Past Masters Fifty Eight
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Further stories in the Life + 70 Public Domain; humour, creepy, crime, rmance and adventure 1: The Amber Fan / Raoul Whitfield 2: Secret Service / Arthur Gask 3: Icebergs / Mary Clare Davron 4: The Saints' Rest / W. L. Alden 5: He Had An Alibi / Anonymous 6: The Cast-Iron Canvasser / A. B. ("Banjo") Patterson 7: The Extraordinary Adventure of a Chief Mate / W. Clark Russell 8: Thurnley Abbey / Perceval Landon 9: The Lizard God / Charles J. Finger 10: The Signal Tower / Wadsworth Camp 11: The Cardboard Clue / Walter Ripperger (novella) 12: The End of Command / Albert Richard Wetjen 13: A Worth-

PAST MASTERS

FIFTY-EIGHT

January 2022

Part 5

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: The Amber Fan / Raoul Whitfield

2: Secret Service / Arthur Gask

3: Icebergs / Mary Clare Davron

4: The Saints' Rest / W. L. Alden

5: He Had An Alibi / Anonymous

6: The Cast-Iron Canvasser / A. B. ("Banjo") Patterson

7: The Extraordinary Adventure of a Chief Mate / W. Clark Russell

8: Thurnley Abbey / Perceval Landon

9: The Lizard God / Charles J. Finger

10: The Signal Tower / Wadsworth Camp

11: The Cardboard Clue / Walter Ripperger (novella)

12: The End of Command / Albert Richard Wetjen

13: A Worth-While Crime / George Allan England

14: The Glamour of the Snow / Algernon Blackwood

Cumulative Index

________________________

1: The Amber Fan

Raoul Whitfield

1896-1945

Black Mask July 1933

THE SMALL SHOP window of Yut Gen, whose tiny store sprawled less than a half square from the Pasig River, was almost in darkness as Jo Gar padded slowly along the narrow Calle Vanisto. The rice and chicken had been good, at the home of Rinaldo Darian, and there had been a plentiful supply of wine. At nine o'clock Rinaldo had spoken again of the typhoon. The wind was growing severe; the rain was coming more heavily in gusts. The Number Six typhoon signal was flying over Manila, and already much damage had been done in the native quarter.

At ten, against the wishes of his host, Jo Gar had departed. Over his white duck suit he wore a light Army rain-coat. His pith helmet was of khaki and the rain could damage it little. He wore the strap under his chin. The streets were wet, but sandals were not of importance; he had many pairs.

When he reached the shop of Yut Gen the flickering light at the rear of the store threw moving shadows on the display of the one window. This section of Manila was not well lighted, and stores were few. A gust of wind rocked the Island detective. He moved close to the fly-spotted glass and tightened the strap of his pith helmet.

The odor of spices made him sniff deeply; he stood near the window, facing it, and wiped warm rain from his face with the back of a stubby-fingered hand. His gray eyes watched the moving shadows in the small window, and with his back to water and wind his almond-shaped eyes wandered over the objects on display.

The jade pieces, even in the poor light, he could see were bad. The bead strings were the usual things. There were some wood carvings, some spoons done by the Igorrote tribe. In a corner of the window was an opium pipe, elaborate and not very graceful.

Jo Gar was about to turn away, to move on towards the river, when his eyes discovered the fan. For several seconds he stood motionless, then moved his brown face so that it almost touched the wet glass of the window.

It was a small fan. The flat portion of it was circular, six inches or less. The material was silk of a blue-green color. The handle was round, almost a foot in length. The material was the color of old, brown wood, but to the keen eye of Jo Gar it was more than wood.

"Amber," he said softly. "Not the vegetable— but sea amber."

The typhoon wind swayed his short figure; his eyes moved from the handle of the flat fan to the object beside it. The object was a small silver box. The lid was open, with a chain stretched behind. The interior of the box was of wood and was stained red.

Jo Gar murmured: "Betel-nut— and a cheap box. But the fan—"

He stood for several seconds, straining his eyes, looking at the heavy, rich, brown of the fan's handle. There was a grace in the carving of it, a distinction in the simplicity.

Turning away, he saw that the shutters of the shop were down over the entrance. For a few seconds more he paused. He might obtain entrance, bargain for the fan. But such an entrance might only antagonize Yut Gen, who was not too charming a character.

Jo Gar shrugged, lowered his head against the wind and rain, and moved towards the Pasig.

"Tomorrow," he breathed huskily, "will do."

At the Bridge of Spain, although the distance to his home was short, he hailed a caleso that was motionless, climbed inside. The horse was ancient and the two-wheeled carriage was wet inside as well as out. The Island detective gave the Filipino driver the address of his house and sat back against the cane seat. He was filled with chicken and rice, and the wine had made him drowsy. Closing his gray-blue eyes, he dozed. When he reached the Spanish gate of his home he had forgotten completely the amber fan.

AT MIDNIGHT Jo Gar was awakened by what he thought was a vase crashing to the floor. He sat up and swore in two languages at his house-boy Vincente. He had told the boy to be sure all the vases were in safe places. A second crash, and he sat up in bed. Vincente's voice called shrilly:

"Señor Gar— if you please— Señor Gar!"

The Island detective shook his head and stared towards the door of his bedroom.

"What is it?" he demanded sleepily.

The house-boy said: "Señor, the Americano Edmond Neblo is here. He say it is much important you come awake."

Jo Gar swung his short legs from the bed, shoving the mosquito netting to one side.

"And so you must pound my door to pieces," he muttered. "Tell him I will be down soon."

He threw cold water from the basin on his face, dressed rapidly and moved from the room. The house seemed to rock in the gusts of typhoon wind, and rain beat against the glass of the windows. It was very hot.

When he crossed the waxed floor of his small living-room Neblo was standing near the door that led to the patio. The American's drill suit was wet; his white face was soaked with rain. He moved towards Jo.

"Señor Gar," he said shakily, "I've notified the police, but I wanted you, too. A terrible thing has happened."

Jo Gar said: "What is it that has happened, Mr. Neblo?"

The American rubbed wet fingers across his eyes. He said tonelessly:

"My secretary, Howard Strett, has been murdered."

The Island detective narrowed his eyes. "Murdered?" he repeated. "You are sure?"

Edmond Neblo said bitterly: "God, yes. In my house. I called the police and then came here for you. I live only two squares away, you know."

Jo Gar nodded. The American was a six-foot, heavily built man. He had brown hair and eyes, and a small, brown mustache. He was an exporter to the United States of hemp, and owned several large properties on the smaller islands. More than once Jo had watched him play polo, on the field near the Walled City.

"I will come immediately," he said. "May I offer you a drink?"

Neblo shook his head. "I haven't touched the body. The police should be along soon, though they have a distance to come. I know of your reputation, of course."

Jo Gar clapped his hands, told Vincente to bring him his helmet and raincoat. He got a pocket flashlight from a drawer. He said as Vincente helped him into his coat:

"It was a knife wound— that killed your secretary?"

Neblo looked surprised. "Yes, but how did—"

Jo Gar interrupted wearily: "It is most often the knife, here in the Islands."

He placed the dry pith helmet on his head, led the way to the patio and towards the calle beyond. Outside the iron gate, they turned towards the Bay. The typhoon wind swung palm leaves along the street, and they had to bend their bodies forward against the force of it.

Neblo, keeping his head low and twisted towards the lowered head of the Island detective, spoke jerkily:

"I turned in at ten— I hate this damned wind. I left Strett in the small room off my living-room, a sort of study. He was finishing up some business reports, and said he'd be through by midnight. He seemed— cheerful enough."

Rain made sharp sound against their lowered helmets. Neblo went on in a louder voice:

"I couldn't sleep. The damned Chink hadn't filled my whiskey decanter. The two servants were in their separate house, back of my place. A short while ago, I took the decanter and went down to fill it from a bottle of whiskey I knew was in the dining-room."

Neblo swore bitterly. "Then— I found Strett. He was lying— well, you'll see how that is— I didn't touch him except to try his pulse. He was dead."

Jo Gar twisted his head towards Neblo and said tonelessly, against the whine of the wind:

"How many servants do you employ?"

Neblo replied: "Two— a Filipino cook and a Chinese house-boy. We spend most of our time traveling through the Islands. Didn't make much fuss— with the house here in Manila."

They crossed a street that was within a short square of the Bay. Jo Gar said: "There would be, perhaps, a reason for one or both of the servants—to hate your secretary?"

Neblo shook his head, and water sprayed downward from his helmet.

"If there was any reason— I never knew it. The servants seldom spoke. The house-boy is stupid. Damned if I know why I kept him on."

Jo Gar smiled faintly. "Most house-boys are stupid," he philosophized. "That is why they are house-boys."

Neblo said: "Here we are." He turned to the right; they went through a half-opened gate and along a palm-lined gravel path. Lights of the house were beyond; the wind made much sound in the palms. All around the house, set in a tropical growth of foliage, the typhoon made racket.

They went through a door in the screening, crossed a porch and entered the living-room directly. Neblo said a little shakily:

"I didn't wake the servants— I called the police and then went right to you. He's— in there—"

He pointed beyond the living-room. Jo Gar removed his helmet and walked slowly across the polished floor. When he reached the entrance of the study he stood for a few seconds, looking around. Then he went past the desk, which was littered with papers, and looked down at the body of Howard Strett.

The secretary lay on his stomach, his head twisted sidewise so that it faced the room. His white shirt was stained with red. There were knife wounds in his back, and when Jo carefully lifted the upper part of his body he found more knife wounds around the heart. Some of them were slashes, but most of them deep and straight.

He lowered the body to the divan, faced the head towards the room. When he looked towards the living-room Edmond Neblo was standing motionless, his palms covering his face. The Island detective turned his small body slowly, using his gray-blue eyes on the floor, the few wicker chairs, the surface of the desk. Suddenly he drew in a sharp breath.

Walking a few feet, he leaned down and lifted the fan from the spot where it had rested, under a small, wicker cabinet. Only the blue silk of the flat portion had protruded; the cabinet rested on four knobs of wood which raised the lower shelf about an inch from the polished floor of the study.

Jo Gar held the fan by the rim of the blue silk's circle, half closed his eyes on the handle. It was the color of brown-black wood; there was a grace in the carving, a distinction in the workmanship. The flat surface of the fan was about six inches in diameter; the handle was almost a foot in length.

Neblo said huskily, from the other room: "It seems unbelievable— Howard murdered— like this!"

Jo Gar went slowly from the room, reached Neblo's side. He held the amber-handled fan so that light from the floor-lamps of the living-room struck it.

Neblo blinked at the fan. "What's that?" he demanded.

The Island detective said: "You have not seen it before?"

Neblo reached for the handle, but Jo moved it swiftly to one side.

"Pardon, Mr. Neblo. I found it under the wicker cabinet, in your study. You have not seen it before?"

Neblo frowned at the fan.

"Never," he said. "It's a fan— Chinese, looks like." He leaned forward, got his head close to the handle. His brown eyes widened.

"Say— that handle looks like amber, to me! The real thing."

Jo Gar nodded his head slowly. He ran the stubby fingers of his left hand through his gray hair.

"I think it is amber," he said. "Perhaps your secretary owned it."

Neblo was frowning. "No, I'm sure he didn't," he said. "Strett wasn't interested in anything like that. Never picked up any curios. Didn't like Chinese—" He broke off and then went on in a puzzled tone. "You found it in the study— say, how the devil—"

Jo Gar said quietly: "You are very sure it is not something belonging—"

Neblo interrupted impatiently: "Certainly I'm sure. I'm sure that handle is amber—damn good amber. You know what that means, Señor Gar— there's a lot of it there. That's a valuable fan."

The Island detective shrugged. "It is worth many pesos," he agreed. "But unpolished amber like this is not always detected. You do not think Mr. Strett might have picked it up somewhere, even found it? Might have regarded the fan carelessly, not informing you, telling you of it?"

Neblo shook his head. "Howard would have told me, all right. He might have laughed at it, or sneered at it, but he'd have showed it to me."

He narrowed his eyes on the almond-shaped ones of Jo Gar. "That fan!" he breathed excitedly. "The murderer of Howard Strett—"

Jo Gar shrugged. "Perhaps," he said quietly. "It is not, however, the type of fan one would carry about. And in typhoon weather the natives or other races seldom carry any fans with them. Also, this fan is valuable, and not likely to be carried from one's home."

There were the sounds of footfalls and of voices, beyond the house. Neblo said:

"The police, I suppose."

Jo Gar faced Lieutenant Sadi Ratan as he came into the living-room. Sadi frowned at Jo. A uniformed policeman halted behind Sadi Ratan, near the door leading to the porch.

Neblo said: "I am Edmond Neblo. I telephoned for the police. My secretary has been— murdered. This is Señor Gar, or have you—"

Jo Gar said tonelessly: "The Lieutenant and myself are acquainted, Mr. Neblo."

Sadi Ratan nodded coldly. He removed his helmet and raincoat. His uniform was well fitted and spotless, and his slender figure showed it well.

"The body?" he said in accented English. Jo Gar said:

"In the study beyond." He raised the fan slightly. "I found this fan beneath the wicker cabinet. Mr. Neblo has never seen it before, and is certain that his secretary did not have it in his possession. I think the handle is amber. I have not touched the handle— there may be fingerprints on it."

Neblo said: "I have called Señor Gar in— want him on the case." Lieutenant Ratan bowed slightly. He extended fingers and took the fan on the circular rim of the flat part. His dark eyes examined the handle. He sniffed it.

Jo said: "There is no odor. When the police have determined the presence or absence of prints it will be simple to burn the handle or rub it. Then you can—"

Sadi Ratan said sharply: "I am familiar, Señor Gar, with the methods of discovering amber. But this is nothing. Let us look into the matter of the murder."

Jo Gar bowed. "If you will pardon me, Mr. Neblo," he said quietly, "I will return for a short time to my house. In our haste to reach your home I neglected to bring my automatic. I would feel more safe—" Lieutenant Ratan smiled. "Perhaps you would take mine, Señor Gar?" he said mockingly. "The murderer might attack you during your return to your home."

"You are kind, Lieutenant," Jo Gar's voice was expressionless. He moved towards the door. "But I am sure that while you are so near my home— the murderer will not dare to strike again."

It was almost one o'clock when the small car of the Island detective pulled into the curb a quarter square from the banks of the Pasig. Jo descended and walked through the rain, with the typhoon wind behind him, along the Calle Vanisto. The night was very dark; the typhoon had increased in velocity; few people were about. An old Chinese passed him as he neared the shop of Yut Gen, hunched forward against the gusts of wind and showers of rain.

Before the small window Jo Gar halted. There was no flickering light at the rear of the shop now, and something had gone wrong with the nearest street light. Jo drew the pocket flash from his raincoat, snapped the button. The yellow beam struck the wet glass, penetrated beyond. The Island detective sucked in a swift breath.

The betel-nut box was where it had been a few hours before. The jade, the beads and the carved spoons had not been moved. But the amber fan was not in the window.

Jo Gar stood with his browned face close to the glass of the small shop. His gray-blue eyes were almost closed. After a short time he turned towards the door of the shop, stood facing it. Then, slowly, he shook his head, walked past the door and towards his small car.

When he reached the house of Edmond Neblo he swore softly in Spanish. He did not enjoy driving his car, preferred the caleso. He went along the path as the wind rocked the palms, crossed the porch, entered the house.

In the living-room were Neblo and Lieutenant Ratan. The policeman who had accompanied Ratan was placing shining handcuffs on a small, fat-faced Chinese, who was protesting shrilly in his native tongue. He stared at Jo, broke into bad English:

"They take me away— I no do kill! I tell him truth. I no do this—"

Sadi Ratan smiled sarcastically at Jo. "You were not attacked by the murderer," he stated calmly. "Because the murderer was here."

Jo Gar looked with narrowed eyes at the house-boy. "So?" he said softly. "And the motive, Lieutenant?"

Sadi Ratan smiled in a superior manner. "He had been drinking saké. He hated Señor Strett. The secretary had called him a stupid fool. He had even struck him. I have found unfinished saké in his quarters. It was almost a half hour before he could talk to us. He has admitted that Señor Strett called him stupid and struck him. And, Señor Gar, regard his right hand."

Jo Gar moved near the Chinese. He spoke quietly: "You hated Señor Strett?"

The house-boy spoke Chinese rapidly. Jo Gar reached down and caught the right wrist of the Chinese in strong right-hand fingers.

Across the palm and fingers was a long, deep cut. It was a cut such as the blade of a knife might have made.

Sadi Ratan said: "You see, Señor Gar. Unless one is very clever, when striking another person, the blade of the knife may turn. He was injured as he murdered Señor Strett."

The house-boy stopped his rapid talk. Jo Gar released the wrist.

He shrugged.

"He says that it is true he hated Señor Strett," he informed Lieutenant Ratan and Edmond Neblo. "But he says that he did not kill him. He was often struck and called stupid because he did not fasten the screens, when told to do so. He was in his quarters and had drunk much saké when you came to him."

Sadi Ratan smiled. "And the cut on his hand, Señor Gar?"

Jo spoke in Chinese, to the house-boy. When the Chinese had finished his reply Jo said:

"His story is very plain. He says that he was awakened in the night by the wind. Somewhat tardily he recalled Señor Strett's instructions to make fast all the screens, and for this purpose he came silently to this room to repair his neglect.

"On entering, he says, above the wind noises he heard the gasping of struggling men. There was no light— when he entered— but he heard the voice of Strett cry out once in pain; a choked cry, as if he were being strangled. Then the men in their struggle were right upon him. He reached out, he says, and grasped an arm, a wrist. It was suddenly withdrawn and the knife sliced his palm.

"He jumped back; then heard Strett groan, and the thud of a falling body. He turned, he says, and fearing for his own life, fled into the gardens. A half-hour later, he made his way back to his room, bound his hand and drank deeply of saké. And thus you found him."

"A very likely story," murmured Sadi Ratan, "—for children."

"I do not find it so," Jo Gar said coldly.

The lieutenant of Manila Police shrugged elaborately, almost too elaborately.

"And does he describe this other man— who cut him? He started to tell me this same wild tale— but his guilt is too evident; the case against him too apparent." He shrugged again, but at the same time his eyes were watching the little Island detective.

Jo Gar spoke again in Chinese to the house-boy.

"He says," he said slowly, "that he could not see the man. He knows only that the wrist was large; the man was very strong. He could not hold him."

Sadi Ratan lifted both hands and shoulders in sardonic gesture. Yet his eyes were very keen, although he veiled their expression from Jo Gar.

"So you see? How is it possible to find such a man—the man who used the knife, if there was one— through a thick, strong wrist alone? It is much simpler as it is."

"Of course," Jo Gar said agreeably. "Much simpler— for everybody except the boy here, and he will have great difficulty in making the court believe his story unless such a man is found and made to appear the guilty one. As you present it, Lieutenant, the case against him is very simple."

Sadi Ratan swore.

"The police," he said hotly, "do not wish to punish the innocent."

"The police," Jo Gar said softly, "are sometimes lazy. They often prefer the easiest, the simple way."

Sadi Ratan swung towards him angrily, with a threatening gesture. He seemed on the point of striking the little detective.

"You cannot say that to me, damn you!" he stuttered. Jo Gar smiled slightly.

"The observation," he said quietly, "was a generality. It shall not apply to Lieutenant Ratan unless he himself makes it applicable."

The lieutenant seemed very angry; but behind his anger his eyes were shrewd.

"Very well," he said with sudden dignity. "Let us look further into this matter. If the story he tells is true, why did he not at once cry for help, or at least, when he felt safe to return, inform Señor Neblo? Perhaps he can answer that to your satisfaction, Señor Gar!" he added triumphantly.

Jo Gar shrugged slightly.

"I think," he said, "that he can."

He spoke again to the boy.

"It is," he interpreted for Neblo and the lieutenant, "as he feared— that he would be implicated in the murder. You know the Chinese. This boy is also stupid. He believed Señor Strett dead and did not wish to say anything in the matter. It was, of course, very stupid."

"There remains then," Sadi Ratan said with a tone of finality, "the necessity to discover this other man. For, surely, without him one must believe my simple story, and the boy will hang."

"That is all very true," Jo Gar agreed, "and without the real murderer, the boy will surely hang. I think, however, this man can be readily found."

"What!" Sadi Ratan shouted, and Edmond Neblo echoed the exclamation. "You know the man— have known him all along, while we've had this senseless talk? Before God, Señor Gar, you try my patience; and, as you know, your license depends upon the agreeability of the police department. Who is this man? What is his name? I demand it."

Jo Gar raised a slender, browned hand.

"My words," he said slowly, "were, I think the man can be readily found. That means that he is yet to be found. First, however, it is necessary to discover a motive; for without a reason for the killing and its story, it would be useless to confront such a man. He would simply deny— we could do nothing."

Sadi Ratan glanced about him with an air of exasperation. "Then let us make a beginning—" He left off, frowning.

Jo Gar passed a hand swiftly across his lips, to conceal their involuntary smile.

"I shall gladly save the Lieutenant," he said, "much labor that may in the end prove fruitless. You have a prisoner," he added, "a very plausible suspect. That should content you for tonight. Tomorrow, if you will meet me at my office, at nine. I shall take you to the murderer—or will leave the simple case as it stands entirely in your hands."

Sadi Ratan frowned darkly.

"But— if you have reason to suspect a man, he might escape meanwhile."

"He would scarcely, I think, give us so much evidence against himself," Jo Gar said softly.

"Very well," the lieutenant said gruffly, "we will leave it meanwhile at that. I have a prisoner, a very reasonable suspect—" he shrugged. "I have also a knife, such a knife as could have been used in the murder. It is stained with blood. I found it beside the boy—on his bed."

"And I," Jo Gar said softly, "have a fan, an amber fan, whose presence here has not yet been explained."

Sadi Ratan glanced at him keenly; then turned and signed to the man in uniform to lead out the trembling house-boy.

"Do you leave with me, Señor Gar?" he asked, with elaborate politeness.

"No, I shall talk a while with Señor Neblo." Sadi Ratan nodded stiffly to both and left.

Sadi Ratan and the little Island detective moved towards Calle Vanisto.

"It was only an accident," Jo Gar said, "that I happened to see it; that my curiosity was aroused."

"Perhaps you even stepped upon it," said the lieutenant of police slyly.

"It may be so," Jo Gar murmured. "Often people stumble over what lies right before their eyes."

"Still, we have yet to prove the story," the lieutenant said, in different tone.

"The information you have given me will be helpful. Besides, a man who is guilty will often incriminate himself if pressed adroitly."

"But you say the papers which Señor Neblo discovered only hinted at the person; did not give even his name or address?"

"It is so— But we shall soon see, for this is the place."

It was ten minutes after nine when they entered the curio shop of Yut Gen. Sadi Ratan paused near the door and set himself to examine the many objects displayed. Jo Gar advanced farther.

Yut Gen himself came from the rear of the shop, moved soft-footed behind the evil-smelling counter. He was a moon-faced, youthful Chinese; his eyes were small and slitted. He was medium in height and was very stout. His wrists were thick and round.

Jo Gar said: "I am Señor Gar. Last night there was in your window a fan of blue silk. I do not care for fans, but the handle of this one appeared to be of amber. I should like to see the fan."

Yut Gen placed a lighted cigarette between his lips, tilted his chin high and regarded Jo through almost closed eyes. Slowly he shook his head.

"Never in my shop have I possessed such a fan as you describe," he said in very good English. "Perhaps it was in some other shop—" Jo Gar smiled patiently. "I stood before your window last night. It was not yet ten-fifteen. The amber fan was beside the silver betel-nut box."

Yut Gen's small eyes grew smaller. "You are mistaken," he said gently. "I have no amber in my shop."

Jo Gar said: "Perhaps you have not, at this minute. Between ten and ten-fifteen last evening I saw with my own eyes the amber-handled fan. At one o'clock last night I returned to your window. The fan was not there."

Yut Gen made clicking sounds and spread his browned hands.

"I think that you have seen the fan in some other shop, Señor," he stated calmly. "Then, returning to my shop, you failed to see it. A not uncommon mistake."

Jo Gar smiled, but his gray-blue eyes held a hard expression.

"In the home of Señor Edmond Neblo his secretary was murdered, last night. The murder occurred between ten o'clock and fifteen minutes of twelve, since he was seen alive at the earlier hour and his knifed body discovered at the later. The doctors have thought the crime was committed about eleven-thirty. Beneath a cabinet, and not far from the body of the murdered man, I have found a fan. Of blue silk, and with a long amber handle. Sea amber, unpolished. The fan is very unusual. I think it is the one I saw in your shop window last night."

Yut Gen widened his small eyes. "How could that be so?" he demanded. "You saw the fan somewhere at ten-thirty—"

Jo Gar smiled, shook his head. "I saw the fan here not long after ten. If it had been removed from the window a few minutes after I left the Calle Vanisto— it might have been in the dead man's possession before he was murdered. Or it might have been dropped by the murderer."

Yut Gen twisted a large ring on a finger of his right hand. He was standing with his back against the long counter, leaning partially against it. He seemed quite at his ease.

"I am the owner of my shop. I do not recall such a fan as you speak about. I am sorry."

There was a finality in his voice. Jo Gar placed his right hand in a pocket of his drill suit. His raincoat was opened.

"It is yet early in the morning. But I have talked to several persons. A Chinese house-boy is accused of the murder of Señor Strett. He is not the murderer."

Yut Gen shrugged. The Island detective smiled agreeably.

"You have lied to me," he said pleasantly. "And where there is death it is not well to lie."

Yut Gen stopped toying with his ring. His face became set, his eyes sullen. Jo Gar said softly:

"The soles of the dead man's sandals were wet, though he was supposed not to have left the house last evening. I did not think that the amber fan could have fallen to the floor and have been kicked beneath the cabinet, during a struggle. I do not think there was much of a struggle, because Señor Neblo was upstairs. He would have heard the sounds."

Yut Gen said quickly: "There was wind in the—" He checked himself. Jo Gar smiled coldly.

"You remember that, the wind in the palms. You thought of that— when you struck with the knife—"

The Chinese said calmly: "There was a typhoon last night. There is always the sound of wind—"

Jo Gar narrowed his blue-gray eyes. "Señor Strett came to your shop last night. When he departed he had with him the amber fan. Why was that?"

Yut Gen shrugged slightly. "I know nothing of the fan of amber," he said slowly.

The Island detective nodded his head. "Yes, you know of it," he contradicted quietly. "You went to Señor Neblo's house for it. You surprised Señor Strett in the study, but he had sufficient time to place the fan beneath the cabinet. You killed by the knife, and made your escape."

Yut Gen's forehead had deep lines in it. His bared lips showed teeth that were not even.

"You make talk, Señor Gar," he breathed.

Jo Gar smiled pleasantly and his right hand fingers moved within the cloth of the coat pocket. Sadi Ratan, some feet away, was bent over the counter, eyes intent on a small carving of jade.

"It is so," Jo agreed. "You alone live behind your shop. You alone are the proprietor. You have no relatives, and few friends. In the window of the shop you have a valuable fan. An expert has this morning assured me it is worth many pesos— the amber is very old, and very good. The secretary of Señor Neblo visits you secretly, when he is thought to be working on reports. He leaves, taking with him this amber fan. You follow him, and murder him. And you lie to me. That is the talk I make."

The Chinese made a faint hissing sound as he drew in a deep breath. "Because the soles of a man's shoes are wet— does that prove that this man has visited me?"

Jo Gar smiled calmly. "Last night I talked with Señor Neblo— we found letters— letters which Señor Strett would not have allowed others to see, and which he had concealed cleverly. One was a demand to pay a gambling debt— tomorrow; if not paid, the holder of his obligation would appeal to Señor Neblo, and explain— certain matters of his secretary.

"Other papers were memoranda of money advanced to you at different dates; demands for repayment, references to your refusal even so recently as last week, and, what is of most interest, a promise to call upon you last evening, with the threat of exposing your affairs if you did not make some settlement immediately. Shall I explain that to you?"

"It means nothing to me— If you wish to talk—" Jo Gar said slowly, smiling with his thin lips:

"For weeks the Manila police have been suspicious of you. For such a small shop too many men leave here, during the night. Too many men enter."

The wind of the typhoon made rattling sounds, outside the shop. Between the blasts could be heard the shuffling of Sadi Ratan's feet as he moved nearer, along the counter. Jo kept his narrowed eyes on the small ones of Yut Gen.

"I was not concerned with your shop, until the fan vanished from your window. I then became interested. Señor Strett was also interested in your shop. It was he who furnished you the money to purchase the opium. So that men could come here— and go from here. And you did not repay him. You promised at first; then you refused outright. You relied on his fear that Señor Neblo and the officials would learn of his connection with the illicit traffic.

"But Strett was desperate. That demand of the gambling debt and danger of exposure through that source made him so. He came to you in the late evening, when the typhoon was blowing and— received no satisfaction; only a repetition of your threat."

Jo Gar spoke slowly, confidently; yet his eyes watched the slit eyes before him as if for confirmation.

"And he probably told you," he went on, steadily, "that an anonymous letter to the police would draw you into prison. Then he left hurriedly; but, in going; he snatched up a thing of ready value— the amber fan."

Yut Gen dropped his cigarette to the floor and set his heel upon it; then he glanced up impassively.

"It is possible," Jo Gar continued, "that you discovered the theft. It is more probable that you started to think of the anonymous letter which Señor Strett in his desperation would write— for revenge. His secret notes that we found hinted of it.

"You followed him shortly, gained entrance to the house and to the study. As you came, he switched off the light, tossed the fan beneath the cabinet."

Jo Gar paused a moment; then continued tonelessly:

"After you had killed him, you did not look for the fan. You feared the house-boy who had entered the struggle and then fled. Perhaps—" Yut Gen interrupted him, with a glance towards Sadi Ratan, who was standing not far from them, but with his shoulder turned and apparently not listening.

"I do not think I wish to hear you any further, Señor Gar," the Chinese proprietor said. "It is only talk and means nothing to me. I know of no such fan as you describe. You have no possible way of connecting me with this murder you speak of. It is—"

"Fool!" Jo Gar hissed. "You were too confident, too careless. Why, you even neglected to change your clothing."

The stubby fingers of his left hand pointed with quick gesture. "See— the blood spots still on the cuff—"

Involuntarily, with a start, the eyes of the Chinese snapped downward. Then his whole body tensed. His small black eyes blazed into the gray-blue ones of the little Island detective.

"Damn you!" he snarled in frantic rage.

Apparently forgetful of the lieutenant of police, his left hand flashed from behind him. Jo Gar saw the knife, and the fingers of his right hand in his pocket clenched.

The shop was filled with the sound of the explosion. The knife slipped from Yut Gen's mangled left hand.

Yut Gen lifted his right hand, but there was no knife in it. Red spread from the fingers of the left hand, resting on the counter. Yut Gen spread his lips and seemed to bite into the large ring with his teeth. Jo Gar stood very quietly as the Chinese made sucking sound. After a few seconds Yut Gen's body slipped down beside the counter.

When Sadi Ratan, with the Island detective, stooped over him the poison of the ring had brought death. Jo Gar straightened up.

"It might have been," Lieutenant Sadi Ratan said slowly, "as you said. I think it is enough on which to let the house-boy go."

"Suicide is often an admission of guilt," Jo Gar murmured.

"You were very clever," the lieutenant said, in the same tone. "We should work more closely together, Señor. I might even consider resigning in order to enter and strengthen your private agency."

"I fear," Jo Gar murmured, "that the loss to the Force would be too great, Lieutenant."

________________________

2: Secret Service

Arthur Gask

1869-1951

Chronicle (Adelaide) 27 March 1941

IT WAS in the old untroubled days before Dictators walked the earth and the scene was the lounge of a luxurious hotel upon the Cornish Riviera. The hour was after dinner, and a number of the guests had been discussing the case of a well-known public man who mysteriously disappeared from his home a few weeks previously, after it had been found out he had for many years been leading a double life.

"And, of course, there would be a woman in it!" drawled a cynical-looking man about thirty. There's a woman in everything when there's any trouble. They cause it all."

"Nonsense!" snapped an aristocratic blonde who always had a little cluster of admirers round her. "It's you horrid men who make all the trouble. You never leave us poor women alone."

She turned to a distinguished looking old man who was regarding them all with an amused smile upon his clever, intellectual face. "Isn't that so, Dr. Smith? We are quite harmless if left to ourselves, aren't we?"

"Quite harmless!" nodded the old doctor emphatically. He fibbed with great gallantry. "I've never yet known a woman do anything wrong." He shook his head. "But about this particular man we've been talking of; a great deal too much fuss is being made about his disappearance, simply because he happens to be well in the public eye. Why, if we only knew it, a hundred and one such mysteries are taking place every day under our very eyes!"

"And I expect you, as a doctor, could tell us some very interesting stories of double lives, if you only would," nodded the blonde.

"Certainly, I could," agreed Dr. Smith readily. His old eyes twinkled. "Only they mightn't be all true. You've heard just now what a dreadful fibber I can be."

The blonde looked pleadingly at him.

"But do tell us a story, doctor. There's nearly always something a little bit improper about doctors' stories, and it will give some of us girls a chance to lower our eyes and show off what nice long lashes we've got. Yes, tell us a story, whether it's true or not."

The others joining with her request, the old doctor said at last, "Well, I'll tell you one, and the great merit of it will be that it's qute true. It points out in what mystery we can be living for years and years and yet— be quite unaware of it." He settled himself back comfortably in his chair.

"Now it's about a young fellow whom we'll call Jack Robinson. He was the only son of well-to-do parents and had been living the usual life of most young men of his class, good public school, then on to a university, plenty of money for sport, cars, travelling about, and all that. It had been intended he should become a medical man, but he wouldn't settle down to anything and idled about for so long that at last his father got sick of him and all his ways. There was a quarrel and he left the house with only a few pounds in his pocket and with no prospects at all.

"I knew the family well, and about three months later ran up against the boy in the Strand. He looked shabby and down at heel, and there was no doubt things were not going too well with him. He was annoyed with meeting me, and curtly refused the offer of a couple of pounds, getting away as quickly as possible to escape any questioning. I saw no more of him until some months later we chanced to meet again, one evening in the West End. To my astonish-ment, he was looking quite his old self again, smartly dressed and with all signs of prosperity about him. Standing well over six feet, I thought what a good-looking young fellow he was. I asked what he was doing, but he shook his head and declined to say.

"I suggested our dining together at the 'Rialto'— you know, one of the best and most expensive restaurants in London— and after a little hesita-tion he agreed, but only on the condition that I came as his guest. I was a little bit disturbed because I knew, as well as he would know, that the din-ner and the wine there would cost him at least fifty shillings.

"Into the Rialto we went, and one thing struck me at once. He was most anxious not to be noticed and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible by humping his shoulders and keeping his head down as we made our way to the table he had selected at the far end of the restaurant. All the meal time, too, when he was taking stock of the other diners, it was his eyes only and not his head which he moved. Yes, for some reason, he was undoubtedly most uneasy.

"Regardless of the price, he ordered a bottle of vintage champagne, with the evident intention of impressing upon me that he had plenty of money. I asked him again how he was making his living, but he only smiled and, upon my saying that at all events I hoped he was doing it honestly, he replied evasively.

"Oh, yes, as things go nowadays!" We had a pleasant meal together and then, upon parting, with some hesitation, he asked me as a favor that if I should happen to come across him again, unexpectedly, wherever he was, unless he spoke to me first would I please take no notice and appear not to recognise him. He wouldn't explain any more, but, of course, I promised.

"I didn't see him again for a very long while, but some two years later got news of him through a mutual friend who had happened to come across him in one of those many new garden cities which have sprung up recently just outside the metropolitan area. He was married to a very pretty girl and they were occupying one of the largest and best houses on the estate. They had a good car, kept two maids and were about the most well-to-do among the little community in which they lived.

The old doctor paused here and beamed round upon his audience with twinkling eyes as he asked, "Now, what do you think his occupation was supposed to be?"

"I know," answered the blonde. "He'd become a bookmaker, of course!"

"Certainly not" reproved Dr. Smith indignantly. "His work was much more romantic than that."

"He was a dress-designer," suggested the cynical-looking man, "and and had all the lovely women in London buzzing round him like flies."

"He told fortunes," said a second man, "and the police were after him."

Dr. Smith nodded solemnly. "He was in the Secret Service and told off to watch all the most dangerous spies coming to London. That's what my friend had found out."

"Oh, how thrilling," exclaimed the blonde, "but did everybody know it?"

"Of course, they didn't! Only a very few; just his wife's parents and her relations. He was the mystery man of that little garden city. Later I met his wife and heard all the story of his coming there and the sensation he had made. It was most interesting for, although so well-off, he'd had a lot of difficulty in getting the girl. Her father was a middle-aged clerk, upon a small salary, in a tea broker's in the city and, sensible and well-balanced, he had a great objection to giving his daughter to anyone who was so evasive about his occupation that he would not disclose where he went to work every day.

"I must tell you here that there were lots of boys after Margaret, that was the girl's name, and she had no end of chances of making a good marriage for one in her position. Her parents may have been commonplace and not much to look at, but she herself was a real little beauty and with her lovely profile, perfect features and aristocratic bearing it might easily have been imagined she came of a long line of noble ancestors.

"Well, just when it seemed the young couple would have to elope to get married, the whole difficulty was smoothed out in a most unexpected manner and, all in a few moments, Margaret's father was completely satisfied as to young Jack Robinson's fitness to become his son-in-law.

"It happened, Jack had had tickets given him for a swell flower show in Chelsea, organised by society people in aid of some charity, and he took Margaret and her parents with him. The latter would not have gone or indeed, have allowed him to take Margaret if they had not heard a certain Royal Duke might be coming. Sure enough the old Duke and his Duchess put in an appearance and proceeded to mingle unobtrusively with the other visitors. Then, to the parents' stupendous amazement, His Royal Highness, happening to catch sight of Jack Robinson, gave him a most friendly nod, actually exclaiming, 'Hope you're enjoying yourself, Robinson?' Then apparently taking in that Jack was in the company of a remarkably pretty-looking girl, he added smilingly, 'And I see flowers are not the only beautiful things here this afternoon.'

"Margaret's parents were almost overwhelmed with pride, but Jack appeared to think little of it, just explaining modestly that his work often brought him in contact with most important people.

"Jack and the pretty Margaret were married shortly afterwards and, later, Jack became reconciled to his father, driving down unexpectedly to the latter's place in Hampshire one Sunday afternoon. Margaret had by then grown into a very beautiful woman and had presented her husband with a lovely little boy. Apparently, Jack was in better circumstances than ever, but he declined to give his father any further information as to his occupation except to tell him, exactly as he had told Margaret's parents, that he was in the Secret Service.

"More than ten years passed by and then, quite by accident I found out what he was actually doing. One night I was visiting one of London's most luxurious hotels, we'll call it the 'Great Babel,' and suddenly I came upon Jack in what I thought must be a disguise. He was dressed as the commissionaire of the hotel. I can't say I was very surprised, for if he were in the Secret Service the 'Great Babel' would be a most natural place for him to be watching, frequented as it is by foreigners from all parts of the world. I very seldom dined out, but that night had come as the guest of an old friend. During the course of the meal I made some discreet enquiries of our waiter as to the very handsome commissionaire I had seen at the door when I came in, and learnt to my astonishment that he was there under his own name of Jack Robinson.

" 'How long has he been here?' I asked, and I could have dropped through the floor when I received the reply, 'Oh, I should think it must be getting on for 15 years.' "

The old doctor paused impressively. "So, that was his Secret Service, bowing visitors into the hotel, bowing them out again and calling taxis for them! Gad, but wasn't I amazed!

"I didn't see him again when I went out and supposed, and quite rightly, too, that he must have gone off duty. Still, I wasn't going to let the matter end there and, as a friend of the family, was intending to find out in what other way he was making his money. I was minded to go down to where I knew he was now living, upon the following Sunday, but he forestalled me by calling at my professional rooms in town the very next afternoon. He had seen me in the hotel, right enough, and came to shut my mouth before I had had much opportunity to tell anybody.

"He came into my consulting-room with a grin and frankly told me every-thing. He had obtained employment at the Great Babel within a few days of my having met him looking so shabby, that first time in the street, to begin with as under porter, but rising to be their head commissioner within a few months. He said he owed his rapid promotion to being able to speak French and German, and a smattering of Italian as well. Not even his wife knew he was there, for he had still kept up the fiction of the Secret Service with her, and the strange thing was that none of the people about his home life seemed to have recognised him.

"But then came his most astound-ing statement and it will make some of your mouths water. His weekly wage was £3, but he assured me, and produced his bank pass-book to prove it, that his tips during that same time often amounted to upwards of £50."

"£50 from tips!" exclaimed the cynical-looking man angrily. "Why it's the salary of a Cabinet Minister!"

"Yes," smiled Dr. Smith, "and most probably more than the manager of the hotel himself earned." He was drawing near the end of his story. "You see only wealthy people would be coming to the Great Babel and Jack Robinson being of such a good appearance and looking so distinguished, none of them would care to give him a really small tip. Besides, with his knowledge of the continent and the best places where one could spend a lot of money, he was most useful to many visitors, particularly so to Americans.

"Well, for ten more years after he came to see me that afternoon he re-mained on at the Great Babel, and during all that time managed to keep from his wife and family what his occupation really was. They never found him out. Just think of it! For five and twenty years he lived that double life, giving his children the best surroundings possible. He sent his boys to the best public schools and then on to the university. One qualified brilliantly as a medical man and the other got high into the Indian Civil Service, and they never learnt what their father was. I say 'was,' because he left the Great Babel nearly a couple of years back.

"But why did he leave there if he was doing so well?" asked the good looking blonde. "Had he got enough money to retire?"

"Partly that," replied Dr. Smith, "and partly for family reasons. One of his daughters, who is as beautiful as her mother was, was making an excellent marriage and, with her moving in such good society circles, it would have been a dreadful thing if the father's occupation had become known. Besides, his own father is quite a wealthy man and, the only child, there was no necessity for him to keep on where he was. So Jack Robinson retired and, having grown a beard, no one would recognise him now."

The old man rose to his feet. "Well, good-night all, and I hope you liked my little story, although, as I say, it has the merit of being strictly true," and, with a smiling bow all round, he left the room.

"Interesting old chap!" remarked a man thoughtfully. He shook his head. "But I'm sure I've seen him before. His face seems familiar, somehow."

The following day some passing motorists, calling in at the hotel for lunch, happened to meet there a man they knew. Looking round at those gathered together for the meal, one of the newcomers remarked: "Ah I see you got old Sir Michael staying here. He won't remember me, although I was introduced to him some little time ago. I know his son pretty well."

His friend followed the direction he indicated. "But that's a Dr Smith!" he exclaimed. "He's no Sir Michael Somebody!"

"Oh, isn't he?" laughed the other. "He's Sir Michael Barrow right enough. He got his baronetcy when he was made Physician to the King. He's an eccentric old chap, and often goes about under an assumed name. He thinks people always want to ask him a lot of questions if they know who he really is."

The friend expressed his astonishment.

"Is he married?" he asked.

"He was, but he's been a widower now for many years. His granddaughter was the beautiful Mary Barrow, who's portrait was in the Academy last year. You remember she married young Lord Thurlow."

A suspicion stirred in the other's mind.

"Who's her father?" he asked sharply.

"John Barrow, the heir to the baronetcy. He runs a model farm near Haslemere. Used to be some-thing in the Secret Service up to a couple of years ago. Very decent chap!"

His friend gave a low whistle, but made no comment.

__________________

3: Icebergs

Mary Clare Davron

Australian Women's Weekly 19 May 1934

(The Red Book Magazine February 1927)

Nothing is known of this author other than the few stories under that name which appeared from the late 'teens to the early 1930s

IT was letter-time at the Imperial, and the lobby buzzed. Hoskins, the clerk, a pompous, middle-aged man of tremendous self-importance, was handing out the letters.

"Miss Cherry Mercer," he called.

A girl with a heartshaped little face and skin like magnolia petals came forward and took the letter he held out. Then, without looking to right or left, she passed sedately out to the porch and walked quickly past the long lines of rocking chairs where imposing-looking ladies were assembling their knitting and card-tables for the morning.

Down the steps she went, and out upon the drive which led to the open road. A little way down that road she seated herself, carefully and with due regard for her crisp white skirt, on a huge rock beneath a shady tree, then opened her letter. It was from her mother and read the same as the others. Glad Cherry was having such a wonderful time; she deserved it, and her mother wished the two weeks could be extended for the whole summer.

Cherry shuddered at the prospect and thanked Heaven they could not. If her mother only knew!

She put the letter back in her bag and then carefully powdered her face. Today was Tuesday. It would be good to be back in her home again, good to be once more at work in Mr. Price's law-office. And her mother must never know.

Snapping shut her bag, she carefully got down from the rock and started briskly off up the road. It was with these walks that she had managed to fill her mornings.

To-day she went farther than usual. She explored a new road and found it delightful. Reaching the point where she must turn back if she would be in time for luncheon, she stopped suddenly at sounds issuing from a field just around a bend in the road: some groans, heavy breathing, muttered curses, "Damn!" in a muffled, but highly explosive voice. A sound of metal clinking, a long, hard-drawn breath, a sigh as though a mighty struggle had come to naught, then silence.

Cherry sped quickly around the bend and in through a fresh-cut, jagged gap in the thicket that surrounded the field.

There, sprawled on the ground against a rock, scratched and bleeding, one baleful eye glaring up at her and the other fast closing because of a huge black welt rising above it, lay a startling specimen of humanity. A motor-cycle, twisted and broken, lay shattered around him; part of it lay upon him.

"C-can't you get up?" cried Cherry, running to him.

"Why, yes. Of course," he snarled. With an effort, he cocked his head to one side so that his good eye was full upon her. "But I'm lying here just because I— think it's fun."

His swollen eye and the blood trickling from scratches on his face, together with his constrained position, gave him a truly alarming appearance; and his attitude toward Cherry was highly belligerent. Nevertheless he was human and he was approachable, two things of paramount importance to Cherry at the moment. So her voice was sympathetic and her touch gentle as she bent down and wiped away a little stream running from a cut in his cheek.

"Never mind my face," he snapped unappreciatively. "Can't you see I'm pinned down? See if you can lift that darned thing off my leg."

All eagerness, Cherry did as she was told.

With a big tug, she heaved off the wrecked motor cycle. The young man breathed easier, tried to move his leg, groaned, then lay still, his face against the ground.

"Can't move her an inch," he said, referring to his leg. "See if you can help me to sit up." Obediently she helped him, and between them they managed to get him into a sitting position. Again Cherry applied her handkerchief to the still bleeding wound in his cheek.

"I wish you'd let my face alone," he whined, plaintively. "Something's the matter with my ankle. Can't you concentrate on that?"

Gravely the girl accepted the responsibility. "I'm going to take off your shoe. I think your ankle's twisted," she said.

"I'll get you out oí this field," she went on. "And as soon as I've tied up your ankle and washed your face— yes, I said washed your face— I'm going back to the hotel and get a bus to come for you. How did you come to go over that hedge? And where were you going?"

"Where is this?" he asked, and winced a little as she tightened a bandage.

She named the town.

"Here's where I am going. This happened"— he waved a hand toward the wrecked motor-cycle— "because, as I was about to turn that bend in the road, a pony cart with three kids and a nurse in it came along full tilt, and it was either run into them or go through the hedge and hit the rock."

"It was noble of you to think so quickly— and act like that."

"Not at all," he replied, boredly. "I should have much preferred to kill them all. Manslaughter law's so inconvenient, though. But at that"— he passed an exploring forefinger over his bruised eye— "I think I'd have taken a chance if I knew what I was in for by leaping through that hedge."

Cherry flashed him a withering look and decided she had never before met anyone so ill-tempered. She continued tying up the ankle, with the minimum of groans from him, for she had had some first-aid training and was a nurse by instinct. Then she laid his leg out straight in front of him.

"Be careful now— don't move it," she cautioned needlessly.

"Oh, no! I'll not be careful," he answered derisively. "I'll probably get up and waltz in a few minutes. Really, in the matter of giving pertinent advice, you excel anyone I ever met."

Cherry ignored this. He was in a very bad way, and if sarcasm helped him at all, he was welcome to the luxury of it.

"Is there a cup or anything that'll hold water concealed in that mass over there?" She pointed to the wrecked motor-cycle.

"You might try the kit." Owlishly he watched her while she pried tentatively among the ruins, one wideopen blue eye upon her, the other now entirely closed. She explored gropingly through the pile of broken wire, torn leather, and bent steel.

"I— I can't find anything," she began, falteringly.

"You'd hardly find anything there," he commented, then drawled: "Even with my one eye, I can see what a profound knowledge of machinery you have. The kit is fastened to the bar that flew over there."

And there it was, right before her eyes. How dense he must think her.

Back along the road a bit she had passed a spring. She hastened to it now and returned with the cup filled with water.

"Drink some of it," she commanded. "I'm going to wash your face with the rest."

He drank the water, then obediently held up his face. Cherry mopped it gently, found two bad scratches, and affixed here and there some plaster from the kit. Then she bethought herself of a soft handkerchief— the extra one her mother always insisted uponwhich she carried in her small vanity case. Just the thing to dry the sensi-tive bruised face. She reached for her bag.

An exclamation of horror from the patient, and Cherry stopped short.

"Wh-what is it?" she cried in dismay.

He pointed to the vanity bag. "What are you going to do with that?" he demanded.

"Get a handkerchief out of it to dry your face."

He relaxed and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "I thought you were going to paint and powder me," he gasped, meekly. "Or, maybe, pluck my eyebrows."

"You're awfully silly," commented Cherry, briskly.

"I'm at your mercy," he explained. "And my map has had all the innovations it can stand for one day." He made a whimsical grimace. "If you don't think the effect would be too startling for one in my weakened condition, I'd sort of like a look into that little mirror of yours."

Cherry held up the mirror.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, in tones of such genuine alarm, that Cherry laughed aloud. He handed back the mirror and surveyed her gravely.

"Young lady," he said, "some day I'll get even with you for that laugh."

Then for the first time he smiled, and Cherry wondered that a smile could make so much difference on any countenance, particularly the battle-scarred one before her. And it was that smile that decided his fate!

FOR suddenly an idea came to Cherry, a wild new hope was born, and she made a daring plan.

"You're not going to be entirely well," she said, judicially surveying the swollen ankle, "before the end of the week. Not until Saturday or Sunday at the earliest."

"O prophet of cheer!" he groaned.

They tried out his other leg then, and, leaning heavily on Cherry, he managed to hobble out to the roadway. There luck was with them. One of the express cars that carried luggage be-tween the station and the hotels was just coming down the road. At Cherry's call the driver drew up alongside of them.

"Won't you please take us to the Imperial?" Cherry pleaded.

"You staying at the Imperial?" he questioned, looking at the young man, who at the moment appeared much the worse for wear.

"Well, I don't know," replied the latter, holding out his bandaged leg. "Foot-loose and fancy free as I am, I should make a tour of the hotels to see which would suit me best. I should—"

"He's coming to the Imperial," Cherry cut in.

The driver helped them up to the back of the car and made room among the luggage for Cherry to sit beside her battered partner.

"Perhaps you'd better know something right off," Cherry began impres-sively, her eyes steadfastly upon his face. "It's this: I— I'm kidnapping you."

She waited for her words to take effect, which they did not appreciably. "I'm taking advantage of your helpless condition to bring you to the Imperial. And you've got to stay there until the end of the week."

"A couple of days, and this leg will be all right."

"Doesn't make any difference. You've got to stay till the end of the week."

"The end of the week! The end of the week! Sounds like a litany. What's the end of the week got to do with me?"

"This much," said Cherry, solemnly. "At the end of the week I'm leaving. Then you can do what you like."

SHE told him then, with an intensity that even he took cognisance of, about the holiday plans that had so grievously miscarried. Of how she was to meet the Landays, two old ladies, friends of her mother, who lived in New York and came to the Imperial every summer, and who had written in answer to her mother's letter that they would look after Cherry going up to the hotel and during her stay there. At the last moment, just as she was about to board the train for New York, they had sent a telegram. Miss Angela was ill and they were postponing their trip until later in the season. They would be glad to have Cherry with them then.

Then! As if young ladies who worked in law-offices could alter holiday plans at a moment's notice!

Cherry's mother never saw that telegram. Cherry crushed it tight in her hand. It had been too late to turn back then. Her mother must not, could not be disappointed. All the pretty new holiday clothes had cost too much in loving labor of all too hard-working hands. The whole wild scheme of her holiday had been paid for too dearly in scrimping and saving and tremulous planning on her mother's part to have it peter out then.

So she had come alone.

She neglected, however, to inform her companion of a certain other dis-appointment that lay in store for her mother. For when Cherry's protests had been loudest at the extravagance of her holiday plans, the mother had pointed out firmly that every girl had her future to take care of— meaning, of course, to marry; and Cherry recognised this as the motif in the otherwise wild plan of sending her to the expensive resort. Her mother had once known a girl who went away for a holiday and came back engaged. Many times since her arrival had Cherry laughed at the prospect of such a thing as that happening to her at the Imperial.

Her companion listened gravely during her recital. When she had finished, mock alarm spread over the visible portions of his face.

"What will my duties be in this new role?" he asked, adding, "I assume I'll have duties, since I'm obviously disqualified to sit around and merely look beautiful."

And she told him. "You've got to talk to me, to sit with me on the porch; since you're not able to dance, we'll sit just outside the windows and let the music come out to us— we'll be wall-flowers together. And I'll read to you if your eye doesn't get better, and I'll help you to walk while you're lame— your foot isn't going to be so bad, I guess. But you can't go away and leave me alone again with all that mob of strange people!"

"Come, come, it can't be as bad as all that," he said, with surprising gentleness.

"Oh, it is. It is, I tell you. Of course, it's all my own fault for coming alone, but Heaven knows I didn't want to come." Her tennis racquet, she told him, she had not unsheathed; she had not danced once— she almost had, she told him, and related the incident.

"A MAN named Twining. Hostess introduced him just as a waltz was beginning. I think he would have asked me, but a group of girls came along just then, and one called, 'Ah, there, Twiny!' so he went off with her. That same girl and her mother came the day I did, and the hostess introduced us. A Mrs. and a Miss Jardine." Cherry showed him how they had acknowledged the introduction— the one with a cool nod, the other a haughty stare. Then they had abruptly gone away. "So," finished Cherry, "I never went back to the ballroom, and those are the only people I've met."

"Won't I be somewhat of a broken reed?"

She shook her head. "You'll be someone to talk to," she said.

"Why have you stuck it out so long? If you went home and told your mother—"

"That's the one thing I wouldn't do," she declared, firmly. "It would break her heart. She's set so much store by this holiday. Oh, no; I'd rather die than go home."

They had turned in at the drive to the Imperial and now stopped. The driver and Cherry helped him down, and, holding one leg very stifly, he was able to walk up the steps, assisted only by the girl, upon whom he leaned heavily. There was a slow walk to the desk, and lorgnettes aplenty were turned upon them. To Cherry's surprise, her companion was undisturbed, seemed unaware of their scrutiny.

She supported the young man to the desk, and he asked for a room.

"NOT a thing left," volunteered the clerk, looking in amazement from Cherry to her companion.

"Won't you please find some sort of room he can have?" she pleaded. "He can't go around looking for another place while he is unable to walk. Please see if you can't take care of him for the rest of the week. Only five days. Won't you please try, Mr. Hoskins?"

The awful fear of having to relinquish the one thing that would make bearable the rest of her stay made Cherry eloquent. For all his pomposity, Hoskins was in a sense human, and the girl's eyes as she looked up at him held an imploring look that was flattering. "It's been so lonesome for me here," she threw in, "the Landays not coming and all."

Magical name! Hoskins gave a fairly good impersonation of a man starting a heavy intellect to work.

"There's a room," he began impressively, "away up near the servants' quarters. It is usually kept for a linen room. But once in a while, when we've been very crowded, we've put a cot in there. If your friend—"

"That'll suit me fine," cut in the youth. "How do I go up, and when do I come down to eat?"

"Just a moment," commanded Hoskins. "Your baggage?"

"Haven't any. It— it evidently hasn't got here yet."

Frank incredulity settled in Hos-kins' eyes. Cherry's own were imploringly upon him. "Then I'll have to ask you for some— er— security. Without any baggage—"

"Certainly." The youth put his hand in his pocket, fumbled around, withdrew it.

'Sorry," he explained. "I don't seem—"

Something soft and thick was pushed into his hand at the side where Cherry stood. He stopped speaking, and held out to the clerk a little wad of money.

"Will that do?" he asked.

"How much?"—from Hoskins.

"Really, I haven't the faintest idea," came the bored answer.

Hoskins bent upon him a puzzled scrutiny. Cherry threw herself into the gap. "He isn't himself," she said, hastily. "Usually he's— he's lots different from this. But he's all shaken up from his fall." Then she added quickly: "But he'll be all right after to-night, after he's had a rest and something to eat."

"You haven't registered," Hoskins reminded, as the porter came to assist the new guest to his room.

"That's so." replied he, easily. "But perhaps Miss— er— perhaps this young lady will do it for me. She's developed an amazing knack for helping me today."

Hoskins was not a man with whom a penniless stranger could take liber-ties of a facetious nature. Cherry realised that.

"His hands are shaken from the fall. I don't think he could hold a pen." She took the pen then stopped abruptly. What was his name? But Hoskins' eyes were on her. She hesitated only a second, then wrote the first name that came to her— that of the hero in the book she had just been reading.

"John Carstairs, New York."

That is how he went down on the register. He looked on over Cherry's shoulder, and something like a grin came to his distorted face. Cherry hoped he wouldn't be disposed toward facetiousness now. Hoskins wouldn't stand it. But that gentleman was al-ready delivering himself in tones that could be heard throughout the lobby for the benefit of an imposing-looking group that had just come in.

"I'm sorry not to have a better room for your friend, Miss Mercer, but we haven't a thing left. The last suite we had was taken to-day, taken by"— he paused for full effect, then rolled the name around on his tongue—"by Mr. J. Wellington Crabtree, of— of— the West."

JOHN CARSTAIRS did not come down that evening. While Cherry was eating her dinner at the little table which she shared with a lady with an expansive glittering bosom, a note was brought to her.

"Dear Miss Mercer,—I got a full look in the mirror, and speedily decided you'd be a lot better off if I didn't start playing the kidnapee until to-morrow. I've got a compress on my eye now. My bad leg is tenderly propped up in front of me, and food had been brought me. Pippa passes! God's in his Heaven! All's well in the linen room!

"Faithfully.

"JOHN CARSTAIRS, New York.

"P.S.—When we meet to-morrow, better call me Jack. I think old Donner and Blitzen at the desk is suspicious. What's your first name? How much money was in that roll? You're a brick!"

Cherry wrote back:

"Glad you're comfortable. Be more respectful to Hoskins. My name is Cherry.

"There was twenty-five dollars in that roll, spending money for my vacation. You're the first thing I've seen to spend it on.

"You're awfully sarcastic and quite impatient and cross, but nobody can say you aren't game!"

The two days that followed were Cherry's first light-hearted ones at the Imperial. John Carstairs was gay and droll, and he made her laugh a great deal. Yet, as Thursday wore on, a vague feeling of anxiety came over her. She began to be troubled by the irresponsibility of John.

Here he was, without money or baggage, falling in with her plan as though that was what he had originally started out to do. Apparently he had not a care in the world.

After dinner they wandered down toward the golf course, and Cherry's misgivings got the better of her.

"John, what do you do for a living?"

"Oh, a little of everything. Jack of all trades is the classic nomenclature."

"Don't you think you ought to be serious about something? Especially about your work?"

"Why, child, my work is the only thing I am serious about."

"Yet you don't know what it is!"

"I do, too." He paused a moment, and Cherry noted the pause. "I'm a mechanic, Cherry," he told her finally. "And a darned good one too, if I do say it myself. "

A MECHANIC! Involuntarily Cherry's thoughts flashed to her mother's plans for her. "Dear Mother, I am engaged to a mechanic." She wondered how her mother would receive a letter like that, if she would consider it an accomplishment of the purpose for which she had planned this holiday. Cherry decided she would not.

"How'd you come to be that?" she asked, by way of saying something.

"Born in me, I guess. Got most of my practical training, though, in the army."

"What'd you do in the army?"

"Mechanic," he replied, laconically.

Friday morning he took her for a ride. Down in the village he had seen for hire a motor cycle with sidecar. "Just because my limp won't let me walk much is no reason why you should miss your outing," he told her, and left her on the porch while he rode down on the bus to bring up the motor cycle.

As she sat there waiting for him, she caught a conversation going on beside her. Mrs. Orr, the hostess at the hotel, was talking with a group that included the Jardines and Mr. Twining, the youth with whom Cherry had almost danced.

"Never saw a year with so few men," commented Mrs. Jardine.

"It's quality, not quantity, that counts," contributed Twining.

"Right," agreed Miss Jardine, and smiled at him as brightly as if he had uttered a great witticism.

"Probably wouldn't look at him at home," Cherry told herself. "But here a man's a man."

"But to-morrow ought to put a dif-ferent complexion on things." The hostess was speaking. "Quantity— there'll be two or three men at least in the party; and an abundance of quality— Mr. Crabtree is reputed to be the richest young bachelor in the West."

"Oh, of course none of us can compete with Crabtree," complained Twining. Miss Jardine smiled at him again.

"We're making the big ball to-morrow night an aviation dance on his account." said Mrs. Orr. "An American ace— but everybody knows his record—  not a typical rich man's son."

"As if he needed to be anything with all his money!" chimed in Mrs. Jardine, and Cherry's dislike for her mounted.

A handsome motor car drove up and took away a laughing picnic party. Those in the Jardine group commented upon the make and beauty of the car. Two more followed it in rapid succession, and were speedily noted and appraised as they sped down the drive.

Immediately in their wake, and with more noise, it seemed to Cherry, than she had ever heard even a motor cycle make, came John Carstairs with his side-seat car. It wasn't a good-looking motor cycle at best, and showed signs of considerable wear. The eyes of all the porch crowd were on it as it swept up in the wake of the magnificent cars.

Cherry flushed. The contrast between John's equipage and these others was comically apparent. And as she walked primly down the porch steps, she was aware that the amused eyes of the Jardine contingent were upon her. She caught distinctly a remark ending: "seems to have staked her claim."

"Madame, the Rolls," John announced with a low bow and an elaborate flourish.

"Thought I wouldn't be able to get it," he continued, in tones perfectly audible to the highly interested watchers. "Couple of fellows wanted it, but I grabbed it and they scorned to hit a cripple." He smiled behind the court-plaster.

THAT afternoon there were show stunts by an aviator. All the hotel colony came to the field for the event. Cherry and John Carstairs walked down that way shortly after the hour when the flight was to have started. A man came hurrying out, looking worried.

"McWalters gone up yet?" asked John.

"Can't go up." answered the man. "Something wrong with the plane. Got to go to the village for more help."

John Carstairs' glance quickened; his easy-going attitude dropped from him like a cloak.

"Let me have a look at it. I've had a lot of experience with such things."

"We need the most expert help we can get, and quick as we can get it," said the man, doubtfully. "But go on in if you think you can help," he continued, while he himself hopped into a little car and headed for the village.

They went inside. Cherry was given a seat in the side-lines and John limped out into the field. McWalters turned, and from where she sat Cherry saw him start with surprise, and then his hand and John Carstairs' met in a hearty clasp. After that the men worked for twenty minutes, and then, amid lusty cheering, McWalters got away to a beautiful start and the afternoon was on. A vague feeling of injustice settled on Cherry, that all the applause was for the ace and none for the man who had made the flight possible.

Smudgy and greasy, John made his way back across the field.

"Let's stay and watch McWalters' stunts," he told her, while machinists from around the tool-box eyed him with respectful interest. "A fine fellow, McWalters," commented John. "I was his machinist when I first went in the service."

All the way back to the hotel John talked nothing but engines and motors. Cherry didn't understand half of it, but that didn't seem to bother John. They passed Mrs. Jardine and her daughter, the latter walking with Twiny. They might not have existed, so far as John Carstairs was concerned. And as they stepped to their half of the roadway, John was saying in loud tones to Cherry:

"Didn't I tell you I was a darned good mechanic, Cherry? Didn't I?" His face was flushed and held an odd look of pride.

Miss Jardine heard, recognised the star mechanic of the day, decided he was not the sort one knows, and passed up the walk beside the bored-appear--ing Twiny.

After dinner they strolled out again to their favorite bench beside the first tee. On the way down the walk they had to step aside for a small pyramid of trunks just dumped by the driver— the same driver who had brought John to the Imperial. The trunks were fast being carried in by the porters.

" 'J. Wellington Crabtree,' " Cherry read aloud. "What a mouthful of name!"

"Poor devil!" agreed John.

" He's the guest of honor to-morrow night." She repeated what she had heard in the morning. "He's not only a famous ace, but a famous bachelor and very, very eligible, Mrs. Orr said. That's why the big ball is to be given for him to-morrow night."

"Because he's a famous bachelor or because he's a famous ace?"

"I think, John"— Cherry's face was solemn and she stopped short where she stood and emphasised her remarks with little nods of her head— "it's be-cause he's rich— awfully rich."

"There, there, don't get all heated up against Crabtree just because of those people. He's probably the Crabtree I knew in the army. Not a half-bad sort, really. Only, he was Jack Crabtree then— no J. Wellington. That's his family's doings. And speaking of riches, Cherry," he went on quickly, "that reminds me; I've wired for some money. Don't let me forget to-morrow to give you back your note."

"You don't need to. I've got my ticket home."

HE smiled, and an indescribable feeling of panic came over Cherry. His smile was a thing to rejoice over. And after to-morrow she wouldn't see it again.

"You've been awfully good to me," she faltered. "I don't know how I'd have finished this holiday without you. I— I'll remember it always."

They were walking back to the hotel now. The moonlight was entrancing, the air balmy. Couples passed up and down, arm in arm; waltz music drifted out from the hotel. An utter content fell upon Cherry. But suddenly, as they mounted the steps, romance fled from her mind and reality entered with a thump.

"You can't dance to-morrow night," she gasped. "You— you haven't any evening clothes!"

He laughed at her concern. "Don't let that trouble you," he reassured. "I'll borrow some from the waiters. Decent fellow, one of those waiters, working his way through college and all that. He'll lend me his, I know, if I ask him."

All Saturday morning they guarded his bad leg, carefully conserving it for the evening. Preparations for the dance were going on all around them. It was to be the gala night of the season.

"We can thank J. Wellington Crabtree for to-night," gaily said Cherry to John as they sat on the piazza after luncheon.

"Then we'll give him a vote of thanks and call him a good old scout," declared John.

"By the way, I don't think he's ar-rived yet. I don't see anyone around who might be he."

"Oh, he's not so distinguished-looking," said John, in tones that drew Cherry's searching glance. Could it be that John was jealous of the guest of honor? She hastened to reassure him.

"For my part, I don't care whether he ever comes or not. But I just wouldn't have been able to stand it here to-day without you, John Carstairs. Everybody so happy and busy and looking forward to to-night."

"You'd be looking forward to to-night, too."

"Yes— to being a wallflower, to sitting alone and looking on, my feet aching to dance, my heart aching with lonesomeness."

And John smiled the smile that was the worst heartache of all.

"What're you going to do to-morrow when I go?" she asked wistfully.

"To-morrow? Oh, to-morrow's an-other day. I— I hope to-morrow to have an appointment with my girl."

His girl! The day went black for Cherry. His girl! The death of joy, the end of dreams!

She strove to say something, but no words came. She merely sat looking at John.

"I'll tell you all about it to-night," said he, unaware of the havoc he had wrought.

"Yes, do," answered she, in her voice much of the icy quality affected by the ladies at the Imperial. Shortly afterwards she excused herself, thought she'd lie down for a while. Immediately John rose.

"And I think I'll go to my linen-room," he said, "to pack."

"To pack!" Cherry cried, then laughed in spite of herself. He had nothing to pack.

As they approached the desk, a tall, good-looking young man stood registering. He was accompanied by another, apparently a valet. Several poters stood obsequiously about, laden with bags. Hoskins' face wore a rapt look; his manner had a touch of grandeur as he handed the young man the pen.

"J. Wellington Crabtree," Cherry thought, and turned to tell John Carstairs. But that gentleman had disappeared.

She waited, irresolute. Not a sign of him anywhere.

THE orchestra was beginning to play just as she came down. Suppressed excitement every-where. Even the Jardines seemed caught by it. Miss Jardine's features were— for them— lit up, and her mother wore a pleasantly preoccupied air. It seemed years since the night Cherry had been introduced to them.

Mrs. Orr, in passing, nodded to Miss Jardine. "Hope you'll have the first dance with him," she said.

A table for two was set conspicuously in the centre of the dining-room. Dinner was half over, and yet it remained unoccupied. Soft eyes, and hard, feverish glances and calculating ones, were turned upon it. Then suddenly he came— the young man Cherry had seen registering.

"Yes, looks as if he could have a good time even here among the icebergs," mused Cherry.

"Crabtree's cousin. Secretary of his or something. Always travels with him." A man at a table back of Cherry was speaking.

"Where's Crabtree?" asked another. "Got here late, I hear, and dining in his room."

Cherry could see nothing of John Carstairs—not that she was expecting to. She did hope he would get something to eat, and wondered how long it took waiters to get through their work and out of their clothes.

One window of the ballroom opened upon the most secluded corner of the piazza. It was here Cherry had promised to wait for John. She herself had suggested it. "I'll see how the clothes fit him." she thought. "I don't want him to be a laughing-stock before these people"

THE orchestra was tuning up. Gay voices floated out through the windows. Rich perfumes mingled with the natural fragrance of the night. Then the first strains of music. Ecstasy rose in Cherry's heart. She wished John would hurry.

And suddenly there he was! Cherry quickly made the mental notation that the waiter, whoever he was, must have been out of the ordinary, for the evening clothes were perfection. And the court-plaster was removed from John's face— the long scratches had faded into tiny lines. She had not thought he could look so handsome. That wretched other girl!

She rose, eager to go in, but John laid a detaining hand on her arm and drew her back into the shadows.

He surveyed her musingly, a peculiar look in his eyes. "Tell me, Cherry," he said, finally, "have I acquitted myself well? How do you think I've played the part?"

"The part? What part?"

"Why, the kidnapee, of course."

She smiled— sadly.

"You've been a dear, John." Her voice choked. "Without you I'd have died."

"Then you'd do it all over again? The kidnapping and nursing and all?"

She nodded and hoped he wouldn't make her talk. He continued:

"Because, if you're willing, I want to make it a permanent thing, Cherry— only on a fifty-fifty basis. Will you, dear?"

"What do you mean?"

"I to do the kidnapping and you the nursing— for always," he went on. "Do you think you could care enough?"

There was no hint of mockery now in his eyes, nothing but dead serious earnest. Still, Cherry must be sure.

"You mean?"

"I LOVE you. I want you to take care of me always. Say it isn't too big a job. Say you'll do it, dear."

His strong, firm hands reached for hers, but she quickly withdrew her own.

"What about that girl?" she asked, stonily.

"Girl? What girl?" he asked, perplexed.

"The girl you were going to see tomorrow."

"O-o-h!" He smiled his winning smile. "Perhaps I was a little premature about that," he said, "but from something you said I'd begun to hope that by to-morrow I'd have a girl. Shall I, Cherry?"

"Y— yes," said Cherry. "On-only I don't know your name— or— anything about you—"

"I'll tell you," began John, and tried to draw her head to his shoulder.

"No! No!" Cherry held him back. "I—I don't know who you are— and I"— her voice swelled tremulously— "and I don't care either."

A dance was ending. Cherry, her heart beating high, stood with John at the long open window. Dimly she was conscious of seeing Miss Jardine go by on the arm of Twiny.

"The next dance will be ours," John said, "but I'll have to leave you for a few minutes first." He placed a chair for her just beside the window, and with a backward glance was gone.

She waited— waited a little longer. Finally she began to worry. John's few minutes were such long ones. She looked in through the window.

People were crowding around someone— polite-looking, interested groups.

"Crabtree's arrived." It was a voice inside the window, the same young man who had sat at the table opposite her at dinner. He was talking to a girl. "I'll introduce him as soon as we can get near him. Everybody wants to meet him."

CHERRY couldn't help contrasting J. Wellington Crabtree's reception with the one accorded herself— or the one bestowed upon John Carstairs. Poor John, everybody had looked right through him just as they had through herself. Prominently among the crowd fluttered Mrs. Jardine and her daughter, accompanied by the blase Twiny.

"She'll drop you, Twiny, for Mr. Crabtree if she gets a chance. She's hoping for the first dance with him," said Cherry to herself, and wondered why John didn't come.

Finally the orchestra struck upeven the music had been stilled that introductions might be unhampered. The crowd thinned around the edges and began to disintegrate into couples. Where was John? He had promised she should have every dance.

Just then the groups surrounding the lion fell back and the soft-eyed maidens registered a look of disappointment. Cherry wondered what had happened, and stepped in through the window. She strained for a look at Mr. Crabtree.

And as the groups opened, as the crowd separated to let him pass, she saw him— J. Wellington Crabtree, alias John Carstairs.

Cherry's heart stood still.

Straight toward her he came, out of the crowd that had gathered to meet him. In and out around the dancers, past scores of eyes that lingeringly sought to detain him, he came swiftly over to where she stood by the window and held out his arms.

At the end of the dance his cousin came up to them.

"I want to be presented." He smiled at Cherry. And later: "Jack tells me you've been Good Samaritan to him, Miss Mercer. It was better than he deserved— running off from us." An influx of people bore down on them.

"Oh, Mr. Crabtree, to think of your being here all the week and not a soul taking the slightest notice.

"You're wrong there," John answered. Cherry didn't hear what else he said, for a voice was sounding in her ears.

"Miss Mercer, it was unkind of you not to tell us."

Cherry turned to look into the reproachful face of Mrs. Jardine.

"Yes, indeed, we could have had some nice parties together," simpered Miss Jardine.

Happily Cherry stood by. She marvelled at how very much icebergs could melt.

A compelling something drew her gaze to the door. On tiptoe, peering over the heads of the crowd, was Hoskins. His stricken face held all the puzzlement of all the ages. Cherry smiled. Again she heard his astonished "Alone?" addressed to herself. Again she saw his face freeze, his glance grow cold at John's irresponsible facetiousness. Once more she heard him announcing that there wasn't a better room for John because everything had been reserved for J. Wellington Crabtree. Poor Hoskins! How funny his face looked now! How John had laughed at her fear of him!

But John was speaking. He was smiling at the crowd— his wonderful, ingratiating smile. "He'd get by with anybody, even if he was only a mechanic." thought Cherry quickly.

"And it's really awfully nice of you I appreciate the honor you do me more than I can say. But I shall not be able to accept any invitations. You see, I'm going to be married— perhaps to-morrow— and—"

Softly, sweetly, tenderly, the cadences of the waltz rose and fell. John's arms reached for Cherry's waist. One by one the lights went out, leaving the room in a rosy twilight glow. The dancers dreamily glided, turned, and swayed.

For the last few bars the lights went entirely out and the room was in a dusky gloom.

"Kiss me. Cherry." said J. Wellington Crabtree. And Cherry, loving, honoring— obeyed.

____________________

4: The Saints' Rest

W. L. Alden

1837-1908

Hillston Spectator and Lachlan River Advertiser 24 Nov 1900

(The Royal Magazine January 1899)

CAPTAIN POTTER was not a popular man with his crew. He was believed to foe extremely penurious, and the food served out on board his ship was scanty and of poor quality. While he could not be said to be positively cruel in his treatment of his men, he made them work hard, and never, even by accident, showed the slightest appreciation of good conduct on their part. Nobody could charge Potter with having committed any dishonest or criminal act, but public opinion, wotn anoai; and ashore, was unanimous in condemning him as a hard, narrow, old man.

Captain Potter lived in Newburyport, Massachusetts, when he was at home. He had no family whatever. He had never had a brother or a sister, and he had never married. At the age of sixty-five he was absolutely alone and friendless. He was a good seaman, and as he owned a third of his ship— the  Thomas C. Winthrop— no one thought of disturbing him in his command. His partners were sure that he would not spend an unnecessary dollar, and that his accounts would be strictly accurate. They congratulated themselves that the Thomas C. Winthrop had so excellent a commander, but they never asked him to dinner, and always felt that the sun shone brighter in Newburyport when Captain Potter was no longer in port. The

Thomas C. Winthrop sailed from Newburyport in the summer of 1891, bound to Canton with a general cargo. Off Cape St. Roque she was struck by a  cyclone that drove her for five days with her nose pointed straight for Africa. The Captain, judging that the gale would be a short one, had put his ship directly before it when it struck, and when he found that he had made a mistake, and that he was in for a long and heavy blow, it was already too late to heave the ship to.

He had kept a reefed foresail set— it being one of his pet theories that a foresail should never be furled— until the sail blew away. After that the Winthrop scudded under bare poles, and the sea , grew worse and worse, she rolled more and more heavily. The end of it was that about noon on the fifth day she rolled the mainmast out of her— the stick being none of the soundest, and the rigging having worked slack.

The mainmast went not two feet above the deck, and took with it the mizzenmast and the foretopmast. Also the two mates went overboard wtth the wreckage. At least it was supposed that the first mate must have been knocked overboard when the mizzenmast went, for he was last seen standing near the mizzen rigging. As for the second mate, he was aloft in the foretop : when the accident happened, and of course that was the last of him.

The crew worked welkin clearing away the wreckage, and the gale having done its worst so far as the Thomas C. Winthrop was concerned, began to subside. Towards evening the wind had dropped to a full topsail breeze, and the sea was rapidly going down.

Captain Potter told the men that as it promised to be a moonlight night, they would begin the work of jury rigging the ship as soon as they had had their suppers, and that he should keep all hands at work until midnight.

Naturally this announcement was welcomed with anything but enthusiasm. It is true that the men had been able to do but little work during the gale, but they had been continually wet and hungry for five consecutive days, and their nerves were exhausted. It did not take them very long to come to an agreement that they would see Captain Potter in a very uncomfortable situation before they would consent to get up jury masts in the night watches.

Accordingly, when at eight o'clock the Captain ordered the starboard watch, whose turn it was to go below, to remain on deck and work with the rest of the men, the watch sullenly declined to obey the order, and informed Captain Potter that they meant to turn in, and would do nothing beyond the ordinary work of the ship until daylight.

The port watch joined in the mutiny, and refused to touch the spars until morning. This, of course, exasperated Captain Potter who, being without subordinate officers, saw that be was helpless. He therefore eased his mind by denouncing the men as a set of lazy, cowardly rascals, whom he promised to bring before the Consul at the next port, by whom they would be properly punished for refusing to do duty.

The Captain had quite a gift in satire, and he singled out one after another of his crew for personal ridicule and insult. Finally having said all that he had to say he turned to go aft, when a belaying pin, flung by some unknown hand, hit him on the back of the head. The force of the blow staggered him. He lost his footing, and, in falling, struck his forehead against a ring bolt. The frighted crew, seeing him lying senseless and bleeding on the deck, picked him up, and carried him to his room, where they left him, and hurriedly decided that it would bo better to trust themselves to the boats than to run the risk of being taken from the wreck only to be hanged for the murder of their captain.

When Captain Potter regained his senses, he found himself lying stiff and weak in his berth. Looking at his watch he saw that it was five o'clock. He called loudly for the steward. No one answered him. He tried to hammer the deck above his head with a spare boot, but the effort was beyond his strength. The silence gradually alarmed him, and by a great effort he succeeded in getting on his feet, and making his way to the deck. A moment's glance showed him that the two boats which had survived the storm were both missing, and he realised the fact that his crow had deserted him. His first thought was that the vessel must have sprung a leak, and that the crew had taken to the boats withous waiting for him. But when he sounded the well he found that the  Winthrop, who had always been an exceptionally tight ship, had only a few inches of water in her. He carefully swept the horizon, but the boats were not in sight.

'Those scoundrels,' said he to himself, 'tried to kill me last night, and now they've deserted the ship.'

He was alone on a dismasted vessel, far from the track of commerce. Had he been accustomed to swear he would have heartily cursed his men, but it was one of their grievances that Captain Potter never swore.

'He ain't even got common humanity enough about him to swear,' was a common remark in the forecastle of the Winthrop. However, there is no doubt that had the captain been within hearing of his mutinous crew, he would have used language that would have hurt them far more than the most brutal of oaths.

After washing his wounds, and making a cup of coffee in the galley where the fire was still burning, Captain Potter calmly surveyed the situation.

'The ship's tight, and her deck is as sound as ever. No weather is going to hurt her. She's got water and provisions for six months for twenty-seven men. That means that there is enough aboard her now to support one man for the next ten years. I can't do anything with her alone, except to let her drift : so nobody can find fault with, me for not bringing her into port. I've always wanted to have a good long rest where there ain't no men or women to bother me, and now, b'gosh, I'm going to have it. This is the best stroke of luck that I've had in many a year, and I'd be a fool if I didn't enjoy it.'

For the next few days the Captain occupied himself in sawing off the splintered stumps of masts that disfigured the deck, and in rebuilding as best he waa able the bulwarks where the falling spars had crushed them.

When the deck once more presented a satisfactory appearance, he rigged up a small awning over part of the quarter deck, and bringing up an armchair from the cabin, spent the greater part of his time in sitting wrapt up in a comfortable rug, smoking his pipe, and reading one of the dozen volumes that formed his library. The weather was fine, and although he hung a lantern to the stump of the foremast every night, he had not the slightest expectation that he would be discovered by any passing vessel. The Winthrop was drifting slowly with the great equatorial current towards the Gulf of Mexico, but it would be many months before she would meet a frequented part of the ocean.

'If anybody does overhaul me, and try to rescue me.' said Captain Potter, 'we'll see whether a man can be rescued from his own ship against his will. I ain't no Emin Pasha, and there ain't no Stanley who can make me quit my own quarterdeck.'

Though the Captain was quite alone so far as human beings were concerned, there was one other living being on board the Winthrop. The steward had, under pretence of providing the ship with the regulation cat, given that responsible berth to a small and incompetent kitten.

The first time that the Captain ate his solitary dinner in his cabin he was startled by feeling something touch his leg. He looked down and saw a grey kitten arching its back, and sidling against him.

'Get out, you beast!' he cried, indignantly, and as the kitten paid no attention to his order he gave it a kick that sent; it across the cabin.

'I hate cats,' thought Captain Potter. 'They're most as mean as men, and I won't have that beast coming around me.'

But a cat is the most persistent of animals. The Winthrop's kitten was lonesome as well as hungry, and it determined to make a companion of the Captain, no matter what might be the latter's views of cats. Accordingly it waited on him every time he sat down to eat, and, in order to induce it to keep quiet, Captain Potter gradually fell into the way of tossing it small morsels of meat. The kitten would eat, and then purr its gratitude, and as it was a gentlemanly cat, and never took objectionable liberties, the Captain tolerated it.

One day the kitten did not come to dinner, having been accidentally shut into the pantry. The Captain ate a few mouthfuls and then got up and searched for the cat. When he found it he remarked that: it was a stupid little brute, and he had a great mind to throw it overboard and get rid of it. However, he did not put his threat into execution, and returned to his dinner, and gave an unusually large share of it to the kitten.

After a time the kitten ventured on deck, and finally climbed into the Captain's lap. He looked carefully around, as if he feared to be seen by anyone, and then patted the kitten now that its victory was won. It climbed into the Captain's lap not only on deck, but at dinner, and, before a month had passed, the kitten dined regularly seated on the Captain's shoulder, and securing the very choicest bits of food. The

Winthrop had drifted westward for two months, when, early one morning, the Captain saw a long line of smoke on the horizon. He got at last into the track of vessels, and he foresaw that if the steamer sighted him she would probably scent a salvage job. Before noon a large tramp steamer stopped her engines within a snort distance from the Winthrop, and sent a boat to the wreck to rescue her people, and to tow the vessel into port. The boat was in charge of the mate, who greeted Captain Potter warmly, and asked how many men he had with him, and what was his cargo.

'There ain't nobody but me aboard this ship,' replied the Captain, 'and I don't seem to have any call to show you my manifest.'

'What's become of your people?' asked the mate. 'Didn't they find the ship comfortable ?'

'I don't know as I am obliged to answer all your questions,' returned the Captain. 'Seems to me that if you've anything to do aboard your steamboat you might as well turn to and do it.'

'I'm here to find out,' said the mate, ' if you want to be taken off, or if you want your vessel towed into the nearest port.'

'I don't want to be taken off,' replied the Captain, 'and I don't want to be towed nowhere by anybody. This is my ship, and I calculate to manage her without any advice or interference from no man.'

'My own idea is,' said the mate, after a moment's silence, ' that your intellect is sprung, and that you ain't fit to be left alone. Consequently I'm going to put you aboard the steamer, and tow your ship into Rio, if so be that she seems to be worth the trouble.'

Captain Potter quietly drew his revolver.

'I'll give you just two minutes,' he said, in his coolest manner, ' to quit this ship. If you lay your hand on me, or try to capture my ship, you'll be committing piracy and suicide at the same minute. I know what I'm doing. I'm on my own quarter-deck and tne man that interferes with me does it at his peril.'

The mate was an intelligent man, and he lost no time in getting into his boat and returning to his steamer. He reported to his commander that Captain Potter was stark mad, but they finally agreed that it would be dangerous to make a prisoner of him, and that it was just possible that he was expecting help from some other vessel belonging to the same owners. So the steamer went on her way, and Captain Potter returned to the society of his cat, and the monotony of his daily life.

Twice within the month the Winthrop was spoken by other vessels, but the Captain successfully rejected their offers of aid, and managed to escape the annoyance of being boarded by them. In order to prevent any vessel from reporting the 'Winthrop' as a floating wreck, he lowered himself over the stern with a paint pot, and after painting out the legend Thomas C. Winthrop, of Newbury port,  he substituted the name Saints' Rest, of Noware.'

Let it not be supposed that the Captain did not know how to spell 'Nowhere.' He purposely changed the spelling of the word so that it might be mistaken for the name of a real port.

'Now let them report me if they want to,' he said, after rechristening his ship. 'There ain't nobody in Newburyport who will recognise the Saints' Rest as the Thomas C. Winthrop.

As the kitten grew more intimate with the Captain, it formed the habit of waking him in the morning, for it need hardly be said that Captain Potter took 'all night in.'

Every morning the kitten's cold nose touched his cheek, and, after making sure that he was awake, the kitten curled up on his broad chest for a brief nap. Having no one else to talk to, Captain Potter soon became accustomed to holding long conversations with Elisha, as the cat was called, and the animal would answer his remarks with acquiescence or interrogative mews that were far more satisfactory to him than the conversation of human beings had hitherto been.

'You and me, Elisha,' he would often say, 'get along together better than I ever got along with any one else. This ship's good enough for us, and we won't be in any hurry to quit it.'

At the end of five months the Saints' Rest was not far from the Gulf of Mexico. During all that time the weather had never been sufficiently bad to cause the Saints' Rest any damage. Several times there had been sea enough to make the deck an extremely uncomfortable place, for, as the vessel lay in the trough of the sea, sheets of spray broke over her weather-rail. On such occasions the Captain retreated to his cabin, where, with the door of the companion way securely closed, he felt no uneasiness for the safety of the ship.

He was now however approaching the region where heavy gales were to be looked for, and he began to think that perhaps he had taken as long a vacation as he had a right to take in justice to his partners in the ownership of the vessel. He had often said to himself, 'I'm the owner of a third of this ship, and I'm doing as I choose with that third. If them as owns the other thirds wants to have them in port all they've got to do is to come and fetch them.'

But doubts as to the strict justice of this argument were beginning to assail him, and it is not improbable that unknown and unacknowledged weariness, bred of his long and solitary voyage, was having its effect upon him.

'I dunno exactly what I ought to do,' he remarked as he turned around after a prolonged look in search of a sail. Just then he trod heavily on the kitten's tail, seriously impairing the symmetry of that sensitive appendage. The kitten understood him, and magnanimously forgave him. For an hour or two the Captain walked the deck with Elisha nestling in his arms.

Never before had Captain Potter loved anything. Never had he thought it possible that he should live to use the words 'I love you.' But it had come to him at last, and the hard old man was for once melted.

To say that Captain Potter was astonished at himself would do him but faint justice. He was dimly conscious that he had experienced a sort of new birth. Everything seemed changed to him since he had felt that rush of tender emotion. When he put the cat down in order to go to the galley to cook his dinner, he said, 'Elisha, this cruise of ours is about finished. There ain't nothing in life worth having except being loved, and there must be folks ashore as will love a man if gives them a chance. You and me is going ashore pretty soon, where there's birds that you can chase all day, and mice till you can't rest. We'll live ashore for a spell, and we'll have a bang-up tiine and mebbe I'll find seme woman that'll set up housekeeping with me, and then we won't go to sea no more.'

A few days later the Saints' Rest was overtaken by a steamer bound northward, and the usual offer to tow was made. Captain Potter said that he didn't know as it was worth while for him to bother about being towed, He rather calculated to drift forrard with the Gulf stream' till he came up to about the latitude of Savannah, where he could be towed into port without its costing him very much. However, if the steamer would make a reasonable offer, he might consider it.

The result of the conference between the two Captains was that the steamer was engaged to tow the Saints' Rest into Key West for a lump sum in lieu of salvage, and Captain Potter congratulated himself on having made an excellent bargain.

Two men were sent on board the Saints' Rest to relieve each other at the wheel; the hawser was passed, and the two vessels proceeded on their way. For three days all went well, but as the fourth day dawned, a south-west gale sprang up, and promised to freshen into a hurricane.

When the steamer Captain found that he could no longer tow the Saints' Rest without imminent peril to his own vessel, he stopped his engines, cast off the hawser, and sent a boat to take his two men and the Captain from the disabled ship.

But Captain Potter stoutly refused to quit the ship; and no argument had any effect upon him. Reluctantly the steamer abandoned him to his fate, and Captain Potter and his cat were once more alone. The Captain made up his mind that he was on the outer edge of a cyclone, and in its revolution he would be carried clear of the coast. But Captain Potter was for once out of his reckoning, careful navigator as he was.

The Saints' Rest was much nearer the Florida reef than he imagined her to be. All night the wreck drove before the gale, and at daybreak she struck with a tremendous crash. Seizing Elisha, the Captain made his way to the companionway, and cautiously unfastened the door. He saw that the ship was on a reef three miles from the Fowey Light, which stands on the mainland. It was clear that the 'Saints' Rest' would go to pieces in a very short time.

'Tell you what we'll do, Elisha,' said the Captain. 'I'll put on a life-belt, and when she breaks up we'll take our chances of fetching the shore. It's my duty to tell you that your mighty slim, and that at the best you'll get terrible wet, which you don't like; but you just cling fast to me, and if we drown, b'gosh, we'll drown together!'

Toward sunset the ship suddenly disappeared, and half an hour later the body of Captain Potter, with a dead kitten buttoned inside his jacket, came ashore. The two had died together, and the look on the Captain's face was that of peace and contentment.

_____________________

5: He Had An Alibi

Anonymous

Albury Banner and Wodonga Express 20 March 1936

A story with the same title appeared in Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction December 17 1927, as by "Faulkner Conway" (his dates are unknown, he published in the 1920s),  but "Conway" is certainly an American author, and the author of this story is undoubtedly British.

MORRISON, with the glare of the afternoon sun in his face, did not see the scarred man until the hot brown eyes were looking straight into his own grey ones.

'Hullo!' said Morrison. 'You!'

'A good guess,' grunted the scarred man. 'Waiting for someone?'

'Yes,' said Morrison. 'A murderer.'

'Hope you'll catch him.'

The other made as if to pass. But Morrison barred the way.

'You stay here,' he said. His breath came quicker. 'You can't walk off like that. The police have got a few questions to ask first.'

The scarred man, arms akimbo, seemed mildly amused.

'How are you going to stop me?'

Morrison, though his brain from the first had been desperately busy, had no answer ready. In the left-hand pocket of his coat was an old pin-fire revolver. Side by side with a dusty packet of cartridges, it had lain for years in a drawer at his aunt's cottage. Herries, the police sergeant he brought there after the discovery of the tragedy, had agreed that it would be an invaluable ally in stopping any suspicious character. More especially in stopping the scarred man, otherwise Steve Vogel, otherwise Morrison's distant cousin.

In the corresponding right hand pocket was a police whistle. A blast would be heard by any of the men who were patrolling the down between the cottage and the town.

From Morrison himself, paying one of his frequent calls, had come the announcement of the murder. He had dashed on to the little police station,  and to the sergcant-in-charge breathlessly described how he had found the body, skull smashed with one terrific blow dealt from behind, sprawling across the sitting-room floor. And then, in reply to questions, he had added details about the scarred man, lately seen loitering within a hundred yards of the cottage— Vogel, the ne'er-do-well, the lately released gaol bird, whose possible visits the old lady had dreaded. Sergeant Herries had enlisted the help of half-a-dozen unofficial assistants, including Morrison himself, to search the downs.

Whichever route Vogel had taken, he would find it difficult to get clear away. He had no car, no cycle. If he tried to steal either, it would be easier still to track him.

'Well?' said Vogel at last.

If only Morrison had put the revolver in the other pocket! His right hand, with a sliding movement, groped, frantically but ineffectively, for the whistle. It eluded his fingers just too long.

In a flash Morrison's arms were pinned to his sides. His spine, in Vogel 's gorilla-like grip, sagged; he swayed, recovered, and finally crashed on to the cliff path, the other on top of him. The sharp edges of the revolver hurt agonisingly. He wriggled, and found himself engaged in a second struggle. Neither spoke or tried to speak.

Until abruptly Vogel 's voice rose to a shout. 'Look out, you fool!' and the chalky footpath became a steep slope of turf, and they fell.

MORRISON opened his eyes warily. A yard away Vogel was sitting, his knees drawn up, his knotted hands clasped about them. His clothes were torn, and white with chalk. Morrison's revolver was beside him.

'Hullo— come to your senses?' he asked. Morrison, mumbling an answer, put an unsteady hand to his head. It ached abominably, and his fingers came away damp.

'It's only superficial,' Vogel assured him. 'You've been let off  lightly— considering. But you'll have to go slow with that right shoulder of yours.'

Instinctively Morrison moved the shoulder. A white-hot stab of pain rewarded him.

'When we pitched, over the cliff,' explained Vogel, 'you were underneath. And you were still there when we hit the beach. If the sand had been shingle, you wouldn't have hadi much spine left.'

'How long have we been here?'

'Can't say, exactly— the fall smashed my watch to splinters. But if you call it half an hour I guess you won't be much out.

'I daresay you're wondering,' he went on, 'why I don't finish you off, and let the tide carry your body round the point and dump it there for the coroner to guess what happened? It wouldn't have been a bad programme, only I happen to need a guide. It's no use blinking facts; we're both up against it. On either side the water is already six feet deep, with a swirl where it fetches up against the cliff that means death to anyone who can't swim. Which rules out me. You'd be surprised at the number of sailors who never learn. And you're a wash-out, anyway. And to shout for help in this wind would be sheer waste of breath. That leaves us the cave.'

'The cave?' echoed Morrison, stupidly.

'Otherwise the Devil's Alley, just on our left. I'm told that the other end comes out somewhere on the Downs. You ought to know. '

'I've never explored it beyond a yard or so,' said Morrison.

'Then you'd better make a start, right away,' said Vogel. 'In another five minutes it will be too late.'

Morrison struggled to his feet. The change of position set his shoulder throbbing damnably. Sky and sea merged in a spinning darkness. But presently his brain cleared, and he was able to move shakily towards the the cave. Vogel followed him. For the first few yards the path, of sloping downwards, was easy; then the walls narrowed, and darkness engulfed them.

Morrison stumbled forward, his fingertips touching the chalk walls. Here and there a remote and inaccessible crevice overhead turned darkness into twilight. The path of twisted, climbed, and finally descended as again to a pool of ice-cold water into which both men blundered.

Vogel struck a match.

'How many of those have you got?' asked Morrison.

'Best part of a boxful. What's all that?'

It was the sound of water, pouring from an invisible source into the pool.  Vogel bent, dipped a finger, and put it to his lips.

'Salt. I suppose it flows in with the rising tide. And there's the height it reaches.' He pointed to a line of green scum, level with their heads. 'Push on. We've no time to waste.'

They came to a fork in the path.

'Any idea which way?' snapped Vogel.

'None,' Morrison snapped back. The other, striking a fresh match, bent to examine the floor. But it recorded no footprints.

'We'll take the wider path,' he said. 'It's a fifty-fifty chance, anyway. What are you doing?'

'Nothing,' lied Morrison. He had been peering among the debris at the side of the cave for a fragment of chalk big enough to use as a weapon.

'Listen,' said Vogel. 'No, don't argue, listen! If you try any fool trick down here, you'll never see daylight again. Got that? Then push on.'

The wider path ended. A dead wall of cliff mocked them. There was nothing for it but to return to the narrow path. It was steeper than the other, and twisted tortuously. Splinters of chalk crumbled and slid under their feet; the darkness was unbroken, the air stagnant and tainted. Vogel came to a sudden halt.

'Is there much more of this?'

'I've told you—'

'Yes, I know. But I'm not sure I believe you. You 've spent enough time exploring the neighborhood. Sort of hobby, I gathered.'

'Who told you I'd explored it?'

'The old lady, when she showed me your photo.'

'She showed you—' Morrison began, but Vogel interrupted him.

'We talked for some time. She wasn't a bad sort, in spite of that tongue of hers.'

They struggled forward. The passage grow so narrow that there was only just room for a man to worm his way between tho walls. But there were compensations. The air became fresher, the darkness paler, and presently, through a tangle of shrubs high above them, they glimpsed the sky.

'Journey's end,' said Vogel.

'Yes,' said Morrison. His heart began to thud again. 'I suppose we'll be able to scramble out.'

'For a man who could grip the rock and drag himself from point to point, maybe there's a chance.'

'If a rope were lowered?'

Vogel grinned. 'I guess I'd be able to make a getaway without waiting for a rope.'

'Do you mean that you'll deliberately leave me here?'

'Why not? You've done your damndest for me.'

'Naturally, knowing—'

'That I'd written saying that I was coming this afternoon. And I'll bet you reminded her that I'd the Fiend's own temper, and had just finished a stretch of three months in Marseilles for letting it run away with me?'

'It's all true.'

'True enough. But sailors don't care. She showed you my letter, of course?'

'Yes.'

'I thought so. And the new will?'

'No.'

'You're lying again— she did. She told you, too, that we'd parted friends. And you knew that she was leaving half her property to me, that Peter the Virtuous would have to go shares with Steve the Waster— the only two relations she'd got. It would be interesting to speculate as to where that will is now. But there's one thing you didn't know, and that is that she walked with me to the far end of the lane, and that half a dozen people saw us part there. Anything to say to the Perfect Alibi?  Nothing? So long, then.'

Vogel made a leap at a jutting spur of rock. He clutched it, hauled himself up, gained a precarious foothold, Morrison watched him scramble with sailor's dexterity, from point to point, saw his head reach the gap, saw hands grasp and haul him up to safety.

The sergeant must have known the cave opening after all, and been astute enough to watch it. Someone was leaning over, shouting. But Morrison neither listened nor answered.

He felt sick, utterly exhausted. Sweat tingled on his forehead. He fumbled for his handkerdef. It wasn't there. He had wrapped it round the poker before he struck the blow, to avoid any risk of finger-marks, and flung the poker in the spinney behind the cottage.

Was the handkerchief there, too? Perhaps. He suddenly recollected the revolver. No, that had gone, too. He turned, and began stumbling blindly back along the path which led to the pool. As he hurried nearer he could hear in the distance the sibilant ripple of its waters.

_________________

6: The Cast-Iron Canvasser

A. B. ("Banjo") Patterson

1864-1941

Three Elephant Power and Other Stories, 1917

Best known as the very popular bush ballad poet, (The Man from Snowy River, and many others)  Patterson was a versatile writer on non-fiction themes. He also wrote humorous short stories. This is one of his best known, reprinted as a "classic" in The Herald (Melbourne) in May 1934.

THE FIRM of Sloper and Dodge, publishers and printers, was in great distress. These two enterprising individuals had worked up an enormous business in time-payment books, which they sold all over Australia by means of canvassers. They had put all the money they had into the business; and now, just when everything was in thorough working order, the public had revolted against them.

Their canvassers were molested by the country folk in divers strange bush ways. One was made drunk, and then a two-horse harrow was run over him; another was decoyed into the ranges on the pretence of being shown a gold-mine, and his guide galloped away and left him to freeze all night in the bush. In mining localities the inhabitants were called together by beating a camp-oven lid with a pick, and the canvasser was given ten minutes in which to get out of the town alive. If he disregarded the hint he would, as likely as not, fall accidentally down a disused shaft.

The people of one district applied to their M.P. to have canvassers brought under the “Noxious Animals Act” and demanded that a reward should be offered for their scalps. Reports appeared in the country press about strange, gigantic birds that appeared at remote selections and frightened the inhabitants to death— these were Sloper and Dodge’s sober and reliable agents, wearing neat, close-fitting suits of tar and feathers.

In fact, it was altogether too hot for the canvassers, and they came in from the north and west and south, crippled and disheartened, to tender their resignations. To make matters worse, Sloper and Dodge had just got out a large Atlas of Australasia, and if they couldn’t sell it, ruin stared them in the face; and how could they sell it without canvassers?

The members of the firm sat in their private office. Sloper was a long, sanctimonious individual, very religious and very bald. Dodge was a little, fat American, with bristly black hair and beard, and quick, beady eyes. He was eternally smoking a reeking black pipe, and puffing the smoke through his nose in great whiffs, like a locomotive on a steep grade. Anybody walking into one of those whiffs was liable to get paralysis.

Just as things were at their very blackest, something had turned up that promised to relieve all their difficulties. An inventor had offered to supply them with a patent cast-iron canvasser— a figure which (he said) when wound up would walk, talk, collect orders, and stand any amount of ill-usage and wear and tear. If this could indeed be done, they were saved. They had made an appointment with the genius; but he was half-an-hour late, and the partners were steeped in gloom.

They had begun to despair of his appearing at all, when a cab rattled up to the door. Sloper and Dodge rushed unanimously to the window. A young man, very badly dressed, stepped out of the cab, holding over his shoulder what looked like the upper half of a man’s body. In his disengaged hand he held a pair of human legs with boots and trousers on. Thus burdened he turned to ask his fare, but the cabman gave a yell of terror, whipped up his horse, and disappeared at a hand-gallop; and a woman who happened to be going by, ran down the street, howling that Jack the Ripper had come to town. The man bolted in at the door, and toiled up the dark stairs tramping heavily, the legs and feet, which he dragged after him, making an unearthly clatter. He came in and put his burden down on the sofa.

“There you are, gents,” he said; “there’s your canvasser.” Sloper and Dodge recoiled in horror. The upper part of the man had a waxy face, dull, fishy eyes, and dark hair; he lounged on the sofa like a corpse at ease, while his legs and feet stood by, leaning stiffly against the wall. The partners gazed at him for a while in silence.

“Fix him together, for God’s sake,” said Dodge. “He looks awful.”

The Genius grinned, and fixed the legs on.

“Now he looks better,” said Dodge, poking about the figure “looks as much like life as most— ah, would you, you brute!” he exdaimcd, springing back in alarm, for the figure had made a violent La Blanche swing at him.

“That’s all right,” said the Inventor. “It’s no good having his face knocked about, you know— lot of trouble to make that face. His head and body are full of springs, and if anybody hits him in the face, or in the pit of the stomach— favourite place to hit canvassers, the pit of the stomach— it sets a strong spring in motion, and he fetches his right hand round with a swipe that’ll knock them into the middle of next week. It’s an awful hit. Griffo couldn’t dodge it, and Slavin couldn’t stand up against it. No fear of any man hitting him twice.

“And he’s dog-proof, too. His legs are padded with tar and oakum, and if a dog bites a bit out of him, it will take that dog weeks to pick his teeth dean. Never bite anybody again, that dog won’t. And he’ll talk, talk, talk, like a suffragist gone mad; his phonograph can be charged for 100,000 words, and all you’ve got to do is to speak into it what you want him to say, and he’ll say it. He’ll go on saying it till he talks his man silly, or gets an order. He has an order-form in his hand, and as soon as anyone signs it and gives it back to him, that sets another spring in motion, and he puts the order in his pocket, turns round, and walks away. Grand idea, isn’t he? Lor’ bless you, I fairly love him.”

He beamed affectionately on his monster.

“What about stairs?” said Dodge.

“No stairs in the bush,” said the Inventor, blowing a speck of dust off his apparition; “all ground-floor houses. Anyhow, if there were stairs we could carry him up and let him fall down afterwards, or get flung down like any other canvasser.”

“Ha! Let’s see him walk,” said Dodge.

The figure walked all right, stiff and erect.

“Now let’s hear him yabber.”

The Genius touched a spring, and instantly, in a queer, tin-whistly voice, he began to sing “Little Annie Rooney”.

“Good!” said Dodge; “he’ll do. We’ll give you your price. Leave him here tonight, and come in tomorrow. We’ll send you off to the back country with him. Ninemile would be a good place to start in. Have a cigar?”

Mr Dodge, much elated, sucked at his pipe, and blew through his nose a doud of nearly solid smoke, through which the Genius sidled out. They could hear him sneezing and choking all the way down the stairs.

Ninemile is a quiet little place, sleepy beyond description. When the mosquitoes in that town settle on anyone, they usually go to sleep, and forget to bite him. The climate is so hot that the very grasshoppers crawl into the hotel parlours out of the sun, climb up the window curtains, and then go to sleep. The Riot Act never had to be read in Ninemile. The only thing that can arouse the inhabitants out of their lethargy is the prospect of a drink at somebody else’s expense.

For these reasons it had been decided to start the Cast-iron Canvasser there, and then move him on to more populous and active localities if he proved a success. They sent up the Genius, and one of their men who knew the district well. The Genius was to manage the automaton, and the other was to lay out the campaign, choose the victims, and collect the money, geniuses being notoriously unreliable and loose in their cash. They got through a good deal of whisky on the way up, and when they arrived at Ninemile were in a cheerful mood, and disposed to take risks.

“Who’ll we begin on?” said the Genius.

“Oh, hang it all,” said the other, “let’s make a start with Macpherson.”

Macpherson was a Land Agent, and the big bug of the place. He was a gigantic Scotchman, six feet four in his socks, and freckled all over with freckles as big as half-crowns. His eyebrows would have made decent-sized moustaches for a cavalryman, and his moustaches looked like horns. He was a fighter from the ground up, and had a desperate “down” on canvassers generally, and on Sloper and Dodges canvassers in particular.

Sloper and Dodge had published a book called Remarkable Colonials, and Macpherson had written out his own biography for it. He was intensely proud of his pedigree and his relations, and in his narrative made out that he was descended from the original Fhairshon who swam round Noah’s Ark with his title-deeds in his teeth. He showed how his people had fought under Alexander the Great and Timour, and had come over to Scotland some centuries before William the Conqueror landed in England. He proved that he was related in a general way to one emperor, fifteen kings, twenty-five dukes, and earls and lords and viscounts innumerable. And then, after all, the editor of Remarkable Colonials managed to mix him up with some other fellow, some low-bred Irish McPherson, born in Dublin of poor but honest parents.

It was a terrible outrage. Macpherson became president of the Western District Branch of the Remarkable Colonials Defence League, a fierce and homicidal association got up to resist, legally and otherwise, paying for the book. He had further sworn by all he held sacred that every canvasser who came to harry him in future should die, and had put up a notice on his office-door, “Canvassers come in at their own risk.”

He had a dog of what he called the Hold ’em breed, who could tell a canvasser by his walk, and would go for him on sight. The reader will understand, therefore, that, when the Genius and his mate proposed to start on Macpherson, they were laying out a capacious contract for the Cast-iron Canvasser, and could only have been inspired by a morbid craving for excitement, aided by the influence of backblock whisky.

The Inventor wound the figure up in the back parlour of the pub. There were a frightful lot of screws to tighten before the thing would work, but at last he said it was ready, and they shambled off down the street, the figure marching stiffly between them. It had a book tucked under its arm and an order-form in its hand. When they arrived opposite Macpherson’s office, the Genius started the phonograph working, pointed the figure straight at Macpherson’s door, and set it going. Then the two conspirators waited, like Guy Fawkes in his cellar.

The automaton marched across the road and in at the open door, talking to itself loudly in a hoarse, unnatural voice. Macpherson was writing at his table, and looked up.

The figure walked bang through a small collection of flower-pots, sent a chair flying, tramped heavily in the spittoon, and then brought up against the table with a loud crash and stood still. It was talking all the time.

“I have here,” it said, “a most valuable work, an Atlas of Australasia, which I desire to submit to your notice. The large and increasing demand of bush residents for time-payment works has induced the publishers of this—”

“My God!” said Macpherson, “it’s a canvasser. Here, Tom Sayers, Tom Sayers!” and whistled and called for his dog. “Now,” he said, “will you go out of this office quietly, or will you be thrown out? It’s for yourself to decide, but you’ve only got while a duck wags his tail to decide in. Which’II it be?”

“—works of modern ages,” said the canvasser. “Every person subscribing to this invaluable work will receive, in addition, a flat-iron, a railway pass for a year, and a pocket-compass. If you will please sign this order—”

Just here Tom Sayers came tearing through the office, and without waiting for orders hitched straight on to the canvasser’s calf. To Macpherson’s amazement the piece came clear away, and Tom Sayers rolled about on the floor with his mouth full of a sticky substance which seemed to surprise him badly.

The long Scotchman paused a while before this mystery, but at last he fancied he had got the solution. “Got a cork leg, have you?” said he— “Well, lets see if your ribs are cork too”, and he struck the canvasser an awful blow on the fifth button of the waistcoat.

Quicker than lightning came that terrific right-hand cross-counter. Macpherson never even knew what happened to him. The canvasser’s right hand, which had been adjusted by his inventor for a high blow, had landed on the butt of Macpherson’s ear and dropped him like a fowl. The gasping, terrified bulldog fled the scene, and the canvasser stood over his fallen foe, still intoning the virtues of his publication. He had come there merely as a friend, he said, to give the inhabitants of Ninemile a chance to buy a book which had recently earned the approval of King O’Malley and His Excellency the Governor-General

The Genius and his mate watched this extraordinary drama through the window. The stimulant habitually consumed by the Ninemilers had induced in them a state of superlative Dutch courage, and they looked upon the whole affair as a wildly hilarious joke.

By Gad! he’s done him,” said the Genius, as Macpherson went down, “done him in one hit. If he don’t pay as a canvasser I’ll take him to town and back him to fight Les Darcy. Look out for yourself; don’t handle him!” he continued as the other approached the figure. “Leave him to me. As like as not, if you get fooling about him, he’ll give you a clout that’ll paralyse you.”

So saying, he guided the automaton out of the office and into the street, and walked straight into a policeman.

By a common impulse the Genius and his mate ran rapidly away in different directions, leaving the figure alone with the officer.

He was a fully-ordained sergeant— by name Aloysius O’Grady; a squat, rosy little Irishman. He hated violent arrests and all that sort of thing, and had a faculty of persuading drunks and disorderlies and other fractious persons to “go quietly along wid him”, that was little short of marvellous. Excited revellers, who were being carried by their mates, struggling violently, would break away to prance gaily along to the lock-up with the sergeant. Obstinate drunks who had done nothing but lie on the ground and kick their feet in the air, would get up like birds, serpent-charmed, to go with him to durance vile.

As soon as he saw the canvasser, and noted his fixed, unearthly stare, and listened to his hoarse, unnatural voice, the sergeant knew what was the matter; it was a man in the horrors, a common enough spectacle at Ninemile. He resolved to decoy him into the lock-up, and accosted him in a friendly, free-and-easy way.

“Good day t’ye,” he said.

“—magnificent volume ever published, jewelled in fourteen holes, working on a ruby roller, and in a glass case,” said the book-canvasser. “The likeness of the historical personages are so natural that the book must not be left open on the table, or the mosquitoes will ruin it by stinging the portraits.”

It then dawned on the sergeant that this was no mere case of the horrors— he was dealing with a book-canvasser.

“Ah, sure,” he said, “fwhat’s the use uv tryin’ to sell books at all, at all; folks does be peltin’ them out into the street, and the nanny-goats lives on them these times. Oi send the childer out to pick ’em up, and we have ’em at me place in barrow-loads. Come along with me now, and Oi’ll make you nice and comfortable for the night”, and he laid his hand on the outstretched palm of the figure.

It was a fatal mistake. He had set in motion the machinery which operated the figure’s left arm, and it moved that limb in towards its body, and hugged the sergeant to its breast, with a vice-like grip. Then it started in a faltering and uneven, but dogged, way to walk towards the river.

“Immortial Saints!” gasped the sergeant, “he’s squazin’ the livin’ breath out uv me. Lave go now loike a dacent sowl, lave go. And oh, for the love uv God, don’t be shpakin’ into me ear that way”; for the figure’s mouth was pressed tight against the sergeant’s ear, and its awful voice went through and through the little man’s head, as it held forth about the volume. The sergeant struggled violently, and by so doing set some more springs in motion, and the figure’s right arm made terrific swipes in the air. A following of boys and loafers had collected by this time. “Blimey, how does he lash out!” was the remark they made. But they didn’t interfere, notwithstanding the sergeant’s frantic appeals, and things were going hard with him when his subordinate, Constable Dooley, appeared on the scene.

Dooley, better known as the Wombat because of his sleepy disposition, was a man of great strength. He had originally been quartered at Sydney, and had fought many bitter battles with the notorious “pushes” of Bondi, Surry Hills, and The Rocks. After that, duty at Ninemile was child’s play, and he never ran in fewer than two drunks at a time; it was beneath his dignity to be seen capturing a solitary inebriate. If they wouldn’t come any other way, he would take them by the ankles and drag them after him. When the Wombat saw the sergeant in the grasp of an inebriate he bore down on the fray full of fight.

“I’ll soon make him lave go, sergeant,” he said, and he caught hold of the figure’s right arm, to put on the “police twist”. Unfortunately, at that exact moment the sergeant touched one of the springs in the creature’s breast. With the suddenness and severity of a horse-kick, it lashed out with its right hand, catching the redoubtable Dooley a thud on the jaw, and sending him to grass as if he had been shot.

For a few minutes he “lay as only dead men lie”. Then he got up bit by bit, wandered off home to the police-barracks, and mentioned casually to his wife that John L. Sullivan had come to town, and had taken the sergeant away to drown him. After which, having given orders that anybody who called was to be told that he had gone fifteen miles out of town to serve a summons on a man for not registering a dog, he locked himself up in a cell for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, the Cast-iron Canvasser, still holding the sergeant tightly clutched to its breast, was marching straight towards the river. Something had disorganized its vocal arrangements, and it was now positively shrieking in the sergeant’s ear, and, as it yelled, the little man yelled still louder.

“Oi don’t want yer accursed book. Lave go uv me, Oi say!” He beat with his fists on its face, and kicked its shins without avail. A short, staggering rush, a wild shriek from the officer, and they both toppled over the steep bank and went souse into the depths of Ninemile Creek.

That was the end of the matter. The Genius and his mate returned to town hurriedly, and lay low, expecting to be indicted for murder. Constable Dooley drew up a report for the Chief of Police, which contained so many strange statements that the Police Department concluded the sergeant must have got drunk and drowned himself, and that Dooley saw him do it, but was too drunk to pull him out.

Anyone unacquainted with Ninemile might expect that a report of the occurrence would have reached the Sydney papers. As a matter of fact the storekeeper did think of writing one, but decided that it was too much trouble. There was some idea of asking the Government to fish the two bodies out of the river; but about that time an agitation was started in Ninemile to have the Federal Capital located there, and nothing else mattered.

The Genius discovered a pub in Sydney that kept the Ninemile brand of whisky, and drank himself to death; the Wombat became a Sub-Inspector of Police; Sloper entered the Christian ministry; Dodge was elected to the Federal Parliament; and a vague tradition about “a bloke who came up here in the horrors, and drowned poor old O’Grady” is the only memory that remains of that wonderful creation, the Cast-iron Canvasser.

___________________

7: The Extraordinary Adventure of a Chief Mate

W. Clark Russell

1844-1911

The Mystery of the "Ocean Star":

a collection of maritime sketches, 1888

IN THE Newspapers of 1876 appeared the following extracts from the log of a merchantman:

"VOLCANIC ISLAND IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.—

The ship 'Hercules', of Liverpool, lately arrived in the Mersey, reports as follows: March 23, in 2 degrees 12' north latitude, 33 degrees 27' west longitude, a shock of earthquake was felt and shortly afterward a mass of land was hove up at a distance of about two miles from the ship. Michael Balfour, the chief officer, fell overboard. The buoy was thrown to him, the ship brought to the wind, and a boat lowered within fifteen minutes of the occurrence. But though the men sought the chief mate for some time, nothing could be seen of him, and it is supposed that he sank shortly after falling into the sea. Masters of vessels are recommended to keep a sharp lookout in approaching the situation of the new island as given above. No doubt it will be sighted by other ships, and duly reported."

I am Michael Balfour; I it was who fell overboard; and it is needless for me to say here that I was not drowned. The volcanic island was only reported by one other ship, and the reason why will be read at large in this account of my strange adventure and merciful deliverance.

It was the evening of the 23rd of March, 1876. Our passage to the equator from Sydney had been good, but for three days we had been bothered with light head winds and calms, and since four o'clock this day the ocean had stretched in oil-smooth undulations to its margin, with never a sigh of air to crispen its marvelous serenity into shadow. The courses were hauled up, the staysails down, the mizzen brailed up; the canvas delicately beat the masts to the soft swing of the tall spars, and sent a small rippling thunder through the still air, like a roll of drums heard at a distance. The heat was great; I had never remembered a more biting sun. The pitch in the seams was soft as putty, the atmosphere was full of the smell of blistered paint, and it was like putting your hand on a red-hot stove to touch the binnacle hood or grasp for an instant an iron belaying-pin.

A sort of loathing comes into a man with a calm like this. "The very deep did rot," says the poet; and you understood the fancy when you marked the blind heave of the swell to the sun standing in the midst of a sky of brass, with his wake under him sinking in a sinuous dazzle, as though it was his fiery glance piercing to the green depths a thousand fathoms deep. It was hot enough to slacken the nerves and give the imagination a longer scope than sanity would have it ride by. That was why, perhaps, I found something awful and forbidding in the sunset, though at another time it might scarcely have detained my gaze a minute. But it is true, nevertheless, that others besides me gaped at the wonderful gushings of hot purple,— arrested whirlpools of crimson haze, they looked,— in the heart of which the orb sat rayless, flooding the sea with blood under him, so magnificently fell was the hue, and flushing the sky with twenty dies of gold and orange, till, in the far east, the radiance fainted into the delicacy of pale amber.

"Yon's a sunset," said Captain Matthews, a North of England man, to me, "to make a fellow think of the last day."

"I'm looking at it, sir," said I, "as though I had never seen a sunset before. That's the oddest part of it, to my mind. There's fire enough there to eat a gale up. How should a cat's-paw crawl then?" And I softly whistled, while he wetted his finger and held it up; but to no purpose; the draught was all between the rails, and they blew forward and aft with every swing of the sails.

When the dusk came along, the silence upon the sea was something to put all sorts of moods into a man. The sky was a hovering velvet stretch of stars, with a young moon lying curled among them, and winkings of delicate violet sheet-lightning down in the southwest, as though some gigantic-tinted lantern, passing, flung its light upon the dark blue obscure there. The captain went below, after a long, impatient look round, and I overhung the rail, peering into the water alongside, or sending my gaze into the frightful distance, where the low-lying stars hung. With every soft dip of the ship's side to the slant of the dark folds, there shot forth puffs of cloudy phosphor, intermixed with a sparkling of sharper fires now and again, blue, yellow, and green, like worms of flame striking out of their cocoons of misty radiance. The noise of the canvas on high resembled the stirring of pinions, and the cheep of a block, the grind of a parrel, helped the illusion, as though the sounds were the voices of huge birds restlessly beating their pinions aloft.

Presently the man at the wheel startled me with an observation. I went to him, and he pointed upward with a long, shadowy arm. I looked, and saw a corposant, as it is called at sea,— a St. Elmo's fire,— burning at the end of the crossjack-yard. The yard lay square, and the polished sea beneath gave back the reflection so clearly that the mystic fire lay like a huge glow-worm on the black mirror.

"There should be wind not far off," said the helmsman, in a subdued voice; for few sailors can see one of these lights without a stirring of their superstitious instincts, and this particular exhalation hung close to us.

"I hope so," said I, "though I don't know where it's to come from."

As I spoke, the light vanished. I ran my eye over the yards, expecting its reappearance; but it returned no more, and the sails rose pale and phantom-like to the stars. I was in an odd humour, and this was an apparition not to brighten one up. Of course one knows all about these marine corpse-candles, and can explain their nature; but nevertheless the sudden kindling of them upon the darkness of the night, in the dead hush of the calm or amid the fury of the shrieking hurricane, produces feelings which there is nothing in science to resolve. I could have laughed to find myself sending a half-awed look aloft, as if I expected to see some visionary hand at work upon another one of these graveyard illuminations— with a stealing out of some large, sad face to the melancholy glow; but I returned to the side very pensive for all that, and there stood watching the fiery outline of a shark subtly sneaking close to the surface (insomuch that the wake of its fin slipped away in little coils of green flame) toward the ship's bows.

Half an hour later the dark curl of a light air of wind shattered the starlight in the sea, and our canvas fell asleep. I called to the watch to trim sail, and in a few moments the decks were busy with the figures of men pulling and hauling and surging out at the ropes in sulky, slumberous growlings. The captain arrived.

"Little worth having in this, I fear," said he. But make the most of it. Get the foretopmast stunsail run up. If she creeps but a league, it is a league to the good."

The sail was sleepily set. Humbugging about with stunsails to the cat's-paws little pleased the men, especially at night. For three days they had been boxhauling the yards about to no purpose, and it was sickening work running stunsail-booms out to airs that died in their struggles to reach us. However, here was a draught at last, and the old gurgling and moaning sounds of the breathless, sluggish swell washing heavily like liquid lead to the sides were replaced by the tinkling noises of waters parting at the bows with a pretty little seething of expiring foam, and the hiss of exploding froth-bells. At eleven o'clock the light breeze was still holding, and the ship was floating softly through the dusk, the paring of moon swaying like a silver sickle over the port mizzen topsail yard-arm, everything quiet along the decks, no light save the sheen from the lamps in the binnacle, and nothing stirring but the figure of a man in the forecastle pacing athwartships, and blotting at every step a handful of stars which lay like dust on the blackness, under the yawn of the forecourse. On a sudden a steamer's lights showed on the starboard bow— a green beam, and a yellow one above, with the water on fire beneath them, and sparks floating away upon her coil of smoke, that made you think of the spangles of a falling rocket. She went past swiftly, at no great distance from us. There was not a moan in the hot breeze to disturb the wonderful ocean stillness, and you almost thought you caught the beating of the iron heart in her, and the curious monotonous songs which engines sing as they work. She swept past like a phantom, running a line of illuminated windows along which resembled a row of streetlamps out in the darkness; and as she came on to our quarter she struck seven bells (half-past eleven), the rich metallic notes of which I clearly heard; and with the trembling of the last stroke upon the ear her outline melted.

At that instant a peculiar thrill ran through the ship. It may be likened to the trembling in a floor when a heavy waggon passes in the street outside. It was over in a breath, but I could have sworn that it was not my fancy. I walked aft to the wheel, and said to the man, "Did you notice anything just now?"

"Seemed to me as if the vessel trembled like," he replied.

"As he spoke the ship shook again, this time strongly. It was something more than a shudder; the sensation was for all the world as though she had scraped over a shoal of rock or shingle. There was a little clatter below, a noise of broken glass. The watch, who had been dozing on deck, sprang to their feet, and their ejaculations of surprise and fear rolled in a growl among them. The captain ran out of the companionway in his shirt and trousers.

"What was that, Mr. Balfour?" he bawled.

"Either the shock of an earthquake," said I, "or a whale sliding along our keel."

"Get a cast of the lead! get a cast of the lead!" he shouted.

This was done to the full scope of the hand-line, without bottom, of course. By this time the watch below had tumbled up, and all hands were on deck, staring aloft or over the side, sniffing, spitting, muttering, and wondering what had happened.

"There's that bloomin' compreesant come again!" exclaimed a hoarse voice; and, sure enough, a light similar to the one that had hung at the crossjack yard-arm now floated upon the end of the upper main-topsail-yard.

"The devil's abroad tonight!" exclaimed the captain. "There's sulphur enough about," and he fell a-snuffling.

What followed might have made an infidel suppose so; for scarce were the words out of his mouth when there happened an astonishing blast of noise, as load and violent as that of forty or fifty cannons fired all at once, and out of the black sea no farther than a mile broad on the starboard beam rose a pillar of fire, crimson as the light of the setting sun and as dazzling too; it lived while you might have counted twenty, but in that time it lighted up the sea for leagues and leagues, put out the stars, and made the sky resemble a canopy of yellow satin; we on the ship saw another's faces as if by daylight; the shrouds and masts and our own figures cast jet-black shadows on the deck; the whole ship flashed out to that amazing radiance like a fabric sun-touched. The column of fire then flattened and disappeared, and the night rolled down upon our blinded eyes as black as thunder.

There was no noise— no hissing as of boiling water. If the furious report that preceded the leap of the fire had rendered its coming terrible, its extinction was made not less awful by the tomb-like stillness that attended it. I sprang on to the rail, believing I could perceive a dark mass— like a deeper dye upon the blackness that way--upon the water, and to steady myself caught hold of the mizzen loyal backstay, swinging out to my arm's length and peering with all my might. My excitement was great, and the consternation that possessed the ship's crew was upon me. As I leaned, the vessel heeled violently to a large swell caused by the volcanic disturbances. The roll was extraordinarily severe, heaving the vessel down to her covering-board; and the great hill of water running silent and in darkness through the sea, so that it could neither be viewed nor heard, made the sickening lurch a dreadful surprise and wonder.

It was in that moment that I fell overboard. I suppose my grip of the backstay relaxed when the ship lay down; but, let the thing have happened as it would, in a breath I was under water. It is said that the swiftness of thought is best shown by dreams. This may be so; yet I cannot believe that thought was ever swifter in a dream than it was in me ere I came to the surface; for in those few seconds I gathered exactly what had befallen me, wondered whether my fall had been seen, whether I should be saved, realized my hopeless condition if I had not been observed, and, above all, was thinking steadfastly and with horror of the shark I had not long ago watched stemming in fire past the ship. I was a very indifferent swimmer, and what little power I had in that way was like to be paralysed by thoughts of the shark. I rose and fetched a breath, shook the water out of my eyes, and looked for the ship. She had been sliding along at the rate of about four knots an hour; but had she been at ten she could not seem to have gone farther from me during the brief while I was submerged. From the edge of the water, where my eyes were, she appeared a towering pale shadow about a mile off. I endevoured to scream out; but whether the cold of the plunge had bereft my voice, or that I had swallowed water enough to stop my pipes, I found I could utter nothing louder than a small groan. I made several strokes with my arms, and suddenly spied a life-buoy floating almost twenty yards ahead of me. I made for it in a transport of joy, for the sight of it was all the assurance I could ask that they knew on the ship that I had tumbled over-board; and, coming to the buoy, I seized and threw it over my head, and then got it under my arms and so floated.

The breeze, such as it was, was on the ships quarter, and she would need to describe a considerable arc before she rounded to. I could hear very faintly the voices on board, the flinging down of coils of rope, the dim echoes of hurry and commotion. I again sought to exert my lungs, but could deliver no louder note than a moan. The agony of mind I was under lest a shark should seize me I cannot express, and my strained eyeballs would come from the tall shadow of the ship to the sea about me in a wild searching of the liquid ebony of it for the sparkling configuration of the most abhorred of all fish. I could have sworn that hours elapsed before they lowered a boat from the ship, that seemed to grow fainter and fainter every time I looked at her, so swallowing is the character of ocean darkness, and so subtle apparently, so fleet in fact, the settling away of a fabric under canvas from an object stationary on the water. I could distinctly hear the rattle of the oars in the rowlocks, and the splash of the dipped blades, but could not discern the boat. It was speedily evident, however, that they were pulling wide of me; my ear could not mistake. Again I tried to shout, but to no purpose. Manifestly no one had thought of taking my bearings when I fell, and I, who lay south, was being sought for south-west.

Time passed; the boat never approached me within a quarter of a mile. They must instantly have heard me, could I have halloed; but my throat refused its office. I reckoned that they continued to row here and there for about half an hour, during which they were several times hailed by the captain, as I supposed; the sound of the oars then died. A little later I heard the very faint noises made by their hoisting the boat and hauling in upon the braces, and then there was nothing for me to do but to watch, with drying eyes, the shadow of the ship till it faded, and the stars shone where she had been.

The sky shed very little light, and there was no foam to cast an illumination of its own. However, by this time, as you will suppose, I was used to my situation; that is to say, the horror and the novelty of my condition had abated, and settled into a miserable feeling of despair; so that I was like a dying man who had passed days in an open boat, and who languidly directs his eyes over the gunwale at the sea, with the hopelessness that is bred by familiarity with his dreadful posture. It was some time after the ship had melted into the airy dusk that I seemed to notice, for the first time since I had been in the life-buoy, the lump of blackness at which I had been straining my eyes when the vessel keeled and I fell. It had the elusiveness of a light at sea, that is best seen (at a distance) by gazing a little on one side of it. It lay, a black mass, and whether it was a vast huddle of weeds, or a great whale killed by the earthquake, or solid land uphove by the volcanic rupture, was not conjecturable. It hung, still and not very tall, for I could not see that it put out any stars, and was about a mile distant. Whatever it might prove, I could not be worse off near on or amid it than I was here; so, setting my face toward it, I began to strike out with my legs and arms.

The water was so fiery, it clipped in flashes to every blow of my hands. I swam in the utmost terror, never knowing but the next moment I should be feeling the teeth of a shark upon my legs, for the sparkling of the sea to my kicks and motions was signal enough for such a beast if it was a league distant; but I may as well sat here that there is no doubt the shock of the earthquake and the flame effectually cleared the sea in its neighborhood of every kind of fish that floated in it, though the hope of such a thing could yield me but very little comfort while I swam.

I continued to make good progress, and presently, approaching the block of blackness, for so it looked, perceived that it was certainly land,— a solid rock, in short,— the head of some mountainous submarine formation lifted ten or twelve feet above the sea. I could now discern a faintness of vapour circling up from it and showing like steam against the stars. Its front stretched a length of a few hundred feet; how far it went behind I could not tell. A small sound of creaming waters came from it, produced by the light swell washing its shelter side. It lay all in a line of grayish darkness even when I was quite close, and I could see nothing but the shapeless body of it. On a sudden my feet struck ground, and I waded thirty paces along a shelf that was under water till my paces lifted to the dry beach. But by this time I was fearfully exhausted; I could scarcely breathe. My legs and arms were numbed to the weight of lead. The atmosphere was warm, but not unbearably so— not hotter than it had been at noon in the ship. Steam crawled up from every pore, like the drainings of smoke from damp straw, but it did not add to the distress of my breathing. I made shift to stagger onward till I had gone about fifty feet from the wash of the sea. Nature then broke down; my knees gave way, I stumbled and fell— whether in a swoon or whether in a death-like slumber, I cannot say; all I can tell is that when I awoke, or recovered my senses, the sun stood fifteen degrees above the horizon, and I opened my eyes upon a hot and dazzling sky.

I sat up in the utmost amazement. My mind for some time was all abroad, and I could recollect nothing. Memory then entered me with a bound, and I staggered to my feet with a cry. The first thing I took notice of was that my clothes were nearly dry, which was not very reconcilable with the steam that was still issuing from the island, though it was as I say. My bones ached cruelly, but I was not sensible of any particular languor. The brilliance was so blinding that I had to employ my eyes very warily in order to see; and it was not until I had kept opening and shutting them and shading them with my hands for some minutes that they acquired their old power. The island on which I stood had unquestionably been hove up in the night by the earthquake. I cannot figure it better than by asking you to imagine a gigantic mass of pumice-stone, somewhat flat on top, and shelving on all sides very gently to the water, lying afloat but steady on the sea. It was of the hue of pumice, and as clean as an egg-shell, without a grain of calcined dust or any appearance of scoriae that I could anywhere observe. It was riddled with holes, some wide and deep--a very honeycomb; and that I did not break my neck or a limb in my staggering walk from the beach in the darkness, I must ever account the most miraculous part of my adventure.

But what (when I had my whole wits) riveted my attention, and held me staring open-mouthed, as though in good truth the apparition of the devil had arisen before me, was the body of a ship leaning on its bilge, at not more than a gunshot from where I stood, looking toward the interior. When my eyes first went to the thing I could not believe them. I imagined it some trick of the volcanic explosion that had fashioned a portion of land or rock (as it may be called) into the likeness of a ship; but, on gazing steadfastly, I saw that it was indeed a vessel, rendered extraordinarily beautiful and wonderful by being densely covered with shells of a hundred different kinds, by which her bulk was enlarged, though her shape was preserved. Bright fountains of water were gushing from fifty places in her; all these waterfalls shone like rainbows, and showed surprisingly soft and lovely against the velvet green of the moss and the gray and kaleidoscopic tints of the shells upon her. Lost in amazement, I made my way toward her, and stood viewing her at a short distance. She had three lower masts standing— one right in the bows, and the mizzen raking very much aft. All three masts were supported by shrouds, and that was all the rigging the sea had left. She looked to be made of shells and moss; her shrouds and masts were incrusted as thickly as her hull. She was a mere tub of a ship in shape,being scarce twice as long as she was broad, with great fat buttocks, a very tall stern narrowing atop, and low bows with a prodigious curve to the stem-head. I am not well versed in the shipping of olden times, but I would have willingly staked all I was worth in the world that the fabric before me belonged to a period not much later than the days of Columbus, and that she had been sunk at least three centuries below the sea; and it was also perfectly clear to me that she had risen in the daylight, out of her green and oozy sepulchre, with the upheaval of the bed on which she lay to the convulsion that had produced the island.

But my situation was not one to suffer me to stand long idly wondering and staring. The moment I brought my eyes away from the ship to the mighty desolation of the blue and gleaming ocean, a horror broke upon me, my heart turned into lead, and in the anguish of my spirits I involuntarily lifted my clinched hands to God. What was to become of me? I had no boat, no means of making anything to bear me, nothing but the life-buoy, that was no better than a trap for sharks to tear me to pieces in. I was thirsty, but there was no fresh water on this steaming speck of rock, and I tell you, the knowing that there was none, and that unless rain fell I must die of thirst, had like to have driven me mad. Where the ship was, and beyond it, the island rose somewhat in the form of a gentle undulation. I walked that way, and there obtained a view of the whole island, which was very nearly circular, like the head of a hill, somewhat after the shape of a saucepan lid. It resembled a great mass of sponge to the sight, and there was no break upon its surface save the encrusted ship, which did, indeed, form a very conspicuous object. Happening to look downward, I spied a large dead fish, of the size of a cod of sixteen or eighteen pounds, lying a-dry in a hole. I put my arm down and dragged it out, and, hoping by appeasing my hunger to help my thirst somewhat, I opened my knife and cut out a little raw steak, and ate it. The moisture in the flesh refreshed me, and, that the sun not spoil the carcass, I carried it to the shadow made by the ship, and put it under one of the waterfalls that the play might keep it sweet. There was plenty more dead fish in the numerous holes, and I picked out two and put them in the shade; but I knew that the great heat must soon taint them and rot the rest, whence would come a stench that might make the island poisonous to me.

I sat down under the bends of the ship for the shadow it threw, and gazed at the sea. Perhaps I ought to have felt grateful for the miraculous creation of this spot of land, when, but for it, I must have miserably perished in the life-buoy, dying a most dreadful, slow, tormenting death, if some shark had not quickly dispatched me; but the solitude was so frightful, my doom seemed so assured, I was threatened with such dire sufferings ere my end came, that, in the madness and despair of my heart, I could have cursed the intervention of this rock, which promised nothing but the prolongation of my misery. There was but one live spark amid the ashes of my hopes; namely, that the island lay in the highway of ships, and that it was impossible a vessel could sight so unusual an object without deviating from her course to examine it. That was all the hope I had; but God knows there was nothing in it to keep me alive when I set off against it the consideration that there was no water on the island, no food; that a ship would have to sail close to remark so flat and little a point as this rock; and that days, ay, and weeks might elapse before the rim of yonder boundless surface, stretching in airy leagues of deep blue to the azure sky at the horizon, should be broken by the star-like shining of a sail.

Happily, the wondrous incrusted bulk was at hand to draw my thoughts away from my hideous condition; for I verily believe, had my eye found nothing to rest upon but the honeycombed pumice, my brain would have given way. I stood up and took a long view of the petrified shell-covered structure, feeling a sort of awe in me while I looked, for it was a kind of illustration of the saying of the sea giving up its dead, and the thing stirred me almost as though it had been a corpse that had risen to the sun, after having been a secret of the deep for three hundred years.

It occurred to me that if I could board her she might furnish me with a shelter from the dew of the night. She had channels with long plates, all looking as of they were formed of shells; and stepping round to the side toward which she leaned, I found the fore channel-plates to be within reach of my hands. The shells were slippery and cutting; but I was a sailor, and there would have been nothing in a harder climb than this to daunt me. So, after a bit of a struggle, I succeeded in hauling myself into the chains, and thence easily dragged myself over the rail on to the deck.

The sight between the bulwarks was far more lovely and surprising than the spectacle presented by the ships sides. For the decks seemed not only formed of shells of a hundred different hues; there was a great abundance of branching corals, white as milk, and marine plants of kinds for which I could not find names, of several brilliant colours; so that, with the delicate velvet of the moss, the dark shades of seaweed of figurations as dainty as those of ferns, and the different sorts of shells, big and little, all lying as solid as if they had been set in concrete, the appearance of the ship submitted was something incredibly fantastic and admirable. Whether the hatches were on or not I could not tell, so thickly coated were the decks; but whether or not, the deposits and marine growths rendered the surface as impenetrable as iron, and I believe it would have kept a small army of laborers plying their pickaxes for a whole week to have made openings into the hold through that shelly coating of mail.

My eye was taken by a peculiar sort of protuberance at the foot of the mainmast. It stood as high as I did, and had something of the shape of a man, and, indeed, after staring at it for sometime, I perceived that it had been a man, that is to say, it was a human skeleton, filled up to the bulk of a living being by the shells and barnacles which covered it. Ashore, it might have passes for some odd imitation in shells of the human figure; but, viewing it as I did, in the midst of that great ocean, amid the frightful solitude of the great dome of heaven, in a ship that was like the handiwork of the sea-gods at the bottom of the deep— I say, looking at it as I did, and knowing the thing had a life in centuries past, and had risen thus wildly garnished out of the unfathomable secret heart of the ocean, it awed me to an extent I cannot express, and I gazed as though fascinated. In all probability, this was a man who, when the ship floundered, had been securely lashed to the mast for safety or for punishment.

I turned away at last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck was unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon as old as I have stated; for you saw her shape as you stood on her deck, and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her poop and poop-royal, as it was called, proved her age as convincingly as if the date of her launch had been scored upon her.

What was in her hold? Thousands of pounds' worth of precious ore in gold and silver bars and ingots, for all I knew; but had she been flush to her upper decks with doubloons and ducats, I would have exchanged them all for the sight of a ship, or for a rill of fresh water. I searched the horizon with feverish eyes; there was nothing in sight. The afternoon was advancing; the sun was burning unbearably midway down the western sky, and my thirst tormented me. I dropped over the side and cut another steak of fish; but though the moisture temporarily relieved me, the salt of the water flowing upon it dried into my throat and increased my sufferings. There was a light air blowing, and the sea trembled to it into a deeper hue of blue, and met in a glorious stream of twinkling rubies under the setting sun. I counted half a score of wet black fins round about the island, and understood the sharks had recovered from their scare, and had returned to see if the earthquake had cast up anything to eat.

When the sun sank, the night came along in a stride; the curl of the moon looked wanly down upon me, and the sky flashed with starshine, so rich and magnificent was the glow of the nearer luminaries. I re-entered the ship and stepped to the cabin front, over which extended a "break" or penthouse, under which I might find some shelter from the dew that was already falling like rain, and squatted down, lascer-fashion, with my back against the shell-armoured bulkhead. Great Father! never had I known what solitude was till then. There was no sound save the quiet foaming of waters draining from the wreck, and the purring of the very light swell softly moving upon the beach, and the faint, scarce audible whispering of the dew-laden draught of air stirring in the stony, fossilised shrouds. My throat felt like hot brass; I tried to pray, but could not. Imagination grew a little delirious, and I would sometimes fancy that the terrible shape at the foot of the mainmast moved as if seeking to free itself and approach me. There was a constant glancing of shooting stars on high, swift sparklings and trailings of luminous dust, and, as on the previous night, here and there upon the horizon a dim violet play of sheet-lightning. It was like being at the bottom of the sea, alive there, to be in this black, shelly, weed-smelling ship. Whether my thought came to me waking or sleeping I cannot tell; but I know some mad fancies possessed me, and upon the sable canvas of the night, imagination, like a magic lantern, flung a dozen febrile-tinctured pictures, and I particularly recollect conceiving that I was my own soul at the bottom of the ocean in the ship; that, in the green twilight of the valley in which I was, I saw many forms of dead men standing or lying or sitting, preserving the postures in which they had come floating down into the darkly gleaming profound— figures of sailors of different centuries clad in the garb of their times, intermixed with old ordinance making course and rusty streaks upon the sand, the glimmer of minted money, the gleam of jewels, and fish brightly appareled and of shapes unknown to man floating round about like fragments of rainbow. My dreams always wound up with imaginations of babbling drinks, and then I'd wake with the froth upon my lips. However, I got some ease by leaving my handkerchief to soak in the dew and then sucking it.

Several times during the night I had got on to the upper poop— the deck above the poop anciently termed the poop-royal— and looked around me. But there was nothing to see, not a shadow to catch the eye. The breeze freshened somewhat about midnight, and the air was made pleasant by the musical noises of running waters. I fell asleep an hour before dawn, and when I awoke the early ashen line was brightening to the east. The birth of the day is rapid in those parallels, and the light of the morning was soon all over sea and sky. I turned to search the ocean, and the first thing I saw was a brig not above half a mile from the island. She had studding sails set, and was going north, creeping along before the breeze. The instant I saw her I rushed on to the poop, where my figure would best be seen, and fell to flourishing my handkerchief like a maniac. I sought to shout, but my voice was even weaker than it had been after I fell overboard. I have no power to describe my feelings while I waited to see what the brig would do. I cursed myself for not having kept a lookout, so that I might have had plenty of time to signal to her as she approached. If she abandoned me I knew I must perish, as every instant assured me that I had neither mental nor physical power to undergo another day and night without drink and without hope upon the island.

On a sudden she hauled up the lee claw of her mainsail, boom-ended her studding sails and put her helm over. I knew what this signified, and, clasping my hands, I looked up to God.

Presently a boat was lowered and pulled toward the island. I dropped over the side, tumbling down upon my nose in my weakness, and made with trembling legs to the beach, standing, in my eagerness, in the very curl of the wash there. There were three men in the boat, and they eyed me, as they rowed, over their shoulders as if I had been a spectre.

"Who are you, mate, and what country is this?" exclaimed the man who pulled stroke, standing up to stretch his hand to me.

I pointed to my throat, and gasped, "Water!" I could barely articulate.

Nothing in this wide world moves sailors like a cry to them for water. In an instant the three men had dragged me into the boat, and were straining like horses at their oars, as they sent the boat flashing through the rippling water. We dashed alongside.

"He's dying of thirst!" was their cry.

I was bundled on deck; the captain ran below, and returned with a small draught of wine and water.

"Start with that," said he. "You'll be fitter for a longer pull later on."

The drink gave me back my voice; yet for a while I could scarce speak, for the tears that swelled my heart.

"Are there any more of ye?" said the captain.

I answered "No."

"But what land's this?" he inquired.

"An island uphove by an earthquake," said I.

"Great thunder!" he cried. "And what's that arrangement in shells and weeds atop it?"

"A vessel that's probably been three hundred years at the bottom," I answered.

"The quake rose it, hey?"

"Just as it is," said I.

"Well, boil me," cried the worthy fellow, "if it don't seem to good to be true! Mr. Fletcher, trim sail, sir. Best shove along— shove along. Come, sir, step below with me for a rest and a bite, and give me your tale."

A warily eaten meal with another sup of wine and water made me a new man. We sat below a long while, I telling my story, he making notes and talking of the credit he would get for bringing home a report of a new country, when suddenly the mate put his head into the skylight.

"Captain!"

"Hullo!"

"The island's gone, sir."

"What d'you mean? that we've sunk it?"

"No, by the lord; but that it's sunk itself."

We ran on deck, and where the island should have been was all clear sea.

The captain stared at the water, with his mouth wide open.

"Nothing to report after all!" he cried

"I saw it founder!" exclaimed the mate. "I had my eye on it when it sank. I've seen some founderings in my day; but this beats all my going a-fishing!"

"Well," said the captain to me, "we didn't come too soon, sir."

I hid my face in my hands.

The Susan Gray was the name of the brig that rescued me. The Hercules saw the first of the island, and the Susan Gray the last of it. Hence, as I said at the start, it was reported by two vessels only.

____________________

8: Thurnley Abbey

Perceval Landon

1869-1927

McClure’s Magazine October 1908

THREE YEARS AGO I was on my way out to the East, and as an extra day in London was of some importance, I took the Friday evening mail-train to Brindisi instead of the usual Thursday morning Marseilles express. Many people shrink from the long forty-eight-hour train journey through Europe, and the subsequent rush across the Mediterranean on the nineteen-knot Isis or Osiris; but there is really very little discomfort on either the train or the mail-boat, and unless there is actually nothing for me to do, I always like to save the extra day and a half in London before I say goodbye to her for one of my longer tramps. This time— it was early, I remember, in the shipping season, probably about the beginning of September— there were few passengers, and I had a compartment in the P. & O. Indian express to myself all the way from Calais. All Sunday I watched the blue waves dimpling the Adriatic, and the pale rosemary along the cuttings; the plain white towns, with their flat roofs and their bold 'duomos', and the grey-green gnarled olive orchards of Apulia. The journey was just like any other. We ate in the dining-car as often and as long as we decently could. We slept after luncheon; we dawdled the afternoon away with yellow-backed novels; sometimes we exchanged platitudes in the smoking-room, and it was there that I met Alastair Colvin.

Colvin was a man of middle height, with a resolute, well-cut jaw; his hair was turning grey; his moustache was sun-whitened, otherwise he was clean-shaven— obviously a gentleman, and obviously also a preoccupied man. He had no great wit. When spoken to, he made the usual remarks in the right way, and I dare say he refrained from banalities only because he spoke less than the rest of us; most of the time he buried himself in the Wagon-lit Company's time-table, but seemed unable to concentrate his attention on any one page of it. He found that I had been over the Siberian railway, and for a quarter of an hour he discussed it with me. Then he lost interest in it, and rose to go to his compartment. But he came back again very soon, and seemed glad to pick up the conversation again.

Of course this did not seem to me to be of any importance. Most travellers by train become a trifle infirm of purpose after thirty-six hours' rattling. But Colvin's restless way I noticed in somewhat marked contrast with the man's personal importance and dignity; especially ill suited was it to his finely made large hand with strong, broad, regular nails and its few lines. As I looked at his hand I noticed a long, deep, and recent scar of ragged shape. However, it is absurd to pretend that I thought anything was unusual. I went off at five o'clock on Sunday afternoon to sleep away the hour or two that had still to be got through before we arrived at Brindisi.

Once there, we few passengers transhipped our hand baggage, verified our berths— there were only a score of us in all— and then, after an aimless ramble of half an hour in Brindisi, we returned to dinner at the Hotel International, not wholly surprised that the town had been the death of Virgil. If I remember rightly, there is a gaily painted hall at the International— I do not wish to advertise am-thine, but there is no other place in Brindisi at which to await the coming of the mails— and after dinner I was looking with awe at a trellis overgrown with blue vines, when Colvin moved across the room to my table. He picked up Il Secolo, but almost immediately gave up the pretence of reading it. He turned squarely to me and said:

'Would you do me a favour?'

One doesn't do favours to stray acquaintances on Continental expresses without knowing something more of them than I knew of Colvin. But I smiled in a noncommittal way, and asked him what he wanted. I wasn't wrong in part of my estimate of him; he said bluntly:

'Will you let me sleep in your cabin on the Osiris?' And he coloured a little as he said it.

Now, there is nothing more tiresome than having to put up with a stable-companion at sea, and I asked him rather pointedly:

'Surely there is room for all of us?' I thought that perhaps he had been partnered off with some mangy Levantine, and wanted to escape from him at all hazards.

Colvin, still somewhat confused, said: 'Yes; I am in a cabin by myself. But you would do me the greatest favour if you would allow me to share yours.'

This was all very well, but, besides the fact that I always sleep better when alone, there had been some recent thefts on board English liners, and I hesitated, frank and honest and self-conscious as Colvin was. Just then the mail-train came in with a clatter and a rush of escaping steam, and I asked him to see me again about at on the boat when we started. He answered me curtly— I suppose he saw the mistrust in my manner— 'I am a member of White's.' I smiled to myself as he said it, but I remembered in a moment that the man— if he were really what he claimed to be, and I make no doubt that he was— must have been sorely put to it before he urged the fact as a guarantee of his respectability to a total stranger at a Brindisi hotel.

That evening, as we cleared the red and green harbour-lights of Brindisi, Colvin explained. This is his story in his own words.

'WHEN I WAS travelling in India some years ago, I made the acquaintance of a youngish man in the Woods and Forests. We camped out together for a week, and I found him a pleasant companion. John Broughton was a light-hearted soul when off duty, but a steady and capable man in any of the small emergencies that continually arise in that department. He was liked and trusted by the natives, and though a trifle over-pleased with himself when he escaped to civilization at Simla or Calcutta, Broughton's future was well assured in Government service, when a fair-sized estate was unexpectedly left to him, and he joyfully shook the dust of the Indian plains from his feet and returned to England. For five years he drifted about London. I saw him now and then. We dined together about every eighteen months, and I could trace pretty exactly the gradual sickening of Broughton with a merely idle life. He then set out on a couple of long voyages, returned as restless as before, and at last told me that he had decided to marry and settle down at his place, Burnley Abbey, which had long been empty. He spoke about looking after the property and standing for his constituency in the usual way. Vivien Wilde, his fiancée, had, I suppose, begun to take him in hand. She was a pretty girl with a deal of fair hair and rather an exclusive manner; deeply religious in a narrow school, she was still kindly and high-spirited, and I thought that Broughton was in luck. He was quite happy and full of information about his future.

'Among other things, I asked him about Burnley Abbey. He confessed that he hardly knew the place. The last tenant, a man called Clarke, had lived in one wing for fifteen years and seen no one. He had been a miser and a hermit. It was the rarest thing for a light to be seen at the Abbey after dark. Only the barest necessities of life were ordered, and the tenant himself received them at the side-door. His one half-caste manservant, after a month's stay in the house, had abruptly left without warning, and had returned to the Southern States. One thing Broughton complained bitterly about: Clarke had wilfully spread the rumour among the villagers that the Abbey was haunted, and had even condescended to play childish tricks with spirit-lamps and salt in order to scare trespassers away at night. He had been detected in the act of this tomfoolery, but the story spread, and no one, said Broughton, would venture near the house except in broad daylight. The hauntedness of Burnley Abbey was now, he said with a grin, part of the gospel of the countryside, but he and his young wife were going to change all that. Would I propose myself any time I liked? I, of course, said I would, and equally, of course, intended to do nothing of the sort without a definite invitation.

'The house was put in thorough repair, though not a stick of the old furniture and tapestry were removed. Floors and ceilings were relaid: the roof was made watertight again, and the dust of half a century was scoured out. He showed me some photographs of the place. It was called an Abbey, though as a matter of fact it had been only the infirmary of the long-vanished Abbey of Closter some five miles away. The larger part of this building remained as it had been in pre-Reformation days, but a wing had been added in Jacobean times, and that part of the house had been kept in something like repair by Mr Clarke. He had in both the ground and first floors set a heavy timber door, strongly barred with iron, in the passage between the earlier and the Jacobean parts of the house, and had entirely neglected the former. So there had been a good deal of work to be done.

'Broughton, whom I saw in London two or three times about this period, made a deal of fun over the positive refusal of the workmen to remain after sundown. Even after the electric light had been put into every room, nothing would induce them to remain, though, as Broughton observed, electric light was death on ghosts. The legend of the Abbey's ghosts had gone far and wide, and the men would take no risks. They went home in batches of five and six, and even during the daylight hours there was an inordinate amount of talking between one and another, if either happened to be out of sight of his companion. On the whole, though nothing of any sort or kind had been conjured up even by their heated imaginations during their five months' work upon the Abbey, the belief in the ghosts was rather strengthened than otherwise in Thurnley because of the men's confessed nervousness, and local tradition declared itself in favour of the ghost of an immured nun.

"Good old nun!" said Broughton.

'I asked him whether in general he believed in the possibility of ghosts, and, rather to my surprise, he said that he couldn't say he entirely disbelieved in them. A man in India had told him one morning in camp that he believed that his mother was dead in England, as her vision had come to his tent the night before. He had not been alarmed, but had said nothing, and the figure vanished again. As a matter of tact, the next possible dak-walla brought on a telegram announcing the mother's death. "There the thing was," said Broughton. But at Thurnley he was practical enough. He roundly cursed the idiotic selfishness of Clarke, whose silly antics had caused all the inconvenience. At the same time, he couldn't refuse to sympathize to some extent with the ignorant workmen. "My own idea," said he, "is that if a ghost ever does come in one's way, one ought to speak to it."

'I agreed. Little as I knew of the ghost world and its conventions, I had always remembered that a spook was in honour bound to wait to be spoken to. It didn't seem much to do, and I felt that the sound of one's own voice would at any rate reassure oneself as to one's wakefulness. But there are few ghosts outside Europe— few, that is, that a white man can see— and I had never been troubled with any. However, as I have said, I told Broughton that I agreed.

'So the wedding took place, and I went to it in a tall hat which I bought for the occasion, and the new Mrs Broughton smiled very nicely at me afterwards. As it had to happen, I took the Orient Express that evening and was not in England again for nearly six months. Just before I came back I got a letter from Broughton. He asked if I could see him in London or come to Thurnley, as he thought I should be better able to help him than anyone else he knew. His wife sent a nice message to me at the end, so I was reassured about at least one thing. I wrote from Budapest that I would come and sec him at Thurnley two days after my arrival in London, and as I sauntered out of the Pannonia into the Kerepesi Utcza to post my letters, I wondered of what earthly service I could be to Broughton. I had been out with him after tiger on foot, and I could imagine few men better able at a pinch to manage their own business. However, I had nothing to do, so after dealing with some small accumulations of business during my absence, I packed a kit-bag and departed to Euston.

'I was met by Broughton's great limousine at Thurnley Road station, and after a drive of nearly seven miles we echoed through the sleepy streets of Thurnley village, into which the main gates of the park thrust themselves, splendid with pillars and spreadeagles and tom-cats rampant atop of them. I never was a herald, but I know that the Broughtons have the right to supporters— Heaven knows why! From the gates a quadruple avenue of beech-trees led inwards for a quarter of a mile. Beneath them a neat strip of fine turf edged the road and ran back until the poison of the dead beech-leaves killed it under the trees. There were many wheel-tracks on the road, and a comfortable little pony trap jogged past me laden with a country parson and his wife and daughter. Evidently there was some garden party going on at the Abbey. The road dropped away to the right at the end of the avenue, and I could see the Abbey across a wide pasturage and a broad lawn thickly dotted with guests.

'The end of the building was plain. It must have been almost mercilessly austere when it was first built, but time had crumbled the edges and toned the stone down to an orange-lichened grey wherever it showed behind its curtain of magnolia, jasmine, and ivy. Further on was the three-storied Jacobean house, tall and handsome. There had not been the slightest attempt to adapt the one to the other, but the kindly ivy had glossed over the touching-point. There was a tall flèche in the middle of the building, surmounting a small bell tower. Behind the house there rose the mountainous verdure of Spanish chestnuts all the way up the hill.

'Broughton had seen me coming from afar, and walked across from his other guests to welcome me before turning me over to the butler's care. This man was sandy-haired and rather inclined to be talkative. He could, however, answer hardly any questions about the house; he had, he said, only been there three weeks. Mindful of what Broughton had told me, I made no enquiries about ghosts, though the room into which I was shown might have justified anything. It was a very large low room with oak beams projecting from the white ceiling. Every inch of the walls, including the doors, was covered with tapestry, and a remarkably fine Italian four post bedstead, heavily draped, added to the darkness and dignity of the place. All the furniture was old, well made and dark. Underfoot there was a plain green pile carpet, the only new thing about the room except the electric light fittings and the jugs and basins. Even the looking-glass on the dressing-table was an old pyramidal Venetian glass set in heavy repoussé frame of tarnished silver.

'After a few minutes' cleaning up, I went downstairs and out upon the lawn, where I greeted my hostess. The people gathered there were of the usual country type, all anxious to be pleased and roundly curious as to the new master of the Abbey. Rather to my surprise, and quite to my pleasure, I rediscovered Glenham, whom I had known well in old days in Barotseland: he lived quite close, as, he remarked with a grin. I ought to have known. "But," he added, "I don't live in a place like this." He swept his hand to the long, low lines of the Abbey in obvious admiration, and then, to my intense interest, muttered beneath his breath, "Thank God!" He saw that I had overheard him, and turning to me said decidedly, "Yes, 'thank God' I said, and I meant it. I wouldn't live at the Abbey for all Broughton's money."

' "But surely," I demurred, "you know that old Clarke was discovered in the very act of setting light to his bug-a-boos?"

'Glenham shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I know about that. But there is something wrong with the place still. All I can say is that Broughton is a different man since he has lived here. I don't believe that he will remain much longer. But— you're staying here?— well, you'll hear all about it tonight. There's a big dinner, I understand." Be conversation turned off to old reminiscences, and Glenham soon after had to go.

'Before I went to dress that evening I had twenty minutes' talk with Broughton in his library. There was no doubt that the man was altered, gravely altered. He was nervous and fidgety, and I found him looking at me only when my eye was off him. I naturally asked him what he wanted of me. I told him I would do anything I could, but that I couldn't conceive what he lacked that I could provide. He said with a lustreless smile that there was, however, something, and that he would tell me the following morning. It struck me that he was somehow ashamed of himself and perhaps ashamed of the part he was asking me to play. However, I dismissed the subject from my mind and went up to dress in my palatial room. As I shut the door a draught blew out the Queen of Sheba from the wall, and I noticed that the tapestries were not fastened to the wall at the bottom. I have always held very practical views about spooks, and it has often seemed to me that the slow waving in firelight of loose tapestry upon a wall would account for ninety-nine per cent of the stories one hears. Certainly the dignified undulation of this lady with her attendants and huntsmen— one of whom was untidily cutting the throat of a fallow deer upon the very steps on which King Solomon, a grey-faced Flemish nobleman with the order of the Golden Fleece, awaited his fair visitor— gave colour to my hypothesis.

'Nothing much happened at dinner. The people were very much like those of the garden party. A young woman next to me seemed anxious to know what was being read in London. As she was far more familiar than I with the most recent magazines and literary supplements, I found salvation in being myself instructed in the tendencies of modern fiction. All true art, she said, was shot through and through with melancholy. How vulgar were the attempts at wit that marked so many modern books! From the beginning of literature it had always been tragedy that embodied the highest attainment of every age. To call such works morbid merely begged the question. No thoughtful man— she looked sternly at me through the steel rim of her glasses— could fail to agree with me. Of course, as one would, I immediately and properly said that I slept with Pett Ridge and Jacobs under my pillow at night, and that if Jorrocks weren't quite so large and cornery, I would add him to the company. She hadn't read any of them, so I was saved— for a time. But I remember grimly that she said that the dearest wish of her life was to be in some awful and soul-freezing situation of horror, and I remember that she dealt hardly with the hero of Nat Paynter's vampire story, between nibbles at her brown-bread ice. She was a cheerless soul, and I couldn't help thinking that if there were many such in the neighbourhood, it was not surprising that old Glenham had been stuffed with some nonsense or other about the Abbey. Yet nothing could well have been less creeps than the glitter of silver and glass, and the subdued lights and cackle of conversation all round the dinner-table.

'After the ladies had gone I found myself talking to the rural dean. He was a thin, earnest man, who at once turned the conversation to old Clarke's buffooneries. But, he said, Mr Broughton had introduced such a new and cheerful spirit, not only into the Abbey, but, he might say, into the whole neighbourhood, that he had great hopes that the ignorant superstitions of the past were from henceforth destined to oblivion.  Thereupon his other neighbour, a portly gentleman of independent means and position, audibly remarked "Amen", which damped the rural dean, and we talked of partridges past, partridges present, and pheasants to come. At the other end of the table Broughton sat with a couple of his friends, red-faced hunting men. Once I noticed that they were discussing me, but I paid no attention to it at the time. I remembered it a few hours later.

'By eleven all the guests were gone, and Broughton, his wife, and I were alone together under the fine plaster ceiling of the Jacobean drawing-room. Mrs Broughton talked about one or two of the neighbours, and then, with a smile, said that she knew I would excuse her, shook hands  with me, and went off to bed. I am not very good at analysing things, but I felt that she talked a little uncomfortably and with a suspicion of effort, smiled rather conventionally, and was obviously glad to go. These things seem trifling enough to repeat, but I had throughout the faint feeling that everything was not square. Under the circumstances, this was enough to set me wondering what on earth the service could be that I was to render— wondering also whether the whole business were not some ill-advised jest in order to make me come down from London for a mere shooting-party.

'Broughton said little after she had gone. But he was evidently labouring to bring the conversation round to the so-called haunting of the Abbey. As soon as I saw this, of course I asked him directly about it. He then seemed at once to lose interest in the matter. There was no doubt about it: Broughton was somehow a changed man, and to my mind he had changed in no way for the better. Mrs Broughton seemed no sufficient cause. He was clearly very fond of her, and she of him. I reminded him that he was going to tell me what I could do for him in the morning, pleaded my journey, lighted a candle, and went upstairs with him. At the end of the passage leading into the old house he grinned weakly and said, "Mind, if you sec a ghost, do talk to it; you said you would." He stood irresolutely a moment and then turned away. At the door of his dressing-room he paused once more: "I'm here," he called out, "if you should want anything. Good night," and he shut his door.

'I went along the passage to my room, undressed, switched on a lamp beside my bed, read a few pages of The Jungle Book, and then, more than ready for sleep, turned the light off and went fast asleep.

'Three hours later I woke up. There was not a breath of wind outside. There was not even a flicker of light from the fireplace. As I lay there, an ash tinkled slightly as it cooled, but there was hardly a gleam of the dullest red in the grate. An owl cried among the silent Spanish chestnuts on the slope outside. I idly reviewed the events of the day, hoping that I should fall off to sleep again before I reached dinner. But at the end I  seemed as wakeful as ever. There was no help for it. I must read my Jungle Book again till I felt ready to go off, so I fumbled for the pear at the end of the cord that hung down inside the bed, and I switched on the bedside lamp. The sudden glory dazzled me for a moment. I felt under my pillow for my hook with half-shut eyes. Then, growing used to the light, I happened to look down to the foot of my bed.

'I can never tell you really what happened then. Nothing I could ever confess in the most abject words could even faintly picture to you what I felt. I know that my heart stopped dead, and my throat shut automatically. In one instinctive movement I crouched back up against the head-boards of the bed, staring at the horror. The movement set my heart going again, and the sweat dripped from every pore. I am not a particularly religious man, but I had always believed that God would never allow any supernatural appearance to present itself to man in such a guise and in such circumstances that harm, either bodily or mental, could result to him. I can only tell you that at that moment both my life and my reason rocked unsteadily on their seats.'

THE OTHER Osiris passengers had gone to bed. Only he and I remained leaning over the starboard railing, which rattled uneasily now and then  under the fierce vibration of the over-engined mail-boat. Far over, there were the lights of a few fishing-smacks riding out the night, and a great rush of white combing and seething water fell out and away from us overside.

At last Colvin went on:

'LEANING OVER the foot of my bed, looking at me, was a figure swathed in a rotten and tattered veiling. This shroud passed over the head, but left both eyes and the right side of the face bare. It then followed the line of the arm down to where the hand grasped the bed-end. The face was not entirely that of a skull, though the eyes and the flesh of the face were totally gone. There was a thin, dry skin drawn tightly over the features, and there was some skin left on the hand. One wisp of hair crossed the forehead. It was perfectly still. I looked at it, and it looked at me, and my brains turned dry and hot in my head. I had still got the pear of the electric lamp in my hand, and I played idly with it; only I dared not turn the light out again. I shut my eyes, only to open them in a hideous terror the same second. Be thing had not moved. My heart was thumping, and the sweat cooled me as it evaporated. Another cinder tinkled in the grate, and a panel creaked in the wall.

'My reason failed me. For twenty minutes, or twenty seconds. I was able to think of nothing else but this awful figure, till there came, hurtling through the empty channels of my senses, the remembrance that Broughton and his friends had discussed me furtively at dinner. Be dim possibility of its being a hoax stole gratefully into my unhappy mind, and once there, one's pluck came creeping back along a thousand tiny veins. My first sensation was one of blind unreasoning thankfulness that my brain was going to stand the trial. I am not a timid man, but the best of us needs some human handle to steady him in time of extremity, and in this faint but growing hope that after all it might be only a brutal hoax, I found the fulcrum that I needed. At last I moved.

'How I managed to do it I cannot tell you, but with one spring towards the foot of the bed I got within arm's-length and struck out one fearful blow with my fist at the thing. It crumbled under it, and my hand was cut to the bone. With a sickening revulsion after my terror. I dropped half-fainting across the end of the bed. So it was merely a foul trick after all. No doubt the trick had been played many a tame before: no doubt Broughton and his friends had had some large bet among themselves as to what I should do when I discovered the gruesome thing. From my state of abject terror I found myself transported into an insensate anger. I shouted curses upon Broughton. I dived rather than climbed over the bed-end on to the sofa. I tore at the robed skeleton— how well the whole thing had been carried out, I thought— I broke the skull against the floor, and stamped upon its dry bones. I flung the head away under the bed, and rent the brittle bones of the trunk in pieces. I snapped the thin thigh-bones across my knee, and flung them in different directions. The shin-bones I set up against a stool and broke with my heel. I raged like a Berserker against the loathly thing, and stripped the ribs from the backbone and slung the breastbone against the cupboard. My fury increased as the work of destruction went on. I tore the frail rotten veil into twenty pieces, and the dust went up over everything, over the clean blotting-paper and the silver inkstand. At last my work was done. There was but a raffle of broken bones and strips of parchment and crumbling wool. Then, picking up a piece of the skull— it was the check and temple bone of the right side, I remember— I opened the door and went down the passage to Broughton's dressing-room. I remember still how my sweat-dripping pyjamas clung to me as I walked. At the door I kicked and entered.

'Broughton was in bed. He had already turned the light on and seemed shrunken and horrified. For a moment he could hardly pull himself together. Then I spoke. I don't know what I said. Only I know that from a heart full and over-full with hatred and contempt, spurred on by shame of my own recent cowardice, I let my tongue run on. He answered nothing. I was amazed at my own fluency. My hair still clung lankily to my wet temples, my hand was bleeding profusely, and I must have looked a strange sight. Broughton huddled himself up at the head of the bed just as I had. Still he made no answer, no defence. He seemed preoccupied with something besides my reproaches, and once or twice moistened his lips with his tongue. But he could say nothing though he moved his hands now and then, just as a baby who cannot speak moves its hands.

'At last the door into Mrs Broughton's room opened and she came in, white and terrified. "What is it? What is it? Oh, in God's name! what is it?" she cried again and again, and then she went up to her husband and sat on the bed in her night-dress, and the two faced me. I told her what the matter was. I spared her husband not a word for her presence there. Yet he seemed hardly to understand. I told the pair that I had spoiled their cowardly joke for them. Broughton looked up.

' "I have smashed the foul thing into a hundred pieces," I said. Broughton licked his lips again and his mouth worked. "By God!" I shouted, "it would serve you right if I thrashed you within an inch of your life. I will take care that not a decent man or woman of my acquaintance ever speaks to you again. And there," I added, throwing the broken piece of the skull upon the floor beside his bed, "there is a souvenir for you, of your damned work tonight!"

'Broughton saw the bone, and in a moment it was his turn to frighten me. He squealed like a hare caught in a trap. He screamed and screamed till Mrs Broughton, almost as bewildered as myself, held on to him and coaxed him like a child to be quiet. But Broughton— and as he moved I thought that ten minutes ago I perhaps looked as terribly ill as he did— thrust her from him, and scrambled out of the bed on to the floor, and still screaming put out his hand to the hone. It had blood on it from my hand. He paid no attention to me whatever. In truth I said nothing. This was a new turn indeed to the horrors of the evening. He rose from the floor with the bone in his hand and stood silent. He seemed to be listening. "Time, time, perhaps," he muttered, and almost at the same moment fell at full length on the carpet, cutting his head against the fender. The bone flew from his hand and came to rest near the door. I picked Broughton up, haggard and broken, with blood over his face. He whispered hoarsely and quickly, "Listen. listen!" We listened.

'After ten seconds' utter quiet, I seemed to hear something. I could not be sure, but at last there was no doubt. There was a quiet sound as of one moving along the passage. Little regular steps came towards us over the hard oak flooring. Broughton moved to where his wife sat, white and speechless, on the bed, and pressed her face into his shoulder.

'Then, the last thing that I could see as he turned the light out, he fell forward with his own head pressed into the pillow of the bed. Something in their company, something in their cowardice, helped me, and I faced the open doorway of the room, which was outlined fairly clearly against the dimly lighted passage. I put out one hand and touched Mrs Broughton's shoulder in the darkness. But at the last moment I too failed. I sank on my knees and put my face in the bed. Only we all heard. The footsteps came to the door, and there they stopped. The piece of bone was lying a yard inside the door. There was a rustle of moving stuff, and the thing was in the room. Mrs Broughton was silent: I could hear Broughton's voice praying, muffled an the pillow: I was cursing my own cowardice. Then the steps moved out again on the oak boards of the passage, and I heard the sounds dying away. In a flash of remorse I went to the door and looked out. At the end of the corridor I thought I saw something that moved away. A moment later the passage was empty. I stood with my forehead against the jamb of the door almost physically sick.

' "You can turn the light on," I said, and there was an answering flare. There was no bone at my feet. Mrs Broughton had fainted. Broughton was almost useless, and it took me ten minutes to bring her to. Broughton only said one thing worth remembering. For the most part he went on muttering prayers. But I was glad afterwards to recollect that he had said that thing. He said in a colourless voice, half as a question, half as a reproach, "You didn't speak to her."

'We spent the remainder of the night together. Mrs Broughton actually fell off into in a kind of sleep before dawn, but she suffered so horribly in her dreams that I shook her into consciousness again. Never was dawn so long in coming. Three or four times Broughton spoke to himself. Mrs Broughton would then just tighten her hold on his arm, but she could say nothing. As for me, I can honestly say that I grew worse as the hours passed and the light strengthened. The two violent reactions had battered down my steadiness of view, and I felt that the foundations of my life had been built upon the sand. I said nothing, and after binding up my hand with a towel, I did not move. It was better so. They helped me and I helped them, and we all three knew that our reason had gone very near to ruin that night. At last, when the light came in pretty strongly, and the birds outside were chattering and singing, we felt that we must do something. Yet we never moved. You might have thought that we should particularly dislike being found as we were by the servants: yet nothing of that kind mattered a straw, and an overpowering listlessness bound us as we sat, until Chapman, Broughton's man, actually knocked and opened the door. None of us moved. Broughton, speaking hardly and stiffly, said, "Chapman you can come back in five minutes." Chapman, was a discreet man, but it would have made no difference to us if he had carried his news to the "room" at once.

'We looked at each other and I said I must go back. I meant to wait outside till Chapman returned. I simply dared not re-enter my bedroom alone. Broughton roused himself and said that he would come with me. Mrs Broughton agreed to remain in her own room for five minutes if the blinds were drawn up and all the doors left open.

'So Broughton and I, leaning stiffly one against the other, went down to my room. By the morning light that filtered past the blinds we could see our way, and I released the blinds. There was nothing wrong in the room from end to end, except smears of my own blood on the end of the bed, on the sofa, and on the carpet where I had torn the thing to pieces.'

COLVIN had finished his story. There was nothing to say. Seven bells stuttered out from the fo'c'sle, and the answering cry wailed through the darkness. I took him downstairs.

'Of course I am much better now, but it is a kindness of you to let me sleep in your cabin.'

___________________

9: The Lizard God

Charles J. Finger

1871-1941

All’s Well, December 1920

IT IS NOT pleasant to have one's convictions disturbed, and that is why I wish I had never seen that man Rounds. He seems to have crossed my path only to shake my self-confidence. The little conversation we had has left me dissatisfied. I look upon my collection with less interest than I did. I am not as pleased with the result of my investigations as they appear in my monograph on "The Saurian Family of Equatorial America." Doubtless the mood that now possesses me will pass away, and I shall recover my equanimity. His story would have upset most men. Worse still was his unpleasant habit of interjecting strange opinions. Judge for yourself.

It was when passing through the Reptile room on my way to the study that I first saw him. I took him to be a mere common working man passing away an idle hour; one of the ordinary Museum visitors. Two hours later, I noticed that he was closely examining the lizard cases. Then later, he seemed interested in my collection of prints illustrating the living world of the ante-diluvian period. It was then that I approached him, and, finding him apparently intelligent, with, as it seemed, a bent towards lizards, and further, discovering that he had traveled in Peru and Colombia, took him to the study.

The man had some unusual habits. He was absolutely lacking in that sense of respect, as I may term it, usually accorded to one in my position. One who is a professor and curator becomes accustomed to a certain amount of, well, diffidence in laymen. The attitude is entirely natural. It is a tribute. But Rounds was not that way. He was perfectly at ease. He had an air of quiet self-possession. He refused the chair I indicated, the chair set for visitors and students, and instead, walked to the window and threw up the lower sash, taking a seat on the sill, with one foot resting on the floor and the other swinging. Thus, he looked as though he were prepared to leap, or to jump or run. He gave me the impression of being on the alert. Without asking permission, he filled and lit his pipe, taking his tobacco from a queerly made pouch, and using but one hand in the process.

"What I was looking for," he said, "is a kind of lizard. Yet it is not a lizard. It is too hard and thin in the body to be that. It runs on its hind legs. It is white. Its bite is poisonous. It lives in the equatorial districts of Colombia."

"Have you seen one?" I asked.

"No," was the reply. Then after a moment he asked, "Why?"

"Because there is no such living creature," I said.

"How do you know?" he said abruptly.

"The lizard group is thoroughly classified," I said. "There is nothing answering to that description. In the first place—"

"Does that make it non-existent? Your classification of what you know?" he interrupted.

"I have made a study of the Saurians," I said.

"No you haven't," he said. "You have read what other men have written and that is not the same thing."

"Really," I began, but he broke in.

"I mean to say that you have never been in any new equatorial country," he said. "Your manner shows that. You are too quiet. Too easy. Too sedentary. You would have been killed because of your lack of vigilance."

That is, as nearly as I can repeat and remember, the opening of the conversation. There was an air of challenge about the man that I found unpleasant. Of course I admitted the fact that I was not an explorer myself, and that mine was the humbler if more tedious task of collecting and arranging data. At that he said that in his opinion, organized expeditions were little more than pleasure jaunts taken at the public expense. His viewpoint was most extraordinary.

"Such an expedition," he said, "must fail in its main purpose because its very unwieldiness destroys or disperses the very things it was organized to study. It cannot penetrate the wilds; it cannot get into the dry lands. The very needs of the men and horses and dogs prevent that. It must keep to beaten tracks and in touch with the edge of civilization. The members of such an expedition are mere killers on a large scale, and to kill or to hunt a thing is to not know it at all. Further, the men in such expeditions are not hunters even. They are destroyers who destroy while keeping themselves in safety. They have their beaters. Their paid natives. Humbug! That's the only word to describe that kind of thing. Staged effects they have. Then they come back here to pose as heroes before a crowd of gaping city clerks."

I mentioned the remarkable results obtained by the Peary and Roosevelt expeditions and pointed to the fact that the specimens brought back and properly set up by efficient taxidermists, did, in fact, give the common people some notion of the wonders of animal life.

"Nothing of the kind," he said. "Look at that boa-constrictor you have out there. It is stuffed and in a glass case. Don't you know that in its natural surroundings you yourself would come mighty near stepping on one without seeing it? You would. If you had that thing set up as it should be, these museum visitors of yours would pass the case believing it was a mere collection of foliage. They wouldn't see the snake itself. See what I mean? Set up as they are in real life they'd come near being invisible."

The man walked up and down the study floor for half a minute or so, then paused at the desk and said:

"Don't let us get to entertaining one another though. But remember this, you only get knowledge at a cost. I mean to say that the man that would know something, can only get the knowledge at first hand. The people who wander around this junk shop that you call a museum, go out as empty headed as they came in. Consider. Say a Fiji islander came here and took back with him from the United States an electric light bulb, a stuffed possum, an old hat, a stalactite from the Mammoth cave, a sackful of pecan nuts, a pair of handcuffs, half a dozen photographs and a dozen packing cases full of things gathered from here and there, and then set the whole junk pile up under a roof in the Fiji Islands, what would his fellow Fijians know from that of the social life of this country. Eh? Tell me that?"

"You exaggerate," I protested. "You take an extreme point of view."

"I don't," he said.

His contradictions would have made me angry, perhaps, were they not made in such a quiet tone of voice.

"Take anything from its natural surroundings," he went on, "and it is meaningless. The dull-eyed men and women that wander through this Museum of yours are just killing time. There's no education in that kind of thing. Besides, what they see are dead things, anyway, and you can't study human nature in a morgue."

He resumed his seat on the window sill, then took from an inner pocket a leather wallet, and drew from that a photograph which he tossed across so that it fell on the desk before me. I examined it carefully. It had been badly developed and badly printed, and what was worse, roughly handled. But still, one could distinguish certain features.

It pictured the interior of a building. It was roofless, and above the rear wall was what I recognized as tropical vegetation, mainly by its wild luxuriance. In the center of the rear wall was what seemed to be a giant stone lizard, standing on its hind legs. The one foreleg that showed was disproportionately short. The body, too, was more attenuated than that of any lizard. The thing was headless and the statue, idol or whatever it was, stood on a pedestal, and before that again, seemed to be a slab of stone. Then my attention was caught by the head of the thing, which was to be seen in a corner. It was shaped roughly triangular. The jaws were broad at the base and the thing had, even in the photograph, something of the same repulsive appearance as the head of a vampire bat.

"It is the result of the imagination of some Indian," I said. "No post-diluvian Saurian ever existed of that size."

"Good God, man, you jump to conclusions," he said. "This is only a representation of the thing itself. Made in heroic size, so to say. But see here!"

He leaned over my shoulder and pointed to a kind of border that ran along the base of the pedestal. Examining closely, I made out a series of lizards running on their hind legs.

"They," he explained, "are cut into the stone. It is a sort of red sandstone. They are a little bigger than the thing itself as it is living. But look at this."

The particular spot to which he pointed was blurred and dirty, as though many fingers had pointed to it and I took the magnifying glass for closer inspection. Even then I only saw dimly as something that bore a resemblance to the carved figures.

"That," he said, "is as near as ever I came to seeing one of the little devils. I think it was one of them though I am not sure. I caught sight of it flashing across like a swiftly blown leaf. We took the picture by flashlight you see, so I'm not sure. Somerfield, of course, was too busy attending to his camera. He saw nothing."

"We might have another picture made," I said. "It would be interesting."

"D'ye think I'd be able to carry plunder around traveling as I was then?" he asked. "You see, I went down there for the Company I'm working for. I was looking out for rubber and hard woods. I'd worked from Buenaventura. From Buenaventura down to the Rio Caqueta and then followed that stream up to the water head, and then down the Codajaz. If you look at the map, you'll see it's no easy trip. No chance to pack much. All I wanted to carry was information. And there was only Somerfield along."

"But Somerfield— he, as I take it, was the photographer, was he not? Did he not take care of the negatives? It would not have been much for him to take care of."

"Well you see, he did take care of his negatives. But circumstances were different at the time. He had laid them away somewhere. After I killed him, I just brought away the camera and that was all."

Positively, I gasped at the audacity of the man. He said the words "I killed him," so quietly, in so matter of fact a way, that for the moment I was breathless. Like most other men, I had never sat face to face with one who had taken the life of another. Even soldiers, though they, we suppose, kill men, do it in a machine-like way. The killing is impersonal. The soldier handles the machine and it is the machine that kills. The individual soldier does not know whether he kills or not. That is why we are able to make much of the soldier, perhaps, I have thought since, though it never appeared to me in that light before I met Rounds. Actually, we are repelled at the thought of a man who kills another deliberately. If it were not so, as Rounds pointed out, we would make a hero of the public executioner. He should be as heroic a figure as a general. But as I tell you, at the moment, when Rounds said, "when I killed him," I was shocked. I had never before realized how violence was a thing apart from my life. I had looked at the representation of murder on the stage. I had read novels with murder as the mainspring. I had seen shootings and stabbings in moving pictures. Yet, not until that moment had I any suspicion that violence was so rare a thing and that most of our lives are far, far removed from it. Actually, I have never struck a man, nor has any man ever lifted his hand against me in anger.

It was, therefore, a startling thing to hear Rounds confess to having killed a fellow man. It was awesome. And yet, let me say, that at once I was possessed of a great desire to learn all about it, and down in my heart I feared that he would decide he had said something that he should not have said, and would either deny his statement or modify it in some way. I wanted to hear all the details. I was hugely interested. Was it morbidity? Then I came to myself after what was a shock, and awoke to the fact that he was talking in his quiet, even way.

"But those Tlingas held the belief, and that was all there was to it," he was saying.

I came to attention and said, "Of course. It is natural," for I feared to have him know that I was inattentive even for that short space, and waited for elucidations.

"It seems," he went on, "that the tribe was dying out. Helm, who first told me something of it at Buenaventura, was one of those scientists who have to invent a new theory for every new thing they were told of. He said it was either because of eating too much meat, or not enough. I forget which. There had been a falling off in the birth rate. The Tocalinian who had lived with them, and who joined us at the headwaters of the Codajaz, maintained that there had been too much inbreeding. So there was some arrangement by means of which they invited immigrants, as it were. Men from other neighboring tribes were encouraged to join the Tlingas. And they did. The Tlingas had a fat land and welcomed the immigrants. The immigrants on their part expected to have an easy time."

"That would make for racial improvement," I hazarded.

"Why?" he asked.

"The best from other lands would tend to improve their race. That was my idea when I spoke," I said.

He laughed quietly. "Something of the same idea that you foster here," he said. "I've laughed at that many's the time. America is this, that and the other; its people are inventive, intelligent, original, free, independent and all the rest of it because it is a result of the best blood of other lands. Eh? Lord, man, how you fool yourself! Can't you see that you would have a far better case if you deplored the fact that we are a result of the worse? All the fugitives, the poor, the ill-educated, the unfortunate, the ne'er-do-wells have been swarming here from Europe for two centuries. Can't you see that no man who could fight successfully against odds in his own country would emigrate? Can't you see that? If you said that we are a people that will allow any active minority to put anything over on us, because we are the result of generations of poor-spirited fugitives who couldn't fight for their personal freedom, you would be nearer the mark."

His argument of course was absurd, and at the moment I had no answer ready, though since I have thought of the thing I should have said. As Rounds talked, he grew quieter in his tone. He moved from his place on the window sill and sat on the corner of my desk. I had forgotten my uneasiness at being in the presence of one who had taken his fellow's life. He went on:

"When there's a falling birth rate, things change. There are manners and customs evolved that would seem strange to you. There come laws and religions, all made to match current requirements. Celibacy and sterility become a crime. Virginity becomes a disgrace, a something to be ridiculed."

"It seems impossible," I said.

"No," he said. "You have that in part. You ridicule what you call old maids, don't you?"

Again I was too slow with my reply. If I ever meet him again, I shall show him the fallacy of many of his arguments.

"Men with most children had the most to say. The childless were penalized, were punished. The sterile were put to death. There grew up a religion and a priesthood, ceremonials, sacrifices and rituals. And they had their god, in the shape of this lizard thing. Of course, like most other gods, it was more of a malevolent creature than anything else. Gods generally are if you will consider a little. I don't care what creed or religion gets the upper hand, it's Fear that becomes the power. Look around and see if I'm not right.

"Well, Somerfield and I walked into that kind of thing. Now like me, he had worked for the Exploration Company a good few years and had been to all kinds of places prospecting. Torres Straits, the Gold Coast, Madagascar, Patagonia. We prospectors have to get around in queer corners and the life's a dull one. All monotony. But Somerfield had queer notions. He worked at the job because he could make more money than at anything else and that gave him a chance to keep his family in Ohio in comfort. He was mighty fond of his family. Besides, the job gave him more time with the wife and kids than the average man gets. When he was at home, he was at home three months on end at times. That's better than the ordinary man. A man in a city, for example, leaves home early and gets home late, and then he's too grouchy what with the close air and one thing and another to find the children anything but an infernal nuisance. Now a man away from his home for a long spell on end really enjoys the company when he does get home, and they enjoy his company, too. Then, too, he does not get to messing into the affairs of the family. He's not the Lord Almighty and Supreme Court Judge all the time. Besides that, the wife and children get a kind of independence.

"Now this being so, Somerfield was what he was. He had ideas about religion. He was full of the notion that things are arranged so that if you live up to a certain code, you'll get a reward. 'Do right, and you'll come out right,' was one of his sayings. 'The wages of sin is death,' was another. Point out to him that virtue got paid in the same coin, and he'd argue. No use. In a way he was like a man who wouldn't walk under a ladder or spill salt. You know.

"Naturally, for him things were awkward at the Tlinga village. We stayed there quite a while, I should say. He lived in his own shack, cooking for himself and all that. He was full of ideas of duty to his wife and so on. I fell in with the local customs and took up with a sweetheart, and handled things so well that there was one of their ceremonials pretty soon in which I was central figure. Ista, it seems, made a public announcement. That would be natural enough with a tribe so concerned about the family birth rate. But it made me sorter mad to hear the natives everlastingly accusing Somerfield of being an undesirable. But they never let up trying to educate him and make him a Tlinga citizen. They were patient and persistent enough. On the other hand, I was looked on as a model young man, and received into the best society.

"About the time we were ready to strike west, Ista, that was my girl, told me that there would have to be a new ceremonial. She took my going in good part, for there was nothing more I could do. They were sensible enough to know that man was only an instrument in the great game as they understood it. Ista had led me out to a quiet place to put me next. I remember that vividly because of a little thing that happened that doesn't mean anything. I often wonder why resultless things sometimes stick in the mind. We were sitting at the base of a tall tree and there was a certain bush close by with bright red berries when they were unripe. They look good to eat. But when they ripened, they grew fat and juicy, the size of a grape, and of a liverish color. I thought that one of them had fallen on my left forearm and went to flick it off. Instead of being that, the thing burst into a blood splotch as soon as I hit it. That was the first time I had been bitten by one of those bugs. They are about the size of a sheep tick when empty, but they get on you and suck and suck, till they are full of your blood and size of a grape. Queer things, but ugly. Ista laughed as you would laugh if you saw a nigger afraid of a harmless snake. It's queer that it should be considered a joke when one fears something that another does not.

"But that has nothing to do with the story. What has, is that Ista wanted to tell me about the ceremonial. She did not believe in it at all. Privately, she was a kind of atheist among her people, but kept her opinions to herself. You must not think that because you see, hear or read of savage rites, that all the savages believe in those things. No sir. There is as much disbelief amongst them as with us. Perhaps more. They think things out. I might say that in a way they think more than the average civilized man. You see, a civilized child thinks for itself up until it is six or seven or so, and then the schools get hold of it, and from then on, it's tradition and believing what it's told to believe. That goes on through school life. Then at work, the man who would dare to vary on his own account is not wanted. So independent thought is not possible there. Work finished, it's the evening paper and editorial opinions. So really, man does not get much of a chance to think straight at any time. I guess if he did, the whole scheme would fall to pieces. That's why I say civilized man does not only not think, but perhaps can't think. His brains are not trained to it. Give the average man something with real, straight, original, first-hand thought in it, and he's simply unable to tackle it. His brain has not been cultivated. He wilts mentally. It's like putting the work of a man on a boy. Catch what I mean? Now a savage gets more of a chance. It was that way with Ista. She had thought out things for herself and had her own beliefs, but they were not the beliefs the Tlingas were supposed to hold. But after all she did not tell me much besides her own disbeliefs. When you think of it, no one can tell another much. What you know you have to discover alone. All she told me was what was going to be done, and that was about as disappointing as the information you might get about what would take place in initiation in a secret society. Some was lost in transmission.

"Well, at last the ceremonial started up with a great banging of drums and all that. It was a great scene, let me tell you, with the tumbled vegetation, glaringly colored as if a scene painter had gone crazy. There were the flashing birds— blood-colored and orange scarlet and yellow, gold and green. Butterflies, too,— great gaudy things that looked like moving flowers. And the noise and chatterings and whistlings in the trees of birds and insects. There were flowers and fruits, and eatings and speech-makings. As far as I could gather, the chief speakers were congratulating the hearers upon their luck in belonging to the Tlingas, which was the greatest tribe on earth and the favorite of Naol, the lizard god. We capered round the tribal pole, I capering with the rest of them of course. Somerfield took a picture of it. Then there was a procession of prospective mothers with Ista among them. Rotten, I thought it. Don't imagine female beauty, by the way, as some of the writers on savage life would have you imagine it. Nothing of the kind. White, black or yellow, I never saw a stark woman that looked beautiful yet. That's all bunk. Muscular and strong, yes. That's a kind of beauty in its way. True as God, I believe that one of the causes of unhappy marriages among white folk is that the lads are fed upon false notions about womanly beauty, and when they get the reality they think that they've captured a lemon.

"Presently the crowd quieted down and the men were set around in a semicircle with me and Somerfield at the end. Then a red-eyed old hag tottered out and began cursing Somerfield. She spat in his face and called him all outrageous names that came to her vindictive tongue. Luckily it was that he had been put next, and so, forewarned, was able to grin and bear it. But Lord, how she did tongue-lash him. Then she took a flat piece of wood, shaped like a laurel leaf, which was fastened to a thin strip of hide, and showed him that. It was a kind of charm, and on it was cut one of the running lizards. She wanted him to rub it on his forehead. Of course with his notions of religion he wouldn't do it. That's natural. When she passed it to me, I did what she wanted done. I never was particular that way. Symbols mean nothing anyway and if fools are in the majority, it's no use stirring up trouble. It's playing a lie of course, but then that's the part of wisdom it seems to me, sometimes. It's in a line with protective coloring. You remember what I said about the proper mounting of your specimens don't you? Well, it's like that. That's why persecutions have never stamped out opinions nor prohibitions appetites. The wisest keep their counsel and go on as usual. The martyrs are the weak fools. But let's see. Where was I? Oh, yes. The old woman and the piece of wood.

"She began running from this one to that, kind of working herself up into a frenzy. Then she started to chant some old nonsense. There was a rhythm to it. She sang:

'Nao calls for the useless.'

"Then the rest of them would shout

'Nao calls. Nao calls.'

"There was a terrible lot of it. The main purport was that this Nao was the ruling devil or god of the place. It called for the sacrifice of the useless. Many men were needed so that the one should be born who would lead the Tlingas to victory. That was the tone of it, and at the end of every line she sang, the crowd joined in with the refrain.

'Nao calls. Nao calls.'

"Of course they became worked up. She handled them pretty much the same as a skillful speaker does things at a political meeting or an evangelist at a revival. The same spirit was there. Instead of a flag, there was the tribal pole. There was the old gag of their nation or tribe being the chosen one. I don't care where you go, there is always the same thing. Every tribe and nation is cock-sure that theirs is the best. They have the bravest and the wisest men and the best women. But I kept nudging Somerfield. It was hard on him. He was the Judas and the traitor and all that. 'Damn-fool superstition,' he muttered to me time and again. But of course he was a bit nervous, and so was I. Being in the minority is awkward. The human brain simply isn't strong enough to encounter organized opposition. It wears. You spend too much energy being on the defensive.

"After a time, when the song was done, the old hag seemed pretty well played out. Then she passed the piece of wood I told you of to a big buck, and he started to whirling it round and round. He was a skillful chap at the trick, and in a little had it whirling and screaming. Then presently some of the birds fell to noise making just as you will hear canaries sing when some one whistles, or women talk when a piano commences to play. I saw something of the same down in Torres Straits. They call it the Twanyirika there. In the Malay Peninsula they use something of the kind to scare the elephants out of the plantations. They've got it on the Gold Coast as well. It's called the Oro there. Really it's all over the world. I've seen Scotch herd boys use something like it to scare the cattle, and Mexican sheep herders in Texas to make the sheep run together when they scatter too far. Of course there's really nothing to be scared of, but when it comes near you, you feel inclined to duck. To me, it was the feeling that the flat piece of wood would fly off and hit me. You always duck when you hear a whizzing. Still, the priests or medicine men trade on the head-ducking tendency. So, somehow, in the course of time, it gets so that those that listen have to bow down. Oh, yes! You say it's ridiculous and fanciful and all that sort of thing. I know. I have heard others say the same. It's only a noise and nothing to be scared of. But then, when you come to think of it, most men are scared of noise. They're like animals in that respect. What is a curse but a noise? Yet most men are secretly afraid of curses. They're uneasy under them. Yet they know it's only noise. Then look at thunderings from the pulpit. Look at excommunications. Look at denunciations. All noises to be sure. But there's the threat of force behind some of them. The blow may come and again it may not.

"As I said, every one bowed down and of course so did I, on general principles. Somerfield didn't and the old buck whirled that bull-roarer over him ever so long, and the red-eyed hag cursed and spat at him, but he never budged. That sort of conduct is damned foolishness according to my notion. But then, you see, in a kind of a way he was backing his prejudices against theirs and prejudices are pretty solid things when you consider. Still, he took a hell of a chance.

"On the trail next day, for we left the following morning, I argued with him about that, but he couldn't be budged. He said he stood for truth and all that kind of thing. I put it to him that he would expect any foreigner to conform to his national customs. He'd expect a Turk to give up his polygamy, I said, no matter what heart-breakings it cost some of the family. But he had a kink in his thinking, holding that his people had the whole, solid, unchanging truth. Of course, the argument came down with a crash then, for it worked around to a question of what is truth. There you are. There was the limit. So we quit. As I tell you, the human brain is not constituted to do much thinking. It's been crippled by lack of use. We are mentally stunted in growth. I remember that I began to say something about the possibility of there being several gods, meaning that some time or other men with imagination had defied some natural thing, but it came to me that I was talking nonsense, so I quit. Yet I know right well that many tribes have made gods of things of which they were afraid. But it's small profit to theorize.

"It was near sundown when we came to that building shown in that photograph. The vegetation was so thick thereabouts that the temple, for I suppose it was that, appeared before us suddenly. One moment we were crawling like insects between the trunks of great jungle trees that shot upwards seventy feet or more without a branch, as if they were racing for dear life skyward, and then everything fell away and there was the old building. It startled the both of us. We got the sensation that you get when you see a really good play. You forget your bodily presence and you are only a bundle of nerves. You walk or sit or stand, but without any effort or knowledge that you are doing it. We had been talking, and the sight of that building, so unexpected, startled us into silence. It would any one. Believe me, your imperturbable man with perfect, cool, self-possession does not exist. Man's a jumpy thing, given to nerves. You may deny it and talk about the unexcitability of the American citizen and all that bunk, but let me tell you that your journalists and moving picture producers and preachers and politicians have caught on to the fact that man is jumpy, and they trade on their discovery, believe me. They've got man on the hop every which way and keep him going.

"There had been a gateway there once, but for some reason or other it had become blocked with a rank vegetation. The old gap was chocked full with a thorny, flower-bearing bush so thick that a cat could not have passed through. Somerfield switched on one of his theories as soon as he got over his first surprise. Worshipers, he held, had brought flowers there and the seeds that had dropped had sprouted. It looked reasonable.

"Above the lintel was carved one of those running lizards. That you noticed early. You can't see that in the picture because we took that from the edge of a broken wall. You see, all the walls stood except that to the left of this doorway and that had partly fallen and what was left was chin high. We saw at a glance that the people who had built that temple were handy with tools. The stones of the wall were quite big— two feet or more square, and fitted closely. There was no mortar to hold them but the ends had been made with alternate grooves and projections that fitted well. The stone was a kind of red sandstone. But I told you that before.

"When we looked over the broken wall and saw that stone lizard, we had another shock. I don't care how you school yourself, there's a scare in every man. That's what annoys me, to see men posing and letting themselves be written up and speechified over as fearless. Fearless General this and Admiral that. Our fearless boys in the trenches. It sickens me. Why the whole race has been fed up on fear for ages. Fearlessness is impossible. Hell-fire, boogermen, devils, witches, the wrath of God— it's all been fear. Things that we know nothing of and have no proof of have been added to things that we do know of that will hurt, and, on top of that there has been the everlasting 'cuidado' lest you say a word that will run foul of current opinion— so what wonder that man is scary? It's a wonder that he's sane.

"After we took that picture we debated for the first time where we should camp that night. A new scare possessed us. In the end, we decided to camp inside the temple because of the greater security afforded by the walls. The truth is that some half fear of a giant lizard had gotten hold of us. So, as it was the lizard that scared us, we decided to stay in the lizard temple. Man's built that way. He likes to keep close to the thing that he fears. I heard a man who was a banker once say that he always mistrusted the man who would not take a vacation. As I take it, his idea was that the man who knew some danger was nigh, wanted to be around where he could catch the first intimation of a crash. But then, too, besides that, there is a sense of comfort in being within walls, especially with a floor paved as this one was. Besides, it was a change from the trees with their wild-tangled vines and their snake-like lianas. So we decided on the temple.

"That night I was a long time getting to sleep. The memory of the old hag and the bull-roarer was in my mind. I kept thinking of Ista, too. It was a warmer night than usual, and, after the moon dropped, pitchy dark. I slept stripped as I generally do, with a light blanket across my legs so that I could find it if needed without waking up.

"I awoke presently, feeling something run lightly and swiftly across my face. I thought it was a spider. It seemed to run in a zig-zag. Then feeling nothing more I set it down to fancy and dropped off to sleep again, face turned towards that idol. Later, I felt the same kind of thing run across my neck. I knew it was no fancy then, and my scare vanished because here was something to do. So I waited with my right hand poised to grab. I waited a long time, too, but I have lots of patience. Presently it ran down my body starting at my left shoulder and I brought down my hand at a venture, claw fashion, and caught the thing on the blanket. I felt the blanket raise and then fall again, just a little, of course, as I lifted my hand with the thing in it, and by that knew that it had claws. Yet bet I held tight. It seemed to be hard and smooth. It was a wiry, wriggling thing, somewhat like a lizard. But it was much more vigorous than any lizard. I tried to crush it, but could not. As to thickness, it seemed to be about the diameter of one of those lead pencils. It was like this I had it."

Rounds picked up a couple of lead pencils from the desk and took my hand in his. He told me to close my fist and then placed one pencil lengthwise so that an end of it was between my first and second finger and the rubber-tipped end lay across my wrist. The other pencil he thrust crosswise so that the pointed end stuck out between the second and third finger and the blunt end between the index finger and thumb.

"There you have it," he said. "That's how I held the little devil. Now grip hard and try to crush the pencils and you'll have something of the same sensation as I had. Holding it thus, I could feel its head jerking this way and that, violently, and its tail, long and lithe, lashing at my wrist. The little claws were trying to tear, but they were evidently softish. I could hear, or thought I could, the snap of its little jaws. It was about the nastiest sensation that I ever experienced. I don't know why I thought that it was venomous, but I did. I tried to smash the thing in my hand— tried again and again, and I have a good grip— but might just as well have tried to crush a piece of wire. There was no give to it. It tried to wriggle backwards but I had it under its jaws. So there we were: it wriggling, writhing and lashing and me laying there holding it at arms length. I felt the sweat start on me and the hair at the nap of my neck raise up, and I did some quick and complicated thinking. Of course, I dared not throw it away, but I got to my feet and as I did so, tried to bend its head backwards against the stone floor. But the head slipped sideways. I called on Somerfield for a light then, and he struck one hurriedly and it went out immediately. All that I saw was that the thing was white and had a triangular shaped head.

"Somehow I ran against Somerfield before he got another match struck and he swore at me, saying that I had cut him. I knew that I had touched him with my outstretched hand that held the beast. I drew back my hand a little and remembered afterwards that I then felt a slight, elastic resistance as if the thing that I held had caught on to something, as it had before to my blanket. Afterwards I found that the thing had gotten Somerfield's neck. As he struck another match, I saw the low place in the wall and flung the thing away with a quick jerk. You know the kind of a motion you'd make getting rid of some unseen noxious thing like that. That's how I never really saw the beast and can only conjecture what it was like from the feel of it.

"On Somerfield's neck, just below the angle of the jaw, was a clean-cut little oval place about half an inch in length. It did not bleed much, but it seemed to pain him a lot. He maintained that the thing was some kind of rodent. Anyway we put a little chewed tobacco on the place and, after awhile, tried to sleep again. We didn't do much good at it, neither of us. He was tossing and grumbling like a man with the toothache.

"Next morning the bitten place had swollen up to the size of an apple and was a greenish yellow color. He was feeling sick and a bit feverish, so I made him comfortable after looking around to see whether there was anything to harm him in the courtyard, and went to hunt water. I remember that I gave the head of the idol a kick with the flat of my foot for spite, as I passed it. Like a kid, that was, wasn't it? Now I was running back and forth all the morning with the canteen, for he drank a terrible quantity. His eyes grew bright, too, and his skin flushed. Towards noon, he began to talk wild, imagining that he was at home. Then I judged it best to let him stay there in the temple where he was, so to speak, corraled. Coming back shortly after from one water-hunting trip, I heard singing, and, looking over the wall, saw him sitting on the slab in front of the idol. He must have fancied that he had his kids before him for he was beating time with his hands and snapping his fingers and thumbs and singing:

'London bridge is fallen down,

Fallen down, fallen down.'

"It was rotten to hear that out there, but I was halfway glad to see him that way, knowing that he wasn't miserable. After a little, he quit babbling and took more water; emptied the canteen, in fact, so back I had to start for more.

"Returning, I found things changed. He was going around, crouched like a hunting Indian, peering here and there, behind the idol then across to the head as if seeking some one. He had the facon in his hand. 'Rounds stabbed me,' he was saying. 'It was Rounds, damn him, that killed me.' Over and over again he said that. He was talking to invisible people, creatures of his mad brain. One would have thought, if one had not seen, that the temple court was crowded with spectators. Then he rose to his feet and, with the knife held close to his breast, began walking round and round as if seeking an outlet. He passed me once, he on one side of the wall and I on the other, and he looked me square in the eye, but never saw me. So round and round he went with long strides, knees bent and heels never touching the ground. He eyes were fixed and staring and his teeth clenched. Now and then he made long, slashing stabs in the air with the facon.

"Suddenly he saw me, and there was a change. The blood lust was in his eyes. He was standing on the slab in front of the idol, then made a great leap and started for the broken wall where I was. I saw then that the lump on his neck had swollen to the size of a big goitre. His whole body was a-quiver. There was an animal-like celerity in his movements that made me shudder. Then I knew that I dared not let him get on the same side of the wall as me. But he leaped at the gap from a distance that I would have thought no human could compass, and hung on to the wall with one arm over. He snarled like an animal. Then I smashed him over the head with the canteen, gripping the strap with my right hand. He fell back with the force of the blow, but immediately came at the gap again, then changed his mind and went to tearing around the chamber with great leaps. He was a panther newly caged. He sprang on to the head of the idol and from that to the pedestal, and then to the slab in front of it. Then he went across and across the floor, sometimes screaming and yelling, and then again moaning and groaning. One side of his face was all bloody where I had smashed it with the canteen. Seeing him so, a thing not human, but with all the furtive quickness of an animal and its strength, too, I felt sorry no more. I hated him with a wild hate. He was dangerous to me and I had to conquer him. That's fundamental. So I stood, gripping the strap of the canteen, watching, waiting. He came at me again, striding and leaping. That time he got one leg over with both hands gripping the top stones. The facon he dropped on my side of the wall, but I had no time to stoop for it just then. There were other things to do. He was getting over. It took some frantic beating with the canteen and he seemed to recover from the blows quicker than I could get the swing to strike again. But I beat him down at last, though I saw that he had lots more life in him than I, with that devil of madness filling him. So, when I saw him stumble, then recover and begin that running again, I picked up the knife and leaped over the wall to settle the matter once and for all. It was an ugly thing to do, but it had to be done and done quickly. At the root of things it's life against life."

Rounds ceased and fell to filling his pipe. I waited for him to recommence, but he made as if to leave, but paused a moment at my desk to pick up and examine a piece of malachite. I felt it incumbent upon me to say something to relieve the tension that I felt.

"I understand," said I. "It was a horrible necessity. It is a terrible thing to have to kill a fellow creature."

"That wasn't a fellow creature," he said. "What I killed was not the partner I knew. Don't you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," I replied. Then I asked, "Did you bury him?"

"Bury him? What for? How?" Rounds seemed indignant. "How could I bury him in a stone-paved court? How could I lift a dead man over a wall chin high?"

"Of course. Of course," I said. "I had forgotten that. But to us who lead quiet lives, it seems terrible to leave a dead man unburied."

"Do you feel that way about that mummy you have out there?" he asked, indicating the museum with his thumb. "If not, why not? But if you want the story to the bitter end, I dragged him to the only clean spot in the place, which was that slab in front of the idol. There I left him, or it. But things take odd turns. By the time I got back to the Tlinga village, they knew all about it and the priests used the affair to their own advantage. Mine was incidental. Yet I did reap some benefit. According to the priests, I had accepted the whole blessed lizard theory, or religion or whatever it was, and had sacrificed the unbeliever to the lizard god. Ista helped things along, I suspect, for with me as a former mate, there was some fame for her. Anyway, they met and hailed me as a hero and brought tribute to me. Gold dust. I wanted them to quit their damned foolishness and tried to explain, but it was no use. You can't teach a mob to have sense. Well, adios. But remember this: Don't be too cocksure."

________________

10: The Signal Tower

Wadsworth Camp

1879-1936

Metropolitan Magazine May 1920

"I GET AFRAID when you leave me alone this way at night."

The big man, Tolliver, patted his wife's head. His coarse laughter was meant to reassure, but, as he glanced about the living-room of his remote and cheerless house, his eyes were uneasy. The little boy, just six years old, crouched by the cook-stove, whimpering over the remains of his supper.

"What are you afraid of?" Tolliver scoffed.

The stagnant loneliness, the perpetual drudgery, had not yet conquered his wife's beauty, dark and desirable. She motioned towards the boy.

"He's afraid, too, when the sun goes down."

For a time Tolliver listened to the wind, which assaulted the frame house with the furious voices of witches demanding admittance.

"It's that—" he commenced.

She cut him short, almost angrily.

"It isn't that with me," she whispered.

He lifted the tin pail that contained a small bottle of coffee and some sandwiches. He started for the door, but she ran after him, dragging at his arm.

"Don't go! I'm afraid!"

The child was quiet now, staring at them with round, reflective eyes.

"Joe," Tolliver said gently, "will be sore if I don't relieve him on time."

She pressed her head against his coat and clung tighter. He closed his eyes.

"You're afraid of Joe," he said wearily.

Without looking up, she nodded. Her voice was muffled.

"He came last night after you relieved him at the tower. He knocked, and I wouldn't let him in. It made him mad. He swore. He threatened. He said he'd come back. He said he'd show us we couldn't kick him out of the house just because he couldn't help liking me. We never ought to have let him board here at all."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I was afraid you'd be fighting each other in the tower; and it didn't seem so bad until dark came on. Why didn't you complain to the railroad when— when he tried to kiss me the other night?"

"I thought that was finished," Tolliver answered slowly, "when I kicked him out, when I told him I'd punish him if he bothered you again. And I— I was a little ashamed to complain to the superintendent about that. Don't you worry about Joe, Sally, I'll talk to him now, before I let him out of the tower. He's due to relieve me again at midnight, and I'll be home then."

He put on his great coat. He pulled his cap over his ears. The child spoke in a high, apprehensive voice.

"Don't go away, papa."

He stared at the child, considering.

"Put his things on, Sally," he directed at last.

"What for?"

"I'll send him back from the tower with something that will make you feel easier."

Her eyes brightened.

"Isn't that against the rules?"

"Guess I can afford to break one for a change," he said. "I'm not likely to need it myself to-night. Come, Sonny."

The child shrank in the corner, his pudgy hands raised defensively.

"It's only a little ways, and Sonny can run home fast," his mother coaxed.

Against his ineffective reluctance she put on his coat and hat. Tolliver took the child by the hand and led him, sobbing unevenly, into the wind-haunted darkness. The father chatted encouragingly, pointing to two or three lights, scattered, barely visible; beacons that marked unprofitable farms.

It was, in fact, only a short distance to the single track railroad and the signal tower, near one end of a long siding. In the heavy, boisterous night the yellow glow from the upper windows, and the red and green of the switch lamps, close to the ground, had a festive appearance. The child's sobs drifted away. His father swung him in his arms, entered the tower, and climbed the stairs. Above, feet stirred restlessly. A surly voice came down.

"Here at last, eh?"

When Tolliver's head was above the level of the flooring he could see the switch levers, and the table, gleaming with the telegraph instruments, and dull with untidy clips of yellow paper; but the detail that held him was the gross, expectant face of Joe.

Joe was as large as Tolliver, and younger. From that commanding position, he appeared gigantic.

"Cutting it pretty fine," he grumbled.

Tolliver came on up, set the child down, and took off his overcoat.

"Fact is," he drawled, "I got held back a minute— sort of unexpected."

His eyes fixed the impatient man.

"What you planning to do, Joe, between now and relieving me at midnight?"

Joe shifted his feet.

"Don't know," he said uncomfortably. "What you bring the kid for? Want me to drop him at the house?"

Tolliver shook his head. He placed his hands on his hips.

"That's one thing I want to say to you, Joe. Just you keep away from the house. Thought you understood that when you got fresh with Sally the other night."

Joe's face flushed angrily.

"Guess I was a fool to say I was sorry about that. Guess I got to teach you I got a right to go where I please."

Tolliver shook his head.

"Not to our house, if we don't want you."

The other leered.

"You so darned sure Sally don't want me?"

Impulsively Tolliver stepped forward, closing his fists.

"You drop that sort of talk, or—"

Joe interrupted, laughing.

"One thing's sure, Tolliver. If it came to a fight between me and you I'd be almost ashamed to hit you."

Through his passion Tolliver recognized the justice of that appraisal. Physically he was no match for the younger man.

"Things," he said softly, "are getting so we can't work here together."

"Then," Joe flung back, as he went down the stairs, "you'd better be looking for another job."

Tolliver sighed, turning to the table. The boy played there, fumbling with the yellow forms. Tolliver glanced at the top one. He called out quickly to the departing man.

"What's this special, Joe?"

The other's feet stumped on the stairs again.

"Forgot," he said as his head came through the trap. "Some big-wigs coming through on a special train along about midnight. Division headquarters got nothing definite yet, but figure we'll have to get her past thirty-three somewheres on this stretch. So keep awake."

Tolliver with an increasing anxiety continued to examine the yellow slips.

"And thirty-three's late, and still losing."

Joe nodded.

"Makes it sort of uncertain."

"Seems to me," Tolliver said, "you might have mentioned it."

"Maybe," Joe sneered, "you'd like me to stay and do your job."

He went down the stairs and slammed the lower door.

Tolliver studied the slips, his ears alert for the rattling of the telegraph sounder. After a time he replaced the file on the table and looked up. The boy, quite contented now in the warm, interesting room, stretched his fingers towards the sending key, with the air of a culprit dazzled into attempting an incredible crime.

"Hands off, Sonny!" Tolliver said kindly. "You must run back to mother now."

He opened a drawer beneath the table and drew out a polished six-shooter— railroad property, designed for the defense of the tower against tramps or bandits. The boy reached his hand eagerly for it. His father shook his head.

"Not to play with, Sonny. That's for business. If you promise not to touch it 'till you get home and hand it to mama, to-morrow I'll give you a nickel."

The child nodded. Tolliver placed the revolver in the side pocket of the little overcoat, and, the boy following him, went down stairs.

"You run home fast as you can," Tolliver directed. "Don't you be afraid. I'll stand right here in the door 'till you get there. Nothing shall hurt you."

The child glanced back at the festive lights with an anguished hesitation. Tolliver had to thrust him away from the tower.

"A nickel in the morning—" he bribed.

The child commenced to run. Long after he had disappeared the troubled man heard the sound of tiny feet scuffling with panic along the road to home.

When the sound had died away Tolliver slammed the door and climbed the stairs. He studied the yellow slips again, striving to fix in his mind this problem, involving the safety of numerous human beings, that would probably become his. He had a fear of abnormal changes in the schedule. It had been impressed upon every signalman that thirty-three was the road's most precious responsibility. It was the only solid Pullman train that passed over the division. This time of year it ran crowded and was erratic; more often than not, late. That fact created few difficulties on an ordinary night; but, combined with such uncertainty of schedule, it worried the entire division, undoubtedly, to have running, also on an uncertain schedule, and in the opposite direction on that single track, an eager special carrying important men. The superintendent, of course, would want to get those flashy trains past each other without delay to either. That was why these lonely towers, without receiving definite instructions yet, had been warned to increase watchfulness.

Tolliver's restlessness grew. He hoped the meeting would take place after Joe had relieved him, or else to the north or south.

It was difficult, moreover, for him to fix his mind to-night on his professional responsibility. His duty towards his family was so much more compelling. While he sat here, listening to every word beaten out by the sounder, he pictured his wife and son, alone in the little house nearly a half a mile away. And he wondered, while he, their only protector, was imprisoned, what Joe was up to.

Joe must have been drunk when he tried to get in the house last night. Had he been drinking to-night?

The sounder jarred rapidly.

"LR. LR. LR."

That was for the tower to the north. It was hard to tell from Joe's manner. Perhaps that would account for his not having called attention to the approaching presence of the special on the division.

Pound. Pound. Pound. The hard striking of the metal had the effect of a trip-hammer on his brain.

"Allen reports special left Oldtown at 9.45."

Joe had certainly been drinking that night last week when he had got fresh with Sally.

"Thirty-three still losing south of Anderson."

He jotted the words down and sent his O.K.'s while his head, it seemed to him, recoiled physically from each rapid stroke of the little brass bar.

Sonny, sent by his mother, had come to tell him that night, panting up the stairs, his eyes wide and excited. Tolliver had looked from the window towards his home, his face flushed, his fists clenched, his heart almost choking him. Then he had seen Joe, loafing along the road in the moonlight, and he had relaxed, scarcely aware of the abominable choice he had faced.

"NT. NT. NT."

His own call. Tolliver shrank from the sharp blows. He forced himself to a minute attention. It was division headquarters.

"Holding twenty-one here until thirty-three and the special have cleared."

Twenty-one was a freight. It was a relief to have that off the road for the emergency. He lay back when the striking at his head had ceased.

It was unfortunate that Joe and he alone should be employed at the tower. Relieving each other at regular intervals, they had never been at the house together. Either Tolliver had been there alone with his wife and his son—or Joe had been. The two men had seen each other too little, only momentarily in this busy room. They didn't really know each other.

"LR. LR. LR."

Tolliver shook his head savagely. It had been a mistake letting Joe board with them at all. Any man would fall in love with Sally. Yet Tolliver had thought after that definite quarrel Joe would have known his place; the danger would have ended.

It was probably this drinking at the country inn where Joe lived now that had made the man brood. The inn was too small and removed to attract the revenue officers, and the liquid manufactured and sold there was designed to make a man daring, irrational, deadly.

Tolliver shrank from the assaults of the sounder.

Where was Joe now? At the inn, drinking; or—

He jotted down the outpourings of the voluble key. More and more it became clear that the special and thirty-three would meet near his tower, but it would almost certainly be after midnight when Joe would have relieved him. He watched the clock, often pressing his fingers against his temples in an attempt to make bearable the hammering at his brain, unequal and persistent.

While the hands crawled towards midnight the wind increased, shrieking around the tower as if the pounding angered it.

Above the shaking of the windows Tolliver caught another sound, gentle and disturbing, as if countless fingers tapped softly, simultaneously against the panes.

He arose and raised one of the sashes. The wind tore triumphantly in, bearing a quantity of snowflakes that fluttered to the floor, expiring. Under his breath Tolliver swore. He leaned out, peering through the storm. The red and green signal lamps were blurred. He shrugged his shoulders. Anyway, Joe would relieve him before the final orders came, before either train was in the section.

Tolliver clenched his hands. If Joe didn't come!

He shrank from the force of his imagination.

He was glad Sally had the revolver.

He glanced at his watch, half believing that the clock had stopped.

There at last it was, both hands pointing straight up—midnight! And Tolliver heard only the storm and the unbearable strokes of the telegraph sounder. It was fairly definite now. Both trains were roaring through the storm, destined almost certainly to slip by each other at this siding within the next hour.

Where was Joe? And Sally and the boy alone at the house!

Quarter past twelve.

What vast interest could have made Joe forget his relief at the probable loss of his job?

Tolliver glanced from the rear window towards his home, smothered in the night and the storm. If he might only run there quickly to make sure that Sally was all right!

The sounder jarred furiously. Tolliver half raised his hand, as if to destroy it.

It was the division superintendent himself at the key.

"NT. NT. NT. Is it storming bad with you?"

"Pretty thick."

"Then keep the fuses burning. For God's sake, don't let the first in over-run his switch. And clear the line like lightning. Those fellows are driving faster than hell."

Tolliver's mouth opened, but no sound came. His face assumed the expression of one who undergoes the application of some destructive barbarity.

"I get afraid when you leave me alone this way at night."

He visualized his wife, beautiful, dark, and desirable, urging him not to go to the tower.

A gust of wind sprang through the trap door. The yellow slips fluttered. He ran to the trap. He heard the lower door bang shut. Someone was on the stairs, climbing with difficulty, breathing hard. A hat, crusted with snow, appeared. There came slowly into the light Joe's face, ugly and inflamed; the eyes restless with a grave indecision.

Tolliver's first elation died in new uncertainty.

"Where you been?" he demanded fiercely.

Joe struggled higher until he sat on the flooring, his legs dangling through the trap. He laughed in an ugly and unnatural note; and Tolliver saw that there was more than drink, more than sleeplessness, recorded in his scarlet face. Hatred was there. It escaped, too, from the streaked eyes that looked at Tolliver as if through a veil. He spoke thickly.

"Don't you wish you knew?"

Tolliver stooped, grasping the man's shoulders. In each fist he clenched bunches of wet cloth. In a sort of desperation he commenced to shake the bundled figure.

"You tell me where you been—"

"NT. NT. NT."

Joe leered.

"Joe! You got to tell me where you been."

The pounding took Tolliver's strength. He crouched lower in an effort to avoid it, but each blow struck as hard as before, forcing into his brain word after word that he passionately resented. Places, hours, minutes—the details of this vital passage of two trains in the unfriendly night.

"Switch whichever arrives first, and hold until the other is through."

It was difficult to understand clearly, because Joe's laughter persisted, crashing against Tolliver's brain as brutally as the sounder.

"You got to tell me if you been bothering Sally."

The hatred and the cunning of the mottled face grew.

"Why don't you ask Sally?"

Slowly Tolliver let the damp cloth slip from his fingers. He straightened, facing more definitely that abominable choice. He glanced at his cap and overcoat. The lazy clock hands reminded him that he had remained in the tower nearly half an hour beyond his time. Joe was right. It was clear he could satisfy himself only by going home and asking Sally.

"Get up," he directed. "I guess you got sense enough to know you're on duty."

Joe struggled to his feet and lurched to the table. Tolliver wondered at the indecision in the other's eyes, which was more apparent. Joe fumbled aimlessly with the yellow slips. Tolliver's fingers, outstretched toward his coat, hesitated, as if groping for an object that must necessarily elude them.

"Special!" Joe mumbled. "And— Hell! Ain't thirty-three through yet?"

He swayed, snatching at the edge of the table.

Tolliver lowered his hands. The division superintendent had pounded out something about fuses. What had it been exactly? "Keep fuses burning."

With angry gestures he took his coat and cap down, and put them on while he repeated all the instructions that had been forced into his brain with the effect of a physical violence. At the table Joe continued to fumble aimlessly.

"Ain't you listening?" Tolliver blurted out.

"Huh?"

"Why don't you light a fuse?"

It was quite obvious that Joe had heard nothing.

"Fuse!" Joe repeated.

He stooped to a box beneath the table. He appeared to lose his balance. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his head drooping.

"What about fuse?" he murmured.

His eyes closed.

Tolliver pressed the backs of his hands against his face. If only his suspense might force refreshing tears as Sonny cried away his infant agonies!

Numerous people asleep in that long Pullman train, and the special thundering down! Sally and Sonny a half mile away in the lonely house! And that drink-inspired creature on the floor—what was he capable of in relation to those unknown, helpless travelers? But what was he capable of; what had he, perhaps, been capable of towards those two known ones that Tolliver loved better than all the world?

Tolliver shuddered. As long as Joe was here Sally and Sonny would not be troubled. But where had Joe been just now? How had Sally and Sonny fared while Tolliver had waited for that stumbling step on the stairs? He had to know that, yet how could he? For he couldn't leave Joe to care for all those lives on the special and thirty-three.

He removed his coat and cap, and replaced them on the hook. He took a fuse from the box and lighted it. He raised the window and threw the fuse to the track beneath. It sputtered and burst into a flame, ruddy, gorgeous, immense. It etched from the night distant fences and trees. It bent the sparkling rails until they seemed to touch at the terminals of crimson vistas. If in the storm the locomotive drivers should miss the switch lamps, set against them, they couldn't neglect this bland banner of danger, flung across the night.

When Tolliver closed the window he noticed that the ruddy glow filled the room, rendering sickly and powerless the yellow lamp wicks. And Tolliver clutched the table edge, for in this singular and penetrating illumination he saw that Joe imitated the details of sleep; that beneath half-closed lids, lurked a fanatical wakefulness, and final resolution where, on entering the tower, he had exposed only indecision.

While Tolliver stared Joe abandoned his masquerade. Wide-eyed, he got lightly to his feet and started for the trap.

Instinctively, Tolliver's hand started for the drawer where customarily the revolver was kept. Then he remembered, and was sorry he had sent the revolver to Sally. For it was clear that the poison in Joe's brain was sending him to the house while Tolliver was chained to the tower. He would have shot, he would have killed, to have kept the man here. He would do what he could with his hands.

"Where you going?" he asked hoarsely.

Joe laughed happily.

"To keep Sally company while you look after the special and thirty-three."

Tolliver advanced cautiously, watching for a chance. When he spoke his voice had the appealing quality of a child's.

"It's my time off. If I do your work you got to stay at least."

Joe laughed again.

"No. It only needs you to keep all those people from getting killed."

Tolliver sprang then, but Joe avoided the heavier, clumsier man. He grasped a chair, swinging it over his head.

"I'll teach you," he grunted, "to kick me out like dirt. I'll teach you and Sally."

With violent strength he brought the chair down. Tolliver got his hands up, but the light chair crashed them aside and splintered on his head. He fell to his knees, reaching out blindly. He swayed lower until he lay stretched on the floor, dimly aware of Joe's descending steps, of the slamming of the lower door, at last of a vicious pounding at his bruised brain.

"NT. NT. NT."

He struggled to his knees, his hands at his head.

"No, by God! I won't listen to you."

"Thirty-three cleared LR at 12:47."

One tower north! Thirty-three was coming down on him, but he was only glad that the pounding had ceased. It commenced again.

"NT. NT. NT. Special cleared JV at 12:48."

Each rushing towards each other with only a minute's difference in schedule! That was close—too close. But what was it he had in his mind?

Suddenly he screamed. He lurched to his feet and leant against the wall. He knew now. Joe, with those infused and criminal eyes, had gone to Sally and Sonny—to get even. There could be nothing in the world as important as that. He must get after Joe. He must stop him in time.

"NT. NT. NT."

There was something in his brain about stopping a train in time.

"It only needs you to keep all those people from getting killed."

Somebody had told him that. What did it mean? What had altered here in the tower all at once?

There was no longer any red.

"NT. NT. NT."

"I won't answer."

Where had he put his cap and coat. He needed them. He could go without. He could kill a beast without. His foot trembled on the first step.

"NT. NT. NT. Why don't you answer? What's wrong. No O. K. Are you burning fuses? Wake up. Send an O. K."

The sounder crashed frantically. It conquered him.

He lurched to the table, touched the key, and stuttered out:

"O. K. NT."

He laughed a little. They were in his block, rushing at each other, and Joe was alone at the house with Sally and the child. O. K.!

He lighted another fuse, flung it from the window, and started with automatic movements for the trap.

Let them crash. Let them splinter, and burn, and die. What was the lot of them compared with Sally and Sonny?

The red glare from the fuse sprang into the room. Tolliver paused, bathed in blood.

He closed his eyes to shut out the heavy waves of it. He saw women like Sally and children like Sonny asleep in a train. It gave him an impression that Sally and Sonny were, indeed, on the train. To keep them safe it would be necessary to retard the special until thirty-three should be on the siding and he could throw that lever that would close the switch and make the line safe. He wavered, taking short steps between the table and the trap. Where were Sally and Sonny? He had to get that clear in his mind.

A bitter cold sprang up the trap. He heard the sobbing of a child.

"Sonny!"

It was becoming clear enough now.

The child crawled up the steps on his hands and knees. Tolliver took him in his arms, straining at him passionately.

"What is it, Sonny? Where's mama?"

"Papa, come quick. Come quick."

He kept gasping it out until Tolliver stopped him.

"Joe! Did Joe come?"

The child nodded. He caught his breath.

"Joe broke down the door," he said.

"But mama had the gun," Tolliver said hoarsely.

The boy shook his head.

"Mama wouldn't let Sonny play with it. She locked it up in the cupboard. Joe grabbed mama, and she screamed, and said to run and make you come."

In the tower, partially smothered by the storm, vibrated a shrill cry. For a moment Tolliver thought his wife's martyrdom had been projected to him by some subtle means. Then he knew it was the anxious voice of thirty-three— the pleading of all those unconscious men and women and little ones. He flung up his arms, releasing the child, and ran to the table where he lighted another fuse, and threw it to the track. He peered from the window, aware of the sobbing refrain of his son.

"Come quick! Come quick! Come quick!"

From far to the south drifted a fainter sibilation, like an echo of thirty-three's whistle. To the north a glow increased. The snowflakes there glistened like descending jewels. It was cutting it too close. It was vicious to crush all that responsibility on the shoulders of one ignorant man, such a man as himself, or Joe. What good would it do him to kill Joe now? What was there left for him to do?

He jotted down thirty-three's orders.

The glow to the north intensified, swung slightly to the left as thirty-three took the siding. But she had to hurry. The special was whistling closer—too close. Thirty-three's locomotive grumbled abreast of him. Something tugged at his coat.

"Papa! Won't you come quick to mama?"

The dark, heavy cars slipped by. The red glow of the fuse was overcome by the white light from the south. The last black Pullman of thirty-three cleared the points. With a gasping breath Tolliver threw the switch lever.

"It's too late now, Sonny," he said to the importunate child.

The tower shook. A hot, white eye flashed by, and a blurred streak of cars. Snow pelted in the window, stinging Tolliver's face. Tolliver closed the window and picked up thirty-three's orders. If he had kept the revolver here he could have prevented Joe's leaving the tower. Why had Sally locked it in the cupboard? At least it was there now. Tolliver found himself thinking of the revolver as an exhausted man forecasts sleep.

Someone ran swiftly up the stairs. It was the engineer of thirty-three, surprised and impatient.

"Where are my orders, Tolliver? I don't want to lie over here all night."

He paused. His tone became curious.

"What ails you, Tolliver?"

Tolliver handed him the orders, trembling.

"I guess maybe my wife at the house is dead, or—You'll go see."

The engineer shook his head.

"You brace up, Tolliver. I'm sorry if anything's happened to your wife, but we couldn't hold thirty-three, even for a murder."

Tolliver's trembling grew. He mumbled incoherently:

"But I didn't murder all those people—"

"Report to division headquarters," the engineer advised. "They'll send you help to-morrow."

He hurried down the stairs. After a moment the long train pulled out, filled with warm, comfortable people. The child, his sobbing at an end, watched it curiously. Tolliver tried to stop his shaking.

There was someone else on the stairs now, climbing with an extreme slowness. A bare arm reached through the trap, wavering for a moment uncertainly. Ugly bruises showed on the white flesh. Tolliver managed to reach the trap. He grasped the arm and drew into the light the dark hair and the chalky face of his wife. Her wide eyes stared at him strangely.

"Don't touch me," she whispered. "What am I going to do?"

"Joe?"

"Why do you tremble so?" she asked in her colorless voice, without resonance. "Why didn't you come?"

"Joe?" he repeated hysterically.

She drew away from him.

"You won't want to touch me again."

He pointed to the repellant bruises. She shook her head.

"He didn't hurt me much," she whispered, "because I— I killed him."

She drew her other hand from the folds of her wrapper. The revolver dangled from her fingers. It slipped and fell to the floor. The child stared at it with round eyes, as if he longed to pick it up.

She covered her face and shrank against the wall.

"I've killed a man—"

Through her fingers she looked at her husband fearfully. After a time she whispered:

"Why don't you say something?"

His trembling had ceased. His lips were twisted in a grin. He, too, wondered why he didn't say something. Because there were no words for what was in his heart.

In a corner he arranged his overcoat as a sort of a bed for the boy.

"Won't you speak to me?" she sobbed. "I didn't mean to, but I had to. You got to understand. I had to."

He went to the table and commenced to tap vigorously on the key. She ran across and grasped at his arm.

"What you telling them?" she demanded wildly.

"Why, Sally!" he said. "What's the matter with you?— To send another man now Joe is gone."

Truths emerged from his measureless relief, lending themselves to words. He trembled again for a moment.

"If I hadn't stayed! If I'd let them smash! When all along it only needed Joe to keep all those people from getting killed."

He sat down, caught her in his arms, drew her to his knee, and held her close.

"You ain't going to scold?" she asked wonderingly.

He shook his head. He couldn't say any more just then; but when his tears touched her face she seemed to understand and to be content.

So, while the boy slept, they waited together for someone to take Joe's place.

__________________

11: The Cardboard Clue

Walter Ripperger

No dates available; active 1935-1940.

Australian Women's Weekly 29 August 1942

(Mystery Stories No 13, 1938)

YOUNG John Nairne, with an air of helplessness, looked about the little office. The floor, the table, the shabby roll-top desk at the back of him were all strewn with papers, papers he himself had scattered about in an effort to find something— a legacy his father had left him.

This wasn't his own office; it was his father's. John Nairne hadn't been in business, wouldn't know how to go about conducting a business.

His life had been spent in English schools and then afterwards there had been those three years in Paris in the Latin Quarter, where he had studied painting until an urgent summons from hts father had led him to take the first steamer for New York, arriving Just two days too late. His father had died two days before John Nairne's steamer docked.

Old Duncan Nairne had been found late one night, slumped over his desk, by the cleaner. In front of him lay an unfinished note addressed to John Nairne, his son.

His death had been brought on by heart failure and had come not unanticipated by old Duncan Nairne, as his note indicated clearly enough.

"My boy,

"You and I haven't seen much of each other, haven't seen anything of each other for sixteen years In fact, and I want you to know that this separation was not due to any lack of affection for , you on my part, but because of circumstances over which I had nocontrol.

"You were a fine, upstanding lad when I last saw you, the sort of a son of whom any father could be proud, and I've done my best in my own mad way, without counting the cost, to provide a future for you. True, this business which I started here wasn't a success. I'm now hopelessly bankrupt. But nevertheless I am able to leave you a sizable fortune, more than enough to render you financially independent for the rest of your life and enable you to pursue the career of an artist unhampered by the sometimes hopeless struggle of trying to earn a living.

"Just how I acquired this fortune needn't concern you. If by chance you should discover its source, don't let your conscience trouble you. England owes me and others a lot. That world-mad Europe! Those years in the trenches! The nights of horror, of nameless terror!

"Can any amount or money make that up to me? Can they ever pay me or erase the knowledge from my mind that your mother died alone, without me at her side, while I was crawling over the top in France, fighting a war to end wars? A war to end wars— what nonsense!

"Forgive me for rambling on in this way. I haven't long to live. It's my heart—I hope the old pump will last until you get here, so that I can tear up this note and tell you the things you must know myself. Perhaps I can make you understand the thing that Devil Darrell and the rest of us did, make you see it in its true light and explain to you why your legacy consists of a piece of cardboard, a piece of cardboard in an envelope in my desk, a piece of cardboard with..."

It was days before John Nairne could bring himself to go through his father's papers and search for that envelope. What a strange note his father had left behind. '

"Don't let your conscience trouble you," old Duncan Nairne had written. And who was Devil Darrell?

John Nairne kicked the papers . at his feet idly about. Bills, bills ' and more bills! There seemed to be nothing else but bills. What a struggle it must have been for his father to educate him. to give him those years in Paris. How he must have been harassed and hounded by creditors. And yet somewhere there was a fortune, a fortune of which he hadn't even partially availed him-self, but was leaving to his son

JOHN NAIRNE'S fine, narrow features grew more troubled as he contemplated the matter. A brooding look came into his dark eyes. In a distrait way he studied for a while a card that lay on the table before him, some sort of an advertisement that his father had received from a man named I. Marmaduke Drake, who termed himself Agent.

From the announcement it appeared that if you were in any difficulty whatsoever, you had only to apply to I. Marmaduke Drake and confide your troubles to him and your troubles would be straightened out in no time. Silly nonsense!

John Nairne pushed the card contemptuously to one side, picked up a heavy paper-cutter from the table and swung about in the swivel chair so that he was facing the roll-top desk. He had emptied that desk completely with the exception of the centre drawer. That drawer was locked and he didn't know where the kej was.

He inserted the thin edge of the paper-cutter between the drawer and the top of the desk, pressed down and found that it was a simple matter to spring the lock of this battered article of furniture and pull out the drawer. It was empty except for one thing—a yellow envelope bearing on the face of it the legend in his father's handwriting:

"To my son John."

His heart beat faster as he picked lt up and stared at it. This was It, the thing he had been looking for, the document which would make clear to him how he would obtain his inheritance! After a long time he tore the envelope open, reached inside and extracted its contents. The envelope contained only one thing, a piece of cardboard!

It was some six inches wide and eight inches long. There were slots cut horizontally in the cardboard, slots that were irregularly spaced, about two inches long and a quarter of an inch wide.

John Nairne stared at the thing with wide, unbelieving eyes. What did it mean? What use was it? The cardboard was absolutely blank on both sides, contained not a word of explanation.

In a dazed way he kept turning the thing over and over and began wondering if it held some message written in invisible ink, a message that could be brought to light by a chemical reagent. He had heard of such things. In some inexplicable way his mind reverted to the card on the table, the card from I. Marmaduke Drake, Agent, and he wondered what that gentleman would make of this situation.

A lot, no doubt— in exchange for a substantial fee. Substantial fees reminded him of his own financial position. The trip over had used up practically all of his quarterly allowance. He had about three dollars In his pocket, and that was all. An examination of his father's bank-book had disclosed the fact that the latter had a balance of exactly one dollar and sixty-two cents. A pleasant state of affairs.

Mechanically, almost without thinking, he folded up the cardboard and stuffed it into his inside pocket.

It was then that he heard the sound of footsteps in the little outer office, saw the communicating door open in a hesitant manner and a little man standing on the threshold.

He was a sparse little figure with a narrow face, pale, watery eyes, and thin lips. There was an ugly scar that ran diagonally from the corner of his right eye toward his ear. Wisps of greying hair showed below his aged bowler.

"Did you wish to see someone?" John Nairne asked.

The little man came farther into the room. He nodded his head, then shot quick glances in every direction, to the emptied desk, to the table, to the floor littered with crumpled papers.

"My name is Seeby," he said after a time in a thin, colorless voice. "Ben Seeby. I'm in the old furniture business, a sort of a junk-man—" He stopped and looked questioningly at John Nairne, as if trying to determine what sort of an impression he was making.

"Go on," said John Nairne.

"I saw in the papers," Seeby said slowly, "some days ago, a notice of Mr. Nairne's death. I make it my business to watch for that sort of thing," he explained apologetically, "and it occurred to me that maybe his office equipment might be for sale."

"I suppose it ls," John Nairne said doubtfully. His eyes travelled about the shabby room. Perhaps he could get twenty or thirty dollars for this junk. "What's it worth to you?"

Ben Seeby looked away. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. After a long time he said:

"If I bought it, I'd want it all— everything."

"You can have it all."

The little man moistened his lips. "Even the papers," he said; "the letters on the floor— everything—" He paused and his eyes came back to John Nairne, and he saw a puzzled look on the latter's face. "You see," he explained hastily, "sometimes by going through the papers I find things that are of use to me— the name of a concern with whom I might do business, for instance."

To John Nairne that seemed reasonable enough. There wasn't anything personal about those papers— just bills, and nothing to indicate whether they had been paid or not.

"You're welcome to 'em," John Nairne said.

Once more Ben Seeby's eyes drifted away from the other.

"I suppose," he went on, more slowly than before, "nothing's been taken out of this place. Everything— everything is still here?"

John Nairne was about to assure him that it was, when an odd thought came to him.

"Why are you so anxious about that?" he demanded. "What difference can it make to you whether or not some of my father's personal papers are missing?"

Ben Seeby jerked his head around. There was a startled look in his pale eyes.

"Your father?— are you— are you Mr. Nairne's son?"

"Yes. What's so strange about that? You didn't answer my question. What difference does it make to you whether a few of my father's papers are missing?"

Seeby blinked his eyes, but he was at a loss for only a minute.

"I like to get a complete picture of the business," he said, "I couldn't do that if anything was missing. I can't exactly explain. It's a sort of a— a sort of a trade secret with me. Of course, there are some things I wouldn't mind your taking away. If you'll just tell me what you want or anything that you've already taken

John Nairne's eyes narrowed.

"How much would you pay for this layout?"

"I might go as high— as high as a hundred dollars."

John Nairne felt himself stiffen. Even with all his inexperience he was certain that no second-hand furniture dealer would pay more than twenty-five or thirty dollars for his father's shabby equipment; there wasn't even a typewriter.

"All right," he said; "I'll take it. It's all there, every scrap of paper, everything my father owned... except one thing... something that couldn't possibly interest you or anybody else."

The little man looked down on the floor.

"What's that?" he asked in a tone scarcely audible.

"Just a piece of cardboard," John Nairne said, "a piece of cardboard with little slots cut in it."

HE made his voice indifferent, but he kept his eyes glued on Ben Seeby. He saw the little man start, saw his hands twitch and a dull flush spread over his features. Yet when he spoke his voice was as careless, as disinterested as young Nairne's had been.

"I guess I wouldn't want that," Ben Seeby said, "that wouldn't be any use to me." He reached into his pocket, took out a small roll of bills and began peeling off fives and tens. "Still," he said, "you might let me have it; at least for a few days. If I find it has no significance, I'll send it back to you. There's just a possibility that lt might represent the key to something, if properly understood. It's conceivable, for instance, that it might represent the key to the safe or—"

"There isn't any rafe," John Nairne said. He was conscious of a curious pounding at his temples, a feeling that he was on the verge of discovering something, and he was surprised at the hardness of his own voice as he went on. "Seeby, you're a liar. You didn't come here to buy this junk, this trash on the floor. You came here because you know something. You came here for only one purpose, and that was to get that piece of cardboard."

The color left Ben Seeby's face. He shifted from one foot to the other. After a long time he said: "That's right."

John Nairne leaned forward. His mind was fixed on one thing, and on one thing only. The hint the little man had given him that that piece of cardboard in his pocket might represent the key to something. That was it, of course. But the key to what? How was it to be used? For a moment he was afraid to speak for fear that his voice might tremble, but in the end he managed in an even tone:

"Tell me the story."

"I've got as much right to that cardboard," Ben Seeby burst out, with unexpected passion, "as your father had. If he were alive, he'd tell you so himself. It's just chance that he had it instead of me."

"What's it for?"

But Seeby ignored the question.

"Your father and I were friends," he went on. "This scar," he said, pointing to his right eye, "I got it helping him— and some others. I didn't come here with the idea of cheating you out of your share. I didn't know you were his son." His voice grew wheedling. "Of course, I knew he had a son, but I thought you were abroad studying somewhere, and I would have seen to it that in the end you would have gotten what was coming to you. With me everything is fair and square. I'm not like the Major or the Indian. You can trust me—"

"What's the cardboard for?" John Nairne demanded again in a tense tone.

"Devil Darrell will be out soon," said Ben Seeby, with a far-off look in his eyes. "You can trust Devil Darrell, even though he held out on us all these years— but not the Major, not the Indian. If they get their hands on it first, if Devil Darrell is fool enough to communicate with them, and they hold the key—" The little man broke off abruptly.

John Nairne was conscious of a growing sense of bewilderment. And in the midst of his confused thoughts it seemed to him that through the half-open door he heard a faint sound in the outer office. Then he decided that he was mistaken. It was nothing but a trick of the imagination. He bent his eyes more intently on Ben Seeby and said:

"First tell me what the cardboard is for. Then you can go into the details."

"You'll play fair and square with me, won't you?" Ben Seeby whined. "You'll have to. Devil Darrell won't stand for anything else: There's enough for all of us, though we won't have to let the Major or the Indian in on it if you don't want to— they'd doublecross us in a minute. Maybe their share ought to go to Devil Darrell. He's entitled to it... he's the only one who paid... while the rest of us got off scot free..."

"Confound it, man, answer my question!" John Nairne's nerves were quivering.

Ben Seeby came closer.

"The cardboard—" he said in a hushed voice... and got no further.

Afterwards John Nairne wasn't sure, but he thought he saw something that came flying across the room, through the door that Ben Seeby had left open, something that looked like a streak of light as it sailed through the semi-darkness. He saw Ben Seeby straighten up, heard his startled cry, saw him reel in a crazy fashion, then topple to the floor.

John Nairne was around the table in an instant and on his knees beside the fallen figure,

"What's the matter? What's happened?"

Ben Seeby's eyes were wide. Inarticulate sounds came from his throat as though he were trying desperately to say something. Then suddenly the light died out of his eyes, leaving them blank. One last ghastly gurgling sound came from him, and then— John Nairne knew it— he was dead.

How long he knelt there beside the body of Ben Seeby John Nairne didn't know. He had a feeling that his limbs were paralysed, that he was incapable of moving, that his brain was numb and unable to cope with the situation. Gradually it came to him that whereas Seeby was lying on his back he wasn't quite on his back, something was holding him up on one side some six inches from the floor.

Mechanically, scarcely realising what he was doing, he seized Ben Seeby by the arm and shoulder and turned him over on to his face.

A knife was sticking out of Seeby's back, a peculiar sort of a knife, a Malay kris, John Nairne thought, and it was then that he realised that he had actually seen that thing come flying through the air, and it dawned on him, too, that whoever had thrown it might still be out there lurking in the outer office preparing to strike again, this time at him.

John Nairne, his sensitive face grey and drawn, leapt to his feet and faced the door. He could see nothing from where he was, save shadows in the half-light. The whole place seemed ominously silent.

He hesitated for a minute, then stepped swiftly into the other room. He looked sharply about. The little room was empty. He sprang to the outer door, yanked it open and looked out into the hall. There was no one in sight.

SHAKING his head as though to clear his befogged brain, he went back inside to where Ben Seeby lay and stared down at the dead man. He supposed he ought to call the police, yet he was afraid to. Suppose the police didn't believe the story of a knife being thrown through the open door, suppose they accused him, John Nairne, of the murder— what would happen then?

Here he was without funds, without a friend, not a soul to whom he could turn. It wouldn't be the first time that an innocent man had been convicted. And what good would it do him to say that he had never seen Ben Seeby before in his life, to tell the story of Ben Seeby's coming here?

The whole thing would sound absurd, fantastic, and wouldn't be believed. And yet if he didn't notify the police, it would be even worse. The body would be found. He, no doubt, would be traced.

The elevator man or the starter would be in a position to state that he had been in the building in his father's office, that he had come out of there eventually. What he ought to do first of all was get a lawyer, but he had no money to pay a lawyer; and even if he had had any he wouldn't have known just whom to get.

It was then that he remembered that card on his father's desk, the card from I. Marmaduke Drake,

Agent, the man who made a business of taking care of other people's troubles. The latter's office was on Pine Street, only a few blocks away.

John Nairne remembered having passed Pine Street as he came out of the subway. Perhaps his father had done business with I. Marmaduke Drake, and Drake might be ready to help' him, or at least to advise him.

He considered for a minute longer, and decided that it was worth a try. He picked up his hat and coat from a chair, put them on, stepped out into the outer office and closed the door behind him. He was about to make his way out when he saw the office door slowly open.

Instinctively John Nairne sprang back, certain that it must be the killer of Ben Seeby come back, but he was wrong. He reached up and pulled at the string overhead that lit the single drop light, and beheld a girl with the fairest hair he had ever seen and the bluest eyes. She was young and slender and came towards him with an air of complete composure.

"I should like to see Mr. Nairne," she said.

"I am Mr. Nairne," John Nairne said. He felt his throat dry, his speech coming with difficulty.

"Mr. Duncan Nairne?" There was inquiry in her voice, as though she were quite certain that he was not the man.

"I AM John Nairne," he said. "Duncan Nairne is— was my father. He died a few days ago."

"Oh!" Her tone was full of sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"Perhaps there's something I can do," he ventured. It was foolish to detain her. There was a dead man in the next room; what he ought to do was get her out of here as quickly as possible and go and see this Marmaduke Drake.

There was doubt in her eyes.

"I don't know," she said. "My name is Alice Thorne. I have a message for your father and some others. I don't know what it means myself, but I suppose it would have had some significance to your father. Perhaps you'll understand it."

"What sort of a message? Whom is it from?"

For a moment John Nairne forgot Ben Seeby, dead in the other room.

"It's a message from my father," she answered simply. "My father is in England, you know. I haven: seen him for years and years. The message was given to me by a friend of his who just came over." She stopped and frowned.

"What's the message?"

She gave him an apologetic little smile.

"I'm sorry, it's sort of silly of me, but I didn't like the man who brought me the message. He wasn't a very nice man. There was something shifty about him and he walked in a funny way, as though— well, as though he had been in prison. He made me feel uncomfortable; he frightened me... I'm sorry, I shouldn't bother you with these things— ."

"That's all right," John Nairne said; he kept his voice free from excitement. "What was the message?"

"Three months more."

John Nairne gaped at her.

"Three months more," he repeated idiotically.

She nodded.

"That's all there was to it," she said. "That's what I was to tell your father— and the others."

"What others?" he asked tonelessly.

"A Major Blackminster and a Mr. Seeby, Ben Seeby. I haven't been able to find them," she said. "Your father was in the telephone book, but they're not. You don't happen to know where I could find them?'

John Nairne studied her with distrusting eyes. Was she telling him the truth? Was she as innocent as she appeared to be, or was she mixed up in this complicated, weird mystery in which he found himself involved?

"I don't know Where to find your Major Blackminster," John Nairne said slowly. He paused, struck with a sudden idea. There was a way by which he might discover if she were telling him the truth— a cruel way, but it would probably prove effective.

"I can take you to Ben Seeby," he said slowly. He opened the door into the other office, turned on the light, and, watching her closely, he pointed to the dead man on the floor. "There's Ben Seeby."

Alice Thorne stared down with wide, horror-stricken eyes. A frightened cry escaped her, then she pulled her eyes away and looked at John Nairne.

"What— what does it mean?"

John Nairne shrugged. If she knew anything, she hadn't betrayed herself— not yet.

"You know as much about it as I do— or perhaps more."

With a callousness of which he would have thought himself incapable an hour ago, he stooped down and turned the dead man over.

"Know him?" he asked.

She gave Seeby a glance and shook her head.

"No," she said. "With one exception, I don't know any of my father's friends. I wouldn't know my own father if I saw him. I don't remember what he looks like. I haven't seen him since I was three. In all those years he's been working for the government, some dangerous secret work that he can t tell me about, that keeps him away from me. But that will be all over soon, and then he is coming to get me."

She looked again at the dead man, then back at John Nairne. "You didn't kill him. You don't look like the sort of man who would kill anybody... at lent you wouldn't stab him in the back."

THE distrust went out of John Nairne's eyes. She was more decent to him than he had been to her and she was telling the truth. She knew nothing about this, and yet somehow she was involved, probably innocently like himself.

"I'm sorry I subjected you to this," he apologised. "I wasn't quite sure... the whole thing is so weird... No, I didn't kill him." Then he told her about his finding the cardboard, of Seeby coming to him and trying to get it away from him.

"Besides Blackminster and Seeby," he went on, "there's somebody else in this, a crook, I imagine, a gaol-bird, from what Ben Seeby told me, a gaolbird called Devil Darrell—"

He stopped, struck by the sudden change that came over the girl. She swayed a little. Her face became dead white. Her eyes blazed with cold anger. She seemed to be struggling for words.

"How dare you?" she managed at last. "How dare you say a thing like that?"

He gazed at her dumbfounded.

"What's Devil Darrell to you?" he asked dully.

She came closer to him. He had the curious impression that she was on the point of lashing out at him with her little clenched hands. But she didn't. Instead she said through compressed lips:

"Devil Darrell is my father."

Utterly bewildered, confused, John Nairne tried to say something and couldn't think of anything to say, and long before he could gather his scattered wits he found himself alone with the dead man.

For a moment he stood there wondering, then it came to him that he was in grave danger. In her fury she was capable of anything, would very likely hasten to the nearest policeman, tell him of the murdered man in the room. She might even accuse him, John Nairne, of having committed the murder.

John Nairne grew panicky. He rushed out to where he had left his hat in the outer office, snatched it up and dashed out into the hall, stopping only long enough to spring the latch on the door so that it couldn't be opened without a key.

He didn't wait for the elevator, Instead he took the steps two at a time.

Out in the street he headed south until he came to Pine Street, then east until he arrived at the dingy little building in which L Marmaduke Drake had his office. He had to have somebody to stand by him, somebody to advise him, even though it was a stranger. If only I. Marmaduke Drake turned out to be a friend of his father's and would be willing to help him.

John Nairne discovered Marmaduke Drake's office was much like his father's, with a tiny little outer room where a girl sat at a typewriter desk, a very pretty girl with a trim figure and wavy, copper-colored hair.

She disappeared through a door, and while he waited John Nairne could hear through the flimsy partition the sound of music. She reappeared in less than a minute and, holding the door, invited John Nairne to go in.

I. Marmaduke Drake's private office wasn't much larger than the one occupied by his secretary. It was scantily furnished with two rickety wooden armchairs, a battered desk, and a swivel chair that seemed too small for the man who occupied it.

I. Marmaduke Drake was well over six feet. He was young, with attractive features, broad-shouldered, and slim-waisted. His hair was dark and thick. He was leaning far back in his chair with his feet on the corner of his desk. There was a small guitar in his lap which he was strumming with an air of Intense concentration.

For some inexplicable reason this big lazy-looking individual inspired John Nairne with confidence, this despite the fact that I. Marmaduke Drake paid not the slightest attention to him, being entirely occupied with a rather inexpert rendition of "Santa Lucia."

"My name ls John Nairne."

"How are you?" said I. Marmaduke Drake, without looking up. "Have a chair."

"I'm in rather a fix," John Nairne said, "in trouble. Did you happen to know my father, Duncan Nairne?"

"No, I didn't," said I. Marmaduke Drake, steadily picking away at his guitar.

"I thought maybe you had known him." There was a note of disappoinmient in John Nairne's voice. "I don't suppose, then, you'd help me?"

I. Marmaduke Drake finished his tune on a sour but triumphant note and slowly put down the guitar, leaning it against the wall on the floor.

"Why wouldn't I help you?" he said. "I don't have to know a man's ancestors to help him out of a difficulty."

"I haven't any money," John Nairne said desperately.

"That's bad," said I. Marmaduke Drake. "Still, maybe you'll be able to pay me sometime. What's the trouble?"

"It's urgent— "

"Trouble is never urgent," I. Marmaduke Drake said placidly. "There's no use looking for it, because you can always find it, and there's no use trying to run away from it, because it always catches up with you, so you might just as well be peaceful till it arrives, and then we'll meet it."

"It's already caught up with me," John Nairne said, his voice now harsh. "There's a man been murdered in my office. He's lying there dead with a knife in his back. He may be discovered any minute. Then the police will be looking for me."

"It happens every day," said I. Marmaduke Drake calmly. "Did you kill him?"

"No," said John Nairne. "But I was alone with him in the room when he was killed. There was no one else in the office."

A strange thing happened. I. Marmaduke Drake straightened up in his chair. His right eyelid came down, seemed to come down with a bang like the knife on a guillotine. It made his strong face look weird. But I. Marmaduke Drake was in no way disconcerted. He slipped his fingers into his vest pocket and extracted a monocle. Very deftly he caught the edge of the eyelid and propped it up into place by means of the single glass.

"I hope that didn't startle you," he said, grinning. "It happens every now and then; a defective muscle or nerve. It generally happens when I'm surprised, and you can't blame me for being surprised. You say this man was alone in the office with you and you didn't kill him, and yet he was stabbed in the back. He couldn't have done that himself, and even if he could have that would be suicide, not murder. Let's have the whole thing from the beginning."

John Nairne told him, told him everything, from the finding of his father's note, right up to the very end where the girl who had called herself Alice Thorne had declared that Devil Darrell was her father.

When he had finished he looked expectantly at I. Marmaduke Drake, but the latter said nothing; instead he bent down and picked up his guitar.

"You having been raised abroad," he said after a time, "perhaps don't know this one," whereupon he startled John Nairne by striking a few experimental chords and then bursting with more zest than skill into "Pop Goes The Weasel."

John Nairne stood up. There was a bitter expression on his face.

"I'm sorry I troubled you," he said, his voice strident and loud so as to be heard above the guitar.

"Sit down," I. Marmaduke Drake shouted, strumming away with more vigor. "Music helps me to think."

John Nairne sat down. There was something compelling about I. Marmaduke Drake.

EVENTUALLY Drake put down his guitar.

"Let's see that piece of cardboard," he said.

"But what about Seeby, what about the man that's dead in my office? And what about the police?"

"No use worrying about Seeby, he's dead. And it's up to the police to find him, though maybe if they're too slow about it I'll give them a hint. Let's see that cardboard. If I'm going to get you out of this jam, it's going to be through that."

John Nairne looked unconvinced, but, nevertheless, he took the cardboard from his pocket and passed it to Marmaduke Drake.

The latter glanced at it only briefly and a look of disappointment came into his face.

"I thought there might be more to it than that," he said a little regretfully.

"How are we going to find out what it's for?"

"I know what lt's for," I. Marmaduke Drake said as he stuck it into his own pocket, "and I can tell you something else. There must be real money involved here. I've got a hunch I can find out just how much." He paused a moment. His face took on a more solemn expression. "I only hope," he went on a little lugubriously, "that it's the kind of money you and I would want to touch."

John Nairne stared at him. "You mean—"

"Never mind that or anything else just now. You've got to get out of here. I'm going to hide you in my place. That's about the last spot that the police would look for you, and they'll be on your trail in no time. This is just the sort of a case that my friend Sergeant Gruber eats up. If we don't do something right away, he'll have you in a cell before you can say Marmaduke Drake.

"Here you are." he scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it to John Nairne, "that's where I live. Give that to the landlady and she'll let you in. But before you go let me have the key to your office— I plan to hang out there most of the time until something breaks."

John Nairne took the slip of paper and rose. He looked steadily at I. Marmaduke Drake.

"I am wondering," he said slowly, "if I can trust you."

I. Marmaduke Drake nodded weightily.

"That's a point," he said, "that should be established." He picked up the metal screw-driver that served him as a letter-opener and banged lustily on the radiator beside his desk. This brought his secretary, Mary Gaylor, into the room.

"Miss Gaylor," said I. Marmaduke Drake gravely, "this is a new client of ours. Mr. John Nairne. He wants to know if I can be trusted. Please tell him."

The girl looked momentarily puzzled, then a little impatient. When she spoke there was a tang in her voice.

"Mr. Drake." she said to John Nairne, "can be trusted absolutely. He can be trusted to do every fool thing imaginable in your behalf, even to the point of risking his neck, and one of these days he's going to be sent to gaol for some of the things he does— if he isn't killed before then."

Towards the end her voice trembled with suppressed emotion; then without another word and an angry toss of her head she stalked out.

I. Marmaduke Drake grinned quizzically at his visitor.

"There you are," he said, "although she seems to be a little bit sore about something." His voice took on an earnest confidential note. "Tell me something. Nairne: do you understand women?"

John Nairne shook his head.

"That girl," he said, "Alice Thorne, I played her a dirty trick. I wouldn't like her... to get Into any trouble."

Marmaduke Drake grinned: "All right," he said.

The minute that John Nairne had gone, I. Marmaduke Drake went into Mary Gaylor's room.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "You're sore about something." He eyed her thoughtfully.

Mary Gaylor wouldn't look at him. She compressed her lips. Couldn't he see what was the matter with her? Was he blind?

She longed for the old days when she had been his secretary and he had been nothing but a private detective, a comparatively safe occupation compared with the things he was doing nowadays. She had told him so often enough with all the vehemence of her passionate nature. That, if nothing else, should have made clear to him the way she felt towards him, and he— he wasn't even aware of her existence, save as an office appliance, someone who could be useful when he needed her.

"What's wrong?" he demanded again. "Let's—"

He broke off abruptly, pricked up his ears. Outside in the hall he thought he heard a scuffling noise.

He sprang to the door and tore it open to see two figures, one prone on its back and the second figure bending over the first.

I. Marmaduke Drake's appearance caused the second figure, a man in a queer headdress, to look up, then leap to his feet and dash down the hall, past the elevators, towards the far end where the stairs were.

I. Marmaduke Drake started after him, stopped and looked down. The figure on the floor was John Nairne! His fingers were at his throat, his mouth was open, his face almost black. I. Marmaduke Drake hesitated. He wanted to get that man in the queer headdress, but this was more urgent. Something was wrong with John Nairne. Quickly he knelt down and felt at the other's throat. There was a silken cord about it, a cord that was embedded deep in the flesh. John Nairne was unconscious. He had ceased struggling.

I. Marmaduke Drake took a jack-knife from his pocket and managed to work the blade under the cord and sever it. John Nairne was a tall man, well knit, but I. Marmaduke Drake picked him up and carried him inside as though he were a baby. Here he laid him on the floor and began to work over him.

He worked feverishly, frantically, and presently John Nairne opened his eyes and color began slowly to come back to his features. It was minutes before he was able, with I. Marmaduke Drake's help, to get to his feet. The latter helped him inside to his own room and put him in a chair. John Nairne tried to speak, and found it difficult.

"Take your time," I. Marmaduke Drake said, "there's no hurry." All the boyish good nature had gone out of his face. It was indescribably hard and angry. He went and from the bottom drawer of his rickety desk took a bottle of brandy and poured some of it into a glass. "Here," he said, "drink this; it'll make you feel better."

John Nairne gulped it down. After a long time he said in a ruminative sort of way:

"BEING dead isnt so bad, but I didn't stay dead, thanks to you. I've lived a soft life, a sheltered sort of a life, content not to mix it up much with my fellow  men. All I wanted was to learn how to paint, to devote my life to that, but it's different now." His voice went suddenly grim. "I'm going to get this crowd. I don't know how. You'll have to tell me how. But I am not afraid— not afraid of anything. A man who has been dead once isn't afraid to die again." He paused, then added irrelevantly: "But the girl isn't in it— I know that."

I. Marmaduke Drake nodded. He understood perfectly.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"I don't quite know. I was standing there waiting for the elevator when suddenly I felt something about my throat, a thing that tightened and strangled me. before I had a chance to cry for help. I tried to tear it away, tried to turn around, put up a fight, and couldn't. The next thing I knew I was on my back losing consciousness, still trying to tear that thing from my throat. Before I passed out it seemed to me someone was bending over me. I glimpsed a face, fierce, relentless eyes, the face of a man in a turban. It was— it was the Indian, I suppose."

"No doubt about it," said I. Marmaduke Drake. His face was still hard. "That strangling trick is peculiar to the Indian thugs. There used to be a religious sect practising what's called thuggee, secret religious murders, but the sect degenerated into nothing but a band of cut-throats and highway robbers—" For a time he stared into space, a bleak look in his eyes.

Then he saw the strain in the younger man's face, and tried to think of something reassuring to say. He forced a grin into his own face and in a tone that was filled with humorous braggadocio, he said:

"I won't stand for their killing any of my clients. I've got too few of them as it is."

ON SECOND AVENUE a few blocks south of Forty-second Street in a fetid little building Moe Kydid carried on, in conjunction with his cousin Jacob, his tailoring busings. It wasn't much of a business. Moe Kydid and Cousin Jacob did nothing but a little repairing and some cleaning and pressing of suits and overcoats left there by sundry characters who for the most part came and went in a curious, furtive way.

Moe and Jacob seldom spoke. They seemed singularly at peace with the world and content with their earthly lot, though anyone who saw the dingy little shop and was capable of estimating the meagre business found it difficult to understand why this sbould be so.

Moe Kydid might have been fifty or he might have been seventy or even older. He was a small, hollow-chested man with a yellow face, a mass of countless wrinkles. He had small, near-sighted eyes that squinted as he worked. Just now he was manipulating an enormous pair of shears cutting awav a torn lining, ultimately to be replaced by Cousin Ja^ob. who was the more skilful, when it came to repairing, of the two.

Cousin Jacob with a more robust build, a younger, less-lined face, was busy threading a needle. He moistened the thread with his lips, then looked up. In a sort of a dead voice he said:

"How much longer?"

He hadn't spoken for an hour, and his present question had no relation whatsoever to anything he had said that day, yet Moe Kydid understood.

"A year," Moe said, "maybe two, unless this thing of Blackminster's should amount to something. My brother Anselm he is a fool— he and his fine houses and his automobiles. Some day in trouble he vill get us." Moe's voice was placid like the voice of one resigned to the inevitable.

After that there was a long silence, ultimately broken by the tinkle of the bell over the door.

A tall, stern, dark-visaged individual came in. He was a man who had obviously been in the army. His broad shoulders were thrown back, his stomach was pulled in, and he stood with his heels together, as erect and stiff as a bayonet. His face was square and hard; his dark eyes determined and forbidding. He looked at Moe, then made a motion with his head towards the door at the back and, without walting to see if he were being followed, went there and opened it.

MOE KYDID rose slowly to his feet. He put the great shears down with a clattering noise and followed the tall man inside, shutting the door carefully behind him.

The room here was larger than the shop. It was shabbily but comfortably furnished. There were a sofa and two huge armchairs with heavy upholstery, worn threadbare, grouped around a coal stove that glowed dully.

Moe Kydid sat down in an arm-chair in which he was all but lost, while the tall man took the end of the sofa that was nearest. For a time neither said anything, Moe watching his visitor through his squinty eyes while the other was occupied with a huge black cigar. At last Moe Kydid said:

"Vell, Major— vhat you got?"

Major Blackminster took a few puffs at his cigar and watched the smoke curl upwards moodily.

"There is one more," he said, "we don't have to worry about." His words came in a clipped, precise fashion. "First old Duncan Nairne went, and now Ben Seeby has gone to join him."

Moe Kydid kicked one of his spindly legs to and fro in a thoughtful way. After seconds he said:

"So Ben Seeby he should be dead... how did it happen?" A queer light came into his slitted eyes.

"Why worry about it?" Major Blackminster said unwillingly. "All you've got to remember is that there's one less with whom we have to divide."

"Divide vhat? I don't see anything. Already ve have spent plenty money to finance you, Major, but all ve get is promises, plenty promises— but no gold. It happens nothing."

Blackminster scowled.

"I made all the arrangements with your brother, Anselm, in London. He knows exactly what to expect, the difficulties of the situation, and you and he are going to get well paid for your trouble."

"Vhy not? Vithout us vhat could you do? Can you buy bread with bars of gold? Can you buy milk? Vhat could you do without Anslem and me and Jacob vith your gold? To gaol that's vhere you vould go," Moe Kydid spoke without feeling, completely dispassionate, and then he added irrelevantly: "My brother Anselm a fool he is."

The Major's eyes held faintly disguised contempt.

"That all depends on how you look at it. At least, he gets something for his money, has a jolly good time of it, but you— what do you get out of living like this, mending old clothes—"

A wisp of a smile came to Moe Kydid's face.

"Some day Scotland Yard it says to itself: 'This Anselm lives in a fine house, very strange people go to visit such a fine gentleman. Ve must look into this.' And my brother Anselm vill get into trouble and to gaol he vill go vhere he can play, pinochle vith your friend Devil Darrell, who is going to make us all so rich—"

Major Blackminster opened his lips to speak, but Moe Kydid went on with persistent patience:

"Now vith me and Jacob it's different. Who vould bother poor Moe Kydid or come to the little shop except maybe the customers, the right kind of customers, you understand, and nobody vould pay no attention to them." He paused a moment and chuckled with a queer sort of malice. "The customers they bring the suits, the overcoats. Sometimes rings and diamonds is in the pockets, sometimes gold vatches. And the customers vhen they call for their suits, the rings and vatches they is gone, sure, but they find money in the pockets, good money, Moe Kydid's good money. Nobody they say anything and nobody they should have to ask any questions."

"Rather a scheme," the major said in a tone of frank admiration. There was also some relief in his voice. This was a highly ingenious scheme for transferring and disposing of stolen goods. He felt more reassured about Moe Kydid's capabilities all of a sudden and now understood why Mr. Anselm Kydid, whose aid he had secured long ago with the utmost difficulty and who had the reputation among those "in the know" as the most prominent "fence" in London, had sent him to see his brother Moe here in New York.

"Maybe I should have my tongue cut out for telling you," Moe Kydid went on in his flat way, "but I don't have to worry, Major. You couldn't tell nobody, and even if to the police you vent to-morrow, they vouldn't find nothing, you understand. Besides I figure vith a man like you business could happen any day. Maybe to-morrow you could come in with a pearl necklace in the inside pocket of your overcoat.''

Major Blackminster, his countenance angrily fierce, straightened up in his seat.

"I'm not a thief," he barked, "at least—"

"Ai, ai," Moe said good-naturedly. "And now poor Mr. Seeby he is dead. Vell, how did it happen?"

The major looked up sharply. He had detected under that mild tone a note of menace that was somehow disquieting.

"I sent Pundahb to the old man's office to see if he could get hold of the code. He found Seeby there talking to young Nairne," he explained truculently, "telling him that he was going to ditch us; not you, he didn't know about you, of course, but me and the IndianPundahb— and ready to explain to Nairne the way the code worked. Pundahb is quick. He didn't waste any time. He let Seeby have it and it served him jolly well right."

Moe Kydid closed his eyes.

"Like my brother, Anselm," he murmured, "your servant he is a fool. Through the streets he goes with a towel for a hat, then he kills. Anybody could find him— except me— Pundahb never comes to see Moe Kydid any more."

"Why should he?" the major asked sharply. "Pundahb is positive no one saw him go in or come out. He didn't hang around there. He rather cleverly waited in the street, then followed young Nairne until he found him in a spot where he could search him— and he didn't find the code on him."

Moe Kydid opened his eyes a little. "Maybe this young Mr. Nairne he didn't have no objections to being searched, yes, or maybe he is dead, too, now?" His tone was more thoughtful, more remote. It was as though he were saying one thing and thinking of another.

The major was conscious of that, and for some reason it made him uneasy and irritable.

"No, he's not dead," he snapped. "Pundahb didn't tighten the cord enough. Anyway, he didn't find the code— but we'll get it. Either that, or we'll find some other way of communicating with Devil Darrell."

"I don't think so," Moe declared, "not for a long time."

"What are you talking about?" Major Blackminster snarled. "Devil Darrell will be out in another couple of months. He got years off for good behaviour. And he won't doublecross us, he's not that sort. I don't blame him for not telling us where it was while he was in gaol. We might have ditched him. Besides that, maybe he couldn't communicate with us. The chances are he didn't have his copy of the code with him, had it hidden along with the gold."

Once more Moe Kydid shook his head.

"Don't keep shaking your head like that," Blackminster roared. "I know what I'm talking about."

"Yes," the other said, "but you don't know vhat I know. I got a cable from my brother Anselm this morning. Your friend, he couldn't vait. A veek ago he tried to escape. So he don't get no time off for good behaviour. He's got to stay in prison."

Blackminster sprang to his feet. "The confounded fool!" he roared. "Why couldn't he wait! Only a few months more and he's got to go and spoil it all! I hope he stays there the rest of his life. I hope he rots there—"

"That vouldn't get us our money— or our gold."

The major began to pace the floor with long, impatient strides.

"What am I going to do?" he rasped. "How am I going to carry on— and take care of Pundahb too— for four years more? I've had a hard enough time getting along as it is with the pittances you and your brother have doled out to me."

Moe Kydid leaned his face in his hands and looked down at the floor.

"If it vas me," he said, "I vould have done something long ago. This Devil Darrell has a daughter, if I understand—"

"Well?"

"If maybe he should hear that his girl she vas in trouble, something you understand that only money— gold— could fix—" He paused for a moment, then added, "If maybe he understood it that if he vouldn't tell, something vould happen to the girl—"

Major Blackminster's eyes drifted from Moe's face to the little man's thin hands. He saw his right-hand thumb and forefinger close and unclose, and he shuddered despite himself.

I. MARMADUKE DRAKE spent most of the next two days in the little office that had belonged to John Nairne's father. He had had a little difficulty about it with John Nairne, who was in a singularly reckless mood. John Nairne didn't give a hoot in what danger he stood. He wanted to take a vigorous hand in the situation himself.

It was only when Marmaduke Drake pointed out to him that he would most likely be arrested and lodged in a cell and that he would be far more helpless there than where he was, cooped up in Drake's room, that he gave in.

To pacify him further Marmaduke Drake explained to him the purpose of that piece of cardboard that his father had left to him "Music helps me to think," declared Marmaduke Drake, and promised him that the minute he saw any use for it he would let him know and also that he would do his best with the police, make it possible for John Nairne to go about unmolested, at least for the time being.

The first day nothing happened. No one came to the old man's office, not even the police, who had taken Ben Seeby's body away the night before as a result of a telephone call from I. Marmaduke Drake to Sergeant Graber. The sergeant had been violent on the telephone, wanted to know just how Drake had heard about that murder. When the conversation got too difficult, Drake had hung up on him.

The sergeant made four calls at Drake's office the next day, insisting on seeing him, but Mary Gaylor, at his instructions, didn't tell him that her employer was in Nairne's office, sitting there gloomily, bored to extinction, waiting for something to occur that might give him a lead. On the morning of the second day he had a visitor, a tall man with a military bearing and a square, hard face, who appeared surprised to see I. Marmaduke Drake there.

"I'm looking for Mr. Nairne," the tall man said.

"He's not here," I. Marmaduke replied in his drawling, leisurely fashion. "He's away for a few days and I'm looking after his affairs. Is there anything I can do?"

Major Blackminster shook his head.

"I'll drop in again," he said. "Who shall I say called?"

"Brown is my name— Ned Brown," the major said without the flicker of an eyelash. He started for the door, but I. Marmaduke Drake's next words stopped him.

"You haven't by chance a message from Devil Darrell, have you? I know Mr. Nairne is expecting a message."

Major Blackminster turned on his heels with slow precision and faced the other.

"Really, old fellow," he said, "that's an odd question and an odd name— Devil Darrell; never heard of him." The major's face was wooden. "By the way, what's your name?"

"I. Marmaduke Drake. I'm a sort of an agent; an inquiry agent I suppose you'd call me in England. From the way you talk I judge you're English." I. Marmaduke Drake half-turned in his chair and gazed out of the window. "Maybe you know Ben Seeby?" he said, without looking at his visitor. "Poor Ben has been murdered right here in this office."

The major was by nature a violent individual, apt to betray his feelings, but there were occasions when he was completely master of himself and this was one of them. At the mention of I. Marmaduke Drake's name he was instantly on his guard. It was in front of Marmaduke Drake's door that Nairne had been attacked and searched.

"I say, you do ask the most extraordinary questions, old man," he declared affably. "Just tell Mr. Nairne that Ned Brown called to see him."

With that he stalked out, followed by the disconsolate eyes of I. Marmaduke Drake.

Late in the afternoon there was a second visitor, a young and very charming girl. Even before she gave her name he was confident as to her identity, the girl who had said her name was Alice Thorne and yet who claimed to be Devil Darrell's daughter. She, too, wanted to see Mr. Nairne. She had a note that she wanted to show him— from her father.

I. Marmaduke Drake felt his pulses quicken. He was certain now that he was on the brink of making a discovery, but this time he'd be more cautious; he wouldn't mention Devil Darrell or Ben Seeby or anyone else. He simply told the girl that Mr. Nairne was out of town, and that he would be glad to send the note on to him.

She shook her head.

"I think it would be better," she said, "if I gave it to him personally. I'd like to see what he thinks of it. The whole thing is very odd," she finished vaguely.

Marmaduke Drake now wished that he hadn't said that young Nairne was out of town.

"He might be back any time," he said after a while. "If you'll let me know where he can reach you, I'll be glad to give him your message."

She seemed to think that that would be all right and explained that she was secretary to someone in the shipping business, and not only gave him the address of where she worked, but her home address, a boarding-house in East Sixtieth Street, as well. Then smiling her thanks she left.

For a time I. Marmaduke Drake sat there, staring frowningly straight ahead. He had a feeling of helplessness, of incompetence. He was getting nowhere and it irritated him. Then he came to a sudden resolution. He put on his coat, picked up his hat, locked the outer door, and left the office.

Out in the street he hailed a taxi and told the man to drive him to Centre Street. At police headquarters he had no difficulty in finding Sergeant Gruber.

Ordinarily, the sergeant's round face with its guileless blue eyes wore a good-natured, tolerant expression, but just now he was both angry and sullen.

"Where on earth have you been?" he barked the instant he caught sight of Drake. "And what do you mean by it? One of these days you're going to go too far. Who do you think you are, anyway, calling up the police and telling them there's a murder and then disappearing? What do you mean by hanging up on me when I want to ask you some questions't You're old enough to know better You ought to know that there's suer, a thing as obstructing justice— I ought to lock you up, that's what I ought to do."

"If you want to know where I've been," Marmaduke Drake said lazily, ignoring the sergeant's tirade "I've been working for you, trying to find some dope " could hell you solve this case."

"I DONT want that kind of help," Gruber snapped savagely. "You just let me handle this my own way."

"You felt differently the last couple of times," Marmaduke Drake grinned.

The sergeant had the grace to blush and his tone was a trifle more conciliatory.

"All right, all right," re grumbled. "Rub it in. Just the same, one of these days—" He left that unfinished. "What I want to know is," he demanded with renewed savagery, "where you're hiding this fellow John Nairne. I suppose he's one of your— your clients."

"He is," I. Marmaduke Drake said agreeably.

"I ain't making any deals."

"You have before. Listen, Gruber, I've always played fair with you. I mean to do it again. I don't want any credit for myself, no newspaper publicity. If we solve this case it's all yours. And there's only one way to solve it: that's to let young Nairne go about his business as if nothing had happened. If you pick him up now and throw him into a cell, you'll get no place. He had nothing to do with this murder, you can take my word for it."

"So that's what you call making a deal," Gruber growled. "I'm to take this all on your say so. This bird was the only one in the office when Seeby was stabbed. I got pretty good evidence on that. And I'm supposed to let him wander around loose and do as he pleases and maybe get away in the end— just because you say so. That's a fine deal, that is."

I. Marmaduke Drake heaved s convincing sigh and started away.

"All right," he said, " if that's the way you feel. I was going to give you a good lead in exchange—"

He hadn't gone more than six steps when the sergeant brought him to a halt

"Hey. wait a minute. What are you driving at? If this ls one of your tricks—"

I. Marmaduke Drake stopped. He eyed the sergeant quizzically.

"Is it a deal?"

"First—"

"If I give you my word that I'll turn my man over to you whenever you want him—?"

Gruber scowled, then nodded.

"All right," Marmaduke Drake said. "Cable Scotland Yard and ask them to look up their records about a man named Devil Darrell, tell them you want all the dope on him, then let me know what they say."

The sergeant had his notebook out and was scribbling.

"Say. what kind of a lead do you call that? Who's Devil Darrell?  What's Scotland Yard—"

"You're going to be famous. Gruber. They'll even hear of you over there. Go long."

I. Marmaduke Drake waved a big hand airily and sauntered out.

THE FOLLOWING morning I. Marmaduke Drake went straight to his own office, while John Nairne went to his father's. John Nairne had strict instructions to communicate instantly with Marmaduke Drake if anything developed, no matter how insignificant it appeared.

When he arrived I. Marmaduke Drake found Sergeant Gruber waiting for him, impatiently pacing the floor of Mary Gaylor's little room.

"Say—" the sergeant began.

Marmaduke waved him to silence. He turned to Mary Gaylor.

"I need somebody," he said, "somebody to do a little watching— and a little following."

Mary Gaylor sighed as she thought of that group of nondescript individuals to whom I. Marmaduke Drake was wont grandiloquently to refer as his staff.

"Whom do you want?" she asked, resignedly.

"Well, who is there?" he said impatiently. "Never mind the sergeant, he doesn't care— speak up, I'm in a hurry."

"Certainly, Mr. Drake," she said in a slightly offended tone. "How would 'Butch' Tanner do? He's probably still living in that magnificent one-room suite in the flop house on the Bowery, waiting for you to buy his meals as usual."

I. Marmaduke Drake shook his head.

"Then there's'Mr. Agousta," Mary Gaylor went on with her nose in the air, "the tattoo artist. I believe he was released from the workhouse some time ago."

"I HAVE it," said I. Marmaduke Drake with enthusiasm. "Tony— Tony the bootblack! He's just the boy for the job. Put your hat and coat on and get him, get him right away. You know where to find him. He hangs out in that building on Wall Street near Water."

Mary Gaylor made a little grimace, but she fetched her hat and coat.

"So that's how you work." Sergeant Gruber said when they were alone. "You've got a lot of dead-beats that do the dirty work for you." There was a hint of admiration in the sergeant's tone.

Marmaduke Drake led the way into his own room and looked longingly for a moment at the guitar he had been obliged to neglect for two days, but decided that the sergeant wouldn't care for music just then.

"Did you hear from Scotland Yard?"

"Yeah. I heard." Gruber said, "I heard plenty, though it's got nothing to do with this murder we're investigating."

"What did they say?"

"Devil Darrell is in prison— his real name is Mark Darrell— he's in Delmoor Prison, in the hospital just now. They don't think he is going to last much longer. He's got T B. He'd have been out in a couple of months; on account of his record they were going to reduce his twenty-year stretch by four years for good behaviour and on account of what he did during the war— the French gave him the Croix de Guerre for bravery. Why a guy like that should go in for bank robbery is beyond me. It was during the war he got the nickname 'Devil.' It seems he was afraid of nothing. Believe me, when those boys from Scotland Yard give you a report they make it complete."

"Twenty years for bank robbery seems a pretty tough sentence."

"The watchman got killed," the sergeant explained succinctly. "It was manslaughter."

I. Marmaduke Drake's eyes were gleaming.

"What did they get away with?" he demanded.

"They?" the sergeant asked. "How did you know there was anybody else in this besides Devil Darrell?" He waited, but Marmaduke Drake only shook his head, so he went on. "They got about a million dollars' worth of gold— bullion— that belonged to the government, and it. was stored in a little bank in the West Country— Kemberley's Bank to be exact, gold that was being held there for transhipment to the Bank of England."

"And it was never recovered?"

"Say, who's telling this?" the sergeant asked indignantly. "There was five of them in this job. Nobody knows who the other four were. Devil Darrell wouldn't talk."

"Four others!" I. Marmaduke Drake murmured to himself. "Blackminster, Seeby, Nairne, and maybe the Indian."

"Stop mumbling," Gruber said testily, "and listen. It's all very interesting, but it doesn't mean a thing, and I've got to get out of here. The way the C.I.D. men over there figured it out was that there were two cars; one of them was hidden in the bushes and one standing in the road.

"The watchman wasn't killed outright. They left him lying there while they cleaned out the vaults. He crawled away and gave the alarm and a couple of constables and what not came on the double quick.

"They didn't know there was five of them, so when they saw four men leap into this car that was on the road they went after that and overlooked the fifth— Devil Darrell— who was hid in the bushes along with the second car that held the loot."

"A decoy— the first car— to draw off pursuit."

"Right. It was a powerful car and it got away. It was only afterwards that they found out from the watchman, just before he died, that there had been five, so they went to work some more. Scotland Yard took a hand.

"And they picked up about everybody that couldn't give a decent account of themselves the night of the robbery and one of the boys they caught in their net was this Devil Darrell, found him In a little town not far from where the Kemberley Bank is, but that's all they found, no gold, and they couldn't get anything out of him. I suppose he buried it some place.

"That's all there is. If you ever had a notion In that thick head of yours." the sergeant concluded in an aggrieved tone, "that Devil Darrell killed Seeby, forget it. He's still in Delmoor."

"But he did escape."

"Yeah— he got away a couple of weeks ago— but they got him back in three days. The guy must 'a been nuts to do a thing like that and lose all his good time off when he only had a couple of more months to go."

"You said he was dying," I. Marmaduke Drake ,said thoughtfully. "Maybe he didn't think he'd live long enough."

"Long enough for what?"

"Long enough to send a message," Marmaduke Drake explained laconically.

"You can always smuggle a message out of a prison."

"Not the kind that he wanted to send. He wanted to be sure that nobody could understand the message except the man for whom it was intended, a code message. And when they locked him up sixteen years ago, it's a pretty sure bet he didn't take the code with him to prison— he would have been searched."

Sergeant Gruber eyed the other darkly.

"You seem to know a lot of things, and the more I listen to you, the more I'm convinced that this John Nairne is mixed up in this. I promised you that I wouldn't pick him up for the time being, but I'm keeping an eye on him just the same. And I'm warning you not to stick your head out too far. If there's a million dollars' worth of gold in this, you might be tempted. There isn't anything much you wouldn't do for money, is there?"

"No, there isn't," said I. Marmaduke Drake unsmilingly.

"What about this lead you were going to give me? Who killed Seeby?"

"Look for an Indian."

"If you're giving me the run around," Sergeant Gruber declared ominously; "if you're kidding—"

"I'm not," said Marmaduke Drake shortly.

He bent down and picked up his guitar, and Sergeant Gruber, who had heard him play before, shuddered and fled.

After Marmaduke Drake had played "Santa Lucia" approximately six times with varied success, Mary Gaylor returned. She had in tow a snub-nosed, dark-eyed, grimy little urchin, who carried slung over his shoulder on a strap a shoe-shine box, and looked up with something akin to adoration at I. Marmaduke Drake.

"Tony." said the latter. "I've got a job for you." He paused while he scribbled down the address of old Duncan Nairne's office. "You go up there and hang around the hall in front of that office, sort of make believe that you're looking for customers. Maybe you'll see a big man go in. a man with a kind of square face and tough eyes, a man who walks very straight like a soldier. If you see him, I want you to follow him when he comes out. I'd like to know where he goes, where he lives."

"Sure, Mr. Drake," Tony said with shining eyes.

"In case you don't see him," I. Marmaduke Drake went on, "there might be somebody else going in; another tall man with a brown face, a face like coffee. He might be wearing a turban."

"What's that?" asked Tony, obviously intrigued.

"It's a kind of hat," said I. Marmaduke Drake, "that they wear in India. You've worked in barber shops, Tony. Sometimes when a barber gives a man a shampoo he winds a hot towel around the customer's head."

"Oh, sure, sure," said Tony with an air of enlightenment.

"All right, scoot, and here's a retainer."

Tony didn't know what a retainer was, but he knew what half a dollar was, and his dirty little hand closed eagerly over the coin that I. Marmaduke Drake held out to him. Then he slipped hastily out of the room.

I. Marmaduke Drake went back to his guitar; he had plenty of time to practise; it wasn't until late in the afternoon that Alice Thorne came.

She took a piece of paper from her purse and passed it to Marmaduke Drake.

"I've just come from Mr. Nairne's Office," she explained. "I showed him this note from my father. There really wasn't any use in doing that, because I think I was supposed to take it to Mr. Duncan Nairne. My father apparently doesn't know that poor Mr. Nairne is dead." She stopped, then went on:

"I don't understand it. It's such a funny, pathetic little note. Why doesn't my father write instead of printing his words? Do you— do you suppose it means something special, that it would have signified something to old Mr. Nairne if he were alive? My father is in the Secret Service, you know— Mr. Thorne told me so— and perhaps he can't communicate with anybody in the ordinary way; it might be dangerous."

I, Marmaduke Drake wasn't looking at the note she had given him, instead he was studying her. There was a wistful charm about her anxiety. Something told him that she was really Devil Darrell's daughter, and that she was in total ignorance of what had happened to her father. But then—"

"You told Mr. Nairne that you were Devil Darrell's daughter," I, Marmaduke Drake said gently. "If that is so, why do you call yourself Alice Thorne— who is Mr. Thorne?"

Her color deepened.

"Until two years ago," she said, "I always thought Mr. Thorne was my father. I was brought up by the Thornes. Mr. Thorne was a great friend of my father's, was in the war with him. It was all explained to me when I was eighteen, just before I left England and came over here.

"You see, my father's work was dangerous, and he had so many enemies that he was afraid that they might harm me if they couldn't get at him, so at my father's request the Thornes brought me up as their child and later, two years ago, my father became more worried, thought someone might discover the secret, so he sent a message to Mr. Thorne and I came here.

"It was then that Mr. Thorne told me about my father and how brave he had been, why everyone called him Devil Darrell because he wasn't afraid of anything, how he would come to me one of these days, and that I must always love him. It must have been hard for Father to be separated from me, you can see that from his note."

Marmaduke Drake could see it all, the simple conspiracy devised by Thorne and Darrell to keep the truth from the girl.

But why had they told her her father's real name? Why hadn't they told her his name was Smith or Jones?

I MARMADUKE DRAKE looked down at the note in his hand. It was, as she had said, crudely printed in pencil. The words were spaced widely apart. Marmaduke Drake knew the reason for that. He read it carefully. On the face of it it was a simple, innocuous message.

Alice, My Daughter,

Take this to Nairne at once so that he'll be convinced that I'm perfectly well. I'm really dying to see you dear and will do everything I can to try and get to you before it's too late; to get you to understand how I've been unable to map out my own destiny; why I yielded to circumstances; you must have wondered before now if in the end I would ever take the trouble to come to you. My dear I care for you more than anything in the world. I think of you constantly and my one thought is your happiness my girl.

Your Father.

From out of his desk I. Marmaduke Drake took the cardboard that John Nairne had left with him. "Excuse me a minute," he said. He went into Mary Gaylor's room, shutting the door behind him. He placed the note down on Mary's desk and the cardboard stencil on top of the note.

Hr had trouble fitting it over the note so that the slots would come in the right places. The paper was larger than the cardboard, but he got it shortly. By lining up the lower right-hand corner of the note with the lower right-hand corner of the cardboard he found the hidden message. He took a pencil and ran it around the edges of the slots, then lifted up the stencil. Probably the first thing that Devil Darrell had done the minute he had escaped was to send this message:

I'm dying. Will try to get map to you before end. Take care of my girl.

All the pathos, all the horror of Devil Darrell's life and the love for his daughter, as well as his final desperate effort to provide for her, were in those sixteen words. Marmaduke Drake could visualise him getting the note off, then travelling to the West Country— where he had hidden the gold— for the purpose of making a map with appropriate landmarks, so that Duncan Nairne couldn't fail to find it.

He must have had the code hidden in one place and the gold in another, or he would have made the map then and there and sent it along with the note. And then came stark tragedy.

Devil Darrell was recaptured, probably for the reason that he went back to the scene of his crime, was recaptured before he could make the map!

I. Marmaduke Drake stood there considering. He couldn't tell the girl about this, it would break her heart. Just how he could keep it from her indefinitely he didn't know. He wanted time to think. He wished now he hadn't marked those words in pencil. She might want the note back.

He could just as well have read it through the slots without marking it. He stood there for a minute longer, conscious of Mary Gaylor's wide, blue eyes resting on him. Then he came to a decision. He stuck the note and the stencil into his pocket and went back into his own room.

"I've taken the liberty," he said to Alice Thorne, "of sending that note on to an expert. It occurred to me that it might contain some hidden meaning and that that was the reason your father wanted you to take it to Mr. Nairne, who could have explained it to you if he had been alive. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, I don't mind," she said. "You're probably right. That would fit in with what Mr. Thorne told me about my father being in the Secret Service, and why the note was printed instead of being written. Will you let me know?"

"Of course." He held out his hand and smiled.

"Do you— did Mr. Nairne tell you about what happened in his office the other day?"

I. Marmaduke Drake nodded.

"I hope," she went on hesitantly, while the color mounted once more to her cheeks, "he won't get into any trouble over that— Mr. Nairne, I mean. I hope he himself isn't in any danger. I've been terribly worried over the whole thing. I got there right after it happened. Mr. Seeby, the man who was killed, was one of the men—"

"Yes, I know. Young Nairne told me all about it," I. Marmaduke Drake said. "As for young Nairne, I'll do my best to see that he doesn't get into any trouble." Marmaduke Drake smiled again. "You and he ought to see something of each other," he added. "I imagine your father and old Duncan Nairne were the best of friends."

TWO DAYS later Major Blackminster strode into Moe Kydid's little shop on Second Avenue. He found the shop itself empty. Cousin Jacob wasn't there. But the door of the back room was open, and here he discovered Moe Kydid ensconced in his enormous armchair beside the coal stove, looking smaller, thinner, and older than usual. He was holding his huge shears in his lap, making snipping sounds as he squinted thoughtfully into space. The major sank down on the sofa.

"I haven't been able to find her," he said abstractedly.

Moe Kydid raised his head and looked at the major.

"Maybe you vouldn't vant to," he declared thinly.

"What you you mean by that?" The major frowned.

Moe Kydid nodded several times in a mechancial fashion.

"Maybe you don't try so hard to find her," he observed.

Blackminster jerked his head up angrily.

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Rather a job, you know, finding a person in a city of this size when you don't know her address."

Moe Kydid leaned forward in his chair.

"Vhat. should you be afraid of?" he asked. "Your friend Devil Darrell, he's in gaol."

"I'm not afraid of anything— or anybody," the major blustered. "Just the same. Devil Darrell got out once and he might get out again, and if we did anything to his daughter and he got out—"

He stopped. There was a certain apprehension in his face.

"Funny," Moe said, "a strong, big man you are, Major, but you're afraid, afraid of a man in gaol, and me, you understand, little Moe Kydid, he's not afraid." His eyes shone yellow-green. He made a playful stabbing motion towards the major with his shears.

Major Blackminster looked with loathing at Moe.

"I don't like the whole business," he protested. "Devil Darrell is one of us. He's a chum of mine. We fought in the war together. What you're planning to do to him, to his daughter, isn't cricket."

"Cricket, it doesn't interest me," Moe Kydid said evenly. "You got funny feelings sometimes. Major. Ben Seeby, he fought in the var vith you. too. but when he dies you should vorry; that doesn't mean anything; but if something it should happen to Devil Darrell's daughter so that ve should get our money, right away you got a conscience. You and your friends, you steal a million dollars, but Vhen little Moe Kydid says maybe you should bring in a little jewellery once in a vhile, you say you're no thief."

The major turned his head away to hide the rage in his eyes.

"That was different," he barked. "That gold didn't belong to anyone in particular. It was the Government's gold, England's gold, and England had let us down. We fought for her In the war, went through hell for her. and what happened when we got home? Did anybody help us? Was there anybody ready to give us a job to pay for the hell we'd gone through? No, we starved; nobody cared!"

"SURE, sure," Moe Kydid said. The venom went out of his eyes, grew veiled. "But I don't understand it vhy you shouldn't like it if something happens to the girl."

"She's Devil Darrell's daughter."

"Ai, ai, vhat fine feelings—"

The sound of the bell from the outer door interrupted Moe Kydid. He rose and shuffled out. Through the half-open door the major could see a uniformed messenger and when Moe Kydid came back he had an envelope in his hand. He inserted his thin finger under the flap, opened it and took out what was obviously a cable. He read it slowly, several times over, it seemed to the major, then, without comment, lifted the stove lid and dropped the message on to the glowing coals.

"What is it?" Blackminster demanded sharply.

"Vhat is it?" Moe Kydid mimicked him fiercely. "How do ve know your friend von't cheat us? He's de only one who knows vhere de gold is. He could take it and instead of vorking with Anselm, my brother, he could vork vid someone else. It's funny de vay he acts—"

"What are you talking about?" The major eyed the other, his eyes dark with suspicion. "Did your brother get a message to Devil Darrell," he asked suddenly, "that his daughter was in trouble, that we were holding her?"

"Sure, sure," Moe Kydid answered impatiently. "He got it to him right after they caught him vhen, like the schlemiel he is, he tried to run away."

The major's eyes snapped.

"That was before you told me," he said, "long before you told me you were going to do that."

"Vell, do I have to tell you everything?"

The major's nerves were frayed to the breaking point. Everything had gone wrong during the last few weeks. First old Duncan Nairne had died, his only means of communicating with Devil Darrell, and the code was gone; then Seeby had tried to betray them; then Darrell had tried to escape and had been recaptured, thus lengthening the period of his incarceration by years; and now— and somehow this seemed the most serious calamity of allMoe Kydld had suddenly taken over the entire affair.

Blackminster had a feeling that he had been pushed aside, was no longer in control of the situation, that it wasn't a question of his and Devil Darrell's dividing the loot and paying Moe and his brother Anselm a reasonable commission for their services, but that he would be lucky in the end if he and Devil Darrell got anything at all.

"Vell?" Moe Kydid broke in on his thoughts.

"Well what?" the major snarled. "If you mean what about finding the girl, why don't you find her yourself if you're so smart?"

"Like all soldiers, a simple mind you got, Major," Moe Kydid said. "Look at it this vay. Vhat's to hinder Devil Darrell from taking the gold and finding somebody like Anselm who vould give him cash for it or some good securities maybe and sending them on to his daughter? Nobody could take it away from her, you understand. There vouldn't be no evidence that it was from the gold. And then vhere vould ve be? You got to figure on those things, Major. Don't it look funny to you that he should try to run avay vhen he's only got to vait a couple of months?"

"And supposing he does?" the major asked. "Even supposing that now when he can't get out he discloses the hiding-place to somebody else whom he can trust and makes a deal with whoever it is to whack up with his girl, what good will it do us to hold the girl? Even if we made her turn the money over to us, she'd get after us the minute we'd let her go."

"Ai, ai," Moe Kydid shook his head; then unexpectedly asked, "Vhat happened to that man of yours? Vhere is he?"

"Never mind Pundahb," the major said; "just answer my question."

"You're a funny fellow," Moe Kydid said musingly. "Vhat's the difference If it's a girl or a man? She could make a vill, couldn't she, or something, leaving all that good money to us, or maybe Devil Darrell vould give the money to us, you understand, if he knew something vas going to happen to her, like I told you already."

The major gave an unpleasant laugh.

"You're not as bright as you think you are. Moe. She could always make another will afterwards, invalidating the first."

"Sure, sure," Moe Kydid said complacently, "if she had time." He ran a thumb gently along a blade of his shears.

The major lost some of his color. "We've got to find her first," he mumbled after a long time.

"Jacob is out looking for her now," Moe said. "I think maybe Jacob vill find her."

I. MARMADUKE DRAKE, in his leisurely way, drifted into John Nairne's office. There was nothing about him to indicate the savage irritation he felt. Days had gone by and nothing had happened, confining him to an inactivity which he couldn't stand.

He had enlisted the services of his "staff"— "Butch" Tanner, Mr. Agousta, Mrs. Lannigen, and various other characters whom he occasionally subsidised with small sums and had instructed them all to be on the look-out for a man in a turban, and they in turn had passed the word on to all their friends and relatives.

On the whole, it made quite a sizable army, distributed over every quarter of the city, that was looking for the Indian. Yet no one had located lum. Nor had Tony, the bootblack, who was or. guard in the hall that led co Nairne's office, and who stared at John Nairne without a sign of recognition as the latter passed him on his way In, had anything to report. The whole thing aggravated I. Marmaduke Drake almost beyond endurance.

"Anything turn up?" he asked John Nairne. .

John Nairne shook his head.

"Nothing," he said morosely, "nothing special that is. Somebody came in this morning looking for Alice Thorne or rather Alice Darrell."

"Who was it?" Marmaduke Drake asked quickly.

"I don't know. I didn't ask his name. He represented some solicitor in London. He didn't say much, except that he had some information for her that would interest her, so I gave him her address."

I. Marmaduke Drake glared with exasperation.

"I keep you sitting here day after day just so that you'd let me know the minute something like that happened and a man comes in— to you of all people— to find Alice Thorne. Didn't that make you suspicious right away? Why should a stranger wander in here looking for her? How did he know you knew her? And all you do is just hand out her address. You don't even try to find out his name; you don't try to have him followed I told you Tony was hanging around out there in the hall. Why in heaven's name should anyone come to you looking for her?"

John Nairne flushed.

"He explained all that." he said a little stiffly. "According to the information they had in London my father was a friend of her father's, and in trying to trace her they thought there was a chance that he would know where she was. I don't see anything suspicious about it. Besides, we can probably find out from Miss Thorne easily enough who my visitor was and what he wanted."

I Marmaduke Drake restrained himself with difficulty.

"That brings me to one of the reasons I came here," he said a little uncomfortably. "I want you to go and see Alice Thorne. There's something that I think she ought to know, something that's not very pleasant for her to find out; something I think that perhaps she'd rather hear from you than from anyone else."

"What is it?"

"You're not going to like it very much yourself," I. Marmaduke Drake said, "but before you pass judgment on your father and the others, consider the circumstances. They had just got back from the war. Lots of men who came back weren't quite themselves, did things they wouldn't have done if they'd been... well, if they'd been quite normal."

John Nairne, every muscle in his body taut, his eyes far back in his head, said: "Go ahead, tell me."

"Some sixteen years ago five men stole a million dollars in bullion. One of them, Devil Darrell, got caught and is in prison. Before they got him he had a chance to hide the gold. It's never been found and it won't be found till Devil Darrell chooses to disclose its hiding-place."

"Who ' were the others?" John Nairne rasped.

"Seeby, a Major Blackminster, an Indian..."

John Nairne, his face grey and drawn, finished the sentence for him.

"My father."

I. Marmaduke Drake nodded.

John Nairne looked with vacant eyes into space.

"The girl," he said after a long time, "she doesn't know about this. You can take my word for it. She's just as innocent in this as I am. She thinks her father is in the Secret Service."

"You like her, don't you?" I. Marmaduke Drake said. "And I'm pretty sure she likes you, and it's going to make it easier for you to tell her than for me."

"Why does she have to know? He's going to get out some time and she may never have to know." He broke off abruptly. His eyes lit up. "I've got it," he said. "He sent her a message through my father not long ago— 'Three months more.' That's what he must have meant, that he'd be out in three months."

"That's when he would have been out," I. Marmaduke Drake said, "if he hadn't tried to escape. They caught him again and it'll be years more now. What's more she's never going to see him. Devil Darrell is dying."

John Nairne rose.

"You think I'm a fool, Drake. I know it, and you'll think me more of a one when I tell you this. I'm in love with Alice Thorne. That doesn't make sense, does it, to be in love with a girl you've seen twice, each time for only a few moments? I'm in love with her and I can't tell her the thing you're asking me to. It would break her heart."

"She's got to know," I. Marmaduke Drake said sternly. "Don't forget her father is dying. She may want to go and see him before the end. We haven't any right to withhold that from her."

"How do you know he's dying?" "Because it was in that note that she brought down to you. The note contained a secret message. Here—" He took Devil Darrell's message from his pocket and placed it on the desk. With his long forefinger he pointed at the words that were outlined in pencil. "That's where the slots were in the card-board you gave me. That's the message.

"We owe it to Devil Darrell, too. Devil Darrell was quite a man, Nairne. He and your father were friends. Your father was the only one he trusted; that's why he was the only one who had the code. And Devil Darrell loves his girl, and we've got to give him his chance to see her before he dies, even though he may not want us to."

John Nairne made his mouth into a thin line. For many seconds they faced each other in tense silence, till at last John Nairne said: .

"All right, you win."

"Good man," said Marmaduke Drake. He added:

"Take her out to dinner— or something. Here's some money."

ALICE THORNE, toying with the stem of her cocktail glass, looked with warm, friendly eyes at John Nairne.

"It was nice of you to do this," she said. "I haven't many friends, even though I've been here two years; no men friends at all— that I like. I really hate eating alone."

John Nairne tried to smile and found it difficult.

"You're not eating," she said: "it's good. I don't know when I've enjoyed a meal so much. Maybe it's— it's the company."

"I'm not very gay," he said miserably, "but I won't be like this all the time. There's something on my mind. The next time we go out together I'll be different. You'll understand."

"Is there going to be a next time?" she asked gaily, trying to lift him.

"I hope so."

She put down her fork and looked at him with troubled eyes.

"What is it?" she asked a little breathlessly. "You're in some difficulty. Tell me. You must tell me. You'll feel better if you tell somebody else, even if it's somebody like me, who can't help much. But I'll try."

John Nairne looked about the room. There weren't many guests and none were near them. He reached his hand across the table, palm upwards, and unhesitatingly she placed hers in his.

"There's something I have to tell you, Alice," he said, "but before I tell you, there's something else I want you to know. This is only the third time I've seen you and yet I feel as if I've known you a long time, as though we had always been destined to know each other. I think you're the loveliest person I've ever met.

"All I want to do is to shield you, to protect you, keep anything unpleasant or that would hurt away from you, and I can't"— his voice broke— "and I can't do it." His grip on her hand tightened, as though he were afraid she might take hers away. "But I love you, love you more than anything in the world. You believe that, don't you? You must believe it."

"Yes, I believe it, John." Her voice was level. "What else is there you want to tell me?"

John Nairne felt his throat go dry. "I don't want to tell you," he managed at last, "but I have to, and yet... I can't..."

A startled, frightened look came into her eyes.

"Is it— is it something about you— about me?"

He shook his head.

"Is it about my father? Has something happened to him?"

He let go her hand and gripped the edge of the table. The knuckles showed white; his face was grey.

"Tell me," she breathed; "tell me." Her tone was tense but insistent.

"It's about your father," he whispered, not recognising his own voice, "and about mme. I've thought about it a lot, Alice, and I don't blame my father and you mustn't blame yours. Remember they were in the war together. They went through hell. Your father's war record was all that they said it was. He was wonderful. But when it was over their sense of values was destroyed."

He stopped. She was staring at him wide-eyed. A small hand was across her lips, as though to choke oft a cry. He felt he couldn't go on, he couldn't— but he did. An inspiration had come to him. He'd lie, he'd lie himself blue in the face, even though she'd despise him for the rest of her days.

"It was all my father's fault," he said, "my father's and Seeby's and a couple of others. It was their idea. They planned to rob a bank of a million dollars' worth of gold. They were out of jobs, desperate and bitter towards the country for which they had fought, for which they had suffered, a country that was ready to forget them the instant the war was over. There were four of them and they asked your father to make a fifth. He wouldn't do it; he tried to keep them from doing it, but they were determined.

"He asked them how they were going to proceed, and when they told him he realised instantly that they couldn't succeed, that there wasn't one of them had the brains or the daring to carry it out, that what they needed was somebody like himself.... He joined them, Alice, not out of greed, not because he wanted the gold, but just out of loyalty to his old comrades in arms.

"It's really wonderful when you come to think of it, Alice," John Nairne rushed on, "nobody could blame him for choosing to stand by the men who had fought with him. That meant more to him than the laws of a society that could unfeelingly put men through such a hell as they had been through. You've got to admire loyàlty like that, Alice. You've got to— well, you've got to take your hat off to a man like Devil Darrell," he blundered on.

Alice Thome's face was white. Two tears trickled down her cheeks. In a ghostlike whisper she said:

"I love my father. I love him the way he was in the war. What happened to him?"

John Nairne swallowed hard. He ran a hand across his damp forehead. He couldn't stand much more of this. He'd tell her the whole awful business at one fell swoop and get it over with. He couldn't soften the blow any more than he had. In a tone that was scarcely audible, he saiad:

"That's the horrible part of it, the ironic injustice of it all. Your father, who only went into this thing for the sake of the others, to help his friends, was the only one who was caught; he was sent to prison, while the others got away." He heard her moan, but he steeled himself to go on. "He's a sick man, Alice, he's dying, that's why I had to tell you. You've got to go to him before it's too late. He loves you. It was in that note he sent you, the note he thought would reach my father. There was a message concealed in that. Drake discovered it. It reads: 'I'm dying. Take care of my girl.' "

Deliberately, John Nairne concealed the part about the map.

"You see, he's thinking about you right up to the end and he knew that he could trust my father to look out for you, just as he trusted Thorne to help him cover up the real facts. He hopes you'll never find out and maybe I shouldn't have told you, but somehow or other it didn't seem right. I can't tell you how hard it is for me; anyway, it doesn't matter about me, it's only you."

Alice Thorne dropped her head on to the table and buried it in her arms. She was crying softly.

Minutes went by before she raised her head and looked at John Nairne through tear-dimmed eyes. In a voice that was wonderfully steady, considering what she had just been through, she said:

"Thank you."

"Why thank me?" John Nairne said in a strained voice.

"Thank you for telling me, for being so considerate, and thank you most of all for lying. You're not a very good liar, John Nairne, and it must have cost you a lot to put all the blame on your father and exonerate mine; only you see, I can guess how it was, how they were all in it equally. Somehow, too. you've made me see how it could have happened. You've been very kind..."

"It's just— it's just, that I love you."

It sounded totally inadequate, terribly clumsy to him as he said it, but not so to her. A wan little smile came to her lips.

"I know," she said, "I know... and it's the only thing that makes it bearable."

She rose.

John Nairne flung a few notes on the table, more than enough to cover the bill, picked up his hat and coat from the bench beside him and led her outside.

The night was misty. Wet snowflakes were falling softly.

John Nairne signalled to a cruising cab.

"I'll see you home," he said.

Tliey rode for blocks and she never spoke and neither did John Nairne. But when they were almost at her house she reached out her hand groping for him and found both of John Nairne's hands waiting for her.

The cab slid to a stop. John Nairne helped her out. A man was standing in front of her house; his collar was turned up, his derby was pushed down to his ears. As they started up the stoop, the man said:

"COULD you tell me, please, if Miss Darrell lives here?"

John Nairne had a sudden feeling of alertness, a premonition of something he couldn't explain to himself; also he thought that the voice sounded familiar. He started to say something, but before he could get it out Alice broke in.

"I am Miss Darrell. What did you want to see me about?"

"Me, I don't vant to see you," the man said. "There's somebody else, somebody your father sent, who vants to talk to you. I've got a cab vaiting. I can take you to him."

And now John Nairne knew who the stranger was. It was the man who had come to his office to get Alice Thorne's address.

"If somebody has a message for Miss Darrell," John Nairne said, "why can't he come here?"

Moe Kydid's cousin Jacob was a man of few words, but they were always to the point.

"Because he's sick he couldn't come here," he said promptly. "He's got to see Miss Darrell right way, othervise  you understand, it might be too late."

Alice Thorne hesitated only a second.

"Where is your cab?" she said excitedly.

"Just a minute," John Nairne said. "Who is this man?"

"I don't know," Cousin Jacob said, "but you remember me, Mr. Nairne, don't you? I vas to your office looking for Miss Darrell."

"Yes, I remember you. And perhaps we'd better postpone this visit to your friend till morning. It's pretty late to-night."

"Vell, it's up to you: only maybe then it's too late. I don't know vhy you should vorry, it's only a poor little man who shouldn't hurt nobody in a little tailor shop on Second Avenue."

"I've got to go," Alice said. "If he's got a message from my father—"

"All right," John Nairne said, "but I'm going, too."

Cousin Jacob brushed some snow-flakes from the lapels of his coat.

"Vhy not?" he said.

AT THAT late hour I. Marmaduke Drake still sat in John Nairne's office. There was a worried expression on his face. He was wondering whether what he had in mind could possibly be accomplished or do any good. Presently, he heard the outer door thrown open with more than ordinary violence, then the door of the room in which he sat, and Sergeant Gruber came in.

"What's the idea of getting me down here at this hour?" the sergeant growled.

"I thought we'd better do it from here than from headquarters," I. Marmaduke Drake said lazily.

"Do what?"

"Do something that I suppose has never been done before, call up a prison in England and ask to talk to one of the inmates. I want to talk, or rather I want you to talk, to the warden of Delmoor Prison and persuade him to let me speak to Devil Darrell."

Sergeant Gruber stared at him open-mouthed.

"Are you nuts?" he bellowed.

"I've got to talk to him," I. Marmaduke Drake persisted unperturbed. "That's why I got you here. You can tell the warden that it's official, that you're from head-quarters and that it's important; tell him there might be a chance of recovering the gold that was stolen, tell him anything, only fix it so that I can talk with Devil Darrell."

"Where do you think that's gonna get you? What is this, anyhow? I don't give a hoot about Devil Darrell. I'm only interested in finding the guy who killed Seeby."

"That'll come later," Marmaduke Drake said. He pushed the phone towards the sergeant. "Just now I'm interested in seeing that nothing happens to young Nairne or perhaps to Devi] Darrell's daughter, and my guess is that neither one of them is safe until it's definitely established that the gold has been returned."

Sergeant Graber stared at the other as though he considered him slightly demented.

"If I play along long enough with you," he growled, "I'll find myself back pounding a beat in Canarsie."

"Call him up," said I. Marmaduke Drake. "It's going to help you. If anything goes wrong, I'll take all the blame at headquarters. I'll say it was I who called and used your name."

Sergeant Graber growled something unintelligible. He hesitated for a time, then he picked up the receiver and put in the call.

"While we're waiting," he said, "here's a bit of news for you, a bit of news that'll put an end to one of your pipe dreams anyway. We found the Indian."

I. Marmaduke Drake straightened up in his chair. His right eyelid came down as though with a bang. He hastily fished out his monocle and propped it up into place.

"You have?"

"Yeah, we have," Gruber said caustically, "found him in the East River. Down at the morgue they say he's been dead for more than two weeks, long before Seeby was killed. Laugh that one off."

For once I. Marmaduke Drake had no adequate reply.

"Gruber," he said finally, with an unaccustomed note of humbleness in his voice, "this thing is driving me crazy. For once I don't know what I'm doing. I could have bet a million dollars that it was the Indian

The telephone rang sharply.

Sergeant Gruber snatched up the receiver. There was a half-minute delay while the operator told him that England was ready, then the sergeant found himself connected with the warden.

In a tone that was a mixture of pomposity and apology, the sergeant explained who he was and why he was calling. One of his men, he said, wanted to talk to a prisoner named Mark Darrell— Devil Darrell; it was of vital importance, not only in connection with a murder that had been committed in the United States, but might also result in the recovery of the bullion stolen from Kemberley's Bank more than sixteen years ago.

He hoped the warden would forgive him for calling at this unearthly hour, but every minute was of vital importance. Then he stopped talking and listened. He listened for a long time, so long in fact that I. Marmaduke Drake was under the impression that they were sending for Devil Darrell at the other end and that that accounted for the sergeant's lengthy silence.

He was totally unprepared for what happened next. Sergeant

Gruber said:

"Thank you very much, Warden. Sorry to have bothered you. Any time you want anything from us, don't hesitate," and then the sergeant hung up.

"What did you hang up forwouldn't he put Darrell on?" I. Marmaduke Drake said in an aggrieved tone.

"Any time you got any other bright idea," Gruber said disgustedly, "let me know. No, he wouldn't let me talk to Devil Darrell."

"Those confounded Englishmen— " Marmaduke Drake began.

"The reason he wouldn't let you or me or anyone else talk to Devil Darrell," the sergeant interrupted, "is that Devil Darrell isn't there. Devil Darrell escaped the day after they recaptured him."

MARMADUKE DRAKE'S monocle popped out of his eye, but he managed to catch it.

"That's more than two weeks ago."

"Yes. so what?" Graber said sarcastically. "They've been keeping it quiet, so quiet that not even Scotland Yard tipped me off when they gave me that report. They figured they might pick up Devil Darrell's trail and that he might lead them to the other four guys who were in the robbery."

"But if he's been out more than two weeks, why haven't we heard from him? Why—"

"What did you expect him to do— drop you a line?"

"Not me," said I. Marmaduke Drake, in a bewildered way, "but—but—somebody."

"You're wonderful," said the sergeant, his face a picture of disgust. "I'm sick of playing marbles with you. To-morrow I'm going to take your young friend, Mr. John Nairne, down to headquarters. With a few boys working over him I guess we'll sweat the truth out of him."

With that the sergeant clamped his hat down on his head and strode out of the room.

For minutes I. Marmaduke Drake sat there lost in thought, a reverie from which he was roused by the telephone ringing once more. He picked up the receiver in a listless way and heard Mary Gaylor's voice on the other end.

"I thought I'd tell you," she said, "that Tony was in here to report that he didn't find your man with the turban, but he followed somebody else. I guess he wanted to earn another half dollar. He followed some man who had called on Mr. Nairne to a tailor shop on Second Avenue."

Mary Gaylor spoke quickly, anxiously. She was perfectly certain that what she had to say wasn't of the slightest importance. Her real reason for calling was to make sure that nothing had happened to I. Marmaduke Drake. He was never on a case when she wasn't convinced that it would be his last and that he would come to an untimely end.

On the back of an envelope I. Marmaduke Drake mechanically scribbled the address of the tailor shop which she gave him. In response to her, "Are you all right?" he said with unintentional gruffness: "Why wouldn't I be all right? It's nonsense for you to be hanging around the office at this hour of the night. Go on home." Then he hung up.

FOR THREE DAYS I. Marmaduke Drake alternated between a dismal depression and unbridled rage. John Nairne had disappeared, and Alice Thorne, to whose house Marmaduke Drake had gone in the hope that she might be able to give him some information concerning Nairne, had also apparently vanished from the face of the earth.

To add to his difficulties, Sergeant Gruber was literally frothing at the mouth. The sergeant insisted that Marmaduke Drake had spirited John Nairne away to keep him out of the law's clutches and in vain Marmaduke Drake protested. The sergeant wouldn't believe him, threatened to arrest him for obstructing justice and all sorts of dire consequences.

From morning to night Marmaduke Drake wrung gloomy notes from his guitar without getting an inspiration. His incessant playing almost drove his secretary, Mary Gaylor, to distraction, and she was grateful for the hour or two each day that he spent at John Nairne's office in the vain hope that something might turn up there. What irritated him most of all was the fact that he appeared unable to concentrate properly on the problem.

Whenever he tried to think it out, tried to find some thread which he could follow and which would lead him somewhere, Devil Darrell kept crowding into his mind, occupying it to the exclusion of all else. Devil Darrell had been at large for more than two weeks and yet no word had come from him. He hadn't sent that map he had promised to send, he hadn't written his daughter or old Duncan Nairne.

I. Marmaduke Drake looked at his watch. It was half-past four. He rapped on the radiator with the screw-driver, and Mary Gaylor came in.

"I'm going home," he said; "you might as well go, too."

"Tony's coming back," she said. "He was in this afternoon while you were at Mr. Nairne's office. I suppose he thinks you'll pay him something for trailing that man to the tailor shop."

"Tailor shop? What tailor shop?" Then suddenly comprehension dawned on Marmaduke Drake's face.

What an idiot he had been to have forgotten that! Tony had trailed the man who had gone to John Nairne's office to get Alice Thorne's address. There must be something in that. He fumbled in his pocket for the envelope on which he had written the address.

There it was, Moe Kydid, and the address was on Second Avenue,

Just below Forty-second Street.

I. Marmaduke Drake seized his hat and coat.

"When Tony comes," he said, "keep him here for a while. I'm going up to that tailor shop now and I might want to send for Tony to pick out the man he tailed."

With that he rushed out.

He thought, of taking a taxi-cab, but decided that the subway was quicker.

He got out at Forty-second Street and made his way, long strides, over to Second Avenue, followed by the indignant glances of the pedestrians whom he jostled in a heedless way. Across the street from Moe Kydid's tailor shop he came to a halt. Darkness was beginning to set in. There were no lights in the little building that housed Moe Kydid's shop, save one on the ground floor, where the shop was located.

Marmaduke Drake stood there watching. He saw no one go in or come out, no sign of activity of any sort. Perhaps it was this that made him feel that there was some sinister quality about that little house. He waited another few minutes, then walked across. He seized the door-knob, opened it, heard it strike and set tinkling the bell overhead.

There were two men in the dimly-lighted shop, one a small, hollowchested little man with a yellow, wrinkled face, who seemed very old, and a second individual, younger, and of heavier build.

Marmaduke Drake turned to the smaller and older of the two, who was sitting on a small stool with his spindly legs pulled up and his heels poked to the rung of his chair, working on a pair of trousers.

"I'm looking for Moe Kydid," Marmaduke Drake said.

The little man glanced at him with half-closed, unreadable eyes.

"Moe Kydid is me," he said.

"I've got a message," said Marmaduke Drake, "for Mark Darrell's daughter."

Moe Kydid's face remained inscrutable, save for an inquiring look he directed at Cousin Jacob, who was busy ironing the sleeve of a much-worn overcoat. Cousin Jacob shook his head without looking up.

"Ve don't know anybody like that," Moe Kydid said. "Maybe you come to the wrong place, mister. Maybe she lives next door."

"MAYBE you know a Mr. Nairne?" I. Marmaduke Drake asked stolidly.

Moe Kydid looked at Cousin Jacob. Cousin Jacob shook his head.

"No, ve don't know no Mr. Nairne."

"How about Ben Seeby?"

For the third time, as though it were a ritual, Moe Kydid looked at Cousin Jacob and Jacob again shook his head.

I. Marmaduke Drake frowned. He was up against a stone wall. Perhaps Tony had made a mistake and the man he followed wasn't one of these two at all. They might really be as ignorant as they appeared. They certainly looked like a harmless pair.

He was on the point of saying something to the effect that he was sorry he had bothered them and taking his departure, when the door that led into the back room opened and a man came into the shop, a man whom I. Marmaduke Drake recognised instantly as the man who had come to him in Nairne's office, the man who had given his name as Ned Brown.

Apparently, Ned Brown wasn't immediately aware of the fact that there was a stranger in the shop; perhaps the fact that he was angry, fiercely sullen, made him burst out before he realised it.

"I can't do a thing with her—" He stopped as he caught sight of Marmaduke Drake.

I. Marmaduke Drake's mouth hardened. His eyes grew bleak.

"An old friend," he said softly,

"Mr. Ned Brown."

Major Blackminster scowled at him. Recognition was mutual.

"What are you doing here?" he rasped.

"Nothing," said I. Marmaduke Drake, "nothing just yet— but I'm thinking of having a look round."

Cousin Jacob brought his iron down sharply on the overcoat and ran it to and fro with unwonted energy, but he said nothing. Moe Kydid made a little hissing sound between his lips, but he kept his squinty eyes on the frayed trousers he was attempting to mend. There was a baffled expression on the major's face for a second, then the scowl came back.

"Get out," he bellowed, "and stay out."

I. Marmaduke Drake looked about for a chair, but there wasn't any, so he leaned against the door frame. His eye took in Ned Brown's build, his straight military bearing, considered his manner of speech, the speech of a man accustomed to giving orders, and had a sudden inspiration.

"They found the Indian, Major— the police found him in the river."

For a fraction of a second the major's schooled self-control deserted him. His eyes flickered. He let out an oath, then he recovered himself.

"I REMEMBER now," he barked, "you're the chap that talks in riddles."

"Yes," said I. Marmaduke Drake carelessly, "and I've come looking for answers."

Cousin Jacob turned the coat on his board and brought his iron down heavily on the second sleeve. Moe Kydid with his head bent to his work kept shaking it from side to side. He picked up the long shears that lay on the table next to him, cut the thread with which he had been sewing, then rose. Without a word he shuffled over to where I. Marmaduke Drake stood and his hand reached toward the door.

At first I. Marmaduke Drake thought that the little man wanted to open the door and ask him to go, but then he realised that his intentions were the very opposite. He was reaching for the key, planning to turn it.

It flashed through I. Marmaduke Drake's mind that in a physical encounter he was a match for the three of them. He could slap Moe Kydid down before the latter was aware of what was happening to him and he wouldn't have much trouble with his partner; the only formidable one of the trio was Ned Brown, whom Marmaduke Drake felt confident was Major Blackminster, but the major, despite his vigorous physique, was no longer young and Marmaduke Drake felt confident that he could handle him along with the others. He would rather have enjoyed being locked up with this trio, save for one tiling, they might be armed.

Moe Kydid's left hand closed on the key unhurriedly.

Marmaduke Drake let out a low laugh. It really amused him as he thought of what this puny little individual was attempting to do. His right hand shot out and closed about Moe Kydid's thin wrist with the thumb pressing down hard. He was looking into Moe Kydid's slitted eyes, a taunting look in his own.

He should have watched Moe Kydid more carefully, should have realised he was dealing with someone whose eyes would never betray him. He should have watched Moe Kydid's right hand, the one that held the shears. The blades were spread, they were flanking Marmaduke Drake's outstretched wrist.

Mere chance saved I. Marmaduke Drake. He glanced down at Moe Kydid's hand, to see if he had loosened his hold on the key, and so saw the shears, saw them just as the blades were about to snap.

Marmaduke Drake acted more by instinct than by reason. If he had let go of Moe Kydid's hand and attempted to draw back his own hand, those long, heavy blades would unquestionably have severed his fingers. Instead of drawing back he pushed his hand forward. The blades closed on his thick forearm protected by the sleeve of his coat. They made gashes in the cloth without penetrating to the flesh. I. Marmaduke Drake's left hand covered Moe Kydid's face with spread fingers. He gave the little man a savage shove that sent him spinning, reeling crazily, the shears clattering to the floor at Marmaduke Drake's feet.

Cousin Jacob came round from behind his ironing-board. He came on unhurriedly, stolidly, as though bent on performing an everyday task, the heavy iron in his hand.

Major Blackminster advanced a few steps. There was an ugly, blueblack automatic in his hand.

I. Marmaduke Drake, every muscle in his body taut, braced himself to leap. He'd have to chance at least one shot from the gun.

Moe Kydid had stopped reeling. He was standing there taking in the scene with half-closed eyes.

"Vait," Moe Kydid said.

Cousin Jacob stopped in his tracks. The major frowned and looked at Moe Kydid.

"Maybe the gentleman vould like to come in the back room," Moe Kydid said, "vhere ve could talk things over better?"

I. Marmaduke Drake laughed— not a pleasant laugh. Little Moe Kydid was the brains of the outfit. He didn't want any rumpus, any shooting, in his store. It might bring on the neighbors or a passing policeman. He wanted Marmaduke Drake to come into the back room where he could be taken care of leisurely, without undue ruction.

MARMADUKE DRAKE had a notion that if he opened the door and walked out nothing would happen to him, that Moe Kydid wouldn't let the major shoot, but Marmaduke Drake couldn't leave. He hadn't forgotten the major's first words when he had come in: "I can't do a thing with her—" He couldn't leave without finding out to whom those words referred. Was it Alice Thorne?

"Maybe everything can be straightened out, you understand," Moe Kydid said in a tone that was full of promise.

"We'll straighten it out right here." said I. Marmaduke Drake tersely. He stooped down and picked up Moe Kydid's shears. He glanced briefly at the blades, then his eyes narrowed. The blades were stained with some reddish-brown substance that had dried and came off easily. I. Marmaduke Drake, his face more grim, turned to Moe Kydid. "Blood?" he asked.

"Ai, ai, vhy should it be blood?" I. Marmaduke Drake's hand went for the door-knob.

The major's pistol came up, pointing at the third button of Marmaduke Drake's vest.

"Don't think I won't shoot," the major said. "Nothing's going to happen to us if we kill you. You broke into this place, and we've got a right to shoot you. Take your hand away from that knob."

I. Marmaduke Drake's hand dropped.

"Put down that iron, Jake," the major went on, "and tie him up."

Obediently Cousin Jacob put down the iron and fetched somp strips of cloth; he advanced on Marmaduke Drake.

With hands outstretched the latter went to meet him. They ought to have known him better than that, that he wouldn't be so docile. Before the major realised what had happened, I. Marmaduke Drake had manoeuvred himself around so that Jacob was between him and the major.

"Get out of the way, you fool," the major roared, even as I. Marmaduke Drake lashed out with a fist that landed flush on Cousin Jacob's chin.

The latter toppled backwards, would have bumped into the major if the major hadn't leapt to one side, but that instant's distraction gave Marmaduke Drake his chance. He leapt over the fallen Jacob and his huge hand had the major's wrist and was forcing it upwards, so that the gun was pointing towards the ceiling before the major could brace himself to take aim and fire.

The major lashed out with his free hand. Marmaduke Drake ducked the blow, gave the major's wrist a savage twist, and the gunslipped to the floor.

A growl of exultation came from deep down in Marmaduke Drake's throat. He was going to do a little cleaning up here now, and he'd start with the major. His fist went back, the blow started, but never landed. Moe Kydid had come up from behind. He had swung Cousin Jacob's iron. Had Moe Kydid been taller and stronger he would have killed Marmaduke Drake then and there.

As it was. the iron was too heavy for him, and he miscalculated his reach. The iron travelled in a semi-circle upwards. It struck Marmaduke Drake on the shoulder instead of on the back of the head as it was intended to. A sharp pain shot from his shoulder to his finger-tips. He staggered, his right arm useless at his side.

The major sprang for his gun and faced I. Marmaduke Drake, his face distorted, malign, his mouth twisted into an ugly line. There was for a second a horrible stillness in that dingy shop. Then it was broken in a startling way... the bell that hung over the door tinkled!

The door opened slowly. An extraordinarily tall man stood there with a head like a skeleton's, blue-grey skin drawn taut over gaunt cheek-bones.

Instinctively, of one accord, they faced him, while his dark, burning eyes travelled from one to the other.

There was something weird about him; something unearthly, something unhuman about his movements, as though they were directed by a force beyond himself. And now he turned his back on them; very carefully he closed the door, locked it, and slipped the key into his pocket; and then faced them again, fixing his great smouldering eyes on the major. He advanced a few steps, and in a queer, hollow voice he said:

"Don't you remember me, Blackie?"

Major Blackminster sucked in his breath. His eyes dilated as he stared at the newcomer.

"Devil Darrell!"

"Yes, Blackie. Where is my girl?" His words came slowly in a labored way.

Before Blackminster could answer, a flt of coughing seized Devil Darrell, a spasm that racked his tall, sparse frame from head to foot.

He looked around, his burning eyes moving in a dazed way. They rested only briefly on Moe Kydid, standing there taking it all in, motionless, they passed over Cousin Jacob struggling to his feet and came to rest on Marmaduke Drake.

"You Marmaduke Drake?"

I. Marmaduke Drake nodded.

"I got your message," Devil Darrell said, and turned back to Major Blackminster.

"Where's my girl?"

Major Blackminster avoided his glance.

"I— I don't know, but I'll find her for you. You can count on me. You know that."

"Where is she? Take me to her." Devil Darrell's voice came like the voice of a man speaking out of a deep cavern, yet there was something shattering about it, the tone of a man who would not be denied.

The major remained silent. He was looking at Moe Kydid. The latter was walking to and fro, his hands clasped behind his back, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind as he considered the intricacy of the situation that confronted him. He had considered every possibility for months, had thought of everything, but not this.

And the matter was further complicated by the presence of this huge, loose-jointed individual to whom Devil Darrell had referred as Marmaduke Drake. What was he doing in this, anyway? It was impossible to discuss the matter in front of him, but it was equally impossible to let him go. He'd have the police here in no time. And yet what could they do with him?

Instinct told Moe Kydid that Devil Darrell wouldn't stand for a cold-blooded murder, and certainly nothing must be done to offend Devil Darrell, a man who held the key to a million dollars. Moe Kydid came to a halt in front of Devil Darrell. With characteristic promptitude he had come to a decision.

"You shouldn't vorry about your daughter, Mr. Darrell." he said ingratiatingly. "I'll see that she should be all right. Maybe vhile you vas in prison you heard about by brother Anselm. Ve got influence, ve can fix everything. The major here he can tell it to you. Also he can tell you that ve have been taking care of him, vaiting for you to come out. It's a difficult business, but a nice profit there vill be in it for all. of us."

One of his slitted eyes closed entirely and he motioned slightly with his head towards Marmaduke Drake, trying to make clear the reason for his ambiguous speech.

"He's referring to that million dollars' worth of bullion," I. Marmaduke Drake said dryly.

DEVIL DARRELL, who had listened to Moe Kydid as though he hadn't heard a single word, paid no attention to Marmaduke Drake's comment. He turned back to the major, and with devastating insistence said again:

"Where's Alice? I want to see my girl."

"What makes you think I know where she is?" Blackminster said, with angry petulance. Far less agile-minded than Moe Kydid, he saw no way of coping with the situation.

"Word got to me at Delmoor right after they brought me back," he paused for breath, then struggled on, "that she had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom, that you had to know where the gold was to find money for her release. We don't hear much in prison, but we hear enough to know that kidnappings are frequent here in the United States.

"I wasn't surprised at the kidnapping, but I was surprised that anybody should take Alice. They don't kidnap people who haven't any money... or whose relatives haven't any money... nobody knew there was any money in her case... except Duncan Nairne and Seeby and the Indian... and you."

Devil Darrell paused again. It seemed as though each sentence sapped him of his strength.

Moe Kydid ran his tongue across his lips. He wasn't looking at Devil Darrell at all. He was watching Marmaduke Drake.

"I could trust Duncan," Devil Darrell went on, "and Ben Seeby wouldn't have the courage; the Indian wouldn't know how to go about it. There was only you, Blackie, and when they sent word to me that you were trying to get her free, I knew... I knew that you were trying to get me to tell you where it was hidden. They couldn't keep me in prison after that. I got out the next day..."

"You shouldn't vorry about it for a minute, Mr. Darrell," Moe Kydid said soothingly.

Devil Darrell watched him walk past over to where Marmaduke Drake stood with no more interest than if he had been a fly.

"Mr. Drake." Moe Kydid said, "me I don't hold grudges. Ve forget that little argument ve had. Maybe ve vas a little hasty. Like everybody, I betcha you could use some nice money, and I'm making you a partner right now. You know there's plenty for everybody. I heard you say it just now. A million dollars. You should get your share, too."

I. Marmaduke Drake said nothing. Something was going to happen and he was waiting.

Moe Kydid turned back to Devil Darrell.

"Now the first thing ve got to do is to get the money. Me and Mr. Darrell ve fix that in no time. He'll tell me and I'll send a cable to Anselm, my brother. A fool he is about some things, but about others he's smart. He gets us the cash right away."

For the first time something that Moe Kydid had said seemed to register with Devil Darrell.

"There isn't going to be any money for any of you... or for me. The gold is going back... back to the bank from which we stole it."

"You can't double-cross me like that," the major protested, with a roar, an insane glitter in his eyes, "not after all these years."

"What years?" Devil Darrell said. "Who paid for that gold with years? I did." And suddenly more strength came to his voice. "I paid for it, and I say it's going back." He seemed taller, more powerful, while his hot eyes burned challengingly into Blackminster's. Then with that deadly insistence he repeated: "And now where's my girl?"

Major Blackminster glowered back at Devil Darrell. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, the light of madness shone in his eyes, and yet there was fear in them, too. He was afraid of Devil Darrell...

"Listen, Devil, I've waited sixteen years. We were all in this together, all ran the same chances, it was just hard luck that you got caught. The others are all dead; there's just you and me. We can live the rest of our lives comfortably— "

"My life is over," Devil Darrell said. "Do I have to ask you again

"Tell me where the gold is and you can have the girl." The major's tone was almost shrill now.

Devil Darrell advanced two steps. The major's gun came out and covered him.

Moe Kydid sat on a stool, brooding, toying with his shears.

I. Marmaduke Drake took half a dozen quick steps and stood by Devil Darrell's side. A wave of sympathy for this big, dying man swept over him. He could visualise what he must have gone through, with what indomitable courage he had escaped a second time the minute he heard that his daughter was in danger.

It gave Marmaduke Drake a queer feeling of exhilaration to help him fight his battle. He spoke up sharply now.

"You can put that thing away, Major, it won't do you any good. My guess is that the girl's here in this house and I'm going through it to find her."

A strange, animal-like noise came from Blackminster's throat.

"Try it," he snarled. He kept his gun waving between Devil Darrell and Marmaduke Drake.

For an instant Devil Darrell looked at Marmaduke Drake. A fleeting softness came into his eyes. His mouth twisted itself into a crooked line that might be taken for a wan smile, then he pushed Marmaduke Drake aside and walked steadily towards Major Blackminster.

"I've been over the top, Blackle... a hundred times, and I was never afraid... and I'm not afraid now."

"Keep back, you fool, or I'll let you have it." The major's voice rose to a shriek. There was terror in his eyes. Then his gun barked... once... twice.

Devil Darrell staggered, but he kept right on. His long, lean hands closed about Blackminster's throat and he slammed the major against the wall so hard that his gun dropped from his hand.

I. Marmaduke Drake looked swiftly about. Jacob was standing there like a statue watching with unseeing eyes. Moe Kydid had risen. He was walking on tiptoe towards Devil Darrell, holding his shears like a dagger.

In the course of his years I. Marmaduke Drake had struck many a man, but he had never hit anyone so hard as he hit Moe Kydid now. The little man slumped to the floor unconscious. Then with a feeling of uncontrollable rage Marmaduke Drake turned and made for Cousin Jacob.

Marmaduke Drake reached him with a bound, and once more his fist went crashing. Then he went to where Devil Darrell stood, still gripping the major's throat, crushing the life out of him slowly.

HERE Marmaduke hesitated. He ought to go to the major's aid, no matter how much he deserved what he was getting, but before he could make up his mind his help wasn't needed Devil Darrell let go, and put his hands to his breast, where a great blotch of red was spreading across his shirt. Marmaduke Drake caught him as he was about to fall and lowered him gently to the floor. He snatched a pile of old clothes from the table, made a pillow of them for Devil Darrell's head.

"I'll be right back," he said.

Outside people were pounding against the door. The noise of the shots had attracted a curious, anxious group. I. Marmaduke Drake paid no attention to them. He dashed into the back room, looked around, and found a door. The door gave on to a narrow flight of stairs. He took them two at a time, lighting matches as he went.

There were two rooms on the next floor. In the second he found Alice and John Nairne. They were both tied hand and foot and gagged. It was the work of seconds to free Alice.

"Downstairs, quick," he said, "your father's there! It's a matter of minutes, seconds, maybe."

She didn't wait to ask any questions.

More leisurely he freed John Nairne. Young Nairne's right arm was bandaged above the elbow.

"The little tailor, he stabbed me," John Nairne said by way of explanation.

I. Marmaduke Drake nodded.

"Come on down," he said. Explanations could wait. He wanted to see if there was anything he could do for Devil Darrell.

They found Alice kneeling beside her father, holding his head in her arms. There was an expression of peace on Devil Darrell's face.

I. Marmaduke Drake started to walk away. He had a feeling that there was something sacrilegious about standing there and looking at these two. But Devil Darrell beckoned weakly to him. He was trying to say something. Marmaduke Drake knelt down beside them.

"Thanks." Devil Darrell said. "I don't— don't understand how you got in this this— but thanks." He paused for a breath and made one more terrific effort. "The map— it's in— my pocket— the gold has to go back— I trust you— there's a reward."

I. Marmaduke Drake thought it was the end, but it wasn't quite.

Devil Darrell fumbled with his hand towards his outside pocket. He got it in, and when he. extracted it he brought forth a scrap of paper that he let flutter to the floor, and something else— the Croix de Guerre. For a second his dimming eyes rested on it, then he held it out to his daughter and spoke his last words.

"For you."

"IF YOU don't want me to run you in, you'll tell me a straight story," Sergeant Gruber said, "and for heaven's sake put down that infernal music-box."

Obligingly, I. Marmaduke Drake put down his guitar.

"I told you most of it already," he said.

"How come that this Devil Darrell," Gruber wanted to know, "went straight to that tailor shop?"

"That was a bit of luck," I. Marmaduke Drake conceded. "You see, when I discovered that he had escaped and had been at large for two weeks, I couldn't understand why he hadn't tried to communicate with old Nairne or at least with his daughter. He had done that the first time the minute he was free, so it occurred to me that he might be coming over here, stowing away on a boat or something like that.

"If he did, the first place he would go to would be either Duncan Nairne, because he could find him in the telephone book, or to see his daughter. He probably had her address from the Thornes, who had brought her up. I figured that if he went to his daughter she'd put him in touch with me, but then she disappeared and I had only one chance left.

"I wrote a note in his own code. He'd realise instantly by the crazy kind of a note it was that it was in code, and I pasted it on Nairne's office door in case he turned up there and I wasn't around. The significant words in that note told him to get in touch with me immediately.

"That's just what happened. Luckily he had his copy of the code with him— you found it on him, didn't you? He went there last night, saw the note, then came right down here. Mary Gaylor was still here, and told him that I'd gone up to that tailor shop."

"If I had half the dumb luck that you have—" Gruber mumbled. "I suppose there's a fat reward for turning up the gold?"

"There is," said Marmaduke Drake, "and it's going as a wedding present to Mr. and Mrs. John Nairne. I figure the Thornes will help me put that over so those two kids won't know that it's even indirectly connected with what their fathers did."

"Humph," said the sergeant.

"I can't prove," said I. Marmaduke Drake, "that the major killed Seeby, but I guess it is fairly obvious. Probably the Indian tried to blackmail him and he killed the Indian first and he then went around masquerading in his costume whenever there was any dirty work to be done."

"That's all guesswork," said Gruber.

"No, it isn't," said I. Marmaduke Drake. "I found the turban and some grease-paint in the major's quarters when I stopped off there early this morning. I was afraid that if I didn't dig up something like that you'd still be bull-headed enough to think that John Nairne had anything to do with Seeby's murder."

A look of triumph came into Sergeant Gruber's face.

"I knew all the time that he hadn't," he declared gleefully. "A man can't muss around an office without leaving a lot of fingerprints behind, and there wasn't a finger-print in those two rooms that matched the ones on the dagger. I just figured that if I scared you enough, you'd turn up something. It might interest you, too, to know that Moe Kydid and his cousin didn't waste any time; they turned state's evidence last night and what they say checks with you." He waved an airy hand and sauntered out of the office.

Mary Gaylor came in. She was holding up Marmaduke Drake's over-coat, pointing at the slits in the sleeves of his coat.

"How did this happen?"

"Moths," said I. Marmaduke Drake, reaching for his guitar. "What are you forever worrying about me for?"

Mary Gaylor turned away so that he mightn't see the hurt look in her eyes. She stood there for a moment, her shapely shoulders quivering, then with a toss of her head she said :

"You'll never be much of a detective; you haven't any eyes."

____________________

12: The End of Command

Albert Richard Wetjen

1900-1948

Australian Women's Weekly 29 August 1942

(Los Angeles Times 14 Jan 1940)

CAPTAIN RAHLEE awoke suddenly in the pitch darkness, and without apparent cause. Worn out with days of tight vigil, ever since the big passenger-freighter Cynthia had left New York, he had lain down fully dressed on the chartroom settee, and unless emergency came he had expected to sleep until dawn.

He wanted to be fresh, and more alert than ever, when the ship entered the Channel in the morning, and he had been master long enough to know that exhaustion added to worry is not a good combination with which to face trouble.

The war was a matter of weeks old, and there were ruthless grey raiders running amok along the sealanes; and there were stories of grim sinkings that were already legend.

The memory of the Athenia was still a nightmare to haunt every passenger-skipper afloat, and the eye-aching tension of watching through naked daylight for a hint of periscope or stray smoke, coupled with the tight, appalling strain of running in crowded waters after dark, all lights doused and the dangers of collision looming large, was enough to hasten the grey hairs in any master's head.

He lay still in the darkness for a moment, testing theship's movement with his body as it were. He could feel her lifting to the sea-lunge, giving an easy roll away from it, and he could feel the engines pulsing steadily below, and he knew all was well. Except there was a curious gnawing worry working in-side him, a premonition, as it were.

He remembered he had had the same queer feeling just before the Ivanhoe had been hit and gone down in the last war, and he got up with an irritable exclamation, calling himself an over-strung old fool He switched on the shaded lamp above the chartroom table and saw that it was just five bells, two-thirty. Common sense told him to lie down again.

His mates were competent men and would call him on any suspicion of danger. But he knew it was no use. He had three hundred passengers below and the minestrewn, war-ridden Channel opening before him, and with a sigh he reached for his oilskins and sou'-wester.

He put them on with a sort of methodical haste, a white-haired, lean man of middle height; his face heavy-tanned and his grey eyes narrowed from year-long peering across the sunwash on the swells, and into the drive of flung spray.

He was one of those men who cannot be really hurried, even in moments of acute stress and anxiety, and he took time to inspect the barometer fastened on the bulk-head, and he tied the strings of his sou'-wester with as much care as usual.

He even, as was his custom each morning, mechanically took the cover off the cage of his pet canary which hung over the flag rack, for-getting for a moment it was not morning yet at all. And running his fingers across the cage wires he said absently: "I'm afraid we'll have trouble. Tommy. Trouble, Tommy boy. It's in my bones." And after that he went on the bridge.

The Cynthia was snoring steadily through long, lunging seas that came white-topped across the night, the wind lifting water-smoke from the crests, and the moon, riding high behind a veil of driven scud casting occasional steely glints along the breaking foam. It was cold, and the few stars that showed seemed to move about the Cynthia's masts as the big ship dipped and swung.

For all her movement she seemed
a dead ship. Captain Rahlee thought. A ghost ship. Not a light showing save for the shaded pin-point that was the binnacle; every port screwed shut; such men as were about speaking instinctively in whispers.

Curious that, when you came to think of it. As if they could be heard above the water-noises along the hull and the wind-rip along the seas.

It was the tension that caused it; the grim knowledge that somewhere in the waste of tossing, night-hung water there might be watchers waiting for a hint of the Cynthia's pre-sence. No need to caution the look-outs in wartime to keep their eyes skinned, the captain thought ironically.

You couldn't even stop half the watch below from coming up now and then to give nervous looks around. And if the men were poised, waiting, as it were, for the roar of destruction tearing the plates be-neath them, what could be expected of the master? He was lucky he'd been able to sleep for the few hours he had.

"Sparks got a couple of flashes a while back, sir," said the second mate. He joined the captain at the for'ard rail, huddling in his greatcoat. "Nasty night for anything to crack."

"Pretty cold for open boats." agreed the captain. "What were the flashes?"

"Bengal Pride lost yesterday after-noon off the east coast of Scotland. Ten men missing. And the Santhia got one right midships off Ushant It seems to have been quite a mess—" The second mate stamped his feet and added deferentially, "I guess you know what that means, sir."

ClAPTAIN RAHLEE laughed a little. "Yes," he agreed. "I know what that means." He wore a long row of ribbons that told how well he knew, and he carried scars in his memory that even time could not erase. Twice torpedoed in the old war; once mined; once sunk by shellfire. Would he ever forget that terrible night in '17 when they lost the Ivanhoe? Her whole side torn out, and the iron sea pouring into her, and the panic-mad immigrants in the steerage trying to jump overboard without waiting for any boats.

He gripped the Cynthia's rail and winced a little as cold spume blew up and struck his face and the in-sistent wind tugged at his oilskins. What did a man want to go to sea for? It was a hard enough way to follow in times of peace, and in times of war it became brutally grim as well.

"Well, another couple of days and we'll be docked, sir," ventured the second mate, with assumed cheerfulness. "You know, sir, this is the first time I've ever run a blockade."

"So I should imagine," said Captain Rahlee, dryly. His second mate had been little more than an unlicked pup when the last war had covered the sea floor with slaughtered ships. He stirred uneasily at the remembrance and psered for'ard into the murk of the night.

The premonition was strong upon him again, as it had been just before the Ivanhoe had been struck, and he felt his hands sweating in spite of the cold. He thought irritably he'd better pull himself together and forget what might happen, and he was about to ask the second mate to call the steward for hot coffee when the scud-veiled moon came riding into an area of clear sky, lighting all things with brilliance.

And fast then disaster came.

It was the crow's nest lookout who saw it first, and his scream came thin across the wind, "Star-board"! Pull a starboard, sir!" and then his fast ringing of the crow'snest bell, to arouse the ship, halfsmothered the cries of the other look-outs on the fo'c's'le-head and in the bridge wings.

Captain Rahlee felt his stomach tighten and his throat grow dry, and then he remembered that what-ever happened he must remain calm. For from behind a long, moon-ghstening sea... A ghostly vision over twenty years old come to life again!... the sleek shape of the under-sea boat slid easy to view. There was no other warn-ing. The Cynthia was a brilliant target limned in the moonlight, her decks shining, and the snowy foam sparkling as it ran along her hull. And the racing torpedo caught her square in number one hold.

There was a flat, hard concussion of sound; an enormous column of tortured water; the scream of torn steel. The Cynthia reared like a whale gored by a swordfish, reeled hard to port, and then fell back with a crash so solid, water swept her foredeck before she steadied. Automatically Captain Rahlee rang the engines to stop.

"Switch on all lights now," he ordered, his voice sounding faint and flat in his deafened ears. "We'll need light to get the boats away, and there's not much else she can do unless she wants to waste another fish." He added a bitter oath then, and the second mate said, "Yes, sir," and raced away, shaking with excitement and a touch of panic.

"It's a blessing we berth the crew aft here," muttered the captain. "Or that explosion would have got them." He hoped the wireless operator had smashed out an S.O.S. without waiting to be told, and he winced a little as the slamming of doors came from amidships, together with the alarmed shouts of the passengers. There was already a note of hysteria in the cries of the women, he thought. Just as there had been that ghastly night when a mine had ripped the Ivanhoe open.

He could still remember old Captain Waterman on the bridge as she disappeared, his hands fast on the rail and his anguished and bewildered face etched sharply in the ghastly white flares from the tossing lifeboats, as they stood off and on and waited for the end. Ugly work!

He stared across the sea and his lips compressed as he saw the U-boat swing a little and bring a gun to bear. The orange spurt of the explosion was followed by a split-ting crash on the Cynthia's upper deck, and for a moment Captain Rahlee had the sick thought she was trying to destroy the boats.

Then it came to him she was really trying for the wireless house, so details of her own position would not be sent out. Trust an efficient enemy to have blueprints of all the large ships and know where to strike.

He felt impotent rage swell within him. The Cynthia was not armed. She could not fight back. There was nothing to do but await the raider's pleasure, and take whatever was sent.. The orange spurt came again, and a second shell hit the Cynthia just abaft the bridge, as she swung in the trough without steering way.

Captain Rahlee felt a blast of fiery air staggering him, and then a whimpering of steel fragments about him, and last of all a heavy, burning blow that seemed to eat into the small of his back and made him grasp at the ship's rail to keep from falling.

"Good lord!" someone said, and Captain Rahlee turned to discover Mr. Means, his first mate, at his elbow, already spray-soaked and with a reddening splinter-gash along one cheek, busily buttoning his hastily-donned jacket. Things were happening fast.

"Pleasant, isn't it?" Captain Rah-lee agreed. He was breathing hard and he felt something warm running down his side and he knew he was wounded. But there was little pain as yet and his voice held steady. "Go down and tell the stewards to keep the passengers as calm as they can, while you'd better get the watches organised and swing the boats clear." He stared at the U-boat and gritted his teeth. "Make it fast. That devil may blow us open before she clears out."

"Yes, sir," agreed Mr. Means, and went away on the run. Captain Rahlee passed shaking hands over his face, damp now with perspira-tion in spite of the cold, and when he looked up the sleek-hulled raider was submerging. He wondered if she had decided not to waste any more shells upon an already doomed ship, or whether she thought she had caught the wireless shack with the last one. Probably that was it.

Shooting by moonlight was deceptive, he thought, and he felt a swift relief that she was leaving them. At least now he could give all his attention to saving life, and from the sodden lift of the decks beneath him he had an idea there was not going to be a great deal of time. Probably the Cynthia's whole forepart was ripped clean out.

He steadied himself and beckoned a shaking, white-faced little appren tice who had been on lookout in the bridge-wing, and he patted the boy's oilskinned shoulder as he spoke. "Quite a business, son, eh? Very messy... What's your name? Thomas?... Well, Thomas, run along to the wireless shack and tell them to send... Wait a minute!" He painfully crossed the bridge to the chart-room, scribbled a few words and handed the slip to the boy. "Come right back when you're done. I'll need a messenger."

He returned to the for'ard taff-rail, nodding approval as the nerv-ous and half-dressed third mate appeared, and he told him to stand by. A steady throbbing was growing in his side and his clothing was sticky with blood. He was glad no one could notice it. There were other things to think about, any-way. The moon broke through the scud and glittered coldly across the troubled sea, and etched the masts and rigging of the Cynthia blackly upon her decks.

THE wind-whine rose and fell as Captain Rahlee cautiously headed the ship Into the weather under slow engines, so she would not roll so much and make hard the launching of the life-boats.

He could hear the swells make whimpering noises as they slapped against the laboring hull, and though the ship was heavy by the head and going down steadily she seemed high yet midships, and might last long enough to let him abandon her without indecent haste. The pumps would control things a little, though they were quite obviously and hopelessly Inadequate.

"Youd better rig some electric clusters. We'll need all the light we can get to work by," he ordered.

He thought, too, as the third mate vanished with a muttered "Yes, sir," that people were not so apt to be afraid so long as there was light. And that was a serious consideration with three hundred passengers concerned. Certainly he couldn't depend on the moon. The confounded thing was apt to duck behind the clouds any moment, now it had done its damage and rendered the Cynthia a target. And for how long he could depend on the dynamos was another problem.

Waves of pain were beginning to flow over him now. He was badly hurt. Behind him he was aware of the scared face of the helmsman, still floating, disembodied, as it were, above the binnacle light. It seemed like a dream.

He remembered when he was apprentice on the Ark Royal, fourmasted barque out of London far Madeira, and they'd carried away their fore, main, and mizzen top-masts in a white squall one night... suddenly... as white squalls always come... and he'd been at the wheel... his face as scared as the helmsman's was there back of him.

The Ark Royal had almost gone into the trough then, and he'd fought her as well as he could, sweating and his heart pumping, and his stomach as tight as it was now, until his skipper had sent two A.B.'s running to help him. It was funny he should think of those old things.

"She's coming full in the forepeak and forehold, sir," the carpenter came to report. "And five feet in number two and rising fast. I haven't sounded amidships."

"Well, sound!" said Captain Rahlee with a moment's impatience. "You could have sent a boy to tell me that." The carpenter departed in haste, and Captain Rahlee blew down the engine-room speaking tube.

"I take it the pumps are doing their best, Mr. Watson." The chief engineer, as he knew he would be, was already in the engine-room and personally standing by. You worked by routine and instinct on good ships, even in disaster. "Give them all you've got. I think most of our bottom's gone for'ard. A lot of plates, anyway. Just try to keep her afloat until I get the boats away."

He plugged the tube wearily and turned to find the little apprentice Thomas at his elbow with the radio operator's report. He tightened the paper against the wind and read in the moonlight, which was still strong.

"In touch steamer Grampton. Position eight north fifty west. Will stand by if needed. Destroyers Marlowe and Jonson of Scilly patrol proceeding full speed our position. Request details."

"Well, that's three of them within distance," muttered the captain, comforted; and he scribbled another message and sent the little appren-tice away.

"Report us torpedoed and shelled without warning. Settling by the head. End probably matter of hour or so depending on bulkheads. No casualties known as yet. Will order lifeboats remain present position await picking up. No specific details as to submarine last seen submerging steering south-east by east. Request relief hurry as weather making here."

The second mate climbed on the bridge, panting, and wiped sweat and spray from his face. The Cynthia was shuddering all along her hull as her bow, palpably sinking lower, breached the swells across the fo'c'sle-head and foredeck instead of lifting to them. "She's taken her death-blow all right, sir," said the second mate tensely. "Bows torn clean out of her below the water-line."

"I judged so," the captain muttered, and he gripped the wet taffrail and stared bleakly ahead. He could hear the watches profanely at work swinging out the boats. Then came the whine of the falls, even above the wind; and at intervals there was the thunder of the boarding seas as they washed white water across the main deck below. Captain Rahlee tested the Cynthia's lift with his widespread feet and tight-ened his greying lips. He felt deathly sick and his wounded side was an agony. This was the end. No doubt of it now. For the Cynthia and him both.

He wandered for a moment, re-membering his first voyage, when he had been small and on the Ark Royal. Small and a little afraid. Seasick and very lonely.

And he remembered his first sight of a tropic dawn, flaming crimson and gold along the east, sharp etching the hard white sands of a forgotten island, with the stately palms swaying in the Trade as the ship drove past, the wind booming in her canvas and the spray a rainbow about her bow.

A spatter of cold spume whipped his face and he came back to the present with a start. The second mate was saying urgently: "She's going fast now by the head, sir."

"Ah, yes," agreed Captain Rahlee. He licked his dry lips. "Take the third mate and help the mate get the boats away. Provision them as best you can, though there'll probably be no need." He wiped his streaming face. "Women and children first," he added mechanically, and stared ahead again as the mates left him.

He wished he could forget Captain Waterman's face, anguished and bewildered in the ghastly flarelight while the Ivanhoe went down, and the old man stood on the bridge, braced for the final, swallowing wave. Was it really so hard? He had never expected to die quite like that himself. Go down with his ship, maybe, but not with her blown from under him in the horror of an unrestricted new war.

He felt the Cynthia lurch beneath his feet, and that brought him back to the present again. He beckoned the little apprentice boy and stumbled to the chartroom, and scribbled a final message for the wireless. So that was that. The warships would come foaming under forced draught and pick up the life-boats. He looked aft where the lights and the electric clusters were still shining brightly, dimming the moon; casting golden shafts upon the sea slopes and breeding silver sparks where the foam ran white.

It was not a dangerous sea, he considered. The boats, properly handled, would live without trouble.

But it was all queerly unreal, with the Cynthia lifting and falling soggily, and the abrupt showers of spray flailing like small-shot against the deck and the houses. Underfoot the slow engine pulse was still plain, and there was still the heavy throbbing of the pumps.

The engine-room speaking tube whistled even as he felt comforted on that thought, and the chief's unhurried voice said, "The water's coming above the plates now, sir. Not very fast, but enough."

"I understand, Mr. Watson," said Captain Rahlee. "Abandon when you have to. I don't think shell make any sudden plunge, unless the bulkheads give entirely. But take no chances."

He plugged the speaking-tube very slowly and with care, shaken with pain. It was, he reflected, harder for those men who had to remain below and work until the bitter end. No one cared to die confined in a steel cage, as it were, with never a chance for life if the ship slid abruptly under.

But Watson had a cool head. He would hold his men just as long as was practical, and then get them on deck and into the boats. There would be no panic on the Cynthia as there had been on the Ivanhoe in '17. He spared a moment to wonder why people lost their heads under stress, when, as everyone knew, that was the worst possible thing. Still, there was Mclnturff, first mate of the Wallawalla, who had seemed the most level-headed of all. And he had jumped clean overside in sheer raving terror when that bunch of pirates had boarded the ship off Bias Bay. It was very strange.

"The boats are in the water, sir," said the mate, reporting. He was wringing wet with spray and sweat, his cheek wound pinched white with action of the salt, and his peaked cap was jammed far back on his head. "The second mate is bunching them and they'll stand off and on. I've two left for the rest of us."

"Very good," said Captain Rahlee. He bent down to catch the message the little apprentice boy was trying to give him. "The operator says to tell you, sir, all ships are steaming for us, and sea-planes will spot us by dawn."

The captain patted him on the shoulder and looked at the mate.

"The destroyers should be here in a matter of hours. Just heave the boats to and wait."

The mate ran a wet sleeve across a wetter forehead and spat. "We're lucky the sea's no rougher," he said grimly. And Captain Rahlee twitched his lips in a half smile and agreed.

"Very lucky. Is this your first wreck, mister?"

"Second, sir. Once by fire. And once in a collision off Cape Hatteras. Messy. Six men killed."

"It happens," said Captain Rahlee with effort, and he wondered vaguely why they were talking so when the Cynthia was sinking under them. The swells were slithering over the fo'c's'le-head now without even taking the trouble to break The engine-room speaking-tube whistled again even as the engine and the pump pulse died.

"We're drawing fires, sir," said the chief calmly. "And we're coming up."

Captain Rahlee plugged the tube and turned to the mate again.

"You can abandon ship; all hands," he ordered quietly. "The black gang's coming up." He turned to the little apprentice. "Sonny, tell Sparks to get out, and you go with him."

They went away and unnecessarily but mechanically he jammed the engine-room telegraph to "Finished With Engines." He remembered the man at the wheel, then turned with a curt "That will be all. Join the rest in the boats." The man swallowed hard and slid hurriedly down the companion to the main deck.

Slowly the waterlogged ship fell into the trough again as the way was lost on her, and she began to roll with sickening slowness. Mid-ships Captain Rahlee could heal the black gang noisily crowding the rail and dropping overside. The lights went out suddenly as the dynamos ran down, so there wen only a few oil hurricane lamps an( the ghastly pale moon to see by

In orderly manner, the first of th boats moved away, then there cam an abrupt blossoming of livid white flares.

CAPTAIN RAHLEE winced a little, thinking of the mine-shattered Ivanhoe and the face of Captain Waterman in just such a bitter light. The wind tugged viciously at his sou'-wester and oilskins; the cold spume ham-mered his face. He hardly felt lt for his side was one vast sheet of dizzying pain.

He was remembering now his first bridge watch, when he had been third mate on the Highland Pride. Only three months out of his time in sail, the ink hardly dry on the ticket in his sea-chest. He had been sick with nervousness and in a cold sweat when he had taken over from the mate that night, seeing lights where there were no lights, hearing sirens where there were no sirens, hardly able to keep still; crossing to look at the com-pass every few minutes, then to look at the chart, then to strain his' eyes ahead until they almost fell out.

His first meeting with iron responsibility! He had not known until long after that his captain had been on the lower bridge all during that first watch, just in case his new third mate should crack, or make some lamentable error. It seemed very amusing now.

Then there was the time he had taken over the Maid of Aran. His first command. He had been almost as much afraid then as he had been on his first bridge watch. His own ship. Little, dirty, smelly and slow. But his ship. He reflected he had practically hauled her by hand through the Red Sea and down to Colombo; his stores running short; his water turning brackish; two men dying of some mysterious fever, and the rest in half-mutiny before they got in. But they had got in.

He had felt very proud when he had reported to the agent, with all the off-hand casualness he could muster. "Good Heaven!" the agent had stuttered. "We gave you up for lost weeks ago!" He felt that was the best praise he had ever received. They'd given him up weeks ago and he'd brought the Maid of Aran in.

"We're all clear, sir," said the mate beside him. He was very quiet. "All hands accounted for and in the boats."

"Very good," he said. Captain Rahlee made a grab at the rail as pain shook him and his knees almost failed him. "Very good, mister. You'd just better stay as close together as possible. Youll be picked up by dawn, I imagine."

He looked along the Cynthia's decks and at the ugly list she had, and at her head, almost submerged, and his stomach grew tight again. She had almost ceased to roll, being so low in the water, and her decks were breached both fore and aft by every other sea.

His teeth set hard, and the cold sweat beading his forehead, Captain Rahlee dropped jerkily down the companion to the lower bridge and his room, and lighting the emer-gency oil-lamps swaying in their gimbals he took the ship's papers from the safe and tucked them In a leather brief-case. He handed it to the mate, together with a black tin box, which contained the ship's money.

"You've got the log-book, so I think that's all," he said. "Ah, but no. Wait a minute." He climbed wearily to the upper bridge again and in the chartroom unhooked the canary cage and smiling a little ran his fingers across the wires. "Just as I thought. Tommy," he whispered. "Trouble, Tommy boy." He gave the mate the cage and added, "See he's taken care of."

The mate nodded and bit his lip. He'd been expecting this. His face was drawn, sinister almost with the livid shell-wound that scarred lt, and tight; even grim; with the curi-ous grimness that comes with new responsibility.

"Then you're not... The boat's walting, slr."

With shaking fingers Captain Rahlee tied the strings of his sou'-wester a little tighter, and looked level-eyed out of the open door to where the sea ran swollen In the pale moonlight.

"I was raised in the old school, mister," he said at last. "Raised in the sailing days. You'll understand. You go down with your ship or you bring her home."

The mate shook his head. "Maybe I do understand, sir, but you've got things wrong in this case. It's none of your fault. The fortune of war is just that. No one can blame you at all. We never had a chance."

"I'd like it better this way," the old man insisted. "If I'd be good enough to serve again I'd come with you, and do what duty I still could... for the Old Country's sake. But I won't be." He breathed heavily and set a hand against his side, and leaned against the chart table to steady himself. And the mate saw the sweat of pain upon his face and the death-drain in his eyes.

"You're hurt, sir," he whispered, awed. "That last shell. And I never guessed."

"Hurt enough," said the captain simply. "They might prop me along a while in some hospital before they set me loose, but I'd never be good for the sea again. So I'll stay with the old school, mister. I figure I've earned that right."

The mate hesitated and was still for a moment and then he nodded and muttered awkwardly. "You've been a good skipper, sir. And if you don't mind..." Captain Rahlee found his hand.

He left hurriedly and Captain Rahlee was quiet for a long time, thinking of many things. And then he went out on deck, carefully and methodically closing the cabin door behind him. He mounted heavily to the navigation bridge, and after a last look at the clustered boats, clear-etched in the radiance of their flares and with the passengers' frightened faces turned towards him, he gripped the for'ard rail and watched the seas come closer.

It wasn't really so hard, he re-flected. He'd served his time. He had commanded his ships. He had a clean record. And at this last he'd seen his passengers and crew to safety.

THERE was no blame to come to him. The fortune of war, that was all. And lt was good to go out in the tradition.

The singing winds that had lifted the Ark Royal across the world, so a seasick little apprentice could learn his trade. The tight minutes of the first bridge watch; the sunsheen on new waters, new harbors; the smash and drive of almost for-gotten gales and typhoons; the ways of new ships; the wrecking of the Ivanhoe; the struggle to bring in the Maid of Aran. Nothing was left save faded entries in old log-books.

The spume had changed to heavy spray now, smashing over the bridge dodger. The seas were climbing higher as the Cynthia dipped. Her forepart must be full, Captain Rahlee thought, and the rest filling fast. She'd slide any minute. He'd know then just how Waterman had felt, just how three or four other men he had known must have felt when they met the last long surge. He braced himself as the first solid water came over the bridge, and he wondered a little if the U-boat master would meet as royal a death when his time came, with as clear a heart.

"I DON'T understand," Thomas, the little apprentice, was whimpering, crouched at the mate's feet in the open boat. "Why couldn't he have come with us? There's plenty of room."

The mate eased the tiller and looked down, his hard face soften-ing.

"The old school," he said simply. "He was raised in the old school. You wouldn't understand."

In the ghastly white flarelight and the moonlight, the Cynthia rolled heavily to starboard and then to port, like a stricken whale. Her stern tilted abruptly and her bow went under, and she slid easily from sight.

The lonely figure gripping her bridge-rail and facing for'ard did not move as the water closed over, and when it was accomplished, and the flares had begun to die across the turmoil and swirl, the mate lifted one hand in a gesture of salute. "So long, sailor," he said softly. "So long."

_________________

13: A Worth-While Crime

George Allan England

1877-1936

Detective Story Magazine, 19 Aug 1922

"IT LOOKS TO ME like a very ordinary sort of case," declared T. Ashley, tilting back his desk chair in the little office-and-laboratory place of his, whereof the door showed the sign in gold letters: T. ASHLEY, Investigations.

"Ordinary!" echoed Scanlon. "You call it ordinary when 'Big Boss' Hanrahan himself gets touched for seventeen thousand? I call it most extraordinary, I do. Hanged if I don't!"

"Oh, I don't mean that part of it," T. Ashley disclaimed, a trace of a smile curving his austere lips. "That particular angle of the affair possesses no interest for me. The personality of the victim, his affiliations, his control of the city's political machine are matters wholly beside the point, so far as I'm concerned. All I'm looking at, from the standpoint of my profession, is the technique of the crook. And this case presents no original factors there."

The September sunshine through his office window that overlooked the unending come-and-go of Albermarle Avenue, showed amused lines about the investigator's shrewd, keen gray eyes. Evidently he found Scanlon's agitation diverting.

"It's all quite a routine sort of thing," he added.

"Maybe 'tis," admitted Scanlon. "But there'll be somethin' infernally out o' the routine happen if that quick-touch artist ain't rounded up, P.D.Q.!"

"Indeed? Well, why did Hanrahan send you to me, then? I'm not what is known as a fast worker. I proceed with rather marked deliberation. Why didn't the boss turn this matter over to the bureau of criminal investigation?"

"And have every double-blanked paper in town full of it? Have every cop in the burg wise to it? Have the whole city laughin' up its sleeve at the boss? What's this here practical psychology I'm hearin' about, these days?"

"Of course," said T. Ashley. "I see. Ridicule can certainly kill a man, where all the 'uplift' attacks in the world would rattle off like peas from a rhinoceros. Yes, yes, I understand." Contemplatively he tapped the cover of an anthropological society's report. "So I'm to 'get' this malefactor for you in a private and inconspicuous manner. I'm to round up this genius, who's been clever enough to rob a— er—"

"A robber," Scanlon finished the phrase. "Say it, if you want to! That's what most o' the papers in town have been printin' for years. You got the idea, an' got it right. How much you want for the job?"

"The investigation," said T. Ashley, correcting him. "Well, Mr. Scanlon, my fee varies according to the interest I take in a case. Big interest, small fee. Enough interest, no fee at all. Slight interest, large fee. No interest at all—"

"You're frank, ain't you?" interrupted the boss's henchman. "That's somethin'. I figger, judgin' from the sympathy you feel for the boss, you'll want about five hundred bucks for tacklin' this case."

"A thousand," said T. Ashley dryly.

"Whew!" And Scanlon rubbed a shaven chin. "Well, if that's the best you can say—"

"It is. And not a contingent fee, either. I shall collect that thousand whether I succeed or not. Though in justice to myself I must say that I have still to record a failure. Agreed? Thank you. Now then, let us get back to the evidence. You say there was a window broken in Hanrahan's house by the crook?"

"Yep. A pane was busted out in the room where the safe is. The crook get in over the porch, there."

"Does anybody know about that broken pane?"

"Only the boss's boss."

"You refer to Mrs. Hanrahan?"

"Sure. And the fact that there's a playground nex' door, where the kids play baseball, makes that busted window a cinch to explain. Nobody knows about the 'touch' but me and the boss. He's havin' the pane reset today."

"The robbery," asked T. Ashley, "took place last night, while Mr. and Mrs. Hanrahan were at the theater?"

"That's what."

"You saved the broken pieces of glass, naturally?"

"Surest little thing you know! I handled 'em with gloves, too, an' brought 'em along with me."

"Good! And then—"

"Well, the crook just opened the gopher, that's all, an' cleaned it like he'd had a vacuum cleaner."

"He didn't use force, I believe you said? No 'soup' or thermite. No tools."

"Nope. He just juggled the knob, that's all."

"I see. Well," and T. Ashley pondered a moment, pencil, in hand, "I'll take a run out and look the ground over this afternoon. But— let's see the glass, first."

Scanlon drew a flat package from his pocket, undid a string, opened the package, and spread out various bits of broken glass on the desk. He took good care not to touch them with his fingers, but poked them with a penholder to separate them.

"Very good, indeed," said T. Ashley. He took pincers from a tray, with which he seized the pieces one by one and examined them. Putting a jeweler's loupe into his eye, he gave them a more detailed inspection, turning them a little this way and that to vary the light across their surfaces.

"H'm!" he said at last, while Scanlon watched him with keen attention, his full-lidded blue eyes squinting a little. "This is altogether too easy. Yes, yes, indeed. Why, there are prints enough here to convict a regiment!"

"That's how I figgered it'd be."

"Too bad you couldn't have turned this case over to the bureau. The whole thing is simplicity itself. You could have saved the boss a clean thousand, and he needs the money. That's his motto, isn't it— 'I need the money!' "

"We all need the money these days," returned Scanlon. "But other things has got to be reckoned, too. We don't want no public officials a-tall to get hep to this. Some way it'd leak if I was to give any of 'em a crack at these prints. All the boss wants now is to nab this bird, see, an' do it without makin' no roar. The boss is a bearcat for gettin' back at any guy that passes him the dinkum oil. Oh, he's a wise old kick, all right, the boss is!"

"So I understand," said T. Ashley. "But he can't get back at this bird, as you call the malefactor, without exposing the break and bringing down ridicule on himself. The minute that the bird is arrested—"

"Arrested? Who said anythin' about arrestin' him?" And Scanlon laughed twistedly. "He ain't goin' to be arrested! There's better ways to get a bird than by arrestin' him, an' you can pin that in your lid!"

"I suppose so. Well, that's none of my affair. My undertaking is just to earn my fee by locating the bird. After that, what happens to him is none of my affair."

"I see you've got me cold. You can locate him, can't you, with fingerprints like those?"

T. Ashley laughed a little scornfully. "By the way," he added, "now that I've looked these over, I don't think it will be necessary for me to visit Mr. Hanrahan's house. That would be 'gilding the lily,' you understand."

"Doing what to the which?"

"Pardon me. I mean, taking too much pains. I must say this so-called bird has been unusually liberal about leaving us his calling cards. I repeat that this affair is most ordinary. It's so easy as to possess hardly the interest of an ordinary, common or garden variety of murder. Still, as I've agreed to take it on, I'll go through with it."

"And you'll call me up?"

"As soon," promised T. Ashley, "as I have this predatory person's name, age, description, record, and present address. After that —"

"We'll look out for the 'after that' part of it!" exclaimed Scanlon grimly.

"Quite so. But I tell you now, you're gunning for small game. A modern 'house prowler' who doesn't know enough to wear gloves must be deficient, indeed. Poor game!"

"All the more reason why the boss can't afford to let such a guy run round loose an' get away with it," said Scanlon. "Supposin' it should leak that a third-rater had—"

"Of course. Well, I'll let you know. I'll phone you at your office. Let's see, now— Scanlon Paving and Contracting Co., isn't it?"

"That's me. Well, thanks!" Scanlon stood up and extended his hand. But T. Ashley, already once more bending over the fragments of glass, apparently did not see it. "Well— good day."

"Oh, good-day!"

When Scanlon was gone, and the door closed, T. Ashley leaned back and smiled.

"Vanity," said he, "thy name is man!"

THE MESSAGE SCANLON received over the wire several days later vastly astonished him.

"Hello there! Scanlon?... Yes, T. Ashley speaking. I say, Scanlon, what the deuce do you mean by trying to amuse yourself at my expense?... Don't understand, eh? The devil you don't! Practical jokes are all very well, but— what's that you say?... Oh, yes, I'll tell you, all right enough.... Yes, any time you like; the sooner the better. Have I what?... Found out? Good-by!"

The slam of the receiver onto the hook left Scanlon vastly amazed.

"Well, what d'you know about that?" he asked himself. "What's he vaporin' about now, I'd like to know? Can you beat it? Has that bird gone cuckoo all of a sudden, or what?"

He took his panama and departed from the office of the Scanlon Paving and Contracting Co. in more of a hurry than he had been for weeks.

"I tell you, I don't get you a-tall," he insisted, when he and T. Ashley were alone together in the little laboratory office overlooking Albermarle Avenue. "Anybody'd think, from what you just now shot over the wire at me, that I'd been tryin' to feed you some phony stuff!"

"And anybody would be quite correct in that assumption," returned T. Ashley. His jaw looked tight, his eye hostile. "I suppose, from your point of view, it's an excellent witticism, trying to make sport of a private investigator."

"What d'you mean? Come across!"

"Of course, the department is out to knife a man who's proved them lunkheads half a dozen times. That's quite comprehensible. But I hardly thought the Big Boss himself— and you— would be quite so childish. Another thing: you forget that in trying to bring me into ridicule," and T. Ashley struck the desk a blow with his fist, "you two may get involved worse than I am! That would be a horse of another color!"

"What d'you mean, horse? All the horse I see, round here, is on me!"

And Scanlon shook a puzzled head. He let both hands fall, palms outward.

"Who instigated this, anyhow?" demanded T. Ashley.

"Here's where I quit!" said Scanlon. "I'd better beat it while my shoes are good. Maybe you know what you're talkin' about, but darned if I do!"

"You— you mean to say you really don't understand?"

"Well, you heard me the first time!"

"You don't know what kind of a wild-goose chase you've been putting me up against?"

"How many more times d'you want me to say it? Bring a stack o' Bibles, or something and—"

"But, what the deuce?" exclaimed T. Ashley. "Whoever in the world gave you those fingerprints?"

"Nobody! Get that straight, now. I rounded up them prints myself. The boss called me out to his house and told me about the break, and I—"

"Do you mean to tell me," and T. Ashley's eyes narrowed, "that those prints, to the best of your knowledge and belief, were really made by the man who robbed Mr. Hanrahan's safe?"

"That's the way it rides, s'help me! Why?"

"Why? Oh, by the Lord Harry, now, that's flogging it! Look at that, will you?"

And T. Ashley with a flirt of the wrist tossed over a letter on his desk for Scanlon to read. He added, in a tone vastly far from his usual suavity:

"See what McDonald, of the Federal identification bureau at Leavenworth has to say about it. Somebody has been having a devil of a joke with somebody. Now then, who is it— and why?"

Scanlon caught up the letter.

Dear Mr. Ashley: Reporting on the microphotographs of the prints, let me say they have been identified as those of Peter W. Blau, alias Dutch Pete, alias The Grayback. His number on our records is 143,297. Will send Bertillon if desired. Very truly yours,

M. S. McDonald.

Scanlon reread the letter before looking up. Then he asked, puzzled. "Well, that's all right, ain't it? That's straight dope. What's all the roar you're sendin' across?"

"What's it about? Oh, I say, now!"

"I don't see nothin' phony about this! All it looks like, from where I stand, is the first move toward landin' this here Dutch Pete guy in the big house, and—"

"Is that all it looks like, to you?" demanded T. Ashley, with mordant scorn. "Well, now, where do you suppose I'd have to look to find that man?"

"How the devil should I know? That's your job!"

"My job, eh? A job for sextons, you mean! And I'm not in the pick-and-shovel brigade— not just yet."

Scanlon regarded him with eyes of astonishment.

"Come on, come on!" he exclaimed. "Shoot it across, clean, and get it off your chest! What d'you mean, pick-and-shovel brigade?"

"I mean," answered T. Ashley with emphasis on every word, "that this Peter W. Blau, alias Dutch Pete, alias The Grayback, was electrocuted nearly six months ago!"

NOW IT WAS Scanlon's turn to flush with anger.

"You must be bats!" he exclaimed. "What kind of a gag are you tryin' to slip over on me, anyhow?"

"No gag at all, to quote your own choice language! And as for being 'bats,' I'm not so crazy as to assert that a dead man can get up out of his grave and go gallivanting round the country robbing safes!"

"I never said nothin' like that!"

"The deuce you didn't! You brought me a dead man's fingerprints, with the preposterous assertion that—"

"I brought you the prints that was on that there pane out to the boss's house. The man that made them prints cleaned that gopher!"

"Of course. Well, you'd better tell that to the spirits."

"Don't know any. Where are they?"

"Never mind."

"McDonald— he's made a slip-up, that's all. He got them prints doped wrong."

"McDonald never gets anything wrong!" And T. Ashley thumped the desk again. "The modern science of fingerprinting never makes a mistake. Out of all the millions of prints in the world, there are no—"

"Oh, yes, I know all about that. I'm hep. You don't have to flash no lecture on fingerprints on me! All I'm sayin' is that if Mac 'made' them prints as a guy's that croaked six months ago, either he's made a misplay or you're wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"About this here Dutch Pete bein' dead."

T. Ashley jerked open a drawer of his desk, took out a letter, shoved it at Scanlon.

"How about that?" demanded he.

Scanlon glanced at the signature. "From Warden Hotchkiss, eh?" said he. "Prestonville pen?"

"Yes. If you want proof—"

"'Murder, first degree—'" read Scanlon. "'Electrocuted, February 17th, 1922.' Well, that's official, all O.K."

"Rather!"

"So then there's only one answer."

"You mean," demanded T. Ashley, "two men had the same name?"

"Looks like it."

"Nothing of the kind happened in this case. When I got that word from Hotchkiss, I made another set of microphotographs and sent them to him. He wasn't long in reporting. I just today got this letter from him."

"What's he say?"

"Read it for yourself!" And T. Ashley handed over another letter. Amazed, Scanlon read:

The prints submitted have been carefully verified by comparison with our records. They are those of the man you refer to, viz.: Peter W. Blau.

For a moment Scanlon paused, his brow knit. A dry smile curved the lips of T. Ashley.

"Ye gods, I— I don't get this at all!" admitted Scanlon, beginning to weaken.

"Oh, I see you're waking up to the situation, at last," declared T. Ashley. "You understand, don't you, that this report absolutely eliminates the double-identity hypothesis?"

"Sure, sure. Well, then, the only flash I can take at it is that some fresh guy— but, no, that couldn't be!"

"You mean, somebody may have given you some prints of this Dutch Pete's, made before his execution?"

"Nobody could of," insisted Scanlon, his mind a daze. "Why, I picked up them pieces of glass myself at the boss's house!"

"Well, then," concluded T. Ashley, "those pieces were 'planted' there by somebody, for some purpose that, frankly, is beyond me."

"Not a-tall! Some o' them prints was on pieces o' glass that still stuck in the window sash. I put on a pair o' gloves, careful, an' worked 'em loose, myself. Wrapped 'em up, never touchin' 'em with my own bare fingers, and brought 'em to you, without ever openin' 'em."

"Then that package was changed somewhere on the way."

Scanlon laughed, with tense nerves. "You're pretty good now an' then, Ashley," said he, "but once in a while you don't even hit the outside ring. That there package never left my pocket from the time I shoved it in there till I laid it on this here desk!"

"I tell you there must have been some substitution, somewhere along the line."

"And I tell you there wasn't! Say, I even remember the shape of some o' them pieces. I'll go on any stand in this country an' swear I give you the very identical pieces I started with."

"But in that case—"

"Well, what?"

"Hang it, Scanlon, we're confronted by an insoluble mystery! A set of circumstances contrary to reason— a staring impossibility!"

"Impossibilities has always been your specialty," uttered Scanlon, not without malice. "At least, anybody'd think so, the way you count yourself in on the Get There Club. D'you mean to say you're ready to quit?"

"Quit?" demanded T. Ashley. "I haven't begun yet!"

T. ASHLEY HAD NO success whatever with his investigation. No train of reasoning could lead him beyond what seemed a blank wall barring the path of deduction. Putting aside the supernatural as a factor in which he had no faith, he found himself confronted by a sphinx to whose question there was no Oedipus to bring an answer.

A visit to Hanrahan's house and an examination of the safe itself yielded nothing but more prints, all made by the man who six months before had paid the extreme penalty of the law in Prestonville penitentiary.

"Well, I'm hanged!" exclaimed T. Ashley to himself, and when he, always loath to give up, had been forced to such a statement, matters had reached a desperate pitch.

They became more desperate still, however, when, ten days later, Scanlon returned to the laboratory office with this petrifying news: "Sam Levitsky's apartment, out in Maplewold, has been touched to the tune of thirty-three thousand!"

"So?" demanded T. Ashley. "Well now, this is getting interesting, I must say!"

"Too interesting!" said Scanlon. "It's another crack at the boss, you see."

"Yes, yes, I suppose so. It's practically the same as a direct attack on Hanrahan— for what belongs to the boss is the boss's, and what belongs to Levitsky is the boss's, too. At least, so runs popular rumor."

"Cor-rect," Scanlon agreed. "Though that's just between you an' I. All part of the same job, what? Prob'ly same guy?"

"I'll have to look the ground over, before expressing any opinion as to that. But I should say it was all part of the original campaign. I'll be liberal with you, for the sake of science, and consider this as part of the same case, at the same fee. The fact is," added T. Ashley, "my professional interest is aroused. I'd like to know who has public spirit enough to direct an attack against Hanrahan & Co."

"I judge you ain't strong for the boss, yourself."

"Not perceptibly— especially since he killed that appropriation for the orthopedic hospital, and—"

"Now look here," interrupted Scanlon, "he had to do that. If he hadn't, that silk-stockin' gang of goo-goos would of—"

"I'm not arguing municipal politics with you," disclaimed T. Ashley, raising his hand. "All I'm doing is expressing an opinion. That opinion won't interfere with my professional duties. I propose that we take a run out to Maplewold and look over the ground. Were there any traces left— that is, traces visible to you?"

"No. Nothin' broken this time. A slicker job than the other."

"Practice makes perfect," said T. Ashley, "even for a dead man." He took his hat. "Well, let's get along."

"The quicker— an' the quieter— the better!" Scanlon declared.

AT THE SCENE of the second robbery, T. Ashley carefully examined the premises, while Levitsky poured out invective and Scanlon adjured him to hold his peace. Levitsky's third-floor apartment was in "The Rosalind," facing Grosvenor Park. Entrance had been effected through the dining-room window that gave upon a fire escape overlooking the alley. Nothing had been broken. The window catch had been pushed back with a slender blade, and the sash raised.

Fingerprints were plentiful on the combination of the wall safe, which had been closed again after the touch, but these prints impinged upon each other and were confused to such an extent that even though T. Ashley brought them up with developing powder and then studied them attentively under his best glass, he could make little of them.

"I've got to have something more definite than those," said he, and instituted a painstaking search. After a few minutes, during which Scanlon and Levitsky partly drowned their chagrin in certain strong waters, T. Ashley exclaimed, "Ah!"

"Got a lead, have you?" demanded Scanlon.

T. Ashley's only answer was: "Have you got a keyhole saw, a hammer, and a chisel?"

"I can get 'em for you," said Levitsky. "What's de idea?"

"Get them, then."

When they had been brought from janitorial regions, T. Ashley cut a section from the varnished window sill. This he wrapped in clean paper.

"That's all I need," said he. "Let's get back to the office, now."

Together, T. Ashley and Scanlon returned to town, leaving the Big Boss's henchman under injunctions of strictest secrecy.

"THIS IS POSITIVELY the most amazing thing I was ever confronted with!" exclaimed the investigator, after he had subjected the piece of window sill to exhaustive comparison with his microphotographs.

"What d'you mean, most amazin' thing?" demanded Scanlon, chewing on an extinct cigar. He spoke a little thickly now, by reason of Levitsky's good cheer.

"Our old friend, Blau— Dutch Pete— is back on the job again."

"No!"

"Fact. Prints don't lie."

"You mean— that dead man's prints are on that piece o' sill?"

"That's exactly what I mean!"

Silence followed. From below, on Albermarle Avenue, rose the confused but cheerful rumble of the city's traffic, the hymn of life; but in the office something cold and numbing seemed to weigh and settle— the spirit of death that would not die.

All at once Scanlon, now completely sobered, exclaimed: "Le' me have a look at them prints!"

"Oh, you wouldn't know! All prints look alike to the untrained man. But to the expert every whorl, volute, and ridge is as distinctive under the glass as a human face— more so, because even the best man now and then is fooled by a chance resemblance. Even the Bertillon itself now and then goes wrong. But no two prints, from infancy to old age, are ever alike— and they never change. I have here," T. Ashley added, tapping the piece of window sill with a metal probe, "excellent prints of the fore and middle fingers of the Levitsky burglar's right hand."

"And they're the same as on the glass I took from the boss's?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, I will be darned!"

"It looks as if we'd both be darned," said T. Ashley cynically. "Your job and my reputation are both at stake, and— barring an admission that spiritualists and all that ilk are right— we seem to have come to the end of our tether."

Again he applied his lens to a set of microphotographs of the prints left on the smooth-varnished Levitsky window sill, and fell to studying them intently. For a moment he made no sign, but all at once his attention tautened. He bent closer, adjusting the glass.

"H'm!"

"What's up, now?" asked Scanlon, forgetting even to chew on the extinct cigar.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand."

"Well, le' me look, anyhow. I guess the boss is payin' enough for this job, so I'm entitled to at least a flash!"

"By all means," admitted T. Ashley, giving place to Scanlon.

"Some map!" commented Scanlon. "Looks like a plan o' Boston, or some place. Who'd ever think a man ever had all them lines on the ends o' his fingers?"

"Nobody, except an intelligent person," replied the investigator with caustic emphasis. "And by the way, you know, apes have just the same kind of lines, too, thus proving our relationship with our backward cousins."

"Can the deep stuff!" said Scanlon. "All I'm interested in, now, is these here lines belongin' to Dutch Pete. So a dead man made them prints, did he?"

"He did, unless the whole modern science of fingerprinting is fallible."

"Come again?"

"I mean, unless it can make mistakes, which it never has been known to do, yet. That's its whole value, its absolute accuracy. And what it says, now, is that the prints left in both robberies were produced by a man who went to the electric chair— and was killed there— the seventeenth of last February."

"Well, I am hanged!"

"So you've already said, and I think it quite likely. Seen enough, have you?"

"Yep." And Scanlon left the instrument. "Looks like we was up against the cushion, hard, an' no way to bounce."

T. Ashley rubbed his chin, saying nothing. His thoughts, however, were: "There's no such thing as an inexplicable phenomenon. Facts leave traces, and traces can't lie. At the bottom of every 'hopeless' problem there's some simple, obvious explanation. So then, all I've got to do is —"

"Don't strain yourself with thinkin' too much," Scanlon interrupted his cogitation with sarcasm. He reached for his hat. "When you figger it out how a dead one can blow back an' go to work as a boxman, let me know."

"I'll let you know, all right. And meantime, warn your fat friend, Levitsky, to keep quiet."

"No danger of his belchin'. He'll be mum as the boss himself. But the quicker you get some goods to show, the better. The boss ain't noted much for patience."

"He may have to acquire one virtue, at least," remarked T. Ashley. "Good-day!"

Alone, the investigator resumed his study through the lens. For a long time he sat there, examining the newly discovered factor which, at first glimpse, had caused him to give utterance to that "H'm!" of slight wonder.

After a while he got up, went to his bookcase, and brought back to his desk a heavy volume in French— Henri de Brissac's Traité de la Peau, Humaine et Animale.

He spent an hour over this monumental work on human and animal skins, carefully examining the colored plates and here or there dipping into the text.

At last he put up the book, lighted a cigar, and locked his office door. From now on, till such time as pleased him, T. Ashley had become invisible, inaccessible.

He lay down on his broad couch in the laboratory office, smoked, studied the ceiling, pondered. At last, after two cigars had become lamentable butts, he reached for the phone, called Warden Hotchkiss at the Prestonville penitentiary, and by long distance made an appointment for next morning. "Dutch Pete," said he to himself, after he had hung up the receiver again, "I rather think I'll have to find out a little more about you!"

TWO DAYS LATER T. Ashley called on Doctor Holden K. Dillingham, at the doctor's office in the Monadnock Building, on Franchot Street. The doctor, T. Ashley noted, was smallish, trim, shaven, going a bit bald, and possessed of keen blue eyes, a trifle prominent, also a chin that promised: "What I undertake, I do."

"Well, sir?" asked Dillingham when he was alone with his caller— a new patient, doubtless, thought he.

"I believe you're the physician who has been interested in getting the new orthopedic hospital for children started out in the Sheridan Boulevard district?" asked T. Ashley.

"Why, yes. In fact," added the doctor, "I'm chairman of the organization board."

"I might," said T. Ashley, "have a contribution to make to that enterprise, under certain circumstances."

"That's good news," said Dillingham. "We can certainly use a little help. This town's in crying need of such an institution."

"So I understand. Too bad the city wouldn't meet the board's proposition as stated some time ago in the papers."

"You mean our offer to put up one hundred thousand dollars, if the city would contribute fifty thousand dollars, and make it a semi-public institution?"

"Exactly. But what else can anybody expect," asked T. Ashley, "with men like Hanrahan and Levitsky pulling the puppet strings and working for their own pockets instead of the public welfare?"

"What else, indeed?"

"Men like that can always be counted on to block any forward-looking move. They're not merely content with throwing sticks in the wheel of progress, but they rob the taxpayers right and left."

"Correct," agreed the doctor.

"By the way," said T. Ashley, changing the subject, "what do you think of this?"

He drew from his inside coat pocket a sheet of paper and spread it on the doctor's desk. Dillingham put on his glasses, looked at it a moment, and then, with the slightest suggestion of a frown, replied: "I don't quite understand you. Are you asking for my opinion of this rather highly magnified fingerprint?"

T. Ashley bent forward, pointing with the tip of a pencil. "What do you make of that?" asked he.

"Of what?"

"This mark, here, a little to the left of the middle of the print."

"It— well, it looks like a scar, to me."

"Yes, so it does— superficially. Have you no other opinion, doctor?"

"I don't understand you," said Dillingham. "Are you here to talk hospital or fingerprints?"

"A little of both, maybe."

"I mean, is this a professional or a nonprofessional call?"

"Oh, highly professional on both sides, I assure you!"

"You're talking in riddles, I must say," said the doctor. "Well, I'm used to riddles. I get lots of them in my practice. Every doctor does."

"But few," declared T. Ashley, "solve their riddles with the proverbial 'neatness and dispatch' that characterize you. Let us now return to the matter of this fingerprint. Would you say, doctor, that this mark— here, on the print— was made by a scar?"

"Looks like it," said the doctor. His fingers began to drum a bit nervously on his chair arm, but quickly stopped.

"Ah, but look closer."

"Well, then?"

"Study the print with a magnifying glass, if you have one handy."

The doctor, seeming altogether mystified, opened a drawer of his desk, took out a glass, and examined the print.

"That mark certainly looks like a scar to me," he declared.

"In a scar, however," objected T. Ashley, "the edges would be smoothly healed. Here, you see, they are rough. And, moreover, there are several marks— in the scar itself— that look like tiny, wandering chains. Concatenated markings, to be technical."

"Well, what of it?" demanded Dillingham. He seemed a bit impatient.

"As a physician, you know that scar tissue presents no such markings."

"True enough. But what in the world are you driving at, Mr. Ashley? This is all very puzzling, I must say." The doctor frowned. "First you talk hospital, and speak of a donation. Then you catechize me about fingerprints, and now— well, what are you coming at, anyhow?"

"At the obvious conclusion that this mark, here on this fingerprint, was not produced by a scar at all, but by another kind of skin altogether from human skin."

"I don't seem to follow you," said the doctor, laying down his magnifying glass.

"To state it still more plainly," expounded T. Ashley, "when the original fingerprint was made, from which this microphotograph was taken, there was another piece of skin— a nonhuman skin— under the skin that made the print."

"Oh, a graft, perhaps?" said Dillingham, as if an idea had occurred to him.

"No— though this whole matter is connected with one, to pardon a colloquialism. There are no signs of growths, adhesions, or anything of that kind. In fact, both skins from which this print was made were dead skins."

"Dead?"

"Quite so. And, as I have said before, the smaller piece of skin was not human at all."

"But I don't understand. If not human, what then?"

"The skin of an animal. To be more accurate, a dog."

DOCTOR DILLINGHAM'S eyes fell. A slight moisture covered his forehead; but then, the day was very warm.

"This is all quite beyond my comprehension," said he. "And, moreover, why are you telling me these details? What do you want of me?"

"Ah, that," said T. Ashley, "will develop later. For the moment, let me tell you a little story. A simple, unvarnished tale. Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Not at all. I'll join you."

T. Ashley lighted a cigar; the doctor, a pipe. T. Ashley by no means failed to note the tremor of Doctor Dillingham's hand as the match hung above the pipe bowl, but the doctor smiled and said: "A good story is always acceptable, though I must confess you've got me mystified. This is certainly an odd consultation."

"It's an odd case," declared T. Ashley. "The story is even more so— but a capital one. It begins with the electrocution of a notorious stickup man and murderer, Peter W. Blau, alias Dutch Pete, and so forth, last February, at Prestonville."

"Well?" asked the doctor, trying to look at T. Ashley.

"Well, Dutch Pete's body remained unclaimed, and was handed over for dissection to a certain medical school, which I won't name. So much I know. From this point on I shall fill in, with deductions, certain gaps which occur between the established facts. You see, I am quite frank with you. I'm showing you my whole box of tricks."

"This is certainly mystifying!" murmured the doctor.

"Is it not? But vastly instructive. Let us, however, not go into side issues. Let us stick to the fate and fortunes of Dutch Pete, who in death has been destined to carry on his chosen profession in a most extraordinary manner, though perhaps to quite a different end than any he himself would have chosen."

"I'm sure," said Dillingham, "this is all most incomprehensible."

"You'll soon understand. A certain physician and surgeon connected with the above-unmentioned medical school got possession of Dutch Pete's hands— possibly in connection with some research work regarding the characteristics of criminal types."

"Interesting!" commented the doctor, blowing much smoke.

"Is it not?"

"And what part of the story are you telling me now?" asked Dillingham. "Fact or inference?"

"Inference. Deduction, I should say. You'll soon see where the deduction hitches on to solid fact again. Now, it so happened that this same physician was a leading spirit in a proposed public improvement, the carrying out of which was blocked by a couple of sinister, predatory individuals. The doctor conceived the idea— very intelligent idea, indeed, and showing real imagination as well as a sense of poetic justice— of enlisting the help of a dead crook to beat a couple of live crooks."

"Just how could that be?" asked Dillingham.

"Let me explain. This doctor must at some previous period of his career have had considerable mechanical experience. He certainly knew much about the mechanism of safes. Also he realized that his profession was an excellent shield. A doctor, you know, can go almost anywhere without exciting suspicion. He can carry tools in his medical bag. He can leave his car standing anywhere. In a good many ways he enjoys rather an unusual freedom of movement, coming and going as he will, especially at night, without any one thinking ill of it. So far, so good."

"And what then?" asked Dillingham, relighting his pipe which had gone out.

"This particular physician I have in mind," continued T. Ashley, "chose direct action as his means of punishing the crooked and sinister forces in question, and also of forwarding the public improvement in which he was interested. You see I am speaking in nonspecific terms. No names mentioned, of course. Being a cautious and very brainy man, he evolved the idea of covering his tracks in a manner that seemed absolutely beyond the reach of analytical reason."

"Nothing," murmured Dillingham, "seems beyond the reach of such analytical reason as you practice."

"Thank you. Never mind about that, however. You understand there are no personalities, on either side, in anything I'm telling you now."

"Certainly! Well, then?"

"The physician so arranged matters that, unless he were really caught in the act, his safety seemed assured."

"How very prescient of him!" commented Dillingham, forcing a smile.

"His idea," resumed T. Ashley, "was something like Robin Hood's— taking from thieves to give to the needy. Only he used modern science to help him, instead of a good crossbow and clothyard shafts. Unfortunately, however, he overlooked a trifling detail."

"A detail?"

"Yes. He failed to notice a slight cut, or tear, in one finger of one of his gloves."

"What gloves?"

"Gloves," said T. Ashley, "unlike any others in the whole world. Gloves made of the skin of the fingers of the deceased Dutch Pete, dissected from the dead hands and drawn on over a pair of thin other gloves."

"How very extraordinary!" The doctor's eyes blinked, narrowed.

"Is it not?"

"But how in the world could you ever manage to make up such a hypothetical narrative?"

"The microscope helps to some extent. That mark which shows in the print on your desk there is the mark of a cut or tear, as I have already told you. The fingerprint itself is that of Dutch Pete. The little bit of skin under the cut must have been dogskin. No other skin leaves just that kind of mark."

"Indeed?"

"Yes. The only answer is, double gloves. So it is all quite plain. And now," T. Ashley added, while Dillingham's face grew ever more and more drawn, "now I have a little proposition to make you."

"What— what proposition?"

"I am willing to become a participant in crime with the owner of that amazing pair of gloves."

"You— you mean—"

"In exchange for those gloves," said T. Ashley slowly, leaning forward and looking square at Dillingham, "in exchange for those gloves— which I will destroy, after having examined them— I will drop this whole investigation at once, and carry it no farther, now or at any future time."

"I— really, Mr. Ashley, I— don't understand you."

"Oh, yes you do! The thing done was legally criminal, but morally most praiseworthy. Hanrahan and Levitsky bilked you of fifty thousand. Your two 'touches' came to just that. They totaled exactly fifty. Another point I haven't overlooked. If you'd taken another dollar, you'd have been a thief yourself. As it is, you're a public benefactor; you deserve medals! Especially as this morning's paper carries that announcement from you that the success of the orthopedic is at last assured. So—"

"But I— I tell you—"

"Come, come!" said T. Ashley, laying a hand on Dillingham's arm. "Why not make a clean breast of it? Why not give me the gloves, in exchange for a Scotch verdict of 'Not guilty but don't do it again?'"

Dillingham tried to moisten his lips with a dry tongue. He managed to articulate: "No man— voluntarily— runs his head into a noose."

T. Ashley laughed, and it was rare for him to laugh. "Tell you what I'll do, to prove I'm on the level with you. Keep the gloves, if you want to. In fact, I rather think you'd better. There's one supremely good use you can make of them."

"And what's that?"

"Show them to me, and then I'll tell you."

The doctor hesitated a moment, smeared his sweating brow, then got up and walked to a filing cabinet at the other side of his office. T. Ashley noticed how his legs shook.

"You're making no mistake, my friend," he assured the doctor, "to trust me. If there's any man in this city who hates Hanrahan and Levitsky worse than you do, that man is myself."

"That's good enough for me," replied the doctor. He pulled out a drawer of the cabinet, reached far into the back of it, took something, and returned to the desk, exclaiming, "Here!"

He thrust into T. Ashley's hands a pair of thin dogskin gloves, the fingers of which were covered with human skin.

"Here," he repeated. "You win!"

"We both win," corrected T. Ashley, with keen interest examining the gloves. "You win immunity, and I win another triumph for my deductive methods— though it must be a secret one. But, after all, you see how very simple it all is, when one knows the method? Here, take them back." He tossed the gloves onto the desk. "My offer still stands. I happen to have a thousand dollars soon payable to me, for which I have no personal use. Will you accept that thousand, for the orthopedic?"

"Will I? Good God!"

"Also my suggestion as to disposing of these gloves?"

"What— what's that?"

"Wrap and seal them, and include them among the articles to be deposited in the metal box that goes into the corner stone of the hospital. For they are its corner stone!"

A moment the doctor stared at him. Then his hand hesitated toward that of the investigator.

T. Ashley shook hands with him warmly. "Agreed, then?"

But Dillingham, choking, could find no word.

NEXT AFTERNOON, T. Ashley called Scanlon by phone. "It's about that matter, you know," said he.

"Oh, you got it doped out, have you?" Scanlon queried.

"I am very sorry to say I haven't. In fact, I have been obliged to drop the affair."

"The devil!"

"Just what I said, when I discovered that my charwoman had done a little cleaning up. The fact is, Scanlon, all the evidence in the case has disappeared."

"You don't expect me to believe nothin' like that!"

"I expect— and require— you to believe anything I choose to tell you!" T. Ashley's voice was decisive. "I repeat that the case is closed. You can give your employers the explanation I have just given you. Between you and me, however, I don't mind telling you it will be very much better for all parties concerned if things stop right where they are. I could go further— but decline. An interesting case, but circumstances have altered—"

"Oh, that's the way it rides, eh? Well now, by—"

"Yes, that's the way, Good-by!" T. Ashley hung up the receiver and smiled.

"They'll never dare refuse that thousand," he pondered. "I know too much. And they'll never dare try anybody else, even if they had any evidence left. I've got them frightened. It's all worked out very well. Very, very well indeed."

He pondered a moment, then added: "Next to handing that thousand to Dillingham, I rather think I'll enjoy the laying of that orthopedic corner stone!"

Then T. Ashley lighted still another cigar, and as the smoke ascended, smiled wisely to himself.

_________________________

14: The Glamour of the Snow

Algernon Blackwood

1869-1951

The Pall Mall Magazine December 1911

HIBBERT, always conscious of two worlds, was in this mountain village conscious of three. It lay on the slopes of the Valais Alps, and he had taken a room in the little post office, where he could be at peace to write his book, yet at the same time enjoy the winter sports and find companionship in the hotels when he wanted it.

The three worlds that met and mingled here seemed to his imaginative temperament very obvious, though it is doubtful if another mind less intuitively equipped would have seen them so well-defined. There was the world of tourist English, civilised, quasi-educated, to which he belonged by birth, at any rate; there was the world of peasants to which he felt himself drawn by sympathy— for he loved and admired their toiling, simple life; and there was this other— which he could only call the world of Nature. To this last, however, in virtue of a vehement poetic imagination, and a tumultuous pagan instinct fed by his very blood, he felt that most of him belonged. The others borrowed from it, as it were, for visits. Here, with the soul of Nature, hid his central life.

Between all three was conflict— potential conflict. On the skating-rink each Sunday the tourists regarded the natives as intruders; in the church the peasants plainly questioned: "Why do you come? We are here to worship; you to stare and whisper!" For neither of these two worlds accepted the other. And neither did Nature accept the tourists, for it took advantage of their least mistakes, and indeed, even of the peasant-world "accepted" only those who were strong and bold enough to invade her savage domain with sufficient skill to protect themselves from several forms of— death.

Now Hibbert was keenly aware of this potential conflict and want of harmony; he felt outside, yet caught by it— torn in the three directions because he was partly of each world, but wholly in only one. There grew in him a constant, subtle effort— or, at least, desire— to unify them and decide positively to which he should belong and live in. The attempt, of course, was largely subconscious. It was the natural instinct of a richly imaginative nature seeking the point of equilibrium, so that the mind could feel at peace and his brain be free to do good work.

Among the guests no one especially claimed his interest. The men were nice but undistinguished— athletic schoolmasters, doctors snatching a holiday, good fellows all; the women, equally various— the clever, the would-be-fast, the dare-to-be-dull, the women "who understood," and the usual pack of jolly dancing girls and "flappers." And Hibbert, with his forty odd years of thick experience behind him, got on well with the lot; he understood them all; they belonged to definite, predigested types that are the same the world over, and that he had met the world over long ago.

But to none of them did he belong. His nature was too "multiple" to subscribe to the set of shibboleths of any one class. And, since all liked him, and felt that somehow he seemed outside of them— spectator, looker-on— all sought to claim him.

In a sense, therefore, the three worlds fought for him: natives, tourists, Nature....

It was thus began the singular conflict for the soul of Hibbert. In his own soul, however, it took place. Neither the peasants nor the tourists were conscious that they fought for anything. And Nature, they say, is merely blind and automatic.

The assault upon him of the peasants may be left out of account, for it is obvious that they stood no chance of success. The tourist world, however, made a gallant effort to subdue him to themselves. But the evenings in the hotel, when dancing was not in order, were— English. The provincial imagination was set upon a throne and worshipped heavily through incense of the stupidest conventions possible. Hibbert used to go back early to his room in the post office to work.

"It is a mistake on my part to have realised that there is any conflict at all," he thought, as he crunched home over the snow at midnight after one of the dances. "It would have been better to have kept outside it all and done my work. Better," he added, looking back down the silent village street to the church tower, "and— safer."

The adjective slipped from his mind before he was aware of it. He turned with an involuntary start and looked about him. He knew perfectly well what it meant— this thought that had thrust its head up from the instinctive region. He understood, without being able to express it fully, the meaning that betrayed itself in the choice of the adjective. For if he had ignored the existence of this conflict he would at the same time, have remained outside the arena. Whereas now he had entered the lists. Now this battle for his soul must have issue. And he knew that the spell of Nature was greater for him than all other spells in the world combined— greater than love, revelry, pleasure, greater even than study. He had always been afraid to let himself go. His pagan soul dreaded her terrific powers of witchery even while he worshipped.

The little village already slept. The world lay smothered in snow. The châlet roofs shone white beneath the moon, and pitch-black shadows gathered against the walls of the church. His eye rested a moment on the square stone tower with its frosted cross that pointed to the sky: then travelled with a leap of many thousand feet to the enormous mountains that brushed the brilliant stars. Like a forest rose the huge peaks above the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. They beckoned him. And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the midnight and the silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of the night, something that lay 'twixt terror and wonder, dropped from the vast wintry spaces down into his heart— and called him. Very softly, unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass, it laid its spell upon him. Fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart. The power and quiet majesty of the winter's night appalled him....

Fumbling a moment with the big unwieldy key, he let himself in and went upstairs to bed. Two thoughts went with him— apparently quite ordinary and sensible ones:

"What fools these peasants are to sleep through such a night!" And the other:

"Those dances tire me. I'll never go again. My work only suffers in the morning." The claims of peasants and tourists upon him seemed thus in a single instant weakened.

The clash of battle troubled half his dreams. Nature had sent her Beauty of the Night and won the first assault. The others, routed and dismayed, fled far away.

ii

"DON'T go back to your dreary old post office. We're going to have supper in my room— something hot. Come and join us. Hurry up!"

There had been an ice carnival, and the last party, tailing up the snow-slope to the hotel, called him. The Chinese lanterns smoked and sputtered on the wires; the band had long since gone. The cold was bitter and the moon came only momentarily between high, driving clouds. From the shed where the people changed from skates to snow-boots he shouted something to the effect that he was "following"; but no answer came; the moving shadows of those who had called were already merged high up against the village darkness. The voices died away. Doors slammed. Hibbert found himself alone on the deserted rink.

And it was then, quite suddenly, the impulse came to— stay and skate alone. The thought of the stuffy hotel room, and of those noisy people with their obvious jokes and laughter, oppressed him. He felt a longing to be alone with the night; to taste her wonder all by himself there beneath the stars, gliding over the ice. It was not yet midnight, and he could skate for half an hour. That supper party, if they noticed his absence at all, would merely think he had changed his mind and gone to bed.

It was an impulse, yes, and not an unnatural one; yet even at the time it struck him that something more than impulse lay concealed behind it. More than invitation, yet certainly less than command, there was a vague queer feeling that he stayed because he had to, almost as though there was something he had forgotten, overlooked, left undone. Imaginative temperaments are often thus; and impulse is ever weakness. For with such ill-considered opening of the doors to hasty action may come an invasion of other forces at the same time— forces merely waiting their opportunity perhaps!

He caught the fugitive warning even while he dismissed it as absurd, and the next minute he was whirling over the smooth ice in delightful curves and loops beneath the moon. There was no fear of collision. He could take his own speed and space as he willed. The shadows of the towering mountains fell across the rink, and a wind of ice came from the forests, where the snow lay ten feet deep. The hotel lights winked and went out. The village slept. The high wire netting could not keep out the wonder of the winter night that grew about him like a presence. He skated on and on, keen exhilarating pleasure in his tingling blood, and weariness all forgotten.

And then, midway in the delight of rushing movement, he saw a figure gliding behind the wire netting, watching him. With a start that almost made him lose his balance— for the abruptness of the new arrival was so unlooked for— he paused and stared. Although the light was dim he made out that it was the figure of a woman and that she was feeling her way along the netting, trying to get in. Against the white background of the snow-field he watched her rather stealthy efforts as she passed with a silent step over the banked-up snow. She was tall and slim and graceful; he could see that even in the dark. And then, of course, he understood. It was another adventurous skater like himself, stolen down unawares from hotel or châlet, and searching for the opening. At once, making a sign and pointing with one hand, he turned swiftly and skated over to the little entrance on the other side.

But, even before he got there, there was a sound on the ice behind him and, with an exclamation of amazement he could not suppress, he turned to see her swerving up to his side across the width of the rink. She had somehow found another way in.

Hibbert, as a rule, was punctilious, and in these free-and-easy places, perhaps, especially so. If only for his own protection he did not seek to make advances unless some kind of introduction paved the way. But for these two to skate together in the semi-darkness without speech, often of necessity brushing shoulders almost, was too absurd to think of. Accordingly he raised his cap and spoke. His actual words he seems unable to recall, nor what the girl said in reply, except that she answered him in accented English with some commonplace about doing figures at midnight on an empty rink. Quite natural it was, and right. She wore grey clothes of some kind, though not the customary long gloves or sweater, for indeed her hands were bare, and presently when he skated with her, he wondered with something like astonishment at their dry and icy coldness.

And she was delicious to skate with— supple, sure, and light, fast as a man yet with the freedom of a child, sinuous and steady at the same time. Her flexibility made him wonder, and when he asked where she had learned she murmured— he caught the breath against his ear and recalled later that it was singularly cold— that she could hardly tell, for she had been accustomed to the ice ever since she could remember.

But her face he never properly saw. A muffler of white fur buried her neck to the ears, and her cap came over the eyes. He only saw that she was young. Nor could he gather her hotel or châlet, for she pointed vaguely, when he asked her, up the slopes. "Just over there— " she said, quickly taking his hand again. He did not press her; no doubt she wished to hide her escapade. And the touch of her hand thrilled him more than anything he could remember; even through his thick glove he felt the softness of that cold and delicate softness.

The clouds thickened over the mountains. It grew darker. They talked very little, and did not always skate together. Often they separated, curving about in corners by themselves, but always coming together again in the centre of the rink; and when she left him thus Hibbert was conscious of— yes, of missing her. He found a peculiar satisfaction, almost a fascination, in skating by her side. It was quite an adventure— these two strangers with the ice and snow and night!

Midnight had long since sounded from the old church tower before they parted. She gave the sign, and he skated quickly to the shed, meaning to find a seat and help her take her skates off. Yet when he turned— she had already gone. He saw her slim figure gliding away across the snow ... and hurrying for the last time round the rink alone he searched in vain for the opening she had twice used in this curious way.

"How very queer!" he thought, referring to the wire netting. "She must have lifted it and wriggled under ...!"

Wondering how in the world she managed it, what in the world had possessed him to be so free with her, and who in the world she was, he went up the steep slope to the post office and so to bed, her promise to come again another night still ringing delightfully in his ears. And curious were the thoughts and sensations that accompanied him. Most of all, perhaps, was the half suggestion of some dim memory that he had known this girl before, had met her somewhere, more— that she knew him. For in her voice— a low, soft, windy little voice it was, tender and soothing for all its quiet coldness— there lay some faint reminder of two others he had known, both long since gone: the voice of the woman he had loved, and— the voice of his mother.

But this time through his dreams there ran no clash of battle. He was conscious, rather, of something cold and clinging that made him think of sifting snowflakes climbing slowly with entangling touch and thickness round his feet. The snow, coming without noise, each flake so light and tiny none can mark the spot whereon it settles, yet the mass of it able to smother whole villages, wove through the very texture of his mind— cold, bewildering, deadening effort with its clinging network of ten million feathery touches.

iii

IN THE MORNING Hibbert realised he had done, perhaps, a foolish thing. The brilliant sunshine that drenched the valley made him see this, and the sight of his work-table with its typewriter, books, papers, and the rest, brought additional conviction. To have skated with a girl alone at midnight, no matter how innocently the thing had come about, was unwise— unfair, especially to her. Gossip in these little winter resorts was worse than in a provincial town. He hoped no one had seen them. Luckily the night had been dark. Most likely none had heard the ring of skates.

Deciding that in future he would be more careful, he plunged into work, and sought to dismiss the matter from his mind.

But in his times of leisure the memory returned persistently to haunt him. When he "ski-d," "luged," or danced in the evenings, and especially when he skated on the little rink, he was aware that the eyes of his mind forever sought this strange companion of the night. A hundred times he fancied that he saw her, but always sight deceived him. Her face he might not know, but he could hardly fail to recognise her figure. Yet nowhere among the others did he catch a glimpse of that slim young creature he had skated with alone beneath the clouded stars. He searched in vain. Even his inquiries as to the occupants of the private châlets brought no results. He had lost her. But the queer thing was that he felt as though she were somewhere close; he knew she had not really gone. While people came and left with every day, it never once occurred to him that she had left. On the contrary, he felt assured that they would meet again.

This thought he never quite acknowledged. Perhaps it was the wish that fathered it only. And, even when he did meet her, it was a question how he would speak and claim acquaintance, or whether she would recognise himself. It might be awkward. He almost came to dread a meeting, though "dread," of course, was far too strong a word to describe an emotion that was half delight, half wondering anticipation.

Meanwhile the season was in full swing. Hibbert felt in perfect health, worked hard, ski-d, skated, luged, and at night danced fairly often— in spite of his decision. This dancing was, however, an act of subconscious surrender; it really meant he hoped to find her among the whirling couples. He was searching for her without quite acknowledging it to himself; and the hotel-world, meanwhile, thinking it had won him over, teased and chaffed him. He made excuses in a similar vein; but all the time he watched and searched and— waited.

For several days the sky held clear and bright and frosty, bitterly cold, everything crisp and sparkling in the sun; but there was no sign of fresh snow, and the ski-ers began to grumble. On the mountains was an icy crust that made "running" dangerous; they wanted the frozen, dry, and powdery snow that makes for speed, renders steering easier and falling less severe. But the keen east wind showed no signs of changing for a whole ten days. Then, suddenly, there came a touch of softer air and the weather-wise began to prophesy.

Hibbert, who was delicately sensitive to the least change in earth or sky, was perhaps the first to feel it. Only he did not prophesy. He knew through every nerve in his body that moisture had crept into the air, was accumulating, and that presently a fall would come. For he responded to the moods of Nature like a fine barometer.

And the knowledge, this time, brought into his heart a strange little wayward emotion that was hard to account for— a feeling of unexplained uneasiness and disquieting joy. For behind it, woven through it rather, ran a faint exhilaration that connected remotely somewhere with that touch of delicious alarm, that tiny anticipating "dread," that so puzzled him when he thought of his next meeting with his skating companion of the night. It lay beyond all words, all telling, this queer relationship between the two; but somehow the girl and snow ran in a pair across his mind.

Perhaps for imaginative writing-men, more than for other workers, the smallest change of mood betrays itself at once. His work at any rate revealed this slight shifting of emotional values in his soul. Not that his writing suffered, but that it altered, subtly as those changes of sky or sea or landscape that come with the passing of afternoon into evening— imperceptibly. A subconscious excitement sought to push outwards and express itself ... and, knowing the uneven effect such moods produced in his work, he laid his pen aside and took instead to reading that he had to do.

Meanwhile the brilliance passed from the sunshine, the sky grew slowly overcast; by dusk the mountain tops came singularly close and sharp; the distant valley rose into absurdly near perspective. The moisture increased, rapidly approaching saturation point, when it must fall in snow. Hibbert watched and waited.

And in the morning the world lay smothered beneath its fresh white carpet. It snowed heavily till noon, thickly, incessantly, chokingly, a foot or more; then the sky cleared, the sun came out in splendour, the wind shifted back to the east, and frost came down upon the mountains with its keenest and most biting tooth. The drop in the temperature was tremendous, but the ski-ers were jubilant. Next day the "running" would be fast and perfect. Already the mass was settling, and the surface freezing into those moss-like, powdery crystals that make the ski run almost of their own accord with the faint "sishing" as of a bird's wings through the air.

iv

THAT NIGHT there was excitement in the little hotel-world, first because there was a bal costumé, but chiefly because the new snow had come. And Hibbert went— felt drawn to go; he did not go in costume, but he wanted to talk about the slopes and ski-ing with the other men, and at the same time....

Ah, there was the truth, the deeper necessity that called. For the singular connection between the stranger and the snow again betrayed itself, utterly beyond explanation as before, but vital and insistent. Some hidden instinct in his pagan soul— heaven knows how he phrased it even to himself, if he phrased it at all— whispered that with the snow the girl would be somewhere about, would emerge from her hiding place, would even look for him.

Absolutely unwarranted it was. He laughed while he stood before the little glass and trimmed his moustache, tried to make his black tie sit straight, and shook down his dinner jacket so that it should lie upon the shoulders without a crease. His brown eyes were very bright. "I look younger than I usually do," he thought. It was unusual, even significant, in a man who had no vanity about his appearance and certainly never questioned his age or tried to look younger than he was. Affairs of the heart, with one tumultuous exception that left no fuel for lesser subsequent fires, had never troubled him. The forces of his soul and mind not called upon for "work" and obvious duties, all went to Nature. The desolate, wild places of the earth were what he loved; night, and the beauty of the stars and snow. And this evening he felt their claims upon him mightily stirring. A rising wildness caught his blood, quickened his pulse, woke longing and passion too. But chiefly snow. The snow whirred softly through his thoughts like white, seductive dreams.... For the snow had come; and She, it seemed, had somehow come with it— into his mind.

And yet he stood before that twisted mirror and pulled his tie and coat askew a dozen times, as though it mattered. "What in the world is up with me?" he thought. Then, laughing a little, he turned before leaving the room to put his private papers in order. The green morocco desk that held them he took down from the shelf and laid upon the table. Tied to the lid was the visiting card with his brother's London address "in case of accident." On the way down to the hotel he wondered why he had done this, for though imaginative, he was not the kind of man who dealt in presentiments. Moods with him were strong, but ever held in leash.

"It's almost like a warning," he thought, smiling. He drew his thick coat tightly round the throat as the freezing air bit at him. "Those warnings one reads of in stories sometimes ...!"

A delicious happiness was in his blood. Over the edge of the hills across the valley rose the moon. He saw her silver sheet the world of snow. Snow covered all. It smothered sound and distance. It smothered houses, streets, and human beings. It smothered— life.

v

IN THE HALL there was light and bustle; people were already arriving from the other hotels and châlets, their costumes hidden beneath many wraps. Groups of men in evening dress stood about smoking, talking "snow" and "ski-ing." The band was tuning up. The claims of the hotel-world clashed about him faintly as of old. At the big glass windows of the verandah, peasants stopped a moment on their way home from the café to peer. Hibbert thought laughingly of that conflict he used to imagine. He laughed because it suddenly seemed so unreal. He belonged so utterly to Nature and the mountains, and especially to those desolate slopes where now the snow lay thick and fresh and sweet, that there was no question of a conflict at all. The power of the newly fallen snow had caught him, proving it without effort. Out there, upon those lonely reaches of the moonlit ridges, the snow lay ready— masses and masses of it— cool, soft, inviting. He longed for it. It awaited him. He thought of the intoxicating delight of ski-ing in the moonlight....

Thus, somehow, in vivid flashing vision, he thought of it while he stood there smoking with the other men and talking all the "shop" of ski-ing.

And, ever mysteriously blended with this power of the snow, poured also through his inner being the power of the girl. He could not disabuse his mind of the insinuating presence of the two together. He remembered that queer skating-impulse of ten days ago, the impulse that had let her in. That any mind, even an imaginative one, could pass beneath the sway of such a fancy was strange enough; and Hibbert, while fully aware of the disorder, yet found a curious joy in yielding to it. This insubordinate centre that drew him towards old pagan beliefs had assumed command. With a kind of sensuous pleasure he let himself be conquered.

And snow that night seemed in everybody's thoughts. The dancing couples talked of it; the hotel proprietors congratulated one another; it meant good sport and satisfied their guests; every one was planning trips and expeditions, talking of slopes and telemarks, of flying speed and distance, of drifts and crust and frost. Vitality and enthusiasm pulsed in the very air; all were alert and active, positive, radiating currents of creative life even into the stuffy atmosphere of that crowded ball-room. And the snow had caused it, the snow had brought it; all this discharge of eager sparkling energy was due primarily to the— Snow.

But in the mind of Hibbert, by some swift alchemy of his pagan yearnings, this energy became transmuted. It rarefied itself, gleaming in white and crystal currents of passionate anticipation, which he transferred, as by a species of electrical imagination, into the personality of the girl— the Girl of the Snow. She somewhere was waiting for him, expecting him, calling to him softly from those leagues of moonlit mountain. He remembered the touch of that cool, dry hand; the soft and icy breath against his cheek; the hush and softness of her presence in the way she came and the way she had gone again— like a flurry of snow the wind sent gliding up the slopes. She, like himself, belonged out there. He fancied that he heard her little windy voice come sifting to him through the snowy branches of the trees, calling his name ... that haunting little voice that dived straight to the centre of his life as once, long years ago, two other voices used to do....

But nowhere among the costumed dancers did he see her slender figure. He danced with one and all, distrait and absent, a stupid partner as each girl discovered, his eyes ever turning towards the door and windows, hoping to catch the luring face, the vision that did not come ... and at length, hoping even against hope. For the ball-room thinned; groups left one by one, going home to their hotels and châlets; the band tired obviously; people sat drinking lemon-squashes at the little tables, the men mopping their foreheads, everybody ready for bed.

It was close on midnight. As Hibbert passed through the hall to get his overcoat and snow-boots, he saw men in the passage by the "sport-room," greasing their ski against an early start. Knapsack luncheons were being ordered by the kitchen swing doors. He sighed. Lighting a cigarette a friend offered him, he returned a confused reply to some question as to whether he could join their party in the morning. It seemed he did not hear it properly. He passed through the outer vestibule between the double glass doors, and went into the night.

The man who asked the question watched him go, an expression of anxiety momentarily in his eyes.

"Don't think he heard you," said another, laughing. "You've got to shout to Hibbert, his mind's so full of his work."

"He works too hard," suggested the first, "full of queer ideas and dreams."

But Hibbert's silence was not rudeness. He had not caught the invitation, that was all. The call of the hotel-world had faded. He no longer heard it. Another wilder call was sounding in his ears.

For up the street he had seen a little figure moving. Close against the shadows of the baker's shop it glided— white, slim, enticing.

vi

AND AT ONCE into his mind passed the hush and softness of the snow— yet with it a searching, crying wildness for the heights. He knew by some incalculable, swift instinct she would not meet him in the village street. It was not there, amid crowding houses, she would speak to him. Indeed, already she had disappeared, melted from view up the white vista of the moonlit road. Yonder, he divined, she waited where the highway narrowed abruptly into the mountain path beyond the châlets.

It did not even occur to him to hesitate; mad though it seemed, and was— this sudden craving for the heights with her, at least for open spaces where the snow lay thick and fresh— it was too imperious to be denied. He does not remember going up to his room, putting the sweater over his evening clothes, and getting into the fur gauntlet gloves and the helmet cap of wool. Most certainly he has no recollection of fastening on his ski; he must have done it automatically. Some faculty of normal observation was in abeyance, as it were. His mind was out beyond the village— out with the snowy mountains and the moon.

Henri Défago, putting up the shutters over his café windows, saw him pass, and wondered mildly: "Un monsieur qui fait du ski à cette heure! Il est Anglais, done ...!" He shrugged his shoulders, as though a man had the right to choose his own way of death. And Marthe Perotti, the hunchback wife of the shoemaker, looking by chance from her window, caught his figure moving swiftly up the road. She had other thoughts, for she knew and believed the old traditions of the witches and snow-beings that steal the souls of men. She had even heard, 'twas said, the dreaded "synagogue" pass roaring down the street at night, and now, as then, she hid her eyes. "They've called to him ... and he must go," she murmured, making the sign of the cross.

But no one sought to stop him. Hibbert recalls only a single incident until he found himself beyond the houses, searching for her along the fringe of forest where the moonlight met the snow in a bewildering frieze of fantastic shadows. And the incident was simply this— that he remembered passing the church. Catching the outline of its tower against the stars, he was aware of a faint sense of hesitation. A vague uneasiness came and went— jarred unpleasantly across the flow of his excited feelings, chilling exhilaration. He caught the instant's discord, dismissed it, and— passed on. The seduction of the snow smothered the hint before he realised that it had brushed the skirts of warning.

And then he saw her. She stood there waiting in a little clear space of shining snow, dressed all in white, part of the moonlight and the glistening background, her slender figure just discernible.

"I waited, for I knew you would come," the silvery little voice of windy beauty floated down to him. "You had to come."

"I'm ready," he answered, "I knew it too."

The world of Nature caught him to its heart in those few words— the wonder and the glory of the night and snow. Life leaped within him. The passion of his pagan soul exulted, rose in joy, flowed out to her. He neither reflected nor considered, but let himself go like the veriest schoolboy in the wildness of first love.

"Give me your hand," he cried, "I'm coming ...!"

"A little farther on, a little higher," came her delicious answer. "Here it is too near the village— and the church."

And the words seemed wholly right and natural; he did not dream of questioning them; he understood that, with this little touch of civilisation in sight, the familiarity he suggested was impossible. Once out upon the open mountains, 'mid the freedom of huge slopes and towering peaks, the stars and moon to witness and the wilderness of snow to watch, they could taste an innocence of happy intercourse free from the dead conventions that imprison literal minds.

He urged his pace, yet did not quite overtake her. The girl kept always just a little bit ahead of his best efforts.... And soon they left the trees behind and passed on to the enormous slopes of the sea of snow that rolled in mountainous terror and beauty to the stars. The wonder of the white world caught him away. Under the steady moonlight it was more than haunting. It was a living, white, bewildering power that deliciously confused the senses and laid a spell of wild perplexity upon the heart. It was a personality that cloaked, and yet revealed, itself through all this sheeted whiteness of snow. It rose, went with him, fled before, and followed after. Slowly it dropped lithe, gleaming arms about his neck, gathering him in....

Certainly some soft persuasion coaxed his very soul, urging him ever forwards, upwards, on towards the higher icy slopes. Judgment and reason left their throne, it seemed, completely, as in the madness of intoxication. The girl, slim and seductive, kept always just ahead, so that he never quite came up with her. He saw the white enchantment of her face and figure, something that streamed about her neck flying like a wreath of snow in the wind, and heard the alluring accents of her whispering voice that called from time to time: "A little farther on, a little higher.... Then we'll run home together!"

Sometimes he saw her hand stretched out to find his own, but each time, just as he came up with her, he saw her still in front, the hand and arm withdrawn. They took a gentle angle of ascent. The toil seemed nothing. In this crystal, wine-like air fatigue vanished. The sishing of the ski through the powdery surface of the snow was the only sound that broke the stillness; this, with his breathing and the rustle of her skirts, was all he heard. Cold moonshine, snow, and silence held the world. The sky was black, and the peaks beyond cut into it like frosted wedges of iron and steel. Far below the valley slept, the village long since hidden out of sight. He felt that he could never tire.... The sound of the church clock rose from time to time faintly through the air— more and more distant.

"Give me your hand. It's time now to turn back."

"Just one more slope," she laughed. "That ridge above us. Then we'll make for home." And her low voice mingled pleasantly with the purring of their ski. His own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison.

"But I have never come so high before. It's glorious! This world of silent snow and moonlight— and you. You're a child of the snow, I swear. Let me come up— closer— to see your face— and touch your little hand."

Her laughter answered him.

"Come on! A little higher. Here we're quite alone together."

"It's magnificent," he cried. "But why did you hide away so long? I've looked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated— " he was going to say "ten days ago," but the accurate memory of time had gone from him; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes. His thoughts of earth were scattered and confused.

"You looked for me in the wrong places," he heard her murmur just above him. "You looked in places where I never go. Hotels and houses kill me. I avoid them." She laughed— a fine, shrill, windy little laugh.

"I loathe them too— "

He stopped. The girl had suddenly come quite close. A breath of ice passed through his very soul. She had touched him.

"But this awful cold!" he cried out, sharply, "this freezing cold that takes me. The wind is rising; it's a wind of ice. Come, let us turn ...!"

But when he plunged forward to hold her, or at least to look, the girl was gone again. And something in the way she stood there a few feet beyond, and stared down into his eyes so steadfastly in silence, made him shiver. The moonlight was behind her, but in some odd way he could not focus sight upon her face, although so close. The gleam of eyes he caught, but all the rest seemed white and snowy as though he looked beyond her— out into space....

The sound of the church bell came up faintly from the valley far below, and he counted the strokes— five. A sudden, curious weakness seized him as he listened. Deep within it was, deadly yet somehow sweet, and hard to resist. He felt like sinking down upon the snow and lying there.... They had been climbing for five hours.... It was, of course, the warning of complete exhaustion.

With a great effort he fought and overcame it. It passed away as suddenly as it came.

"We'll turn," he said with a decision he hardly felt. "It will be dawn before we reach the village again. Come at once. It's time for home."

The sense of exhilaration had utterly left him. An emotion that was akin to fear swept coldly through him. But her whispering answer turned it instantly to terror— a terror that gripped him horribly and turned him weak and unresisting.

"Our home is— here!" A burst of wild, high laughter, loud and shrill, accompanied the words. It was like a whistling wind. The wind had risen, and clouds obscured the moon. "A little higher— where we cannot hear the wicked bells," she cried, and for the first time seized him deliberately by the hand. She moved, was suddenly close against his face. Again she touched him.

And Hibbert tried to turn away in escape, and so trying, found for the first time that the power of the snow— that other power which does not exhilarate but deadens effort— was upon him. The suffocating weakness that it brings to exhausted men, luring them to the sleep of death in her clinging soft embrace, lulling the will and conquering all desire for life— this was awfully upon him. His feet were heavy and entangled. He could not turn or move.

The girl stood in front of him, very near; he felt her chilly breath upon his cheeks; her hair passed blindingly across his eyes; and that icy wind came with her. He saw her whiteness close; again, it seemed, his sight passed through her into space as though she had no face. Her arms were round his neck. She drew him softly downwards to his knees. He sank; he yielded utterly; he obeyed. Her weight was upon him, smothering, delicious. The snow was to his waist.... She kissed him softly on the lips, the eyes, all over his face. And then she spoke his name in that voice of love and wonder, the voice that held the accent of two others— both taken over long ago by Death— the voice of his mother, and of the woman he had loved.

He made one more feeble effort to resist. Then, realising even while he struggled that this soft weight about his heart was sweeter than anything life could ever bring, he let his muscles relax, and sank back into the soft oblivion of the covering snow. Her wintry kisses bore him into sleep.

vii

THEY SAY that men who know the sleep of exhaustion in the snow find no awakening on the hither side of death.... The hours passed and the moon sank down below the white world's rim. Then, suddenly, there came a little crash upon his breast and neck, and Hibbert— woke.

He slowly turned bewildered, heavy eyes upon the desolate mountains, stared dizzily about him, tried to rise. At first his muscles would not act; a numbing, aching pain possessed him. He uttered a long, thin cry for help, and heard its faintness swallowed by the wind. And then he understood vaguely why he was only warm— not dead. For this very wind that took his cry had built up a sheltering mound of driven snow against his body while he slept. Like a curving wave it ran beside him. It was the breaking of its over-toppling edge that caused the crash, and the coldness of the mass against his neck that woke him.

Dawn kissed the eastern sky; pale gleams of gold shot every peak with splendour; but ice was in the air, and the dry and frozen snow blew like powder from the surface of the slopes. He saw the points of his ski projecting just below him. Then he— remembered. It seems he had just strength enough to realise that, could he but rise and stand, he might fly with terrific impetus towards the woods and village far beneath. The ski would carry him. But if he failed and fell ...!

How he contrived it Hibbert never knew; this fear of death somehow called out his whole available reserve force. He rose slowly, balanced a moment, then, taking the angle of an immense zigzag, started down the awful slopes like an arrow from a bow. And automatically the splendid muscles of the practised ski-er and athlete saved and guided him, for he was hardly conscious of controlling either speed or direction. The snow stung face and eyes like fine steel shot; ridge after ridge flew past; the summits raced across the sky; the valley leaped up with bounds to meet him. He scarcely felt the ground beneath his feet as the huge slopes and distance melted before the lightning speed of that descent from death to life.

He took it in four mile-long zigzags, and it was the turning at each corner that nearly finished him, for then the strain of balancing taxed to the verge of collapse the remnants of his strength.

Slopes that have taken hours to climb can be descended in a short half-hour on ski, but Hibbert had lost all count of time. Quite other thoughts and feelings mastered him in that wild, swift dropping through the air that was like the flight of a bird. For ever close upon his heels came following forms and voices with the whirling snow-dust. He heard that little silvery voice of death and laughter at his back. Shrill and wild, with the whistling of the wind past his ears, he caught its pursuing tones; but in anger now, no longer soft and coaxing. And it was accompanied; she did not follow alone. It seemed a host of these flying figures of the snow chased madly just behind him. He felt them furiously smite his neck and cheeks, snatch at his hands and try to entangle his feet and ski in drifts. His eyes they blinded, and they caught his breath away.

The terror of the heights and snow and winter desolation urged him forward in the maddest race with death a human being ever knew; and so terrific was the speed that before the gold and crimson had left the summits to touch the ice-lips of the lower glaciers, he saw the friendly forest far beneath swing up and welcome him.

And it was then, moving slowly along the edge of the woods, he saw a light. A man was carrying it. A procession of human figures was passing in a dark line laboriously through the snow. And— he heard the sound of chanting.

Instinctively, without a second's hesitation, he changed his course. No longer flying at an angle as before, he pointed his ski straight down the mountain-side. The dreadful steepness did not frighten him. He knew full well it meant a crashing tumble at the bottom, but he also knew it meant a doubling of his speed— with safety at the end. For, though no definite thought passed through his mind, he understood that it was the village curé who carried that little gleaming lantern in the dawn, and that he was taking the Host to a châlet on the lower slopes— to some peasant in extremis. He remembered her terror of the church and bells. She feared the holy symbols.

There was one last wild cry in his ears as he started, a shriek of the wind before his face, and a rush of stinging snow against closed eyelids— and then he dropped through empty space. Speed took sight from him. It seemed he flew off the surface of the world.

INDISTINCTLY he recalls the murmur of men's voices, the touch of strong arms that lifted him, and the shooting pains as the ski were unfastened from the twisted ankle ... for when he opened his eyes again to normal life he found himself lying in his bed at the post office with the doctor at his side. But for years to come the story of "mad Hibbert's" ski-ing at night is recounted in that mountain village. He went, it seems, up slopes, and to a height that no man in his senses ever tried before. The tourists were agog about it for the rest of the season, and the very same day two of the bolder men went over the actual ground and photographed the slopes. Later Hibbert saw these photographs. He noticed one curious thing about them— though he did not mention it to any one:

There was only a single track.

______________

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-58

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

The Saints' Rest 58

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

He Had An Alibi 58

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 Glamour of the Snow 58

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

Wadsworth Camp

The Signal Tower 58

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

Mary Clare Davron

Icebergs 58

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

A Worth-While Crime 58

George Manville Fenn

Lady Florry's Gems  34

Charles J. Finger

The Lizard God  58

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

Secret Service  58

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

Perceval Landon

Thurnley Abbey 58

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

A. B. ("Banjo") Patterson

The Cast-Iron Canvasser 58

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

Walter Ripperger

The Cardboard Clue 58

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

W. Clark Russell

The Extraordinary Adventure of a Chief Mate 58

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 End of Command 58

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 Amber Fan 58

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: The Amber Fan / Raoul Whitfield
- 2: Secret Service / Arthur Gask
- 3: Icebergs / Mary Clare Davron
- 4: The Saints' Rest / W. L. Alden
- 5: He Had An Alibi / Anonymous

- 6: The Cast-Iron Canvasser / A. B. ("Banjo") Patterson

- 7: The Extraordinary Adventure of a Chief Mate / W. Clark Russell

- 8: Thurnley Abbey / Perceval Landon
- 9: The Lizard God / Charles J. Finger
- 10: The Signal Tower / Wadsworth Camp

- 11: The Cardboard Clue / Walter Ripperger (novella)

- 12: The End of Command / Albert Richard Wetjen

- 13: A Worth-While Crime / George Allan England

- 14: The Glamour of the Snow / Algernon Blackwood

- Cumulative Index