Past Masters Sixty Four
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Seventeen short stories in the Life Plus 70 Public Domain, collected from newspapers, magazines and other sources; some Victorian goosebumps, roaring 20s crime/humour, and others. 1: The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman 2: Why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" / Charlotte Perkins Gilman 3: Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic / Christopher B. Booth 4: The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid" / John Arthur Barry 5: Dance Without Music / Peter Cheyney 6: The Wondersmith / Fitz-James O'Brien 7: In the Dark / Edith Nesbit 8: The Business of Madame Jahn / Vincent O'Sullivan 9: Honor Bright / Max Brand 1

PAST MASTERS

SIXTY-FOUR

February 2022

Part 4

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

2: Why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

3: Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic / Christopher B. Booth

4: The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid" / John Arthur Barry

5: Dance Without Music / Peter Cheyney

6: The Wondersmith / Fitz-James O'Brien

7: In the Dark / Edith Nesbit

8: The Business of Madame Jahn / Vincent O'Sullivan

9: Honor Bright / Max Brand

10: The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin / Anonymous

11: When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer / Christopher B. Booth

12: Negotium Perambulans / E. F. Benson

13: Solly's Last Forgery / Christopher B. Booth

14: The Bottomless Jug / Sylvanus Cobb, Jun.

15: By the Black Deep / R. Austin Freeman & Clifford Piers

16: Early Closing Day / Fred Merrick White

17: The Shadows on the Wall / Mary E Wilkins

Cumulative Index 61-64

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1: The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1860-1935

New England Magazine Jan 1892

IT IS very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity— but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and perhaps— (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)— perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

You see he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do?

If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression— a slight hysterical tendency— what is one to do?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phosphites— whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again.

Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

But what is one to do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal— having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

I sometimes fancy that my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus— but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

So I will let it alone and talk about the house.

The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden— large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co-heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care— there is something strange about the house— I can feel it. I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.

But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself— before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.

I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.

He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.

He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more. He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time." So we took the nursery at the top of the house.

It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.

The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off— the paper— in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.

It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide— plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.

It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others. No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.

There comes John, and I must put this away,— he hates to have me write a word.

WE HAVE been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before, since that first day.

I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.

John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.

I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way!

I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,— to dress and entertain, and other things.

It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby!

And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.

I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper!

At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.

He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.

"You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and really, dear, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months' rental."

"Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms there."

Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.

But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things. It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.

I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.

Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.

Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.

I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.

But I find I get pretty tired when I try.

It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now.

I wish I could get well faster.

But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!

There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.

I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.

I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store.

I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.

I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.

The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children have made here.

The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother— they must have had perseverance as well as hatred.

Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.

But I don't mind it a bit— only the paper.

There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing.

She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!

But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows.

There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.

This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then.

But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so— I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.

There's sister on the stairs!

WELL, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.

Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now.

But it tired me all the same.

John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.

But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!

Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.

I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.

Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.

And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.

So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal.

I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps because of the wall-paper.

It dwells in my mind so!

I lie here on this great immovable bed— it is nailed down, I believe— and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.

I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.

It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise.

Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes— a kind of "debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens— go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity.

But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.

The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.

They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion.

There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the cross-lights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,— the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.

It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap I guess.

I DON'T KNOW why I should write this.

I don't want to.

I don't feel able.

And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way— it is such a relief!

But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much.

John says I mustn't lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.

Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.

But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.

It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose.

And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head.

He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well.

He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me.

There's one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wall-paper.

If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds.

I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here after all, I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see.

Of course I never mention it to them any more— I am too wise,— but I keep watch of it all the same.

There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.

Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.

It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder— I begin to think— I wish John would take me away from here!

IT IS SO hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so.

But I tried it last night.

It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun does.

I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one window or another.

John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wall-paper till I felt creepy.

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.

I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake.

"What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don't go walking about like that— you'll get cold."

I though it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away.

"Why darling!" said he, "our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can't see how to leave before.

"The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about you."

"I don't weigh a bit more," said I, "nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is worse in the morning when you are away!"

"Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug, "she shall be as sick as she pleases! But now let's improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!"

"And you won't go away?" I asked gloomily.

"Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really dear you are better!"

"Better in body perhaps— " I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word.

"My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?"

So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately.

ON A pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind.

The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.

You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.

The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions— why, that is something like it.

That is, sometimes!

There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes.

When the sun shoots in through the east window— I always watch for that first long, straight ray— it changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it.

That is why I watch it always.

By moonlight— the moon shines in all night when there is a moon— I wouldn't know it was the same paper.

At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.

I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman.

By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour.

I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me, and to sleep all I can.

Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal.

It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't sleep.

And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm awake— O no!

The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John.

He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look.

It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis,— that perhaps it is the paper!

I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.

She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper— she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry— asked me why I should frighten her so!

Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she wished we would be more careful!

Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!

LIFE IS very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.

John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wall-paper.

I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wall-paper— he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.

I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I think that will be enough.

I'M FEELING ever so much better! I don't sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime.

In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.

It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw— not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.

But there is something else about that paper— the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.

It creeps all over the house.

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

It gets into my hair.

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it— there is that smell!

Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like.

It is not bad— at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me.

It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house— to reach the smell.

But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell.

There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch, as if it had been rubbed over and over.

I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round— round and round and round— it makes me dizzy!

I REALLY have discovered something at last.

Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.

The front pattern does move— and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!

Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.

Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.

And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern— it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!

If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad.

I THINK THAT woman gets out in the daytime!

And I'll tell you why— privately— I've seen her!

I can see her out of every one of my windows!

It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.

I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.

I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!

I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can't do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once.

And John is so queer now, that I don't want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.

I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once.

But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at a time.

And though I always see her, she may be able to creep faster than I can turn!

I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.

IF ONLY that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little.

I have found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don't like the look in his eyes.

And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a very good report to give.

She said I slept a good deal in the daytime. John knows I don't sleep very well at night, for all I'm so quiet!

He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind.

As if I couldn't see through him!

Still, I don't wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper for three months.

It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are secretly affected by it.

HURRAH! This is the last day, but it is enough. John is to stay in town over night, and won't be out until this evening.

Jennie wanted to sleep with me— the sly thing! but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone.

That was clever, for really I wasn't alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.

I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.

And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day!

We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before.

Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing.

She laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired.

How she betrayed herself that time!

But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me— not alive!

She tried to get me out of the room— it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner— I would call when I woke.

So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it.

We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow.

I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again. How those children did tear about here!

This bedstead is fairly gnawed!

But I must get to work.

I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.

I don't want to go out, and I don't want to have anybody come in, till John comes.

I want to astonish him. I've got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find.

If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!

But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!

This bed will not move!

I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner— but it hurt my teeth.

Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.

Besides I wouldn't do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.

I don't like to look out of the windows even— there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.

I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?

But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope— you don't get me out in the road there!

I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!

It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!

I don't want to go outside. I won't, even if Jennie asks me to.

For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.

But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.

Why there's John at the door!

It is no use, young man, you can't open it!

How he does call and pound!

Now he's crying for an axe.

It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!

"John dear!' said I in the gentlest voice, "the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!"

That silenced him for a few moments. Then he said— very quietly indeed, "Open the door, my darling!"

"I can't," said I. "The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!"

And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door.

"What is the matter?" he cried. "For God's sake, what are you doing!"

I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!"

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

________________

2: Why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Forerunner, October, 1913

MANY and many a reader has asked that. When the story first came out, in the New England Magazine about 1891, a Boston physician made protest in The Transcript. Such a story ought not to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.

Another physician, in Kansas I think, wrote to say that it was the best description of incipient insanity he had ever seen, and–begging my pardon–had I been there?

Now the story of the story is this:

For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia— and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to “live as domestic a life as far as possible,” to “have but two hours’ intellectual life a day,” and “never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again” as long as I lived. This was in 1887.

I went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over.

Then, using the remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wise friend, I cast the noted specialist’s advice to the winds and went to work again— work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite— ultimately recovering some measure of power.

Being naturally moved to rejoicing by this narrow escape, I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper", with its embellishments and additions, to carry out the ideal (I never had hallucinations or objections to my mural decorations) and sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad. He never acknowledged it.

The little book is valued by alienists and as a good specimen of one kind of literature. It has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate— so terrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and she recovered.

But the best result is this. Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading "The Yellow Wallpaper".

It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.

__________________

3: Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic

Christopher B Booth

1889-1950

Detective Story Magazine 14 Jan 1922

DEVOTED as he was to classic literature, Mr. Amos Clackworthy spent much time in his luxurious Sheridan Road apartment gathering various and sundry stray bits of information which could be turned into ammunition for future attacks upon idle and surplus wealth. His reading diet included the careful perusal of the daily newspapers. He was now engaged with the want ad columns as James Early, nearly always disgruntled in the master confidence man's moments of reflection, sat by the window, hoping that another adventure was not far off. The Early Bird was genuinely happy only upon those occasions when Mr. Clackworthy was engaged in the always interesting business of annexing easy money.

"Boss," complained the impatient James, "you make a guy feel like he was sittin' in the public library all the time; ain'tcha ever gonna let me unleash the old chin?"

"My dear James," answered Mr. Clackworthy smilingly, "if, as the old saying has it, 'silence is golden,' I fear you would be a pauper."

"I ain't strong for solitary confinement, I'm tellin' the world," mumbled The Early Bird. "Pretty soon, boss, I'll be deaf an' dumb through lack of practice. Whatcha find in the papers that's so interestin', huh?"

"For some minutes," replied Mr. Clackworthy, "the 'business chances'

column has intrigued my attention. It is really amazing what a wealth of human interest is to be found between . these lines of agate type. There is humor, there is tragedy. We find the youthful and enthusiastic young inventor seeking capital for his patent potato peeler; we find the commercial down-and-outer pleading for funds to save his industrial existence; we find him—"

"Cheese it, boss; cheese it!" interrupted The Early Bird. "Better be lettin' the old bean exercise the idea of grabbin' a coupla bales of the yellow stuff."

"We find here," proceeded Mr. Clackworthy with unshattered urbanity, "a want ad far out of the ordinary. It has a distinct appeal and even suggests— ah— possibilities."

"Y'mean, boss, that you gotta hunch on coaxin' a bunch of Uncle Samuel's I.O.U.'s away from their happy home?"

"A hunch, James, happens to be precisely the proper word. Take a look at this and tell me what you think of it." The master confidence man drew a penciled bracket about the want ad to which he referred and passed it over. The Early Bird, suddenly interested, took it and read:

CAPITAL WANTED— Young girl left profitable business by her father has become victim of unscrupulous competitors and is about to be pushed to the wall. Owns small, and until recently, profitable factory; also valuable trade names as principal asset.

Only outside capital will save situation. More interested in defeating designs of competitors than in profits.

Address DESPERATE, Globe X.-221.

"There is nothing more appealing, my dear James, than a lady in distress," observed Mr. Clackworthy.

"An' nothin' more expensive," volunteered The Early Bird sagely; "lay off a skirt what's in trouble, boss."

"I would say, James," pursued the master confidence man, "that the young woman who signs herself 'Desperate' is of the fighting type, and—"

"They all are," broke in The Early Bird. "My guess is that she's some wise moll throwin' out the bait for suckers. Business an' wimmin mix just like nitro an' matches. Any way you figure it, boss, it's a good game t' stay out of."

Mr. Clackworthy, refusing to be warned, shook his head.

"Your dire predictions fail to discourage me," he said laughingly. "I admit, of course, that she may be an adventuress; even taking it for granted that she is not, her appeal is much too vague to permit of any definite decision, but certainly there can be no harm in listening to her story. I shall consider myself forewarned by your kindly advice in dealing with the lady, but I shall drop a line to 'Desperate' this very afternoon and ask her to call upon us and explain her predicament in greater detail. If, as she claims, she has been persecuted by unfair and dishonest methods, we shall see what can be done about teaching these unscrupulous gentlemen a lesson in business ethics.

"There is no spectacle quite so satisfying, James, as that of witnessing a doctor swallowing his own bitter pills. And, moreover, the idea of playing the financial gallant rather appeals to me."

As he fixed the master confidence man with a disgusted stare, The Early Bird sighed hopelessly. Nevertheless, he sought to use his powers of persuasion in saving Mr. Clackworthy from his own impulsiveness.

"Boss," he said earnestly, "I'm gonna slip you my own experience in helpin' these here 'ladies in distress' that you been spielin' about. One day I was hoofin' it down State Street, sportin' a new twenty-dollar silk shirt, in the bosom of which is a chunk of ice that you'd think was one of the missin' Russian crown jools. In addition t' this sparkler what was shinin' in the sunlight like a policeman's flash lamp up the mouth of a dark alley, my worldly goods an' possessions consisted of seven hundred frog skins what I had parked in the old kick an' a watch what was good for ten smackers at any hock shop in Chi.

"This here lady in distress comes trippin' along State Street just as it happened to be my luck t' be passin' by. Looks? Boss, that dame was so good lookin' that the blind man on the corner wiped his glasses for a better squint, an' the traffic cop let a buzz-buggy get by his stop signal without even frownin'.

"While I was givin' her the admirin' double 'O,' her arms begins t' flop around like she had mistook State Street for Lake Mich an' was practicin' her swimmin' lessons. It takes me a coupla full-sized minutes t' get jerry to the fact that she ain't off her nut, but is puttin' on the usual prelims t' passin' into a state of unconsciousness.

"It gets wise just in time to let the poor lil' thing faint on my manly shoulder. Just as I was lookin' around for some guy t' call an ambulance, Miss Peaches sorta opened her eyes an' give me one of them dazzlin' spotlight stares, an' whispers somethin' about callin' a taxi so's she c'n go home to her popper's big place on Lakeshore Drive.

"Me? Sure, I calls the taxi an' slips the chauffeur a buck outta my own kick t' drive extra careful. See? The taxi rolls off, an'— well, I see y'got it, boss. Same old game; I'm minus a sparkler what set me back four hundred smackers, seven hundred berries in real dough, an' a darn good watch.

"Now, y'got the low-down on why you're gonna find me sidesteppin' ever' time I lamps a skirt wavin' the distress signal."

But even in the face of this eloquent earnestness Mr. Clackworthy declined to be deterred; he unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen and proceeded to indite a letter to "Desperate, Globe X.-221."

ii

"THE GOODS!"

In these two terse words The Early Bird epitomized his hastily revised opinion of "Desperate" as he opened the door of Mr. Clackworthy's apartment in response to her ring. One glance was sufficient to dissipate his suspicions and convince him that she was a sharer of neither men nor dollars.

Mr. Clackworthy laid aside a volume of Emerson's "Essays" and received his visitor with a courteous bow. She was brisk and businesslike without it detracting from her feminine charm. Her gaze was cool and appraising, giving evidence of a practical mind; yet she had an oval face and dimples.

"Are you Mr. Clackworthy?" she questioned. "I am here in answer to your note; yes, I am 'Desperate.' My name is Edith Harley."

"I am pleased to meet you, Miss Harley," Clackworthy said, shaking hands gravely. "This is my friend and assistant, Mr. James Early." James clicked his heels together and did his best Chesterfieldian.

"Glad t' meetcha," he declared with obvious sincerity.

Miss Harley seated herself and got down to business with simple directness. "I received quite a large number of replies to my appeal for capital, Mr. Clackworthy," she said, "and since a great many of them were palpably from curiosity seekers, I took the precaution of looking up the bank references which you gave me in your letter. I find that you are a man of means; your bank speaks quite highly of you."

The master confidence man smiled. Banks usually speak well of a customer who carries a balance of from twenty thousand to seventy-five thousand dollars and lacks the annoying habit of asking for loans.

"So," went on Miss Harley, "I decided, to talk things over with you and see to what extent you are interested. I shall be frank with you and say that I am fighting against tremendous odds. I am afraid that my need calls for a man who has both capital and sporting blood."

"That's the boss!" exclaimed The Early Bird enthusiastically. 'He ain't got no use for a sure thing. He likes to take gamblin' chances."

Miss Harley glanced up curiously at this idiomatic outburst, so at variance with the elegant Mr. Clackworthy; then her lips parted into an amused smile, and she laughed.

"What a refreshingly original man you are, Mr. Early!" she exclaimed.

"Mebbe I gotta side-show vocab," admitted The Early Bird, "but I'm handin' you the straight dope about the boss takin' long shots."

"Let us hear your story, Miss Harley," said Mr. Clackworthy, with a slightly. reproving frown in James' direction.

"It can be told quite briefly," explained Miss Harley. "My father was a chemist, and ten years ago he launched the Harley Cosmetic Co. His capital was small, and he had a hard struggle of it, but his formulas for the manufacture of certain cosmetic products were so far in advance of anything else on the market that he began to build up a growing and profitable business.

"He got along all right until he got big enough to attract the attention of the cosmetic trust. No, I don't suppose you realized that such a thing as a cosmetic trust existed, but it does. It is owned by a certain Mr. Thackery Striker."

"Ah!" murmured Mr. Clackworthy. "The name is most familiar." He turned to the compact card-index file on his desk, wherein reposed the names of various and sundry men of wealth, which The Early Bird insisted upon referring to as "the sucker list." The master confidence man dignified it with the more sedate title of "prospect list," and it contained much information regarding the private life, habits, and weaknesses of the subjects thereof.

True enough, the name of Mr. Thackery Striker was there, and, in a glance, Mr. Clackworthy refreshed his memory. His notation regarding the head of the cosmetic trust read:

THACKERY STRIKER, age 59, reputed several times millionaire. Very stingy; never gives to charity. Unscrupulous and greedy. Controls United Cosmetic Co. Involved in many lawsuits. Many times accused of appropriating valuable formulas, etc., of other concerns.

"Yes," he added, "I know a little something about Mr. Striker."

The girl permitted herself a slightly puzzled frown.

"You— you have been gathering information regarding Mr. Striker?" she gasped out. "How did you know that he— that—"

"I did not know, Miss Harley," returned Mr. Clackworthy smilingly. "It happens that I often collect information regarding men of Striker's caliber. We may get around to that presently. Please proceed."

"My father," she went on, "was one of those never-say-die kind of men. He had chances to sell out for a good sum,
but he would have preferred to go broke than to do business with a man like Thackery Striker. He kept on fighting, and he managed to keep going in spite of all sorts of unfair competition and embarrassments. It would take too long for me to go into the history of all that; what is more important is what happened after I took over the business.

"When father died I came into full control of the Harley Cosmetic Co. He made me promise that I would never sell out to Striker, and I have kept that promise. I knew a good deal about the business itself, but finance was a thing that puzzled me. When I took over the business we had about twenty thousand dollars in cash, and our products were selling well.

"In our office was a man named Hatfield; he was a sort of sales manager and general factotum. When I took things over I depended a good deal on Hatfield. He got me to try some new schemes that sounded very fine; the twenty thousand dollars began to dwindle, and I borrowed money at the bank. Then things began to go wrong. Orders were unsatisfactory; we had trouble in the factory. Too late did I discover that Hatfield had sold out to Striker, that Striker was paying him to deliberately wreck the Harley Cosmetic Co.

"Now we get down to the present situation. Just before father's death we had virtually perfected a new preparation which we had decided to call 'Youth Bloom.' It is really a very superior product which has a wonderful effect on the complexion. We are now just ready to launch it, but there is no money to launch it with. Hatfield saw to that. Moreover, I have some notes due at the bank, and I'm afraid that the only way I can meet them is to sell out the business. The only people I can sell to is Striker's concern.

"The day after I discharged Hatfield —and he now has a good job with the Striker outfit— our chemical reports on Youth Bloom mysteriously disappeared from the office safe. I can prove nothing, but Hatfield was the only man who could have opened the safe except myself. Of course, I know the formula by heart and have quite a lot put up, but Striker has it, too, and, I understand, is getting ready to put it on the market under another name. He plans a big advertising campaign, and that, as you can see, practically kills the chances of Youth Bloom."

Mr. Clackworthy nodded.

"I think I understand," he said. "What you want is sufficient capital to put Youth Bloom on the market— first; to beat Striker to it, as it were."

"Exactly," replied Miss Harley. "By the time we could go to court with Striker, the United Cosmetic Co. would have their product so firmly established that it would be virtually impossible to market my product. It will take a good deal of money— quick money. The man who puts up the capital can have the lion's share of the profits; what I want is to beat Striker."

"Tut!" reproved Mr. Clackworthy. "Never lose sight of the dollar. Wouldn't it be better to beat Striker and get a profit, too?"

"But you wouldn't—"

"Then I would," said Mr. Clackworthy. "My dear young lady, I am not a capitalist; I operate in peculiar ways. I play the game of finance for the fun that I can get out of it, and, of course, a large part of the fun is seeing the money come in. As a strictly business proposition I wouldn't invest a hundred dollars in your enterprise."

Miss Harley's face showed her disappointment.

"I— I was hoping—"

"Just a minute," interrupted Mr. Clackworthy. "I haven't said that I wouldn't go in. Let me ask just what you know about Striker's advertising plans. When will it start?"

"I'm not sure, Mr. Clackworthy, but I think that it has already started. Perhaps you've seen the advertisements— trick ads, I think they call them— that have been flooding the city lately. There is one in the paper by your arm. I think that is part of Striker's campaign."

Mr. Clackworthy glanced down at the newspaper; before his eyes was a two-column advertisement, about three inches in depth, asking the moot question.

"HOW OLD IS MARY?"

"One of them 'Why does the egg factory cross the road,' huh?" interrupted The Early Bird, glancing over the master confidence man's shoulder. 'Yeah, I been lampin' that teaser in every paper in town for more'n a week; it's on the billboards an' in the street cars. Got the whole burg on its ear. Catchy, huh?"

"Yes, it certainly has all Chicago talking," admitted Miss Harley. Mr. Clackworthy tapped his fingers absently on the table for a moment.

"Miss Harley," he asked, "is your factory in a position to take orders for a very large volume of sales of your new product?"

"Yes, if we had the orders," she answered. "We have thousands of jars of Youth Bloom ready for delivery."

"Humph!" murmured Mr. Clack- worthy. "I believe that something like five thousand dollars spent in— ah— judicious advertising would turn the trick."

"I see that you don't know much about advertising," the girl said sadly. "It would take real money; five thousand wouldn't be a drop in the bucket, as they say. Why, Striker's company has already spent twenty-five thousand dollars at least."

"Exactly, exactly," admitted Mr. Clackworthy. "I said judicious advertising ; and that takes in a great deal of territory. I have an idea in mind that will produce, perhaps, an amazing lot of publicity for your Youth Bloom— very amazing, indeed, to a particular gentleman."

"But—but I don't see—"

"Morally, Miss Harley, Striker owes you a great deal of money— and, in a way, I conduct a collection agency for forcing the payment of moral debts."

"I— I don't understand!" she gasped out.

"Perhaps it is better that you shouldn't," declared Mr. Clackworthy. "Something tells me that you are a slave to what we sometimes call ethics; since my conscience is more elastic than yours, I shall ask that you let me handle this in my own way. If you will give me your telephone number, I shall be able to let you know within a few hours if we shall be able to help you."

For a moment Edith Harley fixed the master confidence man with a fascinated, yet penetrating gaze.

"You— you are rather amazing, Mr. Clackworthy," she said slowly. "You— you ask me to put my approval on a scheme of which I know absolutely nothing, and yet— something tells me to trust you. I— I hardly know what to say."

"Leave it to the boss," advised The Early Bird enthusiastically; "he's handled wiser guys than this Striker goof, an' if he falls down on this job— well, I'll tell the world he's sure gonna lose his little playmate!"

iii

THE EARLY BIRD dropped into the factory of the Harley Cosmetic Co., so he explained, to reassure Miss Harley that she need not worry once Mr. Clackworthy had taken the financial helm. He would not admit to himself, much less to any one else, that his interest was largely in the good-looking president personally.

Just as James was making his laborious adieu, Miss Harley, glancing out of the window, saw none other than Mr. Thackery Striker approaching the entrance.

"Goodness!" she exclaimed. "There's the old octopus himself. There isn't a soul in the office but us, for Perkins went downtown. Please, Mr. Early, won't you wait just a few minutes? You— you can step into the back office; I don't want to see that man alone!"

"I gotcha," said The Early Bird grimly, "an' if that walkin' wad of jelly starts anything he's gonna squash at the bottom of them stairs. See?"

Edith Harley laughed.

"He is fat, isn't he?" she said. "Please don't be too gallant, Mr. Early."

Mr. Thackery Striker was one of those kind of men who advertise their prosperity with diamonds. Upon his puffy third finger sparkled a large stone, while an even bigger one shone like a locomotive headlight from his tie. A heavy gold watch chain was strung across his ample waist, from which was suspended a  diamond-studded charm.

The Early Bird had seated himself in the back office, the door left open a cautious three inches, when Mr. Striker, puffing and red of face from his climb up the stairs, entered. Wheezing, he sank into a chair.

"Decided to be reasonable?" he demanded by way of beginning. "Thought I'd come up and find out— before I closed you up."

"Of course, it depends what you mean by 'reasonable,' " retorted Edith Harley icily. "I am not going to do business with you, if that is what you mean."

"It's me or the sheriff," declared Thackery Striker.

"Oh, I guess you're not going to close me up yet," said the girl.

'I'm going to close. you up— unless you pay this note by nine o'clock to-morrow morning," warned the cosmetic magnate. He exhibited a slip of paper which bore Edith Harley's promise to pay one thousand dollars.

"Where— where did you get that?" she gasped out.

"Bought it— bought it off the Atlas Chemical Co.; it was due three days ago."

"I— I know it was, but— but they promised to wait ten days on it; they said "

"Changed their mind when they found out how shaky you were," interrupted Thackery Striker gloatingly. "Bought it for ninety cents on the dollar from the Atlas outfit.

"You're a smart girl; you can see we've got you licked. Turn over everything to me and I'll write you out a handsome check." The truth was that the legal process involved by a foreclosure would take some time. Also, Mr. Striker liked the trade name of "Youth Bloom," which she had a copyright on, and was anxious to use it in the product which was to be his answer to the question, "How Old Is Mary?" He had thought she would realize the hopelessness of her fight long before now; his experience with women had been that they couldn't stand the gaff.

"Never!" cried Edith Harley, her eyes blazing. "I'll never sell out to you—never. I'll never quit! I'll fight you until the sheriff's hammer falls. You have cheated me, bribed my office manager, stooped to everything that was mean, low, and contemptible. I'll try and meet the note to-morrow morning; perhaps I can, but sell— never!"

Thackery Striker gulped at this display of nerve, and his greenish-hued eyes were lighted with a sudden inspiration.

"Grit," he grunted. "Never saw a girl with such spunk; like spunk in a woman. You'd made a man a fine wife— just the kind of a wife I've al- ways wanted. You're broke; I'm rich —millions. I've never married; all of 'em I met were clinging vines—don't like 'em. You'll do.

"Whatcha say— err— Edith? Sup- pose we keep it all in the family? Not a bad idea, eh?"

For a moment she stared at him in speechless amazement, and then she tried to wither him with a glance of scorn, but Thackery Striker wasn't the sort that wilts easily.

"Marry you!" she cried.

"Sure. I'm rich; I'd give you everything you wanted."

"As if that were everything!" exclaimed Edith Harley. "No! You— you old toad! I wouldn't marry you, not if you were the richest man in the world."

"Better think it over," advised Mr. Striker. "There's lots of girls that would jump at the chance. It ain't every day that a poor girl like you will have the chance to marry a millionaire."

"I don't have to think it over; my answer is no!"

"Pshaw," depreciated Mr. Striker; "you're a little surprised, that's all. I ain't so bad. I'm fond of you, always did like you, but didn't stop to think about it until just now when I saw you flare up that way."

"Don't talk to me; get out of my office— get out quick!"

"Now, don't be silly," urged the cosmetic king. The unattainable was always what he most desired, and the fact that she repulsed him only made all the stronger his sudden idea of marrying her. He got up heavily from his chair and took a step nearer.

"Don't— don't you dare to touch me!" the girl cried.

The Early Bird needed no other cue; like a shot he bounded in from the back office and grabbed the dumfounded Mr. Striker by the collar.

"You're playin' hookey from the stockyards, ain't cha, y'big, overgrown hog! A nerve y'got, askin' a swell little dame like this t' do the 'till death do us part' stuff with you!

"This way out! Bring that note to the Loop National Bank at nine bells to-morrow mornin', and your thousand berries will be there for you. If you come back here, I'm tellin' the world that the papers is gonna have at least one obit notice. Beat it before I lose my temper."

Propelling Mr. Striker to the stairs, The Early Bird gave him a shove that sent the cosmetic magnate staggering and plunging down the steps. Edith Harley burst out laughing.

"Mr. Early," she said, "I don't know how I can ever thank you—"

"Don't try, ma'm," mumbled The Early Bird, flushing to the roots of his hair as her hand touched his in a little gesture of gratitude. "It was a real privilege, miss."

"But the note—"

"The boss'll have t' cough up that thousand smackers, but don't you worry about that."

"Smackers?"

"Yes'm. I reckon you ain't jerry to my vocab— that sorta slang for berries, bucks, iron men, duckets. I guess my English is sorta neglected, but by practice mebbe I could— that is if somebody—" Lost in confusion, amazed at his own words, he backed out of the office and took flight.

iv

IT WAS while The Early Bird was calling upon Miss Harley that Mr. Clackworthy was paying a visit to the Daily Globe. His prepossessing appearance gained him instant admission to the office of the advertising manager, a man named Dunn, who received him with that cordiality which hints at the expectation of receiving a fat advertising contract.

"Mr. Dunn," explained the master confidence man, "I am not a cash customer to-day; in fact, I am looking for a little free information. I am planning a new product which will mean some advertising. I have been attracted by the campaign with the catch phrase, 'How Old Is Mary?' I like the man's work and would like to get in touch with him."

"Certainly," agreed Mr. Dunn. "I do not know who the advertiser is, but the copy came to us from the Kenicott Agency, and I understand Mr. Fitch, one of the Kenicott crack copy writers, prepared it."

"Thanks, I'll get in touch with him at once."

Straightway the master confidence man drove over to Michigan Avenue to the offices of the Kenicott Agency. Ushered into Mr. Kenicott's private office, he began the interview by opening his wallet and placing upon Mr. Kenicott's desk five one-thousand-dollar bills.

"On account," he explained. 'I want your man Fitch to help me plan an advertising campaign. I would like to have Mr. Fitch's time for a day or so to talk things over."

"Certainly," agreed Mr Kenicott, amazed despite his experience with rapid-fire business methods. Fitch was sent for; he was a dignified little man with tortoise-shell spectacles and an important manner. Mr. Clackworthy at once plunged into the details of an entirely mythical advertising campaign. After some fifteen minutes of eloquence, he glanced at his watch and arose hastily.

"Another appointment," he explained. "Think it over, Fitch; get some of those good ideas of yours together, and meet me at the Blackmere Hotel at six o'clock. We'll dine together."

Promptly at six Mr. Fitch was at the hotel. Mr. Clackworthy and The Early Bird were there, and after the introductions, the master confidence man led the way to the private dining room he had engaged. The Blackmere's cellar was entirely law-abiding, but that did not prevent Mr. Clackworthy from smuggling in a quart of his own private stock and tipping the waiter an extra five dollars to serve it in approved style. The Early Bird, after the introduction, lapsed into an introspective silence almost alien to his nature.

When Mr. Fitch sat down at the table he found an envelope under his plate. Opening it, there greeted his eyes the dazzling yellow of a brand-new five-hundred-dollar bill.

"A little incentive for your best work," said Mr. Clackworthy. "The firm has nothing to do with-that. Give us the best you've got and there's another five hundred dollars waiting for you. All I ask is that you give us as clever an idea as you did the United Cosmetic Co."

"How— how did you know that was their advertisement?" exclaimed Fitch. "It was supposed to be a dead secret until the big surprise was given to the public."

"One of the cleverest stunts I ever saw put into an advertisement," praised Mr. Clackworthy. "The whole town is asking, 'How Old Is Mary?' Great stuff!"

"Yes, I thought it was rather fair," agreed the ad writer, with a thin show of modesty.

The dinner, perfect as were all the dinners where Mr. Clackworthy played host, proceeded, pleasantly irrigated by a constant procession of liquid refreshments. Mr. Fitch really wasn't much of a drinking man as a rule, but he found it hard to refuse to clink glasses with a host who slipped a five-hundred-dollar bill under his plate. By the time the demi-tasse had arrived the advertising wizard was a bit loose of tongue and thick of speech.

"If we decide to run a catch-phrase campaign, how long would you suggest that we run it before springing the big announcement?" asked Mr. Clackworthy.

"Shay two weeks," replied Mr. Fitch, closing one eye to shut out a tendency toward double vision.

"Just the length of the United Cosmetic Chemical Co.'s campaign, eh?" Mr. Clackworthy asked craftily, and Fitch nodded heavily. That meant that it was but four days until Thackery Striker would give the curious public the answer to his question, "How Old Is Mary?"

"Now let's go over some ideas and see what we can do," suggested the master confidence man. After Mr. Fitch had spent some time in trying to get his scattered wits together, the conference was adjourned until the following day. Mr. Fitch was loaded into a taxi and sent on his befuddled way home.

"Boss," demanded The Early Bird, "what's all this guff you was handin' this Fitch guy about gonna make some health tonic gotta do with throwin' the harpoon into that Striker goof in time t' keep him from trimmin' the little lady?"

"James," replied Mr. Clackworthy, "our magic health tonic is guaranteed to cure Mr. Striker of his terrible malady of grabitis; it is guaranteed, as well, to take the Harley Cosmetic Co. from its financial sick bed and restore it to good health. By the way, I wish you would call up Miss Harley and tell her to rush out large quantities of Youth Bloom. I think there is going to be a big demand for it about day after to-morrow."

The Early Bird's face brightened.

"I'll say the phone company never got a more cheerful jitney," he declared.

"Why, bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Clackworthy. "I believe I have developed a romance."

"G'wan," mumbled The Early Bird, but he flushed guiltily.

v

AFTER TWO further conferences with Mr. Fitch, the ad-writing wizard of the Kenicott Agency, Mr. Clackworthy, on the afternoon of the third day, took three samples of what was considered the best "teaser" copy to sell "New Life," the magic health tonic.

"They're all so blessed good that I can't make up my mind," declared Mr. Clackworthy to the glowing Mr. Fitch. "Here, old man, get yourself a new hat." And with a wink he slipped the delighted copy writer a carelessly crumpled one-hundred-dollar bill. "Tell you what I'm going to do; I'll take this copy along and let the other fellows see it. I'll get back here before the office closes. You go ahead and reserve me a full-page ad in all of the papers, and I'll trot along."

But, evidently, Mr. Clackworthy must have had some trouble in locating the "other fellows," for when five o'clock came he had not returned to the offices of the Kenicott Agency. Mr. Fitch twiddled his thumbs impatiently and waited. He had ordered three thousand dollars' worth of newspaper advertising that must be paid for, copy or no copy. As he had very carefully explained to Mr. Clackworthy, he had a dinner engagement with his wife.

At five-thirty Mr. Clackworthy telephoned.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, old man," he apologized, "but I've had trouble in getting hold of one of my men. Suppose you run along after calling up the papers and arrange for me to take the copy down personally."

"Fine!" agreed Fitch, breathing a sigh of relief. "I'll call up the advertising managers and fix it up. They won't accept the copy, you know, without our O. K." Mr. Clackworthy knew that very well, indeed. "That'll be a great favor to me, Mr. Clackworthy. You're a brick!"

However, at the last minute Mr. Clackworthy seemed to find fault with all of the advertisements that Fitch had written; he tossed them aside and substituted one of his own.

In Chicago the next morning there were a good many interested thousands who read the answer to the question that had them guessing for nearly two weeks. Twenty-five thousand dollars had been spent by Thackery Striker in whetting the public curiosity as to the age of Mary, but most interested was Mr. Striker himself.

Thackery Striker, idly turning through the pages of his favorite paper, dropped his coffee cup so violently that the hot liquid sloshed over the sides and scalded his fingers. For a moment he sat in stupefied anger; then he began to swear. When his choice stock of expletives was exhausted he rushed to the telephone and angrily thumbed through the book until he came to the name of "Harold B. Fitch."

Mr. Fitch, just arising, answered drowsily.

"You— you double-crossed me!" yelled Thackery Striker.

"What— what do you mean?"

"I don't understand what you mean," interrupted Mr. Fitch with dignity. "Who are you, anyhow?"

"This is Thackery Striker, and you know what I mean!"

"I swear I don't; I swear it!"

"Then turn to page three of the Globe!' roared Striker. "Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of advertising used to pull a competitor out of a bad hole— and you sold out!"

In a daze Mr. Fitch left the telephone and got the papers. On page three, the position he had engaged for Mr. Clackworthy and Mr. Clackworthy's New Life tonic, he found:

HERE'S THE ANSWER.

Any woman is as old as she looks;

For Every Woman in Chicago

YOUTH BLOOM

The Magic Cosmetic.

"A Fountain of Youth in Every Jar."

On Sale for the First Time TO-DAY.

Five minutes later Mr. Clackworthy's telephone rang, and the master confidence man reached for the instrument.

"James," he said to The Early Bird, "it's either Miss Harley, Striker, or Fitch."

"Whatcha gonna tell 'em— if it's Striker or Fitch?" demanded The Early Bird.

"You shall hear," answered Mr. Clackworthy as he removed the receiver. For a moment he listened to Mr. Fitch's accusations and demands for explanation, tumbling over the wire in one long string of unbroken sentences.

"Just a minute, Mr. Fitch," he interrupted pleasantly. "I decided at the last moment not to manufacture New Life tonic. And since I had purchased a considerable amount of newspaper space, I decided that it was a shame to let it go to waste, so I made an arrangement with a very dear lady who was badly in need of some advertising. What harm is there in it?"

"Don't you try to play innocent with me!" shouted the anguished Fitch. "You stole twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of Striker's advertising thunder, and you know it! I'll have you arrested; I'll—"

"I think not, Mr. Fitch," replied Mr. Clackworthy. "There is nothing criminal in inserting in the newspapers an advertisement for a bona-fide product of superior merit. If Mr. Striker is injured it is unfortunate for Mr. Striker, but there is no reference whatever to any advertisement of Mr. Striker's."

"You— you made me lose my job," wailed Fitch, suddenly wilting.

"And got you a better one, my boy," soothed Mr. Clackworthy. "The Harley Cosmetic Co. is going to need a bang-up advertising man, for those ads to-day are going to start them on the road to success. Salary fifty per cent more than you are now receiving. Think it over."

Pushing back the telephone, Mr. Clackworthy turned to The Early Bird with a chuckle.

"Well, James," he said, "we seem to have put it over. It pays to advertise— especially if we get some one else to pay the bill. Youth Bloom is made and Mr. Striker's product has struck the rocks. The lady in distress is no longer in distress, and as soon as she has reimbursed us for our actual cash outlay, our interest in her ceases."

"Say, howya get that way!" exclaimed The Early Bird indignantly. "Whatcha mean our interest ceases? I'll speak my own piece, boss.

"An' say, boss, I gotta be polishin' up on the old English; reckon I'll be lookin' up the address of some night school or somethin', huh?" And hooking his Malacca stick over his arm and patting his cravat into a more exact knot, The Early Bird sauntered off toward the door.

___________________

4: The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid"

John Arthur Barry

1850-1911

Clarence and Richmond Examiner (NSW) 1 Sep 1896

ALTHOUGH the stone in the Mountain Maid Reef was apparently as good as ever, the returns showed a very perceptible decrease. This was a puzzle, and the manager could not understand it at all. No more could the newly-appointed sergeant of police, with whom he presently took counsel.

Watch the miners as closely as the pair and their subordinates might, they never could detect anything wrong.

But then the Maid was rich— so rich that at times a single shot would burst out a mass of specimens the least of which was more than equivalent to a month's mining wage; and if only one half of the 120 men employed regularly pocketed but one lump of the golden quartz it must affect the output very considerably.

And the times were ticklish. The Working Man swaggered and talked loudly about the bad end that Capital was to presently make. And the miners came to their daily labour as if conferring a distinct favour on their employers, and even began to talk about "a share in the profits"— a share that the manager shrewdly suspected they were already helping themselves to. Therefore, all things considered, it behoved the management of the Mountain Maid Gold mining Company, Limited, to move warily, lest everything be thrown out of gear, and their mine laid idle.

Meanwhile, the yields got steadily worse, shareholders began to growl as the shares fell, and rumours circulated that the famous lead was "pinching out."

And still the miners, with an air of aggravating unconsciousness, moved serenely up and down the steep incline— precipice, some people would call it— in the tram-cars that ran on the wire-ropes between the Maid, buried 2000 feet below in the deep gully, and the little township of Crestville above.

Also, on holidays and Sundays they began to sport massive, if roughly made, rings of the precious metal on their fingers, and chains of the same material across their waistcoats; also strange faces of Semitic cast came and went to and fro the township with curious regularity.

At last, in hopes of affecting a radical alteration in affairs, Manager Morris, at the risk of mortally offending the touchy Irishy, who formed the majority of his hands, erected a change-house in which every miner, must leave the clothes in which he had been working amongst the golden veins below, and put on a fresh suit to go home in until his shift came on again. But men simply grinned at the innovation, and bandied loud jokes, one with the other, respecting those suspicious folk who generally turned out the greatest rogues in the end.

Curiously enough, the change-house system had scarcely come into operation when a vein of surpassing richness was struck, and Mr. Morris waxed jubilant at the expected heavy return.

"That, my boy," said he, slapping the sergeant on the back, "will bring us up to an average of four ounces all round."

To his amazement, when, at last, the stamps ceased pounding for the final clean-up, the result was the worst, comparatively, on record.

Sergeant Slafferty was not altogether without brains. But he was a new chum on a diggings, also handicapped with an abiding thirst and an excessive feeling of patriotism. Certainly, with the best will in the world, he tried to do his duty. Officially, and otherwise, he was amongst the men continually; still he never seemed able to get the chance to ask the question, for ever on the tip of his tongue— "What you got there now?"

To him the most intricate case of cattle-duffing or sheep-stealing would have been the merest child's play compared with this mysterious, impalpable shrinkage, of which he certainly was told, but could see nothing, and had to take absolutely on trust.

Eventually, and perhaps naturally, he began to lose faith in both mine and manager, and to believe, as the general public were commencing to do, that the reef was giving out, and that the suspected thefts were but inventions from the proprietary to hide the fact from the shareholders as long as possible. Certain minor officials of the Maid had, in strictest confidence, confirmed this view of the matter to Sergeant Slafferty, so that when the manager would remark— "We've struck another good patch, sergeant, at the 200ft. level. Let's keep a sharp lookout, and hope for better luck this time." Slafferty would only respond with a wink and a chuckle that bothered Mr. Morris.

And so, for a while, things continued. One good clean-up there would be, and the manager, taking heart of grace, imagined his troubles were over. Then would come two or three wretched ones; then a good one again. And in his heart he knew that nearly as much gold was being lost as would double his present average returns, and send the company's shares higher than they had ever been.

Various ruses and traps he had employed for the discovery of the guilty parties, but all in vain. In spite of a secret watch upon the change-house and another on boxes and tables; in spite of strangers put on and incited to vigilance by promise of substantial reward, even when a richer streak than usual was struck, the yield of that crushing was sure to be far below his lowest estimate. The manager was, too, an experienced and practical miner, one who had worked his way up, and imagined himself thoroughly conversant with every dodge and every trick common amongst the black sheep to be found both underground and on the surface.

It was whilst matters were still at this stage that Morris sent to the capital for a first-class detective. But the detective might just as well have stayed where he was for all the good he did. Either the men had received information from those illicit Semitic buyers before referred to, or they "piped" the disguised miner with the white hands and inquisitive face as he dawdled over the light job that the manager gave him; but certain it was that they discovered his identity at once.

"Seen the D., Bill?" he heard one ask the other.

"Ay," replied Bill, "I seen 'im; and I'm desperit 'feared as 'e'll 'ave a suddent fall one o' these nights into Deadman's Gully if he don't clear.

"We don't mind the owld sargant; but we'll have no city blokes gammoning round these parts."

Now the gully referred to was a drop of some 800 feet sheer, close to the workings. The detective looked down it, shivered, and, feeling himself at a disadvantage, took his departure the very next morning.

Then, as a last resort, Morris himself came to town and saw me. At that time I was running a private inquiry office; and after hearing the manager's story I decided to go up myself to Crestville, leaving my partner in charge of the business. Disguises, I judged, were not of much account. Still, a stranger arriving at a small township like this ought to have some raison d'etre, so I arranged with a friendly firm of music-sellers to go as their agent and piano tuner. I chose this line, advisedly; not only because I really knew something about pianos, but because as I imagined there would be very small scope to display my abilities.

Never was I more mistaken. All Crestville seemed to be suddenly smitten with a musical mania; and from inmates of lordly brick villas and those of weatherboard cottages and slab "humpies" alike, orders poured in. It was a regular boom and my friendly firm were surprised to presently receive orders to the tune of some hundreds of pounds for instruments which, as they arrived, I was engaged to tune at £3 3s. each! and you may be sure that whilst so employed I kept my eyes and ears open.

It was whilst tuning Mrs. Slafferty's new "iron-framed trichord" that I recognised in the sergeant an old comrade in arms. Together, in the 4th Hussars, we had seen a good deal of service, and been under fire more than once.

Naturally enough we fraternised, and without telling him my real business, I heard the whole story of the Mystery of the Mountain Maid. "It's all rubbish, me bhoy," he wound up. "The lade's pritty nigh gone, an' they risin' the croi of 'sthop thafe!' when it ud be betther to tell the trute. They've got as dacent a set o' bhoys workin' for 'em as you'd see in a day's march, an' nothin' must do the company but to be casthin' slurs at 'em an' damagin' their characthers. Oim sick av it, so Oi am, wid their fushtclass detective, an' their spyin' an' trappin'," and the worthy sergeant gave a snort of disgust.

Shortly after renewing acquaintance with the sergeant I was tuning one of the new pianos in a miner's house when the sound of an animated conversation, carried on across the dividing fence, reached my ears.

"An' so, Mrs. O'Brien, ma'm," remarked the neighbour with ominous politeness, "it's the gran' new pianner yer havin' fixed up for Mary Jane, is it?"

"Yis, Mrs. Sullivan, ma'm," replied my employer, scorning to be outdone in good manners, "seein' as the blessed nuns do be sayin' that her does have the rale jaynius for music. So Pat, he says, as times is so good, he'd get her the besht pianner as money could buy. Ye ought to do the same, Mrs. Sullivan, maim, for yer Susan. It's the long fingers for a likely touch she's got.'

There must have been some hidden allusion in the innuendo past my comprehension. It, however, took instant effect; for its recipient screamed "Glory be, you owld rip, ye, an' if her fingers are long they're clane, an' that's more'n some people's are for all their pianners, an' gowld chains, an watches, an' earrin's on three notes a week!

"Wisht, ye wild omadhaun, ye!" exclaimed my woman. "There's the pianner man inside 'll be hearin' ye, if ye scrame like a shtuck pig that ways!"

"An' who cares?" yelled the incensed one, as her adversary retreated. "It's only them as has got the dhirty fingers an' the bad conshince as cares. Yah!"

Finishing my job, I paid a visit next door. It was a small cake and fruit shop, kept by a widow whose husband, having been killed in the Mountain Maid, was in receipt of a pension from the company. "Not," however, as she presently informed me, with a very grave face, "big enough to buy pianners on."

"Well, Mrs. Sullivan," I said, after a chat and the purchase of some sweets for the children, "I'm very sorry I can't do any business with you. I'm very sorry, too, to think that it's probable, if these losses we hear so much about continue in the mine, the company will hardly be able to keep on paying your pension."

It was a shot at short range. And that it took effect I at once saw by the expression of the woman's face, in which rage and fear were so clearly depicted, that I turned to go, feeling more words quite unnecessary; and making sure that something would result.

"Well, sergeant," I asked, as we sat that night, in his snug room at the barracks, "any clue yet to this mine business?"

"Divil a clue," he replied. "Nor am oi expectin' any, me bhoy, unless it's Morris himself, the schamer, as tips me the wink." He was rolling, as he spoke, a piece of paper into spill form for a pipelight, when suddenly he paused and pitched it across the table, laughing heartily. "P'raps," said he, "that's a clue, to blazes wid sich clues as thim!" Unrolling the dirty crumpled sheet of notepaper I read, "Dere sargint, its hatts as does the trik."

Just then the words conveyed no more meaning to me than they did to my companion. However, that they were a clue I was certain. Certain, also, that they were connected with my morning's work. So, whilst the sergeant busied himself at the sideboard, I took the liberty of impounding the note whilst apparently using it to light my pipe.

I had not yet visited the mine, being, in my own mind, pretty sure that the township was the best place for me to work out the puzzle in.

But next day, under the sergeant's wing, I got into one of the trucks that travelled down the wire tramway, and, not without misgiving was launched down the precipice at the foot of which was situated the Maid.

Perhaps it was the contents of the note in my pocket-book, over which I had puzzled my brain not a little, that caused me to take far more interest in the miners' headgear than in stamps, boxes, oscillating-tables, engines, and all the rest of it. And I could see that Mr. Morris privately put me down as an ass, whilst answering my questions.

"Did," I asked him, "all his men wear those hard black felt hats at their work?

"They could please themselves," he answered shortly. "Most of them did. Some of them, certainly, took them off when they got to their job underground, and put on linen caps. It was just as a matter of habit. He could hardly insist on a man leaving his hat in the change-house. Perhaps I thought they were smuggling gold up in their 'hard-hitters?' "

This last with a sneer. I made no answer, but still that idiotic "It's hatts as does the trik" ran to and fro in my brain. Still, it seemed a wildly improbable thing. Stay, one of the surface men had just taken his hat off and placed it crown down beside him, and close to me. Touching it with my foot I rolled on to a heap of quartz, and picking it up with an apology, I replaced it. Only, so far as I could discover, a simple hard felt, exactly the same as one sees worn by work men in the city any day— no more, no less. And I felt disgusted as, turning away, I caught the manager's grin of derision, and saw that he had noticed my little ruse.

Crestville was not a very large town. And I did not think there was a cottage hut, bumpy or tent that I had not seen, or even entered. But I was mistaken. Strolling one Sunday morning through a scrubby side street, I all at once came upon a large tent, from which proceeded the sound of a merry whistle. Looking in I saw a squat, elderly man sitting at a bench, busy doing something to a hat— a black, hard, felt hat. For a time I silently stood and watched him. Happening to move slightly, he looked up and ceased whistling, and— was it merely fancy, or did he give a start and make as though he would cover his work? I could not be sure, but, anyhow, here were hats to the fore again!

"Good morning," I said "I am only the piano-man, out for a walk. What are you doin'? Trying to make new hats out of old ones, eh?" and, as I spoke, I walked in and sat down.

"Nod quite dat," he answered. "It vos only Dan O'Brien gone und say he wand his had made sdronger mit anoder grown in him. Id is hard vork on der 'ead der mining, vhen de rock vall. Yah, id is zo," and he pretended to go on with his work; but, as I saw at once, it was only pretence.

Even then, as I sat there and filled my pipe and talked, the full significance of the thing never struck me as one would think it should have done. But, of late, I had given up the "hatt" theory, in great measure, as at all connected with "head-gear, and had turned my attention towards proper names, such as "Hatts" or "Hatz." Also, I was going to interview my friend, Mrs. Sullivan, again. Therefore, as I say, it was not until I had left the German and his tent some distance behind me that I suddenly stopped dead, and exclaimed to a native bear, sitting on a stump alongside the track, "By Jupiter! After all it is 'hatts as does the trik'!"

For three long hours I hid in the scrub and watched. And, at last, out, came my German— empty handed I was pleased to see— and took his way "up town" without even troubling to close the flap of his tent. Hardly waiting for him to disappear, I was inside and had the hat in my hands—finished, too, evidently. For once I was in luck's way! No doubt about it, my foreign friend was a tradesman, every inch of him! There was the false crown fitted to a T, lined and fixed so as to defy suspicion. And, as I ran my fingers over the true crown, they pressed a square slot that opened quite wide enough to receive a good sized nugget, or a handful of golden stone crushed small by a hammer or pick-head, and then flew back into its place again. At last the secret was out, and the mystery one no longer. Verily, it was "hatts as does the trik!"

Morris could hardly believe his ears when I told him of my discovery, and I think he was sceptical to the last minute; but I must admit he acted promptly and with determination. His professional reputation, as well as mine, was at stake, and we determined, to hazard both on the one chance.

Knowing the man we had to deal with, Morris went off to a large town not far distant, returning with a sub-inspector and eight, or nine police just as the night shift was coming off. As the constables took up their places, in the engine-room, I won't deny that I felt qualmish. Morris, too, looked pale and uneasy as the telephone rang down to the works the usual signal.

"All clear?" and the reply came back, "All clear. Hoist away."

The astonishment and dismay of the six miners in the first truck as they stepped out, only to be surrounded by police and ordered to "Off hats," was actually ludicrous. Then, as they recovered, they showed fight; but the drawn revolvers brought them to their senses, and sullenly enough they "unbonneted," and cast their hats upon the floor.

And what rich hats they were! Not one was drawn a blank. Suffice it to say that the shift yielded amongst them nearly 100 oz. of gold. No wonder the lead was "pinching out!"

Slafferty had been despatched to apprehend "German Charlie;" and that worthy, presently turning Queen's evidence, enabled us to lay our hands not only on other miners, but on the receivers also. Thirty shillings each was what Charlie used to charge for his patent hats; all repairs, which were often needed, at the same price.

I don't think the sergeant ever quite forgave me for working up the case without his help, although he did not refuse the substantial douceur I offered him out of the handsome reward the M.M.G.M. Company made me. And I soon had the pleasure of noticing that their shares were doubled in value, and that dividends were being declared at very short intervals.

__________________

5: Dance Without Music

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

The Sydney Sportsman, Australia, 30 March 1942

AS the express stopped at the mainline station, Callaghan awoke. He sat up, yawned, lit a cigarette, picked up his bag and stepped out onto the platform. Over by the refreshment buffet he saw MacOliver. They went into the buffet together. Callaghan ordered two double, whiskies and sodas.

He said: 'Well, what do you know?'

MacOliver said: 'She's been at home all day. Except for when she went to the hospital early this evening. Harvin's pretty bad. When I was down there this afternoon they didn't think he'd pull through. The bullet went through one lung, then downwards and chipped the spine coming out.'

Callaghan drank his whisky.

'She went home after she left the hospital,' MacOliver went on. 'She didn't look so good to me. She was at home till eight o'clock. Then she went out. She went down to a bar— Gregory's Bar, they call it. It's in the tough part of the city. She's been sitting there ever since looking right in front of her. She ordered a drink but she hadn't touched it when I left.'

Callaghan nodded absently, then looked at his wrist watch. It was half past ten.

'What do the police say about it?' he asked.

MacOliver shrugged. 'I spoke to the D.D.I. at the Central Police Station. They haven't got any ideas at all. They knew that Harvin had a record. They picked a fellow up this morning— Malinkel, of 22 Castle Street— and took him down for questioning. They had to let him go. He'd got an alibi.

'The police surgeon says Harvin was shot some time between twelve and twelve-thirty last night. That cleared this fellow. He was dancing at the dance place here until after one o'clock.'

Callaghan stubbed out his cigarette and lit another.

'All right,' he said. 'You take my bag and leave it at the County Hotel. Wait for me there.'

CALLAGHAN stood outside the station waiting for a taxi. A thin drizzle of rain had started. He thought that all the provincial cities had the same dreary look on a dark, wet night. When the taxi came, he told the driver to take him to Gregory's Bar.

The woman was sitting alone at a table at the end of the long, low-ceilinged bar. The smoke- and chatter-filled place was crowded, but there was no one at her table. The reason, was obvious. She was sitting staring straight in front of her. She looked like death. By her elbow was an untouched glass of whisky and soda.

Callaghan paused to light another cigarette. Then he walked to the table. He sat down opposite the woman. She looked at him with blank eyes that seemed to look right through his thin face.

He said:— 'Take it easy, Mrs. Harvin. You must be feeling pretty bad, but you'll have to pull yourself together some time, you know. Maybe things aren't going to be so bad. Maybe he'll recover.'

She said dully: 'He won't recover. I telephoned the hospital five minutes ago. He's dead. And I killed him.'

Callaghan's face softened into a sympathetic grin.

'You drink that whisky,' he said, 'and don't say things like that. You know you didn't kill him.'

'I did,' she said. 'I killed him because I was the woman who made him go straight. Ever since he's been married to me he's been straight. He was a crook when I met him, and if I hadn't turned him into an honest man he'd be alive now. He was shot because he was straight. So I killed him.'

Callaghan picked up the glass of whisky at her elbow and held it in front of her.

'Drink that,' he said. 'If you were as keen on him as all that you've got to help find the man who murdered him. You won't help by talking nonsense. Drink it.'

She drank some of the whisky. He saw a little colour come back to her face. He took out a cigarette, put it in her fingers, held his lighter in front of her face so that she had to light the cigarette. He saw that she was trying to pull herself together.

'Who are you?' she asked. 'And what do you want?'

Callaghan dropped his voice to a soothing note.

'My name's Callaghan. I'm investigating the robbery last night for the insurance company concerned. My job is to find that missing jewellery. That part of it doesn't interest you, I know, but this ought to.

'If I can find that jewellery it's a certainty that in the process I'll find the man who's killed your husband. Because I'm a private investigator I can do all sorts of things, take all sorts of chances that the police daren't take. They're tied by regulations— I'm not.'

He leaned across, the table.

'Mrs. Harvin,' he said. 'What about giving me a hand in finding, the man who killed Jim?'

'What's the good?' she said bitterly. 'I know who killed him. I've told them. They won't believe me because he's been clever enough to fix himself a first-class alibi. He's a specialist at alibis. Jim always said that.'

'Let's break that alibi down; said Callaghan persuasively. 'Let's work this thing out together. Tell me the whole story— even the part the police wouldn't believe. It's not going to hurt you to talk to me.'

She pushed the empty glass away. Callaghan saw that her fingers had stopped trembling. He lit a cigarette and listened.

'I married Jim a year ago,' she said, 'I knew all about him. I knew he'd been a crook. I knew he was the best safe-cracker in this country. But I knew I could get him to go straight. He did. I got him to come and live here because people knew me in this city.

'Nine months ago I got him a job as a packer in Cringall's Store. My father knew Cringall when the store was just a little shop. I told old Cringall all about Jim. He said he'd take a chance on him, and he's never regretted it.

'Four months ago, they made Jim night watchman. I'll never forget how pleased he was. He knew they trusted him. We were so happy that I began to feel it couldn't last. I was right: it hasn't.' She swallowed a sob.

'Three weeks ago Jim came home and told me he'd seen Willie Malinkel in the town. That Malinkel had talked to him. Malinkel was Jim's partner in the old days. He's one of the smartest crooks in the country. Jim said he was clever and tricky and wonderful at getting out of tough spots, that he had a way with women and made good— or bad— use of it.

'While Jim was talking, I felt a sort of shudder go through me.. I had the feeling that Malinkel had discovered about Jim's new job, and he was going to try to get Jim in on something. Well, I was right.

'Cringall's Store is a big place. It forms an island of its own at the end of Market Street. Every night about twelve o'clock I used to go down there and ring the bell at the packing department staff entrance on the Albert Street side.

'Jim used to come down, look through the iron grille in the door to see if it were me. Then he'd open the door and I'd give him his can of hot coffee and a packet of fresh sandwiches. Then we'd talk for a few minutes and I'd go back home.

'Yesterday night, at half-past eleven, somebody telephoned me at home. It was a man. I didn't recognise the voice. He said he was telephoning for Jim, that I wasn't to come down as usual with the coffee and stuff because it was so foggy. He said Jim was working on the other side of the store and couldn't telephone himself.

'That was a lie. The police have questioned everybody at the store and nobody knew anything about that phone call. It was done to stop me going there. That was the time they'd planned to break in.

'This morning they found Jim lying at the end of the passage leading to the staff entrance door on the Albert Street side. He was dying. He never recovered consciousness. So they learned nothing from him. The main safe in the jewellery department had been opened and cleaned out by an expert. Only the valuable staff had been taken.

'I told the police about Malinkel. They knew his record. They picked him up this morning. He had a cast iron alibi. He'd been at Rosemount Dance Hall, and didn't leave there until after one o'clock. They had an extension last night until two.

'The girl, the dance hostess— they have taxi-dancers down there, you know, sixpence a time— who danced with him from eleven forty-five until one fifteen, told the police that, and they let him go. She's a girl of good character. They had to believe her. So they let him go. But I know he did it. I know he did it!'

'What is the girl's name?' asked Callaghan

'Rosa Tremley,' said the woman. 'She's a nice girl. But that doesn't mean anything. Jim told me that Malinkel always went for nice girls. They were the sort of girls he liked. He had a way with him and they liked him.'

Callaghan nodded.

From the bar came a raucous voice: 'Time, gentlemen, please!'

He got up. 'This is where you go home,' he said. 'When you get there take yourself a cup of tea and keep your chin up.'

FILBY, the manager of the Rosemount Dance Hall at the end of Rennet Street, looked across his desk at Callaghan.

'The girls telling the truth, Mr. Callaghan,' he said. 'I believe her. She's one of the best girls we've ever had here. She's been here four months. Even if this Malinkel has got a police record, that don't make him a murderer, does it? Malinkel came in last night somewhere about half past eleven. He bought a strip of twenty dance-tickets and danced with Rosa all the time. She'd never met him before, so why should she tell a lie?

'Last night when we closed down at two o'clock, she handed in the twenty tickets— here they are— and I credited her with the money— ten bob. Malinkel had gone about a quarter past one and she hadn't danced with anybody else.'

Callaghan said: 'You've got a hostesses' room on the main floor. On the Albert Street side. There's a big double window in that room. Malinkel and the girl could have gone in there; and he could have got through the window, done the job and come back the same way. She could have waited for him and gone back on the dance floor with him. You say the place was crowded last night. They'd never have been missed.'

Filby shook his head.

'No,' he said. 'We've got twenty hostesses— all taxi-dancers— here. They're in an' out of that room the whole evenin'. Powderin' their noses and fixin' their make-up. The light used to be on in that room the whole time. That's why I put that notice up that you saw sayin' that any girl who didn't turn it off when she went out of the room would be sacked.

'From this office window I can look at the fanlight of the hostesses' room without movin' from this desk, an' last night it was going on and off the whole time— that was girls going in and out. Malinkel could never have taken a chance of getting out of that window and coming back through it. It's not possible.'

Callaghan nodded. He sat smoking silently, twisting the strip of twenty dance tickets that Rosa Tremley had turned in the night before between his fingers. After a while he got up. He threw the tickets on to Filby's desk.

'Thanks, Filby,' he said. 'Is Rosa Tremley here tonight?'

'Yes,' the manager answered. 'She'll be here till we close at twelve-thirty. You talk to her if you want to. She's a nice kid.'

Callaghan put on his hat.

'Is the band playing tonight the same as the one that was playing here last night?'

'No,' said Filby. 'Last night was an extension night. We had a special band, new decorations, new numbers, the mayor giving prizes away, everything right smack up to date. Last night we had Ferdy Marriner's Band here all evening.'

'Thanks,' said Callaghan. He drew in a lungful, of smoke and sent it out again slowly through one nostril. Then he put his hands into his overcoat pockets and went out.

CALLAGHAN walked down to Albert Street and stood before the door with the iron grille— the packing department staff door. He stood there for quite a while looking at the pavement in front of the door. Then he turned and began to walk back along Albert Street, hoping that he would find a passage somewhere leading from Albert Street to Rennet Street.

He was lucky. He found one. The passage started at the east end of Albert Street and ran through into the south end of Rennet Street. Thirty yards from the end of the dark passage, across the street, not three feet from the ground was the window of the Rosemount Dance Hall hostesses' room.

Callaghan stood watching the electric light go on and off periodically as the dancing girls entered and left the room. After a while he walked to the front entrance of the Rosemount Dance Hall.

Callaghan bought five sixpenny dance tickets at the glass box at the end of the dance floor. Then he walked over to the 'pen' where the dancing partners sat. He said to a fair-haired girl in a neat black frock:

'Are you Rosa Tremley?'.

She nodded. He handed her the tickets. She got up smilingly.

Callaghan said: ''We'll sit this dance out. Come and have some coffee.'

She nodded, still smiling prettily. They went over to one of the wicker tables and sat dawn. Callaghan ordered the coffee.

'Do you do much dancing?' she asked.

'Callaghan grinned. 'Very little; if ever I do I'll get you to teach me.'

Then he leaned over the table towards the girl and said grimly:

'You listen to me Rosa. You're being the worst sort of fool. That alibi you're putting up for Malinkel's is false as hell and you know it!'

She tossed her head.

'What's it got to do with you? If my evidence is good enough for the police it's good enough for anybody. You've got your nerve.'

'All right,' said Callaghan, 'if you've been telling the truth, you tell me something. There was a new band here last night— Ferdy Marriner's Band.'

'I've been talking to Marriner,' he lied glibly, 'and he tells me that last night between twelve and twelve-thirty he played four new numbers. They've never been played here before. They put a card up in the frame on the band platform with the song titles on it. You tell me the names of those four numbers, or any one of them!'

She looked at him quickly. He saw the sag of her jaw before she recovered herself.

'You mind your own damn business,' she said. 'You leave me alone!'

She walked over to the hostesses' room, slammed the door behind her. Callaghan grinned. He went to the cloakroom and got his hat and coat. Outside the Rosemount he hailed a taxi.

He drove to the County Hotel and picked up MacOliver, then to 22 Castle Street. Malinkel opened the door. A cigarette was hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He was grinning.

'More coppers?' he queried.

Callaghan pushed the door open and stepped into the passage. Malinkel's sitting-room door was open.

'Get inside,' said Callaghan. 'I want to talk to you.'

Malinkel shrugged and stepped into the room. He flopped in an armchair.

'I s'pose you've got a right to be here,' he said easily. 'Got your warrant cards with you?'

Callaghan said: 'I'm an investigator for the Climax and General Insurance. I'm going to take you in for murder. You killed Harvin. And it's no good bluffing, because Rosa Tremley's talked— at last. You forgot something. Marriner put some new dance numbers on last night between twelve and twelve-thirty and she didn't even know it. She saw the game was up and talked. It's over, Malinkel.'

'You don't say!' said Malinkel, leaning back in the chair and sucking at his cigarette stub. 'And what did Rosa tell you?' He was still grinning.

'She told me this: Four months ago you heard that Harvin had been made night watchman at Cringall's Store. So you sent Rosa along to get that job as dance hostess at the Rosemount and get herself a reputation for being a nice girl. That was in case of accidents.

'In case Jim Harvin didn't accept your proposition, you came over here and saw him and tried to get him to come in with you on the Cringall Store job. He wouldn't. He was going straight. But he didn't tell his wife about the proposition. He thought it would worry her. Then you thought you'd play it another way.

'Last night you telephoned through to Mrs. Harvin. You said you were an employee at the store speaking for Jim, that she wasn't to go down with his coffee and sandwiches because it was foggy. She fell for that.

'Just before twelve last night you and Rosa slipped into the hostesses' room. You locked yourself in the lavatory while she got the window open and slipped into her street coat. She put the strip of 20 tickets you'd given her into her coat pocket. Then she dropped out of the window.

'You waited your chance and dropped out after her, closing the window behind you.

'You had to have her with you because you knew that Jim Harvin would be expecting his wife at twelve o'clock as usual, and if he saw a woman through the grille— he would only see her indistinctly to the fog— he'd open the door. He'd think it was his wife. That's how you got in.

'Harvin got tough with you and said he'd hand you over, so you shot him.

'Meanwhile Rosa had gone back to the end of the passage into Bennett Street, waited until you joined her there. Nobody was going to miss either of you. The dance girls were too busy and the place was crowded.

'You both waited at the end of that passage until the mayor arrived to give the prizes, and you knew when that was. That was the time when the light in the hostesses room went out because all the hostesses would be on the dance floor watching the prize-giving. Then you both got through the window and slipped back on the dance floor.

Malinkel said nothing.

Callaghan went on:—

'It was too bad that when Rosa turned her tickets in last night there was one short. Filby told me tonight that you bought twenty tickets. She only turned in nineteen. He credited her with nine and sixpence instead of ten shillings. She said she'd lost the other ticket.

'And it was too bad that she had to drop that ticket outside the packing staff department door when she was standing there waiting for Jim to look through and think it was his wife in the street. I found the ticket down there tonight, caught in a crevice in the pavement. Here it is.'

Callaghan pulled the ticket out of his pocket. He held it so Malinkel could see the date on it. The date was the day before.

'When I showed that ticket to Rosa,' said Callaghan with a grin, 'that clinched things. She's making a statement to save her own skin. She's at the Central Station now. You'd better put your coat on, Malinkel.'

Malinkel shrugged. His face was grey.

'It's a fair cop,' he said thickly. 'It looks like my number's up, don't it? Oh, well, it mighta come off. Come on, let's get goin'. Let's get it over with.'

IT was three in the morning and still raining. The London train was just about to leave. Callaghan leaned out of the carriage window and lit a cigarette. He yawned.

MacOliver, on the platform, said: 'That was a hell of a quick job, Slim. It was a bit of luck your finding that dance ticket. He'd never have confessed if you hadn't got that.'

'I never found it. I tore if off the strip when I was talking to Filby in his office. Good-night!'

MacOliver stood looking after the train as it steamed out.

'Well, I'll be damned,' he said.

________________

6: The Wondersmith

Fitz-James O'Brien

1828-1862

The Atlantic Monthly October 1859

Golosh Street and its People

A SMALL LANE, the name of which I have forgotten, or do not choose to remember, slants suddenly off from Chatham Street, (before that headlong thoroughfare reaches into the Park,) and retreats suddenly down towards the East River, as if it were disgusted with the smell of old clothes, and had determined to wash itself clean. This excellent intention it has, however, evidently contributed towards the making of that imaginary pavement mentioned in the old adage; for it is still emphatically a dirty street. It has never been able to shake off the Hebraic taint of filth which it inherits from the ancestral thoroughfare. It is slushy and greasy, as if it were twin brother of the Roman Ghetto.

I like a dirty slum; not because I am naturally unclean,— I have not a drop of Neapolitan blood in my veins,— but because I generally find a certain sediment of philosophy precipitated in its gutters. A clean street is terribly prosaic. There is no food for thought in carefully swept pavements, barren kennels, and vulgarly spotless houses. But when I go down a street which has been left so long to itself that it has acquired a distinct outward character, I find plenty to think about. The scraps of sodden letters lying in the ash-barrel have their meaning: desperate appeals, perhaps, from Tom, the baker's assistant, to Amelia, the daughter of the dry-goods retailer, who is always selling at a sacrifice in consequence of the late fire. That may be Tom himself who is now passing me in a white apron, and I look up at the windows of the house (which does not, however, give any signs of a recent conflagration) and almost hope to see Amelia wave a white pocket-handkerchief. The bit of orange-peel lying on the sidewalk inspires thought. Who will fall over it? who but the industrious mother of six children, the eldest of which is only nine months old, all of whom are dependent on her exertions for support? I see her slip and tumble. I see the pale face convulsed with agony, and the vain struggle to get up; the pitying crowd closing her off from all air; the anxious young doctor who happened to be passing by; the manipulation of the broken limb, the shake of the head, the moan of the victim, the litter borne on men's shoulders, the gates of the New York Hospital unclosing, the subscription taken up on the spot. There is some food for speculation in that three-year-old, tattered child, masked with dirt, who is throwing a brick at another three-year-old, tattered child, masked with dirt. It is not difficult to perceive that he is destined to lurk, as it were, through life. His bad, flat face— or, at least, what can be seen of it— does not look as if it were made for the light of day. The mire in which he wallows now is but a type of the moral mire in which he will wallow hereafter. The feeble little hand lifted at this instant to smite his companion, half in earnest, half in jest, will be raised against his fellow-beings forevermore.

Golosh Street— as I will call this nameless lane before alluded to— is an interesting locality. All the oddities of trade seem to have found their way thither and made an eccentric mercantile settlement. There is a bird-shop at one corner, wainscoted with little cages containing linnets, waxwings, canaries, blackbirds, Mino-birds, with a hundred other varieties, known only to naturalists. Immediately opposite is an establishment where they sell nothing but ornaments made out of the tinted leaves of autumn, varnished and gummed into various forms. Farther down is a second-hand book-stall, which looks like a sentry-box mangled out flat, and which is remarkable for not containing a complete set of any work. There is a small chink between two ordinary-sized houses, in which a little Frenchman makes and sells artificial eyes, specimens of which, ranged on a black velvet cushion, stare at you unwinkingly through the window as you pass, until you shudder and hurry on, thinking how awful the world would be, if every one went about without eyelids. There are junk-shops in Golosh Street that seem to have got hold of all the old nails in the Ark and all the old brass of Corinth. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second story front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, commonly called the Wondersmith.

Herr Hippe's shop is the largest in Golosh Street, and to all appearance is furnished with the smallest stock. Beyond a few packing-cases, a turner's lathe, and a shelf laden with dissected maps of Europe, the interior of the shop is entirely unfurnished. The window, which is lofty and wide, but much begrimed with dirt, contains the only pleasant object in the place. This is a beautiful little miniature theatre,— that is to say, the orchestra and stage. It is fitted with charmingly painted scenery and all the appliances for scenic changes. There are tiny traps, and delicately constructed "lifts," and real footlights fed with burning-fluid, and in the orchestra sits a diminutive conductor before his desk, surrounded by musical manikins, all provided with the smallest of violoncellos, flutes, oboes, drums, and such like. There are characters also on the stage. A Templar in a white cloak is dragging a fainting female form to the parapet of a ruined bridge, while behind a great black rock on the left one can see a man concealed, who, kneeling, levels an arquebus at the knight's heart. But the orchestra is silent; the conductor never beats the time, the musicians never play a note. The Templar never drags his victim an inch nearer to the bridge, the masked avenger takes an eternal aim with his weapon. This repose appears unnatural; for so admirably are the figures executed, that they seem replete with life. One is almost led to believe, in looking on them, that they are resting beneath some spell which hinders their motion. One expects every moment to hear the loud explosion of the arquebus,— to see the blue smoke curling, the Templar falling,— to hear the orchestra playing the requiem of the guilty.

Few people knew what Herr Hippe's business or trade really was. That he worked at something was evident; else why the shop? Some people inclined to the belief that he was an inventor, or mechanician. His workshop was in the rear of the store, and into that sanctuary no one but himself had admission. He arrived in Golosh Street eight or ten years ago, and one fine morning, the neighbors, taking down their shutters, observed that No. 13 had got a tenant. A tall, thin, sallow-faced man stood on a ladder outside the shop-entrance, nailing up a large board, on which "Herr Hippe, Wondersmith," was painted in black letters on a yellow ground. The little theatre stood in the window, where it stood ever after, and Herr Hippe was established.

But what was a Wondersmith? people asked each other. No one could reply. Madame Filomel was consulted, but she looked grave, and said that it was none of her business. Mr. Pippel, the bird-fancier, who was a German, and ought to know best, thought it was the English for some singular Teutonic profession; but his replies were so vague, that Golosh Street was as unsatisfied as ever. Solon, the little humpback, who kept the odd-volume book-stall at the lowest corner, could throw no light upon it. And at length people had to come to the conclusion, that Herr Hippe was either a coiner or a magician, and opinions were divided.

A Bottleful of Souls

IT was a dull December evening. There was little trade doing in Golosh Street, and the shutters were up at most of the shops. Hippe's store had been closed at least an hour, and the Mino-birds and Bohemian waxwings at Mr. Pippel's had their heads tucked under their wings in their first sleep.

Herr Hippe sat in his parlor, which was lit by a pleasant wood-fire. There were no candles in the room, and the flickering blaze played fantastic tricks on the pale gray walls. It seemed the festival of shadows. Processions of shapes, obscure and indistinct, passed across the leaden-hued panels and vanished in the dusk corners. Every fresh blaze flung up by the wayward logs created new images. Now it was a funeral throng, with the bowed figures of mourners, the shrouded coffin, the plumes that waved like extinguished torches; now a knightly cavalcade with flags and lances, and weird horses, that rushed silently along until they met the angle of the room, when they pranced through the wall and vanished.

On a table close to where Herr Hippe sat was placed a large square box of some dark wood, while over it was spread a casing of steel, so elaborately wrought in an open arabesque pattern that it seemed like a shining blue lace which was lightly stretched over its surface.

Herr Hippe lay luxuriously in his arm-chair, looking meditatively into the fire. He was tall and thin, and his skin was of a dull saffron hue. Long, straight hair,— sharply cut, regular features,— a long, thin moustache, that curled like a dark asp around his mouth, the expression of which was so bitter and cruel that it seemed to distil the venom of the ideal serpent,— and a bony, muscular form, were the prominent characteristics of the Wondersmith.

The profound silence that reigned in the chamber was broken by a peculiar scratching at the panel of the door, like that which at the French court was formerly substituted for the ordinary knock, when it was necessary to demand admission to the royal apartments. Herr Hippe started, raised his head, which vibrated on his long neck like the head of a cobra when about to strike, and after a moment's silence uttered a strange guttural sound. The door unclosed, and a squat, broad-shouldered woman, with large, wild, Oriental eyes, entered softly.

"Ah! Filomel, you are come!" said the Wondersmith, sinking back in his chair. "Where are the rest of them?"

"They will be here presently," answered Madame Filomel, seating herself in an arm-chair much too narrow for a person of her proportions, and over the sides of which she bulged like a pudding.

"Have you brought the souls?" asked the Wondersmith.

"They are here," said the fortune-teller, drawing a large pot-bellied black bottle from under her cloak. "Ah! I have had such trouble with them!"

"Are they of the right brand,— wild, tearing, dark, devilish fellows? We want no essence of milk and honey, you know. None but souls bitter as hemlock or scorching as lightning will suit our purpose."

"You will see, you will see, Grand Duke of Egypt! They are ethereal demons, every one of them. They are the pick of a thousand births. Do you think that I, old midwife that I am, don't know the squall of the demon child from that of the angel child, the very moment they are delivered? Ask a musician, how he knows, even in the dark, a note struck by Thalberg from one struck by Listz!"

"I long to test them," cried the Wondersmith, rubbing his hands joyfully. "I long to see how the little devils will behave when I give them their shapes. Ah! it will be a proud day for us when we let them loose upon the cursed Christian children! Through the length and breadth of the land they will go; wherever our wandering people set foot, and wherever they are, the children of the Christians shall die. Then we, the despised Bohemians, the gypsies, as they call us, will be once more lords of the earth, as we were in the days when the accursed things called cities did not exist, and men lived in the free woods and hunted the game of the forest. Toys indeed! Ay, ay, we will give the little dears toys! toys that all day will sleep calmly in their boxes, seemingly stiff and wooden and without life,— but at night, when the souls enter them, will arise and surround the cots of the sleeping children, and pierce their hearts with their keen, envenomed blades! Toys indeed! oh, yes! I will sell them toys!"

And the Wondersmith laughed horribly, while the snaky moustache on his upper lip writhed as if it had truly a serpent's power and could sting.

"Have you got your first batch, Herr Hippe?" asked Madame Filomel. "Are they all ready?"

"Oh, ay! they are ready," answered the Wondersmith with gusto,— opening, as he spoke, the box covered with the blue steel lace-work; "they are here."

The box contained a quantity of exquisitely carved wooden manikins of both sexes, painted with great dexterity so as to present a miniature resemblance to Nature. They were, in fact, nothing more than admirable specimens of those toys which children delight in placing in various positions on the table,— in regiments, or sitting at meals, or grouped under the stiff green trees which always accompany them in the boxes in which they are sold at the toy-shops.

The peculiarity, however, about the manikins of Herr Hippe was not alone the artistic truth with which the limbs and the features were gifted; but on the countenance of each little puppet the carver's art had wrought an expression of wickedness that was appalling. Every tiny face had its special stamp of ferocity. The lips were thin and brimful of malice; the small black bead-like eyes glittered with the fire of a universal hate. There was not one of the manikins, male or female, that did not hold in his or her hand some miniature weapon. The little men, scowling like demons, clasped in their wooden fingers swords delicate as a housewife's needle. The women, whose countenances expressed treachery and cruelty, clutched infinitesimal daggers, with which they seemed about to take some terrible vengeance.

"Good!" said Madame Filomel, taking one of the manikins out of the box, and examining it attentively; "you work well, Duke Balthazar! These little ones are of the right stamp; they look as if they had mischief in them. Ah! here come our brothers."

At this moment the same scratching that preceded the entrance of Madame Filomel was heard at the door, and Herr Hippe replied with a hoarse, guttural cry. The next moment two men entered. The first was a small man with very brilliant eyes. He was wrapt in a long shabby cloak, and wore a strange nondescript species of cap on his head, such a cap as one sees only in the low billiard-rooms in Paris. His companion was tall, long-limbed, and slender; and his dress, although of the ordinary cut, either from the disposition of colors, or from the careless, graceful attitudes of the wearer, assumed a certain air of picturesqueness. Both the men possessed the same marked Oriental type of countenance which distinguished the Wondersmith and Madame Filomel. True gypsies they seemed, who would not have been out of place telling fortunes, or stealing chickens in the green lanes of England, or wandering with their wild music and their sleight-of-hand tricks through Bohemian villages.

"Welcome, brothers!" said the Wondersmith; "you are in time. Sister Filomel has brought the souls, and we are about to test them. Monsieur Kerplonne, take off your cloak. Brother Oaksmith, take a chair. I promise you some amusement this evening; so make yourselves comfortable. Here is something to aid you."

And while the Frenchman Kerplonne, and his tall companion, Oaksmith, were obeying Hippe's invitation, he reached over to a little closet let into the wall, and took thence a squat bottle and some glasses, which he placed on the table.

"Drink, brothers!" he said; "it is not Christian blood, but good stout wine of Oporto. It goes right to the heart, and warms one like the sunshine of the South."

"It is good," said Kerplonne, smacking his lips with enthusiasm.

"Why don't you keep brandy? Hang wine!" cried Oaksmith, after having swallowed two bumpers in rapid succession.

"Bah! Brandy has been the ruin of our race. It has made us sots and thieves. It shall never cross my threshold," cried the Wondersmith, with a sombre indignation.

"A little of it is not bad, though, Duke," said the fortune-teller. "It consoles us for our misfortunes; it gives us the crowns we once wore; it restores to us the power we once wielded; it carries us back, as if by magic, to that land of the sun from which fate has driven us; it darkens the memory of all the evils that we have for centuries suffered."

"It is a devil; may it be cursed!" cried Herr Hippe, passionately. "It is a demon that stole from me my son, the finest youth in all Courland. Yes! my son, the son of the Waywode Balthazar, Grand Duke of Lower Egypt, died raving in a gutter, with an empty brandy-bottle in his hands. Were it not that the plant is a sacred one to our race, I would curse the grape and the vine that bore it."

This outburst was delivered with such energy that the three gypsies kept silence. Oaksmith helped himself to another glass of Port, and the fortune-teller rocked to and fro in her chair, too much overawed by the Wondersmith's vehemence of manner to reply. The little Frenchman, Kerplonne, took no part in the discussion, but seemed lost in admiration of the manikins, which he took from the box in which they lay, handling them with the greatest care. After the silence had lasted for about a minute, Herr Hippe broke it with the sudden question,—

"How does your eye get on, Kerplonne?"

"Excellently, Duke. It is finished. I have it here." And the little Frenchman put his hand into his breeches-pocket and pulled out a large artificial human eye. Its great size was the only thing in this eye that would lead any one to suspect its artificiality. It was at least twice the size of life; but there was a fearful speculative light in its iris, which seemed to expand and contract like the eye of a living being, that rendered it a horrible staring paradox. It looked like the naked eye of the Cyclops, torn from his forehead, and still burning with wrath and the desire for vengeance.

The little Frenchman laughed pleasantly as he held the eye in his hand, and gazed down on that huge dark pupil, that stared back at him, it seemed, with an air of defiance and mistrust.

"It is a devil of an eye," said the little man, wiping the enamelled surface with an old silk pocket-handkerchief; "it reads like a demon. My niece— the unhappy one— has a wretch of a lover, and I have a long time feared that she would run away with him. I could not read her correspondence, for she kept her writing-desk closely locked. But I asked her yesterday to keep this eye in some very safe place for me. She put it, as I knew she would, into her desk, and by its aid I read every one of her letters. She was to run away next Monday, the ungrateful! but she will find herself disappointed."

And the little man laughed heartily at the success of his stratagem, and polished and fondled the great eye until that optic seemed to grow sore with rubbing.

"And you have been at work, too, I see, Herr Hippe. Your manikins are excellent. But where are the souls?"

"In that bottle," answered the Wondersmith, pointing to the pot-bellied black bottle that Madame Filomel had brought with her. "Yes, Monsieur Kerplonne," he continued, "my manikins are well made. I invoked the aid of Abigor, the demon of soldiery, and he inspired me. The little fellows will be famous assassins when they are animated. We will try them to-night."

"Good!" cried Kerplonne, rubbing his hands joyously. "It is close upon New Year's Day. We will fabricate millions of the little murderers by New Year's Even, and sell them in large quantities; and when the households are all asleep, and the Christian children are waiting for Santa Claus to come, the small ones will troop from their boxes and the Christian children will die. It is famous! Health to Abigor!"

"Let us try them at once," said Oaksmith. "Is your daughter, Zonela, in bed, Herr Hippe? Are we secure from intrusion?"

"No one is stirring about the house," replied the Wondersmith, gloomily.

Filomel leaned over to Oaksmith, and said, in an undertone,—

"Why do you mention his daughter? You know he does not like to have her spoken about."

"I will take care that we are not disturbed," said Kerplonne, rising. "I will put my eye outside the door, to watch."

He went to the door and placed his great eye upon the floor with tender care. As he did so, a dark form, unseen by him or his second vision, glided along the passage noiselessly and was lost in the darkness.

"Now for it!" exclaimed Madam Filomel, taking up her fat black bottle. "Herr Hippe, prepare your manikins!"

The Wondersmith took the little dolls out, one by one, and set them upon the table. Such an array of villainous countenances was never seen. An army of Italian bravos, seen through the wrong end of a telescope, or a band of prisoners at the galleys in Lilliput, will give some faint idea of the appearance they presented. While Madame Filomel uncorked the black bottle, Herr Hippe covered the dolls over with a species of linen tent, which he took also from the box. This done, the fortune-teller held the mouth of the bottle to the door of the tent, gathering the loose cloth closely round the glass neck. Immediately, tiny noises were heard inside the tent. Madame Filomel removed the bottle, and the Wondersmith lifted the covering in which he had enveloped his little people.

A wonderful transformation had taken place. Wooden and inflexible no longer, the crowd of manikins were now in full motion. The beadlike eyes turned, glittering, on all sides; the thin, wicked lips quivered with bad passions; the tiny hands sheathed and unsheathed the little swords and daggers. Episodes, common to life, were taking place in every direction. Here two martial manikins paid court to a pretty sly-faced female, who smiled on each alternately, but gave her hand to be kissed to a third manikin, an ugly little scoundrel, who crouched behind her back. There a pair of friendly dolls walked arm in arm, apparently on the best terms, while, all the time, one was watching his opportunity to stab the other in the back.

"I think they'll do," said the Wondersmith, chuckling, as he watched these various incidents. "Treacherous, cruel, bloodthirsty. All goes marvellously well. But stay! I will put the grand test to them."

So saying, he drew a gold dollar from his pocket, and let it fall on the table in the very midst of the throng of manikins. It had hardly touched the table, when there was a pause on all sides. Every head was turned towards the dollar. Then about twenty of the little creatures rushed towards the glittering coin. One, fleeter than the rest, leaped upon it, and drew his sword. The entire crowd of little people had now gathered round this new centre of attraction. Men and women struggled and shoved to get nearer to the piece of gold. Hardly had the first Lilliputian mounted upon the treasure, when a hundred blades flashed back a defiant answer to his, and a dozen men, sword in hand, leaped upon the yellow platform and drove him off at the sword's point. Then commenced a general battle. The miniature faces were convulsed with rage and avarice. Each furious doll tried to plunge dagger or sword into his or her neighbor, and the women seemed possessed by a thousand devils.

"They will break themselves into atoms," cried Filomel, as she watched with eagerness this savage melee. "You had better gather them up, Herr Hippe. I will exhaust my bottle and suck all the souls back from them."

"Oh, they are perfect devils! they are magnificent little demons!" cried the Frenchman, with enthusiasm. "Hippe, you are a wonderful man. Brother Oaksmith, you have no such man as Hippe among your English gypsies."

"Not exactly," answered Oaksmith, rather sullenly, "not exactly. But we have men there who can make a twelve-year-old horse look like a four-year-old,— and who can take you and Herr Hippe up with one hand, and throw you over their shoulders."

"The good God forbid!" said the little Frenchman. "I do not love such play. It is incommodious."

While Oaksmith and Kerplonne were talking, the Wondersmith had placed the linen tent over the struggling dolls, and Madame Filomel, who had been performing some mysterious manipulations with her black bottle, put the mouth once more to the door of the tent. In an instant the confused murmur within ceased. Madame Filomel corked the bottle quickly. The Wondersmith withdrew the tent, and, lo! the furious dolls were once more wooden-jointed and inflexible; and the old sinister look was again frozen on their faces.

"They must have blood, though," said Herr Hippe, as he gathered them up and put them into their box. "Mr. Pippel, the bird-fancier, is asleep. I have a key that opens his door. We will let them loose among the birds; it will be rare fun."

"Magnificent!" cried Kerplonne. "Let us go on the instant. But first let me gather up my eye."

The Frenchman pocketed his eye, after having given it a polish with the silk handkerchief; Herr Hippe extinguished the lamp; Oaksmith took a last bumper of Port; and the four gypsies departed for Mr. Pippel's, carrying the box of manikins with them.

Solon

THE shadow that glided along the dark corridor, at the moment that Monsieur Kerplonne deposited his sentinel eye outside the door of the Wondersmith's apartment, sped swiftly through the passage and ascended the stairs to the attic. Here the shadow stopped at the entrance to one of the chambers and knocked at the door. There was no reply.

"Zonela, are you asleep?" said the shadow, softly.

"Oh, Solon, is it you?" replied a sweet low voice from within. "I thought it was Herr Hippe. Come in."

The shadow opened the door and entered. There were neither candles nor lamp in the room; but through the projecting window, which was open, there came the faint gleams of the starlight, by which one could distinguish a female figure seated on a low stool in the middle of the floor.

"Has he left you without light again, Zonela?" asked the shadow, closing the door of the apartment. "I have brought my little lantern with me, though."

"Thank you, Solon," answered she called Zonela; "you are a good fellow. He never gives me any light of an evening, but bids me go to bed. I like to sit sometimes and look at the moon and the stars,— the stars more than all; for they seem all the time to look right back into my face, very sadly, as if they would say, 'We see you, and pity you, and would help you, if we could.' But it is so mournful to be always looking at such myriads of melancholy eyes! and I long so to read those nice books that you lend me, Solon!"

By this time the shadow had lit the lantern and was a shadow no longer. A large head, covered with a profusion of long blonde hair, which was cut after that fashion known as a l'enfants d'Edouard; a beautiful pale face, lit with wide, blue, dreamy eyes; long arms and slender hands, attenuated legs, and— an enormous hump;— such was Solon, the shadow. As soon as the humpback had lit the lamp, Zonela arose from the low stool on which she had been seated, and took Solon's hand affectionately in hers.

Zonela was surely not of gypsy blood. That rich auburn hair, that looked almost black in the lamp-light, that pale, transparent skin, tinged with an under-glow of warm rich blood, the hazel eyes, large and soft as those of a fawn, were never begotten of a Zingaro. Zonela was seemingly about sixteen; her figure, although somewhat thin and angular, was full of the unconscious grace of youth. She was dressed in an old cotton print, which had been once of an exceedingly boisterous pattern, but was now a mere suggestion of former splendor; while round her head was twisted, in fantastic fashion, a silk handkerchief of green ground spotted with bright crimson. This strange headdress gave her an elfish appearance.

"I have been out all day with the organ, and I am so tired, Solon!— not sleepy, but weary, I mean. Poor Furbelow was sleepy, though, and he's gone to bed."

"I'm weary, too, Zonela;— not weary as you are, though, for I sit in my little book-stall all day long, and do not drag round an organ and a monkey and play old tunes for pennies,— but weary of myself, of life, of the load that I carry on my shoulders;" and, as he said this, the poor humpback glanced sideways, as if to call attention to his deformed person.

"Well, but you ought not to be melancholy amidst your books, Solon. Gracious! If I could only sit in the sun and read as you do, how happy I should be! But it's very tiresome to trudge round all day with that nasty organ, and look up at the houses, and know that you are annoying the people inside; and then the boys play such bad tricks on poor Furbelow, throwing him hot pennies to pick up, and burning his poor little hands; and oh! sometimes, Solon, the men in the street make me so afraid,— they speak to me and look at me so oddly!— I'd a great deal rather sit in your book-stall and read."

"I have nothing but odd volumes in my stall," answered the humpback. "Perhaps that's right, though; for, after all, I'm nothing but an odd volume myself."

"Come, don't be melancholy, Solon. Sit down and tell me a story. I'll bring Furbelow to listen."

So saying, she went to a dusk corner of the cheerless attic-room, and returned with a little Brazilian monkey in her arms,— a poor, mild, drowsy thing, that looked as if it had cried itself to sleep. She sat down on her little stool, with Furbelow in her lap, and nodded her head to Solon, as much as to say, "Go on; we are attentive."

"You want a story, do you?" said the humpback, with a mournful smile. "Well, I'll tell you one. Only what will your father say, if he catches me here?"

"Herr Hippe is not my father," cried Zonela, indignantly. "He's a gypsy, and I know I'm stolen; and I'd run away from him, if I only knew where to run to. If I were his child, do you think that he would treat me as he does? make me trudge round the city, all day long, with a barrel-organ and a monkey,— though I love poor dear little Furbelow,— and keep me up in a garret, and give me ever so little to eat? I know I'm not his child, for he hates me."

"Listen to my story, Zonela, and we'll talk of that afterwards. Let me sit at your feet;"— and, having coiled himself up at the little maiden's feet, he commenced:—

"There once lived in a great city, just like this city of New York, a poor little hunchback. He kept a second-hand book-stall, where he made barely enough money to keep body and soul together. He was very sad at times, because he knew scarce any one, and those that he did know did not love him. He had passed a sickly, secluded youth. The children of his neighborhood would not play with him, for he was not made like them; and the people in the streets stared at him with pity, or scoffed at him when he went by. Ah! Zonela, how his poor heart was wrung with bitterness when he beheld the procession of shapely men and fine women that every day passed him by in the thoroughfares of the great city! How he repined and cursed his fate as the torrent of fleet-footed firemen dashed past him to the toll of the bells, magnificent in their overflowing vitality and strength! But there was one consolation left him,— one drop of honey in the jar of gall, so sweet that it ameliorated all the bitterness of life. God had given him a deformed body, but his mind was straight and healthy. So the poor hunchback shut himself into the world of books, and was, if not happy, at least contented. He kept company with courteous paladins, and romantic heroes, and beautiful women; and this society was of such excellent breeding that it never so much as once noticed his poor crooked back or his lame walk. The love of books grew upon him with his years. He was remarked for his studious habits; and when, one day, the obscure people that he called father and mother— parents only in name— died, a compassionate book-vendor gave him enough stock in trade to set up a little stall of his own. Here, in his book-stall, he sat in the sun all day, waiting for the customers that seldom came, and reading the fine deeds of the people of the ancient time, or the beautiful thoughts of the poets that had warmed millions of hearts before that hour, and still glowed for him with undiminished fire. One day, when he was reading some book, that, small as it was, was big enough to shut the whole world out from him, he heard some music in the street. Looking up from his book, he saw a little girl, with large eyes, playing an organ, while a monkey begged for alms from a crowd of idlers who had nothing in their pockets but their hands. The girl was playing, but she was also weeping. The merry notes of the polka were ground out to a silent accompaniment of tears. She looked very sad, this organ-girl, and her monkey seemed to have caught the infection, for his large brown eyes were moist, as if he also wept. The poor hunchback was struck with pity, and called the little girl over to give her a penny,— not, dear Zonela, because he wished to bestow alms, but because he wanted to speak with her. She came, and they talked together. She came the next day,— for it turned out that they were neighbors,— and the next, and, in short, every day. They became friends. They were both lonely and afflicted, with this difference, that she was beautiful, and he— was a hunchback."

"Why, Solon," cried Zonela, "that's the very way you and I met!"

"It was then," continued Solon, with a faint smile, "that life seemed to have its music. A great harmony seemed to the poor cripple to fill the world. The carts that took the flour-barrels from the wharves to the store-houses seemed to emit joyous melodies from their wheels. The hum of the great business-streets sounded like grand symphonies of triumph. As one who has been travelling through a barren country without much heed feels with singular force the sterility of the lands he has passed through when he reaches the fertile plains that lie at the end of his journey, so the humpback, after his vision had been freshened with this blooming flower, remembered for the first time the misery of the life that he had led. But he did not allow himself to dwell upon the past. The present was so delightful that it occupied all his thoughts. Zonela, he was in love with the organ-girl."

"Oh, that's so nice!" said Zonela, innocently,— pinching poor Furbelow, as she spoke, in order to dispel a very evident snooze that was creeping over him. "It's going to be a love-story."

"Ah! but, Zonela, he did not know whether she loved him in return. You forget that he was deformed."

"But," answered the girl, gravely, "he was good."

A light like the flash of an aurora illuminated Solon's face for an instant. He put out his hand suddenly, as if to take Zonela's and press it to his heart; but an unaccountable timidity seemed to arrest the impulse, and he only stroked Furbelow's head,— upon which that individual opened one large brown eye to the extent of the eighth of an inch, and, seeing that it was only Solon, instantly closed it again, and resumed his dream of a city where there were no organs and all the copper coin of the realm was iced.

"He hoped and feared," continued Solon, in a low, mournful voice; "but at times he was very miserable, because he did not think it possible that so much happiness was reserved for him as the love of this beautiful, innocent girl. At night, when he was in bed, and all the world was dreaming, he lay awake looking up at the old books that hung against the walls, thinking how he could bring about the charming of her heart. One night, when he was thinking of this, with his eyes fixed upon the mouldy backs of the odd volumes that lay on their shelves, and looked back at him wistfully, as if they would say,— 'We also are like you, and wait to be completed,'— it seemed as if he heard a rustle of leaves. Then, one by one, the books came down from their places to the floor, as if shifted by invisible hands, opened their worm-eaten covers, and from between the pages of each the hunchback saw issue forth a curious throng of little people that danced here and there through the apartment. Each one of these little creatures was shaped so as to bear resemblance to some one of the letters of the alphabet. One tall, long-legged fellow seemed like the letter A; a burly fellow, with a big head and a paunch, was the model of B; another leering little chap might have passed for a Q; and so on through the whole. These fairies— for fairies they were— climbed upon the hunchback's bed, and clustered thick as bees upon his pillow. 'Come!' they cried to him, 'we will lead you into fairy-land.' So saying, they seized his hand, and he suddenly found himself in a beautiful country, where the light did not come from sun or moon or stars, but floated round and over and in everything like the atmosphere. On all sides he heard mysterious melodies sung by strangely musical voices. None of the features of the landscape were definite; yet when he looked on the vague harmonies of color that melted one into another before his sight, he was filled with a sense of inexplicable beauty. On every side of him fluttered radiant bodies which darted to and fro through the illumined space. They were not birds, yet they flew like birds; and as each one crossed the path of his vision, he felt a strange delight flash through his brain, and straightway an interior voice seemed to sing beneath the vaulted dome of his temples a verse containing some beautiful thought. The little fairies were all this time dancing and fluttering around him, perching on his head, on his shoulders, or balancing themselves on his finger-tips. 'Where am I?' he asked, at last, of his friends, the fairies. 'Ah! Solon,' he heard them whisper, in tones that sounded like the distant tinkling of silver bells, 'this land is nameless; but those whom we lead hither, who tread its soil, and breathe its air, and gaze on its floating sparks of light, are poets forevermore!' Having said this, they vanished, and with them the beautiful indefinite land, and the flashing lights, and the illumined air; and the hunchback found himself again in bed, with the moonlight quivering on the floor, and the dusty books on their shelves, grim and mouldy as ever."

"You have betrayed yourself. You called yourself Solon," cried Zonela. "Was it a dream?"

"I do not know," answered Solon; "but since that night I have been a poet."

"A poet?" screamed the little organ-girl,— "a real poet, who makes verses which every one reads and every one talks of?"

"The people call me a poet," answered Solon, with a sad smile. "They do not know me by the name of Solon, for I write under an assumed title; but they praise me, and repeat my songs. But, Zonela, I can't sing this load off of my back, can I?"

"Oh, bother the hump!" said Zonela, jumping up suddenly. "You're a poet, and that's enough, isn't it? I'm so glad you're a poet, Solon! You must repeat all your best things to me, won't you?"

Solon nodded assent.

"You don't ask me," he said, "who was the little girl that the hunchback loved."

Zonela's face flushed crimson. She turned suddenly away, and ran into a dark corner of the room. In a moment she returned with an old hand-organ in her arms.

"Play, Solon, play!" she cried. "I am so glad that I want to dance. Furbelow, come and dance in honor of Solon the Poet."

It was her confession. Solon's eyes flamed, as if his brain had suddenly ignited. He said nothing; but a triumphant smile broke over his countenance. Zonela, the twilight of whose cheeks was still rosy with the setting blush, caught the lazy Furbelow by his little paws; Solon turned the crank of the organ, which wheezed out as merry a polka as its asthma would allow, and the girl and the monkey commenced their fantastic dance. They had taken but a few steps when the door suddenly opened, and the tall figure of the Wondersmith appeared on the threshold. His face was convulsed with rage, and the black snake that quivered on his upper lip seemed to rear itself as if about to spring upon the hunchback.

The Manikins and the Minos.

THE four gypsies left Herr Hippe's house cautiously, and directed their steps towards Mr. Pippel's bird-shop. Golosh Street was asleep. Nothing was stirring in that tenebrous slum, save a dog that savagely gnawed a bone which lay on a dust-heap, tantalizing him with the flavor of food without its substance. As the gypsies moved stealthily along in the darkness, they had a sinister and murderous air that would not have failed to attract the attention of the policeman of the quarter, if that worthy had not at the moment been comfortably ensconced in the neighboring "Rainbow" bar-room, listening to the improvisations of that talented vocalist, Mr. Harrison, who was making impromptu verses on every possible subject, to the accompaniment of a cithern which was played by a sad little Italian in a large cloak, to whom the host of the "Rainbow" gave so many toddies and a dollar for his nightly performance.

Mr. Pippel's shop was but a short distance from the Wondersmith's house. A few moments, therefore, brought the gypsy party to the door, when, by aid of a key which Herr Hippe produced, they silently slipped into the entry. Here the Wondersmith took a dark-lantern from under his cloak, removed the cap that shrouded the light, and led the way into the shop, which was separated from the entry only by a glass door, that yielded, like the outer one, to a key which Hippe took from his pocket. The four gypsies now entered the shop and closed the door behind them.

It was a little world of birds. On every side, whether in large or small cages, one beheld balls of various-colored feathers standing on one leg and breathing peacefully. Love-birds, nestling shoulder to shoulder, with their heads tucked under their wings and all their feathers puffed out, so that they looked like globes of malachite; English bullfinches, with ashen-colored backs, in which their black heads were buried, and corselets of a rosy down; Java sparrows, fat and sleek and cleanly; troupials, so glossy and splendid in plumage that they looked as if they were dressed in the celebrated armor of the Black Prince, which was jet, richly damascened with gold; a cock of the rock, gleaming, a ball of tawny fire, like a setting sun; the Campanero of Brazil, white as snow, with his dilatable tolling-tube hanging from his head, placid and silent;— these, with a humbler crowd of linnets, canaries, robins, mocking-birds, and phoebes, slumbered calmly in their little cages, that were hung so thickly on the wall as not to leave an inch of it visible.

"Splendid little morsels, all of them!" exclaimed Monsieur Kerplonne. "Ah we are going to have a rare beating!"

"So Pippel does not sleep in his shop," said the English gypsy, Oaksmith.

"No. The fellow lives somewhere up one of the avenues," answered Madame Filomel. "He came, the other evening, to consult me about his fortune. I did not tell him," she added, with a laugh, "that he was going to have so distinguished a sporting party on his premises."

"Come," said the Wondersmith, producing the box of manikins, "get ready with souls, Madame Filomel. I am impatient to see my little men letting out lives for the first time."

Just at the moment that the Wondersmith uttered this sentence, the four gypsies were startled by a hoarse voice issuing from a corner of the room, and propounding in the most guttural tones the intemperate query of "What'll you take?" This sottish invitation had scarce been given, when a second extremely thick voice replied from an opposite corner, in accents so rough that they seemed to issue from a throat torn and furrowed by the liquid lava of many barrooms, "Brandy and water."

"Hollo! who's here?" muttered Herr Hippe, flashing the light of his lantern round the shop.

Oaksmith turned up his coat-cuffs, as if to be ready for a fight; Madame Filomel glided, or rather rolled, towards the door; while Kerplonne put his hand into his pocket, as if to assure himself that his supernumerary optic was all right.

"What'll you take?" croaked the voice in the corner, once more.

"Brandy and water," rapidly replied the second voice in the other corner. And then, as if by a concerted movement, a series of bibular invitations and acceptances were rolled backwards and forwards with a volubility of utterance that threw Patter versus Clatter into the shade.

"What the Devil can it be?" muttered the Wondersmith, flashing his lantern here and there. "Ah! it is those Minos."

So saying, he stopped under one of the wicker cages that hung high up on the wall, and raised the lantern above his head, so as to throw the light upon that particular cage. The hospitable individual who had been extending all these hoarse invitations to partake of intoxicating beverages was an inhabitant of the cage. It was a large Mino-bird, who now stood perched on his cross-bar, with his yellowish orange bill sloped slightly over his shoulder, and his white eye cocked knowingly upon the Wondersmith. The respondent voice in the other corner came from another Mino-bird, who sat in the dusk in a similar cage, also attentively watching the Wondersmith. These Mino-birds, I may remark, in passing, have a singular aptitude for acquiring phrases.

"What'll you take?" repeated the Mino, cocking his other eye upon Herr Hippe.

"Mon Dieu! what a bird!" exclaimed the little Frenchman. "He is, in truth, polite."

"I don't know what I'll take," said Hippe, as if replying to the Mino-bird; "but I know what you'll get, old fellow! Filomel, open the cage-doors, and give me the bottle."

Filomel opened, one after another, the doors of the numberless little cages, thereby arousing from slumber their feathered occupants, who opened their beaks, and stretched their claws, and stared with great surprise at the lantern and the midnight visitors.

By this time the Wondersmith had performed the mysterious manipulations with the bottle, and the manikins were once more in full motion, swarming out of their box, sword and dagger in hand, with their little black eyes glittering fiercely, and their white teeth shining. The little creatures seemed to scent their prey. The gypsies stood in the centre of the shop, watching the proceedings eagerly, while the Lilliputians made in a body towards the wall and commenced climbing from cage to cage. Then was heard a tremendous flittering of wings, and faint, despairing "quirks" echoed on all sides. In almost every cage there was a fierce manikin thrusting his sword or dagger vigorously into the body of some unhappy bird. It recalled the antique legend of the battles of the Pygmies and the Cranes. The poor love-birds lay with their emerald feathers dabbled in their hearts' blood, shoulder to shoulder in death as in life. Canaries gasped at the bottom of their cages, while the water in their little glass fountains ran red. The bullfinches wore an unnatural crimson on their breasts. The mocking-bird lay on his back, kicking spasmodically, in the last agonies, with a tiny sword-thrust cleaving his melodious throat in twain, so that from the instrument which used to gush with wondrous music only scarlet drops of blood now trickled. The manikins were ruthless. Their faces were ten times wickeder than ever, as they roamed from cage to cage, slaughtering with a fury that seemed entirely unappeasable. Presently the feathery rustlings became fewer and fainter, and the little pipings of despair died away; and in every cage lay a poor murdered minstrel, with the song that abode within him forever quenched;— in every cage but two, and those two were high up on the wall; and in each glared a pair of wild, white eyes; and an orange beak, touch as steel, pointed threateningly down. With the needles which they grasped as swords all wet and warm with blood, and their beadlike eyes flashing in the light of the lantern, the Lilliputian assassins swarmed up the cages in two separate bodies, until they reached the wickets of the habitations in which the Minos abode. Mino saw them coming,— had listened attentively to the many death-struggles of his comrades, and had, in fact, smelt a rat. Accordingly he was ready for the manikins. There he stood at the barbican of his castle, with formidable beak couched like a lance. The manikins made a gallant charge. "What'll you take?" was rattled out by the Mino, in a deep bass, as with one plunge of his sharp bill he scattered the ranks of the enemy, and sent three of them flying to the floor, where they lay with broken limbs. But the manikins were brave automata, and again they closed and charged the gallant Mino. Again the wicked white eyes of the bird gleamed, and again the orange bill dealt destruction. Everything seemed to be going on swimmingly for Mino, when he found himself attacked in the rear by two treacherous manikins, who had stolen upon him from behind, through the lattice-work of the cage. Quick as lightning the Mino turned to repel this assault, but all too late; two slender quivering threads of steel crossed in his poor body, and he staggered into a corner of the cage. His white eyes closed, then opened; a shiver passed over his body, beginning at his shoulder-tips and dying off in the extreme tips of the wings; he gasped as if for air, and then, with a convulsive shudder, which ruffled all his feathers, croaked out feebly his little speech, "What'll you take?" Instantly from the opposite corner came the old response, still feebler than the question,— a mere gurgle, as it were, of "Brandy and water." Then all was silent. The Mino-birds were dead.

"They spill blood like Christians," said the Wondersmith, gazing fondly on the manikins. "They will be famous assassins."

Tied Up

HERR HIPPE stood in the doorway, scowling. His eyes seemed to scorch the poor hunchback, whose form, physically inferior, crouched before that baneful, blazing glance, while his head, mentally brave, reared itself, as if to redeem the cowardice of the frame to which it belonged. So the attitude of the serpent: the body pliant, yielding, supple; but the crest thrown aloft, erect, and threatening. As for Zonela, she was frozen in the attitude of motion;— a dancing nymph in colored marble; agility stunned; elasticity petrified.

Furbelow, astonished at this sudden change, and catching, with all the mysterious rapidity of instinct peculiar to the lower animals, at the enigmatical character of the situation, turned his pleading, melancholy eyes from one to another of the motionless three, as if begging that his humble intellect (pardon me, naturalists, for the use of this word "intellect" in the matter of a monkey!) should be enlightened as speedily as possible. Not receiving the desired information, he, after the manner of trained animals, returned to his muttons; in other words, he conceived that this unusual entrance, and consequent dramatic tableau, meant "shop." He therefore dropped Zonela's hand and pattered on his velvety little feet over towards the grim figure of the Wondersmith, holding out his poor little paw for the customary copper. He had but one idea drilled into him,— soulless creature that he was,— and that was, alms. But I have seen creatures that professed to have souls, and that would have been indignant, if you had denied them immortality, who took to the soliciting of alms as naturally as if beggary had been the original sin, and was regularly born with them, and never baptized out of them. I will give these Bandits of the Order of Charity this credit, however, that they knew the best highways and the richest founts of benevolence,— unlike to Furbelow, who, unreasoning and undiscriminating, begged from the first person that was near. Burbelow, owing to this intellectual inferiority to the before-mentioned Alsatians, frequently got more kicks than coppers, and the present supplication which he indulged in towards the Wondersmith was a terrible confirmation of the rule. The reply to the extended pleading paw was what might be called a double-barrelled kick,— a kick to be represented by the power of two when the foot touched the object, multiplied by four when the entire leg formed an angle of 45 deg. with the spinal column. The long, nervous leg of the Wondersmith caught the little creature in the centre of the body, doubled up his brown, hairy form, till he looked like a fur driving-glove, and sent him whizzing across the room into a far corner, where he dropped senseless and flaccid.

This vengeance which Herr Hippe executed upon Furbelow seemed to have operated as a sort of escape-valve, and he found voice. He hissed out the question, "Who are you?" to the hunchback; and in listening to that essence of sibilation, it really seemed as if it proceeded from the serpent that curled upon his upper lip.

"Who are you? Deformed dog, who are you? What do you here?"

"My name is Solon," answered the fearless head of the hunchback, while the frail, cowardly body shivered and trembled inch by inch into a corner.

"So you come to visit my daughter in the night-time, when I am away?" continued the Wondersmith, with a sneering tone that dropped from his snake-wreathed mouth like poison. "You are a brave and gallant lover, are you not? Where did you win that Order of the Curse of God that decorates your shoulders? The women turn their heads and look after you in the street, when you pass, do they not? lost in admiration of that symmetrical figure, those graceful limbs, that neck pliant as the stem that moors the lotus! Elegant, conquering Christian cripple, what do you here in my daughter's room?"

Can you imagine Jove, limitless in power and wrath, hurling from his vast grasp mountain after mountain upon the struggling Enceladus,— and picture the Titan sinking, sinking, deeper and deeper into the earth, crushed and dying, with nothing visible through the super-incumbent masses of Pelion and Ossa, but a gigantic head and two flaming eyes, that, despite the death which is creeping through each vein, still flash back defiance to the divine enemy? Well, Solon and Herr Hippe presented such a picture, seen through the wrong end of a telescope,— reduced in proportion, but alike in action. Solon's feeble body seemed to sink into utter annihilation beneath the horrible taunts that his enemy hurled at him, while the large, brave brow and unconquered eyes still sent forth a magnetic resistance.

Suddenly the poor hunchback felt his arm grasped. A thrill seemed to run through his entire body. A warm atmosphere, invigorating and full of delicious odor, surrounded him. It appeared as if invisible bandages were twisted all about his limbs, giving him a strange strength. His sinking legs straightened. His powerless arms were braced. Astonished, he glanced round for an instant, and beheld Zonela, with a world of love burning in her large lambent eyes, wreathing her round white arms about his humped shoulders. Then the poet knew the great sustaining power of love. Solon reared himself boldly.

"Sneer at my poor form," he cried, in strong vibrating tones, flinging out one long arm and one thin finger at the Wondersmith, as if he would have impaled him like a beetle. "Humiliate me, if you can. I care not. You are a wretch, and I am honest and pure. This girl is not your daughter. You are like one of those demons in the fairy tales that held beauty and purity locked in infernal spells. I do not fear you, Herr Hippe. There are stories abroad about you in the neighborhood, and when you pass, people say that they feel evil and blight hovering over their thresholds. You persecute this girl. You are her tyrant. You hate her. I am a cripple. Providence has cast this lump upon my shoulders. But that is nothing. The camel, that is the salvation of the children of the desert, has been given his hump in order that he might bear his human burden better. This girl, who is homeless as the Arab, is my appointed load in life, and, please God, I will carry her on this back, hunched though it may be. I have come to see her, because I love her,— because she loves me. You have no claim on her; so I will take her from you."

Quick as lightning, the Wondersmith had stridden a few paces, and grasped the poor cripple, who was yet quivering with the departing thunder of his passion. He seized him in his bony, muscular grasp, as he would have seized a puppet, and held him at arm's length gasping and powerless; while Zonela, pale, breathless, entreating, sank half-kneeling on the floor.

"Your skeleton will be interesting to science when you are dead, Mr. Solon," hissed the Wondersmith. "But before I have the pleasure of reducing you to an anatomy, which I will assuredly do, I wish to compliment you on your power of penetration, or sources of information; for I know not if you have derived your knowledge from your own mental research or the efforts of others. You are perfectly correct in your statement, that this charming young person, who day after day parades the streets with a barrel-organ and a monkey,— the last unhappily indisposed at present,— listening to the degrading jokes of ribald boys and depraved men,— you are quite correct, Sir, in stating that she is not my daughter. On the contrary, she is the daughter of an Hungarian nobleman who had the misfortune to incur my displeasure. I had a son, crooked spawn of a Christian!— a son, not like you, cankered, gnarled stump of life that you are,— but a youth tall and fair and noble in aspect, as became a child of one whose lineage makes Pharaoh modern,— a youth whose foot in the dance was as swift and beautiful to look at as the golden sandals of the sun when he dances upon the sea in summer. This youth was virtuous and good; and being of good race, and dwelling in a country where his rank, gypsy as he was, was recognized, he mixed with the proudest of the land. One day he fell in with this accursed Hungarian, a fierce drinker of that Devil's blood called brandy. My child until that hour had avoided this bane of our race. Generous wine he drank, because the soul of the sun our ancestor palpitated in its purple waves. But brandy, which is fallen and accursed wine, as devils are fallen and accursed angels, had never crossed his lips, until in an evil hour he was reduced by this Christian hog, and from that day forth his life was one fiery debauch, which set only in the black waves of death. I vowed vengeance on the destroyer of my child, and I kept my word. I have destroyed his child,— not compassed her death, but blighted her life, steeped her in misery and poverty, and now, thanks to the thousand devils, I have discovered a new torture for her heart. She thought to solace her life with a love-episode! Sweet little epicure that she was! She shall have her little crooked lover, shan't she? Oh, yes! She shall have him, cold and stark and livid, with that great, black, heavy hunch, which no back, however broad, can bear, Death, sitting between his shoulders!"

There was something so awful and demoniac in this entire speech and the manner in which it was delivered, that it petrified Zonela into a mere inanimate figure, whose eyes seemed unalterably fixed on the fierce, cruel face of the Wondersmith. As for Solon, he was paralyzed in the grasp of his foe. He heard, but could not reply. His large eyes, dilated with horror to far beyond their ordinary size, expressed unutterable agony.

The last sentence had hardly been hissed out by the gypsy when he took from his pocket a long, thin coil of whipcord, which he entangled in a complicated mesh around the cripple's body. It was not the ordinary binding of a prisoner. The slender lash passed and repassed in a thousand intricate folds over the powerless limbs of the poor humpback. When the operation was completed, he looked as if he had been sewed from head to foot in some singularly ingenious species of network.

"Now, my pretty lop-sided little lover," laughed Herr Hippe, flinging Solon over his shoulder, as a fisherman might fling a net-full of fish, "we will proceed to put you into your little cage until your little coffin is quite ready. Meanwhile we will lock up your darling beggar-girl to mourn over your untimely end."

So saying, he stepped from the room with his captive, and securely locked the door behind him.

When he had disappeared, the frozen Zonela thawed, and with a shriek of anguish flung herself on the inanimate body of Furbelow.

The Poisoning of the Swords

IT was New Year's Eve, and eleven o'clock at night. All over this great land, and in every great city in the land, curly heads were lying on white pillows, dreaming of the coming of the generous Santa Claus. Innumerable stockings hung by countless bedsides. Visions of beautiful toys, passing in splendid pageantry through myriads of dimly lit dormitories, made millions of little hearts palpitate in sleep. Ah! what heavenly toys those were that the children of this soil beheld, that mystic night, in their dreams! Painted cars with orchestral wheels, making music more delicious than the roll of planets. Agile men of cylindrical figure, who sprang unexpectedly out of meek-looking boxes, with a supernatural fierceness in their crimson cheeks and fur-whiskers. Herds of marvellous sheep, with fleeces as impossible as the one that Jason sailed after; animals entirely indifferent to grass and water and "rot" and "ticks." Horses spotted with an astounding regularity, and furnished with the most ingenious methods of locomotion. Slender foreigners, attired in painfully short tunics, whose existence passed in continually turning heels over head down a steep flight of steps, at the bottom of which they lay in an exhausted condition with dislocated limbs, until they were restored to their former elevation, when they went at it again as if nothing had happened. Stately swans, that seemed to have a touch of the ostrich in them; for they swam continually after a piece of iron which was held before them, as if consumed with a ferruginous hunger. Whole farm-yards of roosters, whose tails curled the wrong way,— a slight defect, that was, however, amply atoned for by the size and brilliancy of their scarlet combs, which, it would appear, Providence had intended for pen-wipers. Pears, that, when applied to youthful lips, gave forth sweet and inspiring sounds. Regiments of soldiers, that performed neat, but limited evolutions on cross-jointed contractile battle-fields. All these things, idealized, transfigured, and illuminated by the powers and atmosphere and colored lamps of Dreamland, did the millions of dear sleeping children behold, the night of the New Year's Eve of which I speak.

It was on this night, when Time was preparing to shed his skin and come out young and golden and glossy as ever,— when, in the vast chambers of the universe, silent and infallible preparations were making for the wonderful birth of the coming year,— when mystic dews were secreted for his baptism, and mystic instruments were tuned in space to welcome him,— it was at this holy and solemn hour that the Wondersmith and his three gypsy companions sat in close conclave in the little parlor before mentioned.

There was a fire roaring in the grate. On a table, nearly in the centre of the room, stood a huge decanter of Port wine, that glowed in the blaze which lit the chamber like a flask of crimson fire. On every side, piled in heaps, inanimate, but scowling with the same old wondrous scowl, lay myriads of the manikins, all clutching in their wooden hands their tiny weapons. The Wondersmith held in one hand a small silver bowl filled with a green, glutinous substance, which he was delicately applying, with the aid of a camel's-hair brush, to the tips of tiny swords and daggers. A horrible smile wandered over his sallow face,— a smile as unwholesome in appearance as the sickly light that plays above reeking graveyards.

"Let us drink great draughts, brothers," he cried, leaving off his strange anointment for a while, to lift a great glass, filled with sparkling liquor, to his lips. "Let us drink to our approaching triumph. Let us drink to the great poison, Macousha. Subtle seed of Death,— swift hurricane that sweeps away Life,— vast hammer that crushes brain and heart and artery with its resistless weight,— I drink to it."

"It is a noble decoction, Duke Balthazar," said the old fortune-teller and mid-wife, Madame Filomel, nodding in her chair as she swallowed her wine in great gulps. "Where did you obtain it?"

"It is made," said the Wondersmith, swallowing another great goblet-full of wine ere he replied, "in the wild woods of Guiana, in silence and in mystery. But one tribe of Indians, the Macoushi Indians, know the secret. It is simmered over fires built of strange woods, and the maker of it dies in the making. The place, for a mile around the spot where it is fabricated, is shunned as accursed. Devils hover over the pot in which it stews; and the birds of the air, scenting the smallest breath of its vapor from far away, drop to earth with paralyzed wings, cold and dead."

"It kills, then, fast?" asked Kerplonne, the artificial eyemaker,— his own eyes gleaming, under the influence of the wine, with a sinister lustre, as if they had been fresh from the factory, and were yet untarnished by use.

"Kills?" echoed the Wondersmith, derisively; "it is swifter than thunderbolts, stronger than lightning. But you shall see it proved before we let forth our army on the city accursed. You shall see a wretch die, as if smitten by a falling fragment of the sun."

"What? Do you mean Solon?" asked Oaksmith and the fortune-teller together.

"Ah! you mean the young man who makes the commerce with books?" echoed Kerplonne. "It is well. His agonies will instruct us."

"Yes! Solon," answered Hippe, with a savage accent. "I hate him, and he shall die this horrid death. Ah! how the little fellows will leap upon him, when I bring him in, bound and helpless, and give their beautiful wicked souls to them! How they will pierce him in ten thousand spots with their poisoned weapons, until his skin turns blue and violet and crimson, and his form swells with the venom,— until his hump is lost in shapeless flesh! He hears what I say, every word of it. He is in the closet next door, and is listening. How comfortable he feels! How the sweat of terror rolls on his brow! How he tries to loosen his bonds, and curses all earth and heaven when he finds that he cannot! Ho! ho! Handsome lover of Zonela, will she kiss you when you are livid and swollen? Brothers, let us drink again,— drink always. Here, Oaksmith, take these brushes,— and you, Filomel,— and finish the anointing of these swords. This wine is grand. This poison is grand. It is fine to have good wine to drink, and good poison to kill with; is it not?" and, with flushed face and rolling eyes, the Wondersmith continued to drink and use his brush alternately.

The others hastened to follow his example. It was a horrible scene: those four wicked faces; those myriads of tiny faces, just as wicked; the certain unearthly air that pervaded the apartment; the red, unwholesome glare cast by the fire; the wild and reckless way in which the weird company drank the red-illumined wine.

The anointing of the swords went on rapidly, and the wine went as rapidly down the throats of the four poisoners. Their faces grew more and more inflamed each instant; their eyes shone like rolling fireballs; their hair was moist and dishevelled. The old fortune-teller rocked to and fro in her chair, like those legless plaster figures that sway upon convex loaded bottoms. All four began to mutter incoherent sentences, and babble unintelligible wickednesses. Still the anointing of the swords went on.

"I see the faces of millions of young corpses," babbled Herr Hippe, gazing, with swimming eyes, into the silver bowl that contained the Macousha poison,— "all young, all Christians,— and the little fellows dancing, dancing, and stabbing, stabbing. Filomel, Filomel, I say!"

"Well, Grand Duke," snored the old woman, giving a violent lurch.

"Where's the bottle of souls?"

"In my right-hand pocket, Herr Hippe"; and she felt, so as to assure herself that it was there. She half drew out the black bottle, before described in this narrative, and let it slide again into her pocket,— let it slide again, but it did not completely regain its former place. Caught by some accident, it hung half out, swaying over the edge of the pocket, as the fat midwife rolled backwards and forwards in her drunken efforts at equilibrium.

"All right," said Herr Hippe, "perfectly right! Let's drink."

He reached out his hand for his glass, and, with a dull sigh, dropped on the table, in the instantaneous slumber of intoxication. Oaksmith soon fell back in his chair, breathing heavily. Kerplonne followed. And the heavy, stertorous breathing of Filomel told that she slumbered also; but still her chair retained its rocking motion, and still the bottle of souls balanced itself on the edge of her pocket.

Let Loose

SURE enough, Solon heard every word of the fiendish talk of the Wondersmith. For how many days he had been shut up, bound in the terrible net, in that dark closet, he did not know; but now he felt that his last hour was come. His little strength was completely worn out in efforts to disentangle himself. Once a day a door opened, and Herr Hippe placed a crust of bread and a cup of water within his reach. On this meagre fare he had subsisted. It was a hard life; but, bad as it was, it was better than the horrible death that menaced him. His brain reeled with terror at the prospect of it. Then, where was Zonela? Why did she not come to his rescue? But she was, perhaps, dead. The darkness, too, appalled him. A faint light, when the moon was bright, came at night through a chink far up in the wall; and the only other hole in the chamber was an aperture through which, at some former time, a stove-pipe had been passed. Even if he were free, there would have been small hope of escape; but, laced as it were in a network of steel, what was to be done? He groaned and writhed upon the floor, and tore at the boards with his hands, which were free from the wrists down. All else was as solidly laced up as an Indian papoose. Nothing but pride kept him from shrieking aloud, when, on the night of New Year's Eve, he heard the fiendish Hippe recite the programme of his murder.

While he was thus wailing and gnashing his teeth in darkness and torture, he heard a faint noise above his head. Then something seemed to leap from the ceiling and alight softly on the floor. He shuddered with terror. Was it some new torture of the Wondersmith's invention? The next moment, he felt some small animal crawling over his body, and a soft, silky paw was pushed timidly across his face. His heart leaped with joy.

"It is Furbelow!" he cried. "Zonela has sent him. He came through the stove-pipe hole."

It was Furbelow, indeed, restored to life by Zonela's care, and who had come down a narrow tube, that no human being could have threaded, to console the poor captive. The monkey nestled closely into the hunchback's bosom, and, as he did so, Solon felt something cold and hard hanging from his neck. He touched it. It was sharp. By the dim light that struggled through the aperture high up in the wall, he discovered a knife, suspended by a bit of cord. Ah! how the blood came rushing through the veins that crossed over and through his heart, when life and liberty came to him in this bit of rusty steel! With his manacled hands he loosened the heaven-sent weapon; a few cuts were rapidly made in the cunning network of cord that enveloped his limbs, and in a few seconds he was free!— cramped and faint with hunger, but free!— free to move, to use the limbs that God had given him for his preservation,— free to fight,— to die fighting, perhaps,— but still to die free. He ran to the door. The bolt was a weak one, for the Wondersmith had calculated more surely on his prison of cords than on any jail of stone,— and more; and with a few efforts the door opened. He went cautiously out into the darkness, with Furbelow perched on his shoulder, pressing his cold muzzle against his cheek. He had made but a few steps when a trembling hand was put into his, and in another moment Zonela's palpitating heart was pressed against his own. One long kiss, an embrace, a few whispered words, and the hunchback and the girl stole softly towards the door of the chamber in which the four gypsies slept. All seemed still; nothing but the hard breathing of the sleepers, and the monotonous rocking of Madame Filomel's chair broke the silence. Solon stooped down and put his eye to the keyhole, through which a red bar of light streamed into the entry. As he did so, his foot crushed some brittle substance that lay just outside the door; at the same moment a howl of agony was heard to issue from the room within. Solon started; nor did he know that at that instant he had crushed into dust Monsieur Kerplonne's supernumerary eye, and the owner, though wrapt in a drunken sleep, felt the pang quiver through his brain.

While Solon peeped through the keyhole, all in the room was motionless. He had not gazed, however, for many seconds, when the chair of the fortune-teller gave a sudden lurch, and the black bottle, already hanging half out of her wide pocket, slipped entirely from its resting-place, and, falling heavily to the ground, shivered into fragments.

Then took place an astonishing spectacle. The myriads of armed dolls, that lay in piles about the room, became suddenly imbued with motion. They stood up straight, their tiny limbs moved, their black eyes flashed with wicked purposes, their thread-like swords gleamed as they waved them to and fro. The villanous souls imprisoned in the bottle began to work within them. Like the Liliputians, when they found the giant Gulliver asleep, they scaled in swarms the burly sides of the four sleeping gypsies. At every step they took, they drove their thin swords and quivering daggers into the flesh of the drunken authors of their being. To stab and kill was their mission, and they stabbed and killed with incredible fury. They clustered on the Wondersmith's sallow cheeks and sinewy throat, piercing every portion with their diminutive poisoned blades. Filomel's fat carcass was alive with them. They blackened the spare body of Monsieur Kerplonne. They covered Oaksmith's huge form like a cluster of insects.

Overcome completely with the fumes of wine, these tiny wounds did not for a few moments awaken the sleeping victims. But the swift and deadly poison Macousha, with which the weapons had been so fiendishly anointed, began to work. Herr Hippe, stung into sudden life, leaped to his feet, with a dwarf army clinging to his clothes and his hands,— always stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. For an instant, a look of stupid bewilderment clouded his face; then the horrible truth burst upon him. He gave a shriek like that which a horse utters when he finds himself fettered and surrounded by fire,— a shriek that curdled the air for miles and miles.

"Oaksmith! Kerplonne! Filomel! Awake! awake! We are lost! The souls have got loose! We are dead! poisoned! Oh, accursed ones! Oh, demons, ye are slaying me! Ah! fiends of Hell!"

Aroused by these frightful howls, the three gypsies sprang also to their feet, to find themselves stung to death by the manikins. They raved, they shrieked, they swore. They staggered round the chamber. Blinded in the eyes by the ever-stabbing weapons,— with the poison already burning in their veins like red-hot lead,— their forms swelling and discoloring visibly every moment,— their howls and attitudes and furious gestures made the scene look like a chamber in Hell.

Maddened beyond endurance, the Wondersmith, half-blind and choking with the venom that had congested all the blood-vessels of his body, seized dozens of the manikins and dashed them into the fire, trampling them down with his feet.

"Ye shall die too, if I die," he cried, with a roar like that of a tiger. "Ye shall burn, if I burn. I gave ye life,— I give ye death. Down!— down!— burn!— flame! Fiends that ye are, to slay us! Help me, brothers! Before we die, let us have our revenge!"

On this, the other gypsies, themselves maddened by approaching death, began hurling manikins, by handfuls, into the fire. The little creatures, being wooden of body, quickly caught the flames, and an awful struggle for life took place in miniature in the grate. Some of them escaped from between the bars and ran about the room, blazing, writhing in agony, and igniting the curtains and other draperies that hung around. Others fought and stabbed one another in the very core of the fire, like combating salamanders. Meantime, the motions of the gypsies grew more languid and slow, and their curses were uttered in choked guttural tones. The faces of all four were spotted with red and green and violet, like so many egg-plants. Their bodies were swollen to a frightful size, and at last they dropped on the floor, like over-ripe fruit shaken from the boughs by the winds of autumn.

The chamber was now a sheet of fire. The flames roared round and round, as if seeking for escape, licking every projecting cornice and sill with greedy tongues, as the serpent licks his prey before he swallows it. A hot, putrid breath came through the keyhole and smote Solon and Zonela like a wind of death. They clasped each other's hands with a moan of terror, and fled from the house.

The next morning, when the young Year was just unclosing its eyes, and the happy children all over the great city were peeping from their beds into the myriads of stockings hanging near by, the blue skies of heaven shone through a black network of stone and charred rafters. These were all that remained of the habitation of Herr Hippe, the Wondersmith.

____________________

7: In the Dark

Edith Nesbit

1858-1924

The Strand Magazine Sept 1908

IT MAY HAVE been a form of madness. Or it may be that he really was what is called haunted. Or it may-though I don't pretend to understand how-have been the development, through intense suffering, of a sixth sense in a very nervous, highly strung nature. Something certainly led him where They were. And to him They were all one.

He told me the first part of the story, and the last part of it I saw with my own eyes.

i

HALDANE and I were friends even in our school-days. What first brought us together was our common hatred of Visger, who came from our part of the country. His people knew our people at home, so he was put on to us when he came. He was the most intolerable person, boy and man, that I have ever known. He would not tell a lie. And that was all right. But he didn't stop at that. If he were asked whether any other chap had done anything— been out of bounds, or up to any sort of lark— he would always say, 'I don't know, sir, but I believe so. He never did know— we took care of that. But what he believed was always right. I remember Haldane twisting his arm to say how he knew about that cherry-tree business, and he only said, 'I don't know— I just feel sure. And I was right, you see.' What can you do with a boy like that?

We grew up to be men. At least Haldane and I did. Visger grew up to be a prig. He was a vegetarian and a teetotaller, and an all-wooler and Christian Scientist, and all the things that prigs are— but he wasn't a common prig. He knew all sorts of things that he oughtn't to have known, that he couldn't have known in any ordinary decent way. It wasn't that he found things out. He just knew them. Once, when I was very unhappy, he came into my rooms-we were all in our last year at Oxford-and talked about things I hardly knew myself. That was really why I went to India that winter. It was bad enough to be unhappy, without having that beast knowing all about it.

I was away over a year. Coming back, I thought a lot about how jolly it would be to see old Haldane again. If I thought about Visger at all, I wished he was dead. But I didn't think about him much.

I did want to see Haldane. He was always such a jolly chap— gay, and kindly, and simple, honourable, uptight, and full of practical sympathies. I longed to see him, to see the smile in his jolly blue eyes, looking out from the net of wrinkles that laughing had made round them, to hear his jolly laugh, and feel the good grip of his big hand. I went straight from the docks to his chambers in Gray's Inn, and I found him cold, pale, anaemic, with dull eyes and a limp hand, and pale lips that smiled without mirth, and uttered a welcome without gladness.

He was surrounded by a litter of disordered furniture and personal effects half packed. Some big boxes stood corded, and there were cases of books, filled and waiting for the enclosing boards to be nailed on.

'Yes, I'm moving,' he said. 'I can't stand these rooms. There's something rum about them— something devilish rum. I clear our tomorrow.'

The autumn dusk was filling the corners with shadows. 'You got the furs,' I said, just for something to say, for I saw the big case that held them lying corded among the others.

'Furs?' he said. 'Oh yes. Thanks awfully. Yes. I forgot about the furs.' He laughed, out of politeness, I suppose, for there was no joke about the furs. They were many and fine— the best I could get for money, and I had seen them packed and sent off when my heart was very sore. He stood looking at me, and saying nothing.

'Come out and have a bit of dinner,' I said as cheerfully as I could.

'Too busy,' he answered, after the slightest possible pause, and a glance round the room— 'look here— I'm awfully glad to see you— If you'd just slip over and order in dinner— I'd go myself— only— Well, you see how it is.'

I went. And when I came back, he had cleared a space near the fire, and moved his big gate-table into it. We dined there by candle light. I tried to be amusing. He, I am sure, tried to be amused. We did not succeed, either of us. And his haggard eyes watched me all the time, save in those fleeting moments when, without turning his head, he glanced back over his shoulder into the shadows that crowded round the little lighted place where we sat.

When we had dined and the man had come and taken away the dishes, I looked at Haldane very steadily, so that he stopped in a pointless anecdote, and looked interrogatively at me. 'Well?' I said.

'You're not listening,' he said petulantly. 'What's the matter?'

'That's what you'd better tell me,' I said.

He was silent, gave one of those furtive glances at the shadows, and stooped to stir the fire to— I knew it-a blaze that must light every corner of the room.

'You're all to pieces,' I said cheerfully. 'What have you been up to? Wine? Cards? Speculation? A woman? If you won't tell me, you'll have to tell your doctor. Why, my dear chap, you're a wreck.'

'You're a comfortable friend to have about the place,' he said, and smiled a mechanical smile not at all pleasant to see.

'I'm the friend you want, I think,' said I. 'Do you suppose I'm blind? Something's gone wrong and you've taken to something. Morphia, perhaps? And you've brooded over the thing till you've lost all sense of proportion. Out with it, old chap. I bet you a dollar it's not so bad as you think it.'

'If I could tell you-or tell anyone,' he said slowly, 'it wouldn't be so bad as it is. If I could tell anyone, I'd tell you. And even as it is, I've told you more than I've told anyone else.'

I could get nothing more out of him. But he pressed me to stay— would have given me his bed and made himself a shake-down, he said. But I had engaged my room at the Victoria, and I was expecting letters. So I left him, quite late— and he stood on the stairs, holding a candle over the bannisters to light me down.

When I went back next morning, he was gone. Men were moving his furniture into a big van with somebody's Pantechnicon painted on it in big letters.

He had left no address with the porter, and had driven off in a hansom with two portmanteaux-to Waterloo, the porter thought.

Well, a man has a right to the monopoly of his own troubles, if he chooses to have it. And I had troubles of my own that kept me busy.

ii

IT WAS more than a year later that I saw Haldane again. I had got rooms in the Albany by this time, and he turned up there one morning, very early indeed-before breakfast in fact. And if he looked ghastly before, he now looked almost ghostly. His face looked as though it had worn thin, like an oyster shell that has for years been cast up twice a day by the sea on a shore all pebbly. His hands were thin as bird's claws, and they trembled like caught butterflies.

I welcomed him with enthusiastic cordiality and pressed breakfast on him. This time, I decided, I would ask no questions. For I saw that none were needed. He would tell me. He intended to tell me. He had come here to tell me, and for nothing else.

I lit the spirit lamp-I made coffee and small talk for him, and I ate and drank, and waited for him to begin. And it was like this that he began:

'I am going,' he said, 'to kill myself— oh, don't be alarmed,'— I suppose I had said or looked something— 'I shan't do it here, or now. I shall do it when I have to— when I can't bear it any longer. And I want someone to know why. I don't want to feel that I'm the only living creature who does know. And I can trust you, can't I?'

I murmured something reassuring.

'I should like you, if you don't mind, to give me your word, that you won't tell a soul what I'm going to tell you, as long as I'm alive. Afterwards... you can tell whom you please.' I gave him my word.

He sat silent looking at the fire. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

'It's extraordinary how difficult it is to say it,' he said, and smiled. 'The fact is— you know that beast, George Visger.'

'Yes,' I said. 'I haven't seen him since I came back. Some one told me he'd gone to some island or other to preach vegetarianism to the cannibals. Anyhow, he's out of the way, bad luck to him.'

'Yes,' said Haldane, 'he's out of the way. But he's not preaching anything. In point of fact, he's dead.'

'Dead?' was all I could think of to say.

'Yes,' said he; 'it's not generally known, but he is.'

'What did he die of?' I asked, not that I cared. The bare fact was good enough for me.

'You know what an interfering chap he always was. Always knew everything. Heart to heart talks-and have everything open and above board. Well, he interfered between me and some one else— told her a pack of lies.'

'Lies?'

'Well, the things were true, but he made lies of them the way he told them-you know.' I did. I nodded. 'And she threw me over. And she died. And we weren't even friends. And I couldn't see her— before— I couldn't even... Oh, my God... But I went to the funeral. He was there. They'd asked him. And then I came back to my rooms. And I was sitting there, thinking. And he came up.'

'He would do. It's just what he would do. The beast! I hope you kicked him out.'

'No, I didn't. I listened to what he'd got to say. He came to say, No doubt it was all for the best. And he hadn't known the things he told her. He'd only guessed. He'd guessed right, damn him. What right had he to guess right? And he said it was all for the best, because, besides that, there was madness in my family. He'd found that out too—'

'And is there?'

'If there is, I didn't know it. And that was why it was all for the best. So then I said, "There wasn't any madness in my family before, but there is now," and I got hold of his throat. I am not sure whether I meant to kill him; I ought to have meant to kill him. Anyhow, I did kill him. What did you say?'

I had said nothing. It is not easy to think at once of the tactful and suitable thing to say, when your oldest friend tells you that he is a murderer.

'When I could get my hands out of his throat— it was as difficult as it is to drop the handles of a galvanic battery— he fell in a lump on the hearth-rug. And I saw what I'd done. How is it that murderers ever get found out?'

'They're careless, I suppose,' I found myself saying, 'they lose their nerve.'

'I didn't,' he said. 'I never was calmer, I sat down in the big chair and looked at him, and thought it all out. He was just off to that island— I knew that. He'd said goodbye to everyone. He'd told me that. There was no blood to get rid of-or only a touch at the corner of his slack mouth. He wasn't going to travel in his own name because of interviewers. Mr Somebody Something's luggage would be unclaimed and his cabin empty. No one would guess that Mr Somebody Something was Sir George Visger, FRS. It was all as plain as plain. There was nothing to get rid of, but the man. No weapon, no blood— and I got rid of him all right.'

'How?'

He smiled cunningly.

'No, no,' he said; 'that's where I draw the line. It's not that I doubt your word, but if you talked in your sleep, or had a fever or anything. No, no. As long as you don't know where the body is, don't you see, I'm all right. Even if you could prove that I've said all this-which you can't— it's only the wanderings of my poor unhinged brain. See?'

I saw. And I was sorry for him. And I did not believe that he had killed Visger. He was not the sort of man who kills people. So I said:

'Yes, old chap, I see. Now look here. Let's go away together, you and I— travel a bit and see the world, and forget all about that beastly chap.'

His eyes lighted up at that.

'Why,' he said, 'you understand. You don't hate me and shrink from me. I wish I'd told you before— you know— when you came and I was packing all my sticks. But it's too late now.

'Too late? Not a bit of it,' I said. 'Come, we'll pack our traps and be off tonight— out into the unknown, don't you know.

'That's where I'm going,' he said. 'You wait. When you've heard what's been happening to me, you won't be so keen to go travelling about with me.'

'But you've told me what's been happening co you,' I said, and the more I thought about what he had told me, the less I believed it.

'No,' he said, slowly, 'no— I've told you what happened to him. What happened to me is quite different. Did I tell you what his last words were? Just when I was coming at him. Before I'd got his throat, you know. He said, "Look out. You'll never to able to get rid of the body— Besides, anger's sinful." You know that way he had, like a tract on its hind legs. So afterwards I got thinking of that. But I didn't think of it for a year. Because I did get rid of his body all right. And then I was sitting in that comfortable chair, and I thought, "Hullo, it must be about a year now, since that— "and I pulled out my pocket-book and went to the window to look at a little almanac I carry about— it was getting dusk-and sure enough it was a year, to the day. And then I remembered what he'd said. And I said to myself, "Not much trouble about getting rid of your body, you brute." And then I looked at the hearth-rug and— Ah!' he screamed suddenly and very loud— 'I can't tell you— no, I can't.'

My man opened the door-he wore a smooth face over his wriggling curiosity. 'Did you call, sir?'

'Yes,' I lied. 'I want you to take a note to the bank, and wait for an answer.'

When he was got rid of, Haldane said: 'Where was I?-'

'You were just telling me what happened after you looked at the almanac. What was it?'

'Nothing much,' he said, laughing softly, 'oh, nothing much-only that I glanced at the hearthrug— and there he was-the man I'd killed a year before. Don't try to explain, or I shall lose my temper. The door was shut. The windows were shut. He hadn't been there a minute before. And he was there then. That's all.'

Hallucination was one of the words I stumbled among.

'Exactly what I thought,' he said triumphantly, 'but— I touched it. It was quite real. Heavy, you know, and harder than live people are somehow, to the touch— more like a stone thing covered with kid the hands were, and the arms like a marble statue in a blue serge suit. Don't you hate men who wear blue serge suits?'

'There are halllucinations of touch too,' I found myself saying..

'Exactly what I thought,' said Haldane more triumphant than ever, 'but there are limits, you know— limits. So then I thought someone had got him out-the real him-and stuck him there to frighten me— while my back was turned, and I went to the place where I'd hidden him, and he was there— ah!— just as I'd left him. Only... it was a year ago. There are two of him there now.'

'My dear chap,' I said 'this is simply comic.'

'Yes,' he said, 'It is amusing. I find it so myself. Especially in the night when I wake up and think of it. I hope I shan't die in the dark, Winston: That's one of the reasons why I think I shall have to kill myself. I could be sure then of not dying in the dark.'

'Is that all?' I asked, feeling sure that it must be.

'No,' said Haldane at once. 'That's not all. He's come back to me again. In a railway carriage it was. I'd been asleep. When I woke up, there he was lying on the seat opposite me. Looked just the same. I pitched him out on the line in Red Hill Tunnel. And if I see him again, I'm going out myself. I can't stand it. It's too much. I'd sooner go. Whatever the next world's like, there aren't things in it like that. We leave them here, in graves and boxes and... You think I'm mad. But I'm not. You can't help me— no one can help me. He knew, you see. He said I shouldn't be able to get rid of the body. And I can't get rid of it. I can't. I can't. He knew. He always did know things that he couldn't know. But I'll cut his game short. After all, I've got the ace of trumps, and I'll play it on his next trick. I give you my word of honour, Winston, that I'm not mad.'

'My dear old man,' I said, 'I don't think you're mad. But I do think your nerves are very much upset. Mine are a bit, too. Do you know why I went to India? It was because of you and her. I couldn't stay and see it, though I wished for your happiness and all that; you know I did. And when I came back, she... and you... Let's see it out together,' I said. 'You won't keep fancying things if you've got me to talk to. And I always said you weren't half a bad old duffer.'

'She liked you,' he said.

'Oh, yes,' I said, 'she liked me.

iii

THAT WAS how we came to go abroad together. I was full of hope for him. He'd always been such a splendid chap-so sane and strong. I couldn't believe that he was gone mad, gone for ever, I mean, so that he'd never come right again. Perhaps may own trouble made it easy for me to see things not quite straight. Anyway, I took him away to recover his mind's health, exactly as I should have taken him away to get strong after a fever. And the madness seemed to pass away, and in a month or two we were perfectly jolly, and I thought I had cured him. And I was very glad because of that old friendship of ours, and because she had loved him and liked me.

We never spoke of Visger. I thought he had forgotten all about him. I thought I understood how his mind, over-strained by sorrow and anger, had fixed on the man he hated, and woven a nightmare web of horror round that detestable personality. And I had got the whip hand of my own trouble. And we were as jolly as sandboys together all those months.

And we came to Bruges at last in our travels, and Bruges was very full, because of the Exhibition. We could only get one room and one bed. So we tossed for the bed, and the one who lost the toss was to make the best of the night in the armchair. And the bedclothes we were to share equitably.

We spent the evening at a café chantant and finished at a beer hall, and it was late and sleepy when we got back to the Grande Vigne. I took our key from its nail in the concierge's room, and we went up. We talked awhile, I remember, of the town, and the belfry, and the Venetian aspect of the canals by moonlight, and then Haldane got into bed, and I made a chrysalis of myself with my share of the blankets and fitted the tight roll into the armchair. I was not at all comfortable, but I was compensatingly tired, and I was nearly asleep when Haldane roused me up to tell me about his will.

'I've left everything to you, old man,' he said. 'I know I can trust you to see to everything.'

'Quite so,' said I, 'and if you don't mind, we'll talk about it in the morning.'

He tried to go on about it, and about what a friend I'd been, and all that, but I shut him up and told him to go to sleep. But no. He wasn't comfortable, he said. And he'd got a thirst like a lime kiln. And he'd noticed that there was no water-bottle in the room. 'And the water in the jug's like pale soup,' he said.

'Oh, all right,' said I. 'Light your candle and go and get some water, then, in Heaven's name, and let me get to sleep.'

But he said, 'No— you light it. I don't want to get out of bed in the dark. I might-I might step on something, mightn't I— or walk into something that wasn't there when I got into bed.'

'Rot,' I said, 'walk into your grandmother.' But I lit the candle all the same. He sat up in bed and looked at me-very pale-with his hair all tumbled from the pillow, and his eyes blinking and shining.

'That's better,' he said. And then, 'I say— look here. Oh— yes— I see. It's all right. Queer how they mark the sheets here. Blest if I didn't think it was blood, just for the minute.'

The sheet was marked, not at the corner, as sheets are marked at home, but right in the middle where it turns down, with big, red, cross-stitching.

'Yes, I see,' I said, 'it is a queer place to mark it.'

'It's queer letters to have on it,' he said. 'G.V.'

'Grande Vigne,' I said. 'What letters do you expect them to mark things with? Hurry up.'

'You come too,' he said. 'Yes, it does stand for Grande Vigne, of course. I wish you'd come down too, Winston.'

'I'll go down,' I said and turned with the candle in my hand.

He was out of bed and close to me in a flash.

'No,' said he, 'I don't want to stay alone in the dark.'

He said it just as a frightened child might have done.

'All right then, come along,' I said. And we went. I tried to make some joke, I remember, about the length of his hair, and the cut of his pajamas— but I was sick with disappointment. For it was almost quite plain to me, even then, that all my time and trouble had been thrown away, and that he wasn't cured after all. We went down as quietly as we could, and got a carafe of water from the long bare dining table in the sale à manger. He got hold of my arm at first, and then he got the candle away from me, and went very slowly, shading the light with his hand, and looking very carefully all about, as though he expected to see something that he wanted very desperately nor to see. And of course, I knew what that something was. I didn't like the way he was going on. I can't at all express how deeply I didn't like it. And he looked over his shoulder every now and then, just as he did that first evening after I came back from India.

The thing got on my nerves so that I could hardly find the way back to our room. And when we got there, I give you my word, I more than half expected to see what he had expected to see— that, or something like that, on the hearth-rug. But of course there was nothing.

I blew out the light and tightened my blankets round me— I'd been trailing them after me in our expedition. And I was settled in my chair when Haldane spoke.

'You've got all the blankets,' he said.

'No, I haven't,' said I, 'only what I've always had.'

'I can't find mine then,' he said and I could hear his teeth chattering. 'And I'm cold. I'm...  For God's sake, light the candle. Light it. Light it. Something horrible...'

And I couldn't find the matches.

'Light the candle, light the candle,' he said, and his voice broke, as a boy's does sometimes in chapel. 'If you don't he'll come to me. It is so easy to come at any one in the dark. Oh Winston, light the candle, for the love of God! I can't die in the dark.'

'I am lighting it,' I said savagely, and I was feeling for the matches on the marble-topped chest of drawers, on the mantelpiece— everywhere but on the round centre table where I'd put them. 'You're not going to die. Don't be a fool,' I said. 'It's all right. I'll get a light in a second.'

He said, 'It's cold. It's cold. It's cold,' like that, three times. And then he screamed aloud, like a woman— like a child— like a hare when the dogs have got it. I had heard him scream like that once before.

'What is it?' I cried, hardly less loud. 'For God's sake, hold your noise. What is it?' There was an empty silence. Then, very slowly:

'It's Visger,' he said. And he spoke thickly, as through some stifling veil.

'Nonsense. Where?' I asked, and my hand closed on the matches as he spoke.

'Here,' he screamed sharply, as though he had torn the veil away, 'here, beside me. In the bed.' I got the candle alight. I got across to him.

He was crushed in a heap at the edge of the bed. Stretched on the bed beyond him was a dead man, white and very cold.

Haldane had died in the dark.

It was all so simple.

We had come to the wrong room. The man the room belonged to was there, on the bed he had engaged and paid for before he died of heart disease, earlier in the day. A French commis-voyageur representing soap and perfumery; his name, Felix Leblanc.

LATER, in England, I made cautious enquiries. The body of a man had been found in the Red Hill tunnel— a haberdasher man named Simmons, who had drunk spirits of salts, owing to the depression of trade. The bottle was clutched in his dead hand.

For reasons that I had, I took care to have a police inspector with me when I opened the boxes that came to me by Haldane's will. One of them was the big box, metal lined, in which I had sent him the skins from India— for a wedding present, God help us all!

It was closely soldered.

Inside were the skins of beasts? No. The bodies of two men. One was identified, after some trouble, as that of a hawker of pens in city offices— subject to fits. He had died in one, it seemed. The other body was Visger's, right enough.

Explain it as you like. I offered you, if you remember, a choice of explanations before I began the story. I have not yet found the explanation that can satisfy me.

__________________

8: The Business of Madame Jahn

Vincent O'Sullivan

1868-1940

From A Book of Bargains, 1896

HOW we all stared, how frightened we all were, how we passed opinions, on that morning when Gustave Herbout was found swinging by the neck from the ceiling of his bedroom. The whole Faubourg, even the ancient folk who had not felt a street under them for years, turned out and stood gaping at the house with amazement and loud conjecture. For why should Gustave Herbout, of all men, take to the rope? Only last week he had inherited all the money of his aunt, Madame Jahn, together with her house and the shop with the five assistants, and life looked fair enough for him. No; clearly it was not wise of Gustave to hang himself!

Besides, his aunt's death had happened at a time when Gustave was in sore straits for money. To be sure, he had his salary from the bank in which he worked; but what is a mere salary to one who (like Gustave) threw off the clerkly habit when working hours were over to assume the dress and lounge of the accustomed boulevardier: while he would relate to obsequious friends vague but satisfactory stories of a Russian Prince who was his uncle, and of an extremely rich English lady to whose death he looked forward with hope. Alas! with a clerk's salary one cannot make much of a figure in Paris. It took all of that, and more, to maintain the renown he had gained among his acquaintance of having to his own a certain little lady with yellow hair who danced divinely. So he was forced to depend on the presents which Madame Jahn gave him from time to time; and for those presents he had to pay his aunt a most sedulous and irksome attention. At times, when he was almost sick from his craving for the boulevard, the café, the theatre, he would have to repair as the day grew to an end, to our Faubourg, and the house behind the shop, where he would sit to an old-fashioned supper with his aunt, and listen With a sort of dull impatience while she asked him when he had last been at Confession, and told him long dreary stories of his dead father and mother. Punctually at nine o'clock the deaf servant, who was the only person besides Madame Jahn that lived in the house, would let in the fat old priest, who came for his game of dominoes, and betake herself to bed. Then the dominoes would begin, and with them the old man's prattle which Gustave knew so well: about his daily work, about the uselessness of all things here on earth, and the happiness and glory of the Kingdom of Heaven; and, of course, our boulevardier noticed, with the usual cheap sneer of the modern, that whilst the priest talked of the Kingdom of Heaven he yet showed the greatest anxiety if he had symptoms of a cold, or any other petty malady. However, Gustave would sit there with a hypocrite's grin and inwardly raging, till the clock chimed eleven. At that hour Madame Jahn would rise, and, if she was pleased with her nephew, would go over to her writing-desk and give him, with a rather pretty air of concealment from the priest, perhaps fifty or a hundred francs. Whereupon Gustave would bid her a manifestly affectionate good-night! and depart in the company of the priest. As soon as he could get rid of the priest, he would hasten to his favourite cafés, to discover that all the people worth seeing had long since grown tired of waiting and had departed on their own affairs. The money, indeed, was a kind of consolation; but then there were nights when he did not get a sou. Ah! they amuse themselves in Paris, but not in this way— this is not amusing.

One cannot live a proper life upon a salary and an occasional gift of fifty or a hundred francs. And it is not entertaining to tell men that your uncle, the Prince at Moscow, is in a sorry case, and even now lies a-dying, or that the rich English lady is in the grip of a vile consumption and is momently expected to succumb, if these men only shove up their shoulders, wink at one another, and continue to present their bills. Further, the little Mademoiselle with yellow hair had lately shown signs of a very pretty temper, because her usual flowers and bon-bons were not apparent. So, since things were come to this dismal pass, Gustave fell to attending the race-meetings at Chantilly. During the first week Gustave won largely, for that is sometimes the way with ignorant men: during that week, too, the little Mademoiselle was charming, for she had her bouquets and boxes of bon-bons. But the next week Gustave lost heavily, for that is also very often the way with ignorant men: and he was thrown into the blackest despair, when one night at a place where he used to sup, Mademoiselle took the arm of a great fellow whom he much suspected to be a German, and tossed him a scornful nod as she went off.

On the evening after this happened, he was standing between five and six o'clock, in the Place de la Madeleine, blowing on his fingers and trying to plan his next move, when he heard his name called by a familiar voice, and turned to face his aunt's adviser, the priest.

"Ah, Gustave, my friend, I have just been to see a colleague of mine here!" cried the old man, pointing to the great church. "And are you going to your good aunt to-night?" he added, with a look at Gustave's neat dress.

Gustave was in a flame that the priest should have detected him in his gay clothes, for he always made a point of appearing at Madame Jahn's clad staidly in black; but he answered pleasantly enough:

"No, my Father, I'm afraid I can't to-night. You see I'm a little behind with my office work, and I have to stay at home and catch up."

"Well, well said the priest, with half a sigh, I suppose young men will always be the same. I myself can only be with her till nine o'clock to-night because I must see a sick parishioner. But let me give you one bit of advice, my friend," he went on, taking hold of a button on Gustave's coat: "Don't neglect your aunt; for, mark my words, one day everything of Madame Jahn's will be yours!" And the omnibus he was waiting for happening to swing by at that moment, he departed without another word.

Gustave strolled along the Boulevard des Capucines in a study. Yes; it was certain that the house, and the shop with the five assistants, would one day be his; for the priest knew all his aunt's affairs. But how soon would they be his? Madame Jahn was now hardly sixty; her mother had lived to be ninety; when she was ninety he would be— And meanwhile, what about the numerous bills, what (above all!) about the little lady with yellow hair? He paused and struck his heel on the pavement with such force, that two men passing nudged one another and smiled. Then he made certain purchases, and set about wasting his time till nine o'clock.

It is curious to consider, that although when he started out at nine o'clock, Gustave was perfectly clear as to what he meant to do, yet he was chiefly troubled by the fear that the priest had told his aunt about his fine clothes. But when he had passed through the deserted Faubourg, and had come to the house behind the shop, he found his aunt only very pleased to see him, and a little surprised. So he sat with her, and listened to her gentle, homely stories, and told lies about himself and his manner of life, till the clock struck eleven. Then he rose, and Madame Jahn rose too and went to her writing-desk and opened a small drawer.

"You have been very kind to a lonely old woman to-night, my Gustave," said Madame Jahn, smiling.

"How sweet of you to say that, dearest aunt!" replied Gustave. He went over and passed his arm caressingly across her shoulders, and stabbed her in the heart.

For a full five minutes after the murder he stood still; as men often do in a great crisis when they know that any movement means decisive action. Then he started, laid hold of his hat, and made for the door. But there the stinging knowledge of his crime came to him for the first time; and he turned back into the room. Madame Jahn's bedroom candle was on a table: he lit it, and passed through a door which led from the house into the shop. Crouching below the counters covered with white sheets, lest a streak of light on the windows might attract the observation of some passenger, he proceeded to a side entrance to the shop, unbarred and unlocked the door and put the key in his pocket. Then, in the same crouching way, he returned to the room, and started to ransack the small drawer. The notes he scattered about the floor; but two small bags of coin went into his coat. Then he took the candle and dropped some wax on the face and hands and dress of the corpse; he spilt wax, too, over the carpet, and then he broke the candle and ground it under his foot. He even tore with long nervous fingers at the dead woman's bodice until her breasts lay exposed; and plucked out a handful of her hair and threw it on the floor to stick to the wax. When all these things had been accomplished he went to the house door and listened. The Faubourg is always very quiet about twelve o'clock, and a single footstep falls on the night with a great sound. He could not hear the least noise; so he darted out and ran lightly until he came to a turning. There he fell into a sauntering walk, lit a cigarette, and, hailing a passing fiacre, directed the man to drive to the Pont Saint-Michel. At the bridge he alighted, and noting that he was not eyed, he threw the key of the shop into the river. Then assuming the swagger and assurance of a half-drunken man, he marched up the Boulevard and entered the Café d'Harcourt.

The place was filled with the usual crowd of men and women of the Quartier Latin. Gustave looked round, and observing a young student with a flushed face who was talking eagerly about the rights of man, he sat down by him. It was his part to act quickly so before the student had quite finished a sentence for his car, the murderer gave him the lie. The student, however, was not so ready for a fight as Gustave had supposed; and when he began to argue again, Gustave seized a glass full of brandy and water and threw the stuff in his face. Then indeed there was a row, till the gendarmes interfered, and haled Gustave to the station. At the police-station he bitterly lamented his misdeed, which he attributed to an extra glass of absinthe, and he begged the authorities to carry word of his plight to his good aunt, Madame Jahn, in our Faubourg. So to the house behind the shop they went, and there they found her— sitting with her breasts hanging out, her poor head clotted with blood, and a knife in her heart.

The next morning, Gustave was set free. A man and a woman, two of the five assistants in the shop, had been charged with the murder. The woman had been severely reprimanded by Madame Jahn on the day before, and the man was known to be the girl's paramour. It was the duty of the man to close at night all the entrances into the shop, save the main entrance, which was closed by Madame Jahn and her deaf servant; and the police had formed a theory (worked out with the amazing zeal and skill which cause the Paris police so often to overreach themselves!) that the man had failed to bolt one of the side doors, and had, by his subtilty, got possession of the key whereby he and his accomplice re-entered the place about midnight. Working on this theory, the police had woven a web round the two unfortunates with threads of steel; and there was little doubt that both of them would stretch their necks under the guillotine, with full consent of Press and public. At least, this was Gustave's opinion; and Gustave's opinion now went for a great deal in the Faubourg. Of course there were a few who murmured that it was a good thing poor Madame Jahn had not lived to see her nephew arrested for a drunken brawler; but with full remembrance of who owned the house and shop we were most of us inclined to say, after the priest: That if the brave Gustave had been with his aunt, the shocking affair could never have occurred. And, indeed, what had we more inspiring than the inconsolable grief he showed? Why! on the day of the funeral, when he heard the earth clatter down on the coffin-lid in Père la Chaise, he even swooned to the ground, and had to be carried out in the midst of the mourners. "Oh, yes," (quoth the gossips), "Gustave Herbout loved his aunt passing well!"

On the night after the funeral, Gustave was sitting alone before the fire in Madame Jahn's room, smoking and making his plans. He thought, that when all this wretched mock grief and pretence of decorum was over, he would again visit the cafés which he greatly savoured, and the little Mademoiselle with yellow hair would once more smile on him delicious smiles with a gleaming regard. Thus he was thinking when the clock on the mantel-piece tinkled eleven; and at that moment a very singular thing happened. The door was suddenly opened: a girl came in, and walked straight over to the writing-desk, pulled out the small drawer, and then sat staring at the man by the fire. She was distinctly beautiful; although there was a certain old-fashionedness in her peculiar silken dress, and the manner of wearing her hair. Not once did it occur to Gustave, as he gazed in terror, that he was gazing on a mortal woman: the doors were too well bolted to allow anyone from outside to enter, and besides, there was a strange baffling familiarity in the face and mien of the intruder. It might have been an hour as he sat there; and then, the silence becoming too horrible, by a supreme effort of his wonderful courage he rushed out of the room and up-stairs to get his hat. There in his murdered aunt's bedroom,— there, smiling at him from the wall— was a vivid presentment of the dread vision that sat below: a portrait of Madame Jahn as a girl. He fled into the street, and walked, perhaps two miles, before he thought at all. But when he did think, he found that he was drawn against his will back to the house to see if It was still there: just as the police here believe a murderer is drawn to the Morgue to view the body of his victim. Yes; the girl was there still, with her great reproachless eyes; and throughout that solemn night Gustave, haggard and mute, sat glaring at her. Towards dawn he fell into an uneasy doze; and when he awoke with a scream, he found that the girl was gone.

At noon the next day Gustave, heartened by several glasses of brandy, and cheered by the sunshine in the Champs-Elysées, endeavoured to make light of the affair. He would gladly have arranged not to go back to the house: but then people would talk so much, and he could not afford to lose any custom out of the shop. Moreover, the whole matter was only an hallucination— the effect of jaded nerves. He dined well, and went to see a musical comedy; and so contrived, that he did not return to the house until after two o'clock. There was someone waiting for him, sitting at the desk with the small drawer open; not the girl of last night, but a somewhat older woman— and the same reproachless eyes. So great was the fascination of those eyes, that, although he left the house at once with an iron resolution not to go back, he found himself drawn under them again, and he sat through the night as he had sat through the night before, sobbing and stupidly glaring. And all day long he crouched by the fire shuddering; and all the night till eleven o'clock; and then a figure of his aunt came to him again, but always a little older and more withered. And this went on for five days; the figure that sat with him becoming older and older as the days ran, till on the sixth night he gazed through the hours at his aunt as she was on the night he killed her. On these nights he was used sometimes to start up and make for the street, swearing never to return; but always he would be dragged back to the eyes. The policemen came to know him from these night walks, and people began to notice his bad looks: these could not spring from grief, folk said, and so they thought he was leading a wild life.

On the seventh night there was a delay of about five minutes after the clock had rung eleven, before the door opened. And then— then, merciful God! The body of a woman in grave-clothes came into the room, as if borne by unseen men, and lay in the air across the writing-desk, while the small drawer flew open of its own accord. Yes; there was the shroud and the brown scapular, the prim white cap, the hands folded on the shrunken breast. Grey from slimy horror, Gustave raised himself up, and went over to look for the eyes. When he saw them pressed down with pennies, he reeled back and vomited into the grate. And blind, and sick, and loathing, he stumbled up-stairs.

But as he passed by Madame Jahn's bedroom the corpse came out to meet him, with the eyes closed and the pennies pressing them down. Then, at last, reeking and dabbled with sweat, with his tongue lolling out, and the spittle running down his beard, Gustave breathed:

"Are you alive?"

"No, no!" wailed the thing, with a burst of awful weeping; "I have been dead many days."

_________________

9: Honor Bright

Max Brand

1892-1944

The Cosmopolitan, Nov 1948

ADRIENNE stepped into the library through the French window— her family's garden adjoins mine— and sat down in the red tapestry chair near the fire. My Adrienne— your Adrienne, every man's Adrienne— selected that chair because it made a perfect background for her black velvet evening wrap, and she wanted to be near the fire so that the bright blaze of it would throw up little golden lights into her hair. I got up and poured her favorite drink, which is a bit of plain water without ice, just stained with Scotch.

"This is very pretty, Adrienne," I said. "With your profile just so and your head leaning a little, you look like a child."

"When you know the truth, does it matter how I look?" she said. "How is your poor back, Uncle Oliver?"

I had been moving some great heavy pots of hydrangeas a few days before on the terrace and had given myself a wrench, but it was not sympathy that caused Adrienne to ask that question; something in my speech had annoyed her, and she wished to remind me, in her sweetly poisonous way, that the first sign of age is weakness in the small of the back.

"I'm perfectly well," I said.

"I'm very glad, darling" said my Adrienne, "but don't insist on being so strong and manly just now, dear."

I looked up from filling my pipe and waited.

"You know you prefer cigarettes," she explained.

I put the pipe aside without a word and picked up a cigarette.

Adrienne rose and came, rustling, to stand over me with her fragrance while she held the lighter. "Isn't that the wrong end, dear?" she suggested.

I reversed the infernal cigarette, and she lighted it. These near approaches or forays of Adrienne's often make me nervous, and of this truth she is exquisitely aware.

"Are you angry?" she asked.

"Just enough to give you my full attention," I told her.

"It's your usual system."

"But I don't come here to annoy you, do I, Uncle Oliver?" she wanted to know. "You don't really feel that I come here to annoy you, Uncle Oliver?" she said sadly.

"You come here to think out loud, because I'm so old and safe," I answered.

"Oh no; not really so safe," she said.

"Well, well! Who is it this time?" I asked.

"Something terrible happened," she told me.

"What's his name?" I asked cannily. "And who is he?"

"It's not so much a 'who' as a 'what,' " decided Adrienne. "Will you help me, dear Uncle Oliver?"

"I suppose so," I said.

She went back to her chair and held out one hand to be gilded by the firelight, yet I felt that only part of her attention was being given to the composition of this picture and that she was in real trouble. I was astonished and touched.

"I have an appointment for eight o'clock," she said. "You won't let me be late? It's frightfully important."

"Very well," I answered. "I won't let you be late. But now let's get on with your problem. What's his name?"

"Gilbert Ware," she said.

I felt a shock of loss and regret. For years I had realized that my Adrienne was growing up, but still it had remained easy for me to think of her in short skirts and with her hair in braids. A child belongs to every man; a woman belongs to one only; and so my heart shrank at the name of Gilbert Ware. He filled both the imagination and the eye. If he was not one of the richest ten men in the country, he was not far behind them. On his mother's side he went back to the best of Massachusetts, and by his father he was Old Virginia; placed in the diplomatic corps by the Ware dynasty, he had tasted the best the world offers by the time he was thirty; and finally he had the beauty, together with the raised eyebrows, of one of the Founding Fathers. I daresay that he was the catch of the whole country. Such a man did not waste his time on children, which meant that my Adrienne was now a woman.

She explained, "He gave a week-end party at his house in the country, and I was there."

"At his country house?" I said. "Why, Adrienne, you really are getting on."

She did not answer but continued to look sidelong thoughts, so that I understood she was about to tell her story. I took my drink in hand, comforted my sight with her, and prepared to listen. Of course, "uncle" is merely a title that she chose for me, but I have watched Adrienne and listened carefully for several years without coming to the end of her. She is strangely combined of warmth and aloofness. Not even her school friends could nickname her "Addie," and no one fails to put the accent on the last syllable of "Adrienne" because she seems, if not a Latin, at least very different. Actually, her blood is mostly of the far north— Norwegian, I think— and those people of the endless nights have gifts of deep brooding and long, long dreams.

Adrienne is continually in and out of love like a trout in sun and shadow, but the net never seems to take her. When I thought of the name and place of Gilbert Ware in the world, I wondered if this might not be the time. I wondered also how much truth might be mingled in this story with the fictions of Adrienne, for, though I hope she is not a deliberate teller of untruths, she is at least a weaver who loves to have many colors in her web. With the question there came to me a sudden surety that tonight, at least, I should hear nothing but the truth. Also I knew, for no proper reason, that she was to speak of a great event. At this point in my thoughts she began to talk in that voice so light and musical that more than once, it surprises me to say, she has talked me to sleep.

She was quite excited, she said, when the invitation came, for she had seen Gilbert Ware only a few times and, though she had done her very best, she had not been sure that he noticed her. Now she put her mind thoroughly upon the future, as she laid out the things for her maid to pack. She hesitated particularly over the jewels for, if she took none, she might seem dull, and too many might be pretentious. At last she hit on a diamond bracelet— a mere thread of light— and a little ruby pendant of the finest pigeon's blood. The two together might be worth some thirty-five hundred or four-thousand dollars. (Adrienne is very good at figures.)

Long before her packing was finished or her thoughts arranged, young Harry Strode stopped by to drive her down to the country. She permitted this service from him, but not with pleasure. She had been quite fond of Strode at one time and, during an extremely dull evening, she had permitted herself to tell him so. But, since Adrienne cannot endure sulky men with long memories, her liking afterwards had turned the other way.

Once in the car, she was as pleasant as possible. However, this was a dark afternoon with such a roar and rushing of rain that conversation meant straining the voice. She had intended to be kind to Harry, but not in the face of such difficulties. Adrienne, who has more than one of the talents of a cat, found herself, while considering the next subject for talk, so comfortable that presently she was asleep.

She roused when Harry paused to take a hitchhiker in out of the downpour. He was a pale man of about my age, she said, with his head thrust forward at the end of a long neck like a caricature of all the bookkeepers in the world. A certain restless hunger in his eyes intrigued her for a moment, but then, in spite of the best intentions, she was asleep again; and the fellow sat quietly in the back seat.

At the entrance to Ware's driveway, Strode let out his extra passenger— the lights of a town were only a short distance down the road— and Adrienne remembers how the poor fellow stood in the rain with his hat in his hand, thanking them and waiting for the car to pass on. This roused her so that she was wide awake when they entered the house.

The place was quite a disappointment to her for it combined two faults: it was both baronial and new. Yet she could understand that a man like Ware might simply pick the best of architects and say to him, "Here is the land. Select a proper site and build me an appropriate country house. Suppose you take a year to do it, gardens and all." But the moment she went into the living room she was warmed by the realization that Ware was giving the party entirely for her. Every one of the dozen or more house guests had been chosen from among her younger friends. It was only a pity, said Adrienne, that he had not included some of the older ones. Saying this, she smiled at me.

In the great living room, huge as a Tudor hall, tea was being served in delicate porcelain with faint chimings of silver; and there was Gilbert Ware, as ingratiating and observant a host as though he were by no means the catch of a continent. Adrienne made up her mind to have him. Her tactics were to strike at once and to keep on striking.

When Ware asked her about the trip down, she said, "I don't want to think about it."

"Why not?"

"No— please! It was only a hitchhiker we picked up, and I simply started imagining things about him."

"Something is bothering you," said Gilbert Ware, "so let's have it out." He had a doctor's air, attentive for humane reasons even to foolish stories.

"It was like something you're afraid of seeing by night," said Adrienne.

The storm jumped suddenly at the house and set the tall windows trembling. Since it was only twilight, the curtains had not been drawn, and she looked out over a shimmer of lawn into the green gloom.

"Harry had his eyes glued to the road," she said. "He's such a careful driver, but it seemed to me that he must have known what I was seeing as I sat there, pretending to be asleep. In the mirror I could see the man's face; I think I'll always see it."

"The hitchhiker's?"

"It was so pale," said Adrienne. "It was so long and dead and white... Please don't make me remember."

"Don't talk about it; you look sick," said Ware.

"I'll be all right. It was only a dream. There wasn't any reality about it. Nothing so evil could be real. You know, the sort of horror that smiles at you in the dark?"

Ware was listening to her but with plenty of reservation in those raised eighteenth-century eyebrows. She realized then that, if she married him, she might find herself playing a part forever. The thought excited her as she went on with the embroideries of her little story. Actually there had been something strange about the hitchhiker. Now she enlarged upon him.

She said she had seen the devil wake up in the eyes of the man when, as she raised her hand to her hat, her sleeve fell back and showed the diamond bracelet; she had seen the beast of prey in him appear like some grisly shape that floats up under water, never clearly seen. It wasn't the thought of mere robbery and loss that troubled her but that brooding sense of a monstrous presence.

Gradually the man leaned forward in his seat, preparing to act. She was trying desperately to convey a warning to Harry Strode. If it were too overt, the signal would bring the attack on them instantly. She tried to signal with her eyes, with her hand. She slipped her foot over and touched Strode's. But he remained impervious, simply fixing his eyes on the road and singing a song, said Adrienne, which declared that for alma mater he would stand like a wall and never, never fall; also, when he took the field, he would never yield.

When she talked about the college hymn, something melted in Ware's eyes. A barrier fell, admitting her, and whether or not he believed all the tale, plainly he enjoyed the art of it.

She made a quick ending. A police car, she said, suddenly came up behind them, used its siren, and went by. This was enough to make the hitchhiker change his mind. Perhaps the sight of the uniforms recalled to him certain unforgettable years of punishment. He relaxed in his seat, and a moment later they were letting him out at the entrance to the Ware place. She never would forget him standing in the rain with that faint white mockery of a smile, thanking them for the ride. She had reached the house still half sick, but what saved the day for her was a desire to laugh, because Harry Strode had gone through it all aware of nothing but a desire to rally around a banner and, with a heart so true, die for the red and blue.

Ware chuckled at this. Then he said that the guest rooms of his place were cottages scattered through the grounds but, if she were nervous after her experience, she should have a place in the main building.

"No, no!" said Adrienne. "I've talked it all out now, and I won't think of it again. You were so right to make me tell you everything. I didn't want to say anything about it before the rest of them; there's something so ugly about that kind of a story, don't you think?"

Ware's eyes dwelt on her for a moment before he agreed; then he let the general conversation flow in upon them, and Adrienne found the eyes of the other girls fixed on her a little grimly. They took it for granted that she merely had succeeded in putting herself on trial, but her resolution was hardening every instant. She would take this man, to have and to hold; she would take him— if for no other reason— because he was hard to get.

Everyone went to change, and Adrienne was shown to her cottage. There were a number of these cabins, each tucked into a special environment: one by a pool, another drenched in vines, one lost in towering woods, and a fourth sunning itself on a little green hilltop, though there was only rain streaming down when Adrienne was taken to it. It was built snug and tight as a ship's cabin, but it was a complete job even to a sunken pool in the bathroom.

When she had dressed— in black, she said, with only her ruby pendant— she put on overshoes and a featherweight cellophane slicker which were provided and went back to the house with a flashlight. There was only a misting rain, by this time, but the trees still looked a little wild from the storm.

A few moments after her return to the house, dinner was announced. When they went in, she found herself at the right hand of Ware and felt that the game was half won. Yet he made no particular effort at the table; he preferred to watch her and smile.

She was surprised when suddenly he asked her what she thought of the house.

"Doesn't it need something?"

"Does it? What would you say? More color?"

"No, but more time."

This seemed to please him. For an instant he came out of the distance and sat within touch of her, his eyes clear and keen, but after that she felt that he had drawn away again. She did not feel that she had failed but that he needed more leisure to make up his mind. She determined to give it to him, so she pleaded a frightful headache and went off to bed early.

By this time the storm had slid away down the sky and out of sight, but a few clouds were flying. The moon hit one of them and dashed the whole weight of it into a shining spray like a bow wave. Adrienne enjoyed these things. She knew that she was on trial— for fifty million, so to speak— but her eye was turned confidently to the future.

She decided, as she lay stretched on her bed in the cottage, looking at the apple-green ceiling, that Gilbert Ware probably wanted a restful creature for a wife. He was an unhurried sight-seer in life, determined to take nothing but the best. She, with her imaginings and her acting, had amused him for a time. She should have adopted an entirely different role and made herself, like him, a quiet observer, a little tired by the game. Adrienne decided that in the morning she would show him a change of pace.

The moment she reached this intelligent conclusion she grew sleepy, but as she yawned, her arms wide open to welcome the aching drowsiness, she heard a slight sound and observed that the knob of her door was turning. She had locked the door, but a thrill of horror froze her heart. Not since she was a child and ghosts had haunted her in dark corridors had she felt such a thoroughly sufficient chill. She reached for the telephone and turned the dial. The bell in the main house began to buzz with a deep, soft voice. The buzzing continued, a far-away sound on the wire and a hollow echoing in Adrienne. Then not a servant but Ware himself spoke.

"It's Adrienne Lester," she whispered. "Someone is trying to get into my cottage!"

He said, with his eternal calm, "Someone with a long, white, evil face, no doubt?" He laughed and rang off.

She could not believe it, but there it was. Her play-acting had been perfectly patent to him.

The doorknob no longer was turning. Instead, there was a very discreet sound of metal scratching on metal. She remembered now not the sins of her past but the old fable about the little boy who had called "Wolf! Wolf!" once too often. For an instant she thought of being merely beautiful and helpless; instead, she got up and seized the heavy poker which stood in the brass bucket beside the fire. At the same time the door opened.

A gust of night air came in along with her hitchhiker who looked "like a caricature of all the bookkeepers in the world." He closed the door with his foot and pushed his hands into his coat pockets. He was very wet. When he moved, his feet made squashy sounds in his shoes. The rim of his hat, which he did not remove, hung down around his long, pallid face. A thin purple dye, which soaked out of his coat, had streaked the white of his shirt and, since the coat collar was turned up, had left a mark like a cut across his throat. He looked at Adrienne and at the poker she held, then turned his back on her and went to the bedside table where her jewels were lying. He dropped them into a coat pocket.

He was quite hunched and so thin that she could almost count the vertebrae through his coat, but in spite of his apparent weakness she put the poker back into the brass bucket. She was young, swift, strong, but only as a woman. And, though he was by no means a big man, she knew that he could pluck the weapon out of her hands with ease. The knowledge sickened her a little; for the first time she was insufficient in an emergency. My Adrienne slipped quietly toward the door.

"No," said the hitchhiker, and shook his head at her.

She turned for an instant toward the blackness of the outer night, but she dared not flee because of the nightmare that might pursue her. She went back to the fire.

A small pool was collecting around the man's feet; she watched the growth of it on the Chinese rug across the tongue and lower jaw of a little dragon.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I'm all right," said Adrienne.

"You're not afraid?"

"I was, terribly. But it's better now that you're talking," she said.

She thought that it was a pleasant remark, and she made it with a smile, but all the time the sickness of the fear was deepening in her, thickening like a new taste, because the hitchhiker was aware of her from head to foot and from foot to head. It was only for a moment that his eyes touched her in this fashion, but the screaming muscles began to tremble in her throat.

He kept nodding his head up and down in understanding. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. "It always makes me kind of laugh," he said, "the way you people get scared. Once I got into a place and in the first bedroom, where I didn't expect it, there was a young fellow lying reading. He'd heard something. He knew I was inside the room, but he didn't dare to turn his head. I stood there and watched. The magazine was resting on his chest, and his heart was thumping so hard that it made the pages keep stirring like leaves in a wind. He was young, and he was twice as big as me; but nothing is as big as the things that come out of the night."

"What happened, then? What did you do?" asked Adrienne.

"Don't scream or nothing," said the thief. "I'm gonna turn out the light."

He turned out the light so that there was only the fire to send his shadow and hers up the wall and over the ceiling in waves and tremblings.

Adrienne picked up the poker again.

"Yeah, you'd fight, wouldn't you?" he said, and laughed a little. "Got anything to drink in here?"

"No," said Adrienne.

"What's over here?" and he pulled open a small door set into the wall.

Two flasks of cut glass glimmered inside the niche. He sniffed at them.

"Brandy and Scotch. Funny how you people never know that bourbon is better than Scotch... Have some?"

"No," said Adrienne.

"Here's down the hatch!"

"Don't drink it!" cried Adrienne.

"Why not?"

"Please don't drink it!" she begged.

"Ah, that's what you think, is it? Well, here's down the hatch!"

He took a good swallow, and while his head was back, his eyes half closed, she freshened her grip on the poker, but still she could not act. She put the poker back in place for the second time, because it came to her that all the danger she dreaded was, in fact, closed in the room with her and that she would have to meet it with a different kind of force.

He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, which made a smear across his face, and then he sat down beside the fire. Adrienne sank into the opposite chair.

"They spent some money on you all right," he said. "I remember hearing a rich feller say, once... I used to be a plumber, and plumbers hear what people say, but a length of cast-iron pipe rolled on me, and it gave me a kind of a twist in the back, so I wasn't any good, after that. I had to use the old bean, so I used it..." He seemed to have lost his place in the conversation. "Where was I at?" He took another drink.

"You were about to say how much money is spent on us."

"This feller was saying that his girl cost ten thousand a year from twelve years up. Travel, governess, maid, school— he said ten thousand wouldn't cover it. Ten thousand for ten years. That's a hundred grand. How many languages you got?"

"French and Italian, a little. And a bit of German."

"You don't look like you would know any German."

"They sent me to Vienna for a year. To study singing."

"I guess you can do that pretty good."

"Not very."

"Sing 'Home on the Range,' dead soft."

She sang "Home on the Range" softly. He finished the flask of Scotch while he listened. He hummed the last part of it in unison with her.

"I never was West," he said, "but I like that song. It's kind of American. It reminds me how big we are... I've heard plenty sing it better than you."

"Of course you have." She managed to smile again.

He stared hard watching for the end of the smile, but she kept it, after a fashion, in the corners of her mouth and in her eyes.

"There ain't hardly a good swallow in one of these flasks. Go fetch me the other one, will you?"

"Certainly," said my Adrienne.

She rose and went to the little cupboard. As she turned with the flask of brandy in her hand, she saw that the plumber sat a little higher in his chair, and then she was aware that his body was rigid as she came up behind him. He was waiting, tense and set, for whatever she might attempt to do, but he would not turn his head an inch toward her. She went slowly by him and gave him the flask— and her smile.

He relaxed in his chair. "You feel better, don't you?"

"A lot better," she said.

"I guess you been scrubbed clean every day of your life. I guess you never wear anything but silk?"

"Oh, yes. Oh, lots of other things," she said.

"You don't mind me now if I drink this?"

"I don't mind at all."

"Look," he said.

"Yes," said my Adrienne.

"Maybe there's better singers, but I never heard nobody talk so good. You bet I never heard anybody talk so good." He stood up. "You been pretty all right, and I sort of hate taking your stuff. You know?"

For the first time, in a way that was strange to Adrienne, he opened his eyes and looked at her with an appeal for understanding. He was apparently about to go, and she would not have to keep on smiling. She felt she had done enough acting in those few minutes to last her the rest of her life.

"It's all right," she said to him." We all have to get along somehow."

"Thanks. I believe you're on the square, but I'll fix this first." He pulled the telephone wire from the wall socket. Then he lifted a finger at her. "You won't budge out of here for ten minutes?"

"I won't budge."

"Ten whole minutes? Honor bright?"

"Honor bright," said Adrienne, and crossed herself automatically.

"Well, I guess that's all right then. Good night to you."

He went out of the cottage.

There was a little clock above the fireplace. She noted the hands at five past eleven and resolved to wait for the ten whole minutes, honor bright; but all at once, said Adrienne, she thought of what a scene there would be when she rushed into the big house and told them, how everyone would be roused, and there would be calls for the police, and Gilbert Ware looking frightfully mortified and, for once, thoroughly alert. She thought of these things and ran from the cottage, but before she had taken three steps, the man moved out from behind the corner of the little building. He came straight toward her, slowly, with his hands in his coat pockets, and his black shadow slid silently over the ground beside him, like a man and his ghost or a man and the black devil, said Adrienne. I wonder why she did not use those quick feet of hers to fly away to the big house, but all she could do was to creep away from him through the open door of the cottage. She backed up until the wall stopped her. Her knees gave way. My Adrienne crouched with her eyes closed, because she dared not look for another instant at the long, white, deadly face of the hitchhiker. But she could feel his shadow falling over her, cold on her face and breast, she said.

"Well, so there isn't any honor bright," he said. "I thought maybe you were one of the things for the country to be proud of. But you ain't. You ain't all right at all. You're dirt. You're just dirt."

It seemed to Adrienne that the chill of his shadow still was falling on her, but when she looked up, after a long time— after a long time when the breath seemed to be stopping in her body— she saw that he was gone, and she was able to get to the chair by the fire and drop into it.

Only a moment later Gilbert Ware came in. He looked at the black, wet footprints on the floor, and then dropped on one knee beside her chair. She was reminded dimly of other young men who had taken the same position— my Adrienne always is reminded of someone else, no matter what a man does.

"I've been a fool— I've been a goddamned fool!" said Ware, in just as trembling a passion of regret as any other man. "What happened? What has he done?"

My Adrienne said nothing, not because she was incapable of speech, nor because she was remembering the theft and her fear, but because she was thinking of a loss far more vital, for which she could not find a name. So she kept on thinking until her thoughts went jogging all the way back to childhood, which was the last time "honor bright" had troubled her soul. She was holding out her hands to the fire which, against all nature, gave her no comfort.

Gilbert Ware took those hands and turned her suddenly toward him so that she had to see his face, all savage with resolution. There was no trace now of that astute and critical spirit which had looked so carefully through her.

"When did he go? Has he hurt you? Tell me. Do you hear me, dear Adrienne? What has he done?"

There was one word in this speech which could not help partially reviving such a practical girl as my Adrienne, and yet she still was half lost in that unhappy dream as she answered,

"He took the bracelet and pendant. I don't know when he left. The hitchhiker..."

"Was it that fellow? And I thought it was only a story!" cried Ware.

He jumped for the phone, found it was disconnected, sprang back to her.

"Let him go!" she said. "I don't want ever to see him again. Don't make me see him again, Gilbert."

Gilbert Ware threw a blanket around her and lifted her to her feet. He helped her along the path to the main house.

"You won't have to see him. Of course you won't have to see him. Don't talk, my sweet girl, my Adrienne. You've had a frightful shock. Will you be able to forgive me?"

Miserable as she was, she could not help thinking how easy it might be to forgive fifty million and Gilbert Ware.

The party at the house had not broken up, and everyone hurried to be of help. Faces leaned over Adrienne as she lay on the couch wrapped in the blanket. Someone chafed her feet. Her fingers were around a mug of hot toddy that warmed her hands and her lips and her throat but could not melt the ice around her heart.

She was conscious of much telephoning back and forth, but she was not prepared for the return of her philosophical hitchhiker, flanked by a pair of proud policemen. In that frame he was a wretchedly starved picture of a man. He had left the muddy country lanes for a highway, and the police had picked him up at once. Ware, bending close beside Adrienne, was saying, "There's only one word for you to speak, and then it's all over. Simply identify the jewels and the man. The law takes on after that. Don't move, Adrienne. Don't sit up."

She did sit up, however, because it was mortally necessary for her to face again those eyes which had looked into her so shamefully far. But the inquiring mind was gone from the thief. All that had been free and dangerous and of the night now was faded into a dim creature who had suffered before and was prepared once more to endure.

"I guess this is the stuff, Miss?" said one of the policemen, holding out the jewels in the palm of his hand. "You just identify it, and he'll take a trip."

She kept trying to catch the glance of the thief, but he stared straight forward at the years of labor, of silence and of shame. His wet hat, now a shapeless sponge, was crushed in one hand, and it was upon this hand that Adrienne was forced, most unwillingly, to focus her attention. There was something abnormal, misshapen and oversized about it. By contrast, Gilbert Ware had such slender fingers, such a rounded but inadequate wrist, that one wondered how he could swing a polo mallet. The thumb of the hitchhiker, for instance, was broadened, thickened and fleshed on the inside to a surprising degree. Across his wrist lay two forking veins as big as her little finger, and all at once she penetrated the mystery. It was simply that the thief had been a laborer. By swinging sledge hammers, by tugging with all his might at powerful wrenches, he had deformed and desensitized his hands until they were merely gross tools, vaguely prehensile.

"...just a matter of identification," a policeman was saying.

"They aren't mine," she said.

The smiles of the policemen persisted a moment, wavered and went out like lanterns in a sudden wind.

"But wait— but, Adrienne!" said Gilbert Ware.

She shook her head. "Not mine."

"But this is the very fellow you were talking about!" cried Ware.

"I never saw him before."

"My dear Adrienne," said Ware, looking hard at her, "if you're doing this out of charity, please remember that the law has a rightful place in this affair."

She lost track of his voice, watching comprehension break up the calm of the plumber, but even as the hope entered him, and he saw that after all she seemed to be giving him some chance of escape, the manhood seemed to go out of him. Something of his spirit came leering, groveling at her feet.

Ware asked everyone to leave the room. Then he sat down beside Adrienne. "Now what's it all about?" he asked, and he looked at her as a dealer might look at a picture of uncertain authentication.

"I don't know."

"I'm sure you always think your way through before you do anything."

"I try to," she admitted, and she kept searching her mind only to discover that the deeper she went, the more unknown was this new Adrienne.

He was waiting.

"I don't know what the whole truth about this is," she said, "but I have a horrible, naked feeling that I'm going to tell it."

After all, he had lived a bit. He showed it now by saying nothing.

"Did you see his hands?" she asked. "They were real, don't you think?"

"Real?"

"He's worked like an honest man, and he's been a thief. He's been in prison, too, and that's real enough. He could see that I'm all make-believe. I'm not even honestly looking for a husband. I'm just as honest as a cat that wants kittens. I try to be clever, but I'm only silly and young. I've never even made a beginning. I hate it. Oh, you don't know how I hate it.'

"There's something pretty final about this," he said. "I think you're writing me down as one of the people who never have made a beginning."

And now, in this interval, Adrienne found that she could not tell a pleasant lie. She knew that every second of the silence was saying good-by to fifty million dollars but, instead of speaking, she could only remember the voice of the thief saying, "You're dirt! You're just dirt!"

After a while Ware stood up slowly, still with something between anger and entreaty in his eyes, but when that frightful silence continued, he said, "I'll tell them the hitchhiker isn't the man."

He left the room.

A fortune vanished with him, but with a very convinced longing Adrienne wanted to be out of that house. That was what she told the doctor, when he came a few minutes later.

He said, "You've had a shock, my girl."

"Have I? I'm going to be better, though, now."

"You'd better stay in bed for two or three days."

"Oh, no; I won't need to do that. There's someone I have to see.

"You'd better do as I say, though," he advised.

"But I know me so well," said my Adrienne.

Here she finished her drink, and I knew that her story was finished also; her timing is so perfect.

I blew some smoke upward and watched it vanish. "Fifty million dollars all gone?" I said, but then I saw that there was a shadow on Adrienne, a strange dimness.

"Now tell me about everything," she said, looking at the place where the smoke had vanished.

"Why, it's not difficult, my dear," I told her. "You're unhappy about it because you don't understand the big, quick movement of your own heart; when you saw Ware bearing down with all the dogs of the law on that poor, hunted devil—"

"Oh, nonsense," said Adrienne. "Just as poor and hunted as a wolf. You don't know. I mean, a wolf that's perfectly at home in the woods, snow or shine. Don't you see? What am I looking for? Why, I'm looking for a man, and that evening I thought I'd found him. But I hadn't. I'd only found a sort of beautiful social legend, or something. The hitchhiker was more of a man."

"Well, yes. Well... of course," I said, and gave myself a twist that hurt my back. "I hadn't thought of that. But— just to return a bit— who was it you wanted to see in the pinch? You remember you spoke to the doctor about him."

"Oh, an old, old friend," said Adrienne. "His voice was with me all through it. He's the one I'm to see tonight."

"Better be on your way, then," I told her. "It's ten to eight now."

"Really? Is it as late as that? Then may I ring for Jericho?"

She was pressing the button as I said, "What the devil do you want with him?"

Jericho came in. He is made of white hair, yellow parchment, and heavenly spirit.

"Jericho dear," said Adrienne, "is there any cold, cold champagne?"

"There is one just barely turnin' to ice," said Jericho.

"Then we'll have that for an aperitif," she told him. "And is that pheasant big enough for two?"

"Just perfect, Miss Adrienne."

"Then serve it that way, please," said Adrienne.

"Do you mean that I'm the appointment?" I asked, when Jericho left.

"You're the only person who knows enough to tell me what's wrong with me," she said desolately. "But I don't need the telling actually. I know already. Say something or I'm going to cry," said Adrienne, who now was sitting on the arm of my chair.

Jericho brought in the champagne and paid no attention to Adrienne as he began opening the bottle.

"Well, I'll tell you a fact that's better than a story," I said.

"I hate facts," said Adrienne.

"When the Arab mare comes out of the tent in the morning— because the Arabs value their mares most, you know..."

"What silly people!"

"They're not silly at all."

"Oh, aren't they?"

"No, they're not. But when the mare comes out of the tent, she looks away off beyond the tribe and over the heads of the family that owns her, and across the desert to the edge of the horizon. She has her tail arched and her head raised, and there's a tremendous expectation in her eyes that makes her master sad."

"But why?"

"Because he knows she's saying to herself: 'When will the real master come!' "

"How rather lovely," said Adrienne.

Jericho had placed in my hand a glass in which the bubbles broke with a crisping sound. "Here's to the real master, my dear," I said.

"Will you find him for me?"

"This is just nonsense, Adrienne," I told her with severity.

"But I'm tired— oh, I'm tired to death!" she said. "I want my life to start."

"Come, come! Let's have this drink."

"Not until you promise me."

"But what?"

"Either find me a husband— I'll ask no questions— or marry me yourself."

"Adrienne!"

"Are you really so shocked?"

"But I'm old enough to be—"

"You are old enough, you see. Shall we drink to it!"

"I shall find you somebody," said I.

"Of course you will," said Adrienne, raising her glass slowly as though waiting for permission.

I lifted mine in turn and, looking up, saw her all shining and golden through the color of the wine.

_________________

10: The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin

Anonymous

(T. I. Horsley Curties, 1777-1858)

1805

THE ABBEY OF FITZ-MARTIN had been once famous for its riches and grandeur, and, as a monastery, was dedicated to St Catherine; but the subsequent irregularity of its order, together with the despotic tyranny of one of its ancient lords, had stripped it by slow but sure degrees of all its former wealth and consequence; insomuch, that the haughty Baron had, under unjust pretences, demanded heavy contributions, to assist in carrying on the war between the first Edward and the nearly subdued Scots. His only excuse for such an open violation of ecclesiastic rights was grounded on a discovery he pretended he had made, of one of the nuns having broken the sacred rules of her profession, by a disregard to her vows of vestal celibacy. The haughty Baron seized greedily this circumstance, as the means of succeeding in his ambitious designs, and determined to humble the pride and insolence of the superiors, since the land belonged originally to his ancestors, and was transmitted to himself with powers to exact homage and fee from the heads of the monastery for this only part of their dependence on laical jurisdiction. For this latter purpose, the Baron, as Lord Patron of the holy community, entered the abbey, and demanded from the superiors not only a large subsidy of money, but an acknowledgement of their obedience; and, to cover his injustice, pretended it was designed for the further prosecution of the Holy Wars.

The superiors proudly refused compliance, and, in angry tones, threatened an appeal to Rome, with a dreadful anathema on the head of the daring violator, if he persisted in his presumptions.

But the Baron knew the surety of his proceedings, and, with a smile of malicious triumph, exposed his knowledge of the crimes of Sister St Anna, even relating at full his acquaintance with the proof of her lapse from that sacred vow, which for ever enjoined the community of a monastery to celibacy. The fathers of the order, when summoned to the council, heard the account with confusion and dismay, and entreated time to search into the truth of the Baron's assertions. The crafty Baron knew the advantage he had over them; and, to increase their fears of the dreaded exposure, quitted the abbey, in haughty and forbidding silence, without deigning to answer their petitions.

The unhappy community of the once proud monastery of St Catherine, at length, harassed by their dread of an exposure, and the total loss of all their wealth, by multiplied and never ceasing demands, became dependant on its tyrannic Baron, who kept the monks in such entire and arbitrary subjection, that in the course of a very few years, the abbey became nearly quite forsaken by its once imperious masters; when, at length, the Baron having disclosed to the King the dissolute manners of the order, and supplying Edward also with a large sum of money, that Monarch unknowingly rewarded his treachery with the hereditary possession of the abbey, and all its tenures, revenues and riches.

The Baron, therefore, took undisputed possession of his new acquisition, which he soon transformed into a princely habitation. But tradition says, that its imperious master did not, though surrounded by the possession of a mine of wealth, enjoy that expected ease, and inward happiness, which the gratification of his lawless wishes led him to hope for. For he is reported ever after to have been subject to gloomy passions, and melancholy abstractions of mind, which often ended in vehement paroxysms of madness. An imperfectly handed tradition still existed, which related, that the spectre of St Anna, the unhappy instrument of his destruction to the monastery, had repeatedly appeared to the Baron, to warn him of his heinous offences, and even accuse him as the cause of her ruin, and subsequent punishment by death. Certain it is, that various reports and conjectures had arisen in the minds of the ignorant; some tending to involve the Baron in the guilt of being the unknown seducer of Anna, for the purpose of completing his avaricious designs. But the real truth of her destiny was totally involved in silence; as, soon after the Baron had exposed to the superiors his knowledge of her dereliction, she had suddenly disappeared from the community, nor was ever heard of after. Whatever was in reality her dreadful end is still unknown. But the Baron lived not long to enjoy the splendor of his ill-gained riches. He was heard to confess, that peace of mind was for ever banished from his heart; and, though lying on the downy couches of luxury, yet did he never after enjoy a calm undisturbed conscience. His death was the departure of guilty horror, and alarm for the future; and he quitted the world with curses and execrations on himself, leaving no child to inherit the abbey, which descended to his next heir; who, being every way unlike his uncle, refused to reside in a place that had been obtained by fraud and injustice. From this period the abbey, for near a century and a half, had acknowledged several lords, but was seldom honored, for any length of time, by the presence of its possessors, who were in general eager to shun a place, whose traditional history teemed with dark and mysterious records. The owners of the abbey were too superiorly gifted with Fortune's treasures, and the spectred traditions of St Anna kept them from ever approaching its decayed towers. Its lands, therefore, remaining untilled, soon added increase to the surrounding forests, and were suffered to become useless, and over-run with the luxuriance of uncultivated nature.

The last owner deceased, was a distant relation of the present inheritor, Sir Thomas Fitz-Martin, who was driven by severe misfortune, and the loss of a most amiable wife, to seek its long-deserted ruins, to hide himself and family from the dreadful consequences of an over-ruling fate which no human wisdom could avert, but in the hoped-for security of this long-forgotten retreat.

Yet the suddenness of his journey, its long and fatiguing continuance, together with the gloomy, remote, and even terrific habitation he was speedily approaching, began to raise fears and doubts in the minds of the domestics, who shrunk back, declaring it impossible to venture into so terrific and ruinous a place. Sir Thomas had never but once seen it, and that many years since, and even shuddered as he again reviewed its dreary and frowning exterior, and half wished that his haste had not led him to choose so desolate a place for his future abode. At that moment the carriage suddenly stopping, at some little distance from an open avenue that led immediately to the abbey, Owen demanded if he was to proceed further, or if his Honor had not better turn into another path, and seek the nearest way out of the dismal forest; 'for surely, my Lord will never think of entering yon frightful old ruin, which, I dare say, will fall, and crush us alive beneath its humble battlements: or perhaps we shall have to encounter a battle with an army of ghosts and hobgoblins, who will dispute our right of admission within their tottering territories.'

'Peace, I command you,' exclaimed Sir Thomas. 'I thought you, at least, possessed more courage, than to admit the impression of such idle fears as even your female companions would blush to express. The seat of my ancestors, though long deserted and now perhaps destitute of every comfort, has, I will vouch for it, nothing that can justly alarm or excite cowardice in the minds of my servants. If, however, yourself, or any of your companions, fear to enter with your lord the building he has chosen for his future abode, they have free permission to remain with the carriage till day-light, whilst I and my daughter will alone seek our admission within a mansion that hereafter shall become our chief residence.'

Sir Thomas, at length descending from the vehicle, walked, with cautious inspection, a considerable way beneath the walls, before he arrived at the heavy gates of entrance. They were, however, securely closed, and resisted his attempts to force them, with an obstinacy that surprised him. Calling loudly to his terror-stricken people, he commanded them, on their approach, to join their efforts with his; but the gates proved the strength of their interior holds, and none of the fastenings yielded to their attacks. Tired with this fruitless labour, yet wondering at the security with which they were barricaded, Sir Thomas paused once more, and in that interval the idea flashed on his mind, that the abbey might possibly be inhabited; though well he knew he had given no one permission to enter its precincts; and the traditional terrors of the place he thought were a sufficient guard against all unknown intruders. Yet it was not unlikely, that if it were indeed inhabited, it was become the dreadful haunt of banditti, to whom the lonely situation of the forest rendered it a very favorable concealment for the practice of their daring profession. For a moment this fearful supposition rendered Sir Thomas undecided, and he remained irresolute how to proceed, from the dread of exposing his family to more real dangers than the imaginary ones of Owen, till a violent flash of lightning ended his doubts; as it glanced in an instant on the walls of the abbey, and displayed its tottering turrets and broken casements. It shewed also, at no great distance, a small postern, whose weak state seemed to promise greater success; and they determined to try it if they could not here find a more willing admission. The postern was extremely old, and seemed only held by the bolt of the lock, which soon gave way to the attack of the travellers; and crossing beneath a heavy Gothic arch, they found themselves within the area of the first court. Sir Thomas, followed by his trembling attendants, was hastening forward, till recollecting the females in the carriage were left unguarded, he ordered one of the men to return instantly, and await with them the event of their lord's bold adventure to gain shelter within the ruin. Owen summoned up a sort of desperate courage, and declared his intention of attending his master: and lighting a torch, he followed his calm and undaunted conductor, who now advanced with caution through the wide area of a second court, which, being covered with crumbling fragments of the ruins, rendered his advances difficult, and even dangerous. At length he reached a flight of steps, that seemed to lead to the grand portal of entrance. Sir Thomas, however, determined to ascend; and Owen, though tottering beneath his own weight with terrors, dared not interpose his resistance: his trembling hand held the light to the great folding doors, and Sir Thomas, after some efforts, burst them open, and entered what appeared an immense hall, terminating in vistas of huge pillars, whose lofty heads, like the roof they supported, were impervious to the faint rays of the torch, and enveloped in an awful and misty gloom, beyond expression impressive and solemn, and creating astonishing sensations in the startled beholder.

At length Sir Thomas's progress was stopped by some steps, that led up to a Gothic door, which, with no little difficulty, he forced back, and entering its dark precincts, found himself within a large antique room, with the forms of several crumbling pieces of furniture, which, from the number of its raised couches, now covered with blackness, seemed evidently the remnants of a chamber that had once been stately and magnificent. Sir Thomas examined it well. The walls, though dripping with damp, seemed tolerably entire, and to promise security from the dangers of the night; and as he had as yet seen nothing to excite alarm or dread, he hastened to the carriage, and declared to its inmates his resolution. The females knowing that, as they had proceeded thus far, to retract from their fearful enterprise was now become impracticable, obeyed with trembling and reluctant steps, and, supported by their male companions, slowly advanced; whilst Sir Thomas, taking Rosaline in his arms, conveyed her to the abbey.

Owen and Rowland, who had, by the command of their master, cut down several branches from the forest, now set them alight within the wide spreading hearth, whose brisk and crackling blaze soon dispelled the damp and glooms of a dreary chamber, and at length compelled even the long-stretched countenances of the females to relax into something like a smile; and the remembered fatigue and danger of their perilous journey through the forest, when compared with their present shelter, and the comforts of a welcome and plentiful meal, succeeded at last in making a very visible alteration. The repast being ended, Sir Thomas commanded Owen to place before the fire some of the strongest couches he could find, and cover them with packages, and compose themselves to rest. The servants, who had dreaded the thoughts of being obliged to pass the night in the chamber, were grateful for this considerate permission; and reclining themselves on the couches, they soon forgot the terrors and dangers they had felt, and became alike insensible to their forlorn situation, and to the storm which howled without, and now shook the trembling fabric, with each fresh gust of wind that assailed its ruined towers.

Sir Thomas was the first of the slumbering travellers that awoke. Convinced that it was day, from a ray of light that shone through a broken window shutter, he hastened to arise; for, since he was assured he should sleep no more, he resolved not to disturb his wearied domestics, but use the present interval to search the abbey. He proceeded to a large folding door on the west side, which he concluded must have been the grand entrance; but he declined, for the present, any further examination of the outside of the building; and turning to the left, advanced to a folding door, deeply fixed within a Gothic portal, which opening harshly to his efforts, let him, with astonishment, into a long suite of rooms, which, notwithstanding their silent, deserted, ruinous state, he was rejoiced to find might again be rendered habitable, and in a little time even convenient and comfortable.

They were eight in number, and still retained many remnants of furniture, which, though covered with mildew and dust, and crumbling to tatters, evidently witnessed the splendor of its former owner. He was satisfied that these chambers would amply answer his present wants, and rejoiced to find them in such a state as to make their repair not only possible but easy.

Proceeding forward through this vast extent of chambers, Sir Thomas felt that every former surmise of robbers was at an end, as he had as yet met with not a single circumstance that could in any degree confirm it. He was now hastening back to his family, who, should they have awoke, might experience no inconsiderable alarm.

Having descended for this purpose, he found himself, as he turned on the left, in a long but narrow gallery or passage; passing forward, he opened with much labor several old doors, in hopes they would bring him into a passage leading into the great hall or church; but they only presented a number of weak and dangerous recesses, perhaps formerly cells of the monastery, whose flooring was so much decayed, and in some places fallen in, as to render further progress impossible. Quitting the fruitless search, he proceeded to the extreme end, where he met with a stronger door, which occasioned him no small manual exercise to unclose, when, to his surprise, a violent scream rung upon his ears; and, as he threw open the arched door, he beheld his terrified party, who, awaked by the noise of his forcing of the portal, had rushed into the arms of the men, to whom they clung, shrieking for protection against nothing less than a legion of armed spectres, whom their affrighted fancies had in an instant conjured from their graves.

'I have,' said Sir Thomas, 'explored the chief apartments of the abbey, and rejoice to find them every way beyond my expectations. Workmen, and other necessary persons shall be instantly engaged for the repair of this ancient and long-neglected mansion, which, as I mean to make it perfectly habitable, I have now only to assure all present, that the seat of my family has nothing to excite just terror, or encourage misconceptions relating to beings that never had existence.'

As soon as their small repast was ended, Sir Thomas desired Owen to take one of the horses, and find the nearest way to the next town; for a supply of food was become necessary. Sir Thomas went, followed by Owen, round the southern angle of the abbey, where they had a full view of a portal more ruinous than the one they had quitted, and which presented a long and dreary continuation of those parts of the building once dedicated to conventual occupation, and were now crumbling into dust.

'Now,' said Sir Thomas, 'mount your horse, and proceed down yonder avenue, which will conduct you to the next town; and likewise inquire for one Norman Clare, who was steward to these estates; explain to him my present situation, and that I require his attendance; and give him full commission to engage such workmen as shall be needful for the full repair.'

Owen immediately obeyed; and lashing his steed into a fast trot, soon arrived within sight of a poor but neat-looking cottage, with a venerable looking old man sitting beneath a spreading oak, who had seen the intruder as he galloped out of the forest, with surprise strongly marked in his face. 'Pray,' said Owen, as he rode up to the cottage, 'can you inform me if there be one Norman Clare living in this neighbourhood?'

The old man started back with increased surprise, exclaiming, 'And pray what is thy business with Norman Clare?' 'The simple-hearted Owen entered into a full detail of his mission, adding, 'if such a person as Norman was alive, his master, Sir Thomas, Lord of Fitz-Martin's abbey and lands, demanded his assistance at the above named mansion.'

'If thou requirest to be acquainted with him, thou shalt not further waste thy labor; for truly I am Norman Clare; and since I find thou art real flesh and blood, thou shalt enter with me my lonely dwelling, and welcome shalt thou be to share its homely fare.' Owen alighted joyfully from his panting steed, and entered with his host the well-arranged cottage. 'Here, good dame!' exclaimed Norman to his aged partner, 'I have brought you a stranger, who, coming from the old abbey yonder, must needs lack something to cheer his spirits.'

Owen then entered at large upon the whole of his late journey, and its termination at the abbey.

'What!' cried Blanche, 'lie in such a place as the haunted abbey! Mercy on us! friend, does your master know that it has not been inhabited for more than an hundred years; and does he not know that it is all over so full of goblins and spectres, that nobody will ever set a foot near it? And, moreover, the ghost of Anna is seen every night, walking down the great long aisles of the church up to the altar, where it kneels till the clock strikes twelve, when it goes out of the great doors, which fly open at its approach, and walks to the great south tower, where it utters three loud shrieks; when the old wicked Baron's ghost is forced to come, as soon as these are heard; and Anna drives him with a fire-brand in one hand, and a dead child in the other, all over the ruins, till they come to the chamber where the Baron used to sleep after he treacherously got possession of the abbey. Dismal yells, and dying groans, are then heard to echo through all the apartments, and blazing lights thrown about the great north bed-chamber, till the great turret clock, that has never for many a weary long year been touched by mortal hands, tolls heavily two, and sometimes three strokes upon the bell.'

'Nonsense, nonsense,' interrupted Norman, with a wink, meant to silence the loquacity of Blanche, 'you see all these idle terrors are done away. Did not Sir Thomas and his family sleep there last night, and is not Mr Owen here alive to tell us so?' Poor Owen, a coward at heart, sat trembling every joint as he listened to the extravagances of Blanche, and gave implicit belief to all the wild incoherences she tittered. At length, Owen, aided by a flaggon of ale, which inspired him with something like resolution, once more braved the terrific dangers of the abbey, and mounting his horse, (well stored with many comforts provided by Norman,) he gallopped down the avenue leading towards the abbey.

The next day, Norman, followed by a parcel of workmen, brought with him all his paper accounts, and monies, the produce of the rents, which he had faithfully hoarded up for the lord of the demesne whenever he thought proper to claim it.

One half of the range of the west front in a month's time was rendered perfectly safe; and having undergone a complete repair, the apartments soon began to lose much of their desolate and forlorn appearance. Three chambers were fitted up for the future residence of the steward; but it was a work of long entreaty before Sir Thomas could prevail on the venerable old Norman to take possession of them.

The lovely Rosaline (the Baron's only daughter) had at this period arrived at the age of sixteen, and having no society, but the inmates of the abbey, nor accustomed to any other, would dispense with the forms of rank, and, seating herself by the brisk wood fire that blazed on the hearth, listen attentively to the talkative Blanche's terrible narratives of spectres and supernatural appearances.

Rosaline would, at times, anxiously attend to these dreadful stories; as the tales of Blanche were generally terrific in the extreme, and always finished with the history of the Baron and the nun; who, she affirmed, still haunted the ruins of the abbey. The story of Sister Anna had made a deep impression on her memory; and having often wished for a clear and true account of what was the end of the unfortunate nun, had determined to search among the ruins, in hopes that some discoveries might be made, that would lead to a development of her death. But as this enterprise could not so well be performed alone, she made Jannette her confidant, who readily promised obedience.

As they proceeded from the abbey, Rosaline failed not to examine every nook and corner that crossed her way. Sometimes she ventured up the broken steps of a broken tower, whose lofty battlements no longer reared their proud heads, that lay extended in the area. She ascended the first story, and through the heavy arch had a full view of the south tower. Rosaline bade Jannette observe it, and asked if she had courage to enter it.— 'Indeed, my lady,' she replied, 'I never behold that tower, but it makes me tremble. It was there, they say, that poor Anna was confined; and I dare hardly look at it. Besides, my lady, you see it is more ruinous than this; nor is it safe to be approached. Surely, Madam, you do not mean to make the trial?'

'If, as you say, that was the prison of poor Anna, it is there only I may hope to find some documents relative to her fate. I am, therefore, resolved to proceed. But for you, Jannette, stay where you are: I shall not require a further attendance than your remaining within hearing.'

Rosaline descended the broken steps, and proceeded towards the tower, whilst Jannette, not daring to advance, stood trembling, entreating her young lady to forego her dangerous enterprise: but Rosaline having as yet found nothing to gratify her search, resolved not to yield to the light fears of Jannette: she therefore proceeded, and arrived at the full sight of the south tower: its black and frowning aspect, together with its weak, tottering situation, at first aroused a momentary feeling of terror; but youthful hope encouraged her to venture, and she approached the old Gothic door, which gave her a sight of an iron grating that was fixed in the wall.

To the left she beheld a flight of stairs that led to the upper stories; but these were too weak to admit her ascent in safety to the top; she therefore gave over the design, and turned again to the iron grating. As she caught the first view of the alarming objects within, her mind, unprepared for the sudden shock, endured a momentary suspension, and she fell, nearly fainting, against the wall.

The power of calling for aid was gone, and, for a few seconds, she was unable to support herself.

The terrific spectacle that had so powerfully affected Rosaline, as she caught a view of the interior of this forlorn ruin, was a deep narrow cell, whose walls were hung with mouldering trappings of black. The only light that was admitted within, proceeded from an iron grate fixed in the amazing thickness of the wall. Around this gloomy place were fixed, in all directions, the horrific emblems of death; and which ever way the desolate inhabitant of this dreary cell turned, images of horror, shocking to nature, met the tortured view, in the terrific state and eyeless sockets of the ghastly skull bones that hung in grim appalling array. In the middle of the cell, upon a raised pedestal, stood the mouldering relics of a coffin, which had been once covered with a velvet pall, but which now hung in tatters down its sides. At one corner was a small hillock, that appeared the sad resting place of the distracted penitent; for that this was the severe prison of penance and contrition, every superstitious emblem of monkish torture that surrounded the walls plainly bore testimony of. A crucifix, and broken hour-glass, still remained, covered with dust, upon a small altar, beneath an arched recess; whilst the floor was strewed with skulls and human bones.

After the first momentary shock had subsided, Rosaline arose, and stood irresolute to proceed in researches. Her alarms were strong, but her curiosity was, if possible, stronger. She felt she should never be able voluntarily again to enter this tremendous place; and she debated whether her courage would support her, should she pursue further the daring adventure. 'Perhaps,' said she, 'this was, indeed, the final end of the unhappy sister. Alas! poor unfortunate, this too, surely was alike your prison, and the cause of your lingering death. Yet wherefore am I thus anxious to solve the mystery of her death? Dare I lift the pall from that horrific spectacle? What if my spirits fail me, and I sink, overcome with dread, in this charnel house of death. May not my senses forsake me in the trial? or is it not very likely that terror may bereave me of my reason?— Shall I enter?'

Either her senses were indeed confused, or perhaps her mind, wrought to a certain pitch, led her to fancy more than reality; for, as the last word dropped from her lips, she started, and thought she heard it feebly repeated by an unknown voice, which slowly pronounced, 'Enter!'

Rosaline trembled, and not exactly aware of her intentions, unfastened the grate, and threw back the rattling chains that were hooked on the staples without the cell. The grate opened with ease, and swung on its hinges with little or no resistance; and Rosaline, with an imagination distempered, and misled by the hopes of discovering something she came in search of, that would repay her fears, descended the indented declivity, and with trembling steps staggered two or three paces from the grating; but again became irresolute, and terrified from her purpose, she stopped.

'Dare I,' she faintly ejaculated, 'dare I raise the mysterious lid of that horrific coffin?'

'Dare to do so!' replied a voice, that sounded hollow along the dreaded vault; and Rosaline, whose terror now had suspended the faculty of feeling, though not of life, actually moved towards the coffin, as if performing some dreadful rite, that she found she had not a power to resist.

Impelled with a notion of that superior agency which she dared not disobey, and not exactly sensible of what she did, she fearfully cast aside the lid, which, as she touched, fell crumbling to the ground; and turning aside her head, her hand fell within the coffin; and in her fright she grasped something moist and clammy, which she brought away. Shrieking wildly, she rushed from the scene of terror, and precipitating herself through the tower-gate, fell fainting into the arms of Jannette; who, pale and terrified, called aloud for help, as she supported her insensible lady.

Norman, who had long been impatient at the stay of his mistress, and alarmed for her safety, was hastening down the ruins, when the cries of Jannette assailed his ears, and had arrived at the scene of terror as Rosaline began to open her eyes.

'Holy Virgin protect the lady,' he exclaimed. 'Hast thou seen any thing? or do these pale looks proceed from some fall which may have bruised thy tender form among the ruins?'

'Oh no, good Norman, not so,' feebly and wildly ejaculated Rosaline. 'The tower! the dreadful tower!'

'The tower! sayst thou, my' lady? Mercy on me! Have you been so hardy as to venture into that dismal place!'

Rosaline, as she gradually recovered, felt a perfect recollection of the late horrid scene, and recalling the awful voice she had heard, which she doubted not proceeded from some supernatural agency, she no sooner beheld Norman, than she darted towards her chamber, regardless of the terrors of the old steward or Jannette.

As soon as she entered her room, she drew from the folds of her robe the relics she had unknowingly grasped from the coffin. On examination, it seemed to be some folded papers; but in so decayed a condition, that they threatened to drop in pieces with the touch.

She carefully unfolded the parcel, and found it to contain the story of the unfortunate Anna; but many of the lines were totally extinct, and only here and there a few that could be distinguished.

At length, in another packet she discovered a more perfect copy of the preceding ones, which, from the style of its writing, evidently proved them to be the labor of some of the monks, who had, from the papers discovered in the cell of her confinement, been enabled to trace the truth of her melancholy story and sufferings, in which the Baron was but too principally concerned.

Rosaline, retrimming her lamp, and seating herself nearer the table, took up the monk's copy, and began, not without difficulty, to read the melancholy story of The Bleeding Nun of St Catherine's. It was in the reign of Edward the First, that, in an old dilapidated mansion, lived the poor but proud Sir Emanfred, descended of an illustrious house, whose noble progenitors had with the Conqueror settled in England, upon the establishment of their royal master.

In the two succeeding centuries, however, great changes had taken place, and many events had reduced the once powerful and splendid ancestors of Sir Emanfred to little more than a military dependence. The proud nature of the Knight shrunk from the consequences of the total ruin of his house; and, indignant at the disgraceful and humiliating change of his circumstances, he hastily quitted the gay triumphs of the British court, because his fallen fortunes and wasted patrimony no longer enabled him to vie, in the splendor of his appearance and expenditure, with the rest of the nobles of the kingdom. In the gloomy shades of his forsaken mansion, he buried himself from all the joys of social intercourse: nor was his melancholy habitation ever after disturbed by the sounds of festive cheerfulness, or the smile of contentment. Morose in temper from his disappointments of fortune, and too proud to stoop to such honorable recourses, as might have in time procured for him the re-establishment of his decayed house, he disdained all pecuniary acquirements, and determined to build his hope of future greatness on an alliance of his only child with the splendid and noble lord of Osmand. But the lovely Anna, brought up in total seclusion, and unacquainted with the manners of the world, happily free from the ambitious and haughty passions of her stern sire, had unconsciously rendered obedience to his commands impossible, and shrunk in horror from the dreaded proposal of an union with Lord Osmand; for, alas! she had not a heart to bestow, nor a hand to give away.' Anna, the beautiful and enchanting Anna, whose years scarce numbered seventeen, had known the exquisite pain and pleasures of a secret love; and, in the simple innocence of an unsuspecting mind, had given her heart, her soul, her all to a— Stranger.

Anna had never known a mother's tenderness, nor experienced a father's sheltering protection; the artless dictates of her too susceptible heart were her only guides and monitors; and, during the long absence of her sire, her soul first felt the pleasing emotions of love for an unknown but graceful Stranger, whom she had first beheld in the shades of a melancholy but romantic wood, that adjoined equally her father's domain, and the vast forest of St Catherine's monastery, where she had often been accustomed to roam, and where she had first met the fascinating Vortimer, who but too soon betrayed the unconscious maid into a confession that his fervent love was not displeasing, and that to him, and him only, she had resigned her heart, beyond even a wish for its recall. The mind of Anna was incapable of restraining the soft, thrilling ecstasies of a first infant passion. The Stranger urged his suit with all the melting, all the prevailing, eloquence of an enraptured lover, and all the outward blandishments of feeling and sincerity. Unacquainted with the world's deceits, poor Anna listened to his fervent vows with downcast, blushing timidity, and pleased acceptance. Each secret meeting more firmly linked her chains: her very soul was devoted to the Stranger, whom, as yet, she knew not by any other title than the simple name of Vortimer.

In a moment fatally destructive to her repose, when love had blinded reason, and the artless character of Anna but too successfully aided the purposes of the Stranger, he obtained not only complete possession of her affections, but of her person also.

At midnight, in the ruined chapel of Sir Emanfred's gloomy edifice, the Stranger had prevailed on the innocent Anna to meet him, and ratify his wishes. A monk of a distant convent waited in the chapel; and the inauspicious nuptials were performed; and Anna became a bride, without knowing by what title she must in future call herself.

Scarcely had three months of happiness and love passed over her head, when a storm, dreadful and unexpected, threatened for ever to annihilate the bright prospect of felicity.

The sudden arrival of a hasty messenger from the Knight alarmed the trembling Anna; and scarce had she perused the purport of his arrival, than with a faint shriek, and a stifled cry of agony, she fell to the ground, as she feebly exclaimed, 'Lost, undone, and wretched Anna! destruction and death await thee!'

The Stranger read the fatal paper that contained the harsh mandate of his Anna's father: his brow became contracted, and his countenance overcast with apparent gloom and sorrow, as he perused the unwelcome information of the Knight's arrival, on the morrow, at his castle, to celebrate the nuptials of his daughter with the lord of Osmand, who accompanied him. For a time a gloomy silence pervaded his lips; and Anna vainly cast her tearful, imploring eyes to him for succour and protection. At length, starting from a deep reverie, he caught her in his arms, as she was sinking to the ground, and kissing her cold and quivering lips, bade her take comfort, and abide with patience the arrival of her sire; adding, that in three weeks he would return, and openly claim her as his wife; when the mystery that had so long enveloped his name and title in secrecy should be unravelled, and his adored Anna be restored to affluence and splendor. Again embracing her, he hurried precipitately from the place; and Anna— the ruined, hapless Anna— never saw him more—

HERE MANY lines became defaced, as the ink had rotted through the vellum, and all traces of writing were totally lost in mildew and obscurity. At length she was able to continue as follows:

Ferocious rage filled the soul of the Knight, and darkened his features, as prostrate at his feet lay, overwhelmed in grief and tears, the imploring Anna. 'Spare me!' she cried, 'Oh, sire! spare your wretched child— she cannot marry the lord of Osmand!'

Fury flashed in the eyes of the stern Sir Emanfred, on hearing these words of his daughter. At length the burst of rage found vent, he seized the arm of the trembling Anna, and placing her hand forcibly in that of Sir Osmand's, commanded her to prepare herself, in three days, to become his bride, or meet the curses of an angry father, and be driven from his sight for ever.

Driven to despair, and now vainly calling on the mysterious Stranger to shield her from the direful fate that awaited her, or the still more dreadful vengeance of her unrelenting father, the hapless Anna wildly flew to the gloomy wood, in the forlorn hope that there, once more, she might behold the lord of all her love and fondest wishes. In three weeks he had promised to reclaim her; but, alas! they had already expired, and no Stranger had appeared. The fourth week of his absence came: it passed away, but he came not; and now but three days remained between her and her hateful nuptials. Wildly she wandered through the gloomy wood, and vainly cast her eyes in hopeless anguish on all around her: no Stranger met her sight: he came not to rescue his forlorn bride from the rude grasp of impending misery and destruction. Night came on; the hours passed away unheeded, yet still she quitted not the solemn shades of the dreary grove. The bell of midnight sounded; she started at the melancholy toll, and fear and awe possessed her sickening fancy. She hurried through the wood, and reached in silence her chamber; but sleep visited not the wretched Anna.

Again, as the hour of suffering drew still nigher, she threw herself in supplication before the gloomy Knight, and besought him to spare her but one week longer, ere he linked her to misery and woe; hoping by this delay to procure time for the Stranger, and give him yet another chance, ere it was too late, to save her, and claim his affianced bride. But, inexorably bent on the union of his child with Lord Osmand, the Knight, in anger, cast her from his knees, and threatened to overwhelm her with his most tremendous curses, if she did not meet Lord Osmand at the altar before the sixth hour of the early morrow had chimed upon the bell.

Poor Anna shrunk from the angry glances of the enraged Knight; despair and anguish seized her soul. The Stranger never came; he had forgotten his solemn vows, neglected his promise, and abandoned her to her fate. Whither could she fly? How was she to avoid the choice of miseries that equally pursued her? Either she must perjure her soul to false oaths, or meet the dreadful alternative of a parent's dire malediction.— Oh! whither, lost and wretched Anna! canst thou fly!

Upon the pillow of her tear-bedewed couch she vainly laid her head, to seek a momentary oblivion of her sorrow in repose. Something lay upon her pillow— It was a paper curiously folded.— With fearful, trembling expectation she hastily opened the envelope, and read, 'The Stranger guards his love; and though unseen, and yet forbidden, to reclaim his lovely bride, now watches over her safety, and awaits the precious moment when he shall hasten on the wings of love to restore his Anna to happiness and liberty. If then she would preserve herself for her unknown friend, let her instantly fly to the monastery of St Catherine's, where she may remain in security till demanded by her adoring Vortimer.'

The unhappy maid perused the fatal lines with unsuspecting belief and joyful ecstasy; and, in compliance with the Stranger's mysterious warning, escaped at midnight from her father's mansion; and took refuge in the cloisters of St Catherine.

The haughty lady abbess received the forlorn wanderer with cold civility and suspicious scrutiny. The unfortunate Anna had, in the simple innocence of her heart, confided to the superior her mournful tale, nor left one circumstance untold that could excite her pity, save her marriage with the Stranger, for whom she now began to feel unusual fears, and dreadful forebodings of evil to herself; for a month had glided away at the abbey, and yet he came not.

The Knight, with dreadful rage, discovered his daughter's flight; but vainly sought again to restore her to his power. He never saw her more; nor knew the sad conclusion of the unhappy Anna's destiny; who, deceived and terrified by the threats, expostulations, and commands, of the lady abbess, and the father confessors of the monastery, was at length betrayed into her own destruction; for the merciless abbess threatened to return her to her lord, and to her father, if she longer refused to take the vow of monastic life.

Despair and horror now seized the suffering victim of bigotry and paternal tyranny. Another and another month elapsed, and hope no longer could support her— the cruel Stranger never came. At the gates of her prison, she was told, waited her father, with a powerful band, to force her from the abbey into the arms of a hated husband; and only the alternative of instantly taking the veil, could save her from the misery that pursued her. In a wild agony of terror, that had totally bereft her of her reason, she faintly bade them save her from her father's vengeance.

That instant the sacred, irrevocable vow was administered, and all its binding forms complied with by the lost St Anna, who, in the terror of her father, had for a moment forgot her previous engagements with the Stranger— forgot that she must, in a little time, become, perhaps, a wretched mother, and now was a still more wretched nun.

HERE AGAIN the papers were totally useless, as Rosaline could only make out here and there a word, by which it appeared, that the Baron Fitzmartin had accused the order, with breaking the vow of celibacy. At length she read as follows:

With difficulty he was prevailed upon to suspend his proceedings against the abbey till the succeeding morrow, whilst the holy sisterhood endured the most persecuting examination from the lady abbess. No signs of guilt, however, were found; and the fathers, rejoicing in their expected security, were debating on an ample defiance to the Baron, when news was brought that Sister St Anna had fallen senseless on the steps of the grand altar, and had been with difficulty removed to her cell. Thither the abbess instantly hastened; and as the insensible nun lay still reclined on her mattress, her outer garment unlaced to admit of respiration, the disfigurement of her person first forcibly struck the lady mother with suspicion. She started, frowned; then looked again; conviction flashed upon her eyes; and, regardless of pity for the still lifeless state of the hapless Anna, she commanded all to quit the cell, and send instantly the father abbot to her. The father hastily obeyed, and entered. The lady abbess murmured in a hollow voice, as frowns of fury darted from her now terrific countenance: 'Behold the guilty wretch that, with impious sacrilege, hath defiled our holy sanctuary, and brought destruction on the glory of our house's fame!— Say, holy father, how must we dispose of the accursed apostate?'

Before the abbot could reply, the unfortunate Anna awoke from the counterfeit of death's repose, and, wildly casting her eyes around her cell, beheld the forms of her inveterate destroyers.

Their fierce and angry looks of dreadful inquiry were bent upon the terrified nun, who, sickened with an unusual apprehension and dismay, whilst the abbot, fixing on the trembling Anna an increasing look of penetrating sternness, in a hollow, deep-toned voice, that sunk to her appalled heart, thus exclaimed: 'What punishment too terrible can await that guilty wretch who with sacrilege defiles our holy order?— say, lost one of God, art thou not guilty?'

Sinking on her knees, of every hope of life bereft, the unhappy Anna drooped her head to avoid the terrible scrutiny of truths pronounced, and looks unanswerable. No chance of escape was left her; she dared not prevaricate; and only with a groan of agony she feebly exclaimed— 'I am, indeed!— Have mercy, holy father, as you shall hereafter expect to receive mercy from our heavenly Judge, on my involuntary crime!' She then turned to the frowning abbess her beseeching eyes, and piteously added, as she clung around her knees, 'Spare, oh gracious mother, spare a repentant daughter!'

In the countenances of her terrific judges poor Anna read the horrid mandate of her fate; for against the sacred order of the sisterhood she had sinned beyond atonement by any other punishment than death— Death the most horrible and excruciating! Vainly then she knelt, and clung to the robe of the abbess; she had slandered with sacrilege the purity of God's anointed house; its ministers and sacred devotees were sullied with a stain, that only the blood of a victim could wash away. Nor was the plea of marriage to a knight, who evidently never meant to claim her, admitted as the slightest expiation of her perjured vows to the abbey, and the disgrace she had brought on its sanctified inmates. Her horrid crimes demanded instant punishment: and the dreadful vengeance of the insulted members of the church could only be appeased by the immediate extirpation of the heinous apostate. To dispose of the unfortunate nun for ever, beyond the possibility of her being produced as a living evidence of the Baron's censure, and the abbey's shame, was now become an event absolutely necessary to the safety and welfare of the order: the claims of mercy, or the melting pleadings of pity, were alike disregarded for the stronger interest of the more immediate triumph of the abbey over its avowed and implacable enemy: and the father abbot, with the lady mother, having exhausted on the lost fair one the dreadful thunders of the church's vengeance, forcibly tore themselves from her distracted grasp, and prepared to inflict the terrific punishments that awaited their despairing victim, who, shrieking vainly for aid, and calling piteously on the Stranger for rescue and protection from her horrid fate, was borne by the tormentors from her cell to the dungeon of the south tower.

At the hour of midnight they dragged the miserable victim from her bed, and deep in the horrific dungeons of the prison plunged the distracted nun!— Groans, sighs, and shrieks, alternately rung echoing round the rugged walls: the torturing horrors of famine awaited the unfortunate nun; no pity alleviated her misery; and in the centre of the place stood the coffin destined for her; whilst round the walls and floor, in all directions, were strewed the ghastly ensigns of woe and torment.

A faint glimmering lamp, suspended from the massy bars of the roof (as if with a refinement of cruelty unequalled, to blast the sight of the victim, and shut out every contemplation but her immediate fate) served to shew her the horrors that overwhelmed her, and the terrific engines of her tortures. The implements of confession were placed on the lid of her coffin; for the fathers denied her even the last consolation of absolution; but these she only in moments of short intellect would use, when distracted sentences, and wild, unfinished exclamations and appeals were all that it produced, sufficiently depictive of the horrors of her fate.

Two days of lingering sufferings had passed, and the third was nearly closed. Shut from life, and light, and every means of existence, the pangs of hunger seized the frantic sufferer, and the perils of premature childbirth writhed her anguished frame. Shrieks of despair rang through the building, and echoed to the vault of heaven. Hark! again that soul-appalling cry!— Inhuman fiends, is mercy dead within you!— Is there no touch of pity in your obdurate souls!— And thou too, remorseless betrayer of trusting innocence, hear ye not yon soul-appalling cry of her thy fatal love has destroyed?— Hark! again she calls on thy unpitying name; and now, in the bitterness of her soul's sufferings, she curses thee, and imprecates heaven's just vengeance on thy perjured head! Heaven hears the awful appeal!— it will avenge thee, suffering Anna! Now sink to death appeased.— Again the shrieks— Sure it is her last! The holy sisterhood, appalled, fly wildly from the dreadful tower; but vainly supplicate the mercy of their superiors for its dying inmate. Nature is exhausted, and hark, again the groans grow fainter! Short-breathed murmurs proclaim the welcome dissolution of life. The soul, though confined with the suffering frame within the massy bars of her prison, at length has burst its bonds— It mounts from death, and in a moment is freed for ever. A short prayer addressed to the throne of mercy, releases the sufferer, and wafts her soul from the persecution of the wicked. The cruel strife has ceased— Poor Anna is at rest— her voice is heard no more. In the coffin of penitence she laid her suffering form; perhaps, it will never be removed from thence. Her guilty judges tremble at the place, nor dare their unhallowed footsteps approach the sacred dust.

Again the papers were useless, but it seemed, by what she could make out, that the haughty Baron triumphed over the Fathers of the Abbey, to the entire seclusion of the order. At length she came to the following passage, which concluded the manuscript.

The vengeance of heaven hung heavily over the conscience of the wicked Baron, nor was he suffered ever after to partake of happiness. It was on the third evening after his removal from his castle to the abbey he had plundered, that, retiring earlier than usual to his unwelcome couch, he tried in the arms of sleep to lose the remembrance of his crimes, and the terrible vengeance they inflicted on his guilty conscience. The sullen bell had tolled the hour of midnight ere he could compose his mind to repose. On this night, however, unusual restlessness pervaded his frame; nor could he for some time close in forgetfulness his eye-lids. At length a kind of unwilling stupor lulled for a moment his tortured spirits, and he slept. Not long did the balmy deity await him: troubled groans of anguish sounded through the apartment, and piercing shrieks rung bitterly in his ears. Starting in horror, he wildly raised himself, half bent, on his couch, and drew aside his curtains. The chamber was in total darkness, and every taper seemed suddenly to have been extinguished. At that moment the heavy bell of the abbey clock struck one. A freezing awe stole over the senses of the Baron: he in vain attempted to call his attendants; for speech was denied him; and a suspense of trembling horror had chilled his soul. His blood ran cold to its native source; his hair stood erect, and his countenance was distorted; for, as his eyes turned wildly, he beheld, standing close to the side of his bed, the pale figure of a female form, thinly clothed in the habiliments of a nun, and bearing in one hand a taper, whilst the other arm supported the ghastly form of a dead infant reclining on her breast. The countenance of the figure was pale, wan, and horrible to behold; for from its motionless eyes no spark of life proceeded; but they were fixed in unmoving terrific expression on the appalled Baron.

At length a hollow-sounding voice pronounced through the closed lips of the spectre, 'O false, false Vortimer! accursed and rejected of thy Maker! knowest thou not the shadowy form that stands before thee? knowest thou not thy wretched bride? seest thou not the murdered infant thou hast destroyed?— From the deep bosom of immensity, the yawning horrors of the grave, the spirit of St Anna comes to call for vengeance and retribution; for know, the curses of her latest moments, when writhing beneath the agonies, the torments of death, and devouring hunger, that she then called upon thy head, were heard; and never shalt thou, guilty wretch! enjoy one quiet moment more. My mangled form, as now thou seest me, and dreams for ever of affright and terror, shall haunt thy thoughts with horror; nor shall even the grave rescue thee from the tortures I await to inflict.— Farewell— farewell till next we meet. In the grove where first thy perjured soul won on my happy, unsuspecting nature, and drew my youthful heart from parental duty and obedience, there shalt thou again behold me!'

Suddenly the eyes of the spectre became animated— Oh! then what flashes of appalling anger darted their orbits on the horrorstruck Vortimer! three dreadful shrieks rung pealing through the chamber, now filled with a blaze of sulphureous light. The spectre suddenly became invisible, and the Baron fell senseless on his couch.

_________________

11: When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer

Christopher B. Booth

Detective Story Magazine 21 Jan 1922

BACK and forth across the lobby, thumbs hooked in the armholes of his almost screaming waistcoat, and with a three-carat diamond scintillating prosperously from his tie of radiant hues, the self-important man promenaded, the object of both amused and sneering smiles. His type was not new to the exclusive Blackmere Hotel. Despite his palpable assumed air of concentration, it was evident from the way he occasionally glanced about that he yearned for companionship.

Mr. Amos Clackworthy, extremely partial to the Blackmere cuisine, had just finished a delectable dinner and was idling away half an hour before the theater. A flicker of interest showed in his eyes, as, amusedly at first, he began to study the man. To ignore this collection of fine raiment was impossible. He was as conspicuous as a silk hat at a picnic. Even James Early, Mr. Clackworthy's first lieutenant in their own little private war upon idle and surplus wealth, who had been in the doldrums all afternoon, noted him.

"All dressed up like a barber pole, ain't he?" remarked The Early Bird. "Regular rainbow, eh, boss?"

"Nouveau riche," murmured Mr. Clackworthy.

"Huh?"

"Meaning, my dear James, that he hasn't had money long enough to know how to spend it. Spending money is really a fine art, providing that it is done properly. Any idiot can get rid of money, but to get value received in worldly comfort requires both wisdom and experience.

"Our oppulent promenader with the clashing clothes doubtless considers himself a very classy dresser, and is making himself very ridiculous. He has doubtless paid more for that circus costume than any man in this lobby, yet he is probably the worst dressed man in Chicago. An out-of-doors man, evidently ; note that baked-in coat of tan. But he'll learn, James; he'll learn. They all do when they have the money to pay for the lessons."

The Early Bird frowned meditatively for a moment; then his fingers went out, eagerly clutching Mr. Clackworthy's sleeve.

"An idea's beginnin' t' take growin' exercises, boss!" he whispered. "Y'get me?"

"Perhaps I don't," replied Mr. Clackworthy.

"What's the matter with you an' me volunteerin' our services, seein' as this guy needs a lotta schoolin' on the ways an' means of gettin' rid of the jack?" demanded The Early Bird.

"I was waiting for you to spring that," announced the master confidence man. "It is not a bad idea at all; certainly it is worth looking into. We may be entirely misled as to the chap's wealth, but I think not. He may, after all, be one of those small-town four-flushers who like to come to the city and live for a few days in a make-believe world of money— fifteen dollars a day for a room and a bath and the bank at home worried to death about a hundred-dollar overdraft. You know the kind."

"That chunk of ice he's sportin' in his tie ain't no piker's rock," said The Early Bird. "Musta set him back mighty near a thousand seeds."

"All is not gold that glitters,' quoted Mr. Clackworthy.

"Well, if this goof is a false alarm, it ain't gonna take long t' give him the glad t'metcha stuff an' be off."

"Quite right, James," agreed Mr. Clackworthy. "There can be no harm in passing a few words with the fellow while we, so to speak, measure the circumference of his bank roll. It will, I am sure, be quite a simple matter to get acquainted, for it is evident that he pines for the society of his fellow man."

As the master confidence man had anticipated, getting acquainted with the much overdressed stranger was simplicity itself. Their eyes met for a moment, and Mr. Clackworthy smiled genially. That was encouragement enough for the big, ruddy-faced man, evidently not long from the West.

"Hello! Great weather we're havin', huh?" he said by way of beginning, promptly occupying a chair. "My name's Waddington— Wallace Waddington; I'm from Texas. Oil's my game. Glad to meetcha."

Mr. Clackworthy shook hands cordially. At close-up the one thousand- dollar diamond was genuine, and so was Mr. Wallace Waddington!

"Welcome to the second city," responded the master confidence man. "My name is Clackworthy— Amos Clackworthy. I am a Chicagoan and pursue the almighty dollar along many and varied highways. This is Mr. —Mr. James Early."

"Oil, huh?" inquired The Early Bird, apprehensively examining his hand upon which the Texan's big fingers had gripped with such hearty force. "Ain't sellin' oil stock?"

"Stock?" repeated Mr. Waddington with a boisterous laugh which rudely shattered the subdued calm of the Blackmere lobby. "Thunder, no! Hope I don't look like one of them slicker fellows. Nope, I'm sellin' oil— the genuine article just as it comes out of the ground. I don't have to waste time peddlin' it, either."

"Oh, I see," volunteered Mr. Clackworthy, "you are one of those fortunate persons who has struck oil." Here, indeed, was a victim of great promise.

"Should say I did strike it!" exclaimed Waddington, not at all reluctantly, and not at all concerned that at least fifty persons were involuntary auditors to the story of his success. "Regular gusher; fifty barrels a day from one well alone in the Ranger field. Brought in four more since then— and to look at me, you wouldn't think that two years ago I was plowin' corn for a livin', an' plumb scared to death that the bank down home was goin' to get terrible nasty about a little old seven-hundred-dollar note."

"I suppose the bank wouldn't worry much now if you owed them seventy thousand instead of seven hundred," remarked Mr. Clackworthy.

"Own the bank now; own 'er, lock, stock, an' barrel," said Mr. Waddington with no display of embarrassed modesty. "Yep, I've done right well; got nature workin' for me now.

"Thought I'd come up here and take on a little polish, sort of, before proceedin' to New York. Nothin' like a chap enjoyin' himself when he can afford it. One fine thing about money it's so spendable."

"You're a man after my own heart," declared Mr. Clackworthy with utmost  sincerity. "It is a pleasure to meet you, and I hope that you will allow me to show you that ours is a hospitable city."

"It's got a blame queer way of displayin' its hospitality," said Mr. Waddington. '"Ain't had hardly a civil word with a soul since I blew in yesterday until I sort of horned in with you an' your friend. Fact is, I was so blame lonesome that I was thinkin' of telegeraphin' back home for some of the boys to come on up an' keep me company.

"Well, come to think about it, there was one fellow did get sort of chummy, but he had, as a feller says, ulterior motives. Didn't take me long to get his number. About fifty minutes after I met him he tried to sell me the stone lions in front of the Field Museum— an' I bought 'em, too."

"Good Lord!" gasped out The Early Bird.

"Are they still workin' that old game?" Mr. Clackworthy frowned warningly.

"Oh, I was wise. I'd read about that in a Sunday paper. I just led him on to have some fun with him. Give him a hundred and twenty dollars for 'em, and then didn't give him a chance to give me the slip while I called an express wagon to haul 'em off. Scared? Men, he was the palest-lookin' homo I ever saw; afraid the police would come along and pinch us tryin' to take away them lions. Plumb got down on his knees an' begged me to take back my hundred and twenty dollars."

Mr. Clackworthy laughed in appreciation of this bit of humor and glanced at his watch. "Mr. Early and I were about to take in a show, Mr. Waddington," he said; "we would be glad to have you join us."

"I'd be pleased to; mighty pleased," accepted Mr. Waddington. "I'll foot the bill."

"No, Mr. Waddington," refused the master confidence man, "I'll admit that I haven't any oil wells working for me twenty-four hours a day, but neither am I exactly a pauper. This is my theater party and you are my guest."

"If you insist on havin' it that way," agreed Mr. Waddington. "You're folks! That's the way we treat strangers down in Texas. Wait for me while I get my overcoat."

When the Texan hurried across the lobby, diamond glinting and heavy gold watch chain swinging, Mr. Clackworthy was the picture of satisfaction.

"James," he declared, "a kindly fate sent us to the Blackmere this evening. It's so easy that I am ashamed to take the money. Mr. Waddington is the juciest bit of fruit that we have ever plucked from the money tree."

The Early Bird knitted his brows thoughtfully.

"Boss," he said slowly, "there is fruit an' fruit; somethin' seems t' tell me that this fruit is liable t' be— a lemon. Look at the way he called the turn on that bozo what tried t' sell him the lions off'n the Field Museum."

Mr. Clackworthy looked grieved.

"Why, dear James!" he protested. "Surely you do not compare my methods with a crude affair like that?"

"No, boss, I ain't even hintin' that you're in that ham class," hastily assured The Early Bird, "but this here Waddington ain't no infant in arms when it comes t' bein' jerry to the ways of the wicked world. Mebbe his noodle don't work as fast as his chin, but his brain lacks a lot of bein' paralyzed."

"Twenty-five thousand, James," declared Mr. Clackworthy confidently. "I consider that a most modest sum to extract from an oil magnate."

ii

SO CLOSELY did Mr. Wallace Waddington dog Mr. Clackworthy's footsteps after that first meeting in the Blackmere Hotel lobby that the master confidence man had a difficult time of it to get away even long enough to perfect his plans. It was only through the expedient of large and frequent raids upon his private stock that he was able to get any time to himself. He had discovered that Mr. Waddington had both a great weakness and a great capacity for the forbidden liquid, but after some twenty-five or thirty generous "two fingers" would lapse into long and sonorous slumber. It was during these periods that Mr. Clack- worthy perfected his scheme.

Well aware of the tendency of the genus homo toward exaggeration, the master confidence man had taken the precaution of ascertaining the truth regarding Mr. Waddington's financial standing. He found that the Texan had, if anything, underrated the total of his wealth. The gentleman from the Lone Star State was conservatively credited with the possession of not less than a million dollars.

Mr. Waddington still retained his quarters at the Blackmere, but he was seldom there. He preferred the equal luxury and much superior hospitality of Mr. Clackworthy's Sheridan Road apartment. During these days Mr. Clackworthy, with his customary regard for details, was perfecting his plans, and at the same time studying the prospective contributor to the Clackworthy bank account. At length things were well arranged, which seemed most timely, for Mr. Waddington began to speak vaguely of going to New York for a spell.

It was shortly after noon and Mr. Clackworthy, The Early Bird, and Mr. Waddington were preparing for a spin through Lincoln Park when the doorbell rang. A moment later, Nogo, Mr. Clackworthy's Japanese servant, ushered in George Bascom, nearly always included in Mr. Clackworthy's personnel of assistants.

The Early Bird suppressed a snicker for George, playing the part which had been assigned to him, was somewnat shabby of dress, in contrast to his usual and prideful sartorial faultlessness. He wore, too, a crestfallen and woebegone expression and was apparently much embarrassed.

Mr. Clackworthy introduced him to the Texas oil magnate, waved him to a chair, and invited him to a high ball.

"Cheer up, George!" he cried jovially. "The worst is yet to come."

"I hope not," said George glumly. "If the worst is to come I don't want to be here when it happens. I'm broke —flat."

"You look it, George," replied Mr. Clackworthy; "it wouldn't have happened if—"

"That's right, rub it in," interrupted George sourly; "I guess I've got it coming to me. If I had listened to you and sold out to the Grayson crowd I would be riding in my own limousine instead of paddling around town in my one- man power footmobile, looking for a hand-out. Oh, that's what I'm here for; I might as well blurt it out. I want to borrow a hundred dollars."

"Sure, George; sure," agreed Mr. Clackworthy, "I like to heap coals of fire on your head. That was a pretty raw deal you gave me, but I'm not a man to hold a grudge.

"Here's the hundred; no need to bother about an I O U. Where are you hanging forth these days? Haven't seen you at the club for some time."

"I'd look fine at the club with these clothes on, wouldn't I?" retorted Bascom. "Oh, I'm down and out; I'm living at a cheap hotel on the South Side — The Claymore— room eight dollars a week." He laughed hollowly and carefully tucked the hundred-dollar bill into his pocket.

"Another high ball, if you don't mind, and I'll be going," he said. "Don't forget to spread the story around that George Bascom is trimming the whiskers off his cuffs these days, but tell 'em that I said the Sun Chemical Co. is coming back; tell 'em that for me!" He pounded his fist emphatically on the table, gulped down his drink, and left the apartment.

"You're dead easy, boss," said The Early Bird, taking his cue. "I wouldn't give a guy the tail off'n a buffalo nickel if he'd treated me like that gink treated you."

"I find it easy to forgive mine enemies," declared Mr. Clackworthy. Then, apparently observing Mr. Waddington's curious expression, he explained.

"Bascom and I formed the Sun Chemical Co. some months ago," he said. "Bascom was a chemist and formulated some new products. I raised most of the capital, but Bascom's discoveries were the main asset, and he kept control— two thousand shares. The chap's rather visionary— and head- strong; not a good business man at all. We had a little difference of opinion, and he kicked me out. About that time a rival company with unlimited capital brought suit for infringement of patents. Lawsuits broke him; he refused my advice to sell out for a good profit —and there he is."

"I see," said Mr. Waddington, yawning, and not particularly interested in this industrial post mortem. "Let's have another drink."

The story of George Bascom's business failure had not made much impression upon the Texas oil man; evidently Mr. Clackworthy had not intended that it should.

iii

THE FOLLOWING day Mr. Clackworthy and Mr. Waddington were walking along La Salle Street when the former was hailed by a brusque, dignified man of perhaps sixty, with iron-gray hair and shrewd eyes. It was none other than "Pop" Blanchard. As might be suspected, the apparently accidental meeting had been arranged by careful design.

"Hello, Mr. Clackworthy. Just about to spend a two-cent stamp on you. Got a check up at my office for you— profit on that S. and K. stock that you sold short."

"Fine!" answered Mr. Clackworthy. "I'll go with you now if you're headed that way. Mr. Blanchard, this is Mr. Wallace Waddington, oil man from Texas. Mr. Blanchard, Waddington, is a sure-thing gambler."

"What!" exclaimed Pop indignantly.

"He gambles with other people's money— he's a broker," said Mr. Clackworthy laughingly.

"Oh!" said Pop, mollified and smiling at the joke. "Well, I'm announcing to the world here and now that you're a sure-thing gambler yourself. Hanged if you ever went into a stock deal yet that you didn't come out ahead of the game."

"But I can't do it often enough to put me in Mr. Waddington's class," said Mr, Clackworthy. "Waddington is a millionaire, you know." The Texan expanded visibly at this, trying in vain to achieve a depreciating smile.

The three turned in at a near-by office building and were taken to the twelfth floor where Pop Blanchard led the way to an office suite of three rooms, the entrance of which made this announcement: 'Blanchard and Co., Stocks and Bonds."

The outer office was a beehive of activity. Three stenographers, one of whom was Mrs. Bascom, George's pretty little wife, rattled away industriously at their machines. There was a blackboard at one end of the room around which were gathered several pseudo customers, evidently absorbed in the rise and fall of the market. There was a cashier's cage behind which Jack Prichard, frequently an assistant in the master confidence man's schemes, was on duty. By the blackboard a market  ticker spun forth its cryptic messages which might spell ruin or riches.

Pop led the way back to the private office and Mr. Clackworthy motioned Waddington to follow. The private office was richly furnished in mahogany, for Mr. Clackworthy kept this prosperous furniture— the massive desk, the thick imported rug, the big chairs— in storage for just such occasions.

After a brokerlike study of the tape of his private ticker, Pop sat down at his desk and offered cigars. He touched one of half a dozen buttons on his desk and John Prichard, cashier, appeared.

"Bring Mr. Clackworthy's check," he instructed, and then, apparently upon second thought, asked: "Wouldn't prefer the cash, I suppose ?"

Mr. Clackworthy glanced into his bill fold.

"As it happens, I can use the cash," he said. "Haven't been to the bank for several days."

"Prichard," ordered Pop, "bring the cash and Mr. Clackworthy will indorse the check back to us."

A moment later Prichard came back and counted out nine thousand dollars in currency on the desk in front of the master confidence man. Mr. Clackworthy's reason for this transaction was one of psychology, for there is always something impressive in large amounts of cash. It fixed the status of Blanchard & Co. as a prosperous concern with large amounts of cash money available. Nine thousand in cash seems so much more than the amount in a check. It is the hypnotism of real money.

The three men chatted pleasantly for a time, Mr. Clackworthy encouraging Mr. Waddington to wax loquacious concerning Texas in general, and Mr. Wallace Waddington in particular. At length the conversation dragged, and the  pseudo broker, twice glancing at his watch within the space of three minutes, gave the broad hint that he had more profitable matters to attend to. Mr. Clackworthy, in the midst of a reminiscent bit of humor, laughed.

"All right, Blanchard," he said, "we'll be going."

"Finish the story first," said Pop. His foot slid under the desk and touched the button which connected with the buzzer on Mrs. Bascom's desk. In answer to this signal she took a previously prepared telegram from the drawer and rapped on the door of the private office.

"Telegram, Mr Blanchard," she called.

"Come," responded Pop. He slit the envelope with his paper knife and quickly scanned the lines of the message.

"Humph!" he said, and, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully, turned toward Mr. Clackworthy. Slowly he laid the telegram on his desk beneath a paper weight and deliberately revived the lagging conversation. It was evident to even Mr. Waddington that he had suddenly found reason for Mr. Clackworthy's company, presumably some matter that concerned the telegram. He was too obviously attempting to appear careless.

"By the way, Mr. Clackworthy," he said presently, "what has happened to George Bascom? Never see him any more, Always liked George; liked him very much. Would like to get in touch with him some time. You used to be associated with him in the Sun Chemical Co., I remember. Happen to have his address?"

For a moment Mr. Clackworthy hesitated, his eyes searching Pop Blanchard's face.

"Haven't seen George myself for some time," he answered. "May run into him any time, however; any message you want me to give him?"

"Bascom?" interrupted Mr. Waddington. "Isn't he the fellow—" He stopped stopped abruptly as Mr. Clackworthy's shoe caught him warningly on the shin.

"Yes, the fellow I was telling you about," the master confidence man interrupted hastily.

"Oh!" said the Texan, still puzzled by Mr. Clackworthy's deception.

Broker Blanchard was plainly disappointed.

"I was hoping that you might have his— er— address," he said. "You are quite sure that you don't know where I can reach him?"

"Well, it's just possible that I may run into Parish next week ; he can probably tell me," said Mr. Clackworthy.

Pop fidgeted in his chair.

"Next week?" he repeated. "Humph, I'd like to see him sooner than that. Where's Parish? Parish knows Bascom's address, eh?"

Mr. Clackworthy leaned forward triumphantly.

"Seems to me, Blanchard, that you're in an awful hurry to find George Bascom," he declared with deliberate meaning. "Oh, you're not as casual about it as you would have me think; you've been anxious to get hold of Bascom— just since you received that telegram! There's something in the wind, and you've been trying to pump me for a bit of valuable information, haven't you?

"All right, I'll be frank with you. I know exactly where Bascom is, but I'm not going to tell you where to find him—not until you show me that telegram! I can tell by the way you act that there's money in it for you. I sunk a lot of good cash in Bascom's company, and I begin to see a way to get it back."

Pop reached for the telegram. "You've got me nailed to the mast," he admitted. "For I've got to get hold of Bascom before noon to-morrow— and here's why."

He passed over the telegram, and as Mr. Clackworthy read it his brows lifted in surprise as he gave voice to a low whistle.

"No wonder you were anxious to find him— you pirate!" he exclaimed. "Saw a chance to pick up Bascom's stock for a song and resell to Grayson for his maximum figure— on top of your usual brokerage commission."

Pop got from his chair and walked across the room, pausing to look out the window; presently he turned.

"Tell you what we'll do," he said. "We'll work this thing together on a fifty-fifty split. Bascom will let loose of those two thousand shares for— um— I'd say fifteen dollars a share. That's thirty thousand dollars. Ill give you my check now for half of it— fifteen thousand dollars. You put up the other fifteen thousand dollars, and we'll split the profit. Quite a handsome profit, eh?"

"Nothing doing, refused Mr. Clackworthy. "You're supposed to be a reputable broker, buying for your clients as cheap as you can. I'm going to take care of fhis little thing alone, thank you! MHere's my chance to get back what I lost, with a good stiff interest, and I'm going to do it."

"Aren't you going to let me in on it?" pleaded Pop.

"Let me ask my friend, Waddington, here, what he would do under the circumstances," said Mr. Clackworthy with a smile, as he handed the telegram to the Texan. The oil man took it and read:

C. A. BLANCHARD, Personal,

Blanchard & Co., Meadow Building, Chicago.

Advance information that court will hand down decision noon to-morrow finding for Sun Chemical Co. upholding all their patent claims and awarding them judgment against us. This is complete surprise and necessitates that we control Sun Co. Buy Bascom control. Go high as eighty dollars a share.

GRAYSON.

Mr. Waddington passed back the telegram.

"I reckon I don't savvy this business none to speak of," he replied. "To me, Mr. Clackworthy, it looks kinda like you had been handed a raw deal an' had the chance t' come back at 'em strong. As for this here feller, he ain't got no right t' be dippin' his fingers into the pie. I reckon if I was you, I'd go right ahead an' get the stock-from Bascom as cheap as I could, seein' as how he didn't treat you fair when you was dealin' with him."

"Exactly my decision," agreed Mr. Clackworthy. "I'll buy Bascom's stock and Blanchard here can buy it from me— at the top price of eighty dollars a share."

"But— but," sputtered Pop, "if it hadn't been for me, you would never have getten a tip on this deal."

"That is my good fortune," retorted Mr. Clackworthy. "Come, Waddington, we'll be moving. It's going to take some tall hustling to arrange this business. I'll blow you to a mighty swell dinner when I've cashed in my profits on this deal."

"I was sort of wonderin'," cautioned the oil man, "if there was any chance of this here Grayson changin' his mind about buyin' that stock, after you've gone and paid good money for it."

"Certainly not; certainly not," assured Mr. Clackworthy. "But just to make sure of no slip-up, I think we'd better have Blanchard give me a written agreement that he will pay eighty dollars a share for the two thousand shares."

"I'll give you no such thing— unless I'm in for a cut," declared Pop.

For some minutes they argued, Loth remaining firm.

"Business is business, an' it's always best t? have things down in writin'," suggested Mr. Waddington. "Mebbe it ain't as square as it might be, but— well, it's business. Better give Blanchard ten thousand dollars an' get that written agreement; that makes you a heap safer. Then nobody can wiggle out."

"Ten thousand!' exclaimed Pop. "That's some profit when Mr. Clackworthy stands to clean up something like one hundred and thirty thousand dollars."

"Ail right, I'll let you keep out twenty thousand dollars of the price to be paid when I deliver the goods," agreed Mr. Clackworthy.

The agreement was duly drawn up, a brief notation stating the facts, and signed. Mr. Clackworthy and Mr. Waddington left the office.

"You're a better business man than I give you credit for," said Mr. Wad- dington. "That was pretty smart the way you guessed what he was up to an' clubbed him into showin' you that telegram. Whew! If you was to pull tricks like that every day, it would beat oil wells, huh?"

Mr. Clackworthy chuckled in secret satisfaction.

"The fish is hooked," he told himself.

iv

AT MR. CLACKWORTHY'S insistence, Mr. Waddington accompanied him to the Claymore Hotel on the South Side where George Bascom had taken up a temporary residence. As luck would have it— a bit of good fortune carefully prearranged, of course— George was in. They found him in his room, looking more dejected than ever.

"George," said Mr. Clackworthy, "I've found a man who, strange as it may seem, has faith in the Sun Chemical Co,"

"I've got faith, too," grumbled George. "It's money that I needed. Faith isn't any good when it comes to fighting a big crowd like the Grayson outfit."

"Well," pursued Mr. Clackworthy, "this man that I'm talking about has enough faith to put some money into it. You're broke and can never put the Sun Co. on its feet. Your own lawyers told you that you could never lick Grayson and his outfit, but that is neither here nor there. Eliminating all that and get- ting down to plain figures, I'll give you ten dollars a share for your two thou- sand shares of stock— twenty thousand dollars."

George Bascom looked moodily out of the window of his eight-dollar-a- week room. Presently, however, he seemed to get his mind on business.

"Something has happened to get you so interested like this," he said slowly. "You're no fool, and I know it. If you're offering ten dollars a share it's worth more. I don't blame you because I guess I did hand you a raw deal; not that I really intended to.

"I don't know what's happened, and I'm not going to ask you. You wouldn't tell me, anyhow. One thing's sure, however; twenty thousand dollars isn't enough. You are entitled to get your money back, and I am willing to have vou do it, but if my control of the Sun Co. is worth twenty thousand dollars, it's worth more. I happen to need just exactly seventy thousand dollars to buy an interest in the Excelsior Dye Works. If my stock is worth that to you, all right; if it isn't, I'll just hang on until this angel that you've found comes around to see me personally."

Mr. Clackworthy seemed thunder-struck.

"Why, I had no idea that you would turn down any reasonable offer," he almost stammered. "Seventy thousand? Impossible!"

"I'd let you have it cheaper, Mr. Clackworthy, but seventy thousand dollars is the amount I need, and that ends it."

"But— but I haven't got seventy thousand dollars!" Mr. Clackworthy exclaimed

"What about your man with so much faith?' demanded Bascom pointedly. "Oh, I see! You're buying in the stock and are going to turn it over. Well, that suits me, at that, provided you dig up the seventy thousand dollars. Not a penny less will do."

"Promise me you will give me time to raise it," pleaded Mr. Clackworthy.

"Yes, I'Il give you until four o'clock this afternoon," replied George. "If you bring seventy thousand dollars cash to me by four o'clock, we'll make a deal."

"Four o'clock?" questioned Mr. Clackworthy. "Well, I'll try. Yes, I presume I can do it."

He moved toward the door and Mr. Waddington, who had taken no part in the discussion, followed.

"I ain't aimin' to be followin' you around this way, buttin' into your affairs," protested the Texan.

"No intrusion whatever," assured Mr. Clackworthy. "Glad to have you along. I've got to see if Blanchard will put up half of the money after all. Of course he will, but he'll want more profit."

"Ain't you got seventy thousand dollars?" demanded Mr. Waddington. "I thought you was a rich man."

"Oh, I'm just a piker compared with you, Waddington," answered Mr. Clackworthy laughingly. "Fact is, I guess I'm a bit of a four-flusher at times. Counting this nine thousand dollars that Blanchard paid me on that stock deal, I've got a sum total of just thirty-six thousand dollars to my name— a thousand dollars more than just half of what I need to clean up an even seventy thousand dollars. But I guess Blanchard will see me through."

The master confidence man went to the booth in the hotel lobby. After some three minutes he came out, looking dazed.

"Now what do you know about that!" he muttered. 'Blanchard refuses to put it up— think about it, he refuses! Can you beat it? How would you explain it?"

"Such things is a little beyond me," admitted Mr. Waddington. "I reckon I couldn't explain it. Looks kind of queer, don't it?"

"I should say it does!'' exclaimed Mr. Clackworthy, walking slowly to- ward the hotel exit. He stopped suddenly, seizing Mr. Waddington's arm and pointing through the plate-glass window.

"Look! Look! That's the answer!"

"I reckon I don't savvy," said Mr. Waddington, obediently staring out to the street.

"See that man over there?" demanded Mr. Clackworthy. "Ever see him before?"

"No, I can't say as I did— well, come t' think about it, his face is sort of familiar. Howlin' coyotes! I got 'im now; that's the cashier feller in Blanchard's brokerage office!"

"Exactly!" exclaimed Mr. Clackworthy. "Do you understand? Blanchard is trying to double cross me. He sent his cashier to follow me so that he could find out where Bascom lives. He is hoping that I haven't enough cash to swing the deal and he will step in and hog the whole thing himself."

Mr. Waddington gasped at this bit of strategy in the game of high finance.

"I see," he said, nodding.

Mr. Clackworthy thoughtfully lighted a cigar and smoked furiously. Suddenly he turned to Mr. Waddington.

"Waddington," he said, "I haven't much time to lose if I am going to swing this deal; there's just one man in Chicago that can help me put it across and that man is you!"

Mr. Waddington blinked.

"You mean as how you want me t' lend you thirty-five thousand dollars?"

"No," replied Mr. Clackworthy hastily. "We'll go it fifty-fifty; you put up thirty-five thousand dollars with my thirty-five thousand dollars and we'll buy Bascom's stock. We resell it to Blanchard for eight dollars a share. That's one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Taking off the seventy thousand dollars that we've got to pay for the stock and the twenty thousand dollars that I agreed to let Blanchard have, it leaves a net profit of an even seventy thousand dollars— exactly thirty-five thousand a piece. A one hundred per cent profit on a two or three hour investment."

Mr. Waddington flushed in embar- rassment.

"The truth is," he said apologetically, "that I ain't got thirty-five thousand dollars."

"W-what!" cried Mr. Clackworthy.

"You— you haven't got thirty-five thousand dollars? Why, I thought you—"

"I mean," explained Mr, Waddington, "that I ain't got thirty-five thousand dollars in Chicago. This deal has got t' be cleaned up quick, an' I wouldn't have time t' wire down t' Texas. Every dog-gone cent I got in the bank here in Chicago is— hum, lemme see, thirty thousand dollars."

"Would you put that in?" asked Mr. Clackworthy, thinking swiftly, cursing his stupidity in failing to take into consideration the fact that Mr. Waddington might not have plenty of available cash in Chicago banks. "I might get hold of the extra four thousand dollars somewhere. Yes, come to think about it, I guess if I telephoned to The Early — um— Mr. Early, he could raise four thousand dollars for me."

"Why, sure," agreed Mr. Waddington promptly. "I'll lend it t' you, friend, or put in with you, just as you say.

"Fine!" exclaimed Mr. Clackworthy with a sigh of genuine, one-hundred- per-cent relief. Mr. Waddington's announcement that he didn't have thirty- five thousand dollars had almost given him heart failure. "I'll phone to Early, and then we'll get Bascom and take him to The Loop with us. We'd better not leave him behind, for Blanchard's man might get hold of him. Understand? We'll take Bascom right down to the bank, give him the money, and get the stock certificates. Where do you have to go to get your thirty thousand dollars?"

"Ironsides Trust," replied Mr. Waddington.

"And I bank at the Twelfth National, just around the corner," said Mr. Clackworthy. And then with an indulgence of humor intended to be abso- lutely lost upon the Texan, he added feelingly: "Waddington, if it wasn't for you, I shouldn't be able to make this neat little sum of money."

v

THE EARLY BIRD was waiting for them at the Twelfth National, having already drawn four thousand dollars from his own account to make up the total which Mr. Clackworthy required. The master confidence man, while Mr. Waddington and George Bascom waited near by, went to the teller's window and cashed his personal check for twenty-seven thousand dollars, which, added to the nine thousand dollars cash in his pocket, made the total of thirty- six thousand dollars. Then the quartet proceeded to the Ironsides Trust Co., where Mr. Waddington banked.

"What's the idea of this four thousand bucks ?" demanded The Early Bird as the Texan went to get his thirty thousand dollars.

"The truth is, James," admitted Mr. Clackworthy, "that I began to think that our little financial venture had turned out to be a flivver. Imagine my stupefaction when our millionaire friend imparted the breath-taking information that he didn't possess the modest sum of thirty-five thousand dollars."

"Kiddin' you, huh?"

"No, it happens that thirty thousand dollars is all the money that he has in Chicago, and I had been so sure that he could get plenty of money at a moment's notice that I had created a situation whereby I couldn't give him time to wire his bank in Texas. So I had to pretend to call on you to make up the four thousand dollars we needed.

"Some millionaire!" exclaimed The Early Bird disgustedly.

"Well, here's the money," announced Mr. Waddington, rejoining them. "I'll get the teller t' lend me a nice little satchel t' pack it in. Now where'll we go t' pay over this money, an' get things all fixed up?"

"Might use one of the rooms here at the bank," suggested Mr. Clackworthy.

"Why not go out t' Mr. Clackworthy's house, an' finish it up with a good drink," suggested Mr. Waddington. "My throat's as dry as the Gila Desert. Come on, men, that's the ticket; a couple of drinks'll be the only interest I'll charge you for the lend of this thirty thousand dollars, Mr. Clackworthy."

"Certainly," agreed the master confidence man. "That suits me."

"I ain't objectin' to irrigatin' the tonsils, either,' said The Early Bird.

"The majority rules,' George Bascom declared.

"All right," said Mr. Waddineton, opening the money satchel that he had borrowed from the bank teller and dropping the money inside. "Put in your cash, Mr. Clackworthy, an' we'll be on our way."

The master confidence man took the packets of one hundred dollar bills which made an uncomfortable bulge in his pocket and placed them with the Texan's money."

"My car is at home," he said. "We will have to call a taxi." The four went to the street, Mr. Waddington carrying the money satchel, and hailed a taxi. The Texan occupied one of the folding seats facing toward the front of the car, the master confidence man, The Early Bird, and Bascom sitting in the tonneau proper. The oil man removed his overcoat and threw it across his arm. They chatted pleasantly, even the apparently morose George Bascom chirping up a bit as he spoke of his prospective connections with the next company which the seventy thousand dollars from the Sun Chemical Co. stock would permit him to make. Knowing that there was many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, Mr. Clackworthy did not for a moment permit his coworkers to forget their roles or the imaginary situation of the Sun Chemical Co. The machine moved swiftly northward out Lake Shore Drive and through Lincoln Park. Twice the money satchel fell from Mr. Waddington's lap to the floor.

"You take this here money, Mr. Clackworthy," he said. "Dang thing won't stay put."

The master confidence man nodded indifferently, but The Early Bird, if anything, seemed pleased to see the money actually in Mr. Clackworthy's possession. It had been his observation that once the actual cash was in his hands, no power on earth could get it away from him again.

As the taxi reached the point where Sheridan Road crosses Broadway, Mr. Waddington reached into his pocket, frowned his annoyance, and began a pocket-to-pocket canvass of his clothes.

"Howlin' coyotes!" he muttered impatiently. 'Plumb out of chawin' tobacco. There's a store; got to have my chawin' tobacco."

"We'll wait for you," said Mr. Clackworthy smilingly. The Texan nodded and, getting out of the machine, hurried over to the corner drug store which handled a full line of tobaccos.

Five minutes passed and Mr. Waddington had not returned.

"Must be chinnin' that good-lookin' skirt at the cigar counter," suggested The Early Bird.

When the five minutes had lengthened to ten, Mr. Clackworthy looked puzzled.

"Take a look, James; see what is keeping our— er— victim," he instructed,

"I'm tellin' the world I'd be worryin' the old bean into a headache if he'd walked off with that dough an' was takin' his time about comin' back this a way," said The Early Bird. "As it is, boss, seein' you got all the jack, it don't make no difference if he don't never come back."

James entered the drug store; in a moment he hurried back, rubbing his chin reflectively.

"Musta went off his nut or somethin', boss," he declared. "He didn't buy no tobacco, but the dame at the cigar counter remembers seein' a guy with a yaller tie an' a chunk of ice as big as a locomotive headlight walkin' in the Sheridan Road entrance an' walkin' right out the Broadway door without stoppin'. Now wouldn't that capture your nanny?"

"Boss!" The Early Bird's voice descended to a hoarse whisper. 'Boss! Remember that stunt he was tellin' us about— the time the guy tried t' sell him the lions in front of the Field Museum? Y'reckon he—" He paused, not daring to voice the agonizing thought.

Mr. Clackworthy sat very still for a moment, eyes narrowed thoughtfully, his hands on the leather money satchel in his lap. Slowly, almost unwillingly, his fingers caught at the catch. The Early Bird leaned over his shoulder, sager for the first glance within.

"It's there, all right, boss!" he exclaimed in relief as his eyes caught sight of the packages.

"Yes, James," said Mr. Clackworthy as his hand dived within, "it's here all right— some perfectly beautiful strips of nice, worthless yellow paper! The stinger has been stung!"

Conspicuously attached to the neatly wrapped packages was a sheet of paper. The Early Bird and George Bascom bending forward in horror-stricken eagerness, Mr. Clackworthy read:

Many thanks for the most enjoyable experience of my career. You were so clever that I didn't get wise until you took me into your "brokerage" office that I was enjoying the delightful situation of a "come-on." The temptation was too great— and I needed the money. I was down to one thousand dollars, which sum I drew from the bank. Rest of the roll was the paper found inclosed. Naturally I didn't let you see me draw a check for my imaginary thirty thousand dollars.

At first I thought you were an idle rich and I was rigging up a game to land. you, when you pulled one on me first. The real Mr. Wallace Waddington is in Europe spending part of his new-made million.

Thanks for the pleasant parties and large quantities of liquor.

Writing this on back of a deposit slip in the bank as I pretend to write check for thirty thousand dollars. If there is no slip shall sit in folding seat of taxicab with my back to you, overcoat over my arm, and extract your coin during the ride home. You trust me too much to object to me carrying the money. Used to be a nimble-fingered boy in my younger days.

Consider you the cleverest con man in the country; even better than, yours gratefully— and apologetically,

The Waco Kid.

P. S.—This haul of mine was luck; your work is art.

The Early Bird mouthed stupidly, trying to find voice.

"Boss," he gasped out, "this guy ain't so weak on art himself. Any goof that could open that bag an' lift that coin right here in the taxi without me gettin' wise is some artist himself. I used t' be one of the light-fingered boys m'self, an' I'm tellin' the world— that's art!"

Mr. Clackworthy leaned back limply, dazedly considering the fickleness of fortune— and the loss of thirty-six thousand dollars in cold cash.

"Let's be getting home— quick," he said. "I am feeling very much in need of that drink that The Waco Kid prescribed for us. You know, boys, I think he knew that we were going to need a stiff bracer— after this."

_____________

12: Negotium Perambulans

E. F. Benson

1867-1940

Hutchinson's Magazine Nov 1922.

THE CASUAL tourist in West Cornwall may just possibly have noticed, as he bowled along over the bare high plateau between Penzance and the Land's End, a dilapidated signpost pointing down a steep lane and bearing on its battered finger the faded inscription "Polearn 2 miles," but probably very few have had the curiosity to traverse those two miles in order to see a place to which their guide-books award so cursory a notice. It is described there, in a couple of unattractive lines, as a small fishing village with a church of no particular interest except for certain carved and painted wooden panels (originally belonging to an earlier edifice) which form an altar-rail. But the church at St. Creed (the tourist is reminded) has a similar decoration far superior in point of preservation and interest, and thus even the ecclesiastically disposed are not lured to Polearn. So meagre a bait is scarce worth swallowing, and a glance at the very steep lane which in dry weather presents a carpet of sharp-pointed stones, and after rain a muddy watercourse, will almost certainly decide him not to expose his motor or his bicycle to risks like these in so sparsely populated a district. Hardly a house has met his eye since he left Penzance, and the possible trundling of a punctured bicycle for half a dozen weary miles seems a high price to pay for the sight of a few painted panels.

Polearn, therefore, even in the high noon of the tourist season, is little liable to invasion, and for the rest of the year I do not suppose that a couple of folk a day traverse those two miles (long ones at that) of steep and stony gradient. I am not forgetting the postman in this exiguous estimate, for the days are few when, leaving his pony and cart at the top of the hill, he goes as far as the village, since but a few hundred yards down the lane there stands a large white box, like a sea-trunk, by the side of the road, with a slit for letters and a locked door. Should he have in his wallet a registered letter or be the bearer of a parcel too large for insertion in the square lips of the sea-trunk, he must needs trudge down the hill and deliver the troublesome missive, leaving it in person on the owner, and receiving some small reward of coin or refreshment for his kindness.

But such occasions are rare, and his general routine is to take out of the box such letters as may have been deposited there, and insert in their place such letters as he has brought. These will be called for, perhaps that day or perhaps the next, by an emissary from the Polearn post-office.

As for the fishermen of the place, who, in their export trade, constitute the chief link of movement between Polearn and the outside world, they would not dream of taking their catch up the steep lane and so, with six miles farther of travel, to the market at Penzance. The sea route is shorter and easier, and they deliver their wares to the pier-head. Thus, though the sole industry of Polearn is sea-fishing, you will get no fish there unless you have bespoken your requirements to one of the fishermen. Back come the trawlers as empty as a haunted house, while their spoils are in the fish-train that is speeding to London.

Such isolation of a little community, continued, as it has been, for centuries, produces isolation in the individual as well, and nowhere will you find greater independence of character than among the people of Polearn. But they are linked together, so it has always seemed to me, by some mysterious comprehension: it is as if they had all been initiated into some ancient rite, inspired and framed by forces visible and invisible. The winter storms that batter the coast, the vernal spell of the spring, the hot, still summers, the season of rains and autumnal decay, have made a spell which, line by line, has been communicated to them, concerning the powers, evil and good, that rule the world, and manifest themselves in ways benignant or terrible...

I came to Polearn first at the age of ten, a small boy, weak and sickly, and threatened with pulmonary trouble. My father's business kept him in London, while for me abundance of fresh air and a mild climate were considered essential conditions if I was to grow to manhood. His sister had married the vicar of Polearn, Richard Bolitho, himself native to the place, and so it came about that I spent three years, as a paying guest, with my relations. Richard Bolitho owned a fine house in the place, which he inhabited in preference to the vicarage, which he let to a young artist, John Evans, on whom the spell of Polearn had fallen for from year's beginning to year's end he never lfet it. There was a solid roofed shelter, open on one side to the air, built for me in the garden, and here I lived and slept, passing scarcely one hour out of the twenty-four behind walls and windows. I was out on the bay with the fisher-folk, or wandering along the gorse-clad cliffs that climbed steeply to right and left of the deep combe where the village lay, or pottering about on the pier-head, or bird's-nesting in the bushes with the boys of the village.

Except on Sunday and for the few daily hours of my lessons, I might do what I pleased so long as I remained in the open air. About the lessons there was nothing formidable; my uncle conducted me through flowering bypaths among the thickets of arithmetic, and made pleasant excursions into the elements of Latin grammar, and above all, he made me daily give him an account, in clear and grammatical sentences, of what had been occupying my mind or my movements. Should I select to tell him about a walk along the cliffs, my speech must be orderly, not vague, slip-shod notes of what I had observed. In this way, too, he trained my observation, for he would bid me tell him what flowers were in bloom, and what birds hovered fishing over the sea or were building in the bushes. For that I owe him a perennial gratitude, for to observe and to express my thoughts in the clear spoken word became my life's profession.

But far more formidable than my weekday tasks was the prescribed routine for Sunday.

Some dark embers compounded of Calvinism and mysticism smouldered in my uncle's soul, and made it a day of terror. His sermon in the morning scorched us with a foretaste of the eternal fires reserved for unrepentant sinners, and he was hardly less terrifying at the children's service in the afternoon. Well do I remember his exposition of the doctrine of guardian angels. A child, he said, might think himself secure in such angelic care, but let him beware of committing any of those numerous offences which would cause his guardian to turn his face from him, for as sure as there were angels to protect us, there were also evil and awful presences which were ready to pounce; and on them he dwelt with peculiar gusto. Well, too, do I remember in the morning sermon his commentary on the carved panels of the altar-rails to which I have already alluded.

There was the angel of the Annunciation there, and the angel of the Resurrection, but not less was there the witch of Endor, and, on the fourth panel, a scene that concerned me most of all.

This fourth panel (he came down from his pulpit to trace its time-worn features) represented the lych-gate of the church-yard at Polearn itself, and indeed the resemblance when thus pointed out was remarkable. In the entry stood the figure of a robed priest holding up a Cross, with which he faced a terrible creature like a gigantic slug, that reared itself up in front of him. That, so ran my uncle's interpretation, was some evil agency, such as he had spoken about to us children, of almost infinite malignity and power, which could alone be combated by firm faith and a pure heart. Below ran the legend "Negotium perambulans in tenebris" from the ninety-first Psalm. We should find it translated there, "the pestilence that walketh in darkness," which but feebly rendered the Latin. It was more deadly to the soul than any pestilence that can only kill the body: it was the Thing, the Creature, the Business that trafficked in the outer Darkness, a minister of God's wrath on the unrighteous...I could see, as he spoke, the looks which the congregation exchanged with each other, and knew that his words were evoking a surmise, a remembrance. Nods and whispers passed between them, they understood to what he alluded, and with the inquisitiveness of boyhood I could not rest till I had wormed the story out of my friends among the fisher-boys, as, next morning, we sat basking and naked in the sun after our bathe. One knew one bit of it, one another, but it pieced together into a truly alarming legend. In bald outline it was as follows:

A church far more ancient than that in which my uncle terrified us every Sunday had once stood not three hundred yards away, on the shelf of level ground below the quarry from which its stones were hewn. The owner of the land had pulled this down, and erected for himself a house on the same site out of these materials, keeping, in a very ecstasy of wickedness, the altar, and on this he dined and played dice afterwards. But as he grew old some black melancholy seized him, and he would have lights burning there all night, for he had deadly fear of the darkness. On one winter evening there sprang up such a gale as was never before known, which broke in the windows of the room where he had supped, and extinguished the lamps. Yells of terror brought in his servants, who found him lying on the floor with the blood streaming from his throat. As they entered some huge black shadow seemed to move away from him, crawled across the floor and up the wall and out of the broken window.

"There he lay a-dying," said the last of my informants, "and him that had been a great burly man was withered to a bag o' skin, for the critter had drained all the blood from him. His last breath was a scream, and he hollered out the same words as passon read off the screen."

"Negotium perambulans in tenebris," I suggested eagerly.

"Thereabouts. Latin anyhow."

"And after that?" I asked.

"Nobody would go near the place, and the old house rotted and fell in ruins till three years ago, when along comes Mr. Dooliss from Penzance, and built the half of it up again. But he don't care much about such critters, nor about Latin neither. He takes his bottle of whisky a day and gets drunk's a lord in the evening. Eh, I'm gwine home to my dinner."

Whatever the authenticity of the legend, I had certainly heard the truth about Mr. Dooliss from Penzance, who from that day became an object of keen curiosity on my part, the more so because the quarry-house adjoined my uncle's garden. The Thing that walked in the dark failed to stir my imagination, and already I was so used to sleeping alone in my shelter that the night had no terrors for me. But it would be intensely exciting to wake at some timeless hour and hear Mr. Dooliss yelling, and conjecture that the Thing had got him.

But by degrees the whole story faded from my mind, overscored by the more vivid interests of the day, and, for the last two years of my out-door life in the vicarage garden, I seldom thought about Mr. Dooliss and the possible fate that might await him for his temerity in living in the place where that Thing of darkness had done business. Occasionally I saw him over the garden fence, a great yellow lump of a man, with slow and staggering gait, but never did I set eyes on him outside his gate, either in the village street or down on the beach. He interfered with none, and no one interfered with him. If he wanted to run the risk of being the prey of the legendary nocturnal monster, or quietly drink himself to death, it was his affair. My uncle, so I gathered, had made several attempts to see him when first he came to live at Polearn, but Mr. Dooliss appeared to have no use for parsons, but said he was not at home and never returned the call.

After three years of sun, wind, and rain, I had completely outgrown my early symptoms and had become a tough, strapping youngster of thirteen. I was sent to Eton and Cambridge, and in due course ate my dinners and became a barrister. In twenty years from that time I was earning a yearly income of five figures, and had already laid by in sound securities a sum that brought me dividends which would, for one of my simple tastes and frugal habits, supply me with all the material comforts I needed on this side of the grave. The great prizes of my profession were already within my reach, but I had no ambition beckoning me on, nor did I want a wife and children, being, I must suppose, a natural celibate. In fact there was only one ambition which through these busy years had held the lure of blue and far-off hills to me, and that was to get back to Polearn, and live once more isolated from the world with the sea and the gorse-clad hills for play-fellows, and the secrets that lurked there for exploration. The spell of it had been woven about my heart, and I can truly say that there had hardly passed a day in all those years in which the thought of it and the desire for it had been wholly absent from my mind. Though I had been in frequent communication with my uncle there during his lifetime, and, after his death, with his widow who still lived there, I had never been back to it since I embarked on my profession, for I knew that if I went there, it would be a wrench beyond my power to tear myself away again. But I had made up my mind that when once I had provided for my own independence, I would go back there not to leave it again. And yet I did leave it again, and now nothing in the world would induce me to turn down the lane from the road that leads from Penzance to the Land's End, and see the sides of the combe rise steep above the roofs of the village and hear the gulls chiding as they fish in the bay. One of the things invisible, of the dark powers, leaped into light, and I saw it with my eyes.

The house where I had spent those three years of boyhood had been left for life to my aunt, and when I made known to her my intention of coming back to Polearn, she suggested that, till I found a suitable house or found her proposal unsuitable, I should come to live with her.

"The house is too big for a lone old woman," she wrote, "and I have often thought of quitting and taking a little cottage sufficient for me and my requirements. But come and share it, my dear, and if you find me troublesome, you or I can go. You may want solitude— most people in Polearn do— and will leave me. Or else I will leave you: one of the main reasons of my stopping here all these years was a feeling that I must not let the old house starve. Houses starve, you know, if they are not lived in. They die a lingering death; the spirit in them grows weaker and weaker, and at last fades out of them. Isn't this nonsense to your London notions?..."

Naturally I accepted with warmth this tentative arrangement, and on an evening in June found myself at the head of the lane leading down to Polearn, and once more I descended into the steep valley between the hills. Time had stood still apparently for the combe, the dilapidated signpost (or its successor) pointed a rickety finger down the lane, and a few hundred yards farther on was the white box for the exchange of letters. Point after remembered point met my eye, and what I saw was not shrunk, as is often the case with the revisited scenes of childhood, into a smaller scale. There stood the post-office, and there the church and close beside it the vicarage, and beyond, the tall shrubberies which separated the house for which I was bound from the road, and beyond that again the grey roofs of the quarry-house damp and shining with the moist evening wind from the sea. All was exactly as I remembered it, and, above all, that sense of seclusion and isolation. Somewhere above the tree-tops climbed the lane which joined the main road to Penzance, but all that had become immeasurably distant. The years that had passed since last I turned in at the well-known gate faded like a frosty breath, and vanished in this warm, soft air. There were law-courts somewhere in memory's dull book which, if I cared to turn the pages, would tell me that I had made a name and a great income there. But the dull book was closed now, for I was back in Polearn, and the spell was woven around me again.

And if Polearn was unchanged, so too was Aunt Hester, who met me at the door. Dainty and china-white she had always been, and the years had not aged but only refined her. As we sat and talked after dinner she spoke of all that had happened in Polearn in that score of years, and yet somehow the changes of which she spoke seemed but to confirm the immutability of it all. As the recollection of names came back to me, I asked her about the quarry-house and Mr. Dooliss, and her face gloomed a little as with the shadow of a cloud on a spring day.

"Yes, Mr. Dooliss," she said, "poor Mr. Dooliss, how well I remember him, though it must be ten years and more since he died. I never wrote to you about it, for it was all very dreadful, my dear, and I did not want to darken your memories of Polearn. Your uncle always thought that something of the sort might happen if he went on in his wicked, drunken ways, and worse than that, and though nobody knew exactly what took place, it was the sort of thing that might have been anticipated."

"But what more or less happened, Aunt Hester?" I asked.

"Well, of course I can't tell you everything, for no one knew it. But he was a very sinful man, and the scandal about him at Newlyn was shocking. And then he lived, too, in the quarry-house...

"I wonder if by any chance you remember a sermon of your uncle's when he got out of the pulpit and explained that panel in the altar-rails, the one, I mean, with the horrible creature rearing itself up outside the lych-gate?"

"Yes, I remember perfectly," said I.

"Ah. It made an impression on you, I suppose, and so it did on all who heard him, and that impression got stamped and branded on us all when the catastrophe occurred. Somehow Mr. Dooliss got to hear about your uncle's sermon, and in some drunken fit he broke into the church and smashed the panel to atoms. He seems to have thought that there was some magic in it, and that if he destroyed that he would get rid of the terrible fate that was threatening him. For I must tell you that before he committed that dreadful sacrilege he had been a haunted man: he hated and feared darkness, for he thought that the creature on the panel was on his track, but that as long as he kept lights burning it could not touch him. But the panel, to his disordered mind, was the root of his terror, and so, as I said, he broke into the church and attempted— you will see why I said 'attempted'— to destroy it. It certainly was found in splinters next morning, when your uncle went into church for matins, and knowing Mr. Dooliss's fear of the panel, he went across to the quarry-house afterwards and taxed him with its destruction. The man never denied it; he boasted of what he had done. There he sat, though it was early morning, drinking his whisky.

"'I've settled your Thing for you,' he said, 'and your sermon too. A fig for such superstitions.'

"Your uncle left him without answering his blasphemy, meaning to go straight into Penzance and give information to the police about this outrage to the church, but on his way back from the quarry-house he went into the church again, in order to be able to give details about the damage, and there in the screen was the panel, untouched and uninjured. And yet he had himself seen it smashed, and Mr. Dooliss had confessed that the destruction of it was his work. But there it was, and whether the power of God had mended it or some other power, who knows?"

This was Polearn indeed, and it was the spirit of Polearn that made me accept all Aunt Hester was telling me as attested fact. It had happened like that. She went on in her quiet voice.

"Your uncle recognised that some power beyond police was at work, and he did not go to Penzance or give informations about the outrage, for the evidence of it had vanished." A sudden spate of scepticism swept over me.

"There must have been some mistake," I said. "It hadn't been broken..."

She smiled.

"Yes, my dear, but you have been in London so long," she said. "Let me, anyhow, tell you the rest of my story. That night, for some reason, I could not sleep. It was very hot and airless; I dare say you will think that the sultry conditions accounted for my wakefulness. Once and again, as I went to the window to see if I could not admit more air, I could see from it the quarry-house, and I noticed the first time that I left my bed that it was blazing with lights. But the second time I saw that it was all in darkness, and as I wondered at that, I heard a terrible scream, and the moment afterwards the steps of someone coming at full speed down the road outside the gate. He yelled as he ran; 'Light, light!' he called out. 'Give me light, or it will catch me!' It was very terrible to hear that, and I went to rouse my husband, who was sleeping in the dressing-room across the passage. He wasted no time, but by now the whole village was aroused by the screams, and when he got down to the pier he found that all was over. The tide was low, and on the rocks at its foot was lying the body of Mr. Dooliss. He must have cut some artery when he fell on those sharp edges of stone, for he had bled to death, they thought, and though he was a big burly man, his corpse was but skin and bones. Yet there was no pool of blood round him, such as you would have expected. Just skin and bones as if every drop of blood in his body had been sucked out of him!"

She leaned forward.

"You and I, my dear, know what happened," she said, "or at least can guess. God has His instruments of vengeance on those who bring wickedness into places that have been holy. Dark and mysterious are His ways."

Now what I should have thought of such a story if it had been told me in London I can easily imagine. There was such an obvious explanation: the man in question had been a drunkard, what wonder if the demons of delirium pursued him? But here in Polearn it was different.

"And who is in the quarry-house now?" I asked. "Years ago the fisher-boys told me the story of the man who first built it and of his horrible end. And now again it has happened. Surely no one has ventured to inhabit it once more?"

I saw in her face, even before I asked that question, that somebody had done so.

"Yes, it is lived in again," said she, "for there is no end to the blindness...I don't know if you remember him. He was tenant of the vicarage many years ago."

"John Evans," said I.

"Yes. Such a nice fellow he was too. Your uncle was pleased to get so good a tenant. And now—" She rose.

"Aunt Hester, you shouldn't leave your sentences unfinished," I said.

She shook her head.

"My dear, that sentence will finish itself," she said. "But what a time of night! I must go to bed, and you too, or they will think we have to keep lights burning here through the dark hours."

Before getting into bed I drew my curtains wide and opened all the windows to the warm tide of the sea air that flowed softly in. Looking out into the garden I could see in the moonlight the roof of the shelter, in which for three years I had lived, gleaming with dew. That, as much as anything, brought back the old days to which I had now returned, and they seemed of one piece with the present, as if no gap of more than twenty years sundered them. The two flowed into one, like globules of mercury uniting into a softly shining globe, of mysterious lights and reflections.

Then, raising my eyes a little, I saw against the black hill-side the windows of the quarry-house still alight.

Morning, as is so often the case, brought no shattering of my illusion. As I began to regain consciousness, I fancied that I was a boy again waking up in the shelter in the garden, and though, as I grew more widely awake, I smiled at the impression, that on which it was based I found to be indeed true. It was sufficient now as then to be here, to wander again on the cliffs, and hear the popping of the ripened seed-pods on the gorse-bushes; to stray along the shore to the bathing-cove, to float and drift and swim in the warm tide, and bask on the sand, and watch the gulls fishing, to lounge on the pier-head with the fisher-folk, to see in their eyes and hear in their quiet speech the evidence of secret things not so much known to them as part of their instincts and their very being. There were powers and presences about me; the white poplars that stood by the stream that babbled down the valley knew of them, and showed a glimpse of their knowledge sometimes, like the gleam of their white underleaves; the very cobbles that paved the street were soaked in it All that I wanted was to lie there and grow soaked in it too; unconsciously, as a boy, I had done that, but now the process must be conscious. I must know what stir of forces, fruitful and mysterious, seethed along the hill-side at noon, and sparkled at night on the sea. They could be known, they could even be controlled by those who were masters of the spell, but never could they be spoken of, for they were dwellers in the innermost, grafted into the eternal life of the world. There were dark secrets as well as these clear, kindly powers, and to these no doubt belonged the negotium perambulans in tenebris which, though of deadly malignity, might be regarded not only as evil, but as the avenger of sacrilegious and impious deeds... All this was part of the spell of Polearn, of which the seeds had long lain dormant in me. But now they were sprouting, and who knew what strange flower would unfold on their stems?

It was not long before I came across John Evans. One morning, as I lay on the beach, there came shambling across the sand a man stout and middle-aged with the face of Silenus. He paused as he drew near and regarded me from narrow eyes.

"Why, you're the little chap that used to live in the parson's garden," he said. "Don't you recognise me?"

I saw who it was when he spoke: his voice, I think, instructed me, and recognising it, I could see the features of the strong, alert young man in this gross caricature.

"Yes, you're John Evans," I said. "You used to be very kind to me: you used to draw pictures for me."

"So I did, and I'll draw you some more. Been bathing? That's a risky performance. You never know what lives in the sea, nor what lives on the land for that matter. Not that I heed them.

"I stick to work and whisky. God! I've learned to paint since I saw you, and drink too for that matter. I live in the quarry-house, you know, and it's a powerful thirsty place. Come and have a look at my things if you're passing. Staying with your aunt, are you? I could do a wonderful portrait of her. Interesting face; she knows a lot. People who live at Polearn get to know a lot, though I don't take much stock in that sort of knowledge myself."

I do not know when I have been at once so repelled and interested. Behind the mere grossness of his face there lurked something which, while it appalled, yet fascinated me. His thick lisping speech had the same quality. And his paintings, what would they be like?...

"I was just going home," I said. "I'll gladly come in, if you'll allow me."

He took me through the untended and overgrown garden into the house which I had never yet entered. A great grey cat was sunning itself in the window, and an old woman was laying lunch in a corner of the cool hall into which the door opened. It was built of stone, and the carved mouldings let into the walls, the fragments of gargoyles and sculptured images, bore testimony to the truth of its having been built out of the demolished church. In one corner was an oblong and carved wooden table littered with a painter's apparatus and stacks of canvases leaned against the walls.

He jerked his thumb towards a head of an angel that was built into the mantelpiece and giggled.

"Quite a sanctified air," he said, "so we tone it down for the purposes of ordinary life by a different sort of art. Have a drink? No? Well, turn over some of my pictures while I put myself to rights."

He was justified in his own estimate of his skill: he could paint (and apparently he could paint anything), but never have I seen pictures so inexplicably hellish. There were exquisite studies of trees, and you knew that something lurked in the flickering shadows. There was a drawing of his cat sunning itself in the window, even as I had just now seen it, and yet it was no cat but some beast of awful malignity. There was a boy stretched naked on the sands, not human, but some evil thing which had come out of the sea. Above all there were pictures of his garden overgrown and jungle-like, and you knew that in the bushes were presences ready to spring out on you...

"Well, do you like my style?" he said as he came up, glass in hand. (The tumbler of spirits that he held had not been diluted.) "I try to paint the essence of what I see, not the mere husk and skin of it, but its nature, where it comes from and what gave it birth. There's much in common between a cat and a fuchsia-bush if you look at them closely enough. Everything came out of the slime of the pit, and it's all going back there. I should like to do a picture of you some day. I'd hold the mirror up to Nature, as that old lunatic said."

After this first meeting I saw him occasionally throughout the months of that wonderful summer. Often he kept to his house and to his painting for days together, and then perhaps some evening I would find him lounging on the pier, always alone, and every time we met thus the repulsion and interest grew, for every time he seemed to have gone farther along a path of secret knowledge towards some evil shrine where complete initiation awaited him...And then suddenly the end came.

I had met him thus one evening on the cliffs while the October sunset still burned in the sky, but over it with amazing rapidity there spread from the west a great blackness of cloud such as I have never seen for denseness. The light was sucked from the sky, the dusk fell in ever thicker layers. He suddenly became conscious of this.

"I must get back as quick as I can," he said. "It will be dark in a few minutes, and my servant is out. The lamps will not be lit."

He stepped out with extraordinary briskness for one who shambled and could scarcely lift his feet, and soon broke out into a stumbling run. In the gathering darkness I could see that his face was moist with the dew of some unspoken terror.

"You must come with me," he panted, "for so we shall get the lights burning the sooner. I cannot do without light."

I had to exert myself to the full to keep up with him, for terror winged him, and even so I fell behind, so that when I came to the garden gate, he was already half-way up the path to the house.

I saw him enter, leaving the door wide, and found him fumbling with matches. But his hand so trembled that he could not transfer the light to the wick of the lamp..."But what's the hurry about?" I asked.

Suddenly his eyes focused themselves on the open door behind me, and he jumped from his seat beside the table which had once been the altar of God, with a gasp and a scream.

"No, no!" he cried. "Keep it off!..."

I turned and saw what he had seen. The Thing had entered and now was swiftly sliding across the floor towards him, like some gigantic caterpillar. A stale phosphorescent light came from it, for though the dusk had grown to blackness outside, I could see it quite distinctly in the awful light of its own presence. From it too there came an odour of corruption and decay, as from slime that has long lain below water. It seemed to have no head, but on the front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which opened and shut and slavered at the edges. It was hairless, and slug-like in shape and in texture. As it advanced its fore-part reared itself from the ground, like a snake about to strike, and it fastened on him...

At that sight, and with the yells of his agony in my ears, the panic which had struck me relaxed into a hopeless courage, and with palsied, impotent hands I tried to lay hold of the Thing.

But I could not: though something material was there, it was impossible to grasp it; my hands sunk in it as in thick mud. It was like wrestling with a nightmare.

I think that but a few seconds elapsed before all was over. The screams of the wretched man sank to moans and mutterings as the Thing fell on him: he panted once or twice and was still. For a moment longer there came gurglings and sucking noises, and then it slid out even as it had entered. I lit the lamp which he had fumbled with, and there on the floor he lay, no more than a rind of skin in loose folds over projecting bones.

__________________

13: Solly's Last Forgery

Christopher B. Booth

Detective Story Magazine 3 Sep 1921

"SOME men seek rectitude and others have rectitude thrust upon them," murmured Solly Henderson, thoughtfully inspecting the stiffened fingers of his right hand as he flicked the ash from the fragrant cigar which Lingram had given him.

Lingram ignored this philosophical fragment; his mind was upon practical matters.

"Be that as it may," pursued Solly, inhaling deeply and indulging in the luxury of a smile, "it's a wonderful thing to be a free man again— wonderful! You'll never know the feeling Lingram, until you go to prison. You've never been to prison, have you, Lingram?"

"No," answered the lawyer, with just the suspicion of a shudder; "and I'm not going, either."

"And neither am I— again," declared Solly Henderson.

"That's right, Solly." Lingram nodded, clamping his teeth down on the end of a fresh perfecto which, like himself, was swarthy and big around the middle. "Play 'em safe, boy. Seven years was a long time, wasn't it? It's made a big change in you; you don't look much like the youngster who told me good-by in the courtroom that morning. Let's see, you were twenty- five then when they sent you up; that would make you thirty-two now— and, man, you look forty-odd."

"And I feel fifty-odd," said Solly. From his seat beside Lingram's desk he could see his own reflection in the looking-glass over the washbasin in the corner. The burden of seven heavy years had pressed down his shoulders; his once dapper figure had become rather stodgy, and his formerly alert blue eyes were dulled by the vacancy of expres sion which reflects the drab flatness of stone walls; upon his face were chiseled heavy lines, cruelly deep.

"That was some fight I put up for you, Solly," went on the lawyer, "but I guess you know that no lawyer on earth could have saved you— with a pal turning State's evidence and telling everything he knew."

Solly nodded. Lingram was right; no lawyer could have saved him.

"When I was sent up, Lingram," he said, getting around to the real purpose of his visit, "you said you would be glad to give me help when I got out, if I needed it. Well, I do need it. I had been depending on Ben Wales letting me have a few hundred, but Ben is dead, so I came to you, and—"

"Sure, Solly, sure," interrupted th lawyer cordially. "I said that, and I mean it. Of course I'll let you have a few hundred— and you won't have to pay it back, either. But before we get to talking business, suppose we lift one, just for old time's sake, eh?"

"Lift one? I thought—"

"Sure, Solly. Of course the country did go prohibition while you were doing time, but a few of us wise fellows packed away a little of the old stuff."

Lingram winked jovially and opened the big, lower drawer of his desk, pro- ducing a quart bottle and two glasses. When they had tossed off their drinks, the lawyer rubbed his puffy palms together and edged forward in his chair.

"I've been counting the days, Solly, until I could have this little talk with you. I've got a neat little job for you —and safe. You need a few hundred, eh? Well, I'm going to give you a cool thousand for this job; five hundred now and the rest when we collect. Pretty soft piece of change that, eh, Solly ?"

Solly's eyebrows lifted.

"A job?" he questioned. "You mean the old game? J thought I was making it clear that I am through— through for good."

Henry Lingram searched the ex-convict's face for hint of humor; with mingled anger and panic he saw that it was no jest.

"Trying to tell me that the reformers or something got to you up there at Joliet?" he demanded  disgustedly. "Quit stringing me!"

"I've forged my last check," answered Solly. "I thought you saw what I meant when—"

"Forget it, Solly; forget it." Lingram laughed derisively. "Besides, this isn't a check job; there's real class to this one— and no more danger, my boy, than signing your own name on a hotel register. Now forget that reform stuff and listen to me."

"I'll listen," replied Solly, "but I'm telling you now—"

"I don't want you to tell me a darned thing— now," retorted 'Lingram. "It's me that's going to do the talking now. You can have your little say after you've heard me. Here's the dope:

"A certain millionaire, at the age of sixty-three, kidnaped a tender young thing of twenty or so and married her— chorus girl, I believe. Old money- bags was foxy. Before they married, he got her to sign over her dower rights to him, in return for a sum of money— how much it was doesn't matter. This money was paid, and, as she was a frivolous creature then, who didn't know the value of money, it soon went. It is even suspected in some quarters that he encouraged her to spend it. However, a year or so ago they had a quarrel, and in the heat of anger he made a will, which left his sweet, youthful little wife practically penniless— with a paltry fifty thousand.

"Then, a few days before his death, he began to regret his action. He had me to draw a third will, leaving his wife all of the estate— a little over a million. The only trouble is that he— er— neglected to sign it; it's a perfectly satisfactory document, except that it lacks a signature. You get me, Solly?"

"Sure, I get you,' Solly smiled. "And you don't have to beat around the bush with me about the old fellow gasping his last just before his pen touched the paper. I'm no fool; you've fixed up this 'third' will for the lady, have a couple of witnesses all framed, everything ready for the signature, so that the sorrowing widow or the butler or somebody can find it, and so on."

Lingram was one of those men who like to trick their consciences.

"Morally, Solly," he said earnestly, "the thing is right. The old fellow really intended signing the will and, in furnishing us with the signature, you will be merely carrying out a dead man's wishes."

"A million dollars involved, huh?" murmured Solly. "The widow must be treating you mighty handsome. And you were going to give me a whole thousand dollars. Dear me, how generous !"

"I'll make it a little more," said Lingram hastily. He had not anticipated that there would be the slightesf argument with Solly Henderson; he thought Solly would gratefully accept any crumbs offered him. Reaching into his desk, he produced several canceled checks,

"There's the signature that I want duplicated," he said. "Practice on it a bit and see what you can do with it. You can put it across, eh?"

Solly thoughtfully studied the businesslike, characterful scrawl, certainly a difficult signature to forge. But he could have done it seven years before, for his skill had been such that even handwriting experts, called to testify against him, had been confused between spurious and genuine. Banking protective associations had breathed a chorused sigh of relief on the day that Solly went up the river.

"Nothing doing, Lingram," said Solly. "You didn't get me at all. I haven't got reform stuff— or a yellow streak. Look at this right mitt of mine; that's the answer!"

Lingram stared apprehensively at Solly's fingers. They had once been artist's fingers; now they were large at the joints, and clumsy. The lawyer's face became sickly gray. He had been mly slightly disturbed by what he had considered Solly's moral qualms; they could be battered down by sheer force of superior will; but if those clever fingers had actually lost some of their cunning—

"Seven years in the prison broom factory did that," explained Solly. "I can never come back, Lingram. I'm through; out of the game forever. I have forged my last check— and I'm glad that it's so!"

Lingram sank weakly back in his chair as his half-million-dollar air castle collapsed about his head; he was to get fifty per cent.of what he could collect on the forged will, and Solly Henderson was the only man he knew who could pull the trick.

"Sorry I had to crab your game," added Solly, "but it can't be helped. I couldn't copy a printed A with this old ham. I suppose " He hesitated a moment as he suddenly probed to the depths of Lingram's cordiality, and knew that it had been merely because the lawyer had planned to use him. "I suppose," he went on, "that it won't make any difference about the loan— what I need to get on my feet."

"Loan!" barked Lingram. "What loan?"

"You said you'd let me have a few hundred. I'm going to pay it back, you know."

"You expect me to loan you money— you has-been?" The lawyer laughed. "You are going to pay it back, huh? How could you pay it back when you can't use a pen any more?"

"I am going to work, and—"

"But you're not going to work me," declared Lingram; then, suddenly remembering that he had talked very freely to Solly Henderson, and that it wouldn't, perhaps, be wise to rile Solly too much, he thrust his hand into his pocket.

"I didn't mean to be raw with you, Solly," he added soothingly. "I ain't got a big roll, but if a century note will do you any good, you're welcome. If you can't pay it back, forget it."

"I don't want your hush money," retorted Solly bitterly. "I never peach; you know that. You can go to the devil!"

And Solly Henderson, who, it was said, had forged five-hundred-thousand- dollars' worth of checks and notes, with a total of four dollars and fifteen cents in his pocket, turned his back and slumped out of the office.

ii

RATHER to his own surprise, the idea of work did not prove especially distasteful to Solly Henderson. Perhaps it was not so much that he liked work as he disliked the terrible, aging monotony of prison life. He was glad to be out again in the sunlight, with his face turned toward the open places— glad! He was determined that never again should the prison gates clang shut behind him. Somehow he was glad, too, because his fingers were crippled and clumsy, for he knew his own moral limitations; forgery was so easy. Yet no other avenue of crime seemed to lure him.

"Work!" Solly exclaimed to himself. "I've got to go to work."

And that was a problem, Prison's stamp was fresh upon him, and that would close practically every door in the city to him so far as a job was con- cerned. He knew that on West Madison Street there were employment agencies which made a specialty of hiring common laborers where the only reference required is a strong back. He had that.

Although his finances were at low ebb, he stopped at a secondhand cloth- ing store, where, after much bartering, he exchanged four dollars and the clothes he had on for a much-worn suit, exchanging them on the premises for the telltale apparel with which the State had outfitted him. Then, begriming his face to hide the suspicious pallor, he made his way to an employment agency.

Big placards screamed the need of section hands for the railroads, cooks, dishwashers, longshoremen—and farm help.

WANTED—10 farm hands for Michigan. Fare paid.

There came before Solly's mental vision the picture of wide fields, the fragrant odor of freshly turned earth, the intoxicating smell of freshly cut hay, apple blossoms, the rustle of ripen- ing corn stirred by summer breezes— all mixed in a delightful medley of con- tentment. It had been a long time since
he had been on a farm. The idea thrilled him. Besides, Michigan had once been his home.

He walked inside and gave his name to the walrus-mustached clerk who looked him over and nodded perfunc- torily.

"Aw right," he grunted. your slip. Be here at five o'clock; you ship then. That makes the ten. Man'll be here with the tickets— and if you try to give him the slip on the train, Heaven help you!"

Before five o'clock Solly was back. With nine other men he was placed in charge of the rugged farmer who was his new employer. That person was William Jasson, one of those pioneer types of men; he had a stern face and level eyes, which could be either disconcertingly hard or engagingly good-natured. An honest man, a fair man, one guessed, but "set in his ways," as the old saying has it.

Farmer Jasson looked critically with an eye to breadth and arm muscle.

"I'm payin' yore fare an' givin' you five dollars a day— to work," he said bluntly. "I expect t' get what I pay for. There's just one way t' get along with me— do your work."

Some of the ten men scowled darkly, but Solly liked Jasson's frankness; in a vague sort of way he even liked Jasson himself.

When the train had clattered through the railroad yards of the city and was speeding well on its way, Solly got a shock. It was when the conductor came through the train for the tickets.

"Ten tickets to Neuberg, eh?" said the trainman. ''Harvest hands, I suppose. How's the crop Neuberg way?"

Neuberg! A thrill of surprise, almost of fright, raced up and down Solly Henderson's spine. Neuberg was only fifteen miles from  Baileyviile, where he had been born and raised! So far as he knew, his brother still lived in Baileyville. Realization that he was going back to his own country filled him with a sudden, almost giddy homesickness, and at the same time with a deep sense of shame— he was going home an ex-convict. He had a few shreds of pride left; the people back home must never know that Solly Henderson, who had left Baileyville with the boasts of youth on his lips, had turned out worse than a failure. But a glance into the mirror by the car seat reassured him. His gray hair, deeply lined face— no one would know him as the slim, black-haired youngster who had left Baileyville more than a dozen years before; no doubt his home town had even forgotten that he existed. Reassured, he relaxed back into his seat, and presently he slept.

It was nearly midnight when Jasson and his ten harvest hands piled off the train at Neuberg. Their coming was anticipated, for a farm wagon with a hay frame was waiting for them. The farm was six miles from town, and Solly, getting his directions straight, realized that they were driving toward Baileyville; the farm was only nine miles from the place of his birth. He was sitting in the front of the wagon next to Jasson, but he choked back the questions which pressed eagerly upon his lips; he was anxious, yet afraid, to make inquiries about his brother, Ralph.

The ten farm hands were quartered in a big tent with a wooden floor, and, with the locusts singing in the trees, a frog in the pond in the distance croak- ing a hoarse love ditty to its mate, Solly threw himself onto his cot. The bed was narrow, like that on which he had slept for seven long years in Joliet, but now he was free—free!

A contented smile on his lips, Solly stretched himself luxuriously and re- peated his vow that never again would he place himself within reach of the law.

When the hands were routed out the next morning at four o'clock, Jasson came around to assign the day's work. He began calling for their names and entering them in a ragged notebook that he carried.

"What's your name?" he demanded of Solly.

The ex-convict hesitated for a moment; there had once been a great many Hendersons in this section, and the name might stir Jasson to ply unwelcome questions.

"Brown," said Solly.

"That makes three in this batch named Brown," grunted the farmer. "Nice convenient name, eh? Well, Brown, if you don't work like Billy Sin, your name will be— Dennis!"

A week of harvesting passed very quickly for Solly. Not once did he grumble, and his cheerful, uncomplaining industry won Jasson's gruff friendly regards. Saturday afternoon came, and Solly heard one of the regular farm hands speak of driving over to Baileyville. Solly's heart gave an eager leap as he was seized with a great longing to see his old home town, to make some covert inquiries regarding his brother.

"I— I wonder if you would let me ride to town with you?" he asked.

"Why, sure, Brown," said Bud Long. "Glad t' give you a lift."

Solly then went to Jasson and asked him for his week's pay. The farmer hesitated.

"I make it a rule," he explained, "never to pay you fellows until the harvest is over. So many of you skip out the minute you get a few dollars in your pocket, but you've worked well, an' I'll make an exception in your case. But I'll only give you a part of what's comin' to you. I'll give you a check for ten dollars."

"Check?" questioned Solly. "Will they cash a check for a stranger?"

"Oh, any store will cash it; Will Jasson's check ain't never been turned down yet, and they'll know that you're workin' for me."

Jasson drew out his check book and scrawled out a check for ten dollars. It was drawn on a Neuberg bank.

"I do my bankin' at Neuberg, but I do my tradin' in both towns," said the farmer. "You won't have no trouble cashin' it; I guess folks take a feller more on trust here than in the cities."

Solly glanced at the slip of paper with a smile; he was thinking how easy it would have been, in the old days when he was "right" as a penman, to have raised that check to any desired amount with a similarity of chirography guaranteed to fool the shaypest paying teller who ever worked behind a wicker window.

But, he told himself with a thankful sigh, those days were over.

iii

IT WAS nearly nine o'clock when Solly and Bud Long reached Baileyville. The town had changed a great deal in the passing dozen years. The Jennings block on the north side of Main Street had burned out and had been rebuilt, but there was enough. of the old place left to make Solly's heart give a queer little jump. As they neared the hitch rack around the public square, Solly was unable to keep back the questions which had been tugging at his tongue all during the trip.

"I was just thinking," he said carefully, "of a man back in the city that I knew; seems to me this was the place he was born. I think his name was Henderson; yes, that was it."

Bud Long was thinking of his best girl, and perhaps that is why he took so little interest in Solly's remarks.

"Yep," he said, nodding, "there is some Hendersons in these parts. I ain't lived here very long m'se'f, but there's a Henderson feller livin' here."

"There is!" gasped Solly. "What— what's his name?"

"I dunno."

"Is— is his name Ralph?"

"Uh-huh; come t' think about it, that is his name; works in the State Bank. Quite a nice feller he is, too, but kinda timid an' retirin'— not much push t' him, An' come t' think of it, he—"

The sentence was interrupted as one of the horses showed fright at a passing automobile and Bud Long found himself busy quieting the animal. Solly was lost in a thrill of brotherly pride; Ralph had kept his feet to the high road. He had gotten along in the world; he held a place of trust. Ralph was twenty-seven now; he had been a shy, tow-headed boy of fifteen when Solly left home.

"I'd sure love to see the kid again," thought Solly, but he thought of himself, prematurely old, broken, with the haunted furtiveness of the ex-convict in his eyes. No, he couldn't face the kid.

The horse was quieted and they had reached the hitch rack.

"I'll want t' be startin' back in an hour or so," said Bud Long. "If you ain't here you'll have t' hoof it, 'cause I ain't goin' to wait fer you."

"I will be here," said Solly.

Baileyville certainly was not "a nine-o'clock town" on Saturday nights. The stores were open and doing a rushing business. Solly wandered along, staring with suppressed eagerness into the faces that he passed. A very few of them he knew, but not a flicker of recognition lighted a single pair of eyes which carelessly met his.

The old Henderson home was only four blocks from the public square, and as Solly pictured it in his mind a sudden lump came into his throat. He wondered if the big maple tree was still standing in the front yard near the gate— the tree with the old barrel-stave hammock where he used to lie during che lazy summer afternoons and draw fanciful pictures in the fleecy clouds which would mold themselves like so mtich sculptor's clay into the figures of his imagination. Unconsciously he found his footsteps turning toward Parker Street.

Yes, the old maple was still there, but the hammock was gone; he could see tnat much in the dim moonlight. His gait slowed down to a hesitant stroll as he came abreast of it. A light was burning in the L room which had once been his. The house needed painting, the porch was rotting away and was slantwise with the world; but how the sight of it warmed him!

"Were you looking for some one?"

The voice came from the shadow of the big maple, and Solly started.

"No," he replied hastily, huskily. "I— I just wondered who lives here— now."

"I do; Ralph Henderson is my name."

"Oh!" exclaimed Solly. "I just wondered."

It took all of his self-restraint to keep from rushing in at the askew gate and catching Ralph in his arms. He forced his unwilling feet forward. Some one inside the house turned on a light, and the rays streamed through ihe window full across Solly's face; his arms went up about his head, but it was too late.

"Solly!" cried Ralph. "Solly!"

"I—I couldn't fool you, could I?" Solly laughed uneasily, slowly turning back.

"Solly, of all people!" exclaimed Ralph. "After all these years! I'm glad to see you, Solly, mighty glad! Come in; won't Alice be surprised to see you! We were just talking about you at supper, wondering about you, and why we never had heard from you."

Hesitating, ill at ease, Solly followed his brother into the house.

"Alice!" called Ralph. "Come and see who's there. Solly! Solly's come back home!"

His voice vibrated with a sincerity of welcome that went straight to Solly's heart and made him blink back the moisture from his eyes. Back home! How he wished that it could have been a different homecoming.

Ralph's wife came in, a pretty young woman with the bloom of youth not yet faded from her cheeks, although, Solly thought, there was sadness in her eyes when there ought to have been laugh- ter. She gave him her hand a bit timidly.

"I am glad to see you— Solly," she said. "Of course we have never met before, but Ralph talks about you so much; he has wanted so often to hear from you. I can't talk long now; I am dressing baby's leg. She— she is going to be able to walk now."

A shadow came over Ralph's face.

"I'll want you to see baby, Solly," he said slowly. "She— she has just been operated on. Tubercular bone. As Alice says, she's going to walk now; it would have been a shame for her to be crippled all her life; she's such a sweet little trick. She's just four now.

"But I won't hash up my troubles for your homecoming. Sit down and tell me about yourself. Does the room look natural? We haven't changed it much. The house was sold— for debts— after father died, but I've been renting it; it has always been home, you know."

"I— I didn't think you'd know me," Solly said, gulping. "I— I must have changed a lot."

"So you have, Solly, but I knew you the minute I saw your face. I guess you've seen a lot of life— traveled places, and all that sort of thing."

"Yes, I've seen a lot of life— too much," ayswered Solly. "Let's not talk about me— let's talk of the old days. I'd like that best."

"Of course, Solly, but— you're going to make us a long visit, aren't you?

For a moment Solly floundered for an explanation of his more or less accidental presence.

"I have some business in the neighborhood, Ralph," he answered slowly; he found it, somehow, very hard to admit to his younger brother that he was even a failure, his thirty-two years showing a total of zero. "I'm tired of knocking about the world. I— well, I thought I would probably move near home and settle down; a farm, maybe."

"Oh, you're going to buy a farm— near home!" exclaimed Ralph, who, it seemed, never thought of doubting that his brother had made a success of life; and Solly had not the heart to disillusion him,

"I've been out a few days looking things over," he said. "I was going to get settled before I saw you— sort of a surprise. I've been working as a farm hand; a fellow gets real inside information as to land values that way."

Almost instantly he regretted this pretense, but it was hard to come back to one's own people and admit dismal failure.

Ralph's wife returned to the room, carrying little Jaunita. The child's right limb was bound to a board. His niece! Solly stared at her with some- thing akin to worship.

"This is your Uncle Solly, honey," said Ralph. "He's come back home to see us. A long, long time ago he lived in this very house."

"I like you, Uncle Solly," she said with that instant affection which comes so easily to children. "I've always wanted an uncle. Now I'll be just like other little girls— have uncle and walk and run and play. I'm glad you come home, Uncle Solly."

And it's so easy to keep it up when you get started. Well, I've reached the end of my string; the bank examiner will be here in a few weeks. He'll find that I'm short.

"The bank will show no mercy; I know. You remember old John Atkins? Well, he's president of the State Bank. He's a hard man, Solly, as hard as granite. He wouldn't show any mercy to his own brother. I'll have to go to prison, Solly; there's no other way but He shuddered as his voice trailed off, and his shudder was no less real than that of Solly's. For Solly knew from seven years' experience what prison meant; he knew too well.

For himself Solly had no brief to make; his conviction had been merited. He had forged checks because it was the easiest way. But Ralph had not stolen for selfish gain. He had been driven to it.

"How—how much is the shortage?" asked Solly anxiously. ,

"Four hundred dollars!" Ralph whis- pered hoarsely.

"Only—only four hundred dollars!" exclaimed Solly in surprise. "You don't mean four thousand ?"

"Only four hundred!" repeated Ralph, aghast that what seemed to him like a stupendous figure should be spoken of so lightly. And then Solly Henderson realized that it might as well be four million, for gone were the days when, with the aid of a few blank checks and a pen, he could go forth and clean up a thousand in a day with his clever forgeries.

"When—when you talk of four hun- dred dollars like that, it—it makes me hope, but " He glanced at Solly's worn clothes. "But," he went on, "you haven't four hundred to spare; I'll bet you've only got enough to buy your farm. What I was going to say is this: If—if they take me away, Solly, there won't be a soul to look after Alice and baby. If you're moving to a farm, I

Detective Story Magazine
thought maybe—that maybe you could sort of look after them. Maybe Alice could help you on the farm to earn her own way e

Swiftly Solly canvassed in his mind the list of possible old friends from whom he could borrow, fifty at a time. He realized that, with his hand's cun- ning gone, he had no friends. But he must find a way; he must—he would!

"Ralph," he said, still hesitating to slay the only hope that burned within his brother's breast, "if—if you paid the money back—before the bank examiner come around——"

"If I only could!" fervently whis- pered Ralph.

"There is no one who could help you?"

Ralph's lips twisted into a bitter smile.

"There is one who could," he said with bitter emphasis, "but he won't. There's one man who ought to—Alice's father; he's rich—rich! But he hates me; he hates Alice for marrying me; he has even refused to see his own granddaughter. He could help me and never miss it, but he won't."

"Then I'll see you through, Ralph," Solly promised with impulsive reck- lessness, and without the slightest idea of how he was going to do it; he only knew that he must.

"Solly! You mean it? only could I'll pay it back. could save me from that hell!"

"Yes, I know, Bud; I know," and Solly nodded. He clenched and un- clenched his hands, cursing the stiffened joints, cursing because his fingers had lost their skill. Yet he clung to the hopeless determination that he would, somewhere, somehow, raise the four hundred dollars!

"You quit worrying, Bud," he went on with a confidence that he did not really feel. "It'll take me a few days, but I'll make the drag. When the bank

A little later, when Alice had taken Jaunita back to her bed, Solly smiled softly at his brother.

"Bud," he said, using the childhood nickname, "you're the luckiest man in the world. I'd give my right arm and
then some if I'd stayed in Baileyville like you did. I guess you're mighty happy."

The harrowed look came back to Ralph's face. After a moment's hesi- tation he got to his feet and closed the door.

"Solly," he said, "I know it seems that I ought to be mighty happy, but— I'm the most miserable man in the world. Your coming back now seems nothing short of Providence. I'm going to ask a tremendously big favor of you— if you will let me."

"Anything, Ralph; anything in the world," fervently promised Solly, staring anxiously into his brother's drawn face. "You— you're not in— in trouble?"

"Terrible trouble, Solly," whispered Ralph. "I—I am a thief!"

"Ralph! No!"

"I wish to Heaven it wasn't so," said Ralph dully. "It's bound to come out soon now. I work in the bank, you know; I— I stole for Jaunita's operations. There had to be three, and they were expensive. Oh, I know that sounds like old stuff— a coward's excuse; maybe I was a coward, but I couldn't find any other way; and I'd do it again."

Solly listened dumbly as his brother licked his dry lips and went on.

"It wouldn't have been necessary if I'd been working for a bank with a heart," he went on. "They did let me borrow— a little. But my salary is small, and they turned me down the last time I went to them. They said it wasn't business to lend to a poor clerk without security. Of course it wasn't business; they were right about that. The trips to the city and the hospital and surgeon's bills mounted up. I owed bills at the stores until I hardly dared look a merchant here in the face.

"Then it started— I took the first fifty dollars. It's the same old story, Solly; fifty dollars seemed so small. And it's so easy to keep it up when you get started. Well, I've reached the end of my string; the bank examiner will be here in a few weeks. He'll find that I'm short.

"The bank will show no mercy; I know. You remember old John Atkins? Well, he's president of the State Bank. He's a hard man, Solly, as hard as granite. He wouldn't show any mercy to his own brother. I'll have to go to prison, Solly; there's no other way but

He shuddered as his voice trailed off, and his shudder was no less real than that of Solly's. For Solly knew from seven years' experience what prison meant; he knew too well.

For himself Solly had no brief to make; his conviction had been merited. He had forged checks because it was the easiest way. But Ralph had not stolen for selfish gain. He had been driven to it.

"How— how much is the shortage?" asked Solly anxiously. ,

"Four hundred dollars!" Ralph whispered hoarsely.

"Only— only four hundred dollars!" exclaimed Solly in surprise. "You don't mean four thousand?"

"Only four hundred!" repeated Ralph, aghast that what seemed to him like a stupendous figure should be spoken of so lightly. And then Solly Henderson realized that it might as well be four million, for gone were the days when, with the aid of a few blank checks and a pen, he could go forth and clean up a thousand in a day with his clever forgeries.

"When— when you talk of four hun- dred dollars like that, it— it makes me hope, but " He glanced at Solly's worn clothes. "But," he went on, "you haven't four hundred to spare; I'll bet you've only got enough to buy your farm. What I was going to say is this: If— if they take me away, Solly, there won't be a soul to look after Alice and baby. If you're moving to a farm, I thought maybe— that maybe you could sort of look after them. Maybe Alice could help you on the farm to earn her own way e

Swiftly Solly canvassed in his mind the list of possible old friends from whom he could borrow, fifty at a time. He realized that, with his hand's cunning gone, he had no friends. But he must find a way; he must— he would!

"Ralph," he said, still hesitating to slay the only hope that burned within his brother's breast, "if—if you paid the money back— before the bank examiner come around—"

"If I only could!" fervently whispered Ralph.

"There is no one who could help you?"

Ralph's lips twisted into a bitter smile.

"There is one who could," he said with bitter emphasis, "but he won't. There's one man who ought to— Alice's father; he's rich— rich! But he hates me; he hates Alice for marrying me; he has even refused to see his own granddaughter. He could help me and never miss it, but he won't."

"Then I'll see you through, Ralph," Solly promised with impulsive reck- lessness, and without the slightest idea of how he was going to do it; he only knew that he must.

"Solly! You mean it? Solly, if you only could I'll pay it back. could save me from that— that living hell!"

"Yes, I know, Bud; I know," and Solly nodded. He clenched and unclenched his hands, cursing the stiffened joints, cursing because his fingers had lost their skill. Yet he clung to the hopeless determination that he would, somewhere, somehow, raise the four hundred dollars!

"You quit worrying, Bud," he went on with a confidence that he did not really feel. "It'll take me a few days, but I'll make the drag. When the bank examiner shows up, he'll find your books right up to the scratch. Now you quit worrying before Alice finds out that you've got something on your mind. You trust me, Bud."

"I'll trust you, Solly," said Ralph, a happy catch in his voice.

As Solly hurried down the street to the hitch rack for his trip back to Jasson's farm, he remembered the uncashed ten-dollar check in his pocket. Back in the old days, how easy it would have been; how easy it would have been for his clever fingers to have copied that signature onto a check for the needed four hundred.

But his cunning was gone, and nothing could bring it back.

iv

AFTER SEVERAL harrowed days and nights, Solly Henderson hit upon his scheme. It was on Thursday, two days before the harvest work was to be fin- ished and the imported labor returned to their own devices. Nearly every day Farmer Jasson sent a wagon either to Neuberg or to Baileyville for supplies.

That morning Solly went to Jasson.

"The next time you send to Baileyville, I'd like to make the trip for you," he said. "I want to buy a few little things for myself."

"Sure," agreed Jasson. "Why not? Somebody's got to make the trip, an' you've been workin' mighty hard, Brown; sure you can go to town. I'm sendin' t' Baileyville in the mornin'."

That afternoon Solly borrowed a pen and a bottle of ink. Jasson had a habit of hanging his coat around in all sorts of places, and it was easy for Solly, watching his chance, to extract the far- mer's check book and take two blank checks from the leather covering. In the evening he sat in a corner of the bunk tent, under pretense that he was writing a letter, and, with Jasson's check for ten dollars as a pattern, spent

73 several hours trying to coax back the nimble strokes which had once come so easily to him. But the practice re- sulted in nothing hopeful.

This was as he had expected. He took one of the filched checks and, with almost careless regard for Jasson's handwriting which was his copy, scrawled out a check reading: "Pay to the order of John Brown, Ten Dollars." Thoughtfully he compared this crude forgery with the genuine check.

"They look a little alike," he mused, "but mighty little. The bank'll sure call me on that unless the teller is stone blind."

It doubtless would seem a_ very strange procedure for a man to attempt the cashing of such a palpable forgery for ten dollars when he had a genuine check for the same amount, honestly his; but there was method in Solly's madness.

The next morning, bright and early, Solly hooked up the wagon and drove into Baileyville for Jasson's supplies.

There were two banks in Baileyville, the State Bank, where Ralph Hender- son worked, and the Farmers and Mer- chants. It was the latter. institution that Solly decided to do business with, for Ralph, of course, must know abso- lutely nothing; he must not even know that Solly Henderson and John Brown were one and the same persons.

Solly had a moment of nervousness when he entered the front door of the Farmers and Merchants. It was, after all, a very dangerous business. Mas- tering his fear he stepped to the paying teller's window and shoved through the grating the crudely forged check for ten dollars.

"Will you cash this for me, please?" he requested. "Two fives will do."

As the teller took the proffered slip of paper his eyebrows went up,"and he darted Solly a quick, accusing glance. While Will Jasson had no account at the Farmers and Merchants, the far- mer's checks frequently passed through their hands, as he did business both in 'Neuberg and Baileyville, and the teller instantly questioned the signature.

"Where did you get this check?" he demanded sternly.

"From Mr. Jasson," replied Solly. "I'm working for him. Where do you think I got it? Don't think I stole it, do you?"

"I don't know if you stole it or not, but I do know that this isn't Will Jasson's signature. He never signed this check; it's a forgery."

"You must be cross-eyed," retorted Solly witheringly.

"I'm going to call 'the constable."

"Before you do that you'd better call Jasson," said Solly. "At that I ought to let you go ahead and make a ninny of yourself. I could collect dam- ages for false arrest, you know."

Teller Kelsey was taken aback but not bluffed by Solly's brazen front.

"Don't think I will call Jasson up, eh?" he asked with a sneer. "Well, you can just bet I will,.and don't you try to get away, either. If this is Jasson's signature, then I'm the King of Siam. Here, Walter, call Jasson up while I keep an eye on this fellow in case he tries to make a break for it."

The bookkeeper called Walter took the check from the cashier and went pack to the telephone. After a considarable wait, for connections are slow on the country party lines, he came back to the window.

"Jasson says it's all right, Mr. Kelsey," he reported. "Says he gave a check to John Brown several days ago as an advance on his wages, and that Brown's in town on business for him now. He gave me a description of the man, and this is the man, all right. Jasson says "

And the bookkeeper snickered a little.

"Jasson says that he knows a good firm of opticians that can fit you out with a pair of glasses, and that if that don't do, he'll sign all his checks before a notary public after this."

Kelsey glared at the bookkeeper for his flippancy, and at Solly on general principles.

"Danged if that looks like Jasson's Johnny Hancock to me; but if he says so, then I guess it is," he sputtered, peering again at the check. "Sorry I suspected you wrongfully, Mr. Brown, but the banks have to be careful and— Jasson must have written this check with his feet."

"Oh, I'll forgive you," Solly said, laughing, "but if I was you I wouldn't be so quick on the trigger next time; false arrest is a dangerous business, I've heard."

He pocketed the two five-dollar bills with an apparent nonchalance which concealed many inward tremors. He was smiling grimly; his plan had worked as he had hoped.

v

THE NEXT day was Saturday. The harvest was over, and Jasson came out to the bunk tent to pay off the hands. He delayed paying Solly until the last.

"Brown," he said, "you're a good worker, and I like you. Why not stay with me regular? Of course I can't pay you harvest-time wages, but I'll give you sixty a month and keep. You can save money if you will, and in time you can be owning a little tract of land of your own; that's the way I started."

"I— I reckon not, Mr. Jasson," grumbled Solly, his heart heavy. He was both glad and sorry that Jasson liked him; glad because he knew that the gruff old farmer did not give his friendships lightly, and sorry because soon Jasson must know that he was a crook.

"You're the best judge of your own business, of course," Jasson said, nodding, "but you're welcome to stay if you will. If you won't, then you won't,  an' I'll give you a check for your wages. Fourteen days at five dollars a day; that's seventy dollars, minus the ten I advanced you. That makes sixty you got comin', an' I'm goin' t' add an extra five for your good work. Here's your check, an' if you're goin' back by the way of Baileyville, I reckon the Farmers an' Merchants won't be so all-fired suspicious this time. I give 'em a piece of my mind."

Solly nodded dumbly as, with averted eyes, he clasped the farmer's outstretched hand and turned away.

Fervently he said under his breath: "I wish I didn't have to do it— but I've got to. I'd like to stay on here and work— and work, but I can't throw Bud down; I can't throw him down!"

Solly's plan was timed to minutes. When he reached Baileyville, the first thing he did was to verify the train schedules. After pulling his trick he wanted to get out of town as soon as possible. The train left at twelve- thirty.

At half past eleven Solly steeled him- self to a breezy nonchalance and en- tered the doors of the Farmers and Merchants Bank. He thrust a check through the paying teller's window.

"Mr. Jasson says," he told Kelsey, laughing, "that if you ain't got those new specs yet, you can call him up about this one, too. He sent me to town to get this money to pay off some of the hands that wants cash. Maybe they're afraid that they can't get Jasson's checks cashed."

The teller glanced at Solly, down at the check, and reached for the money till.

"Oh, this one's all right if the one yesterday was," he replied sourly, and he counted out the amount that the slip of paper called for— four hundred dollars.

Solly's hands were almost trembling as he stuffed the money into his pocket. He had put it over; he was safe until his crude, almost childlike forgeries reached the Neuberg bank where, of course, they would be instantly detected. By that time, Solly figured, he would have safely lost himself in the city.

He crossed the street to the Baileyville State Bank and waved his hand to his brother who was working behind the grilled partition. Ralph's anxiously questioning expression was lost in a glad smile when he saw the look of assurance on Solly's countenance.

"Can I have a word with you, Mr. Henderson?" said Solly formally, and Ralph emerged into the bank lobby.

"Sh!" warned Solly. "Don't say any- thing that will let any one catch on. Here's the four hundred; don't let any one see you taking it. It might arouse suspicions. That'll fix it up, Bud, and don't you ever do such a fool thing again. I'm catching the twelve-thirty train, so I won't have a chance to say good-by to the folks, Bud. Keep your mouth shut about this, kid; if— if— well, just remember what I said, and don't talk. Maybe you'll understand later. So long, Ralph; I'll see you soon again."

Ralph put a detaining hand on Solly's arm as he fought back the tears of gratitude. Puzzled questions came to his lips, but Solly pushed him away with affectionate roughness and made for the door.

Back in the street, taking stock now of his own welfare, Solly realized with sudden panic that he had, with amazing thoughtlessness, overlooked a vital detail. He had neglected to get any cash for himself; he had little more than five dollars left of the ten that he had gotten on the first forged check; not enough to buy his railroad ticket to Chicago. And his only hope of escape lay in losing himself in the city before the forged checks got to Neuberg.

He did not want to go back to Ralph now ; Ralph was too confounding in his questioning. He dare not go to the Farmers and Merchants Bank with one of Jasson's genuine checks which re- posed in his pocket; that would be fatal. But money he must have.

In his desperation he decided to go to one of the stores where he had previously made some purchases, buy a few things, offer Jasson's good check for sixty-five dollars in payment, and get the change.

As Solly had previously found, a great deal of business in small towns is done on the assumption that all men are honest; the storekeeper accepted the check without objection and counted out the change— a little less than fifty dollars.

In spite of the smoothness of the transaction, some intuitive foreboding warned Solly that he had blundered. He was thankful that it was now less than thirty minutes until train time. At the railroad station he bought his ticket to Chicago and retired to an inconspicuous place behind a piano box at the far edge of the platform. He breathed a sigh of relief as the train appeared down the track, the engine poking its nose over the top of the grade.

The cars came to a grinding halt beside the platform. Solly's foot was on the vestibule step and his hand on the brass rail when he was suddenly jerked back by a heavy hand on the frayed collar of his coat.

"Not so fast, you crook!" yelled a voice in his ear, and Solly was spun around to stare into the grim face of a man who wore upon his vest a glistening star which proclaimed "Constable."

Behind the constable, hatless and coatless, nostrils fairly quivering with anger and excitement, was Teller Kelsey of the Farmers and MerchantsBank.

"Got him just in the nick of time!" gasped the bank man.

Solly merely sighed; he had taken this possibility into consideration.

"All right," he said dully, "you've got me."

"We have that, Mister Brown!' exultantly exclaimed Kelsey. "You're not as slick as you thought. Fork over that four hundred."

"I've got no four hundred dollars," said Solly quite truthfully.

"Of course he's got it," said Kelsey, "unless— unless he had a confederate who got away on the train." He paled at the thought. "Watch him to see that he don't throw the money away in case he's still got it. Bring him on over to the bank; I've phoned to Jasson and found that he was already on his way into town in his flivver. He ought to be here pretty soon now."

By the time the trio reached the bank a good-sized crowd of curious towns- folk was tagging along behind. As Solly was led up the steps, Jasson's automobile came to a stop out in front, and the farmer made his way through the little knot of people.

At this moment Ralph Henderson, on his way back to his own bank from a trip to the post office, saw his brother and pushed forward with wide-eyed amazement. Solly, in sudden panic, shook his head.

At the bank's door Ralph and Jasson came face to face, and Solly, even in his anxiety, noted that they glared at each other, Jasson angrily, Ralph defiantly.

"Solly!" exclaimed Ralph, ignoring his brother's warning. "What— what's the matter?"

"You know this here criminal?" demanded the constable.

"Know him; of course I know him, and I'll give you to understand that he's no criminal, either. He's my brother, Solly Henderson."

"Solly Henderson!" gasped the constable, who had known him twelve years before. "Why, so it is! I never would have knowed him. He's callin 'isse'f Brown. I reckon Solly's kinda gone t' the bad, ain't you, Solly?"

"You mean— you mean that he's under arrest; what for?"

"For forgin' Mr. Jasson's name to a check for four hundred dollars."

Ralph now understood where Solly had obtained the money, and his eyes filled with the realization of his brother's sacrifice.

"Solly! You did that— for me! Solly, I can't let you; I simply won't let you

"Shut up!" Solly whispered in Ralph's ear. "Think of Alice; think of the baby. Keep your mouth shut. Don't worry about me; I've done time before. I'd have gone back sooner or later."

Will Jasson stared at the twobrothers.

"So this is your brother, huh?" he sneered at Ralph. "Nice, respectable family, ain't it? I'm proud of the Hen- dersons, I am!"

Ralph laughed a bit wildly.

"So it was Jasson's money!" he cried. "The irony of it!"

Solly, Ralph, and Jasson were stand- ing a little apart from the others; the constable had joined Kelsey to look over the "evidence." Ralph, his eyes suddenly flaming, stepped squarely up to the farmer.

"Do you know what my brother has done?" he demanded. ''He's committed forgery— forged your name— to keep me, your son-in-law, out of jail for embezzlement— money that I embezzled so that your own grandchild, your daughter's baby, could walk and run and play like other children, after you had refused to help us, to even see us. That's what he's done; now go ahead and put both of us in prison. The four hundred dollars that he got he gave to me so that I—"

As Ralph's voice began to rise to a shrill screech, Will Jasson's big hand clamped down on the young man's shoulder.

"Silence!" he commanded gruffly. "I don't want to hear any more."

"But, I tell you—" began Ralph, when Kelsey, bustling forward, claimed the center of the stage.

"I've done a pretty nice piece of work, if I do say it myself," began the bank man, compressing his lips importantly and rattling in his hand the forged checks. "I have caught a clever and a most dangerous criminal; You see, Mr. Jasson, he set a trap for us by copying that ten-dollar check you told me about, and thus establishing the bogus signature as yours. I was suspicious right away, but I was thrown off my guard when we telephoned to you and you said the check was all right.

"Then he brought in the check for four hundred to-day, and, of course, it was all right if the other check was; so, although uneasy about it, I cashed it. He would have gotten away with it, too, except that he went to Frey's store and cashed a good sixty-five-dollar check of yours just as Frey was getting ready to bring a deposit over to my bank here. It happened that I took Frey's deposit myself, and when I saw your good check, I saw through the scheme. Here they are, both of the forged checks; we hadn't sent the ten- dollar one over to Neuberg for collection yet."

Jasson reached out his hand.

"Lemme see them checks," he grunted. Then to the amazement of Solly Henderson and Ralph, and to the horror of Kelsey, the big farmer took the slips of paper between his fingers and tore them into shreds.

"You— you fool!" shouted Kelsey "You've destroyed the evidence!"

"Evidence?" rumbled Jasson, "Evidence of what?"

"Evidence of what! Evidence of forgery!"

"Aw, shucks!" retorted Will Jasson. "Who says there's been a forgery? I ain't said so, have I? Sometimes I get a sort of cramp in my hand and write kinda queer. That four-hundred-dollar check was all right, but I thought so long as there was any dispute about it, I might as well write you one that would satisfy you.

"You see, Kelsey, Brown here is Ralph's brother, and that four hundred dollars was a little something that I sent in to Ralph by his brother— kind of to make up for the money that Ralph's had to pay the doctors for my little granddaughter."

Will Jasson's eyes were misty as he smiled slowly at the two brothers.

"You know, boys," he said huskily, "sometimes it takes a powerful big jolt t' make a man realize what a durned old brute he is. Ralph, I wonder if Alice would have us out to supper this evenin'— all of us?

"And you, Solly," he continued with a gentleness almost strange to his gruff nature, "I reckon I can figger out why you said you couldn't stay with me on the farm; now if you'd like to work for me regular—"

Solly Henderson gulped.

"Work for you regular!" he repeated. "Why, God bless you, Mr. Jasson, I—I'll work for you all my life!"

And Solly now knew, beyond all peradventure of doubt, that he had forged his last check.

_______________

14: The Bottomless Jug.

Sylvanus Cobb, Jun.

1823-1887

Kilmore Free Press (Vic.), 27 January, 1887.

I SAW IT hanging up in the kitchen of a thrifty, healthful, sturdy farm in Oxford County, Maine— a bottomless jug! The host saw that the curious thing had caught my eye, and he smiled.

'You are wondering what that jug is hanging up there for, with its bottom knocked out!' he said. 'My wife, perhaps, could tell you the story better than I can; but she is bashful, and I ain't, so I'll tell it.

'My father, as you are probably aware, owned this farm before me. He lived to a good old age, worked hard all his life, never squandered money, was a shrewd, careful trader, and a good calculator; and, as men were accounted in his day and generation, he was a temperate man. I was the youngest boy; and when the old man was ready to go— and he knew it— the other boys agreed that, since I had stayed at home and taken care of the old folks, the farm should be mine. And to me it was willed. I had been married then three years.

'Well, father died— mother had gone three years before— and left the farm to me, with a mortgage on it of two thousand dollars! I'd never thought so much of it before; but I thought of it now. I said to Molly— my wife— 'Molly,' says I; 'look here! Here's father had this farm in its first strength of soil, with all its magnificent timbers; and his six boys, as they grew up, equal to so many men, to help him; and he has worked hard— worked early and late— and yet look at it! A mortgage of two thousand dollars! What can I do? And I went to that old jug— it had its bottom in then— and took a good stiff drink of old Medford rum from it.

'I noticed a curious look on the face of my wife just then, and I asked her what she thought of it; for I supposed, of course, she was thinking of what I'd been talking about! And so she was. Says she:

'Charles, I've thought of this a good deal; and I have thought of a way in which I believe we can clear that mortgage off before five more years are ended.'

'Says I, 'Molly, tell me how you'll do it.'

'She thought for a little while, and then she said, with a funny twinkling in her blue eyes, says she, 'Charles, you must promise me this, and promise me solemnly and sacredly. Promise me that you will never again bring home for the purpose of drinking for a beverage at any one time more spirit of any kind than you can bring in that old jug— the jug that your father has used ever since I knew him, and which you have used since he was done with it.'

'Well, I knew that father used once in a while, especially in haying time, and in the winter when we were at work in the woods, to get an old gallon jug filled, so I thought she meant that I should never buy more than two quarts at a time. I thought it over, and after a little while told her I would agree to it. 'Now mind,' said she, 'you are never— never— to bring home for a common beverage more spirit than you can bring in that identical jug.' And I gave her the promise.

'And before I went to bed that night I took the last pull at that jug. As I was turning it out for a sort of a night-cap Molly looked up, and says she, "Charley, have you got a drop left?" I told her there was just about a drop. We'd have to get it filled on the morrow. And then she said, if I had no objection, she would drink that last drop with me. I never shall forget how she brought it out— "That last drop!" However, I tipped the old jug bottom up, and got about a great spoon-full, and Molly said that was enough. She took the tumbler and poured a few drops of hot water into it, and a bit of sugar, and then she tinkled her glass against mine, just as she'd seen us boys do when we'd been drinking good luck, and says she, "Here's to the old brown jug!"

'Sakes alive! I thought to myself that poor Molly had been drinking more of the rum than was good for her; and I tell you, it kind o' cut me to the heart. I forgot all about how many times she'd seen me when my tongue was thicker than it ought to be, and my legs not quite so steady as good legs should be; but I said nothing. I drank the sentiment— 'To the old brown jug!' and let it go.

'Well, I went just after that and did my chores, and then went to bed; and the last thing I said before leaving the kitchen— this very room where we now sit— 'We'll have the old brown jug filled to-morrow.' An then I went off to bed. And I have remembered ever since that I went to bed that night, as I had done hundreds of times before, with a buzzing in my head that a healthy man ought not to have. I didn't think of it then, nor had I ever thought of it before; but I've thought of it a good many times since, and have thought of it with wonder and awe.

'Well I got up next morning and did up my work at the barn, then came in and ate breakfast, but not with such an appetite as a farmer ought to have, and I could think even then that my appetite had begun to fail me. However, I ate breakfast, and then went out and hitched up the old mare; for, to tell the plain truth I was feeling the need of a glass of spirits, and I hadn't a drop in the house. I was in a hurry to get to the village. I got hitched up and then came in for the jug. I went for it to the old cupboard, and took it out, and—

'Did you ever break through the thin ice, on a nipping cold day, and find yourself, in an instant, over your head in the freezing water? Because that was the way I felt at that moment. The jug was there, but the bottom was gone. Molly had been and taken a sharp chisel and a hammer; and with a skill that might have done credit to a master-workman, she had clipped the bottom clean out of the jug, without even cracking the edges or the side! I looked at the jug and then I looked at Molly. And then she burst out. She spoke— Oh! I never had heard anything like it!— No, nor have ever heard anything like it since. She said:

' "Charles! There's where the mortgage on this farm came from! It was brought home in that jug— two quarts at a time! And there's where all the debt has been! And there's where your white, clear skin, and your clear, pretty eyes, are going! And in that jug, my husband, your appetite is going! Oh! let the bottom stay out for ever! Let it be as it is, dear heart! and remember your promise to me."

'And then she threw her arms around my neck, and burst into tears. She couldn't speak more.

'And there was no need. My eyes were opened, as though by magic. In a single minute the whole scene passed before me. I saw all the mortgages on all the farms in our neighbourhood; and I thought where the money had gone. The very last mortgage father had ever made had been to pay a bill held against him by a man who had filled his jug for years! Yes— I saw it all, as it passed before me— a flitting picture of rum!— rum!— rum!— debt!— debt!— debt!— and in the end— Death! And I returned my Molly's kiss, and, said I:

'Molly, my own! I'll keep the promise! I will— so help me heaven!'

'And I have kept it. In less than five years, as Molly had said, the mortgage was cleared off; my appetite came back to me; and now we've got a few thousand dollars out at interest. There hangs the old jug, just as we hung it up on that day; and from that time there hasn't a drop of spirit been brought into this house, for a beverage, which that bottomless jug wouldn't have held!

'Dear old jug! We mean to keep it; and to hand it down to our children for the lesson it can give them— a lesson of life— of a life happy, peaceful, prosperous, and blessed!'

And as he ceased speaking, his wife, with an arm drawn tenderly around the neck of her youngest boy, murmured a fervent:

'Amen!'

______________

15: By the Black Deep

R. Austin Freeman & Clifford Piers

(Clifford Piers, like Clifford Ashdown,  is a pseudonym of

R Austin Freeman 1862-1943 and John James Pitcairn, 1860-1936)

Windsor Magazine, May 1903

THE BLOCKADE OF BUENOS AYRES.

(Reuter's Special Service).

Barbadoes, June 1st.

The four-masted ship Jane and Elizabeth, with linseed from Buenos Ayres, put in here yesterday for stores and water, and sailed to-day for London, all well. She reported having successfully passed through the blockading fleet on the night of May 9th.

THUS the Daily Telegraph, and as the sun shone through the high office window, and flashed again from the tiny sample bottles of essential oils, it only heightened the dismal expression upon the face of Jenkinson Brothers. When people spoke of Jenkinson Brothers, the oldest established firm of drug merchants in Mincing Lane, they meant Josiah. Now, Josiah was ambitious, also he was young when he became the sole representative of the firm. The fluctuations of ipecacs and cumquats soon ceased to interest him; he forsook humdrum lines of business and wandered into crooked paths of speculation, until he now found himself the possessor of a seriously diminished credit and a capital which had almost ceased to exist. He had long meditated a bold stroke which should revive the sensitive plant of his credit and rob settling-day of some of its terrors, when the failure of the linseed crop of 1899 gave him his opportunity. Linseed, as a general rule, is not an article that can be cornered, but on this occasion everything conspired to render him assistance. A parasite, spreading with extraordinary rapidity from the East, had devastated the Russian crops, whilst a succession of typhoons in the Sundas and adjoining islands made short work of the large reserves which had been accumulated there. Men's eyes turned towards the New World. Argentina stepped into the breach, and every ship that had room on her manifest soon overflowed with the now precious seed; but before a single one could clear from Buenos Ayres a revolution broke out. The five-hundred-and-twentieth president took refuge in the city, and was there besieged by the Army, who had turned their general into the five-hundred-and-twenty-first; whilst the Navy, following the lead of the Army, declared for the insurgents and straightway blockaded the harbour.

It was now that Josiah, in daring mood, aspired to control the market. At first he bought cautiously and quietly; then, emboldened by success, with less and less caution, and as the price soared upwards he continued to buy, until at length the magnitude of the deal reached a figure that he trembled to contemplate. It was a small matter to him that the older men in the market looked askance at his operations; he was regarded with admiration by the smaller fry of speculators, and as they deferentially made way for him in the Lane, visions of a yacht, a country estate, and even— why not?— a seat in Parliament, floated before his eyes.

But these golden dreams were short-lived. On this particular morning of June, 1899, the price of linseed had beaten the record within the memory of the oldest broker. Already there were rumours of synthetical substitutes in the market. The crisis called for all Josiah's nerve, and he was about to commence the interesting zoological process known as "squeezing the bears" (in other words, to demand the impossible feat of delivering the seed of which he was the nominal purchaser), when his eye fell on Reuter's message; and as he read, the room swam round him.

"Captain Jenkinson to see you, sir."

At any other time Josiah would have replied with one of the numerous excuses which people find for invisibility to an impecunious relation, but at present he was too confused to do more than gaze stupidly at his visitor, who had followed close on the heels of the clerk, and took a chair without waiting to be invited.

Captain Jenkinson wore a beard trimmed in the naval style known as "torpedo-fashion," but his dress showed none of a sailor's neatness. On his jacket, some buttons were odd and some were missing, whilst the whole suit gave evidence of having suffered many things from the elements; his eyes were shaded by a cap from which the house badge had disappeared; his linen, what there was to be seen of it, was frayed and grubby; his boots were cracked, also he exhaled an atmosphere of rank cigars. Altogether, Captain Jenkinson presented an out-at-elbow appearance, as he sat regarding the drug merchant with a half-defiant, half-curious air. At length, feeling the silence oppressive—

"Jos," he said emphatically, "I'm stony broke!"

Josiah started and exclaimed irritably: "And a man who gets drunk on duty deserves to be!"— an amiable allusion to the captain's recent piling-up of a coasting tramp, with the consequent loss of his certificate.

"I suppose it's only by his own brother that a man need expect to be hit when he's down," growled the other. "But I say, Jos, I'm absolutely and completely broke."

"So am I!"

"You! Why, the Financial Blackmailer calls you a 'Napoleon of Finance!' I read it myself just now in the clerk's office."

"Napoleon be hanged!" was the testy reply. "Here, read that!" and Josiah pushed the newspaper across to his brother, pointing to the telegram from Barbadoes.

The captain read and re-read the paragraph, then laying it down: "Well, it reads all straightforward enough. What's the matter with it?"

"Matter enough!" retorted the drug merchant. "Why, this infernal Jane and Elizabeth will spoil the game I've been playing for the last three months. The price has dropped a few points already, and the moment she's sighted off the Lizard there'll be a slump in the market. Matter, indeed!" and he snorted contemptuously.

The derelict emitted a long, low whistle.

"Yes!" roared his brother, "you'll whistle for your grub soon, when I'm going through the Court."

The sailor rose and walked slowly up and down the small office. Then having opened the baize door and looked out, he shut it carefully and drew his chair close to the explosive Josiah.

"Jos," impressively, "that ship's got to be stopped!"

"Yes, yes! What's the use of saying that? Who's to do it?"

"Name the figure, and I'm the man."

"You, Sam?"

"Yes, your 'drunk-on-duty' brother." And as Josiah gasped with the effort to realise the situation, Sam continued: "Look here, I know these four-masters— two hundred knots the most you'll get out of them. From Barbadoes it's three-and-a-half thousand miles, more or less— that's a good twenty days' sail. When does it say she left? Ah! the first; so she can't pass the Lizard before the twentieth, and it's now the eighteenth. Well, how much shall we say?"

"Five hundred pounds?"

Sam laughed derisively.

"Say a thousand, then," suggested Josiah with a somewhat injured air.

"No! ten thousand, and dirt-cheap, too," was the firm reply; and as Josiah made a gesture of deprecation, Sam led his trump-card: "Do you think I'm going to risk penal servitude for nothing?"

"Penal servitude!" echoed Josiah faintly.

"Yes, Dartmoor bogs or Portland quarries!" And he chuckled, as Josiah visibly shivered. "Of course, if you're afraid, just say so, and there's an end of it; but it seems to me as if things had got pretty near the knuckle for both of us."

It was curious to see how exactly the positions of the two brothers had become reversed within the last few minutes. The "Napoleon of Finance," as the plan was unfolded, had grown palpably limper and flabbier. His brother, on the other hand, no longer diffident with the burden of a favour to be solicited, towered as it were above him. His back stiffened, as with sparkling eye he strode feverishly up and down the little room, the while he poured forth his scheme in a flood of technicalities of which Josiah only half grasped the meaning.

"See, now! This is the river-mouth, with the North Foreland just here;" and with a pencil he rapidly sketched a chart of the Thames estuary on the newspaper. "She'll likely lie-to for her pilot and a tug in the Downs. Then she'll round the Foreland with the flood tide and come up the Edinburgh Channel. Here's the Edinburgh Channel— Edinburgh lightship at one end, Black Deep at the other, between the Shingles and the Long Sand. Proper course, s'far as I remember just now, is head for Black Deep light, leaving the Shingles on the port-hand. There's a beacon on the Shingles during the day, and a gas-buoy at night— gas-buoy flash and dark, what the Trinity House men call 'occulting.' Now, the flood tide on the fifteenth will run strongest about midnight— anyhow, that's near enough. Now, suppose that it should happen (mind, I only say suppose) that that gas-buoy had shifted half a mile south of its berth, when that four-masted hooker was about? Well, up she'll come on the top of the tide, and rounding the buoy, fetch up hard and fast on the Shingles. If her masts don't go there and then, with the flood tide running strong, and the least little bit of a wind from the north or nor'-east, it'll be as much as they can do to get the crew off before she breaks up, let alone the stuff she's carrying, for all their rockets and lifeboats. Well I know that bank!"

"Was that where you ran ashore before, and—?" commenced Josiah innocently.

The other turned on him savagely. His mouth was hard and there was a stiff look about the "torpedo" beard.

"You let that alone, now! Maybe I have been starving, and maybe you have chucked me a few odd sovereigns during the last year, and perhaps you've made me know it, too; but it's my turn now. You can't do without me, so you'd best be civil. If I'm to see this thing through, I've got to be boss, and don't you forget it! What's more, you've got to find some of the ready to go on with.

"How much do you want?" This very timidly.

"A fiver for exes, and another to get myself some decent slops, and three more of them for a boat."

Sam fingered the notes with the daintiness of one long a stranger to their crisp rustle, then, cramming them into his breast-pocket, exclaimed—

"As soon as I'm a bit decent, I'm off to Erith to hunt up any ship's lifeboat that's going cheap. I'll send you a wire to meet me at Margate to-morrow or next day; and if I want any more for exes, you've got to stand to it. Now, so long! Show a little pluck, man; and remember," his mouth hardened again, "we've got to sink or swim together— together, mind!"

Josiah's mental faculties had lost some of their poise during the march of recent events, but this unwonted phase of his brother's character, the shipmaster's resource, its tyranny, its brutality even, did little to restore their balance.

As Sam stood looking at him with a smile which had something of contempt in it, his hand resting on the door-knob, Josiah rose stiffly and tried to speak.

"Very well," was all he could find to say in return, and as the door closed behind the resuscitated plan of action, he unlocked a spirit-stand and helped himself with a trembling hand.

Meanwhile the sailor passed through the outer office, his jaunty air in such marked contrast to the diffident and almost timid order of his arrival as to cause much wonderment among the clerks. As he clattered down the stairs into Mincing Lane, a reminiscence of an old sea-air mingled with the noise of the traffic as it floated up through the half-opened window:—

"As I was going up Paradise Street;

With a heave-ho! Blow the man down!"

ii

THE small crowd of idlers who had stood upon the promenade which fronts the pleasant town of Deal, watching the manoeuvres of a small lug-rigged boat as it approached the shore, slowly dispersed when the little craft, having dropped her mainsail, grounded on the shingle, and her occupants leaped out and began to scramble up the steep, shelving beach.

The passengers were two in number, both elderly men and both distinguished by the nautical blue cloth caps which are commonly assumed for some unexplained reason by landsmen, even of the most terrestrial type, when they visit the neighbourhood of the sea. One of them carried, suspended from his forefinger, a string of infant whiting, while the other bore under his arm a well-worn naval telescope.

"Well, Jos," remarked he of the telescope, as the pair reached the summit of the beach and turned to gaze out across the Downs, where half-a-dozen coasters rode at anchor, "I'm glad to see that if you are a bit of a funker, you've at least got a sailor's gizzard. If you couldn't stand a bit of a swell, we should be regularly up a tree."

"I don't know what the deuce you mean by a funker," retorted the other sulkily. "Haven't I agreed to do all that you suggest, to risk my life and liberty in this accursed venture, and to pay you a fabulous sum for your part in it? Funker, indeed!" and he scowled malevolently at the dripping trophies of the angle that dangled from his finger.

"That's all right, old cock," responded the first speaker, whom the astute reader has doubtless recognised as our old friend Captain Jenkinson. "Don't you get your back up about nothing, but just you attend to my instructions. Now, you see, when you want to— hallo! what's this rounding the point there?" and the gallant captain, all on the alert in a moment, pointed his telescope at a dark speck enveloped in a cloud of smoke which had just made its appearance round the promontory.

"It's a tug," he remarked after a moment's scrutiny, "and she's got a tow rope astern— and here comes a— yes, by Jingo! it's a four-masted ship— that's her, Jos, that's our friend right enough."

"I suppose," said Josiah doubtfully, "she's not the only four-masted ship in the world, is she?"

"No, I suppose not," growled the captain, "but she's the only one that has passed Dungeness. However, we'll stroll down to the end of the pier, and then we shall be able to see her make her number. Let me see," he meditated, consulting an entry in his pocket-book, "B.T.L.W., I think it is— yes, that's right."

In half an hour the two vessels had reached the anchorage, the tall, stately ship, with her long, grey hull with its white streak and painted ports, her lofty masts, her long yards and intricate web of rigging, creeping along in the wake of the smoky, bumptious little tug; and just as the pair came abreast of Lloyd's station, a string of bright-coloured flags ran up and fluttered gaily from the ship's peak.

"B.T.L.W.," muttered the captain, removing his eyes from the telescope and peering triumphantly in his brother's drawn face. "What do you make of her?" he continued, addressing a jersey-clad sea-monster who was examining the vessel through a pocket-telescope. "She's a large vessel, isn't she? Comes from Australia, I suppose?"

The sea-monster closed his telescope deliberately and regarded the two brothers with that air of ineffable and contemptuous condescension which the longshoreman assumes when he addresses a denizen of the land.

"No, sir," he replied in a hoarse double-bass. "She ain't no Australian. She's the Jane and Elizabeth, four thousand tons register, from Buenos Ayres, with a cargo of linseed. Got enough linseed aboard of her, she has, for to poultice the entire population of Great Britain, sir. She ain't a fast ship, sir, d'ye understand— no, she ain't no clipper; but she's a whopper; she can carry some cargo— Lor'! she can take some stuff aboard, to be sure." Here the old man of the sea turned his back upon the two conspirators and resumed his telescopic observations.

"Come along, Jos," said the captain, "let's scoot for the station. There's just time for us to catch the five o'clock to Margate."

iii

"NOW, I call this very pleasant," said the captain genially, as he lolled on the stern locker of his newly purchased boat and gazed at the receding harbour and the long jetty, whence came faintly the sound of music across the water. "A good dinner inside, a good cigar, a fine, steady breeze and a tight, handy boat, not to speak of the prospect of unlimited dibs in the immediate future— what more could a man wish for, eh, Jos?"

Josiah Jenkinson sat bolt upright on the midship thwart, with an expression of the extremest dejection, grasping convulsively the fall of the mainsheet.

"I suppose this boat can be depended upon, Sam?" he asked wearily.

"Depended on!" explained the captain. "Why, she's got a double teak skin, and there's a copper air-case in each of the side lockers. Depended on! I tell you, man, she'll do anything but talk."

"Well, we don't want her to do that," observed Josiah, with a sour grin.

"No, we don't," chuckled Samuel. "By Jingo! what an evening it is! Just look at the sunset, my boy," and here the captain in the exuberance of his joy trolled forth in a sturdy bass voice—

"As I was walking down Paradise Street;

With a heave-ho! Blow the man down!

I met a young frigate so nice and so neat,

With a heave-ho! Blow the man down!

"By the way, Jos, as we have a little time to ourselves, we may as well rehearse the programme. You see, we're heading north-east, but we're actually travelling about north by west on the tide stream; and sailing as we are now, we shall make the buoy in about a couple of hours, by which time it'll be quite dark. Then we'll commence operations."

"Just explain to me again what your plan is," said Josiah.

"Why, you see, the Edinburgh Channel, through which our ship must pass, lies between the Long Sand to the north-east and the Shingle sands to the south-west. At the east end of the channel is the Edinburgh Channel lightship, and about a mile beyond the west end is the Black Deep lightship. The actual end of the channel is marked by the north-east Shingles gas-buoy, and as soon as the ship has fairly passed that she alters her course to the south'ard. Now, don't you see, if we can move that buoy to the south-east, our precious hooker will alter her course a trifle too soon and run slap on to the north edge of the Shingles, just near the North Beacon; and as she will probably run on just about high water flood tide, she won't be likely to get off in a hurry."

"But we can't move the buoy, can we?" protested Josiah.

"Of course we can't, you chuckle-head!" responded the captain impatiently. "Haven't I said so already? But what we can do is to put out her light and rig up a little light of our own in humble imitation, and this is how we've got to set to work. As soon as we get near the buoy, we take down our mainsail, and you work the boat alongside with the oars, and be mighty careful you don't bump her against the buoy and get stove in. Then I jump on to the buoy and hang on to the cage while I feel about for the gas-pipe, and as soon as I have found it I cut through it with this little brass-worker's saw and pull the ends apart.

"Out goes the light, and I hail you to come alongside again and take me off— and mind, while I am at work on the buoy, you keep at least five or six lengths away until I hail you, or you will certainly get stove in. Then we shall make our first appearance in public in the character of a gas-buoy, and please pay great attention to this, as you will probably have to work the light while I attend to the management of the boat. As we approach the buoy, you must study the character of its light. You will see that it appears to suddenly go out at regular intervals, or 'undergo occultation,' as the Trinity House people say. This is managed by a small metal screen which drops over the light, and is then raised again, by a kind of clockwork. This particular buoy has, I find, an occultation lasting two seconds, and the light is visible for six; that is to say, you can see the light for six seconds at a time, when it disappears for two seconds, then reappears for another six seconds, and so on. Now, my inventive genius has evolved a very simple arrangement which we may substitute for this complicated clockwork mechanism. In the stern locker you will find a common lantern and a still commoner chimney-pot hat. Before we dowse the glim of that jolly old buoy we shall light our lantern; then, when our friend appears in the offing, while I conduct the boat to a suitable spot (she won't want much management, for with this breeze she will drift just where I want her to go), you will hold the lantern in one hand and the pot-hat in the other. You pop the hat over the lantern and the light will be occulted; then you count two seconds and whisk off the hat, letting the light shine upon the face of the vasty deep. Count six seconds, and then clap on the hat again, and out she goes. Do you understand?"

"I understand," replied Josiah drearily.

"That's right. You clap on the hat, one— two— off. One— two— three— four— five— six— on. One—two—off, and so on. Sure you understand?"

"I understand," reiterated Josiah.

"Very well, then," returned the captain, and he proceeded to light a fresh cigar.

About two hours and a half from the time they left Margate found our two philanthropists but a few cables from the Edinburgh Channel lightship, at the flashing lantern of which Josiah gazed with the bewildered air of a somnambulistic owl, and another twenty minutes' sailing brought the boat close alongside the gas-buoy.

At this new apparition Josiah stared with a feeling of stupefaction; and even as he stared, the light vanished as if by magic, but before he had time to wonder at its disappearance, there it was again bobbing and jigging about like some peculiarly agile will-o'-the-wisp.

Josiah gazed at the light like one in a dream, and he found himself following its vanishings and reappearances involuntarily— one— two— off; one— two— three— four— five— six— on— over and over again. Presently he was sharply awakened by the rattle of the falling mainsail, as the captain let go the halyards, and then an oar was thrust into his hand as his brother called out—

"Come, pull yourself together, Jos, and help me to work her alongside the buoy, and don't forget what I told you to do; and while I am at work, you keep a bright lookout for the Jane and Elizabeth. Remember, the tug carries two white lights, one over the other, and you'll see both her coloured sidelights at once, and both the side-lights of the ship. Keep a good look-out with your glasses, and keep the boat clear of the buoy until you hear me call. Now, then, here we are."

Josiah had a momentary glimpse of a large dark object surmounted by a gleaming light, swaying about right over the boat. Then there was a grinding noise, and the next moment he saw his brother clinging to the great cage, while his voice came hoarsely out of the gloom.

"Keep the boat clear!"

Josiah backed a few strokes and then sat down on a thwart, and while the boat drifted slowly he watched the light coming and going.

Soon a rasping sound reached his ear, growing gradually fainter as the boat drifted further from the buoy. Still the light kept vanishing and reappearing in its strange, disquieting fashion, until at length, after an occultation, it failed to appear again, and all around was formless gloom.

The captain's little saw had done its work.

Seized with a sudden terrible loneliness, Josiah plied the oars vigorously. But where was the buoy? In the black darkness nothing was visible but the winking light of the Edinburgh lightship and the more slowly repeated glare of the Black Deep.

The terrified merchant wrenched at the oars, shouting aloud his brother's name, and peering on all sides into the gloom.

Suddenly there was a crash, and Josiah, looking round, saw the great dark shape, no longer crowned with light, swinging about over the tossing boat.

"Sam!" he shouted. "Sam! aren't you ready to come off?"

But there was no reply.

"Sam!" screamed Josiah, trembling and sweating with a horrible dread, "what are you doing, Sam?"

Just then the pale full moon peeped momentarily out of a bank of clouds, revealing the painted checkers and the great cage, the bars of which stood out black against the dim sky.

There was no one on the buoy.

Josiah slipped off the thwart into the bottom of the boat, where, with his fingers twisted in his hair, he lay for a time alternately weeping and cursing. The pitching of the boat— which was kept head to wind and sea by her mizzen— rolled him about on the bottom boards as though he had been a half-filled sack, so that presently for very weariness he was fain to pull himself up on to a thwart, on which he sat staring moodily and dreamily into the darkness.

To do Josiah justice, he was not greatly affected by the sudden death of his brother; indeed, if that ancient mariner could have contrived to effect his decease under somewhat more opportune circumstances, it is even possible that the event might have been hailed by the "Napoleon of Finance" with some degree of relief. But to perish thus ingloriously while the plot was but half carried out—

Arrived at this point in his meditations, Josiah was recalled abruptly to the realities of the situation by a phenomenon the observation of which set his heart bounding and his limbs trembling. Away on the eastern horizon there had appeared two bright lights like fixed stars, one immediately above the other. Just below there was another pair, but side by side, one red and one green, while even as he watched them Josiah saw yet another pair of lights, also red and green, appear quite close to those he had first noticed.

The meaning of these lights could not be mistaken by Josiah after the captain's repeated explanations. Here, then, he thought, after all his trouble and distress, and all the risk he had faced, was this accursed ship freighted with ruin and disgrace for him, calmly heading for her destination while he sat, an idle spectator, to watch her pass. As he continued thus, with his gaze fixed upon the advancing lights, he was suddenly startled b the appearance of a tall, dark object which seemed to start out of the gloom and creep towards the boat. As it approached and slowly passed close by, he perceived that it was a lofty post or column apparently implanted in the water and surmounted by a great St. Andrew's cross. The astonishment with which he had viewed the apparition now gave place to a very different feeling. This strange, uncanny object was evidently the North Beacon of which his brother had spoken, and its presence, and the manner in which it had apparently swept by the boat, showed that the latter was drifting, as the captain had predicted it would, just in the direction in which it was wanted to go, and that it was still possible for Josiah to carry out his diabolical scheme.

As soon as he realised this, he commenced to take the necessary steps. The lantern was still burning in a box in the stern sheets, and beside it lay the hat. Having mixed and consumed a stiff jorum of whisky-and-water to steady his quivering nerves, he took up the lantern in one hand and the hat in the other, and suddenly held the former up towards the advancing vessels.

"One— two— three— four— five— six— on!" and the hat was slipped on over the light. "One—two—off!" and the light was once more uncovered.

"One— two— three— four— five— six— on!" and the light was again occulted, to reappear after another two seconds had been counted.

In this way half an hour was consumed, Josiah's aching arm becoming more and more automatic in its action, while his senses became gradually dulled by a kind of auto-hypnotism.

By this time the starboard lights of the two vessels had vanished as the broadsides were presented to the boat, and Josiah had been obliged to creep round from the starboard side to the port bow to follow them as they passed westward. But they were very near now.

As the tug rolled, the light from her cabin skylights could be seen at intervals, and the churning of her paddles was distinctly audible to the wrecker in his boat, while from the ship there came down the wind the sound of a rollicking chorus mingled with the drone of an accordion. Evidently a forecastle concert was in progress.

Suddenly there was a report like the crack of a rifle, followed immediately by a rumbling crash. The chorus and the sound of the accordion ceased abruptly and were succeeded by a confused uproar of voices, above which could be heard a hollow roar as an officer shouted an order through a speaking-trumpet. Josiah crouched, breathless and shaking in the bow of the boat, staring at the twinkling lights, which had now begun to move about the ship, with a curious mixture of horror and satisfaction. He watched the tug round to and run alongside her consort, and presently he saw her port and masthead lights creeping away towards the Black Deep lightship. A few minutes afterwards the dark sky was rent by a streak of fire as a rocket soared up from the stranded ship. While the dull boom of its explosion was yet in his ears, and the sparks still floated aloft, the author of all the mischief felt his head swimming and his eyes growing dim, and he sank insensible into the bottom of the boat.

"AHOY, there!— anyone aboard that boat?"

Josiah sat up on the boat's floor, then pulled himself into a kneeling position so that his eyes were just above the gunwale.

A few yards away a small cutter-rigged smack was hove-to while her skipper hailed the boat. The dawn had broken grey and cold; a leaden sky hanging over a leaden sea, with a faint line of sombre grey far away in the south, furnished a prospect that was not inspiriting.

"Is it far to Margate?" inquired Josiah.

"Good ten moile," was the encouraging answer.

"How long will it take me to get there?"

"How long?" repeated the man, with a faint grin, "why, yer won't never get there. You'll drift out to sea and die of starvation. Now look here! I'll tow yer right into Margate Harbour for foive barb— take it or leave it."

"Very well," said Josiah.

The man clawed at the boat with a long boat-hook and asked—

"Will yer stay in the boat or will yer come aboard us?"

Josiah stood up shivering and looked at the smack. From her grimy chimney a cheerful little cloud of blue smoke issued and wandered away to leeward, and a man whose head and shoulders protruded through the tiny companion-hatch was masticating deliberately, while he grasped in his hand a large blue mug containing something that steamed.

"I'll come aboard of you," said Josiah.

iv

THE next morning Josiah's breach of his usual punctuality was the subject of some remark in the office. Indeed, it was nearly one o'clock when, considerably less neat and spruce than usual, he appeared and, passing to his room, rang for the senior clerk. Obeying with the morning's correspondence, he brought in the last yard unrolled from the tape-machine, and on this Josiah pounced with avidity. As the clerk was sorting the papers, an exclamation from the broker made him look up. Josiah was much agitated, and the tape performed strange gyrations in his hand as he held it out.

"Have I read this aright, Mr. Sales? What's the name of the ship?"

"The Jane and Elizabeth from Buenos Ayres passed Gravesend this morning," read Sales stolidly.

"Will you send out for an evening paper?"

Sales passed through the baize door and despatched a junior for the paper, which a boy was already crying in the streets. "Bring two while you're about it," he said, in view of Josiah's evident inability to tackle the morning's work at present.

He started to read with a languid interest until on the third page he saw—

SHIP ASHORE OFF MARGATE.

A Mysterious Sailor.

Our Margate correspondent telegraphs: Early this morning, in response to signals from the Black Deep lightship, which is stationed at the head of the Edinburgh Channel (the usual route for ingoing vessels), the Margate lifeboat Quiver proceeded to the Shingles sand, when it was found that the American barque White Cloud, laden with hides from Rio, was fast ashore on the north edge. The captain and all hands were rescued, but all attempts at salvage have been fruitless.

(Later.)

The White Cloud was in tow at the time of the disaster, and when the cable parted from the violent shock with which she took the ground, the tug steamed off for assistance. No attempt was made to tow the ship off the bank, as it was evident, from the position in which she lay, that all efforts with that object would be useless, and it is feared that she will soon become a total wreck. It is conjectured that the gas-buoy, which was anchored in the fair-way to the north-east of the Shingles, had in some way become shifted, so leading the barque on to the sands. It is understood that the Trinity House authorities have been communicated with.

The tug, in returning to the scene of the wreck, picked up a man swimming near the Shingles in a very exhausted condition. He was at first supposed to be one of the crew of the White Cloud, who had probably fallen overboard when she grounded with so much force. But on being conveyed to the Margate depôt of the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, he was not recognised by any of the rescued men. His underclothing was marked 'S. Jenkinson,' and from other indications he is believed to follow the sea. In spite of every care and attention, his condition, as a result of the cold and exposure he had evidently endured, remained too critical to allow him to afford any explanation of his presence in the water. This must, therefore, remain a mystery for the present.

LAZILY Sales began to wonder whether there could be any possible connection between the half-drowned sailor and his employer's brother, when he jumped and dropped the newspaper as a sharp report penetrated the baize door. He ran and knocked, but there was no answer; and when he tried the handle, the bolt was shot. The added weight of his two juniors made the door shiver, and with a more strenuous thrust it gave, and the doorway framed their white faces as they paused for the air to clear. Then as the smoke rolled into the outer office, Josiah was seen huddled, an invertebrate mass, across the desk, a revolver just dropping from his hand. A clean-punched hole between the eyes was the source of a little stream, splashed in darker red across the pink sheet of the newspaper.

Josiah had found his pluck at last.

________________

16: Early Closing Day

Fred Merrick White

1859-1935

The Queenslander, 5 Apr 1924

THE MAN in the white waistcoat and undeniable spats was pleased to approve of the Major, and in this his wife was graciously pleased to agree. As a rule the Vellacotts were particular with regard to their friendships, as benefitted second generation people, with offspring at Winchester and Magdalen College, Oxford, but the Major had a way with him that few people could resist. And the Majestic Hotel at Sandbourne did not take everybody in.

"I like this place very much," the Major remarked to Vellacott after dinner on the Saturday night, they having had a day on the links together. "Like you, I have dropped into the habit of running down here for the week-end: The golf is none too good, as you know, but it is convenient to town, and we can't all run to Rolls-Royce cars."

It was a pleasant bit of chaff and touched Vellacott on the soft spot, because he was proud of his Rolls-Royce car in which he always made his weekend journeys to Sandbourne. In the city he was a dealer in bullion and specie, to say nothing of occasional excursions in the realms of pawnbroking, which latter transactions were restricted severely to advances upon family jewels, collections of historic plate, and the like. A little later he found himself talking freely and eloquently on the subject of city business, to one who appeared to be as interested and intelligent listener.

"Yes," said the Major, pulling at his cigar. "Yes. Do you know, Vellacott, I was precious near going into the city myself once. I wish I had now. Certain anxieties, of course, but no adventures, and no risks—"

"Ah, there you are wrong," Vellacott said eagerly, "Why, my dear fellow, handling valuables as we do, we've got to be on the alert the whole time. Only last year we were very nearly done out of twenty thousand pounds."

"I hadn't thought of that," the Major said. "I suppose your strong room is like a bank. All sorts of patent locks, and ingenious devices, and all that sort of thing."

Vellacott winked across his whisky and soda.

"You never can tell," he said. "My strong room is especially built in the basement, and goes right under the pavement, flush with the curb. Moreover, on top is a round sheet of glass just like a coal chute, about eight inches thick, and the police have been told that the electric light is burning in the strong room every night, and if the light goes out, they will know there is something wrong. But still, there are times—"

"Oh, quite so, quite so," the Major said. "It's rather funny that you should introduce this subject, because I am rather interested in a device suggested to me by a young friend of mine for getting even with the sort of gentry you speak of. You see, I was an engineer myself, and I am rather a dab at mechanics. If I had the capital, I should try and develop it."

At the mention of the magic words "capital," and "development," Vellacott pricked up his ears. He was never averse to a proposition in which the risk was small, and the profit proportionately great. He leaned eagerly forward.

"Tell me all about it," he said. "If you have got a decent thing, I can introduce the capital."

"Well, it's like this," the Major said. "In a few words, it is an entirely new form of burgular alarm. One of those simple things that the wonder is it has never been thought of before. You attach it to your telephone at night, and by leaving the receiver off the hook, a bell rings at the other end of the wire if the door of the room where the telephone is, indeed, the slightest interruption sets the telephone going. Now, suppose, for instance, you had a private wire from your office to your house at Sutton—"

"I have," Vellacott cried. "I have."

"So much the better. I suppose a good many of your city magnates have private wires? Well, in that case, you might be disposed to try it. I can carry a wire from your 'phone into the vault, and if the door of the vault is opened, my device will give you instant warning in your private house. I suppose I need not ask if you have got an extension of your telephone at home into your bedroom? You have? Very well, then. In that case, if anything was wrong, you would be instantly aroused in the middle of the night— call up Scotland Yard, and within a couple of minutes, the police are on the spot. This is rather a lucky day for me, I think. Some of these days, when you have half an hour to spare, I'd like to give you an experimental test. What about Saturday afternoon, when the office is closed?"

Vellacott beamed pleasantly on his companion.

"Now, do you know, that sounds real good," he said. "If only your invention is not too expensive—"

"Less than five pounds," the Major interrupted. "We should open a sort of central office to which all you city men should subscribe, and where an extra wire from each big office would converge and be numbered. Now, by another simple device those wires would give an alarm in that central office, where a couple of operators would be at work all night, and those wires would be numbered. All the operator had to do is to call up Scotland Yard, and tell them that something is wrong, say, with number ten. What do you think?"

"Think!" Vellacott cried with an enthusiasm rare at his time of life, "I think you've got a fortune there! Don't mention it to anybody else. I'll speak to my— er— friend in the city, and he'll find the money fast enough. Now, how long do you think it would be before we could try the thing?"

"Oh, I don't know," the Major said. "I might manage to get the machine itself ready within a week. Yes, I'm quite sure I can. But one part will take a little longer. Still, I can get the instrument itself inside your strong room. But I shall have to see it first. But isn't it rather a shame for me to rob you of you week-end holiday?"

"Not at all, not at all," Vellacott said, "Now, shall you by any chance be down here next week-end?"

The Major rather thought he would. He would probably turn up by the Friday afternoon, as usual, and thereupon, Vellacott made a proposal. They would dine together on Friday night, and, run up to London in the car after an early breakfast on the Saturday morning. If they started early enough, they could be in the city, inspect the strong room, and be back at the Majestic in time for lunch, after which they could play a well earned round of golf in the afternoon. To this suggestion the Major gave a cordial consent, and therefore, on the following Saturday morning, a little after eight o'clock, the two set out together in the Rolls-Royce car, and in due course arrived at the palatial offices in Moorgate-street.

"I have said nothing to my partner," Vellacott explained. "Neither have I mentioned the matter to my manager. This is the sort of thing that it is not well to talk about until it is accomplished. Now, come along, and have a look at the strong room."

With that, Vellacott dived down a flight of stone steps, and opened a massive door, which led into a room some twelve feet square. A light was burning in the room, and, overhead, the Major could see the disc of thick plate glass that Vellacott had explained to him. Round the strong room, on three sides, were small doors, and sliding trays faced with steel, and these, Vellacott had explained, contained not only masses of bullion, but some of the finest treasures in the world.

"I suppose every tray is locked?" the Major asked.

"Well, no," Vellacott said. "You see, if anybody could get through that door, they could get into the trays easily enough."

The Major asked no more questions, pertinent or otherwise. He took from his pocket a dainty little foot rule, and a note book, which he was exceedingly busy with for the next few minutes. There was something so businesslike about him that even Vellacott was impressed. Then he looked up from a mass of figures, and smiled with the air of a man who is quite pleased with himself, though he vouchsafed no information.

Half an hour later the two emerged from the vault and made their way into Moorgate-street, where the big car was awaiting them. Almost in front of the palatial premises of Vellacott and Co., a small group of workmen had congregated in the street. There were four of them altogether, and in their peaked caps was the badge of the Universal Electricity Company, the great corporation which supplied that part of London with its electric power. They had with them a closed-in truck, from the depths of which they had produced a sort of collapsible canvas tent, together with a mass of technical instruments, which the Major regarded with a favourable eye. It was evident that something had gone wrong with one of the cables, and that the gang of workmen was there to repair it. The Major stood watching them whilst waiting for his companion, and, presently he made a technical remark or two to the foreman.

"I am rather glad these chaps are here," he said to Vellacott when the latter emerged. "They have given me an idea. I find that the main cable is close to the kerb, and upon my word, I think it would be possible to run a tunnel for my apparatus inside the channel. That would give me just what I want without disturbing existing arrangements. Um— yes, that's a rattling good idea."

"Oh, that's all very well," Vellacott grumbled. "But these fellows are always pulling the streets about. Hi, foreman, I hope you are not going to be very long over this job."

"I don't think so, sir," the foreman said, civilly enough. "I hope we shall finish to-night. If not, it will be some time to-morrow morning. That's why we came to-day, so as not to interfere with you gentlemen in business hours."

With that Vellacott turned away, and, before long, the big car had left London behind it. It was a beautiful morning, and Vellacott was looking forward eagerly to his afternoon's golf. He had little or nothing on his mind, business was not pressing, and it was just possible that he might take Monday off as well.

"I'll telephone my partner first thing in the morning," he said. "I suppose you are staying on for the present?"

"I think so," the Major said. "As a matter of fact I was down here all last week. If this invention comes off, then I and a plus golfer of my acquaintance are buying a furnished bungalow close to Sandwich. If it does materialise, I shall be pleased if you will come down and join us occasionally."

Vellacott replied emphatically that he would. They were discussing the question on the Monday morning before setting out for the day's golf, when a pert page boy in a veritable rash of buttons solemnly summoned Vellacott to the telephone. He came back a moment or two later, white, trembling, and almost incoherent, and in striking contrast to the Major, who lay back in a comfortable armchair enjoying his second after-breakfast cigarette.

"Good heavens, what's wrong?" the latter asked solicitously.

"The most awful thing," Vellacott gasped. "Our strong room was broken into between closing time on Saturday afternoon and the early hours of this morning. Nearly fifty thousand pounds' worth of valuables stolen. They only found out about a quarter of an hour ago when my partner got into the office."

"I've got it," the Major cried. "Depend upon it, those men we saw in the road were not bona fide workmen at all, but a gang of audacious thieves, led by some technical expert."

"It looks like it," Vellacott groaned. "But how did they manage it? How on earth did they manage to get through the walls of the safe?"

"Oh, that's easy enough," the Major explained. "They came along with a covered truck, which very likely had been stolen from the Universal Electricity Company, and it would be very easy to get hold of a set of badges. See, the whole thing looks so workmanlike and methodical that the police would suspect nothing. When things are done in this cool way, people take it for granted. But don't forget that the offices of the Universal Electricity Company would be probably closed at one o'clock on Saturday, after which all the employees would be away and those chaps would have all Saturday afternoon and all Sunday to work. Then once down the manhole, within a foot of the outer wall of your strong-room, it wouldn't have taken long to clear all the earth away, and expose the steel side. And don't forget that those chaps had got a tent over the hole, under cover of which they could work without the slightest fear of interruption. They could make as much flame and as much smoke as they liked, because that always goes with electrical repairs."

"The safe," Vellacott moaned. "The safe. With a solid foot of radio-steel—"

"Yes, into which the flame of an acetylene welding plant would eat as if the steel were so much rotten cheese. And, mind you, those plants are portable. You may depend upon it that those chaps have been planning this coup for months. Really, the more I think of it, the more I admire them. And then again, look how cleverly they arranged to carry off the swag! They carry it in that covered cart of theirs, and put all their tools on the top, then they coolly push the cart through the streets of London for miles until they come to their lair. Nobody would notice them, nobody would take the slightest heed of a Corporation cart going through the streets in broad daylight. You have been the victim of an absolutely priceless fraud."

"I have," Vellacott groaned. "I have. But I mustn't sit here. I must be off to London at once."

"Yes, I suppose you must," the Major said reluctantly. "If you are going up in the car, I'll come along with you."

"That's very good of you," Vellacott said gratefully. "To tell the truth, I feel too shaky to go alone."

Apparently, the Major's diagnosis had been correct, for when the two silent voyagers reached Moorgate-st. the police had already come to their own conclusions. Inquiries at the offices of the Universal Electricity Company elicited the fact that no employees of theirs had been near Moorgate-st. on the previous Saturday. But a covered cart and certain plant were missing from their stores, and these had been discovered a few minutes ago by the police, abandoned somewhere in the north of London. It was a powerful little plant, and given the necessary time was strong enough to have eaten its way through the dome of St. Paul's.

"Neat, very neat," the Inspector said, half-admiringly. "No one seems to have seen these men, at least, not near enough to identify them. It's very hard to spot a man when he's smothered in grease and dirt, but one of my men says that their leader was a tall man and wore a black moustache."

"Ah, there you are," the Major put in presently. "Now I happened to be waiting for Mr. Vellacott, and, having nothing to do exchanged a few words with the foreman. He was a fair, blue-eyed man, with a scar on his left cheek, and was as clean shaven as I am. As to the others, I didn't notice them. But if I can do anything now, or at any future time, you can command my services. If you ran lay your hand on the right man, I can identify him fast enough."

There was little more to be said or done. For the moment the thieves had got clean away with the spoil, and though the Inspector seemed to be confident enough he had really little hope of effecting a capture. It was a dreary afternoon that the Major spent with Vellacott, and night closed down at length with nothing in the way of a clue.

"Are you going back to Sandbourne?" the Major asked.

Vellacott shook his head sorrowfully.

"I am afraid not," he said. "I have 'phoned my wife to return by train, and she is coming. I may get down to Sandbourne at the end of the week, but it is very doubtful. I simply couldn't play golf in my present distracted state of mind."

"That's natural enough," the Major agreed. "And if this little speculation of mine comes off I hope to see you at Sandwich."

And with that they parted. Vellacott to look after his business and the Major to transact some pressing affair which took him somewhere down into the East End. It was late the following evening when he found himself once more in the Majestic at Sandbourne, and, after having partaken of an exceptionally good dinner, he repaired to his bedroom, where he wrote the following letter:—

Dear Morrison,

I have the greatest pleasure in telling you that I have been eminently successful with regard to that little business of mine. I am not disposed to go into details, because they don't matter, in any case, but I told you that I strongly objected to becoming one of the Poorer Poor when there are so many Richer Rich knocking about. They are not bad fellows to dine and play golf with, but that wouldn't prevent them from squeezing the last farthing out of you tomorrow morning if you ran up against them in business. It was one of these genial swine who caused me to leave the Indian Army some years ago, with considerable celerity and secrecy, and you are one of the few men who know the story. But I swore to get my own back one of these days, and I have done it— never mind how.

To cut a long story short, you can conclude negotiations for the purchase of that bungalow, and, if you will telephone me here any time within the next two or three days. I will send my cheque along for my share. Some good golf and an occasional run up to town will satisfy my requirements for the future. So let me know directly you are ready. All the best, Yours, aye,

Philip Medway.

P.S.— I want to ask one of my friends down to Sandwich shortly. He's five handicap, and not a bad chap as business men go. He's one of the Richer Rich, but not quite so infernally so as he was last week.

__________________

17: The Shadows on the Wall

Mary E Wilkins

1852-1930

Everybody’s Magazine March 1903

'HENRY had words with Edward in the study the night before Edward died,' said Caroline Glynn.

She was elderly, tall, and harshly thin, with a hard colourlessness of face. She spoke not with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn, younger, stouter, and rosy of face between her crinkling puffs of grey hair, gasped, by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eves from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. She was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty; she filled a great rocking-chair with her superb bulk of femininity, and swayed gently back and forth, her black silks whispering and her black frills fluttering. Even the shock of death (for her brother Edward lay dead in the house), could not disturb her outward serenity of demeanour. She was grieved over the loss of her brother: he had been the youngest, and she had been fond of him, but never had Emma Brigham lost sight of her own importance amidst the waters of tribulation. She was always awake to the consciousness of her own stability in the midst of vicissitudes and the splendour of her permanent bearing.

But even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister Caroline's announcement and her sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and distress in response.

'I think Henry might have controlled his temper, when poor Edward was so near his end,' said she with an asperity which disturbed slightly the roseate curves of her beautiful mouth.

'Of course he did not know,' murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tone strangely out of keeping with her appearance.

One involuntarily looked again to be sure that such a feeble pipe came from that full-swelling chest.

'Of course he did not know it,' said Caroline quickly. She turned on her sister with a strange sharp look of suspicion. 'How could he have known it?' said she. Then she shrank as if from the other's possible answer. 'Of course you and I both know he could not,' saad she conclusively, but her pale face was paler than it had been before.

Rebecca gasped again. Be married sister, Mrs Emma Brigham, was now sitting up straight in her chair; she had ceased rocking, and was eyeing them both intently with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her face. Given one common intensity of emotion and similar lines showed forth, and the three sisters of one race were evident.

'What do you mean?' said she impartially to them both. Then she, too, seemed to shrink before a possible answer. She even laughed an evasive sort of laugh. 'I guess you don't mean anything,' said she, but her face wore still the expression of shrinking horror.

'Nobody means anything,' said Caroline firmly. She rose and crossed the room toward the door with grim decisiveness. 'Where are you going?' asked Mrs Brigham.

I have something to see to,' replied Caroline, and the others at once knew by her tone that she had some solemn and sad duty to perform in the chamber of death.

'Oh,' said Mrs Brigham.

After the door had closed behind Caroline, she turned to Rebecca.

'Did Henry have many words with him?' she asked.

'They were talking very loud,' replied Rebecca evasively, yet with an answering gleam of ready response to the other's curiosity in the quick lift of her soft blue eyes.

Mrs Brigham looked at her. She had not resumed rocking. She still sat up straight with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead, between the pretty rippling curves of her auburn hair.

'Did you— hear anything?' she asked in a low voice with a glance toward the door.

'I was just across the hall in the south parlour, and that door was open and this door ajar,' replied Rebecca with a slight flush. 'Then you must have—'

'I couldn't help it.'

'Everything?'

'Most of it.'

'What was it?'

'The old story.'

'I suppose Henry was mad, as he always was, because Edward was living on here for nothing, when he had wasted all the money father left him.'

Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door.

When Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed. 'I know how he felt,' said she. 'He had always been so prudent himself, and worked hard at his profession, and there Edward had never done anything but spend, and it must have looked to him as if Edward was living at his expense, but he wasn't.'

'No, he wasn't.'

'It was the way father left the property— that all the children should have a home here— and he left money enough to buy the food and all if we had all come home.'

'Yes.'

'And Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will, and Henry ought to have remembered it.'

'Yes, he ought.'

'Did he say hard things?'

'Pretty hard from what I heard.'

'What?'

'I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all, and he thought he had better go away.'

'What did Edward say?'

'That he would stay here as long as he lived and afterward, too, if he was a mind to, and he would like to see Henry get him out; and then—'

'What?'

'Then he laughed.'

'What did Henry say.'

'I didn't hear him say anything, but—'

'But what?'

'I saw him when he came out of this room.'

'He looked mad?'

'You've seen him when he looked so.'

Emma nodded; the expression of horror on her face had deepened. 'Do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched him?'

'Yes. Don't!'

Then Caroline re-entered the room. She went up to the stove in which a wood fire was burning— it was a cold, gloomy day of fall— and she warmed her hands, which were reddened from recent washing in cold water.

Mrs Brigham looked at her and hesitated. She glanced at the door, which was still ajar, as it did not easily shut, being still swollen with the damp weather of the summer. She rose and pushed it together with a sharp thud which jarred the house. Rebecca started painfully with a half exclamation. Caroline looked at her disapprovingly.

'It is time you controlled your nerves, Rebecca,' said she.

'I can't help it,' replied Rebecca with almost a wail. 'I am nervous. There's enough to make me so, the Lord knows.'

'What do you mean by that?' asked Caroline with her old air of sharp suspicion, and something between challenge and dread of its being met.

Rebecca shrank.

'Nothing,' said she.

'Then I wouldn't keep speaking in such a fashion.'

Emma, returning from the closed door, said imperiously that it ought to be fixed, it shut so hard.

'It will shrink enough after we have had the fire a few days,' replied Caroline. 'If anything is done to it, it will be too small; there will be a crack at the sill.'

'I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to Edward,' said Mrs Brigham abruptly, but in an almost inaudible voice.

'Hush!' said Caroline, with a glance of actual fear at the closed door. 'Nobody can hear with the door shut.'

'He must have heard it shut, and—'

'Well, I can say what I want to before he comes down, and I am not afraid of him.'

'I don't know who is afraid of him! What reason is there for anybody to be afraid of Henry?' demanded Caroline.

Mrs Brigham trembled before her sister's look. Rebecca gasped again. 'There isn't any reason, of course. Why should there be?'

'I wouldn't speak so, then. Somebody might overhear you and think it was queer. Miranda Joy is in the south parlour sewing, you know.'

'I thought she went upstairs to stitch on the machine.'

'She did, but she has come down again.'

'Well, she can't hear.'

'I say again I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself. I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it, having words with poor Edward the very night before he died. Edward was enough sight better disposition than Henry, with all his faults. I always thought a great deal of poor Edward, myself.'

Mrs Brigham passed a large fluff of handkerchief across her eyes; Rebecca sobbed outright.

'Rebecca,' said Caroline admonishingly, keeping her mouth stiff and swallowing determinately.

'I never heard him speak a cross word, unless he spoke cross to Henry that last night. I don't know, but he did from what Rebecca overheard,' said Emma.

'Not so much cross as sort of soft, and sweet, and aggravating,' sniffled Rebecca.

'He never raised his voice,' said Caroline; 'but he had his way.'

'He had a right to in this case.'

'Yes, he did.'

'He had as much of a right here as Henry,' sobbed Rebecca, 'and now he's gone, and he will never be in this home that poor father left him and the rest of us again.'

'What do you really think ailed Edward?' asked Emma in hardly more than a whisper. She did not look at her sister.

Caroline sat down in a nearby armchair, and clutched the arms convulsively until her thin knuckles whitened.

'I told you,' said she.

Rebecca held her handkerchief over her mouth, and looked at them above it with terrified, streaming eyes.

'I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach, and had spasms, but what do you think made him have them?'

'Henry called it gastric trouble. You know Edward has always had dyspepsia.'

Mrs Brigham hesitated a moment. 'Was there any talk of an— examination?' said she.

Then Caroline turned on her fiercely.

'No,' said she in a terrible voice. 'No.'

Be three sisters' souls seemed to meet on one common ground of terrified understanding through their eyes. Be old-fashioned latch of the door was heard to rattle, and a push from without made the door shake ineffectually. 'It's Henry,' Rebecca sighed rather than whispered. Mrs Brigham settled herself after a noiseless rush across the floor into her rocking-chair again, and was swaying back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back, when the door at last yielded and Henry Glynn entered. He cast a covertly sharp, comprehensive glance at Mrs Brigham with her elaborate calm; at Rebecca quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her face and only one small reddened ear as attentive as a dog's uncovered and revealing her alertness for his presence; at Caroline sitting with a strained composure in her armchair by the stove. She met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear, and defiance of the fear and of him.

Henry Glynn looked more like this sister than the others. Both had the same hard delicacy of form and feature, both were tall and almost emaciated, both had a sparse growth of grey blond hair far back from high intellectual foreheads, both had an almost noble aquilinity of feature. They confronted each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity.

Then Henry Glynn smiled and the smile transformed his face. He looked suddenly years younger, and an almost boyish recklessness and irresolution appeared in his face. He flung himself into a chair with a gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance. He leaned his head back, flung one leg over the other, and looked laughingly at Mrs Brigham.

'I declare, Emma, you grow younger every year,' he said.

She flushed a little, and her placid mouth widened at the corners. She was susceptible to praise.

'Our thoughts today ought to belong to the one of us who will never grow older,' said Caroline in a hard voice.

Henry looked at her, still smiling. 'Of course, we none of us forget that,' said he, in a deep, gentle voice, 'but we have to speak to the living, Caroline, and I have not seen Emma for a long time, and the living are as dear as the dead.'

'Not to me,' said Caroline.

She rose, and went abruptly out of the room again. Rebecca also rose and hurried after her, sobbing loudly.

Henry looked slowly after them.

'Caroline is completely unstrung,' said he.

Mrs Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his manner was stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and naturally.

'His death was very sudden,' said she.

Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving. 'Yes,' said he; 'it was very sudden. He was sick only a few hours.'

'What did you call it?'

'Gastric.'

'You did not think of an examination?'

'There was no need. I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his death.'

Suddenly Mrs Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold, before an inflection of his voice. She rose, tottering on weak knees.

'Where are you going?' asked Henry in a strange, breathless voice. Mrs Brigham said something incoherent about some sewing which she had to do, some black for the funeral, and was out of the room. She went up to the front chamber which she occupied. Caroline was there. She went close to her and took her hands, and the two sisters looked at each other.

'Don't speak, don't, I won't have it!' said Caroline finally in an awful whisper.

'I won't,' replied Emma.

THAT afternoon the three sisters were in the study, the large front room on the ground floor across the hall from the south parlour, when the dusk deepened.

Mrs Brigham was hemming some black material. She sat close to the west window for the waning light. At last she laid her work on her lap.

'It's no use, I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light,' said she.

Caroline, who was writing some letters at the table, turned to Rebecca, in her usual place on the sofa.

'Rebecca, you had better get a lamp,' she said.

Rebecca started up; even in the dusk her face showed her agitation. 'It doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet,' she said in a piteous, pleading voice like a child's.

'Yes, we do,' returned Mrs Brigham peremptorily. 'We must have a light. I must finish this tonight or I can't go to the funeral, and I can't see to sew another stitch.'

'Caroline can see to write letters, and she is further from the window than you are,' said Rebecca.

'Are you trying to save kerosene or are you lazy, Rebecca Glynn?' cried Mrs Brigham. 'I can go and get the light myself, but I have this work all in my lap.'

Caroline's pen stopped scratching.

'Rebecca, we must have the light,' said she.

'Had we better have it in here?' asked Rebecca weakly. 'Of course! Why not?' cried Caroline sternly.

'I am sure I don't want to take my sewing into the other room, when it is all cleaned up for tomorrow,' said Mrs Brigham.

'Why, I never heard such a to-do about lighting a lamp.'

Rebecca rose and left the room. Presently she entered with a lamp— a large one with a white porcelain shade. She set it on a table, an old-fashioned card-table which was placed against the opposite wall from the window. That wall was clear of bookcases and books, which were only on three sides of the room. That opposite wall was taken up with three doors, the one small space being occupied by the table. Above the table on the old-fashioned paper, of a white satan gloss, traversed by an indeterminate green scroll, hung quite high a small gilt and black-framed ivory miniature taken in her girlhood of the mother of the family. When the lamp was set on the table beneath it, the tiny, pretty face painted on the ivory seemed to gleam out with a look of intelligence.

'What have you put that lamp over there for?' asked Mrs Brigham, with more of impatience than her voice usually revealed. 'Why didn't you set it in the hall and have done with it. Neither Caroline nor I can see if it is on that table.'

'I thought perhaps you would move,' replied Rebecca hoarsely.

'If I do move, we can't both sit at that table. Caroline has her paper all spread around. Why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the middle of the room, then we can both see?'

Rebecca hesitated. Her face was very pale. She looked with an appeal that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline.

'Why don't you put the lamp on this table, as she says?' asked Caroline, almost fiercely. 'Why do you act so, Rebecca?'

'I should think you would ask her that,' said Mrs Brigham. 'She doesn't act like herself at all.'

Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the room without another word. Then she turned her back upon it quickly and seated herself on the sofa, and placed a hand over her eyes as if to shade them, and remained so.

'Does the light hurt your eyes, and is that the reason why you didn't want the lamp?' asked Mrs Brigham kindly.

'I always like to sit in the dark,' replied Rebecca chokingly. Then she snatched her handkerchief hastily from her pocket and began to weep. Caroline continued to write, Mrs Brigham to sew.

Suddenly Mrs Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite wall. Her glance became a steady stare. She looked intently, her work suspended in her hands. Then she looked away again and took a few more stitches, then she looked again, and again turned to her task. At last she laid her work in her lap and stared concentratedly. She looked from the wall around the room, taking note of the various objects; she looked at the wall long and intently. Ben she turned to her sisters.

'What is that?' said she.

'What?' asked Caroline harshly; her pen scratched loudly across the paper.

Rebecca gave one of her convulsive gasps.

'That strange shadow on the wall,' replied Mrs Brigham.

Rebecca sat with her face hidden: Caroline dipped her pen in the inkstand.

'Why don't you turn around and look?' asked Mrs Brigham in a wondering and somewhat aggrieved way.

'I am in a hurry to finish this letter, if Mrs Wilson Ebbit is going to get word in time to come to the funeral,' replied Caroline shortly.

Mrs Brigham rose, her work slipping to the floor, and she began walking around the room, moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on the shadow.

Then suddenly she shrieked out:

'Look at this awful shadow! What is it? Caroline, look, look! Rebecca, look! What is it?'

All Mrs Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone. Her handsome face was livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow.

'Look!' said she, pointing her finger at it. 'Look! What is it?' Then Rebecca burst out in a wild wail after a shuddering glance at the wall:

'Oh, Caroline, there it is again! There it is again!'

'Caroline Glynn, you look!' said Mrs Brigham. 'Look! What is that dreadful shadow?'

Caroline rose, turned, and stood confronting the wall.

'How should I know?' she said.

'It has been there every night since he died,' cried Rebecca.

'Every night?'

'Yes. He died Thursday and this is Saturday; that makes three nights,' said Caroline rigidly. She stood as if holding herself calm with a vise of concentrated will.

'It— it looks like— like—' stammered Mrs Brigham in a tone of intense horror.

'I know what it looks like well enough,' said Caroline. 'I've got eyes in my head.'

'It looks like Edward,' burst out Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear.

'Only—'

'Yes, it does,' assented Mrs Brigham, whose horror-stricken tone matched her sister's, 'only— Oh, it is awful! What is it, Caroline?'

'I ask you again, how should I know?' replied Caroline. 'I see it there like you. How should I know any more than you?'

'It must be something in the room,' said Mrs Brigham, staring wildly around.

'We moved everything in the room the first night it came,' said Rebecca;'it is not anything in the room.'

Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury. 'Of course it is somethingin the room,' said she. 'How you act! What do you mean by talking so? Of course it is something in the room.'

'Of course, it is,' agreed Mrs Brigham, looking at Caroline suspiciously.

'Of course it must be. It is only a coincidence. It just happens so. Perhaps it is that fold of the window curtain that makes it. It must be something in the room.'

'It is not anything in the room,' repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror.

The door opened suddenly and Henry Glynn entered. He began to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of the others'. He stood stock still staring at the shadow on the wall. It was life size and stretched across the white parallelogram of a door, half across the wall space on which the picture hung.

'What is that?' he demanded in a strange voice.

'It must be due to something in the room,' Mrs Brigham said faintly.

'It is not due to anything in the room,' said Rebecca again with the shrill insistency of terror.

'How you act, Rebecca Glynn,' said Caroline.

Henry Glynn stood and stared a moment longer. His face showed a gamut of emotions— horror, conviction, then furious incredulity. Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered.

'It must be something in the room!' he declared in a voice which seemed to snap like a lash.

His face changed. The inmost secrecy of his nature seemed evident until one almost lost sight of his lineaments. Rebecca stood close to her sofa, regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes. Mrs Brigham clutched Caroline's hand. Bey both stood in a corner out of his way. For a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal. He moved every piece of furniture; when the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow, he flung it to the floor, the sisters watching.

Then suddenly he desisted. He laughed and began straightening the furniture which he had flung down.

'What an absurdity,' he said easily. 'Such a to-do about a shadow.'

'That's so,' assented Mrs Brigham, in a scared voice which she tried to make natural. As she spoke she lifted a chair near her.

'I think you have broken the chair that Edward was so fond of,' said Caroline.

Terror and wrath were struggling for expression on her face. Her mouth was set, her eyes shrinking. Henry lifted the chair with a show of anxiety.

'Just as good as ever,' he said pleasantly. He laughed again, looking at his sisters. Did I scare you?' he said. I should think you might be used to me by this time. You know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery, and that shadow does look— queer, like— and I thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to without any delay.'

'You don't seem to have succeeded,' remarked Caroline drily, with a slight glance at the wall.

Henry's eyes followed hers and he quivered perceptibly.

'Oh, there is no accounting for shadows,' he said, and he laughed again. 'A man is a fool to try to account for shadows.'

Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room, but Henry kept his back to the wall, as did, indeed, the others.

Mrs Brigham pressed close to Caroline as she crossed the hall. 'He looked like a demon!' she breathed in her ear.

Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy; Rebecca brought up the rear; she could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so.

'I can't sit in that room again this evening,' she whispered to Caroline after supper.

'Very well, we will sit in the south room,' replied Caroline. 'I think we will sit in the south parlour,' she said aloud; 'it isn't as damp as the study, and I have a cold.'

So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry read the newspaper, his chair drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nine o'clock he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The three sisters looked at one another. Mrs Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly around her, and began tiptoeing toward the door.

'What are you going to do?' enquired Rebecca agitatedly.

'I am going to see what he is about,' replied Mrs Brigham cautiously. She pointed as she spoke to the study door across the hall; it was ajar. Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed. It was still ajar and a streak of light showed from top to bottom. The hall lamp was not lit.

'You had better stay where you are,' said Caroline with guarded sharpness.

'I am going to see,' repeated Mrs Brigham firmly.

Then she folded her skirts so tightly that her bulk with its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slow toddle across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye at the crack.

In the south room Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated eyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs Brigham, standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this:

Henry Glynn, evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow must be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall, was making systematic passes and thrusts all over and through the intervening space with an old sword which had belonged to his father. Not an inch was left unpierced. He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold fury and calculation; the blade gave out flashes of light, the shadow remained unmoved. Mrs Brigham, watching, felt herself cold with horror.

Finally Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall threateningly. Mrs Brigham toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her before she related what she had seen.

'He looked like a demon!' she said again. 'Have you got any of that old wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I could stand much more.'

Indeed, she looked overcome. Her handsome placid face was worn and strained and pale.

'Yes, there's plenty,' said Caroline; 'you can have some when you go to bed.'

'I think we had all better take some,' said Mrs Brigham. 'Oh, my God, Caroline, what—'

'Don't ask and don't speak,' said Caroline.

'No, I am not going to,' replied Mrs Brigham; 'but—'

Rebecca moaned aloud.

'What are you doing that for?' asked Caroline harshly.

'Poor Edward,' returned Rebecca.

'That is all you have to groan for,' said Caroline. 'There is nothing else.'

'I am going to bed,' said Mrs Brigham. 'I sha'n't be able to be at the funeral if I don't.'

Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlour was deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the light before he came upstairs. Bey had been gone about an hour when he came into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He set it on the table and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was terrible, his fair complexion showed livid; his blue eyes seemed dark blanks of awful reflections.

Then he took the lamp up and returned to the library. He set the lamp on the centre table, and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon the wall. It was midnight before he went up stairs. Mrs Brigham and the other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.

The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the south room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until Henry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for the night. He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before the light.

The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he had to go to the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He very seldom left home, and just now his practice had been neglected on account of Edward's death. He was a physician.

'How can you leave your patients now?' asked Mrs Brigham wonderingly.

'I don't know how to, but there is no other way,' replied Henry easily. 'I have had a telegram from Doctor Mitford.'

'Consultation?' enquired Mrs Brigham.

'I have business,' replied Henry.

Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighbouring city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.

After he had gone Mrs Brigham said to Caroline that after all Henry had not said that he was going to consult with Doctor Mitford, and she thought it very strange.

'Everything is very strange,' said Rebecca with a shudder.

'What do you mean?' enquired Caroline sharply.

'Nothing,' replied Rebecca.

Nobody entered the library that day, nor the next, nor the next. The third day Henry was expected home, but he did not arrive and the last train from the city had come.

'I call it pretty queer work,' said Mrs Brigham. 'The idea of a doctor leaving his patients for three days anyhow, at such a time as this, and I know he has some very sick ones; he said so. And the idea of a consultation lasting three days! There is no sense in it, and now he has not come. I don't understand it, for my part.'

'I don't either,' said Rebecca.

They were all in the south parlour. There was no light in the study opposite, and the door was ajar.

Presently Mrs Brigham rose— she could not have told why; something seemed to impel her, some will outside her own. She went out of the room, again wrapping her rustling skirts around that she might pass noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study.

'She has not got any lamp,' said Rebecca in a shaking voice. Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took a lamp (there were two in the room) and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen, but she stood trembling, not venturing to follow.

The doorbell rang, but the others did not hear it; it was on the south door on the other side of the house from the study. Rebecca, after hesitating until the bell rang the second time, went to the door; she remembered that the servant was out.

Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set the lamp on the table. Bey looked at the wall. 'Oh, my God,' gasped Mrs Brigham, 'there are— there are two— shadows.' The sisters stood clutching each other, staring at the awful things on the wall. Then Rebecca came in, staggering, with a telegram in her hand. 'Here is— a telegram,' she gasped. 'Henry is— dead.'

________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-64

The "Author Index" to Issues 1-60 has now been uploaded separately.

Achmed Abdullah

The Mystery of the Talking Idols 63

Anonymous

The Diamond Necklace 62

The Great Auk's Egg Affair 61

The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin 64

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

John Arthur Barry

The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid"  64

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

E. F. Benson

Negotium Perambulans  64

Christopher B. Booth

Mr Clackworthy Collects 63

Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic 64

Mr Clackworthy Sells Short  63

Solly's Last Forgery 64

When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer 64

B. M. Bower

The Ghost in the Red Shirt  63

Max Brand

Five Minutes to Twelve 61

Honor Bright 64

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

Peter Cheyney

Dance Without Music  64

Sylvanus Cobb, Jun.

The Bottomless Jug  64

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

R. Austin Freeman & Clifford Piers

By the Black Deep  64

Arthur Gask

Strychnine for Village Dogs 62

Theophile Gautier

The Mummy's Foot 62

George Gilbert

In Maulmain Fever-Ward  63

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wallpaper  64

Why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" 64

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

In the Dark 64

Number 17    61

Fitz-James O'Brien

The Wondersmith  64

Vincent O'Sullivan

The Business of Madame Jahn  64

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

Fred Merrick White

Early Closing Day  64

Victor L. Whitechurch

The Convict's Revenge  61

How the Captain Tracked a German Spy 61

In a Tight Fix 61

Mary E Wilkins

The Shadows on the Wall  64

______________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

- 2: Why I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

- 3: Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic / Christopher B. Booth

- 4: The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid" / John Arthur Barry

- 5: Dance Without Music / Peter Cheyney
- 6: The Wondersmith / Fitz-James O'Brien
- 7: In the Dark / Edith Nesbit

- 8: The Business of Madame Jahn / Vincent O'Sullivan

- 9: Honor Bright / Max Brand

- 10: The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin / Anonymous

- 11: When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer / Christopher B. Booth

- 12: Negotium Perambulans / E. F. Benson

- 13: Solly's Last Forgery / Christopher B. Booth

- 14: The Bottomless Jug / Sylvanus Cobb, Jun.

- 15: By the Black Deep / R. Austin Freeman & Clifford Piers

- 16: Early Closing Day / Fred Merrick White

- 17: The Shadows on the Wall / Mary E Wilkins

- Cumulative Index 61-64