PAST MASTERS

FIFTY-FOUR

January 2022

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

This number of Past Masters contains only stories by authors whose works  entered the Life+70 public domain on January 1, 2022; i.e., authors who died in 1951.

Contents

1: The Invisible Weapon / Nicholas Olde

2: The Boat Race Murder / David Winser

3: The Ghost-Extinguisher / Gelett Burgess

4: The Willows / Algernon Blackwood

5: Christmas With a Punch / Peter Cheyney

6: What a Guest Desires / W Douglas Newton

7: The Will / Arthur Gask

8: Black Out / Peter Cheyney

9: Crying Baby / W Douglas Newton

10: The Girl At The Gate / H. de Vere Stacpoole

11: The Gold Kimono / Peter Cheyney

12: The Messenger Came at Midnight / Algernon Blackwood

13: Black Market / Arthur Gask

14: The Case of the Talking Dead / Emile C Tepperman

Cumulative Index #31-54

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1: The Invisible Weapon

Nicholas Olde

Amian Lister Champneys (1879–1951)

The Incredible Adventures of Rowland Hern, 1928

From a rare, long out-of-print book, only recently reprinted

BEFORE THE SNOW had time to melt the great frost was upon us; and, in a few days, every pond and dyke was covered with half a foot of ice.

Hern and I were spending a week in a village in Lincolnshire, and, at the sight of the frozen fen, we sent to Peterborough for skates in keen anticipation of some happy days upon the ice.

'And now,' said Hern, 'as our skates will not be here until to-morrow, we had better take this opportunity of going to see Grumby Castle. I had not intended to go until later in the week, but, as neither of us wants to lose a day's skating, let us take advantage of Lord Grumby's permission immediately. The castle, as I told you, is being thoroughly overhauled to be ready for his occupation in the spring.'

Thus it was that, that same morning, we turned our backs upon the fen and trudged through the powdery snow into the undulating country towards the west until at last we came within sight of that historic pile and passed through the lodge gates and up the stately avenue. When we reached the great entrance door Hern took out Lord Grumby's letter to show to the caretaker— but it was not a caretaker that opened to our knock. It was a policeman.

The policeman looked at the letter and shook his head.

'I'll ask the inspector anyhow,' he said, and disappeared with the letter in his hand.

The inspector arrived on the doorstep a minute later.

'You are not Mr. Rowland Hern, the detective, are you?' he asked.

'The same, inspector,' said Hern. 'I didn't know that I was known so far afield.'

'Good gracious, yes!' said the inspector. 'We've all heard of you. There's nothing strange in that. But that you should be here this morning is a very strange coincidence indeed.'

'Why so?' asked Hern.

'Because,' said the inspector, 'there is a problem to be solved in this castle that is just after your own heart. A most mysterious thing has happened here. Please come inside.'

We followed him through a vestibule littered with builders' paraphernalia and he led us up the wide stairway.

'A murder has been committed in this castle—not two hours since,' said the inspector. 'There is only one man who could have done it—and he could not have done it.'

'It certainly does seem to be a bit of a puzzle when put like that,' said Hern. 'Are you sure that it is not a riddle, like "When is a door not a door?"'

We had reached the top of the stairs.

'I will tell you the whole story from start to— well, to the present moment,' said the inspector. 'You see this door on the left? It is the door of the ante-room to the great ballroom; and the ante-room is vital to this mystery for two reasons. In the first place, it is, for the time being, absolutely the only way by which the ballroom can be entered. The door at the other end has been bricked up in accordance with his lordship's scheme of reconstruction, and the proposed new doorway has not yet been knocked through the wall: (that is one occasion when a door is not a door),' he added with a smile; 'and even the fireplaces have been removed and the chimneys blocked since a new heating system has rendered them superfluous. In the second place,' he continued, 'the work in the ballroom itself being practically finished, this ante-room has been, for the time being, appropriated as an office by the contractors. Consequently it is occupied all day by draughtsmen and clerks and others, and no one can enter or leave the ballroom during office hours unseen.

'Among other alterations and improvements that have been carried out is, as I have said, the installation of a heating apparatus; and there appears to have been a good deal of trouble over this.

'It has been installed by a local engineer named Henry Whelk, and the working of it under tests has been so unsatisfactory that his lordship insisted, some time since, on calling in a consulting engineer, a man named Blanco Persimmon.

'Henry Whelk has, from the first, very much resented the "interference", as he calls it, of this man; and the relations between the two have been, for some weeks, strained almost to the breaking-point.

'A few days ago the contractor received a letter from Mr. Persimmon saying that he would be here this morning and would make a further test of the apparatus. He asked them to inform Whelk and to see to the firing of the boiler.

'Persimmon arrived first and went into the ballroom to inspect the radiators. He was there, talking to one of the clerks, when Whelk arrived and the clerk returned at once to the ante-room and shut the ballroom door behind him.

'Five minutes later Whelk came out and told the clerks to have the cock turned on that allows the hot water to circulate in that branch of the system, and to see that the ballroom door was not opened until Mr. Persimmon came out, as he was going to test the temperature. He spoke with his usual resentment of the consultant and told the clerks that the latter had imagined that he could see a crack in one of the radiators which he thought would leak under pressure, and that that was his real reason for having the ballroom branch of the heating system connected up.

'In the meantime he took a seat in the ante-room with the intention of waiting there to hear Persimmon's report when he came out. Mr. Hern,' said the inspector gravely, 'Persimmon never did come out.'

'Do you mean that he is still there?' asked Hern.

'He is still there,' said the inspector. 'He will be there until the ambulance comes to take him to the mortuary.'

'Has a doctor seen the body?' asked Hern.

'Yes,' said the inspector. 'He left five minutes before you came. He went by a field path, so you did not meet him in the avenue.

'Persimmon died of a fracture at the base of the skull caused by a violent blow delivered with some very heavy weapon. But we cannot find any weapon at all.

'Of course the clerks detained Whelk when, Persimmon failing to appear, they discovered the body. They kept Whelk here until our arrival, and he is now detained at the police station. We have searched him, at his own suggestion; but nothing heavier than a cigarette-holder was found upon his person.'

'What about his boots?' asked Hern.

'Well, he has shoes on,' said the inspector, 'and very light shoes too— unusually light for snowy weather. They could not possibly have struck the terrible blow that broke poor Persimmon's skull and smashed the flesh to a pulp. Whelk had an attaché-case too. I have it here still, and it contains nothing but papers.'

'I suppose,' said Hern, 'that you have made sure that there is no weapon concealed about the body of Persimmon?'

'Yes,' said the inspector. 'I considered that possibility and have made quite sure.'

'Could not a weapon have been thrown out of one of the windows?' asked Hern.

'It could have been,' answered the inspector, 'but it wasn't. That is certain because no one could open them without leaving finger-marks. The insides of the sashes have only just been painted, and the paint is still wet; while the hooks for lifting them have not yet been fixed.

'I have examined every inch of every sash systematically and thoroughly, and no finger has touched them. They are very heavy sashes too, and it would require considerable force to raise them without the hooks. No. It is a puzzle. And, although I feel that I must detain him, I cannot believe that Whelk can be the culprit. Would a guilty man wait there, actually abusing his victim before witnesses, until his crime was discovered? Impossible! Again, could he have inflicted that ghastly wound with a cigarette-holder? Quite impossible! But then the whole thing is quite impossible from beginning to end.'

'May I go into the ballroom?' said Hern.

'Certainly,' said the inspector.

He led the way through the ante-room, where three or four scared clerks were simulating industry at desks and drawing-boards, and we entered the great ballroom.

'Here is poor Persimmon's body,' said the inspector; and we saw the sprawling corpse, with its terribly battered skull, face down, upon the floor near one of the radiators.

'So the radiator did leak after all,' said Hern, pointing to a pool of water beside it.

'Yes,' said the inspector. 'But it does not seem to have leaked since I had the apparatus disconnected. The room was like an oven when I came in.'

Hern went all round the great bare hall examining everything— floor, walls and windows. Then he looked closely at the radiators.

'There is no part of these that he could detach?' he asked. 'No pipes or valves?'

'Certainly not, unless he had a wrench,' said the inspector; 'and he hadn't got a wrench.'

'Could anyone have come through the windows from outside?' asked Hern.

'They could be reached by a ladder,' said the inspector; 'but the snow beneath them is untrodden.'

'Well,' said Hern; 'there doesn't seem to be anything here to help us. May I have a look at Whelk's case and papers?'

'Certainly,' said the inspector. 'Come into the ante-room. I've locked them in a cupboard.'

We followed him and he fetched a fair-sized attaché-case, laid it on a table and opened it.

Hern took out the papers and examined the inside of the case.

'A botanical specimen!' he exclaimed, picking up a tiny blade of grass. 'Did he carry botanical specimens about in his case? It seems a bit damp inside,' he added; 'especially at the side furthest from the handle. But let's have a look at the papers. Hullo! What's this?'

'It seems to be nothing but some notes for his business diary,' said the inspector.

'Feb. 12. Letter from Jones. Mr. Filbert called re estimate.

'Feb. 13. Office closed.

'Feb. 14. Letter from Perkins & Fisher re Grumby Castle.

'Feb. 15. Letter from Smith & Co. Wrote Messrs. Caraway re repairs to boiler. Visit Grumby Castle and meet Persimmon 10.30 A.M.'

'February the 15th is to-day.'

'Yes,' said Hern. 'The ink seems to have run a bit, doesn't it? Whereabouts does Whelk live?'

'He lives in Market Grumby,' said the inspector. His house is not far from where he is now— the police-station. Market Grumby lies over there— north of the castle. That footpath that goes off at right angles from the avenue leads to the Market Grumby road.'

Hern put everything back carefully into the case— even the blade of grass— and handed it back to the inspector.

'When do you expect the ambulance?' he asked.

'It should be here in a few minutes,' said the inspector. 'I must wait, of course, until it comes.'

'Well,' said Hern. 'I suppose, when the body has gone, there will be no harm in mopping up that mess in there? There is a certain amount of blood as well as that pool of water.'

'No harm at all,' said the inspector.

'Well then,' said Hern. 'Please have it done. And, if it is not asking too much, could you oblige me by having the hot water turned on once more and waiting until I come back. I shall not be away for long; and I think that it may help in the solution of your problem.'

'Certainly,' said the inspector.

Hern and I went out again into the snowy drive and found, without difficulty, the path that led towards Market Grumby, for, in spite of the covering snow, it was clearly marked by footprints.

We walked along until we saw the opening into the road. A cottage stood on one side of the path, close to the road; and on the other side was a pond.

This was covered, like every pond, with a thick covering of ice, but in one spot, opposite the cottage, the ice had been broken with a pick and here an old man was dipping a bucket.

The water in the hole looked black against the gleaming ice and the sun glinted on the edges of the fragments loosened and thrown aside by the pick.

'Took a bit of trouble to break it, I expect,' said Hern to the old man.

'Took me half an hour,' grumbled the old fellow; 'it's that thick.'

'Is that the way to Market Grumby?' asked Hern, pointing to the road.

'That's it,' said the other, and went into the cottage with his bucket.

The snow in the few yards between the cottage and the hole in the ice was trodden hard by the hobnailed boots of the old man, but Hern pointed out to me that another set of footprints, of a much less bucolic type, could be seen beside them.

'Let us go back,' he said, 'and see how the inspector is getting on with the heating apparatus.'

'I've had it on for half an hour now,' said the inspector when we got back to the ante-room. 'The ambulance came soon after you went out.'

'Well,' said Hern. 'Let us see how that leak is going on'; and he opened the door of the ballroom.

'Good heavens,' cried the inspector. 'It's not leaking now.'

'It never did leak,' said Hern.

'What is the meaning of it all?' asked the inspector.

'You remember,' said Hern, 'that you came to the conclusion that if Whelk had been guilty he would have got away before his crime had been discovered.

'Well, my conclusion is different. In fact, I think that, if he had been innocent, he would not have waited.'

'Why so?' asked the inspector.

'I will tell you,' said Hern. 'Whelk had to stay or he would certainly have been hanged. He hated Persimmon and had every reason for taking his life. If he had gone away you would have said that he had hidden the weapon that killed Persimmon.

'Don't you see that his only chance was to stay until you had searched him and found that he had no weapon? Was not that a clear proof of his innocence?'

'But there must have been some weapon,' exclaimed the worried inspector. 'Where is the weapon?'

'There was a weapon,' said Hern, 'and you and I saw it lying beside the corpse.'

'I saw no weapon,' said the inspector.

'Do you remember,' said Hern, 'that your first account of the problem made me think of a certain old riddle? Well, the answer to this problem is the answer to a new riddle: "When is a weapon not a weapon?"'

'I give it up,' said the inspector promptly.

'The answer to that riddle,' said Hern, 'is "when it melts."'

The inspector gasped.

'I will tell you,' said Hern, 'what happened. There is a pond close to the Market Grumby road, and Whelk passed this as he was coming here this morning to meet his enemy. The thick ice on that pond has been broken so that a bucket may be dipped, and chunks of broken ice lie all around the hole. Whelk saw these, and a terrible thought came into his wicked head. Everything fitted perfectly. He had found a weapon that would do its foul work and disappear. He picked up the biggest block of ice that would go inside his case. I dare say that it weighed twenty pounds. He waited until his enemy stooped to examine a radiator, and then he opened his case and brought down his twenty-pound sledge-hammer on the victim's skull.

'Then he put his weapon against the radiator, had the heat turned on, told his story about a leak, and waited calmly until a search should prove his innocence.

'But by the very quality for which he chose his weapon, that weapon has betrayed him in the end. For that jagged chunk of ice began to melt before its time— very slightly, it is true, but just enough to damp the side of the case on which it rested, to make the ink run on his papers and to set loose one tiny blade of grass that had frozen on to it as it lay beside the pond. A very tiny blade but big enough to slay the murderer.

'If you will go to the pond, inspector, you will find footsteps leading to it which are not the cottager's footsteps; and, if you compare them with the shoes that Henry Whelk is wearing, you will find that they tally.

'And, if they do not tally, then you may ask your friends a new riddle.'

'What is that?' asked the officer.

' "When is a detective not a detective?" ' replied my friend; 'and the answer will be "When he is Rowland Hern." '

__________________

2: The Boat Race Murder

‌David Winser

1915-1944

Ellery Queen's  Sporting Blood 1942

FOR THE three weeks before the Boat Race the Oxford crew generally lives at Ranelagh. This costs quite a penny, though it is conveniently close to the boat houses, but the question of money doesn't much worry the rowing authorities. The reason for this is that rowing, like every other Oxford sport, is more or less entirely supported by the gate receipts of the Rugger club. So there we lived, in Edwardian comfort, and played croquet on the immaculate croquet lawns in the special croquet goloshes they give you and admired the birds and the ruins. They also fed us remarkably well considering we were in training.

All kinds of things occurred. There was one peacock, an amorous bird, which had a crush on the president, who rowed two. It used to come and display its tail in front of him and wait for him to submit. He never did, though.

But at Ranelagh, in spite of the way they'd sometimes put our names in the papers, we led a completely reporterless life, if that's the word I want. We didn't like the sort of stories that got told about rowing, such as the one which held that the crew that won after Barnes all died in the next five years (they're actually mostly alive still). So what with the O.U.B.C. and Ranelagh, and the fact that all the rowing reporters were friends of ours and of rowing, you didn't hear much. But, now, I think this story needs telling. In fact I more or less have to tell it.

You must try and picture a fizz night at Ranelagh. Someone, the coach or some other old Blue, has suddenly produced a dozen bottles of champagne and the coach has said that the crew's been going so well that it damn well deserves the filthy stuff. Actually, as he and everyone else knows, the main purpose of fizz is to stop the crew getting stale. But the tradition's always the same: it's supposed to be a reward for hard work. On this particular night the coach and an old Blue between them had produced two dozen bottles, because the second crew, the Isis, was coming over to dinner from Richmond.

Perhaps you can imagine the rest already. Solly Johnstone leaning back in his chair and laughing so hard at his own jokes that everyone else is laughing. Once I saw the president try to stop him making jokes because it was hurting him terribly to go on laughing so hard, but Solly didn't stop. And then, after dinner, two crews milling about in the big games room, the president taking cine-camera pictures with an enormous searchlight affair, the Isis crew taking on the varsity at billiards and ping-pong, Ronnie playing the piano and someone singing, the gramophone playing "The Donkey Serenade," Solly still making his incredible jokes, and somewhere over in the corner Melvin Green talking about rowing to Dr. Jeffreys, who coached the crew for the first part of training. The noise, and the general tohu-bohu, as Solly said, were both considerable.

I was watching this with a benevolent and yet slightly mildewed eye, because I had a feeling that I didn't deserve to be quite as cheerful as the rest of them. I was the cox, and furthermore I had had some very bad news. And again, when people like Jon Peters and Harry Whitteredge were slightly out of control, their fourteen stone made walking dangerous for coxes. No one who saw them that night would have credited them with the dignity, the dignity which only their genius stopped short of ponderousness, with which they sent that boat along in the race. They looked about as dignified as a bull on skates. But I happened to know that they were going to get as bad a shock as I had, nearly as bad a shock as Jim Matthews. Jim Matthews was the stroke, and he was going to find himself out of the crew.

Now this may not sound especially serious. Jim Matthews never had the reputation of Brocklebank, or Lawrie, or Sutcliffe, or Bryan Hodgson. You didn't read in the papers that he was going to pull off the race all by himself. And in a way he wasn't. But I heard a conversation once between Jon and Harry, who were wonderful oarsmen in their day, and it was rather significant.

"That fellow Matthews," Jon said, or words to this effect, "doesn't look much, and he doesn't do much, and doesn't talk much. Also I don't like him particularly. But I'm damned if there's anyone else who gives me time to come forward."

"The trouble with us, Jon," Harry said, "is that we need such a hell of a lot of time."

"Yes, but Jim gives it to us. If we have Jim we'll win this race."

"Don't you think we will anyway?"

"Not without Jim."

"I know. Nor do I."

I don't suppose it matters much to you who wins the Boat Race. But, for the purposes of this story, to get the record straight, you have to realise that ten or eleven men think of practically nothing else, for twelve whole weeks of training, than getting into the crew and seeing Oxford win. It becomes an obsession, a continual idea at the back of one's mind. Jon had a baby car, and once, when the crew was travelling by car from Oxford to Henley, Jon and Harry took an omen. If they could pass and touch with their hands every other O.U.B.C. car, Oxford would win the Boat Race. So, at considerable risk to their lives (and Oxford wouldn't have won without them), they touched every car. It was that sort of thing every day. And now the coaches were going to drop Jim Matthews, and those two wouldn't have time to come forward. When that happened all their dignity and poise over the stretcher went with the wind and they became more of a hindrance than a help, charging backwards and forwards in the boat. So, not for you or Oxford perhaps, but for those men who rowed in the crew, Jim's going was a real tragedy. Everyone knew that once they'd put in Davis, the dark-haired short-built Isis stroke, they'd leave him there. And Davis, who had plenty of guts and rowed as hard as he could, was hopelessly short in the water. There'd be hell to pay.

As for Jim, I knew a bit how he felt. I'd been in and out of the crew myself, because the Isis cox was at least as good as I was and knew the river even better. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised at anything Jim had done. But, as soon as the coaches told him, he'd frozen up completely. He hadn't said anything to them, which was stupid of him. They hadn't wanted to make the change; his own carelessness, which we knew was designed to save himself for one of those terrific races he'd row, looked sloppy. The coaches were worried, and the rowing correspondents started saying Oxford was stale. Hence the fizz, and hence Davis.

And all Jim said, in front of the coaches, he said to me. "Come on, Peter," he said. "I'm going to scare the Alacrity bird."

So Jon and I took him back to Ranelagh in my small M.G. and dropped him near the Alacrity bird's usual haunt; the bird was a crane which flew when you chased it. Then I let Jon drive the car into its garage. He wasn't allowed his car or his pipe during the last six weeks of training, and he needed a few luxuries like that. He joined me again before I reached the main house and we walked in together.

"Your petrol's low," he said. He didn't know about Jim yet but he sounded depressed, as if he knew something of the sort was afoot.

"There's enough for tomorrow, isn't there?"

"Provided the gauge is right, you've got half a gallon."

"That's all right then. Don't worry about the outing, Jon. Fizz night tonight."

Somewhere outside in the garden poor Jim Matthews was walking. I think the Alacrity bird was only an excuse because he wanted to be by himself. I was sorry for Jim. He'd have one more outing, with Davis rowing two, and then he'd go.

Next day, as might be expected after a fizz night, everything went wrong. To begin with I left it too late to get down to the river in time, thinking I'd take my car. I was the only one of the crew allowed to go into shops, because the others were thought to be especially susceptible to flu at that stage of training, so I used to take my car with me and go out shopping after the outing. But that morning I found there wasn't any petrol after all, so I had to run all the way across the polo grounds. They were just getting the boat out when I came, with a little boy doing my work. I pushed him aside without saying thanks, and behaved in a thoroughly bad manner. And then Davis, who was pardonably nervous, paddled on hard when I told him to touch her gently and the boat just missed drifting on to a buoy. Jim Matthews, like everyone else, sat there doing nothing, while I swore. The only incident of interest was that Jon and Harry swore back, being apparently by now aware that Davis was coming up to stroke. Davis rowed too fast. They got tired, and the coaches would accuse them of bucketing, and the boat would start stopping. I didn't blame them for swearing. I swore too.

The coach picked up his megaphone. "Ready, cox?" he asked. He didn't ask it out of kindness.

I said Yes.

"Paddle on down to the Eyot," he said. "Jim, make them work it up a bit once or twice."

Now the Eyot is a good fifteen minutes' paddle from the boat houses, and Jim, I suppose because it was his last time at stroke, took them along really hard. When he worked it up he worked it right up, nearly to forty, and he kept it there for a full minute. Then, not so long afterwards, he did it again. And to end up with he put in a terrific burst of rowing. All the time he was steady, swinging them easily along. I could see the great green holes in the water Jon and Harry made. The boat travelled. I wondered whether the coaches were going to change their mind. No one will know that now, not even Jim. I'd noticed Davis' blade wasn't coming through very well at the end of the paddle, but I hadn't thought anything else about it. When we'd easied he leant forward over his oar and stayed there, but again this wasn't very unusual; it had been about as hard work as a paddle like that can be. After a rest I gave the order to come half forward, because we were going to do a rowing start. But Davis didn't move.

"Half forward, two!" I said, still angrily.

Then apparently bow leant forward and touched him, because his body slumped forward, slid over the gunnel, and went into the water. I don't know when he died, but he was dead when the launch reached him. Luckily Dr. Jeffreys was on the spot, waiting to see what difference the change would make. Well, he'd seen.

If I'd ever doubted whether the coaches deserved their positions, and during training you doubt most things, I was all wrong. They took the launch on up to the London University boat house, where no one ever went during the mornings, got Solly's car round there, put Davis' body in it, brought it to Ranelagh without either the crew or the press or the secretary of Ranelagh seeing, and before lunch they'd got the whole crew together, and Dr. Joe Jeffreys was talking to them. One of the chief duties of the coaches was to keep the crew feeling happy.

"Well," said Joe, "you all saw what happened. Poor young Davis died of heart failure. I know how you feel, and you know how I feel. But there's one thing you ought to understand clearly. The reason he died was that his heart was dicky before he started. I never tested it, but I know it was, because your heart doesn't fail at the end of a paddle unless it is dicky. And I know all your hearts are damn sound, because I did test them. Just to make sure I'm going to test them again today."

And he did, and he was quite right; there was nothing wrong with any of the toughs.

But in the middle, when Jon had just gone out and Solly, Joe and I were alone in the room, Joe suddenly stopped.

"I did test Davis' heart," he said.

Well, Solly made a rather typical crack about the value of tests, but apparently this was a pretty sound test. Anyway we went and rang up the police.

"That kid was murdered," said Joe. I suppose Solly thought he was just humouring him. Another of the duties of coaches is to keep the other coaches feeling happy. Those last weeks of training are the devil all round.

It was rather typical of the way the Boat Race gets a grip on people that the crew went out that afternoon. Solly insisted he was only doing it to allay any suspicion about Davis in the minds of the press. But anyway the boat went out, and, with Jim stroking beautifully, they rowed the best two minutes they'd ever done, clearing their wash by yards at thirty-six. When Jim was there, that was as good a crew as any.

The police were around when we got back, but that didn't bother us much. You see, we all knew each other pretty well; you don't have murderers rowing with you. Murderers are professionals, probably, as they've worked with their hands. Anyway, you don't.

Well, they found out what had killed Davis. We'll call it diphenyl tyrosine; Jim and I knew what its real name was because we happened to be medical students. Joe Jeffreys knew it too, of course. The odd thing about it is that it's a component of quite a common patent medicine. That's all right, because it only quickens up your heart for a day or so; but when you start with a quickened heart and then row hard in a Boat Race crew your heart gets very quick indeed, so quick that it doesn't really function adequately. It starts to jump about a bit, and then it starts to fibrillate, to quiver all over in rather a useless way. Then, if it's the ventricle fibrillating, you die. Davis had plenty of guts; he went on just as long as his heart did. He had the guts of a good stroke, but he wasn't Jim Matthews. I was sorry for Davis, but, for the crew's sake, I was glad Jim was safe. The funny thing was that whoever killed Davis must have known that he'd got guts.

Now they started in on a long investigation of the crew's movements during the day before. It had to be the day before because they'd got a very interesting bit of evidence. A man had come into a chemist's in Putney and he'd asked for this patent medicine, as no doubt men did every day. He'd worn a mackintosh and an old hat.

But underneath the mackintosh the chemist had noticed he was wearing those queer white blanket trousers the crews wear out of the boat.

The policeman who was doing the detective work then had two very frustrating conversations which he described to us with fair relish.

He'd asked the chemist if the purchaser in the white trousers had been a big man. The chemist said, Yes.

"Bigger than me?"

"Well, maybe."

"Sure he wasn't fairly small?"

The chemist considered. "Well," he said, "you might call him small."

"Could you draw a line against the wall showing just his height?"

The chemist stepped forward confidently, stopped, tried to think, and then said:—

"No. Not exactly, somehow."

"What colour was his hair then?"

"Oh," said the chemist, "if I noticed the colour of all my customers' hair I'd be in a pretty state." He became a little irritable. "All I know is," he said, "he had white trousers on."

The other conversation was the sequel to the discovery that Jon and I brought my car back when the rest of the crew came in. They wanted to find if anyone went out of Ranelagh in a car like mine.

The detective people went to the porters at the two gates. "Did you see a small black sports car go out of the grounds?" they asked. "After 5.30."

Those were the days when Hornets and M.G.'s were as common as sneezing. One porter said he'd seen four, colour unnoticed; the other had seen seven, three of them black or dark-brown.

"Well," said the fellows, "did you see any coming back again?"

"Those seven," said the porter, who wasn't colour-blind, "was going both ways." He wasn't shaken from this peculiar belief. In short they didn't get any change out of porters or chemists. Someone in the crew did buy this patent medicine and someone could have gone out in my car. They never found the bottle, of course. There were hundreds of ways to get rid of it— you might put it down the lavatory and pull the plug, for instance. It was one of those small bottles. You'll be guessing its name in a minute but, luckily, you'll guess wrong.

Then, also in front of me, someone realised that if the chemist had been at all an efficient man he'd have made the fellow in the mackintosh sign for the medicine, simply because, technically, it was poison if you had a whole bottleful. So one of them went off to find out if the chemist was as efficient as all that, and the other started to find out where we'd all been.

Now the curious thing about all this investigation was that it had taken a very short time. It was still only the day after the murder. As soon as they knew it was murder they'd started thinking about heart drugs, the sort you might mix up in someone's milk as they went to bed, or drop in a glass of fizz; so they thought of diphenyl tyrosine and, sure enough, there it was when they did an autopsy on Davis. No one knew when he'd taken it; but they'd decided it must have been in his fizz. Personally the mechanism of this seems pretty difficult to me, but that's what they said. I suppose they'd had experience of that sort of thing. Anyway he'd certainly not have been looking out for it; very few people expect to be poisoned in the middle of a fizz night. They seemed so certain about it all, quite rightly as it turned out, that we didn't like to doubt their word. So we were all terribly efficient when it came to describing our movements.

They only wanted to know about the time between 5.30, when we all came back from the outing, and six. The chemist said the purchaser in the white trousers had come in at about 5.45, and the reason he knew was that it was a quarter of an hour before he closed at six, and the fact that no other customers had come in afterwards had made him think he'd been a sap not to close quarter of an hour earlier. This looked pretty good evidence to me, and the detective fellows liked it a lot.

Most of the crew had been together from 5.30 till six, all in the big games room. Jon, Jim and I hadn't been there at first. We knew where Jim was, outside with the Alacrity bird. The three of us got back from the outing a little later than the rest of them because of that talk with the coaches, and Jim had come into the house again at ten to six. We were sure of that, or very nearly sure, because by six o'clock, when the news came on, he'd played a complete game of ping-pong with Ronnie. That left quarter of an hour of Jim unaccounted for.

Jon said he'd been in his room all the time till six, when he came down for the news.

I said I hadn't been in the games room at all. First of all I'd done the crossword and then I'd been signing autographs for the crew.

"How do you mean 'for the crew'?" one of them asked.

I told him that the rest of them could never be bothered to sign autograph books. All the coxes after Peter Bryan's time had had to forge the signatures of everyone else; it was one of their duties. So long as you had two or three different nibs and patience you could make a very good job of it indeed.

"Oh," they said, laughing. "That's dangerous."

I said not so dangerous as they thought.

Well, one of the detectives walked to the chemist's and back. It took twenty-five minutes, walking hard. That meant that Jon or I could have gone on our feet or by car, while Jim could only have gone by car. On his way there he met the detective who'd been to see if anyone signed. Someone had, all right, but it was probably not his name. A. G. Gallimage, someone had written.

They went to work on this clue, rather ingeniously. The detective said he wanted a genuine autograph, and went round to each member of the crew with some sentimental story about his daughter being ill in bed and only needing a genuine autograph to recover. It's wonderful what rowing men will swallow. Jim was the only one who made a fuss. He was playing ping-pong again and he said, as rudely as usual:—

"The cox can forge mine."

The detective said he knew that. His daughter wanted a real one. After that Jim signed, a bit grudgingly; and went on playing.

He signed in a writing very like Gallimage's.

This more or less meant Jim or me. I forgot to say that they'd checked up on Jon and found that a maid had seen him in his room between 5.40 and 5.50. She didn't say so, but I expect he went up there for a smoke. He thought it improved his rowing but nobody else's. So Jim and I were left, and the signature did very well for either of us. It was typical of the effect of the Boat Race atmosphere that the detectives came and asked Solly if they could arrest both of us. I know they did because I was in the room at the time.

"Would you mind if we arrested Matthews and your cox?" they asked.

"Yes, old chap," said Solly. "We can get another cox, but we haven't any more strokes. Leave them both if you can."

The detective looked serious. "Evidence is bad," he said.

Solly leant back in his chair. "Trot it out," he said. "The cox and I will spoil it. The cox does the crossword in half an hour every morning."

"Twenty-five minutes with Jon," I said. "That was two days ago."

Then I shut up.

The detective trotted out the evidence. At the end I pointed out a flaw. It wasn't half as hard as the Times crossword, let alone Torquemada.

"But if Jim went," I said, "he must have used the car."

"Yes."

"But there wasn't any petrol in the car."

"Sure?"

"Quite sure. You see Jon and I both saw the gauge reading half a gallon. Only next morning it still read half a gallon and there wasn't any petrol in her. It foxed me completely."

"It certainly did," said Solly.

"You realise what you're saying?" asked the detective.

"No," I said.

"If Jim Matthews didn't take your car, then someone walked to the shop. That means you walked, because Jim didn't have time."

"He could have run," I said.

"Ah," said the detective. "That's where you're wrong. He wasn't out of breath."

I suppose I looked pretty shaken by this bit of information, because Solly patted me on the back in a very kindly way. "That's all right," he said. "It'll turn out not to have been either of you. Glad you remembered about the petrol."

I was a good deal comforted by this. "Well," I said, "that fellow who coxes the Isis is a damn fine cox, and I've got one Blue already. I know we'll win. But I wish they had wireless sets in prison."

"We'll try and let you know all about it," said the detective. This seemed to me a pretty decent way to speak to a murderer.

THAT ISN'T ALL, and it won't be all either. Oxford won, of course, with one of Jim's beautifully timed spurts. He couldn't have made it without Harry and Jon and they couldn't have made it if he hadn't been there, swinging them along so steadily and easily that you'd have thought they were paddling. That is, until you saw how the boat moved.

Furthermore those detectives forgot one thing. Perhaps you saw what it was. Of course my petrol gauge is a bit odd; they can easily test it and show that it sticks on the half-gallon mark.

I'm sorry for Jim. I wish it hadn't happened. To be honest, I don't see any other way we could have won; but even Jim, who was a casual ambitious fellow, didn't mean to pay that price for it. He thought Davis would feel ill and give up in the middle of the paddle. But Davis went on rowing till his heart stopped.

____________________

"Who ya gonna call?"  Was this story the inspiration for "Ghostbusters"?

3: The Ghost-Extinguisher

Gelett Burgess

1866-1951

Cosmopolitan Magazine, April, 1905

MY ATTENTION was first called to the possibility of manufacturing a practicable ghost-extinguisher by a real-estate agent in San Francisco.

"There's one thing, " he said, "that affects city property here in a curious way. You know we have a good many murders, and, as a consequence, certain houses attain a very sensational and undesirable reputation. These houses it is almost impossible to let; you can scarcely get a decent family to occupy them rent-free. Then we have a great many places said to be haunted. These were dead timber on my hands until I happened to notice that the Japanese have no objections to spooks. Now, whenever I have such a building to rent, I let it to Japs at a nominal figure, and after they've taken the curse off, I raise the rent, the Japs move out, the place is renovated, and in the market again."

The subject interested me, for I am not only a scientist, but a speculative philosopher as well. The investigation of those phenomena that lie upon the threshold of the great unknown has always been my favorite field of research. I believed, even then, that the Oriental mind, working along different lines than those which we pursue, has attained knowledge that we know little of. Thinking, therefore, that these Japs might have some secret inherited from their misty past, I examined into the matter.

I shall not trouble you with a narration of the incidents which led up to my acquaintance with Hoku Yamanochi. Suffice it to say that I found in him a friend who was willing to share with me his whole lore of quasi-science. I call it this advisedly, for science, as we Occidentals use the term, has to do only with the laws of matter and sensation; our scientific men, in fact, recognize the existence of nothing else. The Buddhistic philosophy, however, goes further.

According to its theories, the soul is sevenfold, consisting of different shells or envelopes— something like an onion— which are shed as life passes from the material to the spiritual state. The first, or lowest, of these is the corporeal body, which, after death, decays and perishes. Next comes the vital principle, which, departing from the body, dissipates itself like an odor, and is lost. Less gross than this is the astral body, which, although immaterial, yet lies near to the consistency of matter. This astral shape, released from the body at death, remains for a while in its earthly environment, still preserving more or less definitely the imprint of the form which it inhabited.

It is this relic of a past material personality, this outworn shell, that appears, when galvanized into an appearance of life, partly materialized, as a ghost. It is not the soul that returns, for the soul, which is immortal, is composed of the four higher spiritual essences that surround the ego, and are carried on into the next life. These astral bodies, therefore, fail to terrify the Buddhists, who know them only as shadows, with no real volition. The Japs, in point of fact, have learned how to exterminate them.

There is a certain powder, Hoku informed me, which, when burnt in their presence, transforms them from the rarefied, or semi-spiritual, condition to the state of matter. The ghost, so to speak, is precipitated into and becomes a material shape which can easily be disposed of. In this state it is confined and allowed to disintegrate slowly where it can cause no further annoyance.

This long-winded explanation piqued my curiosity, which was not to be satisfied until I had seen the Japanese method applied. It was not long before I had an opportunity. A particularly revolting murder having been committed in San Francisco, my friend Hoku Yamanochi applied for the house, and, after the police had finished their examination, he was permitted to occupy it for a half-year at the ridiculous price of three dollars a month. He invited me to share his quarters, which were large and luxuriously furnished.

For a week, nothing abnormal occurred. Then, one night, I was awakened by terrifying groans followed by a blood-curdling shriek which seemed to emerge from a large closet in my room, the scene of the late atrocity. I confess that I had all the covers pulled over my head and was shivering with horror when my Japanese friend entered, wearing a pair of flowered-silk pajamas. Hearing his voice, I peeped forth, to see him smiling reassuringly.

"You some kind of very foolish fellow," he said. "I show you how to fix him!"

He took from his pocket three conical red pastils, placed them upon a saucer and lighted them. Then, holding the fuming dish in one outstretched hand, he walked to the closed door and opened it. The shrieks burst out afresh, and, as I recalled the appalling details of the scene which had occurred in this very room only five weeks ago, I shuddered at his temerity. But he was quite cahn.

Soon, I saw the wraithlike form of the recent victim dart from the closet. She crawled under my bed and ran about the room, endeavoring to escape, but was pursued by Hoku, who waved his smoking plate with indefatigable patience and dexterity.

At last he had her cornered, and the specter was caught behind a curtain of odorous fumes. Slowly the figure grew more distinct, assuming the consistency of a heavy vapor, shrinking somewhat in the operation, Hoku now hurriedly turned to me.

"You hully up, bling me one pair bellows pletty quick!" he commanded.

I ran into his room and brought the bellows from his fireplace. These he pressed flat, and then carefully inserting one toe of the ghost into the nozzle and opening the handles steadily, he sucked in a portion of the unforttmate woman's anatomy, and dexterously squirted the vapor into a large jar, which had been placed in the room for the purpose. Two more operations were necessary to withdraw the phantom completely from the corner and empty it into the jar. At last the transfer was effected and the receptacle securely stoppered and sealed.

"In former yore-time, " Hoku explained to me, "old pliests sucked ghost with mouth and spit him to inside of vase with acculacy. Modern-time method more better for stomach and epiglottis."

"How long will this ghost keep?" I inquired.

"Oh, about four, five hundled years, maybe," was his reply. "Ghost now change from spilit to matter, and comes under legality of matter as usual science."

"What are you going to do with her?" I asked.

"Send him to Buddhist temple in Japan. Old pliest use him for high celemony," was the answer.

My next desire was to obtain some of Hoku Yamanochi's ghost-powder and analyze it. For a while it defied my attempts, but, after many months of patient research, I discovered that it could be produced, in all its essential qualities, by means of a fusion of formaldehyde and hypophenyl-trybrompropionic add in an electrified vacuum. With this product I began a series of interesting experiments.

As it became necessary for me to discover the habitat of ghosts in considerable numbers, I joined the American Society for Psychical Research, thus securing desirable information in regard to haunted houses. These I visited persistently, until my powder was perfected and had been proved efficacious for the capture of any ordinary house-broken phantom. For a while I contented myself with the mere sterilization of these specters, but, as I became surer of success, I began to attempt the transfer of ghosts to receptacles wherein they could be transported and studied at my leisure, classified and preserved for future reference.

Hoku's bellows I soon discarded in favor of a large-sized bicyde-pump, and eventually I had constructed one of my own, of a pattern which enabled me to inhale an entire ghost at a single stroke. With this powerful instrument I was able to compress even an adult life-sized ghost into a two-quart bottle, in the neck of which a sensitive valve (patented) prevented the specter from emerging during process.

My invention was not yet, however, quite satisfactory. While I had no trouble in securing ghosts of recent creation— spirits, that is, who were yet of almost the consistency of matter— on several of my trips abroad in search of material I found in old manor houses or ruined castles many specters so ancient that they had become highly rarefied and tenuous, being at times scarcely visible to the naked eye. Such elusive spirits are able to pass through walls and elude pursuit with ease. It became necessary for me to obtain some instrument by which their capture could be conveniently effected.

The ordinary fire-extinguisher of commerce gave me the hint as to how the problem could be solved. One of these portable hand-instruments I filled with the proper chemicals. When inverted, the ingredients were commingled in vacuo and a vast volume of gas was liberated. This was collected in the reservoir provided with a rubber tube having a nozzle at the end. The whole apparatus being strapped upon my back, I was enabled to direct a stream of powerful precipitating gas in any desired direction, the flow being under control through the agency of a small stopcock. By means of this ghost-extinguisher I was enabled to pursue my experiments as far as I desired.

So far my investigations had been purely scientific, but before long the commercial value of my discovery began to interest me. The ruinous effects of spectral visitations upon real estate induced me to realize some pecuniary reward from my ghost-extinguisher, and I began to advertise my business. By degrees, I became known as an expert in my original line, and my professional services were sought with as much confidence as those of a veterinary surgeon. I manufactured the Gerrish Ghost-Extinguisher in several sizes, and put it on the market, following this venture with the introduction of my justly celebrated Gerrish Ghost-Grenades. These hand-implements were made to be kept in racks conveniently distributed in country houses for cases of sudden emergency. A single grenade, hurled at any spectral form, would, in breaking, liberate enough formaldybrom to coagulate the most perverse spirit, and the resulting vapor could easily be removed from the room by a housemaid with a common broom.

This branch of my business, however, never proved profitable, for the appearance of ghosts, especially in the United States, is seldom anticipated. Had it been possible for me to invent a preventive as well as a remedy, I might now be a millionaire; but there are limits even to modem science.

Having exhausted the field at home, I visited England in the hope of securing customers among the country families there. To my surprise, I discovered that the possession of a family specter was considered as a permanent improvement to the property, and my offers of service in ridding houses of ghostly tenants awakened the liveliest resentment. As a layer of ghosts I was much lower in the social scale than a layer of carpets.

Disappointed and discouraged, I returned home to make a further study of the opportunities of my invention. I had, it seemed, exhausted the possi- bilities of the use of unwelcome phantoms. Could I not, I thought, derive a revenue from the traffic in desirable specters? I decided to renew my investigations.

The nebulous spirits preserved in my laboratory, which I had graded and classified, were, you will remember, in a state of suspended animation. They were, virtually, embalmed apparitions, their inevitable decay delayed, rather than prevented. The assorted ghosts that I had now preserved in hermetically sealed tins were thus in a state of unstable equilibrium. The tins once opened and the vapor allowed to dissipate, the original astral body would in time be reconstructed and the warmed-over specter would continue its previous career. But this process, when naturally performed, took years. The interval was quite too long for the phantom to behandled in any conunerdal way. My problem was, therefore, to produce from my tinned Essence of Ghost a specter that was capable of immediately going into business and that could haunt a house while you wait.

It was not until radium was discovered that I approached the solution of my great problem, and even then months of indefatigable labor were necessary before the process was perfected. It has now been well demonstrated that the emanations of radiant energy sent forth by this surprising element defy our former scientific conceptions of the constitution of matter. It was for me to prove that the vibratory activity of radium (whose amplitudes and intensity are undoubtedly four-dimensional) effects a sort of allotropic modification in the particles of that imponderable ether which seems to lie halfway between matter and pure spirit. This is as far as I need to go in my explanation, for a full discussion involves the use of quaternions and the method of least squares. It will be sufficient for the layman to know that my preserved phantoms, rendered radio-active, would, upon contact with the air, resume their spectral shape.

The possible extension of my business now was enormous, limited only by the difficulty in collecting the necessary stock. It was by this time almost as difficult to get ghosts as it was to get radium. Finding that a part of my stock had spoiled, I was now possessed of only a few dozen cans of apparitions, many of these being of inferior quality. I immediately set about replenishing my raw material. It was not enough for me to pick up a ghost here and there, as one might get old mahogany; I determined to procure my phantoms in wholesale lots.

Accident favored my design. In an old volume of Blackwood's Magazine I happened, one day, to come across an interesting article upon the battle of Waterloo. It mentioned, incidentally, a legend to the effect that every year, upon the anniversary of the celebrated victory, spectral squadrons had been seen by the peasants charging battalions of ghostly grenadiers. Here was my opportunity.

I made elaborate preparations for the capture of this job lot of phantoms upon the next anniversary of the fight. Hard by the fatal ditch which engulfed Napoleon's cavalry I stationed a corps of able assistants provided with rapid-fire extinguishers ready to enfilade the famous sunken road. I stationed myself with a No. 4 model magazine-hose, with a four-inch nozzle, directly in the path which I knew would be taken by the advancing squadron.

It was a fine, clear night, lighted, at first, by a slice of new moon; but later, dark, except for the pale illumination of the stars. I have seen many ghosts in my time— ghosts in garden and garret, at noon, at dusk, at dawn, phantoms fanciful, and specters sad and spectactdar— but never have I seen such an impressive sight as this nocturnal charge of cuirassiers, galloping in goblin glory to their time-honored doom. From afar the French reserves presented the appearance of a nebulous mass, like a low-lying doud or fog-bank, faintly luminous, shot with fluorescent gleams. As the squadron drew nearer in its desperate charge, the separate forms of the troopers shaped themselves, and the galloping guardsmen grew ghastly with supernatural splendor.

Although I knew them to be immaterial and without mass or weight, I was terrified at their approach, fearing to be swept under the hoofs of the nightmares they rode. Like one in a dream, I started to run, but in another instant they were upon me, and I turned on my stream of formaldybrom. Then I was overwhelmed in a cloud-burst of wild warlike wraiths.

The column swept past me, over the bank, plunging to its historic fate. The cut was piled full of frenzied, scrambling specters, as rank after tank swept down into the horrid gut. At last the ditch swanned full of writhing forms and the carnage was dire.

My assistants with the extinguishers stood firm, and although almost unnerved by the sight, they summoned their courage, and directed simultaneous streams of formaldybrom into the struggling mass of fantoms. As soon as my mind returned, I busied myself with the huge tanks I had prepared for use as receivers. These were fitted with a mechanism similar to that employed in portable forges, by which the heavy vapor was sucked off. Luckily the night was calm, and I was enabled to fill a dozen cylinders with the precipitated ghosts. The segregation of individual forms was, of course, impossible, so that men and horses were mingled in a horrible mixture of fricassed spirits. I intended subsequently to empty the soup into a large reservoir and allow the separate specters to reform according to the laws of spiritual cohesion.

Circumstances, however, prevented my ever accomplishing this result. I returned home, to find awaiting me an order so large and important that I had no time in which to operate upon my cylinders of cavalry.

My patron was the proprietor of a new sanatorium for nervous invalids, located near some medicinal springs in the Catskills. His building was unforttmately located, having been built upon the site of a once-famous summer hotel, which, while filled with guests, had burnt to the ground, scores of lives having been lost. Just before the patients were to be installed in the new structure, it was found that the place was hatmted by the victims of the conflagration to a degree that rendered it inconvenient as a health resort. My professional services were requested, therefore, to render the building a fitting abode for convalescents. I wrote to the proprietor, fixing my charge at five thousand dollars. As my usual rate was one hundred dollars per ghost, and over a hundred lives were lost at the fire, I considered this price reasonable, and my offer was accepted.

The sanatorium job was finished in a week. I secured one hundred and two superior spectral specimens, and upon my return to the laboratory, put them up in heavily embossed tins with attractive labels in colors.

My delight at the outcome of this business was, however, soon transformed to anger and indignation. The proprietor of the health resort, having found that the specters from his place had been sold, claimed a rebate upon the contract price equal to the value of the modified ghosts transferred to my possession. This, of course, I could not allow. I wrote, demanding immediate payment according to our agreement, and this was peremptorily refused. The manager's letter was insulting in the extreme. The Pied Piper of Hamelin was not worse treated than I felt myself to be; so, like the piper, I determined to have my revenge.

I got out the twelve tanks of Waterloo ghost-hash from the storerooms, and treated them with radium for two days. These I shipped to the Catskills billed as hydrogen gas. Then, accompanied by two trustworthy assistants, I went to the sanatorium and preferred my demand for payment in person. I was ejected with contumely. Before my hasty exit, however, I had the satisfaction of noticing that the building was filled with patients. Languid ladies were seated in wicker chairs upon the piazzas, and frail anemic girls filled the corridors. It was a hospital of nervous wrecks whom the slightest disturbance would throw into a panic. I suppressed all my finer feelings of mercy and kindness and smiled grimly as I walked back to the village.

That night was black and lowering, fitting weather for the pandemoniimi I was about to turn loose. At ten o'clock, I loaded a wagon with the tanks of compressed cohorts, and, muffled in heavy overcoats, we drove to the sanatorium. All was silent as we approached; all was dark. The wagon concealed in a grove of pines, we took out the tanks one by one, and placed them beneath the ground-floor windows. The sashes were easily forced open, and raised enough to enable us to insert the rubber tubes connected with the iron reservoirs. At midnight everything was ready.

I gave the word, and my assistants ran from tank to tank, opening the stopcocks. With a hiss as of escaping steam the huge vessels emptied them- selves, vomiting forth clouds of vapor, which, upon contact with the air, coagulated into strange shapes as the white of an egg does when dropped into boiling water. The rooms became instantly filled with dismembered shades of men and horses seeking wildly to unite themselves with their proper parts.

Legs ran down the corridors, seeldng their respective trunks, arms writhed wildly reaching for missing bodies, heads rolled hither and yon in search of native necks. Horses' tails and hoofs whisked and hurried in quest of equine ownership until, reorganized, the spectral steeds galloped about to find their riders.

Had it been possible, I would have stopped this riot of wraiths long ere this, for it was more awful than I had anticipated, but it was already too late. Cowering in the garden, I began to hear the screams of awakened and distracted patients. In another moment, the front door of tiie hotel was burst open, and a mob of hysterical women in expensive nightgowns rushed out upon the lawn, and huddled in shrieking groups.

I fled into the night.

I fled, but Napoleon's men fled with me. Compelled by I know not what fatal astral attraction, perhaps the subtle affinity of the creature for the creator, the spectral shells, moved by some mysterious mechanics of spiritual being, pursued me with fatuous fury. I sought refuge, firsti in my laboratory, but, even as I approached, a lurid glare foretold me of its destruction. As I drew nearer, the whole ghost-factory was seen to be in flames; every moment crackling reports were heard, as the overheated tins of phantasmagoria exploded and threw their supernatural contents upon the night. These liberated ghosts joined the army of Napoleon's outraged warriors, and turned upon me. There was not enough formaldybrom in all the world to quench their fierce energy. There was no place in all the world safe for me from their visitation. No ghost-extinguisher was powerful enough to lay the host of spirits that haunted me henceforth, and I had neither time nor money left with which to construct new Gatling quick-firing tanks.

It is little comfort to me to know that one hundred nervous invalids were completely restored to health by means of the terrific shock which I administered.

__________________

4: The Willows

Algernon Blackwood

1869-1951

The Listener and Other Stories, 1907

AFTER LEAVING VIENNA, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word Sümpfe, meaning marshes.

In high flood this great acreage of sand, shingle-beds, and willow-grown islands is almost topped by the water, but in normal seasons the bushes bend and rustle in the free winds, showing their silver leaves to the sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, green swells like the sea, too, until the branches turn and lift, and then silvery white as their underside turns to the sun.

Happy to slip beyond the control of the stern banks, the Danube here wanders about at will among the intricate network of channels intersecting the islands everywhere with broad avenues down which the waters pour with a shouting sound; making whirlpools, eddies, and foaming rapids; tearing at the sandy banks; carrying away masses of shore and willow-clumps; and forming new islands innumerably which shift daily in size and shape and possess at best an impermanent life, since the flood-time obliterates their very existence.

Properly speaking, this fascinating part of the river's life begins soon after leaving Pressburg, and we, in our Canadian canoe, with gipsy tent and frying-pan on board, reached it on the crest of a rising flood about mid-July. That very same morning, when the sky was reddening before sunrise, we had slipped swiftly through still-sleeping Vienna, leaving it a couple of hours later a mere patch of smoke against the blue hills of the Wienerwald on the horizon; we had breakfasted below Fischeramend under a grove of birch trees roaring in the wind; and had then swept on the tearing current past Orth, Hainburg, Petronell (the old Roman Carnuntum of Marcus Aurelius), and so under the frowning heights of Thelsen on a spur of the Carpathians, where the March steals in quietly from the left and the frontier is crossed between Austria and Hungary.

Racing along at twelve kilometers an hour soon took us well into Hungary, and the muddy waters— sure sign of flood— sent us aground on many a shingle-bed, and twisted us like a cork in many a sudden belching whirlpool before the towers of Pressburg (Hungarian, Poszóny) showed against the sky; and then the canoe, leaping like a spirited horse, flew at top speed under the grey walls, negotiated safely the sunken chain of the Fliegende Brucke ferry, turned the corner sharply to the left, and plunged on yellow foam into the wilderness of islands, sandbanks, and swamp-land beyond— the land of the willows.

The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilization within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and magic— a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.

Though still early in the afternoon, the ceaseless buffetings of a most tempestuous wind made us feel weary, and we at once began casting about for a suitable camping-ground for the night. But the bewildering character of the islands made landing difficult; the swirling flood carried us in shore and then swept us out again; the willow branches tore our hands as we seized them to stop the canoe, and we pulled many a yard of sandy bank into the water before at length we shot with a great sideways blow from the wind into a backwater and managed to beach the bows in a cloud of spray. Then we lay panting and laughing after our exertions on the hot yellow sand, sheltered from the wind, and in the full blaze of a scorching sun, a cloudless blue sky above, and an immense army of dancing, shouting willow bushes, closing in from all sides, shining with spray and clapping their thousand little hands as though to applaud the success of our efforts.

"What a river!" I said to my companion, thinking of all the way we had traveled from the source in the Black Forest, and how he had often been obliged to wade and push in the upper shallows at the beginning of June.

"Won't stand much nonsense now, will it?" he said, pulling the canoe a little farther into safety up the sand, and then composing himself for a nap.

I lay by his side, happy and peaceful in the bath of the elements—water, wind, sand, and the great fire of the sun—thinking of the long journey that lay behind us, and of the great stretch before us to the Black Sea, and how lucky I was to have such a delightful and charming traveling companion as my friend, the Swede.

We had made many similar journeys together, but the Danube, more than any other river I knew, impressed us from the very beginning with its aliveness. From its tiny bubbling entry into the world among the pinewood gardens of Donaueschingen, until this moment when it began to play the great river-game of losing itself among the deserted swamps, unobserved, unrestrained, it had seemed to us like following the growth of some living creature. Sleepy at first, but later developing violent desires as it became conscious of its deep soul, it rolled, like some huge fluid being, through all the countries we had passed, holding our little craft on its mighty shoulders, playing roughly with us sometimes, yet always friendly and well-meaning, till at length we had come inevitably to regard it as a Great Personage.

How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told us so much of its secret life? At night we heard it singing to the moon as we lay in our tent, uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be caused by the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its bed, so great is its hurrying speed. We knew, too, the voice of its gurgling whirlpools, suddenly bubbling up on a surface previously quite calm; the roar of its shallows and swift rapids; its constant steady thundering below all mere surface sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters at the banks. How it stood up and shouted when the rains fell flat upon its face! And how its laughter roared out when the wind blew up-stream and tried to stop its growing speed! We knew all its sounds and voices, its tumblings and foamings, its unnecessary splashing against the bridges; that self-conscious chatter when there were hills to look on; the affected dignity of its speech when it passed through the little towns, far too important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet whisperings when the sun caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured down upon it till the steam rose.

It was full of tricks, too, in its early life before the great world knew it. There were places in the upper reaches among the Swabian forests, when yet the first whispers of its destiny had not reached it, where it elected to disappear through holes in the ground, to appear again on the other side of the porous limestone hills and start a new river with another name; leaving, too, so little water in its own bed that we had to climb out and wade and push the canoe through miles of shallows.

And a chief pleasure, in those early days of its irresponsible youth, was to lie low, like Brer Fox, just before the little turbulent tributaries came to join it from the Alps, and to refuse to acknowledge them when in, but to run for miles side by side, the dividing line well marked, the very levels different, the Danube utterly declining to recognize the newcomer. Below Passau, however, it gave up this particular trick, for there the Inn comes in with a thundering power impossible to ignore, and so pushes and incommodes the parent river that there is hardly room for them in the long twisting gorge that follows, and the Danube is shoved this way and that against the cliffs, and forced to hurry itself with great waves and much dashing to and fro in order to get through in time. And during the fight our canoe slipped down from its shoulder to its breast, and had the time of its life among the struggling waves. But the Inn taught the old river a lesson, and after Passau it no longer pretended to ignore new arrivals.

This was many days back, of course, and since then we had come to know other aspects of the great creature, and across the Bavarian wheat plain of Straubing she wandered so slowly under the blazing June sun that we could well imagine only the surface inches were water, while below there moved, concealed as by a silken mantle, a whole army of Undines, passing silently and unseen down to the sea, and very leisurely too, lest they be discovered.

Much, too, we forgave her because of her friendliness to the birds and animals that haunted the shores. Cormorants lined the banks in lonely places in rows like short black palings; grey crows crowded the shingle-beds; storks stood fishing in the vistas of shallower water that opened up between the islands, and hawks, swans, and marsh birds of all sorts filled the air with glinting wings and singing, petulant cries. It was impossible to feel annoyed with the river's vagaries after seeing a deer leap with a splash into the water at sunrise and swim past the bows of the canoe; and often we saw fawns peering at us from the underbrush, or looked straight into the brown eyes of a stag as we charged full tilt round a corner and entered another reach of the river. Foxes, too, everywhere haunted the banks, tripping daintily among the driftwood and disappearing so suddenly that it was impossible to see how they managed it.

But now, after leaving Pressburg, everything changed a little, and the Danube became more serious. It ceased trifling. It was half-way to the Black Sea, within seeming distance almost of other, stranger countries where no tricks would be permitted or understood. It became suddenly grown-up, and claimed our respect and even our awe. It broke out into three arms, for one thing, that only met again a hundred kilometers farther down, and for a canoe there were no indications which one was intended to be followed.

"If you take a side channel," said the Hungarian officer we met in the Pressburg shop while buying provisions, "you may find yourselves, when the flood subsides, forty miles from anywhere, high and dry, and you may easily starve. There are no people, no farms, no fishermen. I warn you not to continue. The river, too, is still rising, and this wind will increase."

The rising river did not alarm us in the least, but the matter of being left high and dry by a sudden subsidence of the waters might be serious, and we had consequently laid in an extra stock of provisions. For the rest, the officer's prophecy held true, and the wind, blowing down a perfectly clear sky, increased steadily till it reached the dignity of a westerly gale.

It was earlier than usual when we camped, for the sun was a good hour or two from the horizon, and leaving my friend still asleep on the hot sand, I wandered about in desultory examination of our hotel. The island, I found, was less than an acre in extent, a mere sandy bank standing some two or three feet above the level of the river. The far end, pointing into the sunset, was covered with flying spray which the tremendous wind drove off the crests of the broken waves. It was triangular in shape, with the apex up stream.

I stood there for several minutes, watching the impetuous crimson flood bearing down with a shouting roar, dashing in waves against the bank as though to sweep it bodily away, and then swirling by in two foaming streams on either side. The ground seemed to shake with the shock and rush, while the furious movement of the willow bushes as the wind poured over them increased the curious illusion that the island itself actually moved. Above, for a mile or two, I could see the great river descending upon me; it was like looking up the slope of a sliding hill, white with foam, and leaping up everywhere to show itself to the sun.

The rest of the island was too thickly grown with willows to make walking pleasant, but I made the tour, nevertheless. From the lower end the light, of course, changed, and the river looked dark and angry. Only the backs of the flying waves were visible, streaked with foam, and pushed forcibly by the great puffs of wind that fell upon them from behind. For a short mile it was visible, pouring in and out among the islands, and then disappearing with a huge sweep into the willows, which closed about it like a herd of monstrous antediluvian creatures crowding down to drink. They made me think of gigantic sponge-like growths that sucked the river up into themselves. They caused it to vanish from sight. They herded there together in such overpowering numbers.

Altogether it was an impressive scene, with its utter loneliness, its bizarre suggestion; and as I gazed, long and curiously, a singular emotion began to stir somewhere in the depths of me. Midway in my delight of the wild beauty, there crept, unbidden and unexplained, a curious feeling of disquietude, almost of alarm.

A rising river, perhaps, always suggests something of the ominous; many of the little islands I saw before me would probably have been swept away by the morning; this resistless, thundering flood of water touched the sense of awe. Yet I was aware that my uneasiness lay deeper far than the emotions of awe and wonder. It was not that I felt. Nor had it directly to do with the power of the driving wind— this shouting hurricane that might almost carry up a few acres of willows into the air and scatter them like so much chaff over the landscape. The wind was simply enjoying itself, for nothing rose out of the flat landscape to stop it, and I was conscious of sharing its great game with a kind of pleasurable excitement. Yet this novel emotion had nothing to do with the wind. Indeed, so vague was the sense of distress I experienced, that it was impossible to trace it to its source and deal with it accordingly, though I was aware somehow that it had to do with my realization of our utter insignificance before this unrestrained power of the elements about me. The huge-grown river had something to do with it too— a vague, unpleasant idea that we had somehow trifled with these great elemental forces in whose power we lay helpless every hour of the day and night. For here, indeed, they were gigantically at play together, and the sight appealed to the imagination.

But my emotion, so far as I could understand it, seemed to attach itself more particularly to the willow bushes, to these acres and acres of willows, crowding, so thickly growing there, swarming everywhere the eye could reach, pressing upon the river as though to suffocate it, standing in dense array mile after mile beneath the sky, watching, waiting, listening. And, apart quite from the elements, the willows connected themselves subtly with my malaise, attacking the mind insidiously somehow by reason of their vast numbers, and contriving in some way or other to represent to the imagination a new and mighty power, a power, moreover, not altogether friendly to us.

Great revelations of nature, of course, never fail to impress in one way or another, and I was no stranger to moods of the kind. Mountains overawe and oceans terrify, while the mystery of great forests exercises a spell peculiarly its own. But all these, at one point or another, somewhere link on intimately with human life and human experience. They stir comprehensible, even if alarming, emotions. They tend on the whole to exalt.

With this multitude of willows, however, it was something far different, I felt. Some essence emanated from them that besieged the heart. A sense of awe awakened, true, but of awe touched somewhere by a vague terror. Their serried ranks, growing everywhere darker about me as the shadows deepened, moving furiously yet softly in the wind, woke in me the curious and unwelcome suggestion that we had trespassed here upon the borders of an alien world, a world where we were intruders, a world where we were not wanted or invited to remain— where we ran grave risks perhaps!

The feeling, however, though it refused to yield its meaning entirely to analysis, did not at the time trouble me by passing into menace. Yet it never left me quite, even during the very practical business of putting up the tent in a hurricane of wind and building a fire for the stew-pot. It remained, just enough to bother and perplex, and to rob a most delightful camping-ground of a good portion of its charm. To my companion, however, I said nothing, for he was a man I considered devoid of imagination. In the first place, I could never have explained to him what I meant, and in the second, he would have laughed stupidly at me if I had.

There was a slight depression in the center of the island, and here we pitched the tent. The surrounding willows broke the wind a bit.

"A poor camp," observed the imperturbable Swede when at last the tent stood upright, "no stones and precious little firewood. I'm for moving on early tomorrow— eh? This sand won't hold anything."

But the experience of a collapsing tent at midnight had taught us many devices, and we made the cozy gipsy house as safe as possible, and then set about collecting a store of wood to last till bed-time. Willow bushes drop no branches, and driftwood was our only source of supply. We hunted the shores pretty thoroughly. Everywhere the banks were crumbling as the rising flood tore at them and carried away great portions with a splash and a gurgle.

"The island's much smaller than when we landed," said the accurate Swede. "It won't last long at this rate. We'd better drag the canoe close to the tent, and be ready to start at a moment's notice. I shall sleep in my clothes."

He was a little distance off, climbing along the bank, and I heard his rather jolly laugh as he spoke.

"By Jove!" I heard him call, a moment later, and turned to see what had caused his exclamation. But for the moment he was hidden by the willows, and I could not find him.

"What in the world's this?" I heard him cry again, and this time his voice had become serious.

I ran up quickly and joined him on the bank. He was looking over the river, pointing at something in the water.

"Good heavens, it's a man's body!" he cried excitedly. "Look!"

A black thing, turning over and over in the foaming waves, swept rapidly past. It kept disappearing and coming up to the surface again. It was about twenty feet from the shore, and just as it was opposite to where we stood it lurched round and looked straight at us. We saw its eyes reflecting the sunset, and gleaming an odd yellow as the body turned over. Then it gave a swift, gulping plunge, and dived out of sight in a flash.

"An otter, by gad!" we exclaimed in the same breath, laughing.

It was an otter, alive, and out on the hunt; yet it had looked exactly like the body of a drowned man turning helplessly in the current. Far below it came to the surface once again, and we saw its black skin, wet and shining in the sunlight.

Then, too, just as we turned back, our arms full of driftwood, another thing happened to recall us to the river bank. This time it really was a man, and what was more, a man in a boat. Now a small boat on the Danube was an unusual sight at any time, but here in this deserted region, and at flood time, it was so unexpected as to constitute a real event. We stood and stared.

Whether it was due to the slanting sunlight, or the refraction from the wonderfully illumined water, I cannot say, but, whatever the cause, I found it difficult to focus my sight properly upon the flying apparition. It seemed, however, to be a man standing upright in a sort of flat-bottomed boat, steering with a long oar, and being carried down the opposite shore at a tremendous pace. He apparently was looking across in our direction, but the distance was too great and the light too uncertain for us to make out very plainly what he was about. It seemed to me that he was gesticulating and making signs at us. His voice came across the water to us shouting something furiously, but the wind drowned it so that no single word was audible. There was something curious about the whole appearance— man, boat, signs, voice— that made an impression on me out of all proportion to its cause.

"He's crossing himself!" I cried. "Look, he's making the sign of the Cross!"

"I believe you're right," the Swede said, shading his eyes with his hand and watching the man out of sight. He seemed to be gone in a moment, melting away down there into the sea of willows where the sun caught them in the bend of the river and turned them into a great crimson wall of beauty. Mist, too, had begun to ruse, so that the air was hazy.

"But what in the world is he doing at nightfall on this flooded river?" I said, half to myself. "Where is he going at such a time, and what did he mean by his signs and shouting? D'you think he wished to warn us about something?"

"He saw our smoke, and thought we were spirits probably," laughed my companion. "These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish; you remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons, too. That peasant in the boat saw people on the islands for the first time in his life," he added, after a slight pause, "and it scared him, that's all."

The Swede's tone of voice was not convincing, and his manner lacked something that was usually there. I noted the change instantly while he talked, though without being able to label it precisely.

"If they had enough imagination," I laughed loudly— I remember trying to make as much noise as I could— "they might well people a place like this with the old gods of antiquity. The Romans must have haunted all this region more or less with their shrines and sacred groves and elemental deities."

The subject dropped and we returned to our stew-pot, for my friend was not given to imaginative conversation as a rule. Moreover, just then I remember feeling distinctly glad that he was not imaginative; his stolid, practical nature suddenly seemed to me welcome and comforting. It was an admirable temperament, I felt; he could steer down rapids like a red Indian, shoot dangerous bridges and whirlpools better than any white man I ever saw in a canoe. He was a grand fellow for an adventurous trip, a tower of strength when untoward things happened. I looked at his strong face and light curly hair as he staggered along under his pile of driftwood (twice the size of mine!), and I experienced a feeling of relief. Yes, I was distinctly glad just then that the Swede was— what he was, and that he never made remarks that suggested more than they said.

"The river's still rising, though," he added, as if following out some thoughts of his own, and dropping his load with a gasp. "This island will be under water in two days if it goes on."

"I wish the wind would go down," I said. "I don't care a fig for the river."

The flood, indeed, had no terrors for us; we could get off at ten minutes' notice, and the more water the better we liked it. It meant an increasing current and the obliteration of the treacherous shingle-beds that so often threatened to tear the bottom out of our canoe.

Contrary to our expectations, the wind did not go down with the sun. It seemed to increase with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking the willows round us like straws. Curious sounds accompanied it sometimes, like the explosion of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the island in great flat blows of immense power. It made me think of the sounds a planet must make, could we only hear it, driving along through space.

But the sky kept wholly clear of clouds, and soon after supper the full moon rose up in the east and covered the river and the plain of shouting willows with a light like the day.

We lay on the sandy patch beside the fire, smoking, listening to the noises of the night round us, and talking happily of the journey we had already made, and of our plans ahead. The map lay spread in the door of the tent, but the high wind made it hard to study, and presently we lowered the curtain and extinguished the lantern. The firelight was enough to smoke and see each other's faces by, and the sparks flew about overhead like fireworks. A few yards beyond, the river gurgled and hissed, and from time to time a heavy splash announced the falling away of further portions of the bank.

Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the faraway scenes and incidents of our first camps in the Black Forest, or of other subjects altogether remote from the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual moment more than was necessary— almost as though we had agreed tacitly to avoid discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor the boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention, though ordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater part of the evening. They were, of course, distinct events in such a place.

The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire going, for the wind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever we sat, helped at the same time to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to make some foraging expeditions into the darkness, and the quantity the Swede brought back always made me feel that he took an absurdly long time finding it; for the fact was I did not care much about being left alone, and yet it always seemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble along the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's battle with wind and water— such wind and such water!— had tired us both, and an early bed was the obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for the tent. We lay there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion, peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and listening to the thunder of wind and river. The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silence seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our voices became a trifle unreal and forced; whispering would have been the fitting mode of communication, I felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid the roar of the elements, now carried with it something almost illegitimate. It was like talking out loud in church, or in some place where it was not lawful, perhaps not quite safe, to be overheard.

The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it! Something more than the power of its mystery stirred in me as I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and peered up through the leaves at the stars. For the last time I rose to get firewood.

"When this has burnt up," I said firmly, "I shall turn in," and my companion watched me lazily as I moved off into the surrounding shadows.

For an unimaginative man I thought he seemed unusually receptive that night, unusually open to suggestion of things other than sensory. He too was touched by the beauty and loneliness of the place. I was not altogether pleased, I remember, to recognize this slight change in him, and instead of immediately collecting sticks, I made my way to the far point of the island where the moonlight on plain and river could be seen to better advantage. The desire to be alone had come suddenly upon me; my former dread returned in force; there was a vague feeling in me I wished to face and probe to the bottom.

When I reached the point of sand jutting out among the waves, the spell of the place descended upon me with a positive shock. No mere "scenery" could have produced such an effect. There was something more here, something to alarm.

I gazed across the waste of wild waters; I watched the whispering willows; I heard the ceaseless beating of the tireless wind; and, one and all, each in its own way, stirred in me this sensation of a strange distress. But the willows especially; for ever they went on chattering and talking among themselves, laughing a little, shrilly crying out, sometimes sighing— but what it was they made so much to-do about belonged to the secret life of the great plain they inhabited. And it was utterly alien to the world I knew, or to that of the wild yet kindly elements. They made me think of a host of beings from another plane of life, another evolution altogether, perhaps, all discussing a mystery known only to themselves. I watched them moving busily together, oddly shaking their big bushy heads, twirling their myriad leaves even when there was no wind. They moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible.

There they stood in the moonlight, like a vast army surrounding our camp, shaking their innumerable silver spears defiantly, formed all ready for an attack.

The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome or rejection. At first it may not always be apparent, because the busy preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first pause— after supper usually— it comes and announces itself. And the note of this willow-camp now became unmistakably plain to me; we were interlopers, trespassers; we were not welcomed. The sense of unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching. We touched the frontier of a region where our presence was resented. For a night's lodging we might perhaps be tolerated; but for a prolonged and inquisitive stay— No! by all the gods of the trees and wilderness, no! We were the first human influences upon this island, and we were not wanted. The willows were against us.

Strange thoughts like these, bizarre fancies, borne I know not whence, found lodgment in my mind as I stood listening. What, I thought, if, after all, these crouching willows proved to be alive; if suddenly they should rise up, like a swarm of living creatures, marshaled by the gods whose territory we had invaded, sweep towards us off the vast swamps, booming overhead in the night— and then settle down! As I looked it was so easy to imagine they actually moved, crept nearer, retreated a little, huddled together in masses, hostile, waiting for the great wind that should finally start them a-running. I could have sworn their aspect changed a little, and their ranks deepened and pressed more closely together.

The melancholy shrill cry of a night-bird sounded overhead, and suddenly I nearly lost my balance as the piece of bank I stood upon fell with a great splash into the river, undermined by the flood. I stepped back just in time, and went on hunting for firewood again, half laughing at the odd fancies that crowded so thickly into my mind and cast their spell upon me. I recalled the Swede's remark about moving on next day, and I was just thinking that I fully agreed with him, when I turned with a start and saw the subject of my thoughts standing immediately in front of me. He was quite close. The roar of the elements had covered his approach.

"You've been gone so long," he shouted above the wind, "I thought something must have happened to you."

But there was that in his tone, and a certain look in his face as well, that conveyed to me more than his usual words, and in a flash I understood the real reason for his coming. It was because the spell of the place had entered his soul too, and he did not like being alone.

"River still rising," he cried, pointing to the flood in the moonlight, "and the wind's simply awful."

He always said the same things, but it was the cry for companionship that gave the real importance to his words.

"Lucky," I cried back, "our tent's in the hollow. I think it'll hold all right." I added something about the difficulty of finding wood, in order to explain my absence, but the wind caught my words and flung them across the river, so that he did not hear, but just looked at me through the branches, nodding his head.

"Lucky if we get away without disaster!" he shouted, or words to that effect; and I remember feeling half angry with him for putting the thought into words, for it was exactly what I felt myself. There was disaster impending somewhere, and the sense of presentiment lay unpleasantly upon me.

We went back to the fire and made a final blaze, poking it up with our feet. We took a last look round. But for the wind the heat would have been unpleasant. I put this thought into words, and I remember my friend's reply struck me oddly: that he would rather have the heat, the ordinary July weather, than this "diabolical wind."

Everything was snug for the night; the canoe lying turned over beside the tent, with both yellow paddles beneath her; the provision sack hanging from a willow-stem, and the washed-up dishes removed to a safe distance from the fire, all ready for the morning meal.

We smothered the embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and the white moonlight. The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of the wind against our taut little house were the last things I remembered as sleep came down and covered all with its soft and delicious forgetfulness.

ii

SUDDENLY I found myself lying awake, peering from my sandy mattress through the door of the tent. I looked at my watch pinned against the canvas, and saw by the bright moonlight that it was past twelve o'clock— the threshold of a new day— and I had therefore slept a couple of hours. The Swede was asleep still beside me; the wind howled as before; something plucked at my heart and made me feel afraid. There was a sense of disturbance in my immediate neighborhood.

I sat up quickly and looked out. The trees were swaying violently to and fro as the gusts smote them, but our little bit of green canvas lay snugly safe in the hollow, for the wind passed over it without meeting enough resistance to make it vicious. The feeling of disquietude did not pass, however, and I crawled quietly out of the tent to see if our belongings were safe. I moved carefully so as not to waken my companion. A curious excitement was on me.

I was half-way out, kneeling on all fours, when my eye first took in that the tops of the bushes opposite, with their moving tracery of leaves, made shapes against the sky. I sat back on my haunches and stared. It was incredible, surely, but there, opposite and slightly above me, were shapes of some indeterminate sort among the willows, and as the branches swayed in the wind they seemed to group themselves about these shapes, forming a series of monstrous outlines that shifted rapidly beneath the moon. Close, about fifty feet in front of me, I saw these things.

My first instinct was to waken my companion, that he too might see them, but something made me hesitate— the sudden realization, probably, that I should not welcome corroboration; and meanwhile I crouched there staring in amazement with smarting eyes. I was wide awake. I remember saying to myself that I was not dreaming.

They first became properly visible, these huge figures, just within the tops of the bushes— immense, bronze-colored, moving, and wholly independent of the swaying of the branches. I saw them plainly and noted, now I came to examine them more calmly, that they were very much larger than human, and indeed that something in their appearance proclaimed them to be not human at all. Certainly they were not merely the moving tracery of the branches against the moonlight. They shifted independently. They rose upwards in a continuous stream from earth to sky, vanishing utterly as soon as they reached the dark of the sky. They were interlaced one with another, making a great column, and I saw their limbs and huge bodies melting in and out of each other, forming this serpentine line that bent and swayed and twisted spirally with the contortions of the wind-tossed trees. They were nude, fluid shapes, passing up the bushes, within the leaves almost— rising up in a living column into the heavens. Their faces I never could see. Unceasingly they poured upwards, swaying in great bending curves, with a hue of dull bronze upon their skins.

I stared, trying to force every atom of vision from my eyes. For a long time I thought they must every moment disappear and resolve themselves into the movements of the branches and prove to be an optical illusion. I searched everywhere for a proof of reality, when all the while I understood quite well that the standard of reality had changed. For the longer I looked the more certain I became that these figures were real and living, though perhaps not according to the standards that the camera and the biologist would insist upon.

Far from feeling fear, I was possessed with a sense of awe and wonder such as I have never known. I seemed to be gazing at the personified elemental forces of this haunted and primeval region. Our intrusion had stirred the powers of the place into activity. It was we who were the cause of the disturbance, and my brain filled to bursting with stories and legends of the spirits and deities of places that have been acknowledged and worshipped by men in all ages of the world's history. But, before I could arrive at any possible explanation, something impelled me to go farther out, and I crept forward on the sand and stood upright. I felt the ground still warm under my bare feet; the wind tore at my hair and face; and the sound of the river burst upon my ears with a sudden roar. These things, I knew, were real, and proved that my senses were acting normally. Yet the figures still rose from earth to heaven, silent, majestically, in a great spiral of grace and strength that overwhelmed me at length with a genuine deep emotion of worship. I felt that I must fall down and worship— absolutely worship.

Perhaps in another minute I might have done so, when a gust of wind swept against me with such force that it blew me sideways, and I nearly stumbled and fell. It seemed to shake the dream violently out of me. At least it gave me another point of view somehow. The figures still remained, still ascended into heaven from the heart of the night, but my reason at last began to assert itself. It must be a subjective experience, I argued— none the less real for that, but still subjective. The moonlight and the branches combined to work out these pictures upon the mirror of my imagination, and for some reason I projected them outwards and made them appear objective. I knew this must be the case, of course. I took courage, and began to move forward across the open patches of sand. By Jove, though, was it all hallucination? Was it merely subjective? Did not my reason argue in the old futile way from the little standard of the known?

I only know that great column of figures ascended darkly into the sky for what seemed a very long period of time, and with a very complete measure of reality as most men are accustomed to gauge reality. Then suddenly they were gone!

And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their great presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold rush. The esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted region suddenly flamed up within me, and I began to tremble dreadfully. I took a quick look round—a look of horror that came near to panic—calculating vainly ways of escape; and then, realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything really effective, I crept back silently into the tent and lay down again upon my sandy mattress, first lowering the door-curtain to shut out the sight of the willows in the moonlight, and then burying my head as deeply as possible beneath the blankets to deaden the sound of the terrifying wind.

iii

AS THOUGH further to convince me that I had not been dreaming, I remember that it was a long time before I fell again into a troubled and restless sleep; and even then only the upper crust of me slept, and underneath there was something that never quite lost consciousness, but lay alert and on the watch.

But this second time I jumped up with a genuine start of terror. It was neither the wind nor the river that woke me, but the slow approach of something that caused the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting bolt upright— listening.

Outside there was a sound of multitudinous little patterings. They had been coming, I was aware, for a long time, and in my sleep they had first become audible. I sat there nervously wide awake as though I had not slept at all. It seemed to me that my breathing came with difficulty, and that there was a great weight upon the surface of my body. In spite of the hot night, I felt clammy with cold and shivered. Something surely was pressing steadily against the sides of the tent and weighing down upon it from above. Was it the body of the wind? Was this the pattering rain, the dripping of the leaves? The spray blown from the river by the wind and gathering in big drops? I thought quickly of a dozen things.

Then suddenly the explanation leaped into my mind: a bough from the poplar, the only large tree on the island, had fallen with the wind. Still half caught by the other branches, it would fall with the next gust and crush us, and meanwhile its leaves brushed and tapped upon the tight canvas surface of the tent. I raised a loose flap and rushed out, calling to the Swede to follow.

But when I got out and stood upright I saw that the tent was free. There was no hanging bough; there was no rain or spray; nothing approached.

A cold, grey light filtered down through the bushes and lay on the faintly gleaming sand. Stars still crowded the sky directly overhead, and the wind howled magnificently, but the fire no longer gave out any glow, and I saw the east reddening in streaks through the trees. Several hours must have passed since I stood there before watching the ascending figures, and the memory of it now came back to me horribly, like an evil dream. Oh, how tired it made me feel, that ceaseless raging wind! Yet, though the deep lassitude of a sleepless night was on me, my nerves were tingling with the activity of an equally tireless apprehension, and all idea of repose was out of the question. The river I saw had risen further. Its thunder filled the air, and a fine spray made itself felt through my thin sleeping shirt.

Yet nowhere did I discover the slightest evidence of anything to cause alarm. This deep, prolonged disturbance in my heart remained wholly unaccounted for.

My companion had not stirred when I called him, and there was no need to waken him now. I looked about me carefully, noting everything; the turned-over canoe; the yellow paddles— two of them, I'm certain; the provision sack and the extra lantern hanging together from the tree; and, crowding everywhere about me, enveloping all, the willows, those endless, shaking willows. A bird uttered its morning cry, and a string of duck passed with whirring flight overhead in the twilight. The sand whirled, dry and stinging, about my bare feet in the wind.

I walked round the tent and then went out a little way into the bush, so that I could see across the river to the farther landscape, and the same profound yet indefinable emotion of distress seized upon me again as I saw the interminable sea of bushes stretching to the horizon, looking ghostly and unreal in the wan light of dawn. I walked softly here and there, still puzzling over that odd sound of infinite pattering, and of that pressure upon the tent that had wakened me. It must have been the wind, I reflected— the wind bearing upon the loose, hot sand, driving the dry particles smartly against the taut canvas— the wind dropping heavily upon our fragile roof.

Yet all the time my nervousness and malaise increased appreciably.

I crossed over to the farther shore and noted how the coast-line had altered in the night, and what masses of sand the river had torn away. I dipped my hands and feet into the cool current, and bathed my forehead. Already there was a glow of sunrise in the sky and the exquisite freshness of coming day. On my way back I passed purposely beneath the very bushes where I had seen the column of figures rising into the air, and midway among the clumps I suddenly found myself overtaken by a sense of vast terror. From the shadows a large figure went swiftly by. Someone passed me, as sure as ever man did….

It was a great staggering blow from the wind that helped me forward again, and once out in the more open space, the sense of terror diminished strangely. The winds were about and walking, I remember saying to myself, for the winds often move like great presences under the trees. And altogether the fear that hovered about me was such an unknown and immense kind of fear, so unlike anything I had ever felt before, that it woke a sense of awe and wonder in me that did much to counteract its worst effects; and when I reached a high point in the middle of the island from which I could see the wide stretch of river, crimson in the sunrise, the whole magical beauty of it all was so overpowering that a sort of wild yearning woke in me and almost brought a cry up into the throat.

But this cry found no expression, for as my eyes wandered from the plain beyond to the island round me and noted our little tent half hidden among the willows, a dreadful discovery leaped out at me, compared to which my terror of the walking winds seemed as nothing at all.

For a change, I thought, had somehow come about in the arrangement of the landscape. It was not that my point of vantage gave me a different view, but that an alteration had apparently been effected in the relation of the tent to the willows, and of the willows to the tent. Surely the bushes now crowded much closer— unnecessarily, unpleasantly close. They had moved nearer.

Creeping with silent feet over the shifting sands, drawing imperceptibly nearer by soft, unhurried movements, the willows had come closer during the night. But had the wind moved them, or had they moved of themselves? I recalled the sound of infinite small patterings and the pressure upon the tent and upon my own heart that caused me to wake in terror. I swayed for a moment in the wind like a tree, finding it hard to keep my upright position on the sandy hillock. There was a suggestion here of personal agency, of deliberate intention, of aggressive hostility, and it terrified me into a sort of rigidity.

Then the reaction followed quickly. The idea was so bizarre, so absurd, that I felt inclined to laugh. But the laughter came no more readily than the cry, for the knowledge that my mind was so receptive to such dangerous imaginings brought the additional terror that it was through our minds and not through our physical bodies that the attack would come, and was coming.

The wind buffeted me about, and, very quickly it seemed, the sun came up over the horizon, for it was after four o'clock, and I must have stood on that little pinnacle of sand longer than I knew, afraid to come down to close quarters with the willows. I returned quietly, creepily, to the tent, first taking another exhaustive look round and— yes, I confess it— making a few measurements. I paced out on the warm sand the distances between the willows and the tent, making a note of the shortest distance particularly.

I crawled stealthily into my blankets. My companion, to all appearances, still slept soundly, and I was glad that this was so. Provided my experiences were not corroborated, I could find strength somehow to deny them, perhaps. With the daylight I could persuade myself that it was all a subjective hallucination, a fantasy of the night, a projection of the excited imagination.

Nothing further came in to disturb me, and I fell asleep almost at once, utterly exhausted, yet still in dread of hearing again that weird sound of multitudinous pattering, or of feeling the pressure upon my heart that had made it difficult to breathe.

iv

THE SUN was high in the heavens when my companion woke me from a heavy sleep and announced that the porridge was cooked and there was just time to bathe. The grateful smell of frizzling bacon entered the tent door.

"River still rising," he said, "and several islands out in mid-stream have disappeared altogether. Our own island's much smaller."

"Any wood left?" I asked sleepily.

"The wood and the island will finish tomorrow in a dead heat," he laughed, "but there's enough to last us till then."

I plunged in from the point of the island, which had indeed altered a lot in size and shape during the night, and was swept down in a moment to the landing-place opposite the tent. The water was icy, and the banks flew by like the country from an express train. Bathing under such conditions was an exhilarating operation, and the terror of the night seemed cleansed out of me by a process of evaporation in the brain. The sun was blazing hot; not a cloud showed itself anywhere; the wind, however, had not abated one little jot.

Quite suddenly then the implied meaning of the Swede's words flashed across me, showing that he no longer wished to leave post-haste, and had changed his mind. "Enough to last till tomorrow"— he assumed we should stay on the island another night. It struck me as odd. The night before he was so positive the other way. How had the change come about?

Great crumblings of the banks occurred at breakfast, with heavy splashings and clouds of spray which the wind brought into our frying-pan, and my fellow-traveler talked incessantly about the difficulty the Vienna-Pesth steamers must have to find the channel in flood. But the state of his mind interested and impressed me far more than the state of the river or the difficulties of the steamers. He had changed somehow since the evening before. His manner was different—a trifle excited, a trifle shy, with a sort of suspicion about his voice and gestures. I hardly know how to describe it now in cold blood, but at the time I remember being quite certain of one thing— that he had become frightened?

He ate very little breakfast, and for once omitted to smoke his pipe. He had the map spread open beside him, and kept studying its markings.

"We'd better get off sharp in an hour," I said presently, feeling for an opening that must bring him indirectly to a partial confession at any rate. And his answer puzzled me uncomfortably: "Rather! If they'll let us."

"Who'll let us? The elements?" I asked quickly, with affected indifference.

"The powers of this awful place, whoever they are," he replied, keeping his eyes on the map. "The gods are here, if they are anywhere at all in the world."

"The elements are always the true immortals," I replied, laughing as naturally as I could manage, yet knowing quite well that my face reflected my true feelings when he looked up gravely at me and spoke across the smoke:

"We shall be fortunate if we get away without further disaster."

This was exactly what I had dreaded, and I screwed myself up to the point of the direct question. It was like agreeing to allow the dentist to extract the tooth; it had to come anyhow in the long run, and the rest was all pretence.

"Further disaster! Why, what's happened?"

"For one thing— the steering paddle's gone," he said quietly.

"The steering paddle gone!" I repeated, greatly excited, for this was our rudder, and the Danube in flood without a rudder was suicide. "But what—"

"And there's a tear in the bottom of the canoe," he added, with a genuine little tremor in his voice.

I continued staring at him, able only to repeat the words in his face somewhat foolishly. There, in the heat of the sun, and on this burning sand, I was aware of a freezing atmosphere descending round us. I got up to follow him, for he merely nodded his head gravely and led the way towards the tent a few yards on the other side of the fireplace. The canoe still lay there as I had last seen her in the night, ribs uppermost, the paddles, or rather, the paddle, on the sand beside her.

"There's only one," he said, stooping to pick it up. "And here's the rent in the base-board."

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I had clearly noticed two paddles a few hours before, but a second impulse made me think better of it, and I said nothing. I approached to see.

There was a long, finely made tear in the bottom of the canoe where a little slither of wood had been neatly taken clean out; it looked as if the tooth of a sharp rock or snag had eaten down her length, and investigation showed that the hole went through. Had we launched out in her without observing it we must inevitably have foundered. At first the water would have made the wood swell so as to close the hole, but once out in mid-stream the water must have poured in, and the canoe, never more than two inches above the surface, would have filled and sunk very rapidly.

"There, you see an attempt to prepare a victim for the sacrifice," I heard him saying, more to himself than to me, "two victims rather," he added as he bent over and ran his fingers along the slit.

I began to whistle— a thing I always do unconsciously when utterly nonplussed— and purposely paid no attention to his words. I was determined to consider them foolish.

"It wasn't there last night," he said presently, straightening up from his examination and looking anywhere but at me.

"We must have scratched her in landing, of course," I stopped whistling to say. "The stones are very sharp."

I stopped abruptly, for at that moment he turned round and met my eye squarely. I knew just as well as he did how impossible my explanation was. There were no stones, to begin with.

"And then there's this to explain too," he added quietly, handing me the paddle and pointing to the blade.

A new and curious emotion spread freezingly over me as I took and examined it. The blade was scraped down all over, beautifully scraped, as though someone had sand-papered it with care, making it so thin that the first vigorous stroke must have snapped it off at the elbow.

"One of us walked in his sleep and did this thing," I said feebly, "or—or it has been filed by the constant stream of sand particles blown against it by the wind, perhaps."

"Ah," said the Swede, turning away, laughing a little, "you can explain everything."

"The same wind that caught the steering paddle and flung it so near the bank that it fell in with the next lump that crumbled," I called out after him, absolutely determined to find an explanation for everything he showed me.

"I see," he shouted back, turning his head to look at me before disappearing among the willow bushes.

Once alone with these perplexing evidences of personal agency, I think my first thoughts took the form of "One of us must have done this thing, and it certainly was not I." But my second thought decided how impossible it was to suppose, under all the circumstances, that either of us had done it. That my companion, the trusted friend of a dozen similar expeditions, could have knowingly had a hand in it, was a suggestion not to be entertained for a moment. Equally absurd seemed the explanation that this imperturbable and densely practical nature had suddenly become insane and was busied with insane purposes.

Yet the fact remained that what disturbed me most, and kept my fear actively alive even in this blaze of sunshine and wild beauty, was the clear certainty that some curious alteration had come about in his mind—that he was nervous, timid, suspicious, aware of goings on he did not speak about, watching a series of secret and hitherto unmentionable events— waiting, in a word, for a climax that he expected, and, I thought, expected very soon. This grew up in my mind intuitively— I hardly knew how.

I made a hurried examination of the tent and its surroundings, but the measurements of the night remained the same. There were deep hollows formed in the sand I now noticed for the first time, basin-shaped and of various depths and sizes, varying from that of a tea-cup to a large bowl. The wind, no doubt, was responsible for these miniature craters, just as it was for lifting the paddle and tossing it towards the water. The rent in the canoe was the only thing that seemed quite inexplicable; and, after all, it was conceivable that a sharp point had caught it when we landed. The examination I made of the shore did not assist this theory, but all the same I clung to it with that diminishing portion of my intelligence which I called my "reason." An explanation of some kind was an absolute necessity, just as some working explanation of the universe is necessary— however absurd— to the happiness of every individual who seeks to do his duty in the world and face the problems of life. The simile seemed to me at the time an exact parallel.

I at once set the pitch melting, and presently the Swede joined me at the work, though under the best conditions in the world the canoe could not be safe for traveling till the following day. I drew his attention casually to the hollows in the sand.

"Yes," he said, "I know. They're all over the island. But you can explain them, no doubt!"

"Wind, of course," I answered without hesitation. "Have you never watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl everything into a circle? This sand's loose enough to yield, that's all."

He made no reply, and we worked on in silence for a bit. I watched him surreptitiously all the time, and I had an idea he was watching me. He seemed, too, to be always listening attentively to something I could not hear, or perhaps for something that he expected to hear, for he kept turning about and staring into the bushes, and up into the sky, and out across the water where it was visible through the openings among the willows. Sometimes he even put his hand to his ear and held it there for several minutes. He said nothing to me, however, about it, and I asked no questions. And meanwhile, as he mended that torn canoe with the skill and address of a red Indian, I was glad to notice his absorption in the work, for there was a vague dread in my heart that he would speak of the changed aspect of the willows. And, if he had noticed that, my imagination could no longer be held a sufficient explanation of it.

At length, after a long pause, he began to talk.

"Queer thing," he added in a hurried sort of voice, as though he wanted to say something and get it over. "Queer thing. I mean, about that otter last night."

I had expected something so totally different that he caught me with surprise, and I looked up sharply.

"Shows how lonely this place is. Otters are awfully shy things—"

"I don't mean that, of course," he interrupted. "I mean— do you think— did you think it really was an otter?"

"What else, in the name of Heaven, what else?"

"You know, I saw it before you did, and at first it seemed— so much bigger than an otter."

"The sunset as you looked up-stream magnified it, or something," I replied.

He looked at me absently a moment, as though his mind were busy with other thoughts.

"It had such extraordinary yellow eyes," he went on half to himself.

"That was the sun too," I laughed, a trifle boisterously. "I suppose you'll wonder next if that fellow in the boat—"

I suddenly decided not to finish the sentence. He was in the act again of listening, turning his head to the wind, and something in the expression of his face made me halt. The subject dropped, and we went on with our caulking. Apparently he had not noticed my unfinished sentence. Five minutes later, however, he looked at me across the canoe, the smoking pitch in his hand, his face exceedingly grave.

"I did rather wonder, if you want to know," he said slowly, "what that thing in the boat was. I remember thinking at the time it was not a man. The whole business seemed to rise quite suddenly out of the water."

I laughed again boisterously in his face, but this time there was impatience, and a strain of anger too, in my feeling.

"Look here now," I cried, "this place is quite queer enough without going out of our way to imagine things! That boat was an ordinary boat, and the man in it was an ordinary man, and they were both going down-stream as fast as they could lick. And that otter was an otter, so don't let's play the fool about it!"

He looked steadily at me with the same grave expression. He was not in the least annoyed. I took courage from his silence.

"And, for Heaven's sake," I went on, "don't keep pretending you hear things, because it only gives me the jumps, and there's nothing to hear but the river and this cursed old thundering wind."

"You fool!" he answered in a low, shocked voice, "you utter fool. That's just the way all victims talk. As if you didn't understand just as well as I do!" he sneered with scorn in his voice, and a sort of resignation. "The best thing you can do is to keep quiet and try to hold your mind as firm as possible. This feeble attempt at self-deception only makes the truth harder when you're forced to meet it."

My little effort was over, and I found nothing more to say, for I knew quite well his words were true, and that I was the fool, not he. Up to a certain stage in the adventure he kept ahead of me easily, and I think I felt annoyed to be out of it, to be thus proved less psychic, less sensitive than himself to these extraordinary happenings, and half ignorant all the time of what was going on under my very nose. He knew from the very beginning, apparently. But at the moment I wholly missed the point of his words about the necessity of there being a victim, and that we ourselves were destined to satisfy the want. I dropped all pretence thenceforward, but thenceforward likewise my fear increased steadily to the climax.

"But you're quite right about one thing," he added, before the subject passed, "and that is that we're wiser not to talk about it, or even to think about it, because what one thinks finds expression in words, and what one says, happens."

That afternoon, while the canoe dried and hardened, we spent trying to fish, testing the leak, collecting wood, and watching the enormous flood of rising water. Masses of driftwood swept near our shores sometimes, and we fished for them with long willow branches. The island grew perceptibly smaller as the banks were torn away with great gulps and splashes. The weather kept brilliantly fine till about four o'clock, and then for the first time for three days the wind showed signs of abating. Clouds began to gather in the south-west, spreading thence slowly over the sky.

This lessening of the wind came as a great relief, for the incessant roaring, banging, and thundering had irritated our nerves. Yet the silence that came about five o'clock with its sudden cessation was in a manner quite as oppressive. The booming of the river had everything in its own way then; it filled the air with deep murmurs, more musical than the wind noises, but infinitely more monotonous. The wind held many notes, rising, falling always beating out some sort of great elemental tune; whereas the river's song lay between three notes at most— dull pedal notes, that held a lugubrious quality foreign to the wind, and somehow seemed to me, in my then nervous state, to sound wonderfully well the music of doom.

It was extraordinary, too, how the withdrawal suddenly of bright sunlight took everything out of the landscape that made for cheerfulness; and since this particular landscape had already managed to convey the suggestion of something sinister, the change of course was all the more unwelcome and noticeable. For me, I know, the darkening outlook became distinctly more alarming, and I found myself more than once calculating how soon after sunset the full moon would get up in the east, and whether the gathering clouds would greatly interfere with her lighting of the little island.

With this general hush of the wind—though it still indulged in occasional brief gusts— the river seemed to me to grow blacker, the willows to stand more densely together. The latter, too, kept up a sort of independent movement of their own, rustling among themselves when no wind stirred, and shaking oddly from the roots upwards. When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us. The forces of the region drew nearer with the coming of night. They were focusing upon our island, and more particularly upon ourselves. For thus, somehow, in the terms of the imagination, did my really indescribable sensations in this extraordinary place present themselves.

I had slept a good deal in the early afternoon, and had thus recovered somewhat from the exhaustion of a disturbed night, but this only served apparently to render me more susceptible than before to the obsessing spell of the haunting. I fought against it, laughing at my feelings as absurd and childish, with very obvious physiological explanations, yet, in spite of every effort, they gained in strength upon me so that I dreaded the night as a child lost in a forest must dread the approach of darkness.

The canoe we had carefully covered with a waterproof sheet during the day, and the one remaining paddle had been securely tied by the Swede to the base of a tree, lest the wind should rob us of that too. From five o'clock onwards I busied myself with the stew-pot and preparations for dinner, it being my turn to cook that night. We had potatoes, onions, bits of bacon fat to add flavor, and a general thick residue from former stews at the bottom of the pot; with black bread broken up into it the result was most excellent, and it was followed by a stew of plums with sugar and a brew of strong tea with dried milk. A good pile of wood lay close at hand, and the absence of wind made my duties easy. My companion sat lazily watching me, dividing his attentions between cleaning his pipe and giving useless advice— an admitted privilege of the off-duty man. He had been very quiet all the afternoon, engaged in re-caulking the canoe, strengthening the tent ropes, and fishing for driftwood while I slept. No more talk about undesirable things had passed between us, and I think his only remarks had to do with the gradual destruction of the island, which he declared was not fully a third smaller than when we first landed.

The pot had just begun to bubble when I heard his voice calling to me from the bank, where he had wandered away without my noticing. I ran up.

"Come and listen," he said, "and see what you make of it." He held his hand cupwise to his ear, as so often before.

"Now do you hear anything?" he asked, watching me curiously.

We stood there, listening attentively together. At first I heard only the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent surface. The willows, for once, were motionless and silent. Then a sound began to reach my ears faintly, a peculiar sound— something like the humming of a distant gong. It seemed to come across to us in the darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. It was repeated at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as I listened.

"I've heard it all day," said my companion. "While you slept this afternoon it came all round the island. I hunted it down, but could never get near enough to see— to localize it correctly. Sometimes it was overhead, and sometimes it seemed under the water. Once or twice, too, I could have sworn it was not outside at all, but within myself— you know— the way a sound in the fourth dimension is supposed to come."

I was too much puzzled to pay much attention to his words. I listened carefully, striving to associate it with any known familiar sound I could think of, but without success. It changed in the direction, too, coming nearer, and then sinking utterly away into remote distance. I cannot say that it was ominous in quality, because to me it seemed distinctly musical, yet I must admit it set going a distressing feeling that made me wish I had never heard it.

"The wind blowing in those sand-funnels," I said determined to find an explanation, "or the bushes rubbing together after the storm perhaps."

"It comes off the whole swamp," my friend answered. "It comes from everywhere at once." He ignored my explanations. "It comes from the willow bushes somehow—"

"But now the wind has dropped," I objected. "The willows can hardly make a noise by themselves, can they?"

His answer frightened me, first because I had dreaded it, and secondly, because I knew intuitively it was true.

"It is because the wind has dropped we now hear it. It was drowned before. It is the cry, I believe, of the—"

I dashed back to my fire, warned by the sound of bubbling that the stew was in danger, but determined at the same time to escape further conversation. I was resolute, if possible, to avoid the exchanging of views. I dreaded, too, that he would begin about the gods, or the elemental forces, or something else disquieting, and I wanted to keep myself well in hand for what might happen later. There was another night to be faced before we escaped from this distressing place, and there was no knowing yet what it might bring forth.

"Come and cut up bread for the pot," I called to him, vigorously stirring the appetizing mixture. That stew-pot held sanity for us both, and the thought made me laugh.

He came over slowly and took the provision sack from the tree, fumbling in its mysterious depths, and then emptying the entire contents upon the ground-sheet at his feet.

"Hurry up!" I cried; "it's boiling."

The Swede burst out into a roar of laughter that startled me. It was forced laughter, not artificial exactly, but mirthless.

"There's nothing here!" he shouted, holding his sides.

"Bread, I mean."

"It's gone. There is no bread. They've taken it!"

I dropped the long spoon and ran up. Everything the sack had contained lay upon the ground-sheet, but there was no loaf.

The whole dead weight of my growing fear fell upon me and shook me. Then I burst out laughing too. It was the only thing to do: and the sound of my laughter also made me understand his. The stain of psychical pressure caused it— this explosion of unnatural laughter in both of us; it was an effort of repressed forces to seek relief; it was a temporary safety-valve. And with both of us it ceased quite suddenly.

"How criminally stupid of me!" I cried, still determined to be consistent and find an explanation. "I clean forgot to buy a loaf at Pressburg. That chattering woman put everything out of my head, and I must have left it lying on the counter or—"

"The oatmeal, too, is much less than it was this morning," the Swede interrupted.

Why in the world need he draw attention to it? I thought angrily.

"There's enough for tomorrow," I said, stirring vigorously, "and we can get lots more at Komorn or Gran. In twenty-four hours we shall be miles from here."

"I hope so— to God," he muttered, putting the things back into the sack, "unless we're claimed first as victims for the sacrifice," he added with a foolish laugh. He dragged the sack into the tent, for safety's sake, I suppose, and I heard him mumbling to himself, but so indistinctly that it seemed quite natural for me to ignore his words.

Our meal was beyond question a gloomy one, and we ate it almost in silence, avoiding one another's eyes, and keeping the fire bright. Then we washed up and prepared for the night, and, once smoking, our minds unoccupied with any definite duties, the apprehension I had felt all day long became more and more acute. It was not then active fear, I think, but the very vagueness of its origin distressed me far more that if I had been able to ticket and face it squarely. The curious sound I have likened to the note of a gong became now almost incessant, and filled the stillness of the night with a faint, continuous ringing rather than a series of distinct notes. At one time it was behind and at another time in front of us. Sometimes I fancied it came from the bushes on our left, and then again from the clumps on our right. More often it hovered directly overhead like the whirring of wings. It was really everywhere at once, behind, in front, at our sides and over our heads, completely surrounding us. The sound really defies description. But nothing within my knowledge is like that ceaseless muffled humming rising off the deserted world of swamps and willows.

We sat smoking in comparative silence, the strain growing every minute greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed to me that we did not know what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of preparation by way of defense. We could anticipate nothing. My explanations made in the sunshine, moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish and wholly unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and more clear to us that some kind of plain talk with my companion was inevitable, whether I liked it or not. After all, we had to spend the night together, and to sleep in the same tent side by side. I saw that I could not get along much longer without the support of his mind, and for that, of course, plain talk was imperative. As long as possible, however, I postponed this little climax, and tried to ignore or laugh at the occasional sentences he flung into the emptiness.

Some of these sentences, moreover, were confoundedly disquieting to me, coming as they did to corroborate much that I felt myself; corroboration, too—which made it so much more convincing— from a totally different point of view. He composed such curious sentences, and hurled them at me in such an inconsequential sort of way, as though his main line of thought was secret to himself, and these fragments were mere bits he found it impossible to digest. He got rid of them by uttering them. Speech relieved him. It was like being sick.

"There are things about us, I'm sure, that make for disorder, disintegration, destruction, our destruction," he said once, while the fire blazed between us. "We've strayed out of a safe line somewhere."

And, another time, when the gong sounds had come nearer, ringing much louder than before, and directly over our heads, he said as though talking to himself:

"I don't think a gramophone would show any record of that. The sound doesn't come to me by the ears at all. The vibrations reach me in another manner altogether, and seem to be within me, which is precisely how a fourth dimensional sound might be supposed to make itself heard."

I purposely made no reply to this, but I sat up a little closer to the fire and peered about me into the darkness. The clouds were massed all over the sky, and no trace of moonlight came through. Very still, too, everything was, so that the river and the frogs had things all their own way.

"It has that about it," he went on, "which is utterly out of common experience. It is unknown. Only one thing describes it really; it is a non-human sound; I mean a sound outside humanity."

Having rid himself of this indigestible morsel, he lay quiet for a time, but he had so admirably expressed my own feeling that it was a relief to have the thought out, and to have confined it by the limitation of words from dangerous wandering to and fro in the mind.

The solitude of that Danube camping-place, can I ever forget it? The feeling of being utterly alone on an empty planet! My thoughts ran incessantly upon cities and the haunts of men. I would have given my soul, as the saying is, for the "feel" of those Bavarian villages we had passed through by the score; for the normal, human commonplaces; peasants drinking beer, tables beneath the trees, hot sunshine, and a ruined castle on the rocks behind the red-roofed church. Even the tourists would have been welcome.

Yet what I felt of dread was no ordinary ghostly fear. It was infinitely greater, stranger, and seemed to arise from some dim ancestral sense of terror more profoundly disturbing than anything I had known or dreamed of. We had "strayed," as the Swede put it, into some region or some set of conditions where the risks were great, yet unintelligible to us; where the frontiers of some unknown world lay close about us. It was a spot held by the dwellers in some outer space, a sort of peep-hole whence they could spy upon the earth, themselves unseen, a point where the veil between had worn a little thin. As the final result of too long a sojourn here, we should be carried over the border and deprived of what we called "our lives," yet by mental, not physical, processes. In that sense, as he said, we should be the victims of our adventure— a sacrifice.

It took us in different fashion, each according to the measure of his sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I translated it vaguely into a personification of the mightily disturbed elements, investing them with the horror of a deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our audacious intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw it into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on some ancient shrine, some place where the old gods still held sway, where the emotional forces of former worshippers still clung, and the ancestral portion of him yielded to the old pagan spell.

At any rate, here was a place unpolluted by men, kept clean by the winds from coarsening human influences, a place where spiritual agencies were within reach and aggressive. Never, before or since, have I been so attacked by indescribable suggestions of a "beyond region," of another scheme of life, another revolution not parallel to the human. And in the end our minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we should be drawn across the frontier into their world.

Small things testified to the amazing influence of the place, and now in the silence round the fire they allowed themselves to be noted by the mind. The very atmosphere had proved itself a magnifying medium to distort every indication: the otter rolling in the current, the hurrying boatman making signs, the shifting willows, one and all had been robbed of its natural character, and revealed in something of its other aspect— as it existed across the border to that other region. And this changed aspect I felt was now not merely to me, but to the race. The whole experience whose verge we touched was unknown to humanity at all. It was a new order of experience, and in the true sense of the word unearthly.

"It's the deliberate, calculating purpose that reduces one's courage to zero," the Swede said suddenly, as if he had been actually following my thoughts. "Otherwise imagination might count for much. But the paddle, the canoe, the lessening food—"

"Haven't I explained all that once?" I interrupted viciously.

"You have," he answered dryly; "you have indeed."

He made other remarks too, as usual, about what he called the "plain determination to provide a victim"; but, having now arranged my thoughts better, I recognized that this was simply the cry of his frightened soul against the knowledge that he was being attacked in a vital part, and that he would be somehow taken or destroyed. The situation called for a courage and calmness of reasoning that neither of us could compass, and I have never before been so clearly conscious of two persons in me— the one that explained everything, and the other that laughed at such foolish explanations, yet was horribly afraid.

Meanwhile, in the pitchy night the fire died down and the wood pile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the willows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the gurgling of the river and the humming in the air overhead.

We both missed, I think, the shouting company of the winds.

At length, at a moment when a stray puff prolonged itself as though the wind were about to rise again, I reached the point for me of saturation, the point where it was absolutely necessary to find relief in plain speech, or else to betray myself by some hysterical extravagance that must have been far worse in its effect upon both of us. I kicked the fire into a blaze, and turned to my companion abruptly. He looked up with a start.

"I can't disguise it any longer," I said; "I don't like this place, and the darkness, and the noises, and the awful feelings I get. There's something here that beats me utterly. I'm in a blue funk, and that's the plain truth. If the other shore was— different, I swear I'd be inclined to swim for it!"

The Swede's face turned very white beneath the deep tan of sun and wind. He stared straight at me and answered quietly, but his voice betrayed his huge excitement by its unnatural calmness. For the moment, at any rate, he was the strong man of the two. He was more phlegmatic, for one thing.

"It's not a physical condition we can escape from by running away," he replied, in the tone of a doctor diagnosing some grave disease; "we must sit tight and wait. There are forces close here that could kill a herd of elephants in a second as easily as you or I could squash a fly. Our only chance is to keep perfectly still. Our insignificance perhaps may save us."

I put a dozen questions into my expression of face, but found no words. It was precisely like listening to an accurate description of a disease whose symptoms had puzzled me.

"I mean that so far, although aware of our disturbing presence, they have not found us— not 'located' us, as the Americans say," he went on. "They're blundering about like men hunting for a leak of gas. The paddle and canoe and provisions prove that. I think they feel us, but cannot actually see us. We must keep our minds quiet—it's our minds they feel. We must control our thoughts, or it's all up with us."

"Death, you mean?" I stammered, icy with the horror of his suggestion.

"Worse— by far," he said. "Death, according to one's belief, means either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but it involves no change of character. You don't suddenly alter just because the body's gone. But this means a radical alteration, a complete change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution—far worse than death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have camped in a spot where their region touches ours, where the veil between has worn thin"— horrors! he was using my very own phrase, my actual words— "so that they are aware of our being in their neighborhood."

"But who are aware?" I asked.

I forgot the shaking of the willows in the windless calm, the humming overhead, everything except that I was waiting for an answer that I dreaded more than I can possibly explain.

He lowered his voice at once to reply, leaning forward a little over the fire, an indefinable change in his face that made me avoid his eyes and look down upon the ground.

"All my life," he said, "I have been strangely, vividly conscious of another region— not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind— where great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the soul, and not indirectly with mere expressions of the soul—"

"I suggest just now—" I began, seeking to stop him, feeling as though I was face to face with a madman. But he instantly overbore me with his torrent that had to come.

"You think," he said, "it is the spirit of the elements, and I thought perhaps it was the old gods. But I tell you now it is— neither. These would be comprehensible entities, for they have relations with men, depending upon them for worship or sacrifice, whereas these beings who are now about us have absolutely nothing to do with mankind, and it is mere chance that their space happens just at this spot to touch our own."

The mere conception, which his words somehow made so convincing, as I listened to them there in the dark stillness of that lonely island, set me shaking a little all over. I found it impossible to control my movements.

"And what do you propose?" I began again.

"A sacrifice, a victim, might save us by distracting them until we could get away," he went on, "just as the wolves stop to devour the dogs and give the sleigh another start. But— I see no chance of any other victim now."

I stared blankly at him. The gleam in his eye was dreadful. Presently he continued.

"It's the willows, of course. The willows mask the others, but the others are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear, we're lost, lost utterly." He looked at me with an expression so calm, so determined, so sincere, that I no longer had any doubts as to his sanity. He was as sane as any man ever was. "If we can hold out through the night," he added, "we may get off in the daylight unnoticed, or rather, undiscovered."

"But you really think a sacrifice would—"

That gong-like humming came down very close over our heads as I spoke, but it was my friend's scared face that really stopped my mouth.

"Hush!" he whispered, holding up his hand. "Do not mention them more than you can help. Do not refer to them by name. To name is to reveal; it is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring them, in order that they may ignore us."

"Even in thought?" He was extraordinarily agitated.

"Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We must keep them out of our minds at all costs if possible."

I raked the fire together to prevent the darkness having everything its own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed for it then in the awful blackness of that summer night.

"Were you awake all last night?" he went on suddenly.

"I slept badly a little after dawn," I replied evasively, trying to follow his instructions, which I knew instinctively were true, "but the wind, of course—"

"I know. But the wind won't account for all the noises."

"Then you heard it too?"

"The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard," he said, adding, after a moment's hesitation, "and that other sound—"

"You mean above the tent, and the pressing down upon us of something tremendous, gigantic?"

He nodded significantly.

"It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation?" I said.

"Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the atmosphere had been altered— had increased enormously, so that we should have been crushed."

"And that," I went on, determined to have it all out, pointing upwards where the gong-like note hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like wind. "What do you make of that?"

"It's their sound," he whispered gravely. "It's the sound of their world, the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that it leaks through somehow. But, if you listen carefully, you'll find it's not above so much as around us. It's in the willows. It's the willows themselves humming, because here the willows have been made symbols of the forces that are against us."

I could not follow exactly what he meant by this, yet the thought and idea in my mind were beyond question the thought and idea in his. I realized what he realized, only with less power of analysis than his. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him at last about my hallucination of the ascending figures and the moving bushes, when he suddenly thrust his face again close into mine across the firelight and began to speak in a very earnest whisper. He amazed me by his calmness and pluck, his apparent control of the situation. This man I had for years deemed unimaginative, stolid!

"Now listen," he said. "The only thing for us to do is to go on as though nothing had happened, follow our usual habits, go to bed, and so forth; pretend we feel nothing and notice nothing. It is a question wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our chance of escape. Above all, don't think, for what you think happens!"

"All right," I managed to reply, simply breathless with his words and the strangeness of it all; "all right, I'll try, but tell me one more thing first. Tell me what you make of those hollows in the ground all about us, those sand-funnels?"

"No!" he cried, forgetting to whisper in his excitement. "I dare not, simply dare not, put the thought into words. If you have not guessed I am glad. Don't try to. They have put it into my mind; try your hardest to prevent their putting it into yours."

He sank his voice again to a whisper before he finished, and I did not press him to explain. There was already just about as much horror in me as I could hold. The conversation came to an end, and we smoked our pipes busily in silence.

Then something happened, something unimportant apparently, as the way is when the nerves are in a very great state of tension, and this small thing for a brief space gave me an entirely different point of view. I chanced to look down at my sand-shoe— the sort we used for the canoe— and something to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled to me the London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the man had in fitting me, and other details of the uninteresting but practical operation. At once, in its train, followed a wholesome view of the modern skeptical world I was accustomed to move in at home. I thought of roast beef, and ale, motor-cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The effect was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically, I suppose, it was simply a sudden and violent reaction after the strain of living in an atmosphere of things that to the normal consciousness must seem impossible and incredible. But, whatever the cause, it momentarily lifted the spell from my heart, and left me for the short space of a minute feeling free and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my friend opposite.

"You damned old pagan!" I cried, laughing aloud in his face. "You imaginative idiot! You superstitious idolater! You—"

I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I tried to smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The Swede, of course, heard it too— the strange cry overhead in the darkness— and that sudden drop in the air as though something had come nearer.

He had turned ashen white under the tan. He stood bolt upright in front of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at me.

"After that," he said in a sort of helpless, frantic way, "we must go! We can't stay now; we must strike camp this very instant and go on— down the river."

He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject terror— the terror he had resisted so long, but which had caught him at last.

"In the dark?" I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my hysterical outburst, but still realizing our position better than he did. "Sheer madness! The river's in flood, and we've only got a single paddle. Besides, we only go deeper into their country! There's nothing ahead for fifty miles but willows, willows, willows!"

He sat down again in a state of semi-collapse. The positions, by one of those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves, were suddenly reversed, and the control of our forces passed over into my hands. His mind at last had reached the point where it was beginning to weaken.

"What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?" he whispered with the awe of genuine terror in his voice and face.

I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his hands in mine, kneeling down beside him and looking straight into his frightened eyes.

"We'll make one more blaze," I said firmly, "and then turn in for the night. At sunrise we'll be off full speed for Komorn. Now, pull yourself together a bit, and remember your own advice about not thinking fear!"

He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In some measure, too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make an excursion into the darkness for more wood. We kept close together, almost touching, groping among the bushes and along the bank. The humming overhead never ceased, but seemed to me to grow louder as we increased our distance from the fire. It was shivery work!

We were grubbing away in the middle of a thickish clump of willows where some driftwood from a former flood had caught high among the branches, when my body was seized in a grip that made me half drop upon the sand. It was the Swede. He had fallen against me, and was clutching me for support. I heard his breath coming and going in short gasps.

"Look! By my soul!" he whispered, and for the first time in my experience I knew what it was to hear tears of terror in a human voice. He was pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away. I followed the direction of his finger, and I swear my heart missed a beat.

There, in front of the dim glow, something was moving.

I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes like the gauze drop-curtain used at the back of a theater— hazily a little. It was neither a human figure nor an animal. To me it gave the strange impression of being as large as several animals grouped together, like horses, two or three, moving slowly. The Swede, too, got a similar result, though expressing it differently, for he thought it was shaped and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top, and moving all over upon its surface— "coiling upon itself like smoke," he said afterwards.

"I watched it settle downwards through the bushes," he sobbed at me. "Look, by God! It's coming this way! Oh, oh!"— he gave a kind of whistling cry. "They've found us."

I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled me to see that the shadowy form was swinging towards us through the bushes, and then I collapsed backwards with a crash into the branches. These failed, of course, to support my weight, so that with the Swede on top of me we fell in a struggling heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was happening. I was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of icy fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshly covering, twisted them this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My eyes were tightly shut; something in my throat choked me; a feeling that my consciousness was expanding, extending out into space, swiftly gave way to another feeling that I was losing it altogether, and about to die.

An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way he caught at me in falling.

But it was the pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me; it caused me to forget them and think of something else at the very instant when they were about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the moment of discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what saved him.

I only know that at a later date, how long or short is impossible to say, I found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow branches, and saw my companion standing in front of me holding out a hand to assist me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he had twisted for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow.

"I lost consciousness for a moment or two," I heard him say. "That's what saved me. It made me stop thinking about them."

"You nearly broke my arm in two," I said, uttering my only connected thought at the moment. A numbness came over me.

"That's what saved you!" he replied. "Between us, we've managed to set them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's gone—for the moment at any rate!"

A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to my friend too— great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a tremendous sense of relief in their train. We made our way back to the fire and put the wood on so that it blazed at once. Then we saw that the tent had fallen over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground.

We picked it up, and during the process tripped more than once and caught our feet in sand.

"It's those sand-funnels," exclaimed the Swede, when the tent was up again and the firelight lit up the ground for several yards about us. "And look at the size of them!"

All round the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen the moving shadows there were deep funnel-shaped hollows in the sand, exactly similar to the ones we had already found over the island, only far bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide enough in some instances to admit the whole of my foot and leg.

Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the safest thing we could do, and to bed we went accordingly without further delay, having first thrown sand on the fire and taken the provision sack and the paddle inside the tent with us. The canoe, too, we propped in such a way at the end of the tent that our feet touched it, and the least motion would disturb and wake us.

In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed in our clothes, ready for a sudden start.

v

IT WAS my firm intention to lie awake all night and watch, but the exhaustion of nerves and body decreed otherwise, and sleep after a while came over me with a welcome blanket of oblivion. The fact that my companion also slept quickened its approach. At first he fidgeted and constantly sat up, asking me if I "heard this" or "heard that." He tossed about on his cork mattress, and said the tent was moving and the river had risen over the point of the island, but each time I went out to look I returned with the report that all was well, and finally he grew calmer and lay still. Then at length his breathing became regular and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring— the first and only time in my life when snoring has been a welcome and calming influence.

This, I remember, was the last thought in my mind before dozing off.

A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket over my face. But something else besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and my first thought was that my companion had rolled off his mattress on to my own in his sleep. I called to him and sat up, and at the same moment it came to me that the tent was surrounded. That sound of multitudinous soft pattering was again audible outside, filling the night with horror.

I called again to him, louder than before. He did not answer, but I missed the sound of his snoring, and also noticed that the flap of the tent was down. This was the unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the darkness to hook it back securely, and it was then for the first time I realized positively that the Swede was not here. He had gone.

I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the moment I was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that surrounded me completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens at once. It was that same familiar humming— gone mad! A swarm of great invisible bees might have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with difficulty.

But my friend was in danger, and I could not hesitate.

The dawn was just about to break, and a faint whitish light spread upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear horizon. No wind stirred. I could just make out the bushes and river beyond, and the pale sandy patches. In my excitement I ran frantically to and fro about the island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the first words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and the humming muffled it, so that the sound only traveled a few feet round me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over roots, and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the preventing branches.

Then, quite unexpectedly, I came out upon the island's point and saw a dark figure outlined between the water and the sky. It was the Swede. And already he had one foot in the river! A moment more and he would have taken the plunge.

I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist and dragging him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he struggled furiously, making a noise all the time just like that cursed humming, and using the most outlandish phrases in his anger about "going inside to Them," and "taking the way of the water and the wind," and God only knows what more besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards, but which turned me sick with horror and amazement as I listened. But in the end I managed to get him into the comparative safety of the tent, and flung him breathless and cursing upon the mattress where I held him until the fit had passed.

I think the suddenness with which it all went and he grew calm, coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming and pattering outside— I think this was almost the strangest part of the whole business perhaps. For he had just opened his eyes and turned his tired face up to me so that the dawn threw a pale light upon it through the doorway, and said, for all the world just like a frightened child:

"My life, old man— it's my life I owe you. But it's all over now anyhow. They've found a victim in our place!"

Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep literally under my eyes. He simply collapsed, and began to snore again as healthily as though nothing had happened and he had never tried to offer his own life as a sacrifice by drowning. And when the sunlight woke him three hours later— hours of ceaseless vigil for me— it became so clear to me that he remembered absolutely nothing of what he had attempted to do, that I deemed it wise to hold my peace and ask no dangerous questions.

He woke naturally and easily, as I have said, when the sun was already high in a windless hot sky, and he at once got up and set about the preparation of the fire for breakfast. I followed him anxiously at bathing, but he did not attempt to plunge in, merely dipping his head and making some remark about the extra coldness of the water.

"River's falling at last," he said, "and I'm glad of it."

"The humming has stopped too," I said.

He looked up at me quietly with his normal expression. Evidently he remembered everything except his own attempt at suicide.

"Everything has stopped," he said, "because—"

He hesitated. But I knew some reference to that remark he had made just before he fainted was in his mind, and I was determined to know it.

"Because 'They've found another victim'?" I said, forcing a little laugh.

"Exactly," he answered, "exactly! I feel as positive of it as though— as though— I feel quite safe again, I mean," he finished.

He began to look curiously about him. The sunlight lay in hot patches on the sand. There was no wind. The willows were motionless. He slowly rose to feet.

"Come," he said; "I think if we look, we shall find it."

He started off on a run, and I followed him. He kept to the banks, poking with a stick among the sandy bays and caves and little back-waters, myself always close on his heels.

"Ah!" he exclaimed presently, "ah!"

The tone of his voice somehow brought back to me a vivid sense of the horror of the last twenty-four hours, and I hurried up to join him. He was pointing with his stick at a large black object that lay half in the water and half on the sand. It appeared to be caught by some twisted willow roots so that the river could not sweep it away. A few hours before the spot must have been under water.

"See," he said quietly, "the victim that made our escape possible!"

And when I peered across his shoulder I saw that his stick rested on the body of a man. He turned it over. It was the corpse of a peasant, and the face was hidden in the sand. Clearly the man had been drowned, but a few hours before, and his body must have been swept down upon our island somewhere about the hour of the dawn— at the very time the fit had passed.

"We must give it a decent burial, you know."

"I suppose so," I replied. I shuddered a little in spite of myself, for there was something about the appearance of that poor drowned man that turned me cold.

The Swede glanced up sharply at me, an undecipherable expression on his face, and began clambering down the bank. I followed him more leisurely. The current, I noticed, had torn away much of the clothing from the body, so that the neck and part of the chest lay bare.

Halfway down the bank my companion suddenly stopped and held up his hand in warning; but either my foot slipped, or I had gained too much momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for I bumped into him and sent him forward with a sort of leap to save himself. We tumbled together on to the hard sand so that our feet splashed into the water. And, before anything could be done, we had collided a little heavily against the corpse.

The Swede uttered a sharp cry. And I sprang back as if I had been shot.

At the moment we touched the body there rose from its surface the loud sound of humming— the sound of several hummings— which passed with a vast commotion as of winged things in the air about us and disappeared upwards into the sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally ceased in the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some living yet invisible creatures at work.

My companion clutched me, and I think I clutched him, but before either of us had time properly to recover from the unexpected shock, we saw that a movement of the current was turning the corpse round so that it became released from the grip of the willow roots. A moment later it had turned completely over, the dead face uppermost, staring at the sky. It lay on the edge of the main stream. In another moment it would be swept away.

The Swede started to save it, shouting again something I did not catch about a "proper burial"— and then abruptly dropped upon his knees on the sand and covered his eyes with his hands. I was beside him in an instant.

I saw what he had seen.

For just as the body swung round to the current the face and the exposed chest turned full towards us, and showed plainly how the skin and flesh were indented with small hollows, beautifully formed, and exactly similar in shape and kind to the sand-funnels that we had found all over the island.

"Their mark!" I heard my companion mutter under his breath. "Their awful mark!"

And when I turned my eyes again from his ghastly face to the river, the current had done its work, and the body had been swept away into mid-stream and was already beyond our reach and almost out of sight, turning over and over on the waves like an otter.

____________

Peter Cheyney didn't confine himself to hard-boiled private eye yarns. He wrote humour, too, such as this tale of an unusual Christmas present.

5: Christmas With A Punch

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

The Chronicle (Adelaide) 10 Dec 1931

THE unfortunate Sebastian Erasmus Bealby gazed tremulously over the tops of his spectacles and waited for the storm to break. He had not long to wait.

"Bealby," said his wife, as she put down the teapot with unusual decision, "may I ask why the coal was not brought up this morning? May I ask why my early tea was half an hour late? May I ask whether you intend to carry out your household duties or whether you intend to continue with this slackness permanently?" She paused, a piece of toast poised in her hand. Sebastian blinked across the breakfast table.

"You see, my dear, it's the overtime," he said. "You will remember that I've been working late every night. Last night I wasn't home until eleven. Christmas is always such a bad time for us— there's so much to do, and I'm afraid that I overslept this morning.'

The teeth of Mrs. Bealby snapped over the piece of toast. Sebastian felt as if he, almost, were within those jaws and that the white teeth were crunching him. "Very well, Bealby," said his wife, "instead of your usual twenty cigarettes this week I shall only allow you ten. You must be taught punctuality, although— goodness knows— you ought to have learned it by this time!"

"But, my dear," stammered Sebastian.

"That will do, Bealby," said his wife.

A deep silence reigned.

HURRYING to catch the 9.30, with his feet slipping over the snowy pavements, Sebastian observed, with envy, the large and manly form of Mr. Hubert Wyblot some ten yards in front of him. Wyblot was a lucky man, thought Bealby. He was respected and feared by his wife. The Wyblots lived next door to the Bealbys, and the walls were thin. Time and time again Mr. Bealby had heard Wyblot laying down the law to his pretty wife. Time and time again he heard the enterprising Hubert "telling off" his better half for some imagined grievance.

Sebastian sympathised with Margaret Wyblot. She was young and pretty; she adored Hubert, and she allowed him to walk over her. His word was law in the house. What a contrast to himself, thought Sebastian. In his house the situation was reversed. His life was a misery. He was henpecked and unhappy. His cigarettes and a few shillings to spend were doled out to him each week.

Sebastian never remembered just how all this business had started. Vaguely, he remembered times in the past when his wife had been charming and kind. Indeed, she was still attractive, but she was master in the house and everywhere else, and she let Sebastian know it— as often as possible.

In front Wyblot was hurrying. Sebastian realised that if he did not hurry, too, he would miss the 9.30. He increased his pace, trod on a piece of ice, described a semi-circle in the air, and fell with a crash on that spot intended by Nature for such business. Ruefully he picked himself up, brushed the loose snow from his clothes, and rubbed himself dolefully. Then he hurried towards the station and arrived—just in time to see the 9.30 steaming out. Wyblot, as usual, had just managed to catch it. Wyblot would!

Sebastian sat down and thought. This would mean that he would be half an hour late at the office. It would also mean that Mr. Larkins, the senior partner, would send for him and give him a good telling off. Sebastian sighed. He thought that he didn't like Christmas very much. There was always trouble of some sort. It was the end of the year, and the partners were looking around to see who they could sack. Possibly, and Bealby's heart almost stopped beating at the thought, Mr. Larkins might consider this morning's lateness sufficient excuse to get rid of him. He thought of his fifteen years' service with the firm, and sighed.

"Hallo, Mr. Bealby; have you missed your train?" He looked round. It was Margaret Wyblot. She looked pretty and attractive in her winter coat and gloves.

He smiled ruefully, and nodded.

"I'm just going up to town," she said. "I didn't go with Hubert because I had to think about his special supper tonight. He has it rather late now that he's rehearsing with your wife"— she stopped suddenly and put her fingers to her mouth. "Now I've done it," she said. "I've given it all away, and neither Hubert nor your wife will ever forgive me. Please promise that you won't tell. Please, Mr. Bealby, do promise."

"I'll promise anything," said Sebastian, "if you'll tell what it's all about. What's the great secret?"

"Well, you see," she said, "Hubert and your wife are going to perform a sketch at the Christmas concert that Hubert is getting up. They've been keeping it a secret from everyone. It's quite easy for them to rehearse at your house in the evening because you are working overtime, and you never get home until ten-thirty or eleven. Then, when it's all ready they're going to surprise everyone."

"I see," said Bealby. "I wonder why Mary didn't tell me about it. No. I don't. She never tells me anything, anyhow."

"Poor you," said Margaret Wyblot. "I'm afraid that we're neither of us a match for our respective spouses. But never mind. I've got a surprise for you. Something that will bring you luck."

She felt in her pocket and produced a small horseshoe— one of the type to worn by Shetland ponies. She had polished it and it shone like silver.

"I found this yesterday," she said, "and I was going to give it to Hubert. Then I thought that, anyhow, he's always very lucky, and that I would give it to you, just so that you should have good luck for Christmas. Would you like it?"

Sebastian smiled. "Rather!" he said.

It was a long time since anyone had given him anything.

He took the horseshoe and put it in his pocket. He felt better already. It was a nice thought on Margaret's part, he considered. Perhaps he wasn't such an old "out-of-date" after all.

The train arrived, and they found a deserted carriage. "What's the sketch about— is it dramatic?" asked Sebastian. "I never guessed that either Hubert or my wife were amateur actors."

She smiled. "Neither did I," she said, "but Hubert says that it's going to be awfully good. He's supposed to be a cat-burglar who has broken into a house where a lady is all alone. She surprises him whilst he is robbing the safe, and he threatens her with a revolver. But, by a trick, she gets possession of the revolver and turns the tables on him. Tonight's the last rehearsal. They're going to start at nine and rehearse until ten-forty-five, because Mrs. Bealby says you will be working very late tonight and won't be home until eleven o'clock. I shall have to wait up for Hubert."

Sebastian nodded. Some people had all the fun, he thought, but as he did so his hand touched the horseshoe in his pocket and for some unknown reason it made him feel almost happy.

Sebastian was removing his overcoat, when the office boy came into the outer office. "Mr. Larkins wants to see you, Mr. Bealby," said the boy with a grin. Sebastian's heart sank. The best he could expect from Larkins was a good telling off! He hung up his overcoat, and as he did so his hand knocked against the horseshoe in the overcoat packet. He took it out and looked at it. After all, why shouldn't there be something in the idea that a horseshoe was lucky.

Sebastian slipped it into his trouser pocket, and felt all the better for it.

He'd always been much too meek with old Larkins, he thought. If the old man said too much he would tell him that he couldn't be responsible for accidents. He would not stand meekly before the senior partner's desk, and say, "Yes, sir," "Sorry, sir."

He rapped on the door and entered. Old Larkins was seated at his desk, and behind him stood the two junior partners.

Larkins looked up. "Now, look here, Bealby," he began heavily.

Sebastian thought of the horseshoe and interrupted. "I'm sorry I was late," he began, breathlessly, "but I had an accident and slipped over a bit of ice. Nothing very much, but it made me lose my train, and—"

Larkins waved his hand. "Why worry about that, Bealby," he said. "Do you think that we haven't noticed that you've only been late four times in fifteen years? Now take a chair and listen to me."

"Bealby," said Larkins with a smile "we're going to make you a partner. Business has improved wonderfully during the last two years and quite a lot of it is due to your steady work. You'll receive an increased salary as general manager, and a sixteenth share of the profits. My congratulations!"

Larkins held out his hand, Bealby— almost dizzy— could see that he was smiling.

He shook hands with the partners in turn.

"Bit of a surprise, eh?" said Larkins. "Tomorrow, well talk it all over, in the meantime why don't you take the day off? I expect your fall shook you a bit. Lovell, ask the boy to go and get a whisky and soda for Bealby."

IT was nine-thirty when Sebastian— a large cigar protruding from his mouth— crept silently through the garden at the back of his house and approached the French windows.

Everything depended upon his not being heard or discovered. He had worked out his plot to the last degree. Mary and Wyblot would be rehearsing in the room which was behind the French windows. The windows were unlatched, and behind them was a thick curtain. He remembered the details of the sketch which Margaret Wyblot had given him, and hoped that circumstances would allow him to put his plan into execution. Gently he pushed open the window and stepped through, hidden from the room by the curtains.

He could hear Wyblot speaking:—

"Now this is the important part," he was saying. "This bit where you enter the room and discover me at the safe. We'd better do it as we shall do it at the performance. You go out of the room. Then you come in and find me— in the dark— with an electric torch shining on the safe. Then I say 'Hands up!' and cross the room and switch on the light. Let's do that bit, shall we?"

"All right," Bealby heard his wife reply. She walked across the room, switched off the light and closed the door behind her. As darkness filled the room, Bealby slipped through the curtains. Wyblot was kneeling down before the bookcase, his electric torch shining on the books. Bealby waited to spring.... He heard the door open and his wife enter. Wyblot flashed his torch round until the light fell upon her. "Hands up!" he shouted, and as he did so Sebastian sprang and hit him full upon the nose.

"That'll teach you," he shouted, "if you think I'm going to stand by and have burglars threaten my wife you're mistaken. Mary— telephone for the police at once. Switch on the light!"

He heard a gasp, and then the light went on.

An expression of amazement came over Bealby's face.

"Why— what's this?" he said. "Wyblot? What are you doing here? What does this mean, Mary?"

Wyblot said nothing. He was nursing a bleeding nose.

"We were only rehearsing, Harry," said Mary Bealby. "We—"

"Good heavens," interrupted Sebastian, "This is a joke! I came in by the back way because I'd forgotten my key, and as I approached and opened the French window I heard a man say, 'Hands up!' Naturally I thought it was a burglar."

Wyblot staggered to his feet.

"By Jove, Bealby," he said, "you've got a deuce of a punch. I've never been hit so hard in all my boxing experience. Anyhow, this is our own fault. We ought to have told you that we were rehearsing for the Christmas concert. Do you mind if I go to the bathroom and fix my nose?"

He hurried off. Bealby turned to his wife. Her eyes were shining.

"Oh, Harry," she said. "I never knew that you were so brave. I was so disappointed in you because I thought you were so meek that anyone could frighten you. Just fancy, you would have fought a six-foot burglar who was armed with a revolver— and all for me!"

Sebastian smiled.

"Oh, that's nothing," he said. "Incidentally, Mary, there are one or two things I want to say to you. The first is that you will get a maid at once. I'm sick of carrying up the coals. The second thing is that you will behave like you used to, or I shall want to know why. I've had enough of this henpecking business. Oh, by the bye, you'd better get supper for four. Wyblot had better stay as I've punctured his nose, and I'll telephone his wife to come round. And hurry, I don't want to wait, I'm hungry."

"Yes, dear," said his wife, meekly.

"Also," continued Sebastian, "I shan't want to be called till ten o'clock tomorrow. I'm not going up until eleven. I forgot to tell you that I'm a partner in the firm now, and that we're having a meeting to fix things at lunch tomorrow. Whilst I'm telephoning you'd better tell Wyblot when he's finished looking after his nose that several of us men around here are a bit sick of the way he talks to his wife. It's no business of mine, of course, but I'd hate to lose my temper one day and hit him. I'm pretty hasty when I'm roused, and he might get another smack on the nose. And you'd better get your hair waved tomorrow, you look a sight when the curls come out."

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Bealby, still more meekly.

Sebastian went out into the hall towards the telephone. As he walked he removed a small horseshoe from the glove on his right hand. No wonder Wyblot had said that he had a deuce of a punch!

"Hello. Is that vou. Margaret?" he said, cheerfully. "Come round to supper, will you? Hubert is staying on. He's had a little accident— nothing much— just a smack on the nose. And, by-the-bye, don't forget that I knew nothing about the rehearsal tonight. You see, I returned home suddenly and found a burglar threatening my wife, and I knocked him down. When you arrive, you might like to ask Hubert why he didn't put up a better show. It might do him good, and, Margaret, thank you for your horseshoe. It's going to bring us both lots of luck and happiness for Christmas. You'll find a much more charming husband, and Mary will never henpeck me any more. I'm too tough! Come along quickly, and after supper we'll make them rehearse the show again!"

________________

6: What a Guest Desires

Douglas Newton

1884-1951

Mercury (Hobart) 10 August 1935

WHEN Maunder ignored the row of guest slippers outside the audience hall of Ras Yermer's mud and wattle palace, his guide said nervously:

"We are about to cross a carpet once hallowed by the feet of the Prophet himself. It is a sacred thing."

He looked downward to call attention to the fact that he himself had shuffled off his shoes and donned a pair of slippers.

"Yeh, it looks moth eaten," was all Maunder said, and tramped ahead over the lovely silken pile in his muddy riding boots.

"But it is not considered courteous," wailed the guide.

"Oh, shucks," grunted Maunder. "I haven't any use for this pretty stuff!  An', after all, this Ras chap's only a nigger."

That was Maunder all over. Maunder had made millions from exploiting the by-products of sludge, and considered himself one of the really large items of mankind. Also he was one of those big and abounding creatures who take it for granted that a white skin naturally makes a man more than master of any darn native, mentally, physically, and socially.

Ras Yermer, as became a prince whose line dated from before Moses, showed no sign. In his simple native code a gentleman must not show dis-courtesy to a guest, even in thc face of discourtesy. Still he found Maunder increasingly trying. Maunder would take no sort of hint from his anxious guide. He was a millionaire by natural right and the white raj in being anyhow. Niggers were created to fit in with his ideas of things, not he to conform to theirs.

He gulped the cup of tea at one draught, instead of taking ceremonial sip by sip with the Ras. He brushed aside the mouthpiece of the water-pipe, although it' carried the honour of coming straight from the Ras's lips. He wasn't any open house for germs, he said, and he preferred a white man's smoke, anyhow.

BUT worst of all he rose to his feet although it was taboo while the Ras sat, and pawed over the sacred canopic urn in The Niche of Remembrance, saying with contemptuous affability over his shoulder:

"Say, Ras, this is about the best bit of chinaware I've seen this trip. I'll give you good money for it."

It was an exquisite piece of ceramic, naturally. It enshrined tho ashes bf the holy founder of Ras Yermer's line. For this reason alone Maunder came nearer to sudden death than in any of the "hairsbreadth" adventures he meant to describe in his travel book de luxe. Men did not approach that canopic vase except on their knees. No man might ever touch it except the Ras himself or his high priest-and Maunder had pawed it with hands that had not even been purified.

For a moment every man in the audience chamber, court officials as well as guards, stiffened, hands on swords, eyes watching the Ras. Ras Yermer himself sat like a figure of stone, though his eyes smouldered red. It would have given him the most holy pleasure to make the gesture that meant death. But a gentleman must always be a gentleman no matter the provocation. As a good host he must ignore even brutish ignorance. So he made the gesture which meant: "Bide on wisdom," and said aloud with his politest diction:

"That vase is not for sale.... The audience is ended."

Maunder merely strolled across to him as he rose, an unforgivable affront, and beamed:

"Well, glad to have met you, Ras. An' you just think over my offer. It's business I've taken a fancy to that vase, and when I take a fancy to things I always get them. That's my way. Name any price.in reason—"

Ras Yermer merely lifted the, fold of his chamma to cover that side of his face nearest to Maunder, which interpreted locally means: "You and your breath are offensive to me."

THEN, since Maunder showed no sign of leaving the Presence as etiquette demanded, he went out himself. Maunder's guide, shaking in his shoes, for he might be held responsible for this ferenghi's rudeness, plucked Maunder away,.whispering hoarsely:

"You have offended the Great One

"Offended nothing." Maunder grinned. "He's only a funny little native... An' how, anyhow?"

"To offer money for that vase."

"Stuff," shrugged Maunder. "Good money offends nobody. An' I want that vase."

"But that vase is a most sanctified'! thing," the guide mouthed.' "Moneyj eannot buy it. No man—"

"Don't talk silly," Maunder chuckled. "Money, can buy anything. I'm telling you, and I know. There ain't one thing in this world it cannot buy. It's just a question of price"

"But don't you understand ? He'll never sell it because—"

"He'll sell," Maunder said comfortr ably. "I'm going to make him sell. There ain't any man living who can stand out against spot cash when another means to buy."

"You just hop along to this Ras feller and tell him I mean to have it and I'm going to stay right here till I get it, so he'd better name his price right now to save trouble. That's the way to treat niggers."

When they listened to what the guide had to say the whole Council tore its hair, declaring it was plain that there was no other way of dealing with this gross ferenghi who heaped insult upon insult, than by putting broken glass in his next meal.

"Nay," sighed the Ras, "that would be ill-bred. We must preserve politeness whatever the cost. Besides, to kill a white man provides too good an excuse for European Powers to subject us to mandatory rule and the other horrors of civilisation."

"But-if you do not,kill him, how do you got rid of him?" one of the Elder Statesmen wailed. "He says he will stay here until he obtains the sacred vase."

"Aie, and he himself says he had the power to force the affront on us, since he, knows how to handle— niggers," snarled another, and at his words a howl of rage went up; for these people were of a proud Semitic race, with no trace of the Negro in them, were indeed ever ready to kill anybody who said there was.

"He must die, this insulter of our blood," they shouted.

"No," the Ras murmured again; "We must remain to the end the simple natives we seem to him. Honour forbids us to take umbrage at his ignorance… What are his plans, O Maggot that guides this Mongrel, when he departs from our land?"

"He leaves by ,the jungle, road, because ho means; to explore the, Gogondo-country," the guide mumbled.

"A land of Negroes with true Negro ways," the Ras's thin smile deepened. "Let us as true gentlemen forward his education then... that is, teach him the. difference between Negroes and us.

"Yes. It can be done, especially as the Gogondo are the darlings of the African Mandatory Council and can do no wrong. We will speed his parting. Yea. And we will do it with the simple courtesy that be comes our backward race.

"He means to have the canopic vase— he shall have it.  Tell him that I sell it to him for one thousand pounds English.  Not a penny less.

So Maunder got his vase. A thousand was nothing to him, whereas the triumph of his great white brain meant everything. He set, oft. for Gogondo with the caponic vase carefully packed, and a sense of victory inflating his heart. And. Ras Yermer let him go without a scowl, without event-hint of trouble. Gentlemen did not make trouble; also there was no need. The Gogondo would provide that.

AT THE Gogondo border at least Maunder learnt what niggers really were. The Gogondo were Negroes at their uppish worst, in fact, for they were conscious of the backing the Mandatory Council always gave them. Yet even their handling of Maunder and his caravan was a trifle worse than usual. A whole mob of Customs men and native police were waiting for him, and they treated him as a criminal under suspicion from the first. They went through his baggage like blood-hounds. Maunder tried to be a Big White Mind, aloof and amused, but the way they tore his carefully packed treasures apart rapidly got his goat.

He was quarrelling furiously arid making enemies right and left by the time they reached his precious canopic vase. For this reason his endeavours to protect that treasure seemed to excite their worst suspicions. They thrust him back. They tore the vase out of its case and, breaking the cemented lid off its top in spite of his curses, dipped hands inside.

Then they let out a howl of fury that seemed to promise death. But they weren't as lenient as that. They thrust him into a prison instead— such a prison as only Negro minds could condone; a filthy, stinking, deadly place, full of verminous and degraded natives, and there they kept him. Not even his consul or his millions applied to same, could get him out of it.

"No," the Consul told him stiffly. "For any other crime I might manage your freedom. But the Mandatory Council itself has set its face against this."

"Against what?" Maunder snarled.

"Against drug smuggling," the Consul said, "Drug smuggling to natives. It's the unforgivable crime."

"But you're crazy," Maunder shouted. "I never smuggled a gram of dope in my life."

"That line won't do, Maunder," the Consul snapped. "We've too much evidence to the contrary. You rich men may think you have the right to snatch big profits anywhere you can, but dope smuggling is—"

"Shut up," shouted Maunder. "What do you mean by your evidence? Where did you get it?"

"From Ras Yermer, naturally. Didn't he turn you out of his territory because you were peddling drugs? He's sworn an affidavit to that effect, anyhow. So have two dozen-of his subjects to whom you sold dope...."

"It's a lie. It's all lies," Maunder yelped. "I tell you, man, it's a trick."

"Why should they play a trick on you," the Consul rapped, and Maunder could only blink.

He did not know why. As far as he knew he had parted, with Ras Yermer on good terms. Courtesy, after all, has that effect.

"You see, you can't get away with it, Maunder," the Consul went on. "Besides, you were caught with the dope on you, cunningly hidden for smuggling."

"Hidden! For smuggling!" Maunder gulped. "How? Where?"

"In that canopic vase. A clever place, Maunder. The Gogondo might have missed it, and taken, the vase to be merely a collector's piece, if Ras Yermer had not warned them where to look."

"But— but I paid a thousand pounds for that vase as a collector's piece," Maunder began.

"I don't doubt it, since it was filled to the brim with drugs," the consul said. "It's no good, Maunder. You may only have been a money-making fool, but you were caught red-handed and you'll have to pay for it...."

And Maunder is still paying for it in a Negro prison. And possibly he has learnt by this time that the simple native is not so simple as his appearance suggests, and that a tradition of courtesy can be as deadly as any other weapon.... properly handled.

_________________________

7: The Will

Arthur Gask

1869-1951

The Mail (Adelaide)  11 Nov 1944

AT 20 years of age, June Brandon was not only of a very nice disposition, but also an undeniably pretty girl. Of an aristocratic appearance, she had beautiful grey eyes, a good profile, and a faultless complexion.

She had no knowledge as to her parents, having been born in an apartment house in a poor suburb of North London. Her mother died within a few hours of her birth and left behind no clue to her identity.

No relatives coming forward to make inquiries and with only a few pounds found among the dead mother's effects, the baby was taken to a public orphanage, where she passed all her childhood and girlhood days. She had been christened June because she had been born in that month.

She was so obviously of a superior class to the other girls at the institution that, instead of being put out into domestic service when she was sixteen, she was placed in the infirmary as a nurse-probationer. Then, some two years later, a wealthy and titled patroness of the orphanage came to hear about her and suggested taking her as a nurse-attendant.

Accordingly, June was installed at Roding Hall, a large house near Brighton, to wait upon Lady Sandall, the childless and elderly widow of Sir James Sandall, who had been a high official in the Indian Civil Service. A very bad-tempered woman, Lady Sandall was alternately kind and harsh to June. It pleased her to help on the girl's education by constant instruction and by encouraging her to study the best works in English literature.

Also, finding her so quick and intelligent, she was soon using her as a private secretary, giving her a private room to herself and letting her take all her meals with the housekeeper.

On the other hand, when in her bad moods, her ladyship was very hard on June, furious about the most trivial things and often finding fault most unjustly. Masterful with everyone, her servants were greatly afraid of her, the one exception being Fordyce, the elderly butler who had served her and Sir James for nearly thirty years.

A refined and even distinguished-looking man, Fordyce seemed to have a restraining influence upon his mistress, and it was said she often consulted him about her private affairs.

JUST over sixty when June came to her, Lady Sandall was in a bad state of health, suffering a lot from her heart. She had been repeatedly warned by her doctor not to give way to her emotions; in other words, to try to control her tempers.

She had only two relatives, both nephews. One was in the forties, a well-to-do stockbroker in the city, but the other, Reggie Wynward, only twenty-two, was the favored one, which was as it should have been, as he had no means at all. He was within a few months of qualifying as a medical man. He was a good-looking, manly young fellow, but had to mind his steps very carefully to keep in the good graces of his irascible aunt.

June realised to the full how fortunate she had been to come to Lady Sandall, for after two years at the Hall she found she had so educated herself that she could well hold her own with any of the society callers who visited her employer.

So putting up smilingly with the latter's frequent bouts of bad temper, she was really happy and contented, and she became happier still when young Wynward took to coming frequently to the Hall.

As was natural, the two fell in love, and very soon were making opportunities to meet alone, sometimes in the garden when Lady Sandall was in bed, and sometimes, upon much rarer occasions, when June had the day off and could spend it in London.

They had to be very careful, however, that Lady Sandall learnt nothing of what was going on, as she made no secret that, as her heir, she had ambitious matrimonial plans for Reggie.

ONCE, as if suspecting something, she warned him sharply against June. "You keep her at a distance, my boy," she ordered sternly, "and take care she doesn't lead you on. She's pretty enough, I admit, but I'm not going to have you mixed up with a girl of her history, or you'll lose every penny I intend to leave you. So you just take that in with no nonsense."

Reggie laughed it off, but about three months later the worst happened for the lovers, as late one night she caught Reggie in June's room.

Not feeling well, she had gone to bed early, but was unable to sleep. About 11 o'clock she had gone round to June's room intending to fetch her to give her some message. Opening the door unceremoniously, as was her wont, to her amazement she saw June sitting on Reggie's knee in an armchair drawn up before the fire. For a long moment she stood thunderstruck, and then she shouted to Reggie: "You young blackguard!"

To June she addressed a horrid word.

In consternation the two had sprung to their feet.

"But it's quite all right, Aunt," Reggie called out. "We are properly married. We were married more than a month ago."

"Married!" screamed Lady Sandall. "Oh, you young fool!" She was almost choking with rage. "Then both of you get out of this house at once. You shan't remain here another minute, and I'll never have anything more to do with either of you. Get your things together instantly and go off."

And, standing in the doorway, she hurled every abusive word she could think of at them, rousing the whole house with her shouting. Getting rid of her at last, Reggie rang up for a taxi, and, in less than half an hour, he and June were being driven to a hotel.

The following morning, well before 8 o'clock. Lady Sandall was ringing up Mr. John Litchfield, her solicitor, in London, with the intention of ordering him to draw up a new will, leaving everything to her other nephew, Samuel Gorringe, but to her great annoyance she learnt he was out of town and would not be back for a couple of days.

Leaving nothing to chance, she immediately wrote out another will herself on the Hall notepaper. It read:

"I revoke all former wills. To my nephew, Reginald Wynward, I leave the sum of one shilling. To his wife, formerly known as June Brandon and for 18 years an inmate of the Balham Public Orphanage, an institution in the main for children born out of wedlock, I leave also one shilling towards the upkeep of the baby which is no doubt now well upon the way. All the rest of my estate and effects I leave to my nephew, Samuel Gorringe."

Fordyce and Mrs. Humphrey, the cook, were summoned to witness her signature, and then she had herself driven to the post office and despatched the will by registered letter to London. Returning home, she collapsed altogether, and her doctor was phoned for to come in urgent haste. Her heart was failing quickly, and, with no response to treatment, she passed away during the night.

The following week Mr. Litchfield sent for Reggie and told him about the new will. "I'm very sorry," he said, "but there will be only those shillings for you and your wife. The will she drew up herself is perfectly valid and the whole estate, about £65,000, goes to your cousin. It's an unjust and spiteful will, particularly as I know she promised your uncle just before he died to look after you. Still, there's no getting behind it."

REGGIE had a high opinion of Mr. Litchfield's abilities, and at once gave up all hope of getting anything.

So he was very surprised when about a week later, a young Brighton solicitor, Charlie Jackson, came up to London, expressly to see him and suggest the will should be contested. Jackson was barely twenty-four and, only a few months previously, had been admitted to the practice of the law. Reggie knew him very slightly, and only because it happened they belonged to the same tennis club. "But I'm told I haven't a hope in the world," said Reggie.

"Oh, but I think you have," said the other. "That will shows spite, and, besides, your cousin may be willing to compromise."

"Not he!" scoffed Reggie. "We've always disliked each other." He shook his head. "No, Jackson, I'll not dispute it I haven't the money for one thing."

"But never you mind about the money," said Jackson. "Of course, it's not ethical for me to take the case up on spec, but, if you're agreeable, I'll finance everything, and, if nothing comes of it, promise not to send you in any account." He laughed. "In any case, it'll be a ripping advertisement for me."

Upon these terms Reggie was quite agreeable and, accordingly, notice was served upon his cousin's solicitors that the will would be contested. When the day for the hearing arrived everyone in court was most amused at the idea of so boyish-looking a country solicitor pitting himself against the mighty Jarvis Romilly, one of the most eminent King's Counsel practising in the Probate Court. They were most curious as to exactly what line of action he was going to take. Lord Royston was presiding over the proceedings.

As a matter of formality, the deceased woman's will was first produced, and Mrs. Humphrey, the cook, went into the witness box to testify to having seen the dead woman put her signature to it.

"And you saw your mistress sign it," asked the K.C., "in the presence of your fellow-servant, Mr. Fordyce, and you put your signature in the presence of them both?"

"Yes. sir, I did," replied the cook, and the K.C. at once sat down.

Young Mr. Jackson rose to his feet. "And did Lady Sandall seem quite all right that morning?" he asked. "Quite capable of knowing what she was doing?"

"Oh, yes, sir," replied the cook. "She was not in a good temper, but she knew what she was doing all right." And Mr. Jackson, too, resumed his seat, while Mrs. Humphrey proceeded to leave the witness box and the court.

The butler was then called, and he stepped briskly into the box. He was asked if he, too, had witnessed Lady Sandall's signature in the presence of the cook. Upon his replying in the affirmative, the K.C. again sat down.

"Now, Mr. Fordyce," asked young Jackson, "did her ladyship appear to you to be in a state of unusual agitation when she affixed her signature?"

The butler considered. "Well, at any rate, sir," he replied, "she was not so the moment before she signed"— he smiled— "but, as I did not actually see her write her name, I cannot say what was exactly her condition at that very moment."

It did not seem that Mr. Jackson could believe the evidence of his ears. "What," he exclaimed, "you now tell us you did not see her sign the will?"

"Not actually, sir," said the butler, "because, just as she took up the pen to sign, I thought I heard the front door bell ring and went out to see. I wasn't gone a minute and, when I came back, both she and Cook had signed. That's how it was Mrs. Humphrey witnessed the signature before me. Otherwise I was to have signed first."

A STUNNED silence filled the court. It was as if all present had been turned into graven images. Mr. Jackson recovered first, and with grim smile, turned to his lordship.

"Then that concludes my case, my lord, and it will not be necessary for me to proceed further. The testament was not properly executed and therefore is invalid," and he plumped down into his seat.

Jarvis Romilly jumped to his feet.

"I ask, my lord," he cried fiercely, "that the previous witness be detained before she has had time to leave the precincts of the court," and, upon a sign from the judge, an usher hurried out.

The K.C. turned menacingly to the butler. "Now, sir," he declaimed, "after having testified on oath that you saw deceased put her signature to the will— you now say you were not present when she signed."

The butler looked very frightened. "Yes, sir. I am sorry, sir. It was a mistake. But I thought I had witnessed the signing all right, as, when I came back, the ink on the other signatures was still wet."

The K.C. now spoke quietly, almost in silky tones.

"And later," he asked, "you happened to mention to Mr. Wynward exactly what had taken place?"

"No, no, sir," cried Fordyce. "I never mentioned it to him at all. I haven't seen or spoken to him since that night he left the Hall," and no amount of questioning could now make him contradict himself.

Mrs. Humphrey was recalled. "Now, madam," said Romilly, with a pleasant smile, "you told us your mistress signed the will in your presence and that of Mr. Fordyce, too. That is so, is it not?"

"Yes, sir," replied the cook.

"Mr. Fordyce was actually standing at your side," went on the K.C.

"Yes, sir," replied the cook again and then, a startled look coming into her face, she added quickly, "No, sir, not quite all the time. I remember now that he went out for a moment to attend to the bell."

"Before your mistress signed?" asked Romily, and the court was as hushed and still as the grave.

"Yes, sir," nodded the cook, "and before I signed, too, I recollect we had just written our names when he came back."

Most non-plussed at her corroboration of the butler's story, the great King's Council tried in every way to shake her testimony, until at last his lordship intervened.

"I do not think, Mr. Romilly," he said, "it will be any good your further questioning the witness. She is undoubtedly speaking the truth. The will is invalid, and I accordingly decline to grant probate."

"But your lordship," protested the K.C., "the intention of the testator is so clear and it is not justice if—"

"But how often have I not had to explain," interrupted his lordship wearily, "that it is law I have to dispense in this court, and not necessarily justice. No, I decline to grant probate."

So, under the previous will, Reggie Wynward succeeded to the estate, and one day some weeks later, Fordyce came to see him. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you," said Reggie. "I couldn't find out where you had gone, and I wanted to do something for you."

The butler shook his head. "No thank you, sir I have all I need. Under my late master's will I came into £2,000 when her ladyship died or I left her service. I've only come now to clear up a few things."

"Well," said Reggie, "I have a lot to thank you for. But for your accidentally leaving the room when the will was being signed I should have only got that shilling."

"But it was no accident, sir," said the butler gravely. "I went out on purpose to invalidate the will. I only pretended to think I heard the bell, for, knowing her ladyship's impatience. I felt sure she would sign without waiting for me to come back."

Reggie was aghast. "But— but have you told this to anyone besides me?" he asked. A sudden light dawned upon him and his hand shot out accusingly. "A-ah. I know you have. You told Mr. Jackson."

Fordyce nodded. "Yes, sir, and we both thought it wisest not to mention it to you then, so that the other side should not be able to suggest there was any conspiracy between us."

"Conspiracy between us!" exclaimed the astounded Reggie. "What on earth do you mean? You had no interest in the will or me."

"Not so much perhaps in you, sir," said Fordyce, "but I certainly had an interest in your wife,"— he smiled drily— "as she happens to be my niece. No, no, she does not know it, and I have no wish she should. I only mention it now so that you shall know you have no reason to be ashamed of her. Her mother was none of those dreadful things her ladyship called out that night. We come of a good yeoman family, and my sister was a schoolteacher when the gentleman who was your wife's father met her."

"Were they married?" asked Reggie hoarsely.

"No, sir, but I am sure they would have been if young Lord Rutland— he was your wife's father— had not been killed in the hunting field before it was known what was going to happen." Fordyce's voice shook. "I was in India for twenty years and knew nothing of my poor sister's misfortune until I came back four years ago. Then, with great difficulty, I found out about June and traced her to the orphanage.

"No, it was not chance she came to Lady Sandall. I got her ladyship interested in the orphanage by pretending I knew the matron, and then I suggested she should engage June as her nurse attendant."

The butler rose to go. "One thing more, sir. I have just posted to June, anonymously, of course, an old photograph of her father and mother taken at a county ball twenty-four years ago. You will recognise them both by their likeness to her. Good-bye, sir, and the best of happiness to you. I am sailing for Australia tomorrow, and neither of you will see me again," and, with a warm handshake, the two men parted.

That evening, in great excitement, June showed Reggie the photo which had just arrived. It was a flashlight one taken on a ballroom floor, and, under two of the dancers was written, "Your father and mother, who are both dead."

"I wonder who sent it," exclaimed June. "But oh, Reggie, aren't they both good looking. Do you really think they are my mother and father?"

And when her husband nodded emphatically, she went on, "But isn't it strange? My mother somehow reminds me of— whom do you think?— why, Fordyce!" And, after another long look at the photograph, Reggie agreed with her again.

__________________

8: Black Out

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

Sydney Sportsman, 9 March 1942

THE NURSE LEFT and Ferdie Phelps turned slowly over on to his back. His eyes, half dimmed with morphia, regained, for a moment, a suggestion of their old twinkle.

'Nice of you to come an' see me, Mr Callaghan,' he said softly. 'I'm glad you come here. I wanted to say "thank you". They tell me that you been lookin' after my missus since I 'ad this smash-up. My number's up an' I know it.'

Callaghan looked down the empty hospital ward, dimly lit, the windows carefully shaded for the black-out.

He said, 'You'll be all right, Ferdie. Just keep your chin up. You'll pull through.'

'Pull through nothin',' said Ferdie weakly. 'This is the end of me. An' I must say I never expected to get myself knocked over in a London street by a blinkin' motorcar. Cuss the bloomin' black-out.'

He coughed weakly. Then he went on, 'Get it orf your chest, Mr Callaghan. I bet you didn't come around 'ere to ask after my 'ealth.' He grinned again. 'Wot are you after? A deathbed confession? Maybe you thought I'd be feelin' like talkin' about somethin', eh?'

Callaghan said, 'Ferdie, I thought you might know something about that Amalgamated Jewellers steal. I always had a sneaking idea that Willie the Mug never pulled that job.'

Ferdie shifted a little. He was still grinning. 'You don't say,' he said. 'Look, Mr Callaghan, you ain't tryin' to tell me that you're interested in who pulled it or who didn't, are you? I know wot you're interested in. You're interested in where the stuff is. I reckon that insurance company you work for would give something to know where it is. Ain't that it?'

'That's it,' Callaghan agreed.

He lit a cigarette slowly.

There was a pause. Then Phelps said,' 'Ooever it was christened 'im Willie the Mug knew wot they was talkin' about. 'E was a mug all right, an' 'e's doin' seven years for somethin' 'e didn't do-see? Willie never pinched that stuff. I know 'oo done it.'

Callaghan said, 'I always thought Willie didn't do it. He hasn't enough brains. But I think I know who was behind it. It was Narkat, wasn't it?'

Ferdie looked at the private detective for a moment. Then he said, 'I'll make a deal with you, Mr Callaghan. Maybe I'll feel better if I do a bit of talkin'. But you got to promise me somethin'. You got to promise me that as well as getting that jewellery back you'll do your best for Willie. You got to get Willie out of quod.'

Callaghan nodded. 'I give you my word, Ferdie, I'll do my best.'

Phelps nodded weakly. Then he muttered, 'Narkat was be'ind the whole thing. Willie the Mug only comes into it becos of that girl of 'is. She was a proper wrong 'un. She was two-timin' 'im with Narkat all the time an' the poor mug never knew it.

'Narkat 'ad fixed to get rid of the stuff after it was pinched an 'e'd arranged for Blooey Stevens to crack the safe. Orl right-well the lay was that Blooey was to get the stuff an' pass it to Miranda-Willie's girl-'oo was to be waitin' for 'im on the corner of the street.

'She was goin' to take the attache case along to Narkat an' Narkat was goin' to get rid of the stuff abroad.

'Stevens got into the Amalgamated Jewellers' place at twelve. 'E 'ad the job finished at a quarter to one. He passed the attache case to Miranda on the corner of Green Street an' she started to walk towards Narkat's flat.

'All right. Well, she was nearly there when she sees Viners, a CID man, 'angin' about outside. She got the wind up proper, I can tell you. She turned about an' streaked through the alley into Long Acre. Viners went after 'er. 'E didn't know a thing, but 'e knew 'er an' 'e thought she was actin' suspicious.

'She went to Willie the Mug's place off Long Acre. Willie come down an' opened the door. She 'anded 'im the attache case, which was locked, an' told 'im some phoney story about it. She asked 'im to keep it for 'er until next day. Willie said OK an' off she went. She didn't know Viner's 'ad been watchin' 'er.

'Directly she'd gone, Viners went over an' rang the bell. 'E was goin' to ask Willie wot was in that attache case. Willie 'ad a look out of the window an' saw it was Viners. 'E smelt a rat. 'E broke open the case and saw the jewellery inside, an' the only thing the poor mug thought of was lookin' after Miranda.

'So 'e rushed out to the back an' stuck the case out in the yard underneath a loose pavin' stone. Then 'e went an' opened the door for Viners.'

Ferdie grinned. 'I reckon you know the rest of the story, Mr Callaghan,' he said. Callaghan nodded.

'Go on, Ferdie,' he said quietly.

'Well, next day,' said Ferdie, 'they find out about the jewel robbery. Viners remembers seein' Miranda with the case. They pull 'er in an' they pull Willie in. An' all Willie is thinkin' of is lookin' after the skirt 'oo 'e thinks is struck on 'im-Miranda.

'Just so's to keep 'er in the clear 'e says 'e pinched the jewellery, an' that the case that Viners saw Miranda carryin' was just some laundry she was bringin' round to 'is place.

'When they ask him where the jewellery is 'e won't say. 'E's afraid to. Becos if he tells 'em an' they find the case under the pavin' stone in the back yard 'e knows that Viners will remember it an' they'll pinch Miranda as an accessory.

'OK. Well, they tell 'im that if 'e says where the jewellery is, 'e'll get off with a short sentence an' if 'e don't he'll get a seven-year stretch. But 'e prefers to be a little 'ero an' keep 'is mouth shut, so he gets seven years for somethin' 'e didn't do, an' Narkat, Miranda an' Blooey are laughin' their 'eads off.'

Ferdie coughed again.

There's only one thing that's worryin' 'em,' he continued. 'An' that is they don't know where the jewellery is. It's still there, in the attache case under the pavin' stone at the back of Willie's place in Sellers Alley.'

Callaghan said, 'Thanks, Ferdie. When that jewellery goes back, there'll be a reward. I'll see your missus gets it.'

The dying man smiled. 'That's OK,' he said weakly. 'But wot about Willie?'

Callaghan got up. He pressed Ferdie's hand.

'Don't worry, Ferdie,' he said. 'I'll look after him. I'll be seein' you.'

'No, you won't,' said Ferdie. 'I got my ticket this time. I got to hand in my dinner pail. I know. I got second sight.' He grinned feebly at his own joke. Callaghan went out as the ward sister came in.

CALLAGHAN switched off the office lights, pulled aside the curtains before the window and stood looking out into the black void beneath him. Streets which usually twinkled with light were absolutely black.

He began to think about Willie the Mug, Narkat, the big boy-the man who ran the gang and never took any risks himself-and Miranda. Callaghan thought he didn't like Miranda very much.

He stood there looking out into the darkness, thinking. Then he began to smile. He pulled back the curtains, switched on the light, went to his desk and took up the telephone. He rang his assistant's flat.

'Listen, MacOliver,' he said. 'I'm getting a line on that Amalgamated Jewellers steal. You remember that feller, Jelks, who used to work for us? Go round to his place and knock him up. Tell him I want him to do a little job for me.

'Tell him to wait for me at the works. Then get around and find out where Blooey Stevens is. He'll be somewhere round the West End. Meet me at Jelks's place at eleven. You can tell me about Stevens then.'

BLOOEY STEVENS, thickset, overdressed, red faced, was sitting in the corner of the Blue Horse Club drinking whisky when Callaghan came in. The Blue Horse Club was an underground dive in the region of Shaftesbury Avenue. Tonight it was crowded.

Most of the members who, but for the black-out, would have been engaged in their different questionable occupations, were preparing to stay under cover and do a little quiet drinking. They had heard that the police had made very adequate war arrangements about crooks.

It was eleven-thirty. Callaghan threaded his way between the closely set tables. He sat down opposite Stevens and lit a cigarette.

'Good evening, Blooey,' he said. 'How are things?'

Stevens looked at Callaghan. His eyes were hard.

'None the better for seeing you,' he said. 'And I'll be glad if you'll go somewhere else. I don't like private detectives.'

Callaghan smiled. 'Don't you, Blooey?' he said. 'Well, I'd forget that if I were you. I think you're rather a tough jam.'

'Oh yes!' said Stevens.

His voice was insolent. He blew a cloud of cigarette smoke across the table in Callnghan's face.

'You can't bluff me, Callaghan,' he said aggressively. 'You've got nothing on me.'

Callaghan smiled amiably.

'Maybe not,' he said. 'But I've got an idea the police soon will have. Did you read the paper tonight?'

Stevens said, 'No, I didn't, and what's it got to do with you?'

Callaghan put his hand in his overcoat pocket and produced a copy of the evening paper.

He said, 'You know I've been trying to get a line on that stuff that was stolen from the Amalgamated Jewellers. Tonight I got the story from Ferdie Phelps. He was knocked down the other day. He's dying. Well-that was that-but the funny thing was that when I got back to the office I read this.'

He handed the paper, folded at the stop-press news, across the table.

Stevens read, 'Early this afternoon, taking advantage of the special black-out arrangements in Maidstone Prison, William James Farrell, commonly known as Willie the Mug, made his escape from the prison hospital. The authorities believe he will make for London. Farrell is suffering from chronic bronchitis and will probably be arrested within the next few hours.'

Stevens's face was ashy pale. He ran a finger between his collar and his neck.

'I don't think it's going to be so good for you, Blooey,' said Callaghan amiably. 'Willie the Mug's wise to things-how you and Miranda and Narkat let him in for that Amalgamated Jewellery steal. He knows you did it.

'I should think he'd be in London fairly soon. And I hear he's got a gun. I wouldn't like to be any one of you three tonight if Willie finds you,' he finished.

Stevens said, 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about.'

'No,' said Callaghan. 'I suppose you'll tell me in a minute that you didn't crack that safe, that you weren't the feller who handed the attache case to Miranda, who planted it on poor old Willie, who took the rap for that cheap skirt.'

He got up, 'Well, Blooey,' he said, 'I expect you'll get what's coming to you. Good night.'

He turned on his heel and walked out of the club. Outside in the darkness, pressed close against the wall, was MacOliver.

Callaghan said, 'He'll be coming out in a minute. It'll be easy for you to tail him. He'll go straight round to Narkat to warn him and Miranda. Don't lose him. Directly he gets there, give me a ring on the telephone. I'll be at the office.'

Callaghan disappeared in the darkness.

AT TWELVE o'clock Blooey Stevens, gasping a little, walked up the stairs to Narkat's flat in Charing Cross. He put his finger on the doorbell and kept it there. Two minutes afterwards the door opened. Narkat stood in the doorway. He was tall, slim, overdressed. He raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Stevens.

'Well, if it isn't Blooey,' he said. 'Fancy you out on a night like this. What's the trouble?'

'There's plenty of trouble,' said Stevens. 'Willie the Mug's wise to that Amalgamated frame-up. He's broken out of Maidstone this afternoon.'

They stood looking at each other. After a minute Narkat produced an uneasy grin.

'Come in,' he said. 'Miranda's inside. We'd better talk this over.'

It was one o'clock. Blooey Stevens, fortified with several large whiskies and sodas, was feeling distinctly better. Narkat, his nerve recovered, stood in front of the fireplace. On the other side of the fire, in an armchair, sat Miranda.

'Look,' said Narkat. 'I don't see what we've got to worry about. If Willie's found out what we've pulled on him, he's not going to be feeling good. But I don't think he's going as far as murder. I don't think he'd take a chance on that. After all, seven years is better than a rope. I've got another idea. If he shows up I'll try it on.'

'What's the idea, boss?' said Blooey.

'I'll buy that stuff off him,' said Narkat with a grin.

'Work it out for yourself. He's got out of prison and he's broke. With all this war trouble on, if he's got some money, there's a good chance of him getting away. He knows he's got that jewellery hidden somewhere and he knows we don't know where it is. I'll do a deal with him.

'If he likes to hand it over, I'll give him a thousand. With that money and a bit of luck he might make a getaway.'

Stevens said uneasily, 'Do you think he'll want to do a deal?'

Narkat shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, what else can we do?' he asked. 'We can't go round to the police and ask for protection, not unless we tell 'em the whole story. Anyway, he hasn't appeared yet.'

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the telephone rang. Narkat crossed to the instrument. He stiffened as a hoarse voice came over the wire.

'Good evening, Narkat,' said the voice. 'How d'you do? This is Willie the Mug. I'd recognise that voice of yours anywhere. Well, what have you got to say?'

Narkat said nothing. He looked at Miranda and Blooey.

'Now you listen to me,' the voice went on. 'I've got out of stir, and I'm going to stay out, see? And you're going to do what I tell you, Narkat, or I'm going to get the lot of you.'

'Look, Willie,' said Narkat, 'I'm not unreasonable. Why not let bygones be bygones? If I can do anything for you, you know I'll do it.'

'Like hell you will,' said Willie the Mug. 'Well, I'll tell you what you're going to do now. I'm speaking from the callbox just opposite your flat. I've got a gun in my pocket. If you don't do what I tell you, I'm coming over there to use it. Have you got any money?'

Narkat winked at Blooey.

'Yes, Willie,' he said. 'I've got a thousand. I'll tell you what I'll do with you. If you like to let me know where that jewellery is, I'll hand over the thousand and I'll fix a hide-out for you.'

'All right,' said Willie the Mug. 'You get that thousand an' you come downstairs an' walk round to my place in Sellers Alley. The door'll be open. An' remember I'll be just be'ind you. If you try any funny business I'll let you 'ave it.'

He wheezed hoarsely.

'OK, Willie,' said Narkat. 'I'll be there.'

He hung up.

'It's all right,' he said to the others. 'He'll do a deal. We'll get that stuff and there'll be a sweet profit.'

Narkat stumbled along Sellers Alley in the darkness. He found the door of Willie the Mug's place open. He went in and stood in the hallway. The door shut behind him. He could hear Willie the Mug wheezing. Narkat thought he sounded pretty bad.

He felt himself pushed into the room on the right of the hallway. He stood there leaning with his back against the wall.

'I've got the dough, Willie,' he said. 'Where's the stuff?'

'It's under a pavin' stone at the back,' wheezed the other. 'I'll get it. But I want to talk to you first. You tell Miranda that one of these fine days I'm going' to fix 'er. You can tell 'er that!'

Narkat said, 'It was tough on you, Willie, but what could she do? When Blooey did the job he handed the stuff to her to bring to me. She saw that flycop Viners, an' got the wind up. So she planted it on you. She never thought that you'd get pinched for it-or that when you did you wouldn't find a way out of it.'

Willie said, 'Shut up an' hand over the money.'

Narkat put his hand out in the darkness with the notes in it.

Suddenly a light went on. Narkat found himself looking at Callaghan. On the other side of the room, standing by the windows which were shielded by blankets, stood two more men-they were Flying Squad men.

Callaghan said, 'So you fell for it, Narkat. 'We've got all we want on you now.'

Narkat muttered a curse.

'So you got at Stevens,' he said. 'I'll fix him for this-one day.'

'No, we didn't,' said Callaghan with a grin. 'I got the story from Ferdie Phelps tonight. Then I got in touch with a printer who does odd jobs for me. We got him to print a fake press report in the stop-press column of the evening paper.

'Blooey fell for it. I knew he'd come running round to you with the story. Then all I had to do was to telephone through to you and say I was Willie. You fell for that too.'

One of the Flying Squad men produced a pair of handcuffs.

'We've got the jewellery,' Callaghan went on. 'But I promised old Ferdie Phelps that I'd get Willie out. This was the way we did it. By this time they've picked up Miranda and Blooey.'

He grinned.

'You three are going to have a nice war,' he said. 'Inside!'

__________________

9: Crying Baby

W. Douglas Newton

Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 21 June 1942

THE passengers gathered against the ropes on the crowded top deck as the liner entered the harbor. Inspector Send found a place where he could look them over again, as they disembarked by the gang-plank— and he was not happy.

His orders left no doubt that the "Q Carrier," that celebrated, if yet undetected, drug smuggler, was aboard— yet who the devil was he?

Since the boat entered home waters Send had made a systematic and careful study of every passenger she carried, and he was still utterly in the dark.

He swore under his breath as the woman with the crying baby came up from below. The child had been screeching most of the way across, and, in his present state of anxiety, its perpetual wail got on his nerves.

The mother was a young lip-sticked blonde, who might have been a bright young thing, only she was so harassed and helpless over her offspring. She plainly hadn't much maternal aptitude or instinct. Send had noted that. So had several of the other passengers. Some lifted plucked eyebrows at the idea of such a flashy creature ever having a child. Others gave advice.

One elderly woman, exasperated by such incompetence and the child's noise, even persuaded the mother to let her try to quieten the infant. She was an oldish, sweet-faced old darling, who looked as though she had had many children of her own, if not grandchildren. Certainly she had the right technique; the wailing died to whimpering once the child was in her arms. He was quieter still by the time they reached the Customs shed, cooing and doing his best to swallow whole one of the big bright buttons on the old woman's dress. Quite a pretty picture of charming grand-maternity, only Send had no mind for pretty pictures.

CARMICHAEL, the chief searching officer, who had held up the examination until Send reached the long room, said to him:

"You're after the 'Q' again, eh? I wish you luck, I don't think you, or anybody else, will catch him in a hurry; he's too infernally clever."

Carmichael also gave him a list of those passengers known to him. Most of them were commercials and old-stagers above suspicion, but Send's heart missed a beat when Carmichael mentioned that the woman with the baby was one of them. The incompatability of lipstick and baby at once became more significant. That child might be only a blind, after all— a clever trick to distract their attention from her criminality. Who would think of linking opium smuggling with nursing motherhood? Or with that yelling infant?

The young woman protested wildly when told she must be searched. She wrecked her eye-black beyond repair on hearing that her child was to be included. The old woman protested that it was really a great shame; but under Send's firmness became rather horrified, realising that her kindness might have mixed her in some unsavory business. Fearful that her name might be linked with it, she readily handed the baby over to one of the female searchers, and with a flutter of relief gladly made her escape to the waiting train.

The baby made no objection. The magic of experienced nursing had mastered him. He was solidly and blissfully asleep. He slept even though his robes and wrappings were stripped from him, and restored. He slept all through his mother's bitter protests at having to remove her clothes— and her promises that someone would have to pay for this outrage.

The woman searchers reported all this to Inspector Send. It was all they could report. They had found nothing even dutiable on the mother or child, though they had left nothing to chance. Send had missed his guess. The lip-sticked mother was not the clever "Q" after all.

He wandered along the corridor to the train, hoping against hope for a last clue. There was none. Only the lipstick mother glaring hate at him as he passed her compartment, where she sat furious and alone with her baby sleeping on the seat before her. Half-way to town, after the train had bumped violently over some junction points, screaming broke out again. But now it was not the baby, but the mother. And now she was screaming because her baby wouldn't scream.

"He was thrown off the seat to the floor when the train bumped just now," she cried, as Send went to see what was the matter. "Flung right to the floor, do you understand— and yet he did not wake up. Look, you can see for yourself— sleeping like the dead in spite of that fall. I tell you there must be something the matter with him—"

After a minute Send thought there must be, too. Through all the mother's clamor, though he was lifted, patted, even shaken, the baby remained heavily and strangely asleep. A guard , made the suggestion that he should go through the train looking for a doctor.

THE doctor, when found, examined the baby carefully, even lifting the eyelids; then with an odd look at the woman, demanded: "What have you been giving him?"

The mother began to declare vehemently that she had given her little darling nothing at all, but the doctor cut her short: "You must have. The child's doped. I've seen too many children who have been quietened by Indian ayahs that way to be mistaken."

The woman, on the verge of hysterics, called the doctor a beast and a liar; only Send, his wits abruptly alert, asked him what he meant.

"That child's in an opium sleep," the doctor said. "Indian ayahs have a trick of scraping a child's finger-nails on opium, or spreading the stuff on its dummy or anything else it has the habit of sucking "

"Sucking" cried Send, and whistled. "You're right— only this lady was not responsible."

He went forward along the train, marked down a carriage, and when they arrived at the terminus had everything set for the arrest of the sweet old grandmother whose magic had so soothed the wailing baby.

She protested her innocence in a gracious and quietly dignified manner. Certain of the other passengers were even inclined to champion one so charming against the high-handed methods of the stupid police.

Send set his jaw and marched her off to the search-room. Once inside, he reached for the large, shining button he had seen the baby try to swallow. With a sharp knife he cut it off the dress— and broke it open. It was as hollow as it was large. Inside, it was packed tight with opium.

So were all the other buttons on her dress, and there were many. So were the buttons on the frocks in her suit-case— she had quite a striking passion for large bright buttons on everything. Each button contained only a few grammes, but there were so many of them that their contents mounted up to well over a pound of fine, prepared opium. Also, when Send realised that Carmichael had really meant her when he spoke of the "woman with the baby" as one of those who crossed regularly, he knew that he had found the long-sought channel of smuggling.

In fact, the celebrated "Q Carrier" himself, even if it was a grandmotherly old her after all! The mother of the wailing baby had no sort of link with her; although, aware of Send's alertness, the clever old creature had used the child to distract suspicion from herself.

______________________

10: The Girl at the Gate

H. de Vere Stacpoole

1863-1951

Port Adelaide News 8 January 1926

FROM the little hill of Bon Bec over the tree-tops of the deep, surrounding woods, one can see to the north-west the spires of Tours, looking on a warm summer afternoon for all the world like the spires of some enchanted city amidst the silence and the blueness and the haze. Hear you are within earshot of the bells of Viroflay, the Cher shows a diamond sparkle through the trees of the Eastern woods, and were you to travel twenty miles away to that hill-top showing above the glades of Hauteville, you would see in flashes of silver the Loire, broad as when it passed Orleans, and hinting nothing of its humble source in the deep, dim heart of the Cevennes.

The hill of Bon Bec has only four trees upon it, three young oaks and a huge old great grandfather oak, counting its age by centuries, hollow as a cave, yet green in spring. The Revolution, which changed so many things, changed little in the woods in Viroflay; Jean Caboche, for instance, who cut wood and carted it to the Chateau de Nevers, who doctored trees and snared rabbits, and set night lines in the Cher, did exactly as his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had done before him; had you traced his pedigree, you would have found it as long as the Loire and coming from as dim a source— the woods, and had you met by chance in one of the glades, you would have been, struck by something about the man that marked him apart from the ordinary peasant; and had you met his daughter Marie, and spoken to her, you would have been struck by the same something feminised, therefore intensified.

The pretty, dark-haired girl would have caught your fancy by her grace and graciousness, a personal charm indefinable and individual as the grace and perfume of the violet.

Old Jean was a character of the countryside, one of those men who disregard class distinction and yet are not in the least offensive; he would speak to a nobleman just as familiarly as to a fellow woodman, and when the President of the Republic had once stopped by chance at the Inn of Viroflay, Jean, who was drunk, yet carrying his liquor like a gentleman, had a long conversation with the first magistrate of the land, for whom Viroflay for ever after bore association with "the splendid old peasant."

There was a tradition in the family of the Caboches that once, away in that dim and confused past called History, a king had cast his eyes upon some ancestress whose very name was forgotten. It was no more than a woodland echo, this tradition; caught from generation to generation; now scarcely even an echo, just a hint some-times uttered by Jean in his cups.

"Ah, yes, you may talk, but there are some people who would boast, if they would—"

MARIE, on a fine afternoon, would take her knitting and leading Margot, the goat, by her cord, tether her close to the great oak tree on the hill of Bon Bec and sitting in the shade of the leaves with the prospect of all Touraine before her, knit away at the eternal grey stockings which she sold each month to old Bazin of Bourges. She would talk to Margot as she worked, and sometimes she would sing to herself old songs of Touraine, songs never printed in a book nor published by a publisher, yet perdurable as the hills and the rivers.

To-day, one of those autumn days that have in them a touch of spring, Marie had taken her seat with her back against the oak; Margot, securely tethered, was cropping the grass, and a long grey stocking in the girl's lap was nearing completion. It was the last of two dozen, and Bazin was due to call on the morrow in the course of his monthly round.

The Parisians who owned the Chateau of Viroflay had been hunting all the morning in the woods. They were strange people in her eyes, these Parisians, rich beyond all dreams of riches (they were the Nadars who owned the great soap factory at Issy), giving free rein to a hundred fantastical ideas, masked balls and so forth, and even freeing foxes in the woods for the purpose of chasing them. Quite mad and somehow repellent to the little stocking-worker, who protruded her short upper lip as, again, closer this time, came the sound of the horn.

She dropped her knitting on her lap, and searched the glades with her eyes. The hunters were invisible. Then, forget-ting them, she let her eyes wander away over the autumn-touched leaves of the forest; away and away beyond the groves of beech and the great green islands of oak, and the swelling domes of foliage around Hauteville and the far dream of country, lovely in the distance, and leading to the vision of Tours. As she gazed, held by the vision, and forgetting Margot, her knitting, herself, and the world, a hail from below made her turn her eyes. A horseman was riding up the hill from the woods, a man heavily built, astride of a horse deep-chested and powerful: a man with a grizzled beard and with such a great, imperious, jovial-looking face that Marie, fascinated by it, almost forget to be sur-prised at his dress. For he was dressed in doublet and trunk hose, and wore an eagle's feather in his velvet hat, leather gauntlets on his hands, and a gold chain about his neck. And he came up the hill as if the whole world belonged to him; free and airy and gracious, his every movement so full of ease and the dignity of strength that it was a pleasure to watch him.

"Ho, ho, my pretty one! The Chateau of Viraflay, the Chateau of Viroflay; can you direct me to the Chateau of Viroflay; or the way to it, which I have lost in your mazy woods?"

"Oh, monsieur!" cried the girl, suddenly starting to her feet and pointing, "it lies over there, and if you look you can just see the turrets above those trees, 'tis but a very short way."

The gentleman slipped from his horse, and, shading his eyes, looked in the direction in which she was pointing.

"Ay, 'tis there from here, but when one is trapped in that maze of trees, pardieu, where is it?" He laughed jovially, took the whole sweep of country with a glance of his eyes, and then said, "Come, you can show me the way."

"With pleasure, monsieur."

"And that goat?" said the big man, who had a mind, it seems, for little things as well as great.

"Oh, monsieur, Margot will wait for me, if for no other reason than because she is tethered."

"Forward then," said he, laughing, and away they marched down hill, he leading the great horse, with the bridle through his arm, she at his side. She felt elated. His fantastic dress scarcely gave her a thought, it seemed part of his overwhelming personality. Without doubt he was a very great noble, a foreigner, perhaps, for he spoke with a trace of a strange accent, and sometimes used unfamiliar words. She did not know that the thing foreign to her in his speech was a trace of the accent of Bearn, just a touch, yet poignant as the pine reek of the mountains. He talked to her as they went, and sometimes he seemed to forget her, or rather his mind seemed occupied with other things for he was too great and kindly and courtly to let you imagine for a moment that you were out of his purview, even though for the moment you might not be occupying the centre of the stage.

The Chateau of Viroflay lay a league from the hill of Bon Tec, and the path lay through the pleasantest woods in the world. The Parisians might improve the Chateau, which dated from before the time of Charles the Ninth but the woods were still the woods that sheltered the boar that feared the arquebus; such woods one might fancy haunted by other things than the voices of birds, especially on a day like this, filled with the spirit of autumn, yet touched by the spirit of spring and the sunshine that struck through the twilight of the glades and filled the paths with shafts of gold and dancing shadows.

They passed open spaces, green swards laid out like carpets for the rabbits to show their soft forms against, and they passed through deep copses, where the nuts were ready for picking; they took their way through a maze of paths, led by the unerring eye of Marie, and then they reached a little gate, as old as the Chateau of Viroflay itself. It was the gate of the rose-garden of Viroflay where the roses had bloomed for four hundred summers, filling the glades of the forest all about with their perfume, and standing at the gate, you were between the sounds of the forest and the garden, the voice of the chest-nut tree and the voice of the fountain.

"Ah!" cried Marie, "I had forgotten, monsieur, you have your horse with you, and he cannot pass through the garden."

Her companion laughed, and tethered the horse to one of the gateposts.

"He will wait here and I will send for him— and how old are you, cherie?"

He raised her chin with his finger and looked at her face as though he were looking at her for the first time.

"I am sixteen, monsieur."

"A good age, a good age," sighed the magnificent one; "and your name, petite?"

"Marie, monsieur."

"Only Marie?"

"Marie Caboche, monsieur."

"Marie Caboche— well, I will call thee 'Flower of the Forest.'" He stooped and kissed her on the forehead. Then, laughing, he fumbled at a purse at-tached to his belt.

"And now for something by which you may remember me," said he.

"Oh, monsieur!" cried Marie, with a sudden bravery she had never guessed in herself. "I do not want money to remember you by— I shall never forget you—" And she blushed all over her face as she said the words, and her eyes filled with tears and her heart beat with a feeling that astonished and abashed her, so that she would have run away and hidden amidst the trees, only that she lacked the power.

He had opened the purse, only to find one single small silver coin in it and he was laughing at this discovery, but her words checked his laughter. He closed the purse, sighed, took her little hand, placed the coin in it, and then he forgot to release the hand.

"You will remember me?"

"Always, monsieur."

"Ah, monsieur, monsieur!" grumbled he; "is it my grizzled beard that makes you utter that odious word. Now, if I were sixteen— Oh, the good age!— I wager you and I would be something better than monsieur and mademoiselle one to the other. Ventre St. Gris!" he suddenly burst out, his eager, boyish, and impetuous nature casting age aside, "my name is Henri— come, now, call me by my name!"

"H—H—Henri," murmured Marie, casting her eyes right up in his face, and then casting them down again slowly, just as slowly and as regretfully as the movement of her little hand, now trying to disengage itself from his. Then he spoke to her again.

"Marie."

The one word spoken as he spoke it made her tremble like a tree shaken by the wind. Then she was running away, back along the path, alone, towards the hill of Bon Bec.

"Meet me to-night here at the gate when the moon rises."

The words rang in her ears; she was no longer little Marie; terror and joy ran one on each side of her. Then as she ran she tripped on a tree-root, fell— and awoke. The unfinished stocking was still in her lap; Margot was cropping the grass, and the whole world of Touraine lay before her in the sunlight.

The shadows of the oak-leaves had not shifted the tenth of an inch, yet her dream, so it seemed to her, had lasted an hour.

Ah, what a dream! It had all seemed so real, she knew him so well —what a dream to vanish like that, shrivel away to nothing and leave her alone with Loneliness.

She searched the glades with her eyes and the hill up which he had ridden on the brave, strong horse, she saw again his face, grand, jovial, gracious— It could not be a dream, it was far far too real, and he, how could she have pictured a figure absolutely unlike all things she had ever seen? Yet it was a dream. The wind told her that; the north-west wind of autumn, shaking the leaves above her mournfully like a voice from the Past. "Cherie, you will never forget me?— but it is a dream— all life is a dream."

She sighed and rose, gathering up her knitting, and as she rose she noticed on the ground a little black disc on which her hand had been resting. She picked it up. It was a coin, but so worn and blackened by the years that the inscription and face on; it were scarcely visible. Children came here to play often, and grubbing among the roots of the oak they had probably unearthed this thing. She examined it attentively. The trace of a bearded chin, of an imperious and powerful nose, the characters—"ri IV,"—that was all there was left by time, the eater of things.

She placed it in the work-bag with her knitting, and, taking Margot by the cord, led her down the hill and home. Her father had not yet returned, and she set about preparing supper for him; then she sat waiting for him, drawing her stool close to the fire and gazing at the burning sticks.

The cottage was so poor that a tall man had to enter it stooping, but now in the dusk, the firelight, flickering and fitful, touched the old bureau which Bazin of Bourges had so often tried to buy and the carved oak chest for which he had offered Jean Caboche five hundred francs; it touched a beam of the ceiling and Marie's face, leaving the poverty and mean things to the shadows.

Jean Caboche returned, and when he had finished his supper and fallen asleep in his chair Marie rose, glanced at him, and left the cottage, closing the door behind her. As she closed it she laughed to herself as one laughs when contemplating some pleasant stupidity— then she started for the forest. The moon was already paling the sky, and in another half-hour or so it would be over the trees and shining on the rose-garden of Viroflay.

The woods were dark, but she was a woodman's daughter— the paths were intricate, but the call was ringing in her ears. It was absurd— what can be more absurd than to attempt to follow out a dream in real life? But no one would know of her foolishness, and there would be no one to laugh at it but herself. The woods, when the eyes became accustomed to them, were filled by a vague gloaming born of the last of the sunset, the first of the stars, and the first of the moon. Then, as she went, the light became stronger, and she knew that the moon was chasing her. Would she be late? The folly of the thought scarcely struck her.

With all the gravity of a child playing some game of make-believe, she paused and glanced behind her at the barred and broken disc of silver just visible among the branches; the great moon of autumn, floating upwards and flooding the country with her light. Rabbits rustled away from the path, and a night-jar cried from the foliage on the left, and down a glade where the moon was now frankly gazing Marie saw a white owl taking its soundless flight. It is at this hour and under these circumstances that a forest discloses the merest glimpses of it heart. By day you see its beauty and its dreams, but by moonlight something of the secret of this, the first house that man ever knew.

In May the place would be ringing with the voices of nightingales, but to-night it was silent, except for the occasional crying of the night-jar and the sound of the wind pressing gently upon the leaves. She passed glades and copses familiar to her by daylight, but strange by the light of the moon.

At last she reached the gate.

No one.

She had not expected to meet anyone, yet she was disappointed. Make-belief has its griefs as well as its plea-sures. She stood for a moment looking into the garden. In her dream the roses had been in full summer bloom, and the air fragrant with their perfume; to-night there were no summer roses here, only a few of the roses of autumn. And now she stood clasping the iron-work of the gate, and for the first time in her life, she was touched by that spirit so well-known to some of us— Ghostly Remembrance.

The whole situation was familiar to her, she had done just this thing and stood at this gate as she stood now, and waited for him as she was waiting now, in some time— oh! immeasurably remote— and she had heard the wind in the trees as she heard it now, and the splash of the fountains, and his footstep— for a footstep, heavy and assured, was sounding on the garden path, and Marie, thrilled, trembling, half-dazed, slipped away from the gate and, hiding in the shadows of the trees, watched, listened, waited, hand on heart, scarcely daring to look, yet daring.

The form of a big man disclosed itself in the moonlight, dressed, for Marie, even more fantastically than the form of her dream. But it was not he whom she sought. It was M. Nadar, attired in the funereal black of modern evening clothes, and above the great white shirt-front the face of the bourgeois shone in the moonlight. M. Nadar had wandered through the garden— a strange thing to be attracted out by the moon— and, smoking his cigar, had wandered down to the gate to look at his forest.

Not daring to move, she watched corpulent figure that seemed the very incarnation of the Present, till it turned away through the garden, where the summer roses once bloomed for Charles and Henri Quatre as summer roses will never bloom again. That was on the night of October 2nd, 1883.

Marie has never married, by chance, perhaps, or by disinclination, or by reason of the wind of the forest and its voice so filled with the voice of the past.

"Cherie, you will never forget me— but it is a dream— all life is a dream."

__________________

11: The Gold Kimono

Peter Cheyney

Sunday Times, Oct-Dec 1930

An early novelette, a thriller in the English mode of the time.

JOSIAH PEABODY, swinging along the cliff top running from Stranover to Hetton-on-the-Strand noticed events only subconsciously. His conscious mind was much too busy to be aware of little things.

The sea mist, which had already enveloped the smooth sands; the few spots of rain which were falling― large occasional spots heralding a storm; the gusty wind, which, for the moment, was holding up the rain; as these things were to him only vague things.

Also, he was too familiar with his surroundings to be interested in them, for many week-ends during the year found Josiah Peabody on the Stranover-Hetton cliff road. Often he wondered why he did it, why he was so attracted to the lonely road and why he did not allow the unfortunate, past to die as so many other things had died.

Kenkins, that medical materialist, had had the effrontery to voice the thought. Peabody had said nothing. He had only looked at Kenkins with his usual quiet smile, and that worthy possessed sufficient tact to leave the subject well alone. After that Kenkins kept his thoughts to himself. In any event he had little use for women.

O'Farrel understood. It was entirely plain to the nervously instinctive O'Farrel why this tall quiet man whose name was the only incongruous thing about him and whose-inevitable smile served as a very effective mask for. despair, wandered about the moorland roads which run across the country between Stranover, Hetton, Salthaven and the sea. When one says nothing one must needs think.

Peabody said nothing, and his thoughts came easier in these lonely places, where he conned over the things which had happened there, and vainly tried to arrive at some logical conclusion.

And a logical conclusion was impossible. Peabody realised that. There would never be an explanation. O'Farrel, on one occasion, heartened by a strange burst of confidence from Peabody, who, almost at breaking point, had actually broached the subject― O'Farrel had put the thing plainly.

"Why shouldn't she disappear, Peabody?" he had said. "There was every reason for it! Consider the matter from a proper point of view. Here you are in North Russia, a temporary Engineer Captain, serving at the fag end of a good looking war. Suddenly, there appears a woman. Very beautiful, very fascinating. She says she is running from the Bolsheviks. You believe her. She says that her entire family, with the exception of a brother who is a prisoner in Moscow, have been murdered by the said Bolsheviks. You believe her. She says she loves you. You not only believe her, but you also marry her on the strength of it, there and then. You return to England and you are demobilised. You plan a honeymoon, and you go to Stranover. Then, two weeks afterwards your wife disappears with all the loose change she can lay her fingers on. Well, why shouldn't it happen? The whole business has been so illogical that the ending was in keeping with the beginning. You knew nothing about her except what she told you. You know nothing about her now. Forget her, my Josiah. There are lots of other women in the world, besides .which you are inclined to be a good-looking man, and they like strong, quiet specimens like you, my bucko! She may appear again, quite possibly. If she does I hope you don't meet her, that's all, for in your present state of mind you'd be at her mercy again. She'd have you on the end of a little string, my Josiah. Besides, how do you know that she hasn't got husbands all over the world. Very probable, I think!"

Deep in his heart Peabody thought that O'Farrel might be right. But it had been impossible to forget her. Wandering along the road, he had picked out spots where they had rested on long walks. Spots where they had picnicked. He had to remember. Peabody had, from boyhood, repressed every obvious emotion to such an extent that now he was quite unable to realise that whether the woman was good, bad, or indifferent, she was entirely necessary to him, that he loved her. To have admitted this to himself would have been emotional, and Peabody was never that.

To his left, over the wide stretches of moorland running back to Salthaven and the bleak hills beyond, the black clouds were flying. A heavy gust of wind flung the sodden leaves over the asphalt road. Peabody strode on, his pipe empty between his teeth, still thinking, still trying to worry something out. The rain, falling more quickly now, blew into his face and stung.

Further down, a narrow bye-road ran off across the moor, the road to Salthaven. Some way down this bye-road, standing within a rickety fence, he could discern in the mist the blurry outline of Sepach Farm, which he had intended should be the limit of his walk.

Sepach Farm interested him today. A square, two storey building, deserted, and locally reputed haunted, the desolate place seemed in some way to fit into his wood. Life seemed rather like Sepach Farm, thought Peabody.

They had never entered the Farm, but on one grey day-a day not unlike this, they had sheltered from the rain under the wide window ledge of the low, first storey window. She had joked about the English weather....

From behind him somebody called, breaking into his meditation. Peabody stopped and looked round. Walking towards him he saw a short thick-set. and florid looking individual, wearing a well-cut suit of brown plus fours and a cheerful smile. He was puffing, and seemed a little out of breath. Peabody wondered where he had sprung from. He had noticed no one on the road previously, but he surmised that the individual in plus fours might have been on the moor behind the hedge which bordered the land side of the road.

As Plus Fours approached he knocked out a stubby little pipe― rather like himself, that pipe, thought Peabody― against the palm of his hand.

"Sorry to interrupt your walk." said the stranger, "but does your name happen to be Truesmith?"

Peabody shook his head. "Sorry. It isn't," he said, with his usual smile.

"Ah," said Plus Fours, "that's bad luck. I'm very keen to find a fellow called Truesmith. Expecting him to be about this part of the world to-day. Going far?" be inquired pleasantly, refilling his pipe.

"Just walking," said Peabody.

"Good exercise," said Plus Fours. "Good exercise. Well, I'll be getting back. I think. Tea and crumpets. Thought of going to the Turkish Café, but I think I'll walk back to Stranover. I don't think I'm too keen on the Turkish Café. Are you?"

"Never been there," said Peabody.

"Haven't you. though?" said Plus Fours. "I suppose you don't belong round here, although why anyone should notice the place I don't know, stuck away as it is on that ledge of cliff. Funny idea building the place at all. You don't know who it belongs to, I suppose?"

"No, I don't," said Peabody. He was still smiling, but his brain was rather seriously concerned with the gentleman in plus fours. Somehow, to Peabody,  there seemed some definite purpose in the conversation.

Why should he be Truesmith? The original question seemed to Peabody to constitute simply an excuse, but the following questions and the remarks about the Turkish Café surely had some motive other than idle curiosity? It was raining steadily now, and is was hardly usual for two strangers to stand in a rainstorm and talk about nothing.

"You can't have been down here lately," said Plus Fours. "The Turkish Café is along the road here, on a sort of gallery cut in the cliff face. They meant it for a shelter at first, I think, and then someone bought it and turned it into a Café. Funny idea. Very few people come far along this road unless they're going to Hetton, and people who go to Hetton aren't usually the people who want to drink tea. Of course, in the summer there are a few visitors. Ever come down here to the summer? You don't? Not a bad spot if the weather is all right"

Plus Fours 'smiled amiably at Peabody. He looked rather like a big child, and a raindrop running down his nose gave him a peculiarly humorous appearance.

"Well, well, I'll be getting back to Stranover," he said. "You'll be pretty wet won't you," he added. "There's nowhere about here to shelter except the Café, or at Sepach Farm... neither of 'em very attractive, I must say!"

"I don't mind rain," said Peabody.

"Quite," said Plus Fours airily. "I think it's quite nice sometimes. We get too much of it in this country though. Well... good afternoon."

He nodded, and turning about walked off abruptly. Peabody stood still until the mist had swallowed the gentleman in Plus Fours. Then he turned and continued his walk.

2

SO SOMEBODY had started a Café in a gallery cat into the cliff face? Peabody thought that Plus Fours seemed extremely interested in this fact. He wondered whether he spent his afternoons hanging about the Stranover-Hetton-road and talking to odd people about odd things.

About him the telephone wires on the left of the road whistled and sang in the weird way that telephone wires do. Peabody didn't like the sound. It reminded him of the Ray and he did not like thinking about the Ray.

He hated it because it constituted a motive. He wanted it to be forgotten like the rest of the business. If O'Farrel had known about the Ray... if Peabody had told him that during that short honeymoon he had explained the Ray to her, shown her the model, elucidated the various technical points. If O'Farrel had known this...

Peabody could picture him, could almost bear the words accompanied by O'Farrel's cynically humorous smile; could see the sudden halt in the reckless walk up and down the room.

"So that's why she went," O'Farrel would have said. "The logical explanation, my Josiah, at last! There always is one, you know. So the little Russian aristo who was on the run from the Bolsheviks and who married our Josiah, disappeared after, immediately after, little Josiah had explained all about the Ray to her. Oh, ho! Of course she couldn't have heard of that Ray before she married Josiah, could she? You poor chump! Haven't you heard that no Government in the history of the world had ever made such wonderful use of women's beauty for the acquisitions of other people's secrets as our Soviet friends. And little Josiah fell for it!"

But O'Farrel did not know. He knew nothing of the existence of the Ray. Peabody wondered whether he should have told O'Farrel about Irma knowing and understanding about the Ray. In spite of the cynical humor, O'Farrel's advice was often worth having. And he knew women too slightly too well (so he said). Peabody asked himself what O'Farrel's advice would have been. Of course he would have jumped at the Ray as being the motive for the whole thing.

Was it the motive? The question had burned in Peabody's brain for years. Once more he began to add his facts, for and against. Suppose they had heard of the invention, somehow. Then it was quite natural that they should try and obtain it by any means. But would the events have worked out exactly as they had.

They didn't know he was going to marry her. Besides, he, himself, did not know that the Ray was usable, practical. He had heard nothing from the British Government who had had the whole thing put up to them years ago, and who had said that if experiments proved successful he would be required for further tests.

He had heard nothing at all, and inquiry, recent Inquiry, had evoked the same answer. But it was a motive, a very logical motive.

Peabody bit into the mouthpiece of his pipe and walked on. He was soaked through, for the rain was teeming down now.

On the seaside the mist was less heavy. In front of him, a few yards away, almost opposite the bye road to Salthaven, he could see the upper part of a house showing over the cliff edge. He realised that it must be the Turkish Café, the Café which the man In plus fours had explained was built on a gallery cut into the cliff face.

Peabody was almost relieved to think about it. He wanted to think about anything but the Ray and Irma He would go there and have tea. As this thought struck him he became aware that he was not alone on the road, for a few yards in front of him on the moor side, a tall round shouldered figure was moving, a figure whose head was sunk forward so that the man must have been walking looking always about a foot in front of his own feet, slouching along with its hands sunk into the pockets of a dingy green overcoat that cleared the ground only by a few inches.

Diagonally opposite to Peabody, he moved along with a peculiar restlessness showing in his gait. The restlessness of a man who is keen to get somewhere and lacks the necessary strength to hurry. The soft brown hat pulled over the brow, was dilapidated, and his boots looked like two squelchy lumps which dragged themselves along the road in a weird and jerky manner.

Together they approached the bye road to Salthaven. Peabody seemed certain that the man in the green overcoat would turn up the road. He wondered why the man had not cut across the moor and saved himself the longer walk. Still, he might be going to Hetton. But Peabody illogically enough, was certain that Green Overcoat was not going to Hetton. He was certain that be would take the bye road. Perhaps he was going to Sepach Farm, thought Peabody, and this line of thought reminded him again (for some unknown reason) of Plus Fours and his childish smile and little chubby .pipe.

Immediately following this idea came the thought that this man might be Truesmith. Peabody, impelled by some mysterious motive, quickened his steps and walked gradually across the "road till he was a pace behind the man.

Green Overcoat, although he most have been aware of Peabody's proximity, took not the slightest notice. Peabody spoke. "Excuse me," he said smiling as usual, "but does your name happen to be Truesmith?"

The man in the green overcoat stopped dead, and turned half round.

Peabody noticed  the dark, ill-kept beard, toe shaven face, and the eyes, dark rimmed, and cornered with the viscous fluid of premature senility, eyes which glittered. At the corner of the man's mouth, on the lip, there was a white particle. Peabody recognised it as a piece of dried sunflower seed. The man had been chewing sunflower seed― a Russian habit.

Peabody sensed immediately that the man was Russian, that the green overcoat which he was wearing was a Russian army coat, converted for civilian use.  The man stood silently, his mouth working. Then he looked, at Peabody and deliberately, and 'with unmistakable venom, spat. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his band, and, almost with care, replaced the hand in the tattered overcoat pocket.

"I am not Truesmit'," he said slowly and harshly. "No, I am not Truesmit', Captain Peabody."

He looked straight at Peabody's eyes. Then spat once more, turned on his heel and jerked off. Peabody watched him turn up the Salthaven-road. The man did not look back, but Peabody knew, somehow instinctively, that the Russian was going to stop at Sepach Farm. He found himself wondering how he knew this fact, but it was a certain thing, settled definitely in his mind, that the Russian would stop at the Farm, and Peabody developed quite suddenly an idea to go after him and talk to him.

The man in Plus Fours and his silly chatter, and this tattered, green coated, devilish eyed man had started something between them. They had drawn him into― something. Peabody wondered, rather vaguely, if his nerves were going a bit.

He stood quite still in the rain. He felt uncomfortable and unhappy. He disliked the afternoon, the mist, the lonely road-everything. He disliked the forced and cheery conversation of the man in Plus Fours and his airy discussion of the Turkish Café, but much more he disliked this tall, shabby specimen with the burning eyes, this dirty ill-kept man who possessed some sort of pride and who spat so venomously and deliberately.

But the thing which perturbed Peabody most of all was the knowledge that this man, this Russian, knew his name. How did he know that he was Captain Peabody? Peabody had dropped the rank years before demobilisation. No one ever called him captain.

He stood there trying to think clearly about the afternoon, trying to arrive at some conclusion, realising, as be did so, that there was no conclusion to he arrived at, but wanting all the time to go on after Green Overcoat, who had disappeared up the Salthaven bye road, and who was jerking along somewhere on the other side of the mist.

He looked towards the sea. The mist had cleared still more. Opposite him on the cliff edge was. a balustrade of stone running down with the steps which led to the gallery on which the Turkish Café stood. A sign swung in the wind on. an iron pole by the side of the . steps with the words "Turkish Café" painted on it.

Peabody fought down his desire to go on to Sepach Farm, and turning, abruptly walked towards the steps. Peabody, half way down the steps which led to the oaken door of the Café, congratulating himself on having definitely renounced the idea of going after Green Overcoat and thoroughly decided that he would forget both that gentleman and Plus Fours, stopped suddenly.

He found himself confronted with something else which required explanation, and he was sick of trying to elucidate things.

There were half a dozen steps and a small entrance porch between him and the Café door, and lying half over the bottom step and half in the entrance porch was a black georgette gown. The diamante buckle at the waist glimmered a little as Peabody, walking carefully, descended the remaining stairs.

He picked it up. It had been lying there for some time, for it was soaked with rain. Peabody wondered how it bad got there, and  why somebody had not picked it up. He stood before the door of the Café, which was closed, holding the gown in his left hand, and biting his pipe stem. He imagined the humorous picture he would present, entering the Café with a gown in his hand.

He stood listening. A sound came from within the Café. After a moment Peabody recognised it. It was the sound of a woman sobbing. Hoarse, racking sobs. He felt terribly uncomfortable. He dropped the gown and began to ascend the steps leading to the cliff road. He was scared. He had no desire to enter the Café. He was not Interested in any woman who had something to cry about, but as he walked up the stairs he had that horrible feeling of being trapped.

Wherever he went he would walk into something. If he went up the Salthaven-road there was the possibility of meeting the Russian. Peabody was now thoroughly decided that he did not want to see the in the green overcoat any more. On the other hand, if he took the road back to Stranover he felt certain that he would meet the man in plus fours with his airy smile and (so they seemed) ominous questions; behind him, in the Café, the place he had selected as a means of forgetting or escaping from the other two, something even more unpleasant was afoot.

Undecided, be descended the stairs again and gave the door a push. It was locked. That decided him. Every man, even a man of the Peabody stamp, is a little curious. He wanted to know what the georgette gown was doing, lying there possessing, he thought, some weird animation of its own, lying in front of this locked door behind which some woman was sobbing.

Peabody stepped back and then flung his shoulder against the door. The lock was rotten; with a splintering of wood the door crashed open. A heavy perfume came to Peabody's nostrils. He stood, transfixed, gazing at the weird sight which met his eyes.

3

A LONG room confronted him, and a not unattractive perfume greeted his nostrils. His eyes had not accustomed themselves to the gloom of die place when he saw something move.

A woman got up from the armchair in which she had been huddled, at the far end of the Café. She turned and passed through the curtains which shadowed the other end so quickly that Peabody was unable to realise anything about her except that she was tall, and that she was wrapped in a gold kimono, which she held closely about her.

The hangings fell to behind her, and he stood wondering, sniffing the heavy perfume which abounded in the place and gazing about him.

His first thought was one of amazement that any sane person should construct and furnish in such outlandish fashion what he had supposed to be an ordinary seaside teashop. The hangings round, the walls were of silk and velvet. The lamps, shaded, and throwing a dim and mysterious light about the place-a light which seemed to make more for grotesque shadows than illumination, were of Turkish design and, be thought, valuable. The floor, which was of stained oak was covered with thick, expensive rugs. In a corner, furthest from him, burned a brass- brazier on a tripod. It was burning a perfume and the wraith of smoke which floated up from it brought back some old memory to Peabody. At the far end of the Café a heavy velvet curtain covered the entire width of the wall, but on the right hand side he could discern the shape of a circular Sight of stairs leading up, he supposed, to the one floor above-the floor which would be above cliff top level.

And it was up this flight of stairs that the woman, the train of her gold kimono trailing after her like a snake, had disappeared.

It never occurred to him to go after her, to question her. To Peabody, the satisfaction of his elementary sense of duty was enough. He had heard her sobbing. He had entered with the idea of finding out what was the matter, and of asking what the black georgette gown was doing lying out there in the rain. Well, she had seen him enter and she had gone. Obviously she did not want to talk to him. That was that. Peabody thought now, having regard to the rather weird atmosphere of the Café, that he would prefer another encounter with Green Overcoat or Plus Fours to a conversation with this lady in the kimono who had cause to sob so bitterly.

He turned and walked out of the Café, closing the door carefully after him. Outside, he stood for a moment In the porch considering. Before him, on the ground where he had thrown it, lay the black georgette gown getting very adequately spoiled in the rain.

Peabody, leaning against the porch and refilling his pipe, took himself to task and considered the necessity of getting himself well in band once more. He came to the conclusion that he was an old woman suffering from a bad attack of nerves. He had encountered three people on an afternoon walk-rather strange people, he granted, but then all people were, more or less, strange. It was quite on the cards that the man in plus fours was one of those peculiarly garrulous people who will stop and talk to anybody, anywhere; one of those people who love the sound of their own voices. The man in the green overcoat, well, he was probably some bad tempered tramp, who knew his name through some coincidence-he might have served as interpreter attached to one of the British units in Russia, or anything like that, the world was very small, and there was probably some quite reasonable explanation for the black gown lying in the rain, and for the woman crying in the Café. After all, women often cried, reasoned Peabody, and very often, he had heard (for he knew little about them) without any adequate reason at all.

It was all a lot of nonsense, he told himself as he began to mount the steps leading to the road above. Half way up he asked himself exactly where he was. going. He had a decided disinclination to return to Stranover. He thought he would go on to Sepach Farm. Of course, the Russian would not be there. This, said Pea- body to himself, was another of the silly Ideas which he had developed during the afternoon. Why should the Russian be going: *o the farm? Sub- consciously, Peabody's idea was to go and see if the Russian was there, but at the moment he would not admit this to himself.

At the top of the steps he stood looking about him and listening. There was no one in sight. The mist had blown away in front of him and he could see some little way up the Salthaven-road. To his left, towards Stranover, the mist was still thick. To his right the bleak rain-lashed moor-land lying towards Hetton looked ominous. The very sound of the pattering rain on the asphalt road was distasteful. Peabody thought that his surroundings looked like the sort of place where something not very nice could easily happen. The thought disturbed him and he put it quickly out of his mind.

He turned and looked down at the Café door. It looked just as it had looked before, but the black gown lying there before it seemed strangely incongruous. Peabody had a- half humorous desire to run down the steps, pick up the gown, fold it, and lay it carefully in a corner of the porch out of the rain.

He lit his pipe, shielding the match carefully with his hands for. the wind was high. Then he began to .walk across the road. Halfway across the wind dropped for a moment and the rain descended in torrents. Peabody was getting fed up with the -rain. His clothes were heavy with it. He crossed the road quickly and stood beneath a tree which afforded a little shelter and which stood in the angle formed by the Salthaven and Stranover roads. He sat down on the gnarled and claw-like root of the tree and puffed at his pipe.

He was deciding whether he should return to the Café and shelter there, till the rain ceased-he expected the woman had finished crying by now, or whether he should walk up to the farm and shelter there. It had to be one of the two places. Peabody remembered with a slight distaste than the man in plus fours had pointed this fact out to him. Then suddenly he ceased thinking.

Somewhere in the vicinity someone was whistling. Peabody listened carefully. Soon the whistling became more distinct. He could recognise the tune― Annie Laurie― and the whistler was evidently not in the least perturbed about the weather. He whistled slowly, giving each note its full value, and occasionally whistling a bit of the song  several times in succession before continuing with the rest of it. Then, when he had got right through the chorus he would commence the process over again with a maddening sort of regularity.

And he was approaching. Peabody thought that he would emerge from the mist on the Stranover-road, but he was wrong. The man came out from the corner directly opposite. Peabody, evidently from the moor, and as he leapt the little ditch which bounded the road. Peabody recognised him-it was the man in Plus Fours.

He was as cheerful as ever, and, with his round cheeks blown out to their fullest extent with his whistling he looked quite juvenile. His right hand was in his trouser pocket and in his left hand was a little chubby pipe. He stood for a moment looking towards the mist on the Stranover road, still whistling.

Suddenly he stopped-right in the middle of a bar; took his right hand out of his trouser pocket and moved it round to his right hip pocket, at the same time putting the little chubby pipe into his left hand jacket pocket.

Then he stood quite still with his head on one side. He seemed to have come to tome decision.

He walked slowly across the road until he stood at the top of the steps leading to the Café. He stood there for a moment, peering over. Peabody wondered if he had seen- the black georgette gown, and if he, too, were curious about it. It seemed to have a strange effect on the man in plus fours, for he stepped back a couple of paces,. slipped his hand to his hip pocket, produced a medium sized automatic pistol and a cartridge clip, and, whistling again-this time quite softly, Peabody could just hear him-proceeded to load the clip into the pistol. This done, he replaced the automatic in his jacket pocket and keeping his hand in the pocket, he moved slowly down the steps towards the Turkish Café door. He had evidently not seen Peabody, or, if he had he had not taken the slightest notice of that gentleman.

Peabody got up and stood considering whether he should go on up to-Sepach-Farm or-whether-he should return to the Café' and see what the man in plus fours who kept his hand so carefully on his automatic was doing. His thoughts— were disturbed,  however, by the sound of a shot.

Peabody's head cocked slightly to one-side.- The sound seemed to. have come from the direction . of Sepach Farm. He had just -conceived this thought when he heard another shot. He stepped round the tree and looked towards the farm. It looked just the same. Turning round, he saw Pius. Fours standing at the top of the Café steps looking towards the farm, still whistling Quietly to him self. His right hand was still in his jacket pocket, and in his left hand he held the sodden, black georgette gown. Peabody wondered why he had picked the gown up. From his position on the far side of the tree Plus Fours could not see him. Pea-body felt glad about this too.

Plus Fours stood at the top of the steps for quite two minutes, then he turned and descended once more disappearing from view.

Peabody stepped out from beneath the tree and walked rapidly up the Salthaven-road, towards Sepach Farm. He was feeling sick of mysteries, and the idea of a practical move appealed to him. He had made up his mind to walk up the Salthaven-road and, in passing; to take a look at the farm (what good he would do by "taking a look" at the farm never occurred to him), then cut across the moor and get to Stranover as quickly as possible and take a hot bath.

Probably the shots were occasioned by someone shooting on the moor. He supposed that people did shoot in the midst of rainstorms sometimes. Here again Peabody was deliberately deluding himself. It was practically certain that the shots had come from the farm, and Peabody had experience enough of shooting to know the difference between the sound of a j sporting gun fired in the open and the very different noise made by a heavy calibre pistol.

As he approached the farm he observed someone coming towards him. This individual was a tall, good-looking young man, dressed in a tweed suit which was well cut and nearly new. As he came closer Peabody saw that his face was fine and intellectual-the face of an artist, and that his hands were beautifully shaped and white.

Peabody called out, "Good afternoon. Did you hear those two shots fired just now?"

The young man touched his cap-- another foreigner Peabody surmised, and when the young man spoke he knew that he was correct.

"I did not ... I heard no shots," said the young man smilingly. "It must have been your imagination."

"It wasn't," said Peabody, feeling, for some reason, quite hostile to the fellow. "I don't imagine things like that!"

"Don't you," said the young man, quite cheerfully. "Well, that that's isn't it? Good afternoon." He walked on down the road.

Russian again, thought Peabody. He was angry with himself for having spoken to the fellow, who had been as politely rude as possible.

Peabody stood looking after him. When he reached the crossroads he turned left, and went towards Hetton. The mist was fairly thick on that side and it soon swallowed up the young man in the tweeds.

At this moment, simultaneously with the disappearance of the young Russian, Plus Fours appeared at the top of the Café steps. He was smoking his pipe and had his hands in his pockets as usual. He stood for a moment looking about him and then walked off rapidly towards Stranover.

Peabody wondered what he had been doing in the Turkish Café, and if he had succeeded in finding out what was troubling the lady in the gold kimono who had occasion to sob so bitterly. Plus Fours was what Peabody would have described as a "pretty cool card." Nothing seemed to perturb him very much, even when he had occasion to load automatic pistols. There was no doubt that Plus Fours was up to something, was carrying out some definite idea, but what this idea had to do with the woman in the Café and the man in the green overcoat, Peabody could not guess.

4

The rain had abated somewhat by now and was drizzling steadily down as if saving its forces for another torrential downpour in a little while. Peabody, walking .towards the farm, quickened his steps. Definite ideas were beginning to shape in his head with regard to the young Russian in tweeds. Coming down the Salthaven road he could only have been walking from Salthaven Junction six miles away, or from Sepach Farm. Obviously he had not walked from the junction, for his clothes were hardly wet Therefore it seemed certain that he had been standing up for quite some considerable time in the vicinity of the farm, and must have heard the shots. What reason could he have for denying this?

A dazzling flash of lightning appeared just In front of Peabody, then a  terrific crash of thunder, followed by the deluge of rain which he had been expecting. He increased his pace, and. half running, passed through the wooden gate of the farm, crossed the overgrown and weed filled courtyard, and took shelter under the overhanging ledge of the first storey window. The same ledge that Irma and he had used.

He looked at his watch. It was E o'clock and the evening shadows were falling fast. Lights were glimmering In Hetton Village, and as Peabody's eyes drew across he saw a bright spot appear in the upper window of the Turkish Café-the one window which appeared about the cliff edge. So someone was still there. Peabody Imagined that the lady in the kimono, having got over her particular trouble, was carefully powdering her nose and removing any traces of the sorrow of the earlier afternoon.

He felt hot, and removing his cap, wiped his brow, raindrops collecting on the ledge above him, fell coolingly on his head. Rather a pleasurable sensation, thought Peabody.

He knock out his pipe, refilled, and lit it, then stood, leaning against, the wall of the farm, smiling at himself. There was no doubt that his nerves were out of condition, and that he had exaggerated several unimportant events and people into a first-class mystery. He considered that after a hot bath and some food he would view the whole thing from a proper perspective and probably smile at himself for his qualms. There was no doubt, too, that this wandering about the roads and moorland had got to stop. It wasn't doing any good, but only opening old wounds, resuscitating old thoughts and memories which were better buried and forgotten. Kenkins thought him a fool, and Kenkins, even if he were a materialist was probably right. O'Farrel probably thought the same thing.

Peabody wondered what the enterprising O'Farrel would have made of the 'events of the afternoon, what logical story he would have strung between the facts which bad occurred. Peabody was about to put on his cap, when suddenly he stopped and considered. For the last few moments the raindrops from the ledge above him had been falling on to his head with almost monotonous regularity. He was donning his cap because he was tired of the sensation, which (the thought flashed through his mind) was reminiscent of the Chinese water torture, but he stopped in his action of replacing his cap because he thought that something very peculiar was happening— the rain falling on to his head was becoming warmer and warmer. He stood perfectly still. He thought that his imagination was absolutely running away with him. He was a case for a nerve specialist-no doubt about this.

Another drop fell onto his head. It was quite a warm drop he thought. He pulled out his handkerchief, ran it over his hair and looked at it. A nasty stiff feeling ran over the skin of his face and neck. He jerked himself upright. His handkerchief was red― red with blood.

He stepped out into the rain and looked above him at the ledge. He felt quite sick. He knew now that his nerves were, not at fault. The events of the afternoon were only the beginning― things were really going to happen now. He knew what the shots had meant. The sound had come from Sepach Farm― he had been right there, and he had been standing under the window ledge and somebody's blood had been dripping on to his head with horrible regularity, faking the place of the grateful rain.

Peabody had a desire to run; a desire to place as much space between himself, this farm, and the weird people who seemed to be hanging about the neighborhood as possible. Then his unemotional self reasserted itself. He must know what it was all about. He must enter the farm and find out exactly what had happened.

He put the handkerchief into his pocket. Put on his cap and walked round to the dilapidated front door. It was half closed. Peabody kicked it open and entered.

5

HE found himself in a small and irregularly shaped hall. A door immediately to his left opened into a ground floor room running the entire length of the house. I

He glanced quickly Into this room and then began to mount the stair-case which stood on the right hand side of the doorway. It was a rickety and dusty stairway, and the recent muddy footmarks on the bare boards told Peabody that someone had used it since the rainstorm.

He had got over his feeling of sickness! The matter had now taken a turn which required practical effort, and doing things appealed much more to Peabody than thinking about them. As he mounted the stairs he was pre-paring himself for a sight, which, he told himself, would not be too pleasant. He walked Up the stairs slowly, and, at the top, stood for an instant, stamping some of the rain from his shoes.

A passage ran from the top of the stairs to the back of the house. It was a long passage ending, apparently, in a dead wall. There were only two doors leading off the passage, exactly opposite each other. The one on the right, he knew, would be the door of the first storey room, the room with the wide window ledge, under which he had been standing outside, the room which he knew he should find something not very nice. He walked down the passage. The silence of the place seemed to Peabody to possess some peculiar quality. A heavy atmosphere seemed to pervade the place. He wished that the injured man would groan or do something to break the silence.

He was about to turn into the right hand room when something prompted him to glance into the room on the left. He did so, and received a distinct shock, for lying at full length in the middle of the empty room stretched out, with his long, thin, and dirty fingers clutching at the floor underneath him, with his head and face turned towards Peabody, and the piece of sunflower seed still sticking to his lip, lay the man in the green overcoat. Peabody, his first shock over, forgot for the moment about the other business, forgot the blood dripping from the window ledge in the other room, and stood looking at the Russian as he lay there, still malevolent, his tattered olive green overcoat disarranged and caught about his shabby legs.

The explanation was fairly obvious, for the whole back of the overcoat was covered with a dark red blotch. Peabody stepped nearer and looked down at it. The man in the green overcoat had been shot through the back with a heavy calibre pistol Peabody thought. So that was the explanation of the shot― the first shot. Peabody realised that the explanation of the second shot would be in the opposite room. Just beyond the fingers of the Russian's right hand, lying, where it had fallen from the nerveless grasp, was a Mauser automatic pistol, and just beyond the pistol the blood stains started.

He walked quickly across the pas-sage and into the opposite room. The window was half open, and propped against it, half sitting on the window ledge, with a queer sort of smile playing about a mouth which was already beginning to sag, was a man of about 35 years of age. As Peabody entered the room he began to slip downwards from the ledge, and, as Peabody sprang forward to check his fall, slid with a bump to the floor.

He was alive and breathing heavily and hoarsely. Peabody, glad to do something, opened the fawn raincoat which was buttoned about the man. Underneath, the coat and waistcoat of brown tweed were soaked with blood. He also, had been shot clean through the body for Peabody could see that the side of the window against which his back had rested was bloodstained.'

It came to Peabody that the Russian in the other room had done this. Had he shot this man through the back as he had turned to leave the room? But then who had shot; the Russian? Peabody remembered that there had been a pause of perhaps half a minute between the shots. Who had been shot first, the Russian or this man? The man lay quietly on the floor, looking at the ceiling. Occasionally his eyelids flickered. His face was strikingly handsome-an experienced face, Peabody thought, with a firm jaw and well-set grey eyes which were already slightly touched by the film of death.

The thought of dashing out and endeavouring to secure help came to Peabody to be immediately dismissed. The man on the floor was beyond help, and to leave him would be foolish. He might manage to say something― something which might throw some light on the grim business which had taken place at Sepach Farm; for by this time Peabody knew that he was in the business, whatever it was, and be was part of it, and that fate had thrown these things across his path for the sole purpose of drawing him in, and making him play his little part.

With a great effort the dying man slowly turned his head towards Peabody, the queer half-smile still showing about his mouth. That he wanted to say something was obvious for his lips were moving although no sound came from them. Peabody, bending over him, strove vainly to get some idea, by the lip movements, of what the man wanted to say.

Presently his eyes closed, and Pea- body thought that it was all over, but after a moment they opened again, and flickered weakly, closed, opened and flickered again. Suddenly Peabody realised, with a start that the man was signalling with his eyes, flickering the "calling up" signal in the Morse code;

He tapped the "answer" signal on the floor with his pipe stem, the dots and dashes taking him back through the years to the war.

.... R.... D... tapped Peabody....R.... D....

The dying man's eyelids flickered slowly, and Peabody prayed that he would have sufficient strength to send the message., s-t-e-i-t-l-i-n-stop said the slow moving eyelids.... i-r-i-e-t-o-f-f-stop.... 2-c-b-2-v-i r-c-h-l-o-r-7-3-7-stop

A convulsive shudder shook the signaller and his eyes closed, for a moment the humorous smile seemed to Peabody to deepen, then it faded away. The man was dead.

But in spite of the death which was in Sepach Farm, Peabody stood, his eyes wide with something which was nearly fear, writing down on a scrap of paper the message which had been so strangely sent, "steitlin," irietoff" .... these seemed to him to be names, surnames, and they meant nothing to him, but it was the last thing, the formula, which shook him. For "2ch2 vTR/chlor/737" was the formula which stood for the Ray― Peabody's Ray, the Ray which spelt instant and terrible death, and which was known to only two men!

6

HE STOOD LOOKING at the piece of paper. Back to him came the droning of the telegraph wires of the earlier afternoon. That had reminded him of the Bay, and that had reminded him of Irma, But even she did not know the formula, the formula by which the Ray was known to Peabody and the one War Office expert. How then did this dead man come to be in possession of it?

One after another the incidents of the afternoon flashed through Peabody's mind. The meeting with the man in. plus fours, the meeting with the Russian, the man who lay dead in the other room, still malevolent, clawing at the floor, and who had known his name, the meeting with the young Russian whose cool insolence had annoyed him, the two shots, and then this!

And, worst of all, at the back of his mind lurked the motive. Was this the motive for Irma's disappearance? Was she responsible for this? Had the information which he had so foolishly imparted to her resulted in this double murder and the knowledge at least one of the dead men of a formula which, under certain circumstances, might easily shatter the peace of the world?

And was this knowledge confined to one man? If this dead man lying before him had known it, why not others?

The vicious circle of thoughts chased round in Peabody's brain― Irma, the Ray, and these dead men. And what was to be the next move?

Obviously, the police. They must be informed, and at once. But here again Peabody found himself thinking something without any logical reason for the thought. He found himself possessed of a decided disinclination to go to the police immediately.

The sequence of events during the afternoon and evening were beginning to exercise a peculiar fascination, on Peabody. All these people were connected in some way with the crimes and each other. The man in plus fours, the young Russian who had walked off so airily towards Hetton, the woman In the gold kimono. Each one of them. Peabody thought, had contributed in some way to this particular climax.

Peabody became practical and moved forward towards the dead man. Then he sank on one knee and began a systematic search of the body. He searched thoroughly, even half undressing the body in his efforts to find something. There was nothing at all-nothing; not even a laundry mark, and the tabs bearing the maker's name had been carefully removed from overcoat, suit, hat and underclothes.

He re-arranged the clothing, straightened the body out and stood regarding it. There was something quite attractive about what remained of the stranger in the brown tweed suit. The half humorous smile still seemed to play about the firm mouth. Death, thought Peabody, had little terror for this man. It had been, it seemed to him, something which was to be expected, a move in the game, some- thing which must be regarded as a semi-humorous possibility, and when it had arrived, his only thought had been to signal a few words, essential words, which would enable somebody else to take up the game where he had been forced to drop it.

And the game had to be taken up.

Peabody shuddered a little as he thought of the Q Ray formula being known to all sorts of weird people, who would not scruple to use it for then own immediate gain. The Russian in the opposite room for instance. This thought sent Peabody quickly across the passage into' the room on the other side of the passage. He stood looking down at the man in the green overcoat as he lay face pressed sideways on the floor, still malevolent, still threatening. Eventually he turned the body over and examined the clothing carefully. As in the other case there was no clue. In one pocket of the green overcoat were a handful of sunflower seeds, and in the other an automatic clip, an additional one, evidently. Peabody remembered how the man to the green overcoat had thrust back his hand into his over coat pocket when he( had spoken to him on the Stranover-road earlier in the afternoon. Possibly, thought Pea-body, the Russian had been expecting to meet someone who might merit the attention of his automatic.

It was now nearly dark and the last of the evening's light was casting grotesque shadows about the floors and walls of this house of death. Peabody dropped the automatic to the floor and stood for a moment regarding it. The sight of it reminded him once more of the man in plus fours -that strange person who hung about country roads, who stood whistling a song over and over again, and who, for some reason best known to him- self, carried an automatic pistol too. An idea came to Peabody, he left the room and walked quickly across the passage and into the other room. Step- ping gingerly over the body of the other man, he peered out of the window into the shadows of the court yard, and across to the tree-bordered road beyond. On the other side of the road beneath a tree was a tiny light A firefly, thought Peabody, then straining his eyes into the darkness he managed to make out the silhouetted figure beneath the tree. It was as he had thought. Lounging on the other side of the road, smoking his little chubby pipe, was the man in plus fours.

Peabody, drawing back from the window, and stepping gingerly across the body once more, stood in the middle of the room and thought.

Obviously he must go and find a policeman somewhere and tell him. He visualised himself telling some country policeman the events of the after-noon, leading up to the grand climax of the double murder. He visualised the arm of the law with an open note-book and an open mouth wondering exactly where he was to start making notes.

Having come to this conclusion Pea-body filled his pipe, lit it and with a last look at the dead man. walked out into the passage and prepared to descend the stairs.

Outside the wind was positively howling, and whenever it stopped for a moment a great gust of rain descended, beating upon the roof of the farm and splattering noisily into the puddles in the courtyard. Almost at the bottom of the stairs he trod on something-something hard which, as he put his weight on it, gave. He stooped and picked it up, looked at it for a moment, and then realised what it was. It was a diamente buckle, and it was the fellow to the one which he had seen upon the black georgette gown, which, unless someone bad moved it, was still lying in the rain at the bottom of the steps leading down to the Turkish Café. Peabody wondered how it had come to the Farm. It was funny how all these mysterious things seemed to be associated with each other. Peabody found himself wishing that the buckle could talk. He imagined that it might have a rather peculiar story to tell.

Then he slipped it into his pocket, and continued towards the door.

Arrived, he stood in the doorway straining his eyes. across the court- yard. He could make out the . rickety fence quite plainly, and, on the other side of the road he could see the dim spot of light which was Plus Four's .pipe, glowing in the darkness beneath j the dump of trees.

Then, as he was about to step into the courtyard, cross the space between himself and Plus Fours, and tackle that gentleman, something else happened. A figure came from out of the darkness from the direction of the Turkish Café, and before Peabody could quite see who it was he sensed that it was the woman― the woman in the Gold Kimono! She came out of the darkness and approached the broken wooden gate which led into the farm courtyard. Peabody found himself remembering something about the way she moved.

He stepped out of the doorway and took a couple of steps towards the gate. She had entered the gate, when looking up, she saw him, and he heard her sob.

Peabody, standing there in the rain, felt quite sick. He took an involuntary step towards her, then stopped hesitating, not knowing what to do; land while he stood, she turned and half walked, half ran to the gate, through it and down the road, back towards the Turkish Café.

Peabody turned back to the door of Sepach Farm and sat down on the step, his head between his hands. For the whole of his little world

the little world which he had built up during the last few weary years-had fallen in. He felt rather like a child, he did not know what to think, what to do.

For the woman in the gold kimono was Irma― his wife!

7

IT was some minutes before Peabody was able to regain control of his feelings. Then he got up and walked slowly towards the gate, passed through it, and stood in the road, uncertain what to do.

His first impulse had been to dash off down the road to overtake Irma, and to ask her for an explanation of this amazing business; but his logical mind, functioning even in this time of distress, told him that she was not likely to tell him the truth. The realisation that his wife was mixed up in this business; that there was some connection between her and the two murders at the Farm, stung Peabody. One idea was predominant; he must not go to the police until he had found out what was the connecting link between Irma and the deaths, for although he would not admit this to himself. Peabody was trying to make himself believe that there was still a chance that his wife was innocent of complicity in the crimes. He was trying to give himself time to protect her.

An idea suddenly came to him. There was little likelihood of anyone visiting Sepach Farm before next day. If he could cross country to Salthaven be could catch the nine o'clock express and be in London by 11 that night. He had made up his mind that he would go to O'Farrel, that he would tell him the whole story, disguising one fact only, the fact that the woman in the gold kimono was his, Peabody's wife. Peabody felt sure that he could rely on O'Farrel's assistance; he felt certain that the romantic mind of Etienne would immediately seize on the tangled skein of the afternoon's happenings, and unravel it. Peabody thought that it would be possible for O'Farrel and himself to return that night to Sepach Farm, hide the bodies temporarily, and then he, Peabody, would go to the Turkish Café, and would elicit something from Irma which would enable him to come to some definite conclusion as to her guilt or otherwise.

Having come to this conclusion, Peabody felt better. Looking down the road towards the sea, he saw a light glimmer above the cliff edge. This light he knew would be in one of the top rooms of the Turkish Café. Irma had got back, but would she stay there, or would she, knowing that he was in the neighborhood, try to make her escape? Once more he dismissed the idea of going to the Turkish Café, and, turning on his heel, strode up the road, walking quickly.

Half a mile up the road he branched across country, walked over the wet moorland, brushing through the wet gorse-bushes, occasionally tearing his clothes, which were again thoroughly wet. He was beginning .to feel a little better. He was, at least, doing something definite. He realised now that some unkind fate had planned a sequence of mysterious events that had drawn him into a net from which he must somehow cut himself clear,

TEN MINUTES after Peabody had left the farm the man in plus-fours, who had been waiting patiently, nibbling his pipe-stem as usual, on the opposite side of the road, crossed the road, walked across the farm courtyard, and entered the farm. He was still whistling "Annie Laurie" under his breath. Once in the farm he ascended the stairs, and, walking into the room on the left of the passage, stood looking at the body of the Russian as it lay on the floor. His face betrayed no sign of emotion whatever.

After a few minutes' scrutiny he crossed the passage and walked into the other room, and looked for some minutes at the body of the man in the fawn raincoat.

After a while he descended the stairs, walked round to the back of the farm and, pushing his way, walked out on to the moorland. He stopped by a clump of trees and whistled. A few minutes later a figure emerged from the clump of bracken near by.

"Good evening," said the man in plus-fours. "Things aren't so good."

The other man, a broad-shouldered man who looked as though he might have been a sailor, scratched his ear reflectively.

"Anybody hurt?" he asked. "There was a couple of shots somewhere round here about two hours ago. I thought of going into the farm."

"You don't have to think," interrupted the man in plus-fours, "I will do all the thinking that is required, and some thinking has got to be done pretty quickly. At the present moment Sepach Farm, in addition to its other advantages, is acting as temporary morgue. The thing is how I am to keep the local police from sticking their noses into something that doesn't concern them. There is something else, too. There's a man, a rather nice-looking man, strangely enough, hanging about this place. I met him on the Stranover road this afternoon. He went into the farm; he has just left there, and, if I know anything, is cutting across country to catch the nine o'clock from Salthaven. This fellow perturbs me; I don't know who he is, or what he wants. He's a nuisance."

The man in plus-fours refilled his pipe and lit it. After some moments' reflection he spoke again.

"You had better get back to Stranover, Stevens," he said. 'There's nothing else can be done to-night, but before you go, push the motor-bike on to the road. I am going to catch that train to Salthaven, too. You had better stand by at Stranover until I telephone you."

The man went off, and reappeared after a moment, pushing a motor cycle. Five minutes afterwards the man in plus-fours rode off rapidly through the darkness, along the Salthaven road, and Stevens, shaking himself like a wet dog― for he had spent the whole afternoon on the moor― tramped on, on his long walk back to Stranover.

As his figure disappeared along the cliff road, another figure appeared from the direction of Hetton village. It walked quickly to the top of the flight of steps which led to the Turkish Café.

After a moment's hesitation the young man ran down the steps, and knocked on the door of the Turkish Café. The door opened, and, outlined in the doorway, the woman in the gold kimono gazed at the face of the man who stood before her. Then, with a little cry, she collapsed in a dead faint.

The young man who was none other than the second Russian― the man who had informed Peabody that he had heard no shots at the farm― produced a small toothpick from his pocket, and stood picking his teeth, calmly regarding the prone figure on the floor before him. After a moment, he stepped over the woman, dragged her into the Café, shut and locked the door and sat down. Presently she stirred; her eyes opened.

The young man smiled sardonically, and lit a cigarette. "Well, Madame Steitlin," he said in Russian... "What have you to say?"

8

The nine o'clock train was just about to pull out of Salthaven station, and Peabody, alone in his carriage, was congratulating himself on the fact that, at least, he would have time and opportunity to think. He was not allowed to think for long, however, for at the last moment the carriage door opened, and the man in plus-fours jumped in. He was still looking quite pleased with himself, and there was still a raindrop perched perilously on the end of his nose.

He puffed vigorously at his pipe, and sat down in the opposite corner of the carriage, regarding with great interest the photographs on the other side of the carriage.

Peabody recovered from his surprise at' seeing this mysterious individual, once more made up his mind to come to a complete understanding with him. "I'd like a few words with you," he said, abruptly. "I don't know who you are or what you are, but it seems to me. that-you have spent the greater part of this afternoon and evening in following me about. When you first spoke to me this afternoon I thought you were just a chatterbox; afterwards there seemed to be rather more behind what you said than I thought at the time. There has been some pretty weird business going on In the vicinity of Sepach Farm and. I believe you've got something to do with it. Incidentally, I may as well tell you that I'm going to make it my business to see that the police are informed of what has happened this afternoon."

The man in plus-fours blew a perfect smoke-ring across the carriage.

"Well, of course, you know best," he said gently, "but, do you know, I've always found that it's an awfully good thing not to interfere in matters which don't concern one. I might as well say that I don't know what you were doing hanging about the Stranover road this afternoon, but I would not think of saying such a thing, for the very simple reason that it isn't my business. Live and let live, is what I say."

"I've no doubt," said Peabody, "that this is a case of live, and let not live. There has been murder done this afternoon; somebody is responsible; for all I know it may be you."

"Exactly," said the man in plus-fours, blandly. "It's pretty obvious that people don't get murdered unless somebody's done it. But, by the way, where has this murder taken place?"

Peabody looked straight into the grey eyes of the man in the plus-fours.

"There has been murder at Sepach Farm," he said, "and you know it."

"I don't," said the man In plus-fours "and if there's been a murder at Sepach Farm what have you done with the body?"

Peabody sat back and gasped.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well," said the man in plus-fours, "when you were in the farm, or, rather, when you were just leaving it, you know, when that weird woman in the gold kimono came up the road, I was trying to light my pipe under the trees on the opposite side of the farm. I could not do it because of the wind, so after you left the farm I went in just to light my pipe, you know, and I looked all over the place, and I could not see anybody. Still, you never know, perhaps somebody moved them."

"I see," said Peabody, "I said that a murder had been committed, and yet you, who have seen no bodies, refer to 'them.' So you did see the two bodies at Sepach Farm? I believe..."

The man in plus-fours leaned over towards Peabody. His jaw had set in quite a determined manner, and his eyes were very hard.

"Now, look here," he said, "let's finish with this nonsense. Whatever you have seen, or whatever you have heard this afternoon and this evening, if you value your own skin, I advise you to keep it to yourself. In other words, mind your own business. What has happened at Sepach Farm has got nothing to do with you. As a matter of fact, I don't know why you've been hanging about the place, neither do I care, but I tell you this, and I mean it. You say you are going to the police― all right! Go to them, tell them your story about Sepach Farm, tell them your story about the shots and bodies! I tell you they won't believe you. They will tell you that you are mad; that you are suffering from hallucinations. Try it, and see. In the meantime, take a tip from me and keep away from Sepach Farm. It never was a very healthy place if the tales they tell in the neighborhood are true, and it's certainly not likely to be a health resort now."

And, with these remarks, the man in plus fours got up. put on his cap, knocked out the little chubby pipe, and walked down the corridor of the train towards the dining-car.

Peabody, knowing that there would be no meal served on the train at this hour, wondered, why he had gone, but, presently, glancing down the corridor into the dining-car, he saw the man in plus-fours, sound asleep, a beneficent smile on his countenance, at peace with all the world.

Peabody, in spite, of all his suspicions, had to admit that this, weird individual certainly did not look like a murderer.

He leaned back against the carriage, endeavouring vainly to make some sense out of the jumble of weird events which had transpired during the day. He was terribly worried, and the thought of Irma, recurring every two or three minutes, almost drove him mad. It was with a sigh of relief that he saw the lights of Victoria Station come into view.

Arrived, he dismissed everything from his mind except the story he was to tell O'Farrel. He would tell him nearly everything; that Irma, when she had left him originally, knew the secret of the Ray; but he would not tell O'Farrel that the woman in the gold kimono was Irma. For some reason which he could not explain, he wanted to keep this knowledge to himself. He could bear that O'Farrel should think that Irma had stolen the secret of the Ray, but he could not bear that Irma should be suspected of the murders at Sepach Farm, although deep inside. Peabody himself thought that she had played some part in the double crime.

9

O'FARREL. clad in a brilliant crepe de chine dressing gown, his feet poised on the end of his writing desk, lay back in his chair, and listened with rapt attention to the story which Peabody-told. '

Then he selected a cigarette from the box on the table, inserted it in a long holder, and smoked for some minutes. "All very interesting," he said eventually, jumping up from his chair and walking, up and down the room, "but may I ask this? Why do you consider that your wife has anything to do with this business? You say that, before she left you, years ago, you had told her the secret of this ray, and the fact that this unfortunate individual signalled to you the formula doesn't necessarily mean that he obtained it from her. It may have been stolen from somewhere else."

Peabody realised instantly that O'Farrel had put his finger on the one weak spot in the story. Had he told O'Farrel that the woman in the- gold kimono was his wife, the connection between her and the knowledge of the ray formula on the part of the murdered man at Sepach Farm would have been obvious; but he said nothing. O'Farrel regarded Peabody intently for a moment; then he continued: "Beyond that, the whole thing is rather interesting. Briefly, I take it your story is this: You are walking' along a road and are accosted by a stranger in plus-fours, who asks you a lot of ridiculous questions. Further along the road you meet another stranger, a Russian, with a limp. By some means or other he knows your name. Further on you find a black georgette gown lying in the rain in front of a mysterious Café, in which some enterprising lady, dressed in a gold kimono, is having what is usually described as a 'good cry.' A little later― on your way to the farm― you pass a young foreigner, probably a Russian, you think. His clothes are quite dry, which would seem to indicate that he had been standing up at the farm; but he says that he has heard no shots,-although you say he must have heard them. Add to this a couple of corpses on the first door, and our plump friend in plus-fours hanging round generally, and it would seem that we have the makings of a very fine story."

O'Farrel blew a smoke-ring into the air, and watched it sail across the room. ,

"There is only one thing that I am certain about," he went on continuing his restless pacing. "I think I can elucidate the mystery of the georgette gown."

"Can you?" said Peabody. "What is the explanation?"

"My dear fellow,'' said O'Farrel, "if you wanted to keep a woman in a certain place what would you do?"

"I should lock her in," said Peabody.

"Exactly," said O'Farrel, "and that is why the door of the Turkish Café was locked; but whoever locked the woman in the gold kimono in the Turkish Café made doubly certain by taking away her clothes. That is the reason that she was dressed in a gold kimono, and that is the reason that the individual who locked her in, in his hurry, dropped her georgette gown outside the door. The same individual, to whose clothes one of the diamante buckles on the gown had probably stuck, dropped this buckle at Sepach Farm at the bottom of the stairs, where you found it. Therefore," said O'Farrel, "I would say that the young man in. the dry clothes was with the woman in the gold kimono at the Turkish Café before the rain started, just before you spoke to the man in the plus-fours. He goes off, after having locked our lady friend up in the Turkish Café, and dropped her gown outside, straight up to Sepach Farm, either does a little bit of shooting himself or sees somebody else do it, waits till the rain is over, and then walks back towards the Turkish Café, probably for the purpose of releasing the lady. When he sees you, however, in order to divert suspicion, he turns off and goes towards Hetton village. Very interesting."

"It is," agreed Peabody, "but the thing is, what are we going to do? My idea was that if we returned tonight to the farm we could hide those bodies."

O'Farrel spun round. "Why. Peabody," he said, "this isn't a bit like you. Your duty is, obviously, to inform the police; yet, I find you coming to me with some scheme about hiding bodies. I don't think you've told me the truth," said O'Farrel, "or, if you have, it hasn't been the whole truth. Another thing, you insult my intelligence by suggesting that Kenkins lends us his assistance. I don't like Kenkins. He reminds me of a logical elephant both from the mental and the physical point of view, and I'm certainly not going to be mixed up in any crime investigations assistance by Mr. Kenkins. Therefore, Peabody, my lad, you will have to do without my help." O'Farrel stuck another cigarette into the long holder, and grinned. at Peabody.

Peabody was amazed. He had thought that O'Farrel would jump at the chance of being in on a first-class mystery. He realised that O'Farrel had quickly discovered the weak part in his story, and was convinced that he had not told the whole truth, but even this did not explain O'Farrel's unwillingness to embark on anything which looked like an adventure.

For a moment Peabody was inclined to tell O'Farrel the whole truth; to inform him that the mysterious woman in the gold kimono was Mrs. Peabody, but after an instant's hesitation he resolved on his policy of silence.

"You go round, and get old Kenkins to help you." said O'Farrel. "He's the fellow for you. In the meantime I'm fairly busy. I've got to think out the ending of a short story to-night, and get it finished before twelve. Come back and tell me when you have elucidated the mystery."

Peabody got up. More surprised at O'Farrel's attitude, he thought the best thing he could do would be to go round and see if Kenkins would assist him-Kenkins who O'Farrel described as a logical elephant, but whose logic was often as useful as O'Farrel's Irish intuition. At the same time he felt intense disappointment in not having O'Farrel's help.

He shook hands with O'Farrel, who walked with him to the front door.

Outside, in Gower-street, a taxicab was crawling past.

"There's a cab," said O'Farrel, "jump into that, and you will be at Kenkin's place in five minutes. Give him my love, and say I hope his pet rabbit dies! Goodnight!"

As Peabody stepped into the cab O'Farrel shut the door. He had thrown off his air of lazy nonchalance, and dashed up the stairs of his flat three at a time. Inside, he rang for his man.

"Sparks," said he, "go round to the garage and get my motor-cycle. See that the petrol tank's filled, and bring it back here as quickly as you can. I'm going to the country; l may be a few days. Be quick, Sparks!"

Sparks disappeared, and O'Farrel, going into his bedroom, changed quickly into a suit off tweeds. Fifteen minutes later, after having consulted a road map, in the face of a head wind, and with the rain bearing on his mackintosh. O'Farrell rode rapidly over Waterloo Bridge. There was a smile on his face. Before him lay the mystery of Sepach Farm, and O'Farrel liked mysteries-but he preferred to handle them alone.

10

PEABODY, smoking his pipe in Kenkin's consulting room, was gratified by the reception of his story. Kenkin was a great believer in Peabody, and had signified .his .willingness to help in any way he could, more especially when, be heard that O'Farrel had refused to have anything to do with the mystery. Kenkins, who had a certain heavy contempt for the airy persiflage of O'Farrel and his semi-cynical attitude towards life, felt rather pleased that he was to have the opportunity of assisting Peabody.

"You know, Peabody," said Kenkins, "there, is one thing I can't understand, and that is, the remark that this man in plus fours made to you in the train. You remember he said, 'You say you are going to the police. All right! Go to them, tell them your story about Sepach Farm, tell them your story about shots and bodies. I tell you that they won't believe you. They will tell you that you are mad, that you are suffering from hallucinations.' Well," said Kenkins, "that is a funny thing for him to say. If he were not blunting it could only mean one thing, and that was, that he knew that for reasons best known to themselves, the police would do their best to keep this business at Sepach Farm quiet, even if it meant telling you that you did not know what you were talking about. I propose we call the bluff."

"How?" asked Peabody.

"Oh! That is simple enough," said Kenkins. "Let's go round to Scotland Yard, tell them the story, and see what they say. They can easily get into touch with the local police."

Peabody thought for a moment; he realised that, if Kenkin's idea was not correct, by going to Scotland Yard he would be raising a hue and cry. At the same time, it was obvious to him that the police had got to know sooner or later, and he knew, too, that if he acted quickly, and returned  to the farm, after going to Scotland Yard, he could assist Irma to escape, if necessary, before police inquiries were made. After all, he knew that it .was impossible for her to have any hand in the actual murders.

"All right," he said eventually, "let's go to Scotland. Yard now. "We will soon see if the man in plus fours was bluffing or not."

Things move quickly at Scotland Yard, and five minutes after passing the portals Peabody and Kenkins were sitting in Sir John Scarrell's office, he having been summoned from the House nearby.

Peabody, who was getting rather tired of telling his story, waited impatiently to hear what the Assistant Commissioner would have to say. Sir John Scarrell pressed a button on his desk.

"Your story is an amazing one, Mr. Peabody," he said, "and I shall have to ask you to wait for half an hour while I investigate."

He turned to tile police-inspector who .bad entered the room in answer to his bell.

"Get through to the chief constable at Stranover, Jevons," said' Sir John, "and ask him to get into touch with Hetton-on-the-Sands station. I want a, responsible officer sent up to a place called' Sepach Farm near Hetton, to report on any out of the way occurrences which may have transpired this afternoon and evening in that district."

The inspector went off, and Peabody and Kenkins waited patiently. Twenty minutes afterwards, Sir John Scarrell, in response to a message, left the room, and when he returned he was smiling rather peculiarly, Peabody thought.

"Mr. Peabody," he said, "I don't know whether you are trying to pull our legs, but the inspector in charge of Stranover Station informs me that there are no bodies at Sepach Farm, and that, far from any murders being committed there (his afternoon, his police-sergeant, a most responsible officer, was actually standing up from the rain in Sepach Farm at the time you tell me these weird events happened."

Peabody rose to his feet amazed.

"Perhaps," went on the Assistant Commissioner "you are not very well, your nerves may be out of order. I have known people suffer from hallucinations before."

Peabody was about, to speak but Kenkins jabbed him with his arm.

"I think you may be right" said Kenkins suddenly to Sir John Scarrell. "my friend. Peabody, has not been at all well lately, and I think it is quite possible that he has been imagining things. He needs a holiday. Come on. old man. Sorry to nave disturbed you, Sir John."

So saying; Kenkins took the astonished Peabody's arm, and led him swiftly out of the building. Outside he summoned a cab.

"That clinches it, Peabody," he said, "the man in plus-fours was right. There's something on at Sepach Farm, something that's so big that even the police are trying to keep this business quiet. By Jove! I'm beginning to see things now. Don't you see? The man in plus-fours knew what was going to happen at Sepach Farm that afternoon, he was looking for-somebody, possibly trying to stop it happening, I should say that the man in plus-fours is a detective. Anyway, there's nothing to be done at the moment, but I looked up the A.B.C. before we came out. There's a train tomorrow to Stranover at 6.30 in the morning, and I propose we catch that. In the meantime, you'd better sleep at my place. We'd better turn in as soon as possible."

This was easy to say, but they sat in front of Kenkin's fire until two thirty, discussing the strange turn which events had taken. Peabody guarded his tongue carefully so that he should not give away his own particular secret.

At the back of his mind there still lurked some little amazement, that O'Farrel had turned the whole thing down so inexplicably. Peabody might have been still more amazed had he known that the moment he ascended Kenkin's stairs on his way to bed Etienne O'Farrel had already arrived at Sepach Farm!

11

IN spite of the fact that another drizzle of rain had begun and that he was thoroughly tired after his fast ride to Sepach Farm, O'Farrel felt quite pleased with himself as he pushed open the rickety wooden gate which led to the farm courtyard.

On the journey his mind had been busy with the story which Peabody had told him, but O'Farrel, whilst having the greatest belief in Peabody's integrity, certainly did not consider that his friend bad told him the whole truth.

First of all, it was entirely unlike Peabody to get mixed up in an affair like this one unless there was very good reason, and, candidly, at the moment O'Farrel could see no reason. The idea had come to him that possibly Peabody was. endeavouring to shield someone, but who this somebody was O'Farrel had not the slightest idea.

He had refused his assistance to Peabody because his quick brain had told him that it was not very much use helping to solve a mystery when all the cards were not laid on the table. Secondly, the idea off being associated with the large and, to his mind, logical Kenkins did not appeal to O'Farrel in the slightest degree. But he was intensely intrigued with the whole business, and, in spite of the fact that he was very stiff and slightly wet, he was enjoying himself. O'Farrel loved mystery, and the bleak and deserted farm, standing on this lonely stretch of moorland, seemed to him to form an adequate background for the startling events which he was certain would take .place there.

He crossed the courtyard, pushed open the farm door, and stood in the hallway flashing a small electric lamp, which he produced from his pocket, about him. After a moment he began quietly to ascend the stairs, his electric torch in his left hand, and his right-hand round the butt of a small automatic pistol which he had slipped into his pocket before he left his rooms.

It had occurred to him that, as two people had already been shot at Sepach Farm, there possibility of more shooting taking place, in which case he had made up his mind to be the first person to shoot. At the top of the stairs he. stopped suddenly, and switched off his electric torch, for under the crack of the door on the left of the passage, the door of the-room in which Peabody, had told him the Russian's body lay, there camera gleam of light.

O'Farrel tip-toed along; the passage. Arrived at the door, which was closed, he knelt down quietly, and endeavoured to look through the key-hole. This, however, was impossible, as the hole was filled with the accumulated dust of years. After a second's thought he stood up, drew his pistol from his pocket, kicked open the door and stepped suddenly into the room.

The Russian still lay on the floor, his hands outstretched, clawing at nothing, and on the other side of the room, leaning against, the wall. her face drawn with fear and anxiety, was one of the most beautiful women that O'Farrel had ever seen. She was dressed in an exquisite black day gown, a strange attire, for that time of the day, O'Farrel thought. He slipped his automatic back into his pocket and took off his cap.

"Good evening," he said cheerfully, "have I the pleasure of speaking to the lady in the gold kimono?"

"Why do you call me that?" she asked.

O'Farrel grinned. "You do not look the type of woman who would wear a gown such as you are wearing for the purpose of visiting this farm," he said. "I therefore conclude that you put it on in rather a hurry; shall we say, because, possibly, your other and more suitable kit had been removed. After all, even that gown is more suitable than just a gold kimono."

"How do you know that I wear a gold kimono?" she asked.

O'Farrel did not answer for a moment. He had noticed that her accent was foreign, and an idea had come to his quick brain, an idea which would explain Peabody's peculiar attitude, the idea that this woman was Peabody's wife. He took his cigarette case from his pocket, stepped casually across the body of the Russian and offered her a cigarette.

"That will do your nerves good; cigarettes are awfully good for the nerves," said O'Farrel, as he lit it for her.

He took a cigarette himself; blew a few smoke rings airily into the air, and then spoke, watching her closely as he did so.

"I knew that you were the woman in the gold kimono." he said eventually, "because I was told that such a person was in the vicinity of Sepach Farm this evening, and by the description I should say that this lady was you."

She leaned against the wall. O'Farrel thought that she might faint any moment.

"Who told you that?" she whispered eventually.

"A very good friend of mine." said O'Farrel, "and surely, a very good friend of yours― Josiah Peabody."

O'Farrel sprang forward quickly, and caught her as she fell.

He had a little flask of brandy in his pocket and he poured a few drops through the beautifully curved, pale lips. In a few minutes she returned to consciousness.

O'Farrel, going to one of the down-stairs rooms, returned with a chair which he dusted. She sat down on it and in a little while seemed better. The brandy had brought a little flush to her cheeks. O'Farrel thought that she looked more beautiful than ever. Presently she commenced to sob quietly. O'Farrel, realising that she was safe for the moment, walked into the room on the other side of the passage, and looked at the body of the man in the fawn overcoat lying where Peabody had left it. After a few minutes, during which time he hoped that the woman in the other room had regained her composure, O'Farrel returned.

"Now look here, Mrs. Peabody," he said, "because I am certain you are Mrs. Peabody, I am not a detective, I am not a spy, I am a friend of your husband. He told me all about this business this afternoon, omitting the rather important fact that you were his wife. I realise now why he was diffident about going to the police Being a friend of his, I am inclined to help you as much as possible, even if you were mean enough to steal that ray formula which he seemed so perturbed about, but, in any event, it stands to reason that there's got to be an inquiry into all this business. Things don't happen like this in England without somebody being for the high jump. Don't you think that you'd better tell me the truth? It would be much the best thing to do."

She sat silently gazing straight in front of her, her long fingers plucking at the tiny handkerchief in her hands. O'Farrel moved a little nearer to the body of the Russian, and knelt , down, looking at the red blood stain on the coat. Then he looked at her again. "Did you do this?" he asked.

She thought a moment, and then looked about her like a caged animal seeking some way of escape. Eventually she nodded. "Yes," she said, "I killed him."

12

O'FARREL lit another cigarette. "You know," he said, "you're much too pretty to tell fairy stories, especially to Etienne O'Farrel, which, by the way, is my name. This fellow here," he continued, pointing at the body with his foot, "was shot by a revolver or automatic pistol of the largest calibre― a '.45. Incidentally, he was shot at a few yards range. I can see that because the back of his coat has been burned. Now, the most casual glance tells me that that hand of yours isn't big enough to go round the butt of a large-sized revolver, so I conclude, after, the manner of. Sherlock Holmes, that you aren't speaking the truth.

"One thing, however, is obvious," went on O'Farrel, growing more cheerful every moment, "It isn't the slightest bit of good hanging about this farm, it's much too depressing. It's also fairly obvious that Peabody and that ass, Kenkins, will be returning here at any moment. You don't feel like meeting the enterprising Josiah just at this moment, do you? Therefore, I suggest that you let me take you back to this mysterious Turkish Café of yours, and let you give me your word to stay there until I return for you. Probably Peabody and Kenkins will have arrived by that time, and then we can try and straighten things out. By the way, what, exactly were you doing here?" .

She looked up. "I was waiting for somebody," she said

"Were you?" said O'Farrel. "May I ask who?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you," she said.

"All right," said O'Farrel. "we will talk about that later. In the meantime let's go along to your Café. I suggest that a cup of tea would do you a great deal of good. If you are expecting anyone to come here I will tell them to Join you at the Café. Come along."

So saying, O'Farrel took the woman's arm, and led her out of the farm down the road, and into the Turkish Café..

Arrived there, he busied himself making her some tea. She sat gazing straight before her, thoroughly numbed with fear. O'Farrel considered that there was not the slightest possibility of her trying to escape. She was beyond that.

Having himself prepared the tea, he made her drink a cup, and, with a cheerful farewell, left the Café, and quickly made his way back to the farm. Here he wasted no time. He took off his mackintosh, put on a pair of gloves, turned the body of the Russian over onto its back, and commenced a systematic search. There was nothing on the body, not even a coin in the pocket. O'Farrel, disappointed, rose to his feet, stepped back, and scratched his head in perplexity. He shrugged his shoulders, and was about to leave the room, when he noticed something which made him stop. One of the heels on the dead man's boots looked higher than its fellow. O'Farrel took his pocket knife from his pocket, inserted it at the top of the heel where it joined the boot, and twisted the knife. A little chuckle of delight broke from him as the .entire heel came, off the boot. The inside was hollowed out, and in the cavity was a tiny oilskin packet. O'Farrel undid it with fingers which trembled a little with excitement. Inside the oil skin was a small piece of parchment. On the parchment in one corner was a printed red star and a number, and pencilled beneath it was "Rothenstarmer 736 Tottenham Court Road, London. England."

O'Farrel put the piece of parchment in his pocket. Then he stuck the heel back on the boot and turned the body over again on to its face, leaving it exactly as he had found it. Then he walked into the other room and searched the body of the man in the fawn raincoat. There was nothing to be found there, and he returned to the other room and put on his mackintosh.

O'Farrel believed in acting quick. He believed that the address on the piece of parchment was one which the dead Russian had intended to visit, and he believed that the star and the number constituted an identification mark. It was obvious, thought O'Farrel, that if the Russian had already visited the address in Tottenham Court Road, the piece of parchment would not have been so carefully concealed in the heel of his boot. It had been concealed there in order that it might evade any search. It seemed to O'Farrel that the next thing for him to do was to return to London immediately, visit the address in Tottenham Court Road, and, if necessary, produce the piece of parchment as evidence of his bona fides. He felt certain that at this address lay some important clue.

He walked over to the window which looked out to the front of the farm where he left his motor cycle. As he did so the moon appeared from the clouds, and cast a silvery beam of light on the strip of moorland which ran by the side of the farm. Standing under a tree, his pipe in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, was an individual whom O'Farrel had no difficulty in recognising from Peabody's description as the man in plus-fours.

For a moment the idea came to him to go and speak to this strange individual but, on second thoughts, be dismissed the idea from his head, and, running quickly down the stairs, he left the farm, started up his motor bike, and set off for London. Behind him lay the Turkish Café, and in it a woman who was waiting for something or somebody. O'Farrel felt a great pang of pity for her. Why, he hardly knew.

He realised that she would be expecting him to return, but, in O'Farrel's heart was a deep-seated desire to solve the mystery of Sepach Farm before Kenkins arrived, and he was going to consider nothing but this end.

Crouched over the handlebars of his motor cycle, with the wind and rain blowing in .his face, taking the corners at a perilous speed, O'Farrel sped back towards London.

He was supremely happy.

13

IT was nearly five o'clock when O'Farrel, tired out and covered with mud, rode slowly down the nearly-deserted Tottenham Court Road in search of 763.

He had come up to London at an almost impossible speed, and had been so intent on keeping his motorcycle upright on the slippery roads that he had thought very little about the interview which now lay before him.

O'Farrel had no delusions as to the danger of this interview. He realised that the man from whose body he had taken the piece of parchment was not likely to be in touch with individuals noted for their gentle outlook on life.

Eventually he found the house. It was a dirty old-fashioned place, standing back in a mean alley. On the door was a rickety knocker mended with a piece of rusty wire. O'Farrel, who believed in doing things first, and considering them afterwards, rapped loudly on the door, and waited.

After a few minutes he heard voices and a shuffling of feet, and then the door opened.

Framed in the doorway, which was dimly lit by a naked gas-jet flickering further down the passage, was an old woman. Her face was lined and dirty, and her eyes were like those of a snake. O'Farrel, thinking it best to say nothing, held out towards her the slip of parchment. She looked at it for a moment and then beckoned him in, closing the door quietly behind him. Then she went down the passage, and knocked on another door at. the end of it. The door was opened slightly by someone on the inside.

"He's come." O'Farrel heard the old woman whisper.

After a few moments' muttered conversation the door was pushed wide open, and a man stepped into the passage. As he stood directly under the flickering gas-jet O'Farrel was able to study him carefully. He was a short broad-shouldered individual dressed in an old double-breasted blue suit, beneath which showed the grimy collar of a dirty grey flannel shirt. His face was almost the color of a Chinaman's, but the broad nose and thick lips spoke of a touch of negro ancestry. He advanced, and looked steadily at O'Farrel.

"I am Rothenstarmer," he said, "Why have you come? Are you from Steitlin? Why is he not here himself?" He spoke in a tone of authority.

O'Farrel handed him the piece of parchment.

"Steitlin's held up," he said. "This afternoon he fell, and twisted his ankle badly. He sent me."

"Yes," said Rothenstarmer, "and what did he send you for? We're sick of waiting for Steitlin. For two months we've heard each week that Steitlin would be here next day. Always next day. Now he's come there's an accident― something else stopped things moving. We shan't always be so patient. You had better come Inside."

He led the way through the door at the end of the passage. Stepping over the threshold, and down two stone steps, O'Farrel,'' following Rothenstarmer, found himself in a big room which looked as if it might have been a cellar. The place was furnished with a few rickety tables, chairs, and old packing-cases, and, sitting about this place, dozing, asleep, or talking in whispers, were the most villainous crew that O'Farrel had ever seen in his life. Here and there through the dim light O'Farrel saw the face of a Chinaman or a negro, malevolent, bestial faces. At the far end of the room, leaning against the dirty wall, smoking, was a young man who looked as If he might at some time have been a gentleman.

O'Farrel was experiencing a decided thrill. His plan seemed to have worked. This man Rothenstarmer evidently believed that he was the accredited messenger of the dead Russian: the man for whom they were waiting; the man whose name was apparently Steitlin. He realised that he must be very careful. He had but to make one slip and he knew that he might expect short mercy from the assembly before him.

Rothenstarmer banged on the table. Those who were asleep woke up; those who were talking abandoned their conversation and looked with interest towards Rothenstarmer.

"Listen, comrades," said Rothenstarmer, "once more we are delayed. Apparently, as I told you this morning, Steitlin has arrived. In the meantime I am told that he has hurt himself― his ankle is twisted― so that, once again, we must wait; but I have told Steitlin's messenger, who is here, as I tell you now. that we will not wait much longer. For months we have worked in order to bring about the situation which now exists, and, come what may our plan must be put through within the next twenty-four hours. This is the message, comrades, that I propose to send to Steitlin. Unless, by to-morrow afternoon, Steitlin is here with definite instructions for us, to-morrow night we will go to Sepach Farm and we will carry through the business ourselves. Do you agree?"

A low murmur of assent came from the assembly. It sounded to O'Farrel like the growl of a hungry animal. Rothenstarmer turned to him.

"You hear?" he said.

"I heard all right," said O'Farrel, bluffing as well as he could, "but Steitlin cannot be blamed for falling down a flight of steps and twisting his ankle. Also, you know, be has been ill; besides, what is the hurry?"

Rothenstarmer laughed. "Hurry?" he said. "Are you mad? Look!" He pushed into O'Farrel's hand a copy of the evening paper, and pointed with a grimy finger to a paragraph on the front page.

O'Farrel took the paper from his bands, and read:-"No 6 Destroyer Flotilla, having finished the tactical exercises announced last week, will shortly return to its base. This Flotilla has now been at sea for five weeks. It is expected in the English Channel tomorrow night."

O'Farrel nodded. "You're right," he said. "There isn't very much time, is there?"

"There's not," said Rothenstarmer. "Six times, for some reason or other, we've had to put off our great stroke, the day for which we've planned, the day which will show the world that the Thirteenth International exists, and possesses both brains and courage. Take our message back to Steitlin and tell him that, whether we receive instructions from him or not, to-morrow night will find us at Sepach Farm. Goodnight, comrade."

He put out a grimy hand, and O'Farrel shook it heartily. Rothenstarmer then led the way back to the front door.

14

O'FARREL, standing once more in the Tottenham Court Road, was glad to breathe the clean night air after the stifling atmosphere which he had just left. He found himself more Intrigued than ever. What was the connection between the dead man at Sepach Farm and this villainous crowd who sat In cellars in the Tottenham Court-road? What was the connection between them and the fact that a torpedo flotilla would sail into the English Channel the next night? O'Farrel was tired out. He ached in every limb, but the excitement of the whole business acted on his nerves like a tonic. He knew that miles away in the Turkish Café the unhappy woman was waiting his return. O'Farrel wondered if anything exciting had happened' since he had been away. He made up his mind that he would return to Stranover. and at once. He refilled his petrol tank at a night garage, and set off for the second time that night, to Sepach Farm.

Crouched over his handle-bars, O'Farrel realised very certainly that something definite had got to be done before the next night. He smiled cynically to himself as he visualised what the atmosphere would be like when, in addition to the mysteries which bad already taken place, Rothenstarmer and his gang appeared on the scene. Of one thing O'Farrel was certain― they would be going there for no good!

In the meantime he busied himself with working out some plan of campaign with regard to the woman in the gold kimono. Knowing that she was Peabody's wife, O'Farrel felt that it was his duty to his friend to keep her out of any further trouble. In his mind a plan had already begun to take  shape, which was this: That, on his arrival, after seeing her, he would hire a car, drive her to the hotel at Stranover. and go back to the farm where he was certain he would find Peabody and Kenkins. O'Farrel chuckled to himself when he imagined Kenkin's face, and the surprise which would be registered thereon when he, O'Farrel told them the story of his night's adventures, and showed them what wonderful fellow he was, and what a march he had stolen on the pair of them.

These thoughts cheered him considerably, and, as the miles sped by, he found himself exulting in the excitement which had occurred, and which would probably continue through the next day. In his heart O'Farrel knew now that, having advised Peabody and Kenkins of the state of affairs as he knew them, they must inform the police that some more mysterious business would shortly take place at the farm. Having done this, O'Farrel imagined with a touch of regret that their part in the Sepach Farm drama would be finished.

His return journey was rapid, and he altered his route, enabling him to stop at Salthaven Station, and inquire of the solitary sleepy porter at what time the first rain from London arrived. The train left London at 6.30 he learned, and it was a slow train, arriving at Salthaven at 8.45. O'Farrel Imagined that Peabody and Kenkins would come down on this train, and would cut across country from Salthaven to the farm. Having obtained this Information, he re-mounted his motor cycle, and continued his journey down the Salthaven road.

Dawn was just breaking as O'Farrel approached the farm, the top of which showed ghost-like out of the slight sea mist which lay over the countryside. As he passed the farm, and the top of the Turkish Café came into view above the cliff edge, he saw a light twinkling in the window. O'Farrel, swayed by some unknown motive, pulled up at the farm, entered it, and went upstairs. His idea was to see if the place was as he had left it, or If any other intruders had been there since his previous visit.

But the place was unchanged. He examined the hall and stairs for muddy footmarks but there were none and upstairs the bodies lay as he had left them. He descended the stairs and returned to his motor cycle, which after a moment's thought, he pushed into a clump of bushes on the other side of the road. Then he walked quickly towards the Turkish Café. As he was about to descend the stairs which led to the Café door, the door opened, and a figure appeared. O'Farrel saw that it was the young man whom Peabody had described to him, the man in the tweed suit, the man who had not heard the shots at Sepach Farm. O'Farrel descended the stairs quickly, and stood face to face with the other.

"Good morning," he said brightly, "how do you do?"

For reply the young man aimed a sudden blow at O'Farrel who ducked and In a minute the pair were struggling fiercely. O'Farrel, who was in good condition, felt that he was more than a match for his adversary, but it was obvious to him that the other knew little of the science of boxing. As the young man aimed a wild blow at O'Farrel, the latter sprang aside, and closing suddenly, he upper-cut his adversary fiercely. The young man crumpled up, and dropped to the ground, almost senseless. O'Farrel, leaning up against the cliff-side to recover his breath, gazed with some amazement at the recumbent figure before him.

"Well, my friend," he said eventually, as the man struggled to his knees. "I think you are much too precious to be allowed to escape. I think I am going to tie you up, and deposit you at Sepach Farm for a bit. That seems to be the headquarters for everybody in this neighborhood."

O'Farrel took off the leather belt which he wore round his mackintosh, and with which he intended to bind the young Russian's hands, and advanced for the purpose of carrying his scheme into execution. As he did so, the Café door opened, and the woman appeared, but she was not the sobbing, piteous woman of the night before. She held her head proudly, and in her right hand was a small automatic pistol.

"I don't think so," she said quietly. "You will let him go, and it you try to stop him I shall shoot you."

O'Farrel grinned and shrugged his shoulders. By this time the young man had regained his feet, and stood, rubbing his jaw. Then, at a signal from the woman, and with a malevolent glance at O'Farrel, the young Russian ran swiftly up the steps leading to the Cliff Road, and disappeared from view.

With the departure of the mysterious young man the attitude of the woman changed. The hand holding the pistol dropped to her side, and O'Farrel thought, as he stood looking at her, that there was a look of entreaty in her eyes.

After a moment he spoke: "Well, my lady of the gold kimono," he said, "I think I know your secret." He lit a cigarette casually, watching her out of the corner of his eyes. "That young man is the man who did the killing at Sepach Farm," said O'Farrel. "Why are you trying to shield him? I'm afraid it won't be much use. We don't allow double murderers at large in England you know."

She started. "He did not kill both...." she murmured... "not both... only Steitlin."

She stopped suddenly; and then as suddenly seemed to come to a conclusion. She turned to O'Farrel.

"You. are a friend of Captain Peabody― my husband" she said brokenly. "I will tell you the truth."

She turned and led the way into the Café, and O'Farrel followed.

15

WHEN the 8.45 train arrived at Salthaven Junction, and Peabody and Kenkins stepped out on to the platform, the slight mist, which, seemed to hang over the moorland perpetually, and the continual drizzle of rain, made Peabody more depressed than ever.

During the journey down the association of his wife with the murders at Sepach Farm had taken ominous shape in his mind, and even the rather forced cheerfulness of Kenkins (so obviously forced that it depressed Peabody more than ever) cheered him not at all. They walked down the road towards the farm in silence. Peabody's mind was already on the scene within the farm as he  had last seen it. The philosophical Kenkins, whose medical mind was entirely unperturbed at the thought of seeing dead bodies, was endeavouring to figure out why the calm and rather conventional-minded Peabody was so interested in this affair.

Arrived at the farm Peabody pushed open the rickety gate, and, ascending the stairs, led the way towards the room on the left of, the passage. On the threshold he paused with an exclamation, and, turning quickly, walked into the opposite room.  Kenkins, looking round the doorway, saw the reason for Peabody's surprise― the bodies were gone!

Kenkins produced a pipe from his pocket, filled and lit it. "This rather upsets your ideas doesn't it, Peabody," he said. "Scotland Yard tell us that the local police know nothing of any murders at Sepach Farm; yet, between the time you left here last night, and now, someone has removed two particularly heavy corpses. If what you have said is correct there are only three people beside ourselves who knew of the existence of these bodies. They are the woman in the gold kimono, the man in plus-fours, and―"

"And who else?" asked Peabody.

Kenkins grinned. "Etienne O'Farrel," he said, with a cynical smile. "I have been thinking about O'Farrel and I have realised why he refused his assistance. The fact bf the matter is he didn't want to be associated with me in this business; he doesn't like me; I'm much too logical for that scintillating young Irishman― too heavy. It would be like O'Farrel to come down here immediately after you left him last night and interview this mysterious lady who has a predilection for wearing gold kimonos, and, if he thought sufficiently of her, assist her in removing the bodies."

Peabody said nothing. He had a decided idea that the logical Kenkins might be right.

"Now, look here," Kenkins continued, "let's take it that O'Farrel did come down here, and that, at least, he knows something about the removal of these bodies. Knowing that that young, man is very fond of comfort, I will wager that at he present moment he is doing himself very well as regards breakfast at the nearest hotel or inn. Do you know of one?"

"That would be the Crown Inn at Stranover," said Peabody, "there's nowhere else."

"All right," said Kenkins, "let's go over there. If we find O'Farrel there we can, at least, discover what he's been doing since you left him last night"

Peabody nodded. He was thoroughly discomfited at the turn which events had taken. The tangled skein was becoming more tangled, and he could see no way out.

They left the farm, and started on their long walk across the damp moor-land. They had .walked two miles, and were passing a thick coppice, when, suddenly. Peabody stopped and put his hand on Kenkins' arm. From the coppice there emerged an individual― the man in plus-fours. He was looking as cheerful as ever, although very wet, and the little chubby pipe was hanging out of the corner of his mouth as it had been when Peabody first saw him. Peabody commenced to speak, but the man in plus-fours stopped him with a gesture.

"Now, look here," he said, "I told you last night in the train, Captain Peabody, that wise men mind their own business. I told you that Sepach Farm at the moment was a particularly unhealthy place, and I told you that if you went to the police and told them your story they would tell you that you were suffering from hallucinations. Well, you went to the police, and they told you that, but, in spite of my warning, I find you hanging about here again. I have had enough of you, and I'm going to take steps to insure that your interference is at an end."

Four particularly stalwart individuals appeared out of the coppice. Peabody attempted to struggle as two of them approached him, but he was soon overpowered. Kenkins, always logical, noticed the stalwart and somewhat disciplined bearing of the men. He thought that they might have been soldiers, or sailors possibly.

Within five minutes Peabody and Kenkins, with their hands trussed behind them, were being led towards a deserted shed which stood at the bottom of Deep End field, two miles from the farm. Arrived at the shed, they were unceremoniously pushed inside, and the door locked behind them. Peabody sat down on a pile of wood with a muttered curse. The whole thing had got beyond him, but Kenkins, always observant, noticed that the lock on the shed door was entirely new, almost as if someone had known that the shed was to receive prisoners.

16

WHEN he had locked the door of the shed at Deep End the man in plus-fours stood, with his binds in his pockets, thinking deeply. One would have imagined that he was as perplexed as Peabody. After a minute he spoke a few words to the four men who, touching their caps, walked off across the moor towards Stranover. The man in plus-fours, who looked very tired, shook some of the rain from his coat, and struck off diagonally towards the large patch of  gorse which stood on the south side of Deep End field As he approached, two men came out lo meet him.

"I have just locked the enterprising Peabody and another fellow in the shed." said the man in plus-fours. "What they are doing down here I don't know. Peabody went along to Scotland Yard and interviewed Sir John Scarrell. Scarrell rang through to the Chief Constable at Stranover. I was there and told him what had happened at the farm. I told him, too, that that the matter must at all costs, be kept out of the hands of the local police; that, somehow, he must persuade this Peabody that the whole thing was a myth or a matter of nerves, or something; rather a difficult thing to do, I grant you. The whole thing is beyond me," the man in plus-fours continued. "I think..."

"It seems simple enough to me, Grant," said one of the other men. "You know that Steitlin was coming to Sepach Farm. It is fairly obvious that he was going to meet somebody. That somebody apparently saw him and Philipson. If this fellow Peabody walked into the farm casually, it is fairly obvious that he would go to the police about it, and if, after Scarrell had told him that he was suffering from hallucinations, he still believed in his own story, what is more logical than that he should return and bring somebody with him to verify it."

Grant grinned. "There will be precious little verification!" he said. "I had the bodies taken to the Stranover police mortuary this morning, but I wish to heaven I had seen and spoken to Philipson before they got him. Philipson was the only man who really knew anything about this Steitlin business. My instructions were to follow Steitlin from the time he left Helsingfors until he arrived in England, I was on the same boat. Directly Steitlin landed I telephoned Philipson, who told me to meet him at Sepach Farm at 6 o'clock. He told me also that Steitlin would make direct for the farm. I stuck to Steitlin as far as Stranover, but I lost him there, and made up my mind that I would get on to the farm ahead of him. On the road I passed this fellow low Peabody, and, thinking that he might be one of Philipson's men, I asked him the code question: 'Do you know a man named Truesmith?' His replies convinced mc that he knew nothing of the matter. I left him, and cut across the moorland towards the farm, but a mist came up, and I lost my way. I walked back to the cliff road, and, as I arrived, there were two shots at Sepach Farm. This fellow Peabody was just coming up the steps from, the Turkish Café. He thought I had not seen him, and stood UP from the rain under a tree. I went down the Café steps and found at the bottom a black georgette gown lying In the rain. Then I made up my mind I would go up to the farm and report to Philipson, but this Peabody was ahead of me. He went into the farm, and came out just at the moment that the woman came' up the road from, the Turkish Café. When she saw him she turned tail and went back. Peabody, after a bit, cut across country for Salthaven Junction. I was not certain at the time, as to whether he had anything to do with the woman or not, so I went to the station on my motor-cycle, went up to town by the same train, and en route advised him to keep his mouth shut.

"One thing stands to reason," he continued, "something's going to happen at this farm. What it is only Philipson knows, but he's dead, but I'm going to hang on here until it does happen, and Mr. Peabody, who, if our London people know what they're talking about, is quite an innocuous individual, is going to stay in the tool-shed with his friend until I do know.

"I've got to find out why Philipson was at the farm waiting for Steitlin; I've got to find out what Steitlin wanted at the farm."

"You know all you want to know about Steitlin," said the man who had not yet spoken.

"I don't," said. Grant. "I know that Steitlin is a member of the Thirteenth International, the most select murder-club employed by the scum of Soviet Russia. I know that he was responsible for the blowing-up of the Lithuanian Embassy last year, and I know that there are about fifteen murders tacked on to his name, but I don't know what he wants at a deserted, empty farm, stuck here on the English sea-coast, and I wish I did. He was a dangerous man, was Steitlin."

He knocked, out his pipe on the palm of his hand.

"Bracknell," he said, "go back to Stranover and keep that fat station-inspector amused and happy. Hang on there till you hear from me. You, Tesswood, go over to Salthaven Junction and keep your eye on any new arrivals. I rather fancy we shall have some company at Sepach Farm before the day is out. So long!"

The two men went off. Grant, his hands in his pockets, moodily walked back towards the farm. He was very perturbed, although he was not of a nature-as no man is after fifteen years in the Secret Service-to be up-set by unimportant happenings, but the situation at the farm worried him; he was in the dark.

He approached the farm from the moorland side, pushed his way through the gap in the fence, and walked across the courtyard towards the door. As he reached the farm door it opened, and, with a beneficent smile on his face, Etienne O'Farrel stepped out. O'Farrel looked quite pleased with himself. He was getting quite a kick out of life.

"Well," said Grant, his hands in his pockets, his feet wide apart, "what the devil do you want here, and who are you, anyway?"

O'Farrel examined his fingernails of his right hand with care.

"You funny little man," he said. "I'm getting rather tired of you. I've heard that you've been hanging about this farm since last night. I don't like people who hang about."

"You don't," said Grant. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

O'Farrel did not reply, but he acted very promptly. Closing his fist, he hit the unfortunate Grant squarely between the eyes. The man in plus fours went down like a log, and O'Farrel, whistling cheerfully to himself, went inside the farm. He returned after a moment, carrying a piece of rope with which he trussed up the unfortunate Grant. In the far end of the courtyard, on the moorland side, stood a dilapidated barn, and into this O'Farrel dragged the unconscious Secret Service man, whom he placed on a pile of old sacks which stood in the corner. Then, with his cap over one eye, and whistling more cheerfully than ever. O'Farrel walked off in the direction of the Turkish Café.

In thus disposing of Grant, O'Farrel bad carried out his usual routine of doing things first and considering them afterwards. He was suspicious of Grant, and yet he had no means at the moment of finding out exactly where Grant fitted into the jig-saw of events at Sepach Farm. He believed, however, that within the next few hours be would put his finger on some point from which he could start a real investigation, and he considered that .this investigation would be easier with the man in plus-fours out of the way. Too many people were curious about the murders at the farm, O'Farrel thought, and he believed in the elimination of the unimportant.

That Grant might be on the side of the forces of law and order had occurred to the young Irishman; yet he believed the chances that he was in league with the murderer or murderers were just as great. He was taking no chances and he felt relieved that― at any rate for the moment― there would be no further interference from the individual who now lay, cursing quietly to himself, in the barn.

17

IT was the logical Kenkins who discovered a means of escape from the tool  shed in Deep End field.

Peabody had contented himself with sitting down and cursing and then glumly considering the hopelessness of the situation, but Kenkins, having managed to wriggle his feet out of the cords which bad bound his ankles, wandered about the tool, shed in an endeavour to find some means to get his hands, which were tied behind his back, free.

Eventually be found a jagged nail sticking out from the side of the shed which suited Kenkins excellently, and, by standing with his back to it, and working, the ropes against it, after three-quarters of an hour's work he succeeded in getting his hands free. He then freed Peabody from his bonds, and they jointly considered how they might get out of the tool shed. This was fairly easy, for the boards were old and rotten, and in one comer of the shed had already begun to crack.

A determined onslaught on this weak spot with a chopper, which they found in the shed, soon made a hole large enough for Peabody to wriggle through. Kenkins followed with difficulty, and arrived on the other side bathed in perspiration after his struggles. Outside they stood looking at each. other; neither had any set plan in his mind.

The mist had now risen, and the sun was making an endeavor to shine through the clouds. Peabody, walking round the shed, saw something, and signalled to Kenkins. To their left about a hundred yards away, and almost between them and Sepach Farm, stood another of the old-fashioned barns, which had evidently been used for storage purposes when the farm was inhabited. Approaching this barn furtively, and with occasional glances over his shoulder, was the young man whom Peabody immediately recognised as the young Russian he had met on the Salthaven road the afternoon before. He drew Kenkins back behind the cover of the tool shed, and, looking round the corner, he saw the young man enter the barn. Kenkins, after Peabody, had told him who the young man was, considered for a moment. "Look.here, Peabody," he said eventually, "it's ten to one that this fellow was actually in the farm at the time those murders took place, and I think that it's very probable that he either committed them himself, or he knows who did. Let's capture him! We are two to one, and, after all, if he thinks that the game's up, he may talk."

Peabody agreed. He was feeling so hopeless about the whole business that he was prepared. to take any steps which might bring them to some definite conclusion.

After a short consultation they separated. Peabody, making a wider detour, worked his way over the moorland and round to the other side of the barn, whilst Kenkins, taking advantage of such cover as the bracken and gorse provided, took the direct line. When they arrived they saw that the barn door was slightly open. They listened, but not a sound came from within, and, after a moment, Peabody pushed open the door, and they entered. The barn was quite dark inside except for a patch of light which came through the open doorway. They peered into the darkness, but heard and saw nothing. Suddenly an electric torch was flashed into their eyes.

"Come in, gentlemen," said a quiet voice, "but don't try any tricks. I have you covered, and I should not mind shooting either, or both of you. In the slightest degree."

As their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they saw the young man, this Russian, who spoke English so well, sitting on an overturned wheel-barrow on the other side of the barn a large automatic in his hand, smiling.

"May I introduce myself?" he said. "My name is Irietoff."

Peabody started involuntarily. So this was Irietoff, one of the names which the man in the fawn rain coat had signalled before he died.

"I should put that gun down if I were you." he said. "You won't gain anything by any more shooting."

Irietoff smiled, and, in spite of the fact that neither Peabody nor Kenkins had any reason to like him, they felt irresistibly drawn to this insouciant young man who sat there dangling the heavy automatic between his fingers with a particularly good-humored smile playing across his well cut, features. He extracted a cigarette case from his pocket with his free hand, then a match box, deftly struck a match, lit his cigarette and threw the case to Kenkins.

"Help yourself, gentlemen," he said. "Incidentally may I know the reason for this visit?" His smile became even more bland.

"Now, look, here, Irietoff," said Kenkins, "don't you think it's time that all this play-acting ceased? My friend here saw you coming down the Salthaven, road yesterday afternoon. Immediately after two shots were fired and two people killed at Sepach Farm. You said that you didn't hear those shots. We know that you must, have heard them. Although it was raining hard, your clothes were not wet, and the only place where you could have sheltered from the rain was at the Farm. You either killed those men yourself, or you know who did it. The best think you can do is to tell the truth."

The young man" considered for a moment; then, still smiling, he looked up.

"I don't know if you are police-officers," he said, "and I don't care very much.  Perhaps I killed somebody at Sepach Farm; perhaps I didn't; but, if you are police-officers, I would like you to know that the lady who keeps the Turkish Café had nothing to do with these killings. I mention this because I may have been seen talking to her, and I should not like her to be mixed up in this affair."

"That's very nice of you," said Peabody. "May I ask why you are so. careful of this lady's reputation?"

Irietoff grinned. "That's my business," he said, "and I don't wish to discuss it with you. Personally, I quite realise that I must be captured sooner, or later. I am a stranger in England, I have been here only a few days. I have no friends, and my work is done."

His face became serious for a moment. "I came to this country for a purpose," he continued. "I came to kill Steitlin and I have killed him."

During the time that Irietoff had been speaking Kenkins had been edging imperceptibly towards him. Irietoff, concerned with what he was saying, his hand, which held the automatic hanging listlessly by his side, was taken by surprise as Kenkin,. with a sudden leap, sprang upon him, knocking him off the wheelbarrow. Peabody sprang to his friend's assistance, and in a moment, the Russian was disarmed. He appeared to accept his capture with equanimity, and made no attempt to struggle, which, indeed, he could not do, seeing that the large Kenkins was sitting comfortably on his chest. Within a few minutes their captive was trussed up as securely as possible with the pieces of rope which Peabody fetched from the tool shed. Kenkins, quite satisfied with the proceedings, wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"Well, Peabody," be said, "what's the next move?"

Peabody considered. "Well, we've got the man who murdered Steitlin." he said, "although, I must say, I prefer the murderer to the murdered. If this fellow didn't kill the other man I'd like to know who did. I think the best thing I can do is to leave you here with this fellow while I get over to Stranover as quickly as possible and try to find out what O'Farrel's been up to."

"All right," said Kenkins, "but be as quick as you can; I'm not too keen on being left in the middle of moors, with murderers."

Peabody grinned, "I won't be long," he said, and made off across the moor towards Stranover.

18

ONCE out of sight of the barn and Kenkins, Peabody changed direction, and, turning to the left, made his way away from the moor towards the cliff road. He struck the road about five hundred yards from the Turkish Café, in the direction of which he now walked rapidly. Peabody was feeling better. Irietoff's remark that the woman had nothing to do with the murders at the farm had cheered him, and he felt that the time had come for an explanation.

His heart beat rapidly as be approached the steps leading to the Café. He visualised Irma, not as the woman in the gold kimono running through the rain  towards a deserted farm, a woman associated in some way with murders and murderers; but as Irma that he had known, the woman he had met and loved years before in Russia, the woman who had shared his honeymoon in happier days on these very roads and moors.

He ran down the steps quickly. The door of the Turkish Café, was open, and he went in. He found the switch, and turned on the light. Illuminating the long richly-furnished room about which an atmosphere of perfume still lingered. The place was empty. Peabody walked across the room, through which he had seen her disappear on the occasion of his first visit, and up the winding flight of wooden stairs which led to the first floor; but there was no one there.

The two rooms upstairs consisted of a bathroom and a bedroom. Peabody, standing cap in hand, in the bedroom, almost sensed the presence' of Irma there. The room was quietly elegant, and on the dressing table Peabody noticed, with a catch in his throat, a large silver-framed photograph of himself in uniform― the photograph which he had given her. He looked round the room, but found nothing to indicate where she might be. A wardrobe was open, and inside hung the gold kimono. As Peabody was about to close the door, he noticed something lying in the corner of the wardrobe.

He bent down and picked it up. It was a small close-fitting felt hat. which, seemingly, had been thrown hurriedly into the wardrobe, or knocked down from peg when the garment was removed. Beneath it was. a crumpled piece of paper. Peabody picked it up. and gave a start, as he recognised O'Farrel's handwriting. He took the note to the window and read it.

"Dear Lady-in-the-GoId-Kimono," it said, "things are moving rapidly. I have conveniently disposed of the gentleman in plus-fours, and now all is well. I shall be back In an hour with a car, and will take you to happier quarters .for the time being.

'Sincerely

Etienne O'Farrel."

Peabody stood regarding the note with a puzzled expression. It proved  conclusively that O'Farrel had been at work, and apparently, had dealt with matters with his usual rapidity. Peabody was glad In his heart that Irma bad. been taken away from the morbid atmosphere of the Turkish Café. The next thing was to find O'Farrel.

He left the Café and set off briskly along the Stranover-road. It was nearly midday and the sun was shining. Peabody, to his great surprise, found himself whistling. For some reason, which he could not understand, he felt quite cheerful. It was ten minutes past one when he arrived at the Crown Hotel at Stranover. He greeted the portly landlord, who was slightly surprised at the sudden reappearance of his guest who had so mysteriously disappeared. Peabody explained that be had been called to London on business and promptly examined the hotel register. There, before him, was the bold and straggling writing which proclaimed that Mr. Etienne O'Farrel, of London, was a guest at the hotel.

Peabody asked the clerk the number of O'Farrel's room.

"Mr. O'Farrel's out sir," the girl said, "but before he left be asked me to give you this note. He said you'd be along shortly."

Peabody laughed outright. O'Farrel was certainly clever. He had guessed that Kenkins would know of his determination to solve the Sepach Farm mystery by himself, and knew that Peabody would eventually try to find him. "O'Farrel thinks of everything," mused Peabody as he tore open the envelope.

Dear old Peabody, he read.

"I expect by this tune that that oaf Kenkins, would have guessed that I would come down here by myself. Of course I did. You didn't think f was going to be left out of a first-class mystery like this, did you? And, my lad, I'm doing very well. I've practically solved the whole thing. By the way don't worry about the lady in the gold kimono. She Is quite safe, but I rather fancy that she doesn't want to see you just at the moment. Meet me at Sepach Farm at 12 o'clock to-night, by which time I think I shall have the whole business cleared up. Tell Kenkins to go to blazes!

Yours,

E. O'F."

Peabody put the, note in his pocket, and made for the hotel garage. His intention was to drive back, pick up Kenkins and the captive, and hand Irietoff over to the local police. Candidly, Peabody could not see how O'Farrel could have solved the mystery without capturing Irietoff, which he certainly had not done, but Peabody thought that matters could stand as they were until O'Farrel turned up that night, when they could compare notes.

Peabody understood that Irma did not wish to meet him at the moment, but he felt more settled in his mind about her now that he was certain that she was safe.

At 11.30 Peabody stopped the car, which he had hired, outside Sepach Farm, and, cutting across the courtyard, passed the small barn in the corner, in which at this very moment Grant, the unfortunate individual in plus-fours, was a prisoner, made his way towards the his barn on the moor where he had left Kenkins. He felt that Kenkins would be thrilled and annoyed at the new developments, for Kenkins disliked O'Farrel Just as much as the cynical O'Farrel disliked Kenkins, and it was with a smile on his face that he kicked open the barn door. The eight within, however, removed the smile rapidly. Leaning up against the wheelbarrow, and trussed up with yards of rope, was the portly form of Kenkins. Irietoff was gone.

"Who did this, Kenkins?" asked Peabody, as he proceeded to untie the portly medico.

"Who," spluttered the infuriated Kenkins, "who, but that young swine, O'Farrel! A quarter of an hour after you left here he arrived suddenly and demanded the release of Irietoff. When I asked him what the devil he meant, and why he wanted Irietoff released, he told me that it was to oblige a lady, and that I could jolly well mind my own business. Naturally, I refused, and before I could say a word, he set about me. If I had been fifteen years younger," said Kenkins, "I'd have given him a good hiding; as it is, I was no match for him.

"Anyhow to cut a long story short, after he had-finished with me he released this fellow Irietoff. They tied me up. and off they went together. When I see O'Farrel again I'll tell him what I think of him. First of all, he says he isn't coming down here, then he comes, and having arrived here, he appears to have leagued himself with every odd murderer that he can find in this vicinity; and, as far as I can see," continued the disgruntled Kenkins, "the place seems to be positively teeming with them."

Peabody grinned and endeavored to soothe the ruffled Kenkins' feelings. Of one thing he was certain: O'Farrel had some very good reason for releasing Irietoff, a reason which be did not wish to explain to Kenkins. Peabody imagined the delight with which the enterprising O'Farrel had tied up his ancient enemy, and left him in the barn.

In a few words Peabody told Kenkins of O'Farrel's note and the appointment at the farm at midnight. Kenkins and Peabody, walking back to the car, agreed that the best thing they could do was to go to bed and get some sleep which ' they sorely needed, so that they would be fresh for anything which the night might bring forth.

Arrived at the car, they drove rapidly back to Stranover, Kenkins grumbling at the perfidy of O'Farrel, and Peabody at the wheel, his mind busy with thoughts of Irma gazing before him at the long vista of road.

19

IT was half-past four in the afternoon when O'Farrel, whistling, and with his cap on one side, opened the door of the small barn in the courtyard, and, entering, regarded the trussed-up figure of Grant.

Grant, who had not forgiven O'Farrel for the extremely efficient manner  in which he had been knocked out, regarded the young Irishman with a malevolent glance.

"I advise you to untie these ropes," he growled. "I've had about enough of you, and if you think you can go about knocking out and tying up members of one of His Majesty's services you will soon find your mistake."

O'Farrel grinned. "So that's it, is it?" he said. "I wondered exactly what you were, but you see I thought you were on Rothenstarmer's side."

"What's that," said the man in plus fours. "Rothenstarmer! What the devil do you know about Rothenstarmer?"

O'Farrel took out his cigarette case, inserted a cigarette between Grant's lips, lit it, and then one for himself. "I don't know very, much about Rothenstarmer," he said, "but I do know I don't like his face at all, and that he and a party, who are rather undesirable friends of his, are coming down here tonight.  In the meantime, supposing l do untie you, how do I know that you are telling the truth?"

"Go over to the police station at Stranover," said Grant, "and come back with the Inspector. You will find out soon if I am telling you the truth or not, and you will be kicking your heels in a police cell an hour afterwards, my young friend."

O'Farrel considered. "Well," said he, "that sounds all right to me, but joking apart now, if I untie you will you promise to be good?"

"If you don't untie me," replied Grant, "you will find there will be some more murders at Sepach Farm before another night is out."

This remark decided O'Farrel. He took out his pocket knife, and cut Grant's bonds. The latter stretched himself; and sat rubbing his chafed wrists.

"Now, look here," he said, "how are you mixed up in this business, and what do you know about Rothenstarmer?"

O'Farrel, taking a seat beside Grant, told him briefly of his search of the two bodies the night before, and of Rothenstarmer and his gang in the Tottenham Court Road.

"You see," said O'Farrel, "this business has become a sort of competition between that ass, Kenkins, and myself. As a matter of fact," he continued, smiling quite happily, "I expect I've been doing all sorts of things to annoy you, as, for instance, my releasing Irietoff."

"Irietoff!" exclaimed Grant. "So he's here. Where is he?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," said O'Farrel. "You see, I gave him my word I wouldn't. The fact of the matter is this: I expect you know about his mysterious lady in the gold kimono. Well, whatever happened at Sepach Farm, I am certain she knows all about Rothenstarmer but she would not say a word until I promised to bring Irietoff, the young Russian, back to her. You see," said O'Farrel, "I'd already taken her to a safe place. She told me that she was going to meet Irietoff in that big deserted barn about two miles from here, so I said I'd go and fetch him. When I got there I found Kenkins on guard. Naturally, he wouldn't let me have Irietoff, so I had to be a bit rough with him."

Grant gazed with amazement at O'Farrel. "You've got your nerve," he said, with a touch of admiration in his voice. "It seems to me that we've all been running round tying each other up. I'd put that fellow Peabody and the other man, who, I suppose, is the Kenkins you refer to, in the toolshed in Deep End field, but apparently they escaped. But tell me, when are you going to see this pair― the woman and Irietoff, again?"

"Well," said O'Farrel, "I've had a big idea about this business. I thought I'd get everybody together In the same place. You see, this fellow, Rothenstarmer, said that he and his crowd, would be down here tonight What they are coming down here for I don't know, but for some reason or other he showed me a-cutting about a torpedo flotilla coming into the English Channel. I can't make out the connection. Now I've got an appointment with Peabody and Kenkins at Sepach Farm at twelve o'clock tonight, and I've made an appointment with the woman in the gold kimono and Irietoff to meet me at the Turkish Café at a quarter-to-twelve. You'd better come along, too. It looks as if we might have a pleasant evening," said O'Farrel.

Grant considered for a moment; then he looked at O'Farrel, and his face was grave.

"Now, look here," he said, "I'm going to trust you, because I've got to trust you. Things are pretty bad round here and unless something is done very quickly they're going to be worse. This Rothenstarmer is an agent of the Thirteenth International, one of the worst murder-class the world has ever known. What they're going to do down here, and what they're going to meet Steitlin for I don't know, but it was for no good. You say your motor bike is hidden near here. Well, do this. Ride, over to Salthaven Junction, and speak to Sir John Scarrell at Scotland Yard. Tell him that you are ringing up on my instructions, and tell him that, whatever happens, Rothenstarmer and his gang must be arrested in London, and not allowed to get down here tonight.  It's fairly obvious, I think, that they won't be down here before evening. When you've done this, get the next train to London, go to the Yard, see Sir John, and tell him exactly what has happened down here up to date."

"That's all very well," said O'Farrel, "and I'll do that willingly, but what about my appointments tonight?"

Grant grinned. "Don't you worry about your appointments," he said; "I'll keep them for you, and I promise you that your friend, Kenkins, shall know of the extremely Important part which you've played in this business. If you like to return to-morrow morning you will find me at the Crown at Stranover, and I'll let you know what's happened. Now, off you go, and get a move on."

O'Farrel hurried off. He was tingling with excitement. He was not at all surprised to learn that Grant was a Secret Service agent He hurried to the clump of bushes where he had left his motor-bike, and, after some difficulty, for the machine was very cold and wet, he started the engine, and dashed off up the Salthaven road.

Dusk was falling, and the mist beginning to rise again. As O'Farrel sped swiftly along the road, he turned over in his mind the dramatic events of the last twenty-four hours. O'Farrel, as a writer, had always believed that truth was stranger than fiction, and it was being amply proved that his belief was., correct.

Suddenly, a few yards before him, lying across the road, O'Farrel saw a tree trunk. He cut off his engine, put on the brakes; then, as several figures sprung out from the sides of the road, he endeavored to disengage himself from the bicycle but it was too late. As something struck O'Farrel on the head he saw before him, for just one moment before he lost consciousness, the malicious, snarling Rothenstarmer. Then the world became blank.

20

KENKINS, lying very nearly fully dressed in his bed at the Crown Inn, Strathnover, turned over the events of the day in his logical and quiet way. Kenkins was thoroughly dissatisfied with the whole business.

With the capture of Irietoff he had imagined that Peabody and himself were in possession of one of the main actors in the drama, and that, through him, the truth would soon be known.

The enterprising O'Farrel, however, by releasing Irietoff, had upset Kenkins' calculations. O'Farrers remark that he was releasing Irietoff in order to "oblige a lady" made Kenkins furious each time he thought of it. Although Kenkins had not made the acquaintance of the woman in the gold kimono, it was obvious to him that the woman was connected with the business, and he thought that the impressionable O'Farrel, having fallen in love with some impossible person at first sight, had now allied himself with the opposing forces, and that he, Kenkins, must therefore regard O'Farrel, for the moment anyhow, as his enemy.

Kenkins was curious. He had not seen half enough of Sepach Farm to please him. He had not seen the Turkish Café of which Peabody had told him, and, deep-rooted in Kenkins' mind was an idea that' the secret of the whole business lay in the Turkish Café.

He looked at his watch. It was nearly eight o'clock. An idea occurred to Kenkins, Why should he not getup and say nothing to Peabody, drive over to the Turkish Café and do a little investigation on his own account?

He quickly put the idea into practice, and ten minutes later found him driving along the cliff road in the car which Peabody bad previously hired. Far down the road he could see a light twinkling in an upper room in the Café. . Kenkins drove the car on to the edge of -the moorland, and left it by some trees. Then be continued his way on foot towards the Café. As be stood at the top of the steps leading to the Café door, the sound of two voices came up to him-one a man's voice, hard and collected, the other the tremulous voice of a woman. Cautiously Kenkins crept down the steps. The Café door was half open. He listened intently. A figure moved inside the door, and Kenkins recognised it― It was Grant, the man in plus-fours.

"I am sorry to have found it necessary to have brought you back here again," Grant was saying, "but I warn you your position is a serious one. Apparently you, assisted by this Mr. O'Farrel, have aided the man, Irietoff, who may be wanted on a charge of murder."

Kenkins crept down the remaining steps, and across to the door. Peering through, he saw Grant, his pipe still hanging out of his mouth, facing the woman, who, her hands clasped, sat in a chair.

"Another thing," continued Grant, "I understand you've been living down here, running this Café. Now it stands to reason that you would do very little business down here. What was the real idea in the Turkish Café. Tell me that."

The woman looked up. "I was waiting for Steitlin," she said.

"What for?" asked the man In plus fours.

"I was waiting for Steitlin," she repeated, "to kill him if necessary. I didn't do it; someone else did it for me, but I would rather have killed Steitlin than he should have used the ray, for that's what he came here for."

"My God! " said Grant, "not the Q ray!"

"Yes," she whispered; "don't you see what they were going to do? The ray is concealed between the eaves of the roof of Sepach Farm. They selected that place because it's supposed to be haunted... No one ever came near it. When it was ready they were going to await the opportunity and use it― X knew the ray was here, and I came back, to England, and opened this Café so that I could wait, and so that when Steitlin came. I could kill him."

Grant whistled. "Jove!" he muttered. "Now I know why Rothenstarmer's coming down to-night."

He turned to the woman. "Stay here," he said. "I'm going to take a look at this ray. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. If you've told me the truth you'll be all right."

He turned to the door, and, passing Kenkins, who had drawn back flat against the cliff wall, dashed up the stairs, and up the road towards Sepach Farm.

The whole thing was clear In his mind. Shortly after midnight the torpedo flotilla would come into the Channel. Grant understood now what Rothenstarmer had meant by the newspaper cutting. They were going to use the ray on the flotilla!

He reached the farm gate, pushed it open, crossed the courtyard, and stepped from the door into the farm. Hardly across the threshold, he stopped with a jerk. The hall of Sepach Farm was lit up by a guttering candle in an old bottle. Seated round the place were a dozen men, and, facing him, an automatic pistol in his hand, stood  Rothenstarmer!

Rothenstarmer grinned cynically.

"Pleased to see you, Mr. Grant," he said. "We're collecting people like you. I shall have an opportunity of paying off one or two little scores I have against you. Do you remember that little incident in Vienna in 1921?"

Grant smiled. "I made you laugh the other side of your face then, Rothenstarmer.  How long did you get ten years, wasn't it? And you escaped. I'll see you get taken better care of next time."

The smile faded from Rothenstarmer's face.

"There isn't going to be any next time,'" he snarled. "I'm going to finish you tonight. Grant. We'll have no more of your meddling. Take him away!"

Two of the men seized Grant, and led him to the barn in the courtyard. As his eyes fell on the recumbent figure of O'Farrel his hopes fell to the ground. There was no chance of help.

21

KENKINS, standing at the top of the steps by the Turkish Café, considered whether it would be best for him to follow Grant to Sepach Farm, but after a moment he dismissed this thought from his mind.

It now seemed obvious, by the snatches of conversation which he had heard, between Grant and the woman, that, at any rate, she was definitely implicated in the stealing of the ray. He, therefore, set off quickly for the car. with the intention of returning immediately to Stranover, and notifying  Peabody of what he had overheard. Strangely enough, at this very moment, Peabody was looking for Kenkins!

Like Kenkins, Peabody had been unable to sleep. Lying on his back gazing at the ceiling, he had gone over the events of the last forty-eight hours, and from the mass of conflicting points be had deduced one definite fact. These three  people,  Steitlin and Irietoff and the other man who had been killed at Sepach  Farm, were connected in some way by the Q Ray. Peabody had been so distressed at meeting his wife that he had, in the excitement which had followed, almost forgotten that the ray was probably the cause of all the trouble. Directly Irma had appeared on the scene it had taken second place. It seemed obvious to him that his wife had either given or sold his secret to someone for some reasons best known to herself, and that the result of this had been the murders at the farm. But even if this were so, what was she doing in the neighborhood? Why was she living at the mysterious Turkish Café? It occurred, quite suddenly, to Peabody, that he had never thoroughly searched Sepach Farm― even the logical Kenkins had not thought of that Peabody remembered that he had only looked into the one downstairs room, and had searched only the two rooms in which he had found the bodies. Further along the passage on the first floor at the farm was another room on the right, and on the left he remembered seeing an odd sort of loft reached by a wide step-ladder leading from the passage. It was now obvious to him that it was necessary that the place should be thoroughly searched, and if this were to be done the search should certainly take place before the meeting at midnight.

This idea took hold of Peabody's brain so strongly that he got up from the bed on which he had Iain fully dressed, and walked across the hotel passage to Kenkin's room, expecting to find that worthy sound asleep; be was amazed to find Kenkin's room empty. The bed had certainly been slept on, for there was the imprint of Kenkin's large body, but inquiries downstairs soon elicited the fact that Kenkins had taken the car and gone. Standing somewhat under-clad in the hotel lounge, Peabody came to the conclusion that Kenkins, thinking along the same lines as himself, had either gone back to carry out a further search at the farm, or had gone to the Turkish Café, where his natural curiosity might easily lead him. In any event, Peabody made up his mind that he would return to the farm; if he found Kenkins there, all well and good; if not, he could wait until midnight. He made up his mind to walk across the moorland, and a glance at his watch showed him that it was a quarter to ten.

He walked briskly. For once, the moorland seemed quite attractive. There was no sign of rain, and the moon, shining brightly, caused the trees and gorse to cast long shadows over the greensward. Striding along, Peabody wondered what the end would be.  It was obvious to him now that those in authority in London must be aware of the happenings at the farm, and that, however much the matter had been kept out of the hands of the local police, there must be an accounting soon, and it was Irma's position in this accounting that troubled Peabody.

The ray had become to him a thing of secondary importance, and he now realised and admitted to himself quite honestly that his main idea had been the protection of Irma.

But, even supposing that she were guiltless of any hand in, or any connection with, the murders, it seemed to Peabody that his own position was hopeless. He realised now, in his rather conventional way, that he still loved Irma, but that all his vague ideas that he might one day find her and that they might take up the threads of their lives together again, were simply hopeless ideas. It seemed definite to Peabody that she had married him simply to obtain the secret of the ray, for he had discussed it with her in the old days in Russia before he brought her to England, and he knew that, with the shadow of this inexcusable theft between them, this plot, in which their marriage had been, as far as she was concerned, merely a move in the game, would stand between them for ever like an ominous shadow. A great bitterness came over Peabody, and for once he felt almost a desire for revenge. Tonight, when he saw Irma for the last time, he made up his mind that he would tell her what he thought of her, and then he would dismiss her forever from his mind. But even as he thought this he knew it was impossible. He would never be able to forget her.

Standing on a rising slope of the moorland, Peabody looked down to where the gorse-covered grass led up to the tool-shed, which he could see plainly in the moonlight, in which, he and Kenkins had been held prisoners. Beyond it he could discern Sepach Farm, looking more ghostly than ever in the moonlight. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten, and he made up his mind that he must hurry.

At the bottom of the little hill was a clump of trees. As Peabody entered the shadows, he thought for a moment that he saw a movement, but he dismissed this from his mind as being due to imagination. He was nearing the other side of the little wood, when, passing a tree, a foot shot out, and neatly tripped him. Peabody endeavored to regain his feet, but before he could do so an unseen hand struck him a blow on the back of the head which half-stunned him. Out of the darkness came other hands, and in a few moments he was being half dragged, half-led across the country towards the farm. Peabody stumbling along, trying to clear his brain, and to think clearly, was hardly surprised. Nothing which might happen in this vicinity could surprise him any more, so that when the farm was reached, and he was led across the courtyard-the courtyard In which he could see the figures of men standing about in the darkness, and when the door of the barn in the corner was opened, and, by the light of the oil lamp which a foreign-looking man held within, he could see the figures of O'Farrel and Grant both bound. Peabody realised that the mystery of Sepach Farm was not over. A new phase had begun.

22

PEABODY was unceremoniously pushed into the corner in which the others sat. O'Farrel, his back against the wall, blinked vaguely, but Grant, the man in plus-fours, gave Peabody an odd smile.

"Well, Peabody," he said, "so they've got you, too. They're not a very nice looking lot, are they?"

Peabody looked at the other men in the barn. There were seven of them. They were the most villainous set of "toughs" that he had ever seen, he thought; men to whom human life would mean nothing at all.

"That damn woman's responsible for this; of that, I'm certain," continued Grant. "The information she gave me about the ray was simply to get me to go to the farm so that I might fall into the hands of this gang...."

Peabody's brain cleared. "The ray," he said. "The Q Ray." He turned to Grant. "So you think the woman is in league with these people?" he said.

Grant grinned. "I don't see what else l can think," he said. "I don't know who this woman is, but she told me she had taken this Turkish Café in order to wait for Steitlin, the Russian, the man who was killed. She told me that the Q Ray was here in the farm, and I, like a fool, came up to examine it. Well, I think tonight will be the end of us all. I wouldn't have minded so much, but they got O'Farrel first. I'd sent him over to Salthaven to get through to London. Still, if he had got there, it would have been too late to stop this gang getting down here; but the people In London might, at least, have sent help of some sort. As it is, we're cut off here; nobody knows we're here, and, if I'm not very much mistaken, the first unofficial experiment with the Q Ray will be made to-night We shall have the satisfaction of knowing that it will be made, and possibly, a British torpedo flotilla destroyed by it whilst we sit here helpless. I expect you wish you'd rather taken my advice, and kept out of this business, don't you?" continued the man in plus-fours.

Peabody shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "You see," he continued wearily, "I'm the inventor of the ray. My whole life, and something which was dearer to me than life, has been bound up in that ray. I don't think I mind very much now what they do with me."

Grant looked at him. "My God!" he said. "Now I know why you were so interested."

O'Farrel grinned weakly at Peabody. "We're in for it this time, old bean," he said, "right up to the neck. By Jove! I'd like to find the fellow who hit me on the head. Hallo! Something's going to happen. Here's Little Lord Fauntleroy again."

Peabody looked up.

The door of the barn opened, and Rothenstarmer appeared. He walked over to where the captives sat, and regarded them cynically.

"Well, my friends," he said, "this is a great evening― one of the best in my life. Rejoice with me. Soon, all sorts of things will happen at Sepach Farm, and I'm afraid that you three gentlemen will not have the pleasure of seeing tomorrow's sun."

The smile faded from his face and he spat viciously. "You, Grant have crossed my path before; on several occasions you've had the satisfaction of knowing that you've thwarted the plans of our great Internationale; the Internationale which will one day rule the world. As for you two other fools, I don't know who or what you are, except that you appear to be allied to him," he said, pointing to Grant. "But to-night we shall be rid of the lot of you, and we shall have shown the world that the Thirteenth Internationale is not to be trifled with."

He turned to one of the men who sat round him. "Bring in Irietoff," he said in Russian.

Two men appeared with automatic pistols in their hands, and between them walked Irietoff. He was still smiling, and he looked at Rothenstarmer with amused contempt.

Rothenstarmer kicked him viciously. "Laugh while you can, my friend," he said. "You will not laugh for long. The time of our revenge is here. You will not laugh in a little while."

"A rather late revenge, though," said Irietoff, in English. "You may kill me, Rothenstarmer, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that, first, I killed Steitlin."

Rothenstarmer stepped forward, and hit the young Russian across the mouth. Irietoff moved not an inch, and still smiled, although a thin stream of blood ran from his cut lip down his chin.

"Your time will come, Rothenstarmer," he said. "The forces of order all over the world are closing in on you and your childish gang of murderers. You've not long to go, and if I've done anything to help bring your foul activities to an end my life is well given."

At a signal from Rothenstarmer the two guards pushed Irietoff into the corner with the others.

"Untie their hands," said Rothenstarmer. "They cannot possibly escape now."

Rothenstarmer stood regarding them evilly, his lips twitching. Suddenly, outside in the courtyard, was a sound, of voices; then the clear tones of a woman's voice came through the open door. A man appeared with another lamp, and into the barn came the woman― Irma. Involuntarily Peabody started forward, but O'Farrel gripped his wrist. The woman walked slowly and imperiously across the barn. Rothenstarmer took off his cap. The other men shuffled forward. She was apparently a person of importance.

She stopped, facing the four captives.

"Well, my friends," she said, "you've endeavored to pit yourselves against the Thirteenth Internationale, and you've lost. Poor fools!"

Rothenstarmer stepped to her side He pointed to Grant. "This is the Secret Service man. Grant," he said, "the man who foiled us in Vienna, madame. The others I don't know, do you?"

Her eyes wandered over the faces before her. Then they stopped, and looked straight into Peabody's. For a moment he thought he detected a softening in their depths, then knew how wrong he was when he saw the sneer come over the beautiful features. She turned to Rothenstarmer.

"Rothenstarmer," she said, "this fool is my English husband; Captain Peabody, the inventor of the Q Ray, the man from whom I stole the formula. This is an opportune meeting."

Rothenstarmer nodded. "Madame Steitlin," he said, "I have had no opportunity before to offer to you my sympathy with regard to your husband's death, but here"― he pointed to Irietoff― "is the man who shot him. He died for your cause That is only one death, but tonight these four shall die, and, as the Q Ray leaps across the sea dealing death and destruction to this British fleet which passes tonight, Steitlin's death will be avenged. We shall give him a worthy funeral pyre of dead men, willed by the ray which you and he stole for our cause."

She nodded. Then she raised her eyes and they swept, once more, over the faces of the captives. Again Peabody thought that they lingered for a moment as they looked into his.

"You devil," be said thickly. "I trusted you... you fiend!"

She laughed. The sound cut Peabody like a lash.

"My poor, deluded friend," she murmured. "One cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs. You, unfortunately for yourself, and these people with you, are the eggs. It is necessary that you shall be broken." She shrugged her shoulders.

"You are a fool," she said. "I am not even sorry for you!"

23

PEABODY gazed straight before him, his face distorted with pain. The realisation that this woman could be so double-faced had shattered every ideal which he had ever possessed. Then a terrible wave of anger surged over him. His eyes blazed, and he was about to speak when O'Farrel's hand gripped his wrist once more.

"Don't be a fool, Peabody; she's bluffing," murmured O'Farrel, and then stopped speaking as another commotion in the courtyard caused the crowd within the barn to look towards the door. Into the barn strolled a tall broad-shouldered man, heavily bearded and with a face, thin-lipped and cruel, but powerful. He looked round the barn until his eyes rested on Rothenstarmer, who stepped forward.

'I'm Galtzakoff," he said in a tone of authority, "Chief Commissar of the Thirteenth International. Are you Rothenstarmer?"

Rothenstarmer nodded, and took from Galtzakoff's hand a leather case which he examined carefully. This, apparently, was Galtzakoff's identification, and in a minute Rothenstarmer handed it hack subserviently. The newcomer looked carefully at the captives, then back to Rothenstarmer. A sneer played over his thin lips.

"You're a poor fool, Rothenstarmer," he said. ''It seems that I arrived at an opportune moment. It seems that this woman, this aristocrat, has already succeeded in deluding you as to her real motives. But for the fact that I have travelled post-haste after Steitlin in order to prevent his death, which, unluckily, I was not able to do, our plan might yet have failed."

Rothenstarmer, amazed, spread his hands. "How was I to know?" he said. "Everyone thought this woman was with us, that she was Steitlin's wife."

Galtzakoff laughed. "That was a little fiction," he said, "which emanated from this Irietoff, her brother."

He noticed Peabody start. "You're surprised, my friend, the Inventor," he said, walking over to where Peabody stood, and looking at him with curiosity. "So you're the inventor of the Q Ray, the man whose work has made it possible for use to deal a master-stroke at this fleet of yours, this fleet which your ray, under our direction, will shortly wipe out." He smiled cynically. "Has she told you, my friend, how we knew that the mechanism for working the ray was installed at Sepach Farm? It's an amusing story.

"Years ago, during the Revolution, this woman, your wife, Irietoff's sister, escaped to north Russia. You met her and married her, but her brother was a prisoner in Moscow. You came to England, and our agents informed us that your invention was being considered by your British War Office. Oh! They were very clever, this War Office of yours. In order that no one should learn the secret of the ray, they installed the apparatus in the loft of this disused and deserted Sepach Farm. Here they were able to carry out their experiments without fear of interruption. Then, when the time was ripe, Comrade Steitlin came to England. Did you know that, whilst you were spending your peaceful honeymoon at Stranover one day, while you were out, Steitlin called at your hotel? He saw your wife. He told her that unless she obtained the formula of the ray from you, the formula by which the mechanism is set working, her brother in Moscow would die, and not a particularly nice death either," continued Galtzakoff.

"Our plan succeeded. She got from you the formula, but she refused to give it to Steitlin until she was assured of her brother's safety. Steitlin took her back with him to Moscow, in order that she should know that her brother was released, and, in order to facilitate their journey, she was described as Madame Steitlin. We kept our word. Irietoff, this Irietoff," continued Galtzakoff, pointing to the young Russian, "was released, and left Russia, and then our clever Steitlin informed the lady that she was a prisoner. She had been foolish enough to think we should let her go, too. Unfortunately, she escaped, and we heard no more of her, but years afterwards our agents in this country informed us that she had taken the Turkish Café on the cliff road near Sepach Farm. Unluckily this news reached me after Steitlin had left for England, for I guessed that she was waiting for him to return to this country, and that she would stop at nothing to prevent Steitlin using the ray.

"Other complications arose, I discovered, too, that Irietoff had followed Steitlin to England. We knew what for. We knew that he would kill Steitlin on sight, and I hastened after our comrade in order to prevent him from walking into a trap. I was too late. But for this young fool," continued Galtzakoff, glaring at Irietoff, "your plans would have succeeded perfectly."

Irietoff laughed. "Do you think so, Galtzakoff ?" he said. "I tell you that the British knew that Steitlin was coming. They were waiting for him."

"What do you mean?" demanded Galtzakoff.

"This," said Irietoff. "My sister told me that Steitlin had arrived at Stranover. I told her that I should kill him. She begged me not to, but asked me, instead, to go to the police, and inform them of his arrival. I refused. What did I want with the police? I locked her in the Turkish Café so that she could not give any alarm. I waited for Steitlin, not in the farm, but in the tree in the courtyard which looks through the first-floor window. Through the window I saw a man, the man in the fawn raincoat. He was waiting for Steitlin, too. When Steitlin arrived there was some quarrel. I could not see what happened, but, as the man turned to leave the room, Steitlin drew a pistol from his pocket. As he fired at the back of the man in the fawn raincoat I fired through the open window a moment too late."

"So that was how Philipson died," murmured Grant in O'Farrel's ear.

Galtzakoff laughed. "What does it matter?" he said. "Our sentries are all round the farm. Apparently the authorities have done nothing. Every stranger coming into Salthaven or Stranover is accounted for. We shall not be disturbed. In an hour's time, at two o'clock, this torpedo flotilla passes Sepach Farm three or four miles out at sea. Luckily, I, myself, know the mechanism of the ray. I fixed it for that hour; at two o'clock the ray will work. It will destroy everything before it. The front of Sepach Farm will crumble into dust, as will the fleet, and as will you, my four friends. For I can conceive no better idea than to place this clever inventor, his wife, and his friends in the front room at Sepach Farm, the room where Steitlin was killed. You will be able to test the usefulness of your ray yourself. Captain Peabody!"

24

HE TURNED to the men grouped about him. "Is this a good plan, comrades?"

A murmur of approbation went up.

Grant looked at O'Farrel and shrugged his shoulders. "Not quite so good, O'Farrel," he whispered. "There's no chance of any help arriving now. Our instructions were to keep this business as quiet as possible, and my only hope was getting you through to London with a message." A sudden gleam came into Grant's eyes. He leaned over to O'Farrel. "Do you realise," he said, "Kenkins isn't here. Supposing―

"Suppose nothing," said O'Farrel. "If there was a mistake to be made Kenkins would make it. He'd blunder into anything. I'd bet my bottom dollar they've captured Kenkins on the moor. It's no good thinking we shall get any assistance from him." He yawned.

"You know, Grant," he continued, "I came into this business for a thrill, and it seems to me I'm going to get one. Nasty fellow, this Galtzakoff. It's pretty rotten for you, too. Peabody," he said, "being done in by your own invention. What the devil did you want to invent the thing for?"

Peabody said nothing. He had moved to Irma's side. Looking into her eyes he could read the story of her years of danger and loneliness, years spent in trying to make up for the thing which she had been forced to do.

A great feeling of relief had come over Peabody. The fact that death lay in front of them did not trouble him. He knew that Irma loved him, and that they would meet their death together. There was a smile in her eyes. Peabody pressed her hand.

A man pushed his way into the barn and spoke to Galtzakoff. "Everything's all right," he said. We've a ring of men right round the farm. Everything's quiet, and no stranger has been seen near the place. I've been on the phone to the man at Salthaven Junction. Everything's quiet there. There hasn't been a telephone message for hours."

"Good," said Galtzakoff. He turned to Rothenstarmer. "Move these people into the farm," he said, "and tie them up. See that they're tied securely; it's one-thirty now. Rothenstarmer. When you've moved them into the farm, stay till a quarter to two. Then get back to London."

Rothenstarmer shrugged his shoulders. "London will not be a very safe place for me," he said. "Already they suspect me."

"As you like. My motor boat is moored at the foot of the cliff steps. I will wait in it for you. It is arranged that a tramp steamer shall be out in the Channel at three o'clock in the morning: to pick us up, and after the ray has done its work we will set out for it. Send the other men back immediately the prisoners are in the farm. They can return in the same way as they came. I shall go down to the boat now," continued Galtzakoff.

"When all is ready join me there, and see that no one enters the loft at the back of the farm. The ray is set for two o'clock, and there must be no meddling." He nodded to Rothenstarmer, then he returned to Irma. "Goodnight, Madame Peabody," he said. "I wish you pleasant dreams. You have an English proverb, 'Happy is the bride whom the sun shines on.' It is, possibly, unfortunate that the ray, which will presently shine upon you and your so clever husband is a little more dangerous than the sun's rays. Good-night." He bestowed an evil glance on Peabody, Grant, and O'Farrel, and, turning on his heel, left the barn.

Under Rothenstarmer's directions the captives were led across the courtyard into the farm, and up the stairs into the room on the first floor. Glancing down the passage, Peabody could see the short flight of wooden steps leading to the loft. He cursed himself for not having thoroughly examined the farm before. Here in this place which he had passed time and time again on his walks during the last seven years was his own invention, the 'Q' ray.

Four chairs were placed in the front room, and to these the captives were securely bound. Rothenstarmer, himself, examined their bonds carefully. He looked at his watch. "Nearly twenty minutes to two, my friends," he said. "You have twenty minutes to live. You may spend the time profitably in considering how much better off you would have been if you had not meddled with affairs which do not concern you."

"The men have all gone, Rothenstarmer,'' a man called from the doorway. "Shall I go?"

"Yes," replied Rothenstarmer. "Let the men pick up the cars where we left them, and return to London by different routes. You'd better go back by the train."

"What are you going to do?" the man asked.

Rothenstarmer grinned. "England will be a little too hot for me, I think," he said. "I shall go back with Galtzakoff to Russia. I shall go down to the boat now." He took off his cap in mock courtesy. "Good-night, my friends," he said, "and pleasant dreams."

They heard the footsteps of the two men descending the stairs, and the bang of the farm door as it closed behind them. A silence settled over Sepach Farm, and the sound of the sea.

beating against the foot of the cliffs, seemed very far away.

O'Farrel grinned ruefully at Peabody. "Rather a bad ending to the story, this. Peabody," he said, "and I thought it was going to be such a good one. Still this ray of yours ought to be a pretty quick business, and we've all got to die some time. Mrs. Peabody, you look amazingly cheerful. I'm glad death comes very quickly―"

"Why should I not be cheerful?" she replied. "I have had many years of unhappiness, and, at last, wherever we're going, we shall go together." She looked fondly at her husband.

"Listen!" said Grant suddenly. "What's that!"

The noise of a motor came through the night air.

"That will be Galtzakoffs motor boat," said O'Farrel. "They've started the engine. Clever devil, Galtzakoff. He knew there'd be some trouble flying about immediately the ray had functioned, and that he'd never be able to get out of the country. He's a wise man to make his getaway while the going's good."

The noise of the motor grew fainter, but as it disappeared they heard another noise, a quiet, regular, tick, so quiet that they could only just hear it.

Each one sensed what it was. They looked at Peabody,

"That's the ray," he said quietly. "It has a mechanical clock attached to it. It can be set like an alarm clock. It starts to tick seven minutes before the time fuse explodes. It must be seven minutes to go now. At two o'clock the detonator will explode, and the explosion sets my ray working."

The moon, emerging from the clouds, sent a silver stream of light through the window. Illuminating the front side of the dusty room. In the darkness the four waited silently for death.

25

THE minutes ticked slowly by. O'Farrel, realising the hopelessness of even any thought of escape, had accepted the inevitable, and had managed to tilt his chair back against the wall. He whistled softly to himself.

Grant, whose life had been spent in dangerous ventures, who had flirted with death on a dozen occasions, philosophically waited for the shattering explosion which would end his career, but to Peabody and Irma had come a great peace. Their two minds, which for years had been harassed and tortured with fears and doubts, were reassured, but soon when the novelty of this reassurance was passed a great regret came upon Peabody; a regret that at this very moment when life had taken on a new value it was to be ended.

Suddenly, O'Farrel tilted his chair from the wall.

"There was a noise downstairs. Did you hear it?" he said.

"Funny," said Grant, "I thought I heard someone move. Listen!"

The four strained their ears, but there was no mistake, somebody was ascending the stairs, and that somebody was fairly heavy, for the ancient stairs creaked and groaned under each step. O'Farrel, skewing round in his chair, managed, by the fitful light of the moon, to see the watch on Grant's wrist, which was tied to the side of the chair. It was one minute to two.

"My God!" said O'Farrel, "that sounds like Kenkins. Let's warn him for Heaven's sake; there's only a minute to go!"

He raised his voice, and bellowed, as loudly as he could, "Get out, Kenkins, and be quick; this place will be blown up in a minute," but the steps approached along the passage. The door opened, and the round, be-spectacled face of Kenkins peered round its edge, followed in a moment by the rest of that gentleman. Kenkins was an; extraordinary sight. He was plastered with mud from top to toe. His muddy face, running with perspiration which formed a series of miniature rivulets, gave him a most humorous appearance. He was breathing heavily.

"There's no need to worry," he said. "There's not going to be an explosion. I've seen to that." He turned to O'Farrel with a small smile of triumph on his face. "What you fellows would do without me I don't know," he said.

''Never mind about boasting," replied O'Farrel. "Look after Mrs. Peabody, she's fainted."

Kenkins brought a pen-knife from his pocket, and cut the ropes which bound Irma to her chair. In a moment he had freed the others, and O'Farrel ran round to the back of the farm where there was a water-tap. They were so concerned with Irma that, for a moment, their wonderful escape was forgotten. In a few minutes Irma regained consciousness.

For a moment a look of fear passed over her face, but then, as the memory of Kenkins' cheerful message and the sight of Peabody's solicitous face bending over her, came back to her, she smiled. O'Farrel, taking off his raincoat, made a pillow for her, and she lay happily on the floor holding her husband's hand.

O'Farrel, still curious, left the room, walked down the passage, and, ascending the flight of wooden steps, stepped Into the loft. It was full of a mass of disused furniture, bundles of straw, and all sorts of weird odds and ends, but the far corner, which had evidently originally been hidden by a packing case, had been cleared away. O'Farrel walked across the loft. An oil-lamp glowed dimly, showing the mass of mechanism which had been let into one side of the loft.

A hundred wires and steel tubes, intermingled, ran into a large steel cauldron-shaped apparatus. On the ground in front of the mechanism, and connected with it by a rubber tube, was a box, and inside this box a clock still ticked loudly. O'Farrel saw that the mechanism at the back of the clock had been removed. He returned to the others. Kenkins was sitting on a chair mopping some of the dust from his face. O'Farrel, taking a cigarette from his case, lit it, and approached his old adversary.

"Well, Sherlock Holmes," he said, tell us all about it."

Kenkins looked up. "There isn't much to tell," he said. "You see, I'm not one of those fellows like you, O'Farrel, who go crawling about the place walking into every sort of trap that's laid for them. I'm logical. I have a brain, which, luckily, isn't sufficiently brilliant to prevent me making a fool of myself."

He turned to Peabody. "I left the hotel, Peabody," he said, "because I wanted to have a look at the Turkish Café. I heard a conversation between the lady, whom I now know to be Mrs. Peabody, and Grant here. At the moment I had not the remotest idea on which side they were, and I made up my mind to rejoin you as quickly as possible, and tell you what I had overheard. But when I got back to the 'Crown' at Stranover I found you were gone.Then I decided to walk across the moorland in order that I might keep the appointment here at the farm at midnight. I'm not very good at climbing these hills and valleys," said Kenkins, "and, to cut a long story short. I tripped over a branch and fell down a hole, nearly drowning myself in the pool of water at the bottom," he added, ruefully contemplating his wet clothes.

"I was shaken rather badly, and I lay for a moment before I pulled-myself together sufficiently to get up. As I was about to climb out of the hole I heard voices, and soon, in the darkness,I perceived, a few feet away from me, two men. Further away to the left I could see in the moonlight another group of men, and away to the right still more. They seemed to be keeping in the shadow of trees and gorse-bushes. It occurred to me suddenly that Sepach Farm was surrounded, that, possibly, you, Peabody and O'Farrel had walked, into a trap. I listened to the men, and eventually I heard one of them say that you had been taken to the barn. I realised that the situation was pretty desperate, that there was not possibly, sufficient time for me to walk back to Stranover and summon aid, so I took a chance. I bided my time, and when two of the groups joined together into conversation I crawled through them, and started working my way towards the barn. I had a pretty tough time, too," said Kenkins. "Every thorn which could stick, into me stuck into me, every branch which could hit me across the face did so. Anyway, to cut a long story short. I eventually crawled up to the back of the barn. I looked through a crack; a few yards from me I could see O'Farrel and the rest of you. I heard Rothenstarmer talking. Then I saw Galtzakoff arrive, and heard him tell you exactly what he was going to do with you."

"I realised that there was not a moment to lose. I crawled away from the barn, right round Sepach Farm, and climbed through a window at the back. Luck was with me. All Rothenstarmer's men were together in the barn or on the far side of the courtyard. I ran up the stairs quickly, and into the loft where there was an oil-lamp, and saw where the mechanism of the ray was fixed. Luck favored me. On the floor by the lamp was a paper .written in French. It was a letter from Steitlin to Galtzakos and it told him exactly how to set the ray in motion. It was obvious to me that the important part of the ray was the detonator at the back of the clock, and it took me a few minutes only, with the aid of my pen-knife, to unscrew the attachment, and take off this detonator, the explosion of which I understood would set the ray working. Then I descended the stairs, and got out of the window just in time to get away as Rothenstarmer and his men brought you four into the farm. That is all." said Kenkins.

"Now I'd be glad if someone would give me a cigarette."

26

THE PARTY descended the stairs, and crossed the courtyard, passed through the battered gate of Sepach Farm, and stood on the road which led to Salthaven. The light of the moon was brilliant, and it bathed the surrounding moorland in a sheet of silver. To Peabody this seemed like an omen. To him, Sepach Farm and the drab country which surrounded it had been a place of misery and regret, but now, almost brilliant in the moonlight, it seemed to reflect his newly-found happiness. Kenkins and O'Farrel were, as usual, arguing.

"It's all very well," O'Farrel was saying, "but I still think you're an ass, Kenkins. If you had any sense, directly you put the ray out of action and knew that we were safe, you'd have made straight for Hetton Village, got help, and arrived back in time in order to cut off Galtzakoff and Rothenstarmer on their way to their boat. Fancy allowing those two precious devils to escape! Just like you, Kenkins! You never had a brain!"

Kenkins sniffed. "Haven't I?" he said. "I'm a man of peace," Kenkins continued, "a doctor. My business is to cure people, not kill 'em, but there are moments, when even a doctor has got to turn into an executioner. Galtzakoff and Rothenstarmer won't escape."

"What do you mean?" asked O'Farrel.

Kenkins took a long draw at his cigarette. "Just this," he said coolly. "When I unscrewed that detonator I noticed there was a small clock on the front of it which agreed exactly with the large one to which it was attached, the one connected with the ray itself. It seemed obvious to me that this clock worked the time fuse which caused the detonator to explode. So," said Kenkins with a grin, "I put the clock forward until the hands stood at half-past two, and pulled down the time-fuse lever according to the instructions in Steitlin's letter. After I knew you people were safe I ran like a long dog down to the Turkish Café. You see, Galtzakoff's motor boat was moored at the foot of the cliff steps which are about ten feet to the right of the Café. As I leaned over the edge of the Café railings, fifty feet below me I could see Galtzakoff's motor boat with a man in it. Presently Galtzakoff and Rothenstarmer arrived at the top of the steps, and the man got out of the boat and went up the steps to meet them. I took a chance," said Kenkins. "I aimed the detonator at the boat. I knew that if I missed it would only fall into the sea, and could do no harm, but luck was with me. The detonator hit the cushions in the stem of the boat, and bounced off right under the engine. Of course," said Kenkins, "the mechanism may have been injured, but if it isn't..."

He looked at his watch. It was twenty nine minutes past two. Then he looked at O'Farrel. Irma and Peabody had joined them. They had listened attentively to what Kenkins had been saying, and they all stood looking out to sea. Somewhere in the distance was Galtzakoff's motor boat. They had not long to wait. From out at sea came a rumble, then far out for one second a blinding flash of light illuminated the dark ocean, then all was quiet

O'Farrel lit another cigarette. "Exit Messrs Galtzakoff and Rothenstarmer!" he said. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, what about some breakfast?"

They set off across the moor towards Stranover. O'Farrel and Kenkins engaged in a long and wordy argument as to who had done most towards solving the mystery of Sepach Farm. With a grin Peabody realised that the pair would have food for quarrels for the rest of their lives, but he also realised that the enmity between Kenkins and O'Farrel was over, buried beneath the weight of those terrible moments before two o'clock at Sepach Farm.

Grant, his chubby little pipe still hanging out of the corner of his mouth, walked, deep in thought, with them. His part of the business was done, and done successfully. With the death of Steitlin, Galtzakoff and Rothenstarmer, the Q Ray was no longer a menace to the peace of the world Philipson had not died in vain.

A little way behind walked Peabody and Irma. They said nothing, but as their steps took them across the moors, which they had walked so many years before in those happy honeymoon days, their minds, were centred on the same thing. Sepach Farm, lying behind them, still ghostly and desolate in the moonlight, had stolen from them their happiness, and yet, in the strange manner of fate, it had brought it back to them once again. The voices of O'Farrel and Kenkins came dimly to them, although they were so near, as, hand in hand, they passed out of the turmoil and trouble of the past years, into the newly-found happiness which lay before them.

_________________

12: The Messenger Came at Midnight

Algernon Blackwood

Illawarra Mercury 13 May 1910

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to say through which sense, or combination of senses, I knew that Someone was approaching—  was already near; but most probably it was the deep underlying 'mother-sense' including them all, that conveyed the delicate warning. At any rate, the scene-shifters of my moods knew it too, for very swiftly they prepared the stage; then, ever soft-footed and invisible, stood aside to wait.

As I went down the village street on my way to bed after midnight, the high Alpine valley lay silent in its frozen stillness. For days it had now lain thus, even the mouths of its cataracts stopped with ice; and for days, too, the dry, tight cold had drawn up the nerves of the humans in it to a sharp, thin pitch of exhilaration that at last began to call for the gentler comfort of relaxation.

The key had been a little too high, the inner tautness too prolonged The tension of that implacable northeast wind, the 'bise noire,' had drawn its twisted wires too long through our very entrails. We all sighed for some loosening of the bands— the comforting touch of something damp, soft, less penetratingly acute.

And now, as I turned, midway in the little journey from the inn to my room above La Poste, this sudden warning that Someone was approaching repeated its silent wireless message, and I paused to listen and to see. Yet at first I searched in vain, The village street lay empty— a white ribbon between the black walls of the big-roofed chalets; there were no lights in any of the houses; the hotels stood gaunt and ugly with their myriad shuttered windows; and the church, topped by the Crown of Savoy in stone, was so engulfed by the shadows of the mountains that it seemed almost a part of them.

Beyond reared the immense buttresses of the Dent du Midi, terrible and stalwart. against the sky, their feet resting among the crowding pines, their streaked precipices tilting up at violent angles towards the stars. The bands of snow, belling their huge banks, stretched for miles, faintly gleaming, like Saturn's rings. To the right I could make out the pinnacles of the Dents Blanches, cruelly pointed; and, still further, the Dent de Bonnaveau, as of iron and crystal, running up its gaunt and dreadful pyramid into relentless depths of night.

Everywhere in the hard, black-sparkling air was the rigid spell of winter. It seemed as if this valley could never melt again, never known currents of warm wind, never taste the sun, nor yield its million flowers.

And now, dipping down behind me out of the reaches of the darkness, the New Comer moved close, heralded by this subtle yet compelling admonition that had arrested me in my very tracks. For, just as I turned in at the door, kicking the crunched snow from my boots against the granite step, I knew that, from the heart of all tills tightly frozen winter's night, the 'Someone' whose message had travelled so delicately in advance was now, quite suddenly, at my very heels.

And while my eyes lifted to sift their way between the darkness and the snow I became aware that It was already coming down the village street. It ran on feathered feet, pressing close against the enclosing walls, yet at the same time spreading from side to, side, brushing the window-panes, rustling against the doors, and even including the shingled roofs in its enveloping advent. It came, too— against the wind... It shot up close and passed me, very faintly singing, running down between the chalets aud the church, very swift, very soft, neither man nor animal, neither woman, girl, nor child turning the corner of the snowy road beyond the Cure's house with a rushing, cantering motion, that made me think of a Body of water— something of fluid and generous shape, too mighty to be confined in common forms.

And, as it passed, it touched me— touched me through all skin and flesh upon the naked nerves, loosening, relieving, setting free the congealed sources of life which the 'bise' so long had mercilessly bound, so that magic currents, flowing and released, washed down all the secret by-ways of the spirit and flooded again with full tide into a thousand dried-up cisterns of the heart.

The thrill I experienced is quite incommunicable in words. I ran upstairs and opened all my windows wide, knowing that soon the Messenger would return with a million others— only to find that already it had been there before me. Its taste was in the air, fragrant and alive; in my very mouth— and all the currents of the inner life ran sweet again, and full. Nothing in the whole village was quite the same as it had been before.

The deeply slumbering peasants, even behind their shuttered windows and barred doors; the Curê, the servants at the inn, the consumptive man opposite, the children in the house behind the church, the horde of tourists in the caravanserai— all knew— more or less, according to the delicacy of their receiving apparatus— that Something charged with fresh and living force had swept on viewless feet down the village street, passed noiselessly between the cracks of doors and windows, touched nerves and eyelids, and— set them free.

In response to the great Order of Release that the messenger had left everywhere behind him, even the dreams of the sleepers had. shifted into softer and more flowing keys....

And the Valley— the Valley also knew! For, as I watched from my window, something loosened about the trees and stones and boulders; about the massed snows on the great slopes; about the roots of the hanging icicles that fringed and sheeted the dark cliffs; and down in the deepest beds of the killed and silent streams. Far overhead, across those desoiate bleak shoulders of the mountains, ran some sudden softness like the rush of awakening life, and was gone. A touch, lithe yet dewy! as of wool and water mixed, dropped softly over all... and silently, without resistance, the 'bise noire,' utterly routed, went back to the icy caverns of the north and east, where it sleeps, hated of men, and dreams its keen black dreams of death and desolation.

And some five hours later, when I woke, and looked towards the sunrise, I saw those strips of pearly grey, just tinged with red, the Messenger had been to summon... charged with the warm moisture that brings relief. On the wings of a rising South Wind he came down hurriedly to cup the mountains and to unbind the captive forces of life; then moved with flying streamers up our own valley, sponging from the thirsty woods their richest, perfume...

And further down, in soft, wet fields, stood the leafless poplars, with little pools of water gemming the grass between and pouring their musical overflow through runnels of dark and sodden leaves to join the rapidly increasing torrents descending from the mountains.

For across the entire valley ran magically that sweet and welcome message of relief which Job knew when he put the whole delicious tenderness and passion of it into less than a dozen words: "He comforteth the earth with the south wind."

__________________

13: Black Market

Arthur Gask

The Mail, Adelaide, 3 March 1945.

TODHUNTER McStottlebaugh held quite on important position in the Income Tax Department and, contrary to what some people might have expected, his expression was a mild and gentle one. Happily married, he had a sensible, good-looking wife and three nice children. Certainly, he was a good father and, as far as the neighbors had been able to find out, a faithful husband as well.

His life was just that of the ordinary suburban dweller. Every morning he left home at a regular time and, every evening, returned at a regular time, too. At night he read or listened to the wireless, and at week-ends worked in his little garden, occasionally taking his family out for little jaunts to one of the beaches or the hills on Sundays.

In fact he was, to all appearance, a very ordinary man and, as far as I can ascertain, up to his fortieth year showed no signs of any moral or mental aberration. Then, however, came the war with its shortages, restrictions, and rationing, and almost in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, his whole outlook on life was altered.

He became a collector of things which were in short supply, a hoarder, and a crawler from shop to shop to acquire articles which he did not necessarily want but which were difficult to obtain. It became a craze, a veritable obsession with him.

It was his wife who started it all. One morning she asked him to try to get her some sago in the city on his way home, as the local grocer had got none. Accordingly, missing his usual tram that afternoon, he set out upon the quest.

The first two shops had none, but at the third, with some hesitation upon the girl's part because she did not recognise him as a regular customer, he was given a pound. Then, as she was getting him his change, he heard another girl who was serving a lady tell her she was lucky she was able to give her some prunes, as they had very few left and did not know when any more would be coming in.

Whereupon Todhunter was instantly seized with an urge for prunes, too, and he glowed with pleasure when later, to his wife's great delight, he presented her with prunes as well as the sago.

"Oh, but you're a splendid shopper, Tod, dear," she said, "and I really think I'd better get you to do all my shopping for me. Girls will give things to men when they won't to a woman."

So Todhunter was set on the downward path, and, entering into the matter with great zest, very soon there was a huge accumulation of groceries in the store-cupboard— anything which it was supposed might one day become hard to obtain.

Dozens of bottles of soup appeared, packets of peas galore, lentils, haricot beans, tinned meats of all descriptions, sauces, and preserved fruits. But it was condensed milk which for some time was his long suit, and scores and scores of tins were piled high up to the very ceiling.

Then pickles came into their own, for Todhunter heard there would shortly be no labor available to produce them, and he struck hard and heavily to get in a good supply, rarely an evening passing without his bringing home two or more bottles.

To them he was soon adding boxes and boxes of macaroni and vermicelli, because one of his colleagues at the taxation office had told him their supply was quickly running out.

To begin with, his wife had been amused, but speedily she became annoyed, telling him sharply that she was beginning to tremble every time she saw him coming home with his bag. Todhunter, however, had tasted blood and was not to be stayed, the very next evening after her reproof arriving home with three two-ounce packets of mustard and two tins of golden syrup. A mania with him now to add to their store every day, from unrationed goods he quickly passed to rationed ones, and the acquisition of an unlawful pound of butter or a few extra ounces of tea filled him with a dreadful joy.

"But you're sure to be found out one day," protested his wife, almost tearfully, "and you know it's black marketing."

"In a very harmless way, Mary," he smiled, "and I'll take good care I'm not caught. I'm a pretty wily bird at it now."

But once having fallen to black marketing, the lure became stronger every day, and soon Todhunter took to transgressing in other ways than food.

It became a regular habit with him to have a bet at his newsagent's shop every Saturday when he was returning home from the office. Certainly, it was only a matter of a few shillings, and he was really not much interested in horses and knew little about them, but it gave him a great thrill to hand his little betting slip over the counter, with the chance always there that a policeman might rush into the shop and catch him red-handed.

Now, it happened that one evening, when waiting with a friend for a tram in Victoria square, two men came out of the watchhouse, and the friend remarked to him they were Billikin and Brown, of the lottery and gaming squad, two of the smartest detectives in the force.

With great interest Tod took good note of their faces, and, as it turned out, it was well for him that he did so, for the following Saturday, just as he was approaching the newsagent's shop to hand in his betting slip, he caught sight of a man with a smutted face and in dirty overalls lounging on the pavement a dozen or so yards away. He recognised him instantly as one of the two detectives who had been pointed out to him, and, with a quickly beating heart, passed the newsagent's shop.

Safe out of sight, he tore up his betting slip and dropped the pieces down a drain.

A good sportsman, he thought it only decent to warn the newsagent. Walking quickly back into the main street, with difficulty he suppressed a whistle when he saw on the opposite pavement the second detective in a railway porter's uniform. His knees shook under him as he went into the shop. Fortunately the newsagent was there alone.

"Detectives outside," Todhunter whispered hoarsely, "from the gaming squad!"

The newsagent's face went the color of putty and his eyes popped like corks. "Are you sure?" he whispered back.

"Quite!" breathed Todhunter. "Billikin and Brown! One's in overalls and the other's got a railway man's uniform."

Quick as the strike of a snake, the newsagent grabbed up a small box from under the counter and darted into the room behind the shop. Todhunter began turning over some Christmas cards in a tray on the counter. Two, three, almost five minutes passed, and the newsagent returned into the shop. "All serene," he grinned. "Everything gone into the kitchen fire, and I've doctored the phone so that it won't ring. Thank you very much, sir, I'm sure. I'm—"

But the shop door opened violently and the two detectives, accompanied by two other men burst in. "We're police," snapped one, "and we've come to search your premises. We suspect you of illegal betting. Come out from behind that counter and keep your hands out of your pockets."

Todhunter at once made himself scarce, but he heard all about it the next day. Of course, the police had found nothing.

"Not even a bit of burnt paper," grinned the newsagent, "and one of the 'tecs sat for a good half hour before the blooming phone, all ready for my customers to ring up bets, before he tumbled to it that it was out of order. Didn't I just laugh and weren't they just wild about it?"

Now it might have been thought that so narrow an escape would have warned Todhunter of the risks he was running, for he knew quite well that any public conviction for black-marketing would lose him his situation in the taxation office and all the benefits of more than 20 years' service. But no, he didn't take the warning, and his next lapse was as serious as could be, for he was hindering the war effort by buying black-market petrol.

He happened to mention where he was accustomed to get his monthly two-gallon allowance of petrol that the ration was so small he would not be able to take the usual motor holiday at Christmas.

Whereupon the garage man said that, though he could not give him any extra spirit, he knew of a party who could, and it ended in six four-gallon tins being delivered to Todhunter, late one night, at 30 shillings the tin. They were hidden away under some old sacks at the back of the garage.

The man who brought the tins had furtive-looking, beady eyes, and Todhunter felt ashamed of himself for having any dealings with him. Now, for the first time, when he told his wife about the unlawful petrol, she was most angry about it.

"It isn't worth it," she said sharply, "for a man in your position can't afford to take such risks. Your whole career will be ruined if it's found out."

"I know that," admitted Todhunter uneasily, "but who's going to split on me? No, I'm quite safe."

THERE, however, he was entirely wrong, for he was reckoning without Mrs. Coshey. Mrs. Coshey was the washer-lady and, of alcoholic habits and erratic ways, there was never anything but an armed neutrality between her and Mrs. McStottlebaugh. On the Monday before Christmas she came to work an hour late, smelling strongly of malt liquor and hiccuping explosively with every word she spoke.

She was obviously in no condition to do her work properly, and was told so in no uncertain way. Whereupon she 'downed tools' instantly— in her case that meant dropping a cake of soap— demanded 'her time' and took herself off, muttering vengeance, with her hat all askew.

The next day the Liquid Fuel Board received a badly scrawled anonymous letter informing them the people at 17 Boomerang terrace had a large store of petrol in their garage, hidden under sacks.

That same afternoon two grim-faced men from the board arrived at Todhunter's house and, stating where they came from, demanded to go over the garage. His wife, who answered the door, realised at once there was no help for it and took them there, hoping against hope they would not notice the sacks. However, they pounced upon them immediately and exposed the row of neatly soldered tins. With a last desperate attempt to put them off, poor Mrs. Mac said the tins contained only water.

"We are starting for a camping holiday on Saturday," she explained, "and always take our own water with us. When we are away my husband is most particular what water the children drink."

The men half-smiled, and one of them said gravely, "I'm sorry, Madam, but it will be our duty to open them, to see if what you say is correct."

Some three-quarters of an hour later Todhunter arrived home in a state of great jubilation, having acquired no less than three more small packets of mustard. He found his wife lying back in an armchair, looking very pale and exhausted.

"But what's the matter, Mary," he asked anxiously. "Are you feeling ill?"

"Two men from the Liquid Fuel Board have just been," she said brokenly, "and they insisted upon going into the garage."

Todhunter had gone as white as a ghost. "But did they notice the tins?" he asked hoarsely.

"That's all they came for," she nodded. "They knew they were there, and went straight to them at once. That horrible Mrs. Coshey must have given us away out of spite. Of course, she had been spying about and looked under the sacks, but I told the men the tins contained only water which we're taking away with us on our holiday at the week-end. But they didn't believe me, and said they must open them to see."

"And did they open them?" asked Todhunter, hardly able to get out his words and, when she had nodded miserably, he sank down weakly on to the sofa. "Serves me right," he choked. "Now it means disgrace and being turned out of the service. Oh. what a fool I've been!"

His wife was half-crying and half-laughing. "Yes, you have," she cried hysterically, "and such, a big one, too."

Then, to his amazement, she darted over to him and threw her arms round his neck. "But I won't punish you any more, dear," she went on, "though I wanted to scare you just a little, so that you shouldn't be so silly again. No, you're not going to be disgraced and everything is all right."

"But what do you mean?" he voiced. "You've just said they opened the tins."

"And so they did," she cried, "but they found that all they had got in them—" she paused dramatically—"was what I had said they had, just water, plain water!" She laughed merrily. "Oh, you great gaby, that black-market petrol man had cheated you and you paid him £9 for six tins of water!"

Todhunter tried hard to feel furious, but his relief was so great that he had difficulty in preventing himself from crying.

"Yes, and you should have seen their faces." his wife went on. "At first they looked thunderstruck, and were furious with me for laughing. Then, though I am sure they suspected something fishy, they had to laugh, too, and, in the end, off they went, apologising to me most politely for the annoyance they had given."

Todhunter is a reformed character now, and no longer has any dealings with the black market. Also, the provision shops know him no more. However, he is always on the look-out for the man who sold him those tins of water, though should he meet him he is not quite certain what he will do— give him a black eye or offer to stand him a drink.

_______________

Emile C Tepperman was one of the many sensational writers of the Pulp era, producing hundreds of stories in several colourful series, as well as stand-alone stories. This story, transcribed by Roy Glashan and Matthias Kaether, can be found along with many other Tepperman stories at Roy Glashan's Library.

14: The Case of the Talking Dead

Emile C Tepperman

1899-1951

Strange Detective Mysteries, March 1941

1: The Talking Corpse

NICK VALENTINE was whistling— badly off key— as he stepped out of the self-service elevator and made for his apartment. He stopped in front of his door, and fished the key-ring out of his fob pocket. In so doing, he happened to look down at the floor, and he suddenly became taut and wary.

There were three little drops on the green carpeting. Bright red drops. They could be nothing but drops of blood, and they were directly in front of his own apartment door.

Nick glanced swiftly up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight.

Instinctively, he had already transferred the keys to his left hand. With his right he had slipped the small, squarish automatic out of his hip pocket. Now he dropped to one knee and touched a finger to the closest of the three drops. It came away red. The blood was still wet. It had not yet coagulated, nor had it been entirely absorbed by the carpet nap.

Nick reached over and inserted one of the keys in the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open. He stepped over the three drops of blood, and stopped short just within the threshold of his apartment, the automatic held loosely in his hand. He frowned thoughtfully. When he had gone out, an hour ago, he had left the lights on. Now they were off. The small foyer, and the library beyond, were in darkness, except for a shaft of light filtering in from the hallway.

By that shadowy illumination, Nick was able to discern the vague outline of a man seated in the armchair at the far window of the library, facing him. All he could see was a dim white blob of a face, and the man's hands, resting on the arms of the chair.

Apparently, the man was not armed, but Nick took no chances. He kept the automatic trained on him, and reached over to the wall switch. He clicked it, but no light came on. The shrouding darkness still prevailed in the library.

At the same moment, the visitor in the chair spoke.

"Please come in, Mr. Valentine. You must forgive me, but it was I who removed the fuse. I prefer to speak with you in darkness."

NICK realized that he was a perfect target standing in the doorway with the light from the corridor behind him. He reached over swiftly and slammed the door shut, cutting off the last bit of light from the hall. It was still possible to see a little, however, for a sliver of moonlight trickled in through the slats of the Venetian blind. Nick could see that the man in the armchair had not moved.

"An excellent strategic move," the man applauded. "However, a trifle slow; if I had wanted to shoot you. But I am not armed. My name is Mangin. Frederick Mangin."

Nick Valentine barely repressed an exclamation of surprise.

Mangin chuckled. "I see you've heard my name. I daresay you've heard it recently— within the hour?"

Nick pursed his lips. "Yes," he said. "I've heard it— within the hour."

"Shall I tell you where you heard it? It was mentioned at the office of the American Press Service, where you were closeted with Roger Bronson. Bronson is the head of the A.P. Service, and your chief. You, Mr. Valentine, are the ace investigator for that newspaper syndicate. You were called back from Miami for that interview. And you were assigned the job of locating a certain millionaire who has been missing for nine days. The missing millionaire is myself!"

"That's right," said Nick Valentine. "That's just exactly right. But how could you know? That interview was pretty damned secret."

Frederick Mangin laughed. "You are going to be much more surprised in a few minutes, my dear Mr. Valentine. But first— let me ask you something. Did you notice those three drops of blood outside your door?"

"Yes. I noticed them."

"Excellent. Before long, your activities may become undesirable to certain parties. At that time, you will find three more drops of blood. They will be a warning to you, Mr. Valentine. When you see them again, take my advice, and leave New York."

Nick's eyes had become more accustomed to the dark, but he was still unable to see very much of Frederick Mangin, except that he was making no suspicious moves. Stealthily, Nick had extracted a fountain pen flashlight from his vest pocket, and he now held it ready in his left hand.

"Look here, Mr. Mangin," he said, "I don't know what you're talking about. You've been missing for nine days, and now you turn up in my apartment. Why do you insist on talking in the dark—"

"Wait," said Mangin, "And please don't turn that flashlight on— yet. I have a message for you. You may be able to solve the mystery of my disappearance by going to the Candia Club. Remember that— the Candia Club."

Nick frowned. "Why the hell should I go to the Candia Club? Why can't you solve the mystery for me?"

Mr. Mangin made no reply.

Nick's eyes never left his blurred, shadowy figure for an instant.

"What kind of game is this, Mangin?" he demanded.

Still, Mangin did not speak.

With a sudden chill of apprehension, Nick Valentine snapped the flashlight switch. He flashed the thin beam squarely in Mangin's face. And he uttered a low, sharp oath.

Frederick Mangin was sitting erect in the armchair. But the reason he was sitting like that was because a long knife, which had been driven clean through his throat, virtually pinned him to the back of the chair. His dead body was held erect only by that knife-blade.

For a long minute, Nick Valentine stood utterly still, listening for noises in the apartment, and trying to convince himself that the conversation he had just had was not an hallucination. He was prepared to swear that Frederick Mangin had not been killed in his presence, for he had watched the man from the moment he entered the apartment, and he would surely have seen the knife strike his throat, or the hand of the killer, or the jerk of the victim's body. But Mangin had not moved. Therefore, Mangin must have been dead all the time. Therefore— Nick felt a little dizzy at the thought— he had been carrying on a conversation with a dead man!

Only one other explanation came to Nick's mind, there must be someone else in the apartment who had done the talking.

HE swung the beam of the flashlight away from the gruesome face of the dead Frederick Mangin, and sent it darting into every corner of the room, following it with the muzzle of his automatic. The two walls at the right and left were lined with bookcases from top to bottom. He covered those walls with the light, then turned it into the foyer in which he stood. The little end-table, with the mirror over it, was in its usual place, as was the telephone which rested on it. There was nobody in the foyer.

Carefully, Nick stepped into the library, immediately putting his back to the wall. He turned the flashlight on the desk with its typewriter, on the other easy chair, in front of the bookcase on the right-hand wall, and on the couch near the fireplace. Then he swung the beam around to the left, where the door to the bedroom was located. The door was closed.

Nick stood there thoughtfully. Then he went over to the body of Frederick Mangin. He touched the dead man's face. It was still warm. He could not be dead very long. There was a broad splotch of scarlet on the white front of his dress shirt, where the blood from his throat had spurted. There were flecks of blood on his Tuxedo jacket, and on the legs of his trousers. His eyes were staring glassily, straight ahead. He must have been that way all the time that Nick was carrying on the conversation with him.

There was no sound in the room except for Nick Valentine's breathing. He stalked slowly toward the bedroom door, then suddenly flung it wide open, lancing the beam of his flashlight through the doorway. It took him only a moment to make sure there was no one in there.

Nick returned to the library. He crossed to the foyer, and pushed open the kitchen door. He had left this for the last, because he was sure that the voice which had spoken to him had come from the library. The examination of the kitchen was short, and yielded the same results as the other rooms. Beyond question, there was no one else in the apartment.

Nick Valentine rubbed his eyes with the back of his gun-hand.

"I'll be damned!" he muttered to himself.

ON a sudden hunch, he opened the corridor door, and peered out, to make sure those three drops of blood were still there. They were.

He shook his head groggily, and closed the door. Then he picked up the telephone, and dialled the private number of Roger Bronson, his chief at the A. P.

"Boss," he said, "I've found Frederick Mangin."

He could distinctly hear Bronson's swift intake of breath at the other end. "You've found him? Already? By God, Nick, I always knew you were good. But this beats everything! ImagineBramahcracking a case thirty minutes after getting on the job! Nick, you're a wizard—"

"Wait a minute, Boss," Nick Valentine said ruefully. "Wait till you hear the rest of it—"

"You bet I want to hear the rest of it. Have you got Mangin there?"

"Yes, but—"

"Where are you calling from?"

"My own apartment—"

"You brought him up there, eh? That's using the old bean! Keep him in private till I can get my reporters and cameramen over. This will scoop the U. P. down into a ten-foot hole—"

"Hold everything, Boss," Nick Valentine pleaded. "Will you please first listen to me—"

"No, no— don't waste time now. I'm shooting a gang of the boys over—"

"Mangin is dead!" Nick fairly shouted into the phone.

Bronson kept on talking for a second, till Nick's words registered. Then he exclaimed excitedly, "What's that? What's that you say? He's—dead?"

"Dead. Stabbed in the throat."

"He was killed in your apartment?"

"Yes."

"Who killed him?"

"How should I know? I found him dead."

"Then—" Bronson's voice cooled off perceptibly— "then you haven't solved anything?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't give me a chance."

"Have you got any kind of clue?"

"Yes. It's a kind of clue. Mangin warned me to be on the lookout for three drops of blood. And he tipped me off to go to—"

"Wait a minute, Nick, wait a minute!" Bronson interrupted pleadingly. "Let me get this straight. You say Mangin talked before he died?"

"Hell, no. He was dead when I got here. But—"

"Then how the hell could he talk to you?" Bronson fairly shrieked.

"That," Nick Valentine said angrily, "is something for you to figure out in your spare time!"

And he hung up.

2: A Case of Forgetting

NICK VALENTINE had gone with the A.P. five years ago, giving up a lucrative private detective agency job. His duties were solely investigative, and he worked only when there was a big case to crack. Otherwise, he lived like a gentleman of leisure. When a really big mystery came up, Nick Valentine did the sleuthing, but he never wrote a newspaper story. He solved the case, and then turned it over to the A. P. reporters.

In this instance, they had brought him all the way back from a vacation in Florida, and he had been sore because he had thought they didn't really need him. But now, after holding that conversation with the dead man, he was ready to concede that there was something to the case, after all.

He left the body of Frederick Mangin just as it sat, and went out of the apartment, closing the door carefully and making sure that it was locked. He stepped over the three drops of blood, and went down the corridor to the elevator, and pushed the button.

Horace, the colored elevator operator, showed all his teeth in a grin.

"You didn't stay upstairs long, Mister Valentine. Gawn back to Florida?"

"Not yet, Horace," Nick said abruptly as the cage slid downward. He took his apartment key off the ring, and handed it to Horace. "You know Mr. Bronson, my boss? He's been here several times before."

"I know him, Mister Valentine."

"Well, I think he'll be showing up pretty soon. Give him this key, and tell him to go up and make himself at home. He may be a little hot under the collar. If he is, tell him he'll find a fresh bottle of Scotch in the kitchen."

Horace nodded, and brought the elevator to a stop at the main floor. Nick went out, and crossed the lobby to the street, nodding to Luther, the colored doorman, on the way.

A taxicab with the flag up came cruising slowly past, and Nick hailed it. He climbed in, saying, "Go across the Park, then down Broadway to Fifty-fourth. I want the Candia Club—"

He stopped talking, suddenly aware that there was someone else in the cab with him.

She was sitting as inconspicuously as possible, far over in the corner, wrapped in a dark fur coat. The collar was turned up, so that only her eyes and the bridge of her nose showed. The cab got going, and swung out of Fifth Avenue into the transverse tunnel across the Park. Nick said, "What the hell—"

"Please forgive me," the girl exclaimed, lowering the collar of her coat to reveal a thin dark face which was beautiful in a strange and mystic sort of way. Her lips were full, her mouth small. Her eyes, deep and dark, studied him appraisingly as she hurried on.

"Please forgive me. I bribed the driver not to lower his flag, and to try to pick you up when you came out. I was afraid—" she threw a hurried glance out through the rear window, then brought her eyes back to meet his— "afraid they're following me. But I had to talk to you!"

"H'm!" Nick frowned. "Well, go ahead and talk."

She hesitated, fumbling with the clasp of her handbag.

"I don't know just how to begin—"

Nick grinned tightly. "That's a good beginning," he said, as his glance dropped down to her fur coat, which had fallen open while she fiddled with the handbag, revealing a flashing glimpse of white, bare skin, above a black silk nightgown. She was wearing nothing but that nightgown under the fur coat.

She flushed under his gaze, and wrapped the coat tight around herself. "I— I had no time to dress. I came out as soon as I awoke from the dream."

"Dream?" he asked incredulously.

She nodded. "I woke up from the dream only a few minutes ago. I dreamed that you were talking with a dead man—"

"What!" Nick reached over and gripped her arm so tightly that she winced. "Say that again!"

She didn't try to remove his arm.

Her great dark eyes seemed to grow larger, deeper, as she spoke. "I saw you clearly in the dream. I even saw the house, and the street. I saw you go upstairs, and see three drops of blood on the carpet. Then I saw you go in with a gun in your hand, and the dead man was seated facing you, and he warned you about the three drops of blood, and told you to go to the Candia Club!"

Nick swore under his breath. If the girl was lying, she was doing a beautiful piece of acting. If she was telling the truth— well, he didn't want to think about that.

"Listen," he said. "Have you got a name?"

Her eyes became vague, her whole bearing suddenly uncertain. "Yes, of course, I'm sure I have. But I can't think of it at the moment." Her forehead wrinkled in a futile effort of concentration. "For the life of me, I can't think of my name!"

"You mean you've lost your memory?"

She nodded, still fumbling at the handbag. "Ever since last night, when I talked with the— the dead man!"

Nick still had hold of her arm. Now he let her go, and took a deep breath.

"Now, wait," he said slowly. "Are you telling me that you talked with a dead man last night?"

"Yes. I came home, and it was dark, and that man was sitting in an armchair."

"Was it the same man who was sitting in my chair?"

"I don't know. It never got light enough for me to see his face clearly. He talked, and spoke of the three drops of blood, and the Candia Club. And then, while he was still talking, I came closer and saw the— the knife in his throat, and realized that he was dead. I— I turned and ran out of the house."

"I see," Nick said, very low, forcing himself to be patient. "And what did you do next?"

"I ran and ran. I really didn't know where I was. Then I found myself in front of a hotel, and went in and paid for a room for the night. I bought this nightgown, and some things from the shop in the hotel lobby, and I got undressed and lay down on the bed. I must have slept all through the day, till I had that dream about you, and woke up. I hurried out to catch you. I did it without thinking. Somehow, I knew I must talk to you."

Nick was watching her with narrowed eyes.

"Didn't it occur to you to get in touch with the police?"

She lowered her eyes and stared down at her lap, as if trying to think. "There was some reason— why I couldn't go to the police. I can't remember it now. If I could only remember who I am, I'd probably recall the reason—"

"So for all you know," Nick asked, "that dead man who talked with you may still be sitting in your room?"

She looked at him miserably. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"Sure, sure," he told her. "Sure I believe you. There's nothing strange about your story. Nothing much."

She slumped back in the corner. "I know you don't believe me. And I thought you'd help me—"

"How could I help you?"

"I— I don't know. I feel there's something terribly evil all around me. I feel as if it's enveloping me. I don't know what to do. I must go to the Candia Club, but I'm afraid to go, aloneBramahand with no clothes."

"H'm," said Nick. He reached over to her lap, and took the handbag. "Let's look in here. Maybe there's a clue as to who you are."

She let him have the bag, and he opened it.

As he did so, there was a snap inside the bag, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Immediately, a strange, sweet odor assailed his nostrils, seeming to fill the interior of the cab. That odor seemed to clutch at his brain like an octopus. He felt that in another moment it would have him under.

ANY other man might have remained quiescent for that extra instant, allowing the strange gas to finish its work, but Nick had lived too long with a keen sense of danger at his elbow. When he was on a case he was always poised to ward off attack. He reacted without thinking.

He flung the bag from him, and at the same time reached over and yanked at the door handle on his right. It flew open, and with the last of his rapidly failing strength, he pushed himself out into nothingness. He saw the flying gutter come up to meet him with a rush, heard the girl's scream from somewhere a great distance behind, and then he struck.

He managed to break the fall with his arms over his head, but even at that it knocked him groggy. He knew that he must have hit with a tremendous thud. If he hadn't broken any bones, he had bruised them pretty badly. But he felt little pain, for the anaesthetic effects of that gas were already at work upon him. Something was whirling around inside his brain as he lay there in the gutter. He got a single glimpse of his cab, speeding away, with the white face of the girl drifting away from the window to fall back into the interior. And then he must have lost consciousness for the moment, for the next thing he remembered was the astringent smell of ammonia, and a white-coated interne bending over him, and a sea of faces looking down on him from the crowd that had gathered around.

A blue-coated policeman and a plainclothes detective were at his side, and the patrolman said, "Here he comes. He's conscious."

The interne removed the sponge from his nose, and said, "His bones must be made of rubber. It's a miracle none of them broke when he took that fall out of the cab."

The detective waved the interne back, and bent over him.

"What happened to you, buddy?"

It was a moment before Nick Valentine answered. Then he said, a puzzled frown on his brows: "I don't know." He sat up. "Who am I? Why am I here?"

For a minute, the detective looked at him queerly. Then he swallowed hard and turned to the patrolman.

"My Gawd, Clancy," he whispered. "The guy has lost his memory!"

3: Whirling Eyes of Madness

THE private office at Headquarters of Inspector Coleman, Chief of Homicide, was playing to capacity business, and there was standing-room only for late-comers. Inspector Coleman was there, chewing a cigar behind his desk. Doctor Hinsley, the Medical Examiner was there, together with Doctor Martindale, head psychiatrist for the Police Department. Also present were Captain Fletcher and Lieutenant Levine, of the Homicide Detail, as well as big, florid-faced Roger Bronson, Chief of the A.P. Service.

The main attraction was Nick Valentine.

Nick was seated in a straight-backed chair, with his hands folded in his lap. The outstanding characteristic about him was the expression of utter vacancy in his eyes.

Doctor Martindale, the psychiatrist, was bending over him, and talking low. "Now listen to me carefully, my friend. If you multiply twenty-two by one-half, what is the result?"

"Eleven!" Nick replied promptly.

Martindale was sweating a little, but he smiled encouragement. "Exactly! Now if you multiply the number of your house my one-half, what is the result?"

The sweating psychiatrist, as well as everybody else, leaned forward tensely to listen to the answer.

Nick beamed, started to say something, and then frowned. "I'm sorry," he said. "You'll have to tell me the number of my house."

Doctor Martindale sighed. Everybody else sighed. The psychiatrist spread his hands in a gesture of resignation, turning to the Medical Examiner.

"There you are, Hinsley," he said. "It's a typical case of partial amnesia, where certain groups of ideas or events are screened from memory, though others stand out clearly."

Inspector Coleman sputtered an oath. He ground his cigar viciously into the glass top of his desk, and got up.

"Dammit, he's got to remember!"

Coleman came around the desk, and stood in front of Nick, shaking a thick finger in his face.

"Look here! You're Nick Valentine! Nick Valentine! You work for the A. P. You're Nick Valentine!"

Nick smiled vaguely. "That's a nice name. Why am I here?"

Coleman closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were in agony. Then he opened them and waved his finger once more.

"There's a dead man in your apartment, Valentine. Remember? You stabbed him in the throat. Frederick Mangin. Remember?"

Nick looked interested. "Why did I stab him?"

Coleman threw up his hands in disgust, and flung away. "We'll hold him for the Grand Jury!" he growled. "He killed Mangin. That was a cock-and-bull story, about finding him in the chair, and talking to the dead man. I've seen cases like this before— where the murderer conveniently loses his memory after killing someone!"

"Nonsense!" Roger Bronson broke in. "Nick had no reason to kill Mangin. When he phoned me, he was as sane as you or I—"

"Sure, sure!" Coleman interrupted sarcastically. "So sane that he gave you a line about having a conversation with a dead man!"

The inspector took Bronson aside, and talked to him in whispers, energetically, for several minutes, turning every once in a while to point at Nick. Bronson argued with him emphatically, finally raising his voice. "It's ridiculous, Coleman. He couldn't have done the other thing. He was in Florida. Let me try him. Maybe I can awaken a spark of memory."

He came over and stood in front of Nick's chair. "Look at me, Nick," he pleaded. "Don't you remember me? You work for me. You're my ace investigator. I pay your salary."

Nick blinked his eyes, and obediently looked up at Bronson. His forehead puckered. "I seem to have some recollection.... something is stirring.... if I could only grasp it!" He looked around the room, petulantly. "If there only weren't so many people in here—"

Bronson seized on the suggestion avidly. He turned around and waved his hands. "Get out, everybody! Leave me alone with him! Maybe we'll crack it!"

Doctor Martindale nodded. "A good suggestion. The presence of so many people is always confusing in this type of case."

BRONSON kept waving his hands, not giving anyone a chance to argue, until everyone was out of the room. Then he twisted the catch, locking the door, and heaved a sigh. He turned around and grinned at Nick Valentine.

"Well, Nick," he said, "we got rid of them at last. And I don't think they suspect a thing!"

Nick grinned back at him. "I didn't think Coleman would fall for it. It's pretty hard to pull the wool over his eyes. And I was afraid for a minute you'd have apoplexy when I tipped you the wink behind the doctor's back." He took out a cigarette and lit it.

Bronson heaved himself up on the edge of the desk, and leaned forward eagerly.

"Let's talk fast before they start getting impatient out there. Give us the low-down on this, Nicky!"

"First," said Nick, allowing smoke to trickle luxuriously through his nostrils, "tell me one thing— have there been any other murders like Mangin's?"

Roger Bronson nodded. "Yesterday, Arnold Dixon, the chemical magnate, was found with a knife in his throat, at the home of his niece, Ellen Dixon. He had been missing for nine days, too. The niece has also disappeared now. The police have kept the whole thing secret, because the news may cause trouble. The Dixon Chemical Works have accepted a huge war order from the United States Government under the Defense Plan."

"Ah!" said Nick. "Then she wasn't lying altogether!"

"Who wasn't lying?"

"The girl in the taxicab."

"The cab you fell out of?"

"I didn't fall out of it. I jumped. There was a girl in that cab, who had also talked to a dead man."

Bronson groaned. "Are you going to start that again?"

Nick sighed. "You don't believe me?" he asked, in much the same tone that the girl had used. "Well, listen to this storyBramahbut promise you won't interrupt."

Bronson kept silence while Nick sketched swiftly what the girl had told him. When he finished, he saw incredulity give way to a look of dawning horror in his boss's eyes.

"Good Lord, Nick! If this is true, then there's a terrible force that we don't understand, working against us. How can the dead possibly speak? How can that girl have dreamed an actual event that was taking place right then?"

Nick Valentine nodded slowly. "That's why I pretended amnesia when they picked me up from the street. I figured that gas was planted in the girl's bag for the purpose of destroying my memory, just as the girl's had been destroyed. So I pretended to fall in with the idea."

Bronson was making notes in shorthand. His eyes were gleaming. "This story will burn up the wires, Nick. Did you know that Frederick Mangin owns the largest synthetic dye factory in the east?"

"Ah!" said Nick. "I wonder how many other key men like Mangin and Dixon have disappeared recently— but whose relatives have not notified the police! That girl, Bronson, was Ellen Dixon. I'm sure of it now!"

"Nick," said Bronson, "this is too big for us to play with. We'll have to take Coleman into our confidence!"

Nick nodded, and Bronson went to the door. He stuck his head out among the crowd waiting in the corridor, and motioned for the Homicide Inspector to come in.

Quickly, they gave him the story, from beginning to end.

Coleman got more and more excited as Nick went on. At last he burst out, "God, this is worse than I thought! We've already gotten two more alarms in the Missing Persons, for men in the same position as Dixon and Mangin. They're Frank Sheppard, of the Sheppard Chemical Corporation, and Andrew Garth, of International Chemicals. We've kept it secret, of course, but the news has leaked out here and there. There's a fifth chemical manufacturer, named Peter Simpson, down in the Commissioner's office right now. He wants us to lock him up for protection."

"Well," said Nick Valentine, "it looks like I go to the Candia Club!"

Coleman nodded reluctantly. "I don't like it, Valentine. Whoever is behind this business, wants you to go to the Candia Club. It'll just be playing into his hands. But I guess it's the only thing for you to do. We'll give out that you're still suffering from amnesia, and that we're releasing you in Bronson's custody, for treatment. I'll post men around the Candia Club—"

He was interrupted by the ringing of the inter-office telephone. He scooped it up, and listened for a moment, a queer look coming into his face.

"Hold it a minute," he said into the instrument. He covered the phone with his hand, and said to Nick, "Have you got a cousin by the name of Arthur Valentine?"

Nick shook his head. "No."

"Well," said Coleman, "he's here. Downstairs at the desk. He says he heard of your suffering from amnesia, and that it's an old family ailment, and he knows how to handle it. He thinks if he sees you alone for five minutes, he may be able to restore your memory!"

"Ah!" said Nick. "This is a break. Let him in!"

"Alone with you?" Bronson asked doubtfully. "Suppose their idea was to knock you off? Suppose he's here to finish the job?"

Nick smiled, and showed him the automatic, which he had in his coat pocket now.

Bronson was still doubtful. "Suppose he has some kind of gas that will overpower you?"

"I'll have to take that chance."

"I could arrest him," Coleman offered tentatively. "We could take the bird downstairs and sweat him—"

"And suppose he doesn't talk?" Nick objected. "They still have Frank Sheppard and Andrew Garth in their hands. And I'm sure they have Ellen Dixon. That taxi driver must have been one of their agents. He probably took her away after I jumped out of the cab."

Coleman and Bronson exchanged glances. The inspector nodded. "I guess you're right, Valentine. We have to play it their way. I'll go down and bring the guy up."

He went out, leaving Nick and Bronson alone. Nick had a faraway look in his eyes. "If only I hadn't heard that dead man talk," he said, "I'd feel lots better about the whole thing. This way, it gives me the creeps!"

Bronson kept making notes, "Don't let this 'cousin' of yours knock you off, Nicky. I'm depending on you to break the greatest scoop of the decade."

A moment later, the door opened and Coleman re-entered, escorting a man of about forty-five, with a high forehead, and deep-set eyes that seemed to be charged with some sort of static, high-powered electricity.

"Ah!" said the visitor, letting his eyes rest on Nick. "My poor cousin! A terrible thing— terrible."

Coleman led the man to Nick's chair. "This is your cousin, Mr. Arthur Valentine. Do you know him?"

Nick looked up at the visitor. "Hello," he said blankly.

The 'cousin' sighed. "I see. Poor. Nicky has been afflicted, just like our Uncle Tobias, and like my grandfather." He turned to Bronson and Coleman. "If you gentlemen will leave me alone with him for a few minutes— I'd appreciate it very much—"

"Sure, sure," said Coleman. "If you need us, just raise your voice." Then he added significantly, "We'll be waiting right outside the door!"

"Thank you, thank you," said Cousin Valentine. He waited till they both left the room. Then he locked the door on the inside and turned to face Nick. His big, deep-set eyes seemed to have become larger. His whole face became grim and intent as he moved closer to Nick's chair, until he was standing over him.

"Look at me, Nick Valentine!" he ordered in a deep bass voice.

NICK looked up. The man was twirling a silver pencil at the level of Nick's eyes. There was a big round knob at the top of the pencil. It was whirling around steadily, monotonously.

The man's voice came in slow, lugubrious fashion. "You're thinking the things I want you to think now, Nick," the man said. "You don't remember anything of the past, but you remember what you saw in your apartment tonight, don't you?"

Nick allowed his eyelids to droop as if he were heavy with sleep.

"Yes," he replied. "Yes, I remember."

"You remember what the 'dead man" told you?"

"Yes."

"Repeat it!"

"He told me to beware of the three drops of blood. He told me to go to the Candia Club."

"Good. You will obey him, Nick. You will go to the Candia Club. And you will wait there until a certain person shows you three drops of blood."

The pencil kept twirling, and the huge eyes of the hypnotist were growing larger and larger, so that Nick felt a terrible sort of fascination. He felt as if the man in front of him were dragging his very soul out of his body with those great and terrible eyes. He realized that if he had been a little weaker, if that gas in the cab had had another moment to work on him, he'd have fallen immediately under the influence of this powerful will. Even now, he was afraid that if he didn't exert every ounce of will-power, he'd succumb to the strange force.

The voice went on, droningly. "Remember what I tell you, Nick. Wait at the Candia Club for the person who will show you three drops of blood. Then you will obey that person. You will do whatever that person orders!"

Nick felt himself unconsciously repeating the instructions, mumbling them to himself. He clenched his hands. He mustn't let himself go—

"Do you remember what you must do?"

Nick nodded, almost automatically. "Yes, I remember. I must go to the Candia Club. I must wait for the person who will show me three drops of blood. Then I must do whatever that person orders— whatever that person orders."

As he repeated those instructions, Nick felt himself about to lose possession of his initiative and his will. That twirling pencil before his eyes had him twirling around with it, like a man caught in a whirlpool.

Suddenly, the silver pencil stopped whirling. The eyes of the hypnotist seemed to recede, to grow smaller. Nick felt as if a great weight were being removed from his brain. The man smiled thinly, and slipped the silver pencil in his pocket.

"I shall go now. See that clock on the desk? Watch it. Five minutes after I am gone, you will remember who you are. You will recover your memory. But you will still obey my orders. You will have no recollection of my visit, but you will know that there is something you must do. Understand?"

"Yes," Nick whispered. "I understand."

The man smiled, and backed to the door. Then he turned swiftly and went out.

4: The Room Below

IT was a little after eleven, and the Candia Club was a-boom and a-glitter. But underneath the surface, Nick thought he detected sharp-edged tension.

He himself was no exception. For, as he sat picking at a two-dollar-and-fifty-cent lobster, he was not sure that he would be altogether immune to the hypnotic commands which had been laid upon him by his bogus cousin. He had been in a weakened condition from the gas, and the man's hypnotic power had been tremendous. Nick couldn't be certain that he would be able to resist the orders of the person who would show him the three drops of blood.

The whole pattern of this series of crimes was strange and unintelligible to him. Four men in the chemical business had disappeared. Two of them had been stabbed to death, and had talked after their death. Two others were still missing, and might turn up dead at any time. He began to think it had been a mistake to allow himself to be interviewed alone by that hypnotist. Coleman had put two detectives on the man's trail after he left headquarters, but Nick had little faith that they would turn anything up.

Wat Farrago, the proprietor of the Candia Club, was seated at one of the tables, with two women and another man. Nick had seen them when he came in, but Farrago had not looked in his direction. Now, Farrago met his glance, and waved. Nick waved back. Farrago did not seem particularly interested in him. The two women at his table were both gorgeously beautiful, dressed in daring fashion. The man was tall and dark, with the slim hips of a professional dancer.

Looking around at some of the other tables, Nick noted with a small degree of reassurance, that a small group of plainclothes men in evening clothes were seated not far away. At another table near by, Roger Bronson and Inspector Coleman were sipping cocktails and talking to a third man. That third man was Peter Simpson, the chemical manufacturer who had asked to be locked up for protection. Coleman had brought him along on the chance that he might be able to contribute some special bit of information in regard to the chemical industry set-up which would help solve the case.

Nick finished his lobster, and ordered a demi-tasse. He was growing impatient. An hour had passed already, and nothing had happened.

Suddenly, he became tense in his chair. The lights on the stage had gone out, to be replaced by a single spotlight, focussed on the center of the curtain. The master of ceremonies announced through the mike at one end of the stage, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be privileged to witness the premiere appearance in New York of the celebrated Mexican clairvoyant, Pablo Miniver!"

The curtain parted at the middle, and Pablo Miniver stepped out on the stage. He was wearing evening clothes. His face was now adorned by a small waxed moustache, and a Van Dyke beard. Also it was subtly different from the way it had looked at headquarters. But Nick Valentine wasn't fooled. He recognized those eyes at once. The man who called himself Pablo Miniver was his bogus cousin.

Somehow, Pablo Miniver's eyes seemed to swing around unerringly, and focus themselves upon Nick Valentine.

FOR a second, Nick felt as if a ponderous mountain were pressing down upon his brain. Then the weight was removed as Miniver's gaze slid away. He did not smile or bow, but began to speak at once, in a deep and sonorous voice which carried to every part of the great dining-room without the aid of the microphone. At once the idle chatter in the room was stilled.

"My friends," he said, "there are strange things upon the face of the earth, which the mind of man is too small to comprehend. What you do not understand, you do not believe. What you fear, you scoff at. Let me prove tonight that the impossible is possible!"

A hush fell over the dining room.

Pablo Miniver stretched out a hand and pointed straight at Peter Simpson, the chemical manufacturer. Simpson was sitting between Bronson and Coleman. He pushed back his chair a little as Miniver's finger focussed upon him, but did not get up. His face was strained and tight.

"You," said Pablo Miniver. "I can read what is in your mind. You are afraid to die!"

BEFORE Simpson could move, Miniver swung his pointing finger away from him, turned it in another direction, toward a table in a corner, where a girl sat alone, wrapped in a fur coat. Following that pointing finger, Nick Valentine gasped. He had not seen her there when he entered, and he had not seen her come in through the main entrance. She must have come through one of the side doors, from the interior of the building. It was the girl of the taxicab, the one he guessed was Ellen Dixon. Her lace was white and colorless, and she seemed to shrink from the pointing finger of the man on the stage.

Pablo Miniver smiled thinly. "You! You are one of those who can testify that there are things beyond the comprehension of the mind of man. For you have talked with the dead!" He paused for a second, then snapped, "Speak! Is it true?"

Ellen Dixon was shivering. She closed her eyes, and nodded.

"It's true!" she said in such a small voice that it would not have been heard except for the sudden deep silence which had descended upon the place.

Pablo Miniver bowed, and turned away from the girl.

Nick thought it was going to be his turn next. Instead, the man on the stage raised his hand, and snapped his fingers.

Immediately, every light in the place went out.

Nick Valentine sprang to his feet and rushed toward the table at which Ellen Dixon was sitting. In order to get there he had to cross the whole dining room. But before he was halfway there, the lights went on again, with blinding suddenness.

He stopped in his tracks, in the center of the milling throng. His first glance was for the table at which Ellen had been sitting. She was no longer there.

Above the shouting and the screaming of the women, he heard Inspector Coleman's voice raised in fervent, violent obscenity. He turned and looked in that direction. Coleman and Bronson were standing beside their chairs. But Peter Simpson's chair was empty. The chemical manufacturer had disappeared!

"By God!" Coleman shouted. "He's gone— right under our noses!"

Nick pushed over to where Coleman was standing, waving his arms and shouting orders.

"Take it easy, Inspector," he said out of the side of his mouth. "You won't find Simpson here any more. Leave this to me. I think my cue is coming up!"

HE kept going right past Coleman, without stopping, for he noticed that one of the women at Wat Farrago's table was threading her way through the crowd toward him. He pretended not to notice her until she took him by the arm.

"I'm Lola," she said. "Were you waiting— for this?"

She held out her left hand for him to see. Upon her index finger there were three little pin-pricks, each with a tiny bubble of blood.

"You know what they mean?"

"Yes. I know. I must do what you order."

"Good. Come with me. Just take hold of my hand— and don't let go!"

He took her hand. She nodded, and raised her left hand in the air, in a sort of signal. At once, all the lights went out once more.

Through the milling, shouting crowd she led him unerringly by the hand. By his sense of direction he knew that they were moving toward the table at which she had sat with Wat Farrago. They passed that table, and she pulled back one of the heavy drapes from the wall. Nick heard rather than saw her open a door behind the drapes. She pushed him through, and whispered, "Go down the stairs. Feel your way carefully."

And then she closed the door behind him.

Nick felt his way down six steps, and came to a landing. As soon as he reached it, a door opened at his right. Light streamed out, framing the figure of Pablo Miniver.

"Come!" ordered the hypnotist, fixing deep-set eyes upon him. He began to back up, down a lighted corridor.

Nick followed him, feeling once more the fascination of those powerful eyes.

They stepped into a low chamber, and some one shut the door behind them.

Miniver smiled gauntly, and waved a hand. "Wait!" he ordered, and turned.

Nick looked around the room. His pulse raced as he noted the occupants.

Two men were seated in armchairs, motionless as if in a trance. He recognized them from pictures which had been shown him at headquarters. They were the two missing chemical magnates, Frank Sheppard and Andrew Garth. From their appearance Nick judged them to be in a hypnotic trance.

Ellen Dixon was standing in a corner, her face white and her slender body trembling. The fur coat was coming open, revealing the black silk nightgown beneath, but she seemed to be unaware of it. Wat Farrago and two other men were standing by the desk, with guns in their hands. Seated at the desk was Peter Simpson, the chemical manufacturer who had disappeared from upstairs a few moments ago. He was writing laboriously with a scratchy pen, and sweating profusely.

NICK craned his neck and saw that Simpson was filling the sheet with figures—apparently a formula of some kind. No one spoke while Nick's wrist watch ticked away three full minutes. At last, Simpson threw down the pen and said, "There it is, you devil. That's what you want!"

He thrust the sheet of closely written figures into Pablo Miniver's hand.

"Thank you so much!" The hypnotist smiled. "It was so unfortunate that all my hypnotic powers could not induce these other gentlemen to part with the formula."

"They didn't know it," Simpson growled. "We're all making the same explosive, but I'm the inventor of the formula. I supplied their factories with the proper quantities of chemicals, ready to mix."

"Then all our efforts were wasted with Dixon and Mangin, as well as with these two." Miniver nodded toward Sheppard and Garth.

Simpson glared at him. "You've made me a traitor to my country. You've made me give up the formula of our aerial torpedo explosive!"

Miniver smiled. "When my country takes over your country, you shall be properly rewarded."

Simpson laughed nervously. "How are you going to get it out of here? The police have a cordon around the place. They'll search every man and woman before they let them out."

"You forget, my dear Simpson, that we have with us a person who enjoys the confidence of the police!"

Miniver turned to face Nick Valentine. "You understand that you must do exactly as I order?"

"Yes," Nick replied. "I understand."

"I will give you this paper," Miniver went on. "You will take it to the address I shall tell you. The police, of course, will not search you when you leave."

"No, they won't search me," Nick said.

Pablo Miniver was continuing. "This place is mined. If anything should go wrong— for instance, if the police should raid us— we would press a button which would send the whole place up in shreds. Miss Ellen Dixon, whom you have met, Valentine, will remain here until you return."

Nick nodded, trying to make his eyes as blank as possible.

He glanced across at Ellen Dixon, and saw that she was staring at him with all her might. Her lips formed words: "Don't mind me!"

Nick smiled. She was a brave little kid. But the country's safety came first.

Pablo Miniver had gone to a far corner of the room. He pressed a button, and a panel in the wall slid back, revealing a recess in which was set a compact sending and receiving set. Miniver bent over the keys, saying over his shoulder, "Of course, we must be absolutely thorough, Farrago. Before letting this formula get out of our possession, I will transmit it to our Foreign Office."

He flipped over a switch and spoke into the microphone.

"PM calling DNB. PM calling DNB."

There was a long pause, and then a voice over the transmitter: "'Allo, PM. DNB answering PM. Go ahead."

Nick's muscles tensed. He hadn't expected this. He must act now. It would be too late to wait until they sent him out with the formula.

He put his hand in his pocket and took out the automatic.

"Gentlemen," he said, "let's go off the air!"

PABLO MINIVER stopped in the middle of a word, and whirled around. Wat Farrago and his two gunmen began to shoot almost as soon as Nick's gun came out. Nick stood with his back to the wall, the automatic stretched out at arm's length, and pumped shot after shot at Farrago and the others. A bullet nicked his shoulder, another ripped his trouser leg. The thunder of the shots was deafening in the low-ceilinged room. Grimly, Nick kept on shooting. He got Farrago in the forehead, and one of the other gunmen in the shoulder. The third man went down when Nick shot him through the heart.

He swung the gun to bear on Pablo Miniver. The hypnotist had yanked a heavy Luger pistol out of a shoulder holster, and was raising it. Nick grinned thinly, and pulled the trigger of the automatic. There was only a click.

Miniver smiled wolfishly. "So you fooled me, eh, my good Nick Valentine. Well, it seems that we must all die. You first."

"Go ahead," said Nick. "If you can die for that country of yours, I can certainly die for mine. Only I wish you'd tell me one thing— how did you make those dead men talk?"

Miniver's eyes were glowing. "It was a work of art, my friend. A masterpiece of ventriloquism. Observe!"

His lips parted a fraction of an inch, and he raised his head. His lips did not move now, but his Adam's apple went up and down. And marvelously, the dead body of Wat Farrago seemed to be talking in Farrago's own voice. "Heil Hitler!" it said.

"You see, my friend," Miniver explained, "I was on the ledge, outside your window. I threw my voice inside the room. It was a simple matter to have myself lowered by a rope from the roof!"

"Excellent," said Nick. "You're a genius, Mr. Miniver. Too bad you had to fail."

"Too bad, yes, but others will follow. And now, good-by!"

He sighted along the Luger, with his finger curled around the trigger.

Nick fell into a crouch, and hurled himself forward. He would never have had a chance, however, if it hadn't been for Ellen Dixon. She came out of her corner like a little meteor, and hit Pablo Miniver with everything she had. He went reeling sideways, and the Luger exploded away over at an angle. Instead of hitting Nick, the slug thudded into the chest of Peter Simpson, just above the heart.

But nobody noticed him, for Nick had reached Miniver now, and the two of them were locked in a deadly struggle. Nick had hold of the hypnotist's gun-hand, and kept pounding hard rights into the man's heart. Miniver didn't try to block them. He kept struggling to free his gun, and at the same time he gouged at Nick's eyes with the splayed fingers of his left hand.

Nick grinned, and quit punching. This kind of fighting was his meat. He gripped Miniver's gun-wrist in both hands, pivoted on his toes so that his back was to the hypnotist, and then heaved forward with a sudden yank.

Miniver uttered a shout, and went sailing over Nick's shoulder, to land with a thud against the desk. He dropped to the floor and lay still.

Nick Valentine brushed his coat off, and looked at Ellen Dixon. She was white, and swaying on her feet, and her fur coat was flapping wide open. Nick stepped over, gently wrapped the coat around her, and let her rest her head on his shoulder.

There was a sudden avalanche of blows upon the door, and the voice of Inspector Coleman shouted, "Break it down! Break it down, quick!"

Nick led Ellen Dixon over, and opened the door. He faced Coleman, Bronson, and a group of detectives, grinning.

They all crowded around him, but he pushed them aside, and led Ellen Dixon across the room.

"Just a minute," he said. "I've got to go on the air."

He stooped over the sending set, and put his mouth to the microphone, "Calling DNB!" he said. "Nick Valentine calling DNB. PM has signed off for good. You'll have to work out your own formulae. Heil America!"

__________________

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-54

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 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

The Ugly Bronze and the Beautiful Wife 53

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

Louis Becke

Devil Fish 53

George, The Docker 53

Randolph Bedford

Filamena's Hula 39

The Man Who Held the Wires  39

H Bedford-Jones

The Affair of the Shuteye Medium 53

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

The Horror Horn 53

Ralph Wilhelm Bergengren

Mr Chubb's Burglar 44

J. D. Beresford

The Sceptical Poltergeist  45

Leslie Beresford

Eastern Guile 35

John Arthur Berry

Cleverly Caught 53

Algernon Blackwood

The Messenger Came at Midnight   54

The Willows  54

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

Gelett Burgess

The Ghost-Extinguisher  54

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

Willa Cather

Double Birthday 53

Robert W Chambers

As You Choose 44

Anna Alice Chapin

By Way of Experience 40

Peter Cheyney

Black Out   54

Christmas With a Punch  54

The Gold Kimono 54

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

Nym Crinkle

The End of All  53

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

A Stranger in Arcady 53

Elliott Flower

The Elusive Ten Dollar Bill 36

A Bundle of Banknotes  43

Hulbert Footner

The Legacy Hounds 53

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

Arthur Gask

Black Market  54

The Will  54

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

Robert Hichens

The Nomad 53

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

W Douglas Newton

Crying Baby 54

What a Guest Desires  54

Hume Nisbet

The Demon Spell  51

Romance of a Balloon 51

The Vampire Maid 53

James Jeffreys O'Brien

Queen of the Beggars 44

Nicholas Olde

The Invisible Weapon  54

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

Grear's Dam 53

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

H. de Vere Stacpoole

The Girl at the Gate  54

Olaf Stapledon

A World of Sound 51

Christopher St. John Sprigg

Death at 8.30  42

Four Friends and Death 53

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

Emile C Tepperman

The Case of the Talking Dead 54

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

Floating Bones 53

The Owl 45

Towards Morning 33

Very Still Waters 53

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

The Best Bet 53

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 Door 53

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

David Winser

The Boat Race Murder 54

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 Invisible Weapon / Nicholas Olde

2: The Boat Race Murder / David Winser

3: The Ghost-Extinguisher / Gelett Burgess

4: The Willows / Algernon Blackwood

5: Christmas With a Punch / Peter Cheyney

6: What a Guest Desires / W Douglas Newton

7: The Will / Arthur Gask

8: Black Out / Peter Cheyney

9: Crying Baby / W Douglas Newton

10: The Girl At The Gate / H. de Vere Stacpoole

11: The Gold Kimono / Peter Cheyney

12: The Messenger Came at Midnight / Algernon Blackwood

13: Black Market / Arthur Gask

14: The Case of the Talking Dead / Emile C Tepperman

Cumulative Index #31-54