Past Masters Fifty Two
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Nineteen stories from magazines and newspapers, 1: The Double Double Cross / Christopher B. Booth 2: The Drone / Abraham Merritt 3: The Moon-Dial / Henry S. Whitehead 4: Satan’s Circus / Eleanor Smith 5: Twice Drowned / Christopher B. Booth 6: Deep Sea Detective / Clarence Herbert New 7: The Blind Farmer and the Strip Dancer / H Bedford-Jones 8: By the Tie of a Boot-Lace / Anonymous 9: Trivial Evidence / Anonymous 10: The 6.15 'Bus / Anonymous 11: Shingle Short / Ferdinand McMahon 12: Her Demon Lover / Arthur Leo Zagat 13: Dogs of Circe / Edwin Truett Long 14: Wheels of Doom / H Bedford-Jones

PAST MASTERS

FIFTY-TWO

December 2021

Part 2

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: The Double Double Cross / Christopher B. Booth

2: The Drone / Abraham Merritt

3: The Moon-Dial / Henry S. Whitehead

4: Satan’s Circus / Eleanor Smith

5: Twice Drowned / Christopher B. Booth

6: Deep Sea Detective / Clarence Herbert New

7: The Blind Farmer and the Strip Dancer / H Bedford-Jones

8: By the Tie of a Boot-Lace / Anonymous

9: Trivial Evidence / Anonymous

10: The 6.15 'Bus / Anonymous

11: Shingle Short / Ferdinand McMahon

12: Her Demon Lover / Arthur Leo Zagat

13: Dogs of Circe / Edwin Truett Long

14: Wheels of Doom / H Bedford-Jones

15: Blatherwick / Evelyn Glover

16: Nobody's Business / C. S. Montanye

17: The Ghost of One Man Coulee / B. M. Bower

18: Changed Caliber / Ernest M. Poate

19: The Blue-Black Feet / Christopher B. Booth

Cumulative Index 31-52

____________________

1: The Double Double Cross

Christopher B. Booth

1889-1950

Detective Story Magazine 21 May 1921

IT was noon, the busiest hour of the day in the brokerage offices of. Sharon & Company. The customers' chair in front of the big blackboard, on which appeared the hastily chalked figures which showed the rise and fall of the market, were all occupied; about the walls were tense-faced men with eager or hopeless eyes, according to the performance of the particular stock they had margined.

Sharon & Company, although a money-making concern, was not of high repute in financial circles. Theirs was a clientele of dabblers and pikers; confused, nervous clerks taking their first little flyer while their wives were at home stalling off the milk bill; small business men who were more optimistic than their creditors; pitifully persistent oldsters who, despite the fact their fingers had been burned many times, clung to the foolish hope that Providence was going to help them shoe-string their way to fortune and a home in Palm Beach.

The only reference required to do business with Sharon & Company was cash, and most of their customers had precious little of that. Not infrequently, also, the money used by their clients belonged to some one else.

Fred Danforth stood facing the blackboard, but his eyes were not upon the cabalistic figures and fractions. He was watching the men in the room, studying them with the expertness of the man makes human nature a specific business.

Danforth did not look like gambler, and he wasn't; he dealt only in sure things. In fact the police had at various and sundry unpleasant times advertised him as "Sure Thing" Danforth.

He was especially interested in t young fellow who stood by the east wall twisting at his watch chain in an effort to disguise the ague of his fingers. His lips were compressed into a pallid line, and his face was putty gray.

Each time that the nonchalant, gum-chewing youngster on the abbreviated in front of the blackboard marked up another drop in "Arcola Oil," an increased dejection was noticeable in his face.

Fred Danforth nodded in satisfaction. "Bank written all over him," he meditated. "Nervous as a cat. Arcola Oil, eh? It would strain a millionaire to keep the margins covered on that stuff; it's sure been on the skids. Some bonding company is in for a nice loss, or I'm a rotten guesser; this is the chap I've been waiting for."

Arcola Oil, which in the past few weeks had been about the most erratic stock which had ever caused a ticker to stutter, checked its downward plunge at twenty-six, climbed back to twenty-seven, and there remained. The electric clock on the wall of the customers' room of Sharon & Company registered five minutes of one, and the exodus of clerks, whose lunch hour had expired, began. The young man, upon whom Sure Thing Danforth had his eyes mechanically, verified the time by his own watch, started guiltily, and hurried to the street.

Danforth without a moment's hesitation followed. It was quite a simple job of espionage, and the trail led straight to the doors of The Graham Trust & Savings Bank. Loitering idly about the lobby Danforth saw his quarry take up his duties at the window marked "Paying Teller, A. to F." The bank clerk placed on the window ledge a bronze name plate which informed customers that the teller now on duty was Mr. Justin Matthews.

Sure Thing Danforth smiled.

"Very well, Mr. Matthews," he murmured, "you have furnished me with a good deal of information about yourself. I think that we are going to become acquainted— quite well acquainted, in fact."

ii

JUSTIN Matthews' simulated cheerfulness, so carefully cultivated during banking hours, dropped from him the moment that he stepped from the street. He relaxed the muscles which had supported a forced smile, and the troubled look came back into his eyes. He had not dared permit the bank officials to notice his harrowed worry; he was sharp enough to know that they would at once begin to pry into the reasons. It was possible that he had not been as clever as he thought; perhaps, despite his caution, he had given some hint of his mental turmoil; it was possible that the third vice president, a sort of personnel officer, had become suspicious and even now was having him watched.

The thought filled him with sudden panic, and he glanced quickly behind him. Even in the crowd, which eddied back and forth along the street, the figure of Fred Danforth made a vague impression upon the bank teller. Danforth's was a striking figure— tall, fastidiously dressed in a slightly bizarre fashion which was the mode of the moment.

"I'm a fool," said Justin Matthews to himself. "No one is following me. It's just my imagination."

But, as he stood on the subway platform waiting for an express train to take him up to the West Side, he experienced a shock. The tall man in the pearl-gray overcoat was almost beside him. Of course it might be pure accident, but it annoyed him. He moved forward along the platform— and so did Danforth.

The express came thundering through the tube, and the bank teller by a quick maneuver got to the edge of the crowd and dodged into another car.

"I'll find out if it's my darn conscience or not," he exclaimed. "If he's trailing me he'll work his way back through the train until he finds me."

The train had reached Chambers Street, and Matthews breathed a sigh of relief. There was no sign of the man whom he suspected might be fol- lowing him. Matthews dropped into a vacated seat and became immersed in the news columns of his favorite paper.

But Justin Matthews' peace of mind was but short lived. There was a large exodus of passengers at Times Square, the seat beside him was vacated and by a very corpulent woman with four or five chins and twice as many bundles. Immediately it was taken by a man of more comforting proportions. A slight quiver of fear ran through the young bank teller, as, from the tail of his eye, he saw that the man wore a pearl-gray overcoat. Mastering his apprehension he dropped the corner of his paper and looked at the man squarely. He was right! This was the man whom his earlier intuition had told him was on his trail. Sure Thing Danforth smiled as he met Matthews' gaze. "Good afternoon,

Mr. Matthews," he said genially. "How is everything at the bank?" Justin Matthews' jaw sagged in surprise. Surely, he reasoned, detectives trailing folks about did not behave in this fashion; the man couldn't be a de- tective, and yet— he was quite sure that he had never seen the fellow before catching a glimpse of him in the crowd outside the bank, twenty minutes previ- ously. More certainly he did not know him as intimately as the man's tone seemed to suggest.

"Why— why everything is all right at the bank, I believe. You— you rather seem to have the advantage of me. Have— have we met somewhere before?"

"Never," calmly declared Danforth, pleased at the young teller's confusion.

"You— you are a customer at the bank, then?"

"No, but I've seen you there; I've seen you other places, too." There was a sort of disturbing import to his tone.

"Yes?" weakly questioned the bank employee.

"At the Sharon office to-day," pursued Danforth. "Having any luck?"

Justin Matthews' panic returned. "I —I just dropped in out of curiosity," he stammeringly replied. "It— it was near the place where I eat lunch and— well, I just dropped in—"

"You just dropped in some money on Arcola Oil," retorted Danforth interrupting.

"Arcola Oil?' asked "How— how did you know?"

"Little bird told me," tritely replied Danforth. "Must have hit you pretty heavy, eh?"

Matthews.

"It's—it's none of your business," said Matthews with a weak effort at indignation.

"It's a good deal of my business," retorted Danforth, who saw that he had the young fellow "going"— had him badly frightened. "If you'll get off here at Seventy-second Street and walk up to my room with me, I think I'll be able to save you a good deal of trouble."

"You mean—"

"The subway's not a very good place, my friend, to talk over such—er—pri- vate matters. I think you'd better come up to my room."

"Very well, I'll come," replied Justin Matthews dully.

iii

"NOW, Matthews," began Sure Thing Danforth, when the two were seated in Danforth's room just off Broadway, "you might as well make a clean breast of it. You've been bucking the market — trying to get on the band wagon with a lot of silly fools who thought Arcola Oil was going to make them rich."

"I think I've got a right to know who you are and what you are questioning me for," protested the young bank teller, but it was evident that he was pretending. Nervous moisture stood out in tiny beads on his forehead and his hands were uneasy.

"You'll find out who I am quick enough, young man," said Danforth. "Come on now— 'fess up."

"But— but," insisted Matthews, "there's nothing— er— criminal in— in stock speculation; it's perfectly legal, and—"

"Provided that you don't confuse the possessive pronouns mine and thine when you do your speculating," retorted Danforth sternly. "Just how much does the shortage at the bank amount to?"

"You are a detective, aren't you?" Matthews wanted to know. "A private detective, I suppose. Well, if you're a detective why do you waste your time asking these questions? Why don't you arrest me and have it over with."

"The purpose, old dear," said Danforth, "is to keep you from being arrested, to prevent the bank knowing about the shortage, to keep you from going to prison, to save you from five or ten years behind gray stone walls. Believe me, son, a State hotel is a bum place for a chap to spend the best years of his life."

"Then you are not a detective," said Matthews, puzzled.

"You've guessed it; I'm not a detective. I was willing for you to think I was— just long enough for me to get you up here where we could have a nice, quiet little chat. I know there's a way to clean up that shortage and keep things under cover."

"But you're a perfect stranger," protested the bank teller. "You never spoke to me in your life before this afternoon. Why— why — should waste your time on me?"

"That is a pertinent question," replied Danforth, "and you shall have your answer in a few moments. First, however, I want to ask a question— how much is the shortage at the bank?"

"IThaven't said there was a shortage!"

"Of course you haven't— embezzlers aren't expected to come across with the truth right off. They always bluff around for a while, although it's silly. I see you in the offices of Sharon & Company who, between you and me, are a band of thieves calling themselves brokers that is almost prima-facie evidence that you're bucking the market. And, when a bank teller, who is getting between ninety and a hundred a month, bucks the market, it's a simple matter of deduction to figure that he's doing his plunging on the bank's money. Then, when I see you sort of wilt when they chalk up another drop for Arcola Oil, I know that they've hit you.

"I'll lay all the cards on the table. The first time I ever saw you in my life was in the Sharon offices this morning, I followed you to the bank, and that's how I found out who you were."

Justin Matthews flushed angrily, "You've got a lot of nerve, meddling with my business," he exclaimed.

"And," pursued Danforth, almost purring, "I said to myself: 'Here's a nice-looking youngster who's about to get into a terrible lot of trouble. He's playing the market with the bank's money. He'll probably go to jail; I think I'll see if I can't save him.' That's what I said to myself, son; I happen to know something about prison life. To be entirely frank, I've been there, and it's plain perdition."

Matthews now calmly eyed Danforth appraisingly. He did not look like an altruist. His eyes, his face were too hard for him to be a good Samaritan wandering about a big city; his face showed selfishness and greed. The man's words and his appearance didn't gibe; moreover he did not, somehow, give the impression of financial solidity sufficient to clean up some erring bank clerk's shortage and charge it to philanthropy. 4

"Why did you go to all this trouble for me?' demanded Matthews suspi- ciously.

Danforth laughed.

"People always fear 'the Greeks bearing gifts,' eh," he declared. 'Well, so do I, young fellow. I'm not a rich guy who has liked your manly face; in fact my worldly goods consist of just this—"

Sure Thing Danforth plunged his hands into his pocket and brougth forth a modest wad of bills and some small change.

"Thirty dollars, minus the price of a package of fags and a subway ticket — every blessed cent I've got in the world."

"Then how do you propose to keep a poor bank teller out of jail?" Matthews asked scornfully. "That isn't a fraction of what I need to—"

"Yes, go on," urged Danforth. "Just how large a fraction?"

"I think you're just a plain, meddlesome busybody," charged Matthews. "I think I'll be going; even if there was a shortage you couldn't—

"Oh, yes, I could," cut in Danforth, raising a detaining hand. "You're here now, and it can't do any harm to hear what I've got to say— and it may do you a lot of good; it will do you a lot of good if you've got a dime's worth of nerve."

Justin Matthews leaned back in his chair. "Shoot," he said.

"Of course," began Danforth, "it may be too big a thing for me to swing; you may be in too deep. But, if it's a reasonable amount, I think it can be managed. I'm going to be frank with you. Keeping you from getting caught by the bank is really a secondary consideration; I need money pretty badly myself, that's the real truth of it. See?"

"I certainly don't see."

"You will in a minute, son. how much is the shortage?"

"I'm not admitting that there is any shortage, but just for the sake of hear- ing what you have to say, just for curiosity, let us suppose that there was a shortage of twenty-five hundred dollars."

Danforth nodded. "It would be all tight; I'm glad that it isn't any more. All right, we'll go ahead with the spiel. I've got a scheme that ought to net us just about three thousand a piece. The reason I'm calling you in is that it requires a— um— a little capital."

Matthews laughed shrilly. 'Capital ?" he demanded. "Do you think that I've got any surplus cash lying about me? Why, man alive, cash is what I need worse than anything else. Where do you think that I would get any capital?"

Danforth's eyes narrowed craftily. "Say, son," he almost whispered, "you took a chance when you lifted that twenty-five hundred out of the bank's cash in the hope of running it up into a fortune on Arcola Oil; you took a big chance. And now, when it don't take a lot of imagination to hear the judge saying to you: 'Stand up, Mat- thews, while the court pronounces sen- tence upon you,' wouldn't you take an- other chance— and it isn't really a chance at all—to keep from taking that trip up the river? Now wouldn't you?"

"How— how much capital would it take?" asked Matthews curiously.

"Not much, kid, not more than a couple of hundred— and it's a sure thing, a dead sure thing. Shall I tell you about it"

Justin Matthews hesitated. "Well," he replied slowly, "I don't suppose it will do any harm for me to hear what you have to say. Go ahead; but I'm not promising anything."

Sure Thing Danforth licked his lips with satisfaction; he felt that he had done a good day's work. "All right, kid, listen; here's the lay that I've got figured out—"

And he plunged into the details of his plan.

iv

IT WAS a hodgepodge-looking shop in a hodgepodge kind of street, and like the street it was listless and mussy. The sign on the window announced: "Art Objects and Antiques, Bought and Sold." But there was no buying or selling going on at this particular hour of this particular day.

In one corner of the window in modest letters was the added information: "Nathan Gorski, Prop." Sprawled in a chair, which would with little stretch of imagination have been classed as an ntique, was a man whom one would have judged to be Mr. Gorski. He wore a black, straggly beard and peered nearsightedly out upon the world from behind a pair of thick-lensed spectacles. Mr. Gorski did not look prosperous.

Justin Matthews, who had arranged for an extra half hour for his lunch, walked into the art and antique shop with the manner of a man who has business to attend to. Mr. Gorski arose slowly and bowed. He moved behind the glass-topped counter which contained a none too tastily arranged collection of odds and ends— china pieces, small bits of pottery, and some odd-looking jewelry.

"Yes?" questioned Mr. Gorski politely.

"I want to make a purchase," said Matthews.

"Something in antiques, yes: asked Mr. Gorski.

Young Matthews looked Mr. Gorski full in the eye.

"I am in the banking business," he said. "I want to look at some— er— jewelry— some stones, to be more exact."

"I see,' said Mr. Gorski. "I have some very fine old jades, some v-very beautiful old cameos."

Matthews shook his head. "No," he replied, "I want to see some diamonds."

"Diamonds?" repeated Mr. Gorski, apparently bewildered. 'You come to buy diamonds— here?"

"I was sent here," answered the bank teller; "I was told that you had some very fine diamonds that you sometimes offered at private sale— stones that came from Russia."

Mr. Gorski hesitated. "There— there must be some mistake," he demurred; "this is not a jewelry store."

"Very well," said Matthews; "sorry to have bothered you. My friend told me that I might save a little money." He took a step toward the door.

"Wait a minute," called the shop-keeper. "What bank did you say you were with?"

"Graham Trust & Savings."

"Oh! You look all right. I might have a few diamonds— some stones that were left here for sale by a former Russian count who fled the country after Czar Nicholas was dethroned. I'll show them to you." He turned to the small safe behind him and brought forth a small velvet case. 'I have some here— they are small," he said. The open case disclosed a half dozen diamonds.

Justin Matthews shook his head. "If that's the Russian taste in diamonds, I'm disillusioned,' he said. 'There's not one in the lot worth more than a hundred and fifty. I thought I was going to see some real stones."

Mr. Gorski fumbled at the case thoughtfully. "Would you like a good stone— a really good stone?" he demanded in almost a whisper. "Would you pay for a good stone, an exceptional, a wonderful diamond?"

"That's what I am here for," retorted Matthews.

Mr. Gorski reached inside his shirt and produced a chamois bag. Slowly he untied the strings and held up to view a steel-blue diamond which, even in the dim light of the shabby shop, gave forth dazzling little shafts of light and color. Justin Matthews, who had been studying up on diamonds during the past few days, betrayed his pleas- ure. "It's a nice stone— a very nice stone. How much?"

"Five thousand," replied Gorski; "it's a bargain." He spoke truly. At five thousand dollars it was a wonderful bargain; a Fifth Avenue shop, Mat- thews realized, would have easily priced it at six thousand.

"May I see it more closely, please?" requested Matthews, and Gorski allowed him to take it into his fingers.

Inside his glove, the bank teller held a paste imitation which Danforth had furnished him, made to the exact size and proportions, but lacking the sparkling light of the genuine.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "But couldn't you do a little better than five thousand." He was sparring for time, waiting for Danforth to carry out his part of the bargain.

"Not a cent less," refused Gorski. "At five thousand it is too cheap; you should not ask—"

A sharp explosion cut his plaint; it might have been the backfire of an automobile engine, but it sounded like a pistol shot. It was Danforth's ruse to distract the attention of Gorski. The shopkeeper glanced quickly toward the window. During this moment Justin Matthews' arm made a rapid motion, and it would have taken, indeed, a quick eye to have seen the arch of light as the five-thousand diamond sailed through space and fell inside the mouth of the blue-porcelain vase on the shelf just behind Mr. Gorski's back. With another quick movement the bank clerk allowed the paste imitation to fall from inside his glove to the palm of his hand. He laid the imitation upon the velvet pad where it lay, dull and lifeless.

Mr. Gorski turned back toward his young cutomer. His nearsighted eyes peered down, and his lips drew back from his yellowed teeth in a snarl.

"Sol" he exclaimed. "That is it; you try to steal my wonderful diamond, eh?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Justin Matthews with a fine show of indignation.

Mr. Gorski pointed accusingly at the paste imitation. "Just because my eyes are poor, you can't fool me with that thing," he declared. "Give me back my diamond!"

"That is the diamond you showed me," declared Matthews.

"It is not!" insisted Gorski. "Give it back, you thief, or I call the police."

"And have the customs officials on top of you for selling gems smuggled in from Russia?" retorted Matthews. "Oh, I guess you won't call the police— and I haven't your diamond."

'We shall see!" said Gorski. His hand darted under the counter and came out with a wicked-looking revolver. "Jules!" he called.

From the back part of the shop came Jules, a squat, greasy-looking fellow of perhaps thirty-five, but making up in strength what he lacked in good looks. In a few brief words Gorski explained the situation to Jules.

"Lock the door, Jules," he said. "We will take him back and search him."

"You don't need a gun for that," said Matthews. "I haven't your diamond, and I'm willing to be searched."

Silently the trio went to the back room. "Take off your clothes," commanded Gorski.

With a smile of amusement the bank clerk complied. The search of Mat- thews' effects began, and it was thorough to the last detail. Every pocket was turned inside out, the lining exam- ined, the sweat band of his hat turned back, shoes given careful scrutiny.

Jules shook his head. "He hasn't got it, uncle," he declared. "He couldn't have it. Maybe he dropped it on the floor. You keep him under guard with the pistol while I look."

Matthews got back into his clothes while Jules was searching the front part of the shop. He returned dolefully.

"You've made a mistake, uncle," he said. "He ain't the man that took it. It ain't possible."

"I can't understand it," said Gorski. "I was sure— but maybe it was the man who was in this morning. I showed it to him, too. My eyes ain't what they used to be, Jules; maybe that man this morning took 'it, and I didn't notice that he left a paste one in its place." He turned to Matthews. "I am sorry that I suspected you; you look honest. Maybe you: would like to look at some others—"

"Not to-day, thanks. The experience has robbed me of my interest in diamonds. They cause one too infernally much trouble," Matthews replied. "Can I go now?"

Gorski and Jules nodded.

The bank teller walked out to the street. Just around the corner Sure Thing Danforth was waiting for him.

"Did it work?" demanded Danforth eagerly.

"Just like you said it would," answered Matthews. "I tossed it into the big blue vase— the one with the Japanese figures on it. They searched me, but that part of it turned out just like you predicted, too; you've got a wonderful head on you, Danforth."

"Fine!" exclaimed Fred Danforth. "You've got a good head on you, too, old dear. Now I'll do my part. I'll go in now and buy the blue vase. Slip me the coin, and I'll go in an' buy it. He oughtn't to want more than a couple of hundred. I'll play square, but, if you want to, you can wait right here until I come out. Then we'll go and sell the sparkler and split. That suits you, don't it?"

"That seems fair," nodded Matthews. "A couple of hundred, you say? Well, here it is; I'll wait."

Less than five minutes later Fred Danforth came rushing back to the corner breathing heavily.

"You've sure played the mischief!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Of all the boneheaded pieces of work, this is it!"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, you chump," replied Danforth indignantly, "you tossed that diamond into an antique vase that's worth— that's worth two thousand dollars! That's what he wants for that blue vase —two thousand bucks !"

"Two thousand dollars for that blue vase— it's ridiculous. That seems to spoil it, doesn't it?"

"Spoil it!" said Danforth. "You're not going to let him get by with it;— you're not going to give up that chance after all the trouble we've been to?"

"I don't see how we can very well help it," replied Matthews with surprising cheerfulness. "I haven't any two thousand dollars, you know. Except for a lonely fiver, that two hundred I gave you is every cent I have in the world."

"But, you fool," returned Danforth, "you can get two thousand dollars from the same place you got the money to buck the stock market— from the bank."

"Say, Danforth, you're not half as clever as I thought you were. Why didn't you just turn that blue vase upside down and let it roll right out into your hand— maybe you did, anyhow; that would be quite a killing for you, wouldn't it."

"I always play square with my pals," declared Danforth. "Besides, that diamond got stuck inside the vase somehow, and it wouldn't roll out; I tried it. I could see it inside there, but the only way we can get it is to take our time about it. Old Gorski was watching me too close.

"Say, this is a serious business, Matthews— there's a lot at stake. You've got to get hold of that two thousand. You'll get the vase money back; we can sell it for fifteen or eighteen hundred. But I'll tell you what we'll do: The diamond can easily be sold for five thousand. The two thousand for 'the vase leaves three thousand. You need twenty-five hundred to cover up at the bank. I'll take five hundred for my cut until you sell the vase.  That's fair, ain't it? You go get that two thousand so's we can get that diamond before Gorski finds it."

"It would seem very fair," said Matthews. "But— well, I don't believe that I want to put up two thousand. You can keep the two hundred, Danforth."

But— but you ain't going to let it slide?" demanded Danforth with horror.

"I am," replied the bank teller. "My lunch hour is about up, and I've got to be getting back to the bank. If you'll walk along I'll tell you just why I'm not going to buy that vase."

v

JUSTIN Matthews was feeling buoyant for the first time in weeks. He looked at Sure Thing Danforth's puzzled, anguished face and smiled.

"In the first place," he began, "you guessed wrong. I'm not an embezzler, although I was bucking the market to cover up a shortage. There was a shortage, but it wasn't mine. I'm going to be frank with you because— because you won't dare to squeal.

"The shortage was twenty-five hundred; it belonged to Charley Mason who's about the best friend I ever had. Charley's got a little girl with a crooked spine, and he's been spending a lot of money trying to get her straightened out. He took twenty-five hundred out of the bank's cash.

"I found out about it and took a little plunge in stocks to run the six hundred, that I'd saved up, into enough to let Charley have the money he needed. I lost it— nearly all of it. Charley's got a dandy family, and I had made up my mind to pretend that the shortage was in my books, in case Charley was caught. You see I haven't any folks, and it wouldn't have made so much difference.

"Then you came along with your scheme for copping Gorski's big diamond that you said you'd been looking at. You had me practice tossing the paste imitation across the room, until I could almost hit a bull's eve with it. But I smelled a mouse; it didn't loo good. For one thing it looked queer to me that you had managed to get such a good paste imitation of the very diamond that you wanted me to steal. But I thought it was worth trying. As you said, prison's a terrible place to live."

"You— you've been stringing me, huh:" demanded Danforth in awed anger.

"I guess I have, Danforth. I like a bit of adventure— a bank teller doesn't get much adventure, you know. I was curious and— well, there was a chance that I might get the money that Charley needed. I've got a friend who is a clerk in a jewelry store; he told me how to judge a stone and all that, and I thought for a minute, when Gorski brought out that big sparkler, that maybe you were on the square after all— on the square about the scheme, I mean.

"Then, when you got that taxicab friend of yours to backfire his engine out in front of Gorski's shop, his peek out the window showed too much ex- citement to be genuine. I knew right on the spot that you two were working together to sting me.

"It didn't take any great amount of brains to see through it. I was to toss the diamond into the vase; Gorski was to make it look good by accusing me of stealing the diamond. But he fell down again; I've read that when customs officials are looking for smugglers, and detectives are looking for diamond thieves, the first place they look is— in the suspect's mouth. Gorski and Jules didn't do that. That's a good pointer for you the next time you try to rope in a sucker, Danforth. They let me off too easy— it was a dead give-away.

"You were to go in and buy the vase; you came out with a wild yarn about the vase being worth two thousand dollars. I knew that I'd tossed the diamond in the vase; I knew that the diamond was worth at least five thousand dollars; therefore it was the simplest thing in the world to imagine that I would hotfoot it to the bank and steal a couple of thousand dollars so that we could buy the vase. And, of course, when we did buy the vase we would find no diamond there. I couldn't have squealed, for I was trying to steal a diamond. All I could have proved, even if I had dared let out a yelp, was that I'd been tricked at my own game."

Sure Thing Danforth gave the bank teller a grudging look of admiration.

"Say, kid," he admitted, "you ain't the bonehead you look to be. And so you were stringing me all the time— just for the fun of the thing."

"Oh, not exactly for the fun of the thing," replied Matthews meaningly. "My guess is that when you go back to Gorski's shop to report that the sucker failed to nibble at your bait, you will find him throwing a few fits, for—"

He paused tantalizingly, and Danforth stared at him in agonized suspense.

"Yes? Go on!" Danforth manded hoarsely.

"For," went on Justin Matthews, "when he goes to remove the five thousand dollar diamond from that blue vase he will find— a paste imitation, nothing more."

"But," said Danforth, "you left the paste one on the counter; you—"

"Only one of the paste imitations, Danforth; I had a second one made by my friend who is a clerk in the jewelry store. I flipped one of the imitations into the case and left the other one on the counter. As for the genuine— it was under my tongue. I've got it in my pocket right now— and that's why I don't care to spend two thousand dollars for the blue vase."

Sure Thing Danforth grew pale with rage. "Why, you crook, I'll have you pinched, and—"

"And have the police find out that your business is getting suckers to bite on that new and clever get-rich-quick scheme of yours? Oh, I don't think you will, Danforth. If Charley Mason wasn't in such a bad scrape, I'd trot right down to the police station and tell 'em the whole story, but, as you said, prison's a rotten place, and I need the money that this sparkler will sell for."

"You— you low-down double-crosser —you—" sputtered Danforth.

"I've only double-crossed the double crosser; you're quite a little double- crosser yourself, Danforth. Much obliged for getting Charley and me out of a bad scrape— and for giving me the only taste of adventure I've ever had."

Sure Thing Danforth watched Justin Matthews as the young teller made his way briskly into the bank. Then he turned sadly down the street, but he did not go in the direction of Nathan Gorski's shop.

"I don't dare," he muttered. "Gorski wouldn't ever believe it was on the level. He'd swear that the kid and I had double-crossed him."

His hands, plunged deep into his pockets, came in contact with the two hundred in bills that Matthews had given him.

"Well, the kid left me these two hundred bucks, anyhow," he murmured. "I'm lucky at that; it'll get me out of town. Huh! Is that kid a crook, or ain't he? Hanged if I can figure it out."

_____________

2: The Drone

Abraham Merritt

1884-1943

Fantasy Magazine, Sep 1934

FOUR men sat at a table of the Explorers' Club: Hewitt, just in from two years botanical research in Abyssinia; Caranac, the ethnologist; MacLeod, poet first, and second the learned curator of the Asiatic Museum; Winston, the archeologist, who, with Kosloff the Russian, had worked over the ruins of Khara-Kora, the City of the Black Stones in the northern Gobi, once capital of the Empire of Genghis Khan.

The talk had veered to werewolves, vampires, fox-women, and similar superstitions. Directed thence by a cabled report of measures to be taken against the Leopard Society, the murderous fanatics who drew on the skins of leopards, crouched like them on the boughs of trees, then launched themselves down upon their victims tearing their throats with talons of steel. That, and another report of a "hex-murder" in Pennsylvania where a woman had been beaten to death because it was thought she could assume the shape of a cat and cast evil spells upon those into whose houses, as cat, she crept.

Caranac said: "It is a deep-rooted belief, an immeasurably ancient, that a man or woman may assume the shape of an animal, a serpent, a bird, even an insect. It was believed of old everywhere, and everywhere it is still believed by some— fox-men and fox-women of China and Japan, wolf-people, the badger and bird people of our own Indians. Always there has been the idea that there is a borderland between the worlds of consciousness of man and of beast— a borderland where shapes can be changed and man merge into beast or beast into man."

MacLeod said: "The Egyptians had some good reason for equipping their deities with the heads of birds and beasts and insects. Why did they portray Khepher the Oldest God with the head of a beetle? Why give Anubis, the Psychopomp, Guide of the Dead, the head of a jackal? Or Thoth, the God of Wisdom, the head of an ibis; and Horus, the Divine son of Isis and Osiris, the head of a hawk? Set, God of Evil, a crocodile's and the Goddess Bast a cat's? There was a reason for all of that. But about it one can only guess."

Caranac said: "I think there's something in that borderland, or borderline, idea. There's more or less of the beast, the reptile, the bird, the insect in everybody. I've known men who looked like rats and had the souls of rats. I've known women who belonged to the horse family, and showed it in face and voice. Distinctly there are bird people— hawk-faced, eagle- faced— predatory. The owl people seem to be mostly men and the wren people women. There are quite as distinct wolf and serpent types. Suppose some of these have their animal element so strongly developed that they can cross this borderline— become at times the animal? There you have the explanation of the werewolf, the snake-woman, and all the others. What could be more simple?"

Winston asked: "But you're not serious, Caranac?"

Caranac laughed. "At least half serious. Once I had a friend with an uncannily acute perception of these animal qualities in the human. He saw people less in terms of humanity than in terms of beast or bird. Animal consciousness that either shared the throne of human consciousness or sat above it or below it in varying degrees. It was an uncomfortable gift. He was like a doctor who has the faculty of visual diagnosis so highly developed that he constantly sees men and women and children not as they are but as diseases. Ordinarily he could control the faculty. But sometimes, as he would describe it, when he was in the Subway, or on a bus, or in the theater—or even sitting tête-à-tête with a pretty woman, there would be a swift haze and when it had cleared he was among rats and foxes, wolves and serpents, cats and tigers and birds, all dressed in human garb but with nothing else at all human about them. The clear-cut picture lasted only for a moment— but it was a highly disconcerting moment."

Winston said, incredulously: "Do you mean to suggest that in an instant the musculature and skeleton of a man can become the musculature and skeleton of a wolf? The skin sprout fur? Or in the matter of your bird people, feathers? In an instant grow wings and the specialized muscles to use them? Sprout fangs... noses become snouts..."

Caranac grinned. "No, I don't mean anything of the sort. What I do suggest is that under certain conditions the animal part of this dual nature of man may submerge the human part to such a degree that a sensitive observer will think he sees the very creature which is its type. Just as in the case of the friend whose similar sensitivity I have described."

Winston raised his hands in mock admiration. "Ah, at last modern science explains the legend of Circe! Circe the enchantress who gave men a drink that changed them into beasts. Her potion intensified whatever animal or what-not soul that was within them so that the human form no longer registered upon the eyes and brains of those who looked upon them. I agree with you, Caranac— what could be more simple? But I do not use the word simple in the same sense you did."

Caranac answered, amused: "Yet, why not? Potions of one sort or another, rites of one sort or another, usually accompany such transformations in the stories. I've seen drinks and drugs that did pretty nearly the same thing and with no magic or sorcery about them— did it almost to the line of the visual illusion."

Winston began heatedly: "But—"

Hewitt interrupted him: "Will the opposing counsel kindly shut up and listen to expert testimony. Caranac, I'm grateful to you. You've given me courage to tell of something which never in God's world would I have told if it were not for what you've been saying. I don't know whether you're right or not, but man— you've knocked a hag off my shoulders who's been riding them for months! The thing happened about four months before I left Abyssinia. I was returning to Addis Ababa. With my bearers I was in the western jungles. We came to a village and camped. That night my headman came to me. He was in a state of nerves. He begged that we would go from there at dawn. I wanted to rest for a day or two, and asked why. He said the village had a priest who was a great wizard. On the nights of the full moon the priest turned himself into a hyena and went hunting. For human food, the headman whispered. The villagers were safe, because he protected them. But others weren't. And the next night was the first of the full moon. The men were frightened. Would I depart at dawn?"

"I didn't laugh at him. Ridiculing the beliefs of the bush gets you less than nowhere. I listened gravely, and then assured him that my magic was greater than the wizard's. He wasn't satisfied, but he shut up. Next day I went looking for the priest. When I found him I thought I knew how he'd been able to get that fine story started and keep the natives believing it. If any man ever looked like a hyena he did. Also, he wore over his shoulders the skin of one of the biggest of the beasts I'd ever seen, its head grinning at you over his head. You could hardly tell its teeth and his apart. I suspected he had filed his teeth to make 'em match. And he smelled like a hyena. It makes my stomach turn even now. It was the hide of course— or so I thought then."

"Well, I squatted down in front of him and we looked at each other for quite a while. He said nothing, and the more I looked at him the less he was like a man and more like the beast around his shoulders. I didn't like it— I'm frank to say I didn't. It sort of got under my skin. I was the first to weaken. I stood up and tapped my rifle. I said, 'I do not like hyenas. You understand me.' And I tapped my rifle again. If he was thinking of putting over some similar kind of hocus-pocus that would frighten my men still more, I wanted to nip it in the bud. He made no answer, only kept looking at me. I walked away."

"The men were pretty jittery all day, and they got worse when night began to fall. I noted there was not the usual cheerful twilight bustle that characterizes the native village. The people went into their huts early. Half an hour after dark, it was as though deserted. My camp was in a clearing just within the stockade. My bearers gathered close together around their fire. I sat on a pile of boxes where I could look over the whole clearing. I had one rifle on my knee and another beside me. Whether it was the fear that crept out from the men around the fire like an exhalation, or whether it had been that queer suggestion of shift of shape from man to beast while I was squatting in front of the priest I don't know— but the fact remained that I felt mighty uneasy. The headman crouched beside, long knife in hand."

"After a while the moon rose up from behind the trees and shone down on the clearing. Then, abruptly, at its edge, not a hundred feet away I saw the priest. There was something disconcerting about the abruptness with which he had appeared. One moment there had been nothing, then— there he was. The moon gleamed on the teeth of the hyena's head and upon his. Except for that skin he was stark naked and his teeth glistened as though oiled. I felt the headman shivering against me like a frightened dog and I heard his teeth chattering."

"And then there was a swift haze— that was what struck me so forcibly in what you told of your sensitive friend, Caranac. It cleared as swiftly and there wasn't any priest. No. But there was a big hyena standing where he had been— standing on its hind feet like a man and looking at me. I could see its hairy body. It held its forelegs over its shaggy chest as though crossed. And the reek of it came to me— thick. I didn't reach for my gun— I never thought of it, my mind in the grip of some incredulous fascination."

"The beast opened its jaws. It grinned at me. Then it walked—walked is exactly the word— six paces, dropped upon all fours, trotted leisurely into the bush, and vanished there."

"I managed to shake off the spell that had held me, took my flash and gun and went over to where the brute had been. The ground was soft and wet. There were prints of a man's feet and hands. As though the man had crawled from the bush on all fours. There were the prints of two feet close together, as though he had stood there erect. And then— there were the prints of the paws of a hyena."

"Six of them, evenly spaced, as though the beast had walked six paces upon its hind legs. And after that only the spoor of the hyena trotting with its unmistakable sidewise slinking gait upon all four legs. There were no further marks of man's feet—nor were marks of human feet going back from where the priest had stood."

Hewitt stopped. Winston asked: "And is that all?"

Hewitt said, as though he had not heard him: "Now, Caranac, would you say that the animal soul in this wizard was a hyena? And that I had seen that animal soul? Or that when I had sat with him that afternoon he had implanted in my mind the suggestion that at such a place I would see him as a hyena? And that I did?"

Caranac answered: "Either is an explanation. I rather hold to the first."

Hewitt asked: "Then how do you explain the change of the human foot marks into those of the beast?"

Winston asked: "Did anyone but you see those prints?"

Hewitt said: "No. For obvious reasons I did not show them to the headman."

Winston said: "I hold then to the hypnotism theory. The foot marks were a part of the same illusion."

Hewitt said: "You asked if that was all. Well, it wasn't. When dawn came and there was a muster of men, one was missing. We found him— what was left of him— a quarter mile away in the bush. Some animal had crept into the camp— neatly crushed his throat and dragged him away without awakening anybody. Without even me knowing it—and I had not slept. Around his body were the tracks of an unusually big hyena. Without doubt that was what had killed and partly eaten him."

"Coincidence," muttered Winston.

"We followed the tracks of the brute," went on Hewitt. "We found a pool at which it had drunk. We traced the tracks to the edge of the pool. But—"

He hesitated. Winston asked, impatiently: "But?"

"But we didn't find them going back. There were the marks of a naked human foot going back. But there were no marks of human feet pointing toward the pool. Also, the prints of the human feet were exactly those which had ended in the spoor of the hyena at the edge of the clearing. I know that because the left big toe was off."

Caranac asked: "And then what did you do?"

"Nothing. Took up our packs and beat it. The headman and the others had seen the footprints. There was no holding them after that. So your idea of hypnotism hardly holds here, Winston. I doubt whether a half dozen or less had seen the priest. But they all saw the tracks."

"Mass hallucination. Faulty observation. A dozen rational explanations," said Winston.

MacLeod spoke, the precise diction of the distinguished curator submerged under the Gaelic burr and idioms that came to the surface always when he was deeply moved:

"And is it so, Martin Hewitt? Well, now I will be telling you a story. A thing that I saw with my own eyes. I hold with you, Alan Caranac, but I go further. You say that man's consciousness may share the brain with other consciousness— beast or bird or what not. I say it may be that all life is one. A single force, but a thinking and conscious force of which the trees, the beasts, the flowers, germs and man and everything living are parts, just as the billions of living cells in a man are parts of him. And that under certain conditions the parts may be interchangeable. And that this may be the source of the ancient tales of the dryads and the nymphs, the harpies and the werewolves and their kind as well."

"Now, listen. My people came from the Hebrides where they know more of some things than books can teach. When I was eighteen I entered a little mid-west college. My roommate was a lad named—well, I'll just be calling him Ferguson. There was a professor with ideas you would not expect to find out there."

"'Tell me how a fox feels that is being hunted by the hounds,' he would say. 'Or the rabbit that is stalked by the fox. Or give me a worm's eye view of a garden. Get out of yourselves. Imagination is the greatest gift of the gods,' he said, 'and it is also their greatest curse. But blessing or curse it is good to have. Stretch your consciousness and write for me what you see and feel.'"

"Ferguson took to that job like a fly to sugar. What he wrote was not a man telling of a fox or hare or hawk— it was fox and hare and hawk speaking through a man's hand. It was not only the emotions of the creatures he described. It was what they saw and heard and smelt and how they saw and heard and smelt it. And what they— thought."

"The class would laugh, or be spellbound. But the professor didn't laugh. No. After a while he began to look worried and he would have long talks in private with Ferguson. And I would say to him: 'In God's name how do you do it, Ferg? You make it all seem so damned real.'"

"'It is real,' he told me. 'I chase with the hounds and I run with the hare. I set my mind on some animal and after a bit I am one with it. Inside it. Literally. As though I had slipped outside myself. And when I slip back inside myself— I remember.'"

"'Don't tell me you think you change into one of these beasts!' I said. He hesitated. 'Not my body,' he answered at last. 'But I know my mind... soul... spirit... whatever you choose to call it— must.'"

"He wouldn't argue the matter. And I know he didn't tell me all he knew. And suddenly the professor stopped those peculiar activities, without explanation. A few weeks later I left college."

"That was over thirty years ago. About ten years ago, I was sitting in my office when my secretary told me that a man named Ferguson who said he was an old schoolmate was asking to see me. I remembered him at once and had him in. I blinked at him when he entered. The Ferguson I'd known had been a lean, wiry, dark, square-chinned, and clean-cut chap. This man wasn't like that at all. His hair was a curious golden, and extremely fine— almost a fuzz. His face was oval and flattish with receding chin. He wore oversized dark glasses and they gave the suggestion of a pair of fly's eyes seen under a microscope. Or rather— I thought suddenly— of a bee's. But I felt a real shock when I grasped his hand. It felt less like a man's hand than the foot of some insect, and as I looked down at it I saw that it also was covered with the fine yellow fuzz of hair. He said:"

"'Hello, MacLeod, I was afraid you wouldn't remember me.'"

"It was Ferguson's voice as I remembered it, and yet it wasn't. There was a queer, muffled humming and buzzing running through it."

"But it was Ferguson all right. He soon proved that. He did more talking than I, because that odd inhuman quality of the voice in some way distressed me, and I couldn't take my eyes off his hands with their yellow fuzz, nor the spectacled, eyes and the fine yellow hair. It appeared that he had bought a farm over in New Jersey. Not so much for farming as for a place for his apiary. He had gone in for bee keeping. He said: 'I've tried all sorts of animals. In fact I've tried more than animals. You see Mac— there's nothing in being human. Nothing but sorrow. And the animals aren't so happy. So I'm concentrating on the bee. A drone, Mac. A short life but an exceedingly merry one.'"

"I said: 'What in the hell are you talking about?'"

"He laughed, a buzzing, droning laugh. 'You know damned well. You were always interested in my little excursions, Mac. Intelligently interested. I never told you a hundredth of the truth about them. But come and see next Wednesday and maybe your curiosity will be satisfied. I think you'll find it worth while.'"

"Well, there was a bit more talk and he went out. He'd given me minute directions how to get to his place. As he walked to the door I had the utterly incredulous idea that around him was a droning and humming like an enormous bagpipe, muted."

"My curiosity, or something deeper, was tremendously aroused. That Wednesday I drove to his place. A lovely spot— all flowers and blossom-trees. There were a couple of hundred skips of bees set out in a broad orchard. Ferguson met me. He looked fuzzier and yellower than before. Also, the drone and hum of his voice seemed stronger. He took me into his house. It was an odd enough place. All one high room, and what windows there were had been shuttered— all except one. There was a dim golden-white light suffusing it. Nor was its door the ordinary door. It was low and broad. All at once it came to me that it was like the inside of a hive. The unshuttered window looks out upon the hives. It was screened."

"He brought me food and drink— honey and honeymead, cakes sweet with honey, and fruit. He said: 'I do not eat meat.' "

"He began to talk. About the life of the bee. Of the utter happiness of the drone, darting through the sun, sipping at what flowers it would, fed by its sisters, drinking of the honey cups in the hive... free and careless and its nights and days only a smooth clicking of rapturous seconds..."

"'What if they do kill you at the end?' he said. 'You have lived—every fraction of a second of time. And then the rapture of the nuptial flight. Drone upon drone winging through the air on the track of the virgin! Life pouring stronger and stronger into you with each stroke of the wing! And at last... the flaming ecstasy... the flaming ecstasy of the fiery inner core of life... cheating death. True, death strikes when you are at the tip of the flame... but he strikes too late. You die— but what of that? You have cheated death. You do not know it is death that strikes. You die in the heart of the ecstasy... '"

"He stopped. From outside came a faint sustained roaring that steadily grew stronger. The beating of thousands upon thousands of bee wings... the roaring of hundreds of thousands of tiny planes..."

"Ferguson leaped to the window."

"'The swarms! The swarms!' he cried. A tremor shook him, another and another— more and more rapidly... became a rhythm pulsing faster and faster. His arms, outstretched, quivered... began to beat up and down, ever more rapidly until they were like the blur of the hummingbird's wings... like the blur of a bee's wings. His voice came to me... buzzing, humming... And tomorrow the virgins fly... the nuptial flight... I must be there... must... mzzz... mzzz... bzzz... bzzzzzzz... zzzzmmmm... '"

"For an instant there was no man there at the window. No. There was only a great drone buzzing and humming... striving to break through the screen... go free..."

"And then Ferguson toppled backward. Fell. The thick glasses were torn away by his fall. Two immense black eyes, not human eyes but the multiple eyes of the bee stared up at me.

"I bent down closer, closer, I listened for his heart beat. There was none. He was dead."

"Then slowly, slowly the dead mouth opened."

Through the lips came the questing head of a drone... antennae wavering... eyes regarding me. It crawled out from between the lips. A handsome drone... a strong drone. It rested for a breath on the lips, then its wings began to vibrate... faster, faster...

"It flew from the lips of Ferguson and circled my head once and twice and thrice. It flashed to the window and clung to the screen, buzzing, crawling, beating its wings against it..."

"There was a knife on the table. I took it and ripped the screen. The drone darted out— and was gone—"

"I turned and looked down at Ferguson. His eyes stared up at me. Dead eyes. But no longer black... blue as I had known them of old. And human. His hair was no longer the fine golden fuzz of the bee— it was black as it had been when I had first known him. And his hands were white and sinewy and— hairless."

__________________

3: The Moon-Dial

Henry S. Whitehead

1882-1932

Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror  Jan 1932

SAID YUSSUF, the young son of the Maharajah of Kangalore, a hill-state in the north of India, looked down through the white moonlight one stifling night in July upon the moon-dial where it stood clear of the encompassing cypresses in that portion of the palace gardens which lay immediately under his window. Said Yussuf never retired without looking down at the spot where its shimmering paleness caused it to stand out clearly even on nights when only the starlight illuminated that space in the closely-shrubbed gardens.

During the day the moon-dial was only a queer, somewhat battered antique, brought from nobody knew where in the reign of the old Maharajah, Said's grandfather, who had remodeled the gardens. But it was Said himself who had named it the moon-dial. He had got that phrase from one of the works of the English writer, George Du Maurier, which his father, who had been educated at Oxford and married an English wife, had placed in the palace library. Said's tutor did not always approve of his private reading, but then Mr. Hampton did not know just what that included. Summers the tutor always went home to England on his three months' vacation, and then Said took refuge in the great library and read to his heart's content of Kipling, Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, the English Bible. Said, instructed for reasons of state twice a week in the Koran by the Chief Mullah of Kangalore, found the heroic tales of the Old Testament and the incidents in the life of Jesus-ben-Yussuf singularly attractive by comparison with the dry works of Mohammed, the Prophet.

Said had gone up to his quarters this evening, a very hot night, as usual, at about nine-thirty. Now, an hour later, he was lying on his stomach along the broad window-seat of his turreted apartment, arrayed only in a pair of European boy's "shorts," which were cooler than the orthodox pajamas these stifling nights. It was, despite the heavy heat, a really glorious night, gorgeous with the full moon, though no breath of air stirred the leaf of a single shrub or tree.

THE face of the moon-dial, like very old silver, or nickel, was overscored with curious, cryptic markings which, in daylight, Said was never weary of examining. This face— for the thing was movable— he had turned very slightly late that afternoon towards the west; he could not have said why he had done that. It was instinct, a vague affair like that other instinct which told him surely, because of many generations of ancestors who had believed in reincarnation, that he had lived before, many, many times!

Now, there in the window, he looked down at it, with no thought of sleep in his mind.

A French clock, somewhere, chimed eleven. A delicate, refreshing breeze, hardly more than a breath, shifted the light silk curtains. Said closed his eyes with the comfort of it, and the little breeze fanned his back, pleasurably, like the touch of soft fingers.

When he opened his eyes and looked back again at his moon-dial, he suddenly roused himself to full wakefulness and abruptly pushed his chin higher on his cupped hands. He gazed now with all his interest concentrated.

The dial seemed to be glowing, in a fashion he had never previously observed. A thin, lambent, eery flicker of light played over its ancient surface, moving oddly. Watching closely he saw the light take on something like form; a definite movement. Slanting rays seemed to flow down from some point above; and now, as he watched them gravely, they came down with greater and greater rapidity. The rays glowed like roses; they fell like a thin rain striking silently and appearing to rebound from the dial's surface.

Fascinated, Said rose to his knees and leaned far out of the window in the pure, warm night air, drinking in this strange spectacle. He was not in the least disturbed by its unusualness. All this seemed to him a recurrence of something— the fulfilment of one of those vague, gossamer-like yearnings of his, which were wholly natural to him, but, which so seldom met their realization in this life! It seemed not unnatural that rose-colored rays should pour down— they seemed literally to pour now— and break into veritable cascades there at the moon-dial...

HE had always, somehow, felt within himself some strange, subtle affinity with the moon. He had said nothing of this. It was not the sort of thing one could discuss with Mr. Hampton or even with his parents. Others than himself, he realized, would consider such an idea highly absurd.

Moonlight, and more especially the moon at her full, had always attracted his attention since his earliest recollection. Innumerable times he had watched it, cold and frosty on winter nights, pale and straw-colored in the spring, huge, orange, warmly luminous in late summer and autumn. It was orange-colored now, enormous, bafflingly exotic.

Great sheets of light seemed now to fall and shatter themselves upon the dial; light, orange and tenuous like the great rolling orb itself; light, alluring, somehow welcoming....

A great longing suddenly invaded Said's mind. He wanted to go down there and stand in that light; reach his arms up into it and let it bathe him. He stirred uneasily. He had, many times, dreamed of floating down to the lawns from his window, levitated, supported by mysterious, invisible arms! Now the longing became an .almost unbearable nostalgia, a veritable yearning. The light, where it had broken and splashed off the face of the dial was dancing luminously, softly, through the shadows of the great encircling cypress trees. It seemed to gather itself together; to roll along the ground. He shut his eyes again and buried his face in his hands.

When he looked back, for he could not for very long keep his eyes away from this spectacle, the light was hurling itself down in shafts and blocks and streams upon the dial-face, with a certain rhythm. The stream was more solid now, more continuous. It broke into whorls and sparkling, dim roulades, and swept earthward, as though redistilled from the magical alchemy of the mysterious ancient dial-face; it seemed to Said that it was circling, tenuously, and yet with a promise of continuity, of increasing power, about the dial's stone standard.

The light stream was interrupted now and again by blank spaces, blocks of black darkness; and looking for these and watching them descend like lacunae in the orange stream, he imagined them to be living creatures and half expected to see them take firmer form and dance there, weaving through and through the flickering maze of whorls.

He wanted to float down there, and the longing made a lump in his throat.

HE rose, silently opened his bedroom door, and listened. He could hear his father's quiet breathing, through the open door of a bedroom across the hallway. His mother slept farther down the hall, away from the great winding, pillared stairway which led below.

Silently he walked to the stairhead, turned, and went down.

He emerged on the lawn a few seconds later. He had only to unfasten a summer screen-door and cross a broad veranda. Then he was across the gravel of the drive and on the velvety lawn, and running towards the moon-dial, a little white figure in white drill shorts, his dark hair glowing in the pouring moonlight.

He paused before pressing through the coppice of cypresses. There was no sound in the open space about the dial, but his instinct for the affairs of the moon warned him that something altogether new and strange was going on out there. He felt no fear, but knew that all this was a repetition of something, some vast and consuming happiness which somewhere, somehow, he had known before; though certainly not in his conscious recollection. It was— this feeling about something very, very old, and very lovely— no more than a recurrence or a repetition of something strange and wild and sweet which had gone before; something mellowed and beautiful because of a vast, incomprehensible antiquity.

He walked forward now, very quietly; and, for a reason which he could not explain even to himself but which he knew to be a right instinct, he proceeded, holding himself very erect, through the cypresses and out into the orange stream.

He knew even before he glanced down at them that a great black panther lay crouched, immobile, on either side of him; crystallized in the magic of the moon out of two of those black void-like things, transmuted by the power of the dial into actuality. Lightly he placed a palm on the head of each of the great ebony beasts, and the velvety touch of their fur reassured him.

ABOUT the dial softly-moving figures, erect and graceful, moved statelily, with a vast gravity. Within the circle about the dial the flat moonlight lay like a pool of oil. Tall white lilies stood about its perimeter, their calices open to the moon. Their fragrance came to him in recurrent waves, and dimly he heard the music of lutes and the delicate rattle of systra, the soft, musical clanging of cymbals, and a chorus of faint singing, a chant in rhythm to the beat of clanging salsalim. He heard the word Tanit repeated again and again, and he found himself saying it.

A cloud sailed majestically across the moon. A delicate sadness tinged the warm night. The lily scent grew faint. The cymbals slowed and dulled.

He felt the great beasts rise beside him. Their fur caressed his hands as they moved forward, gravely, majestically. A hand on each, he. walked forward with them, towards his moon-dial. He looked down upon its face and at the faint outlines of mystical figures.

Then he knew a great happiness. It seemed to him that these ancient symbols, which had always concealed their inner meaning from him, were now plain. He was sure now that he had lived before, many times....

The cloud passed, and now the figures on the dial-face were once more merely dim old markings. The statuesque black panthers were gone; there were no longer any dancing figures. A little breeze moved the leaves of the deodars.

He looked up, straight into the face of the moon, instinctively opening his arms wide towards that vast, far serenity. He passed a hand gently over the smooth, worn surface of the ancient dial. Then he walked back to the palace and up to his sleeping-quarters. He felt sleepy now. He got into his bed, drew in his breath in a long sigh of contentment, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

His beautiful mother was standing beside his bed when he awakened. It was broad day. She bent over him, and he smiled up into her face as she kissed him.

The Maharanee of Kangalore was a fanciful person.

"Your hair smells of lilies," she said.

SAID could hardly wait for the next night of the full moon. His sure instinct for lunar affairs told him plainly that only at the full would the moon come into conjunction with the dial.

But the experience— if it had been a real experience; sometimes, as he thought of it, he could hardly tell— lay, clear-cut, like one of the cameos in the palace treasure-room, in his alert mind. He thought over, meantime, every occurrence, all the sequences of his adventure in the gardens. He put together all its arabesque details. They crystallized into the certainty that he had been living over again something which he had known before; something very important, very dear to him. He counted off the days and nights until the next possible time....

It came on an August night of balm and spice following light rains; a night on which the tuberose and jasmine of the gardens were pouring out an ecstasy of fragrance.

Said had been in the palace treasury that afternoon, with old Mohammed Ali the Guardian, and his mind was full of the beauty of that priceless collection which had come down through countless generations: precious and semi-precious jewels; ornaments— armlets, elephant-ankuses, sword-hilts, jeweled post-tops for palanquins; innumerable affairs, including a vast number of ancient and comparatively modern weapons, weapons of every conceivable variety, which had served for many, many generations the fighting men of his house. He had poured rubies, the ransom of an empire, through his two hands that day; worn Saracenic helmets of light steel, swept through the air with a whistling sound the curved, jewel-encrusted scimitars of his ancestors. Now, from the window-seat, the moon-dial shimmered vaguely among the cypresses. His mind was full of vague, alluring expectations; his body trembled with the anticipation of something dimly recalled, tantalizingly envisaged, now apparently imminent....

HE went down the stairs and out upon the lawn towards the moon-dial. He wanted to be there, this time, as soon as the light-stream should begin its strange downpouring. He was sure that it would come. He touched lovingly the ancient, scarred face of the dial runed with its cryptic markings. He had, for one brief, exulting moment, he remembered clearly, thought that he understood those markings twenty-eight evenings ago. But, the next day, when he had gone to the dial after eight hours' healthful sleep in between his extraordinary experience and the fresh light of a glorious summer morning, he had discovered that they were once more merely strange marks. The disillusion had saddened him. Things, in life, so often seemed like that! One imagined that success was in hand, and in the morning the gold had turned to ashes.

His mood to-night was one of quivering anticipation. Thrills of an expected gladness shook him, standing there beside his dial, his face turned to the sky where the August moon proudly dominated the heavens.

Abruptly the downpouring enveloped him as he waited there in an ecstasy of wild, unearthly glory.

He felt himself drowned, engulfed, in this utter gorgeousness of feeling which seemed to melt him, body and soul; to carry him, willingly, his arms outspread to receive it, up into itself. He felt himself suffused, as he yielded to it; something like a potent fluid invaded him, drenched his utter inner-consciousness, satisfied his happy heart....

HE opened his eyes, closed automatically at the sudden access of the moon's pouring power. He beheld a vast, glorious configuration, splendid, gorgeous, illuminated; growing clearer, more detailed, more utterly satisfying, like the center of all places, the consummation of all desires, the goal of all vague and beautiful thoughts. He felt, somehow, safe, with a well-being transcending all experiences; a feeling that at long last he was arriving where he had always belonged; coming swiftly, inerrantly, to the very center and source where he had, fleetingly, in occasional happy glimpses of the mind, always wanted to be; always known that he must and should be.

He stood upon a soft meadow of pale, bright grass, in the midst of a light scent of lilies, outside the slowly opening doors of a lofty temple, which towered up into the heavens and seemed to mingle its pinnacles with the nearby, friendly stars.

Now the great doors stood wide open. He walked towards them. The sense of old knowledge, of what he must do once he came within the temple, was in his mind. He slowed his pace to a formal dignified tread. He passed through the doors of the temple and stood within.

And, before he could turn his head to look about in this vastness, into his very soul penetrated the message:

"Sleep! Tanit commands."

Beside him he observed a porphyry couch, its finials glowing with complicated whorls and insets of some faintly shining metal like platinum. Upon this, without question, his mind and heart at peace, he reclined, and closed his eyes.

A sweeping, distant, heavenly-sweet breath of music, the music of viols and systra, swept his mind. He slept....

HE strode, a tall, commanding figure, through the narrow streets of the great city where he had lived and worked for many years, the city of London. Above, a waxing moon poured down her gracious light through a black and drifting mass of storm-clouds.

It was chilly and damp, and he had drawn about himself his heavy black outdoor cloak of rich dark cloth. He picked his steps through the filth and mud of the street, while just ahead of him a man-servant bore aloft a flaming cresset torch to light the uneven way.

He proceeded onward, moved by a strong purpose. This, towards which on this uninviting night he hastened, was no ordinary appointment. What few wayfarers were abroad seemed animated by a great and consuming dread. These glanced furtively at him and at each other as they slunk along, giving each other wide berths. And, in the hand of each, a small, sponge-like object, saturated with reeking vinegar, was held before the face.

At last the two stood before the portals of a magnificent building. The servant knocked. Two men-at-arms, gorgeous in the royal livery, recognizing him, had saluted and allowed him to pass.

The doors, in answer to the servant's knock, now swung open.

A gentleman, splendid in embroidered silks, came forward and bowed. He returned this salutation.

"A dismal night to be thus abroad, My Lord Burlinghame," he remarked, and the gentleman smiled and nodded.

"The King awaits you— anxiously," said the gentleman, and turned and led the way.

He stood now, before the King, in a small, richly-furnished apartment, its walls thick with Spanish arras.

"Come," said the King eagerly, "sit, most worthy Doctor Campalunis, and relate to me the result of your labors."

He delayed seating himself until the King himself had resumed his seat. He spoke directly, pointedly:

"I know now the cause, Sire, beyond any doubt or peradventure. A surprising conclusion, upon which the astrological art and actual experiment converge to show its actuality! To state the matter pithily it cometh down to this: It is the superabundance of rats in this your realm of England that causeth the plague!"

THE King started, half smiled; grew suddenly serious again, looked mystified, swore roundly a rolling oath:

"By the twenty-four nostrils of the Twelve Apostles! Good Doctor Campalunis, were it not thyself 'twould sound like a scurvy jest!"

He nodded, and smiling slowly, answered the King:

"It was in sooth a sorry task; one which, I doubt me, few physicians would have descended to! Yet did I demonstrate its accuracy; the 'calculation' was based upon the conjunction of our lady, the moon, with the planet Venus. And— it pointed to the rats!

"Then did I take three rats, and from them— oh, sorry task!— did remove, with these hands, their parasites. These did I transfer to three small beasts of various kinds, a hare, a stoat, and a mewing cat! Proof, Sire! Within twelve hours, upon all three—as the rat-fleas penetrated to their blood—did there appear tumors like to those upon the folk in this calamity we name 'The Plague' and which now devastates the realm. Soon thereafter all were dead, each after his nature: the hare without resistance; the stoat fighting; the cat, as though she would never pass— nine lives she hath, according to the ancient saying!

"Experiment thus doth prove the wisdom of our lady, the moon. I counsel thee, then, that all rats be hunted and destroyed, that the plague stay itself and England be not thrice-decimated."

He was driving back in a great rumbling coach. Beside him, on the silken-cushioned seat, lay the great red silk purse of gold presented to him by the King— the King who, trusting him, had, before his departure, summoned Giles Talbot, his scrivener, and was even now preparing a royal proclamation directing, upon pain of the King's displeasure, all burgesses, shrieves, coroners and mayors to cause the folk to find and destroy the swarming rats and so end the plague...

He glanced out through the coach window upon the hastening figures of occasional wayfarers; and, ever and again, cressets lighting the gloomy scene disclosed bearers carrying the victims of the plague, hastily and furtively through the muddy streets to the charnel-house....

Above, the moon, now clear of clouds, looked serenely down upon this theater of death and destruction, where ruthless King Plague had well-nigh replaced the reign of kindly King Charles.

CARRYING a small heavy package, he stepped briskly along a sunny roadway towards a goldsmith's shop. He stepped within and the apprentices raised their heads. Welcoming smiles, murmurs of pleased greeting met him; and then rapid questions in the soft Italian argot.

"What, the masterpiece? Finished at last!"

"Ecco, Ascanio, fratello. It is done, eh?"

"The Master will be pleased."

"Per Baccho! A purse that it is magnificent!"

He placed his burden upon the central table. The others were all crowding about him now eager to see.

"Touch it not, colt of a jackass!"

"Room for our Ascanio, the new Cellini!"

"Run— fly, Beppo! Fetch the Master."

He left the inmost wrapping, of silk, where it was, closely draped about the figurine. It stood, shapeless under the unrevealing drapery, about nine inches in height. The apprentices hopped in their anxiety to see it.

Beppo dashed back into the work-room, the Master following. All stood aside as the tall figure, dressed in plum-colored silk like a nobleman, came hurriedly into the room. The bearded face lighted.

"Ascanio! The Virgin— not finished— tell me not—"

"Finished, I believe, to the limit of my poor skill, Messer Benvenuto," he said, and gravely removed the silk wrapping.

There arose a chorus of shouts, squeals, hand-clappings, murmurs, small mutterings and sighs from the apprentices; then, this dying down, he looked at the Master. The others, too, were looking at him. His was the ultimate decision, the last opinion of the workroom, of the city of Florence, of the great world. The master goldsmith stood, motionless, silent, frowning slightly, before the figurine.

It was of red gold, the Virgin Mother of God, chaste, beautiful, cunningly wrought; glowing now in the freshness of the new metal; gleaming, exquisite.

The Master took it into his hands. He held it off, squinted at it; held it close, gazing intently, silently. He laid it down, reached into a pouch, brought out a magnifying glass, sat down on the stool Beppo had placed for him. The apprentices dared barely to breathe.

Messer Benvenuto laid it down at last. He returned, without a word, the glass to his pouch. He turned about and looked at his visitor.

Then abruptly, suddenly, he held out both sensitive hands.

"A masterpiece!" he pronounced, and rose from the stool.

"And this—" he indicated the base of the statue, "no goldsmith hath so done before, Ascanio. Inspiration! Thou hast gone far— to the end of our art. The moon— as a pedestal for the Mother of God! It smacks of the perfection of art. I hail thee, Ascanio— Master!"

IT was very early dawn, a fresh, cool, sea-dampened dawn, just breaking to a delightful smell of dew-wet heather. He paced up and down on the rough stone flagging. He paused, looked about.

Over towards the east the sun, glorious, burst over the horizon. He had been watching for it from the wall's top, over the gate, and now in its new illumination he gazed out, frowningly, beneath the pressure of the great bronze helmet; over the gray and brown gorse hummocks and undulating prairie of rough furze, into the north. There, always concealed, always ready to strike, signaling with their fires to each other, chieftain to chieftain, lay the Picts. Against these this ultimate fortification had been built.

Behind him, to the south, under the wall, a great din arose, a noise compounded of the disassembling of ballistae, much hammering and wrenching as the heavy timbers were taken apart; metallic clangings as the breastplates and scuta were stacked, in tens, a mule-load each; shouts, commands; the ringing, brief blast of a bugle.

The relief, marching briskly, the never-changing quick step of Rome's invincible legions, came now to a last routine duty. He raised to his lips a small golden whistle, fastened about his neck with a leathern thong. His men came in from east and west. He saluted the approaching centurion. The guard above the gate was changed mechanically, the two officers exchanged brief greetings. His own veteran century behind him, he marched off duty; descended towards the gate at the south side.

A vast bustle greeted him. The troops were preparing for their final evacuation of the wall. All about him this clang of weapons being packed rose to heaven.

HE was being saluted. He stopped, listened to the message. He was to go to the Emperor, at once. He acknowledged the orders, dismissed the messenger, turned to the west.

"As thou knowest, oh, Gaius, the barbarian hordes press back our legions. By sheer force of their incredible numbers, they have worn down the defences of the north. They slip through. Rome herself calls, at long last. For Rome's defence we must go.

"But, oh valiant one, these legions must go safely. It were to serve Rome ill to lose a single quaternion against these Picts. Take thou of thy men, and stay behind, then, here upon the wall. If, at the expiry of two days, thou are yet alive, then follow the legions. Yet, by all the guile and all the skill and all the love of Rome thou dost possess, hold the gate against the north until we are away. I leave thee to the bravest task of all, oh, Gaius!"...

With his six legionaries, he strode up and down above the gate, watching the north. For a day and a half the three legions had been marching, ever southward, towards their embarkation-points, through the fair and glorious country of Brittania which the wall had made possible; fifteen thousand seasoned veterans, returning to hold off, if might be, for another decade perhaps, the swarming barbarians who were pressing down upon the Mediterranean world.

For the first six hours nothing had taken place upon the Picts' side of the wall; only the increase of signal fires. Then had come the slow gathering of this barbarian horde. Now, on the evening of the second day, as he looked down, despite the threatenings of his sweating legionaries, with their rocks, their small catapults, and now— as a last resort— the dreaded fire-pots, he saw the Picts gathered in their thousands. A dank smell rose from these barbarians; a smell compounded of the sweat of laboring naked bodies, of furze smoke, of the skins of wolves from which they fashioned their scant garments.

ALREADY the gate was down; already, in their hundreds, the Picts swarmed down below there on the south side of the wall, the Roman side. Convinced now that the garrison had departed, that these on the wall's top were merely a scant guard remaining for the purpose of fooling them, of holding off their own inevitable attack, the leaders of the Picts were haranguing them to the massed attack up the ramps to the wall's top.

Abruptly the moon rose over the western horizon. And with its rising a message, authoritative, definite, filled his mind:

"Well done, and bravely, valiant one, friend of Tanit! And now I take thee unto myself, ere thou perish in the body."

He struggled mentally to reply, as he looked at his hard-bitten, middle-aged men, old legionaries who had remained; who were giving all for Roma Mater. They stood now, massed together, just within the barrier which blocked off the ramp's top, their shields interlaced, their spears in a precise row behind them, their short blunt swords in their right hands; silent, ready for their last stand. As he looked at these faithful men his heart went out to them. Their devotion, their iron discipline had never once wavered.

"Nay," he answered. "Nay, Lady Diana, grace of all the Dii Romae, I go not willingly, but purpose rather to stand here with these!"

He stepped towards them, his own, somewhat heavier, sword ready in his hand, his shield affixed to his left arm. The roar of the mounting Picts came bellowingly through to them now as the horde swarmed up the ramp. Now the barrier was down, crumpled before the irresistible urge of numbers. Now the short swords were in play, taking terrible toll, like flails, like machines.

Then all that space was abruptly illuminated, as a huge ball of what seemed to the stricken Picts pure incandescent fire smote the stone flooring of the great wall's top, burst into a myriad fragments of light, gathered itself together, then went out into a sudden blackness; and through this blackness the figure of their centurion showed itself to his legionaries like Mars Invictus; head up, sword raised on high, and then, as abruptly, vanished.

THE Picts had disappeared. The legionaries looked at each other blankly. One, Tertullius, looked over the edge.

"All run through the gateways into their territory," he reported to his companions.

"And Gaius?" one asked, "What of our centurion?"

"It is the high Gods! He hath gone to Odin!"

"The light swallowed him up. Hail, O mighty Mithras!"

"He is gone from among us, O invincible gods of Rome!"

"He was godlike. His was the kindness of Chrestus!"

"Olympus receives him, doubtless, O Venus Victrix! A great marvel, this!"

Within a few minutes six hard-bitten veteran legionaries were at the double on the trail of the main army, going straight south, pausing not over the various and sundry abandoned arms and supplies, jetsam left strewed along that way of retreat.

And upon the unanimity of their report and the surprise which their arrival, without their officer, had caused in the ranks of Maxentius' legions, within the year a shrine to Gaius, who had been taken up by the old gods of Roma Mater, was rising in the little hills above Callericum, which had been the Centurion Gaius' native village.

HE rose to his feet, stiff from that long reclining, and stretched himself. It was night, a night of warm and mellow airs playing about the olive trees under the full-moon of the early Palestinian spring. He gazed, grave-eyed, towards that sinister hilltop where three Roman crosses stood athwart the moon's light, dark and sinister shadows of death and desolation. He looked long at them, stooped, and adjusted a loose sandal-thong; rose again, and, turning, began to walk towards the city, beautiful upon its own hill of Zion, the temple pinnacles white and glorious in the pouring moonlight.

But on an olive-bordered slope he paused and looked steadfastedly up into the calm moon's face. There seemed to him to be, struggling towards clear understanding, some message for him in what he had seen that day, the marvels he had witnessed, he, a Greek of Corinth, sojourning in Jerusalem with the caravan of his uncle Themistocles the merchant. The moon had always been his friend, since earliest infancy. Now, aged twenty, he felt always an inspiration, a kind of renewed vigor, when she was at full.

She was at full now, and he remembered that these Palestinians based one of their religious observances upon the lunar cycle. It was now begun. The middle-aged man next him had explained the ritual to him just before sunset, when those bodies had been taken down from the crosses.

It had been a harrowing experience. These Romans were a ruthless lot, "conquerors of the world," indeed. Greece lay beneath their heel. This Palestinian country, too, was a mere procuratorship, however; not a province like his own Hellas. This execution— he had heard of that method, though he had never witnessed it before— had, however, seemed to meet the approval of the Palestinians.

THE "message" troubled him. Something was pressing through to his consciousness. A duty was being thrust upon him. That, of course, had happened before, in much the same way— warnings, admonitions, growing in his mind. He had always followed them, for, indeed, they had been unmistakable things, matters germane to his inmost thoughts, parts of his own consciousness. What would it be this time? He opened his mind, looking up at that bright, mysterious disk, which, as Aristotle, or was it old Zeno?— he could not remember precisely; he was a merchant, not a philosopher— had taught, regulated the waters of the universe; the tides. An odd conception that! True, doubtless. Something caused the ceaseless ebbings and flowings of his own blue Aegean, of the Mare Internum as the Romans named the great sea about which their vast empire now centered itself.

The "message" had to do with finding someone. He lay down upon the warm grass as yet unaffected by any distillation of morning dew.

"Search— search— here in this city of Jerusalem, for one named—"

The name eluded him. He moved his feet, impatiently. There were ants here. One had crawled upon the side of his right foot. He moved the foot, and it encountered a small obstacle. He sat up, rolled over, reached down. It was a stone, a small, round pebble— petrós.

Then the "message" came clear like the emergence of Pallas Athene full-armed and cinctured from the mighty head of Zeus!

"Search! Find— Petros!"

It burned in his brain. He sat there, cogitating it. One named Peter he was to find, here in this city of Jerusalem. He nodded his head in acquiescence. A rich energy suffused him as he looked up once more into the moon's quiet face.

He rose, lightly, drew in a deep, refreshing breath laden with the sweet dry scent of myrtle, then he walked down the hill towards Jerusalem, in search of someone named Peter.

THE faint memory of an evil dream contended with a fetid odor which drifted in through the methodical row of star-shaped windows opposite his polished wooden couch with the henna-stained horsetails at its curved foot. The dream, an unpleasant, vague memory now, faded from his waking consciousness, encompassed by that smell. That would be from the ergastulum, the slave-compound of the suffete, Hanno, whose somewhat more pretentious palace towered over his own on the upper slope of the hill. Hanno, now in the field against the revolting mercenaries, was badly served at home. He must send a peremptory message to the keeper of the ergastulum! This was intolerable. He rose to a sitting posture, throwing off the linen coverlet with its embroidered horses and stars thickly sewn upon it, and looked down his long body.

There were unmistakable evidences of emaciation, loss of weight. No wonder, with the scarcity of food now prevalent in Carthage. He rose and clapped his hands together.

Through a curtain entered instantly a huge Nubian, Conno, the bath-slave. Conno's soot-black arms were full of the materials for the bath; a red box of polished enamel containing the fuller's powder, large squares of soft linen, several strigils, a cruse of rose-colored oil.

He followed the slave to a far corner of the lofty room, five stories above the roadway below, sweating now, like Conno himself. The early morning heat poured in dryly self down on a narrow couch of polished marble, and Conno poured a thin stream of the hot water from a small amphora along his back, spreading it about with the palms of his muscular, yet soft hands. Conno was a very skillful bath-slave. He was dumb, too, which, despite the deprecated savagery of a former owner who had had his tongue removed to gain this desirable end, was, somehow, an advantage on a hot and blistering morning like this!

CONNO sifted reddish-brown powder onto his back, working it with the water into a paste.

When the paste was set he roiled over and Conno repeated his ministrations. Then he stood up, and the slave rubbed the thin paste into his muscular arms, down his thighs, about his neck, delicately on the smooth portions of his face where his beard did not grow.

After this preliminary kneading, Conno thinned the paste with more hot water, and began to use the strigils. Then Conno skilfully rinsed him from head to foot, the red-stained water running down into an opening in the floor whence a pipe led it away.

Conno kneaded his muscles with oil, and, at last, gathered his paraphernalia together and walked out of the room.

He returned to the part of the room where his bed stood. Here, awaiting him, stood a slender, dark Numidian, a young girl, who deftly dressed his hair, pomading it with great skill.

Two more slaves entered with the garments of the day. They were green, a cool color which he liked to wear. Dressed, he continued to sit, frowning thoughtfully. That dream! Thoughtfully he attempted to reconstruct it, to bring it back to his conscious mind.

In the process his eye lighted on an ornament on the stand beside him, a serpent carved cunningly in ebony, and polished to brilliance, a coiled serpent, its tail in its mouth— emblem of the endlessness of the universe, a symbol of Tanit, goddess of the moon, one of the city's ancient, traditional, tutelary divinities. She was somewhat neglected now in the stress of this famine, result of the mercenary-troops' revolt which had been going on now for five months. Yes, there were even certain rumors that the college of priests which had served from time immemorial the temple of Tanit, was breaking up; these men, or half-men as he contemptuously thought of the whiterobed hierophants, were slowly deserting the gentle Tanit for one or another of the severer deities, representing the male principles; Baalim, violent gods, requiring a more sanguinary ministry.

Tanit— the dream! A message, it had been: "Go to the northeast, to where the main aqueduct runs underneath the wall's top. Drive out from there—"

HE rose and clapped his hands violently. He strode towards the doorway with its silk curtains wrought in flowers and stars and horses, emblems of the Carthaginian timocracy, and met the hurrying slave.

"Swiftly, Bothon, my litter and a light spear!"

The slave ran. He stood, awaiting his return gazing pensively out of a window, open to the scorching African sunlight drenching the world of Carthage; up to that magnificent location, the finest in the city, where, near the hill's summit towered the vast palace of Hamilcar Barca, sea-suffete of the republic. If Barca would only return! No man knew where he was, save that with a few galleys he was at sea. Barca's return, if, indeed, he should return, must mean a turning-point in this campaign, so far ineffective, against the revolted troops, now compassing the city from the scorching, desert plain below; the campaign of the evil old suffete, Hanno, whose lifetime of debauchery had left him treacherous, ineffective, and leprous.

The slave announced the litter and handed him a light spear. He balanced it in his hand, thoughtfully, then descended to the entranceway. Here, again, the fetor of that slave-compound assaulted his nostrils. He laid the spear carefully lengthwise of the litter's edge and stepped within. He could feel its hardwood joints creak, even though they were oiled daily; even oil dried quickly in this drenching heat. He heard the muffled grunts of his four burly Nubians as they shouldered the litter. Then he was swaying lightly in the direction of the aqueduct....

He stepped out, looked about him. He was not sure what it was he was to search for, even though the "message" had been peremptory. In the scorching sunlight, and here atop these smoothed stones the squaring and piling of which had consumed the lives of countless war-taken slaves a generation past, seemed almost unbearable, he walked along, slowly, contemplatively, now and again sounding with his spear's polished butt the hollow-sounding stones. Down below there lay the encampment of the mercenaries, their numbers augmented now by revolting desert tribesmen, arriving daily, a vast configuration, menacing, spreading, down there on the sand which danced in the heat-waves....

HE slowed his pace, stepped softly, now, more slowly. Now he paused, a tall, slender figure, atop the aqueduct. He listened. Ahead there—a chipping rending sound. Someone was concealed below, tearing out stones! The precious water, the city's very life! One of the mercenaries, undoubtedly, who had worked his way in from the broad-mouthed vents, was doing it. As he stood there, listening, he remembered that he had himself warned the Council of that danger. If the water supply were diverted, destroyed, the city would perish! He lay down flat on his side, his ear against the smooth masonry, listening. Ah, yes— it was plain enough now, that chipping, grinding noise of breaking stonework....

He rose, ran lightly forward, on his toes, the spear poised delicately. He paused above a large square block of the hewn stone. He laid the spear down, placed both hands under the stone's outer edge, then, violently, skilfully, pulled it straight up. He let it fall against another fiat stone, and, reaching for the spear, thrust once, straight down through the aperture he had made.

A groan, a gasping sigh, then the soft impacts, growing rapidly .fainter, as a body was borne down, knocking against the remoter stone angles and corners down inside the great aqueduct there under the wall's top; a body bobbing and bumping its way on a last brief journey, to the vents below.

Then turning to the west, where a faint moon rolled palely in the blue, scorching African sky, he raised both arms straight towards it, a gesture of salutation, of adoration.

"To thee the praise, O Lady Tanit, tutelary of Carthage; to thee the praise, for this warning! Again, O effulgent one, hast thou saved the city; to thee all praise and thanks, adulation and attribution of power; to thee the adoration of the faithful; O perpetual bride, O glorious one, O effulgence, O precious one, O fountain, of bounty...

HE leaned heavily against the rounded edge of the wide war-chariot, three spears in his left hand, long and slender, fresh-ground from the day before by a cunning armorer of Gilgal. He had been wounded twice, both times by hurled darts, tearing his right thigh above the greave which encompassed the lower leg, and again in the top of the left shoulder; fleshwounds both, yet throbbing, burning, painful.

The slaughter by those confederate Amorites had been heavy, and here on the plain of Beth-Horon, the fighting still progressed, even though the rapidly descending sun had, with its decline, brought no coolness. Great clouds of dust filled the hot, palpitating air. He raised his head, and gazed down towards Ajalon. Above the fringe of distant tall cedars which marked the valley's nearer edge, the moon sailed, pale and faint. To the west the sun was now sunken half-way over the horizon, blood-red, disappearing so rapidly now that he could follow it with his bloodshot, dust-smeared eyes.

The charioteer turned, his reins lying loosely over the sweat-caked backs of the horses and addressed him:

"If but Jahveh would prolong the light, oh, My Lord Joshua!"

He raised his weary eyes to the west once more. The sun was now merely a rapidly descending tinge of brilliant carmine in the sullen sky. He spoke to his God:

"Let the light as of day continue, O Thou of Sabaoth Who rulest the up-rising and the down-setting of Thy people. Stay, light of sun, that Jahveh's host may see; and thou, too, O luminary of night, do thou, too, aid our host!"

A pink afterglow rose slowly from the west, spread far through the heavens, then, as though reluctantly, faded. The night fell rapidly, the manifold noises of the hand-to-hand conflicts grew fainter; the chariot-horses stirred as a faint breath blew up out of the tree-sheltered Valley of Ajalon. He turned to feel it on his face, and as he turned, a vast portent appeared to him.

For, from the moon, orange now, glowing enormously, there came first one single penetrating ray which seemed to reach down here to the plain of the House of Horon, and spread its radiance along the ground; and then others and others; until the great level plain was illuminated as brightly as though by the sun himself. A breeze swept up from the valley. The horses plucked up nervous heads, their cut manes bristling. The charioteer looked about at him inquiringly. He shifted the three spears into his other hand.

"On,"he cried, "on, on— where the Sons of Amor press thickest! Drive, drive, like Nimrud of the Great Valley, like the Lion of The House of Judah roaring after his prey! Drive, that we may smite afresh the enemies of the Lord, God of Hosts...

IT was with these mighty words in his mouth and the sense of battle in his brain that he stirred into consciousness on the porphyry couch. A roseate atmosphere filled the temple, as of approaching dawn, or some mellifluous afterglow; and to his nostrils, scorched with the smoke and dust of battle, was wafted the refreshing scent of lilies.

And into his mind drifted the gentle command:

"Up, beloved of the Moon, up; arise, for Tanit comes."

He stood upright, waiting.

Then he heard a gentle voice, like a silver bell, and yet a voice of power; a voice before which he bent his head and covered his eyes.

"Hail, beloved of Tanit, giver of kindness, fountain of power, hail, and welcome here! Thou hast been permitted to see again thy existences; yet are these but a few, for thy encouragement, oh, well-beloved. In those past lives thou hast never wavered in thy steadfastness. Carry then through all of this thy present life the certainty of power, and of my love and aid.

"Go now, beloved, and take with thee—this!"

The voice ceased, and he felt, upon his left arm, a gentle touch.

He opened his eyes, lowered his folded arms.

He stood upon the lawn, beside the moon-dial, under the moon. He gazed up at that gleaming serenity with a great, deep love in his heart. It seemed to him that he had just passed through some wondrous, now nearly-erased, experience; an experience of wonder and power. He felt tremendously happy, content, safe. He raised his arms impulsively. Something caught his eye; something that gleamed.

He completed his gesture, but his eyes were, despite themselves, drawn around to the wondrous thing sparkling upon his left arm, just above the elbow! It shimmered like the very diadem of Tanit. He brought his arm up close to his eyes, looked at the glimmering jeweled thing, an inch and a half wide, which encircled his upper arm. It was a bracelet encrusted with shining jewels; a bracelet of some metal that he had seen before, inset, somewhere; pale, beautiful metal, like platinum. He moved it, slightly, up and down his arm, with his other hand. It moved, freely, and when he tried to draw it past his elbow—for there seemed to be no clasp to it—it came freely, and off over his hand and into his other hand. He held it close to his face and peered at it lost in a maze of wonderment mingled with faint recollections of brave happenings; not quite clear, yet somehow sure and certain in his mind.

THEN, carrying it, and looking lovingly up again at the moon, he turned, for he felt, suddenly, quite tired and sleepy; and walked back to the house through the cypresses, to the murmur of countless tiny whirrings and pipings of insects in the hedges.

He carried it into his bedroom and lighted the electric lamp on his bureau, and looked at it in the artificial light, closely, admiringly. It reflected this strong light in millions of coruscations; green, yellow, burning red, pale blue, every shade of mauve and lavender and deeper purple, all the manifold shades and variations of the gamut of colors.

He sighed, instinctively, and placed it in one of the smaller bureau drawers.

Then, strangely happy, contented, he went over and climbed into his bed. He stretched himself out and rolled over on his left side, for he felt very tired, although very happy and contented, and almost instantly fell asleep; but into his dreams of heroic deeds and great daring, and faithful vigils, and honorable trial, he carried the strange conviction which had come to him when he had turned the magnificent armlet about under the light.

The markings on the smooth inside of that clear, pale, heavy metal, were the same as the ancient marred runes, on his moon-dial, down in the garden; those runes which he had studied until he knew them by heart, could draw on paper, with a pencil, unerringly.

And now that he knew in his deep inner consciousness what the runes meant, he was ready, with a heart unafraid, to live his life, free, and full, and clear, and honorable, and beautiful; a life in union with the moon, his beloved.... He would know how to rule, when The Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies came and took his father away— might it be a long day, in the mercy of Allah!— and he, Said Yussuf should reign in his father's room over the great hill-state of Kangalore.

______________________

4: Satan’s Circus

Eleanor Smith

(Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith, 1902-1945)

Weird Tales Oct 1931

I ONCE asked a circus artist, whom I knew to have worked at one time with the Circus Brandt, whether or not he had enjoyed traveling with this well-known show. His reply was a curious one. Swiftly distorting his features into a hideous grimace, he spat violently upon the floor. Not another word would he say. My curiosity was, however, aroused, and I went next to an old Continental clown, now retired, who had the reputation of knowing every European circus as well as he knew his own pocket.

"The Circus Brandt?" he said thoughtfully. "Well, you know, the Brandts are queer people, and have an odd reputation. They are Austrian, and their own country-people call them gipsies, by which they mean nomads, for the Brandts never pitch in their own land but wander the whole world over as though the devil himself were at their heels. In fact, some call them Satan's Circus."

"I thought," I said, "that the Circus Brandt was supposed to be a remarkably fine show?"

"It is," he said, and lit his pipe; "it's expensive, ambitious, showy, well run. In their way these people are artists, and deserve more success than they have had. It's hard to say why they're so unpopular, but the fact remains that no one will stay with them more than a few months, and, what's more, wherever they go, India, Australia, Rumania, Spain, or Africa, they leave behind them a nasty, unpleasant sort of reputation as regards unpaid bills, which," he added, blowing smoke into the air, "is odd, for the Brandts are rich."

"How many Brandts are there?" I inquired, for I wished to know more about Europe's most elusive circus.

"You ask too many questions," said he, "but, this being my last reply to them, I don't mind telling you that there are two, and that they are man and wife. Carl and Lya. The lady is a bit of a mystery, but if you ask my opinion I would say that she is of Mexican blood, that she was at some time or other a charmer of snakes, and that of the two, she is on the whole the worse, although that is saying a good deal. However, all this is pure guess-work on my part, although, having seen her, I can tell you that she's a handsome piece, still a year or two on the right side of forty. And now," he said firmly, "I will speak no more of the Circus Brandt."

And we talked instead of Sarrasani, of Krone, of Carmo, and of Hagenbeck.

A year passed, and I forgot the Circus Brandt, which no doubt during this period of time wandered from Tokio to San Francisco and Belgrade up to Stockholm and back again as though the devil himself were at its heels.

And then I met an old friend, a famous juggler, whom I had not seen for many months. I offered him a drink and asked him where he had been since our last meeting. He laughed and said that he had been in hell. I told him I was not much of a hand at riddles. He laughed again.

"Oh, hell," he said, "perhaps that's an exaggeration. But anyhow I've been as near to it as ever I want to. I've been touring with the Circus Brandt."

"The Circus Brandt?"

"Exactly. The Balkan states, Spain, North Africa. Then Holland and Belgium, and finally France. I cleared out in France. If they'd doubled my salary, I'd not have stayed with them."

"Is the Circus Brandt, then," I asked, "as rough as all that?"

"Rough?" he said. "No, it's not rough. I can stick roughness. What I can't stand, however, is working with people who give me the creeps. Now you're laughing, and I'm not surprized, but I can assure you that I've lain awake at night in my wagon sweating with fear, and I'm by no means a fanciful chap."

By this time I was keenly interested.

"Please tell me," I asked, "what it was that frightened you so much."

"That I can't do," he replied, and ordered another drink, "for the fact is that I, personally, was not treated badly during the tour. The Brandts were very civil to me— too civil, in fact, for they'd ask me into their wagon sometimes for a chat between shows, and I hated going— it gave me goose-flesh down my back. Somehow— and you'll laugh again, I know—it was like sitting there talking to two big cats that were just waiting to pounce after they'd finished playing with you. I swear I believed, at the time, that Carl and Lya could see in the dark. Now, of course, that's ridiculous, and I know it, but I still get the creeps when I think about them. I must have been nervy, over-tired, you know, at the time."

I asked whether any one else at the circus had been similarly affected by the Brandts, and he wrinkled his brows, trying to remember, with obvious distaste, any further details of his tour.

"There's one thing that happened so that all could see," he remarked after a pause, "and that was in a wild part of Rumania, somewhere near the Carpathian mountains. We were passing through a little village, on our way to a town a few miles distant, and the peasants came flocking out to watch us pass, which was, of course, only natural, for the show is a very fine one. Then, in the village street, a van stuck, and the Brandts came out of their big living-wagon to see what had happened."

"Well?" I asked, for he paused again. "Well, it was funny, that's all. They scattered like rabbits— rushed into their cottages and banged the doors. The wagon was shoved out of the rut and we went on, but in the next village there was no sign of life, for everything was deserted and the doors were barred. But on each door was nailed a wreath of garlic-flowers."

"Anything else?" I asked, for he had relapsed into silence.

"Oh, one little thing I remembered noticing. The menagerie. The Brandts seldom bother to inspect that part of the show. They're too busy about the ring and the ticket-office. But one day she— Madam Brandt— had to go through the horse-tent and the menagerie to find some agent who was talking to the boys there. It really was a bit odd— the noise was blood-curdling. It was as though the lions and tigers were frightened; not angry, you know, or roaring for their food, but quite a different sort of row. And, when she had gone, the horses were sweating. I felt 'em myself, and it was a chilly day."

"Really," I said, "it's time you came back."

"Oh," he replied, "I don't expect you to believe me. Why should you? I wouldn't have talked if you hadn't asked me about the Circus Brandt. I'd just have said I was glad to be home. But as you asked me... oh, well, one day I'll tell you why I left them in France. It's not a pretty story. But I won't tell it tonight. I avoid the Brandts as a bedtime topic— I've been dreaming about them lately."

ii

IT took me some time to coax the juggler's tale from him. One morning, however, as we were walking along Unter den Linden in pale but radiant spring sunshine he consented to tell it. Translated into English, this is the story:

While the Circus Brandt was touring Northern Africa, when it was in fact only a few days from Tangier, a man arrived asking for work. He was, he said, an Alsatian, and had been a stoker, but his ship had abandoned him at Tangier and he had been seeking a job ever since. This man was interviewed by Carl Brandt himself, who had been accosted by him on the lot. They were a curiously contrasted pair as they stood talking together outside the steps of the Brandt's palatial living-wagon. The Alsatian was fair, a big, handsome young man with thick blond hair, a tanned skin, and honest, rather stupid, blue eyes. Carl Brandt was tall, too, but emaciated, wasted, and swarthy dark; he had a smooth darting black head like a snake's head; his long face was haggard, and yellow as old ivory; he wore a tiny dark Imperial beard; his black eyes were feverishly alive in heavy purple hollows and his teeth were sharp and broken and rotten. He was said to drug, and indeed he had very much the appearance of an addict. While the two men were talking, the door of the wagon opened and Madam Brandt appeared on the threshold asking her husband what the stranger wanted of him. She herself was incidentally a remarkably handsome woman, although no longer young. She was powerfully but gracefully made, with quantities of shining blue-black hair, delicate features, oblique, heavy-lidded eyes, and one of those opaque white skins that always look like milk. She had no color, but was all black and white. Even her lips were pale, not being painted, and her face was heart-shaped against the shadow of her dark hair. She wore white in hot countries and black in the North, but somehow one never noticed that she was not dressed in colors. She seldom looked at the person to whom she was talking, so that when she did it was rather a shock. Her voice was low, and she never showed her teeth, making one imagine that they must be bad, like her husband's.

Both Brandts stayed talking to the Alsatian for about ten minutes in the hot sunshine. It was impossible to eavesdrop, but once the Alsatian was heard reiterating rather warmly that he was a stoker by profession. Finally, however, Carl Brandt took the man off to the head keeper of the menagerie and said that he was to be given work. The Alsatian, for his part, said that his name was Anatole and that he was used to rough jobs. Soon afterward the circus went on toward Tunis.

The new hand, Anatole, was a good-natured, genial, simple fellow who soon became popular not only with the tent-men and grooms but also with the more democratic of the performers, who amused themselves, during the tedium of long "jumps," by making him sing to them, for he had a rich and beautiful voice. Generally he sang German lieder or long-forgotten French music-hall songs, but sometimes he favored them with snatches of roaring, racy, impudent ballads couched in an argot with which they were every one unfamiliar. On one occasion, before the evening show, when Anatole was shouting one of these coarsely cheerful songs inside the Big Top the flap was suddenly opened to reveal Madam Brandt's pale watchful face in the aperture.

Instantly, although some of the small audience had not seen her, a curious subtle discomfort fell upon the gay party. Anatole, whose back was turned toward the entrance, immediately became aware of some strain or tension among his listeners, and wheeling round, stopped abruptly in the middle of a bar. The little group scrambled awkwardly to its feet.

Madam Brandt murmured in her low voice:

"Don't let me interfere with your concert, my friends. Go on, you"— to Anatole— "that's a lively song you were singing. Where did you pick it up?"

Anatole, standing respectfully before her, was silent. Madam Brandt did not look at him or seem to concern herself with him in any way, but sent her oblique eyes roving over the empty seats of the great tent, yet somehow, in some curious way, it became obvious to her listeners that she was stubbornly determined to drag from him an answer.

Anatole at length muttered:

"I learned the song, Madam, on board a Portuguese fruit-trader many years ago."

Madam Brandt made no sign of having heard him speak.

After this incident, however, she began to employ the odd hand on various jobs about her own living-wagon with the result that he had less time to sing and not much time even for his work in the menagerie. Anatole, good-humored and jovial as he was, soon conceived a violent dislike of the proprietress which he took no pains to hide from his friends, who were incidentally in hearty agreement with him on this point. Every one hated the Brandts— many feared them.

The circus crossed to Spain and began to tour Andalusia. Several performers left, new acts were promptly engaged. Carl Brandt had always found it easy to rid himself of artists. Ten minutes before the show was due to open he would send for some unlucky trapezist and pointing to the man's apparatus, complicated and heavy, slung up to one of the big poles, he would say casually:

"I want you to move that to the other side of the tent before the show."

The artist would perhaps laugh, thinking the director was making some obscure joke.

Brandt would then continue, gently: "You had better hurry, don't you think?"

The artist would protest indignantly. "It's impossible, sir; how can I move my apparatus in ten minutes?"

Brandt would watch him, sneeringly, for a few seconds. Then he would turn away, saying suavely:

"Discharged for insubordination," and walk off to telegraph to his agent for a new act.

Madam Brandt took a curious perverse pleasure in teasing Anatole. She knew that he feared her, and it amused her to send for him, to keep him standing in her wagon while she polished her nails or sewed or wrote letters, utterly indifferent to his presence. After about ten minutes she would look up, glancing at some point above his head, and ask him, in her soft languid voice, if he liked circus life and whether he was happy with them. She would chat for some time, casually asking him searching questions about the other performers; then suddenly she would look direct at him, with a strange brooding stare, while she said:

"Better than tramp ships, isn't it, eh? You are more comfortable here than you were as a stoker, I suppose?"

Sometimes she would add: "Tell me something about a stoker's life, Anatole. What were your duties, and your hours?"

Always, when she dismissed him, his hair was damp with sweat.

The Circus Brandt wandered gradually northward toward the Basque country, until the French border was almost in sight. They were to cut across France into Holland and Belgium, then back again. The Brandts could never stay long anywhere. Just before the circus entered French territory Anatole gave his notice to the head keeper. He was a hard worker and so popular with his mates that the keeper went grumbling to Carl Brandt, who agreed to an increase of salary. Anatole refused to stay on.

Madam Brandt was in the wagon when this news was told to her husband. She said to Carl: "If you want the Alsatian to stay, I will arrange it. Leave it to me. I think I understand the trouble, and, as you say, he is a useful man."

The next day she sent for Anatole, and after ignoring him for about five minutes she asked him listlessly what he meant by leaving them.

Anatole, standing rigid near the door, stammered some awkward apology.

"Why is it?"

"I have— I have had offered me a job." "Better than this?" she pursued, stitching at her work.

"Yes, Madam."

"Yet," she continued idly, "you were
happy with us in Africa, happy in Spain. Why not then in France?"

"Madam—"

She snapped a thread with her teeth. "Why not in France, Anatole?"

There was no reply.

Suddenly she flung her sewing to the ground and fixed him with an unswerving glance. Something leaped into her eyes that startled him, an ugly, naked, hungry look that he had never before seen there. Her eyes burned him, like a devil's eyes. She said, speaking rapidly, scarcely moving her lips:

"I will tell you why you are afraid of France—shall I, Anatole? I have guessed your secret, my friend.... You are a deserter from the Foreign Legion and you are afraid of being recaptured. That is it, isn't it? Oh, don't trouble to lie; I have known ever since Africa. It's true, isn't it, what I have said?"

He shook his head, swallowing, unable to speak.

It was a hot day and he wore only a thin shirt. In a second she sprang from her chair across the wagon and threw herself upon him, tearing at this garment with her fingers. Terrified, he struggled, but she was too quick, too violent, too relentless. The shirt ripped in two and she saw upon his white chest the seam of livid scars.

"Bullet wounds!" she laughed in his ear, "a stoker with bullet-wounds! I was right, wasn't I, Anatole?"

He was conscious, above his fear, of a strange shrinking sensation of repulsion at her proximity. God, he thought, she's after me. And he was sickened, as some people are sickened by the sight of a deadly snake. And then, surprizingly, he was saved.

She darted away from him, sank down in her chair, snatched up her sewing. Her quick ear had heard the footsteps of Carl Brandt. Anatole stood there dazed, clutching the great rent in his shirt. Carl Brandt entered the wagon softly, for he always wore rubber soles to his shoes. His wife addressed him in her low unflurried voice.

"You see Anatole there? He has just been telling me why he is afraid to come with us to France. He is a deserter from the Foreign Legion. Look at the wounds there, on his chest."

Anatole gazed helplessly at the long yellow face of Brandt, who stared at him for some moments in silence.

"A deserter?" Brandt said at length, and chuckled. "A deserter? You needn't be afraid, my lad, to come with us to France. They've something better to do than hunt for obscure escaped legionaries there. Oh, yes, you'll be safe enough. I'll protect you."

And he stood rubbing his hands and staring thoughtfully at Anatole with his gleaming black eyes. Anatole, to escape from them, promised to stay. He had the unpleasant sensation of having faced in the wagon that afternoon not one snake but two. He disliked reptiles.

He meant to bolt, but he had lied to Madam Brandt when he talked of a new job, and he was comfortable where he was. He was, too, an unimaginative creature and the horrors of the Legion now seemed very remote. Soon he was in France, utterly unable to believe that he was in any danger. To his delight his mistress ignored him after the scene in the wagon. She had obviously realized, he thought to himself, that he found her disgusting, almost obscene, in spite of her good looks. And he would have been completely happy had he not known that he had made a dangerous enemy.

iii

THE CIRCUS BRANDT employed as lion tamer an ex-matador, a man named "Captain" da Silva. This individual was not best pleased with his situation. He had lost his nerve about a year before, but after working the same group of lions for ten months he had become more confident and consequently more content.

Then, without any warning, Carl Brandt bought a mixed group of animals and told da Silva to start work at once. The tamer was furious. Lions, tigers, bears and leopards! He shrugged his shoulders and obeyed sulkily. Soon the mixed group was ready for the ring, and appeared for a week with great success.

Then one morning da Silva went to the cages and found his animals in a wild abnormal state. Snarling, bristling, foaming at the mouth, they seemed unable even to recognize their tamer. He stared at them in cold dismay. A comrade, coming to watch, whispered in his ear. "She walked last night."

Da Silva shuddered. There was a legend in the Circus Brandt that whenever the animals were nervous or upset Lya Brandt, the "she-devil," had walked in her sleep the night before, wandering into the menagerie and terrifying the beasts who presumably knew her for what she was.

The tiger roared, and was answered by the lioness. Da Silva listened for a minute, then turned to his companion.

"I'm off. I wouldn't work these cats tonight for a fortune. There are other circuses in the world. The Circus Brandt must find another tamer."

In twenty minutes' time he was at the railway station.

Carl Brandt heard the news in silence. Then he raised his arm and struck his head keeper savagely on the mouth. Wrapping his black cloak about his tall thin figure he left the office and sought his own wagon. His wife was engaged in drinking a cup of coffee. They eyed each other in silence for a moment.

Then she said, calmly:

"It's da Silva, I suppose?"

"Da Silva, yes. Already he has gone. Now who will work the mixed group?"

She drained her cup and answered thoughtfully:

"I know of several tamers."

"Probably. And how long will they take to get here?"

"Exactly," she said, pouring out more coffee, "that, I agree, is the great objection. Is there no one on the lot who could work the cats for a week or two?"

"What nonsense are you talking?"

She put her hand over her eyes. "You seem to forget Anatole. An escaped Legionary in French territory. Would he disobey your orders, do you think?"

There was a pause.

"I'll send for him," said Brandt at length.

They were silent as they waited for the Alsatian. When he came in Lya did not look at him, but began to polish her nails.

Carl Brandt turned his yellow wrinkled face toward Anatole. His eyes were dark and smoldering hollows. He said gently, pleasantly:

"You know that da Silva has left?"

"Yes, sir." Anatole was perplexed. He could not imagine why he had been sent for.

"There is no one, now, to work the animals until a new tamer is engaged."

"No, sir."

"It is not my custom to fail my patrons. I show always what I advertise. The new tamer should be here in a week. It is about this week that I wish to speak."

Another pause. Anatole's heart began to pump against his ribs. A monstrous suspicion was forming in his mind.

Brandt said placidly:

"I am about to promote you, my friend. For a week you shall be tamer and work the mixed group."

Anatole turned dusky red. He was furiously angry, so angry indeed that his fear of the silent woman sitting at the table vanished entirely. No longer conscious of her presence he blurted out violently:

"What, you wish me to go in the cage with those animals? Then you must find some one else; I'm not such a fool. I wouldn't do it for a fortune."

Brandt smiled, showing his black, broken teeth. His wife, utterly indifferent, continued to paint her nails bright red. Brandt said pleasantly:

"Are you perhaps in a position to dictate, my friend? I may be wrong, of course, but I am under the impression that we are now in French territory. French territory. Charming words, eh?"

Anatole was silent. He thought suddenly and with horror of the Legion— blistering sun, filth, and brutality. He thought, too, of the salt-mines, that ghastly living death to which he would inevitably be condemned in the event of capture. Then he remembered the animals as he had last seen them, ferocious, maddened, abnormal. He shook his head.

"That's bluff," he said shakily; "I'm no tamer. You can't force me into the cage."

Carl Brandt chuckled. The delicate yellow ivory of his skin seamed itself into a thousand crinkles. He pulled out his watch.

"Five minutes, Anatole, to come with me to the menagerie. Otherwise I telephone the police. If I may be permitted to advise you, I suggest the menagerie. Even the belly of a lion is preferahle, I should imagine, to the African salt-mines. But take your choice."

Madam Brandt, snapping an orange-stick in two, now obtruded herself quietly into the conversation.

"No, Anatole," she said musingly, "it will not be possible to run away in the night. The Herr Director will take trouble, great trouble, to have you traced. The Herr Director has no wish to shelter criminals."

Once again she looked directly at him, fixing him with the burning and threatening glance that was like a sword. Then she dropped her eyes, absorbed in her manicure.

A pause.

Brandt glanced at his watch.

"I must remind you, Anatole, that you have only two minutes left," he said with an air of great courtesy. "How many years did you serve in the Legion, I wonder? And is it eight years in the salt-mines for deserters or perhaps more?"

"I'll work the animals," said Anatole shortly. He knew that Lya Brandt had read his thoughts, and he wiped the sweat from his face as he went toward the menagerie. It was not possible for the mixed group to appear at the matinee, but it was announced to the circus in general that the cats would work that night without fail. Anatole was to spend the afternoon rehearsing them.

His face was gray as he shut himself in the cage armed only with a tamer's switch. Outside the bars stood two keepers with loaded revolvers. They, too, were nervous. The animals stood motionless to stare at the stranger, hackles raised, restless yellow eyes fixed upon him. Around the cage were painted wooden pedestals, upon which the animals were trained to sit at the word of command. The Alsatian now gave that command. They took no notice. He repeated it louder, slapping the bars with his switch, and they scattered, in a sudden panic, to take up their accustomed seats. He pulled out the paper hoop through which the lions must jump. They snarled for several minutes, striking out with their savage paws; then, in the end, possibly deciding that obedience was less trouble, they bounded through the hoop with an ill grace. The two keepers, and Anatole as well, were soon streaming with perspiration as though they had been plunged into water. The Alsatian was now, however, more confident. He turned to the bears.

Twenty minutes later Girl Brandt rejoined his wife in the living-wagon. She was standing near the window with her back toward him.

"Better than I expected," said the director coolly. "I see no reason why things should not go well tonight. He has courage, this Legionary! And what good fortune that we are in France!"

Madam Brandt made no reply, nor did she turn her head. She seemed utterly indifferent to the affairs of Anatole.

That evening the Alsatian was supplied with a splendid sky-blue uniform and cherry-colored breeches from the circus wardrobe. He dressed himself mechanically, taking no notice of the dresser's encouragements. Out on the lot his comrades glanced at him sympathetically. One or two, unconscious of his antecedents, warned him to defy Brandt and keep out of the cage. Anatole merely shook his head, incapable of giving an explanation.

"I must go; it is useless to warn me," he said at length.

And the circus folk were unanimous in their bitter abuse of the Brandts.

It was dusk. The bandsmen, splendid in their green and gold uniforms, played the overture inside the huge tent. A group of clowns, glittering in brilliant spangles, stood waiting to make their comic entry. Behind the clowns, six or seven grooms controlled twenty milk-white Arab stallions with fleecy white manes and tails. These horses were magnificent in scarlet trappings. The Chinese troupe, dark kimonos over gorgeous brocade robes, diligently practised near the bears' cage. Anatole sat on a bale of hay near the tigers, deaf to the advice muttered in his ear by various comrades. The circus proceeded.

Up in the dome of the tent two muscular young men in peach-colored tights flung themselves from bar to bar with thrilling grace and swiftness. Down below the attendants rapidly constructed a vast cage, staggering beneath sections of heavy iron bars. Soon the cage was ready; the aerialists had swung themselves down from the dome. The band crashed out a chord, and Anatole, the Legionary, stepped into the cage, bowing modestly in response to the applause which greeted his spectacular entrance. Then an iron door was slid aside and down the narrow tunnel crept a file of tawny shapes.

Lions, tigers, leopards, bears. Gracefully they padded into the arena, stretching themselves, rubbing against the bars of the cage, yawning at the bright lights, showing their teeth, slinking with a cat-like agility about the ring.

Gripping his switch, Anatole uttered the first command. One minute later the animals were seated with a certain docility upon their wooden pedestals. Anatole produced his hoop. At first the people of the circus held their breath; then, gradually, as five minutes passed they relaxed. He was doing well. They sighed with relief. The climax of the art was a tableau during the course of which the animals grouped themselves, standing erect on their hind legs, about the trainer, who himself sprang upon a pedestal, arm upraised to give more effect to this subjugation of the beasts. The biggest tiger lay at his feet during the tableau, and while the other animals soon assumed their accustomed positions when ordered, the tiger was at first always unwilling to fling himself upon the sawdust.

Posing the lions and leopards, Anatole, one foot on the pedestal, spoke briskly, curtly, to the great beast, which stared at him sulkily, motionless save for the twitching of its tail. A second passed, seeming longer than a minute to the circus watchers. The tiger continued to stare, and Anatole, banging at the bars with his switch, pointed stubbornly at the ground at his feet.

His back was toward the ring entrance and he did not see the grooms and attendants draw back respectfully to allow some one to pass through the red velvet curtains. His comrades did, and nudged one another, for Madam Brandt seldom came near the arena during a performance. She stood for a moment near the curtains, tall and straight in her flowing white dress, her face pale against the dense blackness of her hair.

Then, suddenly, there was tumult in the peaceful cage as, snarling furiously, the animals leaped from their pedestals to dash themselves savagely against the bars. Caught by surprize, Anatole turned, slashing with his switch, shouting, oblivious of the sullen tiger behind him. A leopard, maddened with fright, collided against him and sent him stumbling to the ground. With the fierce swiftness of a mighty hawk the great tiger sprang. A thick choking growl that made the blood run cold, yells of terror from the crowd and then the crack of two revolver shots. Armed with hose-pipes the menagerie men drove the animals back. The tiger was wounded in the shoulder and clawed the ground, biting at itself in a frenzy of fear and pain.

Anatole lay doubled up on the sawdust looking like a rag-dummy, so limp and twisted was his body. On the bright blue of his uniform oozed a clotted stream of red. His face? Anatole had no longer a face; only a huge and raw and gaping wound. Opening a side door they dragged his body from the cage and swiftly wrapped it in the gorgeous coat of a Chinese acrobat standing near by. Screaming, weeping, cursing, the horrified audience fought, struggling and stampeding to leave the tent. In the noise and tumult Madam Brandt slipped through the red velvet curtains and vanished like a white shadow.

Pale-faced, haggard, the bandsmen were ordered to play their most cheerful march. Soon the tent was empty, save for a little group of brightly-clad people bending over the huddled shape that was Anatole and for a doctor, hastily summoned, who soon went away, for there was nothing for him to do.

That night the body was laid temporarily in a little canvas dressing-room belonging to the clowns. It was late before the show-people retired to bed, but by one o'clock in the morning all was still in the tent-town of Brandt's Circus. Only the night watchman, a stolid, unimaginative fellow, paced slowly up and down swinging his lantern, but from time to time a lion would whimper and growl in the silence of the night, or a horse kick impatiently against the wooden partition of its stall.

It was the watchman, however, who afterward related to his comrades what he saw during this lonely vigil.... It was about an hour before dawn, and the man was lolling on a heap of hay, relieved, no doubt, to think the night would soon be over, when all at once his quick ear caught the soft sound of approaching footsteps. He turned, hiding his lantern beneath his coat. It was Madam Brandt, of course, walking slowly, like a sleepwalker, across the deserted arena toward the dressing-rooms, seeming no more tangible than a shadow, a white shadow that gleamed for a moment in the darkness and then was gone, swallowed by the gloom of the night. Now the watchman was a brave fellow, and inclined to be inquisitive. He slipped off his shoes and crept after her.

Madam Brandt glided straight to the little dressing-room wherein lay the mangled body of the Legionary. The watchman had not dared to bring his lantern, and it was therefore difficult for him to see what was happening, but at the same time he managed to observe quite enough. He glimpsed her white figure kneeling down near the dark shape on the floor; as he watched she struggled with some drapery or other, and he saw that she was trying to drag away the sheet that covered the corpse; having apparently achieved her purpose she remained still for a moment, staring at what she saw; this immobility, which lasted only for a second, was succeeded by a sudden revulsion of feeling more horrible than anything that had gone before, for with all the ferocity of a starving animal she flung herself upon the body, shaking it, gripping it tight to steady its leaden weight, while she thrust her face, her mouth, down upon that tom and bleeding throat... then in the distant menagerie the lions and tigers broke the silence of the night with sudden tumult.

"Yes," said the juggler after a long pause, "we liked Anatole. He was a good comrade, although, mind you, he had probably been a murderer and most certainly a thief. But in the Circus Brandt, you know, that means nothing at all."

"Where is the Circus Brandt now?" I asked, after another pause.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Poland, I think; or possibly Peru. How can I tell? The Brandts are gipsies, nomads. Here today, gone tomorrow. Possibly they travel fast because there is always something to hush up. But who can say? The devil has an admirable habit of looking after his friends."

I was silent, for I was thinking both of Lya Brandt and Anatole. Suddenly I felt rather sick. "Look here," I said, "do you mind if we don't talk any more about the Brandt Circus for the moment?"

_______________

5: Twice Drowned

Christopher B. Booth

Detective Story Magazine Feb 1936

A STEAMING hot bath was Raoul Erskine's personal prescription for his jumpy nerves, and, if his nerves had ever needed soothing, they needed it to-night. The stock market had unexpectedly slumped during the afternoon, and he'd been forced to use some of Roberta Strickland's bonds. That was a serious risk to take, putting up a customer's securities for collateral, and, when the customer was a woman, the hazard was even greater. Most of them are hard losers.

Roberta Strickland, for all of being a bully good sport, was likely to squawk as loud as the next one if she got nicked for thirty or forty thousand dollars. Only, of course, Raoul Erskine didn't expect that to happen. The market would recover in a day or two and Robbie's bonds would be back in the vault where they belonged.

The tub was half full. Raoul Erskine, always a fastidious man, reached toward the glass shelf for the bottle of lavender bath salts, sprinkled in a generous quantity of the pleasant-smelling crystals, replaced the bottle, and reached for the cord of his silk dressing gown.

As he did so, the doorbell rang? Had it not been for the fact that Thurman had promised to wire a
tip from Chicago if certain things occurred, Erskine might have ignored the bell; but there was a chance it might be a telegram. He shoved his feet into a pair of straw sandals and padded swiftly through the ground-floor bedroom of his seashore cottage to answer the ring.

A man who lives by the stock ticker learns to mask his emotions and guard against sudden surprises, but the coincidence of finding Roberta Strickland standing outside his door was almost too much for him.

"You!" he exclaimed.

"Why the great surprise?" demanded Robbie. "Do I intrude?"

It was; to be sure, no occasion for surprise, since Robbie Strickland was quite an informal person, and this wasn't the first time she had dropped in on him unannounced. She had always been welcome. Erskine liked the sight of her extremely pretty face, and found her breezy manner refreshing.

"No, of course not!" Raoul Er- skine hastened to assure her. "You caught me a bit negligée— that's all. I was about to take a plunge in the tub. But that can wait if you feel like having a drink."

Robbie, once a showgirl and twice divorced, did not allow the sight of a man in a dressing gown to embarrass her. She came in.

"That's always a temptation. You have such perfect liquor, Raoul. Getting dressed for the evening out, I suppose. Well, I shan't keep you but a moment. This is a business call, old dear. All those new laws congress has passed to curb wicked Wall Street doesn't make it a prison offense for a girl to consult her broker after business hours?"

Raoul Erskine became uneasy with a vague presentiment.

"The law expressly says that, when the broker's lady client is beautiful and charming, she must always call after eight and remain until midnight— unless she prefers to go dancing."

Robbie swept off her beret and fluffed back her naturally blond hair as she sat down.

"While you mix the drinks, I'll talk. Hold on tight to the cocktail shaker while I explode a bomb. Maybe I'm smart and maybe I'm crazy, but I've done gone and bought myself a hotel."

Raoul Erskine stared at her, his sense of impending disaster increasing. It took money to buy hotels, and the only money Robbie had was the fifty thousand in 3½ per cent Liberty bonds that he had bought for her with the divorce settlement money she had gotten from Bob Strickland, her second husband.

"You look a little startled," said Robbie. "Well, it's not exactly a new idea. The notion bit me a couple of months ago. I've been watching the Breakwaters Inn dying on its feet and deciding that I was just the gal who could nurse it back to health. The bank's stuck with the joint, see, and it's costing 'em plenty of dough to keep it running. So they're practically giving it to me. All I do is assume the mortgage."

Erskine was instantly relieved. "Well, you can't lose much on a deal like that."

"Oh, but I can. I'm going to spend some jack fixing up the place. The real swank, see, to pull in the right people. I'm going to shoot the works, Raoul, and, if I lose— well, I've gambled before. What I dropped in to tell you was that I want you to sell my bonds and have the cash ready for me not later than noon to-morrow. I'm moving fast."

The mouth of the cocktail shaker chattered against the rims of the glasses as Erskine poured out the drinks. He couldn't keep his hands steady. "Have the cash ready for me not later than noon to-morrow!"

Those were words of doom, passing the death sentence on his career. Noon to-morrow was impossible.

Raoul Erskine didn't trust himself to speak until he had gulped down his own drink. Some of it slopped over the edge of the glass and made a stain on the front of his dressing gown. Robbie, whose eyes never missed a trick, saw that Raoul was not his usually suave self.

"Must have been hard going in the Street for you to-day," she observed. "You're all jittery."

"No, not at all," lied Erskine. "I did pretty well, as a matter of fact. Now, about this hotel business. I'd go slow on that, if I were you. The Breakwaters is a lemon. You'll lose your shirt."

Robbie laughed. "Then I'll have to joint the nudists. Besides, old dear, it's my shirt."

Erskine tried to reason with her. Always an earnest, convincing talker when there was a point to gain for himself, he overplayed his hand. It was the earnestness of desperation— and Robbie Strickland was nobody's fool. Broadway and two husbands had wised her up plenty.

As she listened, a chilly frost came into Robbie's eyes, which were no longer friendly.

"Listen, Raoul," she snapped, "I've played too much poker not to know when a guy is trying to bluff out a busted flush. I'm calling you. They're, my bonds. Is there any reason I can't get 'em at noon to-morrow?"

Erskine refilled his glass and drained it at a gulp. He wiped his lips with the tips of his fingers.

"Robbie, I'll tell you the truth. Your bonds are safe. You'll get every dollar of your money, but I want you to do me a favor. Let me keep them until the end of the week."

Robbie Strickland was on her feet. Now her eyes were blazing with a cold fury. "In other words," she said, "you've put my bonds in hock."

"They're safe, I tell you! I— I've merely sent them over to my bank as evidence of good faith. The market went off this afternoon because of some wild rumor. It caught me unawares."

"To hell with that stuff!" snapped Robbie. "Do I get my money at noon to-morrow?"

Raoul Erskine dashed the perspiration from his forehead. "That's impossible, Robbie, and you'd better not press me. If you stir up a mess, you won't get a dime."

Robbie stood for a moment, staring at him in contempt and wrath. Abruptly she turned and moved across the room. She reached for the telephone.

"What are you going to do?" blurted Erskine.

"I've never had any use for crooks," answered Robbie, "and the kind I hate most are those who steal from their friends. Now what would you think I'm going to do? One guess ought to be enough."

One guess was enough. Raoul Erskine knew that she was going to have him arrested. In a frenzy he rushed at her and grabbed the telephone from her hand.

"Wait, Robbie! Wait until we've talked it over! Give me a day!"

She was in no mood for reasoning. Robbie was a wild cat when her temper got away from her. She tried to get back the phone.

Erskine couldn't remember exactly how it happened. Robbie Strickland ceased being a woman. She became merely an enemy bent on accomplishing his ruin. He struck her with the telephone, heard the beginning of a shrill scream which died away in her lovely throat, then stared at her in horror as she fell away from him to lie like a dead woman at his feet.

Raoul Erskine couldn't move. He could hardly think. His palsied hands put the telephone back on the table.

"If she's dead." he whispered thickly, "I'm in for murder!"

But Robbie was still alive. Her breath fanned faintly against his cheek as he dropped to his knees and bent over her.

"Phelps!" called Erskine loudly. "Phelps!" Then he remembered it was the butler's night out, and that he and Robbie were alone in the house. He shook Robbie's shoulder, called out her name. She did not respond.

"May have fractured her skull," groaned Raoul. "I'd better get her to the hospital. If she dies, I'm in for it."

But he was also in for it if Roberta Strickland lived. Any hope of placating her was gone now. She'd never forgive him for that blow. She would accuse him of trying to kill her. Arrest would come even more quickly. There would be sensational headlines in the morning papers. Erskine could see them in his mind. The bank would call his loans. No matter whether the market went up or down, he was done.

Raoul Erskine stumbled numbly to his feet. Above the hammering of his own pulse, which made a pounding noise in his ears, he could hear the gurgling sound of water in the bathroom. The hideous plan was bom in his brain at that instant.

In a moment of fiendish inspiration, spawned by his desperation, he saw how simple could be his escape — with Robbie dead. Even if the market didn't come back, he would be safe. His own stock transactions had been masked under a cryptic, "Account No. 19, Special." If the bottom dropped out, he could claim that it was Roberta Strickland's account.

"I'm crazy," muttered Raoul, "to think of such a thing."

But the idea persisted, accumulating detail. Erskine rushed to the window and peered out into the driveway. As he had expected, Robbie's car, a small coupe, was parked under the portico.

He leaped back across the room and gathered Robbie up in his arms. She stirred slightly and a moan escaped her parted lips— lips that Raoul Erskine had often wanted to kiss. He didn't think of that now. Again she had ceased being a woman.

"Can't take the risk of letting her recover consciousness," muttered Erskine. "She'll start screaming as sure as hell, and I mustn't hit her again." That would have endangered his scheme, for the police were to believe she had died of accident.

Erskine was a big man, and Robbie was no great burden for him to carry. He strode through the communicating passageway and, through the bedroom, into the bath. With a steely coldness which was amazing even for himself, he lowered Roberta Strickland's body head-first over the rim of the tub and submerged her face.

She didn't struggle. Raoul turned his eyes away so as to not watch the bubbles of air which kept coming up through the water. Presently there were no longer any bubbles, for she had ceased breathing.

Robbie was now quite dead, and, as Raoul Erskine realized that, he was seized with a frenzy of fear.

"I must be mad," he whispered. "I've drowned her. This is murder. My God, to think I've done a thing like this!"

He carried Robbie's body into the bedroom, put her on the bed, and hurriedly began to dress. His fingers were clumsy in his haste.

Five minutes later he had Robbie's body in the car, her own coupe, and was driving through the back streets, headed for Sands Point, which was a deserted stretch of ocean front with a handful of half-completed cottages to mark the failure of a real-estate scheme. Nobody lived out here, and it was a perfect spot for Erskine's purpose.

There was an old pier, jutting out into the water, and Erskine drove onto it, the loose and rotting planking making a rumbling thunder under the rolling tires. He drove to the very edge, stopped the car, but not the engine, got out and looked around. The night was very dark, the water black as ink, sucking and slapping at the piles.

Reassuring himself that there were no prying eyes to watch what he was doing, he moved Robbie's body across the width of the seat behind the steering wheel. He shuddered a little, for one of her hands touched his. It was cold with that awful clamminess of death.

The ancient piles had settled, the pier slanted sharply, and it was just a matter of reaching inside the door with one of his gloved hands and releasing the emergency brake. The car began moving. Raoul Erskine leaped back and slammed the door. In fascination he watched the front wheels reach out across empty space, poise there for an instant, and then plunge down to strike five feet of water in a loud splash.

"They'll find her at low tide," muttered Erskine. "Only one explanation— the car got away from her and she drowned. That bruise on her head— where she struck the windshield. Now I'm safe."

As horrible as it all was, Raoul was stirred by a perverted pride. He had accomplished what everybody said could not be done—a perfect crime.

Erskine got back home at a quarter of nine, and he had no more than let himself inside the house when the telephone rang. He answered without hesitation.

It was Kate Thomas on the wire. Kate and Robbie shared a bungalow at the far end of the beach.

"Hello, Raoul," said Kate. "Has Robbie left yet?"

Erskine was surprised at his own calmness. "Almost an hour ago," he answered. "She just dashed in, had a quick drink, and dashed out again."

"That's queer," complained Kate Thomas. "We've got a date for dinner. Trouble with her car perhaps. She's always smashing into somebody's fender, or having somebody smash into hers. The little fool drives like a lunatic."

"Yes, probably trouble with the car," agreed Erskine. "We'll have to lecture her about careless driving. Anybody can have one smash too many." He thought that was being pretty clever.

Raoul Erskine had a better sleep that night than he expected. Phelps, the butler, awakened him at eight.

"A man to see you, sir," explained Phelps. "He says he's a detective."

Erskine felt no cause for alarm. Kitty, of course, had told the police that Robbie had come to his house last night. The police would want to question him, merely as a matter of routine.

"Detective?" repeated Raoul in feigned astonishment. "I haven't sent for any detective. What does the fellow want?"

"It's something about the death of Mrs. Strickland, sir. It seems that she drove her car off the old pier at Sands Point and was drowned."

Raoul Erskine tossed back the bedcovers. "Robbie— drowned! Good Lord, Phelps, are you serious?"

"It must be quite a shock, sir. You and Mrs. Strickland were very good friends."

"Right, Phelps. Robbie Strickland was the salt of the earth. I can't believe it! Tell the detective I'll be right out."

"If it's just the same to you," said another voice, "I'll come in." The detective entered the bedroom. "Callaghan's the name, Mr. Erskine. I spell it with a 'g.' Officer from police headquarters. We're looking into the death of a Mrs. Strickland."

Raoul Erskine brushed his hand across his forehead, like a man bewildered. "Yes, so my butler told me. It's almost impossible to think of Robbie being dead. She was so alive, so vital. This news hits me pretty hard."

Callaghan nodded. "The dame she lived with told us you and Mrs. Strickland were very good friends."

"The best!" exclaimed Erskine. "Now, don't get me wrong. Not sweethearts, nothing like that— just friends."

"When was the last time you seen her?" inquired Callaghan.

"About eight o'clock last night. She drove here to my place for a minute, had a drink, and left within a few minutes. She seemed in a bit of a rush."

Again Callaghan nodded. "That checks all right. Wasn't despondent or anything like that?"

"Robbie Strickland despondent? If you'd known her, you wouldn't ask."

Callaghan looked around the room. "Left about a quarter past eight, eh? Didn't say anything about driving to Sands Point?"

"Why, no," answered Erskine.

"Kind of queer," said Callaghan. "She left here at a quarter past eight to have dinner with some people at eight thirty, and yet she drives in the opposite direction, out to a God-forsaken place like Sands Point. Yeah, that's kind of queer. Unless something happened to make her go out there— maybe for the purpose of driving her car off the pier."

"Suicide, you mean?" exclaimed Raoul Erskine. "Nonsense!"

Callaghan acted like a restless man. He moved his position again, seeming, inadvertently, to get closer to the open door of the bathroom.

"You was her broker, I'm told," said the detective. "Been losing any money in the market?"

Erskine shrugged his shoulders. "She may have lost a few thousand in yesterday's slump. I don't personally watch all the accounts. But Robbie could take it on the chin. If you're thinking she drove her car off the pier because she lost a little money, forget it."

Again Callaghan had shifted his position and, as he cupped his hands to his mouth to light a cigarette, his gaze had drifted through the open door and into the adjoining private bath. For the first time Raoul felt a faint uneasiness. Why was this fellow interested in the bathroom?

"This is an odd case," said Callaghan. "It's one of the oddest I ever run into. What makes it so odd, Mr. Erskine, is that a person can't drown twice."

The hackles of Raoul Erskine's neck stood up. He was glad that Callaghan was looking into the bathroom instead of at him. He knew that the color had drained out of his face, and he made a grab for a cigarette as an excuse for concealing his features while he fought to regain his composure.

"This fiatfoot will not take me by surprise a second time," he thought, and said aloud: "Twice drowned? That doesn't make any sense to me."

"I thought maybe it would— to you," said Callaghan, and then Erskine saw that Callaghan had been watching him through the mirror.

"See here," snapped Raoul, "I'm not so sure I like the tone of your voice."

Callaghan's smile was grim. "I'm sure you don't, Mr. Erskine. "Drowned twice! You didn't like to hear me say that. Meant something to you, didn't it?"

"I haven't the faintest idea what you mean by talking such nonsense!" blustered Raoul.

"Then I guess I'd better make it more clear," went on Callaghan. "As I said, people don't drown twice. We fished Mrs. Strickland's car out of the Atlantic Ocean, with her inside of it. She was drowned, right enough— but not with the right kind of water.

"You see, Mr. Erskine, when people die they stop breathing. And when they stop breathing they stop getting anything inside their lungs. Now you'd sort of figure that for a person to drown in salt water, there ought to be salt water in their lungs."

Raoul Erskine's eyes were bulging. The bedroom seemed to spin and rock before his eyes. He continued to hear Callaghan's voice, but the words sounded as if they came from a far distance.

"There wasn't any salt water in Mrs. Strickland's lungs," continued the detective. "Only fresh water. Even more peculiar, it had a funny odor— sort of perfumedlike— the odor of lavender. I see you've got a bottle of lavender bath salts in there on your bathroom shelf, and I guess that ties everything up nice and tight."

Raoul Erskine knew that it did.

_________________

6: Deep Sea Detective

Clarence Herbert New

1862-1933

Blue Book, July 1933

CAPTAIN HARDINGE turned out of his bunk at seven and dressed in a leisurely manner. Except for a brief visit to the offices of the Line in Leadenhall Street, the day was his own— and he was getting the full percentage of enjoyment out of his new command and the difference, among other things, in his personal comfort. During this first voyage out and back, as Master, there had been too much on his mind really to savor the difference in status, but now, loading cargo in the great Royal Albert Dock, he was visualizing the difference between a mate's stateroom down on the main-deck gangway, in which he had sailed for the Line a good three years, and the really luxurious Master's cabin abaft the wheel-house, where he could entertain half a dozen guests without crowding— the difference in status between an executive officer attending to details of management, under orders, and a shipmaster whose bare word was law to every human being on board. He stepped out upon the bridge-extension which led to his door for a few glances over his boat and up and down the great dock.

The bulkhead alongside the Chindwin was stacked high with light- and heavy- case goods which were being loaded for various Oriental ports; the stacks were covered with tarpaulins to protect them against the weather. In the moving crowds along the bulkheads were Lascars in stained white and red turbans and brilliant-colored cottons, with cheap pea-jackets protecting them against the London chill at that time of year— Chinese— Hindus— West African negroes— South Americans. A ray of sunlight painted ruddy glow upon the sides of a rusty cargo-boat farther up the basin. On the air arose the creaking of blocks, the clatter of donkey-engines—a blended and permeating odor of spices, wines, tobacco, came from the dock warehouses.

Later, as Hardinge sat at breakfast, enjoying the sizzling bacon and eggs and the aroma of perfect coffee, he asked for the chief steward; when he appeared, Hardinge said:

"Henderson, I'm expectin' an old friend an' shipmate down this afternoon— he'll stop for dinner, I fancy. He was mate an' Master in the old Brock Line when I was third. Then he came into money an' a title— settled down ashore— a fine estate in Devon, I've heard. Well, d'ye see, I could take him up to one of the West End hotels in town— but if we could put on something a bit special, here aboard, I fancy he might like to stop."

Feeling satisfied his chief steward wouldn't let him down, Hardinge walked along the bulkhead to Gallion's Station and took the first train in to Fenchurch Street—a matter of some thirty-five minutes. After chatting with the Manager of the Line for an hour, receiving his instructions for the voyage out, Hardinge lunched, made a few purchases, and was back aboard his boat shortly after three.

At four o'clock a well-built, fine-looking man came sauntering along from the inner end of the dock where it joins the wider but shorter Victoria Dock, glancing at the various boats he passed with the eye of one who has spent many years at sea—glancing with puzzled interest, as he finally came alongside the Chindwin, at the big stack of heavy-case goods, under tarpaulins, which were being put aboard her. As a number of these were of the same shape and meas urement, he unconsciously began counting them— then he went farther aft to where another stack of the same shape were being loaded in through the afterwell hatch to the Number Three Hold. He made a memorandum of the consignee's name— but though the names of some forty different manufacturers were stenciled upon the cases, it seemed obvious they were not the actual shippers.

PUZZLING over what he had noticed, Sir Edward Coffin went up the gangplank, asked the quartermaster if Captain Hardinge was aboard, and was promptly taken up to the Master's cabin. Owing to the difference in their ratings, the two men hadn't been so very chummy while sailing in the Brock Line until Hardinge had passed for his mate's ticket and Sir Edward had settled down ashore after his stepfather's death. Then they had met a few times in out-ports, and found that they had many interests in common.

"Frank, I rather like the look and feel of your boat. About eight thousand, isn't she? Twin screw? Somewhere round sixteen in good weather— eh?"

"With a knot or two in reserve, if there's any good reason for getting it out of her— enough to offset the fuel cost."

"General cargo, I suppose—Manchester stuff and machinery?"

"Looks like that— from those cases under the tarpaulins. As long as I notice it's being stowed properly, I don't pay much attention to what they're putting aboard until I'm going over the manifest, at sea—"

"I'll bet you did last voyage, though!... Had a look-see at every last case that came aboard—eh?"

"Well, it was my first command, d'ye see, an' I didn't know what sort of mate they were giving me. One does get a bit jumpy over his first boat, you know— wants to know everything he can about her. But Jones is a first-chop mate— just going up before the Board for his Master's ticket—so I can leave a good bit to him, this trip."

"What's the idea of all those pianos going out to the Rajah of Bundlecore? Is he running a piano-warehouse?"

"Pianos? Fancy I don't get it! What pianos? An' what have they to do with the Rajah of Bundlecore?"

"That's what I'm asking you. There are sixty-five of them out there under the tarpaulins, and I don't know how many more have been already put aboard—all sorts of different makes— but no shippers' names that I could find."

"The second mate, Davitt, has been in charge of the loading. He'll have the shippers' names, of course!"

SIR EDWARD shook his head. "No, he may not. They'll know at the Leadenhall Street offices—but I don't believe Jones and Alworthy care much whether they're carrying a lot of cargo of the same sort as long as they get their freights. You naturally take aboard what's sent down to you—unless there are suspicious features about some of it which lead you to ask advice. Pardon me for butting-in on what's really none of my pidgin, old chap. We all of us have different quirks that there's no accounting for. Still— I'm just wondering. Y'see— a Master's job isn't in the least like that of a subordinate officer, because he has the full responsibility loaded onto him. And if something goes wrong— even if no blame actually can be laid against him for it— well— his ticket may be suspended, you know. Quite possibly I used to let that sort of thing bother me more than the average Master does —but I did usually get a line on what might happen, before it happened. Looking back, I can see that it probably saved me a deal of trouble. I can't see how it could do you any harm with the Line if you go up in the morning to see Alworthy and ask him about this damned unusual shipment of pianos. Very likely he'll either give you some explanation or tell you the shipment is all right— but he will know you're looking after your boat pretty closely, and that may do you some good in the long run. Eh? Possibly I'll run down again tomorrow afternoon and hear what he told you."

WHEN Sir Edward reached Fenchurch Street Station about ten, he took a taxi direct to a certain club where he was pretty certain of finding Mr. Francis Yelverton, one of the Lloyd's managers. As it happened, Yelverton was there quietly reading. He surmised that Coffin had probably turned up something which he thought worth going into.

"I say, Yelverton!" Coffin began at once, "what do you know about the Rajah of Bundlecore?"

"Nothing. Name's familiar, though. I've some vague recollection that the man's immensely wealthy—and as balmy upon some matters as most of that lot. Eccentric, you know—plunges on anything that happens to catch his fancy. Makes little difference what it is."

"Have you insured any pianos for him— immediate shipment?"

"Pianos? Wait a bit! Would there be two shipm'nts— fifty or more in each?"

"Just about."

"Aye—we insured one lot for Smith an' Bowers, King William Street, an' the other for Williams an' Downey. Both of 'em firms of purchasin' agents— mostly for the Oriental trade, as I understand it. One lot of fifty-five pianos, assorted makes, underwritten at four thousand pounds— t'other one, forty-eight of 'em, insured at forty-five hundred pounds. Both goin' out on the Chindwin, of the Singapore-Eastern Line. An', now you mention it, I've some recollection that they were consigned to the Rajah of Bundlecore— whoever he is."

"Trying his hand at a bit of trade, do you fancy?"

"Why— I really couldn't say. There's a chap in the club at this moment who'd possibly know. Wait here while I look him up an' ask him." Yelverton returned shortly. "Aye— the Rajah's a Bengali— well over toward the Burmese border. But he spends a deal of time in the Federated States where he has a lot of rubber under cultivation an' a palace that cost him over a million rupees. But— an' I fancy this'll be the milk in the coconut— he was educated at Cambridge an' then went in for music. He's said to be a fairly good pianist, but temperamental— fancies that with just the right instrument, he'd be a great pianist. Well, d'ye see, Whyte didn't know a thing about our end of it—but it would be just like one of those brownies to have a hundred an' three pianos of different sorts sent out to him, so he could try one after the other until he found one that suited him, and then junk the others."

"H-m-m— what do you know about those two firms of purchasing agents, Yelverton?"

"Not a blessed thing! The business was transacted at one of our branches. They paid their premiums— the check apparently went through— or they might have paid in treasury notes— got their policies an' took 'em away with 'em. That's all we know— or really care to know, isn't it?"

"I'm not so sure about that. Eighty-five hundred pounds would be too small a loss to bother you seriously, though it's a healthy idea to avoid it if possible. But what you're carrying on the Chindwin might be something else again. I can figure about what that is."

YELVERTON looked startled. "The devil! You don't fancy—"

"I don't fancy anything—until I know a darned sight more than I do now. The Chindwin clears Saturday—this is Tuesday. I'll have a chat with Jones and Alworthy, and then look up those purchasing agents. That'll put us in position to speculate on the various angles. I don't know a damned thing about that Bengali Rajah and his pianos beyond the fact that a hundred-and-three of 'em are being shipped to him on my friend Hardinge's boat— and that they're all uprights— not a solitary grand, that I could see! Of course a lot of grands may have already gone into the holds. Anyhow— I've just got a hunch. There may be some rajah who's fool enough to buy that many pianos just to find one that suited him— but I doubt it. And if they're all new instruments, I'd say they'd be worth about double what they're insured for— if good enough for a first-chop pianist."

Jones & Alworthy, owners of the Singapore-Eastern line, had surmised, upon a previous occasion when Sir Edward had called to see them on business, that there was some connection between him and Lloyd's. So when he called next morning, the junior partner had him shown into the private office at once.

BUT when questioned about the Rajah of Bundlecore, Alworthy said: "We'd not even noticed that cargo was bein' shipped to such a person, d'ye see. until the Master of the Chindwin dropped in, half an hour ago, to ask about this big piano shipm'nt. Then— one of our clerks recalled the fact that this particular Rajah is a person of considerable wealth an' by way of bein' a rather unusual pianist. Well, with almost any rich Hindu, that would account sufficiently for this piano-shipm'nt. Why, I know of one Maharajah who has three rooms in his palace filled with every conceivable sort of clocks, gramophones an' wireless sets— all rustin' to bits because, after playin' with 'em until he tired of the game, he forgot he ever bought 'em! Of course Hardinge was doin' quite the proper thing to run up an' inquire about a shipm'nt as unusual as that—showed him to be a careful an' conscientious Master, d'ye see. But, in the.circumst'nces, we couldn't see anything out of the way in such a shipm'nt to that sort of brownie."

"Well— the Rajah's taste for music may account for such a piano-shipment but somehow— Is the passenger-accommodation pretty well booked up?"

"About ninety in the saloon, so far— an' sixty or more in the second class. We usually book a good many durin' the last two days before sailing."

"I say, Mr. Alworthy! Would it be too much of a nuisance to let me glance over the passenger-list?"

"Not in the least, Sir Edward! I'll have the book fetched in at once. I know perfectly well you'd not make such a request without good reason."

Close scrutiny of the list showed that, up to that moment, eight Malays and four Hindus had booked passage in the saloon, on the Chindwin, and fourteen Malays in the second cabin— there being no steerage, as the owners preferred doing without the coolie trade.

"M-m-m— most of these Malay names in the saloon look like shopkeepers from the Dutch Indies— chaps who usually travel on the Stoomvaart Maatschappij and other Dutch lines. Of course they may belong in the Federated States, at that. Ever hear about any of 'em? This chap Kroema Salemba, for example? Or Sedikit Ikan? Some of them look to me like aliases with the Oriental idea of humor. 'Sedikit Ikan' would be, literally, 'Little Fish'!"

"Oh, I fancy the names will be right enough. They call a chap after all sorts of things out there. I never heard of this lot before— may be men of substance in Selangor or Perak for all I know. To be sure, there are bad Malays an' good Malays— no gettin' around the fact that the bad ones'll cut your throat for a rupee or a guilder. But we've the bad ones fairly in hand, these days."

From the steamship offices, Coffin went around to look up the two firms of purchasing agents. Smith & Bowers occupied a single medium-sized office on the third floor of a building in King William Street. In it, was a young clerk who also was a typist. He said that neither of the firm was usually to be seen at the office without an appointment, as they were out about the town, or in other cities, making purchases for shipment to their customers. There was a set of books on the desk, a safe, a smaller desk in one corner, evidently used by the firm. Aside from these and three chairs, there was nothing else in the room. There was no indication that much business was being done— no evidence of any correspondence whatever. The office of Williams & Downey in Lombard Street was very similar to that of the other firm. Apparently the purchasing agents of this type carried on their business with a minimum of overhead expense. The door was locked. On it was a placard saying: "Office hours— 10 to 12 and 2 to 4. Inquiries referred to Smith & Bowers, 632 King William Street

Sir Edward had obtained about all the information he needed—and gave it in detail to Yelverton while they were lunching near the Lloyd's Buildings. When they returned to the manager's office, Yelverton said:

"You seem to have an uncanny instinct for nosing out things, Sir Edward— much to our advantage, as it has proved. What do you imagine the mystery about those pianos may be?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Yelverton. But I can give you what seem to be the facts as far as the thing has gone. Either the Rajah ordered and paid for those pianos with some scheme of his own in mind— presumably revolutionary— 'Orient for the Orientals'— or some other parties, knowing of his musical twist, are having the pianos shipped with the intention of diverting them somewhere for purposes of their own— and His Highness knows nothing whatever of the shipment. Those twelve Malays and Hindus going out in the Chindwin's saloon— with the fourteen in the second class— would indicate the latter supposition, because the Rajah wouldn't need to have anybody at all on the boat. He'd simply take his pianos from the wharf at Penang and float 'em up the little river which goes through his rubber-plantation. We know, now, that there was but one shipment— not two. Smith and Bowers undoubtedly is a one-man firm— that one man is also Williams and Downey. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, nobody would have looked up that point or ascertained the fact. So far, there isn't the slightest evidence of anything illegal. A one-man firm of purchasing agents may do quite a lot of business legitimately if he has capital enough to swing it. You issued a policy and got your premiums—apparently you have nothing to complain about. The pianos were shipped in regular order on the Chindwin; Jones and Alworthy issued their bills of lading on them. At destination, their freights are paid or they hold the pianos— which certainly would be good for a darned sight more than the freights. Apparently they have no cause for suspicion or complaint. If the Rajah didn't order the pianos some one else presumably wants them badly enough to pay the freights at Penang, in his name, and cart them off. But there are two points which haven't yet been covered by anything we know: A hundred and three pianos shipped to one man who is not in that business— twenty-six Malays and Hindus that we know about going out on the same boat with that shipment, and possibly a lot more of 'em that we don't know about. Those features are what puzzle me! May be no association at all between 'em, but I'm betting a hundred quid there is—with anybody who wants to take me up! " "But how are you going to find out? What's your suggestion?"

"Well, I don't particularly care about a trip out East just now— I had something else in mind," said Coffin slowly. "But this proposition has got me going. You get through to Alworthy on the telephone and ask him to fix me up with one of those cabin-and-bath suites on the C deck— portholes, not windows— similar suite on the other side of the bulkhead to be occupied by white passengers who won't be trying to get into my cabin. Have him drop a hint to Frank Hardinge that I'm to have the run of the boat— particularly, the radiohouse and engine-room; also, that he's to confer with me in any emergency. But don't give Hardinge the impression that I'm superseding him in any way."

FROM the Lloyd's Buildings, Coffin took a taxi to an establishment which specialized in outfitting for every sort of enterprise requiring weapons or equipment. Here the Baronet purchased two dozen bullet-proof vests, thirty automatics and ammunition, two dozen of the latest type gas-masks— and two dozen steel helmets taken from German prisoners during the war. At a house dealing in wireless equipment, he purchased a twelve-tube American receiving-set, a code-transmission-set to work on batteries supplying one kilowatt of power, two sets of head-frames, and two powerful microphones.

Having been assigned to the cabin-accommodation he had requested, Sir Edward then went down to the dock at North Woolwich. Hardinge was in town for the evening entertaining a couple of relatives— but Henderson the chief steward was in charge and recognized Coffin at once. Showing him the letter from Alworthy giving him the run of the boat, Coffin explained that he wished the wireless-sets and batteries stowed under the berth in his cabin for the present— a new Yale lock put on the door at once— and the two heavily reinforced boxes which would come down from the outfitting house in the morning, placed in the trunk-room between-decks.

As the chief engineer, Innes, was aboard, Coffin asked the steward to come below and introduce him— but Innes had seen Sir Edward in Hongkong as Master of the Argentine Liberator and was pleased to renew the acquaintance. Upon Coffin's asking if there were two hundred feet of one-inch iron pipe aboard, the chief said he could telephone up to the city and have it delivered by nine o'clock the next morning.

Then, seeing the puzzled expression upon Innes' face, Coffin explained:

"I may be somewhat balmy, old chap — but there are some features connected with this voyage which have made me just suspicious enough to book as far as Singapore with you to see if anything really does happen. Captain Hardinge is an old pal of mine from the Brock Line— I'd hate to see him in any mess with his first boat. My idea was this: Run that iron pipe around the coaming of the boat-deck from the wireless-house to a point directly over my cabin on C deck—then down through holes in the deck-plating—through one corner of staterooms on A and B decks—through the ceiling of my cabin— painting the piping white as we go to match the room-paint. Run eight rubber-covered copper-wires through it as each length and elbow are connected. By starting to drill those holes at six in the morning, I think we can easily get the job done by tomorrow night—although we've another day for it if necessary. Catch the idea?"

"Weel— I do— an' I do not, sir. ,I mind ye're makin' a connection from your cabin to the wireless-hoose— but I dinna—"

"Suppose there's some sort of a mix-up— some gang of crooks tie Sparks up or put him out of business so that he can't use his wireless— take possession of his instruments for their own use. They'll think they've settled the question of this boat communicating with any other boat or station. But there happens to be a receiving-set and a transmitting-set too, somewhere below— with batteries. Eh?"

"Oh, mon!... 'Tis a grrand idea! An' ye'll be wishin' for me an' ma macheenists to see nothin' an' know nothin' o' what we're aye layin' yon pipin' for! Of coorse—of coorse! Ye've authorrity, I suppose?"

He was given a glimpse at the owners' letter. It was enough.

SIR EDWARD came down early next morning. Hardinge had been both amazed and pleased when Alworthy said the Baronet was booking as far as Singapore— particularly, at the suggestion to confer with him in any emergency— and was most curious to know what it was all about.

"I don't know myself, Frank!" Coffin declared. "That's where the bally old catch comes in. But there's something damned fishy about those pianos— and some of the passengers who are booked with you. That's literally all I know about it— but there's a vague odor in the air. Well— we'll forget about it until something turns up— if it does. I hope you're taking out a nice girl or two for me to play round with while you're occupied with your professional duties."

One might have supposed from this remark that Coffin would have been looking for pleasant acquaintances among the passengers who lined the rails as the boat steamed slowly down the Thames on Saturday afternoon. But he was concentrating his attention upon the male passengers—particularly on those who were unquestionably Orientals.

Rather to his surprise, eight out of the twelve were men of apparent education. They were dressed quietly in European clothes, and had no appearance of being anything but what they seemed— men of more or less independent means and assured standing in their own communities. The other four were a bit rougher but not offensively so— sufficiently educated for business needs— speaking intelligible English, but talking among themselves in Malay.

IN the second cabin, Sir Edward spotted very quickly the fourteen whose names appeared on the passenger-list. They were the usual smiling lot one sees along the Peninsula and among the Dutch Islands—rather friendly in manner as a rule, but potentially good or bad according to their mood and personal inclinations. There was, however, a feature concerning them which didn't please Sir Edward much— the steamer friendship which they seemed to have started with half a dozen white passengers who spoke very fair English— but who certainly were not English. Probably Russian— it was difficult to say. The white races, with some notable exceptions, are seldom noticeably chummy with Orientals on shipboard— and this goes, more or less, even in the case of native princes traveling in the saloon. One is civil and pleasant, of course— plays bridge or chess with them— drinks with them— but doesn't slap them on the back or make up shore-parties to include them....

Coffin is of the type which makes warm friendships without effort. Men and women both sense in him an aura of decency and thorough sportsmanship, which attracts them from the first casual glance. Before the Chindwin had passed Margate, he found himself chatting pleasantly with a married couple who knew numerous people and places that he did— and very shortly, there was a group of half a dozen. When the bugle sounded for dinner and they noticed him seated at the Captain's right in the dining-saloon, they learned from the stewards for the first time that he had a title— and were impressed or not according to their own status. Two of the more attractive Malays were seated halfway down at the same table— the other ten were scattered about in different parts of the saloon.

AFTER dinner, Coffin went up to the l boat-deck with Hardinge, and found "Sparks" in his wireless-house, inspecting with a good deal of curiosity certain disconnected wires which came up through a pipe under his operating-bench. At first he was disposed to stand upon his authority as a Marconi employee whose official position was more or less independent of the Master— but when Coffin showed him a chief operator's license from the same company and said he had come up for a conference with him, a cheerful grin appeared upon his face. The Baronet went over the features which had seemed to him sufficiently unusual to arouse suspicion and gave his reasons for making certain arrangements in advance which might prove to have been ridiculous at the end of the voyage. As he explained to them:

"I'd rather look like a bally ass, any time, than be sorry I hadn't sense enough to look out for squalls in a dead calm! That iron piping along the deckcoaming looks like any other piping aboard ship— it has no appearance of anything to do with wireless. Even if anyone thought of that, it would be supposed it was some sort of connection with a small dynamo in the engine-room. Tomorrow— while I'm keeping watch outside to see that none of the passengers are up here on the boat-deck— I want you to connect two of those wires to the antennae and four more to your A and B batteries. I've plenty of Burgess C, below. What power are you putting out from your batteries up here, Walters?"

"Three-quarters of a kilowatt, sir— when it leaves the aerials. We've duplicate batteries—one of 'em always fully charged."

"Not enough, old chap—not near enough! That gives you a range of not over two hundred miles by daylight on any signals coming from west to east— with a possible four hundred after nine in the evening. I'm hoping that we'll soon have a law compelling every passenger-boat at sea to have at least five kilowatts in reserve— dynamo A.C. and big water-cooled tubes. It'll take space, of course— probably a compartment running to a dozen displacement tons, off the engine-room, somewhere— but it's deadly folly for any boat carrying passengers not to be in constant touch with one side of the ocean or the other. And the receiving-sets are even worse! You've a three-valve set, here, for reception of all your wireless business— which means relaying all the time to other boats— and through a chain of them to the shore. Why, man, I doubt if you can hear any signals three hundred miles in the daytime with that set, even if the coils have a range up to three thousand meters! Eh?"

"Well, no, sir— I can't. With low barometric pressure where I am, and high in the neighborhood of the other boat, I've heard six hundred miles, around midnight— coming from west to east. On the other side— east of my position— it wasn't two hundred at the same time."

COFFIN nodded comprehendingly.

"Well, I've a twelve-valve American set, below— shielded grid— which'll bring in two thousand miles by daylight, west to east, and five hundred the other way— midsummer, North Atlantic. I've' also battery enough for one kilowatt of power— and I fancied that by coupling yours and mine in series, we'd get rather close to a couple of kilowatts— which ought to give us five hundred miles by daylight under average atmospheric conditions. It's all very well for an operator to put in an alibi that his receiving-set only had an outside range of two hundred miles by daylight— he's probably telling the truth—but his owners have no business sending him to sea with a measly little three-valve set! He should have equipment that's good for something in an emergency— not a child's toy! Take the average D/F station ashore. It's down officially in the Admiralty book as having a range inside two hundred miles — which means half to three-quarters of a kilowatt in power. But every receiving- set I ever owned for radio-phone reception has brought in voices and music two thousand miles at night from a half-kilowatt station. If a radio-phone set can do that, a C.W. for the lower frequencies can do even more with sufficient tube- or valve-power. Even three stages of radio-frequency will do it! However— when you make those connections and I figure out some way of concealing what I have in my stateroom, we'll be able to get somewhere in an emergency, even if temporarily we can't use this wireless-shack. I don't know what's going to break loose— or when; I don't even know that anything is. But according to my figuring, if it does, it's likely to be in sufficient force to make resistance, at first, merely suicide. My suggestion would be to conceal any guns you may happen to have where you can get 'em in a hurry, somewhere outside of this place, and claim that you haven't any such thing. —That goes for you also, Frank! Don't lose your life trying to defend your boat against too heavy odds— just lay low. Then we'll see what we can work out, when we know what we're up against."

BY the time the boat was standing in past Gibraltar, the little circles of sea-acquaintances were functioning as usual— people of like temperament and tastes drifting naturally together, each passenger finding at least two or three others who were congenial. Some of the Malays were pleasantly accepted by various groups of the whites— joining them in deck or smoking-room games; three of them contributed very good singing and instrumental music as part of the evening entertainments. The passengers most constantly with Sir Edward were the Graysons, an attractive American couple in their early thirties— the Ledyards, Canadians, with a delightful girl of fourteen— two quiet men of leisure who were travelers and big-game hunters. What Coffin especially liked about them was that each of the four men was an athlete who kept himself in top condition and that the whole seven, women included, were thoroughbred sportsmen, ready to take a chance on most anything they hadn't tried before. He was considerably interested in their reaction to Captain Hardinge. All of them liked him, but Cathie Ledyard voiced something more than her own opinion when she said:

"He's very nice— nothing seems to worry him. Seems to me if I were Captain of a big steamer like this, I'd be worrying a bit for fear something might happen to the boat or the people on it. But Captain Hardinge doesn't— he's just sure that everything's all right— all the time!"

Sir Edward smiled.

"Shipmasters are of all kinds, Cathie. Some of them worry too much— some don't worry enough. But I think you'll find that, in the long run, they know their job and are able to handle it. If they're not— well, they lose their tickets. No Master likes to do that."

COFFIN was beginning to think he had made a serious mistake in having the boxes from the outfitters put below in the trunk-room. He had been figuring upon getting down into the holds from a scrub-closet at the end of a main-deck gangway— but it now occurred to him that if any of the Malays actually got possession of the boat temporarily, there probably would be too many of them in the well-decks and those gangways for any of the officers or crew to get below unobserved. This problem kept running through his mind until he finally thought out a way to remedy the mistake. The cabin and bath which he had selected were directly adjoining similar ones on the other side of the bulkhead, and they could be thrown into a single four-room suite by unbolting a communicating door between the two bathrooms. The other cabin had been occupied by a young Australian couple who were leaving at Port Said. Sending a wireless on ahead to the agents of the Line that the suite had been taken by one of the through passengers who wanted an outside room, Coffin arranged with Coburn the purser to have the two heavy boxes fetched up from the trunk-room as soon as the Australians left, and placed in the cabin they had occupied. When this had been done, Coffin securely bolted the door from the gangway-passage, on the inside— so that it was impossible for anyone to get into the cabin without smashing down the door or cutting through the bulkhead— a very difficult job and one which can't be done in a limited time. When the boxes were secure against any meddling with them— where he had access to them at any moment— he took his radio-sets and batteries into the unoccupied cabin, laid boards on top of the bunks, and connected up his wireless- station so that it was ready for instant use— the remaining pair of wires in the piping being connected to the two microphones which were concealed under Walters' operating-bench in the wireless-house on the boat-deck. With this job completed, Coffin not only could receive and transmit from his own cabin without making a sound on Walters' instruments, but through the microphones he could hear even a rustle of paper in the wireless-house above. With the door between the bathrooms locked and bolted, there was no chance for a steward or anybody else to see what was in the unoccupied cabin, and nothing in the appearance of his own room to arouse the slightest suspicion.

At the time of booking their passage, the Malays had expressed a preference for accommodation on the port side and had obtained what they wanted— seven of them being on the B deck and five on the C, directly underneath. As Coffin's cabins were in the more expensive section along the starboard gangway, with none but Europeans or Americans around him, none of the Orientals had the slightest excuse for being on that side of the boat— and they knew enough about Caucasian prejudice to avoid wandering where they were not supposed to go.

By the time the boat was passing Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, Jones, Henderson, Coburn and even Walters were joking among themselves—occasionally with Captain Hardinge also— over Sir Edward's case of nerves. They were now fairly on the last leg of the voyage and nothing had happened— more than that, there was no indication that anything was going to happen. Innes, however, soberly reminded them that they were crowing too soon. He'd heard quite a lot about Captain Ned Coffin of the Brock Line a few years back— and there'd been nothing in what he'd heard to indicate that Coffin's nerves were anything but the chilled-steel variety. These six were the only ones aboard who knew anything about Sir Edward's reasons for making the trip with them, or his suspicions concerning some of the passengers. The mate, purser and steward knew nothing of the wireless-piping which had been laid to his cabin. The purser, chief steward and his room-steward were the only ones who knew that two heavy trunks had been fetched up from the hold and put into the vacant cabin next to him. Nobody had the slightest idea as to what was in them. Even his room steward hadn't seen the radio packages or batteries unwrapped, and didn't know what they were— but he had been instructed by the Captain to look after Sir Edward as if he were one of the owners, and had received ten pounds from the Baronet to keep his mouth shut upon anything he happened to see or hear.

AT Colombo, some of the passengers left the boat— and others came aboard, booked to Singapore or ports on the China Sea. Three nights later, the Chindwin was S.S.W. from the Nicobar Islands. Sir Edward had gone up to Hardinge's cabin for a chat with him about six-bells, by which time most of the passengers had gone below.

Hardinge was poking fun slyly at his friend.

"We'll make Penang day after tomorrow, old chap—an' unload your bally old pianos. Then I fancy you should stand us a dinner to square-up for your bogey-men! "

"Maybe you'll make Penang day after tomorrow, Frank— maybe you will. But I'm by no means banking on it! Way it looks to me, this is just about the psychological time. If the Rajah actually ordered the shipment, perhaps nothing will happen. If he didn't—well, we'll see."

After the Baronet went below, Hardinge lighted his pipe and with a grin on his face was starting to undress—he really thought his old shipmate was developing nerves after settling down ashore where he had no routine dangers to stir him up.

JUST then there came a couple of peremptory knocks upon his door. Annoyed at being disturbed, he called: "Who is it? What do you want?"

The knocking came again— louder.

He strode irritably across the cabin to open the door— and saw one of the Malay passengers standing outside. The man was civil enough, but he wasn't smiling, as the Captain had usually seen him. He said that he wished a word or two upon a matter of importance. Hardinge was contemptuously starting to say it would have to wait until morning— when he suddenly felt an automatic jammed against his stomach. He stepped back in amazement.

"I theenk we talk about heem now, sar! " said the Malay. "Go back— other side! Now sit down! Meestar Davitt— your secon' mate, on the bridge— he wass ver' foolish man! He knock down our mans. We wair compel' to shove in the kris to hees belly. He not much good, after— so our mens drop heem ovair side. Quartermaster at wheel no say much when he see pistol' an' knives. We tie heem up. In engine-room, our mans slip down ladders—coom behin' chief engineer in low-down pless— choke an' tie heem before can fight. We fin' Meester Coburn asleep in room— tie-up before can do anyt'ing. T'e watch on decks we tie up. Some fight— we keel, an' drop ovairboard. Your mans in fo'castle we tie up in hammocks w'en asleep. Stewards also."

"In other words, damn you, my boat's in your possession! Well— what do you mean to do with her? You can't get her where she'll not be found when she's missed! You've killed several men already— and you'll pay for that with your necks when our navy boats catch you! The more you kill, the worse it'll be for you and the sooner you'll be caught! What's the sense of it? You'll not get by with anything of this sort in these days! What about my passengers—what do you propose doing with them while amusing yourselves with my boat?"

"Captain, I theenk you ver' foolish man to spik so insulting at me! If I not always so calm person— so rissonable —I simply cut your t'roat because I not like to hear. But I answer your question mos' plain. We 'ave use for t'is boat as transport—taking many of ouah pipple from one pless to some othair pless. We do not weesh to annoy British Raj too much— so we weel not keel passengers if t'ey kip quiet— not keel offisar or crews if kip quiet an' do not'ing to interfere. We 'ave handcuff w'ich offisar an' crews mus' wear— an' we kip t'em shut up in lock-plesses. Passenger may go about as usual if kip quiet; steward may go about as usual. But at t'e firrs' sign of rressistance, we shoot—we cut with kris! Our mans rremain on guard everywhere— rready to shoot if anyboddy rressist. We have navigator — two enginemans— two greaser— an' wireless-man— for running sheep."

"But— where are you going to take her? What will you do with the passengers and cargo?"

"Where we take sheep is ouah pidgin. Somewhere up leetle river— out of sight mos' complete. We unload pianos— leave ot'er cargo for ballast. Put passenger an' crews ashore in t'at pless. Prahus take all of t'em down coast to some leetle Koninklijke port for few guilder per mans. T'en we take steamer some ot'er pless."

There wasn't anything more to be said. Hardinge's cabin was ransacked for weapons; then he was left there, handcuffed— with the understanding that his meals would be fetched up to him by his own steward. He was given to understand that every room occupied by officers and crew had been searched, and all weapons confiscated.

WHEN the passengers turned out for breakfast, it didn't take them long to discover the serious situation that had developed over night. The four sullen Malays with automatics in their hands— standing where they covered everybody in the saloon— had a most uncompromising appearance. The different angle of sunlight coming in through the ports showed that the course had been changed to farther south— which those familiar with marine-charts knew would take them along the west coast of Sumatra instead of down through Malacca Strait. The gangways were fairly humming with discussion and protest as the passengers came on deck after breakfast — but the deck-stewards told them grimly that the boat was in the hands of Malay pirates— how many of them, nobody quite knew.

GRAYSON, Ledyard and the two big-game hunters got Sir Edward off against the rail where they couldn't be overheard, and started a conference as to what might be done:

"Dammit all, Coffin—are we going to let a lot of yellow pirates get away with anything like this, and not try to start anything at all?"

"For the moment— yes. If we start anything now, while they've got the upper hand, they'll simply butcher everybody on board— men, women and children. They're quite capable of it if they fancy we've any chance for turning the tables on them. But listen, closely— be damned careful nobody hears a word— and don't repeat what I say to anybody! Understood? Well, then— I suspected something odd about a shipment of a hundred and three pianos to one Rajah, before we left port, with twenty-six Malays bookin' on the same boat with that shipm'nt. That's why I came on this voyage. After we started, I found there were half a dozen Russians in with 'em also. I think— with any sort of luck— we'll be able to get the upper hand inside of the next day or two, but we've got to move carefully or we'll simply have the boat a shambles! First thing to find out is where they've got the purser, chief, mate, steward and Sparks. My room-steward has just told me that the Captain is in his own room, handcuffed; and he thinks the others are handcuffed also— every officer on the boat. The crew is under the guns of Malays in the fo'c'stle— the stewards and cooks are in the same position in galley and pantry. It doesn't take so many utterly reckless men to hold up an entire boat like this if they start in with a sudden surprise-attack. When you can do so without being overheard, ask your own stewards to find out which of the Malays have those handcuff-keys. And ascertain, if you can, where they've got the officers locked up— then we'll have another confab after tiffin. Tell the women they're not to worry."

Presently Coffin remarked in the hearing of one of the armed Malays that he was going below for a sponge-off— and went down to his room. Locking the door, he unbolted the one in the bathroom— went into the other cabin— and locked that door behind him. Then he slipped the headphones over his ears, and switched on the microphones in the wire-less-house above— but couldn't detect even the faintest rustle to indicate that anybody was in the shack.

He put two feather-pillows over the key and "chopper" to prevent the slightest noise being heard outside in the gangway from the saloon, and began sending out the Lloyd's emergency signal, with very nearly two kilowatts of power. In five minutes, to his relieved satisfaction, he got an acknowledgment from the Lloyd's station at Singapore—and commenced sending a message in Lloyd's code:

S. S. Chindwin. Bay of Bengal.

Approximately, Lat. 6-15, Lon. 94-21, E.

Boat in possession of Malay pirates— heading down West Coast Sumatra for some rivermouth. Course due 135 degrees. One officer, five men, killed. Pirates disposed avoid further butchery if no resistance. Hope to regain possession in day or two, but may need assistance badly. Advise nearest destroyer or cruiser. Do not call until you pick up further signals. Repeat back full message.

Signed: C-96.

As the operator at the other end knew the private code automatically, his response came inside of three minutes with the assurance that a fast destroyer would be trailing them within an hour or two— around Sabang. Again Coffin listened without result for any sound of movement in the wireless-house. Then he turned the bunk-clothes over his instruments—went through into his own cabin and presently went up on deck again.

HE had so carefully avoided all appearance of any particular interest in the boat aside from what he naturally would feel as a former shipmaster and friend of Hardinge's, that none of the Malays suspected him of being other than what he seemed— the majority of them apparently liked him, and the suave Mr. Sedikit Ikan joked him about the unexpected change in their positions. It was a perfectly natural proceeding for his room-steward, who also waited upon him in the saloon, to come to him occasionally for orders or to see what wine he might be ordering with his dinner. As none of the stewards had made any attempt to go beyond their regular duties, the Malays made no objection to Bridges' talking with Sir Edward a few minutes, and as Coffin was standing by the rail after tiffin with his four friends, Bridges approached them.

"We've turned up a bit of information between us, sir. The mate an' purser are locked into one of the vacant staterooms— Number Thirty-five— port-gangway— B deck. Mr. Henderson an' Mr. Innes are in the next room— Thirty-four. The assistant engineer an' the third mate are in the second room beyond— all of 'em handcuffed. Malays next to 'em have the keys."

"How many of the Malays on that gangway?"

"Five, sir— three in one room— two in the other. One lot have their watch below while the other are on deck. We take in their meals an' then they turn in. Them guards in the saloon gangways an' wells are all of 'em second class. The saloon Malays are the bosses."

"How many do you figure there are altogether, Bridges?"

"Twenty-six of their own lot, sir. The six Russians are the engine-room lot— with one wireless man. They're helpin' on that end, but I don't fawncy they'll fight. The Malays will— all of 'em!"

"Bridges, do you and the other stewards care about getting into this mess— taking a pretty good chance of getting shot or knifed?"

"Rawther! I'd awnswer for a dozen of us, sir— any time you give the word! If we only 'ad a shootin'-iron or so—"

"I wouldn't suggest your trying it without! If I see a good chance, I'll tip you off. Then you chaps drift along to my cabin, one at a time— just carelessly— some coming along for'ard, and some aft— four or five minutes apart. Catch the idea?"

They nodded almost imperceptibly.

AN hour later, the passengers along the lee gangway on the B deck were startled by hoarse growling, punctuated by shouts and yelps from up forward— heavy thuds, as of blows being struck. They ran along the gangway to look down into the forward well-deck.

A man's figure, with most of the clothing torn from it and the head almost severed, was being tossed over the rail. On the hatch-cover, a blood-spattered Malay was calmly wiping his kris. In the scuppers were four motionless Orientals. One of the deck-hands had managed to get loose— run up the fo'c'stle-companion— grab a capstan-bar from the rack— and lay about him with it in wide sweeps which smashed three skulls and broke the neck of a fourth man. The odds, however, had been against him....

Sir Edward glanced at his four friends —and nodded grimly. This sort of thing couldn't go on.

Shortly after midnight, five grotesque figures in gas-masks, German war-helmets and bullet-proof vests, crept silently along the saloon gangway with gas bombs in thin containers. At the entrance to the saloon, they spotted where each of the Malay guard was sitting, gun in hand— and threw the bombs with as unerring precision as they would have bowled so many cricket-balls. They dodged back out of sight before the Orientals could turn around or see anything to fire at. In another moment, all three of the guards were losing consciousness from the fumes. To tie them securely and lay them out on the transom-seats under the ports was the work of less than ten minutes— during which the masked figures opened some of the weather ports to let a draft of air blow the gas out.

THEN they went up to the B deck and along the port-gangway to Stateroom Number Thirty, where they knew that three of the saloon Malays were taking their watch below. In response to a sharp knock, the door was unlocked and opened. Two bombs were instantly thrown inside— and the door pulled shut until the gas had time to become effective. After a couple of moments the attacking party went inside and trussed up the pirates— searching them for the handcuff-keys, which were presently found. To liberate the six officers and unlock their irons was the work of less than five minutes. Taking them below and beckoning to Bridges, down one of the saloon gangways, the party silently made its way back to Sir Edward's cabin— where the officers, and the stewards with Bridges, were equipped with helmets, masks, vests and guns.

There were now twenty-three in Coffin's party; ten of these went back to the after rail where they could look down into the well— faintly outlined by the glow from a single fifty-watt incandescent. The others divided into a couple of parties— one going silently along to the foot of the port-ladder leading up to the bridge and wheel-house— the other gathering by the starboard-ladder on the weather side. The sky was overcast with heavy clouds—the boat-deck being so dark that one could scarcely make out objects ten feet away. Each shadowy group could also look down into the forward well where another single light revealed the figures of seven Malays— four squatting in the shadows and smoking Burmese cheroots while three were asleep on the hatch. Two of the saloon Malays also were smoking, at the starboard end of the bridge, when suddenly— without the slightest indication that any other craft was near— the dazzling beam from a powerful searchlight, not more than three hundred feet distant, outlined the forward part of the boat. A voice megaphoned:

"Hullo— the Chindwin! Stop your engines! Lay to— or we'll sink you! This is His Majesty's destroyer the Sting-ray!"

Taking the cigar out of his mouth, one of the Malays calmly picked up a megaphone and shouted back:

"There iss forty-five girrls, womens and children on board. If you interfere weeth us in any way, we weel 'ave t'em brought up here on t'e bridge an' cut t'eir throats, where you can see eet done! We air minding ouah own beeziness— this is ouah pidgin. You go way, I theenk, an' mind youah own! Otheahwise eet iss bad for t'ose womens, I theenk!"

COFFIN raised his pistol and sent a ball crashing through the brute's heart. Soames— one of the big-game hunters— dropped the other one neatly.

The searchlight would have revealed the whole menacing group to the Malays, had they turned around and looked down over the bridge-rail! Then there was a fusillade from the Malays in the forward well-deck, returned with interest by the two groups on the boat-deck. Three sharp pings told where three shots ricocheted off the steel helmets, and a number of soft thuds, where others struck the bullet-proof vests. One after another, the Orientals pitched down upon the deck and died. After a few moments' pause, there was a sound of rushing feet padding up the fo'c'stle-companion and the rest of the Malays poured out into the well— to be shot down as they came. Then Coffin dropped a pilot's-ladder over the side, picked up the megaphone, and asked the destroyer to send a boat's crew aboard. The Russians in the engine-room had heard the shooting, and made no attempt to fight. By two in the morning, the dead pirates were thrown over the side, the decks cleaned, and the boat was on her course again with hearty congratulations from the destroyer's commander and his crew, who took off the Russians and three Malays— discovered hiding in the bunkers.

UPON the following day, the Chindwin put in at Penang to unload the pianos— and her officers met with a great surprise. The Rajah not only had ordered them, but actually had an agent on the spot to pay the freight.

At Coffin's suggestion, Captain Hardinge accepted the payments in the presence of a Lloyd's agent who happened unaccountably to be on the spot at the time— and receipted the bills. Then the Lloyd's agent— when Coffin insisted upon it— ordered the casing of one piano to be unscrewed. Eighty Mauser rifles were revealed, instead of the supposed piano. One after another, the cases were found to contain rifles, except the last two, which were packed with rounds of ammunition. As delivery had been safely and regularly made, Lloyd's had no further interest in the matter— but the British Government officials at once confiscated the shipment as contraband.

At dinner, that evening— when the Chindwin was proceeding down the Strait— Coffin advanced the idea that the Malays were revolutionists against the Dutch Government and had plotted in London to divert the Rajah's shipment for their own uses. Later in the evening, he sent a wireless message of warning to the Governor-General at Batavia. After this he went up to Hardinge's room for a cigar and chat.

"Frank— I think I can turn in a report of this affair which will save your ticket," he said seriously. "You probably did as well as half the shipmasters on deep water would have done in the circumstances. But it really wasn't well enough, by a damned sight! You were too cocksure— too contemptuous in your viewpoint on all Malays. There was nothing to prevent your getting the wind up as I did and taking the same precautions— but you couldn't see any reason for it. You really shouldn't forget this!"

_________________

7: The Blind Farmer and the Strip Dancer

H Bedford-Jones

1887-1949

Weird Tales Sept 1940

MY PROFESSIONAL engagements as an obliging corpse have always been legitimate. I really make a most convincing corpse— I wish you could see me. Certainly none of my clients can complain that they have not had their money's worth. You see, my heart is on the right side of my body, and it beats very slowly— barely forty to the minute. In fact, it does not really beat at all.

It just flutters. By drinking the liquid that my uncle discovered in a remote South American village, I am able to fall at will into a sleep that has every appearance of death itself; even my lips turn blue. The liquid kills the sensory nerves and removes all traces of abdominal reflexes. It makes me unconscious, and I am, to all intents and purposes, dead.

Physically abnormal as I was, the discovery that with a little medical assistance I could make an excellent living by simulating death, really opened to me the only vocation for which I could hope. James F. Bronson had found a profession.

My chief trouble was in keeping out of the hands of crooked clients. I might have been a rich man a dozen times over, had it not been for my own code of ethics.

After I picked up young Dr. Roesche and instituted him as a partner in my operations, things went beautifully. He had brains and was straight as a string. Once he was satisfied that I would enter into nothing illegal, I could count absolutely upon him. Poor Roesche! As a medical man, he was always tempted by the scientific aspects of my case; but he was always headed off by the necessity of three meals per diem.

"It's nothing rare to have the heart on the right side as you have, Bronson." he would say. "Your attendant peculiarities, however, are different. With a heart that flutters instead of beating regularly, and a slow heart at that, and with your barrel chest that even cheats a stethoscope, you're worth prolonged observation—"

"What's the bank balance?" I would ask, and that settled it.

It was Roesche who really put my original profession on a business basis. He would precede me to a chosen city and conduct the discreet advertising we employed. The replies flocked in, and he would separate the sheep from the goats. It has always amazed me to find how many people jump at the idea of employing a corpse. Even the most reputable clients would usually have some shady work in prospect. Others would expect to get my services for a small sum; but we played no pikers game. My services came high, and deservedly so.

We got all sorts of insight into human nature. One man, in Seattle, wanted to use me in a queer way. His son was a reckless driver, and hopelessly reckless. The father wanted to hire me and fake an accident in which the son would think he had killed me; he had all the details drawn up, too. When I pointed out that this was no cure for reckless driving, that it was horribly cruel and might result in a deranged mind for the boy, the father broke down and begged me to do it anyway; he wanted to kill or cure. Perhaps he was right, at that, for a few months later the boy and two other people died in a smash-up.

When the astonishing affair of the strip dancer came to us, Roesche and I had arrived together in a big eastern city, which was run wide open.

On this occasion I took over the answers to the advertisement myself. One of the first that I opened hit me right between the eyes; I could feel a certain desperate quality in the words that appealed to me. It lies before me as I write:

"Dear Sir:

I would like an interview. You may be able to help me, and no one else can. The lives and happiness of several people may depend on it. Your advertisement has given me courage to make this appeal. Please see me.

Viola Dane."

She appended her address.

I gave her an appointment, and when she showed up, Roesche was parked in the bathroom of our hotel suite. I never interviewed anyone without precautions, as I had a horror of being entangled in anything that might prove downright illegal.

Miss Dane was small but exquisitely proportioned, radiant with the most superb youth and beauty; you would have thought she did not have a trouble in the world. She was very expensively gowned. Her jewels were magnificent enough to be vulgar. I was not surprised when she informed me that she was a dancer in a night club here, a famous one.

"I can pay for your services," she said almost impatiently. She was suffering from some intense agitation. "But can you really pretend to die, so it would look real? Would a doctor be fooled?"

"Many doctors have been," I said, smiling. "That is, under ordinary circumstances. I won't submit to hospital or fluoroscope tests, of course. Suppose you tell me how you expect me to help you?"

Experience had given me quite a professional air. Also, I had let my beard grow, the better to conceal my natural pallor and to preserve it. This lent me an appearance of age and dignity.

"Well," she responded, "there was a man— a man named Ascher—"

Right there, she bogged down. She was pale and nervous, unable to go on, her slim jeweled fingers twisting and untwisting.

She seemed gripped and checked by a certain horror of saying any more, yet driven to it by a still more powerful necessity.

"What do you charge?" she asked, as though trying to gain time. I helped her, by explaining that my fee depended entirely on the work in view, and by stressing the fact that nothing illegal would be considered.

And still her face was white and set, her eyes were desperate. Nothing I could say would penetrate her agitation or put her at ease.

"I— I'm going to be married before long," she blurted out. "But that has nothing to do with the matter, really."

SHE paused again. I gave no hint that I knew she was lying. If a woman's going to be married, everything in her life revolves around that focal point. Suddenly she got off on another tack.

"Viola Dane is my professional name," she said. "My real name is Viola Hartzell. I used to live on a farm near Lebanon; that's fifty miles from here. My folks are there now. My father's nearly blind; cataracts. I haven't seen him or my mother for— for two years."

This came with a rush. Her composure was returning, she was getting her emotions under control, and now she settled down to what she must say. And she showed a delicacy about saying it, a hesitant choice of words, a slight flush as she spoke, which proved that, whatever her business, she was no hardened sinner.

And this was perhaps curious, for she was a strip dancer in that night club, the type of girl most persons would think callous and long past any delicacy. Which goes to prove that generalities are wrong, and that none of us really know much about our neighbors.

"There— there was a man named Ascher," she said again. "Felix Ascher. He was a commission buyer, and he was in Lebanon at harvest time buying up crops. We raise a lot of fruit around there. This was two years ago, or a little more. It's awfully hard for me to say, Mr. Bronson, but I must make you understand. I really knew nothing at that time, and I suppose it was my own fault. You see, my father was a terribly stern man—"

I began to feel ashamed of the fact that Roesche was listening, as she proceeded.

Well, it was the old story, or I thought it was. This man Ascher skipped out, and in her back-country town a girl who had a baby and no marriage license was up against plain hell. And this poor kid had been up against something far worse. Her old man was one of these hell-bent puritans who would wreck the whole world rather than compromise with Satan, and who ruled his own roost despotically. And her father had aimed to treat her like Sally Jennings. She went on to tell me about Sally.

"She was an awfully nice little girl, Mr. Bronson, sweet and shy and pretty. In high school she got to going with Willy Smith, who worked in the men's furnishings store after school hours. Well, it came out that she was going to have a baby, and she did. She was more surprised than anyone else; I guess she never did know just how it had happened. She was only fifteen, you see. That was five years back. Her folks took the baby away from her and she never did know where it went.

"She's still there in Lebanon. She does the housework at home, and sometimes she comes downtown and everybody looks after her and talks, but nobody will associate with her or even speak to her. She looks like she spent half her time crying, and I suppose she does. Willy still works in the store, but he never liked her after that happened. Anyhow, his folks wouldn't let him marry that kind of girl, though Sally's father tried to make him do it. So that's what I had to look forward to all my life. Do you get the picture?"

I got it. She was flushed and earnest now, the words rolling out of her without any hesitation. She made me see this poor little tyke of a Sally, condemned to a living hell all the rest of her life in that backwater town.

"What happened?" I asked quickly. "With you, I mean."

She laughed. Not a hard laugh at all, but one of really happy triumph.

"Oh, I let them think I was broken-spirited and hopeless. And before the baby was born, while I could still get around pretty well— I just skipped out one night and headed for the city. It was pretty tough going, but I won through. The baby's with me now, and you bet he stays with me, too!"

"Good for you!" I exclaimed. "Where's Ascher?"

"Oh, him! Nobody knows." She accepted a cigaret and was grateful. "He just disappeared. He went out west and could never be traced. Believe me, I tried! Well, Mr. Bronson, that's why I'm here. I want you to be Felix Ascher."

"You— what?" I blurted out. Just then the telephone rang. It was Dr. Roesche, from the adjoining room, with the door closed now.

"Listen, Jim," he said. "I was reading about this girl in the paper last night. She's playing around with that fellow Wilson— you know, the one who inherited all the paint and varnish millions, and who made such a God-awful fool of himself on Broadway last year. He lives in this burg. The paper said wedding-bells might ring shortly."

"All right," I replied, speaking for her benefit. "Suppose you come upstairs. I want you to meet a lady who's here. Five minutes? Right."

I rang off and turned to Viola.

"That's my partner, Dr. Roesche. He must work with me in whatever I undertake, so he'll have to hear what you say. I can sketch in the story for him later. Now, what's this about wanting me to be Ascher?"

SHE pressed out her cigaret.

"The idea came to me when I read your ad." she replied. "First, I want to make you understand the reasons. My mother and I have always been very close, but she'll never go back on her principles. My father's not well, he won't live long; but they'd never let me come near them as things are now. This whole affair has just about broken my father's heart. He's stern and hard, but we always did love each other very dearly, and I'm the only one of their children left. There's the big element— affection. The only way they'll receive me or see me, is as Ascher's wife, so I'm going to be just that. If you could see them and know them, you'd realize that their position isn't as unreal as it seems."

Just then Roesche came and knocked. I brought him in, introduced him, and in a few words sketched the situation as though he knew nothing of it.

"But where'll I come in, Miss Dane?" I asked in some perplexity. "All those people will know that I'm not Ascher."

"No. We'll deal with my mother, my father, and my Uncle Ezra who lives with them; just those three. They never had dealings with Ascher, I doubt if they ever more than saw him in passing. And with your beard, that makes everything quite certain. I can get a marriage certificate forged easily enough. You go there with me pretend to be Ascher and the father of little Felix, and my husband. Do you see now?"

I did not, and said so. It looked fantastic and senseless to me.

"I don't go around pretending to be another man, Miss Dane, except as part of my own work. My business is simulating dead men."

"That's exactly the point," she broke in eagerly. "I'm coming to that, Mr. Bronson. I know that my folks would like nothing better than to give the baby a home. If I could leave him with them, he'd have a good home, a fine upbringing. They'd love him dearly and he'd inherit all my father's money. I thought we might go there for a short visit, just two or three days. Then you could die. You might be quite ill when we got there. It wouldn't involve anything wrong at all. It would simply make everything right between me and my parents."

"And," said Roesche, "you'd be rid of the kid and free to marry someone else."

That shot went home. She looked at us, her cheeks burning, her eyes ablaze. Before she could burst out with hot words, I cut in quietly.

"You mentioned marriage, Miss Dane. Let's have no evasions, please. I hate to pry, and yet I must satisfy myself. Does the man you're going to marry know all this story?"

"He knows all of it; every bit," she said.

I believed her, and somehow I felt a little flash of admiration for her. Why? Hard to say. She wakened it, that's all. I could well credit that her impulses might be mixed, that she might have more than one end in view. People are not simple; they are complex. They seldom move along straight lines to some sure and single objective.

"Then," I replied, "he must be a very fine and understanding man."

"He's not." A trace of a bitter smile touched her lips. "He just doesn't give a hang. I didn't say I was making a love match, did I?"

This was her one show of hardness, and I was sorry I had wakened it in her. At least, it proved to me that she was no liar.

"Give me a chance to talk this over with Dr. Roesche," I said. "I'll telephone you after luncheon; I can't jump at decisions, in my business. But I warn you that such a plan will be expensive. I take big chances and get paid accordingly."

She pulled three rings from her fingers and dropped them on the table.

"You can get five thousand for these anywhere, or I can. Is that enough?"

It was. I told her to keep the rings until she had my answer, and with this she left us. When she was gone, I lit a cigaret and looked at Roesche.

"What d'you make of it?"

"Simple enough. She's got the paint and varnish account hooked," he said cynically. "Wilson won't marry her and take over the kid. So she parks the kid in a soft spot and is free. Then she lands him for keeps and alimony later. But what of it? Nothing illegal that I can see, and her money's good. Why not?"

Somehow I could not quite agree with him. What stuck in my mind was the story she had told me so earnestly, the picture of that pitiful little Sally Jennings, and this girl's own initiative in evading a similar hell. A girl who had fought like that for her illegitimate child was not parking him in order to cut loose. Not much.

"Maybe not." Roesche shrugged at my argument. "But she's doing it. She's tempted to do it in order to marry Wilson. Then she'd be set for life, see? You notice what she said, that he didn't give a hang about her story. He wouldn't. He's a wild one himself."

After lunch I telephoned Viola and then went to her apartment. The baby was there, with a nurse, and he was a cute kid right enough. When I was alone with Viola, I went at her without evasion.

"I want to understand this thing fully, Miss Dane; and somehow I don't get it. Isn't there more to the whole thing than you've told me?"

"Yes, there is, but I don't know how to make you see it," she said slowly. "Your friend, Dr. Roesche, puts a cold blanket on me. I don't like him."

"He's the only man I'll trust to bring me back to life and handle all details. Of course, I'm not interested in the morality or ethics of your purposes—"

"It isn't morality. It's everything here, inside of me," she broke out, with both hands at her breast. Her eyes were shining with a strange new light. "It's the baby. What chance has he got in the world, with me? If they think he has a name, everything will be right for him at home, he'll be welcomed and loved, he'll have a chance for a fine straight life there—"

Almost incoherent, she broke off. Suddenly she smiled and leaned forward, looking me in the eyes.

"See here, Mr. Bronson! I just can't explain; I can't find the words. But I feel sure you'll understand if you only go there. I'm quitting my position Sunday night. We could drive up there on Monday. If you'd spend an hour on the farm, you'd realize everything that's so hard for me to tell you. I can't fight your thoughts, your ideas of me, except by giving you other ideas. Will you do it? Then, if you don't want to go through with the rest of it, I'll quit."

And she meant quit, too. Upon the word, the lights went out of her eyes and her shoulders drooped for an instant. This decided me.

"We leave on Monday," I said. "What's the name of the town— Lebanon? I'll have Roesche go on by train and wait for word from me."

She brightened, and flashed me a smile. "Thank you! Come around for me at two, on Monday afternoon. We can be up there in an hour and a half. Will you drive my car? Good. And I'll have the five thousand dollars ready for you then, too."

SHE was as good as her word. When I took her bags out to the car on Monday afternoon, she handed me an envelope with the money in it. And I noticed that she was not wearing her rings.

I drove, and she held the baby; the nurse was left behind. Roesche had gone on to await word from me at the Lebanon Hotel, and he was rather sour about it all, still insisting the game had a catch in it somewhere. He did not cotton to Viola Dean any more than she did to him. I rather thought he might be right, too; but it was this very uncertainty, this element of risk, which made my odd profession so fascinating to me.

We drove up into the fruit country, and she greeted every hamlet, every landmark, with delighted recognition, as though she had been away twenty years instead of two.

She was sparkling, eager, filled with excited suspense. As we drove, a disturbing thought occurred to me, and I voiced it.

"If we're staying with your people, won't they expect us to occupy a room together?"

She gave me a quick, gay laugh. "Oh, you don't know our farm! There's room and to spare; that's why my uncle lives with us. I had two brothers and a sister, and they're gone now. The flu epidemic carried them off. I'll take one room with the baby, and you can have another room next it; that'll be quite all right. What worries me is whether you'll be able to fool our old country doctor. He's pretty shrewd."

I smiled. "I can stand any but the most simple test of all— a mirror to the nostrils. I can't very well stop breathing, you know. But I'll take care of that, all right."

We came to Lebanon in good time. It was a sleepy little town around a courthouse square, and nothing to be proud of. As we passed the dingy hotel, I thought of Roesche holed up there, and chuckled.

Then we were heading out into the country.

Twenty minutes later, we were at our destination. And it astonished me.

The farmhouse was large enough, truly; it was well painted, and everything about the place was neat as the proverbial pin. Having been brought up on a farm, I could appreciate the fine points of this one.

"Here, hold the baby!" exclaimed Viola Dane. Then she was out of the car and dashing for the side door of the house. I held the baby and waited for the resultant explosion.

There was none. Nothing happened for a long time; it seemed long to me, at least. At length the baby let out a wild squall, and this got action. Viola came out, and her mother with her; a handsome, muscular woman of forty-five, with splendid stalwart features and brave eyes. A fine, straightforward woman, who came to me and gave me a quick grip of the hand, a sweeping, searching look, and then turned to the baby.

"Take your husband inside, Vi," she said. "Give me that child— glory be, my own grandchild in my arms! I'll go get your Uncle Ezra. He's in the orchard. We're having the spraying done, now, with a power sprayer. Welcome to you, son. Go right in."

No frills about her. She headed for the orchard, and Viola led me toward the house.

"It worked, it worked!" she breathed excitedly. "I didn't even have to show the forged wedding license; I don't want to do that if I can help it."

I went in with her, and not a bit comfortable about it either.

Her father was a massive, stooped man of fifty, practically blind and much broken; he seldom left his chair. Yet he had a remarkable face and a more remarkable personality. He gripped my hand, passed his fingers over my face, put an arm about his daughter, and tears crept out on his cheeks.

"I'm glad you folks are here," he said very simply. "It's been a long time. Where's the baby?"

"Mother's got him," Viola replied. "She went to bring Uncle Ezra."

That was all; no dramatics, no religious sentiment, no Old Homestead stuff. Yet the man's personality, strong and stark and dominant, was over the whole place. No reproaches to me. He talked about the homely things of the farm, the animals and crops and changes. He was the kind of man who does his praying behind closed doors; the strong kind. I began to sense that if the girl had gone a bit wrong it was probably her own fault— as she had admitted.

Her mother came back with the uncle. He was a fine deep-eyed man, saying little but making himself felt. A younger man than Hartzell, he had the same quality of deep reserve; he was the one who kept up the farm nowadays.

Mrs. Hartzell was different. She was brisk, always busy about something, always chirping out bright comments. Those straight, stalwart eyes of hers left you with the feeling that she knew a lot she didn't care to say.

There were no servants; just the three of them here, one crippled and done for, the other two running the place. They were homely, competent, calm. The whole place reflected the people in it. If Hartzell had money, as Viola had suggested, it was in the bank; things here in the house were not for display but for comfortable use.

"Well, I guess you folks want to get settled," Mrs. Hartzell said at length. "Fetch in your luggage and I'll get the south room ready. Ain't in much need except of airing."

Viola drew her mother aside, speaking quickly and softly, but the blind man's ears caught the words.

"What's that? Heart trouble? Real sick?" he repeated, leaning forward. "Son, I'm sorry. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd call you by that name. I've come mighty close to cursing you; and now I'm glad your trouble ain't to my door. Ma, you'd better telephone Doc Torrens to come and look him over. I got a lot o' faith in Torrens."

Viola staved this off, somehow. We fetched in the bags and got settled, and the afternoon wore on. The more I saw of this house, the more I was impressed by its placid, steady strength; no other words could express the feeling.

Dusk was gathering, and Mrs. Hartzell was bustling about her belated dinner, when Viola took the baby upstairs to get him down for the night. She asked me to come along. Her mother had got an old crib out of the attic, and she put the baby to bed in this. Then she turned to me. "Well, what's your decision?"

"Oh, that's all settled," I told her. "Go on with it, of course."

"And do you understand my reasons, the things I couldn't explain?" She gestured toward the sleeping child. Her voice was soft but passionate. "Think what his life would be with me, an artificial life, with servants and money and all sorts of deviltry; and think of him here in this house, living this life, simple and fine and good, with these people— can you see that it'll break my heart to give him up, and yet it's the only thing, the only hope, for his whole life and future?"

She made a mistake in asking me. After the brief contact with these people, I began to see things with different eyes. I began to feel that Roesche had been right about her. And I resented the idea of tricking these relatives of her.

"You may be thinking of his future," I said, "and you may be thinking of your own. It's no affair of mine."

She flinched, as though I had struck her, but I went on downstairs and left her there. It was none of my business, after all; and I hate these sentimental women.

My words must have got under her skin, for she was pretty distant all evening. I occupied a bedroom to myself, without incident, and in the morning got hold of her, alone. We had to settle on a program.

"All right," she said quietly. "Shall we say tomorrow afternoon, late?"

"Good enough," I replied. "Make it five o'clock? Then I'll drive into town this morning, see Roesche, and make arrangements. What about the undertaker, the funeral, and so on? You've got to think about that angle."

"I have already," she said. "Country people around here don't go in for embalming, much. The undertaker will bring a coffin from town tomorrow night, and you'll be buried next day. I thought Dr. Roesche might come out and spend the night, and get you away. He could be a friend of mine from the city— though I hate to call him a friend," she added spitefully.

"Then I'll have him come out with your Doctor Torrens."

WHEN I announced that I was driving into town that morning, Uncle Ezra said he'd go with me and fetch back a sack of chemicals for the sprayer. There was nothing for it but to take him along, so right after breakfast the two of us got off.

We were no sooner away from the farm than Ezra Hartzell ran a hand over his short, square beard, and made a remark that petrified me.

"Viola's a right smart girl," he observed meditatively. "I wonder she ain't scart that the real Felix Ascher might show up some day."

I turned and gave him a look, and what he read in my face brought a thin smile to his lips.

"Ain't no use in wasting a lot o' talk," he went on. "I don't hold it against you, none. You're her husband, and I guess you know the whole story. It was cute of you folks to come here this way and fix things up with her ma and pa. That ain't my business; I'm glad of it."

"What makes you think I'm not Ascher?" I got out. He chuckled, and the chuckle sent a shiver through me.

"Easy enough, son. After she left home that way, I left too. I follered this man Ascher clear out west, and caught up with him. And there ain't no danger of him coming back. Not ever. I ain't told a soul about it, not even her pa; he don't hold with settling matters that way."

I was wordless before the implication of what he said; his silence was as grim as his hard straight eyes. The less talk the better, I thought. He had no intention of spoiling Viola's little plan, took me to be her actual husband, and was satisfied with the whole affair. Talk was risky. So I changed the subject and he never referred to it again.

We left the car before the antique hotel and separated. I found Roesche in one of the slatternly rooms, and he greeted me with relief. We lost no time in settling all the details of our business.

"The blowoff comes at five tomorrow afternoon," I told him. "And at five o'clock, you be talking with this Doctor Torrens, see? When the telephone call comes, you run out to the farm with him. You're a friend of Viola's from the city. I'm afraid of these country doctors; they're shrewd, as a rule. I want you to make the mirror test yourself."

Roesche chuckled. "Sure; leave that to me. I'll get ahead of him with the mirror, all right. How about the funeral arrangements?"

I explained Viola's plan. As he would be at the house, he might arrange to telephone the undertaker; thus he could insure getting a solid top coffin. The effects of the drug would last several hours, and during the night he could replace me with a couple of weighted bags and screw down the lid hard and fast. Once we got this done, I could make my getaway and all was jake. That Roesche could steer everything properly was certain. We were accustomed by this time to be ready for any emergency that might arise. On one occasion Roesche had even helped sit up all night with the corpse.

So I drove back with Uncle Ezra and his sack of chemicals, and we talked farm on the way home.

All this day and the next, I hung around the place. The Hartzell's pretended no affection, but treated me with a homely politeness; Uncle Ezra really took a shine to me, thinking that he had pierced my secret, and rather respecting me for the part he thought I was playing.

Viola put sunshine into the house, and her parents were insane about their grandchild. At first I was tempted to think they would have forgiven everything if she had just shown up with the baby; but I soon perceived otherwise. That father of hers, under the surface, was like grim death. Legitimacy meant everything to him; a matter of principle. Viola had figured things out very correctly after all, and her apparently fantastic scheme was the only one to have gained the end in view.

During these two days, I was astonished at my own changing viewpoint of everything in life— a temporary change to be sure, due to the influence of these people around me, but a very definite change. All the old standards of life and living seemed false, unreal, far away. If I could feel this so strongly, Viola Dane, who was emotionally stirred besides, must have felt it even more acutely.

So far as her child was concerned, this was the ideal place for him. No doubt about that.

WEDNESDAY afternoon drew on. It was four o'clock; in another hour we would put on the act. I was on the front porch, talking with Hartzell, who sat in his chair drinking in the afternoon warmth. Viola was helping her mother in the kitchen. The telephone rang, and Mrs. Hartzell answered, and then came to the door.

"It's a friend of yours from the city, son," she said to me. "A Doctor Something— I couldn't get the name. Why don't you ask him to come out for dinner?"

"Thanks, I will," and I made a jump for the room inside. Something was wrong, or Roesche would never be ringing me.

"Hello!" I said. "This is a surprise; glad to hear from you! So you're in Lebanon? The folks would like you to come out to the house for dinner. You will? Fine!"

"I'm not the only one," came the voice of Roesche, more sardonic than usual. "Pin your ears back, Jim! That fellow Wilson was just here— yeah, the paint and varnish playboy. He was asking how to get to Viola's place. He's on the way there now, and burning up the road. If there's any hitch in the program, give me a ring back. If not, I'll stick to the outline."

"Fine," I said, and rang off. "He'll be out, Mrs. Hartzell," I said. "Viola, let's take a walk down the road— what say?"

She knew something was up, and whisked off her apron. We sauntered away from the house, and once we were out of sight, I halted and told her about Wilson. She went white as a sheet.

"Oh!" she said. "Then— then he must have found that I went away with a man. He's frightfully jealous. And he's come—"

"He sure has," I said, as she paused. "Looks like his dust down the road now. That's why I got you out here. Whatever play you make, make it here, away from the house. Going to tip him off to the game?"

Her head came up. She gave me one look, and in this moment I caught a flash of her mother in her face.

"I am not," she said quietly. Then she turned away, looking down the road at the approaching dust, in silence. It was none of my business, but I was curious to see how she would handle her marrying friend.

It was a big car, a roadster, and Wilson was in it. He was nothing to write home about; a flabby-faced man with hot, intolerant, arrogant eyes. He brought the car to a halt and stared at us, without getting out.

"Hello, Vi!" he exclaimed. "Hope I'm not intruding on your rural felicity?"

"You are," she said in a curt voice. It sounded, somehow, like her father.

"Oh, come now!" Wilson lost his sneer. "What do you mean, running off like this without a word to anybody? I came along to meet the family, Vi—"

"Well, you have your wish," she said. "Mr. Wilson, this is my husband, Felix Ascher."

Her words hit out like a blow. I was dumbfounded; Wilson sat there with his jaw hanging. Then he straightened up.

"My God!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "You mean— is this the man—"

"This is the man," cut in Viola steadily, calmly. "And we're married. If you hadn't come here with a sneer on your lips, I'd have told you in another manner; but you've asked for it and you can have it straight."

Wilson never uttered another word. He blinked at me, looked at Viola, then leaned forward, started his engine again, and drove away.

"Whew!" I drew a deep breath. "There goes a lot of money, Viola. You certainly didn't use much tact in the way you broke the news."

"Tact? To hell with tact!" She whirled on me savagely, angrily, her voice lashing out at me. "I'm sick and tired of your taunts and disbeliefs. You've thought all the time that I just wanted to be free to go marry that man. Well, maybe I did, among other things, but I've changed my mind. I'm going to stay right here with my baby, understand? That's all there is to it. Now come on back to the house and do what I've paid you to do, and I never want to see you again."

She flounced away toward the house. When I got over my amazement, I followed her, and chuckled to myself. She had certainly put a final and complete spoke in Roesche's argument and in our half suspicions of her!

And I was glad. All the fine things I had sensed in her at our first meeting, were now confirmed.

Our program went off like clockwork. I put the drops in my eyes, took the dose of the drug that would put me to sleep, and as Roesche had timed the mixture and dosage accurately, there was absolutely no mistake.

At five o'clock, Viola telephoned to Dr. Torrens in Lebanon. Roesche was in his office, and came out to the farm with him, took care of the mirror test the first thing, and assisted to certify that I was dead as a doornail.

I DO not wish to convey any sense of jaunty smartness on my own part. I was only too poignantly aware of the grief and shock that this business must bring to the good people around. This is one aspect of my singular profession from which I always shrink.

It is the only form of harm I have ever knowingly done anyone, and is not nice to think about even now.

Roesche did his work, as always, with the perfect timing and aplomb of a vaudeville artist. That night he brought me back to life; and before departing in the darkness, I helped him screw down the lid on my own weighted coffin. We had no chance to talk of other matters, however.

Not until he joined me in the city, two days later, could he ask me what had become of the paint and varnish playboy. I told him, and he whistled softly.

"So I was wrong! And that explains it, too— the change in her. Well, I have to hand it to that girl after all."

Six months later, we were in the City of The Saints, deeply involved in a ticklish job which made us a pile of money but can never be put into print. One morning, Roesche came into my room, wearing an expression of cynical exultation.

"Say! Remember that girl back east— that strip dancer, Viola Dane? Well, cast your headlights on this, and then tell me how wrong I am!"

He put before me the rotogravure sheet of a Sunday supplement, which carried a lovely photo of Viola Dane, pretty much in the nude. Beneath it was the caption:

THE SCREEN'S NEWEST RECRUIT

Beautiful Viola Dane, Acclaimed By Critics

As Having The Most Beautiful Figure
in Hollywood

"How's that?" exclaimed Roesche. "Am I right, eh? Am I right?"

"No," I said. "You're wrong, and you were always wrong about her. She just weakened, that's all."

Which was probably the case. Some of these days I'll ring her up and ask her.

__________________________________________

One of many anonymous short stories published in Australia's newspapers between the beginning of the 20th century and World War 2.

8: By the Tie of a Boot-Lace

Anonymous

Kangaroo Island Courier 10 June 1916

'I suppose you have had many interesting experiences?' I remarked to an ex-detective, now a great friend of mine.

'Yes,' he replied, 'I may say that I have solved a few mysterious cases in my time. There was one in particular which puzzled me tremendously, and was so clever a dodge as to seem almost incredible.'

IT WAS a little village in Yorkshire; there had been a murder with extensive robbery. I was wired for and hastened to attend with all promptitude. I was cordially welcomed by the local inspector, who informed me that they had arrested a man on suspicion, and that the evidence was very black against him. He then related all the particulars of the case to me, which were as follows:

The murdered man was a very eccentric character aged about fifty. With the exception of an extremely old man who waited on him, he lived alone, being a confirmed woman-hater.

'The old man,' I burst in, 'have you arrested him?'

The inspector shrugged his shoulders. 'He is eighty years of age; it is not possible for him to kill a man in his prime; besides there were signs of a severe struggle. No we have not arrested him.'

'How long bas be been in the murdered man's service?'

'About a year and a half.'

'Thank you.' I jotted that down. 'Pray continue.'

We know nothing more about him except that he was reputed wonderfully rich. On the morning his old servant, as was his usual custom, took his master some warm water. He knocked twice, but finding there was no response, opened the door, intending to stand the jug inside. An awful sight met his eyes.

On the floor lay his master stone dead, while everywhere were signs of a severe and protracted struggle. Chairs, tables, boxes, everything was topsy-turvy.'

'One moment,' I broke in. 'Does it not seem strange to you that the old man should have slept through it all?'

'Not at all. He is as deaf as a post; besides their rooms are far apart.

'But to continue. The old man communicated with us, and I wired for you. I carefully searched the house and grounds. In the library there was a rather superior-looking man of the mechanic class. He was lying unconscious. On the table Stood a decanter of wine.

'Halloa, my man,' thought I, 'what does this mean?' We raised him up and examined him. On the back of his head was a terrific bruise, most likely where he had fallen. He showed no signs of returning consciousness, and I sent for the old man. I told him how matters stood, and the old man shouted out, 'He's been at the wine; master always kept a decanter of drugged wine on this table.'

There was nothing to be got out of him yet, so I went through and examined the garden. I found footprints leading to a window which had been forced and closely examined them. Then I went back and measured the arrested man's boots; they correspond exactly with the footprints. That is my case; what do you think of it?'

'Well,' I admitted, 'it seems very strong against the suspected man. Still, I cannot understand him drinking wine after committing murder.'

'Well, you see,' said the inspector, 'one glass is enough to drug a man for hours.'

'I see,' I replied, 'that alters the aim. By the by, does he plead innocent guilty.'

'Innocent. He has some faked story about having a blow on the head, and remembering nothing more.'

'Ah,' I said, 'you never know in such a case as this what's true or not true; however, we shall see. I should like to have an interview with the arrested man.'

Fortunately I was allowed to go and examine him and form my own opinion. I found him an ordinary type of the better-class British workman. Somehow the moment I set eyes on him I felt sure he was innocent.

I explained who I was and that if he was innocent it would be my endeavour to prove it. He swore he had no knowledge of the crime or how be entered the room.

'Well,' I said, you must tell me everything you know. I shall possibly be able to arrive at some conclusion.'

'I know but very little, sir. I was walking along the road in front of the house when, without a second's warning I received a severe blow on the head. I remember nothing more.'

'Were you quite sober ?' I asked.

'Yes, sir, I had only had one pint of beer.'

'What seems strange to me,' I said, 'is the fact that your footprints go right across the garden.'

'My footprints, sir? What do you mean?'

I told him that he had been traced over the garden, and be seemed rather perplexed ; then he looked down at his boots and blurted out:

'Sir, someone has taken my boots off and put them on differently.'

'How?' I said.

'I tied them in a bow— now they are in a hurried knot. See!'— and he held them up for my inspection. He was quite right, they were tied in a knot as he said.

'Are you sure you tied them differently ?' I asked.

'Positive. I could swear it in a law court,' he replied, I put that down in my note-book; it was one point in his favour. Another thing that impressed me was, where could he have put the stolen property if he had fallen suddenly after drinking the drugged wine? The spoil ought to have been in the room. It was not for I had examined it.

All this time the man had been silently engaged thinking; now he said, 'Look here, sir. In front of the house the grass is rather long. I was walking on it at the time, and when I received the blow I was right in front of the gate. You examine that grass and see if there isn't any signs of a fall, or if anyone has been dragged along it, for I feel sure I was carried from that spot into the house.'

'I will go and examine it,' I said, much struck by his intelligence, 'and now good-bye for the present, and don't get downhearted.'

'Good-bye, sir; God bless you,' he cried, and then I left him and wended my way towards the house.

On the way I met the inspector who inquired if I had learnt anything.

'Yes,' I replied, 'a good deal. I think I can almost prove the arrested man's innocence.'

He looked rather disappointed, but did not ask for any particulars. I believe be thought I was mad. I reached the front of the house and carefully searched the grass. Soon I found a place where it looked disarranged, and I carefully examined it. Yes, there was the mark of the fallen man; a little further back was the mark of another man, who had evidently stood there some time. But search as I would there was no sign of anyone being dragged along.

But, stay; I suddenly alighted on a deep footprint, then another, and others right up to the gate, then across the garden, till they ended close by the forced window.

Suddenly an idea struck me; the footprints seemed very deep. I made one or two beside them; mine were not nearly so deep. What did this point to? The maker of them had been heavily laden. There could be no doubt of it, the villain had taken off his own shoes and put on those of the arrested man, then he had carried him across the garden and thrown him through the window unconscious, pouring a glass of the drugged wine down his throat; then be had robbed the dead man and departed. But there were a few queries unanswered:

First. How did he know the wine was drugged? Second. How was it there were no signs of big departure? Third. How could he carry the valuables away, for I had been informed they were very heavy?

In my own mind I had proved one man's innocence; but a harder task lay before me to prove another's guilt. Search as I might, I could find no more traces, and the matter became more puzzling. The burglar seemed either to have flown away or to be still in the house. This feeling was augmented later on, when I went to the nearest station and inquired if any stranger had been about.

To my surprise they positively affirmed that I was the only stranger that had come or gone for the last few days. The next station was some ten miles off; it was not likely they would have carried their spoil that distance. When I reached my lodgings and thought the matter over, there was only one possible conclusion. The murderer must be still in the village, and some of the stolen property must be still hidden in the house or grounds, and in the evening I determined to watch the house, for there, I was convinced, lay the key of the mystery.

About ten I cautiously crept into the garden and scaled a tree which stood in a direct line with the old man's bedroom. I have been in a few strange positions, but never in such a one as that, before or since. For there I sat perched in that tree for two mortal hours, in the most uncomfortable of positions, and nothing occurred.

Presently I saw the light in one of the bottom rooms go out, and soon after the old man himself came up to bed.  First he very carefully drew his window curtains together, which shut me out from all view. But I meant to see somehow, and, noticing that the ends were left uncovered, I cautiously descended from my perch and, after taking off my boots, began to climb up the creeper which covered the house, and was as thick as a man's wrist in some places. My heart beat violently as I neared his window, the stem of the creeper was getting thinner, and one false step might ruin all; but I reached it at last, and, by bending under the window, had a fine view.

The first thing that surprised me was that he had not begun to undress; but a greater was in store, for after walking across the room and locking the door he touched a board in the wall— which was of panelled oak — and it sprang open, revealing a small secret chamber.

It might have been Aladdin's Cave, for it glittered and shone even in that pale light. It contained the stolen property! What happened during the next few minutes I cannot tell, my brain was too dazed to observe. All I could think of was, the old man had the stolen property. When next I looked he was packing the things into parcels, wrapped in rags and old paper, so that they looked like rubbish. As I watched him, I observed that he no longer hobbled about, but rather flew over the floor in his joy. Soon they were all wrapped up, and the secret panel was slid noiselessly into its place.

I watched with great interest the next development, but I am bound to admit that it almost staggered me.

The old man fumbled about his beard for some time, when it suddenly fell off, revealing the face of a man about forty, then the wig followed suit, and the metamorphosis was complete. It was a young man in disguise. The mystery was solved.

Soon after he extinguished his candle, and I went to my lodgings to ponder over the strange case. In the morning we arrested him, to his great surprise, but after having his beard and wig removed he was too astounded to lie, and confessed his guilt.

Needless to say, the suspected man was released at once.

_________________

9: Trivial Evidence

Anonymous

Sunshine Advocate (Vic) 25 March 1938

One of many anonymous short stories from Australian newspapers. This one is a little different in that it didn't even have a title. I have made one up.

DUNDAS BRENT, barrister, looked musingly round the crowded benches in the Assize Court. Assizes are always popular when the list includes a murder trial. Brent, however, was no sightseer. He had got the most difficult job of the day. It was that of defending the star turn in the Assize list— the man charged with the murder of another. Brent had been warned that the case was hopeless, and it needed but a cursory examination of the evidence to confirm that warning. A hurried talk with the prisoner had done nothing to reveal new possibilities of defence. True, the prisoner denied any knowledge of the crime, but even that denial would carry but little weight, for he had frankly admitted that on the night of the crime he had been "dead drunk."

Time dragged on, but at last the Judge announced that a True Bill had been returned against James Waite, indicted for the murder of Francis Harold Cooper.

James Waite stood in the dock, and Dundas Brent turned to look at the man he was to defend. Waite looked what he was— a countryman born and bred. On his face was a look of bewildered resignation. Brent turned back, more hopeless than ever. Dull the man looked, certainly, but there was no sign of insanity in his eyes, no hidden fanaticism. Brent sighed. How could a man such as this have a sudden, passionate brain storm? That was, on the face of things, the only plea Brent could put forward. Waite's health sheet was clean, and never had there been any suggestion of insanity in his family. The only other possibility— that Waite had committed this murder in a drunken frenzy— Brent had quickly discarded; no drunken man could have left behind him such a complete absence of clues. With an inward conviction of the futility of his task, Brent sat back and folded his arms, prepared to listen to the counsel for the prosecution outlining the case.

"This case," counsel opened, "is one, we say, of simple murder. The facts are easily outlined, and the evidence against the accused, while being of a purely circumstantial nature, is so strong that you, members of the jury, should have little difficulty in finding your verdict against him.

"In this particular charge we say that the man in the dock had, first, the motive, then the instrument and, finally, the opportunity to com-mit this crime.

"Waite, as most of you know, has lived in these parts all his life. He is a farmer, or perhaps I should say, was a farmer, for he no longer possesses the lands which were once his. That fact, as you will soon see, has a considerable bearing on the case.

"In the same neighbourhood as Waite there lived an aged man named Francis Harold Cooper, who by reason of his eccentricity had earned for himself the reputation of a miser and a recluse. He lived alone in an old house on the outskirts of the village, and was some times not seen for days on end.

"All the village knew him, but only one man is known to have had a violent hatred against him. That man is James Waite, who for some years past has insisted that Mr. Cooper had swindled him out of the farm which had been his. Time and again Waite had sworn to get even with Mr Cooper. He has actually threatened to do him in. He repeated this threat recently.

"At the time, he was in the saloon bar of the Stag and Antlers, the village hostelry, and witnesses will tell you that he had far more drink than was good for him that night. When he finally staggered out of the hotel he was shouting words to the effect that he'd get his rights.

"That night, as his wife will tell you, he dlid not return home. Not until fairly late the next morning did she see him again. He then said that he had walked out into the country and had gone to sleep in a field. But many things had hap-pened since the time he left the Stag and Antlers and the time he re-turned home.

"A postman, delivering letters at Mr Cooper's house, had chanced to look in at a window close to the front door. Through the glass he saw the body of Mr Cooper lying on the floor. The postman promptly raised the alarm, and when the police entered the house they found that the owner was dead and that in his chest were many wounds, caused, presumably, by some kind of a knife. Investigation has revealed that there appears to have been no ransacking of cupboards or drawers. It is important to remem-ber this point, for it assists us in arriving at a motive for the crime— a motive other than robbery.

"A search of the room produced no clues. The absence of a weapon is perhaps of lesser importance than it first appears, for the medical evidence will show that the wounds could have been caused by an ordin-ary pocket knife such as any man may carry.

"No one had any kind of a complaint against Mr Cooper, except the man accused. Suppose that robbery had been the motive of the crime? Then one would have expected to find traces of a search somewhere in the house. But there are no traces; therefore, we say, robbery was not the motive. The only man who had a motive, then, for murdering Mr Cooper was James Waite.

"Let us come to the instrument with which the crime was commit-ted. Waite had such an instrument— an ordinary sharp bladed pocket knife which he always carried with him, and which was found on him when he was arrested. There were no stains on the knife, but a pocket knife is not a very difficult thing to clean.

"Let us look at the opportunity. Waite certainly had that. He knew that Mr Cooper was alone in his house, and he proceeded to lay a trail, which we allege was carefully planned to provide him with an alibi. He went to the Stag and Antlers and there he proceeded to get drunk— so drunk that he would be incapable of carrying out a craftily planned murder.

"But Waite had reckoned without something. He was seen leaving Mr Cooper's house on the night of the murder. That is all. The persons who will tell you about it— Mr and Mrs Downing— say no more than that. They were walking along the road near the house when they saw Waite rush from the gate and run up the road. That is the all-important link in the chain of evidence," he said slowly. "Put that link with the other links in this case— and you have a chain so strong as to hang James Waite."

Brent agreed silently, and fumed inwardly. It was against all his instincts to let a case just slip away without putting up a fight for it. But how could he fight with no ammunition?

Counsel finished his opening speech, and the procession of witnesses wended its way in and out of the box. Then Mr and Mrs Downing described their glimpse of Waite as he ran from the house. Dundas Brent watched them closely.

Mrs Downing was the first of the couple to give evidence, and she did so in a quiet, composed manner. Brent, listening, thought of a schoolroom and a child repeating, her piece by heart. He let her go without cross-examination, but that sensation was still with him when her husband entered the box.

Downing was a flashily handsome man of about forty, and he answered questions in a quick, incisive manner. His story corroborated that of his wife. He turned to leave the box, but Dundas Brent stopped him. Brent's only thought was to try and shake his evidence of identification, and he stepped straight away into the fight.

"Are you certain that the prisoner was the man you saw?" he asked.

"Perfectly," answered witness without hesitation. "You saw his face clearly?" continued Brent.

"Yes. It was a bright night."

Brent had his pocket book in his hand, and for a fraction of a moment he paused as he looked down at it.

"Bright, eh? Was there a moon?" A spark of hope entered Brent's heart as the witness hesitated.

"Yes, there was," Downing said at last.

"Otherwise you couldn't have seen Waite's face very well, could you? That is a very dark road, isn't it?" Brent persisted.

"It is dark," Downing admitted. Brent's mind was working fast now.

"By the way," he asked conversationally, "what were you doing outat that time of night?"

Downing looked at him curiously but answered almost immediately:

"We went to post some letters."

Brent nodded understandingly. "I see. They would catch the first post out, of course?"

Downing agreed, but Brent's next question flustered him. "How many letters were there?"

Prosecuting counsel jumped to his feet and protested that the question was irrelevant, but Brent smiled blandly and turned to the Judge.

"I may as well say here and now, your lordship, that I am testing this witness' memory, that is all. I am going to suggest that he has made a mistake in the identifying of the prisoner, and the reliability of his memory must, of necessity, have some bearing on the reliability of his evidence."

The question was allowed, and Brent repeated it. Downing was uncertain. "Oh, just one or two, you know."

"I don't!" remarked Brent.

"No matter. Who were they to?" Downing's face was a study of blank dismay, but Brent rapped impatiently.

"Come, come!" he said testily. "Surely you can remember to whom you wrote?"

"I don't," Downing retorted vigourously. "I can't remember everything."

Brent was rejoicing now. There was a fighting chance. "Your memory is not very good, is it?" he said, in a tone of pleasantry.

"It's as good as anyone else's!" Downing retorted. "I remember now. One letter was to my firm and one was to a man in London."

"That's very helpful," Brent said sarcastically. "However, perhaps you will give us the name of that man presently. We'll make a note of it then."

Dundas Brent was happy now. He had set out on what appeared a hopeless quest. Now, he was going to put forward a theory so startling, so ingenious and yet so simple that he felt it must be true. He opened his address quietly.

"Members of the jury. I am not going deeply into the facts of this case, for you have heard them all. I would, however, recall those words in the prosecution's opening. My learned friend referred to the essentials, the key points of a murder trial, and then to the remaining links. These he described as being welded out of a mass of incidental evidence, much of it seemingly trivial, yet each portion fitting into the general pattern. I am not going to deal with the prisoner's case at all, but only with the evidence of the witness Downing. Simple evidence, his. And his wife's. So simple as to hang a man.

"Let us see how the trivial evidence of Mr Downing fits into the general pattern. I asked him, first about the moon. He said there was one on the night of the murder. Either he is right or my diary is right, and yet my diary says there was no moon on that night. I would ask you to remember that answer.

"Now, for a moment I am going to theorise about this murder. Just that, and nothing more. Suppose that someone other than Waite had made up his mind to murder Mr Cooper? That this man had an accomplice? Suppose their motive for the murder was provided by the story about the wealth Mr Cooper was supposed to keep in his house.

"Suppose that, between them, these two worked out a plan of ac-tion which was flawless. Everything was arranged. The murder should be committed at leisure, the house searched in their own time and every evidence of the search re-moved before they left.

"Now, let us carry it a bit farther. The murder takes place as arranged, and so does the search. They leave the house and go to their own home, well satisfied with their work.

"But next day, after the murder is discovered, they hear stories about another man, a man who is known to have threatened the man they have killed. They hear, too, that that man was specially violent the night of the murder, and that he was not seen again until late next morning. Best of all, they hear people in the village saying that the man— let us call him Waite— is undoubtedly the murderer, and that that was why he did not return home all night.

" 'Here, to our hand,' they thought, 'is a ready made scapegoat for our crime. All we have to do is to say we saw him coming out of the house where the murder was committed last night.' That would put behind them any fear of implication in the murder, wouldn't it?"

The court was silent, held by the theory Dundas Brent was propounding. Mrs Downing, her face white, was staring at him, fascinated; her husband's ruddy face had paled.

"Supposing that this plan so commended itself to them that they went straight away to the police and gave their manufactured evidence. Such simple evidence— nothing that could be attacked or cross-examined— just the statement that they had seen Waite coming out of the house.

"Now, let us get to their behaviour in the witness box, when they have to give their evidence at the Assizes. It is so easy— until they, or one of them, is asked what they were doing out so late. Posting letters. An easy answer. How many letters? Not so easy. Who were they to? A difficult one, that— "

Brent's eyes were on Downing now.

"Those little pieces of trivial evidence! What was it my friend said?— they make the whole sordid picture if you fitted them together properly.

"Look out—!" His voice rose to a warning shout. "That man— Downing! Stop him!"

Even as Brent shouted, Downing was jerking from his pocket a knife, was madly pulling at the blade to open it— was raising the shining blade to his throat when strong hands— the hands of the law— gripped and held him.

________________

Possibly by the same author: another anonymous, untitled short story from the "Sunshine Advocate". I have again made up a title. This story uses the British (and Australian) meaning of "first floor"; that is, the one above ground floor.

10: The 6.15 'Bus

Anonymous

Sunshine Advocate (Vic) 6 May 1938

GURNAND had many months ago decided to kill Petrie, but Gurnand was not the sort to hurry. He believed in taking things calmly and being sure where each foot was going to land before he stretched it out. It was, perhaps, this slow carefulness of Gurnand that had enabled Petrie to ruin him.

Gurnand's Restaurant in the market square at Bedchester had done a flourishing business for many years, and from it three generations of Gurnands had drawn a pleasant income, leaving the management to employees, and just dropping in occasionally to see that things were shipshape. It was Bedchester's only restaurant, and Gurnand had never felt any necessity to move with the times. People had to eat at Gurnand's if they wanted to eat anywhere, so what was the use of new wallpaper or a new system of lighting or new carpets?

One manager had suggested that in these days some people expected an iced sweet in summer, and had timidly proposed to install a refrigerator. Gurnand, feeling that the man was dangerously modern, had sacked him.

That man had been Petrie, a clever fellow who smarted under the indignity of dismissal and sought revenge. He found a man with money, and put a proposition to him. A month later Petrie's Restaurant, a glimmering palace of glass and shiny tiles, opened opposite Gurnand's. People admitted that the food was not so good or so well cooked as at the old place, but they went there, all the same.

Gurnand's waitresses were old and stern and frumpish. Petrie employed only pretty young grils, and dressed them daringly. The menu was five times as long as that at Gurnand's, and BIud Bumptious and his Banjo Boys distracted attention from the stringiness of the meat.

By the time Gurnand grasped the situation and started thinking of taking a leaf out of Petrie's book, he was ruined. He had been living beyond his income before, and suddenly there was no income, only a constant tale of losses.

SO he decided to kill Petrie, and he planned the killing carefully, as he had no wish to be hanged.

Petrie lived in a neat house outside the town, and was usually to be found during the evenings in what he called his "office," a tiny room on the first floor. This Gurnand knew, because there had been some talk of an amalgamation between Gurnand's and Petrie's. On Petrie's side the desire for amalgamation was genuine, for he had a feeling that sooner or later people would grow tired of glass and tiles and iced sweets and inferior cooking, and of Bud Bumptious and his Banjo Boys, and start drifting back to the solid comfort of Gurnand's.

Petrie was running on a very narrow margin of profit, for expenses were high, and he knew that in the long run there was no room for two restaurants in Bedchester.

On Gurnand's side the desire for amalgamation was feigned. He would as soon have thought of taking the devil into partnership with him; but it was necessary that when Petrie's body was found with a knife wound in the throat and a knife by his side there should he no chance of anybody saying that he had an enemy.

On the evening before the murder he called round at Petrie's house, ostensibly to make final arrangements about the amalgamation. It was Tuesday, and he knew that on Wednesdays Petrie's old housekeeper always went to the pictures.

Gurnand had read many detective stories, and he knew that most murderers were hanged because they were too clever. He had no illusions about the quality of his own brain. He knew that he was a simple man, and that the only sort of murder he could carry through was a simple one.

ON the Tuesday evening the old housekeeper opened the door.

"You know your way up," she said briefly.

"Thanks," grunted Gurnand and climbed the stairs.

Petrie greeted him effusivelly.

"We ought to be able to settle the last details to-night," he said, "and if it suits you we can sign the agreement to-morrow."

"Make it Thursday," said Gurnand. "I've a rather tricky job tomorrow and I want to keep the day free."

"Right," said Petrie. "Thursday will be O.K. for me. Now, about the fittings—"

They talked for half an hour, but Gurnand's eyes wandered round the room. He saw with satisfaction that Petrie had an Indian dagger which he used as a paper knife. It would be much more satisfactory to use Petrie's own knife, and it looked a useful sort of weapon. To-morrow evening he would call on Petrie, pretending to have remembered a small point in connection with the fittings. Petrie himself would open the door and take him upstairs. Gurnand would be wearing his gloves. He would take an unopened letter from his pocket and pick up the paper knife, ostensibly to open the letter, but really to stab Petrie. Before he realised what was happening the man would be dead. Gurnand had carefully considered at what angle a knife would enter thethroat if the wound were self-inflicted. The knife he would place on the floor as if it had fallen from Petrie's hand. A simple, straightforward murder, with no clues and no witnesses.

Approaching the house across the fields from his own houze he should meet no one, and he could return the same way. His own servant would be out, and nobody would be able to prove he had not spent the whole evening at home. Petrie's office overlooked the street, but nobody standing in the street could see inside the room, owing to the fact that the office was on the first floor.

"I'll be glad to have things settled," said Petrie, as they parted.

"So will I," said Gurnan cheerfully.

EVERYTHING went exactly according to plan. Nobody saw Gurnand leave his house on the Wednesday evening by the drawing room window. He met nobody when crossing the fields, and he had to stand at Petrie's door for a minute before it opened. "

Sorry to keep you waiting " said Petrie, "but Mrs Calman is out at the pictures. She always goes on Wednesdays, so I have to answer the door myself. Come along upstairs."

And it went on happening exactly according to plan, as it was pretty well bound to do, everything being so simple.

Gurnand said a word or two about, fittings then mentioned that he had a list in his pocket, and took out an envelope.

"Let's have the paper knife," he said casual!y, and Petrie, innocent as a lamb, handed it to him.

"You're a nasty, oily little chiseller," said Gurnand sharply, "and I'm going to kill you!"

Petrie went as white as a shoe. Then Gurnand struck, and made no mistake. Petrie died without a groan, and Gurnand placed the knife where he wanted it, and walked calmly out of the room.

MURDER trials are usually a long business, so much of the evidence being circumstantial, and a witness of the crime being very rarely available. But when Gurnand was tried for the murder of Petrie the trial was the shortest on record. Fifteen respectable citizens went into the witness box and swore that they had seen Gurnand actually deliver the fatal blow. In face of such overwhelming evidence the result was never in doubt.

"If ever you feel inclined to murder anybody," said Gurnand quietly to the chaplain on the morning of the execution, "make sure that you have remembered all the relevant factors. I thought I hadn't forgotten anything, but I had. I forgot that the 6.15 bus passed passed Petrie's house at 6.37, and that the 6.15 is always a double-decker!"

_________________

11: Shingle Short

Ferdinand McMahon

Sydney Mail 1 Aug 1928

This Australian author had twenty or so short stories published in Australian newspapers in the 1920s. I can find nothing more about him.

'CAN I make you a nice little dash of arrowroot for your tea, dear Uncle Benjamin?'

A mellow balm, oppressively soothing seemed to be trying hard to conquer the natural vinegar of Miss Abbie Cobb's voice. What 'dear uncle' called her sour face was full of smiling solicitude; he said that she was probably the worst-hated woman in New South Wales— for years he had said this, but Stephen had always laughed at him, pointing out that not all New South Wales had the opportunity of gauging the hatefulness of Miss Abbie. The township and district of Ouincy, perhaps; and her immediate family; but not farther afield than that.

Benjamin, who was always scrupulously in disagreement with his brother, maintained that a woman so poisonous as Abbie must react for miles, probably to the borders of New South Wales. Certainly there was more than a hint of this belief in the gaunt, tired face that glared hack into the teeth of her smile.

'I shan't want any tea— your 'dear uncle Benjamin' will be dead before teia-time, fortunately for him—'

Miss Abbie clasped her hands. 'Oh, uncle, dear,' she wailed, 'don't say that!'

The hard eyes of the man in the long chair watched her implacably. 'But I just said it,' he reminded her. 'Some time between four and five I shall draw my last breath. What's all the excitement about— my death is what you're all waiting for, isn't it? And I've saved, you the trouble of concocting the nauseating mess you call arrowroot.'

Another lady, a larger, rounder lady than Miss Abbie, detached herself from the group in the bay-window.

'Don't be so silly, uncle,' she said in a comforting, managing voice. 'You're feeling a little down to-day after your bad time yesterday. You mustn't talk about dying— not yet awhile, anyhow.' She beamed largely down into the old man's impassive eyes.

'You're not going to try to persuade me, Lilian, that you don't want me to die as quickly as it can be managed? It's what you're all waiting for, isn't it? Anyhow, it's what I invited you all here for.'

Murmurs of pained, A even horrified, dissent came from the group in the window— from the youngish, fattish, metropolitan-looking young man, from the small, henpecked-looking man who couldn't be other than the husband of the large Lilian, from the thin, deaconish man already dressed in glossy black. They were dramatic in their repudiation of this dreadful idea of Uncle Benjamin's death between four and five on this sultry afternoon of spring.

Miss Abbie was shaking with sobs, and large tears coursed slowly down Mrs. Lilian Grayson's face. Old Benjamin Erskine looked indifferently at them from his deathbed.

'Heart-breaking, isn't it?' His eyes swept over their faces in placid scorn. 'Not one of you is thinking of this place and three thousands pounds in the bank, is he? Well, you'll know who gets it this afternoon, some time between four and five. Or, rather'— he chuckled suddenly— 'your troubles will begin about that time.'

Miss Abbie's sobs ceased for a moment.

'Troubles, dear Uncle Benjamin?' she asked.

He smiled wolflshly at her.

'Wouldn't it be a trouble to know that your dear Uncle Benjamin was dead, dear Abbie?' he said, his voice full of smooth poison. 'But, apart, from that great, sorrow, your practical troubles will begin then. I have matie several wills in the past month or so, and, in point of fact'— he smiled on the listening group— 'I've hidden them all.'

The group suddenly stiffened, became rigid in tense attention. The sound of a pin dropped could jiave been heard in the silence.

'I thought that would give you something to think about. Old Chadwick is coming up here a week from to-day— a week from the day of my death, that Is— to read you the latest will that you have found by then, which will direct the disposal of my estate.'

The group stared at him.

'Apparently I don't make myself clear. There are several wills hidden about this house and grounds, each will superseding, of course, its predecessor. The one with the latest date found by this day week is the one which old Chadwick will read to you, and will be the correct one. Any subsequent will found after this day week, will be null and void, in accordance with a document in Chadwick's possession. The property will go to the legatee of the last-dated will found by this day week.' He beamed sardonically on them. 'Won't you have a beautiful time chasing the documents? That was why I invited you all to come and stay with me while I died. My only regret is that! can't be present, in the flesh and watch you all running about looking for dead men's shoes.'

'Oh, I say, uncle—'

'Really, Uncle Benjamin—'

'Honestly, my dear uncle—'

Old Benjamin Erskine lifted his head, his implacable eyes blinking faintly in -i sunbeam from the other window.

'Don't overwhelm my last moments with disinterested protests,' he said. 'I know how unselfish, how truly affectionate you all are. There is no need to tell me. You are all here, I think— all except Ethel's girl, who couldn't manage the journey from Melbourne in time.'

The hard eyes softened for a moment. 'I should like to have seen little Ethel's child before I went— Ethel was a good sister to me, long ago.'

A young man left the group and walked quietly across the room— an absorbed young man with dreaming, half vacant grey eyes and a shock of unruly black hair. He was in his shirt-sleeves. He didn't speak, but only pulled the blind of the other window a little lower, shutting out the sunbeam in Benjamin's eyes.

'Ah, Shingle, thank you,' old Benjamin said. 'You apparently do not think only of yourself, though you are here in at the death with the others. As a seventh cousin you have a right to be here, of course ; but, you'd be better employed repotting the hydrangeas I mentioned last week. You're a dreamer, like your mother— her nose was never out of a book when she was a kid— and you're out of place among all these philanthropists here. You'd much better go and get on with your hydrangeas. But thank you for noticing that the sun was in my eyes.'

'ALL right, Mr. Benjamin,' Lancelot Short said in his abstracted way. 'I could see it was bothering you.'

He looked vaguely at, the boss, his dreaming eyes tender. 'Good-bye, Mr. Benjamin. We'll miss you.'

'Will you, Shingle? That's as good an epitaph as any man can get. Good-bye. Keep your eye on the hydrangeas when I'm gone.'

Shingle Short drifted from the room, and presently old Benjamin turned all the others out. He wanted to compose his mind, he said, before the hour of his permanent release from their company. If they came back at five o'clock, he told them, they would find their wishes come true.

They deprecated the dreadful possibility with great vigour, and scattered about the house and garden, sitting in watchful silence while the heavy oppression of the afternoon wore away, to the sultry evening.

At five o'clock they went hack to old Benjamin Erskine's room and found him in his long chair, his strong old hands folded in placid death.

STEPHEN, Benjamin's brother, took tlie news to Shingle Short, whom he found busy with his hydrangeas on the side verandah. Shingle looked at the great blossoms, pink and mauve and smoky blue, and sighed. Presently he looked up at Stephen.

'Well, he's missed one thing, Mr. Stephen,' he said, 'and that's one of the hottest, spring evenings I've ever known in Quincy. There's a daddy of a storm coming.'

Stephen went on his way. It certainly was desperately hot, with that, muggy, thunderous heat which seemed to make one all nerves. Poor old Benjamin... He doubted that anyone in the whole house was really sorry, save himself and Shingle Short. Well, seventy-six was a good age, especially with a weak heart... He couldn't face that rapacious crew in the house yet awhile; he'd stay out here in what cool air there was.

Old Benjamin. A queer old stick, fighting with everybody, bitter with everybody, to the end. He and Benjamin had been sworn enemies for sixty years, ever since, as schoolboys they had fried to knock each other's head off. They had grown into dour men, hard-fisted, good money-getters, and sworn but respectful enemies to the last. Odd how that, strain of money getting appeared in all the Erskines, even in these greedy 'philanthropists' in the house, waiting for the daylight to tear off on their hunt for Benjamin's will.

That devil Abbie Cobb— she was absolutely shameless in her devotion to Ben dying, and she hadn't a good word for him living. Lilian Grayson, too— only the chance of money would have brought her out of Mosman society here, with her little runt of a hushand in tow. Even that fat fool George Erskine, Tom's son, and the psalm-singing David Blackett— only money would have got George away from the Touraine Hotel and Blackett from his Little Bethel to stay a fortnight in this uninteresting house to listen to whatever insult old Ben cared to flay them with. It was the money-getting Erskine blood in them that made them put up with all this for the sake of what they could get out of it.

Only himself and Lancelot. Short, poor halfwitted Shingle Short, as the hard-headed Erskines and the township called him, were disinterested.

Stephen sighed. In this passing of one of his own generation a fugitive mistrust, of money and money-getting seemed to put a cold finger on his heart. Wasn't it better to be Shingle Short and free of all that rapacious clamour?

Heavens, it was hot! Shingle was right; a terrific storm was brewing. Against, the livid background of the sky the hollow tree in the home paddock looked like a great black skeleton waving its arms in the vanguard of a whirlwind. Not to-night, but to-morrow, surely the storm would lie upon them.

Which of these vultures would get Ben's block of Erskine money? One of them would; he wouldn't get them up here for nothing. It was like him to start them hunting for it themselves. And when old Chadwick did read the will it would be found to be full of bitter insults. Ben would be true to type, even in death and after death.

But suddenly he tired of the thoughts. It was a house of death. Half a generation had vanished to-day. What did it matter which harpy got Ben's money and land? There was himself here to mourn him, and Shingle Short, at work with Ben's flowers while Ben was dying— Shingle doing his jobs about the place, as he had done them for fifteen years, ever since Ben had given him a home and a job when he was a homeless, vacant-eyed orphan. They two mourned Ben for his own sake; to them at least his money didn't matter. His memory could rest safely with them.

In the living-room he found a girl, starry-eyed and grave. He looked uncertainly at her.

'You must be Ethel's child,' he said, 'from Melbourne?'

'And you are Uncle Stephen. And I am too late. I couldn't get here before—'

The rich music of her voice was like a balm, cool and sweet in the stifling night.

'You are much younger than— How old are you, child?'

'I'm nineteen, uncle. I came because mother always told me how dear Uncle Ben was to her, and I thought it was right that I should be here, since she was no longer on earth to come herself—'

'Do you sing?' he asked, interrupting again, conscious of the surpassing beauty of her speaking voice.

She blushed vividly. Yes, she sang. She had hoped for a career in music, but she had her living to earn— her mother had left hardly anything. Could she say farewell to Uncle Ben, just to give him mother's blessing? Stephen walked beside her to Ben's room, and stood at the door while she knelt for a moment beside what was left of Ben. In that moment Stephen saw her against the background of the watchful harpies in the dining-room, compared the beautiful bowed head with Miss Abbie's head, with Lilian's, with George's, with the psalm-singing David Blackett's.

Here was an Erskine who had missed rhe Erskine quality— looking at her he was almost tempted to say the Erskine curse. Of one thing he was sure, he told himself: old Benjamin had three mourners instead of only two in the house tonight. ...

'My goodness, it's hot, sister, isn't it?'

Miss Abbie looked secretively at David Blackett's damp face.

'Yes, it's very , hot',' she said. 'And to think that dear Uncle Benjamin died only yesterday makes the heat seem worse, don't you think?'

'Indeed I do. Death is the great levelier, We are taught. Er— you haven't found anything yet, have you, sister?'

Miss Abbie's face became an expressionless mask.

'No, indeed. I can't say that I have been looking very energetically. Our poor dear uncle was so strange at the end— I suppose you haven't found anything?'

The sudden downright vigour of the last sentence almost made Mr. Blackett jump. He knew that Miss Abbie had been searching feverishly since the dawn, as he had. He pulled himself together.

'It is the little house of prayer, sister,' he intoned, 'that I am thinking of more than my own small temporal advantage. We are badly in need of hassocks.'

'Are you?' She glanced at him. 'You could get quite a number of hassocks for three thousand pounds and the value of this place., couldn't you?' she said, with the air of a woman seeking abstract information,

'Ah, yes.' He seemed to blossom at the words 'three thousand pounds'— to blossom and gain in stature. He rose to leave Miss Abbie and continue his search.

'It is the service of the unenlightened that drives me on, sister,' he told her. 'My labours are in their behalf.'

'Is it?' she said to his retreating narrow back. 'And are they?'

GEORGE, Tom's fattish, youngish metropolitan son, had an idea that the garden and the paddocks provided what he called the best dart. In the gruelling heat he scoured the hollow tree until the perspiration poured off him. But his best dart didn't prove to be a good one; he found nothing. The Graysons confined themselves to the house, and to the enduring of the appalling heat in the surreptitious taking up of carpets, moving of heavy furniture, sudden descents upon the kitchen, and the consequent fury of the cook. But they, too, found nothing. It was hard to know where to look. Of course, dear Uncle Benjamin might have hidden his will anywhere. Up to the time of his last seizure he had been able to gel about pretty well, and his last seizure had only happened the day before his death. So almost anywhere about the, place was possible ground for the anxious seekers. It was a very trying situation for them. Half of the second day was taken up by the funeral, too, a ceremony which cut badly into the short week at their disposal. And the heat was terrible; it seemed as if the storm would never break and clear the air for them.

STEPHEN watched them, thinking how his brother would have enjoyed this hysterical rushing about for dead men's shoes. He watched their separate methods— Miss Abbie's secretive plodding; the psalmsinger's skirmishing on the skirts of the more definite searchers, his efforts to pick up any unconsidered trills of information; the hearty but steady, laborious cunning of George; the grim, relentless energy of the Graysons.

He, too, had his quiet manner of trying to find this document, but it was not so exigent as to blind him to every other consideration in the world. More and more he contrasted young Edith Chester with these relatives of hers and his; more and more that fugitive want of faith in Erskine money came back to, him. If this turmoil of vultures was all it could do, where was its value?

The days were sickening in their oppression, their mounting menacing heat. And this scurrying about for a dead man's money was somehow an insult added to the injury of the ominous leaden sky, the still oppression of the days.

On the fourth day Miss Abbie marched triumphantly into the dining-room and laid a document upon the luncheon-table.

'I knew that dear Uncle Benjamin would remember my straitened circumstances,' she told the company with smooth, voice. 'He knew what a struggle I have to make both ends meet—'

'On four hundred a year and only yourself to keep, dear?' Mrs. Grayson was all large friendliness. 'Anyhow, there is uncle's will, and he leaves all his estate to me!'

She smiled with a quiet viciousness at all the bitterly disappointed faces.

'What's it dated?' Mr. Blackett's voice broke in. 'And where did you And it, sister?'

'It's dated fourteen days ago, and it doesn't matter where I found it— there it is.'

There it certainly was, settling this vexed question of Uncle Benjamin's money.

The will set forth that, in consideration of the detestation and bitter hatred in which Miss Abbie Cobb was held by all her relatives, and of the testator's supreme contempt for her and these relatives, he bequeathed the whole of his estate to her, thereby giving them good cause for their detestation and hatred of her, and at the same time revenging himself for years of annoyance on the others.

Miss Abbie flushed as Stephen's quiet voice read the will.

'Dear Uncle Benjamin was in one of his very bitter moods when he wrote it,' she said, 'but his heart was in the right place.'

UNHAPPILY for Miss Abbie's hopes a second will was found in the afternoon of the same day— a will dated two days later than hers and directing that the whole of the late Benjamin Erskine's estate be devoted to the adequate clothing, during the winter months, of the Javanese natives, the Central Board of Missions to be in control of expenditure.

George Erskine brought this will to the dining-room, his fat face shining with glee.

'It seems rather to settle your hash, old thing, doesn't it?' he said disrespectfully to Miss Abbie Cobb. She gave him one murderous glance and flounced savagely from the room.

But the Javanese natives were not more fortunate than Miss Abbie. A third will was found, this time by Stephen, in the hollow tree. It was dated subsequently to the Javanese will, and it bequeathed every penny of the estate 'to my niece, Ethel Chester, because of my great affection for her mother, my dearly beloved sister Ethel.'

This, Stephen felt, was the proper use of this block of Erskine money. He saw a radiant vision of the child taking the London tuition she needed; he heard her wonderful voice delighting great throngs of people, saw her beautiful face flushing and smiling at them. In short, he thoroughly approved this disposition of Ben's money. He came, full of triumphant approval, round to the side verandah where Shingle Short was putting the finishing touches to the hydrangeas.

'You see, Shingle,' he said, looking thoughtfully at the great blooms in the tubs, 'the great thing in this life is to know when you are young what you want to do with life, isn't it?'

'I suppose it is,' Shingle's abstracted voice replied, 'if you're lucky.' 'Yes, of course. Well, Ethel is lucky, then. She knows what she wants, and now she's got the money to do it.'

The disturbing thought crossed his mind that there were still two days of the week to go, and that the house and place were still full of rummaging, searching harpies. If another and later will were found.... But he thrust the disturbing thought away. Ben had always intended the money for Ethel; there wouldn't be any other will. He continued his pleasant occupation of painting word-pictures for Shingle Short, fine pictures of the tremendous. triumphs awaiting Miss Ethel Chester, the wonderful Australian contralto. Shingle agreed absent-mindedly with all that Mr. Stephen said, while lie made a thoroughly good job of the hydrangeas the boss had left in his care; and presently Stephen went, on his way, his mind full of plans for 'the only decent Erskine of the lot.'

She, too, was on fire with hope and confidence. Here were all her dreams in her hands now. She told Stephen that she had never imagined that life could hold anything so wonderful for her. It was like every daydream come true. Stephen's heart was calm and hopeful now; he felt that the money was really going to do something— something more than the mere gratification of some bitter mood of poor old Benjamin.

'THIS continuous heat is really very trying, sister, is it not?' Mr. Blackett mopped his forehead. But Miss Abbie had no reply for him. She merely looked malevolently at him and went into the house. She didn't care whether it boiled or froze, her back seemed to say.

The heat was certainly very trying. Day after day since the day before Benjamin's death the temperature had seemed to mount higher and higher. It got on the nerves of all the people in Benjamin's house, adding to their immediate worry of Benjamin's money and driving them frantic with irritation and overstrung anxiety. It even got on the nerves of the staid Stephen, setting him wandering thoughtfully about the place instead of attending to the few details which Benjamin's death had left at loose ends.

One of these wanderings took him into the home paddock and the far corner of it, where the hollow tree stood grim and naked by the fence. He paused, leaning against the fence. This sultry atmosphere was unbearable ; even the birds flew heavily and listlessly, as if they felt the weight of the air cramping their wings.

He watched a large blackbird flying drearily round the hollow tree; the poor brute seemed half-dead with fatigue. Presently it slipped into the hollow tree, and listlessly Stephen waited for it to emerge again. But it didn't emerge. For five minutes he waited, but no weary blackbird appeared. Curious... He went over to -the tree and stood by the opening. With a great whirring oi wings the bird was flapping about inside the tree. It had dislodged a large piece of rotten wood, which was lying across the opening, obstructing the lower exit.

Stephen's coming frightened the bird into greater energy; it beat its way up to the top opening and vanished. Stephen stood staring at tlie place whence the strip of rotten wood had fallen.

There was a gleam of white at the edge of the scarred surface.... Paper.... He stepped into the hollow tree.

'... all my goods and property... to my cousin Lancelot Short, in reward for his unselfish devotion...  Dated this....'

The day before Benjamin's death. He must have hidden it here in the morning after old Chadwick left, and before that sudden seizure which hastened the end. This will superseded the other wills.

Shingle Short got everything. And only one day to so to-morrow the week was up and old Chadwick was to read the will. The will leaving everything to Ethel— that was the will old Chadwick was going to read to-morrow. But for this discovery of Stephen's. Ethefs face seemed to be looking at him with tear-dimmed eyes. All the daydreams proved false in the end. ...

ANY watching harpy could have seen Mr. Stephen Erskine walking thoughtfully across the home paddock and the garden and into the house. If the harpy could have seen into his pocket, a folded document would have disclosed itself as the last will and testament of Benjamin Erskine. If tli£ harpy could have seen into his conscience — but not even a harpy can do that. He put the will into his desk. By this time tomorrow it would be valueless. And Shingle Short — well, he was Shingle Short. ... But the conscience would not be stilled. Granted that he was only Shingle Short— wasn't that all the more reason that he should receive all the benefits that the world had for him? He was not equipped for his fight with the world. True, Ethel was keeping on the place and the staff just as they were, so Shingle was safe. But... round and round the thoughts and arguments went in his conscience.

At last the Erskine respect for money and money-honesty won. Stephen got out of bed and made his way through the stifling darkness to the hollow tree. His torch showed him where the scarred surface was lighter than the surrounding wood. Into the aperture at the edge of it he pushed the will and all Ethel's hopes. These harpies were certain to be at it at daybreak for a last scurry round before Chadwick came. There was not a hope that the will would not be found. Stephen sighed, and made his way back through the crushing menace of the overpowering night. That his conscience was silent now seemed poor comfort. This was the end of Ethel's dreams.

BUT fate intervened. Towards dawn the storm that had been brewing terrifically for a week broke, a rainless thunderstorm developing into a hurricane of appalling wind. It swept down upon Quincy, and seemed to tear the world up by the roots. The lightning flashes seemed to make one continuous glare, as the thunder made one continuous mighty din.

For an hour it raged before it passed on, leaving the air as heavy and oppressive as before its coming. The sky was still livid and grey when Stephen came out to see what damage had been done, his conscience leading him first to the hollow tree in the home paddock. But there was no hollow tree in the home paddock. There was only a heap of charred ashes to mark where the tree had been— charred, tumbled ashes in which nothing could ever be recognised as anything but tlie ashes of a withered hollow tree struck by lightning... Shingle's voice behind him made Stephen start.

'The storm got her all right, didn't it? I've known that tree for fifteen years, and Mr. Benjamin, he used to say it was as old as him. Well, they're both gone now.'

The sight of the ashes didn't seem to be grieving Shingle at all. There was a light, almost a happy light, in his vacant eyes as he looked at the black pile.

'Pity there wasn't a drop of rain as well,' Stephen said, looking away from Shingle's eyes.

'Oh, I dunno.' Shingle looked round at the heavy, threatening horizon. 'We'll get a drop of rain before night, I think, Mr. Stephen, and maybe another taste of a thunderstorm with it. It's bound to break soon. Can't go on for ever, you know,' Shingle told him, his eyes keen and bright above a wide smile.

Stephen Erskine, wondering at the marvellous ways of Providence, went back to the house. There was breakfast, and Chadwick would be here at ten. Rain was sure to fall in the course of a day or so. And young Ethel, who had come from Melbourne to give old Benjamin her dead mother's blessing, would ride out into the world now on her tide of youth and confidence. It wasn't such a 'bad old world, after all, he told himself, looking round the table at the vultures' hungry faces.

If you could only manage to keep your conscience clear of any obstruction, it was quite possible to imagine that it was a very good world, after all.

Mr. Chadwick came, and seemed to make no attempt to hide his pleasure in informing the greedy company that the estate of Benjamin Erskine passed, under the terms of his last-dated will found up to that moment, to Miss Ethel Chester. He congratulated Miss Chester and drank a glass of wine with Mr. Stephen Erskine, and those pleasant duties achieved he went away, a smile on his lips as he shook hands separately with the harpies.

By the end of the next day the harpies were all gone; and by the end of the week Ethel, too, was on her way back to Melbourne and her arrangements for her radiant future. The house once more being empty of strangers, and rain having fallen in the week, Stephen Erskine took a little tour round to see how the garden was looking after its freshening-up.

On the side verandah he found Shingle Short moving the hydrangea tubs out of the line of the afternoon sun. Watching Shingle's bowed back as he leaned over the tubs, and noting his dungarees and patched shoes, Mr. Erskine's conscience stirred to a momentary life.

'You're happy here, aren't you, Shingle?' he said.

Shingle turned and looked at Mr. Stephen.

'Happy?' he asked. 'How do you mean. Mr. Stephen?'

'I mean happy in your work and your life, just doing your job here.'

Shingle turned back to the tubs. 'Oh, Lord, yes, Mr. Stephen; I'm happy, all right. I'll miss the boss, of course. But barring that I don't have any complaints.'

'You never feel that you'd like a good lump of money to free you from— well, from some of the kinds of work that you don't particularly like?'

'No fear.' Shingle sat back on his heels and he chuckled. 'No blooming fear,' he insisted. 'I had a big lump of money once.'

Stephen started. 'You had a lot of money— what do you mean, Shingle ? When did you have a lot of money?'

Shingle's vacant eyes looked past Stephen to the home paddock. 'About a week ago,' he said. Stephen sat down suddenly on one of the verandah chairs.

'Go on, Shingle,' he murmured. 'Tell me about it, will you?'

'Well, I found the boss's will— buried in one of the hydrangea tubs. I thought he seemed to rub the hydrangeas in a bit, just before he died.

'And he'd left the lot to me!'

'Yes — go on....'

'Well, I wouldn't know what to do with this place and a heap of money, and it got me dizzy for a moment. I wasn't going to take on that job— trouble enough to keep track of the one I've got. I hid the will in the box; but with all those people ferreting about the place I got scared one of 'em 'd find it.'

'But didn't you want the money?'

'No.' The dreaming eyes were tender for a moment. 'It was good of him, and like him, to think of me. But I don't want anything from him more than I earn. So I hid the will in the hollow tree— I found a good place behind a strip of wood. I'd have torn it up or burnt it, but I was afraid the law'd get at me, or something. But, anyway, I knew soon that Miss Ethel— well, she could do something with the money, you see, Mr. Stephen.'

'Yes, of course. But—' Stephen paused, and didn't seem to be going to continue.

Shingle Short hitched himself up from his heels and got to his feet. He pulled a heavy tub from the sunshine into the shade.

'But the storm came just in the nick of time, and saved me from worrying any more about it, you see, Mr. Stephen.'

Stephen, too, rose to his feet, steadying himself by putting a hand on Shingle's shoulder.

'Yes, I think I do see, Shingle. And I think also that you are a very lucky and a very happy man.'

_________________

12: Her Demon Lover

Arthur Leo Zagat

(writing as 'Morgan La Fay'; 1895-1949)

Spicy Mystery Stories July 1936

AS she climbed the steep, dim trail Maylinn Court whimpered a little, far back in her throat. A too-often-whipped puppy whimpers like that, crawling back to its master. Maylinn was crawling back to her master. In the Hill Country a wife belongs to her husband as his dog belongs to him. With the dumb, hopeless acquiescence of a beaten mongrel the girl knew that she belonged to Dal Court, and although sick fear cringed within her of what awaited her in the cabin above, she had no thought at all that there was any possibility of escape for her. The heavy bundles dragged at her arms and the leaden fear dragged at her breast. The shadows creeping down through the darkening forest reached for her with black, spectral fingers of inevitable doom and she knew it was late. Dreadfully, it was late. Dal would be awake from his sodden, brutish sleep, would be lurching out from behind the bed-curtain to look for her. And she was not there!

In the General Store at the Forks, chatting with Mrs. McGinley and conscious, thrillingly conscious of the men's eyes upon her, Maylinn hadn't noticed how late it was getting. It had been good, so good to see people, to hear voices other than Dal's rumbling growl, to touch the fringes of lives different from the solitude and the everlasting toil of the lonely cabin on Baldtop Mountain.

Maylinn lived for her weekly visit to the Forks. On Tuesdays, as soon as Dal thudded into bed, exhausted from a sleepless night at his hidden still in the woods, she would trick herself out in her pathetic finery and run breathless down the trail so as to have as much time as possible before she would have to hasten back to have his evening breakfast ready before his awakening.

It was the only pleasure of her drab life and she was willing to pay for it. Always she paid— tonight she would pay terribly.

Dal would be awake and he would see the red ribbon in her hair, her wedding dress of cotton with its printed purple and yellow flowers. He would be awake so that she couldn't hide them and he would guess why she had worn them. If only she hadn't....

But fiercely Maylinn was glad that she had. In the grimed, bag-like Mother Hubbard that was her daily garb she was only another slattern, shapeless drudge at whom a man wouldn't look twice. This dress was tight enough to mold itself over the seductive curves of her slim, young body. She could feel it against the long arc of her thighs, against the incurve of her waist and her stomach. She could feel the firm thrust of her breasts against it— the nuzzle of their elastic curves.

If she hadn't had it on, would that traveling salesman, handsome in his derby and waxed black mustache, have jumped to hold the store door open for her? Would his bold eyes have stroked her, sending a shuddering ecstasy through her as if it had been his fingers that brushed lingeringly, longing down her palpitant skin?

The green arboreal gloom ahead was riven by long slits of fading sunlight, and then Maylinn was on the edge of the clearing and Dal Court's bestial, furious roar blasted to meet her.

The girl's throat pulsed, once, and a flour bag tumbled out of the crook of her arm, thudded to the ground at her feet. Terror ran, like molten quicksilver, through her veins. It wasn't at her that Dal roared. Oh God! Not at her!

DIRTY yellow in shapeless trousers and woolen undershirt, his huge, shaggy bulk was planted straddle-legged in front of the skewed cabin door and from his outstretched, ham-like hand a bundle of rags hung. A bundle of gray, fluttering rags from which a head lolled; straggle-haired, gaunt and hideous as a gibbering, grotesque gargoyle spewed out of some nightmare delirium; from which bony, skeleton talons clawed at his columnar arm. Gram Hooker!

It was Gram Hooker Del held like that, whose old bones he shook, now, as a terrier shakes a rat. Gram Hooker, the crone from Toad Hollow whom everyone knew was a witch!

"Next time I ketch yoh crawling around here I'll step on yoh like I would on a tree-louse," Dal bellowed. 'Yoh ain't takin' no more food outen my belly." His arm flexed, bringing her close to his rage-purpled face, to his bristling red beard. "Yoh hear that? Now git!"

A scream seared Maylinn's throat, rasped soundlessly from between her icy lips. "Git!" Dal spewed again and his arm arced away from him. The hag skittered across the bare earth of the clearing, went to her knees, twisted around toward Dal as a cat would have twisted, thrown as she had been thrown. A sound came from her that was the mewl of a cat, and abruptly she was bathed in an eerie, lurid light.

The hag mewled and spat at the man, out of that unearthly red radiance that might be the glare of hellfire itself. Her eyes were scarlet coals deep in the gray pits of her gray and ghastly countenance,
her toothless mouth a black and writhing gash across it. Her scrawny arm came up, its fleshless fingers grotesquely twisted in some esoteric, sinister sign whose shadow darted across the ground to touch Court's bare feet. Her voice was a piercing, hate-vibrant lewdness in the terrified hush of the woods.

"A curse on you, Dal Court," it shrilled. "The curse of Ashtaroth and of Baal on you and your house. The curse of Abaddon."

And then she was gone. She was gone but out of the forest depths her laugh jelled Maylinn's blood to a glacial quiver, her cackling, shrill laugh that abruptly was cut off!

"Dal," Maylinn whispered. "What have you done, Dal?" She moved toward him across the clearing, unknowing that her bundles had spilled from her nerveless arms, moved through the gory radiance of the sunset toward the motionless, glowering figure of her husband in whose graven mask something lurked that might be fear. "Dal! Her curse— Nothing can save us now. Nothing!"

"Hell!" Dal Court was muttering as Maylinn reached him. "She's only a crazy old fool." He swung around to the girl, abruptly aware of her presence.

"If I ketch yoh givin' her any more scraps...." checked himself. Suddenly the lurking terror was gone from his piglike eyes under their beetling, shaggy brows and they were red-flecked and slitted with wrath. "Where have yoh been, yoh slut?" he roared. "Where...?"

Maylinn cowed away from him. "To th' store," she whimpered. "Down to th' Forks. I—"

"What's thet in yoh hair? What's thet yoh've got on?' His gross neck was corrugated with taut sinews, his hairy fingers were closing and opening, closing and opening, at the ends of his stiff, down-thrust arms. "Whose wake you been too?"

"N-no. wake. I— I just been buyin' vittles down at McGinley's.. Flour an'— an' bacon an'... Listen, Dal. I'll have some hoe cake fer yoh come mornin', an'—"

"Shet up! No wake an' no weddin' an' yoh n' yohr Sunday-go-to-meetin's! Who is he? Who is it yoh met down at the Forks?"

"N-nobody." Maylinn straightened, brought her eyes up to meet her husband's glowering orbs. "No one." Was it the fact that for the first time she had seen him afraid that gave her that brief moment of febrile courage? "Ain't I got a right to be purty too, so thet th' town women won't look at me an' laugh?"

"Th' women!" Rage clenched his windpipe, made his voice husky, awesomely husky and rumbling ominously. "Th' men yoh mean. Th' slick loafers hangin' aroun' in their store-clothes an' their collars aroun' their necks, whisperin' outen th' sides o' their mouths an oglin' th' women's ankles. Yoh showed 'em ankles. Yoh showed 'em a damn sight more'n ankles I'll be bound. Jezebel! C'm here!"

His bellow blasted at her and his hand exploded out of the thunderous roar to grip and dig into her arm with ferocious agony. It flung her in through the open door, into the murk and the acrid fetor of the cabin's one room. Maylinn skidded across the floor, brought up thumping against the board side of the axe-made bed. Court lurched in, gigantic against the dusk light, twisted to the wall alongside the sash.

"Don't," Maylinn moaned, a crumpled, quivering heap on the floor. "Not thet, Dal. Not thet! I'll never do it again. Never! I swear it befoh God."

He was taking a whip down from pegs driven between the logs, a stub-handled whip whose long, black lash uncoiled and undulated, reptilian with some grisly, terrible life as he straightened it between his fingers.

"Yoh swore befoh God when yoh married me. Five gallon o' my best white mule I paid yoh pappy foh yoh, an' a quart to th' preacher, an' yoh swore to be a faithful wife to me, 'forsakin' all others'. Yoh forgot thet oath quick enough, but yoh won't forget this un. Stand up!"

"Dal. Please don't. Please don't whip me. Dal..."

"Stand up!"

Maylinn shoved shaking palms against splintered wood, got trembling, anguished knees under her. "Dal. Let me take off th' dress. Please, Dal, let me take off th' dress. It's th' only purty thing I got, an'..."

"I'll take it off for yoh. Stand up!"

She came erect with a burbling, infinitely terrible moan. The whiplash hissed, flicking out. Its tip touched, just touched, her side, but a wisp of fabric ripped and fluttered away.

"Ohhhhh," Maylinn wailed. "Yoh've torn it. Yoh've torn my dress." She jerked away, darted toward the side of the room.

Tried to dart away.

The lash coiled around her small waist, tightened, slammed her back against the wall, seethed away. And then it was back, playing around her, playing up and down her fear-rigid form, a live and terrible thing. Bit by bit it shredded the dress of which she was so proud, shredded it and scattered it about the room, and still, with infinite ingenuity, with infinite cruelty it did not touch her skin.

She was almost naked now, her body a white flame in the gloom of that torture chamber, her face a tear-daubed, tortured mask. Since that last anguished wail her livid lips had been tight-shut on her agony. She had made no sound, and the ape-faced, gorilla-like giant who plied the lash had made no sound, and the only sound in the darkening room was the virulent whirr of the seething thong that bit by bit had stripped her.

It whirred about her, and the wind it made whirred along her shrinking flesh, and— crack....! one whip-tip had cracked against the soft hollow of her waist then to send excruciating pain raying through her.

Crack— crack— crack!

An angry weal circled her right breast but did not touch its ivory round. Tight muscles in the man's cheeks drew up the corners of his mouth so that it was an evil and drooling grin across his twitching countenance. His nostrils flared, his eyes pinpoint dots of sadistic passion— crack! Maylinn screamed, high, and loud and horribly, as the whip elicited exquisite agony from the tender flesh of one nubile breast. Crack! It flicked the other. The girl's shriek knifed her throat... .

And suddenly the whip was gone. It was gone and Maylinn was toppling to the floor, her legs no longer able to hold her, and Dal was lunging across to catch her. His huge arms went around her, caught her up. His working mouth mumbled— not curses but clumsy, uncouth endearments. He was shaking in an ague of emotional frenzy. His body was burning with the fires of passion his cruelty had lit within him.

His frantic kisses were like salt water rubbed into the agony of his whip, his sandy beard a new, unholy torture. His calloused hands rasped the girl's skin to raw agony; his embrace was like a new whip lacerating her protesting breasts and the anguish of her soft waist; his cruel caresses sent a different kind of pain stabbing through her— anguish annealed to joy.... An ecstasy blazed in Maylinn to obliterate the pain....

MAYLINN Court lay moaning on the tumbled bed. She was alone. Dal had snatched whatever cold foods there had been in the cupboard, had mumbled them like a beast, and in the dark had lumbered, growling, off to his hidden still. Maylinn lay moaning with the pain that sheathed her, with the shame that was a sick horror in her brain. Numbly she tried to understand that. Why should she feel shame? Dal was her husband, wasn't he? There was no sin....

She could see out through the long, inverted V between the curtains. Across the tar-barrel murk of the cabin she could see the hazy blue rectangle of the window that was splotched with the moon-shadows of the trees. They made patterns— A sudden frigid terror fanged through her, brought her up to her haunches, staring with dilated eyes.

One shadow— there at the corner— was exactly like the shadow of the sign Gram Hooker had made when she cursed Dal! The shadow in the red light that had touched his feet to show Satan whom it was she meant by her curse. The sign was on the cabin now and....

It was gone! The rustling night wind had moved the twigs that made it and the sign was gone. But Maylinn was trembling with the queasy fear of the witch that it had recalled to her. Gram Hooker was no witch, she tried to tell herself. Preacher Morris, the circuit rider, himself had told Maylinn there were no such things as witches in this day and age. Super— superstition— he had said it was.

He had said Gram Hooker was only a poor old woman who depended on the charity of her neighbors for the little food she needed to keep her alive, and he had said the charitable were blessed for the mites they gave her from their small store.

But it wasn't for that blessing the mountain people fed Gram Hooker. It was for fear of her and her familiars, the billy-goat and the black cat that shared her hovel in Toad Hollow. There were those who had seen Gram Hooker riding across the moon on a broomstick, one Hallowe'en night or another. Preacher Morris hadn't tried to explain that. He had said it was a cloud they had seen. ...

What was that? A slither of furtive sound from the place where the door should be— It was only a falling leaf. But this was midsummer. Leaves didn't fall in July— There it was again, like skeleton fingers fumbling at the latch!

The shivery cold inside Maylinn froze her, so that she couldn't move, couldn't make a sound. She could only stare, opening her eyes so wide they hurt almost as much as the rest of her, at the darkness that the pallid window alongside it made even blacker. ...

It wasn't all black any longer! A blue thread slitted it, a vertical blue thread that was a filament of moonlight seeping past the door-edge. It was widening— the door was opening— someone was opening the door! Someone— or something...

For, low down, the luminance of the widening slit was cut across by two black, curved and tapering lines that ended, as the aperture still grew, in sharp points. They were horns. They were the horns of Satan, coming to revenge his worshiper.

The devil's face was silhouetted blackly against the blue, his pinched, long face and his straggly little beard. He laughed in triumph. .

"Maaaa! Maaaa!''

IT was a goat! It was a black goat that pranced maaing in as the door swung wide on the terrified girl, and behind him his mistress came, bent and weazened and tottering. His mistress. Gram Hooker.

"Hush, Shaman." The crone's querulous, age-thinned, voice enjoined the beastlet. "Hush. He might hear you."

Hysteric laughter burbled in Maylinn's throat, came out as a gasped squeal. Long shudders of eerie terror shook her. She had seen it. With her own eyes she had seen Satan turn into Gram Hooker's black goat. Let Preacher Morris scoff as much as he liked, she knew now that Gram Hooker was a witch and worse than a witch.

"Did we frighten you, my child?" The old woman stood still in the eerie moonlight and peered toward the sound Maylinn had made. "We did not mean to frighten you." She had a basket over one arm. "We meant only to come in quietly, least he be in earshot."

She was looking at Maylinn, as though she could see her in the dark behind the curtains. Maybe she could. Cats and bats and owls see in the dark, perhaps witches also do. Maylinn tried to answer her, contrived only a moan.

"You are in pain. No wonder. We heard your screams, Shaman and I. We heard your screams and we watched for him to go, and we have brought something to ease your pain. Herbs gathered in the dark of the moon, and a brew for the secret of which the city doctors would give their right eyes." The hag was shambling nearer, nearer. "You have been kind to old Gram, whatever your man is, and Gram knows how to thank those who have been kind to her."

She meant no evil. She only wanted to help her. Maylinn was conscious again of the pain netting her, of the sick trembling at the pit of her stomach. "Thank yoh," she said. "But yoh shouldn't have troubled... ."

The leaves the deft old hands rubbed all over her, with little, pitying clucks took the pain away. Miraculously they took the pain away. But it was the drink that was the most wonderful. It was sharp, almost burning as Maylinn's lips touched it. But the first swallow sent warmth all through her, delicious warmth, and when she had drained the bottle, she felt luxuriously drowsy so that all the agony of the evening, the lashing whip and Dal's brutal caresses, drifted glimmering out of her memory. Gram Hooker was whispering something in her ear, but Maylinn wanted only to sleep, to sleep, to sink down and down into feathery darkness and to dream. Gram's glittering eyes followed her down into the darkness, and Gram's whispering words....

SHE couldn't remember those dreams when she came softly awake again, but they tingled through her veins, and she was alive, more gloriously alive than ever she had been. It was dark again in the cabin. Gram Hooker was gone away, and Shaman, her goat. But the wind in the trees, was whispering a message for her. Often before, in the lonely watches of the long nights while Dal was far up there near the summit of the mountain, Maylinn had wondered what the trees were saying. Now she understood them.

"Come out to us. Come out to us. See what secret bliss there is in the wildwood when the moon is dying and the rabbits thump their dance. Come out, Maylinn. Come."

And Maylinn, because she understood the voice of the night wind in the trees, and because she knew that somewhere in the forest her dream waited for her, rose from her bed and went across the cabin floor, and out into the moonlit clearing, and across it into the moon-splotched allure of the wods.

She ran, a white wraith, through the whispering underbrush and through the glimmering black aisles of the forest. The trees were her brothers, and the little wild things scuttering from under her lilting feet. The soft warm wind caressed her skin, that was naked beneath scanty shreds of underthings, and the dew-wet foliage kissed her arms, and her thighs, and her breasts. Maylinn tossed her long, brown hair back from her forehead, her brown hair in which the red ribbon still was fastened, and there was a little song on her lips, a song in a language she had never known.

How long she ran thus, how long she played with the wind, and ferns, and little dancing spots of moonlight that sifted through the forest roof, Maylinn never knew. But after a time the little dancing splotches of moonlight were fading, and the wind was chill on her fevered skin, and a strange hush spread in the woods. Then a sudden sadness rose up in Maylinn, and a languor sapped the strength from her limbs, and a dull unease throbbed with the throb, throb of the blood in tiny veins lacing her breasts.

She came to a fern-carpeted small glade that was ringed around with the maiden slimness of pale birches, and knew she could go no further. She sank down into the cool softness of the ferns, and they received her tenderly, but the moonlight was waning and almost gone, and Maylinn was troubled with a yearning and a desire that would not let her rest.

A low sound throbbed in Maylinn's throat and moaned from between her thirsting lips. As the lunar luminance faded the sound pulsed louder, and yet more loud, till it was a moaning louder than the moaning of the wind in the trees, till it was a long wail of unutter able longing, of fierce yearning and  fiercer desire. Till it was a melancholy wail in the lightless darkness, the wailing voice of a soul incomplete and be seeching the elder gods for completeness. Till it was the voice of the woman-essence of Nature itself, drawing its mate to itself, its mate without whom it should forever be unfulfilled

And then there was rustle in the forest-blackness, and Maylinn knew that she was no longer alone in the glade.

Blacker against the black a form moved to her and knelt beside her, and her long wail sobbed into silence.

SHE heard a voice, rumbling, and deep, yet hushed with some strange wonder, some incredulous awe. "It is. It is true. But it can't be. I'm dreaming it. I'm dreaming that this is that

'... savage spot as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon lover' "

And then a hand touched the throbbing pulse at her throat. A hand firm and strong as any man's but soft, smooth as woman's.

It thrilled through her, prickling and electric. It lifted her from the ferns, and pulled her arms, as though by a power outside herself, around his neck. She drew his head down to her, pressed it against the ache in her soft throat. Her mouth sought and found his; her lips were parted and honeyed and demanding— demanding as a bee's thrust between tight petal lips to seek the nectar within.

"Dreaming or not, I'll take what the gods have sent." He was holding her to him now, with a rough eager tenderness that was the very acme of ecstasy. His hands were fumbling, tentatively, then avidly down her. back. A streak of prickling fire followed that stroke down her spine; down the quivering surface of her thigh, where his arm supported her. It burst into a rocket blaze within her, a conflagration that ignited her, that ignited him into a single blazing flame that merged them... .

Little by little the darkness gave way to the cold gray shimmer of dawn. Drained emotionally, her demon lover lay sleeping on the ferns close against Maylinn's side, a little smile edging the thin lips under his small black mustache, but Maylinn did not sleep. Dreamily, blissfully she held him in her arms and watched the shadows take form at the edge of the little glade.

And then, suddenly, her dream and her bliss vanished in sheer stark terror at a threshing in the woods gloom and the bestial roar of an enraged bellow.

"Damn yoh," it roared. "Come back with that! Come back with that dipper."

She sprang to her feet, and her lover with her, and they stared with widened pupils at the small black beast that surged out of the brush. At the bearded, horned goat who scampered into the glade, a tin dipper between its teeth. At Shaman who dropped the dipper at the man's feet and maaaed a blaring, demoniac laugh.

"What the...." the man blurted and then Dal surged out into the clearing. Dal, with his rifle in his hand, jerking it up as he got a clear shot at the animal that had run off with the dipper with which he filled his jugs.

BUT he didn't fire it. Not at the moment. He saw Maylinn, and the other. Has face went black with the sudden surge of blood into it, so black that his red beard was scarlet against it, and the blued barrel of his gun swept up to snout point-blank at the khaki-clad stranger. Maylinn saw his knuckle whiten as his finger closed on the trigger.

A black something streaked past her, pounded into Dal's knees. His gun blasted. Its orange-blue jet sliced leaden hail into the ground, and another thunder-clap exploded in her ears. Dal jolted back, swayed, and collapsed like a ripped meal sack to fall heavily, awesomely into the ferns.

The goat maa-ed again, and scampered away from the man he had saved with that erratic butt of his, and the man who was slain because of it.

"God!" he with the little black mustache grunted. "I had to shoot him. He would have got me if I hadn't."

"Yoh had to shoot him,' Maylinn said, tonelessly. "And now yoh've got to go away. Yoh've got to go away quick before they find yoh and string yoh up for murder."

"No," the slow answer came. "No. It wasn't murder."

"It's murder in these hills when some-un kills the husband of his sweetheart, whatever it may be where yoh come from."

"But I didn't kill the husband of my sweetheart. Look." There was something in his hand, something that glittered yellow in the first rays of the rising sun. "I'm a revenue officer and I killed a moonshiner in self-defense. That's how I came to be in the woods. I couldn't get any information down at the Forks, but an old woman came to me and told me where to look for the still. At least, she told me I'd find something very interesting if I climbed the mountain at about three o'clock and listened for a long howl that would be a signal to me. I'll say I found something interesting. Something so interesting I'm taking it back with me, away from these blasted mountains. Will you come with me, my dear? I'll be very good to you. Very gentle...."

MAYLINN had many things to learn in the city, and she learned them quickly because she believed everything her man told her. But one thing she never believed. When he told her it was certain that there were no witches and talked wisely of hypnotism and post-hypnotic suggstion Maylinn would smile discreetly and say to herself: "I know what I know."

__________________

13: Dogs of Circe

Edwin Truett Long

(Writing as 'Clint Morgan'; 1904-1945)

Spicy Mystery Stories July 1936

THEY shaved a spot on the pate of his head, split his trouser legs, and bound his hands behind his back with a leather strap. He smiled and looked straight ahead, keeping the silence he had kept for well over three months.

The priest came on soundless feet to talk, to plead, to pray, and John Lawrence said nothing. He made no sound other than to laugh when the earnest father prayed for his immortal soul. The warden came, the sentence was read, and the grim procession passed through the door of the iron girt cell down the grey corridor. Footsteps pattered on the cold floor, clacked up the seven steps that lead to doom.

The spectators, those witnesses required by a just State extracting just retribution, shifted and squirmed in their hard chairs. Only a woman with green eyes who sat in the second row did not move. Her eyes blazed, her too-red lips were parted eagerly, her generous breast rose and fell in excitement. The tiny pulse at the base of her throat throbbed and flickered.

The warden mumbled a question and every eye was fixed with pity and horror on the man strapped so helplessly in the squatty chair. For the first time in fifteen weeks he broke silence. He seemed to grow in stature, the pupils of his eyes dilated, the irises faded until only the glaring pupil was etched on the white eyeball. His thin lips curled away from his teeth, his baleful glare was fixed directly on the woman with the green eyes.

He said, "May your soul burn in eternal hell! May flame devour the filth that is your white body, scar the softness that is you and eat the beauty bit by bit from your tortured bones."

The warden stepped forward hurriedly, the black cap was dropped into place. At once the cap seemed to swell, to balloon with air like an expanded bladder and John Lawrence howled like a dog! The mournful sound filled the room, reverberated from wall to wall. A dying hound bays the moon!

He seemed to stiffen, seemed to leap forward against the bonds that held him in the chair. Presently the doctor pronounced John Lawrence legally and physically dead.

AS THE spectators filed out, the din of that death howl seemed to still echo, to beat against their ears. A fat man crossed himself. A thin man wiped the sweat from his brow. Their footsteps sounded furtive, they peered nervously to left and right.

The woman walked alone at the head of the procession, her eyes still blazing, her lips still parted. Her hips were liguid and provocative beneath the thin material of her gown but no man's eye was upon them. At the first turn she glanced backward, glimpsed two men carrying a wicker basket between them. She laughed. The pulse at the base of her white throat throbbed and flickered with lightning-like speed. Behind her laughter a strange sound emitted from her curved throat.

Afterward, big Dean Martin, who walked behind her remembered that it sounded like a low, rumbling growl, like the noise a great dog makes when it tears the bone and sinew of the thing it has killed.

On the train back to the city, Martin, the newspaper man, shuddered and drank a full pint of whiskey to drive the numbing horror from his brain. He knew who the green-eyed woman was— and he also knew John Lawrence, the man who paid the penalty for killing his own wife.

Bottle emptied, Martin wobbled back toward the smoking car. He dropped into a vacant seat before he noticed who occupied the other half. She continued to gaze out of the window, smoke pouring from her nostrils in twin streams. For a moment Martin sat silent, fighting down a feeling of nausea, a vague foreboding. Newspaperman's instinct triumphed.

"Mrs. LaFarge," he said half sullenly, and as she turned with raised brows, "where did you know John Lawrence? Why should he curse you?"

Green eyes peered at him quizzically. He felt uncomfortable, squirmed in the seat ; a wave of red swept his face. Her lips parted in a friendly smile. She said, "I wasn't acquaimted with Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Martin. I was simply curious, call it morbid curiosity if you will, so my friend the governor gave me a pass to the execution!"

He suspected she lied and he had meant to question her farther, but his surprise at her knowing his name swept all else from his head.

"How did you—?" he began.

She laid long fingers on the back of his hand, slid them slowly up his arm while her red lips smiled and her slotted green eyes glowed with strange fires.

"Of course, I know you," she said softly. "Rising young newspaper man and all that! I make it my business to know promising artists."

THAT was the beginning. Through the three hours ride back to the city the thing grew, little by little, bit by bit. There are women who exude the allure of their sex, who teem with it, who charge the air with it, women whose age cannot be reckoned in years but must be reckoned in centuries. Such a woman was Olivia LaFarge, widow of Saul LaFarge, the eccentric millionaire.

By the time the train reached its destination Dean Martin was completely under her domination. The touch of her fingers on his arm was flame. His eyes glowed passionately when they caressed the curve of her soft breasts, sought and found the beginning of the cleft between them when the low neck fell away. Once she leaned toward him and picked something from the floor. Her breast brushed against his knee. He felt shocked, numbed by the contact, and his fingers opened and closed convulsively. The smile she gave him when she sat up was taunting.

It was nearly two o'clock when the train reached the city. Naturally Dean Martin helped her to a hotel, and just as naturally was invited to her suite. He poured himself a stiff drink while waiting in the living room. Presently she stood in the doorway, the light of the other room behind her.

He didn't see the narrowed eyes, the parted, eager lips, the expensive negligee. He saw the abrupt curve of rounded hips, the smoother arc of tapering thighs, the alluring rise and fall of generous breasts whose upper slopes were half revealed in all their white glory by the thin negligee. She came directly to him, freely, frankly, wordlessly. His waiting arms encircled her, found the fullness of lush flesh, heated curves, velvety smoothness.

IT WAS dawn when he left. The cab driver said, "J's, boss, you musta hurt yourself! You're bleeding."

The mirror showed a small trickle of blood oozing from a cut near the base of his throat. Sheepishly Dean Martin held a handkerchief against it, emembering with flaming face the exquisite pain of her farewell at the door, the thrill of her teeth in his flesh.

Irene Martin, his wife, was still in bed. Dean stood at the bedside gazing down at her blonde loveliness, the velvety breasts where the gown had fallen low, the alluring curye from thigh to ankle where the thin coverlet clung ovingly. He was almost ashamed to lean and kiss her, more ashamed when her bare arms pulled him close, cushioned his throbbing head against a fragrant shoulder. Bittrrly he vowed to, himself never to see the LaFarge woman again.

Irene arose, fixed his breakfast and called the office for him. Then he lay down to sleep, explaining that he was utterly done in.

He dreamed he was running at heart-breaking speed through a muggy swamp, floundering through the ooze, the slime the viscous mud. Always he peered frantically over his shoulder, eyes burning with fear, muscles aching with horror. Presently he slipped and fell. His pursuers came in sight. He struggled up, fled on into the fastnesses of the swamp, two great shaggy dogs gaining yard by yard.

And the dogs had human faces! The one in the lead was Olivia LaFarge and panting at her heels was John Lawrence! Again Dean Martin fell and the dogs were upon him. He screamed in fear, thrashed about as he felt the nip of sharp teeth. Then it suddenly came to him that they weren't devouring him, weren't tearing him limb from limb but were playing with him! He rolled and tossed in the slime, wrestling with them, biting at them just as they bit at him.

Presently the dog with the woman's face leaped away, the other great beast following. Dean Martin waited but a moment, peered into the undergrowth after them, knew he wanted to be with them, to run with them like a wolf with the pack. He called after them, called to them to wait.

"Dean! Dean! Wake up, you're having a nightmare!' Irene was shaking him! The sound of her laughter was in his ears, but Dean Martin didn't laugh. His wife had found him on all fours in the middle of the room, his head thrown back and the sound that came from his lips was like the how! of a dog.

He tried to forget about it, tried a put the LaFarge woman out of his mind. But every morning when he stood before his mirror he remembered all too well, for the wound she had made at the base of his throat refused to heal! He kept it covered with a piece of tape, even went to a doctor about it, but it still remained an open wound.

SPRING passed into Summer, Summer faded to early Fall. In October he saw her again. One of her house guests was the victim of an accident and Dean Martin was at the police station when the call came. He rode out with Lieutenant Hogan and found an excited group gathered about Carl Fletcher, the dead artist.

The body lay against the south wall of the estate, nearly a mile from the mansion itself. Fletcher smiled, even in death, smiled a pleased smile, like that of a child at play. His throat was literally torn to pieces, as if an animal had closed its teeth there again and again.

They found Mrs. LaFarge in the house with several others guests, who huddled by themselves before the open fire. Mrs. LaFarge nodded briefly to Dean Martin and answered all questions calmly enough.

"You have a dog on the place, Mrs. LaFarge?"' Hogan.

"There's no dog here, Lieutenant, I can't stand the sight of them. The people on the next estate have a kennel, I believe. Poor Carl must have run into one of their police dogs. They're vicious brutes."

Hogan nodded, started to speak then paused with his mouth open as a newcomer entered. Mrs. LaFarge laughed.

"This is my daughter, lieutenant."

She wore jodhpurs that fitted almost skin tight. The thin sweater clung to smooth, round breasts, accented their arrogant, impudent upthrust. They swayed and quivered as she nodded carelessly, sat down with studied ease and lit a cigarette. Dean Martin looked at her with amazement. She was an exact duplicate of her mother! A miniature, a model! How old could this LaFarge woman be?

As the mother talked on to the police lieutenant, Martin caught himself studying her, and at the same time fingering the taped wound on his throat.

She turned, saw him. Green eyes glowed, red lips smiled as she saw where his fingers were. When Hogan left Martin went nervously with him, Mrs. LaFarge accompanying them as far as the hall.

As they neared the door, she called. "Oh, Mr. Martin, may I see you a moment?"

Helplessly he paused. Hogan grunted, went on out. Martin heard the soft swish of her dress as she moved toward him. As if unable to resist, he turned toward her, saw the green fire of her eyes, smelled the curious woman-smell of her, watched the seductive sway of generous breasts beneath thin material.

Then her hands were on his shoulders, the green eyes close to his. A low sound rumbled in her throat. She pulled him close. For a second he tensed, then with a little groan of surrender swept the soft-ness of her to him. Her mouth on his was a flame, her lips avid. She drew away for a second, peered up at him with those slotted eyes, the strange sounds still rumbling in the white column of her throat.

SWIFTLY she leand toward him again. White teeth tore the tape from the small wound at the base of his throat. He tensed joyfully, waited for the exquisite pain he knew was coming. But this time it was pain alone. He almost screamed at the suddenness, the sharpness. He jerked away caught her by the shoulders and shook her, cursing all the while. The shoulder strap of her gown slipped, loosely fettered breasts swayed unrestrained.

"Damn you! Damn you!" he raved. Presently tired, he paused, released her white shoulder. She stood before him, eyes flaming, red mouth twisted, and the sound she made was like the growling of a dog who has killed and is warning off interlopers. He turned and ran out the front door.

On the long veranda he saw a slender figure in tightly fitting jodhpurs. Lola LaFarge was waiting. He tried to hurry past with a brief nod but she stopped him. Then he saw that even her eyes were like those of her mother, green slots through which something ghastly, inhuman peered. Her red lips, full and inviting, were parted in a smile.

She said, "You must come back and see us, Mr.— Why you've hurt yourself! You're bleeding!"

Before he could prevent it, she reached out and touched the bleeding wound on his throat. He jerked away, mumbled something and ran for the waiting police car. When he looked back, she was peering after him, and her forefinger was in her mouth.

THEY never found out for certain who or what killed Carl Fletcher, the artist. The people of the estate next to LaFarge's had seven police dogs, vicious animals all, but they were always kept caged or on leash. The country folk had it that a wolf was roaming the woods, come down from the mountains, and many of them claimed to have seen the beast. Although hunters searched the wild places no such beast was found. During the next two months Dean Martin drank more than was good for him. He knew it. Often he would tell himself the ideas he was forming were foolishness, that liquor cou'dn't help, couldn't matter. He would quit for days, then he would feel the throb of the open wound on the base of his throat and reach for the liquor bottle. His employers warned him that he was overdoing it. Irene threatened to leave him. They quarreled viciously.

Then he met Lola LaFarge at Tony's Buffet. She slid into his booth, with a jocular word of greeting and demanded to know what he had been doing with himself. He told her sullenly, thrilled to the touch of her knee against his, the sight of her arrogant breasts pushing tremblingly against tight silk. Certainly, he'd see her home.

Home proved to be a friend's apartment. The friend was gone. They sat side by side on a deeply cushioned divan and drank straight whiskey until the pictures blurred and danced before Martin's eyes. He kissed her, felt her breasts flatten against his chest, felt her body tense and strain toward his.

Suddenly he thrust her back and asked the question that had been haunting him for months. "Did your mother know John Lawrence? I've got to know?"

Her breath was coming in great gasps, her breasts rising and falling. She moaned, finally murmured, "Of course, she knew him, They had quite an affair before he killed his wife." Then her arms pulled him close again.

Moments later the door opened noiselessly, a throaty voice said, "Well, well well! Pardon me!"

Guiltily Dean Martin staggered to his feet. The girl was the first to break the silence that followed, her voice low, almost a growl. "Can't you knock before coming where you're not wanted? How did you find me?"

Olivia LaFarge laughed, "Oh, I'm quite a bloodhound once I get on the scent, Mr. Martin, my daughter is a very wayward young girl. Occasionally she gets fed up and runs away. Come, Lola, I'm taking you home. Three days on your own are quite sufficient. No, no, Mr. Martin, don't apologize."

AS they left, Mrs. LaFarge said, "I'll be expecting you, Dean, at the house." Her eyes were a challenge, a warning, and a promise.

Strangely enough the first thing Martin did was return to the office and look up the Lawrence Murder. John Lawrence had killed his wife by tearing her throat to shreds with his teeth while under the influence of liquor.

Dinner was a silent meal at the Martin house. Martin caught himself gazing at the soft column of his wife's throat, caught himself fingering the little wound at the base of his own throat, caught himself thinking of John Lawrence. As he read that night, a picture danced incessantly across the pages of the book. He closed his eyes to wipe it out, dropped off into a half drunken stupor.

He dreanied that Irene was running, running from a great beast that pursued with leaps and bounds, slavering at the mouth. Presently she stumbled and fell in a flurry of skirts and the beast was on her. Great fangs tore into the softness of her throat, rent the white flesh into ribbons while blood poured in rivulets.

"Dean! Dean!" Irene shaking him again, worried and distraught. "Go to bed, Dean, you must be ill! You've been growling like a dog!"

He arose unsteadily, staggered toward the bedroom. Something salt and warm was in his mouth. He swallowed greed-ly, licked at his lips with avidity.

Pausing before the mirror he saw that he had bitten his own lip.

Later he felt Irene beside him. She kissed him softly on the cheek. He pretended to be asleep. Softly she murmured, "Poor Dean! I mustn't blame him, he's ill. But oh, if things could just be like they used to be!"

Instinctively he reached for her, pulled her close. For a minute the old joy of possession swarmed through his veins. Love overcame him as he kissed her, caressed her, felt her pulse respond. But in a moment she shivered and pulled away.

"What's the matter, darling?" he asked hoarsely.

"Dean, Dean, that awful noise! You rumble, you growl, like an animal!"

FOR hours he lay stiff and rigid beside her, fighting, fighting. In his mind's eye he saw the white column of her throat, saw every vein, every pulse beat. He clinched his fists until his nails cut into his palms. If he could only sink his teeth into that soft throat! If he could only— He groaned aloud. Again the last warmth of blood in his mouth, his own blood from bitten lips. Grimly he arose.

He wrote a note and left it for her on the vanity. The note read:

"Irene: This is hell. I must be mad, insane. I'm going away until I can get a grip on myself. Do not try to find me. Believe me it is all for the best. Dean."

Dean Martin left his wife to keep from murdering her. He plodded through the storm, oblivious of rain and flood, walked the weary miles to Olivia LaFarge's mansion. Her only words were, "I've been waiting. I knew you'd come."

He said, "Damn you! Damn you! So you knew I'd come, did you! But did you know why? Why I came?"

She was at arm's length now, her eyes glowing, her red lips parted.

One claw-like hand reached out, sank into the flesh of her throat. "I came to kill you," his voice was thick, "to kill you because of this thing you've done to me! I'll kill you as I would a mad dog, a mad dog, damn your soul!"

He shook her savagely, viciously. "So you thought you could do me as you did poor John Lawrence! You're worse than a mad dog, a thousand times worse. Once your virus enters a man's blood he hasn't a chance. He wants to kill, to rend and tear with his teeth, exactly like you. You'll betray no others, you Circe!"

Her red lips continued to smile, her green eyes continued to burn. Slowly her taut body seemed to relax, she sagged at the knees, but her arms and hands made no move in her own defense. He glared at her like a man demented, saliva drooled from his mouth to drip off his chin. "Damn you, damn you, damn you," he gloated.

Between the clutching fingers of his two hands he saw the pulse beat at the base of her throat. Her negligee had dropped half aside, exposing the smooth, milky upper surface of breasts. The green eyes continued to stare up at him with challenge even after he had thrust her pitilessly down on the divan.

"Oh, God," he groaned and licked at his hot lips. His fingers slowly relaxed their grip. He sank to his knees. The pulse in her throat seemed magnified a thousand times, seemed to fill the whole room, until his very being was a flaming pulse. He groaned again and thrust his mouth savagely against that throbbing pulse. The woman stirred, placed long, caressing fingers in his hair and laughed exultantly.

Suddenly she screamed shrilly, tried to push him aside. Something swished through the air crashed against Martin's head. Before he could move aside, the weapon arced downward again. Lights danced before his eyes. With a little sigh he half turned, laid his cheek against the burning cushion of her shoulder as she surged upright.

HE AWAKENED in a daze. The room was in utter darkness except for the flickering flare of the open fire. Dazedly he peered about. His head was one aching throb, one roaring pain. He was lying on the davenport where he had last seen Olivia LaFarge. He stretched out a hand, started back as it encountered something furry, warm.

A great dog turned its head and looked Its eyes were green, green flames, its lolling tongue dripped liquid, its great tusks were white and menacing. A low rumbling growl came from its throat. As if disdaining him for a weakling, it turned away again.

Across the room, crouching before the fire was another, exactly like the first! The dog beside Martin spoke coldly. "I've told you a thousand times not to interfere in my affairs."

"It isn't happening! It isn't happening! I'm insane!" Martin said it over and over.

The second dog answered the first. "If I hadn't interfered, you would be dead. Besides, Dean Martin is my affair, not yours!"

"You fool," growled the first beast, "the man is mine and I mean to keep him."

The second dog laughed unpleasantly. "He may have something to say about that. Fool, am I? Well, at that, what man in his right mind would take an old fool when he could have a young one?"

The great dog by Martin uttered a growl of hate, sprang toward the other. The room was filled with the din of their battle. They clawed, snapped, snarled, rolled over and over. Once they surged too near the fire and the smell of burning hair filled the room. Blood began to stain the rug where white fangs ripped flesh and muscle.

"I came to kill you as I would a mad dog," he snarled.

Suddenly he could stand it no longer, the stench of burned hair, the smell of blood, the crashing noise of the battle for life. He put a foot on the floor, another. Presently he stood upright, reached for the heavy poker and tiptoed toward a pair of French doors, weapon in hand.

A shrill cry of pain rose above the tumult. A quick glance showed that one of the great dogs had been crippled. It rolled over into a corner and the victorious beast turned and glared at the escaping man with blazing eyes. Suddenly it sprang, teeth shining, red mouth gaping.

MARTIN swung the heavy poker. His aim was true; it crashed against the skull of the brute with a sickening sound. With a little whimper the dog thudded to the floor. Again Martin raised the bar of iron, brought it down upon the unprotected skull. Blood gushed from the dying beast's nose. Martin turned and ran out the door. Over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the wounded dog arising from the corner, glaring balefully, limping after him in pursuit. He ran frantically into the storm.

Bushes tore at him, undergrowth caught at his ankles. In spite of his efforts he sensed the approach of the beast. Once he looked back and saw the staggering body only a few feet behind, the eyes flaming, the tongue lolling in the flare of the lightning. His breath came in sobs, gasps, his heart pounded like a bellows. Near the wall of the estate he turned at bay, poker raised.

Straight at his throat the beast launched itself. He swung the poker with the last ounce of his failing strength. The beast did not whimper. It lay in the mud and ooze and slime and trembled convulsively for a moment before dying.

Dean Martin fought his way to the top of the wall. Something rose in his throat and he threw back his head and howled into the storm. A victorious fighter roaring his challenge to others, sounding his contempt for defeated adversaries.

SOMEONE was shaking his shoulder. A voice was saying, "Dean! Dean! Wake up! You're having another nightmare!" He opened his eyes sleepily, peered up into the round blue ones of Irene, his wife. He gasped.

"Gee," she said shakily, "you scared me to death. You were howling like a dog again!"

Outside the sky was a dirty grey. He got up, slipped into his robe and slippers and went toward the bathroom. His mind was a torrent of doubt. A dream?

The whole thing had been a dream! He'd been drinking too hard, his mind was at the snapping point, but thank God the whole thing a dream! But was it?

He went back into the bedroom, searched the bureau for the note he had written. It was nowhere to be found. "Irene," he said slowly, "did you find a note addressed to you?"

"Don't be silly. I haven't been out of bed yet."

Again he searched— fruitlessly. There was no note. As he walked from the room, he whistled. A dream, a dream, he told himself over and over! He could have shouted with joy of the thing. When he was almost dressed and was shaving, he did laugh, laughed at the ridiculousness of the thing! Dogs that talked! Dogs that fought over a man! He pulled the tape from the base of his throat. The laugh died, his eyes opened wide in astonishment. He ran from the room shouting, "Irene, Irene!"

She peered out of the kitchen, wide eyed— "What in the world?"

"Look, look! The open place, the sore place! It's healed, overnight! Only a scar left!'

Like a child suddenly made happy he seized her in his arms, rained kisses on her upturned face. Thank God the spell was broken, the whole horrible ordeal was over! He kissed her white throat, her ardent lips, over and over, just to prove to himself that he could— without desiring to draw blood.

The phone rang.

SHE trotted toward it, he kept laughing, kept repeating, "A dream, a dream! Just a damned bad nightmare!"

"Hello," he boomed.

"Hello, this is Squires." Squires was a rewrite man on the Planet, Martin's paper. "The boss wants you to get down as quick as you can. Got one for you to cook up. Seen a paper?"

"Not yet. Say let me tell you about a nightmare, I—"

"You'll think nightmare. There's been another fiend murder. Some maniac broke into the LaFarge house and killed the mother and daughter both." His voice droned on while Dean Martin tried to pull himself back to sanity.

Tautly, carefully, holding himself, he broke in on Squire's words. "Where were the bodies found?"

"The girl was killed in the library of the mansion. For some reason the fiend dragged the mother clear to the south wall of the estate. Heads of both victims were crushed in and both bodies are covered with wounds, teeth marks according to the police. It'll be a horror tale right up your alley. The boss says—"

But Dean Martin had hung up.

He walked slowly into the bedroom, still saying, "It was a dream, only a dream."

Irene found him standing before the dresser pouring a stiff drink.

"What's the matter, sweetheart"

His answer was strange. He said, "God Almighty, look at my clothes, my trousers, and shoes."

Presently she said, "Why don't worry about that, honey. It's just mud, it'll come right off."

_________________

Arms and the Man III

14: Wheels of Doom

H Bedford-Jones

1887-1949

Blue Book April 1935

MARTIN BURNSIDE telephoned that he had a surprise for me. This queer old chap, who collected arms and armor and things connected with them, was full of surprises. When I walked into his study he peered ip at me over his spectacles, and waved . hand at the object on his desk before um,

"Know what that is?" he rasped.

Naturally I did, and said so. It was a clay model of an Egyptian chariot, not over six inches long, handsomely painted; it had been baked, of course.

"Rather a crude thing," I observed loftily, and he grinned in delight.

"You would say so. Oh, my Lord, that tickles me!"— and he cackled anew. Burnside was not a lovable person at times. He leaned back in his chair, and by the look in his eye I knew somes thing sharp was coming.

"Do you know when and how the chariot started as a weapon of war? No, you don't. It's time you did. You know that chap Lawton, who was in the Sudanese police so long? He brought this home with his stuff last week and gave it tome. He got it in Upper Egypt some years ago, where some fellahin had uncovered a tomb. He got that and four rolls of papyrus, which he's had translated. Smuggled it out of the country, of course, and has lent it to me. There's the translation of the papyrus. The mummy in the tomb, by the way, had been stolen. Go ahead, take it home, and see what you make of it."

I was not particularly up on Egyptian stuff, but took the translation home and pored over it. Somewhat to my own surprise, it began to interest me once I got under the skin of the thing, with its queer turns of phrase. Rather, I should say, the people in it interested me, for they were alive. And the place— the same four thousand years ago as when I saw it but yesteryear.

The same, but the barracks were different. Low white houses huddled along the wind-driven sand hills of the shore, a temple of Ra lifted dumpy pylons to the blazing sun, and beside the wells that gave the place existence ran the camp and the huge store-sheds and the fort. The same fort, destroyed and rebuilt times innumerable, which four thousand years later was to reécho to Bonaparte's guns, and still later to the tramp of Anzac contingents.

For this was El Arish, the desolate outpost of Egypt on the frontier of Syria.

On one side, the glinting Mediterranean; on the other three sides, desert sands and death. In the great sheds lay provisions, war material, supplies for a whole army; there was always danger of raids from the Khita, the fierce warriors whose empire embraced all Syria and beyond, and in case of alarm, carrier pigeons could summon fifty thousand men hither in a week's time to hold the frontier.

In Egypt ruled a new Par-aa, or "Great House," as the lord of the land was known. He whom the Greeks called the Pharaoh Sesostris. And in El Arish commanded the young noble Heptshefa, greatly loved and greatly hated— as must be any strong man.

IN the long, pleasant coolness of the potter's shop, adjoining the house of Tanis the priest, Heptshefa was wont to spend much time. He was impatient of caste restrictions, and in El Arish their importance dwindled; besides, Petros the Greek potter was a shrewd fellow, who had found clay-banks up: the coast and turned them to use. He was young, also, and was a man of dreams and kindling imagination. A dangerous fellow, some said, for it was whispered that he scoffed at kings and lords.

From the house adjoining, Neferu the priest's daughter came often with her two women, to sit under the cool arcades and talk as she made pretense of working or sewing. Those three were much in company. Petros would look at the slim, lovely Neferu with a glory of devotion in his face, a sensitive, thoughtful face. Heptshefa would regard her with a glitter in his hawk's eyes, a laugh on his lips, rapture in his heart. But if she loved either or both, Neferu said not.

Upon a day, Heptshefa came striding into the place, a cotton robe over his erect figure. Neferu looked up, laughing.

"What, no clank of armor? Our warrior wears the robe of a slave?"

"Bah! It's too hot for ceremony!"

And Heptshefa took a seat opposite her. He looked at the potter, who was painting a bit of baked clay. "What's that youre making? A miniature manure cart for some farmer's tomb-burial?"

The sunny features of Petros glinted amusement at the gibe.

"Such a cart as you've never seen, at least," he rejoined. 'This is a new weapon, with which you nobles and soldiers may kill each other off the better, and a good riddance, too! Too bad you can't all be killed off at one stroke."

Heptshefa laughed. "Explain it!"

"Not I; it's not done yet," said the potter, and flung him a sharp glance. "You look worried. More Khita spies?"

"Yes! A caravan of merchants got in last night. Merchants! They look like soldiers, to my eye. Spies, no doubt of its

"Father is worried, too," said the slim, lovely young woman. "He says it's a bad sign when those Sidonian traders crowd that temple of theirs down by the shore. And the sacrifices in our own temple have shown evil omens."

Heptshefa grunted. "With reason. In the past month, we've heard nothing from our spies up north. None has returned. Nothing to worry about, of course. We have two thousand men in camp here— plenty to hold the place against any force, until help arrives from the Delta."

"So?" queried the potter softly. "Well, I don't love you aristocrats and nobles, but I'll give you a tip, Heptshefa, because you're not a bad sort."

"Thanks," said the Egyptian, with a smile. "A tip on the warrior's trade, potter?"

"Precisely. Do you know what I'd do if I were a Khita prince?"

"Aye; carry off Neferu here."

"But first get rid of you," Petros replied, with his imperturbable good humor. "Establish a thorough search of all caravans, so that no spies or messages could reach you, while the Khita host was preparing for a descent on El Arish. Then plant spies here, with definite work todo. Poison your wells, for one thing."

"And what else?" queried Heptsheta, a glint in his harsh, eager eyes.

"Make certain that you could send no message to Egypt."

"The pigeons, you mean?" Heptshefa whistled softly. "That's an idea! But the birds are kept in the fort."

"Where these merchants from the north peddle trinkets and women slaves
to the soldiers every day. And those Nubian archers of yours can be bribed, my friend."

The soldier's stern brows drew down.

"Right. By the gods, right! I must look to that."

"Bah! You're both getting too serious altogether," broke in the girl, laughing. "You've finished painting that cart, Petros? Come, tell us what it is."

The potter regarded his miniature cart of baked clay, then looked up at them, a glow in his face.

"You never saw a cart like that, either of you!" he exclaimed. "Narrow. With two wheels. So it can pass through the winding streets of a town, or across desert sands without sinking. A small semi-circular platform on the axle, open in back, with a high front and sides; a pole in front, by which two horses could draw it swiftly. Well, soldier? Have you no imagination ? Can you see nothing in it?"

"Devil a thing," said the puzzled Heptshefa, frowning at the model. Petros leaned back, laughing a little, his eyes on the girl rather than on the soldier, as though he sought her interest and approbation chiefly.

"Well, look at your trade, soldier," he rejoined. "Your archers are mounted, your infantry can march hard and far under the sun. But what happens in skirmishes with the Khita? They are heavily armed, trained to close formation, which your Nubian archers cannot break. Their slingers disrupt the attack, put the horses into confusion. You must depend on long-distance arrows to shatter them, or do it with your infantry at a heavy cost of life."

"True,"— and Heptshefa laughed curtly. "But we shatter them."

"At cost, yes.", Petros shoved out his model. "Now look at this little cart, this chariot; imagine two men standing in it, one to drive, one to shoot. Imagine it flying along the flanks of the enemy, or charging straight into their serried ranks! Then multiply the one chariot by a hundred, by a thousand—"

HEPTSHEFA leaped to his feet, eyes ablaze, keen features afire.

"By Ra the Glorious! Man, what an idea— what a stroke of genius! Here, give me that model. I'll send it to the Pharaoh at once, suggesting that a thousand of those carts be made and armored with hippopotamus hide. Why, behind that high front, the driver himself might crouch in safety under an arrow-flight! Give it me."

"Not I," said Petros coolly.

"What?" Heptshefa eyed him sternly. "Petros, this is a tremendous thing. It promises something new in warfare mobile transport of fighting-men, protected, able to smash through an enemy's line, able to withstand a cavalry charge— why, it's almost beyond conception! You can't refuse to give this invention to Egypt?"

"I'm no Egyptian," said the potter complacently. "Besides, what do I know of a soldier's trade?" he added, with a grin. "Seriously, my friend, do you find it good?"

"Admirable. Egypt must have it."

NEFERU leaned forward, her dark eyes shining,

"Oh, Petros, you must do it, you must!" she cried. "Think what it would mean to Egypt, to us all!"

"Aye," said the potter slowly, looking into her eyes. "Then, since you ask it, Neferu, Egypt shall have the model— at a price."

Scorn filled the hot eager eyes of Heptshefa.

"What price?" he demanded curtly. "Name it. I'll recommend it be paid."

"A price that you and the priest of Ra can pay here and now," said Petros, and rose to his feet. He put off his streaked, stained apron. "You represent Pharaoh, and the price comes from Pharaoh and from the gods. Make me an Egyptian, and a noble."

The two men stood eye to eye, the fine glowing features of Petros meeting the blazing anger of Heptshefa with calm insistence. All three knew what the demand meant. Only as a noble Egyptian could this potter seek the hand of Neferu in marriage.

Heptshefa flushed, then paled again. He glanced at the girl, who stood wide-eyed and glorious in her beauty; and his lips clenched. That sharp eagle-face of his set like rock.

At this instant a slave broke in upon them, hurriedly.

"Lord!" he addressed Heptshefa. "The captain of the fort is outside, seeking you, with prayer for instant speech."

Some emergency, then.... Heptshefa turned and left the long, cool shop and came to the outer entrance where the captain impatiently waited out of the sun. The other turned at his approach, caught his arm, spoke rapidly in a low, tense voice. Heptshefa's gaze went past him to the soldiers waiting in the street.

"Very well," said Heptshefa curtly. "Bring in four men after me, seize this potter, and lay him by the heels in the jail at the fort. Let him have speech with no one, but see that he is comfortable. Follow."

So saying, he turned back into the cool arcades, the officer and four men behind him. Before the astonished Petros realized what was under way, he was a prisoner.

"You opened your mouth too wide, my friend," said Heptshefa grimly. "What you predicted, has come to pass. For the present, you're under arrest."

The Greek was dragged away. Heptshefa turned, as the angry and indignant Neferu broke out in swift questions and protests. He caught her by the arms, heedless of her two women, and looked into her dark eyes, and smiled grimly.

"Now it is life or death for us all, my heart," he said. "Distrust Petros? No; but I'm taking no chances— none! Go to the temple gateway and see what happens. The reason? The carrier pigeons have been poisoned this morning. All of them. Tell your father to offer double sacrifices and to pray the gods for aid. And, Neferu! I love you; I love you, do you understand? Love you!"

His powerful arms drew her close. Under his dominant spell, under the force of his powerful spirit, his eager strength, his quick passion, she was crushed against him; her lips yielded, her hands caught him close in one swift embrace. Then he was gone, striding out into the burning hot street. But she, crouching, covered her face.

IT was a matter of minutes ere the Nubian drums began to mutter, and from the fort trumpets rang out. The caravan of northern traders, assembling at the wells to take the desert road, was surrounded by squads of soldiers. All those men were slain, without question or mercy— all of them. The justice of Egypt was swift and terrible.

Through the streets and houses came bands of soldiery. The Sidonian merchants, the outland men, were sought out and slain, very quickly. Their women and slaves were taken to the camp, their houses looted. Within an hour, there was no person— but Petros— left alive in El Arish, save those of Egyptian birth.

There was reason enough. Not only the pigeons were attacked, but the wells; from them were drawn the bodies of poisoned animals, cunningly placed there. Heptshefa worked clean; once aroused, he ruthlessly purged the entire place of possible danger, for it was life or death in very truth. But Neferu sat on the pylon of the temple, and wept for the friends who lay dead in the streets, and the smiling merchants who would smile no more, and the dark slim Khita and Sidonian women with whom she had laughed and jested, now the sport and prey of the camp.

"I hate him!" she cried out bitterly to her father, the shaven priest of Ra, who watched at her side. "He is a beast, a thing of iron— I hate him!"

"By the gods, he does a soldier's work!" said Tanis the priest, recking not her tears and hot words. "Better they perish today, than we tomorrow."

Heptshefa, a cool slim wide-shouldered figure in his plain white robe, sat in the gateway of the fort and gave his orders. The dead were collected and flung into the sea. The wells were cleansed. Horsemen set forth, and men on camels, to carry letters to the Delta; but they had far to go across the hot sands, and many a weary day would pass ere the armies of Egypt came pouring out to the frontier.

Calling the captains and the scribes before him, Heptshefa ordered that all the soldiers who were artisans be marched apart. There were no trees in El Arish, for during the last Khita raid all had been cut down; only seedling date palms of small growth remained.

Presently parties of soldiers went through the buildings of the town and tore them apart, and carried the beams and woodwork to the camp of the artisans. Tools were issued. When he had sent forth scouts to the north, and brought arms and food from the sheds to the fort, Heptshefa went into the town himself and into the house of Petros the potter, and came out bearing the little cart of freshly painted clay. This he took to the camp of the artisans, and set it for all to see on a block of stone.

"Who touches this, dies," he said curtly. "Touch not, but study it well. Thanks be to Ra, we have no lack of wheels in the sheds, for the use of transport wagons. Write an order for them, scribe. Where is the captain of the mounted archers?"

"Here, Lord,"— and an officer pushed forward with a salute.

"Dismount half your men," Heptshefa ordered. "I have need of their horses. Drill them in foot formation."

JARS of oil were broken open, so that when night came there were flares to light the camp of the artisans, who labored on in relays without pause. Thus, with all done that could be done, Heptshefa laid aside his work and went to the temple. There he spoke for a while with Tanis the priest, then asked for Neferu; but she sent back word that she would not see him. At this, Heptshefa strode angrily into the women's quarters, and stood before her as she sprang up in furious greeting.

"Peace," he said brusquely. "Stop your vain screeching, Neferu."

"Oh, what a brute you are!" she exclaimed, more calmly, yet trembling with her anger. "What you have done this day, what you have done to the man whom you called a friend—"

Her words died before the cold smile of Heptshefa.

"If you speak of Petros, I have certainly saved his life," he rejoined calmly. "Now listen to me. I have told you that I loved you. Your father agrees that you are to marry me; you will marry me, and like it. But if you would give me one smile—"

Neferu struck him across the face. He shrugged, and laughed a little,

"Very well; tomorrow, next week, next month, you'll change your tune. Remember, you are as my wife!"

Then he turned and walked out.

TANIS the priest of Ra, who was a greedy man, laughed long and loud at Neferu's anger. He could well afford to do so, since Heptshefa came of a great and wealthy house in Lower Egypt, and was like to rise to greater heights before he died.

"Youre like all the rest, Neferu," he said, chuckling. "Can't abide the thought of him! Yet, once married and settled down, you'll swear he's the noblest man in Egypt. I suppose you're in love with that fool of a Greek potter?"

"Perhaps I am," she said, her dark eyes flashing. "And what of it?"

"Why, nothing at all!" and her father laughed again. "Nothing at all— just like that, my dear."

A bitter true word was this, though spoken in jest. Nothing could come of it. And, when her anger had run its course into death, Neferu sat with despair in those dark eyes of hers....

Three days of feverish activity passed, the smithies roaring and the soldier-artisans laboring day and night. Heptshefa slept like his men, when he could, by fits and snatches. He was ever in the ranks of the artisans, consulting, ordering, testing, and as gradually there came some semblance of order from this chaos, one morning he met Neferu as he passed through the camp. She was standing before the great block of stone on which stood the little painted clay model of the chariot, and as Heptshefa drew near, she turned and greeted him with hot words.

"Thief! So this is what all the work is about—you have stolen the idea of Petros, you are making carts like this one he invented!"

Heptshefa laughed. "You do well to call me thief, since that word means taker as well," he said. "What Egypt needs, she takes. What I myself need, I take. As I shall take you, lovely creature— as I take you now!"

And his powerful arm swept out, held her against him, while he laughed down into her eyes.

Neferu struggled for a moment; then she said angrily:

"Beast! You would treat me like a slave-girl in front of all the camp?"

"Not so; like my loving wife, as you shall be!" And Heptshefa's aquiline features were eager in their flashing strength. "Closer, my heart, closer! You shall yet sit beside me upon the throne of a viceroy, I promise you!"

She ceased to struggle, and looked up at him as he held her tightly against his breast.

"Well, thief, who am I to fight against you?" she said slowly. "Take the body, if you want it; the heart and soul, the ka, the spiritual self, you shall never have."

"Bah! Talk like a woman, not a girl," said he impatiently. Then his expression changed to amused tolerance. "By the way, what's this I hear about you having visited the fort last night and left gifts at the jail? Think you that you can bring dainties to a prisoner and no word of it reach me?"

"Have I denied it?" she said proudly. "If you had the generosity of a man in your heart of flint, you'd let me talk with Petros and comfort him."

A laugh broke from Heptshefa, and loosing her, he called one of the scribes who followed him.

"Write the Lady Neferu a pass to any portion of the fort she wishes to visit," he said, and flung her a careless, merry gesture: "There you are, my dear; and now I'm too busy to bother with you further. Farewell."

Late that afternoon one of the scouts came in and hurriedly sought out Heptshefa where none other could hear.

"Lord, we have made contact with the Khita," he said. "They are three days' march from here; we caught one of them and tortured him. Ten thousand men, half bowmen, half heavy infantry; behind comes a huge train of supplies, and behind this, the main Khita army, fifty thousand strong. This main force will not be up for two weeks. The vanguard is sent to wipe out our force here and secure the wells. The water means life."

Heptshefa rewarded him and sent him away. 'Then, with the priest of Ra at his side, he gathered his captains about him and told them the news. There was time to send away the women and children of the force.

"Let them remain," said one officer calmly, "Should they not be with us when we cross the dark waters? Let them remain and fight with us, and die for Egypt."

There was a growl of assent from the others. Heptshefa looked at the priest.

"Well, Tanis? Shall not I send you and your daughter and household away?"

"I remain," said the priest curtly. "As to Neferu, she is in your hand."

"Then let her remain also," and Heptshefa laughed, and stretched forth his fist, his eyes glittering fiercely. "You shall have fighting, you wolves!"

The captains shouted, and the name of the Pharaoh resounded in thunder.

After the meeting, Heptshefa went by himself to the jail of the fortress and there spoke with the chief guard, and passed quietly within. He came to a cell where a dim light burned, and looked in to see Neferu sitting there, with the head of Petros on her breast and his arms about her. When Heptshefa walked into the cell they drew apart, the girl standing proudly before him, Petros in bitter anger.

"Nay, go on and comfort him!" said Heptshefa, with a smile, but at this Neferu cursed him angrily and departed. He met the gaze of Petros, and his smile died out. "Well, my friend, I have saved your life. You're the only foreigner left alive in this place; and in three days the Khita will be here."

"You still think me a spy?" snarled Petros. The brows of Heptshefa lifted.

"My dear fellow, I never thought so; but others might. Your tongue wags too much. By the way, I'm about to make use of your little cart."

"So I hear," said the other harshly. "Afraid to give the payment I sought, eh?"

Heptshefa eyed him with cool scrutiny.

"The letters to Pharaoh are written, signed and sealed by me and by the priest of Ra. You are at liberty to carry them yourself, and to depart when you like. As there are ten thousand Khita in the vanguard alone, it will scarcely be a fair test of your invention; so if you wish to remain alive to catch the fruits of it, you'd best get off in the morning. We who stay here will not live to see the result."

"You mean— I am free to go? It is no trick?" cried Petros, staring.

"Am I a liar, then? Of course you're free to go."

"Ah! And Neferu?"

"Egyptians don't run from death, my friend. She remains."

"You force her to remain! You give her no choice!"

HEPTSHEFA turned, summoned a guard, and spoke curtly.

"Bring the Lady Neferu. I think she has not gone far."

She had not, indeed, and presently she came into the cell again.

"Petros is free to depart in the morning for Thebes," Heptshefa said to her, "with letters to the Pharaoh. If you desire to go with him, you may go. To remain here is death, as you know."

"What?" she cried. "I may go— with him?"

"Of course," and Heptshefa smiled a little. "Why not, if you so desire?"

"Oh! And my father is going?"

"The priest of Ra? Not likely; he has already refused. Egypt is here, you see."

"Egypt— is here!" she repeated slowly, and her eyes widened, and a quick pallor came into her cheeks. "Egypt— is here! Oh, you devil! You man with heart of iron! Well do you know that I could not go, after those words. Desert, run, flee from death— am I not an Egyptian, also? No. I remain. Petros, go, go, I command you with my love!"

She went out of the cell, and the two men looked one at another, and in the face of Petros was mingled hatred and a grudging admiration.

"A devil you may be, Heptshefa, but you are the greatest of men!" he said. "Keep your letters. I am skilled in the ways of horses; when the Khita come, give me armor and one of those chariots to drive."

"Good!" The deep eyes of Heptshefa kindled, and he put out his hand. "You and I shall drive one of them together."

And Petros gripped his hand on the bargain.

WITH morning, there was fear in all the camp. Men came, trembling, to tell Heptshefa that during the night the little clay model of the chariot had vanished from its place on the stone block. This was told him as he left the temple of Ra, and in keen anger he had the night guards brought before him. They could tell nothing; they had seen no one, yet the little clay chariot had disappeared,

"Slay them," said Heptshefa, and it was done there before the temple. On the pylon above, Neferu stood and looked down at the scene....

From his prison came Petros that morning, and took command of the work. Now the chariots began to take form and be assembled. By night, ten of them were ready for use. Forty more would be done by the next night—fifty in all. Harness was quickly made up, and with morning, chosen horses from the cavalry stables were broken to the work. Before nightfall, all fifty chariots were careering over the sand, one man holding the reins, an archer beside him to fight.

Tall and high were made the front guards of these chariots, and covered with leather or hippopotamus hide that would turn arrows and darts. Hide shields were made for the horses, also.

More scouts had come in this day. The Khita were close at hand, and would be at El Arish by the next night. Heptshefa called his captains before him.

"We meet them as they arrive from the long day's march," he said curtly, and appointed officers to take command if he fell. 'I lead the chariots. We take position on the ridge a mile north of the town. When the time comes, I will give the orders; not until."

"Shall we not harass them with our cavalry as they advance?" asked the captain of the mounted archers. Heptshefa looked at him.

"No, Remain at my side and take my orders when the moment arrives."

AS only a hundred horses were required for the chariots, there still remained nine hundred archers—enough to worry the solid ranks of the Khita, who would be worn with the desert march, their cavalry weak and perishing from thirst. The scouts had brought word that they had a thousand cavalry, most of their force being the heavy-armed fighters who had made the Khita name terrible in the north.

With the next morning, Heptshefa practised his horses and chariots and men a good two hours, then bade them rest. When the shock of battle came, he said grimly, few of them would keep their footing in the chariots, and swords would be better weapons than bows to carry. To the captains of each ten chariots, he gave explicit instructions, and there let the matter rest until the enemy appeared.

Scouts came in thick and fast. By noon, the solid masses of the Khita were in sight to the north, skirmishers and scouts advancing in their van. Two hours later, Heptshefa sent forth his legions to the chosen position, where the enemy scouts were mg halting. These were swiftly driven off by the cavalry.

On the brow of the ridge, facing the long slopes of sand below, the Egyptian ranks took post, and within the squares of infantry were ranged the chariots by tens. In that where Heptshefa stood, Petros was by his side, full armored, holding the reins. The cavalry waited on the flanks, their captain anxiously biding by the chariot of Heptshefa. Two great clouds of horsemen appeared to right and left of the advancing Khita, and presently swept forward to attack the two thousand on the ridge above.

"You see them?" Heptshefa said to the leader of his cavalry. "The horses are slow and weary with the hot sun. Well, break them! And when they have broken, call off your men under pain of death. Call them off, understand? And keep them for the slaughter that will follow— if so the gods decide. Go!"

The trumpets sounded. To right and left, ten chariots swept out on either hand, and with them the companies of Nubian horsemen, They swooped and like a darting falcon fell upon the ranks of the Khita horse. The chariots smote them asunder, shattered them, and not all of those chariots returned from the meeting. Then the Nubians rode into the gaps, their arrows showered, and their long Egyptian swords ravened through the host.

Back on either wing fell the Khita horse, broken and smashed, back in wild panic from the chariots that survived. Then the Nubians wheeled and came trotting back up the slope. The solid ranks of Khita infantry had halted, but now came on once more, steadily surging on, wave upon wave, to overwhelm the Egyptian lines by sheer might and weight. Their wings opened up, and their center showed the standard of their leader. Heptshefa flung his orders swiftly. His captains ran and sprang into their chariots. He touched Petros on the arm, his eyes glittering fiercely.

"Go!" lifted his voice, and a trumpet blared.

Forward, down the slope, swept the Egyptian ranks. They opened. From between them swept the forty remaining chariots. Those surviving that first encounter swung about to join the mad rush. Behind followed the spearmen.

Beholding this charge headed directly at their center, the Khita halted and wavered. The spectacle of those chariots hurtling down upon them was new and terrible. Even before the great crash and clangor that was heard clearly back in El Arish, the serried ranks wavered. Then the plunging chariots smashed home. Reeling, rocking wildly, turning over or careering straight ahead through the ranks of men they went, death and confusion around them even when they tipped and went to ruin.

By a miracle, Heptshefa kept his feet in that wild shock. Straight through the lines drove his chariot under the cunning guidance of Petros, straight up on the standard of the Khita leader. The shafts of Heptshefa sang bitter death to those around, and in the tall chariot he was above their strokes or protected. There was a whirl and din of struggling men, then a deeper yell as the Egyptian infantry smashed home.

Rank upon rank crumpled up. The Khita standard was down. Back they drove in mad panic upon the lines behind, and close behind them poured the Egyptians.

Upon all that host seized fear and wild terror, and the serried ranks became a mad mob of fugitives. From the flanks, the Nubian horsemen swept in upon them, and drove them down upon the shore of the sea and slew without ceasing until darkness fell.

But Heptshefa was not with them. A wild shock, and one wheel was broken. The chariot sagged, the horses came to a halt among the welter of wounded and dead.

Heptshefa looked at the man beside him, for Petros was laughing strangely into his face.

"A good test, a good test!" cried out the Greek. "Take another chariot, Lord, for this one is done— and the driver as well—"

And he drooped down as he spoke. Heptshefa caught him, and saw that a shaft had sped in under his armpit; and as he looked, Petros sagged down and died at his side.

OF that array, only twelve chariots returned to El Arish, blood splashed upon wheels and bodies and horses. The Khita were scattered like leaves on the blast, and few of them would live in the burning deserts of sand. And, when Heptshefa came back to the fort, he found that a carrier pigeon had arrived from the Delta. His first messengers had won through, and already the armies of Egypt were gathering. In two weeks the clouds of cavalry would be at El Arish, said the message. At this, a grim, harsh laugh of exultation broke from him.

"Two weeks! The main army of the Khita will not have arrived then—this blow will halt them and give us time. Egypt is saved, saved!"

Then he added, looking down at the dead and strangely smiling face of Petros: "Saved indeed, by one who goes unrewarded.... Well, that's life for you!"

Then the softness died from his eyes, and his shoulders went back, and he strode out into the torch-lit camp to give quick, curt orders. If he thought at all of his promised wife, he had no time to spare on her this night.

So ended the story of the papyrus; or rather, so I thought it ended, but there I was far wrong.

WHEN I saw Martin Burnside again and laid the sheets on his desk, and with them the little painted clay model of a chariot, I remarked on the oddly abrupt ending.

"Indeed?" he said testily. "But you don't know the ending, my boy. By the way, that was the first introduction of chariots into war, so far as we know exactly—"

"Damn the chariots!" I broke in. "I'd like to hear what became of Heptshefa, and of that girl Neferu."

"Well, I can tell you in a few words," and Martin Burnside peered at me over his spectacles. "I've been going into the matter. In his account of the Sudan, Sir Wallis Budge tells how, in 1915, Dr. Reisner of Boston found the actual tomb of Heptshefa there. At Assiut, far in the north, a splendid tomb had been prepared for him, but it was never used; that, also, has been opened. Heptshefa died as viceroy of the Sudan, and there he was buried."

I frowned, puzzled.

"But I still don't get it, Martin!" I protested. "I thought you said this chap Lawton had found his tomb? In fact, that it was from Heptshefa's tomb this tiny clay chariot came, and also the papyrus."

"Not at all; from the tomb of Neferu his wife," said Martin Burnside, and gave me a significant look. "Does that suggest the ending of the story to you, my boy? She also died in the Sudan, probably after he did. He was the greatest warrior, the most famous military leader, of his day and dynasty; but nothing of his was laid in her tomb. Nothing was buried with her except the papyrus story of Petros, the man she had loved; and the little clay model Petros had made so long ago, and which she had kept in secret so many years. Does it suggest anything to you from the book of life, my boy?"

It did... . It suggested so much that I remained silent, and touched the little painted clay model of a chariot with reverent fingers.

_________________

15: Blatherwick

Evelyn Glover

(fl. 1900-1905)

Hillston Spectator and Lachlan River Advertiser 22 June 1901

WE WERE a steady-going little Midland town. We had never sought greatness, nor do I know why it should have been thrust upon us. We were not, as a community, far-seeing; consequently, when Blatherwick came down to stay with distant and previously unknown connections, and offered to get up an entertainment for a local charity, we accepted all unthinkingly. Moreover, we accepted Blatherwick, too.

But, as I have said, we were not far-seeing. I should like, in self-justification, to make an exception at the outset. I had known Blatherwick at college, and when I heard of that which had been arranged, I did demur. I was called a damper, a wet blanket, a Job's comferter, an extinguisher, and a spectre at the feast. But I did demur, and I place this thing to my credit.

'What!' said Blatherwick, on his arrival, 'old Drugger here?' (My name is Drew, but he and I had been members of the dark-blue 'Varsity, which adapts, appellations in a manner peculiar to itself.) 'Good! We'll make him act!'

I can't act, by the way. Blatherwick is four-and-twenty. I am three years his senior, and I am tutor to the Mellings' smallest son.

The Mellings are the afore-mentioned connections of Blatherwick, and are six-fold. They fell in at once with his suggestions.

'How simply lovely of you!' exclaimed one, Beatrice. 'Do you mean a play?'

'Well— er— not quite a play, perhaps...' Blatherwick has a round, baby face, and it is generally beaming. 'You see, I've got to be off in ten days. But we could easily do some choruses out of the  "Geisha," in costume, you know.'

' "The Parrot Song"!' cried Muriel Melling. She is a very nice girl, though she has, unfortunately, no ear for music.

'Or "Chon Kina",' said Mrs. Melling amiably.

'Isn't the 'Geisha' just a little out of date?' I asked.

We were all sitting at dinner. I know what it feels to be looked at as if you weren't there.

'We could hire the dresses, I suppose,' said Nathalie, who was also a Melling.

'If you care to go to that expense,' said Blatherwick; 'but a girl I know at home was going in for a thing of this kind, and she made her own kimono and obi and all the rest of it, and she looked the best of the lot. She was a very clever girl, though.'

He looked doubtfully round the table. Maybe the gods had smitten the assembly with mental blindness, for nobody smiled.

'Let's see,' said another Melling, Clara by name. 'There are the Danes, and the Overshots, and the Cannings, and the Edens, with a brother in every family, and three— no, four— of the girls are engaged. Perhaps their fiances—'

'Nothing better,' said Blatherwick.

'But two choruses wouldn't take more than half an hour,' I began. ' Don't you think—?'

At the moment I caught Mr. Melling's eye, and I noted the slightest possible flicker of one eye-lid. And I held my peace.

Blatherwick bore everyone along resistlessly. For the next week our very beings were permeated with stuffs and needles and pins and fragments of newspaper, which were— you learnt this thing when you had crumpled them into the wastepaper-basket— 'parts of a pattern.'

Blatherwick informed me that I was to be Wei-hai-wei, or Choo-Fow-Pang, or something of the kind.

'I'm hanged if I will!' I said.

'My dear chap, it doesn't matter what sort of an ass you make of yourself in a thing like this. Why, a fellow I know at home—'

'But I can't act, man!' I interrupted.

'Oh, that doesn't matter!' said Blatherwick. Then they measured me for a kimono.

I think that most things, if you let them alone, lead to a climax; and because I fancied that I could discern an inevitable climax somewhere about the three-quarter stage of affairs, I did all that was required of me with cheerfulness. You have, doubtless, seen 'A Pantomime Rehearsal.' It was vividly in my mind as Blatherwick gathered us about him two nights before that fixed for the performince.

It was our first joint assemblage for rehearsal. Blatherwick said that we all knew the music, and that he could show us the necessary actions in half an hour. The girl selected for Mollie Seymour was tall, and bristled with acute angles, and had a very fine voice. Her fiancée, a certain Captain Woodward, was going to sing in the chorus. There were, I think, four engaged couples in this thing.

We met in the Mellings' drawing-room. Blatherwick, who is on occasions very playful, hopped on to the music-stool, and spun himself round three times. About him stood twelve girls in kimonos of varying hues. We could not hear ourselves speak, because it was the first time, they had met thus attired. Fringing the cluster of girls were ten men in evening dress. They all had kimonos, and they all had excellent excuses for not having put them on.

Blatherwick ran his first finger sharply from the depths of the bass to the heights of the treble.

There was a momentary lull.

'Now, Miss Eden,' he said cheerfully, 'we'll try "Chon Kina". You other ladies line up each side— show 'em how, Drugger. Miss Eden, you get back to the door, and run in playfully, you know.'

Miss Eden is five foot eight, and a trifle heavy.

'Oh, I couldn't!' she said.

'Nonsense!' said Blatherwick— 'this way.' He was at the door in a moment, and waddled, hugging himself, and fluttering an imaginary fan, from one end of the room to the other. I do Isabel Eden the justice to say that she tried her best to imitate him. Perhaps Blatherwick takes motive into consideration more than most. Anyway, he said, 'Splendid!'

Then she sang her song. She had a full, rich voice, with a world of sadness in it.

'A bit more life,' suggested Blatherwick encouragingly. 'Point to your almond eyes, don't you know.'

There was a stir among the male Japanese. It appeared that two of them were assuring Captain Woodward that Blatherwick was merely quoting from the song.

'And you'll have to dance a bit.' Blatherwick's fingers were wandering softly about the notes of the piano. 'Flop, you know; you are so good at that!'

Personally, I do not think that he meant anything beyond a tribute to Miss Eden's powers of imitation; but Captain W oodward strode fiercely forward. ' Hang it all, sir—'

'Oh, I say,' said Blatherwick, 'I'm sure I never—'

Miss Eden was flopping like a seal about a space of carpet twelve feet by ten, uncertain whether to be pleased or insulted. Suddenly she began to cry. She explained later that had Captain Woodward not considered her normal mode of perambulation extraordinary he would not have thought it necessary to interfere.

'Now, now, don't be foolish,' said Blatherwick smoothingly. 'Take no notice of her!' (This was a hurried stage aside to the Geishas.) 'But she's hysterical,' he explained audibly, as his shoulder was seized in an angry grip by Captain Woodward. 'Why, I know a, girl at home who— Yes, yes, man, I apologise if I've hurt your feelings. But there's nothing the matter with her.'

Isabel Eden floundered from the room sobbing helplessly. Her fiancée, with a glare at Blatherwick that might have shrivelled a sphinx, hurried after her. The room was uncomfortably, awkwardly silent.

'They'll come back,' said Blatherwick easily. 'We can do the chorus quite well without them. Now, please— "Chon Kina, Chon—" '

I think eight of the twelve ladies were quite in tune. Blatherwick's hands crashed suddenly upon the piano.

'You fellows aren't singing! Do you think I'm just here for your amusement? And can't you make the thing more effective by flopping on your faces? The girls at home did that. Kneel first, and then touch the floor with your foreheads. It's quite easy.'

Nathalie Melling prostrated herself in sudden obedience. She had not paused to measure the distance between her standing place and the edge of the piano, and she struck her forehead against an excrescence of carved walnut, and subsided with a suddenness which would have done credit to any native of Japan.

Blatherwick said that when cuts bleed freely there was nothing to fear, and that it was a great mistake to make a fuss about accidents. He seemed quite hurt when two of Nathalie's sisters insisted on accompanying her from the room. Her fiancée went out, too.

'We'll try the chorus again, then. Mis Dane, by the way, you were off your  notes last time.'

Now, Blatherwick has a theory that you should, on an occasion of this kind, sink the man in the profession, so to speak. It is a pretty theory, and suitable, I think, for everything but practice. Still, it showed want of self-control for Miss Dane to flounce from the room and bang the door.

I don't say so much about her brother, because he had been waiting for some time for an excuse to make himself scarce.

It was at this juncture, I think, that "Ten Little Niggers" rose in a shrill, sweet treble from beneath a far sofa. My pupil had a keen sense of humour. Moreover, he was still sore at having been refused any part but a female one. He is a muscular boy, and when Blatherwick returned to the music-stool, after locking the door, he bore marks of battle.

'Soon deal with fellows who want to fool,' he said cheerfully. 'Well, if you'll take Miss Eden's place, Miss Canning, we can leave "Chon Kina" for a bit, and try the "Parrot Song." '

'Oh, I couldn't!' said a short, fair girl, stepping forward, and opening her music at the score in question.

'Come along,' said Blatherwick; 'it's quite easy.'

It was over the matter of the screech that they fell out. The original of the part, you will remember, gave an excellent imitation of a parrot at the end of her verse.

'I couldn't do that,' said Miss Canning.

'But it's quite easy!' Blatherwick screeched. She lifted up her voice in imitation. I don't know when I saw a girl more anxious to please. But on reviewing the situation, I am not surprised that the door-handle was tried, rattled violently, and finally that the door itself was assaulted as with battering-rams. You see, the silence from within was broken only by alternate and ear-splitting screeches from Miss Canning and Blatherwick.

'Open the door!' It was Mrs. Melling's voice.

'Oh, go away and be hanged to you!' cried Blatherwick excitedly. He explained afterwards that he thought young Meredith Melling had returned to the fray.

'You young fool!' I said beneath my breath.

'But if you let him in—' Blatherwick leapt from the piano and clung to my arm as I strode across the room  '—we'll never get on at all!'

A deeper voice had allied itself to Mrs. Mellings', and her husband was remarking: ' Now, open the door?' in persuasive crescendo.

I shook off Blatherwick, turned the key, and flung open the door. On its threshold stood Mrs. Melling, declaiming excitedly Mr. Melling, dutifully echoing the ends of her sentences, Nathalie Melling, with a bandaged head, and two sisters and a fiancée in attendance; Miss Eden, Captain Woodward, Miss Dane, and her recalcitrant brother.

'It's all right,' explained Blatherwick, with nervous geniality. 'Were we making a noise rather? I'll be a big success— a big—'

THE words died on his lips, as it might have been the final flicker of a candle. Mrs. Melling stood, one forefinger slightly raised in Blatherwick's direction, and said, 'Stop!'

'But we hadn't— it isn't—' Blatherwick was nervously pinching his fingers.

'When I consented to this nonsense,' interrupted Mrs. Melling, in majestic scorn, 'I did not anticipate that my guests would be subjected to insult. Not one word, Mr. Blatherwick! I have heard enough! Ladies, coffee is waiting in the dining-room.'

I should like to describe the dwindling Blatherwick. You doubtless know the india-rubber atrocities which assume large proportions when blown, and then retire into themselves, so to speak. Even so did Blatherwick, the irrepressible, retire into himself. The geishas and the men filed out, and he and I faced each other.

'It's— it's a mistake!' he gasped, with a feeble effort at self-reinstatement. 'Why, at home—'

I don't quite know what I said. I think I suggested that he should go there. Anyway, he did.

Mr. Melling wired next morning to six society entertainers in succession. The sixth came down on the following evening, and the charity entertainment was a great success.

Someone said to me the other day—

'Look here, don't the Mellings like music? I sang the "Parrot Song" from the "Geisha," you know, in their drawing room last night, and they sat like a lot of cabbages!'

I said that it was very funny.

___________________

16: Nobody's Business

C S. Montanye

1892-1948

Collier’s December 7 1935

Daily News (Perth) 19 Jan 1938

'THIRD table from the left,' Anson said. 'What do you see?'

Kirby looked. 'An attractive girl.'

Anson outlined his chin with his fingers. He rubbed the back of his hand on it.

'Second table right of the band,' he said. 'What do you see?'

Kirby turned his head. 'Chap in evening dress. Sallow face. Looks a bit of a blackguard.'

'What's he doing?'

'Watching the girl.' Anson nodded. 'It's nobody's business, not ours, anyway. Still, when you get a girl like that and set her out to be watched by a character like him, you've got something interesting. She knows him, too!'

Anson lighted a cigarette. Tinker's Tavern— so named because it stood on the site of one of London's real old inns, and was the only profitable activity of Joe Tinker known to the income tax authorities— was filled with the after-theatre crowd. Its famous mirror bar had them standing three deep.

'The chap in evening dress is Harry Simmonds,' Anson said. 'He's connected with a gambling house in Mayfair.'

Kirby moved his glance back to the third table from the left. The girl was a knockout. She wore a simple dark blue dress under a velvet wrap. She had no hat. Her softly waved hair was a mixture of gold and brown. The smoky rafter lamps made it glimmer. Her oval face, long-lashed eyes and red, provocative mouth were perfect. She was with an inconspicuous young man. His suit was grey.

A waiter stepped up to the table. He spoke to the youth in the grey suit. The young man pushed his glass back and got up.

'Wanted on the telephone,' Anson said. 'Watch what happens next.'

THE girl's escort was hardly out of sight before Simmonds was in his chair. He put his elbows on the table. He leaned forward. He spoke rapidly. The girl listened, motionless, her eyes veiled by her lashes.

'Propositioning her,' Anson said.

'It's nobody's business, but I wish I had an ear big enough to stretch over there.'

'Do you suppose the waiter's message was a dodge?' Kirby, asked.

'It looks like it. Fake telephone call to get him out for a minute. Simmonds has finished. He's making an exit.'

The youth came back to the table. He said something to the girl. She got up, with the wrap over her arm. Harry Simmonds, Kirby noticed, was smiling.

'Well,' he said, 'it's over.'

'It's just begun,' Anson corrected. 'I recognised Grey Suit. He's young Scott Boyd.'

'The playwright?'

'I thought you'd know.'

Kirby frowned. Scott Boyd's smart comedy, 'Good Manners,' was in its fortieth week at a West End theatre. A picture firm had bought it for the cameras. It was Boyd's second box-office success; and Kirby envied him for his own efforts at playwriting had not been remunerative.

'What do you mean, it's just begun?' he asked.

Anson folded the bar check in half.

'If you're not busy for the next couple of hours, I'll show you.'

They went put into the steady, monotonous drizzle that superseded the night's sudden rain. Lights were smeared. Streets and pavements were black silk. Anson turned up his collar. They dodged through a red traffic light. On the far side of the Strand, Anson ducked into a building and went up a flight of stairs. Kirby shook rain from his hat.

On the second floor Anson went down a corridor. He stepped before a door. It was lettered with the name: Max Galinat. A bell tinkled when Anson opened the door.

Max Galinat sat a table working. 'Hello, Anson,' he said.

Anson outlined his chin with his fingers.

'Who did Scott Boyd marry?'

Max Galinat pushed up his eyeshade. 'A girl named Chandler.'

'Libby Chandler?'

'That's right. She used to be in Manchester.'

'WHO is he?' Kirby asked when they left. 'Max used to be a pigeon for the police . The underworld got to know him before he spilt anything really big.'

'So the girl came from the North?'

'So did Simmonds. Coincidence? We'll take a cab.'

The run wasn't long. A half dozen streets north, one west. They pulled in before an old-fashioned private house. Anson gave the cabman 5/- and told him not to wait. He led the way up the brown stone steps. A man opened' the inner door. He looked out before admitting them.

'Good evening, Mr. Anson. Haven't seen you for a long time.'

'Barney around?'

'He's upstairs in the lounge.'

Anson directed his steps down a passage and up to double doors. They stood ajar. Light gushed from the room beyond. Anson pulled the doors wide and walked in with Kirby.

'Don't get up,' he said to the gross, florid man who sprawled on one end of a red leather divan.

'Is Harry Simmonds on your pay-roll, Barney?'

The man shook his head. 'I sacked him a month ago: He's so crooked he has to lock up his own money at night— so he won't get up and pinch it.'

'Four weeks,' Anson mused. 'That should put him in a position to need money. Where does he live?'

'Simmonds,' Barney said, 'has a furnished apartment in the Shanleigh Chambers. It's off Piccadilly. Easy place to find.'

'I made a mistake,' Anson told Kirby, when they descended the stairs. 'I should have told that cabman to wait.'

He whistled shrilly for a cab. 'Still live at the Melbourne?' he asked Kirby.

'Yes, but—'

'The Melbourne,' Anson told the taxi-driver. 'I want you to get one of your plays. Bring it along,' he said to Kirby.

The Melbourne was a bachelor apartment near Fitzroy-square. Kirby went to his rooms. He got a copy of one of his plays.

'The Shanleigh Chambers,' driver,' said Anson.

'Didn't you come from up north?'

'I used to operate there,' Anson said. 'Manchester. For a couple of years. I had a half-interest in the Oasis, a night club. Had a pretty good cabaret. One morning a chap named Lyndheim got himself erased in one of the private rooms.'

They drew up in front of Shanleigh Chambers. Anson told the cabman to wait. Kirby went inside with him. A uniformed hall attendant confronted them.

'Simmonds,' Anson said. 'Fifth floor.'

KIRBY noticed that Anson's thin, shrewd face was shadowed when they stopped at Simmonds' door. The corridor was quiet. Anson pressed a thumb over the pearl circle of the bell. A minute or two passed before the door opened. A manservant with a pockmarked face looked sleepily out.

'Is Mr. Simmonds at home?'

Anson asked. 'Don't bother, we'll go straight in.'

He gave Kirby a slight, forward nod. They brushed by the mail. The hall was wide and strewn with rugs. At the far end a room was shut off from it by velvet portieres. They parted. Harry Simmonds came out.

'What is it, Sam?' he inquired sharply.

'Just a couple of late callers,' Anson said. Simmonds stepped back.

'Who—'

'Mrs. Boyd here yet?'

Anson passed Simmonds. In the small lounge room on the other side of the draperies, he looked at the girl who had risen quickly from the chair where she had been sitting.

'Good evening, Mrs. Boyd. I had an idea you'd be here.'

'What is this?' Harry, Simmonds demanded.

'That,' Anson said, 'is what we came to find out. Suppose you tell us; Mrs. Boyd? It's nobody's business, of course, but we'd like to know. What sort of a proposition is Simmonds making to you?'

'What's this about?' Simmonds said, belligerently.

'Suppose I take a guess and tell you.' Anson slipped off his overcoat and draped it over a chair. He gave Kirby a nod. He pulled down his cuffs and took a cigarette from a silver case.

'My guess,' he continued, 'is that you've got Libby down here to give you some cash. Boyd's doing pretty well these days, what with picture rights and his percentage at the theatre. How much is he asking?' he asked the girl.

'A thousand,' she answered slowly. Anson struck a deliberate match for his cigarette. 'Can you raise it?'

She shook her head. 'Not without Scott— my husband— knowing.'

'And if you don't come across,' Anson went on, 'he'll reveal past history?' 'Yes,' she said.

'Then Boyd doesn't know about your one year visit to— to a woman's prison?'

'No.'

'How did you slip him to keep, this appointment?'

'I told a lie. I said I— I had. to see a girl who worked in a show with, me once. I said I'd be back in an hour.'

Anson looked at his watch. He turned to Harry Simmonds.

'You've a rat. If I had my way I'd telephone for a couple of nice cockney policemen to step around and take you for a walk. If I do you'll open that big mouth of yours and talk. If I don't you'll be permanently muzzled. So I won't.'

Anson turned back to the girl.

'Don't ever pay him a penny. Mis. Boyd. And don't let him frighten you. His threats aren't worth a penny a dozen—"

She gave him a strained, anxious look. 'You mean—'

'When it comes to spilling past history,' Anson smiled, 'I can tip a couple of buckets myself. Simmonds knows what I mean. I don't think he'll bother you again. In fact, I'm sure of it.'

The girl's slim, white hands moved unsteadily.

'You don't know how much this means—'

'I think I do. That hour's almost up,' Anson said. 'I think we'll start back. I've got a taxi waiting. We'll drop you off anywhere you want.'

THEY left her at an hotel near Hyde Park. 'You knew Mrs. Boyd in Manchester?' asked Kirby.

'She used to work for me at the Oasis. She sang and danced. I took her on after her period inside. She was in prison for pennyweighting; shoplifting to you. She claimed she was framed. I think she was.'

'And you've got something on Simmonds strong enough to keep him quiet?'

Anson pushed out. his long legs, 'No,' he said. 'But Simmonds does not know that. It's only a hunch. I've always had an idea he was the man with the gun that morning at my place. There was a kind of feud between Lyndheim and the gamblers. Simmonds left the town hurriedly. He hasn't been back since.'

Kirby dropped a hand to the bulge in his pocket.

'What about this play?'

'That was a stand-by, Boyd might have followed Libby to Simmonds's apartment. I thought it would be nice if he found you reading it to all three of us. Sort of homey. Perhaps it's just as well he didn't.'

'Why?'

Anson laughed. 'It might be a rotten play.' He leaned over and rubbed breath moisture from the taxicab window.

'Look! It's stopped raining.'

__________________

17: The Ghost of One Man Coulee

B. M. Bower

1871-1940

Popular Magazine, 1 Jan 1913

HAPPY JACK, by some freak of misguided ambition, was emulating rather heavily the elfish imagination of Andy Green. He was— to put it baldly and colloquially— throwing a big load into the Native Son who jingled his gorgeous silver spurs close alongside Happy's more soberly accoutered heel.

"That there," Happy was saying, with ponderous gravity, "is the shack where the old fiddler went crazy trying to play a tune like the wind— or some blamed fool thing like that— and killed himself because he couldn't make it stick. It's haunted, that shack is. The old fellow's ghost comes around there moonlight nights and plays the fiddle in the door."

The Native Son, more properly christened Miguel, turned a languidly velvet glance toward the cabin and flicked the ashes fror' his cigarette daintily. "Have you ever seen the ghost, Happy?" he asked indulgently.

"Ah— yes, sure! I seen it m'self," Happy lied boldly.

"And were you scared?"

"Me? Scared? Hunh!" Happy gave a fairly good imitation of dumb disgust. "Why, I went and—"

Happy's imagination floundered in the stagnant pool of a slow-thinking brain.

"I went right in and—"

"Exactly." Miguel smiled a smile of even, white teeth and ironical lips. "Some moonlight night we will come back here at midnight, you and I. I have heard of that man, and I am fond of music. We will come and listen to him."

Some of the other boys ambling up from behind, caught a part of the speech, and looked at one another, grinning.

"The Native Son's broke out all over with schoolbook grammar ag'in," Big Medicine remarked. "Wonder what Happy's done ? I've noticed, by cripes, that the guilty party better duck, when that there Miguel begins to talk like a schoolma'am huntin' a job! Hey, there!" he bellowed suddenly, so that one might hear him half a mile away. "What's this here music talk I hear? Who's goin' to play, and where at, and how much is it a head?"

Miguel turned and looked back at the group, smiling still. "Happy was telling me about a ghost in that cabin down there." He flung out a hand toward the place so suddenly that his horse jumped in fear of the quirt. "I say we'll come back some night and listen to the ghost. Happy says he frequently rides over to hear it play on moonlight nights, and—"

"Aw, g'wan!" Happy Jack began to look uncomfortable in his mind. "I said—"

"Happy? If he thought there was a ghost in One Man Coulee, you couldn't tie him down and haul him past in a hayrack at noon," Andy asserted sharply. "There isn't any ghost."

Andy set his lips firmly together, and stared reminiscently down the hill at the lonely little cabin in the coulee. Memory, the original moving-picture machine, which can never be equaled by any man-made contrivance, flashed upon him vividly a picture of the night when he had sat within that cabin, listening to the man who would play the north wind, and who wept because it eluded him always; who played wonderfully— a genius gone mad under the spell of his own music— and at last rushed out into the blizzard and was lost, seeking the north wind that he m'ght learn the song it sang. The scene gripped Andy, even in memory. He wondered fancifully if Olafson was still wandering with his violin, searching for the home of the north wind. They had never found him, not even when the snows had gone and the land lay bare beneath a spring sky. He must have frozen, for the night had been bitter, and a blizzard raged blindingly. Still, they had never found a trace of him.

There had been those who, after searching a while in vain, had accused Andy to his face of building the story to excite his fellows. He had been known to deceive his friends heartlessly, and there had been some argument over the real fate of the vanished Olafson. If Andy had told the truth, asked the doubters, where was Olafson's body? And who had ever tried to play the wind? Who, save Andy Green, would ever think of such a fantastic tale? Happy Jack, Andy remembered resentfully, had been unusually vociferous in his unbelief, even for him.

"Aw, you stuck to it there was all the makin's of a ghost," Happy defended awkwardly, and wished that Andy Green had not overheard the yarn he told Miguel. "Sure, there's a ghost!" He fell back a step that he might wink at Big Medicine, and so enlist his sledge-hammer assistance. "I leave it to Bud if we didn't hear it, one night—"

"And seen it, too, by cripes!" Big Medicine enlarged readily and shamelessly. "Standin' right in the door, playin' the fiddle to beat a straight flush." He glared around the little roup with his protruding eyes until is glance met the curious look of Cal Emmett. "You was with us, Cal," he asserted boldly. "I leave it to you if we didn't see 'im and hear 'im."

Cal, thus besought to bear false witness, did so with amiable alacrity. "We sure did," he declared.

"Funny you never said a word about it before," snapped Andy, with open disbelief in his tone.

"We thought nobody'd believe us if we did tell it," Big Medicine explained.

"Pity yuh don't always think as close to the mark as yuh done then," Andy retorted.

"How do yuh know there ain't a ghost?" Big Medicine demanded with some slight rancor, born not of the argument, but of temporary ill feeling between the two. "Is it because yuh know, by cripes, that yuh lied last winter?"

Andy's lips tightened. "I've heard about enough of that," he said, with a flash of anger. With the cabin in sight, and recalling the tragedy of that night, he was not in the mood to wrangle good-naturedly about it with any one— least of all with Big Medicine. "I didn't lie. I'm dead willing to back what I said about it with my fists, if—"

Big Medicine twitched the reins to ride close, but Miguel's horse sidled suddenly and blocked the move. Also, Miguel smiled guilelessly into the angry eyes of Big Medicine.

"Will you fellows come back with me to-night, then, and see the ghost?" he asked lightly. "Or don't you dare tackle it again?"

Big Medicine snorted and forgot his immediate intentions toward Andy, just as Miguel, perhaps, intended that he should do.

"You wouldn't dast come along, if we did," he glowered. "I'd camp there alone for a month, far as I'm concerned, if there was any grub, by cripes!"

"That shows how much you know about the place," put in Pink, siding with Andy. "Unless somebody's packed it away lately, there's all kinds of grub left. Maybe the flour, and bacon, and beans is gone, but there's enough pickles and stuffed olives to last—"

"Olives!" cried the Native Son, and looked back longingly at the rugged bluff which marked One Man Coulee. "Say, does anybody belong to them olives?"

"Nobody but the ghost," grinned Pink. "We bought him twelve lovely tall bottles, just to please Jimmie; he told us there wasn't any sale for stuffed olives in Dry Lake, and he offered 'em to us at cost. We did think uh taking all he had, but we cut it down to twelve bottles afterward. And Olafson never ate a darned olive all the time he was there!"

"And they're there yet, you say?" It was plain that Miguel was far more interested in the olives than he was in the ghost.

"Sure, they're there." Pink was not troubling to warp the truth, as Miguel decided, after a sharp glance. "The stuff all belonged to Olafson, and the shack belongs to the Old Man. And when Olafson went crazy over the wind, and froze to death," he stipulated distinctly, with a challenging glance at Big Medicine, "we all kept thinking at first he'd come back, maybe. But he never did—"

"Exceptin' his ghost, by golly!" put in Slim unexpectedly, with a belated snort of amusement at the idea.

"I'd rather," sighed Miguel, "have a dozen bottles of stuffed olives than a dozen kisses from the prettiest girl in the State."

"Mamma! they're easier to get, anyway. If you want 'em that bad—"

"That there ghost may have something to say about them olives," Happy Jack warned, sticking stubbornly to his story.

Miguel smiled— and there was that in his smile which sent four mendacious cow-punchers hot with resentment.

"Maybe yuh don't believe in that ghost, by cripes?" Big Medicine challenged indignantly, and gave Miguel a pale, pop-eyed stare meant to be intimidating.

Miguel smiled again as at some secret joke, and made no reply at all.

"Well— don't yuh b'lieve it?" Big Medicine roared after a minute.

Miguel smiled gently and inspected his. cigarette; emotions might surge about this Native Son and beat themselves to a white froth upon the rock of his absolute, inimitable imperturbability, as the Happy Family knew well. Now they rode close-grouped, intensely interested in this struggle between bull-bellowing violence and languid impassivity.

"You don't believe it yourself, do you?" Miguel inquired evenly at last, rousing himself from his abstraction. "Did you expect me to swallow hook, sinker, and all?"

Big Medicine looked positively murderous. "When I say a thing is so," he cried, "I expect, by cripes, that folks will take m' bare word for it. I don't have to produce no affidavies, nor haul in any witnesses. I ain't like Andy, here. You're dealin' now with a man that can look truth in the face and never bat an eye."

Miguel smiled again, this time more humanly amused. "I've met men before who hadn't a speaking acquaintance with Dame Truth," he drawled. "They looked her in the face, too— and she never recognized 'em."

Big Medicine was at that critical point where make-believe may easily become reality. He had been "joshing" and playing he was mad before; now his glare hardened perceptibly, so that more than one of the boys noticed the difference.

"Aw, if he don't want to believe it he don't have to," Happy Jack intercepted Big Medicine's belligerent speech. "Chances is them olives'll stay where they're at a good long while, though— if Mig-u-ell has to get 'em after dark."

Miguel smoked while he rode ten rods. "I offered to come and listen to the ghost fiddle his fastest," he observed at last, "and not one of you fellows took me up on it. To-night I'll come alone and get those olives. I guess I can carry twelve bottles all right."

"It's no use to-night," Cal Emmett objected. "It's only on moonlight nights—" He looked a question at Big Medicine.

"Moonlight it's got to be. There ain't a moon till—"

"I can find stuffed olives any old kind of a night." Miguel blew the ashes from his cigarette. "It's the olives I want, amigo. I don't give a whoop for your ghost."

"Aw, I betche yuh dassent come when it's moonlight, just the same," cried Happy Jack. "I betche ten dollars yuh dassent—"

It would be tiresome to repeat all that was said upon the subject thereafter. So slight a thing as Happy Jack's wrongful desire to lie as convincingly as could Andy Green, led the whole Happy Family into a profitless and more or less acrimonious argument. Each man, according to his nature, and the mood he happened to be in at the moment, took up the discussion. And speedily it developed that the faction against Miguel, Andy Green, and Pink included every man of them save Weary, who would stand by Pink regardless of the issue.

It was nearly noon, and they were hungry, and headed toward camp; but despite their haste they argued the foolish question of whether the cabin in One Man Coulee was haunted. Six of them maintained stubbornly that it was — for Irish began to side with Happy Jack just because he did not like the Native Son very well, and that ironical smile of Miguel's irritated him to a degree ; and Jack Bates also espoused the ghost because he scented an opportunity for excitement. The minority, composed of Miguel, Pink, Andy Green, and Weary, confined themselves largely to sarcasm— which is the oil which feeds fastest the flames of dissension.

It was foolish, to be sure; just as foolish as many other things which men drift into doing. But they, nevertheless, reached that point where, as in the case of Big Medicine, make-believe crowded close upon reality. The four rode together into camp ten paces ahead of the six, and they talked in low tones among themselves mostly. When they did deign to look at the six, their glances were unfriendly, and when they spoke their speech was barbed so that it stung the listeners. And the six retaliated vigorously— the more so because they had been silly enough in the first place to declare their belief in the nonexistent, and had -been betrayed into making many ridiculous assertions which they were too obstinate to withdraw; so that once again the Happy Family belied the name men had given it, and became for the time being a bunch of as disagreeable cow-punchers as one could find in four days' ride.

"Aw, say, I sure would like to put it on them fellers good!" Happy Jack growled to Cal and Jack Bates on the way to the corralled saddle bunch after dinner. Happy Jack was purple with wrath, for a caustic sentence or two spoken in Miguel's most maddening drawl was yet stinging his ears.

"That there Natiff Son makes me tired! I wisht there was a ghost— I'd sure—"

"Oh, there's a ghost, all right," Jack Bates stated meaningly; "all yuh got to do is make one."

"Say, by golly!" Slim, close behind them, gulped excitedly. "Wouldn't it—"

"Say, don't let them faces get to leaking," Cal advised bluntly. "It's a whole week till the moon's good. Shut up!"

Slim goggled at him, caught the hazy beginning of an idea, grinned, and stepped over the rope into the corral. He was grinning when he caught his horse, and he was still grinning widely while he cinched the saddle. He caught Andy Green eying him suspiciously, and snickered outright. But he did not say a word, and, therefore, went his way, believing that he had given no hint of what was in his mind.

Slim and Happy Jack were alike in one respect: Their minds worked slowly and rather ponderously— and, like other ponderous machinery, once in motion they were hard to stop. The others would have left the subject alone, after that hour of hot argument, and in time would have forgotten it except for an occasional jeer, perhaps; but not so Happy Jack and Slim.

The Flying U outfit ate, saddled fresh horses, reloaded the mess wagon, and moved on toward Dry Creek, and that night flung weary bodies upon the growing grass in the shade of the tents, twenty miles and more from One Man Coulee and the little cabin with its grim history of genius blotted out in madness. Nevertheless, Slim searched ostentatiously with plate, knife, and fork in his hand, at supper time, and craned his neck over boxes and cans, until he had the attention of his fellows, who were hungry, and elbowed him out of their way with scant courtesy.

"Sa, Mig-u-ell, where's them stuffed olives?" he called at last. "I thought, by golly, we was goin' to have some olives for supper?"

"Olives —stuffed olives, are best picked by moonlight, they tell me," Miguel responded unemotionally, glancing up over his cup. "Have patience, amigo."

Slim nudged Happy Jack so that he spilled half his coffee and swore because it was hot, caught Big Medicine's pale-eyed glare upon him, and subsided so suddenly that he choked over his next sentence, which had nothing at all to do with olives, or ghosts, or insane fiddlers.

Men, it would seem, never quite leave their boyhood behind them; at least, those men do not who live naturally and individually, untainted by the poison of the great money marts where human nature is warped and perverted so that nearly all natural instincts are subordinated to the lust for gain of one sort and another. In the Bear Paw country men labor for gain, it is true; but they also live the lives for which nature has created them. There is that in the wide reaches of plain and valley, in the clean arch of blue sky and drifting clouds overhead, which keeps the best of them boyish till their temples are marked with white—yes, and after.

It was that tenacious element which started Irish, Cal Emmett, Jack Bates, and Big Medicine to tilting hat brims together when none others were near observe them. It was that which sent them off riding by themselves—to town, they said before they started—early on the first Sunday after the wagons had pulled in to the ranch, there to stand until the beef round-up started.

They returned unobtrusively by mid-afternoon, and they looked very well satisfied with themselves, and inclined to facetiousness.

"What's the matter?" Weary asked them pointedly when they dismounted at the corral. "Come back after something you forgot?"

"Yeah— sure," Cal returned, with a flicker of eyelids. "Nothing doing in that darned imitation of a town, anyway."

"Where's the mail?" Pink demanded expectantly.

"We— plumb forgot that there mail, by cripes!" Big Medicine looked up quickly. "Irish was goin' to git it, but he didn't."

Pink said nothing, but he studied the four from under the long, curled lashed which he had found very useful in concealing covert glances.

"Sorry, Little One— honest to grandma, I am!" Big Medicine clapped him patronizingly on the shoulder as he passed him.

"I don't know as it matters," said Pink sweetly. "Some of us were just about ready to hit the trail. We can get it, I guess. Say! Ain't you got that cayuse caught up yet, Mig?" he called out to the Native Son, who was reclining luxuriously against a new stack of sweet-smelling bluejoint hay. "Come out of your trance, or we'll go off and leave you!"

"Oh— yuh going to town?" Cal looked over his shoulder with some uneasiness in his baby-blue eyes.

"Maybe we are and maybe we ain't. Maybe we're going to see our best girls. What's it to you?" Pink turned his back on Cal and looked full at Weary.

"Come on—the girls will be plumb wild if we don't get a move on," he said carelessly, and picked up his bridle. "Where's Andy? I thought he said he wanted to go along. Hurry up, Mig, if you're going."

Nobody knew what he was driving at, but the three were mounted well within ten minutes, and flinging back remarks to the four who had lately returned. The departing ones were well up on the hogback before any one of them ventured to question Pink, who rode with the air of one whose destination is fixed, and whose desire outstrips his body in the journey.

"Say, Cadwolloper, where are we headed for?" Weary inquired then resignedly. "And what's the rush?"

Pink glanced down the hill toward the stable and corrals, decided that they were being observed with something very like suspicion, and faced to the front again. "We're going to head for Rogers'," he dimpled, "but we ain't going to get there. Yuh needn't look down there—but Irish and Cal are saddling up again. They're afraid we're going to town. They're going to trail us up and find out for sure."

"They sure did act like they'd been holding up a train, when they rode up," Weary observed. "I've been searching my soul with a spyglass trying to find the answer for all that guilt on their faces."

"Happy Jack has been mentioning stuffed olives and moonlight pretty often to-day," the Native Son remarked with apparent irrelevance. "I thought he'd pickled that josh, but he's worlang things up again. Two and two make four; that four." With the slightest of head tilts he indicated those below, and flashed his even, white teeth in a smile. "Do you want me to guess where you're going, Pink?"

"I wish you fellows would guess how we're going to ditch them two pirates, first," Pink retorted, glancing down again at the stable without turning his head. "If we strike straight for Rogers', maybe they'll turn back, though. They'll think we've gone over there to see the girls."

"If I knew the country a little better—" began the Native Son, and stopped with that.

"If they don't follow us over the ridge," spoke up Andy, who had been thinking deeply, "we can go up Antelope Coulee instead of down, and follow along in the edge of the breaks to the head of One Man, and down that; that's where you're going, isn't it? It will be five or six miles farther."

Pink threw up his hand impatiently. "Uh course, that's what I intended to do. But if they ride over the ridge they'll know we never kept straight on to Rogers', and then they'll know we're dodging." He urged his horse up the last steep slope, and led the way over the brow of the bluff and out of sight of the ranch below. "And I'm sure going to find out what that bunch has been making themselves so mysterious about, the last couple uh days," he vowed grimly. "I slipped up on 'em yesterday down in the hay corral, and I heard Cal say, 'Sure, we can! There's one in that Injun grave over in Antelope Coulee.' " He stared at the others with purpling eyes. "What's in that grave, Weary? I never was right to it, myself."

"Nothing, Cadwolloper— except what is left of the old boy they tucked under that ledge. There ain't even a periume any more. We can go by that way and see if they've been there."

With that wordless understanding common among men who have lived long together, they left the trail and ambled slowly across the prairie in the direction of the Rogers Ranch. And they had not traveled more than half a mile when Miguel, looking back very cautiously, smiled.

"Don't look," he said, and then added melodramatically: "We are followed! Hist! The pursuers are in sight. Courage, men!"

Pink risked a glance over his shoulder, and glimpsed two bobbing hat crowns just over the brow of Flying U Coulee.

"Now, wouldn't that jar yuh?" he exclaimed, just as disgustedly as if he
had not all along suspected that very thing to happen.

The moving specks stopped, remained stationary for a minute or two, and then went bobbing back again. The four laughed, pressed spurred heels against their horses, and galloped over the ridge and into the lower end of Antelope Coulee. At the bottom they swung sharply to the right, instead of to the left, rode as hurriedly as the uneven ground would permit for a mile or more; crossed the trail to Dry Lake, and kept on up the coulee to its very head.

At one point their quick eyes saw where several horsemen had ridden down into the coulee, dismounted, and climbed through shale rock to the lone Indian grave under a low shelf of sandstone, left there betraying imprints of high-heeled boots, returned again to where their horses had waited, and ridden on. They also rode on, toward One Man Coulee. Before them always lay the trail of shod hoofs, where the soil was not too hard to receive an imprint.

Patsy was standing in the door of the mess house beating his fat knuckles upon a tin pan for the supper call, when Andy Green and Miguel rode leisurely down the grade. The boys were straggling toward the sound, and there was the usual bustle around the washbasins and roller towels, and in the quiet air hung the enticing odor of Patsy's delectable chicken potpie. The two hurried to the stable, unsaddled with the haste of hungry men, and reached the mess house just as the clatter of feet had subsided and the potpie was making its first round.

Cal looked up from a generous helping. "Hello, where's the rest of the bunch?" he queried.

"Oh, the girls have got them roped and tied," Andy responded carelessly. "Mig and I got cold feet, and broke back,on them."

"Didn't yuh go to town?" Irish spoke as innocently as if he had not watched them well on their way from the shelter of the bluff.

Miguel deigned him one of his heavy-lidded stares. "Why should one go to town, when there are three pretty girls at the next ranch? Town didn't hold you fellows very long."

"I thought sure you'd gone after olives, by golly," blurted Slim, with his mouth half full of dumpling.

"If I'd gone after them, I'd have got them," Miguel, usually so exasperatingly calm, spoke with some feeling.

"Aw, g'wan! I betche yuh dassent go." Happy Jack grinned arrogantly.

"You wouldn't bet anything but words," retorted Miguel. "There are several of you fellows that seem to be just that brand of sports." He gave the faint shrug which they all hated.

Big Medicine laid down his knife and fork. "Say, do yuh mind naming over them several fellers?" he inquired abruptly in his booming voice. "I don't bet words, by cripes— when I bet—"

Miguel smiled across at him blandly. "We were speaking of olives," he purred "Happy Jack wanted to 'betche' I daren't go after them. He didn't name the stakes, though."

"It ain't because I ain't willin' to put 'em up," glowered Happy. "I'll betche five dollars, then—if that suits yuh any better."

Miguel laughed, which was unusual when he was arguing with any one. "Do you mean it? Do you really think that little, weak, pretty-pretty ghost story would scare— a— nigger baby?" His voice taunted the lot of them.

"Don't yuh believe there's a ghost, by cripes?" Big Medicine bawled pugnaciously.

"No. Of course I don't believe it. Neither do you." Miguel spoke with that weary tolerance which is so hard to endure.

"I do," Cal Emmett declared flatly. "And I'm willing to bet a horse against them fancy spurs of yours that you dassent go to-night to One Man Coulee and bring away them bottles of stuffed olives."

"What horse?" asked Miguel, reaching for the chicken platter.

"Well —any darned horse I own!" Cal wore the open-eyed look of innocence which had helped him scare out his opponents in many a poker game. "I say to-night," he added apologetically to the others, "because it's going to be clear and lots uh moonlight; and it's Sunday. But I don't care what night he tries it. I'll bet he won't bring away no olives."

"Aren't they there?" Miguel wanted to know.

"Oh— they're there, I guess. I'll change the wordin' a little. I'll bet yuh dassent go to that shack, and go into it and stay long enough to freeze onto twelve bottles uh anything. To-night," he added, "at mid— no, any old time between ten and one. And I'll bet any one uh my four cayuses against your spurs."

"It's a go. Does the rest of my riding outfit look good to any of you fellows?" Miguel glanced around the table smilingly. "Happy, for instance—"

"I got five dollars up," Happy Jack reminded. "But I'll put twenty with it against your bridle."

"That bridle's worth fifty dollars. And my saddle cost two hundred and eighty. I'll put them up, though, if any one wants to cover the bet."

"Say, this is a shame. Honest to grandma, I'd hate to see Miggie ridin' bareback the rest uh the summer— with a rope hackamore, by cripes! Don't go 'n take all his purty-purties away from him like that, boys! Haw- haw- haw!" It is unwise to laugh like that with one's mouth full of chicken. Big Medicine choked and retired from the conversation and the room.

"Say, you don't reelize, by golly, what you're up ag'inst," Slim observed ponderously. "If you did—"

"Are you dead-game sports, or are you a bunch of old women?" drawled Miguel. "My outfit is up, if any one has nerve enough to take the bets."

They wrangled more or less amicably over it, as was their habit. But they did finally bet a great deal more on the foolish venture than they should have done. When, finally, they reached the time and the point of departure, Miguel, like the plains Indians during the fever of horse-racing, was pledged to his hat and his high-heeled boots; while the Happy Family, if they lost, would have plenty of reason to repent them of their rashness.

They waited an hour for Pink and Weary to return, and, when they did not appear, they rode off without them. They pitied Miguel, and told him so. They told of haunted cabins, and of murders and dreams come true, and of disasters that were weird.

Andy Green, when half of the ten miles had been covered, roused himself from his disapproving silence and told them a fearsome tale of two miners murdered mysteriously and thrown into their own mine, and of their dog which howled up and down the mountain gulches when the moonlight lay soft upon the land; told it so that they rode close-huddled that they might catch it all, down to the last gruesomely mysterious incident of the murdered master whistling from the pit to the dog, and of the animal's whimpering obedience—long years after, when the dog's bones were bleaching through sun and storm above, and the master's bones were rotting in the darkness below.

Happy Jack more than once glanced uneasily toward the shadowy hollows as they rode slowly across the prairies through the night silence. Slim set his jaw and rode stiffly, staring straight ahead of him as if he feared what he might see, if he looked aside. Miguel was seen to shiver, though the air was soft and warm.

"Now, this Olafson—" Andy began after a silence which no one thought to break. "The boys joshed me a lot about that. But it was queer —the queerest thing I ever saw or heard; To see him sitting there in the firelight, listening— and while he listened, to hear the wind whoo-whoo around the corners and down the chirrs ney— and the snow swish-swishing against the walls like grave clothes when the ghosts walk—"

"Aw— I thought yuh said there wasn't any ghosts!" croaked Happy Jack uneasily.

"And then Olafson would lift his violin and draw the bow across—"

Andy, the reins dropped upon the saddle horn, held an imaginary violin cuddled under his chin, and across the phantom strings drew an imaginary bow with slow, sweeping gestures, while his voice went on with the tale, and the Happy Family watched, and listened, and saw what he meant them to see. "And then would come that lonesome whoo-oo of the wind— from the violin. He made me see things. He made me see the storm, like it was a white spirit creeping over the range. He made me see—"

They had reached One Man Coulee while he talked. The Happy Family stared down into the lonely place lying nakedly white under the moon, shivered, and rode slowly down the slope. Like one in a trance Andy rode in their midst, and compelled them with his voice to see the things he would have them see. Compelled them to see Olafson, the master musician, striving after the song of the north wind, and the prairie, and the wolf; made them see him as he opened the door and stood there gazing wildly out, playing—always playing— something weird and wonderful, and supernaturally terrible.

"I don't envy Miguel his job none, by cripes," Big Medicine said, as they drew near the point beyond which the cabin would stand revealed to them, and for a wonder he spoke softly.

Andy glanced up at the yellow ball floating serenely over the blue ocean of the sky, down the white-lighted coulee, with fringes of black shadows here and there, and then at the cabin squatting deserted against the green background of willows, with blank, staring window and open doorway.

"If such things can be— if the ghost of Olafson can come back, he'll come to-night and try again to play the wind," he said solemnly. "Just a low, even, creepy tone first on open G—"

They rode slowly around to where they faced the door, pulled up short fifty feet away from it, and stared.

"There he is!" Andy's voice was the whisper which carries far. "He's come, boys— to play the wind again! A low, creepy note on open G—"

In the doorway, where the moon shone radiantly in, stood a blackclothed figure topped by a grinning, fleshless skull. Cuddled under the horrid, bony chin of it was a violin. The right arm was upraised and bent, poising the bow above the strings. The staring, empty eye sockets were lighted with a pale, phosphorescent glow.

"Well, by golly!" gulped Slim, in an undertone, and backed his horse a little involuntarily.

"Aw—" Happy Jack looked at Irish and Cal, grinned sheepishly, and was silent.

"Go on, Miggie, and git your olives," Big Medicine murmured. "Twelve bottles. We'll wait for yuh here."

Miguel slid off his horse without a word and started forward, hesitating a trifle, if the truth were known.

In the doorway the right arm of the figure trembled and moved slowly upward, pulling the bow lightly across the strings. Came a low, wailing note on open G, which swelled resonantly in the quiet air, rose a tone, clung there, and slid eerily down to silence.

Big Medicine started and stared across at Irish, and Cal Emmett, and Jack Bates, who met his look incredulously. Miguel stopped short and stood a moment in the blank silence which followed. The gaunt, black figure bulked huge in the doorway, and the fleshless mouth grinned at him sardonically.

Miguel took a step or two forward. Again that ghostly arm lifted and swept the bow across the strings. Again the eerie tones came vibrantly, sliding up the scale, clinging, and wailing, and falling again to silence when Miguel stood still.

Big Medicine turned his horse short around, so that he faced those three—Cal, Jack Bates, and Irish.

"Say! —the— the thing's playin', by cripes!" he muttered accusingly, and edged off fearfully.

"Aw— say!" Happy Jack moved farther away in sudden, unashamed terror. "What makes it— play?"

Miguel stood longer that time, and the silence rasped the nerves of those who waited farther off. When he moved forward again the playing began. When he stopped, the ghostly arm was still.

Happy Jack, with an unexpected, inarticulate squawk, kicked his horse in the ribs and fled down the coulee. Slim went after him, galloping with elbows flapping wildly. Those who waited longer saw Miguel walk slowly up to the very threshold, and face the ghost that played over and over that one, awful strain. They saw him stop as if to gather together his courage, put down his head as if he were battling a blizzard, and edge past the unearthly figure.

As he disappeared within, brushing swiftly past the ghost, the strings twanged ominously. Came an unearthly screech which was like demons howling as howls the gray wolf before a storm. It raised the hair on the scalp with that prickling sensation which is so extremely unpleasant, and it sent Big Medicine, Cal, Jack Bates, and Irish clattering down the coulee in the wake of Slim and Happy Jack.

Andy Green held his horse and Miguel's back from following, and watched them out of sight before he rode closer to the awful thing which guarded the door.

"All right, boys— yuh may as well stop the concert; the audience is halfway home by this time," he called out, chuckling as he dismounted and went clanking up to the doorway. "Say, by gracious, yuh done fine! That last screech was sure a pippin—it like to have stampeded me."

Pink disentangled his fingers from a fine bit of string and grunted. "It ought to be. We've been practicing that howl, off and on, for four hours. How was the fiddling, Andy?"

"Outa sight. Say, yuh better take them strings off the bow, and make darned sure you ain't 'leaving any tracks, or anything. Let 'em come back and find everything just the way they fixed the plant— and then let 'em put in their spare time figuring the thing out, if they can. They'll likely come moseying back up here, pretty soon—all but Happy and Slim— so you want to hurry. If you two can beat us home, they'll never get wise in a thousand years uh hard thinking." He looked the ghost over critically, gave a snort, and painstakingly straightened the bow. "Darned grave robbers," he exclaimed, looking at the skull. "Well, hike, boys; I hear 'em coming. Got the olives all right, Miguel? Come and get on your horse. We'll meet 'em down the trail a ways if we can. And say," he called over his shoulder, when he was beside his horse again, "you fellows do some going! If you ain't in bed when we get there, the stuff's off." Even while he looked back, Pink and Weary dodged out and vanished in the gloom of the willows.

The Native Son, bearing in a gunny sack twelve bottles of stuffed olives, and on his swarthy face an unstudied grin of elation, was just making ready to mount when Irish and Big Medicine became recognizable in the moonlight below.

"We thought we'd come back and see if you were alive, anyway," Irish announced shamefacedly, with a glance toward the cabin and the spectral figure in the doorway. "What did it do to yuh, Mig?"

"Nothing, only caterwaul like the devil all the time I was getting the olives. It's shut up since I came out of the cabin. Seems like it hates visitors."

"Er— did it— did the ghost make all that noise, honest?" Big Medicine's voice had lost some of its blatant assurance. He was. bewildered, and he showed it.

"You heard him sawing on that fiddle, didn't you? The screeching seemed to come from— just all over the room." Miguel waved his free hand vaguely. "Just all over at once. Kinda got my goat, for a minute or two."

The group rode slowly away, and when Miguel was through speaking they went in silence. Halfway up the hill, Irish turned in the saddle and stared down at the roof of the little cabin showing black under the moon.

"Well— I'll— be—darned!" he stated slowly and emphatically, and rode on with the others, who seemed to be thinking deeply.

Their meditations must have been to some purpose, for, after a hasty word or two snatched in private with his fellow conspirators, Irish set the pace.

At the stable he did not wait to unsaddle first of all. Instead he went hurriedly inside, lighted a match, and held it up while he surveyed the wall where the Happy Family were wont to hang their saddles— when they hung them anywhere. Two familiar saddles dangled there, each hanging upon its accustomed peg by its accustomed right stirrup, proclaiming silently and unanswerably. the fact of their owners' presence upon the ranch. When the match flickered and went out, Irish discovered that Cal, Jack Bates, Big Medicine, and Happy Jack were standing behind him, staring also.

"Well— I'll— be— darned!" said Irish again softly, and dropped the stub with a gesture of keen disappointment.

"It wasn't them, then," muttered Big Medicine at his shoulder. "And the— the thing— it played, by cripes!"

____________________

18: Changed Caliber

Ernest M. Poate

1884-1935

Detective Story Magazine, 20 July 1920

IMPETUOUSLY Bob Stewart burst into the room where his chum was putting the studs into a clean dress shirt.

"It's happened, 'Rummy,' old top," he cried, whirling that sedate young man into a sort of delirious dance. "It's happened! I asked her, Rummy, and she said 'yes.' On the golf course, this very afternoon. Oh, Rummy, I'm the happiest man alive. And you'll have to be my best man. Rosemary wants you, too."

A. Rumford— his given name was Algernon, but wild horses couldn't have torn the confession from his diffident lips— freed himself with difficulty.

"So Rose— Miss Dineen— has accepted you? I'm awfully glad, old man." He flushed a bit as he extended a hand in congratulation, for he was a shy, reticent youth; but his cordial grip made up for the halting words. No one could have doubted the sincerity of his rejoicing. "Have you seen the old gentleman?"

The other's face changed expression. "Confound you, Rummy," he grumbled; "you're always taking the joy out of life. No: I'm going to speak to him right now, before dinner, while I have her promise fresh in mind to give me courage. She is the dearest girl, Rummy!"

Rummy nodded; but he looked thoughtful.

"Dineen won't like it," he prophesied. "It makes him angry to have any one look at Rosemary— I suppose I can call her that, now? He's all wrapped up in that girl. He's crazy jealous of her.'

"Huh!" snorted Bob. "I don't care whether he likes it or not." But his uneasy manner belied the words. "He's not her own father, anyhow," he argued; "just her guardian. I don't see where he has so much to say. And she comes of age in a few weeks, too."

"We-ell," replied Rumford dubiously, "I'll bet he does say something, after all, Bob. Sometimes I wonder if he's not in love with Rosemary himself."

Stewart laughed incredulously.

"Him? That fat old man? Nonsense!" To twenty-seven, forty-five is the very brink of senility, and its romantic dreams are mere absurdity. "He's thinking more of the good juicy fees he'll lose when he turns over her property."

For a moment the two young men were silent, puzzling, perhaps, as youth always does, over the selfish affection of age, wondering at the instinctive animosity which every parent bears toward the prince who comes courting. It is an age-old bitterness, covered thinly enough by the conventions of our civilization; a complex as universal now as in the days when it first inspired the fable of Danae, the tale of Jacob and Rachel, the countless fairy tales of dragon-guarded princesses, whose kingly fathers disposed of inconvenient suitors as did the queen of hearts of all who annoyed her: "Off with their heads!" Stewart finished throwing on his dinner clothes.

"There!" said he, giving a last  pat to his tie, a little askew, as usual, and striving ineffectually to smooth down the tuft of hair that stood rebelliously up at his crown, "There. Then I'm ready. I'll catch Dineen in the library and have it out with him before dinner. Then we can tell the Warrens and everybody right away."

His words were bold enough; his manner strove for assurance. But his round, boyish face was flushed, and his hands shook a little. Plainly he did not relish the task before him.

"Good luck, Bob!" called Rumford and went leisurely on with his dressing. But he, too, seemed uncertain; visualizing the blatant, aggressive rotundity of their host, he sighed for his chum.

"I hope the boy keeps his temper," he confided to the looking-glass. And his gaunt, homely, yet pleasant-faced image scowled back at him solicitously.

He was a shy, silent chap, this A. Rumford; voiceless in company, reduced to mute agonies of embarrassment by the mere presence of young women. Only a few months older than the exuberant Bob, he wore the sedateness and gravity of ten added years. In the advertising agency which employed them both, he held a responsible position where Bob was tolerated only because of his connections and his substantial investment in the business. Men generally liked A. Rumford and respected his ability, but, save for his rather scatter-brained chum, he would have been a social nonentity. He could not dance; he did not talk. He was a sort of male wallflower who sat in corners or lurked on stairways, neither entertaining nor entertained. He had long given up hope of learning to play the social game; insensibly, his outlook had come to be that of the observer, the outsider. He stood about and watched, no longer ill at ease except when some determined hostess resolved to "give that poor boy a good time;" and he enjoyed the watching, reading in the faces about him many a secret withheld from others. His intimate knowledge of those who half-pitied, half-scorned him, and wondered why Bob Stewart insisted on dragging that stupid fellow around, would have surprised and chagrined them sorely.

So he finished dressing, fussing clumsily over shirt bosom and tie, which never looked quite right, his absent mind busy with wondering how poor Bob would come out. Between these two, so radically different, there was a close affection, a surprising sympathy; and Rumford pleasured vicariously but none the less sincerely in his chum's romance. He dallied over last touches, purposely killing time, reluctant to go donwstairs until Stewart's interview should be over. Against conviction he hoped that Dineen would be reasonable, would give his consent without parley. Surely Stewart was eligible enough; clean, straightforward, likable; comfortably rich, and of unexceptionable social position. Miss Rosemary Dineen might do much worse, Rumford thought loyally. She was a pretty girl and a nice girl; but Martin Dineen was a handicap. True, the fellow was clever; witness the Dineen Wasteless Carburetor; and this same invention had made him rich. But he was underbred, vulgar, noisy, thoroughly disagreeable. At thought of him Rumford's wide, whimsical mouth twisted in scorn.

Somewhere downstairs a mellow Chinese gong rang once. It was the dressing bell; a custom of the house. Dinner vould be served in ten minutes. Sighing, Rumford took a last glance in the mirror, scowled at the wrinkling of his dinner coat over bony shoulders, and opened the door.

He almost fell over the diminutive figure of Polly Warren, three-year-old daughter of George and Anne Warren, who, with Rumford and Stewart, made up Miss Dineen's house party. The Warrens had been invited because Anne was a cousin; Rumford, as he shrewdly suspected, because Bob Stewart wanted him.

"Hello, Polly," said the young man, a pleasant smile lighting his sallow, saturnine features. '"What's going on?"

The baby looked up confidingly. Children did not find Rumford stupid or diffident; they took to him at once, confident, as children are, of a welcome which never failed them.

"I got f'ashlight," she announced. "Look, Rummy! Nice, lov'y f'ashlight, just like daddy."

She extended a fountain pen, one of the bulky things which some men affect, as thick as one's thumb. It was not unlike the small, pencil-shaped flash-lights one sometimes sees. But Polly, in her attempts to make it flash, had opened its huge ink reservoir; fingers and dress were smeared and -stained, and there was a big blot of ink under one wide blue eye.

"I poke it to make it f'ash," she explained. "An' it came undoned, and ink run aw-over. Mudder'll scold Polly, per'aps. I guesso."

She looked up at him mischievously, her eyes dancing; the prospect did not seem to daunt her.

"Dear, dear, Polly," answered Rumford sympathetically. ''That's too bad! I'm afraid that flashlight's out of order. Where'd you find it?"

"On my daddy's taboo, where he writes."

Rumford had retrieved the pen and was tightening its cap, inking his fingers liberally.

"Let's go put it back," he suggested, "and then wash up a bit, and nobody'll know anything about it."

"Aw-right," agreed the baby, thrusting up a pudgy, ink-stained fist. "Take my hand, Rummy."

So the two tiptoed down the hall to replace the fountain pen, wiped carefully dry on Rumford's clean handkerchief; then to the bathroom, where he washed the baby's hands and face, carefully if unskillfully, and dabbed hopelessly at the stains of her dress.

"There, Polly," said he at last.  "That'll have to do. Maybe your mother won't see those stains. Your hands and face are clean, anyhow."

"Aw-right, Rummy," agreed the little girl cheerfully. '"Fank you berry much." She put up a chubby, rose-leaf cheek to be kissed. 'Maybe I find anodder f'ashlight t'night. Maybe so, I guesso." And she trotted off, as her mother mounted the stairs.

Rumford descended slowly and entered the wide living room. From the library beyond came the sound of muffled voices ; Stewart's first, subdued, but patently angry, then Dineen's blatant roar, loud, uncultured, blustering, like the man himself.

"No, I tell you. NO! They's no use of talkin' about it no longer." In his rage, the man's carefully acquired grammar sloughed off; his speech was raucous, illiterate, as in the days of his dubious beginnings, when he had stood before a lathe in the Universal machine shops. "They ain't no use, Stewart. You can't have her, see? Rosemary ain't gointa marry nobody, and anyways, not youse!"

"She is!" Stewart's answer came clear as irritation raised his voice; bewildered irritation at this unreasonable opposition. "She's going to marry me, whether you like it or not. If you'd give some reason it might be different; but you just sit there and yell 'No! No!' She comes of age in two months, and then we'll be married, without your consent if not with it. You're not her father, anyhow."

Rumford sighed again and moved out of earshot, shaking his head. Although he lacked the ability to explain his judgments, the young man was no mean psychologist. He had long noted Martin Dineen's surly, dog-in-the-manger attitude toward his adopted daughter; and without understanding the intricate, unconscious complex of ideas which underlies such reactions, he was no less sure that any man who came courting Rosemary Dineen would thereby earn her guardian's undying hate.

The interview did not last much longer. Miss Dineen had scarcely finished her first apologies to Rumford and the Warrens as they watched their cooling soup, when Stewart and his host came in, flushed and scowling.

Rosemary, childishly slight and frail, looked at them wistfully, and her big brown eyes filled with tears. But she said nothing. Warren, solid and obvious, who saw nothing amiss, began to talk inanely about politics. The little hostess gave him a grateful glance when he mentioned the income tax. This was as a red rag to Dineen; its discussion unfailingly roused him to noisy wrath. It did not fail now; all else forgotten, he plunged into a loud, aggressive diatribe, shouting down his guests, airing his opinion of the government's interference with private business. Like many another man who has risen from small beginnings, Martin Dineen fancied himself a sound political thinker, his unexpressed creed being that the government was a self-sustaining organism which somehow made money out of nothing. Government money was any man's legitimate prey; the Dineen factories had reveled in "cost-plus" contracts; but when government sought to touch Martin Dineen's own pocketbook, then the times were out of joint indeed, graft and inefficiency were rampant, and something ought to be done about it right away.

Full of this congenial topic, the host mellowed gradually as course followed course; and by the time dessert was over he was gruffly good-humored once more, and apparently ready to treat even Stewart with civility.

At last the company rose and moved toward the sitting room, to have their coffee about its open fire. Passing through the hall, Rosemary pouted at the up-ended drain tile which served as an umbrella holder.

"I wish you'd get rid of that thing, dad," she cried. "I hate the very sight of it. Look, Anne; isn't it dreadful?'

They all paused while Mrs. Warren examined the "hand-painted" monstrosity, on which an impossible bird flew about among huge cattails, apparently pasted against a bright Alice-blue background.

"It is rather— er, vivid," she agreed, and the younger men nodded solemnly.

But Martin Dineen frowned heavily. "I don't see anything wrong with it," he defended. "Seems t' me it's real pretty, and my Aunt Sophie painted it herself. It's a regular hand-painted thing, just right for umbrellas and canes, and I like it!"

Rosemary sighed and shrugged, her big brown eyes mutely appealing to Stewart. Dineen caught the latter's glance of sympathy, and scowled.

While the others chatted over their coffee the big man was as silent as Rumford himself; he seemed to be brooding upon some half-formed plan.

A sudden crash sounded from upstairs; Rosemary sprang up, hands clasped.

"There's somebody in the house!" she cried. "Oh, do you suppose it could be burglars?"

Trembling, she shrank toward Bob Stewart. He rose, chest well out, and glared defiance at any marauders,

"Never mind, dear," he whispered. "l'll take care of you!"

But Annie Warren spoiled the situation. "I guess Polly's fallen out of bed or something," said she prosaically. "Yes; that's it. I'll run up."

As a grievous wail drifted down the stairs, she departed in haste to minister to her offspring.

But the trifling incident turned the talk in a new direction.

"Have they caught the men that broke into Vincent's the other night?" asked Warren.

"No," answered Dineen slowly.  "No-o." He drawled the word, his eyes absent, as though he pondered some new idea. Then he nodded to himself and smiled rather unpleasantly. "No," he repeated, "there's no trace of them. And they say somebody tried to get into Donnelly's house last night, too."

"Why," cried Rosemary, "you hadn't told me that. Why, that's only across the street." She looked worried.

"It's nothing," Stewart assured her. "Just some trifling fellow looking for trinkets. He'd run like a rabbit if you said 'Boo!' "

But Dineen shook his head gravely. "I don't agree with you, Stewart," said he. Rumford, watching, thought the broad face bore a crafty look. "It's more serious than that,' he went on, loudly talking, as was his habit, from one mouth corner, his red face twisted into a rakishly confidential leer. "Barnes, the sheriff, told me— But there, it's nothing! Rosemary, just run upstairs and get my pipe, will your It's in my bedroom, in the pocket of that smoking jacket.

"No," he whispered to the three young men as the girl disappeared obediently; "no, the thing's more serious than that. Barnes says there's an organized gang working round here; two men, at least. They're experienced housebreakers, desperate men. I was going to speak of it later. I thought is

But Rosemary had returned, bearing the pipe. Mrs. Warren, her small daughter quieted, rejoined the group about the fire, and the subject was dropped. Watching his host's unwonted silence, his evident nervousness, his constant suspicious glances, Rumford wondered whether the man were really upset by the thought of burglars. Odd, he reflected, that Barnes should have talked so. To him, the sheriff had said only that morning that these thefts were done by some one of the town's petty thieves, and amounted to nothing.

After the two young women had retired, however, Dineen brought the matter up once more. "I got a plan," he confided, ''to catch these fellows. Of course, maybe they've been scared off; but they might be hanging around yet. And they're liable to give us a call here; everybody knows I got lots of valuables in the house." His red face grew redder ; his barrel chest swelled with pride. "Yes, I carry a lotta of cash, y' know, and then there's Rosemary's diamonds, If these fellows ain't gone they'll probably come here—and, I say, let's fix up a trap for 'em."

"Good work!" approved Stewart, enthusiastic at the prospect of excitement, and thinking, no doubt, that he might cut a heroic figure before his best beloved.

Warren nodded stolidly. He was a matter-of-fact individual, who made up in courage and resolution what he lacked in imagination. Rumford, perforce, agreed with the others; but he did so reluctantly. Something was wrong, he felt; his host was exaggerating very trivial thefts. And he did not like the big man's sidelong look. He shook his head impatiently, telling himself that he grew oversuspicious; but none the less he resolved to watch very carefully. A nameless foreboding possessed him,

"There's only the one stairway, you know," Dineen was explaining, "and everybody knows all my valuables"—he said "vallables"—'are upstairs. Well, we'll just balance the washboiler and some dishes on the landing, and run a string across, so as anybody coming up'll tip 'em all over and make an awful racket. And then—you got a gun, Stewart?"

"Only that little twenty-two," replied the young man.

It was a light repeating target rifle; Rosemary, Warren, and even Dineen himself, had amused themselves all one afternoon with shooting at a mark.

"Huh!" sneered the big man. 'Well, that's something. You, Warren? Rumford?"

But neither one, it appeared, possessed any firearms.

"Well," finished Dineen, "I gotta gun, one of them big, old-fashioned Colt's forty-fives. You c'n carry your pop-gun, Stewart, and I guess my old cannon'll do the business, if these here fellows should pay us a call."

So it was arranged, and the four men went to bed after piling tinware and crockery just below the stairhead.

Stewart, as usual, fell asleep at once; but Rumford lay long awake, obsessed by vague fears, striving without success to analyze the hidden cross currents of antagonism that he felt about him. At last he gave it up and dozed off, only to wake, sweating, from a nightmare in which Martin Dineen beat Bobby to death with that ugly tile umbrella stand, while Polly wailed aloud, "That's my f'ashlight! Rummy, the bad man's busting my f'ashlight!"

The next day passed as usual. Dineen, rising earliest of all, removed his burglar trap before the ladies were awake, then sought the little machine shop which he had fitted up in his garage. Here he spent the whole morning, overalled and grease-smeared, engaged in some mysterious activity. Before the carburetor— financed, folk whispered, with Rosemary's money— had brought him a fortune, Martin Dineen had been a machinist. Many people wondered why the girl's father, dying in her infancy, had chosen this man, a common workman in his shop, to be her guardian and the trustee of her considerable wealth. Perhaps he had visioned behind that broad, red, grease-daubed face the driving force which had later made Dineen almost a millionaire. Perhaps he had been moved by the sincere affection which the big man had always shown for his tiny, wistful, motherless child. At any rate, it had been so ordered, and Martin Dineen had proved a capable guardian ; affectionate, thoughtful to an extent which his up. couth front would never have suggested: perhaps even too indulgent. But his love was a jealous love; he grudged every look which the girl bestowed upon another. And now that she thought seriously of marriage, he was put to it to hide frank hatred of her successful suitor.

Bob and Rosemary wandered off to the golf links, hand in hand, too much engrossed in each other to notice Dineen's perturbation. Mrs. Warren was busy with her small daughter. George Warren, obvious and unobservant, would have seen nothing short of an open quarrel. He was stolidly content, oblivious of the tension which Rumford alone seemed to feel.

That young man, weary from a wakeful night, still upset by his vivid dream, wandered restlessly about, too nervous to settle to anything. Despite the other's effort for unconcern, he seemed to feel Dineen's inner turmoil; the old man's hatred for Bob Stewart seemed to fill the place like some noxious gas, like a tangible thing.

The put, put— put— put, put, put of the little gasoline engine in the garage fretted his tense nerves with its insistent syncopation. If the thing would only keep some rhythm, he thought irritably. Once he went out to the little shop. Martin Dineen, looking much more comfortable in his greasy overalls than in dinner clothes, leaned over a small metal worker's lathe, face intent as he smoothed and rounded a little steel tube. On the bench beside him lay a huge forty-five caliber revolver. Rumford shuddered at it.

As he essayed some inane ereeting, Dineen looked up, startled. For a breath the big man's face was threatening, murderous ; then he stopped the lathe, threw a bit of sacking hastily over his work bench, and came forward.

"What is it, Rumford?" he asked ungraciously. "You want me? I'm busy."

"No," replied the other. "Just roaming round. What're you making?" Dineen scowled again, then smiled mirthlessly. 'Aw, it's nothing," he said, talking from one mouth corner, as usual, like a Bowery tough. The habit gave his broad face a sinister leer. "Just a little— ah, a new invention I'm working on. You know," he went on, with a gruffly humorous frankness which the other felt to be assumed, "you know us inventors is queer. We hate t' have anybody watch us work; imagine maybe somebody might steal our ideas, I spose!" The odd twist of his mouth marred his expression of frankness; his loud guffaw rang false and hollow. Rumford turned away, dissatisfied.

It was evident that his host did not want him around.

At one o'clock the little engine ceased its jerky chattering.

DINEEN came in late for luncheon, conventionally dressed, but with nails still black with oil and a forgotten smudge of grease under one eye. He was in a better humor; throughout the meal he was gruffly voluble, almost boisterous. His laugh rang loudest; he railed at Rumford upon his silence, clumsily teased little Polly, who drew away from him in open dislike, and even joked Rosemary and Stewart upon their mutual absorption.

"Been holdin' hands all mornin', you two," he roared. "Billin' an' cooin' like turtledoves, I bet! Haw, haw, haw! Well, kids, go it while you're young!"

But his pale-blue eyes were cold and hard, and presently he lapsed into brooding, starting nervously when addressed.

The afternoon dragged by. Dinner time came, and little Polly, weeping and protesting, was borne off to bed. Diheen scowled at the sound and cursed under his breath. "Squalling brat," he muttered to Rumford. "She gets on my nerves!"

At dinner the host was absent-minded and ill at ease. His blunt, stubbed hands shook, so that he spilled soup on his vest and swore again, almost aloud. Then he roused himself at Rosemary's reproachful look, and began to talk loudly, blatantly bragging of his successes.

"They's aplenty of folks tried to run it on to me, one time an' another," he announced. "But old Mart Dineen bested 'em; he fixed 'em all, good an' proper. It ain't safe t' get in old Mart's way, boys; he always comes out on top. Anybody tries to buck me, I go on right over him. Regular steam roller; that's me!"

The Warrens strove to look politely interested; Bob grinned behind his hand; Rosemary shuddered a little at her guardian's frank vulgarity. But Rumford, listening in silence, felt his baseless forebodings growing stronger and stronger. There was a rude force in the man; a bitter, unscrupulous cunning. Rumford shuddered; he had suddenly conceived an acute dislike and distrust of this huge, gross man with his blunt fingers, his loud, bullying voice, his coarse, red face, all twisted to the blatant, bragging words.

At last the long evening was over; they all retired thankfully. Something had spoiled the spirit of this house party; none of the guests wished to prolong their stay.

"Glad we're going to-morrow!" whispered Warren as they climbed the stairs; and Rumford nodded agreement.

Dineen, coming last, halted them. He was carrying a wash boiler and half a dozen plates.

"Let's fix this again," he whispered. "I got a hunch they'll be somebody here to-night."

Rather distastefully the three young men helped him to set his trap, with a string stretched between the banisters so that any one mounting the stairs must make an unearthly racket.

"You've got too much string there," suggested Warren. "Better cut it off."

"Nope," answered Dineen. "Leave it lay. It don't do no harm, an' it might trip 'em up, or something."

So they left it, and retired. Rumford, tired from his wakeful night, fell sound asleep in a moment.

In the still, dark hours, some clutched his shoulder; he stirred groaned.

"Ss-ssh!" hissed a voice at his ear. "Get up; quiet, now! I heard somebody downstairs."

Stewart was already up and clutching the little target rifle. In the black dark Rumford caught at his host's wrist and let it go suddenly. He had felt the cold barrel of that huge revolver.

"All set?" whispered Dineen. "C'm on; Warren's outside here, somewheres."

They stumbled over him in the upper hall.

"It's awfully dark,' he whispered nervously. "Why not turn on the lights?"

"Aw, nix!" responded "Want to give the show away? I'm fixin' t' catch them fellows."

So they groped to the stairhead. Rumford could not see his hand before his face; he tried to voice a protest, thinking of those two loaded guns, but Dineen's hand was at his mouth.

"Ss-ssh! Hear 'em?"

Rumford strained his ears, but heard nothing save the sound of suppressed breathing beside him and the pound of his own heart.

Then Dineen cried out, wordlessly; he and Stewart were a step ahead of the others, just at the stairhead.

"Ah-h-h! There! Shoot, shoot!"

He had been crouching on one knee; Rumford's hand touched his arched back; he fumbled at the carpet. Then, almost at once, came a loud, clattering crash! The washboiler thundered down the steps, spilling crockery which splintered as it fell.

In the same breath came also two sharp, whiplike cracks ; two tiny flashes briefly illumining the dark.

Rumford shut dazzled eyes; he had seen nothing but these two flashes, apparently but a few inches apart, one shooting toward him, the other away. Struck rigid, he strove to analyze his impressions. Dineen, yelling aloud, had plunged down the black well of the stairway.

A faint moan; a limp, dead weight swayed back against him. Sick at heart, Rumford caught the body of his chum and eased it down.

Below stairs Dineen was shouting; Rumford heard the clink of that tile umbrella stand as he stumbled against it. A second's pause; then the front door opened and the deep roar of the heavy pistol shattered the outdoor calm.

Half stunned by the swift rush of events, Rumford knelt in the dark, his chum's head on one knee. His exploring fingers came away wet; a warm fluid soaked his pajama leg, oozed through to his naked flesh.

"Lights! Lights!' the big man was shouting. "Stewart! Warren! Turn on them lights. Th' fellers has got away."

Rumford heard Warren, forgotten in the turmoil, fumbling and groping along the wall; then, suddenly, the lights sprang out, stamping every outline of the scene upon his memory.

Pajamaed legs sprawled down the first two steps; Bob Stewart lay supine and flaccid, head in his friend's lap. Looking down from dazzled eyes, Rumford saw that the unruly hair was thickly matted. One side of his face was pocked with powder marks; a bullet had penetrated eye and brain, and the boy was quite dead.

Warren cried out thickly; Dineen, stamping up the stairs, swore a horrid oath. Yet to Rumford, even then, his amazement seemed not quite natural.

"What?" he yelped. "Shot? Him? Stewart killed! Oh, them burglars'll pay fr this! I'll hunt 'em down. I'll hunt 'em down!"

Suddenly he collected himself, as a door opened down the hall and Rosemary's trembling voiced asked a question.

"Mustn't let her see; gotta keep th' women back. Here, Warren " He handed the smoking pistol, which he still held, to that young man, and hurried down the corridor. "'S all right, Rosie," they heard him whisper. "'S all right; just a burglar scare, but they got away. An'—" The heavy voice died away ; he was telling her the dreadful news.

A wild shriek rang out; then sob on sob. "Oh, Daddy Martin, Daddy Martin! Let me see him, let me go to him! I must— I must!"

"There, there," soothed her guardian, and his blustering voice was very gentle. "There, Rosie; he ain't hurted bad at all, at all. I'll be getting the doctor to him, right now. You lie down; you can't do nothing just yet. Ah, Mrs. Warren, you stay with her a bit."

At the stairhead, still leaning over the fallen man, Rumford whispered sharply to the other. "Warren— give me that gun!"

Staring, Warren complied. Rumford broke the big pistol and examined it with care. One empty chamber; one discharged cartridge; a forty-five. He shook his head.

"No; that slug would have gone right through his head; it was a little bullet, probably a twenty-two; sounded just like Bob's own shot. Did you hear any burglars, Warren?"

Still puzzled, the other shook his head. "Not until they knocked over that tin thing," he replied.

With a bitter grin Rumford picked up the end of that long string Dineen had left. It lay beside his hand.

"It could have been pulled down from here," he pointed out.

But Dineen was back, and there was hurrying and racing, for a doctor, for the coroner, for the sheriff. Dineen told his story straightforwardly, and the others corroborated it, perforce, though Rumford held deep misgivings.

The night waned like some frightful dream, with questioning, investigation, searching for footprints, the starting of a posse. The doctor, who was also the local coroner, probed the wound and extracted the bullet, a little twenty-two caliber, soft-lead bullet, all marred and flattened. And always, like an obbligato to these discordant activities, came Rosemary's hopeless, monotonous sobbing.

Morning came at last. Bob Stewart lay on his bed, marred face covered, waiting for those grim last offices of the undertaker. Dineen, who seemed much broken by the tragedy, had disappeared. Rumford and Warren stood uneasily in the living room, talking in low tones.

"I tell you," Rumford insisted, "Dineen did it himself! He shot Bob Stewart; I know it! Neither of us heard any burglars; Dineen could have knocked over that boiler himself, with that string; and the two shots were fired right together. The gun that killed poor Bob wasn't six inches away from his head; look at those powder marks!"

Warren shrugged impatiently. "Nonsense!" he objected. "That's impossible. Why should Dineen want to kill him? And, anyway, he was shot with a twenfy-two bullet, and Dineen had a forty-five. You saw it. Why, he gave me the gun, right before you."

"I don't care," Rumford went on. "What burglar would carry a twenty- wo, anyhow?  Dineen did it, some way.  Hush! Here he comes again."

They heard their host's heavy step in the hall; he was upending the tile umbrella stand.

"Why does he do that, now?" asked Rumford. '"That's the tenth time, at least, that he's been fussing round that tile, looking for something."

Little Polly danced into view, singing a wordless song. The tragedy had not upset her; she was happy. She carried a slender steel tube, some ten inches long, into which she looked at intervals.

"What you got?" asked Rumford idly. "What's that, Polly?"

"I got me a new fiashlight," answered the child, chuckling. "See? Nice new f'ashlight!"

She handed it to Rumford. As he took it, Dineen plunged toward them with an inarticulate roar.

"You— you brat!" he cried. "Where'd y' get that, huh?"

Frightened, the child shrank away from him, clutching Rumford's knees for protection. "In— in the on-ombrolly place," she faltered.

Dineen aimed a slap at her. "Brat!" he raged. "'S mine,'s mine! Gi' me it, Rumford; give it here. You got no right to it!"

Quite unafraid, Rumford examined the contrivance with care. It was a slender tube, about the circumference of the bore of a forty-five pistol. It was rifled within, and at one end a twenty-two-cartridge shell still remained in place.

"Ah-h!" sighed Rumford, now quite cold and calm. "So that was how it was done! Warren, go get that revolver of Dineen's."

Still bewildered, but obedient, the other started off. Polly clung to her protector, peering around his knee at Dineen. But the big man had collapsed. All the bluster, all the fight, had oozed out of him. He staggeed to a chair and half fell into it, big, round head in both hands, while heavy sobs shook him.

In a moment Warren returned with the pistol. Rumford took it, broke open its action, and inserted the slender tube through cylinder and barrel as though it had been a long cartridge. It fitted perfectly, extending a quarter of an inch beyond the gun muzzle. At the breech, the end of the twenty-two shell thrust out as a proper-sized shell would have.

"Ah-h-h!" repeated Rumford. "Look, Warren. Calibers changed while you wait. This contrivance just changes a forty-five pistol so it will shoot twenty-two shells. They're rimfire, you see, so the hammer would strike about right; big cartridges are center-fire. Or he may have filed the firing pin a bit. Anyhow, there it is: He shot Bob Stewart through the eye with this affair— remember how careful he was to have no lights; we might possibly have seen that his pistol was doctored— then he ran downstairs, broke the gun, pulled this tube out, and shot out the front door at nothing. That was so we'd not notice the difference between the sound of a little cartridge and a big one.

"It was mighty clever, Dineen; and only a good mechanic could have fixed this devilish thing. And you'd have got away with it, if Polly hadn't been looking for a 'flashlight.' That was the only weak point, the way you hid your caliber changer. But it had to be done in a hurry; and I thought you could get it any time this morning. Dineen, you're a murderer!"

But Dineen, face still buried in his hands, only sobbed and moaned helplessly. He was a rather pitiable sight, crouched thus amid the ruins of his life.

"He wanted to marry Rosemary!" he muttered painfully. It was his only defense.

________________

19: The Blue-Black Feet

Christopher B. Booth

Detective Story Magazine, May 1938

HIS soul sick with dread, Eric Ashley tried desperately to find a way of escape from the situation into which he had trapped himself. He had taken eight hundred dollars of the bank's money, and he knew the shortage couldn't be covered up any longer. His folly had caught up with him.

Behind the steel grille of the second teller's window he pretended to be busy inside his cage, but that was only to conceal his panic as his mind blundered around in the same hopeless circle. It always brought him back to the same place— flight was his only chance to escape arrest.

"Yes, I've got to get away, and get away fast," he said under his breath. "The bank examiners will be here tomorrow."

He looked down at his cash drawer. The bills there were mostly of small denominations, and the amount wasn't so large as it appeared to be.

"I can pinch out another thousand for get-away money," he thought. "That'll get me to Florida with something to spare. The horses will be running down there. If I can hit a few long shots and send back the money, maybe that'll square things."

A shadow moved between him and the street window of the bank. Eric Ashley's head jerked up and he forced a smile to his lips. The Queen City National had a slogan: "The bank with a smile."

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Kinsella," he said.

Mrs. Martha Kinsella, short and stocky, good-natured and rich— rich, that is, for a town the size of Queen City — was beaming jovially as she thrust a check under the wicket.

"I'll have cash for this," she said. "Ten hundred-dollar bills and the rest in tens and twenties, if you please, Eric."

Eric Ashley picked up the check and looked at it. The amount was fifteen hundred dollars.

"Looks like you're starting on your annual trip South," he said.

"A West Indies cruise this year," she told him. "I'm taking the seven o'clock train to New York tomorrow morning. The boat sails Monday. I'll send you some post cards, Eric."

"Swell!" exclaimed young Ashley with mechanical enthusiasm, and reached for the cash drawer. "How long will you be away?"

"Six weeks, Eric. The cruise takes only two, but I'm going to stop over in New York on my way back. I'm fifty-five years old and have never seen the inside of a night club. Night-clubbing at my age! Keep it a dark secret, Eric."

Ashley counted the money twice before he slid it across the marble slab, and Mrs. Kinsella herself counted it three times. For all her jollity, she was always careful about such things. Not stingy, just careful.

"Right!" she exclaimed briskly, and put the bills into her handbag. "Well, so long, Eric; I'll not forget the post cards."

Ashley watched her as she moved away from the window. An idea shot into his mind. He looked again at the check.

"She's going to be away six weeks," he thought. "Nobody to watch her account while she's gone. If I could raise this check to twenty-five hundred—"

But he knew the idea was no good. The new girl who posted the paid checks on the bank's ledgers came close to being a handwriting expert. Twice in a month she had questioned signatures that had got past the tellers, and only day before yesterday she had spotted a raised check.

Ashley didn't dare risk it. Flight was his only possible escape; at least it seemed to be until still another idea leaped into his harassed brain. Desperate men think of desperate things, and he was thinking now that Mrs. Martha Kinsella wasn't leaving town until the seven o'clock train tomorrow morning. Tonight she would be practically alone in her big, rambling house out on Maple Avenue— alone with that fifteen hundred dollars in cash !

Eric Ashley caught his breath sharply, his nerves strained taut, vibrating like strands of tightly drawn wire.

"Yes!" he whispered. "That's my solution. The money to cover my shortage, and seven hundred over! Nobody could possibly suspect a fellow who's got a job in a bank turning housebreaker. This is my out!"

The more he turned it over in his mind, the simpler and safer the plan seemed to be. He decided to go through with it.

Eric Ashley lived in Lovelock's boardinghouse out on Taft Street. On his way home from the bank a little after five o'clock, he caught up with Helen Hamlin, the pretty new school-teacher who taught first-ear Latin in Queen City High. She was with Harry Dreen, and they too roomed with the Lovelocks.

Despite his preoccupation with the details of his desperate scheme of burglary, Eric felt a hot flush of resentment. He'd been getting along swell with Helen Hamlin until this Harry Dreen had pushed himself into the picture.

What the hell did she see in the fellow anyhow? Harry Dreen was a nobody, a kid of twenty-two or twenty-three who had drifted into Queen City, little better than a bum. A tramp printer who ran a linotype machine for the Evening Standard.

Nobody would call him handsome; his features were too rugged for that. He wore cheap clothes, didn't have a car, and never seemed to have any money to spend. Ashley couldn't understand why this gorgeous girl with the streamlined legs, auburn hair, beautiful eyes, and the most kissable mouth he had ever seen, should prefer the company of a common printer to that of a man who worked in a bank, wore tailored suits, and was willing to buy theater tickets.

For weeks Eric Ashley had detested Harry Dreen with a growing hatred which he was finding it difficult to conceal. Every time he sat down at the boardinghouse table with him, or passed him on the stairs, he had an almost uncontrollable impulse to smash Dreen's face.

Ashley steered his car over to the curb and braked to a stop. He considered himself a very natty figure in his Harris tweed topcoat, pigskin gloves, and rakish hat. Harry Dreen's overcoat was one of those nondescript garments that are bought in bargain basements for fifteen dollars; the sleeves looked too short for his long arms.

"Hello, there!" sang out Eric Ashley. "How about giving you a lift home, Helen?" He was making it obvious that the invitation did not include Harry Dreen.

Helen Hamlin darted a quick glance up into Harry Dreen's face. The latter was smiling in tolerant amusement.

"Why, sure, Helen," he said, "go right ahead, if you like."

"Some people are so damn dumb they don't know when they're being insulted," thought Eric, and gave young Dreen a long, hard stare of withering contempt.

Helen Hamlin's face flushed. Her voice was crisply cool as she answered: "Thanks, Mr. Ashley, but we prefer to walk." There was the barest emphasis on the pronoun.

In a quick flare of temper Eric Ashley slammed in the gears and released the clutch with a violence that wouldn't do a car any good.

"So help me," he muttered as the roadster lurched forward, "I'm going to find a way to do something to that guy! He burns me up."

At dinner that night Ashley made it a point to laugh heartily at "Old Man" Matson's bum jokes, just to impress the others at the table that he didn't have a worry or a serious thought on his mind. After dinner some one suggested bridge and he played for a couple- of hours, continuing his role of being the life of the party.

A little after ten he went up to his room and locked the door from the inside. In his trunk he dug around for an old suit which he no longer used for anything except to wear on an occasional fishing trip. It was pretty worn and shabby, which exactly suited his purpose.

For the next thirty or forty minutes he experimented with a disguise and studied the effect in the mirror. With an old tweed cap and an improvised mask fastened across his face, he found it impossible to believe that anyone could possibly recognize him as the natty, dapper bank teller who worked for the Queen City National.

"Only one danger," Ashley told himself; "there's a bare chance I might be recognized on the street."

This possibility, however, did not greatly disturb him, for his mirror told him that when he pulled up the high collar of the worn gray sports sweater and yanked the deep visor of the cap over his eyes, his features would be practically unrecognizable in the night gloom of Queen City's none-too-well-lighted streets.

For another half hour he practiced a trick of hunching his shoulders and disguising his voice. He really began to take a vain delight in his masquerade, feeling himself a quite extraordinary fellow.

"Clever!" he exclaimed softly. "Damned clever, if I do say so myself!"

Then he held out his hands and looked at them, amazed to discover his nerves so steady. He gave a stare of appreciation at himself in the glass, grinning.

"I've got to hand it to you, Mr. Ashley; you've got more of that thing they call intestinal fortitude than I thought you had!"

Ashley killed more time, until the clock on his bureau marked fifteen minutes past one. The time was still a little earlier than he had originally planned, but he had now such a feeling of boldness and safety he decided to risk it.

"After all," he muttered, "this burg is a nine o'clock town. Hell, they even lock up the bars before midnight !"

He switched out the lights within his room and carrying his shoes in his hand to put them on just before slipping out of the house, started creeping cautiously down the stairs. The Lovelock boarding house was wrapped in slumber. The stair treads creaked faintly and the eeriness of the sound did something to his nerves. His hands wouldn't have been so steady if he had looked at them now.

Reaching the bottom landing, he sat down on the last step, put on his shoes, and slipped his hands into a pair of gloves. Then he opened the vestibule door onto the front porch, and it was all he could do to check the outcry of dismay that sprang to his lips.

The whole plan was knocked into a cocked hat. Spoiled, finished! It didn't have a chance.

Upstairs in his room, with the window shades drawn to the bottom of the sashes, he hadn't known that snow had fallen. Snow seldom fell in Queen City so early in November, and it gave him a suddenly terrified feeling that the very forces of nature were in league against him.

The snow had stopped now, but a white carpet covered the ground to a depth of a full inch— a wet, clinging mass of the stuff that would take and hold a man's footprint like a matrix. The very emptiness of the residential streets — the thing he had counted on for safety— made it certain that his own tracks would stand out in a clear trail for the police to follow, straight from the boarding-house to Mrs. Kinsella's and back to the Lovelock boardinghouse again!

His shoes would fit those tracks, and he would be hopelessly trapped. The scheme was all washed up.

Overwhelmed by this ironic calamity which had ruined his one and only chance of avoiding the desperate necessity for flight, he crept numbly back up the stairs. It was even too late to take another thousand dollars from the bank. A hopeless sense of futility crushed him down. Escape? How could there possibly be any escape when even the elements had joined in a conspiracy against him?

Harry Dreen's room adjoined his own; as Eric Ashley moved along the second floor hall, he heard the sound of the printer's heavy breathing on the other side of the door. It was more distinct because the door was not completely closed. Only yesterday Dreen had been complaining that the lock would not catch.

In his own despair, Ashley felt a fresh rage against Harry Dreen. He moved on toward his own room when something clicked in his mind. The complete unexpectedness of his inspiration jarred him to an abrupt stop, literally with one foot lifted in mid-air.

That inch of snow on the ground— it wasn't a conspiracy against him after all! It was made to order for him. A trail of footprints leading straight to Mrs. Kinsella's house, and straight back again — but they would not be his own; they would be Harry Dreen's!

Eric Ashley held his breath for an instant.

"Perfect!" he whispered. "Dreen's a stranger in this town. He came here down and out, little better than a bum. He's hard up as hell— his clothes show that. Nobody will believe he didn't take the money— especially if the police find some of it on him!"

The bank teller tiptoed back to the door of Harry Dreen's room, listened. He pushed the panel open a few inches. Enough illumination filtered in from the dimly lighted hall to reveal the linotype operator lying on his right side, his face to the wall.

It was the cheapest and smallest room in the house, and lacked closet space. That, perhaps, was why Harry Dreen had hung his clothes neatly across a chair when he had turned in. His shoes were on the floor beside the chair— worn shoes that told a story of more than one trip to the cobbler's for repairs.

Eric Ashley eased himself within the room. If Dreen awakened, he would say he had heard groans and thought he ought to find out what was wrong.

But Harry Dreen did not waken. Swiftly Ashley scooped up the clothes, including a fresh pair of socks, retreated into the hall and into his own room. Hurriedly he got into Dreen's things, all but the shoes. Again in his stockinged feet— they were Dreen's socks this time, for they must be damp when the police found them— he went a second time down the stairs, jerked on the shoes, and let himself out of the house.

The carpet of snow muffled his footsteps along the narrow driveway as he made his way to the Lovelock garage. The garage door made a little noise when he let himself inside. He easily found what he wanted, the broken section of an old automobile spring which Lovelock used as a tire iron to change the tires of his ancient car. Ashley could think of nothing better with which to pry open a stubborn window.

With the tire iron hugged under his coat, he made his way back to the street, and walked very fast over to Maple Avenue. He kept looking behind, laughing a little hysterically under his breath to see what a fine trail of footprints Harry Dreen's patched old shoes made in the snow.

"This will take care of you, Mr. Dreen!" he thought. "It'll take care of you for the next five years!"

Mrs. Martha Kinsella's house stood at the corner of Maple and High, a big, roomy place, built in the days of large families and visiting relatives. It was forty or fifty feet back from the street.

Eric Ashley squeezed himself through the hedge, pausing long enough to let one of the hedge thorns snag Dreen's coat and snare a fragment of the cloth.

"You'll never get out of this, Mr. Dreen!" he exulted.

Eric Ashley had been at the Kinsella house many times. In his childhood he had played with the Kinsella boys. They had all married and moved away now.

He slipped around to the back of the house. His feet had begun to feel cold from the moisture of the melting snow which leaked in through Harry Dreen's shoes.

The kitchen window, easily reached from the back stoop, was the one Eric Ashley picked. Using the tire iron as a jimmy, he forced up the sash, and the snapping of the lock made much less noise than he had expected. He began to have a very good opinion of himself as a burglar.

The Kinsella house being familiar, the housebreaking bank teller had no difficulty in finding his way. The furniture seemed to be in exactly the same place as it had always been.

At the bottom of the stairs he paused, tied his homemade mask across his face, then moved stealthily on up the carpeted steps, the tire iron gripped in his right hand. It made a formidable weapon; a heavy blow with a piece of steel like this could split open a skull.

Ashley knew too where Mrs. Kinsella's bedroom would be. The door was wide open and so was one of the windows. Mrs. Kinsella believed in getting plenty of fresh air.

For just an instant Eric Ashley's desperate courage threatened to desert him; his mouth felt suddenly dry and his knees weak and wabbly.

Suppose his disguise wasn't so good as he thought and Mrs. Kinsella did recognize him? Then conceit in his own cleverness, and the realization that he must either go through with the burglary or take the consequences, pulled him out of his funk.

He went on within the room, gently closed the door, and snapped on a light — the farthest one from the bed, to keep himself in the shadows as much as possible.

Mrs. Kinsella stirred, muttered in her sleep. Eric Ashley hunched his shoulders, moved toward the bed, and prodded the woman with the end of the tire iron. He attempted his best possible imitation of a thug as he growled:

"Snap out of it, lady; you and me has got some business together."

Mrs. Kinsella's eyes opened, remained glazed with sleep for an instant, and then bulged wide with astonishment and alarm. Her mouth filled to let out a scream.

"Keep your trap shut, and nobody gets hurt," rasped Eric Ashley. "But one yelp outta you, see, and I bash your head in — with this." He made a threatening gesture with the tire iron.

Mrs. Kinsella did not scream.

"Where's the dough, lady — that big wad of kale I seen you takin' outta the bank this afternoon? Come on now! Where you got it?"

"I— I don't know what you mean," whispered Mrs. Kinsella. "I "

"Cut out the stalling," snarled Ashley. "Where's that fifteen hundred bucks? Or have I gotta give you a good smack with this little persuader?"

Most of the fear vanished from Mrs. Kinsella's eyes, lost in a bewildered expression. Then her terror was gone entirely.

"Eric Ashley!" she gasped incredulously. "What on earth does this mean? Why are you pretending to be a burglar? Or maybe— maybe you're not pretending! Still I can't believe "

Ashley thought she had recognized his voice; he didn't know that his mistake had been to mention the amount of money Mrs. Kinsella had drawn from the bank, and that her wits had been quick enough to remember that only she and Eric Ashley had seen the amount of the check she had cashed.

All Eric Ashley knew was that he was trapped, and that now only one thing could save him— the eternal silence of this woman who knew who he was and why he was here. Perhaps, if he'd had a little more time to think, his hand would have stayed, but panic was hard upon him, and his hand, gripping the tire iron, lifted.

Mrs. Kinsella saw the expression in his eyes ; she knew what it meant. Her shrill scream stabbed out wildly through the night's stillness.

"Wait! Eric, wait!"

But Eric Ashley had got in too deep to wait. The two-foot length of tempered steel crashed down and struck. What had been a case of embezzlement was now a matter of murder.

It wasn't pleasant to look at. Ashley reeled back, sick and faint, groping for the door. He was halfway out into the hall before he remembered that he hadn't got what he had come for — the fifteen hundred dollars.

He forced himself back into the room, began to search. Mrs. Kinsella's handbag was in the second drawer of the dresser, in plain sight. Jerking open the clasp, he groped in his hand, found the money, stuffed it into the outside pocket of Harry Dreen's coat.

Racing down the stairs an instant later, he heard Mrs. Kinsella's maid who slept on the third floor, running for the stairs. He got out of the house before she had a chance to see him.

Pursuit, he knew, would not be far behind. His trail of footprints would lead the police straight to Lovelock's boardinghouse.

On his way back, Ashley cut across a vacant lot to save time, tumbling into a shallow gully that had about a foot of water in it, and got soaking wet, halfway to his knees.

That was all right; they were Harry Dreen's clothes, and the more evidence against Harry Dreen, so much safer it would be for himself.

Eric Ashley reached the boarding-house, let himself in with his key, and was taking off the wet shoes when he realized he had the money on him — evidence that would doom him to the electric chair if it was found in his possession.

"Where can I hide it?" he whispered thickly. "Not anywhere out of doors; the footprints in the snow will lead the police to any place I go. It's got to be cached somewhere inside the house!"

For an instant, in his terror, he thought it might be the safest thing to leave all the money in Harry Dreen's room— and take the consequences for his shortage at the bank.

But he didn't dare to do that either. Discovery of his embezzlement, Mrs. Kinsella's check the proof he knew she had the money, would put him under instant suspicion.

Eric Ashley stood for a frantic moment, not knowing what to do. Then, because he had to do something, he crept into the dark living room to his left, groped his way toward the old-fashioned bay window where Mrs. Lovelock kept some otted plants. The breath pumping in and out of his lungs in hissing jets of sound, he clawed a hole with his gloved fingers into the dirt of a wooden bucket of ferns, put the money there, and patted the dirt back in place.

He would have preferred a more ingenious concealment, but, in his extremity, with the minutes rushing past and time so important and his mind in a frightened daze, it was the best he could do.

The house still slept soundly as he went up the stairs. In his room, without turning on a light, he stripped off Harry Dreen's clothes with shaking fingers that fumbled with every button, put on his pajamas, then crept back into the hall.

Harry Dreen seemed not to have moved, although he wasn't breathing so heavily now. Ashley put the clothes back on the chair. One of the shoes slipped out of his hand and struck the floor with a loud thump. The bed springs creaked a little as Harry Dreen moved, his sleep disturbed by the sound.

But, to Eric Ashley's relief, the linotype operator did not awaken, and Eric tiptoed in his bare feet out into the hall and back into his own room where he crawled into bed, still without having turned on a light. For a few moments he lay there, trembling and shivering with dread over the thought there might be something he had overlooked, some detail that wasn't perfect.

Murder! He had committed murder! He kept seeing Mrs. Kinsella, who had given him cookies when he was a kid and had spoken a good word for him when he applied for the job at the bank, with her face all covered with blood. Her scream kept echoing in his mind.

Some of the horror passed; some of the fear was allayed by his confidence that all the suspicion would focus on Harry Dreen.

"Can't let myself go to pieces," he whispered through dry lips which kept sticking together. "Mustn't let anybody see I'm afraid."

The waiting was longer than he had expected, or perhaps it only seemed longer. Presently he heard the sounds he had been listening for— gruff voices, men walking. Hurrying!

Shoes pounded on the porch of the boardinghouse. The front doorbell rang with loud and prolonged persistence. Grumbling drowsily, old Lovelock went padding down the stairs, carpet slippers flapping.

Eric Dreen recognized the rumbling voice of Sam Harker, the Queen City chief of police. Fragments of sentences reached Eric Ashley's straining ears:

"Mrs. Kinsella— murder— trailed the killer here."

"Pop" Lovelock's voice, bewildered and shocked, raised in horrified protest. "Must be some mistake, chief."

Chief Harker replied: "Sure there's been a mistake— the kind murderers always make. This one is dumber'n hell— leaving a clear trail of footprints in the snow, straight from the Kinsella house to here. Damned if I ever did see anying as dumb as that."

Pop Lovelock muttered something again, insisting it couldn't be possible that anybody who lived under his respectable roof could be guilty of such a hideous thing.

"These footprints were made by a man's shoes," Chief Harker said. "How many men you got boarding with you now, Pop?"

"Only— only two," gulped Lovelock. "Eric Ashley, who works in the bank, and Harry Dreen."

"Couldn't hardly be Eric Ashley," rumbled the police chief. "There was robbery done too. If Eric was of a mind to steal, he could get a hell of a lot more from the bank than he'd find in a woman's purse."

Eric Ashley felt a great relief. That was the way he'd had it figured in the first place — because he worked in a bank he was free of suspicion as a housebreaker.

"This other one— Dreen," the chief's voice went on. "What do you know about him?"

Pop Lovelock told what he knew about Harry Dreen. It wasn't much.

"He's always seemed to be a nice enough feller," said Pop.

"Take me upstairs and show me which is his room," ordered Chief Harker. "Ought to be easy enough to tell if he's the guilty man."

Harker and Lovelock were coming up the stairs. Two other men trailed along behind. Harker pushed open the door of Harry Dreen's room, groped for the light, snapped it on.

Harry Dreen sat up in bed, startled and blinking.

"What's the matter?" he blurted.

Chief Harker's eyes were hard, his mouth grim as he took one broad stride across the narrow room and picked up Dreen's clothes from the chair. He knew that the legs of the trousers would be soaking wet, even before he touched them with his hand. He stooped down for the shoes; the worn leather was limp from immersion. Then he lifted one of the socks, dangled it in mid-air; a few drops of dark-colored water dripped down on the floor.

Harry Dreen continued to stare. "What is all this?" he demanded. "What's happened to my clothes?"

Pop Lovelock shook his head sadly. "Looks like he done it, all right," he said.

"Stupidest piece of bungling I ever saw," growled the police chief. "How he thought he was going to get away with it, I don't know."

Harry Dreen flung back the bed-covers and swung his legs down onto the floor.

"What is all this about anyhow?" he demanded a second time. "It seems I've got a right to know—"

Chief Harker didn't waste any time. A pair of handcuffs clinked in his hand. Swiftly he leaned forward and snapped them firmly about Harry Dreen's wrists, almost before the latter could anticipate what was happening.

"No use bluffing, Dreen, and how you could have been fool enough to think you could get away with it, is beyond me. The trail of foot-prints you left for us to follow in the snow "

"Snow?" repeated Harry Dreen.

"Maybe you figured it would all be melted off the ground before daylight," rasped Chief Harker. "Maybe you didn't know Mrs. Kinsella's maid would hear the woman scream when you broke her skull open with that tire iron, and would get the police station on the telephone within less than five minutes— and maybe you're just a plain, crazy damn fool who needed, some money mighty bad and was willing to commit murder to get it."

Harry Dreen looked at his handcuffed wrists; he looked at his wet clothes, the water-soaked shoes. In a dull, dazed, bewildered way he must have realized the seriousness of his predicament. He stood up in his worn, faded pajamas, his face gone a dead white. The links of the handcuffs jingled as he moved his arms.

"I don't know anybody named Kinsella!" he shouted. "I haven't been outside this house since nine o'clock tonight. I don't know who's trying to pin murder on me, but it's certainly clear that somebody sneaked in here, got my clothes, and is trying to frame me !"

The boardinghouse had been startled awake. Doors were being opened, heads thrust out into the hall. In the adjoining room, Eric Ashley decided that he had better bestir himself also. It might look peculiar if he remained too long without making an appearance. He got out of bed, turned on a light, and slipped into his dressing gown. He almost collided with Helen Hamlin as he rushed out into the hall.

"What is it?" he demanded. "What's all the excitement about? Is the house on fire?"

"I— I don't know," Helen Hamlin answered uncertainly. "I heard— I heard the word— 'murder,' and there seems—" They were now outside Harry Dreen's door, and her eyes caught a glimpse of police uniforms. "Yes, it's the police."

Chief of Police Harker had grabbed Harry Dreen roughly by the shoulders and shoved him back down upon the bed.

"You killed that woman, Dreen!" he roared. "You smashed her head in with a piece of automobile spring! You got that piece of spring out of Pop Lovelock's garage; your footprints go from the house to the garage— and straight from the garage to Mrs. Kinsella's house.

"You jimmied open the kitchen window, went upstairs and killed her in cold blood when she woke up and found you rummaging in her bedroom."

Helen Hamlin screamed. "No, No!" she cried. "It's not true; it couldn't be true!"

Harry Dreen would have been an unusual young man if he hadn't been frightened. His hands were trembling a little.

"Thank you, Helen," he said thickly. "I didn't do it. Somebody has tried to make it look—"

Chief Harker caught a glimpse of Eric Ashley standing in the doorway.

"You, Ashley, come on in here. You sleep on this floor, eh?"

Eric Ashley nodded. "Yes," he answered, "mine is the next room to Dreen's."

"Did you happen to hear Dreen moving about a little while ago— coming in, say, about thirty minutes before we got here?"

For the barest instant Ashley hesitated. His first impulse was to tie Harry Dreen up just so much more tightly by saying that he had heard Dreen come in, but he thought it might look better if he showed no eagerness to clinch the fellow's guilt.

"I'm a pretty sound sleeper, chief; I didn't hear anything until a moment or two ago when all this racket woke me up."

Chief Harker shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I was hoping maybe you did, Eric, but it doesn't make much difference either way. The evidence we've got here "

He poked at the clothes, suddenly frowned, looking dawn at his hands. There was a bluish stain on his fingers. He looked at Harry Dreen's bare feet, and the frown deepened.

"Humph!" he grunted. "That's queer!"

Eric Ashley, for no reason he could name, felt a quick tingle of uneasiness. He knew that Chief Harker was looking now at his bare feet; he hadn't stopped to put on his slippers.

"What's queer, chief?" he blurted.

Chief of Police Harker picked up one of Harry Dreen's dripping socks, squeezed it between his fingers. A trickle of darkly discolored water oozed out, left a bluish-black stain upon his hand.

"Yeah," he growled, "that's where it came from, all right. Must be just about the cheapest pair of socks a man can buy— for the color to run in cold water.

"What's queer about it, Eric? The queer thing is that Dreen hasn't got any of them dye stains on his feet— and that you have!"

Eric Ashley looked down at his bare feet. Both of them had the same discoloration that was on the police chief's hands— the cheap dye from Harry Dreen's socks! It was sufficient proof for anybody that Eric Ashley had worn them tonight.

The room seemed to be mounted on an axis, spinning crazily about him. His temples were pounding with a rush of blood to his head, a thousand explosions were inside his brain.

Through a mist he saw Chief Harker taking the handcuffs from Harry Dreen; Eric knew that in another moment they would be on his own wrists.

He knew they were going to arrest him— now. There wouldn't be any chance to get the money from the bucket of ferns. Tomorrow morning the bank examiners would discover his shortage, Chief Harker would find out he had cashed Mrs. Kinsella's check for fifteen hundred dollars. It would all be clear. There was no possible hope of escape.

The room whirled faster. In a crazy confusion of mental pictures he saw Mrs. Kinsella with the blood gushing down her face; he thought he heard her screaming again.

But the scream which rang in his ears was his own. It was the cry of a man who knows that he is damned beyond hope.

_________________

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-52

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

George Ade

Loafer's Lullaby  49

Hervey Allen

Report to Major Roberts  47

Lewis Allen

Pinched  39

Robert L. Ahern

Murder Needs No Motive  34

Mark Allerton

The Wrong 'Un 44

Frederick Irving Anderson

The Phantom Alibi 50

The Van Duersen Haze 50

Anonymous

By the Tie of a Boot-Lace 52

The Lady Detective's Story 32

The 6.15 'Bus 52

Trivial Evidence 52

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

J. M. Barrie

The Inconsiderate Waiter  51

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 Blind Farmer and the Strip Dancer 52

Breakfast at the Savoy 49

The Devil's Fire 31

The Devil is Dead 31

The Fog at Fiddler's Green 31

From the Dark 49

The King's Pipe 34

Lady of the Evil Eye 31

Sons of Kalewa 31

Stormalong  48

The Temple of the Ten 48

Wheels of Doom 52

J. J. Bell

Blue Blood, or, The Pride of Lady Ambrosia 44

The Message on the Sun-Dial  42

Stephen Vincent Benét

Silver Jemmy 50

E F Benson

The Bed By The Window  48

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

The Blue-Black Feet 52

The Double Double Cross 52

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

Mr. Clackworthy Revives a Town 47

The Sealed Envelope 43

The Sparrow  40

Tardy, but on Time (as by John J. Chichester)  41

Twice Drowned 52

B. M. Bower

The Ghost of One Man Coulee 52

Jack Boyle

Ann of Satan-Town  46

George Bronson-Howard

The Steerage Passenger 44

Miles J. Breuer

Millions for Defense  47

The Stone Cat   47

Ellis Parker Butler

An Experiment in Gyro-Hats  37

Beating The Law 43

Eliph' Hewlitt on the Millinery Problem  44

Good Graft 51

Hats and Lilies 37

The Heckby Hill Murder 38

Mr. Marston's Chauffeurette  40

"Pigs is Pigs" 50

Scott Campbell

Rings of Dust 43

Hayden Carruth

Active Colorado Real Estate  46

Casper Carson

Wizard or Crook   48

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

Jack Donahue

The Last Letters of a Hoofer 49

Dick Donovan

A Dying Confession 49

A Night of Horror  49

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

R. E. Francillon

Touch-And-Go With a Great Estate

J. M. Fry

The Ring  38

Jacques Futrelle

Mr. John Smith in Paris  47

Emile Gaboriau

The Little Old Man of Batignolles 34

Charles Garvice

The Two Uncles 44

Théophile Gautier

The Vampire 50

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 Hunting of the Haggis 51

Mutiny on the Inchcliffe Castle  49

The Pearl of Panama 42

The Rolling Stone  41

The Toad Men of Tumbaroo  46

Westward, How!  46

The Yogi of West Ninth Street  50

Susan Glaspell

A Jury of Her Peers 44

Evelyn Glover

Blatherwick  52

Winifred Graham

Pan   39

C. J. Hamilton

The Luck of Barney Costello 44

Arthur P Hankins

Eyes of Blue   43

Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Peter  47

Percie W. Hart

Ye Ghoste of ye Olde Bowerie Roade 49

William Fryer Harvey

The Beast with Five Fingers 50

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

Washington Irving

The Story of a Young Robber 47

W. W. Jacobs

In Borrowed Plumes 49

M. R. James

Casting the Runes 50

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 Dancing Partner 50

The Ghost of the Marchioness of Appleford 50

The Man of Science  43

Marianne Kent

A Black Diamond  35

Otis Adelbert Kline

The Dragoman's Slave Girl 35

Servant of Satan  50

George L. Knapp

The Family Compact  37

Thomas H. Knight

Old City of Jade  36

Alexander Kuprin

Menagerie 45

Henry Lawson

The Loaded Dog 50

Stephen Leacock

Soaked in Seaweed  51

Sheridan Le Fanu

The Dead Sexton  51

Henry Leverage

The Petermen of Providence  46

Alun Lewis

Private Jones 39

Sumner Locke

Ragtime 44

William J Locke

Ladies In Lavender 36

Edwin Truett Long

Dogs of Circe 52

F. G. Loring

The Tomb of Sarah 50

Marie Belloc Lowndes

Popeau Intervenes  41

Maarten Maartens

A Comedy of Crime 47

Ferdinand McMahon

Shingle Short 52

Newton MacTavish

An Unposted Letter 47

William J. Makin

The Jerusalem Express 51

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

Richard Marsh

The Pipe  48

Mrs. L. T. Meade

Beauty Dear 32

The Yellow Dragon Vases 32

Mrs L. T. Meade and Dr Clifford Halifax, M.D.

The Seventh Step  48

The Strange Case of Captain Gascoigne 31

The Small House on Steven's Heath 33

"To Every one His Own Fear"  34

With the Eternal Fires 32

Abraham Merritt

The Drone  52

Gustav Meyrink

Bal Macabre  45

James M'Govan

The Captain's Chronometer 49

Richard Middleton

The Ghost-Ship  51

Alice Duer Miller

A Lot of Money  46

C S Montanye

Nobody's Business 52

Prey  40

The Strength of the Meek  47

Trapped 43

Jacque Morgan

The lnternational Electro-Galvanic

Undertaking Corporation  48

William Morris

Lindenborg Pool  48

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

Deep Sea Detective 52

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 Red Raid  51

The Secret of Banda Sea 34

Hume Nisbet

The Demon Spell  51

Romance of a Balloon 51

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

Elia W Peattie

Seaweed  51

Max Pemberton

The Cripple at the Mill  34

Last Across 39

The Lepers Guest   37

G. G. Pendarves

The Black Monk 48

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

Changed Caliber 52

Doctor Bentiron's Addict Case 40

An Error in Equation 51

False Teeth 51

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

K. & Hesketh Prichard

The Parole of Gevil-Hay  47

Arthur T. Quiller-Couch

The Lady of the Red Admirals 49

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

Eleanor Smith

Satan’s Circus 52

Olaf Stapledon

A World of Sound 51

Christopher St. John Sprigg

Death at 8.30  42

F St Mars

The Green Devil 43

Bram Stoker

The Judge's House 50

Annie S. Swan

The Diplomat  38

Booth Tarkington

The Old Red Barn   49

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

Harold Ward

The House in the Forest 49

House of the Living Dead 49

Florence Warden

Grimgriffenhoof  39

Cy Warman

"Sycamore": A Ghost Story 44

F A M Webster

According to Law  49

The Double Problem  49

The Owl 45

Towards Morning 33

Carolyn Wells

The Mystery of the Jade Buddha 40

A Point of Testimony 43

The Stolen Gems 43

H. G. Wells

The Hammerpond Park Burglary  47

Albert Richard Wetjen

Captain Cut-Throat 51

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 Moon-Dial 52

The Napier Limousine 45

The Projection of Armand Dubois 45

The Trap 45

The Tree-Man 45

Raoul Whitfield

The Black Sampan  50

The Caleso Murders 32

China Man 46

Climbing Death  51

Diamonds of Dread  38

Inside Job 36

The Javanese Mask 42

Rivals of the Clouds 31

Shooting Gallery  41

The Siamese Cat 49

Silence House 36

Sinners' Paradise 33

Valentine Williams

The Briar 50

H. C. Witwer

The Barber of Seville, Ill.   46

Not So Big  47

William Tells  47

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

Her Demon Lover 52

___________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Double Double Cross / Christopher B. Booth

- 2: The Drone / Abraham Merritt
- 3: The Moon-Dial / Henry S. Whitehead
- 4: Satan’s Circus / Eleanor Smith
- 5: Twice Drowned / Christopher B. Booth

- 6: Deep Sea Detective / Clarence Herbert New

- 7: The Blind Farmer and the Strip Dancer / H Bedford-Jones

- 8: By the Tie of a Boot-Lace / Anonymous
- 9: Trivial Evidence / Anonymous
- 10: The 6.15 'Bus / Anonymous
- 11: Shingle Short / Ferdinand McMahon
- 12: Her Demon Lover / Arthur Leo Zagat
- 13: Dogs of Circe / Edwin Truett Long
- 14: Wheels of Doom / H Bedford-Jones
- 15: Blatherwick / Evelyn Glover
- 16: Nobody's Business / C. S. Montanye

- 17: The Ghost of One Man Coulee / B. M. Bower

- 18: Changed Caliber / Ernest M. Poate

- 19: The Blue-Black Feet / Christopher B. Booth

- Cumulative Index 31-52