Past masters Forty Six
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Some rare items: not long before he died, Arthur Somers Roche began a new series in Cosmopolitan magazine featuring a lady detective in New York, Sheila Gray, but it was cut short with just three stories. There are some Guy Gilpatric stories which do not involve Glencannon; a tough tale from Jack Boyle, creator of the Boston Blackie, but not a Boston Blackie story; a tale of the West Indies by Henry S Whitehead; plus humour and romance. My thanks to Matthais Kaether for pointing out the newly available Cosmopolitan collection on Internet Archive. 1: Cassius / Henry S. Whitehead 2: Active Color

PAST MASTERS

FORTY-SIX

October 2021

Part 2

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Cassius / Henry S. Whitehead

2: Active Colorado Real Estate / Hayden Carruth

3: The Box With the Iron Clamps / Florence Marryat

4: The Toad Men of Tumbaroo / Guy Gilpatric

5: China Man / Raoul Whitfield

6: Ann of Satan-Town / Jack Boyle

7: The Ghost That Failed / Desmond Coke

8: The Civilizing of Swift Lightning / James Oliver Curwood

9: The Petermen of Providence / Henry Leverage

10: Westward, How! / Guy Gilpatric

11: Lady Dick / Arthur Somers Roche

12: Road House / Arthur Somers Roche

13: After the Fact / Arthur Somers Roche

14: A Lot of Money / Alice Duer Miller

15: An Affair of Honour / Guy Gilpatric

16: The Barber of Seville, Ill. / H. C. Witwer

17: Riches Can Take Wings / Arthur Somers Roche

Cumulative Index

_______________________

1: Cassius

Henry S. Whitehead

1882-1932

Strange Tales, November 1931

1: Brutus Heilman has an Operation

MY HOUSE-MAN, Stephen Penn, who presided over the staff of my residence in St Thomas, was not, strictly speaking, a native of that city. Penn came from the neighbouring island of St Jan. It is one of the ancient West Indian names, though there remains in the islands nowadays no Caucasians to bear that honourable cognomen.

Stephen's travels, however, had not been limited to the crossing from St Jan— which, incidentally, is the authentic scene of R L Stevenson's Treasure Island— which lies little more than a row-boat's journey away from the capital of the Virgin Islands. Stephen had been "down the Islands," which means that he had been actually as far from home as Trinidad, or, perhaps, British Guiana, down through the great sweep of former mountain-tops, submerged by some vast, cataclysmic, prehistoric inundation and named the Bow of Ulysses by some fanciful, antique geographer. That odyssey of humble Stephen Penn had taken place because of his love for ships. He had had various jobs afloat and his exact knowledge of the house-man's art had been learned under various man-driving ship's stewards.

During this preliminary training for his life's work, Stephen had made many acquaintances. One of these, an upstanding, slim, parchment-colored Negro of thirty or to, was Brutus Heilman. Brutus, like Stephen, had settled down in St. Thomas as a house-man. It was, in fact, Stephen who had talked him into leaving his native British Antigua, to try his luck in our American Virgin Islands. Stephen had secured for him his first job in St. Thomas, in the household of a naval officer.

FOR this friend of his youthful days, Stephen continued to feel a certain sense of responsibility; because, when Brutus happened to be abruptly thrown out of employment by the sudden illness and removal by the Naval Department of his employer in the middle of the winter season in St. Thomas, Stephen came to me and requested that his friend Brutus be allowed to come to me "on board-wages" until he was able to secure another place.

I acquiesced. I knew Brutus as a first-rate house-man. I was glad to give him a hand, to oblige the always agreeable and highly efficient Stephen, and, indeed, to have so skilful a servant added to my little staff in my bachelor quarters. I arranged for something more substantial than the remuneration asked for, and Brutus Heilman added his skilled services to those of the admirable Stephen. I was very well served that season and never had any occasion to regret what both men alluded to as my "very great kindness!"

It was not long after Brutus Heilman had moved his simple belongings into one of the servants' quarters cabins in my stone-paved yard, that I had another opportunity to do something for him. It was Stephen once more who presented his friend's case to me. Brutus, it appeared, had need of a minor operation, and, Negro-like, the two of them, talking the matter over between themselves, had decided to ask me, their present patron, to arrange.

I DID so, with my friend Dr. Pelletier, Chief Surgeon in charge of our Naval Station Hospital, and regarded in Naval circles as the best man in the Medical Corps. I had not inquired about the nature of Brutus' affliction. Stephen had stressed the minor aspect of the required surgery, and that was all I mentioned to Dr. Pelletier.

It is quite possible that if Dr. Pelletier had not been going to Porto Rico on Thursday of that week, this narrative, the record of one of the most curious experiences I have ever had, would never have been set down. If Pelletier, his mind set on sailing at eleven, had not merely walked out of his operating-room as soon as he had finished with Brutus a little after eight that Thursday morning, left the dressing of the slight wound upon Brutus' groin to be performed by his assistants, then that incredible affair which I can only describe as the persecution of the unfortunate Brutus Heilman would never have taken place.

It was on Wednesday, about two P. M., that I telephoned to Dr. Pelletier to ask him to perform an operation on Brutus.

"Send him over to the hospital this afternoon," Pelletier had answered, "and I'll look him over about five and operate the first thing in the morning—if there is any need for an operation! I'm leaving for San Juan at eleven, for a week."

I thanked him and went upstairs to my siesta, after giving Stephen the message to Brutus, who started off for the hospital about an hour later. He remained in the hospital until the following Sunday afternoon. He was entirely recovered from the operation, he reported. It had been a very slight affair, really, merely the removal of some kind of growth. He thanked me for my part in it when he came to announce dinner while I was reading on the gallery.

2: I Make an Odd Discovery

IT was on the Saturday morning, the day before Brutus got back, that I discovered something very curious in an obscure corner of my house-yard, just around the comer of the wall of the three small cabins which occupy its north side. These cabins were tenantless except for the one at the east end of the row. That one was Brutus Heilman's. Stephen Penn, like my cook, washer, and scullery-maid, lived somewhere in the town.

I had been looking over the yard which was paved with old-fashioned flagging. I found it in excellent condition, weeded, freshly swept, and clean. The three stone servants'-cubicles had been recently whitewashed and glistened like cake-icing in the morning sun. I looked over this portion of my domain with approval, for I like things shipshape. I glanced into the two narrow air spaces between the little, two-room houses. There were no cobwebs visible. Then I took a look around the east comer of Brutus Heilman's little house where there was a narrow passageway between the house and the high wall of antique Dutch brick, and there, well in towards the north wall, I saw on the ground what I first took to be a discarded toy which some child had thrown there, probably, it occurred to me, over the wall at the back of the stone cabins.

It looked like a doll's house, which, if it had been thrown there, had happened to land right-side-up. It looked more or less like one of the quaint, old-fashioned beehives one still sees occasionally in the conservative Lesser Antilles. But it could hardly be a beehive. It was far too small.

MY curiosity mildly aroused I stepped into the alleyway and looked down at the odd little thing.

Seen from where I stopped it rewarded scrutiny. For it was, although made in a somewhat bungling way, a reproduction of an African village hut, thatched, circular, conical. The thatching, I suspected, had formerly been most of the business-end of a small house-broom of fine twigs tied together around the end of a stick.

The little house's upright "logs" were a heterogeneous medley of little round sticks among which I recognized three dilapidated lead pencils and the broken-off handle of a tooth-brush. These details will serve to indicate its size and to justify my original conclusion that the thing was a rather cleverly made child's toy. How such a thing had got into my yard unless over the wall, was an unimportant little mystery. The little hut, from the ground up to its thatched peak, stood about seven inches in height. Its diameter was, perhaps, eight or nine inches.

My first reaction was to pick it up, look at it more closely, and then throw it into the wire cage in another corner of the yard where Stephen burned up waste paper and scraps at frequent intervals. The thing was plainly a discarded toy, and had no business cluttering up my spotless yard. Then I suddenly remembered the washer's pick'ny, a small, silent, very black child of six or seven, who sometimes played quietly in the yard while his stout mother toiled over the washtub set up on a backless chair near the kitchen door where she could keep up a continuous stream of chatter with my cook.

I stayed my hand accordingly. Quite likely this little thatched hut was a valued item of that pick'ny's possessions. Thinking pleasantly to surprise little Aesculapius, or whatever the child's name might be, I took from my pocket a fifty-bit piece— value ten cents— intending to place the coin inside the little house, through its rounded, low entrance-way.

STOOPING down, I shoved the coin through the doorway, and, as I did so, something suddenly scuttered about inside the hut, and pinched viciously at the ends of my thumb and forefinger.

I was, naturally, startled. I snatched my fingers away, and stood hastily erect. A mouse, perhaps even a rat, inside there! I glanced at my fingers. There were no marks on them. The skin was not broken. That rodent's vicious little sharp teeth had fortunately missed their grip as he snapped at me, intruding on his sacred privacy. Wondering a little I stepped out of the alleyway and into the sunny, open yard, somewhat upset at this Lilliputian contretemps, and resolved upon telling Stephen to see to it that there was no ugly rodent there when next little Aesculapius should retrieve his plaything.

But when I arrived at the gallery steps my friend Colonel Lorriquer's car was just drawing up before the house, and, in hastening to greet welcome early-morning callers and later in accepting Mrs. Lorriquer's invitation to dinner and contract at their house that evening, the little hut and its unpleasant inhabitant were driven wholly out of my mind.

I did not think of it again until several days later, on the night when my premises had become the theater for one of the most inexplicable, terrifying, and uncanny happenings I have ever experienced.

3: The First Attack

MY gallery is a very pleasant place to sit evenings, except in that spring period during which the West Indian candle-moths hatch in their myriads and, for several successive days, make it impossible to sit outdoors in any lighted, unscreened place.

It was much too early for the candle-moths, however, at the time I am speaking of, and on the evening of that Sunday upon which Brutus Heilman returned from the hospital, a party of four persons including myself, occupied the gallery.

The other man was Arthur Carswell, over from Hayti on a short visit. The two ladies were Mrs. Spencer, Colonel Lorriquer's widowed daughter, and her friend, Mrs. Squire. We had dined an hour previously at the Grand Hotel as guests of Carswell, and, having taken our coffee at my house, were remaining outdoors on the gallery "for a breath of air" on a rather warm and sultry February evening. We were sitting, quietly talking in a rather desultory manner, all of us unspokenly reluctant to move inside the house for a projected evening at contract.

It was, as I recall the hour, about nine o'clock, the night warm, as I have said, and very still. Above, in a cloudless sky of luminous indigo, the tropical stars glowed enormous. The intoxicating sweet odors of white jessamine and tuberoses made the still air redolent. No sound, except an occasional rather languid remark from one of ourselves, broke the exquisite, balmy stillness.

Then, all at once, without any warning and with an abruptness which caused Carswell and me to stand up, the exquisite perfection of the night was rudely shattered by an appalling, sustained scream of sheer mortal terror.

THAT scream inaugurated what seems to me as I look back upon the next few days, to be one of the most unnerving, devastating, and generally horrible periods I can recall in a lifetime not devoid of adventure. I formulated at that time, and still retain, mentally, a phrase descriptive of it. It was "The Reign of Terror."

Carswell and I, following the direction of the scream, rushed down the outer gallery steps and back through the yard towards the negro-cabins. As I have mentioned, only one of these was occupied, Brutus Heilman's. As we rounded the corner of the house a faint light— it was Brutus' oil lamp— appeared in the form of a wide vertical strip at the entrance of the occupied cabin. To that we ran as to a beacon, and pushed into the room.

The lamp, newly lighted, and smoking, its glass chimney set on askew as though in great haste, dimly illuminated a strange scene. Doubled up and sitting on the side of his bed, the bedclothes near the bed's foot lumped together where he had flung them, cowered Brutus. His face was a dull, ashen gray in the smoky light, his back was bent, his hands clasped tightly about his shin. And, from between those clenched hands, a steady stream of blood stained the white sheet which hung over the bed's edge and spread below into a small pool on the cabin room's stone-paved floor.

Brutus, groaning dismally, rocked back and forth, clutching his leg. The lamp smoked steadily, defiling the close air, while, incongruously, through the now open doorway poured streams and great pulsing breaths of night-blooming tropical flowers, mingling strangely with the hot, acrid odor of the smoking lamp-wick.

CARSWELL went directly to the lamp, straightened the chimney, turned down the flame. The lamp ceased its ugly reek and the air of the cabin cleared as Carswell, turning away from the lamp, threw wide the shutters of the large window which, like most West Indian Negroes, Brutus had closed against the "night air" when he retired.

I gave my attention directly to the man, and by the time the air had cleared somewhat I had him over on his back in a reclining position, and with a great strip torn from one of his bed sheets, was binding up the ugly deep little wound in the lower muscle of his leg just at the outside of the shin-bone. I pulled the improvised bandage tight, and the flow of blood ceased, and Brutus, his mind probably somewhat relieved by this timely aid, put an end to his moaning, and turned his ashy face up to

"Did you see it, sar?" he inquired, biting back the trembling of his

I paid practically no attention to this remark. Indeed, I barely heard it. I was, you see, very busily engaged in staunching the flow of blood. Brutus had already lost a considerable quantity, and my rough bandaging was directed entirely to the end of stopping this. Instead of replying to Brutus' question I turned to Carswell, who had finished with the lamp and the window, and now stood by, ready to lend a hand in his efficient way.

"Run up to the bathroom, will you, Carswell, and bring me a couple of rolls of bandage, from the medicine closet, and a bottle of mercurochrome." Carswell disappeared on this errand and I sat, holding my hands tightly around Brutus' leg, just above the bandage. Then he repeated his question, and this time I paid attention to what he was saying.

"SEE what, Brutus?" I inquired, and looked at him, almost for the first time—into his eyes, I mean. Hitherto I had been looking at my bandaging.

I saw a stark terror in those eyes.

"It," said Brutus; "de T'ing, sar."

I sat on the side of the bed and looked at him. I was, naturally, puzzled.

"What thing, Brutus?" I asked, very quietly, almost soothingly. Such terror possessed my second house-man that, I considered, he must, for the time being, be treated like a frightened child.

"De T'ing what attack me, sar," explained Brutus.

"What was it like?" I countered. "Do you mean it is still here… in your rooms?"

At that Brutus very nearly collapsed. His eyes rolled up and their irises nearly disappeared; he shuddered as though with a violent chill, from head to foot. I let go his leg. The blood would be no longer flowing, I felt sure, under that tight bandaging of mine. I turned back the bed clothes, rolled poor Brutus under them, tucked him in. I took his limp hands and rubbed them smartly. At this instant Carswell came in through the still open doorway, his hands full of first-aid material. This he laid without a word on the bed beside me, and stood, looking at Brutus, slightly shaking his head.

I turned to him.

"And would you mind bringing some brandy, old man? He's rather down and out, I'm afraid— trembling from head to foot."

"It's the reaction, of course," remarked Carswell quietly. "I have the brandy here." The efficient fellow drew a small flask from his jacket pocket. uncorked it, and poured out a dose in the small silver cup which covered the patent stopper.

I RAISED Brutus' head from the pillow, his teeth audibly chattering as I did so, and just as I was getting the brandy between his lips there came a slight scuttering sound from under the bed. and something, a small, dark, sinister-looking animal of about the size of a mongoose, dashed on all fours across the open space between the bed's corner and the still open doorway and disappeared into the night outside. With out a word Carswell ran after it, turning sharply to the left and running past the open window. I dropped the empty brandy cup; lowered Brutus' head hastily to the pillow, and dashed out of the cabin.

Carswell was at the end of the cabins, his flashlight stabbing the narrow alleyway where I had found the miniature African hut. I ran up to him.

"It went up here," said Carswell laconically.

I stood beside him in silence, my hand on his shoulder. He brightened every nook and cranny of the narrow alleyway with his light. There was nothing, nothing alive, to be seen.

The Thing had had, of course, ample time to turn some hidden corner behind the cabins, to bury itself out of sight in some accustomed hiding-place, even to climb over the high, rough-surfaced back wall. Carswell brought his flashlight to rest finally on the little hut-like thing which still stood in the alleyway.

"What's that?" he inquired. "It looks like some child's toy."

"That's what I supposed when I discovered it," I answered. "I imagine it belongs to the washer's pickaninny."

We stepped into the alleyway. It was not quite wide enough for us to walk abreast. Carswell followed me in. I turned over the little hut with my foot. There was nothing under it. I daresay the possibility of this as a cache for the Thing had occurred to Carswell and me simultaneously. That, however, settled it. The Thing, mongoose, or whatever it was, had got clean away.

WE returned to the cabin and found Brutus recovering from his ague-like trembling fit. His eyes were calmer now. The reassurance of our presence, the bandaging, had had their effect. Brutus proceeded to thank us for what we had done for him.

Helped by Carswell. I gingerly removed my rough bandage. The blood about that ugly bite— for a bite it certainly was with unmistakable teeth marks around its badly torn edges— was clotted now. The flow had ceased. We poured mercurochrome over and through the wound, disinfecting it, and then I placed two entire rolls of three-inch bandage about Brutus' wounded ankle. Then, with various encouragements and reassurances, we left him, the lamp still burning at his request, and went back to the ladies.

Our contract game wall, somehow, a jumpy one, the ladies having been considerably upset by the scare down there in the yard, and we concluded it early, Carswell driving Mrs Spencer home and I walking down the hill with Mrs. Squire to the Grand Hotel where she was spending that winter.

It was still several minutes short of midnight when I returned, after a slow walk up the hill, to my house. I had been thinking of the Incident all the way up the hill. I determined to look in upon Brutus Heilman before retiring, but first I went up to my bedroom and loaded a small automatic pistol, and this I carried with me when I went down to the cabins in the yard. Brutus' light was still going, and he was awake, for he responded instantly to my tap on his door.

I WENT in and talked with the man for a few minutes. I left him the gun, which he placed carefully under his pillow. At the door I turned and addressed him:

"How do you suppose the thing— whatever it was that attacked you, Brutus— could have got in, with everything closed up tight?"

Brutus replied that he had been thinking of this himself and had come to the conclusion that "de T'ing" had concealed itself in the cabin before be had retired and closed the window and door. He expressed himself as uneasy with the window open, as Carswell and I had left it.

"But, man, you should have the fresh air while you sleep. You don't want your place closed up like a field laborer's, do you!" said I, railingly. Brutus grinned.

"No, sar," said he, slowly, "ain't dat I be feared of de Jumbee.  I daresay it born in de blood, sar. I is close up everyt'ing by instinct! Besides, sar, now dat de T'ing attackin' me, p'raps bes'·to have the window close up tightly. Den de T'ing cyan't possibly mek an entrance 'pon me!"

I assured Brutus that the most agile mongoose could hardly clamber up that smooth, whitewashed wall outside and come in that window.

Brutus smiled, but shook his head nevertheless.

" 'Taint a mongoose, nor a rat, neither, sar," he remarked, as he settled himself for rest under the bedclothes.

"What do you think it is, then!" I inquired.

"Only de good Gawd know, sar," replied Brutus cryptically.

4: The Second Attack

I WAS perhaps half-way across the house-yard on my way to turn in when my ears were assailed by precisely one of those suppressed combinations of squeals and grunts which John Masefield describes presaging an animal tragedy under the hedge of an English countryside on a moonlit summer night. Something— a brief, ruthless combat for food or blood between two small ground animals— was going on somewhere in the vicinity.  I paused, listened, my senses an the more readily attuned to this bitter duel because of what had happened in Brutus' cabin.

As I paused, the squeals of the fighting animals abruptly ceased. One combatant, apparently, had given up the ghost! A grunting noise persisted for a few instants, however, and it made me shudder involuntarily. These sounds were low, essentially bestial, commonplace. Yet there was in them something so savage, albeit on the small scale of our everyday West Indian fauna, to give me pause. I could feel the beginning of a cold shudder run down my spine under my white drill jacket!

I turned about, almost reluctantly, drawn somehow, in spite of myself, to the scene of combat. The grunts had ceased now, and to my ear, in the quiet of that perfect night of soft airs and moonlight, there came the even more horrible little sound of the tearing of flesh! It was gruesome, quite horrible, well-nigh unbearable. I paused again, a little shaken, it must be confessed, my nerves a trifle unstrung. I was facing in the direction of the ripping sounds now. Then there was silence— complete. tranquil, absolute!

WHEN I stepped towards the scene of this small conflict, my flashlight sweeping that corner of the yard nearest the small alleyway.

It picked up the victim almost at once, and I thought— I could not be quite sure— that I saw at the very edge of the circle of illumination, the scrambling flight of the victor. The victim was commonplace. It was the body, still slightly palpitating, of a large, well-nourished rat. The dead rat lay well out in the yard, its freshly drawn vital fluid staining a wide smear on the flagstone which supported it— a ghastly-looking affair. I looked down at it curiously. It had, indeed, been a ruthless attack to which this lowly creature had succumbed. Its throat was torn out, it was disembowelled, riven terrifically. I stepped back to Brutus' cabin, went in, and picked up from a pile of them on his bureau a copy of one of our small-sheet local newspapers. With this, nodding smilingly at Brutus I proceeded once more to the scene of carnage. I had an idea. I laid the paper down, kicked the body of the rat upon it with my foot, and, picking up the paper, carried the dead rat into Brutus' cabin. I turned up his lamp and carried it over to the bedside.

"Do you suppose this was your animal, Brutus?" I asked. "If so, you seem to be pretty well avenged!"

Brutus grinned and looked closely at the riven animal. Then:

"No, sar," he said, slowly, " 'Twas no rat whut attacked me, sar. See de t'roat, please, sar. Him ahl tore out, mos' effectively! No, sar. But— I surmise— from de appearance of dis t'roat, de mouf which maim me on de laig was de same mouf whut completely ruin dis rat! "

And, indeed, judging from the appearance of the rat Brutus' judgment might well be sound.

I wrapped the paper about it, said good night once more to Heilman, carried it out with me, threw it into the metal waste-basket in which the house-trash is burned every morning, and went to bed.

AT three minutes past four the next morning I was snatched out of my comfortable bed and a deep sleep by the rattle of successive shots from the wicked little automatic I had left with Brutus. I jumped into my bathrobe, thrust my feet into my slippers, and was downstairs on the run, almost before the remnants of sleep were out of my eyes and brain. I ran out through the kitchen, as the nearest way, and was inside Brutus' cabin before the empty pistol, still clutched in his hand and pointed towards the open window, had ceased smoking. My first words were:

"Did you get It, Brutus?" I was thinking of the thing in terms of "It."

Yes, sar," returned Brutus, lowering his pistol. "I t'ink I scotch him, sar. Be please to look on de window-sill. P'raps some blood in evidence,

I did so, and found that Brutus' marksmanship was better than I had anticipated when I entrusted him with the gun. To be sure, he had fired off all seven bullets, and, apparently, scored only one hit. A small, single drop of fresh blood lay on the white-painted wooden window-sill. No other trace of the attacker was in evidence. My flashlight revealed no marks, and the smooth, freshly-whitewashed wall outside was unscathed. Unless the Thing had wings—something suddenly touched me on the forehead, something light and delicate. I reached up, grasping. My hand closed around something like a string. I turned the flashlight up and there hung a thin strand of liana stem. I pulled it. It was firmly fastened somewhere up above there.

I stepped outside, with one of Brutus' chairs, placed this against the outer wall under the window, and, standing on it, raked the eaves with the flashlight. The upper end of the liana stem was looped about a small projection in the gutter, just above the window.

The Thing, apparently, knew enough to resort to this mechanical method for its second attack that night.

Inside, Brutus, somewhat excited over his exploit, found a certain difficulty in describing just what it was that had drawn his aim.

"It have de appearance of a frog, sar," he vouchsafed. "I is wide awake when de T'ing land himse'f 'pon de sill, an' I hav opportunity for takin' an excellent aim, sar." That was the best I could get out of Brutus. I tried to visualize a "Thing" which looked like a frog, being able to master one of our big, ferocious rats and tear out its inner parts and go off with them, not to mention liana stems with loop-knots in them to swing from a roof to an open window, and which could make a wound like the one above Brutus Heilman's ankle. It was rather too much for me. But—the Reign of Terror had begun, and no mistake!

5: Science Takes a Hand

RUNNING over this summary in my mind as I stood and listened to Brutus telling about his marksmanship, it occurred to me, in a somewhat fantastic light, I must admit— the idea of calling in "science" to our aid, forming the fantastic element— that the Thing had left a clue which might well be unmistakable; something which, suitably managed, might easily clear up the mounting mystery.

I went back to the house, broached my medicine closet, and returned to the cabin with a pair of glass microscopic slides. Between these I made a smear of the still fresh and fluid blood on the window-sill, and went back to my room, intending to send the smear later in the morning to Dr. Pelletier's laboratory-man at the Municipal Hospital.

I left the slides there myself, requesting Dr. Brownell to make me an analysis of the specimen with a view to determining its place in the gamut of West Indian fauna, and that afternoon, shortly after the siesta hour, I received a telephone call from the young physician. Dr. Brownell had a certain whimsical cast apparent in his voice which was new to me. He spoke, I thought, rather banteringly.

"Where did you get your specimen, Mr. Canevin?" he inquired. "I understood you to say it was the blood of some kind of lower animal."

"Yes," said I, "That was what I understood, Dr. Brownell. Is there something peculiar about it?"

"Well—" said Dr. Brownell slowly, and somewhat banteringly, "yes— and no. The only queer thing about it is that it's— human blood, probably a Negro's."

I managed to thank him, even to say that I did not want the specimen returned, in answer to his query, and we rang off.

The plot, it seemed to me, was, in the language of the tradition of strange occurrences, thickening! This, then, must be Brutus' blood. Brutus' statement, that he had shot at and struck the marauder at his open window, must be imagination— Negro talk! But, even allowing that it was Brutus' blood— there was, certainly, no one else about to supply that drop of fresh fluid which I had so carefully scraped up on my two glass slides— how had he got blood, from his wounded lower leg, presumably, on that high window-sill? To what end would the man lie to me on such a subject? Besides, certainly he had shot at something— the pistol was smoking when I got to his room. And then— the liana stem? How was that to be accounted for?

Dr. Brownell's report made the whole thing more complicated than it had been before. Science, which I had so cheerfully invoked, had only served to make this mystery deeper and more inexplicable.

6:  The Third Attack

HANDICAPPED by nothing more than a slight limp Brutus Heilman was up and attending to his duties about the house the next day. In response to my careful questioning, he had repeated the story of his shooting in all particulars just as he had recounted that incident to me in the gray hours of the early morning. He had even added a particular which fitted in with the liana stem as the means of ingress. The Thing, he said, bad appeared to swing down onto the window-sill from above, as he, awake for the time being between cat-naps, had first seen it and reached for the pistol underneath his pillow and then opened fire.

Nothing happened throughout the day; nor, indeed, during the Reign of Terror as I have called it, did anything untoward occur throughout, except at night. .That evening, shortly after eight o'clock, Brutus retired, and Stephen Penn, who had accompanied him to his cabin, reported to me that, in accordance with my suggestion, the two of them had made an exhaustive search for any concealed "Thing" which might have secreted itself about Brutus' premises. They had found nothing, and Brutus, his window open, but provided with a tight-fitting screen which had been installed during the day, had fallen asleep before Stephen left. Penn had carefully closed the cabin door behind him, making sure that it was properly latched.

The attack that night—I had been sleeping "with one eye open"—did not come until two o'clock in the morning. This time Brutus had no opportunity to use the gun, and so I was not awakened until it was all over. It was, indeed, Brutus calling me softly from the yard at a quarter past two that brought me to my feet and to the window.

"Yes," said I, "what is It, Brutus?"

"You axed me to inform you, sar, of anything," explained Brutus from the yard.

"Right! What happened? Wait, Brutus, I'll come down," and I hurriedly stepped into bathrobe and

BRUTUS was waiting for me at the kitchen door, a hand to his left cheek, holding a handkerchief rolled into a ball. Even in the moonlight I could see that this makeshift dressing was bright red. Brutus, it appeared, had suffered another attack of some kind. I took him into the house and upstairs, and dressed the three wounds in his left cheek in my bathroom. He had been awakened without warning, fifteen minutes before, with a sudden hurt, had straightened up in bed, but not before two more stabs, directly through the cheek, had been delivered. He had only just seen the Thing scrambling down over the foot of the bed as he came awake under the impetus of these stabs, and, after a hasty search for the attacker had wisely devoted himself to staunching his bleeding face. Then, trembling in every limb, he had stepped out into the yard and come under my window

The three holes through the man's cheek were of equal size and similar appearance, obviously inflicted by some stabbing implement of about the diameter of a quarter-inch. The first stab, Brutus thought, had been the one highest up, and this one had not only penetrated into the mouth like the others, but had severely scratched the gum of the upper jaw just above his eye-tooth. I talked to him as I dressed these three wounds. "So the thing must have been concealed inside your room, you think, Brutus?"

"Undoubtedly, sar," returned Brutus. "There was no possible way for It to crawl in 'pon me—de door shut tight, de window-screen undisturb'."

The poor fellow was trembling from head to foot with shock and fear, and I accompanied him back to his cabin. He had not lighted his lamp. It was only by the light of the moon that he had seen his assailant disappear over the foot of the bed. He had seized the handkerchief and run out into the yard in his pajamas.

I lit the lamp, determining to have electricity put into the cabin the next day, and, with Brutus' assistance, looked carefully over the room. Nothing, apparently, was hidden anywhere; there was only a little space to search through; Brutus had few belongings; the cabin furniture was adequate but scanty. There were no superfluities, no place, in other words, in which the Thing could hide itself.

Whatever had attacked Brutus was indeed going about its work with vicious cunning and determination.

7: The Fourth Attack

BRUTUS turned in, and after sitting beside him for a while, I left the lamp turned down, closed the door, and took my departure.

Brutus did not turn up in the morning, and Stephen Penn, returning from an investigatory visit to the cabin came to me on the gallery about nine o'clock with a face as gray as ashes. He had found Brutus unconscious, the bed soaked in blood, and, along the great pectoral muscle where the right arm joins the body, a long and deep gash from which the unfortunate fellow had, apparently, lost literally quarts of blood. I telephoned for a doctor and hurried to the cabin.

Brutus was conscious upon my arrival, but so weakened from loss of blood as to be quite unable to speak. On the floor, beside the bed, apparently where it had fallen, lay a medium-sized pocket knife, its largest blade open, soaked in blood. Apparently this had been the instrument with which he had been wounded.

The doctor, soon after his arrival, declared a blood-transfusion to be necessary, and this operation was performed at eleven o'clock in the cabin, Stephen contributing a portion of the blood, a young Negro from the town, paid for his service, the rest. After that, and the administration of a nourishing hot drink, Brutus was able to tell us what had happened.

Against his own expectations, he had fallen asleep immediately after my departure, and, curiously, had been awakened not by any attack upon him, but by the booming of a rata drum from somewhere up in the hills back of the town where some of the Negroes were, doubtless, "making magic," a common enough occurrence in any of the vodu-ridden West India islands. But this, according to Brutus, was no ordinary awakening.

No—for, on the floor, beside his bed, dancing to the distant drumbeats, he had seen—It!

THAT Brutus had possessed some idea of the identity or character of his assailant, I had, previous to this occurrence of his most serious wound, strongly suspected. I had gathered this impression from half a dozen little things, such as his fervid denial that the creature which had bitten him was either a rat or a mongoose; his "Gawd know" when I had asked him what the Thing was like.

Now I understood, clearly of course, that Brutus knew what kind of creature had concealed itself in his room. I even elicited the fact, discovered by him, just how I am quite unaware, that the Thing had hidden under a loose floor board beneath his bed and so escaped detection on the several previous searches.

But to find out from Brutus— the only person who knew— that, indeed, was quite another affair. There can be, I surmise, no human being as consistently and completely shut-mouthed as a West Indian Negro, once such a person has definitely made up his mind to silence on a given subject! And on this subject, Brutus had, it appeared, quite definitely made up his mind. No questions, no cajolery, no urging—even with tears, on the part of his lifelong friend Stephen Penn—could elicit from him the slightest remark bearing on the description or identity of the Thing. I myself used every argument which logic and common-sense presented to my Caucasian mind. I urged his subsequent safety upon Brutus, my earnest desire to protect him, the logical necessity of cooperating, in the stubborn fellow's own obvious interest, with us who had his safety and welfare at heart. Stephen, as I have said, even wept! But all these efforts on our parts, were of no avail. Brutus Heilman resolutely refused to add a single word to what he had already said. He had awakened to the muted booming of the distant drum. He had seen the Thing dancing beside his bed. He had, it appeared, fainted from this shock, whatever the precise nature of that shock may have been, and knew nothing more until he came slowly to a vastly weakened consciousness between Stephen Penn's visit to him late in the morning, and mine which followed it almost at once.

THERE was one fortunate circumstance. The deep and wide cut which had, apparently, been inflicted upon him with his own pocket-knife—it had been lying, open, by mere chance, on a small tabouret beside his bed—had been delivered lengthwise of the pectoral muscle, not across that muscle. Otherwise the fellow's right arm would have been seriously crippled for life. The major damage he had suffered in this last and most serious attack had been the loss of blood, and this, through my employment of one donor of blood and Stephen Penn's devotion in giving him the remainder, had been virtually re-

However, whether he spoke or kept silent, it was plain to me that I had a very definite duty towards Brutus Heilman. I could not, if anything were to be done to prevent it, have him attacked in this way while in my service and living on my premises.

The electricity went in that afternoon, with a pull-switch placed near the hand of whoever slept in the bed, and, later in the day, Stephen Penn brought up on a donkey cart from his town lodging-place, his own bed-stead, which he set up in Brutus' room, and his bureau containing the major portion of his belongings, which he placed in the newly-swept and garnished cabin next door. If the Thing repeated its attack that night, it would have Stephen, as well as Brutus, to deal with.

One contribution to our knowledge Stephen made, even before he had actually moved into my yard. This was the instrument with which Brutus had been stabbed through the cheek. He found it cached in the floor-space underneath that loose board where the Thing had hidden itself. He brought it to me, covered with dried blood. It was a rough, small-scale reproduction of an African "assegai," or stabbing-spear. It was made out of an ordinary butcher's hardwood meat-skewer, its head a splinter of pointed glass such as might be picked up anywhere about the town. The head—and this was what caused the resemblance to an assegai—was very exactly and neatly bound on to the cleft end of the skewer, with fish line. On the whole, and considered as a piece of work, the "assegai" Was a highly creditable job.

8: Science Is Again Invoked

IT was on the morning of this last-recorded attack on Brutus Heilman during the period between my visit to him and the arrival of the doctor with the man for the blood-transfusion, that I sat down, at my desk, in an attempt to figure out some conclusion from the facts already known. I had progressed somewhat with my theoretical investigation at that time. When later, after Brutus could talk, he mentioned the circumstance of the Thing's dancing there on his cabin floor, to the notes of a drum, in the pouring moonlight which came through his screened window and gave its illumination to the little room, I came to some sort of indeterminate decision. I will recount the steps— they are very brief— which led up to this.

The facts, as I noted them down on paper that day, pointed to a pair of alternatives. Either Brutus Heilman was demented, and had invented his "attacks," having inflicted them upon himself for some inscrutable reason; or—the Thing was possessed of qualities not common among the lower animals! I set the two groups of facts side by side, and compared

Carswell and I had actually seen the Thing as it ran out of the cabin that first night. Something, presumably the same Thing, had torn a large rat to pieces. The same Thing had bitten savagely Brutus' lower leg. Brutus' description of it was that it looked "like a frog." Those four facts seemed to indicate one of the lower animals, though its genus and the motive for its attacks were unknown!

On the other hand, there was a divergent set of facts. The Thing had used mechanical means, a liana stem with a looped knot in it, to get into Brutus' cabin through the window. It had used some stabbing instrument, later found, and proving to be a manufactured affair. Again, later, it had used Brutus' knife in its final attack. All these facts pointed to some such animal as a small monkey. This theory was strengthened by the shape of the bites on Brutus' leg and on the rat's throat.

That it was not a monkey, however, there was excellent evidence. The Thing looked like a frog. A frog is a very different-looking creature from any known kind of monkey. There were, so far as I knew, no monkeys at the time on the island of St. Thomas.

I ADDED to these sets of facts two other matters: The blood alleged to be drawn from the Thing had, on analysis, turned out to be human blood. The single circumstance pointed very strongly to the insanity theory. On the other hand, Brutus could hardly have placed the fresh blood which I had myself scraped up on my slides, on the window-sill where I found it. Still, he might have done so, If his "insanity" were such as to allow for an elaborately "planted" hoax or something of the kind. He could have placed the drop of blood there, drawn from his own body by means of a pin-prick, before he fired the seven cartridges that night. It was possible. But, knowing Brutus, it was so improbable as to be quite absurd.

The final circumstance was the little "African" hut. That, somehow, seemed to fit in with the "assegai." The two naturally went together.

It was a jumble, a puzzle. The more I contrasted and compared these clues, the more impossible the situation became.

Well, there was one door open, at least. I decided to go through that door and see where it led me. I sent for Stephen. It was several hours after the blood-transfusion. I had to get some of Brutus' blood for my experiment, but it must be blood drawn previous to the transfusion. Stephen came to see what I wanted.

"Stephen," said I, "I want you to secure from Heilman's soiled things one of those very bloody sheets which you changed on his bed to-day, and bring it here."

Stephen goggled at me, but went at once on this extraordinary errand. He brought me the sheet. On one of its comers, there was an especially heavy mass of clotted blood. From the underside of this I managed to secure a fresh enough smear on a pair of glass slides, and with these I stepped into my car and ran down to the hospital and asked for Dr. Brownell.

I gave him the slides and asked him to make for me an analysis for the purpose of comparing this blood with the specimen I had given him two days before. My only worry was whether or not they had kept a record of the former analysis, it being a private job and not part of the hospital routine. They had recorded it, however, and Dr. Brownell obligingly made the test for me then and there. Half an hour after he had stepped into the laboratory he came

"Here are the records," he said. "The two specimens are unquestionably from the same person, presumably a Negro. They are virtually identical."

THE blood alleged to be the Thing's, then, was merely Brutus' blood. The strong presumption was, therefore, that Brutus had lost his mind.

Into this necessary conclusion, I attempted to fit the remaining facts. Unfortunately for the sake of any solution, they did not fit! Brutus might, for some insane reason, have inflicted the three sets of wounds upon himself. But Brutus had not made the "African" hut, which had turned up before he was back from the hospital. He had not, presumably, fastened that liana stem outside his window. He had not, certainly, slain that rat, nor could he have "invented" the creature which both .Carswell and I had seen, however vaguely, running out of his cabin that night of the first attack.

At the end of all my cogitations, I knew absolutely nothing, except what my own senses had conveyed to me; and these discordant facts I have already set down in their order and sequence, precisely and accurately, as they occurred.

To these I now add the additional fact that upon the night following the last recorded attack on Brutus Heilman, nothing whatever happened. Neither he nor Stephen Penn, sleeping side by side in their two beds in the cabin room, were in any way disturbed.

I wished, fervently, that Dr. Pelletier were at hand. I needed someone like him to talk to. Carswell would not answer, somehow. No one would answer. I needed Pelletier, with his incisive mind, his scientific training, his vast knowledge of the West Indies, his open-mindedness to facts wherever these and their contemplation might lead the investigator. I needed Pelletier very badly indeed!

And Pelletier was still over in Porto Rico.

Only one further circumstance, and that, apparently, an irrelevant one, can be added to the facts already narrated—-those incongruous facts which did not appear to have any reasonable connection with one another and seemed to be mystifyingly contradictory. The circumstance was related to me by Stephen Penn, and it was nothing more or less than the record of a word, a proper name. This, Stephen alleged, Brutus had repeated, over and over, as, under the effects of the two degrees of temperature which he was carrying as the result of his shock and of the blood- transfusion, he had tossed about restlessly during a portion of the night. That name was, in a sense, a singularly appropriate one for Brutus to utter, even though one would hardly suspect the fellow of having any acquaintance with Roman history, or, indeed, with the works of William Shakespeare!

The name was— Cassius!

I figured that anyone bearing the Christian name, Brutus, must, in the course of a lifetime, have got wind of the original Brutus' side-partner. The two names naturally go together, of course, like Damon and Pythias, David and Jonathan! However, I said nothing about this to Brutus.

9: Dr. Pelletier Returns

I WAS on the concrete wharf beside the Naval Administration Building long before the Grebe arrived from San Juan on the Thursday morning a week after Brutus Hallman's operation.

I wanted to get Pelletier's ear at the earliest possible moment. Nearby, in the waiting line against the wall of the Navy building, Stephen Penn at the wheel, stood my car. I had telephoned Pelletier's man that he need not meet the doctor. I was going to do that myself, to get what facts, whatever explanation Pelletier might have to offer as I drove him through the town and up the precipitous roadways of Denmark Hill to his house at its summit.

My bulky, hard-boiled, genial, naval surgeon friend, of the keen, analytical brain and the skilful hands which so often skirted the very edges of death in his operating-room, was unable, however, to accompany me at once upon his arrival. I had to wait more than twenty minutes for him, while others, who had prior claims upon him, interviewed him. At last he broke away from the importunate ones and heaved his unwieldy bulk into the back seat of my car beside me. Among those who had waylaid him, I recognized Doctors Roots and Maguire, both naval surgeons.

I had not finished my account of the persecution to which Brutus Heilman had been subjected by the time we arrived at the doctor's hilltop abode. I told Stephen to wait for me and finished the story inside the house while Pelletier's houseman was unpacking his traveling valises. Pelletier heard me through in virtual silence, only occasionally interrupting with a pertinent question. When I had finished he lay back in his chair, his eyes closed.

HE said nothing for several minutes. Then, his eyes still shut, he raised and slightly waved his big, awkward-looking hand, that hand of such uncanny skill when it held a knife, and began to speak, very slowly and reflectively:

"Dr. Roots mentioned a peculiar circumstance on the wharf."

"Yes?" said I.

"Yes," said Dr. Pelletier. He shifted his ungainly bulk in his big chair, opened his eyes and looked at me. Then, very deliberately:

"Roots reported the disappearance of the thing— it was a parasitic growth— that I removed from your house-man's side a week ago. When they had dressed the fellow and sent him back to the ward Roots intended to look the thing over in the laboratory. It was quite unusual. I'll come to that in a minute. But when he turned to pick it up, it was gone; had quite disappeared. The nurse. Miss Charles, and he looked all over for it, made a very thorough search. That was one of the things he came down for this morning—to report that to me." Once again Pelletier paused, looked at me searchingly, as though studying me carefully. Then he said:

"I understood you to say that the Thing, as you call it, is still at large?"

The incredible possible implication of this statement of the disappearance of the "growth" removed from Heilman's body and the doctor's question, stunned me for an instant. Could he possibly mean to imply—? I stared at him, blankly, for an instant.

"Yes," said I, "it is still at large, and poor Heilman is barricaded in his cabin. As I have told you, I have dressed those bites and gashes myself. He absolutely refuses to go to the hospital again. He lies there, muttering to himself, ash-gray with fear."

"H'm," vouchsafed Dr. Pelletier. "How big would you say the Thing is, Canevin, judging from your glimpse of it and the marks it

"About the size, say, of a rat," I answered, "and black. We had that one sight of it, that first night. Carswell and I both saw it scuttering out of Heilman's cabin right under our feet when this horrible business first started."

Dr. Pelletier nodded, slowly. Then he made another remark, apparently irrelevant:

"I had breakfast this morning on board the Grebe. Could you give me lunch?" He looked at his watch.

"Of course," I returned. "Are you thinking of—"

"Let's get going," said Dr. Pelletier, heaving himself to his feet.

WE started at once, the doctor calling out to his servants that he would not be back for one o'clock "breakfast," and Stephen Penn who had driven us up the hill drove us down again. Arrived at my house we proceeded straight to Heilman's cabin. Dr. Pelletier talked soothingly to the poor fellow while examining those ugly wounds. On several he placed fresh dressings from his professional black bag. When he had finished he drew me outside.

"You did well, Canevin," he remarked, reflectively, "in not calling in anybody, dressing those wounds yourself!  What people don't know, er— won't hurt 'em!"

He paused after a few steps away from the cabin.

"Show me," he commanded, "which way the Thing ran, that first night."

I indicated the direction, and we walked along the line of it, Pelletier forging ahead, his black bag in his big hand. We reached the corner of the cabin in a few steps, and Pelletier glanced up the alleyway between the cabin's side and the high yard-wall. The little toy house, looking somewhat dilapidated now, still stood where it had been, since I first discovered it. Pelletier did not enter the alleyway. He looked in at the queer little miniature hut.

"H'm," he remarked, his forehead puckered into a thick frowning wrinkle. Then, turning abruptly to me:

"I suppose it must have occurred to you that the Thing lived in that," said he, challengingly.

"Yes— naturally; after it went for my fingers— whatever that creature may have been. Three or four times. I've gone in there with a flash-light after one of the attacks on Brutus Heilman; picked it up, even, and looked inside—"

"And the Thing is never there," finished Dr. Pelletier, nodding sagaciously.

"Never," I corroborated.

"Come on up to the gallery," said the doctor, "and I'll tell you what I think."

10: Dr. Pelletier's Theory

WE proceeded to the gallery at once and Dr. Pelletier, laying down his black bag., caused a lounge chair to groan and creak beneath his recumbent weight while I went into the house to command the usual West Indian preliminary to a meal.

A few minutes later Dr. Pelletier told me what he thought, according to his promise. His opening remark was in the form of a question; about the very last question anyone in his senses would have regarded as pertinent to the subject in hand.

"Do you know anything about twins, Canevin?" he inquired.

"Twins?" said I. "Twins?" I was greatly puzzled. I had not been expecting any remarks about twins.

"Well," said I, as Dr. Pelletier stared at me gravely, "only what everybody knows about them, I imagine. What about them?"

"There are two types of twin, Canevin, and I don't mean the difference arising out of being separate or attached at birth, the 'Siamese' or ordinary types. I mean something far more basic than that accidental division into categories; more fundamental— deeper than that kind of distinction. The two kinds of twins I have reference to are called in biological terminology 'monozygotic' and 'dizygotic' respectively; those which originate, that is, from one cell or from two."

"The distinction," I threw in, "which Johannes Lange makes in his study of criminal determinism, his book Crime and Destiny: The 'one cell originated twin', he contends, have identical motives and personalities. If one is a thief, the other has to be! He sets out to prove— and that pompous ass Haldane, who wrote the foreword, believes it too— that there is no free-will: that man's moral course is predetermined, inescapable— a kind of scientific Calvinism."

"Precisely, just that," said Dr. Pelletier. "Anyhow, you understand that distinction."

I looked at him, still somewhat puzzled.

"YES," said I, "But still, I can't see its application to this nasty business of Brutus Heilman."

"I was leading up to telling you," said Dr. Pelletier, in his matter-of-fact, forthright fashion of speech, "to telling you, Canevin, that the Thing is, undoubtedly, the parasitic Siamese twin that I cut away from Brutus Heilman last Thursday morning, and which disappeared out of the operating-room. Also, from the evidence I'd be inclined to think it is of the 'dizygotic' type. That would not occur, in the case of 'attached' twins, more than once in ten million times!"

He paused at this and looked at me. For my part, after that amazing, that utterly incredible statement, so calmly made, so dispassionately uttered, I could do nothing but sit limply in my chair and gaze woodenly at my guest. I was so astounded that I was incapable of uttering a word. But I did not have to say anything.

Dr. Pelletier was speaking again, developing his thesis.

"Put together the known facts, Canevin. It is the scientific method, the only satisfactory method, when you are confronted with a situation like this one. You can do so quite easily, almost at random, here. To begin with, you never found the Thing in that little thatched hut after one of its attacks— did you?"

"No," I managed to murmur, out of strangely dry mouth. Pelletier's theory held me stultified by its unexpectedness its utter, weird strangeness. The name, "Cassius," smote my brain. That identical blood—

"If the Thing had been, say, a rat," he continued, "as you supposed when it went for your fingers, it would have gone straight from its attack on Brutus Heilman to its diggings— the refuge-instinct: 'holing-up.' But it didn't. You investigated several times and it wasn't inside the little house, although it ran towards it, you believed, after seeing it start that way the first night; although the creature that went for your hand was there, inside, before it suspected pursuit. You see? That gives us a lead, a clue. The Thing possesses a much higher level of intelligence than that of a mere rodent. Do you grasp that significant point, Canevin? The Thing, anticipating pursuit, avoided capture by instinctively outguessing the pursuer. It went towards its diggings but deferred entrance until the pursuer had investigated and gone away. Do you get it?"

I NODDED, not desiring to interrupt. I was following Pelletier's thesis eagerly now. He resumed:

"Next— consider those wounds, those bites, on Brutus Heilman. They were never made by any small, ground-dwelling animal, a rodent, like a rat or a mongoose. No; those teeth-marks are those of— well, say, a marmoset or any very small monkey; or, Canevin, of an unbelievably small human being!"

Pelletier and I sat and looked at each other. I think that, after an appreciable interval, I was able to nod my head in his direction. Pelletier continued:

"The next point we come to— before going on to something a great deal deeper, Canevin— is the color of the Thing. You saw it. It was only a momentary glimpse, as you say, but you secured enough of an impression to seem pretty positive on that question of its color. Didn't you?"

"Yes," said I, slowly. "It was as 'black as a derby hat, Pelletier."

"There you have one point definitely settled, then." The doctor was speaking with judicial note in his voice, the scientist in full stride now.

"The well-established ethnic rule, the biological certainty in cases of miscegenation between Caucasians or quasi-Caucasians and the Negro or negroid types is that the offspring is never darker than the darker of the two parents. The black-baby tradition, as a 'throwback' being produced by mulatto or nearly Caucasian parent, is a bugaboo, Canevin, sheer bosh! It doesn't happen that way. It cannot happen. It is a biological impossibility, my dear man. Although widely believed, that idea falls into the same category as the ostrich burying its head in the sand and thinking it is concealed! It falls in with the Amazon myth! The Amazons were merely long-haired Scythians, those 'women-warriors' of antiquity. Why, damn it. Canevin, it's like believing in the Centaur to swallow a thing like that."

THE doctor had become quite excited over his expression of biological orthodoxy. He glared at me, or appeared to, and lighted a fresh cigarette. The~ considering for a moment, while he inhaled a few preliminary puffs, he resumed:

"You see what that proves, don't you, Canevin?" he inquired, somewhat more calmly now.

"It seems to show," I answered, "since Brutus is very 'clear-colored,' as the Negroes would say, that one of his parents was a black; the other very considerably lighter, perhaps even a pure Caucasian."

"Right, so far," acquiesced the doctor. "And the other inference, in the case of twins— what?"

"That the twins were 'dizygotic,' even though attached," said I, slowly, as the conclusion came clear in my mind after Pelletier's preparatory speech. "Otherwise, of course, if they were the other kind, the mono-cellular or 'monozygotic,' they would have the same coloration, derived from either the dark or the light-skinned parent."

"Precisely," exclaimed Dr. Pelletier. "Now—"

"You mentioned certain other facts," I interrupted, " 'more deep seated,' I think you said. What—"

"I was just coming to those, Canevin. There are, actually, two such considerations which occur to me. First—why did the Thing degenerate, undoubtedly after birth, of course, if there were no pre-natal process of degeneration? They would have been nearly of a size, anyway, when born, I'd suppose. Why did 'It' shrink up into a withered, apparently lifeless little homunculus, while its fellow twin, Brutus Heilman, attained to a normal manhood?  There are some pretty deep matters involved in those queries, Canevin. It was comatose, shrunken, virtually dead while attached."

"Let's see if we can't make a guess at them," I threw in.

"What would you say?" countered Dr. Pelletier.

I NODDED, and sat silently for several minutes trying to put what was in my mind together in some coherent form so as to express it adequately. Then:

"A couple of possibilities occur to me," I began. "One or both of them might account for the divergence. First, the failure of one or more of the ductless glands, very early in the Thing's life after birth. It's the thymus gland, isn't it, that regulates the physical growth of an infant— that makes him grow normally. If that fails before it has done its full work, about the end of the child's second year, you get a midget. If, on the other hand, it keeps on too long —does not dry up as it should, and cease functioning, its normal task finished— the result is a giant; the child simply goes on growing, bigger and bigger! Am I right, so far? And, I suppose, the cutting process released it from its coma."

"Score one!" said Dr. Pelletier, wagging his head at me. "Go on— what else? There are many cases, of course, of blood-letting ending a coma."

"The second guess is that Brutus had the stronger constitution, and outstripped the other one. It doesn't sound especially scientific, but that sort of thing does happen as I understand it. Beyond those two possible explanations I shouldn't care to risk any more guesses."

"I think both those causes have been operative in this case," said Dr. Pelletier, reflectively. "And, having performed that operation, you see, I think I might add a third, Canevin. It is purely conjectural, I'll admit that frankly, but one outstanding circumstance supports it. I'll come back to that shortly. In short, Canevin, I imagine— my instinct tells me— that almost from the beginning, quite unconsciously, of course, and in the automatic processes of outstripping his twin in physical growth, Brutus absorbed the other's share of nutriments.

"I CAN figure that out, in fact, from several possible angles. The early nursing, for instance! The mother—she was, undoubtedly, the black parent— proud of her 'clear' child, would favor it, nurse it first. There is, besides, always some more or leas obscure interplay, some balanced adjustment, between physically attached twin. In this case. God knows how, that invariable balance became disadjusted; the adjustment became unbalanced, if you prefer it that way. The mother, too, from whose aide the dark twin probably derived its constitution, may very well have been a small, weakly woman. The fair-skinned other parent was probably robust, physically. But, whatever the underlying causes, we know that Brutus grew up to be normal and fully mature, and I know, from that operation, that the Thing I cut away from him was his twin brother, degenerated into an apparently lifeless homunculus, a mere appendage of Brutus. Something which, apparently, has quite lost nearly everything of its basic humanity; even most of its appearance, Canevin— a Thing to be removed surgically, like a wen."

"It is a terrible idea," said I, slowly, and after an interval. "But, it seems to be the only way to explain— er— the facts! Now tell me, if you please, what is that 'outstanding circumstance' you mentioned which corroborates this, er— theory of yours."

"It is the Thing's motive, Canevin," said Dr. Pelletier, very gravely. "Allowing, of course,  that we are right— that I am right— in allowing for lack of a better hypothesis that what I cut away from Hellman had life in it; that it 'escaped;' that it is now— well, in trying to get at a thing like that, under the circumstances, I'd be inclined to say we touch bottom!"

"Good God— the motive!' I almost whispered. "Why, its horrible, Pelletier; its positively uncanny. The Thing becomes, quite definitely, a horror. The motive-in that Thing!  You're right, old man. Psychologically speaking, it 'touches bottom' as you say."

"And humanly speaking," added Dr. Pelletier, in a very quiet voice.

STEPHEN came out and announced breakfast. It was one o'clock. We went in and ate rather silently. As Stephen was serving the dessert Dr. Pelletier spoke to him:

"Was Heilman's father a white man, do you happen to know, Stephen?"

"De man was an engineer on board an English trading vessel, sar."

"What about his Mother?" probed the doctor.

"Her a resident of Antigua, sar," replied Stephen promptly, "and is yet alive. I am acquainted with her. Heilman ahlways send her some portion of his earnings. Sar,  very regularly. At de time Heilman born, her a 'ooman which do washing for ships' crews, an' make an excellent living. Nowadays, de poor soul liddle more than a piteous invalid, sar. Her always a small liddle 'ooman, not too strong."

"I take it she is a dark woman?" remarked the doctor, smiling at Stephen.

Stephen, who is a medium brown young man, a "Zambo," as they say in the English Islands like St. Kitts and Montserrat and Antigua, grinned broadly at this, displaying a set of magnificent, glistening teeth.

"Sar," he replied, "Heilman' mother de precisely identical hue of dis fella," and Stephen touched with his index finger the neat black bow-tie which let off the snowy whiteness of his immaculate drill house-man's jacket. Pelletier and I exchanged glances as we smiled at Stephen's little joke.

ON the gallery immediately after lunch, over coffee, we came back to that bizarre topic which Dr. Pelletier had called the "motive." Considered quite apart from the weird aspect of attributing a motive to a quasi-human creature of the size of a rat, the matter was clear enough.

The Thing had relentlessly attacked Brutus Heilman again and again, with an implacable fiendishness; its brutal, single-minded efforts being limited in their disastrous effects only by its diminutive size and relative deficiency of strength. Even so, it had succeeded in driving a full-grown man, its victim, into a condition not very far removed from imbecility.

What obscure processes had gone on piling up cumulatively to a fixed purpose of pure destruction in that primitive, degenerated organ that served the Thing for a brain! What dreadful weeks and months and years of semi-conscious brooding, of existence endured parasitically as an appendage upon the instinctively loathed body of the normal brother! ,What savage hatred had burned itself into that minute, distorted personality! What incalculable instincts, deep buried in the backgrounds of the black heredity through the mother, had come into play—as evidenced by the Thing's construction of the typical African hut as its habitation—once it had come, after the separation, into active consciousness, the new-born, freshly-realized freedom to exercise and release all that acrid, seething hatred upon him who had usurped its powers of self-expression, its very life itself! What manifold thwarted instincts had, by the processes of substitution, crystallized themselves into one overwhelming, driving desire—the consuming instinct for revenge!

I shuddered as all this clarified itself in my mind, as I formed, vaguely, some kind of mental image of that personality. Dr. Pelletier was speaking again. I forced my engrossed mind to listen to him. He seemed very grave and determined, I noticed....

"We must put an end to all this, Canevin," he was saying. "Yes, we must put an end to it."

11: The Last Attack

EVER since that first Sunday evening when the attacks began, as I look back over that hectic period, it seems to me that I had had in mind primarily the idea of capture and destruction of what had crystallized in my mind as "The Thing." Now a new and totally bizarre idea came in to cause some mental conflict with the destruction element in that vague plan. This was the almost inescapable conviction that the Thing had been originally— whatever it might be properly named now— a human being. As such, knowing well, as I did, the habits of the blacks of our Lesser Antilles, it had, unquestionably, been received into the church by the initial process of baptism. That indescribable creature which had been an appendage on Brutus Heilman's body, had been, was now, according to the teaching of the church, a Christian. The idea popped into my mind along with various other sidelights on the situation, stimulated into being by the discussion with Dr. Pelletier which I have just recorded.

The idea itself was distressing enough, to one who, like myself, have always kept up the teachings of my own childhood, who has never found it necessary, in these days of mental unrest, to doubt, still less to abandon, his religion. One of the concomitants of this idea was that the destruction of the Thing after its problematical capture, would be an awkward affair upon my conscience, for, however far departed the Thing had got from its original status as "A child of God—an Inheritor of The Kingdom of Heaven," it must retain, in some obscure fashion, its human, indeed its Christian, standing. There are those, doubtless, who might well regard this scruple of mine as quite utterly ridiculous, who would lay all the stress on the plain necessity of my senses. My washerwoman's screams had added to the confusion within a second or two after those of the child had begun, and now, as I hesitated in my course towards the scene of confusion, those of the cook and scullery-maid were added to the cacophonous din in my back yard. Little Aesculapius, his garment stiff against the breeze of his own progress, disappeared around the rearmost comer of the house to comparative safety through the open kitchen door. He had, as I learned sometime afterwards, been playing about the yard and had happened upon the little hut in its obscure and seldom-visited alleyway. He had stooped, intrigued by this unusual plaything, and picked it up. "The Thing"— the child used that precise term to describe it—ay, curled up, asleep within. It had leaped to its splayed feet with a snarl of rage, and gone straight for the little Negro's foot.

Thereafter the primitive instinct for self-preservation and Aesculapius' excellent footwork had solved his problem. He reached the kitchen door, around the corner and out of our sight, plunged within, and took immediate refuge atop the shelf of a kitchen cabinet well out of reach of that malignant, unheard-of demon like a big black frog which was pursuing him and which, doubtless, would haunt his dreams for the rest of his existence. So much for little Aesculapius, who thus happily passes out of the affair.

MY halting was, of course, only momentary. I paused, as I have mentioned, but for so brief a period as not to allow Dr. Pelletier to catch up with me. I ran, then, with the net open in my hands, diagonally across the straight course being pursued by the Thing. My mind was made up to intercept It, entangle It in the meshes. This should not be difficult considering its smallness and the. comparative shortness of Its arms and legs; and, having rendered It helpless, to face the ultimate problem of Its later disposal.

But this plan of mine was abruptly interfered with. Precisely as the flying body of the pursued pick'ny disappeared around the corner of the house, my cook's cat, a ratter with a neighborhood reputation and now, although for the moment I failed to realize it, quite clearly an instrument of that Providence responsible for my "scruple," came upon the scene with violence, precision, and that uncanny accuracy which actuates the feline in all its physical manifestations.

This avatar, which, according to a long-established custom, had been sunning itself demurely on the edge of the rain-water piping which ran along the low eaves of the three yard cabins, aroused by the discordant yells of the child and the three women in four distinct keys, had arisen, taken a brief, preliminary stretch, and condescended to turn its head towards the scene below...

The momentum of the cat's leap arrested instantaneously the Thing's course of pursuit, bore it, sprawled out and flattened, to the ground, and twenty sharp powerful retractile claws sank simultaneously into the prone little body.

THE Thing never moved again.

A more merciful snuffing out would be difficult to imagine.

It was a matter of no difficulty to drive Junius, the cat, away from his kill. I am on terms of pleasant intimacy with Junius. He allowed me to take the now limp and flaccid little body away from him quite without protest, and sat down where he was, licking his paws and readjusting his rumpled fur.

And thus, unexpectedly, without intervention on our part, Pelletier and I saw brought to its sudden end the tragical denouement of what seems to me to be one of the most outlandish and most distressing affairs which could ever have been evolved out of the mad mentality of Satan, who dwells in his own place to distress the Children of men.

And that night, under a flagstone in the alleyway, quite near where the Thing's strange habitation had been taken up, I buried the mangled leathery little body of that unspeakably grotesque homunculus which had once been the twin brother of my house-man, Brutus Heilman. In consideration of my own scruple which I have mentioned, and because, in all probability, this handful of strange material which I lowered gently into its last resting-place had once been a Christian, I repeated the Prayer of Committal from the Book of Common Prayer. It may have been— doubtless was, in one sense— a grotesque act on my part. But I cherish the conviction that I did what was right.

____________________

2: Active Colorado Real Estate

Hayden Carruth

1862–1932

From The Adventures of Jones, 1895

"WHEN I WAS visiting at my uncle's in Wisconsin last fall, I went out to Lake Kinnikinnic and caught a shovel-nose sturgeon which weighed eighty-five pounds."

It was Jackson Peters who spoke, and he did it rapidly and with an apprehensive air, for Jones was watching him closely. As he finished, Peters drew a long breath, and seemed much relieved that he had got through the story without an interruption.

"Eighty-five pounds," mused Jones.

"Yes, eighty-five pounds and ten ounces, to be exact, but I called it eighty-five."

"Exactness does not help your story in the least, Jackson," continued Jones. "You might give us the fractions of the ounce, and your story would still remain a crude production. I am in the habit of speaking plainly, and I will do so now. I take it that we are to consider your story simply as an exaggeration— that the fish probably didn't weigh ten pounds. Simple exaggeration, Jackson, is not art, and is unworthy of a man of brains. Anybody can exaggerate— the street laborer as easily as the man in Congress. But artistic storytelling is another thing, and the greatest may well hope for distinction in it. Why did you not, Jackson, tell an artistic lie, and say that when you pulled your fish out of the water the level of the lake fell two feet?"

Peters moved about uneasily, but made no reply.

"You never tell fish-stories, Jones?" observed Robinson, in an inquiring tone.

"Seldom, Robinson. The trail of gross exaggeration is over them all. Fish stories have become the common property of the inartistic multitude. Of course I do not for this reason suppress facts having a scientific or commercial value. For instance, last winter I went before the legislative committee on fisheries, and laid before it an account of my experience when I had a farm near Omaha, on the Missouri River bottoms, and baited two miles of barbed-wire fence with fresh pork just before the June rise, and after the water receded removed thirty-eight thousand four hundred fish from the barbs, weighing, in the aggregate, over ninety-six tons. The Legislature passed a special vote of thanks for the facts."

Jones was becoming warmed up. "You have observed, Robinson," he went on, "that I seldom relate the marvellous. That is because it is too easy. I prefer to have the reputation of telling a plain tale artistically to that of telling a fabulous one like a realistic novelist. That is the reason I never told any one of my experience at breaking one hundred and sixty acres of land to ride."

"Tell us, by all means, Jones," said Robinson.

"Yes, go ahead," added Smith. Jackson Peters hid himself behind a cloud of cigar smoke.

"It was an exciting experience," said Jones, thoughtfully, as he gazed into the fire, "and one which I have never mentioned to anybody, although it happened twenty years ago. There is nothing so easy to lose as a reputation for truthfulness. I have my own to maintain. More men have lost their good names by telling the plain, straightforward truth than by indulging in judicious lying. However, I will venture this time. It was, as I said, twenty years ago. There was a great mining boom in Colorado, and I closed my defective-flue factory in Chicago, to the intense joy of the insurance companies, and went out. I saw more money in hens than I did in mines, and decided to start a hen ranch. Eggs sold at five dollars a dozen. The hen, you know, requires a great amount of gravel for her digestion, and she also thrives best at a high altitude; so I went about two miles up Pike's Peak and selected a quarter-section of land good for my purpose. There was gravel in plenty, and I put up a small house and turned loose my three hundred hens. I became so interested in getting settled that I forgot all about establishing my right to the land before the United States Land Office at Colorado Springs.

"One day a large, red-headed man came along and erected a small house on one corner of my ranch, and said that he had as much right to the land as I. He turned out two hundred head of goats, and started for Colorado Springs to file his claim. He had a good horse, while I had none. It was ten miles to the town by the road, and only five in a straight line down the mountain, but this five was impassable on foot or in any other ordinary way. But I did not despair. I had studied the formation of the land, and knew what I could do. I took a half-dozen sticks of giant powder and went over to a small ridge of rocks which held my farm in place. I inserted the powder, gentlemen, and blew those rocks over into the next county. I then lay down on my back and clung to a root while I rode that one hundred and sixty acres of good hen-land down the mountain to Colorado Springs. It felt very much like an earthquake, and I made the five miles in a little over four minutes. Probably ten acres of my farm around the edges were knocked off along on the grand Colorado scenery, and most of the goats jolted off, but the hens, gentlemen, clung, the hens and myself. The corner of my front yard struck the Land Office and knocked it off its foundation. The register and receiver came running out, and I said:

" 'Gentlemen, I desire to make claim entry on the northeast quarter of section twenty-seven, township fourteen south, of range sixty-nine, and to prevent mistake I have brought it with me.' The business was all finished by the time the red-headed man came lumbering along, and I gave him ten minutes to get the rest of his goats off my land. He seemed considerably surprised, and looked at me curiously."

Jackson Peters was the first to speak after Jones paused. "It is one of the saddest things in this life," he said, "that the man who always adheres to the exact truth often gets the reputation of being a liar."

"You are right, Jackson," said Jones. "I know of nothing sadder, unless it be, perhaps, to see a young man forget the respect he owes his elders. This life, Jackson, is full of sad things."

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3: The Box With the Iron Clamps

Florence Marryat

1837-1899

London Society, May-June 1868

MOLTON CHASE is a charming, old-fashioned country house, which has been in the possession of the Clayton family for centuries past; and as Harry Clayton, its present owner, has plenty of money, and (having tasted the pleasures of matrimony for only five years) has no knowledge (as yet) of the delights of college and school bills coming in at Christmas-time, it is his will to fill the Chase at that season with guests, to each of whom he extends a welcome, as hearty as it is sincere.

"Bella! are you not going to join the riding-party this afternoon?" he said across the luncheon-table to his wife, one day in a December not long ago.

"Bella" was a dimpled little woman, whose artless expression of countenance would well bear comparison with the honest, genial face opposite to her, and who replied at once—

"No! not this afternoon, Harry, dear. You know the Damers may come at any time between this and seven o'clock, and I should not like to be out when they arrive."

"And may I ask Mrs. Clayton who are the Damers," inquired a friend of her husband, who, on account of being handsome, considered himself licensed to be pert— "that their advent should be the cause of our losing the pleasure of your company this afternoon?"

But the last thing Bella Clayton ever did was to take offence.

"The Damers are my cousins, Captain Moss," she replied; "at least Blanche Damer is."

At this juncture a dark-eyed man who was sitting at the other end of the table dropped the flirting converse he had been maintaining with a younger sister of Mrs. Clayton's, and appeared to become interested in what his hostess was saying.

"Colonel Damer," he continued, "has been in India for the last twelve years, and only returned to England a month ago; therefore it would seem unkind on the first visit he has paid to his relatives that there should be no one at home to welcome him."

"Has Mrs. Damer been abroad for as long a time?" resumed her questioner, a vision arising on his mental faculties of a lemon-coloured woman with shoes down at heel.

"Oh dear no!" replied his hostess. "Blanche came to England about five years ago, but her health has been too delicate to rejoin her husband in India since. Have we all finished, Harry, dear?"— and in another minute the luncheon-table was cleared.

As Mrs. Clayton crossed the hall soon afterwards to visit her nursery, the same dark-eyed man who had regarded her fixedly when she mentioned the name of Blanche Damer followed and accosted her.

"Is it long since you have seen your cousin Mrs. Damer, Mrs. Clayton?"

"I saw her about three years ago, Mr. Laurence; but she had a severe illness soon after that, and has been living on the Continent ever since. Why do you ask?"

"For no especial reason," he answered smiling. "Perhaps I am a little jealous lest this new-comer to whose arrival you look forward with so much interest should usurp more of your time and attention than we less-favoured ones can spare."

He spoke with a degree of sarcasm, real or feigned, which Mrs. Clayton immediately resented.

"I am not aware that I have been in the habit of neglecting my guests, Mr. Laurence," she replied; "but my cousin Blanche is more likely to remind me of my duties than to tempt me to forget them."

"Forgive me," he said, earnestly. "You have mistaken my meaning altogether. But are you very intimate with this lady?"

"Very much so," was the answer. "We were brought up together, and loved each other as sisters until she married and went to India. For some years after her return home our intercourse was renewed, and only broken, on the occasion of her being ill and going abroad, as I have described to you. Her husband, I have, of course, seen less of, but I like what I know of him, and am anxious to show them both all the hospitality in my power. She is a charming creature, and I am sure you will admire her."

"Doubtless I shall," he replied; "that is if she does not lay claim to all Mrs. Clayton's interest in the affairs of Molton Chase."

"No fear of that," laughed the cheery little lady as she ascended the stairs, and left Mr. Laurence standing in the hall beneath.

"Clayton," observed that gentleman, as he re-entered the luncheon-room and drew his host into the privacy of a bay-window, "I really am afraid I shall have to leave you this evening— if you won't think it rude of me to go so suddenly."

"But why, my dear fellow?" exclaimed Harry Clayton, as his blue eyes searched into the other's soul. "What earthly reason can you have for going, when your fixed plan was to stay with us over Christmas Day?"

"Well! there is lots of work waiting for me to do, you know; and really the time slips away so, and time is money to a slave like myself— that—"

"Now, my dear Laurence," said Harry Clayton conclusively, "you know you are only making excuses. All the work that was absolutely necessary for you to do before Christmas was finished before you came here, and you said you felt yourself licensed to take a whole month's holiday. Now, was not that the case?"

Mr. Laurence could not deny the fact, and so he looked undecided, and was silent.

"Don't let me hear any more about your going before Christmas Day," said his host, "or I shall be offended, and so will Bella; to say nothing of Bella's sister—eh, Laurence!"

Whereupon Mr. Laurence felt himself bound to remain; and saying in his own mind that fate was against him, dropped the subject of his departure altogether.

One hour later, the riding party being then some miles from Molton Chase, a travelling carriage laden with trunks drove up to the house, and Mrs. Clayton, all blushes and smiles, stood on the hall-steps to welcome her expected guests.

Colonel Damer was the first to alight. He was a middle-aged man, but with a fine soldierly bearing, which took off from his years; and he was so eager to see to the safe exit of his wife from the carriage-door that he had not time to do more than take off his hat to blooming Bella on the steps.

"Now, my love," he exclaimed as the lady's form appeared, "pray take care; two steps: that's right— here you are, safe."

And then Mrs. Damer, being securely landed, was permitted to fly into the cousinly arms which were opened to receive her.

"My dear Bella!"

"My dearest Blanche— I am so delighted to see you again. Why, you are positively frozen! Pray come in at once to the fire. Colonel Damer, my servants will see to the luggage—do leave it to them, and come and warm yourselves."

A couple of men-servants now came forward and offered to see to the unloading of the carriage— but Mrs. Damer did not move.

"Will you not go in, my love, as your cousin proposes?" said her husband. "I can see to the boxes if you should wish me to do so."

"No, thank you," was the low reply; and there was such a ring of melancholy in the voice of Mrs. Damer that a stranger would have been attracted by it. "I prefer waiting until the carriage is unpacked."

"Never mind the luggage, Blanche," whispered Mrs. Clayton, in her coaxing manner. "Come in to the fire, dear— I have so much to tell you."

"Wait a minute, Bella," said her cousin; and the entreaty was so firm that it met with no further opposition.

"One— two— three— four," exclaimed Colonel Damer, as the boxes successively came to the ground. "I am afraid you will think we are going to take you by storm, Mrs. Clayton; but perhaps you know my wife's fancy for a large travelling kit of old. Is that all, Blanche?"

"That is all—thank you," in the same low melancholy tones in which she had spoken before. "Now, Bella, dear, which is to be my room?"

"You would rather go there first, Blanche?"

"Yes, please— I'm tired. Will you carry up that box for me?" she continued, pointing out one of the trunks to the servant.

"Directly, ma'am," he returned, as he was looking for change for a sovereign wherewith to accommodate Colonel Damer— but the lady lingered until he was at leisure. Then he shouldered the box next to the one she had indicated, and she directed his attention to the fact, and made him change his burden.

"They'll all go up in time, ma'am," the man remarked; but Mrs. Damer, answering nothing, did not set her foot upon the stairs until he was halfway up them, with the trunk she had desired him to take first.

Then she leaned wearily upon Bella Clayton's arm, pressing it fondly to her side, and so the two went together to the bedroom which had been appointed for the reception of the new guests. It was a large and cosily-furnished apartment, with a dressing-room opening from it. When the ladies arrived there they found the servant awaiting them with the box in question.

"Where will you have it placed, ma'am?" he demanded of Mrs. Damer.

"Under the bed, please."

But the bedstead was a French one, and the mahogany sides were so deep that nothing could get beneath them but dust; and the trunk, although small, was heavy and strong and clamped with iron, not at all the sort of trunk that would go anywhere.

"Nothing will go under the bed, ma'am!" said the servant in reply.

Mrs. Damer slightly changed colour.

"Never mind then: leave it there. Oh! what a comfort a good fire is," she continued, turning to the hearth-rug, and throwing herself into an arm-chair. "We have had such a cold drive from the station."

"But about your box, Blanche?" said Mrs. Clayton, who had no idea of her friends being put to any inconvenience. "It can't stand there; you'll unpack it, won't you? or shall I have it moved into the passage?"

"Oh, no, thank you, Bella— please let it stand where it is: it will do very well indeed."

"What will do very well?" exclaimed Colonel Damer, who now entered the bedroom, followed by a servant with another trunk.

"Only Blanche's box, Colonel Damer," said Bella Clayton. "She doesn't wish to unpack it, and it will be in her way here, I'm afraid. It might stand in your dressing-room."— This she said as a "feeler," knowing that some gentlemen do not like to be inconvenienced, even in their dressing-rooms.

But Colonel Damer was as unselfish as it was possible for an old Indian to be.

"Of course it can," he replied. "Here (to the servant), just shoulder that box, will you, and move it into the next room."

The man took up the article in question rather carelessly, and nearly let it fall again. Mrs. Damer darted forward as if to save it.

"Pray put it down," she said, nervously. "I have no wish to have it moved— I shall require it by-and-by; it will be no inconvenience—"

"Just as you like, dear," said Mrs. Clayton, who was becoming rather tired of the little discussion. "And now take off your things, dear Blanche, and let me ring for some tea."

Colonel Damer walked into his dressing-room and left the two ladies alone. The remainder of the luggage was brought upstairs; the tea was ordered and served, and whilst Mrs. Clayton busied herself in pouring it out, Mrs. Damer sank back upon a sofa which stood by the fire, and conversed with her cousin.

She had been beautiful, this woman, in her earlier youth, though no one would have thought it to see her now. As Bella handed her the tea she glanced towards the thin hand stretched out to receive it, and from thence to the worn face and hollow eyes, and could scarcely believe she saw the same person she had parted from three years before.

But she had not been so intimate with her of late, and she was almost afraid of commenting upon her cousin's altered appearance, for fear it might wound her; all she said was:

"You look very delicate still, dear Blanche; I was in hopes the change to the Continent would have set you up and made you stronger than you were when you left England."

"Oh, no; I never shall be well again," was Mrs. Damer's careless reply: "it's an old story now, Bella, and it's no use talking about it. Whom have you staying in the house at present, dear?"

"Well, we are nearly full," rejoined Mrs. Clayton. "There is my old godfather, General Knox—you remember him, I know—and his son and daughter; and the Ainsleys and their family; ditto, the Bayleys and the Armstrongs, and then, for single men, we have young Brooke, and Harry's old friend, Charley Moss, and Herbert Laurence, and— are you ill, Blanchey?"

An exclamation had burst from Mrs. Damer— hardly an exclamation, so much as a half-smothered cry— but whether of pain or fear, it was hard to determine.

"Are you ill?" reiterated Mrs. Clayton, full of anxiety for her fragile-looking cousin.

"No," replied Blanche Damer, pressing her hand to her side, but still deadly pale from the effect of whatever emotion she had gone through; "it is nothing; I feel faint after our long journey."

Colonel Damer had also heard the sound, and now appeared upon the threshold of his dressing-room. He was one of those well-meaning, but fussy men, who can never have two women alone for a quarter of an hour without intruding on their privacy.

"Did you call, my dearest?" he asked of his wife. "Do you want anything?"

"Nothing, thank you," replied Bella for her cousin; "Blanche is only a little tired and overcome by her travelling."

"I think, after all, that I will move that trunk away for you into my room," he said, advancing towards the box which had already been the subject of discussion. Mrs. Damer started from the sofa with a face of crimson.

"I beg you will leave my boxes alone," she said, with an imploring tone in her voice which was quite unfitted to the occasion. "I have not brought one more than I need, and I wish them to remain under my own eye."

"There must be something very valuable in that receptacle," said Colonel Damer, facetiously, as he beat a retreat to his own quarters.

"Is it your linen box?" demanded Mrs. Clayton of her cousin.

"Yes," in a hesitating manner; "that is, it contains several things that I have in daily use; but go on about your visitors, Bella: are there any more?"

"I don't think so: where had I got to?— oh! to the bachelors: well, there are Mr. Brooke and Captain Moss, and Mr. Laurence (the poet, you know; Harry was introduced to him last season by Captain Moss), and my brother Alfred; and that's all."

"A very respectable list," said Mrs. Damer, languidly. "What kind of a man is the— the poet you spoke of?"

"Laurence?— oh, he seems a very pleasant man; but he is very silent and abstracted, as I suppose a poet should be. My sister Carrie is here, and they have quite got up a flirtation together; however, I don't suppose it will come to anything."

"And your nursery department?"

"Thriving, thank you; I think you will be astonished to see my boy. Old Mrs. Clayton says he is twice the size that Harry was at that age; and the little girls can run about and talk almost as well as I can. But I must not expect you, Blanche, to take the same interest in babies that I do."

This she added, remembering that the woman before her was childless. Mrs. Damer moved uneasily on her couch, but she said nothing; and soon after the sound of a gong reverberating through the hall warned Mrs. Clayton that the dinner was not far off and the riding-party must have returned; so, leaving her friend to her toilet, she took her departure.

As she left the room, Mrs. Damer was alone. She had no maid of her own, and she had refused the offices of Mrs. Clayton, assuring her that she was used to dress herself; but she made little progress in that department, as she lay on the couch in the firelight, with her face buried in her hands, and thoughts coursing through her mind of which heaven alone knew the tendency.

"Come, my darling," said the kind, coaxing voice of her husband, as, after knocking more than once without receiving any answer, he entered her room, fully dressed, and found her still arrayed in her travelling things, and none of her boxes unpacked. "You will never be ready for dinner at this rate. Shall I make an excuse for your not appearing at table this evening? I am sure Mrs. Clayton would wish you to keep your room if you are too tired to dress."

"I am not too tired, Harry," said Mrs. Damer, rising from the couch, "and I shall be ready in ten minutes," unlocking and turning over the contents of a box as she spoke.

"Better not, perhaps, my love," interposed the colonel, in mild expostulation; "you will be better in bed, and can see your kind friends to-morrow morning."

"I am going down to dinner to-night," she answered, gently, but decisively. She was a graceful woman now she stood on her feet, and threw off the heavy wraps in which she had travelled, with a slight, willowy figure, and a complexion which was almost transparent in its delicacy; but her face was very thin, and her large blue eyes had a scared and haggard look in them, which was scarcely less painful to witness than the appearance of anxiety which was expressed by the knitted brows by which they were surmounted. As she now raised her fair attenuated hands to rearrange her hair, which had once been abundant and glossy, her husband could not avoid remarking upon the change which had passed over it.

"I had no idea you had lost your hair so much, darling," he said; "I have not seen it down before to-night. Why, where is it all gone to?" he continued, as he lifted the light mass in his hands, and remembered of what a length and weight it used to be, when he last parted from her.

"Oh, I don't know," she rejoined, sadly; "gone, with my youth, I suppose, Henry."

"My poor girl!" he said, gently, "you have suffered very much in this separation. I had no right to leave you alone for so many years. But it is all over now, dearest, and I will take such good care of you that you will be obliged to get well and strong again."

She turned round suddenly from the glass, and pressed her lips upon the hand which held her hair.

"Don't," she murmured; "pray don't speak to me so, Henry! I can't bear it; I can't indeed!"

He thought it was from excess of feeling that she spoke; and so it was, though not as he imagined. So he changed the subject lightly, and bade her be lazy no longer, but put on her dress, if she was really determined to make one of the party at dinner that evening.

In another minute, Mrs. Damer had brushed her diminished hair into the fashion in which she ordinarily wore it; thrown on an evening-robe of black, which, while it contrasted well with her fairness, showed the falling away of her figure in a painful degree; and was ready to accompany her husband downstairs.

They were met at the door of the drawing-room by their host, who was eager to show cordiality towards guests of whom his wife thought so much, and having also been acquainted himself with Mrs. Damer since her return to England. He led her up to the sofa whereon Bella sat; and, dinner being almost immediately announced, the little hostess was busy pairing off her couples.

"Mr. Laurence!" she exclaimed; and then looking around the room, "where is Mr. Laurence?" So that that gentleman was forced to leave the window-curtains, behind which he had ensconced himself, and advance into the centre of the room. "Oh, here you are at last; will you take Mrs. Damer down to dinner?" and proceeding immediately with the usual form of introduction—"Mr. Laurence—Mrs. Damer."

They bowed to each other; but over the lady's face, as she went through her share of the introduction, there passed so indescribable, and yet so unmistakable a change, that Mrs. Clayton, although not very quick, could not help observing it, and she said, involuntarily—

"Have you met Mr. Laurence before, Blanche?"

"I believe I have had that pleasure— in London— many years ago."

The last words came out so faintly that they were almost undistinguishable.

"Why didn't you tell me so?" said Bella Clayton, reproachfully, to Mr. Laurence.

He was beginning to stammer out some excuse about its having been so long ago, when Mrs. Damer came to his aid, in her clear, cold voice—

"It was very long ago: we must both be forgiven for having forgotten the circumstance."

"Well, you must renew your acquaintanceship at dinner," said Mrs. Clayton, blithely, as she trotted off to make matters pleasant between the rest of her visitors. As she did so, Mr. Laurence remained standing by the sofa, but he did not attempt to address Mrs. Damer. Only, when the room was nearly cleared, he held out his arm to her, and she rose to accept it. But the next minute she had sunk back again upon the sofa, and Mrs. Clayton was at her cousin's side. Mrs. Damer had fainted.

"Poor darling!" exclaimed Colonel Damer, as he pressed forward to the side of his wife. "I was afraid coming down to-night would be too much for her, but she would make the attempt; she has so much spirit. Pray don't delay the dinner, Mrs. Clayton; I will stay by her, if you will excuse the apparent rudeness, until she is sufficiently recovered to go to bed."

But even as he spoke his wife raised herself from the many arms which supported her, and essayed to gain her feet.

"Bella, dear! I am all right again. Pray, if you love me, don't make a scene about a little fatigue. I often faint now: let me go up to my bedroom and lie down, as I ought to have done at first, and I shall be quite well to-morrow morning."

She would accept no one's help— not even her husband's, though it distressed him greatly that she refused it— but walked out of the room of her own accord, and toiled wearily up the staircase which led her to the higher stories; whilst more than one pair of eyes watched her ascent, and more than one appetite was spoilt for the coming meal.

"Don't you think that Blanche is looking very ill?" demanded Bella Clayton of Colonel Damer, at the dinner-table. She had been much struck herself with the great alteration in her cousin's looks, and fancied that her husband was not so alarmed about it as he ought to be.

"I do, indeed," he replied; "but it is the last thing she will acknowledge herself. She has very bad spirits and appetite; appears always in a low fever, and is so nervous that the least thing will frighten her. That, to me, is the worst and most surprising change of all: such a high-couraged creature as she used to be."

"Yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Clayton; "I can hardly imagine Blanche being nervous at anything. It must have come on since her visit to the Continent, for she was not so when she stayed here last."

"When was that?" demanded the Colonel, anxiously.

"Just three years ago this Christmas," was the answer. "I don't think I ever saw her look better than she did then, and she was the life of the house. But soon afterwards she went to Paris, and then we heard of her illness, and this is my first meeting with her since that time. I was very much shocked when she got out of the carriage: I should scarcely have known her again." Here Mrs. Clayton stopped, seeing that the attention of Mr. Laurence, who sat opposite to her, appeared to be riveted on her words, and Colonel Damer relapsed into thought and spoke no more.

In the meanwhile Mrs. Damer had gained her bedroom. Women had come to attend upon her, sent by their mistress, and laden with offers of refreshment and help of every kind, but she had dismissed them and chosen to be alone. She felt too weak to be very restless, but she had sat by the fire and cried, until she was so exhausted that her bed suggested itself to her, as the best place in which she could be; but rising to undress, preparatory to seeking it, she had nearly fallen, and catching feebly at the bedpost had missed it, and sunk down by the side of the solid black box, which was clamped with iron and fastened with a padlock, and respecting which she had been so particular a few hours before. She felt as if she was dying, and as if this were the fittest place for her to die on. "There is nothing in my possession," she cried, "that really belongs to me but this—this which I loathe and abhor, and love and weep over at one and the same moment." And, strange to relate, Mrs. Damer turned on her side and kneeling by the iron-clamped chest pressed her lips upon its hard, unyielding surface, as if it had life wherewith to answer her embrace. And then the wearied creature dragged herself up again into an unsteady position, and managed to sustain it until she was ready to lie down upon her bed.

The next morning she was much better. Colonel Damer and Bella Clayton laid their heads together and decided that she was to remain in bed until after breakfast, therefore she was spared meeting with the assembled strangers until the dinner-hour again, for luncheon was a desultory meal at Molton Chase, and scarcely any of the gentlemen were present at it that day. After luncheon Mrs. Clayton proposed driving Mrs. Damer out in her pony-chaise.

"I don't think you will find it cold, dear, and we can come home by the lower shrubberies and meet the gentlemen as they return from shooting," Colonel Damer being one of the shooting party. But Mrs. Damer had declined the drive, and made her cousin understand so plainly that she preferred being left alone, that Mrs. Clayton felt no compunction in acceding to her wishes, and laying herself out to please the other ladies staying in the house.

And Mrs. Damer did wish to be alone. She wanted to think over the incidents of the night before, and devise some plan by which she could persuade her husband to leave the Grange as soon as possible without provoking questions which she might find it difficult to answer. When the sound of the wheels of her cousin's pony-chaise had died away, and the great stillness pervading Molton Grange proclaimed that she was the sole inmate left behind, she dressed herself in a warm cloak, and drawing the hood over her head prepared for a stroll about the grounds. A little walk she thought would do her good, and with this intention she left the house. The Grange gardens were extensive and curiously laid out, and there were many winding shrubbery paths about them, which strangers were apt to find easier to enter than to find their way out of again. Into one of these Mrs. Damer now turned her steps for the sake of privacy and shelter; but she had not gone far before, on turning an abrupt corner, she came suddenly upon the figure of the gentleman she had been introduced to the night before, Mr. Laurence, who she had imagined to be with the shooting party. He was half lying, half sitting across a rustic seat which encircled the huge trunk of an old tree, with his eyes bent upon the ground and a cigar between his lips. He was more an intellectual and fine-looking than a handsome man, but he possessed two gifts which are much more winning than beauty, a mind of great power, and the art of fascination. As Mrs. Damer came full in view of him, too suddenly to stop herself or to retreat, he rose quickly from the attitude he had assumed when he thought himself secure from interruption and stood in her pathway. She attempted to pass him with an inclination of the head, but he put out his hand and stopped her.

"Blanche! you must speak to me; you shall not pass like this; I insist upon it!" and she tried in vain to disengage her arm from his detaining clasp.

"Mr. Laurence, what right have you to hold me thus?"

"What right, Blanche? The right of every man over the woman who loves him!"

"That is your right over me no longer. I have tried to avoid you. You have both seen and known it! No gentleman would force himself upon my notice in this manner."

"Your taunt fails to have any effect upon me. I have sought an explanation of your extraordinary conduct from you in vain. My letters have been unanswered, my entreaties for a last interview disregarded; and now that chance has brought us together again, I must have what I have a right to ask from your own lips. I did not devise this meeting; I did not even know you had returned to England till yesterday, and then I sought to avoid you; but it was fated that we should meet, and it is fated that you satisfy my curiosity."

"What do you want to know?" she asked, in a low voice.

"First, have you ceased to love me?"

The angry light which had flashed across her face when he used force to detain her died away; the pallid lips commenced to tremble, and in the sunken eyes large tear-drops rose and hung quivering upon the long eyelashes.

"Enough, Blanche," Mr. Laurence continued, in a softer voice. "Nature answers me. I will not give you the needless pain of speaking. Then, why did you forsake me? Why did you leave England without one line of farewell, and why have you refused to hold any communication with me since that time?"

"I could not," she murmured. "You do not know; you cannot feel; you could never understand my feelings on that occasion."

"That is no answer to my question, Blanche," he said firmly, "and an answer I will have. What was the immediate cause of your breaking faith with me? I loved you, you know how well. What drove you from me? Was it fear, or indifference, or a sudden remorse?"

"It was," she commenced slowly, and then as if gathering up a great resolution, she suddenly exclaimed, "Do you really wish to know what parted us?"

"I really intend to know," he replied, and the old power which he had held over her recommenced its sway. "Whatever it was it has not tended to your happiness," he continued, "if I may judge from your looks. You are terribly changed, Blanche! I think even I could have made you happier than you appear to have been."

"I have had enough to change me," she replied. "If you will know then, come with me, and I will show you."

"To-day?"

"At once; to-morrow may be too late." She began to walk towards the house as she spoke, rapidly and irregularly, her heart beating fast, but no trace of weakness in her limbs; and Herbert Laurence followed her, he scarcely knew why, expecting that she had desired it.

Into Molton Grange she went, up the broad staircase and to her chamber door before she paused to see if he was following. When she did so she found that he stood just behind her on the wide landing.

"You can enter," she said, throwing open the door of her bedroom, "don't be afraid; there is nothing here except the cause for which I parted with you." In her agitation and excitement, scarcely pausing to fasten the door behind her, Mrs. Damer fell down on her knees before the little black box with its iron clamps and ponderous padlock; and drawing a key from her bosom, applied it to the lock, and in another minute had thrown back the heavy lid. Having displaced some linen which lay at the top, she carefully removed some lighter materials, and then calling to the man behind her, bid him look in and be satisfied. Mr. Laurence advanced to the box, quite ignorant as to the reason of her demand; but as his eye fell upon its contents, he started backwards and covered his face with his hands. As he drew them slowly away again he met the sad, earnest look with which the kneeling woman greeted him, and for a few moments they gazed at one another in complete silence. Then Mrs. Damer withdrew her eyes from his and rearranged the contents of the black box; the heavy lid shut with a clang, the padlock was fast again, the key in her bosom, and she rose to her feet and prepared to leave the room in the same unbroken silence. But he again detained her, and this time his voice was hoarse and changed.

"Blanche! tell me, is this the truth?"

"As I believe in heaven," she answered.

"And this was the reason that we parted— this the sole cause of our estrangement?"

"Was it not enough?" she said. "I erred, but it was as one in a dream. When I awoke I could no longer err and be at peace. At peace did I say? I have known no peace since I knew you; but I should have died and waked up in hell, if I had not parted with you. This is all the truth, believe it or not as you will; but there may, there can be nothing in future between you and me. Pray let me pass you."

"But that— that— box, Blanche!" exclaimed Herbert Laurence, with drops of sweat, notwithstanding the temperature of the day, upon his forehead. "It was an accident, a misfortune; you did not do it?"

She turned upon him eyes which were full of mingled horror and scorn.

"I do it!" she said; "what are you dreaming of? I was mad; but not so mad as that! How could you think it?" and the tears rose in her eyes more at the supposition which his question had raised than at the idea that he could so misjudge her.

"But why do you keep this? why do you carry it about with you, Blanche? It is pure insanity on your part. How long is it since you have travelled in company with that dreadful box?"

"More than two years," she said in a fearful whisper. "I have tried to get rid of it, but to no purpose; there was always some one in the way. I have reasoned with myself, and prayed to be delivered from it, but I have never found an opportunity. And now, what does it matter? The burden and heat of the day are past."

"Let me do it for you," said Mr. Laurence. "Whatever our future relation to one another, I cannot consent that you should run so terrible a risk through fault of mine. The strain upon your mind has been too great already. Would to heaven I could have borne it for you! but you forbid me even the privilege of knowing that you suffered. Now that I have ascertained it, it must be my care that the cause of our separation shall at least live in your memory only." And as he finished speaking he attempted to lift the box; but Mrs. Damer sprang forward and prevented him.

"Leave it!" she cried; "do not dare to touch it; it is mine! It has gone wherever I have gone for years. Do you think, for the little space that is left me, that I would part with the only link left between me and my dread past?" and saying this she threw herself upon the black trunk and burst into tears.

"Blanche! you love me as you ever did," exclaimed Herbert Laurence. "These tears confess it. Let me make amends to you for this; let me try to make the happiness of your future life!"

But before his sentence was concluded Mrs. Damer had risen from her drooping attitude and stood before him.

"Make amends!" she echoed scornfully. "How can you 'make amends'? Nothing can wipe out the memory of the shame and misery that I have passed through, nothing restore the quiet conscience I have lost. I do not know if I love you still or not. When I think of it, my head swims, and I only feel confused and anxious. But I am sure of one thing, that the horror of my remorse for even having listened to you has power to overwhelm any regret that may be lingering in my unworthy breast, and that the mere fact of your bodily presence is agony to me. When I met you to-day I was battling with my invention to devise some means of leaving the place where you are without exciting suspicion. If you ever loved, have pity on me now; take the initiative, and rid me of yourself."

"Is this your final decision, Blanche?" he asked, slowly. "Will you not regret it when too late, and you are left alone with only that?"

She shuddered, and he caught at the fact as a sign of relenting.

"Dearest, loveliest," he commenced.— This woman had been the loveliest to him in days gone past, and though she was so terribly changed in eyes that regarded her less, Herbert Laurence, her once lover, could still trace above the languor and debility and distress of her present appearance, the fresh, sparkling woman who had sacrificed herself for his sake; and although his style of address signified more than he really thought for her, the knowledge of how much she had undergone since their separation had the power to make him imagine that this partial reanimation of an old flame was a proof that the fire which kindled it had never perished. Therefore it did not appear absurd in his mental eyes to preface his appeal to Mrs. Damer thus: "Dearest, loveliest—" but she turned upon him as though he had insulted her.

"Mr. Laurence!" she exclaimed, "I have told you that the past is past; be good enough to take me at my word. Do you think that I have lived over two years of solitary shame and grief, to break the heart that trusts in me now? If I had any wish, or any thought to the contrary, it would be impossible. I am enveloped by kind words and acts, by care and attention, which chain me as closely to my home as if I were kept a prisoner between four walls. I could not free myself if I would," she continued, throwing back her arms, as though she tried to break an invisible thrall. "I must die first; the cords of gratitude are bound about me so closely. It is killing me, as nothing else could kill," she added, in a lower voice. "I lived under your loss, and the knowledge of my own disgrace; but I cannot live under his perpetual kindness and perfect trust. It cannot last much longer: for mercy's sake, leave me in peace until the end comes!"

"And the box?" he demanded.

"I will provide for the box before that time," she answered, sadly; "but if you have any fear, keep the key yourself: the lock is not one that can be forced."

She took the key from her bosom, where it hung on a broad black ribbon, as she spoke, and handed it to him. He accepted it without demur.

"You are so rash," he said; "it will be safer with me: let me take the box also?"

"No, no!" said Mrs. Damer, hurriedly; "you shall not; and it would be no use. If it were out of my sight, I should dream that it was found, and talk of it in my sleep. I often rise in the night now to see if it is safe. Nothing could do away with it. If you buried it, some one would dig it up; if you threw it in the water, it would float. It would lie still nowhere but on my heart, where it ought to be!— it ought to be!"

Her eyes had reassumed the wild, restless expression which they took whilst speaking of the past, and her voice had sunk to a low, fearful whisper.

"This is madness," muttered Herbert Laurence; and he was right. On the subject of the black box Mrs. Damer's brain was turned.

He was just about to speak to her again, and try to reason her out of her folly, when voices were heard merrily talking together in the hall, and her face worked with the dread of discovery.

"Go!" she said; "pray, go at once. I have told you everything." And in another moment Herbert Laurence had dashed through the passage to the privacy of his own room; and Mrs. Clayton, glowing from her drive, and with a fine rosy baby in her arms, had entered the apartment of her cousin.

ii

BELLA FOUND her cousin sitting in an arm-chair, with the cloak still over her shoulders, and a face of ashy whiteness, the reaction of her excitement.

"My dear, how ill you look!" was her first exclamation. "Have you been out?"

"I went a little way into the shrubberies," said Mrs. Damer; "but the day turned so cold."

"Do you think so? We have all been saying what a genial afternoon it is: but it certainly does not seem to have agreed with you. Look at my boy: isn't he a fine fellow?— he has been out all day in the garden. I often wish you had a child, Blanchey."

"Do you, dear? it is more than I do."

"Ah, but you can't tell, till they are really yours, how much pleasure they give you; no one knows who has not been a mother."

"No; I suppose not."

Mrs. Damer shivered as she said the words, and looked into the baby's fat, unmeaning face with eyes of sad import. Mrs. Clayton thought she had wounded her cousin, and stooped to kiss the slight offence away; but she fancied that Blanche almost shrunk from her embrace.

"She must be really ill," thought the kindly little Bella, who had no notion of such a thing as heart-sickness for an apparently happy married woman. "She ought to see a doctor: I shall tell Colonel Damer so."

In another half-hour they were at her side together, urging her to take their advice.

"Now, my darling," said the Colonel, when Mrs. Damer faintly protested against being made a fuss about, "you must be good for my sake. You know how precious you are to me, and how it would grieve me to have you laid up; let me send for Dr. Barlow, as your cousin advises. You were very much overcome by the long journey here, and I am afraid the subsequent excitement of seeing your kind friends has been too much for you. You do not half know how dear you are to me, Blanche, or you would not refuse such a trifling request. Here have I been, for five years, dearest, only looking forward from day to day to meeting my dear loving little wife again; and then to have you so ill as this the first month of our reunion, is a great trial to me. Pray let me send for Dr. Barlow."

But Mrs. Damer pleaded for delay. She had become chilled through being out in the shrubberies; she had not yet got over the fatigue of her journey; she had caught a cold whilst crossing from Havre to Folkestone: it was anything and everything but an illness which required medical attendance. If she were not better in the morning, she promised to make no opposition to their wishes.

So she forced herself to rise and dress for dinner. She appeared there calm and collected, and continued so throughout the evening, talking with Mr. Laurence quite as much as with the rest of the company; and she went to bed at the same hour as the other guests of Molton Grange, receiving with her cousin's good-night, congratulations on the evident improvement of her health.

"I cannot quite make out what has come to that cousin of yours, Bella," said Harry Clayton to his wife, as they too retired for the night; "she doesn't appear half such a jolly woman as she used to be."

"She is certainly very much altered," was Mrs. Clayton's response; "but I think it must be chiefly owing to her health; a feeling of debility is so very depressing."

"I suppose it can't be anything on her mind, Bella?" suggested the husband, after a pause.

"On her mind, Harry!" said Bella, sitting up in bed in her wonderment; "of course not; why, how could it be? She has everything she can wish for; and, I am sure, no woman could have a more devoted husband than Colonel Damer. He has been speaking a great deal about her to me to-day, and his anxiety is something enormous. On her mind!— what a funny idea, Harry; what could have put that in your head?"

"I am sure I don't know," was the husband's reply, rather ruefully given, as if conscious he had made a great mistake.

"You old goose," said his wife, with an emphatic kiss, as she composed herself to her innocent slumbers.

But before they were broken by nature, in the gray of the morning, Mrs. Clayton was roused by a tapping at the bedroom door; a tapping to which all Mr. Clayton's shouts to "come in," only served as a renewal.

"Who can it be, Harry?— do get up and see," said Bella.

So Harry got up, like a dutiful husband, and opened the door, and the figure of Colonel Damer, robed in a dressing-gown, and looking very shadowy and unreal in the dawning, presented itself on the threshold.

"Is your wife here?" demanded the Colonel briefly.

"Of course she is," said Mr. Clayton, wondering what the Colonel wanted with her.

"Will she come to Mrs. Damer? she is very ill," was the next sentence, delivered tremblingly.

"Very ill!" exclaimed Bella, jumping out of bed and wrapping herself in a dressing-gown. "How do you mean, Colonel Damer?— when did it happen?"

"God knows!" he said, in an agitated voice; "but for some time after she fell asleep she was feverish and excited, and spoke much. I woke suddenly in the night and missed her, and going in search of her with a light, found her fallen on the landing."

"Fainted?" said Bella.

"I don't know now whether it was a faint or a fit," he replied, "but I incline to the latter belief. I carried her back to her bed, and gave her some restoratives, not liking to disturb you—"

"Oh! why didn't you, Colonel Damer?" interposed his hostess.

"—and thought she was better, till just now, when she had another attack of unconsciousness, and is so weak after it she cannot move. She has fever too, I am sure, from the rapidity of her pulse, and I don't think her head is quite clear."

"Harry, dear, send for Dr. Barlow at once," thrusting her naked feet into slippers, "and come back with me, Colonel Damer; she should not be left for a minute."

And she passed swiftly along the corridor to her cousin's room. As she neared that of Mr. Laurence, the door opened a little, and a voice asked huskily—

"Is anything the matter, Mrs. Clayton? I have been listening to noises in the house for the last hour."

"My cousin, Mrs. Damer, has been taken ill, Mr. Laurence, but we have sent for the doctor; I am going to her now."

And as the door closed again she fancied that she heard a sigh.

Blanche Damer was lying on her pillows very hot and flushed, with that anxious, perturbed look which the eyes assume when the brain is only half clouded, and can feel itself to be wandering.

"Blanche, dearest," cried Bella, as she caught sight of her face, "what is the matter? How did this happen?"

"I dreamt that he had taken it," said Mrs. Damer, slowly and sadly; "but it was a mistake: he must not have it yet— not yet! only a little while to wait now!— but he has the key."

"Her mind is wandering at present," said Colonel Damer, who had followed Mrs. Clayton into the room.

"Oh, Colonel Damer," exclaimed Bella, tearfully, "how dreadful it is!— she frightens me! Could she have knocked her head in falling? Have you no idea why she got up and went into the passage?"

"Not the slightest," he returned. And now that she examined him under the morning light, which was by this time streaming through the open shutters, Bella Clayton saw how aged and haggard his night's anxiety had made him look. "My wife has been very subject to both sleeping-talking and walking since my return, and I have several times missed her, as I did last night, and found her walking about the room in her sleep, but she has never been like this before. When I first found her in the passage, I asked her why she had gone there, or what she wanted, and she said, 'the key.' When I had relifted her into bed, I found her bunch of keys as usual, on the dressing-table, therefore I imagine she could not then have known what she was talking about. I trust Dr. Barlow will not be long in coming; I am deeply anxious."

And he looked the truth of what he uttered; whilst poor little Mrs. Clayton could only press his hand and entreat him to be hopeful; and his wife lay on her pillows, and silently stared into vacancy.

As soon as the doctor arrived he pronounced the patient to be suffering from an attack of pressure on the brain, and wished to know whether she had not been subjected to some great mental shock or strain.

Here Colonel Damer came forward and stoutly denied the possibility of such a thing. He had joined his wife from India a month ago, at which time she was, though in delicate, not in bad health, and he had never left her since. They had crossed from Havre to Folkestone three days before, and Mrs. Damer had not complained of any unusual sickness or fatigue. She was a person of a highly excitable and nervous temperament, and her appetite and spirit were variable; otherwise there had been nothing in her state of health to call for anxiety on the part of her friends.

Dr. Barlow listened to all these statements, and believed as much of them as he chose. However he waived the subject of the cause of the disaster; the fact that it had occurred was undeniable; and the remedies for such emergencies were immediately resorted to. But all proved alike ineffectual, for the simple reason that the irrevocable fiat had gone forth, and Blanche Damer was appointed to die.

As the day wore on, and the case assumed a darker aspect, and the doctor's prognostications became less hopeful, Colonel Damer worked himself into a perfect frenzy of fear.

"Save her, Dr. Barlow," he had said to that gentleman, in the insane manner in which people are used to address the Faculty, as if it was in their power to do more than help the efforts of nature. "Save her life, for God's sake! and there is nothing that I can do for you, of earthly good, that shall not be yours. Shall I call in other advice? Shall I telegraph to London? Is there anyone there who can save her? It is my life as well as hers that is trembling in the scale. For the love of heaven, do not stand on ceremony, but only tell me what is best to be done!"

Of course Dr. Barlow told him that if he was not perfectly satisfied, he should wish him to telegraph to town for further advice, and mentioned several names celebrated in such cases; at the same time he assured Colonel Damer that he did not believe any number of doctors could do more for the patient than he was doing, and that it was impossible to guess at the probable termination of the illness for some days to come.

Bella Clayton gave up the duty of amusing her guests, and stationed herself at the bedside of her cousin; and the unhappy husband wandered in and out of the room like a ghost; trying to think upon each fresh visit, that there was a slight improvement in the symptoms, and spending the intervening time in praying for the life which he fondly imagined had been devoted to himself. Meanwhile, whenever Mrs. Damer opened her lips, it was to ramble on in this manner:

"Dying!" her hollow voice would exclaim; "crushed to death beneath the weight of a pyramid of blessings that lies like lead upon my chest and reaches to the ceiling. Kind words— fond care, and sweet attentions— they bow me down to the earth! I am stifling beneath the burden of their silent reproaches. Two and two are four; and four and four is eight; eight times locked should be secure— but there is a worm that dieth not, and a fire that is not quenched."

"Oh! don't come in here, Colonel Damer," poor Bella would exclaim, as the unhappy man would creep to the foot of the bed and stand listening, with blanched cheeks, to the delirious ravings of his wife. "She doesn't know what she is saying, remember; and she will be better to-morrow, doubtless. Don't distress yourself more, by listening to all this nonsense."

"I don't believe she will ever be better, Mrs. Clayton," he replied, on one of these occasions. This was on the third day.

"Dearest!" the sick woman resumed, in a plaintively soft voice, without being in the least disturbed by the conversation around her, "if you have ever loved me, you will believe in this hour that I love you in return. If you have given me your love, I have given you more than my life."

"Does she speak of me?" demanded Colonel Damer.

"I think so," said Bella Clayton, sadly.

"Take it off! take it off!" cried Mrs. Damer, starting with terror—"this box—this iron-clamped box which presses on my soul. What have I done? Where shall I go? How am I to meet him again?"

"What does she say?" asked the Colonel, trembling.

"Colonel Damer, I must beg you to quit the room," said Bella, weeping. "I cannot bear to stay here with both of you. Pray leave me alone with Blanche until she is quieter."

And so the husband left the chamber, with fellow tears in his eyes, and she set herself to the painful task of attempting to soothe the delirious woman.

"If he would only strike me," moaned Mrs. Damer, "or frown at me, or tell me that I lie, I could bear it better; but he is killing me with kindness. Where is the box?— open it— let him see all. I am ready to die. But I forgot— there is no key, and no one shall touch it: it is mine—mine. Hark! I hear it! I hear it! How could I put it there? Let me go— no one shall hold me! Let me go, I say— I hear it; and— and— the world is nothing to me!"

At last, when they had almost despaired of ever seeing her sleep again, there came an uninterrupted hour of repose from sheer weariness; and then wide-open hollow eyes—a changed voice sounding with the question—"Bella! have I been ill?" and Mrs. Damer's delirium was over.

Over with her life. For on his next visit Dr. Barlow found her sensible but cold and pulseless, and broke to her friends the news that twelve hours more would end her existence.

Colonel Damer went wild, and telegraphed at once to London for men who arrived when his wife was ready to be coffined. Bella heard the decree and wept silently; and a great gloom fell upon the guests of Molton Chase, who had been left altogether on poor Harry's hands since Mrs. Damer's illness.

The dying woman lay very silent and exhausted for some time after she had waked from that brief, memory-restoring sleep. When she next spoke, she said, observing her cousin's swollen eyes—

"Am I dying, Bella?"

Poor little Mrs. Clayton did not at all know what answer to make to such a direct question, but she managed to stammer out something which, whatever it was meant for, was taken as affirmative by the one it most concerned.

"I thought so. Shall I never be able to get out of bed again?"

"I am afraid not, darling—you are so weak!"

"Yes, I am— I can hardly raise my hand. And yet I must rise if I can. I have something so particular to do."

"Cannot I do it for you, Blanche?"

"Will you do it, Bella?"

"Anything— everything, love! How can you ask me?"

"And you will promise secrecy? Let me look in your face. Yes, it is a true face, as it has ever been, and I can trust you. Have the black box moved out of my room before I die, Bella— mind, before I die, and placed in your own dressing-room."

"What, dear, your linen box?"

"Yes, my linen box, or whatever you choose to call it. Take it away at once, Bella. Tell no one; and when I am dead, have it buried in my grave. Surely you could manage so much for me!"

"And Colonel Damer?"

"If you speak to him about it, Bella, or to your husband, or to any one, I'll never forgive you, and I'm dying!" cried Mrs. Damer, almost rising in her excitement. "Oh! why have I delayed it so long, why did I not see to this before? I cannot even die in peace."

"Yes, yes, dearest Blanche, I will do it, indeed I will," said Mrs. Clayton, alarmed at her emotion; "and no one shall know of it but myself. Shall I send it to my room at once? You may trust entirely to my discretion. Pray, have no fear!"

"Yes! at once— directly; it cannot be too soon!" said Mrs. Damer, falling back exhausted on her pillow. So a servant was called, and the iron-clamped box was carried away from the sick-room and secreted in Mrs. Clayton's private apartment. Mrs. Damer seemed so weak, that her cousin suggested summoning her husband to her side, but she appeared to shrink from an interview with him.

"I have nothing to say but what will make him sad to think of afterwards," she murmured. "Let me die with you alone, dear Bella. It is better so."

So Colonel Damer, although he went backwards and forwards all the night, was not called at any particular moment to see the last of his wife, and Blanche had her wish. She died alone with her faithful little cousin before the morning broke. As she was just going, she said, in a vague sort of manner—

"Tell him, Bella, that I forgive him as I hope to be forgiven. And that I have seen Heaven open to-night, and a child spirit pleading with the Woman-born for us; and that the burden is lifted off my soul at last." And then she added solemnly— "I will arise and go to my Father—," and went before she could finish the sentence.

Innocent Bella repeated her last message in perfect faith to Colonel Damer.

"She told me to tell you, that she felt herself forgiven, and that she had seen Heaven opened for her, and the weight of her sins was lifted off her soul. Oh! Colonel Damer, pray think of that, and take comfort. She is happier than you could make her."

But the poor faithful husband was, for the present, beyond all reach of comfort.

The London doctors arrived with the daylight, and had to be solemnly entertained at breakfast, and warmed and comforted before they were despatched home again. The Christmas guests were all packing up their boxes, preparatory to taking their leave of Molton Chase, for it was impossible to think of festivities with such a bereavement in the house. And Harry Clayton told his wife that he was very thankful that they thought of doing so.

"It has been a most unfortunate business altogether, Bella, and of course they all felt it, poor things; and the more so because they could take no active part in it. The house has had a pall over it the last week; and it would have been still worse if they had remained. As for Laurence, I never saw a man so cut up. He has eaten nothing since your poor cousin was taken ill. One would think she had been his sister, or his dearest friend."

"Is he going with the rest, Harry?"

"No; he will stay till after the funeral; then he is going abroad. He feels deeply with you, Bella, and desired me to tell you so."

"He is very good—thank him in my name."

BUT released from the care of thinking for her guests, and sitting crying alone in her dressing-room, poor Mrs. Clayton could not imagine what to do with the iron-clamped black box. She had promised Blanche not to confide in her husband, or Colonel Damer. The latter, having no family vault, wished to lay the remains of his wife amongst those of the Claytons in the country churchyard of Molton; but how to get the black box conveyed to the grave without the knowledge of the chief mourners was a mystery beyond the fathoming of Bella's open heart. But in the midst of her perplexity, Fate sent her aid. On the second day of her cousin's death, a gentle tap sounded at her chamber door, and on her invitation to enter being answered, she was surprised to see Mr. Laurence on the threshold—come, as she imagined, to offer his sympathy in person.

"This is very kind of you, Mr. Laurence," she said.

"I can scarcely claim your gratitude, Mrs. Clayton. I have sought you to speak on a very important but painful subject. May I ask your attention for a few moments?"

"Of course you may!" And she motioned him to a seat.

"It concerns her whom we have lost. Mrs. Clayton, tell me truly— did you love your cousin?"

"Dearly— very dearly, Mr. Laurence. We were brought up together."

"Then I may depend on your discretion; and if you wish to save her memory you must exercise it in her behalf. There is a small iron-clamped black trunk amongst her boxes, which must not fall into Colonel Damer's hands. Will you have that box conveyed from her chamber to your own, and (if you will so far trust my honour) make it over to me?"

"To you, Mr. Laurence— the iron-bound box? What possible knowledge can you have of my cousin's secret?"

"Her secret?"

"Yes— she confided that box to my care the night she died. She made me promise to do (without question) what you have just asked me to perform, and I did it. The trunk is already here."

And throwing open a cupboard at the side of the room, she showed him the chest which he had mentioned.

"I see that it is," he answered. "How do you design disposing of it?"

"She wished it to be buried in her grave."

"That is impossible in its present state. The contents must be removed."

"But how?" Mrs. Clayton demanded, in surprise. "It is locked and double locked, and there is no key."

"I have the key," he answered, gravely.

"Oh! Mr. Laurence," exclaimed his hostess, trembling, "there is some dreadful mystery here. For heaven's sake tell me what it is! What connection can you possibly have with this box of my poor cousin's, if you have only met her once in your life?"

"Did she say so?" he asked.

"No; but I fancied so. Have you known her? When? where? and why did you not tell us so before?"

"How can I tell you now?" he said, gazing into the pure womanly face upraised to his own, bearing an expression which was half-surprise and half-fear but which seemed as though it could never dream of anything like shame.

"You are too good and too happy, Mrs. Clayton, to know of, or be able to sympathize with, the troubles and temptations which preceded our fatal friendship and her fall."

"Blanche's fall!" ejaculated Bella Clayton, in a voice of horror.

"Don't interrupt me, please, Mrs. Clayton," he said, hurriedly, covering his face with his hands, "or I shall never be able to tell you the wretched story. I knew your cousin years ago. Had you any suspicion that she was unhappy in her marriage?"

"No! none!" replied Bella, with looks of surprise.

"She was then, thoroughly unhappy, as scores of women are, simply because the hearts of the men they are bound to are opposed to theirs in every taste and feeling. I met her when she first returned to England, and— it is the old story, Mrs. Clayton— I loved her, and was mad enough to tell her so. When a selfish man and an unselfish woman have mutually confessed their preference for each other, the result is easily anticipated. I ruined her— forgive my plain speaking—and she still loved on, and forgave me."

"Oh, Blanche!" exclaimed Bella Clayton, hiding her hot face in her hands.

"We lived in a fool's paradise for some months, and then one day she left her house and went to the Continent, without giving me any warning of her intention. I was thunderstruck when I heard it, and deeply hurt, and as soon as I had traced her to Paris, I followed and demanded an explanation of her conduct. But she refused to see me, and when she found me pertinacious, left the city as suddenly as she had done that of London. Since which time she has answered no letters of mine, nor did we ever meet until, most unexpectedly, I met her in your house. My pride, after her first refusals to see me, was too great to permit me to renew my entreaties, and so I called her a flirt, and inconstant. I tried to banish her remembrance from my heart— and I thought I had succeeded."

"Oh, my poor darling!" exclaimed Mrs. Clayton. "This accounts then for her holding aloof from all her relations for so long a time, by which means she estranged herself from many of them. She was working out her penitence and deep remorse in solitary misery; and she would not even let me share her confidence. But about the box, Mr. Laurence; what has all this to do with the black box?"

"When I met her in your shrubbery the other day, and reproached her for her desertion of me, insisting upon her giving me the reason of her change of mind, she bade me follow her to her own apartment. There, unlocking the box before you, she showed me its contents."

"And they are—?" inquired Mrs. Clayton, breathlessly.

"Would you like to see them?" he demanded, taking a key from his pocket. "I have as much right to show them you as she would have had. But is your love for her dead memory and reputation strong enough to insure your eternal secrecy on the subject?"

"It is," said Bella Clayton, decidedly.

"This box," continued Mr. Laurence, applying the key he held to the lock of the iron-clamped black trunk, "has accompanied my poor girl on all her travels for the last two years. The dreadful secret of its contents which she bore in silent, solitary misery all that time has been, I believe, the ultimate cause of her death, by proving too heavy a burden for the sensitive and proud spirit which was forced to endure the knowledge of its shame. She was killed by her remorse. If you have courage, Mrs. Clayton, for the sight, look at this— and pity the feelings I must endure as I kneel here and look at it with you."

He threw back the lid and the topmost linen as he spoke, and Bella Clayton pressed eagerly forward to see, carefully laid amidst withered flowers and folds of cambric, the tiny skeleton of a new-born creature whose angel was even then beholding the face of his Father in Heaven.

She covered her eyes with her clasped hands, no less to shut out the sight than to catch the womanly tears which poured forth at it, and then she cried between her sobs—

"Oh! my poor, poor Blanche, what must she not have suffered! God have mercy on her soul!"

"Amen!" said Herbert Laurence.

"You will let me take the box away with me, Mrs. Clayton?" he asked, gently.

She looked up as he spoke, and the tears were standing in his eyes.

"Yes— yes," she said; "take it away; do what you will with it, only never speak of it to me again."

He never did but once, and that was but an allusion. On the evening of the day on which they committed the remains of Blanche Damer to the dust, he lay in wait for Mrs. Clayton on the landing.

"All has been done as she desired," he whispered; and Mrs. Clayton asked for no further explanation. The secret of which she had been made an unwilling recipient pressed so heavily on her conscience, that she was thankful when he left Molton Grange and went abroad, as he had expressed his intention of doing.

Since which time she has never seen Herbert Laurence again; and Colonel Damer, whose grief at the funeral and for some time after was nearly frenzied, having— like most men who mourn much outwardly— found a source of consolation in the shape of another wife, the story of Blanche Damer's life and death is remembered, for aught her cousin knows to the contrary, by none but herself.

I feel that an objection will be raised to this episode by some people on the score of its being unnatural; to whom all I can say in answer is, that the principal incident on which the interest of it turns— that of the unhappy Mrs. Damer having been made so great a coward by conscience that she carried the proof of her frailty about with her for years, too fearful of discovery to permit it to leave her sight— is a fact.

To vary the circumstances under which the discovery of the contents of the black box was finally made, and to alter the names of places and people so as to avoid general recognition, I have made my province: to relate the story itself, since, in the form I now present it to my readers, it can give pain to no one, I consider my privilege.

_____________________

4: The Toad Men of Tumbaroo

Guy Gilpatric

1896-1950

The Saturday Evening Post, Dec 5 1936

ONE FRIDAY afternoon last spring, strollers along Oxford Street, in London, observed with surprise that the traditionally austere premises of Messrs. T. and Hadrian Phipps, the booksellers, had taken on an appearance only to be described as outlandish. There were books in the window, to be sure, but their number was limited to a scant half dozen and even these were buried beneath leopard skins, Congo drums, Ashanti spears and similar barbaric trophies until, save only for the absence of a whisky bottle and a tin of liver salts, the place looked more like the sanctum of a retired major than a mart of the politer literature. In a frame at the center of this display, as it were enshrined by it, stood a photograph of a gentleman wearing a sun helmet, a shirt unbuttoned at the throat and a whittled-down mustache of the sort which enables cinema addicts who have missed the beginning of a film to pick the hero of it even while tripping over other people's feet. The photograph ended at the subject's shoulders, but one guessed that the rest of his costume consisted of riding breeches, laced boots and a .38 automatic pistol in a .45 revolver holster slung at the wrong side of an empty .30-30 cartridge belt. Beneath this portrait was a placard stating that Captain Randolph Rashleigh Speed, Explorer, Adventurer and Author, would meet his admirers and autograph his books from two-thirty until five o'clock, as announced in the morning papers.

There followed a list of the dashing captain's works— Death Stalks Through Bandi-Holo, When Terror Lurked in Gokalong, The Fanged Fiends of Mampoorii, and several similar titles which echoed the screams of the dying in the horrid jungle depths.

Toward the rear of the establishment, in the Travel and Biography Department, the Messrs. Phipps had provided a desk for their distinguished guest and at intervals throughout the afternoon he was waited upon by pinkly beaming clergymen, dandruff-shouldered office clerks, spinsters from the suburbs and other fireside thrill hunters who craved the boon of his signature and to whom meeting their hero in the flesh would remain the greatest adventure of their humdrum lives. The intervals, however, were altogether too long and this was why five o'clock found Captain Randolph Rashleigh Speed's habitual devil-may-careishness giving way to the troubled preoccupation of a businessman who sees trade turning slack. His publishers, he could not help but reflect, had hinted that he was slipping. The advance sales of his new book bore them out. The comments of the reviewers ("Threadbare formula".... "Same old stuff, grown older".... "Speed repeats himself—and others") added insult to injury. And now, even the autograph hunters were deserting him! Captain Speed, who was neither so young nor so square-jawed as his photograph suggested, shrugged uncomfortably in his belted tweed jacket and scowled across the aisle at a fat lady who was purchasing the works of Rear-Admiral Byrd.

"Well, I'll show 'em with my next book," he promised himself grimly. "I'll think up something new. Something startling. Fresh angle— that's the ticket! M'm, let's see, now; how about a search for a mysterious tribe of white niggers which— But no, no, that's too much like the 'white Indian' gag in Guiana or wherever the deuce it was. Rushing serum? Well, rushing serum isn't exactly new, but it's still good. First, though, I'd have to have the newspapers work up a story about an epidemic of something raging someplace to rush the serum to. But the newspapers, confound them, don't fall for my stuff the way they used to. I fancy they're getting leery! No, 'm 'fraid rushing serum won't do after all. An Aztec treasure? Bah, it's been done a thousand times! Well, everything has! This blasted exploration business is overcrowded, that's the whole trouble! There's nothing left to do and write about that a flock of other professional heroes haven't done and written about already. I've simply got to think up a different kind of stunt, but what, damn it, what?"

"Ah, noo, captain, sir!" An aggrieved but deferential voice broke in upon his meditations. "While I dinna doot it's irksome for a mon o' yere far-floating kidney to sit in a shop and sign books all day, it's hardly polite o' ye to use bod longuage to a young fellow who looks up to ye as I do!"

"Eh? Oh, I'm frightfully sorry, laddie!" Captain Speed was on his feet, hand extended and smiling his best close-up smile. "I— ha-ha!— I fancy I must've been thinking aloud! Sit down, have a cigarette and— but I say, what's this you're wearing on your hand? Why, it looks like an ancient Zaroti sacrificial ring!"

"Aye, pairhops it does," said the youth, hastily removing the object and dropping it into his pocket. "As a motter o' fact, it's only a knuckle-duster whuch I filched from my nosty auld boglie o' an uncle. When all o' a sudden ye started cursing under yere breath, I—"

"Forgive me, please!" Captain Speed shoved across a box of matches and sat back to study his young admirer. He saw a stocky, keg-necked lout of perhaps twenty-three, with gorilla shoulders, flaming red hair and blue eyes fringed with white lashes of the sort so fashionable among pigs. His face, for all its present hero-worshipful expression, was of a surly, pugnacious cast. Captain Speed sized him up as an adventure-struck nephew of a tight-fisted Scottish plumber, apprenticed to the trade against his will and embittered with the world accordingly.

"Indeed, captain, sir," he was saying, and it was apparent that he had carefully rehearsed his speech, "to a young mon who leads a sedenturra life lik' my ain, yere books are a vurritable boon. There's been monny a time when reading o' yere perilous adventures has saved me from going mod through the sheer monotony o' my shut-in existence and chucking up my job. Thonks to yere vivid writings, I've come to know far lands whuch I shall ne'er really see and— and— weel, sir, I want to tell ye that I'm grateful!"

"Oh, don't mention it!" protested Captain Speed, his soul a-wallow in the praise like a carabao in a mud puddle. "I'm only too happy to hear that I've brought you an occasional ray of tropic sunlight, a breath from the open spaces. Ah, I see you've some books for me to autograph. Just pass them over, Mr.— er—"

"Glencannon is the name, sir— Duncan Glencannon."

Captain Speed opened one of the volumes at the flyleaf and poised his pen. "But what's this?" he inquired, indicating a printed label pasted inside the cover. "'Property of The Seamen's Mission Lending Library, Auckland, New Zealand.' Oh, so you picked it up at secondhand, eh?"

"Aye, weel, that's aboot the size o' it," admitted the lout, blushing beneath his freckles.

"But this one is stamped 'Butler's English Library and Tea Room, Juan-les-Pins, France.' And this one here— why, 'pon my word, it says 'Reading Room of the Kola-Bahur Club, Kola-Bahur, India.'"

"Does it?... Indeed, why, so it does!" mumbled the keg-necked one, leaning over and examining it in confusion. "Oh, yes, I recall the caircumstonces noo! Ye see, sir, the vurra day after I borrowed it, there was a frichtful typhoon or an earthquake or a total eclipse or summat such— I forget the details noo— and though I spared no effort to return it, I—"

"But do you mean to say you were actually out there?" demanded Captain Speed, incredulously. "Why, dash it all, boy, that region is the wildest stretch of territory left in the whole British Empire and yet you've just finished telling me about your sedentary, shut-in life! Are you pulling my leg or what?"

"Oh, not in the least, sir!" protested the other in deadly earnest. "When I said shut-in, I meant shut-in, for I've been shut in a rotten auld tromp ship's engine room for a donkey's years. Ho, domn it all, captain, sir! Dinna think for a minute that a third engineer's travels are in a class with Columbus', O'Polo's, MacGellan's, or yere ain! All my time at sea I'm being naggled by my uncle, who's my chief, blost his crankous liver! And all I know o' five hoonderd furreign ports are the docks and the waterfronts, each one smelling frowstier than the next."

"Yes, yes, I get your point," nodded the explorer. "I'd never thought of a modern sailor's life in just that way. But all the same, it's a strange coincidence that you happen to have been in Kola-Bahur. You see, I— I was just thinking— er— " He leaned back, half-closed his eyes and tapped his front teeth with his fountain pen. "Of course, you didn't see much of the back country," he mused aloud, "I mean the man-eating mooba vines, the whistling butterflies, the pygmies, and so on?"

"Aye, captain, sir, I saw some pygmies!" said the lout hopefully. "The nicht before we sailed an auld sow gave birth to a litter o' them richt on the club veronda."

Captain Speed jotted down a memorandum. "Good stuff! I'll make her a rhinoceros," he murmured. "By the way, Glencannon, just when were you in Kola-Bahur?"

"Weel, I foncy the date is written in yon book, sir— aye, August the ninth."

"Say eight months ago, eh? Well, by Jove, that'd be just about right!" Captain Speed glanced over his shoulder, and then lowered his voice confidentially: "There's a chance— just a chance— that I may ask a special favor of you, old chap— something in connection with my next expedition. There are some details to figure out first, but— Where could I get in touch with you?"

"My ship is the Inchcliffe Castle," said the other eagerly. "Ye'll find her in Spiller's Yards, ower the river in Rotherhithe, until Tuesday. And, captain, sir! I'll be owerjoyed and honored to help ye in any way I can, for my pairsonal debt to ye is such that—"

"Really, you're too kind!" the explorer restrained him. "The favor I may ask will seem trifling to you, but you'll be rendering me a very great service indeed. Meanwhile"—he took a volume from the table beside him— "I hope you'll accept my latest book, The Toad Men of Tumbaroo. It's about my experiences down Panjok way. The critics have been kind enough to say it's— ah— quite the best thing I've done." To the young engineer's delight, he wrote on the flyleaf:

Presented with my compliments to

Mr. Duncan Glencannon.

CAPT. RANDOLPH RASHLEIGH SPEED.

ii

THE MECHANICS and fitters of Spiller's Shipyards knocked off work at Saturday noon, and shortly thereafter Mr. Colin Glencannon, chief engineer of the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, descended to the vessel's engine room to check up on the week's progress. He found his senior assistant, Mr. MacQuayle, daubing tallow on a black eye and cursing to himself.

"Aye, and do ye look at it, sir!" Mr. MacQuayle invited plaintively. "No' that I mean to bellyache, no' that I'm stonding on my ronk or anything lik' that, but at the same time, sir, I'm his superior and ye're his uncle, and I really do think—"

"Ah, swith! D'ye mean ye've been bullying Duncan again?" demanded Mr. Glencannon severely. "Dearie me, Muster MacQuayle, I fear ye're no' equal to yere job!"

Mr. MacQuayle spread his hands in helpless protest. "I merely osked him vurra politely to work this afternoon on the gaskets he forgot to mak' yesterday. He retoorted that he was going ashore till Monday, and to heel with me anyway. Then he flew into a rage, called me a Toad Mon, one thing led to another and—"

"And when ye led with yere left, Duncan countered with his richt. Oh, haw, haw, I reecognize the signs!" Mr. Glencannon chortled unsympathetically. "Weel, Muster MacQuayle, are ye osking me to handle yere suboordinates for ye, or what?"

"No, sir," said Mr. MacQuayle sullenly. "The only thing is, I wish ye'd forbid him to read any more o' them travel books by that faker Speed. They've made Duncan hate and loathe his job lik' a Turk hates a teethbrush. He's been slocking doon in his work for weeks, but since Speed signed those books for him yesterday, he's been in a sort o' catharthartic tronce. All the young gowk thinks aboot is fiends and voodoos and places with neeger names ending in o. Speaking for mysel', sir, I'm just aboot fed up with it!"

"Oh, pish-tush, Muster MacQuayle!" Mr. Glencannon chided him. "I've no' read the books mysel', but it's reediculous to think that harmless travel and adventure tales wud affect a stanch lad lik' Duncan. Why, I'm sure they're mere sewage written to entertain the young. But still, if 'twud mak' ye feel better, why dinna ye steal them while he's ashore and chuck them owerboord?"

"Aye, a copital suggestion!" applauded Mr. MacQuayle. "'Twill be the feerst step in weaning him fra' his folly. Only"— he rubbed his eye tenderly— "only, I'll no' throw them owerboord— not I! Instead, with yere kind pairmission, I'll put them in yere ain room for ye to do with as ye see fit. Then, when he starts looking for them and raising an uproar, I can truthfully teel him that I know nowt aboot it."

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Glencannon entered his quarters and found the books stacked upon his dresser. "Foosh!" he snorted as he glanced at the titles, "they sound most innocuous to me!" He took up The Toad Men of Tumbaroo and studied the frontispiece— a reproduction of the author's photograph that had graced the Messrs. Phipps' window the day before. "Weel, the mon's got an honest but stuppid face, or I'm no physiogmonist," he declared. "'Tis cairtain there's no guile in him!" He ran his eye down the opening paragraph and sniffed patronizingly. He glanced at the second page. He leaned against the dresser and scanned the third and fourth, meanwhile scratching his head. "H'm," he murmured, gnawing his walrus mustache and frowning thoughtfully. "H'm!" He sat down, spread the book upon his knees and went back to the beginning.

Some hours later, Mr. Glencannon's corporeal self lay jacketless and comfortably carpet-slippered upon his bunk, but his soul was off adventuring in tropic Tumbaroo, twelve hundred miles away. All through the afternoon he had been absorbing the tall tale of the Toad Men and washing down its weirder, more blood-curdling passages with chasers of Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch. The little smoke-filled room had changed into a palm-thatched hut upon a coral strand; the thump of a pile driver somewhere over on the Shadwell shore was the distant voice of a witch doctor's drum, and the three-inch cockroaches which scurried up the bulkheads and paused, antennae waving, to contemplate him from the dresser, were scorpions, crocodiles or birds of paradise, according to the text before him. So potent was the magic of the spell that even his lesser insectile roommates were transformed into jungle mosquitoes which, though they neither flew nor buzzed, bit lustily as snapping turtles. "Ho, careful!" he muttered, pulling up his trouser leg and scratching his shin, "ye must beware o' yellow fever, Glencannon! Aye, guard yere health, mon! Why, pairhops they're no' mosquitoes after all but deadly tsetse flies!" He drained the bottle and prudently opened another in readiness to ward off elephantiasis, the yaws, beriberi or whatever tropical scourge might be lurking in the next chapter.

It was well that he took this precaution, for by the last page of the book he had conquered cobra bite, fought off a touch of leprosy and survived the wound of a poisoned dart, all by virtue of nipping them in the bud. And when, in the final harrowing paragraph, he had rushed across the moonlit beach, thrown himself into a dugout and paddled to safety through the boiling surf, with the mowing and gibbering of the Toad Men ringing in his ears, he would have succumbed to the strain of it all had not a few nips remained in the bottle.

"Ah, whoosh, whoosh!" he gasped, letting the book slip from his nerveless fingers and wrapping them around a glass for support. "I've read nowt since the works o' G. A. Henty that has moved me so profoondly! Read, did I say? No, lived, lived— for surely all this is no mere illusion!"

He glanced up at a cockroach on the steel-beamed ceiling. The cockroach changed into two lizards and a small ostrich. "There, o' coorse it's real," he assured himself. "What more proof cud ye osk?" The lizards and the ostrich merged into a single greenish animal of uncertain form which was swimming on its back and whistling snatches of Annie Laurie. "Why, guid losh, it's a female doogak with her young!" he exclaimed delightedly. "The feerst speecimens I've seen this season. Weel, I mustna forget that wise auld native proverb: 'When the doogaks pick their noses, there'll be rain ere daylight closes!' But horrors!" he stared through the porthole at the rain-blurred lights across in Wapping and dashed out on deck. "Why, I do believe the spring bantoola has set in already! The river's rising! I must push through to the settlement at all costs!"

Despite the danger of being swept away by the freshet, Mr. Glencannon was too shrewd a bushman to leave telltale footprints behind him, and so, for the first few blocks after leaving the shipyard, he waded ankle deep in the gurgling gutters of Albion Street. When he felt that he had shaken off his pursuers, he took to the beaten trail along the sidewalk, but even there some instinct impelled him to zigzag in his course and now and then to take a few steps backward. He wished that he had thought to put on shoes, a raincoat or even a jacket, but the savage fiends had attacked so suddenly that he'd barely had time to save the bottle. And now, to make his plight doubly desperate, the bottle— the bottle was empty!

Walking, running and at times tripping and sprawling upon the thick vegetation, chiefly rhubarb, scattered from a pushcart which had obstructed his way, he pressed on through the night. Sinister figures stirred in the shadows and he sought concealment behind the trunk of a yarrob tree which reared up tall and straight as a London lamppost. "Losh!" he groaned, "it's the Toad Men on the rompage! If I'd only an express rifle, noo, or e'en a local smooth-bore!" Suddenly the Toad Men darted out into the downpour and leaped aboard a passing Deptford bus. "Heavens!" gasped Mr. Glencannon. "I hardly thocht they'd risk it, richt here on the vurra fringe o' the settlement!" Steeling himself to the ordeal, he broke cover, sprinted across the avenue and into the trading post, which bore a sign, The Barge-and-Tugboat Tavern. He had won through!

"The Toad Men!" he shouted as he staggered to the bar. "The Toad Men are coming! They're oot there in hoonderds and they've got the place surroonded!"

For a moment, stunned silence fell upon the room; then a bloodshot individual who had spent the evening in a corner arguing with a spittoon squatted down upon his hunkers, rasped "Toads? Watch me fool 'em!" and went hopping out through the side door.

"Why, Mr. Glencannon!" exclaimed the barmaid. "Lawks, sir, wotever is the matter?... Oh, do look at 'im, Mr. 'Arrison!" she appealed to the landlord, who came bustling in. "Why, the poor gempman is sopping wet and 'e 'asn't got no shoes on!"

"Harrison!" Mr. Glencannon lurched forward and wrung the publican's hand. "Ah, Harrison, so ye're safe and soond! Thonk heavens my message reached ye in time!"

"Message? Oh, yus, yer message, to be sure!" agreed Mr. Harrison, rising to the emergency with rare professional tact. "I was no end 'appy to 'ear from yer, Mr, Glencannon, and now that you've arrived, I 'opes yer'll join me in a little drink on the 'ouse." He winked at the barmaid, "Make it a Special, please, miss."

Now, the Barge-and-Tugboat Special consisted of Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper and Tabasco, with a dash of horseradish thrown in to stabilize it against spontaneous combustion. Although highly efficient in restoring the errant faculties of patrons who had overtaxed themselves, it could have been employed with equally gratifying results in the welding, smelting and cremating industries as well as for tanning bull hide. Mr. Glencannon took a long, gurgling draft of it, smacked his lips and heaved a contented sigh. "Smooth!" he announced unctuously. "Bland! Delichtful! Oh, I tell ye, Friend Harrison, once a mon's tasted the real native ghok, there's no tipple in the world can touch it!"

"Ghok?" snickered a shriveled gentleman at a near-by table. "Ghok, did 'e say? Oh, lor lumme!"

"Aye, ghok," Mr. Glencannon frowned at the fellow and turned again to the landlord. "As I was aboot to obsairve, Muster Harrison, pure native ghok, distilled from the crisp, toenail-like petals o' the mimwee bush, is not only nectar to the palate but it exeerts a markedly soothing influence on the nairvous system as weel... Oh, thonk ye, Harrison, I'll take another with pleasure! Er—" He tossed down his second Special and leaned against the bar, eyes closed and hand pressed to sweat-beaded brow as though striving to summon an elusive memory. "Ghok? Ghok? Oh, yes, it all comes back to me noo! Er— a-hem— I shall never forget my introduction to ghok, comma, which occurred at a village called Smir, semicolon, before describing it, comma, however, comma, I believe that a brief account of my adventures en route will be in order, period. Accompanied only by my gunbearer, comma, I struck southwards from Panjok and up into the forbidding mountains of the Tumbaroo Range, period, paragroph. The—"

"Hogwash!" cackled the shriveled gentleman derisively. "Hogwash of the first water!"

"Oh, why, my vurra dear sir," Mr. Glencannon addressed him with chilling dignity, "I think ye're extremely rude and I'm half inclined to smosh yere snout for ye, ye blethering auld sweer."

The tense hush which followed this announcement was broken only by certain sloshing, seething sounds from Mr. Glencannon's interior as the superheated Barge-and-Tugboat Specials sizzled down upon the Duggan's Dew, engulfed it in liquid fire and evaporated it out of his system as a lightning bolt dries up a puddle. The result was miraculous. Before his eyes the beleaguered trading post in the Tumbaroo wilderness reshaped itself as the Barge-and-Tugboat Bar; the war cries of the Toad Men became motor horns on the Deptford Road and what had lately been a tropical cloudburst in the jungle calmed down to a gentle spring rain in Rotherhithe. It was all so abrupt that it was confusing.

"Why, 'e don't know wot the 'ell 'e's talking about!" the shriveled one was proclaiming with scorn. "There ain't a mountain in orl that territory so high that a pancake with a harelip couldn't spit over it. Down Tumbaroo way it's mostly sandy desert, and in the oilfields, where I was working as a driller, we—"

"Wait!" Mr. Glencannon, suddenly aware that the company was viewing him with skepticism, nay, with hostility, hastened to reestablish his prestige. "Why, d'ye mean to say ye come from dear auld Tumbaroo, sir? Weel, weel, weel, 'tis a small world after all! I've no doot that ye're acquainted with my vurra guid friend, Captain Randolph Rashleigh Speed?"

"Speed? Randy Speed? Haw! 'E was the writer chap wot stayed drunk six weeks in Panjok, between steamers. Lawks, do I know 'im? The farthest 'e ever got from town was the time 'e went over to Port Yara in the tram car, tried to sleep orff 'is jag on the beach and bleddy near died o'sunburn ... But wot about 'im?"

"Oh, n-nothing," stammered Mr. Glencannon. "I— I was merely osking, that was all." And without another word, he headed for the door.

As in his sodden carpet slippers he wended his shipward way, he was gnawed by the ghok and a horrible suspicion. Was it possible that the shriveled gentleman had spoken truly? Faugh, the very thought was hateful! For a while— for a pricelessly pleasant while— Captain Speed's magic words had been an open sesame to the broad realms of adventure. But now the spell was broken! Mr. Glencannon could feel full drab London hemming him in on every side and beyond it, oppressively, the dull drab rest of the world. Could it be that Speed—Captain Speed—the dashing Randolph Rashleigh Speed, Explorer, Adventurer and Author—was a liar? No, a thousand times no! And yet— And yet—

iii

SUNDAY morning smiled with the spring, but Mr. Glencannon, prey to a great lassitude, lay brooding in his bunk. His recollections of the previous evening were sadly scrambled, but they included a definite doubt of Captain Speed's veracity. The doubt was ever growing. "Aloss!" he growled. "If it's as I suspect, the mon's a meenace to the youth o' the lond!"

It was not until ten o'clock that he felt equal to facing his breakfast, and even then he settled himself at the saloon table in the chastened spirit of one who turneth the other cheek. The porridge was lumpy, as usual; but besides, this morning, it had a flavor which he found peculiarly revolting. He scupped up, perhaps, half the contents of his bowl before he succeeded in identifying it. "Braugh!" he shuddered, recoiling. "Why, it's Worcestershire sauce! Oh, horns o' the devil! Here I've shunned and avoided the nosty stuff for twenty years, only to have it sairved by stealth in my breakfast parritch!"

He dashed down his spoon, bawled for the steward and was delivering a stinging rebuke when:

"A gempman named Captain Speed is 'ere to see yer, sir," announced a deck hand from the doorway, and over the sill stepped the original of the frontispiece of The Toad Men of Tumbaroo!

"Er— oh, I beg your pardon!" said the explorer, glancing about him uncertainly. "It was Mr. Glencannon I asked for."

"And it's Muster Glencannon ye've got," growled the engineer, still tasting Worcestershire sauce.

"Oh, but of course! You must be the uncle Duncan spoke of the other day! Fine lad, your nephew, Mr. Glencannon; a great credit to you, I'm sure. I've come aboard this morning to have a chat with him and put him in the way of picking up a little easy money."

"Eh? How much?" inquired Mr. Glencannon, waving the visitor to a chair.

"Oh, not a great deal," Captain Speed shrugged. "You see, there happens to be a bit of a favor he could do me for which I'd gladly pay a pound or two."

"Weel, let's say three," suggested Mr. Glencannon, smiling charmingly. "As his uncle, it's o' coorse my juty to guard his finoncial interests. But I'm afraid, captain, ye'll no' be able to see him till tomorrow."

"No? Oh, but that's annoying! I'm leaving for Manchester this afternoon and I've really got to break this story in tomorrow's papers."

"To whuch story are ye refairing to, sir?"

Captain Speed drummed on the table for a thought-filled moment. Then he leaned forward and fixed the other with his eye. The effect was that of one shark gazing at another.

"Look here," he said confidentially. "Duncan really needn't be in on this at all. Come to think of it, Mr. Glencannon, your own mature assistance would be ever so much more valuable to me."

"Aye, ever so much," agreed Mr. Glencannon. "We'll set the value at five poonds."

Captain Speed made a wry face. "Well, all right," he agreed. "I really can't afford it, but I can't afford to lose any time either. Er— by the way, Mr. Glencannon, I suppose you know me by reputation."

"Aye, o' coorse, Captain Speed. Duncan often talks o' ye— in fact, ye're his idol. I've e'en read some o' yere adventures mysel' and been deeply intrigued by them."

"So much the better! Well, now, Mr. Glencannon, I wonder if it ever occurred to you that modern adventure is a business, just like any other, with financing and advertising and sales problems and all the rest of it. Just to wander off into the arctic or the jungle isn't enough, these days! To be successful, an exploring expedition has got to have an idea behind it— a new slant on which the publicity can be based. Otherwise the newspapers won't touch you, the public will go to sleep on you, your books won't sell and you'll lose out on the testimonials, the lecture tours, the radio and all the rest of the sugar. You've got to cook up something dramatic, if you understand me!"

"Aye, I understond ye pairfictly!" Mr. Glencannon leaned across and poked him playfully in the ribs. "And noo that I do understond ye, let's get alang with the cooking!"

Captain Speed grinned, drew a typewritten sheet from his pocket and pushed it across the table. "Tomorrow morning," he said, "every paper in London will carry this advertisement. Look it over!"

The advertisement read:

£100 Reward!

The above sum will be paid by me through my bankers for information as to fate of William Green. As far as is known, Green was last seen alive in Kola-Bahur, India, on August ninth, at which time he was planning a lone expedition into the back country in search of a tribe of pygmies living underground in the tunnels of a lost mine. Anyone furnishing conclusive proof of Green's death or (if living) of his present whereabouts, will be handed the reward as above. Apply in person to the Manager, London and Empire Bank.

(Signed)

CAPT. RANDOLPH RASHLEIGH SPEED.

The engineer frowned at the advertisement and then went over it again. "Weel," he said, "o' coorse I was in Kola-Bahur on August ninth mysel', but I must confess I dinna mak' heads nor tails o' this."

"Ah, but wait!" Captain Speed looked up from another sheet upon which he had been penciling corrections. "I'm just putting your name in instead of Duncan's," he explained. "Now, this is a news item which will appear in the papers tomorrow evening. Here!"

Mr. Glencannon drew it toward him and read:

EXPLORER SEEKS LOST FRIEND

SPEED POSTS REWARD, PLANS EXPEDITION

TO FIND GREEN, LONG MISSING;

CLUE TO JUNGLE MYSTERY IN LONDON

BOOKSTORE

A trail which may lead halfway round the world, through the jungles of Kola-Bahur Province, India, and end in either a pygmies' cavern or a white man's grave, was brought to light in dramatic fashion Friday when Captain Randolph Rashleigh Speed, the explorer, chanced to make the acquaintance of Mr. Colin Glencannon in an Oxford Street bookstore. Glencannon brought the first news of Speed's friend and colleague, William Green, who left London last June on a mystery trek the object of which he refused to divulge. Grave fears had been entertained for his safety ever since. According to Mr. Glencannon, who is chief engineer of the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, now in Spiller's Yards, Rotherhithe, Green was in Kola-Bahur until August ninth, on which date he was planning a lone search for a lost mine worked by a tribe of pygmies known as the Mole People. Captain Speed and Mr. Glencannon fear that Green, if not dead, is now held prisoner by these underground workers, who are believed to be cannibals. "Although I have advertised a £100 reward for further information, I haven't much hope of anyone claiming it," said Speed yesterday. "I am certain that poor Billy Green is in dire need of help and I am working day and night organizing an expedition to locate him. Mr. Glencannon's statement, while throwing the first definite light on Green's foolhardy venture, only increases the anxiety which I have felt for a long time."

Mr. Glencannon looked up blankly. "But— but swith, sir! I ne'er met a mon named Wulliam Green in Kola-Bahur!"

"No, of course you didn't," the explorer chuckled. "How could you, when there isn't any such person? But I'm depending upon you to stick to the yarn and spin it out to the reporters who'll come to check up on all this tomorrow. Frankly, Mr. Glencannon, the press doesn't trust me. That's why I'm paying five quid for your confirmation of the story. Good Lord!" he sat back and laughed heartily. "You surely didn't think I'd put up those hundred hard-earned pounds for somebody to come along and snaffle, did you? No, no, Mr. Glencannon, the whole idea is to advertise myself, my next expedition and the book I'll write about it. A search for a lost pal is a fine, dramatic, human-interest angle, and when I don't find him the first crack, or even the second, the excitement will keep on building up until I can string it out for four or five books, maybe. Oh, the stunt's absolutely sure-fire, can't you see it?"

Little by little, wrinkle by wrinkle, Mr. Glencannon's face was suffused by a smile. "Captain," he breathed wonderingly, "I— I congrotulate ye! Ye've concocted a swundle after my ain heart! Losh, what cleverness! Why, the plon is mognificent— in fact, it's all but pairfict!"

"All but? H'mph! Why, what's the flaw in it?" challenged Captain Speed.

"A-weel, only a minor detail, and pairhops I'm wrong e'en there," said Mr. Glencannon diffidently. "However, I wudna be earning my five poonds if I didna express my condid opinion that 'Wulliam Green' is no' the richt name for yere imoginary lost pal. In the feerst place, there are too many real Wulliam Greens in the world to risk having the fond but dishonest reelatives o' a dead one show up and claim the money. In the seecond place, the name is no' sufficiently meemorable to reegister with the public. It seems to me that an explorer shud have an unusual name— a name with an adventurous sound to it— in fact, sir, yere ain name is a vurra guid exomple."

"M'm— by Jove, I believe you're right!" agreed Captain Speed. "I'm glad you raised the point, Mr. Glencannon. Green— no, Green won't do at all! Well, fortunately, it's easy to change. Let's see, what shall we call him? Stockley? Leffingwell? Sanders?"

"Stockley? Stockley is grond! Aye, Steve Stockley! But wait, wait. How aboot Falcon? Ah, Falcon's a lovely swashbuckling name! John— no, Jeffry Falcon! Jeffry Ronald Falcon! There!"

"Falcon? Jeffry Ronald Falcon? Oh, I say, that's perfect! Yes, by Jove, it's a masterpiece! Jeffry Ronald Falcon it is, Mr. Glencannon, and many thanks for the suggestion! Well," he arose, laid five pounds on the table and extended his hand. "I must rush up to Fleet Street with this stuff for the papers and then catch my train for the north. I'm off on a lecture tour—three weeks' solid booking."

"Then guid-bye, sir," said Mr. Glencannon, picking up the money and counting it carefully. "It's been a hoppy meeting and ye can depend upon me telling the repoorters a guid straightforward tale tomorrow. Tuesday, o' coorse, we'll be sailing."

"Well, I wish you a pleasant voyage," said Captain Speed, glancing at his wrist watch and moving toward the door. "Long trip?"

"No," said Mr. Glencannon gloomily, "only to China. 'Twull be a frichtful bore."

iv

IT WAS Monday morning. Mr. Glencannon sat at the breakfast table scanning the newspapers which had just been brought aboard by Jessup, the steward. "Ah, here it is in black on white!" he chuckled as the advertisement met his eye. "Jeffry Ronald Falcon, one hoonderd poonds reward and all the rest o' it— as binding as any legal contract! Weel, I fear that when Nephew Duncan sees it, there'll be frogments o' youth's shottered idols lying all ower the ship! However— Jessup!" he called, "Jessup! I'll thonk ye please to osk the cook to step in here a minute!"

Shortly, a stoutish person in a dirty white apron appeared and stood nervously beside the table. "Please, sir," he began guiltily, "if it's about the lumps in that there porridge—"

Mr. Glencannon sprang to his feet. "Aye," he thundered, "it's aboot the loomps in the parritch and something more besides!" He advanced upon the quaking cook and thrust his finger in his face. "Where were you on August ninth last, to yere best knowledge and belief?"

"W-why— Oh, lawks, sir, August— er— yes, on August ninth we was in that narsty Coalhole-Bahur, or wotever its nyme was. But, please, chief, if it's the Worcestershire-sauce tyste yer complained of yestiddy, I give yer my oath that there ain't a single drop of it on the ship, and wot's more there 'asn't been for over—"

"What's yere full and true name?" the engineer bellowed menacingly.

"J-J-Jeffry Ronald Falcon, sir," quaked the cook. "Oh, please, sir, if that porridge ain't—"

"Say no more, Jeffry Ronald Falcon!" Mr. Glencannon ordered him. "Go put on yere shore clothes, bring yere passport and identity papers, and come alang with me to the London and Empire Bank! If ye stick to yere story and back up mine, I may forget yere nauseous parritch and no' get ye sacked as ye desairve. Aye!" he added, in a sudden burst of generosity. "Why, pairhops, when I've collected the reward, I may e'en pay yere bus fare back here to the ship!"

___________________

5: China Man

Raoul Whitfield

1896-1945

Black Mask, March 1932,

THE NUMBER FIVE typhoon signal had been hoisted and was standing straight out against a gray sky when Jo Gar paid his caleso driver, patted the mangy pony on the head and moved from the Escolta towards his office. A hot wind was blowing in gusts; it had been dark for an hour or so. The Island detective reached the front of the frame building, looked towards the wooden steps that led to the first floor, moved a few feet to the entrance.

He remembered that he had only a few of his brown-paper cigarettes in his office, and none in his duck suit pockets. Since he had come to the office to talk with a client he would need cigarettes. He halted with his diminutive body almost framed in the entrance, half turned away from the semi-darkness within. The tobacco shop was two squares distant, and it was almost ten. He decided that he had better ascend to see if his client had arrived.

He went into the entrance of the building and moved up the creaking steps. Several times he had thought of moving into more desirable quarters, but there was something about his tiny, hot office in the old building that he liked. His fees were not big; he accepted almost any case that was interesting, and many of his clients were not rich. If he were to move into better quarters he would perhaps not be able to accept cases that interested him, and his contacts would be different.

He had decided that he would lose more than he would gain, and had remained in the building on one little street off the Escolta, Manila's main business street. He liked the river sounds that reached him from the dark watered Pasig, and the odors that drifted up from the small shops near the river—odors of spices and hemp and shell foods.

There was a swaying electric light bulb, on the floor above the one that held his office—the light on his floor gave no glow.

He remembered that after many months a new bulb had been placed at the end of the connection that dangled from the ceiling— only yesterday. Yet it was dark above.

He had almost reached the first floor when he heard the sound. It was very faint— and it seemed to the Island detective's keen ears to be a combination of two sounds. There was the slow sucking in of breath and the rustle of cloth. Someone was at the far end of the dark floor.

Jo Gar climbed the last few steps; the door of his office was on his right, and when he turned to open it his back would be to almost the entire floor. He reached in his pocket for the small key, faced the door. Almost instantly he heard the sound of cloth scraping cloth— and of breath expelled with an effort. And he let his body go downward, very quickly.

The knife made a sharp humming sound— there was a short crash as the blade struck wood, just above his head. But the knife did not stick in the door, making vibration sound. The blade point had not struck cleanly. The hilt battered against wood, and the knife dropped, the blade pricking Jo Gar's right ankle as he twisted his body around.

His right-hand fingers jerked his Colt from the hip pocket in which he carried it almost all of the time now. There was sound on the steps leading to the floor above— and his eyes caught the shape of a figure that seemed tall and thin. He thought he saw the outlines, above the figure, of such a head covering as the rivermen wore— the sampan men. A coolie hat, it looked like— round and rising to a shallow point— of dark bamboo.

He raised his gun, and the figure was gone. The stairs creaked under weight, but there was no sound of shoes or sandals. The one who had thrown the knife was bare-footed.

Jo Gar got to his feet, took a few steps towards the second flight of stairs, halted. He was breathing quietly. Very slowly he lowered his gun. The creaking sound had died— a door slammed. The electric bulb dangling from the wire, on the floor above, swayed less and less.

The Island detective bent down and lifted the knife. Without attempting to inspect it he wrapped it in a handkerchief, touching only the blade with his fingers. He listened for several seconds— there was no more sound from above. The light bulb on the next floor was not swaying now.

Jo Gar sighed and went swiftly down the steps to the narrow street. Almost directly across from the office entrance the doorway of a small spice shop was dark, and Jo hurried the few feet to the entrance. With his back to the shop, he got his small body in such a position that he could see the street—and the entrances of a half dozen or so of the lower frame buildings similar to the one in which he had his office.

Two thoughts were strong— the knife thrower had been a Chinese, and he had thrown very poorly. He had thrown like a Filipino would shoot, missing at even a short distance.

Seconds passed and only one figure emerged from one of the frame buildings across the narrow street. That was the figure of a very heavy Filipino woman, and she stood for a time in the doorway before she waddled towards the Escolta.

The roofs of the buildings were almost all of the same height. The knife thrower had gone to the roof, and from here he would find many exits, many ways of escape. And yet, Jo had reasoned that if he had thought himself followed, the one who had thrown the knife would simply cross the roof to another building and come down the stairs to the street. It was only a short distance to the Escolta, which would be crowded. With a typhoon approaching— the band would not be playing at such time on the Luneta— Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese— they were moving along the Escolta. He could hear the babble of their tongues.

For almost ten minutes the Island detective remained in the shadow of the doorway across from his building. Then he sighed again and moved from it, went to his office. He switched on a single small bulb hanging above his battered desk, locked the door behind him. As he turned towards the desk again, he saw the sheet of white paper on the floor. There was a scrawl on it—without lifting the sheet which had been shoved beneath the door, he knelt down and read the message, written in English:

"I have called— you were not in— in case I do not return it is my China man, Tavar, that I suspect. J.M."

Jo Gar lifted the white sheet of paper and placed it on his desk. From a drawer he took a check he had received from John Mallison two days ago, as a retainer. He compared the writing and nodded his head slowly, with his gray-blue eyes narrowed. His wristwatch showed him that he had not reached the office late. Mallison had come early, and he had gone away. But first he had left the note.

The Island detective inspected his Colt, returned it to the right hip pocket of his white duck trousers. He took the knife from his pocket and got the handkerchief away from it carefully. The knife had a very narrow, eight-inch blade. The handle was of wood, and the whole affair was very cheap. There were thousands of such knives about Manila; it was a common type used by rivermen. The blade had been carefully sharpened.

Jo Gar went to work on the knife, and when he had finished he sighed for the third time. There were no fingerprints on the hilt—none on the blade. Whatever method the thrower had used, he had left no mark. And because it was not easy to throw such a knife without leaving a mark, the Island detective frowned and murmured softly:

"I think that his hands were covered—"

He placed the knife in a drawer of his desk; and locked the drawer. He smoked a brown-paper cigarette and read the note that Mallison had left, very slowly. His frown went away, and there was a blank expression in his slightly almond-shaped eyes. Mallison had come to see him before the hour appointed. He suspected Tavar, his China man, and he had wanted Jo to know that. But why had he not waited until the appointed hour? And if there had been some good reason for him not waiting, why had he written the note? Was he afraid that he might not be able to return?

The Island detective sat in his fan-backed chair, which had come from Bilibid Prison— which perhaps had been ironically made there by humans he had trapped— and pulled on the brown-paper cigarette. John Mallison was an American— an importer of jade in carved forms. His finer pieces he shipped to England and the Americas. He had five men working for him, searching in Oriental countries. Tavar, his China man, was one of them. In the last month, during which Tavar had been in Manila most of the tine, some twenty-odd carved pieces had disappeared from the Mallison shop. He valued them at about five thousand dollars.

These things he had told Jo Gar, when he had given him the retainer. But he had also told the Island detective that he had no suspicions. He had told him this only yesterday, and this evening he had sent Jo a message setting an hour for a meeting. He had come early, and he had gone— leaving a note. He suspected his China man.

Jo Gar placed the note and check in another drawer of his battered desk, locked the drawer. He finished his cigarette, thinking about the one who had thrown a knife at him— the one who had failed to murder. He decided that the man had worn a coolie hat and had gone bare-footed. He said softly:

"But I do not think he was a coolie. I think he dressed as one because he wished to go bare-footed without attracting attention. He wore skin colored gloves, perhaps— he did not wish to leave prints on the knife he threw. A coolie would not worry about that."

The point was— there were many enemies. Almost always, when Jo Gar caught a man, there was a conviction. The caught one remembered, and his relatives and friends remembered. There were many enemies. Señor Gar had a reputation— criminals were afraid of him and hated him. And there was this China man that Mallison suspected, this Tavar.

Jo Gar stood up and said very tonelessly and softly:

"Perhaps Señor Mallison was right in his suspicions. Perhaps this Tavar followed him here, and guessed that Mallison suspected him and was coming to me. He worked with speed— obtained the knife—"

Jo Gar raised his head and chuckled, Then he said in an amused tone:

"A flattering thought, but I do not think it happened that way. Others have tried to murder me because they were afraid— several others. Others have tried to trick me into believing the wrong thing, even clients of mine. But now—"

He shook his head and his gray-blue eyes were almost closed. A gust of the wind ahead of the signaled typhoon rattled the screens of the office window, and something crashed to the street, in the direction of the river.

Jo Gar thought: An importer of jade carvings suspects one of his men, his China man. And a man has thrown a knife at me, and has missed. That is really all that I know. I must learn more. I will search first for Señor Mallison.

He took a newly cleaned Panama hat from a closet in the office, placed it over his graying hair. When he left the office he first opened the door and did not immediately go to the landing. The electric bulb he did not switch on, but he saw that it had been switched off. He did not bother about prints on the switch.

When he reached the street he thought that it had grown a little cooler. The gusts of wind seemed to be coming at shorter intervals, and they twisted at his small body as he went towards the Escolta. It was not so crowded as he had thought; the natives were hurrying, eyes on the sky. The last Number Five typhoon that had struck Manila—the center of it passing to the southward— had done serious damage. The Filipinos were anxious, worried.

Jo Gar tried two drinking places; Mallison was sucking liquid through a straw in neither. He thought of Kayil's Malay eating place, and remembered that Mallison had spoken of liking such food. Kayil's place was very near a twist of the Pasig; Jo lowered his head and moved against the gusts of wind on a narrow, curving street that cut away from the Escolta.

When he reached the eating place he stood for a few seconds, outside. A carromatta driver shrilled words at his pony, and the two-wheeled carriage rattled past. Jo went through swinging doors into the dull-lighted single room that was the café. It was a large room, with bamboo tables and chairs, and there were many angles to it. Some of the tables were in corners, and were almost in darkness. There was an odor of fish and spices, not very pleasant.

Kayil was a short, evil-faced man of middle age. He had served a term at Bilibid, not many years ago, for a knifing and when he came to Jo's side, with a smile on his pock-marked face, the Island detective thought of the knife that had been flung at him. He smiled, knowing that Kayil would never have missed at such a short distance.

Kayil said in Filipino: "I have not seen you in a long time, Señor Gar. It is good that you come again."

The Island detective nodded. He looked beyond the Malay, and as his eyes became accustomed to the bad light, he watched a man eating alone at a small table in a corner. Kayil spoke of the coming typhoon and said that he did not think it would be severe; he thought the Filipino in charge of the weather was no good.

At intervals Jo Gar nodded, but he watched the one in the corner. He was tall and thin, and he had a yellowish face. His cheek bones were high, and though there was much food before him and he was making motions with it, he was not eating. His gestures were quick and uncertain; he seemed nervous. He never turned his face directly towards Jo.

The Island detective turned his back on the one at the table. "That one, facing my back. The tall, thin one with the face of a Chinese— his name?"

He spoke casually, and after he had spoken he yawned. Kayil looked over Jo's right shoulder, and his black eyes flickered with recognition, then grew blank. He shook his head.

"I do not think I have ever seen him before, Señor," he said slowly. "I think that he is a newcomer to my place."

Jo Gar continued to smile lazily. He said: "I am searching for Señor Mallison."

Again light flickered in the Malay's dark eyes. Then he shook his head.

"For many days he has not come here," he said. "I trust that he is not ill."

The Island detective spoke with a touch of grimness in his voice.

"I trust— that he is not," he agreed.

Kayil smiled broadly and said:

"You will dine here, Señor Gar."

He spoke the name loudly, too loudly, but the faint smile did not go from Jo's face.

"I have already dined," he said, and turned very slowly so that he faced the corner table again.

His small body stiffened; his gray-blue eyes got very small. The chair had been shoved back from the table in the corner, and the tall, thin one with the yellow face was gone. Jo Gar's eyes moved to the left; a Malay was coming through a swinging door with food on a tray. The Island detective said:

"The one who was eating there— he has left."

Kayil looked towards the shoved-back chair and his eyes widened. He spoke to the waiter with the tray, in Malay, and the waiter answered that the tall one had paid for his food. Kayil shrugged.

"Through the kitchen one reaches the river street," he said. "Sometimes customers enter and leave in that manner."

Jo Gar smiled pleasantly. "But you had never seen this one before," he reminded. "And you see all who enter here. A stranger would not be likely to leave through your kitchen."

Kayil's eyes grew small and bright. Jo Gar said:

"It is wise to be honest. I search for Señor Mallison— and also for one named Tavar, who works for Mallison."

The Malay looked puzzled. "One named— Tavar?" he said thoughtfully.

Jo Gar said: "I think it was Tavar who just left, through your kitchen."

Kayil shrugged and said: "Perhaps— I do not know, Señor Gar."

Jo Gar smiled coldly. "I shall leave in the same manner," he said.

He watched the Malay's expression, without seeming to do so, but Kayil was being very careful now. His face was a brown mask and only his eyes seemed alive. The Island detective walked to the swinging door, pushed it aside and entered a small and not too clean kitchen. A cook blinked at him and muttered in Malay. Jo Gar went close to the cook and was feeling in his pocket for pesos when he heard footfalls behind him. He turned away from the cook, only glancing at Kayil. Through another doorway he reached an alley. It was very narrow, and beyond it he could see the river street and the sampans tied one alongside of another.

There was a low adobé wall running the left side length of the alley, and it was very dark. Jo Gar turned and went back into the kitchen. Kayil was smiling at him.

"I have changed my mind," Jo said quietly. "I will leave as I entered."

The Malay said: "That way is closer to the Escolta, Señor Gar."

His voice held a peculiar, grimly amused tone. The Island detective nodded. He went from the low-ceilinged room to the street, and turned away from the river. He said very softly:

"Twice this evening— I have not followed after—"

He broke off, shrugging his narrow shoulders. As he neared the Escolta, with the gusts of typhoon wind tearing at his duck suiting and eddies of dust whirling in the narrow street, he breathed again:

"A swift pursuit is not always wise—"

He turned back in the direction of his office, and as he neared the store front occupied by the chief Filipino paper he saw that a crowd had gathered before it.

At first he thought that the crowd was seeking news regarding the center of the approaching typhoon, but when he arrived in front of the pasted bulletin he saw that he had been mistaken. The bulletin was a brief one.

At nine-fifty the body of John Mallison had been pulled from the Pasig by two Filipino sampan men. Mallison had been alive before he was pulled out—the sampan men had heard his weak cries for help as his body had drifted down-stream. But he had been dead by the time a doctor reached the sampan to which he had been lifted, and he had not spoken after being pulled from the water. He had been stabbed twice in the throat and several times around the heart. The Manila police, working under Lieutenant Sadi Ratan, were seeking the criminal or criminals.

It was almost midnight. Sadi Ratan sat in a chair before his polished desk in the police office assigned to him, his well-built body facing Jo Gar. He looked very handsome; his brown face was carefully shaven and his dark eyes held a slightly amused expression.

"He was a fool," he said with assurance. "To go among rivermen after dusk, with a valuable piece of jade on his person— that is very foolish. He was murdered for the jade piece, that is all. It is very simple."

The Island detective said: "Who was it that saw this piece he was murdered for, Lieutenant?"

Sadi Ratan smiled. "A Malay by the name of Kayil, who has come to me to tell of it. A waiter in his eating place. And a Filipino by the name of Vincente Galo, who was dining there. The Malay owner of the place says that the American had been drinking."

Jo Gar nodded. "It appears to be very simple," he agreed.

The police lieutenant smiled broadly. "Very," he agreed. "You waste your time, Señor Gar."

The Island detective shook his head. He spoke pleasantly to the man he knew hated him.

"Mallison was taken from the river at nine-fifty," he said. "Shortly after ten I talked with the Malay, Kayil. I said that I was looking for Mallison and the Malay told me he had not been at his place for many days. He said he trusted Mallison was not ill."

The lieutenant of police nodded and continued to smile. "So he has said," he replied calmly.

"He did not at the time he talked with you know that Mallison had been murdered, of course. He says that he makes a practice of giving very little information about his customers. He has found it is not good for his trade."

Jo Gar lighted a brown-paper cigarette. "He is very thoughtful," he said quietly.

Sadi Ratan nodded and showed even, white teeth.

"He has been of great help to us," he said simply. "We have heard from other sources that the American had been drinking heavily."

Jo Gar narrowed his almond-shaped eyes and ran browned, short fingers through his graying hair. There was a little silence, broken only by the sound wind made against screens. Then the Island detective said:

"I have been paid a retaining fee by the dead man. Some five thousand dollars' worth of carved jade had been stolen from him, and he suspected an employee. He wished me to meet him at my office tonight. He arrived early and left a note. When I arrived a knife was thrown at me."

Sadi Ratan sat up stiffly. He said:

"A knife was thrown at you?"

Jo nodded.

The police lieutenant relaxed. "It is good that it did not strike you," he said in a not too convincing tone. "But then, you have enemies in Manila."

The Island detective nodded. "That is so," he agreed. "But Mallison named the employee he felt had stolen his jade, in the note he left. It might have been that he was followed, and that this employee was afraid of me— and threw the knife."

Sadi Ratan said with a smile: "You mean that Mallison's China man, David Tavar, might have thrown the knife?"

Jo Gar's thin lips were pressed tightly together. He half closed his eyes, and tried not to show the surprise he felt.

Sadi Ratan was enjoying himself. "Tavar was the one Mallison wrote he suspected, I suppose," he said too calmly. "Tavar came to me days ago, telling me that Mallison was drinking heavily and that Mallison hated him. He said that he was afraid Mallison might attempt to trap him in some way, and that he was acting very foolish with his jade."

The police lieutenant inspected his fingernails, and yawned. Jo Gar said:

"Yes, Mallison wrote that he suspected Tavar. I have never seen Tavar. Is he tall and thin, with high cheek bones—"

The police lieutenant shook his head, chuckling. "On the contrary, he is short and rather fat. Black hair and a small mustache. A very jolly fellow."

The Island detective pulled on his cigarette. Wind made hissing noise against a screen. Lieutenant Ratan said in a pleased tone:

"The center of the typhoon will pass to the northward. That is good."

Jo Gar looked at the mat on which he was standing.

"You believe Mallison— or Tavar?" he asked.

Sadi Ratan shrugged. "Mallison made no complaint to the police. You are a private detective. He went to you. But Tavar came to me. He was with friends from seven until eleven tonight— I have their names."

Jo smiled a little grimly. "Friends are often kind," he said.

Sadi Ratan spoke in an irritated tone. "John Mallison had been drinking heavily. He had been foolish with his jade. He was foolish again tonight. He hated an employee, and he wished to hurt him. Tonight he talked too much, and he was murdered, knifed for the jade pieces he had with him and which several persons saw."

Jo Gar spoke thoughtfully. "And he was murdered at a time when the man he suspected or said he suspected of robbery, was with friends."

The police Lieutenant nodded. "Yes," he said.

Jo smiled. "Why did Mallison hate this China man of his?" he asked.

The lieutenant smiled back at the Island detective.

"Because of a woman," he said "You do not perhaps think the reason sufficient?"

Jo said: "Completely sufficient, Lieutenant. The woman is unnamed?"

Once again the amused expression showed in Sadi Ratan's eyes.

"I have her name," he said. "Sorry, Señor Gar."

Jo Gar bowed slightly. "And you will report the murder as one growing out of robbery—by rivermen, probably."

Sadi Ratan nodded. "Murder because the American was a drunken fool," he said. "Still— we shall try of course to find the murderer or murderers."

Jo said, nodding: "You place no importance on the note Mallison left for me, or the fact that he retained me? Or the fact that he named this Tavar?"

Sadi Ratan smiled. "Mallison hated his China man," he said shortly. "I am convinced of that."

Jo frowned. "You have released Tavar?" he asked.

The police lieutenant spoke with impatience.

"He was never arrested, detained. He came to me of his own accord."

Jo nodded. "Of course," he said thoughtfully, and turned towards the doorway of the office.

The police lieutenant spoke cheerfully. "Be careful, Señor Gar, I am sorry to hear of that knife that was thrown."

Jo faced the lieutenant, smiling. "You are kind," he said quietly. "I shall be very careful, Lieutenant."

He bowed and went from the office. In the street, not many feet from the Escolta, he breathed to himself:

"Very careful, Lieutenant— much more careful I think than you have been."

Music sounded in Kayil's place— the music of a thin-toned piano and a violin. It was a few minutes after one. Jo Gar stood at the end of the alley that led to the kitchen for several seconds, his expressionless eyes almost closed. The typhoon wind was making sound along the river behind him— sampan men were working to keep their craft from battering against each other, but there was no flare of torches.

The music died and the Island detective shrugged his narrow shoulders. He transferred his Colt to the right side pocket of his duck coat, kept fingers on the grip of the weapon. With his left hand he pushed open the kitchen door, went inside.

The Malay chef blinked at him in the glare of heaped coals. Jo Gar smiled and went across the dirty kitchen and into the room beyond. It was well filled with humans— Malay, Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos. They were men of the river, and some of them had women with them. They were poor men, and rough looking. One very tall Malay stood near the other entrance to the room, talking with Kayil whose back was turned to the Island detective.

Jo Gar let his eyes move about the room; he saw the one he had seen earlier, sitting in the same corner, alone. The man was watching him; the color of his cheekbones showed yellow in the dull light.

The Island detective moved to the table in the corner, smiling a little. When he reached the table he halted and looked down at the tall, thin one. He spoke first in Chinese, very softly and rapidly, and when he had finished the thin one shook his head.

Jo spoke in Filipino, saying: "I would like to sit with you and talk."

There was a stupid expression in the dark eyes of the seated one. He shook his head slowly from side to side.

Jo Gar said in English: "I wish to talk with you."

The seated one spoke very hoarsely yet softly. "What is it— that you want?"

Jo Gar moved aside, smiling, and pulled over a rough bamboo chair from another table. The piano and violin made sound again, from a far corner of the room. The Island detective sat down, keeping fingers on his gun. He leaned across the table, so that his head was not far from the yellow-faced one's.

"I will make a bargain with you," he said very slowly and softly.

The dark eyes of the thin one shifted away from Jo Gar, looked in the direction of the Malay, Kayil, then came back to the Island detective's eyes.

"I do not know you," he said hoarsely and slowly. Jo Gar nodded.

"One does not always know the man he seeks to kill," he said steadily.

The yellow-faced one's eyes grew very narrow. His thin body was tense; and he sat erect. Jo said:

"My eyes are very good. Even when there is little light I see well. You threw a knife at my back this evening."

The one seated across from him said in Malay:

"You talk like a fool!"

Jo Gar continued to smile. "I do not see like a fool. You waited for me in my office building. And you threw a knife at me. You were bare-footed and you wore a coolie hat. You ran up the stairs and went over roofs. On a roof you waited for me, with another knife. If I had followed you— you would have thrown again. And you might not have missed when you found me behind you."

The one with the yellow face said nothing. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes moved away from Jo's again, going towards the spot where the Island detective had last seen Kayil.

Jo said: "You did not think you were seen— but I have eyes for the dark. I did not shoot at you, though my fingers held a gun, as they hold one now."

The yellow-faced one made swift, breathing sound. His eyes looked downward. Jo Gar nodded his head. The piano and the violin were wailing swift, fierce music and in the center of the floor a Filipino and a half-breed girl were dancing, whirling about. Jo Gar glanced at them, turning his head swiftly. And he saw that the Malay, Kayil, was not where he had been. Then his eyes were on the dark eyes of the man seated across from him.

One of the yellow-faced one's hands was on the table, but the other was out of sight. Jo said in a hard voice.

"Put both hands on the table."

The one across from him hesitated. Jo Gar smiled and said in Malay:

"If I shoot you in here it will not be bad for me— it will only be bad for you."

The left hand of the yellow-faced one came to the table surface. There were betel-nut stains on the fingers, red-brown on the yellowish skin. The man had long fingers, and the back of the hand was scarred.

Jo Gar smiled. "In Bilibid Prison you would work long hours, twisting bamboo. You would work for many years. It is very bad to throw a knife."

The eyes of the thin one showed faint fear. Jo Gar stopped smiling.

He spoke again in Malay, softly and not perfectly.

"I will make a bargain with you. If you tell me the truth— you will not go to Bilibid."

The one across from him said very hoarsely: "You are a fool—I do not know what you speak about."

Jo Gar smiled with his gray-blue eyes almost closed. He said:

"The gun will make sound and the police will come in. You will not see them. You will be dead. I will have killed the one who tried to kill me."

He moved his right arm slightly and watched the fear show in the yellow one's eyes. Then he said softly:

"Or the gun will make no sound— and you will answer my questions. You will not go even to Bilibid. It is a bargain that I will make." The one across from him spoke hoarsely. "I did not try to kill you."

He spoke in English, and he accented the word "try." Jo's eyes widened a little. He was silent for several seconds, then he said:

"So— you threw the knife, but you did not throw well? You did not want to kill me?"

The yellow-faced one said:

"It is so." He was breathing shortly, and his eyes were shifting away from Jo Gar's.

Jo said: "You wished to frighten me— to make me think that an attempt had been made on my life. Who was it paid you to do that?" The yellow-faced one hesitated. Jo Gar moved his right arm again, and his gray-blue eyes were suddenly hard.

The man across from him said:

"The Americano— Mallison."

The Island detective sat stiffly, staring at the yellow-faced one. Mallison had paid this man to miss him, with a knife. Mallison. Was Sadi Ratan right, after all? Had the American hated his China man, Tavar, so much that he had planned to trick the detective he had retained into believing Tavar was guilty? Had this yellow-faced one's act been the beginning—and then had something gone wrong? Or was the one opposite him lying?

The music died again.

Jo Gar was silent for several seconds, then he said softly:

"You did not throw a knife that belonged to you?"

The other shook his head. "The Americano gave me the knife," he said. "I held black cloth in my fingers when I threw it. That is all I know."

Jo Gar's eyes were slitted on the dark ones of the man across from him. He said suddenly:

"I think that you are lying."

The thin one lifted a hand from the table and pointed a thin finger across the room. There was a round target, not more than a foot in diameter, hanging on a wall across from their table. It was such a target as tiny darts were thrown against, for sport. It was painted brown and red and black. Smoke drifted before it, from cigarettes. The yellow-faced one said:

"I do not miss, with the knife. I am Kanya, of Malay blood. I have done no wrong. I will show you. For years I guarded an Englishman who had a plantation on Mindoro."

Jo Gar gripped his gun more tightly and said:

"Very well— show me that you do not miss— unless you wish to miss."

He moved his chair slightly. The Malay made a swift movement and a long bladed knife flashed in his left hand. The left arm came up as he half rose from his chair. His fingers held the knife by the blade. The arm jerked forward and the knife sped towards the target, turning.

At the same instant a gun crashed. Jo Gar heard the yellow-faced one's shrill cry as the bullet struck him. And very close to the target he saw the one who had used the gun. He was short and thick-set, and he had a small mustache. He had come suddenly from a corner thick with smoke, half backing from a table. But he had seen the yellow-faced one throw the knife, and he had seen Jo Gar. And he had not thought of the target.

Jo Gar realized, even as the knife blade quivered almost in the center of the target on the wall, what had happened. And he knew that the yellow-faced one had lied for Tavar, and that Tavar feared he had been crossed— and had thought that the yellow-faced one had intended the knife for him. Smoke drifted between the Island detective and Tavar. The short man's eyes were staring at the body of the man he had shot, half sprawled across the table. Jo Gar rose suddenly.

Kayil stood near the entrance of the café, swaying a little, both hands at his sides. Everyone was very quiet.

Jo Gar said:

"I want you, Tavar. You stole jade from the American, Mallison." His eyes never left the eyes of the short one. "You murdered him, tonight— knifed him. You went to the police and said he was drinking heavily, and that he was a fool with his jade. He was drinking, that is true, but he was not a fool. You said that he hated you, and you were afraid of him. You knew he was coming to me, and that he would tell me he suspected you. But you prepared for that, and you paid the Malay to throw a knife at me, but to miss me.

"I think that knife was one of yours— and you had intended to show that Mallison had it in his possession. You had friends lie for you about Mallison showing his jade tonight, and you had an alibi— you were with friends. And then, because you thought the yellow-faced one was trying to knife you—shot him. He was only throwing at the target—"

Tavar's head jerked towards the target. Someone near the yellow-faced one said thickly:

"He is— dead."

Jo Gar pulled his Colt from his pocket. Tavar's gun hand jerked up and both guns crashed at the same time. Tavar fell forward, and the left side of Jo's duck coat jerked as a bullet ripped it. Kayil moved his right hand downward and Jo fired for the second time. The Malay café owner swore, and gripped his right arm near the elbow. Jo backed against a wall and watched the rush for the doors. When it was over only four of them remained in the room. The dead yellow-faced one; Tavar collapsed on the floor, Kayil— and himself.

Jo Gar watched Kayil closely. Then he said, after long seconds:

"You are an accomplice— it will be worse for you if you do not tell the truth."

Kayil shrugged. Jo said: "Move Tavar against that wall. See where my bullet hit him."

When it was done, Kayil said: "Just under the heart—"

Tavar held his eyes open with an effort and said in a weak voice: "I wanted— money— to get away from these— damned Islands— I knifed him— and tried to fix it— as you said— I knew he'd go to you and say— he suspected me— and I wanted the police to laugh— at you—"

He closed his eyes. Jo Gar said steadily: "You and I, Kayil—we'll go to your telephone. A doctor— and the police."

Kayil shrugged. They went towards a telephone. Kayil breathed: "That damned target—"

Jo Gar smiled very grimly as he looked at the target on the wall and said in a tired voice:

"It was a damned one, certainly— for Mallison's China man!"

__________________

6: Ann of Satan-Town

Jack Boyle

1881-1928

Cosmopolitan Dec 1926

A Story from the "Alley of Nameless Women", by the author of "Boston Blackie".

THIS is the unfinished story of "My Man" Ann who lives in the Alley of Nameless Women of Satan-town. It is the story of a girl with desecrated, soul-weary eyes who sits behind the window of a bagnio inviting visitors with a lip-smile, while she writes her daily love-letter to the invalid husband whom she loves and who loves her— a husband who, Ann prays, will never know that she has laid her beauty and honor upon the sacrificial altar of a great love.

Because, as her door closes behind each departing visitor, Ann invariably murmurs softly the refrain of the song, "My Man," all Satan-town calls her "My Man" Ann. When her door opens to admit a caller, Ann's love-song ends in the middle of a bar. The tablet upon which she has been pouring out her heart to the man who will never know, goes instantly into the drawer of a tiny desk which Ann locks as if thus to safeguard her missive from the contamination of sacrilege. Then she rises and faces her guest with a smile of welcome on rouged lips and indescribable martyrdom mirrored in unflinching eyes.

Satan-town, which is the popular and 'descriptive nickname of Tia Juana, proudly boasts that it is the wickedest town in the world. This one-street, five-block town lies just over the Mexican border, twenty miles south of San Diego. A railway and a broad, paved auto highway carry the throngs of tourists and "regulars'' who patronize it.

A list of Tia Juana's visitors over any week-end is a composite roster of Society's Blue Book, the Rogues' Gallery and Who's Who in Screendom. The town's business very frankly is gambling and liquor and their correlative indulgences, but no man is black-jacked and robbed and no woman kidnaped within its limits— not before Satan-town's curfew hour for visitors. Afterwards—after the border has closed for the night— any man or woman who has chosen to remain is presumed to have done so with full knowledge and definite decision.

This wickedest spot on earth has its own evil code. It is strong for law and order, but its law is border law and its brand of order takes full and complacent cognizance of the innate sinfulness of human nature.

But no sane visitor remains in Tia Juana overnight unless he is unfortunate enough to be in jail. The border closes at nine each evening and exactly on the hour the hilarious throngs vanish in the direction of San Diego to the staccato accompaniment of roaring motor engines. Then a hush falls over the town and pallid-faced women and their hard-eyed men meet and reckon the day's profits. Like the rest, "My Man" Ann reckons hers each evening, but she reckons them alone. Then she goes to the post-office and mails her daily love-letter— the letter which she locks away from the miasma of profanation which enters her shack with each visitor. No human being ever has known whether Ann spends the night hours in despairing tears or in peaceful sleep. But a new day finds her again behind her window humming "My Man."

Because a word of sympathy and a glance of friendly understanding will sometimes unlock the most tightly closed lips, Ann once told her story. She told it very simply, very quietly, without tears or excuses. She is in Satan-town because she chooses to be and this is the reason for her strange choice:

During the summer after her graduation from the high school of a small New England town, she met Jim. Jim is an over-seas veteran who returned from France with one service medal and two gassed lungs. They fell in love, married and came to California because the doctors warned Jim he would not survive an Eastern winter. When they reached Hollywood and paid a week's room rent, they had $11.65.

Jim tried to get work, but no one had employment for a half-dead man with two gassed lungs and a service medal. Ann is young and unusually pretty. Inevitably, she tried the motion picture studios. The result was many dinner invitations and an occasional day's work as an extra. She declined the invitations and gratefully accepted the work. But as her clothes became shabbier and shabbier, studio employment gradually ceased. Day after day she trudged the weary round of the casting offices and returned each evening to starve happily with Jim.

She tried to get other kinds of employment, but no one cared to risk a girl who insisted upon spending her nights with a tubercular husband and she and Jim fell behind with their room rent. Ann continued to decline dinner invitations and hoarded nickels and pennies to buy an insufficient quantity of milk and eggs for Jim, while she blithely lied to him about mythical luncheons and dinners to which girl friends at the studio treated her.

Ann's youth and blond beauty attracted the mercenary notice of a mezzanine floor sheik who quite frankly informed her she was a fool to be striving for occasional studio work at five dollars a day when Satan-town is open 365 days a year. He offered to drive her down to the border and launch her upon a career in which youth and beauty are unfailingly remunerative assets. Without rancor, Ann refused and went home, penniless, to Jim. During the week that followed she managed to get for him only four eggs and one quart of milk. Though Ann owed four weeks' rent, her landlady, who also owed her rent, brought in food to the young couple whenever she could spare it— which was seldom.

Jim became desperately ill. The doctor gave Ann a formidable list of prescriptions to be filled and told her her husband had one chance in twenty to live. That chance was a sanitarium in the lung-healing Arizona air near Prescott— a sanitarium in charge of a physician who has had wonderful success with cases of gassed lungs. This sanitarium charges a minimum of $50 a week.

ANN listened dry-eyed to the physician. Then she kissed Jim very tenderly, borrowed a nickel from her landlady and called the sheik on the phone.

"This is Monday afternoon," she told him. "If you will give me a hundred and fifty dollars immediately I will be at your hotel at noon on Saturday ready to go with you to Satan-town."

The puzzled youth met Ann and she firmly refused to make any explanation of her demand for immediate money and a five-day respite before going to Satan-town.

"How do I know you'll be here Saturday if I give you the money?" he objected.

"If you have any judgment you can look into my eyes and know I will be here," Ann answered. And because this was true and the sheik was well aware of the current prices of blond beauty over the border, he gave her the money.

That evening the girl who is called "My Man" Ann proved that she truly is a great actress. She rushed into the sick-room where despondent Jim lay, and danced jubilantly about his bed, her eyes aglow with what seemed happiness and excitement.

"Oh, Jim, Jim, they've given me a part— a real part— at last!" she cried triumphantly. 'Four weeks guaranteed at seventy- five dollars a week! And look! Two weeks' advance to take you to the sanitarium where they'll make you well and strong again."

Proudly, convincingly, Ann displayed the money for which she had sold herself to Satan-town. Jim, being a man and therefore incapable of conceiving the sacrifice of which woman is capable, believed her. The next morning Ann paid her overdue room rent and took Jim to Prescott. She saw him comfortably settled in the sanitarium and returned to Los Angeles. On Saturday at noon, as she had promised, she met the youth who had provided her with the money and that night was in the Alley of Nameless Women.

Ann's one confidant is the landlady of the rooming-house at which she and Jim lived. Jim's daily letters are addressed to Ann there. The landlady forwards them to Satan-town. Ann encloses Jim's letters in an envelop addressed to the landlady, who remails them from Hollywood.

What stark, naked tragedy must be hidden between the lying lines of those letters of Ann's, written day by day behind the window of a Satan-town shack!

"I don't believe a woman ever really loves more than one man in a lifetime,"' Ann declared one afternoon as she added another to the thick packet of Jim's letters she keeps locked in her desk drawer. "A man may love more than once— I don't know— but not a woman. I see women here who say they love their men and yet are untrue to them. If they really loved they couldn't be untrue. Nothing could ever make me untrue to my man."

This with utterly naive sincerity from a girl in a Satan-town alley.

"Regret! I haven't any. Of course, I do regret the necessity for being here, but not what I have done. I'd do it all again— yes, do it a thousand times over— for Jim," "My Man" Ann explained. "Did I tell you he's improving? He is. He was much better. Oh, very much better, the last time I saw him. I manage to go to him every two or three weeks.

"It's hard to lie to him, but I must. All the way over on the train I invent things I say happened at the studio while I'm working. I invent parts for myself and show him just how I played them before the camera. I tell him what the directors say to me and what I say in reply, and always my visits cheer him up. It's lucky for me that they never show any pictures at the sanitarium. If Jim ever found out the truth— then it would be the end for both of us."

The girl's convulsed hands gripped her breast; then, slowly, she let them drop back to her lap.

"That won't happen. I know it can't. God couldn't let that happen to Jim and me. Do you think it strange to find a girl in this place who believes in God? Well, I do believe in Him. I'm studying practical nursing so that I can take care of Jim properly when he leaves the sanitarium. See."

Ann exhibited a nurse's text-book.

"Some day, perhaps ' she began and lapsed into silence. There was an ethereal, ecstatic light deep down in the eyes usually so hard and soul-weary. Softly she began to hum the refrain of the song which has given her her Satan-town name:

Oh, my man, I love him so;

He'll never know;

All my life is just despair
but I don't care, I love him so.

There remains to be told only the reason for calling this the "unfinished" story of 'My Man' " Ann. Almost on the day this was written, Ann disappeared from Satan-town. She returned to her room as usual one evening and the next morning was gone. No one on the border knows how or where or why. Perhaps the God Who Ann was so sure would never let Jim know has rewarded her faith even more abundantly. Perhaps He does look down with compassion upon this tragic world— even into the windows of the shacks in the Alley of Nameless Women. Perhaps "My Man" Ann's "some day" has become now and she is under Arizona skies where the air is healing to an over-seas veteran with two gassed lungs and one service medal.

__________________

7: The Ghost That Failed

Desmond Coke

1879-1931

The Pall Mall Magazine, Dec 1906

THE Blue Lady wailed disconsolately in the panelled room.

In her mortal life, four hundred years before, she had always been somewhat behind the times ; and now she was in arrears by the space of a whole Silly Season. She was grappling with the stale problem, 'Do we Believe?"

The Blue Lady concluded, emphatically, that we did not believe; and hence her wailing.

She had seen the age of scepticism coming. For more than three hundred glad years men had crossed themselves and shuddered when she went moaning through the sombre rooms of Yewcroft Hall. Secure in her reputation, she had been content once only in the evening to interrupt the revelry, and then, conscious that all eyes had been upon her stately progress, to seek contentedly her spectral couch. But with the growth of science had risen also disbelief. Once stage-coaches were discarded, and people came to Yewcroft by a steam-drawn train, she felt that any other marvel must lose caste. She did not fail to observe that, as she passed along the rooms, there were those who, though they trembled, would not turn, and made pretence of not observing her.  Then came the hideous day on which the Hall harboured a deputation from a Society of Research, who loaded themselves with cameras, dull books, and revolvers, before spending a night in the Panelled Room. The Blue Lady, as became a self-respecting ghost, slept elsewhere, and would not show herself to these  ill- mannered creatures; so that next day the Press declared the famous Yewcroft ghost to be a myth. This was terrible; but far worse was to come.

The family who had held Yewcroft since feudal times, the Blue Lady's own family, showed with old age a preference for sleep, and inasmuch as an ungrateful populace refused to pay them for this function, reduced means led to the abandonment of Yewcroft. It was taken by Lord Silthirsk, who had made tinned meat and a million by methods equally ambiguous. He turned the moss-hung chapel into a garage, and fitted electric light throughout the Hall.

The Blue Lady, struck in every vulnerable part, resolved to drive the Silthirsks out. For the first three days of their residence she missed no chance of floating in on Lady Silthirsk at moments likely to embarrass her. Her Ladyship showed no symptoms of annoyance or of fear, though sometimes, if not alone, she would look up and say, "Oh, here's that blue one again," in tones which the blue one took to be of terror cleverly concealed. On the fourth day the Silthirsks had a niece to stay, and the Blue Lady embraced this as a chance to learn what real impression she had made. Waiting till dessert was on the table, so that her Ladyship might not think it necessary to hide her fear before the servants, she swept into the dining-room and passed close beside the niece.

Elfrida shuddered. "What was that?" she cried.

"What's what?" asked her aunt; while her uncle said "Banana," and fell to his dessert again.

"No— something cold: it made me shudder, just as if something had gone by."

The Blue Lady, ambushed behind a vast tooled-leather screen, gloated over her success.

"Oh, that!" said Lady Silthirsk: "that's one of the fixtures— a spook. We rather like her— it's so picturesque and old-world, ain't it? Some people can see her— I always can. She's blue— quite an inoffensive mauvy blue. Oh, I distinctly like her. She's a novelty, ye know: and she'll be so cooling in the summer!"

But even she started at the ghastly groan which issued from behind the leather screen.

For some weeks the Blue Lady did not deign to show herself, until Lady Silthirsk began to find fault. The landlord, she implied, had swindled her. It became clear to the spectre that all hopes of driving out these upstarts by terror had been idle dreams.

And now, on Christmas Eve, the night dedicate of old to her compatriots, she had given herself up to despair. She did not even care to walk. She wailed disconsolately in the Panelled Room.

It was thus that the Gaunt Baron found her. The Gaunt Baron did not belong to Yewcroft, but was attached to a neighbouring house, now empty. With nobody to terrify at home, he found visits to the Blue Lady a not unpleasing variant of the monotony. Except that she was several centuries his junior, he felt for her an emotion which went to a dangerous degree beyond respect. He was pained to find her wailing.

"What, wailing!" he cried, coming on her through the oaken panels, "and nobody to hear you?"

The Blue Lady raised a tortured face towards him. ''Who would not wail? And who should hear me? Fools! They can not hear me. Many of them do not even see me, Bah! They have no sense, except the sense of taste: with truffles before them, they see nothing else."

"To-night is Christmas Eve."

The Gaunt Baron made the suggestion in a mild, kindly way, but the Blue Lady turned upon him almost angrily, as though he had been the culprit.

"Yes! To-night is Christmas Eve. And what are they doing? Where is the Yule-log? Where is the wassail ? Where the dim light of glowing embers? They'll sit in the glare of this new light— a big party—and play what they call Bridge; and if they feel a mystic chill, will draw the curtains or turn the hot-air pipes full on.... What do these fools know about Romance? 'The word is dead. I saw some of their novels while the house was shut. Love? Gallantry? Nowhere in the volume. A knock-kneed weakling making love to his friend's wife, or two infants puling of passion like mere vulgar serfs, Love, for these people, ends with Marriage, to begin again after Divorce."

"You are bitter." The Gaunt Baron held his head beneath his arm— a fact which gave to all his utterances something of the tone of a ventriloquist.

"Bitter! So would you be bitter! It's all very well for you, with the Manor empty;—but me, with these vulgarians!... Baron, these mortals are beating us: we're pretty well played out. 'Played out!' Look at our very speech: they've ruined that. Do I speak like a woman of the day of Good Queen Bess? Do you speak like a baron of— of King— like an ancient baron?"

"You do not,— and it was Stephen," said the Baron quietly.

"Mark me, Baron, we are near the end. Either Lady Silthirsk or myself leaves Yewcroft. 'There is no room here for a self-respecting spectre. They use the headsman's block for mounting on their horses. If I cannot drive them out, I go,— and where? Well, if I cannot leave the earth— oh, why was I ever murdered ?— then I must sleep beneath the hedges, till I find an empty house. Baron, that time is near. I have tried everything, and nothing seems to frighten them. Lady Silthirsk serves liqueurs in the old Banquet Hall at midnight, and as I don't appear,—as though I should!— she says the theatre is closed for alterations and repairs. Oh, it is unbearable, unbearable!"

"Dear lady," answered the Gaunt Baron, 'do not despair. I managed to say, some minutes ago, that it was Christmas Eve. Let me explain. It is now close upon the hour of midnight— the time and day on which we ghosts are thought by men to have our greatest power. Even those who don't believe in us are a little influenced by the tradition. As twelve strikes every one is half expectant. That is your moment. Burst upon them, wailing and raving. They are sure to see. Some of the guests will insist on leaving Yewcroft, and the Silthirsks will not like a house where parties are impossible. Quick! There is the gurgle that preludes the hall-clock's striking, In three minutes midnight will be here. Hasten, sweet dame, hasten! I will be at hand to watch you."

DOWNSTAIRS, during this dialogue, Lady Silthirsk had been talking to her niece.

"Elfrida, dear, in a few minutes they'll all be here for the midnight séance; and I have something that I want to tell you first."

"Why, what is it, auntie?" asked Elfrida: "you look terribly serious."

"I am serious, darling girl. Let me be frank. I think it is time that you were married— not only, understand, because of your poor parents, but also for your own happiness. And when I see a man who can make you both rich and happy, well—"

"But who?" interrupted Elfrida.

"Who? My dear girl, are you blind! Why, Bobby!"

"Lord Bancourt?"

"Yes, 'Lord Bancourt'! Don't look as though I had shot you! Why, you silly dear thing, you must know Bobby is madly in love with you. All this week he has followed you about like an obedient dog, and all the week you've ignored him as though he were a naughty mongrel!"

"Why, I'm sure I've treated him just like anybody else. I never—"

"My dear Elfrida, you will be the death of me! Do you think he wants no more of you? Are you living in the Middle Ages, or is this the Twencentury? Do you expect him to come and steal you away by night and force? Nowadays the girl must do her part. Bobby is a splendid fellow, an old friend of mine, rich, young, passably good-looking—"

"I think he's handsome, decidedly," Elfrida said, without a thought, and then blushed scarlet.

Her aunt laughed. "And I think you're in love with him," she said. "I know he only wants a little encouragement —not quite so much ice to the square inch, my dear! Won't you try, for my sake ?"

"I'll try, auntie, yes: I could be very, very happy with him— if he asked me: but I don't think I could— it's so hard—"

Lady Silthirsk kissed her. "I don't ask anything, you little goose, except that you should be just humanly kind to poor Bobby— I think he'll do the rest!"

"I'll try," said Elfrida dubiously.

Her aunt, she reflected, was not of a nature to see how terrible it would be if people should believe her to be "angling" for Lord Bancourt. Better that he should choose someone else than that he should marry her on such a rumour!

"Oh, here .they are!" cried Lady Silthirsk, as her husband brought his flock into the room, shouting:

"I've collected every one, gamblers and all, for the séance— except Bobby. Can't find him."

"Oh. I wish he were here— the Lady will surely walk on Christmas Eve," said the hostess. ''If she doesn't, I mean to demand my money back! Oh, there's the hour! Sit quiet, every one.... Blue Lady forward, please! There, look!— there !"

She pointed excitedly at the old gallery, once for minstrels, now arrogated by a pianola organ. Behind its oaken pillars passed a vague female figure, dressed in blue, moaning horribly, and waving distraught arms above her flowing hair.

Immediately cries of every sort rose from the watchers.

"I can't see her." "It's a cinematograph!" "What ho, Lord Bobby!" "Gad, she's gone slick through the music-stool." "I still can't see her." "No, there's nothing there." "Do a cakewalk, now!" ' Encore!"

As she vanished some one clapped his hands, and with a laugh the whole party joined in the applause.

The scene had not been very impressive. From a theatrical point of view the ghost's entrance had been ruined by the number and the temper of its audience. Those who had not seen it scoffed; those who had, till reminded of the music-stool seen dimly through the figure, half-believed the Blue Lady to be an alias of Lord Bancourt. Then, as one by one they realised that what had passed was in very truth a ghost, the guests hushed their laughter, until the babel sank almost into silence. It was in such a lull that Bobby entered.

"Why, what a stony séance!" he exclaimed. "Missing me? or seen a ghost?"

"Yes—so delightful! The Blue Lady actually came," said Lady Silthirsk, who alone seemed totally unruffled.

Bobby laughed, the unforced laugh of healthy youth. ''Oh— ho! I see why you were silent. But you can't green me, thanks: I'm not quite so verdant— oh no, not at all!"

"We have seen it— really," one or two guests hastened to assure him.

Lord Bancourt laughed more heartily than ever. "Why, I believe you've honestly deceived yourselves! This is glorious! You really think you saw the ghost!"

"Who could doubt?" asked a plump dowager, who intended henceforth to adopt a pose intensely spiritual. "What doubt exists, when the great After lifts its veil? Have you ever seen a ghost, Lord Bancourt ?"

Bobby tried to hide his smiles. "I'm afraid— and glad— I haven't. If I did, I should go off my nut, I think, But I don't think I ever shall!"

With these words he moved towards the circle of ghost-seers, and chose, with unerring aim, of all the vacant chairs, that next Elfrida.

Lady Silthirsk beamed contentedly.

"I seem to have missed a lot," said the irrepressible Bobby, as he sat down, and added impudently, "but I hope that I've been missed a lot?"

Elfrida remembered her aunt's warning, but she also fancied (as the self-conscious will) that all the gathering, still somewhat silent, had heard the question, and would hear the answer. She could fancy their scorn at her "scheming tactics."

Bobby looked expectantly towards her,

"It was certainly a unique experience," she said stiffly.

Bobby's face fell.

Lady Silthirsk shrugged her shoulders.

"THERE!" exclaimed the Blue Lady, safe within the Panelled Room, "I knew how your mad scheme would work. You heard: they catcalled, they encored me, asked for some new dance. 'They gave me a round of applause when I went off. I can stay here no longer, to be insulted."

"Always impetuous!" said the Gaunt Baron quietly. "You rushed off after the applause: I waited, and heard what alters the whole question."

"Namely—?" asked the Lady, in ill temper.

"Lord Bancourt did not see you— has never seen a ghost— doesn't believe in them. He said distinctly, 'If I saw one, I should go off my nut,'— this being schoolboy and smart for going mad."

"I begin to see." The Blue Lady brightened visibly.

"Exactly. You must catch him alone— no more of these convivial audiences— and then drive him mad. He is an old friend of Lady Silthirsk, rich and titled— she would not stay here after that. You must wreak your worst on him."

"I can only wail," she answered gloomily; "I have no chains, or blood, or severed head—"

The words inspired the headless Baron.

"Ah," he cried, "I will come and help— to-night. I ought not to show myself out of my own house, but—"

"Oh, what is etiquette in such a crisis? Baron, dear Baron, you have saved me, I am an old-fashioned woman, and at such a time I need a man..."

IT WAS NIGHT. It had, to be precise, been night for several hours, and the whole household was at length tucked up in bed. Sleep had come none too easily to at least three members,— to Elfrida worrying about the real sentiments of Bobby, to Bobby worrying about the real sentiments of Elfrida, and to Lady Silthirsk worrying about the real sentiments of both. The last named, in particular, tossed long upon her sleepless bed. She was puzzled. She could half understand Elfrida's foolish diffidence: she could not understand Bobby's idiotic silence. Why did he not speak? He was not of a sort to be lightly daunted by the fear of a rebuff. Or had she made a false diagnosis? Was he not in love at all?

And at length even she turned over on her side with a contented groan. Sleep reigned over Yewcroft Hall.

But in Bobby's room, far off along the west wing, dark deeds were decidedly afoot. For more than half an hour a headless Knight, clanking horribly in every joint of his dim-gleaming armour, had chased to and fro a blue-clad Lady, who wailed in awful wise and tossed arms of agony to the wall-papered ceiling.

Through all this Lord Bancourt slept smilingly upon his noble bed.

Then the Gaunt Baron consulted with the Blue Lady, and a change of tactics was the result. The armoured figure now rattled round the room, rousing more noise than any antiquated motor, the while a frantic dame pursued him with blood-curdling wails.

Bobby stirred a little, murmured sleepily, turned over, and showed every symptom of having relapsed into even deeper slumber.

The ghosts were in despair.

"Dawn draws on," said the Gaunt Baron suddenly. ''I always knew when I was beaten. Come, sweet dame. A man who can sleep like that will make his mark some day in the House of Lords."

He vanished, and, after one despairing glance, the Blue Lady flung herself angrily through the oaken door.

It was at this moment, by a subtle irony of fate, that Lord Bancourt awoke. The sense of some presence lingered with him, and he sat upright in bed. His sleepy eyes were caught by a blue skirt which vanished from the doorway;  his sleepy mind failed to perceive that the door had not been open.

"Whew!" he said, and lay thinking, thinking deeply—for Lord Bancourt.

He was very young, and, like most young nobles, not inclined to underestimate his own importance. After the first moment of surprise, he felt no doubt as to the wearer of the blue skirt. It was Elfrida. He was rather unobservant as to women's dresses "and all that, you know": but felt fairly certain that she had worn a blue costume at dinner. Yes, it could be no one else. It was almost certainly Elfrida.

Elfrida's iciness was but a cloak. When she had snubbed him by day, she would creep in by night and gaze upon his sleeping, moonlit face! How beautiful!

His heart thrilled at the revelation. He had hesitated, so far, to speak. It would never do for him—Lord Bancourt —to risk refusal by a nobody. His mother, in her long course of tuition, had taught him proper pride. But now

Now, at the first chance, he would throw himself, his rank, his wealth, his everything before the nobody, and feel no fear as to the verdict. To-morrow— to-morrow!

And when to-morrow came, as it does sometimes come despite the proverb, he rose early and went out in the garden. As he had shaved each morning, he had seen Elfrida walking in the grounds below.

He had never dared to join her. Everything, to-day, was different, though the weather was certainly absurdly cold for early rising.

She was there before him, in among the white, hoar-laden, yew walks. She turned at his coming. "You are early this morning, Lord Bancourt."

"Ah," he responded meaningly, '' the early bird catches the first worm." It struck him, for the moment, as a compliment, and rather neat. But he pined for something less indefinite. "Elfrida," he said, going close to her, "I may call you Eifrida?—I could not wait. You encouraged me last night, you gave me hope, and now— I want more. You won't take even that away? I want far more. I want you— I want you to be my wife. Will you, Elfrida? Don't be cruel. I want you to say 'yes'!"

Elfrida's head was in a whirl. She did not know how she had encouraged him. She could remember nothing of last night, except that she had lost a chance—that he had seemed offended. She could not guess at what had changed his attitude. She only knew that what her aunt wanted— above all, what she herself longed for— had somehow come to pass; only knew that her loved one's arms were round her.

She said "Yes."

"SWEET DAME," said the Gaunt Baron, later, in the Panelled Room, "I have been scouting, and, alas! bring evil news. Lord Bancourt took you last night for Elfrida, was encouraged to propose, and is accepted. Lady Silthirsk is delighted, says the wedding shall be here, and she must turn this dear chamber into a dressing-room. She says she will clear out the musty panelling. It is all unfortunate."

"Unfortunate!" wailed the Blue Lady. "It all comes of listening to a man. See what your mad scheme has done!.... Baron, forgive my bitterness,— I am defeated. I told you these mortals had vanquished us. I set out to do a little evil, in the good old way, and see what I have done! I have made everybody happy! Farewell. Yewcroft must know me no more. Farewell, farewell for ever!"

With an abysmal groan she vanished through the panelling. Unless she has found an ancient, empty house, she is perhaps sleeping underneath the hedges.

___________________

8: The Civilizing of Swift Lightning

James Oliver Curwood

1878-1927

Cosmopolitan Dec 1919

THE glorious spring of the Northland, with its bursting life and happy song, had come and gone. Summer was ending.

Marvelously had these two seasons passed over the vast and unmapped regions of wilderness between the Great Slave and the River du Rocher, a thousand miles north of civilization. And now autumn, with its first cool night-breaths, was not far away, and with its approach came a new thrill into the blood of all living things. It was like a tonic coming to rouse them after a long plethora of idleness and overfeeding. And the forests, faintly at first, began to reveal the delicate artistry that very soon would blazon more loudly and with resplendent triumph the presence of September— the Moon in which the deer rub their horns. For even now, with August not entirely gone, patches of gold and yellow began to appear in bolder tints with each passing day amid the green-and-purple masses of forest and swamp. And one night, as they sat under the stars in front of their cabin of logs, Gaston Rouget and his dark-haired Jeanne heard the honk of geese high up over their heads.

And then, suddenly, as if in answer, there came from far away in the forest that reached southward a long and lonely howl. And Gaston's hand sought Jeanne's, and he said, with a bit of awe in his voice:

"It is the wolf-dog, my Jeanne. The summer is almost over now, and very soon he will leave us entirely— and go back forever to the wild. When the wolf-packs begin to run— then he will go. And— tonnére, I am sorry!"

Two miles away, it was Swift Lightning that howled. Only once did he turn his muzzle up to the stars and give voice to his loneliness. Then, alone, he sat at the edge of a yellow bit of plain, and watched and listened, gripped by a thing that was growing heavier upon him as the days of summer came to a close.

It was not that he yearned for the land of the white-wolf packs far north, where he was born, and where he had lived, a mighty leader among those packs. It was not that he yearned for the grim tundras and empty plains of the arctic coast where, twenty dog-generations before, fate had brought Skagen, the great Dane, to give him birth among the wolves. Months of plenitude in the southern forests had made him forget many of these things. Memory no longer recalled to him the days and weeks and months of starvation and fighting for life. In those ways is nature kind to the beast. She does not destroy his memories of what has gone, but softly she puts them to sleep, and dormant they lie until something comes to rouse them to life again— perhaps years afterward.

It was Firefly, his matehood with the beautiful collie, that kept Swift Lightning's memory alive in one certain direction, and made the thing eat inside him like a cancer. One thing lived vividly in his brain, ceaselessly and without slumber, and that was all his experience with man. Whatever had passed between him and man, and between him and Firefly, was night and day his living, pulsing memory of life. This, in a measure, was because, after twenty dog-generations, the blood of Skagen, the great Dane, was running strong in him again. He was a throwback. With the spirit of the dog within him, and nine-tenths of his blood running wild-wolf, he yearned, with Skagen's yearning, for the hand of man and woman and child— yet it was bred in him to believe that they were the deadliest of all the enemies the earth held for him. And therein Firefly, his mate, could not make him understand. And nature was powerless to make him reason.

And now had come the thing that was eating like a sickness inside him. Firefly, a white man's dog, a woman's dog, a dog from the land of little white children, had discovered the cabin of Gaston Rouget and of Jeanne Rouget and of the baby Jeanne, with the bright, shining hair. And at that cabin was Trésor, the giant mastiff, and with Trésor there was Waps, his little Airedale mate; and in that cabin there was laughter and song. And, because of these things, Firefly rejoiced. For she knew what it meant to have a woman's gentle hand stroke her head again, and she lived once more in the laughter and tears of a child's grief and play.

And Swift Lightning, with the wolf-blood in his veins making its last great fight to win him back to utter savagery, did not understand.

ii

IT was man. That was the poison. Man, the anthropoid. Man the destroyer. Man, the all-powerful and the all-feared. Man, the lure. For nature, in placing that riotous, steadily growing drop of dog in Swift Lightning's wolf-blood, had placed him between the devil and the deep sea. Nothing that had ever happened between him and man had Swift Lightning forgotten. For while the wolf in his blood made him dread the man-god and fear him, the spirit of Skagen, the dog, filled him with the yearning for his comradeship. It was that yearning that had taken him to the white men's cabin on the edge of the glacier-slash, where O'Connor, the white man, had fired at him with a rifle. It was this same yearning that had more than once lured him close to man, and always man had met him as an enemy. It was man that had put the hot fire of a bullet into his shoulder, man who had slashed him with a seal-spear, man who had set the horde of ship's dogs on him.

For it was not given to these men to know that Swift Lightning's forefather, many years ago, was born in the kennel of a white man's dog far south. But Gaston Rouget—he had guessed the truth.

And yet— it must be that nature, in some one of her marvelous ways, had made Firefly, the beautiful young collie, understand. For all of this summer, Firefly had worked bravely to bring Swift Lightning to the cabin of Gaston Rouget.

But never had she lured him farther than the edge of the clearing in which the cabin stood. More than once, with tightly drawn breath, the man and the woman had watched, wondering if the miracle would happen and if Swift Lightning would come to them. For in their hearts, because of the wonder of Firefly's matehood, was a love for this great gray beast of the forests.

If Swift Lightning could have known that!

And Firefly could not make him understand. Night after night and day after day, she went to him with Trésor, the big mastiff, and Waps, the Airedale; and together the four wandered in the forests or ran under the moon— but always, at the end, the three went back to the cabin and Swift Lightning remained alone. Many days and many nights he was alone. And in these hours of his aloneness, as the autumn came, the thing inside him ate more viciously at his vitals. Ina last mighty surge, the wolf that was in him rose in fierce demand. And swift Lightning listened to the wolf-howl as he had not listened before; and as the nights grew cooler and the days grew shorter— as the loon cried more shrilly, and the moose began to give their challenges, and the wolf-packs to gather—he stood at last—uncertain of himself— almost ready to yield up all that he ever won.

And to-night he stood in the edge of the little plain, and howled that single howl. Firefly, already on her way to join him, stood still in the deep forest and listened to it; and in the wild note of it was something that drew a whimpering whine from her and stirred within her a new kind of fear, another understanding.

She was alone when she came to him. To-night, she had stolen away from Trésor and his little Airedale mate, and Swift Lightning, when he made sure that they were not behind her, muzzled her neck and whined his gladness.. And then, with his muzzle in her silken coat, his nostrils tasted again the poison that had robbed him of the glorious days they had lived before the big flood and the discovery of Gaston Rouget's cabin. For, that day, the woman had fondled Firefly, and the child had played with her, and Gaston had picked swamp-burrs out of her hair that evening after supper, smoking his strong black pipe.

The poison hung like a deadly incense about her. To Swift Lightning, that man-smell— that stink of tobacco, that odor of human hands— had become the evil of all evils. It was his curse. Not a dog, and yet not a wolf, it had both attracted and repelled him. Many times he had answered its call, and always it had hurt him, or tried to hurt him. And, at the last, it was robbing him of his mate.

In his throat grew a low snarl as he smelled of Firefly's yellow body. It was not that he felt anger toward her. Firefly knew that. It was the cabin. It was the scent that came with her. And she flattened herself out on her belly and watched him anxiously from between her fore paws. For just as Swift Lightning knew that the cabin had made a great change in his mate, so did Firefly sense the impending change in Swift Lightning. For many weeks he had not gone far from the cabin.

Always he could be found when she wanted him. Loyally he had fought the wolf that was in him, that he might be near her. But now, with the cool coming of the autumn, a redder light was growing in his eyes, and he was looking afar. Slowly the thing was impinging itself upon Firefly. She did not reason that it was the cabin and the rivalry of a man and a woman and a child that were driving him back into the savagery of twenty generations of wolf forebears. But the fact that he was going, that, little by little, she was losing this mate who had fought and triumphed and lived for her, became a growing thing within her.

And to-night she was different. For a week she had not played and scampered round Swift Lightning. Yet each night or day she had returned to the cabin and had tried to lure him back. Now, as she watched him looking off into the star-mist, there came to her from a distance the wolf-howl. She saw Swift Lightning's body grow tense, and she whimpered. The rivalry of that distant call struck to het soul, and she wriggled to his feet, still whimpering, and suddenly Swift Lightning relaxed and muzzled her for an instant in the old joyous way, forgetful of the poison of man and cabin.

It was he, and not Firefly, that led the way to-night. And it was away from the cabin. Always, at the far edge of this strip of plain, Firefly had stopped. Farther from the cabin she would not go. But now, when Swift Lightning struck into the country beyond, she followed him. Strangely, Swift Lightning sensed the fact that she was not the old Firefly. There was mystery about her, a mystery that held him, that made him travel slowly, that made him stop when she stopped. And when he saw that she was going with him, away from the cabin, that she was following him where she had refused to follow before, his splendid head went up as in the days of old, when he alone possessed her. And when the wolf-howl came many times in the hours that followed, he paid no heed to it. Frequently Firefly paused to rest, and at the end of the second hour she lay down in the edge of a giant windfall of trees, and Swift Lightning made no further effort to edge her on.

All the rest of that night, Firefly did not move. And the next day she went no farther than the edge of a tiny creek a few yards away, and still farther back in the shelter of the windfall she found herself a place to lie. Swift Lightning was puzzled. He was uneasy. The great mystery thrilled him, and yet he did not fully understand. But the glory of the old days had returned to him. Again he possessed Firefly— alone. The second night, she made no effort to return to the cabin, and this night the wolf-howl might have been a hundred miles away for all the attention Swift Lightning paid to it. Alone he hunted. He brought in two rabbits and laid them at Firefly's feet.

In the gray down of the third day, he returned again from his hunt in the near bush. He was not gone long. But a great change had come under the windfall. And as he went in, his eyes glowing, his body trembling with the thrill of the new thing that came to him, mystery fell away, and a great understanding surged upon him. And from that gray-dawn gloom of her nest, Firefly's eyes glowed at him softly, and there was a joyous, whimpering note in her golden throat— and, in the presence of that miracle under the windfall, he stood for many minutes like a beast carven out of wood.

For Firefly had come into the kingdom of motherhood. And the children she bore were Swift Lightning's children.

iii

UNDER the windfall, Firefly's heart was beating a new and wonderful peal. It was her first motherhood. Every fiber of her was attuned to the glorious thrill of it. And outside— in the soul of the great gray beast who had come into the heritage of his first family— the answer to that thrill was like the vibrating tremor of strange music. For a space, it dazed him. And then he was uneasy. Again and again, in the first hour after his marvelous discovery, he trotted back and forth in front of the windfall. And five times in that hour he went in close to Firefly, and smelled of the tiny, whimpering life which he could not see, and each time when he went forth again his head was higher, and his step quicker, and in his eyes a deeper fire. For, at last, had he come face to face with fatherhood. And that fatherhood meant more to him than it would have meant to a dog, for nature had made the law that a wolf should have but one mate, year in and year out; and to Swift Lightning, monogamous in his matehood, the little creatures under the windfall were flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood, and for them he was ready to fight, ready to give up his life if the call came to that, just as he was ready to fight and die for the mother who had given them birth. Therein, in a moral way, was Swift Lightning, the wolf, greater than the dog.

And it came very soon upon Swift Lightning that this windfall into which Firefly had crept was the P. one sacred place in all the world, a place which must not be desecrated, a place to be defended. It was that first instinct of savagery that possessed him the sixth time he came out from the wonderful nest under the tumbled tree-tops and logs. He went completely round the windfall, not questingly and inquiringly but openly and defiantly. It had become suddenly his property, no matter who or what had inhabited it before, and he was almost eager that something should challenge his sovereignty that he might prove to all living things the absolutism of his empire.

Since that first golden night when he had mated with Firefly long ago, he had not felt quite so ridiculously eager to do something, and at last his energy found a vent in scouring the near-by bush for game, and before the day was fairly under way, he had brought three big rabbits to his mate. This, again, was the wolf in him, and Firefly, though she did not eat, twice thrust out her red tongue to his face in grateful appreciation. A dog herself, unbred in the ways of the wolf, it was still not beyond her to comprehend the devotion and the chivalry of the wolf. And she did not snap and snarl at him, as a mother dog usually snaps and snarls at another dog's intrusion. Each time that Swift Lightning came into the windfall, she welcomed him with her glowing eyes, and her yellow body trembled with pleasure, and in her throat was-always a greeting note of gladness.

And. each time Swift Lightning tried harder and harder to see what was there!

He knew; he had heard the faint little voices, and yet, because of the gloom and Firefly's protecting body, he had not seen. At last he dared to seek gently, and when the cool tip of his nose touched for the first time one of the soft little bits of life snuggling in the warmth of Firefly's hair, he jumped back almost as if he had touched the hot end of an iron. And then, in another irresistible fit of zeal, he went out and hunted until he killed a fourth rabbit, which he added to the untouched offering in Firefly's nest.

Not until late that afternoon did Firefly come out from under the windfall, and then it was only to go to the little creek and drink. She came out again at dusk. All that night, Swift Lightning did not go away from the windfall. The next morning, he began hunting again. The rabbits were so plentiful that it was not difficult for him to kill, and he added two more carcasses to the three already close to the edge of Firefly's nest. Firefly ate one of the fresh rabbits that day. One from five still left four, but if Swift Lightning possessed any knowledge of arithmetic, he did not allow it to interfere with his enthusiasm. Once more his cup of happiness was full to the brim and running over, and, inasmuch as Firefly could not play or run with him, his energy continued to find its chief vent in hunting. Rabbits piled up about Firefly until her bright eyes peered over a barricade of them when Swift Lightning entered the windfall.

And then came the inevitable. An unwholesome odor began to fasten itself upon Firefly's home. It grew steadily stronger until, on the fifth day after the first kill, Swift Lightning came home with another rabbit to find his mate slyly busy in a process of house-cleaning. One after another, Firefly brought out nine rabbits, and each rabbit she covered with leaves and mold at a distance of twenty or thirty yards from the windfall. Then, for the first time, she lay down outside the windfall and ate the freshly killed rabbit which Swift Lightning had brought her.

One day, not so very long after this, Firefly had another home-coming surprise in store for her mate when he returned from the hunt. For out into a pool of warm sunlight Firefly had brought her babies, and there Swift Lightning saw them clearly for the first time, tumbling about the golden body of their mother, a marvelous sight for the eyes of fatherhood. And it must be that his heart swelled with new pride and new joy, and surely Firefly's heart was singing within her, for nature had shown no disappointing favoritism in that family of theirs. There were two little Fireflies, tawny and yellow, and two little Swift Lightnings, silver and gray.

In the splendid days and nights that followed, Firefly had not much time to think of Gaston Rouget's cabin and her friends there, for her children were lively little creatures and their demands were insistent and tireless. In fact, the failing of overindulgence that sometimes comes with first motherhood held Firefly firmly in its grip. The proudest moment in her life was when this. brood waddled after her to the little creek one day, and the proudest moment in Swift Lightning's was when, after long and patient waiting, this same little brood acted like young cannibals every time he brought a rabbit in: They did not eat the flesh, but they had a lot of fun in pulling hair. And during these same days, in the cabin of Gaston Rouget, Firefly and Swift Lightning were given up as gone for all time.

But in Firefly, in spite of her happiness, the lure of "home" was only asleep and not dead. And, after a time; it slowly began to waken, and inside her there grew more and more the desire to take her little family to the cabin in the clearing. For the nights were chilly now. And instinct urged her to find a warmer home for her puppies than the old windfall.

What would have happened soon after that, it is difficult to say. It is probable— but it is useless to conjecture. Many things might have happened. As it was, Fate drove straight home with the final dramatic episode in Swift Lightning's life. To achieve her end, she sent Yootin Wetikoo.

Yootin Wetikoo was neither red nor white. It was not of flesh and blood. It was, in short, the devil-wind. This devil-wind did not come frequently. But when it did come, it was believed that all the devils in the land had gone mad in their desire to disrupt the world. To white men, it was neither a thing of mystery nor of bad spirits. It was the northwest tornado.

This year, even though the month was late September, it was preceded by a veritable inferno of thunder and lightning. Half an hour of that, and the cataclysm broke over the windfall. For a space, the sky was a sea of electrical fire and the earth trembled with the shock of the mighty atmospheric convulsions far up above the forests. Firefly cowered back in her nest, and her puppies snuggled themselves close, whimpering against her body. Swift Lightning, as if to protect his possessions even from the wrath of storm, lay close to the opening out of the windfall, his eyes staring into the night and filled with the lightning's flare. For not more than a quarter of an hour there was a deluge of rain, and then, traveling swiftly, thunder and lightning and rain raced into the east and steadily died away. After it there followed a dead silence, terrible and black. In that silence, Swift Lightning could hear distinctly the sound of the suddenly flooded little rivulet and the dripping of water from the boughs of the trees. And then, from far away, there came faintly a low moaning.

There was no break in that dismal and foreboding sound. It grew slowly and steadily nearer until, at last, the sound of it was like the sound of a waterfall. And then, like an avalanche, it was upon the forest. Swift Lightning could not see, but he could hear, and what he heard was something that had never come to his ears in the fiercest storms that had ever swept over the pole. The path of the tornado was not more than half a mile wide, but, five miles away, Gaston Rouget and Jeanne were listening to the roar of it. In that path there was a snapping and rending of tree. Tall spruce and cedars were torn up by the roots as if they were weeds. Trails were choked. Open spaces were suddenly filled with the débris of ruin and desolation. Now and then, out of the heart of the wind, a giant hand seemed to drive straight down— and, when this happened, anything that was in the path of that hand was swept aside as if by a giant broom. The roar was terrific. It was as if, for a brief space, the world was coming to an end.

From straight over the windfall shot down one of the terrible, destroying spear-thrusts of the tornado. It veered slightly, so that the edge of it, like a mighty knuckle, struck Swift Lightning's side of the windfall. In that explosion of the wind, Swift Lightning felt the crash of logs and tree-tops and débris about him. The edge of the windfall was twisted and torn into pieces, and suddenly there fell upon him out of the blackness a great and crushing weight.

Only twenty feet away, Firefly's nest remained almost undisturbed. In it she shivered, and nuzzled her puppies as the tornado roared overhead and went on. In the trail it had blasted through the forest followed, for a brief interval, another deluge of rain. Half an hour later, the old silence hovered over the stricken timber-land.

In the first of that silence, Firefly heard a strange sound from Swift Lightning. It was not a yelp. It was not a howl. It was not a dog's cry of distress. For Swift Lightning, when it came to bearing pain, was wolf— and in the agony that was upon him now, it was hardly more than a throat-note that he made. But Firefly heard it. She whimpered a reply, and in answer to that whimper came a gasping, moaning sigh. Half a minute later, she had made her way to him through a tangle of débris. He was no longer in the windfall, but in the open. And over him, crushing him into the earth, lay the butt of a tree twice as thick through as a man's body.

In Firefly's slim golden head was the brain of the collie, the brain which, at times, seems almost human, and for hours that night she dug to save the life of her mate. She sensed the nearness of death, and utterly she gave herself up to her task. After storm, the skies cleared. The moon and the stars came out. And still she dug. Her puppies whimpered and called. But she continued to dig. She tore at the earth with teeth and claws until she was exhausted and her feet were raw. But it was impossible for her to save Swift Lightning. His body was crushed. One of his legs was broken. Slowly the life was dying out of him.

In the early dawn, Firefly gave up her task. But in the last extreme one thing always rises up in the vision of the collie dog. It is man. Human help. And, with her last strength, Firefly covered the five miles between the windfall and the cabin of Gaston Rouget, and before the door of the cabin she barked and scratched until both Gaston and Jeanne rolled out of their bed to see what the tumult meant. And what Jeanne and Gaston saw drew a strange cry from each. For Firefly's paws left stains of blood on the cabin
floor. She was panting, and almost ready to drop. But she ran back half-way to the edge of the forest— once— twice— three times— barking for Gaston Rouget to follow her. And, at last, understanding that something of mystery lay out there beyond the edge of the clearing,

Gaston put on his clothes quickly, caught, up his rifle, and followed.

The sun was well up, and the last of life was fading slowly out of Swift Lightning's eyes when a strange vision stood for a moment before him. It was man. And Firefly was with him. And then he could no longer see. But he heard sounds, indistinctly for a time, and, after that, all blackness. And Gaston Rouget, with a broken sapling for a lever, labored with the will of a giant at the great log— and two hours later he returned to the cabin in the clearing with a strange burden in his arms.

After that, Swift Lightning knew that things were happening. His eyes opened. And he saw the wonder of it all. But he was helpless. He could not move. He was paralyzed. Gaston was holding his fore leg straight out on a narrow slab of flat wood, and Jeanne was binding it round and round with long strips of cloth— and he had no strength to snap at them. And they were talking to him, and, when it was done, the woman's hand stroked his head. And just beyond them was the little Jeanne, big-eyed and staring, and at the door, held back by Gaston's command, were Trésor and Waps. Then he was put on a soft blanket in a corner of the cabin, and the man went out, taking Trésor and Waps with him. For a long time he lay there. Frequently the woman came to him and put her hand on him, unafraid, and placed water and fresh meat right under his nose. And after that— a long time afterward— the man returned, and this time there came through the door with him Firefly, his mate, and Firefly, tired as she was, jumped up excitedly about a big basket which he carried. This basket, Gaston opened, and from it, one by one, he drew out Swift Lightning's two little sons and two little daughters and put them down on the blanket beside him. And Swift Lightning, overcome by the miracle of it, closed his eyes and sighed.

That sigh was the sigh of Skagen, the great Dane. For, after twenty years, the spirit of the white man's dog had come into its own, and the beginning of the revelation was upon Swift Lightning— the beginning of his dream come true. For never after this need he fear the scent or the touch of the white man's hand. And Gaston, answering the question on Jeanne's lips, shrugged his shoulders and laughed softly.

"Yes; he will live, ma chérie. It will be many weeks before he runs again, and he will run always with a limp— but he will live. And when that time comes, he will not go very far away again. Non. There is dog in his eyes. And he will love you. Not me, Gaston Rouget, big and black and hairy, but you, my Jeanne. Oui; he will love you— par dessus la téte— or I miss my guess. See— he is looking at you now! Is it not so? Do you not see the dog shining there? I think he has come home— after a long time. And I tell you that he will never again go very far away."

_______________________

9: The Petermen of Providence

Henry Leverage

1885-1931

Cosmopolitan, May 1919

IT was raining in Providence when Spalding took the high ground of the M. T. & K. tracks for a twelve-mile walk to a junction where a train could be taken for parts unknown without leaving a clue for the powers that ruled or a scent for human blood-hounds whom, he had certain reasons to believe, would be un- leashed on his trail.

He had been thoughtful enough to burn in his grate at home a collection of pamphlets dealing with California and the Golden West, where he was not going. Their ashes could be read by a correspondence-school sleuth. Also, his actions in checking a suitcase for Denver and taking the limited for the same city were within the possibility of discovery. The clue was snapped, however, outside the yard-limits, where he swung from the smoker and circled the town, facing the east and all that it might hold for a fugitive and a fool.

The spruce ties on the M. T. & K. Railroad are mathematically spaced to encourage the passenger revenue or to develop a lock-step. Spalding could span two by running, and this is what he would have done had not his wind been severely tested by the detour he had made round the town of Providence.

The rain thinned to a drizzle, to a mist, then came down in showers from a blanketed cloud that obscured the moon, and rolled on and on from out the east in endless billows of discomfort. Spalding shivered, and turned and-glanced back over his shoulders, then smiled bitterly. The jig was up, and he cared more than his heart would allow him to admit.

She— (he plunged onward) at the thought— she would know in the morning. They would gather up the threads of his other life and learn of the other women he didn't care a rain-drop for, and throw them all at her— the wife— in the manner of people in small towns. The kid would grow up and forget his father until the reminder came. The kid! Spalding's eyes filled. He paused, half turned, then went on, head down, cursing a sentiment which had already begun to take root and grow.

A mile-post shone white ahead, where the shining rails lifted out of the low fog. He stumbled over one of the M. T. & K. ties and rolled down an ash-and-cinder embankment that his breath sucked through dry, parched lips. He turned and scrutinized the faces about and around him with awakened interest. They were as hard and as scarred as the bunch of burglarious tools at their feet. A thrill and a warmth crept through him. He turned with a lifting hope and gulped the cool night air as a draft of nectar.

"Perhaps— who knows?" he said to himself. have happened, but never before to me."

"Give us th' office, bo," husked the leader in his ear; "the shortest cut to the jug. Yon's th' semaphore, an' th' station's this side, ain't it?"

Spalding nodded slowly, his head in a whirl. He recalled a siding at the yard-limits. He thrust out his hand as they rattled over the first switch. The hand-car coasted, lost momentum, and then came to a grinding stop.

"All out!" shouted the leader of the trio. "Get 'er off th' track. This burg is dead, boys. Pick up your tools an' we'll follow Mack's friend. He knows th' road— or he ought to."

Big Scar, Alibi Pete, and Glycerin Jimmy, as they were known in the underworld and to the police of a score of cities, leaped to the ground and lifted the car bodily from the M. T. & K. rails and set it in a clearing by a switch-shack. Canada Mack had long planned the bank-job, and had promised the trio a leader sufficiently stocked with information and knowledge of the situation to insure success. All the arrangements had been made by mail with Canada Mack, and Spalding came up to the trio's expectations. He brought to mind a type of box-man who carries his tools in a golf-bag, who talks little, and who is usually in the habit of working alone. The Providence job, Mack had explained, was beyond one man and "mob-work," and the lone star would be waiting at Mile-post Fifty-six for reinforcements and tools.

The First National Bank of Providence stands with its Corinthian front in the heart of a rural business and farming section. At the rear looms a low shed, where country patrons hitch their horses while their notes are shaved in the changing-temple of Mammon. Thither Spalding led the trio as unerringly as an Apache to a bottle. The tools were spread on the straw without sound.

Big Scar peered out and husked:

"Now, bo; give us the lay. Mack writes it's a tough kiester, but that th' rest is some cheese. Where's th' watchman?"

"Upstairs," lipped Spalding, his teeth clicking from doubt and fear.

"Wot?"

"Sure,"

"Stranger things," whispered Spalding. "I told Mack— Canada Mack. Also, if you want to know, the third window from here in the back isn't wired. You can climb in that way. The others are; so lookout. There's a stair there, and it leads to the janitor's room. Don't kill him; he's got a family down South somewhere."

"Cut it, kid," growled Big Scar. "Can th' soft stuff. Th' trouble wid youse kid-glove kids is culture., What we wants is th' information— th' layout. Give us facts; we'll do th' rest— we lives on facts an' information."

Spalding stuttered as he unfolded a maze of details— details only one long on the job could supply. Big Scar nodded now and then in appreciation, his face growing livid from pent excitement. Spalding wound up by pulling from an inner pocket the cashier's twenty-sixth annual statement, showing that there ought to be eighty-five thousand, seven hundred- odd dollars in the vault of the First National Bank of Providence at that very moment.

"That'll do," barked Big Scar. ''That's enough for us to winter with an' buy th' missus some coal. Now, James, up you go—th' third window, mind. Sap th' Hoosier watchman, an' sit on his chest an' stay there. Mind you—stay there. Whistle when you got him sapped, an' we'll follow."

"Ain't yer a-goin' to post a lighthouse?" inquired the yegg, drawing a gun and eying the third window homicidally.

"Naw," growled Big Scar; "'this burg's dead. We could take th' jail an' th' town hall an' th' fire department, an' nobody would. rumble on a night like this."

A half-hour later, the orbed moon broke through the clouds and peered. through the First National's windows and hid her face for shame. 'The great double door of the vault had been ripped apart from hinge to dial under the combined assaults of two vultures who had finished the meat and were picking the skeleton clean with sectional jimmies. Big-Scar paused as the way stood clear and wiped the powdered fireproofing from his sweltering brow. .

"Th' bigger they are," he explained to Spalding, "th' easier they fall."

With this aphorism, he dived into the interior, and Spalding watched, holding himself together with difficulty.

"Wot's this?" the yegg roared, stepping out and holding up a bleeding fist to Spalding. ''Wot's this, I'd like to know? Say, Pete— it's a cannon-ball— a double-dial, gun-breeched cannon- ball wot can't be opened—wot's never been opened. We're done for. I thought it wuz a box-kiester."

Alibi Pete let out a wail that could be heard to the stars. He glared at Spalding homicidally. Glycerin Jimmy incautiously left the trussed watchman and peered over the head of the stairs to add his clenched fist to the collection.

"Easy, men," said Spalding. "I'd 'a' told you, but I thought that you would quit on me— and Canada Mack. I'll open the kiester. What do you think that Mack sent me for, anyhow? I've opened more boxes than any one of you. See that soft plug in the big door?" Spalding's finger was accusing. "Why didn't you drill there? I let you do all that work, because you amused me. No danger Burns will take this for an inside job, eh?  Look at the mess you have made."

Big Scar let his eyes roam over the littered floor and blushed. His eyes shifted back showered after him with friendly clamminess. He rose and retrieved his hat, and drew one foot out of the mud and the water that stretched for all the world like an ocean behind him. At a sound, he glanced up and stiffened to rigidity. A hand-car on wheels of velvet glided above and stopped. Three faces peered down on him— hard, straight-browed faces that chilled along his spine as ice.

"The glim wuz 'ere," one rasped. "It's him. I seed him duck."

"It's him," husked another. ''They're always duckin'— curse the game! A jug to-night an' another to-morrow. Soup, dinny, and nitro. I've got a headache mixin' th' stuff, an' nothin' but stickers an' white money. Call this new guy. Wot's th' office?"

"The First National," laughed a third. "Come up, bo! We're Canada Mack's friends out of Chi. He said Mile-post Fifty-six, an' here we is."

Spalding smiled wearily. Three detectives, on a hand-car, posing as bank-burglars, was a ghastly joke for a getaway. There was no possible escape. He climbed the embankment and stood facing them. He lighted a cigarette with fingers of steel. He held out the tiny flame to each face in succession, and then blew the match out, and said, in the same exaltation:

"Here I am, boys! I'm ready to go."

"Right-o! Come on!" shouted the largest and the leader of the trio. "It'll be crackin' dawn in two hours, an' there's plenty to do. Jump on the car, bo! Now, boys; all together— up an' down, down an' up. Watch the tools, Pete."

Spalding found himself lifted to the car, and soon they were flying down the track toward Providence. He lighted a second cigarette, shielding the match with his cap and thinking deeply. He could leap, and be deep in the gloom before they could stop. He half braced himself for the attempt when his foot touched a metallic object. He bent and peered down between the flying handles, and saw an assortment of tools varied and powerful enough to rip the armor from a battle-cruiser— drills and braces, a plate with a slot and set screws, a Brobdingnagian "can-opener'' with an assortment of handles, a box swaddled in cotton-waste with protruding fuses, a rude bundle of tapered and graduated wedges, a half-score of sectional jimmies.

"Go on, kid," he snarled; "open that kiester— that cannon- ball— an' you kin have my end of the swag. It can't be done. There ain't no way to get in th' soup."

"If it's a Lion I can," answered Spalding. "I can open a Lion or a Monarch every morning for breakfast."

"It's a Lion," snarled the yegg, "a double-dial, triple-lever, screw-locked Lion wid its jaw tight shut."

"Out of the way, please!'' said Spalding, taking off his coat. "When I give you the word, pass in some liquid dynamite and a detonator— about a cupful."

Big Scar glared at his two companions, then wilted over an apron-plate that was designed to pull a spindle from a safe like a radish from a truck garden. Spalding had already entered the vault as the big yegg husked,

"Pete, serve the gentleman a cup of soup and a string; he's going to blast."

"He sure is!"' exclaimed Pete, in derision.

Again the moon peered from the clouds and shone through the windows of the First National Bank of Providence. A man worked over a circular door and its combination— the riddle of the underworld and the despair of all box-men. When he had finished, a thin line of oil rimmed a junction no wedge could have entered. A fuse sputtered on a hinge, with its cap over the suture. Spalding backed out, and the detonation and the roar that followed would have lifted the lid from Cotopaxi. The door shot through the plate-glass window, to catapult across the street and penetrate a brick wall, and kept on going. Spalding staggered through the acrid mist to the window at the rear of the bank office. He saw Big Scar and Alibi Pete crawl over a tool-littered floor with sacks in their teeth, for all the world like bull-dogs after their prey. They pounced into the smoking vault Spalding marked the scene of destruction and desolation, and then, after lighting a cigarette, smiled enigmatically. Afterward, he threw one leg over the window-sill and dropped to the ground.

A little later, the trio joined him at the shed, ducking from out the rain. They all waited, counting the minutes. Five passed, ten; Providence slept on, wrapped in blissful ignorance of the events of the night.

"Well," laughed Big Scar, replacing his gun, "they won't hear Gabriel's horn, either. This here's some burg."

"The finest on the line,"' said Spalding, with pride. "I happen to live here."

"S—o!" gasped Big Scar, regarding Spalding curiously. "So you live here? Then it's no wonder Canada Mack picked you out for the job. An' you're th' only heavy man that ever took a cannon-ball to my knowledge. Put it here!"

They shook hands, and Spalding winced in a grip that was meant to be friendly.

He led the way through the sleeping town, toward the outskirts and the waiting hand-car. Then he paused, placed his finger up to his lips for silence, and led them down through a wet, grassy lane that brought up to a vine-clad cottage in the heart of some dripping poplars and elms. They circled the cottage in Indian file. Spalding drew out a key and opened a kitchen door. He motioned for silence as he tiptoed, followed by the trio, into a cozy dining-room. They found chairs around a damasked table, where he set out a bottle and glasses, after thrusting into his pocket a sealed and addressed envelop he had taken from the centerpiece.

"'Here's to success!'' he said, holding out a glass.

"To crime!" chimed in the yeggs, smacking their lips and reaching in unison for the bottle.

Big Scar, after a cautious glance around, stood up and dumped on the table-cloth a bundle of burned and scorched notes from a bag he had carried. Alibi Pete added a mound of gold and silver. The count began with Glycerin Jimmy keeping tab on the white damask with the stub of a badly bitten pencil. The last coin clinked.

"Eleven thousand, five hundred an' seventy-one, an' a plugged quarter," announced the yegg. "Eleven! I thought it wuz more."

"Seventy-odd thousand short," husked Big Scar sadly. 'We got all there wuz, men; you kin frisk me. Them National Bank reports is like jewel-robberies—exaggerated— Wot wuz that?"

The three yeggs turned as one and glared down a hallway. Alert as three quick cats, each drew a gun. A woman had called from the head of the stairway. They all had: heard one word:

"Paul!"

"Yes, May," Spalding had answered, with a gesture to the trio for silence; 'yes, May— what is it?"

"Is it you? I thought you—" They hung on her words. "Oh, I had such a dream! Come to me, Paul. Come up to me. Don't go away. It's almost morning."

Spalding turned and motioned for them to remain. The three saw him disappear through the portiéres. When he returned, there was a light in his eyes that they did not understand— a soft luster and a lift that was not the man's whom they had met at Mile-post Fifty-six. They arose uneasily.

" 'Here's your end of th' bit," said Big Scar, thrusting out a pile of paper and gold. '"We're going; it's crackin' dawn. But I'll say this fer all ov us: Quit th' skirt an' we'll follow you through hell. Any man what can soup a cannon-ball—"

Spalding smiled and, shaking his head, pressed back the money, saying:

"Take it to Canada Mack in Chicago with my compliments. It wouldn't do to have it around here, would it? I'm going to stay right here in town—with her." Spalding pointed upwards.

"That's right," was the answer delivered in chorus. "We'll blow, though. Do we see you in Chi?"

"Ask Mack— Canada Mack." Spalding's voice had taken on new strength as he led them to the kitchen door.

He shook hands with each, and each heard, above the rain-drops on the mansard roof of the cottage, a woman's lullaby interluded with an awakened infant's protest. They filed through the dripping elms, then turned and glanced back. On the bedroom shade they saw the silhouette of two forms locked in embrace, and a child tugging at its father's coat tails for recognition.

They found the hand-car as if by instinct and placed it on the track; then, with a last glance around, they manned the handles for the fabled land of Getaway.

It was pearl dawn when the car flashed by Mile-post Fifty-six. Glycerin Jimmy, who was looking ahead, threw on the brake as a figure sprang from the track to wave his hand and shout. The car slid to a grinding halt, and one came running up, familiar to all.

"Canada Mack!"

"What to!" he sputtered. "What to! I've been hangin' round all th' morning. Our gay cat was pinched in Toledo yesterday, an' all bets are off. I drops off a rattler to tell yez, an' yer wasn't here. Th' Providence job is held over fer a while. Where you've been?"

It was some time before Big Scar answered, and his voice had taken on considerable thought.

"We," he husked, "have been helping a cashier of a national bank who wuz seventy thousand-odd short save himself. He sent you his end ov th' bit— ov what wuz left. Here 'tis."'

"An inside job, eh?" queried Canada Mack.

"Well, not so Burns could notice." Big Scar answered almost reverently. "That cashier ought to be able to begin life right over again. If I wuz in his place, I sure would."

___________________

10: Westward, How!

Guy Gilpatric

1896-1950

Cosmopolitan, April 1929

THE nights were growing cold and foggy. The cactus plants beside the Corniche Road turned brown and sear. The beggars moved from the steps of the Bourges Cathedral to the oil-stove in the vestibule. The iron tables vanished from the Paris boulevards, and in cafés where yesternight Americans had held high wassail and wailed about high prices the waiters stood disconsolate and flicked futile napkins. Autumn had come.

The birds were flying south. The Americans were going home.

Across all Europe the mighty crusade was headed Westward— austere, now, and slightly headachy, souls ascetic but systems hyper-acid. They were suffering with the monumental hangover of a three-months' binge. And so they had thrown away their corkscrews, signed the pledge, taken the veil, cut out the stuff, climbed on the water wagon... They were going home to prohibition and to God's country. In the vanguard were the Tuttles.

The blue-smocked porters had piled the bags on the racks overhead, and stood waiting with their hands out. Mr. Tuttle gave them twenty francs apiece and settled into a seat.

"Well," he sighed, unbuttoning his overcoat and nodding out at the sooty gloom of the Gare Saint-Lazare, "so this was Paris!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Tuttle, "I'll say it was! I'll be glad to get aboard the ship and catch up on some sleep."

"So will I, but I bet this train will be an hour late getting to Havre. These French boat trains are terrible."

"It'll give us all the more time to grab a nap, then," suggested his wife. "I hope they don't go putting anybody else in this compartment with us."

"If anybody comes I'll tell them the places are all taken. Let's spread our things around a bit and make it look more crowded." There was room for six in the compartment, which extended across the car and opened on the narrow side aisle.

They put their overcoats on the unoccupied seats; Mr. Tuttle dragged down the largest valise and set it in the doorway.

"There now," he said, "that ought to keep 'em out. What we've got to do on this home trip is just stick quietly by our selves and rest up. I'm all in."

"So am I."

"I guess we both are. Here we started out to take a trip for our health, and all we've done is sit up all night and learn how to say 'Here's lookin' at you!' in nineteen European languages.

"Yes, and don't forget the Algerian."

"Oh, yes, the Algerian! Say, will you ever forget the Davidsons in Algiers? That was a good crowd on the boat coming over—"

"Yes, they were all good congenial people. But we're going to stick by ourselves on this home trip, Arthur. No more parties. We'll just lay around on deck all day and go to bed early.

"That's my idea exactly— just lay around in the deck chairs. I'll slip the deck steward something to put us up on the top deck somewhere."

"That will be fine, Arthur. Right on deck in the sun."

"Yes, I want to get a good sunburn to show up at the office with, instead of this alcohol tan."

"Well, we'll just stick by ourselves and not talk to anybody. Oh, look, Arthur, there's the conductor. I guess we're going to start."

"Well, good-by, Paris!" said Mr. Tuttle, as the train slid away from the platform. "Wake me up when we're getting near at Havre, will you?"

The train was clicking through the yards when a large lady and a large gentleman paused outside in the passage. Mr. Tuttle opened his eyes and regarded them coldly. "Toot lay seats are occupay, mussyeer," he said.

"Toot lay seats are like hell occupay," returned the large gentleman, producing his tickets. "Je sweeze American, mussyeer, but je ne sweeze par a hick!"

"Oh!" said Mr. Tuttle. "Pardon me, brother, I didn't know you were an American. Come right in and welcome. It was just that we didn't want any French people horning in here and eating snails and garlic."

"Sure! I don't blame you! That's quite all right, sir! Come on in, Martha. Howdy-do, ma'am"— this to Mrs. Tuttle. The Tuttles moved their coats, and the newcomers sat down. The large gentleman noticed the emblem on Mr. Tuttle's lapel, and made a sign. They both laughed and shook hands.

"Well, well, well!" shouted the large gentleman. "What do you know about that, Martha, here's another brother! Bowlby's my name, brother— Jefferson D. Bowlby, Wichita Falls."

"I'm Arthur Tuttle of Scranton, Peeay."

"Well now, Mrs. Tuttle, shake hands with Mrs. Bowlby," and Mr. Bowlby introduced the wives amid much laughter.

Tuttle brought out cigars. "Light up your cigarets, ladies," he said. "We don't object to cigaret smoke, do we, Bowlby?"

"I'm glad to hear it,'' said Mrs. Bowlby. "I'm just dying for a smoke. Here, dear, here, do have one of mine." She extended a case made of platinum and ornamented with an elephant in diamonds.

"Oh, what a lovely case!"' exclaimed Mrs. Tuttle.

"Yes, it is kind of cute, isn't it? Jeff bought it for me in Paris. He paid a couple of million francs or something for it— anyway it came to twelve hundred dollars in money. Jeff says the elephant looks like me but I say it looks more like him." They both laughed.

"Your husband is a great kidder, I can see that."

"Oh, yes, he's just full of fun. He's kidding all the time. He's always the life of everything. He gives himself too freely, if you know what I mean. In fact, that's really why we had to take this trip. You see, poor Jeff had to go to so many dinners and meetings and conventions and things last winter that he was simply all shot. A wreck, if you know what I mean. That's really why we came abroad, to rest up, if you know what I mean."

Bowlby grinned and poked Tuttle in the ribs. "Well, say, Art, what do you know about that? Here she's accusing me of buying this snake-oil when she knows I swore off last night."

"Oh, have you sworn off too? So have I."

"Yes—well, that is, not exactly sworn off, but I'm going to cut it away down."

"That's funny," exclaimed Mrs. Tuttle in surprise. "So did we! Did it work out with you?"

"Well, yes and no. You see, there was a pretty live crowd on the boat coming over and of course they made Jeff master of ceremonies at the ship's concert and auctioneer of the auction pool, and all that sort of thing. Then in Rome we bumped into the I. A. C. C.— that's the International Agricultural Chemical Convention; Jeff's in fertilizer— and of course Jeff knew pretty near all the American delegates, so we had quite a time. Oh, quite a time! After that we went to Monte Carlo, and of course you know what a wild place that is. And then at Nice the Hotel Ruhl was just filled with everybody who'd come over on the boat, so every night it was like sort of an Old Home Week. Jeff said he froze three fingers holding high-balls. From there we went up to Paris and— well, as I always say, there's only one Paris

"Yes, you're right, there's only one Paris. And that's just about the way it went with us. We're all in, too."

"So are we. But we're going to rest up on the ship. Jeff says we won't talk to a soul— just lay around and get sunburned and healthy."

"Exactly what Mr. Tuttle and I were saying when you came in! Do you hear that, Arthur? Mr. and Mrs. Bowlby are going to take it easy on the trip home, too."

"You bet we are, sister!" declared Mr. Bowlby. "No more late parties for us! We're not going to talk to a soul—just get our deck chairs off in some sunny corner and—"

"Oh— why, that's fine!" said Mr. Tuttle. "You have your chairs put next to ours up on the top deck and we'll just have a quiet little foursome together. What do you say?"

"Gee, that'll be fine. No hanging around in the bar, breathing that smoky air."

"Nope! And we'll hit the old hay along about ten o'clock every night, because that salt air sure does make you sleepy!"

The restaurant-car steward came to the door with luncheon tickets.

"Shucks!" said Mr. Bowlby. "I didn't know there would be a diner on this train. I bought a lunch basket on the platform."

"Well, take the tickets anyway, Jeff,"  said Mrs Bowlby. "We can eat a snack out of the basket now, the four of us, and have lunch later. It's only quarter to eleven."

Mr. Bowlby lifted the basket down from the rack. "Why, look, Martha!" he exclaimed. "He put in a bottle of coneyac besides the bottles of wine!''

Mrs. Bowlby tossed her head. "Yes, he put in a bottle of coneyac because you told him to, Jeff Bowlby! I saw all the high signs and winking and monkey business when you were talking to that Frenchman."

Bowlby grinned and poked Tuttle in the ribs. "Well, say, Art, what do you know about that?  She's accusing me of buying this snake-oil when she knows I swore off last night."

"Oh, you have sworn off too?  So have I."

"Yes— well, that is, not exactly sworn off, but I'm going to cut it way down."

"Same here. Of course I don't mean to say I ever abused liquor or anything like that. It's only that on this home trip I decided to cut 'way down."

"That's my idea exactly. Say, suppose we just take a little snort, sort of a farewell to France, hey? Maybe we'll feel more like eating lunch. You girls blot up some of that wine, why don't you?"

"Wah!" said Mr. Tuttle, coming up for air and pushing his liver back into place, "That stuff's got mule-shoes in it!"

"It sure puts hair on your chest!" agreed Mr. Bowlby.

"Yes, and then puts permanent waves in it!' said Mr. Tuttle.

" 'Permanent waves in it'— ha, ha! Did you hear that, Martha? Wait till I just jot that down, Tuttle! That's a good line, Arthur! Ha, ha— I can use that in a speech or something."

"Yeh... Puts permanent waves in it," repeated Mr. Tuttle, smiling to himself.

When luncheon was announced they had almost finished the bottle.

"Well, last day in France— guess it won't do us any harm."

"Of course not! And then, as I always say, it's really the smoky air in bar-rooms and the late hours that do you more harm than the liquor. Well—here's jumpin' on your grave!"

They had champagne with luncheon, and afterward a liqueur, They were just about to return to the compartment when the boy brought them a round of cognacs.

"Noo n'avons par ordered ça," said Mr. Tuttle severely.

"It is with the compliments of the gentleman back there," said the boy in English.

"Oh!" translated Mrs. Tuttle. "He's trying to tell us that somebody's buying us a drink."

Mr. Tuttle peered along the row of tables. "Well, well, well, look who's here!" he exclaimed, leaning into the aisle and waving his napkin. "Old Ed MacQuade and Annabelle, from the boat coming over! How's the boy, Ed— here's lookin' at you, Anna!"

Mrs. Bowlby pricked up her ears. "Ed and Anna MacQuade? Why, we know them, Jeff; of course we do! Don't you remember that night in the Negresco Bar?"

"Oh—why, sure!" said Mr. Bowlby. "Hello there, folks!" He raised his arms above his head and shook hands with himself. "Say; if Ed and Anna are sailing, I bet the Dunns will be along too."

"The Dunns?" said Mrs. Tuttle. "Oh, why, we know Al and Jane Dunn! Jane's Ed's sister. They're from Council Bluffs."

"Yes, that's right, Cedar Rapids," said Mr. Bowlby. "They're cousins or something. Well, to think we'd bump into so many congenial people! It's great!"

"It's fine!" agreed Mr. Tuttle. "Hey, gassong— take a round of the same to the Mussyeer back there, and let's have another one here... No, no— please, Jeff, please— you fixed up for the last one. Yes, just a nice little congenial group— you know, not unwieldy, just our own little party."

"That's just what I say. We can stick together quietly and not mix with anybody. We can just lay around on deck, I mean."

"Sure. Get sunburned. That's the life!"

"Well," said Mr. Tuttle, picking up his glass, " 'Salud y Pesetas!' as the Spaniards say. That's their lingo for 'Health and Wealth!"

"Is that so?" said Mr. Bowlby. "Say, that makes a nice toast, doesn't it— the sentiment, I  mean. Just let me jot that down."

He was shaking his fountain pen on a Frenchman across the aisle when two ruddy gentlemen came in.

"Well, what do you know!" exclaimed one of them. '"Here's Jeff Bowlby! Howdy, Jeff, and bless you, Martha! And look, look, Leo—here's Art and Dot Tuttle! Like being in Rome again, eh, Art? eh, Dot?"

"It's a small world!" said Leo. "Say, folks,  there's the Kemps down there, too. Bonjoor,  Bessie! Bon jorno, Edgar! Ha, ha!"

"Where are the girls?" inquired Mr. Bowlby.

"Oh, they're back in the car with the Tomlinsons— sure, you remember the Tomlinsons. We had lunch out of baskets, but we came in here to see if we couldn't scare up a snort of something. We're all swearing off tonight."

The MacQuades were coming the aisle.

"Who said a snort of something?" called MacQuade. "Come on back to my place, everybody— oh, sure, of course we know the  Kemps; met 'em in Rome— no, Venice. Come on back, everybody; I've got something to remember France by!"

They filed through the train, and as many possible crowded into the MacQuade's compartment. The rest lined up in the aisle.

There were four bottles of 1865 cognac

"Come on, folks— let's kill 'em dead!" invited MacQuade. "I'm not going to touch a drop on the boat— just going to rest up and get healthy on the way home!"

"Exactly what we're going to do!" said Mr. Kemp. "Just going to stick by ourselves and not mix— that is, of course, except with our own little crowd."

"Great idea!" said Tomlinson. "Just our own little gang. We know two couples who are motoring down that are perfect peaches. Well," waving his glass toward the spires of Rouen, " 'Lafayette, we were here!' "

"Gosh, that's clever!" laughed Mr. Bowlby, "I'm going to jot that down."

"Yes, it's gonta be a top-notch trip,"  Dunn was saying. "It'll be nice and quiet mean. Just us frew fends— friends— together."

"Just what I was telling old Jeff Bowlby," said Mr. Tuttle. "We're all going to get good and rested.  It will do us the world of good."

_______________

11: Lady Dick

Arthur Somers Roche

1883-1935

Cosmopolitan Dec 1933

"AND IN CONCLUSION, ladies and gentlemen of this vast assemblage and all you millions of listeners-in, I wish to make a brief statement. My own son, Peter B. Ellsworth, was kidnaped the day before yesterday. His body-guard was assaulted and my son was taken. I have received communications from the kidnapers. They ask one hundred thousand dollars for the return of my son, and they threaten his death if I communicate with the press or the public or the police.

"This is my answer to them: I hereby offer one hundred thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the kidnapers. More than that: I offer one hundred thousand dollars for the capture of those kidnapers, dead or alive. For the return of my son I will pay an additional one hundred thousand dollars to any person not criminally associated with the kidnapers. But to those criminals who have invaded the sanctity of my home, who have violently made a prisoner of my son, I offer nothing. My son would not have me do otherwise."

"Station WEAG, International Broadcasting Company. You have been listening to the mass meeting in Madison Square Garden, called by the governor of the state of New York as protest against the carnival of crime now going on in this city and state. You have just heard Marston Ellsworth deliver a... "

Sheila Gray reached over and turned the radio button. She lighted a cigaret and leaned back, tilting her swivel chair. The posture exposed the fact that her legs were long and slim and round, and that the upper part of her body was as well modeled as the rest.

"Tough baby, that Marston Ellsworth," she said. Her voice was slightly husky, and somehow seemed to match the smokiness of her skin just below her violet eyes. But that was perhaps a fancy in the mind of the man who stared at her, and he happened to adore her.

"I'll say!" said that fanciful man. "He just offered dough for someone to do a killing. There's a law against that and—"

"Fudge," said Sheila Gray. "And I'd use a rougher word if I weren't afraid of shocking you. Law." She laughed. "The people have got beyond the law. When a government can't protect decent citizens, the citizens protect themselves, and if someone gets hurt—too bad. One hundred thousand, eh? Two hundred thousand, Britt. I could buy a lot of silk stockings with that."

Britt stirred uneasily in the chair on the opposite side of the flat desk. He was a heavy, thickset man, whose clean shave only accentuated the blue-black heaviness of his beard. He wore a double-breasted blue jacket and common-sense shoes. He was obviously a police-man in mufti, or a private detective in the regulation costume of his craft.

"You got enough silk stockings, Miss Gray," he said.

"I thought you'd been noticing," said the girl dryly. She smoothed, with delicate fingers, the almost transparent covering of her right calf. "But no girl ever had enough of them, Britt. Peter B. Ellsworth, eh? And two hundred grand. Spartan old hero, isn't he? Not a cent to the kidnapers. Sounded as though he'd go through with it, too. I'd like to meet that son of his. Chip off the old block, I take it. 'My son would not have me do otherwise.'" Her voice was suddenly heavy, not merely husky, as she imitated the last words of Marston Ellsworth. . "It must be great," she went on, "to know that your son, your own child, is as game and righteous as you are yourself. Old Ellsworth must be proud of that boy. And the boy must be proud of the father."

"Yeah? That's because the old man isn't hep to young Peter. Righteous? You gimme a laugh. There isn't a hot spot on Broadway that lad doesn't know. Why, head waiters was invented so's to grab yard notes from him. You know— the kind of a lad that's playing the traps along about three a.m. It's a five-letter word and begins with L. That's Peter B."

"Oh-ho," said Sheila Gray softly. "Then maybe if Peter B. hears about his old man's speech he won't feel so good, eh?"

"If I know him—and I've seen him around plenty," said Britt, "'he's on his knees right now, begging: the snatch lads to lay off. Oh, maybe he ain't yellow, but he ain't like his father. That's the hell of getting married. You produce a lot of kids and they may be all right, but you don't know. They look like aces to you when they're nothing but deuces— and wild, at that."

"That why you stayed single, Britt?"

Amazingly, Britt blushed. Crimson ran across his forehead, down his wide cheeks, down his bull throat. "You know why I'm staying single, Miss Gray," he said.

Impulsively the girl patted his rough, gnarled hand. "You're a peach, Britt. But you'd better forget it."

Britt cleared his throat. He looked down at the hand she had patted. "Sure, sure, Miss Gray. I'm an old fathead, and don't I know it? Well, as we was saying—what was we saying?"

The girl giggled. "We were talking, when romance diverted you, of the Ellsworth kidnaping."

Reluctantly Britt grinned. "You know, you got a way with you. If I had any sense at all, would I walk out on you! Me mooning for a gal twenty-odd years younger. Why, when I was knocking around the ring I had sense enough to quit. I knew that if I kept taking it I'd wind up on my heels. And here I am blatting out every so often— I get the razz from all the lads as it is. I belted over Smug Myers only yesterday. He puts a hand on his hip and does a twisty walk and talks soprano, and says, 'Oh, it's Mrs. Britt, the bold detecatiff what works for Miss Sheila Gray, the other detecatiff,' and he'd have gone on for an hour if I hadn't clipped him.

"I get the razz from everybody because I'm working for a dame-dick. And then I have to razz myself because I'm sap enough to think that a girl like you— Well, say, Miss Sheila"— he became suddenly business-like— "that Lacy matter is all cleaned up. Like you said, it was one of the buyers fixing up his accounts so it looked like stuff was stolen that was never delivered. Old man Lacy himself give me a pat on the back. You got that account for as long as you want it."

"How nice!" said the girl mockingly. "Twenty-five hundred a year and ten percent off what I buy at Lacy's. And two hundred grand for young Ellsworth and the gang that took him. Haven't you any ambition, Britt?"

"Sure. Don't I look at you and— say, I'm going to cut this out, Miss Gray. 'Scuse me. Two hundred grand, eh? And you'd like a shot at it. Who wouldn't? It musta been a slick job. I suppose the papers will have all the details, now that old Ellsworth spilled it over the air. I'd like to know how they got rid of Mike Donaldson. I thought he was plenty tough."

"Who's Donaldson?" she asked.

"One of the Gerndorff men. Used to be a riot-squad squad copper. I've seen him around lately with young Ellsworth. So—" He shrugged.

"Must have been the bodyguard, eh?"

"Sure. Swell job, too. Night clubs, theaters, parties—everywhere that Peter B. went, Donaldson seemed to go, too. Soft! But he couldn't have been slugged too hard, either. I saw him this afternoon, big as life, with a chicken from the Giggle Club, up at the ball game."

"Did he make that kind of money? I mean, does a bodyguard get enough. to take girls from night clubs—"

Britt smiled wisely. "A stand-in with him might lead to a stand-in with Peter B. Get it?"

She frowned. "That would have been all right, three days ago. But if young Ellsworth was kidnaped yesterday— day before— and Donaldson was out with a girl today—"

"He probably didn't tell her his job was snatched," said Britt dryly.

"Maybe not. But don't you think it's funny? I mean, with young Peter stolen only two days ago."

"The old man probably fired him— quick," said Britt. "So why wouldn't he take a dame out to the game?"

"But the Gerndorffs— they'd have other work for him, wouldn't they?"

Britt shrugged. "You got plenty work for me, Miss Gray, but I went to the game today. So what?"

"I don't know," said the girl slowly. "Only, I'd like to see that chicken from the Giggle Club. How'd you like to beau me round tonight, Britt?"

Britt placed two ham-like hands on his knees. "I'd like that, all right, if I knew what was in your mind."

"Maybe I'm wondering how well you dance."

He shook his head slowly. "That ain't it," he said. "I dance like I walk— sure, but heavy. You'd know that."

"Maybe the girl at the Giggle Club wouldn't mind," she said. She smiled mischievously at him. "Probably she's no older than I am. Perhaps she's younger. I'd like to see you— work— on a young girl. I might admire your methods. It might make me— well, you know. I'm used to seeing you around—old Phineas Britt, my faithful ally. But suppose I saw you as a romantic devil, rushing a night-club girl."

I DON'T WANT to be your husband," said Britt heavily. "I want to be your father— and knock hell outa you for being fresh to your old man." He lighted a very thick, very black, very cheap cigar. "You got hunches, Miss Sheila. What's this one?"

"Nothing much. Except that I think it's funny that Mike Donaldson, Peter Ellsworth's bodyguard, should be beauing a hot-spot baby around two days after the lad is kidnaped."

"Maybe he's working on the case. Why, sure, that's it!" cried Britt. "Maybe she's got some dope."

"And if we got that dope, maybe we'd get the two hundred grand. And wouldn't that buy you lots of three-two, Britt? What time will you pick me up?"

IT WAS quite obvious to the least observing of the guests and employees at the Giggle Club that the middle-aged man and the young girl were not natives of New York. It was also obvious that their relationship was not loverly, nor marital, nor paternal and filial. They might be an uncle and a niece from Des Moines out sight-seeing. A manufacturer—probably of farm machinery—and the daughter of an old friend. That was it.

And was he bored with her, and was she bored with him! Bob Merkle, proprietor of the night club, spoke from the side of his mouth to Danny Martin, one of those useful young men to be found at such places as the Giggle Club.:

"Strut your stuff, kid. That old buck looks like a big check. But he ain't having himself a time. And the gal isn't. Not a murmur at thirty bucks for cider with a champagne label. Go and ask her to dance. And, if I ain't crazy, the old boy is giving Myrtle Tenney the eye. I'll smoke her up for him. Times is hard, Danny."

Young Danny Martin, with that ease of manner which passes for good breeding in certain places, stopped at the table where sat Sheila Gray and Phineas Britt.

"I wonder if I might introduce myself and beg the pleasure of a dance," he said. "It's perfectly all right. I— I'm employed by the management to dance, and I thought perhaps— If I intrude, I'm sorry."

The girl looked at her companion. "Why, Uncle John, would you mind? I'd love—"

"Why, certainly not, Ruthie my dear," beamed Britt. He stuck out a big paw. "Don't dance myself. Mighty friendly of the management to send you over. Even if I did dance—I used to do the quadrille and the polka, but I guess them things has gone out—it wouldn't be much fun for my niece to dance with her uncle. Name's Willerton. My niece is Ruth Dorman."

Young Danny Martin shook the beefy hand extended. "I'm Dan Martin. Pleased to meetcha." He turned to the girl, and they floated off on the tide of music.

Bob Merkle strolled over to the table where Britt sat alone. "Everything all right, sir?"

Britt stared at him; he winked cautiously. "A man can't have such a helluva time with his niece along, can he?"

Merkle grinned. "A man might come alone," he said.

"Or a man might come back after he took his niece home," said Britt.

Merkle's grin grew broader. "Such things happen."

"I like that redhead," said Britt.

"Lots of people do," said Merkle.

"Friendly?" asked Britt.

Merkle shrugged. "Well, you know how that is."

"I might be back about one-thirty or so," said Britt.

"The redhead might be here," said Merkle.

"Send some champagne to the orchestra," said Britt.

"The redhead will be here," said Merkle.

Danny Martin returned Sheila to the table. She thanked him prettily.

"It was a pleasure," said Martin gallantly. "Hope you'll let me come back and dance again."

"Oh, I'd love it!" said Sheila enthusiastically.

Britt coughed artificially. 'Well, well, Ruthie, that will be nice. But not tonight, I'm afraid. Your uncle has some pretty important business on in the morning. Time I moseyed back to the hotel. Sorry, Ruthie. But there'll be other nights."

The struggle between duty and desire was plainly waged on the girl's pretty face. Duty won.

"Yes, uncle," she said. She smiled coyly at Danny Martin. For a moment the young man dreamed dreams. He'd always thought he'd like a girl from the sticks, something unspoiled and lovely, with violet eyes and hair of softest brown. Then the dream vanished. Why, he'd go nuts away from Broadway! And these soft, unspoiled dames couldn't stand for Broadway.

"I'll look forward to seeing you again," he said.

Merkle himself escorted the departing couple to the door. He beamed on Danny as he returned to the restaurant. "Stood for a three-hundred-and-ten-dollar check without a squawk. Small-towner on a big time. Coming back. Wants Myrtle Tenney. He ought to be good for a couple hundred more. Nice work, Danny. You started him."

BRITT'S VOICE was expressionless as he spoke to his employer. "Four hundred and ninety bucks to the Giggle Club. A century note to the Tenney dame. Five-ninety."

"Was she worth it, Britt?" asked the girl. Beneath the sly malice in her tone he reddened.

"Listen, I took her home. And I was a shy old bozo from Des Moines. You know, a kiss is a lot. I got that. But I just didn't understand what else she was. driving at. I give her the hundred because I was a rich old guy and she was a sweet young thing doing her best to get along."

"I think you're crazy— or a liar," giggled the girl.

"I know you're crazy," said Britt. "Five-ninety on nothing but a hunch. And if your hunch come out right—what of it? We'd have to call in the bulls, and they'd knock off all the reward."

"Let's cry about the way they gypped us when the occasion arises," said Sheila. "Well, if five-ninety didn't buy her fair young body, what did it buy?"

"She lives alone. At least, she did last night. Loose talker. Gabbed about the radio speech old Ellsworth pulled last night. Knew the lad. Donaldson introduced him. Nice apartment. I mean, someone's spent dough on her at one time or another. Apologized for not having a maid, and the piano cost twelve hundred. Upsy-daisy and downsy-daisy. Downsy now. But bragged. Had a row. with her sweetie because he is tight with the dough. But he's going to get a big piece of change in a few days. Then got scared—thought she'd talked too. much. Donaldson is her sweetie. Does it add up?"

"What do you think?" asked the girl.

"I think," said Britt, "maybe you aren't as goofy as I thought. I got a line on Donaldson this morning."

"More than the papers tell?"

Britt nodded. "They think he's phony down at Headquarters, but he sticks to his story. He was walking along Sixty-seventh Street with young Peter when something hit him. He's got a bruise on the back of his head to prove it, too. If he sits tight— and maybe he's telling the truth."

"Maybe," said Sheila. "What else about the girl?"

"They're putting on a new show at the Giggle Club. She rehearses this afternoon. I've got a key to her place."

Sheila hummed. "Friendly as that, eh? And still you say you didn't—"

"Had some wax with me. Got the key made while you were still in bed, dreaming of two hundred grand."

"Anything else?'

"Pictures of men around the place. Didn't know them. Keeps her correspondence in what she calls a strong box. If you wore long hair and used  hairpins you could open it, if you could find a hairpin."

"Ooh, humorous, eh? Give me that key."

"Going up there?" asked Britt.

"It seems probable," she smiled.

"Don't do it before three. I'll be in the neighborhood, just in case." He rose lumberingly. "I'll take a stroll. I might run into one of the boys from downtown and hear more about Donaldson."

The door closed behind him, and she turned again to the newspaper accounts' of last evening's mass meeting.

Leaders in business, finance, politics and the church had spoken in protest against the rule of the gangster. But Marston Ellsworth's dramatic climax to his speech had stolen the headlines. All the newspapers said that if the country possessed more men like old Ellsworth, racketeering would cease in a week.

She put the papers down and busied herself with routine office work. She paid some personal bills and grimaced as she looked at her checking balance. Gray, Incorporated, wasn't doing so well. Perhaps she was mad to think that she could ever make money as a private investigator. A living, maybe, but who wanted a living? Not Sheila Gray. She wanted luxury, the kind of luxury she'd had through all of her twenty-four save the last three.

She could make, if she got a few more accounts like that of Lacy's Big Store, five or six thousand a year for herself, after paying Britt and the office expenses. But that didn't mean trips abroad, a town car... And business firms, banks, insurance companies—these would ignore a woman detective unless she did something spectacular, something that proved her equality, as an investigator, with any man alive.

But five hundred and ninety dollars, on the flimsiest of hunches... The telephone rang.

"Gray, Incorporated?"

"Yes."

"Accident Hospital. We have a patient who wants to speak to you. Just a moment."

The faint color that was always in her cheeks disappeared as she waited. The instinct that Britt called "hunch" (that was always with her, that had made her when, as a popular debutante, she was suddenly confronted with the necessity of earning her living, adopt the career of detection) told her what was coming.

"Miss Sheila? This is Britt. Slugged as I left your office. Just came to. Doc says I mustn't talk, but I got to. Didn't see the guy. But you can guess the answer. Watch yourself, girl."

"Anything I can do?" she asked

"Sure. Hire some guy that ain't dumb. Still, if my skull wasn't thick, I'd be dead now. Get a bodyguard from downtown. You will, won't you?"

"Of course I will," she assured him.

"And I'll be over as soon as I can."

"With a cop," he insisted.

"With a cop," she agreed.

With a cop. Even good old Phineas Britt thought she wasn't able to protect herself; worked for her, but had no idea who tapped the till in the delicatessen.

With a cop. But it meant more, this fear of Britt's, than that he thought her incompetent to tackle the big things. It meant that, by hunch or luck or instinct, she had stumbled on the truth. Why was Britt slugged? Because the girl from the Giggle Club had learned who and what he was. That meant that the kidnapers were alarmed. Britt was put out of the way because it was believed he had learned something from Myrtle Tenney.

She looked at the key Britt had given her. Bodyguard, eh? She laughed. She adjusted her hat and applied the least bit of powder to the tip of her nose. Then she left the office, locking the door behind her. She took the elevator to the ground floor. As the last passenger left the car, she spoke to the operator.

"Take me to the basement, Jimmy."

The boy raised his eyebrows, slammed the door and the car dropped. He shook his head as she offered him a bill.

"Just a job, Miss Gray. I tell you, I got it in me to be a swell dick. I've tried plenty places, but they won't gimme a chance. If you ever got an opening... What are you doing now, Miss Gray? On a case? Is there someone in the lobby?"

"You get me out the side entrance, the door the firemen use. There'll be a job, Jimmy."

"Oke," he said.

Men who worked in the heating plant of the great building stared at her. Probably some curious dame who wanted to see furnaces. You never knew what goofy ideas dames got nowadays. But she was pretty, so the man who ran the freight elevator took her up to the Forty-third Street sidewalk. On Forty-second Street danger might lurk, but who would expect her on Forty-third?

Pedestrians stared as the iron trap in the sidewalk opened and the figure of a fashionably dressed girl rose slowly into sight. Then she stepped into a taxi.

IF Britt had been slugged in the street, it was certain that her own apartment was being watched. She glanced at her watch. It wouldn't be safe to enter Myrtle Tenney's apartment until three. It was now eleven-thirty. So she went to a picture, lunched, and shortly after three entered the Tenney apartment.

She smiled as she drew a hairpin from her purse and attacked the little strong box in the living room. Letters, canceled checks, receipts, some snapshots.

"Me ten years old." "Mummy." "Daddy."

Mementos, these pictures, of a time when Broadway hot spots had not entered the consciousness of the little hoofer of the Giggle Club. Taken in the country, too. Probably her folks had cows and chickens. How many times, during the recent years, had the little redhead wished she were back on the farm! Dreams of success, of fame, of easy money, of romance, had pulled the redhead from the farm to Broadway. But what could pull her back from Broadway to the farm? Nothing. That was the tragedy of the hot-spot girls. They never went back; they only— most of them— went down.

Sheila pursed her lips. Britt was right. She had been in the money, this Tenney girl, in her day. A letter from Dayton Trout. Not warm, but not too cool, either. Trout would pay plenty for that letter some day, when he settled down and married a nice girl. A photo of Sam Davenant inscribed lovingly. Too bad, Sam! You'll pay for that when Myrtle is hard up.

She closed the strong box and looked around the living room. Nothing there. She went into the bedroom. Nothing there. She even looked in the bath, in the tiny kitchenette. Nothing there.

But because Phineas Britt had spent a few hours with the girl, he had been knocked unconscious this morning, had escaped death by the thickness of his skull. Not because someone was jealous, either. Broadway didn't get jealous of Myrtle Tenneys. But because Britt was a detective, and Myrtle was a friend of Mike Donaldson, and Mike Donaldson was Peter B. Ellsworth's bodyguard, and Donaldson had boasted to Myrtle that he'd be in the money shortly.

The figures were there, but the addition was difficult. She clenched her fists. There was an answer, and it might well be in this room. She started, as the telephone bell rang, then she took the receiver off the hook.

"Hello," she said.

"Listen, you dumb little tramp," said a voice. "Are you so hungry for dimes that you can't wait a couple of days for dollars? You took a dick home with you last night. A dick!"

"I didn't know," she said. She made her voice tearful, frightened. "Merkle told me to be nice, and—"

"And you listen to a bird like Merkle when you're in line for real sugar. You listen some more. You go out with no one. Do you hear? Not a soul. Or you'll get what we gave Britt this morning. Britt! You thought he was Jones or Oglethorpe or whatever the hell he said his name was, but he was Britt. And he works for a dame named Gray that thinks she's a detective. If she comes around, let me know."

There was a click as he hung up. Her simulated fright had imposed on the man; he had not doubted her identity.

Nor did she doubt his. Oh, maybe if she hadn't seen his letter two minutes ago recognition of his voice would not have come to her. But she had seen his letter, and she did recognize his voice.

Dayton Trout! The man jocularly known as the Big Fish of Broadway.

Well, why not? Who knew anything about Trout? True, he went to the big parties on Park Avenue and Long Island, but—everyone went to them. No one ever asked, any more, where anyone came from or what he did.

Dayton Trout. She'd met him dozens of times, in a casual way. Trout and young Ellsworth, she vaguely remembered, ran around together. And now Trout was involved in Peter's kidnaping. It didn't make good sense, somehow.

But, sense or not, it was all she had to go on. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Trout had kidnaped his friend. Where would he take him?

She left the Tenney girl's apartment. It might be dangerous to remain there longer. She must do her thinking somewhere else. On a bench on the west side of Central Park she sat down. Inspiration came to her at length. Trout had not discovered in their talk that she was not Myrtle Tenney. He might be deceived again. She walked to a drug store and looked up his telephone number. He answered immediately.

"This is Myrtle," she whimpered. "I'm scared. A man's been watching my place."

"Is he there now?" asked Trout.

"No," she whined. "He went off and I ducked out and I'm phoning from a drug store. But I'm afraid to go back. Where'll I go?"

Trout cursed fluently. "Listen," he said, "are you sure you're not followed?"

"I'm sure," she said.

"Then take the subway downtown. Go to the Penn Station and take a train to Long Island. Go right to my place."

"Will you be there?" she asked.

"What the hell do you care where I'll be? No, of course I won't. I'm staying in town, where the cops can find me if they should happen to think of me. But the boys will be there. You get out there and keep your nerve till you get there. There's nothing to be afraid of, It will all be settled in a few hours now."

"Is the old man giving in?" asked Sheila. "I thought he said—"

"To hell with what he said. He'll give in. We've been in touch with him already. Scram."

She hung up. So— old Ellsworth was a bluff, after all. He'd pay the ransom, and—Sheila couldn't collect the reward. Why, of course. The radio speech was the old man's way of notifying the kidnapers that he'd meet their demands.

Or maybe Trout was lying. Maybe old Ellsworth wasn't going to give up. Of course he wasn't! Trout was trying to settle the fears of a nervous girl.

But he had told Myrtle Tenney to go to his Long Island place. He said the "boys" were there. And it was a hundred to one that where the "boys" were, young Peter B. Ellsworth would also be.

What a place to hide the victim! Trout's place on the water front at Pine Point. Access by water, by land— by air.

She left the drug store, hailed a taxi asked to be driven to Roosevelt Field.

TOMMY BLANCHARD was tinkering with the engine of his amphibian when she arrived at the aviation field. "Well, if it isn't the girl detective," he greeted her, "After me? Am I accused of stealing spark plugs, or flying too low or what?"

"You're not accused of being humorous, Tommy," she said.

He groaned. "How can I be funny when the girl I want prefers looking for corpses to looking for love?"

"You do love me, don't you, Tommy?"

"Are you about to give in— or do you want something?" he asked warily.

She laughed. "I want something."

"Name it."

"Tommy, I may be an utter damn idiot, and I may be the smartest detective in the country. Will you help me find out?"

He stared at her. "And then what? Suppose you turn out to be an utter damn idiot? I wouldn't like that."

"Yes, you would. If I'm that, I— I'll give up my work and—marry you. Thus proving," she grinned, "that I'm really an idiot." 5:

"Well, what do you want?"

She told him.

"But you are an idiot. If you think you're right, get the police."

"I want the reward myself. All of it. And if I'm wrong, I don't want to be laughed at. Well?"

He summoned his mechanics. "Hop in," he said.

THE FOUR MEN on the veranda of the pretty white house on the shore stared at the plane overhead. They rose and dashed down to the beach as the careening machine swooped, righted itself and alighted safely, though clumsily, on the water. They launched a small boat as smoke came from the plane and two figures were seen to dive into the water. Three minutes later, they were accepting the thanks of the rescued aviator and his passenger, a remarkably pretty girl.

"Hell, what did you expect us to do, let you drown?" said one of the men. "I guess we better give you dry clothes."

He led the way up the beach to the house. From the house came a voice.

"Are you bringing them in here?"

The men stopped short. They looked at one another, then at their guests.

"Get inside, you— Shut up!" cried the man who had offered the dry clothes.

"No," said Sheila, loudly but sweetly. "Come out, Mr. Ellsworth."

OLD MARSTON Ellsworth looked the girl over. "Go on," he said. "You decided my son was held at Dayton Trout's. You were afraid that if you brought police you'd not get the reward. You were afraid if you went without police you'd not get in. So you had your aviator friend pretend a semi-crash, a fire in the plane. You thought that even kidnapers would rescue you; that you might get into the house. But you haven't told me how you, a girl, and one man overpowered my son's captors."

"Can you take it, Mr. Ellsworth?" asked Sheila.

The old man looked puzzled. Then he nodded grimly. "I can take it."

"As we went up the beach a voice called from the house. Tommy Blanchard stopped short. He recognized the voice. And I guessed what his stopping short meant. And I put all the pieces together at once— the bodyguard, Donaldson, being put out of business so easily; the kidnaper being one of your son's best friends. You haven't been too generous to your son, have you?"

"He's squandered a fortune," said the old man. "I shut down on him two months ago."

"And he needed money and pretended to be kidnaped in order to extract money from you. He was going to divide with his friends. He wasn't a prisoner; he was a hide-away. That's all. And those men with him, while they were gangsters, while they had nearly killed my assistant, Britt— they didn't dare attack Blanchard and me on that beach, with boats passing. They fled, Mr. Ellsworth. But your son— I made him come home with me."

"Home? For a son who would deceive, who would extort money from his own father? I have no home for him."

"I thought you'd feel that way," said the girl. "A man who would refuse to treat with kidnapers, who'd let his son be killed, for all he knew— well, maybe it's admirable. I think it's cruel. I also think it's cruel to give a boy unlimited money and expect him to behave. And then, when he doesn't behave, and has formed expensive habits, to shut down on him. It may be admirable, but I think it's wicked. You brought him up foolishly. You pampered him. Then, when he has been made weak, you are angry because he isn't strong.

"Don't despise him. Despise yourself for the kind of father you've been. Then, when you're a good father, you may expect a good son. But if—"

The man glowered her into silence.

"Can we keep this out of the papers?"

She nodded. "I found him in a deserted shack in the woods of Long Island. I overheard two men talking. They escaped, but I found the boy. It doesn't make much of a detective out of me, but— private detectives should not want glory. They should want results. I'd like to be the agency to protect the Ellsworth interests."

"I shouldn't wonder if your agency got that job," said Ellsworth. "And my other interest— my son. He used to be a good boy. He might make a good man if a smart woman—"

She shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm not having any. Now, if his father made me an honorable proposal—"

Beneath shaggy brows he glared at her. "Don't flirt with me, young woman. I might just take you up."

"Imagine my surprise!" she giggled. "No, we'll let it be strictly business between us. One hundred thousand was the amount, I believe. Make the check Payable to 'Gray, Incorporated.' And don't be too harsh with Peter."

She folded the check and beamed on him.

"I'll be expecting a contract for the agency. I think ten thousand a year is a fair retainer, don't you?"

He nodded slowly. A game old boy, thought Sheila. His son proved rotten, and— he hadn't whimpered much.

Outside the Ellsworth house, Blanchard waited. "Couldn't take you to a minister, could I?" he asked.

"But I wasn't a damn idiot, Tommy," she giggled. "No, take me to the Accident Hospital. I want to show Britt this check."

_________________

12: Road House

Arthur Somers Roche

Cosmopolitan, Feb 1934

SHEILA GRAY entered the inner office of Gray, Incorporated. January's brisk air had heightened the color in her smooth cheeks; that, and Tommy Blanchard's last words to her.

"A wood violet, Sheila, that's what you make me think of; something shy and lovely— and always wear something to match the violet of your eyes, will you?"

All the way down from the restaurant where they had lunched to her office the motors on Fifth Avenue had seemed to purr, "Wood violet, wood violet."

Silly, of course. She couldn't possibly take Tommy Blanchard seriously. Oh, he wanted marriage and all that, but— her career! Still, to be a hard-boiled private detective and yet able to inspire, in so unsentimental a lad as Tommy, such a tender compliment! To be what Headquarters officials termed a "lady dick," and yet to be able to feel in her veins a warm stirring...

The office door swung behind her. Sentimental musings swung behind her, too. She tossed her mink coat over a chair, placed her jaunty hat on a hook and sat down at her desk. She stared with cool eyes, from which all mistiness had now vanished, at the stolid, substantial, unromantic figure of Phineas Britt, her adoring assistant.

"You look," she said, "as if you had just swallowed a canary, Britt. A canary flanked with tips of asparagus and washed down with a flagon of Madeira. Do you know, Britt, I think that in a previous incarnation you were a gouty old English squire?"

"God forbid!" said Britt. "All Galway would turn over in its grave if it heard you say that. Me English? Erin slanthagal go bragh and down with the Sassenach! I suppose," he went on, his voice suddenly high and affected, "you've been out wining and dining with your society friends."

"Oh, absolutely. You notice I'm in evening dress?"

"Well, lunching, then," he growled. "To a plain man like me, that's used to his dinner at twelve noon sharp—"

"Corned beef and cabbage, Britt?" she inquired.

"And why not?" he demanded. "Victuals like them made me what I am."

"But not today," she protested. "I'm sure it was a canary. Britt, you have a look of complacency about you. And you're never critical of me unless you're certain of your own virtue. What have you been doing?"

"I've not been gallivanting during office hours," he said.

She shook her head solemnly. "I'm sure you haven't. Come on, Britt, out with it. While I've been neglecting business, you've been— what?"

He shrugged; he yawned elaborately. "Oh, nothing much," he answered. "Just picked up a trifle of business. Just a matter of a little retainer of five thousand dollars. I don't suppose that means much to Miss Sheila Gray, but it means plenty to Phineas Britt, who keeps the books and watches the expenses."

She pursed a pair of lovely lips. Some day, thought Britt, he'd go out of his mind when she did that. He'd lean over and kiss her— and it would be Close-the-door-quietly-when-you-leave-Mr.-Britt. He wondered, in the moment of madness inspired by the sudden fullness of those red lips, whether Tommy Blanchard, or any of those other beaux who courted her so assiduously, ever won a kiss from her. Then madness left him, as it always did.

"Five thousand, eh? And who dropped that in your lap?"

From a wallet Britt produced a slip of paper. He unfolded it. "Mary Davenant," he said. "Wife of Theodore Davenant. Wheat Exchange Bank. It's good."

The girl's violet eyes narrowed. "And what does Mrs. Davenant want from us that's worth five thousand dollars?" she asked.

"More than that. This is a retainer. Five more when the job is done."

"What job? What kind of job?" she asked.

"A cinch. Mrs. Davenant wants a divorce. Her husband won't give it to her. So she wants us to get the goods on him.. And there's a doll in the floor-show out at Millefleurs, on the Merrick Road, that gets more of his time than she rates. So Mrs. Davenant wants us to get her the evidence that will give her a divorce."

"And pays a five-thousand-dollar retainer?" asked Sheila incredulously. "She could get that evidence from a dozen detective agencies for five hundred."

"Sure," grinned Britt. "But it wouldn't be Gray, Incorporated, that would stand behind the evidence. Get the point? If a wife or a husband fights a divorce in this state, the judge takes a hard squint at the dick that takes the stand. If the divorce is uncontested, the judge may think collusion but may not say it. But if it's fought, the judge will not only think frame-up but is liable to say it. Mrs. Davenant isn't paying five grand for evidence— she can get that easy enough; she's paying for the reputation of the witnesses. When Gray, Incorporated, takes the stand, the evidence is honest. You see, we're honest. The whole town knows that. I tell you, Miss Sheila, honesty pays."

"So does decency!" she blazed. Her violet eyes were scornful as she looked at him. "Britt, what made you think we'd take such a foul case? Did you imagine that I'd snoop around bedrooms for anyone?"

Britt looked bewildered. "Any other agency would jump at it, Miss Sheila. Five grand! Maybe it ain't— sweet-smelling, but you don't have to do the work. I'll do it, and—"

"Gray, Incorporated, will take its place alongside the shyster agencies. No, thank you, Britt. Mail that check to Mrs. Davenant. And now I'm going to phone Mr. Davenant."

"You're going to what? You can't do a thing like that, Miss Sheila. You mean, tip him off? Why, that's against all the ethics—"

"Ethics?" Sheila grinned. "Britt, you old darling, you wouldn't recognize an ethic if it laid its fluffy head on the pillow beside you. If Mary Davenant is trying to put something over on old Ted, no principle of our alleged profession is going to prevent me from giving the old boy warning. Britt, I've known Ted Davenant all my life. He was one of my father's dearest friends. His wife died five or six years ago. And while he was in despair, in misery, that five-letter woman that's married to him now grabbed him.

"Old Ted had a brainstorm, and he's paid for it. She's led him a life of hell. For two years she's had a brazen affair with the Marquis de Mansignac, as notorious a gigolo as Paris ever produced. Why, Ted could have divorced her a dozen times over."

"Well, why doesn't he?" asked Britt.

"Because he has pride; too much pride to permit his name to be dragged through a divorce court; too much pride to blacken the name of the woman he married."

"Then why not let her get a quiet divorce in Reno?"

"Because she wouldn't be satisfied with a mere divorce. She wants five million dollars. Five millions to squander on her gigolo. These are hard times, Britt. Davenant employs three hundred men. He's kept them at work all through the depression. For him to raise five millions would mean selling his business at a tremendous loss— risking the loss of employment of those faithful workers— all to the end that a gigolo may buy polo ponies. He's offered her a million, and she won't have it. She undoubtedly thinks that if she catches him in a flagrant affair, she can get more than a million. But she won't. Ill warn him. Bless his heart; if he has a girl I'm all for him!"

She reached for the telephone. Britt sighed. His employer was too much for him. Rigid with regard to her own personal standards, she was broad-minded in ways that bewildered Britt. But Britt, as Sheila had once pointed out to him, comprehended morals but had no understanding of the decencies.

She asked for a number, was connected, asked for Theodore Davenant, gave her name, listened a moment, uttered an incoherent cry and hung up.

"What'sa matter?" asked Britt anxiously.

"Davenant is dead," she whispered.

"But if he's dead, then why did his wife—"

"She didn't know it," said Sheila. "Happened an hour ago. He'd been lunching at the Textile Club. He was walking back to his office when a taxi hit him. Killed instantly. I want to cry, Britt."

Britt essayed a clumsy sympathy. "Aw, it's a swell way to die if a guy's gotta go, Miss Sheila. I mean, no lingering or worrying."

She touched her eyes with a bit of linen. "I know. His death— that's all right. And he wouldn't have been afraid. But to realize that for five years he's gone through hell! To know that almost at the moment he went out that woman was planning to blackmail him into giving up—"

She stopped abruptly. Her violet eyes lost their tragic expression, became hard, brilliant. Now, her slim body tense, her full lips compressed into a thin straight line, her achievements in the world of private detection were understandable. Those friends of hers who were inclined to scoff, and to maintain that Britt must be the force that energized the machine of Gray, Incorporated, would have known better had they seen her now.

"Funny, isn't it, Britt? Mrs. Davenant pays a ridiculously high retainer to us. You say that is because our reputation is spotless. Maybe. But suppose Davenant's death isn't accidental; suppose she wanted evidence that she wasn't contemplating anything but a divorce action?"

"What are you driving at? That the taxi man deliberately bumped him off?"

Sheila laughed. "I guess I'm crazy. Only— I despise that woman, and I loved Ted. His secretary said it was an accident. Probably it was. But—"

She paused, as Britt reached for the telephone. In routine matters Britt knew his way around.

"Inspector Cartigan," he said. Then, in a moment, "Dan? This is Phineas Britt. Gimme the dope on Davenant's death: Have you got the taxi man?"

"Sure we have. What's on your mind, Britt? We was just about to turn the lad loose. He couldn't help it. Davenant turned back from the sidewalk, that he'd just reached, without warning. The lad couldn't stop his car. A couple of witnesses testified it was unavoidable. Acourse, we looked the driver up. Name is Jacob Madison. No record. But if you got something—" He paused expectantly.

"Not a thing, Dan," said Britt. "It's just that Miss Gray was a great friend of Davenant and wanted to know all about it. That's all."

In a moment he hung up and turned to the girl. "It was an accident. Couple of witnesses, and the driver is a good lad. Name of Jacob Madison. Well, I'll mail Mrs. Davenant her check."

"Keep it awhile," Sheila told him.

Britt stared. "What for?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Just a feeling. How'd you like to take me out to Millefleurs tonight?"

"What's the idea?"

"When a pretty girl asks you to take her to a road house, what does the idea matter? I can get someone else."

"You know I'll take you," he said.

IN THE SUMMER, when tables were scattered on the porch and flowers bloomed in the adjoining gardens, Millefleurs might have been attractive enough, but in January, it was a dull place. Tony Timotti, once of the bomb squad with the rank of sergeant, and now proprietor of the road house, apologized to his old friend Phineas Britt and the charming girl whom Britt escorted.

"You shoulda come here on a Saturday night," he said. "Middle of the week— not so hot."

"I shouldn't think it would pay to keep open," said Sheila.

"Well, I breaka even in the winter and mak'a plent' in the summer. You like the show?"

"Not bad," said Britt.

"Why do you have only seven girls?" asked Sheila. "It sort of mixes up their numbers, doesn't it?"

Timotti frowned. "There shoulda be eight. One of them she gotta seeck last week. She's gone to veesit her mother out in Wheeling. She won't get back till tomorrow. And then the numbers won't be right, because one of the other girls she quits tomorrow night."

"You ought to be able to get plenty of girls these times," said Britt.

Timotti shook his head. "Not so easy. I can't pay much— twenty a week in the winter. Not so easy to get a pretty girl who can dance well for that money."

"It isn't easy to live on twenty— unless you have a friend," suggested Sheila.

Timotti spread his hands. "Girls weeth friends get jobs in town in the winter. And they can't get new friends out here thees time of year. Who comes, except on Saturday nights? Life, she is very hard for the young girl trying to get along. That's the worst of thees depression— the Johns are very scarce. Would you believe, not one of my girls has a real John!"

"Sure I would," said Britt. "There ain't one of them rates a spender."

"No? You should see the Kirk girl— the one that has been away." Delicately he plucked a kiss from his pursed lips and tossed it in the air.

"Good as that, eh?" said Britt.

"Better," said Timotti. "Almost— not quite— as lovely as Mees Gray." He beamed with Latin fervor on Britt's companion. "You will come again?"

"We'd love it," said Sheila.

"Well, what about that feeling now?" asked Britt, as they motored back to town. "Which one of those dolls do you think Davenant had on the string?"

She shook her head. "None of them. Perhaps the girl who was away. Somehow, I hate to think that Ted Davenant was chasing floor-show babies. I'm just as glad I didn't see the missing beauty. Let's forget it. Mail Mrs. Davenant her check in the morning."

THEODORE DAVENANT

KILLED BY TAXI

The headlines screamed at her as she propped the paper against the coffeepot. Poor old Ted! The depression had hit him harder than the gossip among his friends had indicated. No wonder he hadn't given his wife the settlement she had demanded. He had been returning, so the paper said, from a meeting of his creditors held at the Textile Club. He hadn't been lunching, as his secretary had told Sheila yesterday. But according to the paper, even his closest associates had not been aware that Davenant was on the brink of bankruptcy.

Although (the newspaper account said) Mr. Davenant was able to assure his creditors that Davenant and Company was solvent, he was under great strain as he left the Textile Club. According to two witnesses and the testimony of Jacob Madison, the taxicab driver, Mr. Davenant crossed the street, stepped on the sidewalk, then turned suddenly back. He had given no warning of his intention, and Madison could not stop his machine. The taxi driver was held several hours and was then permitted by the police to depart. Police officials said the young man had no criminal record, and communication with the authorities in his home town of Wheeling, West Virginia, had brought information that his record there was exemplary.

Wheeling! Sheila's eyes narrowed. The Kirk girl— the girl Timotti said was so beautiful— came from Wheeling. Was it a coincidence, or was there a connection there? Sheila read the rest of the story. There was another item at the very end. He had been insured for one million dollars, a fortnight earlier. The policy had been made payable to his wife.

Sheila leaned back on her pillows. A million-dollar policy payable to a woman who had shamed and disgraced him; who only yesterday had wanted evidence to secure a divorce which he was unwilling to grant! It didn't make sense.

She picked up the telephone and called Britt at his home. "I want a job in the floor-show at Millefleurs, Britt," she said. "Is your drag with Timotti enough to get it for me?"

"You want— what?" he cried.

"I said I wanted Timotti to give me a job. Understand?"

"I understand you've gone goofy," he growled. "Why in blazes do you want to do a thing like that?"

"Isn't it funny?" she laughed. "Just one of those unaccountable things that women, even women. detectives, do. Enough to drive a man mad. That silly curiosity that makes me want to find out why Ted Davenant was murdered."

"Murdered? Do you mean that, Miss Sheila?"

"I don't know, Britt. I only know— it seems funny. I'm going to find out whatever there is to find out. Can you fix it up with Timotti?"

"Why, sure," he said hesitantly.

JANICE KIRK slipped out of her dress. As she stood there in stockings, brassiere and the scantiest of panties, she was, Sheila thought, as lovely a young thing as she had ever seen.

"I think you're swell," said Janice, at that moment. 'And you're the best-looking thing I ever saw."

Sheila paused in the operation of pulling on her costume. "I was just thinking the same thing of you."

"Really?" The Kirk girl flushed. "I'd rather have you think I'm pretty than have any man think so. Because you'd know. I mean, you got class. Gee, it's great you got this job with Timotti. Not that you'll be here long. Some producer will drop in during the spring, spot you, and it'll be you for one of the big revues."

"Same to you and many of them," said Sheila.

"I hope I do get in the same company with you," said Janice. "I haven't anything except I'm young and I've got a nice figure. But you—you can really sing and dance and act. I'm surprised you haven't landed a better job before this."

"Well, I'm a beginner," said Sheila.

"And you didn't ever expect to do anything like this, did you?" said Janice.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you told me this is your first job. And while you look young enough, heaven knows, something you said the other day makes me know you're about twenty-two. If you'd intended going into the theater you'd have got a job before this. I bet your folks lost their dough in the depression. Am I right?"

"You're right," said Sheila, truthfully enough.

"Well, you'll make plenty when you land on Broadway.. And how you'd go in pictures! Gee, you've only been in this show a week and business has picked up tremendously. And it's all on account of you. We all know it."

"Well, thanks a lot," said Sheila.

"Don't thank me for telling you the plain truth. I ought to thank you for the nice way you've treated me. Gee, I had the blues when I came back here. I was just about ready to kill myself. Honest, I was. And somehow, you chumming with me, rooming with me and all— well, you've done lots for me."

Sheila turned away, lest the expression of shame on her face betray her. For a moment she was tempted to strip off her show costume, put on her street clothes and depart from Millefleurs. But for two days now, this girl had been on the verge of uttering confidences. Sheila knew that.

Not yet had the girl said anything to indicate that she had ever known Theodore Davenant, but if Davenant had paid attention to a Millefleurs girl, Janice Kirk must be that girl. Not to find out what there was to find out— that would be unbearable. Yet, to impose on this girl with protestations of friendship, to win her confidence in order to betray it— that was unbearable, too.

Sheila stood up and stepped into the shorts the girls wore in the bathing-beauty number. "I'm glad you think so, Janice," she said.

"I do think so," said the girl. "You've made me feel, somehow, that I amount to something. I never had a girl friend like you. Maybe if you knew what kind of girl I am, you wouldn't want to be friends with me."

"That's nonsense, Janice," said Sheila.

"No, it ain't. If you knew that I'd lived with a man, and had a baby—"

"Janice, don't say such things. Don't tell me!" Too late, feeling like a female Judas, Sheila tried to stop the other girl's confidences.

But Janice would not be silenced. Her pretty face was suddenly strained.

"I gotta tell somebody. I'm going nuts keeping it to myself. I gotta talk. I can trust you, and even if you despise me because I'm not good— I don't care. I gotta tell someone! I have a baby. She's six months old. I got her with an aunt of mine in Wheeling. My aunt thinks I'm married. I woulda been married, too, for the baby's sake."

"The baby's sake? Don't you want to be married? Don't you love his father?"

Janice shook her head. "I thought I did. He was— good to me. And I— I thought I loved him. I didn't, though. I liked him better than anyone, but—I didn't love him. He would have divorced his wife if I'd wanted him to, but I didn't. And he died— last week. He— he was killed— in an accident. I hadn't lived with him since— since the baby came. I felt I couldn't— any more."

"Who was he? What was his name?" asked Sheila in a whisper. She hated herself for the question, but she must ask it.

"You dames ever going to quit gabbing? Want the orchestra to vamp all night while you're getting ready?" Timotti thrust his head into the dressing room which Sheila and Janice shared.

"Coming," said Sheila. "Who was he?" she whispered to the other girl.

"Tell you afterwards," said Janice as she danced out upon the floor.

SHEILA HAD completely circled the dancing space, singing an inane lyric to the patrons at the table, before she realized that four people at the table next to the orchestra were calling her name. She looked at them. Tommy Blanchard and Minnie Deforest, and Bill Quinton and Amy Randolph.

Amy was standing up screaming in excitement inspired as much by gin as by recognition. "Sheila. It is Sheila Gray! Sheila. Hey there, Sheila! What's the girl detective doing in a chorus?"

Tommy Blanchard was staring unbelievingly at her; so were Minnie and Bill. But she was hardly conscious of them, for Janice Kirk was whispering to her.

"Sheila Gray! And you called yourself Sheila Burke. God, how I hate you, hate you, hate you!"

The number ended; Janice Kirk raced to the tiny dressing room and slammed the door. Before she could lock it Sheila threw her weight against it and forced it open. Janice backed away from her.

"You— pretending to like me, living with me!" Her voice rose hysterically.

Sheila threw herself upon the other girl, put a strong hand over her mouth. "Don't scream. Calm yourself."

"Don't touch me! You're a detective; you want to find out— I'll tell you nothing, nothing, do you hear me?"

Sheila looked at her. "I hear you, Janice. Now, you listen to me. I want the story of Davenant's death. That's his name, isn't it?"

"I'll tell you nothing!" cried the girl, Timotti thrust his head into the room.

"Say, Mees Gray, one of your friends is outside, and he says if he doesn't see you thees minute he'll bust the shack down. What'll I do?"

"Send him in," said Sheila.

But Timotti didn't need to do that; Tommy Blanchard pushed his way past the ex-sergeant of the bomb squad.

"Sheila, what on earth—"

"Tommy, I'm making an arrest. This girl here is my prisoner. I deputize you to take her to town— to my apartment. Hold her there until I arrive."

She winked, unobserved by Janice, at the bewildered Blanchard, and that young gentleman forbore stating that he couldn't be deputized by a private detective to make an arrest.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To make another arrest. I'm picking up a taxi driver named Jacob Madison."

She looked straight at Janice as she spoke. The other girl's face whitened; her hands went to her throat as though to stifle her half-strangled scream. Then Tommy caught her as she fainted. "Bring her in as soon as you can," said Sheila, and turned to Timotti. "You haven't heard a thing, Tony, have you?" Timotti was no more immune from Sheila's charm than other men. "Who? Me? I heara not a thing," he said. Sheila went to the telephone; she called up Phineas Britt. "Get hold of Jacob Madison, the taxi driver who killed Davenant. Take him to my apartment. Tell him that Janice Kirk has confessed that she plotted with him to kill Davenant. Get a confession. I'll be in New York in an hour."

"WELL, if the girl is innocent, Madison, tell your story," said Sheila Gray.

She leaned back on the couch in her living room. Through Britt's mind ran the thought that this dainty room was a strange place in which to extort a confession of murder. Then he forgot to think as he listened.

"I was in love with her," said Madison. "But she was crazy to go on the stage. She left Wheeling about two years ago. She met Theodore Davenant. Well, she fell for him. He couldn't marry her, but— she went to live with him. Don't think she wasn't— and isn't— straight, but he was everything a girl like her would be crazy for. She had a baby. She begged Davenant to get a divorce and marry her, but he wouldn't."

Sheila frowned. "Are you sure of that? She told me, only tonight, that he would have divorced his wife if she had wanted him to, but she found she didn't love him and so wouldn't marry him."

"Sure, she'd say that. But I happen to know that she begged him to marry her and he laughed at her. Love him? Not since then. How could she? But she did once— a lot."

"How do you happen to know all this?"

"Because I've been in love with her always, as long as I can remember. And when she brought her baby to Wheeling —well, I thought there was something fishy about it all. I made inquiries, told her the result of them, and she broke down and told me all about it. And it drove me crazy. You know why? Because she felt she was married to Davenant and couldn't marry anyone else.

"The more I thought about Davenant, the more I hated him. My taxi was parked near his office; I was hoping I'd get him as a fare, so I could take him to the country and— well, I didn't know what I was going to do to him."

"You were going to kill him, weren't you?" suggested Britt.

"All right; I was going to kill him," said Madison. "And then, a week ago Tuesday, I saw him cross the street. I started my taxi; I meant to call to him, to get him into my car. But he suddenly turned back, absent-minded like, and I saw my chance— and I banged the machine right into him and over him. And I'm glad I did it."

Sheila looked at Madison. "And the girl, Janice Kirk, didn't know?"

"Of course she didn't know. She was in Wheeling. The day she came back I told her what I'd done, and— she'll say she had a part in it, because she knows I did it for her, but she didn't. But she'd stick by me, when it did her no good."

"It would do you good, Madison," said Sheila. She looked at Britt. "Lover, avenging wrong to his sweetheart; pretty girl on the stand— looks like a waste of the state's money to try for a conviction, don't you think?"

"I think so," said Britt slowly. "But what are you going to do?"

"I'm going out," said Sheila. "I'll be back in an hour. Keep Madison here. And keep Janice here when she arrives."

"Are— are you going for the police?" asked Madison.

Sheila shook her head. "I'm not going to the police," she said.

"THIS IS A most extraordinary hour to call, Miss Gray," said Davenant's widow.

"It's an extraordinary errand, Mrs. Davenant," said Sheila.

"May I present the Marquis de Mansignac, Miss Gray?"

Sheila nodded coldly. "Your husband left a child, Mrs. Davenant." She plunged right into the subject.

"A child? By that mistress of his— the one whose affair I wished investigated that I might gain a divorce?"

"The same girl," said Sheila. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What should I do? Nothing, of course."

"I thought you'd feel that way," said Sheila. "Mrs. Davenant, your husband took out a million-dollar insurance policy shortly before he was killed. That policy holds the usual suicide clause. That is, it becomes invalid if your husband should kill himself within a year from the date when it was issued."

"But there is no evidence of suicide!" cried the widow. "The witnesses testify that my husband stepped back—"

"I telephoned your husband just after you gave a check to my partner," said Sheila. "I told him you wanted a divorce. He said he was worn out, and was going to kill himself at once."

"You're lying!" cried Mrs. Davenant.

Sheila smiled. "Of course I am, but the insurance company will be glad to believe me, and perhaps a jury will, too."

"The marquis will testify to what you have just said," said Mrs. Davenant.

"And who will believe him— or you, considering the notoriety of your affair?"

"What do you want?" asked Mrs. Davenant.

"One hundred thousand for the child your husband left," said Sheila. "You May make the check payable to Janice Kirk, Mrs. Davenant."

TOMMY Blanchard stared at his lovely companion. "Sheila, you frighten me."

"Really? Why?"

"You discover that an accidental death the murderer go; you extract money from the murdered man's widow, to give— practically— to the murderer. Madison is going to marry Janice Kirk, isn't he? Of course; and he'll get the benefit of that hundred thousand. Anyway, Janice will have it. Sheila, you don't seem to have any conscience."

"I guess I haven't. Murder— that's nothing, it seems to me, compared with what Davenant did to that girl."

"I don't suppose you'll be going back to your place in the chorus at Millefleurs," said Blanchard, after a pause.

"Why, of course I won't. What inspired such a silly remark?"

"It's January," he said. "I won't be seeing you in a bathing suit for five months— unless you go to Palm Beach. So I'd like to see you again in that— er—  diminutive costume you wore last night."

"At times, Tommy," she said severely, "your mind is a garbage can."

"It's the nicest thing about me, don't you think?" he grinned.

She smiled back at him. "I think it is, perhaps. But don't you ask me to marry you on the strength of your lewd mind."

"If I ever do ask you to marry me again, I'll think of another inducement."

"If you ever do again?" she laughed.

"When I do," he corrected himself.

__________________

13: After the Fact

Arthur Somers Roche

Cosmopolitan, June 1934

SPRING CAME through the open window; May sunshine touched her hair and lent the haziness of a halo to its sleek coiffure; it found deeper shades of violet in her eyes than even Britt had suspected were there. He stood a moment in the door- way between the reception room and the private office of Sheila Gray and stared at his employer. He went through the daily battle that the first sight of her always caused to be waged within him. Impulse said, "Kiss her." Reason said, "You're fat and fifty, Britt." He sighed gustily.

Sheila Gray looked up from the letters on her desk. Her full lips, red, alluring, curled in a mocking smile. "If sentiment makes you wheeze like a nineteen-twenty flivver, what would passion do to you, my Phineas?"

The brick-red face of Britt grew apoplectic. "Who said I was sentimental?"

The girl opened her arms in a gesture that seemed to bring the outdoors into this Forty-second Street office. "But aren't you? On a day like this? And with a sigh like that? Of course you are. Who is she, Britt? Who has intruded herself between us? What bright eyes have looked languishingly upon you and—"

"Ex-cop belts lady dick," said Britt. "I can see the headlines, Miss Gray. Some day you'll push me so far... There's a lad outside wants to see you. Name of Grant. John F. Grant. Said he had to tell his business to you."

"Know him? Ever heard of him?"

Britt shook his head. "About twenty-eight, neat dresser, light hair and eyes, five-nine, about a hundred and eighty."

"I could pick him out of a stag line from that description," said Sheila. "Did they call you Old Camera-Eye when you were on the force?"

Britt shook his head again, this time heavily, after the fashion of one who patiently represses bitter retort.

"Never mind what they called me when I was on the force; what they call me now is plenty. You know, Miss Sheila, if we painted out that sign on the door, and put 'Gray and Britt' instead of just your name, I wouldn't look like a valet to a lady detective."

"Ladies don't have valets, Britt. And I never thought that vanity ruled you. Just an exhibitionist, after all. Want to see your name in print."

"It ain't print, Miss Sheila. It's like this: I been getting the bird ever since I signed up with you, but if it looked like I was your partner— you know, there'd be more class to me. I'm not asking for a real partnership, but if it looked that way? Get me?"

"You'd feel less like a gigolo; is that it? But it makes me feel rather proud to have people thinking— you're a big, handsome man, Britt, and it's flattering to know that people are gossiping, that they are saying you just pretend to work for me, and it's really an affair. If you seem to be my partner, all the scandal will die."

"One of these days," muttered Britt; "one of these days! I can take it, Miss Sheila, but you ain't never seen me dish it out."

"I can't wait," she cooed.

"You'd flirt with a mummy," he said bitterly.

"l bet the mummy'd come to life," she retorted.

"He'd go right into a tap dance. Well, what about Mr. John F. Grant? He's got a money look about him."

"And money is why the firm of Gray and Britt exists, isn't it?"

"You wouldn't kid me?" he asked.

"Not in matters of business, Phineas," she replied. "Gray and Britt it is. Send for a sign painter and order some stationery. I'll see my lawyer and have an agreement drawn up. Now, send in Mr. Grant."

There was devotion in Britt's eyes as he stared at her. Sheila could read his thoughts. Inspector Dan Cartigan, his closest pal on the police force, would no longer deride Britt because he worked for a girl. And Britt deserved a partnership.

"Shake hands, partner," she said.

The burly ex-cop swallowed her hand in his own great palm. He released her fingers suddenly. "I'll bring this Grant guy in," he said huskily.

Sheila looked after him almost tenderly. Good old Britt; it was a shame to tease him. She looked up with interest as he ushered into the office a personable youth.

"Miss Gray, this is Mr. Grant."

She looked the visitor over with eyes that took in more than Britt's, with twenty years of police experience behind him, could ever gather. Britt's eyes could see, and transmit to his never-failing memory, physical details. Sheila Gray, unless a man attracted her, could not be certain of the color of his eyes or hair, of his size or weight, but she could tell the salient traits of character almost at a glance. She saw now that John F. Grant was repressing excitement; that he was nervous and a trifle alarmed. She knew that he was given to emotional instability that might, on occasion, lead him into difficulties. But he was honest and straightforward, and despite his tendency toward emotionalism, was not too imaginative. He was the kind of man who might get an idea but would hardly know how to develop it.

"What can we do for you, Mr. Grant?" she asked. She saw the young man's blond brows lift slightly as she said "we." She nodded toward Britt. "Mr. Britt is my partner," she added.

"Oh." Grant's face took on the faintest expression of dismay. "I was told that you handled matters yourself, Miss Gray."

She encouraged him with a smile. Britt, looking at her, wondered if he'd ever catalogue a complete list of Sheila's smiles. This one wasn't teasing or mocking or gentle or tender or alluring, or any of the hundred other qualities that seemed to grace her lips. It was friendly, almost maternal, as though she understood and sympathized with the reluctance of youth to tell its secrets to too many people. Yet Grant was certainly four or five years older than Sheila Gray.

"If we take your case, Mr. Grant, the handling of it depends on circumstances. However, if you wish to tell me in confidence, your confidence will be a matter between us two if I don't take the case. If I do, I'll have to tell Mr. Britt the facts of the matter."

The young man colored. "That's all right, Miss Gray."

Sheila nodded to her new partner and Britt, his heavy brows drawn together in a scowl, left the room.

"Now then, Mr. Grant?" said Sheila.

Grant sat down; he fumbled at his tie which was, Sheila noted, of expensive material and knotted with just the right degree of carelessness. The young man dressed well.

"I want you to dine with me, Miss Gray," he said.

Sheila stared at him. "Yes?" Her voice was noncommittal.

With fingers that trembled slightly, he reached into a pocket and produced a roll of bills. He counted off ten fifties, and placed them on the table before her. "Is that a sufficient fee?" he asked.

"That depends. As a retainer it seems enough. But what am I to do at this dinner, Mr. Grant?"

"That's all; just dine with me. At eight-thirty to-night, if you will. It shouldn't take over an hour or so."

"And then what?" asked Sheila.

"Nothing. I'll take you home, or wherever you wish to go."

Sheila touched the bills with indifferent fingers, scattering them fanwise. "The dinner isn't by any chance to be in your rooms, Mr. Grant?"

His fair skin reddened. "No, Miss Gray. The Oak Room at the Esplanade. I'll call for you at eight-fifteen."

"It isn't a wager, is it?"

"I don't understand," he replied.

"I don't think I do, either," she said. "I can't imagine anyone betting a large sum that he could dine with me. But still—what is it, Mr. Grant? I don't know you, and you don't know me. You pay five hundred dollars to dine with me. Don't you think you'd better make it clearer?"

"There's nothing more to it than that," he said. "I'm simply buying an hour and a half of your time, and hoping that the time won't be too unpleasantly spent."

"No more than that, eh?"

"No more than that, except for one little thing."

She smiled derisively. "There's a joker in every deck," she said. "What's the design of this one?"

"A trifle. I want you to wear a fur cape that I shall bring with me."

She laughed outright. "I don't think you need be alarmed at your condition, Mr. Grant. A mild opiate and a night's rest and you'll feel as well as ever."

"I thought you might feel this way," he said. "That's why I paid in advance. I'm not worried about my condition. Don't I seem sane?"

"Sane, perhaps, but a shade eccentric, don't you think? Five hundred dollars, and I wear a fur cape. What have you been reading lately, Mr. Grant? Or are the movies too stimulating for you?"

He sighed faintly. "I was afraid you'd take it this way, Miss Gray. I can't say that I blame you. It is a little out of the ordinary."

"Just the least tiny bit," she said. Beneath her sarcasm his blush grew more vivid.

"All right, Miss Gray. I'm sorry to have wasted your time."

"Wasted it? I haven't been so entertained in months. You know my address?"

He shook his head, bewilderment in his eyes.

"The Gaynor, on East Sixty-fourth Street." She swept the bills into a drawer and smiled at him. "I hope it's a nice cape, Mr. Grant."

"You mean you'll go with me?" His eyes lighted.

"Of course you'll pay for the dinner," she said. "I warn you that it will be expensive. Mystery has a tendency to sharpen my appetite."

For the first time he smiled. He had nice teeth, Sheila thought. She had often dined with less attractive escorts.

"Would you care to suggest a menu?" he asked.

"I think I'll leave it all to you, Mr. Grant," she said.

"I hope you'll not be disappointed at my choice." He rose, stood a moment in indecision, then bowed and went through the door. Ten seconds later, Britt was in the room.

"Well, where is the body buried?" he asked.

Sheila leaned back in her swivel chair, and lighted a cigaret.

"Britt," she said, "I'm dining with our new client tonight. Mr. Grant craves feminine companionship; he feels the urge to have across the table from him a young beauty whose ivory shoulders can only be glimpsed beneath a fur cape."

"I thought you was goofy when you made me a partner a while ago, after all the talk about sentiment. What did the guy want?"

"Would I deceive my partner?" she giggled. "Mr. Grant laid five hundred on the line. In return, I am to permit him to call for me at eight-fifteen; I am to dine with him in the Oak Room of the Esplanade; I am to wear a fur cape which he will furnish. I have a feeling that his father and mother used to dine together in some similar place. This is doubtless the anniversary of their wedding, and the young man is probably bringing his mother's fur. Britt, such tender sentiment is rare in these days. Shouldn't we encourage it?"

"You mean the lad is paying five yards to take you out? Well, I wish I'd been here when he put the proposition. I'd have slugged him. He's on the make, Miss Sheila."

"You mean that he might make an improper suggestion to me? Britt, look at me. Examine me closely in the bright light of this spring sunshine. Do you think Mr. Grant will pounce on me? Britt, I haven't been pounced on since my debutante days. You excite me."

"Let me meet this bird tonight," he growled. "There won't be an ounce of pounce in him when I get through with him. Imagine his nerve! What does he think a detective's office is? The lad burns me, thinking he can ask a swell like you to knock over ham and eggs."

"Caviar and pheasant," she corrected.

"You ain't going," he said stubbornly.

"Partner, Britt, not chaperone, my lamb, " she told him.

"HAVE A nice time last night, Miss Sheila?" asked Britt the next morning.

"You'll be disappointed to learn, Britt, that it couldn't have been a duller evening. Mr. Grant called for me at eight-fifteen. He brought a sable cape with him. I wore it. We arrived at the Esplanade at eight-thirty-five. We left at nine-thirty. At a quarter to ten, I gave him his cape at my door and he de—"

"Ten minutes of ten," said Britt.

Her eyes widened. "I suppose you know what we ate and drank," she said.

"A thick soup, a salad, filet mignon, asparagus, a Nesselrode pudding, cheese and a liqueur. You drank Lanson's Nineteen-eleven, and you began with a sidecar."

"So when I hoped I might be in danger I was safe, eh?'

"Think I was going to let you go out with a bird like that without being handy? Want to know the number of the taxi you rode in?"

She shook her head. "Britt, you're marvelous. But I'll keep my dates secret after this."

"Are you sore?" he asked.

"Not a bit. You're swell, Britt. But you wasted your time and thought."

"What did the guy want?"

"To dine with me; that's all. He had nothing to say except some chat about plays. I tried to find out something about him, but he wouldn't talk. You didn't follow him home, did you?"

Britt looked uncomfortable. "He ducked into a subway and I lost him. Sure, I tried to find out who he was. But I didn't. That cape business bothers me. Can you figure it?"

"It's all blank to me," she replied. "I can think of a thousand reasons but none of them makes sense. But things like this never happen without a sequel. We'll hear from him again, Britt."

"Maybe," he grunted. "I ain't so sure."

IT WAS EXACTLY seven days later that Sheila, over her coffee, glanced at her favorite tabloid. A photograph leaped from the front page. It was captioned "Lawrence Blair." Beneath it was a line which said, "Missing aviator's body found. Story on page three."

She turned to the indicated page and read the brief story. Lawrence Blair, an amateur aviator of some note, had been missing from the aviation field on. Long Island and other haunts for about a week. His body had been found in a Long Island field on the previous day. A bullet hole in the forehead was the cause of death. Beside him lay a revolver.

It could have been murder and it could have been suicide. But during the five or six days that Blair's body had lain in the field, rain had fallen, obliterating all fingerprints from the weapon, washing out all possible footprints on the ground. There was also a short biographical note. Blair came from Ohio, had inherited a modest fortune, had gone to an eastern college, and that was all. The account stated that so far as known he had no enemies and lived a rather secluded life.

Sheila put the paper down. Lawrence Blair had dined with her seven nights ago. The John F. Grant who had paid five hundred dollars for her company at dinner was the Lawrence Blair who had been murdered, or had killed himself, probably within the next twenty-four hours.

She reached for the telephone beside her bed. She got Tommy Blanchard on the wire. "How's the great ace this morning?" she asked.

"At the moment in the seventh heaven, a height to which my ship would never take me. When Sheila Gray telephones me at eight-thirty, how could I feel save elated? Are you calling me up to accept my last proposal?"

"Last or latest?" laughed Sheila.

"Some day it will be my last," he warned her.

"That's the one I'll accept," she returned. "Tommy, did you know a flyer named Lawrence Blair?"

Tommy Blanchard would know Blair if anyone did, for Blanchard was an aviation enthusiast.

"The boy that's been killed? No, I didn't really know him. We nodded to each other, but that's all. Nobody knew him. Pleasant-mannered lad, but distinctly not friendly. Why?"

"Nothing much. I was just curious," replied Sheila.

"I'll find out about him if I can, if you want me to," offered Blanchard. "Then I'd have a good excuse for seeing you."

"Do you need an excuse?" she asked.

"A man gets tired of having his honorable proposals of matrimony rejected."

"So you can't take it?" she jeered.

"Getting a little punch-drunk," he replied. "Lunch with me?"

"Call me up tomorrow," she said.

She smiled as she hung up the receiver. Some day she'd turn down Tommy Blanchard once too often and he'd walk right out of her life, and then she'd have to run after him!

BRITT, concern in his eyes, came into her office almost immediately upon her arrival at the Forty-second Street building which housed their agency. He had with him a copy of the tabloid, and he placed it on her desk with the photograph of Lawrence Blair uppermost.

"Seen this?"

She nodded.

"Looks like it happened within a day or so after he took you out," said Britt. "I been talking to Dan Cartigan of Headquarters."

"You didn't tell him about our business with the young man?"

"Certainly not," he answered. "I just was curious. But Dan couldn't add anything to the story in the paper. Blair— or Grant— was lying in a field in Hempstead, not a hundred yards from the twelfth green of a golf course. Except for a couple of rainy days, hundreds of people must have passed near him. No automobile tracks in the field. The body was a quarter of a mile from the nearest road, half hidden by a clump of pushes. Blair lived at a bachelor hotel on Forty-fourth Street. Only relatives some cousins in Massillon, Ohio. No whoopee, no ructions, no women. And that's all. Except to wonder about why he wanted you to dine with him."

Sheila nodded gravely. "And to wonder, further, what connection there was between my dining with him and his death."

Britt stared at her. "What would your dining with him have to do with his death?"

"When we know the answer to that, maybe we'll know who killed him and why," replied Sheila.

"But it don't make sense," protested Britt. "Just because the lad took you to dinner— he wouldn't get bumped off because you ate with him."

"Just because we don't see the answer, it doesn't follow that there is no answer," said Sheila.

The telephone bell rang before Britt could make reply to this. The office boy outside told Sheila that Miss Lita Dennison wished to speak to her. Sheila told the boy to put the call through, and in a moment she heard a voice say:

"Could you possibly come to see me right away, Miss Gray? I'm at the Halberd. I'll wait for you."

"Is this Miss Dennison the actress?" asked Sheila.

"Yes. Please come up, Miss Gray."

"In half an hour," said Sheila. She hung up and looked at Britt.

"The movie star?" asked Britt.

Sheila nodded. "Sounds exciting. I've always wanted to meet her."

"What does she want?" asked Britt.

"She didn't say."

"Soak her plenty," grinned Britt. "I hear she's getting two hundred and fifty thousand for her next picture."

"I'll remember that I have a partner," smiled Sheila. "Britt, shouldn't we do something about young Blair?"

"A little while ago you talked as though you were afraid I'd mentioned to Cartigan that we'd met him."

Sheila frowned. "Well, I don't like to go to the police with such a crazy story. Still— but we'll talk about it when I come back."

Lita Dennison, off the screen, was not the vital siren of the pictures. She was, Sheila instantly decided, a charming young girl of modest demeanor who at the moment was laboring under an attack of nerves.

"You're so good to come to see me, Miss Gray. I phoned you because Rose Carlisle told me what you did for her last year."

Sheila nodded. Rose Carlisle, a star nearly as well known as Lita Dennison herself, had indiscreetly put herself in a position where polite blackmail had been levied upon her; Sheila had extricated her from the consequences of mild folly.

"Have you read the morning paper? There's the account of the death of Lawrence Blair, a young man whom I used to know in my home town of Massillon, Ohio."

"I read the story," said Sheila cautiously.

"I don't want my name to be mentioned in connection with him," said the actress.

Sheila leaned back in her chair; she lighted a cigaret and stared at the film star, whose features and coloring, she saw, were much like hers. If anything, Sheila was better-looking.

"That's rather a large order, Miss Dennison," Sheila replied. "I'm not a press representative. I'm an investigator. And why should your name be mentioned? Simply because you knew him and came from the same town?"

"Rose Carlisle told me you could be trusted," said the actress. "I wrote a letter a week or so ago to Lawrence. It was a silly letter. I called him up the next morning and asked him to return it. He said he had destroyed it, but somehow I didn't believe him. It wouldn't do for that letter to be published."

"What was in it?" asked Sheila.

"I told him that I was terribly fond of him. You see, when I was at high school I thought I was in love with him. In a way, we were engaged. Then I went to Hollywood and met other men; whatever emotion I'd felt for him, beyond friendliness, disappeared. We'd ceased corresponding two years ago. I fell in love with someone else.

"Lawrence came to see me several times after my arrival in New York for a vacation six weeks ago. He wanted to take up our romance where it had left off. I told him not to be silly; that I was now engaged to another man. And in the letter I told him— and it was true enough— that if I hadn't fallen in love with that other man, I would probably have married him. I don't know why I said such a thing, except that I felt so sorry for him. Anyway, I wrote it and I'm sorry now that I did."

"But if he destroyed it?" said Sheila.

"But if he didn't! The papers will print it; and it will seem that I drove him to his death. That isn't fair."

"I don't think the papers will take that angle," said Sheila.

The actress colored vividly. "But even if they don't, someone else will."

"You mean your fiancé?"

Lita Dennison nodded, sudden terror in her eyes. "He'd break our engagement— and I'd die," she said.

"But if the letter said no more than that," protested Sheila, "no man could object."

"This man could. I know it's silly to be in love with a jealous man, but I can't help it. I adore him. And I don't want that letter published. I'll pay anything to get it back. And if you can find out for me that it isn't among his effects, I'll pay you any fee you ask."

"I'll do what I can. I don't think it will be difficult to get into his rooms and look through his things. That can be arranged. I think you're letting yourself worry needlessly, however."

The actress shook her head. "I know I'm not. You see, my fiancé is angry with me now. He told me that if I saw Lawrence again he'd never forgive me. I promised I wouldn't. But I haven't heard from him in a week. He won't answer the telephone, and he doesn't reply to my notes."

"But if you promised you wouldn't see Blair and hadn't seen him, why is he angry?" asked Sheila.

The actress shrugged. "He's punishing me because I saw Lawrence at all. But he'll get over it, unless the letter is published. Then l lose him."

"I think you'll be better off if you do," said Sheila.

"You're right," agreed the other girl, "only— I love him."

A maid entered the living room with an apology to her mistress for the interruption. She spread a sable cape before the actress and pointed to a tear.

"This must be fixed, Miss Dennison. You cannot wear it tonight."

"When did it happen?" asked the  actress.

The maid shook her head. "I don't know. You haven't worn it for ten days. You said you wanted it tonight, It wasn't torn the last time you wore it."

"Have it fixed. If it isn't ready to-night, it doesn't matter," said the actress.

The maid turned, but Sheila reached for the fur.

"It's lovely. May I see it?" she asked,

"Of course," said Lita Dennison.

Sheila took the cape. She was sure it was the one she had worn at the Esplanade. She looked at the actress.

"I'd love to wear this sometime," she smiled. "You'd never lend it, would you?"

The actress looked surprised. "Of course I would. As a matter of fact, I lent it to Lawrence the last time I saw him. He said an artist friend of his wanted a sable cape to use on a model. He returned it the next day. Surely I'd lend it to you, Miss Gray."

"Some day I'd like to wear it," said Sheila. She kept her voice cool by the greatest effort. She glanced around the room. On the tables were autographed photographs of the great of filmdom. Prominently displayed, however, was a photograph of a man who was not known to Sheila as an actor. She noted the inscription, "To Lita from Ralph."

"There's an actor I don't seem to recognize," she said.

"He isn't an actor. He's a lawyer, my fiancé. Ralph Blakeley."

Sheila smiled at the girl. "I begin to understand your putting up with his moods. He's good-looking."

"He's beautiful!" cried Lita Dennison. She lifted the picture dramatically and held it close to her lips as though she would kiss it. Then she put it down and turned to Sheila. "Will you help me, Miss Gray?"

"I'll do the best I can," said Sheila.

THERE WAS a public telephone booth in the lobby of the Halberd, and there, thumbing the directory, Sheila found the address of Ralph Blakeley. She taxied to his office, and soon had given her card to an office boy who presently ushered her into the presence of Blakeley.

He stood behind a flat desk, twisting in his fingers the card she had sent in. "This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Gray. I've often wondered when I'd be lucky enough to meet New York's famous woman detective. It's funny we haven't met, too. We have many mutual friends."

Sheila took the chair he indicated. She looked him over and understood why any girl would fall in love with him. If his mouth was stubborn, it was well shaped; and while his eyes indicated that he could be jealous, they also looked as if they could hold tenderness in their brown depths.

"Including Lita Dennison," said Sheila.

Blakeley's eyes were instantly hard. "Miss Dennison never mentioned that she knew you," he said coldly.

Sheila laughed. "We didn't know each other until today. You see, I'm investigating a matter that concerns her."

"I don't see how it could possibly concern me," said Blakeley.

"Perhaps it doesn't," said Sheila lightly. "Nevertheless, I wanted to talk to you. Last Wednesday night you came to the Oak Room of the Esplanade. What did you do then, Mr. Blakeley?"

How do you know I was there?" he asked.

Sheila smiled coolly. "I not only know you were there, but I know why you went there. You went to see if it was true that Miss Dennison was dining with Blair. What did you do then, Mr. Blakeley?"

Color ebbed from his cheeks, leaving them dead white. "I don't know what mean, Miss Gray," he said.

"Perhaps you'd better tell the police."

"Tell them what?" he whispered.

"Where you went with Blair that night," said Sheila.

"You can't prove I went anywhere with him," said the lawyer.

Sheila's smile was sweet now. "You'll be the one who will have to give the proof," she said. "What sort of alibi have you for Wednesday night, Mr. Blakeley?"

He stared at her, all assurance gone from his manner. "How much do you know?" he asked.

"Enough to cause your arrest for murder," she answered.

"Do the police know what you know?" he asked.

"No one knows what I know," she replied.

"If I told you my story, and you believed me, would you go to the police?"

"That depends on the story. But if you don't tell it to me, then I must go to the police."

He smiled at her, and Sheila admired his courage. "I'll tell you the truth. It will be a relief to tell it. For a week I've been sick with fear. And I'm not a coward, Miss Gray."

"I believe that," she told him.

"I'm an extremely jealous man, Miss Gray. Lita told me that she had once been engaged to Blair. I knew that she was seeing him occasionally and I told her that she must stop doing so. Unreasonable, I admit. But we are as we are made, and I'm made that way.

"Blair came to see me. He told me that he was in love with Lita. He told me that on that very night— Wednesday of last week— she was dining with him. He told me that the only reason Lita intended to marry me was because I had money.

"Now, Lita had told me that very afternoon that she would not see Blair again. She told me that on that evening she was compelled to dine with the wife of the producer of her last picture at the producer's home. I don't know why I didn't knock Blair down.

"I make no apologies for what I did. I went to the entrance of the Oak Room at the Esplanade and looked in. At the far end of the room sat Blair, facing me. With him, her back to me, was Lita."

"You recognized her?" asked Sheila.

"I saw her hair; she was wearing a fur cape which I knew was hers. I left and went home, determined never to see her again. About eleven o'clock Blair telephoned. He asked me if I was satisfied that Lita didn't care for me. I went crazy, Miss Gray. I told Blair that if he ever crossed my path I'd thrash him within an inch of his life. I had no reason to feel that way; if Lita preferred him, that was her privilege. But that's the way I felt. And twenty minutes later my telephone rang. Blair told me that he was waiting at the corner for me, ready and eager to take that thrashing if I was capable of giving it.

"I'm thirty-six years old, Miss Gray. I should be wise enough to avoid brawls. But somehow the idea that Blair had been aiding Lita to deceive me was too much for me. I descended to the street, walked to the corner and found him waiting in an open car. He invited me to step in and said we'd drive to the country and settle the matter.

"Like an angry schoolboy, I got in beside him. We drove across the Queensboro Bridge and out to Hempstead. There, by an open field, he stopped the car and challenged me to go into the field with him. We walked a hundred yards; then he stopped and said he was ready. I rushed at him and he drew a revolver. I grabbed his hand. I twisted his wrist. The gun went off. He fell, and I saw, that he was dead.

"I didn't murder him; it was self-defense.. But it wasn't the kind of self-defense that would be accepted by a jury. I know the law. You'd better send for the police, Miss Gray."

"What did you do with the car?" she asked.

"I abandoned. it in Long Island City and took the 'L' to New York. And I'm glad you found out about it. The strain was getting too much for me. Go ahead and telephone the police."

Sheila. reached for the telephone. She turned to Blakeley. "What's the number of the Halberd?" she asked.

"What do you mean? Why do you want it?" he cried.

She shook her head. "Just give me the number."

He gave it to her, and in a moment she was connected with Lita Dennison. "This is Sheila Gray. You needn't worry about that letter; Miss Dennison," she said. "Just tell Mr. Blakeley all about it when he comes to see you in about '| fifteen minutes My bill? An invitation to the wedding will be enough, Miss Dennison: I've already been paid No, you wouldn't understand, but it doesn't matter."

She put down the receiver to meet the staring eyes of. Blakeley.

"What do you mean? You're not going to the police?"

She shook her head. "I believe you. You see, I met Blair. I'm the girl who wore Miss Dennison's cape in the Oak  Room. I didn't know why he wanted me to do it, but I understand now. I thought he was honest and straightforward. Well, a man can be those things, and yet if he's in love his actions can contradict his normal character. But he was emotional, high-strung, just the sort of man to do what you said he did.

"Now you, Mr. Blakeley, are— hot-tempered and jealous, but you wouldn't challenge a man to a fist fight with the intention of murdering him. I'm not going to the police. After all, if I believe your story, why should I not be content with my own judgment?"

"And you're letting the matter drop?" he asked in amazement.

"No, indeed," she said. "I'm putting you on probation. You're a man of intellect, Mr. Blakeley. Jealousy is not for people of brains. A lovely girl is mad about you. You can ruin her life and your own by mean suspicion. As long as you trust her, as long as you have faith in her love for you, you can have faith in me. I hope that will be forever."

"It will be!" he cried.

"THIS HIDING murder ain't so good, Miss Sheila," protested Britt. "I don't care for it. We'll get ourselves in a jam. We're accessories after the fact."

"Are we?" laughed Sheila. "I think that's swell. I'd like to see how clever I'd be getting myself out of difficulty."

"Just the same, I don't like it," said Britt.

"But you like me, don't you?" she asked

"Sure I do; you know I do," he replied.

"Then why don't you ever ask me to dinner?"

"Would you go with an old bozo like me?"

"You deserve a reward for aiding and abetting me in keeping a crime secret, Phineas, my pet. I'll dine with you."

"Just because I keep a crime secret? Why, Miss Sheila, if you'd make it lunch, too, I'll commit a crime."

"Maybe I'll ask you to some day," she laughed.

________________

14: A Lot of Money

Alice Duer Miller

1874-1942

Cosmopolitan Feb 1935

I MUST BE patient, Jerry thought— the first day back at the office after a holiday was always like this. Yet his hadn't been a real holiday— he and Sarah dashing across Europe because his mother-in-law had been taken ill in Istanbul (so like the old lady to select Istanbul, of all places); a month of almost continuous traveling; three weeks of nurses and doctors; cables pursuing him, but no mail. He looked gloomily at his desk, where was piled the whole accumulation, all neatly opened and annotated by his secretary.

He had landed the night before, and exactly at half past nine, as his habit was, he had arrived at the office. Everyone was cordial and glad to see him, and yet almost at once Jerry had known it wasn't going to be a good day. The first letter on the top of the pile was from the mortgage company saying that they really could not see their way to renewing the mortgage on the Seventy-third Street house.

Then Miss Thring, his middle-aged secretary, came in, looking solemn, and said that the doctor had ordered her to take a month's rest— if she didn't want to have a complete nervous breakdown. Her manner suggested that the state of her health was entirely due to her devotion to duty while a ruthless employer had been gallivanting about Europe enjoying himself. She wanted to leave the next day.

Jerry, who always grew calmer as life grew more fevered, and better tempered as the cause for irritation increased, answered at once: "Well, of course, Miss Thring, if you need a rest you must have it— but tomorrow is rather soon, isn't it? You're not so easy to replace, you know."

Miss Thring thought too well of herself to be susceptible to flattery. Her face said, "You're telling me?" but her lips said nothing; she merely drooped and withdrew.

Jerry took up the next letter. His country club regretted to inform him that in the near future an assessment would be necessary. Then Miss Thring was back again: Could he see Miss Foster?

"No, I can't," said Jerry. "Yes, I will. Let her come in, but tell her I'm busy."

"I have already," said Miss Thring contemptuously, and presently a pale girl entered— pretty in a blond, flat-faced way. She had round blue eyes, pink-rimmed from recent tears. This was not the first time she had been in Jerry's Office.

She was his cousin Nicholas Breen's secretary, and like all of Nicholas' pretty secretaries— and a surprising number of his secretaries were pretty— she and her employer had been carrying on a love affair. For some fifteen years Jerry had been involved not in the glorious beginnings of these love affairs, but in their sordid and painful endings. Nicholas was handsome, spendthrift and irresponsible. Jerry was plain, hard-working and dependable. Since their college days, Jerry had been keeping his cousin front being dropped by the dean, blackmailed by women and divorced by his wife.

Although Nicholas had always had more money than Jerry and had now been for many years the husband of a rich woman, Jerry had also lent him a good deal of money first and last, much of which he had never seen again. Since their childhood, Jerry had been patient and devoted, but now suddenly he felt this was too much— what with Miss Thring and the mortgage and the assessment, and his first day at home— it was too much.

He looked at Miss Foster severely. "Now, what do you want?" he said.

Miss Foster immediately began to cry. "I know I oughtn't to bother you, on your first day at home, Mr. Althorpe," she said, "but Mr. Breen said I could come to you; he said you would explain it. I'm so unhappy, I don't sleep. I just go over and over it in my head. I can't understand it."

"What don't you understand?" said Jerry, still going on with his mail, and reading, with the eye only, an alluring advertisement of a liquor firm.

"I can't see why it is he won't see me again just because his wife is coming home. I always knew he was married. It isn't as if I'd make any trouble. I just want to keep on being his secretary. I don't see why Mrs. Breen need ever know anything about it— she never did all last winter. He said you could make me understand."

Jerry tore himself from the fascinating announcement that Mr. I. Wilson Petrie had become a member of the firm of... and turned his mind to the difficult task of explaining the terrifying power of a strong nature united in the bonds of matrimony to a weak one. Adele Breen was really a woman of iron— sure of herself, upright, slightly stupid, and unable to take in anything she didn't want to see. He attempted to make a sketch of her for Miss Foster— in vain.

"But he doesn't love her, Mr. Althorpe."

"This death-grip certain women get on their men is a sort of love."

"Oh, no!"

"Maybe not. But it doesn't matter. It's stronger than love."

"I suppose she's beautiful."

"Quite the contrary."

No, evidently the girl couldn't be made to understand the fact that though in many marriages the wife always loses there are a number of others in which she always wins. Nick would never be free, except on the sly, from the domination of Adele.

Finally he made Miss Foster believe this, even if she couldn't understand it. He agreed to give her a temporary job during the absence of Miss Thring, and got her out of the office. The incident had importance only as it revealed to him his own state of mind. He felt cross, humiliated— the slightly envious humiliation that the good feel when they see the wicked getting away with their sins. Jerry had not been attracted to the girl— wispy blondes were not his type— but why should Nickie be free to take any girl he wanted and leave him, Jerry, to do the dirty work?

As a matter of fact, Jerry was deeply in love with his wife. He and Sarah had been married in 1929. He was then a promising young executive receiving a salary of ten thousand dollars, looking forward to fifteen the next year and so on to thirty or forty. Sarah was a lovely, sweet-tempered, desirable creature whom he had snatched away from richer and more famous men by the force of his character and passion. They were considered a brilliant and enviable young couple.

But that was six years ago. Now they were not quite so brilliant and six years less young; now they had two little girls, and Jerry's salary was seven thousand dollars, with a possibility of a cut next year if things didn't get better. Life still had a background of solid happiness, but on the surface it was no longer very amusing. Yes, he thought almost enviously of Nickie. He, Jerry, would never invite adventure, and yet if adventure should come to him, uninvited, he did not feel so sure as usual what he would do.

He went on with the mail. An English tailor was about to visit New York. Why in thunder did Miss Thring keep things like that! She knew perfectly he couldn't afford English clothes, as things were. A former clerk had decided to go on the stage and hoped that perhaps Mr. Althorpe had some influence with the Theatre Guild. He had read half through the next letter before he took in that it contained anything out of the ordinary.

Dear Sir:

As attorneys for the executors of the estate of the late Mrs. Aurelie Goodspeed Bryan, I beg leave to announce to you that you are the recipient of a legacy of one hundred thousand dollars, free of all inheritance and...

It was signed Romilly Lewis, dated from Cincinnati, and the name of a firm of attorneys stood at the top. Jerry sat motionless, staring at it. He had never so much as heard the name of Mrs. Aurelie Goodspeed Bryan. Or had he? He searched his memory. Bryans began to emerge, but none bearing the interesting name of Aurelie. It must be a mistake, but Lord, how he could use a hundred thousand dollars!

His telephone rang. The president of the company was coming in to talk of the company's business. It was an hour or more before Jerry was free again to think of his own.

He rang the bell on his desk, intending to ask Miss Thring why she had done nothing about such a communication— except to acknowledge it. Didn't she think an unexpected legacy of one hundred thousand dollars was worth a cable? But when she entered he saw there was no use reproaching her. His lawyer had Offices in the same building, and he decided to put the situation to him. He took his hat from the peg.

"I'm running up to see Mr. Matthews for a few minutes. If anyone wants me say I'll be back in half an hour."

The slow bend of Miss Thring's head reminded him she was hardly fit to bear responsibilities of this kind.

He was lucky enough to find Matthews alone, and gave him the letter. "Look here, Matthews, this is a funny thing that has happened to me."

Matthews read the letter slowly with incredible care. "Yes? Well, I wish funny things like this happened to me. That's a lot of money, Jerry."

"You bet it's a lot of money."

"What's funny about it?"

"I never heard of the woman."

"Sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Don't speak too quickly. Are you sure you haven't any relations in Cincinnati?"

Jerry thought a moment. "I believe some of my mother's family went there, but I'm under the impression they all ended up in California. I really think it's some mistake, and yet of course my name isn't a very common one— Jeremiah Althorpe."

Matthews nodded. "A lawyer sees a lot of queer wills, you know. You may have done this old lady some favor: saved a pet dog, or helped her across the street, or crossed the ocean with her."

"You mean you think it's possibly true— possibly mine?"

"Of course it's for you."

"I can't believe it. Could you telephone this man Lewis?"

Matthews glanced at his watch and, drawing the telephone toward him, put in a Cincinnati call for Mr. Romilly Lewis. "She may have picked your name out of the telephone book in order to spite her relatives," he said. "Or she may be some old friend of your family's that you've forgotten all about."

Jerry's face brightened. There was that possibility. "My mother had a perfect genius for making friends," he said. "There used to be a raft of old women about the house— like an old ladies' home— when I was a boy."

"And you were such a good son you would have appealed to old ladies." The telephone jingled, and Matthews assumed a legal face and manner as if the telephone were a mirror. "Oh, Mr. Lewis? Yes, this is Eugene Matthews of the New York firm of Howard, Matthews and Burt. I am speaking for my client, Mr. Jeremiah Althorpe, in connection with a letter he has received from you. He has been in Europe under conditions that made it impossible for him to receive his mail. As to this legacy under the will of Mrs. Aurelie Goodspeed Bryan, he wishes to be sure that he is the person intended... Yes... yes... yes, that is correct."

After a few minutes more, Matthews hung up and turned gravely to Jerry. "Lewis seems to feel sure you are the man. He said that in 1926, when the will was drawn, you were the assistant secretary of a tile company."

"But what do you think I ought to do, Matthews?"

"Thank heaven for your luck—in these days."

"I think I'll go straight to Cincinnati."

"And say you don't need one hundred thousand dollars?"

"And see if it's really meant for me."

He knew Matthews thought he was a fool to trifle with his luck, but he didn't care— he was an honest man.

That afternoon at a quarter before two, as Sarah Althorpe had just finished luncheon with her two little girls and was debating whether she should stay at home and put all the closets in order or go to a movie, the telephone rang. It was her husband's voice— with that sound in it of a person who, for good or bad reasons, is suddenly enjoying life. He told her that he was leaving for Cincinnati that afternoon at three, and if she would get a bag packed for him and meet him at the station at a quarter before three, he would have time to tell her something vastly amusing.

Sarah, who was one of those rare persons who will take any amount of trouble to see those they love, and none at all to see those they don't, had met Jerry in many queerer places than the Grand Central Station. Often in the early days of their marriage, when he had made many more trips for his firm than he did now, she used to start his journeys with him and hop off unnoticed at Harmon or the Manhattan Transfer. Sometimes when he was obliged to work at the Office late at night, she would come downtown with dinner for two and would sit beside him feeding him hot soup and cold chicken until his desk was clear.

Now, finding that the house-maid who understood packing for Jerry was out for the afternoon, she packed his bag herself, folding his coats the way he had taught her to do on their honeymoon. Exactly at a quarter before three she was at the gate leading to the train.

He was seen approaching at the same instant.

"Hello, darling."

"Hello, darling."

Jerry was not a handsome man— indeed, as a boy, he had been considered unusually plain— but Sarah adored his bony, gray-eyed face, and everyone admired his well-set-up, flat-backed figure. The gateman consented to her going through without a ticket, and presently they were alone in Jerry's compartment.

To some women, he thought, a man wouldn't dare tell a thing like this while it was still uncertain; some women would have spent the money in the first five minutes and would feel permanently abused if the legacy never materialized. But Sarah wasn't like that. She would spend the money, too, but as a game, a dream, something that was fun in itself, even though it turned out later that there wasn't any legacy.

She was excited and entertained, but she took the possibility even more seriously than Matthews had. To her it seemed natural enough that someone should leave Jerry money. Of course he had done something heavenly for Mrs. Bryan that he didn't recall.

"Do you remember that old woman you pulled out of the surf at Southampton?"

"Her name was Bagby, and she kept a boarding house."

"I don't mean this is that one, but something like that one whom you've forgotten. You wouldn't have remembered. Bagby if I hadn't told you."

"No, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't."

"You may have sold her tiles, darling, and got sympathetic about the bathroom fittings."

"You forget, my dear, that mine is strictly a wholesale business."

Presently the porter came to say that the train was starting, and Sarah was obliged to get off.

But her faith had affected Jerry. He said to himself that he felt sure the whole thing was a mistake; that he certainly wasn't going to Cincinnati with the idea that he was going to find a hundred thousand dollars at the end of the journey—he was going simply to clear up an error of some kind. Yet sitting quietly in the corner of his stateroom, he thought most of the time about what he could do with the money.

The Althorpes were among the few New Yorkers who still lived in a house— a small house in East Seventy-third Street, which had belonged to Jerry's parents. He would pay off the mortgage on that— at least twenty thousand of it, anyhow— and he would increase his life insurance. On the capital left he would still have an increased income of perhaps two thousand a year— very useful in these days. Security for Sarah and the children. He wouldn't have to think, as he did now every time he caught a cold, that if he died Sarah and the children would starve. If he had this money he could die in peace.

He knew Cincinnati well, having had in old times a great deal of business there. He had friends and classmates, too, whom he usually looked up, but now he had no time for them. He went to a hotel, shaved and bathed and presented himself as early as he dared at the offices of Lewis and Browning. It was a well-run office; he was expected and welcomed. Lewis was a small, serious man, perhaps fifty-five, bald, blue-eyed and long-lipped. Jerry trusted him entirely from the moment he saw him.

"I was glad to get your telegram that you were coming, Mr. Althorpe."

Jerry apologized for the long delay "in answering the firm's letter. "I'm afraid that I have delayed the settlement of the estate."

"Oh, no," said Lewis. "The fact is, we have been able to settle the estate with unusual ease— owing to various accidents with which I won't trouble you. Indeed, if you can formally identify yourself, I should like to pay you your legacy today."

"There will be no trouble about identifying myself,' Jerry answered. "All the members of the Amberley Company know me well, but—"

"I know what you're going to say," Mr. Lewis interrupted, with a smile— "that you haven't time to wait because you are catching the two-o'clock back. I know New Yorkers."

"No, I was going to say something very different. I was going to say that I cannot believe this legacy was intended for me."

The lawyer looked surprised. "Is there another Jeremiah Althorpe?"

"No, not to my knowledge."

"Then, my dear Mr. Althorpe, there can be no doubt whatever. I checked up with your lawyer. You were living in New York in 1926; your office..." He ran over the points again, but without convincing his visitor.

"Did Mrs. Bryan give you any reason for leaving this money to me?"

"No, but that is not uncommon."

"Can there be a blood relationship?"

"Have you any Goodspeed connections? It is a New England family originally, I believe."

"I never heard of it. She didn't say that she was a friend of my mother's?"

"Your mother was not mentioned, Mr. Althorpe."

"I don't see how I can accept this money."

"You are of course at liberty to refuse it, but I must tell you that there is no doubt whatsoever that it is intended for you— and for no one else. You won't mind if I ask Mr. Peter Amberley, an old friend of mine, to step round and identify you? A matter of routine, of course."

No, Jerry didn't mind. He was delighted to see Amberley, to whom he had sold the tiles in the great building that bore his name. But after he had been identified and Amberley had gone again, and the clerk came in with a sheaf of papers, to the top of which a check for one hundred thousand dollars was clipped, he still felt that the business on which he had come to Cincinnati had hot been settled.

He stared at the check a long time— those six lovely figures. "Of course I want to take this, Mr. Lewis," he said. "I want to, terribly, but I'm not sure that as an honorable man I can."

Mr. Lewis looked very grave. "I suppose I understand your feeling," he answered. "But a lawyer, Mr. Althorpe, feels under a certain obligation to see that a dead client's wishes are fulfilled specially if he was fond of his client, and I was devoted to Mrs. Bryan. It was her wish that you should have this money. I should be sorry— very sorry— if conventional scruples on your part prevented the carrying out of her express wishes."

Jerry was silent, and Lewis moved some papers toward him and offered him a pen. A few seconds later Jerry had signed various papers, acknowledging the receipt of the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. He looked up.

"Have you a photograph of Mrs. Bryan?"

Lewis tapped his hand on his desk. "I should have thought of that. Of course you would like a photograph."

"I want it, not for sentimental reasons, but in the hope that I may be able to identify her when I see her."

"I'm sure you will have no difficulty," said Lewis, smiling. "I can't think where I could put my hand on a photograph of her, but there's an excellent portrait of her at her house. 'I'll take you there— a fifteen-minute drive. It's shut up, but the caretaker will let us in. It won't take long. Oh, there's your check."

"Suppose I decide not to accept the legacy?"

"Then you can return it," said the lawyer gayly.

The Bryan house stood in a spacious plot of land. The caretaker ushered them into a room on the ground floor and opened the shuttered windows. Glass chandeliers were shrouded in cotton coverings, chairs and sofas were enveloped, but over the mantelpiece hung a splendid portrait of Mrs. Bryan.

Jerry saw, to his intense disappointment, that it had been painted in her youth. It was the picture of a woman under thirty, and as he looked he felt something vaguely familiar— the wide blue eyes; the gentle soft mouth; the pointed chin. A very pretty gentle feminine creature Mrs. Bryan must have been in her twenties. And then he noticed with a shock of surprise that the clothes and the way of doing the hair were modern— if not of today, of only a few years back.

"How old was Mrs. Bryan when she died?" he asked sharply.

"Not thirty-five, poor young woman," said Lewis. "I sometimes think she had not much will to live— so much alone, and too gentle and sensitive and idealistic for this rough-and-tumble world."

Lewis' voice went on and on, but Jerry didn't hear him. He had thought now who it was the portrait reminded him of — May Foster, weeping in his office. It was the same type, a type he had so often seen before— gentle blond women who cried easily— Nickie's type. Exactly the sort that Nickie was always falling in love with because, perhaps, they were so absolutely different from Adele. Jerry felt a sudden deep sickening conviction that in some way or other Nickie was involved in this mystery; that a little honest investigation...

He determined to be honest. "Mr. Lewis," he said solemnly, "I feel I ought to tell you that I never saw this lady before."

Lewis studied him. "So you feel you ought to tell me that?" he said. His face was grave, but Jerry could hear a sort of smile in his voice.

"I tell it to you because it is the truth."

"I understand, Mr. Althorpe."

Jerry made another effort. "No, you don't understand. You think there was a love affair between Mrs. Bryan and me."

"I beg your pardon. I don't think at all about the matter. That is not my affair."

"I can assure you," said Jerry, "that there was nothing of the kind." But as he spoke, against his conscious will there came into his voice a sound of nobility— the voice of a man protecting the dead woman he had loved against the faintest breath of scandal.

"Exactly. I understand," said Lewis sympathetically.

"If so, you can't still think I ought to accept this legacy?"

"And yet I do, Mr. Althorpe," he said,

There was a short silence, and then Lewis motioned to the caretaker that she could close the shutters again.

They came out to find two taxis waiting.

"I don't go your way," Lewis said, "but you'll catch your train. Good-by. It's been a pleasure— a great pleasure to know you, Mr. Althorpe. If I can ever do anything for you, let me know." He smiled at the younger man and disappeared into his taxi. Jerry stood staring after it. There were still some things he had meant to say.

In the train, however, his mood changed. The sense of guilt lifted. After all, why should he assume one explanation more than another? There really was nothing to connect Nickie with this business except his own overwrought imagination.

The acquaintance, whatever it was, must have begun about 1926. Jerry had been abroad that summer— a rather riotous trip. He had been at Cannes; at Monte Carlo. What was the name of that pretty, demure woman he had met at the tables— wasn't her name something like Bryan? Of course the episode had been of the slightest, but women were sometimes very impressionable, particularly American women traveling abroad on a brief marital holiday. You did hear the most astonishing stories.

Eight years ago— hard to recall. There had been another girl in that house party in Scotland. She was a Miss Something— could it have been Goodspeed? It might have been, and yet her first name was certainly not Aurelie; he would have remembered an Aurelie, though nowadays girls thought nothing of taking on a new name under the advice of a seeress or the juxtaposition of the planets.

It was a magnificent picture of her, but probably better done of the mirror and the great bowl of flowers than it was of the subject's face. You couldn't always recognize a portrait— different conditions; different prey It must be all right. Lewis, a man of the highest standing and the widest experience .

Anyhow, one simply didn't refuse one hundred thousand dollars because one's memory wasn't too good.

He had promised to telegraph Sarah both the result of his interview and the hour of his arrival, but he didn't— not knowing exactly what to say.

He arrived at the house the next morning before she was awake. He did not disturb her; he had bathed and dressed before she opened his door.

"Jerry, you didn't telegraph. What happened?"

He pointed to the dressing table, where the check was lying.

"Oh, darling, it was for you!"

"Well, I don't see how it can be, but there it is. The lawyers were perfectly convinced. A braver man would have refused it, but—"

"Oh, don't be too noble, Jerry."

"Well, I must confess," he answered, "that I feel uncomfortable about it— to this extent, anyhow: I don't want to tell anyone— not your sister or Nickie or anyone. I should feel such a fool if people asked me why Mrs. Aurelie Goodspeed of Cincinnati had left me a legacy, and I was obliged to say that I hadn't the faintest idea."

"Won't it be in the papers?"

"I don't think so. It has been in the Cincinnati papers, but I shouldn't think the New York papers would run it."

There was a ring at the doorbell. "Oh, that's Nickie," Sarah said. "He's been trying to see you. He said he'd stop on his way downtown."

"What does he want?" Jerry's face had grown stiff.

"To thank you, darling. It appears you've been doing him a service, as usual. Not lending him money again, I hope!"

"No, honestly I haven't, Sarah. It's just about a girl."

"Oh, one of those!"

Presently he went downstairs to receive Nickie. Nickie at thirty-six was not so beautiful as he had been at twenty-eight — his waistline was thicker, his hair scantier and his mouth sagged a little.

"Look here, Jerry," he said, "I don't know how to thank you for what you did. You got May all quieted down, and her a job— I've got her one in Boston for the first of January, but this will tide her over till then. Much better for her to get out of town where there won't be any chance of our meeting, and her people come from near Boston. You mustn't think me ungrateful. I hustled right round to see you on Monday afternoon, but they said you had gone to Cincinnati."

"Yes, I had."

"What took you there the day after you landed?"

"Business." And feeling his tone a little short, he added: "Great city, Cincinnati. I like it very much."

"I don't know it at all," said Nickie, and he added with a chuckle: "There were a good many years when I didn't dare set foot in Cincinnati. There was a woman there—"

"I don't want to hear any more about your love affairs, Nickie."

"Well, I have always thought you ought to know about this one, because you were in it. It was before you were married, Jerry, and—"

"I tell you I don't want to hear."

"There was a week-end at Atlantic City, and I did take the liberty of using your name."

Jerry suddenly found himself on his feet talking rather louder than was his custom. "I don't want to hear," he said, "and I won't hear! I take no interest in your dirty love affairs— past, present, or to come. I've had enough trouble with you, and them, and I don't mean to have any more—ver."

Nickie looked at him in surprise. "All right, all right," he answered. "I won't trouble you with my confidences. Don't lose your temper. I'm sorry I annoyed you; particularly sorry because I had to borrow some money from you— but something tells me there isn't much chance of that."

"How much do you want?"

"Well, I want enough to get May started in Boston—say, five hundred dollars. You know I'll pay you back after the first of the year, only I'm rather short now, and it isn't exactly a thing I can go to Adele about."

Jerry walked to his desk. "I'll give you a thousand," he said, "and you needn't pay it back."

"A thousand!" cried Nickie, hardly able to believe his ears. "What a prince you are, Jerry; what a prince! A thousand dollars. Lord, that's a lot of money!"

____________________

15: An Affair of Honour

Guy Gilpatric

Cosmopolitan Jan 1932

IT WAS almost noon, and the world in its sport clothes was taking the sun and a cocktail on the café terraces of the Promenade des Anglais, or motoring luncheonward to Monte Carlo, Cannes and other points east, west and fashionable. The morning was brilliant with the yellows and reds of awnings; with dresses by Lanvin, hats by Reboux, coach-work by deMarcay, and a sky and a sea by God. It was, in short, the Riviera, demonstrating the inadequacy of its other name, which describes it merely and meanly as the Coast of Azure.

But only the narrowest strip of this bright picture was visible to Maitre d'Arnac, only an occasional fugitive waft of the sea air, gasoline and perfume came to him, as he stood at the workbench in his fencing academy in the dark little Impasse d'Ajaccio. For the Impasse d'Ajaccio was in another and older world— a world of cobblestones, iron grilles, and damp-walled stucco houses built years ago when Italy ruled the Mediterranean, and the gay city of Nice was a fishing town called Nizza.

Maitre d'Arnac was mounting a blade in a fencing épée and scolding away at young Armand, his assistant; for it was never a fencing master's place to mount blades, nor a provost's to be late.

"You should have been here at ten, and besides, just look at you!" snorted the old gentleman. "Chamois gloves, yellow stick— well, my boy, I know to my sorrow that times have changed (ah, the difficulty of finding good foil blades, even!) but you are dressed more like a gigolo than like a gentleman."

Armand shrugged. "Well, I wish I were a gigolo," he declared, hanging up his street clothes and buttoning his tight white canvas fencing vest. "At least those tango lads at the hotels make money."

"Money?" Maitre d'Arnac snatched the finished épée from the vise and gestured with it as naturally as though it were his forefinger. "Money? Well, listen, my boy: to you and me and every other swordsman, there's something more precious than money. Nowadays, heaven knows, there has to be! Go outside, why don't you, and read the motto on our sign— the motto of the old French fencing masters: 'Honor to Arms'!"

"I read it four times a day, but I can't eat it," said Armand. "Yes, it's the motto of every salle d'armes in France, but I'll bet that in a few years, we'll all be dispossessed. Our escutcheons and mottoes and trophies and toy swords will be thrown into the gutter by the bailiffs. Why, we're out of gear with the times; that's the trouble, Monsieur! We're old-fashioned, we're useless, we're—"

Somewhere in the salle a bell jingled.

"Pardon, Monsieur," the provost interrupted himself; "there's Captain Dufresne for his lesson." And passing the straps of his padded plastron around him, he hurried from the little armory.

Maitre d'Arnac shook his head and sighed. Armand was right; of course he was right. Fencing was on its last legs, shaky, just as an aging swordsman first feels his years in his legs and in the shortness of his lunge.

Fencing was something beautiful but useless, which time had left behind, like the jeweled snuff- boxes and gilt sedan chairs that one sees in antique shops. The magazine L'Escrime et le Tir, official organ of the French Fencing Federation, had listed only four duels in its last month's issue—a disturbing sign! For though fencing was a sport and a wonderful one, it was so difficult to learn that it could not survive much longer without its original raison d'étre, which was, of course, the duel.

The duel had kept it alive through the centuries; but now men, yes, gentlemen even, were taking their affairs of honor to the law court instead of to the field The noble art of the sword was degenerating into an obesity cure for paunchy Orientals of the bourse, a fad for young boys gone romantic from overdoses of Dumas. Salles d'armes were closing; masters, many of them, were living on charity; the great dynasties of swordsmen, the Merignacs, the Pichegrus, the Fishers— glorious fellows who had carried on the art through generations— were dying out.

Yes, and the d'Arnacs too, for that matter! Maitre Louis pursed his lips as he reflected that with him would perish priceless lore accumulated through more than a century by swordsmen of his name. Sorrowfully he put on his high starched collar and billowy black tie, thrusting into it a pin which was the miniature in gold of the Comte d'Auxerre's rapier. Then he brushed his black coat, and with the ink of his fountain pen carefully retouched a frayed gray spot upon the cuff. After the Gala, but not until after it, he would buy a new suit. No, just a new coat. Well...

From the salle came the clink— tac— flic of blades, the scuff and stamp of feet. "Feinte de droite, trois feintes de dégagé et le coup droit," Armand commanded his pupil. The pair executed the maneuver, repeated it over and over again. Each movement was judged to a millimeter, timed to a fraction of a second. It was monotonous work, terrible work, but rhythmic, fluid, graceful.

"Pardon," interrupted Maitre Louis, temporarily forgetting his troubles as he stepped to the long rubber floor-strip. "Your foil a moment, Armand. Ah, thanks! And now, Captain Dufresne, engage me in carte! So! With just a little more pressure on my blade, if you please, more pressure with the fingers, the fingers, the fingers only— not with a grip of your hand. Ah, that's it—sensitively, as a violinist fingers the throat of his instrument!

"Feel my blade; feel the adversary's blade with your own, always! For by this feel you can read his mind, his intentions; you can sense his attack, foresee his retreat, judge his morale. It is what we call le sentiment de fer, 'the sentiment of iron'— the phrase is older than steel, even, and comes from the days when swords were forged of baser metal.

"Always remember it, mon capitaine; it is one of the fine points of fencing—one of the things of the mind which set our art above such gigolo's sports as tennis, say, or the tango." And with a meaningful look, he returned the foil to Armand.

"I am going to lunch,' he said gruffly. "There are nine more épées to mount for the Gala."

"Yes, sir," said the provost, saluting with his weapon; "I will attend to them, mon maitre."

Maitre d'Arnac passed out into the gloom of the Impasse d'Ajaccio and walked briskly toward the square of dazzling light which filled the arch at the end. He had noticed that in his daily transition from shadow to the sunshine of the Promenade his spirits were measurably lightened.

Usually, by the time he had reached the Restaurant des Trois Matelots, his troubles had given way to his appetite.

But today, somehow, it didn't work. He was wondering, worrying, about the Gala on Saturday night— the fencing tournament and exhibition conducted once each year by the patrons of salles d'armes for the benefit of the master.

In the old days, of course, the proceeds were devoted to buying him a coffee service, or a gold épée d'honneur, or something equally useless: but in recent lean years, the master took the cash and was glad to get it.

Nay, he was often reduced, as was d'Arnac at this moment, to sordid speculation as to its amount. Let's see— two hundred tickets at sixty francs a ticket would make twelve thousand francs.

Ninety-odd tickets were already subscribed and the rest would be sold at the door— perhaps! But suppose it should rain? Suppose—

"Monsieur d'Arnac?" The voice came from a car which had drawn up to the curb. Even before he looked, he knew who had spoken. He turned. Yes, it was Carlotta Golivina—Carlotta herself, looking exactly as he had remembered her for thirty years!

Carlotta the dancer, Carlotta the beauty— La Golivina of Buenos Aires! Buenos Aires!...

THAT WAS the year when President Roca, in his wisdom, decreed that no club should exist in the Argentine for the sole purpose of gambling; whereupon each of the some score of gambling establishments added to its equipment of green baize tables and roulette wheels an outfit of foils, gloves and fencing masks, and changed its name to Sala de Armas Such-and-such or the Circulo de Espada So-and-so.

At first it was all treated as a joke, but soon the young bloods of the city took to fencing with that same enthusiasm which they had always felt for gambling. The new arrangement enabled them to indulge both penchants without even the inconvenience of going out of doors. Never in history had the clubs been so crowded. As more and more were organized to reap the harvest, a call was sent to Europe for fencing masters.

In response came the shrewdest blades of France, Spain and Italy— among them young Louis d'Arnac of Nice, and the red-bearded Genoese, Giuseppe Ansaldo, called Barbarossa.

In a year, two hundred salles were running full blast. Ah, then indeed was a golden age of the sword! Literally everyone who was anyone fenced. The maitres d'armes became social lions and were treated with that awed deference customarily reserved for victorious generals and famous matadors. Each morning the portenos went to the suburb of Belgrano or to that of Flores to fight their duels; and more than once, polite blood flowed in the Alameda de Palermo, right in the city. And when the rival clubs pitted their masters one against the other in elaborate assauts d'armes held in the Teatro Nacional, the smart world attended en masse and wagered thousands on the outcome.

The match between d'Arnac of Los Amigos de la Espada and Ansaldo of the Union Civica was the high spot of a notable social season. They were superb swordsmen— d'Arnac little and lithe and bristlingly waxed of mustache, Ansaldo a giant with a beard so full and red that when he stuffed it into the bavette of his mask it half concealed his face. It was known, of course, that this was to be a grudge fight, and that, whatever its outcome, a duel inevitably would follow.

Both men loved La Golivina. But so, for that matter, did all of Buenos Aires. Carlotta Golivina was prima ballerina at the Opera— a raven-haired Russian with a figure like a poem, who had come to the Argentine via Paris and La Scala of Milan. The portemos worshiped the very hem of her fluffy ballet skirt and the stuffed-toed slippers she danced in. The "Oles!" which greeted her every appearance caused many a bleached coloratura to weep stinging tears of jealousy. La Golivina was the toast, the idol, of the city. And what sport it was to watch her wiles with her two lovelorn fencing masters!

She appeared in public with Barbarossa oftener than with d'Arnac. Partisans explained that this was because the Frenchman disdained night life— he held that early hours and a strict regimen were obligations of his calling. But—and here the wise ones chuckled— young Maitre Louis had been seen more than once coming out of her house in the Avenida Alvear. Perhaps he was stealing a march on Barbarossa after all!

La Golivina flashed her white teeth, and said nothing. Let the town guess, and talk; it was all good publicity. If there was a duel, why, so much the better...

A THOUSAND pairs of opera glasses were trained upon her as she entered her box that night to applaud her two champions. From opposite sides of the house they stepped to the piste which stretched across the stage. Barbarossa wore a flowing cloak as red as his beard, a cloak which he dramatically cast aside as he bowed to the cheers which greeted him. D'Arnac came forward modestly, smiling his gratitude for the applause, and flourishing his sword in a courtly salute to La Golivina.

Both men were clothed in tight vests and breeches of white. Even their masks had been coated with white enamel, and the crowd laughed uproariously as it saw Barbarossa's red beard glowing through the mesh. The Italian laughed back at them, and waved his sword.

To d'Arnac, the laugh sounded forced and nervous. Well, he'd soon see.

The adversaries saluted the four judges, the umpire, the audience and each other. Then, in obedience to the order of the official who held a sword between. their crossed blades, they retreated a pace and fell on guard.

"Ready, Messieurs?" asked the director.

"Ready!" they replied.

"Play!" he cried, leaping backward.

For a long minute, the fencers crouched motionless as white marble statues. Their swords were held straight-armed, and at the eye level. At this close measure the flicker of a point out of line would mean a lightning lunge and a touch on the biceps. Unless— unless one could be quick enough to catch the attacking blade in a contre de sirzte, and thrust home the riposte before the movement was evaded.

Warily, almost imperceptibly, d'Arnac swung his point to the right, to the left, like a cobra enticing its prey.

Instead of attacking, Barbarossa made a feint in the low line. D'Arnac engaged him in seconde. The blades played with each other like flickering rays of sunlight. But suddenly, d'Arnac became aware of a curious thing. As he tapped and twitched Barbarossa's weapon with his own, a subtle yet unmistakable message came to him through the steel. It was the sentiment de fer— and it told him that Barbarossa was afraid!

He laughed— and lunged. Even as he hurled himself forward he caught a flash of Barbarossa's eyes, staring evilly over that horrid mass of beard. His point landed full on the mask.

"Touché!" cried the four judges in unison.

In that instant, d'Arnac felt something tear through his body, and he fell senseless.

Next morning the press, in describing the accident, said that as d'Arnac's touch landed, Barbarossa had attempted a stop-thrust. The protector button had snapped off his blade, the sharp end of which had pierced d'Arnac's lung.

But the umpire, calling upon d'Arnac in the hospital, brought with him the broken blade tip. Capped with its flat steel knob, it was less than an inch in length, but markings showed that it had been almost cut through with a file.

When the police went for Barbarossa, he had vanished.

La Golivina had vanished with him.

So, too, had seventy thousand nacionales of the Union Civica's money.

THAT HAD BEEN thirty years ago. Why, it seemed incredible! And now here she was, apparently not a minute older, smiling at him from her car, inviting him to enter. Trembling, he mounted and sat beside her, and as the car slid along the sea road toward Beaulieu, they talked as people talk who have seen each other yesterday, and meet again to resume their conversation.

And Barbarossa? Well, Barbarossa, it appeared, had sworn that he had picked up d'Arnac's sword by mistake; that the murderously filed blade was really meant for him; that there had— a plot against his honor and his

"But soon I realized that he lied," she continued. "And also, I knew I had made a terrible mistake otherwise. But we went to Chile, where we were married, then to Peru, to Brazil, to Cuba. Always he drank and gambled, and more than once"— she shuddered— "he killed. In Havana he deserted me. There was another woman. They said he had gone to France."

"And what— what finally happened to you— and to him?" asked Maitre Louis, after a silence.

"As for him, I heard that he had been sent to Devil's Island for life, and that he had been killed while attempting to escape. Well, it would have been a logical end for him. I believed it, and married again. I became Madame Renaud. I was happy, or perhaps I should say contented, for sixteen years. Then I heard that he was alive!"

"Alive? Dieu! And your husband?"

"I lacked the courage, the honesty, to tell him. Monthly I received threatening letters from Barbarossa— demands for money, always more money. We were rich, so I paid. But it was torment— is torment still. For now that my husband is dead Barbarossa's demands are more exorbitant than ever."

Maitre d'Arnac spread his hands. "But if you are a widow, what have you to fear? Surely he cannot—"

"Ah," she sighed. "Though my husband left everything to me, his family is protesting the will. Knowing my past, they've always hated me. Somehow, you see, they suspect that my first husband is living; that my marriage to Jacques Renaud was bigamous. If Barbarossa writes to them, as he threatens—zut! — they will break the will and I shall be penniless."

He sat in silence as the car swung back toward Nice. He felt that he should hate this woman, and yet somehow he couldn't. He realized, now, why he hadn't married Julie, or the pretty blond girl— what was her name?— oh, yes, Antoinette Sardou. He had never forgotten Carlotta, that was the trouble! And now here she was— radiant, lovely— beside him.

Hastily he turned his arm to conceal the worn spot on his cuff.

"And how are things with you?" she asked, pretending not to have seen it. "You certainly look as young as ever. There's not a gray hair in your mustache, Louis."

"I know it— it's dyed," he confessed.

"Well, so is my hair!" she replied.

They looked at each other and laughed, and suddenly they blushed.

SATURDAY was rainy. Well, he had known it would be! The attendance was scanty and the function dismal. He was glad that he hadn't invited Carlotta. Better that she should remember him as in the brave old days of fencing, when a maitre d'armes amounted to something, than to see him like this.

The Gala was much like every other gala: people in evening clothes, some rather ordinary champagne, and an in- terminable round of second-rate fencing. Maitre d'Arnac gave an exhibition les- son, and the visiting provost of the Salle d'Armes de Monte Carlo was defeated five to three by young Armand. There followed a three-weapon competition between the teams of the two salles, and then a special match was announced between Maitre d'Arnac and Monsieur Dessaulles, the bald-headed master from Monaco.

It is difficult to persuade professionals to fence publicly with one another, because defeat means loss of prestige and— more important— loss of pupils. But the old gentlemen privily agreed to keep the score tied until the final touch, when Maitre d'Arnac should win by a brilliant riposte executed on a prime-coup. Some day, when there was a Gala at Monaco, he would return the courtesy.

It was all rather a joke, thought d'Arnac, as he saluted his adversary and addressed his blade; a sorry joke, because not over a hundred and forty tickets had been sold. Ah, well, he supposed he owed his audience the best he could give. So, tac, he parried that one, and it was quick as a wasp! Careful now, he'll thrust at the foot... zip! Eh, la! Why, this fellow could fence!

Suddenly alert and smiling to himself, d'Arnac moved his blade in tiny circles. He would feel his way with this chap, engage his weapon and—

As the blades clicked, d'Arnac gasped, leaped back. In that touch, that single quivering instant, he was on the stage of the Teatro Nacional facing Barbarossa! It was the sentiment de fer!

His eyes sought the face of this— this Monsieur Dessaulles. The red beard was gone, but there was that horrid, malevolent stare!

Savagely, with all his force, d'Arnac beat the tip of his blade upon his adversary's guard. There was a snap, and as the button whizzed across the room, he plunged his jagged broken sword-point into Barbarossa's breast.

NEXT MORNING there was a brief formality at the Préfecture de Police.

"A fencing accident pure and simple— they've happened so often before!" shrugged the prefect. "One can only regret that the Gala of my good friend Maitre d'Arnac should have ended so tragically. By the way, Louis, do you know whether the gentlemen of the Monaco club have communicated with the relatives of the— er— unfortunate Monsieur Dessaulles?"

"I think not," said d'Arnac softly, rising from his seat beside Carlotta. "I think not, Monsieur. You see, Monsieur, it is my duty to tell you that Dessaulles was not his true name. For purposes of your records the dead man's name was Giuseppe Ansaldo. He was a fugitive from justice. Madame, here, is his widow. I will assist her in making the necessary arrangements."

Slowly, fearfully, he turned to look at her. The die was cast; her hopes of fortune were gone forever.

But she was smiling.

"Bravo, Louis!" she whispered, squeezing his hand. "We have let the world know! And now, whatever happens, no one can say you are marrying me for money!"

___________________

16: The Barber of Seville, Ill.

H. C. Witwer

1880-1929

Cosmopolitan January 1923

SOMETIME I would like to read a story where the hero ain't no up-to-date Greek God which acts like Mr. Gentleman himself, could lick Dempsey and Wills in the same ring, and can't stop babies and dogs and Ziegfeld's Follies from goin' wild over him. In this same imaginary volume where the above darin' departure greets the reader's dumbfounded eye, I'd call things perfect if this human bein' would stumble in love with a nice, good natured, healthy girl which is by no means a ringer for Helen of Troy and is a bum dancer to boot.

But from the average novel you get the idea that for a homely man and woman to stage a wildly romantical love affair is a impossible feat. This must be no little discouragin' to a great many boys which don't resemble a collar ad and a great many girls which will never be mistaken for Norma Talmadge. Well, they ain't a good reason in the world for a inhabitant with a pan which is no treat to the tired eye to take cyanide. Some of the tastiest affairs de heart which ever broke up a dull day has been between ladies and gents with features which panicked the neighbor's children. As far as that goes, I bet lobsters, jellyfish, hop toads, porcupines, chimpanzees and the etc. has tender romances, and a guy named Sheridan which composed a wicked play a couple of hundred years ago says, "An oyster may be crossed in love!"

Why shouldn't love mean as much to the homely as it does to the handsome? History shows that most of the men and women which smacked the world for a mock turtle while they was in it was terrible lookers, but if you think that stopped 'em from learnin' the mysteries of a kiss, why, read their lives and get a real thrill! So if you ain't exactly a eye tonic of either sex, cheer up and remember, ''Be it ever so homely, there's no face like your own!" as Shakespeare said, or else he didn't. And if you still got the idea that only the beautiful is addicted to love, let me give you the case of Nero Whiffletree, the Barber of Seville, Illinois, and learn about romance from him.

About a year ago I get wind of a jazzbo out in this slab which accordin' to the Chicago papers will be unable to stop himself from becomin' champion middleweight of at least the world. He bounds around rejoicin' in the name of Nitroglycerin Pico and the list of the boys he's knocked for a triple looks like a page from the city directory. In fact I understand that he's got documentary proof that he's the original cat's meow and all others is rank imitations. Well, as pilot of the current middle-weight champ I am no little interested in these bananas which crops up from time to time with designs on our title, so I decide to take a voyage to Seville, Ill., and see for myself is Nitroglycerin Pico somethin' to think about or just one more preliminary bout chump.

I took a tough boy along with me to give this Pico a private workout. The name of the kid I carried with me was Rough House Riley and he was as good as any boy in his division. He was champion middleweight of the world. When we get to Seville I park Riley at the hotel after findin' out that Monsieur Nitroglycerin Pico is a gendarme when not engaged in fisticuffs and will most doubtless be found in court. It seems only the day before he had raided the combination barber shop, pool room and near-beer saloon operated by this Nero Whiffletree, which was afterwards to be the life of our party. I get into the court room just as Nitroglycerin Pico is tellin' the judge what it's all about. Nitro is one vicious lookin' baby if they ever was one! He's got a pair of shoulders on him like a gorilla, a battle scarred pan and hands like a couple of hams. In fact, he's a little too burly to rush my gently reared champion up against without plenty of due consideration. You can see by the way the natives present regard him and whisper amongst themselves that Nitro's got quite a followin' in dear old Seville. No matter what the world may say, they think he's good!

Nitro gets through doin' his stuff and the judge calls on Nero Whiffletree, the captive. Nero is no invalid himself when it comes to build, but his face is his principal point of interest. I have saw some homely males in my time, but this tomato packs a set of features which belonged in the comic section of the Sunday papers and nowheres else.

"You are charged with sellin' bootleg," growls the judge, squintin' at Nero over his cheaters. "How d'ye plead?"

"Judge," says Nero, wettin' his lips with his tongue, "they ain't been a drop of hootch in my place since Prohibition. This here's nothin' but a put up job!"

"Guilty, eh?" barks the judge, payin' no attention to Nero's indignant stare. "Where's the evidence?"

Nitroglycerin Pico puts a interestin' bottle on the judge's desk and his worship takes a good long drink.

"Whoosh!" he chokes, makin' a terrible face and gulpin' down about half the water in a pitcher in front of him. Then he bangs on the desk with his gavel and Nero trembles. "You infernal scoundrel!"' bawls his honor, red in the face and makin' a game battle for his breath. 'What d've mean by sellin' sich stuff as this—d'ye want to poison me? I fine ye—"

Nero's so scared at the way the judge is gulpin' and gaspin' that he must of forgot where he's at. He reaches in his rear pocket and pulls out a flask.

"This here's the real McCoy, judge!" he says eagerly. "

"Ha!" snorts the judge, grabbin' the flask. "More evidence, hey?" He sniffs the bottle, grins, takes a long swallow and smacks his lips. "Aaaah!" he says, clearin' his throat and lookin' around the court room. His wanderin' eye falls on the anxious Nero and he shoves one hand in his pants pocket. "Eh— what do I owe you?" he says, kind of dreamy.

Nero gives a start and the entire attendance falls a victim to the hystericals, which brings the judge back to himself. If his face was red before, you should of saw it now!

"Order in the court!" bawls this master mind, bangin' with his gavel. "What d'ye think this is— a theayter? One more cackle out of you idjiits and I'll jail the lot of ye for contempt! Nero Whiffletree, I fine ye fifty dollars and don't tell this court ye ain't got the money, because that's dern good likker and ye must be gettin' fancy prices for it— if ye ain't, yer a dern fule!"'

Nero pays up.

I got half a mind to make the judge a proposition to take his act into New York where he's a cinch for at least thirty weeks on the Big Time, but first I want to interview Nitroglycerin Pico, the fightin' constabule, which is the baby I come out to this trap to see. However, a little coincident which immediately comes to pass right outside this temple of justice drives both Nitro and the judge out of my mind.

Nero Whiffletree comes out of court mutterin' and mumblin' to himself with a four alarm fire in each eye. He's so steamed up over that fifty-buck fine he's fit to be tied. Nitroglycerin Pico, the pride of Seville and heir apparent to the middle-weight throne, follows him, strollin' along at a easy gait while the ad- mirin' populace makes way for him.

"Here comes the greatest fighter the world has ever saw!" says a awe-stricken native admirin'ly. 'He'll be the next champion as sure as the Lord made little apples!"

"Don't make me laugh!"' snarls Nero Whiffletree, elbowin' his way through the crowd. "I only wisht that dizzy clown was champeen now, because I'm goin' to knock him dead!"

Before anybody can stop this daredevil he has turned back and stepped in front of Nitro, which looks down on him with a sneer.

"You big sapolio!" howls Nero with a whinney of rage. "Since you turned prizefighter and pushed over a couple of cripples you're all swelled up like a human yeast cake, ain't you? Think you're the duck's quack, hey? Well, no dumbbell like you is goin' to give me a pushin' around and get away with it!"

Sock!

With great presence of mind, Nero Whiffletree leaps off mother earth a baker's dozen inches and plants a murderous right swing on the invitin' jaw of his charmin' téte-à-téte, changin' him like magic from Nitroglycerin Pico to a dull, sickenin' thud. This Pico hit the wooden plankin' outside the court so hard he must of been pickin' splinters out of his pan for weeks afterwards and if they hadn't of swept him up he'd of been layin' there yet.

While the dumbfounded yokels is standin' around thunderstruck gazin' at their exceedin'ly fallen idol, I grabbed Nero by the arm and. hustled him through the mob to cover. Seemin'ly in a trance as the result of his sensational bid for fame, Nero acts like a man which has sneezed in the Grand Canyon and immediately saw a landslide fill it up with dirt. He's,miles beyond speech and that's all they is to it.

"Well, Nero," I says, slappin' him on the back, "you certainly uined this Nitroglycerin Pico with that sock on the button, you did for a fact! He'll prob'ly have to leave town now, hey?" " Nero Whiffletree shudders.

"You mean I'll prob'ly have to leave town!" he says. 'When that bozo comes back to life he'll give me a smackin' I'll remember to my dyin' day and then he'll drag me to the hoosegow again for assaultin' and batteryin' a officer of the law. I must of been crazy to of cuffed him!"

"Apple sauce!" I snorts. "That punch will make your name known from here to sunny Italy before I get through with rou. Have you ever did any scrappin'?"

"Well, I didn't put Pico on the floor with a nasty look, did I?" says this egg.

"A bright answer," I says. "D'ye know who I am?"

"Sure!" says Nero, with a sarcastical grin on his homely pan. ''You're Hawkshaw, the detective!" And he starts to move on.

"Listen!" I says, blockin' his way, "don't get.too bright. When it comes to usin' my hands I'm nobody's fool either. You're in a jam, my good man, and I'm here to show you a perfect out and a chance to make your fortune to boot!"

Nero looks me over.

"Do your stuff!" he says.

"Well, to begin with," I tell him, "I'm manager of Rough House Riley, middleweight champion of the civilized world!"

"That ain't my fault," says Nero. ''What d'ye expect me to do— fall down here in a fit?"

This burns me up and I'm about to walk off and leave this small town comic to his fate, when I thought of that sock which knocked Nitroglycerin Pico for a trip.

"Look here," I says, 'how would you like to join my stable, come East with me and fight for important money around New York? I'll give you forty percent of most of your purses, rate you along, and if you can slap a few other parsnips like you slapped Mr. Pico you'll soon have Rocke- feller gnashin' his teeth. That's a offer which gets you out of here before this Pico wakes up and pinches you and it also gives you a chance to see the sights of New York—a thrill a hick like you will never forget!"

"Be yourself!" sneers Nero. "I know more about New York than you do— I used to be a guide on a rubberneck wagon there and that burg thrills me about the same way a short skirt would thrill Adam! Your proposition is the bunk. I ain't no fighter, I'm a barber, and I'd rather work on their chins with a razor than I would with a boxin' glove. Knockin' Pico dead was dumb luck on my part. He didn't think I'd hit him no more than he thought I was Mary Pickford. On your way, you're holdin' up traffic!"

With that he blows. A sap for the ages, what?

Well, this mug's one punch kayo of Mr. Nitroglycerin Pico murders my interest in Nitro, so me and Rough House Riley checks out of Seville, Ill. What I did loathe to leave behind, though, was Nero Whiffletree. I simply couldn't get out of my mind that clout he hit the fightin' cop and that's all they was toit. A baby which could hit like that had a perfect right to be part of my in- come. He don't have to be no boxer. Dynamite can't box either!

Upon returnin' to the noted seaport and rapidly growin' hamlet of New York, I turned Rough House Riley out to pasture while I scurry up to a relative of mine by marriage, to wit, my wife. Although we been wed ten years we're still good friends. But our secrets of how to be happy though married will never reach the world, because we once started to write a book on it and we had such a fearful battle over what should go in this volume that the great American novel went by the board. However, my helpmeet is a breath-taker which would distract attention from Niagara Falls and I would dive into said falls with a anvil in each hand should she ever cancel me. Her trick is bein' beautiful and mine is makin' jack. We're both experts at our respective callin's and maybe that's the reason we seldom punish the neighbors with heated dialogue.

Anyways, when I reach Mortgage Gardens-on-the-Hudson, where we have just bought a new bower, this second Cleopatra greets me in a gown which would of made the first Cleopatra goal a dozen Mark Antonys. We exchange kisses till you couldn't make nobody believe we was married at all, while from below decks comes sounds of revelry by night. I peep over the stairway and downstairs it looks like New Year's Eve durin' the times when we were all sayin' "They can't put prohibition over in New York!" The boys and girls is struttin' their stuff to the tune of a record made by Mr. Jazz himself and fun is conspicuous by its presence. I am about to inquire what it's all about when my bride remarks that by a odd coincidence we have got to spend the night at a hotel.

"How come?" I says, with great. surprise and no little astonishment.

"Well," says my spouse, "you know how we've been inviting'different friends of ours from time to time to spend a week-end in our new home. It seems they can't take a joke and tonight they've all come up together. When I get through parking our guests here for the night there will be no room for us."

"Can't I double up with the boys and you double up with the girls?" I says.

"We don't know them well enough for that," says the wife. "Did you bring me anything from Madrid?"

"Seville, not Madrid," I says. "I was in Illinois, not Russia." I reach in my inside pocket and pull out a wrist watch which I bought in Chicago for her with great presence of mind and a hundred and sixty-eight bucks. It was the duke's cuticle, no foolin', and it went for a four bagger.

"What have you got for your great big handsome hus- band?" I says, when the applause for the arm clock has died down.

"This— sweetie!"' she says and hands me a bill for a Simple Six sedan, $7,500, not countin' the horn. "Now that we're living out here in exclusive Mortgage Gardens with all the millionaire Wall Street bond messengers," she goes on, "we simply have to have a big car. Come out in the garage and I'll show you my— our— beautiful Simple Six. I turned in our Rolls-Rough to the company and they allowed me almost twenty-five dollars on it. Wasn't that wonderful of them?"

"It sure was noble!" I says. "Tomorrow I'll take the house over and maybe they'll allow me a runnin' start or somethin' on it. We need a seventy-five hundred buck car the same way we each need another neck! Where in the name of Detroit am I goin' to snare any seventy-five hundred smackers?"

"That, sweetheart, is something for you to think about," she smiles sweetly, throwin' open the door of a garage I would of once been glad to call my residence. "There's everything on it from motorcycle cop bafflers to nonskid time payments. We don't have to pay the whole seventy-five hundred down, you know."

"You have just mentioned the best thing about the car," I says. 'What do we have to pay down?"

"Only seventy-four hundred and fifty dollars!" she tells me.

On the ways back to the house my wife says she forgot to tell me they was a special delivery letter just came for me. I redred on my hind legs and moaned because she didn't give me the letter the minute I stuck my comely nose in the door and she merely says if I get that excited over a letter she'd hate to be around when I got a telegram. Anyways, she adds, the missive is prob'ly only from one of my nasty old prizefighters.

"My prizefighters may be nasty," I says, "but I won't stand for them bein' called old. Besides, old or nasty, they're keepin' us alive— laugh that off!"

"Well, don't let any of our guests know that you're a manager of prizefighters, or I'll die of shame!" she says. "I told them you were a business man."

"Aha!" I says. "I thought you didn't believe in lyin'."

"I don't,' she comes back. "And I didn't lie. I said you were in the glove business and you are, aren't you?"

Ain't she cute?

Well, when wé get back to the house some big clown in a dress suit comes along and says, "My dawnce, I believe?" to the boss and the next time I see her it's past midnight, because I couldn't dance if they was a guy shootin' at my feet. However, I have sneaked upstairs and got pillows and trimmin's in season and fixed up a bed in the $7,500 Simple Six sedan so's me and my wife don't have to go to no hotel while the guests makes merry in our home. Meanwhile I have read the special delivery letter and here it is:

Deer Ser,

When you was in Seville you made the crack that if ever I ever come to New Yawk to look you up. Remember me? I am the guy which made Sweet Spirits of Niter out of Nitroglycerin Pico, the big false alarm. Well, my brother is running my joint in Seville and I have got his old job in the Hotel Escope Barber Shop. The big stiffs don't allow no tips, but I am getting past O. K. Come in and see me and I'll give you a trimming (on your hair) ha, ha.

Yours truly, Nero Whiffletree,

The Barber of Seville, Ill.

I decide to visit Nero the next mornin', as his charmin' letter has revived my hopes of addin' him to my stable of boss leather pushers. I have no trouble at all rememberin' that sock which flattened Nitroglycerin Pico, which, I notice by the papers, is still knockin' 'em over around Chicago. In fact, accordin' to a paper I got in my hand, Nitro has stopped Avalanche Higgins in: two rounds the night before. This Higgins is tougher than a life sentence and he has went ten boisterous rounds to a draw with Rough House Riley, my champ. On the ways up to the Hotel Escope, where Nero is now doin' his stuff, I pick up Rough House Riley and bring him along. Nero is standin' behind the last chair and he greets me like I'm his father and he was a fellow which is fond of his parents. I guess the poor dumbbell was so glad to see anybody he knew in the big city where he's all alone that he could of cried. A joyful smile flits across his homely pan as we shook hands.

"Your friend certainly ain't very good lookin', is he?'' says Rough House, grinnin' openly at Nero's comic supplement profile,

"Maybe he ain't tryin'," I says, hopin' to avoid bloodshed and violence.

"I ain't good lookin', hey?" growls Nero, gazin' at Rough House Riley's battle-scarred features. "Well, people which lives in celluloid houses shouldn't throw matches!"

"Shut up, clown!" grunts Riley, easin' into the chair. "Gimme a shave. I don't want nothin' else, see? I don't want no massage, hair cut, tonic, hot towels, manicure, shoe shine, singe, shampoo, olive oil rub or conversation! Just a shave, and no questions asked, get me?"

"Absolutely!" says Nero, tuckin' a towel under Riley's lantern chin. "Eh—would you like some lather?"

Rough House groans.

"Pick up the marbles, you win!" he says, and sinks back in the chair.

A few days later the thought strikes me that if I can sell Nero the idea of comin' up to Eddie McWagon's gym and seein' Rough House Riley and some other boys trainin', he may get hypnotized by the atmosphere and change his mind with the regards to a career in the ring. So I kept makin' a hangout of the Hotel Escope barber shop and finally one afternoon he happens to be off duty and he comes up to the gym with me. I led the open mouthed Nero across to where my five star special, Rough House Riley, is convincin' a sparrin' partner that the sparrin' partner should of took up steam fittin' and left boxin' for guys which bleeds less easy.

"There you see the world's middleweight champ in action, Nero," I says. 'He clicks off from twenty to fifty thousand a fight. How d'ye like him?"

"Not so good!" says Nero scornfully. "He don't look to me like he could hit the ground with his hat. If he ever fights Nitroglycerin Pico they'll be a new champion, unless they let this jazzbo of yours go in with a hatchet in his glove."

Rough House Riley's face gets redder than the reddest thing you ever seen. He busts away from his grinnin' sparrin' partner and takes a punch at Nero, which, should it of landed, would of knocked the critical barber past the city line. Nero does a standin' broad jump backwards, hittin' a punchin' bag with his head. The bag returns the compliment and with a wild oath Nero takes a free swing at it. He misses from here to Peoria and wound up the number sittin' on the floor kind of dazed. The handlers crowds around and applauds, while the angry glare leaves Rough House Riley's face.

"It's bad luck to hit a cripple or a idiot," he grins at Nero. "So I'll leave you alone."

Nero scrambles to his feet and glares around in a rage. "I didn't come here to be made a fool of!" he howls.

"Why should you," says Riley, "when you already had that part of it done years ago?"

"Get gay with me," hollers Nero, "and I'll smack you down, champeen or no champeen!"'

"I think I'll just break your nose for you!" coldly remarks Riley, steppin' closer and settin' for a straight left.

But then I stepped in between the gladiators. Fun's fun, but I don't want either of my merry men to get shopworn right then and there. So I manage to smooth matters over.

Then I get to work on Nero on the subject of boxin', makin' him a offer which none but a half-wit would turn down. But no can do! Boxin' don't disturb Nero and that's all they is to it.

Even a dumbbell can be a boxer, explains Nero, and cites the indignant Riley for a example, but bein' a;barber is a art. Likewise, he says, he's no ordinary hair mower, but a big time boss tonsorial master which clamps down a mean hot towel and scrapes a nasty chin.

"It's no use," says Nero finally. "My girl would never stand for me bein' a pug."

"Why don't you stop clownin'?" sneers Riley. "Where would a guy with a face like yours get a girl?"

"Looks don't mean nothin' where women is concerned if a guy plays his cards right," says Nero. "Solomon was no Valentino, yet a thousand women thought he was the eagle's vest."

"Who's Solomon?" asks Riley.

"There's a proper dumbbell!' says Nero to me in disgust. "I bet this bird thinks New Jersey is a sweater!"

Once again I got to prevent violence and to change the subject I file a inquiry about Nero's girl.

"If you think the young woman would object to you bein' a honest, respectable prizefighter," I says, "what does she say about you bein' a barber?"

A broad grin spreads itself across Nero's weird face, and if he ain't somethin' to frighten the kiddies I built Uncle Tom's cabin!

"She don't know I'm a barber,"' he says. "I told her I was in the movies."

"With that pan?" howls Riley, pointin' to Nero's face.

"I didn't say I was a star," explains Nero. "I says I was what they call a double. A daredevil which takes the place of the stars when they is stunts to be done like jumpin' off bridges, layin' in front of trains, fallin' out of areyoplanes and that kind of stuff."

"D'ye mean to tell me that every time you and this Jane sees a movie where somebody does a thriller, you tell her it ain't the hero doin' it at all, it's you?" says Riley in amazement.

"Sure!" nods Nero. "She don't know the difference."

"Then if she don't know the difference, why don't you tell her you're President Harding and make her think you mean somethin'?" says Riley.

Nero walks out on us.

But once I set my mind on a thing I'm two bulldogs when it comes to lettin' go. I had set my mind on makin' Nero a payin' proposition as a box fighter and I wasn't goin' to give him up without a struggle. I figure my next imitation will be to bear down on him through his girl. If I can show her the doubloons and fame they'll be in it for him if he turns leather pusher, I feel sure she'll give him his orders.

So whenever I see Nero I keep questionin' him about his lady love.

It ain't hard to get him to talk about her, but it's hard to get him to stop. Her name is Colleen Rabinowitz and accordin' to Nero she's a disturbance of the first water. As beautiful as a kindly act, as clever as a Irishman's alibi, with more personal magnetism than magnet itself and packin' a voice which would make these opera singers sound like hucksters. She sings in a movie theater, Nero tells me, but what he don't tell me is how in the name of Kansas City a knockout such as he describes Colleen Rabinowitz to be ever come to fall for a male with this baby- rightenin' face of his. Still, stranger things has happened, as the gamester in the sani- torium remarks while watchin' the little pink camels flyin' gaily around the room.

Anyhow, I frame up a little theater party with the idea of meetin' Nero's charmer and findin' out what she thinks of her homely boy friend settin' sail for a title. I declare my bewitchin' bride in on matters, because she seems to get a lot of laughs out of these cave men of mine and what I have told her about Nero has made her hungry for more. So I get tickets for one of the Broadway frolics and tell Nero to bring along his young lady. So's to have things smack of a all-star cast, I also invite Rough House Riley and his Platonic friend, Venus D. Milo, of the Winter Garden. There's a party of six which would get attention anywheres!

Well, although the world's champion middleweight, his widely known manager, two of the most beautiful girls which ever plucked a eyebrow, and the Barber of Seville is. members of this junket, the interest is in a person which ain't even there when we assemble for the night's pleasure. That's Colleen Rabinowitz, Nero's ace in the hole. Her failure to punch the clock at the time agreed upon has the ladies of the party champin' on the bit. They've heard nothin' else from the lovelorn Nero but what a eye-soother his entry is and naturally they're as anxious to see her as Columbus was to see Sandy Hook. As for me and Rough House Riley, well, we're less than a foot from death by curiosity.

Nero's uncomely face shows he's findin' out what worry is as the minutes flit past and Colleen Rabinowitz don't. Finally, after he has stared his watch out of coun- tenance, a thought fights its way to the top of his ivory bean. Callin' our atten- tion to the fact that his sweetie sings in a picture theater, he claims she must of got so many encores on this particular night that she simply couldn't get away. He thinks we should all go to this trap where she does her stuff and wait for her. So that's what we do.

We get to this movie house too late for the first half of the feature picture, "Married in Fun." The only thing which could of been more disappointin' than missin' the first half of this film would of been not missin' it. It was fearful and no mistake! But finally it comes to a well merited end, the lights go up and on the screen flashes this message to one and all:

"You May Be the World to Your Mother,

But You're an Awful Bust to Me."

Sung by Colleen Rabinowitz

They is quite a stir in the theater and a general scramble for the exits, but Nero Whiffletree swells all up like a mump. He looks around at us as proud as a new cop. Both the girls sits up a little straighter. I admit to a mild thrill and even Rough House Riley straightens his tie and smooths back his hair. The evenin's piece of resistance is about to appear.

A little this and that from the organ, and out on the stage steps Colleen Rabinowitz and bursts into song.

Hot bouillon!

Like one man all of us but Nero lets forth a gasp and sinks back in our seats, slapped for a row of East Indian tomato cans! This Colleen Rabinowitz is a tall, thin, red-headed comic, with a face about as plain and unexcitin' as the directions for makin' tea. Never again will she gaze upon her fortieth birthday and they's more angles to her than they is to horse racin'. If she can sing, I can make a seaplane!

Venus D. Milo is gigglin' softly, my wife just sits there petrified and Rough House Riley is busy composin' appropriate remarks to make to Nero after Colleen has had mercy and quit singin'. But Nero Whiffletree is drinkin' in every line of his young woman's song like it was liquid gold. In the midst of a note which is so cruel and unusual it sent half the customers scurryin' out into the great outdoors, Nero turns to my wife and sighs:

"Ain't she wonderful, no foolin'?"

Before the boss can answer, Rough House Riley takes the rostrum.

"If you and that snapper ever visits the zoo," he says, lookin' from Nero to Colleen, ''they'll look on you as the find of the century and they wouldn't let you get away if you cried your eyes out!"

The next second Riley's busy tryin' to find out who kicked him in the ankle with a pointed toe. It was me. Apparently Nero didn't even hear Riley's nasty dig about him and his cutey, because he says nothin' at all.

Well, Colleen quits singin' and we all go round to meet her at the stage entrance. After introductions has flew back and forth like butterflies and Colleen Rabinowitz has showed no signs of bein' overcome with the honor of meetin' any or all of us Big Leaguers, I remind the gatherin' that I got six ducats for the theater and it's gettin' late. The minute Colleen hears the name of the drama I have picked out she says she's already saw it and besides she don't feel like goin' to a theater, she wants to go to a cabaret. All her remarks is addressed to Nero Whiffletree and although I am the jobbie which has blowed fifty bucks for theater tickets, I could of been in Betelgeuse for all the attention she give me.

Fed up with Nero and Colleen, Rough House Riley and his patootie is showin' unmistakably signs of restlessness, but me and my chatelaine is gourmands for punishment and we led the way to a cabaret without further ado. I used my influence— a twenty dollar bill— with the head waiter and we get parked at a ring- side table where we can see the revue and the dancers and act as a given point for everything else of interest to pass. Food flowed like water and what we drank is nobody's business.

In the next two hours I made two hundred attempts to get Colleen Rabinowitz in conversation long enough to sell her the idea of Nero becomin' a box fighter and I failed just two hundred times. The world's undisputed champion wry-faced male and the holder of the same title in the female division had conversation for nobody but each other. Questions asked 'em brung a short nod in return, when they give us a tumble at all. Every now and then they got up and danced, leavin' us flat without as much as a facsimile of a apology. They act like not only are they alone at our table, but they're alone in the wide wide world. I have saw couples which was partial to each other, but Nero and Colleen would of made Romeo and Juliet look like landlord and tenant. You couldn't of got Colleen and Nero apart with a injunction! All they needed to make anywheres Heaven was each other!

Two hours of this licks Rough House Riley and his girl and they complain bitterly, so we took the air. I couldn't even get a word in edgewise to Nero and Company to apologize for leavin' 'em.

Once we get outside, Rough House Riley lets off steam.

"Both them two sapolios looks like they just stepped out of somebody's night- mare," he says, "yet each thinks the other is the lamb's chop! Ain't that a scream?"

"I think it's delightful," says my wife, givin' Rough House a reprovin' stare. "There's something pathetically fascinating in the fact that two people as remarkably unattractive as they are should fall so desperately in love with each other. One of us should go back and apologize for leaving them."

"I'll bet they don't know we left," I says.

"Humph!" snorts Rough House, callin' a taxi for him and his lady friend. "They don't even know we was there!"

But yes they did. Or at least Nero did. The next afternoon the Barber of Seville saunters into Eddie McWagon's gym where Rough House Riley is workin' out for his comin' battle with Montreal Eddie Biff. Without no preliminaries, Nero walks over to Rough House and slaps him on the gleamin' white shoulder blades.

"You big stew!'"' snarls Nero. "What d'ye mean by tryin' to make my girl last night?"

Rough House Riley stops sparrin' and looks at Nero kind of dazed.

"Me try to make that—that comic valentine!" he gasps. "Why, you poor—"

"Don't lie to me, you double-crossin' false alarm!"' howls Nero. "She told me all about it. How you was incessantly makin' eyes at her and steppin' on her little foot under the table and tryin' to get her phone number. Well, when I get through with you, you'll leave pretty girls alone hereafter!"

Then the fun began.

Nero Whiffletree suddenly swung a glancin' right at Rough House Riley and my champ sits down hard on the floor. Well, Riley has been down before— but he gets up! If I had my way, I'd say that when Riley got up Nero proceeded to smack him for a mock turtle, but I might as well tell the truth. Rough House Riley went around Nero Whiffletree like a cooper around a barrel and when he got tired of cuffin' him he knocked him as stiff as your collar with a left to the jaw. So that was all settled.

I don't see Nero for another week and when I do he's full of surprises. First he says Colleen Rabinowitz has promised to wed him as soon as he can show her fifty thousand pistoles in the bank. Can you feature that? If I was a girl and I looked like Colleen Rabinowitz and some- body asked me to marry 'em, the only conditions I would make is that the party be white. But the lovesick barber don't seem to think that the fifty thousand ransom is a bit unreasonable.

"I'm through barberin' for the time bein'," he says. 'You once made me a proposition to turn scrapper. Well, I have talked matters over with Colleen and she's willin' to have me take it up. She thinks I'm in the movies, you know, and she's willin' to have me do anything which will get me out of that game!"

"Why?" I says.

"Well," says this human cartoon, smirkin' and brushin' back his wire hair, "she's afraid some of them bathin' beauties might fall for me."

Three months later, ''One-Punch Nero," nee Nero Whiffletree, is ready to make his first start in a prize ring. Five months later he's ready to make his last! In two months, Nero started five times and lost an even five fights. In four of his battles he's knocked kickin' and in the fifth he quit like a dog. The poisonous right with which he flattened the famous Nitroglycerin Pico that day out in dear old Seville seems to of lost its power as a sleepin' potion and as a boxer Nero was a good barber. I never seen nobody like him and that's a fact. In the gym he was as ferocious as a wounded grizzly, but once he got in the ring he wouldn't harm a flea. He made the worst boloneys in the business look like champions once they got boxin' with him. After Nero's first five starts I couldn't of got him in a fight club around New York with a ticket.

In the meantime Nitroglycerin Pico has been goin' through the middleweight division like Sherman went through Georgia. He just don't seem able to lose a fight no matter how hetries. The results is that the sport writers begins clamorin' for Rough House Riley to give Nitro a chance at his title and I can't agree fast enough. I figure that anybody which Nero can stop with a punch the way he stopped Nitro will be a cinch for Rough House, which in turn had no trouble puttin' Nero to sleep.

The Rough House Riley - Nitroglycerin Pico middleweight championship battle was a scuffle which will be remembered to their dyin' day by them which was lucky enough to see it. They was as much action in it as they was in the Battle of Manila Bay and it was a much better fight to look at. Both could hit and both could take it and that's what they done to the queen's taste! Each made a half-dozen trips to the canvas durin' the first thirteen frames and then in the fourteenth round Nitro caught Riley comin' in with a short right hook to the button. When Riley opened his eyes the club house was dark and he was ex-middleweight champion.

The next mornin' they is nothin' in the world lower than the way I feel. My visible means of support has been slapped from under his title and the chances is it will be a oversize year before Nitroglycerin Pico will give Rough House Riley a crack at his brand new crown. Well, it was while readin' the mornin' paper accounts of the massacre that I get the big idea. In one paper it says that Nitroglycerin Pico, the new champion, has never been knocked out in his life. Immediately a picture of our old friend Nero Whiffletree sockin' Nitro for a goal pops into my fevered mind. He done it once, maybe he can do it again!

They is nothin' more attractive to me than the impossible. I'd much rather cross the ocean on roller skates than on a boat. Since I was pet of the nursery, tryin' to unscrew the unscrutable has been my hobby. Another thing, nearly every champ in the prize ring has had a guy which was his jinx. A guy which no mat- ter if four thousand other scrappers could knock him out has always had somethin' on the champ. I figured that in this case Nero Whiffletree was Nitroglycerin Pico's jinx and no matter how many tomatoes could put Nero away, he was the new champion's master through that one punch kayo he slipped over on him in Seville. Nero may not be no world's champion, but he's champion of Nitroglycerin Pico, is the way I size matters up. At any rate, it's worth a try. With that fifty thousand bucks to accumulate for Colleen Rabinowitz, Nero thinks so too.

Rough House Riley, convalescin' from his wounds, tells me I'm cuckoo when I ask his aid in readyin' Nero for a brush with Riley's conqueror. Riley says Nero couldn't beat Pico or Pico's grandfather if they let Nero come in with a machine gun. The sport writers and the wise crackers around Times Square claims if they had my nerve they'd open up a shipyard in the middle of the Gobi Desert, and a fight between Nero and Pico will kill boxin' wherever it's staged because Pico will reduce Nero to kindlin'. I simply go on takin' the short end of four to one that Nero knocks Pico for a rubbish container.

The first tip-off I get that my hunch is correct is when Nitroglycerin Pico absolutely declines the pleasures of meetin' Nero Whiffletree in a ring. His manager claims it's because the bout wouldn't draw flies on the account nobody's ever heard of Nero but me and his parents.

That's tapioca puddin' to me. I know one guy which has heard of Nero and his name is Nitroglycerin Pico! I'm now positive that Pico's more than afraid to step into the ring with the only baby which has ever knocked him cold. Old Si Cology has marked Pico for his own.

On one pretext and then another Nitro stalls out of the match till the sport writers begins to kid him for bein' faint hearted. A few columns of this done the trick and Nitroglycerin Pico signs to fight Nero Whiffletree twenty rounds for the world's middleweight championship.

I couldn't dare let Nero fight anybody else before he sunk his teeth in Nitro because I'm afraid some tramp will smack him stiff and ruin the championship fight. So I kept him strictly under cover till the night of the big muss. Between the kiddin' and the what not, the fight had been pretty well smoked up and when Nero climbed through the ropes to make his bid for the world's middleweight championship the crowd would make you think they was nobody from this side in France with Pershing but his horse. Pico is a six to one ringside favorite and me and Nero has got every nickel we own in the world bet that we make a pass!

I never in my life seen nobody as con- fident as Nero Whiffletree is that night, the biggest evenin' of his life. Ordinarily he was as nervous and pale before the bell as a guy bein' hung for the first time, but tonight he's as cool as your ice box should be. He waves and grins to the boys around the ringside till the sport writers swears I got him doped.

"The only time I ever took a punch at this parsnip, I laid him like a carpet," he says to me while I'm tyin' on his gloves. "I'll do it again tonight as sure as I'll leave this ring with fifty thousand bucks and a first mortgage on Colleen Rabinowitz."

I go over to the other corner and find a pale and tremblin' champ, starin' gloomily across the ring at the smilin' Nero. This is the first time he's saw the barber since that fatal day in Seville and you can't tell me that Nitro ain't thinkin' heavy of what happened when Nero socked him then. When the men comes to the middle of the ring for the referee's instructions, Nero grins happily right into Pico's face and Pico shudders and stares at his shoes. They shake hands and the crowd settles back to watch Nitro give Nero a boxin' lesson and then knock him dead. I commence prayin' and— the bell rings.

Nero shot across the ring like a bullet keepin' a date to where Nitro stands seemin'ly dazed and with a sickly grin on his pan.

Sock!

The barber's well oiled right starts back of his ankle and comes to rest on Pico's chin. The back somersault Pico done would of win him fame in a circus. It lost him his title here, though, because when he hit the floor it was for a indefinite stay.

Back in the dressin' room I pay off Nero his share of the purse and bets— a mere fifty-six thousand iron men. Colleen Rabinowitz, standin' hard by, grins slightly, takes the money and gets straight faced again.

"In a couple of months we'll fight a set-up and get thirty thousand more for our end," I begins. ''Now—"

"Where d'ye get that we stuff?" butts in Nero. "You fight the set-up, I'm through with the ring! The only guy I can lick in the wide, wide world is Nitroglycerin Pico and they'll laugh him out of the game after what I done to him tonight. Another thing, Colleen is afraid if I stay in the ring I'll get my face all cut up and she don't want my looks spoiled, money or no!"

She don't want his Jooks spoiled. Say— you couldn't of spoiled that guy's looks if you combed his face with a broken bottle!

"Will you give Rough House Riley a chance at your title?" I says. "I made you what you are today and in doin' it I lost my champ."

"That's tough," says Nero. "Close the door from the outside!"

And him and Colleen goes into a clinch.

But six months later he did give Riley a chance and Riley wins back his title in two rounds. Today, Nero Whiffletree's got one of the biggest barber shops on Broadway and right next door Colleen's runnin' a beauty shop.

Be good!

__________________

17: Riches Can Take Wings

Arthur Somers Roche

Cosmopolitan, May 1932

"SHE IS pretty," said Dottie Graykin. "In an obvious way, of course."

There was in Dottie's voice that faint hint of acid which, I suppose, is justified when a woman's escort stares too long at another girl. I turned back to Dottie, hiding my confusion under a manner of not understanding.

"Who? The girl in the aisle? Didn't notice her. I was watching them post the winning prices."

It was a lie, of course. I had been watching the pretty blonde in the aisle between the Graykin and the Wentworth boxes. But my interest had been less in her beauty—which was striking— than in her despair, which was even more noticeable.

I recognized the symptoms. I have seen them in Monte Carlo, at Deauville, at French Lick, at Saratoga. At roulette wheels, at "shimmy" tables, or— as here at Hialeah— at the race track. The quick gasp of breath as the wheel spins, as the card is turned or the horses start; the widened eyes, the trembling hands, the high color that recedes so swiftly, and the look of despair that comes into the eyes.

I wanted to step from the Graykin box and advise the young girl, whose anguish was so plainly written on her face, to do nothing rash. She was so young— twenty-two, I supposed— tall, slim, a miracle of blond perfection. I wondered that so lovely a creature had come unescorted to the track.

But I didn't step from the box and offer unasked sympathy or advice. There was an important question which I intended to ask Dottie Graykin later on that day, and I wished her mood to be acquiescent. If she didn't like me to stare at pretty blondes, I would not do so. And I certainly would not add to the offense of staring by the greater one of speaking. Nevertheless, as I leaned over Dottie, applying light to her cigaret, I looked again at the pretty blonde in the aisle. The contrast between her agony and the jubilation of the Wentworth party was the contrast between darkness and midday. Only a moment she stood after the winner raced across the line, then, with a shrug of her shoulders, a lift of her head, she turned back into the rear recesses of the grand stand. From her fingers fluttered torn pieces of the tickets she had held on the race. But Dottie's eyes were acute. My interest in the stranger was not hidden from her. "Not a very good loser! Acted as though she were about to break down because her horse didn't win. People who can't afford to lose gracefully ought not to bet."

I got away from the subject of the girl. I nodded toward the Wentworths. "And people who can't afford to win gracefully ought not to bet, either," I said.

Dottie smiled. Bonnie B., the heavily played favorite, had flashed across the finish half a length in the lead. Each Wentworth was the proud possessor of a fifty-dollar ticket on the mare. We could not avoid knowing that. The Wentworths' cries of elation must have been audible in the clubhouse. They slapped backs and shook hands, and comported themselves in every way as gross and vulgar people behave in triumph.

Perhaps, had the moment of their triumph not coincided with the moment of my own disaster, I might not have been so annoyed with them. Although one could hardly look at Judge and Mrs. Wentworth at any time without being offended by them. For the Wentworths, when the fairies distributed gifts, were forgotten in the trifling matter of grace of body and mind. They were people whose very existence was an offense to the discriminating.

"They can pay the rent now, eh?" said Dottie.

I glanced at her and wished from the bottom of my heart that her looks matched her humor. The pretty blonde who had captured my passing pity— if Dottie had possessed a portion of her beauty... But she didn't, and I was going to marry her. And I wished that I weren't, or, at least, that Dottie pleased the eye a trifle more and the mind a trifle less.

And if this seems unchivalrous, I can only say that as the pretty blonde tore her losing ticksts up, my own fingers had been crushing, in my jacket pocket, the tickets which I had purchased on the longest shot in the race. They had been crushing more than the tickets. They had been crumpling my last pretense to decencies. which I esteemed but which I intended to abandon.

Have you heard of the depression? You have heard it said that riches can take wings and fly away? Need I bore you, then, with the tale of what had happened to the Sloane million and a half since the fall of 1929?

Eighty thousand a year, so safely invested that nothing— my trustees assured me— could diminish that income. And this afternoon, when Jimson Weed finished a sad last, the Barry Sloane fortune totaled exactly three thin dimes and one nickel.

I had just enough money to tip the starter outside the Hialeah track when he should fetch my automobile for me. If Dottie should ask me, as girls so often do, for a quarter to tip the maid in the dressing room, then the starter would consider me no gentleman. If the gas tank should develop a leak on the seventy-mile run from the outskirts of Miami to the Graykin home in Palm Beach, then Dottie would have to get a lift from her friends, because I would be unable to purchase the fuel to take us home. If Dottie decided that she wanted a drink—even a soda— I would have to think of some quick reason why soda and the Florida climate mix not too well.

I remembered, as I listened to the racket in the Wentworth box, those days when I had quietly sneered at the little brothers of the rich. I remembered two or three young fellows who had incurred my frank contempt by marrying for money. I remembered with what difficulty I had suppressed my mocking mirth when, later, I heard them speak of their investments.

And now I, Barry Sloane, intended to marry Dottie Graykin for no other reason under the Florida sun than the fact that Dottie had five millions of her own, with more to follow when Uncle John died and when Aunt Jane graciously condescended to recognize Saint Peter.

Oddly enough, if I had not liked Dottie, I don't think that I should have minded so much the thing I intended to do. But when a girl is nice enough for one to be fond of her, pretending to love her seems to -become more heinous. If only Jimson Weed had won! The barometer on the infield showed that Jimson Weed had hardly attracted a bet save my own. Twenty thousand dollars, so the totalizer needle showed, had been wagered in the pari-mutuels.

Had my choice finished first, I should unquestionably have received for my twenty dollars played across the board the sum of five or six thousand dollars. Had Jimson Weed finished second, I should have been able to postpone the necessity of proposing to Dottie Graykin. Had he finished even third, I should have been able to pay the rent of my tiny apartment off Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. But as it was, I could only marry money. And the hateful exuberance across the aisle exasperated me to the point, almost, of violence.

"You'd better come out before I start shooting!" I called.

And then, framed in the doorway, appeared a pretty girl.

"Well, if they can't pay the rent, they can at least move," I replied to Dottie.

"I've never seen more dreadful people," she said. "They were playing roulette the other night and the woman actually hugged her chips to her bosom."

"Nothing more vital has been hugged to it for a long time," I told her.

Dottie grinned gayly. "That's the first unkind thing I've ever heard you say about a woman, Barry," she said. "Can you think of some more?"

"Lots," I assured her.

"Then the ride home will be delightful," she said. "Want to wait for the last race?"

I shook my head. I wished we hadn't waited for the second, much less the fifth. The sixth and last, with thirty-five cents in my pocket, would have been too great a strain upon my nerves. For of course, as every gambler knows, when one is broke one knows to a certainty the winner of the next race.

"Then let's go," said Dottie.

She gathered up her light wrap, handed me her field glasses, applied the last touch of lipstick to her mouth, and we left the Graykin box. Hands were stretched out to detain us, and voices hailed us. "See you at the Thompsons' tonight"... "Don't forget about golf tomorrow..."

As I waited for Dottie outside the dressing room, the pretty blonde emerged. She walked as I have seen women walk from gambling tables in Europe, unseeingly, with the mechanical stride of the sleepwalker. Once again I dismissed her from my thoughts. The Barry Sloane of some years ago might have invited a rebuff by accosting her, daringly offering unasked aid. But the Barry Sloane of today let her pass. Today's Barry Sloane could offer no woman anything save himself, and that was an offer the pretty blonde would have disdained.

I LOOKED at the thing which I called myself. Twenty-nine years of age, six feet tall, one hundred and seventy pounds, tanned, blue-eyed and black of hair— I weighed my assets. I came of good family, belonged to the correct clubs and was asked to the right houses. I played games well and danced not too badly. And I must be a weakling or I would not have plumbed the depths of despair because I no longer had money.

Had anyone told me, before the panic, that I was not a man of keen honor, I shouldn't even have been bothered by the statement, so ridiculous would it have seemed. I paid my debts, spoke falsely of no one and, according to my lights, lived up, to that code which I thought was instinctive within me. Now I had learned that the only thing instinctive in me was the idea of self-preservation.

When next I greeted those friends who now were watching the horses come to the post for the last race, I would be an engaged man. Somewhere along the road to Palm Beach I would propose to Dottie. Cold-bloodedly I selected the most appropriate spot. Between the Gulf Stream and Lake Worth I would stop the car on the ocean road. There, with the sun setting over the waters of the canal at our left and the breakers foaming on the sandy beach at our right, I would ask Dottie to marry me.

I knew what the answer would be. And if that seems ungallant, remember in my behalf that I have already confessed that I abandoned chivalry when Bonnie B. won. Dottie and I had been friends for years. I had beaued her around through a débutante season. I had liked her then and I liked her now. I'd shot quail with her in the Carolinas and played golf with her on Long Island. I'd danced with her at Cannes and swum with her in Florida. And recently I had begun to realize why Dottie had not accepted any of the several offers made her.

I was the reason. .Oh, there had been nothing of sentiment between us, but there are ways in which a woman may let a man know. And I knew that she was willing to marry me. And she deserved better than to be married for her money. No one could have been nicer than Dottie. But I didn't love her. Simply because I had spent my last cent, I was going to ask her to become Mrs. Barry Sloane.

Fortunately, Dottie had not asked for change to tip the maid, so I was able, when she joined me, to give to the starter who fetched my motor five-sevenths of my possessions. He saluted and thanked me, and as I drove away I smiled grimly at the thought of what his feelings would have been had he known that he was at least two and a half times as rich as myself.

Thank God that, although certain of my friends knew that my fortune had gone, Dottie didn't even suspect it. And when I should tell her—well, it wouldn't matter to her then, I hoped.

"Why so slow?" Dottie asked me.

"Things on my mind," I replied. I didn't tell her that I drove cautiously lest I be unable to pay a fine if arrested for speeding.

"For example?" she asked.

"Somewhere along the road I'll tell you," I answered, and felt a sudden emptiness in the region of the solar plexus as I saw the color sweep into her cheeks. For she knew what I would tell her somewhere along the road.

We chatted of nothing for fifty miles and at Delray I turned from the Federal Highway to the Ocean Boulevard. And as we dipped down from the ocean to follow the lake for a brief mile, I made up my mind that just beyond the point where we again skirted the beach I would stop the car and propose. Tangled sea grape grew on the road there, palmettos and coco palms; the sun would be a blaze of glory in the west. Dottie deserved a romantic setting if I could not give her honest romance.

Then, as I rounded the curve, I slowed down. Ahead of us were a score of parked automobiles, and twice as many people stood on the beach staring at a plane that had crashed. I stopped.

"Is it the plane from Bimini?" Dottie asked.

The newspapers had been filled for three days with the disappearance of a plane and four passengers that had flown from the British-owned islands a hundred miles east of Palm Beach. I got out of the car and made inquiries, but the machine obviously could not have carried more than two people, and it had not crashed on the beach but had drifted in, upside down, until it had grounded on the sand. I could see the pilot— and his passenger, perhaps— feeling himself falling, doing his best to keep this land plane in the air.

I wondered what their feelings must have been as they saw inevitable death racing up from the sea to meet them. I wondered if, in that moment when the end approaches, pettiness is forgotten and meanness is abandoned. Somehow I knew that the human freight in that plane had faced disaster more equably than I was facing misfortune.

And how cheap, in the presence of death, seemed my own disaster. Certainly it was not the sort of calamity which justified me in making a kept man of myself, in deceiving a woman who cared for me. Better to steal a man's money than a woman's affections!

"Was it the Bimini plane?" Dottie asked as I returned to the car.

I shook my head. "The Bimini plane carried four or five people, so this must be another one."

I started the car and drove north.

Suddenly Dottie said, "What were you going to tell me somewhere along the road?"

I looked straight ahead. "I've forgotten," I said. "I guess I was just talking."

Out of the corner of my eye I glanced at her. Beneath the tan her face was pale. I knew, in that wordless understanding that exists between intimates, that Dottie knew I was never going to propose. And because she was one of the nicest and gamest girls I have ever known, and perhaps also because while she may have been willing to marry me, she was not madly in love with me, she broke instantly into gay gossip.

And so I left her at her home on the ocean boulevard in Palm Beach with the promise that I would see her at the Thompson party later on in the evening. I drove to my little apartment just off Worth Avenue and climbed the short flight of stairs to my living room. My man was out, as I had given him leave of absence for the day. But my evening clothes were laid out and everything was in order. I sat down and looked about. I would borrow enough money to return to New York, sell my dinner studs, my watch and a few trinkets for what they would fetch and then— God knew.

As for the payment on my rent due tomorrow and little enough this year— well, I would sell my roadster. I'd leave town owing only for my transportation to New York and that I would repay on my arrival there. This was the end. Good-by to that order which I had considered my own by right of birth but which I now knew was mine only by possession of money. I wouldn't cadge or sponge. But tonight I, who on the morrow would be socially dead, might as well make merry.

So, two or three hours later I arrived at the Thompson party. But when I asked Dottie to dance with me she pleaded fatigue, and I knew she felt that I had failed her. Well, when some day she married a man more worthy of her she would forgive my failure and perhaps understand that it wasn't that. But there were others who were glad to dance with me, and if I didn't enjoy myself I at least simulated enjoyment. The party broke up about two, but, restless, I went over to the casino to look my last upon a roulette wheel.

I STROLLED into the round room and saw that almost all the guests were grouped about one table. My friends, the Wentworths, were the center of attention. As I arrived, number two turned up, and the croupier pushed over to Mrs. Wentworth seven or eight thousand dollars. Across the table from her, her gross husband, too, received several thousand. I looked away in disgust.

And my pretty blonde of the Hialeah track smiled at me with that disregard for convention that the atmosphere of a gambling room brings.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" she asked, nodding toward the Wentworths.

"No luck?" I inquired.

She shook her head. "Not a bit," she answered, with an assumption of carelessness that might have deceived me hati I not seen her anguish earlier this day. She was more mistress of herself now than she had been at the track. And composure added to her beauty. For certainly she was one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen.

Gray eyes beneath a broad forehead; a straight nose and a chin whose firmness matched its beauty; golden-brown hair and a creamy skin. Her mouth was lovely when she smiled and adorable in repose. And as with a careless nod she walked away, I saw that every movement of her perfect figure was graceful.

Ted Blake spoke to me. "Give me a lift home, Barry?"

I shook my head. "I think I'll stick around an hour or so," I told him.

As I spoke the words I saw the girl's shoulders move slightly, as though she listened. But instantly she continued her leisurely progress toward the door and I decided that I had imagined her interest in what I said to Blake. Nevertheless, because I am as vain as the next man, I found occasion to wander out to the restaurant to see if by any chance she remained in the building. But she had gone, and as I returned to the roulette room I smiled at myself in disdain. Suppose a pretty girl had been willing to linger and talk with me, what good would that have been? I must bid farewell to her as to everyone else, and it would be better not to let my heart become even vaguely entangled.

So I went back to watch the Wentworths. They were still winning and they were vulgar, loud and gross. As I turned away I heard the woman demand cash for her chips, and heard someone mutter that she was foolish to carry fifty thousand dollars in cash with her.

Fifty thousand dollars! What a pleasant thing it would be to hold them up and take their winnings from them. People like that didn't deserve money.

I left the casino and got into my car and drove to my apartment. I climbed the stairs and then, as I was about to insert the key in the lock, I noted that the door was slightly ajar.

I pushed it open and switched on the electric light and knew instantly that someone had been in my rooms. Letters that I had put in cubby-holes in the desk were scattered on top. I smiled as I contemplated the disorder that proved some intruder had been here. How disappointed he must have been as he conned the possessions of Barry Sloane.

Then I could feel my face harden. A faint sound from my bedroom apprised me that the intruder was still here.

"You'd better come out before I start shooting!" I called.

From my hip pocket I drew the flat automatic pistol that I always carry. I leveled it at the door and waited. And then in the doorway appeared the pretty blonde of the casino and the track.

"You— you said you wouldn't be home for an hour," she said. In her tone there was a distinct resentment, as though I had grossly deceived her. I replaced the pistol in my pocket, and laughed.

"Had I been sure you were listening I would have told you not to count on my word. I am a creature of impulse— on your own order, I imagine."

The gray eyes met mine squarely. "Not impulse. This was deliberate. I knew where you lived, and thinking you'd not be home, I came here." Her voice was lovely— cool and without accent.

"I apologize," I said, "for not having anything of value lying around loose. What made you think you'd find money here?"

"The wealthy Barry Sloane! Rich bachelors are sometimes careless with their cash."

"But what made you do such a reckless thing?"

"What makes anyone steal? Poverty. Isn't that the usual answer? It's mine, anyway."

"But why should a person in desperate need come to Palm Beach?" I demanded.

"Why shouldn't a person who has only a few hundred dollars left in the world come to a place where there is gambling? I thought I might win money here. And I haven't. I have tried for work. I can't find it. And I have gambled and lost. Now— I steal."

"Try to steal," I corrected her.

"It's the same thing. I'm a thief. What are you going to do with me?"

"I am going to get your promise never to do a thing like this again," I told her.

"What do you care what I do?"

"Doesn't any human being with decent instincts care what becomes of another human being?" I countered. "I watched you at the track today and knew you'd lost more than you could afford."

"Afford?" Her laugh was bitter. "It was my last cent. As I left the hotel tonight, I was told not to return unless I brought with me money to pay my bill. It was either steal or—"

She didn't finish her sentence, but I knew that she meant suicide.

"How much is your bill?" I asked.

"Not much. But what's the use? Suppose, in a chivalrous moment, you offered to pay it for me? There would be other weeks and other bills."

"But if you had found money here and escaped with it before I returned, the future would be the same, wouldn't it?"

SHE SMILED slightly. "But I thought that in your apartment I might find money enough to keep me a great many weeks; to pay a great many bills."

"But when that was gone?" I persisted.

Her eyes grew defiant. "There'd be other apartments of other Barry Sloanes."

I lowered my eyes. Here was the loveliest girl in the world in dire need, and I couldn't help her. I couldn't even pay her pitiful hotel bill. And I wanted to. I was sorry for her.

"How much is your bill?" I asked.

"One hundred and twenty-five dollars," she replied. "But what's the use? It would only postpone the inevitable."

"Postponements sometimes utterly abolish the inevitable," I told her. "Will you wait here half an hour?"

"You're going to get the police?" Now fear was in her eyes.

"I could so easily telephone for them," I smiled. "No, unfortunately, I haven't any cash with me. The casino cleaned me out, too. But I'll go out and borrow enough money to tide you over."

"I won't take money from you."

"You could steal from me," I said.

"That isn't as humiliating as taking charity," she said. Her voice grew bitter. "There are other men who would give me money."

"And I don't happen to be that kind of man," I told her.

"Not from any kind of man will I take money," she said.

"Well, will you go to work for me?" As the idea came to me, I elaborated on it. "I need a secretary in New York. I could pay you—forty dollars a week. I travel a great deal, and I need someone to go to my apartment every day and look after my mail, and when I'm there, to write my letters."

"But I might steal from you there," she said.

"Somehow, I am quite sure you won't."

Her eyes clouded. "And I'm sure, too."

"Then you'll wait until I come back? I'd give you a check"— inwardly I writhed at my own mendacity— "only that might be embarrassing at your hotel."

"You think of everything," she said.

And as I left her waiting in my apart- ment, I wished that I deserved that praise. I wished that I could think of some person from whom I could obtain money enough to extricate the girl from her difficulty. I knew what I would do if I could borrow sufficient money: give her enough to pay her hotel bill, her fare back to New York and a few weeks' salary. Then I would write her that I found I didn't need a secretary. I'd throw her upon the tender mercies of the world again, but at least I would have saved her for the present.

I went down to the night club and accosted Jimmy Quinlan as he was leaving. 'I need several hundred in a hurry, Jimmy. Got it with you?"

"Many people need it in a hurry now, Barry," he said. "But I hear you don't pay back as hurriedly as you borrow."

At another time I might have struck him. But I wanted no brawl tonight. I entered the night club. I got Tim Stevens quietly aside. He refused me.

"You'd better marry Dottie," he told me. "That's your best out."

I added him to Jimmy Quinlan. At the right moment I'd make him eat his ords. I went over to the casino. But there was not a single person there whom I knew. In the restaurant I saw the Wentworths leaving. And as I walked to my parked car they entered a wheel chair.

Sudden resolution came to me. I couldn't borrow, and I certainly did not intend to beg. When the girl now waiting in my apartment had found matters too desperate to bear, she had attempted to steal. Why shouldn't I do the same thing?

I got into my car, drove half a mile and parked in the shadow of the rear driveway of the house where the Wentworths lived. The tropical foliage combined with the dark to hide the car from prying eyes.

On tiptoe I raced across the lawn and onto a wide veranda. I tried the front door. It was locked, soI tried a window. It gave creakily and my heart fluttered in terror. But no sound came from the darkened mansion and I stepped within the great living room.

I knew the house well. Three winters previously I had visited the Craigies when they had leased it for the season. I knew the room which Mrs. Wentworth would perhaps share with her husband. And up the stairs I raced.

I paused at the landing to fold my dinner jacket across my white shirt front, and to tie a handkerchief across my face below my eyes. I crushed the soft hat which I wore well down upon my forehead and stepped into the bedroom which ran across the front of the house. I knew where the electric-light switch was just inside the door and I took up my station beside it.

Through the open window I heard the Wentworths arriving below. I only prayed that, if they rang the bell, no servant would follow them upstairs.

The bell didn't ring. I heard a key grate in a lock. The door opened and closed. I heard heavy footsteps on the Stairs. They were in the hall outside— then they came through the door. And as the judge's hand groped for the light switch, my fingers closed over his.

"One word from either of you and I'll kill you," I threatened. "I want the money you won tonight."

I will not say that Wentworth was a coward. I think that any man surprised by such a threat as mine is a fool if he resists. The judge gave me, with only ne protests, a huge package of bills.

"If you call, I'll come back," I told them. "I am desperate and nothing matters. If you make one sound—!"

"We won't," they assured me in unison.

I went down the stairs on tiptoe but four at a time. I raced out to my car. Five minutes later I was in my living room, and the pretty blonde was still waiting.

On the way upstairs I had picked five one-hundred-dollar bills from my loot.

"Here's enough for your hotel bill and your fare to New York. And here are approximately two months' wages. My address in town is in the phone book. I will drop the superintendent of the building a line telling him to admit you. Get yourself a place to live and in a few days report there. But leave Palm Beach in the morning."

"My trunk is packed. My car is downstairs. I could catch the through train from Key West in three-quarters of an hour. I'll take that," she promised. Her gray eyes softened. "You've saved my life, I think. If ever anyone worked faithfully, I'll work faithfully for you." She held out her hand, then dropped it in embarrassment. I took it.

"I think I ought to know my secretary's name," I said to her.

"Marcia Bentley," she replied.

"Well, Marcia," I said, "I'll expect you to fulfill that pledge."

With that she was gone. I had saved a lovely young girl from disaster. That I had done something disastrous to my own soul weighed not the least with me. I had seen a road that was easy to travel. From now on that would be my road.

Others had traveled that road and come to grief upon its smooth surface, but I wouldn't. I had education and brains. I would travel alone and most successfully. And so assuring myself, I undressed and went to bed and fell instantly asleep.

THE RINGING of the telephone awakened me eight hours later. It was Dottie Graykin's voice that spoke to me.

"Barry? Did you hear the news? Those dreadful people, the Wentworths, were robbed last night. The town's buzzing about it. A gentleman burglar— isn't it exciting?"

"Sounds so," I agreed.

"I've other news," she went on. "And I wanted you to be the first to know. Jim Barney proposed to me last night."

"Dottie! And you—"

"I'm answering him this morning."

"You're accepting him?" I asked.

"Why, I think so," she replied.

Protests arose in my throat and I forced them back. For suddenly I knew that I loved Dottie; that all my scruples had been due to the fact that I had lost my money.

"Dottie!" I cried, and choked. Analysis of my emotions was clear as crystal. Supersensitive because I was poor, I had told myself that I was a fortune hunter until I had believed it. And it wasn't true. Without a penny I wanted Dottie.

And then I remembered what I was. Because a pretty girl had been in need, a shameless pretty girl, I had become a thief. And while a fortune-hunting Barry Sloane could think of marrying Dottie Graykin, a thieving Barry Sloane could not contemplate such a thing.

"I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart, Dottie," I said, and hung up.

And thus I said farewell to life as I had found it, and descended again to the depths of despair. I could never be a member of the society to which I had been born. But I would be the unknown leader of a shadowy, a shadier society.

I had made my first entrance into that half-world last night, and the town rang with my exploit. My next— I was determined there would be a next— would set a nation ringing. I was a failure in one world; I would be the greatest success in another. And so was born Barry Sloane, the thief, who sang a requiem over Barry Sloane, the gentleman.

End

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-46

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

Mark Allerton

The Wrong 'Un 44

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

Blue Blood, or, The Pride of Lady Ambrosia 44

The Message on the Sun-Dial  42

Ralph Wilhelm Bergengren

Mr Chubb's Burglar 44

J. D. Beresford

The Sceptical Poltergeist  45

Leslie Beresford

Eastern Guile 35

M. McDonnell Bodkin

The Murder on the Golf Links  41

Charles G. Booth

Not According to Text 44

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)  41

Jack Boyle

Ann of Satan-Town  46

George Bronson-Howard

The Steerage Passenger 44

Ellis Parker Butler

An Experiment in Gyro-Hats  37

Beating The Law 43

Eliph' Hewlitt on the Millinery Problem  44

Hats and Lilies 37

The Heckby Hill Murder 38

Mr. Marston's Chauffeurette  40

Scott Campbell

Rings of Dust 43

Hayden Carruth

Active Colorado Real Estate  46

Egerton Castle

The Baron's Quarry 42

The Closed Door  35

Robert W Chambers

As You Choose 44

Anna Alice Chapin

By Way of Experience 40

G. K. Chesterton

The White Pillars Murder 41

Richard Washburn Child

The Screen 45

C. Langton Clarke

The Detective for the Defense 33

Sylvanus Cobb Jr

A Footlight Flash 43

Desmond Coke

The Ghost That Failed  46

Richard Connell

The Grim House  41

Dorothea Conyers

Lord Hillayton's Settlement 35

Ted Copp

Blackmail Moll 36

Oswald Crawfurd

Our Mr. Smith  45

James Oliver Curwood

The Civilizing of Swift Lightning 46

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

By the Hands of the Dead 45

The Heads of Apex 33

The Picture 45

The Smell 45

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 34

Charles Garvice

The Two Uncles 44

Lady Gilbert

Aurora's Treasure 35

Guy Gilpatric

An Affair of Honour  46

The Crafty Jerko-Slovaks 32

The Ladies of Catsmeat Yard  37

One Good Tern  35

The Pearl of Panama 42

The Rolling Stone  41

The Toad Men of Tumbaroo  46

Westward, How!  46

Susan Glaspell

A Jury of Her Peers 44

Winifred Graham

Pan   39

C. J. Hamilton

The Luck of Barney Costello 44

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

Seward W. Hopkins

Dickerson's Bag of Gold 44

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

Burke Jenkins

The Anti-Climax of a Bad Man 44

His Christmas Orchid 44

Twenty-Four Hours Start 44

Wimple's Fog-Piercer 44

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

Alexander Kuprin

Menagerie 45

Henry Leverage

The Petermen of Providence  46

Alun Lewis

Private Jones 39

Sumner Locke

Ragtime 44

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

Florence Marryat

The Box With the Iron Clamps  46

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

Gustav Meyrink

Bal Macabre  45

Alice Duer Miller

A Lot of Money  46

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

James Jeffreys O'Brien

Queen of the Beggars 44

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

Morley Roberts

The Hut by the Lachlan 44

Morgan Robertson

The Subconscious Finnegan 36

Arthur Somers Roche

The Dayless Diamonds 32

A Flutter in Finance 32

After the Fact 46

"Illimore!" 31

Lady Dick 46

The Premiere Danseuse 32

Riches Can Take Wings  46

Road House 46

The Robbery at the Café Ravasan 31

The Victim of Amnesia 31

William Merriam Rouse

The Nitwit 36

Victor Rowan

Four Wooden Stakes  38

Leroy Scott

The Langdon Mystery  44

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

E Charles Vivian

The House Among the Pines 44

Locked In 44

Hugh Walpole

The Twisted Inn 42

Florence Warden

Grimgriffenhoof  39

Cy Warman

"Sycamore": A Ghost Story 44

F A M Webster

The Owl 45

Towards Morning 33

Carolyn Wells

The Mystery of the Jade Buddha 40

A Point of Testimony 43

The Stolen Gems 43

Albert Richard Wetjen

The Madness of Captain Jonas 44

Ethel Lina White

The Scarecrow  42

Henry S. Whitehead

Black Terror 45

Cassius 46

The Fireplace 45

Jumbee 37

The Left Eye 45

Mrs. Lorriquer 45

The Napier Limousine 45

The Projection of Armand Dubois 45

The Trap 45

The Tree-Man 45

Raoul Whitfield

The Caleso Murders 32

China Man 46

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

H. C. Witwer

16: The Barber of Seville, Ill.   46

Leonora Wodehouse

Inquest  42

William Alron Wolff

Bait, Hook and Sinker  34

May Wynne

The Tiara  44

Arthur Leo Zagat

Girl of the Goat-God  43

______________________

Table of Contents

- 1: Cassius / Henry S. Whitehead

- 2: Active Colorado Real Estate / Hayden Carruth

- 3: The Box With the Iron Clamps / Florence Marryat

- 4: The Toad Men of Tumbaroo / Guy Gilpatric
- 5: China Man / Raoul Whitfield
- 6: Ann of Satan-Town / Jack Boyle
- 7: The Ghost That Failed / Desmond Coke

- 8: The Civilizing of Swift Lightning / James Oliver Curwood

- 9: The Petermen of Providence / Henry Leverage

- 10: Westward, How! / Guy Gilpatric
- 11: Lady Dick / Arthur Somers Roche
- 12: Road House / Arthur Somers Roche
- 13: After the Fact / Arthur Somers Roche
- 14: A Lot of Money / Alice Duer Miller
- 15: An Affair of Honour / Guy Gilpatric

- 16: The Barber of Seville, Ill. / H. C. Witwer

- 17: Riches Can Take Wings / Arthur Somers Roche

- Cumulative Index