PAST MASTERS

FIFTY-NINE

January 2022

Part 6

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Waffles / Albert Richard Wetjen

2: Phantom of the Forest / Leroy Yerxa

3: A Matter of Business / Sinclair Lewis

4: A Posteriori / Helen Simpson

5: The Dencourt Stiletto / Peter Cheyney

6: The Sign on the Roof / Peter Cheyney

7: The Meet of the Beagles / H. de Vere Stacpoole

8: The Glasgow Phantom / Guy Gilpatric

9: By Decree of the High Ones /  Coutts Brisbane

10: A King In Babylon? / Gwyn Evans

11: Death, The Knight, And The Lady / H. de Vere Stacpoole

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1: Waffles

Albert Richard Wetjen

1900-1948

The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C. 28 Dec  1924

THE second mate found him when he went to his cabin just after the bark Hemro had cleared the harbor-heads and was running out to sea. Just inside the cabin door he crouched, as miserable and forlorn a specimen of dog as the young sailor had ever seen.

"Hello!" said the second mate, bending and tickling him behind the ears. "How the mischief did you get here?"

The dog whined uneasily. His battered stump of a tail thumped the carpet. Feebly he poked out a pale tongue and licked the hand that caressed him. The second mate felt along his ribs and whistled. The dog was nothing but a bag of bones. Its golden wire hair was drenched with the rain, mud caked its paws. Once it had evidently been something of an Irish terrier.

"Gee whiz!" muttered the young officer, rising to his feet. "Wonder how long you've been here. Climbed aboard this morning some time. When it was still dark, eh? Cunning li'l rogue. I dunno what do with you. The old man sure hates dogs. Guess you'll go overboard 'fore you're much older."

He paused and scratched his head. He was a very young officer, the youngest aboard. The mate and the captain were both hard-bitten old grouches. There was a weary, long voyage ahead.

There stirred in the second mate the age-old longing of man for a hunting companion, for a friend to be trusted, for some one to sit by the fire with him and warn him of the night dangers. And for the same reason that his skin-clad ancestors had taken wolves and tamed them, the second mate of the Hemro bent again and patted the starving dog's head.

"All right, old man." he laughed. "You can stay. I'll run you from now nn. If you ain't a sailor now, you will be when we get home. Stand up, you—you. Waffles, you! That's a good name. Stand up, Waffles, and come with me!"

He backed out of his cabin, in the low deckhouse abaft the mainmast, snapping his fingers. Whining, the dog followed, weakness causing his legs to drag, his tail down, his ears flat, his eyes wide on the chuckling man.

"Doctor, give my dog some scraps, will you?" said the officer to the cook when he reached the galley with his charge. The white-aproned, pot-bellied, stumpy cook looked down on the dog and sniffed.

"A dawg! Crik-ee; Wait till the old man sees it. Scraps, sir? Aye, aye. Come here, you miserable lookin' lump o' mischief. What's 'is nyme?"

"Waffles. You know, same as you make sometimes, doe."

"Huh! You makin' fun o' me? Never mind. Waffles, come 'ere and eat."

The cook's smooth moon-face, bright red from long years of standing before galley fires, slid into a smile as he watched the hungry dog bolt the scraps of meat and vegetables he placed on the galley dock.

The second mate leaned against the door jamb. He scratched his head and tilted his peaked uniform cap well back.

A fine young man was he, big and bright eyed, broad shouldered, tanned, clean shaven, his short throat well muscled. Nearly always laughter curved his lips.

FOOTSTEP sounded on the deck planking, a slow methodical footstep. A deep voice demanded,

"What's that you've got in there?"

The face of the cook lost its grin. The second mate's eyes ceased to twinkle. Both men turned slowly, the second mate removing his foot from the door step and commencing to button his jacket up.

The captain stood in the opposite doorway, frowning down at the feeding dog that watched him from the corner of one eye and with one ear cocked up.

"A dog. sir," said the second mate uncomfortably.

"So I see," snarled the captain. "Pitch it overboard!"

The cook mumbled. "Yessir," in a low voice and stooped to pick up Waffles. The dog backed away and growled.

The second mate flushed and stuck his hands in his trousers pockets. His obstinate jaw set hard.

"Leave him alone," he said distinctly. "He's my dog."

The captain stiffened and frowned. He was a burly man, black-bearded, gray-faced, his face lined with the weather and years of dissipation. He glared from under the low-pulled peak of his cap.

"Your dog be blowed!" he said. "I won't have a dog on my ship. Throw it over side, cook."

"Tou leave it alone," snapped the young officer hotly. The cook hesitated and looked from one man to the other.

"It's my dog and I'll look after it. If you want to pitch it over, you'll have to pitch me over first, sir."

"You'll keep your mouth shut and you'll do as you're told, Healy," the captain snapped, his eyes blazing. "I'll warn you if that dog comes my way I'll shoot it. You'll pay for its keep till then." He turned and strode away, muttering darkly in his beard.

The cook shot a scared look at the second mate.

"You'd better get rid of the hanimal, sir," he mumbled. "You know what the old man is with dogs. He'll shoot the thing 'fore long. I'll tell the world 'e will."

"Oh, shut up, doctor." The other snorted wrathfully. "I'll look after, the dog. You just save scraps to feed him and leave the rest to me. Why— why, darn it! I never had a dog before."

The cook sighed and shook his head as he turned to his stove and banged a frying pan viciously to prevent some steak from burning.

The mate recovered a little of his good temper. He snapped his fingers and the dog looked up eagerly, licking his chops. "Come on, Waffles." he said. "If you've finished. I'll give you a drink. Skipper or no skipper, you're my dog, and that's all there is to it."

Hiss new-found possession at his heels, he left the galley and went to where the water butt stood on its racks with a square of canvas sheltering It. The wrathful captain was growling to the sour-faced, lean mate.

"The second's got a dog! If the brute comes aft or interferes with the ship's work, kick its blasted ribs in! I'll shoot it if it comes near me."

To which the mate, a somewhat melancholy individual, aged, sea-weary, answered: "Aye, aye, sir. Kick his blasted ribs in, sir!"

The captain grunted after that and went below.

THE HEMRO yawed wildly, swinging from side to side as she raced along. The wind was astern and somewhat gusty. Grinning a little, the mate walked aft to the binnacle and peered into it.

"Make the course good," he said. And the helmsman answered as he spun the kicking wheel.

"The course good, sir." Then the mate walked to the for'ard tatfrail and cupped his hands round his mouth.

"Take another reef in yer tops'ls!"

Came a faint answer from for'ard against the freshening breeze, "Take another reef, sir!"

The fore and main-rigging shook under the shoes of climbing men. Astern the coast of northern New Zealand faded into the horizon.

ON the second day out Waffles fell foul of the captain. His new master had taken good care to keep the dog shut in the cabin as much as possible. He allowed Waffles on deck only when he was there himself to stop the dog from going on the poop.

But this time he happened to be asleep during his watch below. The weather being warm, he had hooked shut the door before turning in. The steward had come along to clean out the room, unhooked the door, and the whining much-improved Waffles was free and running excitedly along the main deck, sniffing at everything that came his way.

He must have been a sea dog, for he exhibited a strange familiarity with a ship's gear. The boom of the wind in the canvas overhead and the rattle of the blocks in no wise worried or frightened him. More significant than all, he was not seasick.

The captain came down from the poop and was going for'ard to inspect the fo'c'sle and see whether the boy told off to keep it clean was doing his duty. Waffles, eagerly chasing a fragment of rope yarn blown across the foredeck by the wind, got mixed up in the captain's unsuspecting legs. The captain side-stepped hastily, swore and took a running kick at the dog, now busy worrying the rope yarn.

The captain's heavy shoe took him in the side and sent him surprised and snarling with a jar against the bulwarks. He came back like a rubber ball, all bristling teeth and writhing muscles. He snapped at the captain's leg and ripped his trousers at the knee.

With an oath the bearded master sprang for the rail, tore out a belaying pin and hurled it savagely. Waffles dodged. Perhaps he had had such things thrown, at him before on other ships. He rushed again and nipped the captain's calf. The captain kicked and missed and then retired profanely and precipitately for the poop. Waffles snapping at his heels.

"My revolver," the captain snarled as he stumbled down the campanlon from the poop deck to the saloon and to his cabin. Waffles sat on his haunches at the foot of the companion from the main deck and sniffed, his red tongue hanging out and his head cooked on one side.

"Go 'way, laddie." called down the sour-faced mate softly, leaning over taffrail. "Go 'way, laddie, or ye'll find a watery grave. Haven't ye enough sense not t' touch a shipmaster? Shame on ye! Shoosh! Go 'way.... Hopkins!"

The mate called to an A. B. who was oiling down a backstay near the mizzen sheer-pole and watching the scene with amusement. The man dropped his fragment of black waste into his oil pot and came down to the deck.

"Run along and tell the second to get his dog," the mate said in a low voice, for fear the captain might hear him. The seaman nodded and grinned more expansively.

"I'd better take him," he said.

The mate grunted, "Good idea."

The seaman stepped forward, hesitated as Waffles growled, and then stretched forth a cautious hand. "Come on. Waffles," he crooned. "Come on t' yer daddy 'fore the skipper slugs ye. Come back to yer home. Good dog."

Waffles looked interested, ceased to growl, wagged his tail. Next moment the seaman had him under his arm and was hurrying toward the second mate's cabin, the dog protesting loudly.

The second mate stopped the noise as soon as he was awakened and told what was happening. And Waffles was gagged and bound and thrust into a very dark locker for a while.

All that afternoon the captain searched revolver in hand, "for a blasted dog that ought to be dead!"

Also he poked his head inside the second mate's cabin every half hour or so, glowered at the apparently sleeping officer and listened intently for any noise. And several times the second mate and he passed long minutes in hot argument when the former woke up for a while— respective rank forgotten.

The captain loathed dogs, but at the same time he wasn't the sort of a shipmaster who cared to rule his officers with too high a hand. That only meant constant trouble and inefficient work.

The captain did not find Waffles. Nor did the dog appear on deck again for several days, not until the captain had put his revolver away and recovered some of his cantankerous temper. It was noticeable that Waffles bore the captain no grudge. He never barked at him when he saw him. He proved a good-tempered dog. Perhaps he knew what others aboard guessed, that the captain's bark was lots worse than his bite.

At last the Hemro slid into the doldrums and the great calms held her captive. Her full spread of canvas slatted and cracked, her decks reeled and tossed to the endless glassy swell. At night flying fish scattered over the bulwarks and threshed about the planking. The crew welcomed them, for they made good eating. Waffles was wont to snap them as they made to fly overside again. Like the crew, he welcomed them, too.

Every night the stars grew big and hot and seemed to come down from the velvet sky to play in fantastic, queer shafts across the water. Occasional whales sported about. Dolphins, albacore, all the phenomena of the life of the greater deep, appeared, hunted, killed, played or died and vanished. Day after day the sun drifted from horizon to horizon, burning to the eyeballs. And the bark reeled and rolled and baked and waited for the wind that was so long in coming.

On such nights and on such days the secod mate dozed fitfully, during his watch below, on the top of the midship house, where his cabin was. And by the side of his mattress Waffles dozed, head on paws, bright eyes half closed and watching the heave and fall of his master's breast. Whatever loyalty he had given to past masters, there was no doubt of his loyalty to and love for his present possessor.

The crew amused themselves in various ways. There was little to do as regards ship's work, except repeated washing down to keep the wooden decks and the boats in good shape. The men fished, made mats and fancy rope baskets, sea bags, picture frames of cigar box wood and ditties. They swam in the cool of the morning and of the evening.

It was one morning while some were swimming, the same morning that the first of the breeze came, when it happened. The sun had not yet appeared, but the soft blue sky was alight with golden shafts and the line of the horizon was blazing.

Near the bark a raw-boned Swedish sailor slid through the swells with powerful strokes, his white body glistening in the greenish water, his tanned neck, face and hands showing very plainly against the rest of him. A little sandy-haired cockney swam chirpily by him, and a black-moustached, stocky Dane was a little ahead and to his right. The rest of the crew, officers included. hung over the poop and the main deck rail and listlessly watched the swimmers.

Waffles was midships with the second mate, his golden head through an iron port that forced him inboard every time it swung shut when the ship rolled.

ONE of the men hanging in the forerigging, where there was greater coolness, shouted suddenly and pointed. All hands turned first up to him to see where he was pointing and then looked over the swells.

The lean, triangular fin was not hard to pick up.

"Come aboard!" bawled the captain from the poop to the swimmers. "Shark! Shark!" bellowed and chorused the seamen midships.

The mate, standing near the captain, sprang to life and called the carpenter to him. There was a chance of sport, and any such chance was to be eagerly seized on in a calm. It was good for officers to encourage sport. It kept the men in condition, kept them good-tempered. And so long as it did not interfere with ship's work it was all right.

"Get your hooks on deck, Chips," said the mate, rasping his gray, unshaven chin with one long hand. "We'll try and catch the beastie. Tell the cook to bring some pork on the foredeck. Get a couple of men to rig a watch-tackle on the fore yard-arm."

"Aye, aye, sir," murmured the pleased and grinning carpenter, looking up at the lean mate. He waddled away, a bow-legged wisp of a sailor, with a face the color of mahogany and a mouth that stretched from ear to ear, and made him extremely ugly. Like the mate, he was dressed in thin blue cotton dungarees, with a white cotton shirt, a white blue-peaked cap, peak backward, covering his neck, and dirty white canvas shoes.

Meanwhile the swimmers were heading for safety. The cockney and the Dane reached the pilot ladder lowered over the bark's side, and clambered gasping to the deck. Once there, they leaned over the rail with their shipmates, their naked and dripping bodies rapidly drying, to watch the Swede frantically swimming for the ship.

The man was not a fast swimmer and fear now caused him to muddle his stroke and lose a lot of headway. The triangular fin quickened and raised a little wave. The seamen on deck raced for the galley, secured some lumps of coal, and flung them hastily at the great fish. The shark was hungry, that was evident, for the splashing coal failed to drive him away. The captain brought his revolver from the cabin and took a shot, but the bullet glanced off the wager and left the fish unharmed.

The Swede and the shark arrived at the pilot ladder well-nigh together. The man heaved up as his clutching hands found the ladder. His eyes glistened with fear, his muscles were craw ling and tense. His blond, drooping mustache and his hair were almost invisible now because he was white, even his tan appearing to ebb away. He wrenched himself up three rungs as the shark arrived with a rush beneath him.

Eager hands jerked the pilot ladder inboard as the Swede climbed. The captain fired again and missed. Men were shouting, swearing, still throwing coal. The shark leaped clear of the water, open-mouthed. His teeth-fllled jaws rang shut. He fell back with a great splashing. Blood spouting, the Swede sank sobbing at last on the foredeck. His right foot was gone.

"That," swore the mate, stamping across the poop and shaking his fist at the shark, swirling away In a circle of red tinged water, "finished you, m'son. Carpenter, got those hooks?"

"Aye, aye, sir," shouted the carpenter front for'ard. "I'm getting the gear rigged."

The captain stuffed his gun into his pocket and went down the poop companion, followed by the mate. The seaman were crowding midships round the injured Swede, who was calling out in frightened tones for the mate to come and look at his hurt. The two officers pushed through the seething, interested crowd.

THEY knelt beside the scared Swede and examined his ankle. It was in shreds. The mate pressed his thumb on the artery and checked the blood. He looked at the captain, who mumbled and frowned. "Hot tar's a good thing," the latter said. "Or can you fix it other ways?"

The mate thought awhile. "I think I can. We'll use hot tar if other ways don't work.... You, Hopkins, run to my room and get that doctor-book from the shelf over my bunk. An' tell the steward to bring some hot water and the medicine-chest along."

"Aye aye, sir." called the seaman as he started aft.

The captain raised his hand. "Just a minute, Hopkins." The seaman stopped. "Tell the steward to bring the brandy bottle from my locker."

"Brandy, sir? Yessir."

The seaman went off. With most of the crew watching intently and talking in low tones, the two officers tended the hurt seaman. Swede, mate, and captain emptied the brandy bottle between them before the operation started, and while the two latter were studying up from the doctor book. The liquor carried them through successfully. When the operation was finished, most of the crew were feeling a trifle sick. The two officers were covered with blood. The Swede was unconscious.

"Take him in the fo'c'sle head," said the captain, rising and wiping his hands on a bundle of stained bandages. "Put an awning over him.... Now, where's that blasted shark?"

Every man turned to the side save two who picked up the Swede and took him away. The second mate had remained in the fore rigging watching the lean fish swim agitatedly about the ship, evidently made hungrier by its fragment of a meal. Waffles had been barking at the shark whenever the port swung open and allowed him to poke out his head.

"Where is he?" the mate called up to the second when he noticed where that young officer was.

Waffles gave the answer in a ferocious volume of noise as the second mate pointed.

The captain suddenly noticed the dog and scowled, but said nothing. Waffles was too far away from him to kick. He turned his attention to the men who were finishing the rigging of the fishing apparatus. The cook came from the storeroom with a side of fat pork that smelled like the brine tub whence it had come. On the end of a fathom of chain a great barbed iron hook was fastened. The chain was bent to a stout manilla strop that was hooked to the tackle from the yardarm. The cook stabbed the pork on to the hook.

"Lower away!" sang out the mate.

A couple of seamen overhauled the tackle, and one man, who stood on the main deck, slacked the strop between his hands till the pork and hook had struck the water.

OVERSIDE leaned all hands and watched, hardly daring to breathe. Even Waffles ceased barking, struck dumb with the tension, though he still growled deep in his throat. The shark swam up to the pork with a rush, backed off and edged around the bait. A sigh went up from the seamen. The captain climbed onto the rail and balanced there, one hand clutching at a backstay. Showing considerable excitement, he reached for his revolver, with the evident intention of taking another shot at the fish below. In some way the hammer of the gun caught in his pocket and he wrenched savagely at the butt to get the weapon clear. He let go the backstay. And at that moment the Hemro rolled in a trough.

It all happened very suddenly. There was an oath, a few startled shouts, a splash, and the captain was in the water.

Dressed as he was he started to sink at first, struggling desperately to keep to the surface. The heavy revolver was not an aid to him. and he couldn't get it free.

The mate ripped out a stream of oaths.

"The dory!" he shouted. "Some of you come along!" He raced for the little yellowpainted craft lashed upside down on the neck near the port bulwarks mid-ships. Some of the seamen raced after him.

"Coal!" shouted the second mate from the fore-rigging. "Get some more coal, you men, and pelt that shark!"

Then he put his hands above his head, breathed deeply and dived forward and outward. He knew the captain was a poor swimmer. He thought of nothing else. He struck the water with little more than a gentle splash and came up beside the fighting, strangling master.

"Steady, sir," he panted as he caught him under the arm. Hs held him up with one hand while with the other he pounded on the water's surface. The shark, startled off from the pork by the splashes and the agitation, now came back.

There was a smell of blood about the captain that was most attractive. It was the blood from the Swede, some of which still remained on the captain's clothes and hands. The shark had already tasted that blood. Also there was no suspicious-looking chain about either of these live pieces of squirming meat. Slowly at first, quickening, the great fish drove forward. The dory cracked Into the water on the opposite side of the ship. Three seamen and the mate tumbled into it.

Hastily it was jerked around the bark's stern. But every one knew it would be too late. The watching seamen groaned. One man fumbled at his hip for his sheath-knife and hurled it savagely down on the shark's back. There came a yelp and another splash. The seamen shouted frantically. They waved excited arms.

"You darned fool. Waffles!" screamed the second mate, raising himself from the water.

The captain gurgled, "The deuce!"

THE little terrier was swimming with scrambling haste to where his master pounded on the surface and supported the captain. He whimpered as he paddled. He forged between the driving fish and the captain's black beard that now floated fanwise on the surface. He took no notice of the fish's fin. His eyes were fixed on the second mate's twisted face. He did not, could not know what was impending, but he did know a fierce, thrilling desire to be at his master's side, to be with the man who had befriended him when that man faced danger.

And danger was certainly near. The air reeked of it. The strange actions of the mortals told of it. More than all, Waffles could see it in his master's eyes. Despite his predicament, the captain mumbled. "You son of a gun!" and grinned a bit.

"Come here!" yelled the desperate second mate, en deavoring to force himself and his burden nearer the dog. The dory raced down the length of the bark toward the group. The shark, already made nervous by so many goings-on, was startled anew by the intelligence of the little golden-haired terrier. Suspicious always of danger, he swerved with a swish of his tail, skinning the captain's hand with his rough hide. He came shooting and curving back to investigate.

Waffles, his attention drawn now to the fish, trod water and barked indignantly at him. The captain chuckled between gasps. The dory arrived. The seamen backed water hastily.

"Come aboard, for Heaven's sake," wheezed the breathless mate, leaning over the bow and jerking the captain up. "My nerves are gone for today."

"Take him," gurgled the bearded master of the Hemro, holding up Waffles by the scruff of the neck. The mate grinned and tossed the dog to the bottom boards.

The captain was hauled over the gunwale a moment later. The second mate followed. Two of the seamen were hammering on the water with their oars to keep the shark off. A cheer went up from the bark's deck. Once aboard,  the dripping captain and the second mate gulped down the whisky the wise old steward had waiting for them and waved back the enthusiastic seamen who wanted to shake hands. Not unpopular in his way, the captain. The second mate, too, came in for attention.

"Get that blasted shark, boys!" the captain roared. Then he looked down and frowned to see Waffles, his head on one side, looking up at him and wagging his tall, sending water drops flying in all directions. The captain's cold eye twinkled.

"Which reminds me," he added. "Any one I find mistreating this dog —what's his name? Waffles?— any one touching Waffles will have to reckon with me. He's a man's dog, and that's all there is to it. Mister"— he turned to the grinning second mate— "bring him up on the poop, and we'll give him some canned chicken and milk. And thanks for giving me a hand. I shan't forget."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the young officer, wringing out his shirt in the scuppers and chuckling. He bent and picked the fawning Waffles up and tucked him under his arm. The seamen went back to the rail to get the shark. The second male and his dog followed the captain on to the poop and went below with him to the saloon.

When they came on deck half an hour later the second mate was smoking one of the captain's cigars, and Waffles was licking his chops and looking contented. Then he caught sight of a great yellowish bulk threshing about on the foredeck with laughing seamen all around it. He rushed down the companion and tore for'ard, barking his very heart out. The captain grinned and winked at the second mate.

"Some dog," he said. Then he stiffened and turned his cheek to the port beam.

"The wind, by all that's holy! Get your men at the braces, Mister Mate so soon as they get that mess for'ard cleaned up."

_________________

2: Phantom of the Forest

Leroy Yerxa (as by Lee Francis)

1915-1946

Amazing Stories November 1948

THE AUTOMOBILE reached the crest of the hill, skidded and started toward the ditch. Earl Robinson twisted the wheel savagely, got the feel of the ice hidden under the snow, and deftly straightened the car. Roy Starr awakened at his side and sat up. His eyes were narrowed with sleep.

"Lord," he groaned, "how much farther?"

Robinson spoke through gritted teeth.

"About three miles. Might as well be a million."

The car was moving forward about twenty miles per hour. Three people slept in the rear seat. They were packed under pieces of equipment. There were half a dozen guns stacked across their feet.

The snow came down thickly, endlessly. It drifted across the road. Almost eight inches had fallen since sundown. Tomorrow, there won't be any traffic moving, Robinson thought, not without a plow to break the trail. The valley will be a lost world.

"Shangri-la," he said softly.

"Huh?" Roy Starr was almost asleep once more.

Robinson said, "Skip it."

He was thinking about the war, and the deep, lost valleys he flew into when he flew the "hump."

He tried to concentrate on the road once more. They had come six miles from Indian River. The road was just a white line, leading up and down long rows of dark evergreens. The snow filled the air, tangling his thoughts, filling the world with stinging, blinding particles of white. The snow actually seemed to hurt his eyes. It seemed to be hitting his eyeballs.

He shook his head angrily. Sleep was stinging his eyes. He watched the trackless road with an intensity of a man hovering between life and death. Sleep— and death. Trying desperately to avoid both.

One more long hill.

Taking a long chance, he pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go. The motor roared, protested and the car leaped ahead like a monster alive. The speedometer said fifty— then fifty-five. Sixty. At sixty they hit the sharp incline. Roy Starr was wide awake now, holding tightly to the door-handle, as though it insured him against an accident. Someone stirred in the back seat.

"Almost there?" It was a girl's voice, sleepy and disinterested.

"Almost," Earl Robinson said, and twisted the wheel again. The car went crosswise with the road. It slid forward, up the hill, careened wildly and straightened its course once more. Robinson sighed.

"Close," he said.

"Earl, for God's sake, stop!!"

Roy Starr's voice welled out of him, filled with stark horror. Robinson saw the weird, shadowy form on the road just in time. He pressed hard on the brake and the car jerked into the ditch, and stopped with a sickening jolt.

The girl in the rear seat clawed her way forward, clutching Starr's shoulder.

"A man on the road," she cried. "Earl, you hit him."

She started sobbing as though her heart were breaking.

"Shut up," Robinson snapped. His nerves had reached the breaking point. Then, in a gentler voice. "There's a man there all right, Marge. I didn't hit him. Get hold of yourself. Glenn, Glenn, take care of her, will you?"

All three people in the rear seat were wide awake now. Glenn Starr, dark, serious, in full control of his wits, drew the sobbing girl back beside him.

"Take it easy, kid," he said. "Earl will take care of everything. We haven't done anything wrong."

The other man, sitting on the far side of the car, pushed the door open and climbed out.

"Man, this is a storm, and I don't mean perhaps. Nice little ditch we got ourselves into."

Robinson and Roy Starr got out. Roy pulled his collar up tightly around his neck. He walked back a few paces and kneeled beside the snow buried corpse. Earl Robinson, tall, solid, stood over him as he pushed away the snow.

"Nobody I know," Roy said, and turned away so he wouldn't have to stare at the dead, frozen face.

Robinson bent over and pushed more snow away.

"I'll be damned."

The chest was badly crushed. Blood had frozen in the snow next to the wound.

"Hit sometime before the snow came," Robinson said.

Roy Starr was brushing snow away from the corpse.

"Maybe," he said softly. "A car never hit him, though. There aren't any blood tracks. The hole is in the direct center of his chest. The ribs aren't crushed on either side."

Robinson's voice was a little hushed.

"That's what I was thinking. Looks like a bear might have mauled him."

Roy Starr came slowly to his feet.

"Look," he said, "we aren't kidding ourselves. Something hit him, hard, in the chest. It wasn't a car because it didn't break in the whole bone structure. It wasn't a bear, because a bear would have done a more thorough job of it. Shooting is out. That isn't a bullet wound."

Robinson shrugged.

"What's left?"

"The same thing that's been killing hunters for the past five years," Starr said grimly. "For lack of a better name, the phantom buck."

Robinson turned away, looking toward the car.

"You're crazy," he said. "Let's say we're both crazy. Our imaginations are running riot. I think the rest of the party ought to know about the automobile accident. We can't do any good here. We'll go on to Rosewood if we can get the buggy out of the ditch. We can call the sheriff from there. This is the sheriff's job, not ours."

The three people who had ridden in the rear seat were in the ditch, pushing snow away from the wheels. Glenn Starr was saying quietly:

"We ought to get him out of the road."

Robinson went to work with the shovel, digging the right rear wheel out of the snow and the thick, half-frozen mud.

"Forget all about it," he said. "No one will be driving through here tonight. We'll call the sheriff from Rosewood. Outside of that, it's none of our business. Automobile accident. Wasn't our fault. We've done all we can."

They worked hard, all of them trying to forget the body on the road and concentrate on the task of freeing the car from the ditch. In twenty minutes they were on their way, crawling slowly down the opposite side of the hill into the cup-like valley where a country store, church and schoolhouse had been flatteringly named "Village of Rosewood!"

Marjorie Wrenn was still crying softly. Glenn tried to comfort her, but the girl was exhausted mentally and physically. The snow still blotted out everything but a few yards of the road. Once in the valley, Robinson released his grip on the wheel and relaxed.

"Roy," he said softly.

"Yea?"

"About that phantom buck story. I wouldn't talk too much. On the square, though I'm inclined to wonder."

Roy Starr's voice sank to a whisper.

"You think— maybe...?"

"Yea," Robinson answered, "I think— maybe...."

THE ELECTRIC light flashed on, making the world of swirling snow friendly once more. The car was parked beside the house, close to the barn. The place was a huge country store with the living quarters attached like a toad-stool to the side of it. There was a wood-pile in the yard, hidden under a foot of snow, looking like a crouching, white monster. A single pole had been buried in the ground, and from it hung a six-point buck. The deer had been gutted, and blood made little red blobs on the snow.

Glenn Starr climbed out and helped Marjorie Wrenn to the ground. He saw the overcoated figure emerging from the woodshed.

"Norm, you old horse. Got any snake bite medicine?"

Norm Boody, a well fed duplicate of Slim Summerville, was clad in a heavy overcoat drawn over a flannel night-shirt. His feet were hidden in vast, felt slippers.

"Thought you people weren't gonna get here. It's almost three in the morning. About those snake bites. What's the matter? Snow snakes biting tonight?"

The others were getting stiffly out of the car.

Earl Robinson said solemnly:

"Those snow snakes bite before you can go ten feet. We had a little trouble, Norm."

Boody found a half filled bottle in his coat and passed it around.

"Bad country to drive in a storm," he said.

"Worse than usual," Robinson said. "There is a dead man laying down the road a mile or two."

Norm Boody gulped from the bottle, choked and spewed the whiskey on the snow.

"It— wasn't Bill, was it?"

Robinson shook his head.

"No one I know. Dressed in hunter's outfit. Didn't find his gun. Probably buried under the snow."

Boody sighed. He looked uncertain.

"Bill went into Indian River for some stuff. He didn't come back."

"Look," Glenn said suddenly. "Marge is freezing and we're all tired out. We better get inside."

Norm Boody sprang toward the door and held it open.

"Sure, sure," he said. "The wife's got both coffee pots steaming by now. I oughta be shot for not getting this poor girl inside the minute she came. It ain't fit weather...."

Robinson smiled.

"Let's get to that coffee."

Inside, they all greeted Mrs. Boody. While she poured coffee into the cups on the kitchen table, Robinson cornered Norm Boody and led him into the living room. It was a low-ceilinged, warm, homey place. A telephone hung on the far wall. Robinson dialed the sheriff's number at Indian River, put the receiver back in place, lifted it and tried again. He shook his head.

"Trouble?" Boody asked.

"The line must be down. Phone won't work. Guess we'll sleep tonight and make that call in the morning."

The two men sat down in the darkness of the living room. Mrs. Boody, a grey headed, smiling woman who looked as though she might be anyone's mother, came in with two steaming cups.

"You better drink before you freeze," she said. "That darned stove takes so long to heat up."

She turned to her husband.

"Norm, what's wrong?"

Norm Boody grimaced.

"Man dead down the road. Something mauled him. Killed before the snow came this evening. Earl most ran over him."

The room was deathly silent for a moment. Then the woman's voice came, almost in a sob.

"Norm, Norm, it wasn't Bill, was it?"

Robinson said quickly:

"It wasn't Bill. I saw the face. No one I've ever seen before."

"Thank God for that," Mrs. Boody said. "You called the sheriff?"

"Can't," Norm Boody said. "Line's out of order. We'll get in touch with town in the morning."

"I don't think we'll sleep much tonight," a soft voice said from the door.

Earl Robinson chuckled. It was an attempt to put the whole thing off lightly. It didn't sound very sincere.

"You'll sleep all right, Marjorie. After that trip, we'll all sleep."

The girl smiled wanly.

"I hope so. It's hard— thinking of that— that...."

Daylight brought a peaceful, untroubled look to the valley. For ten miles, without a track save for the animals who had moved during the night, the valley stretched upward on all sides to the wooded hills. The big general store, schoolhouse and country church nestled in the center of the snow cup, with trackless roads leading away to the four points of the compass.

Blue-gray smoke lifted straight upward from the house, drifted two hundred feet into the sky and wafted away into nothingness.

Robinson came out of the woodshed with his black and red plaid coat wrapped tightly around him. It was a grand hunting morning, and he didn't intend to let last night's incident spoil it. The country was beautiful but there was nothing gentle about it. You had to face violence and forget it— quickly. Death wasn't easy to look at, but here, people learned that when it came, there was no point in letting it interfere with their life.

Bill Boody hadn't come in last night. His car wasn't to be seen. Robinson went back into the woodshed. He climbed the steps to the kitchen and walked in quietly behind Mrs. Boody, who was bent over the kitchen stove.

"Where's Norm?" he asked.

Mrs. Boody looked worn and tired, as though she hadn't slept.

"Milking the cows. Bill didn't come home last night."

He knew that she was still suspicious of him. She wasn't sure that he told the truth about the body on the road.

"Bill will be okay," he said. "Are any of the others up?"

Mrs. Boody smiled.

"Roy came out a few minutes ago. He took one look at the thermometer outside the kitchen window, groaned and went back to bed."

Robinson started for the bedroom.

"You better let Marge sleep," Mrs. Boody said. "She was all worn out. She needs the rest."

"Earl," the woman at the stove said. There was a quality of urgency in her voice that stopped him short. He pivoted.

"Yes?"

"You think the phantom buck might have done the killing?"

Here it was again, he thought. They weren't satisfied to let the whole thing pass as an accident. They had to bring up dead dogs, fall back on superstition. Everything was perfect for hunting, and they had to spoil the spirit of the thing.

"That phantom buck business is a damned fairy tale," he said.

"But you think it was the phantom buck, all the same."

Robinson said nothing. The woman pushed the coffee pot back on the stove and went to the window. She stared out at the snowy world.

"Bill saw the phantom buck once."

"I know," Robinson said. He wished she wouldn't talk about it. She was getting herself all excited. "Probably Bill had been drinking some of that snake bite medicine."

Mrs. Boody shook her head.

"Bill don't touch a drop." Her face was very red, maybe from the stove. "Bill said the buck was the biggest deer he'd ever seen. He went right by Bill, and disappeared, right in broad daylight. Bill looked for tracks after he was gone, and there weren't any."

She wet her lips and went back to the stove.

"I wouldn't worry, Mrs. Boody," Robinson said.

She looked up then with frantic eyes.

"It isn't Bill, out there on the road, dead?"

He went swiftly to her and put one hand on her shoulder.

"I wouldn't lie to you. It wasn't him."

She seemed to relax for the first time since last night.

"I guess you're telling the truth. I wish Bill would come home, though. They used to say that anyone who saw the phantom buck was getting ready for an early death."

Norm Boody came up from the barn with two steaming pails of milk. Roy Starr was getting dressed in the kitchen, close to the stove. He was muttering threats against his brother, Glenn.

"Never let a guy sleep," he groaned. "Always the first guy up and the only man on earth who can't let other people stay in bed when they want to."

Glenn Starr and Marjorie were already at the breakfast table. The others drifted in and sat down. A girl and a husky, sleepy-eyed man came down from upstairs. Roy Starr greeted the girl by chasing her around the stove and left her alone only after she picked up the poker and threatened to use it on him.

Robinson introduced the fifth member of the hunting party at the breakfast table.

"Pete Larson hasn't hunted before," he said. "Pete, you know our own bunch. You know Norm and Mrs. Boody now. The tall, fair damsel holding the coffee pot is Norma, Mrs. Boody's best assistant housekeeper and daughter. The sleepy eyed creature at her side is her husband, Floyd."

Larson himself was heavy set, and a slightly ponderous man who wore light rimmed glasses and a rather awed look on his face.

"I guess I've let myself in for some rugged country and some heavy eating," he said. "Anyhow, I always did like a fifth cup of coffee and the supply looks adequate."

"It was rugged last night, all right," Roy Starr said.

Instantly there was silence. Norma, the tall, slim girl, looked at her mother questioningly.

Robinson broke in before she had time to speak.

"We found a dead man on the road last night. Nobody we knew."

He heard Norma and her husband catch their breaths quickly. Then the telephone rang and he was on his feet. Norm Boody was closer to the phone and answered it. The remainder of the group went on eating, but every ear was tuned to the conversation.

"Yes?"

He listened for a time, then said:

"I got a party of hunters who came in last night. They saw him on the road. We tried to call you but the wires were dead."

Then:

"Oh? So that was it. Okay, we'll keep an eye open. Haven't seen Bill, have you? He's coming in behind the plough? Good. We were worried about him."

"Telephone linemen came through this morning," he explained. "They picked up the body. That was Sheriff Walt Beardsly calling. He ain't blaming you boys. Says your tracks went right around the body. Says a bear must have mauled the guy. They found his gun in the ditch."

Earl Robinson said:

"Yea, that's what happened all right. Bill's okay, isn't he?"

Boody nodded.

"Spent the night at the sheriff's house. Couldn't drive in. He's coming in a couple of hours."

Mrs. Boody went out for some more coffee. Larson, managing a smile, said:

"Guess we can go hunting without worrying about anything— except bear."

Norma tickled her husband between well padded ribs.

"Take Floyd along. He'll chase all the bears to the other side of the mountain."

Floyd grinned.

"Guess you boys can take care of yourselves."

Roy Starr hadn't taken an active part in the conversation for some time. He brought his fist down on the table with a bang.

"To hell with the phantom," he stood up. "Ten minutes ago you were all tied up inside with a damned silly superstition. Now you're kidding yourselves that everything is okay. You're still ready to believe in ghosts and goblins at a moment's notice. What's the matter? We all too scared to think clearly for ourselves?"

Robinson got up.

"Come on, Roy," he said. "Let's go out and get chains on the car. We'll need them to make that south hill."

Roy Starr was trembling. Something had slipped inside him. Something that made him angry at all of them. Who did they think he was? Could they handle him like a ten year old kid?

"You want to lead Junior outside and give him a lecture," he snapped. "Please don't scare these good people. Well, you can all go to hell. I'm going after a deer. If it turns out to be the phantom buck, I'll get him. I'm going alone and I don't need you or the car or anything else. I still got two good feet."

They sat there and watched him go. Robinson sat down a little weakly. They heard Roy pick up his rifle in the kitchen and waited until his footsteps faded beyond the woodshed.

"Well," Robinson said at last, "I guess Junior is on the warpath."

Glenn Starr looked at his watch. He halted in the protection of the evergreen grove and turned his back to the wind. Marjorie Wrenn caught up with him.

"Better rest," Glenn said. "It's after noon."

He found some sandwiches in his pocket and passed her one. The girl's face was very pale.

"The tracks didn't come out of the swamp," she said.

"Forget the tracks," Glenn said gently. "It's been snowing since ten o'clock. They were Roy's tracks all right. The snow drifted in and covered them up. He probably headed for home hours ago."

"I— can't eat, Glenn. Let's go back. Let's try to find the tracks again. I'm scared, Glenn. I'm so scared my teeth are chattering."

Glenn took her rifle.

"Follow me," he said abruptly. "You're all done in. I'll take the shortest route."

The girl took half a dozen faltering steps and sank down into the snow. When he reached her side, she was out cold. He rubbed her wrists and cheeks until her eyes, full of tears, opened slowly.

"You're gonna be all right," he said, and picked her up in his arms.

Slowly, for he knew it was going to be a rough trail, he headed across the valley toward home.

Earl Robinson moved more slowly now. He and Larson had swung down from the north and crossed the three sets of tracks. Larson, puffing from his first day of marching, came behind him. Robinson stopped finally. He waited for Larson to catch up. He pointed at the almost covered tracks.

"Here's where they missed his trail," he said. "I think we can still follow it if we take our time."

"Look," Larson said abruptly, "you don't believe that phantom buck business, do you?"

Robinson didn't answer. He started away through the swamp, watching for a broken twig here, an almost buried footprint there. It took him two long hours to find the end of the trail. It had started to snow again. The boy was half covered with the drift. A thick growth of cedars had protected him from the full force of the storm. His eyes were wide open and he showed signs of recognizing Robinson as the big man bent over him. He tried to smile, but he couldn't. There was blood around his lips and his jacket was torn open to reveal a deep, bloody gash in his chest.

Robinson built a fire hurriedly and Larson kept the blaze alive with dry logs.

Robinson swore softly as he found bandages in his kit and administered first aid. He swore at the cold, and the snow, and the thing that had done this to the kid.

They carried Roy Starr out that night, and it was close to midnight before they met Norm Boody and the party who had come in search of them. Mrs. Boody had coffee on the stove when they got in. Robinson, once Roy Starr was warm and fairly safe once more, fell into a chair and slept like a child. An hour later, he was on his feet again, staggering, half dead from exhaustion, giving orders to the doctor who had come from Indian River.

Roy spoke in a whisper.

"Earl?"

He was in pain. Bad pain. Earl took his hand.

"It's okay, kid. I'm with you. It's all over."

"Earl," the voice was a sob. "Earl, it's true about the phantom. I saw him."

"I know," Robinson said softly. "Keep quiet. We found you in the swamp. Larson and I brought you in. The Doc says you're okay. Few days rest."

Roy felt all choked up and hot inside. He squeezed Earl's hand.

"Tell Larson he's okay. You're okay. Earl, we got to get out'a here."

His fever was rising.

"Listen, junior," Robinson said sternly, "I said everything's okay, and it is. Lay still and sleep."

Roy wasn't hearing him now. He tried to force himself up on one elbow. His eyes were filled with memories— of terror.

"I was a sap, Earl. I tell you I saw him. He was big and beautiful, big as a nightmare. He snorted right close to me and there was fire shooting out of his nostrils. He hit me like lightning, Earl. I— don't remember— after— that."

He sank back, breathing hard.

Glenn Starr came in from the bedroom.

"How's Roy?"

"He's going to sleep now, aren't you Roy?" Earl asked.

"Yea— I'm gonna sleep."

"I can't sleep," Glenn Starr said. "If we'd kept him here this morning, he'd have been all right."

"Is Bill up?" Earl asked.

"Yea! He's talking with the Doc in the kitchen. Doctor hasn't left yet."

"Send in Bill and tell Doc to wait a little while," Robinson said grimly.

Bill Boody came into the darkened room and sat down quietly by the couch.

"How's Roy?"

"Okay, Bill," Robinson said. "I been doing some thinking."

"About what?"

Bill Boody was tall, slim, and well put together. His face, burned dark from sun and rain, was sensitive and mirrored friendliness and intelligence.

"About the phantom buck," Robinson said.

"We all have," Boody said. "Norm told you I saw the phantom once, didn't he?"

Robinson nodded.

"Why didn't the phantom attack you, Bill?"

Boody shook his head.

"I don't know. It was the phantom all right. He was big— and grand, like sort of a God."

Neither of them said anything for a while. Roy was sleeping. His breathing came easier now.

"I guess I sound a little corny," Boody said. "I don't mean to."

"No," Robinson answered. "No, I wasn't thinking of that. Roy says it was the phantom that attacked him. He felt kinda like you do about it."

Robinson stood up and walked to the window. He stared upward toward the dark, moonlit forest.

"When did you see the phantom?"

Bill looked thoughtful.

"It was just before dusk...."

"I guess I'm not making my question clear," Robinson interrupted. "I mean, was it during hunting season?"

"It was last spring. We were plowing the north field."

"Were you carrying a gun?"

"No," Boody said, puzzled.

"That's what I thought."

Doctor Peterson was a frosty looking old chap with black rimmed specs and a grey beard.

"You about ready to go back to town, Doc?" Robinson asked.

Peterson grinned.

"After I drink all the coffee in sight," he said. "And it looks like I have."

Mrs. Boody was with them in the kitchen. The house was quiet.

"I've got to get gas and oil. Guess I'll follow you in," Robinson said.

"Good. The boy's all right. I'll be out again tomorrow. Ready to go?"

Outside the snow had finally stopped falling. The early morning was clear, with a promise of a bright day to come. Robinson started his car and warmed it up. The Doctor said good night to Mrs. Boody and came out to climb into his Model T. Robinson backed out slowly and followed the car down the road toward Indian River.

It was just daylight. Robinson left the car a mile from Rosewood and entered the woods. He had taken his time in town, found an all-night gas station to refuel his car and parked it here just as the sun came up, coloring the frosty, blue-gray hills above him.

Half a mile from the road he turned and entered the swamp where he had found Roy the day before. He started walking swiftly. He was weaponless, having left the rifle in his car. Two hours passed and he had penetrated deeply into the swamp.

He was cold. He had seen no fresh trails. A black squirrel chattered at him, and hid itself on the far side of a cedar tree. A fox hurried across his trail, a red blurr against the snow.

Far away, he heard the sudden dry "snap" of a twig. He found a stump and seated himself. He was very quiet. Suddenly an icy coldness penetrated his entire body. It wasn't the wind or the natural cold that troubled him now. It was the feeling of death— sudden death— poised only seconds away.

Death— behind him, and he dared not look around.

He waited perhaps sixty seconds, and they seemed like hours. He stood up very slowly and started to move his arms rhythmatically in a back and forth motion as though to restore circulation. At the same time, he made it evident to anyone— anything, looking at him, that he carried no weapon.

Then, without betraying fear, he turned.

Not ten feet away, poised with every splendid muscle tense and alert, was the biggest buck he had ever seen. The great animal stared at him without fear. Its antlers were held high.

The eyes frightened Robinson. They weren't soft, brown deer eyes. They were, instead, black and beady, like twin windows to Hell.

The head swung back. The hooves pawed at the snow. With a snort, the creature sprang into the air. Robinson ducked quickly to one side, but there was no reason for him to flee. The phantom buck, for he was sure the animal was a phantom, moved past him with incredible speed and was gone in the forest. He was aware of a terrific burst of speed— of a perfectly proportioned body, and that was all.

For a long time, Robinson stood there by the stump. All the education that goes into a man, to bring him culture, was reviewing itself in his mind. All the hunter instinct drained out of him. There was only humbleness left, and respect for wild things.

He knew he would find no tracks, even though he forced himself to look for them. Six inches of untouched snow covered the spot where the phantom had stood.

Robinson shrugged and started back along the lengthy, circular trail to his car.

Norm Boody came out of the house with Roy Starr's rifle. They were all gathered beside the car. Roy, a trifle pale, was wrapped snugly, and resting on the rear seat. Glenn Starr sat beside Roy, his arm about Marjorie. Norma smiled at Glenn.

"I know a secret," she said.

"Better not tell it," Glenn made a pass at her with his open palm. Norma stepped back and laughed loudly.

"Glenn's a hero. He carried Marge out of the cruel woods. He carried her three miles, and now she's consented to marry him."

Glenn gave a war-whoop and started after her. Norma ran into the house and slammed the door.

"You may as well face it," Robinson said. "Roy isn't so weak that he can't kid the daylights out of you all the way home."

Pete Larson spoke from the far corner of the front seat.

"How about the little secret you're keeping, Earl. That was quite a little research trip you took into the woods this morning."

Robinson looked startled.

"You didn't..."

Larson chuckled.

"When you and the doctor left last night, I was suspicious. I went down the road this morning and located your car. I took along a gun for protection. Spent an hour in the swamp. Got tired of tracking you after that."

Norm Boody had been studying them curiously.

"Bill said you were asking a lot of questions last night, Earl."

Larson spoke again before Robinson could answer.

"Of course we all go at things a little differently," he admitted. "However, I got an idea that the phantom wouldn't attack a man who didn't carry a gun. Earl left his in the car when he went into the swamp."

Robinson nodded.

"I went into the swamp," he admitted. "I had an idea the phantom might be sort of a ghostly protector of the herd. We have quite a slaughter of deer up here every fall. It must be hard on them if they have any feeling at all. What's so damn much different between men killing deer, or a deer killing a man? If the Phantom exists, he's sort of a protecting angel— or a God. If I had met him..."

"You didn't?" Norm Boody asked sharply.

Earl grinned.

"If I had met him," he went on, "I guess I'd do something about it. I guess I'd think he was a pretty grand old guy, standing up to fight for his kind. I'd probably look him over and pray for mercy, and get the hell out of his domain. If I hunted again next year, I'd either find new territory, or prepare to get myself killed."

Norm Boody looked solemn.

"Well, I ain't much for hunting myself," he admitted. "But if I did like to hunt, and I believed a story like that, I'd leave my gun at home when I went into the woods. Ain't that the general idea?"

Roy Starr said weakly:

"Gosh, I'm getting awfully weak already. How about a shot of snakebite medicine."

Glenn found a half bottle and passed it around.

"Might as well finish it. My wife-to-be says I gotta stop drinking as soon as we're married."

"And where are you hunting next year, Larson," Robinson asked.

Larson grinned.

"How about a good week hunting jack-rabbits? I don't think I'd be very scared if I met the God of the jack-rabbits, even if he did shoot fire out of the corner of his nostrils."

_______________________

3: A Matter of Business

Sinclair Lewis

1885-1951

Harper’s Magazine March 1921

CANDEE'S sleeping porch faced the east. At sunrise every morning he startled awake and became a poet.

He yawned, pulled up the gray camping blanket which proved that he had once gone hunting in Canada, poked both hands behind his neck, settled down with a wriggling motion, and was exceedingly melancholy and happy.

He resolved, seriously and all at once, to study music, to wear a rose down to business, to tell the truth in his advertisements, and to start a campaign for a municipal auditorium. He longed to leap out of bed and go change the entire world immediately, lint always, as sunrise blurred into russet, he plunged his arms under the blanket, sighed, "Funny what stuff a fellow will think of at six a.m.," yawned horridly, and was asleep. Two hours afterwards when he sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his jaw in the hope that he could sneak out of shaving this, morning, letting his feet ramble around independently in search of his slippers, he was not a poet. He was Mr. Candee of the Novelty Stationery Shop, Vernon.

He sold writing paper. Easter cards, bronze book-ends, trained color prints. He was a salesman born. To him it was exhilaration to herd a hesitating customer; it was pride to see his clerks, Miss Cogerty and the new girl, imitate his courtesy, his quickness. He was conscious of beauty. Ten times a week he stopped to gloat over a print in which a hilltop and a flare of daisies expressed all the indolence of August. But— and this was equally a purl of him— he was delighted by "putting things over." He was as likely to speculate in a broken lot of china dogs as to select a stock of chaste brass knockers. It was he who had popularized Whistler in Vernon, and he who had brought out the "Oh My! Bathing Girl," pictures.

He was a soldier of fortune, was Candee; he fought under any flag which gave him the excuse. He was as much an adventurer as though he sat on a rampart wearing a steel corselet instead of sitting at a golden-oak desk wearing a blue-serge suit.

EVERY SUNDAY afternoon the Camdees drove out. to the golf club. They came home by a new route this Sunday.

"I feel powerful. Let's do some exploring," said Candee.

He turned the car off the Boulevard, down one of the nameless hilly roads which twist along the edge of every city, he came into a straggly country of market gardens, jungles of dead weeds, unpruned crab-apple trees, and tall, thin houses which started as artificial-stone mansions and ended as unpainted frame shacks. In front of a tar-paper shanty there was a wild-grape arbor of thick vines draped upon second-hand scantlings and cracked pieces of molding. The yard had probably never been raked, but it displayed petunias in a tub salvaged from a patent washing machine. On a shelf beside the gate was a glass ease with a sign:

ToYs for THEE chilrun.

Candee stopped the car.

In the case were half a dozen wooden dolls with pegged joints— an old-man doll with pointed hat, jutting black beard, and lumpy, out-thrust hands; a Pierrot, with a prim wooden cockade; a princess fantastically tall and lean.

"Huh! Hand made! Arts-and-grafts stuff!" said Candee, righteously.

"That's so," said Mrs. Candee.

He drove on.

"Freak stuff. Abs'lutely grotesque. Not like anything I ever saw!"

"That's so," said Mrs, Candee.

He was silent. He irritably worked the air-choke, and when he found that it was loose he said, "Damn!" As for Mrs. Candee, she said nothing at all. She merely looked like a wife.

He turned toward her argumentative. "Strikes me those dolls were darn ugly. Some old nut of a hermit must have made 'em. They were — they were ugly! Eh?"

"That's so," said Mrs. Candee.

"Don't you think they were ugly?"

"Yes, I think that's so," said Mrs. Candee, as she settled down to meditate upon the new laundress who was coming to-morrow.

Next morning Candee rushed into his shop, omitted the report on his Sunday golf and the progress of his game which he usually gave to Miss Cogerty, and dashed at the shelf of toys. He had never thought about toys as he had about personal Christmas cards or diaries. His only specialty for children was expensive juveniles.

He glowered at the shelf. It was disordered. It was characterless. There were one rabbit of gray Canton flannel, two rabbits of papier-mache, and nine tubercular rabbits of white fur. There were sixteen dolls which simpered and looked unintelligent. There were one train, one fire engine, and a device for hoisting thimblefuls of sand upon a trestle. Not that you did anything with it when you had hoisted it,

"Huh!" said Candee.

"Yes, Mr. Candee?" said Miss Cogerty.

"Looks like a side-street notions store. Looks like a racket shop. Looks like a— looks like— Aah!" said Candee.

He stormed his desk like a battalion of marines. He was stern. "Got to take up that bum shipment with, the Fressen Paper Company, I'll write 'em a letter that 'll take their hides off. I won't type it. Make it stronger if I turn the ole pen loose."

He vigorously cleared away a pile of fancy penwipers — stopping only to read the advertisement on an insurance blotter, to draw one or two pictures on an envelope, and to rub t he enticing pale-blue back of a box of safety matches with a sort pencil till it looked silvery in a cross-light, He snatched his fountain pen out of his vest pocket. He looked at it unrelentingly. He sharpened the end of a match and scraped a clot of ink off the pen cap. He tried the ink supply by making a line of O's on his thumbnail. He straightened up, looked reprovingly at Miss Cogerty 's back, slapped a sheet of paper on the desk— then stopped again and read his mail.

It did not take him more than an hour to begin to write the letter he was writing. In grim jet letters he scrawled:

FRESSEN COMPAY

Gentlemen,— I want you to thoroughly understand—

Twenty minutes later he had added nothing to the letter but a curlicue on the tail of the "d" in "understand." He was drawing the picture of a wooden doll with a pointed hat and a flaring black beard. His eyes were abstracted and his lips moved furiously:

"Makes me sick. Not such a whale of a big shop, but it's distinctive. Not all this commonplace junk — souvenirs and bum valentines. And yet our toys — Ordinary! Common! Hate to think what people must have been saying about them! But those wooden dolls out there in the country— they were ugly, just like Nelly said, but somehow they kind of stirred up the imagination."

He shook his head, rubbed his temples, looked up wearily. He saw that the morning rush had begun. He went out into the shop slowly, but as he crooned at Mrs, Harry McPherson, "I have some new light-weight English envelopes— crossbar lavender with a stunning purple lining," he was imperturbable. He went out to lunch with Harry Jason and told a really new flivver story. He did not cease his bustling again till four, when the shop was for a moment still. Then he leaned against the counter and brooded:

"Those wooden dolls remind me of— Darn it! I don't know what they do remind me of! Like something — Castles. Gypsies. Oh, ruts! Brother Candee, T thought you've grown up! Hey, Miss Cogerty, what trying do? Don't put those Honey Bunny books there!"

At home he hurried through dinner.

"Shall we play a little auction with the Darbins?" Mrs. Candee yawned.

"No. I— got to mull over some business plans. Think I'll take a drive by myself, unless you or the girls have to use the machine." ventured Candee.

"No, I think I might catch up on my sleep. Oh, Jimmy, the new laundress drinks just as much coffee as the last one did!"

"Yes?" said Candee, looking fixedly at a candle shade and meditating, "I don't know. Funny, all the wild crazy plans I used to have when I was a kid. Suppose those dolls remind me of that."

He dashed out from dinner, hastily started the car. He drove rapidly past the lakes, through dwindling hues of speculative houses, into a world of hazel-nut, brush and small boys with furtive dogs. His destination was the tarpaper shack in front of which he had seen the wooden dolls.

He stopped with a squawk of brakes, bustled up the path to the wild-grape arbor. In the dimness beneath it. squatting on his heels beside a bicycle, was a man all ivory and ebony, ghost white and outlandish black. His cheeks and veined forehead wore pale, his beard was black and thin and square. Only his hands were ruddy. They were brick-red and thick, yet cunning was in them, and the fingers tapered to square ends. He was a mediaeval monk in overalls, a Hindu indecently without his turban.

As Candee charged upon him he looked up and mourned:

"The chain, she rusty."

Now Candee was the friendliest soul in all the Boosters' Club. Squatting, he sympathized:

"Rusty, eh? Ole chain kind of rusty!  Hard luck. I'll say. Ought to use graphite on it. That's it— graphite. 'Member when I was a kid —

"I use graphite. All rusty before I get him," the ghost lamented. His was a deep voice, and humorless and grave,

Candee was impressed, "Hard luck! How about boric acid? No, that isn't it— chloric acid. No, oxalic acid. That's it— oxalic! That'll take off the rust."

"Os-all-ic," murmured the ghost.

"Well, cheer up, old man. Some day you'll be driving your own boat."

"Oh! Say— the ghost was childishly proud— "I got a phonograph!"

"Have you? Slick!" Candee became cautious and inquisitive. He rose and, though actually he had not touched the bicycle, he dusted off his hands. Craftily: " Well, I guess you make pretty good money, at that, I was noticing—"

"Reason I turned in, I noticed you had some toys out front. Thought I might get one for the kids. What do you charge?" He was resolving belligerently, "I won't pay more, than a dollar per."

"I sharge fifty cent."

Candee felt cheated. He had been ready to battle for his rights and it was disconcert .tug to waste all this energy. The ghost rose, in sections, and ambled toward the glass case of dolls. He was tall, fantastically tali as his own toy emperors, and his blue-denim jacket was thick with garden soil. Beside him Candee was rosy and stubby and distressingly neat. He was also uneasy. Here was a person to whom he couldn't talk naturally.

"So you make dolls, eh? Didn't know there was a toy maker in Vernon,"

"No, I am nod a toy maker. I am a sculptor." The ghost was profoundly sad. "But nod de kine you t'ink. I do not make chudges in plog hats to put on courthouses. I would lige to, I would make fine plog hats. But I am not recognize, I make epitaphs in de monooment works. Huh !" The ghost sounded human now, and full of guile. " I am de only man in dose monooment works dat know what R.I.P. mean in de orizhinal  Greek!"

He leaned against the gate and chuckled. Candee recovered from his feeling of being trapped in a particularly chilly tomb. He crowed:

"I'll bet you are, at that. But you must have a good time making these dolls."

"You lak dem?"

"You bet! I certainly do. I—" His enthusiasm stumbled. In a slightly astonished tone, in a low voice, he marveled, "And I do, too, by golly!" Then: "You— I guess you enjoy making—"

"No, no! It iss not enjoyment. Dey are my art, de dolls. Dey are how I get even wit' de monooment works, I should wish I could make him for a living, but nobody want him. One year now— always dey stand by de gate, wailing, and nobody buy one. Oh, well, I can't help dat! I know what I do, even if nobody else don't. I try to make him primitive, like what a child would make if he was a fine craftsman like me. Dey are all dream dolls. And me. I make him right. See! Nobody can break him "

He snatched the Gothic princess from the case and banged her on the fence.

Candee came out of a trance of embarrassed unreality and shouted: "Sure are the real stuff. Now, uh, the— uh— May I ask your name?"

"Emile Jumas my name."

Candee snapped his fingers, "Got it, by golly!"

"Pardon?"

"The Papa Jumas dolls! That's their name. Look here! Have you got any more of these in the house?"

"Maybe fifty." Jumas had been roused out of his ghostliness.

"Great! Could you make five or six a day, if you didn't do anything else and maybe had a boy to help you?"

"Oh yez. No, Well, maybe four."

"See here. I could— I have a little place where I think maybe I could sell a few. Course you understand I don't know for sure. Taking a chance. But I think maybe I could. I'm J. T. Candee. Probably you know my stationery shop. I don't want to boast, but I will say there's no place in town that touches it for class. But I don't mean I could afford to pay you any fortune. But"— all his caution collapsed— "Jumas, I'm going to put you across!"

The two men shook hands a number of times and made sounds of enthusiasm, sounds like the rubbing of clothes on a washboard. But Jumas was stately in his invitation:

"Will you be so good and step in to have a leetle homemade wine?"

It was one room, his house, with a loft above, but it contained a harp, a double bed, a stove, a hen that was doubtful of strangers, a substantial Mamma Jumas, six children, and forty-two wooden dolls.

"Would you like to give up the monument works and stick to making these?" glowed Candee, as he handled the dolls.

Junius mooned at him. "Oh yez."

Ten minutes later, at the gate, Candee sputtered: "By golly! by golly! Certainly am pitching wild to-night. Not safe to be out alone. For first time in my life forgot to mention prices. Crazy us a kid— and I like it!" But he tried to sound managerial as he returned. "What, do you think I ought to pay you apiece?"

Craftily Papa Jumas piped: "I t'ink you sell him for more than fifty cent. I t'ink maybe I ought to get fifty."

Then while the proprietor of the Novelty Stationery Shop wrung spiritual hands and begged him to be careful, Candee the adventurer cried: "Do you know what. I'm going to do? I'm going to sell 'em at three dollars, and I'm going to make every swell on the Boulevard buy one, and I'm going to make 'em pay their three bones, and I'm going to make 'em like it! Yes, sir! And you get two dollars apiece!"

It was not till he was on the sleeping porch, with the virile gray blanket putted down about his neck, that Candee groaned: "What, have I let myself in for? And are they ugly or not?" He desired to go in, wake his wife, and ask her opinion. He lay and worried, and when he awoke at dawn and discovered that he hadn't, really been tragically awake all night, he was rather indignant.

But he was exhilarated at breakfast and let Junior talk all through his oatmeal.

He came into the shop with a roar.

"Miss Cogerty! Get the porter and have him take all those toys down to that racket shop on Jerusalem Alley that bought our candlestick remainders. Go down and get what you can for 'em. We're going to have— Miss Cogerty, we're going to display in this shop a line of arts- and-crafts- dolls that for artistic execution and delightful quaintness— Say, that's good stuff for an ad. I'll put a ten-inch announcement in the Courier. I'll give this town one jolt. You wait!"

Candee did not forever retain his enthusiasm for Papa Jumas dolls. Nor did they revolutionize the nurseries of Vernon. To be exact, some people liked them and some people did not like them. Enough were sold to keep Jinn as occupied, and not enough so that at the great annual crisis of the summer motor trip to Michigan, Candee could afford a nickel-plated spotlight as well as slip covers. There was a reasonable holiday sale through the autumn following, and always Candee liked to see them on the shelf at the hack of the shop— the mediaeval dolls like cathedral grotesques, the Greek warrior Demetrios, and the modern dolls— the agitated traffic police-man and the aviator whose arms were wings, Candee and Junior played explorer with them on the sleeping porch, and with them populated a castle made of chairs.

But in the spring he discovered Miss Arnold's batik lamp shades.

Miss Arnold was young, Miss Arnold was pretty, and her lamp shades had many talking points for a salesman with enthusiasm. They were terra-cotta and crocus and leaf green; they had flowers, in lit, panels, fish, and whirligigs upon thorn, and a few original decorations which may have been nothing but spots. Candee knew that they were either artistic or insane; he was excited, and in the first, week he sold forty of them and forgot the Papa Junius dolls.

In late April a new road salesman came in from the Mammoth Doll Corporation. He took Candee out to lunch and was secretive and oozed hints about making a great deal of money. He admitted at last that the Mammoth people were going to put on the market a doll that "had every thing else beat four ways from the ace," He produced a Skillyoolly doll. She was a simpering, star-eyed, fluffy, chiffon-clothed lady doll, and, though she was cheaply made, she was not cheaply priced.

"The Skillyoolly drive is going to be the peppiest campaign you ever saw. There's a double market— not only the kids, but all these Janes that like to stick a doll up on the piano, to make the room look dressy when Hill comes calling. And it's got the snap, eh?"

"Why don't you—! The department stores can sell more of these than I can," Candee fenced.

"That's just what we don't want to do. There's several of these fluff dolls on the market— not that any of them have the zip of our goods, of course. What we want is exclusive shops, that don't handle any other dolls whatever, so we won't have any inside competition, and so we can charge a class price."

"But I'm already handling some dolls—"

"If I can show you where you can triple your doll turnover, I guess we can take care of that, eh? For one thing, we're willing to make the most generous on-sale proposition you ever hit."

The salesman left with Candee samples of the SkillyooIIy dolls, and a blank contract. He would be back in this territory nexl month, he indicated, and he hoped to close the deal. He gave Candee two cigars and crooned:

"Absolutely all we want is to have you handle the SkillyooIIy exclusively and give us a chance to show what we can do. 'You tell 'em, pencil, you got the point!' "

Candee took the dolls home to his wife, and now she was not merely wifely and plump and compliant. She squealed,

"I think they're perfectly darling! So huggable — just sweet. I know you could sell thousands of them a year. You must take them. I always thought the Jumas dolls were hideous."

"They aren't so darn hideous. Just kind of different," Candee said, uncomfortably.

Next morning he had decided to take the SkillyooIIy agency— and he was as lonely and unhappy about it as a boy who has determined to run away from home.

Papa Jumas came in that day and Candee tried to be jolly and superior.

"Ah there, old monsieur! Say, I may fix up an arrangement to switch your dolls from my place to the Toy and China Bazaar,"

Jumas lamented: "De Bazaar iss a cheap place. I do not t'ink they lige my t'ings."

"'Well, we'll see, we'll see. Excuse me now. Got to speak to Miss Cogerty about— about morocco cardcases— card-cases."

He consulted Miss Cogerty and the lovely Miss Arnold of the batik lamp shades about the SkillyooIIy dolls. Both of them squeaked ecstatically. Yet Candee scowled at a SkillyooIIy standing on his desk and addressed her:

"Doll you're a bunch of fluff. You may put it over these sentimental females for a while, but you Ye no good. You're a rotten fake, and to charge two plunks for you is the darndest nerve I ever heard of. And yet I might make a thousand a year clear out of you. A thousand a year. Buy quite a few cord tires, curse it!"

At five Miss Sorrell bought some correspondence cards.

Candee was afraid of Miss Sorrell. She was the principal of a private school. He never remembered what she wore, but he had an impression that she was clad entirely in well-starched four-ply linen collars. She was not a person to whom you could sell things. She looked at you sarcastically and told you what she wanted. But the girls in her school were fervid customers, and, though he grumbled, "Here's that old grouch," he concentrated upon her across the showcase.

When she had ordered the correspondence cards and fished the copper address plate out of a relentless seal purse. Miss Sorrell blurted: "I want to tell you how very, very much I appreciate the Papa Jumas dolls. They are the only toys sold in Vernon that have imagination and solidity."

"Folks don't care much for them, mostly. They think I ought to carry some of these fluffy dolls."

"Parents may not appreciate them, and I suppose they're so original that children take a little time get ting used to them. But my nephew loves his Jumas dolls dearly; he takes them to bed with him. We are your debtors for having introduced them."

As she dotted out, Candee was vowing: "I'm not going to have any of those SkillyooIIy hussies in my place! I'm— I'll fight for the Jumas dolls! I'll make people like 'em if it takes a leg, I don't care if I lose a thousand a year on them, or ten thousand, or ten thousand million tillion!"

It was too lofty to last. He reflected that he didn't like Miss Sorrell. She had a nerve to try to patronize him! He hastened to his desk. He made computations for half an hour. Candee was an irregular and temperamental cost accountant, if his general profit was sufficient he rarely tracked down the share produced by items. Now he found that, allowing for rent, overhead, and interest, his profit an Papa Jumas dolls in the hist four months had been four  dollars. He gasped:

"Probably could make 'em popular if I took time enough, But— four dollars! And losing a thousand a year by not handling Skillyoollys, I can't afford luxuries like that. I'm not in business for my health. I've got a wife and kids to look out for. Still, I'm making enough to keep fat and cheery on, entirely aside from the dolls. Family don't seem to he starving. I guess I can afford one luxury, I— Oh, rats!"

He readied, in fact, a sure, clear ringing resolution that he would stock Skillyoolly dolls; that he'd he hanged if he'd stock Skillyoolly dolls; and that he would give nine dollars and forty cents if he knew whether he was going to stock them or not.

After the girls had gone out that evening he hinted to his wife: "I don't really believe I want to give up the Jumas dolls. May cost me a little profit for a while yet, but I kind of feel obligated to the poor old Frenchie, and the really wise birds— you take this Miss Sorrel, for instance— they appreciate—"

"Then you can't handle the Skillyoolly dolls?"

"Don't use that word! Skillyoolly! Ugh! Sounds like an old maid tickling a baby!"

"Now that's all very well, to be so superior and all and if you mean that I was an old maid when we were married—"

"Why, Nelly, such a thought never entered my head!"

"Well, how could I tell? You're so bound and determined to be arbitrary to-night. It's all very well to be charitable and to think about that Jumas — and I never did like him, horrid, skinny old man!— and about your dolls that you're so proud of, and I still insist they're ugly, but I do think there's some folks a little nearer home that you got to show consideration for, and us going without things we need—"

"Now I guess you've got about as many clothes as anybody—"

"See here, Jimmy Candee! I'm not complaining about myself. I like pretty clothes, but I never was one to demand things for myself, and you know it!"

"Yes, that's true. You're sensible—"

"Well, I try to be, anyway, and I detest these wives that simply drive their husbands like tliey were packhorses, but— It's the girls. Not that they're bad off. But you're like all these other men. You think because a girl has a new dancing frock once a year that she's got everything in the world. And here's Mamie crying her eyes out because she hasn't got anything to wear to the Black Bass dance, and that horrible Jason girl will show up in silver brocade or something, and Mamie thinks Win Morgan won't even look at her. Not but what she can get along. I'm not going to let you work and slave for things to put on Mamie's back. But if you're going to waste a lot of money I certainly don't see why it should go to a perfect stranger— a horrid old Frenchman that digs graves, or whatever it is— when we could use it right here at home!"

"Well, of course, looking at it that way—" sighed Candee,

"Do you see?"

"Yes, but- there's a principle involved. Don't know that I can make it clear to you, but I wouldn't feel as if I was doing my job honestly if I sold a lot of rubbish."

"Rubbish? Rubbish? If there's any rubbish it isn't those darling Skillyoolly dolls, but those wretched, angular Jumas things! But if you've made up your mind to be stubborn— And of course I'm not supposed to know anything about, business! I merely scrimp and save and economize and do the marketing!"

She flapped the pages of her magazine and ignored him. All evening she was patient. It is hard to endure patience, and Candee was shaken. lie was fond of his wife. Her refusal to support his shaky desire to "do his job honestly" left him forlorn, outside the door of her comfortable affection.

"Oh, I suppose I better be sensible," he said to himself, seventy or eighty times.

He was taking the Skilly oolly contract out of his desk as a cyclone entered the shop, a cyclone in brown velvet, white hair, and the best hat in Vernon— Mrs. Gerard Randall. Candee went rejoicing to the battle. He was a salesman. He was an artist, a scientist, and the harder the problem the belter. Mechanically handing out quires of note-paper to customers who look whatever he suggested bored Candee as it would bore an exhibition aviator to drive a tractor. But selling to Mrs. Randall was not a bore. She was the eternal dowager, the dictator of Vernon society, rich and penurious and overwhelming.

He beamed upon her. He treacherously looked mild. He seemed edified by her snort:

"I want a penholder for my desk that won't look like a beastly schoolroom pen."

"Then you want a quill pen in mauve or a sea-foam green." Mrs. Randall was going to buy a quill pen, or she was going to die— or he was.

"I certainly do not want a quill pen, either mauve or pea-green or sky-blue beige! Quill pens are an abomination, and they wiggle when you're writing, and they're disgustingly common."

"My pens don't wiggle. They have patent grips—"

"Nonsense!"

"Well, shall we look at some other kinds?" He placidly laid out an atrocious penholder of mother-of-pearl and streaky brass which had infested the shop for years.

"Horrible! Victorian! Certainly not!" He displayed a nickel penholder stamped, "Souvenir of Vernon," a brittle, red wooden holder with a cork grip, and a holder of chased silver, very bulgy and writhing.

"They're terrible!" wailed Mrs. Randall.

She sounded defenseless. He flushed before her eyes the best quill in the shop, crisp, firm, tinted a faint rose. "Well," she said, feebly. She held it, wabbled it, wrote a sentence in the agitated air. " But it wouldn't go with my desk set," she attempted.

He brought out a desk set of seal-brown enamel and in the bowl of shot he thrust the rose quill.

"How did you remember what my desk set was like?"

"Ah! Could one forget?" He did not look meek now: he looked insulting and cheerful.

"Oh, drat the man! I'll take it. But I don't want you to think for one moment that I'd stand being bullied this way if I weren't in a hurry."

He grinned. He resolved, "I'm going to make the ole dragon buy three Jumas dolls— no, six!"

"Mrs, Randall, I know you're in a rush, but I want you to look at something that will interest you."

"I suppose you're going to tell me that 'we're finding this line very popular,' whatever it is. I don't want it."

"Quite the contrary, I want you to see these because they haven't gone well at all."

"Then why should I be interested?"

"Ah, Mrs. Randall, if Mrs. Randall were interested, everybody else would have to be."

"Slop being sarcastic, if you don't mind. That's my own province." She was glaring at him, but she was following him to the back of the shop.

He chirped: "I believe you buy your toys for your grandchildren at the Bazaar. But I want to show you something they'll really like." He was holding up a Gothic princess, turning her lanky magnificence round and round.

As Mrs. Randall made an "aah" sound in her throat, he protested, "Wait! You're wrong. They're not ugly; they're a new kind of beauty,"

"Beauty! Arty! Tea-roomy !"

"Not at all. Children love 'em. J 'in so dead sure of it. that I want— Let's see. You have three grandchildren. I want to send each of them two Papa Jumas dolls. I'll guarantee— No. Wait! I'll guarantee the children won't care for them at first. Don't say anything; about the dolls, but just leave 'em. around the nursery and watch. Inside of two weeks you'll find the children so crazy about 'em they won't go to bed without 'em. I'll send 'em up to your daughter's house and when you get around to it you can decide whether you want to pay me or not."

"Humph! You are very eloquent. But I can't stand here all day. Ask one of your young women to wrap up four or five of these things and put them in my car. And put them on my bill. I can't be bothered with trying to remember to pay you. Good day!"

While he sat basking at his desk he remembered the words of the severe schoolmistress, Miss Sorrell, "Only toys in Vernon that have imagination and solidity."

"People like that, with brains, they're the kind. I'm not going to be a popcorn-and-lemonade seller. Skiflyoolly dolls! Any ten-year-old boy could introduce those to a lot of sentimental females. Takes a real salesman to talk Jumas dolls. And— If I could only get Nelly to understand!"

Alternately triumphant and melancholy, he put on his hat, trying the effect in the little crooked mirror over the water cooler, and went out to the Boosters' Club weekly lunch.

Sometimes the Boosters' lunches were given over to speeches; sometimes they were merry and noisy; and when they were noisy Candee was the noisiest, but he was silent to-day. He sat at the long table beside Darbin, the ice-cream manufacturer, and when Darbin chuckled invitingly. "Well, you old Bolshevik, what's the latest junk you're robbing folks for?" Candee's answer was feeble.

"That's all right, now! 'S good stuff."

He looked down the line of the Boosters— men engaged in electrolyping and roofing, real estate and cigar making; certified accountants and teachers and city officials. He noted Oscar Sunderquist, the young surgeon.

He considered: "I suppose they're all going through the same thing — quick turnover on junk versus building up something permanent, and maybe taking a loss anyway, taking a chance. Huh! Sounds so darn ridiculously easy when you put it thai way. Of course a regular fellow would build up the long-time trade and kick out cheap stuff. Only— not so easy to chase away a thousand or ten thousand dollars when it comes right up and tag's you. Oh, gee! I dunno! I wish you'd quit fussing like a schoolgirl. Brother Candee. I'm going to cut it out." By way of illustrating which he turned to his friend Darbin. "Frank, I'm worried. I want some advice. Will it bother you if I weep on your shoulder?"

"Go to it! Shoot! Anything I can do—"

He tried to make clear to Darbin how involved was a choice between Papa Jumas and the scent pots of the Skillyoolly. Darbin interrupted;

"Is that all that ails you? Cat's sake! What the deuce difference does it. make which kind of dolls you handle? Of course you'll pick the kind that brings in the mast money, I certainly wouldn't worry about the old Frenchman. I always did think those Jumas biznai were kind of freakish."

"Then you don't think it matters?"

"Why, certainly not! Jimmy, you're a good business man. some ways. You're a hustler. But you always were erratic. Business isn't any jazz-band dance. You got to look at these things in a practical way. Say, come on; the president's going to make a spiel. Kid him along and get him going."

"Don't feel much like kidding."

"I'll tell you what I think's the matter with you. Jimmy: your liver's on the hum."

"Maybe you're right," croaked Candee. He did not hear the president's announcement of the coming clam-bake. He was muttering, in an injured way: "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

HE WAS walking back to the shop.

He didn't want to go back; he didn't care whether Miss Cogerly was selling any of the écrasé sewing baskets or not. He was repeating Darbin's disgusted: "What difference does it make? Why all the fuss?"

"At most I'd lose a thousand a year. I would not starve. This little decision— nobody cares a hang. I was a fool to speak to Nelly and Darbin, Now they'll be watching me. Well, I'm not going to let 'em think I'm an erratic fool, Ten words of approval from a crank like that Sorrell woman is a pretty thin return for years of work. Yes, I'll I'll be sensible."

He spent the late afternoon in furiously rearranging the table of vases and candlesticks. "Exercise, that's what I need, not all this grousing around," he said. But when he went home he had, without ever officially admitting it to himself that he was doing it, thrust, a Juntas doll and a Skillyoolly into his pocket, and these, in the absence of his wife, he hid beneath his bed on the sleeping porch. With his wife he had a strenuous and entirely im aginary conversation:

"Why did I bring them home? Because I wanted to. I don't see any need of explaining my motives. I don't intend to argue ahout this in any way, shape, manner, or form!" He looked at himself in the mirror, with admiration for the firmness, strength of character, iron will, and numerous other virtues revealed in his broad nose and square—  also plump— chin. It is true that his wife carne in and caught him at it, and that he pretended to he examining his bald spot. It is true that he listened mildly to her reminder that for two weeks now he hadn't rubbed any of the sulphur stuff on his head. But he marched down-stairs— behind her— with an imperial tread. He had solved his worry! Somehow, he was going to work it all out. Just how be was going to work it out he did not state. That detail might be left till after dinner.

He did not again think of the dolls hidden beneath his bed till he had dived under the blanket. Cursing a little, he crawled out and set them on the rail of the sleeping porch.

He awoke, suddenly and sharply, at sun-up. He heard a voice— surely not his own— snarling: "Nobody is going to help you. If you want to go on looking for a magic way out— go right on looking. You won't find it!"

He stared at the two dolls. The first sunlight was on the Skillyoolly object, and in that intolerant glare he saw that her fluffy dress was sewed on with cheap thread which would break at the first rough handling. Suddenly he was out of bed, pounding the unfortunate Skillyoolly on the rail, smashing her simpering face, wrenching apart, her ill-jointed limbs, tearing her gay chiffon. He was dashing into the bedroom, waking his bewildered wife with:

"Nelly! Nelly! Get up! No, it's all right. But it's time for breakfast."

She foggily looked at her wrist watch on the bedside table, and complained, "Why, it isn't but six o'clock!"

"I know it, hut we re going to do a stunt. D'you realize we haven't had breakfast just by ourselves and had a chance to really talk since hist summer? Come on! You fry an egg and I'll start the percolator, Come on!"

"Well," patiently, reaching for her dressing gown.

While Candee, his shrunken bathrobe flapping about, his shins, excitedly put the percolator together and attached it to the baseboard plug, leaving out nothing but, the coffee, he chattered of the Boosters'club.

As they sat down he crowed : "Nelly, we're going to throw some gas in the ole car and run down to Chicago and back, next week. How's that?"

"That would be very nice," agreed Mrs. Candee.

"And we're going to start reading aloud again, evenings, instead of all this doggone double solitaire."

"That would be fine."

"Oh, and by the way, I've finally made up my mind, I'm not going to mess up my store with that Skillyoolly stuff, going to keep on with the Junius dolls, but push 'em harder."

"Well, if you really think—"

"And, uh— Gee! I certainly feel great this morning. Feel like a million dollars. What say we have another fried egg?"

"I think that might be nice," said Mrs. Candee, who had been married for nineteen years.

"Sure you don't mind about the Skillyoolly dolls?"

"Why, no, not if you know what you want. And that reminds me! How terrible of me to forget! When you ran over to the Jasons last evening the Skillyoolly salesman telephoned the house— he'd just come to town. He asked me if you were going to take the agency, and I told him no. Of course I've known all along that you weren't. But hasn't it been interesting, thinking it all out? I'm so glad you've been firm."

"Well, when I've gone into a thing thoroughly I like to smash it right through.... Now you take Frank Darbin; makes me tired the way he's fussing and slewing, trying to find out whether he wants to buy a house in Iiosebank or not. So you you told the Skillyoolly salesman no? I just wonder— Gee! I kind of hate to give up the chance of the Skillyoolly market! What do you think?"

"But it's all settled now."

"Then I suppose there's no use fussing— I tell you; I mean a fellow wants to look at a business deal from all sides. See how I mean?"

"That's so," said Mrs. Candee, admiringly. As with a commanding step he went to the kitchen to procure another fried egg she sighed to herself, "Such a dear boy— and yet such a forceful man."

Candee ran in from the kitchen. In one hand was an egg, in the other the small frying-pan, "Besides," he shouted, "how do we know the Skillyoollys would necessarily sell so darn well? You got to take everything like that into consideration, and then decide and stick to it. See how I mean?"

"That's so," said Mrs. Candee.

_________________

4: A Posteriori

Helen Simpson

1894–1940

Lovat Dickson’s Magazine July 1934

Helen de Guerry Simpson was an Australian-born author who moved to the UK, collaborated with Clemence Dane in three detective novels, and wrote short stories and novels solo . Her best known novel is Under Capricorn.

AT ABOUT ONE O'CLOCK on the last night of her stay in Pontdidier-les-Dames Miss Charters was awakened by indeterminate noises sounding almost in her room, and a medley of feet and voices in the street. It was not the first time this had happened. Pontdidier had belied the promise, made by an archdeacon, that she would find it an harbour of calm. The fact was, the town was too near a frontier, and too unsophisticated. When politicians in Paris, to distract attention from their own misdeeds, began to roar of treason, Pontdidier believed them, and the Town Council— 'nos édiles' — set up a hue and cry for spies. Miss Charters had not failed to observe this nervousness, and to despise it a little, without ill-humour; but to be roused by other people's unfounded terrors at one in the morning was a little too much, and she said so, in her firm French, to the landlady as she paid her bill next day.

'Je ne suis pas sure que je puis vous recommander à mes amis. Votre ville n'est pas tranquille du tout.'

The landlady sank her head between her shoulders, then raised and swung it deplorably to and fro.

'Las' naight,' said the landlady, practising English, which reckoned as a commercial asset, 'it is a man escape from the police. A spy that makes photographies. They attrape him, but the photographies— gone! Nobody know.'

'Un espion!' repeated Miss Charters coldly, as one who had heard that tale before. 'Esperons qu'il n'échappera pas.'

With that she walked upstairs to her room for a final inspection. Her hot-water bottle, as usual, had been forgotten in the deeps of the bed, and this she rescued thankfully. Going to the washstand to empty it, she set her foot on some round object, and came to the floor with no inconsiderable bump. The object, obeying the impetus she had given, rolled to rest against a chair-leg, and Miss Charters, turning to eye it with the natural resentment of one tricked by the inanimate, instantly recognised it as a spool of film.

Her mind, with a gibbon-like agility which unhappily never comes at call, leapt from the spool to the noises in the night; linked these with her own wide-open window, probably the only one in the entire façade of the hotel; and came to the conclusion that this spool had reached her floor by the hand of the suspected spy now in custody; flung as he fled. But there had been, her subconscious seemed to think, two noises in the room. She looked for another possible missile, and perceived, under the bed, a flat wallet of some kind. It was quite inaccessible, the bed's frame hung low, she had no umbrella to rake for it, and some vague memory of criminal procedure insisted that the police must always have first cut at a clue. It was her duty to go downstairs, display to the landlady the spool, which she had picked up instinctively, and ask that the authorities should be informed.

She set foot on the stairs, and even as she did so, halted. It became apparent that she would have to give her evidence in person, swear to the noise in the night, to the morning's discovery. This would involve missing her train, and its subsequent connection, with the expense of warning domestics and relatives by telegram. More sinister considerations succeeded these. The French were hysterical. They were spy-conscious. They would refuse to believe that she and the fleeing man were strangers. As an excuse for open windows a plea of fresh air would not satisfy.

Halting on the stairs, she rehearsed these reasons for holding her tongue, and came to the conclusion that silence, with a subsequent letter from England, would meet the case. To roll the spool under the bed till it lay by the wallet, and so depart, would be the dignified and comparatively honest course of action. But the turmoil of the morning had let loose in Miss Charters' mind hordes of revolutionary desires, which now found a rallying ground in the fact that she had not, in her forty-odd years, had one single unusual experience. She had never held unquestioned sway as chief talker at any party; she had never come within hail of being the heroine of any incident more lively than the spoiling of a Guide picnic by rain. The spool of film, now safe in her bag, tempted her; to take it home as proof of the adventure, to hand it over in the end, perhaps, to somebody from the Foreign Office or Scotland Yard! She hesitated, and the revolutionaries in that instant had her conscience down. No word of any discovery found its way into her farewells.

At the station she became aware of two things. First, that she had twenty minutes to wait for her train; second, that amid the excitements of the morning she had omitted a visit to that retreat which old-fashioned foreign hotels leave innominate, indicating it only by two zeros on the door. She cast a prudish but searching eye about her. The word 'Dames' beckoned; Miss Charters bought a newspaper and, apparently purposeless, drifted towards it.

The usual uncleanness greeted her, and to protect herself from unspeakable contacts Miss Charters sacrificed a whole sheet of her newspaper. It was newly printed, the ink had a bloom to it. Miss Charters, accustomed at home to entrust to newspaper the defence of musquash against moth, vaguely supposed that it might prove, on this analogy, deterrent to germs. She emerged without delay, glanced to see that her baggage was safe, and paced up and down reading what remained of Le Petit Journal. There were fifteen minutes still to wait.

Seven or eight of these had passed in the atmosphere of unhurried makeshift that pervades all minor French stations, when a commotion was heard outside, chattering of motor cycles and shouting. Through the door marked 'Sortie' three policemen in khaki and kepis made a spectacular entrance, followed by a miraculous crowd apparently started up from the paving-stones. The three advanced upon Miss Charters, innocently staring, and required her, none too civilly, to accompany them.

'Pourquoi?' she inquired without heat. 'Je vais manquer mon train.'

They insisted, not politely; and their explanations, half inarticulate, contained a repetition of the word 'portefeuille.' At once Miss Charters understood; the wallet had been found. (Who would have thought the French swept so promptly under beds?) She must give her account of the whole matter, miss her connection, telegraph her relations. Bells and signals announced the train to be nearly due; with a brief click of the tongue she summoned resolution for a last attempt at escape.

'Je suis anglaise,' she announced. 'Mon passeport est en ordre. Voulez vous voir?'

She opened her bag, and immediately, with a swift fatal motion, made to shut it. On top, surmounting the handkerchief, the eau-de-Cologne, the passport, lay the damning red spool, so hurriedly, so madly crammed in. The foremost policeman saw it as soon as she did. He gave a 'Ha!' of triumph, and caught the bag away from her. His two companions fell in at her side, the crowd murmured and eddied like a stream swollen by flood. As she was marched from the station, out of the corner of an eye she saw the train come in; and as they entered the Grande Rue she heard the chuff and chug of its departure. Hope gone, she could give undivided attention to her plight.

It became evident, from the manner of the policemen, and from the fact that she was taken to the Hotel de Ville, that matters were serious. She made one attempt to get her bag; certain necessary words lacked in the formula of defence she was composing, and the bag contained a pocket dictionary. Her request was denied. A cynical-looking man at a large desk— mayor? magistrate?— fanned away her protests with both hands and listened to the policeman. So did Miss Charters, and was able to gather from his evidence that the wallet found in her room contained papers and calculations to do with the aerodrome near by. Could anything be more unlucky? The one genuine spy that had ever frequented Pontdidier-les-Dames must needs throw his ill-gotten information into her bedroom!

The functionary asked at last what she had to say. She replied with the truth; and despite a vocabulary eked out with 'vous savez' told her story well. The functionary noted her explanation without comment, and having done so asked the inevitable, the unanswerable questions.

'You found these objects at 10.45 this morning. Why did you not immediately inform the police? You insist that they have nothing to do with you. Yet you were actually attempting to carry out of this country one of the objects. How do you account for these facts?'

Miss Charters accounted for them by a recital, perfectly true, of her desire to shine at tea-parties. It sounded odd as she told it; but she had some notion that the French were a nation of psychologists, also that, being foreign, they were gullible, and sympathetic to women in distress. The cynical man listened, and when her last appeal went down in a welter of failing syntax, considered a while, then spoke:

'I regret, mademoiselle. All this is not quite satisfactory. You must be searched.'

The French she had learned at her governess' knee had not included the word he employed, and it was without any real understanding of his intention that she accompanied a woman in black, who suddenly appeared at her side, looking scimitars. They progressed together, a policeman at the other elbow, to a small room smelling of mice. The policeman shut the door on them; the woman in black ejaculated a brief command; and Miss Charters, horrified, found that she was expected to strip.

In her early youth Miss Charters' most favoured day-dream had included a full-dress martyrdom, painful but effective, with subsequent conversions. She now learned that it is easier to endure pain than indignity, and amid all the throbbing which apprehension and shame had set up in her temples, one thought lorded it: the recollection that she had not, in view of the dirty train journey, put on clean underclothes that morning.

The woman in black lifted her hands from her hips as if to help with the disrobing; there was a shuffle outside the door as though the policeman might be turning to come in. With a slight scream, at speed, Miss Charters began to unbutton, unhook, unlace her various garments; as they dropped, the woman in black explored them knowingly, with fingers active as those of a tricoteuse. At last Miss Charters stood revealed, conscious of innocence, but finding it a poor defence, and ready to exchange the lightest of consciences for the lightest of summer vests.

The woman in black was thorough. She held stockings up to the light, pinched corsets; at last, satisfied, she cast an eye over the shrinking person of Miss Charters, twirling her slowly about. Now the words of dismissal should have come. Instead, at her back Miss Charters heard a gasp. There was an instant's silence; then the one word, ominous: 'Enfin!'

The woman in black ran to the door and shouted through it. Miss Charters heard excitement in the policeman's answering voice, and his boots clattered off down the corridor, running. Her imagination strove, and was bested. Why? What? The woman in black, with a grin lineally descended from '93, informed her.

'And now, my beauty, we'll see what the pretty message is that's written on mademoiselle's sit-upon!'

The next few moments were nightmare at its height, when the sleeper knows his dream for what it is, knows he must escape from it, and still must abide the capricious hour of waking. An assistant in blue was vouchsafed to the woman in black. One deciphered such letters as were visible, the other took them down, pesting against the artfulness of spies who printed their messages backwards. In deference to Miss Charters' age and passport some decency was observed. Policemen waited outside the half-open door; there was much noise, but no threatening. The women heard her explanation (conjectural) of their discovery without conviction and did not even trouble to write it down.

At last the message was transcribed. The woman in blue compassionately gave Miss Charters back her clothes, a gesture countered by the woman in black, who refused to allow her to sit down lest the precious impression be blurred. With a policeman at her elbow and the two searchers at her back, her cheek-bones pink, and beset by a feeling that this pinkness ran through to her skeleton, Miss Charters once more faced the functionary across his table. The transcription was handed to him. He considered it, first through a magnifying glass, then with the aid of a mirror. The policeman, the two searchers, craned forward to know the fate of France, thus by a freak of Fortune thrust into their hands:

'Et maintenant,' they read in capital letters, 'j'ai du cœur au travail, grâce aux PILULES PINK.'

The functionary's eyes appeared to project. He stared at Miss Charters, at the searchers; with a start, at his own daily paper lying folded, with his gloves upon it. He tore it open, seeking. Page 7 rewarded him. 'Maladies de Femmes,' said the headline; underneath, the very words that had been deciphered with such pains, accompanying an illustration of a cheerful young woman, whose outline appeared in transfer not unlike the map of a town. Silently he compared; his glass was busy. At last he looked up, and Miss Charters, meeting his eye, perceived something like comprehension in his glance, a kind of gloating, a difficult withholding of laughter— 'Rabelaisian' was the word which shot across her mind like a falling star. It was a hard glance to face, but all Englishness and spunk had not been slain in Miss Charters by the indignities chance had obliged her to suffer. She had one magnificent last word:

'Je rapporterai le W.C. de la gare aux autorités sanitaires!'

It was the best she could do. The larger threat which at first inflamed her mind, of complaints to the Ambassador in Paris, of redress and public apologies, would not do; both she and the Rabelaisian eye knew why. She could never, to any person, at any time, confide the truth of an experience so appalling. So far as vicarage conversation went, the thing was out of the question. Hateful irony! Something, after forty-odd years, had happened to her, and it had happened in such a manner that mere decency must strike her mute. In the words of a ceremony she had often in younger days read over fondly, she must hereafter for ever hold her peace.

Miss Charters held it. The relations who welcomed her a day later were of opinion that her holiday in France had not done her much good. They found her quiet, and discovered that what she wanted was to be taken out of herself. So they arranged little gaieties, at which Miss Charters listened silently, now and then pinching in her lips, to travellers' tales of those who had been seeing life in London and by the sea.

'But then,' as a relative remarked, 'poor Aggie never did have much to say for herself.'

_________________________

5: The Dencourt Stiletto

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

WHEN Effie Thompson showed Mrs. Dencourt into Callaghan’s office, Nikolls’s face expressed open admiration. Mrs. Dencourt was a very beautiful woman.

Callaghan got up. He said: “Good morning. Won’t you sit down? This is Mr. Nikolls, my Canadian assistant.” He paused as Nikolls brought a chair forward, noticed the extreme grace with which she seated herself.

Then he said: “Will you tell me what it is you want to see me about, Mrs. Dencourt?”

“Mr. Callaghan, I am in terrible trouble and I want your help.” There was an obvious note of agitation in her voice.

Nikolls said: “Don’t worry, lady, you’re goin’ to get it. Nobody who looks like you do is gonna ask my help in vain.”

Callaghan said: “Shut up, Windy.” He opened the cigarette box on his desk, offered it to Mrs. Dencourt, lit her cigarette.

She said: “I’m Mrs. Herbert Dencourt. You’ve probably heard the name.”

“Of course,” said Callaghan. “I remember. You’ve just started a divorce action against your husband. And your husband, if I remember rightly, is the owner of one of the most valuable collections of jewels in this country.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s what I have come to see you about— those jewels. I’ve stolen some of them.”

Nikolls said under his breath: “Say… what d’you know about that! Ain’t she too sweet!”

Callaghan said: “This is very interesting, Mrs. Dencourt. Tell me about it.”

She leaned back in her chair. She said: “Mr. Callaghan, for years my husband has been terribly unkind to me. I was fond of him, but any love I had for him has been quite killed by his cruelty. Two or three months ago I made up my mind that as soon as possible I would leave him, that I would bring an action for divorce against him.”

“I see,” said Callaghan. “You didn’t tell him of your plan?”

“No, I daren’t. He’s quite ruthless. I knew he’d do everything to make things difficult for me. And I was furious with him. I wanted to do something that would hurt him as much as possible and something that would give me some money to live on when I decided to leave him. So I got an idea.”

Nikolls interrupted: “Some idea! She grabbed the family plate.”

Callaghan turned to Nikolls. “Do shut up, Windy,” he said. “Go on, Mrs. Dencourt.”

“Amongst my husband’s collection of jewellery,” she continued, “is a dagger-a stiletto. It’s been in the family for, hundreds of years. It’s called the Dencourt stiletto. You may have heard of it. The hilt and scabbard are thickly encrusted with most precious jewels. It is valued at a hundred thousand pounds. I made up my mind that when I left Herbert I’d take that with me.”

Callaghan said: “I see. How were you going to do that?”

Mrs. Dencourt went on: “I got in touch with a man named Larcomb who lived in the neighbourhood. I had heard that he -was game for anything and was an expert cracksman. I gave him a key so that he could enter the house.”

“Did this bozo pull the job off?” asked Nikolls.

“Yes, he got the stiletto. Three weeks after that I left my husband. I brought the action for divorce that you know about.”

Callaghan asked: “Weren’t you afraid that your husband would discover the theft, Mrs. Dencourt?”

“No,” she replied. “The stiletto was kept with the rest of his collection in a special safe in the library. It’s only opened about every six months when the pieces are taken out to be cleaned and inspected. I knew some months would elapse before the theft was discovered.”

“And now what’s the trouble, Mrs. Dencourt?” asked Callaghan. “You have the stiletto.”

“That’s the trouble, Mr. Callaghan,” she said, “I haven’t. The man Larcomb refuses to give it up to me. He’s blackmailing me. He says he won’t return it unless I pay him five thousand pounds.”

Callaghan said: “You are in a jam, aren’t you? It’s not so good. What do you want me to do?”

She stubbed out her cigarette end in the ashtray beside her. She said: “I’m certain you could bluff Larcomb into handing back that stiletto. He’s had convictions before. He’s afraid of the police. If you told him that I’d got fearfully frightened about the whole business, that I wanted to return the stiletto to my husband, he’d have to hand it over.”

“And do you intend to return it to your husband if we get it back, Mrs. Dencourt?” Callaghan asked.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said miserably. “I should never have taken it in the first place.”

Callaghan asked: “Do you know where this Larcomb is?”

Mrs. Dencourt opened her handbag and took out a card. She handed it to Callaghan.

“Here is his address,” she said.

Callaghan looked at the card for a moment, then he held it out to Nikolls. He said“: “Very well. I think this is a job for you, Windy. You’d better go and see this bird Larcomb. Talk turkey to him. Tell him that unless he returns the stiletto we’ll hand him over to the police.”

Nikolls got up. He took the card. “O.K.,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”

Mrs. Dencourt looked relieved. She smiled. “I can never thank you enough, Mr. Callaghan. When do you think you’ll know?”

Callaghan said: “Well, we shall move immediately. Supposing you come in to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock and see me then, Mrs. Dencourt. Perhaps we’ll have some news for you.”

“I’ll be here at eleven,” she said. “Thank you… thank you, Mr. Callaghan.”

She held out her hand, walked to the door. Nikolls opened the door, watched her walk across the outer office, sighed as she went out. He said: “What a baby! So that’s the beautiful Mrs. Dencourt. And, boy, is she beautiful! Some blonde !”

Effie Thompson appeared in the doorway. She said: “Excuse me, Mr. Callaghan. Was that Mrs. Dencourt who just went out?”

“Yes,” said Callaghan. “Why, what’s on your mind, Effie?”

Effie said: “Well, I may be wrong, but that woman’s hair was dyed blonde, Mr. Callaghan. I’m certain of it. Mrs. Dencourt is a real blonde.”

“Say,” said Nikolls. “What the hell’s goin’ on around here?”

“Are you sure, Effie?” asked Callaghan.

“I’m absolutely certain,” said Effie.

Nikolls said: “What does ‘X’ do now?”

“Listen, Windy,” said Callaghan. “It’s obvious this Mrs. Dencourt is a phoney, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go on with this business. There’s something behind it. Go to the address she’s given you. See this fellow Larcomb. See what happens. Get a ripple on. You’d better get off at once.”

“O.K.,” said Nikolls. “If I don’t come back you’ll know I’ve been sandbagged.” He picked up his hat, went to the door. “Say… what d’ya know about that blonde!” he said as he went out.

Callaghan turned to Effie Thompson. He said: “Go through the newspaper cuttings, Effie. Find Mrs. Dencourt’s address. The real Mrs. Dencourt. Get through on the telephone. Tell her I’m coming round to see her, that it’s urgent.”

“Very well, Mr. Callaghan,” said Effie. She went back to her oflice.

Callaghan lit a fresh cigarette, sat blowing smoke rings. He was thinking about the woman who said she was Mrs. Dencourt.

IT WAS four o’clock when Callaghan was shown into Mrs. Herbert Dencourt’s sitting-room at her flat in Knightsbridge. It was a large well-furnished room, and the woman who rose to meet him was of medium height, slim and graceful.

She said: “Good afternoon, Mr. Callaghan. I was intrigued to get the telephone message from your office. I am very curious.” She motioned him to a chair.

Callaghan said: “Mrs. Dencourt, I’ll soon satisfy your curiosity. This morning a woman who looked something like you— but not quite so beautiful— came to my office with an extraordinary story. She said that her husband— Herbert Dencourt— had been cruel to her, that she’d. made up her mind to leave him, but before she did so she decided to steal the jewel-studded stiletto which had been in the Dencourt family for years. In fact it was stolen but the man who actually committed the robbery refuses to return it to her. She asked my assistance in getting back the stiletto so that she could return it to her husband.”

Mrs. Dencourt gasped. “Good heavens!” she said.

Callaghan continued: “My astute secretary, Miss Thompson, noticed that this woman’s hair was dyed blonde. We guessed she was an impostor. So I rang you immediately. I thought you might be able to help us to elucidate this mystery.”

“This is terrible,” said Mrs. Dencourt. “But I can understand what has happened,” she went on. “The woman who came to see you must have been my one-time maid— Phyllis Lane. The story she told you was in effect true. Before I left my husband I did intend to steal the Dencourt stiletto. I took my maid into my confidence and she proposed that a man called Larcomb should actually carry out the burglary. But at the last moment I changed my mind. I couldn’t go through with it. I called the whole thing off. Well, there is no doubt what has happened.”

Callaghan said: “You mean that your maid and this man Larcomb have done the job between them without your knowledge. I can guess the rest of the story, Mrs. Dencourt. Larcomb has the stiletto and won’t part with it, and your maid is trying to bluff us into getting it back from him. Then she’ll do a deal with your husband.”

Mrs. Dencourt nodded. “It looks very much like that, doesn’t it, Mr. Callaghan?. Oh, how I wish I’d taken that stiletto myself .”

Callaghan said: “You still feel that way?”

“Yes,” she said. “I threw. this plan overboard because I thought there was still a chance of a reconciliation with my husband, but his conduct became so appalling that two or three weeks afterwards I left him and began my action for divorce. He’s making life unbearable for me. If I had that stiletto at least I should have something to bargain with.”

“You’re getting no money at all from him?” asked Callaghan.

“No,” she said. “I think he hates me. He’s a terrible man, Mr. Callaghan. Since I left him I’ve discovered that he’s very keen on some woman he intends to marry when my divorce goes through. Oh dear, what are we to do about this? It seems an awful situation.”

Callaghan said: “I don’t know that it is. Listen, Mrs. Dencourt. I told the phoney Mrs. Dencourt to come back to-morrow morning at eleven‘o’clock to see me. I told her that in the meantime we’d try and get the stiletto returned by Lardomb. Well, she’ll turn up to-morrow. We’ll give her a little surprise. We’ll tell her that so far as she’s concerned we know the whole story.” He got up. “Now I suggest you come and see me at my office to-morrow about eleven-fifteen.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Callaghan,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

Callaghan said: “Well, good-bye for the moment, Mrs. Dencourt. Don’t worry too much. We’ll straighten this out somehow.”

He went out.

EFFIE THOMPSON was busy typing when Callaghan came into the outer office the next morning just before eleven o’clock. She said: “Good morning, Mr. Callaghan. Mr. Nikolls has just come in. He’s in your office.”

“What’s he doing?” asked Callaghan.

Effie smiled. “I think he’s picking his teeth with the Dencourt stiletto!”

Callaghan laughed. He said: “I’m glad to hear that ! Effie, the woman who came yesterday and said she was Mrs. Dencourt will be here in a few moments. Show her in when she arrives. The real Mrs. Dencourt is coming at eleven-fifteen. You might show her into Nikolls’s office and ask her to wait a few minutes.”

Callaghan went into his own office, closed the door behind him. Nikolls was sitting in the armchair by Callaghan’s desk, smoking a cigarette. He was swinging the Dencourt stiletto gently between his fingers.

Callaghan said: “Well, Windy?”

“It’s in the bag,” said Nikolls. “I saw this guy Larcomb last night. I told him plenty. I told him I was Chief Detective-Inspector Windemere from Scotland Yard. And did he fall for it !”

Callaghan grinned. He said: “What— with an accent like yours. He must have thought you’d come from the Police College!”

“Police College or not,” said Nikolls, “he fell for it. And what do you think he did?”

“I don’t know,” said Callaghan.

“Well, he got the breeze up and handed over the stiletto. And here it is. You should have seen this guy’s face when I told him the truth.”

“Nice work,” said Callaghan. He leaned over the desk, looked closely at the stiletto. “By Jove, look at those jewels,” he said. “They must be worth a fortune.”

At that moment Effie Thompson knocked at the door. Callaghan said quickly: “Hide that thing, Windy!”

“Mrs. Dencourt to see you, Mr. Callaghan,” announced Effie.

“So the little phoney’s arrived!” muttered Nikolls.

Phyllis Lane, well-turned out and with her dyed blonde hair carefully dressed, came into the office.

She said: “Good morning, Mr. Callaghan.”

Callaghan said: “Good morning, Miss Lane. Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

Her voice changed. She said: “Oh… well… so you’re wise to me, hey?”

“I’m wise to the whole business,” said Callaghan. “You should have had that hair dyed a little more successfully. I saw Mrs. Dencourt yesterday afternoon and got the whole story.”

She shrugged her shoulders. She said: “Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Once I’d got that dagger I could have done a deal with Dencourt.”

“I guessed that too,” said Callaghan.

Effie Thompson knocked on the door. Callaghan called to her to come in. She said: “Mr. Callaghan, Mr. Herbert Dencourt’s been on the telephone. He sounded fearfully angry. He gave me a message for you.”

“What did he say?” asked Callaghan.

“He told me to tell you that he knows all about everything, that he received a note this morning from a man named Larcomb saying that his wife, Mrs. Dencourt, had got the Dencourt stiletto, that you were representing her. He told me to tell you that he’d be round here in ten minutes with a police officer and unless the stiletto is handed over there’s going to be a lot of trouble.”

Callaghan said: “Right, Effie. Thank you very much.”

Phyllis Lane got up. She said: “Listen, I think I’ve got an appointment. This is where I get out.”

“All right,” said Callaghan. “You get out. And think yourself lucky you’re getting away as easily as you are.”

“You’re telling me,” she said. “So long, everybody.”

She hurried through the door which Effie Thompson was holding open for her. They heard the outer offiee door slam as she went out.

Nikolls said: “Say, what is this? 'You’re not letting that baby scram, are you? Why―”

Callaghan interrupted. “Shut up, Windy. I’m going to play this my way.” He turned to Effie Thompson. “Has the real Mrs. Dencourt arrived yet?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Callaghan,” said Effie.

“Bring her in,” said Callaghan.

A minute later Mrs. Dencourt came into the office.

Callaghan said: “Good morning, Mrs. Dencourt. Listen, your husband will be here in a minute. We’ve got the stiletto. Larcomb handed it over. But he’s sent a note to your husband telling him that you have the stiletto. Now will you take my word that if you do what I tell you everything will be all right?”

Mrs. Dencourt thought for a moment, then she said: “Yes, I will.”

“All right,” said Callaghan. “Now remember this. You stole the Dencourt stiletto. You stole it yourself. You brought it away with you when you left your husband, and since then. you’ve lost it. You don’t know where it is. Do you understand that, Mrs. Dencourt?”

“Yes… yes… I understand,” she said.

Effie Thompson announced: “Mr. Dencourt. is here, Mr. Callaghan, and Detective-Inspector Gringall.”

“Show them in, Effie,” said Callaghan.

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR Gringall walked into the office, followed by a thick-set dark man with an unpleasant scowl on his face,

Callaghan said: “Good morning, Gringall. This is Mr. Dencourt, I believe?”

Dencourt spoke in a brusque, threatening tone. “You believe correctly, Mr. Callaghan. I understand you’re in league with my wife, who has the Dencourt stiletto. I give you both exactly two minutes to hand that stiletto over, or I shall place the matter in the hands of the police.”

“It looks as if you’ve done that already, Mr. Dencourt,” said Callaghan. “Sit down. Sit down, Inspector.”

Nikolls said: “Yeah. Take your weight off your feet.”

“Well…” began Dencourt again. “What about it…?”

Callaghan said: “Don’t get excited, Dencourt, you really must try to control yourself.”

“My God…!” said Dencourt furiously.

Callaghan looked at him coldly. He said: “Shut up, Dencourt, before I have you thrown out.” He turned to Gringall. “Now, Inspector, exactly what is it you want?”

Gringall said: “Well, Mr. Callaghan, Mr. Dencourt here complains that the Dencourt stiletto has been stolen.”

“That’s perfectly right,” said Callaghan. “Mrs. Dencourt stole it. She stole it three weeks before she left her husband. Well, what about it?”

Dencourt interrupted: “What the devil do you mean… what about it?”

Callaghan said: “Mr. Dencourt, if you can control yourself enough to listen I am sure Detective-Inspector Gringall will inform you that under English law a husband can’t bring a charge of theft against his wife in respect of any goods which she may have taken while she was living with him. Is that right, Mr. Gringall?”

“I’m afraid that’s right, Mr. Dencourt,” said Gringall.

“But she’s not living with me now. She’s brought an action against me for divorce.”

“That’s true enough,” said Callaghan. “And you want that divorce action to go through, don’t you, Dencourt, so that you can marry this other woman you’re keen on. Well, I don’t think that’ll be possible.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Dencourt.

Callaghan smiled. He said amiably: “Well, Dencourt, I’ve advised Mrs. Dencourt to withdraw her divorce petition and to return to you. How do you like that?”

Dencourt was red in the face. “You can’t get away with this!” he stuttered.

Gringall said quietly: “I told you Callaghan was very clever, Mr. Dencourt.”

“I want that stiletto,” Dencourt shouted.

Callaghan said: “I’m awfully sorry you can’t have it. Mrs. Dencourt’s lost it. She doesn’t know where it is.”

Dencourt appealed to Gringall. “Can they get away with this, Inspector?”

“I’m afraid they can, Mr. Dencourt,” said Gringall. “Your wife admits that she removed that dagger at a time when she was living with you, you can’t bring an action against her. If she withdraws her divorce petition and returns to you, she need not even return the stiletto. If on the other hand her divorce petition goes through then you could in the normal course of events proceed against her for the return of the stiletto. But you can’t do that if she’s lost it. To lose it, Mr. Dencourt, is merely carelessness, not a criminal offence.”

“This is nothing but a blackmailing trap,” muttered Dencourt.

Callaghan said: “Call it what you like, Dencourt. What are you going to do about it? You’re a fine one to talk of blackmailing, aren’t you? Look at your treatment of your wife.”

Gringall interrupted. “Mr. Dencourt, I’m afraid this is a matter in which the police cannot intervene. In law, Mrs. Dencourt is still your wife, because her divorce action is not yet completed. I’m afraid the matter is one for arrangement between you and her. Perhaps she’ll find the stiletto,” he concluded sarcastically.

Nikolls grinned. “Find nothin’,” he said. “She’s lost her memory.”

Gringall got up. “Sorry I can’t help you, Mr. Dencourt,” he said. “Good morning, Callaghan. Things are pretty good, aren’t they?” He grinned at Callaghan over Dencourt’s head.

Callaghan said: “Not too bad, Gringall. Thanks for coming in.”

“Yeah,” said Nikolls. “Come in again sometime.”

As the door closed behind Gringall, Dencourt turned again to Callaghan. “Damn you, Callaghan,” he said furiously. “What are you going to do?”

Callaghan said: “What can I do, Dencourt? One of these fine days with a bit of luck Mrs. Dencourt might even find that stiletto. Something might happen to refresh her memory. Then she might remember where she ‘mislaid’ it.”

Dencourt said bitterly: “What would it take to refresh her memory?”

“Twenty thousand five hundred pounds, Dencourt,” Callaghan said cheerfully. “A cheque for twenty thousand for your wife, which she richly deserves for having spent so much of her life with a blackguard like you. And five hundred pounds for Callaghan Investigations ‘for services rendered.’ If you don’t like it,” he concluded coldly, “get out!”

“If I pay this money,” said Dencourt, “when shall I have the stiletto?”

Callaghan said: “I can’t answer that question now, but I’m certain that when your cheque is cleared Mrs. Dencourt’s memory will start working. And I have no doubt that she will continue with her divorce action.”

Dencourt turned to his wife. “Do you agree to all this, Marian?”

She nodded. “Why… yes, Herbert,” she said sweetly, “anything that Mr. Callaghan says…”

“Very well,” said Dencourt angrily, “the cheque shall be here this afternoon. I’d like to tell you what I think of you, Callaghan.” He got up.

“Don’t worry, sourpuss,” said Nikolls. “He’s been told before, plenty !”

Callaghan said: “I shall expect your cheque this afternoon, Dencourt. Make it an open one.” He called: “Effie!”

Effie Thompson appeared in the doorway. “Show Mr. Dencourt out, please.”

Dencourt, with a last furious look at his wife, followed Effie from the room. As the door closed, Nikolls said with a sigh of relief: “Boy! Am I glad he’s gone!”

“Why, Windy?” asked Callaghan.

Nikolls said: “The Dencourt stiletto…”

Callaghan grinned. He said: “What about the stiletto?”

“What about it!” said Nikolls. “I’ve been sittin’ on the damned thing!”

_________________

6: The Sign on the Roof

Peter Cheyney

Auckland Star, 14 Sep to 5 Oct, 1935

A novella (40,000 words) prepared from a newspaper serial.

1: Thursday, November 9, 7 p.m.

HAD it not been that Bitterly met Vaughan outside Lonsford Road tube station; had it not been for the fact that Vaughan was fresh from one of his bi-weekly quarrels with his wife, and Bitterly, half-amused, half-sympathetic, had given him the theatre tickets so that Mrs. Vaughan might be lured to a better frame of mind, the journalist would, in all probability, have gone to see the play himself. In this case he would not have met Diane Vallery that evening at the Blue Light, and, therefore, would not have been unduly concerned with the fact that an enterprising police constable, flashing his bull's eye in the early hours of a winter's morning through a gap of the hoarding at the bottom of Derham Crescent, discovered, lying across the apex of a pile of bricks, the body of the man with the broken back.

Upon such slender chances does life depend.

Vaughan went off pleased with the theatre tickets, and Bitterly crossed the street and made his way homewards.

It was seven o'clock. A mist was blowing up from the direction of Kensington Gardens. A thin, throat-catching mist heralding, he thought, the promise of a pea-soup fog. There was a slight drizzle of rain and the suggestion of an easterly wind. It was one of those entirely depressing evenings that London can produce so successfully at an unexpected moment.

Bitterly, his hands in his raincoat pockets, his black soft hat (almost a trade mark of a journalist in these days) set at its habitual angle on his head, his usual half-smile about his mouth, looked an almost jaunty figure. But his looks belied him. He was bored— unutterably bored.

And this increasing boredom with life and everything connected with life, which was enveloping his mentality almost like a blanket, perturbed him. He realised that for the last six months there had been no "kick" in life for him. It was a matter of getting up in the morning, going to Fleet Street to his desk in the offices of the Sunday Argus, doing the hundred-and-one jobs throughout the day that fall to the lot of a news editor, and going home at night. Then the business of eating his dinner, making up his mind that he would start to write a novel— that realistic novel that every journalist is going to write and never does— and eventually, somewhere in the region of eleven, putting on his hat and going round to the Vallery's because there was nothing else to do.

Just now his steps had brought him to the top of Derham Crescent, in which the Vallery flat was situated. It was not so misty here, and standing hesitant for a moment, Bitterly could see the light in the top hall of the flat at the far end of the crescent. He continued on his way, his mouth twisted a little as he thought of the domestic scene which was probably taking place in the interior of that flat.

Up in the kitchen— an overheated and tiny room— Diane would be preparing dinner; almost struggling in her efforts to achieve a punctuality which was dependent on the sporadic arrivals of the family— not forgetting Bardella, the lodger, whose inevitable lateness was almost a proverb.

Downstairs, on the floor below, in the sitting-room, would be congregated the rest of the Vallery ménage.

There would be Charles Vallery, her husband, the man who had always had hard luck; with his shabby, would-be smart clothes, a coat cut in at the waist too much, and dirty fingernails, poring over the sports columns of an evening newspaper. Charles would be "picking them out" for tomorrow; working out one of his amazing "doubles" or "trebles" that never managed to quite come off, or, if he were suffering from one of his fits of depression, gazing into the fire, thinking about something— no one ever knew what. There would be his mother, with her hawk nose and her restless, shifting eyes sitting straight up in her armchair, brooding about something— no one ever knew what— and sending one of her rare smiles of approbation at Charles, or one of her looks of ill-concealed dislike at Herbert.

She reminded Bitterly of an eagle— a rather vicious eagle, waiting to swoop down on anything unable to defend itself. In spite of the smiles she gave Bitterly, her presumed interest in his work, her inevitable seeking after knowledge, she appeared to him always to contain something remotely evil, some threat against anything or anyone. He crossed her path adversely.

There would be Herbert, Diane's brother, the young man who had always had a scheme for getting out of debt, but who only succeeded in getting deeper in. Herbert, who "adored" his sister, but who never bothered to give her a hand with anything, who spent his life in dubious night clubs making the acquaintance of still more dubious women, and who regarded every new caller at the flat as a new fount for borrowed "half-dollars."

Bitterly had met them a year before. He had floated across their lives, and, for some reason, had continued to see them until the chance acquaintanceship had ripened into a peculiar sort of friendship— a friendship which even he could not quite understand. Three, four, five nights a week would find him wandering round to the Vallery flat at ten or eleven at night, playing bridge, drinking tea, talking; never really understanding why he went there, but only realising that the day seemed incomplete if he did not go there.

Not that it was always pleasant to be there. There would be evenings when Mrs. Vallery, Charles' mother, would give vent to one of her fits of rage, when Charles would be forced to take his mother away and soothe her ruffled feelings. There would be evenings when Bitterly, playing bridge with them, would use his quiet, quick observation and would realise, with a cynical smile, that Charles was cheating. Charles was quite a good cheat. There were evenings when Charles and Herbert would indulge in a quarrel, and other more interesting times, when Charles would talk about their old life in Ceylon on the plantation when he was wealthy, before he lost his money— before, as he would say, with his self-pitying smile, they were "reduced to this."

It was on these occasions that Bitterly wondered why, even if they were "reduced to this," Charles might not at least wash behind his cars and keep his finger-nails clean.

He opened the street door and mounted the stairs to his flat on the first floor. Half way up he heard the telephone ringing.

Bitterly hurried up the remaining stairs and cursed as he inserted his flat key and opened the door.

He walked across the hall and sitting room, without bothering to switch on the light. Grabbing the telephone, he asked curtly who it was.

It was Diane. And it was apparent to Bitterly that she was somewhat diffident and rather nervous. Her voice, invariably cheerful, was quieter than usual. He sensed that she was speaking from the telephone in the sitting room of the Vallery flat, speaking softly so that no one else should hear.

Her questions came quickly

"How are you, Michael? Forgive me, please, for bothering you. Did you intend to come round here tonight? You might? Please don't. If you could possibly manage it could you meet me somewhere? I want to talk to you. Yes, it is rather urgent. I'd be very grateful. I can't say much now."

He was reassuring.

"Don't bother, Diane. Something worrying you, eh? Well— never mind. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems! Meet me at the Blue Light Club. You'll find the address in the book. I'll be waiting for you in the hall. Will ten-thirty do? All right. Good-bye."

He replaced the receiver and switched on the light. Then he stood, his hands in his raincoat pockets, his hat still perched on one side of his head, wondering.

2: Thursday, November 9, 10.25 p.m.

HE was five minutes early at the Blue Light and was surprised to find Diane waiting in the hall. As he walked toward her, Bitterly noted with approval— he had always an eye for women's clothes— how well she was turned out. He knew that everything she wore was made by herself; yet the general impression that she always managed to convey was that of a very well-bred, well-dressed woman who had not a care in the world. But it was obvious to Bitterly, observant as he was and familiar with her varying expressions, that something was wrong. She was paler than usual; there were shadows beneath her eyes; also, as he took her small, gloved hand in his, he felt her fingers tremble. He wondered what it was all about.

"How are you, Michael?" she said. "I think it very good of you to come and meet me. Were you surprised when I telephoned?"

He smiled. "I'm a journalist," he said. "Nothing could surprise me. In fact, I think it would be rather wonderful to be surprised by something."

"Are you so bored?" she said. Her eyes lit up for a moment. He nodded, gloomily whimsical.

"Definitely," he said. "What shall we do about it? Shall we ring up Charles and tell him that we're going to run away together, or shall we throw a bomb at somebody? At least we would get a good news story out of it. Anyhow, it's apparent to me that I must be serious. I realised that you were speaking very quietly on the telephone so that the family shouldn't hear. I imagine that I'm going to be let into some dark and murky secret of your past. Hey? Come upstairs and have some coffee, and tell me all about your past life."

They went upstairs. He seated her in a secluded corner and ordered coffee When it was brought he gave her a cigarette. As he lit it he spoke to her quietly.

"Listen, Diane," he said, "just for a minute I'm going to be serious. You know, during my somewhat varied career in umpteen different professions I've come across many strange things and heard many strange stories. I want to give you a little warning. I know you've got something serious to talk to me about. You're not the sort of woman who asks a man like me to meet her to advise her unless she's in a pretty bad jam. You're quite intelligent, quite determined. There aren't many situations that you couldn't handle yourself, and if you've been forced to come to me for advice then I know it must be fairly serious.

"But here's my warning. It coincides with the oath of a witness in a court of law— the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Do you know, Diane, I've sat and listened to women asking my advice, knowing perfectly well that they have kept the crux of the whole situation to themselves. They've talked round it, kept back the salient fact, the thing that matters. Don't you do that.

"On the other hand, understand this, if there's anything that I can do I will do it willingly. I like you, Diane, and I suppose I've spent, during the last year anyway, quite a little time in your house."

He smiled. "Anyway, I know what it's about, roughly," he said. "Let me make some guesses. Charles has lost his job, or alternatively, his mother's decided to leave you, or, alternatively, Herbert's decided to leave you, or Bardella's going to leave you. You're in a bad way financially, maybe."

He leaned forward dramatically.

"Don't tell me the brokers are in, are they?" he said with a grin. "You see, I think it's one of two things. I think it's money, in which case my poor purse is at your disposal, or it's love, in which case I either have to slay somebody for you or make some man realise that he's unconsciously loved by a very charming woman."

She shook her head. "It's neither of those things, I'm afraid, Michael," she said quietly. "It's worse than either of them. Lack of money means little to me. I've been learning for years how to do without it. As for people leaving the flat, Bardella's gone. She won't have to worry about money any more. She's just inherited four thousand pounds from an aunt. How I envy her! Still, I'd manage to scrape through, however short of money we were, and it's not love. I've learned to do without love, too. It's worse than either of those things.

"It's blackmail."

Bitterly looked at her quickly. He was surprised— for some quite unknown reason— that her eyes met his squarely.

She was even smiling a little. A strange and rather lovely person, he thought. She regarded the point of her neat brown shoe.

"You're surprised, aren't you, Michael?" she said. "I suppose I don't look like a person who should be able to be blackmailed... but, as you would say, 'That's just how it is.'"

He grinned. He refused to regard this business seriously in his mind. In any event, he thought it was no use looking serious. Probably the whole thing was a storm in a teacup of some sort; some local scandal or tittle-tattle.

"Supposing you tell me about it," he said. "All about it."

"It began a long time ago," Diane said quietly. "In Ceylon. There was a man there— he was manager of a fairly large concern on the island; his name was Vincent Lariat.

"Owing to a set of circumstances which don't matter a great deal at the moment, this man was able to make things fairly uncomfortable for me. He did. Needless to say, Charles thought the worst and made a great deal of trouble about it. That was one of the reasons we came over here.

"Naturally I thought it was all over years ago. I'd almost forgotten about it until a few days ago.

"About eleven o'clock last Monday morning this man Lariat appeared at the flat. I opened the door and nearly dropped with surprise when I saw it was he. He said he wanted to speak to me, that he must speak to me, and I let him in. I was rather nervous and I didn't want any bother, more especially as Bardella was packing up and generally preparing to leave, and Bardella at the best of times is a mischief-maker with an inclination to interfere in other people's business.

"I took him into the sitting room and asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted money and wanted it very badly and that unless I gave him some he would go to Charles and make trouble."

Bitterly interrupted. "Did he indicate how he would make trouble?" he asked.

She thought for a moment.

"He suggested that he would resuscitate things... things that I hoped Charles had forgotten about," she said. "I told him that I hadn't any money, that we were practically penniless. Then he got angry and began to shout and I told him that unless he got out I'd call the police. He went, livid with rage."

She smiled a little pathetically at Bitterly.

"I'm frightened, Michael," she said.

Bitterly nodded. "I expect you were," he said. "Tell me, where was your mother-in-law whilst all this was going on? Isn't she usually about?"

"She was out— luckily," said Diane. "She returned after he'd gone and she went off next day to some friends at Westover for a holiday. She's there now."

He nodded again. "Why, particularly, are you frightened of this man Lariat?" he asked. "Supposing he does go to Charles... well, what's Charles going to do about it. You say that he thought the worst before. By the way, exactly what did you mean by that?"

Bitterly filled his pipe carefully.

"You know, Diane," he said, "I told you before we began to talk about this that half-truths aren't any good. They don't get anybody anywhere. If I'm going to help you over this thing the least you can do is to tell me the whole truth about it. Otherwise one can do nothing that matters."

She smiled again. She looked quite pathetic, Bitterly thought, mainly because she was trying to look anything but pathetic. The smile, which was an attempt to be brave, failed dismally.

"I don't know what you'll think of me, Michael," she said after a moment. "I do hope that you won't be too hard in your mind, but I can't tell you any more. I've got to be as loyal as I can, even if it's only to myself. I thought you might help me, somehow— I don't know how. I suppose the very idea is unreasonable...."

Bitterly shifted uncomfortably.

"You're putting me in a devil of a position, Diane," he said. "You ask me to help you and you give me no information on which to base any plan of campaign. And why come to me? What about Herbert? He's your brother, you know."

She laughed. "Don't be silly, Michael," she said, with a little grimace. "Surely you know Herbert well enough to know that he's just the sort of person one doesn't go to if one is in trouble."

She got up suddenly. "I'm going home, Michael," she said. "And I owe you an apology. I've wasted your time."

He smiled. "I wouldn't say that, Diane," he said. "Just wait until I've paid the bill and I'll see you back to your door."

They took the tube back to Lonsford Road.

She was very quiet and such conversation as occurred was made by Bitterly. They were both rather uncomfortable.

He shook hands with her at the street door of the flat.

"Look here, Diane," he said. "Don't misunderstand me; but I haven't spent four years of my life in a news room without learning that nobody can make bricks without straw.

"Of course, I suppose I could try to find this fellow Lariat and give him a good hiding, but would that do any good? It might make matters worse. Don't you see, if one is dealing with a blackmailer one has got to know just what one is fighting, and, unless you tell me, I can't do anything that is really effective. Think it over and if you decide that you can 'come clean,' as they say in the films, let me know and we'll have another talk. In the meantime, if this fellow annoys you again you can ring me— either at the office or at my flat— and I'll come along— pronto."

She pressed his hand.

"You're really rather nice, Michael," she said. "But I don't think I'll have to trouble you again about this. I'll have to think of something else. Good-night."

3: Friday, November 10

NEXT morning Bitterly awoke with a definite sense of depression. He was annoyed with life. Women, he thought, were a disturbing influence. They were always getting into some sort of trouble and, having got into it unaided, invariably wanted someone else to get them out of it.

The truth of the matter was, of course, that Bitterly resented the fact that Diane should, for some reason best known to herself, have decided that she would not tell him the whole truth of the circumstances surrounding the "blackmail" business. He was annoyed because his amour propre was scratched at the idea of receiving a half-confidence. Diane's attitude irritated him.

The question was, did Charles really know what had happened in the old days in Ceylon or was there something else which prevented Diane telling her husband about Lariat's visit last Monday? After all, no matter how weak he might be, surely he was at least man enough to protect his wife from insult.

In this frame of mind Bitterly went through the day, definitely unable to dismiss the matter from his mind.

That evening, returning to his flat, he was disinclined, after dinner, to go round to the Vallery flat and play bridge, as had been arranged a few days before. He felt he could not go round and see them, simply because he had a disinclination to meet Diane; that, in some strange way, a barrier had been erected between himself and the Vallery household.

He went through the quite regular process of sitting down at his desk and deluding himself that he was going to do a few hours' work on his novel. He went through the usual process of getting up again five minutes afterwards, having achieved nothing. Eventually, he went for a walk, wandering round the sordid streets at the back of Edgware Road, trying to get rid of his ever increasing boredom and trying, also, to think about something else except the Diane Vallery business and the possibilities of the blackmailing gentleman making himself even more unpleasant in the near future.

This possibility concerned Bitterly. Beneath his attitude of cynicism he was really rather a chivalrous sort of person, although, as he had pointed out to Diane, he had discovered, on more than one occasion, that chivalry did not always reap its own reward.

Eventually, at 2 o'clock, he returned home and went to bed. His last realisation, before going to sleep, was that he was thinking too much about this business. He wished that something would turn up to make life a little more pleasantly interesting.

But he did not know that fate, which has a method of its own in interfering in our lives, had already planned for him some excitement in the very near future, an excitement which he might have done his best to evade.

Sometimes boredom is the lesser of two evils.

4: Saturday Morning, November 13

NEXT morning, soon after 8 o'clock, his telephone bell jangled. Bitterly, awakened from a deep sleep, cursed vociferously. An early telephone call usually meant that the editor had discovered some "big" news story, and Bitterly, like most news editors, had a profound distrust of the big news story which "broke" early on a Saturday morning and which usually managed to peter out into nothingness by Saturday midday. He got out of bed and walked into the sitting room to the telephone.

It was Jacquot, the Argus crime reporter.

"Good morning, Michael," said Jacquot. "Sorry to bother you, but would you mind doing something on your way down to the office?

"The position is this: This morning, at 5 o'clock, the police found the body of a man lying on a pile of bricks behind a hoarding at the bottom of Derham Crescent. They have been pulling some houses down there. This fellow's back was broken and the local police seem to think that he was a cat burglar who was climbing up the side of the house which was being pulled down, in order to get at the place next door. It looks like a good story and I wondered if you would drop in at the police station on your way down and see if there is anything new on it. I'd do it myself, but I've got an idea that I might work from another angle."

"All right, Bill," said Bitterly. "I'll call in and see them myself, and listen— don't go chasing rainbows, will you? I know you when you get on a story; it doesn't matter how obvious it is, there just has to be something mysterious about it, and, even if there wasn't anything mysterious, you'd make it. So long, see you later."

He hung up the receiver and, reflecting that it was no good going back to bed, bathed, shaved and dressed, and, after drinking a cup of coffee, wandered round to the police station. Just inside the office he met Gyves, the divisional detective inspector.

"Good morning, Mr. Bitterly," said Gyves pleasantly, "I can make two guesses what you have come about. You want some information about the fellow we found in Derham Crescent this morning. Well, here it is and here's all there is of it.

"This morning, soon after five o'clock, Mullens, who was on duty on that beat, flashed his lamp through a space in the board hoarding round the houses they are pulling down at the bottom of Derham Crescent. Lying across the top of a pile of bricks was a man. Mullens had a look at him— he was dead; his back was broken. The divisional surgeon believes that this man died between two and two-thirty this morning."

"Do you know who he was?" asked Bitterly.

Gyves shook his head.

"We don't know a thing about him," he said. "There was nothing on him, not even a laundry mark. He had money in his pocket, a new suit, new shoes, new everything."

Bitterly nodded.

"What do you think happened?" he asked.

Gyves grinned.

"It is as obvious as the nose on your face," he said. "That place was built for a cat burglar. They are pulling down houses at the end of the Crescent and there is a sort of a natural stairway of broken wall, which any man could easily climb and so reach to the roof of the next house. It is quite obvious that this fellow had climbed a considerable way up. It had been raining a couple of hours before and there is no doubt about it that the bricks were slippery; also, he had on a pair of new shoes.

"He slipped and fell, broke his back and either died straight away or a little later, unable to move or call out, and that is all there is to it. He is not a particularly nice looking piece of work though and the new clothes he was wearing are of the cheap, ready-made type that can be bought in a slop shop anywhere. That's all there is to it, Mr. Bitterly, and I've done you a favour in telling you that.

"If I did my duty," continued the D.D.I. humorously, "I'd make you ring up the Press Department of Scotland Yard and they'd not tell you half as much as I have."

Bitterly nodded.

"Tell me, when's the inquest?" he asked.

"Tuesday morning, as ever was," replied the D.D.I., "and I'll tell you what the verdict will be in advance— accidental death; and do you mind telling your bright reporters, including that Sherlock Holmes of yours, Bill Jacquot, that we don't want them scrounging round this police station, making our lives a misery all day, we have other things to do. Incidentally, if it is of any use to you the Photo Press Bureau took a picture of the house and bricks and all the rest of it this morning, so you can get it from them if you want it."

"O.K." said Bitterly with a grin. "You are a nice fellow even if you are a policeman. So long."

He caught a bus and was in Fleet Street in half an hour. He was still thinking about Diane. He had definitely made up his mind that he would telephone some time during the day and arrange to see her. Maybe something else had happened; there might have been another visit or some more threats from her blackmailing acquaintance and he thought that she might be in a more confidential frame of mind. Walking down Fleet Street on his way to the Argus office he thought that at least he might try to do something about it. He also realised that, cynically, he was trying to find a sop for his own conscience, that even he, Michael Bitterly, a hard-boiled news editor, was not too keen on leaving a woman in the lurch.

In the news room the news of the Derham Crescent death had already come over the Press Association ticker. Bitterly scanned the slip bearing the report, which the boy had brought to his room.

"The body of an unknown man was found this morning by a police constable lying on a pile of bricks behind a hoarding at Derham Crescent, N.E. Up to the moment no identification has taken place. The police theory is that the man was a cat burglar who slipped and fell from the side of the wall of the house which he was trying to climb."

There followed a description of the man.

Bitterly initialled the slip and sent it in to the sub-editor's room. Let them make what they can of that, he thought. It was certainly not going to be Saturday's leading story. Accidental deaths were fairly common these days, although the cat burglar angle certainly improved it a little.

His ruminations on this point were interrupted by the large face of Jacquot as it peered round the door. Jacquot had that peculiar expression which meant that he had found something good. He closed the door carefully behind him, pushed his dilapidated hat on to the back of his head and sat down in the chair by the side of Bitterly's desk. The news editor threw him a cigarette.

"Well, Bill," he said, "you look very mysterious. What do you know?"

Jacquot grinned.

"I think I know something," he said. "Listen here, about this dead man on the bricks. There's more in this than meets the eye. Here's the dope: this morning, when I was out, I ran into Blooey Stevens— you know, the fellow who keeps that doss house near Seven Dials. I wanted to see Blooey about something else, and after a couple of pints he got confidential. He knows something about this dead man."

Bitterly nodded. "What does he know?" he asked.

"Just this," continued Jacquot. "This fellow parked himself at Stevens' doss house last Saturday night. Apparently, he had just arrived from abroad somewhere, worked his passage. He was down and out and almost in rags. Anyhow, the thing that made Blooey connect him with the dead man was the fact that on Sunday night he was asking where Derham Crescent was. As a matter of fact, he tried to borrow the bus fare there, but couldn't raise it. When Blooey heard the news this morning he got Scrool, the man who does the cleaning, to wander up to the mortuary and have a look at this fellow. Scrool came back and described the man. Blooey says it is the same fellow."

Bitterly nodded again.

"Well, where does that get you, Bill?" he said. "The police think he is a vagrant, a cat burglar. Their theory seems to fit the case."

Jacquot grinned.

"Have a heart," he said. "Listen to this. A fellow arrives from some country abroad. He is down and out and broke; he hasn't even got a bus fare. He goes about, trying to find out where Derham Crescent is, and then, five days later, he is found dead on a pile of bricks at Derham Crescent.

"Why does he have to be a cat burglar? Cat burglars don't usually come from abroad and suddenly decide to do a job, do they? Here's another thing; Blooey says that on Monday night this fellow came back to the doss house in a very good humour. He had got some money from somewhere and was flashing it all over the place. Then he went off; moved to better quarters. He took a room somewhere in the Edgware Road and I've got an idea that I can find out just where that room was.

"It looks to me as if there is something screwy behind this business."

"And here's another thing. How do we know that this fellow died of a broken back, just because that's the most obvious thing?"

Bitterly laughed. "What are you going to do, make a first class mystery out of this, Bill?" he asked. "What do you think he died of?"

"I don't think anything," said Jacquot, "but I know that police surgeons are not so keen about going to the trouble of a post mortem over an unknown tramp. But just because that fellow was found on those bricks with a broken back it doesn't seem to me he had to die that way. He might have been killed anywhere; might have been poisoned. After all, the obvious place to throw a body is behind a hoarding that's not going to be disturbed over the weekend."

Bitterly nodded.

"There might be something in what you say," he said. He had a great confidence in Jacquot, Jacquot had a nose for news; Bitterly wished, rather cynically, that it were not quite so good, for something was hammering away inside his head, telling him that the dead man on the bricks was none other than Lariat... he knew it was Lariat, just as he knew that the dogged obstinacy of Jacquot was on the way to turn something that the police might let go as an accident to an unknown wastrel, into something else that was not so nice. Outwardly he showed nothing; he merely expressed professional interest.

"What do you want to do, Bill?" he asked.

Jacquot stamped out his cigarette-end on the desk and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

"I want to get hold of this fellow that Stevens knows, the fellow who knows the address that this man went to in Edgware Road after he got the money. I want to find out what they know about it. I want to find out where he got that new outfit from and I want to find out where he got the money to buy it.

"Listen here, Mike, do you know, when they found this fellow he had 23 one-pound notes in his pocket, and he's a cat burglar? Yes, and I am the Prince of Wales! Have you ever known of a cat burglar going out to do a job with 23 one-pound notes in his pocket?"

"It's strange," said Bitterly. "It certainly does look odd. Do you think he was murdered?"

"You've said it," said Jacquot. "I think he was murdered and, afterwards, they chucked him over the top of that hoarding. That's easy enough to do. Maybe that's what broke his back."

Bitterly showed more interest.

"Look here, Bill," he said. "I tell you what we'll do. Not a word about this to anyone. Go and see Stevens again. Find out where this man lived in the Edgware Road. See the landlady, try and find out who he was, where he came from. He must have talked to somebody. Slip back as quickly as you can and let me know. We might be able to print a story on this to-night."

Jacquot nodded and picked up his hat.

"O.K.," he said, "I'll be seeing you."

TWO hours later he came through on the telephone.

"Listen, Mike," he said. "There's a story here all right. Get this. Stevens tells me that last Monday, about 5.30 in the afternoon, this fellow came back to the doss house. Later he talked to a man named Mavins, who was staying there. He asked Mavins where he could get himself some clothes. Mavins put him on to a slop shop, run by a fellow called Izzey Myers, in Bone Street, off the Edgware Road.

"On Monday evening this fellow went to Myers and bought himself a new outfit, and it was Myers who put him on to the room a few minutes' walk away which he took that night. I've seen the landlady. This fellow came along and saw her and took quite a decent room on the second floor, at 25 shillings a week. He also arranged that he should have certain food. Now get this, he paid his rent in advance up till the end of the week. He told her that he had just come over from Ceylon and that he was going back there the following Saturday. He seemed to be well supplied with money. He was quite quiet, behaved himself excellently.

"On the Thursday night at twelve o'clock he knocked at the door of her room and asked her if she could let him have a sheet of notepaper and an envelope. She was annoyed at being disturbed. She asked him if the morning would not do. He said he 'had got to write a letter' that night. She told him that, in any event, he had missed the last post. He said he didn't give a damn about that; he had got to get the letter written and posted.

"Anyhow, to cut a long story short, she gave him the notepaper and the envelope and he went upstairs, first of all asking her if there was a stamp slot-machine in the neighbourhood where he could get a stamp. It was quite obvious that he wanted to catch the seven o'clock post the next morning, Friday morning. It stands to reason that that letter was pretty important if he had to knock her up to get that notepaper and envelope. I'd give something to find out who that letter was for.

"And get this, Mike; he was going back to Ceylon on Saturday. He had only arrived the Saturday before, after working his passage, absolutely broke. And he had not intended to go back, because, down at Blooey Stevens' doss house, he had asked other people about the possibility of getting a job over here.

"We know that this fellow had got some money, and it's pretty obvious that he was going to be able to pay his own fare back to Ceylon. Before you ask me to tell you why, I'll tell you. I went down to the Ceylon Steamship Line, giving a description of the dead man. They remembered him. Why did they remember him? Because he was the fellow that worked his way back and had been paid off the Saturday before, and now he comes back to the dock office inquiring about a third-class passage. He told them he had just worked his way back on one of their boats and the inquiry clerk asked him if he had come into a fortune. He grinned and said, 'Maybe.' It looks as if the plot is thickening all right, doesn't it?"

"You're right," said Bitterly. "There's a story here, Jacquot. Look here, keep on it, take a run down to Tilbury and, if the boat he came over on is still in the dock, get aboard her; find out anything you can about this fellow. There may be something big behind this."

IT was one o'clock and Bitterly was just going out to lunch when Jacquot telephoned again.

"I've a bit more," he said. "The boat he came over on is still here. His story was true all right; he worked his passage and took £8 in wages. He lost the whole lot, except five shillings, playing cards the day he came ashore. He said he knew where he could get plenty more. And there's one thing he seems to have asked everybody. He wanted particularly to know where Derham Crescent was. Funny he should be so interested in that place. They didn't like him aboard the boat. They say he was a nasty bit of work. What do we do now, Mike?"

"There's nothing you can do," said Bitterly. "We've got enough to work on. I've got an idea that we won't say anything about what we've found out. We'll run this story on the lines as it came over the ticker. A couple of days' work on this and we might find out a lot. By the way," said Bitterly casually, "what's this fellow's name?"

"Oh, I might have remembered that," said Jacquot. "I meant to tell you. Funny name for an Englishman to have, his name was Lariat. Vincent Lariat."

"O.K.," said Bitterly. "Come back, Bill."

He hung up the receiver and sat gazing out of the window in front of him. So the man who had died on the bricks at Derham Crescent was Vincent Lariat, the man who had called on Monday to see Diane, the man who had blackmailed her. He had been certain of this all along, from the moment that Jacquot had telephoned that morning. Yet there had been a sneaking hope in his mind that it might not be so, that it might be merely a very long-armed coincidence.

He stood for a long time, looking out of the window, drawing almost unconsciously at a cigarette, and wondering what the next thing would be. Jacquot suspected murder, and when murder was suspected the first thing the police did was look for a motive. And there was motive enough in all conscience. He wondered just how much Jacquot, with his keen nose for news and his flair for arriving at the crux of a situation, would find out within the next couple of days. Supposing he discovered Lariat had already been in Derham Crescent, had already called on and threatened Diane?

Bitterly was worried.

5: Saturday, November 11, Afternoon

BY four o'clock in the afternoon Bitterly felt that he must take some sort of action about Diane. He was concerned with the Derham Crescent death from two distinct viewpoints. Primarily, he was interested in the fact that he now had a definite suspicion that Diane Vallery was implicated in this business. His secondary viewpoint, the news angle, was purely professional, and he knew that Jacquot, having started an investigation, would see it through to the bitter end.

He rang the bell and sent for Jacquot.

"Anything fresh, Bill?"' he asked, as the crime reporter entered his office.

"You know all there is to know, Michael," said Jacquot. "I don't think there is anything else I can do to-day. We've got some very interesting facts, and now there is only one thing to be done."

"What?" asked Bitterly, knowing perfectly well what the reply would be.

Jacquot lit a cigarette.

"It's as plain as the nose on your face that this man Lariat wanted to talk to somebody who lives in Derham Crescent. His one idea, ever since he had been in England, seems to me to have been to find out where the place was and to go there. Why? That's what I want to know. I think I'll take a look round that district to-morrow, Mike," the crime reporter concluded.

Bitterly shook his head.

"It's the very thing I don't want you to do," he said. "Just think for a moment. The actual situation in this case is this: Officially, at the moment, from the police point of view and that of everybody, this is an unknown down-and-out and nobody is bothering very much about it. We have an idea that there is something more behind it, but before we come into the open we want one story that we can substantiate, not a lot of theories. Just because this man wanted to know where Derham Crescent was it doesn't follow that somebody in Derham Crescent murdered him. You have to see a murder because the only form of death that interests you is murder!"

Jacquot grinned.

"But," continued Bitterly, "there's another aspect and it is this. The inquest will be held next Tuesday and tomorrow the sole topic of the conversation in the neighbourhood of Derham Crescent will be who and what the man was. If you go snooping about there immediately, if there is anybody in or around the place who knows something about this fellow Lariat, you can take it for granted that they are not going to talk to you. Why? Well, obviously, because if they had anything to say, if they had any reason to believe that this man Lariat was coming to Derham Crescent, they would have already mentioned it to the police. After all, a full description of the man has been printed in every newspaper. It stands to reason, therefore, that if anybody in Derham Crescent knows anything about him and hasn't said anything they have a very good reason for keeping quiet. That being so, they are not going to talk to anybody, not even Jacquot."

Bitterly smiled at the reporter and threw him a cigarette. He was watching Jacquot keenly and saw that he had agreed.

"You see," continued the news editor, "I've got another idea about this thing too. It's purely a theory. You say that this Lariat was looking around for a job. It's quite on the cards that he read an advertisement in a newspaper or, maybe, heard of something while he was coming over on the boat. Perhaps some member of the crew had tipped him off that there was work to be obtained in the neighbourhood of Derham Crescent. There may have been some quite innocent reason for his being interested in the neighbourhood. We've got to be careful not to make any mystery.

"My idea is this. We'll lay off this business tomorrow. We'll wait till Monday midday just to see if there is anybody who does come forward, after reading the description of the man to identify him. Remember this, the only people who know that this man was Vincent Lariat are yourself, myself, Blooey Stevens, Scrool and, possibly, the man Mavins. Stevens, Scrool and Mavins are not going to talk to anybody— those three people have a rooted objection to getting mixed up with anything connected with the police. You and I aren't going to talk. Now then, let's wait and see what happens. Lay off till Monday midday, then talk to me about it again."

Jacquot considered for a moment.

"I think you're right, Michael," he said. "I think we've got to lay off to give anybody who wants a chance time to come forward. If they don't then we'll get ahead with it."

"All right." said Bitterly, "that's how it is."

He felt a sense of relief after Jacquot had gone, knowing the enterprising crime reporter would not make any fresh discoveries for a little time, time enough to give Bitterly the opportunity of doing what he wanted to do. He lit a cigarette and thought for a few minutes.

Then he telephoned to the Vallery flat. Diane herself answered.

"Hallo, Diane," said Bitterly. '"This is Michael. Have you read the papers this morning?"

Her voice came coolly over the wire. "Oh, yes," she said. "I suppose you're referring to what the police found."

Bitterly was a little shocked at her coolness. "That's right," he answered. "You know who it was, don't you?"

"Yes," she replied. "I know who it was, Michael. I knew when I read the description in the midday newspaper."

"How do you feel about it?" he asked.

There was a moment's pause, then—" Oh, I suppose I'm glad," she said. "I expect I ought to feel sorry, but I am not a hypocrite; I am glad."

"Look here, Diane," he said. "I want to talk to you alone. I'm going off at ten o'clock to-night; would you like to meet me at that little café, the place near the Lonsford Road tube station? I'll be there at twenty past ten."

She answered without hesitation. "Oh, yes, Michael," she said. "I'll be there."

"O.K." he answered and hung up the receiver. He thought that Diane had taken the news of Lariat's death very coolly. Too coolly.

6: Saturday, November 11, Night

MICHAEL BITTERLY left the Argus Office at ten minutes to ten. For November the night was a fine one and, as he walked to the tube station Bitterly ruminated on the strangeness of life. He wished the interview before him was with anyone else but Diane. Bitterly was a good journalist, a keen investigator, possessed of a really good analytical mind, excellent for solving problems where other people were concerned, but not so good where he himself was concerned. He was thinking that, in other circumstances, he would rather have enjoyed the subtle questioning which would not fail to elicit roughly the possibilities of Diane Vallery being implicated in Lariat's death.

She was waiting for him when he arrived at the café and, as he pushed open the door, he saw her seated in the far corner, neat, well-groomed and with her usual smile of welcome. It seemed to Bitterly that her presence added a subtle touch of tone to the indifferent café and for a moment it seemed ridiculous that there should be any connection between this woman, whose quality was obvious, and the sordid death of a cheap blackmailer. But the thought was dismissed almost before it had taken shape for, like every other newspaper man, Bitterly knew that truth was, indeed, stranger than fiction, that it is always the totally unexpected and incongruous which is true and that the obvious is seldom true.

He took off his overcoat and ordered coffee for them both. Then he sat down, gave her a cigarette and came straight to the point. One of Bitterly's methods of cross-examination was to make an apparent appearance of complete frankness and honesty in order to put the mind of the questioned person at ease. He used this method now.

"I've asked you to meet me to-night, Diane," he began, "because I am worried, very worried."

She looked up surprised. "I am sorry, Michael," she said. "Can I help?"

"I hope so," he replied. "You see, it may sound fatuous to you, but when I discovered this morning that this dead man, this man who died so near your flat, was none other than the Lariat who had been to see you last Monday morning, and about whom you asked my help, I should not have been human if I hadn't thought there was the possibility of a connection between you and his death."

She smiled.

"Do you think I killed him, Michael?" she said. "And, even supposing I wanted to kill someone, I don't think I should be awfully good at breaking their back. Isn't that a strange method of murder?"

He looked at her.

"We know that his back was broken, Diane," he said, "but we don't know that that is what he died of. It may have been that. And because I wanted to talk to you about it, it doesn't mean that I believe that you did it. You see, I feel a little bit odd about not offering you my help the other night. I was thinking this afternoon that, had I been a little more sporting this death might not have happened. Not that my attitude was not justified. It was. You only gave me half your confidence.

"What worries me is this. I've got a very good crime reporter, Bill Jacquot, and Jacquot has already discovered that this officially 'unknown' man is none other than Lariat. He has discovered that Lariat arrived from Ceylon last Saturday and that from the time of his arrival in this country he was interested in the whereabouts of Derham Crescent. Jacquot knows that Lariat wanted to see somebody who lived in Derham Crescent. In point of fact, it was only this afternoon that I was able to stop him making inquiries tomorrow.

"Don't you understand this, Diane? That it is quite possible that somebody may have seen this man come to your flat on Monday, that Jacquot will find out, that he will trace a connection between yourself and Lariat? Well, what's the next thing? The police are going to want to know something about it. An ordinary case of accidental death of an unknown man will turn into something which they have got to investigate. Would you like that?"

"I should not like that at all, Michael," she said.

Bitterly thought that her voice sounded grim. She shook her head. He could see that she was perturbed.

He nodded. "Precisely! I want to find a way round that. Maybe this man did meet his death in the way the police think. Maybe he was a cat burglar and maybe he did fall down and break his back. Personally," he went on with a little smile, "I don't believe that. But what I do want to do is to assure myself that there is no possible means of definitely connecting you with this death. Once I have done this, then there is no reason why I cannot loose the sleuth-hound, Jacquot, and let him get on with it.

"If anyone in the neighbourhood tells him that they saw Lariat come to your flat it's quite easy for you to confirm the fact and say that he came to ask you where somebody was whom he once knew lived in the Crescent, somebody who had moved."

"I see," she said. "I think I understand. I'll answer any questions you want to ask, Michael."

"All right," he said. "Well, you know that the police theory is that this man died between two and two-thirty last night. Where were you then?"

"I was in the flat," she answered. "In bed."

He nodded. "That's all right," he said, "because everybody else in the family knew that you were in the flat and in bed."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no, Michael," she said. "I was alone."

He looked up surprised. "Alone?" he queried. "Where was everyone then, Diane? Where was Mrs. Vallery, your husband's mother?"

"She went away last Tuesday," she answered. "She went to stay with some friends of Charles' near Westover."

"Where was Charles, Diane?" he asked.

"Well, it was Friday night," she said. "You know, Charles always works late on Friday night. You ought to know that."

He nodded. "Of course. That's the night he drives that commercial traveller man out to Beaconsfield. isn't it?"

"Yes," she said, "he does that every Friday night, as you know. Mr. Bardon, the traveller, arrives about 12.30. Charles meets him at the station, drives him out to Beaconsfield and then comes back."

"What time did he get back to the flat?" asked Bitterly.

"I don't know," she said, "but it must have been well after half past three."

"Why?" he asked.

"I was up at half-past three," she said, "talking to Herbert. We noticed the time and Charles had not returned. I think he came in about 40 minutes after that. I think so."

"I see," said Bitterly. "So Charles was driving Bardon out to Beaconsfield and arrived back at about ten past four. Now what about your brother Herbert?"

"Herbert came in at a quarter past three. He had been to a party. I was asleep and he woke me up. He was making himself some tea and I heard the rattle of the tea things, so I got up and put on my dressing gown and went into the kitchen. When I got there I had a bit of a row with Herbert." She smiled at the recollection. "First of all he had used all the milk for himself; there was none for me, so I couldn't have any tea and, secondly, I was rather fed up with the hours that he keeps. He is always coming in at three and four o'clock in the morning. That's what made me notice the time. Then I went for him about the cat," she said, her smile deepening.

Bitterly grinned. The cat, poor old Shah Persia.

"What had he done to the cat?"

"He hadn't done anything. That was the point," she replied. "You know, the Shah Persia is always getting himself lost or wandering in along the window ledge to the people next door. He disappeared on Friday morning and I asked Herbert to go and look for him. We usually find him in the basement of the house next door. I was angry with Herbert, firstly for being selfish and using all the milk— he is a selfish person you know; secondly, about his late hours, and thirdly, about not even bothering to look for the Shah. I suppose I was talking to him till about twenty five to four, then I went back to my room, disgruntled and tea-less."

Bitterly nodded once more.

"I see," he said. "So the position is, Diane, that between two and two-thirty, the times between which this man was supposed to have died, there was nobody at all in the flat except yourself?"

"That's so, Michael," she said. "I was alone." She smiled again, sadly. "Does that make it look very bad for me?"

He grinned. "It would make it look very bad for you if Jacquot knew it. Consider the situation: here's a man calls at your flat last Monday, tries to blackmail you into giving him some money, you refuse and send him about his business. Five days later this man is found dead, quite near to your flat, and at the time he died you were alone. From the moment this man has arrived in England he has been trying to find where Derham Crescent is. What for? Obviously, because he wants to find you for purposes of the aforesaid blackmail and, as he came to Derham Crescent to find you last Monday, most people would believe that on his second visit to Derham Crescent he came to find you. It's also not so good that at the time of this second visit you are quite alone in your flat.

"But now, look here, Diane," said Bitterly. "You know that I'd like to help you. Why don't you tell me all about this man Lariat? Why don't you tell me what the hold was he had over you? Why don't you tell me the truth?"

She looked up at him; her eyes were a little cold, the coldness of pride, Bitterly thought.

"I am sorry, Michael," she said, "but I cannot tell you that. I told you once before that it doesn't only concern me. If you want to think that I had something to do with this awful business you must think it. I know I didn't."

"That's all very well, my dear," he said, "but it's not what I think. I know you. It's what other people may think."

She looked him in the eye again. "You know what my life has been like, Michael," she said. "It's a long story of unhappiness, and you know what my life is like now. Do you think I care what people think? What anybody thinks? Now I must go home."

"All right," he said. "Anyhow, thank you for answering my questions. By the way, where's Herbert? Is he on another of his nocturnal jaunts tonight?"

She laughed. "Oh, yes," she said. "Herbert spends all his time and his money, as you know, 'chasing the high spots,' as he calls it. To-night I believe he is at a midnight dance at the Pear Tree Club, one of those nasty little places which some young men find so interesting."

Bitterly nodded and made a mental note of the Pear Tree Club. Then he took her home.

He left her on the doorstep. He said "Good-night" at the door of the house and walked slowly back to his rooms. He was even more worried. He was beginning to suspect Diane.

7: Saturday, November 11, Midnight.

BITTERLY had spent an hour walking up and down his sitting-room, considering the interview which he proposed to have with Herbert, considering Herbert's mentality and wondering just whether he knew anything about the man Lariat, whether by any chance he was aware of the truth of the circumstances which had taken place in Ceylon between Lariat and his sister.

At last he knocked out his pipe, put on his hat and took a taxicab to the Pear Tree Club. This club was one of those places which call themselves clubs, but which anyone may enter, providing one has five shillings and doesn't look like a policeman in plain clothes.

Bitterly found Herbert seated at the far end of the dingy smoke-laden dance-room, filled with the usual crowd of over-dressed young Jews and flashy, jaded women. Herbert was busily engaged in a rather too intimate conversation with one of these who looked as if she had put her lipstick on with a trowel and he was not too pleased when Bitterly told him that he wanted to talk to him.

Eventually, however, Herbert's weak good nature asserted itself and, together, they left the club.

"What's the trouble, Michael?" asked Herbert, a little drunkenly. "Something must be very wrong when the great Michael Bitterly condescends to chase me about the West End in the dead of night. What's the matter?"

"We'll go and have some coffee," said Michael, "and I'll tell you about it."

A few minutes later they were seated in Lyons' Corner House in Piccadilly Circus.

When their coffee had been brought, Bitterly started: "Now listen here, Herbert. I don't want you to get the wind up, and I don't want you to take a too serious viewpoint of what I'm going to tell you, but I believe that forewarned is forearmed. Here's the point.

"Just how much you already know about what I'm going to tell you I don't know, but I'm going to take it for granted that you don't know anything. The position is this: Last Monday morning a man by the name of Vincent Lariat called at the flat and saw Diane. This man, apparently, had known Diane and Charles and possibly yourself in the old days when you were on the plantation in Ceylon. Anyhow, this man has some hold, slight or otherwise, over Diane, and he called on her for the purpose of blackmailing her into giving him some money. She hadn't got any. She told him so and she threatened him with the police. He went off, swearing vengeance. Diane was, naturally, frightened and she did me the honour of asking me for my advice and help.

"Rightly or wrongly I was not inclined to do anything for her until she told me the whole truth about the matter. She refused to do this for some reasons best known to herself.

"If you've seen the papers this morning you know that a man was found dead on a pile of bricks at the bottom of Derham Crescent. This body was that of the man Lariat, the man who called on your sister and threatened her last Monday."

Herbert took a gulp of coffee and lit a cigarette. Bitterly thought that his face was a little white.

"Well, what about it, Michael?" he said. "What's it got to do with me?"

"It hasn't got anything to do with you," said Bitterly with a smile. "But it may have a lot to do with Diane. You see, ever since this man has been in this country, which is a matter of just over a week, he's been trying to find out where Derham Crescent was. Obviously he wanted to find your sister. At the present moment the man is classified by the police as unknown, but in point of fact, he isn't a bit unknown. I know who he is, my chief crime reporter knows who he is, and, maybe, other people know too.

"Do you realise that if somebody recognises the description of this man in the newspapers and comes forward and identifies the body and the police discover that this was the man who called on your sister last Monday, Diane may very easily be dragged into this business?"

Herbert's face took on a look as near indignation as was possible.

"Why?" he asked more soberly. "What's it got to do with her? Even if this fellow did go to see her it doesn't mean that she'd know anything about what happened afterwards on Saturday morning."

Bitterly considered for a moment.

"We may know that, Herbert," he said. "But, however much we like to think that, it doesn't mean that the police will think that. Supposing, just for the sake of argument, they become sufficiently interested in this man to order a post-mortem. Supposing, for the sake of argument, they found that he died from some other cause than having his back broken. Don't you see that they would then look for a motive?

"Don't you see that there is one person who would have a motive for removing Lariat? In point of fact, one might easily believe that, as this man had only been in this country for a week, there was only one person who really wanted him out of the way, one person with a motive for putting him out of the way, one person only who had cause to fear him and who knew him, that person being Diane.

"Don't you see this?" Bitterly continued. "This man made trouble for your sister in Ceylon. He went to see her last Monday morning when it's known that he's penniless, but on Monday night he has money, sufficient money to move his rooms and to buy himself clothes. It may easily be that people might believe that it was Diane who found that money for him, because she was frightened. Don't you see that, beside the landlady, nobody seems to have seen or talked to this man since last Monday morning, when he called at the flat, except Diane?"

Herbert leant across the glass top table.

"Oh, really," he said. "Well, don't you believe it, Michael. Don't you believe it. Maybe I can surprise you."

Herbert grinned. "Maybe you'd like to know that this Vincent Lariat came to see me on Monday, too."

For a moment Bitterly's habitual calm deserted him, he was amazed. Herbert grinned.

"I thought that would surprise you," he said. "Look here, Michael, if you think anybody is going to hang anything on to my sister because this fellow made a lot of trouble in Ceylon, because he came to see her last Monday, because he's dead now, you can think again.

"You say you wouldn't help her because she wouldn't tell you the whole truth. I'll tell you why she wouldn't tell you the truth. She didn't tell you the whole story because she wouldn't give me away."

Herbert paused for a moment, stubbed out his cigarette and lit a fresh one. Bitterly noticed that his fingers were trembling.

"I didn't know that the swine had been to see her last Monday," continued Herbert. "If I had I might have lost my temper with him, although, heaven knows, he had me in a tough corner."

Bitterly nodded.

"You know, Herbert," he said. "I think the best thing you can do is to tell me all about this right from the start. Let's have some more coffee."

They waited for the coffee to be brought; then Herbert went on.

"This is the way it is," he said. "I suppose I am a bit of a fool, but then I always have been. You know, when we were out in Ceylon, Charles and Diane were running the plantation, Charles' plantation. I used to work in the offices of a big tea firm out there. I had a decent job and this fellow Lariat was the office manager. Well, to cut a long story short, one day Lariat discovered some cash was missing. He also discovered that I was the person who had had it. He was a nasty bit of work, was Lariat, a fellow who was always very proud of his success with women, and he was very keen on Diane.

"Instead of having me kicked out of the place and arrested, he went to Diane and made some pretty lousy suggestions to her. I've got to say, in fairness to myself, that I didn't know this at the time. Diane told him to go to blazes, but naturally she was very worried about the matter. She didn't want her brother to see the inside of a convict prison.

"Eventually, Lariat compromised. He stopped pestering her and said that he would be quite prepared to forget about it if the money were put back and he had £200 for himself.

"Well, Diane did it. She begged, borrowed, did everything she could. She got the money and she was able to put back what I had taken, and she was able to give Lariat the £200. But, as a result of this business, her name got coupled with Lariat's, and Charles, who, as you know, is a pretty nasty specimen, made things pretty hot for her. This was just before we left Ceylon.

"Now you've got to realise that I'm now working in the London office of the same firm, and if they know what I'd done out in Ceylon they'd fling me out as soon as look at me. The fact that the money had been put back would mean nothing to them, and Lariat knew this.

"He was waiting for me outside the offices last Monday at lunch time. He looked like a tramp. He told me he wanted to have a talk with me and I was pretty frightened, I can tell you. I took him over to a pub near by, and gave him a drink. He told me that he was down and out and broke, that he'd got to have some money and that I was going to find some for him or there'd be trouble. He said he'd tell the firm about what happened in Ceylon and I'd be flung out. I told him that I hadn't got any money and I told him that I was up to my neck in debt and couldn't raise any. He said that didn't matter, I'd got to get it from somewhere, that he'd give me till 7.30 that night to get it or next morning he'd blow the gaff.

"He said something else, too, that was rather peculiar, having regard to what happened afterwards. He was, obviously, in a rage. I know why now; he'd just left Diane. She had just threatened him with the police. Anyhow, he was pretty livid as he said this. He said that if he had two million pounds he'd still make me find some money just to annoy me.

"I didn't know what to do. Eventually, I thought there was just a chance I might raise a few quid by the evening, so I asked him to meet me at 7 o'clock at the Green Fly in Mayfair. I said I'd do what I could. He said he'd be there and I had better have some money, and went off.

"Well, my luck was out. I couldn't raise a bean. I suppose I've borrowed money from everybody I could. Anyhow, I turned up at the Green Fly at 7, and a few minutes afterwards in he came.

"What a change had taken place! He'd got a new suit on; he looked quite decent. He slapped me on the back and told me I was the best fellow in the world. He said I was to forget about everything he'd said that morning, that he was only having a game with me, that he liked me a lot. He insisted on buying drinks and gave me a big cigar. He was flashing ten-pound notes all over the place.

"He stayed with me for half an hour, then he went off, waving goodbye to me as he went out."

"I see," said Bitterly. "So he got some money from somewhere and he wanted to be your friend? He wanted you to forget everything he'd said that morning. That's rather funny." Bitterly thought for a moment. "Devilish funny," he continued. "In the morning after he has left Diane, he is livid with rage, he tells you that if he had two million pounds he'd still make you find some money. But in the evening he wants to be very friendly with you. He's got some money and he buys you drinks.

"I'd like to know where he got that money. Anyhow," he continued, "let's get to the important part of this business, Herbert, let's get to Friday night."

Herbert looked up, obviously interested.

"What about Friday night?" he said.

"Just this," said Bitterly. "It seems that Diane was alone in the flat at the time when the police surgeon believes this Lariat died. Charles, apparently, had gone to drive Bardon out to Beaconsfield, his usual Friday night job. Mrs. Vallery was with friends in the country, and you weren't there either. What time did you get back to the flat, Herbert?"

Herbert thought for a minute. "I suppose it would be about half past three," he said. "I'm afraid I was a little bit binged. I shouldn't have noticed the time except that Diane commented on it."

Bitterly nodded. "Tell me, Herbert," he said, "exactly what happened after you arrived home?"

Herbert considered. "I let myself into the flat," he said eventually, "and had a look into the sitting room. I thought there was just a chance that Charles might have got back early, but it was empty, so I switched off the light and went upstairs to the kitchen. I expect I made a bit of noise, and you know Diane's bedroom is immediately opposite the kitchen.

"Anyhow, eventually I decided I would make myself some tea. I tried to keep as quiet as I could, but I expect I must have rattled the teacups a bit, because, a little while afterwards, Diane came into the kitchen. She asked me if Charles were back, and I said 'No'. Then she said she thought she'd have some tea. Then the trouble started— I'd made my own tea and drunk it and there wasn't any milk; I'd given it all to the cat.

"I think she was annoyed about it. She was annoyed with me generally. She gave me a little lecture on the hours I've been keeping," said Herbert, looking a little bit sheepish. "That's how we came to notice the time. It was twenty-to-four. I suppose she thought I was in a mood to take a good telling-off.

"She was annoyed about the cat, too. One of my jobs," continued Herbert, with a grin, "is wandering round the neighbourhood, finding the Shah when he gets lost, which is a business which happens about four times a week."

"I see," said Bitterly. He lit another cigarette and drew at it slowly. He was thinking. Here was an incongruity. When he had talked to Diane she had told him that there was no milk for her tea because Herbert had drunk it all. Now here was Herbert telling him that there wasn't any milk for her because he had given it to the cat. Yet a second afterwards, he had said that she was additionally annoyed with him because he hadn't been to look for the cat. How could Herbert have given the milk to the cat if he had not been to look for it? Bitterly made a mental note.

"What were you doing on Friday night, Herbert?" he asked.

"I was at the Pear Tree Club till about half past twelve," said Herbert. "Then I met some people and I went off to their place near Russell Square. It was a bottle party and we all got rather tight. I was there till about 3 o'clock, I should think," said Herbert. "Then I went home."

Bitterly nodded. "I suppose everybody at that party was fairly tight, Herbert?" he said. Herbert nodded.

"I'm afraid they were," he said with a grin. "Why?"

"Just this," said Bitterly. "I don't suppose there was anybody sufficiently sober at that party to know the exact time that you did leave, was there?"

Herbert agreed. "I should think not," he said.

"And what time did you get there, do you think?" asked Bitterly.

"I should think about one o'clock," said Herbert.

Bitterly nodded. "And you left about three?"

He leaned across the table.

"Look here, Herbert," he said. "I think this is the way it is going to be. You were at the Pear Tree Club till about ten past twelve, you met your friends at about twenty past twelve, you got to their place in Russell Square about a quarter to one, and you left there about half past one, arriving home at Derham Crescent at about three minutes to two. If you liked to hurry you could walk it in that half an hour."

"What's the idea?" asked Herbert.

"The police think that this man Lariat died between two and two-thirty," said Bitterly, "and I think it would be a very good idea if, instead of arriving home at 3.30, the time when you did arrive, you arrived home at 2 o'clock."

Herbert nodded. "I see," he said, "you want somebody to have been in the flat with Diane at the time when the accident took place."

He leaned across the table to Bitterly, his face tense. "Look here, Michael," he said. "You don't think that anybody is going to suggest that Diane had anything to do with this, do you?"

Bitterly grinned.

"I don't think anything," he said, "but I think it's going to be a very good idea for you to be in a position to say that you were in that flat at 2 o'clock. It's going to short-circuit my crime reporter, Bill Jacquot, from jumping to any premature conclusions, and it's not going to hurt anybody. The great thing is— I want you to be certain that there was nobody at that Russell Square party sufficiently sober to know the time when you did actually leave."

Herbert grinned. "Don't you worry about that," he said. "They were all cockeyed when I met 'em; and, as for knowing what time I left, they were in such a state that none of them would probably even remember that I'd ever been there."

"All right," said Bitterly. "Stick to that, and you needn't say anything to Diane about it. In any event, nobody is going to be making any inquiries round Derham Crescent until Monday afternoon at the earliest, and, if needs be, I can see you again before then. In the meantime don't say anything to Diane about it. There's no need to worry her."

They finished their coffee and walked back together. At Notting Hill Gate station they parted, Herbert going off to the flat, leaving Bitterly to walk slowly to his own rooms.

8: Sunday, November 12, Morning, 10.30.

BITTERLY, seated on the top of the bus which was taking him towards Oxford Street, pondered on the interview which lay before him, the interview with Bardella. After leaving Herbert the night before he had wandered about, trying hard to find some point from which he might form a working basis of thought. Obviously, Herbert's story had completely altered the complexion of things; but, really, it only complicated things more. If anything it made matters rather worse for Diane.

Twenty minutes later he knocked at the door of Bardella's flat. She opened the door herself, receiving him with that vivacious and welcoming smile which she reserved for most members of the male sex.

"Fancy seeing you, Michael," she said. "You were the last person I expected. I thought you didn't like me."

"Really," said Bitterly. "Why, Bardella?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said, "except that you've always been rather standoffish, haven't you? You haven't exactly thrown yourself at me, have you?"

Bitterly grinned.

"Maybe not," he said. "But, then, Bardella, I have never had an opportunity, have I?"

He sat down in the chair which she indicated while she took her seat at the very new and rather ornate little writing desk which stood in the corner of the over-furnished sitting room, by the window.

"To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit, Michael?" asked Bardella. "Don't tell me it's my sex appeal."

"Oh, I don't know," he replied airily. "That might have a lot to do with it. But, in point of fact, Bardella, I wanted to talk to you about something that is rather serious."

She made a grimace.

"I don't like serious things," she said. "I hope it isn't going to be too awful. What is it? Has Diane been saying catty things about me? Has she been telling you that I've vamped Herbert or something? I wouldn't be surprised."

He laughed. "I don't think she says catty thing about anybody, Bardella," he said. "No, it's not that. I wanted to talk to you about this dead man— this man who was found with a broken back behind the hoarding at Derham Crescent. You've read about it, of course?"

She nodded, surprised. "Yes, of course," she said.

She leaned forward with a dramatic gesture.

"Listen, Michael," she said. "For heaven's sake, don't tell me that you suspect me of murder. I couldn't hurt a fly!"

Bitterly, tired of Bardella already, came down to hard facts.

"Listen here, Bardella," he said. "Have you ever seen or spoken to this man?" She shook her head.

"I have not, Michael," she said. "But why all these questions? What's all the trouble about? Whatever can it have to do with me?"

"Nothing at all, my dear," said Michael. "But, you know, I'm a news editor and my business is trying to find out things; very often a tiny overheard remark, the flimsiest clue may be important. So you've never spoken to this man. Have you seen him?"

Bardella shook her head. "No, I have not," she said shortly.

Bitterly nodded. "I see," he said. He leaned forward. "But you've heard him, haven't you, Bardella?" he said. "You've heard him talk?"

She stiffened. "Look here, Michael," she said. "I don't like all these questions, I think it's rather rude. I am surprised at you, coming here and—"

Bitterly interrupted.

"Don't get so excited, Bardella," he said. "Why don't you tell the truth? Do you mean to tell me that you did not hear this man's voice whilst you were packing your things, just before you left the Vallery flat last Monday? Of course you did, and why are you disguising the fact?"

"I'm not disguising anything," replied Bardella angrily. "I don't stick my nose into everybody's business. I've got my own affairs to think about. Why should I have heard him?"

"You must have heard him," said Bitterly doggedly. "You can hear anything in that flat, especially if a voice is raised, and his was— very much so. Just what did you hear? Take a tip from me, Bardella, and tell the truth. It's easiest in the long run."

"I didn't hear anything; I told you that before," she said at last. "All I heard was the door slamming when Lariat went out."

Bitterly grinned sarcastically. "So you didn't hear anything, eh? But you know his name's Lariat. What a little liar you are, Bardella! Shall I tell you just what you did? When you heard Diane's and this man's voices raised in that quarrel you stopped your packing and, if I know anything of you, you opened your bedroom door, stepped quietly across the hall and listened at the keyhole. Isn't that what you did?"

She flushed. She said nothing.

"And then, in good time, if I know you, you would return to your bedroom and from the window you would inspect this very angry caller as he left the entrance downstairs."

Bardella's face was still flushed with anger.

"What I heard, what I didn't hear, or what I saw is my own business, Mr. Bitterly," she said. "And I'll thank you to mind yours. It's very nice of you to go snooping about the place trying to find out anything you can for your old newspaper, but I am not answering any questions, at least, not until I'm asked by somebody who has authority to ask. Then," she added, with a malicious little smile, "I might have something very interesting to say."

Bitterly understood. He realised that Bardella had overheard the quarrel between Lariat and Diane— she had overheard him threatening Diane. She thought that, possibly, the police might be interested in that quarrel. Bitterly thought that a little soft soap might help. He got up and walked over to where she sat at the writing desk.

"Look here, Bardella," he said. "You and I don't want to quarrel— it's foolish. After all, I only asked you a few civil questions, you know."

She made no reply, but took a cigarette from a box on the table and lit it. Bitterly noticed that her fingers were trembling, probably with anger, he thought.

Then something else caught his eye. Pushed against the corner of the desk was a very new cheque book. The counterfoil of the one cheque written was right in front of his eyes. The date on the counterfoil was the Monday before and the cheque had been made payable to "self or bearer" and was for £100. Ridiculously enough, there flashed into his mind the fact that Lariat had got some money from somewhere on that day. Quite a lot of money. Bitterly made up his mind to take a chance.

"Look here, Bardella," he said. "Honest people don't mind answering questions, do they? I know perfectly well that I've been rather annoying you by asking a lot of stupid questions, but there is something else I'd like to ask you. It's a rather personal thing and I hope you won't mind."

He stood above her, smiling at her.

Bardella reacted and smiled back.

"Oh, I don't really mind, Michael," she said, "if it's going to help you at all. What do you want to ask?"

Bitterly pointed to the counterfoil. "This is a silly question," he said, "But it looks as if you drew £100 in notes last Monday, Bardella. Would you mind telling me what for?"

Her face went as white as chalk— then she flushed. Then she got up.

"You mind your own business," she said, "and get out of here; I'm not standing for any more of your insolence. Get out, do you hear?"

Bitterly grinned.

"So that's how it is, Bardella, is it?" he said. "You just don't want to say what you got that money for."

He picked up his hat.

"Might I make a suggestion?" he said airily. "Might I suggest that you gave some of it to Mr. Vincent Lariat?"

Bardella was as white as death.

"You get out of here," she spluttered, almost speechless with rage, "and don't you come here again!"

"All right," said Bitterly, "I won't. But you haven't answered my question, Bardella, and you haven't denied the suggestion that you gave some of that money to Lariat."

"I wouldn't even bother to answer your question," said Bardella. "I've told you to get out— now get out. And mind your own business!"

Bitterly went. He was not displeased with the interview.

WALKING along Oxford Street in the sunshine, he realised that, after his suggestion she had given some of the money to Lariat, any ordinary woman— unless she had something to hide— would have explained for what actual purpose the cheque had been drawn. It certainly looked as if Bardella had got something to hide. He allowed his mind to wander for a moment.

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that Bardella had overheard most of the conversation between Lariat and Diane. Bitterly knew that Bardella disliked Diane. She was jealous of her good looks, her figure, everything, as one woman can be jealous of another.

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that Bardella, powerful for once, by reason of her newly obtained wealth, had quietly gone after Lariat and bought the whole story from him in order that she might have something up her sleeve. Was this too improbable?

The idea intrigued Bitterly. He turned it over in his mind as he stopped to light a cigarette. Looking up after his first puff he saw that he was standing outside a bank. That gave him an idea.

9: Sunday Morning, November 12, 12 o'clock

WALKING slowly up Oxford Street, he turned over the idea in his head, wondering whether it would be possible to carry it out; wondering whether his bank manager— an old friend— would be decent enough to stretch a point and do what Bitterly wanted. He made up his mind to telephone him after lunch. Just past Bond Street he went into Maison Lyons for some coffee. He did not really need the coffee, but wanted to think and he was glad to be able to find a quiet table in the corner on the ground floor.

Briefly, as he sat smoking a cigarette and sipping the coffee which had been brought to him, Bitterly summarised the complete circumstances from the beginning. He intended to think from two separate angles. First of all, a complete summary of facts, a summary which would take into consideration any incongruities of evidence, and, secondly, after having made the summary in his mind, he intended to let his mind wander at will in search of a possible solution or solutions.

It was quite obvious from Jacquot's investigations that Vincent Lariat had worked his passage over from Ceylon. On Saturday, November 4, he received £8 wages, all of which, with the exception of five shillings, he gambled away recklessly. Now, it is hardly the habit of a man, arriving in a strange country, to gamble away his only capital unless he believes he can get some money or a job. Lariat was not concerned at the moment with getting a job because he had said that he knew where he could get plenty more money.

Late on Saturday he had arrived at Blooey Stevens' doss house in Seven Dials. Over the weekend he had asked, on more than one occasion, where Derham Crescent was. He had tried to borrow the fare there.

On Monday morning (Bitterly remembered that this was Diane's story and, at the moment, must not be believed in its entirety, just in case she were concealing some salient fact) he had gone to Derham Crescent and had tried to get money from Diane. They had quarrelled and, eventually, on Diane informing him that she would call the police, he had left, vowing vengeance.

There was not the slightest doubt that Bardella had overheard the quarrel; had listened to it. This was proved by the fact that she knew Lariat's name.

Apparently, on leaving the flat, Lariat had gone round to Herbert's offices, and, without mentioning the fact that he had visited the flat, had given Herbert until 7.30 that evening to find some money. There was an interesting point about that.

At seven that evening Herbert meets Lariat as arranged, but Lariat's whole attitude has changed. He wants to be friendly with Herbert; he buys Herbert drinks. He flashes £10 notes so that it is quite obvious that, between noon and 7.30 on Monday evening Lariat had got some money from somewhere.

After this, apparently, he disappears. So far as Bitterly knew he had not seen Herbert again and he had not seen Diane (this was a surmise— he might have seen either or both of these people in the meantime), but it was known that he was, during this time, living in the room at Bone Street which he had taken on the Monday evening, apparently, before he had met Herbert.

On Thursday night, November 9, the night that Bitterly had met Diane at the Blue Light Club and when she had told him her story, Lariat had written a letter, a letter so important, from his viewpoint, that it was worth while disturbing his landlady in order to borrow a sheet of notepaper and an envelope. It was also so important that it had to be posted immediately, although there was no collection until seven o'clock the next morning.

It was, therefore, quite obvious that, for some reason or other, it was necessary for that letter to be delivered to the recipient as early as possible on Friday.

The next night, Friday, November 10, or in the early hours of Saturday morning, Lariat goes to Derham Crescent, and at 5 o'clock on Saturday morning Police Constable Mullens discovered his body on the bricks.

Briefly, these were the facts as Bitterly knew them, and, having assimilated those in their order, he began to extract such interesting points or incongruities as struck him. He took out his notebook and a pencil and made a note of them. They were:

(1) (a) Why was it necessary for the letter that Lariat had written to be delivered early on Friday?

(b) Was this letter anything to do with his proposed visit to Derham Crescent the following night?

(c) If so, was the letter to Diane and was Lariat's visit a result of something he had heard from her?

(2) Was it not a strange coincidence that on this crucial night, at the time of Lariat's death, Diane was alone in the flat?

(3) With reference to (2), could it be that the difference between Herbert's story of the quarrel with Diane, his reason for this quarrel being that the cat had drunk all the milk, as against Diane's reason that he had drunk the milk, was due to some arrangement between Herbert and Diane that he should go out that evening and leave the flat because Diane needed it for a possible interview with Lariat?

(4) Was it possible that there was, in connection with Lariat's death, some concerted action between Herbert and Diane, both of whom had reason to fear the dead man?

Now Bitterly allowed his mind to run on another angle, the Bardella angle. He knew that Bardella was as mean as she could be, yet, according to the counterfoil on the cheque book, she had drawn, the previous Monday, what was for her an immense sum from the bank— £100.

It seemed possible that Bardella, having overheard Lariat's threats, and possibly the story of his hold over Herbert, during the quarrel in the flat, might have, in a moment of generosity, more especially if she were at all keen on Herbert, advanced him the sum of £100 in order to buy Lariat off, in which case, of course, Herbert's story of the Monday evening meeting with Lariat was lies. Yet Bitterly had to admit it had seemed to him that Herbert was speaking the truth; after all, he concluded with a grin, even Herbert's capacity for lying had its limitations.

The thing to do was to attempt to ascertain what the actual position was as between Herbert and Bardella. Possibly they had been having some sort of affaire. You never knew with a woman like Bardella just what she would or would not do, and Herbert would be game for anything of that sort.

Bitterly could not get out of his mind the peculiar attitude of Bardella when he had asked her to tell him what the cheque for £100 was for. He was positively certain that if she had nothing to hide she would have told him what she had drawn the money for, especially after he had suggested that she had given it, or some of it, to Lariat. More and more it was borne upon Bitterly that he had to find out just what had become of this £100.

In the meantime he intended to go on with the interviews. As a newspaper man he appreciated interviews. He had talked to Diane and Herbert and Bardella and he had learned a few facts. Very well, then, further interviews with Charles, and, if necessary, Charles' mother Mrs. Vallery, might bring even more clues to light.

There was no doubt in his mind that if the old woman knew from Charles— as Bitterly thought she did— of the old trouble in Ceylon and also knew that the villain of the piece, Lariat, was the dead man found in the vicinity of the flat, she would very quickly bring her amazing and cynical curiosity to bear on the matter and would probably create a situation which was the last thing desirable at the moment.

She would have a weapon which she could use against Diane; nothing could stop her talking to anyone who would give more sympathy to her beloved son.

But predominant in Bitterly's mind was the fact that Bardella had been disinclined to tell him for what purpose she had drawn the £100 from the bank on the Monday before, and here he hoped that he could bring his idea to a successful conclusion.

THE bank that Bardella used was a branch of Bitterly's own bank, the Amalgamated Counties Trust, and Bitterly hoped that, by bringing all his persuasive powers to work, he could, somehow, through his own bank manager, find out the numbers of the banknotes which Bardella had received in exchange for her cheque, that is, supposing she had drawn the money in banknotes. And, once he had the numbers of these banknotes, Bitterly knew exactly what he intended to do. He would have something solid— something tangible to work from. Banknotes invariably go back to banks and, however troublesome the process might be, Bitterly had made up his mind that he was going to find out where Bardella's £100 had gone.

10: Sunday Afternoon, November 12, 3.30 p.m.

BITTERLY'S luck held. After leaving the café he took a taxicab and went to his bank manager's private house in Regent's Park. Fremling was in and was in a good humour. He had agreed to do all he could to assist Bitterly in finding how the money had been paid to Bardella and, if in banknotes, what the numbers were. Luckily, the Amalgamated Counties Trust, Bardella's bankers, were affiliated to Bitterly's own bank, and Fremling proposed telephoning the manager of the Margaret Street branch at his private house that afternoon, calling on him and atempting to persuade him, between bank managers, to go to the Margaret Street bank, inspect the ledger and give the required information. Fremling had agreed to ring Bitterly at his flat at 5 o'clock and to report on his success or otherwise.

Now Bitterly caught a passing omnibus, his destination being the Press Club in Fleet Street. It was certain that he would find Jacquot there, and it was also certain that Jacquot, even if he had left Derham Crescent severely alone, would have been investigating other angles of the Lariat business. Possibly he had found some other clue. In any event, the conversation would do no harm.

He found Jacquot in the billiard room of the Press Club, practising cannon shots and carrying on a desultory conversation with Charles Eade of the Sunday Graphic, who, with his inevitable black coat and striped trousers and rather formal black hat, tilted slightly over his nose, gave one the impression of a rather plump member of Parliament. It was obvious to Bitterly immediately he entered the billiard room that Eade was trying to pump Jacquot about the Derham Crescent death, but he had his work cut out. Jacquot was giving nothing away, and Bitterly admired the manner in which he talked quite openly about the death to the quick-witted Eade, at the same time giving the definite impression that all his investigations had gone to show that the police theory the dead man was a cat burglar was right.

Eventually, Eade went off and Jacquot put up his cue, accepted the cigarette offered him and began to talk.

"You know, Michael," he said, "I am more convinced than ever that this cat burglar business is a lot of nonsense. I have kept right away from Derham Crescent, but I spent an hour this morning talking to the servant girl at the Bone Street place where Lariat lived. The landlady is as close as an oyster, says she doesn't want to be mixed up in any Police Court business, but I guessed that the skivvy would have some time off today, so I hung about until she came out.

"She talked all right. It is quite obvious that Lariat had plenty of money when he arrived at Bone Street on Monday night. He gave the girl a five-shilling tip and told her to look after him whilst he was there. Apparently he was very effusive, talked a lot.

"He told the girl he was going back to Ceylon the following week and would be darned glad to get out of England. He didn't like the place— never did.

"Apparently, she said that it was odd for him to come to England all the way from Ceylon for just one week and then return, to which he replied that when he arrived in England he hadn't the slightest intention of going back, but that he'd had a bit of luck and that his going back to Ceylon was good business for him."

Jacquot took up his billiard cue once more and began knocking the billiard balls about. Bitterly could see that he was biting his lip, an inevitable sign that the crime reporter was worried.

"You know, Michael," he said at last, "there's something damned screwy about this business. You know that from the first I've been against this cat burglar idea... yet there's one thing that supports it, and as much as I dislike the idea, I've got to take notice of it."

Bitterly pricked up his ears. What had happened?

"You will remember," Jacquot continued, "that this fellow Lariat was wearing a pair of new shoes at the time his body was discovered. Now it stands to reason cat burglars don't go out to climb up the sides of houses wearing new pairs of shoes; that was one of the things which made me so certain that Lariat was not a cat burglar. Well, that point's gone west anyhow.

"Apparently, on the Thursday morning Lariat asked the Bone Street skivvy where he could buy a pair of rubber-soled shoes in the neighbourhood and she told him. Apparently, also, Lariat forgot to buy them; but the point's there, and I wonder what in the name of all that's holy Lariat could have wanted with a pair of rubber-soled shoes."

Bitterly smiled.

"How do you know that he forgot to buy them?" he asked.

"The skivvy told me. Lariat apparently remembered on the Friday about two-thirty and the girl told him the shop she had suggested closed early on that day. Lariat cursed about it, but evidently was not going to take the trouble to go further afield in search of rubber-soled shoes. He let it go, and that's all there is to it.

"Maybe, of course," continued Jacquot, "he just wanted a pair of shoes like that to wear about the house— maybe he liked them."

Bitterly smiled again.

"And maybe he was a cat burglar, Jacquot," he countered. "Cat burglars always wear felt or rubber-soled shoes."

Jacquot shook his head.

"That man was no cat burglar," he said doggedly, "I'm damned certain he wasn't."

He relapsed into silence for a while. It was quite obvious, he said eventually, that Lariat had not gone to Derham Crescent for the purpose of carrying out any burglary, but had gone there for some specific reason, and once that reason was obvious, the whole story of the death would be plain.

Bitterly, heading Jacquot off once more, produced the reporter's original theories that Lariat had been killed somewhere else and thrown over the hoarding, or that someone had lain in wait for him, knowing that he was going to Derham Crescent.

Jacquot agreed that this last might be true. He also agreed that it was possible that, as the dead man had asked for information as to the whereabouts of Derham Crescent in Stevens' doss house, one of the more desperate of the down-and-outs, who spent their nights there when they had the necessary fourpence, might have lain in wait for him, more especially if they had, somehow, known that he had some money.

Bitterly supported this theory and suggested that Jacquot check up on the men who were staying at Stevens' place on the Saturday and Sunday nights. This investigation, he thought, would keep Jacquot busy and would, in any event, probably lead nowhere.

Eventually, fairly satisfied with the situation as regards Jacquot, Bitterly went off, leaving the other engrossed in his billiard practice. As he went down the stairs the news editor thought to himself how amusing it would be if it were discovered that it was one of these down-and-out inhabitants of Stevens' doss house, who for the sake of a few pound had lain in wait for and killed Lariat, but this thought lasted for only a minute. The money found in Lariat's pocket put paid to that idea. Jacquot had not remembered that. He walked towards Charing Cross, his mind busy with the next move in the game.

Now he wanted to talk to Herbert again, to talk to him about Bardella, and to trap him, if possible, into some admission that there was, or had been, something between them. This must be the next move, he thought.

He telephoned Herbert at the flat from a call-box at Charing Cross and was lucky to find him in. Herbert agreed quickly to go straight round to Bitterly's rooms and meet him there. It seemed to the journalist that there was an obvious desire to please suggested by Herbert's telephonic conversation. Bitterly thought that the young man was frightened.

He took a cab and minutes later found Herbert waiting for him on the doorstep. They went upstairs to Bitterly's sitting-room.

"Any news?" Herbert asked.

Looking at him, Bitterly thought that Herbert had been having a thick night somewhere. He had dark circles under his eyes and his nicotine-stained fingers were shaking. One side of his face was well shaved, but on the other there was still a definite growth of beard which gave him the appearance of having decided in the middle of shaving that the process was not worth while.

Bitterly motioned him to a seat.

"Look here, Herbert," he said. "Let's do a little straight shooting. I went round to see Bardella this morning and I think she knows something."

Herbert salt bolt upright in his chair.

"Bardella knows something?" he queried, a puzzled expression on his face. "What can Bardella know?"

"Use your brains," said Bitterly. "Bardella was packing up to leave on the morning that Lariat came round and had his quarrel with Diane. You know, as well as I do, that you can hear anything that is said anywhere in the flat. It's quite obvious to me that Bardella must have heard the quarrel. I asked her about it. First of all she said nothing; then she gave herself away by mentioning Lariat's name, and I knew she had been listening.

"You know as well as I do, Herbert, that there is no love lost between Bardella and Diane. She said that if somebody who had authority to ask her questions did so, she might have something interesting to say. What could she mean by this? Surely, only that she had heard the quarrel and that possibly Diane had threatened Lariat or that Bardella had elicited sufficient from the conversation which she had overheard to have gathered enough about the old business in Ceylon to make things fairly uncomfortable for Diane.

"Then an idea came into my head— you needn't get furious with me if it doesn't happen to be correct— you are a great fellow for women, Herbert, a veritable Don Juan, in fact," continued Bitterly with a smile, "and Bardella can hardly be described as well— staid, can she? It struck me that"—  Bitterly shrugged—" there might have been some mild sort of flirtation between you and Bardella and that, possibly, after Lariat had been round to your office, you might have got into touch with her and asked her to give you a hand, to lend you some money to pay off Lariat."

Herbert flushed, then grinned feebly.

"You're a pretty clever swine, aren't you, Bitterly?" he said. "It's a good shot, but it's not quite right. There hasn't been anything between me and Bardella ever; in fact, I know she's keen on somebody that she used to go out and meet— don't you remember how she used to doll herself up? I always knew that some man was responsible for that.

"Well, it's true that I did intend to touch her. I rang her up on the Monday afternoon to ask her if she'd lend me a tenner for a week or two. I thought that would do to stave Lariat off, but she wasn't in her office; she'd gone."

Bitterly nodded.

"Well, I'm glad the shot wasn't too far out," he said. "I like to think I am right sometimes. Tell me, Herbert, do you think it possible that Bardella, having overheard the quarrel between Diane and Lariat, might have nipped downstairs, gone after him and given him some money in order to get the rest of the Ceylon story out of him, just so that she might have something on Diane? Do you think it's possible?"

Herbert shook his head.

"No, I don't," he said. "I'll tell you why. Bardella gave me the impression that when she left the flat and finished up at her office she was going to start an entirely new sort of life, going to be the grand lady in fact. I don't think Bardella would ever risk coming to actual words with Diane. She might, of course, but in her heart of hearts she had a great respect for Diane. She knew she wasn't fit to black her shoes. No. I think you're wrong there, Michael."

Herbert lit another cigarette. He got up and walked over to the fireplace. His mind seemed occupied with some weighty matter.

Eventually he spoke.

"Look here, Michael," he said, "why don't you leave this business alone? As far as I can see, this thing is going to blow over if nobody interferes with it. Why should the police get any other ideas beyond what they've got, beyond the idea that this fellow is a cat burglar? It's all very well to talk about your crime reporter digging something out, but what can he dig out? It looks to me as if the thing is obvious."

Bitterly walked over to the window and looked out.

Possibly, so far as Herbert was concerned, the wish was father to the thought. No doubt Herbert would like him to stop sticking his nose into this business. Bitterly looked down the deserted street; the November afternoon sun was reflecting on the windows of the house opposite. Somewhere in the neighbourhood a street organ began to play a popular tune—" Love's a funny thing." Bitterly smiled to himself, there was a world of philosophy in that song title.

Suddenly his fingers tightened on the window-sill. Herbert's question and the street organ together had shown Bitterly something. He knew now why he was so very interested in this business. Why he was ferreting, probing and digging, trying somehow to elucidate the truth of the matter, trying by any means to build a wall of protection round Diane.

"Love's a funny thing"...

Standing there, Bitterly knew that he loved Diane; knew that his visits to the flat, even if the realisation was only subconscious, were because he wanted to see her, to be with her. He could understand his own attitude of mind towards the Derham Crescent tragedy now. He knew why he had been impatiently trying to prove anything except that Diane had seen and talked with Lariat on the night of the death. He found himself amazed; amazed that a person of his own cynical attitude of mind could, after all his experience and experiences, fall in love. But the fact remained. Looking out of the window and seeing nothing, Bitterly realised that his own life was bound up with Diane's.

He pulled himself together and, turning, faced Herbert.

"I've got my job to do, Herbert," he said. "It's all very well for you to say that this thing can be left where it is at the moment. I've told you Jacquot has got an idea that Lariat was killed and I'll bet you any money you like that he will confirm it, in some way or other, before many days have passed.

"I have two angles of thought about this; one, as a newspaper man, I'd like to scoop this story; the other one is that, if possible, I'd like to do my best to prevent Diane's name being mixed up in it. You're all friends of mine, I've accepted your hospitality; the least I can do is to try and keep her out of trouble, if I can legitimately."

Herbert started nervously as the telephone bell jangled. Bitterly went over to the instrument. It was Fremling.

The bank manager's voice came concisely over the wire.

"Well, Bitterly," he said, "you can think yourself very lucky. I've managed to get the information you want, although the process used, as you know, was somewhat irregular. I saw my friend who manages the lady's bank. Last Monday afternoon— just, before closing time— she presented a cheque, payable to 'self or bearer,' for £100. The money was paid to her in ten £10 notes. Here are the numbers, would you like to take them down?"

"Fine," said Bitterly. "Hold on. I'll get a pencil." He went to his desk, took pencil and paper and returned to the telephone.

"O.K.," he said.

He took down the numbers as Fremling read them out to him. In his heart there was a strange sense of elation. Bitterly felt that he had got his "kicking-off" ground. He had got something tangible to start from. Inside him was the firm belief that now he might find out the truth.

11: Sunday Evening, November 12, 7.30 p.m.

WITH a mind that hovered midway between hope and fear of disappointment, Bitterly made his way through the quiet Mayfair streets to the Green Fly.

Upon this visit and the results thereof a great deal depended; for some instinct— an instinct that, through years of experience, Bitterly had learned to trust— told him that he was to learn something at the Green Fly which might easily put the key to the mystery of Lariat's death into his hands.

The rain had started again. It was drizzling miserably. He turned up his coat collar with the thought that life was sometimes like the weather, uncertain, unsettled and uncomfortable. Then he turned the corner and saw before him the coloured electric neon lights that proclaimed the Green Fly.

Bitterly went to the bar and bought himself a whisky and soda. He allowed his imagination to wander, playing with the idea that last Monday about this time the man Lariat, whose body now lay in the mortuary, had stood against this very bar, buying Herbert drinks with money that had come from—  where?

He inquired for the manager and very soon found himself confronted by a plump and smiling personage who explained that his name was Brinks, and who positively radiated the artificial bonhomie associated with his profession.

Bitterly came straight to the point. He asked the man whether there was any system obtaining in the organisation of the Green Fly which made a memorandum of banknotes passed either in the restaurant or in the bar. The manager was verbose on the point:

"Definitely, Mr. Bitterly," he said with a glance at the journalist's professional card. "Quite obviously, we deal with a very— 'floating population' shall I say— some of them being birds of passage who are not too particular as to their methods. Of course, we do not cash cheques and very naturally we scrutinise any banknote received very carefully.

"In point of fact," he continued with a pleased smile, "after a rather unfortunate occurrence last year, when some counterfeit ten-pound notes were passed in this very bar, I instituted a system under which any banknote received over the bar counter was immediately sent to the head cashier in the restaurant for examination. This cashier also makes a note of the number of any notes received and the different departments from whence they come. So it should be quite easy for us to trace this banknote for you if it were actually paid into the bar last Monday evening, and if you will wait a minute I will find out what happened."

After a few minutes he returned, bearing a slip of paper in his hand.

"Only one banknote was received in this bar last Monday night, Mr. Bitterly," he said. "It was sent into the cashier at about this time and here is the number."

He handed to Bitterly the slip of paper.

Bitterly looked at it and smiled. The number on the note was that of one of the ten-pound notes drawn by Bardella on the Monday afternoon from her bank! He put the piece of paper into his pocket, thanked the effusive manager, and, buying himself another whisky and soda, sat down at one of the ornate little tables.

Now he had something to work on. Had one of his theories been right? Was it possibly true that on the Monday morning Bardella, overhearing the quarrel between Diane and Lariat, had run after him and had promised him money for the rest of the story? Had she drawn this money from the bank, met Lariat later and handed him one or more of the notes?

Bitterly's brain jumped to another angle— something had flashed into his mind. He remembered the remark of Lariat to Herbert on the Monday when he had called at the office, when he had told Herbert that if he had a million pounds he would still make Herbert find some money. Was there not here a possible explanation as to his change of attitude to Herbert in the evening— when he wanted bygones to be bygones, Herbert to forget all the threats which he had made that morning and to be good friends? Was there not an explanation that Bardella, having got the whole of the story from Lariat, had paid him on condition that he set Herbert's mind at ease, on condition that he ceased to threaten Herbert?

Bitterly realised that, if this theory were right, Herbert was a liar and that there was, or had been, in all probability, something between him and Bardella.

At this moment, however, his ruminations were cut short by no less a person than Herbert himself. Herbert stood at the top of the short flight of steps which led from the street door down into the cocktail bar. Obviously, he was drunk. He stood swaying foolishly, his hat at a ridiculous angle on one side of his head, wearing a very new and flamboyant tie and a very new pair of yellow chamois gloves, the condition of which showed that Herbert had measured his length on a not-too-clean pavement more than once.

He balanced himself precariously, supporting himself on a very new imitation ebony-and-silver stick and regarding Bitterly across the intervening space with that look of owl-like wisdom which distinguishes the intoxicated.

Bitterly smiled back at Herbert.

Eventually, after a pause, that worthy negotiated the stairs and propelled himself across the room, flopping down in a chair at the news editor's side.

"Dear old Michael," he said thickly. "Just fancy seeing you here. You don't know how glad I am to see you. You're a great guy, Michael, and you just don't know how grateful I am to you for trying to look after Diane in this Lariat business. She's a great girl you know, Michael, and—"  he continued heroically, "she's my sister. I'd do anything for her, absolutely anything."

He paused to order a double whisky and soda from a nearby waiter in an unnecessarily loud voice. When it was brought he took a gulp and continued to talk.

Bitterly, all ears, hoping that Herbert's inebriation might produce more truth than Herbert's sobriety, listened intently. Herbert rested his wobbly head on his hand which, supported by the table, waggled with the weight of his unsteady head.

"You know, Michael," he continued, "I've been thinking; I've been thinking about Bardella."

He leaned towards Bitterly with a mysterious air.

"I've come to a conclusion," said Herbert, with a sinister glance round the bar. "I've come to a definite conclusion about Bardella. I think Bardella's a bitch! And—"  continued Herbert, "I always have thought so.

"As for my being in love with her, or there being anything between us, that's rubbish. But you can take it from me that Bardella was in love with someone. Do you remember how she used to doll herself up at the end of the week, when she used to go out in the evenings? What did she do that for?" continued Herbert. "If a woman dolls herself up it's because she's going to meet a man. Goodness knows, she looked lousy enough on the other nights."

Bitterly interrupted. "Well, what man do you think she went to meet, Herbert?" he asked.

"How do I know?" said Herbert. "I'm just putting up my ideas. I don't know what man she went to meet. You know, Michael, you're all wrong about this thing— you're absolutely wrong about the whole business. All this stuff about this guy Lariat being murdered by somebody is just rubbish; you can take it from me that he fell off whilst he was trying to climb up the side of the house. He was just a common or garden cat burglar. That's what he was.

"You can take it from me," Herbert continued, nodding his head sagely, "that the police are right. After all, Michael, they ought to know what they're talking about. They get paid for finding things out, you know."

Herbert flopped back in his chair and regarded Bitterly with an attempt at steadiness, obviously awaiting a reply.

"Maybe you're right, Herbert," said Bitterly. "Maybe!"

"Anyhow, let's forget it; what does it matter to us? You know, Michael, I'm very pleased with life. I had a good day yesterday. I won some money. Not that I back horses— I never do. I used to, but I gave it up; but I backed a horse yesterday; a pal of mine gave me the tip— sort of celebration you know, celebrating the fact that that blackmailing cuss Lariat would not bother me any more. The joke is," Herbert went on, "the horse arrived first. How it did it I don't know, but it did. That's why I'm going to buy you a very big drink because I like you, Michael, and you're a nice fellow."

Herbert summoned the waiter once more and ordered a double whisky and soda for Bitterly. When the drink was brought Herbert fumbled in his pocket and, eventually, with much gusto, he produced a ten-pound note which screwed up in a ball, he threw with an air of abandon on the table.

The waiter reached out for it, but Bitterly was first. Some instinct made him stretch out his hand, pick up the banknote and, under pretence of smoothing it out on the table, examine it.

"Nice things, tenners, you know, Herbert," he said.

He was surprised to find himself speaking coolly, for the banknote which he was now handing to the waiter, and which he had just smoothed out and inspected as it lay before him, was another of the banknotes drawn by Bardella from the bank the Monday before.

He got up. His one idea was to get out of the Green Fly before his face betrayed him, before he showed the half-drunken Herbert that he was aware of this last terrific development.

"I've got to be getting along, Herbert," he said. "I'd forgotten an appointment. I'll see you soon. Good-night."

At the door he looked back at Herbert, who, swaying about in his chair, was about to drink the whisky that Bitterly had left on the table. Was Herbert a murderer after all?

12: Sunday Evening, November 12, 8.30 p.m.

BITTERLY, his hands in his pockets, walked slowly back in the direction of his rooms. His amazement at the last discovery was leaving him. Why be astonished? After all, if it were true that there was some connection between Herbert and Bardella, there was no reason why he should not have one of her banknotes. It looked as if Herbert had been lying. Bitterly tried hard to formulate in his mind some definite scheme which would implicate both Bardella and Herbert, which would match up with Herbert's possessing the banknote and which would connect in some way with the death of Lariat. At the back of his mind, of course, was the definite idea that the whole story was false, that Herbert had not backed any horse and that he had got the money from Bardella or— and here was another idea— from Lariat himself. After all was it impossible that Lariat, being so very keen on being friendly with Herbert on the Monday night, might not offer to lend him some money? Surely this was not at all impossible.

And, even if it were not, this last idea opened up new fields of thought. If Lariat and Herbert had become so friendly that Herbert was prepared to accept money from the man who had threatened his sister, might not the young man have had some other appointment somewhere with Lariat— an appointment, for instance, on the Friday night, the night of the death? Here again, Bitterly remembered that he had only Herbert's word for his movements on that important night.

Again, if this presumption were true, if the banknote had been given or loaned by Lariat to Herbert, if they had succeeded in becoming such good friends, was it impossible that Lariat had gone to the flat on Friday night for the purpose of meeting Herbert? In other words, had there been some scheme, some plot of some sort or other, between Lariat and Herbert or, alternatively, between Lariat, Diane and Herbert?

If this presumption were correct, the following points might easily be explained: First, the discrepancy between Herbert's and Diane's stories about the milk and the cat; secondly, the uncertainty on Herbert's part as to what time he had actually arrived home.

He caught a bus at Marble Arch and, mounting the steps, suddenly came to the conclusion he was going to talk again to Diane. If necessary, he was going to tell her that Herbert was in possession of one of the Bardella. banknotes. There might be some reaction from her which would tell him something, but he would say nothing to her about Lariat having had some of the money. That was something which he intended to keep very much to himself.

Bitterly got off the bus at Lancaster Gate and telephoned Diane. She was in and he arranged to meet her in a quarter of an hour at the café near Lonsford Road Tube Station. This done, He continued his journey on foot. Ten minutes' time found him turning into the little café.

A few minuter after that Diane arrived. Bitterly, watching her walk into the place, looking at her with eyes that saw somebody whom he loved rather than the figure of a woman who was merely an acquaintance in a difficult situation, marvelled at her equanimity. She came towards him with the usual little smile playing about the corners of her mouth. He got up.

"Sorry to bother you again, Diane," he said.

She laughed. "Don't worry about that, Michael. I like talking to you. What's happened? Have you got some more information for me? Has anybody found anything fresh about this thing? Do you still believe that I'm a murderess?"

"I've never believed that you were a murderess, Diane," he said, "although I must say that I believe you are holding out on me somehow or somewhere. Anyhow, I wanted to see you. I haven't seen you for days and I was worrying a little about you. I am very fond of you, you know, Diane," he continued with a smile.

She laughed again. "I'm delighted to hear that, Michael," she said. "I need friends, especially nice, strong, reliable people like you. By the way, you haven't, by any chance, seen that brother of mine, have you? I'm worried about him."

Bitterly played for time.

"Now, why should I?" he asked. "You know, Herbert and I haven't got a great deal in common."

She laughed again loudly.

"I never thought that," she said. "In point of fact, I don't think that there are two people more different in the world than you and Herbert. You are the very opposites of each other, aren't you? He's weak and foolish and rather conceited and you're usually quiet and I should say"— she smiled mischievously—" very grim and very determined. But I am worried about Herbert. You know, he makes an awful ass of himself if he's got any money."

Bitterly raised his eyebrows. "And has he got any money?" he asked casually.

"Oh, yes," said Diane. "He's got the— for him— large sum of £15/13/6. He backed a winner yesterday. If I know anything of him he'll spend the whole lot to-night, probably on some rather indifferent female acquaintance."

Bitterly's heart beat a little quicker.

"That was a pretty good bet for Herbert, wasn't it?" he asked.

She nodded. "It wasn't his fault," she said. "Charles got a tip from his commercial traveller friend, Mr. Bardon. It was what they call a 'long shot'— an outsider— and, for once, it won."

"I see," said Bitterly, preparing himself for more shocks. "Did Charles back it, too?"

"I believe he did," she answered, "but only for very little. Herbert was terribly afraid yesterday that Charles might not have put the money on after all."

She laughed at the recollection. "The relief on Herbert's face when Charles appeared with his winnings was a sight for the gods," she said.

Bitterly, stealing a few seconds to think, lit a cigarette. Here was more mystery. So the Bardella banknote had come from Charles. Bitterly thanked his stars that he had not asked Diane the question, that the information had come to him of her own volition. So Charles had backed the horse, Charles had drawn the winnings and had paid Herbert his share with one of Bardella's banknotes. He thought quickly. One thing was obvious. He had got to talk to Charles. He gave her a cigarette and lit it.

"How is Charles?" he asked. "What's he doing this evening?"

She blew a little smoke ring and watched it sail across the room.

"He's very well," she said. "At least, as well as he ever is. Charles has a complex that he's bearing the weight of the whole world on his shoulders, and, as for what he's doing, to-night's one of his busy nights, He has to stay late at the garage tonight. He takes it in turns every other Sunday."

She looked at him again and Bitterly could detect the spark of mischief in her eyes.

"Don't tell me you're concerned about Charles, Michael," she said. "The next thing you'll be telling me is that you like him."

Bitterly grinned. "I wouldn't tell you that," he said. "To tell you the honest truth, I don't think a lot of Charles. But I like to think as much as I can of him merely because he happens to be your husband, which I think," he added, "is rather a pity. But, to be serious for a moment: tell me how is Charles taking all this business; this business about Lariat, I mean? Surely he must realise something is afoot. Have you or Herbert let him know that I'm particularly interested in this thing?"

Diane considered for a moment. "Charles is being definitely strange, for him," she said. "Oh, he knows you're snooping about on the case, of course; but probably he thinks you're doing that merely as a news-editor. I must say that I don't quite understand his attitude. He's never even mentioned it. Of course, Charles doesn't know that the man who was found on the bricks was Lariat; still, knowing Charles' liking for the macabre, I should have thought that he would have taken a great interest in the thing. No... he's very detached... extraordinarily detached and so— also for some unknown reason— is his mother."

"So she's back again," said Bitterly.

Diane nodded. "Yes... very much so; she came back this morning."

"And hasn't she discussed the local scandal— the Lariat business?" he asked.

"Not one word," replied Diane. "In point of fact, I wondered whether Charles hadn't found out, in some way or other, that the man was Lariat. Yet how could he? No one, except ourselves and Herbert, can know who he was; but Charles' very silence on the matter is suspicious. Every time I look at him or his mother I have a vague idea that they're trying to spare my feelings— and please can I have some coffee? You've forgotten to ask me if I want some. You're much too interested in finding things out, aren't you, Michael, to worry about my coffee?"

They laughed together and Bitterly ordered the coffee. Watching her as she drank it, being near to her, he found it an effort not to tell her in his odd, direct way, just what she meant to him, of his discovery that he loved her. But he dismissed the thought immediately. There was a great deal to be done first.

They shook hands and he watched her as she walked down the Crescent into the shadows. Then, after a moment, he turned and walked quickly back to the tube station. He was going to find Charles.

13: Sunday, November 12, 10.30 p.m.

STANDING at the entrance to the garage, Bitterly could see the white wall at the far end and, in one corner, the big, lighted window behind which, at the desk, the sleek, red hair of Charles could be discerned. Bitterly walked quickly through the garage yard and tapped on the office window.

Charles looked up; then he saw Bitterly and smiled his usual peculiar smile. Always Charles laughed, or smiled, or looked pleasant. Bitterly had had the impression that he was entirely mirthless; that, to him, a smile was a mere alteration of the features without any of the good humour or good fellowship which should accompany it.

Charles, who was writing, threw down his pen, walked to the door, opened it and stood there waiting for Bitterly.

"Good evening, Charles," Bitterly said, as he stepped into the office.

Charles grinned.

"You look wet," he said. "I wonder what it can be that brings the great Michael Bitterly to see me on such a nasty night? Don't tell me I'm news!"

He grinned again.

As Bitterly undid and shook his raincoat, a definite idea came to him, an idea that Charles was, in some way, prepared, that Bitterly's appearance was not entirely unexpected. By this time Charles had returned to his desk and, fumbling in a drawer, produced two or three rather bent and generally bedraggled cigarettes. One of these he handed to Bitterly. The journalist lit it and looked at Charles through a cloud of smoke.

"Congratulations on your win, Charles," he said. "I was glad to hear from Herbert that both of you had cleaned up. I didn't know you were such an expert in horse-racing."

Charles did not answer. He looked at Bitterly with something very akin to a stare on his face. He sucked at his cigarette, which was hanging at the corner of his mouth. Watching him, Bitterly could see something which looked like caution come into his eyes. It was as if Charles were expecting some trouble and was prepared for it.

"Now, don't tell me that you've come all this way to talk to me about that," he said.

Through the smoke Bitterly could see his eyes gleaming a little, rather like the eyes of an animal. His expression had changed. He seemed a little more at ease. He began to look as if he were rather enjoying himself. So Charles was being clever, was he? thought Bitterly. Well, two could play at that game.

"Oh, I don't know, Charles," he said. "Why shouldn't I come round here to congratulate you on your win? Besides I might have an ulterior interest. We writers are always supposed to have some hidden motive, you know."

Charles nodded.

"That's as may be," he said sarcastically. "But, you know, Bitterly, I've got a lot of work to do. I hope you're not going to keep me too long talking about this win. By the way, where did you hear about it? Did Diane tell you?"

The sneer deepened. Bitterly lied easily.

"Oh, dear, no," he said, "just a little bird; maybe, Herbert himself; maybe somebody else. I'm sorry you're so busy, Charles, but I want to talk to you, and don't take me too seriously when I say it's for your own good."

Charles turned on his revolving chair. Bitterly thought that he could detect a tenseness about his mouth. At the same time, there came to him a feeling that he was now rather in charge of the situation. Somehow, there was conveyed to him an idea that Charles was rather frightened of something. He seemed less cocksure.

And this feeling gave Bitterly a definite sense of moral superiority. He threw away the end of the battered cigarette and produced a fresh one from his case, which he lit. Bitterly took his time over everything that he did toward lighting the cigarette, rather in the manner of a professional pugilist who likes to keep his opponent waiting in the ring. Eventually, he spoke.

"You know, Charles," he said, "I've been wanting to come and see you for two of three days, because there are one or two things that I think you ought to know, things which may be of importance to you. As you're so busy, I won't waste any time. It's about this man who was found dead at the bottom of your Crescent."

Charles looked up. Bitterly saw he was still smiling.

"Well, what's it got to do with me?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know," said Bitterly. "You see, Charles, it may have nothing to do with you. On the other hand, it may have a great deal to do with you. I think I ought to be candid with you, Charles. Have you ever heard the name Lariat?"

Bitterly stopped speaking. He was watching the other like a cat. Charles said nothing. He licked his lips. Bitterly know that he was thinking, or rather trying to think, quickly trying to make up his mind as to what he should say. Bitterly, with a certain Machiavellian joy, saved him the trouble.

"Well, never mind, Charles," he said. "It's really not of great importance at the moment, except that I think you ought to know that the unidentified man who was found dead on those bricks was Vincent Lariat, the same individual who, I believe, caused you a certain amount of trouble twelve years ago in Ceylon."

Bitterly stopped speaking. He was still watching Charles. Charles shifted in his chair uneasily.

"Well, what about it?" he said. "Supposing he was? What the devil's it got to do with me?"

Bitterly grinned.

"I don't know," he said. "That remains to be seen. You see, Charles, the position is really a little bit unfortunate. Naturally, directly the story of this death broke we investigated it. That's our business. It wasn't long before my crime reporter, Jacquot, discovered who the man was. By a coincidence I talked to Diane about it. I thought there was just a chance that she might know something about it, you know, living in the neighbourhood. Then I discovered, if you please, that this man Lariat had called on her the Monday before and threatened her. In fact, she told me a certain amount of the Ceylon story.

"Then I began to get concerned, Charles. I began to be concerned for you," Bitterly continued hypocritically. "I realised that there were features about this death which made it look like—"  he paused.

"Like what?" Charles asked quickly.

"Like murder," said Bitterly. "I didn't like that idea at all, because, you see, there was a chance that Diane, and all of you, for that matter, might get mixed up in this thing.

"The point is, Charles, that the inquest is to be held, as you probably know, next Tuesday morning, and I find my own position is a very, very difficult one."

Charles turned round again in his chair.

"What's all this got to do with me?" he asked. "How does it concern me?"

Bitterly smiled.

"Oh, it does, Charles," he said pleasantly. "It definitely concerns you. You see, the point is this, Charles. Apparently Diane has a motive for wanting Lariat out of the way, because Lariat came to her and threatened her, or tried to blackmail her, or something. I don't know much about that. She was very vague about it all," lied Bitterly. "Then, again, I was rather astounded to find that Herbert might have a motive for wanting Lariat out of the way, because, you see, after leaving Diane, Lariat went on to Herbert's offices and apparently tried to blackmail him. Of course," said Bitterly, smiling cheerfully, "you may still ask what this has to do with you. But the point was, Charles, that, as both Diane and Herbert were annoyed with Lariat, you might be annoyed too. After all, I should think you've got more reason to be annoyed with Lariat than anybody else has. Wasn't he responsible for all that trouble twelve years ago? Wasn't it actually through him that you had to leave Ceylon? Why should he go to Derham Crescent, even if he were a cat burglar? Why should he select that place?"

Charles got up. He stood, with his back against the desk, looking at Bitterly. The sneer had gone from his face, and in its place was a look of definite hatred such as Bitterly had seldom seen. When at last he spoke his voice was rasping.

"Look here, Bitterly," he said, "I don't know what you're getting at, and I don't care, but I think it's a damned impertinence on your part to stick your nose in my business, to discuss my private affairs with my wife, or Herbert, or anybody else. I object to your coming here asking me a lot of questions. I like your damned cheek. You're all the same, you newspaper men; you couldn't behave like gentlemen if you tried."

Bitterly grinned. Charles' anger, which he considered to be more the anger of fear than that of a sense of injury, amused him.

"Dear me," he said. "What a pity you haven't got your old school tie on, Charles. I think that last speech of yours needed it. Now, supposing you and I get down to hard tacks, and I tell you exactly what I mean.

"I think, unless we're all very careful, we shall find that by to-morrow night you might easily be in a position where Diane is in some way implicated in this inquest. Now, I naturally believe that you don't want that to happen, therefore, my only business is to assure myself, as an ordinary decent citizen, that neither you nor any member of your family had anything to do with the death of Lariat."

Charles leaned forward with a look of extreme sarcasm on his face.

"Would it surprise you to know, since you know so much, Mr. Amateur Detective," he said, "that Lariat came to see me last Monday, too. Perhaps you consider that a motive for my having killed him?"

Bitterly covered his amazement by coolly lighting a fresh cigarette. By the time this process was finished he had got himself well in hand. He made up his mind to try a bluff.

"Why not, Charles?" he asked. "In point of fact, since you tell me that Lariat did call on you, I can only imagine that he called on you for the same reason that he called on your wife and brother-in-law."

Bitterly paused.

"So Lariat was blackmailing you too, was he, Charles?" he said, with a sarcastic smile. "Now we're getting warm, aren't we? And I suppose you were very annoyed with him. After all, you had good reason to be, you know. He made life pretty uncomfortable for you in Ceylon. By the way, Charles, I suppose you'd be indignant if I asked you just what you were doing last Friday night."

Charles grinned cynically.

"Not at all," he said. "Since we are all being such good citizens— every Friday night I drive a special customer of ours down to Beaconsfield— Bardon the commercial traveller. I was with him. That lets me out, in any event," said Charles.

"Sorry if you find you can't hang this thing on to me now— that is, supposing he was killed, which I very much doubt."

Bitterly changed his tactics. His one idea now was to get the story of what had happened between Lariat and Charles.

"Look here, Charles," he said, "don't be a fool and don't get annoyed. If you'd think quietly for a minute, instead of being all up-stage and county, you'd realise that I'm trying to be your friend. I'm trying to keep you and your family out of this business. Don't you see what anyone would think? This man, apparently, is threatening all of you. You were all afraid of him—"

"Don't you believe it," said Charles. "I wasn't; I never have been."

He sat down once more in his chair.

"Look here," he said, "since you say you are trying to be friendly, here's what happened as far as I'm concerned. Lariat came to see me here in this office last Monday afternoon. He didn't say a word about having seen Diane or Herbert. He came here and told me that he was down and out, that things had been very bad in Ceylon, and that he'd been told that there was a good chance of getting a decent job in England. He said he was penniless, and asked me to lend him a quid.

"I lent him nothing. I told him just what I thought about him; just what I thought of any man who made love to another man's wife, as he did to mine, even although she does deny it. I told him," said Charles, his voice rising, "that he could go to hell, and that one of these fine days he'd learn that the best thing to do in his life is to go straight. And," continued Charles, with satisfaction, "he listened. I told him that, if he stayed in this country and started trying to make more trouble for me, I'd go to the police, and they'd soon look after him. And I advised him that the best thing he could do would be to get out of England and go back to Ceylon. We didn't want people like him over here."

"I see," said Bitterly, sarcastically. "And he just stood there and listened to a lecture from you, did he, Charles? He just took that nicely and quietly?

"Do you mean to tell me, Charles, that you never saw Lariat again after that interview here in this garage office last Monday, because you will find it damned difficult to make other people believe that."

"Will I really?" said Charles. "Well, once again you're wrong, because I can prove that I never saw Lariat after that day."

"That's interesting," said Bitterly, "but, personally, I don't see how you can prove that. It's a long time between Monday afternoon and Friday night, yon know. How can you prove you didn't see him? Look here, Charles," said Bitterly, forcing a little kindness into his voice, only because he wanted to get this so-called proof out of Charles, "don't you realise, my dear fellow, that the thing for you to do is to keep yourself and your family out of this business. You know what the newspapers are. Of course, if you can prove that you didn't see Lariat again after Monday that makes it right for you, providing, of course, that people will accept proof."

Charles grinned. "They've got to accept it," he said. "They can't do anything else."

He felt in the breast pocket of his coat and produced a folded sheet of notepaper. With an air of triumph he opened it.

"Listen to this," he said. "Last Thursday night Lariat wrote me this letter. It's written from some place in Bone Street— some place where he was living."

Charles began to read.

"MY DEAR VALLERY,—

"I have been sitting and thinking about our conversation on Monday afternoon and I have come to the conclusion that you are right. I have certainly made a mess of my life and I know now that I have been a fool. I have done what you said. I have thought things over and I have seen with your own viewpoint that honesty is the best policy. I shall be leaving Fenchurch Street at 10.30 next Saturday morning for Ceylon.—

"Yours,

"VINCENT LARIAT".

"Well," said Charles with a smirk, "does that prove that I have never seen Lariat since Monday? Does that prove that what I said about his visit to me was true? Here, read it for yourself."

He threw the letter to Bitterly. Bitterly opened the folded notepaper and read it. His mind was racing, a thousand questions were flashing across his brain, but predominant was this one. Why should it have been necessary for Lariat to knock up his landlady to borrow the notepaper and envelope he needed to send this letter? Why was it necessary for him to go out after midnight to post it? There was nothing in this letter. It could have been written the next morning, for that matter. Why had Lariat taken all that trouble in order to send this very ordinary letter to Charles?

Bitterly read the letter again, imprinting the words on his mind. Then he handed it back to Charles.

"Well, Charles," he said, "that certainly lets you out."

Charles took the letter and put it back in his pocket.

"You know, Bitterly," he said more pleasantly, "I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Of course, I see your angle; all you writing people like to find a mystery when there isn't one. But I think that your ideas are wrong. I don't believe that anybody will connect this fellow with us. We don't know or care anything about what happened to him or what he was doing. You can take it from me that the police are right. He was a cat burglar and managed to kill himself in the process. Well," said Charles, "he won't be missed, that's a certainty."

Bitterly got up and buttoned up his raincoat.

"Perhaps you're right, Charles," he said. "Anyhow, I'm glad that I had this talk with you. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I was prying into your private affairs, but I'm afraid quite a lot of a newspaperman's business consists of prying into other people's affairs. We get hardened to it, you know."

Charles laughed. It seemed to Bitterly that, now that he had said all that he had to say about Lariat and had produced the letter which— according to him— proved his complete absence of motive as regards Lariat's death, Charles was quite happy. He gave the journalist another dilapidated cigarette.

"Oh, that's all right, Bitterly," he said. "Forget it."

Bitterly said "Good-night" and left the garage office. On the other side of the garage yard he turned and looked back at the lighted window, behind which Charles' figure was once more seated at the desk. Charles was smiling as he bent over his papers. Bitterly pulled his hat over his eyes and turned away.

14: Sunday, November 12, 11.30 p.m.

BACK once more in his rooms, Bitterly lit his pipe and settled down in an armchair in front of the fire.He was amazed at the trend of events, but, after all, there had been so many amazements and surprises since the morning before, when Jacquot had telephoned and started all this strange business. It was remarkable, he thought, that so many things could happen in so short a time. Since the discovery of Lariat's body he had found himself dealing with the possibilities of people, whom he knew more or less intimately, being concerned with a murder— a murder, which was, in effect, as sordid as any that had ever come into his knowledge.

Conning over the interviews which he had had with Diane, Herbert, Bardella and, now, last of all, Charles, he smiled to himself as he realised how this thing had changed in his mind since the morning before. He was certain of one thing, Charles was lying. It seemed to Bitterly quite improbable that Lariat should have gone to Charles in an attempt to borrow money from a man who, at least, thought that he had been wronged by the would-be borrower.

It was quite obvious that Charles had seen and spoken to Lariat, but the thing which was predominant in the journalist's mind, the question that he desired to answer most, was why had it been necessary for Lariat to write that relatively unimportant letter to Charles and to take such trouble to see that it was dispatched by a certain time? Obviously, Bitterly considered, it was necessary, for some unknown reason, for Charles to receive that letter as early as possible on Friday. That, and only that, could have been the reason for Lariat's insisting on posting it on the Thursday night before going to bed, although he had been informed that there was no postal collection until seven o'clock next morning.

It seemed to the news editor that Charles' story as to his meeting with Lariat on the Monday afternoon was false. Why should Lariat consider that Charles would agree to lend him money? Against this there was, of course, the possibility that Lariat, friendless, and refused any sort of assistance from Diane, and not really expecting any from Herbert— in spite of his threats— might, as a last resource, go to Charles in the hope that a show of penitence on his part would secure from him some small financial assistance. Bitterly thought that this was just possible.

After all, Charles would rather like the idea of being the wronged man who had returned good for evil! Yet, according to Charles, this little scheme had not come off, and Lariat had been sent about his business. But, if this were so, why was it necessary for Lariat to write that cryptic letter to Charles? Once more the letter seemed to stand out as a salient point in the welter of apparent lies surrounding the death of Lariat. Again, Bitterly found himself rather in a maze after hearing the stories of Diane, Herbert, Bardella and Charles, and after analysing in his mind their replies to his carefully thought out questions, he considered that the salient points in the mystery of Lariat's death might be elucidated if these questions could be answered. He took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote them down.

(1) What was the explanation of the discrepancy between Herbert's story and Diane's story with regard to the cat?

(2) Why had it been necessary for Bardella to draw £100 from the bank on the previous Monday?

(3) From whom had Lariat obtained at least one of the Bardella banknotes?

(4) From whom had Charles obtained another of these banknotes, the one which he had given to Herbert as part of his winnings?

(5) For what reason had Lariat gone to see Charles on the Monday before, after visiting and threatening both Diane and Herbert?

(6) Why had Lariat gone to Derham Crescent on Friday night? Was this at the invitation of any of the parties concerned? If not, what reason would he have had for going there? Obviously the cat burglar theory was rubbish.

(7) If the idea which had at one time seemed possible, that Diane and Herbert had concocted a joint story about the happenings on Friday night, were a fact, which one was trying to protect the other? Or, had they both been concerned in some way with the death of Lariat?

(8) Was Bardella actually connected with the mystery or was her connection with it merely an accidental one owing to the fact that she had given somebody some money, part of which had, eventually, got into Lariat's hands?

(9) If Charles were lying, why?

(10) Once again, why had it been necessary for Lariat to take such pains to write and dispatch that unimportant letter so that Charles received it as early as possible on Friday?

It was this last point which stood out predominantly in Bitterly's mind as being something most important to the solution of the mystery. For some reason or other this letter, which Charles had produced so blithely, seemed to Bitterly to constitute one of the most important factors, if not the most important factor, in the case.

Now he thought of Bardella. Bitterly rather imagined that he had Bardella in a corner. He remembered her bad temper when he had seen her early that morning.

Bardella then, at least, according to her own way of thinking, had been mistress of the situation, but Bitterly thought now that the tables might be turned. Now he was in a position where, if he wanted, he could definitely inform Bardella that he knew where at least two of her banknotes had gone, this young lady might be inclined to come off her high horse and be more frank about the disposal of her £100.

And why not ask? The idea intrigued him. He walked over to his desk, took up the telephone receiver, and asked Directory Inquiry for Bardella's telephone number. There was a chance, of course, that she might not be on the telephone, but, after a moment, he was pleased to hear her rather high-pitched voice asking who the caller was.

"Hello, Bardella," he said. "This is Michael Bitterly. I'm sorry to trouble you at this time of night, and I'm very glad to have found you in, but I wanted to apologise"— he grinned to himself—" for my seeming rudeness this morning and to tell you that I discovered some information which might interest you."

Bardella's voice was suspicious.

"Oh, really," she said shortly. "It must be very important for you to ring at this time of night. I was in bed. I hope you've not rung up with some more impertinent questions. I don't want to make myself unpleasant, you know!"

Bitterly laughed.

"That's as may be, Bardella," he said. "Of course, I realised this morning what you were getting at. You mean that, having overheard the quarrel between Lariat and Diane, you might inform the police of that fact and they might be inclined to make inquiries, possibly implicating her, into this business. But I've an idea that you won't do that, Bardella— not that I care— Diane's business has nothing to do with me," he continued airily, "but I don't think that you'll feel inclined to discuss this matter with anyone, Bardella. Your own position isn't quite so secure, you know...."

There was a pause; then...

"What do you mean by that?" she asked. "If you think that I'm going to answer your silly questions because you threaten me, let me tell you that you're wrong— quite wrong."

"That's all right, Bardella," said Bitterly. "Don't you bother your head about questions.

"I've not rung up to ask any questions at all. I rang up to tell you one or two things. Would you be interested to know that I've discovered where some of your £100 went, the sum you were so secretive about this morning?"

Bitterly heard a gasp from the other end of the telephone. There was a long pause. Then, in a voice which was obviously shaky, Bardella spoke.

"I don't understand," she stammered.

Bitterly took advantage of the situation. "Look here, Bardella," he said, "this thing's getting pretty serious, and if you're not careful you're going to find yourself involved in a very nasty business. Don't you think that the best thing you can do is to tell me the truth?"

There was another pause. Bitterly was quick to take advantage of Bardella's hesitancy.

"Now, look here, my dear," he said, "take a tip from me. I think there's going to be a great deal of trouble over this Lariat business, and I think that if you're not careful you may easily be involved in it. I'm not suggesting for one moment," he continued, "that you've done anything which you consider to be wrong, but you know, Bardella, people often do things innocently, but other people get entirely mistaken impressions as to their motives. Now, supposing we talk this thing over again. Don't you think that it would be a good idea? Don't you think that you would be wise to put all your cards on the table?"

There was another pause.

Then Bardella spoke shortly. "Well, when?" she asked.

Bitterly grinned. It looked as if things were coming his way.

"There's no time like the present, Bardella," he said. "Why not put some clothes on and I'll meet you outside your flat in a quarter of an hour. I can do that easily in a cab. Then we'll go somewhere and have some coffee and talk things over. I know this sounds pressing, but, for your own sake, I think you ought to know just what is happening. I'll come over right away."

"Very well," said Bardella, "I'll be waiting for you outside. But you'd better make it half an hour. I've got to get dressed."

She clicked back the receiver. Bitterly breathed a sigh of relief. Once he got the information that he desired from Bardella, once he knew to whom she had given that money, then he could trace its further progress into the hands of Charles and Lariat. He felt definitely elated. Pausing only to fill and light a pipe, he seized his hat and went downstairs.

TWENTY-FIVE minutes afterwards found him walking up and down the deserted pavement outside the main entrance which led to Bardella's flat. But here Bitterly had ample time for cool reflection, for the minutes passed and there was no sign of Bardella.

Eventually, having waited fifteen minutes, he walked upstairs and tapped on the outside door of the flat. There was no reply.

An idea seized Bitterly and he cursed himself for a fool. Bardella had made it half an hour not because she wanted to get some clothes on, but because she wanted to cut her stick and run. Bardella was frightened; that had been obvious on the telephone, and, like a fool, he had deliberately led her into believing that he knew more than he actually did in the hope of making her talk.

After another minute's wait Bitterly tried the handle. The door was open. Inside, in the tiny hall, the light was on. Looking through the door into the sitting room, Bitterly could see dimly that Bardella's desk was in a state of confusion. Through the other door, leading to the bedroom, he could see the flung-back bedclothes, the open drawers and the general confusion which exists in a room when somebody has packed quickly. Bitterly whistled to himself.

He walked into the sitting room and switched on the light. The waste-paper basket was filled with hurriedly torn up correspondence. Stuck on the mantelpiece in front of the clock was an envelope. It was addressed to the caretaker. The flap was not stuck down and Bitterly opened in and read the note inside. In a few terse words Bardella had informed the caretaker that she was going away for an indefinite period and that any letters were to be forwarded to her care of her bank. So that was that. Rather than talk Bardella had run away.

Bitterly slumped down into a chair and refilled his pipe. What the devil was he to do now? Just when there had been a chance of really finding out something definite he had thrown it away simply by being in too great a hurry. He got up and made his way back into the hall. He thought that it might be a good idea to search the flat, that he might possibly come across a clue of some sort, but a moment's reflection told him that Bardella was not such a fool as to leave anything incriminating about the place. She had too much brains for that. Besides she would guess that he would come up to the flat and look around when he discovered that she had not kept her appointment outside. He stepped out of the hall and was just about to close it behind him when he heard the telephone in the bedroom ring. He slipped back, crossed the hall, and ran to the instrument.

"Hallo," said Bitterly quietly.

"Exchange speaking," came the reply. It was the telephone operator. "Do you still want that number?"

Bitterly thought quickly. So Bardella had wanted a number, had telephoned, obviously, after he had spoken to her on the telephone. The number which she had wanted had been engaged or unobtainable at the time and she had asked exchange to ring her. But she had been unable to wait for it: she had been afraid that she would run into him. Bitterly softened his voice.

"Yes, please, exchange," he said. "I'll have the number now."

He waited. After a few moments a voice spoke. Bitterly started. There was no mistaking that voice. It was Charles!

But he had to make certain.

"Who are you, please?" he asked.

"This is the Associated Garage Company," replied the voice.

Bitterly quietly replaced the receiver.

So it was Charles! Bardella had telephoned Charles— or, rather, had tried to telephone him and had then cleared off because she had been afraid to face the interview with Bitterly.

He knocked out his pipe in the fireplace and switched off the light in the bedroom, which had been on when he had arrived. Then he walked slowly downstairs. Outside, after a moment's indecision, he turned his steps in the direction of his rooms. For a moment he had been tempted to go round to the garage office once more to see Charles and to use any sort of threats in order to get the truth out of him, but obviously this idea was useless.

There was not the slightest doubt in Bitterly's mind that Charles' story of the interview on Monday with Lariat was nothing but lies. It was becoming more and more obvious that there was something afoot— something ominous.

For the first time there came to Bitterly's mind an idea that, perhaps, Diane was in some sort of danger; that something else might happen. But by the time that he had reached home he had regained his usual coolness. Nothing was going to be gained by getting excited or hurrying things. Whatever he had discovered had been the result of coolness and decision. He would carry on along the same lines.

Walking up and down his sitting room he concentrated his mind on Charles. There was an increasing tendency in his mind to connect Lariat's death directly with the meeting that he had had with Charles on the Monday before. Bitterly thought that if only he could ascertain exactly what had happened at that interview the whole business might become fairly easy.

He wondered if there had been any truth at all in Charles' story— in anything he had said. After all, with reference to Charles' movements on Friday night— the night of the death— there was only Charles' word for them. Supposing be had not seen Bardon, the commercial traveller, on that night; supposing that was a lie, too...

Bitterly picked up the telephone directory and began to look through the Bardons. Eventually he found the number— Erasmus Bardon— he remembered Herbert joking, a long time ago, about the strangeness of the name. And, as he found the telephone number Bitterly experienced a slight shock. For Bardon's address was No. 1, Derham Crescent; that would be the opposite end— the Lonsford Road end of the Crescent, and on the opposite side of the road to the Vallery flat.

For some unknown reason Bitterly felt amazed that Bardon should live in the same road. He had always imagined him living somewhere in the country. Well, he was going to talk to Bardon.

He looked at his watch. It was 12.30; pretty late for making appointments, but there was also more chance of finding his man in. He walked over to the telephone and rang the number. Two minutes afterwards he was speaking to Bardon, and five minutes after that— having persuaded the traveller that his business was urgent— Bitterly was walking rapidly round to No. 1, Derham Crescent.

15: Monday, November 13, 12.45 a.m.

ON his way to Derham Crescent Bitterly found himself wondering at the casualness with which Bardon had received his telephone message. He had not seemed at all surprised and had contented himself with saying he would be very glad to see Bitterly and would he come round?

Having regard to the fact that the latter had said nothing beyond the fact that he wished to see the commercial traveller rather urgently, it seemed a trifle strange. Vaguely, it appeared that Bardon might have been expecting such a telephone call, despite the lateness of the hour— a surprising attitude.

This surprise, however, was dispelled considerably by the appearance of Bardon, when, in response to Bitterly's ring, he opened the door of No. 1, Derham Crescent. He was a tall, broad and florid man, radiating good humour and joviality— a veritable outsize in Mr. Pickwicks, Bitterly thought. His rotund body was enveloped in a plaid dressing gown, in one hand he held a bottle of whisky and in the other a corkscrew. It was apparent to Bitterly that Bardon was one of those people who would welcome anybody at any time or in any place, providing they were prepared to be as jovial as he was.

He looked inquiringly at Bitterly and smiled.

"Come in," he said. "Make yourself at home. I don't know what you want, but anyway come in and have a drink."

He led the way into a comfortable sitting-room, motioned Bitterly to a big armchair which stood on one side of the fire and, after taking his hat and coat, poured out two immense whiskies. Apparently, thought Bitterly, Bardon was not above having a merry night with anybody.

After giving Bitterly his whisky, the commercial traveller plumped himself in the other chair.

"Well, what can I do for you?" he said, with a glance at the card which Bitterly had handed him.

The journalist was careful. First of all he knew very little about Bardon; just how friendly he was with Charles, or Bardella, for that matter, was an unknown quantity and Bitterly did not intend to give anything away that might come to the ears of any of the characters who were playing in this strange drama, which was becoming more melodramatic with every hour.

He outlined the purpose of his visit to Bardon. He pointed out that, naturally, he was out to make a newspaper story out of the death of the unknown man at the bottom of Derham Crescent; that his paper was keen, as all newspapers are, on getting a new angle, and that he was checking up purely as a matter of form on the movements of different people who might, possibly, have come in contact with this unknown man; that one of these people was Charles Vallery, who had said he spent Friday night in Bardon's company.

Again, merely as a matter of form, said Bitterly, he was checking up on this information. He paused and sipped his whisky.

"Oh, that's right enough," said Bardon. "Vallery was with me on Friday night. Funny fellow, that chap Vallery, and I must say he rather disappointed me."

Bitterly pricked up his ears.

"I didn't know that he was a disappointing sort of man," he said. "I thought he was rather a good fellow."

Bardon grinned.

"Well, that depends on what you call a good fellow," he said. "Mark you, I was very sorry for Vallery, especially after he told me his hard-luck story some months ago. You know, he used to be fairly well off at one time; had a place in Ceylon. He's got a damn pretty wife, too, I must say; I've often seen her walking up this road. It was because I was rather sorry for him that I agreed to his driving me out to Beaconsfield on Friday nights.

"You see," explained Bardon, "I live out there, but my business keeps me in town all the week, and I usually go back on Friday night for the week-end. I used to hire a car and be driven out by one of the garage men from the Associated Garages— you know, Vallery is the office clerk there— but he asked me if he might do the job; said the extra money would be very useful to him, and I agreed. But he's a strange fellow," said Bardon, "a very strange chap."

He took a gulp of whisky, looked inquiringly at Bitterly's half-full glass, and proceeded to pour himself out another drink, after which he stirred up the fire and settled back in his chair with a sigh of contentment.

It was obvious to Bitterly that Bardon was a man who liked talking, and he proceeded to encourage him.

"Of course, you know, I've known Vallery for some time myself," he said. "I thought that he was a bit strange, too. I wonder if our ideas of his strangeness agree?"

"I don't know," said Bardon; "I find him strange because I think he does extraordinary things." He frowned. "I don't like people who do extraordinary things," he said.

It seemed to Bitterly that Bardon was remembering something to Charles' disadvantage. He thought that he would like to know what this was.

"Well, he must be an odd fellow if he's annoyed you," he said, "because I should think you're the very essence of good temper. What happened? Did he run you into a telegraph pole or something last Friday?"

"Good heavens, no," said Bardon. "He didn't drive me anywhere last Friday. He was round here."

Bitterly pricked up his ears. This was beginning to be interesting.

"So you didn't go to Beaconsfield after all?" he said. "That's funny. When I was talking to Vallery he rather gave me the impression that you did."

"Nonsense," said Bardon, passing the whisky bottle to Bitterly. "That was the whole thing. I didn't go anywhere near Beaconsfield last Friday night. I stayed here and I asked him to come round. That's when he behaved so strangely."

"Really?" said Bitterly. "What did he do?"

Bardon took another gulp of whisky.

"I'll tell you," he said. "You see, it was like this. This going down to Beaconsfield on Friday nights is a regular business and this last Friday night was the first time I've ever missed going home for the weekend; but, on the Monday before, in the morning, I heard of some business that would keep me in town over the following weekend, so I telephoned through to Vallery at the garage— so as to give him lots of notice— and told him I shouldn't be needing him on the Friday night. I was a little bit sorry because I knew it would mean the loss of about fifteen shillings to him, so, to make up for it, I asked him if he'd like to come round here about nine o'clock on Friday evening and drink some really good whisky— this whisky. I'm in the whisky business, you know. He said he was sorry, but he couldn't manage it, and we let it go at that.

"However, round about a quarter to four on the Monday afternoon he rang me up at my office. He was awfully funny on the telephone— nervous or something, and his voice sounded so different that at first I had difficulty in recognising it. However, he said he'd altered his plans and he'd like very much to come round on the Friday night, but he had a job to do which would keep him busy till about half past eleven and could he come then? I said that he could. I'm a pretty late bird and I seldom go to bed before about three. I've got out of the way of it, and so I said that would be all right and I'd expect him.

"Well, he didn't turn up at eleven thirty, and I thought that he wasn't coming, but about twenty past twelve he arrived and, to my surprise, he brought his mother with him— an old, hook-nosed woman; a nasty old piece. I didn't like her a bit. I thought that was a bit funny. I'd asked him round to sample a bottle of really fine old Scotch whisky, not to have a mothers' meeting; but he explained that the old lady had just come back from the country suddenly and that he'd met her at the station.

"This seemed a bit odd to me; after all they live at the other end of the street, and I wondered why he couldn't have taken her home first and then come back to me. It would only have made him three or four minutes later, and goodness knows, he was late enough. But, anyhow, there she was.

"Well, they came in here and they both had a glass of whisky, but when I asked them to have some more they wouldn't. That surprised me a bit, because Vallery knows I'm a man who likes good spirits and good company, and I always thought he was a man who liked liquor.

"Well, we sat and talked, and I've never felt so uncomfortable in my life, with that old woman sitting bolt upright in a chair and interjecting a word here and there. Presently I got tired of it. I began to wish that they'd go, but not a bit of it. Directly Vallery stopped talking— and he seemed to be talking just for the purpose of wasting time— his old mother would go on with it. They talked about Ceylon and the war and motor-cars. I've never been so bored in my life. I really began to wonder why Vallery had come at all.

"This went on until somewhere just before two o'clock and then, for some quite unknown reason, Vallery began to take an extraordinary interest in the weather; said that he wondered if we were going to have any rain and then he wondered if it were raining then. Eventually, nothing would content him but that he must go outside and see if it were raining."

Bitterly interrupted.

"How strange. I suppose you can't remember the exact time when he went out?"

"Oh, yes I can," said Bardon, "because the clock on the mantelpiece here struck two whilst he was away."

"I see," said Bitterly. An idea had begun to take shape in his brain.

"I suppose he was away for some time?"

"Oh, no," said Bardon. "He just went outside the front door and stood on the doorstep to see if it were raining. Then he came back. I thought that he looked awfully funny, as he came back into the room. Directly he got back the old girl spoke to him. 'Well,' she asked. 'Is it all right?' 'Oh, yes,' he said. 'It's a lovely night. It's not raining at all,' and he sat down again.

"Well, now," said Bardon, spreading his hands in wonderment, "would you believe it, but, just as before they neither of them would drink any whisky, now they did nothing but drink whisky. He asked if he might have a drink and she followed suit. Would you believe it? They sat there till three o'clock and they drank nearly a bottle of my best old Scotch between them."

Bitterly nodded.

"I see," he said. "Tell me, when you do go down to Beaconsfield, Mr. Bardon, at what time would you think Vallery returned home? About three, I suppose? About the time that they left here?"

"Oh, I suppose so," answered the commercial traveller. "I don't know, of course; I've never come back with him, and, another thing"— he winked at Bitterly—" I don't think Vallery always went straight home; I believe there was a little bit of skirt in the case."

"Really?" queried Bitterly. "That's interesting."

"Oh, yes," said Bardon. "I know that, because one very rainy night I asked him whether he'd like me to put him up at my place at Beaconsfield; it was pouring cats and dogs, and I thought I could save him the journey back in the wet. But no, he said he had to pick up a young woman somewhere, and I often chaffed him about it afterwards. Pretty good alibi that, you know. I suppose he used to pick her up on his way back and take her for a joy-ride, telling his wife I'd kept him late or something."

Bitterly nodded.

"And they left at three o'clock, did they?"

"About that," said Bardon. "Altogether, it was the funniest night I've ever spent in my life. Can you explain it?"

"No, I can't," he said. "It's certainly odd."

Bardon changed the subject and went on talking; but Bitterly was not listening. Here was more mystery.

On the Monday morning Bardon had asked Charles to spend the Friday evening with him and Charles had refused. Later in the afternoon— after he had seen and spoken to Lariat— he had telephoned Bardon saying that he had changed his mind, asking if he might come, saying that he would be fairly late, and saying nothing about his intention of bringing his mother with him.

What had happened on the Monday afternoon to make Charles Vallery desire to visit Bardon and to take his mother with him? And what was the mystery connected with the sudden appearance on the Friday night of Charles' mother? Why had Mrs. Vallery suddenly left Westover and come to London and then, afterwards, returned to Westover. For she had returned to Westover, and without any other member of the family knowing. Bitterly remembered that both Diane and Herbert had told him that Mrs. Vallery was away on the Monday morning; that she had been away at the time Lariat had called and threatened Diane, and they had also said that she had not returned from Westover until after the discovery of Lariat's body. Where had she spent Friday night?

It seemed to Bitterly that the happenings of the Monday afternoon— so far as both Charles Vallery and Bardella were concerned— might serve to throw a great deal of light on the question of Lariat's death. Definitely Bitterly now knew that these following things had happened on the Monday afternoon so far as these two people were concerned:

(a) That for some reason Bardella had suddenly decided to draw one hundred pounds from the bank in notes; suddenly, because the cheque had been presented at the bank almost at the moment of closing time.

(b) That some of this money had found its way into Charles Vallery's possession by Saturday, when he had paid over one of the notes to Herbert, and that Lariat himself had been in possession of at least one of the notes on the Monday night.

(c) That on the Monday morning Charles Vallery had refused Bardon's invitation to spend the following Friday evening with him, after hearing that the usual journey to Beaconsfield was to be cancelled, but in the afternoon, presumably after the time that Bardella had cashed her cheque and after the visit of Lariat, he had telephoned Bardon, asking if he might come after eleven o'clock at night. Why?

These were the three subsidiary questions which, taken into conjunction with Bitterly's original ten questions, would, he thought, put him in a fair way to solve the mystery. In addition to these there was another interesting point.

Bardon had said that he thought it strange Charles should bring his mother with him as an uninvited guest. He thought it odd that Charles had not taken his mother home, more especially as the Vallery flat was only two minutes' walk down Derham Crescent.

But Bitterly saw an explanation for this. No one had been told that Mrs. Vallery had returned to London on the Friday night. It seemed apparent that the reason why Charles had not taken her home before visiting Bardon was because he did not wish anyone to know she had returned to London. Obviously, after they had left Bardon's place he had taken her somewhere else to spend the rest of the night and then returned home himself afterwards. Why?

Bitterly brought himself out of this maze of conjectures and possibilities as Bardon poured himself out another whisky and soda.

"Well, what do you make of it?" said the commercial traveller.

Bitterly laughed.

"It's a bit of a mystery, isn't it?" he said. "The thing that puzzles me is why did Vallery bring his mother along here? Why didn't he take her home first?"

"Oh... I believe he did say something about that," replied Bardon. "He was, as usual, quite vague— he's a terribly vague sort of fellow, is Vallery, you know. He muttered something about there being nobody in the place. He said his brother-in-law was at one of his Friday night parties and would not be back until four in the morning, and he didn't want the old woman to be alone in the place. I really wasn't listening at the time, but it sounded rather silly."

Bitterly nodded. It was silly.

Charles knew perfectly well that Diane was in the flat; but he thought that Herbert would not be at home until about four o'clock. In any event, this was no reason why his mother should not have gone back home. It was merely an excuse...

Bitterly finished his drink and got up.

"Well, thank you very much for your kindness, Mr. Bardon," he said. "I don't think that you've been able to help us a great deal, but that isn't your fault! Anyhow, I've enjoyed your whisky. It's great stuff!"

Bardon grinned.

"Well, that's something," he said. "Sorry I can't help more."

He helped Bitterly into his raincoat and led the way along the passage to the front door.

Following him, Bitterly found himself thinking about Charles Vallery's curiosity about the weather on the night of his visit to Bardon. Why had he been wondering whether or not it was raining? And why had he taken the trouble to go to the front door to see? But this question was soon to be answered.

Bardon opened the door for Bitterly and stood on one side to let him pass. As Bitterly, standing on the doorstep, turned to shake hands with Bardon, he found himself looking down the street. As he looked, on the other side of the road, down where the Crescent curved, towards its end, a light went on in an upper window. Bitterly realised that the light was in the Vallery flat— he knew why Charles Vallery had gone outside to see if it were raining. He knew why it was necessary that he should go outside.

Vallery had gone out to the door, not to see whether or not it was raining, but to watch for a signal from his own flat, the switching on or off of a light in his own hall, which he could easily see from Bardon's doorstep. Why?

16: Monday Morning, November 13, 2 a.m.

BITTERLY, knowing that sleep was impossible while he was trying to fit together the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle he had set himself, was walking through the dark streets. Almost naturally, he found himself taking a familiar course, and as he turned into Derham Crescent he saw, a dozen yards in front of him, the slow-moving figure of a policeman. It was Police Constable Mullens, the officer who had discovered Lariat's body. Mullens, moving with the slow, ponderous and seemingly bored gait of the policeman on night duty, occasionally flashing his lamp on to the doors of houses, varied this process by flapping is arms across his chest in an effort to keep warm.

As he heard Bitterly's steps the police constable turned and recognised him.

"Good evening, Mr. Bitterly," said Mullens, "you're pretty late. Are you looking for a story?"

Bitterly smiled and returned the policeman's greeting.

"It looks to me as if we have had all the stories we are going to get in these parts of the world, Mullens," he said. "Have you found out anything yet about the man on the bricks?"

Mullens shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said. "Mark you, I don't know what the powers that be are doing, but I do know that the D.D.I. here doesn't think much of it. You see, we don't know anything his man— who he was or what he was. He's just a professional vagrant, I should think, who, on the strength of pinching a few quid from somebody or other and getting himself a new suit of clothes, thought that he'd try his luck as a cat burglar. One thing he didn't know was that it's easier to think you can be a cat burglar than actually to be one. Climbing up the sides of houses is no easy job, even for an expert at the game, and when amateurs try their hands at things like that they are certain to come to no good."

"So you think he was an amateur?" said Bitterly. "Why?"

Mullens laughed.

"Well, sir," he said, "you can take it from me that no expert cat burglar would ever go out to do a job wearing a pair of shoes like this fellow was. They were new, dangerous for climbing. I guess that's why he fell.

"You see, a lot of people these days are inclined to get a bit bored with life, or down and out, or something like that, and they think they'll have a go at it. I should think this fellow was one of those people. I had a look at him in the mortuary, and, although he was a nasty bit of business, he didn't look to me like an experienced house-breaker. I should say he was just a thoroughly bad hat out to make a few quid.

"You see, the fact that they are pulling those houses down at the end of the Crescent is a temptation. It looks so easy to climb up the side of the first house."

Whilst they had been talking the two men had walked slowly down the Crescent. They had passed Bardon's house by ten or fifteen yards, when Mullens pointed over to the hoarding at the end of the Crescent on the other side of the road.

"You can see what he was after, Mr. Bitterly," he said. "If he climbed up the side of that end house there, he could have got into any of the houses on that side of the Crescent. You see, these are old houses. They were built before contractors thought very much of either cat burglars, or fires for that matter. The roofs are flat, and once he got on the roof of that end house he could have walked along and visited any house in the Crescent. Do you see how near to the roof the top line of windows is? Why, an experienced climber could hold on to the roof with one hand and almost open the top window with the other. I wonder we've not had more burglaries like that down here.

"The funny thing was that I never saw anything of this guy. After all, the Crescent's not a very long street, and, except for one little bit where the curve comes, you can see practically the whole length of both sides of the road. Now, the doctor says that this fellow died somewhere in the region of twenty past two, but, of course, he can't say for certain to the minute; it might have been two o'clock, or it might have been ten-to-three. Now, I patrolled down here at two, and I suppose I was back here again about twenty-past. I've always flashed my lamp through that gap in the hoarding at the bottom every time I passed, but I never saw a sign of a thing."

Bitterly nodded. "That's funny," he said. "Where do you think he came from?"

"I don't know," said Mullens. "The only thing I can think of is that when I came down the Crescent earlier he must have followed me down, keeping well in the rear. Then, when I turned out of the Crescent at the bottom, he must have slipped behind the hoarding. Maybe he didn't try to climb up that time, but waited to see if I would come back. Maybe he did wait. You see, there's a pile of bricks behind that hoarding, the pile he fell back on, and he might easily have hidden behind that whilst I flashed my lamp through the gap. It's very quiet here, and he'd have heard my footsteps coming along. Then, knowing that I'd be away about twenty minutes, maybe he thought he'd have time to shin up and get on the roof before I appeared again. Once he was up there he was safe— I shouldn't have been able to see him."

Bitterly agreed.

"I expect that's how it was, Mullens," he said.

By this time they had reached the bottom of the Crescent and Mullens, with a smile, turned off and continued his beat.

"Good-night, sir," he said. "I hope you don't think you'll find anything round here tonight, because I think you'll be disappointed. Things never happen in quick succession, you know; this is the first body I've ever found since I've been a police officer, and I expect it'll be my last."

He went off and disappeared into the darkness.

Bitterly turned and retraced his steps. He stopped as he reached the gap in the hoarding and looked through. The moon at this moment emerged from behind the clouds and a pale beam of light illuminated the miniature devastation wrought by the demolishers in their work. The whole corner surrounded by the hoarding— about sixty square feet— was laid waste, and old boards, piles of bricks, and all the refuse connected with the pulling down of houses, lay about the place in profusion.

Some impulse caused Bitterly to squeeze through the gap in the hoarding and to climb over the large pile of bricks and rubbish which confronted him. He climbed down the other side and looked about him. Lariat must have stood here, he thought, wondering whether the steps which he could hear approaching were those of a policeman, who might inspect the place, or whether they belonged to some late bird going home.

A sudden idea came to Bitterly, an idea that he, too, might try to climb the wall, that in doing so, he might, in some undefinable manner, discover something. He remembered that it was only when he had actually walked along the passage leading to the front door in Bardon's house and stood on the doorstep— in other words when he had actually gone through the same process as Charles Vallery— that he had discovered that, standing in Bardon's doorway, Charles had waited for the signal from the Vallery flat. Was it not possible that by going through the process which Lariat had experienced— the climbing up of this wall— he might find some other point which would help him? He felt in his pocket for his gloves and pulled them on. Then, half-humorously, impelled by one of those strange impulses which make us all do weird things in extraordinary circumstances, he began to climb.

And he was surprised at the ease with which he was able to mount the side of the house. The moon was stronger, and he hoped that nobody would see him. It would certainly be an amusing news story if he himself were arrested by some strange police officer on a charge of attempted burglary. But the Crescent was very quiet— there was no sound to be heard.

Once or twice, as he climbed, Bitterly thought that he could distinguish places where a foot had kicked away a piece of brick or mortar in order to obtain a better foothold.

Two minutes later and Bitterly had reached the parapet of the roof of the house and swung himself over it. He was standing on the roof of the bottom house of the Crescent. Looking up the Crescent, along the line of roofs, he could see that what Mullens had said was perfectly true. The roofs of the houses were flat and undivided and with the exception of one or two raised channels fixing drain pipes or lightning conductors, anyone could walk uninterruptedly from one end of the Crescent to the other along the roofs.

Quietly, and impelled by the same motive, Bitterly began to walk towards the place where he considered the Vallery flat would be. This was not far, for it comprised the top two floors of the house situated six houses from the bottom of the Crescent.

When he reached it he stood looking over the low parapet, which reached to just above his waist, down into the quiet Crescent below, thinking how different the street looked from this altitude. Then he looked straight in front of him across the Crescent and found something else of interest.

Immediately opposite him stood a house which was one storey lower than those on either side of it. Behind it, at the back of the roof, Bitterly could distinguish in the moonlight the high wall of an artist's studio, and leaning against the wall formed by the side of this studio and standing right back from the street so that it was only possible to see it from where he stood was a large sign on which he considered the commercial artist who kept the studio had probably been working. The black lettering on the white ground of the twenty-foot sign was easily distinguishable to Bitterly, and the strangeness of the wording made him concentrate his attention, wondering just what the sign was advertising. The bottom half of it was in the shadow and he could not read it. But, on that part which showed in the moonlight, Bitterly saw distinctly the words,

HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY.

As he stood looking and wondering, something clicked in his brain. He started involuntarily as into his head came the wording of the strange letter which Lariat had written to Charles Vallery, the words which were exactly similar to those on the sign on the opposite side of the road. He remembered them.

"...I have seen with your viewpoint that honesty is the best policy..."

Bitterly stepped back, raising his foot as he did so to avoid a slight projection on the floor of the roof behind him.

So that was the explanation of the letter. He saw it now.

"...I have seen with your viewpoint that honesty is the best policy..."

I have stood on this roof— I have seen the sign opposite— I have identified the spot.

That is what Lariat had really meant. Bitterly looked round. He realised that the projection which he had moved his foot to avoid was a trapdoor leading down into the Vallery flat. So that was where Lariat had stood.

Bitterly sat down, unheeding of the wet surface of the roof, lit a cigarette and began to think. Here was the explanation as to why Lariat had been in such a hurry to post the letter to Charles Vallery on the Thursday night. Here was the explanation as to why he had gone to the trouble of borrowing notepaper and envelope to write it. Here was the reason why Charles must have that letter on Friday mid-day.

It was to tell him that an hour or so before that letter was written Lariat had reconnoitred the ground and had identified the Vallery trapdoor by means of the sign on the roof of the house opposite, and for some reason it was necessary that Charles should know that this reconnaissance had been carried out before mid-day on Friday.

Why?

Again the explanation leapt to Bitterly's brain. Obviously, so that he could communicate with his mother who had come back so suddenly— so unexpectedly— on Friday evening. Surely that must be the reason. Bitterly's jaw hardened as he began to see daylight. His mouth set in grim lines as his brain, quickly putting together the different points which he had made in his investigations during the last few days, resolved them into the grim, filthy and sinister plot which had ended in the death of Lariat.

And the thing which had given him the clue, the thing which, in conjunction with the sign on the roof opposite, had made clear to him, first of all hazily, and then unmistakably, walked slowly along the parapet on the side of the roof and disappeared as it jumped behind an adjacent chimney pot. It was the Shah of Persia— the Vallery cat.

17: Monday, November 13, 2.30 a.m.

BITTERLY got up and quietly walked down to the end of the roof. He looked over the parapet, up and down Derham Crescent, and saw that the way was quite clear; that there was nobody in the Crescent, and that he could climb down unseen. Then, very carefully, he began to descend.

A few minutes afterwards, with a quick glance up the Crescent, he pushed his way through the gap in the hoarding and began to walk quickly home.

The action of walking pleased Bitterly, for at this moment his brain was in a complete turmoil, a turmoil out of which several concrete facts emerged, facts that horrified even him. His experiences as a journalist, which had brought him into contact with most phases of life, sometimes in the most sordid degree, had never shown him such an unutterable baseness of mind as that which stood behind the story of Lariat's death.

But he was going to make certain, quite certain, although he was definitely assured in his own mind as to the culpability of the person whom he knew to be responsible for the death of Lariat. Yet behind this death, there lurked an even more sinister mystery; a more deliberate plot.

A plot at which the majority of the most despicable sort of crooks would have boggled, a series of ideas of which only the lowest kind of mind would be capable, yet a plot so well conceived, so cunningly thought out, that it had every chance of success, and it had failed only because in its execution the unforeseen had occurred, and because, by luck and obstinacy, Bitterly had been able to piece together such bits of the jig-saw puzzle as had come his way, and had, eventually, found the solution.

He felt that he was now in a position to answer fairly accurately the ten main questions which he had written down in his room before his attempt to see Bardella, when he had discovered that she had run off— her first real error of judgment.

It had begun to rain again, furiously, but he hardly noticed the raindrops beating on his face as he hurried back along the slushy, deserted streets.

Twenty minutes later, his wet clothes removed, seated at his desk in a dressing-gown, he strove to get to the bottom of the last puzzle.

Charles, he reflected, had refused Bardon's invitation on the previous Monday morning before his interview with Lariat, but, after the discussion with the latter, it was necessary that Charles should be at Bardon's house at two o'clock on Saturday morning in order to receive the signal which Lariat should have given, but which he had been unable to give because he was already dead.

With reference to the sudden arrival of Charles' mother, her appearance as an uninvited guest at Bardon's house, it was necessary that she should be there with her son to await the signal from Lariat and, if that signal were given, to act as a necessary witness.

Now what was he to do? Bitterly's mind was as cool and calculating as a machine. He was surprised at the coldness with which he found himself able to review the situation. Obviously, the first thing to do was to talk to Herbert. Where would he be?

Bitterly had a definite idea that Herbert, with what would seem to him murder on his conscience, would hardly be at home sleeping. The journalist thought that it would be more probable that he would be at his favourite night-club, the Pear Tree, and, however drunk he might be, Bitterly thought rather grimly that the facts which were to be disclosed to him would have a definitely sobering effect. In any event, he knew that it was impossible for him to think of sleep. His one idea was to get this business finished somehow.

He realised that these were the early hours of Monday morning, and that next morning the inquest would be held— an inquest which would bring to light this terrible plot, so he thought he might be as well to go to the Pear Tree and see if Herbert were there, instead of walking up and down all night, thinking at a time when action was necessary.

Fifteen minutes later, he had secured a wandering taxi, and was speeding towards Piccadilly. Three quarters of an hour after that Herbert, slightly tight, but, even so, very curious and a little bit frightened of the expression which was in Bitterly's eyes, sat in the armchair on one side of Bitterly's fireside, facing the journalist, who regarded him with a smile.

Bitterly carefully filled his pipe, looking at Herbert all the time. Then, he took out his cigarette case and threw it over to the young man, who caught it and groped for a cigarette. The journalist lit his pipe and then lit Herbert's cigarette for him. As he held the match to the cigarette, he spoke:

"Well, Herbert, what did you do it for?" he asked. "Oh, there's no need to pretend any longer. I know you killed Lariat and I don't say that I blame you particularly for it, either; but you and I have got to do a certain amount of talking, so you'd better take it easy. Here, hold up!"

He caught Herbert as the young man slumped forward in a dead faint, pushed him back into the chair and went off for a glass of water. Then he stood holding the glass, watching Herbert as consciousness permeated his addled brain. Bitterly gave him the glass and watched him drink.

"I shouldn't worry yourself too much, my lad," he said. "It's about time you grew up, anyhow; besides, you don't think that you can get away with killing people off hand, do you?"

Herbert gulped. He sat looking into the fire; his face drawn.

"How did yon know?" he said eventually. "How did you find out? I'm damned glad somebody knows... anyhow... Now I suppose you'll give me away. You've got your news story all right haven't you, Bitterly?"

He laughed hoarsely.

"I wonder what the devil they'll do with me," he concluded. "Do you think they'll— ?"

"Hang you? Not a bit of it," said Bitterly cheerfully. He smiled at Herbert. "Personally, I think it's about the best thing you've ever done in your life, and I don't think I should ever have suspected you except for a few coincidences and the fact that I saw the cat on the roof tonight!"

Herbert looked tip. He was beginning to pull himself together.

"You were up there?" he said.

Bitterly nodded.

"Yes... I was up there, and I saw some very interesting things, two to be exact: the sign on the roof opposite— and the cat... directly I saw the cat I knew it was you."

He leaned forward.

"Now listen, Herbert, let's get this thing straight. You think you know all about this business and I've no doubt that you think you know why you killed Lariat, but you don't. As the Americans say, you don't know the half of it.

"The thing's this. We've got to do some quick thinking, you and I, and we've got to be cool, and calm and collected. There's no need for you to worry a great deal because I tell you, here and now, that no jury is going to convict you of either murder or manslaughter. If you are tried you'll be found not guilty on either charge... in any event I don't think you could be charged with murder. But I want you, in your words, to tell me exactly what happened last Friday night, and I want you to answer any questions that I put to you as if you were on oath. If you do that I don't think you need worry. I think we can get this business straightened out all right. Well, are you going to do it?"

Herbert nodded.

"Oh, yes, I'll do it," he said. "There's nothing else for me to do. Anyway, the whole thing's got to come out."

He opened Bitterly's case and helped himself to another cigarette, which he lit with an unsteady hand. Then he sat for a few moments, puffing out the smoke straight before him. At last he spoke.

"You see," he said sombrely, "I didn't tell you the exact truth in the beginning. Last Monday night when I met Lariat at the Green Fly you just cannot imagine how relieved I was when I found he was going to be decent about things. I had expected him to be terribly tough. I thought I was in for a bad time, and when I found he'd got some money from somewhere and he wanted to be friends I was very relieved. So relieved that, maybe, I stood for one or two things that I'd have been annoyed about in the ordinary course of events.

"I told you that he bought me a drink and a cigar. He was flashing a ten-pound note about. Whilst we were having a drink he began to talk about Diane. He asked me whether I'd ever thought in the old days that she was even a little bit keen about him. If things had been normal I'd have probably knocked him down. I'd have told him that she'd always hated the very sight of him or the sound of his name, but because I was so relieved I played round the subject. I said that I didn't think she was shockingly keen on him and let it go at that.

"He smirked in an odd sort of way rather as if he'd got something up his sleeve.

"On Friday night— the Friday night— I met those people and went to the party as I told you—"

Bitterly interjected.

"Forgive me interrupting, Herbert, but tell me, had you arranged beforehand to go to that party? Was that a definite thing or was it done on the spur of the moment?"

Herbert shook his head. "Oh no, it wasn't done on the spur of the moment. You see, I really didn't know these people at all. They were pals of Charles. Some people that he'd picked up somewhere. But he told me on the Wednesday that if I looked them up on Friday night I could have a darn good time, and it wouldn't cost me a penny. He said it would be a first-class all-night party. I thought at the time it was rather decent of him, and I said I'd go.

"But, as a matter of fact, it was pretty awful. I met them and they were the most shocking crowd. They were all tight and not even decently tight. The women were shocking— even for me," said Herbert, with an attempt at a self-deprecating grin. "Anyhow, I thought I'd better stay on for a bit, so I went along with them to their place. But I soon got fed up with it, and I left there at a quarter past one— not at the time I told you— and started to walk home.

"On my way home, I thought that I'd been making rather a fool of myself with these lousy parties and cheap women. I rather made up my mind that I'd try and turn over a new leaf. Then I remembered about the cat. I got fed up with myself a bit more because Diane had asked me to go and look for the Shah— and I hadn't done a thing about it.

"She had an idea that the Shah used to go to the basement of the house next door, but I guessed that I'd find him on the roof— that was the place he used to go to.

"I got home about ten minutes to two, went up the stairs quietly, got the ladder and pushed open the trapdoor, which, as you know, is just outside Diane's bedroom, and which is about eight feet from the ground. I got through and walked about looking for the cat.

"Eventually I saw him, but when I went to pick him up he ran down the roofs towards the end of the Crescent. I didn't bother because I knew they'd pulled the house down at the end and that he'd have to stop there when he got to the edge.

"Sure enough when he reached the end he stopped, sat down and looked at me. He didn't attempt to escape again. I reached him and was just stooping down to pick him up when I got an awful shock.

"A head and shoulders appeared over the edge and a man started to climb over. It was Lariat.

"For a moment I was so amazed that I couldn't speak. Then eventually I said, 'What the hell are you doing here, Lariat?' He was in the act of putting his leg over the edge of the parapet and he just looked at me and grinned.

"'I have come to see your little sister by appointment. Herbert,' he said, 'and, if you'll take a tip from me, you'll make yourself scarce.'"

Herbert paused for a moment, then:—

"I'm not much of a guy," he said. "I know I'm pretty weak and rotten, but there are some things I don't stand for. I remembered his remark of the Monday night before when he'd asked if I thought Diane was a bit keen on him, and I remembered all the trouble that the lousy tyke caused her in Ceylon through me. I saw red and I hit him straight between the eyes just as he was in the act of getting over the edge of the parapet on to the roof. He hung for a moment, then he gave a gasp and fell backwards.

"I got frightened. I realised that the thing for me to do was to get out, away from the flat, to go back to the party and then come back later. So I climbed down the side of the house. This was my first idea.

"Then I realised that I'd left my hat and coat in the flat. That would give me away. I thought I'd get them, so I started to climb up the side again and got on to the roof.

"You can imagine I was in a hell of a state. Just as I reached the trapdoor, which was still open, there was the cat sitting there. Without thinking I picked him up, quietly got down the ladder and went into the kitchen. Directly I put the Shah down he ran to his milk saucer, which was empty, and, still not thinking, I emptied the milk jug which was on the table— there wasn't much milk in it— into his saucer. He drank the lot.

"Then I picked up my hat and coat, crept down the stairs and cleared off. There was no one in the Crescent. I walked some way, then I got a cab and went back to the party at Russell Square. They were so drunk that they'd never missed me. That was fine, I thought.

"While I was there I suddenly remembered that anybody going into the flat would find the cat there and they would know that I'd been out on to the roof for it. I left the party and went back home. I crept up once again and found the Shah, put the ladder up to the trapdoor and pushed him through on to the roof.

"Then I went back to the kitchen and began to make some tea. Then Diane came out and there was the trouble about the milk. Of course, I daren't tell her that I'd given it to the Shah. I had to tell her I'd drunk it myself."

18: Monday, November 13, 4 a.m.

HERBERT threw his cigarette-end into the fire and lit another. A little colour had come back to his cheeks. It was obvious that he was feeling more than relieved at being able to talk to someone about the Lariat business.

"Well, what's the next thing?" he said eventually. "I suppose we've got to tell the police."

Bitterly was silent for a while. He was thinking. An idea had come into his head that he found definitely amusing— an idea that, if he could carry it out, would make Charles suffer as he deserved to suffer. After a few minutes he spoke.

"I'm not so certain about that, Herbert," he said. "You see, you only know one side of this story. You think that you're the person solely responsible for the death of Lariat, but you're not, my lad. It's true you knocked him off the roof. It's true it was your hand that actually sent him to his death; but have you ever asked yourself what he was doing on the roof, Herbert?"

Herbert looked up.

"It was pretty obvious," he said. "Diane was alone in the flat and he was going to get through the trapdoor; he was going to—"

"Precisely," Bitterly interrupted. "But have you ever asked yourself how it was that Lariat knew Diane was alone in the flat?"

Herbert sat back in his chair, his mouth open with amazement.

"Now look here, Herbert," said Bitterly, "I'm going to do something that may seem very strange to you. I'll tell you just why I'm going to do it. I'm in love with Diane; I want to marry her. It's quite obvious, having regard to what I know, that it's impossible for her to continue living in the same house with Charles Vallery any longer. In point of fact, I think, in a little while, you're going home to bring Charles round here. I want to talk to Charles, but the first thing I want you to get in your head is this. I've got a theory, a very good theory, and it's one I'm going to put up to Charles."

An expression of utter bewilderment crossed Herbert's face.

"What do you mean, Bitterly?" he asked. "What's in your mind?"

Bitterly smiled.

"I'm going to accuse Charles of the murder of Lariat," he said, "and the joke is that I think I can almost prove he did murder Lariat! You see Herbert, what you don't know is that Lariat was on the roof at the express invitation of Charles, and it's for that precise reason that no jury in this country would ever convict you of either murder or manslaughter. If ever there were a justifiable homicide it was that."

Herbert sat staring at Bitterly. After a full minute he spoke.

"My God!" he said. "You mean that Charles—"

"Precisely," said Bitterly. "I mean that Charles, knowing that there was nobody in the flat except Diane, had arranged with Lariat that he should get through the trapdoor and walk into your sister's room. You'll know why presently, but at the moment the point doesn't matter.

"Now," Bitterly continued, "Charles is going to be put into a very peculiar position. In organising his very clever little plot he didn't realise that he was creating a chain of circumstantial evidence that might easily stamp him as the deliberate murderer of Lariat.

"And the only way in which he can disprove that he murdered Lariat is by telling the truth about the despicable bargain he made with him.

"Let's take this thing from the start. Don't interrupt me— even if you are surprised— because I want to have a rehearsal of what I intend to say to the enterprising Charles"— he smiled grimly—" when I see him.

"Last Monday Lariat went to see Charles. He would have arrived at the garage somewhere in the region of three o'clock, maybe just afterwards. Now why should he want to see him? The answer is that Lariat wanted money and wanted it badly. My story is going to be that he went there for the express purpose of blackmailing Charles.

"And Charles supports this theory. What does he do? He gets some money and he hands it over to Lariat. I know where he got the money and I know why he got it, and if Charles likes to tell the truth about that, well and good. But he won't want to tell the truth; therefore, having regard to what happens afterwards, I say that he allowed himself to be blackmailed by Lariat.

"Lariat goes off very pleased with himself. He tells you that he wants to be friends and he flashes about some of the money he has obtained from Charles.

"In the meantime Charles has already begun to think that Lariat is likely to be a nuisance. He thinks that he will not be satisfied with the money he has been given and will come back for more, so he proceeds to think out a little plot for the removal of Lariat.

"He has already refused an invitation from Bardon, the commercial traveller, who has told him he will not want him on Friday and has asked him to go round there to spend the evening; but, now, it becomes necessary that Charles should accept the invitation, in order that he can actually know when Lariat is in the flat; so he rings up Bardon, soon after Lariat had left him, and tells him that he would like to come after all, but that he will be fairly late.

"Charles must somehow make Lariat go to the flat. He must, somehow, get him there in order that he may kill him, apparently justifiably, in defence of Diane's honour. So our story is that Charles suggested to Lariat at the interview (a) that Diane was really rather keen on him and (b) that there would be nobody in the flat at all late on Friday night.

"Lariat takes the tip, and Charles, realising that Lariat must turn on the light in the hall when he drops through the trapdoor, knows that, from Bardon's doorstep, he will see the light go on. All he has to do then is to walk down the street, let himself into the flat with his key and kill Lariat.

"In the meantime, Lariat, as arranged, writes a letter to Charles telling him that he has seen the sign on the roof, i.e., identified the proper trapdoor, and that all is well.

"Charles, at two o'clock, goes out on to Bardon's doorstep and sees the light go on. He knows that Lariat has arrived. He knows, also, that you are still at the party to which he has deliberately sent you, and he knows that his mother is away in the country where he has sent her.

"Twenty minutes later, knowing that Lariat will leave the flat by the same way as he entered it, Charles leaves Bardon's flat and walks down the Crescent. When he arrives at the bottom he pushes through the hoarding, climbs to the roof and waits there for Lariat.

"Soon after that Lariat appears and walks along the roof. As he is preparing to climb down Charles deliberately throws him over the edge, intending to kill him that way, and if that fails, to descend and finish him off as he lies injured on the bricks.

"And our case is that Charles' idea was it wouldn't matter if he were caught, because no jury is going to find a man guilty of murder when that man arrives home to find a man who has already been suspected of an affair with his wife, and, in a fit of rage, kills him.

"You know as well as I do that this case which I have just outlined to you, this murder accusation against Charles, is pure rubbish. You will say, and rightly, that Charles could disprove it easily, and I entirely agree with you.

"Charles could disprove it, but, in order to do so, he has got to tell the truth. The only way that he can break the chain of circumstantial evidence which I propose to produce on Tuesday morning is to tell the police the actual facts of the case.

"So he is forced either to accept the accusation of murder or, to clear himself of it, to recount in detail the plot against Diane of which he is the author.

"If he does so the rest is easy. Charles will find himself faced with a proposition which will in the long run lead to another criminal charge, one of conspiracy, being brought against him, and the way will be easy for Diane to divorce him.

"In any event, it looks to me as if the truth will eventually have to come out. But, at the moment, until we have dealt with Charles, I think, Herbert, we will say nothing about it. Now are you going to do what I tell you?"

Herbert nodded.

"Oh, yes, Bitterly," he said. "I'll do what I'm told. I don't quite understand what you're getting at, but I think I'm prepared to leave this matter in your hands."

"Now listen. I want you to do exactly what I tell you. I want you to go home and awaken Charles. I want you to tell Charles that I know the whole truth about the Lariat business, that I've got a definite idea he was the person who killed Lariat, and that I intend to go to the police first thing in the morning.

"I rather fancy this will annoy our friend Charles. He will be furious. He'll tell you it's a lot of drivel. Your attitude is that you've heard what I've got to say about it, and that it looks pretty black for Charles; that you have just left me, and that the best thing he can do is to come round here and see me at once.

"You'll find he'll come round all right. I shall expect him here, in fact, within about ten minutes from the time you get home."

Herbert nodded.

"All right, Bitterly," he said.

Bitterly put his hand on Herbert's shoulder.

"Nothing is ever as bad as it seems," he said. "And we've all got to grow up some time. If this rotten business turns you from a young waster into a decent man, then it will he well worth the death of that skunk Lariat. Life's up to you, Herbert.

"Now, get along and send me Charles. I'm looking forward to the interview."

19: Monday, November 13, 4.30 a.m.

BITTERLY stood outside the street door waiting for Charles. He had not the slightest doubt Charles would come— and quickly; his instinct for self-preservation would see to that.

Bitterly knew that when Herbert had told Charles the story which they had arranged Charles would give vent to an outburst of temper, followed very quickly by a great fear for his own safety. Then, with a feeling of security, born of the fact that Bitterly's accusation of murder was, in reality, false, he would dress himself and hurry round to walk into the trap prepared for him.

The journalist heard him before he saw him; heard his staccato steps on the pavement. In a minute Charles appeared round the corner, and, in another few seconds, stood facing Bitterly.

He had dressed hurriedly. Beneath the upturned collar of his overcoat Bitterly could see the collar of his pyjama jacket. His face was white and his mouth was working, twitching with rage or fear. Looking at him, Bitterly wanted to strike out at the face before him; to keep on hitting it until he had knocked every semblance of humanity from the features of this human rat. But he found it not difficult to control himself. After all, his revenge would be more complete the other way.

He grinned in Charles' face.

"Hello, Charles!" he said pleasantly. "Do you want to see me?"

Vallery gulped. He could hardly speak.

"Look here, Bitterly," he said after a moment, his face taut with malevolence. "Young Herbert's just been back to see me. He's got some cock-and-bull story about my having something to do with Lariat's death. Apparently you're responsible for that story. Apparently—"

"Just a minute, Vallery," said Bitterly. "You know, it's not a very good place to discuss murder, is it? On a doorstep? Come upstairs."

He led the way up the stairs, walking slowly. Behind him came Vallery. Bitterly was still smiling very ominously.

In the sitting room Bitterly closed the door behind Charles. When he spoke he was surprised at the quietness of his own voice.

"Now listen, you rat," he said. "Don't come round here with any of your cheap exhibitions of presumed temper, and remember that all the time I'm talking to you I'm keeping my hands off you with great difficulty. Remember that if I'm not kicking the life out of you it's only because I've got something very much better up my sleeve in store for you. Now, sit down."

Charles Vallery sat down in the armchair by the side of the fire and looked at the other. His eyelids were twitching, keeping his mouth company. He was scared to death. He watched the other closely. Bitterly, standing on the other side of the fireplace, looked down at him, still smiling.

"So Herbert told you I had said you murdered Lariat, did he? Well, the joke is I did, Charles, and the joke is I can very nearly prove it. I'm calling it a joke because, of course, I know you didn't kill Lariat. Somebody else did. Herbert did. Do you know why he did, Charles?"

Vallery said nothing. He could not speak.

"I knew you'd come running round here," Bitterly continued in the same level monotone, "just because you were frightened and just because you don't know how much I know. But I know the lot. I know the whole story. That letter gave you away, Charles; that was the last thing I wanted to complete this interesting jig-saw puzzle. And another joke is that you thought that letter was going to convince me of your innocence. I have seen with your viewpoint that 'honesty is the best policy.'"

Bitterly sat looking down at the thing opposite him, smiling like a devil.

"That was a good idea, Charles, but not quite enough. You didn't think that I'd get out on the roof and see the sign too, did you? I know why you arranged for Lariat to write that letter to you.

"It was a very pretty little plot, Charles, quite charming, a plot of which a husband and a son might feel very proud. Just so that you know how much I know I'm going to tell you the whole story, and just because I'd like you to know that you're a fool, I'm going to tell you just how I was able to piece it together.

"Last Monday, just a week ago, for these are the early hours of Monday morning, Lariat came to you somewhere in the region of three o'clock. When you told me that he came round to borrow money you told the truth. You refused it, and, as you refused it, Charles, you got an idea; I should think the lowest, filthiest idea that a man ever got. You remembered the fact that your wife's name had once been coupled with this man Lariat's, and you wanted to get rid of her, didn't you, Charles? Why? Because you wanted to marry Bardella, with whom you had been having an affair for months, whom you used to meet on Friday nights when you were coming back from Beaconsfield; and here was the chance. If you could only get Lariat discovered in your wife's bedroom, you could divorce her, couldn't you, Charles, and marry Bardella and Bardella's new-found money?

"And what could Diane do? Nothing. Friendless, suspected by you and your mother of something in connection with this man in Ceylon, and with no money to fight, she would have gone under. Your plot would have succeeded. So you put up the idea to this skunk Lariat, and he agreed to do what you wanted. Then you telephoned Bardella and told her that you had to have some money quickly. Bardella dashed round to her bank and drew £100, most of which, I imagine, she gave to you. You gave some to Lariat on account, obviously, promising to pay the balance to him at Fenchurch Street station last Saturday morning, when he was supposed to go back to Ceylon. Lariat told you he'd been to see Diane; he told you he'd been to see Herbert. All this helped your plot. You could accuse Diane of having already met this man.

"What you didn't know was that Lariat was going to change one of those banknotes at the Green Fly and I was going to trace it.

"Then, what was the next thing? You had to have your evidence, didn't you? So you telephoned Bardon, whose invitation you had refused that morning, knowing that you could see the light go on in your flat hall from his doorstep. You told him that you could come on Friday night, but that you would be late. Then you arranged the details of your plot with Lariat.

"Your mother was away at Westover. She was out of the way. Bardella had already left the flat and you were going to arrange to get Herbert away at a party. The coast would be clear for Lariat, but, just so that there could he no mistake, Lariat was to climb up on the roof and scout around; he was to identify the trapdoor leading down to the hall outside your wife's bedroom, one night before the big night, and he was to let you know when he had done this by writing you that letter, the letter he was so keen to get posted on Thursday night.

"Then, on Friday night he was to get through the trapdoor at two o'clock and he was to switch the light on in the hall so that you could know the time had arrived when you and that precious mother of yours were to dash down the street from Bardon's house, slink up the stairs and discover this misconduct of your wife's. Then the rest would be easy.

"But unfortunately, Charles, most unfortunately for you, Herbert decided that he was sick of his party; he came home. He went on to the roof to find the cat, instead of which he found Lariat, and very properly he hit him and knocked him over the edge. That disposes of Lariat, and a very good disposal, too.

"Now, Charles, do you think, having heard this pretty little story, that any jury is going to find Herbert guilty of even manslaughter? I don't.

"You see, Charles, the unfortunate thing is that every step in the game is provable. The banknote, another of the Bardella banknotes that you were foolish enough to give to Herbert in payment of his winnings, definitely proves you had the money from her. The letter that you received from Lariat was the signal to you to get in touch with your mother and bring her back on the Friday afternoon so that she could act as a witness on Friday night. That is why you never told anybody she had come back and why, after you left Bardon's, you sent her off somewhere to stay the night, before returning to Westover and then eventually coming back to the flat as originally arranged.

"A very pretty little story, Charles. And I'm going to make you tell it. I've arranged with Herbert that he says nothing to anybody. Tomorrow morning I'm going to the police. Formally, I'm going to accuse you of the murder of Vincent Lariat, knowing perfectly well that the only way you can disprove my accusation is by telling them the truth."

Bitterly looked down at the man sitting opposite him. He was still smiling. Charles was trembling. His hands, his knees, shook. Little beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. He was unable to speak.

"Just imagine, Charles," Bitterly continued, "what a good time you'll have at the coroner's inquest on Tuesday when you stand up and tell them, in front of a crowd of people, how, with your nasty little friend, Bardella, and the partly innocent assistance of your mother, you plotted the unjust downfall of a woman whose shoes you are not fit to lick. It will be awfully nice for Bardella, won't it, Charles?"

Bitterly paused.

"Now, about this murder accusation, Charles," he continued.

"My case is this. Lariat came to you last Monday to blackmail you. You gave him money to keep his mouth shut. That's my first point. Now disprove that, Charles. You can, quite easily. Tell them that you rang up Bardella to get some money for you and tell them exactly what you gave that money to Lariat for.

"My next point is that you suggested to Lariat, because he was blackmailing you, that you were prepared to act as the complaisant husband; that you suggested the following Friday night was the time because there would be no one else in the flat. You did this because you intended to murder him on the following Friday night, and you telephoned Bardon and said that you could go to his house so that you could see when Lariat arrived, so that you could go down to the flat, pretend to find him with your wife and kill him. Of course, Charles, you can disprove all that very easily, if you want to. All you have to do is to tell them why you had to be at Bardon's flat at two o'clock, why you had to receive Lariat's signal, and why you had to take your mother with you. I don't mind.

"My third point. You arranged for Lariat to write that letter so that, after you had killed him, it might be taken as a proof of the fact that he was not blackmailing you. All right. Produce that letter, Charles, and explain to them why the sign on the roof was mentioned!

"You see, Charles, everything points to my accusations being true. Every single fact and every bit of circumstantial evidence which I have collected points to you as being the deliberate murderer of Lariat. Everything says that you laid a cunning and well-thought-out plot to kill this man who was blackmailing you and making your life a misery; this man, who had arrived in this country saying that he knew where he could get money, meaning that he was going to get it from you.

"But you can smash my case down, Charles. You can prove your innocence just as easily as I can— apparently— prove your guilt. Let me tell you just what to say and just what to do, and let's see how you like the idea.

"Produce Bardella. Explain to the Court that you had been having an affair with her while she was living as a guest in your house. Explain that you two wanted to get married, but you couldn't do it because your wife was in the way. Then tell them how, when Bardella had inherited some money, you two found the situation unbearable. Bardella will prove all this for you if you ask her to.

"Then tell them that when Lariat arrived you realised you could use him in your plot. Bardella can prove that she, and not you, supplied the money for Lariat.

"Put Bardon in the box and he can prove for you that when you went to his house on the Friday night you were not alone, as I say you were, and as a murderer would be, but accompanied by your mother. Then get your mother to give evidence for you by telling how you got into touch with her and told her that you had discovered that Diane was having an affair with Lariat; that you had found that Lariat intended to visit Diane that night and you wanted her to come along as a witness of your wife's misconduct.

"Produce Lariat's letter and tell them what that was written for. Produce Herbert and get him to tell them how you arranged that he should be out of the way at a party on Friday night.

"All right. Do that, and see what they think of you. They'll know you for the dirty, sneaking rat that you are, a man who tried to betray his wife so that he might marry another woman just because she had some money. They'll think a lot of you and a lot of Bardella, and a lot of your mother, won't they? You'll get the sack from your job and there won't be a decent man who will ever speak to you again in your life.

"And I'll see that the real story gets over, Charles. I'll plaster your lousy face on the front page of every newspaper in this country. There'll be no place for you to hide your head.

"And Bardella will stand by you, won't she? You bet she will. When this story breaks she'll run like the little coward she is; like she ran when I went round to see her last time. Rats always leave a sinking ship, and, believe me, Charles, you're sunk!"

Charles had sunk down into his chair, a huddled heap.

Bitterly walked across and, dragging him up out of the chair, looked into his face.

"Now, get out of here," he said, "and keep on walking. Don't think that you're going to go home, Charles, because you're not. You're never going there any more. If you go round to Derham Crescent I won't be responsible for what Herbert does to you. In any event, I think I'll have the key."

He put his hand into the right-hand pocket of Charles' overcoat. It encountered the key— and something else.

Bitterly pulled it out. It was a small automatic pistol. He smiled.

"So you brought a gun with you, Charles, did you?" he said. "I suppose you were going to threaten me or something. You're a brave fellow, aren't you? Well, you can keep your gun. You haven't got enough guts to kill anybody.

"Now, remember what I've told you and remember this— later on I'm going round to the police. Formally, I'm going to accuse you on the information in my possession of the murder of Vincent Lariat. Of course, you could run off and hide, but they'd find you, Charles. They'll always do. Then it's going to be amusing. Now get out."

Charles Vallery looked once at Bitterly— his face piteously malevolent. Then he half walked, half staggered to the door. Bitterly heard his slow steps going down the stairs. The street door slammed.

Bitterly went back to the fireplace and stood, his elbows resting on the mantelpiece, looking into the flames. He wondered just how far or how near Diane was at this moment, whether in this chaos of plot and counterplot there lay a gleam of hope for their happiness some day.

He felt utterly exhausted. His brain desired only sleep.

At the back of his mind was a half-formed idea to go round to Derham Crescent to speak to Diane, to tell her the truth. But in a moment he realised that the idea was foolish. She would know soon enough.

He closed his eyes and immediately was asleep.

20: Monday, November 13, 8.30 a.m.

BITTERLY was awakened suddenly by the noise of a passing cart. He opened his eyes and bestirred himself.

In that moment came to him the realisation of what had happened in that room a few hours before. As he stretched his stiff limbs he realised that this was to be a day of activities! The first thing to do was to go to the police; to create the situation which would force Charles to divulge his own low beastliness; to bring on Charles' head the retribution he so richly deserved.

The telephone jangled.

Bitterly walked to the desk and took off the receiver. He had an idea that it might be Charles— a suppliant for mercy!

It was not. It was Jacquot.

"Hullo, is that you, Michael?" said the crime reporter. "Listen, what's the matter with that neighbourhood of yours? Have you heard the latest?"

"I've been asleep," said Bitterly. "What is it?"

"Nothing much," said Jacquot. "A suicide, that's all, and where do you think it was?

"Apparently, at 7.30 this morning, Mullens, the police officer who found the body of that guy on the bricks, has found another one— Charles Vallery. Used to live in a house up the Crescent, shot himself through the head— obvious suicide. Mullens found the body in practically the same place as Lariat's. You might look in at the police station, Mike, on your way down, and see if there's anything else to it. I don't expect there is. It looks like a plain, ordinary suicide."

"All right, Bill," said Bitterly. "See you later. So long."

He walked to the window and looked out. So Charles, for once in his life, had done something sensible. He had taken the easiest way out.

Bitterly walked to the telephone. In a few minutes he heard Diane's voice on the wire.

"Listen, my dear," he said. "I suppose you know about Charles. Well, don't worry. There's an awful lot in life, you know, and I want to talk to you about investigating its possibilities together.

"I'm coming round now; we'll talk it over. And listen... stop crying..."

"I'll try, Michael." she answered. "And please come quickly."

He was about to leave when the telephone rang again. It was Jacquot once more.

"Say, listen, Mike," said the reporter. "I think that we were wrong about that guy Lariat. I've been talking to some of the fellows round at Stevens' doss-house— the first place he stayed at. One of these men says that Lariat was talking about cat burglars, and said he wouldn't mind having a go himself some time. Maybe he'd done somebody down for that money he had on him.

"Anyway, the D.D.I. in your district says that the inquest is all fixed. The police say accidental death and I've had the tipoff that they don't want any big theories from us. They've got enough to do. What do we do?"

Bitterly smiled to himself. He realised now that it would never be necessary for the police to hear any of his big theories.

"Just let it go, Bill," he said. "There'll be other stories. Let 'em have it their own way. He was a cat burglar and it was accidental death."

"O.K.," said Jacquot. "I've got another case waiting for you, Mike— a real story this time; so that suits me."

"Fine," said Bitterly. "It suits me, too. I'll be seeing you, Bill."

HE hung up the receiver and went out. At the end of the street, over the roofs, a weak winter sun was beginning to push out from behind the clouds.

Bitterly smiled at the omen and hastened his steps.

_____________

7: The Meet of the Beagles

H. de Vere Stacpoole

1863-1951

Patsy, 1908

DIRECTLY PATSY had left the news that the "quality" were coming to the meet and returned to the house the crowd in front of the Castle Knock Inn thickened.

Word of the impending event went from cabin to cabin, and Mr. Mahony, the chimney sweep, put his head out of his door.

"What's the news, Rafferty?" cried Mr. Mahony.

"Mimber of Parlymint and all the quality comin' to the meet!" cried a ragged-looking ruffian who was running by.

"Sure, it'll be a big day for Shan Finucane," said Mrs. Mahony, who was standing behind her husband in the doorway with a baby in her arms.

Mr. Mahony said nothing for a while, but watched the crowd in front of the inn.

"Look at him," said Mr. Mahony, breaking out at last— "look at him in his ould green coat! Look at him with the ould whip undher his arm, and the boots on his feet not paid for, and him struttin' about as if he was the Marqus of Waterford! Holy Mary! did yiz ever see such an objick! Mr. Mullins!"

"Halloo!" replied Mr. Mullins, the cobbler across the way, who, with his window open owing to the mildness of the weather, was whaling away at a shoe-sole, the only busy man in the village.

"Did y' hear the news?"

"What news?"

"Shan's going to get a new coat."

"Faith, thin, I hope he'll pay first for his ould shoes."

"How much does he owe you?"

"Siven and six— bad cess to him!"

"He'll pay you to-night, if he doesn't drink the money first, for there's a Mimber of Parlymint goin' to the meet, and he'll most like put a suverin in the poor box."

Mr. Mullins made no reply, but went on whaling away at his shoe, and Bob Mahony, having stepped into his cottage for a light for his pipe, came back and took up his post again at the door.

The crowd round the inn was growing bigger and bigger. Sneer as he might, Mr. Mahony could not but perceive that Shan was having the centre of the stage, a worshipping audience, and free drinks.

Suddenly he turned to his offspring, who were crowding behind him, and singling out Billy, the eldest:

"Put the dunkey to," said Mr. Mahony.

"Sure, daddy," cried the boy in astonishment, "it's only the tarriers."

"Put the dunkey to!" thundered his father, "or it's the end of me belt I'll be brightenin' your intellects with."

"There's two big bags of sut in the cart and the brushes," said Billy, as he made off to do as he was bidden.

"Lave them in," said Mr. Mahony; "it's only the tarriers."

In a few minutes the donkey, whose harness was primitive and composed mainly of rope, was put to, and the vehicle was at the door.

"Bob!" cried his wife as he took his seat.

"What is it?" asked Mr Mahony, taking the reins.

"Won't you be afther givin' your face the lick of a tow'l?"

"It's only the tarriers," replied Mr. Mahony; "sure, I'm clane enough for them. Come up wid you, Norah."

Norah, the small donkey, whose ears had been cocking this way and that, picked up her feet, and the vehicle, which was not much bigger than a costermonger's barrow, started.

At this moment, also, Shan and the dogs and the crowd were getting into motion, making down the road for Glen Druid gates.

"Hulloo! hulloo! hulloo!" cried Mr. Mahony, as he rattled up behind in the cart, "where are yiz off to?"

"The meet of the baygles," replied twenty voices; whilst Shan, who had heard his enemy's voice, stalked on, surrounded by his dogs, his old, battered hunting horn in one hand, and his whip under his arm.

"And where are they going to meet?" asked Mr. Mahony.

"Glen Druid gate," replied the camp followers. "There's a Mimber of Parlymint comin', and all the quality from the Big House."

"Faith," said Mr. Mahony, "I thought there was somethin' up, for, by the look of Shan, as he passed me house this mornin', I thought he'd swallowed the Lord Liftinant, Crown jew'ls and all. Hulloo! hulloo! hulloo! make way for me carridge! Who are you crowdin'? Don't you know the Earl of Leinsther when y' see him? Out of the way, or I'll call me futman to disparse yiz."

Shan heard it all, but marched on. He could have killed Bob Mahony, who was turning his triumph into a farce, out he contented himself with letting fly with his whip amongst the dogs, and blowing a note on his horn.

"What's that nize?" enquired Mr. Mahony, with a wink at the delighted crowd tramping beside the donkey cart.

"Shan's blowin' his harn," yelled the rabble.

"Faith, I thought it was Widdy Finnegan's rooster he was carryin in the tail pockit of his coat," said the humourist.

The crowd roared at this conceit, which was much more pungent and pointed as delivered in words by Mr. Mahony; but Shan, to all appearances, was deaf.

The road opposite the park gates was broad and shadowed by huge elm trees, which gave the spot in summer the darkness and coolness of a cave. Here Shan halted, the crowd halted, and the donkey-cart drew up.

Mr. Mahony tapped the dottle out of his pipe carefully on the rail of his cart, filled the pipe, replaced the dottle on the top of the tobacco, and drew a whiff.

The clock of Glen Druid House struck ten, and the notes came floating over park and trees; not that anyone heard them, for the yelping of the dogs and the noise of the crowd filled the quiet country road with the hubbub of a fair.

"What's that you were axing me?" cried Mr. Mahony to a supposed interrogator in the crowd. "Is the Prince o' Wales comin'? No, he ain't. I had a tellygrum from him this mornin' sendin' his excuzes. Will some gintleman poke that rat-terrier out that's got under the wheels of me carridge— out, you baste!" He leaned over and hit a rabbit-beagle that had strayed under the donkey-cart a tip with his stick. The dog, though not hurt, for Bob Mahony was much too good a sportsman to hurt an animal, gave a yelp.

Shan turned at the sound, and his rage exploded.

"Who are yiz hittin'? cried Shan.

"I'm larnin' your dogs manners," replied Bob.

The huntsman surveyed the sweep, the cart, the soot bags, and the donkey.

"I beg your pardin'," said he, touchin his hat, "I didn't see you at first for the sut."

Mr. Mahony took his short pipe from his mouth, put it back upside down, shoved his old hat further back on his head, rested his elbows on his knees, and contemplated Shan.

"But it's glad I am," went on Shan, "you've come to the meet and brought a mimber of the family with you."

Fate was against Bob Mahony, for at that moment Norah, scenting another of her species in a field near by, curled her lip, stiffened her legs, projected her head, rolled her eyes, and "let a bray out of her" that almost drowned the howls of laughter from the exulting mob.

But Shan Finucane did not stir a muscle of his face, and Bob Mahony's fixed sneer did not flicker or waver.

"Don't mention it, mum," said Shan, taking off his old cap when the last awful, rasping, despairing note of the bray had died down into silence.

Another howl from the onlookers, which left Mr. Mahony unmoved.

"They get on well together," said he, addressing an imaginary acquaintance in the crowd.

"Whist and hould your nize, and let's hear what else they have to say to wan another."

Suddenly, and before Shan Finucane could open his lips, a boy who had been looking over the rails into the park, yelled:

"Here's the Mimber of Parlyment— here they come— Hurroo!"

"Now, then," said the huntsman, dropping repartee and seizing the sweep's donkey by the bridle, "sweep yourselves off, and don't be disgracin' the hunt wid your sut bags and your dirty faces— away wid yiz!"

"The hunt!" yelled Mahony, with a burst of terrible laughter. "Listen to him and his ould rat-tarriers callin' thim a hunt! Lave go of the dunkey!"

"Away wid yiz!"

"Lave go of the dunkey, or I'll batter the head of you in wid me stick! Lave go of the dunkey!"

Suddenly seizing the long flue brush beside him, and disengaging it from the bundle of sticks with which it was bound, he let fly with the bristle end of it at Shan, and Shan, catching his heel on a stone, went over flat on his back in the road.

In a second he was up, whip in hand; in a second Mr. Mahony was down, a bag half-filled with soot— a terrible weapon of assault— in his fist.

"Harns! harns!" yelled Mahony, mad with the spirit of battle, and unconsciously chanting the fighting cry of long-forgotten ancestors. "Who says cruckeder than a ram's harn!"

"Go it, Shan!" yelled the onlookers. "Give it him, Bob— sut him in the face— Butt-end the whip, y'idgit—Hurroo! Hurroo! Holy Mary! he nearly landed him then— Mind the dogs—"

Armed with the soot-bag swung like a club, and the old hunting-whip butt-ended, the two combatants formed the centre of a circle of yelling admirers.

"Look!" said Miss Lestrange, as the party from the house came in view of the road. "Look at the crowd and the two men!"

"They're fighting!" cried the general. "I believe the ruffians dared to have the impudence to start fighting!"

At this moment came the noise of wheels from behind, and the "tub," which had obtained permission to go to the meet, drew up, with Patsy driving the children.

"Let the children remain here," said the General. "You stay with them, Violet. Come along, Boxall, till we see what these ruffians mean."

So filled was his mind with the objects in view that he quite forgot Dicky Fanshawe.

"You have put on the short skirt," said Dicky, who at that moment would scarcely have turned his head twice or given a second thought had the battle of Austerlitz been in full blast beyond the park palings.

"And my thick boots," said Violet, pushing forward a delightful little boot to speak for itself.

The children were so engaged watching the proceedings on the road that they had no eyes or ears for their elders.

"Have you ever been beagling before?" asked Dicky.

"Never; but I've been paper-chasing."

"You can get through a hedge?"

"Rather!"

"That'll do," said Dicky.

"Mr. Fanshawe," cried Lord Gawdor from the "tub," "look at the chaps in the road—aren't they going for each other!"

"I see," said Mr. Fanshawe, whose back was to the road— "Violet—"

"Yes."

"No one's looking—"

"That doesn't matter— No— not here— Dicky, if you don't behave, I'll get into the tub— Gracious! what's that?"

"He's down!" cried Patsy, who had been standing up to see better.

"Who?" asked Mr. Fanshawe.

"The Mimber of Parlyment— Misther Boxall— Bob Mahony's grassed him—"

"They're all fighting!" cried Violet. "Come, Mr. Fanshawe— Patsy—" She started for the gates at a run.

When the General had arrived on the scene, Shan had just got in and landed his antagonist a drum-sounding blow on the ribs with the butt of his whip.

"Seize the other chap, Boxall!" cried General Grampound, making for Mahony.

He was just half a second too late; the soot bag, swung like a club, missed Shan, and, catching Mr. Boxall fair and square on the side of the face, sent him spinning like a tee-totum across the road, and head over heels into the ditch.

That was all.

A dead silence took the yelling crowd.

"He's kilt!" came a voice.

"He isn't; sure, his legs is wavin'."

"Who is he?"

"He's the Mimber of Parlyment! Run for your life, and don't lave off runnin' till you're out of the country."

"Hold your tongue!" cried General Grampound. "Boxall—hullo! Boxall! are you hurt?"

"I'm all right," replied Mr. Boxall, who, from being legs upwards, was now on hands and knees in the ditch. "I've lost something— dash it!"

"What have you lost?"

"Watch."

"Come out and I'll get some of these chaps to look."

Mr. Boxall came out of the ditch with his handkerchief held to the left side of his forehead.

"Why, your watch and chain are on you!" cried the General.

"So they are," said Mr. Boxall, pulling the watch out with his left hand, and putting it back. "I'm off to the house— I want to wash."

"Sure, you're not hurt?"

"Not in the least, only my forehead scratched."

"What's up?" cried Dicky Fanshawe, who had just arrived.

"Nothing," replied his uncle. "Fellow hit him by mistake— no bones broken. Will you take the governess cart back to the house, Boxall?"

"No, thanks— I'll walk."

"His legs is all right," murmured the sympathetic crowd, as the injured one departed still with his handkerchief to his face, "and his arums. Sure, it's the mercy and all his neck wasn't bruck."

"Did yiz see the skelp Bob landed him?"

"Musha! Sure, I thought it would have sent his head flying into Athy, like a gulf ball."

Patsy, who had pulled the governess cart up, rose to his feet; his sharp eye had caught sight of something lying on the road.

"Hould the reins a moment, Mr. Robert," said he, putting them into Lord Gawdor's hands. He hopped out of the cart, picked up the object in the road, whatever it was, put it in his trousers' pocket, and then stood holding the pony's head; whilst the Meet, from which Bob Mahony had departed as swiftly as his donkey could trot, turned its attention to the business of the day, and Shan, collecting his dogs, declared his intention of drawing the Furzes.

"Was that a marble you picked up, Patsy?" asked Lord Gawdor, as the red-headed one, hearing Shan's declaration, climbed into the "tub" again and took the reins.

Patsy grinned.

MEANWHILE Mr. Fanshawe had been writing three important letters in the library. When he had finished and carefully sealed them, he placed them one on top of the other, and looked at his watch.

The three letters he had just written would make everything all right at the other end. This was the hot end of the poker, and it had to be grasped.

Patsy was the person who would help him to grasp it. Patsy he felt to be a tower of strength and 'cuteness, if such a simile is permissible. And, rising from the writing-table and putting the letters in his pocket, he went to find Patsy. He had not far to go, for as he came into the big hall Patsy was crossing it with a tray in hand.

"Patsy," said Mr. Fanshawe, "when does the post go out?"

"If you stick your letters in the letter box by the hall door, sir," said Patsy, "it will be cleared in half-an-hour. Jim Murphy takes the letter-bag to Castle Knock."

"Right!" said Mr. Fanshawe. "And, see here, Patsy!"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'm in a bit of a fix, Patsy, and you may be able to help."

"And what's the fix, sir?" asked Patsy.

"You know the young lady you gave the note to this morning— by the way, how did you give it?"

"I tried to shove it undher her door, sir."

"Yes?"

"It wouldn't go, so I give a knock. 'Who's there?' says she. 'No one,' says I; 'it's only hot wather I'm bringin' you,' for, you see, sir, the ould missis, her ladyship, was in the next room, and she's not as deaf as she looks, and it's afraid I was, every minnit, her door'd open, and she and her ear-trumpet come out in the passidge. 'I have hot wather,' says she. 'Niver mind,' says I, 'this is betther. Open the door, for the love of God, for I can't get it under the door, unless I rowl it up and shove it through the keyhole.' Wid that she opens the door a crack and shoves her head out. 'Who's it from?' she says. 'I don't know,' says I; 'it's just a letther I found on the stairs I thought might belong to you.' 'Thanks,' says she, 'it does,' and wid that she shut the door, and I left her."

"Well, see here, Patsy!"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'm going to marry Miss Lestrange."

"Faith, and I guessed that," said Patsy; "and it's I that'd be joyful to dance at your weddin', sir."

"There won't be any dancing in the business," said Mr. Fanshawe, grimly. "You know Mr. Boxall, Patsy?"

"The Mimber of Parlymint?"

"Yes. Well, he wants to marry Miss Lestrange; and the worst of it is, Patsy, that my uncle, General Grampound, wants him to marry her, too."

"Yes, sir," said Patsy. "And, Mr. Fanshawe?"

"Yes."

"I forgot to tell you, sir, you needn't be afear'd of Mr. Boxall for the next few days."

"How's that?"

"When Bob Mahony hit him the skelp on the head wid the sut bag, his eye popped out of his head on the road."

"His what?— Oh, I remember—"

"Finders is keepers, sir," said Patsy, with a grin.

"Why, good heavens— you don't mean to say—"

"I've got his eye in my pocket, sir," said Patsy, in a hoarse whisper. "He's sint a telygram for another wan but till it comes he's tethered to his bed like a horse to a—"

"That's enough— that's enough," said Mr. Fanshawe. "Here's half a crown for you, Patsy, for— carrying my cartridges."

________________

8: The Glasgow Phantom

Guy Gilpatric

1896-1950

The Saturday Evening Post 15 July 1944

MR. COLIN GLENCANNON emerged from the shipyard gate, dodged through the traffic to the bus stop, which lay like a life raft in the slush, and stood gazing rapturously about him.

"Home!" he breathed, the steam billowing up through his walrus mustache and making the Scotch mist Scotcher. "Home! Braugh! How lovely!"

Save that most of the workers' tenements which had stood in an endless row along the inner side of the Dumbarton Road had been blitzed to rubble by the Luftwaffe, the scene was exactly as he had remembered and yearned for it through many a weary month. In both directions, as far as he could see in the gathering dusk, were ships— some of them gaunt skeletons, some nearly completed, and others, including the Inchcliffe Castle, of which he was chief engineer, grim veterans up from the sea to heal their wounds of war. Masts, funnels, derricks and gantries fringed the river like burnt cypresses beside the Styx, while above them, ghostly in the scudding fog, barrage balloons tugged, swaying at their cables, waiting for the bombers which now so seldom came. The air was murky with soot, vibrant with the clang of machinery and bitter with a blended stench of hot metal, anticorrosive paint and tidal mud.

Having just returned from the tropical Orient, with its sapphire seas, spice-scented breezes and kindred foreign flummery, Mr. Glencannon knew, as indeed he had always known, that no other spot in all creation was a tithe so bonnie as these bonnie banks of Clyde. Humming a little song to that effect, he swung aboard a bus, found a seat next a window and settled down to enjoy the ride into Glasgow.

While the city bore scars which caused him to growl anathema upon the Hun and all his horrid works, he could not but concede that things might have been worse and that bombing even had its compensations. For example, where once had stood a venerable seat of culture known as The Gents' and Scholars' Bar, there now was but a yawning crater with a puddle, a heap of broken bottles and a crumpled brass spittoon at the bottom of it.

Shocked and saddened by the sight, he yet hastened to take out his account book and scratch an item of sixteen shillings from the debit side. "Every little bit helps!" he consoled himself, rolling his eyes toward heaven. Farther on, the Balmoral Street police station, painfully familiar to him as the lair of a malignant and muscular desk sergeant named Hoof MacCorkle, was reduced to a mound of blackened bricks beneath which the sergeant as well as the desk might easily have been flattened, and probably were.

"Ah, weel, the auld place was an architectural eyesore anyway!" he murmured resignedly.

Turning his attention to the pedestrians on the sidewalks, he was gratified to find them outwardly unscathed by war's ravages and looking keen and healthy as of yore.

"Is it the oatmeal, the whusky or both?" he wondered. But as he sat studying the home-going throngs, he became aware of something a bit unusual about them— something he couldn't quite define. For block after block it eluded him, but at last he saw what it was.

"Newspapers!" he exclaimed. "Why, proctically everyone in the crowd— mon and woman, soldier and civilian— has got a newspaper! Great swith, I wonder what has happened?"

Obviously, only an event of world-shaking importance could have caused so many of his fellow Scots to squander their pennies for news when they could learn it for nothing by eavesdropping on a neighbor's radio. Had Hitler choked on a gluten biscuit? Was the second front opened at last? Had the cosmic plumbing system burst its valves and flushed Japan with a salutary tidal wave? Overcome by curiosity, he leaned across the aisle and indicated the folded journal projecting from a lady's shopping bag.

"Pairdon me, modom," he said, baring his pyorrhea in a charming smile. "I wonder if ye'd pairmit me to glonce at the news for half a minute. I—"

The lady turned a flinty eye upon him. "It's not the News!" she snapped. "It's The Glesga Evening Guardian, as ye can plainly see. Ach, dinna attempt yere masher's wiles on me, ye sliddery auld snit, or I'll have ye thrun off the bus!"

Feeling the scowls of the other passengers scorching through his mackintosh, Mr. Glencannon eased back into his seat and resumed his study of the passersby. Yes, they all had newspapers, sure enough, but not a soul in the crowd was reading; instead, they were carrying them ostentatiously, expectantly and even a trifle defiantly, like a damsel at a blind date hoping to be recognized by her red carnation, but fearful that some lurking rival may beat her to it.

Mr. Glencannon knitted his brows in perplexity. "Foosh! How utterly boffling!" he muttered.

More baffling still, however, was his discovery that among those tens, those scores and hundreds of papers, there was never a News, a Gazette, a Scots Presbyterian Churchman nor a Weekly Turf Indicator, but only copy after copy of The Glasgow Evening Guardian.

He remembered the Guardian as a third-rate rag of meager circulation which had once referred to him in connection with a barratry case as "that sinister ruffian, Glen Cohen"; he had never forgiven it for misspelling his name, and so was chagrined as well as astounded to behold its overwhelming popularity.

Still muttering over the enigma, he got off the bus at Sauchiehall Street and made his way through the crowd toward the High Pressure Tavern, a gathering place for marine engineers which had nightly served as a setting for his dreams in the remote Pacific, and thus done much to temper the rigors of war. He had not gone far when he espied an elderly gentleman of nautical cut shaping a course in the same direction, although with a marked tendency to yaw. Like everyone else, this person was carrying a Guardian, but from the erratic manner of his progress and the fumes he left in his wake, it was apparent that the paper was a minor part of his cargo.

"Ho, losh!" exclaimed Mr. Glencannon. "It's auld Lochy MacBoil, o' the Penarth Queen! Noo, at last, I'll get the explanation, the solution, o' this vexing Guardian mystery!" Speeding his pace, he overtook the other and slapped him on the shoulder. "Weel, weel, weel!" he greeted jovially. "Here's a happy meeting indeed!"

Mr. MacBoil wheeled so abruptly that he made three complete revolutions before Mr. Glencannon could check him. He raised his Guardian on high and struck a heroic attitude, his eyes beaming as though they beheld a celestial vision. Actually, they were rather more than thirty degrees out of parallel and so beheld two separate visions of nothing in particular.

"Look, Lochinvar!" Mr. Glencannon snapped his fingers. "I'm richt here in the middle! Just tak' a steady aim alang yere nose and ye canna help seeing me, lad!"

Mr. MacBoil hiccuped thrice and squinted his eyes into an approximate focus. His face fell and only the other's restraining grip prevented the rest of him from following suit.

"Colin!" he croaked tragically. "Colin Clolclollin!"

Mr. Glencannon chuckled. "Weel, at least ye've got the general idea! Speak up, Lochinvar, and say ye're glod to see me!"

Instead, Mr. MacBoil burst into a storm of tears. "Baw!" he wailed, burying his face in his Guardian. He was still sobbing as Mr. Glencannon led him through the doorway of the pub.

At that late hour of the afternoon, the High Pressure Tavern should have been filled with gentlemen of the merchant navy catching up on their whisky, and vice versa. Its sole occupants, however, were a brass-haired barmaid and a guest at a corner table who sat scowling at the Guardian and cursing throatily to himself. He transferred his scowl to the new arrivals.

"H'mph!" he grunted.

"Alec! Alec Ogilvie!" cried Mr. Glencannon. "Losh, ye're a treat for sour eyes! How are ye, dear lad, how are ye?" He paused in his effusions and awaited a response, but all he heard was the echo. "Er— haw!" he resumed, lamely but gamely. "As for mysel', I'm feeling vurra fit indeed, thonk ye, and deeply touched by the rousing weelcome given me by my friends."

"H'mph!" Mr. Ogilvie grunted again. "I heard the Joponese had chopped yere head off." He emptied his glass and returned to his study of the paper.

Mr. Glencannon stood uncertain for a moment, then installed the weeping Mr. MacBoil on the bench behind the table and himself beside him. He cleared his throat, smacked his lips and glanced at Mr. Ogilvie, but without result.

"Ah, weel," he sighed, turning toward the barmaid. "Duggan's Dew o' Kirkintilloch, if ye please, muss."

"Oh, all richt, since ye're so persistent aboot it!" said Mr. Ogilvie.... "A dooble o' the same for me, muss, and ditto for Muster MacBoil. It shud help straighten him up."

Mr. Glencannon winced. "Weel, after all, a mon doesna come hame every day," he mused. "Tell me, Alec, where are all the auld crowd this evening?"

"Oot carrying," said Mr. Ogilvie.

"Oot— er— carrying? Oot carrying— oot carrying what?"

"Oot carrying the Guardian, o' course! I was oot carrying it mysel' till two o' my bunions exploded. I—"

"Baw!" Mr. MacBoil drowned the words with a fresh torrent of grief. "Oh, domn ye, Glencollin! I thocht ye were he and that he had snopped me, but ye were only ye and he hadn't!"

"There, there, Lochinvar!" Mr. Ogilvie hastened to pacify him. "Drink the nice whusky Glencannon has bocht for ye, there's a guid lad!"

"But wait— noo wait a minute! Let's get this straight!" said Mr. Glencannon, his perplexity mounting to new heights. "Why is everybody oot carrying the Guardian, pray tell me that? And who did Lochinvar think I was that I wasn't, and why shud I have snopped at him with what, even if I had been?"

"I— I thocht ye were the Ph-ph-phantom!" wailed Mr. MacBoil.

"The Phantom? Swith! Ye mean there's a Jock the Ripper loose in the town?"

Mr. Ogilvie laughed mirthlessly and shoved the Guardian across the table. "Here!" he said, jabbing his finger at the boldface headlines on the front page. "Read it! Read it and weep!"

The item read:

£25! £25! £25!

THE PHANTOM PHOTOGRAPHER PAYS £25 EACH DAY

TO A LUCKY GUARDIAN READER!

He Takes Your Picture and You Take the Money!

Has He Snapped You Yet?

Right now—this very minute—the mysterious Phantom Photographer is roaming the streets and public places of Glasgow, waiting to take your picture with his invisible camera! All you have to do is carry a copy of The Glasgow Evening Guardian in plain sight; then, if the Phantom snaps your picture, you simply snap up the money! But you won't recognize the Phantom. You won't even see him! You'll never know or guess when or where he's right there beside you— or before you— or behind you— ready to click his shutter! So, wherever you are, wherever you go,

BE SURE TO CARRY THE GUARDIAN!

Has the Phantom Photographer snapped you yet? Turn now to Page Three, and see! If your picture is printed there, come to our main office tomorrow morning between the hours of nine and twelve noon and

GET YOUR £25 PRIZE!

"Twenty-five poonds! Ah, whurra!" Mr. Glencannon breathed reverently. "No wonder the whole city's gone daft! Twenty-five poonds is a noble sum and not to be lichtly sneezed at! Let's see what today's winner looks lik'!"

"Ach! Him! Ye'll find he looks lik' the fulthy scoondrel that he is, whoever that may be!" Mr. Ogilvie snarled savagely. "As a matter o' fact, when ye came stoggering in here just noo, I was busy cursing the luck that wud bring twenty-five quid to a swine lik' him, but leave upstonding men lik' me in penury and want."

"Aye, weel, he certainly is an ugly brute, the ugly brute!" agreed Mr. Glencannon, viewing the picture with distaste. "He's got all the earmarks o' a confirmed alcoholic, and I hope ye'll no' attribute my estimate o' him to envy or sour grapes. H'm! It says here in the caption that the Phantom snopped him in the gentlemen's waiting room o' the St. Enoch Square railway station."

"Exockly! That proves he's either a pickpocket or a confidence mon, else why wud he be honging aroond in such a place?" cried Mr. Ogilvie, with heat. "Oh, I tell ye, gentlemen!" He raised his fists above his head and shook them tensely. "I tell ye that when a mere depraved scum can pick up twenty-five poonds by getting his yowp printed in The Glesga Evening Guardian while I and we cannot, then— then, I say, there is no justice under heaven!"

Mr. Glencannon finished his drink and sat back, frowning darkly. "Aye, ye're rabsolutely— ric!— richt there isn't!" he said. "The more I think o' it, the plainer I see this thing is an affront, a scondal and an ook!— pairdon me— an ootrage! But what can we do aboot it?"

"Baw!" blurted Mr. MacBoil, overflowing again.

Mr. Ogilvie extended his handkerchief and took a firm grip on the weeper's nose. "Blow, Lochinvar! ... What can we do aboot it, ye osk? Why, we'll never do anything aboot it, if we just sit sitting here! Order another roond o' drinks, mon, and let's start thinking up some way to swindle the Guardian and get our richts!"

When the drinks came, the three refreshed themselves copiously and sat back, seeking inspiration. Their thoughts were interrupted by a withering salvo of hiccups from Mr. MacBoil. He raised his hand to stifle them in accordance with the rules of etiquette, but, in his intense preoccupation, he raised it to Mr. Glencannon's mouth instead of to his own. The prickle of bristles informing him that something was amiss, he looked up questioningly, then sat as one transfixed.

"Haw!" he cried, his hand still pressed to Mr. Glencannon's mustache and his face suddenly radiant. "Haw!"

Simultaneously, Mr. Ogilvie emitted an astonished gasp.

"Why, o' course!" he cried. "Colin! Colin, he's got it! Lochinvar's got it, I tell ye!"

Mr. Glencannon peered uneasily from one to the other of them. "Ye— ye mean he's got the deleery and tremens again?"

"No!" Mr. Ogilvie seized Mr. Glencannon by the arm and dragged him over to the mirror. "There, Colin, just cover up yere mustosh and tell me who ye look lik'!"

"M'm," said Mr. Glencannon, considering his reflection even as did Narcissus at the pool. "H'm!" With rare skill, he picked up his drink and stimulated his perceptive faculties without removing his hand from his mustache. "Weel, if ye mean I look lik' the Archbishop o' Dundee, I suppose I canna dispute ye. After all, his father on his mother's side was a cousin o'—"

"Archbishop, blosh!" scoffed Mr. Ogilvie, in the nick of time snatching his own glass from Mr. MacBoil and draining it at a gulp. "No, no, no, domn it! Withoot yere mustosh, ye're proctically the chewing, spitting image o' that lout in the picture! Noo do ye get what Lochinvar's driving at?"

"Aye!" Mr. Glencannon exclaimed delightedly. "Aye, o'course I do! Losh, losh, what a grond idea! I thocht from the ootset that yon photo looked strangely familiar!"

"Weel, no wonder!" Mr. Ogilvie chuckled. "It mak's this whole thing as easy as ruling off a log! The mon in the picture is wearing a gray felt hat, but I've got one exockly lik' it aboard the ship. Lochinvar's got a Shetland greatcoat that's a guid match for this fellow's, and it will fit ye to a tea. All that remains, then, is to shave off yere mustosh, go to the Guardian office, tell them that yere name is John Smith, and glaum the money."

"Ah, but it's the office part that worrits me!" said Mr. Glencannon. "Suppose this other gentleman turns up while I'm there? Judging from his picture, he is a substontial and vurra high-closs citizen, so I micht have some difficulty in exposing him as an impostor."

"Ye needna give it a thocht!" Mr. Ogilvie assured him. "All ye need do is get there early, the vurra feerst thing, and sumply beat him to it. But if by chonce he shud have the hard luck to turn up while ye're inside— weel, I gorontee that he'll no' get in till ye get safely oot!— If then!"

"Ye mean ye'll be stonding guard in front o' the building?"

"Aye! And Lochinvar will be stonding guard at the back—just in case ye shud absentmindedly attempt to sneak oot that way when ye've collected the money."

"Ah, noo," Mr. Glencannon pouted, "yere remark is uncalled for and unkind! E'en though you and Lochinvar are taking only a minor part in this enterprise, ye can depend upon me to treat ye fairly, squarely and hondsomely when I mak' the finoncial settlement."

"Ye mean ye can thonk Lochinvar and me for allowing ye to keep a one-third share!"

"What? A mere eight poonds, six shillings and eight pence? Ah, foosh and foosheroo!" Mr. Glencannon snorted, "The mustosh alone is worth twice the price!"

"I cud skin a rat and mak' ye a better one for nothing," Mr. Ogilvie retorted calmly. "Anyhow, eight quid, six-and-eight is what ye'll get, and nary a bawbee more." Dismissing finance with a shrug, he took off his shoe, shaded his eyes with it and peered at the clock. "H'm! Ick's noo exockly six-frorty-foo, or whatever it is, and the nicht is yet young! Later on, we can all go aboard, get the hat and coat and hat, and attend to the shaving. But never fear, Colin. MacBoil and I and Lochinvar will be keeping ye plainly in sicht till we've got the money, so ye micht as weel loosen up and buy a few drinks meanwhile."

"Haw!" said Mr. MacBoil.

"Haw indeed, Lochinvar!" agreed Mr. Ogilvie. "Noo ye can stop licking oot those empty glosses."

THE EARLY HOURS of morning found the trio in the engineers' messroom of the S.S. Penarth Queen, where they had gone to pick up Mr. MacBoil's greatcoat and lingered to view his extensive collection of lithographic prints. Contributing immeasurably to their enjoyment of this aesthetic treat, the specimens were mounted on the original bottles and the bottles were, at the outset, full. As was but natural in such circumstances, the thought and conversation of the company rambled along artistic channels, until at length Mr. Glencannon was moved to compose a poem.

"Read ish toosh again, Colin!" Mr. Ogilvie was urging him. "Thish time, read ish shlower, and try nosh to sh yere eshes."

Graciously indicating his acquiescence by lowering his bottle from his lips, Mr. Glencannon braced himself against the table and read:

"Alock, alosh, my braw mustosh,

By dawn I will have slew ye!

Adieu! Adieu! A Duggan's Dew

I quaff, and strain it through ye!

I doot if mortal hirsute root

Will ever sproot

Another beaut

Lik' thee, sweet Highland Mary.

So, on Crochallan's something braes

Come, let us spend the something days,

My bonny Peggy Allison."

He was applauded to the echo. "Ah, it's a lovely thing, a pairfick-ick-ick thing!" Mr. MacBoil declared. "Most poetry doesna mak' a domn bit o' sense, but not that one, if ye follow me!"

Mr. Glencannon flushed with pleasure. "Weel, I must confess I am indebted to Robert Burns for the last four lines," he said, and his modesty was charming. "However, if I'd only had a bit more time, I believe I cud have spewed up the whole thing singlehonded."

"Ah, and speaking o' time—" Mr. Ogilvie produced a hard-boiled egg from his pocket and squinted at it gravely. "H'm— yes, I see it's aboot time we went alang to shy mip, my ship to get the fray gelt— er— gray felt hat and let Glenshrannon shrave— chave— or, if ye prefer, shave."

After a final toast to the successful gouging of The Glasgow Evening Guardian, they assisted one another over the doorsill in courtly fashion and emerged upon deck. The Penarth Queen was in dry dock, but though day had already dawned, the fog around her was so dense that she might have been a thousand miles at sea.

Mr. MacBoil groped to the rail, peered down into the yawning chasm that lay between the vessel's side and the wall of the dock, and then at the ramshackle gangplank that spanned it.

"Brrh!" He swayed dizzily. "Noo that I've shobur dup, I doot if I cud walk acrosh that breakneck controption withoot breaking my neck!"

Mr. Glencannon looked, shuddered and closed his eyes. "Fronkly, I doot if— ick!— cud mysel'," he confessed.

"Neither cud I cud either," said Mr. Ogilvie. "We've all got a touch o' the vertigo, that's our trouble. It comes from breathing certain types o' pollen. I foncy the only way we can get across is to lash oorsels together with a bit o' rope, lik' the Swish shki jumpers do in the Olps Moontains." He took up a flexible wire cable from the deck and passed the end of it to Mr. Glencannon. "Mak' this fast aroond ye, lad, and then Lochinvar and I will do lik'wise." He tugged at the cable to get more slack, but in vain. "Wait, it must be fouled on something."

Cursing the fog, he followed the cable inboard to a winch and cast it loose. It was whisked violently out of his hand by an unseen force. Simultaneously there came from overhead a resonant, deep-toned "Twang!" like the note of an archangel's harpstring, then a swishing, rushing sound as of an earthly body soaring aloft to answer the celestial summons.

Mr. Ogilvie looked up, but saw nothing. "Must be the seagulls carousing aroond again.... Allricht, Lochinvar; noo it's yere turn," he said, stumbling back to the rail. "Sumply bend a loop in the— the— Great gobs, mon! What ails ye?"

Mr. MacBoil was standing with his mouth open, staring wild-eyed into the fog directly above him. "G-g-gone!" he managed to stammer. "G-glencannon's Glengonnon!"

"Gone?" thundered Mr. Ogilvie. "D'ye mean to say ye let him escape, ye besotted auld glaggy? Quick, then!" He seized the other by the collar and dragged him backward across the perilously swaying gangplank, like a chamois traversing a crete on the Matterhorn. "I'll domn weel teach him that he canna sliv the glip to— ick!— to Alec Ogilvie!"

Meanwhile, Mr. Glencannon felt himself falling, falling, falling through endless, fog-filled space. Though instinctively he clutched the cable, he realized that his murderers had cut it at the instant of pushing him overboard. His stomach quailed with the speed and his very soul cringed with horror as he pictured the impending spatter on the hard concrete below. But the mind works like lightning in the shadow of death, and even as he thought of the dry dock's bottom, he also thought of his own. For it wasn't concrete, and it hurt. Had the assassins hamstrung him? It felt so! Twisting, turning and half dazed though he was, he yet managed to reach around aft and explore the seat of the pain. He found that he was sitting trapeze-fashion in the loop he had made in the wire and that it was cutting a groove in him crosswise. So he wasn't falling, falling, but rising, rising, rising! Suddenly the whole vile plot became clear to him.

"Fiends!" he croaked. "Foul munsters! They tricked me into tying mysel' to a barrage balloon and then cut the domn thing loose! Ach, horrors, Glencannon, ye're speeding toward a frichtful doom!"

Helpless, hopeless, he peered around him. Visibility was zero, but from the buzzing in his ears he judged his altitude to be considerable. "Whoosh!" He gasped the rarefied air. "If the domn thing drogs me much higher, my eardrums will collopse for lack o' oxygen!"

The buzzing became intense, head-filling, like the sound of an electric motor. As, at that moment, he was swinging past the motor cabin of a gantry less than ten feet distant in the fog, this was not surprising.

The motive of the crime was obvious. The unspeakable Ogilvie, sans mustache and properly dressed, would look almost as much like the man in the picture as would Mr. Glencannon. Instead of whacking up the money three ways, the sinister twain could split it fifty-fifty. At thought of their treachery, the victim writhed helplessly in his sling and groaned as the cable bit into him anew.

"Whither, oh, whither are we drifting?" he asked himself miserably. "If the wind is from the east, I'll droon in the Atlontic. If it's oot o' the west, I'll droon in the North Sea. If I blow ower Germany, the Huns will shoot me doon with rockets. Weel, I'll go doon fighting, anyway!" His hand sought his coat pocket for his brass knuckles. It closed upon a bottle and he remembered that the coat was Mr. MacBoil's. "Duggan's Dew!" he read the label. "Thonk heavens! Noo I willna starve, at any rate!" Passing both arms around the wire, he removed the stopper and supercharged himself for action in the stratosphere.

By the time he had boosted his manifold pressure to fifty-three inches, an acute dizziness made him aware that he was spinning on the cable's end like the rotor of a turbine. He would whirl perhaps two hundred revolutions in one direction, stop, and then unwind an equal number of turns in the opposite sense. So great was the speed of rotation that centrifugal force, acting upon his considerable liquid content, caused it to work its way outward into the remotest nooks and crannies of his system. Soon the peripheral portions of his brain were flooded with practically pure whisky, while the center was drained bone dry and stone sober. This duplex mental condition had certain advantages, but they were outweighed by the drawbacks. Theoretically, of course, the sober central spot provided a vantage point from which to study his binge from the inside— a unique opportunity which should have enabled him to perceive and remember all the cosmic truths, dazzling logic and gut-busting humor which are born of the bottle, only to be lost in the inevitable black agonies of hangover. Unfortunately for the world's store of knowledge, however, the roistering, alcoholized areas resented the presence of the austere, sober center as though it were a teetotaler who had crashed the party and spread the figurative wet blanket. They became self-conscious, sulky, surly. Just as the opposing elements seemed on the verge of an ugly brawl, Mr. Glencannon stopped spinning and his brain went back to normal—which is to say, it was uniformly saturated throughout.

A gale of hurricane force struck him from ahead, blew for several seconds and then suddenly shifted astern. This was repeated again and again, each time with increasing violence. He realized that now, instead of spinning, he was swinging back and forth, back and forth, and that he was actually the business end of a gigantic pendulum. The balloon was still hidden in the fog overhead, but he judged the amplitude of the arcs to be at least five hundred feet. His speed was terrific; in fact, during the backward swoops, the whisky became so solidly compressed at the bottom of the bottle that he was obliged to suck it out, whereas in the forward swings, it gushed into his mouth like soda water.

The motion made him lightheaded. He had long since lost all sense of time, and though he tried to gauge it by the falling level of the whisky, somewhat on the principle of the hourglass, the readings were of doubtful accuracy.

"I only know it's later than I think," he said. "The main question is: Where am I?" He felt a slight shock on his right instep, as though a shoe lace had snapped. Looking down, he was a porcelain insulator and a length of radio aerial dangling from his foot. Simultaneously he swung out of a dense fog wall into a comparatively clear spot, and saw just below him the innumerable roofs, steeples and towers of a great metropolis.

"Berlin!" he gasped. "The crafty Huns have comouflaged it to look exockly lik' Glesga!" He drained the bottle and with a mighty oath sent it hurtling into the busy street below.

MANY a reputable citizen of Glasgow will maintain to his dying day that Superman came to town that foggy morning. Literally hundreds saw him run after a bus down Dundas Street, catch up with it at twenty-five miles an hour, and then, just as a collision seemed inevitable, leap clear over it and land a full block in the lead. Others confirming the story will add that no sooner had the leaper landed than he went into reverse, rushed at the bus backward and hurdled it by so comfortable a margin that he came to rest on the topmost cornice of the Stock Exchange. A lady of gentle birth and unimpeachable morals has testified under oath that she saw the strange visitant kick a pigeon out of the air above Kelvingrove Park, while the fragment of his trousers which still clings to the weather vane of St. Andrew's Church has become one of the city's chief items of interest.

Swooping and swinging, running and leaping, Mr. Glencannon was too busy keeping pace with the balloon, avoiding collisions and hoping the cable would not bite him in two, to notice his fatigue. It was just as he was girding his loins to hurdle the chimney pots on the roof of what he recognized to be the Buchanan Street Opera House that a sudden blessed relief came to his galled crupper and he knew that he was free. The cable swished by him, curling snakily, and vanished in the fog.

"Ah, whurra!" he gasped, sitting down on the roof. "Ah, whurra!" he gasped, standing up again. He tottered to the balustrade and stood leaning against it, listening to the pounding of his heart. Presently the pounding subsided and all he heard was the gurgling of his liver, like the babble of a Highland brook in springtime. "A-weel," he panted, "the feerst thing to do is to get doon oot o' here. The second thing is to buy mysel' some liniment. The theerd is to commit a couple o' guid, thorough homicides!"

Descending the fire escape into the alley behind the auditorium, he limped between crates and musty scenery to a side thoroughfare and thence around the corner into Buchanan Street. A crowd had gathered on the opposite sidewalk and a police car was just drawing up to the curb. A pair of constables shouldered their way out of the group of bystanders, dragging two badly battered gentlemen handcuffed together. By an effort, Mr. Glencannon recognized them as the Messrs. MacBoil and Ogilvie. Behind them, calmly tucking a rubber blackjack into his pocket, walked a malignant and muscular gentleman who wore a gray felt hat and a Shetland greatcoat.

"Foosh!" exclaimed Mr. Glencannon. "'Tis he! 'Tis him! 'Tis the mon in the Phantom's picture! And he— he is none other than Hoof MacCorkle, who used to be desk sergeant in the Balmoral Street police station! No wonder he looked so familiar— even though I'd never seen him withoot his unifurrm!"

Chuckling, he watched the car depart with captor and captives. Still chuckling, he glanced at a sign, The Glasgow Evening Guardian, on a building farther down the street. There was a hatter's shop nearby and a barber's just across from it. Somewhere in the distance, a clock was striking nine.

________________

9: By Decree of the High Ones

Coutts Brisbane

(Robert Coutts Armour, 1874-1942}

The English Review, Aug 1930

THE LITTLE tarts of apricots flavoured with garlic, the savoury duck with its mound of rice and well-peppered onions, the shark fin soup, and a double measure of well-heated wine had gone to their appointed place. With that feeling of peace towards all which only a well-bestowed inner man can confer, Dr. Hi Ho filled and lit his pipe, and puffed luxuriously.

He had had a very busy and profitable day, for his fame as a healer had gone far abroad; he had but to hang out the scroll which proclaimed his name and accomplishments in any market place in all the province of Ho Nan to collect a crowd of sufferers clamouring for relief. From his place by the window of the aptly named restaurant, Rotundity-of-Circumference-Bestowed, Dr. Hi looked down the narrow, dirty street, through Ping-Chow's eastern gate and along the rough road over which he must soon be jogging if he would reach Sen-Yang, the scene of his next day's activities, before darkness fell.

With a sigh, the worthy doctor drew forth a fat purse and settled the bill. He would fain have lingered in this earthly paradise, but business was business. Sen-Yang was a much larger town than Ping-Chow, and without doubt many and wealthy patients awaited his coming.

Suddenly a clatter of hooves rose above the clamour of the street vendors, and a man, well clad in garments of a superior quality, though soiled with the dust of travel, threw himself from a lean pony, and, after a word with a beggar, entered the restaurant.

"Here is one whose rice bowl has never been empty!" quoth the keeper of the house. "Eminent Turner-Away-of-Mortality, permit that I attend to his wants. But even as he turned, the newcomer, advancing with precipitation, inclined himself with due courtesy before the man of medicine.

"Have my eyes the sublime satisfaction of beholding the highly esteemed Dr. Hi Ho?" he inquired in a voice which he sought to make low and honeyed, though in truth it recalled the sound of ungreased cartwheels proceeding over cobbles.

"I am that lowly and unattractive person," replied Dr. Hi, with the modesty proper to politeness. "If you require my services, be brief, for I am about to take the road for Sen-Yang."

"That is well, for your never-sufficiently-to-be-praised skill is required in my house, which stands but a little way from that road. Know that an eminent mandarin named Wing Soo lies upon my bed in great pain; therefore hasten."

"I come!" said Dr. Hi, and rose. "My feet move towards his bed of pain with the alacrity of a swallow absenting itself from the presence of hawks. Nevertheless—." He paused and coughed delicately: "There are mandarins whose eminence of station is accompanied by an inexcusable reluctance to bestow a fitting fee when the agony of the body has been assuaged by the practised skill of a healer too innocent of the ways of the world to demand more than a fee of fifty taels in advance."

"Here are a hundred, and as many more will attend the success of your ministrations," replied the messenger, and, taking from an inner pocket a bag which gave forth musical chinkings, he bestowed it upon the doctor.

"I come!" cried Dr. Hi. "Let my horse be brought at once. Bring my pack, containing nothing but the rarest drugs, procured at an immense expense, and we will take the road."

A few minutes later the pair clattered forth out of Ping-Chow. At once Dr. Hi Ho sought information.

"Is the Heaven Aspiring Steed close to the bedside, think you?" he asked. "And are the yamen men of the estimable Wing Soo of an irascible temperament, likely to demand the return of a fee if, by the inscrutable decree of the High Ones, Wing Soo has already departed?"

"They are all men of pleasing countenance and polite demeanour, and will bow to the decrees of the Highly Exalted. But be not afraid! Though the neighing of the Steed has indeed been heard, his gold and vermilion hooves are not yet upon the floor of the chamber," replied the messenger consolingly.

With that he bestowed his whip lash impartially upon his beast and also upon the quarters of the benevolent doctor's plump and lethargic mount and so urging, kept him at a smart trot, which in a while brought them half way towards Sen-Yang, where the conductor veered aside up a track which wound into the hills.

The sun was setting, and, as its light declined, Dr. Hi Ho began to look about him with apprehension, for the hills had a bad name.

"Are we near your well-built and extensive habitation?" he asked sharply. "For I have heard that men of evil nature, without reverence for the law or fear of the consequences of highway robbery, have of late been prowling hereabouts. It would be a great misfortune if we should encounter any of the rascals."

"Be not afraid! If we should meet any, I will quickly deal with them in no uncertain manner," replied the guide, and, throwing aside the skirt of his coat, displayed a heavy sword, a broad knife and a pistol of the sort used by outer barbarians, which could be discharged six times without pause.

Dr. Hi Ho, heartened by the sight, once more hastened his horse's steps, and soon they turned up the side of a ravine towards a small house perched upon a rock, from which lights gleamed through the deepening dusk.

Several men appeared upon the verandah as the pair dismounted, and Dr. Hi Ho noted with qualms that they were persons of no refinement, lacking in breeding, since they carried naked weapons and flourished them about their heads in a truly barbarous fashion, so that Dr. Hi Ho was moved to reproof.

"Refrain!" he said sternly. "Doubtless you are thus provided with body-destroying instruments because of the brigands who infest these hills. Yet to display them thus in such undistant wavings beneath this person's nose is worthy rather of vile robbers deserving of the Long Death than the respectable servants of a highly placed and many-examination-passing mandarin!"

At this well-merited rebuke the servants withdrew themselves a little way and allowed their faces, already marred by excesses and the scars of wounds, to become distorted with unseemly mirth. The scandalized Dr. Hi Ho turned to his conductor.

"In the seventh book of the wise and learned Wo Fung's greatest work, Labyrinth of Etiquette, it is written: 'Laughter in the presence of a superior is like to an evil odour before the Table of Offerings.'"

"In the seven hundredth book of the Sages it is written: 'In the house of the tiger the wise cat refrains from scratching!'" retorted the fellow. "Revered uncle, know that you are come to the estimable mansion of the mighty brigand Ting Lung. In much pain, he awaits your help. Hasten, therefore, or a death of superior ingenuity, long protracted, shall be your portion!"

So saying, he propelled Dr. Hi Ho into a room where, upon a large and many-quilted bed, lay a huge and hideous man, whose fat body heaved and quivered to the violence of internal convulsions.

Immediately the fear and resentment which Dr. Hi had experienced at discovering the plight into which desire to aid the suffering had precipitated him was swallowed up by professional interest.

"In the yamen of the mighty mandarin Kai Lo, at Wai-Peng, I was called upon to minister to a young elephant which had swallowed a bundle of fish-hooks. He looked much the same as your interesting and, doubtless, benevolent Ting Lung, and his movements were of a similar diversity. Is it possible that the valiant and far-extending Ting Lung has inadvertently partaken of something equally of a not-sympathetic nature?"

"It is not known," replied the fellow evasively. "It was for that reason that this person— whose name is Lo Yip— came to Ping-Chow to secure your services. You are a healer. Heal!"

"I will do my best, yet if the Supreme Ones have decided that the hour has come for Ting Lung to become an ancestor—what then? Would this person also experience a discontinuation of existence?"

Lo Yip's countenance exhibited horror and surprise in equal measure.

"By no means, honoured one! In any event the not unremunerative position of doctor to our band is offered to you. Sword, gunshot, knife and spear wounds, also head batterings with clubs and stones, which are too often inflicted upon the brigand by travellers unwilling to bow to the decrees of Providence, will keep the skill of your hands from decreasing. For recreation you will question prisoners or persuade villagers to disclose the hiding-place of treasures which a base and soul-destroying avarice has induced them to conceal."

"I am not an executioner!" replied Dr. Hi Ho coldly. "My art is used to cure, not to torment."

"This person, having witnessed cures performed by the learned and eminent Hi Ho, is of the unalterable opinion that the difference is but one of words," replied Lo Yip drily. "Also, this person having hitherto, not without a measure of success, performed the necessary operations, will instruct you. Or, should an unwise obstinacy impel you to decline the honourable office, he himself will convince you that the task is not beyond the compass even of a not-transcendently-effulgent intellect."

"I accept the offer made with such abundant delicacy!" replied Dr. Hi Ho with haste. "And now let us consider the valiant and widely-disposed Ting Lung. Let a brazier of hot coals be brought."

So saying, Dr. Hi unrolled his chart of the human body, divided into a hundred spaces, each of which was numbered to correspond with a compartment of his medicine box. By ordinary he would have questioned the patient as to the position of his pains, and, having located the spots on his chart, would have administered drugs from the corresponding divisions of his medicine case. But since the valiant Ting Lung was beyond speech, he had resort to other and more subtle methods.

Arranging a set of cautery irons in the brazier, he took from his instrument case a mallet of ivory, weighted with lead and adorned with dragons of benevolent aspect.

"Note well the features of the valiant Ting Lung, honourable Lo Yip," quoth he, and smote the patient deftly in the midriff.

"They recall the progress of a devastating earthquake through a porcelain factory!" commented Lo Yip.

"Truly! Therefore a dragon is at work in this portion of his ample interior," murmured the doctor, and made note of the number of the affected area on his chart.

"Yet, since there is much of Ting Lung, we will try again," and once more he smote, with the most gratifying results, for the patient heaved tumultuously in all directions and emitted a grating cry resembling the call of the female tiger to her mate.

"So!" cried Dr. Hi, allowing a smile of satisfaction to adorn his not-unengaging countenance. "We have found the innermost lair of the dragon. Let us expel him!"

From the compartments of his medicine case, indicated by the number on his chart, he measured doses with a graduated spoon. These he mixed with water and honey of Chang Ho, and, filling a large syringe, introduced the mixture to the attention of the dragon.

Then, in order that the attention of the patient might be suitably distracted while conflict raged, he proceeded to apply his cautery irons to sundry of the outlying portions of his person.

At first the valiant Ting Lung responded with an alacrity which wreathed the smile of benevolence about the abundant mouth of the sympathetic Lo Yip, but presently these manifestations of a superior vitality ceased, and the brow of Dr. Hi Ho grew clouded. He turned to Lo Yip, laying the finger of caution upon the lips of discretion.

"Tell me, perspicacious one, which of your braves aspires to the position of chief of this band in the event, not too far removed, of the valiant Ting Lung becoming the object of a filial descendant's adoration?" he whispered.

"Truly, all of the six," replied Lo Yip. "Though assuredly a person of such penetration as the eminent and learned Hi Ho must perceive that the only one fitted for the honourable and distinguished position is this person. But do your capacious ears indeed hear the nicher of the Heaven Aspiring Steed?"

"Truly the stirrup approaches the foot of Ting Lung. The will of the Supreme Ones is about to be fulfilled—by the aid of a not-nourishing quantity of ground glass which the valiant Ting, in a moment of no vigilance, must have swallowed with his rice."

"The will of the Supreme Ones may not be disputed," murmured Lo Yip. "Will the mounting of the saddle be long delayed?"

"Before the light of day broadens upon the roof of this palatial abode, the ascent will have been accomplished."

"In the absence of the valiant Ting Lung's only son, Wei, now languishing in the yamen of the chief magistrate of Ho Nan with his heels higher than his head, this mean and undeserving person will assume the filial station and make the libations," said Lo. "Also, I will prepare a draught of wine for those low-born ones whose ambition exceeds their deserts. Tell me, eminent one, if among your medicines is any which, if administered by an unskilful hand, would cause the taker thereof to repair henceward with superior celerity?"

"There are indeed such, my son," replied Dr. Hi Ho, with a benevolent smile. "And that no unskilled hand may meddle with them, they are bestowed in those white bottles which you may see in one corner of my case."

"The coming of day and the departure of Ting Lung are yet removed by some hours," said Lo, with an air of solicitude. "You are wearied with well-doing. In an adjoining apartment, all unworthy of your employment, yet soft and sleep-bestowing, is my bed. Condescend, uncle, to take your rest upon it, while I watch here by the valiant one."

"My body, exhausted by a long day of conflict with afflicted ones, was indeed weary before I made the journey to this richly-endowed dwelling," murmured Dr. Hi Ho. "I go. Call me when the celestial hooves clatter by the bedside."

Though he was indeed wearied with well-doing, Dr. Hi Ho did not sleep, being afflicted with a not unreasonable doubt that he would again awake in the land of the living.

But a few minutes had passed when he was aware that the eminent Lo Yip had entered the room bearing his medicine case, which he laid softly by the wall, then retreated. Satisfying himself that Lo was out of earshot, having left the adjacent chamber, Dr. Hi skipped from the bed and inspected the white bottles in his case. As he had every reason to suspect, one of these had been nearly emptied. Dr. Hi smiled in the superior fashion of the tiger entering the sty of a well-upholstered porker, and lay down once more.

Time enough for the eating of a duck had elapsed when there came a sound from the window beside the head of the bed. One of the ill-conditioned ones, now wearing a look of refined politeness, came softly into the chamber, carrying a finger upon his lips.

"Eminent one, this humble person is the watchman and also the cook to this band," he said in a low voice. "In the hours of darkness when all creatures of a good habit should be asleep, a large fox, or it may be a small tiger, comes to my larder and does evilly. It may be that among all those medicines which wise doctors carry there is something that, if mixed with honey or the lard of a hog, would be swallowed by this animal and confer upon it the benefits of no-existence?"

"My son," replied Dr. Hi Ho benignly, "I have indeed such a substance, of such a marvellous potency that in the short space of half an hour even a large tiger of the mountains of Kirin, with claws two spans long, would be impelled to seek the upper air. Wait but a moment, and I will give it to you."

"As perchance the animal may be large, the dose should be large also?" suggested the cook-watchman.

"Here is enough to slay ten men and a boy child of abnormal strength," quoth Dr. Hi. "If it be a tiger, retain for me the bones and claws."

"It shall be so, uncle," murmured the brigand, and withdrew without ostentation, leaving Dr. Hi to smile with an even greater latitude.

Scarcely had he settled himself than another whisper arose by the window, and again the man of wisdom was importuned, this time to supply the wherewithal to deliver a favourite horse, stricken by a deadly wound, from the anguish of further existence.

"Give him this and the relief will be not long delayed," said Dr. Hi Ho, and, so, a little reassured by the benevolent intentions of this last seeker after aid, allowed himself to fall asleep.

The first light of dawn was filtering through his window when the good doctor was aroused by the sounds of voices upraised in moaning and lamentation at no very great distance.

Dr. Hi Ho arose and entered the chamber of Ting Lung. A glance sufficed to show that the noise did not proceed from that eminent and valiant one, for very plainly the heaven-aspiring steed had paid his visit, and Ting Lung was now an ancestor.

The sounds still continued, though with diminishing force. Pausing to investigate the couch of the departed chief, Dr. Hi Ho laid the finger of reflection upon the forehead of sapience, considered for a moment, then, taking a sharp sword which hung by the bedside of the newly-made ancestor, he stepped forth upon the balcony. Before the regard of his benignant and moonlike countenance lay the six brigands whom he had at first mistaken for honest, if ill-conditioned, servants and that other who had named himself Lo Yip, all with their bodies and limbs displayed after the manner of an octopus writhed upon a fisherman's harpoon.

Several had already passed to the Upper Beyond, but Lo Yip was able to turn his head and bestow upon the doctor a look charged with abundant malignity. Yet his voice, though weak, was of a persuasive and wheedling quality as he addressed Dr. Hi Ho.

"Learned and beneficent one!" he croaked. "It would seem that one of these dog-faced atrocities must have mingled with the wine with which we welcomed the coming of the Steed some substance of a not-nourishing nature. That was as it should be, for all of them are of an avaricious and low-souled character. But, by some infernal mischance, the substance has also been mingled with the wine which I had reserved for myself. I am consumed by devouring thirst, while the hidden side of my body is tormented by scorching pangs. Act quickly therefore. Give me relief, and my gratitude shall surpass that of the Emperor Tchuan Li, who bestowed upon the physician who cured him of a death-inducing dose of deleterious substance the revenues of the province of Kiang-Si. Celerity is indicated. Exercise it!"

"The fee promised is generous, yet it sometimes happens that, in a meritorious and urgent desire to avoid dissolution, the patient promises more than he can reasonably perform. Be explicit, therefore. Already I perceive more than one steed approaching with saddle ready to receive an aspiring passenger to the upper atmospheres."

"I know where the late Ting Lung kept the accumulated pickings of a long and highly remunerative career! All shall be yours. Cure me!" moaned Lo Yip.

Dr. Hi Ho regarded him with a benevolent smile, but slowly and emphatically shook his head.

"Far be it from me, an innocent and often cloudy-minded healer of bodies, to refuse the assistance of my art!" he murmured. "Yet the hour strikes when the most gifted must fold the hands of resignation and bid the patient consider the joys that inevitably await him in the superior ethereality. Consider, oh, Lo Yip, the pleasures that await—"

"But the treasures of Ting Lung are worth an incredible sum. Without my aid they will be of no avail to you!" howled Lo Yip.

The moonlike and beneficent countenance of Dr. Hi Ho became even more suffused with that glow which comes of interior benevolence.

"Eminent and aspiring one, know that this person, though of a lowly and slow-moving intellect, has yet sufficient perspicacity to perceive that the bed of the late amiable Ting Lung has a double bottom, well secured by a cunning lock. Also he has perceived a key chained upon the wrist of the departed. He opines that, by the exercise of his despicable mental powers, he may even discover the treasure of Ting Lung without your assistance."

Lo Yip's contorted face assumed an aspect of incredible ferocity. His mouth opened wide, doubtless to allow a stream of idle yet venomous abuse to issue forth. But before the words could issue he was seized by a violent convulsion which deprived him of the power of speech, and a few moments later had ascended the saddle of the invisible Purveyor of Paradise.

Dr. Hi Ho watched the passing with professional interest, then considered the situation.

"The magistrate of Sen Yang would doubtless bestow a fitting reward for the heads of eight notorious and greatly-desired brigands," he murmured. "Yet doubtless also he would be moved to inquire whence had gone the riches which they had accumulated by industrious application of their profession. Avarice is chief of the seven superior vices. I will eschew it."

With that inward feeling of well-being which the practice of renunciation alone can bestow, he turned to the bed of the departed Ting Lung. An hour later, riding an excellent horse, recently adorned by the brigand chief, and driving his own heavily laden steed before him, Dr. Hi Ho departed from that place.

"Inscrutable are the decrees of the High Ones!" he mused as he took the road for Sen Yang. "By the diligent practice of the healing art for ten years I have accumulated far less than has been bestowed upon me in a single night by the efforts of well-meaning, if uninstructed, practitioners. It is weary work riding the roads in weather too often inclement. Permanence of situation is abundantly indicated. The city of Sen Yang is large and has many wealthy inhabitants whose bodies need the continuous care of a well-instructed physician. A small house, a large servant, and a well-considered wife to bestow upon me the blessings of numerous son-offsprings are at last within the bounds of realizable possibility. Hasten, therefore, bearer of felicity."

And kicking his horse to a trot, Dr. Hi Ho rode smiling on his way.

____________________

10: A King In Babylon?

Gwyn Evans

1898-1938

Australian Worker (Sydney) 15 August 1928

'CUNARD' CASSIDY hummed a gay little tune as he emerged from the Hotel Majestic. He sniffed the bracing sea air with keen enjoyment and strolled leisurely along Seahampton's new £200,000 promenade.  He felt and looked like a million dollars. That was part of Cassidy's charm. With his well-cut tweeds, dove-grey hat, slightly curved pull-over, he looked precisely what he wasn't, a well-to-do business man on holiday at that popular South Coast resort.

'Cunard,' as he was known to his intimates, had come to Seahampton to look round for a little 'chicken food.' An unfortunate contretemps with the purser on the S.S. Carolia when she docked. at Liverpool caused Cassidy to relinquish, with sorrow his favorite pastime of Transatlantic crossing for a while.

Cassidy was one of the slickest 'broadsmen' who ever worked the liners on the Lindbergh Lake. With his affluent air, charming manners, and likeable smile, he was naturally popular, with the Middle-West millionaires who fancied themselves at cards. Unfortunately, that popularity wore off when the liners' berthed, and they paid over their losses to Cassidy. The Carolia affair, however, decided Cassidy to seek fresh mugs and piecans new; hence he sunned himself on the promenade.

It was a beautiful day. For once Seahampton looked like the blue and gold posters that advertised its attractions on the dingy railway stations. Pretty girls, with silk-clad legs and zephyr frocks brought an indulgent smile to the jovial face of Cassidy as they passed like butterflies in the sunlight.

The waves rippled lazily on the beach. Youths in blazers and white flannels, with Byronic collars and Byronic smiles, floated flapperwards. Cassidy beamed benevolently and strolled on the pier.

Nobody knew him in Seahampton. He felt a little lonely as yet. He had located no one to whom he could 'tell the tale,' and a slight furrow creased his brow. An orchestra played a haunting melody, and Cassidy sat down in a deck , chair. Next to him he observed a fat woman with a bag of nuts in her ample lap and a faluous smile on her dough-like features. From the creases of her fleshy neck an enormous necklace of imitation pearls peeped coyly. She wore a jumper that made Cassidy blink and a hat of monstrous proportions in which a cluster of red cherries rattled as she munched.

Cassidy shuddered, then started as the woman regarded him with glazed and fishy eyes. 'Great Scott!' he murmured, 'I know that woman!'  The shock almost paralysed him. He shifted uneasily in his chair, conscious only of that cod-like, placid stare.

Now Cassidy prided himself on his good memory, the one indispensable adjunct of his profession. He never forgot a face. In his varied career he had encountered thousands of people in every walk of life; from pickpockets to dukes. Yet the face of this frightful female eluded him. It was maddeningly familiar, and yet he could not place it. He racked his brains to recall in what connection he had met her. Socially, it must have been impossible, and yet— every contour of that pasty, pudding-like face was indelibly impressed on Cassidy's retentive memory.

A cold chill gripped him. Was he losing his memory? Was that the reason the purser had spotted him aboard the Carolia?  It was a terrible and unnerving thought. With a shiver Cassidy forced himself to look at the woman again. She beat time to the music with a pudgy hand, and seemed quite oblivious of his presence.

'Where the devil have I seen her before?' muttered the con. man irritably. Mentally he reviewed all the fat women he had ever met— from Flossie Boyd, the music-hall star, to Dowager-Lady Ditchington, with whom he had once played bridge. He thought of every barmaid and landlady he had ever met. In vain.

The nut-muncher fitted in no category, and Cassidy groaned aloud.

'Gosh!' he muttered, 'my mind's going.' That face is as familiar as my own mother's. I've seen this woman scores of times, but where?' The effort was too much for Cassidy.  With dull foreboding at his heart he strode over to the pier bar and ordered a whisky and soda.

'This won't do,' said Cassidy.  'It's all wrong.'

He felt that maddening sense, of irritation of being on the verge of remembering, yet at the crucial moment the memory refused to clarify.

Moodily he glanced, round the bar. Sitting in the corner with a glass of beer was a meek-looking little man with a straggly, sandy moustache, watery blue eyes, and a seedy bowler hat. He gazed incuriously at Cassidy, then resumed his drink.

Cassidy mopped his forehead with an unsteady hand.

'My God! I know him, too!' he muttered. 'My, brain's gone— that's what!' He was shaken, badly shaken. This was more than coincidence. Twice in one morning Cassidy had met two people whose, faces were perfectly familiar, yet he could recall nothing, else, about them. Not a vestige of a clue lingered in  his brain. It was terrible.

The future loomed dark and gloomy in front of Cassidy. To a con. man a failing memory meant prison. Desperately he struggled to recapture the past.  Was the little man a crook? He didn't look like one. A detective? Cassidy laughed bitterly. He knew nearly every 'busy' in England, and not one looked like the man in the corner.

Out of the ta'il of his eye he saw the little, man leave, and unobtrusively he followed, still racking his brains for a clue to his identity. But then— it happened.

The little man stopped by the dough-faced woman and smiled.

'Very refreshing, my dear,' he said I meekly. 'Dear me, I've got quite- an appetite, Maria.'

The fat woman beamed and pointed to a chair.

'Sit down, Henry; wait till the music's over. 'Ave a nut!'

Cassidy sank into an adjacent seat and stared with brooding eyes at the couple. The little man's name was Henry. Maria was obviously his wife. But Henry what?

Rapidly he reviewed all the Henrys he had ever heard, of, from the King Who Never Smiled Again to Henry Ford. In vain. The seedy little man fitted nowhere. Cassidy felt like a haunted man. Either his memory was going or— he shivered— there must be something in this reincarnation business.

He repeated his multiplication tables. No. There was no mistake. He remembered them perfectly. A queer, superstitious fear gripped him. That was it. Reincarnation! Somewhere, in some past life, he had met the dough-faced woman and her husband. There was no other explanation possible. He felt he had known them all his life. Every lineament of their commonplace features was familiar. He felt an odd impulse to stroll over to them.

How did the lines go?

'When you were a King in Babylon and I was a Christian slave.'

He could, picture the fat woman's sniggers and the rattle of the monstrous cherries in her hat if he quoted it to her.

'This won't do,' said Cassidy, 'I've simply got to find out or I shall be haunted to the rest of my days.'

The band was playing a Viennese waltz, and, bracing himself for the ordeal, Cassidy strode over, raised his hat and smiled. He felt incredibly foolish beneath the fat woman's glazed stare.

'Pardon me, haven't we met before somewhere, sir?' he said blandly.

The little man blushed and stammered. 'Er— er— no, sir, I can't say as we 'ave. Wot do you say, Maria?'

The fat, woman, giggled. 'No, I can't rekerlect seein' this gentleman before.'

Cassidy for once -in his life was nonplussed. He bowed awkwardly, murmured an apology and passed oh.

'Good heavens!' he muttered. 'That must be it. I've met 'em before in some past life.'

He recalled his talks with a Buddhist on the subject of reincarnation and somehow he felt afraid. The sunny morning seemed bleak and drear as he retraced his steps to his hotel.  The mystery of the two commonplace trippers had stirred him profoundly.

In the lounge he picked up a newspaper and tried to read, but the whole page was a blur.  He was haunted by elusive memories.

Suddenly, out of the swirling mist of type, two faces seemed to stand out. They struck Cassidy like a blow, between the eyes.

It was the photograph of a fat woman and a meek little man, ornamenting a double-column advertisement. Cassidy stated in amazement. For months that photograph and advertisement had appeared regularly in all the newspapers, testifying to the supreme merits of 'Bloggo.'

He read it now with a beating heart.

'Mr and Mrs. Miggs, of The Larches, Corporation terrace, Tootham, write:  "For years my wife and I suffered from Bad Legs and Varicose Veins. We spent pounds on doctors' fees without any result, until one day a friend recommended 'Bloggo." '

Cassidy flung down the paper and laughed shakily.

'Waiter!' he bellowed. 'A double whisky and splash!'

___________________

11: Death, The Knight, And The Lady

A Ghost Story

H. de Vere Stacpoole

Novella, 1897

Ballad of the Arras

Lo! where are now these armoured hosts

Mailed for the tourney câp-a-pie,

These dames and damozelles whose ghosts

Make of the past this pagentry?

O sanguine book of History!

Romance with perfume cloaks thy must,

But he who shakes the page may see

—Dust.

Stiff hangs the arras in the gloom;

I turn my head awhile to gaze:

Here lordly stallions fret and fume,

Here streams o'er briar and brake the chase.

Here sounds a horn, here turns a face,

How filled with fires of life and lust!

Wind shakes the arras and betrays

—Dust.

Ephemeral hand inditing this

Great hound that lolls against my knee,

Lips pursed in thought as if to kiss

Regret— full soon the time must be.

When one shall search, but find not ye,

For that dim moth whose labours rust

All forms in time or tapestry

—Dust.

Forth offspring to the perch and then

Clap wings— or fall, if find you must

This saddest fate of books or men

—Dust.

Prologue

I HAD ALMOST forgotten James Wilder's existence, when, one night in June, I received an urgent message asking me to call upon him without delay.

An hour later I was sitting in his library, and in the arm-chair opposite mine was sunk what seemed the spectre of my friend. During the ten months that had elapsed since our last meeting he had passed from middle life to premature old age.

"I am glad you have come," he said, "I am in need of a friend, but do not speak to me yet, that is, for a moment, I wish to think."

His eyes fell from me to the carpet, he seemed watching something, and his thin lips were curled in a ghostly smile.

The room was hot and oppressive, flowers were heaped everywhere in profusion, and the large wood fire burning in the grate mixed its faint aromatic smell with the perfume of the roses and tube-roses lolling in their porcelain bowls.

I sat watching the burning logs and thinking. I had known Wilder for some years, I had been his intimate friend, but how much did I know really about him? Not much. I had dined with him, talked with him, exchanged opinions; I knew that he was wealthy, that he owned a house somewhere in the country, to which he never invited friends, and of which I had heard rumours needless to set down here. That he was an opium eater I knew, and that was the extent of my knowledge of the man.

Of the being who existed behind that careworn, weary face, I knew absolutely nothing, but I had always guessed it to be occupied with some secret trouble, pressed upon by some sin or sorrow of which it dared not speak; also, by some freak of imagination, I had always coupled this imaginary sorrow of Wilder's with that house in the country of which I had received so many mysterious hints.

Suddenly I started from my reverie. Wilder was speaking.

"Ah, my dear——, I have been trying to brace myself for the effort, but I cannot, I cannot; what I have to ask of you, you will do without question if you are my friend, but to speak of it all, to go over that terrible ground, oh! impossible, impossible, impossible."

His voice died away into a whisper, and he struck with his thin hand on the arm of his chair, as if beating time to some dreary tune heard by him alone.

"What I ask of you is this, to start as soon as possible for my place in Yorkshire, and to see carried out after the fashion I desire, the obsequies of a man— I mean, a woman— who is lying there dead."

Again his voice sank to a whisper, his eyes turned from mine evasively, and he covered them with one of his thin white hands.

A man— I mean a woman— what did he mean?

"Will you do this?"

"Yes, I will do as you ask; it seems strange, no matter, I will do it."

"You take a load from me. Ah, my dear——, if you could only guess what I have suffered, the terrors, the tortures, the nameless misery. I ought to be at the grave side when this terrible burial— Oh, how my head wanders, I have scarcely the power of thought, but say it once again, you will do what I ask, promise me that again."

"Yes, yes, I promise, set your mind at rest—I will do what you require."

"You will start, then, at once?"

"To-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow early, to-morrow early; and now as to what you are to do. Listen, at Ashworth, near my place, there lives a man who works in granite, you will get him to cut a memorial tablet. These words are to be upon it, they are written on this piece of paper, take it; the body is to be buried in the vault of the little church in the park; remember it is to be interred dressed exactly as I have ordered it to be dressed, this is my chief reason for asking you to attend the last ceremonies. I dare not leave this matter to the hands of servants, and I— may not go myself, I am broken down with ill-health and sorrow, and the journey would kill me, though, indeed, I am dying fast enough."

His eyes were wandering again, as if following some imaginary spectre about the room. I looked at the piece of paper, on it was written—

"Sir Gerald Wilder, Knt.

Rest in Peace."

Sir Gerald Wilder! why, a moment ago he said "a woman." What mystery was in this? And then, "Rest in Peace," it sounded like a command.

"The coffin is ordered," broke out Wilder, suddenly seeming to return to this world from the world of his imagination. "The coffin is made, promise me again, you will go."

"I will go."

The next morning I started for Ashworth, in Yorkshire, to fulfil my strange mission. I had asked no more of Wilder, content to act without question, which is the first office of friendship. I started early, and arrived at Ashworth shortly after three o'clock. A carriage was waiting to take me to the Gables. The weather was exquisite, and the moors over which the white road led us stretched on either side, far as the eye could reach, like a rolling sea under the blue summer sky and hot June sun. The rocking motion sent me to sleep. When I woke the wheels were crashing on gravel, and the carriage was passing swiftly through a long, dark avenue.

This was, then, the Gables, this great old-fashioned gloomy house, with a broad portico supported on fluted granite pillars, facing the broad park dotted with clumps of trees, so broad and so far-reaching that the deer in the furthermost parts were reduced to moving specks.

The door was opened by an ill-looking servant-maid, whose sour and crabbed face struck an unpleasant note against the old-fashioned and romantic surroundings.

The great hall, oak-panelled, and lit by stained glass windows, hid amongst its other treasures an echo, whose dreamy voice repeated my footsteps with a sound like the pattering of a ghost. I stood for a moment, my heart absorbing the silence of this place, so far removed from the spirit of to-day. The air held something, I know not what, it seemed like an odour left from the perfumed robes of Romance.

I heard a sound behind me, and turning, I saw an old servant man with silvery white hair. He showed me to my room, and I kept him whilst I explained fully my business.

He listened respectfully, but like a person who had ceased to take any interest in life. When I had finished, I asked him to take me to the room where the dead person lay.

He led the way down a corridor, opened a door, and stood aside whilst I entered. I found myself in a bedroom hung with rose-coloured silk; the window was open, and through it came the warm evening breeze and the far-off cawing of rooks.

On the bed I saw a form, but I could scarcely believe that what I saw was real. Stretched upon the snow-white coverlet lay the body of a cavalier, full-dressed in amber satin doublet and long buff-coloured riding-boots, his hair long, curling, and black as night, surrounded a face pale as marble and beautiful as a woman's. His white right hand, peeping from its lace ruffle, grasped the hilt of a sword, his left hand grasped a silver trumpet. Attached to the trumpet a crimson silk cord streaked the coverlet like a thin and tortuous stream of blood. He seemed to have stepped from the pages of romance, and to have laid himself down here to rest. I trembled as I looked, feared to stir lest he should wake, yet I well knew him to be dead. I might have fancied myself in a dream but for the far-off clamour of the rooks coming through the evening sky outside and the sound of my own heart beating.

Was it a man? was it a woman? the face might have done for either, yet it was the most beautiful face I had ever beheld, the most romantic, the most pathetic. Then recollection woke up, and I shuddered. This, then, was Sir Gerald Wilder. This form, more beautiful than a picture, was the sorrow of James Wilder, the thing that had driven him to opium, the thing that had broken his heart and crowned him with premature old age. How? Why? I dared scarcely think.

I stole from the room. In the passage I found the old man-servant waiting for me; he shut the door softly, and I followed him back to my own room. There I took his arm and looked in his face.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"I dursn't tell you, sir; oh, sir, my heart be gone with the sorrow of it all, but if you wish, I will bring the book that he was always a-writing in for these months past."

"Yes, get the book, please, at once: no thank you, nothing to eat yet, I wish to see the book first."

He went, and returned with a large, old-fashioned common-place book, the leaves of which were covered with writing. It was a woman's hand.

I took it down stairs, and went with it into the garden.

There, on a seat in the middle of an old Dutch garden, very prim, very silent, where the sunlight fell upon the faces of the amber and purple pansies, and the great white carnations shook their ruffles to the wind with a dreamy and seventeenth century air, I sat and read this story, written by the hand of a dead cavalier who craves, through me, your sympathy for his deathless sorrow.

THE BOOK

1: I Describe Myself

I CANNOT tell you my story unless I tell you who I am and what I am. Oh, it is not for pleasure that I am writing all this down, but just because I— must.

My name is Beatrice Sinclair, and I am the last representative of an old and ruined family. There were Sinclairs in the time of King Charles who were great people at Court— you must accept the statement, for I cannot write much about this family of mine, the very thought of it fills me with a kind of horror. What would all those men with long flowing hair, those women with patches on their faces,— what would they say if they could see me, the last of their race, and could know what I have been?

Perhaps you guess what I mean, perhaps you are sneering at me; you can do so if you please, for I am so very ill that I care for nothing now, and they say I am dying. I know now, oh, I know well why an animal crawls away and hides itself to die: though I am only twenty-three I know more about death than those Egyptians who have been shut up in pyramids alone with him for a thousand years.

From the window where I am sitting now, wrapped up in shawls, I can see the garden; the frost has gone, and I can see a yellow crocus that has pushed its head up through the dark, stiff mould. If it knew what I know of life, it would draw that head back.

You must think me a very gloomy person, and indeed just now I am, for I am thinking of a part of my history of which I shall not speak, but only hint.

Some time, no matter how long ago, I was living at the Bath Hotel. I had plenty of clothes and money, and I thought I was in love. Well, one day I found myself deserted, I found a letter on the breakfast table enclosing a blue strip of paper— a cheque for two hundred pounds. I did not scream and tear my hair as a girl I know said she did when she was deserted, I believe I laughed.

I went to the theatre that night alone, and everybody stared at me. I was beautiful then, I am nearly as beautiful now, but it was only on that night that I first fully recognised how beautiful I was, I could see it in the faces of the men who looked at me, and in the manner of the women,— how women hate one another! and yet some women have been very good to me.

Well, when I got home I found supper waiting for me, and after supper I looked at myself again in the long pier glass opposite the fireplace; then a strange feeling came over me that I had never felt before, I felt a thirst to be admired, I say thirst, for it was so, it was really in the back of my throat that this feeling came, but it was in my head as well; it was not the admiration of ordinary people that I wanted; I craved to see some being as lovely as myself turn its head to gaze at me.

Oh! my beautiful face, how I loved you, oh! the nights I have woken up shivering to think of the dissecting rooms where they take the bodies of the people who have no friends.

At the end of six months my two hundred pounds were nearly gone. I lived innocently, I lived in a kind of dream. Men filled me with a kind of horror, when they looked at me in the streets I shuddered; I shudder still, and I wonder why God ever made such a blind and cruel thing as man.

I moved into furnished rooms: all this is misty now in my mind. If I had died then I might never have gone to heaven, but I would never have seen hell. I got typhoid fever; my rings lay on the dressing table, hoops of sapphires and emeralds; each fortnight a ring went to pay for my rooms and the doctor, who seemed never able to cure me.

I cannot tell you much after this, I can only say that I struggled, mad with pride and mad with hatred. I starved, but why should I pain you, and make more sad a story that is already sad enough?

2: James Wilder

IT IS about six months ago. I was in a very bad way. I was walking along the south side of Russell Square one day— the 17th of September I remember now— and thinking to myself how I should pay my landlady the three weeks' rent owing to her.

Deeply as I was trying to think I could not help noticing a man coming towards me, striding along with his hat tilted back from his forehead, his head in the air, and looking just like a person walking in his sleep. I made way to let him pass, then suddenly I felt him grasp me by the arm and I heard him say "Ah!"

I knew at once— how shall I put it— that he only wanted to speak to me, that he had mistaken me for someone he knew, and as I looked in his face I did not feel a bit afraid, although his face was strange enough, goodness knows.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Jane Seymour," I replied, for it was my name, at least the name I went under.

"Ah!" he said, and his hand fell from my arm. I never saw a person look so disappointed as he looked just then; I heard him muttering something like "always the same, disappointment, death," then he turned to go, and I broke into tears.

I was hungry and I had no money; he had seemed almost friendly, and now he was going— I could scarcely speak, I leaned up against the railings, I remember trying to hide a hole in my glove, for I had determined on telling him my real name.

"Well?" he said, "Well?"

"My name is Beatrice Sinclair," I answered; "that is my real name."

Then I stopped crying, for I was absolutely frightened, such a change came over this strange man; two large tears ran down his face, he clasped his hands together with the fingers across the backs of each hand, and I thought for one moment that he was a lunatic, then somehow I knew that he was not.

"Beatrice Sinclair," he muttered to me in a low voice, as if afraid of someone else hearing him, "Beatrice Sinclair, oh, Beatrice! the time I have been searching for you, the three weary years, the nights of terror; but it is over now, thank God! thank God."

I felt very strange as he said all this. I knew well that this man was not in love with me; I had no relations, so he could not be a relation, and yet I knew in a horribly certain kind of manner that he knew me, that he had been searching for me, and—had found me.

A hansom cab was passing, he hailed it and we both got in, then I heard him giving directions to the driver, "No.— Berkeley Square," he said, "and drive quick."

"You look pale and sick," that was the only thing he said during our drive. But the way in which he said it was very queer. He did not seem in the least to care whether I was pale or sick, and yet he had seemed so glad to find me, "Can he be mad after all?" thought I.

The cab stopped at a large house in Berkeley Square, and we got out; he gave the driver half-a-sovereign, and without waiting for the change went up the steps, and opened the door with a latch-key; "Come on," he said, beckoning to me, and I followed.

We entered a great hall with a floor of polished oak; I saw jars of flowers standing here and there, and idols half hidden by palms and long feathery grasses.

He opened a door and motioned me to enter a room, and I went in, feeling horrible in my shabby clothes amongst all this splendour.

It was a library. He told me to sit down, and I sat in a great easy-chair, looking about me whilst he went to a window, and stood for nearly a minute looking out, jingling money in his pocket, but not speaking a word.

—Oh, this writing makes my head ache so, and this cough, cough, cough, that tears me from morning till night!—

Well, he stood at the window without speaking, and I kept trying to hide my boots under my skirt; but I looked about me, and noticed everything in the room at the same time.

The books were all set in narrow bookcases, and between the bookcases there were spaces occupied by pictures, and I never had seen such strange pictures before. They were just like pictures of ghosts, beautiful faces nearly all of them, but they seemed like faces made out of mist, if you understand me. Over the mantelpiece stood a portrait of an old man with grey hair, and on the gold frame of this picture was written in black letters the name, "Swedenborg."

At last my companion turned from the window, wheeled a chair close to me, and sat down.

"Now," he said, "I want you to tell me all you know about your family. I want to make perfectly sure that you are the person for whom I have been seeking. Tell me unreservedly, it will be to your advantage."

He had taken his gloves off now, and I saw that his hands, very white and delicate-looking, were absolutely covered with the most exquisite rings.

"Mine is a very old family," I said. "We lived once in a castle in the North of England, Castle Sinclair."

"Yes, yes."

"My father was an officer. He was very extravagant. He died in India. I was sent to school in England, then I became a governess— then— then—"

"You need not tell me the rest," he said, "I know it. Yes, you are indeed Beatrice Sinclair."

He looked at me in a gloomy manner. Then: "You have spoken frankly," he said, "and I shall do the same. My name is James Wilder."

He paused, and looked at me hard, but I said nothing.

"Ah!" he continued, "you know nothing of the past, then? Perhaps it is better so, but I must tell you some of it, so that you may do what I require you to do. Listen. In the reign of King Charles the First a terrible tragedy happened. A member of the Wilder family did a fearful wrong upon a member of the Sinclair family. No family feud took place, because Gerald Wilder, who had committed this wrong, expiated it by suicide, but a blind, reasonless, unintentional feud has been going on between the two houses ever since. The house of Sinclair has warred with our family in a strange and fearful manner. All the eldest sons of our house have been slain before the age of twenty by— a Sinclair. My eldest brother was slain by your father's brother."

"My father's brother?"

"Yes, they were out shooting together. My brother was shot dead by your uncle. It was an accident; no one was to blame, but fate. Now the fortunes of the two families have been altering during all these years. The house of Wilder is at its zenith. Speaking in a worldly sense, I am worth at least fifty thousand a year, at least, and the house of Sinclair?— you are its last representative, how much are you worth?"

"Less than nothing."

"Let us be friends then, let us be friends," said Wilder, in a voice full of supplication. How strange it sounded to hear a man like this, wealthy and great, asking for my friendship. "Let us be friends,— the two last representatives of these great houses must forgive each other. Love can heal this awful wound, and the house of Wilder shall not be extinct. Oh, God is great and good, he will sanction this love even though you are what you are."

He was walking up and down the room as he spoke. "Does he want me to love him?" I thought.

Then he stopped.

"You have no money?"

"None."

He went to a desk and drew out a cheque-book, scribbled for a moment, tore off a cheque, and brought it to me.

I looked at it: it was a cheque on the British Linen Company's Bank for five hundred pounds. I felt just as if I were drunk, the books in the cases seemed to dance.

"This can't be for me," I remember saying; "or do you want me to do some dreadful thing, that you offer me all this money—"

I stopped, for he was smiling at me such a melancholy, kind smile, it told me at once that I had nothing to fear from him. He called me "child," and took my hand and kissed it— I felt so ashamed of my glove, but he did not seem to notice the holes in it, nor how old it was.

"Yes," he said, "the money is for you; you must buy yourself beautiful clothes and some jewellery. I am going to send you to the north of England, to do what has to be done. You must start on the day after to-morrow; have no fear, I wish you to do nothing sinful or wrong, but rather the best work mortal ever did; you shall be provided for. I will set aside a fund for you under trustees; it is an act of piety, not charity, for in saving the last of the Sinclairs from want I am doing an act which may expiate the sin our house committed. Beatrice Sinclair, you shall never want again, never be cold or hungry."

I was crying like a child. When I could cry no more he began speaking again.

"You must stay in this house until you start, that is, if you please. My carriage shall take you to all the shops you require to visit; by the way, spend all that money on clothes. I will give you a note to the jewellers with whom I deal in Bond Street, and you can supply yourself with all the jewellery you require; don't think about the expense. You are beautiful by nature, but I wish you to be as beautiful as art can make you. Then, again, you will require dressing-bags and portmanteaux, and such things. I will give you a note to the best firm in London. I need not speak to you on matters of taste; you are a lady— I only say this, spare no expense. Is that cheque sufficient?"

"More than sufficient." I felt dazed and strange. Did he intend to marry me? Why was he sending me to the north of England? But it was delightful, I could not describe my feelings.

"Now you must have some food," he said, getting up and moving to the door as he spoke. "Come with me to the dining-room."

2: A Sound Which Reminds Me Of My Past

THE TABLE was laid for luncheon in the dining-room, and as I took my seat at a place he pointed out, he went to a speaking tube and whistled down it. Then I heard him ordering the carriage to be ready in an hour. "Will that suit you?" he asked, looking at me.

"Yes," I replied. I was laughing now. Oh, life had turned so in a moment from awfulness to loveliness. I never pinched myself to feel if I were in a dream or not. I have read about that in stories, and I think it's stupid, besides, I did not want to wake up if it was a dream. I did not want to talk either, I was too happy.

I thought of the dinner I had yesterday. I could not remember what it was, then I remembered I had not dined yesterday at all; I had lent my last shilling to Jessie, who lives in the room below mine; she had sworn to pay me back in the evening if she was lucky, and then she came back drunk at twelve o'clock, swearing like a soldier, poor Jessie—

Wilder ate very little and spoke scarcely at all, I think the only thing he said in the way of conversation was "I never have servants in the room when I am eating;" and I said to myself, "Thank goodness." Just imagine how I would have felt if one of those dreadful men-servants had been gliding about the room,— my wristbands all frayed, my hands not very clean, for those cheap gloves dye one's hands, and my collar crumpled.

Wilder wanted to open me some champagne, but I said no. I thought he looked pleased. He had a decanter before him, and he poured himself out a glass from it.

"I don't ask you to take this," he said in an apologetic sort of manner; "because it would— well a glass of it would kill you, it's opium, I am used to it— all the worry I have had—" His head sunk on his breast, and I felt sorry for him, though he was so rich and lived in such a beautiful house. After a moment he looked up— we had finished eating.

"Gerald," he said, "I want you to be happy; poor soul, you have suffered too, but perhaps it is for the best."

"Why do you call me Gerald?" I asked, staring at him. A dreamy look had come over his strange face, perhaps it was the opium.

"Did I call you Gerald?" he said, "well, you will know why soon, I want you to be happy."

He rose from the table. "Come," he said, "I will show you to your room."

I followed him into the hall, then up a great broad staircase carpeted with soft fleecy carpet; on the first landing he opened a door.

"This is your room," he said, "you will find everything you require; when you are ready come downstairs and you will find the carriage waiting."

He shut the door on me, and I found myself alone.

It was a small, but beautifully furnished bedroom. A fire was burning in the grate; on the bed lay a great sealskin cloak, perfectly new. It was evidently intended for me, I tried it on before the glass, it reached to my feet, hiding all my shabby clothes. Then I took it off and laid it on the bed again. I looked at the floor beside the fireplace. There, in a row, stood a number of ladies' boots and shoes, different sizes; a wardrobe stood open, I looked in, dresses of dark silk and satin, bonnets, hats; on the dressing-table great ivory hair brushes, gloves, handkerchiefs, scent bottles of cut glass, a curling tongs and spirit lamp which was lit, a little strip of paper on which was written, "Help yourself to whatever you require."

I could have cried again, but somehow I didn't. I looked all round, and then I remember lifting up my arms to stretch myself, why I did so I don't know.

Then, as I began undressing, I laughed, I spoke to the things in the room just like a child, I asked questions of the little silver clock on the mantelpiece— oh, those hideous old boots I had worn so long, they seemed to make faces at me as I took them off. I flung them in a corner.

In an alcove stood a great bath; I turned the tap, shaped like a dragon's head, and the water roared and foamed into the bath through the dragon's mouth; I smelt the water, I tasted it, it was sea water; in a minute the bath was full.

The luxury of it! the warm briny water that let one's limbs float loose like seaweed. I pretended to drown myself for fun, then I turned over on my face, floating, and seized the dragon's head in both hands.

Then, as I lay floating, I listened to the far away sound I knew so well— the distant roar of carts and cabs in the streets.

I sprang out of the bath in a fury. I had never thought of it before like this, now I saw all the wretchedness that I had gone through, saw it all a million times more clearly than I had ever done when I was in it. Oh, the vile world, I could have eaten it, eaten it.

Then I caught a glimpse of my naked figure in the long glass. I was beautiful as ever, my limbs were white as snow. I whirled round, and my long black hair flew out in a mist, scattering drops of water everywhere.

Yes, I was even more beautiful than before, my troubles had given my face more expression; my teeth were perfect— Jessie's teeth were broken— Jessie. I would be revenged yet. I leaned on my side before the great glass, gazing at myself as gloomily as a thunder-cloud. I would be revenged on this world. Why had God created such a place, and the clergymen whining about heaven, and the doctors who took a poor girl's rings, and— I smelt a subtle perfume, and turning, I saw a great bunch of violets standing in a little bowl in the corner.

I don't know why, but they made me feel choky, and I remember taking them to me and kissing them, and putting them back.

Then I dried myself in a huge towel, and dressed. I laughed at the curling tongs, and blew the little lamp out— my hair did not want curling tongs. I laughed to think of the frights of women going about with their noses in the air, who had to curl their heads.

One of the bonnets in the wardrobe fitted me perfectly. I could have chosen a hat, but I preferred this bonnet. I put on the sealskin cloak. Then, taking the bunch of violets with the stalks all dripping, I put it in my breast.

Wilder was standing in the hall as I came down the great staircase. He smiled at the violets as if he were pleased.

"You look very well," he said, passing, as he spoke, into the library, where I followed him. "Now, here are three letters I have written—one to the jewellers, this one to the portmanteau people, and this to Coutts' bank. Drive first to Coutts', give them this letter and my cheque on the British Linen Company. They will open an account with you, small as the sum is, because they know me very well; they will give you a cheque book, and you can give cheques to your milliners and people—poor Beatrice, I want you to be happy." I felt horrible for a moment as he said this. It was said in such a supplicatory tone, as if he wanted to propitiate me, as if I were some evil thing he feared, and he had said it before just in the same voice, "Poor Beatrice, I want you to be happy."

How this story is lengthening out. I thought I could have told it all in three or four pages, and now look, thirty pages— and yet I want to make it as long as possible. Can you guess what I say to the old doctor who comes to see me every day? I ask him, does he know how long I will live? and he shakes his head and says something about "the hands of Providence." No, I answer, not the hands of Providence, but these hands— when they have finished writing what they have to write I shall die. I know it.

4: Instructions Performed

THEN WILDER opened the hall door and I saw a splendid carriage and pair drawn up, the horses champing and flinging white foam about from their mouths. Wilder came down the steps and helped me in, the tall footman shut the door, and I heard Wilder's voice saying to the coachman, "Coutts'."

Gracious! all the things I thought of as the carriage drove into Oxford Street. It was an open landau, and I wondered that everyone did not stop to stare at me. How strange all the people that were walking seemed, just like mean things that had no business with life; how sweet the violets smelt in my bosom.

How nice Wilder was, not a bit good looking, but so different from the men I had mostly known. He was a gentleman, one could tell that just by his easy and languid voice; and what a hold I had upon him. And this journey to the north, I had a presentiment that it was to be strange, but how could I have told how strange, how beautiful it was to be?

Then the carriage stopped at Coutts', and the tall footman opened the door and touched his hat as I got out. I gave them Wilder's letter and my cheque, and they gave me in return a cheque book.

The next place we stopped at was the Bond Street jewellers. These are the rings I bought, see, they are on my fingers now. I never cared for diamonds. I love colour. My rings are mostly half hoops of sapphires, emeralds, and rubies; they would be vulgar only they are so glorious, and then my hands are so beautiful that you scarcely notice the rings: that was what Geraldine said. Good God! these tears will choke me: if I could only cry, but I can't, it all comes at the back of my throat, like a dull, heavy pain.

Then we drove to the other shop in Bond Street, where they sell travelling bags. I chose the most expensive I could find, a hundred and ten pounds I think it was. All the bottles had heavy gold tops, and I ordered my initials to be put on them. I ordered portmanteaux as well, and the man said everything would be ready next day by six in the evening, initials and all.

It was dark when we got to Redfern's, but that did not matter, for I had no colours to choose; funny, wasn't it, everything I got was either white or black or grey— mourning or half-mourning. I don't know that it was so funny after all, for this kind of dress suits me. I only spent two hundred pounds on dresses; some were to be made and sent after me when I knew the address I was going to, the others were to be sent next morning to Berkeley Square. I could have died laughing at the civility of these people at Redfern's, they thought I was some great lady—and so I was.

It was eight o'clock before I got back to Berkeley Square that evening.

5: We Say Good-Bye

ALL THE NEXT day I spent in the house, most of the time in the room with Wilder. How that man depressed me. A great fire was lit in the library, and he sat over it with his hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the burning coals; the decanter of opium was standing on the mantelpiece, a wine glass beside it, and every now and then he would pour himself out a thimbleful and sip it.

That was a pleasant sight to have to sit and watch, but I didn't much care. I sat in an armchair looking at my rings and the tips of my beautiful new shoes; it was so delightful to have all these things again; and sometimes I would look at Wilder's rounded back and his shiny old coat, thinking how funny it was that he had given me all these things.

Sometimes I spoke to him and he always answered, speaking in a dreamy sort of voice. I found out that he was a spiritualist, and all the pictures about the room were "spirit faces,"— that is what he called them, all except the picture with "Swedenborg" written on it.

Then, after dinner, at about nine o'clock, he said that he must take leave of me. He took me by the hand, and the whole time he was speaking he held it, wringing it now and then till I could almost have cried out with pain. This is what he said as well as I can remember—

"I must take leave of you now. I want you to start early in the morning for Yorkshire; you will go to my country house at Ashworth,"— a long pause, and I saw the drops of sweat stand out on his forehead. " 'The Gables,' that is the name of my house. You will change at Leeds and get on a branch line; it's only an hour's journey from Leeds."

He spoke with difficulty, and caught at his breath.

"I have telegraphed for the carriage to meet you at the station."

Another pause, then speaking like a maniac, he seized both my hands.

"I am putting in your grasp the only thing I love, I am stealing a march on Fate, boldly and desperately I commit this act, if the end is mutual love all will be right. I shall pray without ceasing till we meet again, good-bye, good-bye."

He was devouring my hands with kisses; then he rushed from the room. I was almost sure now that he was mad, those spirit faces and that opium— oh, there could scarcely be a doubt. The thought pleased me somehow, it made me less afraid of something— something, I don't exactly know what, a kind of horror had been haunting me all day, a foreboding of strange and terrible things to come. We old families have these powers of second sight, at least the north country families have. "We old families," perhaps you are laughing at those words from my mouth; well— laugh.

I went up to my bedroom, and there I found the dressing bag and the portmanteaux all standing open and waiting to be packed. I felt just like a robber as I put my silks and satins, bonnets and hats, boots and shoes, in their proper places. Then I undressed and sprang into bed. I was almost tired already of my new life, my old dreams came back to me, would I meet someone nice to-morrow? Then I thought of Wilder and his spirit faces, and his round back, and his opium decanter, and I laughed till the bed shook.

And yet I liked him, this Wilder, with his strange, weary-looking face, and his cheques and carriages and horses.

I fell asleep.

6: —and I Start

I WAS wakened next morning by a knock at the door and a voice telling me that it was eight o'clock. As I jumped out of bed the very first thought that struck me was, "Shall I meet someone to-day?" It was what I was thinking when I fell asleep.

I was dressed in an hour. All my portmanteaux were packed, they only wanted strapping; and I said to myself, "The butler can do that." I was not going to spoil my hands strapping them. Then I came down stairs to the breakfast room where the butler was waiting, a grave looking man of whom I had caught a glimpse last night.

When I had finished he said the carriage was in waiting, and I asked him to have my things brought down; he said that was done already. And behold, when I reached the hall door, a carriage stood there, closed, with a basket arrangement on the top, and all my portmanteaux piled upon it. My travelling bag was inside. The footman shut the door with a snap, touched his hat again, jumped on the box, and we drove off.

I began to think whether I was a fool or not to leave Wilder. I had such a hold upon him, and now I was going I didn't know where. His country house, "The Gables," that sounded very fine, but for all that, I felt nervous at going off like this, away up to the north of England— to do what?

But it was too late to turn back now, for the carriage was entering St Pancras station.

7: North!

THE FOOTMAN got all my luggage together, and bought me a first-class ticket, and whilst he was getting me the ticket I went into the refreshment room and bought half a dozen packets of cigarettes and a little box of matches; smoking soothes my nerves.

Then I walked to the B platform, if I remember right, where the Leeds express was standing, the footman following with my dressing bag. Gracious! how civil the guard was: he made me get into a saloon carriage, and called me "my lady," and told me I could have a luncheon basket or tea if I liked, he would telegraph on to Normanton about it. I began wondering, was it my face or the footman that made him so civil, perhaps it was both— heigh-ho.

I write a fearful hand. I was never intended for an author. I'm so lazy and so weak just now, that it's almost too much trouble to dip the pen in the ink pot; however, on I must go.

There was a great fat man and a great fat woman in the saloon carriage, immensely rich, I suppose— cotton spinners or something of that sort. How these idiots stared at me out of the corners of their eyes; they had heard the old guard calling me "my lady." They would have licked my boots, those people would. I spoke to them, asked them did they object to smoking, and they said "no," both together, so I lit a cigarette. That made them certain I was a duchess. They got out at Normanton, and the guard brought me a luncheon basket, and a little tea tray, teapot and all, which he said I could take on in the carriage to Leeds; so I had luncheon, and then I had tea, and then I smoked cigarettes and dreamed, whilst the train whirled away north, north, north. Oh this north, why did I ever come here?

It was late in the day when we reached Leeds, the air was chill; it was like finding oneself in a new world. Women were standing about the platform with their heads covered with shawls; they had clogs on their feet, and one could hear them go click, clack. I gave the old guard a sovereign. I felt sorry to part with him, he seemed the last thing connecting me with the south. I felt like a lost dog. I had never felt so all that horrible time in London: that is strange, is not it? Now, when I was rich and bowed down to, I felt like a lost dog.

I had to wait two hours for the branch train, and as it left Leeds I looked out of the window. It was a vile place, all manufactories, long chimneys, furnaces, smoke.

Then, after a bit, I saw the country, all hills and twilight, dark stone walls, desolate-looking fields, and then— a shiver ran through me— I had seen this country before. Where? Never in this life. It was the first time I had ever been north.

We stopped at little tiny stations, and I felt tired as death when at last we drew up at a station with "Ashworth" on the lamps.

I put my head out of the window, and I saw a tall footman standing on the platform amongst a lot of porters, and country women with their heads covered with shawls. I beckoned to him, and he came at a run.

"Are you Mr Wilder's footman?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Oh, just see to my luggage, please," I said, getting out. I followed him to the road beside the station where a carriage was waiting, a closed carriage and pair, just like the one that had driven me to the station in London.

We passed four desolate-looking crossroads. The moon, which had risen, was lighting all the scenery round about, and I pulled down the left-hand window to get a glimpse of the view and a breath of the keen, pure air.

On a hill opposite I saw the ruins of a castle cut sharp against the sky. I had seen that castle before. Was I positive? Positive. Look! I said to myself. Look at that white zig-zag pathway down the hill, look at the hill itself. Then, as I looked, an indescribable feeling came over me, a delightful, far-away sort of feeling. It seemed dawn, bright, clear, and cold. I thought I could catch the sound of a distant horn, I thought I could feel the claws of a falcon on my wrist. I seemed riding on a horse, not as a woman rides, but as a man. I felt unutterably happy. It was the happiness of love. You understand me, I was perfectly well awake, but this feeling, how can I describe it, so dim, sweet, and far-away.

Then the carriage stopped. It seems that I had put my finger through the little ivory ring of the check-string, and had pulled it without knowing. The footman came to the window, and touched his hat.

"Can you tell me the name of that castle?" I asked. "That castle on the hill."

"Castle Sinclair, ma'am."

"Oh! drive on, please." I think I said "Drive on, please," but I cannot be sure; at all events we drove on. I was not terrified, I was dazed.

Then, through the rumbling of the carriage wheels I thought I could again catch the sound of the distant horn. I tried—how I tried—to catch the feeling of early dawn, to feel again the tiny claws of the falcon upon my wrist.

What hunting morning was that, so dim and far away? To where was I riding? With whom was I in love? And I was a man then, so it seemed to me.

8: The Dimly-Painted Face

AT LAST we stopped at a lodge. I heard someone cry "Gate," a creaking noise, and then we bowled smoothly up a long avenue thick-set with trees.

We stopped before a huge portico. Oh, that portico set with pillars. I almost sobbed. Was it to here that I had been riding with the falcon on my wrist? Look at the dull grey stone, the fluted pillars, the great oak door. Then the oaken door opened wide, a rush of lamplight filled the portico, and I saw an old butler with white hair waiting for me. As I entered the great hall set round with armour and galleries, the old butler bowed before me— he looked scared.

I did not notice him. How could I notice anything? An ordinary woman might have shrieked aloud, but I— I neither shrieked nor swooned.

I remember trying to take my gloves off, then I gave up the attempt, and followed a maid-servant up the broad staircase I knew so well, along the passage I knew so well, into a bedroom that had once been mine. I suppose you will think I am telling lies. Well, you can think so if you like, but people don't tell lies just for fun when they have a churchyard cough like mine, spitting blood every now and then, and knowing that every spot of blood is a seal on their death-warrant.

I took off my bonnet and travelling cloak, looked at myself in the cheval glass, and then came down stairs.

Supper was laid for me in the dining-room; this room I did not know, not a bit. Perhaps, after all, thought I, the whole thing is a mistake, a fancy. If I had been here before I ought to recognise the dining-room of all rooms. Then a thought struck me, and I asked the maid servant who was waiting—

"Has this room always formed part of the house; I mean, has it always been used as a dining-room?"

"Oh no, ma'am, it was built by Mr Arthur."

"Added on to the house?"

"Yes, ma'am."

That sounded queer, didn't it?

"How long ago was it built?"

"About sixty years I believe, ma'am."

Sixty years, oh, I was riding with that falcon on my wrist ages before that. Do you know that the fact of my not recognising this room impressed me more than the fact of my having recognised all the other things?

After supper I was sitting at the table thinking, when I heard someone softly entering the room behind me. I turned and saw the butler with white hair; he held a book in his hand.

"Please, ma'am, Mr Wilder asked me to give you this."

"Mr Wilder?"

"Yes, ma'am, he wrote from London."

"Thanks."

I took the book; it was bound in red morocco, and on the cover was written in gold letters the word "Pictures." Pictures, a book of pictures, just as if I were a little girl wanting amusement! Then I opened it and saw that it was only a catalogue of pictures.

Here were the dining-room pictures.

"Gerard Dow, Portrait of himself. Poussin, Nymphs bathing, &c., &c."

Here was the gallery.

"Wilder, Wilder," nothing but Wilders.

"Sir Geoffry Wilder, justice of appeal, in his robes." Stay. Here was something round which a red pencil mark had been drawn, "Portrait of Gerald Wilder and Beatrice Sinclair, No. 112."

Beatrice Sinclair— that was I. I felt trembling with excitement, all the strangeness of the last three days had got into a focus. This picture of which the name was drawn round with red was what Wilder had sent me down to see. I was going to see my own portrait, of that I felt certain. But stay, there was something more to be read.

"Gerald Wilder slew Beatrice Sinclair in a fit of passion. Why, it was never discovered. They were engaged to be married. He destroyed himself with the poisoned wine which he had given to her, drinking it from the same cup."

This was written in Wilder's scraggy hand-writing.

"Ha!" thought I, "so Gerald Wilder slew me in some past life; well, I don't bear him any grudge, he must have been a horribly wicked man though, for all that. Now, I'll ring for the butler to show me this picture."

I rang, and the old fellow came.

"Get a lamp, please. I wish to look at the picture gallery."

"The picture gallery, ma'am."

"Yes."

"It's very dark, ma'am, at this hour. Hadn't you better wait till morning?"

"No, I wish to go now."

"Very well, ma'am."

He shuffled out, and returned in a minute or so with a lamp. Then I followed him.

As he opened the oak door of the picture gallery the lamp light rushed in before us, and I saw two long walls covered with the stern faces of the dead and gone Wilders; dim and faint they all looked in the faint light, just like ghosts. We walked down the centre of the gallery. I was looking for my face amongst all these strangers, but I could not find it.

I touched the old man on the arm, "Which is the picture of Beatrice Sinclair?" He made no reply, but the lamp in his hand shook with a noise like the chattering of teeth. Then he walked to a picture set in a black ebony frame.

"This is it," he said, "see."

I noticed that he did not say ma'am, but I did not notice it much, I was so engaged with the face of this Beatrice.

At first I felt pleased, then disappointed. She was very pretty, but not in the least like me. Then, as I looked, I could scarcely believe my eyes. A dimly-painted face began to grow out of the background— a man's face, with long flowing hair; his eyes were turned towards Beatrice, they seemed also turned towards me. It was myself. This man's portrait was my portrait, the face larger and more masculine, but the same.

Then the old butler dropped the lamp, and it smashed to pieces on the floor. I thought I could hear him weeping in the darkness, but I am not sure. I felt I was in the room with a ghost, and I remember catching the old man's arm, and his leading me towards the light glimmering in from the hall.

9: Geraldine

"WELL, SUPPOSE I was once a man, suppose I was Gerald Wilder," I said to myself as I went into the library and music room, where a fire was lit, "Oh, bosh— and yet—"

I shut the library door and looked round. Thousands of books, a grand piano standing open, cigar boxes, cigarette boxes, easy chairs, turkey carpet. I lit a cigarette, and turned to the piano. I play well, but I am always too weak to play now. Here was Schuman, Chopin, everything in a classical way.

I like Chopin.

As I played I sometimes stopped to think and knock the ashes from my cigarette. The wind had risen and was blowing in gusts— oh that wind of autumn, how melancholy it sounds.

As I was playing I caught the sounds of horses' feet, then the crash of wheels upon gravel. It stopped, a carriage had drawn up at the hall door, "Could it be Wilder?"

I listened. Someone was let in. I heard the sound of voices, then everything was still. I rose from the piano and went to the door. I opened the door softly about an inch, and peeped through the crack. I saw a girl, but, as her back was towards me, I could not see her face. She was unwinding herself from a huge cloak of furs. The sallow-faced housemaid was standing waiting— I suppose for the cloak. Then I closed the door as softly as I had opened it, and sat down in one of the armchairs by the fire. I felt excited, why, I could not tell.

I was staring into the fire point blank, just as an owl stares at the sun, but I did not see the fire, I could only see the long slit-like picture, the strip of shining oak floor, the figure of the girl with her head thrown back, and her body, with its snake-like movement, winding free of the cloak.

Who was she? this girl. She had come in that carriage. She had been let in out of the autumn night. I had seen her taking off her cloak. I knew nothing more about her, so why— why did my heart become all of a sudden so fussy and fluttering like a bird disturbed in its nest, why— ah, it seemed to me that with her had been let in the far-off sound of that ghostly horn, with her had been let in the unseen falcon whose claws were now again resting upon my wrist— moving, moving, as the body they supported balanced itself uneasily, tightening now as the balance was nearly lost, loosening now as it was regained.

I sat listening. Not a sound. These great oak doors were so thick that a person might walk about in the hall and not be heard in the library. The clock on the mantel gave the little hiccup it always makes at five minutes to the hour; I looked up at the dial, it pointed to five minutes to nine.

Then a knock came to the door. I started and turned round. It was only the old butler. I felt just as if a bucket of lukewarm water had been emptied on me,— deep disappointment, why I felt so I can't tell. He wanted to know if I required anything more to eat— supper.

No, I required nothing to eat.

He stood shuffling at the door as if he wanted to say something, his dismal old face looked more troubled than ever. I thought for a moment he was going to cry. Then suddenly he shut the door and came across the room. He stood before me, twiddling a book that lay on a little table. He looked at the carpet, then at the fire, then at me, then he spoke—

"I have been in the service of the family forty and nine years, ma'am."

"Have you?" I answered, I didn't know what else to say.

"Forty and nine years come next October. Oh, ma'am, I've seen strange things in those years, and— the world's a strange place."

"It is."

"Ma'am, Miss Geraldine knows you are here, and she will come in to see you presently."

"Miss Geraldine—was—was that the young lady—I mean, was it she who arrived in the carriage just now?"

"It was, ma'am, and that's why I want to tell you. Mr James told me to tell you; it's only beknownst to Mr James and I— God help me— God help us all— Miss Geraldine— is a boy."

"A boy," I said, half rising out of my chair; "what do you say— how— how can a girl be a boy?"

"Hush, ma'am, for the love of God don't speak above your breath. People may be listening, and no one knows it, not even Miss Geraldine herself."

I was sitting now with my mouth hanging open like a trap; I must have looked the picture of a fool.

"Not even herself, God bless her sweet face, not even herself, and that's not the worst, ma'am,— she is a girl, though she's been born a boy."

The old fellow had suddenly collapsed into the easy chair opposite to me; he had taken his face between his scraggy old hands, his head was bent between his knees, the light of the lamp fell on the shiny black back of his coat. I shall never forget him as he sat there, speaking between his legs as if to someone under the chair.

"She's Beatrice Sinclair, that's who she is, and they must be blind who don't see it. Beatrice Sinclair, Beatrice Sinclair, she, the one that was killed long and ages ago by Sir Gerald. Beatrice Sinclair, whose picture is in the gallery, and that's who she is, that's who she is."

He was rocking about and droning this out like a dirge. I can tell you I felt shivering and fascinated. Then all at once he sat up and seemed to remember himself. I saw tears on his poor old face. He seemed trying to rise out of the arm chair.

"Sit down, don't get up," I said. "Tell me, for I must know, tell me exactly what you know, tell me all about it, and how it is that Miss Geraldine is— what she is."

"It was done to avoid the evil chance, ma'am."

"What do you mean?"

"You must know, ma'am, that the two houses of Sinclair and Wilder—"

"Yes, I think I know what you are going to say; you mean that the Sinclairs have always killed the eldest sons of the Wilders,— it's a kind of fate. Mr James Wilder told me all about it."

"Yes, mam, that's it. Well, when this child was born Mrs Wilder only survived the birth some two hours, and Mr James, almost mad with grief at her death, seemed like a thing gone silly; then, after some weeks, he quieted down, and all the love he had for his wife seemed to settle on this his only child. It was a boy, and that, mam, was the trouble; if it had been a girl! but no, it was a boy, and the eldest and only boy, and doomed, that was Mr James' word, I've heard him speaking it to himself as he has stood looking out of the window at the park, the one word, 'doomed— doomed.' He took me into his confidence, he said to me once, 'The Sinclairs ride through my dreams, their ghosts are round me, but they shall not have my child.' He would have gone mad, I do believe he would, only that he thought of a plan. He took me into his confidence, and between us we did it. The child's name was changed from Gerald to Geraldine, and the child was brought up as a girl. No one in the house knew; all the servants were dismissed but me, 'We are safe now,' said Mr James. Ma'am, do you know that from the lodge gates this park is surrounded by a stone wall, sixteen miles long and six feet high? it cost a mine of money, but it was built. Do you know that Miss Geraldine has never been beyond that wall? There are sixty and more miles of drives all through the park, and there the horses that draw her carriage can go at a gallop and go all day without crossing the same ground twice over. There are lakes, and fountains, and imitation rivers, and that's the world she's only known. It cost two hundred thousand pounds a-doing, but it was done. Well, ma'am, things went like a marriage bell till Miss Geraldine was past fourteen; then one day Mr James came out of the picture gallery with his face like a ghost, and he caught me by the arm so that I thought I'd have screeched with the pain of it, and he says, 'James, James, the Sinclairs have got us.' Those were his very words, and with that he led me into the gallery, right to the ebony frame with Mr Gerald's picture and the picture of Beatrice Sinclair, and there, sure enough, was the likeness. Miss Geraldine had grown the living image of Miss Beatrice Sinclair; we hadn't noticed the likeness before, but it was there, sure and sorrowful.

"After that Mr James fell away, like. He took to the opium, and took to it awful. He followed Miss Geraldine like a dog. He had it in his head that he was doomed to kill her, till, it was three years ago now, ma'am, Mr James, who had taken to spiritualism, got a message saying that the last of the Sinclairs was alive and doomed to kill the last of the Wilders, that the only chance was to bring them together and leave them to fate.

"Then Mr James began to search for this— this last of the Sinclairs. He searched the world, that he did; his agents went to all foreign parts, to India and everywhere, till a few days ago, and I got telegram after telegram from him to prepare the house, that he had found the person he wanted. Oh, I was glad, that I was, when I saw you, ma'am, I nearly fell on the ground."

"You think I am like Mr Gerald?"

The old fellow made no answer for a moment, then he got up off his chair to go.

"Ma'am, you'll excuse my sitting in your presence, you'll excuse my talking so free, but I am old, and I have grown to love that child as if it was my own, it's that sweet and that innocent, and, saving your presence, ma'am, doesn't know what a man is, or a woman is neither. I've heard talk of angels, but there never was an angel more innocent, no, nor more sweet; and to think of harm coming to it, it that is so unharmful. It wrings my heart, the thought of it do; many's the night, ma'am, I've woke in a sweat thinking I've heard the trumpeter, but it's been only ringing in my ears—"

"The trumpeter, what do you mean?" I asked.

"The ghost, ma'am, Sir— Sir Gerald's ghost, it comes through the passages at midnight blowing a trumpet always before the eldest son is killed. Oh, ma'am, it's a fearful sound and a fearful sight."

"When was it heard last?"

"Twenty-three years ago, ma'am, the night before Mr Reginald was killed by Mr Wilfred Sinclair."

Twenty-three years, that was exactly my age.

"It has not been heard since, not even at Mrs Wilder's death?"

"No, ma'am, that trumpet never sounds for the death of women, not for no one, only the eldest son who is about to die."

"Did anyone hear or see this trumpeter the last time he came?"

"I did, ma'am, see him, and hear him both."

"Tell me about it. Did you see his face?"

"No, ma'am." Somehow I knew the old fellow was telling a lie, and that he had seen the trumpeter's face, but I said nothing.

"No, ma'am, not distinctly so to say. I was a young servant then, an under-butler, and in the night, when I was sound asleep, I suddenly woke and sat up to listen. The house was as still as death, and there was nothing to hear, yet I sat listening and listening and straining my ears, waiting to hear something that I knew would come. Oh, ma'am, I needn't have strained my ears, for suddenly the most awful blast of a trumpet shook the house, I sickened, and thought I'd have died, for though I knew nothing of the ghost, or the history of the house, I knew that the sound of that trumpet was not right; it stopped for a moment after the first blast, and then it came again, louder and louder. I rushed out of my room into the dark passage, then, ma'am, I ran down the passage and down the servants' staircase until I found the first floor. I ran down the corridor till I came to the great staircase overlooking the hall, and there I saw him. There was no light, but I saw him, for there was light all round him. He was crossing the great hall when I caught a glimpse of him. His long black hair was tossed back, and he had to his mouth a great, glittering, silvern trumpet, and I could see his cheeks puffed out as he blew. He was dressed like the portrait of Sir Gerald."

"You think it was Sir Gerald's ghost?"

"Yes, ma'am, he has been recognised over and over again."

"Did anyone else hear him?"

"No, ma'am, only me. I told the master about it next day. No one had heard it but me. Then the message came to say Mr Reginald was dead."

I sat silent for a moment, listening to the wind as it sighed outside, then I said—

"Do you expect to hear the trumpeter again?"

"No, ma'am, not since you've come."

"How is that?"

The old fellow hung his head.

"Come now," I said; "tell me this. Don't you think you see the ghost in the flesh? I am exactly twenty-three, and it is twenty-three years since the trumpeter has been. Do you not think that my coming is the return of the trumpeter— without the trumpet?"

I shall never forget the old man's face as I said this; it absolutely became glorified with— what— I don't know, perhaps hope.

"Oh, ma'am," said he, "I did see the trumpeter's face, despite the lie I told you; it was your face, line for line. But you will never hurt the child, that I know, for the good God has sent you into the flesh, and it's as much as if He had said the trumpet shall never be heard again, which is saying the eldest son will never be killed again by the Sinclairs."

Then the old fellow left the room and shut the door.

And I sat brooding over the fire, half-pleased, half-frightened, half-dazed. The old butler's manner all through his conversation had been just like James Wilder's in London. They both seemed to consider me as something to be feared and propitiated.

And this Geraldine, this extraordinary being whose fate seemed wound up in mine, why should they fear any hurt to this Geraldine from me? I could not hurt a fly, much less this creature whom I had begun to like instinctively already.

Did anyone ever hear of such a thing as to bring up a boy as a girl? Only that weird looking James Wilder, with his round back and his opium decanter, could have thought of such a thing; she—he—she, what shall I call him or her? She was going to pay me a visit to-night; when would she come? What was she doing now? at supper perhaps, what was she having for supper?

A tap at the door.

The handle turned, and the door opened.

10: We Meet

And this was Geraldine Wilder, or Gerald— Geraldine Wilder, if you please.

This half ghostly being, with brown rippling hair and a face like the face of a wild rose. And the dress of wonderful black lace that seemed draped round the slight figure by the fingers of the wind, and the milk white neck, rising like the stem of some graceful flower to support the small brown head, and the elegance of the whole apparition. I love to think of it even still. But it was Beatrice Sinclair. Oh, yes, beyond any manner of doubt, it was Beatrice Sinclair, and as we gazed at each other for one short second the claws of the falcon tore at my wrist.

Then this vision of the past came across the room and held up its face to be kissed. And it was like two dead lovers kissing through a veil— so it seemed to me. And yet I could have laughed as she sat down in the great arm chair opposite mine, to see the subtle turn of the body with which she arranged the train of her dress, the graceful manner of sitting down, and then to remember that "Miss Geraldine was a boy;" and then the glimpse of immaculate white petticoat! it seemed like a witticism one could not laugh at because one was in church.

I laugh now as I think of it, at least I smile, for I haven't strength to get up a real laugh, and then somehow I cry, perhaps because I am so weak.

Geraldine sat down, and then we began to talk. I talked at random, for I was so busy examining and admiring her I couldn't think of other things. The little division at the end of the nose seemed somehow the most delightful thing I had ever seen, except maybe the arched instep of the tiny foot that peeped like a brown mouse from beneath the skirt.

What a lout I felt beside her. I felt awkward, and stupid, and just as a mole might feel if it were made to sit in the sun. I began to stutter and stammer, and might have made a dreadful fool of myself, only that the recollection shot up in my mind, "she's a boy"; as long as I kept that in mind I was all right, but the instant I began to think of her as a girl, my stupidity returned.

We talked, mercy, what modest and innocent talk, the whole college of Cardinals and the old Pope himself might have listened and been the better for it, but they would not have been much the wiser.

"Gerald— I mean Geraldine— how old are you?"

"I am sixteen years."

"You have never been away from home, you have never seen a city?"

"What is a city?"

"Oh, it's a place, a horrible place where it's all smoke, and houses, and noise."

Geraldine shook her head. She could not imagine what such a place as this could be like.

"Are there many more people in the world from where you come?" asked Geraldine after a pause, resting her chin on her hand and gazing at me with a deep, far-away look, as if she recognised me dimly but was not quite sure.

"Oh, yes; but has your father never told you about the world and the people in it?"

"No," said Geraldine, with a shake of the head; "he told me it was a bad place, and I must never go there, that was all."

"Have you never wished to go there?"

"No, never, till— till now."

"Why now?"

"I would like to go there if it is the place you come from."

Geraldine was gazing at me now intensely— I know no other word— with eyes that seemed appealing to me to say something; never had I been gazed at so before.

I could only falter out, "Why?"

"Because," said Geraldine, "I think I know where you come from, I think I have seen you there, but it was in a dream, and we were not dressed as we are, but I am not sure. Who are you?"

I have never heard anything so soft and yet so full of a kind of fire as those words.

"Has not your father told you, Geraldine?"

"No— he said a lady was coming to see me, but that was all."

"I am Beatrice Sinclair, Geraldine."

"But that is only a name."

A thought shot like a horrible zig-zag firework through my brain; it was, "Geraldine, I was once your murderer."

Then bang from tragedy to comedy. I began to laugh, for no earthly reason, and Geraldine caught the laugh as it flew on her beautiful lips, and we both laughed at each other like two children— at nothing. Then we talked for an hour about— nothing.

As Geraldine vanished that night to her own rooms I called her back, and she came back from the dark corridor like a beautiful ghost.

I only wanted to kiss her again, but she seemed to think that a perfectly good reason for my calling her back.

Then I went to bed and cried like a fool; then I got out of bed and hunted round the room in the dark, guess what for— a match-box, guess what to find— my cigarette box. I really think I must once have been a man.

11: The Little Black Book

I FOUND it, and having lit the candle by my bedside I got back into bed and began to smoke. The fumes of the tobacco, the utter silence of the house broken only by the occasional sighing of the wind in the trees outside, the exquisite room in which I was lying with its painted ceiling and rose petal coloured hangings, the image of Geraldine, all combined to produce in my mind a sort of delicious intoxication.

I saw now vaguely the wonderful dream that was beginning to unfold around me, the fairy tale of which I was to be the hero. I saw once more the face that had come back from the dark corridor to be kissed— ah me!

My hands rested upon a little black covered book, I had found it upon the mantelpiece, and had taken it into bed with me, thinking to put my cigarette ashes upon it. Instead of that I had shaken them off, without thinking, upon the floor.

I opened it. The first thing I saw was the picture of a skull drawn in faded ink upon the yellow title-page. Then, under the skull, written in what, even in those old days, must have been a boy's scrawl, this—

"The blacke worke of deathe herein sette downe is bye ye hande of Geoffry Lely hys page."

Whose page? I knew well.

Then, on the next leaf, in the same handwriting, but smaller and more cramped, I read the following. It was written in the old English style, and the queer spelling of the words I cannot imitate, as I write only from remembrance.

"Before daylight of that dark and bloody day a week agone now, by lantern light we left the court-yard and rode down the avenue, Sir Gerald on his black horse Badminton, I on the bay mare Pimpernel. In the black dark of the avenue nothing could I see, but followed, led by the sound of Badminton's hoofs, the clink of Sir Gerald's scabbard, and the tinkling bells of the little hawke that sat hooded and drowsing upon his wrist.

"Had I followed a common man I might have asked of him what place hath a hawke on the wrist of a man with a sword by his side and pistols at his holster, but Sir Gerald I have followed my life long without question, and without question would have ridden behind him to death.

"In the road beyond the darkness of the trees we paused, each at five paces from the other; the clouds in the easternmost part of the sky were all cracked where the day was breaking through; a dour and dark morning was it, and no sound to hear but a plover crying weep, weep, and the little tinkle ever and anon of the hawke's bells.

"I watched the wind toss Sir Gerald's black hair and lift the plume of his hat, and let it fall, and lift it again, and let it fall, light as if 'twere the fingers of a woman at play with it. He was resting in his saddle as if a-thinking, then touching Badminton with the spur, he led the way from the road on to the moor, the two horses' hoofs striking as one.

"We passed the shoulder of the hill and down to the Gimmer side, and there by the river we stopped again and Sir Gerald sat and seemed a-listening to the mutter of the water and the wuther of the wind in the reeds; but he was in sore trouble, that I knew by the way his head was bent and by the sighs that broke from him ever and anon.

"And where his trouble lay I knew, for I had but to look the way his head was turned, and see Castle Sinclair, all towers and turrets, set up against the morning which was breaking quickly out from under the clouds.

"As we sat I heard a horn sounding beyond the river bank and the yelp of a hound blown on the wind thin and sharp, and in the distance, crossing the ford of the Gimmer, I saw three horsemen; they were Sinclairs, that I knew,— General James Sinclair rode first, I could tell him by the great size of himself and his horse, and of the other two I knew one to be Rupert and the other George, but which was which no eye of mortal could tell in the dim light that was then.

"They passed the ford and rode away, a huntsman following close on, seeming to move in the midst of a waving furze bush, which was the hounds in full pack, and the last of them we heard was the toot of the horn sounding over the hillside.

"Then Sir Gerald touched Badminton again with spur, and we rode along the river bank to the ford, still warm from the crossing of the Sinclairs; and the ford behind us, we set our horses' heads straight for Castle Sinclair.

"The morning was up now, and we could hear the cocks a-crowing from the barnes lying to the thither side of the castle. In the courtyard we drew bridle, and Sir Gerald dismounted and threw his reins to me.

"At the open door above the stone steps stood Mistress Beatrice Sinclair herself; she held in her hand a silver stirrup cup. Without doubt she had lingered at the door from seeing the huntsmen off to their hunt, held mayhap by the fineness of the morning.

"I saw Sir Gerald advance to her, his plumed hat in hand, and they passed into the great hall so that I could not see them more, and there I sat to wait with no sound to save me from the stillness but the cawing of the rooks in the elm tops below, and the grinding of Badminton's teeth as they chawed on the bit.

"The clock in the turret struck six, and I sat a-thinking of Mistress Beatrice Sinclair, holding her beautiful face up to the eye of my mind, and putting beside it for contrast the dark face of Sir Gerald. Then the clock struck seven and Badminton he struck with his hind hoof on the yard pavement and neighed as if calling after his master.

"Then five minutes might have gone. I saw Sir Gerald's figure at the door, his face white as the ashes of wood, and he stumbling like a man far gone in drunkness. But drunkness it was none and that I knew, but some calamity dire and fell, and I put Badminton up to the steps in a trice, for I read the look in Sir Gerald's black eye which meant 'flight.'

"As he rose into the saddle a window shot open above, and a woman's voice cried, 'Stop them, stop them, my lady is dead, he has killed her!' Then, reeling in my saddle with the horror of the thing, I put the bridle rein to Sir Gerald's hands. He heard and saw nothing, that I knew by his eyes and his face, so, leaving Pimpernel to care for herself, I sprang on Badminton behind Sir Gerald, and taking the reins with my hands stretched out, I put spurs deep into his sides.

"The wind rushed in my ears and the cries of the woman grew faint; down hill we tore, I heard the splashing of the Gimmer water round Badminton's legs and the hoofs of him rattling on the pebbles of the ford. Then I heard behind me the clashing of the alarum bell of the castle.

"Something in Sir Gerald's right hand, hanging loose, took my eye, and I sickened at the sight, for it was the body of the little brown hawk crushed to death.

"I looked back, Castle Sinclair stood out against the blood red of the sky. Up suddenly against us rose a great man on a black horse. It was General James Sinclair spurring for the castle; he threw his horse on his haunches. Badminton he reared, and Sir Gerald fell forward before me on his neck, his dark hair all mixed with the mane. Then I drew rein, I called to Sir Gerald, but no answer made he; his lips were blue, dead he was as the little hawk crushed in his hand, dead as Mistress Beatrice Sinclair, poisoned with the selfsame poison he always carried in his ring; dead as I Geoffry Lely shall be, and that soon, from the sorrow that has fallen on me since that dark and bloody day."

There the writing stopped. I only quote from memory, but it is a good memory, for that strange bit of writing burnt itself deeply into my heart. It occupied six pages. The seventh was covered by Wilder's handwriting. It was the beginning of a horrible list, the list of the eldest sons of the Wilders. Each name stood there bracketed with the name of a Sinclair. I knew what that meant. This was the way:—

Beatrice Sinclair— Gerald Wilder.

John Wilder— Rupert Sinclair.

Adam Wilder— James Sinclair-Sinclair.

Athelstan Wilder— Arthur Reginald Sinclair,

and so on.

That list horrified me, I could not go on with it. At the foot of all these names so strangely coupled together James Wilder had written a sort of prayer.

"Oh, God! how long! how much longer shall this blood red hand be held over us? I have but one little child, I implore your mercy for it. Have pity upon me and it, we have done no wrong."

That made my eyes swim so that I could scarcely see. I shut the little black book; it looked like a witch, and I determined to burn it. The fire was still red in the grate, so I got up and put it on the live coals. It burned quite cheerfully. I watched it as I lay in bed, and I muttered to myself, "Let the past die like that." I watched the cover all curling up, and little jets of blue flame spouting from the leather binding. Oh, if it were only as easy to burn the past as it is to burn a book! Then nothing was left but sullen-looking grey ashes, with little red points running over them.

Then I blew out my candle, and the room was in darkness. The wind sighed outside in the tree tops. I saw all kinds of pictures painted on the darkness, faces, and one angelic face, the last before I went to sleep—Geraldine's.

12: The Morning

A WEEK AGO I had been living in —— Crescent, living in a room with an old faded carpet on the floor, with one picture on the walls,—and such a picture, I can see it still, it was a German oleograph representing the Day of Judgment, and so badly done that the long trumpets seemed sticking in the sides of the angels' cheeks, not out of their mouths, and some of the devils, I remember, had their tails growing from the middle of their backs. The looking-glass made one look horrible, and the handles were off the chest of drawers, so one had to pull the drawers out with a crooked hairpin.

I minded the picture more than anything. Some girls would have grumbled at the chest of drawers, and never thought of the picture, but I have always loved beautiful things, so I suppose that is the reason why I grumbled so much at the picture and so little at the other thing.

You may think, then, how delightful it was next morning when I woke and saw the light filtering in through the rose-coloured blinds. I sat up in the bed and saw the glimmer of the great ivory hair brushes on the dressing-table. I saw my rings lying in a heap— I would never have had those rings only for Geraldine, I would never have been here, only for Geraldine, I might have been in the Thames, floating with dead cats and dogs by this, only for Geraldine. Then I fell back on the pillows, smothered with a strange kind of horror; it was strange, because it had no reason for being. It passed away slowly like a mist dissolving, and I lay looking up at the blue ceiling, with rosy clouds painted on it, and little Cupids peeping at each other from behind them. I pulled up the blinds of my window to look out; then I opened the sash.

It was an autumn morning, warm and dark, the wind of the night before had blown half dead leaves about the garden on which my window looked; it had rained in the night, and the air was full of the smell of dampness and decay, and a faint perfume like the bitter perfume of chrysanthemums; there was just enough wind to make the trees move their leaves about, and make a noise as if they were sighing. I love this autumn weather; I don't know why, perhaps it's just because I don't know why that I love it. That seems rubbish, but I am too lazy to scratch it out. It is just like autumn now as I sit writing this, though it is early spring, and the trees are all covered with little green buds, making ready for another autumn that I shall never see.

Then I dressed. I put on three dresses, one after another, and they all seemed not good enough; but I had no more fit for morning wear, so I left on the third.

Then I came down to breakfast, and I found only one place laid. I could have broken my plate over the old butler's head, but I didn't, and I can't for the life of me tell why I could have done it, or why I didn't do it. Breakfast proceeded in solemn silence.

"Would I have ham?"

No, I would not have ham! where was Geraldine?

Miss Geraldine breakfasted an hour ago alone in her wing of the house; Miss Geraldine sent her compliments, and wanted to know if I would visit her in her own rooms after I had finished breakfast.

He might take Miss Geraldine my compliments, and say that I would have much pleasure in doing so. He had better go at once. No, I required no more coffee.

He went.

Her compliments, indeed, and her wing of the house, I wonder why she didn't send her card. Yes, I would visit her just as often as I pleased— yet I would not if my visits didn't please. No, in that case I would drown myself in the moat, but there was no moat; well, in the big bath upstairs. And the way the old butler said, "Miss Geraldine" quite calmly, though he knows Miss Geraldine is a boy; and she is a boy, and she ought to be smacked for being such a prig. But why smack her when it's not her fault? No, it's James Wilder and the old butler that require smacking, and still— and still, these two old fools between them have produced, or helped to produce, this weird child, just as she is; and in all God's earth she is the most beautiful thing, and the most strange. She is like a thing made of mist, yet she is real; she is a ghost, yet one can touch her. What is she— what is he— who am I— I don't know— I don't want to know. Ha! I felt just then the claws of the little falcon pinching my wrist.

That was the jumbling kind of stuff that ran through my head as I breakfasted; then, when I had finished, instead of going at once to find Geraldine's wing of the house, I hung about the room looking at the pictures, putting off my visit just as a person puts off a bite at a peach. At last I came.

I seemed to know the way by instinct; there was no placard with "To Geraldine" on it, but I found Geraldine for all that. I crossed the hall and passed the picture gallery scarcely looking at the door. Then I lifted a heavy corded silk curtain, and found myself in a corridor. Upon my word, I thought I was in the Arabian Nights. Each side of the corridor was panelled, and on the cream white panels were painted flowers,— it was a regular flower-garden of painting. The roof was white, with coloured windows, each made in the shape of a fan. These stained glass fans were the prettiest things in the way of windows I had ever seen— so I thought. The corridor ended in a heavy curtain like the one at the other end; two doors stood on each side of the curtain. I chose the right hand door, for I guessed it belonged to the room she was in. I was right. I knocked. A voice cried, "Come in," and in I came.

Oh, this Geraldine! I must have seen her all askew last night, for now she seemed eight times lovelier than she was then. Who had taught this being the art of putting on dress? Surely not James Wilder or the old butler. This dress she wore was made from a fabric intended to represent the skin of some tropical lizard, scales of golden satin on a body-ground of dull emerald-coloured silk. She rose from her chair like a snake from a blanket. James Wilder, when he rose from a chair, always reminded me of a flail in a fit. Yet she was his son.

We said "Good morning," but we did not kiss. Something seemed to have come between us; we seemed instinctively to hold aloof from each other. The Geraldine who came up to me last night to be kissed, just as a tame fawn might have done, was not exactly the Geraldine of this morning. And yet I liked this something that had come between us. Kisses are just like apples; if you can get as many as you want they grow tasteless, and the more you pay for them the sweeter they seem, and they are never so sweet as when you steal them. I never heard of a farmer robbing his own orchard, have you?

Then this fine lady sank back into the chair from which she had arisen— it was not sitting down, it was sinking down— and with a ghostly smile resumed her work. And guess the work— tapestry. Tapestry; and she had done yards of it, when she ought to have been playing at marbles and learning to swear.

As for me, I sat down plump on a chair close by, crossed my legs, and nursed my knee with my hands. I felt inclined to whistle. Remember, I was thinking of her now as a boy in petticoats, and as long as I thought of her as that I was in my right senses, that is, my everyday senses. I felt perverse, just as I always feel, and would have liked to tease— only I wouldn't have dared—this half-absurd, wholly delightful production of old James Wilder. But when I thought of her as a girl I felt— I felt the dim remembrance of a past life, and an infinite sadness.

I looked round at the room; it looked like the inside of a shell. Fairies seemed to have furnished it. I never saw such exquisite things before. There were cabinets inlaid with copper on ebony, and Venice glass that seemed coloured with tints of the sea. A wood fire was burning on the tiled hearth, and a great bowl of violets stood on a table supported by carved dragons with jewels for eyes. The smell of the violets made me feel faint every now and then, but the faintness went away when I remembered this Geraldine was a boy. "Remember that," I kept repeating to myself. And in the middle of the room sat Geraldine.

The long French windows were open, and the garden, all damp and sad-coloured, lay outside. Great chrysanthemums, potted out, were nodding under the marble-coloured sky, and they all seemed nodding at Geraldine. When a hitch came in the thread Geraldine's under lip would pout out. I felt now and then as if I were acting in a play, and the chrysanthemums' faces were the faces of the audience. Perhaps they were. Anyhow, I had learnt my part very badly, so it seemed to me.

The tapestry was a great blessing; one could speak or not as one pleased, and I generally preferred— not. I fell to wondering does she remember anything of that hunting morning so long ago: does she remember the poison, has she forgiven the poisoner, and has God?

Then I began to talk to her again and she answered in a low measured voice that sounded to me like a bell from the far past, yet in spite of the ghostly kind of sadness with which her voice filled me, some of her answers made me laugh.

She didn't know how to read; that came out in the course of our scrappy conversation.

"But, Geraldine, why— you've never read your Bible, then?"

One might have thought from my tone that I was a shocked Sunday-school superintendent, and it really did seem shocking to me that a person should never have read the Bible.

"What is my Bible?" asked Geraldine, staring at me, half-frightened at my astonishment.

"Oh, it's a book. I'll tell you about it some other time, but— but you can't know Geography. Do you know where Japan is, Geraldine, or India?"

Geraldine's head shook. She looked dazed.

"Do you know where England is?"

Oh, yes, she knew where England was,— this house, this garden, all away beyond there, was England— all over there.

How proudly she waved the white hand. It was patriotism pure and simple. She was proud of her park, not because it was her park, but because it was her native land. Her— his— I cannot say "his," I must always say "her;" besides, it doesn't matter now. It will never matter again, nothing will ever matter again. What gibberish I am writing; how those trees nod and nod their heads as if they were nodding at the little graveyard "away over there," just as the chrysanthemums were nodding that morning at Geraldine.

She didn't know her Bible and she didn't know her Geography, and she didn't know "nothing." What a lot of ignorance was stowed away in that small head; but she knew something of natural history. The tapestry work had stopped, and we were walking in the little garden where the chrysanthemums were. I pointed to a snail on the path.

"What is that, Geraldine?"

"That," said Geraldine, "is a snail."

How proud she seemed of her knowledge, and how tenderly she lifted the snail on to a leaf. The clock in the clock-turret was striking noon.

"Can you read the clock, Geraldine?"

"Oh, yes, and my watch."

A watch the size of my thumb-nail was produced. How learned she was, really a kind of professor!

We walked down an alley of cypress trees without speaking, then we stopped, for the sound of a gong came roaring from the house.

It was the luncheon gong, so said Geraldine, and I suddenly woke up from a reverie to remember that I was not in the seventeenth but the nineteenth century.

13: "You Were Not Dressed Like This"

THE OLD clergyman who lives at Ashworth has just been. He comes twice a week and eats a biscuit and drinks a glass of wine, and tells me we should all think on the future life, or the life to come. He asked me what I was writing, and I said— nothing.

Well— that day I had luncheon all alone. Where that other strange being had luncheon, or whether she had luncheon at all, I don't know; I had luncheon alone, and I had chops for luncheon.

What did James Wilder mean by sending me here to be driven mad? What was driving me mad? Why, Geraldine was. I had sprung at one bound into the most fabulous world of love. I could have eaten that snail she lifted on to the leaf, just because she touched it.

The old butler was meandering round the room with a dish of vegetables in his hand.

"James," I said.

"Ma'am."

"I have fallen in love with your Miss Geraldine."

"May God be thanked, ma'am."

"James," in a coaxing voice, "I want to go out for a drive with him— I mean with her— with Miss Geraldine. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am, and so shall I tell the horses to be put in?"

"Why, yes, after luncheon, that is, if Miss Geraldine likes; do you think she would like?"

"Ma'am," in a voice like the voice of a ghost, "Miss Geraldine has been a-speaking of you to me; she comes to me, ma'am, to tell any little trouble that may happen like as she was a boy, which she is, may God in Heaven bless her; and she came to me last night after you'd a-gone to bed, and she said, 'James, who is Beatrice Sinclair?' Lord, ma'am, you might ha knocked me down with your finger. 'Why,' I says, Miss Geraldine, 'she's the lady just come.' Then she says 'James,' and she held down her head and all her little face grew red, 'Will she ever go away again?' 'Why, Miss Geraldine?' said I. 'Because if she does,' said she, 'I shall die; I've been waiting for her and thinking of her for years, and if she leaves me now I shall die:' those were her words."

A bucket of vitriol emptied into a furnace those words were to me.

"The horses," I cried, rising from the table, "ring for the horses; go and tell Miss Geraldine to dress, for I am going to take her for a drive. Go." I stamped my foot, I was speaking like a man. I was suddenly intoxicated. I felt hat, boots and belt upon me; the falcon was on my wrist. I clapped my hand on my left hip and was astonished to find— no sword. That, somehow, brought me to, and I sat down at the table again feeling shrunk— shrunk? do you understand that word?— shrunk like an apple that has been all winter in the cellar— shrunk like a warrior who wakes to find himself a woman. "She hung down her head and all her little face grew red," how exactly those words brought her image before me. This little milksop. I was sitting at the table; the old butler had gone to order the carriage; the light of the autumn day came greyly through the great double windows, a spray of withered wistaria was tapping at one of the panes like the hand of a ghost. Before me, on the opposite wall, hung a convex Venetian mirror, one of those strange mirrors that are made so perfectly and so truly that they reflect everything just as it is, even the atmosphere, so that a room reflected by them seems like a real room. I was staring at my own reflection in the mirror, and wondering over again at my own likeness to the portrait of Gerald Wilder— when— the door in the mirror opened, a figure the size of my thumb entered the mirror room, a figure lithe and more gorgeously clad than any caterpillar. I knew quite well that it was only Geraldine who had opened the door behind me, and was therefore reflected in the mirror. I knew that quite well, yet I watched the mirror without moving: the little figure seemed to hold me in a spell. It came up softly behind the woman seated at the table— the woman with the face so like Gerald Wilder; it paused as if undecided. I watched.

Geraldine evidently was utterly ignorant of the mirror and its picture. Geraldine the observed imagined herself unobserved: then, like a little thief, she bent her lips to kiss the woman's hair without the woman knowing. I threw my head back and caught the kiss upon my lips, I threw my arms back and caught her round the neck; never was a thief so caught in his own trap.

Then I turned round, and let her go, and confronted her, all at the same time. And there she stood, "with her head hung down and all her little face grown red."

Love has never been described properly: all that about roses and altars is nonsense. Love is like being in a beautiful and mysterious room, and you push a curtain aside and you find a more mysterious and more beautiful room, and you see another curtain. How that comparison would shock the people who write poetry. Imagine comparing love to a suite of rooms.

I shall never forget that drive; the horses were those Russian horses that go as if they were mad; the air was all filled with the smell of autumn, and the earth seemed as silent as the leaden-coloured sky. The park lay all dull-coloured and damp, the great trees were standing with their leaves hanging down.

Miles and miles of park we passed through; there were sober and sad-coloured hills in the distance that seemed to watch us with a mournful air. The country had for me the aspect of fate as it lay around us, silent as a dream, the trees dropped their withered leaves, the clouds passed by, the wind blew, and clouds and wind and trees all said to me in their own language, the past, the past, the past. Once Geraldine said, "When I saw you before, so long ago, you were not dressed as you are now."

No, Geraldine, I said to myself, when you saw me before, so long ago, I was dressed as a man. But I did not answer her in words.

14: The Ballade of the Falcon

TO THE deep window of the library, where I am sitting now wrapped in shawls and scribbling this, I came that day after our drive to sit and think, and stare out of the double windows at the dusky garden, and wait for tea. I had taken an old book from one of the library shelves. It was "The whole art of Falconry," dedicated to his Majesty, King Charles the First, by his liege servant— I forget whom.

When I was tired with looking out of the window I turned over the leaves of the book; they smelt of age. Between the cover and the last leaf was a manuscript, the ink faded, the paper mildewed. I spelt it out in the dusk.

It was a ballad written in a curious, old-fashioned hand. It was about a little falcon which a lady had given to her lover; he killed her in a fit of passion, and he killed the little falcon, or "the little hawke," as the ballad sometimes called it, and then he killed himself. As I read it grew sadder and sadder, it seemed to moan to me like a living thing, and my eyes became blind with tears so that I could scarcely read it in the twilight. It was all about the little falcon, but I knew that the pity was meant for the cavalier. Perhaps the writer dared not express it openly, for was not the cavalier an assassin and a suicide?

This is the last verse, as well as I remember—

"With the little falcon prest

To his cold and lifeless breast,

They laid him to his rest.

And the ballade humbly prays

The tribute of your sighs

For the hawke's blinde little eyes,

—And the cavalier who lies

By the four cross ways."

Ah! the dead hand that wrote that long ago betrayed itself in the two last lines,

"And the cavalier who lies

By the four cross ways."

I laid it down and cried as if my heart would break. I was crying, not for the cavalier but for "the little hawke."

15: My Letter

THAT NIGHT I went up to my room early. I took pens, ink, and paper with me— why I took them I had no notion— I took them. I lit all the wax lights on the mantel, and the wax lights that stood on the dressing-table. Then I stood before the dressing-table mirror looking at myself. I can see the reflection of my face still, a pale face with dark sombre eyes, and lips that curled in a sneer. That was how Gerald Wilder looked when he was in a rage. I could see now Gerald Wilder, the assassin and the suicide. I was Gerald Wilder.

Geraldine and I were inextricably entangled— she in the body of a boy, I in the body of a woman. Was this my punishment for that murder and that suicide committed long, long ago, this blind maze of the flesh into which I had been led? I could do one of two things. Leave Geraldine to-morrow morning, never to see her again, or— stay. If I left her she would break her heart, and die. I would break my heart, and die. Then perhaps we might meet, and be happy for ever. Surely, if all those stars were suns, and if there were worlds round them like our world, God might give us some little place, some tiny garden out of all His splendour. He was rich, and owned the whole of space, and He would give something to two ghosts who had left the world for the love of each other. That was what would happen if we left each other— we would grow sick and die, but we would meet on the other side. If we remained together, I knew that something would happen to separate us for ever, how I knew this I cannot tell, perhaps it was by instinct.

I turned from the mirror to the table, where I had placed the writing things. Now I knew why I had brought them up: it seems to me that we often think when we don't know we are thinking.

I sat down, and took one of the thick sheets of paper stamped in red with

"The Gables,

"Ashworth, Yorks,"

and I wrote. This is what I wrote—

"Dear James,— I know now why you have sent me down here. I have seen your Geraldine, and I love her, but I must leave her. It will kill us both, but I have chosen to die. Can you not see that I am your kith and kin, that I am Gerald Wilder? You have no claim on Geraldine, for she is a Sinclair, she is the dead Beatrice returned as a Wilder. I think I see it all now, if one may see anything in such awful darkness. I know, without knowing exactly how I know it, that if we part we shall dream of each other till we die, and that then we shall meet never to be separated, but if we remain together some fearful thing will happen and divide us, so that we may never meet again.

If I loved your son all would be right, but it is not Gerald I love, but Geraldine— Beatrice.

I am leaving here early to-morrow morning, going, I don't know where. I shall write to you.

Signed,

Gerald Wilder."

Then I directed an envelope—

JAMES WILDER, Esq.,

No. — Berkeley Square,

London.

I put the letter in. I gummed it. Then I began to search for a stamp. I felt that I must stamp it to add a kind of security to my purpose, though the post did not leave until noon on the morrow. What a search I had for that stamp. I rummaged all my dress pockets; at last I found my purse,— there were two stamps in it.

I stamped the letter carefully. I held it in my hands as I sat over the fire. Then, without any apparent reason, I tore the letter slowly up into four pieces, then into eight. Then I placed the pieces carefully on the burning coals in the grate. I watched the stamp burning and thought it was a pity to see it burn, for it was worth a penny. I saw the d e r letters of Wilder stand out white on a bit of the burnt envelope.

Then I took the poker and poked at the bits of paper ash.

I was thinking.

All my life long I have loved everything beautiful: colours have a strange fascination for me, you could make me sad quicker with a colour than a story or a poem; scents and sounds have the same effect, the smell of violets suddenly transports me to somewhere, I don't know where, I only know it is elsewhere. I have heard things in music that no one has ever heard, notes that come up again and again as the harmony moves to the end of its story, sombre notes full of fate. I have seen people listening to music and their faces had no more expression than jugs; I have heard women talking of the opera, utterly unconscious of the story the music they were listening to was telling them.

I was sitting by the fire thinking; the bits of burnt paper had flown up the chimney in a hurry, perhaps the devil had called them. I was thinking in pictures, and I felt unutterably happy and relieved now that I had written my letter to James Wilder— and burnt it.

I saw my room in —— Crescent. The creature that had inhabited that room was not I. I saw the room so distinctly that I saw on a shelf an old tattered book— Dumas' "Three Musketeers." I used to read it sometimes at nights, and I used to wonder how it was possible that the Duke of Buckingham could have loved Anne of Austria in the insane manner in which he did; now I saw at a glance that such love was quite possible, and no fable. He loved her because she was unattainable, she was a Queen; he could never have loved an ordinary woman like that. A soap bubble is the most beautiful thing in the world because it is so unattainable, you cannot put it in your pocket.

Then Geraldine suddenly appeared before my mind. Not only Geraldine, but the thousand and one things that made her up. I have told you before that colour and scent and sound seem to act as food and drink to me. This Geraldine had all these in their fullest perfection, like some strange tropical fruit that no one could imagine till they had seen. At no point was she imperfect; she was an utter little dunce, but that was her last and crowning fascination: she could not spell A B ab, and the problem of what twice thirteen was would have filled her small brown head with distraction. She could not tell you where Asia was, nor whether Japan was the capital of China; but neither could one of those delightful things we read of in the old stories, things that come out of a fountain and turn into a shower of spray when spoken to.

I was going to stay, then. What on earth made me dream of leaving Geraldine? Did that idea really occur to me? To leave here and get into a railway train and go back to a place called London— to turn back out of the seventeenth century into the horrible nineteenth century, with its railroads and smoke, and telegraphs, just because a hideous old woman called Reason had told me to do so or it would be wrong.

I took another sheet of paper and wrote.

Dear James,— I know now the reason why you sent me here. I have fallen in love with your mysterious Gerald. Leave us together and have no fear, lovers never hurt each other, except, perhaps, with kisses. I shall write to you every other day.—

Yours affectionately,

Beatrice Sinclair.

This letter I gummed up in an envelope. I had no trouble to find a stamp for it; my purse lay on the table and in it the other stamp. Then I put the letter on the mantel, and went to bed.

16: The Black Horse And The White

I HAD such a strange dream. I dreamt that I was in man's clothes, and that I was astride of a coal black horse: how I knew that the horse was black I scarcely can tell, for the night around me was dark as death, Geraldine was on the pommel before me, grasping me round the loins with her arms; her head was on my breast, the horse was galloping mad, mad he seemed; behind me galloped a man on a white horse, a man in the dress of a cavalier. I turned my head now and then to look at him. He was myself, and he was dead. He swayed and he reeled in the saddle. His spurs were plunged and stuck in the white horse's sides, and great flakes of bloody foam fell from them through the darkness like red flowers; we tore through archways that seemed to roar at us, down white roads, and through tiny hamlets with lights that winked at us, and then we were in the darkness again, on a moor. A ghastly moon broke through the clouds overhead. I looked back, he was still following, swaying and reeling, now falling flat back on the back of his horse, so that his long black hair mixed with the horse's tail, now falling straight forward, his hair all thrown and mixing with the horse's mane. I saw the nostrils of the white horse blown out thin as paper, its staring, straining eyes. Then the darkness fell again and I found Geraldine gone; and the moon broke through again, and I saw that the white horse had overtaken me and passed me, and was far ahead, and the cavalier, reeling and swaying in the saddle, held Geraldine in his arms, and they were both dead. Then my horse faltered and stumbled and fell. And I woke. All around me was in black darkness. I felt the pillows to make sure I was in bed, then I felt for a match-box on the little table by the bed-side, and I struck a light. The clock on the mantelpiece pointed to quarter past five. I rose and lit a candle, and put on a wrapper. I felt frightened. I wanted to go to Geraldine to see if she were all right. You never love a person so much as just when you wake from a dream of them, at least I quote from my own experience. I opened my bedroom door, the passage was utterly dark, and the house seemed strangely still. I came along the passage like a ghost— only I had a candle in my hand, and you never hear of ghosts carrying candles. I reached the top of the great hall stairs, and I saw the hall below, with the men in armour standing round the oak-panelled walls and the grey dawn glimmering down at them through the stained glass windows. I came down the stairs, crossed the hall. My feet were bare, but I did not feel the cold of the parquet. I pushed the curtain aside that led to the corridor with its flower-pictured walls and fan-shaped windows. The heavy curtain at the end concealed a bedroom, that I knew. I blew out the candle and raised the curtain. A door half open; I pushed it and entered. On a bed, white as snow, lay a little figure curled up under the sheets. The window-blinds had not been drawn and the grey, still light fell on a small face. Never seemed anything so fast asleep as this form. As I stood watching it, it seemed to me that I could still hear the galloping of the dream horses, I felt like a thief. Geraldine was safe then; she knew nothing of that furious ride through the night, heard none of the galloping of those horses.

As I turned from taking a last look at the sleeping face I felt awed, not exactly awed, but frightened. Do you know that perfect and absolute purity frightens one to look at, as if it were a ghost? You may laugh, but it does, though it is more rarely seen than any ghost. I have only seen it once, and that was when I saw this child asleep with the dawn on her face.

When I had found my room again I drew up the window-blind and opened the window. The trees in the garden stood all dripping with dew in the grey light that came from the slate-coloured sky, and the chrysanthemums looked like the ghosts of chrysanthemums. Not a breath of wind. I looked up at the sky. Two crows were flying lazily in the distance, their black wings winking dreamily as they flew. Not a sound.

17: The Old Oak Chest

I WOKE at nine o'clock. Someone had knocked at my door. It was only the maid-servant with hot water.

I had gone to sleep at six o'clock with the vision of that strange grey dawn in my head, and now at nine— I can never account for my motives, I seem built up of perversities—at nine o'clock I woke, and my first sensation was one of irritation. I was irritated with myself, and I was irritated with the thoughts of the old butler. I was irritated with the window-blind which I had drawn down all crooked. I was in a sulk with Geraldine.

I looked at my face in the looking-glass. I was a fright. My eyes were red. I dressed, and I actually did not care what dress I put on. It did not matter; all my dresses were hideous, every woman's dress was hideous, except Geraldine's, she alone knew how to dress.

Really never before had I been in such a vile and senseless humour. It seemed to take in the whole world. I passed in review all the men I had ever known. They were all about equally detestable; they seemed all so like one another, more or less hair on their faces, that was all, and yet women fall in love with these creatures; but then, what were women? I passed in review all the women I had ever known, and all the women I had ever heard of—they all had to stand for inspection beside the strange figure of Geraldine. Oh, what fools they looked, what dummies, what empty-headed apes, tricked out in borrowed feathers, full of spiteful tricks, and tricks to draw the attention of those other apes, the ones with beards.

I thought of the school-girls at the boarding-school,— those virgins so full of suppressed vice, their finnikin manners, their whispers, and their sniggers. I never thought that I too had been one of those vicious virgins.

I pricked myself with a pin, and that brought me back from my thoughts. Then I went down to breakfast. One place as usual. Old James the butler seemed grown ten years younger since that night so long ago when he let me in first, that night so long ago, the night before last. He darted about so quick that he upset a plate of muffins on the floor. Then bang! my bad humour changed suddenly to good.

What did this little wretch mean by breakfasting alone at unearthly hours? Did she have strange people out of the garden to breakfast with her? people with feet like roots, and faces like flowers. I had seen this Geraldine looking at the chrysanthemums with an expression of face as if she knew more about them than a mortal ought to know. Last night a great moth flew in from the garden, and rested quite familiarly on her hair, just above her ear. She treated the snails just as if they were kinsfolk. I felt sure that to her breakfast-table guests came who would have flown, or run, or crawled, from my presence.

Then, like a sombre note of music, came the recollection of my dream. I heard the mad galloping of the horses, and my good humour turned to sadness. You must think me a very changeable person, but that is just what I am. I am jotting down all my feelings as they came, so you can see that it takes very little to move me from sorrow to laughter.

I have written seventy-three pages! almost a little book. To think that I should ever have written a book, no matter how small!

Well, when breakfast was over I sat for awhile making up my mind that Geraldine might come to me before I came to her; then I got up and did exactly what I had determined not to do. I came down the toy-house corridor. I knocked at the right hand door; no answer. I pushed the door open and peeped in; no one. I knocked at the bedroom door; no answer, but I did not go in, I felt somehow afraid. Then I turned to the left hand door. I opened it. It was a strangely pretty room, but it did not contain Geraldine. It looked like an oratory; the roof was arched, and at the far end the daylight through a stained glass window shone glimmering down on the polished oak floor. A silver lamp swung from the ceiling, and an oak table, plain and rather severe looking, stood in the centre. This was where she probably dined, if she ever dined, and breakfasted all alone.

What a life this strange being must have led, just like a nun, and many a morning she must have sat here all alone whilst I was— where?

Do you know that all the sermons ever preached would have had less effect upon me than the sight of this room? I suddenly saw the beastliness of the world we all live in, just as plainly as if it had been some vile reptile crawling from under that oak table; but we never see sights like that for long, just half a second or so, and then we forget. I looked for a moment, then I turned away. Where had she gone to? was she hiding? could she be in the garden?

No, she was not in the garden; the chrysanthemums all looked as if they knew but would not tell. Oh, those chrysanthemums, how they haunt my dreams, actually haunt me; they are all dead and forgotten, but their faces seem to haunt me. Geraldine made them human when she walked amongst them, she touched their faces as if they were faces of brothers and sisters. I saw her smile at one once, and once I saw her actually frown at one of them, and now they come and haunt me as if to say, "What have you done to Geraldine?"

Then I began to feel uneasy. Where could this strange child be? had any accident befallen her? I remembered my dream, and hurried back to the house. Old James, the butler, was crossing the hall, a tray of glasses in his hands. I asked him had he seen the child, did he know where she was hiding?

He answered that she had gone out for a drive; she went at eight.

I could have boxed the old fellow's ears.

Was she in the habit of going out for drives so early in the day?

Oh, yes, several times a week the horses were ordered early. That exasperated me. So it was a habit not to be broken through on my account. Just because it was her habit, she had gone out and left me all alone, knowing very well that I would be hunting for her. Then I remembered the absurd fright I had been in about my dream, and I remembered the strange and passionate parting of the night before, and now this cold creature had gone out for a drive; no wonder she was so fond of snails.

Where was the use of loving a creature like this? it would build a house for itself of your dreams and sighs and groans, and then crawl off with its house on its back. All my waking irritation returned. I told the old butler to bring me my luncheon to my room when luncheon-time came, for I felt ill— so I did— and would not come down again that day.

Then I went upstairs to my bedroom utterly determined to give Geraldine a lesson that she would never forget. She might wait for me, but I would not come, not I.

Up in my bedroom I fell into one of those stupid fits in which we— at least I do— take a tremendous amount of interest in nothing. I looked at my rings and at my hair brushes. I looked at myself in the glass. I stood with my head against the pane, looking out at the garden. The weather had not altered, still moist and warm and autumny; all these three days seemed carven out of the same kind of weather so that they might last for ever as one piece, all the same, beautiful, sorrowful, and dark. "For ever" I say, for I am sure I shall see them even when I am dead: perhaps they will be for me the only solatium through eternity, given me to look at, like some gloomy but beautiful jewel to a sick and sorry child.

After a while I grew tired of taking an interest in nothing. I fell to wondering what Geraldine would do or say if I killed myself or was killed. She would go out for a drive very likely. Then I thought what a fool I had been to prison myself up in my bedroom and give out to the old butler that I was ill. I smoked a cigarette as I thought, and then I determined on an expedition: I would go for a prowl.

At the end of the corridor on which my bedroom opened there was a door. Yesterday morning I had opened this door to see what was behind, and had seen a staircase, a spiral staircase, that had somehow an elfish look. I told you before, I think, that on my first arrival at this house everything except the dining-room seemed familiar. Well, that feeling had utterly vanished, yet still everything remained familiar. I don't exactly know how to explain my meaning fully, unless I can make you understand that the ghostly part of the familiar feeling was gone.

Well, the little staircase cropped up in my mind just as I finished my cigarette, and I determined on exploring it. I looked out of my room to see that no one was about, then I came along the corridor, softly. I opened the door, and there was the little spiral staircase all covered with dust. I shut the door behind me, and I can tell you it required some courage to shut that door and remain alone in the dark with that ugly little staircase. Then up the staircase I went, feeling my way by the cold little bannister rail, till suddenly my head came bump against something. I put my hand up and felt a trap door. I pushed it, and it fell back. What a strange room I entered, perfectly square, and lit by one dusty window. The walls were hung with arras, and the only piece of furniture was a large black oak chest, carved all over with foliage and figures. It stood opposite the window.

Somehow this room had a strangely forlorn and melancholy appearance, it had also a vague and musty smell. The arras looked ghostly. Perhaps it was the perfect silence, but it appeared to me that here a horse and there a stag seemed ready to jump from the canvas.

I sat down on the oak chest, and began to observe the tapestry more attentively. Beginning at the window, my eye ran along it. Here was a hunting scene— a meet evidently— ever so many horsemen surrounding a man on a white horse, he seemed the chief; he was dressed as a cavalier, his hair was black and flowing. Beyond, in the distance, lay a castle, a castle on a green hill, with a white pathway running down it. I knew that castle was meant to represent Castle Sinclair. A little further on another scene. The same cavalier, riding, and by his side a lady on a brown horse; how proudly the horses stepped. A little further on another scene, love this time, and the same man and the same woman; they were kissing.

Then I knew by a kind of intuition that this tapestry was meant to represent the connection of the houses of Wilder and Sinclair, worked, probably, through long generations by the pious hands of Wilder women.

Suddenly I got up and looked at the tapestry just behind me. Yes, the same man and the same woman— she on a couch, he on the floor, perhaps dead, a broken glass beside him. Was that the poison running on the tapestry-wrought floor?— perhaps. The next scene was a funeral procession; black nodding plumes and bowed heads.

I looked no more; that tapestry gave me the shivers.

I turned to the oak chest and raised the lid; an odour of rosemary filled the air. I peeped in. Down at the bottom lay some clothes, carefully folded, on the clothes a sword, and on the sword a great cavalier's hat with a magnificent black feather; I took out the hat and sword, and laid them on the floor, then I took out a most exquisite amber satin doublet, and the other parts of a man's dress. Down at the bottom still there lay a pair of long buff-coloured boots, with silver spurs, and a great glittering silver trumpet, to which was attached a long crimson silk cord.

I would have clapped my hands, only my arms were so full; here was everything I wanted. That little Puritan with the pale face would whimper no more for jingling spurs and a sword on her lover. Oh! the good sword! I drew it from its sheath, and looked at its broad, strong blade, all damascened near the hilt, then I popped it back in its sheath, and kicked off my shoe. I wanted to see if the boots would fit; I tried one on, it fitted to perfection. This cavalier, whoever he was, must have had an amazingly small foot. Perhaps he was Gerald Wilder. Nothing more likely, for this room seemed dedicated to him, and these things were possibly his relics; any way, they were mine for the present, and I promised myself a fine masquerade.

What would Geraldine say when she saw me?

I took out the trumpet; it looked like a battle-trumpet; there was a dint upon it as if from a blow. It was solid silver, and was marked near the mouthpiece with a little tiger and a P surmounted by a tiny star. It was evidently intended to be slung round the back by the silken cord, so I slung it round my back, and taking all the other things, I left the room, laden like an old clothes man. I had fearful work shutting the trap door with all the things in my arms, but I managed it at last, and got safely back to my bedroom without having been seen.

On the dressing-table stood a silver tray with some luncheon and a decanter of sherry; so the old butler had been. I shut the door and locked it, then I placed all my booty on the bed, and sat down to eat what the old fellow had brought me.

As I ate I thought how fortunate it was that there were so few servants. The only ones I had seen indoors were the butler and the sour-faced maid. There must have been a cook, and a very good one, hidden down stairs somewhere, but she, or he, was never visible. How, thought I, do these two manage to keep this great house in order? they are always working like galley slaves, I suppose, and Wilder pays them like princes; anyhow I am very glad, two are quite enough, almost two too many.

Then I rose and placed the luncheon things on the floor out of my way, and then I took all the hairpins out of my hair and let it fall as it always wants to fall, right round my shoulders in black, curling locks. Then I undressed. I laughed as I put on the man's things, but my heart was fluttering fearfully lest they shouldn't fit. I shall never forget the perfume of rosemary from the amber satin doublet as I drew it on. Then the boots, how the spurs jingled; but I would not look at myself in the glass yet, I was not perfect, for the sword still lay on the bed, and the trumpet. I buckled the sword-belt and swung the trumpet behind me, then with one hand on the hilt of my sword and one hand on my hip I whirled round on my heel to face my image in the cheval glass. I can never tell you, nor could you ever imagine, the deep, the furious pride that filled me as I gazed at the glorious-looking man who faced me in the mirror. Can you imagine an eagle condemned into being a sparrow; can you imagine the feelings of that eagle should it find itself once more an eagle royal and splendid? So great, so overmastering was this feeling, that I utterly forgot Geraldine and the whole world that held her.

I was myself again, yet I was completely changed. All my waywardness and woman's pettinesses seemed vanished and drowned. As I looked at the cavalier with black flowing hair, I smiled, and he smiled. How gloomy and stern was that smile. What a graceful, and strange, and poetic-looking man he was; one could imagine him riding through a battle with his face unmoved, one could imagine him terrible in love.

And he was I.

Then I turned and threw myself into an arm-chair. Geraldine had just entered my mind, and the stern cavalier, who would have laughed in the face of a battle, became like a child. Do men turn weak like this before the image of their love? I veritably believe they do.

"Geraldine," I thought, "she went out; ah, yes, this morning. I shall go to her when it is dusk. Will she smile, or will she frown, and my white rose will she wear it?" Then I found myself wondering what rose. I could not remember actually that I had given her a rose, yet a vague impression filled my mind that I had. Somewhere long ago I had given her a rose, and my fate seemed to depend on whether she would wear this rose, now, this evening.

Oh, I tell you, on that afternoon, ay, and ever since I put on the dress of the cavalier, I was not and am not— what I was. That dress seemed to seal a compact, and I was, and am still, partly drunk with the remembrance of a dim and shadowy past.

I sat in the arm-chair thinking; time must have flown as it never flew before.

I would go to her with the dusk and behold it was dusk!

And the wind had risen with the dusk and was sighing amidst the garden trees like a ghost.

18: The Trumpeter

I ROSE from the arm-chair, and I stood, I remember, sucking in my underlip and staring at the floor. Then I turned to the wardrobe, and took out my great sealskin cloak. I threw it round me and it reached to my feet. I wished to conceal my clothes, why, I did not exactly know, but it seemed to me that they ought to be hidden from everyone but Geraldine.

Then I opened the bedroom door softly and peeped into the passage. No one— not a sound. I stole down the corridor to the head of the great staircase, and peeped over into the hall, the lamps were not yet lit. Then I came down the staircase so softly that you might have thought me a shadow only for the faint, silvery jingle of the spurs. I entered the corridor, and the heavy silk curtain fell behind me. Then I found myself standing at the right hand door with my hand pressed to my heart. No actor about to enter before his audience could have felt the nervousness I felt. My heart seemed gone mad. Then I dropped my sealskin cloak and my nervousness fell with it. I tossed my hair back, felt the hilt of my sword, and without knocking, I turned the door handle and entered.

The figure of a girl stood at the open window; she was gazing out at the dusk-stricken garden. Then she turned and saw me. I heard her breath caught back, and I saw in her hand a white rose.

Did I cross the room? I must have crossed it, but I have no recollection of doing so. I knew nothing of the world or the things in the world, save a face that was trying to hide itself on my shoulder, and a voice that was whispering "You have come." Yes, one other thing I knew. A beetle passed by out somewhere in the garden, and the dreamy and mournful boom of his wings mixed sadly with my intoxication, seeming like a voice from long ages ago.

Oh, that meeting in the grey autumn dusk, that voice repeating over and over again the words "You have come." When shall I hear those words again? Never. There is no perhaps for me, I know in some strange way that I shall hear those words again— never. And the fault is mine.

19: The Trumpeter

THE FAULT is mine, for I knew, and Geraldine knew nothing.

I knew the past. I knew of my sin. I knew, by some instinct, that God had brought the past to me. As a means of redeeming my crime He had imposed renunciation upon me as a penance, and I had chosen instead of renunciation this deathly masquerade. I would not be debased, I would not be humbled. God help me— I am humble enough now. All that is what I see now; just then I saw nothing and cared for nothing but Geraldine.

We kissed only once, just like two frightened children, then we both passed into the garden. Geraldine's arm I had drawn round my waist. We wandered, locked together, through the dusk of the garden. We found the dark yew tree walk by instinct; there was a seat and we sat down. We could scarcely see each other, we were utterly dumb, confounded with love.

We heard the wind pass by: we heard the dew fall, and the crying of the night-bird— a hooting sound.

The rest of that evening I only remember in silhouettes, just as a drunkard remembers his drunkenness. I remember the parting. I remember it well, for I saw it reflected in a long mirror. Across the room where we had been sitting, I can see the picture still— a cavalier standing by a girl.

Then I found myself in my bedroom all alone, the clock on the mantel striking twelve. The window-sash was open: the clouds had all broken up, and the moon was shining on the trees. I leaned on the sill, my head supported on my right hand, my left hand on the hilt of my sword. I listened. The wind was sighing amongst the trees, and on the wind I heard something far away and strange. A confused noise, it seemed like the noise of a battle in the distance. I tossed back my hair, and my left hand worked at the hilt of my sword. Yes, it must be a battle, a great battle in the distance. I caught the cry, "Sinclair, Sinclair," and then a cry like the distant sound of a thousand voices, "For the King." I heard the far-off tramp of horses, the vague cries, the clash of steel. Then the imperious call of a trumpet, the call of a battle-trumpet. I sprung to my feet from my stooping attitude. I swung the trumpet from behind me, and seizing it, placed the silver mouthpiece to my lips; then I blew. I blew till the rafters rang and the ceiling shook. I paused, then again I blew. I was drunk, and mad, mad— with the madness of battle. I left the room. The soul of the trumpet seemed to have possessed me, the mad sound of the trumpet beaten back from the walls drove me onwards. Through the corridor, down the great staircase, across the hall, then back up the staircase, along the corridor to my room I passed, the whole house ringing to the sound of the silver trumpet.

Then I found myself lying on my bedroom floor, sick, faint, and covered with a cold perspiration. The trumpet lay beside me. Away upstairs I thought I heard frightened cries, and the banging of a door, then silence. I crawled to the bed. I could scarcely drag my body on to it, my exhaustion was so great. Then I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

20: The Ruby Wine

OH, THE dismal dawn that woke me, it came through the window that I had left wide open. I sat up in bed. I was still dressed. My spurs had torn the coverlet, the trumpet and its blood-red silken cord lay upon the floor. The wind blew in, shaking the curtains mournfully. I saw it all at a glance. I remembered everything— the trumpeter had returned. Oh, it was awful, that moment of cringing terror. It seemed as if fate had been crawling at me slowly during the last three days. It seemed as if last night she had made a fearful bound, and now, like a tiger, was crouching for the final spring.

I had done it with my own lips, I had blown the death-trumpet for Geraldine. And now that voice came back that I heard at first, saying, "Remember, Geraldine is a boy." Ah, yes, I remembered it now, now that I had heralded to Geraldine the fate to which all the eldest boys of the Wilder family were doomed.

I threw myself face down on the pillows, weeping as if my heart would break; but of what use were tears? I had elected to play the part of a man, tears were out of place. I stopped weeping and dried my eyes. What was to be done? how could I save this child?

"Only one way," said a voice in my head, "leave her—you alone can kill her, so leave her."

I would,— I would leave her. I determined on that and rose from the bed; but, oh God help me, I determined to go first to her to say good-bye. Was it wrong? ask it of yourself. How— how could I leave this child, whose life was dearer to me than my own, how could I leave her without saying good-bye? Do you know what it means to leave a person you love, to leave for ever without saying good-bye? Could a mother leave her infant never to see it again without first kissing its tiny hands, its lips, its eyes? I could have torn my heart out with my own hands, but I could not have left Geraldine without saying good-bye.

I came to the great pier-glass and I saw myself—the cavalier. I leaned my head against it and against his, and I gazed out of the window at the dull grey sky; still another day of the damp, dark, sorrowful weather. The clock on the mantel pointed to the hour— quarter to six.

"I shall kiss her once and say good-bye and leave her for ever," I murmured to myself, but the words seemed to have little meaning. "I shall go to her now," I said, standing upright and addressing my own reflection in the glass, "for the sooner it is over the better."

I left the room. The passage was dark, but I felt my way with my hand. Down the stairs I came, across the hall, down the little corridor. I lifted the curtain and knocked. "Come in," said a voice.

She was not asleep, then. I opened the door. Geraldine was sitting by the open window, dressed; she had not been to bed. The bed lay white— Oh, God, if these tears would only choke me and not fill my throat with this dull, heavy pain— white and uncrumpled. She stretched out her arms to me feebly and as if against her will. And now I had kissed her three times, and was kneeling by her side, I— who had determined to kiss her once and leave her— and her head was upon my shoulder, and she was telling me how she could not go to bed for thinking of me, and how she loved me, loved me as no one had ever been loved before. Oh the innocence and divine sweetness of this love, of this voice, and the terror and anguish of the thought, "You are doomed to kill her, doomed, doomed."

How could I leave her? She had actually put her arm round my neck. I laid my head behind hers, so that I might not see the dawn, and might forget the world. My lips kept murmuring, "It is fate." As if in answer to the muttering of my lips there came a sound, the turret clock was striking six, six melancholy strokes; they brought back to my mind the words of the little black book.

"Geraldine," I cried, holding my face on her knees, "it was this hour, long, long ago, when I killed you; tell me to go, tell me to leave you, it will happen again, for Death is here, oh! listen to the wind." I ceased, and the wind sobbed and sighed in the garden, but no word came from Geraldine, only a tear that fell and burned my hand. "Geraldine," I whispered, "I have betrayed you, turn me away for your own sake."

Then I felt two soft hands seize my hair on either side of my head, and lift my face. I heard a voice whisper, "You are mine, and I will hold you so."

"Ah! then," I cried, "let the past be gone for ever; now, now with this kiss—and this— and this— let us defy Death." But even as our lips clung together, the wind moaned drearily in the trees. I heard Death, I felt him, he was in the garden, his gray misty face was at the window. We clung to each other like people drowning; we seemed to know that the eternal parting was so near; speechless, with lips paralysed, but still pressed together, we seemed listening for help, but no help came, nor sound— only the sound of the wind mourning in the trees.

Then drearily a little bird began to sing somewhere in the garden. Its song pierced my wretched heart and drove me to madness, to passion. I stood up, and, as my arms were round her, I lifted her in my arms. For one moment I held that delightful burthen, so warm and supple and perfumed, then growing dizzy, I laid her on the bed and leaned beside her. She started and drew back from something she saw in my gaze. Her lips grew pale.

"Geraldine," I muttered, "what is the matter, Geraldine?"

The pale lips moved, and a terror shot through me. She was going to faint; no, she was not going to faint, she seemed recovered now, but how weak she seemed.

"Wait," I whispered to her, "wait till I come back."

I left the room and hurried across the hall to the dining-room. Here, on the sideboard was a lock-up case containing brandy and liqueurs, but it was locked, of course; here was a decanter labelled "Roussillon." That would do.

I took a wine-glass and the decanter, and returned.

Geraldine, when she saw the decanter, shook her head, just as children shake their heads at the medicine bottle. But I was firm, and poured out a glass of the ruby wine. I put my hand behind her head and told her she must drink, drink it right off. She did as she was bid, and made a face; she said it was, bitter, and I said "Nonsense." Then her eyes became sleepy, and she lay with them fixed on mine; then her eyelids began to droop with sleep. Oh, how jealous I felt of sleep. And now I could not see her eyes at all. She was breathing deeply, and her lips now and then gave a little twitch. I sat holding her hand and stroking it. I sat for twenty minutes watching her. How light her breathing had suddenly become, and now suddenly she caught her breath and smiled as if she beheld some one in her dreams. I heard the galloping of a horse from the avenue, but I did not heed.

I waited for the next breath, but it never came. The smile had parted her lips, but she did not breathe; the eyelids lifted a tiny bit, but the eyes did not seem to see.

I said "Geraldine." No answer.

What was that furious ringing of bells, and that thundering as at a door? I heard it, but never heeded.

"Geraldine, Geraldine," I whispered. "Geraldine, wake, I am waiting for you." No answer, but the sound of the wind wailing in the trees.

She never moved, the smile on her face never changed. I sobbed. I turned round. Wilder was entering the room, he had just arrived. When he saw me dressed as I was he threw up his hands. He did not look at the form on the bed; he looked at the decanter, he smelt the glass, and he gave a little senile, dreary kind of laugh. He pointed to it and made a motion as if drinking. I knew what he meant,— it was one of his opium decanters mislabled Roussillon.

Then he sat down by the form on the bed, with his hands on his knees and his head bowed, and I heard him murmuring the words "My child."

The turret clock struck seven; with the last stroke I heard the shrill neigh of a horse, and the sound of a hoof striking sharply on granite.

It was as if to say: the play is ended, the curtain has fallen, never, never to rise again.

21: "And They Laid Him to his Rest"

I REMEMBER next being in my own bedroom. I was taking off the cavalier's dress, and I felt like a traveller who had returned from some far and beautiful land. I never wept, nor even sighed. And I remember the rest of that strange and ghostly day, the silence of the house, and the room beyond the pretty corridor that held a thing stranger than anything on earth or in the sea. It rained slightly towards dusk. I was looking out of a window on to the garden, later— it may have been midnight for aught I know, I came down the painted corridor, and entered the bedroom. A lamp was burning, and on the bed lay something small and straight, covered with a sheet. I drew away the sheet, and saw the face I had known so well; just the same it looked, only smaller and more helpless, and the smile had faded away into a vague, beseeching look.

Then I remember days that passed, and one day when Wilder said to me, "You will not come?"

"Where?" I asked.

"To the graveyard."

I was in the library when he spoke. I shook my head.

He left the room; and a little later I heard heavy footsteps, and the tolling of a bell in the distance. I counted, one, two, three— sixteen, then the bell ceased.

22: The End

"—And the ballade humbly prays,

The tribute of your sighs,

For the hawke's blinde little eyes,

—And the cavalier who lies

By the four cross ways."

THE LITTLE falcon came back last night. It has been weeks away, but it came back last night, and I feel it even now pinching at my wrist. It seems to say, "Hurry, you have nearly finished." It seems anxious for me to go with it. Where? I do not know.

I can scarcely write. I am half-blind with what? God only knows. Not tears, for I have no tears left. A darkness has stolen over my brain. In writing this story I have drawn the past up to me like an unwilling ghost: I have kissed it on the forehead, mouth, and eyes, and now that my story is finished it has slipped back into the darkness, and I am left alone.

They have buried Geraldine. Not in the little church in the park, where all the Wilders are buried; she has a grave of her own outside the church, and on the marble headstone is the name "Beatrice Sinclair."

But I shall be buried in the church, and I know that my tablet will bear the inscription, "Sir Gerald Wilder, Kt." so that even our dust may not meet,— what matter?

I am not afraid to die; in fact, if I could be glad about anything, I should now be glad. Death seems to me such a little withered, contemptible figure, for ever jealous of Love— yet sometimes death seems to me like a white marble portico, seen down an alley of cypress trees, under a sky all dark with autumn.

Beneath the ocean spray

Strange things lie hid away;

And in the gloom

Of many a tomb

Lie stranger things than they.

But in the world, I wis,

Nought is more strange than this—

The love of Death for May.

Nothing more strange above

The skies where eagles rove;

Nothing below the winter snow

Or flowers that spring winds move;

Nought in eternity

Or time, unless it be

The love of Death for Love.

_____________________

Index to "Past Masters" stories, by author.

Issues 31-59

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 (Robert Coutts Armour)

At the Fortunate Frog  57

By Decree of the High Ones 59

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 Dencourt Stiletto 59

The Gold Kimono 54

The Sign on the Roof 59

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

Gwyn Evans

A King In Babylon? 59

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 Glasgow Phantom 59

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

A Matter of Business 59

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

Death, The Knight, And The Lady 59

Disinherited  56

The Girl at the Gate  54

Kitiwik   55

The Meet of the Beagles 59

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

Waffles 59

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

Leroy Yerxa

Phantom of the Forest   59

Arthur Leo Zagat

Girl of the Goat-God  43

Her Demon Lover 52

___________

Table of Contents

1: Waffles / Albert Richard Wetjen

2: Phantom of the Forest / Leroy Yerxa

3: A Matter of Business / Sinclair Lewis

4: A Posteriori / Helen Simpson

5: The Dencourt Stiletto / Peter Cheyney

6: The Sign on the Roof / Peter Cheyney

7: The Meet of the Beagles / H. de Vere Stacpoole

8: The Glasgow Phantom / Guy Gilpatric

9: By Decree of the High Ones /  Coutts Brisbane

10: A King In Babylon? / Gwyn Evans

11: Death, The Knight, And The Lady / H. de Vere Stacpoole