic, incredible leap would have shut her out, helpless in the grip of the terror! It had been Faith who had pointed to the veiled prophecy on Pan's pedestal and laughed! Laughed in the presence of horrible death!

Faith had known of the coming of the beast and had waited for it, not with fear but with impatience. Faith had argued against the signal Rose had come up here to set, calling for help. Faith was opening the door now to let in the beast before Wally could come!

3:  Man Trap

A MIST of red wrath wavered before Rose Loran's eyes. Faith Loran— Aunt Faith— had known of some awful vengeance descending on Loran Hall. To save herself she had offered Elmer as a sacrifice, and Rose. She was making that bargain now, down there, offering her niece, her ward, in exchange for her own safety. It was damnable.

The girl's small fists clenched, she whirled away from the parapet, sobbing with choked anger. They would not get away with it. She went back to the hatchway. She knelt to the fire she had laid and thrust a flaming match into the shavings at its base. The tinder caught—

A scream shrilled up from below, a high, quavering, scream exactly like Elmer's last cry from the darkness. But this was not followed by silence. It was quenched, rather, by a sudden blatting chorus of goat-cries, and by the skirling laughter of the Pan pipes.

Rose forgot her anger. She spun about, remembering only that Aunt Faith had been a mother to her, that Aunt Faith needed her now. She caught up a thick bludgeon, hurled herself down the ladder and the stairs, hurtled along the dark second floor corridor, snatched at the newel-post of the main stairway to twist herself to that last broad flight. Then she stopped, peering down, trembling...

Light flickering in through the open door showed her the foyer floor. Showed her the gilt-horned goats milling around something on that floor, something twisted, and bloody, and horrible.

She saw the bronzed, naked back of a man crouched over the gory body of Aunt Faith. If it was a man. His hair was tight curled, shaggy. His haunches— what she could see of them— were black-furred, shaggy, bestial. His hands, spatulate, hairy, were busy with the body of the woman on the floor.

"No!" shrieked Aunt Faith. "You won't get it out of me. It's done enough damage already." Her voice was edged with terror and agony.

Rose's arm arced upward, swept down. The heavy stick flew down through the dark. She heard it crash into the creature's skull. Its thud sickened the girl, but the blow that would have dropped an ordinary man only brought a howl from the one below. He raised up, twisted about. In a new flash Rose saw the face staring up at her that had glared in through the window. The sharp-chinned, satyr's countenance. Were those horns on his brow or...? Before she could make sure darkness had smashed in again with a brain-shaking peal of awesome thunder.

It seemed to come in the house and roll up the stairs beneath her. But it wasn't thunder, it was the pound of Pan's feet coming up to her. Rose whirled, leaped into a frenzied dash for safety. Where was there safety in this house invaded by terror? The roof? If she could get to the roof, fling herself over. Death, any death rather than...

A hole in the frayed carpeting caught her heel, flung her down. She sprawled, despair exploding in her brain. She rolled... The smell of goat flesh gusted out of the blackness. Calloused, irresistible hands gripped her shoulders. A hairy, repulsive hide was against her quivering skin. Through the thin fabric of her frock it flayed her with its roughness...

A ROLLING peal of thunder died away. Lightning flashed in through the windows once more, and the electric lamp by which Walter Parton was trying to read dimmed, flared up again. He slammed his book down on the floor, unfolded his lank, loose-knit length, stood on heavy-thewed, spraddled legs. A frown creased his tanned forehead and in his brown eyes pain slept, pain that had not been long out of them through the years since Rose Loran had first told him she was not for him.

"Hell of a storm coming up," he muttered in the habit of one who is much alone. "If lightning hits that old house..."

Damn it. If Rose would only get over that foolish idea of hers. If she would only let him take care of her. From that window he could just see the roof of Loran Hall... About time he got over his kid habit of gazing at it for long hours, heartsick with love denied... He strode across the room...

He was staring out into pitch blackness... What the hell! An orange spark splashed the night. It grew momentarily brighter, was unmistakably the flicker of a flame. There was nothing over there but Rose's home!

Parton whirled, threw himself down the stairs. He ran to the 'phone in the hall, frantically twirled its handle to call the firehouse in distant Loranton. There was no sound in the receiver slammed against his ear. No sound at all. Damnation! The rickety line was out again. Every time there was a storm it did that! Walter hurled the useless cylinder of hard rubber against the wall. He ran out of the house, leaped into the seat of his rattletrap roadster, breathing a prayer of thankfulness that he had been too lazy to garage it.

The slam of the door, the whir of the starter, the clash of gears and the roar of a hard-pushed motor merged into one continuous sound. Headlights leaped out to snatch a rushing ribbon of rutted road out of the darkness. Malformed, grotesque trees flicked by. The world lit up with a quivering blue glare of lightning and vanished again with a detonation of deafening thunder.

Underbrush scraped the flivver's sides. Boards of a narrow bridge rattled swiftly underneath. Parton's foot pounded down on the brake pedal as a great black gap in the bridge deck leaped into the glare of his headlights. The car squealed protest and the seat dropped away underneath Parton. Checked momentum slammed him forward. Windshield glass crashed. As weltering, nauseous blackness stabbed him with excruciating pain he thought he heard shrill laughter somewhere near— skirling laughter...

FILTHY, lecherous fingers tore at Rose Parton's clothing. A scream of nightmare horror ripped her throat.

"You devil," Faith shrieked from below. "Let her alone. I'll tell. I'll tell if you leave her."

Through retching oblivion that swept in on her Rose was vaguely conscious that the hands were no longer tearing at her. She crawled— tried to crawl. She was going down, down into nothingness.

PARTON battled with unconsciousness, fought it off. Dazedly he pulled himself out from under the twisted steering wheel. Throbbing pain streaked across his cheek and the taste of his own blood was salty on his lips. An electric flicker showed him the grotesquely slanted hood of his car, the crumpled radiator crushed against a heavy board at the other side of the gap in the bridge. Painfully he got out on the running board, crept along it, dragged himself over the hood's hot metal. He was on firm ground again. He was running, running madly along a road lit only fitfully by sky-rending flashes.

And with him ran dread. For he had seen, as he struggled to get across the opening his wrecked flivver bridged, fresh scars of wood that could have been made only by an ax. That gap was not an accident of rotted timbers fallen in. It was man-made, made by someone who purposely had intended to block the road to Loran Hall.

Gasping, he reached the high iron fence around the Loran Estate. The turretted silhouette of the ancient mansion bulked against the blacker dark of the sky, and tiny flames flickered on its roof. Even as he clung, shaken and distrait, to the locked gate they were gone. Queer, he thought dully. The fire had put itself out.

And then he remembered that that roof was of copper, was impervious to flame. Remembered Rose's troubled recounting of her aunt's unaccountable fear, and the strange circumstance of the wrecked bridge. Good Lord! That fire had been a signal, a desperate call for help. The danger, whatever danger Faith Loran had feared, had descended upon Loran Hall! Rose needed him— and the fence, the locked gate, barred him out.

"Rose!" he shouted. "Rose! I'm coming. Hold on! I'm coming." He backed away, crouched. His leg-muscles uncoiled like unleashed springs, hurtled him at the barrier. His hands gripped the spikes at the top. They pierced him with new tortures. He held on, his biceps cracked, swelling, but his lifted foot groped for and found the top-rail of the fence. He was over.

He ran through the tangle of the un-kept garden. A pale wraith looming above him was the statue of Pan for which Rose had taken an inexplicable dislike, right after her grandfather died. That had been part of the queer change in her that had caused him so much distress. He passed it, skidded in mud. Fell and his hand clutched into clammy flesh. He rolled away, shuddering. A lightning flash showed him horror!

He was on his feet again, reached the porch, and dashed through the door. The open door. Good Lord! What had happened here! What fiendish thing?

Walter Parton's mouth set into a grim line across his pallid face, as he paused, tensely listening. The musty dead smell of the ancient house was all about him. Eerie, fitful flashes of light from the lightning of the nearing storm was the only illumination in the shrouded, funereal entrance hall.

"Rose!" he shouted frantically.

Walter listened to the echoing diminuendo with which the mansion mocked him. There was no answer, but he sensed some presence here that was dread made tangible, that waited for his burning, wide-pupilled eyes to find it in the gloom. His sleeves tightened over bulging biceps, his fists knotted as if to meet an attack. And then he saw it, far back in the vague foyer; a dark mound, a motionless dark pile. He moved, stiff-legged and tensed, across the uncarpeted floor; fearing to scan the limp heap closer yet knowing that he must do so. His cold hand fumbled in a pocket, came out with a wood match as he got to the dark form. His thumb rasped across the match-head, and a little flame spurted from the splinter. Its light spilled down.

Pent breath popped from between Walter's icy lips in a choked gasp, and the match dropped from his nerveless fingers— dropped hissing into viscid liquid still oozing redly from the corpse.

4: Clutch of the Swamp

HORROR quivered in deepening darkness, in silence thick with dread. In Walter's temples a pulse pounded against the steel band of terror that constricted his forehead, and his hand seemed mittened, clumsy as he groped for another match.

Dancing, minute light forced the lurking shadows back a little way. Queerly, even in the brutal death that had come to her, even with her skull crushed in and her thin frame contorted in final agony, something of the rigid austerity of her spinsterhood still clung to Faith Loran. But on the pallid fabric under the woman's scrawny neck, on the yellow of her skin, on the scrubbed whiteness of the wooden floor all about her, tiny footprints showed, the twin small ovals of goats' cloven hoofs stamped in thin blood! Parton caught the taint of their odor in the quivering, stifling air he pulled into his lungs. Goats! What mocking, derisive thing was this? What outer horror had invaded this old house? What incredible thing was it that had slain old Elmer and Faith? Where was Rose?

He shouted her name, sprang toward the stairs. His feet pounded up the great staircase, resounded through the ominous, shadowy reaches above. "Rose!" His shouted, frantic call echoed through emptiness. He dashed back to the entrance-hall again, staggering, grey despair masking his working face, cold sweat dripping from it. Rose was gone, was somewhere in the hands of the vicious killer. Rose was gone...

Lightning framed the doorway in blue glare, vanished. It seemed to the frantic man that the inimical, haunched statue of Pan had been silhouetted right there in the opening. So real the impression was that he crouched to meet it. A foul, animal-like odor engulfed him, and a hard fist crashed against his shoulder. With appalling suddenness Parton was involved in a maelstrom of fierce combat, was fighting for his life with an eerily huge antagonist who had about him some macabre weirdness that made Walter's blood run cold within him even as he fought.

The smash of hairy fists, impacting on his bones as though the cushion of his flesh and muscle had been stripped away, pounded excruciating agony through him. Walter sidestepped, got home with his own fist, might veritably have been battling the stone monument for all the effect it had. His adversary was gigantic, seemed possessed of supernormal strength and gave vent to grunting, animal sounds that tightened its unearthly, terror-inspiring quality. Parton rained futile blows on the monstrous thing that sought his destruction. Skinned knuckles were the reward of his efforts, and pain that shot up his arms, paralyzed his muscles.

The thing that had come out of the night closed in; relentless, implacable. Parton felt shaggy arms wrap around his weakening body, and he was hugged tight to a steel-hard torso. The hands that clamped him constricted, drove the breath from his chest. He felt his ribs caving in, his tortured spine cracking. His eyes bulged, he tasted the salt of blood on his lips...

The world exploded in a tremendous blast that swallowed Loran Hall in a coruscation of electricity gone mad! Flame spurted— was it in his own head? Walter caromed into a corner, slammed against a papered wall. He slid to the floor. He knew that the gargoylesque shape whose attack had so nearly destroyed him had rushed to the back of the house, had disappeared.

Acrid smoke stung his nostrils.

Afterwards Walter wondered that he was able to force himself to his feet, to reel after his late antagonist. It was the thought of Rose that spurred him past the stairs, through the wavering flames of the fire the lightning-flash had set— the thought that this being would lead him to Rose.

A blank wall confronted Parton, but to his right there was a door. He whirled to it, flung it open. Lurid firelight flared in, lit up wooden, descending steps. Walter threw himself down those steps, saw a stone-vaulted basement receding into shadow, heard a grating noise and the faint echo of a taunting laugh.

Fire-glare set his long shadow dancing on tamped-down earth that showed no trace of any passing. Lightning flicked through a high-up small window, revealed the cellar from end to end, from side to side. It was starkly empty. Cobwebs hung undisturbed from beamed rafters, the dust of years was clotted on grimly grey foundation stones that were its walls.

A racking cough seized Walter, doubled him up with its paroxysm. His eyes were streaming, misted. He was aware that smoke was pouring down the stairs behind him, heard the crackle of flames. He twisted about, saw red firelight darting ominously through a billowing smoke-cloud. He was caught by the fire, caught down here to be cremated in a raging furnace, to end with the end of Loran Hall...

Heat beat on Walter Parton's back like the breath of a Moloch. Flames hissed, then roared hungrily as old wood caught and blazed. Jagged fingers, yellow and orange and oddly green, reached for him out of the rolling murk, snatched at him hungrily. Impossible to return up those fiery stairs— and there was no other way out of this basement. He was cut off, doomed!

Parton groaned, dropped, crawled along the earthen cellar-floor on hands and knees, his head low to seek what little clearer air there was down here. Strength seeped from him. He couldn't breathe. Suffocation would claim him in minutes now. At least he would be unconscious when the raging flames reached him.

His head struck stone, rough stone of the farther wall. Walter lay still, gasping, despair a leaden weight at his stomach-pit.

The smoke lifted over him, seemed to be drawn upward so as to give him a slightly greater space of comparatively clean air to breathe. It was being drawn upward! He could see the curl of the tendrils, their ascending current, remembered the high-placed window. Luck, or some guiding Providence, had brought him just beneath it. But that window was ten feet above him, beyond his reach and, perhaps, too small to permit his passage.

Parton filled his lungs, scrambled to his feet. His clawing fingers found chinks in the masonry, his toes scraped, caught in tiny interstices. He climbed painfully up the rough wall. His hand found the window-sill, agonizing effort got his knees onto the narrow ledge.

A chink between sash and frame gave him time for another breath, but it was smoke-tainted, cut his chest with its knife-edge stab. A cough tore at his throat. He fought it, fearful that it might jar him from his frail hold. He felt grimy glass, smashed it, felt the shards cut his fists but did not feel the pain.

The opening pulled smoke, heat, over and around him. Walter shoved his head through, but his shoulders caught. He squirmed. Jagged glass ripped his shirt, his flesh. The taper of his frame to the waist made passage easier when his shoulders were through and he was out, was sprawling in dry grass. The fire roared like a disappointed demon, and almost continuous thunder answered it.

Parton staggered erect. The weed-grown grounds were luminous with the blue flicker of lightning and the red glare of the blazing house. He sought the statue of Pan. It was in its accustomed place. But it seemed to have turned on its pedestal to face him, and its grin to have become a smirk of evil, leering triumph.

The heavens burst into electric flame. Cataclysmic sound shook the earth. Beyond Pan a dark figure moved, raised itself over the fence, vanished into the encroaching woods. How had he gotten out of the basement and across the grounds? Parton shuddered. There was something ungodly about the distorted creature.

The iron fence was too high for him to climb in his weakness. Memory came to his aid, he found a depression that had served him long ago, wriggled under the barrier.

Thick-knit leaf-ceiling overhead quenched lightning-flicker; intervening trunks blocked the glare of the fire and impenetrable gloom swallowed him. But there was the threshing of a heavy body ahead for him to follow, the dull thudding of footfalls unnaturally ponderous.

The footing grew soft. Moisture-drenched soil sucked at Parton's heels. He was, he realized, on the edge of Gorham's Swamp. That was where the thing ahead of him was going. The lay of land here, the playground of his boyhood, was familiar to him as the palm of his hand. The guiding sounds had vanished but he didn't need them any longer. There was only one way into the morass. Foot-wide, masked by cattails and rushes, a single causeway of solid earth meandered across the bog, widening to make the island where Gant Gorham's shanty stood.

Gant Gorham! Enlightenment burst on Parton. Gant Gorham, implacable enemy of the Lorans, was behind this, although the monstrous shape that had lurched in through the Hall's doorway at him was not that of the swamp-dweller.

Furtive sounds behind him, a strange sensation of inimical eyes watching, prickled the nape of his neck with fear. Parton whirled. Nothing was there. Nothing but the silent, gloom-shrouded forest, the distorted bulks of malformed trees.

Overcast, black sky came again into view as the woods thinned at the bleak edge of the swamp. Here was the cairn of stones that he had helped to erect as a boy, to mark the entrance of the natural causeway. It lay ahead, tortuous, but his feet remembered every twisted curve of it.

Walter was tight-faced as he set out on the dangerous passage, his eyelids narrowed to thread-like slits, muscle-ridges lumping along his blunt jaw. Rose was on that island just ahead, and the swart-visaged killer who had stolen her for some mad purpose of a twisted mind. Gorham was there... Walter swore between white lips that neither Gorham nor the devil himself could stand between him and the girl he loved.

The swamp was not silent, things slithered through it— ominous things of slime and scum. A bubble plopped in thick mud, and a small creature shrieked as quicksand caught it. Walter was in the center of the morass, moving cautiously despite his haste, drawing on memory for the path he must tread to avoid foul death waiting on either side.

The shrilly liquid skirling of pipes laughed behind him, changed quickly to goat-call. Wally started to run, twisted back as the quick patter of tiny hooves came to him from the island ahead. Black against black, a small form rushed out on the causeway. Another. Lightning lit up the world and Parton saw that the narrow path was alive with black-skinned goats, with a shoving, pell-mell rush of ruminants whose hooves and horns were gilded. The weird sight struck a sudden, queasy terror into Parton, filled him with a sense that powers other than human were battling against him for the body and the soul of the girl he loved.

The pipes called again, blurring, shrieking with a queer madness. Maddened bleating answered. The grotesquely ornamented goats, crazed by the Hamelin piping, stampeded toward him. They piled up, shoving one another from the causeway, screaming with almost human agony as the black mud and the quicksand caught them, screaming till their shrieks blubbed into silence.

Ten, a dozen of the onrushing small animals were thrust to muddy death, but the others came on as the skirling of the Pan-pipes crescendoed. They came on, an irresistible avalanche of gilt-horned destruction that must surely throw him from the path, into the slow, strangling death of the quicksand.

He could not stop them, no power on earth could stop them. Man or devil he would have fought on that precarious footing, would have fought and flung into the quaking bog, but these horned creatures, these miniature incarnations of a world gone insane, he was powerless against.

He turned to run, to give them passage and return after they had passed— and recoiled as a gargoylesque dark mass hurtled toward him from the swamp-edge whence he had just come. The thing that had attacked him in the old house was plunging along the path. Its grotesque, gigantic goat-shape was more noisome than the swamp; its shaggy arms flailing against the tempest-lit sky were like fungus-coated limbs of a dead tree come to unholy life.

Walter's lips grimaced in a snarl of hate, and he lunged to meet the weird attack. But the momentary halt was fatal. Horns, a hard head, catapulted into him from behind, battered him from the causeway. He arced through muggy air, sprawled into black mud that geysered as his frame splashed into it. Mud slapped across his face, blinded him, thrust its stinking mush into his nostrils, his mouth, his ears. Instinct pulled his head up and back, out of the half-liquid slime. Instinct betrayed him as the movement drove his legs down and the sliding, granular mass of quicksand clamped his feet and ankles. He was trapped, caught in the quicksand, and terror tore at his throat.

Above him Pan-pipes laughed gloatingly. The woods, cowering beneath the impending onslaught of the gale, caught up the laughter and tossed it from contorted bole to writhing limb. Slime-born things slithered close around him, and clammy coldness whipped across his hand.

The pipes laughed again, their laughter trilled into goat cry. The hairy little things that had encompassed his destruction— those that remained— wheeled and scampered back to the island, vanished. More slowly the piper lurched after them.

Between Walter and the island an enmeshed goat screamed in agony. Its scream was poignant, human. Again the quivering sound came. But this time it was not a goat that screamed. It was a woman. It was Rose!

Rose was screaming in terror as the goat-man followed his creatures into islets mystery, and Parton only yards away, could not help her. The quicksand ran away from beneath his feet like the slow, inevitable ebbing of grains in an hourglass measuring the short space of life left to him. Surface slime already chilled his calves, lapped slowly higher.

Rose's scream stopped short, as if a hairy palm had thudded across her mouth. And the Pan-pipes laughed on the island, trilled obscene glee as jelled mud quivered slowly upward to the trapped man's slim waist.

5:  The End of the Lorans

JAGGED blue split the universe from horizon to horizon, and the riven cosmos crashed together again with devastating sound.

The encompassing cloud opened and belched its contents. The air was suddenly solid with the cataract, the earth flattened by the downpour. Walter's world was the inexorable clutch of mud and sand about his legs, his waist, his abdomen. His body throbbed with pain and despair.

If only, he thought, that lightning had struck the island and killed Rose, he could die content. Perhaps it had— God grant that it had.

Water swirled about his chest and his neck, boiled over his tight lips; water lashed to foam by more water that descended in flooding torrents.

In seconds now it would be over his nostrils, and that would be the end. Rose...

The slow creep of the quicksand was halted. The lift of the two-foot layer of new water covering the swamp was sufficient to balance its sucking.

But that water would drown him. It was a cleaner death, but death nevertheless. Why not duck his head the inch it would take to meet that death?

Something bumped against him. His finger clutched shaggy hair, horns scraped his side.

It was a goat, and the creature was moving, moving strongly. The water that had been sufficient only to keep Parton from sinking had pulled the animal's slim legs free of the mud, and the goat was half-swimming, half-running parallel to the causeway.

Walter reached for the ruminant's horns. The goat's forelegs found firmer ground almost at once. It bleated, surged strongly ahead. That surge was just sufficient to pull Walter free of the mire, to drag him, too, to where he could find firm enough foothold for the final effort that released him from the bog's lethal grip. Ahead of him was a rain-lashed clearing; but from somewhere came a faint glimmer, and Walter Parton could see the herd of goats huddled against unpainted boards of Gorham's shack. Above them a thin right-angle of yellow light came from within, otherwise cut off by some covering that blanketed the window.

Parton knew he must get to that window, must peer through it. But the goats were right there, their scattering would betray his presence. Already they were restless, bleating.

A door creaked open on the other side of the shack. Small heads tossed, a billy blatted. The herd wheeled, crashed into the woods.

Parton lay close to the muddy, stinking ground waiting for discovery. But the hidden door shut again, and no threatening form loomed around the corner of the decrepit hut. Parton squirmed to it, raised himself to the window.

The slit that was the only aperture for his spying was threadlike, and a little way from it, within, something blocked Walter's vision.

He moved a bit, brought into sight a recumbent head, an unshaven, brutal mustached countenance beneath whose leathery skin death-pallor showed. Wally's forehead knitted. This was Gorham, Gant Gorham. But the man was unconscious or dead. Who then...?

Someone moaned within, moaned with hopeless pain. Walter's scalp tightened. That whimper of agony came from Rose's throat, or he had never heard her voice. His decision was made in an instant. He turned about to get to the door of the shack... Something crashed against the back of his neck, against his head, and oblivion swept over his senses.

"I TELL YOU I don't know," Rose was screaming. "I don't know and I can't tell you."

Her agonized voice pulled Walter out of the pain and the darkness in which he weltered, pulled him up to the throbbing torture of torn body, and nerves. His eyes opened...

Gant Gorham lay motionless on a pallet of rags just under the window that was blinded by a tattered quilt. Lamplight flickered across his face, giving it a semblance of life, but the black hilt of a knife protruded from his bloody chest. A twisted man-creature crouched, blocking Wally's further view. It moved...

Rose hung against the wall, her wrists bound by rope to rusted spikes driven deep into the wood, her arms straight lines of tensed anguish. Her chestnut hair framed a face that was strained and lined with suffering. Her body writhed— its clean sun-browned curves naked except for a lacy wisp pendent between waist and thighs. Muscles across her drawn-in abdomen pulsed, and the strained lines of her arms were repeated in the terrific straining of her legs as her toetips touched the grimy floor.

Parton pulled silently at ropes that were tight around his ankles, that bound his arms to his flanks. His efforts were futile. An expert hand had knotted them, the hair-covered, long-nailed hand hanging now beside a shaggy, curiously formed haunch. That hand opened and closed as Parton watched it. Every line of its grotesque owner betrayed evil malevolence incarnate.

The rasping, hoarse voice that answered the girl's defiance was as animal-like, as weirdly bestial as his macabre form. "You know, damn you. You know where Faith hid the Loran treasure. She opened the door to beg me to go away and then she fooled me, the devil take her rotten soul. There wasn't anything under the Pan statue. If I hadn't killed her I would have made her tell what she did with it; but I'll get it out of you if I have to strip every inch of skin from your cursed body." His other arm jerked into Walter's vision, swishing. It was a whip that swished, a thick whip of corded snake-skin. The cruel lash whistled, cracked across the girl's taut abdomen. A livid weal oozed blood...

Walter rolled, thumped against the hairy legs of the torturer. The monster staggered. Parton managed to squirm his legs about those hairy ones and the gigantic form collapsed upon him. It jolted over. Thick, hard thumbs closed on the bound man's throat, dug in. Walter's breath was cut off. His eyes were bulging. Darkness, the darkness of death, swirled about him...

"Don't Uncle Roy," Rose screamed. "Don't."

Her own fierce pains were forgotten as she stared at the terrible thing on the floor, as she saw Walter's tortured face turn purple, then blacken... And then new horror swamped her as the dead man on the pallet moved. Incredibly he was rising from the cot...

The corpse's grimy hand jerked up with a horrible, mechanical motion, closed on the knife-handle jutting from his chest. A spurt of clotted blood followed the blade as he pulled it out. The dagger arced through the air, plunged into the back of the murderer. Gorham collapsed on top of the man he had come back from death to kill, and Walter was drowned in the spate of scarlet blood gushing over him from both writhing forms.

The storm was over, and a pallid moon looked down on two half-naked figures, a man's and a girl's, that staggered out of the woods cloaking Gorham's Swamp. "Gorham wasn't dead, then," Walter muttered. "The knife kept the wound it had made closed, and he wasn't dead."

"He was probably conscious for a long time, waiting for the chance you gave him. Oh, Walter, you were so brave..."

"Never mind that... Here, we can crawl under the fence right here... You called that— that thing Uncle Roy."

"He was Uncle Roy, the man we all thought dead. Do you remember in the newspaper account of the fight in which he was supposed to have been killed it spoke of another one who was badly wounded and taken to the hospital unconscious?"

"Yes."

"That was Roy Loran. He told me all about it while he carried me through the swamp after he heard you shouting out by the gate. But he might as well have been dead, for years. One bullet chipped his skull, depressed a bit of bone that pressed into his brain and wiped out his memory. He was sent to an institution, escaped, and found work somewhere not far from here as a goat-herd.

"Then he had another accident, and he recalled who he was. He wrote to Aunt Faith, about a month ago, telling her all this and demanding a great deal of money to remain unknown. She replied to tell him there was no money and he answered that he knew the first Loran had a fortune hidden somewhere on the ground, that he was coming to wring the secret out of her lying throat.

"She didn't tell me a word of this, hoping he was bluffing, but he did come. What he suspected was true enough. Faith knew of the hiding place, in a tunnel from the basement of the Hall to an exit under the Pan statue..."

"The devil!" Wally interrupted. "That was why he ran when the lightning struck. He was afraid the fire would block him from it."

"Aunt Faith told him the secret to save me from him. Then he heard your shout and carried me off to the hut in the swamp. Gorham came in, went for him, and he stabbed him...

"He went out again, probably to look in the tunnel for the treasure. The blatting of the goats drove me mad..."

"The goats! What on earth..."

"I imagine his darkened mind must have retained some memory of the Pan statue. He had painted their horns and their hooves and trained them to answer his piping. When he returned he brought his herd along."

Wally shuddered, held Rose close to him. "Somehow they were the worst of the whole business. There was something incredibly evil about them."

"Terribly! They were like little imps from hell itself... I was frantic, bound there, alone, not knowing what to expect. And then, when the storm broke, he burst in, frothing at the mouth and raving that Faith and I had robbed the cache and hidden the treasure somewhere else. He hung me up as I was when you found me, swearing that he would torture me till I told him where it was. I—"

"Don't talk about it any more sweetheart. It's all done for, finished. The Lorans are finished—"

Rose smiled demurely. "You forget, Wally, that I am a Loran."

"We'll change that as soon as we get to the Reverend Wilkin's house," Walter grinned. "Rose Parton is a much better name."

Loran Hall was a mass of charred timbers, of black, drenched coals. But Pan was still on his pedestal, and the moon seemed to touch the inscription with a ghostly, meaningful hand. The lovers paused briefly to read it. Rose sighed through her tears. "The Lorans have paid the piper, all right, for all their dances. There are no more Lorans."

________________

13: A Footlight Flash

A Detective's Story

Sylvanus Cobb Jr

1823-1887

The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 13 June, 1885

I DON'T KNOW by what particular right I could call myself a "detective" at that time, though I was serving on the staff of the chief detective of the State. I had had considerable experience as a county officer— as constable and deputy-officer and had come down to Marysville, where Mr. Warrington, the chief of the force, was stopping for a short time on business. The way of it was this: Being anxious to obtain a position upon Warrington's immediate personal staff, I had written to him, forwarding my own request, backed up by the recommendations of Hon. Mr. Wentworth and Judge Forsyth. I wrote to the chief what I candidly believed to be my personal qualifications, and told him, moreover, that I had just returned from a year's absence in Europe, where I had made quite a study of the science of rogue-catching in England and France, and in Germany. It was Judge Forsyth's letter, however, which did the business. His earnest personal recommendation was enough, and upon the  strength of it Warrington wrote to me, informing me that he should be in Marysville at such a day (it was September), and bidding me meet him there.

I did as I was bidden. I met the chief, and liked him; and he liked me. He asked me what I had seen in Europe. If I had known his purpose it might have flustered me, but I did not, so I told my story in an easy, off-hand way, and at its conclusion he said to me, with a nod and a smile:

"Mr. Vialle, I guess you'll do. At all events we'll make a try of it. You have not inquired for me by name here, have you?"

"No, sir," I answered. "You told me I should not in your letter, and I have made no inquiries at all."

"Good," he went on. "For the time that I am here I am Mr. Johnson. You will remember?"

I told him I would.

"You," he said, to me, "are not known as one of the force, so you may keep your own name. And now, sir, I have a piece of work on hand. There is an accomplished rogue that I wish much to catch, and I am very sure he is somewhere in this section of the country."

"Do you mean Mark Shefton?" I asked.

"Yes. What do you know of him?"

"Only what I have read in the papers. Burglary and highway robbery within the last two weeks."

"Aye," added the chief, "and before that he had performed some of the boldest operations in St. Louis and elsewhere on the river, that were ever heard of. We are sure it was he that killed old Bixby; and how many other murders he has been guilty of we have no means of knowing. We only know this: He holds human life in no more esteem, when it comes between his hand and his plunder, than he does the life of a dog.

"Now look you, Vialle, I have a photograph of that man, and I want you to take it, and find him. You are a fresh hand, and if you are any way shrewd he cannot suspect you. He probably knows by sight every detective in this region, and can keep out of the way. I know what you would ask," he went on, with a smile, as I attempted to speak. "You wonder how it is that while he is keeping an eye upon us, and dodging us, we cannot get an eye upon him?"

I nodded assent.

"Well, sir," said Warrington, "the fact must be simply this: The man has disguises that no human eye can penetrate. It is evidently his one strong point. Now the picture I have of him gives him in one of his disguises, that is, if we have the picture at all. Let me tell you about the picture. It was taken at St. Charles. The man had been followed up there, and tracked to a drinking-house close by one of the landings. I got a photographer to take the necessary materials for a negative, and station himself at an open window directly opposite that place. Everything worked to a charm. Our man came out with three others, and the artist caught him as he stopped for a moment on the stoop. Now you may see the picture, and let me see if you can select our bird."

He handed me a card photograph as he spoke, and I held it to the light, and examined it. It had been taken by what photographers call the "instantaneous exposure," and the details were not very clearly defined; but the figure was plain, The background of the picture was the front of a miserable den, and upon the low, uneven stoop stood four men. I  recognized my man at a glance. It was more than the outward appearance. It seemed to me as though I had known the man before. He was a villainous looking fellow— villainous looking in every way and if he was in disguise, that villainous look was no part of it. That was certainly a part of the man himself.

By and by Warrington asked me if I had fixed upon the man we wanted. I smiled as I pointed out my fancy.

"That's the man," said he, "and if we'd known as much then as we do now he would not have gone from that place without being arrested, but we did not know then. He is now somewhere in the vicinity of Marysville. I know it, and yet I cannot get my eye upon him."

"Do you mean," said I, holding up the photograph, and pointing at my villain, "that this is he, and that he is lurking in this vicinity?"

The chief said be meant just that thing. And there was the mystery.

"We simply know he must be here," he said; "and he has doubtless confederates with him; but the confederates are new men, and unknown to us— that is, unknown as connected with him. Now, will you keep that photograph, and set yourself to the work of looking up the original?"

Most certainly I would. I felt my blood quicken and warm with the thought.

And then we set down to the work of posting up. Mr. Warrington gave me such information as he possessed, which was, in fact, but very little. The whole business might be summed up in the simple proposition that there was the picture of my man, and I was to find him; and when I had my eye upon him, I was to telegraph to my chief, who would keep me informed of his whereabouts. My despatch was to be directed to Thomas Johnston, St. Louis, and was to inform him thus:

"The plans are accepted. You may forward men and material."

And if I wanted extra help— that is, if I thought a considerable force would be required for the capture— I was to add:

"Foundation of granite."

You see, I had planned that I would take a room at the hotel as an architect, and in that capacity I intended to look over the place.

When Warrington had left, and I was alone, I sat down to that picture, and examined it with a magnifying glass.

Yes, it was something more than that man's villainous look that struck me. The whole man wore a familiar look. And yet it was not as though I had known him. The more and the longer I looked, the more deeply was I puzzled. I must sleep over the matter. I put the photograph away into my pocket-book, and went down to supper.

In the bar-room I found a knot of men talking about the late robberies, and I discovered two of them to be local officers. They were on the search, and were making a good deal of noise about it. A remark from one of them arrested my attention:

"I heard that old Noble had sent to St. Louis for Warrington to come up here and look after the rascals, but there ain't no use of that. If they're here we can find 'em as well as he can; but it's my opinion that the dogs have cut sticks."

And yet, on the very next morning, the good people of Marysville were thrown into a state of excitement wilder than any that had yet been theirs to experience. Between 11 o'clock and midnight, an express agent, coming in from Olneyville, where there had been a break in the railroad, had been stopped in a desolate stretch by three armed men, and robbed of 14,000 dollars.

I heard of this very early in the morning, and having hastily swallowed my breakfast, I took a team and drove out to Olneyville. I fancied there must have been a deeply-laid plan for that robbery, and on arriving upon the ground, and looking around, and making a few enquiries, I thought I could see through it. On the previous evening a heavy freight train had been wrecked in a long deep cut. A stone had fallen from one of the embankments upon the track. The next train due after this freight was the eastern express. My theory was this: The robbers had been informed that the express agent, coming on that train, would bring with him some thousands of dollars in greenbacks and coupon bonds of the Government. If such an obstruction could be placed in that cut as should effectually prevent the train from going on, the express messenger would hurry on overland with his most important matter, so as to be able to forward it from Marysville in the morning. Of course, that would bring him on the road somewhere about midnight. To this end the robbers had dumped that stone in season to wreck the freight; then, when they had seen that much accomplished, they had waited for the coming of the express. It came, and was stopped; and when the express agent saw the situation, he left his grosser matter in charge of the baggage hands, and, in company with a reliable companion, took horse and set forward.

So far, so good; and the rest was easy. The robbers, three in number, well mounted, well-armed, and desperate, fell upon the messenger and his companion in the wood, and overcame and robbed them, and left them bound, hand and foot, by the wayside, from which situation they were set free an hour later by some men who went that way.

As soon as I got back to Marysville I found the express-man, and obtained from him a description of the men who had robbed him. He said two of the robbers had worn masks, but the one who seemed to be chief— who throttled him and took his money, while the others held their pistols to his head— was not disguised at all. And he went on and described the man whose picture I had in my pocket. There was room for not one atom of mistake. This bold and skilfully-planned piece of work had been done by the man known as Mark Shefton.

I went up to my room, and spent an hour in vain and profitless study. I studied until my head ached. It was that picture. What was the mystery? Why did that murderous-looking face and form so haunt me?

I could not stay longer in my room. I would go out in the street and see what was to be seen. At a proper time, when I had arranged for it, I intended to scour the sinks and slums of the town. I stopped a few moments in the office, and then went into the smoking and reading room. The daily papers were all in hand and being read; so I sat down by one of the tables, on which were a few books and worn magazines. I picked up a book and opened it. It was Dickens' Oliver Twist. It had once been a fine book— of one of the best illustrated editions. As I mechanically turned over the leaves my eyes fell upon a picture. I started as though a mine had exploded at my feet. It was not the work of moments, but the work of an instant. That picture was of the fight of the wretched Sykes after his murder of Nancy. From that picture to its counterpart in my pocket-book, and then to a scene on the stage in Liverpool, where I had seen an actor, called Rudolph Dangerfield, ploy that character of Sykes. I took out my pocket-book, and looked once more upon the photograph. There was no more mystery. Not only was here the picture of the man I had seen behind the footlights, but in the very same make up, even to the false eyebrows, wig and throat beard he had worn on that occasion.

Ah! and there was more still. Rudolph Dangerfield was at that time stopping at the one other hotel in Marysville— the Seymour House. He had been acting in St. Louis, and had before that travelled with a Thespian company through the country, beyond the Mississippi. As soon as I could collect my somewhat scattered senses, I put on my hat and went to the Seymour. I looked at the register, and found that Dangerfield's name had not yet been crossed off. I sat down and took up a paper, and there I remained for half an hour. I did not dare to ask a question concerning that man.

And there was no need. At the end of half an hour he came in from the street. There was not a finer looking gentleman in St. Charles country than was this man; and what a magnificent physique! But the villain was all there. Looking carefully beneath the gentility and the fine cloth, especially with the key that I possessed, and it could be seen. It was in the tiger's eyes, in the brutal lips, in the swelling of the head behind the ears and in the low, sloping brow, with its enormous perceptives making those eyes cavernous.

While Dangerfield stood at the bar, in conversation with the clerk, I took out my pocket-book, and took a pencil and a piece of paper, and pretended to be copying an item from the newsprint, but I was quietly and secretly comparing that photograph with the original. The features were all there. The bottom features were the same in both the picture and in the man. Looking at the picture I saw the villain Sykes, upon whom I had seen the Liverpool footlights flash. Looking upon the man at the bar, I saw the actor who had personated that character. You who have seen one of those marvellous stage make-ups can understand me without further remark.

I went to the bar, and asked for a man whom I had seen take a depot coach early that morning. He had gone. I was very sorry. When would he return? The clerk did not know. I drank a glass of beer, and waited around until I had seen Dangerfield go towards his room. Then, in a friendly way, I spoke of having seen the gentleman on the stage, and of how much pleasure it had afforded me.

"And," said I, "he is a splendid singer, too. I think I heard him last evening."

"Where?" asked the clerk.

"Why, in the Hall of the Porter House. Was he not there with the glee-club?"

"Guess not," returned the gentlemanly servitor, with a look of superiority. "Mr. Dangerfield was away last evening. He spent the night out of town. He was away, and the smash-up on the road prevented his getting back."

Of course I must have been mistaken.

But did the clerk not think Mr. Dangerfield would give some sort of an exhibition before leaving town?

"Guess not this time," said the clerk. "He leaves town to-morrow."

I was sorry but it could not be helped.

Very shortly after that I was at the telegraph office, and I sent the following message to "Mr. Thomas Johnson, St. Louis,"; "The plans are accepted. You may forward men and material. The underpinning must go up in a hurry."

A slight change from the preconcerted arrangement, but I thought he would understand.

And so he did. In less than hour I received an answer over the wires, as follows: "Shall forward material by rail at once. Look out for it."

I did look out, and at 10 o'clock that evening I met Warrington at the depot. He had only one man with him, but that was enough. I told him my story as we went along. Of course he was surprised, but he was too well used to the marvellous ways of accomplished villains to be sceptical. And yet, when we entered the office of the Seymour, and I pointed out our man standing at the bar, with a glass of hot liquor in his hand, the chief was for the moment inclined to regard the thing as a wild hallucination on my part; but when, attracted by our step, Rudolph Dangerfield turned, and exposed his full face in the direct glare of the light, he caught the outline of features of which he had so long been in search.

But that was not all. The moment the robber saw the chief detective, and caught the sparkle of those steel-blue eyes, he knew what it meant— knew so well that the glass fell from his nerveless grasp, and was shivered to atoms on the floor. On the next instant he started to draw a pistol, but before he could get it out we were upon him.

We went first to his room, where we persuaded him to let us have the keys of his trunks. He would thus save them from being broken open, that was all. In a small travelling bag we found the garb and the wig and the beard of Sykes, And we found other disguises. And we also found the money and the bonds which had been taken from the express messenger— every dollar.

In St. Louis, Rudolph Dangerfield, alias Mark Shefton, alias "Liverpool Doll," and I don't know how many other aliases, was arraigned for highway robbery and murder. He was convicted of the robbery, but not of murder. But it made no odds. In little more than a year from that time he was shot dead in his tracks while trying to make his escape from prison.

That was my first essay at rogue-catching; and I think you will agree with me that it was, in some respects, a remarkable case of chance identification.

___________________

14: The Man of Science

(aka "A Ghost Story")

Jerome K Jerome

1859-1927

1892

I found this on Project Gutenberg Australia, but have not been able to find its first publication information. It has been much reprinted in various print anthologies, so why not here?

I MET A MAN in the Strand one day that I knew very well, as I thought, though I had not seen him for years. We walked together to Charing Cross, and there we shook hands and parted. Next morning, I spoke of this meeting to a mutual friend, and then I learnt, for the first time, that the man had died six months before.

The natural inference was that I had mistaken one man for another, an error that, not having a good memory for faces, I frequently fall into. What was remarkable about the matter, however, was that throughout our walk I had conversed with the man under the impression that he was that other dead man, and, whether by coincidence or not, his replies had never once suggested to me my mistake.

As soon as I finished, Jephson, who had been listening very thoughtfully, asked me if I believed in spiritualism "to its fullest extent."

"That is rather a large question," I answered. "What do you mean by 'spiritualism to its fullest extent'?"

"Well, do you believe that the spirits of the dead have not only the power of revisiting this earth at their will, but that, when here, they have the power of action, or rather, of exciting to action? Let me put a definite case. A spiritualist friend of mine, a sensible and by no means imaginative man, once told me that a table, through the medium of which the spirit of a friend had been in the habit of communicating with him, came slowly across the room towards him, of its own accord, one night as he sat alone, and pinioned him against the wall. Now can any of you believe that, or can't you?"

"I could," Brown took it upon himself to reply; "but, before doing so, I should wish for an introduction to the friend who told you the story. Speaking generally," he continued, "it seems to me that the difference between what we call the natural and the supernatural is merely the difference between frequency and rarity of occurrence. Having regard to the phenomena we are compelled to admit, I think it illogical to disbelieve anything we are unable to disprove."

"For my part," remarked MacShaughnassy, "I can believe in the ability of our spirit friends to give the quaint entertainments credited to them much easier than I can in their desire to do so."

"You mean," added Jephson, "that you cannot understand why a spirit, not compelled as we are by the exigencies of society, should care to spend its evenings carrying on a laboured and childish conversation with a room full of abnormally uninteresting people."

"That is precisely what I cannot understand," MacShaughnassy agreed.

"Nor I, either," said Jephson. "But I was thinking of something very different altogether. Suppose a man died with the dearest wish of his heart unfulfilled, do you believe that his spirit might have power to return to earth and complete the interrupted work?"

"Well," answered MacShaughnassy, "if one admits the possibility of spirits retaining any interest in the affairs of this world at all, it is certainly more reasonable to imagine them engaged upon a task such as you suggest, than to believe that they occupy themselves with the performance of mere drawing-room tricks. But what are you leading up to?"

"Why, to this," replied Jephson, seating himself straddle-legged across his chair, and leaning his arms upon the back. "I was told a story this morning at the hospital by an old French doctor. The actual facts are few and simple; all that is known can be read in the Paris police records of sixty-two years ago.

"The most important part of the case, however, is the part that is not known, and that never will be known.

"The story begins with a great wrong done by one man unto another man. What the wrong was I do not know. I am inclined to think, however, it was connected with a woman. I think that, because he who had been wronged hated him who had wronged him with a hate such as does not often burn in a man's brain, unless it be fanned by the memory of a woman's breath.

"Still that is only conjecture, and the point is immaterial. The man who had done the wrong fled, and the other man followed him. It became a point-to-point race, the first man having the advantage of a day's start. The course was the whole world, and the stakes were the first man's life.

"Travellers were few and far between in those days, and this made the trail easy to follow. The first man, never knowing how far or how near the other was behind him, and hoping now and again that he might have baffled him, would rest for a while. The second man, knowing always just how far the first one was before him, never paused, and thus each day the man who was spurred by Hate drew nearer to the man who was spurred by Fear.

"At this town the answer to the never-varied question would be:--

" 'At seven o'clock last evening, M'sieur.'

" 'Seven--ah; eighteen hours. Give me something to eat, quick, while the

horses are being put to.'

"At the next the calculation would be sixteen hours.

"Passing a lonely chalet, Monsieur puts his head out of the window:--

"'How long since a carriage passed this way, with a tall, fair man inside?'

" 'Such a one passed early this morning, M'sieur.'

" 'Thanks, drive on, a hundred francs apiece if you are through the pass before daybreak.'

" 'And what for dead horses, M'sieur?'

" 'Twice their value when living.'

"One day the man who was ridden by Fear looked up, and saw before him the open door of a cathedral, and, passing in, knelt down and prayed. He prayed long and fervently, for men, when they are in sore straits, clutch eagerly at the straws of faith. He prayed that he might be forgiven his sin, and, more important still, that he might be pardoned the consequences of his sin, and be delivered from his adversary; and a few chairs from him, facing him, knelt his enemy, praying also.

"But the second man's prayer, being a thanksgiving merely, was short, so that when the first man raised his eyes, he saw the face of his enemy gazing at him across the chair-tops, with a mocking smile upon it.

"He made no attempt to rise, but remained kneeling, fascinated by the look of joy that shone out of the other man's eyes. And the other man moved the high-backed chairs one by one, and came towards him softly.

"Then, just as the man who had been wronged stood beside the man who had wronged him, full of gladness that his opportunity had come, there burst from the cathedral tower a sudden clash of bells, and the man, whose opportunity had come, broke his heart and fell back dead, with that mocking smile still playing round his mouth.

"And so he lay there.

"Then the man who had done the wrong rose up and passed out, praising God.

"What became of the body of the other man is not known. It was the body of a stranger who had died suddenly in the cathedral. There was none to identify it, none to claim it.

"Years passed away, and the survivor in the tragedy became a worthy and useful citizen, and a noted man of science.

"In his laboratory were many objects necessary to him in his researches, and, prominent among them, stood in a certain corner a human skeleton. It was a very old and much-mended skeleton, and one day the long-expected end arrived, and it tumbled to pieces.

"Thus it became necessary to purchase another.

"The man of science visited a dealer he well knew--a little parchment-faced old man who kept a dingy shop, where nothing was ever sold, within the shadow of the towers of Notre Dame.

"The little parchment-faced old man had just the very thing that Monsieur wanted--a singularly fine and well-proportioned 'study.' It should be sent round and set up in Monsieur's laboratory that very afternoon.

"The dealer was as good as his word. When Monsieur entered his laboratory that evening, the thing was in its place.

"Monsieur seated himself in his high-backed chair, and tried to collect his thoughts. But Monsieur's thoughts were unruly, and inclined to wander, and to wander always in one direction.

"Monsieur opened a large volume and commenced to read. He read of a man who had wronged another and fled from him, the other man following. Finding himself reading this, he closed the book angrily, and went and stood by the window and looked out. He saw before him the sun-pierced nave of a great cathedral, and on the stones lay a dead man with a mocking smile upon his face.

"Cursing himself for a fool, he turned away with a laugh. But his laugh was short-lived, for it seemed to him that something else in the room was laughing also. Struck suddenly still, with his feet glued to the ground, he stood listening for a while: then sought with starting eyes the corner from where the sound had seemed to come. But the white thing standing there was only grinning.

"Monsieur wiped the damp sweat from his head and hands, and stole out.

"For a couple of days he did not enter the room again. On the third, telling himself that his fears were those of a hysterical girl, he opened the door and went in. To shame himself, he took his lamp in his hand, and crossing over to the far corner where the skeleton stood, examined it. A set of bones bought for three hundred francs. Was he a child, to be scared by such a bogey!

"He held his lamp up in front of the thing's grinning head. The flame of the lamp flickered as though a faint breath had passed over it.

"The man explained this to himself by saying that the walls of the house were old and cracked, and that the wind might creep in anywhere. He repeated this explanation to himself as he recrossed the room, walking backwards, with his eyes fixed on the thing. When he reached his desk, he sat down and gripped the arms of his chair till his fingers turned white.

"He tried to work, but the empty sockets in that grinning head seemed to be drawing him towards them. He rose and battled with his inclination to fly screaming from the room. Glancing fearfully about him, his eye fell upon a high screen, standing before the door. He dragged it forward, and placed it between himself and the thing, so that he could not see it--nor it see him. Then he sat down again to his work. For a while he forced himself to look at the book in front of him, but at last, unable to control himself any longer, he suffered his eyes to follow their own bent.

"It may have been an hallucination. He may have accidentally placed the screen so as to favour such an illusion. But what he saw was a bony hand coming round the corner of the screen, and, with a cry, he fell to the floor in a swoon.

"The people of the house came running in, and lifting him up, carried him out, and laid him upon his bed. As soon as he recovered, his first question was, where had they found the thing— where was it when they entered the room? and when they told him they had seen it standing where it always stood, and had gone down into the room to look again, because of his frenzied entreaties, and returned trying to hide their smiles, he listened to their talk about overwork, and the necessity for change and rest, and said they might do with him as they would.

"So for many months the laboratory door remained locked. Then there came a chill autumn evening when the man of science opened it again, and closed it behind him.

"He lighted his lamp, and gathered his instruments and books around him, and sat down before them in his high-backed chair. And the old terror returned to him.

"But this time he meant to conquer himself. His nerves were stronger now, and his brain clearer; he would fight his unreasoning fear. He crossed to the door and locked himself in, and flung the key to the other end of the room, where it fell among jars and bottles with an echoing clatter.

"Later on, his old housekeeper, going her final round, tapped at his door and wished him good-night, as was her custom. She received no response, at first, and, growing nervous, tapped louder and called again; and at length an answering 'good-night' came back to her.

"She thought little about it at the time, but afterwards she remembered that the voice that had replied to her had been strangely grating and mechanical. Trying to describe it, she likened it to such a voice as she would imagine coming from a statue.

"Next morning his door remained still locked. It was no unusual thing for him to work all night and far into the next day, so no one thought to be surprised. When, however, evening came, and yet he did not appear, his servants gathered outside the room and whispered, remembering what had happened once before.

"They listened, but could hear no sound. They shook the door and called to him, then beat with their fists upon the wooden panels. But still no sound came from the room.

"Becoming alarmed, they decided to burst open the door, and, after many blows, it gave way, and they crowded in.

"He sat bolt upright in his high-backed chair. They thought at first he

had died in his sleep. But when they drew nearer and the light fell upon him, they saw the livid marks of bony fingers round his throat; and in his eyes there was a terror such as is not often seen in human eyes."

Brown was the first to break the silence that followed. He asked me if I had any brandy on board. He said he felt he should like just a nip of brandy before going to bed. That is one of the chief charms of Jephson's stories: they always make you feel you want a little brandy.

_______________

15: Blackman's Wood

E Phillips Oppenheim

1866-1946

Two New Crime Stories: The Under-Dog; Blackman's Wood, The Readers Library,  1929

IT was when they reached the end of the wood, which should provide the best sport of the day, that Heggs first showed signs of a curious, unbucolic disquietude. He still answered his master's remarks respectfully, but his eyes kept wandering to a long, sinister-looking belt of wood lying about a quarter of a mile away eastward. It was Ella Cartnell who first appreciated the half-mystic, half-terrified stare of those uneasy blue eyes.

"Why do you keep looking across at Blackman's Wood, Heggs?" she asked him.

"Begging your pardon, my lady," he said, "I was just hoping that we'd keep the pheasants from flying that way. If I might make so bold, sir," he went on, turning to his master, who was standing by with half a dozen labelled sticks under his arm, "I'd like an extra gun here."

Richard Cartnell, a good-looking, large-framed young man, nodded.

"Perhaps you're right, Heggs," he acquiesced. "There's never any shooting the other side to speak of. I'll let Mr. Samson, who's walking on the left, keep well ahead and come into the ride. Then Sir John can move further down, and Mr. Johnson can come out on the meadow."

"If you'd take the corner yourself, sir," Heggs begged eagerly, "and have Mr. Morden between you and Sir John, I think that ought to stop 'em, sir, provided there ain't much wind blowing."

Cartnell handed over the sticks.

"You can place these yourself then, Heggs," he said. "Of course, I know why you want to keep the pheasants out of Blackman's Wood, but remember this can't go on for ever. We left it alone last year because it was poor old Middleton's beat, and we haven't been in this season, but if pheasants go there, have 'em out we must. There are always woodcock round the lower end, as you know."

Again there was that curious glint in the man's eyes.

"I'll never get the beaters in there, sir," he declared.

Cartnell frowned.

"What do you mean— not get them in?" he demanded. "They're the regular lot, aren't they— mostly our own men? Surely they'll go where they're told?"

"They'll go where they're told anywhere else, sir," Heggs assented. "For beaters they're as good a lot as ever I handled. But Blackman's Wood! There's a-many as wouldn't go within a half a mile of that, day-time or night-time."

They were all three at the corner of the ride and they turned and looked at the wood below. Even in the clear, frosty light of the December afternoon, there was something grim, almost repellent, in its broken outline. Every description of tree seemed to have been planted there— tall firs, standing out stark and stiff in the middle, a medley of larches, dwarfed oaks, spruces and hollies towards the further end. Even from where they stood they could realize that the undergrowth was almost like a jungle. In a small field, at the furthest extremity, was a cottage, with a row of pheasant coops stretching away from it, and a little fenced-in garden.

"What's the idea with these fellows?" Cartnell asked moodily.

Heggs took command of himself, but there was a shiver in his voice as he spoke.

"They do say, sir," he confided, "that after Barney Middleton had strangled his wife, he made his way into the wood and hanged himself. There's some in the village who do hold by that story— old man Fouldes for one, who'd been after a few sticks, and he do swear to this moment that he saw Barney's body dangling down from a tree."

"What damned rubbish!" Cartnell exclaimed. "Everyone knows Middleton got clear away from the place. The police tracked him to Southampton."

"So us have heard, sir," Heggs acknowledged; "and though a hot-tempered man he was, for sure, I've never believed that Barney Middleton was one who would lay hands on himself. Still, there's old man Fouldes as swears he's seen his body, and many others declare they've seen his ghost. I'm not one as believes in these things myself, sir," the gamekeeper went on, "but I'd rather forfeit a week's wages than take the beaters through Blackman's Wood, even if they was willing to go."

"What do you think about it, Ella?" Cartnell asked his wife.

She turned and looked at him, without a smile on her face. She was a blond, handsome woman, tall, and with a splendid figure. There was something inscrutable about her expression as she answered her husband's question.

"What do you think about it yourself, Dick?" she rejoined.

"I don't happen to be superstitious," he answered shortly. "I was down at the cottage this morning, and if I'd had gaiters on I think I should have tried for a woodcock in the lower end. Wherever I could see it looked terribly thick, though."

"You don't want any trouble with the beaters," Ella said. "I should try and keep the pheasants from breaking that way, if I were you."

"Very well," Cartnell decided. "I'll do the best I can for you, Heggs. I'll come down this end myself with Mr. Morden and Mr. Johnson. I suppose we should be considered the three best shots, and I should think we ought to be able to stop them. On the other hand, if we make a mess of it, to Blackman's Wood we shall have to go. I'll talk to the beaters if you like, Heggs."

"Don't 'e say a word to them, sir, please," the man implored. "If they've any sort of a belief that they'll be asked to go through Blackman's Wood, there isn't one of them will turn up to-morrow. Don't 'e say nothing beforehand, sir, whatever 'e do."

"All right, I won't," Cartnell promised. "Anyhow, if we can keep the pheasants out, I'll forget about the woodcock and leave the wood alone this season."

Heggs touched his hat gratefully.

"It's for the sake of all concerned, sir," he said.

They strolled up the meadow to where Cartnell's two-seater car was waiting in the lane.

"It's all clear about to-morrow now, I think, Heggs," his master summarised. "We start with two partridge drives. You send your men out early, over Barrow's land, and bring in those two outlying fields of roots, and Josiah Brown's low meadows. Bring everything you can in to the rough grasses, and plan to have it done by ten o'clock. Then, unless there's a change in the wind, we'll bring them over towards Swallow Farm, and line the bottom hedge,"

"There's a rare lot of birds if I can get hold of them, sir," Heggs observed.

"The second drive you know all about, but of course we must see which way the birds break."

They paused for a minute at the gate to look back. Again there was something of that curious expression in Heggs's eyes. With his ash stick he pointed downwards to the pleasant little stretch of country which they had left.

"D'you mark that, my lady?" he asked, turning to Ella. "There's pigeons coming in over Salter's Wood, and in the home spinneys yonder, and Gregory's cover, and never a one anywhere near Blackman's Wood. Just you look, sir," he went on, with a note almost of excitement in his tone. "Pigeons everywhere, and not a single one over Blackman's, though there's many of the trees there they do reckon to be fond of. Them birds knows something, they does. Sometimes they knows more than human beings."

Cartnell climbed into the car, where his wife had already seated herself.

"You go home and have a good night's rest, Heggs," he advised; "and put Blackman's Wood out of your mind."

DURING the whole of the drive home, Ella Cartnell sat speechless, her eyes fixed on the country ahead. As they turned in at the avenue, her husband took his pipe from his mouth and broke the silence.

"You're not tired, Ella?"

"Not in the least," she answered.

"Feeling all right?"

"Perfectly."

He looked at her in rather helpless fashion. Something had come down between them, which for months he had battled against unsuccessfully. It was there now, visible in her air of detachment, her cold aloofness, as though she were unaware even of his presence.

"What were you thinking of?" he inquired.

She turned and looked at him.

"I was wondering," she confessed, "whether we should ever know who poor Betty Middleton's lover was— the man whom Barney Middleton found her with that afternoon?"

Cartnell almost grazed a white post, as he swung into the avenue.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked.

"It would ease my mind," she replied.

THE REMAINDER of the guests for the morrow's shoot had arrived during the absence of their host and hostess, and were being served with tea by Sybil Cartnell, Richard's young sister. Hugh Morden, a long, lean man, with the typical clean-shaven barrister's face, rather full lips, and eyes of a curious grey-green shade, was standing with his back to the fire, a cup of tea in his hand, listening to Cunningham's description of a public dinner on the night before.

Sir John Cunningham, as a brief-giving lawyer, was entitled to his attention, which was certainly all that he did receive, for Morden was evidently distrait. At the entrance of his host and hostess, however, his whole expression changed. He greeted Cartnell in the perfunctory manner of old friends who were constantly meeting, but his eyes glowed as he took Ella's hand and, bending down, whispered something in her ear. She turned away, with a little laugh.

"So sorry to be late, you people," she apologized. "I hope Sybil's been looking after you. We've been out marking the stands for to-morrow's shoot."

"Up against a superstitious gamekeeper, too," Cartnell observed. "You and I, Morden, and Johnson, too, have got to shoot our best to-morrow. Heggs tells me that if we can't keep the pheasants from going into Blackman's Wood, there'll be a riot amongst the beaters."

Freddie Samson, a pink-and-white athletic-looking young stockbroker, who had been whispering in Sybil's ear, glanced up.

"What's the trouble with Blackman's Wood?" he inquired.

"Haunted," Cartnell explained. "One old man in the village declares that he has seen Barney Middleton's body hanging there, and there are twenty or thirty who swear that they've seen his ghost on moonlight nights."

"I thought that sort of thing had died out, even in these remote districts," Morden remarked, a little satirically. "You're not going to humour the louts, I hope, Cartnell."

The latter shrugged his shoulders.

"I can't drive them in if they won't go," he pointed out. "As a matter of fact, though, unless we lose our pheasants from the big wood, and they find their way there, it won't be worth going through."

Conversation drifted into other channels. In the background of the little circle, Richard Cartnell, with a cup of tea in his hand, lounged against the corner of a table, apparently listening to a discussion upon a recent election, but in reality watching his wife and Morden. He was by nature an unsuspicious man. In their twelve years of married life, Ella had never once given him cause for serious uneasiness.

Her undoubted attraction had always brought her a train of admirers, with whom she had amused herself light-heartedly but discreetly. Morden, however, from the first, although silent in manner and secretive in his methods, had betrayed an infatuation which half surprised and half provoked his host. He watched them now gloomily. There was something about their confidential whispers, their reserves, the slightly forced smile with which Ella answered the remarks addressed to her by any of the others, which puzzled him.

They were all intimates. Jack Mason, an old friend of Ella's, a clubman who seemed to spend half his time in country houses, Sinclair Johnson, M.P. for the Division, and Jack Halloway, a nephew of the house, were all talking away of their mutual friends, and exchanging gossip as to their doings.

More and more, Ella and Morden remained outside the little circle. What the devil could the fellow be saying, Cartnell wondered, as he watched him lean closer and closer towards her. Finally, in a fit of restlessness he strolled off, with his hands in his pockets to the gun-room. He took down one of his Purdeys, to be sure that it was properly oiled, removed the lid from a fresh case of cartridges, tried to occupy himself in any way in order to regain a normal attitude of mind. When he returned to the lounge, Ella and Morden had disappeared.

"Where's Morden?" he inquired.

"Gone with Ella to the billiard-room," Sybil replied, bending forward to light a cigarette. "I say, Dick, what's the matter with Ella? She seems up in the clouds half the time. Is she having a flirtation with Hugh Morden?"

"Not that I'm aware of," her brother answered. "Perhaps," he added, with gloomy sarcasm, "even if they were, I might be just the one person whom they wouldn't take into their confidence."

"That's all very well," Sybil complained, "but I'd marked Hugh Morden down for my own. He never leaves Ella's side if he can help it. See to it, Dick, there's a dear! Separate them, and hint that there's another of the same family without a hulking husband in the way."

"Talking about Blackman's Wood," young Samson observed, throwing down an evening paper and joining them, "that gamekeeper of yours was never caught, was he, Cartnell? What was it all about, anyhow?"

"A simple, but alas! a common story," Cunningham recounted. "Middleton was supposed to have gone home towards the end of a day's shooting earlier than he was expected, and found his wife a little too pleasantly engaged with a caller. He adopted primitive measures, and strangled her."

"How sweet of him!" Sybil exclaimed. "So unlike the modern husband!"

Some impulse prompted Cartnell to turn his head. Morden and Ella had apparently been crossing the hall, and were standing now, as though transfixed, upon the edge of the circle. To Cartnell there was something terrifying about the strained look in his wife's face, an expression almost of horror in the eyes that met his. By her side Morden stood, grave and expressionless, save that there was a faintly cynical turn at the corners of his lips.

"Please don't depress us any more by talking about that horrible affair," she insisted angrily. "You've all had a longish journey— why don't we change early and have more time for cocktails? Perhaps by then you'll all think of something more cheerful to talk about. This isn't a palace, as you know, and you've only two bathrooms to scramble for."

Everyone acquiesced, and there was a prompt exodus from the hall. Cartnell, after a few minutes' reflection, went sombrely to his room, knocked at the door of his wife's apartment, and entered.

"What is it?" she asked, startled.

"Need it be anything particular?" he rejoined quietly. "I just strolled in."

"Why— of course not," she answered. "Do you want the bathroom?"

"Presently."

He sank into an easy-chair, and pondered for a moment or two.

"Ella," he said, "I have never interfered with any of your harmless flirtations—in fact, I have sometimes encouraged them—but I cannot absolutely ignore the fact that this change in your manner, which I ventured to hint at the other afternoon, all dates from this summer, when Morden stayed down with us. Are you falling in love with him?"

She swung round, relentlessly beautiful notwithstanding the trouble which lurked in her eyes.

"If I am," she demanded, "do you complain?"

"Most vehemently," he replied, "if it is in any way the cause of your altered demeanour towards me. Furthermore, I don't mind telling you that I would rather you had chosen any other friend I have to amuse yourself with."

"And why?"

"Because," Cartnell answered deliberately, "Morden, who is a good fellow with us men, and whom we all like and admire because he is fiendishly clever, is not to be trusted with a woman."

"You say that!" she murmured.

"I do," he assented. "A good many men with attractive wives have found it out before, and have had to have him on the carpet. I am wondering whether that will happen to me."

She rose to her feet and moved slowly towards him. She was almost as tall as he was.

"Dick," she said, "I never believed that you were mean enough to say these things about a man who is a guest in your house. Why do you ask him to shoot? Why do you have him here at all?"

"Because, my dear," he replied, "I have always believed in the old saying— that there is honour amongst thieves. I know very well that Morden can't be trusted with a woman, but that isn't my business until it becomes my business. If ever it should," he added, rising to his feet, "I should know how to deal with him."

He passed back to his room. His wife, looked after him until the door was closed. Then she returned to her seat before the-looking-glass.

LATE THAT NIGHT, Heggs, after he had knocked out his pipe and prepared for bed, slipped out from his cottage door, glanced up into the tops of the trees, listened, moistened his finger, and held it up in seafaring fashion.

"What are you after, John?" his wife called from the open door. "Be you thinking there's poachers about to-night?"

John Heggs shook his head.

"No fear of that," he answered. "The Sergeant's sending a couple of men round to give me a night's rest. It was just the wind."

It was a somewhat listlessly spent evening at Cawston Farms, as Cartnell's country house was called. For some reason or other, everyone was sleepy and anxious to go to bed early in view of the shoot on the following day. There was difficulty, even, in making up a rubber of bridge for Cunningham. Morden flatly refused to play, Ella also excused herself; so, eventually, Cartnell, an indifferent performer who loathed the game, was forced to cut in.

They played in the lounge, and Cartnell committed every sin known to the card tyro. He revoked, he neglected to attempt the simplest finesse, he led to no trumps as though it were a trump suit, he reduced his respective partners to tears and blasphemy. After the game was over, Cunningham walked to the sideboard and mixed himself a whisky-and-soda. For a Portland Club authority, he had kept his temper admirably.

"Dick," he advised, "get away to bed and have a long rest. No man could make such an utter idiot of himself with the cards if he hadn't something on his mind. Go and sleep it off before to-morrow."

Cartnell accepted the rebuke humbly,

"I'll just round the others up first," he observed. "I think everyone's for turning in early."

In the smoking-room he found only Jack Mason and Samson yarning, and Johnson fast asleep. He passed on to the billiard-room, opened the door, and stood for a moment upon the threshold. Morden and Ella were leaning over the billiard-table, Morden talking earnestly, his hand resting upon hers. With a swiftness which bespoke long practice, he drew his fingers away at the opening of the door. He was careful, however, not to change his position.

"Got a hiding, as I knew I should, Dick," he remarked. "No one can give Ella fifty."

Cartnell advanced further into the room. His wife turned and faced him. She was a little nervous, but his expression told her nothing.

"I think you had better go and look after your other guests, Ella," he suggested. "They are all thinking of going to bed."

He held the door open for her, and she passed out silently.

"Bed's not a bad idea. I think I'll be off, too," Morden announced with a yawn.

Cartnell, however, closed the door and stood with his back to it.

"Just one word with you, Hugh," he said. "You spoke just now of Ella having given you a hiding at billiards. Aren't you rather asking for one yourself?"

"Am I?" was the cool rejoinder. "I don't think so."

"A man's private life," Cartnell went on, "is usually disregarded by other men. I won't allude to yours, Hugh, except so far as to say that you will be a welcome guest here in the future only if you change your attitude towards my wife."

"My dear fellow!" Morden expostulated. "You don't imagine for a moment—"

"Of course I don't," Cartnell interrupted, "but that is all because I trust my wife, not you. However, wait one moment; that isn't all I have to say."

"With a man of your physique blocking the way," Morden drawled, "I hesitate to confess that I am dying for a whisky-and-soda."

"Someone," his host went on deliberately, "seems, ever since last summer, to have been poisoning my wife's mind against me. I don't know what I am supposed to have done— I can only make the vaguest guess— but I want you to understand this, Hugh. If I discover that anyone at any time has been lying to her about a particular incident concerning which I am free to admit that I have rather stifled inquiries, for certain reasons, it will not be a matter of a hiding. I shall take that man by the throat, and I shall let him go when his lips are black— you know what that means."

Hugh Morden, for a moment, had lost his equanimity.

"What incident?" he demanded. "What are you talking about?"

Cartnell opened the door.

"You know very well, Hugh," he concluded, "that I am referring to the incident of Barney Middleton's wife. Go and get your whisky-and-soda."

NO MORE successful partridge drives had ever been organized on the Cawston shooting than the two which, on the following morning, formed the prelude to the serious business of the day. The wind had completely dropped, and, wild though a great many of the birds were, the intervening cover was so scanty that, although the drive was a long one, covey after covey dropped down in the great field of rough grass according to plan.

The seven guns lining the hedge saw the silent, flag-bearing procession of men and boys move down the hillside and slowly close in towards the boundaries of the field. There was a brief silence— then Heggs's whistle, followed by Cartnell's reply, and the beaters made their way through the hedges. A little thrill ran down the line. There was no uncertainty about this. Even the loaders— an impassive race of men as a rule— showed genuine interest in what was happening, and Cunningham, who shot but rarely, practised changing guns with his man. Then came the first warning whistle as a covey rose from just under the feet of one of the beaters, flew straight for the hedge, broke beautifully round some trees, and came over high and scattered.

The next twenty minutes was almost an epic in the history of the shoot. For once, birds, when they did swerve, left it too late, and flew high and fast down the line of the guns. Scarcely a covey went back, and just as the sport was thinning down, odd Frenchmen kept getting up one by one, flying like bullets to their melancholy but glorious end.

"Very nearly the best drive I ever had in my life," Freddie Samson declared, as he lit a cigarette and handed his gun over to his loader. "Very few runners, either. Dick, I never thought this little crowd could shoot so well. What do you think we got?"

"No idea," Cartnell replied. "I got twelve brace, and Morden was shooting beautifully. He must have got more. What did you do?"

"Ten brace and a half, and a couple of runners," Samson announced.

"Heggs has picked up one of the runners already, sir," his loader put in.

"What a day for driving!" Mason exclaimed, as he strolled up. "Never had such a ten minutes that I can remember. Not a breath of wind, and they came marvellously, I never saw the crowd shoot better, either. That was a peach of a right-and-left you got out of the second covey, Dick."

They all strolled away together across the stubble, everyone a little exhilarated. Only the host and Hugh Morden remained somewhat silent. The latter's long-drawn face seemed more than usually set. He smoked countless cigarettes, and kept on a line of his own, a few yards away from the others. His unsociability, however, gave rise to no comment, for everyone knew that he talked but seldom when shooting. As soon as the game had been collected and the cart loaded, Heggs hurried up to his master.

"I've sent half the beaters round to bring in Richards's stubbles, sir," he announced, "and I thought if so be you were willing to wait a bit, I'd sweep the left-hand beaters right round to the Orford boundary, fall in with the others, and all come on together from the Lone Farm. You'll line the thirty-acre meadow hedge, but I think you'll have to take it a little wide, sir."

"Quite sound, Heggs," Cartnell approved. "We shan't be able to see you until you're actually in the roots, so don't forget to whistle."

The man suddenly turned his head and sniffed.

"What's the matter?" his master asked.

"Nothing, sir. I just thought— I fancied there was a breeze coming up."

Cartnell glanced at the sky.

"Might get one later on—not much sign of it at present.... Guns this way! We've half a mile to walk. Anyone like a lift in the game-cart? There's John with the whiskies-and-sodas and cocktails somewhere about, too."

"It's exactly an hour too early," Cunningham declared, looking at his watch. "Only one hour, mind you. We'll keep John in sight!"

The next drive, though not quite so productive, was almost as exciting as the first. Then there were three spinneys to knock out— one of which produced an unexpected show of woodcock. When they sat down to lunch on the lawn in front of Heggs's cottage, everyone was a little exultant, and good-tempered. Cunningham, who was a man of figures, produced his note-book.

"We're ahead of last year on this beat, by seventeen and a half brace of partridges, thirty-one pheasants and seven woodcock. Hares— we only got twenty-seven, did we? We're three hares short. What a morning! Ella, you and I must have a cocktail together, and, if you don't mind, Dick, I'd like to take a double one to Heggs. With only one other man who knew anything at all about the job, he brought those birds to-day as cleverly as anything I've ever seen."

Heggs accepted congratulations with a modest grin, and drained the contents of the glass offered him. They lunched at a long table set out on trestles, after Sybil, from a hastily improvised bar, had served everyone with cocktails. Hugh Morden, as usual, found a place by Ella's side. Cartnell, at the other end of the table, was as far removed as possible. To all appearance, he never glanced either towards his wife or Morden. Nevertheless, both were at times uneasily conscious of his presence. No one else appeared to notice that there was a cloud upon what was otherwise certainly a wonderful party.

AFTER LUNCH came the pièce de resistance— the shooting of the wood. From the moment when the places were taken for the first drive— usually an unimportant one— a change came over Heggs. The effect of the extra glass of beer he had drunk at luncheon time, with a view to drowning his apprehensions, had passed. He kept looking at the sky. Already the tops of the trees in the wood were rustling. He turned to his master almost despairingly.

"There's a west wind coming up for sure, sir," he groaned. "It will carry them pheasants right away to Blackman's Wood."

Cartnell, moody and depressed himself, was unsympathetic.

"Let 'em go there, then, if they can get past Mr. Morden and me," he said. "The woodcock are worth one beat, anyway."

For a moment Heggs stood quite motionless. Again that rare expression of mysterious terror brought out the lines in his weather-beaten face. It lurked there in his eyes as he glanced furtively down towards the hated spot.

"Come along, Heggs," his master enjoined sharply. "These two first beats aren't up to much, but we'd better get them over."

The shooting began—a trifle erratic after a somewhat gay luncheon party, but soon settling down. As was always the case, the result of the first two beats was simply to drive the birds into the lower end of the wood, where the undergrowth was much thicker. The twenty or thirty that came out were satisfactorily disposed of, and certainly not half a dozen reached the dreaded shelter of Blackman's Wood. For the final beat, Heggs himself came forward to superintend the placing of the guns. He brought Sinclair Johnson down to the extreme end of the ride, almost in the meadow, in line with Cartnell and Morden. The wind had freshened by now, and a couple of cocks, disturbed before their time, simply volplaned down to Blackman's Wood. Heggs watched them with a groan.

"They'll come out this side, sir, whatever we do," he muttered, as he passed his master on the way back.

"Don't be a fool, Heggs," Cartnell enjoined irritably. "Keep your right well forward, and have the hedge knocked from outside."

Heggs's reply was respectful but gloomy.

"I'll do all that man can to keep they birds straight, sir," he promised.

He rejoined the beaters and blew his whistle. The familiar sound of the tapping of trees recommenced, and almost at once the pheasants began to come over. Ella had been in the ride with Mason and Samson, but as soon as the shooting started she came out into the meadow, and deliberately planted her stick a few paces behind Morden's loader. One or two pheasants broke early over Cartnell, and a woodcock, all of which he disposed of. Then, without the slightest warning, the tragedy of the day loomed up. The whistle blew continually, pheasants seemed to be rising from all parts of the wood, and practically the whole of them streamed over Morden's head, or between him and Johnson. That Morden should have missed the first one with both barrels, and have done no better with his second gun, was unusual, but comprehensible, because he had had very little shooting since luncheon, but what followed was simply amazing. Difficult or easy, high or low, overhead, to his left or to his right, Morden, the crack shot of the party, missed every bird he aimed at.

Everyone in sight looked at him in astonishment. Heggs came staggering out of the wood to see what had happened, and stood transfixed, as he watched the long line of pheasants streaming away to Blackman's Wood. Cartnell, abandoning all etiquette, moved up ten paces, and a little backwards, and continually shot the birds which sailed over Morden unscathed. Johnson, in response to a gesture from his host, did the same, but the situation was already lost. Nothing that they could do could atone altogether for the fact that Morden, in the one commanding position, seemed completely paralysed. Every vestige of colour had gone from his cheeks, and there was a savage gleam in his eyes. As one huge cock passed smoothly over his head untouched, he threw down upon the ground the gun which he had just discharged, and almost forgot to take the second which his loader was handing him.

"Anything wrong with you, Morden; are you ill?" Cartnell called out.

Morden just turned his head, and his expression was ghastly.

"I don't know," he muttered. "Change places with me, quickly."

Cartnell obeyed, bringing down a right-and-left of cock pheasants even as he took up Morden's vacated place. And then a stranger thing than ever happened. The pheasants which, with one accord, seemed to have made for Morden, made for him still, and the tragedy was once more repeated. Cartnell and Johnson missed nothing, but an odd bird now and then was all they got. Towards the end Morden suddenly threw down his gun again and held his head with both hands. Cartnell moved back behind him, and waved Johnson to come out into the field, but the mischief was done. There were a couple of hundred pheasants in Blackman's Wood, and Morden, with his hands still clasping the sides of his head, was swaying as though about to collapse. Ella leaned forward and touched him on the shoulder.

"Are you ill?" she whispered.

"I don't know," he gasped. "I don't know what's come over me. I think I'll go home— come with me."

Cartnell strolled up to him, and the two men looked one another in the eyes. Morden still seemed on the point of collapse.

"You can't go home, Hugh," Cartnell said brutally. "You put 'em into Blackman's wood, you let 'em go there— God knows why. You must shoot 'em when we fetch them out."

Morden made no reply. The refreshment cart, which Ella had sent for, came lumbering up. He stumbled towards it and helped himself to a strong brandy-and-soda. The effect was instantaneous. There was a more natural colour in his cheeks, and he regained some measure of his self-possession.

"All right," he agreed; "I'll do my best. I don't know what came over me— a liver attack, perhaps. I'm damnably sorry."

Very slowly, and like a man bent on a portentous errand, Heggs approached his master. The beaters were standing about in little groups, talking.

"Sorry Heggs, but we'll have to have those birds out of Blackman's Wood," Cartnell told him firmly. "Get it at the bottom end, and bring them this way. I'll send a couple of guns with you for the outsides. I'll place the others. We'll leave this side open. They aren't likely to come out against the wind. If they do, they'll be going home."

Heggs touched his hat. In his tone there was a note of desperation.

"I'm sorry, sir," he announced. "Them beaters, they won't go in Blackman's Wood."

"You mean that they refuse to obey orders?"

"Most on 'em, sir, and the rest ain't willing."

"And why not?" Cartnell demanded.

"It's no good beating about the bush, sir," Heggs replied, his coarse hands with the broken nails trembling as he leaned forward on his gnarled stick, "There's a dozen at least amongst 'em as can swear that they've seen Barney Middleton's ghost hanging round at the back end, just outside his cottage. They say he drownded heself somewhere, and keeps coming back to see the spot where he strangled his wife. I can't get 'em in no-how, sir."

"I'll talk to them myself," Cartnell announced.

He walked across and confronted them— a motley group, boys, youths and elderly men, in every variety of costume, but all of them wearing the leggings which had been Ella's Christmas gift.

"Look here, my men," Cartnell began, "what's this nonsense about not wanting to go into Blackman's Wood? You've seen for yourselves that the pheasants are there, and we know there are woodcock."

No one was willing to be spokesman. They shifted their feet and moved about nervously.

"Gosling, now— what about you?"

Gosling took off his hat and scratched his head.

"Mr. Cartnell, sir," he said, "I be a serious man as you know, and a man as has found religion. I don't hold with these stories of ghosts, but when there's half the village swears they've seen Barney Middleton's spirit wandering round in that there wood and round about the cottage, well, it does make one think, so to speak; and for the sake of the eight bob and beer we get for a day's beating, I'd just as soon keep out of trouble, sir. I never met a spirit yet, and I ain't anxious."

There was a little murmur of assent. One or two of the younger ones, however, laughed.

"I don't mind," a nephew of Middleton declared. "The old man wouldn't do me no harm."

"Same here," another lad joined in. "It ain't like as though it were night."

"Look here, then," Cartnell announced, "I'll give an extra five shillings to every beater who will come through Blackman's Wood. Now then, who's for the back of it?"

One by one, like sheep, they followed young Middleton. There were only five who refused, and they stood in a little group by themselves outside the wood. Heggs came up to his master with laggard footsteps. He seemed suddenly to be many years older.

"Is it your will, then, sir," he asked in a low tone, "that we go through the wood?"

"Of course it is, Heggs. Take your men along. Mr. Mason and Mr. Halloway will walk up with you. Knock the place out as well as you can, and don't forget the holly bushes."

They straggled off in a long, irregular line, and Cartnell busied himself in arranging the stands. Morden, after another brandy-and-soda, seemed to have recovered himself. He sat on his shooting-stick, his gun balanced across his knees, and his eyes fixed upon the forbidding little wood in front. The edge of it was bordered by a quantity of small black firs, but behind was a curious medley of trees of every description, and an undergrowth of bracken and rank grass, which appeared not to have been touched for years. A cock pheasant came flying out at a great height, almost before the beaters were in, and Morden brought it down with his first barrel, a crumpled mass of feathers, shot through the head.

"You're all right again now," Ella whispered. "Splendid!"

The whistle sounded continually, and pheasants began to come over. Everyone shot well, and Morden especially. The sound of the tapping of the trees grew nearer and nearer. Suddenly there was a silence. The whole line of beaters seemed to have stopped. The silence continued. Cartnell walked forward a yard or two.

"What's wrong, Heggs?" he called out.

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, there arose a chorus of wild yells, blasphemous, panic-stricken shrieks of unrestrained terror. Out from the wood, on both sides, tumbling through the hedges, running in frantic haste, came the beaters. Even when they were clear of the borders and in the meadow, they ran like madmen. Middleton's nephew, who had led the way in, fell head over heels and picked himself up, sobbing, to tear after the others.

"What the devil's the matter!" Cartnell shouted. "Heggs!"

A choked voice from somewhere in the wood:

"For the love of God stand clear, sir. Get the lady away! He's coming!"

"What's got the fellows?" Cartnell cried. "Have they all gone mad? Can anyone see anything?"

Almost at that moment the horror arrived. Crashing down the middle of the wood came some undistinguishable shape, too big for a fox, too big for a stray deer even— it was something which seemed to come in bounds, like a huge dog plunging straight ahead.

"Are you loaded, Hugh?" Cartnell asked him swiftly.

Morden made no answer. He was standing as though petrified, looking at something clear now of the trees, leaping through the bracken. It came over the low hedge and rails in its stride, and for that first moment there was not a person who saw it who was not paralysed with fear. It came like an orang-outang, six feet high, sometimes on all fours, then upright, a creature who had once been a man, with some fragments of filthy clothing and sacking still left, a great ragged beard, hair almost down his back, gaunt, deep-set horrible eyes, fingers black, patches of his body bleeding. Not for one instant did it hesitate. Clear of the wood, it went straight, like a savage animal who has marked its prey, towards Morden. It had come out on all fours, but as it approached it reared itself, and with a terrifying yell— a yell which no one ever forgot who heard it— and with great lopping springs, drew near to its cowering victim.

"Shoot!" Cartnell cried. "Shoot it, Hugh!"

Morden's gun, irresolutely lifted, wobbled in his hand. Suddenly his loader leaned past him, raised the second gun to his shoulder, and fired. For a single second the brute faltered. Then it came on again, its black, talon-like hands stretched out towards Morden, who stood there too terrified for flight, his gun, which had slipped through his nerveless fingers, lying upon the ground. At the last moment he turned and ran, ran blindly away, with a shriek of fear. His start was too late, however. He stumbled, and over he went, with his pursuer on the top of him. Cartnell had a horrible moment's view of those fingers clutching Morden's white throat, grinding their way into his windpipe, whilst Ella's shrieks filled the air.

Cartnell, who had sprung forward hurled himself upon the attacking beast. The loader seized him from behind, but their united strength was absolutely useless. They might as well have tried to move a mountain, until the last breath of life had sobbed itself away from Morden's lips. Then, and not till then, that grip relaxed, and the beast rolled over, the blood streaming from a wound in his chest where the loader had shot him.

"My God!" Cartnell faltered, "it's a man— it's Middleton!"

IT WAS not until a fortnight after the inquest and funeral that Ella Cartnell, stretched upon a steamer-chair in mid-ocean on her way to Kenya, broke the silence which seemed to have been established by mutual consent upon a certain subject. She looked away from the sea, and turned her head towards her husband.

"Dick," she asked, "did you know that it was Hugh Morden who had been the lover of Barney Middleton's wife?"

"I guessed it," he acknowledged. "That's why I rather went out of my way to have the matter hushed up. He was always making some excuse to stroll down there, and the day the thing happened, I knew that the telephone call back to the house was faked."

"And yet you said nothing to me?"

"What could I say?"

"You must have guessed what he was trying to make me believe."

"Not until the day before the shooting party," Cartnell assured her. "You see, he'd been a kind of a pal once. I couldn't believe he'd do such a dirty trick. Before that day, until then, I simply thought— I feared that you'd taken a fancy to him.''

"Yet you wouldn't tell me?"

"Don't see how I could exactly."

She shivered a little. Her left hand stole underneath the rug, her fingers felt for his and clutched them convulsively,

"Men are different," she murmured.

_____________________

16: The Cat of Chiltern Castle

Mary Sharon

Weird Tales September 1926

Nothing is known of this author, who had two short stories published in Weird Tales in the 1920s.

WHEN Gene Winthrop invited me to come up during the hunting season and try for an elk, I accepted with alacrity. I had not seen my strapping cousin since his return from overseas, and I anticipated a pleasant visit.

Having been left a small fortune by a bachelor uncle, he had traveled extensively before enlisting in the World War. I had spent many a pleasant hour in his company listening to him recount, in his inimitable manner, the many and strange adventures that had befallen him.

Gene's cabin stood a half-mile above the stage-line road on Windriver Point in the Teton Range. The stage driver dumped me and my belongings unceremoniously by the roadside, and disappeared in a flurry of snow. I watched hopefully for a sight of Gene's, strapping figure, expecting any minute to see him come around the bend in the trail. Dusk deepened with startling suddenness and I decided to try to find my way alone. I could not understand what had kept him from meeting me. I wondered if my letter had miscarried.

I have always prided myself on having my full share of feminine courage, but as I stumbled along the trail I felt distinctly nervous. The distant yowl of a wildcat sent a shiver of apprehension down my spine; and as I scrambled up the rooky path, I fancied I heard the soft pad-pad of stealthy feet following me. Chiding myself for a tenderfoot, I unlocked my case and took out my gun. As I drew it out, I caught sight of something moving in the brush to my left. I tried to convince myself that it was the night wind moving the branches, but I knew it for something more sinister. I saw it moving toward me,— a dark blot among the foliage of the underbrush. Without hesitating, I fired. When I looked again, it was no longer there. Before I had time to investigate, a shot sounded below me, and then a flashlight glimmered down the trail. I hallooed. Gene answered. When he reached me, he was out of breath and strangely shaken.

"What was it?" I asked without preface.

"A cat." He shrugged his shoulders with elaborate carelessness.

When we entered the cabin, I saw that his hair was matted with blood above his left temple. At my exclamation, he reassured me.

"It is nothing. A dry branch gave me a scratch, nothing more."

I was astounded at the change in his physical appearance. He was stoop-shouldered and gaunt. His hair was streaked with gray and he had an air of fearful alertness as if waiting momentarily for some grim, unavoidable happening. More evidence of the change that had come over him lay in the neglected and run-down state of his cabin. On all my previous visits I had noticed the clean, almost womanly, tidiness that had prevailed. To judge from the appearance of the place, he had not attempted to clean it in the three months that had elapsed since his return from overseas.

He made an effort to appear at ease and cooked an appetizing supper for us, but I noticed that at the end of the meal his own food lay virtually untouched before him. After supper he walked into the living room, threw more logs upon the fire and motioned for me to be seated. Our talk was desultory, almost formal.

It was a beastly night outside. The wind howled around the comer of the cabin like so many lost souls, and the insistent tap-tap of the icy branches against the windowpanes did not lessen the effect. Winthrop sat staring moodily into the fire, and I noted the ravages that the year had made in his physique. I wanted to ask what had caused the terrible change in him, but a certain reticence forbade prying. I felt if there were anything that I could do for him, he would ask it of me, for we had been reared together as children and were as close as most brothers and sisters.

A particularly heavy blast of wind assailed the cabin and a shower of sparks flew up the chimney from the pitch logs, which were roaring on the hearth. Winthrop shuddered involuntarily. I sought to arouse him.

"Doesn't this place get on your nerves, Gene, so far from everyone and everything?"

He started at my question and then drew savagely at his pipe. Suddenly he sat up and held his head cocked in an attitude of listening. Abject terror shone from his bulging eyes.

"Did you hear it?" he demanded.

"Nothing but the storm," I told him truthfully. "What is on your mind, old fellow? Anything that telling might help you to forget?"

He pondered a moment. There was a hopeless, negative intonation in his voice when he answered.

"I don't believe anyone can help me, Mary. It is something just a trifle beyond the province of mere man. Do you believe in ghosts?"

Something had prepared me for his question. I had known intuitively that his was a dread of the supernatural, for nothing on earth could have brought that look of awful fear to the face of the Eugene Winthrop I had known. I hardly knew how to answer him.

"I can't say that I do, Gene. We are all doubting Thomases about everything until we see it for ourselves." He turned toward me with an air of positive assurance and his voice was quietly assertive.

"I have seen and I believe, Mary. I am afraid you will think me insane. Perhaps I am, but I am going to tell you all about it."

And then he began his weird story that left me shaken more than I care even now to admit.

WHEN I was in France, I fell in with an Englishman who had enlisted under the name of Tom Grant, though he gave me to understand that this was an alias. He was a darned good fellow, foolhardy, reckless and pleasure-loving, with a nerve that would have faced down the devil himself. When everything was over, we went to London together, and it was there that he learned from a second-rate solicitor that he had fallen heir to a debt-ridden old ruin— the Castle of Chiltern.

"I shared his desire to see what remained of the once stately fortress that had sheltered his famous ancestors; for the line of Chiltern had written its name in the early pages of English history. We went. Before our departure, the old solicitor told us that a family ghost went with the castle,— a cat. We both laughed in his face to think that a house which had once held such prestige and power should elect to claim as its especial ghostly visitant, a cat. Tradition had it that several hundred years ago, a serving-woman had imparted information to the enemies of the then-incumbent Lord of Chiltern, who in retaliation had shut her up in his dungeon, where the wretched woman starved to death. The cat, a huge black fellow, had been her pet, and its shade was supposed to be vested with the power of seven devils. The story was improbable enough to make anyone scoff at it, just as we did.

"We found the castle a ramshackle affair, though it took no great imagination to picture the grandeur it had once possessed. The grounds were enclosed by a high wall of crumbling masonry, around which at one time had been a moat. Both were now in the last stage of disintegration. The castle itself was barely habitable. The caretaker, a very old hag, volunteered to show us through the fortress, and we accepted her services, though they were somewhat surlily given. We found the entire structure in a sad state of decay.

"The night of our arrival was a stormy one. The wind howled fiendishly around the old walls, until they shook from turret to foundation stone. We expected the old ruin to topple over at any moment. It had drizzled through the early evening and, as it grew' colder, settled in to snow. The room in which we spent the night was barely furnished. In one comer, projecting out into the center of the room, stood a huge canopied bed. The frayed and rotting silk hangings at the top attested its great age. A peculiar cabinet of old walnut stood in the far end of the room near the one large window, which, uncurtained, looked down upon the bleak and rock-strewn courtyard. Two high-backed chairs of nondescript age and appearance completed the furnishings of the room, with the exception of an old Venetian mirror, the one article of value and elegance left to the castle of the Chilterns.

"We went to bed, but did not sleep. There was something eerie about the decaying old fortress that made us wakeful. We had left the candle burning in the old pewter stick, which the crone had given us before returning to her home.

"It must have been two o'clock when we heard it. During a lull in the storm a terrifying shriek rent the air.

"Tom leaped out of bed on one side and I on the other. As our feet struck the floor, a series of bloodcurdling yowls, much too loud for a domestic cat but somewhat similar in other respects, sounded outside our door. We hurried into our clothes. When the yowling ceased, we heard a light scratching on the door. Insistent, steady as the beating of a heart, the scratching continued, increasing in volume until it sounded almost like a human hand knocking imperatively on the panels, which threatened any moment to give way.

"Given the same occurrence under different conditions, our reactions would probably have been different, but with the wind and storm assailing the old ruin from without and an unknown animal or supernatural something assailing us from within, we felt anything but brave. I acknowledge I was paralyzed with fear. A fellow can grapple with and perhaps overcome a mortal enemy, but the supernatural can not be vanquished by mere man; and that unearthly yowling and scratching resembled nothing I had ever heard.

"With an oath, Tom seized one of the chairs and motioned for me to do likewise. I lost no time, for the moth-eaten door afforded flimsy protection. The steady hammering and slashing continued, interspersed with shrieks and yowls. Suddenly one of the panels splintered in. A heavy gust of wind extinguished the light and the room was left in total darkness. Another blow, and the entire door fell inward.

"Two green eyes glowed at us from the doorway. Tom screamed a warning as the eyes, like dancing lantern lights, swayed toward us. I lifted my chair to strike, but on the instant that I stood poised in readiness, the eyes were blotted from sight, and in that instant Tom gave an agonized shriek. A heavy thump followed, and all was still. I called fearfully to him and the old walls threw back my cry. I struck a match. Sprawled on the floor lay Tom's body.

"I hurriedly lit the candle and knelt to examine him. He was completely covered with knife-like cuts and scratches, and the blood was trickling from a hundred wounds. While I was kneeling over his body, cursing myself that I had failed him when a blow might have saved his life, that horrible yowling began again, becoming fainter and fainter until it blended with the din of the storm. I can never forget. I shall always hear it. I hear it now. "

His face was a study of tragic despair. I could think of nothing to say to relieve the tenseness of the situation. He straightened in his chair and listened.

"Don't you hear it, Mary? Tell me the truth. Can't you hear that yowling, faint and far-off but coming nearer!"

I listened and I could hear it. The sound could be plainly distinguished above the din of the storm. Faint, but growing louder as if approaching the cabin. I hated to acknowledge to Gene that I could hear it, but I knew that if I did not, he would think he was suffering from some sort of hallucination. There came a lull in the storm and a scream, like nothing I ever heard before or since, sounded just outside the door. With white face and staring eyes, Gene sprang to his feet, and turning toward me, threw out his hands in a helpless gesture.

"It's no use, Mary. This is the third time. I may as well face it and have it over with."

He walked to the door and slid back the bolt. Before he could open it, I jerked him back.

"Don't go out there, Gene! That is a panther. Let me get a gun for you."

I turned to pick up my Winchester, wheeling in time to see him open the door and stagger out into the night. I leaped after him— too late. A shriek shrilled through the storm. I ran toward the spot whence it came. The wind blew open the door behind me and the glare of the cabin lamp threw a bar of light across the new-fallen snow.

I could see standing over the prostrate form of big Gene Winthrop a huge cat, the size of a collie dog, pitch-black, with green, wolfish eyes. I raised my gun and fired. I was so close that a miss was impossible. I fired twice. The bullets took no effect. The beast, without moving, melted into the shadows behind it. I tried to hunt it down, but how could one follow an evanescent thing of evil that departed, leaving no tracks behind it?

I dragged Gene's inert body inside. He was cut to ribbons. The thing sounds incredible, but it is true.

The coroner's jury turned in a verdict that "The deceased was killed by a panther"; but I know that they were wrong. I saw the beast that killed Gene Winthrop. It was a huge black cat, with wolfish eyes— the cat of Chiltern Castle.

______________________

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-43

I never envisaged this series of original anthologies going into so many issues, and the ever-growing index to all issues was becoming unwieldy.  Accordingly, I have now divided the Index.  This Index commences with Past Masters 31.

The Index to Issues 1 to 30 can be found in Past Masters 30, or as a stand-alone document uploaded to the Kindle and Epub libraries at MobileRead.

The stories are arranged in Alphabetical order of Author's surname, or if the author's name is consistently a pseudonym, that pseudonym (eg "Owen Oliver").  They are then in alphabetical order of title, disregarding "A", "An" and "The".

____________

Cleve F. Adams

Frame For a Lady 38

Lewis Allen

Pinched 39

Robert L. Ahern

Murder Needs No Motive  34

Anonymous

The Lady Detective's Story 32

F. Anstey

The Talking Horse  34

Alice and Claude Askew

The Mystery of Chenholt 42

Phyllis in the Wood  40

Stacy Aumonier

Mrs. Huggins's Hun  41

The Perfect Murder  41

Lillian Bamburg

The Missing Pearls  39

Robert Barr

The Doom of London   39

Charles Beadle

The Double Scoop 39

Wolcott LeClear Beard

A Ledge of Safety 33

Frederick R. Bechdolt

The Case of Mimbres  37

Jimmy Riley's "Turn"  42

Randolph Bedford

Filamena's Hula 39

The Man Who Held the Wires  39

H Bedford-Jones

Apache Gold 31

The Arizona Callahan  37

The Devil's Fire 31

The Devil is Dead 31

The Fog at Fiddler's Green 31

The King's Pipe 34

Lady of the Evil Eye 31

Sons of Kalewa 31

J. J. Bell

The Message on the Sun-Dial  42

Leslie Beresford

Eastern Guile 35

M. McDonnell Bodkin

The Murder on the Golf Links  41

Christopher B. Booth

In His Brother's Job  40

Jimmy the Lug 42

Mr Clackworthy and the Auto Rim  40

Mr Clackworthy Goes to Jail 40

Mr Clackworthy's Pipe Dream  41

Mr. Clackworthy's Return  41

The Sealed Envelope 43

The Sparrow  40

Tardy, but on Time (as by John J. Chichester)

Ellis Parker Butler

An Experiment in Gyro-Hats  37

Beating The Law 43

Hats and Lilies 37

The Heckby Hill Murder 38

Mr. Marston's Chauffeurette  40

Scott Campbell

Rings of Dust 43

Egerton Castle

The Baron's Quarry 42

The Closed Door  35

Anna Alice Chapin

By Way of Experience 40

G. K. Chesterton

The White Pillars Murder 41

C. Langton Clarke

The Detective for the Defense 33

Sylvanus Cobb Jr

A Footlight Flash 43

Richard Connell

The Grim House  41

Dorothea Conyers

Lord Hillayton's Settlement 35

Ted Copp

Blackmail Moll 36

Frederic Van Rensselaer Dey

The Bigelow Murder Mystery  40

Charles Dickens

To be Taken with a Grain of Salt  39

Captain Dingle

Homeward Bound 33

Deferred 33

George Allan England

Buzzards   38

Drugged  38

George Manville Fenn

Lady Florry's Gems  34

Francis Flagg

The Blue Dimension 33

The Heads of Apex 33

J. S. Fletcher

The Manor House Mystery  41

Elliott Flower

The Elusive Ten Dollar Bill 36

A Bundle of Banknotes  43

J. M. Fry

The Ring   38

Emile Gaboriau

The Little Old Man of Batignolles

Lady Gilbert

Aurora's Treasure 35

Guy Gilpatric

The Crafty Jerko-Slovaks 32

The Ladies of Catsmeat Yard  37

One Good Tern  35

The Pearl of Panama 42

The Rolling Stone  41

Winifred Graham

Pan   39

Arthur P Hankins

Eyes of Blue   43

Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

The Dancer's Mascot  35

Lewen Hewitt

Gold-Bricked 42

Headon Hill

Rogue's Legacy 32

William Crawford Honeyman

The Chinese Chessmen  42

J. L. Hornibrook

Captain Cronhelm's Blunder 35

Oliver Madox Hueffer

Mistrusted Sight 41

S. B. H. Hurst

The Brightest Jewel of Them All  32

Jerome K Jerome

The Man of Science  43

Marianne Kent

A Black Diamond  35

Otis Adelbert Kline

The Dragoman's Slave Girl 35

George L. Knapp

The Family Compact  37

Thomas H. Knight

Old City of Jade  36

Alun Lewis

Private Jones 39

William J Locke

Ladies In Lavender 36

Marie Belloc Lowndes

Popeau Intervenes  41

Charles J. Mansford

The Dervish of the Nile Pyramid 34

The Great Dial of the Gold-Finders 33

The Hidden Egyptian Shield  34

The Lost Fetish of Walai 35

The Veiled Idol of Kor 32

The Wizard of Swazi Swamp   37

Mrs. L. T. Meade

Beauty Dear 32

The Yellow Dragon Vases 32

Mrs L. T. Meade and Dr Clifford Halifax, M.D.

The Strange Case of Captain Gascoigne 31

With the Eternal Fires 32

The Small House on Steven's Heath 33

"To Every one His Own Fear"  34

C S Montanye

Prey  40

Trapped 43

Arthur Morrison

A Lucifo Match 36

William Chambers Morrow

The Monster-Maker 42

Clarence Herbert New

The Attack from Moscow 32

Bill Garford’s Last Play (Culpeper Zandtt) 36

The Boss (Culpeper Zandtt)  37

A Challenge to the Submarine  36

The Island of Heaven and Hell 32

The Man Who Forgot  37

The Mystery at Mulungban  (Culpeper Zandtt)  37

A Night in the Kremlin 34

The Secret of Banda Sea 34

Owen Oliver

The Cape Conspiracy  35

A Pretty Woman 31

A Rapid Conveyance  36

Success 40

E Phillips Oppenheim

Blackman's Wood 43

Frederick C. Painton

Narcotic Man  36

What! No Imagination? 38

Max Pemberton

The Cripple at the Mill  34

Last Across 39

The Lepers Guest   37

G. G. Pendarves

The Eighth Green Man  35

Hugh Pendexter

It Might Have Happened Otherwise  32

Kingbird 33

A New Keeper of the Wampum  39

The Raven Mocker 33

Wolf Medicine 41

Ernest M. Poate

Adjudged Incompetent  43

Doctor Bentiron's Addict Case 40

Honest John's Millions 42

Plain Soda 40

The Stolen Story 42

The Third Pinprick 42

Three Alike 40

Through the Looking Glass 40

Vials of Wrath 40

Well Done  40

Lewis Ramsden

Désirée 32

C. S. Raymond

The Wireless Death 36

Robert Reeves

Alcoholics  Calamitous 39

Bail Bait  39

Dance Macabre 39

Morgan Robertson

The Subconscious Finnegan 36

Arthur Somers Roche

The Dayless Diamonds 32

A Flutter in Finance 32

"Illimore!" 31

The Premiere Danseuse 32

The Robbery at the Café Ravasan 31

The Victim of Amnesia 31

William Merriam Rouse

The Nitwit 36

Victor Rowan

Four Wooden Stakes  38

Mary Sharon

The Cat of Chiltern Castle  43

George Bernard Shaw

The Miraculous Revenge  43

Perley Poore Sheehan

Dead Men Talk  38

Helen Simpson

A Posteriori   41

George R. Sims

The Mystery of a Midsummer Night  42

Christopher St. John Sprigg

Death at 8.30  42

F St Mars

The Green Devil 43

Annie S. Swan

The Diplomat  38

William Alexander Taylor

Intermere 33

Guy Thorne

Sir Patrick Armagh's Knife  39

Hugh Walpole

The Twisted Inn 42

Florence Warden

Grimgriffenhoof  39

F A M Webster

Towards Morning 33

Carolyn Wells

The Mystery of the Jade Buddha 40

A Point of Testimony 43

The Stolen Gems 43

Ethel Lina White

The Scarecrow  42

Henry S. Whitehead

Jumbee 37

Raoul Whitfield

The Caleso Murders 32

Diamonds of Dread  38

Inside Job 36

The Javanese Mask 42

Rivals of the Clouds 31

Shooting Gallery  41

Silence House 36

Sinners' Paradise 33

Leonora Wodehouse

Inquest  42

William Alron Wolff

Bait, Hook and Sinker  34

Arthur Leo Zagat

Girl of the Goat-God  43

_________________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Miraculous Revenge / George Bernard Shaw

- 2: A Bundle of Banknotes / Elliott Flower
- 3: Beating The Law / Ellis Parker Butler
- 4: The Green Devil / F St Mars
- 5: Trapped / C. S. Montanye
- 6: Rings of Dust / Scott Campbell
- 7: Eyes of Blue / Arthur P Hankins
- 8: Adjudged Incompetent / Ernest M Poate

- 9: The Sealed Envelope / Christopher B. Booth

- 10: A Point of Testimony / Carolyn Wells
- 11: The Stolen Gems / Carolyn Wells
- 12: Girl of the Goat-God / Arthur Leo Zagat
- 13: A Footlight Flash / Sylvanus Cobb Jr
- 14: The Man of Science / Jerome K Jerome
- 15: Blackman's Wood / E Phillips Oppenheim

- 16: The Cat of Chiltern Castle / Mary Sharon

- Cumulative Index 31-43