Past Masters Sixty Three
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Seventeen stories in the Life+70 year Public Domain, gathered from pulp magazines, newspapers, and similar sources. 1: Bluebeard / Andrew Soutar 2: Death Gave Him His Chance / H. Bedford-Jones 3: The Great Valdez Sapphire / William Henry Moberley 4: Before Michael Came / Frederick R. Bechdolt 5: The Lay Figure / Francis Henry Atkins 6: Coffin Cache / Emile C Tepperman 7: The Devil To Pay / Max Pemberton 8: Through the Dragon's Valley / Anna Alice Chapin 9: The Scales of Time / Anna Alice Chapin 10: The Ghost in the Red Shirt / B. M. Bower 11: After Death the Doctor / J. J. Connington 12: Mr Cl

PAST MASTERS

SIXTY-THREE

February 2022

Part 3

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Bluebeard / Andrew Soutar

2: Death Gave Him His Chance / H. Bedford-Jones

3: The Great Valdez Sapphire / William Henry Moberley

4: Before Michael Came / Frederick R. Bechdolt

5: The Lay Figure / Francis Henry Atkins

6:  Coffin Cache / Emile C Tepperman

7: The Devil To Pay / Max Pemberton

8: Through the Dragon's Valley / Anna Alice Chapin

9: The Scales of Time / Anna Alice Chapin

10: The Ghost in the Red Shirt / B. M. Bower

11: After Death the Doctor / J. J. Connington

12: Mr Clackworthy Collects / Christopher B. Booth

13: Mr Clackworthy Sells Short / Christopher B. Booth

14: The Price of a House / J. J. Bell

15: The Mystery of the Talking Idols / Achmed Abdullah

16: In Maulmain Fever-Ward / George Gilbert

17: A Person from the Police / Ernest M Poate

Cumulative Index 61-63

_____________

1: Bluebeard

Andrew Soutar

1879-1941

Australian Women's Weekly 21 Oct 1933

[The 20-Story Magazine, Oct 1932]

THEIR acquaintances said that the marriage should not have taken place. He was seventy, and she was only a little over thirty. They quoted the old platitude about May and December, yet, in the same breath almost, they said that she had done well for herself.

His wealth was incalculable, and from the day she accepted his offer of marriage an hour was wasted for him if he did not tender her some material gift to emphasise his devotedness. His love for her was at once all absorbing and... pathetic.

Old Sidley knew that his years were many; he strove hard to minimise the disparity between their ages. He had lived a clean, healthy life; he groomed himself with the care of a dandy; he was alert and vigorous; he kept himself in touch with the social world— the theatre, the ball-room, the sports of the day. He did it as one who might say: "Marion shall not be conscious of any sacrifice she might have made in becoming the wife of an old man."

Their acquaintances went on talking. It was a subject that always served when conversation flagged.

In addition to a luxury flat in town, Sidley had a magnificent old pile of masonry in the country. Archaeologists regretted that he should find it necessary to modernise so perfect a sixteenth century specimen, but his attitude was that all things should be subordinated to the wishes of the woman he loved.

When they argued that they believed the house to be built on what had been a Roman encampment, he replied that she was greater than any Roman Empress of whom he had read.

For her benefit he entertained a good deal at this country house, and if he felt a twinge because he couldn't hope to join in the frolics of youth, he didn't betray it. Towards the church and the parish he was more than generous, but every gift that he made was in her name. He might have thought that he could buy for her the respect and good wishes of the community.

Then came Hallish, the philanderer. Those who knew his history in town marvelled that Old Sidley should accept him as a guest. In divers ways they sought to warn him, but he gave them to understand that he knew as much about Hallish as they did; and he implied by an inflection of the voice that Marion could do no wrong in his sight. It was another concession to her youth.

Lest sympathy should be misplaced, it should be said at once that the feather-brained Marion took full advantage of the liberty allowed her. Hallish fell in love with her, and she with him, but natural cupidity dictated caution: there was something of the mercenary in her and she couldn't afford to fling aside all that Old Sidley's wealth meant to her.

They loved in secret, but only so far as Sidley was concerned. Others formed opinions that were not altogether flattering to the old man. No fool like an old fool, they said, and let it go at that.

Hallish became a frequent visitor to the house. He was a polished, athletic fellow, well versed in current affairs and an agreeable conversationalist. Never by word or gesture did Old Sidley allow him to think that his presence was undesirable; rather did he seek to convey the impression that he was so cognisant of his own attractiveness that the very idea of jealousy was repugnant to him.

THERE were two matters that came to trouble Marion. Although her husband was ready to buy anything she might crave, he did not furnish her with any large sum of money.

When she and Hallish made up their minds to seek the "romance" that was calling them she dared to ask Old Sidley for five thousand pounds with which to open an ac-count. He agreed without a murmur without asking her why she should require so much money. Again, he might have felt that he was buying love.

Another matter was that dark corridor on the top floor of the country house— the corridor and the locked door at the end of it. When she teased him about that door he patted her playfully on the hand and said that it was no more than the silly fancy of a silly old man.

He didn't wish her to go into that room, he said: it was just one of those secret places around which a man might weave a deal of sentiment.

"Bluebeard!" she said, and laughed. Then she caught an expression in his eyes and held her peace. In the early days of their courtship he had spoken to her of someone whom he had loved and lost when he was a young man. He was very frank about it and had praised her for her broadmindedness when she said that she could quite understand.

Now, it occurred to her that in that room he treasured memories— photo-graphs, trinkets, may be. This thought rather eased her own conscience. He, too, had a secret.

On the day that Hallish came to tell her everything had been arranged, and that he meant to take her away, there was another caller at the house. The old vicar, grey-haired, soft of speech, and nervous of temperament, sat with Sidley in the library on the ground floor.

Hallish and Marion looked in, gave the vicar greeting, and said they were going to the drawing-room on the first floor to look over some photo-graphs which Hallish had brought with him from town. Marion appeared to be rather flustered, but old Sidley made no comment.

When the door was closed, the vicar leaned forward in his chair, and there was a break in his voice as he said:

"Mr. Sidley, the task I have taken upon myself is the hardest of my career thus far. But I feel that I owe it to myself and to you to see it through. It concerns this man, Hallish."

He paused there. Old Sidley's lips were twitching; the big, patient eyes were glistening. The vicar's gaze travelled to the blue-veined hand that was resting on the armrest of the chair: he had shaken that hand in gratitude so often.

"And it concerns Marion," said Old Sidley faintly, and nodded to his thoughts. "You know that I love her, Vicar. Don't hurt me if you feel that it can be avoided— that there may have been some mistake. I have known for a long while that people talk.... You know what I mean. I— I am content."

"I would not hurt you," said the vicar, "if I could help it. But I am placed in this invidious position: You have been a close and a generous friend to me. If I did not tell you all that I know the day might come when you could ask, in reproach: 'Why didn't you?' and against that I have to place the possibility of losing your friendship because I was, indirectly, the cause of breaking your heart.

"Mr. Sidley, that man Hallish is in love with your wife."

No word came from Old Sidley, but the tears were beginning to trickle.

"I have discovered," said the vicar, "that they are making preparations to leave you."

Old Sidley pressed his hands to his temples.

"Wait, wait," he pleaded, and shut his eyes. Didn't he know the vicar was speaking the truth? Hadn't he been afraid of this for weeks, months?

Upstairs, in the drawing-room, darkness was setting in, but neither Hallish nor Marion needed a light. She finished the letter of farewell and glanced at the dressing-case on the chair. It was all she required, she had said.

Then came a spasm of remorse. She looked down at the letter she had written and said something about it's breaking Old Sidley's heart, and, after all, he had been good to her.

"Has it never occurred to you," said Hallish impatiently, "that he might be glad? What did you tell me about that room upstairs? The locked door? A man loves only once in his life, Marion, just as I love you."

"I have never been in that room," she said.

"No," he replied, "because, in your heart, you were indifferent. Why not let us go in, now? Do you know where the key is kept?"

"That's no secret," she replied, and took the key from the cabinet drawer. "He has always trusted me not to use it."

"Look here, Marion! Will it make you feel happier about what we're going to do if we find in that room absolute proof that he loved someone whom he can never forget? Give me the key! Come along. He's downstairs talking to the parson."

They went quietly, furtively, up the stairs and passed along the dark cor-ridor. Hallish opened the door: she followed him into the darker room.

AN HOUR passed. The vicar had told his story. Old Sidley said, tremulously: "You'll never convince me. Let's go upstairs and speak to her. Let's be frank to both of them."

They entered the drawing-room. It was in darkness. Old Sidley switched on the light. He saw the letter on the table, read it hurriedly, tightened his lips, and handed the damnable thing to the vicar.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "You were right!"

They returned to the library, and a long while passed before the vicar spoke again.

"How can I comfort you, old friend?" he said.

And Old Sidley replied in a strong, resolute voice:

"By keeping this secret in your heart, Vicar. They have gone away. Let it be known that she has gone with a friend— for a long holiday. Only give me time to ponder it all. A thing like this comes as a terrible shock at my time of life."

"I give you my word of honor," said the vicar.

ALONE, Old Sidley stared at the floor. Then, after burning the letter, he went back upstairs to the drawing-room. He walked straight to the cabinet and opened the fateful drawer. The key was gone. He took an electric torch from another drawer, listened intently to mark the whereabouts of servants, then passed on up the stairs to the dark corridor.

The door was ajar— an inch, no more. He opened it wide and flashed the torch... down the bottomless well that dropped sheer from the floor within two feet across the threshold of the tiny cupboard-like room.

Far down, the water laughed in the light of the torch— laughed sinisterly. Something white was clinging to a projection about a foot from the face of the water. It was a cambric handkerchief.

Old Sidley closed and locked the door. He went downstairs to the library and stared at the fire in the grate.

__________________

2: Death Gave Him His Chance

H. Bedford-Jones

1887-1949

(As by "Captain L. B. Williams & H Bedford-Jones")

Blue Book, September 1939.

Captain L B Williams is a pseudonym of H Bedford-Jones. One of the "Ships and Men" series

THE TALE IS to tell of Dan Lowry and the steam propeller.... Dr. Franklin fathered the idea of propelling ships by pumping water in at the bow and out at the stern, and the Royal Navy made good use of it later, but Dan Lowry did even better.

For, when death gave him his chance, he leaped at the opportunity.

He was designer and builder for old Jock Cummins, down the Thames below Greenhithe. Today it is practically all London Docks, but a hundred years ago it had green fields and country lanes and cows and river-pirates. Cummins had a little struggling shipyard of sorts, stubborn backward brain, and no family except some distant relatives with some sort of title. He was a hard and ugly old man.

The works had built a paddle-wheel collier for one firm, and they had ordered a duplicate ship built. Dan Lowry's work was good, and Lowry was the man who did the actual work. He tried to induce Cummins to install a propeller instead of paddles; Cummins laughed and sneered at propellers, which he had never heard of, and swore at Lowry.

In the upshot, they had a terrific scene. Cummins told Lowry he was being fired in the morning, and meant it. An hour later, old Jock Cummins toppled over in the street, dead from heart-failure.

Now, Dan Lowry was a bit under thirty, and intelligent. He was powerfully built and could use his fists, for he had worked up from nothing; but when he went back to his lodgings on this late afternoon, he had lost hope and ambition together. Unaware that Cummins was dead, the future looked dark to him.

When he climbed to his own rooms, he flung down his things and sank into a chair, bitter-eyed. The strong bony lines of his face set hard. He was a man beset by the devil, if ever one was!

Rather, beset by a dozen devils. Fired in the morning, eh? Old Cummins had meant those words, too. His position was gone, and his future was gone with it. Debt held him enchained; debt and a lost dream. He had no family, no prospects, no influence; without these, his common origin damned him in the London of a hundred years ago.

Rising at last, he went to the cupboard and flung open the door. The fading daylight glinted on metal, on glistening brass: the flanges of a huge propeller that stood there; it was his own design, though not his invention, for the propeller had broken the hearts of many an inventor ere now, and had come to no good.

"Your chance is gone, and mine as well," said Lowry in despondent gloom. He kicked moodily at the shining brass. "For a year past, I've sunk every farthing I could rake and scrape, to get you made. On your account, I'm deep in debt to boot. And now I'm discharged! Back to the gutter that spawned me, says he; and the bitter old man said a true word there. The only friends I know are in the gutter— I'm off for the same place, here and now!"

He caught up his cap, and departed.

IN HIS MOROSE mood he wronged himself. He had made friends, plenty of them, in the office and in the little shipyard, with men who knew Cummins, with the shipping firm that had ordered the new collier. But, at the moment, the words of that bitter old man burned like fire, for Jock Cummins had ever a harsh tongue.

Along the river, in those days, was no lack of gutter, from Limehouse to Rotherhithe; packet-rats, foreigners, thieves, river-pirates galore.

Hungry and tired and savage, Dan Lowry stumbled into what, long ago, had been the Bellerophon public-house; now it was the Bell & Ruffian, and deserved the second part of the name. He plumped himself down and called for supper.

"Dan Lowry's back! Lowry, lads!" went up the word.

Hard drinks and a hard world, but loyal in its own fashion. Years ago, Dan Lowry had left off all drinking but tonight he had left off all hope. Now he drank deep to banish the misery of broken ambition, and full well he banished it!

An hour later you might have seen him at it, hammer and tongs, with the Limehouse Killer. Both men were stripped to the waist under the glaring gaslights, bare-knuckled, and ten quid to the one who could last the longer. All the aristocracy of the river-scum were gathered thickly, obscene jests flew fast, cruelty was uppermost; men and women alike had the tongues and faces of hell.

Lowry, scarcely marked at all, took the ten gold-pieces and looked down. The Killer lay stretched out on the bloody canvas, an old woman hugging his head and moaning at his ear, and not a soul noticing them. All tongues were for Dan Lowry, slaps on the back, drinks proffered, eager hearts swelling to him. He shoved them roughly aside and went to the old woman, and pressed the gold-pieces into her hand.

"Take what your lad fought to earn, granny," said he. "You need it sore, and I don't."

He had been fuddled enough when the fight began, but his head was clear now. As he headed out for the street, sickened by the sight and smells and sounds of the place, a tap came at his shoulder. He turned to see Slasher Grimes.

"I'll walk with you, lad," said the Slasher, "and we'll finish our bit of business."

Dan Lowry, only vaguely recalling their conversation, growled something as Grimes fell into step with him.

He knew that Slasher Grimes, who had made a name and many a golden guinea fighting, was now the biggest man along the river, drawing tribute from all the dark sources that hid in dark places from the law. To those in the know, Slasher Grimes had a gang of river-pirates that laughed at the Thames police. Not always, but sometimes the laughter turned sour— and of late the police had done a lot of damage among the liberty-loving heroes of the docks.

Grimes aped the gentleman in dress and speech; perhaps he had once been a gentleman at some time. He was dark and sinewy and strong as an ox.

"One minute, my lad," he said, pausing, as they came to the dark and empty docks. "For a hundred quid, says you, I could have the secret of a snug river craft that'd show her heels to any police boat on the river. Here's your money."

Dan Lowry looked at the extended notes, then at Grimes. It all rushed back on him; he had told the Slasher the truth. That propeller in his room, or a smaller one like it, fitted to a tiny steam-launch, would turn the trick.

Aye, he had poured it all out, thanks to the liquor and his mood, though he had not told the exact secret. Now it was different. He had recoiled before the filth of the ghastly gutter; the fight, the night air, had cleared his head.

"Sorry, Slasher," said he, refusing the money. "It was the drink in me talking."

"Don't lie," rejoined Grimes harshly, tapping Dan Lowry's chest with his gold-headed stick. "Liquor doesn't lie. If ye have what ye say, lad, this hundred is only a starter; it means wealth, to you and me both. Come, out with it!"

Wealth? With everything lost as it was, Lowry was tempted by the word, and had the temptation come earlier, he might have yielded; but his little dip into the life of the gutter had caused revolt to rise in him. He saw things as they were, now; he saw from what he had arisen in these years, knew he had worked himself up to a new and totally different level. He was no longer a creature of the gutter.

"No," said he, and turned. The hand of Grimes clutched at him. He struck it away. The stick belted him over the skull in fury; then he let Slasher Grimes have it right and left, to go sprawling and slithering in the slime of the street.

"You'll hear from this," gasped the voice of Grimes, with a volley of oaths.

Not unlikely, he thought, as he went to his lodgings. Despair settled upon him again, because he had reverted for this little hour or two into the old life. The one decent thing he had won in these long years, was sullied and tarnished. Was he, after all, doomed to gin and tatters and sordid filth for the rest of life?

"By heavens, no!" he told himself savagely. "It's a good thing, perhaps, that I took the dip tonight; it's made me realize what I am and might have been. Good! We'll start fresh from the bottom tomorrow."

But, getting home, he heard that old Cummins was dead.

And he had not been fired. Instead, he was now the unquestioned head and authority in the struggling little shipyard with its one boat a-building, its little offices and its three accountants and boy. Across the desk of old Jock Cummins, which was now his desk, the lawyer told him so; the dry, precise Queen's Counsel, an eminent man and well tailored.

"FOR THE PRESENT, Lowry, carry on in full charge; it's the wish of the heirs," said he. "I talked with them this morning. They're highly placed and titled, though lacking in money. They can't afford to have the name linked with this place, or to have it known that they own it. At least, such are the orders for the present."

"Too blue-blooded to be in trade, eh?" commented Dan Lowry. "Thank God, I'm not! Will they put money into the business, perhaps?"

"They need what the business earns for them, in order to live," said the lawyer. "Can you carry on this ship to completion?"

Dan Lowry laughed harshly. "More than that. If Cummins had listened to me, I'd have made money steadily for him. Give me the authority to buy those barges tied up at the next dock. I can repair 'em in the spare time of the hands, and sell 'em in a fortnight. Give me authority to do a dozen things that need doing—"

He named them. The eminent lawyer departed somewhat dubiously, but returned that same afternoon, bringing a young woman with him, a Miss Colson.

"You shall have full authority," said he, "provided you give Miss Colson a place in the office, to handle all accounts on behalf of the heirs. I don't think you will regret it."

Regret? Dan Lowry wanted to kick the man out and then laugh in his face. What— set a woman to spy and interfere? Put a woman into a business office? It was unheard of, and an absurdity! Suddenly he recalled that Cummins had used those same words about his propeller.

SHE WAS A quiet but capable young woman, and her shy smile conquered his instinctive dislike. He agreed, since he must. Miss Colson went down to the waiting cab, and the lawyer paused for a word regarding her.

"You'll find her rather exceptional, Lowry, in that she has a gift for business. I might add that she comes of a very good family; a gentlewoman in distress, if I may say so, who is compelled to support herself."

Dan Lowry merely grunted, being skeptical of gentlewomen, especially in distress....

To his astonishment, he discovered that Miss Colson was not only intelligent in business ways, but had a swift comprehension of what it was all about. She interfered not at all. She assented to all the reforms and changes he had vainly urged on old Cummins, and even suggested a couple herself. Their relations were not inimical, but friendly.

When she vetoed his proposed contract with a supply firm at Limehouse, he was furious, but assented with a growl. A week later, he found the firm was in trouble with the Admiralty. She only nodded when he told her. She had known this all along.

"And how, may I inquire?" he demanded.

"That I can't tell you, Mr. Lowry. I have family connections, and I use them."

"Well, you were dead right!"

He came to have a vast admiration for her ability, in fact. So did the clerks. The dingy old office became clean, and even took on an air of well-being. The hands always had a smile and a touch of the forelock when she hove in sight. Dan Lowry learned very little about her personally, and was too busy to try: besides, she had an air that discouraged any curiosity. A lady, as the clerks said; the word spoke volumes.

Meantime, two things pended: the ship on the ways, and Slasher Grimes.

With the ship, things had come to a point of decision; for here, Dan Lowry trembled under a temptation that was tremendous and overpowering. Either he was to put in the paddle-wheels, as Cummins had planned, or he was to put in the new propeller— as he had it planned. He could go ahead and do this, and say no word about it to Miss Colson; but he scorned the evasion. But he had to do something, and do it immediately. The audacity of his temptation, the audacity of what he planned, did not occur to him as such. He had even brought the big brass propeller up to a corner of the office, pending decision.

While it pended, Slasher Grimes walked in on him one noonday. He was alone in the office with Miss Colson, who was eating her luncheon in the inner room. Grimes strode in and came up to his desk, hard-eyed, and extended a sheaf of banknotes.

"Well, Dan Lowry? Here's your hundred quid. Do you keep your promise or not?"

"I thought you'd forgotten all that," said Lowry.

"I forget nothing, my lad— nothing!" was the significant reply. "Yes or no?"

"And supposing it's no?"

"You'll have the week-end to ponder, this being Friday. Bright and early on the Monday morning," said Slasher Grimes cheerfully, "I'll offer you the hundred quid for the third and last time. If ye say no, I blow my whistle, and up pops the devil! In other words, gents with a warrant for your apprehension. No doubt you've forgotten the little matter of Magistrate Herriott and the case o' schnapps. But the law, my lad, never forgets. Like me— never! Think it over, till the Monday morning; it's friends or enemies, your own choice."

And, cocking his beaver over one ear, he walked out.

DAN LOWRY SAT, white to the lips, eyes blazing, a sick dismay in his heart. He looked up to see Miss Colson staring at him from the doorway of the inner office.

"Who was that man, Mr. Lowry?" she asked. "What did he mean, about the schnapps?"

Lowry swallowed hard, and drew a deep breath.

"God help me!" he said, then squared his shoulders and smiled into her eyes. "I can't tell you now; there are feet on the stairs— the clerks are returning. I'll tell you later, this evening. Perhaps you'll have supper with me. But it's a dismal tale— nothing for a fine lady like you to hear from a gutter-rat like me."

His bitter words belied his smile.

She nodded slowly.

"I'll be very glad to have dinner with you, Mr. Lowry. But that's not what's been worrying you all day, and yesterday too?"

"No," said Lowry, as the two accountants reëntered. With an effort, he put away all thought of Slasher Grimes, for the moment. The dikes were broken, now; out poured all the flood of his perplexities, which had suddenly taken second place. A warrant, and jail!

"Draw up your chair, Miss Colson; rather, let me draw it up for you," said he, and suited action to words. Then he produced a portfolio of diagrams, designs, figures, and spread them all out; and with them, his dreams.

He talked to her, low-voiced, quietly, steadily, for an hour or more. His enthusiasm was quenched, now; nothing mattered, for a man who was going to prison on the Monday.

There in the corner was his propeller—his own, for which he was still heavily in debt. He showed her the calculations, the theories; he showed her the proofs gained by other propellers, and discarded; he showed her letters, his rebuffs from the Admiralty, from ship-owners, from builders. He showed her the comparative costs, the cheapness of the propeller as opposed to paddle-wheels.

"I talked with the firm who ordered this collier from us," he said. "They agreed that if Cummins, meaning this firm of ours, wanted to install the propeller instead of paddles, they'd accept the craft subject to its efficiency. Cummins is dead. I'm in charge."

"The contract covers such substitution?" she asked. He nodded. "And you could do it?"

"Not honestly, Miss Colson, without your consent. I believe there's no risk at all, but the owners of this business depend upon it, I understand; if anything went wrong—well, you see what it would mean. Monday morning, we have to know whether the propeller is to be installed or not; the work now depends on this."

"It would cost no more; it might mean a tremendous improvement. Hm! If it's as you say, the Royal Navy should use propellers instead of paddles."

Lowry laughed. "Admiralty clerks laugh at innovations, as you should know."

"Indeed I do," she agreed. "But if I authorize the substitution—"

"Then we'll go ahead."

She hesitated. "Let me borrow all these papers until Monday. I'll not be down in the morning; I'm spending the week-end with relatives at Richmond. Monday morning, I'll give you my ideas about it. Yes?"

"Yes, by all means," he agreed. Leaning forward, he picked out one of the papers and showed it to her. "There are figures covering two craft of approximately equal tonnage. They're correct. They prove that this ship on the ways, when finished, could actually tow backward any equal ship equipped with paddle-wheels! That is, with my propeller."

"Oh!" A trace of color leaped in her cheeks, and her eyes danced. "What an idea! I'd love to see it tried out here in the Thames!"

"But,"— and his face darkened with sudden recollection,— "be here early Monday morning, please. If you're late, I may be gone."

"Where?" she asked in surprise.

"To prison," he curtly rejoined, and walked out of the office to oversee the yard work. But her eyes followed him in memory— her eyes, wondering, incredulous and hurt.

They bore the same hurt look that evening, as they faced him across the dinner table. He spoke with plain blunt words, not bitter, but strong and forthright as his strong face and level eyes.

"I'm no genius, Miss Colson. I didn't invent that propeller, as I told you today; but I've perfected it, and I've perfected the engine connections, as I've perfected a lot of things, including this little shipyard; but I can't perfect myself— that is, in eyes like yours."

She regarded him steadily, as if searching the meaning behind his words.

"Do you think it necessary?" she asked in her cool way, which might have meant anything.

"Perhaps not. My father was a ship captain; I grew up along the wharves of this river. I was left alone when young, and went with the only crowd I knew. I forged ahead little by little; meantime, I had to live. I did odd bits of thieving at times."

"Who hasn't?" she asked idly. "I stole apples, once, and got a sound birching."

His eyes darkened impatiently. "I don't mean childish things; I mean actual theft. Once, with some river-pirates, I broke into a warehouse. A case of schnapps was stolen; we were caught; because I was no more than a boy, Magistrate Herriott gave me only five years in prison, instead of life. I never reached prison— I got away."

"Oh!" Her eyes dilated upon him. "So that was it! How long ago?"

"Nine years, when I was eighteen. It was nothing of great account, perhaps; still, the whole thing taught me what I needed. I went in for fighting, boxing, and broke away from the river gangs. I made a little money, and went to work, leaving fighting behind me. Step by step, you see. Every step meant cruel work."

He traced those steps for her, sparing himself nothing in the accounting, spurred on by her interest and attention. Then he came to the evening when old Jock Cummins had fired him, and told her what had been said.

She nodded.

"I know. He left a memorandum to discharge you in the morning. I found it among his papers one day."

"What? And you said nothing?"

"Don't be silly." She smiled slightly; and not for the first time, he noted how a smile transfigured her whole face and lighted it. "Go on, please."

"All right." With that, he plunged, and did not spare himself here, either. That wild idea of turning over his propeller, or one like it, to the river-pirates, was not so wild as appeared; the Thames police would have been helpless before any thieving launch so equipped. He told about the fight, and then, hesitant, skipped to his interview with the Slasher.

"Wait." She checked him. "Where are the ten sovereigns?"

"I— well, I gave them away," he said lamely, and told how. Her eyes warmed, and she nodded. He finished his story, and told just what Grimes had said this morning, and there it was all out.

"You see," he concluded, "the rascal thinks he has me in a cleft stick."

"Hasn't he?"

"Devil a bit of it. I'll take my medicine, though it'll be hard. The law has no mercy, and I've no influence."

"You have what's better," said she. His brows went up inquiringly, and she smiled. "I don't think there's anything so terrible in all you've said, really."

"You? A lady?" He threw out his hand. "Me— a product of the gutter?"

"Well," she observed with staggering perception of values, "until the present reign, our royal family has been remarkably content to remain lower than the gutter; and if you knew the origin of our noble families, you'd realize that some of them have come far, very far, from the accident of birth! You shouldn't be so conscious of inferiority that does not exist."

"I'm not!" he disclaimed swiftly. "It's not that; it's only that there's no chance for me. Now I'll be a prison bird, and down goes Dan Lowry for good. I'm telling you all this because it's your due. You can take proper action on behalf of the owners, when I'm gone."

"Is that the only reason?" she asked, looking at him.

He flushed slowly.

"No, by God!" he began impulsively, and flushed more deeply. "No. But it's all I can say now, except that— well, we've been friends."

"Not have been, but are," she said, and smiled again. "Now, let's forget the whole thing, please. What shall you be doing between now and Monday?"

"Completing plans and designs for the work, if you decide to go ahead with my scheme. There's a lot to do on them. Then, my plans for the shipyard. If this collier succeeds, I'd thought of taking on the adjacent land and going in for larger operations."

"Tell me about it," she begged, and he complied.

When Dan Lowry went home that night, he found himself light-hearted despite the doom that overhung him.

MONDAY DAWNED ominously, with a drizzle of rain; and there was no Miss Colson at the office. Instead, a messenger boy arrived, bringing the portfolio of plans and a note.

Dear Mr. Lowry:

I am not returning to the office at once. You have my authority to install your propeller in the new craft, and the owners have also consented. I wish you the best of luck.

Cecily Colson.

Dan Lowry swallowed hard.

The best of luck! And prison facing him. And she was not returning at once. She, a fine lady, had heard a bit too much of his story. When he was safely stowed away, and gone from the place, she would show up again; or the owners would come and take over, noble name and all. And they would profit by his work, if this propeller did its work.

With a harsh laugh, he gave the orders, and sent the foreman his designs.

The office was bleak without her. When he told the clerks she was not coming back at once, their faces fell; a feeling of absence was upon the whole place. And then came a tread of heavy feet upon the stairs, and Dan Lowry faced about with heavier heart. As he feared, it was the Slasher. Into the office came Grimes, and smiled wickedly at him.

"Ready, my lad? It's touch and go, so speak up prompt. Is it yes?"

Dan Lowry came up to him. "Slasher, you wouldn't do it? You wouldn't turn me in?"

"Like a shot, my lad, if you don't come across—"

"Then do it and be damned to you!" said Dan Lowry, and cut loose.

Grimes did have a whistle, and blew it shrilly, before Lowry knocked it down his throat. The Slasher put up a creditable fight, but it did him no good at all; the ferocity with which Lowry tore into him was something unholy to watch.

The whistle brought no runners or constables. It did bring a tall, elegantly attired gentleman with chiseled features and an air of authority, who came into the doorway and stood leaning on his stick with an air of keen enjoyment as he watched proceedings. He even lifted his voice in delight, as the Slasher went staggering.

"Well hit, well hit! A noble right, man! Again!"

Lowry flung him a glance and continued, hoping to get his money's worth before he was torn off. And he got it. Grimes was no coward, but not the bravest could stand long to the fearful punishment he took. As he went down for the last time and tried unavailingly to get on his feet again, the stranger stepped forward.

"Mr. Daniel Lowry, I believe?"

"I've no time for business now." Lowry turned to him. "Who are you?"

"Patrick Lowther." The stranger gestured at Grimes. "Have your clerks throw this rascal out."

"Eh? He has men downstairs—"

"I've dismissed them, Lowry."

Then, suddenly, Dan Lowry felt that name crash through his brain. Patrick Lowther! The famed jurist, of course— Lord Durwent, Lord Chancellor of the Queen's Bench, one of the greatest men in London! While the two clerks hustled the Slasher out and away, Dan Lowry stood staring. Then the visitor smiled.

"Very well done, Lowry; I follow the fancy a bit myself, or used to do so in my younger days. Rather lucky that I showed up, what? This business of yours— Magistrate Herriott and the case of schnapps, you know. It's been brought to my attention."

"It's— what?" stammered Dan Lowry. "Your attention— you— Lord Durwent? Your attention, My Lord?"

The other chuckled. "Yes, I understand that one of your people here brought it to the right quarter, and I was asked to handle the matter. I have done so. In due course, the entire affair will be written off and the case closed, though it may be necessary to obtain a pardon from the Crown. You may rest assured, Mr. Lowry, that you have nothing more to fear. By the way, my men below will hold that rascal; you may care to prosecute him for attacking you."

"He didn't," Dan Lowry said dazedly. "He didn't. I attacked him."

The visitor laughed heartily, bowed, and departed, still laughing. When Dan Lowry rushed to the stairs, wakening from his daze, he reached the bottom to see a dispersing crowd and a coach vanishing down the street.

HE SHUT HIMSELF in the private office and sat staring at nothing. "One of your people." The phrase buzzed in his head. Miss Colson, of course. She must have acted quickly. She had reached the owners; even though impoverished, the nobility could work wonders. And they had somehow reached Lord Durwent.

In a glow, Lowry reached for pen and paper, and wrote her a letter of thanks. He wrote a long, long letter, and poured out a great deal of himself in the words; he begged her to return, and gave her a dozen excellent reasons why she should return. He wrote so much, in fact, that the penny post would not serve and to send the letter cost him thrippence.

Then he went down to the shipyard and hurled himself into the job there.

Three days later came a short reply; she was detained by illness and would come back to the office when and if possible. It was a curt and formal note, but had a postscript of a few words: "Your letters are lovely. Write again."

He read that, grunted to himself, and went back to work. These days, work absorbed and swallowed him; he was rushing the collier to completion as fast as possible; and he was a new man. The past had been wiped away by a word from her. He wanted to rush up to the City, see the estate lawyers, and find her; half a dozen times he even started, only to come back and hang up his hat with a grim shake of the head....

They launched the craft, with no ceremony at all, and began to finish the job and get the engines installed. Dan Lowry was with the work day and night. He could not wait to get those engines turning over and make sure how his propeller worked. One night he made a try of it, in secret, with three of the hands whom he could trust. They got a fire going, got steam up—enough to run her for two minutes. When she nearly tore her cable out of the riverbed, he knew all was well; and he raked out the fires. The propeller worked. The real tests would come in another fortnight.

But before they came, arrived a hansom at the street door, and a tall, weather-eyed gentleman whose card said he was Captain Sir Adolphus Brett, R. N., of the Admiralty.

"We've heard something about this craft you're building, Mr. Lowry," said Brett very pleasantly. "In fact, I have copies of your correspondence with the Admiralty, sometime in the past, regarding a proposed propeller."

Dan Lowry eyed him in bewilderment.

"I never got to dock-ends with your Admiralty clerks," said he.

"I am not an Admiralty clerk," Brett rejoined. "In fact, I've been ordered to handle this matter and propose to you a certain test. We're much interested in this steam propeller. The First Lord of the Admiralty himself, I may say, has it under advisement."

"My God!" said Dan Lowry. "It's like a fairy tale!"

He could not realize it, even when Brett broke out laughing and informed him that while the Admiralty was slow, it was after all sure. It let nothing escape its eagle eye, and so forth— an affable and quite convincing speech.

"The test," said he, "should be very simple. Out here in the reach of the river. A cutter with paddles will pass a hawser to your craft; they'll be of approximate tonnage; they'll pull in opposite directions. I warn you, sir, that the general opinion is that the cutter will pull your craft very easily, which will mean the end of your steam propeller."

A spark leaped in Dan Lowry.

"Very well, Captain Brett," said he, and named a day for the test. "Do your best, and it'll mean the end of paddle-wheels in the Royal Navy!"

It was arranged as simply as that. Dan Lowry plunged back into his work, carried on from day to day by a heart-hurried smother of eagerness. The craft was finished, her engines were tested, all worked like a charm. And then came the day.

To Dan Lowry, it was like a dream. He could not believe it was actually happening to him, out there in the long reach of the river. He was aboard the craft himself; so was a party of Admiralty men. An Admiralty launch hovered near with gold lace showing on a uniformed figure: old Admiral Duckworth, they said, the First Lord himself.

The hawser was passed, the trim navy cutter churned and churned, her paddles slapping the water. Dan Lowry shouted at his engineer. The hawser tautened, grew rigid as steel; a huge fourteen-inch hemp, brand new. An inch or two, a foot or two— slowly, puffing and churning, the Navy cutter moved astern. The collier moved forward, gained speed and power and momentum, and dragged the trim cutter a half-mile before the hawser broke asunder. No more was needed....

An hour later, Dan Lowry sat in his private office, alone. The day was dying. The clerks had gone. He was trying to scratch a letter to Miss Colson. For the whole future had burst gloriously open, and he could hardly realize it.

A light, quick step on the stairs. He looked up, startled. The door opened, and she stood there, smiling at him.

He leaped to his feet.

"You! You! I was just writing you," he cried. "It's really you!"

"Really me, Dan Lowry," she said, and laughed as she gave him her hand. "Oh, it was a grand sight to see! I was watching it all. You've won, you've won!"

Before he knew it, he had won more than he had ever dreamed. Somehow, it happened they were clinging together, looking at one another hungrily.

"I can't realize this crowning marvel!" he said huskily. "That you should care—"

"A lot, Dan Lowry," she broke in upon him. "Don't you?"

"Don't I? With every breath in me, with everything that I am and have!"

"That's plenty," she said. "And will be more, before long. Fame and wealth and new horizons— all ahead of us, Dan Lowry. Agreed?"

"With all my heart," said he, and met her lips with his.

Then she drew back.

"You're no longer worried because— because I'm a lady, as you used to say?"

"Lady be damned!" said Lowry fervently. "You'll be my wife."

"Praise God," she said softly. "And you'll be my husband.... Now— I'll have to tell you something— a confession. It's hard to make. I fear you'll hate me for it; I do indeed." She eyed him anxiously. "I've never lied to you, Dan, but I have deceived you a little, and now I'm in fear to tell you of it, lest you resent it."

He broke into a great laugh.

"Hate you? Resent it? My lass, my lass, I love you with my whole heart! Nothing you could say or do, nothing now or in the past or in the future, could waken any such feeling within me!"

"Swear it!" she said, doubtingly. "Hold up your hand and swear it, Dan!"

He did so, smiling and yet deeply earnest. She drew a long breath.

"Very well; then you'd best have everything at one blow. I'm Cecily Colson; I needed the money that I earned here, it's true. I'm also Lady Cecily Colson; except for this place, I was dependent on the charity of my uncle, Admiral Duckworth, the First Lord. That's how I was able to help you, in one way or another. I did it because I knew you loved me, Dan Lowry, and because I loved you. And now don't you dare to jilt me!"

Dan Lowry came out of his daze to find her in his arms. And, as he should very properly have done— he kept her there.

_________________

3: The Great Valdez Sapphire

Uncredited

(by William Henry Moberly, 1846—)

Cornhill Magazine Feb 1885

Cornhill's original publication gave no author's name. That it was written by Moberly seems well-established now, but little is known of the author, who published a handful of stories in the late 19th Century.

I KNOW more about it than anyone else in the world, its present owner not excepted. I can give its whole history, from the Cingalese who found it, the Spanish adventurer who stole it, the cardinal who bought it, the Pope who graciously accepted it, the favored son of the Church who received it, the gay and giddy duchess who pawned it, down to the eminent prelate who now holds it in trust as a family heirloom.

It will occupy a chapter to itself in my forthcoming work on "Historic Stones," where full details of its weight, size, color, and value may be found. At present I am going to relate an incident in its history which, for obvious reasons, will not be published— which, in fact, I trust the reader will consider related in strict confidence.

I had never seen the stone itself when I began to write about it, and it was not till one evening last spring, while staying with my nephew, Sir Thomas Acton, that I came within measurable distance of it. A dinner party was impending, and, at my instigation, the Bishop of Northchurch and Miss Panton, his daughter and heiress, were among the invited guests.

The dinner was a particularly good one, I remember that distinctly. In fact, I felt myself partly responsible for it, having engaged the new cook— a talented young Italian, pupil of the admirable old chef at my club. We had gone over the menu carefully together, with a result refreshing in its novelty, but not so daring as to disturb the minds of the innocent country guests who were bidden thereto.

The first spoonful of soup was reassuring, and I looked to the end of the table to exchange a congratulatory glance with Leta. What was amiss? No response. Her pretty face was flushed, her smile constrained, she was talking with quite unnecessary empressement to her neighbor, Sir Harry Landor, though Leta is one of those few women who understand the importance of letting a man settle down tranquilly and with an undisturbed mind to the business of dining, allowing no topic of serious interest to come on before the releves, and reserving mere conversational brilliancy for the entremets.

Guests all right? No disappointments? I had gone through the list with her, selecting just the right people to be asked to meet the Landors, our new neighbors. Not a mere cumbrous county gathering, nor yet a showy imported party from town, but a skillful blending of both. Had anything happened already? I had been late for dinner and missed the arrivals in the drawing-room. It was Leta's fault. She has got into a way of coming into my room and putting the last touches to my toilet. I let her, for I am doubtful of myself nowadays after many years' dependence on the best of valets. Her taste is generally beyond dispute, but to-day she had indulged in a feminine vagary that provoked me and made me late for dinner.

"Are you going to wear your sapphire, Uncle Paul!" she cried in a tone of dismay. "Oh, why not the ruby?"

"You would have your way about the table decorations," I gently reminded her. "with that service of Crown Derby repousse and orchids, the ruby would look absolutely barbaric. Now if you would have had the Limoges set, white candles, and a yellow silk center—"

"Oh, but— I'm so disappointed— I wanted the bishop to see your ruby— or one of your engraved gems—"

"My dear, it is on the bishop's account I put this on. You know his daughter is heiress of the great Valdez sapphire—"

"Of course she is, and when he has the charge of a stone three times as big as yours, what's the use of wearing it? The ruby, dear Uncle Paul, please!"

She was desperately in earnest I could see, and considering the obligations which I am supposed to be under to her and Tom, it was but a little matter to yield, but it involved a good deal of extra trouble. Studs, sleeve-links, watch-guard, all carefully selected to go with the sapphire, had to be changed, the emerald which I chose as a compromise requiring more florid accompaniments of a deeper tone of gold; and the dinner hour struck as I replaced my jewel case, the one relic left me of a once handsome fortune, in my fireproof safe.

The emerald looked very well that evening, however. I kept my eyes upon it for comfort when Miss Panton proved trying.

She was a lean, yellow, dictatorial young person with no conversation. I spoke of her father's celebrated sapphires. "MY sapphires," she amended sourly; "though I am legally debarred from making any profitable use of them." She furthermore informed me that she viewed them as useless gauds, which ought to be disposed of for the benefit of the heathen. I gave the subject up, and while she discoursed of the work of the Blue Ribbon Army among the Bosjesmans I tried to understand a certain dislocation in the arrangement of the table. Surely we were more or less in number than we should be? Opposite side all right. Who was extra on ours? I leaned forward. Lady Landor on one side of Tom, on the other who? I caught glimpses of plumes pink and green nodding over a dinner plate, and beneath them a pink nose in a green visage with a nutcracker chin altogether unknown to me. A sharp gray eye shot a sideway glance down the table and caught me peeping, and I retreated, having only marked in addition two clawlike hands, with pointed ruffles and a mass of brilliant rings, making good play with a knife and fork. Who was she? At intervals a high acid voice could be heard addressing Tom, and a laugh that made me shudder; it had the quality of the scream of a bird of prey or the yell of a jackal. I had heard that sort of laugh before, and it always made me feel like a defenseless rabbit.

Every time it sounded I saw Leta's fan flutter more furiously and her manner grow more nervously animated. Poor dear girl! I never in all my recollection wished a dinner at an end so earnestly so as to assure her of my support and sympathy, though without the faintest conception why either should be required.

The ices at last. A menu card folded in two was laid beside me. I read it unobserved. "Keep the B. from joining us in the drawing-room." The B.? The bishop, of course. With pleasure. But why? And how? That's the question, never mind "why." Could I lure him into the library— the billiard room— the conservatory? I doubted it, and I doubted still more what I should do with him when I got him there.

The bishop is a grand and stately ecclesiastic of the mediaeval type, broad-chested, deep-voiced, martial of bearing. I could picture him charging mace in hand at the head of his vassals, or delivering over a dissenter of the period to the rack and thumbscrew, but not pottering among rare editions, tall copies and Grolier bindings, nor condescending to a quiet cigar among the tree ferns and orchids. Leta must and should be obeyed, I swore, nevertheless, even if I were driven to lock the door in the fearless old fashion of a bygone day, and declare I'd shoot any man who left while a drop remained in the bottles.

The ladies were rising. The lady at the head of the line smirked and nodded her pink plumes coquettishly at Tom, while her hawk's eyes roved keen and predatory over us all. She stopped suddenly, creating a block and confusion.

"Ah, the dear bishop! You there, and I never saw you! You must come and have a nice long chat presently. By-by— !" She shook her fan at him over my shoulder and tripped off. Leta, passing me last, gave me a look of profound despair.

"Lady Carwitchet!" somebody exclaimed. "I couldn't believe my eyes."

"Thought she was dead or in penal servitude. Never should have expected to see her here," said some one else behind me confidentially.

"What Carwitchet? Not the mother of the Carwitchet who—"

"Just so. The Carwitchet who—" Tom assented with a shrug. "We needn't go farther, as she's my guest. Just my luck. I met them at Buxton, thought them uncommonly good company— in fact, Carwitchet laid me under a great obligation about a horse I was nearly let in for buying— and gave them a general invitation here, as one does, you know. Never expected her to turn up with her luggage this afternoon just before dinner, to stay a week, or a fortnight if Carwitchet can join her." A groan of sympathy ran round the table. "It can't be helped. I've told you this just to show that I shouldn't have asked you here to meet this sort of people of my own free will; but, as it is, please say no more about them." The subject was not dropped by any means, and I took care that it should not be. At our end of the table one story after another went buzzing round— sotto voce, out of deference to Tom—  but perfectly audible.

"Carwitchet? Ah, yes. Mixed up in that Rawlings divorce case, wasn't he? A bad lot. Turned out of the Dragoon Guards for cheating at cards, or picking pockets, or something— remember the row at the Cerulean Club? Scandalous exposure— and that forged letter business— oh, that was the mother— prosecution hushed up somehow. Ought to be serving her fourteen years— and that business of poor Farrars, the banker— got hold of some of his secrets and blackmailed him till he blew his brains out—"

It was so exciting that I clean forgot the bishop, till a low gasp at my elbow startled me. He was lying back in his chair, his mighty shaven jowl a ghastly white, his fierce imperious eyebrows drooping limp over his fishlike eyes, his splendid figure shrunk and contracted. He was trying with a shaken hand to pour out wine. The decanter clattered against the glass and the wine spilled on the cloth.

"I'm afraid you find the room too warm. Shall we go into the library?"

He rose hastily and followed me like a lamb.

He recovered himself once we got into the hall, and affably rejected all my proffers of brandy and soda— medical advice—  everything else my limited experience could suggest. He only demanded his carriage "directly" and that Miss Panton should be summoned forthwith.

I made the best use I could of the time left me.

"I'm uncommonly sorry you do not feel equal to staying a little longer, my lord. I counted on showing you my few trifles of precious stones, the salvage from the wreck of my possessions. Nothing in comparison with your own collection."

The bishop clasped his hand over his heart. His breath came short and quick.

"A return of that dizziness," he explained with a faint smile. "You are thinking of the Valdez sapphire, are you not? Some day," he went on with forced composure, "I may have the pleasure of showing it to you. It is at my banker's just now."

Miss Panton's steps were heard in the ball. "You are well known as a connoisseur, Mr. Acton," he went on hurriedly. "Is your collection valuable? If so, keep it safe; don't trust a ring off your hand, or the key of your jewel case out of your pocket till the house is clear again." The words rushed from his lips in an impetuous whisper, he gave me a meaning glance, and departed with his daughter. I went back to the drawing-room, my head swimming with bewilderment.

"What! The dear bishop gone!" screamed Lady Carwitchet from the central ottoman where she sat, surrounded by most of the gentlemen, all apparently well entertained by her conversation. "And I wanted to talk over old times with him so badly. His poor wife was my greatest friend. Mira Montanaro, daughter of the great banker, you know. It's not possible that that miserable little prig is my poor Mira's girl. The heiress of all the Montanaros in a black lace gown worth twopence! When I think of her mother's beauty and her toilets! Does she ever wear the sapphires? Has anyone ever seen her in them? Eleven large stones in a lovely antique setting, and the great Valdez sapphire— worth thousands and thousands— for the pendant." No one replied. "I wanted to get a rise out of the bishop to-night. It used to make him so mad when I wore this."

She fumbled among the laces at her throat, and clawed out a pendant that hung to a velvet band around her neck. I fairly gasped when she removed her hand. A sapphire of irregular shape flashed out its blue lightning on us. Such a stone! A true, rich, cornflower blue even by that wretched artificial light, with soft velvety depths of color and dazzling clearness of tint in its lights and shades— a stone to remember! I stretched out my hand involuntarily, but Lady Carwitchet drew back with a coquettish squeal. "No! no! You mustn't look any closer. Tell me what you think of it now. Isn't it pretty?"

"Superb!" was all I could ejaculate, staring at the azure splendor of that miraculous jewel in a sort of trance.

She gave a shrill cackling laugh of mockery.

"The great Mr. Acton taken in by a bit of Palais Royal gimcrackery! What an advertisement for Bogaerts et Cie! They are perfect artists in frauds. Don't you remember their stand at the first Paris Exhibition? They had imitations there of every celebrated stone; but I never expected anything made by man could delude Mr. Acton, never!" And she went off into another mocking cackle, and all the idiots round her haw-hawed knowingly, as if they had seen the joke all along. I was too bewildered to reply, which was on the whole lucky. "I suppose I mustn't tell why I came to give quite a big sum in francs for this?" she went on, tapping her closed lips with her closed fan, and cocking her eye at us all like a parrot wanting to be coaxed to talk. "It's a queer story."

I didn't want to hear her anecdote, especially as I saw she wanted to tell it. What I did want was to see that pendant again. She had thrust it back among her laces, only the loop which held it to the velvet being visible. It was set with three small sapphires, and even from a distance I clearly made them out to be imitations, and poor ones. I felt a queer thrill of self-mistrust. Was the large stone no better? Could I, even for an instant, have been dazzled by a sham, and a sham of that quality? The events of the evening had flurried and confused me. I wished to think them over in quiet. I would go to bed.

My rooms at the Manor are the best in the house. Leta will have it so. I must explain their position for a reason to be understood later. My bedroom is in the southeast angle of the house; it opens on one side into a sitting-room in the east corridor, the rest of which is taken up by the suite of rooms occupied by Tom and Leta; and on the other side into my bathroom, the first room in the south corridor, where the principal guest chambers are, to one of which it was originally the dressing-room. Passing this room I noticed a couple of housemaids preparing it for the night, and discovered with a shiver that Lady Carwitchet was to be my next-door neighbor. It gave me a turn.

The bishop's strange warning must have unnerved me. I was perfectly safe from her ladyship. The disused door into her room was locked, and the key safe on the housekeeper's bunch. It was also undiscoverable on her side, the recess in which it stood being completely filled by a large wardrobe. On my side hung a thick sound-proof portiere. Nevertheless, I resolved not to use that room while she inhabited the next one. I removed my possessions, fastened the door of communication with my bedroom, and dragged a heavy ottoman across it.

Then I stowed away my emerald in my strong-box. It is built into the wall of my sitting-room, and masked by the lower part of an old carved oak bureau. I put away even the rings I wore habitually, keeping out only an inferior cat's-eye for workaday wear. I had just made all safe when Leta tapped at the door and came in to wish me good night. She looked flushed and harassed and ready to cry. "Uncle Paul," she began, "I want you to go up to town at once, and stay away till I send for you."

"My dear— !" I was too amazed to expostulate.

"We've got a— a pestilence among us," she declared, her foot tapping the ground angrily, "and the least we can do is to go into quarantine. Oh, I'm so sorry and so ashamed! The poor bishop! I'll take good care that no one else shall meet that woman here. You did your best for me, Uncle Paul, and managed admirably, but it was all no use. I hoped against hope that what between the dusk of the drawing-room before dinner, and being put at opposite ends of the table, we might get through without a meeting—"

"But, my dear, explain. Why shouldn't the bishop and Lady Carwitchet meet? Why is it worse for him than anyone else?"

"Why? I thought everybody had heard of that dreadful wife of his who nearly broke his heart. If he married her for her money it served him right, but Lady Landor says she was very handsome and really in love with him at first. Then Lady Carwitchet got hold of her and led her into all sorts of mischief. She left her husband—  he was only a rector with a country living in those days— and went to live in town, got into a horrid fast set, and made herself notorious. You must have heard of her."

"I heard of her sapphires, my dear. But I was in Brazil at the time."

"I wish you had been at home. You might have found her out. She was furious because her husband refused to let her wear the great Valdez sapphire. It had been in the Montanaro family for some generations, and her father settled it first on her and then on her little girl— the bishop being trustee. He felt obliged to take away the little girl, and send her off to be brought up by some old aunts in the country, and he locked up the sapphire. Lady Carwitchet tells as a splendid joke how they got the copy made in Paris, and it did just as well for the people to stare at. No wonder the bishop hates the very name of the stone."

"How long will she stay here?" I asked dismally.

"Till Lord Carwitchet can come and escort her to Paris to visit some American friends. Goodness knows when that will be! Do go up to town, Uncle Paul!"

I refused indignantly. The very least I could do was to stand by my poor young relatives in their troubles and help them through. I did so. I wore that inferior cat's eye for six weeks!

It is a time I cannot think of even now without a shudder. The more I saw of that terrible old woman the more I detested her, and we saw a very great deal of her. Leta kept her word, and neither accepted nor gave invitations all that time. We were cut off from all society but that of old General Fairford, who would go anywhere and meet anyone to get a rubber after dinner; the doctor, a sporting widower; and the Duberlys, a giddy, rather rackety young couple who had taken the Dower House for a year. Lady Carwitchet seemed perfectly content. She reveled in the soft living and good fare of the Manor House, the drives in Leta's big barouche, and Domenico's dinners, as one to whom short commons were not unknown. She had a hungry way of grabbing and grasping at everything she could— the shillings she won at whist, the best fruit at dessert, the postage stamps in the library inkstand— that was infinitely suggestive. Sometimes I could have pitied her, she was so greedy, so spiteful, so friendless. She always made me think of some wicked old pirate putting into a peaceful port to provision and repair his battered old hulk, obliged to live on friendly terms with the natives, but his piratical old nostrils asniff for plunder and his piratical old soul longing to be off marauding once more. When would that be? Not till the arrival in Paris of her distinguished American friends, of whom we heard a great deal. "Charming people, the Bokums of Chicago, the American branch of the English Beauchamps, you know!" They seemed to be taking an unconscionable time to get there. She would have insisted on being driven over to Northchurch to call at the palace, but that the bishop was understood to be holding confirmations at the other end of the diocese.

I was alone in the house one afternoon sitting by my window, toying with the key of my safe, and wondering whether I dare treat myself to a peep at my treasures, when a suspicious movement in the park below caught my attention. A black figure certainly dodged from behind one tree to the next, and then into the shadow of the park paling instead of keeping to the footpath. It looked queer. I caught up my field glass and marked him at one point where he was bound to come into the open for a few steps. He crossed the strip of turf with giant strides and got into cover again, but not quick enough to prevent me recognizing him. It was— great heavens!— the bishop! In a soft hat pulled over his forehead, with a long cloak and a big stick, he looked like a poacher.

Guided by some mysterious instinct I hurried to meet him. I opened the conservatory door, and in he rushed like a hunted rabbit. Without explanation I led him up the wide staircase to my room, where he dropped into a chair and wiped his face.

"You are astonished, Mr. Acton," he panted. "I will explain directly. Thanks." He tossed off the glass of brandy I had poured out without waiting for the qualifying soda, and looked better.

"I am in serious trouble. You can help me. I've had a shock to- day— a grievous shock." He stopped and tried to pull himself together. "I must trust you implicitly, Mr. Acton, I have no choice. Tell me what you think of this." He drew a case from his breast pocket and opened it. "I promised you should see the Valdez sapphire. Look there!"

The Valdez sapphire! A great big shining lump of blue crystal—  flawless and of perfect color— that was all. I took it up, breathed on it, drew out my magnifier, looked at it in one light and another. What was wrong with it? I could not say. Nine experts out of ten would undoubtedly have pronounced the stone genuine. I, by virtue of some mysterious instinct that has hitherto always guided me aright, was the unlucky tenth. I looked at the bishop. His eyes met mine. There was no need of spoken word between us.

"Has Lady Carwitchet shown you her sapphire?" was his most unexpected question. "She has? Now, Mr. Acton, on your honor as a connoisseur and a gentleman, which of the two is the Valdez?"

"Not this one." I could say naught else.

"You were my last hope." He broke off, and dropped his face on his folded arms with a groan that shook the table on which he rested, while I stood dismayed at myself for having let so hasty a judgment escape me. He lifted a ghastly countenance to me. "She vowed she would see me ruined and disgraced. I made her my enemy by crossing some of her schemes once, and she never forgives. She will keep her word. I shall appear before the world as a fraudulent trustee. I can neither produce the valuable confided to my charge nor make the loss good. I have only an incredible story to tell," be dropped his head and groaned again. "Who will believe me?"

"I will, for one."

"Ah, you? Yes, you know her. She took my wife from me, Mr. Acton. Heaven only knows what the hold was that she had over poor Mira. She encouraged her to set me at defiance and eventually to leave me. She was answerable for all the scandalous folly and extravagance of poor Mira's life in Paris— spare me the telling of the story. She left her at last to die alone and uncared for. I reached my wife to find her dying of a fever from which Lady Carwitchet and her crew had fled. She was raving in delirium, and died without recognizing me. Some trouble she had been in which I must never know oppressed her. At the very last she roused from a long stupor and spoke to the nurse. 'Tell him to get the sapphire back— she stole it. She has robbed my child.' Those were her last words. The nurse understood no English, and treated them as wandering; but I heard them, and knew she was sane when she spoke."

"What did you do?"

"What could I? I saw Lady Carwitchet, who laughed at me, and defied me to make her confess or disgorge. I took the pendant to more than one eminent jeweler on pretense of having the setting seen to, and all have examined and admired without giving a hint of there being anything wrong. I allowed a celebrated mineralogist to see it; he gave no sign—"

"Perhaps they are right and we are wrong."

"No, no. Listen. I heard of an old Dutchman celebrated for his imitations. I went to him, and he told me at once that he had been allowed by Montanaro to copy the Valdez— setting and all— for the Paris Exhibition. I showed him this, and he claimed it for his own work at once, and pointed out his private mark upon it. You must take your magnifier to find it; a Greek Beta. He also told me that he had sold it to Lady Carwitchet more than a year ago.

"It is a terrible position."

"It is. My co-trustee died lately. I have never dared to have another appointed. I am bound to hand over the sapphire to my daughter on her marriage, if her husband consents to take the name of Montanaro."

The bishop's face was ghastly pale, and the moisture started on his brow. I racked my brain for some word of comfort.

"Miss Panton may never marry."

"But she will!" he shouted. "That is the blow that has been dealt me to-day. My chaplain— actually, my chaplain— tells me that he is going out as a temperance missionary to equatorial Africa, and has the assurance to add that he believes my daughter is not indisposed to accompany him!" His consummating wrath acted as a momentary stimulant. He sat upright, his eyes flashing and his brow thunderous. I felt for that chaplain. Then he collapsed miserably. "The sapphires will have to be produced, identified, revalued. How shall I come out of it? Think of the disgrace, the ripping up of old scandals! Even if I were to compound with Lady Carwitchet, the sum she hinted at was too monstrous. She wants more than my money. Help me, Mr. Acton! For the sake of your own family interests, help me!"

"I beg your pardon— family interests? I don't understand."

"If my daughter is childless, her next of kin is poor Marmaduke Panton, who is dying at Cannes, not married, or likely to marry; and failing him, your nephew, Sir Thomas Acton, succeeds."

My nephew Tom! Leta, or Leta's baby, might come to be the possible inheritor of the great Valdez sapphire! The blood rushed to my head as I looked at the great shining swindle before me. "What diabolic jugglery was at work when the exchange was made?" I demanded fiercely.

"It must have been on the last occasion of her wearing the sapphires in London. I ought never to have let her out of my sight"

"You must put a stop to Miss Panton's marriage in the first place," I pronounced as autocratically as he could have done himself.

"Not to be thought of," he admitted helplessly. "Mira has my force of character. She knows her rights, and she will have her jewels. I want you to take charge of the— thing for me. If it's in the house she'll make me produce it. She'll inquire at the banker's. If you have it we can gain time, if but for a day or two." He broke off. Carriage wheels were crashing on the gravel outside. We looked at one another in consternation. Flight was imperative. I hurried him downstairs and out of the conservatory just as the door bell rang. I think we both lost our heads in the confusion. He shoved the case into my hands, and I pocketed it, without a thought of the awful responsibility I was incurring, and saw him disappear into the shelter of the friendly night.

When I think of what my feelings were that evening— of my murderous hatred of that smirking, jesting Jezebel who sat opposite me at dinner, my wrathful indignation at the thought of the poor little expected heir defrauded ere his birth; of the crushing contempt I felt for myself and the bishop as a pair of witless idiots unable to see our way out of the dilemma; all this boiling and surging through my soul, I can only wonder— Domenico having given himself a holiday, and the kitchen maid doing her worst and wickedest— that gout or jaundice did not put an end to this story at once.

"Uncle Paul!" Leta was looking her sweetest when she tripped into my room next morning. "I've news for you. She," pointing a delicate forefinger in the direction of the corridor, "is going! Her Bokums have reached Paris at last, and sent for her to join them at the Grand Hotel."

I was thunderstruck. The longed-for deliverance had but come to remove hopelessly and forever out of my reach Lady Carwitchet and the great Valdez sapphire.

"Why, aren't you overjoyed? I am. We are going to celebrate the event by a dinner party. Tom's hospitable soul is vexed by the lack of entertainment we had provided her. We must ask the Brownleys some day or other, and they will be delighted to meet anything in the way of a ladyship, or such smart folks as the Duberly-Parkers. Then we may as well have the Blomfields, and air that awful modern Sevres dessert service she gave us when we were married." I had no objection to make, and she went on, rubbing her soft cheek against my shoulder like the purring little cat she was: "Now I want you to do something to please me— and Mrs. Blomfield. She has set her heart on seeing your rubies, and though I know you hate her about as much as you do that Sevres china—"

"What! Wear my rubies with that! I won't. I'll tell you what I will do, though. I've got some carbuncles as big as prize gooseberries, a whole set. Then you have only to put those Bohemian glass vases and candelabra on the table, and let your gardener do his worst with his great forced, scentless, vulgar blooms, and we shall all be in keeping." Leta pouted. An idea struck me. "Or I'll do as you wish, on one condition. You get Lady Carwitchet to wear her big sapphire, and don't tell her I wish it."

I lived through the next few days as one in some evil dream. The sapphires, like twin specters, haunted me day and night. Was ever man so tantalized? To hold the shadow and see the substance dangled temptingly within reach. The bishop made no sign of ridding me of my unwelcome charge, and the thought of what might happen in a case of burglary— fire— earthquake— made me start and tremble at all sorts of inopportune moments.

I kept faith with Leta, and reluctantly produced my beautiful rubies on the night of her dinner party. Emerging from my room I came full upon Lady Carwitchet in the corridor. She was dressed for dinner, and at her throat I caught the blue gleam of the great sapphire. Leta had kept faith with me. I don't know what I stammered in reply to her ladyship's remarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the intoxicating loveliness of the gem. That a Palais Royal deception! Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with the lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in my eyes. A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features, as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me. I followed her to the drawing-room door. She stopped suddenly, and murmuring something unintelligible hurried back again.

Everybody was assembled there that I expected to see, with an addition. Not a welcome one by the look on Tom's face. He stood on the hearthrug conversing with a great hulking, high-shouldered fellow, sallow-faced, with a heavy mustache and drooping eyelids, from the corners of which flashed out a sudden suspicious look as I approached, which lighted up into a greedy one as it rested on my rubies, and seemed unaccountably familiar to me, till Lady Carwitchet tripping past me exclaimed:

"He has come at last! My naughty, naughty boy! Mr. Acton, this is my son, Lord Carwitchet!"

I broke off short in the midst of my polite acknowledgments to stare blankly at her. The sapphire was gone! A great gilt cross, with a Scotch pebble like an acid drop, was her sole decoration.

"I had to put my pendant away," she explained confidentially; "the clasp had got broken somehow." I didn't believe a word.

Lord Carwitchet contributed little to the general entertainment at dinner, but fell into confidential talk with Mrs. Duberly-Parker. I caught a few unintelligible remarks across the table. They referred, I subsequently discovered, to the lady's little book on Northchurch races, and I recollected that the Spring Meeting was on, and to-morrow "Cup Day." After dinner there was great talk about getting up a party to go on General Fairford's drag. Lady Carwitchet was in ecstasies and tried to coax me into joining. Leta declined positively. Tom accepted sulkily.

The look in Lord Carwitchet's eye returned to my mind as I locked up my rubies that night. It made him look so like his mother! I went round my fastenings with unusual care. Safe and closets and desk and doors, I tried them all. Coming at last to the bathroom, it opened at once. It was the housemaid's doing. She had evidently taken advantage of my having abandoned the room to give it "a thorough spring cleaning," and I anathematized her. The furniture was all piled together and veiled with sheets, the carpet and felt curtain were gone, there were new brooms about. As I peered around, a voice close at my ear made me jump— Lady Carwitchet's!

"I tell you I have nothing, not a penny! I shall have to borrow my train fare before I can leave this. They'll be glad enough to lend it."

Not only had the portiere been removed, but the door behind it had been unlocked and left open for convenience of dusting behind the wardrobe. I might as well have been in the bedroom.

"Don't tell me," I recognized Carwitchet's growl. "You've not been here all this time for nothing. You've been collecting for a Kilburn cot or getting subscriptions for the distressed Irish landlords. I know you. Now I'm not going to see myself ruined for the want of a paltry hundred or so. I tell you the colt is a dead certainty. If I could have got a thousand or two on him last week, we might have ended our dog days millionaires. Hand over what you can. You've money's worth, if not money. Where's that sapphire you stole?"

"I didn't. I can show you the receipted bill. All I possess is honestly come by. What could you do with it, even if I gave it you? You couldn't sell it as the Valdez, and you can't get it cut up as you might if it were real."

"If it's only bogus, why are you always in such a flutter about it? I'll do something with it, never fear. Hand over."

"I can't. I haven't got it. I had to raise something on it before I left town."

"Will you swear it's not in that wardrobe? I dare say you will. I mean to see. Give me those keys."

I heard a struggle and a jingle, then the wardrobe door must have been flung open, for a streak of light struck through a crack in the wood of the back. Creeping close and peeping through, I could see an awful sight. Lady Carwitchet in a flannel wrapper, minus hair, teeth, complexion, pointing a skinny forefinger that quivered with rage at her son, who was out of the range of my vision.

"Stop that, and throw those keys down here directly, or I'll rouse the house. Sir Thomas is a magistrate, and will lock you up as soon as look at you." She clutched at the bell rope as she spoke. "I'll swear I'm in danger of my life from you and give you in charge. Yes, and when you're in prison I'll keep you there till you die. I've often thought I'd do it. How about the hotel robberies last summer at Cowes, eh? Mightn't the police be grateful for a hint or two? And how about—"

The keys fell with a crash on the bed, accompanied by some bad language in an apologetic tone, and the door slammed to. I crept trembling to bed.

This new and horrible complication of the situation filled me with dismay. Lord Carwitchet's wolfish glance at my rubies took a new meaning. They were safe enough, I believed— but the sapphire! If he disbelieved his mother, how long would she be able to keep it from his clutches? That she had some plot of her own of which the bishop would eventually be the victim I did not doubt, or why had she not made her bargain with him long ago? But supposing she took fright, lost her head, allowed her son to wrest the jewel from her, or gave consent to its being mutilated, divided! I lay in a cold perspiration till morning.

My terrors haunted me all day. They were with me at breakfast time when Lady Carwitchet, tripping in smiling, made a last attempt to induce me to accompany her and keep her "bad, bad boy" from getting among "those horrid betting men."

They haunted me through the long peaceful day with Leta and the tete-a-tete dinner, but they swarmed around and beset me sorest when, sitting alone over my sitting-room fire, I listened for the return of the drag party. I read my newspaper and brewed myself some hot strong drink, but there comes a time of night when no fire can warm and no drink can cheer. The bishop's despairing face kept me company, and his troubles and the wrongs of the future heir took possession of me. Then the uncanny noises that make all old houses ghostly during the small hours began to make themselves heard. Muffled footsteps trod the corridor, stopping to listen at every door, door latches gently clicked, boards creaked unreasonably, sounds of stealthy movements came from the locked-up bathroom. The welcome crash of wheels at last, and the sound of the front-door bell. I could hear Lady Carwitchet making her shrill adieux to her friends and her steps in the corridor. She was softly humming a little song as she approached. I heard her unlock her bedroom door before she entered— an odd thing to do. Tom came sleepily stumbling to his room later. I put my head out. "Where is Lord Carwitchet?"

"Haven't you seen him? He left us hours ago. Not come home, eh? Well, he's welcome to stay away. I don't want to see more of him." Tom's brow was dark and his voice surly. "I gave him to understand as much." Whatever had happened, Tom was evidently too disgusted to explain just then.

I went back to my fire unaccountably relieved, and brewed myself another and a stronger brew. It warmed me this time, but excited me foolishly. There must be some way out of the difficulty. I felt now as if I could almost see it if I gave my mind to it. Why—  suppose— there might be no difficulty after all! The bishop was a nervous old gentleman. He might have been mistaken all through, Bogaerts might have been mistaken, I might— no. I could not have been mistaken— or I thought not. I fidgeted and fumed and argued with myself till I found I should have no peace of mind without a look at the stone in my possession, and I actually went to the safe and took the case out.

The sapphire certainly looked different by lamplight. I sat and stared, and all but over-persuaded my better judgment into giving it a verdict. Bogaerts's mark— I suddenly remembered it. I took my magnifier and held the pendant to the light. There, scratched upon the stone, was the Greek Beta! There came a tap on my door, and before I could answer, the handle turned softly and Lord Carwitchet stood before me. I whipped the case into my dressing- gown pocket and stared at him. He was not pleasant to look at, especially at that time of night. He had a disheveled, desperate air, his voice was hoarse, his red-rimmed eyes wild.

"I beg your pardon," he began civilly enough. "I saw your light burning, and thought, as we go by the early train to-morrow, you might allow me to consult you now on a little business of my mother's." His eyes roved about the room. Was he trying to find the whereabouts of my safe? "You know a lot about precious stones, don't you?"

"So my friends are kind enough to say. Won't you sit down? I have unluckily little chance of indulging the taste on my own account," was my cautious reply.

"But you've written a book about them, and know them when you see them, don't you? Now my mother has given me something, and would like you to give a guess at its value. Perhaps you can put me in the way of disposing of it?"

"I certainly can do so if it is worth anything. Is that it?" I was in a fever of excitement, for I guessed what was clutched in his palm. He held out to me the Valdez sapphire.

How it shone and sparkled like a great blue star! I made myself a deprecating smile as I took it from him, but how dare I call it false to its face? As well accuse the sun in heaven of being a cheap imitation. I faltered and prevaricated feebly. Where was my moral courage, and where was the good, honest, thumping lie that should have aided me? "I have the best authority for recognizing this as a very good copy of a famous stone in the possession of the Bishop of Northchurch." His scowl grew so black that I saw he believed me, and I went on more cheerily: "This was manufactured by Johannes Bogaerts— I can give you his address, and you can make inquiries yourself— by special permission of the then owner, the late Leone Montanaro."

"Hand it back!" he interrupted (his other remarks were outrageous, but satisfactory to hear); but I waved him off. I couldn't give it up. It fascinated me. I toyed with it, I caressed it. I made it display its different tones of color. I must see the two stones together. I must see it outshine its paltry rival. It was a whimsical frenzy that seized me— I can call it by no other name.

"Would you like to see the original? Curiously enough, I have it here. The bishop has left it in my charge."

The wolfish light flamed up in Carwitchet's eyes as I drew forth the case. He laid the Valdez down on a sheet of paper, and I placed the other, still in its case, beside it. In that moment they looked identical, except for the little loop of sham stones, replaced by a plain gold band in the bishop's jewel. Carwitchet leaned across the table eagerly, the table gave a lurch, the lamp tottered, crashed over, and we were left in semidarkness.

"Don't stir!" Carwitchet shouted. "The paraffin is all over the place!" He seized my sofa blanket, and flung it over the table while I stood helpless. "There, that's safe now. Have you candles on the chimney-piece? I've got matches."

He looked very white and excited as he lit up. "Might have been an awkward job with all that burning paraffin running about," he said quite pleasantly. "I hope no real harm is done." I was lifting the rug with shaking hands. The two stones lay as I had placed them. No! I nearly dropped it back again. It was the stone in the case that had the loop with the three sham sapphires!

Carwitchet picked the other up hastily. "So you say this is rubbish?" he asked, his eyes sparkling wickedly, and an attempt at mortification in his tone.

"Utter rubbish!" I pronounced, with truth and decision, snapping up the case and pocketing it. "Lady Carwitchet must have known it."

"Ah, well, it's disappointing, isn't it? Good-by, we shall not meet again."

I shook hands with him most cordially. "Good-by, Lord Carwitchet. So glad to have met you and your mother. It has been a source of the greatest pleasure, I assure you."

I have never seen the Carwitchets since. The bishop drove over next day in rather better spirits. Miss Panton had refused the chaplain.

"It doesn't matter, my lord," I said to him heartily. "We've all been under some strange misconception. The stone in your possession is the veritable one. I could swear to that anywhere. The sapphire Lady Carwitchet wears is only an excellent imitation, and— I have seen it with my own eyes— is the one bearing Bogaerts's mark, the Greek Beta."

____________________

4: Before Michael Came

Frederick R. Bechdolt

1874-1950

Red Book April 1912

ALTHOUGH Lighthouse Tom kept a saloon in The Street of Foreign Parts and also had attained the dignity of being a grandfather, the sea still claimed him as one of her rough children. Like the roaring customers who banged his bar with iron knuckles, he could not stay away from his old foster mother. I found him putting on his coat, when I dropped in one afternoon.

"Ye're in time fer a walk," said he. "I'm going to take a turn about the city front."

A grizzled ex-skipper, who was always sitting somewhere about the place, took charge and we two went out together. It was one of those rare drowsy days when the sun shines on San Francisco bay and there is no breeze to speak of. The Street of Foreign Parts was somnolent; we passed windows which bore the names of distant ports. We turned the corner and walked down to East Street. Crossing that busy thoroughfare we made our way to the wharves.

Bowsprits reached out over our heads as we walked; riggers worked far above us, clinging to dizzy perches; the smell of brine and barnaeles and decaying piles was in our nostrils. The craft of the seven seas lay in the slips; slender, tall-masted schooners redolent with the odor of Puget Sound lumber; tramp steamships with hulls of red and black; two old wooden ships with painted ports; a dainty French bark over whose rail leaned a sailor in a red yarn cap; white transports taking on cargo for the Philippines; and stern-wheeled steamers discharging loads of produce from the banks of inland rivers..

A riff-raff of tugs and launches were moving in and out among all these Big sisters of theirs. Out in the stream a battleship lay moored to a buoy. Nearby a dingy whaler swung at anchor; she was somber, sinister in color and line; her whole appearance was forbidding; a grim ship, and she seemed to say that she had seen much evil.

"She'll sail to-morrow," said Lighthouse Tom. "God help her crew." He gave her a long look and swore under his breath. His eyes hung on her, and hate was in them. A Silver-haired giant, he had now no kindness about him; he was again the man of action ; and hot passions flamed within him. In a moment it was passed, and we found a sunny nook on a long dock, with the warehouse behind us and the bay in front. We sat down and Lighthouse Tom filled his black clay pipe.

"The salt water pulls me down here," he said at length. "I'm getting old, but I can't stay away." He sniffed the air and forgot to light up. As if he could not resist the grip of his former calling, he fell to comment on some of the vessels that lay close by. His talk dealt with ropes and timbers and pulley blocks, every one of which owned its peculiar name; he dived into technicalities and my head spun trying to follow him, for these things puzzle a landsman sorely. When he had run on for some time, he lighted the tobacco and smoked in silence. '

A young fellow had been loafing aimlessly about the dock. The peculiar de'- jection of his attitude and the ill set of his worn clothes told their story plainly enough. He was one of those whom the city had lured from afar and he had found the promises empty. His face was pinched.

While Lighthouse Tom was smoking a man came up to this loiterer. He, too, was unmistakable; you can find his type on any crowded waterfront, never working, always prowling about, and usually in some sailors' saloon. In the, old days of the crimps and boarding houses they were more numerous and sleeker; now they often fetch up in police court with a charge of larceny against them. The pair talked for a moment. I saw Lighthouse Tom glance that way and stiffen. The pinched youth was shaking his head emphatically; the other man departed.

"Foxy boy," said Lighthouse Tom and chuckled; he raised his voice. "Come over here, mate."

The boy looked our way; hesitated and in thfe end came. "What sort of a job did he offer ye?" demanded Lighthouse Tom.

The other gave one suspicious glance, and then, as if reassured by the face of his questioner, smiled wanly. "He said he wanted men for a big tramp steamer that was going to Seattle," said he; "and that there was lots of work up that way. It didn't look good to me."

Lighthouse Tom was fumbling in his trousers pockets. He brought forth a dollar and a half dollar. "Here," said he. "Up on Market Street, a matter of five blocks, there is an employment agency. Ye can get a job there fer the dollar; the rest will stake ye fer a bed and meal. Ye'll do well to steer clear of the city front when the whalers is in port."

When the boy had got over his astonishment and had departed, Lighthouse Tom nodded to my look of inquiry. "That 'big tramp steamer' is the whaler out there in the stream," said he; "and Puget Sound would be two years in the Arctic fer that lad."

I said something about thinking that shanghaiing was done with, since the sailors' union had managed to get recent legislation.

"It never will be with the whalers." He cursed them again, and his clear old eyes flamed, as he looked out at the somber vessel in the stream. "I get savage when I think of them," said he. "The men's hearts that has been broke aboard of them! I know. No man knows better. Did I ever tell ye how' I got my dose of whaling?"

The sun was warm and we had an hour or more of basking ahead of us. I begged him for the yarn; and he launched into it with more profanity. There was no doubt that every oath came from his heart.

"Ye see," he explained, "I'd been shanghaied two times before. I told ye of one of them; the other was when I was a slip of a lad and it didn't count. One ship was the same as another in them days, and the sea was the best place fer me. But this was after I had married and settled down and I had it in mind never to go to sea ag'in.

"Ye remember how I stole the missus from Old Pedro, her father, when Big Joe was about to marry her? And ye mind how Old Mother Martin helped me and give me seventy-five dollars advance money for the v'y'ge. 'Twas enough fer any man to make his start with. But a sailor is in a hard way ashore, and I had been to sea ever since I was a kid. 'Twas all I knowed, ever since I had cast loose from the old man in Dublin, eleven years old. Cabin boy and able- bodied seaman and fisherman; that was what I had behind me. I was lost now. Me and the lass left Mother Martin's boarding house and found a little shack on the side of Rincon Hill. I started out to look fer a job. To this day when I see a lad a-castin' his eye around fer work and gettin' none, my heart goes out to him. There's nawthin' makes a man feel so down and out as getting turned away.

"I got it. Every day I got it. I had no trade; I did not know the ways of the land; I was as helpless as a ship aground on a lee shore? The worst of it was a-coming home to Annette. She could talk next to no English, and I could not lay my tongue to Portugee. All I could do when I come in with the soles of me feet all blistered from walking and my heart as heavy as a ship's lead, was to shake my head at her. And then she would smile up at me as much as to say, 'Fair weather ahead, lad,' and she would kiss me, and we would set down and eat what she had cooked up fer me. She learned her first English during them days. Enough to tell me one night that the baby was a-coming.

"That made me savage. No money in the locker now, and she in the biggest need that she had ever been in. Old Pedro was still sore at her for slipping her cable and getting spliced to me, when he had had it all laid out for Big Joe. He would not come anigh us and he would have laughed if he had knowed the case that we was in.

"Well, I made much over her that night, and I talked about the boy. For a boy it was to be; I was dead set on it. 'Boy,' says I over and over to her; and she says 'Boy' back to me. But when I come to take thought of it afterwards I was not so sure that she meant the word. I laid awake long after she had gone to sleep alongside of me and the more I thought, the savager I got. At last I dropped off, and the next morning she sung out, 'All hands' to me. The first thing that come into my head was what she had told me. I had good reason to hustle now.

"Well, I went down to East Street; and it seemed like every man I laid my eyes on was either working or going to his job with his dinner bucket in his fist. And I had no job. All the time I had the lass in mind; and I have knowed ever since that mornin' the feeling of being a thief.

"I tell ye, lad, I seen men with the money a-jingling in their pockets and it made my heart go black inside of me. And if it had been night then, I would of taken a chanst, the same as many a poor devil has done before and since. What right had they to money when my wife was with child and I was broke?

"Them was hard times, and men was a-saying, 'Please, Mister' on every corner— men that had worked all their lives. But somfe way, I did not run afoul of them. 'Twas only the lucky ones I seen, with the smiles on their faces. I went here and there, mostly places where I had been before; and I got turned away the same as I always had. It looked to me as if no man was friend to me. Ye do not know the dirtiness of that feeling.

I was beating about the city front, trying the best I knowed how to lay out some new course to steer by, and me head was spinning with the things that was a-running through it, when I run afoul of Big Joe.

"I had not cast my eyes on him since I smashed his face in front of Old Pedro's second-hand store and made off with Annette, when he was a-going for to marry her himself. I told ye he was bully of the Comax Bunkers gang. He come now along with a half a dozen of them big coalheavers. They was in their dongarees and undershirts and their faces was black from the work. No sooner did I clap eyes on them, than Big Joe sighted me. He come bows on.

"Now, what with the trouble I was in and the way I felt to all men, I was a-looking fer the worst of it anyways. It sort of made me feel good to see him too; fer I figured it that I could hammer hell out of him and one or two of his mates before they got me down. I squared away like.

"But he grinned like a jack lantern and stuck out his big black paw. 'Lighthouse Tom,' says he, 'how are ye annyhow?' Fer a matter of a minute I did not get my bearin's, and he sung out, 'What! Are ye sore yet? Mates,' says he, 'this here is the bully that trimmed me, the one I told ye about.' The gang of them come crowding up with the whites of their eyes a-rollin'. 'How is the Missus?' says he. 'By God, ye have a good woman, Lighthouse Tom.' I gripped him by the hand then. Damned if he didn't tell the rest of them about our fight ag'in, and their eyes hung out like I was some curio. 'And,' says he, 'the best man got her. Come on,' says he, 'and have a drink with us.'

"We went to a saloon acrost the way and Big Joe asked me how I was a-making it. I told him I was a-casting about fer some sort of a job. 'You come along with me,' says he. 'Ye can learn to swing a scoop. I'll get ye on this arternoon.'

"That took all the wind out of my sails. It had been that hard weather, and here come a line from a quarter I had never looked to. I told him as much. He laughed down at me— fer big as I was then, he was half a head the loftier— and, says he, 'Better for the lass, she come to ye. I like me liquor and me bulldog too well to make fast with a woman. I know it, if I didn't know it then. Ye fought me fer her and ye won, Lighthouse Tom. And I have lost too many bets on Sunday coursin' races to raise a roar when all was fair and above board,' says he. 'We'll make fer the bunkers now; the timekeeper is there.'

"So that arternoon I shoveled coal under the hatchway of a big bellied tramp along with Big Joe and twenty other black, hairy, sweatin' devils. In a fog of black dust, and work like I had never seen before. It got me too; I near to went under. But Big Joe was me friend and the gang give me all the best of it.  I have seen many a new hand come to one of them colliers sence, and get the heavy end; and I learned then what luck I had been in. This all in the knack of it, and soon I got so that I could Swing my scoop and trim my pile all proper and stand up to it with the best of them. But that was later on.

"That night I come home to Annette as black as Big Joe; and my pins was a shaking under me with what I had dqne. But I had six hours' time in, and that meant three dollars earned. I left a black mark where I kissed her. And when I had sluiced off the dust and eat me supper, we sat and talked together in tbe kitchen. I fell to sleep in me chair, a-teaching of her to say 'Michael.' That was to be the boy's name, fer 'twas me father's, and I liked it.

"Every evenin' after that I used to set there in the kitchen a-teachin' of her English. And there was no evenin' when she would not look up at me and say 'Michael,' and then come over to me. and set on my lap and kiss me. Ah, lad! Them was the days, even if we was poor enough. The hard weather we had been through made this seem like a quiet harbor.

"Sometimes I would not come home until midnight or after. That was in the beginning of the winter when the colliers was cornin' into port every day or two, and the gang used to be working overtime. Six bits an hour fer that and God knows we 'arned it, too. When we knocked off the balance of them would head fer the saloons; and on Sundays they would gamble away their wages on the coursin' races or backing Big Joe's bulldog ag'in a pit dog from up in the Mission. But I had none of that. I took me money home to the lass and she stowed it away in the locker ag'in the boy that was to come. I would be making me way from the city front when it was dark and raining; and I would see nothing nor feel aught of the wind and wet fer thinking of her a-waiting there fer me. Proud we two was; and foolish with talking of the one thing. Ah! Now I'm old and have two grandchildren!"

Lighthouse Tom fell silent and his old face seemed to grow younger as he looked out across the blue waters of the bay. Suddenly his features darkened and his eyelids dropped. I followed his gaze toward the black bulk of the whaler swinging on her cable out in the stream, a pariah among the ships; a wicked looking, dirty colored hulk. He shook his head.

"Bad weather ahead," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "We was a-sailing dost to a lee shore and we never knowed it. Ah, well; 'tis strange how them things comes about.

"All that winter I shoveled coal. Ye can go down to the bunkers there and see what it is like. Two men to a tub; four tubs to a hatch; and us between decks where the black fog of the dust was so thick ye could cut it with a shovel, and everything was full of gas. Big Joe was my mate, and I've seen him knock the necks off of two whisky bottles in a shift. I did not drink aught but oatmeal water for the reason that beer and whisky cost money and I was saving every cent that the lass and me could lay by. Spring time come; two hundred dollars in the bank, and the boy was due by our reckoning inside of three months."

He stopped again, and then he swore. "I do not like the thought of it," he went on. "Even now it is a hard yarn fer me to spin, lad, fer the ugliness biles up inside of me when I think of it. There come one day, a hard day in the belly of an old wooden ship, scant room between decks and nasty shoveling. That noon I blowed meself fer two big tall steam beers over at the Bells of Shandon. And there was luck in that too, as ye'll see fer yourself .later on.

"I run acrost two old shipmates of mine there; Olaf Hansen and Shrivel-Head Pete, both of them fishermen. We had been together two seasons in the old days and knowed one another well. So I had a yarn with them, and told them about the lass and the good luck that was a-coming to us. They was a-blowing in their advance money, fer they was to sail on the old Fremont within the week. They wanted me to stay and help them spend it, but I couldn't see it that way. That arternoon things come hard.

"Two men laid out with gas in the for'ard hold; and in the evenin' a tub tipped and a matter of three hundred pounds of coal come from aloft. It got one of the byes that was a-standin' hard by me; and when we picked him up his skull was mashed in. What with the hard work we was a-having and this bad luck, we was all glad when we climbed to deck at one o'clock in the marnin'. The gang started on a run fer East Street to get a drink. I steered a course for home.

"I hadn't any more than set out. I was a-thinkin' of the lass and the way she would be a-looking when I come in to her. My mind was not with them things that was around and about; and I was a-coming out from under the coal bunkers where all was dark; on Frisco's city front. And a whaler lying out there in the stream the same as this one is this artemoon. I heard the scrape of a foot hard astern, and it sort of brought me back to meself. I turned to look, and three men piled onto me from dead ahead. As I tried to fend them off, the one that I had heard got me with the side of his hand in the back of the neck." Lighthouse Tom made a swift, short chopping movement with his open hand. "Like that. I went down and out.

"When I come to I was laid by the heels; ropes around me arms and legs and a handkerchief stuffed into me mouth. But that was not the first thing I took note of, lad. Someone kicked me with his heavy boot. I looked up and I seen there, a-looking straight down at me, a blue-eyed nigger.

"Yes, sir, a big Jamaica nigger with blue eyes, in the black face of him. I had been wild mad when I looked up; when I clapped me eyes on that, I turned sick like. For a matter of a half a minute I was scared. The shine of an arc light come down on us from a pier head and it showed him plain. And then I seen how I was a-laying in a ship's boat and the men was a-giving way for all that was ift them. I knowed then.

"This mongrel that had kicked me was Lily Brown, the mate of the old Henry Buck, the worst hell ship in the whole whaling fleet. She is gone to pieces long sence, and many's the poor devil thanked God when he heard of it, too.

"But I was telling ye about me in the boat. They must of handed me one or two fer luck when I went down, fer me head was spinning so that I could not be thinking for long at a time. I do not mind how they got me to the deck. All I do mind was that face of Lily Brown and the' heaviness of me heart for a-thinking of the lass a-waiting fer me fhere alone. A-waiting there in the kitchen with the supper warm in the oven fer me, and a-wondering why I was not on hand by now. A-listening fer me step and a-saying 'Michael' to herself. I tore me wrists and ankles raw on the rope whilst they dumped me down the forecastle companionway; and I must of fainted away later on, for I mind a-hearing of the donkey engine and the roar of the anchor chain in the hawseholes, and that was the last.

"The stink of a whaler's forecastle was in me nose when I come to ag'in. I was a-rolling about like an old cask with the movement of the ship. The tug had cast loose and we was outside the heads. No man needed to tell me; I knowed what it was all about. Me on the old Henry Buck with the Arctic ahead and back home, the lass a-waiting, and sick from worry by this time. They had loosed the ropes from me now and I heard some one sing out, 'All hands.' I found me pins and made out for to get to the main deck.

" 'Twas in the gray of the early mornin' and the wind was raw, It freshened me and I could feel me legs a-growing stiffer under me. The old Henry Buck was a-rolling and everything on deck was on the jump. I stiddied meself and I got a look at the crew.

"Ye know how it is with a whaler; one crew amidships, harpooners and boatmen and the like, and another for'ard. Well, them first was bad enough, as tough as they make them. But the seamen! Lad, such dock's scourin's was never seed before. Not a sailor among the whole of them: bums' sick from a-waiting fer a square meal; scum picked up from the dance halls of the Barbary Coast and hoodlums grabbed on their way to jail. A sweet lot! But even whilst I was a-casting me eye over them, I could not but feel sorrow for them all. Better the worst of the crowd had stayed ashore fer the hangman than come aboard the Henry Buck! And then I clapped me eyes on Lily Brown.

"Blue eyes in a black face. A-standing hard by; and instid of a cap or a sou'wester he had a red handkerchief tied up at the four corners on his head, so that the kinky wool come out all about it like a fringe. His black arms was bare and he was in his shirt and dongarees. He had a big belt and a long revolver slung alongside of him. He used to wear that gear to scare the new hands, and he looked fierce enough in it, too. But the minute me eyes lit on him I felt the blood a-choking in me neck. I made a leap for him.

"He had no time to get that gun if he had a mind to. I do not think he so much as tried. I was on him with me two hands about his throat. We went to the deck together. I sunk me fingers in and felt his pipes give and give. And then the others came— two from aft and four or five harpooners and boatmen— and pried me off. They dragged me to the skipper and he had them spreadeagle me on the for'ard hatch.

"They laid me flat and pulled my arms and legs as far as they would go, and triced me there all hard and fast so that I could not stir an inch. The burning in me jints was like red-hot fire. My face was up, a-looking at the sky. And Lily Brown come and leaned over me and spit on me as I laid there. All day and all night they kept me there. I thought that I had died with the last thing I knowed, that black mongrel cursing me, and me heart a-busting inside of me for the thinking of Annette. Well, I come to in the forecastle, stowed away in me bunk. And from that day I was a good dog.

"Ye see it was this way. When I come to meself I was alone down there, and I got time for thought. I knowed what I was up against. And says I to meself, 'I will bide me time and see whether there is God. There is the lass to get back to and there is Lily Brown to kill with me two hands. And the v'y'ge is not done with yet. I will wait and I will find out.' "

Lighthouse Tom groped in his pockets and hauled forth his tobacco. He filled up his pipe, lighted it and smoked for a minute. It seemed to calm him, for his face became placid and he said, as if it were to himself, "Ah, well, 'twas many years ago." Then he resumed his yarn.

"The worst of a whaler is not the mate, or the Arctic or the scurvy that rots the meat on your bones. It is the crew. Of all the pickings from this side of hell, the old Henry Buck had the worst. From the start that forecastle was full of nawthm' but jobbing. They would lay out a course to murder Lily Brown, and then, some poor devil would tip it.off in the hope of getting a square deal for it himself. Every night mutiny was hatched up for'ard; and every morn- in' they knowed all about it in the cabin. So there was always knocking down and tricing up and trouble enough. A sweet mess! I stayed away from it all. I kept to meself. I said nothing to nobody, and bided me time.

"The old Henry Buck was a slow tub enough and there was no hurry anyways, fer the ice was hardly due to be out of Behring Sea at the best ye could put it. So we loafed along under sail with the engines idle. I counted the days until Michael was due to be a-coming into port. It was hard, hard! Sometimes I had to fight meself to keep me hands down to me sides and say, 'Aye, aye, sir,' when Lily Brown was a-handing me the rough side of his dirty tongue. And I had to look down on the deck lest he should see what was in me heart. But I done it. They got it into their heads that I was broke. And then, ye see, I was a good able-bodied seaman, which the rest of that crew was not by a long ways.

"Well, Behring Sea was full of ice. And we put back to Dutch Harbor to stand by fer the breaking. Sence the day we made for that port I have been what ye might call a Christian. That is to say, I have always knowed that there is God.

"Ye see, Dutch Harbor was the last of the world in them days. Chances was after that a whaler would see no other port unless it might be some out of the way station. And hell would really begin. So I give up an idee that had come into me head of making a run fer Lily Brown and taking him overboard with me. I would of done it, too, if we had not put back. I was in a bad way; I had got to talking to meself, so that I had to keep a weather eye out, fer fear they would catch me at it and hear what I was a-saying.

"We made Dutch Harbor in the night time. Mamin' come with us at anchor. A lot of mountains shuts the place in; they come right down to the water's edge. I was on deck near the rail a-looking at the tops of them, when here come the old Fremont a-racing by: She was the fastest schooner in the fishing fleet in them days. She had left Frisco long behind us and had caught up easy enough. She come so dost that I could of throwed a stone from our deck to hers. And there, up for'ard, was Olaf Hansen and Shrivel-Head Pete, the same two that I had took drink with in the Bells of Shandon that arternoon before Lily Brown laid me by the heels.

"We three looked into each other's faces; and I seen them grab hold of each other's arms. But that was all. I made no sign and they made none. I turned as if there had been nothing in the wind at all, and Lily Brown was right behind me. He was all rigged out in that there pirate gear of his, with his six-shooter in his belt.

" 'Know that craft?' says he.

"I had better sense than to lie, fer all hands knowed I was an old seaman on this coast. So I says, 'Sure, I sailed on her once years ago.'

" 'Who was them men on deck?" says he.

" 'Couldn't tell ye, sir,' says I; 'men has changed sence I was to sea last.'

"He grunted something; then he started away. In a minute he came back ag'in..'Get below,' says he, 'and don't show yer face on deck unless ye're called.'

" 'Aye, aye, sir,' says I. If he. had give me orders' then to lick off his boots, I would of done it, and ship shape, too. Ye may lay to that, lad.

"I went below. I laid down in me bunk and put me poor head to figuring it out. 'Twas plain as a map. The whole crew of the Fremont would know now that I had been shanghaied on the old Henry Buck. For hadn't I told Olaf Hansen and Shrivel-Head Pete about the lay of the land, ye see? And back in port the lass, according to the reckoning I was a-keeping, was a month from the day when there would be two of them there, a-standing by fer me.

"That poor, rotten bunch that we called our crew, was all a-whispering together. I knowed that they had something on, but I paid no heed to that until one of them came over to my bunk. He was a one-eyed hoodlum from down in Butchertown, that had shipped of his own free will, because he had San Quentin a-waiting for him if he stayed ashore. Says he, 'Mate,' says he, 'there's a steamer in the harbor.' I knowed then that it must be the Dora or the Bertha, for they was a-making them westward ports then. 'She will be a-sailing sometime in the night,' says he. 'Are ye game fer to go with us? We'll make a rush fer the two men on watch, and get a boat overside,' says he; 'and we'll board her and tell our story.'

"I told him that it would only land them back on the Henry Buck in irons. He went away. They had more talk together and I seed how they was arguing of it out among themselves. And at last they seemed to give it up. In the arter- noon six of them started ag'in. And the one-eyed hoodlum come over to me once more. This time they had it laid out to get the boat and make a try fer the land and the mountains. 'Any place,' says he, 'is better than this hell's hole.' But I shook me head and told him it was no use and I was done with all that sort of thing.

"So the forecastle was lonesome enough that evening, for they all held away from me more than ever they had and whispered amongst themselves. And all the time I was a-lying there a-wondering how the play would come up fer me and when it might come annyhow. Ye see, that was the trouble. I did not know; and I could only wait and dig me finger nails into me hands. Weary waiting, it was, lad. For I was young and well-nigh crazy, too.

"The best I could figure it was this: They would be a-standing by on the Fremont, and some of them was bound to be pretty dost by midnight. If I got no hail in any fashion from them, and nothin' come, I could slip on deck then and make a run and a jump fer it over the side. I was a good swimmer and chances was there would be a dory a-waiting for me to take me on.

"Well, midnight drawed along and I begun to wonder whether mebbe I hadn't better be thinking of stirring; when I heard some of them poor devils begin to move in their bunks. I seen six of them slip out and come together; and I made out how they was all dressed but in their socks. While they was bunched, I see the shine of a knife in the hand of the one-eyed hoodlum that had had the talk with me. It come to me mind that mebbe they might stick me to keep me quiet. But even while I was a-thinking of that, they begun to make fer the companionway. One of the bunch went on ahead; and the rest waited until he come a-crawling back. Then all six went up together, bent over and easy on their feet as tomcats.

"I waited and did not move. Pretty quick there come a scufflin' noise on deck. And that was all. It seemed like a year, and then there came a bump. Says I to meself, 'They've got Lily Brown;' and I felt like I had been cheated. And just as I was a-thinking there come a long, horrid screech; and hard on- that the racket of a boat being lowered away.

"It didn't take long fer the pounding of the boots from aft. 'All hands on deck,' sings out a voice. 'Twas Lily Brown. I cracked my head ag'in a timber a-tumbling up. And no sooner had I hit the planks above when a yell sounded from alongside. 'Twas men in sore distress, too. Just then I stubbed me toe on something soft. I looked down and I see the third mate sprawled out, flat. I slipped in the blood that was all over everything and capsized alongside of him. As I was a-rightin' meself that yell come ag'in from the water. I knowed what it was. They had pulled the boat plugs while they was in port; and them poor devils was a-drowning alongside of the Henry Buck.

"I made a run fer the rail, and I got the noise of oars hard by. That would be the Fremont's dory. I knowed that. Lily Brown and four others was a-cursing the air blue making ready to lower away another boat. I knew what I had to do. I whirled where I was a-standing and made that blue-eyed nigger in two jumps. I swung one and then two and he went to the deck like a log of wood. And now there was no time to waste. Down in Frisco the lass was a-waiting; and here was the Fremont's dory a-coming on the jump. I only took a second to put me boots into that mongrel face and spile it worse than ever it had been spiled in the making. And then I went over the rail while two harpooners was about to lay hands on me.

"When I come up— I took two long minutes fer it, for I was in all me clothes— Olaf Hansen had me by the collar. I got the gunwale and yelled fer them to give way. And round about the air was full of the hollaring of them drowning men. I tumbled in; and right astern the Henry Buck's boat was a-rattling down. The byes in the dory made the oars crack, and a shot came after us when they was bending fer the third stroke. Dutch Harbor was as noisy as one of them East Street saloons when a battleship is in port, and the men ashore with three months' pay. I heard afterwards as how they got all their hands back only one, the hoodlum from Butcher-town, and he was better off as it was, what with prison- behind him and the Arctic ahead.

"Shrivel-Head Pete was a-grinning at me when I righted meself in the dory. He told me how they had been a-standing by for a matter of two hours; and was laying it out to make up a boarding party if I did not show my head. All the time the other boys was pulling fit to kill. We went right on past the Fremont. 'The Bertha sails in the half hour,' says Shrivel-Head; 'we fixed it with the man on the dock. They will stow ye away in the fireroom.'

"And so they did. I was a-drying out when the Henry Buck's skipper come aboard of the Bertha; but he did not make a search, for they give him a game of talk on deck that sent him back to the Fremont. Inside of an hour we was outside of Dutch Harbor.

"Well, there was a whole string of little half-way ports to make, and the Bertha was no ocean grayhound anyhow. So we took a matter of three weeks and more before we entered Puget Sound. I had to loaf about Seattle for another two days, a-waiting for the sailing of a Frisco boat. I worked me passage down in the fireroom, and one mornin' I walked down the gangplank to the wharf over there. 'Twas a lumber carrier I had come in, and she had a good-sized cargo too. What's more we met head-winds and a heavy sea. So me month was up, that I had figured that evenin' before I cleared the Henry Buck's rail.

"Lad, I made for Rincon Hill with all sail on and a fair wind. I do not call to mind one thing from the dock to the shack where. I had left the lass, only that I had collisions with two or three that was slow In getting acrost me bows; and a cop was set on taking me to the station fer a crazy man. I come to the place at last. I went up to the door on a run, all out of wind. Mother Martin opened it in me face.

" 'So,' says she, 'ye're back in port. 'Tis time! Where have ye been a-keepin' of yerself, and what have ye to say?' says she.

"She was as ugly as a fighting bulldog, but it was only the way of her, for she knowed that I had been in a hard fix. 'Twas all over East Street how I had been shanghaied on the Henry Buck three days arter we had sailed. Well, I madr shift to tell her as fast as I could how I had got back. 'The lass,' says she, 'is all snug and in good trim. As good as ye could look fer. The baby come last night.'

" 'Leave me in,' says I. 'Gangway quick.'

" 'Aisy,' says she. 'Ye're not on the Henry Buck now, lad. Yer wife is got to be give word first. Stand by and I'll be out directly.'

"I cooled me heels on the doorstep until I was well-nigh crazy. She come out with her skinny old finger on her lip. 'Take off yer boots,' says she. 'And make a try to tread light.' I stripped- them off and follied her inside.

"The lass was a-lying in her bed. She was main weak, of course; and I went alongside of her on me knees. We had our word or two together and then she give me a queer look, half scared, half proud like. And Mother Martin come slipping in behind me with the baby in her arms.

" 'Michael,' says I and come to my feet a-grinning with the pride that was a-busting in me.

" 'Michael nawthing!' says Mother Martin. 'That's no name fer a girl.'

"And so it was; and as fine a one as ye ever clapped eyes on. I stood there
a-looking and old Mother Martin give me signals with her eyes to take notice of the missus.

"She was allying there, a-looking like she was waiting fer some sort of a word from me. And I seen it agin in them big eyes of hers, like she was in a way scared along, with all the proudness that was in her. And I remembered how I had made her say 'Michael' after me. And I felt like a fool; for here, I was with a lass instid of a bye and glad of it. And so I told her and she begun to cry then. For ye see, lad, she was main weary with it all."

Lighthouse Tom pulled at the tobacco and said nothing for a minute or two. At length, "It was two year before Michael did come. Ah, well. And now I'm a grandfather. A man grows old. He does."

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5: The Lay Figure

Francis Henry Atkins

1840-1927, writing as "Fenton Ash"

The Weekly Times, Melbourne, 25 Jan 1913

Text courtesy Roy Glashan's Library, which has more stories by this author

IT was the effigy of an old gypsy woman in red cloak, and it had been set up outside a cottage standing alone amid the billowing expanse of Dartmoor, by an artist who wanted to copy it into the foreground of a sketch he had made elsewhere.

Since time immemorial, as it is well known, all painters with any claims to be regarded as true disciples of Art have considered it a point of honour, when they condescended to portray a landscape, to place an old woman in red in the forefront of the same.

Dwellers in towns who but seldom wander into the country, and who take their ideas of what is to be seen there from the painted pictures on view in shop windows or exhibitions, must be under the impression that old women in red cloaks are almost as common in rural places as blackberries; or at least as sheep and cows. Wherever, apparently, an artist happens to make a sketch, such an individual is always to be seen, seated complacently on a piece of rock, an old tree or fallen log, or, failing those convenient perches, upon the bare ground.

But to those who actually travel to and fro in the land it is known that these gaily-garbed old dames are not by any means so common as the picture-makers would have us believe; and this is what Jack Brandon, the artist staying at the cottage in question, had discovered. Disappointed in his hopes of finding a few— or even a single living example— anywhere within reach of his temporary quarters, he had fallen back upon the happy device of making one of his own out of a lay figure, a glaring red shawl, and a wax mask.

And here she was as large as life, and looking almost as real, sitting on a stool in the most natural manner in the world, complete even to the essential detail of a discoloured clay pipe placed between the grinning lips.

And there, a little way off, under the shade of a group of overhanging trees, sat the artist himself, on another stool, before his easel, busily painting into the foreground of his picture a likeness of the most particularly attractive figure he had manufactured.

It was in the glorious summer weather, upon the morning of what had already become a "piping hot" day. The sun poured down with almost torrid heat. The cottage stood on a knoll in the midst of the moor, and it commanded views around for miles; and in whatever direction one looked nothing was to be seen but heather and gorse and bracken and rocks, until, in the distance, it all faded into a rosy-hot-looking haze.

A well-favoured, well-built young fellow was Jack Brandon. Honesty was written in his face, and good-nature and good-humour lurked in his eyes and round the corners of the mouth that held the briarwood pipe.

So busy was he that he never once looked round; and little did he dream of a stealthy form that was wriggling along amongst the heather and bracken behind him.

Little did he guess that the crawling object was the figure of a man whose dress indicated that he was a prisoner escaped from the great convict prison a few miles away. A man driven nearly mad by hunger and thirst, and ready to do almost any desperate deed in order to obtain what he so badly needed—food, drink, a change of clothes, and money.

This man had arrived near the cottage blindly in the darkness of the preceding night, knowing nothing of the little dwelling so near at hand, and too dead beat to struggle on further. There he had dropped down, crept in among the bushes, and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.

When he had woke up, the dawn had come and, peeping cautiously out from his hiding-place, he had found himself confronted by the cottage. Then he knew that he durst not move; all he could do was to lie there and wait and watch. Four hours, now, while the sun had risen and mounted higher, and it had grown hotter and hotter, he had lain there, watching the habitation, hoping that whoever lived in it would go out presently and leave the place deserted.

And as the time had dragged by, to his fevered imagination the cottage wall with its two windows had become a horrible nightmare. It had shaped itself into the likeness of a hideous face of ghastly pallor, with two sinister eyes staring out and keeping watch and ward over the wild moor. Some dark patches, where the plaster had fallen away, bore a fanciful resemblance to an ugly nose and a big grinning mouth; the brown thatch was like unto a heavy mass of hair, and the two chimneys, one at each corner, became upturned ears.

How he had chafed and fretted, and cursed those two staring eyes which had prevented him from crawling even so far as the nearest pool for a drink of water to quench his raging thirst!

He had heard people moving about and going in and out of the cottage door, but had not been able to see them, or form an idea as to what manner of people they might be, for the door was on the opposite side. All he could guess at was that there were two of them, and that they could not be ordinary working folk, for the reason that the morning had been well advanced before they had shown any sign of going abroad.

At last, however, he had seen one of them walking across the moor. He had gone some distance before coming into the watcher's line of vision, and some rocky hillocks had hidden him quickly from sight again.

Then the half-maddened fugitive had resolved that he would take his chance with the one now left alone, and he commenced to crawl stealthily towards him. In each hand he carried an ugly looking piece of rock. With such weapons a desperate man can do much, especially when— as was the case here— he is endowed with a muscular frame beyond the average, still powerful despite the privations and sufferings of a prison life.

So the artist painted on, while the man in prison dress crawled nearer and nearer, like a queer-shaped drab coloured snake— crawled on till he found himself quite close. Then he paused and glared through a bush at the scene on the other side.

Just then the artist rose up and stepped back, as artists are fond of doing, to criticise their work, A slight rustling sound caused him to turn, and he found himself confronted by an apparition which seemed to rise suddenly out of the ground itself.

For a space the two stared at each other. Neither moved; the fugitive, half-crazy as he was fierce and savage as he had felt just before, did not spring upon the artist as he intended. Indeed the pieces of rock dropped from his hands.

"Jack!" he gasped, in amaze.

"Dick! By all that's blue. It must be Dick Harding!" cried the artist.

He did not hesitate. He stepped forward, laid hold of the fugitive, and pulled him along with him into the cottage. Then he stood and stared at him.

"Then you are the prisoner we heard had escaped!" he exclaimed. "It wouldn't do for you to stay outside there! But for the matter of that, you're very little better off inside. This place is sure to be searched by and by. Besides—"

"Besides what? Out with it!"

"Why— Dick! What evil destiny led you here— of all places?"

"Why— how do you mean?"

"This cottage belongs— for the time-being— to one whom you regard, I know, as your enemy. Your cousin, Sydney Tracey, took it for the summer, and he invited me down to do some sketching. I am only his guest here."

"What!" cried the fugitive, in a voice that was almost a shriek. "Sydney? That vile scoundrel? That wretch? He here? He is the one I want to see then! Let me see him! Let me put these hands on him, and I will wring the truth from his accursed lips. It was his plot— the whole vile thing was his planning! 'Twas he who caused me to be falsely accused of my uncle's murder. 'Twas through his false evidence that I was convicted and sentenced to death. Aye— and he counted on that sentence being carried out, too, to come into the property. But in that he has been disappointed. For myself I would rather it had been carried out— far rather than live the awful existence I have been enduring! But one thing, the one thing only, has buoyed me up and kept me from being utterly crushed— the knowledge that as I live he cannot touch my fortune. In spite of what he has done he is not a penny the richer, and I may hope yet to see him in my shoes— for— Jack"— here the speaker dropped his voice, and became suddenly calm and stern. "As there is a heaven above us, I believe it was Sydney Tracey himself who killed our poor old uncle!"

"Well," returned Brandon, "I've heard others say the same thing. As for myself, I don't want to say anything about that; but I do know that I never thought you guilty, old chap. And," he paused and looked pityingly at the man before him, "there is one other at least who has never wavered in her belief in your innocence."

"You mean—" began Harding; and then stopped as though he were choking.

Brandon nodded slowly. "I see you know who I mean."

"You would say Edith—Miss Finlayson?

"Aye: Miss Finlayson. I saw her a few weeks ago, and she asked me if ever I got a chance of sending you a message to tell you so."

The man in prison dress turned away and buried his face in his hands. He muttered some broken expressions to himself, of which the only words "Thank God! Thank God!" could be distinguished.

"But you must have something to eat," urged Brandon. "I'll get it out, and while you are feeding I'll watch and talk by turns."

A moment later the fugitive was eating and drinking ravenously while his friend chatted, and went restlessly up and down the stairs to keep a look-out from the upper windows.

"For the life of me I don't know what's to be done, Dick!" he said in one of these intervals. "Tracey will he back presently. Then he is going out again and will not return till late to-night. That's all right so far— I could hide you in my room till after he's gone, and you could get away in the dark before he gets back. That could be managed; but the deuce of it is that this place is sure to be searched. A party of warders may arrive at any moment— they're almost certain to come during the day— and then they will ransack every nook and cranny. The cottage has only four rooms, and there is absolutely nowhere I could put you where they would not be certain to find you."

"I know, I know," muttered the fugitive, despondently. "I'm afraid I've no chance, after all. I could creep back into the bracken and gorse, but they're pretty sure to beat up every square yard of it."

"H'm! Let me put my thinking cap on," murmured Brandon. "If only you were not such a big chap! I'm afraid even my clothes won't fit you. And I've no others here— no disguise. By Jupiter! But I've got it, Dick. Do you think you could double yourself up a bit and crouch down inside yonder old woman's red shawl? If you could I fancy we may be able to cheat 'em yet! Some of the warders know my old woman's figure; they often stroll past here and have seen it and laughed at it many a time. They'll never think of looking there for their missing prisoner!"

"It's a good idea!" mused Harding. "But what will you do with the lay figure underneath?"

"I've got a cupboard upstairs in my room that I could chuck it into. They'll see it, of course. If they do; so long as Tracey doesn't see it too, it is not likely to raise any suspicion in their mind."

A QUARTER of an hour later the artist was back at his easel, painting away, seemingly, as hard as ever. All signs of the surreptitious meal had been cleared away, and the lay figure was in the cupboard upstairs, while the man in prison dress had taken up its place, and was sitting on its stool doubled up under the red shawl, staring out through the slits in the mask.

The two friends talked together, trying to evolve some plan for enabling the fugitive to eventually get clear away. Between whiles, Brandon went upstairs and looked out on all sides over the moor, and from one of these little excursions he returned with a grave, perturbed face.

"He's coming— Tracey," he said. "And confound it, he's got a warder with him!"

The man under the shawl started.

"Have they tracked me here already?" he exclaimed. "Can they suspect?"

"No, no, keep still; I do not think so. I fancy— I hope it may have been an accidental meeting. But now, see here. Can I trust you to keep still, d'you think, if I leave you alone with these two?"

"I'll keep as still as the old wooden dummy you took away. But why leave me?"

"I'll tell you, old chap. The warder is sure to want to search the place. If Tracey goes round with him, and sees the figure in my cupboard, he'll know at once something's up. If the warder sees it alone, he won't. Now I wanted to write a letter for Tracey to post, and I'll set to work on it. That will be a hint to the warder that I don't want to be disturbed more than can be helped, and a hint to Tracey that he needn't come bothering and worrying me as well as the other fellow. See?"

"Ay, ay. I only hope it will answer."

"We must hope for the best. If I can only keep Tracey out of the room while the other fellow is in it, and you can keep quiet here, you may come out of it all right after all. Now I'm off to my room."

FOR A WHILE all was quiet. The sun poured down rays that seemed hotter than ever, but Harding, fortunately for his comfort, was in the shadow thrown by the cottage wall. Insects hummed as they flew past, the cry of a startled bird came across the moor, then voices were heard, and soon after two men appeared.

One was a dark and not particularly pleasant-looking man of thirty or thereabouts, in Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers. With him came one in warder's dress— an individual of saturnine aspect, with a set scowl on his face, and a hard, square jaw.

"Sit down over there in the shade, while I go and fetch a drink and see where my friend has got to," said Tracey.

The warder sat down beside a table, near the easel, and glanced keenly round, first at the figure in the red cloak, which he regarded with amused curiosity, and then at the picture on the easel.

Meanwhile, Tracey's voice could be heard in the house calling for Jack.

Jack sallied forth from his room and sang out cheerily in return to the effect that he was busy writing a letter for Tracey to post.

"I want to speak to you for a moment," Tracey answered. "Here's one of the prison chaps who are out searching for a missing prisoner. He wants to take a look round. He must go in your room."

Jack came down and appeared in the doorway. He nodded to the warder, who stood up and made a sort of salute.

"There's a party of us out, sir," he explained. "They'll be here presently, and 'll want t' make a search. Now I met this gentleman by chance, an' as I knows him by sight like, an' as I knows you're both respectable gents, I thought it might he more agreeable if I came an' took a look round myself. Then, when the others come, I can say as I've done all there is to be done, and they'll go on. I shan't be so rough an' want to turn the place upside down, and poke me nose into everything like they would."

"Jolly good-natured of him, isn't it." said Tracey to Jack.

"Very. It's a piece of courtesy I'm sure we both appreciate," was the polite reply. "Do you mind coming upstairs with me and going through my room first? Then I shall be able to shut myself up and finish my letter. It's rather a particular matter, and will take me some little time."

The warder went upstairs, marched into the artist's room, and looked round in a formal way. He opened the cupboard door, where he saw the wooden figure sprawling on the floor. It did not convey anything to his mind, and expressing himself satisfied, he saluted and marched out; and the way the door was slammed to after him suggested that the occupant of the room was well pleased to get rid of him.

Tracey, meantime, had been pacing up and down outside, with downcast eyes and a gloomy brow, little dreaming that his every movement was watched by a pair of eager eyes behind the wax mask of the supposed lay figure.

When the warder, after a brief inspection of the rest of the house, came forth, Tracey invited him to sit down in the shade and partake of some refreshment.

Jack Brandon, anxious to know whether all was well with his friend, opened his door softly, and stole out on tip-toe to a window overlooking the scene. There he saw the two men seated under the tree engaged in talk, and taking no sort of notice of the figure.

"It's touch and go," he murmured under his breath. "A dangerous game to play. I wonder how it will all turn out?"

He set to work to finish his letter, and had just got to the end of it, when he heard a loud outcry from below.

Shouts, oaths, curses, fell upon his ears, and sounds as of men fighting and struggling together.

"Heaven help Dick, poor chap! They've found him out!" was his thought.

Scarcely knowing why he did it, he pulled the drawer open, snatched up a revolver lying there and rushed down to the scene of strife.

His astonishment was great indeed at what he saw. Instead of finding his friend in the grasp of the other two, as he had expected, it was they who were struggling in his iron grip. He had a hand on each, and his fury and indignation seemed to have given him, for the time being, the strength of three or four, for he was shaking them as a dog shakes up a rabbit.

"Give me those papers! Give them to me, I say, you vile scoundrel," he thundered. "Give them to me, or I'll choke your wretched lives out of the pair of you!"

"Hands up!" cried Brandon, putting his revolver under Tracey's nose. "Dick, leave them to me! Hands up, both of you!"

The three fell apart, and Harding pointed an accusing finger at Tracey.

"I saw him," he declared, "give this warder fellow a hundred pounds in bank notes. The man has them in his pocket now. That was part of a bribe to bring about my death— by driving me to suicide, or in whatever way he could manage it! I heard it all, and what's more, a thousand times more, that man," pointing now at the warder, "has on him the written confession of a man named Runter, proving my innocence! I heard the whole infernal plot—"

Just then there was a sound of voices. Amid a chorus of "There he is! There he is!" a party of warders rushed on the scene and laid hold of the man now standing, for all to see, in his prison dress.

"Keep cool, keep cool! Don't resist, Dick," Jack said to his friend, at the same time slipping his revolver into his pocket. "Who is the officer in charge of this party? I call upon you to seize that man!" and be pointed to Turner.

"What for?" asked the officer blankly.

"Search him and you will see. He is a villain, and has the proofs of his villainy on him! There is another villain here; but we will deal with him later."

Wondering greatly, but impressed by Brandon's authoritative manner, the officer ordered his men to search the warder. Thereupon Turner tried to break away, and another fierce struggle ensued.

While this was going on. Brandon kept his eye on Tracey, who looked very much inclined to try and break away too.

"You've got to stop here and face the music, Tracey," Brandon said to him significantly. "You're caught! And I'll see to it that you don't bolt."

By this time Turner had been overpowered, and the officer was examining a budget of papers which had been taken from his pocket.

"Let us explain," said Harding. "In that envelope you will find a hundred pounds in notes. I saw them handed to him by that man who stands there," pointing to Tracey.

"Now then," Brandon asked of the officer, "why should one of your warders have a hundred pounds paid to him surreptitiously?"

"Looks fishy, I must say." muttered the officer, after he had opened the envelope and handled the bank notes it contained. "What else is there?"

"That's enough for the moment as regards him." said Brandon. "Those two men are evidently conspirators; and it is clear that that money was paid over as a bribe. Now allow me to look at the other paper."

The officer handed them to him, and Jack ran his eyes over them, muttering comments as he did so.

"Dying confession of James Runter— appears to be all in order; duly witnessed, and so on. Declares that Richard Harding— that's your re-captured prisoner yonder— is innocent of the crime of murdering his uncle, Mr. Philip Stanley Harding, for which crime he was sentenced to death, the sentence being afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. It accuses Sydney Tracey— that's our friend over there— of being the real murderer, and declares that the writer of this confession aided and abetted him. In consideration of a sum of money, which, by the way, he complains he has been cheated out of by the said Sydney Tracey. The document refers to other papers, which it says will prove that this confession is— Hah! Would you!"

These last words were jerked out suddenly, as Brandon turned sharply round.

While he had been engaged in reading the document, and the rest had been attentively listening, Tracey had stolen up, and slipping his hand into Brandon's pocket, had snatched away his pistol. He was now taking aim at Dick Harding as he stood a short distance away, held by two warders.

Jack seized his wrist, and a short, sharp tussle ensued. There was a report, and one of the two sprang away while the other fell to the ground. It was Tracey who fell.

"I don't know how it happened!" cried Brandon, panting from his exertions, "but somehow— he shot himself!"

They carried him into the cottage, where he lived just long enough to admit, in the presence of them all, that the man Runter's confession was true. Then he passed on to take his trial at a Higher Court.

IN a quiet country village, which nestles cosily in a sylvan vale in the Midlands, not far from one of our great provincial towns, a wedding took place recently.

The proud and happy bridegroom was the "Young Squire" who had not long before succeeded to his property, one Richard Stanley Harding by name. The bride was a Miss Edith Finlayson, daughter of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, while the best man was an artist named Jack Brandon.

Such was the ending of this story, an ending brought about through the lay figure that had been dressed and set up outside the little lonely cottage in the far-off wilds of Dartmoor

__________________

6: Coffin Cache

Emile C Tepperman

1899-1951

Ten Detective Aces, July 1934

IT was an open trolley car, and Marty Quade had shoved over to the middle of the seat to escape the heavy slantwise rain that lashed in.

He spread his evening paper open and made a pretense of reading. He grinned. He had got in the last seat of the car, and the man in the belted overcoat, who had followed him from Raynor's house, had had to take a seat farther front. The man was fidgeting around now, making believe to look out into the night, but in reality trying to keep an eye sidewise on Marty. Marty took out the package of twenty-dollar bills. It had rested in the right-hand pocket of his coat. That was no place for it. He stuffed it into the left-hand coat pocket. It was surprising how small a package fifty thousand dollars in twenties could make— the whole thing was six inches square; and there were twenty-five hundred of them.

Marty had manipulated the change of the package while still holding the paper in front of him. Now, he slipped the automatic out of the shoulder clip and laid it loose in the right-hand coat pocket.

The man in the belted overcoat had given up trying to keep tabs on him, and was facing forward. He wore a soft hat like Marty's, and the coat, though of the same style, was of a much cheaper quality.

The car bowled along Boulevard Avenue, and Marty, peering out at the signposts, saw that Waverly Street was only a couple of blocks away. He put his paper down, and just before reaching the corner, he got up and yanked once at the bell cord. The car slowed up, and Marty jumped off the running board.

He turned up his collar and bent his head against the rain, crossed to the curb, and stopped under the street light for a second. The trolley rumbled away.

Marty started up Waverly, but took only two or three steps, then ducked back and peered around the corner. The trolley had reached the next crossing. The man in the belted overcoat got off and started to hurry back toward Waverly.

Marty stepped into the doorway of a jewelry store. It was after eight, and the store was closed. He heard the feet of the man who had just got off the trolley. They came up close to the corner, hurrying, then slowed, approached cautiously.

They didn't come around the corner, but crossed the street diagonally.

Marty risked a glance, and saw his man entering the lighted drug store opposite. He waited a minute, then crossed over and looked in through the plate glass. The clerk was behind the counter. No one else was in sight. Marty went .in. The clerk looked at him brightly, then turned away in disgust when he saw that Marty was headed for the telephones.

The first booth was occupied by the man in the belted overcoat. He was talking sharply into the mouthpiece, with his back three-quarters to the door.

Marty lowered his head, and slipped past into the second booth.

The other man's voice came to him pretty clearly through the so-called "soundproof" wall. He had apparently just got his number, and was saying, "Oppenheim! This is Joe Wurtzel. Quade is on the way over with the dough. He just got off the car as per instructions. He ain't followed, I made sure o' that. You'll know him all right— he's wearing a soft hat and a dark belted overcoat like mine. Better snap it up— it's only two blocks, an' he's got a long stride. I'll follow him down. So long, see you right away."

The man hung up and left the booth. Marty waited a minute, then came out after him. He looked out of the store window, and saw the man crossing the street.

Marty killed time in the store, stopped at the counter to buy a couple of cigars. The clerk said, trying to be funny, "It's kind of wet out tonight, ain't it?"

Marty took his change, lit one of the cigars. He said, "Yeah. Wet."

He came out on the sidewalk, frowning at the cigar.

He crossed over, followed after Wurtzel, who was already part way down Waverly. Marty hugged the building line, saw the other reach the end of the block, cross over, start down the second block, bending into the rain, collar turned up and shoulders hunched.

Marty spat out a leaf of the cigar, made a face, flung the rest of it away. The rain was coming down pretty fast. Marty put his right hand in his pocket to keep it dry. He couldn't do the same with the left, on account of the money package. He walked a little faster, got a little closer to his man. His own feet made no sound, but Wurtzel's made a sort of plopping noise with each step, as if there were holes in the soles of his shoes.

They were getting close to the river, now; the row of four-story houses had ceased, their place being taken by bulky warehouses that lined the street, bleak and uninviting.

Wurtzel was walking along uncertainly, as if puzzled.

Marty was less than fifty feet from him when the car came around the corner from River Avenue, swung into Waverly, and approached them with the brights on. Wurtzel seemed a little confused, stopped, and started to wave. But he never finished the gesture, for the car came abreast of him at that moment. A short length of muzzle with an ungainly contraption on the end was stuck out from the rear window; a single long streak of flame jetted from it to the accompaniment of a nasty plop.

Wurtzel took the slug full in the chest. He must have been dead while still on his feet. He toppled over in a manner so ludicrous that it seemed unreal—like a movie killing.

The rifle was withdrawn into the interior. The car swept past the dead man, braked alongside Marty.

Marty stood still, a half-grin on his face. His eyes, slate-gray and narrowed, gleamed over the tip of the turned-up collar. He slipped the safety off the automatic, held it in his pocket.

The driver of the car leaned out, shouted, "Get the dough off him, Wurtzel— what the hell you waiting for? Goldie'll cover you with the rifle."

Marty saw a dim figure in the rear of the car. The rifle came out again. The one who held it poked a thin face out after it. The face had a pointed chin and two little black eyes. "Speed it up," the one with the rifle said. "Don't worry— if anyone comes along I'll give it to him the same way!"

Marty kept his face buried in the coat collar. He went over to the body of Wurtzel, knelt beside it. He pretended to fumble with the pockets of Wurtzel's coat, and managed to slip the money package out of his own coat pocket. Then his hands worked fast, going through the rest of Wurtzel's clothes. There was a wallet containing four or five singles. He left that, but took a notebook and several slips of paper with scrawled memoranda.

From behind him came the impatient voice of the driver: "Step on it, Wurtzel. What you doin'— sayin' a prayer over 'im?"

Marty had kept his back to them so as to screen his movements. They were quite a distance from the street light, and there was little chance of the two men in the car seeing his face if he kept it down in the coat collar.

Goldie, the one with the rifle, laughed thinly, sharply. "Nicky's gettin' shaky. You better hurry up. You got the dough, ain't you?"

Marty put his right hand in his coat pocket, and stood up. He turned and started for the car.

Goldie had the rifle muzzle pointing out, in his general direction, but made no move to open the door for him. The driver was facing back toward him, and had a gun in his hand.

Goldie stuck a hand out of the window, alongside the rifle muzzle, and said, "Give us it."

Marty handed him the package. He was taut, on the balls of his feet, his big shoulders hunched a little forward.

The package disappeared inside, then the rifle muzzle swerved a couple of inches, and pointed right at him. The sharp voice of Goldie said, "Sorry, Wurtzel. Oppenheim said to do this."

At the same moment, Marty's left arm swung up and brushed the rifle barrel aside. It exploded. The slug sent a shower of plaster cascading from the wall of the warehouse.

And Marty had his automatic out almost with the flash of the rifle, and fired once at the face of Goldie. The rifle clattered to the sidewalk, and Goldie's face disappeared. Marty swung his gun in a short arc—and shot Nicky, the driver, just as he was lining up his gun. The gun exploded in the car, and Nicky was jarred backward against the windshield.

The shooting had made a lot of noise.

Marty slipped the safety catch on again, put the automatic back in his pocket, and opened the rear door. He poked around a minute, pushed Goldie's body over, and picked up the money package from under him. Then he closed the door and raced down the street toward the corner. As he turned into River Avenue he heard the scream of a radio-car siren from the direction of Boulevard Avenue.

There was a coffee pot in the frame building around the corner, and Marty stuffed the bundle of money back in his pocket, went in.

There were no customers, only the counterman, a bull-necked sort of fellow, with a face that had seen a lot of battering in its day. There was a scar on the left side of his forehead where a cut had been sewed a long time ago, and he had a nice new shiny set of upper teeth— too even and white to be his own. He looked at Marty, said, "Pretty wet, huh? What's all the shootin'?"

Marty shrugged, let the water drip from his hat, and sat down on a stool. He said, "Who cares. A guy only gets in trouble by being nosey. Give us a cup of coffee and a slice of cocoanut pie."

The counterman gave him the coffee, and deftly slid a piece of pie from the tin tray onto a plate. "You're right," he remarked as he placed the plate on the glass counter before Marty. "Nowadays my motto is: 'See nothin', hear nothin', tell nothin'.' It's a good way to keep your health."

Marty drank half the coffee, though it scalded his mouth. Then he speared two big chunks of pie and ate them. It left about half the pie.

The counterman grinned. "Jeez— you musta been hungry."

Marty took a roll of bills, passed up several singles, a couple of fives, and pulled out a twenty, laid it on the counter. The other said, "I see you got smaller, mister. If you don't mind—"

"You don't have to change it," Marty told him. "Just put it in your pocket."

The counterman grinned quickly. "Oh, yeah? The pleasure is all mine. But—"

Marty flashed his badge, took out a card and passed it to him. "Everything's on the up and up, see? Only—"

The counterman lowered his eyes, slid the twenty and the card off the counter just as there was a loud noise outside, and the door banged open to admit a policeman. The policeman looked the place over, frowned, and came in. He stood over Marty. "How long you been here, guy?"

Marty looked up at him with a big piece of cocoanut pie in his mouth. He masticated the pie thoroughly while the policeman got red in the face. Then he said, "About ten or fifteen minutes, if it's anything to you."

The cop glanced at the counterman. "That right?"

"Sure," said the counterman. "We heard the shooting, and figured somebody'd be in here, soon."

The cop frowned, swung his gaze back to Marty, considered the almost finished pie and coffee; then he asked, "See anybody go by here after the shooting?"

Marty shook his head. "Nope." He put another forkful of pie in his mouth, chewed stolidly, watching the cop.

"Stand up," the cop ordered suddenly. "I'm gonna search you."

Marty stayed seated. He put the last forkful of pie in his mouth, ate it, drank it down with the coffee.

The cop said, "Did you hear me?"

Marty wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, and stood up. He topped the cop by several inches, "I heard you. But you made a mistake. You ain't gonna search me— not unless this is a pinch. An' if it is you sweat for it. So make up your mind."

The cop was young, excited. He put a heavy hand on Marty's arm. "Wise guy, huh? I'll show you—"

He stopped and turned. The door had opened. Detective Sergeant Sayre walked in, swept his eyes over the place. He said. "Hello, Quade. You in this?"

Marty said, "Hello, Dave. No, I ain't in this. But your pal here seems to want to drag me in."

Sayre looked at the cop inquiringly. The cop said, "Patrolman. Nevins, —th Precinct. I found this guy eatin' in here, and he puts up a squawk when I want to search him!"

Marty squeezed past the cop, approached Sayre. "I told him to make it a pinch if he wanted to frisk me. He better read up on the rules."

Sayre kept his eyes on Marty. "Three guys were just killed around the corner— in a sort of funny way. Must have been a fourth man who skipped. You been here long, Quade?"

The counterman came down behind the counter, toward them. "He's been here about fifteen minutes, sergeant. He was here when the shooting started."

Sayre looked obliquely at the counterman, then back at Marty. "I have a hunch, Quade—"

"Don't play hunches, Dave. Go find the killer some place else. If you can't find him, call it suicide. That's one of your old stand-bys, isn't it?"

THE cop interrupted. "Look, sergeant, this guy is fresh. Why let him get—"

"Cut it!" Sayre barked at him. "This guy is Marty Quade, the private dick. We can always get him if we want him. And he has a good story here. Think I want to make a fool of myself?"

Marty murmured, "Attaboy, Dave. That's sensible." He turned to the counterman. "How much I owe you, Jack?"

The counterman looked innocent enough to let butter melt in his mouth, which was quite an accomplishment with that face of his. "Let's see— that was tomato juice, small steak, two coffees, and pie. Seventy cents."

Marty glared at him. But he took out a dollar and laid it on the counter. The counterman grinned, rang up fifteen cents, and gave him thirty cents change. Marty said, "You only rang up fifteen cents. Trying to gyp the boss with two cops around?"

The counterman flushed. "Gee, that's funny— how I made that mistake!" He reluctantly rang up fifty-five more.

Marty flipped a nickel on the counter, said, "So long," and pulled open the door.

There was a thoughtful look in Sayre's eyes as he watched him go out.

Marty walked north on River Avenue, away from Waverly. There were people around now— police, curiosity seekers, reporters, photographers. He turned right at the next corner and went swiftly till he got to Boulevard Avenue. He caught an empty cab there, and said, "Boulevard and Maple."

When they got to the corner of Maple, Marty tapped on the window, said, "Stop here."

He paid off and got out, surveyed Raynor's house from across the street. His lips tightened. There was a police car in front of the door. He walked through the rain for a block and a half till he came to a stationery store. He went in, consulted the telephone book, then called the number of Raynor's house.

Raynor's voice, tense, anxious, snapped at him, "Hello, hello!"

Marty said, "Look, Mr. Raynor— don't let on to the cops that it's me—"

But Raynor was shouting into the transmitter, "Quade! Did you make the contact? God, tell me, quick!"

Marty cursed. "Now you gummed the works, all right!"

There was the sound of angry voices at the other end, Raynor's protesting, another, drowning him out. Then a voice, crisp, authoritative: "Quade? This is Inspector Hanson. Come right up here. I want to talk to you!"

Marty said, "Hello, inspector. Sorry, I can't make it. I'm calling from out of town. Let me talk to Raynor, will you? I'm in a rush."

Hanson sputtered. "I won't have it, Quade! I won't have a private operative mixing in this. It's a matter for the police. If we got a little co-operation once in a while we'd nab these kidnapers—"

"Yeah!" Marty cut in. "Like you got the Robinson kid's snatchers last week. All you got was the kid's dead body in the apartment!" He pressed his lips close to the mouthpiece, talked forcefully. "Get this, Hanson—I'm retained on this case. I'm gonna get Raynor's girl— and I'm not lettin' the police break in on me and gum the works. Understand? Make what you like out of it!"

Hanson exploded. "Why! I'll—"

"Yeah, sure! You'll do a lot. Have me pinched for obstructing justice? And if Raynor's girl turns up dead afterwards, won't you look sweet! I'd make it so hot for you, Hanson, you'd have to resign. And you know I could do it! There's a lot of papers would print the story of how you wouldn't let me play with the case. So what is it, inspector— dice, or no dice?"

Hanson said, "Wait a minute," in a flat voice.

The wire was quiet for two minutes. Marty could hear heated voices at the other end— Raynor's and Hanson's.

Then Hanson barked, "Look, Quade— I'll stretch a point. I'll leave you alone for three hours more; till midnight. By then you got to have the girl, or I'll jump on you with both feet. Is that clear?"

"Fair enough, inspector. It's a bargain."

"I'm only doing it because Raynor insists. He says you were supposed to pay over fifty thousand. What happened?"

"No soap. They wanted the dough, but didn't want to give up the girl. They tried to get me out of the picture."

"So?"

"Well, you see I'm still on the scene. But I figure they intended to collect that fifty grand just as a down payment, then come back for more. In the end they might bump the kid anyway. They're a lousy crowd— they double-cross themselves."

"What's the objection—"

"To lettin' the police in on it? They'd bop the kid at the first hint of cops. I stand a better chance. They know I've still got the fifty grand."

Hanson said, "Hold it a minute, Quade."

Marty heard Raynor's voice talking emphatically to the inspector. Then Hanson said into the phone, "Raynor says to tell you that he wants the girl, but if you save the fifty thousand you get ten per cent of it in addition to your fee; and an extra thousand for everyone of the gang that gets killed in the process. This is unofficial as far as I'm concerned."

Marty said, "You can tell Raynor he owes me three thousand already." He hung up and went out grinning.

THE rain hadn't let up any, and it was hard to find a cab. He stood at the curb, and saw the figure that was hurrying on the other side of the street, from the direction of Raynor's house. He cursed under his breath, waited till the man came up opposite him, and watched him suddenly slow down and dawdle before a store window. He caned across the street: "Hey, Sweetser!"

When the man turned around he shouted, "Come on over here— it's just as wet on this side."

Sweetser hesitated, then crossed. When he came up close, Marty said in a thick, angry voice, "What the hell sort of heels are you cops, anyway? 1 thought Hanson was going to leave me alone for three hours!"

Sweetser grinned in a conciliatory way. "I can't help it, Quade. The old man had the number traced while he was talking to you, an' he told me to get out here an' tail you."

"All right," said Marty. "I tagged you. You're it. Go back and tell Hanson I said he's a louse."

Sweetser shook his head. "Sorry, Quade. The old man covered that, too. He said if you got wise I was on your tail, to go right along with you anyway—an' if you didn't like it to take you in. So there."

Marty looked at him murderously. "You guys are bound to queer this deal, aren't you? You know damn well that those snatchers will knock off the Raynor girl as soon as they smell cop. But you will be thick-headed about it!"

Sweetser spread his hands. "What can I do about it, Quade? Orders is orders."

Marty suddenly shrugged, said, "Okay." He turned back into the stationery store. "As long as I got to stand for you, you can make yourself useful."

He led the way to the telephone booth, took out one of the slips of paper he had taken from the body of Wurtzel. On it was written nothing but a telephone number. "Here," he told Sweetser. "Get in there and use your influence to make the telephone company tell you the address of that subscriber."

There was a cunning look in Sweetser's eyes as he took the slip of paper and stepped into the booth. He picked up the· receiver and asked for the supervisor. When he got the supervisor, he gave his shield number, and requested the name and address of the subscriber at the penciled number.

Marty crowded into the booth beside him, and heard the supervisor say, in a minute or so, "The name and address of the subscriber at Leighton 4-8323 is Ben Oppenheim, at four-two-six River Avenue. They have another six listing under the name of Sheldane Rooming House."

Marty caught the words, made a mental note of the address.

Sweetser hung up, said over his shoulder, "It's only a public telephone, Quade. I guess you got a blind lead there."

Marty said, "Yeah. Too bad." He took out his automatic, and tapped Sweetser on the side of the head— medium hard.

Sweetser said, "Un-nh!" and collapsed, with his forehead resting against the instrument.

Marty held him erect, pried the door open with his foot, and eased him to the floor. The proprietor of the store came around from behind the counter. He had not seen the blow, but had heard Sweetser's groan. He said, "Ach. Vat giffs it?"

Marty said, "My friend has indigestion. Watch him while I get a doctor." He left the storekeeper gaping, and sped out.

He saw a cab passing, and flagged it, said to the driver, "Shoot across to River, and straight out, about a block past Waverly." He settled back in the seat, and put a fresh clip in the automatic.

HIS guess was fairly accurate. Four twenty-six was in the middle of the second block after Waverly. They passed a small crowd in front of the coffee pot—the excitement about the three bodies hadn't died down yet.

The Sheldane was a cheap rooming house. There was a sign projecting from the discolored three-story building that read:

SHELDANE ROOMING HOUSE

B. OPPENHEIM, Prop.

Rooms by the Day

Week or Month

Marty gave the driver a dollar and a quarter, and watched him pull away. Then he crossed the street and went in through the scratched-up, unwashed entrance. The ground floor consisted only of a narrow hallway with a foul smell. A steep flight of stairs led up.

Marty mounted to the first floor. Here there was a row of rooms along one side of the hall. The other side was taken up by the stairs. A woman with cold cream on her face, and her hair done up in curling pins, looked out of one of the rooms, smiled, and when she failed to get a rise, disappeared into her room and slammed the door.

Marty walked down the hall till he came to the end room. A piece of cardboard was tacked on the door jamb.

On it was penned sloppily:

Office— Ring for Service.

Marty didn't ring for service. He put his hand on the knob, and shoved the door open, stepped halfway in, and leaned with his left side against the doorjamb. His right hand was in his coat pocket.

The man and the woman who had been playing casino at a table in the "office" dropped their cards and stared at him. The man was big and heavy, with a paunch that hung over in his lap. He had very small eyes, which were almost invisible in the tissues of fat that constituted his face. He was in his vest, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up.

The woman wore a negligee over cheap pink lingerie. Her hair was manufactured blonde, and reflected several shades under the electric light. Her face was rouged to the limit, and her lips were painted so heavily in the middle that the edges of her mouth looked dirty by contrast. She dropped her cards, cried out hoarsely, "God! It's Quade!" She drew her negligee together with an instinctive gesture, and raised a hand with long red, pointed nails to her mouth.

The man laid down his cards slowly, picked up a cigar from the table and put it between his teeth, rolled it. He put his hand on the drawer in the table.

Marty said, "Hello, Oppenheim. Hello, Lena." But he didn't smile. He closed the door behind him, without turning his eyes from the two of them.

OPPENHEIM opened his mouth to talk; he was so upset the cigar fell out. He caught it awkwardly in his right hand, shifted it to his left, then put his right hand back on the handle of the table drawer. He said, "Quade! How'd you git here?"

Marty said, "I got a riddle for you, Oppenheim— what would a guy named Nicky, and a guy named Goldie, go gunning for me for? Answer me that one."

Oppenheim tried a sick grin, but it turned into a leer. "That— that's a kind of a funny one to ask me, Quade. I don't know them guys you mention."

"No? That's funny, all right, but not the way you mean. They mentioned your name. Also, while we're on it, how about a guy named Wurtzel— the one that called you up a little while ago, the one that puts me on the spot for you?"

Oppenheim started to stand up. Under cover of his big body he pulled the drawer out a little, his fat hand felt inside.

Marty snapped, "Stand away from it, Oppenheim!"

Oppenheim, with a desperate set to his face, dragged a gun out of the drawer.

Marty took his automatic out, and covered him. "Now that you got the gun, what are you going to do?" he asked quietly.

Oppenheim, very pale, put the gun down on the table, and faced Marty. The gun was now within the woman's reach.

Marty said to him, "Too bad you didn't try some kind of a play with that gun. You're worth one thousand berries to me— dead!"

Oppenheim tried to bluster. "What the hell do you want here, Quade?"

Marty said quietly, "I'll tell you, Oppenheim. I'm not a guy to hold a grudge; so I'll forget about you having tried to get me bopped. But there's something else— I want the Raynor girl!"

Oppenheim gasped, "You're crazy!"

"So now I'm crazy," said Marty. "Okay, I'll act crazy. I'm gonna put a slug right in the middle of your vest— right now!"

Oppenheim cried, "Wait, wait!"

The woman spat out, "Shut up, you fool! He 'ain't gonna do it! He's just talkin'."

Marty smiled bleakly. "Oppenheim knows better. Don't you, Oppie?"

The fat man nodded. His face was ashen. "He will, Lena. You don't know his rep like I do. Wait—" as Marty raised the automatic. Then in a whisper, "I'll take you to her."

The woman snarled, "You dumb cluck! He ain't got a thing on you— an' you're givin' it all away on account he talks big!"

She snatched at the gun. Marty was too far away to reach her without shooting. He shouted, "Grab her, Oppie, or I give it to you!"

Oppenheim brought his big paw down on the woman's arm, while with the other hand he swept the gun off the table. "I tell you," he whined, "he'll kill me! I know him!"

Marty smiled grimly. "All right. Now we understand each other. Let's go."

Oppenheim said, "She's upstairs. We got her in a coffin. No, no!" he exclaimed, as he saw the blank look come into Marty's eyes. "She ain't dead. It's just a stall. Nobody'd think of lookin' in a coffin. It's supposed to be my uncle who's gettin' buried tomorrow. We dumped his body in the river with some lead weights on it last night."

Marty opened the door. "Lead the way."

Oppenheim went out, past Marty. Marty looked at the woman. "You, too."

The woman glared at him. "You go to hell!"

Marty shrugged. "You will have it!" He went into the room, grabbed the woman about the waist. She kicked as he lifted her, scratched at his face until he pinioned her arms. Then he carried her bodily to the closet, thrust her in, and shot the catch. Her voice came through the door, muffled but virulent.

Marty left her there, went out in the hall, and swore.

Oppenheim was gone. He could hear the fat man's feet pounding up the stairs. He jumped up the stairs after him, caught sight of him at the top. Oppenheim was shouting up, "Jake, Jake! Shoot the works!" A couple of people opened doors, then closed them quickly. They were minding their own business.

Marty took the stairs three at a time. On the next landing he just saw Oppenheim turning up for the last flight. He followed.

Oppenheim was at the top of the last flight, Marty down toward the middle, when a door on the top floor, at the head of the stairs, opened, and a short man in shirt sleeves, with a close-cropped head, came out. He held two guns, and was scowling.

Oppenheim dropped to the floor, shouted, "Take him, Jake! It's Quade! He's on to us!"

Jake said nothing. He looked down at Marty on the steps, raised both guns. Marty slanted his automatic upward, and kept his finger pressed down. Seven slugs jerked out of the automatic, filling the house with mad reverberations. Jake's face assumed a look of amazement. He dropped both guns, then started walking backward, unsteadily, into the room he had just come out of. Then tiny fountains of blood began to spurt from his chest, and he suddenly sat down on the floor. Then he rolled over and twitched. His eyes stayed open, glassily.

Marty hit the top landing just as Oppenheim struggled to his feet. Marty swung his gun viciously, caught Oppenheim in the jaw with it. Oppenheim collapsed without a word.

Marty stepped over Jake's body and went into the room. It was furnished like the others, but on the floor in the middle, lay a coffin. Strange kicking sounds came from its interior.

Alongside the bed were five ten-gallon tins of gasoline. Long strips of twisted newspaper ran out of the open top of each tin, to the floor. Each strip was burning merrily. The ends on the floor had all been lighted. When they burned down to the gas in the tins, the fire department would have its hands full.

Marty yanked the strips of paper from the cans, stepped on them till the flames were out. He heard a confused milling out in the hall, and looked to see a dozen of the boarders clustered about the entrance.

"Scram!" he barked at them. "The cops'll be here in a minute."

Then he went to work on the coffin. When he started to unscrew the bolts, the kicking ceased.

He said, "It's all right, kid. Just relax. You'll be out in a minute. You must feel pretty bad in there."

He got a single little kick in answer.

He got the last bolt off, and lifted the lid. He recognized Madge Raynor from the pictures. She was no more than sixteen. Her hands were held at her sides by a heavy length of hemp that had been wound around her body a dozen times. There was a vicious gag in her mouth; it kept her jaws distended. She had long hair, dark brown, and it formed a sort of cushion for her head. Her eyes were wide open, darting about the room— as much of it as she could see from the bottom of the coffin.

Marty lifted her out, set her in a chair, still tied, and removed the gag. "Now don't get hysterical, kid," he soothed. "Everything is all right. Your dad will certainly be glad to see you again. Just take it easy."

Her wide mouth shaped itself into a happy laugh. "Hysterical? Why, mister, I haven't had a better time in all my life. This is just the thrillingest experience I've ever had! Untie me, will you. I'm a little stiff."

"Hell!" Marty muttered, as he bent to untie the knot.

They heard a commotion downstairs, the sounds of feet pounding up, and the voice of Detective Sergeant Sayre: "This is a hell of a neighborhood! I'll never get home tonight if they keep on shootin' each other up! Where's the bodies?"

"That's the cops," Marty told her.

"Oh, swell!" exclaimed Madge Raynor. "Will they take my picture?"

Marty got the knot free.

"Stand up," he ordered, "while I unwind you."

Sayre and a couple of uniformed men shoved into the room while he was doing the unwinding.

Sayre said, "'Well, if it ain't my friend Marty Quade again! I suppose you don't know a thing about this shooting, either!"

Marty got the last coil of rope off the girl. "This is Miss Madge Raynor. You cops couldn't find her, so I had to attract your attention by shooting off a gun."

Sayre exclaimed, "I'll be damned!" His eyes swept the room, lighted on the gasoline tins.

"That," explained Marty, "would have been a classy stunt. They had it fixed so that if the police raided the place, they could start a fire and burn up the evidence— the evidence being Miss Raynor."

Sayre said grudgingly, "Nice work, Quade."

Madge Raynor looked at the gasoline tins without interest. "I could stand a cup of coffee," she said.

Sayre glowered at her, grumbled, "What a generation these kids are! Nothing fazes them!"

But Marty grinned suddenly. He took her arm. "Come on, girlie, I know where we can get coffee. There's a bird on the next block owes me fifty-five cents' worth of eats!"

________________________

7: The Devil To Pay

Max Pemberton

1863-1950

The Story-Teller, March 1922

TO SAY THAT the usually amiable Ambrose Cleaver was in the devil of a temper would be merely to echo the words of his confidential clerk, John, who, looking through the glass partition between their offices, confessed to James, the office boy, that he had not seen such goings on since old Ambrose, the founder of the firm, was gathered to his fathers.

"There won't be a bit of furniture in the place presently," said he, "and I wouldn't give twopence for the cat when he's finished kicking her. This comes of the women, my boy. Never have nothing to say to a woman until you've finished your dinner and lighted your cigar. Many a good business have I seen go into the Bankruptcy Court because of a petticoat before lunch. You keep away from 'em if you want to be Lord Mayor of London, same as Dick Whittington was."

James did not desire particularly to become Lord Mayor of London, but he was greatly amused by his employer's temper.

"Never heard such language," said he— "and him about to marry her. Why, he almost threw them jewels at her 'ead; and when she told him he must have let the devil in by accident, he says as he was always glad to see her friends. They'll make a happy couple, surely."

John shook his old dense head, and would express no opinion upon the point.

"Misfortunes never come singly," said he. "Here's that Count Florian waiting for him in the ante-room. Now that's a man I can't abide. If anybody told me he was the devil, I'd believe him soon enough. A bad 'un, James, or I don't know the breed. An evil man who seems to pollute the very air you breathe."

James was not so sure of it.

"He give me half a crown for fetching of a cab yesterday, and told me to go to the music-hall with it. He must have a lot of money, for he never smokes his cigars more than half-way through, and he wears a different scarf-pin every day. That's wot comes of observation, Mr. John. I could tell you all the different pairs of trousers he's worn for the last three weeks, and so I'm going to make my fortune as the advertisements say."

Mr. John would not argue about that. The bell of the inner office now tinkled, and that was an intimation that the Count Nicholas Florian was to be admitted to the Holy of Holies. So the old man hurried away and, opening the sacred door with circumspection, narrowly escaped being knocked down by an enraged and hasty cat— glad to escape that inferno at any cost.

"You rang, sir?"

Ambrose Cleaver, thirty-three years of age, square-jawed, fair-haired, a florid complexion and with a wonderful pair of clear blue eyes, admitted that he did ring.

"And don't be so d——d slow next time," he snapped. "I'll see the Count Florian at once."

The old man withdrew timidly, while his master mopped up the ink from the pot he had broken in his anger.

"Enough to try the devil himself," was the sop that argument offered to his heated imagination. "She knows I hate Deauville like poison, and of course it's to Deauville she must go for the honeymoon. And she looks so confoundedly pretty when she's in a temper— what wonderful eyes she's got! And when she's angry the curls get all round her ears, and it's as much as a man can do not to kiss her on the spot. Of course, I didn't really want her to have opals if she thinks they're unlucky, but she needn't have insisted that I knew about it and bought them on purpose to annoy her. Good God! I wish there were no women in the world sometimes. What a splendid place it would be to live in, and what a fine time the men would have— for, of course, they are all the daughters of the devil really, and that's why they make life too hot for us."

Mr. John entered at this moment showing in the Count, and so a very cheerful argument was thus cut short. Ambrose pulled himself together and suppressing, as best he could, any appearance of aversion from the caller who now presented himself, he sat back in his chair and prepared to hear "the tale."

Count Florian was at that time some fifty-nine years of age, dark as an Italian and not without trace of an Eastern origin. Though it was early in the month of May, he still wore a light Inverness cape of an ancient fashion, while his patent-leather boots and his silk hat shone with the polish of a well-kept mirror. When he laughed, however, he showed ferocious teeth, some capped with gold, and in his eyes was a fiery light not always pleasant to behold.

"A chilly morning," he began. "You have no fire, I see."

"You find it so?" queried Ambrose. "Well, I thought it quite warm."

"Ah," said the count, "you were born, of course, in this detestable country. Do not forget that where I live there are people who call the climate hell," and he laughed sardonically, with a laugh quite unpleasant to hear.

Ambrose did not like such talk, and showed his displeasure plainly.

"The climate is good enough for me," he said. "Personally, I don't want to live in the particular locality you name. Have a cigar and tell me why you called— the old business, I suppose? Well, you know my opinion about that. I want  none of it. I don't believe it is honest business, and I think that if we did it, we might all end in the dock. So you know my mind before we begin."

The Count heard him patiently, but did not seem in any way disturbed.

"There is very little business that is honest," he said; "practically none at all. Look at politics, the Church, art, the sciences— those who flourish are the imposters, while your honest men are foolish enough to starve in garrets. If a man will undertake nothing that is open to the suspicion of self-interest, he should abandon all his affairs at once and retire to a monastery, where possibly he will discover that the prior is cheating the abbot and the cellarer cheating them both. You have a great business opportunity, and if anybody suffers it is only the Government, which you must admit is a pure abstraction— suggesting chiefly a company of undiscovered rascals. The deal which I have to propose to you concerns a sum of half a million sterling, and that is not to be passed by lightly. I suggest, therefore, that at least you read the documents I have brought with me, and that we leave the matter of honesty to be discussed by the lawyers."

He laid upon the table a bundle of papers as he spoke, and lighted a cigarette by lightly rubbing a match against the tip of the fourth finger of his left hand. Ambrose felt strangely uneasy. A most uncanny suspicion had come upon him while the man was speaking. He felt that no ordinary human being faced him, and that he might in very truth be talking with the devil. Nor would this idea quit him despite its apparent absurdity.

"You must have great influence, Count," he remarked presently—"great influence to get such a valuable commission as this!"

The Count was flattered.

"I have servants in every country," he said; "the rich are always my friends—the poor often come to me because they are not rich. Few who know me can do without me; indeed, I may say that but for such men as I am the world would not go on. I am the mainspring of its endeavour."

"And yet when I met you it was on the links above La Turbie."

The count laughed, showing his glittering teeth as any carnivorous animal might have done.

"Ah, I remember. You met me when I was playing golf with a very saintly lady. Latterly, I hear, she has ceased to go to church and taken to bobbed hair. Women are strange creatures, Mr. Cleaver, but difficult, very difficult sometimes. I have had many disappointments with women."

"You find men easier?"

"Indeed, there are few men who are not willing to go to the devil if the consideration be large enough. A woman, on the other hand, is too often the victim of her emotions. She will suffer eternal torment for the man she loves, and she will cheat for him. But for the rest of us—nothing, positively nothing at all; she is neither honest nor dishonest, she merely passes us by."

"Ah," exclaimed Ambrose, a little wearily, "I wish I could think that about my fiancée. She's just been up—that's why you find me upset. I bought her opals, and, of course, she wants diamonds. You see, I forgot she wasn't born in October."

The Count nodded his head in sympathy.

"I must have a little talk to her. I am sure we shall be good friends. Miss Kitty Palmer, is it not? Forgive me, I read it in the newspapers— a charming face but a little temper, I think. Well, well, there is no harm in that. What a dull place the world would be but for a little temper! You have much to be thankful for, Mr. Cleaver— very, very much. And now this concession, by which you will make two hundred thousand pounds at a very moderate estimate. There will be very little temper when you take home that news. No woman is angry with a man who makes money, but she has a great contempt for him who does not."

"Even if he made it dishonestly?"

"She does not care a snap of the fingers how he makes it, believe me."

"And afterwards, when he goes to prison—"

"Pshaw— only fools go to prison. If your foolish principles were made the test, there would hardly be a free man in Mincing Lane. We should have to lock up the whole City. Come, let me have your signature, and I will do the rest. To refuse is madness. You are offered the chance of a lifetime."

Ambrose did not reply to him immediately. It had come to him suddenly that this was the hour of a great temptation, and he sat very still, conscious that his heart beat fast because of the evil that was near him. The Count watched him, meanwhile, as a wild beast may watch its prey. The man's eyes appeared to have turned to coals of fire; his fingers twitched; his teeth were on edge—he had even ceased to smoke.

"Well?" he said at last, unable to suffer the silence any longer.

Ambrose rose from his chair and went over slowly to the great safe, which stood in the corner of his office; he unlocked it and took some documents from a shelf upon the right-hand side. The Count stood at his elbow while he did so, and he could feel the man's breath warm upon his shoulder.

Suddenly a violent impulse overcame him. He swung round and seized the fellow by the collar, and in an instant, endowed as it were with superhuman strength, he hurled the man into the safe and turned the key upon him.

"By heaven!" he cried, "but I have locked up the devil."

ii

AMBROSE dismissed John, the man, and James, the boy, and told them he would have no need of their services for some days.

"I am going away for a little holiday," he said. "The letters can await my return. You may both go down to Brighton for a week, and I will pay your expenses. It is right that you should have a little change of air more than once a year, so away with you both, and don't let me hear of you until Monday next."

James looked at John and John looked at James. Was their excellent employer demented, then, or had they understood him incorrectly?

"Not," said John, when they were alone together, "that I particularly wished to go to Brighton just now, but there you are. Half the pleasure in life, my boy, is wanting to do things, and when you have to do them without wanting it, even though they are pleasant things, somehow all the savour has gone out of the salt, so to speak. But, of course, we shall have to go, seeing that we couldn't tell Mr. Cleaver a lie."

James was a little astonished at that, for he had told thousands of lies in his brief life, though now he really had no desire to tell one at all.

"I shall be glad to get away from here for a few days, any'ow," he said; "it's so 'ot and close, and when you go near the safe in the other horfice it's just as though you stood by a roaring fire. Good thing, Mr. John, that the thing is fire-proof, or we might have the whole show burned down, as Mr. Ambrose hisself was saying. 'Very 'ot for the time of year, James,' says he, and 'burnin, 'ot,' says I. We'll find it cooler at Brighton, Mr. John, and perhaps we can go to the pictures, though I'm fed up with all them rotten stories about crooks and such like, and so are you, I'm sure."

Mr. John said that he was, though he was surprised at such an opinion emanating from James. When they locked up the inner office— their master being gone home— they discovered in the fire-grate the ashes of what had been a formidable-looking document, and it really did seem as though the concrete upon which the great safe stood had become quite hot, but there was no visible sign of fire, and so they went off, wondering and contented, but by no means in a mood of exhilaration, as properly they should have been.

Ambrose had taken a cab at his own door, and his first visit was to the Bond Street jeweller who had sold him the opals.

He was quite sure that he had shut up the devil in his office safe, and as he drove it seemed to him that he became conscious of a new world round about him, though just how it was new he could not have told you.

Everybody wore a look of great content— there was subdued laughter but no real merriment— nor did any hasten as though he had real business to do; while the very taxi-cabs drove with circumspection, and actually waited for old ladies to cross the street before them. When his own cab stopped he gave the man half a crown as usual; but the driver called him back and pointed out his error.

"Excuse me, sir, eighteenpence is the fare with threepence for my gratuity, that makes one and ninepence. So I have to give you ninepence back, although I thank you all the same."

Ambrose pocketed the money, quite insensible of anything but the man's civility, and entered immediately into the sanctum of the great jeweller. He found that worthy a little distrait and far from any desire to do big business. In fact, his first words told of his coming retirement from an occupation which had enriched him during a good forty years of profit and rarely of loss.

"The fact is, Mr. Cleaver, that I foresee the day coming when women will wear no jewellery. Already the spirit of competition has passed, and it is by competition and the pride of competition that this trade has flourished. A woman buys a rope of pearls because another woman wears one. Lady A cannot allow Lady B to have more valuable diamonds than she possesses. Very few really admire the gems for their own sake, and when you think of the crimes that have been committed because of them, the envious passions they arouse, and the swindles to which they give birth, then, indeed, we may wish that every precious stone lay deep at the bottom of the sea."

"But, my dear sir, are you not thus banishing much beauty from the world— did not the Almighty create precious stones for pretty women to wear?"

The jeweller shrugged his shoulders, sweeping aside carelessly some priceless pearls that lay on the table before him.

"The Almighty created them to lie securely in their shells, or deep in the caverns of the earth; for the rivers to wash them with sweet waters or the lurid fire to shape them in the bowls of the mountains. The beauties given us to enjoy are those upon which our eyes may light in the woodlands or from the heights— the glory of the sunset, the stillness of the sea, the thousand hues of a garden of flowers, or the cascade as it falls from the mountain top. These things are common to all, but the precious stone is too often for the neck or the fingers of the harlot and the adventuress. No, sir, I shall retire from this business and seek out some quiet spot where I can await with composure the solemn moment of dissolution we all must face."

Ambrose was almost too astonished to speak.

"I admire your philosophy," he said at length, "but the fact is, that I want a diamond ring and a rope of pearls and if—"

"Ah," said the old man interrupting him, "it is odd that you should speak of pearls, for I have just been telling my partner here that whatever he may do in the future, he will find pearls of little profit to him. What with imitations and the 'cultured' article, women are coming already to despise them. But even if you take your fiancée a diamond ring, will she not merely say to herself: 'an excellent beginning, now what is the next thing I can get out of him?' Be wise and cultivate no such spirit of cupidity, foreign to a good woman's nature but encouraged by the men, who, for vanity's sake, heap presents upon her. Take rather this little cross, set with pure amethysts, the emblem of faith and so discover, my dear sir, whether she loves the man or the jewel, for indeed but few women love both, as all their story teaches us."

Ambrose took the cross and thanked the old man for his words of wisdom. Another cab carried him on his way to Upper Gloucester Place where Kitty Palmer then lived with her saintly mother—and as he went, he reflected upon the jeweller's words.

"I'll put her to the proof," he said to himself, "if she likes this twopenny halfpenny cross, she is a miracle among women. But, of course, she won't like it and there'll be another scene. What a devil of a temper she was in this morning and how she made the fur fly! If she's like that now, I shall just take her into my arms and kiss her until she's done fighting. After all, I wouldn't give sixpence for a woman who had no spirit. It's their moods that make them so fascinating —little devils that they are at their best!"

The arrival at the house cut short his ruminations and he hastened into the well-known drawing-room and there waited impatiently while the maid summoned Kitty from her bedroom. She came down immediately to his great surprise—for usually she kept him waiting at least half an hour—and her mood was strangely changed, he thought. A pretty, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, cream and white English type she was, but her chin spoke also of determination and the eyes which could "look love to eyes that looked again," upon occasion could also speak of anger which resented all control. This afternoon, however, Kitty was as meek as a lamb. She had become so utterly changed in an hour that Ambrose hardly knew her.

"My dear girl," he began, "I am so sorry that I lost my temper this morning—"

"Oh, no— not you, Ambrose dear. It was I— of course it was awfully silly and we won't go to Deauville if you don't want to. Let it be Fontainebleau by all means— though really, it does not seem important whether we do get married or don't while you love me. Love after all is what matters, isn't it, Ambrose dearest?"

He had to say that it was, though he did not like her argument. When, with some hesitation and not a little fear he showed her the little gold cross, she admitted to his astonishment that it was one of the prettiest things she had ever seen.

"Somehow," she said, "I do not seem to care much for jewellery now. It has become so vulgar— the commoner the people, the more diamonds they wear. I shall treasure this, darling— I'll wear it now at lunch. Of course you are going to take me to lunch, aren't you? Suppose we go to the Ritz grill-room, the restaurants are so noisy, and I know that you like grill-rooms, don't you, dear?"

Ambrose said "yes" and they started off. Somehow he felt rather depressed and he had to confess that Kitty— usually so smart— looked quite shabby. She wore one of her oldest dresses and obviously had neither powder on her face nor the lightest touch of the rouge which became her so well. Moreover, she was listless beyond experience, and when he asked her if she would go to the Savoy and dance that night, she answered that she thought she would give up dancing altogether. It quite took his breath away.

"Give up dancing— but, Kitty, you're mad about it!"

"No, dear, I was mad to be mad about it: but what good does it do to anybody, just going up and down and round and round with a man you may never see again. Surely we were not sent into the world to do that! Ask the vicar of the parish what he thinks, or Doctor Lanfry, who is doing such splendid work at the hospitals. I think we have to make good in life, and dancing, surely, will not help us. So I mean to give it up, and smoking and all horrid things. I'm sure you'll like me better for that, dear; you know how jealous my dancing used to make you, but now you'll never have any cause to be jealous again."

Ambrose did not know what to say. This seemed to him quite the flattest lunch he had ever sat out with her, while, as for the people round about, he thought he had never seen a duller lot. Perhaps, after all, he had been a little hasty in shutting up the devil so unceremoniously, but it made him laugh to think that the fellow would get no lunch anyway and that his stock of cigars would hardly last him through the day. "And at any rate," he argued, "the rascal will do no mischief to-day."

He drove Kitty to the King's New Hospital when the stupid meal was over—she was visiting some old people there—and while he waited for her, he met Dr. Lanfry himself and had a little chat with that benevolent old gentleman. Naturally their talk concerned the hospital and he was not a little surprised to find the worthy doctor altogether in an optimistic mood.

"Yes," he said, "we shall have no need of these costly places. Disease is disappearing rapidly from our midst. I see the day coming when men and women will go untroubled by any ailment from the cradle to the grave. In some ways, I confess the world will be poorer. Think of all the human sympathy which human suffering awakens— the profound love of the mother for the ailing child, the sacrifice of those who wait and watch by the beds of the sick, the agony of parting leading to the eternal hope in the justice of God. All these things, the world will miss when we conquer disease, and the spirit will be the poorer for them. Indeed, I foresee the day when men will forget the existence of God just because they have no need to pray for those who suffer; the devil will have no work to do in that day; but, who knows, humanity may be worse and not better because of his idleness."

Ambrose agreed with him, though he would never have expressed such sentiments to Kitty. He found her a little sad when she came out of the ward, and it seemed that all the patients were so very much better that they cared but little for her kindly attentions, and when she tried to read to them, most of them fell asleep. So she went back to Ambrose and asked him to drive to the vicarage where she hoped to see Canon Kenny, her good pastor, and find out if he could tell her of some work of mercy to be done.

"I feel," she said, "that I must find out the sorrow in the world, I must help it."

"But suppose, my dear, that there isn't any sorrow—"

"Oh, then the world would not be worth living in, I should go out to the islands of the Pacific and become a missionary. Do you know, Ambrose dear, I've often thought of putting on boys' clothes and going to live in the wilderness. A boy seems so much more active than a girl, and what does it matter since sex no longer counts?"

He looked at her aghast.

"Sex no longer counts!"

"No," she said in the simplest way, "people will become too spiritual for that. You will have to love me as though I were your sister, Ambrose—"

Ambrose gulped down a "d——n" and was quite relieved to find himself presently in the study of the venerable canon, who was just leaving England for a Continental holiday. He said that he was not tired, but really there was very little work to do— and he added, with a laugh: "It would almost appear, my children, as though some one had locked up the devil and there was no more work left for us parsons."

"But that surely would be a great, good thing," exclaimed Ambrose, astonished.

"In a way, yes," the canon rejoined, "but consider, all life depends upon that impulse which comes of strife— strife of the body, strife of the soul. I worship God believing He has called upon me to take my share in fighting the evil which is in the world. Remove that evil, and what is my inspiration? Beyond the grave, yes, there may be that sphere of holiness to which the human condition contributes nothing— a sphere in which all happiness, all goodness centres about the presence of the Eternal— but here we know that man must strive or perish, must fight or be conquered— must school his immortal soul in the fire of temptation and of suffering. So, I say, it may even be a bad day for the world could the devil be chained in bonds which even he could not burst. It might even be the loss of the knowledge of the God by whom evil is permitted to live that good may come."

This and much more he said, always in the tone of one who bared his head to destiny and had a faith unconquerable. When they left him, Kitty appeared to have made up her mind, and she spoke so earnestly that even her lover could not argue with her.

"Ambrose, dear," she said, "I must see you no more, I shall devote my life to good works. To-night I shall enter the Convent of the Little Sisters at Kensington. It is a long, long good-bye, my dearest."

He did not answer her, but calling a taxi, he ordered the man to drive to Throgmorton Street like the deuce.

iii

HE HAD told James and John to go home, but to his annoyance he found them still in the office and busy as though nothing extraordinary had happened. Brushing by them, he dashed into the inner room and turned the key in the lock of his safe.

"Come out!" he cried, but nobody answered him.

It was odd, but when he looked inside that massive room of steel, nobody was to be discerned there. At the same instant, however, he heard the Count's voice immediately behind him, and turning he discovered the man at his elbow.

"Well?" asked the fellow.

So there he stood, exactly in the same attitude as Ambrose had left him when he crossed the room to find the document. Indeed, the very same cigarette was held by his evil-looking fingers, and it was clear that he waited for the word which would signify acceptance of his contract.

"Good heavens," thought Ambrose, "I must have imagined it all."

He returned to his chair and tossed the paper across the table.

"I refuse to sign it," he said curtly, "you had better call on Alderman Karlbard; he's a church-warden, a justice of the peace and a philanthropist. He's your man and he's pretty sure to end in prison anyway."

"Thank you for your introduction," said the Count quietly, and, bowing, he withdrew with the same nonchalant air as he had entered. Trust the devil to know when he is beaten.

Ambrose watched him go and then calling John, he asked what time it was.

"A quarter to one, sir," said that worthy.

"Just in time to lunch with Kitty," Ambrose thought. And then jumping up as a man who comes by a joyous idea, he cried: "By Gad, what a row I mean to have with her—the darling!"

________________

8: Through the Dragon's Valley

Anna Alice Chapin

1880-1920

Detective Story Magazine 10 Dec 1918

TRY as she would, Lois could not move. She tried to look about her, and it was quite dark. And then, motionless, unseeing, she made a supreme effort to think, to remember.

At first this failed, too. She did not know where she was, or what had happened. The most active achievement of which the brain seemed capable was a dim and confused impression of something overwhelmingly distressing— worse, agonizing. Nothing was concrete, nothing clear.

Then, apparently without her own volition or effort, her right leg moved a little, convulsively. And with the movement came a stab of pain so poignant that she gasped out a cry that was cracked and harsh in her own ears.

The pain roused her. Like a dagger thrust it reached her numb and sluggish brain and lashed it into consciousness. The sensation was as horrible as the sudden blaze of light in the eyes of a person who has been blind for years. It was clarifying, but it meant anguish.

She remembered it all now: the little dinner for six at the most popular restaurant in town; then the spin out to the Joybell Amusement Park in Harry Crawford's big machine; the ridiculous things they had done, each having solemnly vowed at starting to do everything once! She remembered it with growing clearness, and the physical pain grew with her returning faculties, until she seemed to be only one great hurt from head to foot.

She remembered Wanda Herron, Wanda in her pale blue frock like a Botticelli angel. How pretty and gentle she had looked ! No wonder her fiancee, Dick Maynard, adored her; she was essentially the type that he would adore— and all other men, doubtless. She was very small and very fair, with a mouth like a flower and eyes like a child's; and an atmosphere about her suggested something wonderfully fragile and precious which had always been, and must always be, kept safe from the rough and rude jostling of this indubitably rough and rude old world. Lois, who had had to battle with life since early girlhood, and who at twenty-eight was entirely self-reliant, and, outwardly, a little prosaic, had been obliged to crush a good many queer half-sad, half-cynical thoughts anent the difference between her and Wanda.

And Lois was not an envious woman. She did not envy Wanda her sheltered existence, or the comfortable income which kept her exquisitely dressed, exquisitely cared for, and exquisitely protected from all sordid struggle; she would not have envied her if she had owned a crown and throne among her other trinkets; she did not really envy her her beauty, save insomuch as it chanced to be a type more pleasing to Dick Maynard than her own dark and vivid good looks.

There was the whole thing in a nutshell. Lois envied Wanda the possession of Dick's love. She herself had cared for him for so long now that the caring had become part of her: she worked and ate and moved about with it, lay down with it at night, and rose up with it in the morning. Sometimes she smiled a little secret smile in thinking how amazed people would be if they knew that the conviction inside Lois Cranmer's well-balanced brain was that there was nothing on earth the least bit important but Dick Maynard!

Her thoughts, and the increasing pain that racked her body with returning life and circulation, became jumbled up together, and a merciful blankness wrapped her once more.

This too passed, after what seemed a century or two. The pain was sharp and steady, now, but she was stronger. Her mind was entirely clear and working normally, save that it insisted on flinging recollections at her spasmodically, in detached scraps. The absence of continuity worried her, for she had a strong, and— save in regard to Dick!— a logical mentality.

She remembered with a sudden flash Ella Minton, the rich widow with the cherubic proportions and the ornate jewels, who had chaperoned them. She had a round pink face and a giggle, and she was wearing diamonds— diamonds at an Amusement Park! And then, hot upon the flashing picture of Mrs. Minton, came another, sudden, startling, a tense, ugly moment balanced on the theme of— what was it that glittered so? Diamonds! That was it— diamonds! They were all at a little table having iced drinks, and Ella Minton was talking:

"I tell you I laid both those pins down on the table while I was fixing my veil after the chutes! Someone has them— I don't care! Someone." That memory was going now, she must try very hard to capture it, to fix it before it disappeared perhaps forever. "They are very valuable— my husband gave them to me—" Then came Harry Crawford's soothing voice: "We'll go and report it at the police station, Mrs. Minton. Jerry, you'll stay with the girls, won't you? We'll meet you at Anderson's beer garden in half an hour." And Jerry Barlow had said: "Sure. Come on, girls, we'll go and try the prize thriller of the place. It's called ‘Through the Dragon's Valley,' and they say it is a peach."

All clear now. She and Wanda and Jerry had gone to try the scenic railway known as "Through the Dragon's Valley." On the thick black darkness that now surrounded her, Lois could still see mentally the high garish archway with the name in brilliant red letters flaring above it; could see the white ticket- cage with the smiling girl in the gold-braided cap; could see the waiting crowds, the glimpses of huge, cheap scenery that masked the dizzy curves and dips of the railway, the incoming car with its load of screaming, shouting, laughing people, bent on demonstrating how close the extremes of sensation, pleasurable and the reverse, can come to actually meeting. And then the getting in the car herself, with Wanda. Only room for two on the front seat, and they wanted to go there. Jerry Barlow had to squeeze in at the very rear of the car.

Then followed the gliding rush into the first tunnel, the sickening, fascinating plunge downward, the leap up to the crest of that hill of wooden scaffolding, with the stars overhead, a million lights around and beneath them, a silver glimmer of the sea not far away. She recalled' that Wanda had clung to her and cried, gasping: "Oh, this is the worst yet. I'm frightened, Lois!" and that at the moment she had been thinking: "It's got all the excitement of dying! That's why we like it!"

Then— something had happened to the universe. The sky had cracked asunder, the stars crashed into fragments, there was no more world at all. Only a monstrous, roaring confusion of all things, a return, thunderous and cataclysmic, to the cosmic chaos.

Then nothing more till the pain.

It appeared that she was not the only one in pain. A faint, ceaseless moaning finally made itself heard by her hitherto unheeding ears. When she noticed it at last she knew that she had been hearing it subconsciously for some time. She moistened her lips and tried to call out, but it was only after several vain attempts that she was able to croak harshly: "Who is it?"

A low, sobbing cry— half of pain and half of relief answered her, Then Wanda's voice, weak and tremulous, came to her from close by: "Oh, Lois— thank Heaven! I thought everyone in the world was dead but me, and that I'd have to die here alone in the dark! I—"

Lois smiled faintly and a little sardonically. It was so like Wanda to see the situation only as it affected herself ! But, still in the painful, hoarse tone which was all her bruised lungs seemed able to emit, she said: "I can't go to you , Wanda. There's something big and heavy— part of the car, I think— lying across me. Are you badly hurt?"

"I ache all over," wailed Wanda. "And my arm—"

"Yes, I know," interrupted the older girl with as much impatience as she had strength for. "The only wonder is that we weren't both killed instantly. I'm afraid most of the others were, poor souls ! I meant are you— crushed, or anything like that? Can you move, do you think?"

"Ye-es— but it hurts."

"Never mind. Crawl over here, and we'll see if together we can get this thing off me."

Wanda crept to her side, stopping often to moan and declare she couldn't do it. And by the time she had reached Lois, what little nerve and strength she may have had to begin with were gone. She cast herself on the other's shoulder — causing Lois to wince with shut lips— and gave herself up to pure hysteria.

Sobbing frantically, she clung to Lois and gasped out over and over again: "Oh, Lois— I'm going to die— here in this awful place ! I'm going to die— die — die ! Oh, I can't die, I shan't die— Lois, what shall we do if they don't get us out?"

"You've been saying it over several times," said Lois laconically. "We'll die. But they'll get us out; they'll get you out, anyway. I've an idea that my own particular clock has run down."

Wanda hardly noticed the last words. She was listening eagerly, and her hand closed upon Lois' arm in a convulsive grip. Through the ruins of the scenic railway they could hear men's voices shouting and calling excitedly, and there was the sound of heavy blows as though they had begun to clear away the wreckage.

"They're going to save us!" cried Wanda. "Oh, Lois, Lois! Do you suppose we'll live till then ?"

Lois was feeling rather faint. She had been making repeated efforts to rid herself of the weight that lay upon her, but she knew that her strength must be inadequate and, for that matter, probably Wanda's, too, even if she had cared to try.

"Lois!" whispered Wanda, close to her ear. "I— I've been terribly wicked! It would be awful to die without telling some one how wicked I'd been. Lois, maybe we'll both be dead in a little while. Anyway—" she hesitated.

"Anyway I probably shall," said Lois, in a queer, faraway tone. "So I'm quite safe. Tell me !"

"Lois, you know every one thinks we're so awfully rich, but we aren't, not really, any longer. We keep up appearances, but for ages it's been just that with dreadfully little back of it. Mother helps ‘social climbers' on the quiet for considerations and I— I play bridge, and— nearly always— win."

Her sad voice dropped till it was nearly inaudible at the last word.

"You mean you cheat?"

"I— yes." A pause long enough for a breath; then: "But— Lois— that isn't the worst. I— well, you know people in our set have been— losing things lately."

"You stole them? Well—"

All at once it came over Lois that in a situation like theirs— waiting there in the darkness, so close to death that they could touch its garments as it stood irresolute beside them— such things as stealing jewelry and cheating at cards were unimportant and uninteresting. Surely there was, out there in eternity, some court of law more nearly sublime than the regulations and standards of earth. Lois knew that stealing and cheating were both wrong, but in this strange and indefinably solemn hour poor Wanda's confession sounded somehow ridiculous.

"It's like worrying about what sort of coffin you'll have," she murmured aloud.

Then: "Don't mind me, Wanda. I think I'm a little light-headed. Don't worry; you can give Ella Minton back her diamond pins— for of course you took them— and I'm sure she won't prosecute or do anything beastly."

"No, but she'll talk, in confidence, to every one she knows, or I know, and Dick will hear it— and you know what Dick is about honesty, and all that!"

She broke down and wept more heart-brokenly than ever.

Lois felt her whole being whirl with her swift mental adjustment to this new thought. Little Wanda's sins had become important at last since they affected, or would affect, Dick. No longer were they unimportant or uninteresting. Not death himself could claim the attention of Lois Cranmer when Dick Maynard was involved.

She knew Dick well. They had been faithful friends for many years; and the tie had never been frayed by a suspicion on his part that she loved him. She knew him, and she knew that Wanda was right. Kindly and generous in most of the relations of life, he would have no mercy on dishonesty. He would never marry a girl whom he knew to have been a thief, even if he loved her. And it was more than probable that the knowledge of the fact would kill his love outright. Lois knew that things like that do kill love in a man. Not, in a woman— in fact, as she reflected without bitterness, there are few things that will kill love in women— except, occasionally, starvation! "And usually not even that, poor idiots!" she thought, remembering her own lean but loyal years.

And so to Lois— lying crushed, broken, suffering, and helpless in a darkness that might at any moment merge into that greater and more mysterious darkness which is called the shadow of death— came the great temptation of her life. It was a real temptation even though it was an unworthy one. She could, always granted that she was allowed to live until the rescuers reached them, tell the truth, brand Wanda as a thief— the diamonds would be sure to be upon her person somewhere— and could have the fierce joy of knowing that whether she herself lived or died, Wanda would be out of Dick's life forever.

There was a deep, Indian-like streak of vengefulness in Lois Cranmer; it is just such natures, with their hard and savage traits, which are often weakest in matters of love. Lois had a heart full of tenderness, but it was all for one person. To the rest of the world she was merely kind and fair.

But Wanda!

All at once the name of this horrible scenic railway flashed across her mind once more. "Through the Dragon's Valley!" Her brain, half delirious now from long strain and this unexpected crisis, painted the blackness before her with horrors and distortions, visualized the Dragon as her monstrous temptation, the thing she must fight and conquer if she wanted to die clean.

The perspiration poured down her face, not merely from weakness, not merely from pain, not even merely from death. It was her soul's sweat of agony, the sweat of a big fight against an enemy without mercy.

The fantastic vision of the Dragon filled fhe stuffy darkness— how appallingly close it was getting !— as the noises made by the rescuing party drew nearer.

"What shall I do, Lois?" moaned Wanda, and Lois felt her tremble as she pressed closer. Her own body did not shake; it felt strangely still— almost rigid, in fact. And she was very cold, and found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

The Dragon loomed vast, awful, inconceivably cruel. And then she found she could., move her hand, though with difficulty, until it touched the younger girl's.

"Give me the diamonds— quick!" she said, and at the same moment they saw a glimmer of light as the debris began to be heaved aside. She grasped two cold, corrugated objects which Wanda's shaking fingers pressed into her palm. There was no time for any further action, nor for any words. In another moment the men had shouldered and wormed and dug their way down to them. The first was Dick, and by an electric torch the man next him carried, he was ghastly. When he seized Wanda in his arms he could not speak for a minute.

"Thank Heaven!" he said brokenly. "I thought you were dead— my own love! The structure broke, in the deepest tunnel, and two cars Oh, it's too horrible. Poor Jerry Barlow! Ghastly!— I say, where's Lois? Is she all right?"

"Very fit, thanks, Dicky," said Lois calmly; "or will be when I am excavated. If you would just "

When they moved her, she fainted, but she did not die as soon as she had hoped. In fact, after they had gotten her out, and she lay under the glaring festoons of the park lights, the hastily summoned surgeon rather frightened her by telling her she had a chance.

Wanda hung about her, looking terribly frightened. She was not sure, even yet, what Lois meant to do about the diamond pins. Ella Minton, to do her justice, had dismissed the subject, and was really helpful and sympathetic, but Lois knew that the plump widow's cupidity would reawaken just as soon as this emergency should be past. She lay with closed eyes, holding the pins concealed.

At last Wanda could bear the suspense no longer, and, leaning over her, whispered desperately:

"Lois, are you going to tell—?"

Lois opened her eyes and looked at her, then shook her head. Then, in a voice heard only by Wanda, she began to speak.

"I suppose," she said slowly; "that it would be harder to have to give something up after you've had it, than never to have it at all. Yes, I know it would. That ought to be reason enough for me to save you and let you keep— Dick. But that isn't the reason, not really. I'm a very one-ideaed person, you know. Dick wants you, and he shall have you; that's all. Nothing and nobody could possibly count for anything with me compared to Dick.  And in case I don't stand the next move so well as the last— I hope you'll be happy."

And she meant it, chiefly because with a woman like Wanda, that would mean that Dick would be happy too!

How queer everything was beginning to look! People, and houses, and the stars overhead, all mixed up together, and all out of proportion! There was a barker from one of the side shows, a fat man in yellow livery. He seemed to grow bigger and bigger, till he was as big as the moon!

Then she looked at Dick, let her tired eyes cling to the clean, comely vigor of him, the race-horse build, the cleanly modeled mouth and chin, the steady eyes, grave and sorrowful now. She looked— a long look, then pulled together every last ounce of strength and courage that she had and spoke in a clear steady voice which made the surgeon start, and watch her closely, for so do dying folk sometimes speak just before the end.

‘‘Mrs. Minton," she said, "I am pretty badly broken up, and perhaps I shan't get over it. I want to clear something up, first. Your diamond pins—"

"Yes?" Even the imminent prospect of Lois' death could not keep Mrs. Minton from being concerned about her jewels.

"I stole them," said Lois, without emotion. "I have been hard up lately, and it was so easy to take them when you laid them down on the table, and every one was looking at the procession of camels. I stole them— that's all!"

Dick Maynard started forward, his face white and shocked.

"Lois!" he exclaimed. "You are wandering; you can't be speaking the truth. Why, it's as impossible as that—"

For answer Lois slowly unclenched the stiffening fingers of her right hand. In the multicolored glow of the electric lights that were still turned on, the diamonds glittered coldly and maliciously.

Mrs. Minton moved forward with a suppressed cry, then paused, half ashamed of her eagerness at such a time.

"Take them," said Lois.

And the widow did so.

Dick Maynard turned without a word, put his arm about Wanda, and drew her away. She looked back, crying silently, but Lois would not meet her eyes.

"Come, dear," Dick said gently. "I must take you home to your mother. You need rest."

In a moment they were gone.

Ella Minton suddenly began to cry, her plump white hands spread before her face, and her round shoulders heaving with distress.

"Oh, Lois!" she sobbed, hunting for a handkerchief, while the tears ran frankly down her cheeks. "Why did you do such a dreadful thing? And think of its happening just before you— just before you are going to—"

She found the handkerchief and sobbed again. "I've always been so fond of you, Lois,— and— and to steal— Why, it doesn't seem like you, Lois, somehow!"

Lois smiled somewhat grimly.

"Thanks!" she said, and closed her eyes.

_________________

9: The Scales of Time

Anna Alice Chapin

Munsey's Magazine Sep 1914

THE other train would be very late, and Forsythe lighted a cigar and began to stroll aimlessly up and down the sunny platform. It was a small way-station in Wyoming, and he was on his way to meet his wife, who was visiting friends at the post in Cheyenne, This, his first glimpse of his native land after a long yachting trip on the Baltic Sea, did not appeal to Forsythe. He looked with distaste over the rolling barren country baking under the June sun. The size of the prairies oppressed him, and being much out of condition, the heat of the Western sun made him limp and ill- tempered.

Not many years before he would have utilized this hour of waiting in taking a good tramp; would probably have ascertained the whereabouts of a bar from the cow-punchers who had ridden in for mail and packages— and even taken a drink with them if they were not too haughty; he might have defended so far as to make conversation with the two Indians laconically chewing plug tobacco in the meaner shade afforded by a packing-case.

Now he did none of these things. He strolled up and down and cursed the Northern Pacific. At the farther end of the platform a group of people were laughing and chattering shrilly. Their super-human cheerfulness betrayed their calling.

With a sardonic smile Forsythe muttered: "A theatrical troupe!" and nearly bit his cigar in two. He had no particular grudge against the profession, but they irritated him. That was simply the way he felt that day.

One of the girls in the company wore a green dress— the son of green which used to be Gwenny Morse's favorite color.

Gwenny! Why, he hadn't thought of her for years. Gwenny, who had been cut out for a saint or a devil who could presume to say which? Gwenny, ardent, sensitive, far too highly geared. She had thrown herself at him; yes, that would be the vulgar phrase to describe the headlong, almost sublime, confidence of that young and fervent passion. She had been amazed, rather than affronted, that he had not cared as much as she.

The difficult part of the whole business had been that Gwenny was not a chorus-lady or a shop-girl, but one of his own class and kind, a girl he had danced with and taken in to dinner on occasion. But— fatal tribute for a debutante!— she had been the possessor of a voice. The voice had carried her into unsavory purlieus and among strange gods; it had dragged her forth from the family chicken-coops and sent her to roost in the outer wilderness. She had quarreled with sundry relatives, and subsisted on tinned stuff and chafing-dish mixtures— all for the voice.

Because of the voice and the tacit emancipation which its possession gave her he had permitted himself more freedom with her than with other girls of their set. They had dined together at odd little out- of-the-way restaurants (the sort that one can never find any more when one is really grown up, and that one describes vaguely as "somewhere off Washington Square"). They had walked the streets in the mysterious and adventurous night hours when the summer moon poured down into the dullest places and only the areas were in shadow.

Once— Heavens! -he had actually kissed her on a moonless street corner! Such a profanation of the august canons of propriety, and in the streets of Xew York! Venice, perchance, or Paris but New York!  God knows, they must have been young.

At forty he found it a bit hard to imagine, especially here at the Wyoming way-station, with the dirty Indians chewing tobacco dose— far, far too close —beside him.

And suddenly the girl in the green gown turned around, and it was Gwenny!

There was a queer moment in which he was not sure that she knew him; then she came at him with a sort of sweeping rush— one of her old, swift, bird-like movements, and gave him her two hands. There wasn't a trace of self-consciousness about, her. She was just greeting an old friend.

"And are you as prosperous as you look?" demanded Gwenny. It was like her to plunge into the middle of things.

"Are you?" he asked back, smiting at her trim appearance. The loose hair looked redder than ever. He wondered if she touched it up. Copper -haired girls nearly always did.

She was laughing her old, sweet laugh— more like a merry boy's than a girl's,

"Just about!" she was answering him. "I went on the stage, you know— musical comedy."

"Yes, I heard."

"And you went and married!"

He nodded silently. Gwenny surveyed him smilingly and shook her head.

"You look ever so queer out here in this rough country," she said. "You belong in the East, with your nice clothes and your nice manners and your nice shoes."

"But you belong in the East yourself," he protested, moved to a faint effort at self-defense.

"I? Oh, I belong everywhere! I love this country out here. It makes me feel as though I could go on and on— forever!"

"There's room enough, anyway," he said rather dryly. Personally, the huge spaces seemed to him an awful waste,

"You've become an expatriate— isn't that what they call it?" she went on. "Live on the other side, and all that?"

"More or less. Are you doing well yourself, Gwe— Miss Morse?"

(Such a banal thing to say! but his head could only make banalities to-day.)

"I'm not Miss Morse any longer," she told him.

"Married, too?" He felt a sort of shock, quite inexplicable.

"Only to my art!" She laughed again. "They didn't think Morse was picturesque enough for musical comedy. Never mind about all that, I'm very glad to see you,"

"Thank you." (Had he always been as fatuous as this, he wondered?)

"You know," proceeded Gwenny calmly, "I've always wanted to see you again since I stopped being in love with you."

Foray the gasped a little. But — Lord, wasn't this Gwenny all over?

"I wanted to see, you know," she went on, "if you had turned out as well as I wanted you to. It would be dreadful to find that a person you had adored for three whole years had become just— just an ordinary human being. Wouldn't it? I often think," added Gwenny dreamily, "that we ought to keep that before our eyes all the time, as a sort of incentive to improvement, and— and that. Any day we might run across somebody who used to be in love with us, and we'd hate them to have to say to themselves, 'Thank God, I didn't marry that awful person, anyway!"

Still Forsythe could not find any words.

He settled his impeccable cravat and felt like an ass. And all the time there was Gwenny in her green dress, with the hot Western sun on her red hair and the old glory— -or almost the old glory— in her big eyes,

Gwenny was pretty. Alter seven years he had forgotten how pretty she was. Perhaps she had filled out a little, Yes, that may have been it. The Gwenny of the old French restaurant days was thin— thin, like an etherealized Watts picture. Now she was just right, tall enough to carry the round yet sweeping curves of her lovely body, and with a sort of radiance in her face— a sober radiance, yet a glad one.

And what a young, eager face it was still! And the big, wide-set, blue -green eyes were just as full of dreams as ever, only it looked as though the dreams were made of graver stuff. She had learned how to wear her clothes, too. The green frock was simple, but it fitted exquisitely.

A Mexican woman with a little tray of flowers, rather wilted from the heat, came along the platform. She was too tired even to cry her wares. Clearly she had no hope of selling them; she trudged on her slow way with heavy feet, her dull eyes fixed in front of her, She had Indian blood; there was the patient squaw look in her grimy, dark face.

"Sweet peas!" exclaimed Gwenny with a little gasp.

For a moment her very soul seemed to meet Forsythe's through her wide, blue- green eyes. He welcomed the look with a sense of loneliness. He knew suddenly that, down in his heart he had been waiting for that rush of emotion to rise in the girl's eyes. Hadn't that been one of the very dearest things about Gwenny in the old days?

With a sort of clumsy effort at light- heartedness he thrust a hand into his pocket.

"Want some? 1 ' he asked airily.

"Oh, you did that in just the same way!" cried Gwenny, with a brightness like tears in her sweet eyes, "Only there didn't use to be quite so much in the pocket then!" she added whimsically as he brought up a fistful of silver.

"How many bunches?" he said, laughing awkwardly.

"Oh," she exclaimed softly, "only one bunch— like then. And the purple ones, of course."

Her eyes came to his again, bright and soft. And then suddenly, even as he paid for the little bunch and put it into her hands, the glow went altogether out of her face,

"Why, you don't remember!" she said. And there was in her voice the same wonder that there had been years before when she first realized that he had only been playing at love with her.

Shame covered him like a red-hot mantle. He struggled to bring back the memory which" was so living to her. Somewhere in that dim past of theirs— the little faint-hued past that he had packed away so safely he had almost completely mislaid it— there had been sweet peas, purple sweet peas.

He felt curiously convicted. One should remember the sweet peas of life, A girl more or less, and tragedies of sorts— these might go into the attic of broken and useless things. But {he sweet peas should remain pressed in the pages of the Book of Life.

A quick whiff of memory came back like a passing scent—darkness and a splash of starlight, and a girl's lips near his own— and sweet peas. If she saw the dawn of the recollection in his face she gave no sign. The little bunch hung listlessly from her hand.

"They don't smell a bit the same," she said rather forlornly.

There was a faint murmur in the distance, and people in the station began to move about. The train was coming.

Forsythe looked at the girl at his side, and this time her eyes were full of real tears.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! " she whispered impulsively.

"Sorry for what?" asked Forsy the, and then, with a queer little stab at his heart— "that you met me again? "

She nodded. "Oh, it isn't your fault," she murmured. "I'm sure it isn't your fault. But I've been living with a sort of ghost of you— a sort of dream— all these years. Not a dream lover, you know, but a dream friend. It's been such a comfort to me."

"I see—" said, Forsythe.

He did see. He had been weighed in the balance, he and his well-built clothes, and his sleek person, and his settled, well-fed point of view. This clear-eyed girl, this musical comedy artist, had found him wanting, and he felt suddenly middle aged. He had never felt that way before. Also, for the first time, he wondered if he could have kept the glory and the dream if he had married Gwenny.

The train came nearer.

"Good-by," said Gwenny gently, holding out her left hand. Her right still grasped the little bunch of wilted purple sweet peas.

"Sha'n't I see you again?" Forsythe asked rather dully, "You say you aren't playing under your own name, but—"

"I don't think we'll be apt to meet any more," she said quietly,

"Your name — " he persisted.

"Gwendolen Crittenden," she said simply, " Good-by. I must go back to the company. My car is the first, I think,"

Gwendolen Crittenden! He was mad not to have suspected it, and yet he never had. How had he ever failed to hear Gwendolen Crittenden. It was a name famous on two continents, Gwenny, then, was one of the most successful actresses in America.

He saw her and her company get into the special car after the other train pulled in; and then he slowly climbed into the smoker. He sat staring through the window at the two Indians, who, unmoved by the coming or going of trains with which they had no concern, sat still, like Fates, chewing plug tobacco in the shadow of the packing-case.

The vivid grace of her had struck him hard between his eyes, and her red hair flamed before him still like a sunset glory. And the dear look of the wistful lips, the clear sweetness of her eyes! In his long-dulled ears rang the eager music of her voice: "I feel as though I could go on and on—"

Yes, she would go on and on; sometimes down into the dark places and sometimes up into the heights, but always on and on. She was Gwendolen Crittenden, and— what was he? He sat there staring out of the window with a dead cigar in his fingers and tried to find out the answer.

The smoking-car was at the end of the train. Presently, as they moved out of the station, he saw a little splash of purple on the sunny platform— a bunch of sweet peas it looked like. So— she had thrown it away, that last small link with the dreamlike past.

________________

10: The Ghost in the Red Shirt

B. M. Bower

1871-1940

Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, July 1904

THE PROPER way to begin this story would be to assure the reader, first of all, that I have never believed in ghosts; that is the way ghost-stories usually begin, I think. Also, I should say that what I am about to relate is perfectly true— but I won't begin it like that. As a matter of fact, I don't care much whether you believe me or not, and I always did believe in ghosts— at least, I always hoped they were truer than Santa Claus, and that some day I should see one.

Aunt Jane— but I don't want to begin with Aunt Jane either: she always did begin everything in my life, ever since I can remember, and she sha'n't begin this story. I don't mean her even to know I wrote it—she'd only say I'm crazy, and I'm not.

This is the way it all happened, and, mind, I don't care whether you believe it or not. It happened, and your belief or disbelief won't alter that one important fact. And he was the dearest old ghost— but wait till I start at the beginning, as I should have done before.

We had gone across the lake that evening in the little sail-boat, the New Woman. Jack named it, you might know; he said she was full of whims and it took a man to hold her nose in the wind— Jack's awfully sarcastic.

There were just six of us— Aunt Jane and Mabel, Cousin Jack, Professor Goldburn, and Clifford Wilton. Clifford and I weren't on very friendly terms. We had been engaged, though Aunt Jane didn't suspect it. But it was all over, and my sweet little ruby ring was lying somewhere off Weir Point, where Clifford threw it one day—but this is a ghost-story.

Nothing happened during the sail except that my hat blew away and Mabel hinted that it wasn't an accident— that I liked to show off my hair. I said I didn't show off any hair but what I might justly call my own, and, of course, that made Mabel mad— angry, I mean. Aunt Jane scolded me, as usual: it's easy to tell which niece has the money.

We landed to visit a cave in the cliff, and Mabel and Clifford flirted outrageously. It wasn't a bit interesting— I mean the cave. The flirting didn't worry me: I was particularly nice to Professor Goldburn— so nice that Aunt Jane called me her dear child twice, and the Professor came near offering me his heart and hand. Jack saved me: he called us all to the boat just as the Professor got fairly warmed to his subject. Of course, I ran as soon as Jack called, leaving the Professor to come nipping along behind— I hate fat men, anyway.

A storm was muttering up from the horizon, and the oily, ugly clouds were almost over our heads before we pushed off, on account of Mabel and Clifford loitering along the cliff path and acting that silly!

The lake was smooth as glass and ink black, and the look of it made me shiver, with four miles of it between us and home.

Jack raised the sail, but it hung limp, so there was nothing for it but to row. Jack and Clifford went to work, while I steered the boat. Clifford spoke once to me: we ignored each other, as a rule.

"Better keep her close in. We'll try to round this point and run into the cove before she strikes."

"If we don't," remarked Jack cheerfully, "she'll flop us; and, oh mister, she won't do a thing to us!"

I rather thought "she" would do several things to us, but I didn't stop to argue the point— there wasn't time. I don't know just how it came about, but Jack was right— she "flopped" us.

We weren't far from shore, so the upset wasn't very serious. The water was so shallow we could easily wade ashore, though Mabel called for help, and, of course, it was Clifford who rescued her— from water no deeper than our bathtub! It is incredible, the foolishness of that girl!

I was first to climb the bank, and when I had watched the others land I just sat down in the wind and the rain and laughed. (Mabel says I will probably laugh at my own funeral; I'm positive I could have laughed at hers just then.) The idea of a great, overgrown girl like her (she weighs a hundred and fifty pounds if she weighs an ounce) sobbing on a young man's shoulder! and the curl all out of her hair, and the complexion washed off her face in streaks. It's a wonder she didn't turn Clifford sick; but, then, men show dreadfully poor taste at times. I don't suppose I was very entrancing myself just then, but, thank goodness, my complexion will bear washing!

The New Woman reached the shore, upside down, almost as soon as we did, and my old golf-cape, that Aunt Jane insists I shall carry with me always in the boat, dangled on a wave-washed willow. Jack waded in and rescued it and Aunt Jane's little gray shawl (her green umbrella's gone forever, for which I am very thankful). Mabel's sailor-hat washed ashore while we stood there, and Clifford got that.

Then Jack remembered that there was an old cabin near there, and we found what had once been a well-trodden path leading back from the shore into the woods. We followed it dismally, with the lightning to guide us.

Jack led the way, reciting: "It was night! The vivid lightnings flashed athwart the vaulted sky and shook their fiery darts upon the shuddering earth. The elements were in wild commotion!"—or something like that. I think he got it out of a "Penny Dreadful."

Just as Jack said "commotion," with a fine roll upon the word, the Professor caught his toe upon a root, and down he went—and I laughed. Aunt Jane didn't call me her dear child that time; she said, "Zel-l-l-ah!" But I don't care. Jack laughed too, though he did pretend he was just coughing.

We found the cabin, half hidden by the tall burdocks and wild rosebushes. The door-step was sunken and covered deep with the leaves of many summers.

Jack threw open the door and cried "Spooks!" in a sepulchral tone which gave me a chill, but when Mabel gave a squawk and caught Clifford's arm I just pushed Mr. Jack headlong over the threshold and went on in.

The lightning glared in at the open door and showed us a great, old fireplace, with a huge pile of dry wood stacked in one corner, and there were some chairs and a table, and that was all.

Jack swooped down upon the fireplace with a shout, and we had a roaring fire in no time, for Jack's matches were dry, for a wonder. Goodness knows he paid enough for his matchbox; Aunt Jane said it was a scandalous price, but it was worth every cent of it to have dry matches that night. We huddled around the fire, half frozen from our ducking. I spread out my old golf-cape to dry, so that I might have some good of the old thing— I had lugged it around all summer and hadn't used it once. Aunt Jane and I took down our hair and wrung out the water. Mabel wouldn't; she said hers wasn't very wet— and that settled the switch question in my mind, and from the way Jack grinned I know what he thought about it— and Aunt Jane trying to make a match between those two!

Professor Goldburn backed up to the fire, rubbed his pudgy hands together behind him, and ogled till I felt downright sick, but I wouldn't show it. He had lost his eyeglass and the curl was out of his mustache and his collar all crumpled, and that oily smile didn't seem to match the rest of him a bit. I don't care if he is worth a million or more, I just think he's horrid! I smiled back at him just to see Clifford scowl. But Clifford wasn't looking my way. He was whispering something to Mabel and had his back turned to me—both of which I consider rude in anybody, no matter who does it.

Then Jack got to wondering what was in the next room, for there appeared to be two, and he and I went to explore.

The room had been a bedroom, I think. It was bare of everything but dust and cobwebs, and was so small it didn't take us long— Jack only burned one match and two fingers.

After that we sat around the fire and listened to the storm, and tried to think we weren't famished, which was hard to do, seeing we had had nothing since luncheon.

Aunt Jane worried over Uncle John and how anxious he'd be, but I was rather glad for him. He'd lectured me awfully that morning because I wasn't nice and dignified, like Mabel. I hoped he'd remember it with remorse.

Jack sang coon-songs and even did a cake-walk. I got up and helped him in that, just to shock Mabel. She thinks cake-walking is very unladylike, and always looks scandalized when I begin anything of the kind.

Aunt Jane— to punish us, I think— started the Professor going on his pet microbes, and once he was started, no one else had any show whatever. He droned on about bacilli and other horrors, and gravely assured us that old cabin was undoubtedly swarming with awful-sounding germs. Fancy being married to such a man— ugh!

Aunt Jane presently fell asleep, and as Clifford took to staring moodily into the fire and not seeming to remember anything but his thoughts, Mabel soon followed Aunt Jane's example. I was hungry and cross, and even the Professor couldn't talk me to sleep.

I wrapped my golf-cape around me and cuddled in an old armchair in front of the fireplace, with Jack and the Professor upon either side of me and Clifford on a little bench against the wall. Aunt Jane and Mabel were on the side opposite Clifford, though they, being asleep, do not count.

I was beginning to hold my eyes open with some effort, when something roused me, and I sat up straight and listened. The storm was still beating furiously against the cabin walls, but another sound was distinctly audible. There could be no mistake— someone was walking back and forth in the other room.

We looked at one another, and I admit a creepy feeling went up my spine just at first.

Clifford caught up a brand from the fire and started for the closed door, and we all followed him. When we crowded into the doorway we saw nothing but the dust and the cobwebs and the dancing glare of Clifford's torch upon the rough board walls. It was such a bare little room that I think we all felt a bit ashamed of our nerves.

The footsteps had ceased, and only the wind and rain, beating upon the low roof, could be heard.

"It's the wind," said Clifford, pointing his torch downward to freshen the blaze.

"It was the water dripping from some branch upon the roof," said the Professor— and that was the most sensible remark he had made that night.

"More likely it's rats," put in Jack. "Can't be a ghost— they're noted chiefly for the noise they don't make."

I pinched Jack soundly for mentioning ghosts, and spoke as firmly as I could with my teeth chattering so,—

"It's your microbes, Professor."

Jack snickered, and the Professor rolled his eyes reproachfully at me.

Then we all went back to the fire and Jack threw on more wood. The Professor went on talking, only this time it was about telepathy, or something of that sort. And soon we heard that heavy, measured tread, as before. I must say I didn't much like the sound of it— coming like that, with no feet to make the thing seem reasonable, and with no ghost to make it creepily interesting, but the men appeared to ignore the tramping, so I tried to not care.

Jack fell to smoking cigarettes, seeing Aunt Jane was asleep, and Clifford poked the ashes into fanciful little heaps and got creases in his forehead. He did look glum and no mistake, but I couldn't see that he was afraid, or anything like that.

After awhile my eyes went shut, just for a minute. I could still hear the Professor's voice droning like a big bumble-bee, when suddenly he stopped short in the middle of a sentence. That was odd, for he does love to round out his sentences nicely, even when he is interrupted.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was gazing, with mouth half open and with eyes full of fear, at something behind me.

Well, you know how it is when someone begins to stare behind you—if you were to be hanged for it the next minute, you'd turn and look. You couldn't help it.

I turned in my chair, and— br-r-r-r! I went cold all over, with little prickles in my scalp. (I suppose that was my hair standing on end, though Jack says it always does.)

Coming slowly across the room, straight towards me, was a man— ghost— oh, I don't know what! I gave one horrified glance, then I jumped from the armchair and with one bound I was on the little bench, snuggled up to Clifford's side. I didn't realize it till I felt his arm— well, under the golf-cape! (That blessed old cape shall never go to the ragman, I assure you.)

I was none too soon, for as I sprang from the chair It slid into it. There he sat— a short, stocky figure, with grizzled hair and rough, toil-hardened hands. His eyes were dull and gazed straight into the fire.

I must confess I was the tiniest bit disappointed after that first glance. I had all my life longed to see a really, truly ghost, but this one was neither picturesque nor orthodox. Where was the white winding-sheet? He wore faded blue overalls and a red flannel shirt! As to the chill, I have felt that before.

For instance, when Clifford threw my ring away out, and I watched the widening circle where it fell, while he said bitterly, "There goes my faith in women," I felt the very same creepy cold trickling down my back. I believe I even felt worse that time.

We all sat as if paralyzed. After a minute I gathered courage to glance up at Clifford's face, and, do you know, he actually seemed to enjoy the situation! He looked down at me, and his eyes smiled— and I'm not sure but his lips did, as well. I know he didn't seem a bit scared.

Jack certainly was white, though he scouted the idea afterwards, and the Professor's face was like a great lump of beef suet.

After what seemed hours—and was probably only seconds—the apparition rose, glided back to the door, and disappeared.

Jack drew a long breath and finished making a cigarette, though I know his hand shook and made it hard work. The Professor gathered himself together, said "Lord bless my soul!"— it was as bad as swearing, the way he said it,— and raised a forefinger.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began in a shaky half-whisper, "it would seem that we have just beheld something unusual and— er— startling."

"Well, I should tell a man!" said Jack, glancing furtively over his shoulder as he drew a match along the edge of his chair.

"Now," continued the Professor hurriedly, somewhat steadied by Jack's composure (though I'm certain that was only assumed), "I would suggest, in the interest of scientific research, that before anything is said upon the subject we each in turn write a brief description of the— er— phenomenon. In this way there will be less danger of our impression being colored by that of another mind, and— er— ladies first."

With this lame finish he handed me a little, red note-book and a pencil.

"Write briefly what you saw,—I take it you did see something,—then turn the page and pass the book to Mr. Wilton."

This struck me as being decidedly original, and since I was not nearly as frightened as one would suppose (it was such a comfort being reconciled to Clifford!), I took the book and did the best I could.

Then Clifford drew his arm reluctantly from under my cape,— I hope and pray no one knew it was there all this while,— scribbled rapidly, turned the page, and gave the book to Jack, and then his arm oh, well, what could I do? I did try pinching his hand, but his fingers caught mine in an awful grip and wouldn't let go, and so— what could I do?

Just then Aunt Jane woke with a shiver.

"Mercy," she said, "what an awful storm!"

In a moment she noticed the steps in the other room.

"Strange," she said, turning her head to listen. "What is it, do you think?"

"Wind," said the Professor rather curtly, for him.

"Water," said Clifford, giving my fingers a squeeze.

"Rats," announced Jack, in a tone which left us doubtful as to his meaning.

"Microbes," finished I, not to be outdone by their brevity and aplomb.

"Zella!" cried Aunt Jane, glancing apprehensively at the Professor.

The Professor looked at me and sighed, and Jack clapped both hands over his heart and nearly sighed himself off the three-legged stool. Jack can't endure Professor Goldburn.

"Zella," began Aunt Jane pointedly, "don't you think you would be more comfortable in that chair?" (meaning the ghost chair.)

"No, I don't!" I snapped, very impertinently, I'm afraid— but catch me sitting in that chair again!

Aunt Jane turned to Jack, perched uncomfortably on the stool. (Now Jack is proverbially lazy: he never sits upright when he can lean.)

"Well, Jack! I never knew you to let a cushioned armchair go begging an occupant. What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing," drawled Jack. "You sit there yourself, mother."

"Well, I will. It looks more comfortable than this straight-backed one," and she settled down heavily on the faded calico cushion, while I shivered with horror.

If the ghost in the red shirt returned— well, Aunt Jane is one of the screaming sort.

We sat quiet a long time, it seemed to me. I was just wondering if I dared lean my head against Clifford and take a nap when I felt his arm tighten warningly. I looked, and there was the ghost gliding up to the chair, his lustreless eyes fixed upon the fire as before.

Jack turned and saw it, and grew white. He can't convince me he wasn't scared, for he looked it.

I stared, horrified. I tried to cry out, but before I could limber my tongue (it felt so dry and helpless) the ghost reached the chair and— sat right down upon Aunt Jane! He really did! She stirred a little and shivered.

"Throw more wood on the fire, Jack," she said, "I feel chilly."

Chilly! Good Heaven, I think we all did! Even Jack's splendid nerve was shaken at sight of his own mother dandling that Thing upon her knees.

"Mother!" he cried, and his voice sounded hoarse (for a fellow that wasn't scared), "for God's sake, move!"

Well, there's a gap in the story here that I can't fill.

The next I remember Aunt Jane was fanning me with Mabel's sailor-hat, and Jack stood by with an old tomato-can full of water which leaked a stream almost, and he looking very sober. The Professor was rubbing his hands together and saying, "Lord bless my soul!" over and over. I hate that man!

The ghost in the red shirt was gone, and I could not hear any footsteps in the vacant room.

After that it was a thousand years till morning. Our watches had all stopped, so I may be allowed my own estimate of the time, I hope.

Well, I think that's all of the ghost-story. It would take too long to tell how we walked home at daybreak— six miles, it was, right through the woods, and Aunt Jane and the Professor puffing like steam-engines before we had gone a mile— or how Uncle John had a steam-launch out searching for our remains. All that would make another story, and one is my limit.

Oh, I didn't go to sleep in that cabin and dream all this— how would you account for Clifford's behavior since that night, then? And what about the red note-book? That is evidence that the ghost was real enough, I should think.

We had all seen him alike, only Jack said he "wanted a shave," which I hadn't noticed, and the Professor wrapped his description up in so many long words that there was no getting at the sense of it— except that he did see a ghost.

Aunt Jane didn't see him at all; she says she'd have died of fright if she had; and, of course, Mabel, sleeping through the performance as she did, was perfectly furious. She even went so far as to say we all made it up among us just to annoy her.

Mabel and the Professor left the same day soon after that. Mabel simply couldn't treat me decently after she knew—

Oh, and I have another ruby ring, exactly like the one which lies off Weir Point. And Clifford has oceans of faith in women.

_________________

11: After Death the Doctor

J. J. Connington

1880–1947

The First Class Omnibus (1934) Ed. Helen Gosse

"BETTER go in, now, doctor?" Sergeant Longridge suggested. "You'll be here later on?" he added to Jack Sparkford. "I'll have to ask you a few questions then."

It was the sergeant's first murder case, and though outwardly confident, he felt a shade diffident in the presence of the more experienced police surgeon.

Hastily summoned, Longridge had tramped up to the house, breakfastless, planning his procedure as he came. The first thing to do, obviously, was to examine the room and the body, with no outsiders to worry him while he made his notes. It was with some relief that he saw Dr. Shefford's car drive up to the front door as he reached it himself.

Here was the room, with that comfortless and untidy look which rooms have in the morning, before the disorder of the night has been repaired; the chairs set at odd angles, the ashtrays unemptied, the cushions crumpled and awry, a newspaper thrown carelessly on the floor.

It seemed a cross between a sitting-room and an office, with a wireless set, bookcases, filing cabinets, a couple of occasional tables, and a pedestal desk against the wall in one corner. The furniture was good, but shabby like the clothes of a man who has come down in the world.

"Regular old bachelor's den," the doctor observed. "Not a flower anywhere, though they've plenty in the garden."

He put down his bag and went over to the corner of the room. The sergeant was not sensitive, and it cost him no qualms to examine the body of Barnaby Leadburn as it lay back in the office chair before the pedestal desk. A bit weird, he reflected, to see an old gent one knew by sight, lying there with his throat cut.

Dr. Shefford's interest was more professional.

"Not so much blood as I'd have expected," he commented.

His examination of the body became more technical; and Longridge, understanding little of what the doctor was doing, bethought himself that he had a task of his own. He opened his note-book and began to jot down things which seemed important.

The French window was open, but only one of the curtains was drawn back from it. The electric light had been switched off. In the empty grate were some ashes of burnt paper, with printing showing black on the grey background: a piece of newspaper, the sergeant guessed. And when he picked up the newspaper from the floor, he found about a quarter of one of the sheets torn away.

The desk bore a neat array of account-books, and on the open pages of the one nearest the body lay a sheet of note-paper. Longridge, craning over the doctor, read on it the words: "I, Barnaby Leadburn…" Then came the regular trail of blotches caused by a pen rolling along the paper; and the pen itself lay on the desk surface to the right of the book.

For some moments Sergeant Longridge puzzled over this sinister hiatus in the manuscript, trying to imagine how the incomplete sentence had been meant to run. At last an idea occurred to him.

"Do you think, sir, that he could have been making his will? I never made a will myself— not worth while, seeing I've nothing to leave— but don't they run: 'I, So-and-so, hereby give and bequeath…' That's how I've heard say."

Dr. Shefford seemed to think that he had enough to do in his own sphere, without entrenching on the sergeant's.

"They usually start by appointing executors," he said dryly. "This looks a very clean cut, sergeant. It might almost have been done with a razor, from the look of it."

"How long do you think he's been dead, sir?" Longridge inquired, glancing at his watch.

Dr. Shefford shrugged his shoulders rather impatiently.

"He probably died round about midnight, I should guess; but it's no use pretending that you can tell to a minute from medical evidence alone. Things vary far too much for that. Hadn't you better hunt about and see if you can find the weapon it was done with, if it happens to be in the room?"

The sergeant's feelings were ruffled by this reflection on his zeal and efficiency.

"Well, sir, if you'll stand aside for a moment, I'll have a look with my flashlamp in the well of the desk. I don't see any weapon lying about anywhere else."

Dr. Shefford stood aside; and the sergeant, cautiously grovelling with his flash-lamp, explored the cavity under the desk. An exclamation of triumph told the doctor that something had been found.

"Here's what it was done with, sir. Look! That's a rummy sort of knife. I'll fetch it out."

Gingerly he picked up the weapon and placed it on the desk: a stout blade four or five inches long embedded in a straight wooden handle, with a steel lever at the side.

"It's the sort of knife artists use for cutting mill-board or for trimming prints," the doctor explained. "You can alter the amount of blade that sticks out of the handle by setting that steel catch on the side. I rather wondered how that wound was made, but this evidently did it, to judge by the blood on the blade. By the way, sergeant, you'd better inquire if the old man was left-handed. This gash has been made from right to left, by the look of it. If old Leadburn was right-handed, then it isn't suicide. And you might ask if the light was on or off this morning. Suicides aren't usually so economical as to switch off before they put their own light out. Though, from what I've heard, old Leadburn was mean enough to have taken the precaution."

"Very good, sir," the sergeant agreed. "And now, sir, I think I'll leave you and make some inquiries from the house people."

"Just pull the curtains before you go, and switch on the lights. It's hardly decent to carry on further in full view of anyone who happens to cross the lawn."

Jack Sparkford and his younger brother, Sydney, were in the hall as the sergeant emerged from the room. Between Jack, at twenty-five, and the fifteen-year-old schoolboy, the family likeness was unmistakable even down to the weakly obstinate chins.

"They look bothered, but not just tearful," Longridge reflected. "Not much wonder, either, if old Leadburn was the tartar he got the name of being. They hadn't the lives of dogs, if all tales were true."

"Have you found anything?" Jack demanded anxiously.

The sergeant put up his hand defensively.

"One thing at a time, sir. We've got no facts yet. I'd like to see the maid who discovered the…"

"Ring for Hart, Sydney," Jack ordered. "We'd better go in here. No use interviewing her in the hall."

In a few moments a young, rather good-looking housemaid appeared, evidently in a very shaken state of nerves.

"Your name's Jenny Hart, isn't it?" demanded the sergeant. "Tell me just how you came to discover Mr. Leadburn this morning."

The girl seemed taken aback by this official tone from a person with whom she already had a nodding acquaintance.

"It was this way," she explained nervously. "I went into that room about seven o'clock to clear it up and set things to rights."

"Was the electric light on?"

"No. So the first thing I did was to go and draw the curtains back from the window, and when I'd drawn the first one, I saw Mr. Leadburn lying there in his blood on the chair, and I screamed and ran out of the room."

"Was the French window open when you drew the curtain?"

"Yes, it was. It must have stood open all night. Mr. Leadburn always liked to have it open, but he used to shut it when he went up to bed, last thing."

The sergeant could think of no further questions to ask the maid just then, so he dismissed her and turned to the two nephews of Barnaby Leadburn.

"Did anything out of the common— sounds or what not— attract your attention in the night?" he asked Jack Sparkford.

Jack shook his head.

"I went up to my room about eleven o'clock," he explained. "My uncle was busy with his accounts and so forth. I heard nothing suspicious."

"And you, sir?" Longridge inquired, turning to Sydney.

"I heard nothing inside the house," the boy answered at once. "But I heard Cæsar— that's our big retriever, you know— I heard him give a long howl, a funny sort of noise, about twenty past twelve. I never heard him make a noise like that before— a kind of howl, very long-drawn-out."

"How do you know it was twenty past twelve then?" demanded the sergeant sceptically.

"Because the down express passed almost immediately afterwards. It goes through at 12.25. I was kept awake part of the night with toothache, you see. And, by the way," he added, "I haven't seen Cæsar this morning."

"You'd better get hold of him," Jack said at once, "he might do damage to somebody if he's left on the loose."

"Savage, is he?" inquired the sergeant, who had heard some rumours about the dog.

"A bit nasty with everybody barring ourselves, I'm afraid," Jack admitted. "My brother Timothy's the only outsider he takes to. Even the gardener at the lodge is in terror of him. Cæsar hates him for some reason or other. My uncle had him let loose in the grounds at night. Nobody would dare to come a-burgling here with Cæsar off the chain. It would be as much as his life was worth."

"What the girl said about open windows is right?" inquired Longridge.

"Oh, yes. We've all got a tendency to consumption in our family. My brother Timothy's in a bad way with it. Naturally we believe in fresh air, and my uncle was all for open windows."

"H'm!" said Longridge. "Now about this dog, sir. Had your uncle any enemies, that he kept a savage dog about the place at night?"

"Not that I know of," Jack replied frankly enough.

Something in Sydney's expression caught the sergeant's eye, and he put the same question to the boy.

"I don't know about enemies," Sydney answered doubtfully. "He had a bit of a row with Corfe— that's our gardener— last night. Something to do with our housemaid, Hart. I heard the two of them slanging each other and Corfe seemed a bit above himself with rage. He's engaged to Hart, you know. Something about my uncle accusing her of stealing. I couldn't help hearing some of it, but I didn't listen on purpose. It was in the garden."

Sergeant Longridge veiled his interest in this new piece of evidence by changing the subject. He described the knife and asked if it belonged to anyone in the house.

"Oh, yes, it's mine," Sydney admitted promptly. "It always lies on the desk, in there. I use it for trimming the white edges off my Kodak prints."

"Oh, it's your knife and it always lies on the desk," Sergeant Longridge repeated mechanically, as he noted the facts in his book. "Thanks. Now another question, Mr. Sparkford. Did any visitors call on your uncle last night?"

"Visitors? Not that I know of," Jack answered. "Unless you call my brother Timothy a visitor. He came in after dinner and left again about ten o'clock. I saw him down to the road then. His eyesight's bad, and I went with him down the short cut to save him stumbling about in the dark."

"He left at ten p.m.," noted the sergeant. "Have you notified him about the death, sir?"

"Yes, I rang him up. But he was sick, last night; he had to call a doctor in the small hours, he told me. Probably he's a bit shaky this morning and hasn't felt up to coming over here yet."

"He lives across the railway, I think?"

Longridge's question was merely formal. He knew Timothy Sparkford by sight and reputation; but he believed in getting "the evidence of a witness" to put down in his notes.

"Yes, he lives in Moss Cottage," Jack replied.

"I remember, sir. He moved over there after he had a bit of luck in the Sweep, didn't he? By the way, your uncle didn't seem nervous about anything when you saw him last night?"

Jack shook his head decidedly.

"Nothing of that sort, not a sign of it."

"Nothing missing, that you've noticed, sir? No valuables gone, or a safe opened?"

"Nothing whatever in that line, so far as I know. There's no safe in the house. He kept everything in the bank."

"I see, sir. Now I think I'd like to have your maid back again just to ask her a question or two more."

But when Hart was summoned, they learned that she had left the house, apparently to talk to the gardener; and it was a few minutes before she came back. When she reappeared the sergeant interviewed her alone.

"Now, my girl," he began in his most paternal tone, "you don't want to be keeping anything back in a bad case like this. It wouldn't do. People would begin to think there was something wrong, you see, if you did that. So just tell me what this bit of trouble was that you had with old Mr. Leadburn."

At the question, the prim maidservant vanished and in her stead a virago appeared, furious, bitter, and yet uneasy.

"If anybody says I stole anything, they're taking away my character, and I'll have the law on them," she burst out breathlessly.

"The truth of it is, I was dusting his desk and I happened to pull open a drawer, and a note dropped out, and I picked it up, and I was standing there with it in my hand when he came in. He'd been out there in the garden, sneaking behind the bushes, watching me through the window.

"Spying on me! That's a nice occupation for a man with thousands a year, I don't think! I wouldn't demean myself so. And then he swore I'd stolen the note, and he'd been missing money for some time, for he kept a good check on it, which was like his mean, miserly ways. And I said I'd never touched a penny of any money in the house, and he said he was going to send for the police and see I was jailed for it, for he knew to a penny how much I'd taken— fancy!

"And I went and told Simmy— my boy, he is, and we're going to be married in three months. And Simmy was real angry, as who wouldn't be, and he went and told Mr. Leadburn straight just what he thought about it, and then Mr. Leadburn said he'd have no thieves on his premises and if Simmy married me he could look out for another job, for he wouldn't be kept on at the lodge.

"And Simmy was angry, of course, for with things as they are nowadays it's not likely he'd get another job, and so we wouldn't be able to get married after all. And they got to words about it, and you can't wonder at Simmy, and that's the plain truth. You can ask Simmy and see if it isn't."

"I see," said Longridge non-committally, when the torrent ceased. "Quite so."

He had a shrewd idea that most likely there had been faults on both sides in that affair; but he had no desire to start inquiring into petty larceny in the midst of a murder case. He noted that there had been bad feeling between the gardener and his employer.

"Now, tell me," he went on, "did you see anything that might throw light on this business?"

The girl seemed to realise that she might have done more harm than good by her outbreak, and when she spoke again, it was in a cooler tone.

"I happened to be going through the hall last night; about half-past nine or so, it was: and I heard them at it, hammer and tongs, in that room. It was about Mr. Jack's engagement and an extra allowance for him to get married on. Mr. Timothy was there, and the old man was as mad as a hornet at the idea and wouldn't hear of it. And he seemed to be threatening Mr. Timothy, too, for I heard something about 'discreditable doings', and you know what Mr. Timothy is.

"They were fair shouting at each other. That old man seemed to have a fair down on people getting married: Simmy and me, first of all, and then Mr. Jack and his girl. And he didn't seem to like the other thing any better, neither, if you go by the way he was storming at Mr. Timothy. One would think he expected everyone to live like monks and nuns."

"A bad quarrel, it sounded like?"

"Oh, of course they were always quarrelling, if it comes to that," Jenny answered. "What else would you expect, with that old skinflint holding on to the cash and doling it out to grown men as if they were kids? It wasn't a happy household, as you might say."

"No, I suppose not," Longridge agreed. "Now, just another question. Was Mr. Leadburn left-handed?"

"Not he," Jenny replied. Then, after a pause, she added, "It's Mr. Timothy that's left-handed. Was that what you meant? What do you want to know for?"

The sergeant was saved from answering by the hasty entrance of Sydney Sparkford, evidently in a state of excitement.

"We've found Cæsar!" he exclaimed breathlessly. "He's dead, poor old dog! Poisoned, by the look of him. You'd better come and see him for yourself. He's in the shrubbery close to my bedroom window. That's why his howl waked me up, I expect, coming from so near at hand."

Longridge followed the boy to the shrubbery, where they found Jack Sparkford before them, staring thoughtfully at the dead dog. The sergeant got the impression that its end gave him more regret than the loss of his uncle seemed to do.

"What do you make of this?" he demanded, as they approached.

Longridge went down on his knees and examined the dog which, even in death, looked a formidable brute. As he bent close, the merest whiff of a familiar odour came to his keen nostrils: the scent of bitter almonds.

"This'll be a job for the vet, sir," he said, tacitly admitting his own lack of expert knowledge. "I'll just have a look round, though."

He ferreted about for some minutes without success, but at last he discovered the thing for which he had been searching: a piece of raw liver. By holding it close to his nose he managed to detect the faint smell of bitter almonds from it also.

"That's how it was done, sir," he explained in triumph, holding out the meat to Jack. "Just you smell it, sir: same smell as the dog's mouth has."

Jack evidently disdained a personal verification; but Sydney eagerly sniffed first at the dog and then at the liver.

"I know what it is!" he declared jubilantly. "Cyanide, that's what it smells of. Just the same as the stuff in my butterfly killing-bottle."

The sight of the dead retriever had led Longridge to revise some of his ideas abruptly. "An outside job" was his new verdict. The dog had been friendly with the house people, and with Timothy Sparkford.

Any one of them could have got at old Leadburn without this huge brute interfering. But an outsider would need to dispose of it before he could penetrate to its master. Cyanide? Well, that should be an easy enough poison to trace. You had to sign for that at the druggist's before you got it.

He was stirred from his musing by the approach of a fresh figure: Timothy Sparkford, whom the sergeant knew by sight. He came forward with the hesitating walk of a man suffering from very defective vision, and as he reached the group he peered closely at each face before he greeted his brothers.

With his shambling gait, low stature, powerful physique, and deep-set eyes, he had something about him which contrasted sharply with the appearance of his younger brothers; and when he spoke, it was with a certain truculence.

"Who's this?" he demanded, after he had scrutinised the sergeant at close quarters.

"It's Sergeant Longridge, Tim," Jack explained. "I rang up the police before I got on to you on the phone."

Timothy acknowledged the introduction with a casual nod.

"Has the old geezer kicked the bucket?" he asked brutally. "Best news I've had in a month of Sundays. No use being mealy-mouthed about these things, is there? No flowers, by request. That's the right spirit in this case."

The ribald tone made Longridge prick up his ears, and it occurred to him suddenly that not one of the people he had questioned had shown the slightest regret for Barnaby Leadburn's death. They had not vented their spite like Timothy, but their restraint had been almost equally significant. They had not thought it worth while to pay even a tribute of hypocrisy to his memory.

"Sorry I couldn't get over sooner," Timothy went on. "When I got home last night I started some electro-plating, and in the middle of it I got the most frightful attack of gripes and sickness. Must have been the remains of some shrimp paste I had for supper. Been left open too long, I suspect. Ptomaine poisoning, likely. Anyhow, after the bout I had, I could barely crawl to the phone and ring up Dr. Ackworth. He came along, not over-pleased at being dragged out at half-past twelve, I gathered. All he did, when he arrived, was to stand around and let nature take its course. Anyhow, it's over now, and I feel a bit better. Still a bit shaky though."

Then, completely ignoring the sergeant, he took his brother's arm.

"Come along and tell me all about it."

Longridge was going to call him back and question him when on the drive he saw the police surgeon beckoning to him. He hurried off, leaving Sydney to join his brothers.

"Oh, sergeant," Dr. Shefford said when they met. "You can rub one notion off your slate. This affair wasn't suicide. He was strangled first of all, and then his throat was cut to hide the marks of the cord. At least, so one may suppose. That's why he made no noise when he died. And, naturally, with the heart stopped, he didn't bleed as much as one might have expected from the wound. There'll be an inquest, of course. There'll have to be some arrangements made for a p.m., I expect."

"Very good, sir."

Sergeant Longridge's investigations lasted longer than he had expected, but a couple of days later he was summoned— not for the first time— to give an account of his stewardship to Inspector Dronfield. The inspector was deep in a study of various documents, and he rubbed his eyes wearily as Longridge presented himself. He was a tall man who concealed a natural alertness behind an air of lassitude.

"Not clear yet?" he grumbled. "Suppose we take it step by step. Systematically, I mean. Must have been either an inside or an outside job. That's obvious. Insiders first. Not the cook?"

Sergeant Longridge shook his head. That suggestion was absurd.

"No. She's got a first-class character and she's only been in that place a couple of months. She hasn't had time to raise a grievance big enough to account for the job."

"The maid, Hart, then?"

"I don't somehow see her strangling the old man and then cutting his throat," the sergeant declared. "She might, but it's not my idea of her."

The inspector made a non-committal noise.

"Hardly sounds like the schoolboy, either," he confessed, "though one never knows what some kids may get up to in these days. That leaves Jack Sparkford as a possible."

He picked up a document from the table.

"Your stuff about the family's all gossip. Still, it seems pretty sound. I've had it checked up. Old Leadburn did get round his widowed sister before she died, and he drafted her will for her. She trusted him, it seems.

"Here's a copy of the will. Got it from Somerset House. Leadburn was to draw the income from the estate— about four thousand pounds a year— until the youngest son reached twenty-one. Then the four of them were to divide the capital in equal shares. Meanwhile, Leadburn was to allow each of them annually a sum equal to his own personal expenditure for the year. I suppose she thought that meant a very comfortable income for each of them.

"What happened was that he turned out to be a miserly old skinflint who lived on about a pound a week himself, and he paid his nephews at the same rate. Shows how the best intentions may go wrong. And he wouldn't let them take up any trade or profession.

"Coming into a thousand pounds a year apiece, later on, they didn't need it, he said. Then there's a clause about any of them forfeiting all rights if he contests the will. Another clause allowing Leadburn to disqualify any of them for 'discreditable conduct'. No definition given."

"Fairly had 'em by the short hairs," the sergeant admitted. "No wonder they disliked him."

"Must have been feathering his nest to the tune of over three thousand pounds a year," the inspector pointed out. "He pocketed the surplus each year. Nice little nest-egg for his old age. And this arrangement had still five or six years to run. The youngster's only fifteen."

He thought for a moment or two, then put a question.

"That girl of Jack Sparkford's; has she any money?"

"Not a stiver," the sergeant declared emphatically. "She's as poor as a church mouse. I fished that out quite definitely."

"So Jack Sparkford would have to wait six years before he could get into double harness. H'm! And now he can get spliced tomorrow, if he wants to. Possible motive there," the inspector concluded thoughtfully "He was in the house, handy, that night. And there was that quarrel the maid overheard, on this very point of an extra allowance. H'm! Put a query against his name, I think. That finishes the insiders."

"The outsiders are Timothy Sparkford, Corfe, and some person or persons unknown," Sergeant Longridge suggested, entering into the spirit of systematic inquiry.

"What about Timothy Sparkford then? Why doesn't he live with the rest of them?"

"He won two or three hundred last year on a share in a Sweep ticket," Longridge explained. "As soon as he got that money he cleared out and went to live by himself in a cottage in Moor End Road, across the railway from Leadburn's place, with the sidings in between. I don't blame him; I'd have cleared out myself if I'd been in his shoes. It was no life for a man of thirty, under the thumb of old Leadburn."

He paused momentarily and then added: "A bad lad, Timothy. Wine and women; a short life and a gay one: that's his motto. He's got consumption, poor beggar! and Leadburn wouldn't pay for sanatorium treatment in the early stages; said he didn't believe in it. Just a fad, by his way of it. So he saved money. Timothy didn't love his uncle much; I could see that with half an eye."

The inspector looked up sharply.

" 'Wine and women', eh? That fits in with the talk about discreditable doings that the maid heard. And 'discreditable conduct' are the words in the will. Old Leadburn must have been threatening to disqualify Timothy. That meant one less to share in the capital in the final divvy-up. Something in that, perhaps."

"He's got an alibi though," the sergeant pointed out. "He called in Dr. Ackworth, just as he told me. I've checked that. Still," he added ruminatively, "alibis aren't always sound. And he bought liver that morning. He fetches his own stuff from the butcher, living alone as he does.

"The butcher remembered him buying liver that day; and the dog was poisoned with liver. But Corfe bought liver, too, that day— so I fished out from his butcher. I wonder the dog would touch stuff with that smell on it; but it seems they fed it only in the morning— it being a watchdog— so probably it was ready to bolt anything by the time it came to midnight."

"Most likely," the inspector concurred. "But why should Timothy want to poison his own family dog which wouldn't interfere with him?"

"Corfe's more likely for that," the sergeant admitted. "And I've fished out that Corfe bought some cyanide that evening. I've seen the entry he signed in the poison-book of the druggist who sold it to him. And Corfe's coat was torn a bit when I saw him on the morning of the murder. The dog hated him, so they say. But he swore then that he'd gone to bed at ten and never waked up till the morning."

"He lied then," said the inspector. "Somebody saw a light in the lodge-room about midnight. Got a note of it here. You told him to call in just now, didn't you? See if he's turned up and we'll put him through it."

In a minute or two the sergeant returned with Corfe. The gardener had the coarse looks and powerful physique of a fine animal, but not altogether a good-natured one. Something in the eyes suggested a dangerous temper which might break out suddenly and furiously, though at this moment he seemed sullen and uneasy rather than angry.

"We want more information than you gave the sergeant, Corfe," the inspector began abruptly. "First of all, how did you get that tear in your jacket?"

"Caught it on a nail and tore it," Corfe declared sullenly.

"A nail doesn't make that shape of tear in cloth," retorted the inspector. "What had you for supper on the night of the murder?"

Corfe pondered for some seconds before answering, as though he were weighing alternatives.

"Sausages," he said at last.

"So you had the raw liver in the house? You bought liver at the butcher's that day."

Corfe had the wit to see the trend of this. Cæsar had been poisoned with raw liver. He corrected himself clumsily.

"My mistake. It was liver I had for supper, now I think of it. I ate the lot."

"What did you buy cyanide for?" the inspector continued.

This time the answer came promptly enough.

"To kill rats with. They're in my chicken run."

"Dangerous stuff to have lying about," commented Dronfield. "Could the dog have got at it?"

"No, it was inside my fence. I put it at the rats' holes, not in the run, of course. I'm not a fool."

"You are, in some ways," Dronfield said acidly. "Look here, my man, I advise you to tell the truth. It'll do you less harm than the lies you've given us. That's a plain warning. We know a bit more than you think. You'd better come across."

Corfe shifted uneasily from one foot to the other as he digested this advice. He was so long in making up his mind that the inspector grew suspicious.

"You needn't start making up a yarn," he said sharply. "If you're going to tell the truth, it won't need any thinking over. Come along now."

Corfe pondered for a few moments longer. Then he seemed to have his story ready.

"This was the way of it," he began hesitatingly, like a man not too sure of his ground. "After the row I had with that old blackguard Leadburn, I had to have a talk with Jenny, naturally. But when I went for to see her, she was busy with their dinner and we couldn't get more than a word.

"I do a bit of jobbing work in the evenings to make some extra money, and I had to go to Mr. Rigg's in Broomhill Drive, and I didn't expect to be back till after ten. Old Leadburn wouldn't have a maid outside his door after ten o'clock. So I slipped a word to Jenny to be at the window in the hall upstairs at midnight and I'd come up, so as to have a talk with her about things. I thought I'd be able to get up on a bit of wall there, and keep clear of the damned dog. I was about beyond caring about dogs, then, in the state of mind I was in.

"So when I got back from Broomhill Drive I hung about a bit, waiting till it was time, and then I went up for to see her. But the dog beat me. I took a stick with me; but stick or no stick, it near had me down. It tore my coat for me and I had to give up. If I'd managed to get past it, it'd have raised Cain anyhow, barking, and had the house all awake. Lucky it fought quiet, so there was no row, barring the growling, and that roused nobody. But I had to turn back and go home to the lodge. And that's the plain truth, believe it or not."

"Did you see a light in the room with the French window?" the inspector asked, without commenting on Corfe's statement.

"The curtains were drawn, but the light was burning."

"When was that?"

"I went up just before twelve o'clock, as I told you," Corfe declared. "Just as I was going to bed, after I got home, I heard the express pass. That's twelve twenty-five."

"Very well," said Dronfield. "That'll do for the present."

He dismissed Corfe, and in a few minutes the sergeant ushered Jenny Hart into the room.

"You're quite sure about those things you told the sergeant?" was the inspector's opening. "About the quarrel amongst the three men on the night of the murder?"

"I heard them at it."

"You heard something about an allowance? And Mr. Leadburn said something about 'discreditable doings'? Sure of that?"

"That's what I heard."

"The murder took place at midnight. Where were you then?"

"Sitting in the upstairs hall, waiting for Simmy. He said he'd come if he could get past the dog."

"Hear anything while you were there?"

"Yes. Cæsar gave a funny howl— sort of like a squeaking balloon it was, only louder, of course. Long-drawn-out sort of noise. And I was afraid, a bit, about Simmy. I waited for a while in case he turned up. When he didn't, and I heard the express go past, I took it that Simmy wouldn't be up that night, so I went to bed."

"Any bedrooms on that floor, opening off the hall?"

"Master Sydney's room opens off it on one side and Mr. Jack's on the other."

"Moonlight night, wasn't it? Notice if the bedroom doors were shut?"

"Master Sydney's was. Mr. Jack's was open. I thought he hadn't gone to bed. When I passed his door I saw his bed hadn't been slept in."

"So Jack Sparkford was out of his room until past midnight," the inspector mused, after Jenny had been dismissed. "That's a bit of fresh news. And that little piece seemed to be speaking the truth then, which is more than Corfe did. Let's think it over again. Start with what we've got."

The sergeant checked over the facts on his fingers.

"There's the dog poisoned with cyanide; and the raw liver; and the knife; and the unfinished writing; and the burned newspaper; and the left-handed cut in his throat; and the tear in Corfe's coat; and Jack Sparkford up until the small hours; and the quarrels, of course," he ended rather vaguely.

"That seems the lot," Dronfield agreed. "Well, it wasn't either of the maids. The cook has no motive; and Jenny Hart could get Corfe to do the job sooner than do it herself— unless they were both in it together."

"The boy had cyanide in his butterfly bottle, and he knew about the knife being on the table," the sergeant suggested.

"He'd no motive and no raw liver," the inspector objected impatiently.

"There's Corfe. He's been telling a pack of lies and he did get his coat torn by the dog that night. And he'd both liver and cyanide in hand. And he had a motive, right enough."

"Leave him aside for a moment. See how the rest of them stand."

"There's Timothy Sparkford," Longridge suggested rather doubtfully. "I'd have put my shirt on him as the one that did it. He's got the temper for it, or I'm a Dutchman. If old Leadburn meant to use that clause about discreditable conduct against him, Timothy was going to be cut out altogether after waiting so long for his share. There's motive enough. And the bit of writing might be something about the cutting-out that Timothy just stopped in time. And the left-handed cut fits him, with his left-handedness. And the burnt newspaper may have been a bit that he used to wrap round the handle of the knife to keep his finger-prints off it; and he had to burn the paper afterwards on the same account."

"Anybody might have done the same," the inspector objected. "That doesn't fit Timothy specially."

"Then he bought some liver that day," Longridge continued, disregarding the interruption. "In fact, as I say, I'd have put my shirt on him. Only, it won't wash," he added regretfully.

"Are you so sure as all that?" the inspector demanded.

"It won't work," Longridge insisted. "You know the lie of the land about the house. To get from it to Timothy's cottage you've got to cross the railway. There's two bridges: one a quarter of a mile north of the house, and t'other one half a mile to the south. That makes it either half a mile or a mile by road from door to door.

"The dog was poisoned at 12.20 a.m. Besides, what would he poison the dog for, seeing he could walk past it without bother, seeing it was friendly? Well, it was poisoned at twelve-twenty. Then there was some time spent in doing the murder itself— ten minutes, at least, and likely longer. That makes it 12.30 a.m. before Timothy could start off home again.

"But it was just about half-past twelve when he rang up Dr. Ackworth from his cottage; and the doctor got there very soon afterwards to find him ghastly sick. I've seen Dr. Ackworth and them's the facts. Besides, he couldn't have got across either bridge without being seen, as it happens. The road was up at the north bridge, and there was a watchman on all night who swears that between eleven and two o'clock nobody passed him, barring a tall, slim young fellow in plus-fours, bare-headed, and wearing a white scarf.

"That won't fit Timothy. He's short, with a figure like a gorilla. On t'other bridge there was a motorist in trouble, kept there for over an hour between eleven-thirty and twelve-thirty o'clock, fixing something under a street lamp. He and his passenger are certain nobody passed, bar one man: the same cove in the white scarf. He stopped to ask if he could lend a hand. That was about a quarter-past twelve, they say. Timothy's easy remembered, and he wasn't seen at either bridge."

"Well, what was to hinder him going straight across the railway line, making a bee-line from house to cottage?"

"It won't work," Longridge protested in an aggrieved tone. "Timothy suffers from something they call comical cornea. He's as blind as a bat, even on a bright moonlight night like that one.

"Now look how the land lies. There's a rock cutting from the one bridge to the station. He couldn't have climbed down that rock face and up t'other side, not with his sight. It's impossible; let alone there isn't the time. He couldn't get into the station. It's locked up at that time of night, and it's a solid block of building on the lip of the cutting. You can't get at the stair down to the platform without breaking in the door of the ticket-office. He didn't go that way.

"Beyond the station, just opposite the house, there's a barbed-wire fence on level ground, and a mass of sidings filled with odd trucks standing, and beyond the sidings there's another stiff fence on the Moss Cottage side of the line.

"I might be able to get across by that route in ten minutes myself, though it would be quick work: but a man with Timothy's comical cornea simply couldn't come near that time. He'd be absolutely lost among the trucks, let alone that he couldn't shin over the fences like a normal man who could see what he was doing.

"I've been over the ground myself. He simply couldn't have managed it. And farther north, beyond the sidings, there's another rock-cutting, sheer in the sides, that would take a man with all his sight to get down. No half-blind man did that job, you can take it from me."

"H'm!" said the inspector, convinced by this evidence, "then that leaves Jack Sparkford. But he doesn't fit in anyhow. It's his own dog, so he needn't be afraid of it interfering with him. Besides, he's in the house already and doesn't need to pass the dog."

"He had a motive," the sergeant insisted. "If old Leadburn was out of the way he could marry the girl. Maybe he was putting the screw on the old man and went a bit too far— killed him without actually planning to do it.

"Making him write out, 'I hereby agree to give Jack Sparkford an allowance fit to marry on,' or something of that sort. That would fit the facts. And he was up and about, late that night, by the girl's evidence. He kept his thumb on that bit when he was giving his own account of things."

"We'll go over and see him now," the inspector decided, after a glance at his watch. "Don't like his keeping back information this way. Not good enough."

They found Jack Sparkford at home, and after the sergeant had introduced his superior, the inspector opened the matter with his usual bluntness.

"You told Sergeant Longridge that you went up to bed at 11 p.m. on the night of Mr. Leadburn's death, sir. Was that a slip, by any chance? Would you like to correct it?"

Jack seemed taken aback by this suggestion.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, rather uncertainly.

"You went up to bed about eleven," the inspector conceded. "But did you get into bed?"

Jack seemed to be all on the alert.

"What I said was perfectly accurate," he insisted. "I went upstairs at eleven o'clock."

"Yes, yes," said the inspector testily. "But what did you do after that? You didn't go to bed immediately. What were you doing?"

Jack paused for a moment or two, then he seemed to come to a decision.

"You seem to know something. I've nothing to conceal, so I'll be quite frank with you. I'd had a row with my uncle, a private matter, nothing to do with his death. He wouldn't come round to my view. It was an important matter to me. I saw my brother part of the way home when he left at ten o'clock. Then I came back again and tried to persuade my uncle again.

"It was no use; he was quite set in his view. So I went upstairs at eleven o'clock. I was worried, very worried, when I got up to my room. I knew it was no good going to bed, I'd never have slept. I sat about in my room for a while, about an hour, I should guess, thinking. Then I came downstairs and went out of the house. I wanted to walk off my troubles."

"What time was that?" the inspector demanded.

"I didn't look at my watch."

"How were you dressed?"

"Plus-fours— the same as I have on now. And I put on a white scarf because I'd had a touch of sore throat that day."

Jack unconsciously clinched the matter with his next words.

"I remember one thing that may help you," he added with something like a sneer. "On the bridge beyond the station I came across a fellow under a street lamp with a twelve-six Austin car. He'd been caught with a puncture with his spare wheel out of action. He'd patched up the puncture with a portable vulcaniser, put his wheel on again, and just as I got up he found the nail had gone through both sides of his inner tube, and he had missed the second hole when he had it down. He was just starting to take it off the wheel a second time when I passed him and offered to give him a hand. If you can get hold of him, he'll identify me, I expect. It must have been round about midnight when I had my talk with him."

"Which way did you come home again?" the inspector asked.

"By the other bridge. I don't know when I got in, certainly long after midnight."

"Did you see any light in the room with the French window as you came back?"

"No, not that I remember. I didn't look particularly. I'd left my uncle making up his accounts."

"You didn't see the dog Cæsar?"

"I saw him on my way out. He went part of the way down to the gate with me, and then I ordered him home. I didn't see him on my way back, but I thought nothing of that. By the way, I remember that the fellow with the Austin car glanced at his watch once while I was with him. He may remember what time it was, then, if you're really interested."

"Can you suggest any explanation of the uncompleted document your uncle was writing that night?" inquired Dronfield.

Jack shook his head.

"I haven't the faintest idea."

The inspector, quite satisfied, withdrew along with his subordinate. As they walked together down the drive, the sergeant broke silence.

"That's the lot of them cleared, if you take the evidence as sound."

"Corfe's story's unsupported except by that girl of his; and her evidence doesn't tell us what he really did," objected Dronfield. "It's on the cards that the two of them were in it, and just cooked up a yarn between them."

"Might be that," the sergeant agreed, thoughtfully.

"I've got to hurry off now," Dronfield said, with a glance at his watch. "I'll just save that appointment and no more."

"Merely a slight attack of conjunctivitis," the specialist assured Inspector Dronfield. "Nothing to worry about, though it's been a nuisance to you, I expect. I'll write you a prescription for some eye-drops."

He went over to his writing-table and jotted down something on a sheet of paper.

Meanwhile the inspector, left to himself, let his eyes wander over the various appliances of the oculist's armoury: the box of lenses, the ophthalmoscope, the perimeter, the astigmometer, and the case of test types with its concealed lamp. Finally his glance fell upon something which puzzled him by its very simplicity: a little disc, concentrically ringed like a target, with a hole where the bull's-eye should have been, and furnished with a handle like a lorgnette.

The inspector was the last patient on that day's list; and the oculist was a man who liked to relax after his work was done. As he came back with his completed prescription, he noticed Dronfield's interest in the little instrument.

"Looking at the Placido's disc?" he inquired with a smile. "I'll give you three guesses and see if you can spot what we use it for."

"I was just wondering, but I didn't get to the length of guessing," the inspector confessed. "It's beyond me. What is its use?"

"It's for diagnosing conical cornea," the specialist explained, picking it up as he spoke.

The inspector became alert. Conical cornea! Of course, that was what the sergeant had misheard and turned into "comical cornea". The trouble with Timothy Sparkford's eyesight. The inspector decided that there would be no harm in hearing more about that subject.

"Could you explain it, sir?" he asked, with obvious interest. "What is conical cornea?"

"It's a malformation of the eye. You know what the cornea is? The transparent covering at the front of the eyeball. In the normal eye, it's roughly spherical, and it acts as part of the mechanism of sight. If it's misshapen— conical in form instead of spherical— it distorts vision. Unfortunately you can't correct the distortion with spectacles."

"Not even with special spectacles? I see. And where does the little target-thing come in, sir?"

"It shows up the defect at once. I bring it up to the patient's eye, target side towards him. The rings are reflected in his cornea, as if it were a convex mirror; and by looking through his hole where the bull's-eye should be, I can examine the reflection. If he's got conical cornea, the reflection's distorted in a peculiar way that's recognisable at a glance. Very neat, isn't it?"

"Very neat indeed," the inspector acquiesced. "And you can't cure it with spectacles?"

"No, spectacles are of no use. In fact, until lately, it's been hopeless."

"Until lately?" demanded the inspector sharply. "You mean it can be cured now?"

The oculist leaned over and opened a box which lay on his table.

"Curiously enough, I had a patient here today to be tested for these things. They're what are called 'contact glasses'."

He showed Dronfield a series of tiny objects, almost hemispherical in form and made from glass so thin that they seemed the most fragile things Dronfield had seen.

"The idea is this," the oculist went on. "The essence of the trouble is that the outer surface of the patient's cornea is conical instead of spherical. Fill one of these little glass cups with saline solution and slip it under the eyelids, above and below. It sticks to the eyeball by surface tension, and the salt water fills up the gap between eye and glass.

"The net result is that you've now got a glass outer surface to your eyeball, and that new surface is shaped just like a normal cornea. You've merged the defective conical surface into a system with the same refractive index… but perhaps that's getting a bit too technical for you."

"And a man wearing one of these gadgets sees as well as a normal person?"

"So far as his conical cornea goes, yes. And what's more, no one would ever imagine that the patient was wearing anything. It's not like spectacles. These contact glasses, once they're in place, are almost unnoticeable, unless you've been told to look for them."

"I suppose they take some getting in, though?"

The oculist shook his head.

"Not a bit of it! The patient can do that for himself; insert them in the morning and take them out again when he goes to bed, if he wishes. They hardly cause the wearer any discomfort."

"I see, sir. That's wonderful. Very interesting indeed, sir. I'd no notion things of that sort were possible. And now I mustn't detain you any longer. This the prescription? Thank you, sir."

And with as much haste as courtesy allowed, the inspector bowed himself out of the consulting-room. His first call was at a druggist's, where he asked one or two questions. Then he returned to his headquarters and summoned Sergeant Longridge.

"We've got the Leadburn murderer at last," he said, as his subordinate entered the room.

"Can you prove it?" the sergeant asked sceptically. "Who is it?"

"I think so, if we've any luck in a search of the premises after we arrest him. It's Timothy Sparkford."

"But the thing's flat impossible," Longridge protested. "I've checked all the evidence to the last dot, in his case, because at the start I was dead sure he was the man we wanted. Even if you leave out his sight— and that makes the affair impossible in itself— the times won't fit. Nohow. See here. The dog was poisoned at 12.20 a.m.

"After that, he had to do the murder, get away, climb a fence, cross the siding, climb the other fence, and get to his cottage, all by 12.30 a.m., for he telephoned to Dr. Ackworth about that time. I've timed myself over that course, going as hard as I could, and it took me nine minutes from door to door. Where's the time required for murdering old Leadburn?

"Besides, Timothy had eaten some bad tinned stuff that evening and was deathly sick. We've Ackworth's evidence for that. A man as sick as all that simply couldn't commit a murder neatly and then do all the gymnastics required to get home in double-quick time, let alone he's as blind as a bat."

"You can wash out the 'blind as a bat' part," Dronfield declared. "He's only blind when he chooses to be."

And he explained the matter of the contact glasses to his subordinate, who opened his eyes at the information.

"Amazing what they can do," he admitted. "Still, you can't get over the rest of the facts."

"Let's take it step by step," suggested Dronfield, who prided himself on having a systematic mind.

"Here's how I figure it out. Timothy's been thinking of this for a good while. He goes up to London and gets himself fitted with contact glasses. That leaves no clue among the eye-specialists hereabouts. Of course he says nothing about the glasses to anyone. That equips him with fair normal sight, unknown to anyone in these parts. Now come to the day of the murder. He buys some liver. We know that. He's got cyanide to hand…"

"How?" demanded Longridge.

"From his electro-plating hobby. Cyanide's used in silver-plating. That fits him out for the dog-poisoning. He goes up to the house that evening to give his brother Jack a helping hand, and to make sure that all's favourable to his plans up to the last possible minute. Then he clears out at 10 p.m."

"That seems straight enough," Longridge admitted. "It's the next stage that's sticky."

"Well, he clears out at ten o'clock, and Jack has to see the poor blind bat half-way home. That's bound to come out in evidence, and it impresses his bad sight on simple fellows like you and me.

"Later on, he puts on his contact glasses and comes back. I don't know when, exactly. Just before midnight, probably, so as to catch old Leadburn before he finishes up his accounts. He passes the dog without its barking. One of the family. He tries to force old Leadburn into signing some document, probably something that would put an end to the avuncular tyranny.

"Method of persuasion: a cord round the neck. No chance of Leadburn yelling for help in these circs. Unfortunately, the cord gets drawn a bit too tight. Leadburn chokes. Timothy tries to cover up the cord marks by cutting the old man's throat. He holds the knife in a bit of newspaper and burns the paper afterwards. No finger-prints, in that way. But in the flurry he forgets all about left-handedness and leaves that clue for us. Then he goes off, calls up the dog, poisons it with cyanided liver…"

"Why?" demanded Longridge. "I don't see the point, there."

"I see two," retorted the inspector. "First, the dog-poisoning makes it look like an outsider's job. Second, beasts poisoned with cyanide give a loud cry; and Timothy takes care to lead the beast under his brother's window to kill it. The youngster's got toothache and isn't sleeping sound. The howl wakes him. That dates the poisoning at twelve-twenty all right, for Timothy would bear the express in mind. And we dropped into his trap and assumed the dog had been poisoned by an intruder on his way in to the house. Makes all the difference in the supposed timing of the affair. Gained Timothy all the time he took in the actual murder, see?"

"I see," said Longridge. "Go on."

"With his contact glasses on, he'd get to the cottage as quick as you could. Nine minutes, you said. He'd be home by 12.30 a.m. Then at once he rings up Ackworth and says he's been sick. He's no more sick than you are. But as soon as he's done phoning, he swallows an emetic."

"Ipecacuanha?" queried the sergeant, conquering the polysyllable by careful enunciation.

"No, it's too slow in acting. Copper sulphate would do the trick. It acts immediately. And he'd have it for his electro-plating stunt. By the time Ackworth arrives, Timothy's sick enough; and he tells that lie about some tinned stuff having given him the gripes. Naturally Ackworth suspects nothing. So there's a sound alibi established. See?"

"It sounds neat," Longridge admitted. "And it clears Corfe of the dog-poisoning, which was the sticker from my point of view. You're going to get a warrant?"

"Yes. You'll execute it. Take a man or two with you and comb his cottage thoroughly after he's in custody. What we want is cyanide, copper or zinc sulphate— they're both emetics— his contact glasses, any bills or papers you can find that bear on his purchase of the glasses. If you get these things, we have him by the short hairs, I think."

"You'll have to suggest some motive that'll pass with a jury," objected the sergeant.

"No difficulty about that," declared the inspector. "We know our Timothy. Great lad for wine and women. What about the discreditable conduct clause in the will? Besides, his lungs are gone, aren't they? He's thirty, now. I don't know how far gone he is, but most likely he thought he wouldn't be in any condition to enjoy his fortune if he had to wait six years more for it. 'A short life and a gay one' was his idea. But you can't be gay on £100 a year— not in that line of gaiety, anyhow. So it was a race between his consumption and the date of his inheritance. All he wanted was to shift that date a bit forward, so that he could enjoy his money while he was still fit for it. That's how I see it, anyhow."

"Lucky you had to see that eye-doctor," was Sergeant Longridge's reflection, which he kept to himself.

____________________

12: Mr Clackworthy Collects

Christopher B. Booth

1889-1950

Detective Story Magazine 2 April 1921

"WHAT is more sweet than revenge, James?" asked Mr. Amos Clackworthy, glancing across the luxurious living room of his Sheridan Road apartment. The Early Bird glanced up with a frown of annoyance from the very interesting account of a criminal escapade of one of his erstwhile friends, as chronicled in the columns of his favorite morning paper; he sensed that the master confidence man was in one of his philosophical moods, about to drag his protesting brain through a confusing labyrinth of rhetorical phrases.

"Uh-huh," he grunted with a discouraging lack of interest.

"Nothing quite so annoys me," pursued Mr. Clackworthy, "as to nurse an unsettled grudge. And I have a few scores that need balancing."

The Early Bird awoke with a start to realize that the conversation was leading toward the outline of another of Mr. Clackworthy's delectable adventures. The paper dropped from his fingers and he leaned forward eagerly.

"Yuh mean you're sharpenin' th' old harpoon for some bozo what's handed you a raw deal?" he demanded. But Mr. Clackworthy was not to be so easily diverted from his teasingly circuitous style of narration.

"You may recall, James," he went on, "that some months ago Mrs. Clackworthy, without consulting my judgment, invested some eight thousand dollars in the Independent Bakeries Corporation. No? Well, she did. And it seemed at the time to be a wisely safe investment."

"Yeah," grinned The Early Bird, unable to resist the temptation of an age-old pun, "one 'ud think there was a lotta dough in th' bakery business."

"The Independent Bakeries Corporation," pursued Mr. Clackworthy, "was a very promising concern— so promising, indeed, that the bakery trust decided that the husky young rival must be killed off in its lusty infancy. This was carried out under the personal direction of Alonzo K. Briggs, president and chief owner of the Consolidated Bakeries Company, otherwise the trust. It is unnecessary that I should go into all the details; suffice to say, no underhand bit of chicanery which would be scorned by any respectable brigand was overlooked. Strikes among the employees of the independent concern were fomented, bakeries bombed, delivery wagons wrecked, and other similar methods used. Independent stock was hammered down and down until the small stockholders became panicky and the trust bought up control for a song. The stockholders who did stick were frozen out in the most heartless fashion."

The Early Bird's eyes glistened.

"You're gonna give Briggs' bank roll a big dose of antifat, huh?" he asked.

"Yes," nodded Mr. Clackworthy, "to continue your somewhat metaphysical metaphor, as a doctor of finance I shall prescribe a little financial blood-letting for Alonzo K. Briggs; the patient may not relish the treatment, but then patients are always finding objections with their physicians. That is to be expected." .

"How you gonna do it?" demanded The Early Bird.

Mr, Clackworthy pointed to his card-index file of "prospects," to which James had given the less dignified but more proper title of "sucker list."

"Briggs' name, James, has reposed in my file for some time, but I have been utterly unable to find a vulnerable point of attack. The man is most chary as to financial investments, being inter- ested only in propositions of his own conception. He does not play the stock market ; he is shrewd and sane. He has few hobbies. Just as I had reached the point of giving up in despair, so to speak, I find in this morning's paper a very interesting item.

"You, James, have been prone to find fault with my esthetic tastes; you twit me for my love of the classics, and ridicule my admiration for art. I am about to show you that such things can come in good stead. You would never, for example, turn to The Record's regular Thursday column devoted to 'Art and the Artists.' Now would you?"

"Huh!" snorted The Early Bird. "In a coupla minutes you'll be handin' me a line of, guff about findin' a recipe for makin' fifty thousand beans in 'Th' Daily Cook Book' column, under th' headin' of 'Bean Soup.' Nix!"

"Just the same," continued Mr. Clackworthy with a smile, "I have found an inspiration in this clipping which I have just penknifed from the art page. Would you care to look it over?"

"Aw, I'll give it th' double-O," murmured The Early Bird, taking the bit of paper. He read:

FAMOUS PORCELAIN IS BROUGHT TO NEW YORK

Among the interesting art notes of the week is the arrival from England of the famous Chamberlin Black Hawthorn vase, a beautiful piece of antique Chinese pottery, known to date from, the Ming dynasty, several hundred years B. C. The famous vase, lately the property of Lord Charles Chamberlin, the British collector, has been purchased by the American millionaire, Mr. Henderson Proctor.

The arrival of the famous vase revives an incident of ten years ago when a most clever replica of the Chamberlin piece was purchased by Alonzo K. Briggs, then only an amateur as a collector. Mr. Briggs' inexperience as a connoisseur made him a victim of the fraud, although there was much controversy over the genuineness. The Chamberlin vase had at this time disappeared and made its reappearance only a few months ago when it was purchased by Mr. Proctor. It is known that Mr. Briggs made a strenuous effort to buy it, so that he could replace the copy in his collection with the genuine, but was disappointed.

The Early Bird gave no evidence that the article had fired his imagination.

"An' what's a Black Hawthorne?" he demanded grumpily.

"A Black Hawthorn," said Mr. Clackworthy, "should be spoken of in art circles only with the deepest reverence. It is a Hawthorn flower painted on a black background, a favorite effect of the ancient Chinese potter's art, which, as the article says, antedates the birth of Christ. This particular vase is no doubt the most valuable in the country, and is said to be worth seventy-five thousand dollars."

"I don't give a tinker's hallaleulah if you do call it v-ah-ze," said The Early Bird scornfully, "there ain't no vase in th' world worth more'n a dollar and six bits."

Mr. Clackworthy laughed at his co-worker's contempt for antiques.

"Nevertheless," he said, "Mr. Henderson Practor is known to have paid a fraction more than seventy-five thousand dollars for the Chamberlin vase, and Briggs probably would have given more, for he feels very keenly the humiliation of possessing the bogus copy. He considers it a serious reflection on his standing as a collector, in addition to which he and Henderson Proctor are rivals as collectors, and a very bitter feeling has sprung up between them.

"I think, James, that we should be able to capitalize this interesting situation and realize a nice profit thereby."

"Gonna sell Bakery Briggs another fake vase, I reckon?" ventured The Early Bird.

"Nothing quite so crude as that, James, and Mr. Clackworthy chuckled. "And, by the way, it seems to me that I heard you mention some days ago that our old friend, 'Dip' Shanley, is devoutly treading the straight and narrow path and has a job as watchman at the home of Henderson Proctor."

The Early Bird's eyes widened ap- prehensively.

"You—you ain't figurin' on weanin' Dip away from one of th' Ten Commandments; you ain't gonna try an' get Dip to help you swipe this here fancy piece of china so's you c'n sell it to that Briggs guy, are you?" demanded The Early Bird half accusingly.

Mr. Clackworthy glanced at his co- worker indignantly.

"Come, James," he remonstrated; "use your head. I have just stated that it was my deep-felt desire to revenge myself upon Alonzo K. Briggs. If I would steal the Hawthorn vase for him I would be doing him a favor, not an injury. Besides do I look like the kind of man who would tempt a friend from the path of rectitude? You wrong me, my dear James, you wrong me deeply."

"Speak th' piece, boss; speak th' piece," urged The Early Bird. "If you'll get th' old tongue in motion, an' confine yourself to words of two syllables, mebbe.I'll manage to get it through th' old bean how you're gonna trim this Briggs bloke outta a few stray bales of th' yellow stuff."

ii

DIP SHANLEY sat uneasily on the edge of a chair in Mr. Clackworthy's apartment, fingering the brim of his hat with nervous fingers. He stared at the master confidence man with a mixture of doglike devotion and fear.

"Honest, old-timer," he said huskily, "I'd be glad to be doin' you a favor; you've been mighty good to me, takin' care of th' wife and kiddies that time I was in stir. I ain't forgot it, an' I'd pretty near do anything for you, but— well, maybe you don't understand.

"There's two reasons. In th' first place, th' missis has sort of convinced me that th' crooked stuff don't pay. An' then there's Mr. Proctor; he sort of trusts me. Somebody went to Mr. Proctor an'squealed on me— told 'im I'd been up th' river, an' that I'd been a pickpocket... Of course I has to admit it, but I tell him that I'm tryin' to go straight. Then Mr. Proctor just looks me in th' eye, an' he says: 'Shanley, I'm going to try an experiment. I've heard 'em say, once a crook, always a crook,' he said. 'I don't believe it,' he says. 'I'm goin' South for th' winter, Shanley, an' this here house of mine is got a few dollars' worth of stuff in it, more or less, an' I'm goin' to promote you to watchman and leave you in charge. An' I'm bettin' money that when I come back every nickel's worth of stuff will be here just as I leave it.' That's what he hands me, Mr. Clackworthy ; now, I ask you, how can I hand th' double cross to a guy like that?"

Mr. Clackworthy nodded.

"Your loyalty is highly praiseworthy, Shanley," he said. "I am not asking you to rob your employer; all that I want you to do is to develop a sudden case of blindness to-morrow night, and permit our friend, The Early Bird, to enter without disturbing any of those electric burglar alarms with which Mr. Proctor's home is so well equipped, and to slip, without interference, into the room where Mr. Proctor keeps his wonderful collection of—"

The Early Bird leaped to his feet with an explanation of protest.

"Boss!" he exclaimed. "You're sure off your nut. Dip here's tryin' t' keep his number nines glued to th' straight and narrow— an', believe muh, there are times when that path ain't a lot wider'n a wire rope. Whatcha tryin' t' do, anyhow, get him in Dutch that th' guy what's square enough to give him a chance for th' white alley? Well, I'll tell you one thing: even if th' mutts is itchin' t' feel th' crackle of a nice little flock of th' yellow boys, even if I'd like t' see you throw th' hooks into this Briggs goof, I ain't gonna do nothin' to help jerk th' mourners' seat out from under Dip here just as he's in th' act of sittin' down.

"You ain't let me in on th' know, but as I grabs th' big idear, you're plannin' on havin' yours respectfully sneak into the modest, eighteen-room Proctor cottage on th' Drive and cop that Chinee v-ah-ze so's you c'n work some kinda hocus-pocus on that Briggs homo. You c'n just count me out. I ain't burgled a house since th' days when you caught me takin' an inventory of your own silver, an' proceeded to show me that there was easier an' safer ways of grabbin' th' kale than tiptoein' through a bloke's French windows; I ain't sayin' that I wouldn't plant a little charge of soup in th' vault of th' subtreasury if you asked me to, but—nothin' doin' on mixin' Dip, here, in no unlawful schemes. Absolutely nothin' doin'."

Mr. Clackworthy laughed.

"Honestly," he said, "you two certainly have placed a low valuation upon my regards for ethics. I am, I admit, sometimes referred to as 'a confidence man,' and that appellation reduced to its strictly dictionary sense doubtless means winning a man's confidence for the purpose of my own gain. But, permit me to remind you that what I do really win, nine times out of ten, is the other man's confidence in his own ability to sting me! I simply reverse the tables. I trust, dear friends, that I have made myself quite clear."

"As clear as a talk on spiritualism," muttered The Early Bird glumly.

"To the orthodox righteous," pursued Mr. Clackworthy, "my code would doubtless seem a very much warped affair. But to me a sincere confidence is a sacred thing which should never be violated. I would no more permit our friend Dip to fail in his trust to Mr. Proctor than I would steal your shoe laces.

"As I have so often emphasized in extenuation of my not entirely approved tactics, mine is the game of pluck the plucker. Few of my victims are basically honest, for the vast majority of them are lured into my trap through their own avarice. I am simply beating them at their own game.

"Now, to consider the case of Alonzo K. Briggs: By a legal-proof species of larceny, Briggs has robbed Mrs. Clackworthy of eight thousand dollars which she trustingly invested in the Independent Bakeries Corporation. I am simply collecting a moral debt—with perhaps a little usurious interest, to be sure—which Briggs owes to Mrs. Clackworthy. I have, I trust, justified my contemplated course of action to your entire satisfaction."

"But," protested the bewildered Shanley, "you wanna have me let Th' Early Bird burgle th' Proctor house. All them words sound mighty pretty an' all that, an' I can say that I never heard of you slippin' a guy th' wrong lay, but— burglary is burglary, ain't it?"

"Certainly," and Mr. Clackworth nodded with a tantalizing smile, "burglary is burglary. I want the house entered so that The Early Bird can employ his old-time dexterity in manipulating the lock of the vault wherein Mr. Proctor keeps his art treasures, but— nothing shall be stolen !"

"I 'll bite," muttered. The Early Bird; "what's th' answer to th' riddle?"

Mr. Clackworthy struck the gong beside the table.

"Suppose we see what Nogo can find in the cellar," he said.

"Come on, boss; speak th' piece," urged The Early Bird.

"I must have a strong sense of the theatrical," said Mr. Clackworthy teasingly ; "I love the ability to create sus- pense. I think I am going to ask you two Doubting Thomases to permit me to take my own time in demonstrating to you that burglary is not always larceny."

iii

THE EARLY BIRD displayed none of that furtive mien of a man about to defy one of the State statutes. His lips were puckered into an embryonic whistle as he made his way boldly down Lakeshore Drive toward the pretentious mansion of Henderson Proctor. He had left Mr. Clackworthy a block away, seated in his limousine.

"Some class! Some class!" muttered The Early Bird. "Burglars ridin' to th' scene of th' crime in a five-thousand- dollar buzz wagon— but I forgot; that is a burglary what ain't."

In accordance with Dip Shanley's previous instructions, he skirted the sidewalk to the side of the lawn and made his way to the servants' entrance. In spite of his knowledge that he need have no fear of sharp-eared servants and hidden burglar alarms, his nerves grew taut with the old-time thrill of the lawbreaker.

Shanley was waiting for him, a worried frown on his face.

"I don't like this business. Aw, I'm goin' through with it, but—I don't like it, just th' same. I know Mr. Clackworthy's a guy what keeps his word, but —if openin' a safe an' takin' stuff out of it ain't stealin', then what is it?'

"I dunno," mumbled The Early Bird, "but if th' boss says it ain't larceny, then it ain't. He never give me a wrong steer yet; he's deep, he is; as deep as a hole t' China. Le's take a look at this here iron box that I gotta open."

Nervous and uncertain, Shanley led the way to the room which housed Henderson Proctor's art treasures.

"It ain't so much the vault," he said; "but th' electric-burglar alarms that is supposed t' pertect it, not that tin can they call a vault, but—"

The Early Bird looked up with a frown,

"But what, Dip?" he demanded almost challengingly.

"But how y' goin' to crack th' crib?" asked Dip. "Y' ain't one of these Larry, th' Listener, guys, an'— an' I ain't goin' to let y' use no soup on it. Th' agreement was that Mr. Proctor wasn't t' know there'd anything been pulled off. I draws th' line at y' usin' nitro to blow off th' door."

"Nitro!" said The Early Bird scornfully. "I ain't one of them outta-date ginks; I'm modern. I ain't opened a safe for a good while, but I ain't been asleep; I've been keepin' up with th' times."

From his small leather grip The Early Bird took an electric drill. "Yuh see that nifty little outfit?" he chuckled. "I c'n put a hole through that vault door, just like plowin' a bullet through soft pine. Hook it up t' th' light socket, turn on th' switch, and z-z-z-z, there's th' prettiest little hole you ever saw— right over th' tumblers. Then a little piece of wire twisted around in th' hole and— click!— we steps right inside an' puts our mitts on to this chocolate poet vaze, an'—"

"Chocolate what?" demanded Dip Shanley.

"Huh!" snorted The Early Bird. "Where's your knowledge of th' classics; didn'tcha know that Hawthorne was a poet—th' Black Hawthorn vaze, that's what th' boss said it was. Use your think tank, Dip."

"But," again protested Shanley, barring the way to the vault, "ain't that hole in th' door goin' to be a dead giveaway that somebody's been tamperin' with it; won't Mr. Proctor, when he gets home, know that somebody's, been in th' vault? An' then I'll have to explain."

"Honest, Dip," muttered The Early Bird, "you must think I was born since th' armistice was signed. I know I ain't got no Woolworth Buildin' forehead, but th' old bean ain't exactly paralyzed, either. There's some stuff known to my old profesh as boiler cement. A little dab of that stuff over th' hole, a little black enamel on top of that, and th' man what made th' safe couldn't hardly tell it had been tam pered with."

Satisfied, Dip Shanley stepped away from the vault door; he eyed the diminutive electric drill with admiring eyes.

"And t' think I was wastin' my time liftin' leathers!" he murmured in almost a tone of regret.

"Don'tcha go to thinkin' of pullin' no crooked stuff, Dip," The Early Bird said in a lecturing voice; "it don't pay —leas'wise unless y're tied up to' some smart homo like Mr. Clackworthy. An' it's sort of different, th' con-man stuff ; we only picks on th' rich ginks. See?"

"Aw, I'm goin' to stay straight," replied Dip; "mebbe it ain't downright honesty, but— well, it ain't no picnic makin' brooms for th' State for nothin' a week. What's th' game, anyhow, this business of bustin' into a safe without takin' nothin' ?"

The Early Bird had connected the extension cord, snapped on the current, and the point of the drill began to bite into the steel of the vault door.

"Take nothin'?" he repeated. "Ain't I just told you that I'm gonna tote out this here Black Hawthorn piece of china to Mr. Clackworthy."

"But he said—" began Dip with eye-widening apprehension.

"He said there wasn't gonna be no larceny," interrupted The Early Bird, "an' if he says so, it's so!"

The vault door was not of hardened steel and the teeth of the drill ate into the metal with great speed; another instant and it had cut through. Shanley stared with fascinated eyes as the ex-yeggman, who seemed to have lost none of his cunning during the years in which his association with Mr. Clackworthy had obviated the necessity of earning a livelihood in so hazardous a fashion, took a piece of stiff wire, inserted it in the small, circular opening and swiftly manipulated it. In an amazing brief time the tumblers clicked into place and The Early Bird shot back the bolts.

The vault was a spacious affair, designed to accommodate most of Hen- derson Proctor's prized art collection during those periods when he and his family were away from the city on extended vacations. It contained nearly half a million dollars' worth of art treasure, paintings, tapestries, and antique pottery. Snapping on the electric light it took but a moment for The Early Bird to identify the article which he sought. The Chamberlin Black Hawthorn vase stood near the opening, two feet tall, a beautiful thing in black enamel with the dainty Hawthorn flower wonderfully done on its sides.

The Early Bird gazed at it with an admiration tinged with amazement.

"I gotta admit that ain't such a slouchy piece of work for them Chinee heathens," he muttered, "but seventy- five thousand iron men! Holy pet goldfish! As I said before, there ain't no vase in th' world that's worth more'n a dollar and six bits."

Dip Shanley gulped.

"Seventy-five thousand smackers!" he exclaimed. "Y' mean to tell me that thing's worth that much dough?"

The Early Bird nodded solemnly.

"An' you're goin' to pack it out of here,.a thing worth seventy-five thou- sand bucks—an' Mr. Clackworthy don't call that larceny?" demanded Dip. "Say! I think somebody's  stringin' me; I think that when old man Proctor gets back he'll be furnishin' me with free transportation to th' big stone hotel up th' river."

"Fergit it!" commanded The Early Bird. "Mr. Clackworthy's give his word that this ain't larceny and— it ain't! See?' Carefully he began wrapping up the precious antique. This done, he closed the door of the vault and carefully locked it as he stared at the amazed, undecided Shanley.

"Of course I know Dip's turned honest," he said to himself, "but with all that stuff in there, it's no use temptin' him from th' straight and narrow by leavin' that vault unlocked."

iv

ALONZO K. BRIGGS had taken four high balls without being able to drown the humiliation which he felt as a result of the article under the column "Art and Aritsts" of the city's leading daily newspaper. The man who wrote that column had severely wounded Briggs' conceit.

Mr. Briggs had just returned from out of town and had not seen the offending article, now two days old, until a few hours before. That the Black Hawthorne vase had come into the hands of Henderson Proctor was bad enough, but that his ownership of a mere imitation should be flaunted before the art world was maddening, a terrible blow to his pride as a collector. He would have preferred to be called the harshest of names rather than be advertised as an amateur art collector. It further let the world know that Proctor had outwitted him in the purchase of the original.

"Confound those meddling newspapers, anyhow!" he exclaimed, 'gulping the last of the fourth high ball and beginning to feel a little maudlin in his indignation. 'Why can't they mind their own business?" He mopped his florid face and bald forehead with en- ergetic dabs of his handkerchief.

There was a discreet cough from the doorway of Mr. Briggs' study, and Meggs, his butler, entered with stiff- muscled formality.

"A gentleman is calling, sir," he said.

Briggs frowned angrily.

"Didn't I leave instructions that I was not at home to-night, Meggs?" he said in an irritable tone.

"Yes, sir; you did sir, but—"

"But what?"

"He said that it was very important; he said that it was something about a Black Hawthorn vase."

Briggs' face became an apoplectic pink.

"Some impertinent newspaper reporter, eh?" he questioned. "Tell the insilent whipper-snapper that—"

"TI beg pardon, sir; he is not a person from the press. His idea of newspaper men is that they are extremely impudent, forward young fellows with a way of forcing their persistent selves past protesting servants and otherwise invading the privacy of homes."

"Well, what does he want?" demanded Briggs.

"I— I don't know, sir; he has a package with him."

"Humph!" grunted Briggs. "Well, you might show him in, Meggs. Something about a Black Hawthorn, eh?"

It was coincidental that there should be a caller on such a mission just at the moment when he was cursing the fate which had placed the world's most famous Black Hawthorn in the hands of his rival. There were, of course, more than one Black Hawthorn; in fact, Biggs himself had four small ones in his own collection whose genuineness was unquestioned.

A moment later Mr. Clackworthy, carrying a package with tender caution, entered the room. The master confi- dence man came to the point at once.

"Mr. Briggs," he said, "I have in this package what is known as the Chamberlin Black Hawthorn vase."

Alonzo K. Briggs' lips curled into a sneer.

"You are quite sure that it isn't the Metropolitan Museum?" he said sarcas- tically. His hand reached for the but- ton that would recall Meggs; it 'was quite certain that an insane man had wandered into his study.

"Just a moment before you have me thrown out," said Mr. Clackworthy with a smile as he anticipated the action; there was always something very compelling about Mr. Clackworthy's smile. "Are you quite sure that you would know the genuine Chamberlin vase if you saw it?"

This insinuation that he did not know struck home. Briggs nodded with angry vigor.

"You are quite sure," went on Mr. Clackworthy, cruelly probing the same wound which the newspaper article had torn open, "that you could not be taken in again with a fake— as you were once before?"

Briggs flushed.

"What do you mean?" he demanded tartly. "How dare you come here to— to—" He choked over the thought that possibly it was a put-up job, some one sent to bait him deliberately.

"I mean," replied Mr. Clackworthy, "that I want you to look at the vase which I have in this package and tell me if it is the genuine, as I suspect that it is."

"I can tell you before you unwrap it," sputtered Mr. Briggs, "so you needn't bother." He was outraged over the further suspicion that some one might really be trying to impose upon him a second time. But Mr. Clackworthy had already removed the wrapping and, despite himself, Mr. Briggs gasped at the sight of the vase that stood on the table before him. If a copy— which of course it must be— it was fully as clever an imitation as the one which he had himself purchased several years ago.

"This," declared Mr. Clackworthy solemnly, "is the genuine Chamberlin Black Hawthorn vase."

"Tush!" muttered Briggs, but at the same time his. hand went out and touched it, moving it closer to the light. With eyes which had become thoroughly expert since his sad experience of ten years before, he studied it and an amazed expression came into his face.

"Heaven bless me!" he murmured. "The thing would easily fool one; why— why I could almost believe that it was the genuine!"

"It is," said Mr. Clackworthy complacently. "Examine it closely."

There was something convincing about the master confidence man's tone, and, despite his skepticism, Briggs took a pocket magnifying glass from his coat. To the practiced eye of the pottery expert, there are many things which betray frauds and identify the genuine. The handss of Alonzo K. Briggs suddenly began to tremble.

"It— it's genuine!' he whispered. "Yet it can't be— it can't! Henderson Proctor has the genuine and— there can't be two of them!"

"No," answered Mr. Clackworthy, "there can't be two of them."

"Then— then—"

"This is Henderson Proctor's vase," Mr. Clackworthy said calmly.

"Great heavens! Then it— it—"

"It was stolen from the private vault in Henderson Proctor's home during his absence; he went to Florida a week or so ago," supplied the master confidence man.

Briggs gulped and turned again to the vase. '

"You— you are right! It is the Chamberlin vase. Why— why do you bring it to me?"

"I thought you might be interested in seeing it," said Mr. Clackworthy meaningly.

Briggs flushed.

"You mean that you thought I might buy it—buy stolen property?" he de- manded with poor show of anger. He was unable to conceal the greedy gleam which flashed into his eyes.

"Why not let us be frank?" and Mr. Clackworthy smiled. "I have a stolen vase; you want it— you want it more than you want anything else in the world."

"Preposterous! Utterly preposterous!" exclaimed Briggs. "I shall call the police."

"Oh, no, you will not," Mr. Clack- worthy replied coolly. "If you call the police the vase will be returned to its rightful owner—and you do not want that. Come, Mr. Briggs, this pose of outraged innocence is entirely lost upon me."

For a moment the eyes of the two men clashed and those of Alonzo K. Briggs were the first to be lowered. He was thinking rapidly; true enough, he wanted the vase. As Mr. Clackworthy said, he wanted it worse than he wanted anything else in the world. But one of the chief joys of its possession would be denied to him— letting the world know that he did possess the genuine. He would have to keep it hidden away, to gloat over it only in secret satisfaction.

"You don't look like a professional thief," ventured Briggs, sparring for time as he considered his problem.

"Nor am I," answered Mr. Clackworthy without loss of his good humor. "I merely secured the vase from the man who did remove it from the Proctor vault. Knowing that you were in the market for it, I decided to capitalize my good fortune. What is your offer, Mr. Briggs?"

Briggs thought swiftly. He was, he told himself, at a distinct advantage so far as bargaining was concerned. He was, no doubt, the only possible market ; no reputable art dealer would touch so famous a stolen antique.

"I might risk giving a thousand dollars for it," he said huskily; "you see—"

"I see that you are even a worse old skinflint than I had imagined," interrupted Mr. Clackworthy witheringly.

"How dare you talk to me like that, you thief!" retorted Briggs.

"Why waste time on personalities?" said Mr. Clackworthy, unperturbed. "Since you are so timid in talking real money, I will state my proposition. The vase is worth seventy-five thousand dollars; that's what Proctor paid for it. Under the circumstances I could hardly expect to ask the otherwise market price."

"I should say not!" Briggs laughed shrilly.

"So," pursued Mr. Clackworthy, "I offer you the vase for twenty-five thou- sand cash— no more, no less."

"Preposterous!" exclaimed Briggs. "I am the only man in the country who would buy it. I'll give you five thousand dollars, not a penny more."

"No."

"Then you're a fool!" exclaimed Briggs. "If you can't sell it to me you might as well send it back to Proctor."

"Precisely what I will do— if I do not sell it to you, Mr. Briggs."

"You— you wouldn't!" Briggs stuttered.

"That is where you are mistaken, Mr. Briggs," Mr. Clackworthy replied ; he began replacing the dark cloth about the vase. "Our negotiations seem quite useless; I shall return to my apartment with the vase. I will give you until midnight to meet my price— and my price will not be lowered a cent. Here is my telephone number; my offer remains good until midnight."

He picked up his hat, bowing himself out of the room with exaggerated po- liteness.

v

THE FRENCH clock in Mr. Clackworthy's apartment chimed the half hour and The Early Bird yawned spa- ciously.

"Th' old peepers is gettin' sorta sandy," he muttered. "I'm layin' odds that this Briggs bozo ain't gonna come across. He's been giving th' brain a little exercise an' has decided that th' long green looks better'n a black vaze."

"Ah, James," replied Mr. Clackworthy with a chuckle, "that shows you are not familiar with that species of insanity to which the mania for collecting antiques belongs. Mr. Briggs is simply engaged in playing the game of waiting. He is at this moment, I'll wager, watching his watch, his ears waiting for the tinkle of the telephone. He will wait until five minutes of midnight, thinking that I will call him. When I have convinced him that I am not bluffing him, he will stop trying to bluff me. It is so simple to read human nature, if you only know the signs!"

"I ain't seen through this scheme yet," grumbled The Early Bird.

Mr. Clackworthy returned to his book and The Early Bird returned to an impatient. contemplation of the opposite wall. It was very hard for him to be calm when twenty-five thousand dol- lars was at stake.

Slowly, to him at least, the minutes dragged past; never had the clock hands seemed quite so lazy.

At three minutes to twelve the telephone bell tinkled. The Early Bird drew erect with a start and Mr. Clackworthy smiled with knowing satisfaction.

"Mother of mud!" sptttered The Early Bird with sudden inspiration. "Have you gone nuts? Whatcha mean, givin' this gink your own telephone number? Y' offer this guy a stolen vase an' then give him your own telephone number. He's got th' goods on you for fair ; of all th' poor stunts!"

"You shall see, all in good time, James," replied Mr. Clackworthy as he reached for the phone.

"Hello," he said into the transmitter.

"Mr— er— the gentleman you were speaking to earlier in the evening," began Briggs cautiously. "I thought you might— er— consider a compromise offer on the— er— article we were discussing."

"I have but one price, Mr. Briggs," replied Mr. Clackworthy pleasantly.

"Won't you talk it over?" urged Briggs.

"You have just two minutes left, Briggs," reminded Mr. Clackworthy. "I am obdurate. Take it or leave it."

"All right; bring it to my house," capitulated Briggs after a pause.

"Very well," assented Mr. Clackworthy, "have the money in cash." He hung up the receiver and turned to his coworker.

"Come, James," he said; "bring along the vase and I'll give you a ride."

They went down to the limousine and, within twenty minutes, had reached the pretentious home of Mr. Briggs.

"You may wait in the car, James, while I go in and deliver Mr. Briggs his vase," said Mr. Clackworthy. The Early Bird clung anxiously at the master confidence man's arm.

"Boss!" he pleaded. "You ain't really gonna sell him th' vase? I wouldn't have never taken that blamed thing outta that vault if— if— Boss! y' can't do it; we give Dip Shanley our word, an'—"

"Don't be foolish, James," remonstrated Mr. Clackworthy teasingly. "It'll all be over in a few minutes and you shall know the whole thing. I'm not so sure at that; there's many a slip, sometimes, between the pocket and twenty-five thousand."

Ringing the bell, Mr. Clackworthy was at once admitted.

"I'll tell Mr. Briggs you are here," said Meggs, the butler, leaving Mr. Clackworthy waiting in the foyer.

When he was finally announced, Briggs was waiting for him, nervously pacing the floor.

"You— you brought it back, of course?" he asked. Mr. Clackworthy, for answer, set his package on the table and removed the wrapping. Briggs glanced at the vase lovingly, hungrily, but greediness was a very integrate part of his nature.

"I'll give you fifteen thousand— and that's my last word," he said.

Mr. Clackworthy began to replace the wrapping ; it was his only reply, and his attitude was one of finality. —

"I— I'll pay," murmured Briggs, licking his lips and darting a quick glance of hatred; he always hated people who made him give up money. Slowly, unwillingly, he went to his wall safe. Mr. Clackworthy noted that the man kept one hand in the pocket of his dressing gown; the grim outline of an automatic pistol showed. Probably, had he not feared the consequences of scandal, he would have tried to retain the vase by force without payment of a cent.

He returned to the table and counted out twenty-five thousand-dollar bills.

"It's just luck," he muttered, "that I happened to have this amount of in the house. There's your money— you thief; take it— and get out of my house."

"With pleasure," said Mr. Clackworthy with a smile. He counted the bills and removed the wrapping which he had been in the act of replacing about the vase. "A beauty, isn't it, Mr. Briggs? Quite a bargain; I fear that Mr. Proctor will be quite upset about it."

He bowed and, as he hurried from the room, saw Alonzo K. Briggs, standing a few feet from the table feasting his loving eyes on the Black Hawthorn vase.

As Mr. Clackworthy almost bounded into the limousine, The Early Bird stared at the package which the master confidence man carried.

"Y' didn't put it across, huh?" he muttered. "An' me goin' to all that trouble takin' it outta Proctor's vault. Huh! What was th' game, anyhow?"

Mr. Clackworthy thrust the package into The Early Bird's hands as he reached for the steering wheel and started the motor. i

"Be careful with that, James," he commanded; "we've got to get going."

As the car leaped forward a man dashed down the steps of the Alonzo K. Briggs home and shrill screams of baffled rage rent the night air.

"That's old Briggs callin' you!" The Early Bird cried in Mr. Clackworthy's ear. "I reckon he wants th' vase, after all."

"Yes, I suppose he does," grunted Mr. Clackworthy, stepping on the gas.

Back in the Sheridan Road apartment, Mr. Clackworthy threw himself into a chair.

"Quite the most exciting night I've had in some time, James," he said, chuckling. "There's Henderson Proctor's seventy-five-thousand-dollar vase ; you can take it back to its safety vault an— we've kept our word with Dip Shanley, eh?"

"But fell down on th' job of throwin' th' hooks into Briggs," said The Early Bird sadly. "I did wanna see y' sting that guy."

For answer Mr. Clackworthy drew the neat packet of thousand-dollar bills from his pocket and laid them on the table. The Early Bird stared.

"But— but—how'd ya do it?" he asked amazedly.

"Fortunately for my business, James," said Mr. Clackworthy, "most mortals possess only single-track minds. I had you 'borrow' the real Chamberlin Black Hawthorn vase from Mr. Proctor's collection. Happily for my scheme I knew a little of the arrangement of Briggs' house and the fact that his vase, until recently generally conceded to be the genuine, occupied a central decorative position in a niche at the turn of his stairway.

"I took the genuine vase to the Briggs home; Briggs examined it minutely, and knew that it was genuine. He knew, of course, that it was stolen; and for that reason, that he was the only man who would risk buying it. I was cognizant of his greedy, grasping nature and realized that he would try to bluff me on the matter of price. With this in mind I planned for a second trip to his home.

"Mind you, he had seen the vase, he had examined it with minute care. He knew that it was genuine. When he phoned to me I returned to his home with the vase. At the turn in the stairs I slipped the loose cloth wrapping from the genuine vase and traded vases with Mr. Briggs for a moment and left the genuine one in the niche. Thus it was Briggs' own imitation of the Black Hawthorn that I carried into his study the second time and sold to him for twenty-five thousand dollars, while the genuine reposed in the stairway niche.

"Such is the single-track mindedness of man that, having once satisfied him self that the vase was genuine, he did not think to re-examine it. I got the
money and made a hasty retreat as I knew that he would soon discover the deception. On my way down the stairs I slipped the cloth about the genuine vase which I had for the moment left in the niche occupied by the replica and carried it away. The butler, having admitted me, was told he could retire for the evening."

The Early Bird was shaking his head in bewildered fashion.

"But, boss," he protested, "what'dya wanna give this goof your own phone number for? Can't he have y' pinched for obtainin' money under false pretenses; can't he—"

The protest was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

"If I mistake not," said Mr. Clack- worthy, "that will be Mr. Briggs on the wire. You know, James, sometimes half the joy in trouncing a man is in being able to crow over it. Listen." He removed the receiver.

"Mr. Clackworthy speaking. Yes, Mr. Briggs, I was expecting you to call."

The instrument buzzed and stuttered excitedly as Alonzo K. Briggs poured forth his vitriolic threats.

"Just a minute, Mr, Briggs," Mr. Clackworthy interrupted suavely; "you are accusing me of selling you a fake Black Hawthorn. Impossible! In fact, Mr. Briggs, I shouldn't be surprised if you have just imagined it all and will find that the vase is really your own— yes, the replica that you bought ten years ago."

The receiver had another paroxysm.

"Oh, no, Mr. Briggs," cut in Mr. Clackworthy, "I can't believe you are serious in your wish to take criminal action against me. You see, Mr. Briggs, a conspiracy to receive stolen property is quite equally a crime as a conspiracy to sell stolen property. The situation, you see, is a sort of two-edged sword; it cuts both ways. And, really, Mr. Briggs, I am quite sure that you would not care for another article in the 'Art and Artists' column; any man is likely to purchase one fake bit of antique, but two— terrible! Oh, I thought you would see it that way, and—"

"Mr. Briggs, permit me to thank you again for the return of the money which Mrs. Clackworthy lost through Independent Bakeries Corporation stock— with compound interest. You see, Mr, Briggs—"

Mr. Clackworthy laughed aloud; he was talking into a closed circuit.

The Early Bird with a look of wonder on his face was buttoning up his overcoat.

"I guess I'll be gettin' th' old number nines into motion and' toddlin' over to th' Proctor cottage. I reckon Dip Shanley'll be kinda anxious t' get th' low-down on th' how and wherefores of a burglary what ain't larceny ; he'll be a lot relieved t' see this here vaze back in its big steel china closet."

"I thought that you insisted on 'vase' as the correct pronunciation," commented Mr. Clackworthy, smiling.

The Early Bird grinned.

"Huh!" he grunted. "When one of these pieces of B. C. bricky-brack can be sold for twenty-five thousand iron men, like you done it, then it's gotta right to be called vaze!"

_________________

13: Mr Clackworthy Sells Short

Christopher B. Booth

Detective Story Magazine 26 Feb 1921

JUST outside the entrance of the Grain Exchange, famous the world over as "The Pit," stood Mr. Clackworthy. What Wall Street is to the stock market, The Pit is to the grain market. It is here that seemingly frantic men— in reality cold, shrewd, calculating beneath their breathless haste— determine the price of the goods from nature's storehouse. The hurrying and scurrying, the lifting of a finger, a whispered conference in a secluded corner, and the price of a loaf of bread may advance a penny the following week.

"A guy'ud think he'd wandered to th' nut house," commented The Early Bird, who stood by Mr. Clackworthy's side. "These ginks act like th' heat had turned their beans."

"Appearances are deceitful, James," said Mr. Clackworthy wisely; "unless you brand any sort of gambling as insanity, these men whom you see bartering in wheat, oats, corn, and other grains of the field. are most unusually alert mentally. Ah—"

The Early Bird glanced up quickly at the master confidence man's sudden Pause and let his eyes follow the gaze of Mr. Clackworthy.

"Holy Hollywood!" cried James. "Is th' peepers seein' things, or is they stagin' a movie stunt with that layout?"

"Your vision is unimpaired, and it is not a cinema stunt," replied Mr. Clackworthy with a smile. "You see approaching you in that ancient equipage a king."

"A king!" repeated The Early Bird scornfully. "Whatcha tryin' to do, kid me?"

Proceeding with majestic deliberation toward the Grain Exchange was a carriage drawn by two splendid horses. On the box were liveried coachman and footman. The carriage itself, while luxurious and sporting a glossy new coat of paint, was of ancient pattern—one of those ancient private coaches belonging to a period of more than a quarter of a century previous.

"Truly, a king," insisted Mr. Clackworthy; "the occupant of that carriage is none other than Ashton Scott, whose scepter rules the wheat market with as much tyranny as ever ruled a Nero."

"Aw, I gotcha," said The Early Bird, nodding; "you mean that's Ashton Scott, th' wheat king."

"So acclaimed by the grain world," agreed Mr, Clackworthy; "it is Ashton Scott who, by the price he puts on wheat, fixes the price of bread. It is due to the fact that he cornered the wheat market— and kept it cornered— that the long-suffering, helpless public is now paying ten cents a loaf— and gets smaller loaves.

"It is common gossip that he has made fifteen million dollars out of wheat through his corner; while, perhaps, he does not share the common odium of the term 'profiteer,' the appellation fits him; he is as ruthlessly a profiteer as any of them— a profiteer in wheat. Perhaps, James, you do not realize how other prices climb when wheat goes up; wheat is a general price barometer. And, thus it is, Ashton Scott is one of the worst profiteers of them all."

The Early Bird was paying but small attention to Mr. Clackworthy's economic dissertation; his eyes were fixed, with a puzzled expression, on the nearing carriage.

"Mother of Mud! That sure gets my goat," he said musingly. "What's a gink with all his coin want to go pokin' around in that outfit for? Why don't a bozo with all his jack turn them horses out to pasture and loosen up about five thousand seeds for a good buzz buggy? How's a guy as out o' date as that manage to keep his place in this kale-grabbin' contest."

"His carriage may be only two-horsepower, James," and— Mr, Clackworthy laughed, "but there are dozens, yes, hundreds, of men here on The Pit that can assure you that his hat covers a ninety horse-power brain. Take a look at him."

The carriage drew up at the curb; the footman descended and opened the door. Messenger boys suddenly ceased to be in a hurry— they stopped to stare. Traders halted in their steps with an awed look at the small man who stepped to the sidewalk; the hum of conversation died to a whisper; a motorman halted his trolley in the middle of the block that he might peer at the famous heure.

The Wheat King was about to mount his throne! This monarch had no cabinet of ministers; his royal decrees were handed down without the consultation of trusted advisers and often they shook the market like a bolt from a clear sky. No man could anticipate his plans or decisions ; those who pretended to guess his probable action generally guessed wrong. He was Absolute Monarch of the wheat market; it was a one-man rule.

The Early Bird had heard much of him, but had never seen the grain wizard before. He knew, of course, that Ashton Scott was an old man; but he had expected to see a virile viking, bristling with dynamic energy.

"Great Goshen!" exclaimed James, "What a runt! Is that th' guy that all these ginks is afraid of?"

Ashton Scott, an old-fashioned knitted scarf thrown about his thin and drooping shoulders, was less than five-feet-six. His face was thin and bloodless— but the eyes; they showed his power!

Gleaming from under a heavy pair of brows, they glared fearlessly from over a long, eagle nose; they seem to scorch and sear everything they touched. Those eyes told of an iron will, of singular lack of the softer sentiments; men shriveled up and slunk away be fore their steady gaze.

Involuntarily, The Early Bird took a step backward.

"Lor'!" he breathed; "what a pair of peepers that bozo's got!"

"A wonderful personality— provided that you do not use wonderful as a term of praise," commented Mr. Clackworthy. "A greedy misanthropist, is what he is."

Ashton Scott made his deliberate way up the steps of the Grain Exchange and to the offices where he held sway. Men he passed would have given a right arm to know the secrets which lay under that battered old hat.

Mr. Clackworthy stood for several minutes, meditatively eying the ancient carriage of A Scott; his face lighted.

"James," he said softly, "I've got it— l've got it!"

"Whatcha got?" demanded The Early Bird.

"The scheme that will bring Ashton Scott's throne tumbling down about his head— and line our pockets with many crisp yellow bills."

The Early Bird, still under the spell of the Wheat King's rapierlike gaze, shuddered and shook his head.

"Not for every dollar in th' U. S. treasury, down to th' last tail of th' last Buffalo nickel," he refused.

Mr. Clackworthy chuckled.

"Very well, James," he said easily; "suppose, then, that you stand on the side lines, so to speak, and see me take a little whirl at the stock market, for the name of Ashton Scott is Number Two of my list in our war on the profiteers."

"What's th' lay?" asked The Early Bird.

Mr. Clackworthy shook his teasingly. Then he chuckled:

"You just watch, James."

ii

IT WAS two days later and The Early Bird was pacing restlessly up and down the thick, imported rug of Mr. Clackworthy's Sheridan Road apartment, fairly eaten up by curiosity. Although the master confidence man had not stirred from the big, luxuriously furnished library except for two trips downtown, both of brief duration, he knew that Mr. Clackworthy had not surrendered his plot on the riches of Ashton Scott and returned to his cherished classics.

He was hoping that Mr. Clackworthy might relent and take him into his confidence concerning the ways and means planned to dethrone the Wheat King, yet he hesitated to ask. He decided on a bit of strategy, and tried to achieve an air of great indifference. He yawned and stretched his arms.

"Well, I see you an' the highbrows is chummin' together again," he said; "kinda reckon you've give up th' notion of puttin' th' stinger on th' Wheat King, eh? Kinda decided to let 'im wear his wheat-straw crown, eh?"

Mr. Clackworthy read behind these questions and smiled,

"Oh, by no means, James," he denied; "the little scheme is coming along very well, indeed. I put up an even twenty-five thousand in margins on wheat futures to-day ; I'm taking my little whirl at the market— first time I have ever ventured, too."

The Early Bird stared in frank perplexity.

"Say, whatcha givin' me?" he demanded. "You put up twenty-five thousand in margins— and expect that to give Ashton Scott a trimmin'? Huh! That's like one of them lake excursion boats givin' battle to th' Atlantic Fleet. Twenty-five thousand! Now, ain't that rich— and old Scott worth right around that many million! Whatcha tryin' to do; furnish me with a laugh?"

Mr. Clackworthy grinned.

"It won't work, James," he said.

"O' course 'twon't work," retorted The Early Bird trumphantly.

"What I meant that would not work," explained Mr. Clackworthy, "was your obvious effort to catch me off my guard and take you into my confidence. I haven't kept you in suspense for some time, James; I'm going to have to whet your curiosity a bit."

The Early Bird smiled sheepishly that his subterfuge had been so easily penetrated.

"You win th' leather medal for th' mind-readin' contest," he admitted; "come on, boss, let me see th' wheels go 'round."

"Well, James, I'll throw a little hint or so— and see how good a guesser you are.

"Naturally I am not simple-minded enough to imagine that a meager little twenty-five thousand dollars is going to prove sufficient ammunition to accomplish the defeat of Ashton Scott and break his wheat corner; that, of course, is absurd. The twenty-five thousand, truth to tell, has nothing to do with the actual war on the Wheat King; that is a mere incident which allows me to collect a fee for accomplishing the public benefaction of breaking Scott's grip on the grain market.

"The real plan of strategy— well, that's the dark and mysterious secret which is so puzzling you, James."

"Give a guy a chance, boss," pleaded The Early Bird; "slip me a little info'— gimme a hint of what's comin' off."

Mr. Clackworthy smoked quietly for a moment.

"I took a little stroll down to The Pit this morning, James; I found the traders very nervous and jumpy; and it's all on account of Ashton Scott's birthday.

"For a good many years now his birthday has always been marked by a big flurry in grain futures. At first it was thought to be mere coincidence, but it is now reasonably certain that it's a little practical joke of Scott's. Being the strongest and the most merciless man in The Pit, he is naturally the most hated; it seems to be an ironical bit of humor of his to force his enemies— they are all his enemies mostly down there— to give him a substantial birthday present every year.

"Anyway, every year on Ashton Scott's birthday there are big doings in The Pit. Sometimes the prices break; at other times they skyrocket to dizzy heights— and once in a while they do both, with old Scott collecting on a double manipulation. The result is that the traders are keeping one eye on the calendar and the other on their bank balance— and praying that they will be lucky enough to jump with Ashton Scott.

"There is a rather terrifying rumor being whispered about that something bigger than ever is to happen this year; that the Wheat King is about to pull his greatest coup, accept his largest compulsory birthday present and retire to his lonely existence in his gloomy old— house on Dearborn Street— a mansion as old fashioned as the carriage which you saw carry the old highwayman downtown the other day."

"And," ventured The Early Bird with a bit of sarcasm, "I guess you've trotted out th' old ouija board, and that ouija has given you th' plumb lowdown on just how Scott's gonna work th' game; an' you're gonna tip off all his enemies so's they can be layin' for 'im with a piece of gas pipe and spoil his pretty little birthday party— an' you're gonna ride into harbor with a coupla hundred thousand in your kick."

"Please do not be silly, James," said Mr. Clackworthy reprovingly. "Besides your metaphors are hopelessly mixed. Mull it over in your mind for a day or so; I think that I shall let you in on it in time to be on the stage when the curtain rises on the big act.

"One thing I will tell you: I have no more idea than you have what Ashton Scott proposes to do—and what he proposes to do is really a matter of indifference to me for—well, he won't do it!"

iii

WHEN Mr. Clackworthy took the wheel of his big touring car, set his foot on the starter button and drove southward, he was unaware that The Early Bird, determined to get some inkling of the mystery, had slipped out of the Sheridan Road apartment be hind him, got into a taxicab after giving the chauffeur instructions to follow.

The little task of harmless shadowing took The Early Bird to a number of queer places. Mr. Clackworthy drove somewhat leisurely to Diversey Parkway, and westward over to Clark Street. At a garage where a sign announced:

USED AUTOMOBILES FOR SALE.

Mr. Clackworthy stopped and got out. The Early Bird drew the curtains of the taxi which permitted him to have the chauffeur draw up at the curb without fear that Mr. Clackworthy would uncover his bit of curiosity-satisfying detective work. He saw the master confidence man negotiating with the owner of the establishment, and finally close some sort of a transaction; from the number of bills which changed hands, The Early Bird felt morally certain that Mr. Clackworthy had purchased a secondhand automobile.

"Now, what'n th' name of all that's holy does th' boss want with a secondhand buzz buggy?" he ruminated. "I'll say he's a deep un."

Mr. Clackworthy returned to his own car and continued his way southward on Clark Street for a few blocks. At Belden Avenue he drove west a short distance and turned into an alleyway.

"I wonder if he's got wise to th' fact that I'm trailin' him an' is tryin' to make a monkey outta me," muttered The Early Bird. He had the taxicab pause at the mouth of the alley and gave the chauffeur an extra dollar to pretend to be jimmying with the motor. From this vantage point, James was able to see his mentor proceed between the double row of dilapidated, tumble-down sheds and come to a halt before one of them.

"Now, when Mr, Clackworthy takes to comin's down alleys, I give up," stuttered The Early Bird in amazement. Carefully marking in his mind the location of the shed at which the master confidence man had stopped, he had the chauffeur proceed around the corner to the other end of the passageway from which Mr. Clackworthy would naturally emerge. But, whether intentional or not, Mr. Clackworthy did the unexpected; he turned his car around and made his exit at the same end by which he had entered.

After waiting for half an hour or more, The Early Bird took a peek up the alley; it was empty. Mr. Clackworthy had, accidentally or otherwise, evaded him.

"Dog-gone his buttons," The Early Bird grumbled, "I was gonna get a line on this scheme of his if I had to follow him all day— and now he's gone! Secondhand gas buggies; visits up alleys and— some kind scheme to put th' stinger on old Ashton Scott! Honest, now, wouldn't that make Solomon wrinkle a puzzled brow; I'm askin' you, wouldn't it?"

Dismissing the taxi, James decided to learn, if he could, what key to the mystery was contained in that shed which Mr. Clackworthy had just visited. He made his way up the dirt-clogged passageway until he reached the tumbledown place in question.

From the other side of the thin wooden door, he heard a vaguely familiar voice singing, in subdued bass, the strains of an old-fashioned air. The Early Bird rapped. The singing stopped, there was the crunching of shoes over the floor, and a bright eye gleamed through a knot hole in one of the boards.

"Well?' demanded the deep voice. "Oh, it's The Early Bird; wait till I open the door."

The rusty hinges creaked and James was admitted into the shed, a cobwebby place measuring some fifteen feet square.

"Why, hello, Wally," greeted The Early Bird; the man was Waldo Gleason, one of the boys whom Mr. Clackworthy occasionally relied upon to perform a task incident with one of his schemes. Waldo was not very talented, but he was close-mouthed; that meant something.

"Lookin' for Mr. Clackworthy, eh?" suggested Wally. "He just left."

"Yeah; I know," replied The Early Bird; "I seen him. Say, Wally, what th' devil is that thing and whatcha doing to it?"

"Well," answered Wally with a twinkle in his eye, "judging from what I've seen of such, I'd say that thing mounted on those four wheels and ornamented with a big brass gong on the dashboard is what is commonly known and denominated as— an ambulance. As for the second half of your question, I am painting it."

"Whatcha paintin' it for?"

"For the good and sufficient reason that one Mr. Amos Clackworthy has given me a hundred dollars to paint it."

"What's he want it painted for?"

"Now, you've got me there, old socks ; I didn't ask any questions. I reckoned that if Mr. Clackworthy wanted me to know the whys and wherefores, he would have out with it. But don't you know; you and him are as thick as molasses in January."

"This is one he ain't let me in on," replied The Early Bird with a sigh; "he's got a hen on, but he wants me to guess what it is. I leave it to you now, a guy couldn't guess in a thousand guesses what an ambulance would have to do annexin' a few thousand shekels of some bird's dough."

"And I'm not going to try to guess; I've a headache," said Wally.

"Well, I'm beginnin' to get a pain in th' old bean, too," said The Early Bird, "but mine comes from doin' too much guessin'."

iv

"JAMES," said Mr, Clackworthy, "tomorrow is the day."

"Whatcha mean, th' day?"

"To-morrow is the anniversary of Ashton Scott's birth."

The Early Bird shot a quick glance at the ornate desk calendar which stood on Mr. Clackworthy's rosewood table and his face paled.

"You— you mean to-morrow's th' day when you're due to put th' bee on his nibs, th' Wheat King?" he queried amazedly.

"I do.".

"Then, you're ruined!" cried James, "You can't get away from th' hoodoo— to-morrow's th' thirteenth!"

Mr. Clackworthy laughed scornfully at the superstitious notion.

"Even granting, James, that there was something in the ancient fear of the figure thirteen, the hoodoo has got to make a choice. It's either Mr. Scott or myself who is slated to enjoy some extremely bad luck— which brings it right back to ordinary. The hoodoo can't very well give his curse to both of us."

"Well, mebbe there's something in that line of chatter," admitted The Early Bird, wiping the perspiration from his brow with a gesture of much relief, "but you sure had me scared for a minute."

"I don't think we have anything to fear from a hoodoo," and Mr. Clackworthy smiled; "the thing that worries me more than anything is your ability to drive a car with such dexterity that you can smash a couple of wheels off of another vehicle without breaking your fool neck."

"W-what's that?" cried The Early Bird. "Say, whatcha handin' me?"

"I mean, James, that you are now invited to accept a commission in General Clackworthy's army, which is due to enter into a serious engagement at eight-thirty o'clock to-morrow morning; it will be called The Battle of Profiteers' Hill."

"Aw, tie a can to that kinda chin music," protested The Early Bird; "what I wanna know is what was that stuff you was spillin' about me rammin' th' wheels of an auto into another gas cart. That don't listen good to yours truly."

"It's not another motor that you're to have a collision with, James, but a stately horse-drawn vehicle which—"

"I gotcha ; I gotcha," interrupted The Early Bird, his eyes widening with sudden understanding. "You got it all framed up for me to step on th' gas and zip right into old Ashton Scott's Civil War bus, an' put th' old pirate outta business so he can't be on hand to pull off th' annual birthday party."

"James, you begin to show signs of real intelligence."

"But I might kill th' old boy!" objected James. "I won't do it."

"You must use discretion, of course," answered Mr. Clackworthy with a laugh; "you must hit the carriage hard enough— but not too hard."

"Yeah!" snorted The Early Bird sarcastically; "I gotta kill 'im dead, but not too dead. That's a nice easy order you're givin' me. If I don't knock him out so his old noddle quits workin', th' scheme's no good; if I hit 'im too hard, I can hear th' jury sayin': 'We find James Early guilty of murder in th' first degree.' Yeah; a fine, clever idea that you've thought up—not!

"An' I guess that ambulance you got cached away over here off'n Belden Avenue is gonna dash up real handy an' you're gonna load Scott into it and cart him off somewheres to keep 'im from comin' to real sudden an' spillin' th' beans, eh?"

Mr. Clackworthy was genuinely surprised.

"You sly old dog!" he exclaimed with a chuckle. "How did you find out about that ambulance ?"

"Aw, I ain't solid ivory, I reckon," replied The Early Bird evasively; "a guy's got ways of findin' out things, y'know. I ain't so much ivory that I'm gonna risk bumpin' off a millionaire wheat king— not even if I knowed he was gonna raise th' price of bread to two berries a loaf. Let 'im profiteer and be hanged to 'im. I like to hear th' tattle of good old iron men down in th' old kick, but I don't like it well enough to run th' risk of hearin' th' rattle of a key in an iron door that's lockin' me in from now on."

"James," assured Mr. Clackworthy, "this scheme has yet other ramifications that you know not of. You have known me for a long time; you know that I have never lied to you or misled you in any fashion. I've got a bit of a surprise at the end, but take my word for it, you are in no more danger of causing the death of Ashton Scott than you are of marrying a crown princess. Is that good enough for you?"

"Yeah; that's good enough for me," agreed The Early Bird.

v

THE PIT, not usually awakened into another day's life until well along toward nine o'clock, was swarming with tense-nerved, tight-lipped traders, long before eight. Many of them had slept but little; a few of them had not slept at all.

This was the day— Ashton Scott's birthday! The air vibrated with excitement and a cloud of uneasiness hung low over the Grain Exchange. What was Ashton Scott going to do? That was the question on every tongue.

As the hour of eight neared, an automobile of nondescript appearance and doubtful age made its cylinder-missing way along the street and parked a block from the Grain Exchange. Even his closest friends would have experienced difficulty in recognizing the goggled, ulstered driver as the man who had been christened James Early and upon whom the police, in days gone by, had saddled the nickname of "The Early Bird." '

James shared something of the nervousness which permeated the district. Despite the fact that he had Mr. Clackworthy's assurance that the plan was safe, he failed to like the looks of it; deliberately driving an automobile into a millionaire's carriage is a serious business.

At eight o'clock and thirty-five min-utes the grain traders experienced a shock which multiplied their fears.

For years Ashton Scott's habits had moved with the clock hands; he arose at a certain hour, he breakfasted just sO many minutes later; he retired at a certain time. He had an unaltering schedule, reduced, almost, to split seconds. When the wheat king's carriage drew up in front of The Pit there was no need to glance up at the big clock which ornamented the tower of the building across the street— it was bound to be nine o'clock.

The grain merchants and brokers, at eight-thirty-five, glanced up to see the famous, horse-drawn carriage majestically approaching.

"My watch must be wrong," muttered one of them, turning the hands up twenty-five minutes.

"Mine, too," chimed in another.

"Boys," declared a third, '"somethin's a-popping! Your watches are right— look at the tower clock. Ashton Scott is getting down ahead of time! It must be something big to make old Scott break his routine ; boys, I'm telling you, the devil's going to break loose in The Pit this morning."

Slowly the carriage approached.

The tubercular, asthmatic automobile had disappeared. The Early Bird, following instructions, had thrown in the clutch as the Scott carriage appeared some distance away ; he circled the block and returned by the way of the stubby little street which ended almost directly in front of The Pit.

He throttled down the engine, driving at a snail's pace in order to give the Scott carriage time to reach the street intersection. He was not more than two hundred feet away when the horsedrawn vehicle appeared from behind the buildings.

The Early Bird's hands nearly fell from the steering wheel; seated on the box of the Scott carriage, erect and solemn in his blue livery and brass buttons, sat no other person than George Bascom; good, faithful old George upon whom Mr. Clackworthy could always rely.

This moment of hesitation almost wrecked The Early Bird's minute calculations; but he quickly recovered from his surprise and gave the palsied secondhand car the gas.

Fearfully, apprehensively the grain men, knowing that the man in the carriage would send them home richer or poorer, watched the approach of the vehicle. Suddenly a gasp went through the crowd.

From the short cross street shot out an automobile, zigzagging wildly as if the driver had lost control of the car; but it was headed toward Ashton Scott's carriage. The coachman was seen to lift his whip over the backs of the horses and the team leaped forward— but not in time.

The automobile, despite a wide swerve and a greatly slackened speed as the brake bands whined in smoking protest, crashed into the rear wheels of the Wheat King's carriage. The sound of splintering wood echoed along the street and the stately equipage collapsed as if the hand of a giant had crushed it.

"Mother of Mud!" gasped The Early Bird in horror. "I didn't know I was gonna hit 'im that hard; I'll bet my bank roll against a plugged nickel that I've killed th' old geezer."

But, remembering his instructions, James threw himself forward over the steering wheel and feigned unconsciousness. It took no acting to simulate the chalk-white, deathlike pallor; his face was bloodless with fear.

vi

THERE WERE, perhaps, a hundred grain men who witnessed the crash; they stood for a moment in speechless horrof before they raced to the spot where the wreckage littered the street. George Bascom and Fred Little, the latter also employed by Mr. Clackworthy, had leaped from the box to safety. They were tugging at the splintered, broken pieces of wood when the men of The Pit crowded around, many of them offering a helping hand.

"Is— is Ashton Scott dead?" was the whisper that went from mouth to mouth— and a hopeful light flickered in many an eye.

A tall man, wearing a professional-appearing Vandyke, a medical satchel in his hand, pushed his way through the curious throng which pressed about the débris. It was, of course, Mr. Clackworthy.

"Make way there," some one cried; "here's a doctor."

A moment later and enough of the wreckage was cleared away to reveal the inert form of a little, shrunken old man, a knitted shawl about his thin shoulders. His face was almost unrecognizable. As much as they hated him, the grain men shuddered.

Mr. Clackworthy knelt down beside the injured man, briskly but gently feeling for signs of breaks and prying open the eyelids for a professional look at the pupils. The victim stirred.

Mr. Clackworthy leaned closer.

"This man wants to speak to a fellow named Haddon," he said.

"Haddon? That's his office manager; I can get him in a jiffy," some one volunteered, and went racing off to Scott's office.

"Anybody know who this man is?" demanded Mr. Clackworthy.

The crowd laughed that any one should not know; they told him.

"Well, he's dying— sinking fast," said Mr, Clackworthy ; he turned to George Bascom, who still stood near. "You are this man's servant, I take it; well, hop to the telephone and call an ambulance."

A moment later and Felix Haddon, coatless, hatless, and breathless, bored his way through the crowd.

"Is—is it true?" he gasped ; he caught sight of the shawl-covered shoulders and the crimson-covered face. "Good heavens, it is!"

"Are you Mr. Haddon?" demanded Mr. Clackworthy. "This man— Scott, isn't it?— is dying; he has a message for you. I will see if he can talk now; he's sinking very fast, I fear."

Mr. Clackworthy leaned over the injured man.

"Here's Mr. Haddon, Mr. Scott," he said; "you have a message for him?"

He lowered his ear to the man's lips, which moved feebly.

"He says—"

"For Heaven's sake, man!" interrupted Haddon hoarsely; "don't shout it; don't tell all these wolves about it— whisper it! That message is for me— and for me alone!"

Mr. Clackworthy nodded understandingly, as he lowered his voice.

"He says," he whispered, but the sibilant carried to the first and even the second row of grain men who stood packed around, silent and wide-eyed, "he says—sell! Whatever that means."

But even the pseudo doctor did not know the vital significance of that magic word "sell," there were more than a hundred men within a child's stone throw who did know. The traders and brokers eyed each other eagerly; those who had not heard Mr. Clackworthy's stage whisper got the message from those who had. The crowd began to melt; men were dashing madly for their offices in the Grain Exchange, for in a moment, now, The Pit would open— and Ashton Scott said sell!

A policeman arrived at this juncture.

"Any one call an ambulance?" he demanded, and was told that this detail had not been overlooked. Almost coincident with the patrolman's arrival, the ambulance gong clanged and the big vehicle, with a red cross emblazoned on its side, clattered alongside.

Two men in the white duck suits of hospital internes leaped out with a stretcher and, under the direction of Mr. Clackworthy, placed the injured man on a stretcher.

In the excitement and awe over the fate of Ashton Scott, no one had seemed to notice The Early Bird, who sat slumped over the steering wheel of the automobile.

"Here's another man hurt," shouted George Bascom, pointing to James.

Mr. Clackworthy rushed over to The Early Bird examined him hurriedly and called the stretcher bearers.

"We'll have to take this chap along, too," he instructed briskly; "he's in a bad way."

Room was made for a second patient and The Early Bird loaded inside. One of the internes hopped to the front seat with the driver and the second, and Mr. Clackworthy leaped into the rear with the two patients. The gong clanged and the ambulance dashed off, leaving a slow-witted policeman and his notebook standing in the middle of the street, wondering just how he was to go about getting a satisfactory report of the accident.

vii

THE EARLY BIRD, his eyes glued shut, heard a chuckle. Cautiously he partly opened one eye, which enabled him to observe Mr. Clackworthy in the act of lighting a cigar.

"Did— did I hurt 'im— bad?" whispered The Early Bird. "Gosh! I don't know how it happened; I was goin' slow and I didn't more'n touch that carriage but—bang— I musta hit it like a ton of bricks. He— he ain't gonna die, is he?"

"Is who going to die?" demanded Mr. Clackworthy.

"Ashton Scott, of course."

"Yes, I think he's going to die."

"An' you got me in this mess, an' you sit there grinnin'!" cried The Early Bird accusingly.

"Well, most people have to die some time, James," remarked Mr. Clackworthy dryly. "I won't worry you any longer, James; sit up and take a look, You are among friends, now."

The Early Bird blinked and stared through the gloom of the ambulance. The first thing he saw was AI Shipiro, immaculate in his white-duck uniform, calmly smoking a cigarette. The sight that next greeted his eyes was that of a thin man, a knitted shawl about his shoulders, rising to a sitting posture and begin mopping his face clean of the crimson stain which covered and obliterated his features. As the mask was wiped away, The Early Bird recognized the features of Chester Wilcox, one of the boys who often assisted Mr. Clackworthy in his plots against careless bank accounts.

"Holy Pet Gold Fish!" exclaimed The Early Bird. "You ain't Ashton Scott a-tall!"

"If I am I've been making an awful mistake for some forty years," Wilcox said with a laugh.

"But— but," stammered The Early Bird, pleading with Mr. Clackworthy for an explanation, "how'd Wilcox get in Ashton Scott's carriage; how'd George Bascom and Fred Little get th' jobs drivin' that outfit? How—"

"You are entitled to an explanation, James," said Mr. Clackworthy. "Ashton Scott is at this particular moment, perhaps, stepping into his carriage to start his daily trip to the office; he will arrive at his usual time of nine o'clock, and when he does—"

"But I busted up his cab."

"Oh, no, you didn't James; you just thought you did. You see I have been doing quite a business in horse-drawn vehicles of late. In addition to this ambulance, which I picked up secondhand and had repainted, I had built a replica of Ashton Scott's famous carriage.

"But it was built very, very poorly; that was the reason that it collapsed so easily when your auto struck it. A good, strong wind would have done the same thing. It was little better than a stage prop— which, in reality, it was. A little tap and our friend Wilcox was buried under a pile of twisted and broken wood.

"In his pocket he carried a thermos bottle of ox blood; that was to keep it at the right heat and prevent it congealing. At the proper moment, he gave his face a good ox-blood bath, which hid his features and made possible the delusion.

"You know we humans are great at jumping at conclusions; because it looked like Scott's carriage, it must have been Scott's carriage; because he wore a knitted shawl, it must have been Scott— that was the reasoning of those who saw the accident. It didn't occur to any one to doubt it.

"The ambulance was kept handy a few blocks away; it is this which will permit us to make our escape without detection. George Bascom and Little have already disappeared."

"But— but," sputtered The Early Bird, lost in the intricacies of the scheme, "if his nibs, th' Wheat King, ain't laid out cold, how you gonna trim him? He'll—"

"Ah, James, that's the nub of the entire matter. I sent for Scott's office manager; I whispered him the word 'Sell'— but loud enough for other traders to hear it. The office manager will follow instructions implicitly—he's been trained that way.

"By the time Ashton Scott reaches his office, within the next half hour or so, the manager will have dumped Scott's wheat into The Pit, Scott's corner will be broken, the market turned upside down beyond all hope of repair, prices dropping like the mercury in January, and the other traders picking Ashton Scott's financial bones bare."

"And you— where do you come in?" demanded The Early Bird.

"My wants are few, as Longfellow said; I margined two points with instructions to sell short when wheat dropped ten below the buying price— that will give me a hundred and twentyfive thousand dollars as the price of my trouble for dethroning a king. Our own little private war on the profiteers is progressing most satisfactorily."

"Yeah," agreed The Early Bird with a grin; he suddenly remembered one of the scenes from "Monte Cristo" which he had witnessed many years before. James raised his arm with a flourish of dramatic exaggeration and showed a pair of fingers.

"Numbah two!" he cried triumphantly, but his exuberance died a quick death.

"Say, boss, who's ever driving this outfit tap up th' old nags; I wanna get out of this thing. Y' see th' last time I was jugged, I tried to make a get-away an' th' cop biffed me over th' bean, an'— they hauled me to th' hoosgow in— in an ambulance!"

_____________

14: The Price of a House

J. J. Bell

1871-1934

Detective Story Magazine 14 Oct 1919

MR. MAURICE FRAMPTON came out of the new station, at which persons alighted for the new garden suburb, and turned into the new road leading to the new house of which he was the owner. There were other new houses, but so new that they were not yet ready for occupancy. Consequently the foot traffic on the road was never great. At the moment it was limited to the shiny boots of Mr. Frampton and the shabby ones of a tradesman-looking person, who walked, or rather, slouched a dozen yards in advance.

It was a fine spring evening, and, after a good day in the city, Mr. Frampton was returning to his bachelor residence in fine spirits. Only those fairly intimately acquainted with Mr. Frampton could understand why so urban a gentleman should have decided to settle in so suburban a neighborhood. As a matter of fact, Mr. Frampton was not at home every evening, but he was invariably there with a party of guests over the week-end. His house was elegantly appointed within. One of the internal features was the window curtains, so handsome and heavy and nicely fitting that no ray of light could pass them. Another was a roulette table. By such pleasant, easy, and recreative home employment did Mr. Frampton add to his "respectable" income.

In the city he was a financier, a term which covers more sins than charity. His thoughts were still in the city as he walked up the unfinished road, this fine spring evening, and in all probability he would never have noticed the individual in front but for an extraordinary happening.

From the clothing of this individual fell a small object which, striking a stone, gave forth a faint musical clink, spun, rolled a couple of feet, and came to rest, a shining disk. Mr. Frampton was blessed with good sight, but he could scarcely believe his eyes. It was so long since they had seen a piece of gold! Involuntarily he quickened his pace, and as he did so, another piece of gold fell from the same quarter, then a third. And the loser slouched on- ward, obviously unaware.

Mr. Frampton collected the three sovereigns. Though a gambler, he was an honest man, so far as he knew. Certainly he was not to be tempted by a few pounds. Yet the beauty, the feel, both so long unfamiliar, caused him to pause for just three seconds, Then he called:

"Hold on, my man! You've dropped something."

"Must be a hole in the pocket," was the muttered remark.

"Odd place to carry money, isn't it?" Mr. Frampton observed.

The man glanced at him.

"So it is; but, ye see, I was enjoyin' the feel o them jumpin' out and in my hand as I walked along. Much obliged to ye, sir, I'm sure," he added politely enough. "Bein' out o' work, I couldn't afford to lose one o' the beauties." He took the three so providentially restored, and laying them beside the others, held out the lot for Frampton's inspection. "Only eight now, which was twelve last week," he said, and then, with an uneasy glance about him, dropped the lot into his hip pocket. "Yes, sir, I'm greatly obliged to ye, and now I'll be wishin' ye a good night."

"You had better come up to my house and drink a glass of ale," said Framp- ton, whom the furtive look had not escaped. "I suppose you are looking for work."

"Thank ye, but I won't drink just now, though I could do wi' a cigarette, if ye don't mind," the man returned, falling into step. "Yes, I was thinkin' o' lookin' for work hereabouts— so much buildin' goin' on— but I came by road and arrived too late to see any- body to-day. Now I'll take a walk into the country, and maybe come back to-morrow."

"The war stopped building here for a long time; it was only restarted recently. If you like, I'll speak to one or two of the foremen, on my way to business in the morning."

" 'Twould be kind o' ye, sir," the other replied. "But ye don't know any- thing about me." Then abruptly, in a nervous whisper, he said: "Ye won't tell anybody about them sovereigns."

"Certainly not. Still, mind you, I'm curious," said Mr. Frampton, smiling. "I  haven't seen so much gold for years."

The owner of the sovereigns did not look happy.

"It's easy enough to get one changed here and there, but I'd not be showing any one the lot, if I could help it," he remarked.

"You showed me the lot."

"I wasn't thinkin— But ye've promised not to tell anybody. Mind ye, I didn't steal them sovereigns. I— I only found them."

"Then they're yours, no doubt." Mr. Frampton gave a sympathetic laugh. "Is there any reason why you should not tell me your name— in case I want to mention it to the foreman?"

"John Maxwell ; and, I'm sure, I don't know why ye should take so much trouble."

Mr. Frampton lightly waved aside the remark. As it happened, he had a use just then for a man not too clever and not too particular.

"Suppose you take that walk into the country," he said, "and call on me on your way back, say, about nine o'clock ; and we'll talk things over. Ask for Mr. Frampton."

After some hesitation Maxwell assented. "But ye'll forget about the sovereigns," he added.

"Don't worry, Maxwell. There's my house, the last on this road," said Frampton, a trifle impatiently. "See you about nine." With a nod he hurried off.

"Don't know that the fellow will be much good after all," he reflected, entering his house.

Yet a surprise was in store for him. It was fated, so it seemed, that "the fellow" should become, not a creature under his thumb, but his equal partner in the biggest operation of his money-chasing career.

Maxwell arrived at the hour appointed, sober, and extremely awkward. He looked perfectly miserable in the luxurious smoking room. A single bot- tle of beer, though, had an astonishing effect. The host had ready a number of cautious inquiries respecting the

The man halted and slowly turned. His age might have been thirty. Mr. Frampton thought he had never seen a more stupid look, bovine or beery, on a human countenance. But intelligence dawned at the sight of the gold on the gray deerskin. A grimy hand was withdrawn from a shabby jacket, and opened, disclosing to view five sovereigns, man's past, but before he could begin, Maxwell, setting down his tumbler, said:

"Ve've been that kind to me, Mr. Frampton, I'm goin' to risk tellin' ye about the sovereigns. But first I will ask ye a question. Suppose ye bought a house and then found money in it. What would ye do?"

"Inform the man who sold me the house, of course," was the prompt reply.

"But suppose it was thousands and thousands o' pounds?"

"What difference would that make?" Frampton coldly demanded. Yet he found his visitor's gaze confoundedly disconcerting.

"And suppose," went on the other, as though he had not heard, "that the man before ye had been a German— a pre-war German?"

Mr. Frampton sat up, then lay back in his chair again. "In that case," he said, "it would be my duty to report it to the authorities."

"Would it now?" said Maxwell in dull tone of disappointment.

"But I'm wondering whether an ordinary man like myself would do his duty. What about yourself, Maxwell?" The query was lightly put.

"What's the use o' askin' me, sir? Ye can't even suppose that I had bought the house."

"Am I to suppose that such a house exists?"

Eying the sadly chewed end of his cigar, Maxwell said:

"Did ye ever hear tell o' a place called Sharmouth?"

"Never was there, but I understand it's on the East Coast, about three hours from London."

"That's it! Well, there's a house on the cliffs, about two mile out from the town— and that's where I got them sovereigns, Mr. Frampton." He brought the coins from his hip pocket, and held them out in his open hand.

His other hand, after laying down the cigar, went into a side pocket, fumbled, and came forth again. "And this is what I found them in." He displayed a small bag of fine canvas; boldly printed upon it was: £1000.

"Ye can see for yourself," he proceeded, handing the bag to his host, "that it's been slit open in a hurry— the knot o' the string bein' a hard one. Must ha' been a hurry, since twelve good quids was left in it. I picked it up in the foundations o' the house I've told ye about. If it's not too forward, I could do wi' another bottle o' beer. Talkin's dry work, and I've more to tell."

"Put away your gold," said Frampton, ringing. "Go ahead!"

"If ye don't mind, I'll wait till we're 'sure o' bein' alone again, and I'll ask ye to make certain that nobody's listenin' at the keyhole."

"It becomes quite thrilling," remarked the host, looking amused.

"That's the word for it," was the solemn rejoinder.

The refreshment having been served, and Maxwell having been assured that all was secret, he resumed:

"Ye see, sir, the old man that bought the house, a fortnight ago, had a sudden sanitary notion to examine the foundations, but he wasn't fit to do ithimself, and I was sent to make a report as to—"

"So the house is not now for sale?"

"More's the pity! If it had been standin' empty, as it was for near five years—"

"Never mind that for the present. Come to the point. Are you hinting at buried treasure, Maxwell?"

Maxwell took a pull at his tumbler, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said:

"There's hundred o' bags like the one in your hand— only, they're full!"

Mr. Frampton's countenance was slightly flushed. "And you didn't think," he said slowly, "of bringing one or two away with you?"

"Steel door!"

"Ah! So the hundreds of full bags are to be imagined!"

"Well, imagined by you, sir; but my eyes ha' seen them, clear enough. There's a little grated slit high up in the door— for fresh air, maybe— and I shone my lamp inside. And there was the bags, hundreds o' them, I swear, all neatly sittin' in rows on steel shelves, the one thousand pounds on each sorter smilin' a fat smile!"

There was silence till Frampton asked: "You are assuming that the old man who has bought the house is unaware of the treasure— if treasure it really is— under his feet."

"Would he ha' sent me down if he had known about it?"

"True. Still, he may have found it out by now."

"Not likely. I made him satisfied that the foundations was O. K. Anyway, I'm goin' to take another look to-morrow, or next day."

"How will you manage that?"

"I left some o' my tools down there, the last time."

"Intentionally ?"

"What's it matter? I expect they'll let me in all right."

"Who is there beside the old man?"

"A girl—his daughter—and a servant. 'Tisn't a big house."

"Do you know anything about the German?"

"Only what I picked up in the town. No doubt some of it's true. 'Tis said he was a spy, and did signaling just before the war, but didn't expect this country could come in. When we declared, he took fright and bolted— some says in a submarine, which somebody thought he saw in the bay at the time. Anyway, he must ha' gone in a hurry, for he took nothin' with him, not even extra clothes. Of course, he took the sovereigns that was in the one bag. I can see him stuffin' all his pockets!"

"You have a fine imagination, Maxwell," remarked Mr. Frampton calmly, though his nerves were scarcely so steady as usual. "Now, have you any theory as to why this German was storing gold? Had he the reputation of a miser?"

"Not a bit of it. He spent lots. But he was workin' for his blessed Fatherland, as was many another, in the same line— so I've heard. The sovereigns was intended for Germany, which was likely to need all the gold she could get."

The other nodded. The man was more intelligent that he had at first reckoned. In the new circumstances, however, this could not be deemed an objection.

"Well, Maxwell," he said pleasantly, "and what are you going to do about it?"

Maxwell's face clouded. "What do ye mean, sir? I've put myself in your hands," he said, rather sullenly.

"In other words, you are asking my help."

"Would it be worth your while?"

"Have you been to any one else?"

"No, sir! Didn't know who to go to. But when you spoke to me on the road, I sorter felt you was the man for me— no offense intended."

"You have told a very interesting tale, but you must forgive me if I keep on asking myself the question: 'Is the gold really there?' "

"Come and see for yourself!"

"What's that?"

"Rig yourself out same as me, and come and help me to look for my tools."

"Bit of a risk, eh?"

"Hardly any; and if it was a big risk, surely 'twould we worth it. The old man's half blind, the girl— well, she's only a girl, and the servant's just a lump of a woman. Yes, that's the idea! Come and see for yourself, Mr. Frampton."

The financier's restraint gave way.

"Hanged if I don't!" he exclaimed. "But I must know how I stand," he said presently, "in the event of the gold being there."

"Halves," said Maxwell.

"The expenses may be great," came the objection.

"IT must have my half, Mr. Frampton."

"Well, well, so be it," agreed Frampton, reflecting that, after all, he held the whip.

Their talk went on for another hour, and then Maxwell took his departure.

TWO DAYS later they met on the road, a mile out of Sharmouth.

"Am I anything like the genuine article?" was the financier's rather anx- ious inquiry.

"Oh, ye'll do, so long as ye keep your mouth shut. No offense intended."

It was a gray afternoon; the prospect was a bleak one. As they approached the house, an old square building, somewhat grim and forbidding in its bare solitude, Mr. Frampton began to feel that this was a spot wherein anything might happen.

They passed up the weedy walk of a neglected garden, and at the stout door Maxwell whispered, before he knocked: "Leave it all to me."

A middle-aged servant opened promptly and made no difficulty about their entering. In fact, she said nothing at all.

Presently they were among the ancient foundations.

"Now," whispered Maxwell, directing his light upon a gray door that looked as if it covered the mouth of a cave, "go and see for yourself."

Mr. Frampton stumbled over to the door. He was fairly tall, and the grated slit mentioned by Maxwell was just on a level with his eyes.

He had brought an electric torch, and soon its rays were flooding what he took to be a chamber excavated in the rock beyond the foundations.

Then he drew a deep breath. Maxwell had neither dreamed nor invented his tale! In orderly rows were the plump canvas bags, each bearing its cheerful, inviting imprint— £1000! And his keen eye seized on something that Maxwell's had probably missed— a bag with a flaw in it, so that it was in danger of bursting, and betrayed the nature of its contents—the contour of coins and, yes, a glint of gold itself!

There was perspiration on Mr. Frampton's brow, fever in his gaze.

He began to count the bags. He counted one hundred and sixty-eight, and there were shelves not within the range of his vision. Great Heaven! The chamber must contain somewhere about three hundred thousand pounds!

"Halves, mind ye," said a voice in his ear, and he started violently.

"Of course, Maxwell, of course," he replied, recovering himself. "There was no need to remind me of that."

"Perhaps not," said Maxwell. "But the sight o' them bags might make many a man forget a little thing like a promise. No offense intended, but I'm takin' no chances." And he gave the other a glimpse of a revolver. "Now we'd best be goin'. Carry them tools, please, and don't speak a word till we're out o' the house."

He did not, himself, speak a word until they were half a mile down the road. Then he put the blunt question:

"What are ye goin' to do?"

"There's only one thing I can do. Buy the house."

"Oh!" said Maxwell blankly.

"What else have you to suggest?"

"Don't know that I've anything. Only, it looks as if you would have all the power, and me none. But, I suppose, I ha' got to trust ye."

"You have," said Mr. Frampton, with something of his old assurance. "Now we're going to part for the present," he proceeded. "What are your plans?"

"Stay in the town yonder, and keep an eye on the house. Ye can write to me at the post office."

"Very well. I'll get to work at once. If the deal takes time, it won't be my fault."

"How much will ye offer the old man?"

"I've got to find out first what he paid. By the way, do you want some money to go on with?"

"No. Nothin' but my half share, thank ye all the same."

"Good-by, then. Don't watch the house too closely." And Mr. Frampton walked off to catch his train.

WITHIN forty-eight hours he had learned that the new owner, Mr. William Palfrey, had paid fourteen hundred pounds for the house and furniture. "Might have been worse," was his comment.

That night's mail carried the following epistle to Mr. William Palfrey:

Dear Sir:

I trust you will not regard this as an unpardonable intrusion. A client and friend just invalided home from foreign service learns with dismay that the house which he has long desired to possess has been purchased by you. It may be, I will readily admit, a sick man's fancy— obsession, if you will— but he has convinced himself that the sole hope of curing his nervous malady depends on his being able to reside in that house. He has persuaded me to write to you, which I do with all diffidence, offering the sum of two thousand pounds for immediate possession of the house and its contents. He is, I may say, a wealthy man, and has already placed the sum named in my charge.

May I hope for your consideration and an early reply? Faithfully yours,

Maurice Frampton.

The early reply, at least, was not de- nied him. It ran thus:

Mr. William Palfrey is obliged to Mr. Maurice Frampton for his letter and the offer contained therein, and begs to state that, while sympathizing with Mr. Frampton's client, he is not disposed to vacate the house which he, too, long desired to possess, and which he finds most suitable for the retired life he needs.

"Damn!" remarked the recipient. "Looks as if he had made up his mind." Frampton, however, did not believe in minds made up irrevocably. It all depended on the weight of the golden lever.

Accordingly, and forthwith, he dispatched a quite pathetic letter increasing his client and friend's offer by five hundred pounds.

Mr. William Palfrey's response was prompt and courteous, but just as discouraging as before.

Without delay Frampton offered three thousand pounds. Rejected also!

"Curse the old profiteer," the financier observed, a little unreasonably, perhaps, and fell to wondering whether honest burglary were not the only hope, after all. But he was no adventurer where his skin was concerned.

He wrote that the poor desperate invalid was now willing to pay four thousand pounds.

Two days later came a letter with the Sharmouth postmark, yet not in the now almost familiar shaky, spidery handwriting. He read it with growing excitement.

Dear Sir:

My father is not so well to-day, and is unable to write. He desires me to decline, with his thanks, your last kind offer. May I add that I deeply regret his attitude in the matter, and would give much to see this house disposed of. Its purchase on his part was a mistake. The sea air does not suit him at all, and it is painful to me that he should be risking his delicate health, and, at the same time, I fear, depriving your poor ill client of a possible means of recovery. For myself, I will only say that I find the place too deadly dull for words.

But I write this solely for my father's sake, and beg that you will treat it confidentially. You say that your client is wealthy. Well, my father is not, and I feel that if the offer were further increased— it might have to be largely increased— he might be induced to do as you wish. I think that if you came to see him, showed him the money, and were prepared to settle everything on the spot, he would give in.

In the circumstances, I believe you will pardon this liberty.

Yours truly,

Leonora L. Palfrey.

"Now or never," muttered Mr. Frampton, his gambling spirit thoroughly roused.

He dispatched a telegram, called on his bankers, and caught the train, all within the space of one hour. He arrived at Sharmouth early in the afternoon, lunched, and took a cab, hoping he might not be seen by Mr. John Maxwell on the way. The word "halves" may have been troubling his mind, but decidedly not his conscience. Maxwell would receive a share, of course, but it would be no more than seemed good in the eyes of the financier.

However, the house had still to be purchased, and by the time Mr. Frampton arrived at the door, the optimistic effects of the luncheon champagne had somewhat evaporated.

Entering a gloomy and rather shabby hall, he was conducted along a short passage and shown into a study of sorts, indifferently lighted.

In his dressing gown, a man with a long gray beard and untidy gray hair, his eyes protected by darkened glasses, sat at the writing table. By the fire sat a girl whom Frampton mentally appraised as "uncommon handsome."

She rose, returning his bow, and said:

"Father, this is Mr. Frampton, who wishes—"

"Yes, yes," the old man interrupted testily, as though roused from meditation. Then, in a more genial tone: "Be seated, sir. I received your telegram, and regret that I could not reply in time to save you a tiresome journey."

"But not a vain one, I still must hope," Mr. Frampton gravely but pleasantly returned, taking the chair proferred by Miss Palfrey, at some distance from the table.

Mr. Palfrey shook his gray head. "The house is not for sale," he muttered.

"You will permit me to state my case, as it now stands?" said the visitor.

"Considering the journey you have taken, I cannot forbid you; but I warn you that you will but waste your breath. I would not part with the house for twice the sum you have already offered."

Mr. Frampton sighed. "Still," he said, "I must do my duty by my client. Mr. Palfrey, my client has worked himself into a deplorable condition over the matter. I saw his medical adviser only last night. There is no doubt whatever that his recovery hangs on the satisfying of this one overwhelming desire. But even my client's wealth is not unlimited. He cannot go on increasing his offer indefinitely, and the offer I am about to make must be taken as final." The speaker paused and cleared his throat. "Sir," he resumed with emotion, "for the immediate possession of this house and its contents, I am empowered to offer you the sum of ten thousand pounds."

"Ah!" murmured Mr. Palfrey, while an inarticulate exclamation escaped the girl.

"My client insisted on my bringing that sum with me— in Bank of England notes of one hundred pounds each." From his breast pockets Mr. Frampton produced two bundles. "If the title-deeds are not at hand, my client will accept your simple acknowledgment for the present."

"Dear me, dear me!" said the old man helplessly, his chin on his chest.

The girl stepped forward. "Father, you will accept," she said softly. "You cannot refuse." She turned to the visitor. "How soon should we have to go?" she asked.

"It is so urgent," he replied, "that I must beg of you to vacate within twenty-four hours from now."

"It can be done," she answered. "Father, what do you say?"

Mr. Palfrey threw out his hands. "So be it!" he cried wearily. "For your sake, Leonora, I accept the price."

Five minutes later, Mr. Frampton rose to go. "I can just catch the express," he said, after gratefully refusing refreshment. "My client cannot have the good news a moment too soon."

Leonora went with him to the door, and watched until the cab was out of sight. Then she returned to the study.

"The car will be here immediately," she remarked as she entered, smiling.

She did not appear in the least astonished at what she saw: A young man engaged in executing a cheerful dance upon a wig, beard, and smoked glasses.

At a second glance you would probably have identified him with a person of the name of John Maxwell.

___________________

15: The Mystery of the Talking Idols

Achmed Abdullah

[Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff, 1881-1945]

Triple-X Magazine,  May 1929

AFRICA was about them: a black, fetid hand giving riotously of gold and treasure, maiming and squeezing even while it gave.

They loathed and feared it. Yet they loved it with that love which is stronger than the love of woman, more grimly compelling than the love of gold. They loved it as the opium-smoker loves the sticky poppy-juice which soothes him— and kills him.

For it was Africa.

And also in this was it Africa that it had thrown these two men together: strange bedfellows; Gerald Donachie, whose dour Scots blood had been but imperfectly tempered by the fact that he had been born and bred in Chicago, and Mahmoud Ali Daud, the grave, dark Arab from Damascus.

Arab he was in everything. For he was greedy, and yet generous; well-mannered, and yet overbearing; sincere, and yet sneering; sympathetic, and yet coldly cruel; austere, and yet passionate; siple, and yet complex.

"Donachie & Daud"— the firm was well known from the Cape to the Congo, and up through the brooding hinterland, the length of the great, sluggish river, even as far as the black tents of the Touaregs. It had made history in African commerce. It was respected in Paris and London, feared in Brussels, envied in Berlin.

They traded in ivory and ostrich feathers, in rubber and gold, in beads, calico, gum-copral, orchilla roots, quinine, and— if the truth be told— in grinning West Coast idols made in Birmingham, cases of cheap Liverpool gin, and rifles guaranteed to explode at the third discharge.

All the way up the river their factories and wharves, their stations and warehouses proclaimed their insolent wealth. They ran their own line of paddle-steamers as far as the Falls; twice a year they chartered fast, expensive turbine boats to carry precious cargoes to Bremen and Liverpool. They had their fingers in every pie, to the South as far as Matabele-land, to the North as far as the newest French-Moroccan concessions.

They could have sold out at practically their own figure to the big Continental Chartered company which they had fought for ten years, and which they had beaten in the end to a not inglorious standstill. They could have returned with bloated bank accounts: Donachie to a brick-and-stone realization of the Chicago palace about which his imagination wove nostalgic dreams when the river was high and the fever higher; and Mahmoud Ali Daud to his pleasant Damascan villa and the flaunting garden with the ten varieties of date trees, of which he talked so much.

"All the date trees of Arabistan are in that garden," he used to say to his partner, and make a smacking noise with his tongue. "Al-Shelebi dates, yellow and small-stoned and aromatic; Ajwah dates, especially blessed by the Prophet— on whom be Peace; also the date Al-Birni, of which it is said: 'It causeth sickness to depart from it, and there is no sickness in it'."

And they spoke of selling out, of going home.

They spoke of it in the hot season when the great, silent sun was brooding down like a hateful, implacable force and when all the wealth of Africa was but an accurst inheritance, to be gained at a cost of pain and anguish more than man could bear; and during the "wet," when from morning till night a steaming, drenching, thudding rain flooded the land as far as the foothills, when the fields were rotting into mud, when the water of the lake thickened into evil brown slime, and when the great river smelled like the carcass of some impossible, obscene animal.

They spoke of it with longing in their voices. They quarreled, they cursed each other— year after year. And they remained— year after year.

For it was Africa. The sweet poison of it had entered their souls, and they could not do without it.

Donachie sighed. He looked at his partner.

"Look here, Mahmoud," he said querulously. "Granger is the third who's disappeared up there in the last four months. The third, damn it all! And we can't afford to give up the station. Why, man, it's the best station in the whole confounded upland! The company would jump at it. They've been trying to get a foothold there for the longest time. We get as much ivory from there as from half the other river stations put together— fossil ivory, I grant you, but what difference does that make, once it reaches the market? Ivory is ivory."

The Arab had been counting the carved wooden beads of his huge rosary. Now he looked up.

"We can send Watkins. Watkins is a good man. He did well at the coast station. He speaks the language. Or we can send Palmier— a shrewd Belgian. He knows the Congo."

Donachie hit the gangrened, heat-cracked table with his hairy fist.

"It would be murder, Mahmoud, rank murder! They'll disappear— they'll disappear like the others."

The Arab inclined his head.

"Fate is bound about our necks. Perhaps the bush will eat them up."

Donachie interrupted savagely.

"The bush? The bush? You mean the—"

The other raised a thin brown hand.

"Hush, my friend. There is no proof. Also is it bad luck to give a name to the thing which is not." And he snapped his fingers rapidly to ward off misfortune.

Donachie's voice came loud and angry.

"There's the proof that the three agents have disappeared, one after the other."

The Arab smiled.

"What is that to you and to me, my friend? We pay? We pay well. If fools make a bargain for their souls with the devil, then fools may make a bargain with us for their bodies. They know the evil name which the station bears. Yet it appears that they are willing to go. Many of them." He pointed at a heap of letters on the table. "Did you read what they write? They want to go. Let them go. There are even company men among the applicants. We can pick and choose. We can send whom we please."

Donachie glared at his partner.

"We'd be murderers none the less."

"How do you know the others have been murdered?"

"Good Lord! How do I know? Why, man, people don't walk into the bush and disappear without sound or word or trace just to amuse themselves, do they?"

The other smiled.

"Allah kureem!" he said piously. Then he counted his beads again and was silent.

DONACHIE rose. He moved his chair. But the sun found its way through the holes and cracks of the attle-and-daub house, and there was not a spot in the big, square room which was not barred and splashed by narrow strips of sunlight.

It was just like a dazzling sheet of light piercing the tin roof with a yellowness that pained the eye, puckered the face, and wearied and maddened the brain.

There was beauty in the landscape beyond the fly-specked windows. For under the tropical sun the sloping roofs of the warehouses, the steeple of the mission church, and the beehive huts of the natives burned like the plumage of a gigantic peacock in every mysterious blend of purple and green and blue. The sky was like an enameled cup, spotless but for a few clouds which were gnarled, fantastic, like arabesques written in vivid cerise ink on some page of forgotten Byzantine gold.

And in the distance, beyond the glitter and glimmer of the river, the forest stood forth in a somber black line.

But Gerald Donachie did not see the beauty of it. He only felt the squeezing, merciless hand which was Africa. He only smelled the fetid odor which was Africa.

And then, of course, his thoughts returned to the bush station at Grand L'Popo Basin, three hundred miles up the river.

It was by far the most important upland station of "Double-Dee," as the firm was familiarly called up and down the coast. Some fifty miles below the falls, snug at the head of a little river bay where the water was deep and the anchorage safe; fairly healthy all the year round, it had become the main center of the upland trade.

To the north of it were thick, black-green forests, and the truest ivory country in Africa. An incessant stream of the precious white stuff reached the post and was sent to the coast, and thence to Liverpool and Bremen. The natives, unconverted, unspoiled, were friendly. There had never been the slightest trouble with them.

Hendrick DuPlessis, a big hairy Natal Boer, had been the agent up there for a number of years, and had put the station on a splendidly paying basis. Once a year, as regular as clockwork, he had come down the river to the coast town, where for three weeks he rioted and debauched on a pompous, magnificent scale.

And on his last spree, a little over four months ago, an overdose of dop and brandy had killed him.

Then, one after the other, three agents had been sent up the river. They were Foote, Benzinger and Granger; all Afrikanders born and bred, familiar with the country and the languages, and all trusted employees of Double-Dee, who had made good at other important stations before they had been sent to Grand L'Popo Basin.

And within the last four months, one after the other, the three had disappeared. It was as if Africa had swallowed them. They left no message. No trace of their bodies had been found.

They had simply vanished into nothingness.

They had not taken to the bush out of their own free will. There had been no reason for it: their books and accounts were in perfect order. Nor had they gone out hunting; for they were middle-aged men, surfeited with the killing of animals. They had no personal enemies, and they had had no trouble with the natives, who were friendly and prosperous.

They had disappeared.

Runners and native trackers had been sent out in every direction. Finally, after the third agent, Granger, had vanished, a first-class bush detective had been sent from the coast. But the detective, a clever Portuguese mulatto, had discovered nothing.

Then Gerald Donachie himself had gone up the river. He had investigated. He had offered bribes and rewards. He had searched the forest for miles around. He had gone into the kraals of the natives, and had threatened and accused and bullied.

But it was evident that the blacks had nothing to do with the disappearance of the three agents. He had not found a single trace.

This very morning, fever-worn, cross, he had returned with the tale of his failure. And failure was a hard thing to bear.

Again he hit the table with his fist.

"What are we going to do, Daud? Tell me that."

"There is one thing we can always do. We can sell out to the Chartered company."

Donachie laughed, a cracked, mirthless laugh.

"Sell out now? Under fire, as it were? With that mystery unsolved? . . . Not if I know it. I'm not going to let that cursed beast of a land get the best of me."

The other walked to the corner and poured himself out a glass of water.

"In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful," he said piously, ceremoniously, before he tossed down the drink. Then he turned to his partner.

"You are like all the other Christians," he said. "Forever fighting battles with your own obstinacy. What is the good of it? What profit is there in it? And if not profit, then what glory? Why battle against Fate? Fate has decided that the man of great head becomes a Bey, honored and rich; while he of great feet becomes a shepherd. We have great herds, you and I. We are rich. Let's sell out to the company. Let us return; I to my country, and you to yours."

But Donachie did not reply. He sat there, brooding, unhappy, staring into space.

For the last hour, from the broad veranda which surrounded the house, had come the incessant, uncouth babble of native voices, high-pitched, half-articulate; the house boys talking to each other, and every once in a while breaking into shrill, meaningless laughter.

Donachie had hardly heard them. He had listened to that same noise for the last twenty years. It was part of his life to him, part of the day, part of Africa. He had accepted it as he had accepted the fever, the heat, the flying and crawling horrors, and the wooden drums which thumped at night, sending messages from village to village.

But suddenly he looked up, sharp-eyed, alert.

A native voice had pronounced the name of the station up the river—"Grand L'Popo Basin." And again, in a sort of awed whisper, "Grand L'Popo Basin!"

He addressed his partner.

"They also—"

"Yes," the Arab chimed in, completing both thought and sentence for him, "they also speak of the three men who have disappeared. The tale is all over this land. The drums have carried the message of it to all the villages. And yet," he laughed, and pointed at the heap of letters on the table, "and yet there are many men anxious to go."

Suddenly the babbling outside ceased. There was a sharply-defined pause. Then a single voice spoke, in the native dialect as the others, but with a different accent; intense, throbbing with a peculiar, significant meaning, but so low that the two men inside the house could not make out the words.

Again there was silence. The flies buzzed in a great peace.

Then the same voice spoke once more, low, intense.

"Can you hear, Mahmoud?" Donachie asked. "What's that cursed black babbling about?"

The Arab rose. He motioned to his friend to be quiet. He walked to the door on noiseless, slippered feet, and listened.

Again the voice on the outside boomed forth, dramatic, low; and this time one word stood out above the others: "Umlino," and again, "Umlino."

The Arab listened intently for a few minutes. Then he came up close to his partner.

"They are speaking of a new umlino, a new great medicine man—" then, as an afterthought, "cursed be all unbelievers!"

"Who's speaking?"

"That new boy— that flat-faced descendant of unmentionable pigs— Makupo, he calls himself."

"Oh, yes, the fellow from the bush who sports the brick-red blanket and the blue beads."

"The same."

"What's he got to do with a medicine man? And what the blazes has the umlino got to do with the disappearance of my three agents?"

Donachie burst suddenly into a great, throaty rage. "I'll teach that coon to put bees into my house boys' bonnets! Call him in, Mahmoud." He picked up the short, vicious rhinoceros-hide whip which lay on the table. "I'll teach that miserable black to babble about—"

Daud pressed him back into his chair. He addressed his partner with an air of calm assurance, superb self-satisfaction hooded under his sharply curved eyelids.

"I shall go north and solve the mystery. Be quiet, friend of my heart. Remember the saying that money is on the lips of the liar, and passion on the lips of the lost. Be quiet!"

Donachie looked up.

"But Mahmoud," he said wearily, "I've just come back from up there."

The Arab sat down near him.

"Yes," he replied. "But before you left there was not talk amongst our blacks of medicine men in the north, of great umlinos performing many miracles. I heard them talk," he pointed at the veranda, "out there— cursed be all unbelievers!"

Donachie laughed. "I honor and respect your orthodox Mohammedan prejudices, old man. But you know well enough that there's alwayssome brand-new medicine man, some brand-new ju-ju popping up amongst these savages."

"I know," the other agreed. "But I also know Africa. I know that these house boys of ours are of the Waranga tribe, eh? Tell me, my friend, what have they, being of the Waranga, to do with an umlino from the up-river tribes? Do totems mix with totems in this heathenish land? Also, what have our Warangas to do with a flat-faced pig from the north who wears a red blanket and blue beads? Can you answer these questions? And can you tell me finally what bond there can exist between blacks of one tribe and blacks of another who have been enemies for centuries?"

"There's only one bond, Mahmoud. A common enemy."

"There is no enemy. The land is peaceful and prosperous... But there is still another bond between tribe and tribe. That is a miracle, and he who performs the miracle is always an umlino, a great medicine man. I have heard tell that an umlino is often an ambitious man, dreaming dreams of conquest and blood and empire, like Khama, who called out the southern tribes; like Lobengula, of whom the Boers talk; like Chakka, who sacked the farms of the Colonial English before I was born."

Donachie was nervous, intent.

"A conspiracy, you think? A revolt?"

"No. Only the brewing of the miracle, and the telling of it— so far," he added with peculiar emphasis.

He continued after a short pause: "I shall go to Grand L'Popo Basin. I shall look into the disappearance of the three agents. I shall watch the brewing of the miracle. And, with the help of Allah, I shall succeed." He smiled.

Donachie knew the smile of old. In the past it had heralded many things: profit, adventure— often death. But always it had meant success. Thus it seemed suddenly to Donachie as if a cool rush of air had come to him after a long, leaden, unlifting day.

"When are you off?" he asked.

"Tonight."

Donachie gasped with surprise.

"Impossible! The steamer can't leave here before Saturday morning at the very earliest."

"I shall take the overland trail."

"But why— for heaven's sake, Why?"

The Arab smiled.

"Because there is talk on our veranda between the Warangas and a flat-faced pig from the north. Because drum is speaking to drum. Because there is brewing a miracle— up the river. Do not ask questions, my friend. Time presses. I shall take Makupo with me."

Donachie looked at him incredulously.

"Makupo? The fellow from the north, of all men? But, good God, you don't trust him!"

"That's why." The Arab rose. "I have no time to explain. I must prepare for the journey. One thing you must do for me."

"Name it, Mahmoud."

"Let the house boys have talk with nobody of my going north. Let them not speak of my taking Makupo along. Let them send no message of any sort."

There was an impatient note in Donachie's answering voice.

"How the deuce can I do that? How can I keep these chattering magpies from talking?"

"The best way would be to kill them. But you are a Christian, an American." Mahmoud Daud laughed. "You shun sane, efficient methods. Therefore you must go to Latrobe, the commissioner of police. You must have these blacks arrested— tonight, within the hour, before I go. Tell the commissioner as much as you please, as much as you think right. But make sure that they are silent until I return. For I want no sending of messages while I am gone. I want no thumping of wooden drums from village to village."

"But why?"

The Arab made a great gesture. It was more than a gesture. It seemed an incident which cut through the still air like a dramatic shadow.

"Because I know Africa— and because I want to stop the brewing of the miracle."

He left the room with a stately, swinging step, singing softly to himself.

Donachie looked after him. He watched him move through the group of squatting Warangas on the veranda, and pick his way daintily through the refuse which littered the yard.

For a long time he could hear the words and the high-pitched melody of his song; it was a riotous Damascus bazaar couplet which he was in the habit of singing in moments of excitement and stress:

"I married two wives by excess of my folly.

What now will happen to thee, oh husband of two?

I have said: I will be among them a lamb,

Enjoying blessings between two ewes.

But now..."

The voice died in the distance. Donachie rose, left the house, and walked over to the house of the commissioner of police.

And so, within the hour, the Waranga boys of Double-Dee's living-bungalow found themselves in prison, strictly contrary to the law, to habeas corpus, trial by jury, and half-a-dozen similar assorted fetishes of the temperate zone; while Mahmoud Ali Daud, preceded by the chattering and frightened Makupo, was off on a threehundred— mile tramp into the interior.

IT WOULD have surprised even Donachie, who knew Africa, who knew the Arabs, and who especially knew his partner, to see how, half-a-dozen rods into the jungle, the latter's thin veneer of Western civilization and Western sentimentalism took a sudden atavistic backward-jump of several centuries.

For, all at once, without provocation or apparent reason of any sort, the Arab brought his short, thick sjambok down on the head of the negro with the full strength of his lean, muscular arms.

Makupo dropped and howled, while Mahmoud Daud addressed him in a passionless, even voice:

"Dog, and son of many dogs! Woolly one! Calamity! Shame! Evil and odorous thing without name, or morals, or pedigree! Art thou listening?"

The negro did not answer. A pitiful gurgle came from his throat. The whites of his eyes rolled upward, and he kissed the Arab's leather slippers.

But the other paid no attention to the silent entreaty for mercy. Again, with full strength, scientifically, he brought the sjambok down on the writhing black body at his feet.

Then he spoke once more, in the same passionless voice.

"Art thou listening, O disreputable descendant of unbelieving and thrice-born pigs?"

This time the answer came prompt, articulate.

"Yes, master!"

"Aywah! Aywah!" ejaculated the Arab. Then he sat down comfortably on a fallen tree, gathering the folds of his brown traveling burnoose, and resting his feet on the body of the black. "Aywah! It is good. Thou hast come from the north, from up the river, flat-nosed and objectionable, and wearing a red blanket; and thou hast spoken poison-words of evil to the boys of my kraal."

He laughed.

"Thou didst leave thy home in the north, a cock, and thou didst expect to return a peacock, strutting and colorful. Wah! Listen again, he-goat bereft of sense and modesty! Thou wilt return north indeed. But thou wilt not return as a peacock. Thou wilt return as a dog, nosing the ground for me, thy master. Thou wilt sniff well, and thou wilt show me the place of the umlino who sent thee to the coast to speak words of treason, the place where the medicine man makes mysteries. Is that understood?"

"Yes, master."

The Arab kicked the prostrate African three times, in the same place, with calm, deliberate aim.

"If thou shouldst turn traitor, if thou shouldst try to send messages as we pass through the villages on our way up to Grand L'Popo Basin, I shall kill thee. I shall kill thee very slowly. I shall make long cuts into thy unclean skin, and shall afterwards pour boiling oil into the wounds. Also other things; considerably more painful. I shall think them out as the days go by... then, later on, while there is still breath left in thy lungs and blood in thy heart, I shall bury thee... in a shallow grave... where the hyenas and the many little ants will find thee.

"Is it understood?"

Makupo looked up from the ground. He knew that the Arab was giving him true talk.

"Yes, master," he replied.

Mahmoud Daud arose. Once more he kicked the other.

"It is good. It is a compact between thee and me. Get up. Pick up thy pack, and lead the way."

Without another word the African did as he was bid.

Thus the two went on their long overland tramp. Daud's sharp eyes and an occasional thwack of his sjambok saw to it that Makupo stuck to the onesided compact. There was no sneaking aside, no whispering and talking to other natives when they passed through an occasional village demanding food and drink, and, once in a while, a guide. And at night the Arab was careful to gag him securely and to tie him hand and foot, so that there could be no sending of bush messages.

It was a long, heartbreaking tramp; through a crazy network of jungle paths spreading over the land; through long grass and short grass; through grass burned to the roots, and through grass green and juicy, waiting for the stamping, long-horned cattle of the river tribes.

They left the river far to the south, walking in a sweeping, half-circular direction so as to avoid the miasmic, fever-breeding steam of the lowlands. They tramped through thickets where elephant thorns and "wait-a-bits" lacerated their skins, and through somber black forests, where evil, bat-like things flopped lazily overhead, and where slimy, spineless things crawled and squirmed underfoot. They tramped up and down chilly ravines, up and down stony hillsides ablaze with white heat.

They reached the higher table land. Everywhere about them stretched a level country which looked curiously like the sea; for the thick, blade-shaped grass, bleached to silvery whiteness and as high as a man's waist, swayed perpetually like choppy, pale waves. The heat was intense; and the Arab swung along silently, his head swathed in the heavy folds of his brown burnoose, while Makupo walked ahead, arms flopping loosely after the manner of his kind, and crooning to himself in a plaintive, half-articulate way which was like the piping of a lizard.

They struck the Equator on the twentieth day. The sky was cloudless, blazing with a terrible, vindictive heat, and steeped in primitive colors, red, blue and orange, like a futurist painting. So they rested during daytime and walked in the late afternoons and at nights, when it was a little cooler, when the merciless flare had died in the skies, when the far-off hills had turned a faint, pink color, and when the grimness of the bush which stood out in the distance was blurred as in a veil of purple chiffon.

Finally, late one evening, they reached the river again.

Makupo stopped.

"Grand L'Popo Basin!" he said, and pointed straight ahead.

Daud grunted a short, affirmative reply.

They walked down a steep hillside into the steaming valley. From behind the black curtain of trees which lined the banks of the river a great sheaf of yellow lights shot upwards; the campfires of the outer kraals. Then there was a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass roofs.

It was late at night when they came within sight of the station itself. But they could still make out the contours of the agency house, the bulk of the warehouses, the sweep of the jetty, the squat huts of the natives.

The Arab stopped.

"Listen, dog," he said. "Thou wilt now tell me the place of the umlino, the great medicine man who brews the many mysteries, and who sends flatnosed pigs with red blankets to the Coast to whisper poisonous words to my Warangas. Where is this umlino? I want speech with him. Is he north, east, south, or west? Answer, son of a burned father!"Makupo shivered with fear, but he did not reply. The Arab raised the sjambok significantly.

"Answer," he repeated, low-voiced.

The native fell down before him.

"Thus far have I brought thee, master. Have pity! I cannot tell more. The umlino can hear across distances. He can make the clay-gods talk. He—"

He doubled up as if in physical pain, embracing his knees with his hands, swaying from side to side like a chained elephant. He stared at the Arab in a horribly appealing, intolerable manner. Mahmoud Daud smiled.

"Remember our compact, Calamity! Remember the wounds, the boiling oil! Also the hyenas... and the little brown ants which find their way through a shallow grave to a man who is still alive. Do not forget the ants."

Suddenly Makupo rose. He tried to speak— could not. He pointed a shaking hand at a low, flat hut which was plainly visible next to the livingbungalow of the agency.

"There... there..." his words came thick, strangled. "There lives the umlino... there are the red clay-gods who talk, talk!"

Mahmoud Daud whistled through his teeth.

"Eh... in the station... in the station itself?" Then in a lower key, as if speaking to himself. "Merciful Allah! In the station itself... and next to the agency house. Wah!"

Suddenly he smiled, a thin, cruel smile.

"Thou hast well kept the compact, Makupo," he said. "Cometh now thy reward."

There was the flash of a dagger; a quick downward thrust; and Makupo rolled over, without a sound, lifeless. Mahmoud Daud wiped the dagger on a handful of grass and sheathed it again.

Then he walked up to the station.

He was deep in thought. The spark of suspicion which had flared up in his shrewd, grinding brain weeks ago, when he had heard Makupo and the Warangas whispering on the veranda about the umlino and the disappearance of the three agents, had been kindled into flame by the dead man's words.

But what was that tale about red clay-gods who talk? It puzzled him. Some cursed, heathen superstition, he said to himself. He would find out presently.

He smiled. So far he had done well. For he was confident that no bush messages had been sent up the river, warning the blacks of his coming; and thus the medicine man, whatever his name, whatever his savage ambitions, whatever his connection with the disappearance of the three agents, would be unprepared.

Also he had eliminated the chance of treachery on the part of Makupo by killing him as soon as he had served his ends; for, in Mahmoud Daud's own words, "A dead man does not talk of love, and a dead horse does not eat grass."

So he was pleased with himself; and, deeply religious, he droned a low-voiced prayer to Allah, the King of Men, as he swung noiselessly through the rush-fence of the station.

HE fence clearly showed that the place was abandoned to the tender mercies of the blacks and that the directing mind of the White Man was missing; for it was ill-kept, and with the speed of the tropics the few months since the death of the last agent had sufficed to change it into a great mass of vegetation; an entangled, exuberant mingling of leaves, creepers, and odorous flowers; a rolling wave of silent life.

The Arab paused for a moment and looked around. There were no sentinels at the fence gate, no watchmen near the jetty and the warehouses. It was more evident than ever that no bush messages had been sent, that his coming was unexpected, and that the black employees of Double-Dee, in the absence of a master, were devoting themselves to a lengthy and truly African siesta. One of the warehouses was gaping wide open.

The Arab frowned. A great rage rose in his throat. For, true son of Shem, he was a greedy man; a hard businessman who hated waste worse than he hated Shaitan himself.

He crossed the yard silently, noiselessly, and stopped in front of the agency bungalow.

A little shudder ran through him. Beyond the fence he could see the forest standing out spectrally in the dazzling moonlight, and through the stir of the leaves and the refuse, blown about by some vagabond wind of the night, was the mystery, the mad, amazing stillness of the Dark Continent, touching his heart with clay-cold fingers.

Next to the bungalow the medicine-house loomed up, large, flat, low.

The Arab measured the distance between the two houses with his eye. Just a few yards... enough to carry a dead body across and inside. But what then? The bush-detective had investigated the place. He was a first-class man— he would have found some sort of trace if murder had been committed in that hut. And, after all, there were always medicine men in the north, he thought; there were always medicine-houses in the tradingstations.

Yet there was some sort of connection between this umlino and the murder— the disappearance— of the three agents. Of that he was positive. For there was that dead pig with the red blanket who had come down the river to whisper evil words to the peaceful Warangas. There was the memory of things he knew— of former risings, of massacres, revolts, of fire and flame sweeping through the land... and always preceded by the brewing of miracles, the heathenish craft of some ochre-smeared umlino.

He stared at the medicine-hut. A faint light shone through its tightly-woven rush walls.

"O Allah, Lord of Daytime, protect me against the darkness of the night when it overtaketh me!" he whispered. Then, as was his wont, he snapped his fingers rapidly to ward against unspoken evil, and touched reverently the little blue necklace, protection against unclean spirits, which was strung around his neck.

But still the atmosphere oppressed him horribly— a commingling of hatred and contempt for these unbelieving savages, but also of despair and red terror. He had been a fool to come up here alone, he said to himself.

Then he got a hold on his nerves.

He walked up to the medicine-hut with firm steps, and pushed open the door unceremoniously.

With a swing of the door, a heavy rush of air poured from the interior of the building and hit him square in the chest, with almost physical force. Momentarily he felt sick, dazed. For the column of air which came from the building was thick, smoky, fetid— a mixture of oiled, perspiring bodies and burning torches.

He steadied himself and looked.

The interior of the medicine-hut, seen dimly through a reddish fuliginous haze which swirled up to the low ceiling with opalescent tongues, was a sea of naked bodies, black, shiny, supple. Hundreds of natives knelt there, close together, with curved backs, foreheads and outstretched hands touching the ground.

They had neither seen nor heard his entry.

They were swaying rhythmically from side to side with all the hysterical frenzy of the African in moments of supreme religious exaltation; mumbling an amazing, staccato hymn of guttural, clicking words which resembled no human language; with now and then a sharply-defined pause, followed by a deep, heaving murmur, like the response of some satanic litany.

At the farther end of the hut were five man-size idols, roughly shaped to resemble human figures, and covered with red clay: the usual ju-jus of the river tribes.

All this Mahmoud Daud perceived in the flash of a moment; and in the flash of the same moment something touched him. It touched none of his five senses; neither hearing, nor smell, nor vision, nor taste, nor touch itself; it touched a sixth sense, as it were, with a faint flavor of unspeakable death, an aroma of torture and agony.

But he had his wits about him. And when, the very next moment, from behind one of the ju-jus, the umlino appeared with a sharp jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments, the Arab was his old, suave self.

"Greetings, medicine man of the river tribes!" he said in a loud, sonorous voice.

HIS words seemed to galvanize the worshipers. They jumped up, turned, saw the intruder. There were savage, throaty shouts; an ominous rattling of spears and brandishing of broad-bladed daggers. Momentarily they surged forward, a solid black phalanx, with unthinking, elemental force.

Then they stopped. They hesitated. They turned and looked at the umlino, as if asking silently for advice.

And skillfully Mahmoud Daud used the short interval. He took a step forward, a smile on his grave, dark face.

"Greetings, my people!" he said, extending both his hands in a ceremonious salaam.

Then, with slow, stately step, he walked up to them. They gave way instinctively.

Here and there he recognized a man in the crowd, and addressed him by name:

"Ho, Lakaga! Ho, L'wana! Ho, son of Asafi!"

The men gave greetings in return.

A few seconds later he found himself face to face with the medicine man, half-a-dozen feet from the clay-covered ju-jus.

"Greetings, umlino!" he said once more.

The umlino looked at him. A savage glint was in his rolling eyes. But at once it gave way to an expression of deep cunning.

"Greetings, master!" he replied courteously, and bowed.

Mahmoud Daud looked at him. Fanatic, contemptuous of pagan faith, he had never paid much attention to the medicine men who lived near the kraals and sponged on the people of Double-Dee. But even so, he was positive that this was a new medicine man.

At once, with the sharp, quick perception of a photographic shutter, his mind received and registered the fact that this man did not belong to any of the tribes who had their kraals near the station of Grand L'Popo Basin. He came doubtless from farther inland. He looked different from the others.

His hair had been carefully trained in the shape of a helmet, and was ornamented with antelope horns, which stood out on both sides. He wore many-coiled brass-wire anklets which reached from his feet to his knees, and broad brass bracelets on both his forearms. His body was smeared with ochre, while his face was plastered with white and striped with crimson.

Innumerable necklaces of beads were strung around his massive throat, and from his girdle hung a large collection of witch-charms, which flittered and rattled with every gesture and movement. There was something ominous, something savagely superb in the poise of his huge, muscular body.

Mahmoud Daud said to himself that this medicine man was not the ordinary variety of sponger, feeding on the superstitions and fears of the blacks. This was a rich man, as wealth goes in Africa, wearing about his person the value of several elephant tusks.

In his right hand he carried an ebony staff, tipped with gold, from which swung a round something which looked at first like a dried gourd, and which Daud recognized with a little shiver as a human head, scientifically preserved and shriveled.

No, no;... this was not an ordinary medicine man who could be bullied or bribed. This was a man after the pattern of Chakka and Lobengula; a man of cunning and craft, to be met with cunning and craft.

WHEN Mahmoud Daud spoke, it was with hearty sincerity.

"I have heard tell of thy great craft, umlino," he said, squatting down on his haunches with negligent grace and inviting the other to do likewise. "The fame of—"

Suddenly he stopped; it seemed to him that somewhere, quite near, a muffled voice was whispering his name— half-articulate, thick, strangled. At once he dismissed the idea as chimerical. The impression, his sudden silence had only lasted the merest fraction of a second, and so he continued practically in the same breath.

"The fame of thy wisdom has reached the coast. Behold: I have come to see."

The medicine man replied with the same hearty sincerity, parrying easily.

"Thy words are as the sweet winds of night moving gently through the dreadful hours. Thanks! Yet have I heard tell that thou art a Moslem, a follower of the One-God faith, despising the craft of our lodges, and proselytizing among the kraals."

The Arab smiled. For a moment he felt nonplused. He did not know how to reply. The other's thrust had gone home. For, true Arab, he was renowned no less for his business acumen as for his missionary zeal— which, if the truth be told, he helped along with fluent abuse and generous applications of the sjambok.

So he was silent for a few seconds, and looked into the room.

The negroes were massing around close. They were torn between their fear of Mahmoud Ali Daud and the superstitious awe they felt for the medicine man. Somehow, in the back-cells of their savage, atrophied brains, they realized that a decision would be demanded of them presently. Subconsciously they feared it.

So they spoke among themselves, with a confused utterance which came in bursts of uneven strength, with unexpected pauses and throaty yells; a short interval of palpable silence, then again shrill voices leaping into tumultuous shouts.

The Arab knew that he was on the brink of a catastrophe. One wrong word, one wrong gesture, and the avalanche of black bodies would be about him, killing, crushing. So he sat absolutely still, watching beneath lowered eyelids without betraying that he was doing so by the slightest nervous twitching.

Then, very suddenly, he seemed to hear again his name being whispered somewhere close by— by the same thick, strangled voice.

At the same moment he felt that some definite intelligence was focused upon him, an intelligence which held both an entreaty and a demand. It did not come from the brain of the medicine man, nor from any one of the blacks in the crowd. It was some superior intelligence which was trying to communicate with him. It made him nervous, uneasy. He endeavored to force the belief on himself that it was a chimera of his imagination.

But still the impression remained.

The medicine man was talking to him. But he hardly heard the words. Obeying the prompting of the bodiless intelligence, he shifted the least little bit on his supple haunches, so that he was directly face-to-face with the clay covered ju-jus.

Immediately the sensation gained in strength and positiveness. He became aware of one who watched him, one who wanted to talk to him.

He looked narrowly at the ju-jus from underneath his lowered eyelids. They stood in a row. The farthest two were quite crude. Then he noticed, with a little shudder of revulsion, that the other three were startlingly lifelike. Their bodies and arms and legs, beneath the thick covering of red clay, were sculptured and fashioned with extreme skill. Never before had he seen such ju-jus, and he knew Africa from Coast to Coast.

Suddenly the fantastic words of the dead Makupo came back to his memory... "clay-gods who talk, talk." ...Merciful Allah! was there then really such a thing as witchcraft in this stinking, accurst land?

He was about to dismiss the thought with a snapping of the fingers, a mumbled prayer to his favorite Moslem saint, when again he heard his name whispered... faint, muffled, eerie, uncanny. This time there was no doubt of it, and it brought him up rigid, tense, with fists clenched, with eyes glaring. But he controlled himself almost immediately, before the medicine man, who was narrowly watching him, could have noticed it.

He smiled at the umlino. He spoke with a calm, even voice, while at the same time his brain was rapidly working in a different direction.

"Thou hast given true talk, umlino," he said. "My faith is indeed the One-God faith, a tree, whose root is firm, whose branches are spreading, whose shade is perpetual. A Syyed am I, and a Moslem, a follower of the True Prophet, taking refuge with Allah from Shaitan the Stoned, the Father of Lies. Subhan' Allah! A learned man did I think myself when I studied Hadis and Tafsir in the university of Al-Azhar, observing closely the written precepts of the great teachers of the Abu Hanifah sect. Wah! The father and mother of learning and wisdom did I consider myself. Proudly did I enlarge my turban. Ay wa'llahi!"

The medicine man smiled thinly, arrogantly.

"Then, why come here, to the lodge of darkness?"

Again Mahmoud Daud's reply was suave and soft, while his brain was working feverishly. He stared intently at the clay-covered ju-ju which was directly in front of him.

"Because my mind has mirrored a faint glimmering of a new truth... a faint glimmering of the real truth," he repeated with peculiar emphasis, still staring beyond the squatting medicine man at the ju-ju, and imperceptibly nodding his head.

Even as he spoke he knew that he had solved the problem which had brought him here. Gradually his voice gathered volume and incisiveness.

"Because my groping feet have led me to the edge of mysteries, because, no longer blinded by the veil of my intolerance, I have come to thy feet, O umlino, humbly, as a searcher, a disciple."

He rose. Now or never, he said to himself. Once more he stared raptly at the foremost ju-ju; then he turned and addressed the negroes.

"Listen to me, men of the river tribes! For years have I been your master, averting calamity with the hand of kindness and generosity; giving fair prices for rubber and ivory; giving with open hands when your crops were parched; giving yet again when your broad-horned cattle died of the black fever. Who can deny this?"

"Yes," a clicking, high-pitched voice; gave answer. "It is true talk, indeed."

"True— true—" The black, swaying mass of humanity took up the words, like a Greek chorus.

The Arab continued:

"I have spoken to you of my faith, the faith of Islam, when I believed that it was the true path to salvation. Then," he lowered his voice with dramatic intent, "then rumor came to me from the distance of the new mysteries. At first I doubted. I ridiculed. I did not believe. But the rumor grew. It echoed in the ears of my soul— stark, portentous, immutable. It spoke to me at night, sighing on the wings of the wind which came from the upland. It drew me, drew me! Thus I came here— to see— ay, to hear!"

He paused for a breathless moment. Then he shot out the next words.

"I, also, am a searcher in the lodges. I came here to do worship before the gods— the red gods who talk, talk!"

The crowd moaned and shivered. Again the medicine man jumped forward. He lifted his ebony stick with a threatening gesture. But the Arab continued without a tremor.

"Thrice tonight, as I was sitting here exchanging courteous greetings with the umlino, did I hear the gods talk— faintly, faintly— and they called me by name!"

"A lie! A lie!" shrieked the medicine man. "A blasphemous lie! Kill him! Kill— kill—"

There was an uneasy movement in the crowd. They surged forward in a solid body, with an ominous rattling of spears. But the Arab lifted his hands above his head and spoke rapidly.

"Not a lie, but the truth! Ask the gods— ask them!"

Sudden, brown silence fell over the temple. Then, very faint, half-articulate, strangled, a voice came from the first ju-ju.

"Mahmoud Ali Daud!" and again with a peculiar low sob. "Mahmoud—"

The crowd surged back, toward the door. Men were knocked down in the wild flight. They pushed each other. They trampled on each other. There were yells of entreaty and despair, and once a sharper yell as an assegai struck home.

But again the Arab spoke to them.

"Fear not, my people. The gods will not harm you. For I, also, am a searcher. The truth has been revealed to me. Listen, listen!"

Once more the crowd stopped and turned. Mahmoud Daud continued in a lower key.

"Do you remember the disappearance of my three servants, my three white servants, one after the other, within four months?"

"Yes— yes—" came the shivering chorus.

"Good! Leave the hut, and return in an hour. For the gods, being kind gods, have decided to send them back to life, to work once more for me, to rule once more in my name over the river tribes. Now go, go!"

There was a stampede toward the door, and a few seconds later the medicine man and the Arab stood facing each other. Daud smiled.

"Thou knowest, and I know, oh dog! Thou didst kidnap the three white men. Thou didst gag them and cover their bodies with clay, and once in a while give them a little food. And, when they moaned with the great pain, thou didst tell these blacks that the gods talked, talked— eh?"

The medicine man smiled in his turn.

"True, my master. And how didst thou discover the truth?"

"Because I have seen ju-jus a plenty— but never before have I seen a ju-ju with human eyes!"

There was a short silence. The Arab continued:

"Thou wilt help me to release these men from their clay prisons. Also wilt thou tell the people of Grand L'Popo Basin that in the future it is I, Mahmoud Ali Daud, who is the beloved of the gods, the maker of many miracles." Then, half to himself: "It should be worth the value of much rubber, of many ivory tusks."

The medicine man smiled craftily.

"To listen is to obey, master! But my life— is it safe?"

"It is for thee to choose, dog and son of dogs! Either— this—" and he slipped his broad Arab dagger from the voluminous folds of his burnoose, "or thou wilt continue to make medicine. But thou wilt make it in the uplands, in the kraals of the hinterland." He smiled. "And thou wilt make it as a hired servant, a paid servant, of my firm of Donachie & Daud, of Double-Dee!... Hast thou chosen?"

"Yes, master," the medicine man replied. "I shall work for thee and thy partner."

The Arab slipped the dagger back into the folds of his burnoose.

"Mashallah!" he said. "Thou wilt make a shrewd servant."

And he walked up to the clay-covered ju-jus.

___________________

16: In Maulmain Fever-Ward

George Gilbert

1874-1943

The Green Book Magazine Oct 1918

FLOOD-TIME on Salwin River, Burma! Pouk trees and stic-lac in flower. By day the rush, the roar of water fretting at the knees of Kalgai Gorge, above which the Thoungyeen enters the main current. And the music of the elephants' bells as they come along the track bound down or mayhap up to work in the teak forests. By night the languorous scent of the serai vines luring the myriad moths, the wail of the gibbons, the rustle of the bamboos chafing their feathery leaves together in the winds that just falter between rest and motion.

At Kalgai the traders pause in going up or down, over or across. From everywhere they come, and coming, stay to chaffer, to chat, cheat, scheme, love— aye and even slay! Why not? It's life— raw life!

Take away the medicine. Give me rice curry and chicken and fish cooked with green bamboo tips and sourish-sweet pilou of river mussels. And then a whiff of bhang or black Malay tobacco that the gypsies of the sea smuggle in....

My name? Paul Brandon will do. My father was a Stepney coster. Mother? Oh, a half-caste Mandalay woman. Yes, they were married at the mission. He took her home. I was born in London. But I ran away; came East....

Don't mind if I babble, ma'am. And forgive me if I pull at the sheets. Or if the sight of a white woman, old, patient, trying to be kind to me, makes me shy. When my head clears, I'm white; when the fever mist comes over my brain, I see things through my brown mother's eyes.

Thanks for fixing the ice pack on my head. No, that mark on my forehead is not from an old bruise. A Karen-Laos woman put it there with her tattoo needles. It has a meaning. It is the Third Eye of Siva.

Thanks for pulling-to the shade. Those bamboo things the yellow and brown folk use are not shades. They are full of holes where the weaving is that holds them together. Why, you can see through them— see the most unbelievable things....

Oh, yes, the mark on my forehead. A girl put it there with her needles. Now that you touch it, it is sore. Well, so would your head be sore if a giant python had smashed his wedge-shaped head in death stroke against your wrinkled brow, executing the Curse of Siva.

How long have I been in Maulmain?... A week? Well, I won't be here another. But it's queer how a man will drift—to his own people.

Thanks for the little morphine pills. Yes, I know what they are. Give me a dozen, and they may take hold. A man who has smoked bhang, black Malay tobacco and opium, and who has drunk bino isn't going to be hurt by sugar pills. They only wake me up, steady me.

Why didn't I know Pra Oom Bwaht was a liar?...

KAREN town on Thoungyeen River! Temple bells chiming or booming through the mystic, potent dusk; mynah-birds scolding in the thy-tsi trees. Frogs croaking under the banyans' knees in the mud. Women coming to worship in the temples— women with songs on their full red lips and burdens on their heads— and mighty little else on them. And the fat, lazy priests and the monks going about, begging bowls in hand, with their cheelahs to lead them as they beg their evening rice.

Thanks for the lime juice, ma'am. Let me talk. It eases me.

To Karen town on Thoungyeen River— Karen town with its Temple of Siva— I came long before the rains. This year? Mayhap. Last? What do the dead years matter now?

To Karen town I brought wire rods for anklet-making, cloths, mirrors, sweetmeats— an elephant's load. Once there, I let my elephant driver go.

Three days of good trade I had, and my goods were about gone, turned into money and antique carved silver and gold work. At the close of the third day, as I sat in front of the zana, smoking, smoking, smoking, listening to the buzz of the women and children, Pra Oom Bwaht came.

He was tall for a Karen man of the hills, all of five foot two. The Karen plainsmen are taller. He sat a space beside me in silence— sure mark of a man of degree among such chatterers.

"Have you seen the temples of Karen?" he asked finally.

Lazily I looked him over. He was sturdy—a brave man, I thought. He had a cunning eye, a twisty mouth, and in his forehead's middle a black mark showing harsh against his yellow skin.

"What's that?" I asked him, touching the mark. He winced when I did it.

"Dread Bhairava," he said, using the Brahman word for Siva, Queen of the Nagas. He was a snake-worshiper, then. Mighty little of these people or their talk or dialects I don't know.

"Come with me, white trader?" he asked me. "I am Pra Oom Bwaht."

Idly I went. So, after visiting the other temples, we came to the Temple of Siva, perched on its rocks, with the river running near and its little grounds well kept. It was the hour of evening worship. The worshipers, mostly women, were coming in with votive offerings.

But among them all there was a Laos girl, shapely as a roe deer, graceful, brown, with flashing black eyes and shining black hair neatly coiled on top of her pretty head, and with full red lips. As she passed, Oom Bwaht just nudged me— pointed. She turned off at a fork of the path, alone.

I glanced at Pra Oom Bwaht. His twisty mouth was wreathed in a smile.

"She lives at the end of that little path," he tempted. "She is Nagy N'Yang."

"Alone?"

"Alone."

He nodded again and went away. I turned down the side path after the Laos girl....

There was a full moon that night. About the middle of the night we came up the path to the temple again, the Laos girl and I.

"Come," she had said to me when I had asked her for my heart's desire, "come to the temple, and I can prove it is folly."

So we came. The temple door was open. The priests were gone— no one has to watch a Naga temple at night. The dread of Siva is enough to protect it.

A rift in the temple roof let in a shaft of white moonlight. It struck upon the image of Siva. The image was seated on a white ox, carved of some white stone. A sash around the image was made up of human heads; it had six arms, each covered with carved snakes that were so lifelike they seemed to writhe in the wavering light. In the middle of the god's forehead was the mark of the third eye— the scar of Siva.

We went slowly down toward the image. Before it was a huge chest. Nagy N'Yang motioned me to sit on it. She sat beside me. Again I pleaded with her for my heart's desire.

She pushed me away.

"You are afraid to be near me," I mocked.

"Hush," she pleaded. "I am afraid— of yielding to you."

I moved to clasp her, my heart leaping at her confession. She smote her little hands sharply together. I heard a shuffling of softly shod feet in the passage behind the image.

Wat Na Yang, chief priest of the temple, stood before us with his yellow robes, his yellow skin, his hands calmly folded across his paunch. "What seek ye, children?" he asked.

"The way of love," I laughed. I plunged my hand into my robe and felt the gold against my middle.

In the great chest on which we sat something awoke to life. I heard a stir, a rustle, a noise as of straining.

"Nagy speaks," the priest warned.

I felt the Laos girl shudder by my side.

"What is it?" I asked. I stood up. A creeping horror came over me.

Nagy N'Yang sprang up as I did and flung back the lid of the great chest with a strength I had not expected. Out over her shoulder shot a long coil, then another. When she stood erect in the moon-glow, a great rock python was wrapped about her matchless form. The mark of Siva on her forehead gleamed against her ivory brow like an evil blotch, yet it did not take from her beauty, her alluring grace; nor did the immense bulk of the python bear her down.

"The great serpent knows his own," whispered the yellow priest. He pointed with his fat forefinger. I saw the red tongue of the python play over the ivory bosom of the girl.

Yet I did not shudder. It seemed fitting. They were so in harmony with their surroundings.

The eyes of the python blazed in the moon-glow like rubies of the pigeon-blood hue, then like garnets, then like glow-worms; then they sank to a lower range of colors and finally to rest. He was asleep under her caresses. She patted his wedge-shaped head, soothing him. Ah, that it had been my head she thus fondled!

Suddenly Nagy N'Yang seized the great serpent just back of the head, uncoiled it from her with a free, quick succession of movements and cast it into the great chest again. Then, with a curious indrawing of the breath, as if relieved from a nerve strain, she sat down on the chest.

"Well have I seen," I said to her. "But little do I understand."

"I may not wed," she said. "I am Siva's."

"I can kill the snake—"

The thing in the chest stirred its coils uneasily.

"Be silent!" commanded the fat priest. "Would you slay little N'Yang?"

I shuddered. A great bat came in through the rift that let in the moon-glow. In the trees over the temple a gibbon wailed in his sleep like a sick child— "Hoop-oi-oi-oi"!

Wat Na Yang extended his arm before him in a gesture of dismissal.

"Go!" he commanded. Then he placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.

Nagy N'Yang stood up, bowed her head and went down the path the moonbeams made, went into the shadow near the door, and out.

The fat priest sat down on the chest beside me. The mottled terror in the chest was still again.

"She was wed," the priest began, "but on her wedding-day we claimed her. Her husband cannot claim her. But if some one unwittingly kills the great python, she will be free. It must be some one not a friend of the husband. No one will kill the python here. She is temple-bound for life—"

The bulk inside thrilled to life again. I heard the scales rustling as the great coils rose and fell.

"Go, you!" he ordered. "The goddess likes you not. Even if you take the girl, I can call her back or kill her by touching her flesh with a single scale from the Naga in the chest."

He walked with me to the door. At the portal we stood for a space, silent.

The tiled entrance was flooded with moonlight. In the middle of it a cobra lay, stretched out, seemingly asleep— a small cobra, deadly none the less.

"You see," the gross priest said, pointing to the deadly serpent there. "Nagy's spirit watches you here, too. But the girl she did not harm."

Filled with some spirit of Western bravado I could not stifle, I stepped close to the cobra and stamped on its head.

"That for all scaly serpents!" I jeered at him. I stood on the cobra's head while it lashed out its life.

The fat yellow priest watched me, and I could see hatred and horror struggle for mastery on his face.

Coming close to me he began to talk in long, rolling sentences, of which I here and there caught a word. But I caught the sense of what he was saying.

Oh, yes— the fat priest. It was there, in front of the temple, that he put on me, in Sanskrit, the Curse of Siva, ending:

"With gurgling drops of blood, that plenteous stream

From throats quickly cut by us—"

I laughed at him, threw a yellow coin at his face, kicked the dead cobra into the door of the temple— and went down the path toward the Laos girl's hut.

At the hut door she sat, silent, wonderful.

"Come!" I commanded.

"Where?" she asked.

"To Kalgai town by Salwin River," I answered. I took her in my arms.

Yes, I took her! Why not? She was mine, wasn't she? Yes, I took her! Not down the Thoungyeen River or the road along it. Why? We feared pursuit. Five miles below Karen a little hill stream comes to the Thoungyeen River. I never heard its name. We went up that to its springs and then along to the Hlineboay Chuang.

We traveled slowly, afoot, on cattle-back, on elephant-back— as the hill-folk could take us, or as we cared to go. Nagy N'Yang at first was moody, but as we left her own village far behind and got among the greater hills, she was gayer and gayer. I think when we came to Shoaygoon Plains she was happy. I was. It was in Shoaygoon zana that I let her tattoo my forehead with the mark of Siva, to please her and quiet her superstitious fears. It was wrong, yes, for all-whites; but for me, with a brown mother? Mayhap not....

And so we came to Kalgai in Kalgai Gorge, and the rains were not yet come.

We were early. The traders' huts were not filled. Only a few were taken. A Eurasian here, a Russian there, a Tibetan there, and yonder a Chinese.

So I had my choice of the best places and picked the best house in the gorge— on the rock spit that juts into the gorge's biggest bend over the whirlpool.

The house we took was of teak beams and bamboo. For a few gold coins I had its use, entire, with its mats, pots, kettles.

There was a little shilly-shallying of trade, which I did not get into. Traders came up and down and across. I didn't care for traffic just then.

Nagy N'Yang was happy, she told me. I believed it. She went about her little household tasks neatly.

"After the big rains," I told her, "we two take boat for Maulmain and beyond." I was due for a trip up past Rangoon for temple brasses and carved ivory. The air was heavy with the promise of the first of the rains.

"Where you go, I go," she laughed, stuffing my mouth with rice and fish.

She cuddled closer to me on the eating mat we had spread out.

A shadow fell across the open doorway. She screamed.

It was Pra Oom Bwaht, who smiled down on us with his twisty smile.

"Welcome," I said.

He came in boldly and sat down.

"You went quickly from Karen," he said simply.

I could feel my Laos girl wince as she leaned against me. I clutched the dagger inside my robe.

Pra Oom Bwaht smiled his twisty smile.

"How come you here?" I demanded.

"Why should I not?" he asked. "Especially to see my sister—" He pointed to Nagy N'Yang.

She sighed and laughed a little nervous laugh.

"I did not know," I said, "that she was your sister. You are welcome to our poor house."

Pra Oom Bwaht smiled again, got up and stalked out. As he went, the first patter of the rains came, beating up the dust in the space before the door for a few seconds, then laying it all in a puddle of mud again as a great dash of fury came into the storm. But it was only the first baby rain, not enough to make Kalgai whirlpool talk out loud.

I turned to Nagy. She was staring out into the storm.

"I didn't know he was your brother," I said to her.

"All Laos are brother and sister," she replied.

Well, I've found it best to keep out of native feuds and family jangles. "Some old village quarrel back of it," I thought.

ALL NIGHT it rained, and in the morning the river was talking to the cliffs in a louder voice. And the water was up and coming. Bits of drift were floating.

Among the traders I found Pra Oom Bwaht settled in a little hut off by himself. He had scant store of Karen cloths, Laos baskets, some hammered brass. He was sitting on a big box, and it was covered with a mat woven of tree-cotton fiber. He arose to meet me and came to the door.

"Let us chat here," he said. "I like the sun better than the shade."

It was queer to deny me a seat beside him, I thought; but I let it pass. I was not paying much attention to details then.

So we sat in the doorway and watched the rain and heard the river talking to Kalgai Gorge. Trade was slack and would be until the greater rains came bearing boats and rafts from above and over and beyond, from up the river and the little rivers coming into it.

I could make nothing of Pra Oom Bwaht, I say. I left him and went out to chaffer a bit.

"Who knows the Karen fool?" Ali Beg, just down from Szechuan after trading rifles to Chinese Mohammedans for opium, demanded of me from the door of his own place.

"Why?" I asked.

"He trades like a fool, letting a rupee's worth go for a pice."

"Let him," I laughed, "so long as he keeps away from me."

"And yours?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Come in and drink of tea with me," he invited.

So I went in and we sat eye to eye, face to face, across his little teakwood table, each squatting on his heels, and drank tea and talked of many things.

"Now that we have said all the useless things, tell me what is at the bottom of thy heart," Ali demanded. Up there the important things are kept for the dessert of the talk.

He was an old friend, with his coal-black eyes, great hairy arms and rippling black beard.

"Thus it was, heart of my soul," I said, laying hold of a lock of his beard up under his green turban, in token of entire truth-telling. "Thus it was"— and I tugged at the lock of beard. So I told him the tale, from the time of my going to Karen until the time of my coming to Kalgai town and the arrival of Pra Oom Bwaht.

He sat a long time in silence.

Then he reached into his robe and drew out a fine dagger of Sikh smithy work, hammered, figured on the blade, keen, heavy of hilt; in the tip of the handle a ball of polished steel, hollow and filled with mercury. It was a throwing knife.

"Take this," Ali urged. "I taught thee how to cast it at a foe years ago when we first went up the great river together. I go from here to-night by boats toward Maulmain. It will fall out with thee as it will fall out."

I took the dagger because it was Ali's gift, not because I was afraid. Why should I fear anything that walked on two legs or four? Even though it wore a tail or horns?

At nightfall I went back to my house on the rock spit. The stream was roaring now— like a baby lion.

Nagy N'Yang was sitting in the open doorway as I came up the path. I saw she had her chin in her hand and was thinking deeply.

"I saw him," I made answer to the question in her eyes.

"Did he receive you well?"

"Except that he did not have me to sit beside him on his big trader's box in his hut, but took me to the doorway to talk. It was not friendly."

"Aha!" Just like that— soft, thoughtful.

"But what do I care for him, with his Karen cloths or hammered brass?" I chattered at her. "Come to me, Sweet One of a Thousand Delights."

SO THE DAYS and the evenings and nights went by, and the greater rains followed the lesser. The river crept up and up and up, roaring now to the cliffs, like old lions.

Then came a day when on going home at eve I stooped at the river's brim near the house we had on the rock spit, and felt of the water. It was chilled. "The flood is full," I thought. I had felt the snow-chill from the Tibetan Himalayas in hoary Salwin's yellow flood. When that comes, the utmost sources of the world have been tapped for flood water.

"The river will begin to fall to-morrow," I told Nagy N'Yang when I came into the place. "We will go soon after, when the big trading is over."

She smiled at me. Then she patted with her soft hand the place where she had tattooed on my brow the mark of the third eye of Siva. It was healed.

"I care not where we go, or if we go or stay, so long as you are with me," she whispered, close against my side.

After the evening meal we sat in the doorway and heard the river talking. Often the big whirlpool sighed or moaned.

"It will almost cover our rock spit," I said. I knew by the lift of it by day and the noise of it by night that the flood was a mighty one and would spend its chief force that night.

She nodded and nestled closer to me.

Out of the shade before us a greater shade silently loomed.

"I greet you, my sister and brother," Pra Oom Bwaht said, standing before us.

Nagy N'Yang shivered against my side. I felt the dagger under my robe.

A single beam from our brazier inside struck across his twisty face. He stretched out his hand toward Nagy N'Yang.

"A gift for my sister," he said.

She half reached her hand out, took it back, reached again and took it back; then, as if impelled by a force too strong to resist, reached again. Into her palm dropped something that shone for a tiny space in the yellow gleam of the brazier's ray. She shut her hand— caught it to her breast. I thought it was a tiny golden bangle— then.

"Come," said Pra Oom Bwaht. "Let us walk apart for a moment. I have family matters to talk over. Your husband will permit."

I wanted her to protest, but she did not. She got up calmly and went with him out onto the rock spit. I was between them and the mainland. They could not go away by river. No harm would come to her, it seemed. "Some tribal custom to be attended to," I thought. It is best not to be too curious about such matters up among the hills of Burma and Siam, ma'am. If you are, your wife suffers, not you.

For a long time I could hear them talking out there in the dark, with the river talking in between whiles. Once I heard a sound like a great sigh or sobbing moan. "The whirlpool at the river's bed," I thought, "taking in a great tree or raft."

Soon after that the back mat of the house lifted, and I thought they had come in by that way. I sat, peering into the gloom inside, ready to greet them, when something crashed on to the back of my head and I forgot for a time.

I came back to memory in a daze and feeling much pain in my head. The brazier flared beside me. Bending over me was Pra Oom Bwaht, with a knife in his hand.

"Son of a pig!" he said.

"Where is Nagy N'Yang?" I asked.

He smiled at me— his cursed twisty smile.

"On the river's brink she waits, bound to a great teak log lodged at the end of the spit," he cried hoarsely. "When the flood comes to its full, she will float away—"

I spat full into his face. I thought it would make him slay me.

He wiped the spittle from his chops calmly. When an Oriental takes an insult calmly, beware! There is more to come.

"She was my wife," he said, as if that explained everything.

"Was or is, it makes no difference to me," I stormed. "She is mine now."

"She is Siva's," he jeered. "Think you that as she swirls down into the whirlpool at the river's bend the great river python, mother of all the pythons, will not take her? Placed I the yellow scale of Nagy in her hand for naught?"

I shuddered. The legend of the great river python at Kalgai Gorge had been told to me oft. It slept in the great pool where the whirlpool formed in flood-time and only came out for prey when the depths were stirred by a monstrous flood such as this one, the natives said.

"Why did you tell me she was your sister?" I demanded.

"We made it up, she and I. She was wedded, as the priest told you, but to me. I was listening in the bamboos when you planned your trip here from Karen that night after the priest cursed you from the door of Siva's temple. I heard him curse you and saw you turn down the path to our hut. If you had slain the python in the temple, without me helping, she would have been freed. We planned that you should make love, a little. Enough so you would kill the great snake and win her from it; I to come after and take her. But you won her whole heart, curse you—"

Up went his hand to slay. While he had raved and chattered at me, my head had been clearing. As he stiffened for the death stroke, I reached for the down-coming hand and caught his wrist—the wrist whose sinewy muscles were driving the knife home. I held his arm back. He clutched for my throat with his other hand. We strove, and I rolled him and came on top. Up I surged, dragging him with me. With one awful thrust I sent him crashing against the wall.

He had barely come to rest against the teak beams before his hand went up and I dodged— just as his knife whizzed past my ear. Plucking the great dagger of Ali Beg from my bosom, I cast it, in the manner of the Inner Mongolian Mohammedans. The great blade plunged forward. I had pinned him to the wall as a butterfly collector pins a specimen to a card in his collecting box.

I stepped forward to get my dagger. Pra Oom Bwaht, his throat full of blood, his heart seared with black hatred, glared at me.

"The Curse of Siva remain on you and yours...."

So he died.

Plucking my dagger from him, I kicked over the glowing brazier and raced for the rock spit's end as he crashed down— mere battered clay.

As I came to it, the last of the rain for the night whipped my face, reviving me. The moon peeped forth. There was no teak log there!

Another rift in the clouds made plain my error. The flood was over all former flood-marks. The teak log, as the moon's second peep showed, was on the point of rocks, but they were now in the stream, many paces from the present shore-line. The log, caught on the jagged stones, hung and swayed. It was just on the point of going out. I could see a dark mass, midway of the log. "It is Nagy N'Yang," I thought. The hut was blazing now from the brazier's scattered coals, giving me plenty of light.

I glanced about the rock spit. A few paces to the right something black showed in the gloom. I went to it quickly, hoping to find a boat. It was a great chest. Feeling for the key or handle, I clutched a catch. I turned it, threw up the lid, just as the moon came forth.

Out of the depths of the box reared a great python, hissing horribly. I recoiled in terror. The box, as I saw in the moon-glow, was the snake box of Karen temple, the one in which Nagy N'Yang's serpent had been kept.

Pra Oom Bwaht had had it carried to Kalgai Gorge and also to our rock spit that night to suit some of his own black schemes of vengeance. His bearers had carried the box unwittingly. While I trembled, the great snake glided to the river's brink and disappeared. I now had the big chest and thought to use it as a rough boat to rescue my love.

Then I turned to view the teak log again. I tugged at the chest. It was too heavy for me. Another fitful rift of moonlight came, and I saw the giant teak log sway. Without waiting for more ill fortune, I plunged into the river and swam through the swirling eddies for the log.

I just made it. But at the touch of my numbed finger on its root ends, it started. The mere touch was enough to set it adrift. I clutched, caught a root fiber, held, edged along the rootlet till I had a better hold, drew myself up on to the root end of the huge log— and then heard the sobbing moan of Kalgai whirlpool.

Already we were at the pool's edge. The log began to whirl and sway. I made a prayer for my Laos girl, that she might be unconscious during the plunge below. If she were, she would live, as she would not be breathing. As for me, I felt I could hold my breath the two minutes necessary. I often had seen the logs go down the suck-hole and come up. The average time was two minutes for that. What happened to them under the pool I had no means of knowing. I hoped to be able to cling to the log. The girl was bound fast.... The log up-ended and went down!

We swirled through great depths, and often I felt us hit against rocks and other logs in the lower silences. At the pit's bottom there seemed no sound, but on the way down and up there was a great roaring. It seemed that my lungs would burst. But I kept my breath, having, as you see, great lung space. We began to rise, and as I felt it, something slowed us down. I felt weak and was about to drop off when something bound me to the great log, pressing me tightly against the mass of roots. So we shot into the moonlight.

I was wrapped in the folds of the mighty python, who had thrown a coil about the tree-trunk in the lowest depths of the pool! That immense weight it was that had kept us from emerging sooner. We had come up below the maelstrom upon emerging.

My right arm was free. I reached my belt with it and found my dagger there. In the moonlight, over the coils of the monster, I could see the ivory-white face of my Laos girl as she lay out on the huge log like a crushed lily. I could not tell if she still lived or had died.

The motion of reaching for my dagger aroused the python. It thrust its head back toward my face, questing with its tongue, that queer organ with which it sees in the dark. I felt the darting, forked terror on my dripping features. The python threw back its coil a bit and thrust at my forehead with its wedge-shaped head, using the python's death stroke. I had still sense enough to draw my head to one side, but not before the hornlike, rounded head-front had dazed me with a glancing blow on the brow, where the mark of Siva had been tattooed by Nagy N'Yang.

Again I saw the beast draw back its head for a surer stroke. As it struck, I held the dagger true in front of its oncoming head. The force of the blow, not my strength, caused the blade of the dagger to sink into the immense, hard, tense neck-muscles, through and through. The snake, furious with pain, stricken to death, in one awful convulsive struggle cast itself into the raging Salwin, taking the dagger of Ali Beg with it. Why it did not take me down in its coils, I know not....

Yes, I am sweating now. I feel better. My head is clearer....

I wish Nagy N'Yang were here to lay her cool, ivory-white hand on my forehead where the python's wedge-shaped head crashed against mine— on the black mark of Siva....

But my fever is breaking.

Yes, I feel easier, much easier....

Yes, that is all of my story....

What? Ali Beg found us together on a giant teak log at the river's bend at Maung Haut, where he had stopped to trade? And, tightly clasped in Nagy's hand was something strange? Show it me!

It is the belly scale of a great river python.

Burn it! Hold the night taper flame to it! Ah, that ends the fat priest's evil spell!

Where is Ali Beg? Here! And Nagy? Here, too!!

Wheel our cots together, ma'am!

Only let me clasp her hand again. Thanks; it is warm; she is alive!

No; we won't go up-country again. Why? Because when our first child comes, I want it born outside— out from under the shadow of the dread Curse of Siva!

___________________

17: A Person from the Police

Ernest M Poate

1884-1935

Detective Story Magazine, 6 Jan 1920

WITH a hint of sullen reluctance, Steward Lancaster opened the door of the doctor's waiting room. He was a lean, hard-bitten old gentleman, with a red, venous face and a gaunt, red, wrinkled neck, rather like a turkey gobbler's; by no means a handsome man, yet not entirely undistinguished, with a look about him of hard, driving power. Glancing at his set face, one might have said that here was a man of unquestioned force; and then, on closer scrutiny, have doubted it after all, for his craggy features were marred and seamed with the deep-etched lines of passion uncontrolled.

Such was the man who pushed open the door of Doctor Durand's waiting room and glanced within, a look of sulky defiance in his hot, gray eyes. He detested doctors, regarding them with the cynical suspicion of one who has seldom needed their services; only the increasing frequency of those attacks of dizziness, weighing the advice of his tired, colorless wife, had driven him here at last.

The door to the consulting room was closed. Evidently Doctor Durand was closeted with a patient. Lancaster glanced about. It was nearing seven; the doctor's evening office hour was almost over. There were only two ahead of him, and they seemed to be together. Perhaps he would not be late to dinner after all.

Even as he entered, one of these two— a stalwart person in neat blue serge— was rising from his seat. Lancaster looked at him cursorily; the fellow did not seem in need of medical attention. He radiated health. He was strongly built; the breadth of his shoulders was accentuated by the cut of his double- breasted coat, which in some indefinable way suggested a uniform. His hands were big and capable looking, yet soft and well kept. Nota laboring man, after all, thought Lancaster, and looked again, touched with that curiosity which causes the prospective patients in a doctor's waiting room to exchange furtive, measuring glances.

The other leaned over his companion, on his broad face that curious blending of watchfulness and patience which marks the professional nurse.

"You wait right here, Mr. Rankin," he was saying. "Don't get up or anything. I'll be back in five minutes." He walked toward the door on deft, noiseless feet.

"Some kind of a nurse," thought Lancaster, and dismissed him. "Though the other fellow looks strong enough to get about alone."

He walked over to the library table, inwardly fuming. True, it seemed that he must wait only for one patient, instead of two; but why must we wait at all? If Durand didn't hurry he'd be late for dinner after all— and Mr. Lancaster was a hearty feeder; a gourmand rather than a gourmet. A fool proceeding anyhow, he grumbled to himself. Durand would feel his pulse and examine his tongue and look wise. He'd spring a lot of big words, and then prescribe some simple thing— soda mints, like as not. Probably nothing but indigestion, anyhow; he was a fool to wait. Still—those dizzy spells made one nervous. He put a hand to his forehead in a gesture which had become habitual of late.

He pawed impatiently over a pile of magazines. Bah!—all out of date, as usual, Irritably, Mr. Lancaster turned to the other man, now left-alone with him.

"Why don't doctors and dentists ever lay in a new stock of magazines?" he grumbled. "Never saw one yet in a doctor's office under six months old."

The other's fine-featured: face lit up with a pleasant smile. He was an amiable, rather clerical-looking individual, with thick, silky white hair. In a well-bred, conversational tone he replied:

"Go to hell."

Slowly  purpling, Mr. Lancaster glared at him in amazement. Surely he had not heard aright! The fellow's manner was mild as new milk.

"Wh-what did you say?" he demanded.

The other man looked horrified. His clear-cut face was painfully flushed. He was plainly overcome with embarrassment.

"Go— go to hell," he repeated, in a tone of abject apology.

Yes, there was no mistaking it this time. That was what the fellow said. Speechless with fury, Lancaster gave vent to a sort of wordless roar. Great veins swelled out on neck and temple; he clenched a trembling fist and ad- vanced threateningly. His unwilling antagonist, crimson with mortification, made pathetically placating gestures, stammering almost tearfully:

"Go to hell— hell— hell !"

In the midst of this tumult the consulting-room door opened and Doctor Durand appeared, ushering out his patient. At the same time the stranger's companion rushed breathlessly in.

"Are you this nut's keeper?" queried Lancaster, turning wrathfully to this last arrival. "Take this lunatic away before I hit him!"

Doctor Durand came swiftly forward. "Be quiet, man!" he whispered sternly, grasping Lancaster's arm. Then he turned to the man in blue serge.

"Kelly," demanded his severe voice, "what do you mean by leaving Mr. Rankin alone in this way? You ought to have known that something would happen. No excuses, now!" he cut the other short. "Go inside. Come, Mr. Rankin, don't distress yourself, I'll explain." Over his shoulder he scowled at Lancaster, tapping his forehead.

"Come, Mr. Rankin," he repeated.  "The other gentleman apologizes; he didn't understand. Don't excite yourself, now."

The door to the consulting room closed, leaving Lancaster alone. That choleric gentleman paced up and down furiously, debating within himself whether he ought not to leave the place in dudgeon. But a fresh wave of vertigo decided him to stay. He must see what could be done about these attacks. Only, he'd be confounded if he'd apologize to that nut. Let Durand settle it; served him right if there was trouble about it. He'd no business to have a crazy man in his office, insulting decent folks that way.

So Mr. Lancaster was in a highly aggrieved state when the inner door opened, fifteen minutes later, and Mr. Rankin emerged, followed by a chastened attendant. He did not demand an apology; the poor man was still agitated and tearful. He glanced timidly at Lancaster, scowling in his corner, and murmured a deprecatory something under his breath. It sounded very like: "Go to hell!"

"Bah!" said Lancaster explosively, and tossed aside a year-old copy of the magazine he had been thumbing. Still fuming with rage, he entered the consulting room and faced Doctor Durand.

That calm, bearded person looked at him in frank disapproval.

"You've muddled Rankin up for a week now," said he severely. "You ought to have more sense. Poor chap! He has a motor aphasia. Four months ago he had a slight stroke. A tiny clot of blood lodged in his brain, and cut off the nerve fibers which run to the speech center, disconnecting it from the part of the brain where ideas are made into words. So he can think clearly just what he wants to say, but he can't telegraph his thoughts to his lips and tongue. The wires are down. And, as sometimes happens in such cases, the speech center has still the power to produce two or three words— often the last words the patient used before the shock— though I hope not in this case."

He smiled slightly.

"You see, Rankin's a clergyman. Well, anyway, his speech center is set, like a phonograph with the top locked. He can't change the record. Whenever his brain makes up a speech and tries to telegraph it down to Broca's convolution, the same thing happens. He says 'Go to hell.' It's pitiful, isn't it?"

Mr. Lancaster grunted irritably; his late encounter still rankled. "I thought the fellow must be crazy," he grumbled.

"No," said the doctor sharply. "He's not crazy. He's as sane as you are. He understands everything you say; and he can write his thoughts perfectly well. It's only that he can't talk. Whatever he tries to say, his mental phonograph can only play over the same record. His mind's all right; it's only that his lips and tongue have forgotten how to say any other words."

Lancaster grunted again. He wasn't particularly interested in this explanation. 'Well, anyhow," he contended, "such people ought to be kept locked up."

Doctor Durand made no comment; but he looked coldly at his patient, bearded lips compressed in disapproval.

"Perhaps," he agreed, distantly courteous. "What can I do for you, Mr. Lancaster ?"

"Why," explained the other, "my wife made me come. I think it's all foolishness, myself. Been working too hard, or something." The doctor glanced at his watch; Lancaster scowled, and came to the point. 'You see, doctor, I have a good deal of headache, especially in the morning. And if I stoop over, or stand up too quick, it makes me dizzy. I have noises in my head, and sometimes a little click, as if something'd broken loose there. And then I'll be dizzy for a minute, and if I'm talking I get stuck; I can't just seem to find the right. words for a minute. And my wife says I have spells of just staring, as if I was unconscious, and she can't make me understand anything she says. Of course that last is absurd. She exaggerates; you know how the women are."

"Ah!" replied Doctor Durand non-committally. "Let's have a look at you. No, take your shirt right off. I want to go over your chest."

Suppressing a protest, Lancaster stripped to the waist, exposing a lean chest.

Doctor Durand looked with professional approval at the thick, corded muscles.

"Well set up for a man of— let me see! It must be nearly sixty-five?" he commented, producing his stethoscope.

"Sixty-seven," corrected Lancaster reluctantly. He did not like to mention his age. The thought of it annoyed him. He was no grandpa; he could still enjoy a cold bottle and a gay time with the best of 'em.

Thumping and listening Doctor Durand went over heart and lungs with care, and at last wrapped the rubber band of a sphygmomanometer about Lancaster's left upper arm.

"I'm going to take your blood pressure," said he, adjusting rubber tubes.

With a little air pump he inflated the hollow arm band, eyes upon the wavering column of mercury in a U-shaped glass tube. Then, with stethoscope applied to the artery at the bend of his patient's elbow, he released the air pressure little by little. Lancaster watched the mercury column dropping slowly in response, until at last it remained stationary against a graduated slide, only moving up and down with each heartbeat.

"Ah!" said the doctor gravely, and repeated the process. It seemed to Lancaster, watching uneasily, that the mercury stood pretty near the top of the graduated scale. He wondered what that might mean, oppressed, as we all are, by the mysteries of medical apparatus.

"Ah-h!" repeated the doctor, upon a rising note. "It's no wonder you've had headaches and dizzy spells, Laneaster. Blood pressure two hundred and sixty-five—more than double the normal, Dear me, dear me!

"I'll give you a prescription," he went on placidly. "But diet and hygiene are much more important in such cases as this. You've got a bad case of arterio-sclerosis, my friend; hardening of the arteries, you know. A serious case! You'll have to cut out red meats and live carefully; milk and toast and green vegetables from now on, Lancaster. I'll fix you up a diet and send it around. And if you've got any private stock laid by, give it away." Lancaster groaned; he liked his toddy. But the doctor's manner frightened him. "No more drinks for you. Prohibition may save a lot of you old rounders, in spite of yourselves.

"Get this filled." He handed over a scribbled prescription. "Ten drops in water, after each meal. And remember —light diet. No red meats, sweets, or fancy cheeses—" Lancaster groaned once more, being fond of Gorgonzola. "Lie down for half an hour after each meal. And be especially careful to avoid all excitement. You've got a vile temper, Lancaster," he went on, with the fearless outspokenness of the old family practitioner. "A fiendish temper. If you let it get away from you, you'll suffer."

Lancaster's lean face began to redden; the veins of his neck swelled. But he controlled himself with difficulty. "Maybe—maybe you're right, doctor," he confessed meekly, still a little awed by the other's manner.

"Of course I'm right," said Doctor Durand calmly. 'Why, just now you were ready to hit poor Rankin. You've got to cut it out; you've got to keep your temper, unless you want a stroke some day in one of those childish rages. An apoplexy, perhaps— or an aphasia, like poor Rankin, there. How'd you like to be left with no words on your tongue except some that I've heard you use when you were angry?"

And Lancaster flushed again, this time with shame, for he was foul- mouthed in his tempers.

"You must avoid all excitement," emphasized the doctor. "Worry, temper, any severe nervous strain, may bring on an apoplexy at any time. Youll have to settle down and live quietly, man."

Rather subdued, Stewart Lancaster accepted his prescription and went out. His mood was considerably chastened; he was remorseful, if not repentant. No doubt he had been irritable and excitable at times; the Lancasters were all high-tempered men. There was his grandfather, who, at the age of seventy, had given an erring truck driver a severe beating. He chuckled at the old gentleman's spirit, then cringed a little, involuntarily. He remembered that soon after old Mr. Lancaster had died in an apoplexy.

Well, he would reform. He hadn't really a bad temper, like that, anyhow; he was merely a trifle hasty at times. He would control himself. And on this resolve he turned his steps homeward, remembering to walk slowly, although it was already past his dinner time. Well, what difference did it make? He couldn't eat anything but gruel, anyhow. Already he felt older and more feeble. His temples pounded dizzily. He was a sick man; he was convinced of that, and pitied himself accordingly.

At the corner drug store he presented his prescription. Taking it, the pharmacist seemed to look pityingly at him. Did he really look as bad as that, he wondered, glancing into the mirror behind the soda fountain.

At home, he answered his wife's anxious questions with an amiability which terrified her. Stewart must really be ill; he was so sweet-tempered. She wiped away furtive tears as she ordered his modest meal.

But Lancaster's resolutions were strained severely by his dinner. He ate milk toast and spinach, following the doctor's dietary faithfully; but his gorge rose against this fare. How was a fellow to keep his temper on such pap as this, he thought, wrathfully.

Across the table, his colorless, ineffectual wife watched his scowling face with well-grounded apprehension. She did hope Stewart wasn't going to have one of his tempers to-night. At any rate, this was a mood more natural than that sick amiability of his first entrance.

Internally Lancaster fumed and boiled. But he controlled his rising anger, grumbling disgustedly through the meal, and pushed back his chair.

"Are you ready to dress, Stewart?" asked his wife timidly. "You know we're to go to the Allen's to-night, for bridge."

"No!" snarled her husband. "I'm a sick man, I've got to lie down." Her weak lips trembled. "But wh-what shall I do?' she protested. "They're expecting us both,"

"Do!" he snapped. "What do I care? Go alone— stay at home— go to the movies. Here I am sick— liable to have a stroke at any minute— to die, maybe— and you blurb about bridge. Bah! That's all the sympathy I get!"

He flung out, disregarding her tearful protests, and stamped up to his room, while his wife strove to concoct some excuse for him. It must be a good one; already Mr. Stewart Lancaster's temper was too well known. But her imagination faltered. Sudden illness, it must be; and she would stay and nurse him. After all, it was the truth, she thought, defensively, even while she cringed at her friends' conjectures as to the nature of that illness.

While she laid off her evening gown for a kimono, her husband lay on his bed. These were fool orders for a doctor to give, he thought, resentfully; but he would carry them out. He didn't want an apoplexy. The crimson, mortified face of the man Rankin rose before his mind's eye with a new significance; he heard again that tearfully apologetic murmur, "Go to hell!" and shuddered, struggling to compose himself for a nap.

Then came a sharp rap upon his bed-room door.

Lancaster growled inarticulately. Was his new routine to be broken into thus?

"Get out, whoever you are," he called through the door. "Go away! I'm not to be disturbed."

"But I've got to see you, Uncle Stewart," insisted an anxious voice.

"Bah!" snarled Lancaster. "Come to-morrow." He swore under his breath, scowling viciously, for the voice belonged to William Soames, his nephew and ward; a soft, amiable young man, whom every one still called "Billy," although he was nearing his thirtieth birthday. Between these two was an ancient enmity; on one side, the contempt of the hard-bitten elder for a vacillating, spineless boy, on the other the dull resentment of an amiable child whose: diffidently affectionate advances had been rejected throughout a loveless boyhood.

"I've just got to see you to-night," persisted the quavering, worried voice.

Lancaster hesitated, growling to himself, then surrendered with an impatient oath. There were reasons why he should not antagonize the other just now.

"All right; then," he called ungraciously. "Go to the study. I'll be down presently."

Shrugging into a house coat, he stepped into his slippers and descended the stairs; He entered his study and dropped into a chair, facing the younger man across his flat-topped desk.

"Well," he demanded morosely, "what's the matter now?"

Soames fidgeted a moment, looking down at his bitten nails. His round face was harassed and pale, creased into unaccustomed lines of worry.

"I— I'm in trouble," he began hesi- tantly. "You see—why, that is, a payment on my mortgage comes due next week, and I can't meet it. And— and I backed a note for a friend, and he let it go to protest. And so I came to you."

Lancaster gave him a hard, measuring glance. "You backed a note," he repeated scornfully. "Yes— you would, I suppose. And so you came to me," he mocked. "Why to me?"

The younger man flushed resentfully at his tone. His boyishly curving lips trembled. "Because " he faltered. "Because Then, gaining boldness from his anger. "Well, my birthday comes the third of next month. You've got to turn over all my property then, anyway— a hundred thousand, it must be. And I should think you might advance me a little now."

Lancaster frowned, pulling at his chin. He had counted on his ward's complaisance in this matter. It would cramp him dreadfully, he admitted to himself, if he turned over Soames' money in full, even next month. And just now—"

"Can't you borrow on your expectations?" he asked.

His nephew gave a despairing laugh. "Borrow?" he repeated. "Do you think I haven't borrowed? Do you think I'd come to you before I tried everything else?' he demanded, a flash of the old animosity coming to the surface. "Do you think I'd ask you for anything if I could help it?"

Lancaster stared at him, flint-faced, unyielding.

"I tell you, you've got to do it," the boy ran on wildly. "You know how I've dragged and pinched along for years, waiting for that money. You know—and you never did a thing to help me out."

" 'To be held in trust for my son, William Justin Soames,' " quoted Lan- caster, unmoved, " 'until his thirtieth birthday, unless in the judgment of said trustee, Stewart Lancaster, he shall be considered fit to be trusted with its responsibilities before that date.' And you've just shown, by backing another man's note, that you're not fit to be trusted with money, even yet."

Soames gazed at him resentfully.

"You could have given me an allowance, at least," he whined. "Father provided for that. You've just taken advantage of the terms of that infernal will to keep me down. Here I am, working and slaving— a twenty-dollar bookkeeper, and my wife making her own clothes, while you hold my money. But I'm going to have it now. I've got to have it, I tell you! Do you think that mortgage is all? I've been running behind for months and months, trying to hold out till August third, and I can't do it any longer. They're onto me, down at the office; they're putting an expert on my books to-morrow. Tomorrow, do you hear?' His voice broke thickly. "It means disgrace— jail! I can't stand it! Think of my wife!"

The older man glared across the desk. His lean, red face suffused slowly, but his voice was cold. In his hard eyes there was a gleam almost of satisfaction. "So it's come to that!" said he slowly, all the smoldering hatred of years in his harsh voice; that bitter hatred of close relatives, more relent- less and unyielding than any other. "So it's come to that! A defaulter, are you? A criminal! And now you want me to compound a felony?"

Crimson with shame, Soames faced him, soft brown eyes wavering. "Well, yes," he admitted shamefacedly. 'All I need for that is five hundred and forty-two dollars, to make my cash balance. They'd never find anything wrong with the books, then. And then there's the mortgage—" His voice trailed away as he watched the stubborn, forbidding face opposite.

His head drooped with the prevision of failure, but the knowledge of imninent disgrace drove him on. He drew a small revolver from his coat pocket, and laid it on the desk before him. "Do you see that?" he demanded. It's the only way out, unless you help me now— to-night! I won't go to jail— I can't. I tell you I can't!" It was a hoarse, despairing scream.

Lancaster watched this facile emotion with unconcealed contempt. "Put that thing away," he said, with a sneer. "You haven't the nerve to use it, anyhow." And Soames' unsteady brown eyes confirmed the truth of this.

Seeing the other's futility, a bitter sense of wrong rose in Lancaster's breast; he reviewed their lifelong conflict of purpose and aspiration, seeing himself always right, the other always vacillating, unready, overanxious to please. That his own sister, whom he had truly loved, should have had such a son as this! The thought burned in him, hardening his heart.

"I might have expected this," he went on slowly. " 'Billy' Soames"—and the very name was a sneer— "you're no good. You never were any good. Why should I lift you out of this scrape, only to have you get mixed up in a worse one? You've made your bed; now lie on it! You can talk to me about your money on the third of August. Not before."

Soames gogeled at him in pitiable agitation. On his round, weak face despair mirrored itself; despair fol- lowed by resentment, by dawning suspi- cion.

"You won't help me?" he asked, gasping incredulously; and Lancaster shook his head stubbornly. 'You won't help me?" And then: "You won't— can you?"

No answer.

"Have you spent my money?" asked the boy.

Lancaster merely stared at him coldly, unwaveringly.

Furious, shaking all over with the blind fury of a weak man, the younger man half rose, one trembling finger out-thrust, just beneath his uncle's nose.

"You won't help me," he repeated. "Do you know what I think?" His voice rose to a shout. "I think you've stolen my money, you old thief! Why, you're worse than I am— I always meant to be honest!"

His half incoherent clamorings filled the room. At the accusation, Lancaster, too, rose to his feet, his rage burning the hotter for its uncomfortable hint of truth. His temper, hardly restrained from the beginning of the interview, suddenly overmastered him, exploding in insensate fury. Across his eyes came a red mist, shot with flaming lights; the pounding in his temples increased to a deafening pitch. There was a thin froth upon his writhing lips; for the moment he was irresponsible, insane with anger.

Scarcely conscious of what he did, seeing only that loose-lipped, weakly accusing face so long hated, he caught up the pistol still lying on the table between them,

There was a flash, a dull, muffled explosion—

The look in the face so near his own changed slowly. Rage faded out, giving place to a mild wonder. Soames falteringly put a hand to his chest and brought it away, stained red.

"Why," said he childishly, "my fingers are all wet!"

Then he doubled forward, joint by joint, sliding gently from his chair to the floor, where he lay in a crumpled, pitiful heap, moveless and inert.

So much Lancaster saw through a scarlet mist. Then his gust of passion blew itself out, leaving him spent and shaken, faintly nauseated, as he leaned over that quiet form. Yes; the boy was dead. Quite dead!

At the knowledge, a wave of vertigo swept over him. For a moment he rocked on his feet; then, suddenly, his mind was preternaturally clear and acute.

There was no time for regret, for indecision, for panic. Already he heard the drum of running feet; a servant cried out sharply from the hall below.

Stooping swiftly, Lancaster closed that limp hand about the butt of the still-smoking pistol, crying out: "Help!" even as he did so. Then he ran to the door.

"Help!" he shouted again. "Jennings—Mary! Call, a doctor, quick! Billy's shot himself!"

On the words, the butler panted in, Mrs. Lancaster just behind him. Lancaster drew a sobbing breath, choked on hysterical laughter; his breathing space had been so short— so short!

"Get a doctor at once," he ordered sharply. "And call the police, too. Better not come in, my dear. I'm afraid he's quite dead. Poor Billy! Why couldn't he have waited a minute? I'd have helped him out." He stopped, glancing with admirably simulated caution at the awe-struck servants who stood about, open-eared. "Come, Mary! There's nothing more to be done here. I'll tell you all about it. And you," to the gaping servants, "get about your work; don't stand there, staring."

Presently Jennings hurried in with a policeman. Doctor Durand was almost upon their heels. These Lancaster received at once, pale and agitated, but evidently master of himself.

"Poor boy!"said he, while the doctor stooped over that still figure, and the policeman examined the little revolver. "Poor Billy! He told me he was in some sort of money trouble; said he'd be ruined, disgraced— and then he pulled out that pistol and shot himself, right before me. Oh, dear!" and he wiped his eyes quite openly, "why couldn't he have waited just a minute? I'd have helped him; of course I'd have helped him! But he never gave me a chance."

He told his story with incredible facility; it was accepted with incredible readiness. No one thought to question it. All deplored young Soames' hasty act; but even the reporters who soon began to gather seemed unsurprised.

One nodded wisely. "Worked for Bottwell-Wild?" he inquired. "Uh-huh. I heard talk to-day that there'd been a leak in that office. They've sent for a C. P. A. to go over the books. D'yo know how much he was short, Mr. Lancaster?"

So they scribbled busily, muttering among themselves. The story would have a dramatic touch. Good chance for some human interest; sob stuff. "Defaulting Bookkeeper a Suicide on Eve of Fortune," and all that.

Had Mr. Lancaster a photograph? No?

Well, Soames' wife would have one, no doubt; and they'd be going there next, anyway.

As they satisfied themselves, they left one by one. The coroner's physician came and went; the dead man's body was removed to an undertaker's establishment, pending his wife's directions, and the house at last settled to quietness,

It was near twelve when Stewart Lancaster returned to his bedroom and shut the door with a great, relieved sigh, It was safely over at last! True, there was still his nephew's wife to see; but that must wait till morning. She lived far out in the suburbs; Lancaster's own illness and agitation would serve as an excuse. Besides, the reporters had gone there. She knew all about the— the unfortunate affair, by this time. Lancaster groaned, cursing his temper; yet, so strangely is man constituted, he felt no regret— only fear that he might yet be found out. Young fool! He was better dead than getting into more trouble. And it would give a breathing space for the safer arrangement of the estate. Lancaster sighed again in relief. But his heart was pounding painfully; there was a dull ache over his eyes. Feeling the reaction of his terrible strain, he dropped down on the bed, fully dressed.

Then came another rap on the door, harp and insistent; so like the first rap that Lancaster sat up swiitly, while a wave of vertigo swept over him.

"What is it?" he called tremulously.

It was Jennings, the butler. "It's a person from the police, sir," he ex- plained. "A detective named O'Connor. And he insists he must see you to-night, sir."

"I can't see him," growled Lancaster. "I'm sick!" Then he reconsidered. What was there to fear? This man would accept his story unquestionably, as had the others. Better get it over with. "Show him to the study," he ordered. "I'll be right down."

He rose slowly and looked into his mirror. His face was gaunt and gray, bitten with deep lines of tension; but the lips were still firm. Satisfied, he tottered down the stairs, feeling old and spent. His heart still pounded uncomfortably; his temples throbbed.

In the study, sitting in the chair where Billy Soames had sat only three hours ago, was a stout, mediocre-looking person with square-toed shoes. He was gazing meditatively down at the rug, which still showed a broad, sinister stain.

Lancaster flinched involuntarily as his eyes followed the other's. Then he pulled himself together and sat down in his own chair, across the wide desk.

"Well?" said he.

The detective looked up with dull, doglike brown eyes, and Lancaster's heart lightened. This man, he felt, would be-easy to convince; much easier than those sharp, ferrety reporters.

"Sorry to bother you so late, sir," he apologized, "but they's a kind of a order we have to follow in these cases."

"I suppose so," replied his host. "Have a cigar? You want me to tell you how it happened? Well, the boy came in after dinner. I was lying down. I'm not very well, but he insisted on seeing me. So I came down. He was all upset and half crying; said he was short in his accounts, and they'd send him to jail— and then he pulled out that gun and shot himself before I could say a word."

"Uh-huh," said O'Connor. "Report from the coroner's office says they was powder marks on his coat, and the direction of the bullet was right, and all, so he prob'ly shot himself, as you say. Of course he did; that's only my way of speaking, sir," he hastened to add, in answer to the other's menacing glare. "So that's all right. You his guardian?"

"Why, yes," answered Lancaster, passing a hand over his forehead. The fellow was ridiculously gullible, he thought; even fearful of offending. But the continued strain was wearing on him. "Why, yes. That is, his father made me trustee of his property. Soames was to get control of it on his thirtieth birthday, next month."

"Uh-huh. Seeing it was that way, I sh'd think you'd of helped him out."

Lancaster looked grieved. "I'd have been glad to," he declared. "But he didn't give me time to offer. He didn't wait. I never dreamed of his shooting himself." That, at least was true enough, he thought, chuckling inwardly.

"Uh-huh," repeated the other. "Bumped himself off in a hurry, They do, sometimes I sp'ose," he went on casually, "I s'pose you got his money all ready to turn over?"

"Yes," lied Soames' ex-guardian firmly.

As he spoke a new dizziness seized him. Uncertainly he put a hand to his forehead. "Ex-ex-shuze me," he muttered, a bit thickly, "this's been great stretch— strong— strain, I mean."

"Of course," sympathized the detective. "Sorry I hadda bother you. But," he persisted, laughing fatuously, "if you hadn't of been all fixed with that money, it would of been kinda handy to have young Soames bump himself off that way, wouldn't it, now?"

Along Mr. Lancaster's red, wrinkled neck, and in his hollow temples, great veins began to swell ominously. "What're you driving at, man?" he demanded, suddenly pounding the desk. "Whaddaya m-mean by thad, huh?"

His speech was curiously thick and slurring.

"Why," replied the detective slowly, "why, sorry to bother you about it. But the fact is, Mr. Lancaster, sir, Soames' wife, she claims he hadn't no idea of using that gun. He just brought it along to make you think he meant it— to scare you, kinda. He talked it all over with her, before he come. And she says" — he hesitated, cracking great, knotted knuckles— "she says you must of shot him yerself. 'Poor Billy's never done it,' s' she."'

Here was a new menace; but Lancaster's will rose, alert and indomitable, to conquer it. Yet his mind felt numb and dull; he strove to think coherently, and could not. He felt a sudden, nauseating wave of fear; his sick hrain seemed to race as the engine of a motor car races when one throws out the clutch. Painfully he achieved a-smile.

"Absurd!" he said laughing thickly. "What an absurd accusation! I was angry with the boy for a minute, I admit; perhaps I waited a breath too long before offering my help, and I blame myself for it. But as for saying that I shot him—"

He broke off. Something clicked sharply in his brain, as though a spring had broken under tension. The room swam dizzily; the round, vacuous face before him seemed hazy, seen through a red mist. Then his vertigo passed. His reeling mind picked up the thread of his words.

"As for saying I shot him, of course nobody would believe that," his clear-thinking brain phrased it. But his lips, suddenly mutinous, repeated only: "Yes, I shot him!"

For a moment Stewart Lancaster stared at the detective in unbelieving horror. His sick eyes dilated slowly; he gasped in panic, struggling to correct himself.

"What a silly slip of the tongue," he would have said; but his rebellious lips repeated instead: "Yes, I shot him!" as though they knew no other words.

"Man!" cried O'Connor excitedly, "D'ye know what ye're sayin'?"

Lancaster nodded painfully. Big drops of sweat stood out on his gray, working face, horribly distorted with the fear of murderer accused, and with that deeper terror of a man suddenly unable to control his own tongue.

Into his panic-stricken mind leaped the picture of that gentleman in Doctor Durand's office, who could say only: "Go to hell." And with it came the full vision of this grim trick which fate had played upon him. Stewart Lancaster burst into raucous, jangling laughter.

"It's motor aphasia— motor aphasia!" he thought hysterically. But his lips repeated, instead: "I shot him. Yes, I shot him!"

__________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-63

The Author Index to Issues 1-60 has now been uploaded seperately.

Achmed Abdullah

The Mystery of the Talking Idols 63

Anonymous

The Diamond Necklace 62

The Great Auk's Egg Affair 61

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

Frederick R. Bechdolt

Before Michael Came  63

L. Adams Beck

The Interpreter (novelette) 62

H. Bedford-Jones

Death Gave Him His Chance  63

J. J. Bell

The Price of a House  63

"Sir William"  61

Christopher B. Booth

Mr Clackworthy Collects 63

Mr Clackworthy Sells Short  63

B. M. Bower

The Ghost in the Red Shirt  63

Max Brand

Five Minutes to Twelve 61

Lion Heart 61

Thomas Burke

The Bloomsbury Wonder 61

The Horrible God 62

Laughing Lillian 62

The Yellow Imps 62

Sir Gilbert Campbell

The Mystery of the Essex Stairs 62

Anna Alice Chapin

Through the Dragon's Valley  63

The Scales of Time 63

J. J. Connington

After Death the Doctor 63

Richard Dowling

The Going Out of Alessandro Pozzone 62

Ford Madox Ford

Riesenberg 61

Andrew Forrester Jr.

Arrested on Suspicion 61

Robert Edward Francillon

A Circumstantial Puzzle 62

Arthur Gask

Strychnine for Village Dogs 62

Theophile Gautier

The Mummy's Foot 62

George Gilbert

In Maulmain Fever-Ward  63

Guy Gilpatric

The Homestretch 61

Frederick Graves

White Flame  62

Val Jameson

"Burglin' ain't the game it was" 61

Thomas H. Knight

The Man Who Was Dead 61

Sinclair Lewis

The Willow Walk 61

Marie Belloc Lowndes

An Unrecorded Instance 61

Richard Mace

The Emerald Beetle  62

William Henry Moberley

The Great Valdez Sapphire 63

Edith M Nesbit

Number 17

Thomas Nelson Page

What was the Lady's Choice? 62

Max Pemberton

The Devil To Pay 63

Ernest M Poate

A Person from the Police 63

William Le Queux

The Faith of Men 62

The Story of the Chief of Police 61

Walter Ripperger

The Cardboard Clue 62

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

Emile C Tepperman

Coffin Cache 63

E Charles Vivian

How the Girl Came to Bentley's 62

R. A. J. Walling

Mrs. Rooth's "Murder" 61

The Spook of Cornelius 61

Albert Richard Wetjen

The Chief of the Loch McCree 61

Victor L. Whitechurch

The Convict's Revenge  61

How the Captain Tracked a German Spy 61

In a Tight Fix 61

_____________________

Table of Contents

- 1: Bluebeard / Andrew Soutar

- 2: Death Gave Him His Chance / H. Bedford-Jones

- 3: The Great Valdez Sapphire / William Henry Moberley

- 4: Before Michael Came / Frederick R. Bechdolt

- Unnamed
- 6:  Coffin Cache / Emile C Tepperman
- 7: The Devil To Pay / Max Pemberton

- 8: Through the Dragon's Valley / Anna Alice Chapin

- 9: The Scales of Time / Anna Alice Chapin

- 10: The Ghost in the Red Shirt / B. M. Bower

- 11: After Death the Doctor / J. J. Connington

- 12: Mr Clackworthy Collects / Christopher B. Booth

- 13: Mr Clackworthy Sells Short / Christopher B. Booth

- 14: The Price of a House / J. J. Bell

- 15: The Mystery of the Talking Idols / Achmed Abdullah

- 16: In Maulmain Fever-Ward / George Gilbert

- 17: A Person from the Police / Ernest M Poate

- Cumulative Index 61-63