Past Masters Fifty Seven
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01 00:00:00+00:00
Description: A mixed assortment: lighthearted tales. a little bit of horror, and short stories by authors noted more for novels than short fiction, such as Dreiser and Lewis. 1: Adventures of Hector John / K. R. G. Browne 2: Where Early Fa's the Dew / Guy Gilpatric 3: The Man Who Limped / Otis Adelbert Kline 4: Murder in the Stalls / Valentine Gregory 5: At the Fortunate Frog / Coutts Brisbane 6: The Higher Civilisation / Coutts Brisbane 7: Scribbler's Luck / Coutts Brisbane 8: Flowers that Bloomed in the Spring / Coutts Brisbane 9: Birthday for Callaghan / Peter Cheyney 10: Strange Disappearance of a Baro

PAST MASTERS

FIFTY-SEVEN

January 2022

Part 4

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Adventures of Hector John / K. R. G. Browne

2: Where Early Fa's the Dew / Guy Gilpatric

3: The Man Who Limped / Otis Adelbert Kline

4: Murder in the Stalls / Valentine Gregory

5: At the Fortunate Frog / Coutts Brisbane

6: The Higher Civilisation / Coutts Brisbane

7: Scribbler's Luck / Coutts Brisbane

8: Flowers that Bloomed in the Spring / Coutts Brisbane

9: Birthday for Callaghan / Peter Cheyney

10: Strange Disappearance of a Baronet / Algernon Blackwood

11: Queen Hatasoo / W. L. Alden

12: Mitchinson's Developer / Victor L. Whitechurch

13: Falling Downstairs / Ethel Lina White

14: The Ways of Chance / Arthur Gask

15: The Post-Mortem Murder / Sinclair Lewis

16: The Lost Phoebe / Theodore Dreiser

17: Tainted Gold / L. C. Douthwaite

18: The Wife of the Humorous Gangster / H. Bedford-Jones

Cumulative Index

_______________

1: Adventures of Hector John

K. R. G. Browne

(Kenneth Robert Gordon Browne, 1895-1940)

World's News (Sydney) 20 Jan 1932

Browne was a popular British writer of humour, now largely forgotten. I have changed "McIlroy" to "McElroy" for clarity.

TOWARDS two o'clock in the afternoon of his twenty-sixth birthday, Mr. Hector John McElroy sat more or less at his ease in an armchair such as may be found only in furnished apartments in the Bloomsbury district. In his hand Mr. McElroy held a neat white card, at which he was gazing with an expression of poignant  disappointment. On this card was written, in a firm, angular, feminine script:

With love and best wishes
from Aunt Margaret.

A penny SAVED
is a penny EARNED.

"Oh, is it?" said Mr. McElroy, displeasedly. Frowning sombrely, he threw down the card and took up a cardboard box from the table beside him. A small, square box it was, bearing in artistic lettering upon its lid the legend:

THE HOMEKUT HAIRKLIPPER.

Safe, Quick, Easy.

Why Spend Good Money
at The Barber Shop

When You Can Cut Your Hair

At Home?

The Homekut Hairklipper Mfg. Co.,

Badgerville, Tenn., U.S.A.

Within the box, snugly enwrapped in cotton-wool, lay an instrument somewhat resembling a stunted pair of horse clippers, together with a neat little booklet of Instructions For Use.

"Bah!" said Hector John. He was not a particularly mercenary young man, but it would be idle to deny that he had expected something better than this from Aunt Margaret, who had great possessions and lived piously in Edinburgh, deeply respected by all who knew the size of her income. It is often said that, in this matter of bestowing and receiving presents, it is not the intrinsic value of the gift that counts, so much as the spirit in which it is offered; but this aphorism holds little solace for the man who, expecting a two-figure cheque from an affluent relative, receives instead, a threadbare proverb and a patent hair-cutter.

"Look after the pence!" said Hector John bitterly. "Ha!"

He laughed— one of those short, mirthless laughs— took the hairklipper from the box and gingerly examined it. A useless and repulsive gadget, unquestionably— yet quite ingeniously devised, now that he came to consider it closely. A gadget with which it might be interesting to experiment— on somebody else. For a space he toyed. with it, noting with reluctant admiration the simplicity of its mechanism; then, as if it had reminded him of something, he rose from his chair and stared at his reflection in the mirror above the mantelshelf.

Yes— his hair urgently needed attention: there could be no doubt of that. It was ordinarily his habit to visit the hairdresser once a fortnight, but an attack of influenza, from which he was hardly recovered, had imprisoned him within doors these four weeks past, with the result that his coiffure now simply clamored for the scissors. The hair of Hector John was wiry and upstanding, and of that gay shade which is known to its admirers as auburn and to others as ginger, and in its present unkempt condition it lent him an appearance of uncouth ferocity.

"Jove!" said Hector John to his unlovely image. "The sooner you turn the lawnmower on to that, the better for all concerned!"

He moved away from the mirror, discovered the Hairklipper still in his hand, and paused. Now it cannot be too strongly emphasised at this point that nothing was further from his intentions than to put Aunt Margaret's gift to the use for which it had been designed; but the man is not yet born who, confronted with a mechanical device of whatever sort, can refrain from wondering how it works. Thus it is that so many otherwise sane persons find themselves explaining to coroners that they "didn't know it was loaded"; and thus it was that Hector John, pensively eyeing the Hairklipper, was seized of a sudden irresistible craving to test it in action.

He looked vaguely about the room, seeking subject-matter for the experiment. None offering, be turned back to the mirror and again surveyed himself. It could do no harm, he reflected, just to try it.... very carefully, of course.... say on that matted section to the north of his right ear. Just a stroke or two— no more. He hesitated, lifted the weapon, hesitated again, and was lost.

Whatever the Homekut Hairklipper's shortcomings as a birthday present, its professional efficiency was beyond reproach. Three seconds after he had applied it cautiously to the side of his head, Hector John was staring in some surprise at a next, square clean-shaven patch immediately to the north of his right ear— a patch that stood out from the surrounding undergrowth like a clearing in a jungle.

"Jove!" said Hector John, slightly taken aback. "Overdone it, what? Can't go out like that. Better shade it off a bit."

And this he endeavored to do. But amateur hair-cutting, like wars, rumors and secret drinking, is more easily started than stopped. So keen was the blade, so dense his hair, so profound his ignorance of the barber's art, that the close-shaven patch declined to be shaded off; it simply spread, like, a blight. And presently, pausing to inspect progress, he saw to his dismay that the patch had so developed that the right side of his head looked as if it had been ravaged by some fell disease.

"Curse the thing!" said Hector John, now distinctly alarmed. Something akin to panic seized him, and he fell earnestly to work again, clipping furiously in an attempt to mitigate the consequences of his ill-advised experiment. But the more he clipped, the more he found it necessary to clip, so that his panic increased and he began to mutter feverishly to himself. And then, abruptly and without warning, calamity swooped upon him. For on a sudden there sounded a sharp, metallic crack, and the Hairklipper split neatly in twain, one fragment falling with a clatter into the fireplace, the other remaining uselessly in his hand.

"Oh, help!" said Hector John, staring in horror at his reflection. And well he might, for if he had looked uncouth before, he looked positively inhuman now. On the left side of his head the hair flourished in all its former profusion; but on the right there remained only an uneven stubble, suggesting an ill-kept lawn, or the track of a plague of locusts. The incredible thing that stared back at him from the mirror resembled a cross between nothing on earth, an inebriate's nightmare and the victim of a bomb explosion. The Homekut Hairklipper had done its work— or, rattier, half its work— only too well.

"My God!" said Hector John, appalled. He was not a conceited youth, but he had never imagined that he could look so utterly frightful as this. A prey to the liveliest concern and foreboding, he snatched up the fallen portion of the Hairklipper, only to discover that— thanks to a flaw in the metal or the unusual stiffness of his hair— the, infernal machine was shattered beyond any hope of repair. With a. loud and passionate cry he cast it from him and looked wildly about for his hat. There was nothing for it but an immediate visit to the hairdresser, that this calamity might be remedied before the world had a chance to observe it—and laugh. A moment later— his hat rammed well down upon his ears— he was descending the stairs in a series of agitated bounds. And as he went he thought about Aunt Margaret as no gentleman ought ever to think about an aunt, however thrifty.

But now remark the ease with which a malignant Destiny can wreck the best-laid plans of mice and young men in a hurry. As Hector John emerged at speed from his front door and closed it behind him, there glided round a nearby corner a most impressive limousine, which rolled grandly to a halt no more than two yards from where he stood. From this proud vehicle a young lady sprang lightly forth— a young lady of so radiant a beauty, so vivacious a personality, that it was as if the sun had suddenly seen fit to shine upon that gloomy street. And this young lady, perceiving Hector John where he stood dithering on the doorstep, gave a cry of delight and advanced eagerly upon him, exclaiming gaily:

"Many happy returns of the day, Towser!" (Yes, she called him Towser, and he suffered it without protest. This is what love can do to a young man otherwise sound enough.)

Now at sight of his young lady Hector John had started and recoiled, not a little disconcerted. For she was the very last person he would have chosen to meet at this moment, being none other than Miss Joan Virginia Faulkner, whom it was his aim and ambition one day to conduct to the altar. No definite betrothal had as yet occurred, for a reason which will shortly appear, but by his bachelor acquaintances Hector John was already regarded as a gone coon. It will be understood, therefore, that to Mr. McElroy, oppressed by his shameful secret, Miss Faulkner's appearance at this crisis was somewhat less welcome than it would ordinarily have been.

"Er— hullo, Joan," he said flatly.

"I say, I'm frightfully sorry about my present, Towser," said Miss Faulkner, in her vivacious way, "but, you see, it's a cigarette case, and they're engraving it, and they won't finish it till to-morrow— the idiots! But we've got a little surprise for you, all the same. Not going out, were you? Well, you can't now, any. way. Hop into the car— quick!"

At any other time Hector John would have been only too delighted to hop as requested; but not now.

"Er— awfully sorry, Joan, but I'm afraid I—"

A new and peremptory voice cut short his faltering excuses.

"Come along, my boy, come along! We've no time to waste."

Hector John started again, turned towards the car, and observed, framed in the window, a face. An elderly, trimly bearded, stern, and dignified face, the property of Sir Herbert Faulkner (of Harley Street, W.), the parent of Joan, and as distinguished a nerve specialist as ever embezzled three guineas by prescribing a trip to Madeira as a cure for a nervous breakdown.

Sir Herbert was the reason why his daughter's betrothal was not yet an accomplished fact, for he did not entirely approve of Hector John as a potential son-in-law. Sir Herbert had no more sense of humor than a cat has feathers, and it was his opinion that Hector John lacked that sobriety of outlook which is the chief essential to worldly success. And Hector John, knowing himself to be, so to speak, on probation, was at all times careful to conciliate Sir Herbert and to comport himself as befitted one who wished to espouse the daughter of so eminent a citizen. Consequently the sight of Sir Herbert's face at this juncture gave him less than joy at all; yet mere politeness forced him to approach the car and nervously address its occupant

"Oh, good afternoon, Sir Herbert. A— a jolly sort of day, don't you think?"

Sir Herbert nodded graciously, and assumed an expression of awe-inspiring geniality.

"How are you, McElroy? My daughter has arranged a little— ah— birthday treat for you, in which I am to be allowed to participate— ha!"

Vague throat-clearing noises from Mr. McElroy.

"Er— I'm most awfully sorry, Sir Herbert, but I'm afraid I—"

Sir Herbert's geniality faded perceptibly.

"Come, McElroy, your time is hardly as valuable as all that. I fancy. I have postponed several appointments in order to assist at this— ah— festivity, and  I really must—"

"Oh, quite!" said Hector John, perspiring slightly. "But, the fact is—"

"Oh, do get in, Towser!" came the imperious voice of Joan. "This is your birthday surprise, you guffin, and you'll spoil it all if you keep us waiting. I know you've nothing important to do, because the doctor told you to rest for ten days at least."

Her unhappy swain racked no less by his fear of affronting Sir Herbert— one of the most affrontable men in London— than by his knowledge of the, horror that lay hidden beneath his hat, waggled his hands in a feeble way and looked helplessly at his lady.

"But— but where are you going?"

"That's a surprise, fat-head!" replied Miss Faulkner simply.

The harassed face of Hector John cleared slightly as a thought came to him.

"Kew Gardens?" he hazarded hopefully.

"Don't be so inquisitive.'" said Joan firmly. "Get in!" And with that she applied her strong right hand to the small of his back and vigorously pushed, with the result that he tripped over the step, and, before he quite realised it, was sitting breathless in a corner. The car began to move.

For a little no one spoke, for which relief Hector John was profoundly thankful. His mind was a mere confusion of uncomfortable emotions, but one vital necessity stood out clear above the chaos of his thoughts: Come what might, he must not remove his hat. He was no fop, but he shrank from the prospect of appearing in public with one half of his head in its normal condition and the other looking as if it had recently been laid waste by a prairie fire. Like all young men of a bashful and retiring temperament, he had an abiding dread of ridicule, and an icy chill crept down his spine at the thought of disclosing to Joan the ludicrous state of his hair, of confessing to Sir Herbert the childish curiosity that had brought him to this pass. He had no idea whether he was being carried off in this high-handed manner, but most fervently he hoped that it was to Kew Gardens, which charming pleasaunce (as he now recalled) he had once or twice mentioned to Joan as a jolly spot in which to spend an afternoon. For among the myriad bylaws which preserve the amenities of Kew Gardens there is none compelling the casual visitor to discard his hat.

But it soon became distressingly evident that Kew Gardens was not their destination, for the car, debouching into Southampton Row, crossed Holborn without a pause, and at the southern end of Kingsway turned west along the Strand. And hereabouts a sudden fearful suspicion seized the unfortunate Hector John, causing him to cry out abruptly in a strained and anxious voice:

"I say, Joan, where are we going?"

"Have a little patience, Towser!" responded Miss Faulkner blithely. "Ah, here we are!"

The car stopped, and Hector John, peering apprehensively through the window, uttered a low, anguished moan and fell back limply in his seat. As through a mist he saw the imposing portals of the Regal Theatre, and a multitude of playgoers entering in; dimly he was aware that a commissionaire had sprung from nowhere to stand in a welcoming attitude at the door of the car. There came to him the voice of Joan, as it were from a great distance.

"There, Towser! Aren't you bucked? I knew how keen you were to see The Crimson Banner, and it's coming off tomorrow, so Daddy and I thought we'd bring you here to-day. Wasn't that nice of us, Towser?"

But if Towser appreciated their kindly impulse he contrived to conceal his gratitude. Over the face of Towser there spread a greenish pallor; the mouth of Towser opened and closed like that of a stranded cod. He gazed foggily from Sir Herbert to Sir Herbert's daughter, gulped several times, pressed a palsied hand to his moist brow, gulped again, and achieved faltering speech.

"B-but I can't go in there!"

Sir Herbert raised his well-trained eyebrows. Jane's comely countenance registered a mild surprise.

"Can't go in there? What do you mean, Towser?"

Hector John swallowed convulsively, yammered a little, made a vague, despairing gesture, and blurted out:

"I— I c-can't take my hat off!"

A small pause followed this singular announcement. With one accord Sir Herbert and his daughter looked at the hat concerned; then with one accord they looked at the haggard face beneath.

"Is this a joke, McElroy?" inquired Sir Herbert distantly. "If so, please explain it."

"Do you mean it's stuck, or something, Towser?" asked Joan, puzzled, but compassionate. "I mean, can't  we help—"

"I— I know it s-sounds s-silly," said Hector John feebly, "but— but there it is. I can't take my hat off." An inspiration came to him. and he added, a shade more confidently, "I'm not allowed to. The— the doctor won't let me."

A sceptical snort from Sir Herbert.

"Won't let you? Nonsense! Why not?"

By an immense effort of will Hector John nerved himself to meet that cold and unbelieving eye.

"Er— draughts and things," he explained vaguely. "Influenza, you know. I—"

"Oh, I see!" said Joan, palpably relieved. "He's afraid you'll catch cold again— is that it? I thought you meant your head had swollen, or something dreadful like that. Poor old Towser! Well, you must keep your hat on, that's all. You don't mind, do you, Daddy?"

But it was only too apparent that Daddy did mind. Displeasure and incredulity were writ large upon Sir Herbert's patrician features as he surveyed the shrinking invalid. When he spoke his voice quivered with contempt—the contempt of a three-guinea specialist for a ten-and-sixpenny G.P.

"Draughts! Tcha! Upon my soul, I don't know what the profession is coming to! In my young days doctors knew better than to coddle their patients, Draughts! No wonder we are becoming a C3 nation! I suppose," said Sir Herbert witheringly, "you go to bed in your hat, young man!"

"No, I don't," said Hector John, stung almost to defiance. "But I've had one go of 'flu, and I don't want another. I— I've got a delicate sort of head, and I can't afford to run any risks. I "

"Don't be unkind ,Daddy," observed Miss Faulkner reprovingly. "You know Towser's been ill, and I think the doctor's quite right. It doesn't matter if he keeps his hat on. We've got a box, and he can sit back in the corner, and nobody will see. And if we don't hurry, Daddy, we'll miss the first act."

"Draughts!" said Sir Herbert. "Tcha!" For a moment he looked frigidly at Hector John; then he shrugged his shoulders, and with tremendous dignity stepped out of the car, every line of his well-tailored back proclaiming his opinion of draughts, general practitioners. and young men with delicate heads.

"I do hope," said Joan, in her turn alighting, "it hasn't begun yet. Aren't you glad you came, Towser?"

"Glad isn't the word," replied Hector John.

It is probable that among the attentive and enthusiastic audience for whose entertainment the gripping story of The Crimson Banner was that afternoon unfolded, there was nobody quite so dissatisfied with life as the young man who sat well back in the corner of the stage-box on the O.P. side, his hat crammed down upon his head and an expression of brooding melancholy upon his ingenuous visage.

The Crimson Banner was a good play, an exciting play, a play which Hector John had long desired to see; but, for all the entertainment that he derived from it on this occasion, it might have been a Scandinavian blank-verse tragedy performed in its native language by an amateur company from a home for imbeciles. For he was miserably conscious that within the past half-hour he had sunk like a plummet in the estimation of Sir Herbert.

Joan's father had an inflated sense of his own importance, and was accustomed to have his own way in all things, and it was obvious that the Episode of the Immovable Hat had very deeply offended him. Sir Herbert, a stickler for etiquette, would have perished in agony rattier than sit hatted in a theatre, and he considered Hector John's hypocondriachal disregard of convention not only a deliberate insult to himself, but also an unpardonable breach of good manners.

All this, and more, was easily deduced from the cold aloofness with which he took his seat in the box, turned his back upon the unhappy sinner and gave his undivided attention to the play. Hector John, gloomily eyeing that hostile back, muttered regrettable words below his breath, and thought bitterly of Aunt Margaret. As for Joan, the play so enthralled her that the frigidity of the atmosphere at first entirely escaped her notice.

Slowly the first act wore on to its predestined end; and as the curtain fell Sir Herbert rose, and with no word to his companions left the box, toying with his cigar-case.

"What's the matter with Daddy?" observed Joan. "He looks sort of peevish."

"It's me," said Hector John, moodily. "He doesn't like my hat."

"Oh, tosh, Towser!" said Joan, cheerfully. "Of course, you must keep it on if you've got a cold. Daddy'll get over it presently."

But Daddy appeared in no hurry to get over it. Returning to his seat as the curtain rose, throughout the two remaining acts he sat silent and implacable as Tate, gazing grimly at the stage, ignoring Hector John and returning the shortest possible replies to such remarks as his daughter ventured to address to him. His demeanor, in short, was that rather of an expert witness at a post-mortem than of a leading spirit at a birthday festivity.

To Hector John, crouching in his comer and praying for release, it seemed that the infernal play would never end. No convict, set free at the termination of a twenty-year sentence, ever rejoiced so keenly as did Mr. McElroy when at long, long last— all misunderstandings having been cleared up, heroism suitably rewarded, and villainy cast out into the night— the curtain descended for the last time and the audience began to grope vaguely about for its hat.

Hector John, breathing heartfelt thanksgivings, was on his feet among the first. But even as he turned gladly towards the door of the box, there came to him a sound that brought him abruptly to a halt, frozen with dismay. Down below in their little trench or compound, the orchestra had risen to their feet, and were massacring the National Anthem at a speed which testified to their anxiety to be done with it and get home to tea.

Hector John, not daring to look round, stood as if petrified, goggling into space. Fool that he was, not to have foreseen this ruinous contingency! Torn between his panic fear of exposure and his sense of loyalty to the Throne, he lifted a hand uncertainly, lowered it, lifted it again— and then started violently, as one bitten by a cobra. For a cold and disapproving voice sounded suddenly in his ear, saying:

"Tcha! This is too much! Upon my soul, young man, it is time somebody taught you manners!" And before Hector John could duck or make any move to escape, Sir Herbert's indignant hand shot forth and plucked the offending hat from its luckless owner's head.

There was an astonished little pause.

Then:—

"Oh!" said Joan.

"Bless my soul!" said Sir Herbert.

Hector John said nothing at all, but continued to gaze into vacancy in the fish-eyed, puce-faced manner of one under alcoholic influence. Now that the worst had come to pass, he was conscious almost of relief; but not for all the wealth of Ind could he have forced himself to meet Miss Faulkner's eye. If at that moment the earth had opened and engulfed the Regal Theatre and all who therein were, one at least of the victims would have uttered no complaint.

The silence that followed Sir Herbert's exclamation lengthened until it seemed to Hector John that something must shortly give way under the strain. Feeling that any humiliation was preferable to this deathly stillness, he was desperately groping for words in which to clothe his shameful confession when Sir Herbert spoke again.

"How— how long have you been like this, McElroy?"

With an effort, Hector John turned to face the speaker. To his surprise, he saw that the latter was regarding him with an expression, not of disgust Or displeasure, but of almost feverish interest. Sir Herbert's usually dignified face was alight with excitement; his eyes gleamed, and the finger with which he pointed to Hector John's cranium was shaking with some unguessable emotion.

"How long have you been like this, my boy?"

"Eh?" said Hector John, considerably taken back. "Oh— not long. You see, I—"

"Extraordinary!" said Sir Herbert, advancing and peering at the ravaged head at a range of about six inches. "After all these years! Bless my soul, this is an incredible stroke of luck!" He chuckled gleefully and rubbed his hands together. "Come along, my boy— come along! We must look into this."

He opened the door of the box, seized the staggered Mr. McElroy by the elbow and urged him at a lively canter along the corridor. Joan followed, looking no less bewildered than her swain. And when they were seated in the car and proceeding rapidly towards Harley Street. Sir Herbert leaned forward, fixed the bemused Hector John with a penetrating eye, and said briskly:—

"Now— tell me all about it, my boy!" Hector John blinked at him foggily. So suddenly and completely had Sir Herbert's manner veered from the coldly hostile to the effusively affable that he felt thoroughly confused. But though he did not in the least understand what had brought about the change, he was hone the less distinctly gratified and determined to say nothing that might imperil this new and happier relationship. Sir Herbert was behaving rather oddly, but he must be humored at all costs. So:

"Er— all about what?" he asked warily.

"How long," said Sir Herbert, "has your hair been in that— all— condition?"

"Eh? Oh— not very long," answered Hector John, more than ever perplexed. He hesitated, and then went bravely on: "You see, I was—"

"You feel no pain?"

"Pain? Good Lord, no! Why should—"

"Capital! But you have nightmares perhaps?"

Hector John, now utterly at sea glanced uneasily at Joan, who was staring at her parent in wide-eyed amazement. The thought occurred to him that possibly Sir Herbert, worn out by long years of curing other people's nervous ailments, had himself suffered a sudden breakdown; in which case the situation called for tact and diplomacy of the first order. If Sir Herbert, for reasons known only to himself, wished to chat about nightmares, it was no for Hector John to deny him that innocent, pleasure.

"Well, as a matter of fact," he said, "I had one last night. I dreamed I was sprinting across a ploughed field in carpet-slippers, and that two green elephants were chasing me." This was true enough, and nobody's fault but his own; for he who devours lobster and Welsh rarebit at midnight has only himself to blame for the consequences.

Sir Herbert, manifestly delighted by this admission, chuckled happily and stopped his thigh.

"Excellent! And what has your doctor to say about it?"

It was at this point that Joan spoke for the first time since the revelation in the theatre.

"Daddy, what are you talking about? And what on earth has happened to your hair, Towser?"

"Well, you see," began Hector, blushing, "I was—"

"Never mind that now, my dear," said Sir Herbert, reprovingly. "This is a marvellous stroke of luck for me. and I intend to make the most of it. When that old fool Jefferson hears about this— Ah, here we are! Come into the consulting-room, McElroy, my dear fellow!"

Hector John, feeling vaguely alarmed— for, like all normally healthy young men, he had a morbid horror of consulting-rooms— looked cautiously at Joan, who very slightly shrugged her shoulders and nodded, as who should say: "Humor the old dear." So, with Sir Herbert leading, the trio climbed out of the car and entered the house and
were presently gathered in a large, sombre apartment, furnished massively in leather and mahogany. Sir Herbert, motioning Hector John to a chair and waving his daughter out of his line of sight, sat down at his desk, picked up a fountain-pen and said, kindly but firmly:

"Now, my boy, what are the other symptoms?"

Hector John's mouth opened blankly, but no sound issued therefrom.

"Come, come!" said Sir Herbert "Are you sleeping badly? Have you a fear of crowds? Is your appetite good?"

"Not very," answered Hector John feebly, "You see I've had inf—"

"Ha!" said Sir Herbert, writing busily. "And when did you first notice anything wrong with your hair?"

"That?" said Hector John. "Well, you see, this afternoon—"

"Quite—quite! Very suddenly, eh? That's right! You suffer from headaches, no doubt?"

"Sometimes. But, look here, Sir Herbert, I don't quite see—"

"One moment," requested Sir Herbert. Prom a drawer in his desk he took an instrument resembling a small hammer; with this in his hand he rose and bore down upon the shrinking youth. "Cross your legs," he commanded.

Mechanically Hector John obeyed, and one second later bounded in his seat as Sir Herbert dealt him a severe blow on the knee-cap.

"Ow!" cried Hector John, as his foot flew upward. And then: I say, I'm frightfully sorry! I couldn't help it, honestly."

"No matter," said Sir Herbert, rather breathlessly. "Reflex action quite normal." He returned stoopingly to his desk, tenderly caressing his waistcoat.

"Now, my boy—"

The anxious voice of Joan interrupted him.

"Daddy, what is the matter? Towser isn't ill, is he?"

Sir Herbert leaned back in his chair and beamed affectionately upon Hector John.

"There is no need to be alarmed, McElroy. No need at all. Your condition is not at all serious."

"My c-c-condition?" faltered Hector John.

"Don't be so horrid, Daddy!" said Joan, indignantly; and she came quickly across the room to take her stand beside the stupefied object of her father's interest. "What's the matter with Towser?"

"Baxter's Disease," answered Sir Herbert, simply.

"B—?" said Hector John.

Sir Herbert nodded cheerfully and leaned forward across his desk.

"A very rare nervous ailment, my boy. I have met only one other case. That was in 1911, and I wrote an article about it for the Lancet. Sir Henry Jefferson saw fit to deride my observations, on the ground that Baxter's Disease differed in no respect from Henderson's Disease, and was in any case quite extinct. He will have to eat his words when he hears about you, McElroy!" Sir Herbert chuckled gloatingly, and resumed:

"Let me explain briefly. You are aware, perhaps, that It is the right side of the brain that controls the left side of the body, and vice versa. Baxter's Disease is a nervous affliction which affects only one side of the brain and is liable to attack persons weakened by some previous illness, such as influenza. Its first symptoms are loss of appetite, nightmares, headaches, and, above all " He paused to gesture dramatically with his fountain-pen— "a sudden loss of hair on the affected side of the head!"

Hector John started and emitted a small, strangled noise.

"In a day or two," pursued Sir Herbert, gaily, "you will probably develop other symptoms— a tendency to walk in circles, a difficulty in using your left hand, and so on. That will be very interesting. You may imagine my surprise and gratification, McElroy, when I discovered the condition of your head this afternoon. No wonder you were so reluctant to remove your hat— ha! The Lancet shall hear of this at once, and I shall look for an immediate apology from Jefferson. Really, this is a remarkable stroke of luck!"

"Don't be so heartless, Daddy!" exclaimed Joan. "It may be fun for you, but what about poor old Towser? Can't you cure him?"

"Of course. I can cure him!" said Sir Herbert, sharply. "If he will place himself unreservedly in my hands, I will guarantee to restore him to health in three weeks or a month at the most." He paused again, reflectively surveying the limp figure In the chair. "I think, McElroy, it would be as well if you took up your residence temporarily under my roof. I shall then be able to supervise your treatment and note progress. That will not inconvenience you in any way?"

One is glad to be able to record that Hector John, rendered momentarily ' courageous by the terrifying possibilities laid bare by this suggestion, did at last make a belated attempt at full and frank confession. In view of Sir Herbert's character and the general difficulty of the situation, it can confidently be stated that men have won medals for less.

"L-Look here," he began, in a trembling and almost inaudible voice, "you're —you're making a m-m—" Meeting Sir Herbert's eye, he choked, hesitated, waggled his hands, and was dumb. After all, there are limits to human endeavor. Time passed, while Sir Herbert stared at him and he stared anywhere but at Sir Herbert. And at length: "What— what is the treatment?" he said, weakly.

"Chiefly a matter of rest and diet." he answered, curtly. "Really, McElroy, you seem to me somewhat lacking in gratitude! I should have thought you would have been delighted to assist the cause of medical science at no cost to yourself. You need not fear that I—"

"Oh, yes, Towser!" said Joan, eagerly. "Of course, you must come here! Then I can take your temperature and give you grapes and things."

"Th-th-thanks very much," said Hector John.

Elsewhere in this narrative attention has been drawn to Destiny's habit of thwarting the best-laid plans of mice and men who try to cut their hair at home. But one must be fair and admit that Destiny can, when so disposed, behave as benevolently as any professional philanthropist.

Proof of this may be found in the fact that on a day some three weeks later, Miss Joan Faulkner and Mr. Hector John McElroy were seated in close proximity upon a couch in the former's drawing-room. Time, the Great Healer, had wrought a notable change in Mr McElroy's appearance. His hair now grew neatly and evenly upon his head— or as neatly and evenly as such hair could ever grow; his eye was bright, his complexion clear, his bearing that of one at peace with all the world. As for Miss Faulkner, she looked as delightful as usual.

"So now you're cured, Towser," she observed. "Aren't you glad?"

"Glad isn't the word," answered Hector John.

"Daddy's frightfully pleased. He's in the library now, writing a snappy letter to the Jefferson man. I think he was rather disappointed when you didn't show any other symptoms— like running round in circles, and so forth— but then round in circles, and so forth— but then— And it wasn't a very rotten treatment, was it, Towser— just lying about and eating jelly and things?"

"No,"' said Hector John, absently. "It was much easier than I thought it would be— much more pleasant, I mean.... I say, Joan, do you think your father would explode if I asked him about— about—"

"About us?" said Miss Faulkner, composedly. "My dear Towser, he'll eat out of your hand, now he's cured you of Baxter's Disease. I'd wait till after tea, though, if I were you."

"So be it," said Hector John. For a brief space he sat silent, fingering his chin.

"Look here, Joan," he said, suddenly, "there's something I want to— er— something I think I ought "

"Yes?" said Joan.

Hector John glanced at her, hesitated, seemed about to speak, thought better of it, and rose abruptly to his feet.

"No," he said, firmly. "Not now. In a year or two, perhaps.... Well, I think I'll go and write a letter now, if you don't mind."

"Who to?" demanded Miss Faulkner, swiftly and ungrammatically.

"My Aunt Margaret," said Hector John. "I want to thank her for her birthday present."

___________________

2: Where Early Fa's The Dew

Guy Gilpatric

1896-1950

The Saturday Evening Post, 22 March 1941

JUST WEST of where Glasgow's Fennieston Street meets the not-so-bonnie north bank of the Clyde and changes its name to Fennieston Quay, there rears a building as grim as the Bastille, austere as the Papal Palace of Avignon, and vast as the Moscow Kremlin. From that it is not to be concluded that the massive pile follows any particular style of architecture for, quite obviously, the construction of its main body could have involved only a spirit level, four plumb bobs, and sufficient bricks. Surmounting it, however, is what appears from a distance to be a spire, belvedere, or minaret but proves on nearer view to be the gigantic image of a whisky bottle. Upon the label is a picture of a Highland piper and the cockle-warming words:

DUGGAN'S DEW

OF KIRKINTILLOCH

Two stories below the bottle and extending full across the citadel's facade is a sign which identifies the premises as Warehouse No. 1, Export Division and Executive Offices of Mackenzie Duggan & Company, Ltd., whose distilleries, as all the world knows, are located in the nearby suburb where falls that fabulous dew which bears its name. Glasgow citizens of a mathematical turn have estimated that the whisky stored in Duggan's Warehouse No. 1, if released and permitted to cascade into the Queens Dock over the way, would fill all three basins to a depth sufficient to float the considerable shipping berthed therein—provided, of course, that the citizens themselves didn't get there first. Actually, the precious product emerges only in neat wooden cases, which are transported by electric tram along Stobcross Quay to vessels waiting to ferry them over the oceans of this thirsty world.

On a winter afternoon not long ago, one of the ships engaged in loading Duggan's Dew was a British tramp called the Inchcliffe Castle. Now, whisky is whisky and man is frail; and so, as the slings laden with cases were hoisted inboard and lowered gently into the holds, the mates kept an eye on the stevedores, the dock police kept an eye on the mates, and certain unobtrusive gentlemen employed by the underwriters kept an eye on the police, the mates, the stevedores, and on one another. It was heartening to find on the ship one man whose lofty spirit soared above such sordidness, suspicion, and distrust. He was the Chief Engineer, Mr. Colin Glencannon, who, less than an hour previously, laboring deep in the bowels of the ship had unbolted but not removed the cover of a manhole in the roof of the shaft tunnel. At a later and auspicious time, when the Inchcliffe Castle should be somewhere between Port Said and Hong Kong, he planned to climb up through the manhole into No. 3 hold and snaffle the whisky stowed therein at his own good leisure and to his heart's content. Now, however, he was seated at the table in the officers' saloon, rapt in the ecstasies of epistolary composition. The letter, anonymous and in disguised handwriting, hinted at a plot to broach the cargo, described Mr. Glencannon's honesty and devotion to duty in laudatory terms but made things distinctly grim for Mr. Montgomery, the Mate. It would, of course, be posted from some distant port to the Inchcliffe's owners in London, before the broaching was discovered but too late to prevent it.

"Haw!" he chuckled as he read over the first page. "As I've stated the circumstontial details, lying willna save him and telling the truth will only involve him deeper. It will cost him his job, his ticket and perhaps e'en a few years in jail! Losh! It's a braw neat pronk, any way ye look at it!"

Once more taking pen in hand, he addressed his efforts to Page Two. He was endeavoring to recall how many Ss occur in "pusillanimous" and had about decided to make it "stinking" instead, when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Looking up, he saw thrust past the portal's edge a broad, beaming, but unfamiliar face, topped by a black felt hat and based upon a snowy clerical collar. "Ah!" said the face, mellifluously, as though intoning the opening note of a Gregorian chant, "Ah! Did I— ah— do I interrupt, Captain?"

"Both," said Mr. Glencannon. "But dinna let it discourage ye. As one o' the staunchest pillars o' the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk, I am always glod to weelcome a gentlemon o' the cloth, no motter how fallacious his doctrines or unopportune his intrusion. In other wurrds, come in, my reeverend sir, come in!"

"Ah, thank you! I shall be— ah— most happy to do so!"

He entered, bringing with him a suitcase which he placed upon the table. "Permit me to introduce myself, Captain. I am the Reverend Clarence McDill, chaplain and, if I may say so, the amicus humani generis in charge of the Mavisbank Home for Aged and Infirm Seamen."

"Aye? Pray sit ye doon!" Mr. Glencannon invited. "However," his voice and mien took on a dignified austerity, "however, in justice to mysel', I am constrained to infoorm ye, with emphasis, that I am no' the captain o' this ship. If I were, I can assure ye that we'd no be furthering Satan's wurrk by loading yon whusky! Phew!" He shuddered and cupped his hand over his nose, at the same time slipping a peppermint lozenge into his mouth. "Phew! The reek o' the fulthy stuff pollutes the vurra otmosphere!"

"Phew! It does indeed!" agreed the clergyman, warmly. "Alas, to think of the wealth, the fortunes squandered each year in its purchase! If only this money, if only a tithe of it, could be diverted to worthy causes! And that, sir, prompts me to observe that our Home is sorely in need of funds and brings us to the reason for my visit. You see, the institution is not endowed— no, not even to the extent of a single groat! It is supported entirely by our own efforts and by the generosity of upright men who like yourself...."

"Yere ain efforts?" Mr. Glencannon interrupted, hastily and heartily. "Weel, weel, weel, how vurra commendable! I'm always interested in hearin' o' ways to mak' money. Just what do yere efforts consist of, if I micht osk?"

"Why, er, handicraft— the manufacture of knick-knacks— you know the sort of things old sailors make. As a matter of fact," he clicked open the suitcase, "as a matter of fact, I have a few bits of our work right here. Now, just consider these face cloths, for instance— all hand-woven and only sixpence apiece. Beautiful craftsmanship, isn't it?"

"Sublime!" said Mr. Glencannon.

"Ah, thank you— you're really very kind! Now, let's see— I've three— five— seven— yes, I've exactly a dozen of them left!"

"Only a dozen?" said Mr. Glencannon, registering keen disappointment. "Weel, I'm afraid we'll have to forget it, then. A dozen face cloths wudna last me any time!"

"No? Too bad! But— ah— perhaps you could use one of these handsome carved bone napkin rings?"

"Only with the utmost difficulty," said Mr. Glencannon. "Ye see, I had the misfortune to be born left-handed."

"Dear, dear! But— ah— would you mind explaining what that's got to do with it?"

"That's exockly where the difficulty comes in," said Mr. Glencannon. "Oh, it's all vurra cumplicated, e'en obscure, as yere ain question omply deemonstrates, But noo, what other clever little knickknocks have ye got?"

From the suitcase the Reverend Mr. McDill produced a bottle within which, embedded in waves of painted plaster, was the beautifully-wrought model of a cargo ship. He set the bottle upon a little stand of varnished wood and proudly waved his hand at it. "There!" he said. "Isn't it a gem— a masterpiece? Think of the skill, the patience, the toil required to construct it, piece by piece, within the narrow confines of that common bottle!"

"Common bottle?" Mr. Glencannon repeated, a trifle tartly. "Why, it's a Duggan's bottle, as the wurrding in the glass plainly indicates!"

"Of course! Just an ordinary, standard whisky bottle— precisely my point! Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"Aye," Mr. Glencannon nodded. "The auld windjammer sailors used to fritter awa' their spare time making them, when they weren't too busy getting flogged, having scurvy, falling overboard south o' Cape Horn, or being trompled on by the bucko mates. How much are ye osking for it, Reeverend?"

"Eighteen shillings. Only eighteen shillings! Come— surely that interests you!"

"Aye, intensely! Ye see, I know a firm in Hong Kong, Chiang Foo and Company, that turns them oot for five sheelings each, and I wanted to check up. It just goes to show the grave danger that confronts us all— namely, the assaults upon our industry by yellow-bellied Oriental competition, made possible through the low standards o' living whuch obtain throughoot their benighted laboring closses. The fault, o 'course, lies squarely in the lap o' this government's ossinine furreign policy."

"Eh? Oh, why, ah, yes, I daresay it does," murmured the Reverend Mr. McDill, perplexed but still polite. He sat silent for a moment. "Well, I— ah— I'm rather afraid that my little visit, though most pleasant, has contributed little to the welfare of the Mavisbank Home. However, in parting, I should like to make a humble contribution to the welfare of this vessel's crew. I have found that most sailors are literally starved for reading matter, poor fellows! These old magazines and periodicals ..." he took a stack of them from his suitcase, "... Would you mind having them distributed among the brave lads in the forecastle?"

"Oh, glodly and with great guid will!" said Mr. Glencannon. "It's always a pleasure to aid in a choritable wurrk."

When the minister had gone, Mr. Glencannon went through the pile of magazines. Selecting a torn copy of the Northern Swine Breeder, he bade the steward take it forward and bestow it upon the crew with his blessing. Then, having arranged the others on the sideboard, he returned to his letter.

When supper was over that evening, Mr. Montgomery strolled to the sideboard for a toothpick and spied the magazines. "My word, 'ere's a bit o' luck!" he exclaimed. "'Ere's the larst month's issue of Beelzebub's Broth, official organ of the International League of Militant Teetotallers, of which I have the honor of being a member of! 'Oo brought orl these 'ere pypers aboard, does anybody know?"

"I know," said Mr. Glencannon. "They were brought by an elderly divine, who was endeavoring to whustle up funds for the Mavisbank Home For Aged And Infeerm Seamen."

"Oh, why that must've been the Reverend Mr. McDill, the Chairman of our Glasgow Council. 'E's an old friend of mine. But, f-f-f!" Mr. Montgomery sneered, "If 'e 'oped to whistle up any funds out of you, Mr. Glencannon, he should 'ave brought along a foghorn and a megaphone!"

"Muster Mate, I think yere remark is uncalled for and unkind," said Mr. Glencannon righteously. "As a matter of fact, the reeverend gentlemon and I passed a vurra pleasant half hour, discussing theology and looking ower the hondiwurrk o' his auld brukken-doon pensioners. But when we got aroond to the subject o' finonce and he started osking exhorbitant prices, lik' eighteen shillings for a toy ship in an empty whusky bottle, I..."

"Eighteen shillings? Only eighteen shillings— for one o' them 'andsome ship-in-a-bottle parlor ornaments? Why, that was a jolly fine bargain, if you arsk me!"

"I didn't osk ye," said Mr. Glencannon, shortly.

"Well, I'm telling you anyway," said Mr. Montgomery. "It's 'ell's own job to build one o' them things, and eighteen bob was dirt cheap. Why, it represents a week's work, at the very least!"

"A week's wurrk, foosh!" snorted Mr. Glencannon. "I cud mak' one o' the sumple little gadgets in eight or ten hours with the greatest o'ease!"

"The 'ell yer could!" scoffed Mr. Montgomery. "In fact, now look, listen, 'ere's wot I'll do with yer!— I'll bet yer five quid in good, 'ard cash that yer can't even do it between now and this time tomorrer night! Now, wot d'yer say to that?"

"Put up yere money!" cried Mr. Glencannon, producing his wallet and counting out five one pound notes. "Here, Captain Ball, I'll osk ye please to witness the bet and hold the stakes, sir!"

"Yus, Captain— you be the stake 'older and referee. Now, 'ere's the bet—let's write it down in my notebook so's there'll be no argument. Er, 'Chauncey Montgomery bets Colin Glencannon five pounds cash that Glencannon cannot build an approximate scale model of a ship'— let's say of this 'ere ship— 'inside of a bottle, by seven o'clock tomorrer night. The finished ship must be in an ordinary empty whisky bottle and not some other kind of a bottle with a wide neck.'— Do yer agree to that?"

"I do!" said Mr. Glencannon. "Moreover, I'll start wurrk richt the noo. Oh, haw, haw, haw, ye puir deluded gowk! Ye micht as weel let Captain Ball hond over the money withoot further ado!"

"'E'll 'and it over when and if yer win it—which yer won't!" chuckled Mr. Montgomery.

Going aft to the poop, where the carpenter's and bosun's shops were located, Mr. Glencannon helped himself to wood, tools, glue, paint and plaster; then, descending to the engine room, he fashioned an assortment of probes, hooks and tweezers of spring steel wire. "There, noo!" he said. "All that remains is to provide an empty bottle, which I shall proceed to do in the comfort and privacy of my ain room."

Now a Duggan's bottle contains four-fifths of a quart of whisky, or enough to fill three water tumblers. Having but one tumbler available, Mr. Glencannon was obliged to fill it, drink it, fill it, drink it again and then fill it a third time before the bottle was adequately prepared. So powerful was the creative urge stirring within him that he accomplished this task with surprising rapidity. "Ah, swith!" he exclaimed, approvingly, "at this rate, I'll have the job finished in no time! Noo, let's see, let's see— what's the next step? H'm!" He slipped a pair of inside calipers down the bottle neck and then applied them to his scale. "Seeven-eighths o' an inch, scontly," he read. "That means I'll have to mak' the hull in two sections. I'll just finish up this whusky, to sharpen my intellect and steady my hond."

Swiftly, deftly and with consummate skill he drained the tumbler dry. "Dom, what progress!" he gloated. "Why, I'm sorry I didna bet him ten pounds that I'd have it finished by bedtime!" As he gauged the bottle's internal depth, it occurred to him that as the work proceeded and the ship took form, he would need another bottle from which to take measurements and to serve as a medium for checkup. Fortunately, he happened to have several more at hand, and though all were full, he was now so entirely in the spirit of his task that he emptied one of them as effortlessly as though building ship models had been his lifelong occupation. It was with pardonable pride that he reviewed the speed of his work thus far.

"Haw, why, it's proctically as guid as finished!" he applauded himself. "Ye've plenty o' time, slathers o' time, so there's no reason to owertax yersel'. Ye really must remember that e'en yere ain extrodinurra powers have a limit. Slow doon, lad— aye, relax yersel' a bit. Sit back for just a minute, do, and give yere puir taut nairves a chonce to untongle! Indeed, if I were you I'd tak' a sowp o' whusky, merely to ease the tension. Ye wud? Aye, if ye want my frank and condid opinion, I wud! Weel, alricht, then, I will, and I thonk ye most sincerely. But only a wee nip, mind— not too much— not too much! Ho, why guid losh, mon, ye've poured me a reegular Second Mate's sun-dooner! Weel—" he raised his glass politely, "as lang as ye're buying this drink, auld mon— as lang as ye've indicated yere disposition to let bygones be bygones and bury auld grudges— a-weel, as I was aboot to say, as lang as— Sh-h-h! Sh-h-h! Noo please, lad, I know ye've been drinking, but dinna interrupt me!— er— as I was aboot to remark, as lang as ye're buying this drink, bygones are bygones, as far as I'm concerned. Pairhops it's a weakness on my part, but somehow— somehow, I canna find it in my heart to harbor a grudge. I'm big-hearted, and my big heart goes oot to ye most heartily! My heart is in the richt place, laddie—dinna let them mislead ye with any song and donce to the contrary!— Song and donce? Ho, splendid! I'll sing while you donce!— Ready?

My heart is in the Hielands

My heart is richt here!

My heart is in the Hielands a-chasing the deer

Auld gir-r-r-l, they singo'— er, wait, oh yes, they

Sing-a-hi, sing-a-lee, sing-a-lo!

—That means I want to go

To Tokyo-ho-ho and a bottle o' rum!

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle o' rum!

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle o' rum!

"Yo-ho-ho and a no, no, no! Dom it mon, ye've said that three times already and it isn't rum anyway! Weel, supposing I have?— That's still no excuse for ye to yawn yo-ho-ho in my face, is it? If ye're feeling sleepy, why dinna ye go hame and sleep it off? Aye, go hame, go on hame— nobody here will miss ye? Foosh, ye've been a wet blanket on the party all evening! And another thing— if ye weren't a common boor, ye'd know enough to cover yere oogly mouth when ye're yawning! Where the heel are yere manners?"

His glass empty, he sat glowering for a moment; then, realizing that nobody seemed inclined to buy a drink, he poured one for himself. "Oh, vurra weel!" he said, loftily. "If that's the way it is, weel, that's the way it is it was!— In other wurrds, and I'm telling ye to yere face, I dinna lik' yere nosty, pairsimonious and truculent ottitude.— Foosh to ye! Foosh, foosh, foosh, I say! Do ye wish me to understond from that that ye're threatening me with physic-ick!— hic! physical violence, richt here in my ain room? Have a care, sir, have a care, I warn ye! Ach! Argh! Ho, so ye wud, wud ye? Weel, then, tak'— THAT!" With a mighty full armed swing of the bottle, he clouted himself over the head and wilted senseless to the floor.

When Mr. Glencannon opened his eyes, the light of dawn was filtering through the porthole. Rising somewhat unsteadily, he looked out and saw the giant bottle on the Duggan Warehouse silhouetted against a paling wintery sky; it served to remind him of the task in hand. "Ah, swith!" he muttered. "Why, I must have been seized with an attack of vertigo.— Losh, how my head aches!" He pressed his hand to the throbbing crown of it and was surprised to feel a lump like half a cricket ball. "Horrors, what's this— Vertigo doesna break oot in loomps! No! I was stricken with an acute attack o' owerexpansion o' the brain, provoked by turning on too much intellectual pressure! Braugh! A little more, only a little more, and my skull wud have been blown to frogments, lik' an exploding boiler! Ho, dom it, Glencannon, ye've had a miraculous escape!"

He turned to the tools and materials spread out upon his bunk, "Noo, let's see, where were we? Oh, yes; I'd just estoblished the fact that the neck o' the bottle measures approximately seven-eights o' an inch. A-weel, it's foortunate I'd made such ropid progress before illness struck me doon, because noo I can add the finishing touches at my leisure.— Strange how weak and shaky a seizure o' that sort leaves a mon! Indeed, under the caircumstances, I think I'd be omply justified in taking a mild stimulant o' some sort."

Suiting the action to the word and by it much refreshed, he fell to work in earnest, only pausing for occasional dollops of the health-giving elixir. For hour after hour, then, he toiled; but, though he made a certain amount of headway, he found himself increasingly beset with knotty problems and vexatious setbacks. Poking the tiny, glue-smeared bits of wood down the bottle neck on lengths of wire and endeavoring to fix them into place was no whit less difficult than repairing a watch while wearing boxing gloves. Perversely, the little pieces came unstuck, adhered to the sides of the bottle or even to its bottom. His fingers became sticky, then stickier, and so did his glass, until finally he was obliged to work with only one hand. It was all most fatiguing.

To make matters worse, he was not feeling well. His malady was peculiar in that it was characterized by two distinct but diametrically opposing symptoms. In plain, nonmedical language he felt as though he were drunk and had a hangover at the same time. He could account for neither condition per se and as the two together were in flat contradiction, he could only conclude that he was the victim of some new, obscure, but in any case grave affliction. As he sat wondering what he should do about it, his gaze drifted to a bottle of whisky which happened to be on the washstand at the other end of the room. "A-weel," he said, "it's a lang way off and I dinna feel lik' taking much exercise, but pairhaps a little whusky is exockly what I need. It's a Spartan reemedy, o' course, but the emeergency leaves me no choice. But— what's this? Ach! Horrors! I— I canna stond up!— I'm helpless!— I'm p-p-parolyzed! Ah, cruel heaven, what have I done to desairve a fate lik' this?" He clapped one hand to his brow and the other to his poor, useless limbs, discovering as he did so that he had sat in a puddle of glue and that the seat of his trousers was firmly cemented to the chair. The discovery eased his mind but not his situation. Although he loosened his belt and undid his buttons, his trousers and the chair had become so inseparably one that, struggle as he would, he could not work clear of them. His efforts involved much thumping, banging, and bad language. Mr. Swales, in the next room, pounded on the bulkhead. "Oh, for the love of Gord, you chaps!" he complained. "I'm trying to study!"

Mr. Glencannon was too deeply occupied to retort. At length, toppling sideways to the floor, trousers, chair and all, he succeeded in squirming his way to freedom. Battered as to body and tattered as to drawers, he took a drink and another chair and doggedly returned to work.

It was well along in the afternoon when he was ready to perform the most delicate operation of all— the raising and stepping of the masts. Now, the entire science of building ships in bottles consists in the trick by which this feat is accomplished. When the hull is inserted in the bottle, the masts are laid flat, or nearly so, their steps being grooved to the rear to permit the sticks to swing backward; the single continuous thread which will become the fore, triatic and after stays has been made fast to the stern and to both mastheads and passed through a tiny hole in the bow, its end left dangling from the bottle neck. If this has been done according to the rules of art, all that remains is to pull on the free end until the masts rise into place, to dab a drop of glue on the thread where it passes through the hole, to snip off the surplus and lo! the trick is done. In the present case, however, the thread had worked itself into the bottle and Mr. Glencannon was obliged to fish for it with his tweezers. Though he succeeded several times in nipping hold of it, it slipped from his tweezers before he could pull it out of the bottle. It was tantalizing, exasperating! At length, judging it to be within reach of his little finger, he thrust that digit down the bottle neck, pressed it firmly upon the refractory cordage and then endeavored to withdraw it. To his chagrin and dismay, he found his finger caught as in a trap.

"Ah, dom and foosheroo!" he growled, tugging until his joints cracked. "Ow! Ouch! Noo, here's a pretty kettle o' fish! There must have been some glue on my finger, or pairhops it swelled while I was groping aroond with it. A-weel," he stood up, "I'll just hold it above my head for a minute or so, to reduce the blood circulation and the swelling, and then..."

With a resounding crash, the bottle shattered against a deckhead girder and rained in fragments upon him. For an instant he stood stunned; then red rage engulfed him and he gave it full expression.

"'Ere, 'ere, now!" Mr. Swales's voice came plaintively from the next room. "I'm going up for my Master's exams next Chewsday, and 'ow in 'ell can I study? If you chaps don't cut it out in there I'll bleddy well come in and lick the three of yer!"

Mr. Glencannon surveyed the wreckage and then consulted his watch. "Five o'clock p.m.!" he gasped. "Five o'clock— already! Two hours more and I'll be oot five pounds— unless I can accomplish a miracle!" On hands and knees he gathered up the pieces, took another bottle and went feverishly to work.

He worked like a Trojan, He worked like a horse. He worked like a horseful of Trojans.

At two minutes to seven, jaded, bloodshot, but triumphant, he staggered into the saloon. "Hoot!" he cried. "Here I am— and here it is!"

"Eh? Er, oh, yes!" said Captain Ball. "There you are, Mr. Glencannon, there you are, indeed! But, ga-hapf, I mean to say, where are they?— Your trousers, I mean!"

Mr. Glencannon ignored the question. "Here it is, Muster Montgomery! Tak' a look at it!— Aye, tak' a guid look, a five poond look— because that's exackly what it costs ye!"

Mr. Montgomery smirked and rubbed his hands. "Well, well, well!" he said, unctuously, "Wot's this yer've got— a ship in a bottle? Oh, so yer've built a ship in a bottle, 'ave yer? H'm, well, yer've made a ruddy neat job of it, I must say! Captain Ball, I'll thank you please to pay me my winnings!"

"Yere winnings?" scoffed Mr. Glencannon. "Ho, what do ye mean, yere winnings? Hoorns o' the deevil, mon, dinna ye see that it's I— I who have won the bet?"

"—You? Oh, yus? Well, now, please just listen to this!" The Mate opened his notebook, cleared his throat impressively, and read, "'The finished ship must be in an ordinary empty whisky bottle and not some other kind of a bottle with a wide neck'.— Now, did yer agree to that or didn't yer? Speak up!"

"Aye!" said Mr. Glencannon. "O' coorse I did! I not only agreed to it— I've deleevered it!"

"Like 'ell yer 'ave!" cried Mr. Montgomery, victoriously. "That there whisky bottle's not an empty whisky bottle! It's not empty because it's got a ship inside of it! Oh, ho! ho! ho!" he roared, stamping his feet and slapping his thighs. "Oh, good lawks! To think of a canny old bloke like you falling for a simple old gag like that!— Or perhaps I should put it the other way round!"

"—What?" Mr. Glencannon swayed against the table and grasped its edge for support. "D-d-d'ye mean to say this whole bet was a deliberate swundle—a cheap play on wurrds?"

"Why, of course it was!— Gor-blyme, I 'ope yer don't think I'm barmy enough to bet with you on the level, do yer?"

"Ho, but this is iniquitous! Captain! Captain Ball, sir!" Mr. Glencannon turned to the shipmaster, "I appeal to ye as referee! I demond fair play! I demond sumple justice! Surely, surely ye dinna mean to stond by and see me victimized, mulcted, robbed by yon nosty scheming snirk!"

"Well, ga-hapf, ker-hem, er, really, now, Mr. Glencannon, I really don't see that you have been. No! You agreed to that agreement with your eyes open and you can certainly see with your own eyes now that this bottle isn't empty! Now, is it? Can't you? Ker-huff, I mean to say, no, no, of course it isn't!"

With a plaintive moan, Mr. Glencannon took up the bottle and lurched toward the door, a sick and broken man.

THE FOLLOWING day found Mr. Glencannon suffering a severe but natural reaction. As soon as he had managed to choke down his breakfast, he selected a number of magazines from the pile on the sideboard, returned to his room and lay reading in his bunk, belching seismically. The little ship in its bottle reposed upon the dresser opposite. Every time his eye encountered it he shuddered and looked away. "Ho, ye dom, useless bauble!" he addressed it, finally. "Instead o' making me five pounds the richer, ye've robbed me no' only o' that much cash but o' my priceless health besides!"

He was glumly scanning the pages of Fawcett's Illustrated Monthly when his attention was caught by the headlines—

YOUR IDEAS ARE YOUR FORTUNE!

Learn How You Can Earn Big Money

In Your Spare Time—Right in

Your Own Home!

Now, as Mr. Glencannon had confessed to the Reverend Mr. McDill, making money was a subject which interested him greatly— nay, it intrigued him, fascinated him, and had been his secondary hobby for more years than he cared to count. Hence, he perused the announcement avidly. It read—

Today, as never before, industry is geared up to produce goods and merchandise of all descriptions, in quantities which literally STAGGER the imagination! The greatest problem which confronts the manufacturer is HOW TO SELL these goods. The answer is— ADVERTISING! But successful advertising is built upon CLEVER IDEAS!— Ideas for SLOGANS. Ideas for POSTERS. Ideas for DISPLAYS. IDEAS— IDEAS— IDEAS for all the thousand-and-one departments of this great, modern selling force! Naturally, these ideas are worth big money—and, whether you realize it or not, YOU HAVE CLEVER IDEAS!

After a certain amount of rhetorical backing and filling, the advertisement went on to say that merely HAVING clever ideas wasn't enough; the trick was to FIT the ideas to specific products and then to SELL THEM. The signatory revealed himself as not only willing but eager to send, ABSOLUTELY post FREE, his BIG NEW BOOK TELLING HOW! With commendable altruism, all he asked in return was the purely nominal sum of five shillings to help defray the costs of packing, addressing, and handling.

"A-weel," nodded Mr. Glencannon, approvingly, "at five shillings a copy, this grosping bondit has undootedly solved the prublem o' how to mak' money oot o' advertising— as far as he, pairsonally, is concerned. But above and beyond that, there's more than a modicum o' truth in what he says! Aye, losh! When ye think o' all the merchandise produced in cities lik' Birmingham, Monchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and richt here in Glesga, the imogination not only stoggers— it reels, trips, falls, and goes to sleep in the gutter! Think, for example, o' the whusky in the great Duggan warehouse, yonder! Think o' the thoosands o' cases o' it noo being stowed in this vurra ship, to be tronsported over the seas to furreign lands where it will have to be sold in competition with cheaper domestic bronds! But, o' coorse, oot yonder, The Dew o' Kirkintilloch ronks as 'imported'— and for some reason there's always a peculiar magic in the wurrd 'imported.' Weel, if Duggan's cud only discover a neat way to symbolize 'imported' they cud... Ho! Ha! Great swith!" he leaped from the bunk. "A ship in a bottle!— With the Duggan label showing on the backside o' it— and on the inner side o' the label a picture postcard o' Duggan's Warehouse and the Glesga waterfront! 'Twill look exactly as though the little ship were steaming doon the Clyde! And then, on the wooden stand, some slogan lik' DUGGAN'S DEW— FROM SCOTLAND TO YOU, or something equally clever! Why, there shud be such a bottle displayed behind every bar in the wurrld— aye, and posters with pictures o' it plostered up on all the hoardings! Hoot, Glencannon, yere foortune's made!"

Some time later, perspiring, breathless, and bearing the paper-wrapped bottle, he was ushered into the office of the Duggan advertising manager, a Mr. Watson. Baring his teeth in a magnetic, salesman's smile and fixing Mr. Watson with a compelling eye, "Guid afternoon, sir!" he declaimed. "Today, as ne'er before, industry is geared up to produce goods and meerchandise in quantities whuch literally STOGGER the imogination!" He banged his fist upon the desk. "The greatest prublem o' the monufacturer is HOW TO SELL these goods! The onswer is ADVERTISING! But successful Advertising is built upon IDEAS!—Ideas for...."

"Pardon me!" interrupted Mr. Watson, an officious, petulant little man with a pocketful of patent pencils but very little chin. "I've only held down this job for twenty-six years but I fancy I know the fundamentals of advertising. Is there anything else you'd care to talk about?—If not...."

"Aye, this!" cried Mr. Glencannon, with a dramatic gesture whisking the paper from the bottle and setting it in its stand on the desk. "This! Look at it, sir! Exomine it! Odmire it! Feast yere eyes on it! It is THE FINAL SOLUTION O' YERE SALES PRUBLEMS! Ye can readily see for yersel' what it is, so I willna insoolt yere inteeligence by pointing oot that it's a guid idea— a grond idea— a mognificent idea— a...."

Mr. Watson raised his eyebrows. "Yes, yes— it's all of that! Quite! In fact," he continued, drily, "I thought so highly of it when I first saw it, yesterday, that I signed a contract for a thousand of them."

"Eh?" gasped Mr. Glencannon. "W-what's that ye say?"

"What you heard me say. One thousand of them.— At one pound apiece.— To be delivered in time for distribution next Christmas. Eh?—You don't believe me? Well, here's the sample, on which I gave the order." From his desk drawer he produced the bottle— the Reverend Mr. McDill's bottle— which had caused so much torment, turmoil and strife. "There! You can see for yourself that it's practically identical with yours, so you needn't waste any more time trying to peddle your stolen ideas around here!"

"But— but— ah, foosh, sir! I— I didn't steal the idea! No! It came to me spuntaneously, lik' a flosh in the pan! I was reading an advertisement in an auld mogazine when...."

"Of course— in an old magazine! That's exactly how the other fellow thought of it! I don't suppose it was Fawcett's Illustrated Monthly, by any chance?"

"Yes!" cried Mr. Glencannon, his fists clenched. "And noo, noo I see it all! And I warn ye that despicht his sonctimoonious monner, his teetotal pretensions and his clerical garb, yon McDill is naught but a smug auld hypocrite!"

"What in the world are you talking about? His name's Montgomery and he's a seafaring chap, like yourself.— A bit soberer, perhaps, but...."

"Montgomery?" Mr. Glencannon rasped, his rage soaring to new heights, "Montgomery? Ho, so they're in cahoots, then! It's plain as day! Weel, Muster Watson, if you value yere job, ye'd better be careful! What wud yere Board o' Directors say if they knew that one thoosand poonds o' Mackenzie Duggan and Company's guid money was being honded ower to the International League o' Militant Teetotallers— to be used in their compaign to put this and every other distillery oot o' business?"

"—You mean to say...?"

"Exockly! I mean that auld snivelling McDill is Chairmon o' its Glesga Council— and that yere odious friend Montgomery is one of its leading lichts!"

"Oh, good heavens!" Mr. Watson paled. "If— if what you say is true I—er, well, I'm afraid I'd find myself in a most embarrassing position with our Directors! The League has caused us a great deal of trouble, there's no denying it. But— what can I do? I've signed the contract!"

"Dinna let that worrit ye! I'll see that ye're released— provided, o' coorse, that ye'll buy the bottles from me under the same terms. I'll guarontee the wurrk will be a dom sicht better than either o' these somples!"

"—Will you?— Will you? Ah, well," and Mr. Watson was evidently much relieved, "under those conditions, I'd certainly be happy to do business with you!"

"Guid!" said Mr. Glencannon, snatching up his cap. "I'll be back to see ye later!"

"AH!" The Reverend Mr. Clarence McDill looked up from the sermon he was preparing and beamed in surprise and welcome. "Ah! A very good day to you, sir! Do you know, I was planning to make another call on you? You see, ah, we have just finished five dozen more of those beautiful hand-woven face cloths that you were kind enough to admire and...."

"Keep them!" thundered Mr. Glencannon. "Use them to wash yere black heart with— if ye can reach doon far enough to reach it! Shame on ye! Aye, fie and for shame on ye and Montgomery and all yere League o' so-called Teetotallers!— Accept a thousand poonds to advertise the hell brew o' the biggest distillers in Scotland, wud ye? Foosh, what a howling scondol!"

"But— my dear sir!— What's all this? Come, come, calm yourself!—I assure you that you've been sadly misinformed!— A thousand pounds?— From distillers? Never! Never! Faugh, fellow, you don't know what you're saying!"

"I do! I'm saying that Montgomery has got ye an order for a thoosand ships in bottles from Mackenzie Duggan and Company, Limited— and what's more I can prove it!"

"From— from Mackenzie Duggan and Company? From those— those poisoners? Ridiculous! Mr. Montgomery got the order from one of the big department stores for delivery late next autumn!"

"Pairhops that's what he told ye, but I'm telling ye different! If ye dinna believe me, ye've the telephone there at yere elbow! Call Muster Watson, Duggan's advertising mon!— Call Major Duggan himsel'! Osk them!— I dare ye!"

The Reverend Mr. McDill gasped and wilted in his chair. "I— I'm dazed!" he said, and he looked it. "I— I— Oh, good heavens! This must not, this cannot be! But— I understand that there's a formal, binding contract which...."

"—Contract? Foosh to the contract!" said Mr. Glencannon, reassuringly. "Indeed, sir, noo that I realize, as I shud have realized from the ootset, that ye've been misled by a scoondrel, I'll mak' it my duty to see that ye come off free and clear o' law suits and all such. I beg o' ye to accept my most hoomble apologies. But just what are the terms o' the agreement?"

"Well," Mr. McDill mopped his bald spot, "Mr. Montgomery said that the store would pay only ten shillings apiece for them. As they cost us seven to make, it didn't leave us much of a profit. But because the Mavisbank Home is so sorely in need of funds, even...."

"There! Pray say no more, sir! I not only guarontee to foorce yon dom distiller to tear up the contract but I'll see that ye dinna lose a penny on this whole tronsaction! Look! I'll write ye oot my pairsonal check, richt here and noo, for a hoonderd and fufty poonds— the exoct sum ye'd have earned to help support yere chorities if the thing had gone through. There!"

"But my dear— er, Mr. Glencannon!— You overwhelm me! My gratitude is heartfelt and beyond my poor words to express! Can I depend upon you to join me in exposing this Montgomery— this Judas, this, this monster— to the High Council of our League? Can I count upon your testimony, that he may be scourged with rods, humiliated and cast forth?"

"A-weel, fronkly, no," said Mr. Glencannon. "Much as I'd relish being there to applaud the spectacle and to lead in an appropriate hymn or two, ye'll have to monnage that part by yersel'. Ye see, despicht my sympathy with yere great crusade, I'm not a meember o' the League. After lang meditation, I finally concluded that I cud do more to abolish liquor, wurrking as a free lance, than I cud if I were affiliated with any o' the teemperance organizations."

"Well, sir!" the clergyman's voice broke as he wrung his benefactor's hand, "You've struck a lusty blow for us, today!"

"Aye, and I'll strike many another in the vurra near future, never fear!" Mr. Glencannon assured him as he took his leave.

On his way back to Duggan's Warehouse, "Weel, noo, let's see!" he mused. "As soon as Muster Watson signs the contract, I'll cable Chiang Foo and Company to get started making the parts for the ships. In view o' the size o' the order and the fact that I'll furnish Chiang Foo with the bottles when I get to Hong Kong, I'll offer him four shillings apiece.— Weel, let's say three shillings. So e'en with the hoonderd and fufty poonds I've just noo donated to the Reeverend Muster McDill's auld sailors, I'll come oot o' the deal with a profit o' seeven hoonderd quid. But no!" his face fell, "No! I'd almost forgotten that five poond bet I lost to Montgomery!— A-weel, never mind, never mind! Before he loses his job and is thrown into jail for stealing that whusky I'm plonning to steal oot o' No. 3 hold, I'll get square with the dom crook somehow!"

____________________

3: The Man Who Limped

Otis Adelbert Kline

1891-1946

Oriental Stories, October/November 1930.

Another tale of Hamed the Dragoman

YOU WONDER why I limp, effendi? You are too considerate to ask, of course, but I, whom Allah, in his infinite goodness and mercy, has already permitted two years beyond man's allotted three score and ten, have learned to read the thoughts of people by their expressions. Serving as a dragoman sharpens the wits.

You will hear the story? So be it. Here is the coffee-shop of Silat where we can rest in comfort, and the tale will serve to while away the time. This cushioned diwan is better than the sidewalk stools, and more quiet.

Ho, Silat! Pipes and coffee for two.

You know me, effendi, as Hamed bin Ayyub, the Dragoman, for thus it is that I have been known for many a year— subsisting on the baksheesh of worthy travelers like yourself, and showing them the sights of the Holy City.

None remain who remember me as Hamed the Attar, for full fifty years have passed since I was a druggist and perfumer with a prosperous shop of my own.

Looking on this gray beard, this wrinkled countenance, and this withered frame, you will scarce be able to picture Hamed the Attar, for in those days I was a handsome youth with a skin as smooth as peach-bloom, a beard as black as night, and a tall, straight body that was the envy of many of my less favored acquaintances.

Most of my customers, effendi, were women, and I was patronized not only by the wives and daughters of the middle class, but by many of the great ladies and kohl-eyed beauties of the harems, as well. Aihee! What a business I did in scents, cosmetics and unguents, in henna, depilatories and aphrodisiacs, so that each day added to my profits, and I was in a fair way to become a man of great wealth.

Each day, also, added to my knowledge of the ways of women, for being prosperous I attracted flirtations from those of little wealth who desired husbands, and being also good to look upon, I received signs, hints, and even plain proposals from those who had wealthy lords but desired handsome lovers.

Many were the kohl-rimmed eyes that signed to me with signs of love— many the slender, henna-tipped fingers that sought to thrill me with their gentle pressures, and many the yashmaks that were dropped as if by accident from faces of such ravishing beauty as would have broadened the breast of a sultan.

My father, on whom be peace, was a great and wise Imam, and a true and pious believer. "My son," he had told me a hundred times, "beware of women who sign with the eyes and hands— and avoid as thou wouldst the unclean those who, feigning accident or innocence, disclose their charms to thy gaze, for if thou wert to take one of them to wife, Eblis himself could not play thee more falsely, nor wreak more mischief and bring more sorrow upon thee."

His words, perhaps because of their repetition, and also of the great love and respect I bore my father, had made a firm and lasting impression on my mind. Nevertheless, having an eye to business, I feigned ignorance to those who signed or hinted, put off with excuses those who made plain proposals, and turned piously away when aught was revealed that should not be, though I must confess that I was at times sorely tempted, and would perhaps have yielded, had it not been for the timely warning of my father. Thus it came about, that I slowly grew to be a decided misogynist.

For two years this went on, adding to my wealth and to my distrust of and dislike for women. That is, effendi, I thought I disliked women.

Then I saw the woman.

Having grown sufficiently prosperous, I had taken a pretentious, richly furnished house in a quarter favored by well-to-do merchants, and had bought two black slaves to minister to my wants.

So it chanced that, on the evening of the day I took possession of my new dwelling, when my shop was closed and vesper prayers were over, I mounted to my housetop to smoke my shishab in the moonlight and enjoy the coolness of the evening.

Scarcely had I seated myself on the cushioned diwan which my slaves had brought up for me, ere I heard the soft tones of a woman's voice, so silvery sweet that they might have been those of a houri from Paradise, singing a love song of the Badawin.

There was that about the voice which thrilled me unaccountably, and I was consumed with a desire to see the singer. Presently, unable to restrain myself longer, I stood up on the diwan and looked over the wall. With that look, effendi, went the heart of Hamed the Attar.

THE VOICE, I have said, might have been that of a houri from Paradise, but when I looked over the wall it seemed to me that I looked on one whose comeliness would turn a houri furious with envy. All unmindful of my ardent gaze, she reclined on a low diwan placed among potted shrubs and flowers, singing to a bird suspended in a cage before her. And even as I looked, she finished her song, and the bird answered her with trilling notes of its own.

To this day, effendi, I see her in my dreams as I saw her that night, her beauty radiant as the sun at dawn, with hair of spun, red gold, with Paradise in her eyes, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Nejd.

At some distance from her on a mat, there sat an old slave-woman with folded hands. Presently, with croaking voice, she interrupted the sweet warbling of the bird.

"Salamah Khatun," she said, "you sing so beautifully that the voice of the thrush rasps harshly in comparison. It is perhaps for gladness that you sing."

"What gladness, Ya Ummi? I have no reason to be glad."

"Is it not, then, an occasion for great joy that your brave and handsome cousin, Sheik Ali ben Mohammed, comes to take you to wife ere the moon waxes full again?"

"To be his third wife, and thus subject to the rule of the first and the jealousies of the second? I do not so understand the significance of joy."

"I, too, was young once, my lady, and though a slave, I loved and sang for love. You can not fool me thus easily, my pretty."

"Nor do I seek to, Ya Ummi, but rather to confide in you. I sing for love, but not for love of Sheik Ali, who forces his cousinly claims on me."

"Awah! I suspected as much. Today I saw the blush that suffused your cheeks when the youthful attar gazed into your eyes for but a moment. The yashmak could not hide it from my old, dim eyes, yet that young and sanctimonious fool did not perceive it. Or if he be not a fool, then is he like graven stone, and in neither case would he be worth a paring of your nail."

Now when I heard these words of the old woman, effendi, though they were not complimentary, my heart leaped with a great joy that knew no bounds, for it happened that I was the only youthful attar in the city, and that I now recognized these two as having come into my shop that very afternoon. I recalled that the young lady had purchased a bottle of my most expensive scent from me, and had blushed when I looked into her eyes for a moment, whereat I had tactfully paid no attention, as was my wont, though marveling at the unusual occurrence. For while signing with the eyes and hands are voluntary, and denote boldness, a blush is involuntary and denotes modesty. It was like finding a nugget of pure gold in a worthless heap of glittering dross.

The old hag continued to vilify me, calling me an "Akh al-Jahalah," which means "Brother of Ignorance," and many other unpleasant names which I will not trouble to repeat, but her tirade was suddenly cut short by the girl.

"Enough!" she exclaimed. "I will not permit you to slander him thus. Begone, now, and prepare me a warm bath against my retiring."

The old woman rose, shaking her head sorrowfully.

"Awah! Awah!" she groaned. "If this should come to the ears of the great Sheik Ali ben Mohammed, what calamities will befall us all! Were you to marry this fool of a drug-mixer this very night, the next full moon would find you both dead of his wrath, or you a widow and mayhap a slave; whence I would either be a slave of nobody or a slave of a slave."

"Have no fear, Ya Ummi, that I will marry him this night, nor any other," said the girl. "He does not even know that I exist; much less does he care. Go now. Prepare my bath and cease your wailing, or people will think we have a death in the house."

NOW, effendi, having heard all this, and seeing the girl cooing softly to the little bird, which had grown tired and tucked its head under its wing, I was more than ever affected by the beauty and modesty of this maiden, and the secret love she bore me, and desired her above all my possessions and above all the wealth which it had been my hope to acquire. Yea, I desired her even above my hope of Paradise.

This being so clear in my mind as to admit of no doubt, and I being a man of action, I climbed to the top of the wall and noiselessly let myself down not ten paces from her. So silent was my tread in my mezz of soft morocco, that I stood beside her, yet she was not aware of my presence.

Folding my arms, and bowing my head, like a slave awaiting the will of his master, I coughed gently.

She looked up at me, uttered a stifled cry of fear, and sprang to her feet on the other side of the diwan. Then, seizing a wrap of flimsy, translucent material, she threw it over her head and drew a corner across her face so that only her glorious, terrified eyes were visible.

"Have no fear, O lady," I said, "and make no outcry, for I will go at your command, but only humbly ask leave to say what I have come to say before I depart."

"Oh, my misfortune! Oh, my sorrow! Oh, my disgrace!" she exclaimed, drawing still farther away from me. "And alas, it is Hamed the Attar who brings this shame upon me."

"Nay, Hamed your Slave," I replied. "Wilt vouchsafe me but a moment to say that which I have come to say?"

For answer, she flashed at me such a look of scorn that I truly felt the very slave I had named myself. Then she turned her shapely back on me and started toward the stairway.

"Wait," I pleaded, whipping my jambiyah from its sheath and poising its keen, curved blade above my heart, "or you leave only the corpse of Hamed your Slave behind you."

At this, she turned and surveyed me with a look of concern that flooded my heart with hope. Her words, however, were words of scorn.

"Alas," she said, "that my faith in you has been so rudely destroyed. I had thought you different from other men, and better, yet you violate the sanctity of the harim without so much as a single 'destoo'r' to warn me to veil my face. You, whom I had thought so good and so pious, enter my house like a common thief, to my disgrace and your own unending shame. Now you heap injury upon injury by threatening to take your life here. Take it, if you will, for it is a worthless thing, but pray do so elsewhere."

Humiliated beyond words, I sheathed my jambiyah, bowed low, and slowly walked back to the wall over which I had just come. I realized that every heart-stabbing word she had uttered was truth, and that I had committed one of the most disgraceful crimes a believer may commit. I was about to draw myself up on the wall when, to my surprize, I heard her speak once more.

"Stay."

Turning, I saw her coming toward me, and with head bowed and arms folded once more, I awaited her further words.

"I know not why my heart is softened toward you, transgressor and profaner though you are," she said, coming up before me, "yet the deed is done, and may not be undone by your sudden departure. Nor can it be made worse by your lingering a moment longer. I therefore grant you leave to say that which you came to say, providing only that it is honorable."

"O, lady," I replied, "it is honorable in thought and purpose, yet I dare not say it now, with the full realization of the heinous crime I have so thoughtlessly committed, upon me. My only words, then, will be to humbly ask your forgiveness for what I have done."

"Allah does not withhold His mercy from the truly penitent. Who, then, am I to refuse you pardon? Take my forgiveness, freely granted, but pray to Allah for His."

"May He requite you," I said fervently, and laid my hand on the wall to draw myself up.

"Must you go?" she asked.

I paused. There was that in her eyes which somehow reassured me and bade me stay. After all, I had come with a definite purpose in mind, and it was the height of folly to leave without accomplishing it, now that I had the opportunity.

"It lies in your province to say," I replied.

She laughed softly.

"I fear you have an ally, a very powerful aid on which you have not counted," she said. "Woman's curiosity has got the better of me, and it seems that I simply must know what you came to tell me. Take your moment, therefore, and say your say."

I stood awkwardly before her, not knowing how to begin— seeking suitable words with which to describe fittingly the depth and purity of my passion. Finding none, and marking her growing impatience, I blurted it out in a most unseemly and uncourtly fashion.

"I came to tell you that I love you, and to ask you to become my wife."

She drew in her breath sharply, and swayed slightly toward me, but when I would have caught her in my arms she quickly eluded me.

"Your words are no less startling than your manner of entrance," she said when she had recovered herself, "nor are they less unconventional. If what you say be true, why have you not sent khatibeh women to convey the message, as is the custom? Surely you are not too poor to employ at least one khatibeh."

"Nor a dozen, nor a hundred," I rejoined. "I would squander my all on khatibeh women, if I might thus hope to win you. No, the reason is to be found in my own foolhardy precipitancy. Tonight, when I heard you singing, I suddenly realized that I loved you. I wanted to be with you, if but for a moment, to tell you—"

"Enough," she said coldly. "You heard me singing, so I presume you also heard what I said to my slave. If so—"

It was my turn to interrupt.

"I heard you talking to someone," I lied, instinctively feeling that her outraged pride would be my undoing, "but as to what was said, I know nothing."

"Allah forgive you if you speak not the truth," she said. "But I will grant you the benefit of the doubt. As to that which you have asked of me, it is that which I have not the power to give, even if I were inclined to give it."

"You mean that you have parents— a guardian?"

"Not that. My parents have been received into the mercy of Allah, and I have no guardian. Being of age, I am legally my own mistress, yet I have a cousin, a powerful and war-like sheik of the Beni Sakr tribe, who has given notice that he comes next month to claim his cousinly prerogative."

Well I knew, effendi, the rights which tradition and custom give a first cousin in such matters, and of the affront which would be placed upon him if his priority claim were disregarded. And only too well was I aware of the revenge which a powerful and war-like sheik would take for a transgression of such rights. Yet so great was my desire for this girl that I would have risked my life a thousand times to possess her.

"Such little as I have to offer, in comparison to that which your cousin can give you," I replied, "is yours for the choosing. Only name your will, and it shall be the will of Hamed your Slave."

"I can not answer you now," she said. "I must have time to think."

"So be it," I replied, swinging up on the wall.

"My slave-woman will convey my answer to you," she said. "Meanwhile, send no khatibeh, for I would spare you all unnecessary expense, and say nothing to anyone about this, lest it reach the ears of my cousin."

"To hear is to obey," I said. Then I dropped onto my own diwan where I spent the rest of the night smoking, and thinking over my strange adventure and what it might lead to, until the mueddin called the summons for the dawn prayer....

AFTER PRAYERS and breakfast, I went to my shop, but found it difficult to keep my mind on my business. Being lovesick, I mooned about, with the result that my faculties were not as keen as they should have been, and I lost several opportunities for quite profitable sales. When midafternoon came, I made up a package of choice perfumes, cosmetics and unguents, and sent my apprentice with them to the Lady Salamah, telling him that all was paid, and forbidding him to accept anything for them.

When he returned he told me that an old slave-woman had met him at the door, and had taken the package without so much as an offer of baksheesh.

On the following day, I sent a porter with a choice collection of potted flowers and shrubs which I had purchased at no little cost.

On the third, I forwarded by messenger an assortment of delicious and costly sweetmeats.

The next day being El-Goom'ah, which is our Sabbath, I repaired to the mosque for worship at the noon call, nor did I reopen my shop thereafter, but spent the rest of the day in holy contemplation, and in selfishly praying Allah to soften the heart of the lady toward me.

The fifth day found me still without word from her whose love-slave I had become, and in the afternoon I purchased a valuable prayer rug on which were depicted the mihrab— the tree of life— and the hands of Mohammed, the Apostle of Allah, on whom be peace and prayer. This I sent to the lady by messenger.

On the sixth day I sent a bale of valuable hangings, tapestries and silks.

The seventh day arrived without word from my beloved, and I sat behind the curtains in the rear of my shop, leaving my apprentice to attend to all sales. By this time, hope had so far fled me that my bosom was constricted, so that I no longer had the power of peace. In the afternoon, I rose, and taking with me a considerable sum of money, visited a jeweler, where I purchased an asawir bracelet studded with diamonds of great price.

I had resolved to deliver this valuable present in person, but passing my shop on the way, I looked within and was overjoyed to see the familiar figure of the Lady Salamah's slave-woman, evidently awaiting my return.

After I entered, and we had exchanged greetings, I led her into the rear room, anxious to hear what she would have to say.

"My mistress," she said, "sends you the peace, and the wish that Allah may increase your prosperity because of your great thoughtfulness and generosity. She has directed me to inform you that she will accept your offer under certain conditions."

"And what may be the conditions?" I inquired.

"They have to do with her safety, comfort and dignity," she said.

"Then I accede without further question."

"But wait," continued the old slave. "You may find them difficult."

"Well, name them," I said.

"My lady will not be married except in a manner befitting her station in life."

"That can be arranged," I answered.

"But not here in Jerusalem. Remember the question of my lady's safety. A secret marriage she will not have, but a wedding suited to her position would instantly be known over the entire city, and her cousin the sheik would learn of it and come for his vengeance."

"Then how can it be consummated?"

"By marrying elsewhere. Her desire, in brief, is this: that you sell all your possessions here, and take her to Damascus, where the ceremony will be performed. Only thus can you hope to escape the wrath of her war-like cousin. You can then set up a new business in Damascus without fear of being molested."

"But how travel in secret to Damascus?"

"Can you not get camels, and a litter?"

"But if we join a caravan the news will travel back to the sheik, and he will follow us, even to Damascus; so it were as well to stay here and have it out with him."

"Are you then afraid to fare forth with my mistress and me, you and your two slaves? If she puts her trust in your strength and bravery to protect her from the Harami, are you yourself fearful of them? Are you less brave than a woman? Fie upon you! I will go back and tell my lady you are afraid."

"Stay, and be not so ready to judge me before I have spoken. I am not afraid for myself— only for the danger which she might run. If it is her desire to go, her will is my will. Tell her I will be glad to do all she asks, and only await her final word. Pray convey to her this asawir, a slight symbol of my affection, tendered with the hope that she may consider it a token of our pledged troth."

"I go, and will return the answer of my mistress in the morning...."

IN THE MORNING, the old woman returned, according to her word, and told me that her mistress would be ready to go with me in a week, that in the meantime she would dispose of her property, except such as might be taken with us. She also told me that her lady did not wish to put me to unnecessary expense and would therefore be willing to ride in an ordinary shugduf, or one-camel litter, but she added that if I wished to show true affection I would provide a takht-rawan with two camels of easy gait to carry it, as she feared her mistress' frail form would not stand the swaying and jerking of a shugduf. This I promised to do, and she departed.

I immediately set about disposing of my business, my house, and other property which I did not have the means or the desire to transport.

Within the week, I had completed all preparations, packed my belongings, and purchased a gorgeous takht-rawan, together with brass and scarlet trappings and two gentle, sure-footed dromedaries to carry it. My two black slaves I retained to lead the dromedaries, and purchased also a third slave and four pack-camels to be haltered together and led by him, carrying our tents, provisions, rugs, and other possessions. For my own use I bought a swift-pacing dromedary with a splendid saddle and equipment. Each of my slaves I armed with two pistols, a simitar, and a jambiyah, and in addition to this armament for myself, I carried a rifle, slung across my back. The greater part of my possessions I had converted into gold, which I divided into equal quantities and placed in strong bags depending from either side of my saddle.

Thus prepared and equipped, it was with no small feeling of pride and satisfaction that I drew up my cavalcade before the door of my lady's house. She was ready to go— a virtue which I understand is quite lacking with your Ferringeh women— and I noticed with satisfaction that she had disposed of all but a few of her belongings, which consisted of the rug and bale of goods I had given her, a small bundle of clothing, her caged song-bird, and her slave.

I assisted her and the old woman into the takht-rawan, while the slaves loaded her belongings on the pack-camels, and I reflected that the crafty old hag, when advising a two-camel litter, had probably been quite as much concerned about her own comfort as that of her mistress.

It was early morning when we set out, and coming to the Via Dolorosa—along which walked Sayyidna Isa with the cross, nineteen centuries ago— we passed thence through the Bab es Subat, which the Ferringeh call St. Stephen's Gate, and struck out on the Jericho Road, our first objective the Hajj Road which leads from Mecca to Damascus.

HAVING TRAVELED all day with but a short stop for prayers, food and rest, we made camp in a wady, some fifteen miles beyond El Ghor, near Mt. Nebo. We pitched three tents— one for the lady and her slave, one for my slaves, and one for me.

My slaves built a fire, and would have prepared coffee, but my lady insisted on doing this herself, and her old slave, who was busy baking bread, declared that no coffee was quite so good as that prepared by the fair hands of her mistress.

As I watched my affianced at her tasks, and noticed her grace, her skill, and above all, her maidenly modesty— for she continually kept herself veiled to the eyes— I felt that she was indeed worth a thousandfold more than any cost I might be able to bear for her.

The coffee prepared, she tasted it, then, as a mark of special favor to me, stuck a small lump of ambergris in the bottom of my cup, that my beverage might be perfumed with it. I asked her to enjoy it with me, but she insisted that she had purchased this ambergris for me alone, and hoped that her lord-to-be, who being an attar was an excellent judge of such things, might find it good.

One of my slaves, meanwhile, brought me my shishah, and I smoked, and enjoyed many cups of coffee while the meal was being prepared. Presently, to my great surprize, I found myself growing drowsy. My head nodded, and I heard, as if in a dream, my lady commanding her slave-woman to serve coffee to my slaves, as there was more than enough for all of us. Then a strange sensation came over me— a feeling of exhilaration and of lightness, as if I were floating in the air like a bit of down. This was followed by strange and grotesque hallucinations, in which I would, at one time, imagine myself as tall as Mt. Nebo, and at another, as small as the ants that crawled at my feet. A word seemed to be forming itself in my mind. Presently I saw it flash in letters of fire from various points of the landscape. I saw it written on a silvery cloud in the sky above me. The word was "bhang." More I do not remember, for consciousness left me....

THE SUN had been near to setting when I lost consciousness. When I awoke it had just risen. Moreover, I was no longer in the friendly shadow of Mt. Nebo, but was surrounded by a glittering expanse of rolling sand dunes. My head ached frightfully, I had a feeling of intense nausea, and my muscles were sore and bruised as if they had been pounded. Attempting to move my arms, I found them bound to my sides. My feet, also, were tied together. I turned on my left side, and saw that my three black slaves were lying on the sand, all bound and helpless. Turning on my right side, I beheld two women and a man packing camp equipment and utensils on my kneeling camels. The man I had never seen before, but the women, their faces now indecently unveiled, were the two I had brought out with me. A mule, evidently belonging to the strange man, was tethered near my beasts.

She whom I had known as the Lady Salamah was the first to notice that I had awakened. She immediately called this to the attention of her male companion, and the two walked to where I lay. To my horror, I saw that she was attired in the costume of a common ghazeeyeh, a shameless dancing girl who displays herself before all men in vulgar postures and movements, and that her companion was a low and extremely villainous-looking hautboy player with a warty, bulbous nose and a black patch over one eye.

The fellow spurned me with his foot.

"Sit up, O son of a disease," he ordered gruffly.

"Not at your command, O spawn of a pestilence," I replied.

He kicked me again so that my ribs were near crushed in when I uttered this defiance, then swung on the girl. "Build a fire, slave, and heat the oil," he commanded. "We shall see to the case of this thief who robs the homes of true believers."

"Harkening and obedience, master," she replied, and set about building a fire.

"Now, stealer of slaves and profaner of the harim," he said addressing me once more. "You know the penalty the Koran and the law of the land impose for theft. Can you give me any good reason why I should not strike off your right hand, which is the legal penalty for the first offense?"

"What mockery is this?" I asked him. "First I am drugged with bhang and robbed. Then I am accused of theft."

"First, O father of a calamity, you committed theft. Then you were drugged and bound, but you have not been robbed. I have taken nothing from you but my own property, as Allah is my witness. Yours is untouched, and near at hand."

"Will you be so kind as to inform me what I have stolen?" I asked.

"In the first place, O dog, you stole my slave-girl, Salamah."

"She was represented to me as a great lady, whose favors were her own," I retorted.

"That does not excuse you, even if true." So saying, he suddenly seized me by my beard and jerked me to a sitting posture. Then he unbound my right hand, and unsheathed his simitar.

"Will you hold out your hand, that I may strike it off?" he asked. "Or must I have it bound across one of your bales?"

The girl, who had placed a small cauldron of oil over the fire, the purpose of which I knew only too well, now walked over in front of me, swaying her hips in the wanton manner of the ghazeeyeh.

"Is there no help for it, but that you cut off his hand, my lord?" she asked.

"There is no help," he replied. "Hold out your hand, O sink of corruption."

"It is pitiful for him to lose his hand," she said, "when he has worldly goods with which he may expiate his crime. They can be replaced, but a hand lost is lost forever."

"That is true," he replied. "Offender against the law, how much is your right hand worth to you?"

Before replying, I considered the situation in which I was placed. What he had said regarding the law was only too true, and it was quite apparent that Salamah was really the slave of this villainous musician. The fact that he and the two women had plotted against me to bring this very thing about, might or might not be capable of proof. In the meantime they had not only the Koran and the law of the land on their side, but the well-known "right of might" as well.

I bethought me of the two bags of gold which hung from my saddle, each of which represented nearly half of my fortune. After all, what is half of one's fortune compared to one's right hand?

"There is a bag of gold hanging on the right side of my saddle," I replied. "If it suffice you not, then strike off my hand."

Immediately he sent the slave-girl to fetch the bag, and when she brought it, he examined and hefted it.

"A fair price for a right hand," he said. Then he turned to my three slaves, who had by this time regained consciousness. "You have heard and seen this transaction, and bear witness that your master has purchased his right hand with this gold," he said.

All assented.

"It is well. The right hand is secure to your master. Now, the Koran says that for the second offense, the left foot shall be cut off. Your master has committed a second offense, in that he stole Marjanah, the slave of my slave. Unbind his left foot from the other, that I may strike it off."

"Is there no remedy, master, but that you strike off his left foot?" asked the girl.

"There is none," he answered. "It is the command of the Koran, which every true believer should obey."

"But if he make restitution, can not his foot be saved to him?"

"Take the other bag of gold, which hangs on the left of my saddle, and have done with it," I groaned.

Whereupon the slave-girl fetched the other bag of gold, and my slaves were duly exhorted to bear witness to the transaction.

"It grieves me to relate," said the mendicant, screwing his ugly face into a look of extreme sternness, "that still another theft has been committed. The song-bird of my slave was stolen— carried out of my house, and into the highways and byways. The Koran expressly states that, for the third offense of this nature, the left hand of the thief must be cut off. Therefore, O my pretty slave, bind his right hand and unbind his left, that I may comply with the command of Allah, the great, the glorious, issued through Mohammed the Apostle, on whom be peace."

"There lie my three slaves," I said. "Take them and leave me my hand."

"Their value is but slight," said the ruffian, glancing contemptuously at them. "Now if you will include the camels, together with their trappings, all weapons and ammunition, and all things which they have carried to this place, your person excepted, then will I consider your offer."

"What! All these for a song-bird?"

"Nay, for your left hand."

"Take them— take all," I moaned. "I may as well be utterly ruined."

"You heard him?" asked the fellow triumphantly.

"We heard, and bear witness," replied my slaves and his, in a chorus.

"Unbind these slaves, girl, since they are now mine," he ordered.

When she had unbound them, and they had stretched their cramped limbs, he said: "Ho slaves! Two of you attend the beasts, and the third come here. I have yet a duty to perform toward this stealer of slaves and violator of the harim."

When my former black slave had come up to where I sat, in accordance with the command of his new master, the mendicant continued: "Much as it pains me to dwell on the many offenses of this habitual criminal, there is yet another crime which must be expiated. This villain, who is so crafty he could steal the kohl from off the eyelid, and so depraved he would undertake it, has pilfered, in addition to other property, the cage in which the bird of my slave is confined. He who would steal the home of a bird must be a scoundrel indeed. Now the Koran explicitly commands that when a fourth offense of this nature is committed, the right foot shall be cut off. Who am I to disregard the commands of Allah, the One and Most High God?"

"It is there you are in error," I corrected him, "for the Sooneh law expressly ordains that this punishment shall not be inflicted if the value of the stolen property be less than a quarter of a deenar."

"Unfortunately for your argument, and your foot," he replied, "the cage cost me exactly twice that sum. Unbind his legs, therefore, slave, that I may comply with the law."

"Is there no alternative, but that you strike off his foot?" asked the girl.

"There is absolutely none," he replied. "Has he not just told us that he is penniless?"

"Yet he has one thing which everyone has, and which he can give," said the girl.

"What is that?" asked her master.

"His blessing," she replied.

"True enough, yet it does not suffice."

"But it is something."

"It is something. If he give me his blessing, I will only strike off part of his foot."

And so, near choking with rage at the irony of this final humiliation, I called upon Almighty Allah to bless this malefactor, his slaves, his relatives, and his descendants.

Scarcely had I finished, ere he swung his simitar and cut off all the toes of my right foot. Then, while my former slave held me, he plunged the wounded stump into boiling oil, and stopped the bleeding. At this, I swooned dead away....

WHEN I came to my senses, I was alone. There was no sign of the beasts or the people who had surrounded me when I fainted. My hands had been unbound, and in one of them was a note. Gritting my teeth with the pain of my wounded foot, I opened and read the missive:

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate!

To Hamed the Attar, greeting:

Food, cooking-utensils, water, coffee and tobacco are under the mat behind you. There is sufficient of everything to last you two weeks, but your foot should be well enough to permit of some travel within ten days. It had been spared you entirely, except that, as it is, it will effectively dissuade you from the folly of following me. Follow the path of the setting sun, and you will reach the Hajj Road, where assistance is bound to be forthcoming, and

The Peace.

He Whom You Robbed.

I abode in that barren spot for ten days, whereupon my foot was nearly healed as the note had prophesied. Then I slowly and painfully made my way to the Hajj Road, and then, with the help of a kind-hearted traveler who had room for me on his shugduf, to Jerusalem.

Being penniless and crippled, I was forced to beg for a living until a certain learned Ferringeh, hearing my story, gave me light work to do in his home, and in return for my poor services gave me food and lodging, and taught me your language. My benefactor left, but his teachings enabled me to make a living thereafter as a dragoman.

And so you will conclude, effendi, that I became a confirmed misogynist, and never married. Not so. It chanced one day, when I was passing the hammam, a well-dressed young lady of pleasing carriage signed to me with her eyes. Not being employed at the moment, I followed her at a distance and learned where she lived. I loitered about the place thereafter when business was poor, and she sat in the window of the harim and flirted with me. Several times she made it appear that her veil had slipped out of place, and thereby revealed to me a countenance of rare beauty. I had saved some money, so I sent a khatibeh to sue for her hand, and we were married. For forty years she was a true and faithful wife to me. Then Allah received her into His mercy.

They tell me, effendi, that you have in your country many women and girls who brazenly expose as much of their persons as the law will allow— who pluck their eyebrows, kohl their eyes, dye their cheeks, make scarlet their lips with red grease, and flirt with men. But I am also informed that you have a few females whose becoming modesty forbids these things, and who are, therefore, bright and shining examples of virtue in an otherwise vicious and depraved world.

If I were of your people, effendi, I should never cease extolling the excellence of these modest and reticent maidens who seem too good to be true— but I would select a wife from among the others.

Ho, Silat! Bring the sweet and take the full!

_________________

4: Murder in the Stalls

Valentine Gregory

20-Story Magazine, Sep 1934

Valentine Gregory is probably a pseudonym. The author published a number of stories in the 1930s, according to the Index to the Fiction Magazines, but nothing else is known of him.

PROFESSOR ELDON HARKNESS was not greatly interested in the theatre. "First nights," "One hundredth performances" and "Record runs" left him cold. And while acknowledging the important part played by the stage in social life, he was aware of a feeling of good-humored contempt for those enthusiasts who in his opinion sat far too long on stools far too small waiting for the doors to open.

The Professor had two leading interests in life— science and criminology. The first was his avocation. The second, his hobby. And it is reasonable to suppose that, in the pursuit of the latter, he had been brought into such intimate contact with the real drama of life that he had small patience to spare for the make-believe.

It may be imagined, therefore, that unusual circumstances were responsible for his presence at the Imperial Theatre on the opening night of a thriller called "The Squealer."

Earlier in the day, Detective-Inspector Garton, of Scotland Yard, with whom the Professor, on a number of occasions, had worked in the elucidation of crimes of major importance, had rung up and asked him to share a couple of seats, at the theatre named, that night.

"Are you seriously inviting me to accompany you to the theatre?" demanded Harkness, with a chuckle.

"I am. There's nothing funny about that is there?" The detective sounded a trifle aggrieved.

"I thought we might pick up a tip or two from the play. It's 'The Squealer.' you know— a posthumous play by Warwick Ellis, the famous thriller-writer, who died only a year or so ago."

"Oh, yes?" returned Harkness. A note of interest had entered his voice. Scientist with a European reputation though he was, he had been an avid reader of the detective stories by the author named.

"That puts rather a different complexion on it," he said, after a brief pause. "I'll accept, Garton, with pleasure."

"That's fine!"

There was no mistaking the gratification in the detective's tone; perhaps, too, a hint of pride.

"Will you make it eight o'clock, in the foyer?"

"I'll be there. Good-bye!"

Harkness hung up the receiver and rang for his man Rawlings.

Garton had secured seats in the fourth row of the orchestra stalls— the first and second from the centre gangway, on the left-hand side, facing the stage. Harkness chose the outside position.

The three rows of stalls between them and the stage were but sparsely occupied when Harkness and the detective entered the auditorium. But by the time they had settled down the theatre was almost full. Nevertheless, a number of places in the front rows of stalls still remained unoccupied, notably four or five in the second row and one in the third immediately in front of Garton.

Footlights commenced to glow and the hum of conversation grew more loud as the late-comers edged their way to their seats. Then, as the conductor tapped sharply on his music desk, a sudden hush fell on the house.

The performance had begun.

Among the last arrivals was a slender, dark, bearded man of medium height, who took the vacant stall immediately in front of Garton's. The remaining seats that until then had been unoccupied were now filled by men in evening dress.

The detective pointed out one of these to Harkness.

"See that tall fair chap in the second row— three seats to my left?" he said in the Professor's ear.

Harkness looked and saw a distinguished-looking man of about forty five, immaculately dressed and wearing an eyeglass.

"Yes."

"Dramatic critic. Carr Forsyth. Used to be crime reporter on the 'Morning Echo.' Knew him well." Further conversation was checked by the rising of the curtain, and the two men concentrated their attention on the stage.

The first act took the customary course of the first acts of most detective dramas, and, while Harkness was conscious of a pleasurable thrill of excitement and mystification, Garton was obviously bored and contemptuous. The Professor's interest, however, was soon centred in the leading lady a woman of exceptional beauty and great dramatic powers.

A little above the middle height, shaped like a goddess, moving with the subtle grace of a panther, her crown of sombre hair shadowed eyes of dark brilliance fringed with lashes of unusual length.

SO struck was Harkness with the sincerity of her acting that he experienced a shock of disappointment when on two or three occasions he detected her in patent and pointed recognition of a member of the audience.

Then he realised that her smiles were directed at the man pointed out to him by Garton as the well-known dramatic critic, Carr Forsyth. Moreover, he seemed to read in her smiles a deeper sincerity than the mere wish to placate one of the arbiters of the stage. There was in her glance something that very nearly approached passion.

During one of the actress' temporary absences from the stage, the Professor consulted his programme, to find that the name of the woman who had already added for him an extraneous interest to the performance was given as Cleo Harrington.

"Who's this Miss Harrington?" he asked Garton, in a whisper.

"Wife of an artist, I believe, Mostyn, Morton, Merton, or some such name."

"Not Augustus Morton?"

"You've hit it."

The re-entry on to the stage of the subject of their whispered interchange drew the attention of both men back to the play.

Harkness followed the actress' movements with increased interest, and did not flag in his attention until the end of the act.

"What about a drink?" suggested Garton.

"Not for me," replied Harkness. "You go. I'll wait until the second interval."

"Right you are, Professor," returned Garton, rising. Left alone, Harkness amused himself by watching the movements and listening to the chatter of the people in front and around him.

He saw Carr Forsyth rise and hurry through the curtained exit under the left-hand stage box, and, with a smile, guessed at his destination.

The pale, bearded man who occupied the stall in front of Garton's stood up immediately after; but, instead of stepping out into the gangway, turned left and pushed his way along behind the second row of seats.

In doing so, he put the occupants of the third row to some discomfort, and Harkness thought it strange that he should choose to force a passage between the stalls rather than step out into the gangway and take the easier course in front of the orchestra rail.

The lights were being lowered in the auditorium when Garton edged himself past the Professor's knees and dropped into his stall, and by the time the curtain rose on the second act all were back in their places save Carr Forsyth and the bearded man who had been Garton's front neighbor.

The first scene had been in progress about five minutes when Harkness' eye was caught by the glint of a dress shirt front between the curtains through which Forsyth had disappeared at the interval.

He watched the critic pass between the orchestra and the front row of the stalls, turn right when he reached the gangway, and then, with a whispered apology, turn into the second row of stalls, push his way along, and sink into his seat.

His return synchronised with the reappearance of Cleo Harrington on the stage.

It was a tense and dramatic moment in the play. The audience sat breathless, rigid with attention. Then, with a suddenness that seemed to jar the packed building, there came a cry of anguish from the stalls, followed by a gasping groan.

The cry was followed by a scream upon the stage. Miss Harrington bounded to the footlights and gazed down with a look of fear and agony in her eyes at the slumped figure of the dramatic critic, who had fallen sideways over the right arm of his fauteuil. Someone hurried forward and dragged the actress out of sight behind the wings, and the curtain was lowered. At the same time, the manager appeared in front, praying the audience to remain calm and promising that the play would be resumed in a very few minutes.

Meanwhile, uniformed theatre attendants and firemen had appeared in the stalls and formed a barrier around the stricken man.

Harkness got slowly to his feet and approached the agitated group that had formed around the critic. "Let me pass," he said firmly, to a commissionaire who would have obstructed him. "I'm a medical man."

"Sorry, sir." said the man, touching his cap. "Certainly, sir. Make way there, please. Here's a doctor."

Harkness pushed his way along until he stood immediately behind the critic's stall. For a moment he looked down in silence at the still figure, in its grotesque and twisted attitude.

Then with his handkerchief held in his right hand he leaned over, resting his hand on the back of the seat, and peered at the ghastly face of the dead or dying man.

"Get him out of this," he said. "It won't hurt him to be moved."

The inert form was carried carefully to the manager's room and laid upon a settee.

Harkness accompanied the bearers, and quickly satisfied himself that Carr Forsyth was dead. If he suspected the cause of death he said nothing. He assumed that the dead critic had friends who would take all necessary steps to elucidate the sudden tragedy, and merely handed his card to the agitated manager, in case his evidence should be required at any subsequent inquiry.

As he was about to leave, the door burst open violently and Miss Harrington, dishevelled and distraught, flung across the room and threw herself on her knees beside the dead man.

Unheeded. Harkness withdrew, softly closing the door behind him.

When he returned to the stalls the play was again in progress. Garton barely heeded the Professor's return, beyond muttering: "Heart attack, I suppose?"

"Of a sort— yes," replied Harkness, and again gave his attention to the stage.

Miss Harrington's place had been taken by her understudy, and the piece, owing more to the thrilling situations created by the author than to the merit of the actors, worked out to the inevitable conclusion of such plays— which is to say that virtue was triumphant, and the hero won the girl of his heart.

CARR FORSYTH'S sudden death excited little public interest. The inquest that followed was almost perfunctory. The autopsy had disclosed long-standing heart disease, and the immediate cause of death, it appeared, was sudden failure of that organ.

Two or three witnesses were called who had sat in adjoining stalls— whose accounts agreed as to the manner of the seizure following the critic's return to his seat, shortly after the curtain had risen on the second act.

Professor Eldon Harkness was not called, it probably being thought unnecessary and undesirable to take up the time of the eminent scientist in a matter of so simple and ordinary a character.

A verdict of "Death from Natural Causes" was returned, and the customary authority for the burial of the body at once issued.

A COUPLE of days after the critic's funeral Rawlings entered the Professor's study and announced a caller.

"A lady, Miss Cleo Harrington, to see you, sir," he said.

Harkness betrayed no surprise beyond a sudden compression of his lips.

"Show her in," he said.

The actress looked no less beautiful than when he had last seen her; for even then, as she burst into the theatre manager's room, her loveliness had triumphed over the anguish of her expression.

On this occasion she was calm and self-possessed. But there was a look of sadness, almost of settled grief, on her pale face, and less lustre in her dark eyes.

"I got your card from the manager of the Imperial," she said. "He told me how you came to poor Carr's assistance and left your name in case you could be of any further service."

Harkness nodded.

"I'd heard of you, Professor." went on the actress. "Friends of mine have sometimes mentioned the brilliant things you've done in the way of crime detection.

"So, after the inquest, and poor Carr's funeral, I thought for a while, and at last plucked up courage enough to try to see you."

"Why?" demanded Harkness, looking searchingly at his visitor.

"I want you to help me— if you will."

"In what way, Miss Harrington?"

The actress raised tragic eyes and fixed them on the scientist's keen grey ones.

"Professor," she said, "I believe Carr Forsyth was— murdered; and I want
you to help me discover the murderer."

Harkness looked at her in silence for a moment.

"But the post-mortem, and the verdict of the Coroner's jury!" he protested.

"I know— I know!" she exclaimed. "But something seems to tell me he was done to death in some cruel and mysterious way, and I can't rest until I know the truth."

Harkness looked at the actress thoughtfully, then he reached for his pipe.

"There are cases, Miss Harrington," he said, "in which, although one may be convinced that a crime has been perpetrated, the wiser course is to let it go unpunished."

The actress stared at him in some surprise.

"Do you really mean that?" she asked.

"Emphatically," was the reply.

"Even in a case of murder?"

"Even in a case of murder. Perhaps even in the case of this murder," he said, gravely.

"This murder?" she repeated, in a hushed voice. "Is it possible that you, too, believe that he— that Carr— was murdered?"

Harkness puffed for a few moments at his pipe.

"I'm convinced that he was," he said quietly.

"Then— then why have you taken no steps? Surely, in your position of authority you would be listened to and the crime would be brought home to the wretch who... who..."

"Listen, Miss Harrington," interrupted Harkness. "Carr Forsyth is dead. Nothing you or I may do can restore him to life. To find and punish his murderer would benefit his victim not at all; but, on the other hand, to track down the criminal might bring misery, if not worse, upon certain innocent people."

"But—" protested the actress, heatedly.

"I know my views may sound strange to you," the Professor broke in. "I admit they're unorthodox. 'Justice, though the heavens fall,' sounds very fine. But justice can sometimes mean hell for the innocent."

Harkness paused.

''I should have placed my views before the authorities days ago," he resumed, "but for one reason— consideration for you, Miss Harrington."

The actress gasped.

"Consideration for me?" she repeated. "I— I don't quite understand."

"If, after what I've said, you really wish me to investigate the death of Carr Forsyth, I will do so," said Harkness; "but only on one condition: You must give me your entire confidence."

"I don't care what the conditions are;" cried the actress, passionately. "I want the murderer of poor Carr unmasked— at any cost. Please— please help, and I shall be everlastingly grateful to you."

"I wonder." murmured Harkness under his breath.

"Very well, Miss Harrington." he said aloud. "I will do what you ask. But, remember my warning, and don't blame me if it brings you greater unhappiness."

Miss Harrington nodded eagerly.

"What were your relations with the dead man?" asked Harkness quietly.

The actress flushed, and pressed her hand to her bosom. For a moment she was silent. Then she spoke— boldly— almost proudly.

"He was my lover," she said.

"You are the wife of Augustus Morton, the well-known water-color artist, aren't you?"

"Yes." she replied, simply.

"Did your husband know of your association with the dead man?"

"I believe so. We've lived apart for three years."

"When did you see him last?"

"About six months ago. We met by chance at adjoining tables at lunch. I was with Carr. My husband was lunching with my brother. I was a little surprised to see them together."

"Why, Miss Harrington?"

"Well, they'd never been particularly good friends. As a matter of fact, my brother Stuart strongly opposed my marriage to Augustus. He has a sort of constitutional contempt for what he used to call the wishy-washy, dilettante Chelsea type of artist, and always said I ought to have married a man, not a collapsible tube of water-color."

Harkness smiled faintly.

"Was that in any way a fair description of your husband?" he asked.

"I— I think it was. I didn't think so at the time of my marriage. I was rather carried away by his appearance and manner. A kind of languid indifference that appealed to me. The attraction of opposites, I suppose. Even his beard fascinated me. But my brother was more far-sighted than I."

"Your husband rents a studio in Chelsea, I believe?"

"Yes."

"Does he sleep there?"

"No. He has a service flat in Hanover Square."

"And you, Miss Harrington— where do you reside?"

"I'll give you my address," replied the actress, opening her handbag.

She produced a visiting card, on which was engraved the address of a block of flats in St. John's Wood. Harkness slipped it into his pocket.

"So you thought it strange that your husband and brother should be lunching together?" he said casually.

"I did, indeed."

"Did your brother know of your relations with Carr Forsyth?"

"I can't say. It has never been mentioned between us."

"Did he know the critic?"

"I should imagine not. My brother, like yourself, Professor, is a disciple of science— but not, of course, so eminent."

"What is his full name?"

"Stuart Taylor— my maiden name. He's an analyst employed by a firm in the city."

"I see," murmured Harkness. "I don't think I've heard of him— at present. Is he married?"

"Oh, no!" laughed the actress. "I'm afraid he's somewhat of a woman hater— except that he is passionately fond of me."

"So he lives at home— with your mother?" suggested Harkness.

"Oh, no. Mother's been dead for years. My father also. No, Stuart lives in rooms at Balham. Quite a suburbanite, really— and a little stodgy, perhaps, dear old thing!"

There was a suggestion of real affection in the woman's voice as she spoke.

Harkness smiled sympathetically, and stood up.

"Well, Miss Harrington," he said, "since you wish it, and since also it will gratify my somewhat gruesome taste for the solution of crime mysteries, I will follow the matter up, and if, as I believe likely, I should discover the murderer of your friend I will let you know."

"Thank you, Professor," exclaimed the woman with feeling. "If you succeed I believe poor Carr will rest more easily in his untimely grave."

She wept a little as she spoke. Then, brightening up, she dabbed at her eyes, shook Harkness warmly by the hand, and took her departure.

WHEN his visitor had gone, Harkness sat for quite a while, deep in thought, smoking incessantly. He found himself confronted with a difficulty that threatened to hamper his investigations.

To obtain the tangible evidence needed to bring the crime home to the murderer, he knew that certain rooms must be searched— and for this he had no authority.

Harkness was rescued from his quandary in a fashion as decisive as it was unexpected.

A tap on the study door was followed by the appearance of Rawlings. The Professor looked up. "Detective-Inspector Garton's compliments, sir, and can you spare him five minutes?"

"Yes. Show him in."

"Ha, Professor!" cried the detective, bustling forward. "How's science?"

"Still looking, for the missing link," retorted Harkness, staring at his visitor as though the long-looked-for had at last appeared.

Garton looked dubiously at the scientist for a moment, his bull neck reddening. Then, with a grunt he sat down and drew a paper from his pocket.

"What do you make of this?" he asked, dropping the document on to the Professor's blotter.

Harkness spread the sheet out before him and read the following words aloud:

The inquest on the body of Carr Forsyth was a tragic farce. It is incredible that the police failed to recognise the death for what it was— an artistic murder: more especially in view of the material evidence they, or somebody, must have in their possession. Why should murderers be shielded by those whose duty it is to bring them to justice?

"An educated hand, disguised," commented the Professor. "Well, what about it?"

"Well, we thought at the Yard that it might be something in your line. You see, I told the chief that you and I were at the theatre together that night, and that if there'd been anything fishy about the affair we should have spotted it."

"But there wasn't— so we didn't; is that the case, Garton?"

"Well, isn't it?" countered the detective, looking a little anxiously at the scientist. "I wasn't on duty that night, but all the same I should hate to think I'd missed anything. I've thought about that chap with a beard once or twice."

"So have I," returned Harkness.

"But he went out during the interval, didn't he?" went on Garton eagerly, "and he didn't come back. He wasn't there when Forsyth gave up the ghost."

"True," agreed Harkness. "But he didn't take the easiest or most obvious way out. Did you notice that?"

"Can't say I did."

"Of course not. You'd gone to the bar. By the way, didn't you tell me that the husband of the leading lady Miss Harrington, wasn't it?— was an artist?"

"Yes."

Immediately after Garton had spoken he slapped his thigh.

"By gosh!" he exclaimed. "I wonder whether that was he. I should like to know whether Mr. Augustus Mostyn, Merton—"

"Morton," corrected Harkness.

"That's it!" exploded the detective. "I wonder whether he wears a beard?"

"He does," said Harkness quietly. Garton looked up quickly.

"You know that, eh? You've got busy about it already, eh?"

The detective did not look too well pleased as he shot his questions at the Professor.

"I've learnt a little— that's all," replied Harkness. "But I'm anxious to learn more. I'd like to look over his flat in Hanover Square, and his studio in Chelsea. Unofficially, of course, and in his absence. Could you manage that?"

"You mean without a warrant? It would take a bit of fixing, and there's a risk. Look here, Professor, if we're both in this together, and it's agreed that I make an official report to the Yard when we've got something concrete, I don't mind taking a chance."

TOWARDS seven o'clock the following evening Harkness had the promised ring from Garton.

"It's O.K. for the studio to-night, Professor," he said. "Meet me outside Chelsea Town Hall at eleven. You'd better bring an electric torch."

"Good man!" was Harkness' reply. "I'll be there."

The Town Hall clock was striking eleven when the Professor alighted from his taxi and paid off the driver. As he turned, Garton emerged from the shadow of the dark and silent building, and stepped to his side.

"Glad you're on the tick," said the detective. "It's only five minutes from here. I've got a man to keep a lookout; but I don't fancy we shall be disturbed."

In silence the two made their way to the artist's studio. It was approached by a narrow passage turning out of a quiet residential by-street, and stood in an old-fashioned and unkempt garden— a single-storey wooden structure surrounded by a lawn.

Although the hour was late, bright starlight and a waning moon made their approach to the building an easy matter.

Reaching the door, Garton produced a bunch of skeleton keys and in a few moments had effected an entry. The door opened directly into the main studio. Broad skylights broke the wide expanse of the north slope of the roof, through which the sparkle of the stars glimmered faintly.

A typical studio interior was disclosed by the beams of the two electric torches; a mixture of comfort and neglect— works finished or barely begun— easels, brushes, and all the usual paraphernalia of the artist in water colors— in what, to the layman's eye, suggested a confusion only narrowly removed from sordidness.

In silence, Harkness directed the beam of his torch here and there about the room, without any apparent method guiding its movements. Suddenly the light flickered on a large wastepaper basket standing in the far corner, and to Garton's surprise, expressed by an inarticulate grunt, the scientist went down on his knees and tipped the contents out on to a light colored Turkish rug that lay near by. Swiftly he sorted through the varied contents of the receptacle — empty cigarette cartons, exhausted color tubes, orange peel, torn papers, scraps of cardboard, and a hundred other unconsidered trifles.

Then, with a suppressed exclamation he picked up a small piece of red cloth— a strip about three inches long and an inch wide.

Slipping the rag into his waistcoat pocket he bundled the rest of the debris back into the basket, and stood up.

"That'll do, Garton," he said.

Silently the detective followed Harkness out of the studio, closed and locked the door, and then took the lead back to the street.

At the end of the passageway a plain clothes constable disengaged himself from the shadow of a tree and stepped forward.

"O.K., Marshall," said Garton. "Goodnight."

As the pair paced back to the King's Road, the detective ventured to put one or two leading questions as to the result of the search. But Harkness silenced him.

"I'll tell you everything later, Garton," he said. "At present, I'm feeling my way. So don't pester me with questions."

"Oh, I know you've got your own way of working," returned the inspector with unusual mildness. "I won't bother you, Professor. But what's the next move?"

"There's no need for me to see Morton's flat— now," was the reply. "But I want to look over some rooms at Balham. I'll give you the address when we get to Sloane Square. At present they are occupied by a lodger named Stuart Taylor. He's an analytical chemist employed by a city firm."

"That won't be so easy, I fancy." returned Garton. "The house is otherwise occupied, I daresay."

"What does that matter?" retorted Harkness. "Find out at what time Taylor leaves for town each morning, and when he usually returns. Let me know to-morrow, if you can. In the afternoon."

"Well, what then?" asked the detective.

"Why, we can both call to inquire about rooms, and you can amuse the landlady— if any— while I have a look round."

"I get you." replied the other. "I'll let you know after noon to-morrow."

At Sloane Square, after Harkness had dictated Stuart Taylor's address to the detective, the two parted, each in search of rest.

NEXT MORNING Harkness called on the artist at his studio. The door was opened by a dark, spare man of medium height, whose trimmed beard of nondescript brown emphasised the pallor of his face. He gazed at his caller without manifesting any surprise.

"I trust you'll excuse my calling on you without an appointment," said Harkness, with a smile. "I'm Professor Eldon Harkness."

"Oh, yes?" returned the other evenly. "I think I've heard of you, Professor but in connection with what matter I can't at the moment recall. Will you step in?"

Harkness followed the artist, and took the chair proffered him. Then he leaned forward.

"Mr. Morton," he said, "you may have heard of me in connection with certain baffling crimes which I was instrumental in unravelling."

"Ah, that's it," came the calm reply. "I remember now. But I fail to see why—"

"Permit me for a moment, if you'll be so good," interrupted Harkness. "My object in calling on you is a very serious one. I believe your life is in danger."

"Isn't everyone's?" returned the artist, without the slightest sign of perturbation.

"True," agreed the scientist. "But not from criminal designs."

"You suggest then that some criminal proposes to put me on the spot, to use a vulgar and rather overworked phrase," smiled the artist.

"In a way— yes. The knowledge has come to me in an unexpected and unsought way. I'm constantly in touch with Scotland Yard, you understand, and I have access..."

Harkness made a slight gesture.

"I felt it my duty to warn you," he went on after a moment. "But may I put one question to you?"

"By all means."

"When did you last visit the Imperial Theatre?'"

The reply was given with cool deliberation.

"I have never been inside the Imperial Theatre in my life. I have no taste for the drama, and never attend theatrical performances."

Harkness accepted the artist's declaration without showing the least surprise. It was not altogether unexpected by him and for the time being he was ready to take it as true.

"That's interesting." he said, gazing at the artist with candid eyes. "I take it you're a worshipper at only one of art's many shrines, expressing your devotion through the medium of brush and pigment.

"By the way," he went on crisply, "I know next to nothing about the gradations of tints, so would you tell me what color is this?"

As he spoke, the Professor took from his waistcoat pocket the strip of red cloth he had found in the artist's waste paper basket the previous night, and held it up to view.

Morton glanced at the rag and frowned slightly.

"Crimson," he said.

"Thanks," said Harkness heartily. "Then I was right."

In silence and with marked deliberation he placed the strip of stuff carefully in his wallet, which he returned to his pocket. The artist followed the scientist's action with a faint smile.

"Well, Mr. Morton," said his visitor, picking up his hat, "I've fulfilled my little mission, and I mustn't take up any more of your time. Forewarned is forearmed, they say. I must leave the rest to you."

"I'm greatly obliged to you, Professor," replied the artist, "but I must confess you leave me puzzled."

"I'm sorry," returned Harkness, "but I'm unable to say any more at present."

With this the interview closed, and the Professor left, to return to his flat.

Immediately the artist found himself alone he reached for the telephone and dialled a city number.

"Is that you, Taylor?" he said quietly after a moment. "Something rather queer has happened. A man who called himself Professor Eldon Harkness called on me this morning. Know anything about him?"

"Harkness?— Harkness?—" returned the other voice with some excitement. "Not the busybody amateur sleuth?"

"The same, I believe."

"What the deuce did he want with you?"

"First of all, he informed me that some mysterious unknown had designs on my life— Are you there?"

"Yes. I'm listening." came the hoarse reply. "He must be mad. What else did he say?"

"Why, he asked me when last I was at the Imperial Theatre."

"Yes?— Yes? What did you tell him?"

There was unmistakable anxiety in the questioning voice.

"Simply the truth— that I'd never been there in my life."

"Think he believed you?"

"Why shouldn't he? What are you driving at? You seem a bit queer yourself this morning."

"I'm all right. Touch of liver, perhaps. Did he ask anything else?"

"Yes; he switched right off, took a bit of rag out of his pocket, and asked me what color it was."

"A— a bit— of rag," repeated Taylor with a kind of gasp. "What— what color was it?"

"Crimson. Did you ever hear anything quite so mad?"

"Crimson! Are you certain it was crimson? Where did he get it? Sure he took it out of his pocket?"

The questions followed one another in rapid succession, and in a voice that betrayed the agitation of the speaker.

"Yes. Quite sure. How on earth should I know?" returned Morton impatiently. "You seem to have got the wind up suddenly, about something. Why and what. I don't know. Anyone might think your life was being threatened mysteriously, instead of mine."

"Did— did he say anything about— did he mention Forsyth?" stammered Taylor, ignoring Morton's sarcasm.

"Forsyth?— Damn him! No! Why should he? Oh, I see. Because he referred to the Imperial Theatre. By the way, that heart attack came at an opportune moment, eh?

"How?"

"Well, it saved you some trouble— if you really meant what you said when you were here the night he died."

"What do you mean?" growled Taylor's voice. "You're mistaken. We were not together the night he died. I was at home. D'you hear? I was at home. Where you were, you know best."

"Don't be a fool, Taylor," said Morton sharply. "You know perfectly well that you spoke to me over the phone about a quarter to nine and got to the studio about half-past."

"I know nothing of the sort," retorted Taylor savagely. "And I don't care to discuss your— mistake— over the wire."

"I see " said Morton slowly. "At least, I think I do. You'd better come over and see me— this evening. I don't like misunderstandings of this sort— especially in the circumstances. Will you come?"

"Why should I?" demanded the other gruffly. "I've another engagement."

"Put it off," advised Morton quietly. "I shouldn't like your threats against the life of a certain person— now defunct— to get to anybody else's ears. Will you come? Make it ten o'clock."

"All right. Although I don't know what the devil you want to see me about."

"That can wait." replied Morton, "Ten o'clock, then, I'll expect you."

Whereupon he hung up.

For a few moments he sat in deep thought. Then he rose and went over to a low cabinet, from the drawer of which he extracted a small but serviceable revolver. Opening the breech he examined the weapon carefully, then, apparently satisfied, returned it to its place, and closed the drawer.

SHORTLY AFTER Harkness had returned to his flat he rang up Miss Cleo Harrington.

"This is Professor Harkness," he said.

"Yes, Professor?" came the actress' excited voice. "Have you discovered anything? Have you something to tell me?"

"Listen, Miss Harrington," returned the scientist gravely. "Are you still determined to know the truth about your friend's death?"

"Absolutely," came the reply.

"At any cost?— I mean, to your happiness and peace of mind."

"Yes. Nothing can weaken my determination. I believe poor Carr was foully murdered, and I'm ready to sacrifice anything to know who killed him."

"If that's your final decision," said Harkness. "I'll say nothing more to deter you. But now I must ask your help. Will you do something to further my inquiries, without questioning?"

"Yes, anything. Emphatically, anything."

"Then I want you to learn your brother's proposed movements tonight."

He heard a faint exclamation from the other end of the line.

"Try to get him to meet you in town. Ask him to take you to dinner. Say you don't feel up to playing to-night. Any excuse. If he refuses, ask him why— and let me know. Will you do that?"

"Certainly, Professor. It's the last thing I should have expected you to ask of me all the same. I told you that my brother and I had quarrelled over my husband, and that he probably had his suspicions about poor Carr. Still, I'll do it. Shall I ring you?"

"Please. It's very brave of you. I shall hope to hear from you quite soon, Miss Harrington. Meanwhile, goodbye."

Replacing the receiver, Harkness took the strip of crimson cloth from his wallet, placed it in an envelope already containing a more bulky object, and returned the package to his pocket.

Shortly after there came a ring from Garton.

"That you, Professor?"

"Yes, any news?"

"Sure. Taylor leaves home at nine thirty every morning, and returns at seven."

"Good. Meet me at Balham South tube station at four this afternoon, if you can manage it."

"I'll be there."

The receiver had not been replaced more than five minutes before there came another ring. This time it was from Miss Harrington.

"Cleo Harrington speaking," came the actress' clear voice. "I've spoken to my brother. He's refused to meet me this evening He seemed very abrupt and unfriendly.

"When I pressed him for his reason, he said, in quite a savage tone, that he'd already made an appointment with my husband at the studio, for ten o'clock.

"I asked him why on earth he was going there to a man he'd always said he'd hated and despised, and he simply said he didn't know himself, but was going anyway."

"Thank you, Miss Harrington. That fits in admirably with my plans. Now, since your brother has refused to take you to dinner, will you honor me?"

"Oh, Professor, I should be simply delighted!"

"No more than I. Then I will call for you at seven-thirty. Will that suit you?"

"Splendidly! Thanks, so much."

Until it was time for him to start for his Balham appointment, Harkness devoted himself to his own work, and was surprised by the passage of time when, at three o'clock, according to instructions, Rawlings announced the taxi to take him to Charing Cross.

Arrived at the house in which Stuart Taylor rented a couple of furnished rooms, the Professor and Garton had little difficulty in impressing the eager landlady with the likelihood of their taking apartments in her establishment.

Garton's humorous volubility afforded Harkness ample opportunity for hurriedly searching Taylor's rooms with- out arousing suspicion, and, in due course they took their departure— both perfectly satisfied with their visit.

On the way back to town, Harkness turned to the detective and looked at him with a smile.

"You've been a good scout, Garton," he said, "and to-night you'll have your
reward. It won't be anything tangible, I'm afraid; but you'll have the satisfaction of getting to the heart of a mystery, and possibly arresting a criminal."

"I was beginning to wonder when I was to begin to get on the inside of things," grumbled Garton. "But I know your ways, Professor, and I haven't bothered. So to-night's the night, eh?"

"Yes, we'll call on Mr. Augustus Morton again— at ten o'clock."

"Morton, eh?" muttered the detective. "I'd an idea there was something fishy about that bird."

Harkness laughed.

"One might think he was a seagull," he said.

"A seagull? Why?" demanded Garton.

"Never mind," returned Harkness. "Now, listen. Be at the entrance of the passageway at five minutes to ten, and wait for me. I shall probably have a lady with me."

"Phew!" exclaimed Garton, opening his eyes. "So there is a woman in it."

"When isn't there?" asked the scientist.

"That's the case I'm waiting for," returned Garton.

At Charing Cross the two men separated and Harkness returned to his flat.

AT A FEW MINUTES to ten that night Harkness, accompanied by Miss Harrington, alighted from a taxi within a couple of yards of the entrance of the passageway leading to Augustus Morton's studio.

Garton stepped forward, was introduced to the actress, and the three
walked quietly along the path and approached the building.

"Some fellow went in about ten minutes ago," the inspector whispered to Harkness.

"Good," exclaimed the latter. "I was afraid we might have to wait in the shadow for a while until he arrived."

"Who is it?" asked the detective.

"Taylor," was the Professor's whispered rejoinder.

As they approached the building, the sound of voices raised in anger reached them.

Harkness stepped quickly to the door and knocked loudly.

Instantly there was profound silence. Then, after a brief interval, the door was opened quietly, and Augustus Morton stood before them.

"Good evening, Mr. Morton. You're surprised to see me again so soon. May we come in?"

Without a word, Morton stepped aside and gazed with growing astonishment at his three visitors. His face was deathly pale, and tiny beads of sweat stood on his brow.

"There's no need for me to introduce you to your wife," said Harkness, with a disarming smile. "But this is Detective-Inspector Garton of Scotland Yard."

A smothered exclamation reached the Professor's ears as he spoke the last words. He glanced across the room.

"Ah," he said genially. "This will be Mr. Stuart Taylor, I believe. Is that so?"

The man addressed made no reply, but seemed to try to slink into the shadow.

"Now, Mr. Morton," went on the Professor, "if you'll kindly close the door, and allow us to sit down, I'll try to explain why we are all here."

Morton made an appropriate gesture, and shut the door. As he did so, Taylor strode forward and confronted his sister.

"What are you doing here?" he shouted "And who are these people?"

His face was distorted with passion, and he clenched and unclenched his hands as they hung at his side.

Harkness stepped in front of the agitated man, and looked down at him sternly from his superior height.

"Mr. Taylor," he said, "be advised by me. Sit down, and please be silent. I have something to say to both you and Mr. Morton."

Taylor scowled up at the gaunt scientist, then seemed to slink to the nearest chair, into which he dropped limply.

Garton squatted down on a stool near the door; Morton seated himself on the edge of the model's dais, and the actress sank on to a narrow divan on the Professor's left.

Glancing round, to find every eye fixed upon him Harkness commenced to speak.

"Carr Forsyth did not die a natural death," he began. "He was murdered.

"The murderer hated two men with what cannot be described as other than an insane hatred. He hated his sister's husband— an artist of some ability; and he hated his sister's intimate friend, the dramatic critic, not because he knew him, but because he suspected that relations existed between them which he deemed injurious to his own honor.

"So he made up his mind to compass the death of both men.

"Being a clever chemist, his thoughts naturally turned to poison. As an analyst employed by a firm of repute, he enjoyed easy access to the most deadly drugs.

"He ingeniously prepared a collapsible capsule fitted with the hollow needle-like point of a hypodermic syringe. Probably he had in mind the stinging apparatus of the common nettle.

"Anyhow, he prepared such a sting, charged it with the most virulent and speedy poison at present known, and attached it to a strip of red cloth— like this."

Harkness hereupon took from his wallet and displayed to his audience a narrow band of crimson cloth about nine inches long, showing a protuberance about an inch or so from one end.

"This was the instrument of death," he proceeded, "and it is still deadly."

He threw the object carelessly on a small table in front of him as he spoke, where it lay like a crimson snake, ready to strike.

"Red cloth was chosen because it was intended to be thrown over the back of a red chair, and so be undetected by the occupant— who, leaning back, would press against the sting's point and thus force the poison into his own flesh.

"The destined victim was expected to be seated in a red upholstered stall at the Imperial Theatre on the night of his death.

"For the murderer, with the thoroughness that sometimes denotes a degree of mental instability, had made himself acquainted with the critic's habits. He had learned that, on first night performances, he invariably occupied a seat in the second row of the stalls on the left side of the central gangway.

"He, himself, therefore, booked a seat in the third row, within easy reach of the man he designed to kill. But he did not book the seat in his own name. He was generous enough to give the name of his brother-in-law, the artist."

For the first time since Harkness had begun his recital, Morton looked across at Taylor. The expression in his eyes was not pleasant to see.

"Now," went on the scientist, "the artist was a bearded man— the intended murderer clean shaven. But disguise is easy. False hair of the correct color was obtained, and on the night of the crime was fixed by means of spirit gum to the bare chin.

"Here are two of the hairs," added Harkness, showing them between his fingers, "with traces of gum on their ends. They were taken from the collar of the dress coat worn by the murderer on the night of the crime.

"He entered the theatre in the name of, and disguised as, Augustus Morton, sat in front of Detective-Inspector Garton, and was seen there by myself.

"During the interval, when the critic had left his stall, his pursuer got up, passed behind his victim's vacant seat, and placed the murderous contrivance he had fabricated on the back of it as he passed

"We all know what happened after that. Carr Forsyth returned to his seat at the beginning of the second act, when the auditorium was in semi-darkness, sat down, and a few minutes later leaned back, to receive the fatal wound.

"Meanwhile, or subsequently, the criminal, by some means which I have not yet discovered, managed to plant in this studio a piece of incriminating evidence in the shape of a scrap of the red cloth used in his deadly device. Here it is. I found it in that waste paper basket.

"However, unfortunately for the assassin's complete design, a verdict of 'Death from Natural Causes' was returned at the inquest, and no shadow of suspicion fell on the artist.

"Impatient and remorseless the criminal wrote an anonymous letter to Scotland Yard, in which he hinted at 'an artistic murder,' hoping to put the police on the track of his second victim and bring him to the gallows.

"But, fortunately, the second part of his treacherous and malignant scheme miscarried."

Harkness paused a moment, drew himself up to his full height, and turned squarely towards Taylor. Then, pointing his finger at the huddled and shrinking man, he spoke again.

"Stuart Taylor," he said loudly, "I charge you with the murder of Carr Forsyth and the attempted destruction of your brother-in-law Augustus Morton."

Taylor got to his feet, shakily, but with determination. Over his ghastly face spread a smile that made its beholders shudder.

"You're clever, aren't you?" he sneered, taking a step forward "A little smarter than me, as it's turned out. All right. You win. As for me— well I'll retire from the contest."

Leaning forward suddenly, he snatched up the coil of crimson cloth and pressed the deadly end of it to his throat.

A moment later, with a cry between a groan and a scream, he thudded to the floor.

Horror-stricken, the witnesses of his act stared silently at the prone form jerking convulsively at their feet. Then Harkness leaned over him.

"Nothing can be done," he said quietly. "Perhaps it's as well," he added, turning to the woman and taking her trembling hands in his.

___________________

5: At the Fortunate Frog

Coutts Brisbane

(R. C. Armour, 1874-1945)

Sydney Sportsman 23 April 1942

Robert Coutts Armour was an Australian writer of novels and short stories whose short fiction appeared in American periodicals such as The Red Magazine and specially The Yellow Magazine. He also wrote Sexton Blake stories, and boys' stories for Chums. He used several pseudonyms.

THE last of the long line of patients had departed, writhing but relieved. Dr. Hi Ho sat himself down on the low couch that had served all morning as operating table, lit the pipe which his servant, Sung, presented to him with the cautery iron which had done yeoman service, and, puffing a cloud of smoke, permitted himself to smile. That morning at daybreak he had opened his clinic for the first time in his own house, after years spent as an itinerant practitioner proclaiming his merits in every marketplace of the great province of Ho Nan.

He had done well. Already he had thought of settling down in some large city, when a stroke of fortune had trebled his capital and he no longer hesitated. He. had purchased a small but well-situated house in the Street of The Evening Star, in Sen Yang, hired a hairy, two-humped camel and sent it forth through the crowded city ways, led by his faithful ex-barrowman, Sung, to announce his arrival.

There was no false modesty about the advertisement. Large placards hung on either side of the beast, proclaimed in red letters:

'Dr. Hi Ho, Mighty Healer of bodies, is come to live among you, in the house of The Fortunate Frog, in Evening Star Street. Dr. Hi Ho, Healer of Mandarins, the Best Doctor in the World. All Diseases cured. Pain abolished. Dr. Hi Ho, who formerly sat in the market place, receives the sick at the sign of The Fortunate Frog, or heals the incurable in their own homes.

'Dr. Hi Ho, the Greatest Doctor in the World, is in Evening Star Street at the sign of The Fortunate Frog. He cures Everything!'

And since Dr. Hi Ho was already widely known as a successful if somewhat drastic dealer with human infirmities, business had started with sunrise. He had reason to smile.

'We begin well, Sung!' he observed. 'And we will do better. The Fortunate Frog is well named.'

'Frogs become the prey of serpents,' murmured Sung. 'There are three in Sen Yang who will willingly attempt to seat you in the saddle of the Heaven Aspiring Steed without unnecessary delay. I have already seen them observing the crowd at your door, and their faces were as those of men who wear the wooden collar of torment.'

'Doubtless you speak of my honorable brethren in the art of body restoring? I have seen them before when we sat at the corner of the market-place. Twice they have endeavored to drive me away by the blows of hired men with clubs. But the people protected me. It will be the same again.'

'The tiger may miss his spring at one who runs. The sleeping man is a sure prey,' interrupted Sung. 'Also they now have time to consult together. Yet the chief of these men, the honorable Yat Foo, is elderly and rich. May this humble one suggest that soft words and a not inconsiderable present may incline his heart youwards, or at the least move him to abstain from such actions as may end in my inconsiderable self having with great grief to arrange with an undertaker on your behalf?'

'Since he is the elder of the honorable brethren, etiquette plainly demands that I should call upon him,' said Hi Ho softly. 'And a bag of tales of superior silver and good weight would be a suitable indication of the reverence due to one far gone in years, even though he may have advanced into second childhood. I will go. You will go also, remaining at the door in an attitude of respect.'

'And wearing beneath my coat a short sword of superior sharpness,' agreed Sung. 'I will fetch your horse that you may go with fitting dignity.'

FOR nearly half a century Dr. Yat Foo had practised in Sen Yang; so it was not surprising that he had a fine house surrounded by a high wall and excellently designed garden, with several servants whose manners were polished as jade. Approached Dr. Hi Ho was conducted to an inner apartment, the windows of which looked upon the garden, and there left while the servants sought his master.

Dr. Hi Ho looked forth and beheld a sight entrancing even to one who had in his professional capacity seen many of the pearls adorning the yamens of wealthy merchants and great mandarins, for the maiden reclining by the fish pond far outshone them all in pulchritude and the modesty of the regard with which she returned Dr. Hi Ho's respectful yet adoring gaze. Rising with a grace that recalled the rhythmic movements of a slim bamboo swayed by the breeze of morning, the maiden approached the window.

'Honorable sir. be not impatient if my revered father delays giving himself the ineffable pleasure of beholding your moonlike countenance,' she said in a voice in which blended the sweetest notes of singing birds. 'At this hour he permits himself to repose after the labors of the-morning.'

'I trust his sleep may be sound and prolonged so that I may the longer enjoy the delight of looking upon you and hearing words that are as the sounds of a lute of jade and gold,' replied Dr. Hi. 'This despicable person's only claim to consideration is that he belongs to the same profession as your revered and honorable progenitor, having practised it with not inconsiderable success about the province. Now he has ventured to establish himself in this city and so has come to pay his respects to the great Dr. Yat Foo. The name is Hi Ho, favorably known as a healer of mandarins.'

At these last words, the maiden's countenance, of a peach-like smoothness and rotundity, which had so far exhibited only the degree of interest demanded by politeness to a not ill-looking stranger, became animated by curiosity and concern, for, indeed, the name of Hi Ho had been spoken in that house in terms of no kindliness.

'My revered father is well stricken in years. It may be that age has soured a once-benevolent disposition, yet he has permitted himself to speak of the honorable Dr. Hi Ho in terms such as might be employed by the High Ones in reprimanding an inferior insect,' she said hesitatingly. 'Would it not be well, therefore, to prepare yourself for a rebuff?'

'Do you, most marvellous blossom of the gardens of Paradise, share this inhospitable sentiment?' asked Hi Ho eagerly.

'I rejoice to talk to one so renowned as to cause the venerable one to break a jade vase of considerable value but unequalled ugliness and even to bestow hard words upon the humble person who addresses you,' she replied, lowering her eyes as modesty required, but allowing a smile to uplift the corners of a mouth comparable only to the petals of a vermilion flower. 'And this humble one ventures to assure Dr. Hi Ho that, in the household of Yat Foo, she will remain his admiring friend.'

'The House of the Fortunate Frog is lonely. It lacks a mistress. Is it possible that this lowly one might hope one day to adorn his hearth with a graceful shoot from the gnarled trunk of the venerable Yat Foo?' asked Hi.

Practice with the more exacting tools of his profession had taught him to reach his objective with speed and precision.

'It is written that many things, though possible, are too often difficult of accomplishment,' she murmured. 'Yet to a person of such attainments as the honorable Dr. Hi Ho such a transplantation might not be impossible. But now I must go. If it were known to the venerable and irascible one that I had talked with you, many blows from a heavy cane would be my portion.'

'But I must see you again. I do not know your name!' said Hi Ho urgently.

'About the falling of night I will be in that summer-house. And the name is Willow Leaf,' whispered the girl, and slipped softly out of sight.

A moment later a servant, whose countenance having once encountered a sword was destitute of a nose, appeared, and, in tones of dislike, bade Dr. Hi Ho follow him to the presence of the master.

YAT FOO'S person, despite a plenitude of good food, was of a meagre habit, while his thin face, creased with many wrinkles, was distorted by malevolence as he glared at his visitor. Yet habit was strong and he could not refrain from making the usual gestures of courtesy. He bowed.

'This humble and despicable roof is honored by the presence of the learned and benevolent Dr. Hi Ho,' he said. 'To what happy cause may I attribute the delight of beholding his luminous and sagacious countenance?'

'To the desire of basking for a moment in the rays of wisdom emanating from the person of the world-famous Dr. Yat Foo and of hearing his mellifluous voice,' replied Hi Ho. 'Also, as a mark of the esteem in which I hold him, to lay at his feet this small token of regard.'

Dr. Foo took the bag eagerly enough, weighed it speculatively and laid it beside him.

'It shall be expended in works of benevolence,' he murmured. 'Doubtless, my son, you are proceeding further northwards in a day or so?'

'I had proposed to bask in the effulgence of the light cast upon Sen Yang by your learned self for a number of years only to be limited by the decree of the Rulers of the Upper Sphere,' murmured Hi Ho. 'I have thrown my good money away,' he thought.

'You reside in the house named The Fortunate Frog, I am told. That is a misfortune. The house is an unlucky one. Short is the span of those who dwell there.' went on Yat Foo.

'I will consult an astrologer. Perhaps the luck may be made to change,' suggested Hi Ho with a smile.

'I am something of an astrologer and I have read in the stars that the town of Sen Yang is unlucky for anyone of the honorable house of Ho,' replied Yat Foo in a voice of doom.

'Is it permitted to ask what form this ill-luck will take?' asked Hi Ho, still smiling, though he had received notice to quit.

'The voice of the stars has spoken with no incertitude. Head and body batterings, slicing with swords and knives, and a funeral marred by the absence of a head from the honored remains are but too plainly indicated. Be warned, my son. In the fine province of Sze Chuan fortune awaits you. Seek it without delay.'

'One hundred and five persons sought my aid this morning. Numerous others will undoubtedly arrive tomorrow, while I have received requests to visit several wealthy men in their own yamens. Shall I leave them to perish because the stars have spoken? Perhaps, oh! venerated Yat Foo, your ears have mistaken the words. Have I your leave to withdraw my humble and despicable person from your honored roof?'

'Your going will be as the withdrawal of the sun. May your health continue to be excellent— yet I fear it will not,' quoth Yat Foo, and so bowed him out.

Escorted by the no-nosed servant, he reached the street and the waiting Sung, mounted his horse and rode home through a rosy dream inspired not by the prospect of dissolution offered by Yat Foo's words, but by the thought of presently seeing his daughter. He ordered a light repast, and having eaten, lay down to repose for a little before setting out to visit Yat Foo's garden. Meanwhile, Yat Foo had summoned the other two old-established doctors of Sen Yang, men of substance both, Dr. See Hop and Dr. Lu. Younger than Foo, they might be assumed to have a greater interest in suppressing competition before it could affect them adversely. Yat Foo came to the point with admirable — and unusual — brevity.

'This mangy dog, Hi Ho, who calls himself a healer, has been here. I told him that the climate of Sen Yang was unhealthy for him. He will not take the warning. If he remains, there are lean days for all of us, for the people, unmindful of what we have done for them in the past, flock to him. My man Chai can break a head very skilfully. The river will carry a body far.'

'That is not the way!' said Dr. See Hop. 'The fellow has great friends. He procured for one great lord the felicity of a son, and another he has certainly cured of jaundice. Also, the mandarin of the province, Sun Lo Chi, is said to be about to visit us, and he might be moved to make loud noises if a healer disappears, accompanied by questioning and slicings. Already Dr. Lu and I have considered the matter.

'Thus!' intoned Dr. Lu pompously, for he was a person of girth.  'Let us stir up the people against him. Let a body be procured, one of a traveller who is a stranger. Let the body be bestowed in the outhouse of the house of Hi Ho. Then let an old woman— my sister will play the part, for she seldom stirs from my house and few know her— let her make an outcry, swearing that Hi Ho has slain the man to calcine his bones for medicine, and that he is her sister's son. She shall make much outcry. The people will follow her to the garden of Hi Ho. There they will find the body. And because they are stupid and ignorant and there is good loot in Hi Ho's house, they will fall upon him. And perhaps in the riot someone will deal Hi Ho a blow that will send him to the Upper Air without much ado. At the least, no more people will crowd about his door for healing.'

'Your words are wise,' murmured Yat Foo. 'I see but one difficulty. We have no body prepared, yet we should move swiftly before Sun Lo Chi comes to us.'

'We have your headbreaker, Chai. Let him go forth in the dusk and make a body ready. Travellers are often late upon the road. Then let him take the body to Hi's garden and leave the rest to me — and the people.' 'It is good!' agreed Yat Foo. 'So it shall be. Now let us instruct Chai. He is stupid, but when once he understands he remembers.'

CEN YANG had a wall. Once this wall had been strong and high, a protection against brigands and spoilers. But time and neglect, and the attentions of builders who found in it a quarry, had made many gaps in it, and though the gates were solemnly shut at sundown, belated travellers usually entered by the nearest hole. Dr. Hi Ho had noted that Dr. Yat Foo's garden backed against the town wall. He had also observed that though there was no gap just there, the upper tiers of stones had been removed, while cracks offered a ready foothold.

As darkness fell, he climbed into the garden and sought the summer house. Willow Leaf, clad in shimmering grey silk, gleamed in the obscurity.

'Flower of Paradise!' began Dr. Hi Ho. 'Redolent garden of sweet herbs ! Moon of—'

'Hush! At another time, honorable Dr. Ho, I will listen to sweet words. But now listen to mine. Mischief is intended towards you. I do not know what, but Chai, who is a person of evil countenance and a heart of stone, goes presently forth to accomplish it. Be silent! Let us watch the going out. He comes!'

The execrable Chai appeared walking upon feet of silence and bearing a short but heavy club which might be concealed in the sleeve. He climbed the wall.

'Moon of Endless Delight!' murmured Dr. Hi Ho. 'I will follow. It may be that the Watchers will offer to this person an opportunity of connecting the edge of this sword with the head of the abominable Chai. Tomorrow, at this hour, I will return.'

And without further ado, for the need was pressing, he too surmounted the wall and followed the shadowy figure, moving silently in the direction of the town's eastern gate. At a little distance from it, Chai took to the road and there loitered.

Dr. Hi Ho, perceiving that the time was not yet come for any attempt upon the fellow, crouched by the wayside. Two travellers, well mounted and carrying drawn swords against the chances of the road, passed at a trot. The execrable Chai, perceiving the gleam of steel, with admirable discretion withdrew himself from their observation behind a clump of weeds. They passed into the town through a convenient hole in the wall. For a little was silence.

Then came a solitary figure, walking with the gait of one whose honorable feet are Incommoded by the roughness of the way. Even in the gloom it was plain that he was a beggar, for his clothing was ragged and he bore a bowl. Chai rose from his lurking place as he passed and suddenly, without warning or even a polite word to indicate to the stranger that he was about to pass into a state of no-existence, smote him heavily upon the head with his loaded club.

Dr. Hi Ho, greatly interested in this manifestation of the essential baseness of the execrable Chai, remained  quiescent until, having hoisted the victim upon his broad shoulders, the slayer set off once more around the walls. Dr. Hi Ho followed at a discreet distance.  Thus he perceived the execrable Chai enter the town once more by a gap in the wail well shrouded by creepers, and scale the wall of a garden beyond.

And now Dr. Hi Ho's interest quickened, for though time had been lacking to explore the vicinity of the Street of the Evening Star, the dilapidated summer-house to which Chai bore the defunct was all too familiar, for it was his own. Dr. Ho hesitated. Should he draw his sword and, hamstringing Chai, call for help? Or, slaying him outright, dispose of the bodies with the help of Sung, thus leaving the atrocious Dr. Yat Foo in doubt of the fate of his emissary?

But while he hesitated, Chai, with movements of much celerity, had sped across the garden and, surmounting the wall at another place, proceeded along the street into the Everywhere. Dr. Hi Ho meditated no longer. He ran to his house and, summoning Sung, told him of what had occurred. Sung sighed.

'Honorable sir, there is but one thing which a wise man may do. Let us bear this not-breathing one to the garden of the honorable Dr. Foo and there bury him, but not deeply. A word to the magistrate that the honorable Foo employs such remains for the practice of magic is then clearly indicated. Let us hasten.'

THIS advice, being at once sound and practical, they hastened to the summer-house, bearing a light and the wherewithal for the digging of a grave. By the light, Dr. Hi Ho inspected the defunct. And at once something which the stupidity of Chai had failed to note became apparent. Though outwardly clad in the rags of a beggar, the body was inwardly covered with garments of superior silk; while a long knife which, but for a fallacious reliance upon the protection afforded by his poor appearance, might have saved his life, was of excellent quality and adorned with jewels of price.

'Such garments are too good for the tomb!' murmured Sung.

'Are we robbers? Be silent!' quoth Dr. Hi, sternly. 'Yet it may be that he wears some amulet by which doubtless sorrowing relatives ? Ah!'

He paused, then bent a listening ear.

'Amazing is the no-perception of the villain Chai. This man lives! Let us bear him within and struggle with the Demon for his life!'

Shortly after, faint groans, presently rising to prolonged howls, arose from the House of The Fortunate Frog as, relieved by timely blood-letting and stimulated by skilful touches of a cautery iron, the victim of ill-directed endeavor struggled back to consciousness. Towards dawn, revived by wine sustained by a bowl of chicken soup and four black eggs warranted a century old, which Dr. Hi kept in stock for his better-class patients, the apparently dead recovered sufficiently to give an account of himself and pour out his thanks to his preserver.

THE ROSY FLUSH of dawn suffused the Upper Air as, leaving the sleeping man in the charge of the wife of Sung, a person of discreet years and well versed in cookery, Dr. Hi Ho and the faithful Sung, well armed, though their garments concealed their weapons, proceeded to the residence of the honorable Dr. Yat Foo. Early though the hour, there were yet signs of activity by the gate of the dean of Sen Yang. Two chairs stood there, each with its chairmen. Dr. Hi Ho recognised them.  They belonged to the honorable Drs. See Hop and Lu. Glowering in the gateway was the execrable Chai.

'Lead me to the presence of the learned and venerable doctor, your honorable master,' said Dr. Hi Ho, smiling with the affability of a tiger of the hills confronting a well-fed but unarmed traveller. 'Celerity is indicated. If it is not forthcoming the stars prophesy disaster to his palatial dwelling and all within.'

With a growl of confusion, Chai led the way into the yamen, and so to the presence of Dr. Yat Foo, who, in act of concluding the last arrangements for the stirring up of the dregs of Sen Yang against Dr. Hi Ho, regarded him with consternation, while his eminent and honorable colleagues permitted their mouths to display their yellow teeth.

'Revered and honorable brethren!' began Dr. Hi Ho, bowing ceremoniously to each in turn. 'Your very humble and ignorant brother comes to render thanks to you for the kindness displayed in the dark hours. Well does this person know that each of you could have revived the honorable and eminent person sent to him by the hands of the strong and dexterous No-Nose, Chai. Yet perceiving that he was young and in need of help, your magnanimity selected Hi Ho. The great Sun Lo Chi has been pleased to thank him in terms that modesty does not allow him to repeat, while promising him other rewards of a more substantial if less gratifying sort.'

The three forgot politeness. They glared, they stared.

'Sun Lo Chi!' cried Yat Foo. 'The mandarin who comes to dwell in our midst!'

'The same,' quoth Dr. Hi Ho blandly. 'A person of surprising merit who, that he might the better observe the extortions of minor officials, has been traversing his province in the garb of a beggar— with his soldiers and yamen men a little behind him. They are already in the city. Sun Lo Chi will presently send them forth to seek a person with no nose, who, he has told me, assaulted him with head batterings. Absence is indicated for that person, lest there be slicings. Assault upon the body of a high official is bitterly punished.'

'My son,' said Yat Foo, 'in the name of we three, the healers of Sen Yang, this person bids you welcome. Presents of a quality befitting one of your transcendant merits shall soon be within your honorable house. Commend us to the noble Sun Lo Chi, in case there should be some of his household too mean in degree to deserve your skill.'

'Truly it shall be so,' murmured Dr. Hi Ho. 'There is but one thing more. This person lacks a wife to adorn his hearth and furnish him with sons who shall make the offerings when he has by the decree of the High Ones become an ancestor. The Willow is a tree of grateful shade and peculiar fertility. A Willow Leaf is a graceful and fitting decoration for an abode, mean yet not unfurnished with all that may be required by the household of a humble but flourishing healer of bodies.'

'To be allied with the ancient and honorable house of Ho is the one wish which this person desires to gratify,' said Dr. Yat Foo, 'A go-between of renowned skill and delicacy shall wait upon the honorable Dr. Hi Ho within the hour. All shall be concluded swiftly. And now, what say the Sages?

'Of all precious things nought is better than a cup of wine drunk by brethren in amity.'

And solemnly, fraternally, the medical faculty of Sen Yang drank together.

____________________

6: The Higher Civilisation

Coutts Brisbane

Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 23 June 1940

ALMOST EXACTLY seven months before, Alistair Polister had forgone the joys of St. Andrews, Prestwick, Westward Ho, and Coombe— Great Britain's best links— to make a golfing tour in the U.S.A. He had played his way from East to West, with varying fortune but a great measure of success, and had reached California a permanent twosome, having been annexed on the way by a charming daughter of the Middle West whose tastes chimed with his.

Her stance was perfection itself, and to behold her work with the mid-iron was an education in itself. It was she who suggested Honolulu, where they, wiped up the local talent during three delirious weeks, after which orgies they proposed to deal faithfully with Australia, Shanghai, Penang, and a few Riviera resorts oh their way to England, home, and the beauties of Alistair's native heaths.

They took ship in a schooner, the better to recuperate. It proved a mistake, for there came a hurricane which blew them far out of their course, washed captain and crew overboard, and finally dumped the vessel on the beach of an island, which, by all signs, had contrived to keep itself off the maps.

The very numerous and wicked-looking reefs that surrounded it hinted a reason.

"It looks as though we may have to stay here for years," said Alistair, after a vain attempt to locate their position on the chart. "Never mind, honey, we still have each other," murmured Lois. Please remember they had been married but a few months."

"But there's a lot of coconuts and breadfruit and bananas, not to mention the ship's provisions, and Ah Sin has been saved to cook for us. He stowed away in the lazaretto," added Alistair, who always thought first of things to eat.

"And by what I can see from here—" began Lois rapturously.

"I see it, too, sweetness, but not a word— yet!"

So they said no more till they got ashore, crossed the beach, and stood looking over long stretches of rolling turf, picturesquely diversified by clumps , of bushes, sandy gullies, rocky outcrops, and a little stream which wound all over the place in its devious course to the sea.

"I thought so," breathed Lois, all her soul in her voice.

"Isn't Nature wonderful? Why, this is—"

"The finest natural links I ever set eyes on!" supplied Alistair in reverent awe. "Not even McPhee himself could have bettered the lay-out. Ah Sin will soon pick up caddying. We have those cases of match balls your cousin gave us for a wedding present. I know there are lawn mowers in the cargo and Ah Sin can make a roller by chipping a bit of rock. Eureka, or words to that effect!"

They left Ah Sin to get ashore the bedding, provisions, and other necessities,  while they made a thorough inspection of the links, settled the sites of the greens, and returned full of bubbling enthusiasm to find, in addition to the mowers in the hold, a splendid heavy, roller and some lengths of stove-piping of exactly the right diameter for lining holes.

"This beats the Swiss Family Robinson hollow!" whispered Alistair, moved to the very depths of his romantic Celtic soul, as he patted the roller. "Ah Sin will get the greens like billiard tables with this. Yes, darling—" His voice broke with emotion.  "Providence has been very good to us! We might have been cast away on some beastly volcanic island, all up on end, where we should have had to play every other shot with a niblick. Instead of which, here we are with a links more than good enough for World Finals!"

With hearts too full for words, they embraced solemnly, then set Ah Sin to work with a tackle, hoisting out the treasure trove.

Then followed joyously busy days, happy weeks of labor. Ah Sin grew a trifle fine-drawn, but anyhow the course was made in quick time and he proved to be an excellent caddy when once he got the hang of what was required. Three happy months ensued.

IT was the last lap of the Ocean View Club Trophy Tournament. The Trophy, work of the ever industrious Ah Sin, stood on a table behind the home green. It was a very fine Chinese devil, carved out of hard wood, and the Polisters thought a lot of it. Only Ah Sin knew that it represented Alistair's spiritual part and was considered a jolly good likeness by the artist; however, being full of the age-old wisdom of the mysterious East, he kept this knowledge to himself.

The Trophy then sat leering across the green, its horrid eyes bulging balefully, its forked tongue protruding, its clutching claws tended as though to grab the winner.

The competitors were each close up, Lois on the green with her fourth, Alistair some twenty yards back amidst dry grass with his fourth. Despite the handicap of ten strokes, honors were even, which showed the excellence of the handicapping. It was Alistair's play.

Lois watched his upper lip come down and down, saw the likeness to his arboreal ancestor grow more and more marked, saw the bronze putter which he had elected to use wiggle once, wiggle twice and—

Ah Sin had hitherto behaved in the most exemplary fashion, giving a perfect rendering of a Celestial automaton. But now, perhaps because he couldn't bear the suspense of watching, perhaps because he wanted to enjoy the full horror of the expression that sunlight slanting across a coconut clump lent to his masterpiece, the Trophy, he raised his eyes— and at once rent the scented, ambient air with a thin screech of horror and dismay.

Alistair was a long-suffering man, but this was too, too much. What had been meant for a putt had changed into a wild swing under the shock. He whirled round and raised the bronze putter with the laudable intention of testing the thickness of the Chinese skull.

"Mind you don't break the shaft, darlingest!" exclaimed Lois anxiously. By ordinary, she was all sweet, womanly tenderness, but just now she was all golfer, and the miserable Chink had committed the unpardonable sin.

"Eeeeeeee!" squealed Ah Sin again, and pointed a trembling hand.

LOIS and Alistair turned, somewhat briskly. There, emerging from a thicket, not thirty yards away, were a score of hobgoblins, fearsome-looking fellows, their heads concealed in those masks which give Pacific islanders their high place as artists in the grotesque. Each carried a club or a stone axe and several spears. In dreadful silence they came on in a semi-circle, the wings drawing in to prevent escape on the flanks.

"Do you think these are cannibals, Alistair?" asked Lois. "In the stories, they always come to desert islands, you know."

"They certainly look the part," replied Alistair, just a wee shade of impatience in his tone. "But one thing at a time, honey. If you squeal again, Ah Sin, I'll brain you!"

He waved an imperative stop signal to the advancing line, turned to his ball, wiggled twice and let drive. It skimmed through the seed pods of the grass, ran smoothly over the green, and went down!

"Beat that, Wooglums dear!" he cried triumphantly.

"I can't beat it, darlingest— but I may still tie," said Lois.

"Stand still, Ah Sin! How can Missus do her best while you wobble about like a demented jellyfish!"

With that she addressed the ball and by this and by that, hanged if she didn't hole out with a rattling fine long putt, halving the hole and tieing the game.

"Good egg, Wooglums dear!" exclaimed Alistair. "You've never played better. Now we'll play another hole, and another if necessary. Come on!"

HERE the line of bogies, which had halted to watch the players, began to move again. Lois recalled Alistair's attention to the creatures with a little nod. She wasn't really scared, you understand, but she remembered her great-uncle, who had lost his scalp to the Apaches, and that made her the least trifle nervous.

"I'm sure they must be cannibals," she whispered. "That one with the shark's head mask seems to be the leader. Perhaps you had better speak to him."

"Yes, yes!" growled Alistair.

Whirling on his heel, he addressed the shark's head.

"You, sir! Be good enough to keep still and hold your fellows steady while we play another hole, or perhaps two."

Oddly enough, Shark's Head understood. He halted, waved a hand and said something guttural which made his followers stand stock-still.

"Thank you," said Alistair with a stiff nod. "We shall not detain you long. The drivers, Ah Sin, and make the tees lower. Your play, Wooglums dear."

"No, yours, darlingest!" insisted Lois, so Alistair played.

But whether It was the presence of that remarkable gallery, or because Ah Sin was wobbling like a top about to fall, or, more probably, because his temper was ruffled, he sliced rather badly, got into the rough, and was four to the green, while Lois, playing like a double-action angel, was close up to the pin in three and holed out in four, thus winning hole and trophy.

Alistair cheered loyally, while Ah Sin seized the opportunity to have a fit of hysterics. The party then, proceeded back to the home green, where stood the Trophy. The bogies closed up.

"I MUST ask your patience for a few moments more," began Alistair, to be interrupted by louder and more prolonged squealing from Ah Sin. The leader of the bogies was thoughtfully prodding the Chinaman's solar plexus with the point of a razor-sharp spear.

"Stop him, darlingest!" cried Lois solicitously. "He may hurt Ah Sin."

"The Chinese have an amazing capacity for standing pain," grunted Alistair, but nevertheless remonstrated: "Please don't do that! He's a fairly good caddie and a rattling good cook and we can't spare him. By the way, what do you want? This is a private links, you know, though if you want a game you're welcome. Only, remember to replace divots."

Now, if Alistair had not been a golfer and at that moment mournfully recalling his slice, he would have realised the absurdity of talking to a Pacific savage like that. However, he was a trifle surprised when the leader of the bogy crew answered him in English indelibly tinged with the well-known Oxford accent.

"Thank you, but I fear you are the trespassers. This island is tabu. I am Oolala, chief of Ratavia, which lies just out of sight to the southwest, and I have come here to conduct a religious ceremony. I regret the necessity, but since you are here you must take part in it."

"Oh, anything to oblige!" said Alistair more affably. "What is it, anyhow, and what do we do?"

"We sacrifice to Eapi, god of pestilence, earthquakes, tidal waves and other uncomfortable phenomena."

"I hope you don't kill anything?" asked Lois, temporarily reassured by the inhuman quality of that accent.

"Madam, we had brought a pig for the sacrifice, but it got loose, jumped overboard, and was snaffled by a shark a few moments before we landed. I had thought to cast lots among my fellows for a substitute, but your presence on the island saves me from what, I fear, might be an unpopular expedient. The island is tabu, the penalty for breaking the tabu is death. Therefore it is my painful duty to sacrifice all three of you. I trust I make myself perfectly, clear?"

"Quite!" agreed Lois, who had studied logic at college. "And do you eat us afterwards?"

"Madam, if you had given the subject of comparative theology any attention, you would have learned that such is the primary object of sacrifice. True, I may have some difficulty with my followers, for long pig has been unknown in Ratavia for a century; but I think my authority will prevail."

"Stuff and nonsense!" broke in Alistair, his native burr becoming pronounced through emotion. "You seem to be an educated man and—"

"Oxford, Balliol," put in the chief.

"I'm St. Andrews mysel'. Why are you running roun' wi' these silly warlocks and talking havers about cannibalism? It's absurrid!"

"Oh, no! At Oxford I learned to reverence the spirit of conservatism!  I learned that all the leading races of today had been cannibals, if only ritually, at some stage .of their development. For instance, as Tacitus relates, the Scots—"

"Tacitus was a liar!" affirmed Alistair with some heat.

"Therefore," continued Oolala, with a tolerant shrug, "on my return to Ratavia I began to revive the picturesque old traditions that had nearly been destroyed by four generations of missionaries. I am slowly succeeding. These fellows are all enthusiastic followers of the old faith, so. If you will pardon, I will make a beginning with this!"

He tickled Ah Sin some more. The Chinaman wailed like a porker in extremis.

Alistair acted with the decision of a man and a golfer. He dropped a ball at the chief's feet and thrust the club he carried into his hand.

"Let's have a round firrrst!" he insisted.

"Thank you, but I don't play. I had my rowing blue at the Varsity, but, though I don't wish to seem offensive, any fool could play golf."

"And there you're wrong, ma mannie! I'll gi'e you three strrokes a hole and a hiding. Therre noo! I can't say fairer!"

"And I'll bet the Trophy that you can't hit a ball a dozen yards, first go!" cried Lois, loyally backing up her spouse, which was very sporting of her, since this was her first Trophy won in an open handicap.

"Madam, I should be loath to deprive you of that— that objet d'art— but—"

The chief dropped his spears and weasand slitter, gripped the club. He was observant, and his stance wasn't quite as hopeless as it might have been. He took a look at the ball, then at the far horizon, swung, and made a clean miss.

"Any fool can play golf!" remarked Alistair with intention. One of the myrmidons giggled, the chief growled ominously and roared an order that sent the bogies scuttling to the beach.

"It is not seemly that they should see me trying my— er— 'prentice hand," he snorted. "Hang and confound the infernal thing!"

"Quite so!" purred Alistair. "So I'll give you a hint or two. Tee up, Ah Sin— and no more disgusting noises!"

"THERE'S something in the game. It grows on one!" declared Chief Oolala three hours later as he watched his clean-driven ball whizz down the fairway of the fifth. It had taken him so long to get so far, but now he was well and truly bitten and the virus was in him. He mopped his streaming though intellectual forehead.

"Eh?" he ejaculated as he missed something, "where in thunder is my mask?"

"You took it off in the rough at the second," Alistair reminded him.

"Great Eapi! Then I've broken the tabu! By rights, I should be sacrificed straight away!"

"Don't waste time thinking on that tomfoolery! Wi' a little luck you'll be round in another hour!" snapped Alistair. "The brassie for this one! Now, remember— slow back!"

R.A.N. WALLABY hummed with excitement as the mist lifted and the lookout hailed the deck. Twenty seconds later everyone knew that the rumored island whose very existence the natives of Ratavia had so stoutly denied was in sight.

"But we'll never get through that stoneyard!" growled Lieut. Oakes, her commander. "Clear away the cutter to take soundings and—"

He never finished the sentence, for in that instant it happened, the great earthquake which re-arranged so much of the Pacific.

The Wallaby stood on her tail, then on her stem, the reefs skipped; the ship did a mad dance around them; heavy rumbles shook sea and sky; cross seas, eddies and whirlpools tossed the devoted vessel heavens high and hell low for ten mortal minutes.

Then the rumbling ceased, the sea subsided, men breathed again. They stared towards the island. It was still there. The peak at one end was lower, the shores a few fathoms higher out of the water, but otherwise it seemed little worse. But— the fence of reefs no longer ringed it, a clear channel stretched invitingly to its beach.

"IT'S inhabited! I hear voices!" whispered Oakes to his second, as they traversed a dishevelled belt of palms.  "Let's hope they are friendly and will— Holy mackerel! , Do you see it too?"

Before them, as they strode from the covert, lay a space of clean-shaven lawn, unmarred by any of the cracks or chasms which scarred the lower levels. Two gentlemen, dark brown and light brown, clad in blazers of scarlet, accompanied by two small brown boys carrying golf clubs, stood in suspended animation while a small, white ball rolled to the brink of a hole— and vanished.

"Oh, good for you, Oolala!" yelled the light brown with Celtic fervor. "A few more like that'll mak' a plus four of you! I'm proud of you, Chief!"

And then he turned and caught sight of the strangers.

He smiled. "Good morning, gentlemen. If you're for the Spring Open Handicap, you're just in time. My wife will enter you if you go up to clubhouse yonder. You'll excuse us now, for it's a close game. If you need clubs, Ah Sin, our pro, will—"

"B-b-but th-the earthquake?" stammered Oakes, shaken to the very marrow by these astounding evidences of the higher civilisation in a spot where barbarism alone might have been expected, even more astounded that the pair seemed to regard the convulsions of Nature and his own arrival as matters of but small moment. The two gentlemen gazed at each sadly, then at him with mild reproach. Alistair even shook his head reprovingly.

"My dearrr sirr!" he burred. "If you'd played these links as long as we have, you'd underrstand that a few trifling additions to the hazards are no' unwelcome. Yon earrrth-quake was but a kindly interposition of a beneficent Providence. It's a real championship course now, and you're verra welcome to play it."

"I'm a scratch man myself and Burroughs here is only two under. We'll get our clubs from the ship."

"Thanks a lot!" replied Oakes briefly.

"Now we know the reason for earthquakes!" he murmured, as they strode through the undergrowth towards the beach; but not ironically, since he, too was a golfer. And, if he had but awaited the arrival of a second couple, Sub-chief Worra and Headman Booloo, plus two men both, he might even have deduced the reason for golf!

__________________

7: Scribbler's Luck

Coutts Brisbane

Australian Women's Weekly 8 March 1941

DETECTIVE INSPECOR MAITLAND fingered the five pound Bank of England note which Sergeant Saunders laid on his desk and shook his head despondently.

"Yet another, eh? I confess it beats me," he murmured. "Where did it come from? Another race course pass, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. A bookie called West paid it into his account at the Surbiton branch of the London and South-Western. He thinks he go it at Hurst Park, but he isn't sure.  He may have taken it from another bookie."

"Always very much the same game— either on the racecourse or at the booking offices of big stations where there's no time for close scrutiny, though these would pas muster with anyone but an expert."

Maitland peered at the forged note through a magnifier, holding it up to the light. Like all the others which had been troubling the peace of the Bank and the C.I.D., it was a first-class specimen of the forger's craft.

The paper and watermarks were so nearly right that the official paper-makers had at first hesitated to pronounce it spurious, while the plate from which it had been printed must have been the work of an expert engraver aided by photography. Indeed, only some trifling errors in the numbering figures had betrayed the fact that the notes were frauds.

"A beautiful job!" said Maitland. "Not half a hundred of them have been detected so far, but there must be hundreds, thousands perhaps, in circulation. The question is, how are we to get on the trail? The paper could be made in quite a small plant, and not necessarily in England. It would be easy to smuggle in— planted in strawboard, say, or in a dozen other ways."

"How about the printing, sir?" Saunders asked. "That is a bit of a job, isn't it?"

"You're thinking of a newspaper's machine room, aren't you? No, the whole outfit for printing these could be housed in a very small room. It only requires a little copperplate press, a pound or two of ink, oil to mix with it, canvas to wipe the plate, a heater to warm it— all very simple

"Know all about it, don't you, sir?" asked Saunders in mild surprise.

"Print collecting's my hobby. You see that?" Maitland nodded at a French eighteenth century impression hanging on the wall by his desk, a recent acquisition. "That was printed a hundred and seventy years ago in exactly the same was as this note. I naturally take an interest in the way these things are produced, that's all.

"Well, I suppose well have to keep on watching and waiting till we get something definite. We'll try Gatwick this afternoon. You'll take Brown and Lidgett and Stone, and keep your eyes open on punters who patronise more than one bookie, and get change for fivers. I'll be there with a watching brief. There's nothing else for it in the meantime."

Presently he left his office and wended his way to Bond Street, which, though entirely human, wasn't strictly in the line of duty, though he had time to kill.

There was a crowd in Sotheby's, thickest around one print, a mezzotint, "The Ladies Hambledon," by Valentine Green after Sir Joshua Reynolds, which the detective particularly wanted to see.

"A beauty, isn't it, Mr. Maitland?" said a voice at his elbow. "And it's going to make a record price, I think."

The detective turned. Carruthers, a dealer from whom he had made an occasional small purchase, was gloating longingly over the "Ladies."

"It'll go well into four figures, I expect," he continued. "Still, I'm tempted to plunge. I can almost certainly place it with an American client who will be over next month. He's very keen."

"Yes? But exactly why the big money?" asked Maitland. "I've been too busy to read up any of the newspaper blurb."

"Because only three prints had been taken when the plate was destroyed by accident. One is in the British Museum print room, a second in the Bodleian, so this is unique. I'm going to have a cut at it."

"You needn't fear my opposition," said Maitland drily. "But I think you'll have to dip deep into your stocking."

And presently, when the bidding started, he had confirmation of the surmise. Excitement grew when Sir George Shaw, the Scottish collector, withdrew as his bid of £2000 was capped by little Carruthers, who hung on doggedly.

Now only Barbridge, the inter-national dealer, and a tall, thin, untidy-looking man, in whose pale face gleamed grey eyes with something almost fanatical in their intensity, were left in the running.

At £3000 Barbridge hesitated, added a hundred.

"And fifty!" The pale man's voice shook with excitement, his long fingers clutched convulsively at a breast pocket.

"He's about done!" whispered Maitland. "Up, Guards, and at 'em! You've got it now!"

"And fifty!" Carruthers said levelly.

Barbridge shook his head decisively. The pale man seemed to collect himself for a final effort.

"And ten!" he barked.

"Twenty-five on that!" said Carruthers, and felt the thrill of victory as his opponent's head drooped and, turning, he plunged blindly through the crowd.

"At three thousand two-thirty-five! Going!" declared the auctioneer amid tense and growing excitement.

There was a burst of cheering as the hammer fell. Maitland shook Carruthers' hand warmly.

"Congratulations!" he said. "I'd like to drop in and have a last look at the 'Ladies' before they go to America. I must fly now."

As he passed out he saw the defeated man ahead of him walking down the short staircase as though in a dream, a dazed look on his pale face. A square-shouldered, dark man, who might have been a Southern Frenchman and whom Maitland had seen in the room, stared after him.

The inspector saw the sufferer hail a taxi and drive off.

Thank heaven the collecting mania hasn't infected me to that extent; the man looks as though he'd just lost his mother! thought Maitland, and so made for Gatwick.

At the racecourse Maitland saw Sergeant Saunders and the men he had been told to take with him each attach himself to a bookmaker.

Approaching Tod Bayley, a bookmaker whom he knew well. "We're trying to get a line on these counterfeit fivers. Tod," he said softly. "You've had word of them, I presume?"

"That I have, Inspector, and a fat lot of good it is. I was shown one of them, and hanged if I could see that it was a wrong 'un even then— and I thought I was sharp enough. I ask you, what chance have I— or Jim here— of picking out a bad 'un that's so good when there's a rush on?"

"Can't be done!" affirmed Jim, Tod's clerk. "It's just as the guv'nor says. There isn't time to put a microscope on every note we take, which is the only way, I guess."

Maitland nodded and moved off a little way as a couple of punters whom Tod knew approached. The crowd milled to and fro.

"OH, MY FRIENDS, be warned! Gambling is most foolish," cried a monotonous voice above the hum. "Why should you make to ruin yourselves, my friends? Do not make the bets, no!"

The crowd parted and Maitland faced the speaker, a square shouldered, dark man who was certainly a foreigner— the man whom he had seen in Sotheby's sale room and upon the stair.

From a leather case slung in front of him he was distributing leaflets, plaintively haranguing the while. Maitland took one. It was headed: "The International Anti-Betting League," and pithily set forth all the familiar arguments against gambling in any form-vainly it would seem, for the grass was littered with the torn or twisted leaflets, discarded after a glance.

"I'm afraid your efforts are wasted here, my friend," said Maitland.

The man shrugged his shoulders. "What would you? Where other-wise should I go if not to a race-course?" he replied. "Not to meetings of parsons. Here are those that gamble, here only are the good words needed."

"Well, I wish you success— though I can't hope for it," Maitland said and turned away, as the monotonous drone recommenced.

A man passed him, scanning one of the leaflets. He approached Tod Bayley, asked a question, nodded.

"A pound on Bledsover to win," Maitland heard as he edged nearer, for he had seen the man take a five-pound note from a wallet. As Tod passed over the change and slip the man turned away. Maitland moved up.

"Give me that note, quick," he whispered, and stooping behind the burly bookmaker swiftly scrutinised it through a magnifier. "It's a wrong un, Tod!" he muttered. "Now at last we're on to something.''

"And I'm out four quid!" growled the bookie. "Supposin' Bledsover don't win that's the last I'll see of him."

"Think so? Don't worry!" chuckled Maitland. He had signalled Saunders, who had been close by, and the efficient sergeant wouldn't lose sight of the punter, whatever happened. "We'll give him a chance to collect, though, if Bledsover does romp home."

A roar from the crowd and the horses were off. Tod turned to watch the race, growling and chuckling alternately to finish with a contented grunt as Bledsover came home.

"That's all right. I do well enough on this," he said. "Now, I reckon that fella won't be long— if he's comin' at all, as why shouldn't he with ten quid to draw?"

And surely enough two minutes later the man came up, Saunders behind him.

Maitland slipped to his side. "I'm a police officer," he said softly, as he took the man's arm. "I'm charging you with passing a forged five pound Bank of England note. Will you come quietly over here?"

"But— what are you talking about?" demanded the man furiously. "I haven't had any forged notes! Search me if you want to— but you're going to hear more of this! You police are getting too officious and—"

"We'll talk about that presently. I advise you to come quietly," replied Maitland, and urged the prisoner forward, Saunders following closely.

In the little room behind the stand they searched their man, finding besides Tod Bayley's slip a wallet containing six one-pound notes, one of ten shillings, and two of five pounds. On these latter Maitland pounced and subjected them to microscopic scrutiny, while the prisoner looked on with a sneer.

"Better bite them," he suggested.

"They're genuine," said Maitland quietly. "But this other— which I saw you give Tod Bayley— is not. Where did you get it? There's a reward you know. Care to make a statement?"

"How on earth should I know where I took it? Maybe at Hurst Park, maybe at Lingfield. I follow the races, and as often as not I don't bank anything from one month's end to another. It's coming and going all the time. If I passed a wrong 'un I did it innocently and you can't prove otherwise.

"Now I admit you're justified in pulling me in, so I'll say no more about it. I'll go and collect my winnings if you're quite done with me. I made a bet with what was good money to my honest belief."

"No bet!" snapped Maitland. "These four pounds go back to Bayley and you go back to" —he glanced at the address on an empty envelope taken from the wallet— "Stanton Gardens Mansions, Fulham Road, Mr. George Hines, to identify yourself. Thank your stars that you're getting off so easily-and you'd better take the good advice offered by these leaflets. Read, mark, and learn."

He thrust back three copies of the Anti-Betting effort he had found in the wallet and returned it. Hines glared at him for a moment, then went out with Saunders.

Maitland grinned wryly at the hitherto silent police sergeant in charge of the temporary station.

"That's the sort of thing we run up against. It would be impossible to prove that that fellow knew he had a counterfeit note though I feel it in my bones that he's exactly the sort who'd be in the game. By the way, do you know anything about that chap who's distributing those International Anti-Betting League leaflets?"

"I've seen him here and at other meetings, sir. A harmless crank, I d say. You get a lot of them one time , and another."

"H'm, y-yes. Why should this Hines man have three copies in his coat pocket? I'd have thought one would be enough. And where does this league have its headquarters? It must have one."

He looked at the copy the earnest one had given him, but found no address, not even the printer's.

"Printed abroad. There are at least four mistakes that an English printer wouldn't make. I'll have another look at our crank."

He didn't find the man with the leaflets, though he followed a trail of his paper to and fro. Saunders returned in time for the last race. He reported that the man Hines had lived at the Fulham address for something over a year.

"It's a block of cheap flats, rather a fly-by-night sort of place. Hines is in good standing at the Rotherham Arms, the local pub he patronises. He's on the phone— Fulham 40405. Nothing against him at the local police station."

"Quite a reputable citizen as things go," murmured Maitland. "Now for a look-over among the bookies."

Despite all precautions no fewer than fourteen spurious notes had been passed during the meeting three of them in the refreshment room— while it was highly probable that more had gone into circulation unchallenged.

"The fact remains, sir, that the business is well organised. I think there may be three or four, perhaps more, men in the game. I should surmise that none has more than one bad note in his possession at a time, so that he can plead that he's the innocent receiver if he's challenged. Having passed one, he then gets another from the gang boss, who, of course, doesn't attempt to pass any himself. And I think I've a notion who this boss may be," reported Maitland that evening. "I've been looking for this league, and, so far as I can gather, it doesn't exist."

He laid the Anti-Betting leaflet before the Assistant Commissioner and told him of the others found on Hines, then continued: "Of course, I may be barking up the wrong tree, but my theory is that this apparent crank is the chief of the outfit. He carries the supply of notes and passes them to his men one at a time under cover of these leaflets. Simple and safe, eh?

"Unfortunately, the man was gone before the notion occurred to me. He may have seen Hines' arrest and cleared off, to be on the safe side. But we should be able to pick him up at another race meeting, though I doubt if he'll appear at Gatwick to-morrow. I'm having Hines shadowed, but if he's really in the gang he'll expect that and go slow for a while."

Maitland came early to his office the following morning to hear start-ling news from Sergeant Saunders, who awaited him.

"I think perhaps you know him— John Carruthers, of Cruden Street, off Bond Street, sir? A picture dealer."

"Yes. I was talking to him in Sotheby's yesterday. What's happened? He bought a print at a long price. Has it been stolen?"

"I don't know that—but he's been found murdered. Inspector Pryde has gone there. The woman who cleans up found the lights on and called a constable, who reported."

"Well, I'm going over. He was quite an old friend. I'll join you in Fulham later, in the neighborhood of Hines' place," said Maitland hurriedly, and hastened away, more affected by the news than he cared to show.

Inspector Pryde, a doctor, a photographer, and the constable who had reported were in Carruthers' little shop when he arrived there.

Carruthers lay on his face as he had fallen. A safe built into the wall stood open. Propped against the front was a frame with glass and backing intact beside it.

"He was an old friend of mine," explained Maitland. "I was with him yesterday when he bought the print that was in that frame for over three thousand pounds. Evidently the motive. Have you got anything?"

"Entry made from the yard through back door of corridor. Lock broken-but it was so old that a child could have done it. That door"— Pryde pointed to a side door giving on the corridor— "either wasn't fastened or was opened by Carruthers. I think he must have been surprised and struck down from behind before he even saw his assailant. He was writing at his desk there.

"Doctor thinks it must have been done something about eight or nine hours ago, which would mean a little before midnight. No finger-prints, for the murderer wore gloves. Blow on skull inflicted with coal hammer which belongs to the bin in the yard. Entry to yard gained by alley."

"All present and complete!" murmured Maitland. "The hound cut out the backing, rolled the print up and was off in a couple of minutes. Anything more missing?"

"Can't say till the assistant, a girl named Dixon, turns up. We've sent for her. There are several other prints in the safe. They're valuable too, I presume?"

"Yes, worth a few hundred altogether, say six or eight," said Maitland after inspection. "But this stolen one was unique. It can't be offered for sale. A perfectly pointless crime, for the murderer can only gloat over his trophy in secret."

"Well, that's a motive, isn't it?" asked Pryde. "You remember that Mrs. Ellison case— the old dear who stole dolls and spent hours with them in a locked room? Same mentality. Somebody who was present at the sale is the culprit, I guess."

"Or somebody who read about it in the evening papers-or bid against him in the auction-room!" exclaimed Maitland. "There was one man, the runner-up, who certainly looked as though he might be capable of murder.

"An ill-balanced, emotional type of chap, about six feet, stooping a little, aquiline nose, high cheek-bones, a suggestion of the Slav about him though his speech was without accent. Clothes grey tweeds, good quality and cut, and never been pressed since they left the tailor. Grey hair, black eyebrows, grey eyes."

"PERHAPS Sotheby's people may know his address?" Pryde asked eagerly.

"It's possible, if he has made a purchase there before, not otherwise, and anyhow there'll be nobody in the place yet awhile. Try them about ten. They'll recognise him, for he made himself conspicuous enough. Ah, here's Miss Dixon, I'll prepare her— she's been with Carruthers for years."

He intercepted the middle-aged assistant before she could enter, but she had already been informed of the tragedy. With eyes averted from the still figure on the floor, she answered Pryde's questions.

Mr. Carruthers had been greatly elated by his success. He had shown his trophy to one valued client, Mr. Petersham, who had called in the late afternoon, replacing it in the safe when he had gone. He had written to the American collector to whom he hoped to sell it, and she had posted the letter when she left a little after six. No one else had seen the print.

She had put the petty cash in the safe before leaving, but it amounted to only five or six pounds. She left the safe open. Mr. Carruthers always closed and locked it himself, and besides she thought that he probably got the print out again after she had gone. He often spent hours examining fine prints.

"Nothing else that might have a bearing on the murder?" asked Pryde. "Why should he stop so late? It must have been near midnight when he was murdered. Did anyone ring up, for instance?"

"There were several calls during the afternoon, but I think they were all from people congratulating him on his purchase. Of course someone might have made an appointment to call, but I knew nothing about it. I've known him stop here half the night, reading or writing, though. He was writing a book about engravings— for collectors. I dare say he might have been working on that. Yes, that's part of it on his desk."

"Blank— unless Sotheby's can tell me something," said Pryde.

But Sotheby's couldn't. Several of the staff had noticed the runner-up. thought they had seen him in the galleries once or twice, but weren't sure. He'd never bid for anything before, certainly hadn't bought anything.

Maitland joined Saunders in the watch upon Stanton Gardens Mansions from a safe distance under cover of a gateway.

They weren't luxury flats, Maitland saw at a glance, and Saunders added details. There was but one common entry, the door of which was closed at midnight. Two automatic lifts and staircases served the upper floors.

One man kept the stairs and corridors more or less clean and attended to the steam heating in cold weather. He was perhaps supposed to be on duty at the door, but usually was too busy to be on view.

"Anyone can go out or in without being observed, except by chance," he explained. "It's an ideal den for a crook, in that way. That's Hines' flat at the top on the corner. He has windows looking two ways so it's easy to keep a lookout."

Maitland and Saunders waited patiently. Folks came out of the Mansions, various tradesmen delivered goods or took orders. It was well past midday when at last Hines appeared. He seemed quite at ease as he sauntered down the road towards the Rotherham Arms, which decorated the corner.

"Better follow him, though he doesn't seem to be going anywhere except for a drink," said Maitland to Saunders. "But he may be meeting someone. Stick to him. I think I'll try to find this janitor. Carry on as you think best if I'm not around when you come back."

Saunders sped off. Maitland crossed the road and entered the hall of the Mansions and even as he passed by the stair-head leading to the basement at the rear a taxi pulled up, a man sprang out, and, dashing into one of the automatic lifts, began to rise with the deliberation common to those contraptions.

Next moment Maitland was running cat-footed to the stairs leading aloft, for he had glimpsed the visitor. He was the earnest anti-gambler. His face was no longer masklike but drawn with anxiety or fear.

Up raced the detective, slowed as he overtook the lift, and crouched when it reached the top floor. This couldn't be coincidence. His theory was about to be proved correct; the distributor of leaflets was linking himself up with Hines!

Yes! He was hammering at the door of the corner flat, pressing the bell-push, stamping impatiently as he received no reply. Maitland heard him muttering thickly under his breath as he returned and began to descend in the lift.

It reached the ground floor, but the passenger didn't go at once to the waiting taxi. He entered the telephone box placed in the hail for the convenience of such tenants as hadn't private phones.

Peering from the shelter of the stairway, Maitland saw him scribbling nervously on a pad laid beside the directory volume, outlining a pattern while he waited for an answer to his call.

There was a long pause. The pencil, secured to the wall by a chain, wriggled and twirled, then at last came the answer. The caller spoke briefly, very earnestly, hung up, and paced slowly out.

MAITLAND followed far enough to see and note the taxi's number, then hurried back to the telephone box.

"Give me the number last called, please, and quickly. This is a C.I.D. man speaking. It's important."

"Calton Green, 2020," came the reply.

"Thanks. Now get me the name and address as quickly as possible."

He reached for the pencil to make a note-and nearly dropped it as his eyes fell upon the pad by which it hung, the pad on which the anti-gambler had scribbled.

Twice repeated was a rough sketch of a group of three women's heads with hair dressed in the fashion of the 18th century. And though the sketch was the work of an inexpert hand, it was yet sufficiently clear for Maitland to recognise the grouped heads of old Valentine Green's masterpiece, "The Ladies Hambledon," the print which Carruthers had bought— and died for!

Maitland, tearing the sheet from the pad and tucking it away in his pocketbook, did a little intensive thinking.

The anti-gambler had been present during the sale at Sotheby's. He had seen the print, might have gazed at it before and during the bidding. The mere fact that he was there hinted at an interest in pictures, his draughtsmanship suggested an amateur.

But was this sufficient to impress the pattern of the print on his sub-consciousness to such a degree that he had mechanically reproduced it some twenty-four hours later-or had he just received an additional stimulus?

Maitland knew well that the sub-consciousness can play queer tricks when the mind is excited, and the man had certainly been shaken out of his usual phlegmatic calm— by what?

The man had had a newspaper sticking out of his pocket The news of Carruthers' murder would be in it— and a picture of the print again reproduced. They had one yesterday evening beside the paragraph about the sale. Therefore, this man had seen it just before he came charging in here.

But surely the mere fact of having seen the man who had been murdered and the picture for which he was murdered yesterday wouldn't be enough to upset a fellow of his temperament to such a degree? Maitland was saying to himself when again the exchange spoke:

"The name is Meyerbach— Stenningcot, Calton Green."

Maitland hung up, peered cautiously down the street— and darted back to the cover of the basement stair. For Hines was approaching with another man. They entered and ascended by the lift. Maitland hastened out and signalled the unobtrusive Saunders.

"That fellow with him was on the course yesterday, sir, though I didn't see them together," the sergeant said. "They met in the pub."

"And the leaflet merchant has hitched himself up to the gang, very obligingly. Make a note— Meyerbach, Stenningcot, Calton Green. You know the place?"

"The other side of Caterham. Old village, just beginning to be built up with never-nevers," replied Saunders promptly.

"Well, I'm going to try a bluff. In about a quarter of an hour these fellows here will be sprinting for the place. You'll follow them, of course, but I'll try to have more men there— for I have a notion, Saunders, that there may be more to discover than forged notes. I'll fix up a taxi for you around the corner. Say 'Yard' to engage it. That's all."

They parted on the corner. The sergeant resumed his watching. Presently a taxi rolled up and stopped close by. All was set.

Well within the quarter hour Maitland was ringing the flat on the phone. The voice of Hines replied.

"Get to Calton Green as quick as you can, yes!" said Maitland in a cautious whisper. "Bring any of the boys you can collect quickly, yes. You understand? Stenningcot, yes."

"But I thought we weren't to go there in the daytime, boss?" Hines' voice was doubtful. "If there's a nark watchin' me—"

"Be careful, but come quick. It is of the most important!" insisted Maitland, and hung up as Hines growled assent.

Then he was speeding for Calton Green as fast as wheels could take him.

"Stenningcot's the last house on the corner of the Green. Meyerbach is an artist, a quiet sort of fellow, doesn't mix with the neighbors. I think he's a bit mad," the local police-sergeant told him. "What's the trouble, sir?"

"It's big— those forged fivers that have been surging round— and maybe something more. A Yard car will be along any moment. Send them on. I must hurry, for it may be touch and go. Have you any men?"

"All out, sir, except one and—"

"Send him after me— and keep an eye lifting yourself!" snapped Maitland and was gone, walking fast across the Green. If his deductions weren't hopelessly wrong, there was need for haste.

STENNINGCOT was easily identified by the big north light of a studio that had been built on it apparently some years before. All was quiet as Maitland knocked, but a moment later came a rumbling growl and the door was flung open by the man of the auction room, the unsuccessful bidder for "The Ladies Hambledon."

"I don't want vacuum cleaners, water softeners or—" he began furiously, and paused as Maitland held up a hand.

"But I don't sell anything. I have come to buy," he said evenly. "I'm a dealer in pictures and I wish to commission a mezzotint engraving of a Gainsborough that has never before been reproduced, Mr. Meyerbach. May I come in?"

"Ah! A mezzotint, eh? Yes, you have come to the right man. Come in!" purred Meyerbach, and stepped back.

He led the way down a corridor into the studio. Beneath the window stood a long table. On it, shaded by a frame covered with tissue paper to diffuse the light, lay a large copper plate, partly engraved.

By the bench stood an easel bearing a French 18th-century portrait of some Court beauty, by a minor master. A copperplate press and accessories stood close by.

On the walls were hung various engravings, and it was upon one of these, the dusty glass of which showed finger marks, that Maitland's glance stayed as he looked round the room.

"That is your work?" he asked, nodding at the thing— and the next instant reeled back as, with a demoniacal howl, Meyerbach sprang upon him, clutching his throat, eyes gleaming with insane ferocity.

OVER they went together, Maitland undermost. The fellow had the strength of ten; in vain the detective strove to break his hold, shouting hoarsely for help, pummelling his assailant's ribs with short-arm blows that seemed to have no effect whatever.

He was weakening, everything grew dark, when with a shout a big constable came thundering in. One hefty blow to the point and Meyerbach was down and out.

Maitland staggered to his feet, lifted down the engraving which he had indicated. The backing was loose. He removed it. There, snugly behind the engraving, was the mezzotint of "The Ladies Hambledon"!

"There! And— he's the murderer of John Carruthers!" croaked Maitland. "And of another man, I'm afraid. Quick! Search the other rooms."

He slipped handcuffs upon the unconscious man and ran to a front parlor as the constable shouted. The man of the leaflets and the scribble lay upon the floor— strangled.

"It appears that he went by the name of Cranash, sir," said Maitland, continuing his report. "He was the head of the gang. I think Meyerbach has been hovering on the borders of insanity for years. He coveted that masterpiece of Valentine Green's, and when he failed to buy it lost the last remnants of restraint. Cranach, when he learned of the murder, must have guessed that Meyerbach had committed it, for he unconsciously scribbled this sketch of the picture— and so gave me a hint that the man he telephoned to might be the murderer.

"Then he went to Calton Green and, I think, proposed to destroy the print, which was the only evidence against Meyerbach— whereupon the madman strangled him, as he attempted to strangle me when I hit upon its hiding place."

"It was fortunate that you took precautions." commented the Assistant Commissioner.

"Yes. Our fellows rolled up a couple of minutes later and we were ready to receive the rest of the gang when they arrived. The plate and the paper from which the notes were made were stowed beneath the floor under the press. It's a clear-cut case."

"In which the honors go to you, Maitland!"

"N-no," murmured Maitland modestly. "To luck— and the scribble."

______________

8: Flowers that Bloomed in the Spring

Coutts Brisbane

Wickepin Argus, 10 April 1913

'I HAVE never seen a boiled owl,' observed Mr. Caledon Hiles, placidly decapitating his third egg. 'Yet I picture the creature as resembling you, Jack, in your present mood. You're gloomy enough to depress a monkey-house. Is love's young dream proving a nightmare?"

Muttering a comprehensive malediction upon the whole simian race Jack upset his coffee, dropped his knife with a clatter, and left the room hurriedly.

His father gazed quizzically after him; then resumed his breakfast, carefully avoiding his wife's eye.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Caledon!' she began, rising from her place with creaking dignity, like a mobilised wooden statue. 'Have you no sympathy? You know very well what is troubling the poor, dear boy. Mrs. Dormy's conduct is simply monstrous— first encouraging his attentions to Edith, and then snubbing him because of that horrid, purple-faced, bald-headed—'

'Pink-eyed, web-footed, bottle-nosed—" interpolated Caledon.

'Old wretch of a colonel!' concluded Mrs. Hiles breathlessly.

'What about the girl herself? Don't she count?' inquired her husband guilelessly. 'Always seemed to me she knew her own mind, and wouldn't let her mother lead her. Besides, if he don't get this one, there are plenty more. The place is simply trawling with gels, and they're all much of a muchness. I'm sick of this love nonsense!'

'Galedon,' ejaculated Mrs. Hiles, justly incensed, "I will not listen to your  brutal cynicism— to-day of all days!'

Burying her face in her handkerchief, she blundered blindly out of the room, snuffling ominously.

'Confound everything! What in thunder, is all this circus about?' exclaimed the badgered gentleman. 'What's today, anyhow, that it should be sacred? '

He fished for his notebook, and hurriedly turning up the date, discovered that it was the anniversary of his wedding day!

'Hang my rotten memory,' muttered Caledon, smitten with remorse. 'Women think such a deuced lot of these little things. I should have remembered— flowers by her plate, and so forth. It's a bit late, but— and I'll run up to town and get her something.'

He opened the French window and gazed meditatively out at the garden, bright with the fresh green of spring, trying to think of the floral tribute due to an twenty-third anniversary. His face brightened.

'It'd be the very ticket,' he murmured. 'Showed signs of blooming last night. If it's only out— name it after her.'

Still muttering, Mr. Hiles ambled down the garden path to the hothouse built at the bottom of the garden, his holy of holies. No foot save his own ever entered this shrine of horticulture. Even the gardener, who pottered intermittently around the rest of the domain, was denied admittance.

Here he spent much of his time, for, unambitious in all other directions, he ardently desired to attach his name to some new variety or species of orchid. To this end he had fertilised, hybridised, and spent much money in acquiring doubtful lots at auction sales, in the hope of one day securing something unique, hitherto without avail, for luck does not always attend a big bank balance.

But perseverance seemed about to be at last rewarded; his latest acquisition had developed in a fashion that promised something new and strange.

With a heart filled with hope, yet chastened by the memory of many disappointments, Mr. Hiles entered the hothouse, and emitted a smothered howl of triumph.

This time, without shadow of doubt, he had succeeded. A cluster of blossoms such as he had never seen before blazed against a background of dark leaves, primrose, purple and orange, with a vermilion labellum, altogether a riotous blossom that thrilled the eye like a kaleidoscope.

The thing had an odour, too— a balmy fragrance, pungent yet delicate, persuasive as music.

'Wow!' breathed Mr. Hiles ecstatically as, transfixed with delight, he inhaled great draughts of the ravishing perfume.

Unwonted fire glowed in his veins; his pulses beat fiercely to a measure that thrilled his whole being; a wild memory of the wedding music of twenty-three years before stirred emotions he had imagined long safely buried.

'Dear heart !' he quavered. 'Dearest darling!' And, with reviving memory of old endearments, 'Sweetest bun-rabbit!'

Feverishly, with shaking fingers, he detached two of the blossoms, placed one in his buttonhole, and holding the other delicately before him, as one might carry a gift of the goddess from the temple of Aphrodite, he sped back to the house. Fitting accompaniment, he hummed, quite unconsciously, scraps of the Venusberg music from Tannhanser.

Half an hour later, equipped for town, he emerged from the front gate, and struck across the common towards the station, pausing every few yards; to waft a salute to the radiant and transformed Mrs. Hiles, waving her farewell from the hall door.

She saw her husband disappear, dabbed her dewy eyes, and repeated to ponder over this sudden renaissance of young affection.

For a long time she sat dreaming happily; then a shade of doubt crept into her eyes. She examined the strange orchid anew.

'Nonsense,' she exclaimed, decidedly. 'How could they? Of course they have nothing to do with it. Dear, dear Caledon!'

With one lust, long lingering sniff she went about her morning duties, singing.

Wollingham Common is not as other commons, even as the folk of Wollingham differ from the folk of less favored villages. Several generations of culture have given it a spurious air of antiquity, delightfully refreshing to the world-weary.

'We have here, preserved as by a miracle, a fragment of Nature in her antique mood, untamed, unrestrained, multitudinous and untrammelled as of old. Beneath these time-gnarled poplars one breathes an ancient air, realises the vast, mysterious dim aisles of the primeval forest...'

Thus Miss Burbage, the local Sappho, in the foreword of her Woodnotes Wild and Wayside Warbling.

Perhaps a purist might have objected to the gravelled paths, rigorously straight, which intersected the wild, and somewhat modified its primitive ferocity. But what would you? Even Arden in damp weather becomes an uncomfortable promenade without some such concession.

Yet Caledon Hiles, heedless of polished shoes and spotless spats, caracoled gaily through the long grass in a fine frenzy, which disdained the straight and narrow way, and presently brought its reward, for in the middle of a superbly complicated double shuffle that would have done credit to a demented faun, he came to the ground heavily, tripped by a fallen bough.

Picking himself up, he proceeded more soberly, a trifle dashed by his misadventure, the wild hilarity of his mood vanished— gone, perhaps, with the orchid blossom, which, jetted from his buttonhole, remained unregarded, nestled in the grass, blazing incongruously like a bird of paradise in a dovecot.

ii

SCARCELY had Mr. Hiles departed from the scene of his downfall than the landscape was enlivened by the appearance of Wollingham's vicar, the Rev. Marcus Porsett, pacing sedately, as became a philosopher, but reciting in a clear, fluting voice such choice fragments of verse as applied to the season, for he was a man of sensitive feeling, who loved to match sight and sentiment:

'When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The— the— er—'

Seeking a spur to treacherous memory, his eye roved distractedly till it caught, and was held, by the gaudy stranger.

'Dear me,' exclaimed the vicar. 'How exquisite, how entrancingly appropriate:

Where the earth has a garment of glory,

And the odah and cullah of flowers.

How delightfully exotic!'

Stepping delicately, he rescued the blossom, examined it with fastidiously dainty appreciation, and inhaled its perturbing fragrance.

Placid meditation, the balanced philosophic calm which Marcus had been at so much pains to acquire and maintain, were swept away on the instant.

Imagine the irruption of a Bacchanal upon a spinster's tea-party, or a ballet invading a church congress, songs of Cythere mingling with an anthem, and you have some faint notion of the emotional upheaval wrought in Mr. Porsett's bosom by the parlous perfume.

Still, the training of years restrained him; he did not yield to the mad impulse that bade him give vent to an unholy glee and run leaping and shouting for very joy of life; but his eye's shone, his lips moved to the refrain of an old love song, and his twinkling feet hardly touched earth, as with quickened pace he sped over bush and bracken to the dell of the primeval poplars, and there— oh, cunning little god— almost ran into Miss Burbage, who, inspired by the vernal season to a fresh enthusiasm, leaned against a trunk, notebook in hand, listening with the ear of faith to the roar of ascending sap.

For what followed, the orchid may not altogether have bet responsible, for Miss Burbage was exceeding good to look upon, and it is quite possible that only a selfish regard for bachelor freedom, and unwillingness to forego all the charming attentions showered upon a well-to-do and unwedded clergyman, had withheld Marcus from following the primrose path of his inclination.

Now he took it at a gallop. All the frail barriers of hesitation, procrastination, and diffidence were as nothing. Like a whirlwind he wooed, like a hurricane he won, and for the sequel— is it not written large in the registers of St. Sulpicius?

iii

BENEFICENT blossom! Already in one short hour its irresistible influence had sufficed to revive the ashes smouldering on the hymeneal altar of the Hiles, and to set another couple on the road beaconed by the same delectable hearth,

Yet no sooner had it performed its kindly office— linked two adoring hearts—than it slipped once more to earth, perchance to renew | its potency, and lay unheeded and forgotten as Marcus and his beloved strolled away wrapt in roseate clouds.

A decent interval of half an hour ensued. The orchid, freshened by the dew which still lurked in the shadow where it lay, bloomed its very hardest, and wasted a wealth of fragrance on the unresponsive air. Once a sparrow, alighting close by, eyed it appreciatively, and approached with sinister hop ; but a whiff of the perfume dissipated his destructive intentions, and, chirruping madly, he flew off on the business of his life.

Then the sound of a martial tread crashing imperiously through the underbrush, broke the silence, and a tall, military-looking man halted in the middle of the glade to light a cigar.

Fond mothers are prejudiced, and Mrs Hiles's sketch portrait of Colonel the Hon. Audley Blunden-Boresworth was undoubtedly overcharged.

Properly considered, his complexion, acquired by long service in India's sunny (and thirsty) clime, was honourable as a wound gotten on the field of honour though it was certainly unfortunate that, pictorially considered, it had much the same effect.

As for baldness, that was but a figure of speech, for, barring a slight thinness on top, easily disguised by a little manipulation, the Colonel had as good a head of hair as any woman could reasonably demand.

Taken all in all, he was a brisk and stalwart gentleman, a credit to all the fine old traditions of the British Army.

He was on his way to pay an early call on the Dormys, with a vague notion of inveigling Edith, the beloved of Jack Hiles, into a round of golf. He had no very definite intentions towards her, but the gallant warrior had a weakness for philandering; the atmosphere of flattery with which mothers of marriageable daughters always surrounded him soothed his vanity, and— well, there y'are, don't y'know.

The cigar was well alight. The Colonel swung into his stride, paused, halted, stooped, ,and was conquered. The orchid filled his nostrils with its pungent, persuasive, balmy fragrance.

No soft notes of Lydian flute or wailing strings thrilled Blunden-Boresworth, I promise you. His heart beat to sterner music— clangour of bugles, clash of cymbals, bellowing of bombardons. No pale visions of classic perfection swept through his whirling brain, but lurid dreams of love and manslaughter, dripping blades, and cannon thunder, ladies swung to the saddle-bow and borne away through gory streets lit by the red glare of a blazing city.

With the devastating orchid pinned firmly above his heart, fit oriflame of Venus on the breast of Mars, Colonel Blunden-Boresworth left the glade in five-foot strides.

Because Mrs Dormy had neither husband nor son, she could afford herself the luxury of a pretty parlour-maid. Mary was easily the best-looking girl in Wollingham, a fact that the Colonel had noted, subconsciously perhaps, many times before, though, as a well conducted gentleman, he had not allowed him self to dwell on it.

But, under the irresponsible influence which controlled him, all petty conventions were cast aside, driven by a tremendous gust of fiery passion. The Honourable Audley swept the girl into his arms the moment she appeared in answer to his knock, and, by the strange alchemy of the blossom crushed her cheek, where she was content to remain, listening with delight to the incoherent words that punctuated the kisses raining on her rosy face.

Absorbed by this delightful occupation, the blissful couple remained heedless of all mundane things, till an icy chill such as heralds the approach of an iceberg smote them to consciousness.

Awful as Athena armed, Mrs Dormy slowly descended the staircase, her small figure inflated with righteous indignation; in her rear hovered Edith, gloating with grins of delight over her bogey's discomfiture.

For twenty long and terrible seconds Mrs Dormy,  outraged, disappointed of her dearest hopes, eyed the culprits, then spoke with the voice of a refrigerator.

"Have you any excuse to offer, Colonel Boresworth, for this insult?" she inquired.  "Surely the household of a friend should have been spared this display of barrack room morals—"

"Stop!" thundered the Colonel imperiously. "I regret, madam, that the impetuosity of a soldier should have given colour to your suspicions. Very obviously, the lady who is to be my wife cannot remain in your service. Mary, my dear, run and put on a bonnet— a hat— a cloak— anything— and we will relieve this charitable lady of our presence."

Mrs Dormy gasped. In her wildest dreams she could not have imagined such a consummation as this.

"I'm sure I can give her an excellent character—" she began in confusion.

"I am not aware that your good offices are required, madam!" cut in the Colonel.

"And certainly my training will be invaluable to the mistress of the Hall," concluded the lady venomously; whereupon the soldier most ungallantly turned his back upon her and remained silently sniffing at the all-powerful flower, now somewhat deboshed by the recent strenuous proceedings, until his bride-elect returned.

As the couple disappeared round the corner of the road, Mrs Dormy drew a deep breath, pinched herself to make certain that she was awake, and moved stairwood to prepare for a round of visits ; she had news to tell.

'Edith,' she called over the banisters, 'if you particularly wish it, you may ask Jack Hiles to dinner to night.'

'I was awfully pleased to come,' said Jack effusively; 'and I think dad and the mater were glad to get rid of me. It's their wedding anniversary, you know, Mrs Dormy, and they are quite absurdly absorbed in one another. Even a terrible accident to one of his precious orchids didn't upset the pater to-day.'

'What was the accident?' inquired Edith.

'He left the hothouse door open, and some cats got in and played old Harry with his pet blossom, a new variety, I believe— tore the flowers to rags.'

'Let us hope it will bloom again next year,' cooed Mrs Dormy.

But, fortunately for the peace of the world, that has not yet come to pass.

__________________

9: Birthday for Callaghan

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

The Australian Women's Weekly, 24 March 1951

EFFIE THOMPSON regarded the jangling telephone with green eyes that flashed malevolently. She said to Nikolls: "I'm sick of answering that phone and telling people they can't speak to him. I suppose he had a merry time last night?"

Windemere Nikolls, Callaghan's Canadian assistant, grinned at her.

"And how!" he said. "Gettin' ready for his birthday to-day, I suppose. I bet he's got a sweet hangover right now."

She took off the receiver. She said: "Yes... this is Callaghan Investigations. No, I'm afraid you can't speak to Mr. Callaghan. He has a most important conference. No... I couldn't tell you when he'll be free. I haven't the remotest idea."

She hung up the receiver.

Nikolls lit a cigarette. He looked at Effie Thompson sideways. He asked: "Did ya buy a birthday present for the boss? You didn't? Well... well... well... Maybe you're slippin' babe? Maybe you don't go for him as much as you usta."

Her eyes regarded him wickedly.

"Don't talk rubbish." she said. "And don't call me 'babe'. I suppose it has never occurred to you that a secretary might have merely a Platonic regard for her employer?"

"Hear me laugh," said Nikolls. "Playtonic regard is good. Play for him an' tonic for you." He stretched. "You're so stuck on that guy that he could even make you eat peas off a knife.'

She said: "Nuts! You're not only fat; you're also crazy."

"O.K." said Nikolls airily. "I'm crazy an' you're playtonic. All the same you better call him again. I gotta talk to him. Something's turned up."

CALLAGHAN turned over as the telephone on his bedside table rang. He opened his eyes and regarded the ceiling with animosity. Then he threw back the bedclothes; swung his legs off the bed; sat, running his fingers through his thick black hair. The telephone continued to ring.

Callaghan knew that the call came from his office on the floor below. He knew it would be Effie Thompson wanting instructions about the morning's post. He scowled at the instrument.

The telephone stopped ringing. Callaghan walked into his sitting room; crossed to the cupboard in the corner; extracted a bottle of whisky. The telephone began to ring again.

He went back to the bedroom, carrying the whisky bottle; picked up the receiver.

Effie Thompson said: "Good morning. Mr. Callaghan. It's a quarter past twelve." Her voice was slightly arid.

He asked: "Any calls?"

"Yes," said Effie. "Several, including one from Mrs. Jevons. You remember you worked on a case for her last year. She says she s very worried. She thinks her husband is in love with the housemaid. She says she doesn't know what to do."

Callaghan said: "How do I know? Tell her to ask the housemaid. Give me Nikolls."

Nikolls' voice came on the line.

"Good mornin'. Happy birthday. How did the party go?"

Callaghan said: "Mind your own business. What is it?"

"It s the Globe and International," said Nikolls. "A jewellery job."

"All right," said Callaghan. "I'll be down in half an hour. Ring through to the housekeeper and tell her to send me up a pot of very strong tea."

AT one o'clock Callaghan walked into the office. Out of the corner of her eye Effie Thompson looked at him approvingly. He was wearing a navy-blue suit, a fawn shirt, a blue tie.

She said, "I've dealt with most of the post, Mr. Callaghan. I'm sorry you're so tired. And many happy returns of the day."

"The same to you," said Callaghan absently.

He went into his office. Nikolls was sitting in the armchair smoking a cigarette.

Callaghan asked, "Well, what is it, Windy?"

Nikolls said, "The Globe and International are carrying the insurance on a pearl an' diamond necklace."

Nikolls went on to explain to Callaghan. "The necklace is owned and insured by some guy called Jerrington," he said. "He's got an office in the Aldwych. He's a broker or something. The necklace belongs to his wife, but she don't wear it often. They live outside London an' he keeps the necklace in the office safe."

Callaghan asked, "Did the Globe and International approve of the necklace being kept there?"

Nikolls nodded. "Yeah... they'd inspected the safe. They said it was right."

Callaghan sat down at his desk. He lit a cigarette and said, "Go on, Windy."

"Four days ago," said Nikolls, "Jerrington goes into the office. He's takin' his wife to the theatre that night. An' she wants to wear the necklace. So he opens the safe an' the necklace is gone."

Callaghan asked: "Was the safe forced?"

Nikolls shook his head: "No... It was just opened, and it was opened by somebody with gloves on— somebody who knew the combination."

Callaghan said: "If this thing only took place four days ago, what's the hurry? Has the robbery been reported?"

Nikolls nodded. "Yeah... but the Globe and International want a check-up good an' quick because this guy Jerrington is due to close down his business and leave for South Africa with his wife in a week's, time. He wants the claim settled before he goes, see? The Globe want you to do a quick routine check-up on it."

Callaghan asked: "Who did you talk to at the insurance company?"

"I talked to Lloyd. He's been in touch with Scotland Yard."

Callaghan asked, "Have they any ideas?"

Nikolls shrugged his shoulders. "The only thing they can think of is the secretary. This guy Jerrington had a secretary— a heavy blonde— a good-looker— one of those dames with what it takes. There's a sorta rumor that Jerrington was stuck on her. A fortnight ago he gives her a week's notice an' she goes."

"Is the idea that the secretary stole the necklace and took it with her?" asked Callaghan.

"They wouldn't know," said Nikolls.

Callaghan yawned. He said: "Well, if the thing's been stolen, the insurance company have to pay."

"Yeah," said Nikolls. "They don't mind so much because they think they're lucky anyway."

Callaghan asked: "Why?"

Nikolls said: "Look...  this pearl an' diamond necklace was insured with the Globe and International ten years ago by Jerrington, see? He insured it for fifteen thousand pounds. He's always paid his premiums and everything's been O.K. Four weeks ago Jerrington rings through to the company an' says he thinks he oughta increase the insurance."

Nikolls sneered a bit. "He's dead right, too," he said, "that necklace is worth about five times what it was worth when he bought it. So the Globe and International sent a man along to value it. This guy says the value of the necklace to-day is somewhere round about fifty thousand pounds. They suggest that's the sum it should be insured for, but the premium would go up too an' Jerrington isn't so sure about that. He says he wants some time to think it over. Well, he hadn't made up his mind before it was pinched."

Callaghan drew on his cigarette. He said: "The Globe and International were lucky. If Jerrington had paid the additional premium and taken out the extra insurance, they would have had to pay out fifty thousand instead of fifteen."

Nikolls nodded. "That's right."

Callaghan looked at his watch. He said: "I'm going to lunch. Maybe I'll look in and see Jerrington some time this afternoon."

He stopped at the doorway.

"Does anybody know where the secretary is-the girl Jerrington sacked?"

Nikolls said: "Yeah... she's got an apartment at Carfax Court at Hampstead—No. 10 or 11 or something. I got the address written down."

Going out to the outer office for a minute Nikolls returned with a folded slip of paper. He gave it to Callaghan, who put it in his pocket.

Nikolls said: "Are you going to be back to-day? You look to me like you got a hang-over."

Callaghan said: "I have got a hang-over and I don't know if I'll be back."

He went out to have his lunch. Eventually, he paid for it, got into his car, and drove to the Aldwych. He found the Jerrington office on the first floor.

When he was shown into Jerrington's room, he said: "I won't waste a lot of your time, Mr. Jerrington. My name's Callaghan, of Callaghan Investigations. I'm investigator for the Globe and International Insurance. They've asked me to talk to you about your claim for the missing necklace. Is there anything you'd like to say about it? This inquiry is, of course, merely routine."

Jerrington nodded his head. He was well-dressed— a strong, manly looking type. He indicated a chair for Callaghan.

He said: "This robbery is a nuisance so far as I'm concerned. Not so long ago I thought that I ought to increase the insurance on the necklace. I got the Globe and International to value it and they assessed the value at nearly fifty thousand pounds— very much more than it's insured for at the moment. I said I'd like to consider the business because the new premium would be very heavy. Then I came to the conclusion that it would be better for me to sell the necklace than to pay the additional insurance. You see, my wife wore it very seldom— so seldom that I kept it here in the office safe.

"Four days ago I arranged to take my wife out and went to the safe to get the necklace for her. It was gone. It's tough luck on me because if I'd re-insured it for the extra amount, the company would have to pay me nearly fifty thousand instead of a measly fifteen; or, if I'd sold it at once, after the valuation, I should have got at least forty thousand."

Callaghan nodded. "It's not so good for you," he said. "By the way, I'm told that your secretary left you not long ago. I suppose it isn't possible that she might have taken the necklace? Did she know the safe combination?"

"I don't know," said Jerrington. "I've never told her what it was, but she's seen me open that safe so many times that it's a stone certainty that she must have learned the combination. However, I can't make myself believe that she'd do a thing like that. She'd been with me a long time." He hesitated; then he said: "Except for one thing—" He stopped talking suddenly; shrugged his shoulders.

Callaghan asked: "What thing?"

Jerrington smiled. "Oh well, I might as well get it off my chest. Marion Lanning was a very good-looking girl— a blonde. Quite beautiful, in fact. Well... some business friends of mine rather foolishly ribbed my wife about my secretary's looks."

Jerrington made a vague gesture. "They were only pulling her leg, of course," he said, "but unfortunately she took it seriously, and it made a little trouble between us. So I thought the easiest way out was to give Miss Lanning her notice. I did that two weeks ago. I gave her a cheque as a present, and we parted the best of friends."

Callaghan nodded. "I suppose there wasn't any truth in the joke your friends made about you and Miss Lanning?"

Jerrington grinned. "Well... not really," he said diffidently, "I suppose Marion and I flirted a bit now and again."

Callaghan lit a cigarette.

"Women do funny things," he said. "Do you suppose it's quite impossible that Marion Lanning, fed-up with your wife's being responsible for her getting the sack, took the necklace with her when she left. So as to get back at your wife?"

"I can't think it's possible," said Jerrington. "Of course, I couldn't swear it's not possible. Women can do the most extraordinary things."

Callaghan nodded. "Especially if they're jealous."

He got up; flicked the ash from his cigarette. He said:

"I think I'd better have a word with Miss Lanning. Do you know where she's to be found?"

"She used to live at St. John's Wood," said Jerrington. "But she told me when she left that she was moving. I don't think I asked her to leave the new address. There was no need."

Callaghan said: "It doesn't matter. I remember my assistant gave me her address— No. 11 Carfax Court, Hampstead. I'll go along and see her. Just a routine call. So as to clear every possible angle. Naturally, you want the claim paid as soon as possible."

"I do," said Jerrington. "My wife and I are leaving England in five days' time. I'd like everything to be settled before then. When do you think you can let me know about the payment?"

"The police have nothing to report— although they haven't had much time," Callaghan said. "Still... I'll go and see Miss Lanning at four thirty this afternoon. After I've seen her I'll get through to the Globe and International and give them my report on the telephone. As you're leaving, they'll probably pay the claim within the next two days with the proviso that if the necklace is recovered they will be entitled to any additional profit on the sale. That's the usual thing."

Jerrington said: "It's going to be tough if they pay me the fifteen thousand, and then the find the necklace and sell it for fifty thousand. Especially after all the insurance premiums I've paid on the darned thing."

Callaghan nodded. "But if the necklace doesn't turn up. you'll have the fifteen thousand, which is better in nothing."

He lit a fresh cigarette.

"I'll see Miss Lanning at four thirty and telephone the Company afterwards. Then, when I've spoken to them. I'll call you on the telephone and tell you when you can expect the cheque. How's that?"

Jerrington held out his hand.

"That's very kind of you," he said. "I'll be working late to-day, so you can get me any time up to eight o'clock tonight." He grinned at Callaghan. "Give my regards to Marion Lanning when you see her," he said.

Callaghan said he would. He went away.

JUST after four-thirty Callaghan stopped his car outside the apartment block at Hampstead.

He went in through he main entrance. An arrow on the wall opposite him informed him that the first corridor to the right led to Flats Nos. 1-20.

He walked down the corridor. Three-quarters of the way down it turned abruptly to the left. As he walked around the corner, a woman came out of No. 11. He stopped. She was well worth looking at. The woman was tall and shapely, exquisitely dressed, with big blue eyes and a demure expression.

She asked: "Were you looking for No. 11 by any chance?"

Callaghan said: "Yes. I'm looking for a Miss Marion Lanning."

She smiled. "I am Miss Lanning. Can I do something for you? I was going to tea." Her smile deepened.

Callaghan said: "I'd like to talk to you, Miss Lanning, on a rather important matter. I wonder if you'd be good enough to have tea with me?"

She raised her eyebrows.

Callaghan said quickly: "Actually, I'm an investigator from the Globe and International Insurance Company. A necklace belonging to the wife of your late employer, Mr. Jerrington, has been stolen from his office. I thought I'd like to talk to you about it."

She said: "Oh, dear... how dramatic... I'm most interested. And there's a rather nice tea-room near here."

The tea-room was empty and quiet. Callaghan watched her as she poured the tea. He thought she was a very attractive woman; that maybe Mrs. Jerrington hadn't been so stupid.

She asked: "Now, Mr. Callaghan, how can I help you?"

"You can help me by not being offended at what I'm going to say, Miss Lanning. As you probably know, when a valuable piece of jewellery is stolen and the police have been advised, the owner, the insurance company make their own inquiries. Their idea is not necessarily to put anybody into prison for stealing the necklace, but if possible to secure its return. Do you understand that?"

She nodded. "I understand."

He went on: "I called on Mr. Jerrington this afternoon. Apparently, he is the only one in the office who knows the combination of the safe. The safe hadn't been forced. It had been opened by somebody who knew the combination; somebody who knew that the necklace was there; somebody who knew that it was left there for long periods without even being looked at."

He smiled at her. "There is only one person who seems to fill the bill, Miss Lanning."

She raised her eyebrows. She said: "Really!"

"Yes," said Callaghan. "You see, Jerrington told me that some of his friends had been ribbing his wife about his lovely secretary." He smiled at her. "They were right, too. I think you are one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life."

She said, "Thank you very much, sir!"

"He told me," Callaghan went on, "that his wife began to take this ribbing rather seriously; that it caused a little trouble between him and her, so he decided that the best thing to do was to give you a substantial cheque and your notice. Is that right?"

She said: "Yes... I suppose so. I was sorry to go, but, well..." She shrugged her shoulders prettily. "I understood the position."

"Quite!" said Callaghan. "Now, please don't take offence. You'd been with Jerrington for a long time. He's quite an attractive man. Maybe you were a little keen on him. If you were, it might be that you were very angry at having to leave him because of Mrs. Jerrington. Possibly you didn't like that. It occurred to mc that you might have taken that necklace just to put her nose out of joint, and not because you are a thief."

She looked at him demurely. She said: "Mr Callaghan, what am I supposed to say?"

"You're not supposed to say anything. Here's the point: Supposing, for the sake of argument, you did take that necklace, it's not going to do you any good. You'll find it fearfully difficult to dispose of. Even a professional cracksman would have to have that necklace and its pendant broken up and sold at a great loss in order not to risk detection. You can understand that, can't you?''

She nodded.

He went on: "I've told you that I represent the Globe and International. I'm not a policeman. I'm not interested in arresting anybody. I want, if possible, to look after the interests of my principals; to get that necklace back."

She said softly: "I see..."

"I wonder if you'd care to trust me," said Callaghan. "To believe what I m going to tell you."

She looked at him for a long time. He thought her eyes were very blue, very beautiful.

"Yes, I do trust you, Mr. Callaghan," she said eventually. "Now tell me why I have to trust you."

He said: "Miss Lanning, let's suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you were fearfully annoyed with Mrs. Jerrington; that you didn't want to leave Jerrington's employ; that when he sacked you, you planned to do something to hurt her; that through having watched Jerrington open the safe, you knew the combination; that on the day you left you opened the safe and took that necklace."

Smiling comfortingly at her, Callaghan went on: "All right. That necklace isn't very much use to you, except as a means of annoying Mrs. Jerrington. But it's of use to the insurance company."

Marion Lanning nodded her blonde head as if in complete agreement.

"Now, as you probably know," he went on, "an insurance company is always prepared to pay a reward of approximately ten per cent, of the value of the article stolen to anyone who gives information that leads to its recovery. Ten per cent, of fifteen thousand pounds is fifteen hundred pounds, isn't it, Miss Lanning?"

She said: "Yes... Quite a nice sum."

Callaghan drank some tea. He smiled at her. He said, "Now if by, shall we say, tomorrow morning, you were prepared to come to my office to see me personally and to tell me, as between you and me, that you might know where the necklace was, knowing that you'd get fifteen hundred pounds for the information— having understood all that, Miss Lanning, will you now tell me definitely that you know nothing about the disappearance of the necklace?"

She thought for a moment, then she said: "Mr. Callaghan, I think you're a very understanding man. I believe what you say, and I'm sure I trust you." Her smile was radiant. "But if you wouldn't mind, I would like to think this over. I wonder if you'd like to give me your office address. I'll come and see you to-morrow morning about eleven o'clock."

Callaghan said, "That will be wonderful." He felt in his pocket for a piece of paper and pencil; took out the folded sheet of paper that Nikolls had given him that morning with Miss Lanning's address written on it.

Tearing a strip off, he wrote his name and office address on the piece of paper; gave it to her.

With a smile, Callaghan said, "I shall look forward to seeing you to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock. Now, will you forgive me if I go?"

She smiled at him. Callaghan smiled back. When he stopped at the cash desk to pay the bill, he took the opportunity to take another look at Miss Lanning. He thought she was worth it.

CALLAGHAN drove slowly towards Carfax Court. When he arrived he parked his car on the opposite side of the road, walked across, and entered the building.

Twenty minutes afterwards he came out, started up the car, stopped at a call-box two hundred yards down the road.

He dialled his office number.

When Effie Thompson came on the line he said: "Effie, tell Nikolls to get cracking and find out Jerrington's private address. Tell him he's got to get a ripple on. I'll be ringing through for it in fifteen minutes."

She said, "Wry well, Mr. Callaghan."

Callaghan hung up. He went back to the car, lit a cigarette and relaxed. He was still thinking about Miss Lanning. He thought that she was nice to think about.

At a quarter to eight that evening, Callaghan pushed open the outer door of Jerrington's office and went in. He walked across the deserted secretary's office, tapped on the door of Jerrington's room, pushed it open without waiting for a reply, went in. Jerrington was sitting at his desk signing letters.

He said, "I'm glad to see you, Mr. Callaghan. I hope you have good news for me."

"I'm not certain," said Callaghan. "We'll wait for your wife."

Jerrington said, "What do you mean?"

"You've slipped up, Jerrington," said Callaghan. "When I was leaving my office this morning to come round and see you, my assistant, who'd got some information from the insurance company about this matter, told me your secretary had left you not long before the necklace was stolen. I asked him what her address was. He said it was No. 10 or No. 11 Carfax Court— or something like that."

Callaghan paused dramatically and then went on, "He said he had the address written on a piece of paper. He gave it to me but I didn't look at it. I put it in my pocket. When I saw you I had the idea in my head that Miss Lanning lived at No. 11 Carfax Court. I told you that she lived at No. 11 Carfax Court.

"I also told you that I was going to see her at four-thirty this afternoon. That suited your book. Immediately I'd left your office, you telephoned through to your wife, who is also your accomplice in this little matter, told her to drive to Carfax Court as quickly as possible, to stand inside the main entrance so that she could see when I approached, and to be discovered in the act of leaving No. 11.

"You knew that, because you'd described your secretary as blonde and beautiful, and because I saw this blonde and beautiful woman leaving No. 11, I should think that she was Miss Lanning, your secretary.

"Well, I did think that— more especially as I was assisted in the process by Mrs. Jerrington, who told me she was Miss Lanning. We went and had tea, and she did all the things you told her to do.

"She deliberately gave me the impression that she had stolen the necklace to get back at Mrs. Jerrington. She arranged to see me tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock to decide whether she'd return it and take the ten per cent reward, which I'd held out to her as a bait to confess that she'd got the necklace."

Callaghan lit a cigarette. He went on: "Up to that time I was the sucker. I'd fallen for the whole thing— hook, line, and sinker. I believed that the woman I was talking to was Marion Lanning. I believed that she had stolen the necklace because she hated Mrs. Jerrington."

He grinned happily. "And then one of those things happened," he said. "She asked me to write down my address so that she'd know where to come the next day. I knew I had a piece of paper in my pocket— the paper my assistant had given me with Marion Lanning's address on it." Jerrington was staring at Callaghan, but he went right on.

"So I tore a piece off," Callaghan said, "to write my office address down, and on the other side of the remaining piece I saw Marion Lanning's real address. It wasn't No. 11 Carfax Court— it was No. 10 Carfax Court. And how do you like that, Jerrington?"

Jerrington gasped; looked at Callaghan with his mouth open.

Callaghan continued: "I went back to Carfax Court to No. 10— and found the real Marion Lanning. You'd planned it very nicely. You knew that she's leaving tonight for Canada, where she's got a job, so that to-morrow, when the supposed Marion Lanning didn't turn up at my office, then we should be certain that she'd stolen the necklace and taken it with her. In which case the insurance company would have paid you fifteen thousand pounds. And you'd have the necklace, too!"

He blew a smoke ring and watched it sail towards the ceiling. The office door opened. Mrs. Jerrington came in. She closed the door; stood with her back to it, her blue eyes moving from her husband to Callaghan.

She said: "It didn't come off. Harry. He knows!"

Jerrington said shortly:

"Well... what are you going to do, Callaghan?"

Callaghan said: "Where's the necklace? I want to see it. Show it to me; then I'll tell you what I'm going to do."

Jerrington got up. He moved across the room to a bookshelf; look out a book. From the recess behind, he produced a blue leather jewel case. He handed it to Callaghan; went back to his chair.

Callaghan opened the case; examined the necklace. He put the case in his pocket. He looked at them and smiled.

He said: "You people planned to have both the necklace and the insurance money. You were going to get out of the country, and when you got out you were going to sell that necklace for big money. And in order to pull off your scheme you didn't give a hang about throwing suspicion on Marion Lanning— that was a dirty bit of work. For which you're going to suffer."

He went on: "If I go back and tell the whole story to the Globe and International, they won't care. They'll just cancel the policy and let it go. They won't have suffered, so why should they worry? But if I do that, you'll still have the necklace and you can sell it and make a very good profit on the job.

"So I'm going to take it with me. I'm going to report that I have an idea who the crook is who stole it. I'm going to advise the insurance company to pay you the fifteen thousand pounds due to you."

Mrs. Jerrington said sharply: "But what about the necklace? What are you going to do with the necklace? It's worth fifty thousand pounds!"

Callaghan grinned at her. "Two or three days after you've received your cheque from the insurance company, I'm going to 'find' the necklace," he said. "Through my underworld connections. I'm going to hand it to the insurance company, and as they will have paid the insurance on it to you, it will be their property. They'll make the profit when they put it up for sale. And how do you like that?"

Jerrington got up. He said: "Look here, Callaghan..."

Callaghan said: "Shut up, Jerrington. Do what I say or be arrested, with your wife, on a charge of conspiracy to defraud. And a further charge of criminal slander against Marion Lanning. You tried to be too clever and it's going to cost you about thirty thousand pounds."

The woman said: "Do as he says, Harry. We've got to."

Callaghan picked up his hat. He said: "Well, children, next time you try something like this, think up something better. I'll report to the company tomorrow. You ought to get your cheque by the end of the week. I hope you'll like it!"

Mrs. Jerrington's eyes flashed. She said: "You've got us where you want us. I suppose you're getting a great laugh out of this."

Callaghan smiled at her amiably. "Not only a laugh, Mrs. Jerrington," he said. "But, in a few days' time, when I manage to find the necklace, I shall also get the fifteen hundred pounds reward from the insurance company. Good evening!"

He went out; closed the door quietly behind him.

_________________

10: Strange Disappearance of a Baronet

Algernon Blackwood

1869-1951

West Gippsland Gazette 22 February 1910

HIS INTRINSIC VALUE before the Eternities was exceedingly small, but he possessed most things the world sets store by— presence, name, wealth— and, above all, that high opinion of himself which saves it the bother of a separate and troublesome valuation. Outside of these Possessions he owned nothing of permanent value, or that could decently claim to be worthy of immortality. The fact was he had never even experienced that expansion of self commonly known as generosity.

No apology, however, is necessary for his amazing adventure, for these same Eternities who judged him have made their affidavit that it was They who stripped him bare and showed himself— to himself.

It all began with the receipt of that shattering letter from his solicitors. He read and re-read it in his comfortable first-class compartment as the express hurried him to town, exceedingly comfortable among his rugs and furs, exceedingly distressed and ill at ease in his mind. And in his private sitting room of the big hotel that same evening Mr Smirles, more odious even than his letter, informed him plainly that this new and unexpected claimant to his title and estates was likely to be exceedingly troublesome— "even dangerous, Sir Timothy! I am bound to say. since you ask me, that it might be wise to regard the future— er— with a different scale of vision than the one you have been accustomed to."

Sir Timothy practically collapsed. Instinctively he perceived that the lawyer's manner already held less respect; and the reflection was a shock to his vain and fatuous personality. "After all, then, it wasn't me he worshipped. but my position, and so forth...!" If this nonsense continued he would be no longer "Sir Timothy," but simply, "Mister" Puffe; poor, a nobody.

He seemed to shrink in size as he gazed at himself in the mirror of the gorgeous, flamboyantly decorated room.

"It's too preposterous and absurd! There's nothing in it! Why, the whole Country would go to pieces without me!" He even thought of making his secretary draft a letter to the Times.

He was a handsome, portly man, with a full-blown vanity justified, by no single item of soul or mind; not unkind, so much as empty; created and kept live by the small conventions and the ceaseless contemplation of himself, the withdrawal of which might be expected to leave him flat as a popped balloon.

Such a mass of pompous conceit obscured hid vision that he only slowly took in the fact that his very existence was at stake. His thoughts rumbled on without direction; the sense of loss, however, dreadfully sharp and painful all the time, till at length he sought relief in something he could really understand. He changed for dinner!

He would dine in his sitting room alone. And, meanwhile, he rang for the remainder of his voluminous luggage. But it was vastly annoying to his diminishing pride to discover that the gorgeous Head Porter (he remembered now having vaguely recognised him in the hall) was the very poor relation to whom he had denied help a year ago.

The vicissitudes of life were indeed preposterous. He ought to have been protected from so ridiculous an encounter. For the moment, of course, he merely pretended not to see him— certainly not to commend the excellently quick delivery of the luggage.  And to praise the young fellow's pluck never occurred to him for one single instant.

"The house valet, please," he asked of the waiter who answered the bell soon afterwards-and then directed somewhat helplessly the unpacking of his emporium of exquisite clothes.

"Yes, take— everything out —everything," he said in reply to the man's question; rather an extraordinary question when he came to reflect upon it, surely: "was it worth while, perhaps, sir...?"

It flashed across his dazed mind that the Head Porter had made the very same remark to his subordinate in the passage when he asked if "everythink" was to come in. With a shrug of his gold-braided shoulders, that poor relation had replied: "Seems hardly worth while, but they may as well all go in, yes."

And, with the double rejoinder perplexingly in his mind, Sir Timothy tuned sharply upon the valet. But the thing he was going to say faded on his lips. The man was holding out in his arms a heap of clothes, suits, and what not, and he seemed so much taller than before.  Sir Timothy had looked down upon him a moment ago, whereas now their eyes stared level.  It was passing strange.

"Will you want these, sir?"

"Not to-night of course."

"Want them at all, I meant, sir?"

Sir Timothy gasped. "Want them at all? Of course! What in the world are you talking about?"

"Beg pardon, sir. Didn't know if it was worth while now," the man said, with a quick flush. And, before the pompous and amazed baronet could get any words between his thick lips, the man was gone.

The Waiter, Head Waiter it was, answered the bell almost immediately, and Sir Timothy found consolation for his injured feelings in discussing food and wine. He ordered an absurdly sumptuous meal for a man dining alone. He did so with a vague feeling that it would spite somebody, perhaps; he hardly knew whom.

"The Pol Roger well iced, mind," he added with a false importance as the clever servant withdrew. But at the door he paused and turned, as though he had not heard.

"Well iced. I said," repeated the other.

The Head Waiter made an extraordinary gesture of indifference. "As you wish, Sir Timothy, as you wish!" And he was gone in his turn.

But it was only the man's adroitness that had chosen the words instead of those others: "Is it really worth while?"

And at that very moment, while he stood there fuming inwardly over the extraordinary words and ways of these people— veiled insolence, he called it— the door opened, and a tall young woman poked her head inside, then followed it with her person. She was dignified, smart even for a hotel like this, and uncommonly pretty. It was the upper housemaid. Full in the eye the looked him. In her face was a kind of swift sympathy and kindness: but her whole presentment betrayed more than anything else—terror.

"Make an effort, make an effort!" she whispered earnestly. "Before it's too late, make an effort!"

And she was gone.

Sir Timothy, hardly knowing what he meant to do, opened the door to ask after her and make her explain this latest insolence. But the passage was dark, and he heard the swish of skirts far away— too far away to overtake; while running along the walls, as in a whispered gallery, came the words, "Make an effort, make an effort!"

"Dash it all, then, I will!" he exclaimed to himself, as he stumbled back into the room, feeling horribly bewildered. "I will make an effort." And he dressed to go downstairs and show himself in the halls and drawing-rooms, give a few orders, assert himself and fuss about generally.

But that process of dressing without his valet was chiefly and weirdly distressing because he had dwindled so horribly. His sight was of course, awry; disordered nerves had played tricks with vision, proportion, perspective; something of the sort must explain it— and why he seemed so small to himself in the reflection. The pier glass, which showed him full length, he turned to the wall. But, none the less, to complete his toilet, he had to stand upon a footstool before the other mirror.

And go downstairs he did, his heart working with a strange and increasing perplexity. Yet, wherever he went, there came that poor relation, the Head Porter, to face him. Always big, he now looked bigger than ever. Sir Timothy Puffe felt somehow ridiculous in his presence. The young fellow had character, pluck, some touch of intrinsic value, for all his failure in life; the Eternities considered him real. He towered rather dreadfully in his gold braid and smart uniform— towered in his great height all about the hall like some giant in his own palace. The other's head scarcely came up to his great black belt where the keys swung and jangled.

He went upstairs again to his room, strangely disconcerted. The first thing he did as he left the lift was to stumble over the step. The liftman picked him up as though he were a boy. Down the passage, now well lighted, he went quickly, his feet almost pattering, his tread light, and so oddly short. His importance had gone.

A voice behind each door as he passed whispered to him through the narrow crack as it cautiously opened, "Make an effort, make an effort! Be yourself, be real, be alive before it's too late!"

But he saw no one, and the first thing he did on entering his room was to hide the smaller mirror by turning it against the wall, as he had done to the pier-glass. He was so painfully little and insignificant now. As the externals and the possessions dropped away one by one in his thoughts, the revelation of the tiny little centre of activity within was horrible. He puffed himself out in thought as of old, but there was no response.

The fact was— he began to understand it now— his "mind" had been pursuing possible results of his loss of title and estates to their logical conclusion. The idea in all its brutal nakedness, of course, hardly reached him— viz., that. without possessions, he was practically nil!

All he grasped was that he was less. Still the notion did prey upon him rather. He followed the advice of the strange housemaid, and made "an effort," but without marked success. So empty, indeed was his life that, once stripped of the possessions, he would stand there as useless and insignificant as an ownerless street dog.

And the thought appalled him. He had not even enough real interest in others to hold him upright, and certainly not enough sufficiency of self, good or evil, to stand alone before any tribunal. The discovery shocked him inexpressibly. But what distressed him still more was to find a fixed mirror in his sitting-room that he could not take down, for in its depths he saw himself shrunken and dwindled more than ever....

The knock at the door and the arrival of his dinner broke the unpleasant train of thought, but rather than be seen in his present diminutive appearance later, of course, he would surely grow again— he plunged into the bedroom. And when he came out again after the waiter's departure he found that his dinner shared the same abominable change. The food upon the dishes was reduced to the meagrest proportions— the toast like children's, the soup an egg-cupful, the tenderloin a little slice the size of a visiting-card and the bird not much larger than a black-beetle. And yet all that he could eat; more than sufficient! Then, mortified, frightened, and angry beyond expression, he undressed and concealed himself among the sheets and blankets of his bed.

"Of course I'm going mad-that's what it all means," he exclaimed. "I'm no longer of any account in the world. I could never go into my club, for instance, like this!" And he surveyed the small outline that roughened the surface of the bed-clothes— "or read the lessons having to stand upon a chair to reach the lectern." And tears of bleeding vanity and futile wrath mingled upon his pillow...

In the middle of which the door opened and in came the hotel valet, bearing before him upon a silver salver what at first appeared to be small, stripped sandwiches, darkish in hue, but upon closer inspection were seen to be several wee suits of clothes, neatly pressed and folded for wearing.

Glancing round the room and perceiving no one, he proceeded to put them away in the chest of drawers, soliloquising from time to time as he did so.

"So the old buffer did go out after all!" he reflected, as he smoothed the tiny trousers in the drawer. "E's nothing but a gas-bag, anyway! Close with the coin too— always was that!" He whistled, spat in the grate, hunted about for a cigarette, and again found relief in speech.

"My little dawg's worth two of 'im all the time, and lots to spare. Tim's real....!"

And other things, too, he said in similar vein. He was utterly oblivious of Sir Timothy's presence— serenely unconscious that the thin, fading line beneath the sheets was the very individual he was talking about

"Even hides his cigarettes, does he? He's right, though. Take away what he's got and there wouldn't be enough left over to stand upright at a poultry show!"

And he guffawed merrily to himself.

But what brought the final horror into that vanishing Personality on the bed was the singular fact that the valet made no remark about the absurd and horrible size of those tiny clothes. This, then, was how others— even a hotel valet— saw him!

All night long, it seemed, he lay in atrocious pain, the darkness mercifully hiding him, though never from himself, and only towards daylight did he pass off into a condition of unconsciousness.

He must have slept very late indeed, too, for he woke to find sunlight in the room, and the housemaid— that tall, dignified girl who had tried to be kind— dusting and sweeping energetically. He screamed to her, but his voice was too feeble to make itself heard above the sweeping. Presently she approached the bed and flung the sheets back.

"That's funny," she observed, "could've sworn I saw something move!"

She gave a hurried look, then went on sweeping. But in the process she had tossed his person, now no larger than a starved mouse, out on to the carpet. He cried aloud in his anguish, but the squeak was scarcely audible.

"Ugh!" exclaimed the girl, jumping to one side, "there's that 'orrid mouse again." And then, without being aware of the fact, she trod upon him— squelch— and a moment later swept him up with the dust and bits of paper into her pan.

Whereupon Sir Timothy awoke with a bad start, and perceived that his train was running somewhat uneasily into King's Cross, and that he had slept nearly the whole way

_________________

11: Queen Hatasoo

W. L. Alden

1837-1908

Sun (Kalgoorlie) 14 April 1907

THE American Consul at Naples was sitting in his office one afternoon, waiting for the hour of closing, when there entered two seamen. One of them wore the uniform of an American bluejacket, and evidently belonged to the American cruiser that was lying in the harbor. The other, who was a much older man than his comrade, was as evidently in the merchant service, and had the look of a man who had been spending the week ashore among the low bar-rooms of Naples.

"You're the Counsel, sir?" said the man-of-war's man.

"I am," replied the Consul.

"Bill, here, and me, wants a little advice of you, and we're willing and able to pay for it, if there's any charge. Only we want you to keep mum about what we've got to tell you. That's fair, ain't it?"

"Quite fair," said the Consul, "provided you are not going to confess any crime to me."

"Oh! There ain't no crime about it," said the sailor. "I came ashore this morning and ran across Bill; who was shipmates with me four years ago when we were up the Mediterranean in the Lancaster. We got talking about a little business that we got cheated in when we were together, and we calculated that we couldn't do better than to come and tell you all about it, and ask if you could see any way for us to get our rights."

"I am always glad to help a sailor," replied the Consul. "Take a cigar and sit down and tell me your story. I'm a teetotaller, and so I can't offer you anything to drink, but you can help, yourselves to those oranges on the table if you're thirsty."

The sailors accepted the cigars gratefully, and the man-of-war's man launched into his story.

WHEN WE were lying at Port Said, in the Lancaster, the surgeon took a notion to do some, digging, calculating to find valuable antiquities, and so on. He was a first-class man all the way through, and Bill here and I were particular friends of his. He'd ladle out medicine to us whenever we asked for it, and my idea is that we had twice as much medicine' out of the surgeon's stores as any other two men aboard the ship, though as a general thing we were about the healthiest of the lot.

Well, the surgeon got a month's leave to go digging, and he got permission for me and Bill to go with him. He told us, as soon as we got ashore with him, that he had got on the track of the tomb of an Egyptian Queen called Hatasoo, who lived about ten thousand years ago, and that he wanted to dig her up and carry her off without letting the Arabs know anything about it. That's the reason why he took. Bill and me to help him, knowing that we could be trusted, provided, of course, he made it worth our while.

Well! We didn't lose any time in laying in tents, and stores, and such, and we went up the river to a place called Luxor, which is about as low down a town as ever I struck. On the opposite side of the river, there is a valley where the old Egyptians used to have their graveyard, and it was there that the surgeon, whose name was Mr. Thomas Stark, calculated to find his corpse. We went across the river, and pitched the tents a good way up the valley, where travellers didn't usually come, and the surgeon paid the sheik of the next village . to keep all his Arabs at home and not let them come and interfere with us. Then we set to digging in the sand, and it's the hottest work I ever did. Why sir! holystoning the decks in the Persian Gulf is cool alongside of it. However, that's got nothing to do with the facts. There was nothing but sand in sight, and the surgeon said that Queen Hatasoo's tomb was buried under the sand, and that we'd have to find it. We dug for about a week, making a dozen or so: different holes, in the ground, before we struck the tomb, but one morning we found it, and broke open the door and went, in with our candles. It was a thundering big tomb, with rooms enough in it to accommodate a whole family of corpses. There wasn't any sign of a coffin in it, so far as I could see, but the surgeon set us to digging in one corner of the last room and after a bit we struck a pit, and cleared it out, and at the bottom of the pit was the old lady's coffin. It was made of wood covered with painted figures, and when we had prised the lid off there she lay, wrapped up tight, and as sound as the day she was made into a mummy.

And what showed Bill and me that there was good sense in digging for mummies was that Hatasoo had a big lot of gold and jewels covering her breast, which must have been worth a tidy lot of money... if they could have  been sold at a fair price.

The surgeon was in bully spirits, and said that he would pay us men the fair value of the gold and jewels when we should get back to the States and that he would keep the old lady for his share.  That suited Bill and me, and we lent a hand to carry the Queen and her traps to the surgeon's tent, where he put her in a big pine box that he had brought along for the purpose, and screwed her down. Then he said he'd take a rest, for the sun had been a little too much for him, and we all turned in for a sleep.

It was about noon when Bill and I turned out, and went to the surgeon's tent for orders. As he didn't answer our hail we calculated that something was wrong, and went into the tent, and found him as dead as Queen Hatasoo. You see the sun had given him a fit, and he'd died without being able to call us.

Bill, here, has got a head on him, though he mayn't look it... When we had braced up with a drink out of the surgeon's flask, Bill says, to me that the thing for us to do was to get away with the Queen, and take her to America, where we could sell her for money enough to live on the rest of our days. I agreed with him that the surgeon, being dead, couldn't have any further use for the old lady, and so we made up our minds to get under weigh with her for Port Said, without waiting for anyone to come and make enquiries. We took the surgeon's body, and put it into the Queen's, coffin, and committed it to the pit as solemn as we could. Bill stitched the poor man up in canvas as regular as if he had died at sea, and if we'd had a prayer book along Bill would have read the Service, and given the surgeon a good send-off, for Bill is a scholar, though as I say, he mayn't look it just now. When we had buried the surgeon we covered up the tomb with sand and chartered a camel, and lashing Hatasoo to the camel's hurricane deck, we went to Luxor, and caught a steamer for Cairo.

Now, sir, you probably don't know that the Egyptian government won't allow mummies to be taken out of the country. So we fixed up a yarn about the pine box being the coffin of the surgeon,  who had died suddenly, and asked us to take his body to his wife in the States. We went to the American Counsel in Cairo, and got a certificate that the box held the last remains of the surgeon, and he told us that we were noble men to undertake the job of getting the surgeon's body to America, and that he would write to the widow and tell her we were coming. That was just what we did not want, but Bill allowed that the counsel was only talking big, and that he couldn't possibly know where the widow lived. You see, sir, we forgot that the counsel had got the widow's address by writing home to the Navy Department, which is just what he did.

I was scared by what the counsel said, and told Bill that we had better cut the old lady— meaning, of course, Queen Hatasoo— in two and each man carry half of her in his bag. In that way we could get her aboard the ship without the Egyptian police getting hold of her, and we could carry her home with us comfortable, and splice her together, again, after we were safe ashore. That would have saved us the trouble of deserting the Lancaster, which we had to do, and I don't believe in deserving a ship unless you've got good reason for doing so.

But Bill said it was all right, and that when we got the Queen to New York we could get her out of the custom house with the certificate the counsel gave us, and that if the custom house people wanted to see the surgeon's widow, we could hire old Sally, who kept a boarding-house in Cherry-street to come and serve as widow long enough to satisfy everybody.

Well, sir, I did as Bill said, for he knows a thing or two— that is when he hasn't been running large for a week in port. We painted the name of the surgeon on the pine box, and marked it 'Corpse, with Care. This side up,' and we shipped it aboard a Prince liner for New York, and shipped ourselves aboard the same ship as able seamen. Of course this took money, but the surgeon had paid us a day before he was knocked over, and, besides, we sold a few bits of Hatasoo's gold in Cairo, though we didn't get anything like what it was worth. We both kept as straight as you please the whole time, we were ashore, for we were pretending to be two scientific chaps that had been excavating with the surgeon, and scientific chaps don't get drunk, so far as I ever know. However, we calculated to make up for lost time on getting to New York.

We had a long passage to New York, but we landed at last, and Bill and me let the corpse lie in the custom house for a couple of days, while we tried to get rid of the thirst that we had brought from Egypt. The third day we hunted up Sally, and went down to the custom house to get the Queen. She wasn't there. That counsel in Cairo had sent a copy of the certificate to the surgeon's widow, and she had turned up and taken possession of' the corpse, and carried it off with her. All we could get was a wigging from the head custom house officer, who said he couldn't understand our game in trying to get unlawful possession of a corpse that didn't belong to us, but considering that we weren't more than half sober he'd say nothing, provided we cleared out in double quick time.

We had a' good deal of trouble in tracking the widow and the corpse, but we did so at last. We found that she lived in a village about twenty miles from New York, and that she had carried the pine box home, with her, and buried it in bang up style. The surgeon had been a popular man in the village, and doctored people free when he was ashore, and had command of the Sunday School. We found that the widow had ordered a big monument with reading on it saying that 'Here lies Thomas Stark,' and all the rest of it.

And by this time that there monument has been up and lying for four good years.

Now sir, what can Bill and I do about it? There's our Queen Hatasoo, that I'm told would be worth fifty thousand dollars if she could be got hold of, lying buried under a false name, and doing no sort of good to anyone. We thought, about digging her up on the sly, but the graveyard was so near the village that there wouldn't have been any chance of doing it without being caught. So we had to leave Hatasoo where the widow had put her, and considering that we didn't get but ten dollars for her jewels, though I don't doubt they were worth five hundred, we made a poor business; of it. Now, if you can put Bill, and me in the way of getting hold of the old lady again, we're prepared to go halves with you in anything that she may fetch.

THE CONSUL was a sympathetic man and an ardent lover of antiquities. But he could see no way to assist the sailors to regain possession of the mummy. And to tell the truth, he had his doubts as to the whole affair, and when the sailors on taking their leave, offered to sell their claim to the Consul for ten dollars, he was more than ever doubtful if either of them had ever seen a mummy, or had known a surgeon— except professionally.

__________________

12: Mitchinson's Developer

Victor L. Whitechurch

1868-1933

Sun (Kalgoorlie) 18 Aug 1907

(The Idler June 1906)

I THINK that- I am in no wise betraying my promise to Mitchinson in setting forth something of the story of his extraordinary discovery, a discovery that perhaps may never again be reached by any man. My friend was a quiet, retiring man and a careful scientific student, methodical and exact, and at the same time a speculative dreamer. Perhaps this latter trait in his character might be accounted for by the fact that he had spent several years of his life in the East, and had interested himself in Buddhism. These studies in occult lore fascinated him, being a pleasant contrast to the scientific research with which he delighted to vary his independent existence.

Mitchinson was rather short-sighted, but disdained the use of glasses as he peered into his books or hovered over a rack of test tubes in his laboratory. I was not a keen photographer myself, but was fond of indulging in out-of-the-way experiments. On the other hand, Mitchinson had taken up photography with desperate earnestness, and for some months had been devoting all his. energies to it, even making his own dry plates. We often smoked a pipe together in the evening, and one night I called on him rather late. His servant told me he was in the "workshop," as she insisted upon naming his laboratory.

She showed me into the study, and I amused myself by glancing at one or two books, which lay open on the table, until he appeared. There was a text-book on Light, with one or two passages scored in red ink. Among them my eye caught the following:—

"Light is the name by which we describe the cause which produces the sensation of vision. Any portion of space through which light is propagated is called a 'medium', whether the space is occupied by any body or not. Bodies through which light can be propagated are called 'transparent', those which entirely intercept it are called 'opaque.' There is no known substance so transparent as not to intercept some portion of light, nor, on the other hand, is any substance so opaque as not to transmit some light."

Then there was another treatise on the same subject elucidating the "vibration" theory of light and color. According to this theory, light exists everywhere, "the lumineforous ether pervading all space and penetrating all substances." Color is caused by vibration, the sensation of scarlet being produced by 477 billion vibrations of the luminous ether per second, these "waves" of light increasing in rapidity until the sensation of violet, caused by over 700 billion vibrations per second. Waves of light above or below this limit are invisible to the human eye; that is to say, they move too slowly or too quickly to cause any impression on the optic nerve, which is imperfect.

The following quotation from Grove's Correlation of Physical Force  was written against this page:

"Myriads of organised beings may exist imperceptible to our vision, even if we were among them."

I laid down the volume only to take up a little Latin treatise of a very-different character, Tertullian's celebrated Tract on the Soul  (De Anima)

At that moment Mitchinson entered the room. He was strangely excited.

"Hullo he said. "What are you reading? Oh, Tertullian's De Anima, eh! Do you know anything about it?"

"Not very much." I answered.

"Ah! Strange theory, and I'm not so sure but there's truth— underlying it. He believed that the soul takes the exact form of the body, and that the two exist, before death, in precisely the same space. Which is very much like the astral body theory, and would account for the visions of persons known to be at a distance— by separation of the two, I mean."

"I don't profess to understand the occult mysteries, or to put much faith in them," I replied. "If we possess souls they are purely spiritual, and cannot be seen by us."

"Why not?"

"Oh, I don't know. But. I've been glancing at more interesting matters in those other volumes."

"Theories of light. My dear fellow, what a contradictory spirit you show ! Why. this theory of Tertullian's is in perfect harmony with modern scientific research."

"Oh, come now—"

" But listen. You've been reading about light-waves excited by substances. Well, you see, there are sensations of light which cannot be distinguished by the ordinary human eye. That is to say, the objects which excite those sensations cannot be discerned? Why, you materialistic groveller, the very ant can see more than you can. Sir John Lubbock has proved it can discern the ultra violet rays of the spectrum, invisible to us."

"I don't see what all this proves."

"It proves this. That there may be certain forms and beings around us which are not seen by us because our human powers of vision are imperfect, but they can be seen by a more scientific eye with certain powers brought to bear upon it."

"Whose eye?"

"The eye of the camera, my friend. You ought to know that. Hasn't it discovered, time and again, writings that were invisible to the naked eye? And how about the Röntgen Ray?"

"And spirit photography," I said with a light laugh.

"Why not? You may sneer at such a thing, but remember that only a few years ago if any one had told you that a bullet hidden in a man's body could be revealed on a plate without your seeing the thing itself, you would have laughed as at something preposterous. Yet the idea of a spiritual essence being revealed by photography is scarcely more astounding."

"Oh, well, I give it up," I replied wearily.

"While I do not, and therein lies a difference. I am on the eve, I hope, of perfecting a most marvellous discovery by not giving up these things."

"A discovery!"

"Yes. Sit down and smoke. This is the last evening you will spend with me for many a long day, so make the best of it."

"What's going to happen?"

"I'm not going to tell you— yet, for I've a good three months' research and experiment before me until I perfect my discovery, so I'm going to shut myself up from this day forward and set to work. Afterwards I may let you into the secret, if only to convince you of the foolishness of your remarks."

"Can you give me an idea of your work—" I began.

"Yes. I can give you an idea," he answered, lighting his pipe; then waving it about excitedly, he continued, "but you won't make much of it. It lies partly in Tertullian's treatise, and partly in that passage on the elementary principle of light," and he took up the book and read the words which I have quoted.

"There is no known substance so transparent as not to intercept some portion of light, nor, on the other hand, is any substance so opaque as not to transmit light."

"I don't understand," I said. "Very likely not, but listen. Take the case of the 'X-ray.' The light is partly intercepted by the flesh. The bones receive the transmitted portion. Well, I mean to draw out the separate 'vibrations' of received light, after clearing away the object which has absorbed the light that' does not pass through it."

"I suppose you mean you are going in for some abstruse occult experiments?" I hazarded.

"On the contrary, it is a purely scientific question on the nature of light and the action of certain: chemical combinations. Whether the occult will be revealed by these actions is another matter. Meanwhile, expect to see nothing of me for three months. May I depend upon your promise of secrecy?"

I assured him of it, and bade him good-night.

FOR THREE MONTHS Mitchinson shut himself up and would see nobody. One evening, about the end of that time, I received the following note from him:—

Dear Sinclair,

My discovery is perfected. Come round to-morrow morning about ten o'clock. I think I can astonish you,

Yours sincerely,

Roger Mitchinson.

When I saw him I was amazed by his altered appearance. He had grown thin and haggard ; his eyes were hollow and bloodshot, and his clothes were stained and burned with chemicals. I was pained and shocked to see him.

"All right," he said, as he shook my hand, "I do look a, bit off color, I know, but I've been working night and day with brain and eyes and hands. I shall be better after a rest. I've succeeded, my friend, I've succeeded!" he said triumphantly. "In the first place, will you promise that as long us I live you will never reveal, except by my permission, what I am about to show you, nor attempt to find out the means by which I work it?"

"I'm not likely to dabble with the black art," I added, jocularly.

"It's not the black art, man," he replied testily, "it's science, that's all. Come along to the laboratory."

He led the way. At the farther end of it was a beautifully fitted darkroom. Into this we stepped, and he shut the door.

"There's been a change or two since you were here," he remarked. "I can produce all kinds of light in this room from outside." And by moving sliding panels, he showed me that he had green, blue, violet, and yellow glasses besides the red. He replaced the latter once more. As soon as my eyes had become accustomed to the light he opened a small box and took out a plate.

"Now," he said, "this looks like an ordinary plate; it is not. The gelatine upon it is coated with four separate layers of certain chemicals, one over the other, all of them acting in distinctive ways upon the vibration of the light ether, and receiving their own peculiar impressions. I will put it into the camera and we will go into the courtyard and take a photograph."

We went out, and he called for his man-servant. The latter stood against the side of the house and Mitchinson snapped, him with the camera— an ordinary hand one.

"Now," he said, " come and see it developed." We returned to the work room and he put the plate into a dish and poured some developer over it. "It's coming," he said, presently. "There!— a burly good negative of Williams, eh!"

He took it out of the dish and held it up to the light.

"See anything peculiar about it?"

"No," I replied. "Are you going to clear it in a hypo?"

"Not a bit of it. This is only the first stage of development," and he put it under the tap.

"The first stage?"

"Exactly. Here we have the vibrations of the ether from the ordinary external surface. We must get rid of them by degrees till we reach the interior."

We waited a few minutes. Then he mixed more chemicals out of three other bottles in the measuring glass, and turned on the green shutter.

"Green," he remarked," is the mystical color of earth life. Now watch!"

He put the plate into another tray and poured the mixture over it. Slowly, and by degrees, as he moved it with a gentle motion, the whole of the clothes (Williams was dressed in black) seemed to fade away. Then he held the plate up to the glass.

"Look!" he exclaimed, triumphantly.

I gazed at it in bewilderment. There was the figure of a man completely naked!

"Man alive!" I exclaimed, "this is wonderful! Why, it's the greatest photographic discovery of the age."

He laughed. "Williams little thought we could get his clothes off so easily, eh?"

"How on earth—"

"Wait a bit," he broke in, "there's more to come."

"More?"

"Yes," he said, putting the plate under the tap again, "we haven't got beyond externals yet. Part of the luminous ether penetrated through the semi-opaque flesh of the man, and its waves were vibrated back from this internal framework. Violet, I believe, is symbolical of Death."

And he threw aside the green glass, replacing it with the violet shutter. Then he mixed a new developing solution in the glass, put the plate back in a dish, and poured it on. This time the change, was more slow. But at length it came. The body of Williams gradually vanished, and when Mitchinson held up the plate to the light once more, there was a complete skeleton upon it.

"You can even see where he broke his arm last year," he remarked ; "the setting was clumsy and there's a break in the line of the bone."

I was too astounded to speak. Again he put the negative under the tap as he said— "And now for the last stage — the most interior vibration of all— it will be rather dim, I fear."

"Good heavens, Mitchinson," I said, "what are we to see now?"

He was carefully mixing the last solution, from several different bottles.

"This is the most dangerous part of the business," he remarked.

An indefinable feeling of dread stole over me.

"There's— there's nothing uncanny, I hope?"

"No, this contains picric acid— that s all I meant. Now, do you remember that little discussion about Tertullian's De Anima that we had three months ago?"

"Yes."

"Well, blue is the color of the soul," he said, gravely, turning on the glass of that color. "Now!"

I strained my eyes to watch the plate as it lay in the dish It seemed hours to me, and then, almost imperceptibly, the skeleton passed from my sight.

"Tertullian was not quite right," he said,, as he took the plate out of the solution.

"Look!" I gazed eagerly at the negative. There was a very faint outline of a human form, and about the upper part of it a dark circle, or rather three concentric circles, different in their shading, with certain clouds, as it were, over portions of them.

"We shall see this thing better," said Mitchinson, "when we print from it; meanwhile," he went on, turning on the yellow light, "we'll fix it."

After the negative was fixed he washed it under the tap and put it in a rack to dry.

"Now, come and have lunch," he said, "and we'll talk the matter over."

"YES," he said later, "it's a marvellous discovery, but I can make no use of it, except privately. It must never become known. I'll explain to you afterwards what those circles mean."

We made a print from the negative after lunch. Then I was able to see the three mysterious circles more plainly. The inner one, or cone, was very bright, the middle one a shade darker, and the outward one darker still.

"You see," said Mitchinson, "Tertullian was partly in the right. Here we have the distinct outline of what we may call the astral body rather than the soul. The soul itself lies before you in those circles. It is of the greatest interest to have succeeded in obtaining them because they bear, out the truth of the teaching of the Cabalists."

"What is that?"

"The three-fold division of the soul. This bright centre is the purely spiritual portion, the middle circle is the soul in its relations to higher things. In this case it is very narrow, as one might expect from a character like Williams, who has little thought of religion in him; the outer circle is the soul in its relation to the world and mundane matters."

"It seems like something beyond human ken; something not intended for us to know," I ventured. "Human knowledge can penetrate further than you think, that it all! It is purely, scientific. Remember the whole secret consists . in treating the vibration of the light ether with chemical reagents. Now that I have succeeded so far, I mean to make a series of experiments, and you shall share them."

"What are those experiments to be ?" I asked.

"I shall snapshot different people, and we'll analyse the state of their souls."

"It will be a weird undertaking," I ventured.

WE made quite a collection of Camberford snapshots, reducing our negatives to the fourth stage. Several things caused us much amusement with regard to the intermediate developments. For instance, we snapped old Colonel Blazer from behind, and in the second stage discovered a tremendous scar running across his back.

"That's why the Colonel will never say how he got his Afghan sword cut " exclaimed Mitchinson.

But the last stage was the interesting one. The inner circle of light differed very little in all photographs, but the other two did. For example, the soul-print of young St. John, showed us a brilliant broad inner ring, while the earthly circle was scarcely perceptible. On the other hand, that pious-speeched hypocrite, Darnes, who preached at a chapel, but who at the same time was the tightest money-grabber and most disgraceful jerry-builder in Camberford. had an immense outer ring to his soul, while the circle that showed his relation to higher things was scarcely a hair's-breadth wide.

In time we got to know something of the meaning of the nebulous marks that obscured part of the circles. We began to rend the most secret natures of our friends and acquaintances, and how far the things would have gone it is impossible to say, if Mitchinson had not met with the 'terrible catastrophe that closed his secret forever.

LIVING just outside Camberford at a large house called the Grange, was a certain Mr. Anthony. Squire Anthony he was always called. He was a man of taciturn character, rarely associated with his fellow-creatures; very rich, and concerning whom there were strange stories told. It was said there was more than one criminal passage in his life. Moreover, it was reported in certain circles  more credulous perhaps than famous for their veracity, that Squire Anthony had dealings with the black art and had entered into a compact with the powers of evil.

I do not pretend to place any reliance on such rumors, and only mention them, as forming part of a strange coincidence in connection with Mitchinson's developer.

"I mean to get- a snapshot of Squire Anthony," said Mitchinson one day. "I there's any truth in the reports about him, his soul-print would be interesting."

"I think we've gone far enough, in this business already, Mitchinson. And as for these foolish things about Anthony, I wonder you listen to them—"

"Ah!" he replied. "You haven't seen what I have— in the East. Anyhow, I  mean to have his photo."

I expostulated with him. but he was obdurate.

A week later I received a note front him saying that, he had succeeded in getting a snapshot of Squire Anthony and intended to develop the plate the next morning.

"Come and see it, if you like." he added, "but I shan't wait for you."

I did not go round in the morning, as I did not care to take part in an experiment against which I had protested. I was beginning to regret that Mitchinson had taken me into his secret.

I was just sitting down to lunch, when Williams, his man-servant, rang furiously at my door and asked to see me. The man was in a terrible state, of fright.

"What has happened?"

"Master, sir: he's blowed himself up."

"Blown himself up?"

"Yes, sir, in that, dark room of his. We heard an awful noise and went to see. He's lying dead on the floor, and the bottles and things are bursted to bits. Please come at once, sir! It's terrible! I knew he'd hurt himself with they things one of these days."

I hurried round with the man. One side of the dark room was blown into the courtyard, and on the floor, surrounded by fragments of bottles and developing dishes, lay poor Mitchinson, quite dead, a terrified expression on his face. My eye caught a broken photographic plate, lying in two fragments near my poor friend. It was still wet.

Instinctively, I picked up the fragments, placed them together, and held them up to the light. I shall never forget what I saw there. There were the familiar three circles, but the inner one was dead white (on a print, of course, it would have been black). The second one was the same color, while on the top of the outer ring was the dim outline of a hideous demoniacal-looking face.

I threw down the pieces, and they broke to atoms. At that moment the doctor came in. He examined Mitchinson hastily, and then shook his head.

" Quite dead, poor chap," he said. Then he gave a sniff or two. "A very violent explosion. You were his friend, I believe, Sinclair. Was he in the habit of using anything dangerous here ?"

"Yes; picric acid," I said.

"Picric acid! That's it. Queer smell, isn't it? Same as a lyddite shell, you know. That accounts for it. What time did this happen?" he asked, turning to the gaping Williams.

"Just at 1 o'clock, sir; I know because I heard it strike, and was going to ring the luncheon bell just as it all blew up."

LATER on in the day I met the doctor in the street.

"Rum thing," he said; "we don't often have two inquests in Camberford in one week. But there must be in this case, I suppose. Old Squire Anthony died suddenly this morning, as he was sitting down to lunch, just at 1 o'clock. Queer coincidence, isn't it?"

I leave it as a queer coincidence, for I do not like to think about it— though picric acid satisfied the jury.

That was the end of the mystery, call it scientific or occult, as you will. At all events the world stands no further chance, so far as I am concerned, of probing the secret of Mitchinson's Developer.

__________________

13: Falling Downstairs

Ethel Lina White

1876-1944

Table Talk (Melbourne) 13 Dec 1934

Ethel Lina White wrote many short stories, as well as her better known novels. They are now hard to find.

MISS WING had a dread of altitude. She used to dream that she was falling downstairs— not ordinary stairs, but an endless flight of narrow steps, leading down, down— to unseen depths. When she stood at the top of this ghastly drop, her head began to swim, and her heart to leap.

Then— she fell.

There was one awful moment of suffocation as she spun over and over in space; but, even as she fought for breath she always woke up, safe and sound in bed.

This nightmare plagued her, whenever she was worried or run down, so of late it had become such a faithful nocturnal feature that she almost dreaded going to sleep. It was, therefore, with a disproportionate throb of terror that she stood inside London's newest Tube station, and looked downwards at the long flight of the escalator.

Immediately, she felt the unpleasant prelude to vertigo— shaking knees and a faint singing in her ears. Not knowing what to do, she walked away, staring desperately at the paper she clutched. It was essential that she reached the address typed upon that slip without any loss of time. At least, it seemed of deadly importance to her.

She had been so unusually insistent at the West End Employment Bureau that morning that the secretary had told her of the post, to get rid of her.

"Take the Tube. Mrs Malvoisin will not interview applicants after twelve, and you've cut it very fine," she said, speaking as though it were Miss Wing's fault that she was late.

Miss Wing had rushed and taken her ticket, only to stampede before the unforeseen peril of the escalator.

Her eyes filled with tears, for she had eaten no breakfast. She had no money to pay for a taxi. The fact was, she had been out of work for so long that she could not budget for rent after the end of week. She did not know what to do; but she knew what other people sometimes did.

Feeling suddenly desperate, she turned and charged the escalator. To her joy and surprise, it was now lined with other passengers, who blocked her view of the long drop. Squeezed behind the screen of a blessed portly lady, she sailed lightly down to the train.

Not long afterwards she stood in the vestibule of a luxury hotel, and stated her business to a reception clerk.

"What name?" he asked.

"Miss Wing."

It was second nature to think of herself as "Miss Wing," because she was used only to the official title. No one had called her by her Christian title for about fifty years. That is to say, when one is young one year seems as long as. ten; and it was five years since the last of her friends and relatives had faded out.

All the same, she missed her Christian name. On the rare occasions now when she dreamed of romance, she told herself that it would begin when a man wanted to know that name.

As she waited in the splendor of the lounge, she began to realise the forlorn nature of her quest. Mrs Malvoisin was an American lady of old family and immense wealth, and would naturally insist on the highest qualifications and credentials.

She told herself that she had not even a chance of success, when she was conducted to a magnificent suite and into the presence of Mrs Malvoisin, who was a stately dame with a faultless silver water-wave.

"It is after twelve," she said. "But I always allow three minutes' grace to everyone. Not a second longer."

Miss Wing's heart sank still lower at this unpromising beginning. But, as the interview progressed, she gradually began to grasp the fact that all this overpowering pomp and circumstance was in her favor.

Mrs Malvoisin was sufficiently a personage to dispense with precedent. She applied only the personality test to the applicants for the post of companion to her only daughter on their European tour.

Miss Wing had been engaged to enjoy a luxurious Continental holiday at a very high salary. All she had to do in return was to be a limpet and stick to Baba Malvoisin without suspicion of unpleasant suction— but her wonderful job was placed in jeopardy when Miss Wing was asked to overcome her dread of altitude!

In her eyes, Miss Wing was a most suitable candidate. Although young, she somehow did not suggest youth. It was difficult to credit her with affairs of her own. She knew, too, the importance of showing a good front at all costs. Her grey suit was fashionably tight on her thin figure; she also wore high heels and used a discreet lipstick.

Miss Wing soon grasped the essential facts. The daughter— who, unlike Miss Wing, was called exclusively by her Christian name— was engaged to an entirely desirable and wealthy youth in New York. A beautiful and attractive girl, however, is bound to attract masculine society— which was, indeed, essential to her pleasure— so Baba was always accompanied by some young man.

This escort was an asset, since he was as much protection as an irksome detective, but his presence made some kind of chaperonage a necessity.

"You understand, Miss Wing," explained Mrs Malvoisin. "Although the risk of kidnapping is comparatively slight over here, it is safer for her to go about with some young man of our personal acquaintance. Baba is not likely to lose her head or her heart. But we cannot run risks. You must never leave her. If you neglect your duty even once, I must tell you plainly that your services will be no longer required."

"I will never leave her," promised Miss Wing fervently. She added: "But won't she hate having me always with her?"

"You must use tact. Besides, Baba has always been used to good companionship. It is very hard to be a rich girl, Miss Wing."

It does credit to Miss Wing's imagination that, even in her special circumstances, she was able to agree, without a touch of irony.

She left the hotel, engaged to enjoy a luxurious Continental holiday at a very high salary. All she had to do in return was to be a limpet and stick to Baba, without suspicion of unpleasant suction.

"There must be a string to it, she thought, as she walked exultantly back to her room. "I expect the girl will be a cat."

In her experience of nouveaux riches, she had learned to connect wealth with insults. But Baba was the most charming rich girl she had ever met— beautiful, accomplished, and gay. Since she had been brought up with more pomp than a princess, it was impossible for her to view life from quite the same angle as an ordinary citizen; but she was actually elevated by her wealth above petty standards.

In her turn, she found Miss Wing her nicest companion. She was tireless, sensible, and discreet. Very soon she was accepted as part of the heiress's back ground.

For all that, she was a clog on complete freedom, and Baba took a sporting view of the position. If she could get rid of Miss Wing by fair means, it was up to her to profit by the opportunity.

Miss Wing soon found out that Baba was trying to discover her weak spot; and she knew that, if it were tapped, she would exploit that special inhibition whenever she wanted a brief flutter of liberty.

She tested Miss Wing in a variety of ways. They went to swimming pools, where— however chilly the water— Miss Wing swam with Baba, stroke for stroke. They patronised the dansants, but the most fascinating partner could not tempt Miss Wing to dance. They took strenuous excursions, where they stumbled through the dark, stony, underground passages of ruined chateaux and abbeys. Miss Wing often got headaches, and she cracked the heel of one shoe; but she always emerged into daylight outwardly fresh as paint.

In spite of these hectic interludes, she enjoyed every minute of her wonderful holiday.

Every day, too, she saw increasing possibilities in her job. She noticed that, when Baba spoke of the future, she included her as a permanent member of the household. "I must show you this or that when we're back in New York," was a frequent remark.

Miss Wing's imagination widened the loophole, until she grew to hope that the job might prove her old-age pension. She might stay on, after Baba's marriage, to help oil the wheels of staff management. Baba, too, might be starting a nursery.

But when they motored through glamorous valleys, dim and green as faded tapestry, winding down long hairpin bends to the river of long grass which rippled through the narrow gorge, and up again to the opposite crest — always crowned with a chateau— she dreamed of other things. Under the influence of the mediaeval landscape, she thought of that fabulous lover who— with his magic formula— would rend the shrivelled sheath of "Miss Wing," and draw out from it a girl with a name of her very own.

At such times she was unconscious of Baba and her young man. Although he was changed nearly as frequently as the water of the average swimming bath, he always seemed the same youth to her— tall, athletic, with thick, wavy hair and a jutting chin. He wore long, baggy plus-fours, breathed physical energy, and answered to some short name, such as "Jim" or "Bill."

These escorts often resented Miss Wing, although the first sign of discourtesy was severely crushed by Baba. The last escort of all seemed to feel the cramping element most keenly. He had more definite personality than the others— less chin and more brow— and his name was "Meredith."

As a matter of fact, he was a romantic, and the scenery was calling him to use it as atmosphere in an episode which should make a perfect memory. Although he was not in love with Baba, he wanted to be, since her beauty and engagement ring invested her with the glamor of a lost cause.

One day he tackled Miss Wing on the subject.

"Do you never fade out, Miss Wing?"

"Never." Her reply was prompt. "I'm paid to protect Baba."

"Why has she got to be protected?"

"Because she's young and beautiful— and rich."

With slight amusement, he glanced down at the fly-weight, Miss Wing.

"And who protects you?" he asked.

"I don't need protection. I'm just a— a sort of a limpet. And I mean to stick."

"Until we find a way to shake you off."

At the hint of a threat Miss Wing looked anxious.

"You needn't mind me," she assured him. "You can say anything you like, just as if I wasn't there. I don't listen."

"Why not? Haven't you ears?"

As he spoke he noticed that her hair was tucked, in curls, behind ears which were small and attractive. Although his approval was not lost upon Miss Wing, she continued to protest.

"Of course, I have the usual features. But I want you to understand this. I'm just official. I don't register."

IN spite of Meredith's determination to dislodge her, Miss Wing felt happy and secure. The fact that there were no more attempts to probe her weak spot was evidence that Baba had grown discouraged. It was, therefore, with the fatal confidence which heralds a fall, that she got out of the car, one darkish autumn afternoon, and stood on the cobbled pavement of a small, ancient town. All around the square loomed antique buildings, like derelict vessels in a dead port, while mist arose from the river which flowed turgidly through the valley.

"What do we do here?" asked Baba, who was thorough in her travels.

"There's only one thing to do in this live burg," replied Meredith, who had been there before. "We climb up to the citadel."

Miss Wing looked up at the dim stone battlements, just visible at the top of a bosky precipice, and reflected that they were faced with a stiff uphill walk. It was rather a shock, therefore, after Meredith had escorted them through a door, and paid a small entrance fee, to see, rising up before her, two unusually long flights of steps.

They were so steep that, when they reached the top, the party sat down on a stone bench to recover their wind. Already they had risen far above the houses, whose roofs were smudged with beaten-down smoke rising from the chimneys. Looking down, they had a view of the river and the steamers churning the yellowish water.

"Is it a stiff pull up to the top?" asked Baba, who did not like walking.

"No," replied Meredith. "It's steps all the way up."

"That's better. How many?"

"Over four hundred. I counted them once, but I forget the exact number."

Miss Wing's heart dropped a beat. Four hundred steps. She imagined a staircase, composed of fifty steps, and she put eight of these staircases on end. The result was a veritable nightmare vision.

To her joy, Baba shrugged and lit a cigarette.

"If this town wants me to take their citadel they must install a lift," she declared. "I'm parking here."

"But you must do it," protested Meredith. "When you get back home and tell people you've been here, the first thing they'll ask is: Did you go up to the citadel?'"

"Don't care if they do."

"Yes, you will. You hate to be beaten.... Anyway, I'm going."

Springing up, he swung along a plank bridge, fringed with mountain ash, and disappeared.

It was quiet after he had gone. Miss Wing realised the fatal blank, and was about to propose a descent to the town for tea, when Baba jumped up from the bench.

"That boy's right," she said. "I hate to be beaten. We'll catch him up."

Miss Wing did not betray her discomfiture; her face was set like a stone, but she felt as shrinking within as a bit of ice on a fishmonger's slab in midsummer. She obediently followed Baba around the corner, where another long flight of steps was built into the precipice.

Looking up, she saw other staircases rising, one above the other, in a giddy perspective. They were broken up into flights, but Miss Wing thought of the inevitable descent, when she would be forced to look down at the town, so far below. Instantly her head began to spin at the threat of altitude.

If she were suddenly overpowered by vertigo and fell, at the best she might sprain her ankle. It was about equal to a broken neck, for, if she were incapacitated, she would be of no more use to Mrs Malvoisin.

Miss Wing had no illusions about her employer. She had not proved her value yet, and was still on trial with the august lady.

Miss Wing remembered those last ghastly days of unemployment and resolved to hang on to her luck, at whatever risk. The pity of it was that when she crashed— as she knew she would— and was met at the Door by St. Peter, he would ask her a question:

"What name?"

And she would have to answer. "Miss Wing."

The fear of losing her job was greater even that her dread of the steps.  Even when she was conscious that every foot she rose, too her further from the ground, she led the way, climbing grimly, with the tireless precision of a machine.

Her mechanical movements were noticed, with ironical amusement, by  Meredith, who was resting about half way up.

"I knew you wouldn't balk," he called out to Baba. "Sit down and admire the view. Now, isn't that worth a little effort?"

His enthusiasm was somewhat forced for visibility was poor, and part of the town was wiped out by mist. Miss Wing stared down on to a confused huddle of buildings— ominously dwarfed-and a coil of the river, spanned with miniature bridges. It was rather like looking at a picture through a reducing-glass and she moistened her lips nervously '

Baba was swift to sense her discomfort.

"Tired, Miss Wing?" she asked. "Would you rather rest here while we go on?"

The honey-sweet voice put Miss Wing on her guard. If once Baba suspected her obsession, this would be merely the beginning of a series of dizzy adventures which would lead inevitably to the sack!

"No, thanks," she replied. "I don't feel my legs a bit."

"Of course not." Meredith spoke quickly. "She never does. Miss Wing feels nothing. And she doesn't see and doesn't hear."

Miss Wing could not know that his bitterness was inspired by annoyance at any frustration of Nature. She thought it arose from his personal dislike of the chaperon. Biting her lip, she turned her back on her companions and watched the procession of tourists down the steps.

It was evident that she was alone in her obsession, for the citadel had been stormed by a number of visitors. She noticed, too, something else which gave her a flutter of hope.

"Everyone seems to be going down, she said. "No one's coming up. I wonder if we are too late to get in."

Meredith ruthlessly slew her excuse.

"Then we'd better push off again," he said. "Follow me, my children."

They followed him. Up... up. Higher and higher— with the town dropping lower at every step. Even to sound hearts and lungs it was a gruelling ascent to make against time, and, before very long, they were forced to rest again on a stone slab.

"Good drop," remarked Meredith approvingly, looking over the side. "We can't be far from the top.

Clinging to her seat Miss Wing saw that a sinister change had indeed taken place in the view. The bridges now appeared as black filaments, spanning stream. Steamers had shrunk to water beetles, while the buildings had dwindled to misted suggestions of mushrooms.

Unluckily, Baba put her vague fear into words.

"Are we as high as the Roman Catholic Cathedral in London? she asked.

"Higher than that," replied Meredith "We're about on a level with the top of the Empire Building.

His statistics were of no value, as he had forgotten the height of the Empire building. But he knew that Baba wanted to be thrilled, so he obliged.

Had he known the effect of his careless words upon the other girl, he chivalrously would have kicked himself all the way down those impressive stairs.

They had made Miss Wings realise her exact position, as she remembered photographs of the Empire building.

"When you're at the top you feel it sway, can't you?" she asked in a small, controlled voice.

"Of course," replied Meredith. "It wouldn't be safe if it didn't give."

In that case, Miss Wing, too, was secure, for she felt herself suddenly rock, as though in the throes violent disintegration.

Meredith glanced at his wrist watch and then urged them on again.

"There's rather a dizzy bit ahead of us," he warned them, "Watch your step."

They came to it at the top of the next staircase, when they had climbed clear of the bushes which clung to the bluff, and reached the sheer rock.

Just above them rose the high wall of the fort, and clinging to it on one side, was built the last flight of steps,

It swung directly over a gulf of vacancy, high above the town, the trees, the cathedral. An iron hand-rail was the only protection from the drop down into space.

Miss Wing felt exactly as though she were in her special nightmare. Every fibre seemed to weaken, every muscle relax. Her legs doubled under her weight, like wax tapers. She was conscious of a horrible sensation at the base of her spine, as though a steel finger were prodding an exposed nerve.

For one ghastly moment she felt as though she must faint.... Then she realised that Baba had pushed past her and as mounting the steps, forcing a thrill the while, with shrill cries of excitement.

"Meredith, look down. There's the top of the cathedral. Oh, what a way below! Meredith, I'm going to drop my handkerchief. Oh! Look at it, miles below. It looks like a bit of confetti. Oh! I can't see it now."

Baba. Her job. With a stupendous effort Miss Wing forced herself to go if She found that she could just manage to pull herself upward, step by step, if she looked up into the woolly sky and never relaxed for a second her grip of the rail.

Suddenly she thought she heard footsteps coming toward her, and she wondered vaguely what would happen if someone came down just as she was going up. They would meet— and neither could give way. They would be suspended in mid-air, between the earth and the sky.

A ghastly thought, which made her look down from the clouds. She saw no one on the steps, but below her was a terrible chasm of misted air, pricked by twin spires.

It was the top of the cathedral, far below her. At the sight, her stomach seemed to turn over. Everything began to spin round. The sky was growing black.

She shut her eyes desperately and clung to the rail. As her strength returned she continued to pull herself up, automatically, like the reflex movements of a dead snake, until her foot reached the level.

Looking up, she saw before her, an ancient door in the wall, and a dangling Bell, below which someone had painted, SONNEZ.

The others had just entered, so the official was prompt to answer her ring. Directly she had passed through the ponderous portals into the courtyard, she experienced a blessed sense of safety.

Massive stone buildings ringed her in, enclosing a quadrangle of vivid green grass, where the flowers of summer lingered in autumnal decay. On one side was a kind of makeshift refreshment room, filled with chattering children in charge of two nuns and an elderly priest.

Baba, as usual, insisted on a tour of the museum and the fort, so Miss Wing accompanied her, like a faithful shadow. Presently they returned to the quadrangle, where the priest was photographic his flock.

Baba and Meredith sat down at a small table, to drink beer, while Miss Wing carried her black bag a discreet distance away.

She stared listlessly across at the shrivelled red rambler roses on the opposite wall. The afternoon was grey and cheerless, as though the very air were draped in cobwebs. Her heart heavy with foreboding, when the priest finished photographing the children, and plumped himself down on the same bench as herself.

Presently Miss Wing felt compelled to speak, indirectly, of her fear.

"Isn't it dangerous to bring children up here?" she asked.

"Why?" The priest was surprised. "It is not a mountain climb. There is no danger in walking upstairs."

"But that last bit," Miss Wing shuddered in retrospect. "The side is quite open, and you look down on such an awful drop."

"Still, there is a rail to hold on by. Naturally, we caution the little ones and help those who are smallest. We take reasonable care, and we know the Saints will protect them."

Miss Wing—who was a Protestant— felt a surge of envy for a religion which could ensure invisible protection. Looking into the priest's kindly face, she spoke impulsively.

"Do you believe in miracles?"

"Certainly," he replied. "They are happening every minute. Of course, they are not spectacular supernatural events, but everyday trifles which are projected divinely, to meet a special crisis."

"Ah! Then a miracle could happen, to save me?"

"If you have faith." The priest looked intently at her pale face, and added: "Surely miracles have happened to you before? Think, Madame!"

Suddenly Miss Wing's face lit up. She remembered her job, which she had always placed in the class of supernatural luck. But now, she realised that the actual miracle was a trifle of everyday occurrence, when an opportune straggle of passengers had lined up before her on the escalator.

It was not so haphazard as it appeared. It was a slack time, and the station was rarely crowded. Had it remained deserted for only a brief period longer, Mrs Malvoisin's precious three minutes of grace would have run out, and she would have refused to grant an interview.

Meredith, who chanced to be glancing in Miss Wing's direction, surprised the glow which transfigured her face. His pulse suddenly quickened in response. It called to some vital need within himself, reached some hidden sanctuary, which Baba, for all her beauty and charm, had never penetrated.

For a moment the machine had actually turned into a girl. An attractive girl, charged with the vitality of youth and' health, and also refined by spirit. But, even as he watched her, the flame was blown out.

Miss Wing had just remembered the ordeal in front of her. Again, she asked herself however she was going to get down that first awful flight. It was true that she had once seen a stout lady descend the steps of a pier backwards; but, were she to follow her example, she would betray her vulnerable spot to Baba.

And she knew that, while Baba would be sweet and sympathetic, her perfect companion would drop in her esteem. It would be impossible for her to understand a weakness which she would connect with cowardice. If she wanted to keep her job, she must never expose the fatal heel of Achilles.

Conscious of the priest's sympathetic gaze, she tried to explain her discomfort.

"The air is not very bracing up here," she said.

"But you are only on a level with most of the countryside," he reminded her. "It is the town which is buried in a pit."

Miss Wing, who had foolishly imagined herself perched on the top of a tower, laughed faintly.

"Silly of me. Then I suppose there are other ways of reaching the citadel?"

"There is a winding road, at the back, used by the waggons which bring up the army stores," he told her.

For a mad second she again glimpsed release. She could return to the town by that road. Only— it meant leaving Baba, who certainly would not wish to accompany her. And if she deserted her charge, it meant the sack.

She clung passionately to her job. It was her salvation. It had driven away the spectres of the past, given her a grip on the present, inspired her with hope for the future..

Conscious that Baba was catching her eye, she crossed over to her table.

"Nearly time to go," said the girl. "So stop flirting with your priest."

"He was only telling me that there is a road at the back for army lorries," explained Miss Wing gravely.

To her surprise, Baba's eyes began to sparkle.

"I'll sell you an idea," she cried. "It's dull to come back the same way. We'll ride down in a lorry."

"I don't buy it," declared Meredith. "For you'll want to drive. Hairpin bends on a greasy road. Not on my life."

"Then Miss Wing and I will go without you."

As the young couple began to bicker, Miss Wing— discreet even before the threat of Eternity— slipped back to her bench. Her heart was bursting with a newborn hope. A miracle might happen, to save her. Her future hung on Baba's whim, and also on the outcome of that clash of wills. She cared nothing for motoring perils, and could take her chance of any as lightly as a dirt-track racing ace.

"I must have faith," she thought.

Closing her eyes, she shut out the grim old walls and the shrivelled screen of crimson roses. Dimly conscious of the shrill voices of children and the soft cooing of doves, she concentrated.

"I will believe. It will happen. I have faith."

She lost all sense of time. Presently she became aware that the priest was wishing her good-bye. She sat up with a start, and noticed that it was perceptibly darker.

"I was thinking of miracles," she said. "Mercy, what a fog!"

"That, alas! is no miracle, but a misfortune," laughed the priest. "We get them constantly in autumn. When the wind is in a certain quarter it blows the smoke from the chemical factory right into the damp air."

"Then we ought to be getting down," said Miss Wing, turning towards the small table.

To her dismay it was empty.

"My friends," she cried. "Have you seen them?"

"A pretty young lady in green and a young man?" he asked. "Yes, they have already left."

The priest nodded towards the ancient door in the wall, and added: "The young lady beckoned to you. I thought you saw her."

"How long ago?"

Miss Wing could understand French; but he answered her in a language which she could not translate.

He shrugged and turned away.

Miss Wing's heart seemed to stop beating. How long? The answer was a shrug. Half a minute— five— or even longer? She knew that her fate hung on the difference.

It would never occur to Baba to wait for her below. In spite of her charm, she was a spoiled young autocrat. All her life she had been waited on and accompanied everywhere. Others waited for her, but she did not wait for them.

Besides, there was no reason for her to wait, in view of the fact that Miss Wing knew their rendezvous.

While it appeared simple, Miss Wing remembered that Mrs Malvoisin had arranged to meet the party, at the prearranged hotel on their way to another town. When Baba came, with her escort, and minus the companion, her job would be gone.

In a panic, she rushed outside and stood looking down on to thick bank of baffling mist. Straining her eyes, she could see no looming shadows. The fog had swallowed up Baba completely.

Immediately her brain began to boil with horrible possibilities. She remembered that Meredith— unlike the other escorts— was not a friend of the family, but a hotel acquaintance, introduced by a mutual friend. In spite of his engaging personality— in fact, probably because of it— he might be a fortune hunter.

Or — he might even be one of a kidnapping gang who had made the fog his opportunity.

At the thought, Miss Wing lost her last shred of self-control. She did not know where she was, or what she did, although she tried to run. Yet she did not seem to advance as the fog swirled around her like a dun blanket— muffling her, binding her, confusing her senses.

Only one thing was clear. Whether she arrived at the hotel without Baba,  or whether Baba arrived, unharmed, without her, she had lost her job.

So great was her mental agony she appeared actually afflicted by symptoms of physical distress She was sick and giddy; her heart was leaping madly, while iron bands clamped her temples.

Her job was gone. She had no money to face the future, for her first salary had been spent in buying clothes necessary for her position. And the fog was everywhere—all around her, below her, inside her.

Her job was gone. As she choked for breath, suddenly she heard Baba laugh a few yards below her. Instantly her fear of unemployment was swept away, and she became aware that she was standing at the top of a flight stairs, walled with vacancy, lead down to unseen depths.

Her knees began to shake violently, as all the familiar sensations of vertigo rushed at her in a mass attack. Then, to her horror, like a liner looming up, through a fog, appeared the magnified figure of a gigantic black-clad female, who was pulling herself upwards by the rail.

They met, and neither would give in a short but desperate encounter, Miss Wing, clung, like a limpet, to the slippery bar of iron, but the woman's superior weight won the day. Forcing the girl aside, she rolled on, like a relentless machine, still holding on to the rail.

Pushed out into the middle of the stairway, Miss Wing felt her heel give way under her. She stumbled, over-balanced, clutched the empty air, and fell.

She fell....

It was like her nightmare again.  A ghastly moment of breathless agony. She knew that the cathedral spire, the trees, the houses, must all be rushing up to her.

Then she felt a pair of tweed arms and heard Meredith laugh.

"Good tackle," he said.

Unable to believe in her safety, she clung to his neck.

"Did I fall far?"she panted.

"Not far to fall," was the reply, "we're nearly at the bottom."

Miss Wing could hardly believe her ears, although she vaguely remembered her brain-storm and how while it lasted everything else was  blotted out.

"Did I— I must have come quickly," she said.

"Like an avalanche, declared Baba.  "No wonder you slipped on those slimy steps."

"No wonder," echoed Meredith, "Look at her broken heel. She threw that in just to make it more difficult. What a mountaineer you'd make."

Suddenly Miss Wing began to laugh, while she thrilled with triumphant life. The Priest had said that the fog was no miracle. Yet in spite of her mental turmoil, she knew that she could never have made that perilous descent if the empty gulfs of pace around her not been mercifully veiled.

Meredith watched her transformed face with a thrill which welcomed romance. And since naturally wanted to know the name of a girl who had  awakened his interest, he spoke on impulse.

"Next time you feel like falling, let me know, and I'll be waiting round, Miss— What's your Christian name?

Miss Wing told him.

Exit Miss Wing.

_________________

14: The Ways of Chance

Arthur Gask

1869-1951

Chronicle (Adelaide) 2 July 1942

IT WAS BREAKFAST time at Cosey-corner Guest Home in Prospect, and the grim-faced Mrs. Fowlery was feeding her brood of boarders. The seven of them was made up of two elegant young lady typistes, whose perfume smelt very nice, three gents engaged in commercial pursuits, a clerk in a solicitor's office, and a middle-aged civil servant who left for work of a morning nearly an hour later than anybody else.

The boarders had just sat down and Bertie Bostock, one of the commercial gents, looked gloomily at the rashers of bacon on his plate, being strongly of opinion that they were of smaller dimensions than those the others had received. He sighed, however, with resignation, being quite aware that that was one of Mrs. Fowlery's little ways of making her boarders remember when they were behind with their payments. It was always easy to tell by the way she helped people whether they were financial or not.

"Going to be a fine day," remarked Miss James, one of the elegant young ladies with the nice smell. "I see the papers say some nice weather is setting in."

"Don't you believe it," grunted Mr. Oldflowers, the civil servant. "Prospects for fine weather couldn't be worse if that weather man says they're coming. The idiot ought to be paid by results, and then there'd be another family receiving rations."

"But perhaps he hasn't got any family, Mr. Oldflowers," suggested Miss James sweetly.

"Oh, but he's sure to have," was the quick retort. "Muddlers like him are always most prolific in propagating their species. I've always noticed it."

Mrs. Fowlery thought the conversation was beginning to border on the indelicate, and broke in quickly. "Oh, Miss James, now I think of it, would you mind noticing for me what the price of tomatoes on the stalls is today? I'm sure my greengrocer is cheating me. He looked secretive and turned away his eyes when I told him yesterday he was quite tuppence too high. I believe—"

But Mrs. Fowlery's belief on that particular matter was never to be disclosed, for at that moment the maid came in with the letters, and all interest was immediately focused upon a registered one which she handed to young Bostock.

The latter's pleasant face clouded. He knew he was behind with the weekly payments on his motor bicycle. "Hullo, what's this?" he frowned.

"It may be a summons!" remarked the lawyer's clerk, winking round the table. "It looks deuced like one to me."

But Bertie's face had cleared. He had recognised the handwriting. It was from his married sister in Port Augusta. "Joy, it's a present!" he exclaimed."It's my birthday today and I am twenty-four."

Miss Perkins, the other pleasant smeller, broke in sweetly, "But Mr. Bostock, didn't you say that Saturday evening last month when you brought in all those bottles of beer it was your birthday then?"

For the moment Bertie looked doubtful, and then he seemed to remember. "Ah, so I did!" he exclaimed. He shook his head. "But it wasn't true, Miss Perkins." He smiled. "I'm afraid I'm not a truthful man. I'm like my father." He looked round at the lawyer's clerk who had suggested the probability of his registered letter being a summons and added, "You see he was brought up for the law and that accounted for it."

With a request to be forgiven, he opened the envelope. It contained a very short letter wrapped round a little wad of notes. "My dear Bert," he read, "many happy returns. Tom had a big spot of luck at the races yesterday and sends you £10 for a birthday present. We don't forget what a sport you were when we were so hard up when I was ill. With heaps of love, Susan."

Bert assumed a grand air. "From my solicitor," he announced carelessly, "just telling me my uncle has died and that I have succeeded to the estates and the baronetcy." He thrust the notes back, uncounted, and held up the envelope for inspection. "A hundred pounds to go on with," he grinned, "to make sure I don't go short of drinks and cigarettes."

Mock congratulations were showered on him and then, the telephone ringing sharply in an adjoining room, Mrs. Fowlery went to see who it was. "Mr. Bostock," she called out, "a Mr. Percy Packer wants you," and with a somewhat puzzled frown from Bert, went to the phone. He did not, however, attempt to close the intervening door and the breakfasters stayed their conversation to hear what was going on.

They heard a big "Oh," and then Bert exclaimed, "Really, really." Quite a long silence followed and then Bert said, "Of course, of course, that's the right thing." Then Bert's voice came very loudly. "Well, old man, I'll never be 24 again, but many thanks for your congratulations. See you later."

He returned into the breakfast room to finish his interrupted meal, and it was remembered afterwards he looked a little pale.

"Just an invitation to lunch today at Government House," he announced airily. "It was His Excellency's secretary speaking, and he said how anxious Sir Roger was that I should come."

"But I didn't know," commented Miss James doubtfully, "that Mr. Percy Packer was the Governor's secretary. I thought he was that friend of yours who works with you in the Manchester Department at Dogberry's and Jones."

"Not at all," retorted Bert emphatically. "My friend, the Mr. Packer who works with me is quite a different person. This Pakker the Governor's secretary spells his name with two K's."

The meal over, they all rose up to go their several ways. Arriving at Dogberry and Jones's Departmental Store, Bert found his crony, the Packer with one K, waiting outside, and at once to an interested observer their conduct might have seemed most peculiar. Their faces wore the broadest of grins, but they didn't speak, being content to wring each other's hands as if they would never let them go. At last, however, they betook themselves down to the basement of the store, where, for quite five minutes, an intense whispered colloquy ensued, until, indeed, it was time for them to go upstairs and resume the selling of sheets, pillow-cases, dish-cloths, etc. to the opulent and elite of the city.

During the course of the morning, however, whenever they chanced to meet, their conduct, at any rate to their fellow employees was, to say the least of it, strange. They made fearful grimaces at each other, horrid gurgling sounds came from their throats, and they dug each other fiercely in the ribs whenever opportunity offered. Miss Tomkins in "the dresses" put it down to beer, and would have taken an affidavit that she smelt peppermints, but Miss Winchester in the "millinery" was more romantic, and a profound student of detective and dope stories, was seriously of opinion they had been taking drugs. She said they "rolled the balls of the eyes," just as one of the characters did in Poisoned Pills, an absorbing novel she had recently been reading.

But all unmindful of the comment they had evoked, Bert and Percy were joyously happy of heart and in the lunch-hour, disdaining the provender provided by the firm, went out and had a "good feed" as they called it, at a fish café.

"Now, Perce, old man," said Bert, as he drained the last drop of coffee from his cup and spooned out the sugar, "we ought to celebrate tonight. What about feeding at the good old Semiris and taking a couple of birds with us." He tapped the registered envelope which had been following him about all the morning in his hip pocket. "I'll advance the ready and it can go down to the expenses of the firm."

"All right, my boy," agreed Perce at once. "I'll bring my girl"— he frowned— "but what about you? You're not engaged like me."

"Not yet," frowned back Bert darkly, "although it mayn't be long now." He nodded. "Still I'll bring along my bit of stuff. I won't be without a skirt. We'll all meet at Beehive corner at 6.45 and after the feed do a decent picture afterwards."

Early that afternoon, Bert made a quick dash from the Manchester Department, and approached the very superior Miss Millington on "the perfumery." For long he had worshipped her from afar, but had never dared to try and become friendly. Now he went up boldly.

"I say, Miss Millington," he said gaily, "what about you coming with me tonight to a nice little dinner somewhere"— he didn't mention the Semiris for he wanted that to be a surprise to her— "and afterwards to see 'Purple Passion' at the Princess. I think you'd enjoy the evening. Will you come?"

Miss Millington regarded him haughtily. The "perfumery" was always a cut above the "manchester," and apart from that, she didn't consider Bert to be too strongly financial. When she came across him at the beaches, as she occasionally did, she noticed he was always wearing the same old shabby blazer.

"Thank you," she said coldly, "but I have another engagement."

Bert flushed hotly. The snub was so obvious and she had spoken so loudly that assistants at other counters had heard. He grinned uncomfortably and was going away as quickly as he could, when an eager voice hailed him from the counter adjoining the perfumery one. "Now, why don't you ask me, Mr. Bostock?" it called out laughingly. "I'll come with the greatest of pleasure."

He turned to see who had spoken and saw it was little Kitty Clover, in the gloves. She was small, but undeniably pretty, with soft brown eyes. He knew her very slightly, and, hitherto, had always thought her very shy.

"Oh, it's you, is it, Miss Clover?" he laughed back. He pretended to feel in his pocket for an imaginary piece of paper. "Well, you are down on my list anyhow, but I forget the exact order." He nodded smilingly. "Still, as you've put in your claim first, you shall come if you'd like to."

"Thank you, Mr. Bostock," replied Kitty, now casting down her eyes. "I'm sure I shall enjoy it immensely. I've been longing to see 'Purple Passion,' but hadn't found the right person yet to take me."

Bert was quite thrilled at her saying "the right person." At any rate she realised coming with him was not like going with anyone who asked her. "Then it's 6.50 tonight at the Beehive corner," he said, "and, please, don't be late. Mr. Packer's bringing his young lady and it'll be a party of four." He nodded smilingly. "And you look extra nice, Miss Clover, as I'm booking a table for dinner at the Semiris. It's my birthday today, and I've had a good wad of notes sent me."

Kitty Clover looked all excitement, but Miss Millington, very disdainful. All the same, however, deep down, the latter young lady was rather wishing she hadn't been so hasty in her refusal. She ought to have enquired where Bert was intending to go for the meal first.

When Bert had gone she called across to Kitty. "Don't you be so sure about the Semiris, my dear. Very likely it'll only be coffee and sandwiches at some café."

Kitty did not seem downcast, which attitude of mind turned out to be a sensible one, as towards five o'clock it was definitely known to the assistants all through the big store that Bert Bostock had got Miss Pimpkins at the stamp counter to ring up the Semiris and book four seats for dinner that evening. It was rumored, too, a wealthy aunt who kept a fish and chips shop in Port Pirie had sent him £50 for his birthday.

Looking back in after years, young Bert always regarded that evening as one of the happiest of his life. To begin with, the dinner at the Semiris had been an epicurean feast, and as the good wine had coursed through his veins— they had had a bottle of champagne at fifteen and six the bottle— he had felt the equal and, indeed, almost the superior of any one in the big dining-room.

It was the first time any of them had been to an expensive hotel (the dinner had cost 7/6 each), and it was quite true there had been one very awkward moment when the bowing waiter had presented the menu all in French. However, at Kitty's whispered injunction, after ordering clear soup for them all, Bert had waved him away, saying they would consider what they would have next.

Then Kitty had turned out to be a veritable tower of strength, for, five and twenty years back, her mother had been a maid in a nobleman's service in England, and from her she had picked up the meanings of quite a lot of things in French. So she knew that "merlans a la francais" was only fried whiting, that "tournedos aux champignons" must mean beef fillet and mushrooms, that "veau" was veal; "poulet" chicken and "canape" duck.

So, like an experienced navigator she steered them through the menu, until at last they came safe into harbor with a mouthful of homely Welsh rarebit. Bert was delighted with her for, apart from her triumph over the menu, she looked so refreshingly pretty and sweet. Once, during the meal he felt gently for her foot with his, and only desisted from pressing much harder when she whispered, "Be careful, dear boy, these stockings are the only ones I've got to match this dress."

He was thrilled with the confidence, and thrilled, even more, when later, in the darkness of Purple Passion, she snuggled very close to him and let him hold her little shaking hand at an exciting moment in the picture when the villain's revolver was going bang, bang, bang, all over the place. It came to him then, as in a flash of intuition, that perhaps Fate had destined him to be her protector for ever and a day. To blazes with Miss Millington and all her type, he thought!

Percy's girl had turned out to be very charming, too, and she and Kitty had got on like a house on fire. It was discovered they lived close to each other. So the two young fellows saw them home together across the parklands, and as Percy, of course, kissed his girl good-night, Bert wanted to follow suit with Kitty. The latter was sweetly shy at first, but, after a moment, put up her lips and allowed the kiss to be a very nice one.

The next day nothing of much event took place to the two friends. They appeared much quieter and exchanged no more broad grins and sly digs in the ribs. Indeed, it was as if some great responsibility had flung its heavy mantle over them and sobered them down. Kitty and Bert, however, managed to give each other a few tender glances and the latter received a hurriedly whispered invitation to come home to tea the following evening and meet Kitty's mother. He had already learnt she was a widow and Kitty her only child.

But, if of that day there be nothing to record, it is quite different of the next. It began with more whispered conversation directly Bert and Percy met at the store, accompanied by many smiles and nods; the grins and rib-diggings, however, were not resumed. Things had proceeded long beyond that stage and apparently some great crisis was near. The two friends had schemed to go out to dinner at the same time and, accordingly, five minutes past twelve found them in King William street upon the steps of the stately portals of the South Australian Bank.

"We're right every time in coming here," said Bert confidently. "My knowing old Bellingham will make everything easy. He'll trust me, for all his eight years as our churchwarden he's been having an eyeful of me singing in the choir. Come on, old man, we won't see anyone lower than him."

So, after considerable frowning on the part of minor officers of the bank, they were ushered into the manager's presence.

"Good morning, sir," said Bert, gulping down a lump in his throat; "you remember me? Well, this is Mr. Percy Packer, who works with me at Dogberry & Jones's. We want to open two separate accounts."

"Certainly!" said the manager. His eyebrows went up a little. "What with?"

"This!" said Bert, repressing a grin of triumph, and he handed him a small, thin piece of paper.

"Ah, a lottery ticket!" exclaimed the manager. He frowned. "You've been gambling!"

"Oh, no, sir," exclaimed Bert quickly, "at least, not exactly!" He coughed. "Most of this money you see goes to support the hospitals."

"Ah, that's better," nodded the manager. He looked interested. "And you've drawn a prize! How much?"

Bert could just manage to get out his words. "£20,000, sir. Here's the result slip. It only came this morning. See our number, 776655, has got the first prize."

Mr. Bellingham frowned again, stared hard, compared the numbers, and tut-tutted several times.

"All right, young gentlemen," he said at last, rising to his feet. "We'll collect this money for you, and if we use the air mail and the 'phone you'll be credited with the money in about two days' time. Good-bye, and if you take my advice, you'll clear out for a little holiday. It is sure to become known and then"— he smiled a grim smile— "you'll be astounded at the number of friends you've got."

The secret was kept from everyone for three days and neither Kitty nor Percy's young lady were told. Losing no time, Bert had asked Kitty to be his wife that evening when he had gone to her home to be introduced to her mother. Of all places, the proposal had been made in the tram, and Kitty had blushed so prettily that an elderly gentleman opposite had been carried quite half a mile beyond his destination, and been made by the conductor to pay an other tuppence in consequence.

Kitty had mouthed a 'yes', above the rattle of the tram, but the first affianced kiss had not passed between them until they were in the front garden of Kitty's home. Bert and the mother had been very pleased with each other.

When, at last, the money had arrived at the bank and the two young fellows had been provided with cheque books, they resolved to give notice to their employers. Bert went in first to see Mr. Dogberry and the old man received him with a scowl.

"What is it you want, Bostock?" he asked irritably. "I'm very busy." Bert said he had come to give notice and, upon being asked testily to which other firm he was going, replied he was intending in future to lead an outdoor life and was going on the land.

"Then are you going to buy some extensive property?" asked Mr. Dogberry with heavy sarcasm.

"Not to start off with, sir," replied Bert smilingly. "I shall go out as a farmhand, first, to learn everything before I invest any of my money."

"Oh, and have you much money to invest, may I ask?" enquired Mr. Dogberry with a grin and chilling smile.

Bert, certain that the story of their good fortune was bound to become known sooner or later, saw no reason for keeping anything back, and so told his employer how he and Percy Packer had come to win £20,000.

The old man nearly jumped out of his chair. "£10,000 each!" he gasped. "Why, it's a fortune!" He could hardly get his breath. "Does everybody know?"

"No, sir, not yet," smiled Bert, pretending a great respect, "you're the first one to hear about it. We thought it best to tell you before anyone else."

"Quite right, quite right," nodded his employer, "the proper thing to do!" A thought struck him and his eyes, opened very wide. "But I say, what a splendid advertisement it should be for the firm! A paragraph in the newspaper, 'Two young gentlemen in the Manchester department of Dogberry and Jones win £20,000'!" He raised his voice excitedly. "Why, everyone will be talking about us!"

"I suppose so," smiled Bert. "A little bit out of the ordinary, isn't it?"

"Most decidedly it is!" nodded Mr. Dogberry. He became quite excited. "But Mr. Bostock"— he called him Mr. now:— "I must ask you as a favor not to leave us straightaway. At any rate stay on for a few weeks, and everyone will be coming to have a look at you." He rubbed his hands together. "Yes, I'll get that paragraph in at once." His eyes sparkled. "'Smart young salesmen— so keen upon their work—most reluctant to give it up notwithstanding the turn of Fortune's wheel— the lure of selling superfine sheets and blankets still holds them— their lives so happy that—'" but an idea came to him and he demanded sharply, "You're not married, are you?"

"Not yet," replied Bert smilingly, "but I soon shall be. I'm engaged to your Miss Clover in the gloves."

Mr. Dogberry raised his hand excitedly. "Better and better still! We'll make the paragraph more interesting than ever. 'Young salesman in the Manchester engaged to lovely girl in the gloves! Fortune showering her favors upon him!'" His hands shook. "Oh, Mr. Bostock, I implore that neither you nor Miss Clover leave us for a while. And the same with that splendid young Mr. Packer. The Manchester and the glove departments will have record sales."

So Percy Packer and Kitty Clover being called in, it ended in them all agreeing to remain on with the firm for three weeks. The two friends rather enjoyed the interest they excited in their customers, but were most annoyed by one newspaper referring to them as "two dashing young haberdashers." Everyone in drapery circles knows that the Manchester department is miles above the lowly haberdashery one.

A week after they had left the business, Bert and Kitty were married. The night before Kitty had a short but very serious conversation with her mother. "You know, mum," she said, "I've grown really very fond of Bert. He's a dear boy, and I'll do my very best to make him a good wife." She looked troubled. "But I don't like marrying him with this dreadful secret on my mind. How awful if he found it out!"

"But he won't find it out," nodded her mother confidently. "Your aunty knows when to hold her tongue, and she'll never say a word. Don't you worry there."

"But it doesn't seem fair, mum," protested Kitty. "I feel I ought to tell him."

"Nonsense," exclaimed her mother. "A girl's secrets are her own until she's married, and if she blabs them out she always regrets it. No. You say nothing and you'll never be sorry for it."

Kitty was over-ruled and did as her mother bade her. So Bert never learnt she had known from the very beginning that he had won that £10,000, and, accordingly, had deliberately set her cap to get him.

It had come about in this way. Her aunty was an agent for Pusher's patent carpet sweepers, and upon the morning when Percy was phoning Bert about their having drawn the winning lottery ticket, it happened she had been making an early call upon the former's landlady to collect an installment on the sweeper she had sold her. Standing waiting in the hall, she had overheard everything Percy had said, and, chancing to meet Kitty in the street a few minutes later, had passed on the news to her.

So Kitty had been an artful little puss, but who will hold that against her? Are not all girls by nature artful, and as she went on to make Bert a splendid little wife, surely no one will blame her, for acting as she did. No one, perhaps, except the one-time perfumery young lady, Miss Millington. Still, as she married a well-to-do butcher, and in almost record time presented him with three little butchers to carry on the line, certainly she had no cause to be envious.

She was happy, too, in her oft repeated boast that she had once given the cold shoulder to an ardent admirer who had just come in for £10,000. She did not mention, however, that at the time she had known nothing about his possessing so much money.

___________________

15: The Post-Mortem Murder

Sinclair Lewis

1885-1951

The Century Magazine, May 1921

Best known for his dissection of American life in such novels as Babbitt, Main Street, and the like, Lewis also wrote a great many short stories which have only recently begun being collected. In this story he takes a sharp look at Literary Academe.

I WENT to Kennuit to be quiet through the summer vacation. I was tired after my first year as associate professor, and I had to finish my "Life of Ben Jonson." Certainly the last thing I desired was that dying man in the hot room and the pile of scrawled booklets. I boarded with Mrs. Nickerson in a cottage of silver-gray shingles under silver-gray poplars, heard only the harsh fiddling of locusts and the distant rage of the surf, looked out on a yard of bright wild grass and a jolly windmill weather-vane, and made notes about Ben Jonson. I was as secluded and happy as old Thoreau raising beans and feeling superior at Walden.

My fiancée,— Quinta Gates, sister of Professor Gates, and lovelier than ever in the delicate culture she had attained at thirty-seven,— Quinta urged me to join them at Fleet Harbor. It is agreeable to be with Quinta. While I cannot say that we are stirred to such absurd manifestations as kissing and hand-holding,— why any sensible person should care to hold a damp female hand is beyond me,— we do find each other inspiriting. But Fleet Harbor would be full of "summerites," dreadful young people in white flannels, singing their jazz ballads.

No, at thought of my spacious, leafy freedom I wriggled with luxury and settled down to an absorbed period when night and day glided into one ecstasy of dreaming study. Naturally, then, I was angry when I heard a puckery voice outside in the tiny hallway:

"Well, if he's a professor, I got to see him."

A knock. I affected to ignore it. It was irritatingly repeated until I roared, "Well, well, well?" I am normally, I trust, a gentle person, but I desired to give them the impression of annoyance.

Mrs. Nickerson billowed in, squeaking:

"Mis' White from Lobster Pot Neck wants to see you."

Past her wriggled a pinch-faced, humorless-looking woman. She glared at Mrs. Nickerson, thrust her out, and shut the door. I could hear Mrs. Nickerson protesting, "Well, upon my word!"

I believe I rose and did the usual civilities. I remember this woman, Miss or Mrs. White, immediately asking me, with extraordinary earnestness:

"Are you a professor?"

"I teach English."

"You write books?"

I pointed to a box of manuscript.

"Then, please, you got to help us. Byron Sanders is dying. He says he's got to see a learned man to give him some important papers." Doubtless I betrayed hesitation, for I can remember her voice rising in creepy ululation: "Please! He 's dying— that good old man that never hurt nobody!"

I fluttered about the room to find my cap. I fretted that her silly phrase of "important papers" sounded like a melodrama, with maps of buried treasure, or with long-lost proofs that the chore boy is really the kidnapped son of royalty. But these unconscious defenses against the compulsion expressed in her face, with its taut and terrified oval of open mouth, were in vain. She mooned at me, she impatiently waited. I dabbled at my collar and lapels with my fingers, instead of decently brushing off the stains of smoking and scribbling. I came stumbling and breathless after her.

She walked rapidly, unspeaking, intense, and I followed six inches behind, bespelled by her red-and-black gingham waist and her chip of a brown hat. We slipped among the gray houses of the town, stumped into country stilly and shimmering with late afternoon. By a trail among long salty grasses we passed an inlet where sandpipers sprinted and horseshoe-crabs bobbed on the crisping ripples. We crossed a moorland to a glorious point of blowing grasses and sharp salt odor, with the waves of the harbor nickering beyond. In that resolute place my embarrassed awe was diluted, and I almost laughed as I wondered:

"What is this story-book errand? Ho, for the buried treasure! I'll fit up a fleet, out of the six hundred dollars I have in the savings-bank, and find the pirates' skellingtons. 'Important papers!' I'll comfort the poor dying gentleman, and be back in time for another page before supper. The harbor is enchanting. I really must have a sail this summer or go swimming."

My liveliness, uneasy at best in the presence of that frightened, fleeing woman, wavered when we had dipped down through a cranberry-bog and entered a still, hot woods of dying pines. They were dying, I tell you, as that old man in there was dying. The leaves were of a dry color of brick dust; they had fallen in heaps that crunched beneath my feet; the trunks were lean and black, with an irritation of branches; and all the dim alleys were choking with a dusty odor of decay. It was hot and hushed, and my throat tickled, my limbs dragged in a hopeless languor.

Through ugly trunks and red needles we came to a restrained dooryard and an ancient, irregular house, a dark house, very sullen. No one had laughed there these many years. The windows were draped. The low porch between the main structure and a sagging ell was drifted with the pine-needles. My companion's tread was startling and indecent on the flapping planks. She held open the door. I hesitated. I was not annoyed now; I was afraid, and I knew not of what I was afraid.

Prickly with unknown disquietude, I entered. We traversed a ball choked with relics of the old shipping days of Kennuit: a whale's vertebra, a cribbage-board carved in a walrus-tusk, a Chinese screen of washed-out gold pagodas on faded, weary black We climbed a narrow stair over which jutted, like a secret trap-door, the corner of a mysterious chamber above. My companion opened a door on the upper hall and croaked, "In there."

I went in slowly. I am not sure now, after two years, but I think I planned to run out again, to flee downstairs, to defend myself with that ivory tusk if I should be attacked by whatever was lurking in that shadowy, silent place. As I edged in, about me crept an odor of stale air and vile medicines and ancient linen. The shutters were fast ; the light was grudging. I was actually relieved when I saw in the four-poster bed a pitiful, vellum-faced old man, and the worst monster I had to face was normal illness.

I have learned that Byron Sanders was only seventy-one then, but he seemed ninety. He was enormous. He must have been hard to care for. His shoulders, in the mended linen nightgown thrust up above the patchwork comforter, were bulky; his neck was thick; his head a shiny dome— an Olympian, majestic even in dissolution.

The room had been lived in too long. It was a whirl of useless things: staggering chairs, clothes in piles, greasy medicine-bottles, and a vast writing-desk pouring out papers, and dingy books with bindings of speckled brown. Amid the litter, so still that she seemed part of it, I was startled to discern another woman. Who she may have been I have never learned.

The man was ponderously turning
in bed, peering at me through the shaky light.

"That depends upon what you mean, sir. I teach English. I am not—"

"You understand poetry, essays, literary history?"

"I am supposed to."

"I'm kind of a colleague of yours.

Byron—" He stopped, choked frightfully. The repressed woman beside the bed, moving with stingy patience, wiped his lips. "My name is Byron Sanders. For forty years, till a year ago, I edited the 'Kennuit Beacon."

The nauseating vanity of man! In that reverent hour, listening to the entreaties of a dying man, I was yet piqued at having my stripped athletic scholarship compared to editing the "Beacon," with its patent-medicine advertisements, its two straggly columns of news about John Brown's cow and Jim White's dory.

His eyes trusting me, Byron Sanders went on :

"Can't last long. It 's come quicker— no time to plan, I want you to take the literary remains of my father. He was not a good man, but he was a genius. I have his poetry here, and the letters. I haven't read them for years, and— too late— give them to world. You must—"

He was desperately choking. The still woman crept up, thrust into my hands a box of papers and a pile of note-books which had been lying on the bed.

"You must go," she muttered. "Say, 'Yes', and go. He can't stand any more."

"Will you?" the broken giant wailed to me, a stranger!

"Yes, yes, indeed; I'll give them to the world," I mumbled, while the woman pushed me toward the door.

I fled down the stairs, through the coppery pine-woods, up to the blithe headland that was swept by the sea-breeze.

I knew, of course, what the "poetry" of that poor "genius" his father would be — Christmas doggerel and ditties about "love" and "dove," "heart" and "must part." I was, to be honest, irritated, I wanted to take this debris back to Mr. Sanders, and that was the one thing I could not do. For once I was sensible: I took it home and tried to forget it.

In the next week's "Kennuit Beacon," discovered on Mrs. Nickerson's parlor-table, crowning a plush album, I read that Byron Sanders, "the founder and for many years the highly esteemed editor of this paper," had died.

I sought relatives to whom I could turn over his father's oddments. There was no one; he was a widower and childless. For months the bothersome papers were lost in my desk, back at the university. On the opening day of the Christmas vacation I remembered that I had not read a word of them. I was to go to Quinta Gates's for tea at a quarter to five, and to her serene companionship I looked forward as, in a tired, after-term desultoriness, I sat down to glance at Jason Sanders's caterwaulings. That was at four. It was after nine when the flabby sensation of hunger brought me back to my room and the dead fire.

In those five hours I had discovered a genius. The poetry at which I had so abominably sneered was minted glory.

I stood up, and in that deserted dormitory I shouted, and listened to the tremor of the lone sound and defiantly shouted again. That I was "excited" is too pallid a word. My life of Jonson could go hang! I was selfish about it: it meant fame for me. But I think something higher than selfishness had already come into my devotion to Jason Sanders; something of the creator's passion and the father's pride.

I was hungry enough, but I walked the room contemptuous of it. I felt unreal. 1918 was fantastically unreal. I had for hours been veritably back in 1850. It was all there; manuscripts which had not been touched since 1850, which still held in their wrinkles the very air of seventy years ago: a diary; daguerreotypes; and letters, preserved like new in the darkness, from Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the young Tennyson!

The diary had been intermittently kept for fifteen years. It was outline enough for me to reconstruct the story of Jason Sanders, born at Kennuit in 1825, probably died in Greece in 1853,

ii

BETWEEN Cape Cod and the ocean is a war sinister and incessant. Here and there the ocean has gulped a farm, or a lighthouse reared on a cliff, but at Kennuit the land has been the victor. To-day there are sandy flats and tepid channels where a hundred years ago was an open harbor brilliant with a hundred sails, crackling with tidings from the Banks, proud of whalers back from years of cruising off Siberia and of West Indiamen pompous with rum and sugar and the pest.

Captain Bethuel Sanders, master and owner of the Sally S. It was on a voyage out of Kennuit to Pernambuco when his only child, Jason Sanders, was born. He never came back. In every Cape Cod burying-ground, beside the meeting-house, there are a score of headstones with "Lost at sea." There is one, I know now, at Kennuit for Bethuel Sanders.

His widow, daughter of a man of God who for many years had been pastor at Truro, was a tight, tidy, capable woman. Bethuel left her a competence- She devoted herself to keeping house and to keeping her son from going to sea. He was not to die as his father had, perhaps alone, last man on a wave-smashed brig. Theirs was a neat, unkindly cottage with no windows on the harbor side. The sailors' women-folks did not greatly esteem the view to sea, for thither went the strong sons who would never return. In a cottage with a low wall blank toward the harbor lived Mrs. Sanders, ardently loving her son, bitterly restraining him. Jason was obsessed by her. She was mother, father, sweetheart, teacher, tyrant. He stroked her cheeks, and he feared her eye, which was a frozen coal when she caught him lying.

In the first pages of Jason's diary, when he was only thirteen, he raged that while his schoolmates were already off to the Banks or beholding, as cabin-boys, the shining Azores, he was kept at his lessons, unmanned, in apron-strings. Resources of books he had from his parson grandsire: Milton, Jeremy Taylor, Pope. If the returned adventurers sneered at him, he dusted their jackets. He must have been hardy and reasonably vicious. He curtly records that he beat Peter Williams, son of the Reverend Abner Williams, "till he could scarce move," and that for this ferocity he was read out of meeting. He became a hermit, the village "bad boy."

He was at once scorned as a "softy" by his mates because he did not go to sea, dreaded by their kin because he was a marking fighter, bombard eel by his Uncle Ira because he would not become a grocer, and chided by his mother because he had no calling to the ministry. Nobody, apparently, took the trouble to understand him. The combination of reading and solitude led him inevitably to scribbling. On new-washed Cape Cod afternoons, when grasses rustled on the cream-shadowed dunes, he sat looking out to sea, chin in hand, staring at ardent little waves and lovely sails that bloomed and vanished as the schooners tacked; and through evenings rhythmic with the surf he sought with words which should make him enviable to justify himself and his mocked courage.

At twenty he ran off to sea on a fishing schooner.

Twenty he was and strong, but when he returned his mother larruped him. Apparently he submitted; his comment in the famous diary is:

"Mother kissed me in welcome, then, being a woman of whimsies somewhat distasteful to a man of my sober nature, she stripped off my jacket and lashed me with a strip of whale-bone long and surprisingly fanged. I shall never go a-whaling if so very little of a whale can be so very unamiable."

This process neatly finished, Mrs. Sanders— she was a swift and diligent woman— immediately married the young bandit off to a neighbour woman four years his senior, a comely woman, pious, and gifted with dullness. Within the year was born a son, the Byron Sanders whom I saw dying as a corpulent elder.

That was in 1847, and Jason was twenty-two.

He went to work— dreaming and the painful carving of beautiful words not being work— in the Mammoth Store and Seamen's Outfitters. He was discharged for, imprimis, being drunk and abusive; further, stealing a knife of the value of two shillings. For five or six years he toiled in a sail-loft. I fancy that between stitchings of thick canvas he read poetry, a small book hidden in the folds of a topsail, and with a four-inch needle he scratched on shingles a plan of Troy. He was discharged now and then for roistering, and now and then was grudgingly hired again,

I hope that nothing I have said implies that I consider Jason a young man of virtue. I do not. He drank Jamaica rum, he stole strawberries, his ways with the village girls were neither commendable nor in the least commended, and his temper was such that he occasionally helped himself to a fight with sailors, and regularly, with or without purpose, thrashed the unfortunate Peter Williams, son of the Reverend Abner.

Once he betrayed a vice far meaner. A certain Boston matron, consort of a highly esteemed merchant, came summering to Kennuit, first of the tennis-yelping hordes who now infest the cape and interrupt the meditations of associate professors. This worthy lady was literary, and doubtless musical and artistic. She discovered that Jason was a poet. She tried to patronize him; in a highfalutin way she commanded him to appear next Sunday, to read aloud and divert her cousins from Boston. For this she would give him a shilling and what was left of the baked chicken. He gravely notes: "I told her to go to the devil . She seemed put out." The joke is that three weeks later he approached the good matron with a petition to be permitted to do what he had scorned. She rightly, he records without comment, "showed me the door."

No, he was not virtuous save in bellicose courage, and he was altogether casual about deserting his wife and child when, the year after his mother died, he ran away to the Crimean War, But I think one understands that better in examining, as I have examined with microscope and aching eye, the daguerreotypes of Jason and his wife and boy.

Straight-nosed and strong-lipped was Jason at twenty-six or seven. Over his right temple hung an impatient lock. He wore the high, but open and flaring, collar of the day, the space in front filled with the soft folds of a stock. A fluff of side-whiskers along the jaw set off his resoluteness of chin and brow. His coat was long skirted and heavy, with great collar and wide lapels, a cumbrous garment, yet on him as graceful as a cloak. But his wife! Her eyes stared, and her lips, though for misery and passionate prayer they had dark power, seem in the mirrory old picture to have had no trace of smiles. Their son was dumpy.  As I saw him dying there in the pine woods, Byron Sanders appeared a godly man and intelligent; but at six or seven he was pudding-faced, probably with a trick of howling. In any case, with or without reason, Jason foully deserted them.

In 1853, at the beginning of the struggle between Russia and Turkey that was to develop into the Crimean "War, Greece planned to invade Turkey. Later, to prevent alliance between Greece and Russia, the French and English forces held Piraeus; but for a time Greece seemed liberated.

Jason's diary closes with a note:

To-morrow I leave this place of sand and sandy brains; make by friend Bearse's porgy boat for Long Island, thence to New York and stop for Piraeus, for the glory of Greece and the memory of Byron. How better can a man die? And perhaps some person of intelligence there will comprehend me. Thank fortune my amiable spouse knows naught, If ever she finds this, may she grant forgiveness, as I grant it to her!

That is all— all save a clipping from the "Lynmouth News Letter" of seven years later announcing that as no word of Mr. Jason Sanders had come since his evanishment, his widow was petitioning the court to declare him legally dead.

This is the pinchbeck life of Jason Sanders. He lived not in life, but in his writing, and that is tinct with genius. Five years before Whitman was known he was composing what today we call "free verse." There are in it impressions astoundingly like Amy Lowell. The beauty of a bitter tide-scourged garden and of a bitter sea-scourged woman who walks daily in that sterile daintiness is one of his themes, and the poem is as radiant and as hard as ice.

Then the letters.

Jason had sent his manuscripts to the great men of the day. From most of them he had non-committal acknowledgments. His only encouragement came from Edgar Allan Poe, who in 1849, out of the depths of his own last discouragement, wrote with sympathy:

I pledge you my heart that you have talent. You will go far if you can endure hatred and disgust, forgetfulness and bitter bread, blame for your most valorous and for your weakness and meekness, the praise of matrons and the ladylike.

That letter was the last thing I read before dawn on Christmas day.

On the first train after Christmas I hastened down to the winter-clutched cape.

iii

AS JASON had died sixty-five years before, none but persons of eighty or more would remember him. One woman of eighty-six I found, but beyond, "Heh? Whassat?" she confided only: "Jassy Sanders was a terror to snakes. Run away from his family, that 's what he done! Poetry? Him write poetry? Why, he was a sail-maker!"

I heard then of Abiathar Gould, eighty-seven years old, and already become a myth streaked with blood and the rust of copper bottoms. He had been a wrecker, suspected of luring ships ashore with false lights in order that he might plunder them with his roaring mates. He had had courage enough, plunging in his whaleboat through the long swells after a storm, but mercy he had not known. He was not in Kennuit itself; he lived down by the Judas Shoals, on a lean spit of sand running seven miles below Lobster Pot Neck.

How could one reach him? I asked Mrs. Nickerson.

Oh, that was easy enough: one could walk! Yes, and one did walk. Five miles against a blast whirling with snow, grinding with teeth of sand. I cursed with surprising bitterness, and planned to give up cigarettes and to do patent chest exercises. I wore Mr. Aaron Bloomer's coonskin coat, Mrs. Nickerson gray flannel muffler. David Dill's fishing-boots, and Mrs. Antonia Sparrow's red flannel mittens; but, by the gods, the spectacles were my own, and mine the puffing, the cramped calves, and the breath that froze white on that itchy collar! Past an inlet with grasses caught in the snow-drifted ice; along the frozen beach, which stung my feet at every pounding step; among sand-dunes, which for a moment gave blessed shelter; out again into the sweep of foam-slavering wind, the bellow of the surf, I went.

I sank all winded on the icy step of Captain Abiathar Gould's bachelor shack.

He was not deaf and he was not dull at eighty-seven , He came to the door, looked down on me studiously, and grunted:

"What do you want? D' yuh bring me any hootch?"

I hadn't. There was much conversation bearing on that point while I broiled and discovered new muscles by his stove. He had only one bunk, a swirl of coiled blankets and comforters and strips of gunny-sacking. I did not care to spend the night; Captain Gould cared even less, I had to be back. I opened :

"Cap'n, you knew Jason Sanders?"

"Sanders? I knew Byron Sanders, and Gideon Sanders of Wellfleet and Cephas Sanders of Falmouth and Bessie Sanders, but I never knew no Jason —oh, wa'n't he Byron's pa? Sure I remember him. Eight or nine years older 'n I was. Died in foreign parts. I was a boy on the Dancing Jig when he went fishing. Only time he ever went. Wa'n't much of a fisherman."

"Yes, but what do you remember—"

"Don't remember nothing. Jassy never went with us fellows; had his nose in a book. Some said he was a good fighter; I dunno "

"But didn't you— how did he talk, for instance?"

"Talk? Talked like other folks, I suppose. But he wa'n't a fisherman, like the rest of us. Oh, one time he tanned my hide for tearing up some papers with writin' on 'em that I swiped for gun-wadding."

"What did he say then?"

"He said—"

On second thought it may not be discreet to report what Jason said.

Beyond that Captain Gould testified only:

"Guess I kind of get him mixed up with the other fellows; good many years ago. But"— he brightened— "I recollect he wa'n't handy round a schooner. No, he wa'n't much of a fisherman."

When I got back to Kennuit my nose was frozen.

No newspaper had been published in Kennuit before 1877, and I unearthed nothing more. Yet this very blankness made Jason Sanders my own province, I knew incomparably more about him than any other living soul. He was at once my work, my spiritual ancestor, and my beloved son. I had a sense of the importance and nobility of all human life such as— I acknowledge sadly — I had never acquired in dealing with cubbish undergraduates, I wondered how many Jason s might be lost in the routine of my own classes. I forgot my studies of Ben Jonson, I was obsessed by Jason . I was, I fancy, like a jitney pilot turned racing driver.

Quinta Gates— I don't know when I met her at the president's reception in February, she said I had been neglecting her. At the time I supposed that she was merely teasing; but I wonder now. She was — oh, too cool; she hadn't quite the frankness I had come to depend on in her. I don't care. Striding the dunes with Jason, I couldn't return to Quinta and the discussion of sonatas in a lavender twilight over thin tea-cups.

iv

I GAVE Jason Sanders to the world in a thumping article in "The Weekly Gonfalon."

Much of it was reprinted in the New York "Courier's" Sunday literary section, with Jason's picture, and— I note it modestly— with mine, the rather interesting picture of me in knickers sitting beside Quinta's tennis-court. Then the New York "Gem" took him up. It did not mention me or my article. It took Jason under its own saffron wing and crowed, at the head of a full-page Sunday article:

VICIOUS EUROPEAN CONSPIRACY

HIDES DEATH OF GREATEST

AMERICAN BARD

I was piqued by their theft, but I was also amused to see the creation of a new mythical national here. "The Gem" had Jason sailing nine of the seven seas, and leading his crew to rescue a most unfortunate Christian maiden who had been kidnapped by the Turks— at Tangier! About the little matter of deserting his wife and son "The Gem" was absent-minded. According to them, Jason's weeping helpmate bade him, "Go where duty calls you," whereupon he kissed her, left her an agreeable fortune, and departed with banners and bands. But "The Gem's" masterpiece was the interview with Captain Abiathar Gould, whose conversational graces I have portrayed. In "The Gem" Captain Gould rhapsodizes:

We boys was a wild lot, sailing on them reckless ships. But Captain Jason Sanders was, well, sir, he was like a god to us. Not one of the crew would have dared, like he done, to spring overboard in a wintry blast to rescue the poor devils capsized in a dory, and yet he was so quiet and scholarly, always a-reading at his poetry books between watches. Oh, them was wonderful days on the barkantine Dancing Jig!

"The Gem" reporter must have taken down to Abiathar some of the "hootch" I failed to bring.

I was— to be honest, I was unacademically peeved. My hero was going out of my hands, and I wanted him back. I got him back. No one knew what had happened to Jason after he went to Greece, but I found out. With a friend in the European history department I searched all available records of Greek history in 1853-54. I had faith that the wild youngster would tear his way through the dryest pages of reports.

We discovered that in '54, when the French and English occupied Pineus, a mysterious Lieutenant Jasmin Sandec appeared as a popular hero in Athens. Do you see the resemblance? Jasmin Sandec— Jason Sanders. The romantic boy had colored his drab Yankee name. Nobody quite knew who Lieutenant Sandec was. He was not Greek, The French said he was English; the English said he was French. He led a foray of rollicking young Athenians against the French lines; he was captured and incontinently shot. After his death an American sea-captain identified Lieutenant Sandec as a cousin of his! He testified that Sandec was not his name, though what his name was the skipper did not declare. He ended his statement:

"My cousin comes from the town of Kennebunkport, and has by many been thought to be insane."

Need I point out how easily the Greek scribe confused Kennebunkport with Kennuit? As easily as the miserable cousinly captain confused insanity with genius.

Do you see the picture of Jason's death? Was it not an end more fitting than molding away in a sail-loft, or becoming a grocer, a parson, an associate professor? The Grecian afternoon, sun glaring on whitewashed wall, the wine-dark sea, the marble-studded hills of Sappho, and a youth, perhaps in a crazy uniform, French shako and crimson British coat, Cape Cod breeches, and Grecian boots, lounging dreamily, not quite understanding; a line of soldiers with long muskets; a volley, and that fiery flesh united to kindred dust from the bright body of Helen and the thews of Ajax.

The report of these facts about Jason's fate I gave m my second article in ''The Gonfalon." By this time people were everywhere discussing Jason. It was time for my book.

Briefly, it was a year's work. It contained all his writing and the lives of three generations of Sanderses. It had a reasonable success, and it made of Jason's notoriety a solid fame. So, in 1919, sixty-five years after his death, he began to live.

An enterprising company published his picture in a large carbon print which appeared on school-room walls beside portraits of Longfellow, Lowell, and Washington. So veritably was he living that I saw him! In New York, at a pageant representing the great men of America, he was enacted by a clever young man made up to the life, and shown as talking to Poe. That, of course, was inaccurate. Then he appeared as a character in a novel; he was condescendingly mentioned by a celebrated visiting English poet; his death was made the subject of a painting; a motion-picture person inquired as to the possibilities of "filming" him, and he was, in that surging tide of new living, suddenly murdered!

v

THE POISON which killed Jason the second time was in a letter to "The Gonfalon" from Whitney A, Edgerton, Ph.D., adjunct professor of English literature in Melanchthon College,

Though I had never met Edgerton, we were old combatants. The dislike had started with my stern, but just, review of his edition of Herrick. Edgerton had been the only man who had dared to sneer at Jason. In a previous letter in "The Gonfalon" he had hinted that Jason had stolen his imagery from Chinese lyrics, a pretty notion, since Jason probably never knew that the Chinese had any literature save laundry checks. But now I quote his letter:

I have seen reproductions of a very bad painting called "The Death of Jason Sanders," portraying that admirable young person as being shot in Greece. It happens that Mr. Sanders was not shot in Greece, He deserved to be, but he wasn't. Jason Sanders was not Jasmin Sandec. The changing of his own honest name to such sugar-candy was the sort of thing he would have done. But he didn't do it. What kept Jason from heroically dying in Greece in 1851 was the misfortune that from December, '53, to April, '58, he was doing time in the Delaware State Penitentiary for the proved crimes of arson and assault with intent to kill. His poetic cell in Delaware was the nearest he ever, in his entire life, came to Greece.

Yours, etc, Whitney Edgerton.

The editor of "The Gonfalon" telegraphed me the contents of the letter just too late for me to prevent its printing, and one hour later I was bound for Delaware, forgetting, I am afraid, that Quinta had invited me to dinner. I knew that I would "show up," as my students say, this Edgerton,

The warden of the penitentiary was interested. He helped me. He brought out old registers. We were thorough. We were too thorough. We read that Jason Sanders of Kennuit, Massachusetts, married, profession sail-maker, was committed to the penitentiary in December, 1853, for arson and murderous assault, and that he was incarcerated for over four years.

In the Wilmington library, in the files of a newspaper long defunct, I found an item dated, November, 1853:

What appears to have been a piece of wretched scoundrelism was perpetrated at the house of Mr. Palatinus, a highly esteemed farmer residing near Christiansburg, last Thursday. Mr. Palatinus gave food and shelter to a tramp calling himself Sanders, in return for some slight labor. The second evening the fellow found some spirits concealed in the barn, became intoxicated, demanded money from Mr. Palatinus, struck him, cast the lamp upon the floor, and set fire to the dwelling. He has been arrested and is held for trial. He is believed to have been a sailor on Cape Cod. Where are our officers of the peace that such dangerous criminals should roam unapprehended?

I did not make any especial haste to communicate my discoveries.

It was a New York "Gem" correspondent who did that. His account was copied rather widely.

The pictures of Jason were taken down from school-room walls.

I returned to the university, I was sustained only by Quinta's faith. As she sat by the fire, chin resting against fragile fingers, she asserted, "Perhaps there has been some mistake." That inspired me. I left her, too hastily, it may be, but she is ever one to understand and forgive. I fled to my rooms, stopping only to telephone to my friend of the history department. He assured me that there was a common Greek family name, Palatainos. You will note its resemblance to Palatinus! At this I jiggled in the drug-store telephone- booth and joyfully beat on the resounding walls, and looked out to see one of my own students, purchasing a bar of chocolate, indecently grinning at me, I sought to stalk out, but I could not quiet my rejoicing feet.

I began my new letter to "The Gonfalon" at ten in the evening. I finished it at five of a cold morning, I remember myself as prowling through the room with no dignity, balancing myself ridiculously on the brass bar at the foot of my bed, beating my desk with my fists, lighting and hurling down cigarettes.

In my letter I pointed out— I virtually proved— that the Delaware farmer's name was not Palatinus, but Palatainos. He was a Greek. He could not have sheltered Jason "in return for some slight labor," because this was December, when farm-work was slackest. No, this Palatainos was an agent of the Greek revolutionists. Jason was sent from New York to see him. Can you not visualize it?

The ardent youngster arrives; is willing to take from Palatainos any orders, however desperate.  And he finds that Palatainos is a traitor, is in the pay of the Turks! Sitting in the kitchen, by a fireplace of whitewashed bricks, Palatainos leers upon the horrified Yankee lad with the poisonous sophistication of an international spy. He bids Jason spy upon the Greeks in America.  Staggered, Jason goes feebly up to bed. All next day he resists the traitor's beguilement . Palatainos plies him with brandy. The poet sits brooding; suddenly he springs up, righteously attacks Palatainos, the lamp is upset, the house partly burned, and Jason, a stranger and friendless, is arrested by the besotted country constable. He was, in prison, as truly a martyr to freedom as if he had veritably been shot in a tender-colored Grecian afternoon!

My reconstruction of the history was— though now I was so distressed that I could take but little pride in it— much quoted from "The Gonfalon" not only in America, but abroad.

The "Mercure de France" mentioned it, inexcusably misspelling my name. I turned to the tracing of Jason's history after his release from the penitentiary, since now I did not know when and where he actually had died. I was making plans when there appeared another letter from Whitney Edgerton, the secret assassin of Jason, He snarled that Palatinus's name was not Palatainos. It was Palatinus. He was not a Greek; he was a Swede.

I wrote to Edgerton, demanded his proofs, his sources for all this information. He did not answer. He answered none of my half-dozen letters.

"The Gonfalon" announced that it had been deceived in regard to Jason, that it would publish nothing more about him. So for the third time Jason Sanders was killed, and this time he seemed likely to remain dead.

Shaky, impoverished by my explorations on Cape Cod and in Delaware, warned by the dean that I should do well to stick to my teaching and cease "these unfortunate attempts to gain notoriety," I slunk into quiet class work, seemingly defeated. Yet all the while I longed to know when and where Jason really had died. Might he not have served valorously in the American Civil War? But how was I to know? Then came my most extraordinary adventure in the service of Jason Sanders.

vi

I WENT to Quinta's for tea. I have wondered sometimes if Quinta may not have become a bit weary of my speculations about Jason, I did not mean to bore her; I tried not to: but I could think of nothing else, and she alone was patient with me,

"How— how— how can I force Edgerton to tell all he knows?" I said with a sigh.

"Go see him!" Quinta was impatient.

"Why, you know I can't afford to, with all my savings gone, and Edgerton way out in Nebraska."

She shocked me by quitting the room. She came back holding out a check— for three hundred dollars! The Gateses are wealthy, but naturally I could not take this, I shook my head.

"Please!" she said sharply. "Let's get it over."

I was suddenly hopeful.

"Then you do believe in Jason? I'd thought you were almost indifferent to him."

"I—" It flared out, that sound. She went on compactly: "Let's not talk about it, please. Now tell me, didn't you think they made a mistake at the symphony—"

I had a not at all pleasant conference with the dean before I took my train for Melanchthon, Nebraska. I had a plan. This was toward the end of the academic year 1919-20. I would pretend to be a chap who, after working in offices, that sort of thing, desired to begin graduate work in English, but had first to make up for the courses he had forgotten since college. I wanted the celebrated Dr. Whitney Edgerton to tutor me. I would lure him into boarding me at his house; a young professor like Edgerton would be able to use the money. Once dwelling there, it would be easy enough to search his study, to find what histories or letters had furnished his secret knowledge of Jason.

I adopted as nom de guerre the name Smith. That was, perhaps, rather ingenious, since it is a common name, and therefore unlikely to arouse attention. It was all reasonable, and should have been easy.

But when, in Melanchthon, I was directed to Edgerton's house, I perceived that, instead of being a poor devil, he was uncomfortably rich. His was a monstrous Georgian house, all white columns and dormers and iron window-railings and brick terrace and formal gardens. Reluctantly, I gained entrance, and addressed myself to Edgerton.

He was a square-built, pompous, rimless-eye-glassed, youngish man. His study was luxurious, with velvet curtains at the windows, with a vast desk, with built-in cases containing books I yearned to possess; a vast apartment, all white and tender blue, against which my two patchy rooms in Hendrik Hall seemed beggary. I had expected to have to conceal hatred, but instead I was embarrassed. Yet by the gods it was I, the shabby scholar, who had created Jason, and this silken, sulky dilettante who without reason had stabbed him!

While I peeped about, I was telling Edgerton, perhaps less deftly than I had planned, of my desire to be tutored.

He answered:

"You 're very complimentary, I'm sure, but I 'm afraid it 's impossible. I'll recommend you to some one— By the way, what was your college?"

Heaven knows how it popped into my head, but I recalled an obscure and provincial school, Titus College, of which I knew nothing.

He lightened.

"Oh, really? Did you know I had my first instructorship in Titus? Haven't had any news from there for years. How is President Dolson, and Mrs. Siebel? Oh, and how is dear old Cassaworthy?"

May the trustees of Titus College forgive me! I had President Dolson sick of a fever, and Cassaworthy— professor, janitor, village undertaker, or whatever he was— taking to golf. As for Mrs. Siebel, she'd given me a cup of tea only a few months ago. Edgerton seemed astonished. I have often wondered whether Mrs. Siebel would actually be most likely to serve tea, gin, or vitriol.

Edgerton got rid of me. He amiably kicked me out. He smiled, gave me the name of a "suitable tutor," mesmerized me toward the door, and did not invite me to return. I sat on a bench in the Melanchthon station. Apparently I had come from the Atlantic seaboard to Nebraska to sit on this broken bench and watch an undesirable citizen spit at a box of sawdust.

I spent the night at a not agreeable tavern or hotel, and next day I again called on Edgerton. I had surmised that he would be bored by the sight of me. He was. I begged him to permit me to look over his library. Impatiently, he left me alone, hinting, "When you go out, be sure and close the front door."

With the chance of some one entering, it would not have been safe to scurry through his desk and his ingenious cabinets in search of data regarding Jason. But while I stood apparently reading, with a pen-knife I so loosened the screws in a window-catch that the window could be thrust up from outside,

I was going to burglarize the study.

That night, somewhat after twelve, I left my room in the hotel, yawned about the office, pretended to glance at the ragged magazines, sighed to the drowsy night clerk, "I think I'll have some fresh air before I retire," and sauntered out. In my inner pocket were a screw-driver and a small electric torch which I had that afternoon purchased at a hardware shop . I knew from the fiction into which I had sometimes dipped that burglars find these torches and screw-drivers, or "jimmies," of value in their work.

I endeavored, as I stole about the streets, to assume an expression of ferocity, to intimidate whoever might endeavor to interrupt me. For this purpose I placed my spectacles in my pocket and disarrayed my bow-tie.

I was, perhaps, thrown off my normal balance. For the good name of Jason Sanders I would risk all of serene repute that had been precious to me. So I, who had been a lecturer to respectful students, edged beneath the cottonwoods, slipped across a lawn, crawled over a wire fence, and stood in the garden of Whitney Edgerton. It was fenced and walled on all sides save toward the street. That way, then, I should have to run in case of eruption— out into the illumination of a street lamp. I might be very prettily trapped. Suddenly I was a-tremble, utterly incredulous that I should be here. I couldn't do it.

I was menaced from every side. Wasn't that some one peering from an upper window of the house? Didn't a curtain move in the study? What was that creak behind me? I, who had never in my life spoken to a policeman save to ask a direction, had thrust myself in here, an intruder, to be treated like a common vagrant, to be shamed and roughly handled. As I grudgingly swayed toward the study windows I was uneasy before imaginary eyes. I do not remember a fear of being shot. It was something vaguer and more enfeebling: it was the staring disapproval of all my civilization, schools, churches, banks, the courts, and Quinta. But I came to the central window of the study, the window whose catch I had loosened.

I couldn't do it.

It had seemed so easy in fiction; but crawl in there? Into the darkness? Face the unknown? Shin over the sill like a freshman? Sneak and pilfer like a mucker?

I touched the window; I think I tried to push it up. It was beyond my strength.

Disgust galvanized me. I to thieve from the thief who had slain Jason Sanders? Never! I had a right to know his information; I had a right. By heavens! I 'd shake it out of him; I 'd face, beat, kill that snobbish hound, I remember running about the corner of the house, jabbing the button of the bell, bumping the door panels with sore palms.

A light, and Edgerton' s voice:

"What is it? What is it?"

"Quick! A man hurt! Motor accident!" I bellowed.

He opened the door. I was on him, pushing him back into the hall, demanding.

"I want everything you have about Jason Sanders!" I noticed then that he had a revolver. I am afraid I hurt his wrist. Somewhat after, when I had placed him in a chair in the study, I said: "Where did you get your data? And where did Sanders die?"

"You must be this idiot that 's been responsible for the Sanders folderol," he was gasping.

"Will you be so good as to listen? I am going to kill you unless you give me what I wish, and immediately!"

"Wh-what! See here."

I don't remember. It is curious; my head aches when I try to recall that part, I think I must have struck him, yet that seems strange, for certainly he was larger than I and better fed. But I can hear him piping:

"This is an outrage! You're insane! But if you insist, I had all my facts about Sanders from Peter Williams, a clergyman out in Yancey, Colorado."

"Let me see. your letters from him."

"Is that necessary?"

"Do you think I'd trust you?"

"Well, I have only one letter here. The others are in my safe-deposit vault. Williams first wrote to me when he read my letter criticizing your articles. He has given me a good many details. He apparently has some reason to hate the memory of Sanders. Here 's his latest epistle, some more facts about Sanders's delightful poetic career."

One glance showed me that this was indeed the case. The sheet which Edgerton handed me had inartistically printed at the top, "Rev. Peter F, Williams, Renewalist Brotherhood Congregation, Yancey, Colo.," and one sentence was, "Before this, Sanders's treatment of women in Kennuit was disgraceful— can't be too strongly condem'd."

I had the serpent of whose venom Edgerton was but the bearer!

I backed out, left Edgerton. He said a silly thing, which shows that he was at least as flustered as I was:

"Good-by, Lieutenant Sanders!"

I was certain that he would have me apprehended if I returned to my hotel, even for so long as would be needed to gather my effects , Instantly, I decided to abandon my luggage, hasten out of town. Fortunately, I had with me neither my other suit nor the fitted bag which Quinta had given me. Traversing only side streets, I sped out of town by the railway track. Then I was glad of the pocket flash-light, which, outside the study window, had seemed absurd. I sat on the railway embankment. I can still feel the grittiness of sharp-cornered cinders and cracked rock, still see the soggy pile of rotting logs beside the embankment upon which my flash-light cast a milky beam as I switched it on in order that I might study Peter Williams's letter.

Already I had a clue.

Peter Williams was also the name of that son of the Reverend Abner Williams of Kennuit whom Jason had often trounced. I wished that he had trounced him oftener and more roundly. The Reverend Abner had hurled Jason out of his church. All this would naturally institute a feud between Jason and the Williamses. There might have been additional causes, perchance rivalry for a girl

Well! The Reverend Peter Williams's letter to Edgerton was typewritten. That modernity would indicate, in a village parson, a man not over forty years old. Was it not logical to guess that Peter Williams of Colorado was the grandson of Peter Williams of Kennuit, and that he had utilized information long possessed by the whole tribe of the Williamses to destroy his grandsire's enemy, Jason?

By dawn I was on a way-train; in the afternoon of the next day I was in Yancey, Colorado.

I found the Renewalist parsonage, residence of the Reverend Peter Williams, to be a small, dun-colored cottage on a hill-crest. I strode thither, vigorous with rage, f knocked. I faced a blank Teutonic maid. I demanded to see Mr. Williams. I was admitted to his rustic study. I saw a man not of forty, as his letter had suggested, but astoundingly old, an ancient dominie, as sturdy as a bison, with a bursting immensity of white beard. He was sitting in a hollowed rocker by the stove.

"Well?" said he.

"Is this the Reverend Peter Williams?"

"It be."

"May I sit down?"

"You can."

I sat calmly in a small, mean chair.

My rage was sated by perceiving that I had to deal not with any grandson of Jason's foe, but with the actual original Peter Williams himself. I was beholding one who had been honored by the fists of Jason Sanders. He was too precious a serpent not to draw him with cunning. Filially, I pursued:

"I was told— I once spent a summer on Cape Cod—"

"Who are you, young man?"

"Smith, William Smith. I am a— traveling salesman."

"Well, well, let 's have it."

"I was told you came from the Cape— from Kennuit."

"Who told ye?"

"Really, I can't seem for the moment to remember."

"Well, what of it?"

"I just wondered if you weren't the son of the Reverend Abner Williams who used to be pastor in Kennuit way back about 1840."

"I be. I am the son in the spirit of that man of holiness."

Cautiously, oh, so cautiously, simulating veneration, I hinted;

"Then you must have known this fellow I've been reading about; this Jason— what was it?— Sandwich?"

"Jason Sanders. Yes, sir, I knew him well, too well. A viler wretch never lived. A wine-bibber, a man of wrath, blind to the inner grace, he was all that I seek to destroy."

Williams's voice loomed like a cathedral service. I hated him, yet I was impressed. I ventured;

"One thing I've often wondered. They say this Sanders fellow didn't really die in Greece. I wonder when and where he did die."

The old man was laughing; he was wrinkling his eyes at me; he was shaking.

"You're daft, but you have grit. I know who you be. Edgerton telegraphed me you were coming. So you like Jason, eh?"

"I do."

"I tell you he was a thief, a drunkard—"

"And I tell you he was a genius!"

"You tell me! Huh!"

"See here, what reason has there been for your dogging Jason? It wasn't just your boyish fighting and — how did you find out what became of him after he left Kennuit?"

The old man looked at me as though I were a bug. He answered slowly, with a drawl maddening to my impatience— impatience so whelming now that my spine was cold, my abdomen constricted.

"I know it because in his prison,—" he stopped, yawned, rubbed his jaw,— "in his cell I wrestled with the evil spirit in him."

"You won?"

"I did."

"But after that— when did he die?" I asked.

"He didn't."

"You mean Jason is alive now, sixty years after—"

"He's ninety-five years old. You see, I'm— I was till I rechristened myself Williams— I'm Jason Sanders," he replied.

Then for two thousand miles, by village street and way-train and limited, sitting unmoving in berths and silent in smoking-rooms, I fled to the cool solace of Quinta Gates.

____________________

16: The Lost Phoebe

Theodore Dreiser

1871-1945

The Century Magazine April 1916

THEY lived together in a part of the country which was not so prosperous as it had once been, about three miles from one of those small towns that, instead of increasing in population, is steadily decreasing. The territory was not very thickly settled; perhaps a house every other mile or so, with large areas of corn and wheat-land and fallow fields that at odd seasons had been sown to timothy and clover. Their particular house was part log and part frame, the log portion being the old original home of Henry's grandfather. The new portion, of now rain-beaten, time-worn slabs, through which the wind squeaked in the chinks at times, and which several overshadowing elms and a butternut-tree made picturesque and reminiscently pathetic, but a little damp, was erected by Henry when he was twenty-one and just married.

That was forty-eight years before. The furniture inside, like the house outside, was old and mildewy and reminiscent of an earlier day. You have seen the whatnot of cherry wood, perhaps, with spiral legs and fluted top. It was there. The old-fashioned heavy-posted bed, with ball-like protuberances and deep curving incisions, was there also, a sadly alienated descendant of an early Jacobean ancestor. The bureau was of cherry also, high and wide and solidly built, but faded-looking, and with a musty odor. The rag carpet that underlay all these sturdy examples of enduring furniture was a weak, faded, lead-and-pink-colored affair woven by Phoebe Ann's own hands when she was fifteen years younger than she was when she died. The creaky wooden loom on which it had been done now stood like a dusty, bony skeleton, along with a broken rocking-chair, a worm-eaten clothes-press,— Heaven knows how old,— a lime-stained bench that had once been used to keep flowers on outside the door, and other decrepit factors of house-hold utility, in an east room that was a lean-to against this so-called main portion. All sorts of broken-down furniture were about this place: an antiquated clothes-horse, cracked in two of its ribs ; a broken mirror in an old cherry frame, which had fallen from a nail and cracked itself three days before their youngest son, Jerry, died; an extension hat-rack, which once had had porcelain knobs on the ends of its pegs ; and a sewing-machine, long since outdone in its clumsy mechanism by rivals of a newer generation.

The orchard to the east of the house was full of gnarled old apple-trees, worm-eaten as to trunks and branches, and fully ornamented with green and white lichens, so that it had a sad, greenish-white, silvery effect in moonlight. The low outhouses, which had once housed chickens, a horse or two, a cow, and several pigs, were covered with patches of moss as to their roof, and the sides had been free of paint for so long that they were blackish gray as to color, and a little spongy. The picket-fence in front, with its gate squeaky and askew, and the side fences of the stake-and-rider type were in an equally run-down condition. As a matter of fact, they had aged synchronously with the persons who lived here, old Henry Reifsneider and his wife Phoebe Ann.

They had lived here, these two, ever since their marriage, forty-eight years before, and Henry had lived here before that from his childhood up. His father and mother, well along in years when he was a boy, had invited him to bring his wife here when he had first fallen in love and decided to marry; and he had done so. His father and mother were the companions of him and his wife for ten years after they were married, when both died; and then Henry and Phoebe were left with their five children growing lustily apace. But all sorts of things had happened since then. Of the seven children, all told, that had been born to them, three had died; one girl had gone to Kansas; one boy had gone to Sioux Falls, and never been heard of after; another boy had gone to Washington; and the last girl lived five counties away in the same State, but was so burdened with cares of her own that she rarely gave them a thought. Time and a commonplace home life that had never been attractive had weaned them thoroughly, so that, wherever they were, they gave little thought as to how it might be with their father and mother.

Old Henry Reifsneider and his wife Phoebe were a loving couple. You perhaps know how it is with simple natures that fasten themselves like lichens on the stones of circumstance and weather their days to a crumbling conclusion. The great world sounds widely, but it has no call for them. They have no soaring intellect. The orchard, the meadow, the corn-field, the pig-pen, and the chicken-lot measure the range of their human activities. When the wheat is headed it is reaped and threshed; when the corn is browned and frosted it is cut and shocked; when the timothy is in full head it is cut, and the hay-cock erected. After that comes winter, with the hauling of grain to market, the sawing and splitting of wood, the simple chores of fire-building, meal-getting, occasional repairing, and visiting. Beyond these and the changes of weather— the snows, the rains, and the fair days — there are no immediate, significant things. All the rest of life is a far-off, clamorous phantasmagoria, flickering like Northern lights in the night, and sounding as faintly as cow-bells tinkling in the distance.

Old Henry and his wife Phoebe were as fond of each other as it is possible for old people to be who have nothing else in this life to be fond of. He was a thin old man, seventy when she died, a queer, crotchety person with coarse gray-black hair and beard, quite straggly and unkempt. He looked at you out of dull, fishy, watery eyes that had deep-brown crow's-feet at the sides. His clothes, like the clothes of many farmers, were aged and angular and baggy, standing out at the pockets, not fitting about the neck, protuberant and worn at elbow and knee. Phoebe Ann was thin and shapeless, a very umbrella of a woman, clad in shabby black, and with a black bonnet for her best wear. As time had passed, and they had only themselves to look after, their movements had become slower and slower, their activities fewer and fewer. The annual keep of pigs had been reduced from five to one grunting porker, and the single horse which Henry now retained was a sleepy animal, not over-nourished and not very clean. The chickens, of which formerly there was a large flock, had almost disappeared, owing to ferrets, foxes, and the lack of proper care, which produces disease. The former healthy garden was now a straggling memory of itself, and the vines and flower-beds that formerly ornamented the windows and door-yard had now become choking thickets. Yet these two lived together in peace and sympathy, only that now and then old Henry would become unduly cranky, complaining almost invariably that something had been neglected or mislaid which was of no importance at all.

"Phoebe, where's my corn-knife? You ain't never minded to let my things alone no more."

"Now you hush, Henry," his wife would caution him in a cracked and squeaky voice. " If you don't, I'll leave yuh. I'll git up and walk out of here some day, and then where would y' be? Y' ain't got anybody but me to look after yuh, so yuh just behave yourself."

Old Henry, who knew that his wife would never leave him in any circumstances, used to speculate at times as to what he would do if she were to die. That was the one leaving that he really feared. As he climbed on the chair at night to wind the old, long-pendulumed, double-weighted clock, or went finally to the front and the back door to see that they were safely shut in, it was a comfort to know that Phoebe was properly ensconced on her side of the bed, and that if he stirred restlessly in the night, she would be there to ask what he wanted.

"Now, Henry, do lie still! You're as restless as a chicken."

"Well, I can't sleep, Phoebe."

"Well, yuh needn't roll so, anyhow. You can let me sleep."

This usually reduced him to a state of somnolent ease. If she wanted a pail of water, it was a grumbling pleasure for him to get it; and if she did rise first to build the fires, he saw that the wood was cut and placed within easy reach. They divided this simple world nicely between them.

As the years had gone on, fewer and fewer people had called. They were well known for a distance of as much as ten square miles as old Mr. and Mrs. Reifsneider, honest, moderately Christian, but too old to be really interesting any longer. Now and then some old friend stopped with a pie or cake or a roasted chicken or duck, or merely to see that they were well; even these kindly minded visits were no longer frequent.

One day in the early spring of her sixty-fourth year Mrs. Reifsneider took sick, and from a low fever passed into some indefinable ailment which, because of her age, was no longer curable. Old Henry drove to Swinnerton, the neighboring town, and procured a doctor. Some friends called, and the immediate care of her was taken off his hands. Then one chill spring night she died, and old Henry, in a fog of sorrow and uncertainty, followed her body to the nearest graveyard, an unattractive space, with a few pines growing in it. It was suggested to him at once by one friend and another that he come to stay with them awhile, or that he seek his daughter in Pemberton County. She had been notified. He was so old, and so fixed in his notions, however, and so accustomed to the exact surroundings he had known all his days, that he could not think of leaving. He wanted to remain near where they had put his Phoebe; and the fact that he would have to live alone did not trouble him in the least

"I kin make a shift for myself," he continually announced to old Dr. Morrow, who had attended his wife in this case. " I kin cook a little, and, besides, I don't take much more 'n coffee an' bread in the mornin's. I'll get along now well enough. You just let me be." And after many pleadings and proffers of advice, with supplies of coffee and bacon and baked bread duly offered and accepted, he was left to himself. For a while he sat idly outside his door brooding in the spring sun. He tried to revive his interest in farming, and to keep himself busy and free from thought by looking after the fields, which of late had been much neglected. It was a gloomy thing to come in of an evening or in the afternoon and find no shadow of Phoebe where everything suggested her. By degrees he put a few of her things away. He sat beside his lamp and read in the papers that were left him occasionally or in a Bible that he had neglected for years, but he could get little solace from these things. Mostly he held his hand over his mouth and looked at the floor as he sat and thought of what had become of her, and how soon he himself would die. He made a great business of making his coffee in the morning and frying himself a little bacon at night; but his appetite was gone. This shell in which he had been housed so long seemed vacant, and its shadows were suggestive of immedicable griefs. So he lived quite dolefully for five long weeks, and then a change began.

It was one night, after he had looked after the front and the back door, wound the clock, blown out the lamp, and gone through all the selfsame motions that he had indulged in for years, that he went to bed not so much to sleep as to think. It was a moonlight night. The green-lichen-covered orchard was a silvery affair, sweetly spectral. The moon shone through the east windows, throwing the pattern of the panes on the wooden floor, and making the old furniture, to which he was accustomed, stand out dimly in the gloom. As usual he had been thinking of Phoebe and the years when they had been young together, and of the children who had gone, and the poor shift he was making of his present days. The house was coming to be in a very bad state indeed. The bed-clothes were in disorder and not clean, for he made a wretched shift of washing. It was a terror to him. He was getting into that brooding state when he would accept anything rather than exert himself. He preferred to pace slowly to and fro or to sit and think.

By twelve o'clock he was asleep, however, and by two o'clock he had waked again. The moon by this time had shifted to a position on the western side of the house, and it now shone in through the windows of the living-room and those of the kitchen beyond. A certain combination of furniture— a chair near a table, with his coat on it, the half-open kitchen door casting a shadow, and the position of a lamp near a paper— gave him an exact representation of Phoebe leaning over the table as he had often seen her do in life. He looked at her fixedly in the feeble half-light, his old hair tingling oddly at the roots, and then he sat up. The figure did not move. He put his thin legs out of the bed and sat looking at her, wondering if this could really be Phoebe. They had talked of ghosts often in their lifetime, of apparitions and omens; but they had never agreed that such things could be. It had never been a part of his wife's creed that she could have a spirit that could return to walk the earth. Her after-world was quite a different affair, a vague heaven, no less, from which the righteous did not trouble to return. Yet here she was now, bending over the table in her black skirt and gray shawl, her pale profile outlined against the moonlight.

"Phoebe," called old Henry, thrilling from head to toe and putting out one bony hand, "have you come back?"

The figure did not stir, and he arose and walked uncertainly to the door, looking at it fixedly the while. As he drew near, however, the apparition resolved itself into its primal content— his old coat over the high-backed chair, the lamp by the paper, the half-open door.

"Well," he said to himself, his mouth open, "I thought shore I saw her." And he ran his hand strangely and vaguely through his hair, the while his nervous tension relaxed.

Another night, because of this first illusion, and because his mind was now constantly on her and he was old, he looked out of the window that was nearest his bed and commanded hen-coop and pig-pen and a part of the wagon-shed, and there, a faint mist exuding from the damp of the ground, he thought he saw her again. It was a little wisp of mist, one of those faint exhalations of the earth that rise in a cool night after a warm day, and flicker like small white cypresses of fog before they disappear. It had been a custom of hers to cross the lot from her kitchen door to the pig-pen to throw in any scrap that was left from her cooking, and here she was again. He sat up and watched it strangely, doubtfully, because of his previous experience, but inclined, because of the nervous titillation that passed over his body, to believe that spirits really were, and that Phoebe, who would be concerned because of his lonely state, must be thinking about him, and hence returning. It would be within the province of her charity so to do, and like her loving interest in him. He quivered and watched it eagerly ; but, a faint breath of air stirring, it wound away toward the fence and disappeared.

A third night, as he was actually dreaming, some ten days later, she came to his bedside and put her hand on his head.

"Poor Henry!" she said. "It 's too bad."

He roused out of his sleep, actually to see her, he thought, moving from his bed-room into the one living-room, her figure a shadowy mass of black. The weak straining of his eyes caused little points of light to flicker about the outlines of her form. He arose, greatly astonished, walked the floor in the cool room, convinced that Phoebe was coming back to him. If he only thought sufficiently, if he made it perfectly clear by his feeling that he needed her greatly, she would come back, this kindly wife, and tell him what to do. She would perhaps be with him much of the time, in the night, anyhow; and that would make this lonely state endurable.

In age and with the feeble it is not such a far cry from the subtleties of illusion to actual hallucination, and in due time this transition was made for Henry. Night after night he waited, expecting her return. Once in his weird mood he thought he saw a pale light moving about the room, and another time he thought he saw her walking in the orchard after dark. It was one morning when the details of his lonely state were virtually unendurable that he woke with the thought that she was not dead. How he had arrived at this conclusion it is hard to say. His mind had gone. In its place was a fixed illusion. He and Phoebe had had a senseless quarrel. He had reproached her for not leaving his pipe where he was accustomed to find it, and she had left. It was an aberrated fulfilment of her old jesting threat that if he did not behave himself she would leave him.

"I guess I could find yuh agin," he had always said. But her cackling threat had always been:

"Yuh 'll not find me if I ever leave yuh. I guess I kin git some place where yuh can't find me."

This morning when he arose he did not think to build the fire in the customary way or to grind his coffee and cut his bread, as was his wont, but solely to meditate as to where he should search for her and how he should induce her to come back. Recently the one horse had been dispensed with because he found it cumbersome and beyond his needs. He took down his soft crush hat after he had dressed himself, a new glint of interest and determination in his eye, and taking his black crook cane from behind the door, where he had always placed it, started out briskly to look for her among the distant neighbors that he knew. His old shoes clumped briskly in the dust as he walked, and his gray-black locks, now grown rather long, straggled out in a dramatic fringe or halo from under his hat. His short coat stirred busily as he walked, and his hands and face were peaked and pale.

"Why, hello, Henry! Where 're yuh goin' this mornin'?" inquired Farmer Dodge, who, hauling a load of wheat to market, encountered him on the public road. He had not seen the aged farmer in weeks, not since his wife's death, and he wondered now, seeing him looking so spry.

"Yuh ain't seen Phoebe, have yuh?" inquired the old man, looking up quizzically.

"Phoebe who?" inquired Farmer Dodge, not for the moment connecting the name with Henry's dead wife.

"Why, my wife Phoebe, o' course. Who do yuh s'pose I mean?" He stared up with a pathetic sharpness of glance from under his shaggy, gray eyebrows.

"Wall,  'll swan, Henry, yuh ain't jokin', are yuh?" said the solid Dodge, a pursy man, with a smooth, hard, red face. "It can't be your wife you're talkin' about. She's dead."

"Dead! Shucks!" retorted the demented Reifsneider. "She left me early this mornin', while I was sleepin'. She allus got up to build the fire, but she 's gone now. We had a little spat last night, an' I guess that 's the reason. But I guess I kin find her. She 's gone over to Matilda Race's; that 's where she 's gone."

He started briskly up the road, leaving the amazed Dodge to stare in wonder after him.

"Well, I 'll be switched ! " he said aloud to himself. "He 's clean out 'n his head. That poor old feller's been livin' down there till he 's gone mad. I 'll have to notify the authorities." And he flicked his whip with great enthusiasm. "Geddap!" he said, and was off.

Reifsneider met no one else in this poorly populated region until he reached the whitewashed fence of Matilda Race and her husband three miles away. He had passed several other houses en route, but these not being within the range of his illusion were not considered. His wife, who had known Matilda well, must be here. He opened the picket-gate which guarded the walk, and stamped briskly up to the door.

"Why, Mr. Reifsneider," exclaimed old Matilda herself, a stout woman, looking out of the door in answer to his knock, "what brings yuh here this mornin'?"

"Is Phoebe here?" he demanded eagerly.

"Phoebe who? What Phoebe?" replied Mrs. Race, curious as to this sudden development of energy on his part.

"Why, my Phoebe, o' course. My wife Phoebe. Who do yuh s'pose ? Ain't she here now?"

"Lawsy me!" exclaimed Mrs. Race, opening her mouth. " Yuh pore man! So you're clean out'n your mind. Now yuh come right in and sit down. I 'll git yuh a cup o' coffee. O' course your wife ain't here; but yuh come in an' sit down. I'll find her fer yuh after a while. I know where she is."

The old farmer's eyes softened, and he entered. He was a thin, pantalooned, patriarchal specimen, and he took off his hat and laid it on his knees quite softly and mildly.

"We had a quarrel last night, and she left me," he volunteered.

"Laws! laws!" sighed Mrs. Race, there being no one present with whom to share her astonishment as she went to her kitchen. "The pore man! Now somebody 's got to look after him. He can't be allowed to run around the country this way lookin' for his dead wife. It's turrible."

She boiled him a pot of coffee and brought in some of her new-baked bread and fresh butter. She set out some of her best jam and put a couple of eggs to boil, lying whole-heartedly the while.

"Now yuh stay right here, Uncle Henry, until Jake comes in, and I'll send him to look for Phoebe. I think it 's more than likely she 's over to Swinnerton with some o' her friends. Anyhow, we'll find out. Now yuh just drink this coffee an' eat this bread. Yuh must be tired. Yuh've had a long walk this mornin'." Her idea was to take counsel with Jake, "her man," and perhaps have him notify the authorities.

She bustled about, meditating on the uncertainties of life, while old Reifsneider thrummed on the rim of his hat with his pale fingers and later ate abstractedly of what she offered. His mind was on his wife, however, and since she was not here, it wandered vaguely away to a family by the name of Murray, miles away in another direction. He decided after a time that he would not wait for Jake Race to hunt his wife. He could not. He must be on, and urge her to come back.

"Well, I 'll be goin'," he said, getting up and looking strangely about him. "I guess she didn't come here. She went over to the Murrays'. I'll not wait any longer, Mrs. Race. There's a lot to do over to the house to-day." And out he marched, while Mrs. Race pleaded with him to stay. He took to the dusty road again in the warm spring sun, his cane striking the earth as he went.

It was two hours later that this pale figure of a man appeared in the Murrays' doorway, dusty, perspiring, eager. He had tramped all of five miles, and it was noon. An amazed husband and wife of sixty heard his strange query, and realized also that he was mad. They begged him to stay to dinner, intending to notify the authorities later and see what could be done ; but though he stayed to partake of a little something, he did not stay long, and was off again, to another distant farmhouse, his idea of many things to do and his need of Phoebe impelling him.

The process by which a character assumes the significance of being peculiar, weird, harmless, in such a community is often involute and pathetic. This day saw Reifsneider at other doors, eagerly asking his unnatural question, and leaving a trail of amazement, sympathy, and pity in his wake. Although the authorities were informed,— the county sheriff, no less,— it was not deemed advisable to take him into custody; for when those who knew old Henry, had known him for so long, reflected on the condition of the county insane asylum, a place, because of the poverty of the district, of staggering aberration and sickening environment, it was decided to let him remain at large; for, strange to relate, it was found on investigation that at night he returned to his lonesome domicile to find whether his wife had returned, and to brood there in loneliness until the morning. Who would lock up a thin, eager old man with long iron-gray hair and an attitude of kindly, innocent inquiry, particularly when he was well known for a past of only kindly servitude and reliability? Those who had known him best rather agreed that he should be allowed to roam at large. He could do no harm. There were many who were willing to help him as to food, old clothes, the odds and ends of his daily life — at least at first. His figure after a time became not so much a commonplace as an accepted curiosity, and the replies, "Why, no, Henry; I ain't seen her," or "No, Henry; she ain't been here today," more customary.

He was an odd figure in the sun and rain, on dusty roads and muddy ones, encountered occasionally in strange and unexpected places, pursuing his endless search. Under-nourishment, after a time, although the neighbors and those who knew his history gladly contributed from their store, affected his body ; for he walked much and ate little. The longer he roamed the public highway in this manner, the deeper became his strange hallucination ; and finding it harder and harder to return from his more and more distant pilgrimages, he finally took a few utensils from his home store and, making a
small package of them, carried them with him in order
that he might not be compelled to return. In an old tin coffee-pot of large size he placed a small tin cup, a knife, fork, and spoon, some salt and pepper, and to the outside of it, by a string forced through a pierced hole, he fastened a plate, which could be released, and which was his wood-land table. It was no trouble for him to secure the little food that he needed, and with a strange, almost religious dignity he had no hesitation in asking for that much. By degrees his hair became longer and longer, his once black hat became an earthen brown, and his clothes threadbare and dusty.

For all of a year he walked, and none knew how wide were his perambulations, nor how he survived the storms and cold. They could not see him, with homely rural understanding and forethought, sheltering himself in haycocks, or by the sides of cattle, whose warm bodies protected him from the cold and whose dull understandings were not opposed to his harmless presence. Overhanging rocks and trees kept him at times from the rain, and a friendly hay-loft or corn-crib was not above his humble consideration.

The involute progression of hallucination is strange. From asking at doors and being constantly rebuffed or denied, he finally came to the conclusion that although his Phoebe might not be in any of the houses at the doors of which he inquired, she might nevertheless be within the sound of his voice. And so, from patient inquiry, he began to call sad, occasional cries, that ever and anon waked the quiet landscapes and ragged hill regions, and set to echoing his thin "O-o-o Phoebe ! O-o-o Phoebe!" It had a pathetic, albeit insane, ring, and many a farmer or plowboy or country housewife came to know it even from afar and to say, "There goes old Reifsneider."

Another thing that puzzled him greatly after a time and after many hundreds of inquiries was, when he no longer had any particular dooryard in view and no special inquiry to make, which way to go. These cross-roads, which occasionally led in four or even six directions, came after a time to puzzle him. But to solve this knotty problem, which became more and more of a puzzle, there came to his aid another hallucination. Phoebe's spirit or some power of the air or wind or nature would tell him. If he stood at the center of the parting of the ways, closed his eyes, turned thrice about, and called, "O-o-o Phoebe!" twice, and then threw his cane straight before him, that would surely indicate which way to go for Phoebe, or one of these mystic powers would govern its direction and fall ! In whichever direction it went, even though, as was not infrequently the case, it took him back along the path he had already come, he was not so far gone in his mind but that he gave himself ample time to search before calling again, but that he had the strange feeling that sometime he would find her. There were hours when his feet were sore, and his limbs weary, when he would stop in the heat to wipe his faded brow, or in the cold to beat his arms. Sometimes, after throwing his cane, and finding it indicating the direction from which he had just come, he would shake his head wearily, and philosophically, as if contemplating the unbelievable or an untoward fate, and then start briskly off. His strange figure came finally to be known in the farthest reaches of three or four counties. Old Reifsneider was a pathetic character. His fame was wide.

Near a little town called Watersville, in Green County, perhaps four miles from that minor center of human activity, there was a place or precipice locally known as the Red Cliff, a sheer wall of red sandstone, perhaps a hundred feet high, which raised its sharp wall for half a mile or more above the fruitful corn-fields and orchards that lay beneath, and which was surmounted by a thick grove of trees. The slope that slowly led up to it from the opposite side was covered by a rank growth of beech, hickory, and ash, through which threaded a number of wagon-tracks crossing at various angles. In fair weather it had become old Reifsneider's habit, so inured was he by now to the open, to make his bed in some patch of trees of this character, to fry his bacon or boil his eggs at the foot of some tree, before laying himself down for the night. His was a light and inconsequential sleep. More often the moonlight, some sudden wind stirring in the trees, or a reconnoitering animal, would arouse him, and he would sit up and think, or pursue his quest in the moonlight or the dark, a strange, unnatural, half wild, half savage-looking, but utterly harmless, creature, calling at lonely road crossings, staring at dark and shuttered houses, and wondering where, where, Phoebe could really be.

That particular lull that comes in the systole-diastole of this earthly ball at two o'clock in the morning invariably aroused him, and though he might not go any farther, he would sit up and contemplate the dark or the stars, wondering. Sometimes in the strange processes of his mind he would fancy that he saw moving among the trees the figure of his lost wife, and then he would get up to follow, taking his utensils, always on a string, and his cane.

It was in the seventh year of these hopeless peregrinations, in the dawn of a similar springtime to that in which his wife had died, that he came at last one night to the vicinity of this little patch of woods that crowned the rise to the Red Cliff. His far-flung cane, used as a divining-rod at the last cross-roads, had brought him hither. He had walked many, many miles. It was after ten o'clock at night, and he was very weary. Long wandering and little eating had left him only a shadow of his former self. It was a question now not so much of physical strength, but of spiritual endurance that kept him up. He had scarcely eaten this day, and, now exhausted, set himself down in the dark to rest and possibly to sleep. Curiously, a strange suggestion of the presence of his wife surrounded him. It would not be long now, he counseled himself, although the long months had brought him nothing. He fell asleep after a time, his head on his knees. At midnight the moon began to rise, and at two in the morning, his wakeful hour, was a large silver disk shining through the trees to the east. He opened his eyes when the radiance became strong, making a silver pattern at his feet, and lighting the woods with strange lusters and silvery, shadowy forms. His old notion that his wife must be near to him occurred to him as it usually did on occasions of this kind, and he looked about him with a strange, speculative, anticipatory eye. What was it that moved in the distant shadows along the path by which he had entered, a pale, flickering will-o'-the-wisp that bobbed gracefully among the trees, and riveted his expectant gaze? Moonlight and shadows combined to give it a strange form and a strange reality, this fluttering of bog-fire or dancing of wandering fire-flies. Was it truly his lost Phoebe? By a circuitous route it passed about him, and in his fevered state he fancied that he could see the very eyes of her, not as she was when he last saw her in the black dress and shawl, but a strangely younger Phoebe now, the one whom he had known years before as a girl. Old Reifsneider got up. He had been expecting and dreaming of this expected hour all these days, and now, as he saw the feeble light dancing, he peered at it questioningly, one thin hand in his gray hair.

There came to him now for the first time in many years the full charm of her girlish figure as he had first known it in boyhood, the pleasing, sympathetic smile, the brown hair, the blue sash she had once worn about her waist, her gay, graceful movements. He walked around the base of the tree, straining with his eyes, forgetting for once his cane and his utensils, and following eagerly after. On she moved before him, a will-o'-the-wisp, a little flame above her head ; and it seemed as though among the small saplings of ash and beech and the thick trunks of hickory and elm that she signaled with a young, lightsome hand.

"O Phoebe! Phoebe!" he called. "Have yuh really come?" And hurrying faster, he fell once, scrambling lamely to his feet, only to see the light in the distance dancing illusively on. On and on he hurried faster and faster, until he was fairly running, brushing his ragged arms against the trees, striking his hands and face against impeding twigs. His hat was gone, his lungs were breathless, when coming to the edge of the cliff, he saw her below, among a silvery wonder of apple-trees now blooming in the spring.

"O Phoebe," he called. "Oh, no ; don't leave me!" And feeling the lure of a world where love was young and Phoebe was as this vision presented her, he gave a gay cry of "Oh, wait, Phoebe!" and leaped.

Some farmer-boys, reconnoitering this region of bounty and prospect, found first the tin utensils tied together under the tree where he had left them. Months after his body was found, his old hat was discovered lying under some low-growing saplings the twigs of which had held it back. At the foot of the cliff they found him, pale, broken, elate, a molded smile of peace and delight upon his lips. No one of all the simple population knew how eagerly and joyously he had found his lost mate.

______________

17: Tainted Gold

L. C. Douthwaite

1878-1948

World's News (Sydney) 2 Dec 1939

IT was with a sigh of unrelieved boredom that Corporal Warden, newly appointed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment at Leno, Yukon Territory, scrawled his signature at the foot of his first monthly report, tossed that unexciting document into the basket, and reached for a cigarette.

"For all that's stirring in this neck of the woods," he complained to Jean Baptiste Courtois, who had dropped into the barracks for a poison permit, "I might as well be in charge of a company of Girl Guides."

The squat little French-Canadian's almost circular face assumed a look of concern.

"When I joined up," Warden continued, "it was to be a policeman and to do a policeman's job, but as things are here, with not even an odd drunk on the street to break the monotony, I'm just an office clerk in uniform."

The habitant glance turned casually to the window that overlooked the town ship's single street and suddenly grew fixed.

"Looks like there may be other work for you before long," he observed, without turning his head.

"What's that!" The corporal jerked to his feet to see that, mushed by a slight-framed Ojibway, a dog team was approaching at a hard gallop down the street, and that the coats of the tongue-lolling huskies were steaming.

"Wonder what's eating the Indian?' he said.

The habitant's eyes were troubled as he turned to the desk at which Warden was in the act of reseating him self.

"Maybe it is that things are not so peaceful as you complain," he suggested quietly.

The team drew up with a jerk outside, the dogs folding themselves muzzle to stern in the snow as their master opened the orderly room door. As the Ojibway stood for a moment silently by Jean Baptiste's chair, the corporal noted about him that indefinable air of tension that is the Indian substitute for excitement.

"What's the best news from you?" Warden asked quietly, but there was a pause before the reply came.

"Not best news, bad medicine," the Ojibway said at last. "Charlie Blake he dead on trail."

Warden found it necessary to control his excitement. Though the Divisional Superintendent had suggested that before undertaking any of the outlying patrols it would be as well to establish himself firmly in Leno, he knew of Blake as a sour-dough of the '98 Gold Rush who lived with his granddaughter on a small but productive claim about forty miles away.

"Where was he found, who found him, and what was the cause of death?" he asked purposefully.

The Ojibway tapped his chest.

"Dawning Cloud find heem," he said. "On the trail between Pelican Lake and the reserve." Adding, "Charlie he shot through the head."

When, fur-clad for the trail, Warden came out of his bedroom, a few minutes later, it was to find the police team drawn up outside in charge of the habitant.

"Thanks a lot," Warden said appreciatively, slipping into his snowshoes. "Well, I'll see you later."

Jean Baptiste shrugged. "As I, too, will be there, you will see me all the time," he corrected, and Warden had no quarrel with the decision.

They covered twenty miles before they made camp, and, hitting the trail again early next morning, were at Pelican Lake by noon. Here the Ojibway turned his team up a branch from the main trail; followed this for a couple of miles between scrub and clumps of beech, interspersed here and there with the taller trunks of tamarack. At last, halting his team, the Indian pointed ahead.

"Around that curve," he announced curtly.

The rigidly frozen body was half-kneeling, half-lying, in the centre of the trail— a meagrely-framed pinched-faced man whose features now carried the fish-belly- white of frost-bite. Between eye and ear in the left side of the head was a small blue-rimmed bullet-hole.

Before making more than a superficial examination of the body, Warden went over to the teamless sleigh.

Scattered in disorder about it was the load; grub-box, sleeping-bag,  frying-pan, a neatly tied bundle of dog moccasins, inadequately equipped first-aid box, rifle and cartridges, prospector's pick, a pair of clumsily repaired hunting snowshoes, and a sack of provisions.

The habitant shook is head despairingly.

"A good feller enough, this Blake," he observed, lifting spatulate hands in deprecation, "but, oh, of an avarice! Regard you the grub. Instead of good bacon to line the stomach with warmth, only sourbelly pork, old enough to vote. A tight-wad, that old one!"

"A case of necessity, maybe," Warden suggested, in search of further information.

"But no!" the habitant's tone was emphatic. "Ten years Charlie work the Good Chance claim, and of all men 'e was not the one to whip the dead 'orse. In that time, as well, 'e kill so much meat that all it was necessary for 'im to buy was a little pork— and you see its quality. All in all, I do not think 'e spend more than three 'undred dollars a year."

"Nice life for his grand-daughter!" Warden remarked, dryly.

As at a thought he found more arresting than expression the habitant's expression became at once rather fearful.

"What is the girl like?" the corporal asked shortly, and saw the other's boot-button eyes light to enthusiasm.

"I think le bon Dieu must 'ave been in generous mood when 'E fashioned la belle Anne," he said, slowly.

"How did she get on with her grandfather?" the corporal asked.

The habitant gave one of his impressive variety of shrugs.

"Though never do I 'ear 'er kick at meagre grub and all the time 'ard work, what was life to 'er? Is it to wonder that..."

"To wonder what?" the corporal pressed as the other broke off; but for the moment nothing more was forthcoming.

"You know the young Englisher, Curtis?" the habitant questioned, with apparent irrelevance.

"Not personally, but I know he works the Golden Glory claim, and that's within half a mile of the Good Chance," Warden replied.

"A good feller, that cheechaco," the habitant observed judicially. "But not, I think, for Canada. No cream puff, you understand—, 'e is neither afraid of work nor yellow 'earted. It is just that 'e is of the city rather than of the North."

Warden nodded. Ten years in Canada had given him an understanding of the type.

"I take it he drops into the Blake cabin occasionally?" he suggested.

"More, I think, than just occasionally," Jean Baptiste confirmed, gravely. "Lonely for company, you understand." He paused. "And so, I think, is la petite."

"And what was Blake's attitude towards this policy of mutual consolation?" the corporal asked, and this time the habitant's shrug was one of deprecation.

"The last thing that old one wanted was for 'is grand-daughter to leave 'im, she 'oo keep the cabin so brightly shining, and 'oo's cooking is of an excellence unsurpassed," he said.

"Bad blood, eh?" Warden responded interestedly, and led the way back to the body; from there casting his eyes over the immediate surroundings.

At first glance there was nothing to be learned; the snow was frozen too' hard to show any sign of recent traffic, so that only the long-impressed footprints of the creatures of the wild were visible.

Then he saw, a little way back from the right of the trail, and in an immediate line with the hunched figure of the dead man, that an unusually tall tamarack had been felled to some five or six feet from its base, that the surface of the stump was charred, and that the end of the severed portion, also, had been burnt away.

"What do you make of that?" he demanded of the French-Canadian, who, with narrowed eyes, stood looking down at those blackened surfaces.

" 'E is for taking no more chances than 'e 'as to, that assassin," Jean Baptiste remarked slowly.

"I get you!" the corporal agreed. ''The bullet that killed Blake went into that tree, and as any ballistical expert is able to prove if a bullet was discharged from any given weapon, the murderer was all out to retrieve it." His eyes narrowed. "But why burn the tree, anyway?" he went on to ask, but this question the habitant ignored.

"I do not think it was only by chance the bullet went into that tree. It is the biggest one 'ereabouts, and as such the less likely to be missed from the prepared position that doubtless we shall find on the other side of the trail," he said.

The corporal shot him a quick glance.

"You think the murderer lay in wait for Blake to pass?" he questioned.

'I mean," the habitant assented; "that this is no crime of impulse.'*

They crossed the trail, and there, in a direct line with the dead man and the tree-stump, was a patch where the snow had been shaken from the tops of the scrub. But though they searched for the ejected cartridge, Warden was not surprised at their failure to find it.

His mouth was grim and his eyes hard as he returned to make an examination of the body.

Though there was no money in the pockets, or anything revealing about the dead man's personal effects, lying half concealed in the scrub was an axe, the blade split down the middle as cleanly as if by a hacksaw. Only to one ignorant of Northern, winter conditions, or in a violent hurry, would that accident have occurred.

"Tried to use it without first taking the frost out of the steel," he commented. "And, of course, it split with the first stroke.... As there's the  initials C.B. burnt into the haft, we may accept that it belonged to Blake."

Jean Baptiste nodded thoughtfully.:

"And as 'e treated 'is blades just like they were 'is children," he supplemented, "we may take it, also, that it was the assassin 'oo misused it."

"Probably sharper than his own," Warden suggested, and this time the habitant's nod was emphatic.

They sent the Indian on his way to Leno with the body, and then set off for Blake's cabin.

It was as they turned into the lakeside trail that, checking suddenly in his stride, Jean Baptiste pointed to an approaching sleigh, of unusually large size, that was piled high with tree trunks.

"But 'oo is this 'oo take in the wood?" he asked sharply.

"Chimp Lanaghan, on his way to Leno with a load of kindling," Warden said.

The woodcutter, an outsize man, with features disproportionately small for his bulk, pulled up as the police sleigh drew alongside.

"What you fellers doin' in this neck of the woods?" he demanded, genially.

"Investigating a case of murder," Warden replied.

Lanaghan said nothing for a moment, only blinked incredulously.

"Around here, d'ye mean?" he asked, breathlessly, at last.

"About two miles down the side trail," Warden confirmed, pointing.

"Who's been bumped off?" the woodcutter inquired, with tense interest.

"Charlie Blake— shot through the head," Warden told him.

"Charlie Blake!" Lanaghan shook his head as if to clear it to understanding. "But who'd want to go killin' poor old Charlie?" he added blankly.

"That's what I'm here to discover," Warden reminded him. "Seen anything of him lately? Or of any strangers?"

"No strangers at all; and the last time I saw Charlie was outside Curtis's cabin five or six days back," the woodcutter said, reminiscently. "Plum mad the old feller was, too. Bawling Curtis out to beat six of a kind, with the Englisher tellin' him just what he'd like to do to him."

"What, think you, was the cause of the trouble?" inquired Jean Baptiste, who until then had appeared more interested in the woodcutter's load than in the conversation.

Lanaghan gave a short bark of a laugh.

"Same as what morn'n half the trouble's about in this cock-eyed world," he said, emphatically.

"And that is?" Warden questioned.

"Women," said Lanaghan. "Blake kickin' like a steer because Curtis was always after his granddaughter. Said if he caught him around again he'd put a bullet in him."

"The Englisher—what was his reply to that?" the habitant inquired, interestedly.

The woodcutter looked startled, as if at a disturbing thought.

"Said Blake was usin' his granddaughter as unpaid chore-woman because he was too blamed mean to hire help, and that he wan't the only one who could say it with bullets," he said, with obvious reluctance.

"Was that the last time you saw Curtis?" Warden demanded.

Lanaghan shook his head.

"No; I seen him comin' out of the side trail about eleven yest'day mornin'," he said. "I was loadin' up in the scrub, and he didn't see me. Mighty hurry he was in, as well; looked all het up about something."

Though careful his face should betray nothing of his thoughts, Warden felt that the sooner he had a word with his fellow countryman the better. They would pass the Golden Glory claim on the way to the Good Chance, anyway.

"I'll see you later, maybe," he said, in dismissal, and, starting up his team, continued the journey with an unusually silent habitant for company.

Presently the Curtis cabin showed in a small clearing ahead. No smoke came from the chimney, and as there was no response to their knock Warden lifted the latch and went inside to a room which, though clean enough, was devoid of all but the barest necessities of homemade furniture.

Jean Baptiste went over to the stove, felt at the exterior before opening the flap.

"Ashes cold," he pronounced. "Guess Curtis must have been away for quite a while."

Warden, busy with the chest that, as expected, he found in the space between bunk and floor, made no direct reply.

Inside were three or four bundles of old letters, a jeweller's box containing a dress watch, studs and links; one or two photographs, and a gold-mounted cigarette case.

In a typewritten envelope on the extreme top of the pile, however, was a letter which, it occurred to Warden, might be of more immediate interest.

Headed "Curtis and Curtis, Timber Importers, The Minories, London," and signed "Your affectionate Father," it was an intimation to "My dear Son" that a place awaited him in the family business if he cared to return.

"I would remind you, however," the letter concluded, "that when, strictly against my wishes, you left for Canada, you stated emphatically that in no circumstances would you accept any financial help from myself, and as I regard the strict fulfilment of this resolution as a definite test of character, I need not remind you of the necessity of providing your own fare for the journey."

In cabins in outlying districts a cellar is sunk to provide for summer storage of meat, and soon this was all that remained unexplored.

Stacked against the walls were various provisions— moose meat, pemmican, flour, dried apples and prunes— and a box more than half filled with beans. And when Warden plunged his hands into the mass, his fingers encountered what felt like a strip of tape. Withdrawn, this proved to be attached to a discolored deerskin pouch.

"What do you make of this?" he asked Jean Baptiste, when the trapdoor was in place again.

"A body belt," he pronounced, and lifted the flap of the pouch. "But, you perceive, empty."

"If it happens to have belonged to Blake," Warden pointed out, "and that will be easy enough to find out— things won't look too good for Curtis, I'm thinking."

"But with a stove so 'andy in which to burn it, why should 'e choose rather to conceal it in a place where it could so readily be discovered?" the habitant suggested, with a tilt of heavy eyebrows.

"The stove may have been out when he came in," Warden countered. "And, having to leave again straight away, it was necessary to find some temporary hiding-place."

He paused for a moment.

"And now," he added, unhappily, "to break the news to Blake's grand-daughter."

When, after a decent interval, he knocked at the cabin door, though showing signs of recent distress, the girl, tall, fair-haired and distinctly attractive, was quietly composed.

Another man was there as well as the habitant, slim and red-haired, clad in the jean shirt and breeches of the working miner. Warden was not surmised to learn it was Curtis.

"Do you feel equal to answering a few questions?" the corporal inquired.

"If that will help to find the man who killed and robbed my grandfather," she said, her eyes steadily on his own.

"Robbed of what?" Warden inquired, his mind on the body-belt in his pocket.

"The gold he was carrying in the sleigh," she replied.

"Gold?" Warden repeated, startled.

Before the girl could reply, however, the habitant broke in, turning from the pile of kindling nearby where he was standing.

"Although the claim 'ere is mainly low grade ore," he explained, "running through the quartz is a narrow seam of 'igh-grade that in places pans as much as a thousand dollars a ton. All summer, then, Charlie pick out is 'igh-grade and store it against the winter. Then, with freeze-up, when no more work can be done on the claim, 'e mild 'imself a clay furnace to burn e gold from 'is 'igh-grade, and when 'e 'ave enough, 'e take it to the bank at Dawson."

"About how much would the gold be worth?" Warden asked her.

"According to my grandfather, been six and seven thousand dollars," e replied.

His eyes steadily on Curtis, Warden introduced the body-belt.

"Do you recognise this?" he asked, and saw the blood recede from her face.

"That's my grandfather's!" she cried, unhesitatingly. "I'd know it among a thousand."

"Did he carry much in it?" the corporal asked.

She nodded confidently.

"Ten bills, each of twenty dollars—  what he called his 'emergency supply'— in case he should need a fairly large amount of cash quickly."

"Those bills in the pouch— did 'e always carry the same ones, that old one, or did 'e change them sometimes for others?" the habitant broke in to inquire, and again the reply came unhesitatingly.

"He'd the same lot ever since I came to live here," the girl replied, with a little gesture of distaste.

"Have you seen this belt before?" Warden asked quietly, turning to Curtis. and watching closely for the reaction.

"No; why should I have?" Curtis demanded. "The old man wasn't the one to flash his money before strangers, anyway."

"You were not on especially good terms, so I gather?" Warden went on to suggest.

This time the Englishman's color receded, leaving his face a little strained.

"He didn't like me coming to the cabin here, if that's what you're getting at," he admitted shortly.

"Why didn't he?" Warden pressed, and this time the reply came from the girl.

"Because he was afraid Tom would take me away," she said, steadily.

"Just how far was that suspicion justified?" Warden asked.

Curtis broke in.

"Anne is marrying me just as soon as I can raise the fare to London, where I've a good job waiting for me," he said, uncompromisingly.

Warden nodded. "I see." Then:

"And now you shall tell me what you were doing on the side trail between nine and eleven yesterday morning."

"I was not on the side trail yesterday morning," Curtis denied, hotly but unconvincingly.

"Then you saw nothing of Blake yesterday?" the corporal pressed.

"Nothing at all," Curtis insisted.

Again Warden found himself unable to accept the denial.

"I think," he said at last, "you had better come with me to Leno."

"Am I to take it I'm under arrest?" Curtis asked, obviously schooling himself in face of Anne's distress.

Warden shook his head.

"Not at the moment; only detained for questioning. The chief of those questions is how Blake's body-belt came to be hidden in a box of beans in your cellar."

"I've never even seen the belt until you showed it to me just now," he denied hotly.

It was a silent four who hit the trail a little later, they mushed far into the night, and were on their way again by dawn. As, shortly before noon, they were passing through Leno on their way to the barracks, the only figure in sight was that of Chimp Lanaghan, coming out of Johnny Fray me's prospectors' and general store. Following a quick glance, he waved a hand in greeting, but went on his way without speaking.

"Been buying supplies with the money he got for his load," Warden suggested, breaking a long silence.

"Or paying his account," Jean Baptiste amended, watching the woodcutter turn into his cabin a little way down the street. His hand closed about the arm of the girl. "Now, I think," he said, "you shall come 'ome with me."

CURTIS, looked flushed and sullen when the girl and the French-Canadian presented themselves, at the barracks a little later.

"Well," the corporal was saying as they appeared, "though that's all for now, it's only fair to warn you that in the absence of some new evidence in your favor, I shall be bound to charge you formally."

"La belle Anne, I think, will look after 'im while we— you and me— 'ave a word with the good Johnny Frayme," the habitant remarked unexpectedly.

Warden looked his surprise.

"There's nothing I'm wanting from the store," he pointed out.

"On the contrary, I think it likely that you will find something there it will make you not un'appy to 'ave," the habitant corrected.

Anne, who had drawn a chair to Curtis's side, looked up eagerly.

"No need to worry," she said confidently. "Well be here when you come back, all right."

Something in the habitant's manner, the boot-button eyes that shone so brightly beneath the heavy, overhanging brows, persuaded Warden to agree.

"How you off for change, Johnnie?" Jean Baptiste demanded of the corpulent, crimson-faced man behind the counter of the store a few moments later.

"Depends what you want changin'," the storekeeper pointed out.

"Split this into twenties?" the habitant instructed, producing a hundred dollar bill.

Fray me grinned.

"You're lucky," he exclaimed. "Nine times out of ten I've maybe only a coupla twenty-spots in the place, but to-day..."

He opened a drawer under the counter and took from it a small wad of notes, peeled five from the top, and thrust them over.

"And glad to be rid of 'em," he added, placing the habitant's bill in the drawer.

Jean Baptiste raised the five frayed and discolored notes to his nostrils; with a gesture of distaste he handed them to Warden.

"Seems like," the habitat remarked levelly, "they 'ave been carried for a long time quite near to the 'uman body."

"Where did these come from?" Warden demanded of the storekeeper.

"Chimp Lanaghan's just paid his account with 'em," Frayme replied with considerable satisfaction, adding, feelingly, "Not before time, either— that skyscraper was in my ribs far too long for far too much."

Outside, when having folded the bills into their original creases, he found they slipped in the pouch of the body belt as of long habit, Warden turned to the habitant.

"Looks as if you've saved me from making a pretty bad break," he said appreciatively.

Jean Baptiste nodded.

"Lanaghan, I think, will 'ave difficulty in laughing off those bills," he agreed, gravely. "I think we go see him right now."

APPROACHING quietly, they knocked at the door. With only sounds of hurried movement in response, Warden glanced between the partly open window curtains. At what he saw his mouth hardened.

"Slip round and see if you can get in by the back," he whispered to Jean Baptiste. "But for the love of Mike, don't let Lanaghan see you."

The habitant nodded; bent double to avoid detection from the side window, he disappeared soundlessly down the space that separated the cabin from the one next door.

"Open in the name of the law," Warden shouted, and with still no response forthcoming, launched his full weight at the door. The lock broke away from the perished wood so suddenly that it was all he could do to check himself from sprawling across the threshold.

When he had gathered himself together, Lanaghan, jaw out-thrust and stark murder in his eyes, was covering him with a revolver. On the table by which he stood was a heap of gold that, by the shape of its component parts, could have only come from a clay furnace.

"It's a pity about you, Redcoat," the woodcutter snarled, "but right here and now you're due for a breakdown in health. I can only be hanged once, anyway, and there's the odd chance I'll be able to make the Alaskan border before your fellers can catch up... I'm giving you half a minute to say your prayers— if you know any."

Fascinated, Warden watched the hammer of the old-fashioned revolver rise, higher— higher. From the corner of a steady eye he saw Jean Baptiste, soundless in moose hide moccasins, and with a log of kindling in his hand, appear in the doorway that led to the back of the cabin.

Simultaneously with the revolver hammer reaching its apex, that hurtling log caught Lanaghan fairly at the back of the head. A bullet from the involuntarily discharged weapon buried itself harmlessly in the roof as the woodcutter crashed to ground.

WARDEN celebrated Curtis's release by a supper at the barracks.

"Tell me," he asked the habitant, "what made you suspect Lanaghan in the first place?"

Jean Baptiste, exuding self-approbation, waved a heavily-loaded fork.

"But surely," he cried, "that frost-broken axe, and that after the killer 'ad chopped the bullet from the tree he burned the severed ends, gave you, also, to think?"

"Maybe it would— if I'd realised there was anything in it to think about," the corporal admitted ruefully.

"After, in 'is 'urry to get away from the spot, Chimp used Blake's axe without first taking the frost from the blade, so that it shattered with the first stroke," the habitant explained, "there was left for 'im nothing but to use 'is own— that 'ad a notch out of the blade. Forty years ago, when the assassin O'Brien shot and robbed those 'oo travelled the Dawson River, the axe 'e used to fell the trees of 'is 'ide-out 'ad a defect all-same the one 'e ad been given on 'is discharge from Dawson gaol a little time before, and more than anything it was that which 'elped to 'ang 'im. Lanaghan, I think, remembered that when 'e burned the ends of the tree 'e cut down, so that the strokes could not be distinguished.

"When, 'owever, we met that assassin with 'is load of wood, while the so-zealous policeman question 'im, Jean Baptiste Courtois inquire only of the ends of the logs on the sleigh. They tell me, those so-eloquent witnesses, that there was a piece out of the axe blade with which they were felled."

He paused impressively.

"And the axe that was used to cut the kindling in the Curtis cabin," he added, " 'ad no such defect. That was why, almost from the first, I was so sure that stained body-belt 'ad not been 'idden by our friend 'ere, but by the murderer, to divert suspicion from 'imself while the Englisher was"— shoe-button eyes bright, he grinned across at the girl— "so pleasurably engaged elsewhere."

Curtis broke in with a short, harsh laugh.

"Pleasure nothing!" he exclaimed. "Unless, of course, you call having to break it to Anne I'd found her grandfather shot dead on the trail was all fun and laughter." He glanced apologetically at Warden. "I'm not a liar by custom, I hope; the reason I denied having seen Blake was because it seemed as if I was in it up to the neck already."

The girl covered his hand with her own.

"Never mind," she said, "you're not cut out for the North, anyway."

Curtis's smile in response was uncertain.

"I don't see what I'm to do about it, though," he pointed out.

The girl's tone was decisive.

"If it's the fare home that's worrying you," she said, "that's up to me. I'm a well-off young woman now. And I'm coming with you!"

________________

18: The Wife of the Humorous Gangster

H. Bedford-Jones

1887-1949

Weird Tales,  Nov 1940

THE ability to counterfeit death—

Yes, many's the handsome corpse I've made, but never under my real name. James F. Bronson is inscribed on no tombstone. Once I learned how to earn legitimate money, and big money, I went seriously to work at it. My physical abnormality, combined with the proper drugs, helped practice make perfect.

The element of chance, of adventure, of risk, so fascinated me that I would have traded professions with no one. And it is safe to say that no one would have traded professions with me. It is surprising how many people can make use of a dead man, however! This odd profession of mine had only one real drawback. I had to trust someone to bring me back to life after I was "dead."

For this little item, I very naturally needed a medico, and it was the curious adventure of the humorous gangster which provided me with a real find in this way. It was always a task to locate the right person. Although I was mixed up with nothing crooked I could not employ any doctor imbued with high faluting notions of professional ethics; such a man was too risky an equation.

Coming to a mid-western city I followed my usual procedure of inserting a blind advertisement in newspapers, and then scouting around for the right man to work with me. In this instance I found him in the person of one Dr. Roesche, a young fellow of German extraction.

Roesche had brains, he was conscientious, and he was hard up. I liked him from the start, because he refused point-blank to touch anything shady, and when he heard of my business he turned me down cold. He would only change his mind when I had convinced him that I was considering nothing of an illegal character, and wanted nothing from him that would conflict with professional ethics.

"I need you to administer a hypodermic; no more," I told him, and then frankly set my case before him, showing that my heart was on the right side instead of the left. "It has a very slow beat, too. More correctly, no beat at all. It flutters rather than beats, so there's no pulse to mention. They tell me it's nothing very rare."

"Auricular Fibrilation," and he nodded. "And a barrel chest, I see. The heart isn't against the ribs— why, the stethoscope doesn't bring it up a bit!"

From a professional standpoint, he was keenly interested. Also, we got on well together. Once he consented to work with me, he was full of ideas. Instead of the chance drug I used to put me to sleep, he suggested an improvement on it. The upshot was that I got the idea of a permanent partnership, and he was not averse to it.

"You'll have to show me where there's any money in it, though," he said cautiously.

"Come on back to my hotel, then. Stop at the newspaper offices on the way, pick up the answers to my advertisement, and you'll see quick enough."

We did just this, and reached my hotel with a dozen replies to examine.

Half of them I weeded out as crank letters, others as involving something crooked. Then I picked up one and read it aloud:

"Dear Sir:

"Your advertisement may be a fake, but if not, I can use you. Believe it or not, my purpose is on the level and my money legitimate. If you want to talk business, give me a ring at this number. Yours for eternity,

"Dion Caffery."

When he heard the writer's name, Roesche uttered a grunt.

"You don't know of him? Then you'd better get acquainted with this town, Bronson. He runs a big flower shop on Seneca Avenue and lives in the apartment house overhead; in fact he owns it. His name used to be Cafferelli, but he changed it to Caffery."

I looked at him, puzzled. "Well? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, only he runs about half the rackets in the city, and he's in on the liquor game. In fact, the worst kind of a gangster."

This happened some years ago, during prohibition.

"Suppose we hear what he has to say?" I suggested. "The letter sounds interesting; even if the interview comes to nothing. I'd like to meet such a man."

Roesche assented with a shrug, and I called Caffery. To my surprise he had a very pleasant voice, and immediately agreed to drop in and see me.

I WAS more surprised when he showed up. He was heavily built but well dressed, and had pleasant, intelligent features with twinkling dark eyes. When I had introduced my partner, he looked from one to the other of us, whimsically.

"Just what kind of a gag is this?" he demanded. "Do I talk before witnesses?"

"You do if you want to talk," I said firmly. "If your proposition has anything crooked about it, then save it for somebody else. Dr. Roesche has to be in on the affair, as I can't work without him."

He broke into a hearty laugh, produced cigars, and dropped into a chair.

"You're all right, Bronson. Now, can you play dead enough so a doctor will pronounce you dead?"

"A good many have certified to it already."

"Just how is the trick worked? Loosen up with the details. They might not fit in with what I want."

I briefly indicated my abilities, and he nodded and leaned back in his chair, fully satisfied.

"Good. You'll do. What do you charge?"

"The fee depends entirely on the job," I said. "Frankly, I'm not sure I'd want to work for you, Caffery."

"And if you did, you'd make me pay big, eh?" He chuckled, displaying no resentment of my attitude. "Fair enough. I'll set the fee at ten thousand cash in advance. The work is to play a little joke on my wife and some of my friends. I want to pretend to kill you, and have some fun with the presence of a corpse."

I frowned at him. "Let's have straight talk, Caffery. In your business, which is no secret, why would you want an imitation corpse? I should think you could pick up a real one at a cheaper price."

He looked at me with a puzzled expression, and then smiled.

"Oh, I see! You have the conventional idea about what you call gangsters, eh? Well, Bronson, brush 'em all away. Give me credit for a little intelligence. I'm a pretty good business man, and I have average sense. I don't go around emptying a rod at anyone who looks cross-eyed at me; in fact, I've never killed anyone in my life. However, it's high time that I did, and that's where you come in. Forget your moving picture notions of bad men, will you? I'm not running a barrel house or a low den of iniquity. I'm running a business, and I'm at the top of it."

How much of his talk was blarney and how much was true, I'm not sure to this day, but it was impressive. His easy good humor, his intelligence, carried it over. I was inclined to believe his words, and felt ashamed of my own hazy notions about a gangster chief.

"Now, here's the proposition," he said, and sobered. In fact, he took on a look of worry; his eyes lost their humorous glimmer and became very earnest. "I'm too good-natured for my job, and that's no joke. My crowd is tough, sure. I've got to impress them. And chiefly, I've got to impress my wife. Nelly's a darling, but she just can't get out of the habit of flirting. Not that she means wrong by it, mind; just a habit. But it's got to stop."

I was startled.

"I don't like your idea," I said bluntly. "If you want to kill somebody, why should you, of all people, want to fake it?"

He made a helpless gesture. "D'you think I'm a fool? Murder is murder, Bronson. Can't you get it into your head that I'm no killer, that I don't want to spend my life in stir, that I've got enough brains to be something better than a gunman?"

Once more, contact with realities put to shame my vague conceptions of gangsters. This man was no crude, cold-hearted monster.

"Make your proposal, Caffery. I'll take it or leave it."

"Fair enough; here it is. Tomorrow night, I'm throwing a party at the Bon Ton Club. You come along there, wander in, and I'll greet you like an old friend. Play up to Nelly. She'll fall for you, strong; I'll say you're just in from New York, on a visit. I'll skip out with the boys, on business, and leave you to bring her home. When you get there, I'll be waiting. I'll rip into you for trying to play around with her and fire a blank, and you keel over. Her brother is a doctor and lives upstairs. If he finds you dead, I'll horse around and raise hell with everybody, and so forth. I'll have you carried into a back room. Dr. Roesch can be hidden there and fetch you around and sneak you out the back way, and everything's jake. The boys never will wise up to how I disposed of the body."

Joke? Maybe yes, and maybe not. He was too earnest about it.

I could see now that he had told the exact truth about himself. He was no killer, and his crowd probably knew it. He was clever enough to realize his shortcomings and conquer them by using his brains.

Behind this was the picture of a man trying to hold his wife— if she was his wife. As a matter of fact, she was nothing of the kind; I learned this, later on. But Caffery was dead in love with her all the same. He would have married her, except that she had a husband already and could not get rid of him. Caffery was simply crazy about her, but the people with whom they associated, the life they led, the way she acted, had him in torment on the anxious seat.

"Suppose the cartridge in your gun should turn out to have a bullet in it?" I suggested uneasily. He grunted.

"Oh, hell! Roesche can see to that himself. He'll be in the apartment at the time."

I looked at Roesche, questioningly. Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. And there was nothing illegal about this. To my look, he shrugged and made answer.

"It's your funeral, Bronson; and literally, maybe. I think it's a risky business. But you're the one to decide. I'm willing to take it on if you are."

"Yes, you ought to be," I said unhappily. Then I looked at Caffery. "Two things about your scheme are bad. First, there'd be no bullet hole when my body was examined. That is, I hope there'd be none."

He chuckled, and his eyes twinkled again.

"The unpleasant possibility sticks in your craw, eh? But you're right. Besides, there's the noise. How's this, now! I'll use a big persuader, stuffed with cotton instead of lead. Give you one crack, and finish you, and proud of it. Suit you better?"

"Much better," I said with relief. "The second thing is that it wouldn't be logical to go off your head and kill a man, just because you let him bring your wife home. That is, a man you haven't seen for a long time, until that evening."

"'Right," he agreed instantly, and plunged into the business with all the ardor of a small boy planning a parlor masquerade. He was amused and tickled by the whole thing. "I tell you, Bronson! Put off the party to Saturday night— see? On Friday night, I'll be at the Bon Ton for dinner, with Nelly and a couple of the boys. You drop in and meet us then, and play up a bit to Nelly— make it plenty strong. I'll invite you to the party the next night, which will be all jake. And on the way home I'll do enough talking about how you played up to Nelly, so things will look right when I blow you down. How's that? And is it yes or no?"

Under the circumstances, it could be nothing else than yes. Now that the blank cartridge business was out, the thing did not look so bad; in fact, I had already taken much riskier jobs than this.

So we buckled down to it then and there, settling all details and getting everything thoroughly understood, even to a floor plan of Caffery's apartment. And Caffery counted out five crisp thousand-dollar bills. The balance would be paid on Friday night.

"There's just one thing to guard against," I said in conclusion. "You mustn't let your doctor hold a mirror to my breath; that would give me away. Stop that at any cost, even if you have to call Roesche right in. That's one test I can't guard against."

"Right," said Caffery, and departed grinning.

The racketeer angle was not pleasant, but Roesche agreed with me that we now had the program foolproof. He had slightly changed the drug I used, so that any physical reflexes were more completely eliminated, and that same day he insisted on making a test with me. I submitted, and he was more than delighted by the results.

"It's marvelous, Bronson," he told me afterward. "With your eyes taken care of by the drops, and no mirror test, you'll get by with anything except a prolonged critical examination. Still, I'm uncertain about two things. First, the ultimate result on your health."

"Is that any worse than the ultimate result of a driving business life on any man?"

"Well, no," he agreed. "But what about the legal aspect of your stunt?"

I laughed at this, for I had long ago settled all such argument.

"Look it up; it's no crime, Roesche. That is, as I play the game. I might be arrested for attempting suicide, but I could beat out such a charge easily."

This was true. After he talked with a lawyer, his last doubt was settled.

WHEN I walked into the Bon Ton on Friday evening, I was nervous enough. The place was a flashy one, the crowd was large and well dressed, the orchestra banged heavily. I heard a yell, and Caffery came rushing toward me. He gripped me by both hands, hailed me lustily as "good old Mike Leary," and dragged me to his table.

It was a big one in the center of the place. His wife and four other men sat there, and I was given a chair beside Nelly. I had little to do except follow the lead of Caffery, who asked no delicate questions, and was soon at my ease. That is, outwardly.

Nelly Caffery, as she was generally known, was a genuine blonde. She was vivacious, young, impudent and saucy, and ablaze with life. The homage of men was the very breath of existence to her, and it was no trouble at all to fall into my role of admiring male.

But those other four men— well, they were young too, young and sleek and gay enough. They made me think of something my uncle said after he got home from South America and was talking about his travels and adventures.

"A real bad man don't usually look bad, but if a man's living on a hair-trigger it always shows in one place. His eyes. They go into you."

That was the way with these young men. Their eyes drifted into me. Dark eyes, for they all had Italian names. Their eyes would question me, then shift to Nelly or to Caffery.

We danced, we drank, we laughed and joked and enjoyed ourselves. Had it not been for the deference paid Caffery on every side, the men who spoke to him, the curious glances cast at him, I could hardly have believed that I was sitting with racketeers. There was no rough talk of any kind. Even Nelly, except for her conspicuous diamonds, seemed no more than a carefree, light-hearted girl intent on pleasure; and so she was.

Caffery entered into his part with an impish glee. Under the spur of his delighted abandon, he showed himself a roaring boon companion; but there was iron in him just the same. He was no fool. When he urged me to go on and dance with Nelly, he gave her a hot shot under cover of a laugh.

"Look out for her, Mike! Remember that a woman never has any principles, or if she has any, she calls 'em something else."

This was over Nelly's head, however. She was not long on brains.

She was flattered by my obvious attention, by my swift interest in her, and tried hard to pump me about myself. She was one of those women who think themselves very deep, who have a "Why?" for everything as though in search of hidden motives, who set themselves to understand a man with their eyes and lips better than he understands himself; they are usually fools. Such vapid, doll-like beauties usually fancy themselves very subtle, and I suppose they find many a sap who falls for their pretty ways.

I could see that Caffery had Nelly sized up just right. She was not bad; she did not have enough sense to be bad. But flirtation was inborn within her. She simply could not help snuggling in my arms as we danced, and putting her face close to mine, and drinking in all my flattery until her eyes sparkled like stars.

So, from Caffery's viewpoint, the evening passed off most successfully, but the party broke up early.

"What are you doing tomorrow night, Mike?" exclaimed Caffery, before we left. "Come on and join us here about eight. We'll throw you a real party and run it into Sunday morning if you say the word!"

I hesitated and looked at Nelly. She begged me to accept, and I made it quite obvious that I accepted only because she wanted it. In fact, I was afraid I had overplayed my hand a bit.

But no. Caffery telephoned me half an hour later, and was positively chortling.

"Put it on thick tomorrow night, right from the start," he ordered. "I'll be called away early, then take the boys home. I'll be waiting when you get there."

"Don't wait too long, then," I said. "I have to put some stuff in my eyes, and it pretty near blinds me when it takes effect."

"I get you. Better wear a gun, for the looks of it."

"A gun? I haven't any."

"Then I'll slip you one at the table," and he rang off, chuckling.

I did not appreciate his humor at all. Even less did I appreciate it on Saturday morning, when Dr. Roesche walked in and got me out of bed to read a newspaper. He waved it at me.

"Open war threatens!" he declaimed, grandiloquently.

"War?" and I yawned. "Where?"

"Right here. Caffery and Rafello factions; gangster's war. Boy, I'm glad you got full pay in advance, last night! Here, read this."

It was not pleasant reading; I did not understand half of it, except that Caffery and some other racketeer had fallen out. However, it could not very well affect me, and I said so. Even if it did, I had taken Caffery's money and must go through with the play.

"Remember what he said about never having killed anybody?" said Roesche. "I bet he knew this was coming. He's pulling some rough stuff with you, to impress his own men; that was true enough. I'm glad tonight ends our connection with that outfit."

I was more than glad. I was delighted. The idea of lying dead to the world while warring gangsters pumped lead into me and made me an actual corpse, haunted me. Roesche was none too happy either as evening approached. Caffery had decided that upon leaving the Bon Ton with his friends, he would pick up Roesche and plant him in the back room, unknown to his henchmen. And poor Roesche, less accustomed to risks than I was, did not like the notion at all; still, he could not help himself.

At eight o'clock that evening I walked into the Bon Ton again and found the party assembled. Once more there was a big table, with Nelly the only woman at it. Caffery had six of his men here now, all of the same type, and he had done the thing up proud, with flowers galore and silver wine-buckets and all the trimmings.

I was the guest of honor, and he took a gleeful, chuckling pleasure in the irony of it. In the eyes of his companions, I fancied an ominous and sardonic suspense, as though they were watching and waiting; undoubtedly, Caffery had been talking about my attentions to his wife. He had not been talking to Nelly, however. She was bubbling over with high spirits, both kinds— the champagne flowed like water.

Even when I was dancing, I could feel those deadly eyes drilling into the back of my head; it took a real effort to play my part with Nelly, but I played it according to my instructions. And she did not make it a bit hard for me, either. Knowing that she would get a scare out of the whole thing, and nothing worse. I had small hesitation in making my admiration for her quite evident.

At the table, my seat was next to Caffery. Thus, under cover of the tablecloth, it was not difficult for him to slip a pistol into my lap. The touch of the thing startled me; I had for the moment forgotten our telephone conversation.

"Oh, it's not loaded," and he was evidently amused by my repugnance. He spoke under his breath. "Stick it away and pull it when I jump you. It'll look better."

"I hope you're getting your money's worth," I retorted. He laughed.

"I aim to get it, you bet!"

Getting the pistol into a hip pocket and cursing its weight, I led Nelly out on the floor again. She must have caught some warning from one of the other men, for now she gave me a sharp admonition, not unmixed with alarm.

"Watch your step, Mr. Leary! My husband doesn't like free and easy ways."

I smiled down into her eyes. "What's the harm, baby? I don't make you sore, do I?"

"You might, easy enough. Get wise; they're watching us."

"Let 'em watch," I said, and held her the more tightly. "You're a swell dancer; come on, forget your troubles!"

That was easy enough for her. When we came back to the table she was flushed and laughing, chattering away brightly; but under the watching, waiting eyes of those sleek men, I rather lost my confidence.

It was just nine o'clock, and the dinner was hardly well under way, when a waiter brought a note to Caffery. He read it, and then shot a muttered order at his men. Two of them rose and went out. Even though I knew he had arranged it all, I had to admire the manner in which he handled the affair.

"Sorry, folks," he said to us, with a shrug and a smile. "I've got to pull out. Business. Mike, you stick around and enjoy yourself, and bring Nelly home later on. I'll leave the car for you. Nelly, you see that Mike has a good time."

"No. I'll go with you," she said quickly. Caffery rose, laughing.

"Not much! I'm not going home. May not be back until late."

"Might as well have one more dance," I said to Nelly.

"Just one, then," she assented. "We'll finish dinner and go."

SO Caffery and his men said good-night, and Caffery paid for the party as he went out. There was no longer any point in my continuing with the act, so I did not try to prolong matters at all. Nelly was nervous and uneasy, and my lack of enthusiasm was not calculated to lift her sudden depression.

"What's wrong with you, anyway?" I demanded, as we danced. "You seem to be out of humor with everything, all at once."

"I am. Just wrought up, I guess—" She broke off abruptly, staring over my shoulder. Her eyes dilated. Her face went white. "Let's get out of here, Mr. Leary. You don't mind, do you? I'm tired of dancing."

"Oh, it's all right with me," I replied, searching for the cause of her agitation and failing to find it.

We got off the crowded floor, came back to the table, and I persuaded her to take a swallow of wine before we left. She needed it, for some reason.

We delayed only a moment or two, but all of a sudden she straightened up and looked at a man who was approaching our table. Her eyes flickered, and then steadied, as she pulled herself together.

He was a short, heavy-set man in full evening dress. He was pale, with slick black hair, and there was an ugly twist to his lip. He paused at our table, gave me one swift and incurious glance, and then nodded amiably to Nelly.

"Hello," he said carelessly. "Where's Caffery?"

"I don't know," she replied. "He left a while ago."

"All right. Tell him I was looking for him, will you?"

With another careless nod, the man sauntered on. He joined two other men near the entrance, and they disappeared. Nelly was looking after him, and I saw that she was white once more, but her eyes were bright and eager and not in the least terrified.

"What's it all about?" I asked, as she rose. "Who was your friend?"

"My God, don't you read the papers?" she snapped at me. "That was Nick Rafello. I'll get my wraps and put in a phone call, and meet you at the door."

Rafello, eh? If he had come a few minutes earlier— well, I had missed something, and was heartily glad of it. A burning anxiety gripped me to finish this business and get rid of the whole mess.

And yet, even as I went to the men's room and made my own preparations, I thrilled to a glimmer of realization, of sharp suspicion. When Caffery left, the woman had been disconcerted and dismayed. When Rafello had shown up, she was agitated and alarmed; then, the look she had exchanged with Rafello—

How had Rafello known that Dion Caffery was going to be here? Had Nelly tipped him off?

Well, it was none of my business. In another hour I would be done with the whole racketeer crowd, and for ever. Yet I could not forget the look those two had exchanged; eyes can speak more than tongues, at times. A look of understanding, of inquiry, of tacit comprehension. Anything further had been prevented by my presence at the table.

Was I really on the edge of underworld drama? Or was the whole business a product of my fevered imagination? Hardly likely, I thought; I could read faces. However, I had to get to work before rejoining Nelly.

It was a scant ten minutes ride from here to the Seneca Avenue apartment of Caffery, which was just the time margin I needed. In the privacy of the men's room, I measured out my dose of the drug mixture which would make me dead to the world, and swallowed it. Then, a much slower matter, I put the drops of homatropine and cocaine into my eyes— the drops which would deaden the cornea to any reflex test, and enlarge the pupils to simulate the look of death.

When I rejoined Nelly at the entrance, she was impatient.

"You certainly took your time," she snapped. "Look here, Mr. Leary. The car's outside and I don't need any escort—"

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed jovially. "Your husband told me to escort you home, and I mean to do it. Besides, it's only plain courtesy, Nelly. Come along."

We got into her limousine and were driven away, and a few minutes later halted before the apartment house.

As we went inside, I noted that the flower shop on the street level was open and was doing a good business; it was a Saturday night, so this was to be expected. Inside, Nelly tried to dismiss me again, but I insisted on going up to the apartment with her. As I was no longer paying her any devoted attention, she assented with a shrug.

We left the elevator and came to her apartment door. She inserted a key, threw open the door, and turned to me. The passage showed empty, and I wondered if Caffery were really here.

"Good-night, Mr. Leary," she said. "It's been—"

"Oh, let me come in for a minute anyhow," I exclaimed. "I'd like to put in a phone call, if you don't mind."

She hesitated. Just then a soft, hard laugh reached us, and she swung around. Caffery appeared in the passage.

"Yeah, come on in," he said. I was startled to see that his look of good humor had vanished; he was acting his part, I thought. "Come on, come on, and shut the door! I want to see you— the both of you."

There was an ugly note in his voice. I shoved Nelly inside, followed her, and pulled the door shut. Then, behind Caffery, appeared several of his henchmen, watching us. He drew back and ordered us into the parlor. I obeyed.

"What's the big idea, Caffery?" I demanded belligerently. His attention was fastened on Nelly rather than on me, and there was a blaze in his eyes.

"Oh, you!" He swung on me with a laugh— a harsh, grating laugh. If he was pretending, he was doing it ominously well. By this time, the drug was taking pretty full effect on me, while the stuff in my eyes left me nearly blind.

"I'll learn you to play around with my wife," he said viciously. "I'll learn her a few things, too, but you first. Why, damn you, d'ye think I'm blind and dumb? You blasted cheating bastard—"

I fumbled for the gun, could see nothing clearly, realized he was coming at me. Then something hit me over the head—something soft enough, but with a resounding thwack. I let the gun fall, and as I collapsed and lay quiet, heard Nelly scream. Then, before the drug blurred my brain, I heard something else.

"You!" It was Caffery's voice, hoarse now and filled with madness. "I've been too damned good to you, Nelly; you just took me for a sucker, eh? Well, I've got you dead to rights. Thought you'd bring Rafello in on me tonight and walk off with him after I was dead, eh? Shut up, damn you! I've got the proof of it—"

She screamed again, uttering wild protest. Caffery's voice reached me faintly. I could not stir; my brain was dulling out.

"There's your own letter to him, blast you! The woman I loved— why, good God! I'd have gone to hell for you, Nelly! And maybe I will, right now. Anyhow, you won't play and jockey with the love of any other man—"

There was the roaring explosion of a pistol above me, and everything was gone. I was out, and completely out.

LATER, Roesche told me what happened there in the front room. Caffery stood as though paralyzed, staring down at the woman he had just shot; the front of her evening gown was blackened by powder. Then his men stirred and broke into action. One of them knelt beside me. They conferred briefly, Caffery standing the while and staring down like a wooden image.

"Hey, Dion!" one of them exclaimed, and shook him by the shoulder. "Come out of it. What'll we do about this Leary guy? You biffed him too hard; he's croaked. Don't matter about Nelly. We can all swear that it was suicide. Here, give me the gun—"

He took the pistol from Caffery's hand, wiped it with his handkerchief, and then stooped. He pressed the dead fingers of the woman about it, and rose.

"Come on, Dion! Wake up! What about this guy?"

Caffery came out of his stupor. His face, aged and drawn and contorted, bore a stamp of horror. Then, meeting the intent gaze of the men around, he pulled himself together.

"Him? Leary?" A harsh cackle of mirthless laughter came from him. "Oh, to hell with him! Leave him to me; I'll handle the matter later. Carry him into the back bedroom, two of you, and shut the door."

"But Dion—"

"Do what I say, damn you!" he burst out, and they hastily obeyed. I was lifted and taken into the back room, where Roesche was hidden. And the minute we were alone together, he lost no time in fetching me back to life; not a quick job, unfortunately.

When two of his men would have touched Nelly's body, Caffery forbade them. Of course, his whole plan in regard to me was completely gone. There was no need of bringing in any doctor, or of bothering further with me.

"Somebody get out there," said Caffery, as a knock came at the door. "Some damned fools will be raising hell about the shot. Tell 'em it was an accident—anything at all. Tony! You go up and fetch Nelly's brother down here."

"Her brother?"

"Yeah," and Caffery's voice was grim. "He can certify to her death. She is dead, isn't she?"

"Yeah."

Caffery slumped, and he turned away. "All right," he said. "Go on and do what I say. I'll be back in no time. Keep her brother here, and keep him scared."

"Where you going?" one of the men asked.

Caffery looked down at the still, dead figure of the girl. "I'm going downstairs to get some flowers," he said gently, and his face changed and softened. "Roses. White roses. She always liked 'em best. Poor kid! She just got carried away; too much glitter. Yes, I'll get enough white roses to cover her out of sight."

He looked up, met the eyes of his men, and his voice barked out at them.

"Get busy. Round up everybody. As quick as I've attended to those roses, we go to work, understand? Tonight; here and now. Yes, Rafello's got a glitter to him, damn him! There won't be any glitter when I'm done with him. Get busy."

He went on out of the apartment.

Meanwhile, Roesche had been working like a madman over me. He gave me a dangerously strong injection, for he knew what had happened out front, and was scared stiff; however, he kept his head.

Caffery had shown him the way out. As soon as he had me half awake, he got me on my feet and rushed me out. I was dazed and groggy, of course; the descent of those back stairs of the apartment house was a nightmare. Roesche, with his arm around me, carried me part of the way, but the night air soon cleared my brain.

Then matters came easier. Once out of that accursed place, the feeling of relief was overwhelming. We went on down, and now the alley was before us, with only another short flight of steps to cover.

At this moment, a sound like a shot came from the street. Roesche laughed shakily.

"Backfire, eh? Gave me a start, though—"

Half a dozen more sounded, almost in a bunch.

"Backfire, hell!" I exclaimed. "That's shooting. Let's get away from here."

I was able to walk fairly well now. We drifted down the alley, came out on a street, and in another five minutes were in a taxi and on the way to the hotel.

"Well, we're out of it," and Roesche drew a long breath.

"Was it a dream?" I demanded. "Did he shoot her, or did I imagine it?"

"You imagined nothing," Roesche said grimly, and told me what had happened.

"Good lord!" I exclaimed. "Let's pack and clear out by the first train— anywhere." And we did it.

Morning found us reaching a city three hundred miles distant. We were breakfasting in the diner, before leaving the train, when the morning papers were brought aboard. Roesche got hold of one, glanced at the headlines, and then, without a word, laid it in front of me. We read it together.

As we descended those back stairs, the previous night, Caffery had been killed. We had heard the shots. He had been shot down as he stood in his flower shop, shot down by "parties unknown."

At the moment, he had been ordering white roses.

_____________________

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-57

I NEVER envisaged this series of original anthologies going into so many issues, and the ever-growing index to all issues was becoming unwieldy.  Accordingly, I have now divided the Index.  This Index commences with Past Masters 31.

The Index to Issues 1 to 30 can be found in Past Masters 30, or as a stand-alone document uploaded to the Kindle and Epub libraries at MobileRead.

The stories are arranged in Alphabetical order of Author's surname, or if the author's name is consistently a pseudonym, that pseudonym (eg "Owen Oliver").  They are then in alphabetical order of title, disregarding "A", "An" and "The".

____________

Cleve F. Adams

Frame For a Lady 38

George Ade

Loafer's Lullaby  49

Hervey Allen

Report to Major Roberts  47

Lewis Allen

Pinched  39

Robert L. Ahern

Murder Needs No Motive  34

W. L. Alden

Queen Hatasoo  57

Mark Allerton

The Wrong 'Un 44

The Reward 55

The Wrong 'Un 56

Frederick Irving Anderson

The Phantom Alibi 50

The Van Duersen Haze 50

Anonymous

Arsenic 55

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

The Return 56

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

The Wife of the Humorous Gangster 57

J. J. Bell

Blue Blood, or, The Pride of Lady Ambrosia 44

The Message on the Sun-Dial  42

The Storm Centre  56

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

Night Errant 56

John Arthur Berry

Cleverly Caught 53

Algernon Blackwood

The Messenger Came at Midnight   54

Strange Disappearance of a Baronet 57

Violence 55

The Willows  54

M. McDonnell Bodkin

The Murder on the Golf Links  41

The Torpedo 56

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

Miles J. Breuer

Millions for Defense  47

The Stone Cat   47

Coutts Brisbane

At the Fortunate Frog  57

Flowers that Bloomed in the Spring 57

The Higher Civilisation 57

Scribbler's Luck 57

George Bronson-Howard

The Steerage Passenger 44

K. R. G. Browne

Adventures of Hector John 57

The Amateur Prophet 56

The Turning Point  56

Gelett Burgess

The Ghost-Extinguisher  54

Thomas Burke

The Hands of Mr Ottermole 55

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

Stephen Chalmers

The Dagger of Macbeth 56

Robert W Chambers

As You Choose 44

Anna Alice Chapin

By Way of Experience 40

Peter Cheyney

Birthday for Callaghan 57

Black Out   54

Christmas With a Punch  54

Death Chair 55

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

Thomas Cobb

Doctor Milner's Story 55

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

L. C. Douthwaite

King Of Clubs  56

Li Wang's Legacy  56

Midnight Murder 56

Tainted Gold 57

Theodore Dreiser

The Lost Phoebe  57

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 Ways of Chance 57

The Will  54

The Worm With the Sting in His Tail  56

Théophile Gautier

The Vampire 50

Lady Gilbert

Aurora's Treasure 35

Murray Gilchrist

March Brew 55

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 Smugglers of San Diego 55

The Toad Men of Tumbaroo  46

Westward, How!  46

Where Early Fa's the Dew 57

The Yogi of West Ninth Street  50

Susan Glaspell

A Jury of Her Peers 44

Evelyn Glover

Blatherwick  52

Winifred Graham

Pan   39

Valentine Gregory

Murder in the Stalls 57

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

Frederick Trevor Hill

Exhibit Number Two 55

Headon Hill

An Inherited Taint 55

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

Violet Jacob

Secret Intelligence 55

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

E. M. Keate

Horn Spectacles 55

Marianne Kent

A Black Diamond  35

Otis Adelbert Kline

The Dragoman's Slave Girl 35

The Man Who Limped 57

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

Sinclair Lewis

The Post-Mortem Murder  57

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

Capt. Frederick Moore

The Lagoon of the Secret Pearls 56

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 Ambassador 56

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

W. Pett Ridge

His Cheap Bravo  56

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

Disinherited  56

The Girl at the Gate  54

Kitiwik   55

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

Falling Downstairs 57

Victor L. Whitechurch

Mitchinson's Developer  57

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

The Magician Murder  55

The Man from Shanghai 56

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: Adventures of Hector John / K. R. G. Browne

- 2: Where Early Fa's the Dew / Guy Gilpatric
- 3: The Man Who Limped / Otis Adelbert Kline
- 4: Murder in the Stalls / Valentine Gregory
- 5: At the Fortunate Frog / Coutts Brisbane

- 6: The Higher Civilisation / Coutts Brisbane

- 7: Scribbler's Luck / Coutts Brisbane

- 8: Flowers that Bloomed in the Spring / Coutts Brisbane

- 9: Birthday for Callaghan / Peter Cheyney

- 10: Strange Disappearance of a Baronet / Algernon Blackwood

- 11: Queen Hatasoo / W. L. Alden

- 12: Mitchinson's Developer / Victor L. Whitechurch

- 13: Falling Downstairs / Ethel Lina White
- 14: The Ways of Chance / Arthur Gask
- 15: The Post-Mortem Murder / Sinclair Lewis
- 16: The Lost Phoebe / Theodore Dreiser
- 17: Tainted Gold / L. C. Douthwaite

- 18: The Wife of the Humorous Gangster / H. Bedford-Jones

- Cumulative Index