PAST MASTERS

SEVENTY-ONE

3 April 2022

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Good Lady Ducayne / Mary Elizabeth Braddon

2: Money to Burns / H. C. Witwer

3: The Door / Henry S. Whitehead

4: Obit: Henry St. Clair Whitehead / H.P. Lovecraft

5: Holy Poker / Irving Bacheller

6: The Prodigal Village / Irving Bacheller

7: The Open Window / Charles Caldwell Dobie

8: The Shining Pyramid / Arthur Machen

9: Just Like a Cat / Ellis Parker Butler

10: The Stamp Thief / Anonymous

11: The Hat Trick / Anonymous

12: The Thriller / Anonymous

13: Captain Rogers / W. W. Jacobs

14: While on Remand / Valentine Gregory

15: Third Time Unlucky / Valentine Gregory

16: Faith, Hope and Charity / Irvin S. Cobb

Cumulative Index #61-71

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1: Good Lady Ducayne

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

1835-1915

The Strand Magazine Feb 1896

BELLA ROLLESTON HAD MADE up her mind that her only chance of earning her bread and helping her mother to an occasional crust was by going out into the great unknown world as companion to a lady. She was willing to go to any lady rich enough to pay her a salary and so eccentric as to wish for a hired companion. Five shillings told off reluctantly from one of those sovereigns which were so rare with the mother and daughter, and which melted away so quickly, five solid shillings, had been handed to a smartly-dressed lady in an office in Harbeck Street, London, W., in the hope that this very Superior Person would find a situation and a salary for Miss Rolleston. The Superior Person glanced at the two half-crowns as they lay on the table where Bella's hand had placed them, to make sure they were neither of them florins, before she wrote a description of Bella's qualifications and requirements in a formidable-looking ledger.

"Age?" she asked, curtly.

"Eighteen, last July."

"Any accomplishments?"

"No; I am not at all accomplished. If I were I should want to be a governess— a companion seems the lowest stage."

"We have some highly accomplished ladies on our books as companions, or chaperon companions."

"Oh, I know!" babbled Bella, loquacious in her youthful candor. "But that is quite a different thing. Mother hasn't been able to afford a piano since I was twelve years old, so I'm afraid I've forgotten how to play. And I have had to help mother with her needlework, so there hasn't been much time to study."

"Please don't waste time upon explaining what you can't do, but kindly tell me anything you can do," said the Superior Person, crushingly, with her pen poised between delicate fingers waiting to write. "Can you read aloud for two or three hours at a stretch? Are you active and handy, an early riser, a good walker, sweet tempered, and obliging?"

"I can say yes to all those questions except about the sweetness. I think I have a pretty good temper, and I should be anxious to oblige anybody who paid for my services. I should want them to feel that I was really earning my salary."

"The kind of ladies who come to me would not care for a talkative companion," said the Person, severely, having finished writing in her book. "My connection lies chiefly among the aristocracy, and in that class considerable deference is expected."

"Oh, of course," said Bella; "but it's quite different when I'm talking to you. I want to tell you all about myself once and forever."

"I am glad it is to be only once!" said the Person, with the edges of her lips.

The Person was of uncertain age, tightly laced in a black silk gown. She had a powdery complexion and a handsome clump of somebody else's hair on the top of her head. It may be that Bella's girlish freshness and vivacity had an irritating effect upon nerves weakened by an eight-hour day in that overheated second floor in Harbeck Street. To Bella the official apartment, with its Brussels carpet, velvet curtains and velvet chairs, and French clock, ticking loud on the marble chimney-piece, suggested the luxury of a palace, as compared with another second floor in Walworth where Mrs. Rolleston and her daughter had managed to exist for the last six years.

"Do you think you have anything on your books that would suit me?" faltered Bella, after a pause.

"Oh, dear, no; I have nothing in view at present," answered the Person, who had swept Bella's half-crowns into a drawer, absentmindedly, with the tips of her fingers. "You see, you are so very unformed— so much too young to be companion to a lady of position. It is a pity you have not enough education for a nursery governess; that would be more in your line."

"And do you think it will be very long before you can get me a situation?" asked Bella, doubtfully.

"I really cannot say. Have you any particular reason for being so impatient— not a love affair, I hope?"

"A love affair!" cried Bella, with flaming cheeks. "What utter nonsense. I want a situation because mother is poor, and I hate being a burden to her. I want a salary that I can share with her."

"There won't be much margin for sharing in the salary you are likely to get at your age— and with your— very— unformed manners," said the Person, who found Bella's peony cheeks, bright eyes, and unbridled vivacity more and more oppressive.

"Perhaps if you'd be kind enough to give me back the fee I could take it to an agency where the connection isn't quite so aristocratic," said Bella, who— as she told her mother in her recital of the interview— was determined not to be sat upon.

"You will find no agency that can do more for you than mine," replied the Person, whose harpy fingers never relinquished coin. "You will have to wait for your opportunity. Yours is an exceptional case: but I will bear you in mind, and if anything suitable offers I will write to you. I cannot say more than that."

The half-contemptuous bend of the stately head, weighted with borrowed hair, indicated the end of the interview. Bella went back to Walworth— tramped sturdily every inch of the way in the September afternoon— and "took off" the Superior Person for the amusement of her mother and the landlady, who lingered in the shabby little sitting-room after bringing in the tea-tray, to applaud Miss Rolleston's "taking off."

"Dear, dear, what a mimic she is!" said the landlady. "You ought to have let her go on the stage, mum. She might have made her fortune as an actress."

ii

BELLA waited and hoped, and listened for the postman's knocks which brought such store of letters for the parlors and the first floor, and so few for that humble second floor, where mother and daughter sat sewing with hand and with wheel and treadle, for the greater part of the day. Mrs. Rolleston was a lady by birth and education; but it had been her bad fortune to marry a scoundrel; for the last half-dozen years she had been that worst of widows, a wife whose husband had deserted her. Happily, she was courageous, industrious, and a clever needlewoman; and she had been able just to earn a living for herself and her only child, by making mantles and cloaks for a West-end house. It was not a luxurious living. Cheap lodgings in a shabby street off the Walworth Road, scanty dinners, homely food, well-worn raiment, had been the portion of mother and daughter; but they loved each other so dearly, and Nature had made them both so light-hearted, that they had contrived somehow to be happy.

But now this idea of going out into the world as companion to some fine lady had rooted itself into Bella's mind, and although she idolized her mother, and although the parting of mother and daughter must needs tear two loving hearts into shreds, the girl longed for enterprise and change and excitement, as the pages of old longed to be knights, and to start for the Holy Land to break a lance with the infidel.

She grew tired of racing downstairs every time the postman knocked, only to be told "nothing for you, miss," by the smudgy-faced drudge who picked up the letters from the passage floor. "Nothing for you, miss," grinned the lodging-house drudge, till at last Bella took heart of grace and walked up to Harbeck Street, and asked the Superior Person how it was that no situation had been found for her.

"You are too young," said the Person, "and you want a salary."

"Of course I do," answered Bella; "don't other people want salaries?"

"Young ladies of your age generally want a comfortable home."

"I don't," snapped Bella: "I want to help mother."

"You can call again this day week," said the Person; "or, if I hear of anything in the meantime, I will write to you."

No letter came from the Person, and in exactly a week Bella put on her neatest hat, the one that had been seldomest caught in the rain, and trudged off to Harbeck Street.

It was a dull October afternoon, and there was a greyness in the air which might turn to fog before night. The Walworth Road shops gleamed brightly through that grey atmosphere, and though to a young lady reared in Mayfair or Belgravia such shop-windows would have been unworthy of a glance, they were a snare and temptation for Bella. There were so many things that she longed for, and would never be able to buy.

Harbeck Street is apt to be empty at this dead season of the year, a long, long street, an endless perspective of eminently respectable houses. The Person's office was at the further end, and Bella looked down that long, grey vista almost despairingly, more tired than usual with the trudge from Walworth. As she looked, a carriage passed her, an old-fashioned, yellow chariot, on C-springs, drawn by a pair of high grey horses, with the stateliest of coachmen driving them, and a tall footman sitting by his side.

"It looks like the fairy godmother's coach," thought Bella. "I shouldn't wonder if it began by being a pumpkin."

It was a surprise when she reached the Person's door to find the yellow chariot standing before it, and the tall footman waiting near the doorstep. She was almost afraid to go in and meet the owner of that splendid carriage. She had caught only a glimpse of its occupant as the chariot rolled by, a plumed bonnet, a patch of ermine.

The Person's smart page ushered her upstairs and knocked at the official door. "Miss Rolleston," he announced, apologetically, while Bella waited outside.

"Show her in," said the Person, quickly; and then Bella heard her murmuring something in a low voice to her client.

Bella went in fresh, blooming, a living image of youth and hope, and before she looked at the Person her gaze was riveted by the owner of the chariot.

Never had she seen anyone as old as the old lady sitting by the Person's fire: a little old figure, wrapped from chin to feet in an ermine mantle; a withered, old face under a plumed bonnet— a face so wasted by age that it seemed only a pair of eyes and a peaked chin. The nose was peaked, too, but between the sharply pointed chin and the great, shining eyes, the small, aquiline nose was hardly visible.

"This is Miss Rolleston, Lady Ducayne."

Claw-like fingers, flashing with jewels, lifted a double eyeglass to Lady Ducayne's shining black eyes, and through the glasses Bella saw those unnaturally bright eyes magnified to a gigantic size, and glaring at her awfully.

"Miss Torpinter has told me all about you," said the old voice that belonged to the eyes. "Have you good health? Are you strong and active, able to eat well, sleep well, walk well, able to enjoy all that there is good in life?"

"I have never known what it is to be ill, or idle," answered Bella.

"Then I think you will do for me."

"Of course, in the event of references being perfectly satisfactory," put in the Person.

"I don't want references. The young woman looks frank and innocent. I'll take her on trust."

"So like you, dear Lady Ducayne," murmured Miss Torpinter.

"I want a strong young woman whose health will give me no trouble."

"You have been so unfortunate in that respect," cooed the Person, whose voice and manner were subdued to a melting sweetness by the old woman's presence.

"Yes, I've been rather unlucky," grunted Lady Ducayne.

"But I am sure Miss Rolleston will not disappoint you, though certainly after your unpleasant experience with Miss Tomson, who looked the picture of health— and Miss Blandy, who said she had never seen a doctor since she was vaccinated—"

"Lies, no doubt," muttered Lady Ducayne, and then turning to Bella, she asked, curtly, "You don't mind spending the winter in Italy, I suppose?"

In Italy! The very word was magical. Bella's fair young face flushed crimson.

"It has been the dream of my life to see Italy," she gasped.

From Walworth to Italy! How far, how impossible such a journey had seemed to that romantic dreamer.

"Well, your dream will be realized. Get yourself ready to leave Charing Cross by the train deluxe this day week at eleven. Be sure you are at the station a quarter before the hour. My people will look after you and your luggage."

Lady Ducayne rose from her chair, assisted by her crutch-stick, and Miss Torpinter escorted her to the door.

"And with regard to salary?" questioned the Person on the way.

"Salary, oh, the same as usual— and if the young woman wants a quarter's pay in advance you can write to me for a check," Lady Ducayne answered, carelessly.

Miss Torpinter went all the way downstairs with her client, and waited to see her seated in the yellow chariot. When she came upstairs again she was slightly out of breath, and she had resumed that superior manner which Bella had found so crushing.

"You may think yourself uncommonly lucky, Miss Rolleston," she said. "I have dozens of young ladies on my books whom I might have recommended for this situation— but I remembered having told you to call this afternoon— and I thought I would give you a chance. Old Lady Ducayne is one of the best people on my books. She gives her companion a hundred a year, and pays all traveling expenses. You will live in the lap of luxury."

"A hundred a year! How too lovely! Shall I have to dress very grandly? Does Lady Ducayne keep much company?"

"At her age! No, she lives in seclusion— in her own apartments— her French maid, her footman, her medical attendant, her courier."

"Why did those other companions leave her?" asked Bella.

"Their health broke down!"

"Poor things, and so they had to leave?"

"Yes, they had to leave. I suppose you would like a quarter's salary in advance?"

"Oh, yes, please. I shall have things to buy."

"Very well, I will write for Lady Ducayne's check, and I will send you the balance— after deducting my commission for the year."

"To be sure, I had forgotten the commission."

"You don't suppose I keep this office for pleasure."

"Of course not," murmured Bella, remembering the five shillings entrance fee; but nobody could expect a hundred a year and a winter in Italy for five shillings.

iii

FROM MISS ROLLESTON, AT Cap Ferrino, to Mrs. Rolleston, in Beresford Street, Walworth, London.

How I wish you could see this place, dearest; the blue sky, the olive woods, the orange and lemon orchards between the cliffs and the sea— sheltering in the hollow of the great hills— and with summer waves dancing up to the narrow ridge of pebbles and weeds which is the Italian idea of a beach! Oh, how I wish you could see it all, mother dear, and bask in this sunshine, that makes it so difficult to believe the date at the head of this paper. November! The air is like an English June— the sun is so hot that I can't walk a few yards without an umbrella. And to think of you at Walworth while I am here! I could cry at the thought that perhaps you will never see this lovely coast, this wonderful sea, these summer flowers that bloom in winter. There is a hedge of pink geraniums under my window, mother— a thick, rank hedge, as if the flowers grew wild— and there are Dijon roses climbing over arches and palisades all along the terrace— a rose garden full of bloom in November! Just picture it all! You could never imagine the luxury of this hotel. It is nearly new, and has been built and decorated regardless of expense. Our rooms are upholstered in pale blue satin, which shows up Lady Ducayne's parchment complexion; but as she sits all day in a corner of the balcony basking in the sun, except when she is in her carriage, and all the evening in her armchair close to the fire, and never sees anyone but her own people, her complexion matters very little.

She has the handsomest suite of rooms in the hotel. My bedroom is inside hers, the sweetest room— all blue satin and white lace— white enameled furniture, looking-glasses on every wall, till I know my pert little profile as I never knew it before. The room was really meant for Lady Ducayne's dressing-room, but she ordered one of the blue satin couches to be arranged as a bed for me— the prettiest little bed, which I can wheel near the window on sunny mornings, as it is on casters and easily moved about. I feel as if Lady Ducayne were a funny old grandmother, who had suddenly appeared in my life, very, very rich, and very, very kind.

She is not at all exacting. I read aloud to her a good deal, and she dozes and nods while I read. Sometimes I hear her moaning in her sleep— as if she had troublesome dreams. When she is tired of my reading she orders Francine, her maid, to read a French novel to her, and I hear her chuckle and groan now and then, as if she were more interested in those books than in Dickens or Scott. My French is not good enough to follow Francine, who reads very quickly. I have a great deal of liberty, for Lady Ducayne often tells me to run away and amuse myself; I roam about the hills for hours. Everything is so lovely. I lose myself in olive woods, always climbing up and up towards the pine woods above— and above the pines there are the snow mountains that just show their white peaks above the dark hills. Oh, you poor dear, how can I ever make you understand what this place is like— you, whose poor, tired eyes have only the opposite side of Beresford Street? Sometimes I go no farther than the terrace in front of the hotel, which is a favorite lounging-place with everybody. The gardens lie below, and the tennis courts where I sometimes play with a very nice girl, the only person in the hotel with whom I have made friends. She is a year older than I, and has come to Cap Ferrino with her brother, a doctor— or a medical student, who is going to be a doctor. He passed his M.B. exam. at Edinburgh just before they left home, Lotta told me. He came to Italy entirely on his sister's account. She had a troublesome chest attack last summer and was ordered to winter abroad. They are orphans, quite alone in the world, and so fond of each other. It is very nice for me to have such a friend as Lotta. She is so thoroughly respectable. I can't help using that word, for some of the girls in this hotel go on in a way that I know you would shudder at. Lotta was brought up by an aunt, deep down in the country, and knows hardly anything about life. Her brother won't allow her to read a novel, French or English, that he has not read and approved.

"He treats me like a child," she told me, "but I don't mind, for it's nice to know somebody loves me, and cares about what I do, and even about my thoughts."

Perhaps this is what makes some girls so eager to marry— the want of someone strong and brave and honest and true to care for them and order them about. I want no one, mother darling, for I have you, and you are all the world to me. No husband could ever come between us two. If I ever were to marry he would have only the second place in my heart. But I don't suppose I ever shall marry, or even know what it is like to have an offer of marriage. No young man can afford to marry a penniless girl nowadays. Life is too expensive.

Mr. Stafford, Lotta's brother, is very clever, and very kind. He thinks it is rather hard for me to have to live with such an old woman as Lady Ducayne, but then he does not know how poor we are— you and I— and what a wonderful life this seems to me in this lovely place. I feel a selfish wretch for enjoying all my luxuries, while you, who want them so much more than I, have none of them— hardly know what they are like— do you, dearest?— for my scamp of a father began to go to the dogs soon after you were married, and since then life has been all trouble and care and struggle for you.

This letter was written when Bella had been less than a month at Cap Ferrino, before the novelty had worn off the landscape, and before the pleasure of luxurious surroundings had begun to cloy. She wrote to her mother every week, such long letters as girls who have lived in closest companionship with a mother alone can write; letters that are like a diary of heart and mind. She wrote gaily always; but when the new year began Mrs. Rolleston thought she detected a note of melancholy under all those lively details about the place and the people.

"My poor girl is getting homesick," she thought. "Her heart is in Beresford Street."

It might be that she missed her new friend and companion, Lotta Stafford, who had gone with her brother for a little tour to Genoa and Spezia, and as far as Pisa. They were to return before February; but in the meantime Bella might naturally feel very solitary among all those strangers, whose manners and doings she described so well.

The mother's instinct had been true. Bella was not so happy as she had been in that first flush of wonder and delight which followed the change from Walworth to the Riviera. Somehow, she knew not how, lassitude had crept upon her. She no longer loved to climb the hills, no longer flourished her orange stick in sheer gladness of heart as her light feet skipped over the rough ground and the coarse grass on the mountainside. The odor of rosemary and thyme, the fresh breath of the sea, no longer filled her with rapture. She thought of Beresford Street and her mother's face with a sick longing. They were so far— so far away! And then she thought of Lady Ducayne, sitting by the heaped-up olive logs in the overheated salon— thought of that wizened-nutcracker profile, and those gleaming eyes, with an invincible horror.

Visitors at the hotel had told her that the air of Cap Ferrino was relaxing— better suited to age than to youth, to sickness than to health. No doubt it was so. She was not so well as she had been at Walworth; but she told herself that she was suffering only from the pain of separation from the dear companion of her girlhood, the mother who had been nurse, sister, friend, flatterer, all things in this world to her. She had shed many tears over that parting, had spent many a melancholy hour on the marble terrace with yearning eyes looking westward, and with her heart's desire a thousand miles away.

She was sitting in her favorite spot, an angle at the eastern end of the terrace, a quiet little nook sheltered by orange trees, when she heard a couple of Riviera habitués talking in the garden below. They were sitting on a bench against the terrace wall.

She had no idea of listening to their talk, till the sound of Lady Ducayne's name attracted her, and then she listened without any thought of wrong-doing. They were talking no secrets— just casually discussing a hotel acquaintance.

They were two elderly people whom Bella only knew by sight. An English clergyman who had wintered abroad for half his lifetime; a stout, comfortable, well-to-do spinster, whose chronic bronchitis obliged her to migrate annually.

"I have met her about Italy for the last ten years," said the lady; "but have never found out her real age."

"I put her down at a hundred— not a year less," replied the parson. "Her reminiscences all go back to the Regency. She was evidently then in her zenith; and I have heard her say things that showed she was in Parisian society when the First Empire was at its best— before Josephine was divorced."

"She doesn't talk much now."

"No; there's not much life left in her. She is wise in keeping herself secluded. I only wonder that wicked old quack, her Italian doctor, didn't finish her off years ago."

"I should think it must be the other way, and that he keeps her alive."

"My dear Miss Manders, do you think foreign quackery ever kept anybody alive?"

"Well, there she is— and she never goes anywhere without him. He certainly has an unpleasant countenance."

"Unpleasant," echoed the parson, "I don't believe the foul fiend himself can beat him in ugliness. I pity that poor young woman who has to live between old Lady Ducayne and Dr. Parravicini."

"But the old lady is very good to her companions."

"No doubt. She is very free with her cash; the servants call her good Lady Ducayne. She is a withered old female Croesus, and knows she'll never be able to get through her money, and doesn't relish the idea of other people enjoying it when she's in her coffin. People who live to be as old as she is become slavishly attached to life. I daresay she's generous to those poor girls— but she can't make them happy. They die in her service."

"Don't say they, Mr. Carton; I know that one poor girl died at Mentone last spring."

"Yes, and another poor girl died in Rome three years ago. I was there at the time. Good Lady Ducayne left her there in an English family. The girl had every comfort. The old woman was very liberal to her— but she died. I tell you, Miss Manders, it is not good for any young woman to live with two such horrors as Lady Ducayne and Parravicini."

They talked of other things— but Bella hardly heard them. She sat motionless, and a cold wind seemed to come down upon her from the mountains and to creep up to her from the sea, till she shivered as she sat there in the sunshine, in the shelter of the orange trees in the midst of all that beauty and brightness.

Yes, they were uncanny, certainly, the pair of them— she so like an aristocratic witch in her withered old age; he of no particular age, with a face that was more like a waxen mask than any human countenance Bella had ever seen. What did it matter? Old age is venerable, and worthy of all reverence; and Lady Ducayne had been very kind to her. Dr. Parravicini was a harmless, inoffensive student, who seldom looked up from the book he was reading. He had his private sitting-room, where he made experiments in chemistry and natural science— perhaps in alchemy. What could it matter to Bella? He had always been polite to her, in his far-off way. She could not be more happily placed than she was— in this palatial hotel, with this rich old lady.

No doubt she missed the young English girl who had been so friendly, and it might be that she missed the girl's brother, for Mr. Stafford had talked to her a good deal— had interested himself in the books she was reading, and her manner of amusing herself when she was not on duty.

"You must come to our little salon when you are 'off,' as the hospital nurses call it, and we can have some music. No doubt you play and sing?" Upon which Bella had to own with a blush of shame that she had forgotten how to play the piano ages ago.

"Mother and I used to sing duets sometimes between the lights, without accompaniment," she said, and the tears came into her eyes as she thought of the humble room, the half-hour's respite from work, the sewing machine standing where a piano ought to have been, and her mother's plaintive voice, so sweet, so true, so dear.

Sometimes she found herself wondering whether she would ever see that beloved mother again. Strange forebodings came into her mind. She was angry with herself for giving way to melancholy thoughts.

One day she questioned Lady Ducayne's French maid about those two companions who had died within three years.

"They were poor, feeble creatures," Francine told her. "They looked fresh and bright enough when they came to Milady; but they ate too much, and they were lazy. They died of luxury and idleness. Milady was too kind to them. They had nothing to do; and so they took to fancying things; fancying the air didn't suit them, that they couldn't sleep."

"I sleep well enough, but I have had a strange dream several times since I have been in Italy."

"Ah, you had better not begin to think about dreams, or you will be like those other girls. They were dreamers— and they dreamt themselves into the cemetery."

The dream troubled her a little, not because it was a ghastly or frightening dream, but on account of sensations which she had never felt before in sleep— a whirring of wheels that went round in her brain, a great noise like a whirlwind, but rhythmical like the ticking of a gigantic clock: and then in the midst of this uproar as of winds and waves she seemed to sink into a gulf of unconsciousness, out of sleep into far deeper sleep— total extinction. And then, after that black interval, there had come the sound of voices, and then again the whirr of wheels, louder and louder— and again the black— and then she awoke, feeling languid and oppressed.

She told Dr. Parravicini of her dream one day, on the only occasion when she wanted his professional advice. She had suffered rather severely from the mosquitoes before Christmas— and had been almost frightened at finding a wound upon her arm which she could only attribute to the venomous sting of one of these torturers. Parravicini put on his glasses, and scrutinized the angry mark on the round, white arm, as Bella stood before him and Lady Ducayne with her sleeve rolled up above her elbow.

"Yes, that's rather more than a joke," he said; "he has caught you on the top of a vein. What a vampire! But there's no harm done, signorina, nothing that a little dressing of mine won't heal. You must always show me any bite of this nature. It might be dangerous if neglected. These creatures feed on poison and disseminate it."

"And to think that such tiny creatures can bite like this," said Bella; "my arm looks as if it had been cut by a knife."

"If I were to show you a mosquito's sting under my microscope you wouldn't be surprised at that," replied Parravicini.

Bella had to put up with the mosquito bites, even when they came on the top of a vein, and produced that ugly wound. The wound recurred now and then at longish intervals, and Bella found Dr. Parravicini's dressing a speedy cure. If he were the quack his enemies called him, he had at least a light hand and a delicate touch in performing this small operation.

"Bella Rolleston to Mrs. Rolleston— April 14th.

EVER DEAREST,

Behold the check for my second quarter's salary— five and twenty pounds. There is no one to pinch off a whole tenner for a year's commission as there was last time, so it is all for you, mother, dear. I have plenty of pocket-money in hand from the cash I brought away with me, when you insisted on my keeping more than I wanted. It isn't possible to spend money here— except on occasional tips to servants, or sous to beggars and children— unless one had lots to spend, for everything one would like to buy— tortoise-shell, coral, lace— is so ridiculously dear that only a millionaire ought to look at it. Italy is a dream of beauty: but for shopping, give me Newington Causeway.

You ask me so earnestly if I am quite well that I fear my letters must have been very dull lately. Yes, dear, I am well— but I am not quite so strong as I was when I used to trudge to the West-end to buy half a pound of tea— just for a constitutional walk— or to Dulwich to look at the pictures. Italy is relaxing; and I feel what the people here call "slack." But I fancy I can see your dear face looking worried as you read this. Indeed, and indeed, I am not ill. I am only a little tired of this lovely scene— as I suppose one might get tired of looking at one of Turner's pictures if it hung on a wall that was always opposite one. I think of you every hour in every day— think of you and our homely little room— our dear little shabby parlor, with the armchairs from the wreck of your old home, and Dick singing in his cage over the sewing machine. Dear, shrill, maddening Dick, who, we flattered ourselves, was so passionately fond of us. Do tell me in your next letter that he is well.

My friend Lotta and her brother never came back after all. They went from Pisa to Rome. Happy mortals! And they are to be on the Italian lakes in May; which lake was not decided when Lotta last wrote to me. She has been a charming correspondent, and has confided all her little flirtations to me. We are all to go to Bellaggio next week— by Genoa and Milan. Isn't that lovely? Lady Ducayne travels by the easiest stages— except when she is bottled up in the train deluxe. We shall stop two days at Genoa and one at Milan. What a bore I shall be to you with my talk about Italy when I come home.

Love and love— and ever more love from your adoring,

BELLA.

iv

HERBERT STAFFORD AND HIS sister had often talked of the pretty English girl with her fresh complexion, which made such a pleasant touch of rosy color among all those sallow faces at the Grand Hotel. The young doctor thought of her with a compassionate tenderness— her utter loneliness in that great hotel where there were so many people, her bondage to that old, old woman, where everybody else was free to think of nothing but enjoying life. It was a hard fate; and the poor child was evidently devoted to her mother, and felt the pain of separation— "only two of them, and very poor, and all the world to each other," he thought.

Lotta told him one morning that they were to meet again at Bellaggio. "The old thing and her court are to be there before we are," she said. "I shall be charmed to have Bella again. She is so bright and gay— in spite of an occasional touch of homesickness. I never took to a girl on a short acquaintance as I did to her."

"I like her best when she is homesick," said Herbert; "for then I am sure she has a heart."

"What have you to do with hearts, except for dissection? Don't forget that Bella is an absolute pauper. She told me in confidence that her mother makes mantles for a West-end shop. You can hardly have a lower depth than that."

"I shouldn't think any less of her if her mother made matchboxes."

"Not in the abstract— of course not. Matchboxes are honest labor. But you couldn't marry a girl whose mother makes mantles."

"We haven't come to the consideration of that question yet," answered Herbert, who liked to provoke his sister.

In two years' hospital practice he had seen too much of the grim realities of life to retain any prejudices about rank. Cancer, phthisis, gangrene, leave a man with little respect for the humanity. The kernel is always the same— fearfully and wonderfully made— a subject for pity and terror.

Mr. Stafford and his sister arrived at Bellaggio in a fair May evening. The sun was going down as the steamer approached the pier; and all that glory of purple bloom which curtains every wall at this season of the year flushed and deepened in the glowing light. A group of ladies were standing on the pier watching the arrivals, and among them Herbert saw a pale face that startled him out of his wonted composure.

"There she is," murmured Lotta, at his elbow, "but how dreadfully changed. She looks a wreck."

They were shaking hands with her a few minutes later, and a flush had lighted up her poor pinched face in the pleasure of meeting.

"I thought you might come this evening," she said. "We have been here a week."

She did not add that she had been there every evening to watch the boat in, and a good many times during the day. The Grand Bretagne was close by, and it had been easy for her to creep to the pier when the boat bell rang. She felt a joy in meeting these people again; a sense of being with friends; a confidence which Lady Ducayne's goodness had never inspired in her.

"Oh, you poor darling, how awfully ill you must have been," exclaimed Lotta, as the two girls embraced.

Bella tried to answer, but her voice was choked with tears.

"What has been the matter, dear? That horrid influenza, I suppose?"

"No, no, I have not been ill— I have only felt a little weaker than I used to be. I don't think the air of Cap Ferrino quite agreed with me."

"It must have disagreed with you abominably. I never saw such a change in anyone. Do let Herbert doctor you. He is fully qualified, you know. He prescribed for ever so many influenza patients at the Londres. They were glad to get advice from an English doctor in a friendly way."

"I am sure he must be very clever!" faltered Bella, "but there is really nothing the matter. I am not ill, and if I were ill, Lady Ducayne's physician—"

"That dreadful man with the yellow face? I would as soon one of the Borgias prescribed for me. I hope you haven't been taking any of his medicines."

"No, dear, I have taken nothing. I have never complained of being ill."

This was said while they were all three walking to the hotel. The Staffords' rooms had been secured in advance, pretty ground-floor rooms, opening into the garden. Lady Ducayne's statelier apartments were on the floor above.

"I believe these rooms are just under ours," said Bella.

"Then it will be all the easier for you to run down to us," replied Lotta, which was not really the case, as the grand staircase was in the center of the hotel.

"Oh, I shall find it easy enough," said Bella. "I'm afraid you'll have too much of my society. Lady Ducayne sleeps away half the day in this warm weather, so I have a good deal of idle time; and I get awfully moped thinking of mother and home."

Her voice broke upon the last word. She could not have thought of that poor lodging which went by the name of home more tenderly had it been the most beautiful that art and wealth ever created. She moped and pined in this lovely garden, with the sunlit lake and the romantic hills spreading out their beauty before her. She was homesick and she had dreams; or, rather, an occasional recurrence of that one bad dream with all its strange sensations— it was more like a hallucination than dreaming— the whirring of wheels, the sinking into an abyss, the struggling back to consciousness. She had the dream shortly before she left Cap Ferrino, but not since she had come to Bellaggio, and she began to hope the air in this lake district suited her better, and that those strange sensations would never return.

Mr. Stafford wrote a prescription and had it made up at the chemist's near the hotel. It was a powerful tonic, and after two bottles, and a row or two on the lake, and some rambling over the hills and in the meadows where the spring flowers made earth seem paradise, Bella's spirits and looks improved as if by magic.

"It is a wonderful tonic," she said, but perhaps in her heart of hearts she knew that the doctor's kind voice, and the friendly hand that helped her in and out of the boat, and the lake, had something to do with her cure.

"I hope you don't forget that her mother makes mantles," Lotta said warningly.

"Or matchboxes; it is just the same thing, so far as I am concerned."

"You mean that in no circumstances could you think of marrying her?"

"I mean that if ever I love a woman well enough to think of marrying her, riches or rank will count for nothing with me. But I fear— I fear your poor friend may not live to be any man's wife."

"Do you think her so very ill?"

He sighed, and left the question unanswered.

One day, while they were gathering wild hyacinths in an upland meadow, Bella told Mr. Stafford about her bad dream.

"It is curious only because it is hardly like a dream," she said. "I daresay you could find some commonsense reason for it. The position of my head on my pillow, or the atmosphere, or something."

And then she described her sensations; how in the midst of sleep there came a sudden sense of suffocation; and then those whirring wheels, so loud, so terrible; and then a blank, and then a coming back to waking consciousness.

"Have you ever had chloroform given you— by a dentist, for instance?"

"Never— Dr. Parravicini asked me that question one day."

"Lately?"

"No, long ago, when we were in the train deluxe."

"Has Dr. Parravicini prescribed for you since you began to feel weak and ill?"

"Oh, he has given me a tonic from time to time, but I hate medicine, and took very little of the stuff. And then I am not ill, only weaker than I used to be. I was ridiculously strong and well when I lived at Walworth, and used to take long walks every day. Mother made me take those tramps to Dulwich or Norwood, for fear I should suffer from too much sewing machine; sometimes— but very seldom— she went with me. She was generally toiling at home while I was enjoying fresh air and exercise. And she was very careful about our food— that, however plain it was, it should be always nourishing and ample. I owe it to her care that I grew up such a great, strong creature."

"You don't look great or strong now, you poor dear," said Lotta.

"I'm afraid Italy doesn't agree with me."

"Perhaps it is not Italy, but being cooped up with Lady Ducayne that has made you ill."

"But I am never cooped up. Lady Ducayne is absurdly kind, and lets me roam about or sit in the balcony all day if I like. I have read more novels since I have been with her than in all the rest of my life."

"Then she is very different from the average old lady, who is usually a slave driver," said Stafford. "I wonder why she carries a companion about with her if she has so little need of society."

"Oh, I am only part of her state. She is inordinately rich— and the salary she gives me doesn't count. Apropos of Dr. Parravicini, I know he is a clever doctor, for he cures my horrid mosquito bites."

"A little ammonia would do that, in the early stage of the mischief. But there are no mosquitoes to trouble you now."

"Oh, yes, there are; I had a bite just before we left Cap Ferrino." She pushed up her loose lawn sleeve, and exhibited a scar, which he scrutinized intently, with a surprised and puzzled look.

"This is no mosquito bite," he said.

"Oh, yes, it is— unless there are snakes or adders at Cap Ferrino."

"It is not a bite at all. You are trifling with me. Miss Rolleston— you have allowed that wretched Italian quack to bleed you. They killed the greatest man in modern Europe that way, remember. How very foolish of you."

"I was never bled in my life, Mr. Stafford."

"Nonsense! Let me look at your other arm. Are there any more mosquito bites?"

"Yes; Dr. Parravicini says I have a bad skin for healing, and that the poison acts more virulently with me than with most people."

Stafford examined both her arms in the broad sunlight, scars new and old.

"You have been very badly bitten, Miss Rolleston," he said, "and if ever I find the mosquito I shall make him smart. But, now tell me, my dear girl, on your word of honor, tell me as you would tell a friend who is sincerely anxious for your health and happiness— as you would tell your mother if she were here to question you— have you no knowledge of any cause for these scars except mosquito bites— no suspicion even?"

"No, indeed! No, upon my honor! I have never seen a mosquito biting my arm. One never does see the horrid little fiends. But I have heard them trumpeting under the curtains and I know that I have often had one of the pestilent wretches buzzing about me."

Later in the day Bella and her friends were sitting at tea in the garden, while Lady Ducayne took her afternoon drive with her doctor.

"How long do you mean to stop with Lady Ducayne, Miss Rolleston?" Herbert Stafford asked, after a thoughtful silence, breaking suddenly upon the trivial talk of the two girls.

"As long as she will go on paying me twenty-five pounds a quarter."

"Even if you feel your health breaking down in her service?"

"It is not the service that has injured my health. You can see that I have really nothing to do— to read aloud for an hour or so once or twice a week; to write a letter once in a while to a London tradesman. I shall never have such an easy time with anybody. And nobody else would give me a hundred a year."

"Then you mean to go on till you break down; to die at your post?"

"Like the other two companions? No! If ever I feel seriously ill— really ill— I shall put myself in a train and go back to Walworth without stopping."

"What about the other two companions?"

"They both died. It was very unlucky for Lady Ducayne. That's why she engaged me; she chose me because I was ruddy and robust. She must feel rather disgusted at my having grown white and weak. By-the-bye, when I told her about the good your tonic had done me, she said she would like to see you and have a little talk with you about her own case."

"And I should like to see Lady Ducayne. When did she say this?"

"The day before yesterday."

"Will you ask her if she will see me this evening?"

"With pleasure! I wonder what you will think of her? She looks rather terrible to a stranger; but Dr. Parravicini says she was once a famous beauty."

It was nearly ten o'clock when Mr. Stafford was summoned by message from Lady Ducayne, whose courier came to conduct him to her ladyship's salon. Bella was reading aloud when the visitor was admitted; and he noticed the languor in the low, sweet tones, the evident effort.

"Shut up the book," said the querulous old voice. "You are beginning to drawl like Miss Blandy."

Stafford saw a small, bent figure crouching over the piled-up olive logs; a shrunken old figure in a gorgeous garment of black and crimson brocade, a skinny throat emerging from a mass of old Venetian lace, clasped with diamonds that flashed like fireflies as the trembling old head turned towards him.

The eyes that looked at him out of the face were almost as bright as the diamonds— the only living feature in that narrow parchment mask. He had seen terrible faces in the hospital— faces on which disease had set dreadful marks— but he had never seen a face that impressed him so painfully as this withered countenance, with its indescribable horror of death outlived, a face that should have been hidden under a coffin-lid years and years ago.

The Italian physician was standing on the other side of the fireplace, smoking a cigarette, and looking down at the little old woman brooding over the hearth as if he were proud of her.

"Good evening, Mr. Stafford; you can go to your room, Bella, and write your everlasting letter to your mother at Walworth," said Lady Ducayne. "I believe she writes a page about every wild flower she discovers in the woods and meadows. I don't know what else she can find to write about," she added, as Bella quietly withdrew to the pretty little bedroom opening out of Lady Ducayne's spacious apartment. Here, as at Cap Ferrino, she slept in a room adjoining the old lady's.

"You are a medical man, I understand, Mr. Stafford."

"I am a qualified practitioner, but I have not begun to practice."

"You have begun upon my companion, she tells me."

"I have prescribed for her, certainly, and I am happy to find my prescription has done her good; but I look upon that improvement as temporary. Her case will require more drastic treatment."

"Never mind her case. There is nothing the matter with the girl— absolutely nothing— except girlish nonsense; too much liberty and not enough work."

"I understand that two of your ladyship's previous companions died of the same disease," said Stafford, looking first at Lady Ducayne, who gave her tremulous old head an impatient jerk, and then at Parravicini, whose yellow complexion had paled a little under Stafford's scrutiny.

"Don't bother me about my companions, sir," said Lady Ducayne. "I sent for you to consult you about myself— not about a parcel of anemic girls. You are young, and medicine is a progressive science, the newspapers tell me. Where have you studied?"

"In Edinburgh— and in Paris."

"Two good schools. And know all the new-fangled theories, the modern discoveries— that remind one of the medieval witchcraft, of Albertus Magnus, and George Ripley; you have studied hypnotism— electricity?"

"And the transfusion of blood," said Stafford, very slowly, looking at Parravicini.

"Have you made any discovery that teaches you to prolong human life— any elixir— any mode of treatment? I want my life prolonged, young man. That man there has been my physician for thirty years. He does all he can to keep me alive— after his lights. He studies all the new theories of all the scientists— but he is old; he gets older every day— his brainpower is going— he is bigoted— prejudiced— can't receive new ideas— can't grapple with new systems. He will let me die if I am not on my guard against him."

"You are of an unbelievable ingratitude, Ecclenza," said Parravicini.

"Oh, you needn't complain. I have paid you thousands to keep me alive. Every year of my life has swollen your hoards; you know there is nothing to come to you when I am gone. My whole fortune is left to endow a home for indigent women of quality who have reached their ninetieth year. Come, Mr. Stafford, I am a rich woman. Give me a few years more in the sunshine, a few years more aboveground, and I will give you the price of a fashionable London practice— I will set you up at the West-End."

"How old are you, Lady Ducayne?"

"I was born the day Louis XVI was guillotined."

"Then I think you have had your share of the sunshine and the pleasures of the earth, and that you should spend your few remaining days in repenting your sins and trying to make atonement for the young lives that have been sacrificed to your love of life."

"What do you mean by that, sir?"

"Oh, Lady Ducayne, need I put your wickedness and your physician's still greater wickedness in plain words? The poor girl who is now in your employment has been reduced from robust health to a condition of absolute danger by Dr. Parravicini's experimental surgery; and I have no doubt those other two young women who broke down in your service were treated by him in the same manner. I could take upon myself to demonstrate— by most convincing evidence, to a jury of medical men— that Dr. Parravicini has been bleeding Miss Rolleston after putting her under chloroform, at intervals, ever since she has been in your service. The deterioration in the girl's health speaks for itself; the lancet marks upon the girl's arms are unmistakable; and her description of a series of sensations, which she calls a dream, points unmistakably to the administration of chloroform while she was sleeping. A practice so nefarious, so murderous, must, if exposed, result in a sentence only less severe than the punishment of murder."

"I laugh," said Parravicini, with an airy motion of his skinny fingers; "I laugh at once at your theories and at your threats. I, Parravicini Leopold, have no fear that the law can question anything I have done."

"Take the girl away, and let me hear no more of her," cried Lady Ducayne, in the thin, old voice, which so poorly matched the energy and fire of the wicked old brain that guided its utterances. "Let her go back to her mother— I want no more girls to die in my service. There are girls enough and to spare in the world, God knows."

"If you ever engage another companion— or take another English girl into your service, Lady Ducayne, I will make all England ring with the story of your wickedness."

"I want no more girls. I don't believe in his experiments. They have been full of danger for me as well as for the girl— an air bubble, and I should be gone. I'll have no more of his dangerous quackery. I'll find some new man— a better man than you, sir, a discoverer like Pasteur, or Virchow, a genius— to keep me alive. Take your girl away, young man. Marry her if you like. I'll write a check for a thousand pounds, and let her go and live on beef and beer, and get strong and plump again. I'll have no more such experiments. Do you hear, Parravicini?" she screamed, vindictively, the yellow, wrinkled face distorted with fury, the eyes glaring at him.

THE STAFFORDS carried Bella Rolleston off to Varese next day, she very loath to leave Lady Ducayne, whose liberal salary afforded such help for the dear mother. Herbert Stafford insisted, however, treating Bella as coolly as if he had been the family physician, and she had been given over wholly to his care.

"Do you suppose your mother would let you stop here to die?" he asked. "If Mrs. Rolleston knew how ill you are, she would come post haste to fetch you."

"I shall never be well again till I get back to Walworth," answered Bella, who was low-spirited and inclined to tears this morning, a reaction after her good spirits of yesterday.

"We'll try a week or two at Varese first," said Stafford. "When you can walk halfway up Monte Generoso without palpitation of the heart, you shall go back to Walworth."

"Poor mother, how glad she will be to see me, and how sorry that I've lost such a good place."

This conversation took place on the boat when they were leaving Bellaggio. Lotta had gone to her friend's room at seven o'clock that morning, long before Lady Ducayne's withered eyelids had opened to the daylight, before even Francine, the French maid, was astir, and had helped to pack a Gladstone bag with essentials, and hustled Bella downstairs and out of doors before she could make any strenuous resistance.

"It's all right," Lotta assured her. "Herbert had a good talk with Lady Ducayne last night, and it was settled for you to leave this morning. She doesn't like invalids, you see."

"No," sighed Bella, "she doesn't like invalids. It was very unlucky that I should break down, just like Miss Tomson and Miss Blandy."

"At any rate, you are not dead, like them," answered Lotta, "and my brother says you are not going to die."

IT SEEMED rather a dreadful thing to be dismissed in that offhand way, without a word of farewell from her employer.

"I wonder what Miss Torpinter will say when I go to her for another situation," Bella speculated, ruefully, while she and her friends were breakfasting on board the steamer.

"Perhaps you may never want another situation," said Stafford.

"You mean that I may never be well enough to be useful to anybody?"

"No, I don't mean anything of the kind."

It was after dinner at Varese, when Bella had been induced to take a whole glass of Chianti, and quite sparkled after that unaccustomed stimulant, that Mr. Stafford produced a letter from his pocket.

"I forgot to give you Lady Ducayne's letter of adieu!" he said.

"What, did she write to me? I am so glad— I hated to leave her in such a cool way; for after all she was very kind to me, and if I didn't like her it was only because she was too dreadfully old."

She tore open the envelope. The letter was short and to the point:—

Goodbye, child. Go and marry your doctor. I enclose a farewell gift for your trousseau.

— ADELINE DUCAYNE

"A hundred pounds, a whole year's salary— no— why, it's for a— a check for a thousand!" cried Bella. "What a generous old soul! She really is the dearest old thing."

"She just missed being very dear to you, Bella," said Stafford.

He had dropped into the use of her Christian name while they were on board the boat. It seemed natural now that she was to be in his charge till they all three went back to England.

"I shall take upon myself the privileges of an elder brother till we land at Dover," he said; "after that— well, it must be as you please."

The question of their future relations must have been satisfactorily settled before they crossed the Channel, for Bella's next letter to her mother communicated three startling facts.

First, that the inclosed check for £1,000 was to be invested in debenture stock in Mrs. Rolleston's name, and was to be her very own, income and principal, for the rest of her life.

Next, that Bella was going home to Walworth immediately.

And last, that she was going to be married to Mr. Herbert Stafford in the following autumn.

"And I am sure you will adore him, mother, as much as I do," wrote Bella.

"It is all good Lady Ducayne's doing. I never could have married if I had not secured that little nest-egg for you. Herbert says we shall be able to add to it as the years go by, and that wherever we live there shall be always a room in our house for you. The word mother-in-law has no terrors for him."

___________________

2: Money To Burns

H. C. Witwer

1880-1929

Cosmopolitan, August 1923

"When fortune favors a man too much, she makes him a fool!"

NEITHER Napoleon, Nero, Alexander, Jack Johnson, Mark Antony nor Bill Hohenzollern was the composer of that remark, though, honest, I bet they all thought it about the time the world was giving them the air. However, the boy who originally pulled the above wise crack was Mr. Publius Syrus, a master mind current in dear old Syria during the fiscal year of 77 B.C. Two thousand annums after Publius gave up the struggle, Jimmy Burns, a professional bellhop— age, twenty; color, white; nationality, Broadway-American— decided to find out for himself whether or not Pubby's statement was true. It is! Loll back in the old easy chair for about approximately a half-hour and I'll do my stuff. Perhaps you don't know me, as Eve coyly remarked to Adam, so taking advantage of your good nature I'll introduce myself. I'm Gladys Murgatroyd, a switchboard operator at the Hotel St. Moe. I was slipped into the cradle under the name of Mary Ellen Johnson, but as that smacks more of the kitchen than the drawing-room, I changed that label some time ago to the Gladys Murgatroyd thing, which I admit sounds phony— still, I'm a phone girl, so what could be sweeter?

However, one morning during a slight lull in the daily hostilities between me and the number-seeking guests, I am reading my favorite book— the Morning Squawk, the newspaper that made the expression "It is alleged" famous, or maybe it was the other way around. Spattered all over the front page is a highly sensational account of the latest adventures of one of these modern prodigal sons— in round numbers, Carlton Van Ryker, whose father celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday by entering a tomb in a horizontal position and leaving his only progeny two paltry $500,000 bank notes. The young millionaire with the name like a Pullman car and a soft collar had been stepping high, wide and fast with his pennies and at the time of going to press was the plot of an "alienation of my wife's affections" suit, a badly mismanaged shooting affair, and various other things that would keep his mind off the weather for quite a spell. While I'm drinking all this in with my lustrous orbs, along comes Mons. James Joseph Aloysius Burns, who was either the hero of this episode in my exciting career, or else he wasn't.

Although I've known Jimmy Burns for the worst part of two years, we're still good friends, both of us being refugees from the land of Utah. My home town was the metropolis of Bountiful, where I once won a beauty contest single-handed, and James fled from Salt Lake City, where smoking cigarettes is the same as throwing rocks at the President, in the eyes of the genial authorities.

But to get to the business of the meeting— Jimmy sported a sarcastical sneer as he approached my switchboard on this particular morning.

"Kin you feature a cuckoo like this dizzy Van Ryker havin' all that sugar," he snorts, nodding angrily at the newspaper, "whilst us regular white folks is got to slave like Uncle Tom or we don't eat? Is that fair?"

"Cheer up, Jimmy," I says with a smile. "We don't get much money, that's a fact, but then we can laugh out loud. That's more than Van Ryker can do! Look at the pushing around he's getting because he hauled oil and inherited a million, poor fellow; he—"

"That mug was ru'ned by too much jack!" butts in Jimmy. "He's what you call a weak sister. He wasn't built to handle important money— you got to be born that way! Knowin' how to spend money is a gift. I got the gift, but I ain't got the money!"

"And you never will have the money, frittering away your life hopping bells in a hotel, Jamesy— not to give you a short answer," I says. "When they assembled you they left out the motor— ambition!"

"Blah!" says Jimmy courteously. "That's what you think. I got plenty ambition. My ambition is to wake up every morning for the rest of my life with a twenty-dollar bill in my kick! Believe me, Cutey, I often wish I was a Wall Street bond messenger, a bootlegger or even a professional reformer— but I ain't never had a shot at no big dough like that. Why, if it was rainin' tomato bouillon, I'd be there with a knife instead of a spoon!"

"As if that would stop you!" I remark sweetly. I once saw James eat. "It seems to me you're always craving excitement," I went on, dealing out some wrong numbers. "Only last week you told me you had a massage."

"Go ahead and kid me," says Jimmy. "You should bite your nails— you're a woman, a good looker with more curves than a scenic railway, and they ain't no way you kin lose! But it's different here. It seems to me I beep workin' for a livin' since the doc says 'It's a boy!' and the chances is I'll be workin' for a livin' till the doc says 'Get the embalmer'!"

Don't you love that?

"Why don't you check out of the bell-hopping game and try your luck at something with a future in it?" I ask him, though, really, I'm about as interested in Jimmy's biography as I am in the election returns at Tokyo. "If I was a man, this town wouldn't have me licked!"

"Apple sauce!" sneers Jimmy politely. "A guy without money has got the same chance in New York as a ferryboat salesman would have on the Sara Desert. It takes jack to make jack. With a bank roll I could make my name as well known as Jonah's, and I'd spot him his whale!"

"What do you do with your nickels?" I ask him. "I don't doubt that Chaplin and Fairbanks get more wages than you bellboys, but I thought your tips ran into better figures than they have in the Follies."

"Say, cutey, be yourself!" says James scornfully. "Most of the eggs in this trap is as tight as the skin on a grape— they wouldn't give a thin dime to see Tut-ankh-Amen walk up Fifth Avenoo on his hands! I could be railroaded to Sing Sing for what I think of them babies. Why should I have to carry suitcases and hustle ice water for a lot of monkeys like that?"

"Don't put on dog, Jimmy," I smile. "The guests of the St. Moe are every bit as good as you are, even if you are a haughty bellhop and they are lowly millionaires. Suppose you had a million, what would you do with it?"

"Well," says Jimmy thoughtfully, "the first thing I'd do wouldst be to get me a education— not that I'm no dumb Isaac by no means, but they's a few lessons like algeometry, matriculation, mock geography and the like which I could use. I wouldn't get all tangled up with no wild women or pull none of the raw stuff which this Van Ryker jobbie done, that's a cinch! They'd be no horseplay what the so ever, as far as I was concerned. What I'd do wouldst be to crash into some business, make my pile and my name and not do no playin' around till I was about fifty and independent for life. Ain't it a crime when I got them kind of intentions to make good and no nonsense about it, that somebody don't slip me a million?"

"It's an outrage, Jimmy," I agree, allowing a giggle to break jail. "Still, all men are born equal and if it's actually possible that you haven't got a million, why, you must have thrown your chances away. When Eddie Windsor was your age, for instance, he had made himself Prince of Wales!"

"Me and him begin life in a different type of cradle!" says Jimmy. "And that stuff about everybody bein' equal when they're born is the oyster's ice skates. The only way me and them wealthy millionaires was even at birth is that we was all babies!"

This debate between me and Jimmy was about like Adam and a monkey arguing over which of 'em was our first ancestor— we could have found plenty of people to side with both of us. Then again, the customers was beginning to snap into it for the day and craved the voice with the smile. I got as busy at the switchboard as a custard pie salesman on a movie comedy lot, so I gave the money-mad James the air for the time being.

A couple of weeks later, or maybe it was a jolly old fortnight, Hon. Guy Austin Tower returns from a voyage to Europe, and then the fun began! Maybe you all haven't had the unusual pleasure of meeting my boy friend, so with your kind permission I'll introduce him.

This handsome young metropolitan sheik is a millionaire of the first water, a full-blooded playwright, one of my wildest admirers, and a guest at the Hotel St. Moe. Guy would be a face card in any deck— he's a real fellow, no fooling. Even the parboiled Jimmy Burns, who thinks everybody guilty till proved innocent, is one of Guy's fans. Guy just sprays Jimmy and the rest of the hired help with princely tips and doesn't dime them to death, as most of the other inmates do.

Like Carlton Van Ryker, Guy was left about everything but Lake Michigan when his male parent entered the obituary column, but unlike Van Ryker, Guy didn't let his millions make him a clown. He wanted to carve his own way on our popular planet, so he simply forgot about his warehouse full of doubloons and took up the trade of writing plays. As he's got two frolics running on Broadway now, you could hardly call him a bust.

Well, when Guy came back from overseas he got a welcome from the St. Moe staff that would have tickled a political boss. Honestly, he brought something back for everybody! What he brought back for me was some perfectly gorgeous Venetian lace and his sixty-fifth request that I renounce the frivolous pleasures of the telephone switchboard and enter matrimony.

I accepted the lace, which drove my girl friend, Hazel Killian, wild with envy, but on the wedding bells I claimed exemption. I like Guy, but I'm by no means in love with him— or with anyone else! From what I've been able to observe on my perch at the St. Moe switchboard, there's a bit too much "moan" in matrimony, and, really, I get no more thrill out of contemplating marriage than Noah would get out of contemplating Niagara Falls. I've seen too much of it! I do get a kick, though, out of my daily struggle to remain a campfire girl and still keep from dying of too little fun. The swarming lobby of any costly Gotham hotel is the favorite hunting grounds of snips that pass in the night, always looking for the best of it— lounge lizards, synthetic sheiks of all ages and others too humorous to mention. Any young, well dressed member of my much advertised sex who doesn't resemble a gorilla is their legitimate prey, and trying to discourage 'em is like trying to discourage the anti-drys. But I got their number— being a phone girl, that's my job, isn't it? I meet five hundred representatives of the sillier sex every day, and it's a hobby of mine to treat 'em all with equal chilly politeness till they get out of line. Then I turn off the politeness, just giving 'em the chill, and honest, when I want to be cold— which is generally— I'd turn a four-alarm fire into an iceberg with a glance!

However, there are a lot of yawns connected with plugging a telephone switchboard day by day in every way, and now and then a male will come along sufficiently interesting for little Gladys to accept temporarily as an accomplice in the assassination of time.

Dinners, dances, theaters, this and that— nothing my mother and I couldn't laugh over, so don't curl your lip!

Well, Guy Tower hadn't been back in the St. Moe a week when he began showering attentions on me from the point where he left off before he sailed away. Honestly, he dinnered and theatered me silly! Hazel Killian watched me carelessly toy with this good-looking young gold mine with unconcealed feelings of covetousness. She simply couldn't understand why I didn't grab this boon from Heaven and marry him while he was stupefied with my charms. Hazel, who is an artists' model and no eyesore herself, is suffering from a lifelong ambition to become a bird in a gilded cage. She craves a millionaire, and in desperation she offered to match coins with me for Guy, but I indignantly refused. I know Hazel— she's a dear, but she'd have Rockefeller penniless in a month and every shop on Fifth Avenue sporting a "Closed to Restock" sign. She's just a pretty baby who loves to go buy and she makes 'em give till it hurts, don't think she doesn't!

Another person who got upset over Guy's inability to keep away from me was Jerry Murphy, house sleuth at the St. Moe. Jerry's so big that if he had numbers on him he'd look like a box car, and he's just another male I can get all dizzied up with a properly manipulated eye and smile. Really, he's not a bad fellow, but as a detective he's a blank cartridge. He couldn't catch pneumonia if it was against the law not to have it. Jerry don't know what it's all about and never will, because he's too thick between the ears to ask and nobody will tell him. He hangs around my switchboard like a hungry collie around a kitchen and he's just as eager; but I'm not collecting losers, so Jerry's meaningless to me. My bounding around with Guy fills Jerry with pain and alarm and he keeps me supplied with laughs by constantly warning me of the pitfalls and temptations that surround a little telephone girl who steps out with a millionaire. "If 'at big mock orange makes one out-of-the-way crack to you, cutey, just tip me off and I'll ruin him!" says Jerry with a menacing growl. "I can't cuddle up to the idea of you goin' out with him all the time. Don't let him go to work and lure you somewheres away from easy callin' distance of help!"

"Cut yourself a piece of cake!" I says. "Mister Tower is a perfect gentleman, Jerry, and it would be impossible for him to act like anything else if he and I were alone on an island in the middle of the Pacific."

"Say, listen, cutey,'" says Jerry, wincing, "don't mention 'at alone-on-a-island stuff in my presence! 'At's what I been dreamin' about me and you for a year. If we ever get on a ship together, I'll wreck it as sure as you're born!"

Now, isn't he a scream?

Well, at one of our dinner dates about a month after his return, Guy shows up haggard and wan and apparently all in. Generally a fellow who couldn't do enough for his stomach, he ordered this night with the enthusiasm of a steak fiend week-ending at a vegetarian friend's. When the nourishment arrived, Guy just dallied and toyed with it. Afterwards we favored the dance floor with a visit, and instead of tripping his usual wicked ballroom he acted like he had an anvil in each of his pumps. A dozen times during the evening he had to tap back a yawn, and really I began to get steamed up. I'm not used to seeing my boy friends pass out on me!

"I hope I'm not keeping you awake, Mr. Tower," I remarked frigidly as we returned to our table and the nineteenth yawn slipped right through his fingers, in spite of his well meant attempt to push it back.

"Forgive me!" says Guy quickly, and a flush brings some color to his face for the first time that night. "I— the fact is, Gladys, I don't believe I've had a dozen hours' sleep in the past week!"

"Then you've been cheating," I smile, "for you've always left me around midnight. Is she a blonde or a brunette, or have you noticed?"

Guy laughs and, leaning over, pats my hand.

"As if I would ever notice any girl but you!" he says, getting daringly original. "Oh, it isn't a girl, Gladys— though there is a woman at the bottom of the thing, at that. I'll explain that paradoxical statement. Rosenblum wants my next play to open his new Thalia Theater, which will be completed within two months— and I haven't the ghost of an idea, not the semblance of a plot! I've paced the floor like a caged animal, smoking countless cigarettes and drinking oceans of black coffee. I've written steadily for hours at a stretch and then torn the whole business up in disgust. That's what's kept me awake at night— that and my daily battles with this infernal Rosenblum!"

"How come?" I ask him in surprise. "I don't see the percentage in battling with the man who puts your plays on Broadway, Guy."

"He wants me to write a risqué farce, one of those loathsome— er— pardon me— bedroom things for Yvette D'Lys," says Guy angrily, "and I ab-so-lute-ly will not do it! I refuse to prostitute my art for the sordid box office! I—"

"Hold everything!" I butt in. "Shakespeare wasn't below writing bedroom farces, and I think even you'll admit that he got some favorable mention as a playwright."

"Shakespeare write a bedroom farce!" gasps Guy. "Why, my dear girl, you— which of his marvelous plays could you possibly twist into that?"

"Othello," I says promptly. "In act five they clown all over the boudoir! You should go to the theater oftener."

For a second Guy looks puzzled, then he grins and the lines around his navy-blue eyes relax.

"You are delightful," he says. "If I cannot get mental stimulus from you, then I am indeed uninspired! Nevertheless, I am not going to do as Rosenblum requests. I have never written anything salacious or even suggestive, and I never will! Furthermore, I don't believe Miss D'Lys or any actress likes to play that kind of a part. It is managers of the Rosenblum type that force those rôles on them— callous, dollar-grabbing, cynical pessimists, who take it for granted that all women are bad!"

"Any man who takes it for granted that all women are bad is no pessimist, Guy," I says thoughtfully. "He's an optimist!"

"Great!" says Guy, slapping the table with his hand. "May I use that epigram in my play?"

"I'll loan it to you," I tell him. "If I break out with the writing rash myself some day, I'll want it back. And now let me hear some of the ideas you tore up in disgust— maybe one of them is the real McCoy. Trot 'em out and I'll give you my honest opinion."

Well, he did and I did. Guy rattled off a half-dozen plots, which failed to thicken and merely sickened. Honestly, they had everything in 'em but the Battle of Gettysburg, and really they were fearful— about as new and exciting as a beef stew, which is just what I told him, being a truthful girl.

Guy sighs and looks desperate.

"Gladys," he says, "I simply must have a play ready to open the Thalia in less than eight weeks! You know that my interest in playwriting is anything but mercenary— good heavens, I have more money than I know what to do with. What I want is to see my name on another Broadway success, and I'm absolutely barren of ideas! I've simply struck a dry spell, such as all writers do, occasionally. At this moment I'd give twenty-five thousand dollars for an original plot!"

I drew a deep breath and stared at him.

"Don't kid about that kind of money, Guy," I says solemnly. "And— don't tempt me!"

"I never was more serious in my life!" he quickly assures me. "Why, have you an idea? By Jove, Gladys, if you if have— you are the goddess from the machine—"

"Be of good cheer," I interrupt. "I'll go home and sleep over matters, which is what you better do, too— you look like you fell out of a well or something, really! I'll see you tomorrow. I don't think I'll have a plot for you by then, but—"

"Naturally— still, if you even have a suggestion that I might use," says Guy eagerly, "I—"

"I say I don't think I'll have a plot by then, I know I'll have one!" I finish.

And I did, really!

When I got home that night I went right to bed, but somehow Mr. Slumber and me couldn't seem to come to terms. My brain just refused to call it a union day but kept mulling over Guy and his magnanimous offer of twenty-five thousand lire for a plot. Good heavens, he could buy a plot with a house and barn on it for that! Then my half-sleepy mind turns to Jimmy Burns, the gloomy bellhop, whose deathless ambition is to corral a fortune and dumfound Europe with his progress from then on! Suddenly these two trains of thought collide with a crash and out of the wreck comes an idea that I think will make Jimmy Burns famous and give Guy Tower his play! That trifling matter being all settled, I turned over and slept the sleep of the just.

The very next evening I propositioned Guy, who listened with flattering attention. After telling him I had his play all set, I furnished him with a short but interesting description of the life, habits and desires of James Joseph Aloysius Burns. I then proposed that Guy place his twenty-five thousand to the bellboy's credit for one month, James to be allowed free rein with the jack. If Burns has increased the amount at the end of thirty days, he is to return the original twenty-five thousand to Guy. If not, he must give back whatever amount he has left. All the principals are to be sworn to secrecy and that's all there is to my scheme— it's as simple as the recipe for hot chocolate!

"If Jimmy Burns is really miscast in life and has a brain and business ability far above hopping bells," I explain, "why, the use of twenty-five thousand for thirty days might make him one of the world's most famous men! It's a sporting chance, Guy— will you gamble?"

Guy looks somewhat perplexed. He stares into my excited face and clears his throat nervously.

"Well— I— of course, I am interested in anything you suggest, Gladys," he says. "I— eh— suppose I am unusually stupid this evening, but I cannot see how my dowering this bellboy will assist me in writing my play."

"Listen," I says. "You claimed you'd put out twenty-five thousand for a plot, didn't you? Well, believe me, the movements of Jimmy Burns with twenty-five thousand dollars to do what he wants with will supply all the ideas you can handle— if you don't think so, you're crazy!"

"But—" begins Guy.

"Don't butt!" I cut him off, impatiently. "You're not the goat yet and you won't be if you listen to teacher. All you have to do is give Jimmy the sugar, watch his stuff for the next thirty days, and you'll get a true-to-life masterpiece for your drama— probably a play that will show the making of a financial, scientific or artistic Napoleon! If you can't get a play out of the effect of sudden wealth on a lowly bellhop, then you got no business In the same room with a typewriter!"

Guy rubs his chin, smooths back his wavy hair and gazes out of the window at New York City.

"By Jove!" he busts out suddenly, slapping his hands together. "The thing is fantastic— grotesque— but I'll do it!"

So it came to pass that the next day Guy, Jimmy Burns, and myself met by appointment in the cashier's office of the Plumbers & Physicians National Bank. As I was on my lunch hour and minutes were at a premium, there was little time squandered on preliminaries, Guy making his proposition to the thunderstruck James in simple words of one syllable. At first M. Burns refused to believe he wasn't being kidded, then he got hysterical with delight. When the startled cashier solemnly asked for his signature and handed him a bank book showing there was $25,000 to his credit in the vaults, Jimmy broke down and cried like a baby!

"Now listen to me, young man," I tell the panting Burns when he has hid the bank book in his shoe to the open amusement of Guy and the wondering cashier. "You want to get an immediate rush of brains to the head and make that twenty-five thousand mean something, because that's the last you get if you cry your eyes out! That's all there is, there isn't any more, get me? You been going around squawking about what a world-beater you'd be if you had money. Well, now you got plenty of it and we look for big things from you. No clowning, remember, you must make good! Is all that clear?"

Still in a happy trance, Jimmy Burns removes his cap with a start.

"Ye-ye-yes, ma'am!" he gulps, the first time he was ever polite to anyone, before or since.

Well, really, the effect of that $25,000 suddenly showered on Jamesy was every bit as startling as I expected— only in a slightly different way than I fondly hoped! Those pennies went right to his shapely head, and instead of stimulating his brain, why, they just removed it altogether. First of all, Jimmy got a wild and uncontrollable desire to leave the art of bell-hopping flat on its back. Not satisfied to resign his portfolio in a dignified way, he kidded the guests, insulted the manager, rode Jerry Murphy till Jerry wanted his heart, and wound up by punching Pete Kift, the bell captain, right on the nose. By an odd coincidence, these untoward actions got Jimmy the gate.

The plutocrat bellhop's next imitation was to apply for the most expensive suite in the hotel. They just laughed Hon. Burns off, telling him there was nothing but standing room left in the inn and try to get that! But Guy Tower came to the rescue and got Jimmy the suite, as Guy wanted to keep his experiment under as close observation as possible while making notes for his play. Once settled in his gorgeous apartment, Jimmy swelled up like a mump and run his former colleagues ragged getting him ice water, stationery, telegram blanks and drug-store gin. He staggered around in the most fashionable lobby in New York making cracks like "Hey, d'ye think Prohibition will ever come back?" to astounded millionaires and their ladies. Honestly, he was a wow I When one of the fellows he used to work with called him "Jimmy," the nee bellboy angrily insists that the manager fire him for undue familiarity, remarking, "A guy has got to keep them servants in their proper places!"

He sent a wire to the Standard Oil Company asking if they couldn't use a younger man in Rockefeller's place, paid the dinge elevator pilots a dollar twenty times a day to stop the car and tie his shoe laces, panicked the highest priced tailor in Manhattan by ordering seven suits of "mufti," having read that the King of England occasionally dresses in that, and generally misplayed his hand till everybody was squawking and in no time at all Jimmy Burns was about as popular as a mad deg in the St. Moe hotel. He failed to go through college like he promised he would, but he certainly went through everything else, and only for Guy, Jimmy would have been streeted fifty times a day!

The next desire that attacks James is the ambition to see his name in the newspapers, so he advertises for a press agent. The first publicity purveyor who showed up made James think he was good by using nothing but adjectives in his conversation and asking for a honorarium of $250 the week. Mr. Burns thought the salary was more than reasonable, but as he's the type that would ask President Coolidge for a reference, he demanded one from the candidate for the job. "You have asked the man who owns one— just a minute!" says the press agent cheerily, and not at all abashed he dashes out of the room. I heard all this when he stopped at my switchboard with Jimmy and asked me where the writing room was. In five minutes he's back, waving a paper in Jimmy's face. "Look that over!" he says.

James read it out loud for my entertainment. According to this testimonial, the bearer had did about everything in the publicity line but act as press representative for a school where middle-aged eagles are taught how to fly. James seems to get quite a kick out of it.

"I think I'll take this guy," he remarks, as he looks up from the reference.

"Fine!" says the delighted applicant. "That's a good thought. I'll snap right into it and—"

"Tomato sauce!" butts in James sneeringly. "I don't wish no part of you, the baby I want to hire is the bozo which wrote this recommendation of you. He's good, what I mean, a letter-writin' idiot!"

"A bit odd that we should both be thinking the same thing," says Mr. Press Agent coolly. "As a matter of fact, I wrote that recommendation myself. So now that I'm engaged as your publicity expert, let me have a few of your photos and—"

The following morning nearly every front page in town displayed a picture of James Burns and this glaring headline:

BELL BOY LEFT MILLION BY GUEST

HE ONCE LOANED DIME!

That was the press agent's first effort and, as far as I was ever able to see, his last. But it got ample results, as with your permission I'll be glad to show you.

Within a week, Jimmy Burns had discovered what millions have discovered before his little day— that the mere possession of lucre does not mean happiness, and for some it means positive misery! Not only did James become the prey of the charity solicitors, confidence workers, stock swindlers, "yes men," phony promoters and other parasites that infest the hotel, but he was constantly in boiling water through his cuckoo escapades growing out of sudden wealth that sent his brains on location. After purchasing a diamond as big as Boston, only brighter, he bought the highest priced horseless carriage he could find in the market and the same identical day it slipped out of his hands and tried to climb the steps of the Fifth Avenue library. The gendarmes pinched him for reckless driving, though Jimmy protested that it wasn't really "wreckless" as he had plenty wreck, and his worship tossed the trembling James into the hoosegow for three days, remarking, "I'll teach you rich men a lesson!" Then the income-tax beagles read that newspaper headline and came down on Burns like a cracked ceiling. So all in all, Jimmy was finding few chuckles connected with his pieces of eight.

When the rich but unhappy James got out of the Bastille, he decided to throw a party in his costly suite at the St. Moe for his former associates of the bellhops' bench. As Jimmy confided to me, apparently his only friend, he felt the immediate need of mixing with people who spoke his language. He wanted to forget his troubles and get back on a friendly footing with the boys, who had severed diplomatic relations with him on account of his acting like he was Sultan of Goitre or something when he became a thousandaire overnight. Jimmy felt that a first-class soiree would do the trick.

The party came off as advertised, but all it meant to the poor little rich man was more grief! It was really a respectable enough affair, no hats being broken or that sort of thing, and a pleasant time was had by all with the slight exception of the charming host. Our hero made two fatal mistakes. The first was not inviting Jerry Murphy and the second was laying in a stock of canny Scotch for medicinal purposes, in case any of his guests should get stricken with the dread disease of thirst. The result was that an epidemic of parched throats broke out early in the evening and pretty soon the other habitues of the St. Moe began complaining bitterly about the unusually boisterous race riot that was being staged with a top-heavy cast on the sixth floor. Mr. Williams, the manager, who liked Jimmy Burns and arsenic the same way, called upon Jerry Murphy to quell the disturbance and Jerry licked his lips with delight. The man-mountain house detective run all the way upstairs, figuring the elevators too slow to whisk him to a job as tasty to him as cream is to puss. Jerry pounded on the door of Jimmy's salon and demanded admittance. Recognizing his voice, James climbed unsteadily on a chair, opened the transom and peered with a rolling eye at Jerry.

"Go roll yer hoop— hic— you big shtiff, thish is gen'lemen's— hic— gen'lemen's blowout!" says Jimmy, carelessly pouring a pitcher of water, cracked ice and all, on Jerry's noble head. "Hic— shee kin you laugh off!"

Foaming at the mouth and uttering strange cries, the infuriated Jerry broke through the door and the panic was on! The beauty and chivalry present fled before the charging sleuth like they'd flee before a charging hippo, but the unfortunate Jimmy got left at the post. After cuffing him around the room till the sport palled on him, Jerry dragged James off to durance vile and once again Jamesy is put under glass, this time credited with illegally possessing spirits frumenti. They held him under lock and key all night and it took all of Guy Tower's influence and quite a few of his quarters to get Jerry to withdraw the charge and free Jimmy the next morning.

Well, honestly, I felt sorry for Jimmy Burns, who was certainly taking cruel and unusual punishment and being made to like it. I thought perhaps if I injected a lady into the situation it might make things a bit more pleasant for him, so I introduced Hazel Killian to the "millionaire bellboy," as the newspapers were still calling James. O sole mia! as they say in Iowa, what an off day my brain was having when it cooked up that idea! With visions clouding her usually painstaking taste, of the Riviera, Paris, Monte Carlo, gems, yachts, Boles-Joyce limousines or what have you, Hazel took to Jimmy like a goldfish takes to a bowl and our evening expeditions now consisted of your correspondent and Guy, assisted by Hazel and Jimmy. We went everywhere together, with James insisting upon paying most of the bills. But while Jimmy was civil enough to the easy-to-look-at Hazel, he simply showered his attentions on your little friend Gladys, grabbing every chance to make the most violent love to me. This greatly annoyed Guy and Hazel and equally greatly amused me— Jimmy was just a giggle to me, not a gasp!

In the meanwhile, Mr. Williams and Jerry Murphy had banded together to make James sick and tired of living in the Hotel St. Moe. He seldom found his room made up, there was always something wrong with the lights, the water and the steam, none of the help would answer his bells, and when he hollered for service he was told he would find it in the dictionary under S. But Pete Kift pulled the worst trick of all on him. With the radiant Hazel on his arm and Guy keeping military distance behind, Jimmy was proudly strutting through the lobby one fine evening. All were resplendent in evening clothes, and to show you I'm not catty I'll say that Hazel in an evening gown would attract attention away from the Yosemite. As the party neared the desk, Pete Kift suddenly looks at Jimmy and bawls "Front!" at the top of his bull elephant's voice, and mechanically responding to the habit of a lifetime, poor Jimmy Burns grabs an amazed guest's suitcase and hastily starts for the elevator! The witnesses just screamed when they grasped the situation and recognized James as the ex-bellhop. Even Guy smiled, but it was different with Hazel, who could have shot down Mr. Burns on the spot in cold blood. As for Jimmy, well, honestly, he would have welcomed the bullet!

Nevertheless, in spite of this fox pass Hazel believed Jimmy had actually inherited an even million, and evidently James had not gone out of his way to make her think different. So one day Hazel tells me she's all through posing for artists and is determined to make Jimmy her very own. When she adds that he has sworn to star her in a musical comedy or back her in a movie production, I nearly passed out! Can you imagine Jimmy, with only a few thousand left, making any such maniacal promises as that to a girl with a memory like Hazel's? Oo la la, what a fine disturbance James was readying himself for!

As I had vowed to say nothing about how Jimmy got his bankroll, I couldn't very well give the ambitious Hazel the lowdown on matters, but I did try most earnestly to lay her off him. I got nowhere! Refusing to be warned, Hazel point-blankly accused me of having a yen for Jimmy myself, and then she set sail for this gilded youth in dead earnest.

Well, knowing nothing of Hazel's plans with regard to himself, the doomed Jimmy kept on entertaining like his first name was Astor, his middle name Vanderbilt and his last name Morgan. He took me, Hazel and Guy to the races at Belmont Park and stabled us all in a box. As James had loudly declared that he knew more about horses than Vincent Ibanez, we all played his-feed-box tips for five races and we learned about losers from him. When the sixth and last scramble arrived, Guy had donated $1,500, I had sent in $50, and Hazel had parted with $80 to the oral books and was fit to be tied I What Jimmy lost, nobody knows. Anyhow, he gazed over the program for the sixth race, a mile handicap, and suddenly let out a yell.

"Hot dog!" he says, much excited. "Here's where we all get independent for life. They's a beagle in this dash by the name of Bellhop and if that ain't a hunch then Pike's Peak's a pimple. Get down on this baby with the family jools and walk outa here rancid with money!"

We split a contemptuous grin between us and presented it to Jimmy before getting down on the favorite in a last attempt to break even on the day. Jimmy milled his way back to our box, flushed and panting, and gayly announced that he had shot the works on Bellhop's nose. He said we were all paranoiacs for not doing the same. Well, it was all over in a twinkling! The favorite found the handicap of our bets a bit too much and finished an even last. Bellhop tripped the mile in something like 0.96 and won from here to the Ruhr, clicking off $15,000 for Mr. James Joseph Aloysius Burns. James then announced his intention of buying the horse and presenting it to Hazel for Arbor Day, and it was only with the greatest of difficulty that me and Guy talked him out of it. Hazel gave us a murderous glare and for the rest of the day you couldn't have got a nail file between her and Jimmy, honestly!

Whirling back to New York in Jimmy's car, now steered by a uniformed chauffeur, I began to reprove James for this gambling and stepping out when he should be using his money and time to secure his future. What about all his promises to me? How about all the big things he was going to do? When was he going to enter business, or whatever he thought he could do best?

"Don't make me laugh!" says Jimmy, tapping an imported cigarette on a solid gold case. "I'm sittin' pretty. What a sucker I'd be to pester myself about work when I got all this sugar!"

"Of course," says Hazel, nestling closer to him. "Imagine a millionaire working!"

And the only thing that really burned me up was Jimmy's grin at Guy and the sly dig in the ribs he gave me, the little imp!

Well, from then on Jimmy had lots of luck and all of it bad. The fellow who invented money was a clever young man, but he really should have stayed around the laboratory for another couple of hours and invented an antidote for the trouble it brings. The well-to-do ex-bellhop used his jack as a wedge to get into one jam after another, till finally came the worst blow of all, and Miss Hazel Killian delivered it.

It seems that Hazel got fatigued waiting for Jimmy to unbelt the roll and star her in a musical comedy or a super-production, so she requested a showdown. Jimmy checked up and discovered he had blown all but about five thousand of his ill-gotten gains, and as trustworthy reports had reached him that it would take about ten times that much to group a show around the beauteous Hazel, he calmly told her all bets were off. Hazel promptly fainted, but Jimmy's idea of first aid being an alarmed glance and a dash for the door, she quickly snapped out of it and demanded ten thousand dollars for the time she put in entertaining him.

"Aha— a gold digger, hey?" says Jimmy indignantly. "So you wish ten grand for entertainin' me? Where d'ye get that stuff? They ain't no ten thousand dollars' worth of laughs in you for me, I'll tell the world! Take the air!"

Infuriated beyond speech, Hazel brought suit for $100,000 against James the following day, charging that promising young man had promised to wed her. Further, deponent sayeth not!

That was the end of the high life for Jimmy Burns. Honestly, he was scared stiff and he got little comfort from me, for I was absolutely disgusted with the way he had carried on from the time Guy gave him that money. Opportunity had knocked on this little fool's door and he had pretended he wasn't at home. Not only that, but I felt he had got me in wrong with Guy Tower, whose $25,000 investment for a plot now seemed a total loss. I told Guy tearfully how sorry I was that my scheme had failed to pan out, but he cut me off in the middle of my plea for forgiveness, his face a mass of smiles.

"My dear girl, you owe me no apology," says Guy, patting my shoulder. "It is I who owe you a debt of gratitude. I've written a farce-comedy around Jimmy's adventures with the twenty-five thousand, and Rosenblum predicts it will be the hit of the season! I've never seen him so enthusiastic. Your idea was more than successful, and Jimmy is welcome to whatever he has left of the money when the time limit expires!"

Wasn't that lovely?

In the meantime, the miserable Jimmy had tried to forget his worries again by mixing with his former fellow workmen about the hotel. Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift wouldn't give him a tumble, so he sat on the bellhops' bench all night, trying to square things with his ex-playmates. But now that he was a "millionaire" they put on the ice and treated him like a maltese would be treated at a mouse's reception. A great longing comes over Jimmy to be a care-free bellboy again, without the burden of wealth. He felt the irresistible call of the ice water, the stationery and the tip! So, unable to lick the temptation, he sneaked the baggage of a few guests upstairs and was promptly run out of the hotel by the other boys for poaching on their preserves. To make things perfect, a couple of days later he was served with the papers in Hazel's suit.

Unable to cope with the situation and hysterical with fear, Jimmy rushed to the switchboard and made an appeal to me that would have melted a Chinese executioner. He placed the blame for the trouble he was in on my georgetted shoulders— manlike— and insisted that I had to get him out of the mess. The legal documents Hazel had him tagged with smacked to the terrified Jimmy of pitiless judges, stern juries, jail— perhaps even the gallows! Honestly, James was in fearful shape, no fooling. I shut off his moans finally, and told him to get rid of whatever money he had left and I would take on myself the horrible job of explaining everything to Hazel. With a wild whinny, Jimmy dashed out of the hotel without even thanking me, gambled his remaining ducats in one wild stock-market plunge— and two days later the ticker informed him that he was worth $25,000 again!

____________________

3: The Door

Henry S. Whitehead

1882-1932

Weird Tales November 1924

THOSE in the motor car hardly felt the slight, though sickening impact. It was rather, indeed, because of the instinct for something- gone- wrong, than because of conviction that he had struck anything more important than a roll of tangled burlap from some passing moving van, that the driver brought his heavy car to a stop with a grinding of brakes strenuously applied, and went back to see what he had struck.

He had turned the corner almost incidentally; but when he alighted and went back, when the thin gleam of his flashlight revealed to him the heap of huddled pulp which lay there, the driver realized in the throes of a hideous nausea what it was his heavy machine had spurned and crushed.

Roger Phillips, intent upon the first really decent act of his whole life, hardly noticed what was forward. He had been crossing the street. He continued to be intent on his own concerns. Interrupted only by a kind of cold shudder to which he gave only passing thought as if with the very outer edge of his mind, he did not stop, but crossed the sidewalk, looking up as he had done many times before to reassure himself that the lights were out in the living-room of the apartment up there on the third floor of the apartment house.

They were out, as he had confidently anticipated, and, reassured, he quickly mounted the steps to the front entrance. Some one came out hurriedly, and passed him as he entered, the rush taking him by surprize. He turned his head as quickly as he could, to avoid recognition. It was old Mr. Osier, his father's neighbor, who had rushed out. The elderly man was in his shirt sleeves, and appeared greatly agitated, so much so that young Phillips was certain he had not been recognized, hardly even noticed, indeed. He breathed an audible sigh of relief. He did not want old Osier to mention this chance meeting to his father the next time he should see him. and he knew Osier to be garrulous.

The young man mounted lightly and hurriedly the two flights of steps that led to the door of his father's apartment. He thrust his key into the patent lock of the apartment door confidently, almost without thought— a mechanical motion. As mechanically, he turned the key to the right. It was an old key, and it fitted the keyhole easily. He knew that his father and mother were at the symphony concert. They had not missed one for years during the season for symphony concerts, and this was their regular night. He had chosen this night for that reason. He knew the colored maid was out, too. He had seen her, not. five minutes earlier, getting on a car for Boston. "The coast," as he phrased the thought to himself, somewhat melodramatically, "was clear!" He was certain of security from interruption. Only let him get safely into the apartment, do what he had to do, and as quietly and unobtrusively depart, and he would be satisfied, quite satisfied.

But the lock offered unexpected resistance. It was inexplicable, irritating. His overtensed nerves revolted abruptly at this check. The key had slipped into the slot, as always, without difficulty— but it would not turn! Furiously he twisted it this way and that. At last he removed it and stared at it curiously. There was nothing amiss with the key. Could his father have had the lock changed ?

Anger and quick shame smote him, suddenly. He looked closely at the lock. No, it was unchanged. There were the numberless tiny scratch-marks of innumerable insertions. It was the same.

Gingerly, carefully, he inserted the key again. He turned it to the right. Of course it turned to the right; he remembered that clearly. He had so turned it countless times.

It would not move. He put out all his puny strength, and still it would not turn. Hot exasperation shook

As he swore under his breath in his irritation at this bar to the fulfillment of his purpose, he became for the first time conscious of a rising commotion in the street below, and he paused, irresolutely, and listened, his nerves suddenly strung taut. Many voices seemed to be mingled in the excited hum that came to his ears. Bits of phrases, even, could be distinguished. Something had happened down there, it seemed. As he listened, the commotion of spoken sound resolved itself into a tone which, upon his subconscious effort to analyze it, seemed to him to express horror and commiseration, with an overtone of fear. The fear communicated itself to him. He shook, as the voice of the growing throng, a blended, corporate voice, came up to him in sickening waves of apprehension.

"What if this should mean an interruption?" Impatiently wrenching himself away from his preoccupation and back to his more immediate concern with the door, he thrust the key into the lock a third time, this time aggressively, violently. Again he tried to snap the lock. Again it resisted him, unaccountably, devilishly, as it seemed to him.

Then, in his pause of desperation, he thought he heard his own name spoken. He could feel his face go white, the roots of his hair prickle.

He listened, intently, crouching cat-like there on the empty landing before the door of his father's apartment, and as he listened, every nerve intent, he heard the entrance-door below flung open, and the corporate voice of the throng outside, hitherto muffled and faint, came to him suddenly in a wave of sound, jumbled and obscure as a whole, but with certain strident voices strangely clear and distinct.

A shuffle of heavy feet came to his ears, as if several persons were entering the lower hallway, their footsteps falling heavily on the tiled flooring. They would be coming upstairs!

He shrank back against the door— that devilish door! If only he could get it open!

Something like this, he told himself, in a wave of self-pity that swept, him— something like this, unexpected, unforeseen, unreasonable— something like this was always happening to him!

That door! It was an epitome of his futile, worthless life! That had happened to him, just the same kind of thing, a month ago when he had been turned out of his home. The events of the intervening weeks rushed, galloping, through his over-tensed mind. And now, as ever since that debacle, there was present with him a kind of unforgettable vision of his mother— his poor mother, her face covered with the tears which she made no effort to wipe away— his poor mother looking at him, stricken, through those tears which blurred her face; and there was his father, the kindly face set now in a stern mask, pale and with deep lines— his father 'telling him that this was the end.

There would be no public prosecution. Was he not their son? But he must

go now! His home would be no longer his home...

He recalled the dazed days that followed; the mechanical activities of

his daily employment; his search, half-hearted, for a furnished room.

He recalled, shuddering, the several times when, moved by the mechanism

of long-established usage, he had nearly taken an Allston car for "home" which was to be no longer his home...

He had not sent back the key. He could not tell why he had kept it. He had forgotten to hand it back to his father when he had left, and his father, doubtless unthinkingly, had not suggested its return. That was why he still had it, and here he stood, now, on the very threshold of that place which had been "home" to him for so many years, about to make the restitution that would do something to remove the saddest of all the blots on his conscience— and he could not get in!

The men, talking with hushed voices, had reached the first landing. Young Phillips, caught by a sudden gust of abject terror, shrank against the stubborn door, the door which.

Then, his mind readjusting itself, he remembered that he had no reason for concealment, for fear. Even though he might be seen here, even though these people should be coming all the way up the stairs, it could not matter.

Let him be seen; what of it? He was supposed to live here, of course. It was only a short time since he had actually ceased to live here and his  father had said nothing. No public charge had been made against him. How one's conscience could make one a coward!

Under the invigorating stress of this reaction, he straightened himself,

stood up boldly. Realizing that it might appear odd for him to be discovered standing here aimlessly on the landing, he started to go downstairs. But by now the narrow staircase was completely blocked by the ascending group. He stopped, halfway from that flight. The men were carrying something, something heavy, and of considerable bulk, it would seem. He could not see clearly in that dim light just what it was. He stopped, half-way down, but none of the men carrying the awkward bundle covered with what looked like an automobile curtain, looked up, nor appeared to notice him. Neither did the straggling group of men, and woman or two. who were following them.

Fascinated, he gazed at what they were carrying. As they approached and took the turn in the stairs, so that the electric light of the upper landing shone more directly upon it, he looked closer. It was the body of a man! It hung, limp and ungainly in their somewhat awkward grasp as they shouldered up toward him.

Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, the details presenting themselves to his fascinated gaze in rapid succession: the trouser ends; the shoes.

THE men turned the last corner in the winding stairway and came into full view. As they turned the corner, the leather curtain slipped and the face of the dead man was for a moment exposed to view. Roger Phillips looked at it, fascinated, horrified. Then one of the men, halting for an instant, drew the  corner of the curtain over the face again, and he could no longer see it. The head rolled. The broken body had been grievously crushed.

Roger Phillips, utterly distraught, cowered, a limp heap, against the unyielding door of his father's apartment. He had looked for one horrific instant into his own distorted, dead face!

THE men, breathing hard, reached the landing. One of them, gingerly shifting his portion of the burden upon the shoulder of another, stepped forward to ring the bell of the Phillips apartment. No one answered the ring, and the man rang again, impatiently, insistently. The bell trilled inside the empty apartment. The men stood, silently, shifting uneasily from one foot to another. Behind them, a thin mutter came from the waiting stragglers who had followed them,, moved by an inordinate curiosity.

"Here's a key sticking in the door," said the man who had rung the bell. "Guess we'd be all right if we opened the door and took the young fellow in. There doesn't seem to be anyone home."

A murmur of assent came from the other men.

He turned the key to the left, then to the right, and the door opened. They carried the broken body inside and carefully laid it out on the sofa in the living-room.

_______________________

An obituary for the "Weird Tales" author, some of whose stories have appeared in the Past Masters anthologies, including this issue. Although uncredited when it appeared, it is known to have been written by H. P. Lovecraft

4: Obit: Henry St. Clair Whitehead

H. P. Lovecraft

1890-1937

Weird Tales March 1933

READERS of Weird Tales will be grieved to hear of the death of that distinguished author, the Reverend Henry S. Whitehead, Ph. D., who was a regular contributor to this magazine. His death was caused by a painful gastric illness of more than two years' duration.

Doctor Whitehead, descended paternally from an old Virginian family and maternally from a noted line of Scottish West Indian planters, was born in 1882 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. As a boy he attended the Berkeley School in New York City, and in 1904 was graduated from Harvard University, a classmate of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Studying under men like Santayana and Münsterberg, he later took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy. His first literary work was published in 1905, and from that time forward he was an increasingly well-known writer in many fields.

In 1912, having graduated from the Berkeley Divinity School, Doctor Whitehead was ordained a deacon of the Episcopal Church; and was advanced to the priesthood in 1913. From 1913 to 1917 he was rector of Christ Church in Middletown, Connecticut, and was later children's pastor at St. Mary the Virgin's in New York City. During 1919-23 he was senior assistant at the Church of the Advent in Boston, and in 1923-5 was rector of Trinity Church at Bridgeport, Connecticut. Subsequently Doctor Whitehead served as acting archdeacon in the Virgin Islands, where he had previously served several winters in a similar capacity.

As an author Doctor Whitehead specialized in fiction, though writing much on ecclesiastical and other subjects. Beginning in 1923, when his story. "The lntarsia Box" (in Adventure ), received a first-class rating as a story of distinction from the O. Henry Memorial Committee, many similar honors were accorded his work. In 1927 he contributed to the Free Lance Writers' Handbook an article on the technique of weird fiction which is still a standard text on the subject.

It is for weird fiction of a subtle, realistic and quietly potent sort that he will be best remembered by readers of this magazine, in which twenty-five of his greatest tales have been published. Deeply versed in the somber folklore of the West Indies, and of the Virgin Islands in particular, he caught the inmost spirit of the native superstitions and wrote them into tales whose accurate local background created an astonishing illusion of genuineness. His "jumbee" stories— popularly so-called because of their frequent inclusion of a typical Virgin Island belief— form a permanent contribution to spectral literature, while his recurrent central character and narrator, "Gerald Canevin" (embodying much of his own personality), will always be recalled as a life-like and lovable figure.

Prominent among Doctor Whitehead's tales are "Sea Change", "Jumbee", "The Tree Man", "Black Tancrede", "Hill Drums", and "Passing of a God"— the latter perhaps representing the peak of his creative genius.

_________________

5: Holy Poker

Irving Bacheller

1859-1950

Ex Book: From Stores of Memory, 1938

A Story of a Great "Sucker Trap'' in the Old Northwest

IN A TOWN near where I was born one of the great pioneers, now an old man, is still living. Some fifty years ago alone in a canoe he descended the Athabasca River to Great Slave Lake, crossed it, and went down the Mackenzie— a journey of more than 3,000 miles in the wildest country on this continent. Probably no man in the world has the inland shy and water wisdom of Sile Malterner. It is like that of the wild goose. She's language those days reminds me of a bucking bronco. Often it tossed him out of the saddle of a calm historian and the air was cut by expletives not often found in well-laundered English. So the reporter who seeks to reproduce his vividness faces a problem.

I was on a river with him in Canada when he told me a poker story too good to be lost. This is the story about as he told it:

ONE NIGHT I got to Edmonton. Hell yes! Even then it was quite a town. The hotel was kept by a chinaman name o' Wong Lee. Smart feller! Spoke English. I went into the bar room. Big poker game goin' on there— biggest game I ever see! Plenty o' money in that town to play with. It was fur money. The mayor, some slick-lookin' gents from the East, an' a couple o' roughnecks wearin' spectacles with colored glass in 'em was playin'. The glass in one pair o' them spectacles was pea green. I noticed that 'cause the man looked up at me fer half a minute when I come in. I'd seen a lot o' fellers with colored glasses in that country. Ye know, some men git snow blind up there in the North. The player with the pea-green spectacles looked up ag'in at me. The others eyed me plenty. I didn't want to git shot so I went back to the bar where I couldn't see no cards.

"This feller's all right, boys," says Wong. "Just come up the river from the north."

The game went on an' I stood there where I couldn't see nothin' but the chips an' the players. Hell and deep snow! That man with the pea-green spectacles had a year's wages in front o' him. When he lost an' sometimes when he didn't he'd tear up the cards an' call fer a new pack. A number o' times he done that.

Then he won with a full house. Threes or better called fer a jackpot. So a ten-dollar jack started. Nobody opened. The pot was sweetened with five more.

They all come in. The cards was dealt an' the mayor opened fer ten dollars.

" 'Taint 'nough, I'll double it," says the man with the green glasses. Only four stayed in. The mayor bet the limit — fifty dollars. The green-glass man doubled the bet. The other two come along in. The mayor doubled ag'in. Say, by the white throne o' God! I never see nothin' like it. The money was meltin' like snow in the spring-time an' pourin' into that pond in the middle o' the table! The mayor an' that green-eyed son o' Satan kep' doublin' till, by an' by, the bet was called. I dunno what they had but they all threw down an' the man with the green spectacles reached out with both hands an' raked in the money.

I had a bite to eat an' went to bed an' was off early in the mornin'. Didn't think no more o' that damn' poker game. Almos' fergot it till I got to Athabasca Landin' one day awhile later to take a steamboat. The ol' boat was at her dock loadin' wood fer the engine. I got on when she blew her whistle.

We'd been chuggin' along awhile when I see a man lookin' at me.

"Who is that man?" I says to the feller I was talkin' with.

"Don't know," says he. "He looks like the Peleus Kid. If it is, don't play no poker er start no row with him."

The man come up to me an' says: "Glad to see ye ag'in, stranger."

"I ain't got no recollection o' meetin' you before," I says. "Who be ye?"

"Bill Somers. I ain't no Napoleon Bonaparte but you see me fight a battle that was a kind of a Waterloo. Do ye 'member that game o' poker at Wong Lee's? You watched it fer a while. I was the man that wore the pea-green spectacles."

"Say, man, you won a sledload o' mink an' ermine an' a team o' dogs," says I.

He smiled kind o' friendly an' says he: "Look here, boy. Poker is a canoe trip in a long, bad stretch o' rapids. Ye got to know how to read water an' steer right er some rock will hit yer bottom like a sledge hammer an' the next one may rip yer belly open."

"I made up my mind that ye knew how to read the rapids when ye kep' raisin' 'em in that jack pot," says I.

He laughed an' says he: "Don't git in a hurry, stranger. Them boys thought they had a sucker. They was dreamin' an' I woke 'em up. They tried the old plan o' five hands agin one but it didn't work. They ruined a friend o' mine last year. He'd been in the East an' was cornin' home to git married. When they got through with him he was like a worthless dog that's had a row with a skunk. They had a nice, safe little trick. They'd git a stranger into the game an' then, boy, he begun to bump the rocks. They all played agin him an' divided his money. They kep' him between hell an' high water. Them fellers run the town, an' the ol' sucker trap. Now listen to me. I'm a real pious man."

He stopped an' lit his pipe. Say, ye know, he looked kind o' pious. Damned if he didn't.

The feller says to me, says he: "Ye know a pious man can have guts in him. He needs 'em in the North-west. I carry a gun an' can pull an' shove lead rather sudden if I have to. My fam'ly don't worry much 'bout mel"

That cuss tol' me a story then that put a kink in my hair an' made my back feel kind o' chilly. I wouldn't 'a' give the fill o' yer pipe fer his piety. I says to myself there's a man with a soul like a wooden leg.

"I got my plow an' harrer ready," says Bill Somers. "My pard made Edmonton two weeks ahead o' me. He pertended to be drunk an' he went from one store to another an' bought all the playin' cards in that town, took 'em to his room, unsealed the wrappers an' marked every card. He sealed 'em up ag'in so ye'd never know they'd been opened. The next day he went around among the stores an' says he: 'I was drunk las' night an' when I git drunk I ain't got no more sense than a jackass hit by lightnin'. I'd jump into a river to git out o' the rain. I bought all the playin' cards you had an' . I ain't got no more use fer 'em than I'd have fer a ton o' beefsteak. Maybe ye'd take 'em back at half the price I paid.'

"They was glad to take 'em. So the marked cards was ready fer their part o' the job. I tell ye, boss. I'd known that pardner o' mine fer years. Give his talents a fair chance an' ye can trust him to do his best. Like as not he'll surprise ye with the results. But he's the only man I know that has a soul that ain't worth savin'. No, sir. Try it an' there'll be a horse on you. It has lost its grinders, an' the hay o' God's grace will lay untouched in the manger. He's the only man I ever knew who would go up fer prayers an' pick a pocket while he was kneelin'.

'I put up at Wong Lee's an' went around takin' orders for the Babcock Washin' Machine. Yes, sir, that's a part o' my job. I got acquainted with the mayor, two fur buyers, and two other men said to be from Montreal. The mayor wanted to entertain the Montrealers — the old gag. He proposed the poker game. It wouldn't 'a' been good manners fer me to do it. I always carry with me a cashier's check fer a thousand dollars. It's better than a high hat. The mayor got it cashed fer me an' I could see that he thought I was a promisin' young man. I was wearin' the pea-green glasses every day an' I says to Wong, 'I want to know that the cards are all right. Go out an' buy a dozen packs. When I play I want to be sure 'bout the cards.' So when the game begun the cards was all as honest as the mayor an' the Montrealers. Ye know I like to have things match. If yer goin' to have a race, git an even start."

He laughed an' I says: "All marked, o' course."

"Marked! Ye could bet your life on that."

"How did ye mark 'em?"

"You write a word on the back of a playin' card with a certain chemical. Ye won't be able to read it 'less ye put on pea-green spectacles. Then it stands out as plain as yer whiskers. Ye got to watch the cards careful as they come out an' have a good memory. In a few hands the chemical wears off. Then ye call fer a new pack."

"Well, of all the poker players I ever heard of, you're the king," says I.

"You'd never earn a pound o' pork in a hog guessin'," says he; "used to be that but I have been out o' practice fer years. I was tryin' to rob some robbers an' ye can't do it an' keep in the straight an' narrer way.

"At eleven o'clock the marked cards was all tore up. I took off the glasses. My winnings was big enough as an argument. I was goin' to play a Scotch game an' keep out o' trouble. We'd all agreed to quit at twelve.

"A new pack come in play. That was the most righteous pack o' cards ever shuffled. Seems so its aces an' kings an' queens had agreed to pull together. I'd draw to two of 'em an' in the three cards flung down in front o' me there'd be two more sayin', 'Hello, Bill Somers, give 'em a ride.' The jacks an' tens an' nine spots had combined to help them other fellers down the slope to blue ruin. Ye know, four jacks er four tens'll give ye consid'able confidence but— God bless my soul!— how they can string a man at a fifty-dollar limit. The profanity flows like blood after a bullet an' keeps drippin'.

"I felt sorry. One o' them fellers could throw a stream o' swearin' over a barn an' make a hole in the ground on the other side of it. I spoke up kind o' soothin' an' I says: 'Boys, hadn't ye better quit?'

"They wouldn't hear to it, an' say, when a man is mad at his luck soothin' syrup don't do him no good. It's like puttin' liniment on a sore. It don't help none. That kind o' madness is the rope o' the devil. At one o'clock I had checks an' I.O.U. slips an' all the money. It was a massacree!

" 'You've got me ruined,' says the mayor.

" 'Me too,' says another gent. 'I ain't got enough left to buy a beefsteak.'

"They'd wore the mad all off themselves an' cooled down. Didn't have no more bark than a dead dog. The ol' Sucker Trap was busted.

" 'Now, gents,' says I, 'you've ruined a lot o' men but ye never unruined one o' 'em. I'm goin' to give all o' ye a new job an' if ye do it well I'll unruin every one o' ye.'

" 'What kind of a job?' one of 'em asked.

" 'Livin' honest. You ain't used to that kind o' thing. It'll come hard but I'll be here to help ye an' the money will be safe in the bank.'

"I started my meetin's the next night. Ev'ry one o' them come up fer prayers. I've saved two hundred souls in that town. I'm goin' back in three months. If I find them men have stuck to the job, they'll git their money back. If not it'll go to the poor."

"That was the only game o' holy poker I ever heard of," said he.

____________________

6: The Prodigal Village

A Christmas Tale

Irving Bacheller

Published as a slim book, 1920

1: Which Introduces the

Shepherd of the Birds

THE DAY that Henry Smix met and embraced Gasoline Power and went up Main Street hand in hand with it is not yet forgotten. It was a hasty marriage, so to speak, and the results of it were truly deplorable. Their little journey produced an effect on the nerves and the remote future history of Bingville. They rushed at a group of citizens who were watching them, scattered it hither and thither, broke down a section of Mrs. Risley's picket fence and ran over a small boy. At the end of their brief misalliance, Gasoline Power seemed to express its opinion of Mr. Smix by hurling him against a telegraph pole and running wild in the park until it cooled its passion in the fountain pool. In the language of Hiram Blenkinsop, the place was badly "smixed up." Yet Mr. Smix was the object of unmerited criticism. He was like many other men in that quiet village— slow, deliberate, harmless and good-natured. The action of his intellect was not at all like that of a gasoline engine. Between the swiftness of the one and the slowness of the other, there was a wide zone full of possibilities. The engine had accomplished many things while Mr. Smix's intellect was getting ready to begin to act.

In speaking of this adventure, Hiram Blenkinsop made a wise remark: "My married life learnt me one thing," said he. "If you are thinkin' of hitchin' up a wild horse with a tame one, be careful that the tame one is the stoutest or it will do him no good."

The event had its tragic side and whatever Hiram Blenkinsop and other citizens of questionable taste may have said of it, the historian has no intention of treating it lightly. Mr. Smix and his neighbor's fence could be repaired but not the small boy— Robert Emmet Moran, six years old, the son of the Widow Moran who took in washing. He was in the nature of a sacrifice to the new god. He became a beloved cripple, known as the Shepherd of the Birds and altogether the most cheerful person in the village. His world was a little room on the second floor of his mother's cottage overlooking the big flower garden of Judge Crooker— his father having been the gardener and coachman of the Judge. There were in this room an old pine bureau, a four post bedstead, an armchair by the window, a small round nickel clock, that sat on the bureau, a rubber tree and a very talkative little old tin soldier of the name of Bloggs who stood erect on a shelf with a gun in his hand and was always looking out of the window. The day of the tin soldier's arrival the boy had named him Mr. Bloggs and discovered his unusual qualities of mind and heart. He was a wise old soldier, it would seem, for he had some sort of answer for each of the many questions of Bob Moran. Indeed, as Bob knew, he had seen and suffered much, having traveled to Europe and back with the Judge's family and been sunk for a year in a frog pond and been dropped in a jug of molasses, but through it all had kept his look of inextinguishable courage. The lonely lad talked, now and then, with the round, nickel clock or the rubber-tree or the pine bureau, but mostly gave his confidence to the wise and genial Mr. Bloggs. When the spring arrived the garden, with its birds and flowers, became a source of joy and companionship for the little lad. Sitting by the open window, he used to talk to Pat Crowley, who was getting the ground ready for sowing. Later the slow procession of the flowers passed under the boy's window and greeted him with its fragrance and color.

But his most intimate friends were the birds. Robins, in the elm tree just beyond the window, woke him every summer morning. When he made his way to the casement, with the aid of two ropes which spanned his room, they came to him lighting on his wrists and hands and clamoring for the seeds and crumbs which he was wont to feed them. Indeed, little Bob Moran soon learned the pretty lingo of every feathered tribe that camped in the garden. He could sound the pan pipe of the robin, the fairy flute of the oriole, the noisy guitar of the bobolink and the little piccolo of the song sparrow. Many of these dear friends of his came into the room and explored the rubber tree and sang in its branches. A colony of barn swallows lived under the eaves of the old weathered shed on the far side of the garden. There were many windows, each with a saucy head looking out of it. Suddenly half a dozen of these merry people would rush into the air and fill it with their frolic. They were like a lot of laughing schoolboys skating over invisible hills and hollows.

With a pair of field-glasses, which Mrs. Crooker had loaned to him, Bob Moran had learned the nest habits of the whole summer colony in that wonderful garden. All day he sat by the open window with his work, an air gun at his side. The robins would shout a warning to Bob when a cat strolled into that little paradise. Then he would drop his brushes, seize his gun and presently its missile would go whizzing through the air, straight against the side of the cat, who, feeling the sting of it, would bound through the flower beds and leap over the fence to avoid further punishment. Bob had also made an electric search-light out of his father's old hunting jack and, when those red-breasted policemen sounded their alarm at night, he was out of bed in a jiffy and sweeping the tree tops with a broom of light, the jack on his forehead. If he discovered a pair of eyes, the stinging missiles flew toward them in the light stream until the intruder was dislodged. Indeed, he was like a shepherd of old, keeping the wolves from his flock. It was the parish priest who first called him the Shepherd of the Birds.

Just opposite his window was the stub of an old pine partly covered with Virginia creeper. Near the top of it was a round hole and beyond it a small cavern which held the nest of a pair of flickers. Sometimes the female sat with her gray head protruding from this tiny oriel window of hers looking across at Bob. Pat Crowley was in the habit of calling this garden "Moran City," wherein the stub was known as Woodpecker Tower and the flower bordered path as Fifth Avenue while the widow's cottage was always referred to as City Hall and the weathered shed as the tenement district.

What a theater of unpremeditated art was this beautiful, big garden of the Judge! There were those who felt sorry for Bob Moran but his life was fuller and happier than theirs. It is doubtful if any of the world's travelers saw more of its beauty than he.

He had sugared the window-sill so that he always had company— bees and wasps and butterflies. The latter had interested him since the Judge had called them "stray thoughts of God." Their white, yellow and blue wings were always flashing in the warm sunlit spaces of the garden. He loved the chorus of an August night and often sat by his window listening to the songs of the tree crickets and katydids and seeing the innumerable firefly lanterns flashing among the flowers.

His work was painting scenes in the garden, especially bird tricks and attitudes. For this, he was indebted to Susan Baker, who had given him paints and brushes and taught him how to use them, and to an unusual aptitude for drawing.

One day Mrs. Baker brought her daughter Pauline with her— a pretty blue-eyed girl with curly blonde hair, four years older than Bob, who was thirteen when his painting began. The Shepherd looked at her with an exclamation of delight; until then he had never seen a beautiful young maiden. Homely, ill-clad daughters of the working folk had come to his room with field flowers now and then, but no one like Pauline. He felt her hair and looked wistfully into her face and said that she was like pink and white and yellow roses. She was a discovery— a new kind of human being. Often he thought of her as he sat looking out of the window and often he dreamed of her at night.

The little Shepherd of the Birds was not quite a boy. He was a spirit untouched by any evil thought, unbroken to lures and thorny ways. He still had the heart of childhood and saw only the beauty of the world. He was like the flowers and birds of the garden, strangely fair and winsome, with silken, dark hair curling about his brows. He had large, clear, brown eyes, a mouth delicate as a girl's and teeth very white and shapely. The Bakers had lifted the boundaries of his life and extended his vision. He found a new joy in studying flower forms and in imitating their colors on canvas.

Now, indeed, there was not a happier lad in the village than this young prisoner in one of the two upper bedrooms in the small cottage of the Widow Moran. True, he had moments of longing for his lost freedom when he heard the shouts of the boys in the street and their feet hurrying by on the sidewalk. The steadfast and courageous Mr. Bloggs had said: "I guess we have just as much fun as they do, after all. Look at them roses."

One evening, as his mother sat reading an old love tale to the boy, he stopped her.

"Mother," he said, "I love Pauline. Do you think it would be all right for me to tell her?"

"Never a word," said the good woman. "Ye see it's this way, my little son, ye're like a priest an' it's not the right thing for a priest."

"I don't want to be a priest," said he impatiently.

"Tut, tut, my laddie boy! It's for God to say an' for us to obey," she answered.

When the widow had gone to her room for the night and Bob was thinking it over, Mr. Bloggs remarked that in his opinion they should keep up their courage for it was a very grand thing to be a priest after all.

Winters he spent deep in books out of Judge Crooker's library and tending his potted plants and painting them and the thick blanket of snow in the garden. Among the happiest moments of his life were those that followed his mother's return from the post-office with The Bingville Sentinel. Then, as the widow was wont to say, he was like a dog with a bone. To him, Bingville was like Rome in the ancient world or London in the British Empire. All roads led to Bingville. The Sentinel was in the nature of a habit. One issue was like unto another— as like as "two chaws off the same plug of tobaccer," a citizen had once said. Its editor performed his jokes with a wink and a nudge as if he were saying, "I will now touch the light guitar." Anything important in the Sentinel would have been as misplaced as a cannon in a meeting-house. Every week it caught the toy balloons of gossip, the thistledown events which were floating in the still air of Bingville. The Sentinel was a dissipation as enjoyable and as inexplicable as tea. It contained portraits of leading citizens, accounts of sundry goings and comings, and teas and parties and student frolics.

To the little Shepherd, Bingville was the capital of the world and Mr. J. Patterson Bing, the first citizen of Bingville, who employed eleven hundred men and had four automobiles, was a gigantic figure whose shadow stretched across the earth. There were two people much in his thoughts and dreams and conversation— Pauline Baker and J. Patterson Bing. Often there were articles in the Sentinel regarding the great enterprises of Mr. Bing and the social successes of the Bing family in the metropolis. These he read with hungry interest. His favorite heroes were George Washington, St. Francis and J. Patterson Bing. As between the three he would, secretly, have voted for Mr. Bing. Indeed, he and his friends and intimates— Mr. Bloggs and the rubber tree and the little pine bureau and the round nickel clock— had all voted for Mr. Bing. But he had never seen the great man.

Mr. Bing sent Mrs. Moran a check every Christmas and, now and then, some little gift to Bob, but his charities were strictly impersonal. He used to say that while he was glad to help the poor and the sick, he hadn't time to call on them. Once, Mrs. Bing promised the widow that she and her husband would go to see Bob on Christmas Day. The little Shepherd asked his mother to hang his best pictures on the walls and to decorate them with sprigs of cedar. He put on his starched shirt and collar and silk tie and a new black coat which his mother had given him. The Christmas bells never rang so merrily.

The great white bird in the Congregational Church tower— that being Bob's thought of it— flew out across the valley with its tidings of good will.

To the little Shepherd it seemed to say: "Bing— Bing— Bing— Bing— Bing— Bing! Com-ing, Com-ing, Com-ing!!"

Many of the friends of his mother— mostly poor folk of the parish who worked in the mill— came with simple gifts and happy greetings. There were those among them who thought it a blessing to look upon the sweet face of Bob and to hear his merry laughter over some playful bit of gossip and Judge Crooker said that they were quite right about it. Mr. and Mrs. J. Patterson Bing were never to feel this blessing. The Shepherd of the Birds waited in vain for them that Christmas Day. Mrs. Bing sent a letter of kindly greeting and a twenty-dollar gold piece and explained that her husband was not feeling "quite up to the mark," which was true.

"I'm not going," he said decisively, when Mrs. Bing brought the matter up as he was smoking in the library an hour or so after dinner. "No cripples and misery in mine at present, thank you! I wouldn't get over it for a week. Just send them our best wishes and a twenty-dollar gold piece."

There were tears in the Shepherd's eyes when his mother helped him into his night clothes that evening.

"I hate that twenty-dollar gold piece!" he exclaimed.

"Laddie boy! Why should ye be sayin' that?"

The shiny piece of metal was lying on the window-sill. She took it in her hand.

"It's as cold as a snow-bank!" she exclaimed.

"I don't want to touch it! I'm shivering now," said the Shepherd. "Put it away in the drawer. It makes me sick. It cheated me out of seeing Mr. Bing."

2: The Founding of

the Phyllistines

ONE LITTLE word largely accounted for the success of J. Patterson Bing. It was the word "no." It saved him in moments which would have been full of peril for other men. He had never made a bad investment because he knew how and when to say "no." It fell from his lips so sharply and decisively that he lost little time in the consideration of doubtful enterprises. Sometimes it fell heavily and left a wound, for which Mr. Bing thought himself in no way responsible. There was really a lot of good-will in him. He didn't mean to hurt any one.

"Time is a thing of great value and what's the use of wasting it in idle palaver?" he used to say.

One day, Hiram Blenkinsop, who was just recovering from a spree, met Mr. Bing at the corner of Main and School Streets and asked him for the loan of a dollar.

"No sir!" said Mr. J. Patterson Bing, and the words sounded like two whacks of a hammer on a nail. "No sir," he repeated, the second whack being now the more emphatic. "I don't lend money to people who make a bad use of it."

"Can you give me work?" asked the unfortunate drunkard.

"No! But if you were a hired girl, I'd consider the matter."

Some people who overheard the words laughed loudly. Poor Blenkinsop made no reply but he considered the words an insult to his manhood in spite of the fact that he hadn't any manhood to speak of. At least, there was not enough of it to stand up and be insulted— that is sure. After that he was always racking his brain for something mean to say about J. Patterson Bing. Bing was a cold-blooded fish. Bing was a scrimper and a grinder. If the truth were known about Bing he wouldn't be holding his head so high. Judas Iscariot and J. Patterson Bing were off the same bush. These were some of the things that Blenkinsop scattered abroad and they were, to say the least of them, extremely unjust. Mr. Bing's innocent remark touching Mr. Blenkinsop's misfortune in not being a hired girl, arose naturally out of social conditions in the village. Furthermore, it is quite likely that every one in Bingville, including those impersonal creatures known as Law and Order, would have been much happier if some magician could have turned Mr. Blenkinsop into a hired girl and have made him a life member of "the Dish Water Aristocracy," as Judge Crooker was wont to call it.

The community of Bingville was noted for its simplicity and good sense. Servants were unknown in this village of three thousand people. It had lawyers and doctors and professors and merchants— some of whom were deservedly well known— and J. Patterson Bing, the owner of the pulp mill, celebrated for his riches; but one could almost say that its most sought for and popular folk were its hired girls. They were few and sniffy. They exercised care and discretion in the choice of their employers. They regulated the diet of the said employers and the frequency and quality of their entertainments. If it could be said that there was an aristocracy in the place they were it. First, among the Who's Who of Bingville, were the Gilligan sisters who worked in the big brick house of Judge Crooker; another was Mrs. Pat Collins, seventy-two years of age, who presided in the kitchen of the Reverend Otis Singleton; the two others were Susan Crowder, a woman of sixty, and a red-headed girl with one eye, of the name of Featherstraw, both of whom served the opulent Bings. Some of these hired girls ate with the family— save on special occasions when city folk were present. Mrs. Collins and the Gilligans seemed to enjoy this privilege but Susan Crowder, having had an ancestor who had fought in the Revolutionary War, couldn't stand it, and Martha Featherstraw preferred to eat in the kitchen. Indeed there was some warrant for this remarkable situation. The Gilligan sisters had a brother who was a Magistrate in a large city and Mrs. Collins had a son who was a successful and popular butcher in the growing city of Hazelmead.

That part of the village known as Irishtown and a settlement of Poles and Italians furnished the man help in the mill, and its sons were also seen more or less in the fields and gardens. Ambition and Education had been working in the minds of the young in and about Bingville for two generations. The sons and daughters of farmers and ditch-diggers had read Virgil and Horace and plodded into the mysteries of higher mathematics. The best of them had gone into learned professions; others had enlisted in the business of great cities; still others had gone in for teaching or stenography.

Their success had wrought a curious devastation in the village and countryside. The young moved out heading for the paths of glory. Many a sturdy, stupid person who might have made an excellent plumber, or carpenter, or farmer, or cook, armed with a university degree and a sense of superiority, had gone forth in quest of fame and fortune prepared for nothing in particular and achieving firm possession of it. Somehow the elective system had enabled them "to get by" in a state of mind that resembled the Mojave Desert. If they did not care for Latin or mathematics they could take a course in Hierology or in The Taming of the Wild Chickadee or in some such easy skating. Bingville was like many places. The young had fled from the irksome tasks which had roughened the hands and bent the backs of their parents. That, briefly, accounts for the fewness and the sniffiness above referred to.

Early in 1917, the village was shaken by alarming and astonishing news. True, the sinking of the Lusitania and our own enlistment in the World War and the German successes on the Russian frontier had, in a way, prepared the heart and intellect of Bingville for shocking events. Still, these disasters had been remote. The fact that the Gilligan sisters had left the Crookers and accepted an offer of one hundred and fifty dollars a month from the wealthy Nixons of Hazelmead was an event close to the footlights, so to speak. It caused the news of battles to take its rightful place in the distant background. Men talked of this event in stores and on street corners; it was the subject of conversation in sewing circles and the Philomathian Literary Club. That day, the Bings whispered about it at the dinner table between courses until Susan Crowder sent in a summons by Martha Featherstraw with the apple pie. She would be glad to see Mrs. J. Patterson Bing in the kitchen immediately after dinner. There was a moment of silence in the midst of which Mr. Bing winked knowingly at his wife, who turned pale as she put down her pie fork with a look of determination and rose and went into the kitchen. Mrs. Crowder regretted that she and Martha would have to look for another family unless their wages were raised from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a month.

"But, Susan, we all made an agreement for a year," said Mrs. Bing.

Mrs. Crowder was sorry but she and Martha could not make out on the wages they were getting— everything cost so much. If Mary Gilligan, who couldn't cook, was worth a hundred dollars a month Mrs. Crowder considered herself cheap at twice that figure.

Mrs. Bing, in her anger, was inclined to revolt, but Mr. Bing settled the matter by submitting to the tyranny of Susan. With Phyllis and three of her young friends coming from school and a party in prospect, there was nothing else to do.

Maggie Collins, who was too old and too firmly rooted in the village to leave it, was satisfied with a raise of ten dollars a month. Even then she received a third of the minister's salary. "His wife being a swell leddy who had no time for wurruk, sure the boy was no sooner married than he yelled for help," as Maggie was wont to say.

All this had a decided effect on the economic life of the village. Indeed, Hiram Blenkinsop, the village drunkard, who attended to the lawns and gardens for a number of people, demanded an increase of a dollar a day in his wages on account of the high cost of living, although one would say that its effect upon him could not have been serious. For years the historic figure of Blenkinsop had been the destination and repository of the cast-off clothing and the worn and shapeless shoes of the leading citizens. For a decade, the venerable derby hat, which once belonged to Judge Crooker, had survived all the incidents of his adventurous career. He was, indeed, as replete with suggestive memories as the graveyard to which he was wont to repair for rest and recuperation in summer weather. There, in the shade of a locust tree hard by the wall, he was often discovered with his faithful dog Christmas— a yellow, mongrel, good-natured cur— lying beside him, and the historic derby hat in his hand. He had a persevering pride in that hat. Mr. Blenkinsop showed a surprising and commendable industry under the stimulation of increased pay. He worked hard for a month, then celebrated his prosperity with a night of such noisy, riotous joy that he landed in the lockup with a black eye and a broken nose and an empty pocket. As usual, the dog Christmas went with him.

When there was a loud yell in the streets at night Judge Crooker used to say, "It's Hiram again! The poor fellow is out a-Hiraming."

William Snodgrass, the carpenter, gave much thought and reflection to the good fortune of the Gilligan girls. If a hired girl could earn twenty-five dollars a week and her board, a skilled mechanic who had to board himself ought to earn at least fifty. So he put up his prices. Israel Sneed, the plumber, raised his scale to correspond with that of the carpenter. The prices of the butcher and grocer kept pace with the rise of wages. A period of unexampled prosperity set in.

Some time before, the Old Spirit of Bingville had received notice that its services would no longer be required. It had been an industrious and faithful Old Spirit. The new generation did not intend to be hard on it. They were willing to give it a comfortable home as long as it lived. Its home was to be a beautiful and venerable asylum called The Past. There it was to have nothing to do but to sit around and weep and talk of bygone days. The Old Spirit rebelled. It refused to abandon its appointed tasks.

The notice had been given soon after the new theater was opened in the Sneed Block, and the endless flood of moving lights and shadows began to fall on its screen. The low-born, purblind intellects of Bohemian New York began to pour their lewd fancies into this great stream that flowed through every city, town and village in the land. They had no more compunction in the matter than a rattlesnake when it swallows a rabbit. To them, there were only two great, bare facts in life— male and female. The males, in their vulgar parlance, were either "wise guys" or "suckers"! The females were all "my dears."

Much of this mental sewage smelled to heaven. But it paid. It was cheap and entertaining. It relieved the tedium of small-town life.

Judge Crooker was in the little theater the evening that the Old Spirit of Bingville received notice to quit. The sons and daughters and even the young children of the best families in the village were there. Scenes from the shady side of the great cities, bar-room adventures with pugilists and porcelain-faced women, the thin-ice skating of illicit love succeeded one another on the screen. The tender souls of the young received the impression that life in the great world was mostly drunkenness, violence, lust, and Great White Waywardness of one kind or another.

Judge Crooker shook his head and his fist as he went out and expressed his view to Phyllis and her mother in the lobby. Going home, they called him an old prude. The knowledge that every night this false instruction was going on in the Sneed Block filled the good man with sorrow and apprehension. He complained to Mr. Leak, the manager, who said that he would like to give clean shows, but that he had to take what was sent him.

Soon a curious thing happened to the family of Mr. J. Patterson Bing. It acquired a new god— one that began, as the reader will have observed, with a small "g." He was a boneless, India-rubber, obedient little god. For years the need of one like that had been growing in the Bing family. Since he had become a millionaire, Mr. Bing had found it necessary to spend a good deal of time and considerable money in New York. Certain of his banker friends in the metropolis had introduced him to the joys of the Great White Way and the card room of the Golden Age Club. Always he had been ill and disgruntled for a week after his return to the homely realities of Bingville. The shrewd intuitions of Mrs. Bing alarmed her. So Phyllis and John were packed off to private schools so that the good woman would be free to look after the imperiled welfare of the lamb of her flock— the great J. Patterson. She was really worried about him. After that, she always went with him to the city. She was pleased and delighted with the luxury of the Waldorf-Astoria, the costumes, the dinner parties, the theaters, the suppers, the cabaret shows. The latter shocked her a little at first.

THEY went out to a great country house, near the city, to spend a week-end. There was a dinner party on Saturday night. One of the ladies got very tipsy and was taken up-stairs. The others repaired to the music room to drink their coffee and smoke. Mrs. Bing tried a cigarette and got along with it very well. Then there was an hour of heart to heart, central European dancing while the older men sat down for a night of bridge in the library. Sunday morning, the young people rode to hounds across country while the bridge party continued its session in the library. It was not exactly a restful week-end. J. Patterson and his wife went to bed, as soon as their grips were unpacked, on their return to the city and spent the day there with aching heads.

While they were eating dinner that night, the cocktail remarked with the lips of Mrs. Bing: "I'm getting tired of Bingville."

"Oh, of course, it's a picayune place," said J. Patterson.

"It's so provincial!" the lady exclaimed.

Soon, the oysters and the entree having subdued the cocktail, she ventured: "But it does seem to me that New York is an awfully wicked place."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Godless," she answered. "The drinking and gambling and those dances."

"That's because you've been brought up in a seven-by-nine Puritan village," J. Patterson growled very decisively. "Why shouldn't people enjoy themselves? We have trouble enough at best. God gave us bodies to get what enjoyment we could out of them. It's about the only thing we're sure of, anyhow."

It was a principle of Mrs. Bing to agree with J. Patterson. And why not? He was a great man. She knew it as well as he did and that was knowing it very well indeed. His judgment about many things had been right— triumphantly and overwhelmingly right. Besides, it was the only comfortable thing to do. She had been the type of woman who reads those weird articles written by grass widows on "How to Keep the Love of a Husband."

So it happened that the Bings began to construct a little god to suit their own tastes and habits— one about as tractable as a toy dog. They withdrew from the Congregational Church and had house parties for sundry visitors from New York and Hazelmead every week-end.

Phyllis returned from school in May with a spirit quite in harmony with that of her parents. She had spent the holidays at the home of a friend in New York and had learned to love the new dances and to smoke, although that was a matter to be mentioned only in a whisper and not in the presence of her parents. She was a tall, handsome girl with blue eyes, blonde hair, perfect teeth and complexion, and almost a perfect figure. Here she was, at last, brought up to the point of a coming-out party.

It had been a curious and rather unfortunate bringing up that the girl had suffered. She had been the pride of a mother's heart and the occupier of that position is apt to achieve great success in supplying a mother's friends with topics of conversation. Phyllis had been flattered and indulged. Mrs. Bing was entitled to much credit, having been born of poor and illiterate parents in a small village on the Hudson a little south of the Capital. She was pretty and grew up with a longing for better things. J. Patterson got her at a bargain in an Albany department store where she stood all day behind the notion counter. "At a bargain," it must be said, because, on the whole, there were higher values in her personality than in his. She had acquired that common Bertha Clay habit of associating with noble lords who lived in cheap romances and had a taste for poor but honest girls. The practical J. Patterson hated that kind of thing. But his wife kept a supply of these highly flavored novels hidden in the little flat and spent her leisure reading them.

One of the earliest recollections of Phyllis was the caution, "Don't tell father!" received on the hiding of a book. Mrs. Bing had bought, in those weak, pinching times of poverty, extravagant things for herself and the girl and gone in debt for them. Collectors had come at times to get their money with impatient demands.

The Bings were living in a city those days. Phyllis had been a witness of many interviews of the kind. All along the way of life, she had heard the oft-repeated injunction, "Don't tell father!" She came to regard men as creatures who were not to be told. When Phyllis got into a scrape at school, on account of a little flirtation, and Mrs. Bing went to see about it, the two agreed on keeping the salient facts from father.

A dressmaker came after Phyllis arrived to get her ready for the party. The afternoon of the event, J. Patterson brought the young people of the best families of Hazelmead by special train to Bingville. The Crookers, the Witherills, the Ameses, the Renfrews and a number of the most popular students in the Normal School were also invited. They had the famous string band from Hazelmead to furnish music, and Smith— an impressive young English butler whom they had brought from New York on their last return.

Phyllis wore a gown which Judge Crooker described as "the limit." He said to his wife after they had gone home: "Why, there was nothing on her back but a pair of velvet gallowses and when I stood in front of her my eyes were seared."

"Mrs. Bing calls it high art," said the Judge's wife.

"I call it down pretty close to see level," said the Judge. "When she clinched with those young fellers and went wrestling around the room she reminded me of a grape-vine growing on a tree."

This reaction on the intellect of the Judge quite satisfies the need of the historian. Again the Old Spirit of Bingville had received notice. It is only necessary to add that the punch was strong and the house party over the week-end made a good deal of talk by fast driving around the country in motor-cars on Sunday and by loud singing in boats on the river and noisy play on the tennis courts. That kind of thing was new to Bingville.

When it was all over, Phyllis told her mother that Gordon King— one of the young men— had insulted her when they had been out in a boat together on Sunday. Mrs. Bing was shocked. They had a talk about it up in Phyllis' bedroom at the end of which Mrs. Bing repeated that familiar injunction, "Don't tell father!"

It was soon after the party that Mr. J. Patterson Bing sent for William Snodgrass, the carpenter. He wanted an extension built on his house containing new bedrooms and baths and a large sun parlor. The estimate of Snodgrass was unexpectedly large. In explanation of the fact the latter said: "We work only eight hours a day now. The men demand it and they must be taken to and from their work. They can get all they want to do on those terms."

"And they demand seven dollars and a half a day at that? It's big pay for an ordinary mechanic," said J. Patterson.

"There's plenty of work to do," Snodgrass answered. "I don't care the snap o' my finger whether I get your job or not. I'm forty thousand ahead o' the game and I feel like layin' off for the summer and takin' a rest."

"I suppose I could get you to work overtime and hurry the job through if I'm willing to pay for it?" the millionaire inquired.

"The rate would be time an' a half for work done after the eight hours are up, but it's hard to get any one to work overtime these days."

"Well, go ahead and get all the work you can out of these plutocrats of the saw and hammer. I'll pay the bills," said J. Patterson.

The terms created a record in Bingville. But, as Mr. Bing had agreed to them, in his haste, they were established.

Israel Sneed, the plumber, was working with his men on a job at Millerton, but he took on the plumbing for the Bing house extension, at prices above all precedent, to be done as soon as he could get to it on his return. The butcher and grocer had improved the opportunity to raise their prices for Bing never questioned a bill. He set the pace. Prices stuck where he put the peg. So, unwittingly, the millionaire had created conditions of life that were extremely difficult.

Since prices had gone up the village of Bingville had been running down at the heel. It had been at best and, in the main, a rather shiftless and inert community. The weather had worn the paint off many houses before their owners had seen the need of repainting. Not until the rain drummed on the floor was the average, drowsy intellect of Bingville roused to action on the roof. It must be said, however, that every one was busy, every day, except Hiram Blenkinsop, who often indulged in ante mortem slumbers in the graveyard or went out on the river with his dog Christmas, his bottle and his fishing rod. The people were selling goods, or teaming, or working in the two hotels or the machine shop or the electric light plant or the mill, or keeping the hay off the lawns, or building, or teaching in the schools. The gardens were suffering unusual neglect that season— their owners being so profitably engaged in other work— and the lazy foreigners demanded four dollars and a half a day and had to be watched and sworn at and instructed, and not every one had the versatility for this task. The gardens were largely dependent on the spasmodic industry of schoolboys and old men. So it will be seen that the work of the community had little effect on the supply of things necessary to life. Indeed, a general habit of extravagance had been growing in the village. People were not so careful of food, fuel and clothing as they had been.

It was a wet summer in Bingville. The day after the rains began, Professor Renfrew called at the house of the sniffy Snodgrass— the nouveau riche and opulent carpenter. He sat reading the morning paper with a new diamond ring on the third finger of his left hand.

"My roof is leaking badly and it will have to be fixed at once," the Professor announced.

"I'm sorry, I can't do a thing for you now," said Snodgrass. "I've got so much to do, I don't know which way to turn."

"But you're not working this rainy day, are you?" the Professor asked.

"No, and I don't propose to work in this rain for anybody; if I did I'd fix my own roof. To tell you the truth, I don't have to work at all! I calculate that I've got all the money I need. So, when it rains, I intend to rest and get acquainted with my family."

He was firm but in no way disagreeable about it.

Some of the half-dozen men who, in like trouble, called on him for help that day were inclined to resent his declaration of independence and his devotion to leisure, but really Mr. Snodgrass was well within his rights.

It was a more serious matter when Judge Crocker's plumbing leaked and flooded his kitchen and cellar. Israel Sneed was in Millerton every day and working overtime more or less. He refused to put a hand on the Judge's pipes. He was sorry but he couldn't make a horse of himself and even if he could the time was past when he had to do it. Judge Crooker brought a plumber from Hazelmead, sixty miles in a motor-car, and had to pay seventy dollars for time, labor and materials. This mechanic declared that there was too much pressure on the pipes, a judgment of whose accuracy we have abundant proof in the history of the next week or so. Never had there been such a bursting of pipes and flooding of cellars. That little lake up in the hills which supplied the water of Bingville seemed to have got the common notion of moving into the village. A dozen cellars were turned into swimming pools. Modern improvements were going out of commission. A committee went to Hazelmead and after a week's pleading got a pair of young and inexperienced plumbers to come to Bingville.

"They must 'a' plugged 'em with gold," said Deacon Hosley, when the bill arrived.

New leaks were forthcoming, but Hiram Blenkinsop conceived the notion of stopping them with poultices of white lead and bandages of canvas bound with fine wire. They dripped and many of the pipes of Bingville looked as if they were suffering from sprained ankles and sore throats, but Hiram had prevented another deluge.

The price of coal had driven the people of Bingville back to the woods for fuel. The old wood stoves had been cleaned and set up in the sitting-rooms and kitchens. The saving had been considerable. Now, so many men were putting in their time on the house and grounds of J. Patterson Bing and the new factory at Millerton that the local wood dealer found it impossible to get the help he needed. Not twenty-five per cent. of the orders on his books could be filled.

Mr. Bing's house was finished in October. Then Snodgrass announced that he was going to take it easy as became a man of his opulence. He had bought a farm and would only work three days a week at his trade. Sneed had also bought a farm and acquired a feeling of opulence. He was going to work when he felt like it. Before he tackled any leaking pipes he proposed to make a few leaks in the deer up in the Adirondacks. So the roofs and the plumbing had to wait.

Meanwhile, Bingville was in sore trouble. The ancient roof of its respectability had begun to leak. The beams and rafters in the house of its spirit were rotting away. Many of the inhabitants of the latter regarded the great J. Patterson Bing with a kind of awe— like that of the Shepherd of the Birds. He was the leading citizen. He had done things. When J. Patterson Bing decided that rest or fresh air was better for him than bad music and dull prayers and sermons, and that God was really not much concerned as to whether a man sat in a pew or a rocking chair or a motor-car on Sunday, he was, probably, quite right. Really, it was a matter much more important to Mr. Bing and his neighbors than to God. Indeed, it is not at all likely that the ruler of the universe was worrying much about them. But when J. Patterson Bing decided in favor of fun and fresh air, R. Purdy— druggist— made a like decision, and R. Purdy was a man of commanding influence in his own home. His daughters, Mabel and Gladys, and his son, Richard, Jr., would not have been surprised to see him elected President of the United States, some day, believing that that honor was only for the truly great. Soon Mrs. Purdy stood alone— a hopeless minority of one— in the household. By much pleading and nagging, she kept the children in the fold of the church for a time but, by and by, grew weary of the effort. She was converted by nervous exhaustion to the picnic Sunday. Her conscience worried her. She really felt sorry for God and made sundry remarks calculated to appease and comfort Him.

Now all this would seem to have been in itself a matter of slight importance. But Orville Gates, the superintendent of the mill, and John Seaver, attorney at law, and Robert Brown, the grocer, and Pendleton Ames, who kept the book and stationery store, and William Ferguson, the clothier, and Darwin Sill, the butcher, and Snodgrass, the carpenter, and others had joined the picnic caravan led by the millionaire. These good people would not have admitted it, but the truth is J. Patterson Bing held them all in the hollow of his hand. Nobody outside his own family had any affection for him. Outwardly, he was as hard as nails. But he owned the bank and controlled credits and was an extravagant buyer. He had given freely for the improvement of the village and the neighboring city of Hazelmead. His family was the court circle of Bingville. Consciously or unconsciously, the best people imitated the Bings.

Judge Crooker was, one day, discussing with a friend the social conditions of Bingville. In regard to picnic Sundays he made this remark: "George Meredith once wrote to his son that he would need the help of religion to get safely beyond the stormy passions of youth. It is very true!"

The historian was reminded of this saying by the undertow of the life currents in Bingville. The dances in the Normal School and in the homes of the well-to-do were imitations of the great party at J. Patterson Bing's. The costumes of certain of the young ladies were, to quote a clause from the posters of the Messrs. Barnum and Bailey, still clinging to the bill-board: "the most daring and amazing bareback performances in the history of the circus ring." Phyllis Bing, the unrivaled metropolitan performer, set the pace. It was distinctly too rapid for her followers. If one may say it kindly, she was as cold and heartless and beautiful in her act as a piece of bronze or Italian marble. She was not ashamed of herself. She did it so easily and gracefully and unconsciously and obligingly, so to speak, as if her license had never been questioned. It was not so with Vivian Mead and Frances Smith and Pauline Baker. They limped and struggled in their efforts to keep up. To begin with, the art of their modiste had been fussy, imitative and timid. It lacked the master touch. Their spirits were also improperly prepared for such publicity. They blushed and looked apologies and were visibly uncomfortable when they entered the dance-hall.

On this point, Judge Crooker delivered a famous opinion. It was: "I feel sorry for those girls but their mothers ought to be spanked!"

There is evidence that this sentence of his was carried out in due time and in a most effectual manner. But the works of art which these mothers had put on exhibition at the Normal School sprang into overwhelming popularity with the young men and their cards were quickly filled. In half an hour, they had ceased to blush. Their eyes no longer spoke apologies. They were new women. Their initiation was complete. They had become in the language of Judge Crooker, "perfect Phyllistines!"

The dancing tried to be as naughty as that remarkable Phyllistinian pastime at the mansion of the Bings and succeeded well, if not handsomely. The modern dances and dress were now definitely established in Bingville.

Just before the holidays, the extension of the ample home of the millionaire was decorated, furnished, and ready to be shown. Mrs. Bing and Phyllis who had been having a fling in New York came home for the holidays. John arrived the next day from the great Padelford School to be with the family through the winter recess. Mrs. Bing gave a tea to the ladies of Bingville. She wanted them to see the improvements and become aware of her good will. She had thought of an evening party, but there were many men in the village whom she didn't care to have in her house. So it became a tea.

The women talked of leaking roofs and water pipes and useless bathrooms and outrageous costs. Phyllis sat in the Palm Room with the village girls. It happened that they talked mainly about their fathers. Some had complained of paternal strictness.

"Men are terrible! They make so much trouble," said Frances Smith. "It seems as if they hated to see anybody have a good time."

"Mother and I do as we please and say nothing," said Phyllis. "We never tell father anything. Men don't understand."

Some of the girls smiled and looked into one another's eyes.

There had been a curious undercurrent in the party. It did not break the surface of the stream until Mrs. Bing asked Mrs. Pendleton Ames, "Where is Susan Baker?"

A silence fell upon the group around her.

Mrs. Ames leaned toward Mrs. Bing and whispered, "Haven't you heard the news?"

"No. I had to scold Susan Crowder and Martha Featherstraw as soon as I got here for neglecting their work and they've hardly spoken to me since. What is it?"

"Pauline Baker has run away with a strange young man," Mrs. Ames whispered.

Mrs. Bing threw up both hands, opened her mouth and looked toward the ceiling.

"You don't mean it," she gasped.

"It's a fact. Susan told me. Mr. Baker doesn't know the truth yet and she doesn't dare to tell him. She's scared stiff. Pauline went over to Hazelmead last week to visit Emma Stacy against his wishes. She met the young man at a dance. Susan got a letter from Pauline last night making a clean breast of the matter. They are married and stopping at a hotel in New York."

"My lord! I should think she would be scared stiff," said Mrs. Bing.

"I think there is a good reason for the stiffness of Susan," said Mrs. Singleton, the wife of the Congregational minister. "We all know that Mr. Baker objected to these modern dances and the way that Pauline dressed. He used to say that it was walking on the edge of a precipice."

There was a breath of silence in which one could hear only a faint rustle like the stir of some invisible spirit.

Mrs. Bing sighed. "He may be all right," she said in a low, calm voice.

"But the indications are not favorable," Mrs. Singleton remarked.

The gossip ceased abruptly, for the girls were coming out of the Palm Room.

The next morning, Mrs. Bing went to see Susan Baker to offer sympathy and a helping hand. Mamie Bing was, after all, a good-hearted woman. By this time, Mr. Baker had been told. He had kicked a hole in the long looking-glass in Pauline's bedroom and flung a pot of rouge through the window and scattered talcum powder all over the place and torn a new silk gown into rags and burnt it in the kitchen stove and left the house slamming the door behind him. Susan had gone to bed and he had probably gone to the club or somewhere. Perhaps he would commit suicide. Of all this, it is enough to say that for some hours there was abundant occupation for the tender sympathies of Mrs. J. Patterson Bing. Before she left, Mr. Baker had returned for luncheon and seemed to be quite calm and self-possessed when he greeted her in the hall below stairs.

On entering her home, about one o'clock, Mrs. Bing received a letter from the hand of Martha.

"Phyllis told me to give you this as soon as you returned," said the girl.

"What does this mean?" Mrs. Bing whispered to herself, as she tore open the envelope.

Her face grew pale and her hands trembled as she read the letter.

"Dearest Mamma," it began. "I am going to Hazelmead for luncheon with Gordon King. I couldn't ask you because I didn't know where you were. We have waited an hour. I am sure you wouldn't want me to miss having a lovely time. I shall be home before five. Don't tell father! He hates Gordon so.

"Phyllis."

"The boy who insulted her! My God!" Mrs. Bing exclaimed in a whisper. She hurried to the door of the butler's pantry. Indignation was in the sound of her footsteps.

"Martha!" she called.

Martha came.

"Tell James to bring the big car at once. I'm going to Hazelmead."

"Without luncheon?" the girl asked.

"Just give me a sandwich and I'll eat it in my hand."

"I want you to hurry," she said to James as she entered the glowing limousine with the sandwich half consumed.

They drove at top speed over the smooth, state road to the mill city. At half past two, Mrs. Bing alighted at the fashionable Gray Goose Inn where the best people had their luncheon parties. She found Phyllis and Gordon in a cozy alcove, sipping cognac and smoking cigarettes, with an ice tub and a champagne bottle beside them. To tell the whole truth, it was a timely arrival. Phyllis, with no notion of the peril of it, was indeed having "a lovely time"— the time of her young life, in fact. For half an hour, she had been hanging on the edge of the giddy precipice of elopement. She was within one sip of a decision to let go.

Mrs. Bing was admirably cool. In her manner there was little to indicate that she had seen the unusual and highly festive accessories. She sat down beside them and said, "My dear, I was very lonely and thought I would come and look you up. Is your luncheon finished?"

"Yes," said Phyllis.

"Then let us go and get into the car. We'll drop Mr. King at his home."

When at last they were seated in the limousine, the angry lady lifted the brakes in a way of speaking.

"I am astonished that you would go to luncheon with this young man who has insulted you," she said.

Phyllis began to cry.

Turning to young Gordon King, the indignant lady added: "I think you are a disreputable boy. You must never come to my house again— never!"

He made no answer and left the car without a word at the door of the King residence.

There were miles and miles of weeping on the way home. Phyllis had recovered her composure but began again when her mother remarked, "I wonder where you learned to drink champagne and cognac and smoke cigarettes," as if her own home had not been a perfect academy of dissipation. The girl sat in a corner, her eyes covered with her handkerchief and the only words she uttered on the way home were these: "Don't tell father!"

While this was happening, Mr. Baker confided his troubles to Judge Crooker in the latter's office. The Judge heard him through and then delivered another notable opinion, to wit: "There are many subjects on which the judgment of the average man is of little value, but in the matter of bringing up a daughter it is apt to be sound. Also there are many subjects on which the judgment of the average woman may be trusted, but in the matter of bringing up a daughter it is apt to be unsound. I say this, after some forty years of observation."

"What is the reason?" Mr. Baker asked.

"Well, a daughter has to be prepared to deal with men," the Judge went on. "The masculine temperament is involved in all the critical problems of her life. Naturally the average man is pretty well informed on the subject of men. You have prospered these late years. You have been so busy getting rich that you have just used your home to eat and sleep in. You can't do a home any good by eating and snoring and reading a paper in it."

"My wife would have her own way there," said Baker.

"That doesn't alter the fact that you have neglected your home. You have let things slide. You wore yourself out in this matter of money-getting. You were tired when you got home at night— all in, as they say. The bank was the main thing with you. I repeat that you let things slide at home and the longer they slide the faster they slide when they're going down hill. You can always count on that in a case of sliding. The young have a taste for velocity and often it comes so unaccountably fast that they don't know what to do with it, so they're apt to get their necks broken unless there's some one to put on the brakes."

Mr. Emanuel Baker arose and began to stride up and down the room.

"Upon my word, Judge! I don't know what to do," he exclaimed.

"There's only one thing to do. Go and find the young people and give them your blessing. If you can discover a spark of manhood in the fellow, make the most of it. The chances are against that, but let us hope for the best. Above all, I want you to be gentle with Pauline. You are more to blame than she is."

"I don't see how I can spare the time, but I'll have to," said Baker.

"Time! Fiddlesticks!" the Judge exclaimed. "What a darn fool money makes of a man! You have lost your sense of proportion, your appreciation of values. Bill Pritchard used to talk that way to me. He has been lying twenty years in his grave. He hadn't a minute to spare until one day he fell dead— then leisure and lots of leisure it would seem— and the business has doubled since he quit worrying about it. My friend, you can not take a cent into Paradise, but the soul of Pauline is a different kind of property. It might be a help to you there. Give plenty of time to this job, and good luck to you."

The spirit of the old, dead days spoke in the voice of the Judge— spoke with a kindly dignity. It had ever been the voice of Justice, tempered with Mercy— the most feared and respected voice in the upper counties. His grave, smooth-shaven face, his kindly gray eyes, his noble brow with its crown of white hair were fitting accessories of the throne of Justice and Mercy.

"I'll go this afternoon. Thank you, Judge!" said Baker, as he left the office.

Pauline had announced in her letter that her husband's name was Herbert Middleton. Mr. Baker sent a telegram to Pauline to apprise her of his arrival in the morning. It was a fatherly message of love and good-will. At the hotel in New York, Mr. Baker learned that Mr. and Mrs. Middleton had checked out the day before. Nobody could tell him where they had gone. One of the men at the porter's desk told of putting them in a taxicab with their grips and a steamer trunk soon after luncheon. He didn't know where they went. Mr. Baker's telegram was there unopened. He called at every hotel desk in the city, but he could get no trace of them. He telephoned to Mrs. Baker. She had heard nothing from Pauline. In despair, he went to the Police Department and told his story to the Chief.

"It looks as if there was something crooked about it," said the Chief. "There are many cases like this. Just read that."

The officer picked up a newspaper clipping, which lay on his desk, and passed it to Mr. Baker. It was from the New York Evening Post. The banker read aloud this startling information:

"'The New York police report that approximately 3600 girls have run away or disappeared from their homes in the past eleven months, and the Bureau of Missing Persons estimates that the number who have disappeared throughout the country approximates 68,000.'"

"It's rather astonishing," the Chief went on. "The women seem to have gone crazy these days. Maybe it's the new dancing and the movies that are breaking down the morals of the little suburban towns or maybe it's the excitement of the war. Anyhow, they keep the city supplied with runaways and vamps. You are not the first anxious father I have seen to-day. You can go home. I'll put a man on the case and let you know what happens."

3: Which Tells of the Complaining Coin

and the Man Who Lost His Self

THERE was a certain gold coin in a little bureau drawer in Bingville which began to form a habit of complaining to its master.

"How cold I am!" it seemed to say to the boy. "I was cold when you put me in here and I have been cold ever since. Br-r-r! I'm freezing."

Bob Moran took out the little drawer and gave it a shaking as he looked down at the gold piece.

"Don't get rattled," said the redoubtable Mr. Bloggs, who had a great contempt for cowards.

It was just after the Shepherd of the Birds had heard of a poor widow who was the mother of two small children and who had fallen sick of the influenza with no fuel in her house.

"I am cold, too!" said the Shepherd.

"Why, of course you are," the coin answered. "That's the reason I'm cold. A coin is never any warmer than the heart of its owner. Why don't you take me out of here and give me a chance to move around?"

Things that would not say a word to other boys often spoke to the Shepherd.

"Let him go," said Mr. Bloggs.

Indeed it was the tin soldier, who stood on his little shelf looking out of the window, who first reminded Bob of the loneliness and discomfort of the coin. As a rule whenever the conscience of the boy was touched Mr. Bloggs had something to say.

It was late in February and every one was complaining of the cold. Even the oldest inhabitants of Bingville could not recall so severe a winter. Many families were short of fuel. The homes of the working folk were insufficiently heated. Money in the bank had given them a sense of security. They could not believe that its magic power would fail to bring them what they needed. So they had been careless of their allowance of wood and coal. There were days when they had none and could get none at the yard. Some of them took boards out of their barn floors and cut down shade trees and broke up the worst of their furniture to feed the kitchen stove in those days of famine. Some men with hundreds of dollars in the bank went out into the country at night and stole rails off the farmers' fences. The homes of these unfortunate people were ravaged by influenza and many died.

Prices at the stores mounted higher. Most of the gardens had been lying idle. The farmers had found it hard to get help. Some of the latter, indeed, had decided that they could make more by teaming at Millerton than by toiling in the fields, and with less effort. They left the boys and the women to do what they could with the crops. Naturally the latter were small. So the local sources of supply had little to offer and the demand upon the stores steadily increased. Certain of the merchants had been, in a way, spoiled by prosperity. They were rather indifferent to complaints and demands. Many of the storekeepers, irritated, doubtless, by overwork, had lost their former politeness. The two butchers, having prospered beyond their hopes, began to feel the need of rest. They cut down their hours of labor and reduced their stocks and raised their prices. There were days when their supplies failed to arrive. The railroad service had been bad enough in times of peace. Now, it was worse than ever.

Those who had plenty of money found it difficult to get a sufficient quantity of good food, Bingville being rather cut off from other centers of life by distance and a poor railroad. Some drove sixty miles to Hazelmead to do marketing for themselves and their neighbors.

Mr. and Mrs. J. Patterson Bing, however, in their luxurious apartment at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, knew little of these conditions until Mr. Bing came up late in March for a talk with the mill superintendent. Many of the sick and poor suffered extreme privation. Father O'Neil and the Reverend Otis Singleton of the Congregational Church went among the people, ministering to the sick, of whom there were very many, and giving counsel to men and women who were unaccustomed to prosperity and ill-qualified wisely to enjoy it. One day, Father O'Neil saw the Widow Moran coming into town with a great bundle of fagots on her back.

"This looks a little like the old country," he remarked.

She stopped and swung her fagots to the ground and announced: "It do that an' may God help us! It's hard times, Father. In spite o' all the money, it's hard times. It looks like there wasn't enough to go 'round— the ships be takin' so many things to the old country."

"How is my beloved Shepherd?" the good Father asked.

"Mother o' God! The house is that cold, he's been layin' abed for a week an' Judge Crooker has been away on the circuit."

"Too bad!" said the priest. "I've been so busy with the sick and the dying and the dead I have hardly had time to think of you."

Against her protest, he picked up the fagots and carried them on his own back to her kitchen.

He found the Shepherd in a sweater sitting up in bed and knitting socks.

"How is my dear boy?" the good Father asked.

"Very sad," said the Shepherd. "I want to do something to help and my legs are useless."

"Courage!" Mr. Bloggs seemed to shout from his shelf at the window-side and just then he assumed a most valiant and determined look as he added: "Forward! march!"

Father O'Neil did what he could to help in that moment of peril by saying:

"Cheer up, boy. I'm going out to Dan Mullin's this afternoon and I'll make him bring you a big load of wood. I'll have you back at your work to-morrow. The spring will be coming soon and your flock will be back in the garden."

It was not easy to bring a smile to the face of the little Shepherd those days. A number of his friends had died and others were sick and he was helpless. Moreover, his mother had told him of the disappearance of Pauline and that her parents feared she was in great trouble. This had worried him, and the more because his mother had declared that the girl was probably worse than dead. He could not quite understand it and his happy spirit was clouded. The good Father cheered him with merry jests. Near the end of their talk the boy said: "There's one thing in this room that makes me unhappy. It's that gold piece in the drawer. It does nothing but lie there and shiver and talk to me. Seems as if it complained of the cold. It says that it wants to move around and get warm. Every time I hear of some poor person that needs food or fuel, it calls out to me there in the little drawer and says, 'How cold I am! How cold I am!' My mother wishes me to keep it for some time of trouble that may come to us, but I can't. It makes me unhappy. Please take it away and let it do what it can to keep the poor people warm."

"Well done, boys!" Mr. Bloggs seemed to say with a look of joy as if he now perceived that the enemy was in full retreat.

"There's no worse company, these days, than a hoarded coin," said the priest. "I won't let it plague you any more."

Father O'Neil took the coin from the drawer. It fell from his fingers with a merry laugh as it bounded on the floor and whirled toward the doorway like one overjoyed and eager to be off.

"God bless you, my boy! May it buy for you the dearest wish of your heart."

"Ha ha!" laughed the little tin soldier for he knew the dearest wish of the boy far better than the priest knew it.

Mr. Singleton called soon after Father O'Neil had gone away.

"The top of the morning to you!" he shouted, as he came into Bob's room.

"It's all right top and bottom," Bob answered cheerfully.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" the minister went on. "I'm a regular Santa Claus this morning. I've got a thousand dollars that Mr. Bing sent me. It's for any one that needs help."

"We'll be all right as soon as our load of wood comes. It will be here to-morrow morning," said the Shepherd.

"I'll come and cut and split it for you," the minister proposed. "The eloquence of the axe is better than that of the tongue these days. Meanwhile, I'm going to bring you a little jag in my wheelbarrow. How about beefsteak and bacon and eggs and all that?"

"I guess we've got enough to eat, thank you." This was not quite true, for Bob, thinking of the sick, whose people could not go to market, was inclined to hide his own hunger.

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed Mr. Bloggs, for he knew very well that the boy was hiding his hunger.

"Do you call that a lie?" the Shepherd asked as soon as the minister had gone.

"A little one! But in my opinion it don't count," said Mr. Bloggs. "You were thinking of those who need food more than you and that turns it square around. I call it a golden lie— I do."

The minister had scarcely turned the corner of the street, when he met Hiram Blenkinsop, who was shivering along without an overcoat, the dog Christmas at his heels.

Mr. Singleton stopped him.

"Why, man! Haven't you an overcoat?" he asked.

"No, sir! It's hangin' on a peg in a pawn-shop over in Hazelmead. It ain't doin' the peg any good nor me neither!"

"Well, sir, you come with me," said the minister. "It's about dinner time, anyway, and I guess you need lining as well as covering."

The drunkard looked into the face of the minister.

"Say it ag'in," he muttered.

"I wouldn't wonder if a little food would make you feel better," Mr. Singleton added.

"A little, did ye say?" Blenkinsop asked.

"Make it a lot— as much as you can accommodate."

"And do ye mean that ye want me to go an' eat in yer house?"

"Yes, at my table— why not?"

"It wouldn't be respectable. I don't want to be too particular but a tramp must draw the line somewhere."

"I'll be on my best behavior. Come on," said the minister.

The two men hastened up the street followed by the dejected little yellow dog, Christmas.

Mrs. Singleton and her daughter were out with a committee of the Children's Helpers and the minister was dining alone that day and, as usual, at one o'clock, that being the hour for dinner in the village of Bingville.

"Tell me about yourself," said the minister as they sat down at the table.

"Myself— did you say?" Hiram Blenkinsop asked as one of his feet crept under his chair to conceal its disreputable appearance, while his dog had partly hidden himself under a serving table where he seemed to be shivering with apprehension as he peered out, with raised hackles, at the stag's head over the mantel.

"Yes."

"I ain't got any Self, sir; it's all gone," said Blenkinsop, as he took a swallow of water.

"A man without any Self is a curious creature," the minister remarked.

"I'm as empty as a woodpecker's hole in the winter time. The bird has flown. I belong to this 'ere dog. He's a poor dog. I'm all he's got. If he had to pay a license on me I'd have to be killed. He's kind to me. He's the only friend I've got."

Hiram Blenkinsop riveted his attention upon an old warming-pan that hung by the fireplace. He hardly looked at the face of the minister.

"How did you come to lose your Self?" the latter asked.

"Married a bad woman and took to drink. A man's Self can stand cold an' hunger an' shipwreck an' loss o' friends an' money an' any quantity o' bad luck, take it as it comes, but a bad woman breaks the works in him an' stops his clock dead. Leastways, it done that to me!"

"She is like an arrow in his liver," the minister quoted. "Mr. Blenkinsop, where do you stay nights?"

"I've a shake-down in the little loft over the ol' blacksmith shop on Water Street. There are cracks in the gable, an' the snow an' the wind blows in, an' the place is dark an' smells o' coal gas an' horses' feet, but Christmas an' I snug up together an' manage to live through the winter. In hot weather, we sleep under a tree in the ol' graveyard an' study astronomy. Sometimes, I wish I was there for good."

"Wouldn't you like a bed in a comfortable house?"

"No. I couldn't take the dog there an' I'd have to git up like other folks."

"Would you think that a hardship?"

"Well, ye see, sir, if ye're layin' down ye ain't hungry. Then, too, I likes to dilly-dally in bed."

"What may that mean?" the minister asked.

"I likes to lay an' think an' build air castles."

"What kind of castles?"

"Well, sir, I'm thinkin' often o' a time when I'll have a grand suit o' clothes, an' a shiny silk tile on my head, an' a roll o' bills in my pocket, big enough to choke a dog, an' I'll be goin' back to the town where I was brought up an' I'll hire a fine team an' take my ol' mother out for a ride. An' when we pass by, people will be sayin': 'That's Hiram Blenkinsop! Don't you remember him? Born on the top floor o' the ol' sash mill on the island. He's a multi-millionaire an' a great man. He gives a thousand to the poor every day. Sure, he does!'"

"Blenkinsop, I'd like to help you to recover your lost Self and be a useful and respected citizen of this town," said Mr. Singleton. "You can do it if you will and I can tell you how."

Tears began to stream down the cheeks of the unfortunate man, who now covered his eyes with a big, rough hand.

"If you will make an honest effort, I'll stand by you. I'll be your friend through thick and thin," the minister added. "There's something good in you or you wouldn't be having a dream like that."

"Nobody has ever talked to me this way," poor Blenkinsop sobbed. "Nobody but you has ever treated me as if I was human."

"I know— I know. It's a hard old world, but at last you've found a man who is willing to be a brother to you if you really want one."

The poor man rose from the table and went to the minister's side and held out his hand.

"I do want a brother, sir, an' I'll do anything at all," he said in a broken voice.

"Then come with me," the minister commanded. "First, I'm going to improve the outside of you."

When they were ready to leave the house, Blenkinsop and his dog had had a bath and the former was shaved and in clean and respectable garments from top to toe.

"You look like a new man," said Mr. Singleton.

"Seems like, I felt more like a proper human bein'," Blenkinsop answered.

Christmas was scampering up and down the hall as if he felt like a new dog. Suddenly he discovered the stag's head again and slunk into a dark corner growling.

"A bath is a good sort of baptism," the minister remarked. "Here's an overcoat that I haven't worn for a year. It's fairly warm, too. Now if your Old Self should happen to come in sight of you, maybe he'd move back into his home. I remember once that we had a canary bird that got away. We hung his cage in one of the trees out in the yard with some food in it. By and by, we found him singing on the perch in his little home. Now, if we put some good food in the cage, maybe your bird will come back. Our work has only just begun."

They went out of the door and crossed the street and entered the big stone Congregational Church and sat down together in a pew. A soft light came through the great jeweled windows above the altar, and in the clearstory, and over the organ loft. They were the gift of Mr. Bing. It was a quiet, restful, beautiful place.

"I used to stand in the pulpit there and look down upon a crowd of handsomely dressed people," said Mr. Singleton in a low voice. "'There is something wrong about this,' I thought. 'There's too much respectability here. There are no flannel shirts and gingham dresses in the place. I can not see half a dozen poor people. I wish there was some ragged clothing down there in the pews. There isn't an out-and-out sinner in the crowd. Have we set up a little private god of our own that cares only for the rich and respectable?' I asked myself. 'This is the place for Hiram Blenkinsop and old Bill Lang and poor Lizzie Quesnelle, if they only knew it. Those are the kind of people that Jesus cared most about.' They're beginning to come to us now and we are glad of it. I want to see you here every Sunday after this. I want you to think of this place as your home. If you really wish to be my brother, come with me."

Blenkinsop trembled with strange excitement as he went with Mr. Singleton down the broad aisle, the dog Christmas following meekly. Man and minister knelt before the altar. Christmas sat down by his master's side, in a prayerful attitude, as if he, too, were seeking help and forgiveness.

"I feel better inside an' outside," said Blenkinsop as they were leaving the church.

"When you are tempted, there are three words which may be useful to you. They are these, 'God help me,'" the minister told him. "They are quickly said and I have often found them a source of strength in time of trouble. I am going to find work for you and there's a room over my garage with a stove in it which will make a very snug little home for you and Christmas."

That evening, as the dog and his master were sitting comfortably by the stove in their new home, there came a rap at the door. In a moment, Judge Crooker entered the room.

"Mr. Blenkinsop," said the Judge as he held out his hand, "I have heard of your new plans and I want you to know that I am very glad. Every one will be glad."

When the Judge had gone, Blenkinsop put his hand on the dog's head and asked with a little laugh: "Did ye hear what he said, Christmas? He called me Mister. Never done that before, no sir!"

Mr. Blenkinsop sat with his head upon his hand listening to the wind that whistled mournfully in the chimney. Suddenly he shouted: "Come in!"

The door opened and there on the threshold stood his Old Self.

It was not at all the kind of a Self one would have expected to see. It was, indeed, a very youthful and handsome Self— the figure of a clear-eyed, gentle-faced boy of about sixteen with curly, dark hair above his brows.

Mr. Blenkinsop covered his face and groaned. Then he held out his hands with an imploring gesture.

"I know you," he whispered. "Please come in."

"Not yet," the young man answered, and his voice was like the wind in the chimney. "But I have come to tell you that I, too, am glad."

Then he vanished.

Mr. Blenkinsop arose from his chair and rubbed his eyes.

"Christmas, ol' boy, I've been asleep," he muttered. "I guess it's time we turned in!"

4: In Which Mr. Israel Sneed

and Other Working Men

Receive a Lesson in

True Democracy

NEXT MORNING, Mr. Blenkinsop went to cut wood for the Widow Moran. The good woman was amazed by his highly respectable appearance.

"God help us! Ye look like a lawyer," she said.

"I'm a new man! Cut out the blacksmith shop an' the booze an' the bummers."

"May the good God love an' help ye! I heard about it."

"Ye did?"

"Sure I did. It's all over the town. Good news has a lively foot, man. The Shepherd clapped his hands when I told him. Ye got to go straight, my laddie buck. All eyes are on ye now. Come up an' see the boy. It's his birthday!"

Mr. Blenkinsop was deeply moved by the greeting of the little Shepherd, who kissed his cheek and said that he had often prayed for him.

"If you ever get lonely, come and sit with me and we'll have a talk and a game of dominoes," said the boy.

Mr. Blenkinsop got strength out of the wonderful spirit of Bob Moran and as he swung his axe that day, he was happier than he had been in many years. Men and women who passed in the street said, "How do you do, Mr. Blenkinsop? I'm glad to see you."

Even the dog Christmas watched his master with a look of pride and approval. Now and then, he barked gleefully and scampered up and down the sidewalk.

The Shepherd was fourteen years old. On his birthday, from morning until night, people came to his room bringing little gifts to remind him of their affection. No one in the village of Bingville was so much beloved. Judge Crooker came in the evening with ice-cream and a frosted cake. While he was there, a committee of citizens sought him out to confer with him regarding conditions in Bingville.

"There's more money than ever in the place, but there never was so much misery," said the chairman of the committee.

"We have learned that money is not the thing that makes happiness," Judge Crooker began. "With every one busy at high wages, and the banks overflowing with deposits, we felt safe. We ceased to produce the necessaries of life in a sufficient quantity. We forgot that the all important things are food, fuel, clothes and comfortable housing— not money. Some of us went money mad. With a feeling of opulence we refused to work at all, save when we felt like it. We bought diamond rings and sat by the fire looking at them. The roofs began to leak and our plumbing went wrong. People going to buy meat found the shops closed. Roofs that might have been saved by timely repairs will have to be largely replaced. Plumbing systems have been ruined by neglect. With all its money, the town was never so poverty-stricken, the people never so wretched."

Mr. Sneed, who was a member of the committee, slyly turned the ring on his finger so that the diamond was concealed. He cleared his throat and remarked, "We mechanics had more than we could do on work already contracted."

"Yes, you worked eight hours a day and refused to work any longer. You were legally within your rights, but your position was ungrateful and even heartless and immoral. Suppose there were a baby coming at your house and you should call for the doctor and he should say, 'I'm sorry, but I have done my eight hours' work to-day and I can't help you.' Then suppose you should offer him a double fee and he should say, 'No, thanks, I'm tired. I've got forty thousand dollars in the bank and I don't have to work when I don't want to.'

"Or suppose I were trying a case for you and, when my eight hours' work had expired, I should walk out of the court and leave your case to take care of itself. What do you suppose would become of it? Yet that is exactly what you did to my pipes. You left them to take care of themselves. You men, who use your hands, make a great mistake in thinking that you are the workers of the country and that the rest of us are your natural enemies. In America, we are all workers! The idle man is a mere parasite and not at heart an American. Generally, I work fifteen hours a day.

"This little lad has been knitting night and day for the soldiers without hope of reward and has spent his savings for yarn. There isn't a doctor in Bingville who isn't working eighteen hours a day. I met a minister this afternoon who hasn't had ten hours of sleep in a week— he's been so busy with the sick, and the dying and the dead. He is a nurse, a friend, a comforter to any one who needs him. No charge for overtime. My God! Are we all going money mad? Are you any better than he is, or I am, or than these doctors are who have been killing themselves with overwork? Do you dare to tell me that prosperity is any excuse for idleness in this land of ours, if one's help is needed?"

Judge Crooker's voice had been calm, his manner dignified. But the last sentences had been spoken with a quiet sternness and with his long, bony forefinger pointing straight at Mr. Sneed. The other members of the committee clapped their hands in hearty approval. Mr. Sneed smiled and brushed his trousers.

"I guess you're right," he said. "We're all off our balance a little, but what is to be done now?"

"We must quit our plumbing and carpentering and lawyering and banking and some of us must quit merchandising and sitting in the chimney corner and grab our saws and axes and go out into the woods and make some fuel and get it hauled into town," said Judge Crooker. "I'll be one of a party to go to-morrow with my axe. I haven't forgotten how to chop."

The committee thought this a good suggestion. They all rose and started on a search for volunteers, except Mr. Sneed. He tarried saying to the Judge that he wished to consult him on a private matter. It was, indeed, just then, a matter which could not have been more public although, so far, the news of it had traveled in whispers. The Judge had learned the facts since his return.

"I hope your plumbing hasn't gone wrong," he remarked with a smile.

"No, it's worse than that," said Mr. Sneed ruefully.

They bade the little Shepherd good night and went down-stairs where the widow was still at work with her washing, although it was nine o'clock.

"Faithful woman!" the Judge exclaimed as they went out on the street. "What would the world do without people like that? No extra charge for overtime either."

Then, as they walked along, he cunningly paved the way for what he knew was coming.

"Did you notice the face of that boy?" he asked.

"Yes, it's a wonderful face," said Israel Sneed.

"It's a God's blessing to see a face like that," the Judge went on. "Only the pure in heart can have it. The old spirit of youth looks out of his eyes— the spirit of my own youth. When I was fourteen, I think that my heart was as pure as his. So were the hearts of most of the boys I knew."

"It isn't so now," said Mr. Sneed.

"I fear it isn't," the Judge answered. "There's a new look in the faces of the young. Every variety of evil is spread before them on the stage of our little theater. They see it while their characters are in the making, while their minds are like white wax. Everything that touches them leaves a mark or a smirch. It addresses them in the one language they all understand, and for which no dictionary is needed— pictures. The flower of youth fades fast enough, God knows, without the withering knowledge of evil. They say it's good for the boys and girls to know all about life. We shall see!"

Mr. Sneed sat down with Judge Crooker in the handsome library of the latter and opened his heart. His son Richard, a boy of fifteen, and three other lads of the village, had been committing small burglaries and storing their booty in a cave in a piece of woods on the river bank near the village. A constable had secured a confession and recovered a part of the booty. Enough had been found to warrant a charge of grand larceny and Elisha Potts, whose store had been entered, was clamoring for the arrest of the boys.

"It reminds me of that picture of the Robbers' Cave that was on the billboard of our school of crime a few weeks ago," said the Judge. "I'm tired enough to lie down, but I'll go and see Elisha Potts. If he's abed, he'll have to get up, that's all. There's no telling what Potts has done or may do. Your plumbing is in bad shape, Mr. Sneed. The public sewer is backing into your cellar and in a case of that kind the less delay the better."

He went into the hall and put on his coat and gloves and took his cane out of the rack. He was sixty-five years of age that winter. It was a bitter night when even younger men found it a trial to leave the comfort of the fireside. Sneed followed in silence. Indeed, his tongue was shame-bound. For a moment, he knew not what to say.

"I— I'm much o-obliged to you," he stammered as they went out into the cold wind. "I— I don't care what it costs, either."

The Judge stopped and turned toward him.

"Look here," he said. "Money does not enter into this proceeding or any motive but the will to help a neighbor. In such a matter overtime doesn't count."

They walked in silence to the corner. There Sneed pressed the Judge's hand and tried to say something, but his voice failed him.

"Have the boys at my office at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. I want to talk to them," said the kindly old Judge as he strode away in the darkness.

5: In Which J. Patterson Bing

Buys a Necklace of Pearls

MEANWHILE, the Bings had been having a busy winter in New York. J. Patterson Bing had been elected to the board of a large bank in Wall Street. His fortune had more than doubled in the last two years and he was now a considerable factor in finance.

Mrs. Bing had been studying current events and French and the English accent and other social graces every morning, with the best tutors, as she reclined comfortably in her bedchamber while Phyllis went to sundry shops. Mrs. Crooker had once said, "Mamie Bing has a passion for self-improvement." It was mainly if not quite true.

Phyllis had been "beating the bush" with her mother at teas and dinners and dances and theaters and country house parties in and about the city. The speedometer on the limousine had doubled its mileage since they came to town. They were, it would seem, a tireless pair of hunters. Phyllis's portrait had appeared in the Sunday papers. It showed a face and form of unusual beauty. The supple grace and classic outlines of the latter were touchingly displayed at the dances in many a handsome ballroom. At last, they had found a promising and most eligible candidate in Roger Delane— a handsome stalwart youth, a year out of college. His father was a well-known and highly successful merchant of an old family which, for generations, had "belonged"— that is to say, it had been a part of the aristocracy of Fifth Avenue.

There could be no doubt of this great good luck of theirs— better, indeed, than Mrs. Bing had dared to hope for— the young man having seriously confided his intentions to J. Patterson. But there was one shadow on the glowing prospect; Phyllis had suddenly taken a bad turn. She moped, as her mother put it. She was listless and unhappy. She had lost her interest in the chase, so to speak. She had little heart for teas and dances and dinner parties. One day, her mother returned from a luncheon and found her weeping. Mrs. Bing went at once to the telephone and called for the stomach specialist. He came and made a brief examination and said that it was all due to rich food and late hours. He left some medicine, advised a day or two of rest in bed, charged a hundred dollars and went away. They tried the remedies, but Phyllis showed no improvement. The young man sent American Beauty roses and a graceful note of regret to her room.

"You ought to be very happy," said her mother. "He is a dear."

"I know it," Phyllis answered. "He's just the most adorable creature I ever saw in my life."

"For goodness' sake! What is the matter of you? Why don't you brace up?" Mrs. Bing asked with a note of impatience in her tone. "You act like a dead fish."

Phyllis, who had been lying on the couch, rose to a sitting posture and flung one of the cushions at her mother, and rather swiftly.

"How can I brace up?" she asked with indignation in her eyes. "Don't you dare to scold me."

There was a breath of silence in which the two looked into each other's eyes. Many thoughts came flashing into the mind of Mrs. Bing. Why had the girl spoken the word "you" so bitterly? Little echoes of old history began to fill the silence. She arose and picked up the cushion and threw it on the sofa.

"What a temper!" she exclaimed. "Young lady, you don't seem to know that these days are very precious for you. They will not come again."

Then, in the old fashion of women who have suddenly come out of a moment of affectionate anger, they fell to weeping in each other's arms. The storm was over when they heard the feet of J. Patterson Bing in the hall. Phyllis fled into the bathroom.

"Hello!" said Mr. Bing as he entered the door. "I've found out what's the matter with Phyllis. It's nerves. I met the great specialist, John Hamilton Gibbs, at luncheon to-day. I described the symptoms. He says it's undoubtedly nerves. He has any number of cases just like this one— rest, fresh air and a careful diet are all that's needed. He says that if he can have her for two weeks, he'll guarantee a cure. I've agreed to have you take her to his sanitarium in the Catskills to-morrow. He has saddle horses, sleeping balconies, toboggan slides, snow-shoe and skating parties and all that."

"I think it will be great," said Phyllis, who suddenly emerged from her hiding-place and embraced her father. "I'd love it! I'm sick of this old town. I'm sure it's just what I need."

"I couldn't go to-morrow," said Mrs. Bing. "I simply must go to Mrs. Delane's luncheon."

"Then I'll ask Harriet to go up with her," said J. Patterson.

Harriet, who lived in a flat on the upper west side, was Mr. Bing's sister.

Phyllis went to bed dinnerless with a headache. Mr. and Mrs. Bing sat for a long time over their coffee and cigarettes.

"It's something too dreadful that Phyllis should be getting sick just at the wrong time," said the madame. "She has always been well. I can't understand it."

"She's had a rather strenuous time here," said J. Patterson.

"But she seemed to enjoy it until— until the right man came along. The very man I hoped would like her! Then, suddenly, she throws up her hands and keels over. It's too devilish for words."

Mr. Bing laughed at his wife's exasperation.

"To me, it's no laughing matter," said she with a serious face.

"Perhaps she doesn't like the boy," J. Patterson remarked.

Mrs. Bing leaned toward him and whispered: "She adores him!" She held her attitude and looked searchingly into her husband's face.

"Well, you can't say I did it," he answered. "The modern girl is a rather delicate piece of machinery. I think she'll be all right in a week or two. Come, it's time we went to the theater if we're going."

Nothing more was said of the matter. Next morning immediately after breakfast, "Aunt Harriet" set out with Phyllis in the big limousine for Doctor Gibbs' sanitarium.

Phyllis found the remedy she needed in the ceaseless round of outdoor frolic. Her spirit washed in the glowing air found refreshment in the sleep that follows weariness and good digestion. Her health improved so visibly that her stay was far prolonged. It was the first week of May when Mrs. Bing drove up to get her. The girl was in perfect condition, it would seem. No rustic maid, in all the mountain valleys, had lighter feet or clearer eyes or a more honest, ruddy tan in her face due to the touch of the clean wind. She had grown as lithe and strong as a young panther.

They were going back to Bingville next day. Martha and Susan had been getting the house ready. Mrs. Bing had been preparing what she fondly hoped would be "a lovely surprise" for Phyllis. Roger Delane was coming up to spend a quiet week with the Bings— a week of opportunity for the young people with saddle horses and a new steam launch and a Peterborough canoe and all pleasant accessories. Then, on the twentieth, which was the birthday of Phyllis, there was to be a dinner and a house party and possibly an announcement and a pretty wagging of tongues. Indeed, J. Patterson had already bought the wedding gift, a necklace of pearls, and paid a hundred thousand dollars for it and put it away in his safe. The necklace had pleased him. He had seen many jewels, but nothing so satisfying— nothing that so well expressed his affection for his daughter. He might never see its like again. So he bought it against the happy day which he hoped was near. He had shown it to his wife and charged her to make no mention of it until "the time was ripe," in his way of speaking.

Mrs. Bing had promised on her word and honor to respect the confidence of her husband, with all righteous intention, but on the very day of their arrival in Bingville, Sophronia (Mrs. Pendleton) Ames called. Sophronia was the oldest and dearest friend that Mamie Bing had in the village. The latter enjoyed her life in New York, but she felt always a thrill at coming back to her big garden and the green trees and the ample spaces of Bingville, and to the ready, sympathetic confidence of Sophronia Ames. She told Sophronia of brilliant scenes in the changing spectacle of metropolitan life, of the wonderful young man and the untimely affliction of Phyllis, now happily past. Then, in a whisper, while Sophronia held up her right hand as a pledge of secrecy, she told of the necklace of which the lucky girl had no knowledge. Now Mrs. Ames was one of the best of women. People were wont to speak of her, and rightly, as "the salt of the earth." She would do anything possible for a friend. But Mamie Bing had asked too much. Moreover, always it had been understood between them that these half playful oaths were not to be taken too seriously. Of course, "the fish had to be fed," as Judge Crooker had once put it. By "the fish," he meant that curious under-life of the village— the voracious, silent, merciless, cold-blooded thing which fed on the sins and follies of men and women and which rarely came to the surface to bother any one.

"The fish are very wise," Judge Crooker used to say. "They know the truth about every one and it's well that they do. After all, they perform an important office. There's many a man and woman who think they've been fooling the fish but they've only fooled themselves."

And within a day or two, the secrets of the Bing family were swimming up and down the stream of the under-life of Bingville.

Mr. Bing had found a situation in the plant which was new to him. The men were discontented. Their wages were "sky high," to quote a phrase of one of the foremen. Still, they were not satisfied. Reports of the fabulous earnings of the mill had spread among them. They had begun to think that they were not getting a fair division of the proceeds of their labor. At a meeting of the help, a radical speaker had declared that one of the Bing women wore a noose of pearls on her neck worth half a million dollars. The men wanted more pay and less work. A committee of their leaders had called at Mr. Bing's office with a demand soon after his arrival. Mr. Bing had said "no" with a bang of his fist on the table. A worker's meeting was to be held a week later to act upon the report of the committee.

Meanwhile, another cause of worry had come or rather returned to him. Again, Phyllis had begun to show symptoms of the old trouble. Mrs. Bing, arriving at dusk from a market trip to Hazelmead with Sophronia Ames, had found Phyllis lying asleep among the cushions on the great couch in the latter's bedroom. She entered the room softly and leaned over the girl and looked into her face, now turned toward the open window and lighted by the fading glow in the western sky and relaxed by sleep. It was a sad face! There were lines and shadows in it which the anxious mother had not seen before and— had she been crying? Very softly, the woman sat down at the girl's side. Darkness fell. Black, menacing shadows filled the corners of the room. The spirit of the girl betrayed its trouble in a sorrowful groan as she slept. Roger Delane was coming next day. There was every reason why Phyllis should be happy. Silently, Mrs. Bing left the room. She met Martha in the hall.

"I shall want no dinner and Mr. Bing is dining in Hazelmead," she whispered. "Miss Phyllis is asleep. Don't disturb her."

Then she sat down in the darkness of her own bedroom alone.

6: In Which Hiram Blenkinsop

Has a Number of Adventures

THE Shepherd of the Birds had caught the plague of influenza in March and nearly lost his life with it. Judge Crooker and Mr. and Mrs. Singleton and their daughter and Father O'Neil and Mrs. Ames and Hiram Blenkinsop had taken turns in the nursing of the boy. He had come out of it with impaired vitality.

The rubber tree used to speak to him in those days of his depression and say, "It will be summer soon."

"Oh dear! But the days pass so slowly," Bob would answer with a sigh.

Then the round nickel clock would say cheerfully, "I hurry them along as fast as ever I can."

"Seems as if old Time was losing the use of his legs," said the Shepherd. "I wouldn't wonder if some one had run over him with an automobile."

"Everybody is trying to kill Time these days," ticked the clock with a merry chuckle.

Bob looked at the clock and laughed. "You've got some sense," he declared.

"Nonsense!" the clock answered.

"You can talk pretty well," said the boy.

"I can run too. If I couldn't, nobody would look at me."

"The more I look at you the more I think of Pauline. It's a long time since she went away," said the Shepherd. "We must all pray for her."

"Not I," said the little pine bureau. "Do you see that long scratch on my side? She did it with a hat pin when I belonged to her mother, and she used to keep her dolls in my lower drawer."

Mr. Bloggs assumed a look of great alertness as if lie spied the enemy. "What's the use of worrying?" he quoted.

"You'd better lie down and cover yourself up or you'll never live to see her or the summer either," the clock warned the Shepherd.

Then Bob would lie down quickly and draw the clothes over his shoulders and sing of the Good King Wenceslas and The First Noël which Miss Betsy Singleton had taught him at Christmas time.

All this is important only as showing how a poor lad, of a lively imagination, was wont to spend his lonely hours. He needed company and knew how to find it.

Christmas Day, Judge Crooker had presented him with a beautiful copy of Raphael's Madonna and Child.

"It's the greatest theme and the greatest picture this poor world of ours can boast of," said the Judge. "I want you to study the look in that mother's face, not that it is unusual. I have seen the like of it a hundred times. Almost every young mother with a child in her arms has that look or ought to have it— the most beautiful and mysterious thing in the world. The light of that old star which led the wise men is in it, I sometimes think. Study it and you may hear voices in the sky as did the shepherds of old."

So the boy acquired the companionship of those divine faces that looked down at him from the wall near his bed and had something to say to him every day.

Also, another friend— a very humble one— had begun to share his confidence. He was the little yellow dog, Christmas. He had come with his master, one evening in March, to spend a night with the sick Shepherd. Christmas had lain on the foot of the bed and felt the loving caress of the boy. He never forgot it. The heart of the world, that loves above all things the touch of a kindly hand, was in this little creature. Often, when Hiram was walking out in the bitter winds, Christmas would edge away when his master's back was turned. In a jiffy, he was out of sight and making with all haste for the door of the Widow Moran. There, he never failed to receive some token of the generous woman's understanding of the great need of dogs— a bone or a doughnut or a slice of bread soaked in meat gravy— and a warm welcome from the boy above stairs. The boy always had time to pet him and play with him. He was never fooling the days away with an axe and a saw in the cold wind. Christmas admired his master's ability to pick up logs of wood and heave them about and to make a great noise with an axe but, in cold weather, all that was a bore to him. When he had been missing, Hiram Blenkinsop found him, always, at the day's end lying comfortably on Bob Moran's bed.

May had returned with its warm sunlight. The robins had come back. The blue martins had taken possession of the bird house. The grass had turned green on the garden borders and was now sprinkled with the golden glow of dandelions. The leaves were coming but Pat Crowley was no longer at work in the garden. He had fallen before the pestilence. Old Bill Rutherford was working there. The Shepherd was at the open window every day, talking with him and watching and feeding the birds.

Now, with the spring, a new feeling had come to Mr. Hiram Blenkinsop. He had been sober for months. His Old Self had come back and had imparted his youthful strength to the man Hiram. He had money in the bank. He was decently dressed. People had begun to respect him. Every day, Hiram was being nudged and worried by a new thought. It persisted in telling him that respectability was like the Fourth of July— a very dull thing unless it was celebrated. He had been greatly pleased with his own growing respectability. He felt as if he wanted to take a look at it, from a distance, as it were. That money in the bank was also nudging and calling him. It seemed to be lonely and longing for companionship.

"Come, Hiram Blenkinsop," it used to say. "Let's go off together and get a silk hat and a gold headed cane an' make 'em set up an' take notice. Suppose you should die sudden an' leave me without an owner?"

The warmth and joy of the springtime had turned his fancy to the old dream. So one day, he converted his bank balance into "a roll big enough to choke a dog," and took the early morning train to Hazelmead, having left Christmas at the Widow Moran's.

In the mill city he bought a high silk hat and a gold headed cane and a new suit of clothes and a boiled shirt and a high collar and a red necktie. It didn't matter to him that the fashion and fit of his garments were not quite in keeping with the silk hat and gold headed cane. There were three other items in the old dream of splendor— the mother, the prancing team, and the envious remarks of the onlookers. His mother was gone. Also there were no prancing horses in Hazelmead, but he could hire an automobile.

In the course of his celebration he asked a lady, whom he met in the street, if she would kindly be his mother for a day. He meant well but the lady, being younger than Hiram and not accustomed to such familiarity from strangers, did not feel complimented by the question. They fled from each other. Soon, Hiram bought a big custard pie in a bake-shop and had it cut into smallish pieces and, having purchased pie and plate, went out upon the street with it. He ate what he wanted of the pie and generously offered the rest of it to sundry people who passed him. It was not impertinence in Hiram; it was pure generosity— a desire to share his riches, flavored, in some degree, by a feeling of vanity. It happened that Mr. J. Patterson Bing came along and received a tender of pie from Mr. Blenkinsop.

"No!" said Mr. Bing, with that old hammer whack in his voice which aroused bitter memories in the mind of Hiram.

That tone was a great piece of imprudence. There was a menacing gesture and a rapid succession of footsteps on the pavement. Mr. Bing's retreat was not, however, quite swift enough to save him. The pie landed on his shoulder. In a moment, Hiram was arrested and marching toward the lockup while Mr. Bing went to the nearest drug store to be cleaned and scoured.

A few days later Hiram Blenkinsop arrived in Bingville. Mr. Singleton met him on the street and saw to his deep regret that Hiram had been drinking.

"I've made up my mind that religion is good for some folks, but it won't do for me," said the latter.

"Why not?" the minister asked.

"I can't afford it."

"Have you found religion a luxury?" Mr. Singleton asked.

"It's grand while it lasts, but it's like p'ison gettin' over it," said Hiram. "I feel kind o' ruined."

"You look it," said the minister, with a glance at Hiram's silk hat and soiled clothing. "A long spell of sobriety is hard on a man if he quits it sudden. You've had your day of trial, my friend. We all have to be tried soon or late. People begin to say, 'At last he's come around all right. He's a good fellow.' And the Lord says: 'Perhaps he's worthy of better things. I'll try him and see.'

"That's His way of pushing people along, Hiram. He doesn't want them to stand still. You've had your trial and failed, but you mustn't give up. When your fun turns into sorrow, as it will, come back to me and we'll try again."

Hiram sat dozing in a corner of the bar-room of the Eagle Hotel that day. He had been ashamed to go to his comfortable room over the garage. He did not feel entitled to the hospitality of Mr. Singleton. Somehow, he couldn't bear the thought of going there. His new clothes and silk hat were in a state which excited the derision of small boys and audible comment from all observers while he had been making his way down the street. His money was about gone. The barkeeper had refused to sell him any more drink. In the early dusk he went out-of-doors. It was almost as warm as midsummer and the sky was clear. He called at the door of the Widow Moran for his dog. In a moment, Christmas came down from the Shepherd's room and greeted his master with fond affection. The two went away together. They walked up a deserted street and around to the old graveyard. When it was quite dark, they groped their way through the weedy, briered aisles, between moss-covered toppling stones, to their old nook under the ash tree. There Hiram made a bed of boughs, picked from the evergreens that grow in the graveyard, and lay down upon it under his overcoat with the dog Christmas. He found it impossible to sleep, however. When he closed his eyes a new thought began nudging him.

It seemed to be saying, "What are you going to do now, Mr. Hiram Blenkinsop?"

He was pleased that it seemed to say Mr. Hiram Blenkinsop. He lay for a long time looking up at the starry moonlit sky, and at the marble, weather-spotted angel on the monument to the Reverend Thaddeus Sneed, who had been lying there, among the rude forefathers of the village, since 1806. Suddenly the angel began to move. Mr. Blenkinsop observed with alarm that it had discovered him and that its right forefinger was no longer directed toward the sky but was pointing at his face. The angel had assumed the look and voice of his Old Self and was saying:

"I don't see why angels are always cut in marble an' set up in graveyards with nothing to do but point at the sky. It's a cold an' lonesome business. Why don't you give me a job?"

His Old Self vanished and, as it did so, the spotted angel fell to coughing and sneezing. It coughed and sneezed so loudly that the sound went echoing in the distant sky and so violently that it reeled and seemed to be in danger of falling. Mr. Blenkinsop awoke with a rude jump so that the dog Christmas barked in alarm. It was nothing but the midnight train from the south pulling out of the station which was near the old graveyard. The spotted angel stood firmly in its place and was pointing at the sky as usual.

It was probably an hour or so later, when Mr. Blenkinsop was awakened by the barking of the dog Christmas. He quieted the dog and listened. He heard a sound like that of a baby crying. It awoke tender memories in the mind of Hiram Blenkinsop. One very sweet recollection was about all that the barren, bitter years of his young manhood had given him worth having. It was the recollection of a little child which had come to his home in the first year of his married life.

"She lived eighteen months and three days and four hours," he used to say, in speaking of her, with a tender note in his voice.

Almost twenty years, she had been lying in the old graveyard near the ash tree. Since then the voice of a child crying always halted his steps. It is probable that, in her short life, the neglected, pathetic child Pearl— that having been her name— had protested much against a plentiful lack of comfort and sympathy.

So Mr. Blenkinsop's agitation at the sound of a baby crying somewhere near him, in the darkness of the old graveyard, was quite natural and will be readily understood. He rose on his elbow and listened. Again he heard that small, appealing voice.

"By thunder! Christmas," he whispered. "If that ain't like Pearl when she was a little, teeny, weeny thing no bigger'n a pint o' beer! Say it is, sir, sure as sin!"

He scrambled to his feet, suddenly, for now, also, he could distinctly hear the voice of a woman crying. He groped his way in the direction from which the sound came and soon discovered the woman. She was kneeling on a grave with a child in her arms. Her grief touched the heart of the man.

"Who be you?" he asked.

"I'm cold, and my baby is sick, and I have no friends," she sobbed.

"Yes, ye have!" said Hiram Blenkinsop. "I don't care who ye be. I'm yer friend and don't ye fergit it."

There was a reassuring note in the voice of Hiram Blenkinsop. Its gentleness had in it a quiver of sympathy. She felt it and gave to him— an unknown, invisible man, with just a quiver of sympathy in his voice— her confidence.

If ever any one was in need of sympathy, she was at that moment. She felt that she must speak out to some one. So keenly she felt the impulse that she had been speaking to the stars and the cold gravestones. Here at last was a human being with a quiver of sympathy in his voice.

"I thought I would come home, but when I got here I was afraid," the girl moaned. "I wish I could die."

"No, ye don't neither!" said Hiram Blenkinsop. "Sometimes, I've thought that I hadn't no friends an' wanted to die, but I was just foolin' myself. To be sure, I ain't had no baby on my hands but I've had somethin' just as worrisome, I guess. Folks like you an' me has got friends a-plenty if we'll only give 'em a chance. I've found that out. You let me take that baby an' come with me. I know where you'll git the glad hand. You just come right along with me."

The unmistakable note of sincerity was in the voice of Hiram Blenkinsop. She gave the baby into his arms. He held it to his breast a moment thinking of old times. Then he swung his arms like a cradle saying:

"You stop your hollerin'— ye gol'darn little skeezucks! It ain't decent to go on that way in a graveyard an' ye ought to know it. Be ye tryin' to wake the dead?"

The baby grew quiet and finally fell asleep.

"Come on, now," said Hiram, with the baby lying against his breast. "You an' me are goin' out o' the past. I know a little house that's next door to Heaven. They say ye can see Heaven from its winders. It's where the good Shepherd lives. Christmas an' I know the place— don't we, ol' boy? Come right along. There ain't no kind o' doubt o' what they'll say to us."

The young woman followed him out of the old graveyard and through the dark, deserted streets until they came to the cottage of the Widow Moran. They passed through the gate into Judge Crooker's garden. Under the Shepherd's window, Hiram Blenkinsop gave the baby to its mother and with his hands to his mouth called "Bob!" in a loud whisper. Suddenly a robin sounded his alarm. Instantly, the Shepherd's room was full of light. In a moment, he was at the window sweeping the garden paths and the tree tops with his search-light. It fell on the sorrowful figure of the young mother with the child in her arms and stopped. She stood looking up at the window bathed in the flood of light. It reminded the Shepherd of that glow which the wise men saw in the manger at Bethlehem.

"Pauline Baker!" he exclaimed. "Have you come back or am I dreaming? It's you— thanks to the Blessed Virgin! It's you! Come around to the door. My mother will let you in."

It was a warm welcome that the girl received in the little home of the Widow Moran. Many words of comfort and good cheer were spoken in the next hour or so after which the good woman made tea and toast and broiled a chop and served them in the Shepherd's room.

"God love ye, child! So he was a married man— bad 'cess to him an' the likes o' him!" she said as she came in with the tray. "Mother o' Jesus! What a wicked world it is!"

The prudent dog Christmas, being afraid of babies, hid under the Shepherd's bed, and Hiram Blenkinsop lay down for the rest of the night on the lounge in the cottage kitchen.

An hour after daylight, when the Judge was walking in his garden, he wondered why the widow and the Shepherd were sleeping so late.

7: In Which High Voltage

Develops in the Conversation

IT WAS a warm, bright May day. There was not a cloud in the sky. Roger Delane had arrived and the Bings were giving a dinner that evening. The best people of Hazelmead were coming over in motor-cars. Phyllis and Roger had had a long ride together that day on the new Kentucky saddle horses. Mrs. Bing had spent the morning in Hazelmead and had stayed to lunch with Mayor and Mrs. Stacy. She had returned at four and cut some flowers for the table and gone to her room for an hour's rest when the young people returned. She was not yet asleep when Phyllis came into the big bedroom. Mrs. Bing lay among the cushions on her couch. She partly rose, tumbled the cushions into a pile and leaned against them.

"Heavens! I'm tired!" she exclaimed. "These women in Hazelmead hang on to one like a lot of hungry cats. They all want money for one thing or another— Red Cross or Liberty bonds or fatherless children or tobacco for the soldiers or books for the library. My word! I'm broke and it seems as if each of my legs hung by a thread."

Phyllis smiled as she stood looking down at her mother.

"How beautiful you look!" the fond mother exclaimed. "If he didn't propose to-day, he's a chump."

"But he did," said Phyllis. "I tried to keep him from it, but he just would propose in spite of me."

The girl's face was red and serious. She sat down in a chair and began to remove her hat. Mrs. Bing rose suddenly, and stood facing Phyllis.

"I thought you loved him," she said with a look of surprise.

"So I do," the girl answered.

"What did you say?"

"I said no."

"What!"

"I refused him!"

"For God's sake, Phyllis! Do you think you can afford to play with a man like that? He won't stand for it."

"Let him sit for it then and, mother, you might as well know, first as last, that I am not playing with him."

There was a calm note of firmness in the voice of the girl. She was prepared for this scene. She had known it was coming. Her mother was hot with irritating astonishment. The calmness of the girl in suddenly beginning to dig a grave for this dear ambition— rich with promise— in the very day when it had come submissively to their feet, stung like the tooth of a serpent. She stood very erect and said with an icy look in her face:

"You young upstart! What do you mean?"

There was a moment of frigid silence in which both of the women began to turn cold. Then Phyllis answered very calmly as she sat looking down at the bunch of violets in her hand:

"It means that I am married, mother."

Mrs. Bing's face turned red. There was a little convulsive movement of the muscles around her mouth. She folded her arms on her breast, lifted her chin a bit higher and asked in a polite tone, although her words fell like fragments of cracked ice:

"Married! To whom are you married?"

"To Gordon King."

Phyllis spoke casually as if he were a piece of ribbon that she had bought at a store.

Mrs. Bing sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands for half a moment. Suddenly she picked up a slipper that lay at her feet and flung it at the girl.

"My God!" she exclaimed. "What a nasty liar you are!"

It was not ladylike but, at that moment, the lady was temporarily absent.

"Mother, I'm glad you say that," the girl answered still very calmly, although her fingers trembled a little as she felt the violets, and her voice was not quite steady. "It shows that I am not so stupid at home as I am at school."

The girl rose and threw down the violets and her mild and listless manner. A look of defiance filled her face and figure. Mrs. Bing arose, her eyes aglow with anger.

"I'd like to know what you mean," she said under her breath.

"I mean that if I am a liar, you taught me how to be it. Ever since I was knee-high, you have been teaching me to deceive my father. I am not going to do it any longer. I am going to find my father and tell him the truth. I shall not wait another minute. He will give me better advice than you have given, I hope."

The words had fallen rapidly from her lips and, as the last one was spoken, she hurried out of the room. Mrs. Bing threw herself on the couch where she lay with certain bitter memories, until the new maid came to tell her that it was time to dress.

She was like one reminded of mortality after coming out of ether.

"Oh, Lord!" she murmured wearily. "I feel like going to bed! How can I live through that dinner? Please bring me some brandy."

Phyllis learned that her father was at his office whither she proceeded without a moment's delay. She sent in word that she must see him alone and as soon as possible. He dismissed the men with whom he had been talking and invited her into his private office.

"Well, girl, I guess I know what is on your mind," he said. "Go ahead."

Phyllis began to cry.

"All right! You do the crying and I'll do the talking," he went on. "I feel like doing the crying myself, but if you want the job I'll resign it to you. Perhaps you can do enough of that for both of us. I began to smell a rat the other day. So I sent for Gordon King. He came here this morning. I had a long talk with him. He told me the truth. Why didn't you tell me? What's the good of having a father unless you use him at times when his counsel is likely to be worth having? I would have made a good father, if I had had half a chance. I should like to have been your friend and confidant in this important enterprise. I could have been a help to you. But, somehow, I couldn't get on the board of directors. You and your mother have been running the plant all by yourselves and I guess it's pretty near bankrupt. Now, my girl, there's no use crying over spilt tears. Gordon King is not the man of my choice, but we must all take hold and try to build him up. Perhaps we can make him pay."

"I do not love him," Phyllis sobbed.

"You married him because you wanted to. You were not coerced?"

"No, sir."

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to take your share of the crow with the rest of us," he went on, with a note of sternness in his tone. "My girl, when I make a contract I live up to it and I intend that you shall do the same. You'll have to learn to love and cherish this fellow, if he makes it possible. I'll have no welching in my family. You and your mother believe in woman's rights. I don't object to that, but you mustn't think that you have the right to break your agreements unless there's a good reason for it. My girl, the marriage contract is the most binding and sacred of all contracts. I want you to do your best to make this one a success."

There was the tinkle of the telephone bell. Mr. Bing put the receiver to his ear and spoke into the instrument as follows:

"Yes, she's here! I knew all the facts before she told me. Mr. Delane? He's on his way back to New York. Left on the six-ten. Charged me to present his regrets and farewells to you and Phyllis. I thought it best for him to know and to go. Yes, we're coming right home to dress. Mr. King will take Mr. Delane's place at the table. We'll make a clean breast of the whole business. Brace up and eat your crow with a smiling face. I'll make a little speech and present Mr. and Mrs. King to our friends at the end of it. Oh, now, cut out the sobbing and leave this unfinished business to me and don't worry. We'll be home in three minutes."

8: In Which Judge Crooker

Delivers a Few Opinions

THE PRIDE of Bingville had fallen in the dust! It had arisen and gone on with soiled garments and lowered head. It had suffered derision and defeat. It could not ever be the same again. Sneed and Snodgrass recovered, in a degree, from their feeling of opulence. Sneed had become polite, industrious and obliging. Snodgrass and others had lost heavily in stock speculation through the failure of a broker in Hazelmead. They went to work with a will and without the haughty independence which, for a time, had characterized their attitude. The spirit of the Little Shepherd had entered the hearts and home of Emanuel Baker and his wife. Pauline and the baby were there and being tenderly loved and cared for. But what humility had entered that home! Phyllis and her husband lived with her parents, Gordon having taken a humble place in the mill. He worked early and late. The Bings had made it hard for him, finding it difficult to overcome their resentment, but he stood the gaff, as they say, and won the regard of J. Patterson although Mrs. Bing could never forgive him.

In June, there had been a public meeting in the Town Hall addressed by Judge Crooker and the Reverend Mr. Singleton. The Judge had spoken of the grinding of the mills of God that was going on the world over.

"Our civilization has had its time of trial not yet ended," he began. "Its enemies have been busy in every city and village. Not only in the cities and villages of France and Belgium have they been busy, but in those of our own land. The Goths and Vandals have invaded Bingville. They have been destroying the things we loved. The false god is in our midst. Many here, within the sound of my voice, have a god suited to their own tastes and sins— an obedient, tractable, boneless god. It is my deliberate opinion that the dances and costumes and moving pictures we have seen in Bingville are doing more injury to Civilization than all the guns of Germany. My friends, you can do nothing worse for my daughter than deprive her of her modesty and I would rather, far rather, see you slay my son than destroy his respect for law and virtue and decency.

"The jazz band is to me a sign of spiritual decay. It is a step toward the jungle. I hear in it the beating of the tom-tom. It is not music. It is the barbaric yawp of sheer recklessness and daredevilism, and it is everywhere.

"Even in our economic life we are dancing to the jazz band and with utter recklessness. American labor is being more and more absorbed in the manufacture of luxuries— embroidered frocks and elaborate millinery and limousines and landaulets and rich upholstery and cord tires and golf courses and sporting goods and great country houses— so that there is not enough labor to provide the comforts and necessities of life.

"The tendency of all this is to put the stamp of luxury upon the commonest needs of man. The time seems to be near when a boiled egg and a piece of buttered bread will be luxuries and a family of children an unspeakable extravagance. Let us face the facts. It is up to Vanity to moderate its demands upon the industry of man. What we need is more devotion to simple living and the general welfare. In plain old-fashioned English we need the religion and the simplicity of our fathers."

Later, in June, a strike began in the big plant of J. Patterson Bing. The men demanded higher pay and shorter days. They were working under a contract but that did not seem to matter. In a fight with "scabs" and Pinkerton men they destroyed a part of the plant. Even the life of Mr. Bing was threatened! The summer was near its end when J. Patterson Bing and a committee of the labor union met in the office of Judge Crooker to submit their differences to that impartial magistrate for adjustment. The Judge listened patiently and rendered his decision. It was accepted.

When the papers were signed, Mr. Bing rose and said, "Your Honor, there's one thing I want to say. I have spent most of my life in this town. I have built up a big business here and doubled the population. I have built comfortable homes for my laborers and taken an interest in the education of their children, and built a library where any one could find the best books to read. I have built playgrounds for the children of the working people. If I have heard of any case of need, I have done my best to relieve it. I have always been ready to hear complaints and treat them fairly. My men have been generously paid and yet they have not hesitated to destroy my property and to use guns and knives and clubs and stones to prevent the plant from filling its contracts and to force their will upon me. How do you explain it? What have I done or failed to do that has caused this bitterness?"

"Mr. Bing, I am glad that you ask me that question," the old Judge began. "It gives me a chance to present to you, and to these men who work for you, a conviction which has grown out of impartial observation of your relations with each other.

"First, I want to say to you, Mr. Bing, that I regard you as a good citizen. Your genius and generosity have put this community under great obligation. Now, in heading toward the hidden cause of your complaint, I beg to ask you a question at the outset. Do you know that unfortunate son of the Widow Moran known as the Shepherd of the Birds?"

"I have heard much about him," Mr. Bing answered.

"Do you know him?"

"No. I have had letters from him acknowledging favors now and then, but I do not know him."

"We have hit at once the source of your trouble," the Judge went on. "The Shepherd is a representative person. He stands for the poor and the unfortunate in this village. You have never gone to see him because— well, probably it was because you feared that the look of him would distress you. The thing which would have helped and inspired and gladdened his heart more than anything else would have been the feel of your hand and a kind and cheering word and sympathetic counsel. Under those circumstances, I think I may say that it was your duty as a neighbor and a human being to go to see him. Instead of that you sent money to him. Now, he never needed money. In the kindest spirit, I ask you if that money you sent to him in the best of good-will was not, in fact, a species of bribery? Were you not, indeed, seeking to buy immunity from a duty incumbent upon you as a neighbor and a human being?"

Mr. Bing answered quickly, "There are plenty of people who have nothing else to do but carry cheer and comfort to the unfortunate. I have other things to do."

"That, sir, does not relieve you of the liabilities of a neighbor and a human being, in my view. If your business has turned you into a shaft or a cog-wheel, it has done you a great injustice. I fear that it has been your master— that it has practised upon you a kind of despotism. You would better get along with less— far less business than suffer such a fate. I don't want to hurt you. We are looking for the cause of a certain result and I can help you only by being frank. With all your generosity you have never given your heart to this village. Some unkind people have gone so far as to say that you have no heart. You can not prove it with money that you do not miss. Money is good but it must be warmed with sympathy and some degree of sacrifice. Has it never occurred to you that the warm hand and the cheering word in season are more, vastly more, than money in the important matter of making good-will? Unconsciously, you have established a line and placed yourself on one side of it and the people on the other. Broadly speaking, you are capital and the rest are labor. Whereas, in fact, you are all working men. Some of the rest have come to regard you as their natural enemy. They ought to regard you as their natural friend. Two kinds of despotism have prevented it. First, there is the despotism of your business in making you a slave— so much of a slave that you haven't time to be human; second, there is the despotism of the labor union in discouraging individual excellence, in demanding equal pay for the faithful man and the slacker, and in denying the right of free men to labor when and where they will. All this is tyranny as gross and un-American as that of George the Third in trying to force his will upon the colonies. If America is to survive, we must set our faces against every form of tyranny. The remedy for all our trouble and bitterness is real democracy which is nothing more or less than the love of men— the love of justice and fair play for each and all.

"You men should know that every strike increases the burdens of the people. Every day your idleness lifts the price of their necessities. Idleness is just another form of destruction. Why could you not have listened to the counsel of Reason in June instead of in September, and thus have saved these long months of loss and hardship and bitter violence? It was because the spirit of Tyranny had entered your heart and put your judgment in chains. It had blinded you to honor also, for your men were working under contract. If the union is to command the support of honest men, it must be honest. It was Tyranny that turned the treaty with Belgium into a scrap of paper. That kind of a thing will not do here. Let me assure you that Tyranny has no right to be in this land of ours. You remind me of the Prodigal Son who had to know the taste of husks and the companionship of swine before he came to himself. Do you not know that Tyranny is swine and the fodder of swine? It is simply human hoggishness.

"I have one thing more to say and I am finished. Mr. Bing, some time ago you threw up your religion without realizing the effect that such an act would be likely to produce on this community. You are, no doubt, aware that many followed your example. I've got no preaching to do. I'm just going to quote you a few words from an authority no less respectable than George Washington himself. Our history has made one fact very clear, namely, that he was a wise and far-seeing man."

Judge Crooker took from a shelf, John Marshall's "Life of Washington," and read:

" 'It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government and let us, with caution, indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

" 'Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if a sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?' "

"Let me add, on my own account, that the treatment you receive from your men will vary according to their respect for morality and religion.

"They could manage very well with an irreligious master, for you are only one. But an irreligious mob is a different and highly serious matter, believe me. Away back in the seventeenth century, John Dryden wrote a wise sentence. It was this:

" 'I have heard, indeed, of some very virtuous persons who have ended unfortunately but never of a virtuous nation; Providence is engaged too deeply when the cause becomes general.

" 'If virtue is the price of a nation's life, let us try to keep our own nation virtuous.' "

Mr. Bing and his men left the Judge's office in a thoughtful mood. The next day, Judge Crooker met the mill owner on the street.

"Judge, I accept your verdict," said the latter. "I fear that I have been rather careless. It didn't occur to me that my example would be taken so seriously. I have been a prodigal and have resolved to return to my father's house."

"Ho, servants!" said the Judge, with a smile. "Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry."

"We shall have to postpone the celebration," said Mr. Bing. "I have to go to New York to-night, and I sail for England to-morrow. But I shall return before Christmas."

A little farther on Mr. Bing met Hiram Blenkinsop. The latter had a plank on his shoulder.

"I'd like to have a word with you," said the mill owner as he took hold of the plank and helped Hiram to ease it down. "I hear many good things about you, Mr. Blenkinsop. I fear that we have all misjudged you. If I have ever said or done anything to hurt your feelings, I am sorry for it."

Hiram Blenkinsop looked with astonishment into the eyes of the millionaire.

"I— I guess I ain't got you placed right— not eggzac'ly," said he. "Some folks ain't as good as they look an' some ain't as bad as they look. I wouldn't wonder if we was mostly purty much alike, come to shake us down."

"Let's be friends, anyhow," said Mr. Bing. "If there's anything I can do for you, let me know."

That evening, as he sat by the stove in his little room over the garage of Mr. Singleton with his dog Christmas lying beside him, Mr. Blenkinsop fell asleep and awoke suddenly with a wild yell of alarm.

"What's the matter?" a voice inquired.

Mr. Blenkinsop turned and saw his Old Self standing in the doorway.

"Nothin' but a dream," said Blenkinsop as he wiped his eyes. "Dreamed I had a dog with a terrible thirst on him. Used to lead him around with a rope an' when we come to a brook he'd drink it dry. Suddenly I felt an awful jerk on the rope that sent me up in the air an' I looked an' see that the dog had turned into an elephant an' that he was goin' like Sam Hill, an' that I was hitched to him and couldn't let go. Once in a while he'd stop an' drink a river dry an' then he'd lay down an' rest. Everybody was scared o' the elephant an' so was I. An' I'd try to cut the rope with my jack knife but it wouldn't cut— it was so dull. Then all of a sudden he'd start on the run an' twitch me over the hills an' mountings, an' me takin' steps a mile long an' scared to death."

"The fact is you're hitched to an elephant," his Old Self remarked. "The first thing to do is to sharpen your jack knife."

"It's Night an' Silence that sets him goin'," said Blenkinsop. "When they come he's apt to start for the nighest river. The old elephant is beginnin' to move."

Blenkinsop put on his hat and hurried out of the door.

9: Which Tells of a Merry Christmas Day

in the Little Cottage of the Widow Moran

NIGHT and Silence are a stern test of wisdom. For years, the fun loving, chattersome Blenkinsop had been their enemy and was not yet at peace with them. But Night and Silence had other enemies in the village— ancient and inconsolable enemies, it must be said. They were the cocks of Bingville. Every morning they fell to and drove Night and Silence out of the place and who shall say that they did not save it from being hopelessly overwhelmed. Day was their victory and they knew how to achieve it. Noise was the thing most needed. So they roused the people and called up the lights and set the griddles rattling. The great, white cock that roosted near the window in the Widow Moran's hen-house watched for the first sign of weakness in the enemy. When it came, he sent forth a bolt of sound that tumbled Silence from his throne and shook the foundations of the great dome of Night. It rang over the housetops and through every street and alley in the village. That started the battle. Silence tried in vain to recover his seat. In a moment, every cock in Bingville was hurling bombs at him. Immediately, Darkness began to grow pale with fright. Seeing the fate of his ally, he broke camp and fled westward. Soon the field was clear and every proud cock surveyed the victory with a solemn sense of large accomplishment.

The loud victorious trumpets sounding in the garden near the window of the Shepherd awoke him that Christmas morning. The dawn light was on the windows.

"Merry Christmas!" said the little round nickel clock in a cheerful tone. "It's time to get up!"

"Is it morning?" the Shepherd asked drowsily, as he rubbed his eyes.

"Sure it's morning!" the little clock answered. "That lazy old sun is late again. He ought to be up and at work. He's like a dishonest hired man."

"He's apt to be slow on Christmas morning," said the Shepherd.

"Then people blame me and say I'm too fast," the little clock went on. "They don't know what an old shirk the sun can be. I've been watching him for years and have never gone to sleep at my post."

After a moment of silence the little clock went on: "Hello! The old night is getting a move on it. The cocks are scaring it away. Santa Claus has been here. He brought ever so many things. The midnight train stopped."

"I wonder who came," said the Shepherd.

"I guess it was the Bings," the clock answered.

Just then it struck seven.

"There, I guess that's about the end of it," said the little clock.

"Of what?" the Shepherd asked.

"Of the nineteen hundred and eighteen years. You know seven is the favored number in sacred history. I'm sure the baby would have been born at seven. My goodness! There's a lot of ticking in all that time. I've been going only twelve years and I'm nearly worn out. Some young clock will have to take my job before long."

These reflections of the little clock were suddenly interrupted. The Shepherd's mother entered with a merry greeting and turned on the lights. There were many bundles lying about. She came and kissed her son and began to build a fire in the little stove.

"This'll be the merriest Christmas in yer life, laddie boy," she said, as she lit the kindlings. "A great doctor has come up with the Bings to see ye. He says he'll have ye out-o'-doors in a little while."

"Ho, ho! That looks like the war was nearly over," said Mr. Bloggs.

Mrs. Moran did not hear the remark of the little tin soldier so she rattled on:

"I went over to the station to meet 'em last night. Mr. Blenkinsop has brought us a fine turkey. We'll have a gran' dinner— sure we will— an' I axed Mr. Blenkinsop to come an' eat with us."

Mrs. Moran opened the gifts and spread them on the bed. There were books and paints and brushes and clothing and silver articles and needle-work and a phonograph and a check from Mr. Bing.

The little cottage had never seen a day so full of happiness. It rang with talk and merry laughter and the music of the phonograph. Mr. Blenkinsop had come in his best mood and apparel with the dog Christmas. He helped Mrs. Moran to set the table in the Shepherd's room and brought up the platter with the big brown turkey on it, surrounded by sweet potatoes, all just out of the oven. Mrs. Moran followed with the jelly and the creamed onions and the steaming coffee pot and new celery. The dog Christmas growled and ran under the bed when he saw his master coming with that unfamiliar burden.

"He's never seen a Christmas dinner before. I don't wonder he's kind o' scairt! I ain't seen one in so long, I'm scairt myself," said Hiram Blenkinsop as they sat down at the table.

"What's scairin' ye, man?" said the widow.

"'Fraid I'll wake up an' find myself dreamin'," Mr. Blenkinsop answered.

"Nobody ever found himself dreamin' at my table," said Mrs. Moran. "Grab the carvin' knife an' go to wurruk, man."

"I ain't eggzac'ly used to this kind of a job, but if you'll look out o' the winder, I'll have it chopped an' split an' corded in a minute," said Mr. Blenkinsop.

He got along very well with his task. When they began eating he remarked, "I've been lookin' at that pictur' of a girl with a baby in her arms. Brings the water to my eyes, it's so kind o' life like and nat'ral. It's an A number one pictur'— no mistake."

He pointed at a large painting on the wall.

"It's Pauline!" said the Shepherd.

"Sure she's one o' the saints o' God!" the widow exclaimed. "She's started a school for the children o' them Eytalians an' Poles. She's tryin' to make 'em good Americans."

"I'll never forget that night," Mr. Blenkinsop remarked.

"If ye don't fergit it, I'll never mend another hole in yer pants," the widow answered.

"I've never blabbed a word about it to any one but Mr. Singleton."

"Keep that in yer soul, man. It's yer ticket to Paradise," said the widow.

"She goes every day to teach the Poles and Italians, but I have her here with me always," the Shepherd remarked. "I'm glad when the morning comes so that I can see her again."

"God bless the child! We was sorry to lose her but we have the pictur' an' the look o' her with the love o' God in her face," said the Widow Moran.

"Now light yer pipe and take yer comfort, man," said the hospitable widow, after the dishes were cleared away. "Sure it's more like Christmas to see a man an' a pipe in the house. Heavens, no! A man in the kitchen is worse than a hole in yer petticoat."

So Mr. Blenkinsop sat with the Shepherd while the widow went about her work. With his rumpled hair, clean shaven face, long nose and prominent ears, he was not a handsome man.

"This is the top notch an' no mistake," he remarked as he lighted his pipe. "Blenkinsop is happy. He feels like his Old Self. He has no fault to find with anything or anybody."

Mr. Blenkinsop delivered this report on the state of his feelings with a serious look in his gray eyes.

"It kind o' reminds me o' the time when I used to hang up my stockin' an' look for the reindeer tracks in the snow on Christmas mornin'," he went on. "Since then, my ol' socks have been full o' pain an' trouble every Christmas."

"Those I knit for ye left here full of good wishes," said the Shepherd.

"Say, when I put 'em on this mornin' with the b'iled shirt an' the suit that Mr. Bing sent me, my Old Self came an' asked me where I was goin', an' when I said I was goin' to spen' Christmas with a respectable fam'ly, he said, 'I guess I'll go with ye,' so here we be."

"The Old Selves of the village have all been kicked out-of-doors," said the Shepherd. "The other day you told me about the trouble you had had with yours. That night, all the Old Selves of Bingville got together down in the garden and talked and talked about their relatives so I couldn't sleep. It was a kind of Selfland. I told Judge Crooker about it and he said that that was exactly what was going on in the Town Hall the other night at the public meeting."

"The folks are drunk— as drunk as I was in Hazelmead last May," said Mr. Blenkinsop. "They have been drunk with gold and pleasure— — "

"The fruit of the vine of plenty," said Judge Crooker, who had just come up the stairs. "Merry Christmas!" he exclaimed as he shook hands. "Mr. Blenkinsop, you look as if you were enjoying yourself."

"An' why not when yer Self has been away an' just got back?"

"And you've killed the fatted turkey," said the Judge, as he took out his silver snuff box. "One by one, the prodigals are returning."

They heard footsteps on the stairs and the merry voice of the Widow Moran. In a moment, Mr. and Mrs. Bing stood in the doorway.

"Mr. and Mrs. Bing, I want to make you acquainted with my very dear friend, Robert Moran," said Judge Crooker.

There were tears in the Shepherd's eyes as Mrs. Bing stooped and kissed him. He looked up at the mill owner as the latter took his hand.

"I am glad to see you," said Mr. Bing.

"Is this— is this Mr. J. Patterson Bing?" the Shepherd asked, his eyes wide with astonishment.

"Yes, and it is my fault that you do not know me better. I want to be your friend."

The Shepherd put his handkerchief over his eyes. His voice trembled when he said: "You have been very kind to us."

"But I'm really hoping to do something for you," Mr. Bing assured him. "I've brought a great surgeon from New York who thinks he can help you. He will be over to see you in the morning."

They had a half-hour's visit with the little Shepherd. Mr. Bing, who was a judge of good pictures, said that the boy's work showed great promise and that his picture of the mother and child would bring a good price if he cared to sell it. When they arose to go, Mr. Blenkinsop thanked the mill owner for his Christmas suit.

"Don't mention it," said Mr. Bing.

"Well, it mentions itself purty middlin' often," Mr. Blenkinsop laughed.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" the former asked.

"Well, sir, to tell ye the dead hones' truth, I've got a new ambition," said Mr. Blenkinsop. "I've thought of it nights a good deal. I'd like to be sextunt o' the church an' ring that ol' bell."

"We'll see what can be done about it," Mr. Bing answered with a laugh, as they went down-stairs with Judge Crooker, followed by the dog Christmas, who scampered around them on the street with a merry growl of challenge, as if the spirit of the day were in him.

"What is it that makes the boy so appealing?" Mr. Bing asked of the Judge.

"He has a wonderful personality," Mrs. Bing remarked.

"Yes, he has that. But the thing that underlies and shines through it is his great attraction."

"What do you call it?" Mrs. Bing asked.

"A clean and noble spirit! Is there any other thing in this world that, in itself, is really worth having?"

"Compared with him, I recognize that I am very poor indeed," said J. Patterson Bing.

"You are what I would call a promising young man," the Judge answered. "If you don't get discouraged, you're going to amount to something. I am glad because you are, in a sense, the father of the great family of Bingville."

_______________

7: The Open Window

Charles Caldwell Dobie

1881-1943

Harper's Magazine August 1918

"IT HAPPENED just as I have said," Fernet reiterated, tossing the wine-dregs from his glass.

The company at the table looked instinctively toward the kitchen. Berthe was bringing a fresh pot of coffee. They all followed Fernet's example, lifting their empty glasses for her to serve them in their turn.

The regular boarders of the Hôtel de France, after the fashion of folks who find their meal a duty to be promptly despatched, had departed, but the transients still lingered over their café noir and cognac in the hope that something exciting might materialize.

As the sound of Fernet's voice died away, a man who had been sitting in an extreme corner of the room scraped back his chair and rose. Fernet looked up. The man was a hunchback, and, instead of paying for his meal and leaving, he crossed over and said to Fernet, in the most perfect French imaginable:

"I see, my young fellow, that you are discussing something of interest with your friends here. Would it be impertinent for me to inquire into the subject?"

Fernet drew out a chair for the newcomer, who seated himself.

"By no means. We were discussing a murder and suicide. The murdered man was an Italian fisherman who lodged at the Hôtel des Alpes Maritimes, the suicide was a musician named Suvaroff."

"Ah," said the hunchback, cracking his fingers. "Why a murder and suicide? Why not two murders?"

"Because," returned Fernet, pompously, "it was abundantly proved to the contrary. This man Suvaroff suffered from neuralgia; the Italian fisherman was given to playing the accordion at all hours of the night. Suvaroff was, in addition, a musician— a high-strung person. The Italian's playing was abominable— even his landlady says as much. In short, Suvaroff deliberately killed this simple-minded peasant because of his music. Then, in a fit of remorse, he killed himself. I leave it to any one here to dispute the fact. Besides, I was on the coroner's jury. I should know what I am talking about."

"Oh, without doubt," agreed the hunchback, smiling amiably. "But, as I remember, the knives in both cases were plunged hilt-deep into the backs of the victims. One does not usually commit suicide in this fashion."

Fernet coldly eyed the curiously handsome face of his antagonist. "It seems you know more about this thing than a coroner's jury," he sneered.

"It seems I do— granting that such an important item was left out of the evidence."

"Then, my good sir, will you be good enough to tell me who did kill Suvaroff, since you do not admit that he died by his own hand?"

The hunchback cracked his fingers again. "That is simple enough. Suvaroff was killed by the same person who stabbed the Italian."

"And who might that be, pray?"

The hunchback rose with a malignant smile. "Ah, if I told you that you would know as much as I do, my friend."

And with that he walked calmly over to the proprietor, put down thirty-five cents for his meal upon the counter, and without another word left the room.

A silence fell upon the group. Everybody stared straight ahead, avoiding the eye of his neighbor. It was as if something too terrifying to be remarked had passed them.

Finally, a thick-set man at Fernet's right, with a purple wart on his cheek, said, uneasily, "Come, I must be going."

The others rose; only Fernet remained seated.

"What," said another, "haven't you finished?"

"Yes," returned Fernet, gloomily, "but I am in no hurry."

He sat there for an hour, alone, holding his head between his hands. Berthe cleared off the soiled plates, wiped the oilcloth-covered tables, began noisily to lay the pewter knives and forks for the morning meal. At this Fernet stirred himself and, looking up at her, said:

"Tell me who was the hunchback who came and sat with us? Does he live here— in San Francisco?"

"His name is Flavio Minetti," she replied, setting the lid back upon an uncovered sugar-bowl. "Beyond that I know nothing. But they tell me that he is quite mad."

"Ah, that accounts for many things," said Fernet, smiling with recovered assurance. "I must say he is strangely fascinating."

Berthe looked at him sharply and shrugged. "For my part, he makes me shiver every time I see him come in the door. When I serve him my hand shakes. And he continually cracks his fingers and says to me: 'Come, Berthe, what can I do to make you smile? Would you laugh if I were to dance for you? I would give half my life only to see you laughing. Why are you so sad?'... No, I wish he would never come again."

"Nevertheless, I should like to see him once more."

"He comes always on Thursdays for chicken."

"Thanks," said Fernet, as he put on his hat.

FERNET walked directly to his lodgings that night. He had a room in an old-fashioned house on the east side of Telegraph Hill. The room was shabby enough, but it caught glimpses of the bay and there was a gnarled pepper-tree that came almost to its windows and gave Fernet a sense of eternal, though grotesque, spring. Even his landlord was unusual— a professional beggar who sat upon the curb, with a ridiculous French poodle for company, and sold red and green pencils.

This landlord was sitting out by the front gate as Fernet entered.

"Ah, Pollitto," said Fernet, halting before the old man and snapping his fingers at the poodle who lay crouched before his master, "I see you are enjoying this fine warm night."

"You are wrong," replied the beggar. "I am merely sitting here hoping that some one will come along and rent my front room."

"Then it is vacant?"

"Naturally," replied the old man, with disagreeable brevity, and Fernet walked quickly up to his room.

"Why do I live in such a place?" he asked himself, surveying the four bare walls. "Everything about it is abominable, and that beggar, Pollitto, is a scoundrel. I shall move next week."

He crossed over to the window and flung it open. The pepper-tree lay before him, crouching in the moonlight. He thought at once of Flavio Minetti.

"He is like this pepper-tree," he said, aloud, "beautiful even in his deformity. No, I would not trade this pepper-tree for a dozen of the straightest trees in the world." He stepped back from the window, and, lighting a lamp, set it upon a tottering walnut table. "Ah, André Fernet," he mused, chidingly, "you are always snared by what is unusual. You should pray to God that such folly does not lead you to disaster."

He went to the window and looked out again. The pepper-tree seemed to be bending close to the ground, as if seeking to hide something. Presently the wind parted its branches and the moonlight fell at its feet like a silver moth before a blackened candle.

André Fernet shivered and sighed. "Yes," he repeated, again and again, "they are alike. They both are at once beautiful and hideous and they have strange secrets.... Well, I shall go on Thursday again, and maybe I shall see him. Who knows, if I am discreet he may tell me who killed this ridiculous musician Suvaroff."

And with that he suddenly blew out the light.

On the next Thursday night, when Fernet entered the dining-room of the Hôtel de France his glance rested immediately upon Flavio Minetti. To his surprise the hunchback rose, drawing a chair out as he did so, and beckoning Fernet to be seated next him. For a moment Fernet hesitated, Berthe was just bringing on the soup.

"What! Are you afraid?" she said, mockingly, as she passed.

This decided Fernet. He went and sat beside Minetti without further ado.

"Ah, I was expecting you!" cried the hunchback, genially, as he passed the radishes.

"Expecting me?" returned Fernet. His voice trembled, though he tried to speak boldly.

"Yes. Women are not the only inquisitive animals in the world. What will you have— some wine?"

Fernet allowed Minetti to fill his glass.

Other boarders began to drift in. Minetti turned his back upon Fernet, speaking to a new-comer at his left. He did not say another word all evening.

Fernet ate and drank in silence. "What did I come for and why am I staying?" he kept asking himself. "This man is mocking me. First of all, he greets me as if I were his boon companion, and next he insults me openly and before everybody in the room. Even Berthe has noticed it and is smiling. As a matter of fact, he knows no more than I do about Suvaroff's death."

But he continued to sit beside the hunchback all through the meal, and as fruit was put on the table he touched Minetti on the arm and said, "Will you join me in a café royal?"

"Not here ... a little later. I can show you a place where they really know how to make them. And, besides, there are tables for just two. It is much more private."

Fernet's heart bounded and sank almost in one leap. "Let us go now, then," he said, eagerly.

"As you wish," replied Minetti.

Fernet paid for two dinners, and they reached for their hats.

"Where are you going?" asked Berthe, as she opened the door.

Fernet shrugged. "I am in his hands," he answered, sweeping his arm toward Minetti.

"You mean you will be," muttered the hunchback, in an undertone.

Fernet heard him distinctly.

"Perhaps I had better leave him while there is yet time!" flashed through his mind. But the next instant he thought, contemptuously: "What harm can he do me? Why, his wrist is no bigger than a pullet's wing. Bah! You are a fool, André Fernet!"

THEY STEPPED out into the street. A languorous note was in the air; the usual cool wind from the sea had not risen. A waning moon silvered the roof-tops, making a pretense of hiding its face in the thin line of smoke above Telegraph Hill.

The hunchback led the way, trotting along in a fashion almost Oriental. At the end of the second block he turned abruptly into a wine-shop; Fernet followed. They found seats in a far corner, away from the billiard-tables. A waiter came forward. They gave their orders.

"Be sure," said Minetti to the waiter, "that we have plenty of anisette and cognac in the coffee."

The man flicked a towel rather contemptuously and made no answer.

"Now," Minetti continued, turning a mocking face toward Fernet, "what can I do for you, my friend?"

Fernet was filled with confusion. "I ... you ..." he stammered. "Really, there is nothing. Believe me—"

"Nonsense," interrupted Minetti. "You wish to know who killed Suvaroff. But I warn you, my friend, it is a dreadful thing to share such a secret."

He looked at Fernet intently. The younger man shuddered. "Nevertheless, I should like to know," Fernet said, distinctly.

"Well, then, since you are so determined— it was I who killed him."

Fernet stared, looked again at the hunchback's puny wrists, and began to laugh. "You! Do you take me for a fool?" And as he said this he threw back his head and laughed until even the billiard-players stopped their game and looked around at him.

"What are you laughing at?" asked the hunchback, narrowing his eyes.

Fernet stopped. He felt a sudden chill as if some one had opened a door. "I am laughing at you," he answered.

"I am sorry for that," said Minetti, dryly.

"Why?"

The hunchback leaned forward confidentially. "Because I kill every one who laughs at me. It— it is a little weakness I have."

The waiter came with two glasses of steaming coffee. He put them down on the table, together with a bottle of cognac and a bottle of anisette.

"Ah, that is good!" cried the hunchback, rubbing his hands together. "The proprietor is my friend. He is going to let us prepare our own poison!"

Fernet felt himself shivering. "Come," he thought, "this will never do! The man is either mad or jesting." He reached for the anisette.

"Let me pour it for you," suggested Flavio Minetti. "Your hand is shaking so that you will spill half of it on the floor."

The hunchback's voice had a note of pity in it. Fernet relinquished his hold upon the bottle.

"Don't look so frightened," continued Minetti. "I shall not kill you here. The proprietor is a friend of mine, and, besides—"

"What nonsense!" cried Fernet, with a ghastly smile. "But I must confess, you did make my blood run cold for a minute."

Minetti stirred some cognac into his glass. "And, besides," he finished, coldly, "I give everybody a sporting chance. It adds to the game."

THAT NIGHT André Fernet was restless. He lay on his bed looking out at the blinking lights of the harbor. "I must stop drinking coffee," he muttered to himself.

Finally he fell asleep, and when he did he had a strange dream. It seemed that the pepper-tree outside his window suddenly began to move in the night breeze and its long green boughs became alive, twisting like the relentless tentacles of a devil-fish. Its long green boughs became alive, crawling along the ground, flinging themselves into the air, creeping in at André Fernet's open window. He lay upon the bed as he had done earlier in the evening, watching the harbor lights. Slowly the green boughs writhed over the faded carpet, scaled the bedpost and fell upon the bed. André Fernet waited, motionless. He felt the green tentacles close about his legs, clasp his hands, slide shudderingly across his throat. Yet he made no move to free himself. It was only when he felt a breath upon his cheek that he turned slightly, and instead of the tentacle-like boughs of the pepper-tree he fancied himself staring down at the hands of Flavio Minetti.... He awoke with a start. The sun was pouring in at the open window. He got up quickly. A noisy clatter issued from the passageway. Fernet opened his door. Two men were carrying a trunk up the stairs. Pollitto, the beggar, walked behind.

"Ah, I see you have rented your front room," said Fernet, stepping out.

"Yes," returned the other. "It was taken as early as six o'clock this morning— by a hunchback."

Fernet stopped breathing. "A hunchback? Was his name Flavio Minetti?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

Fernet tried to smile. "He is a friend of mine," he answered, as he walked back into his room. "Perhaps it would be better if I moved away," he thought. "I do not like this room. Heaven knows why I have stayed this long. Is this fellow Minetti really mad or merely making sport of me? I should not like to have him think that I am afraid of him. As for his story about Suvaroff, that is, of course, ridiculous. If I thought otherwise I should go at once to the.... No, it is all a joke! I shall stay where I am. I shall not have it said that a little, mad, puny, twisted fellow frightened André Fernet out of his lodgings. Besides, it will be curious to watch his little game. What a beautiful morning it is, after all! And the pepper-tree— how it glistens in the sun! I should miss that pepper-tree if I moved away. But I must stop drinking cafés royal. They upset one. I do not know whether it is the coffee, or the cognac, or the anisette, or all three. Of course, that dream I had toward morning means nothing— but such dreams are unpleasant. I hate this place. But I shall not move now. No, I shall wait and see what happens."

FERNET did not see Minetti for some days. Indeed, he had dismissed the whole thing from his mind, when, one night, returning home early to get out of a drizzle, who should stop him on the stairway but the hunchback.

"Ah, so here you are!" called out Fernet, gaily, in spite of his rapidly beating heart. "I have been waiting for you to call on me ever since I heard that you were lodging under the same roof."

"I have been busy," replied the hunchback, laconically.

Fernet threw open his bedroom door and waved Minetti in.

"Busy?" he echoed, as he struck a light. "And what do you find that is so absorbing, pray?"

"You know my specialty," replied Minetti, flinging off his cap.

Fernet looked up sharply. A malignant look had crept into the hunchback's face.

"Oh, there is no doubt of it, he is quite mad!" said Fernet to himself. Then aloud: "Yes, I have been wanting to talk to you more about this. Take a seat and I shall make some coffee. For instance, do you always employ the knife in despatching your—"

"Scarcely," interrupted Minetti, quickly. "Slow poison has its fascinations. There is a very delicate joy in watching a gradual decline. It is like watching a green leaf fading before the breath of autumn. First a sickly pallor, then a yellowing, finally the sap dries completely, a sharp wind, a fluttering in the air, and it is all over. I have tried nearly every slow way— except mental murder. I fancy that, too, would be exquisite."

"Mental murder.... I do not understand."

Minetti stretched himself out and yawned. "Accomplishing the thing without any weapon save the mind."

Fernet picked up the coffee-pot and laughed. "Why, my dear fellow, it is too absurd! The thing cannot be done. You see I am laughing at you again, but no matter."

"No, as you say, it is no matter. You can die only once."

Fernet's laughter stopped instantly. He went on with his preparation for coffee. Minetti changed the subject.

It turned out that there was no sugar in the cracked bowl. Fernet was putting on his hat to go out for some, when the hunchback stopped him.

"Sugar will not be necessary," he said. And as he spoke he drew a vial from his vest pocket and laid it upon the table beside the cups. "You know what these are, of course."

"Saccharine pellets?" inquired Fernet as he threw aside his hat.

Minetti replied with a grunt. Fernet poured out the coffee, set a spoon in each saucer, laid three French rolls upon a blue plate. Then he sat down.

"Permit me!" said Minetti, reaching for the vial and rolling a tiny pellet into his palm.

Fernet held up his cup; the hunchback dropped the pellet into it. Then he corked the vial tightly and laid it aside.

"You forgot to serve yourself," said Fernet.

"So I did!" answered Minetti, nonchalantly. "Well, no matter. I very often drink my coffee so— without sweetening."

Fernet drew back suddenly. Could it be possible that.... The hunchback was staring at him, an ironical smile was on his lips. Fernet shuddered.

"Drink your coffee!" Minetti commanded, sneeringly. "You are on the verge of a chill."

Fernet obeyed meekly. He felt for all the world like an animal caught in a trap. He tried to collect his thoughts. What had the hunchback been talking about?

"Slow poison!" muttered Fernet, inaudibly to himself.

"What is that you are saying?" demanded the other.

"You were speaking of slow poison. How do you go about it?"

"Oh, that is easy! For instance, once in London I lodged next door to my victim. We became capital friends. And he was always calling me in for a bite of something to eat. Nothing elaborate— a bun and a cup of tea, or coffee and cake. Very much as we are doing now. He died in six months. It is no trick, you know, to poison a man who eats and drinks with you— especially drinks!"

As he said this the hunchback reached for the coffee-pot and poured Fernet another cupful. Then he uncorked the vial again and dropped a pellet into the steaming liquid.

"I do not think that I wish any more," protested Fernet.

"Nonsense! You are still shivering like an old woman with the palsy. Hot coffee will do you good."

"No," said Fernet, desperately, "I never drink more than one cup at a sitting. It keeps me awake, and next morning my hand shakes and I am fit for nothing. I need a steady hand in my business."

"And what may that be, pray?"

"At present I am a draftsman. Some day, if I live long enough, I hope to be an architect."

"If you live long enough? You forget that you have laughed at me, my friend."

Fernet tried to appear indifferent. "What a droll fellow you are!" he cried, with sudden gaiety, rubbing his hands together. And without thinking, he reached for his coffee-cup and downed the contents in almost one gulp. He laid the cup aside quickly. He could feel the sweat starting out upon his forehead.

"There, you see," said Minetti, "the coffee has done you good already. You are perspiring, and that is a good sign. A hot drink at the right moment works wonders."

THE NEXT morning Pollitto stopped Fernet as he swung out the front gate to his work.

"What is the matter with you?" exclaimed the beggar, in a surprised tone.

"Why... what?" demanded Fernet, in a trembling voice. "Do I look so...? Pray, tell me, is there anything unusual about me?"

"Why, your face.... Have you looked at yourself in the glass? Your skin is the color of stale pastry."

Fernet tried to laugh. "It is nothing. I have been drinking too much coffee lately. I must stop it."

It was a fine morning. The sun was shining and the air was brisk and full of little rippling breezes. The bay lay like a blue-green peacock ruffling its gilded feathers. The city had a genial, smiling countenance. But Fernet was out of humor with all this full-blown content. He had spent a wretched night— not sleepless, but full of disturbing dreams. Dreams about Minetti and his London neighbor and the empty sugar-bowl. All night he had dreamed about this empty sugar-bowl. It seemed that as soon as he had it filled Minetti would slyly empty it again. He tried stowing sugar away in his pockets, but when he put his hand in to draw out a lump a score or more of pellets spilled over the floor. Then he remembered saying:

"I shall call on Minetti's London neighbor. Maybe he will have some sugar."

He walked miles and miles, and finally beat upon a strange door. A man wrapped in a black coat up to his eyebrows opened to his knock.

"Are you Flavio Minetti's London neighbor?" he demanded, boldly.

The figure bowed. Fernet drew the cracked sugar-bowl from under his arm.

"Will you oblige me with a little sugar?" he asked, more politely.

The black-cloaked figure bowed and disappeared. Presently he came back. Fernet took the sugar-bowl from him. It struck him that the bowl felt very light. He looked down at his hands. The bowl had disappeared; only a glass vial lay in his palm. He removed the cork— a dozen or more tiny round pellets fell out. He glanced up quickly at Minetti's London neighbor; a dreadful smile glowed through the black cloak. Fernet gave a cry and hurled the vial in the face of his tormentor. Minetti's London neighbor let the black cloak fall, and André Fernet discovered that he was staring at himself.... He awakened soon after that and found that it was morning.

When he brushed his hair his hand had shaken so that the brush fell clattering to the floor. And he had spilled the cream for his morning coffee over the faded strip of carpet before the bureau. It had ended by his eating no breakfast at all. But he had drunk glass after glass of cold water.

After Pollitto's words he trembled more and more like a man with the ague, and before every saloon-door mirror he halted and took a brief survey of his face. Pollitto was right— his skin was dead and full of unhealthy pallor. It was plain that he could not work in his present condition. His trembling fingers could scarcely hold a pencil, much less guide it through the precise demands of a drafting-board. He decided to go to the library and read. But the books on architecture which always enthralled him could not hold his shifting attention. Finally in despair he went up to the librarian and said:

"Have you any books on poison?"

The woman eyed him with a cold, incurious glance.

"Historical or medical?" she snapped out, as she went on stamping mysterious numbers in the pile of books before her.

"Both!"

She consulted a catalogue and made a list for him.

He sat all day devouring books which the librarian had recommended. He did not even go out for lunch. He read historical and romantic instances with a keen, morbid relish; but when it came to the medical books his heart quickened and he followed causes and effects breathlessly. By nightfall he had a relentless knowledge of every poison in the calendar. He knew what to expect from arsenic or strychnine or vitriol. He learned which poisons destroyed tissues, which acted as narcotics, which were irritants. He identified the hemlock, the horse-chestnut, the deadly toadstools. In short, he absorbed and retained everything on the subject. It seemed that the world teemed with poisons; one could be sure of nothing. Even beautiful flowers were not to be trusted.

He was so upset by all he had read that he could scarcely eat dinner. He went to an obscure pension in a wretched basement, where he was sure he would be unknown, and, after two or three mouthfuls of soup and a spoonful of rice boiled with tomato, he rose, paid for his meal, and went out to tramp up and down past the tawdry shops of middle Kearny Street. He was trotting aimlessly in the direction of Market Street when he felt a tug at his coat-sleeve. He turned. Minetti was smiling genially up at him.

"Come," said the hunchback, "what is your hurry? Have you had coffee yet? I was thinking that—"

Fernet's heart sank at once. And yet he managed to say boldly: "I have given up drinking coffee. You can see for yourself what a wretched complexion I have. And to-day I have scarcely eaten."

"Pooh!" cried Minetti. "A cup of coffee will do you good."

Fernet began to draw away in futile terror. "No!" he protested, with frightened vehemence. "No, I tell you! I won't drink the stuff! It is useless for you to—"

Minetti began to laugh with scornful good-humor. "What has come over you?" he drawled, half-closing his eyes. "Are you afraid?"

And as he said this Fernet glanced instinctively at the puny wrists, no bigger than a pullet's wing, and replied, boldly:

"Afraid? Of what? I told you last night I need a steady hand in my business, and to-day I have not been able to do any work."

Minetti's mirth softened into genial acquiescence. "Well, maybe you are right. But I must say you are not very companionable. Perhaps the coffee you have been drinking has not been made properly. You should take something. You do look badly. A glass of brandy?... No?... Ah, I have it— coffee made in the Turkish fashion. Have you ever drunk that?"

"No," replied Fernet, helplessly, wondering all the time why he was foolish enough to tell the truth.

"Well, then," announced the hunchback, confidently, "we shall cross over to Third Street and have some Turkish coffee. I know a Greek café where they brew a cup that would tempt the Sultan himself. Have you ever seen it made? They use coffee pounded to a fine powder— a teaspoonful to a cup, and sugar in the same proportion. It is all put in together and brought to a boil. The result is indescribable! Really, you are in for a treat."

"If it is sweetened in the making," flashed through Fernet's mind, "at least we shall have no more of that pellet business."

"Yes— the result is quite indescribable," Minetti was repeating, "and positively no bad effects."

And as he said this he slipped his arm into Fernet's and guided him with gentle firmness toward the Greek café in question. Fernet felt suddenly helpless and incapable of offering the slightest objection.

A girl took their orders. She had a freckled nose and was frankly Irish. Naturally, she did not fit the picture, and Fernet could see that she was scornful of the whole business.

"Two coffees ... medium," Minetti repeated, decisively. "And will you have a sweet with it? They sell taffy made of sesame seeds and honey. Or you can have Turkish delight or a pastry dusted with powdered sugar. Really they are all quite delicious."

Fernet merely shrugged. Minetti ordered Turkish delight. The girl wiped some moisture from the marble table-top and walked toward the coffee-shelf.

"So you were not able to work to-day?" Minetti began, affably. "How did you put in the time?"

"At the library, reading."

"Something droll? A French novel or—"

"Books on poison!" Fernet shot out with venomous triumph. "I know more than I did yesterday."

"How distressing!" purred Minetti. "Ignorance is more invulnerable than one fancies. Of course we are taught otherwise, but knowledge, you remember, was the beginning of all trouble. But you choose a fascinating, subject. Some day when we get better acquainted I shall tell you all I know about it. Poison is such a subtle thing. It is everywhere— in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in the food we eat. And it is at once swift and sluggish, painful and stupefying, obvious and incapable of analysis. It is like a beautiful woman, or a great joy, or love itself."

Fernet glanced up sharply. The hunchback had slid forward in his seat and his eyes glowed like two shaded pools catching greedily at the yellow sunlight of midday. Fernet shuddered and looked about the room. Groups of swarthy men were drinking coffee, or sipping faintly red draughts of cherry syrup and sweet soda. At a near-by table a group of six shuffled cards and marked their scores upon a slate. And, of course, there were those who played backgammon, rattling the dice and making exaggerated gestures as they spurred on their adversaries with genial taunts.

The girl came back carrying cups of thick steaming coffee and soft lemon-colored sweetmeats speared with two tiny silver forks. She set the tray down. Minetti reached for his coffee greedily, but Fernet sat back in his seat and allowed the waitress to place the second cup before him. As she did so the table shook suddenly and half of the hot liquid spilled over on the marble tabletop. Fernet jumped up to escape the scalding trickle; the girl gave an apologetic scream; Minetti laughed strangely.

"It is all my fault!" cried the hunchback. "What stupidity! Pray be seated. My young woman, will you give the gentleman this coffee of mine? And get me another."

"Pardon me," Fernet protested, "but I cannot think of such a thing!" And with that he attempted to pass the coffee in question back to Minetti. But the hunchback would have none of it. Fernet broke into a terrified sweat.

"He has dropped poison into it!" he thought, in sudden panic. "Otherwise why should he be so anxious to have me drink it? He kicked the table deliberately, too. And this cup of his— why was it not spilled also? No, he was prepared— it is all a trick!"

"Come, come, my friend," broke in Minetti, briskly, "drink your coffee while it is still hot! Do not wait for me. I shall be served presently. And try the sweetmeats; they are delicious."

"I am not hungry," replied Fernet, sullenly.

"No? Well, what of that? Sweetmeats and coffee are not matters of hunger. Really, you are more droll than you imagine!" Minetti burst into a terrifying laugh.

"He thinks I am afraid!" muttered Fernet.

And out of sheer bravado he lifted the cup to his lips. Minetti stopped laughing, but a wide smile replaced his diabolical mirth. The girl brought fresh coffee to the hunchback. He sipped it with frank enjoyment, but he did not once take his gaze from Fernet's pale face.

"Well," thought Fernet, "one cup of poison more or less will not kill me.... It is not as if he has made up his mind to finish me at once. He is counting on the exquisite joys of a prolonged agony." And he remembered Minetti's words: "It is like watching a green leaf fading before the breath of autumn. First a sickly pallor, then a yellowing, a sharp wind, a fluttering in the air...." He tossed off the coffee in one defiant gulp. "He thinks that he has me in his power. But André Fernet is not quite a fool. I shall go away to-morrow!"

THEY went home as soon as Minetti finished his coffee. Fernet felt a sudden nausea; by the time he reached his lodgings his steps were unsteady and his head reeled. Minetti was kindness itself.

"Let me help you into bed," he insisted. "You must have a congestion. Presently I shall heat some water and give you a hot gin."

Fernet was too sick to protest. Minetti started the gas-stove and filled the kettle and went into his room for gin. Fernet dragged himself out of his clothes and crawled in between the sheets. Minetti came back. Fernet lay with his eyes half-closed, shivering. Finally the water boiled, and the hunchback brought Fernet a huge tumbler of gin and water with bits of lemon-peel and cloves floating in it. It tasted so good that Fernet forgot his terror for the moment. But when the tumbler was empty he felt helpless; he could scarcely lift his arms; so he lay flat upon his back, staring up at the ceiling. He tried to recall scraps of what he had been reading all afternoon. What was the name of the poison that left one paralyzed? He could not remember. He found his movements becoming more and more difficult; he could scarcely turn in bed. Minetti brewed another toddy. Fernet could not hold the glass! He tried to push the tumbler away from his lips, but his efforts were useless. Minetti hovered above him with a bland, gentle smile, and Fernet felt the warm liquid trickling into his mouth and down his throat. In the midst of all this he lost consciousness.... Once or twice during the night Fernet had a wakeful interlude. Whenever he opened his eyes he saw Minetti sitting before the open window, gazing down at the twisted pepper-tree.

"Yes, they are both alike!" passed dimly through his mind. "They both are at once beautiful and hideous and they have strange secrets! It is no use, I must go away— to-morrow."

In the morning Minetti was standing by the bed. "I have sent for the doctor," he said. But his voice sounded far away.

THE DOCTOR came shortly after ten o'clock. He was a little wizened, dried-up old man with a profound air.

"He is a fraud!" thought Fernet. "He knows nothing!"

"Ah," said the doctor, putting a sly finger against his sharp nose, "our friend here has a nervous collapse. He should have a nurse!"

"A nurse!" exclaimed Minetti, with indignation. "And, pray, what do you call me? Do you not think that—"

"Well, we shall see! we shall see!" replied the doctor, rubbing his hands together. "But he will need all sorts of delicacies and—"

Minetti moistened his lips with sleek satisfaction. "You cannot name a dish that I am not able to prepare."

"How about a custard? To-day he should eat something light."

"A custard is simplicity itself," answered the hunchback, and he cracked his fingers.

Minetti went out with the doctor, and came back shortly, carrying eggs and a bottle of vanilla extract and sugar. Fernet lay helpless, watching him bustling about. Finally the delicacy was made and set away in a pan of water to cool. At noon Minetti brought a blue bowl filled with custard to the bedside. It looked inviting, but Fernet shook his head.

"I am not hungry," he lied.

The hunchback set the bowl down on a chair so that Fernet gazed upon it all day. The hunchback did not leave the room. He sat before the open window, reading from a thick book. Toward nightfall Fernet said to him:

"What do you find so interesting?"

Minetti darted a sardonic glance at his patient. "A book on poison. I did not realize that I had grown so rusty on the subject. Why, I remember scarcely enough to poison a field-mouse!"

He rose and crossed over to the bedside. "Do you not feel ready for the custard?"

Fernet cast a longing eye upon the yellow contents of the blue bowl.

"No. To tell the truth, I never eat it."

Minetti shrugged.

"But I should like a glass of water."

The hunchback drew water from the faucet. Fernet watched him like a ferret.

"At least," thought Fernet, "he cannot drop poison in the water secretly. It is well that I can see every move he makes at such a time. I should not like to die of thirst."

A little later Minetti removed the bowl and threw out its contents. Fernet looked on with half-closed eyes.

"What better proof could I have?" he mused. "If the custard were harmless he would eat it himself. I must get away to-morrow."

But the next day he felt weaker than ever, and when the doctor came Minetti said, in answer to questions:

"I made a delicious custard yesterday and he ate every bit.... An oyster stew?... with milk? I shall see that he has it at noon."

"God help me!" muttered Fernet. "Why does he lie like this? I must get the doctor's ear and tell him how things stand. I shall eat nothing— nothing! Thank Heaven I can drink water without fear."

At noon the oyster stew was ready. But Fernet would have none of it. "Oysters make me ill!" he said.

Minetti merely shrugged as he had done the previous day, and set the savory dish upon a chair before the bed. It exuded tantalizing odors, until Fernet thought he would go mad with longing. Toward evening Minetti threw out the stew. And as before, when the doctor called the hunchback said:

"He ate a quart of stew and there were plenty of oysters in it, I can tell you. Do you think that a chicken fried in olive-oil would be too hearty?"

Fernet groaned. "This is horrible— horrible!" he wept to himself. "I shall die like a starving rat with toasted cheese dangling just beyond reach. God help me to rouse myself! Surely the effects of the poison he has given me must soon wear off.... There he is, reading from that big book again. Perhaps he is contriving a way to put poison in my water even though I am able to watch him when he draws me a drink.... Poison— poison everywhere. It can even be administered with the prick of a needle. Why did I read about it? Chicken fried in olive-oil... what torture!"

THE CHICKEN fried in olive-oil was a triumph— Fernet knew all this by the wisps of appetizing fragrance which drifted from the sizzling pan. Minetti made a great stir over the preparations. The tender flesh had to be rubbed thoroughly with garlic and well dusted with salt and pepper. And a quarter of a bottle of yellow-green olive-oil was first placed in the pan. When everything was ready and the chicken cooked to a turn, Minetti carried it to Fernet with a great flourish. Fernet gritted his teeth and turned his face away. He did not have the courage to invent an excuse. Minetti laid it on the chair as usual. For two hours Fernet was tortured with the sight of this tempting morsel, but at the sound of the doctor's step upon the stair the hunchback whisked away the chicken.

"His appetite?" Minetti said, echoing the doctor's query. "Why, one could not wish for better! Only this morning he despatched a chicken as if it had been no more than a soft-boiled egg. As a matter of fact, he is always hungry."

"Well, well," beamed the doctor, "that is the best of signs, and it happens that way very often in nervous cases. You are a capital nurse, my good man, and by the end of the week, if you keep feeding him up in this fashion, he should be as hearty as a school-boy."

At that moment Minetti was called down-stairs by his landlord. Fernet struggled to lift himself; the doctor bent toward him.

"This hunchback," Fernet gasped, "he is trying to poison me. Already I have drunk four or five of his concoctions, and that is why I am in this condition ... helpless. And he is lying when he says that I have eaten. I have touched nothing for three days."

The doctor laid the patient back upon the pillow.

"Poison you, my friend? And for what reason?"

"Because I laughed at him. In God's name, Doctor, see that you keep a straight face in his presence or else—"

The doctor patted Fernet's hand and straightened the sliding bedclothes. By this time Minetti had come back. The doctor and the hunchback whispered together in a far corner. Minetti laughed and tapped his head. At the door Fernet heard the doctor say:

"Just keep up the good work and the idea will pass. It happens that way very often in nervous cases. I shall not look in again until the first of next week unless...."

Fernet groaned aloud.

"I must get away to-morrow.... I must get away to-morrow!" he kept on repeating.

BY the end of the week the smell of food held no temptations for Fernet. Minetti stopped cooking. And when a glass of water was drawn from the faucet Fernet had difficulty in forcing his vision to answer the strain of a searching gaze.

"When my sight fails me," Fernet thought, dimly, "I shall either die of thirst or take the consequences."

When the doctor finally came again Fernet closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

"He seems thinner," remarked the doctor, as if he had made an important discovery.

"Well, to tell the truth," replied the hunchback, "he has lost his appetite. I have fed him milk and eggs, but—"

"There is nothing to do but be patient," said the doctor. "Medicine will do him no good. Just rest and food. Even a little starvation will not hurt him. People eat too much, anyway."

At this Fernet opened his eyes and broke into a laugh that startled even Minetti. The doctor looked offended.

"Well, he is in your hands," the old fraud said, pompously, to the hunchback. "Just keep up the good work—"

Fernet laughed again.

"He is hysterical," proclaimed the doctor, with an air of supreme wisdom. "It happens that way very often in nervous cases."

And he walked out with great solemnity.

"Ah, I have offended him!" thought Fernet. "Well, now they will finish me— together!"

THERE FOLLOWED days of delicious weakness. Fernet lay for the most part wrapt in the bliss of silver-blue visions. It seemed as if years were passing. He built shining cities, received the homage of kings, surrendered himself to the joys of ripe-lipped beauties. There were lucid intervals shot through with the malignant presence of Minetti and the puttering visits of the doctor. But these were like waking moments between darkness and dawn, filled with the half-conscious joy of a sleeper secure in the knowledge of a prolonged respite. In such moments Fernet would stir feebly and think:

"I must get away to-morrow!"

And there would succeed almost instantly a languid ecstasy at the thought that to-morrow was something remote and intangible that would never come.

At times the hunchback seemed like nothing so much as a heartless gaoler who, if he would, might open the door to some shining adventure. Gradually this idea became fixed and elaborated. Fernet's sight grew dimmer and dimmer until he followed the presence of Minetti by the sounds he made.

"He is jingling something," Fernet would repeat, weakly. "Ah, it must be his keys! He is searching for the one that will set me free!... Now he is oiling the lock.... He has shut the door again. I am to be held awhile longer.... I am a caged bird and just beyond is the pepper-tree. It must be glistening now in the sunlight. Well, let him lock the door, for all the good it will do him. Is not the window always open? When the time comes I shall fly out the window and leave him here— alone. Then we shall see who has the best of this bargain."

And all the silver-blue visions would steal over him again, to be pierced briefly by the arrival of the wizened doctor.

"It is he who keeps me here!" Fernet would say to himself. "If it were not for him I could fly away— forever. Well, presently even he will lose his power."

One day a strange man stood at his bedside. Minetti was there also, and the old fraud of a doctor. The strange man drew back the covers and put his ear to Fernet's fluttering heart and went through other tiresome matters.... Finally he smoothed back the covers again, and as he did so he shook his head. He spoke softly, but Fernet heard him distinctly.

"It is too late.... You should have called me sooner. He wishes to die.... There is nothing to be done."

"Yes, yes— it happens this way very often in nervous cases."

"I have done my best. I have given him food and drink. I have even starved him. But nothing seemed to do any good."

"No," said the stranger; "it is his mind. He has made up his mind that.... You can do nothing with a man when...."

Fernet closed his eyes.

"A man! They think I am a man. What stupidity! Can they not see that I am a bird?... They have gone out. He is locking the door again.... I can hear the keys jingle.... Well, let him lock the door if it gives him any pleasure. The window is open and to-night...."

The footsteps of the departing visitors died away. A chuckling sound came to André Fernet and the thump of ecstatic fists brought down upon a bare table-top. The voice of Flavio Minetti was quivering triumphantly like the hot whisper of a desert wind through the room:

"Without any weapon save the mind! Ha! ha! ha!"

Fernet turned his face toward the wall. "He is laughing at me now. Well, let him laugh while he may.... Is not the window open? To-morrow I shall be free... and he?... No, he cannot fly— he has a broken wing.... The window is open, André Fernet!"

_________________

8: The Shining Pyramid

Arthur Machen

1863–1947

The Unknown World, May 1895

1. The Arrow-head Character

"HAUNTED, you said?"

"Yes, haunted. Don't you remember, when I saw you three years ago, you told me about your place in the west with the ancient woods hanging all about it, and the wild, domed hills, and the ragged land? It has always remained a sort of enchanted picture in my mind as I sit at my desk and hear the traffic rattling in the Street in the midst of whirling London. But when did you come up?"

"The fact is, Dyson, I have only just got out of the train. I drove to the station early this morning and caught the 10.45."

"Well, I am very glad you looked in on me. How have you been getting on since we last met? There is no Mrs. Vaughan, I suppose?"

"No," said Vaughan, "I am still a hermit, like yourself. I have done nothing but loaf about."

Vaughn had lit his pipe and sat in the elbow chair, fidgeting and glancing about him in a somewhat dazed and restless manner. Dyson had wheeled round his chair when his visitor entered and sat with one arm fondly reclining on the desk of his bureau, and touching the litter of manuscript.

"And you are still engaged in the old task?" said Vaughan, pointing to the pile of papers and the teeming pigeon-holes.

"Yes, the vain pursuit of literature, as idle as alchemy, and as entrancing. But you have come to town for some time I suppose; what shall we do to-night?"

"Well. I rather wanted you to try a few days with me down in the west. It would do you a lot of good. I'm sure."

"You are very kind, Vaughan, but London in September is hard to leave. Doré could not have designed anything more wonderful and mystic than Oxford Street as I saw it the other evening; the sunset flaming, the blue haze transmuting the plain street into a road 'far in the spiritual city.'"

"I should like you to come down though. You would enjoy roaming over our hills. Does this racket go on all day and night? It quite bewilders me; I wonder how you can work through it. I am sure you would revel in the great peace of my old home among the woods."

Vaughan lit his pipe again, and looked anxiously at Dyson to see if his inducements had had any effect, but the man of letters shook his head, smiling, and vowed in his heart a firm allegiance to the streets.

"You cannot tempt me," he said.

'Well, you may be right. Perhaps, after all, I was wrong to speak of the peace of the country. There, when a tragedy does occur, it is like a stone thrown into a pond; the circles of disturbance keep on widening, and it seems as if the water would never be still again."

"Have you ever any tragedies where you are?"

"I can hardly say that. But I was a good deal disturbed about a month ago by something that happened; it may or may not have been a tragedy in the usual sense of the word."

"What was the occurrence?"

"Well, the fact is a girl disappeared in a way which seems highly mysterious. Her parents, people of the name of Trevor, are well-to-do farmers, and their eldest daughter Annie was a sort of village beauty; she was really remarkably handsome. One afternoon she thought she would go and see her aunt, a widow who farms her own land, and as the two houses are only about five or six miles apart, she started off, telling her parents she would take the short cut over the hills. She never got to her aunt's, and she never was seen again. That's putting it in a few words."

"What an extraordinary thing! I suppose there are no disused mines, are there, on the hills? I don't think you quite run to anything so formidable as a precipice?"

"No; the path the girl must have taken had no pitfalls of any description; it is just a track over wild, bare hillside, far, even from a byroad. One may walk for miles without meeting a soul, but it is perfectly safe."

"And what do people say about it?"

"Oh, they talk nonsense— among themselves. You have no notion as to how superstitious English cottagers are in out-of-the-way parts like mine. They are as bad as the Irish, every whit, and even more secretive."

"But what do they say?"

"Oh, the poor girl is supposed to have 'gone with the fairies,' or to have been 'taken by the fairies.' Such stuff!" he went on, "one would laugh if it were not for the real tragedy of the case."

Dyson looked somewhat interested.

"Yes," he said, "'fairies' certainly strike a little curiously on the ear in these days. But what do the police say? I presume they do not accept the fairy-tale hypothesis?"

"No; but they seem quite at fault. What I am afraid of is that Annie Trevor must have fallen in with some scoundrels on her way. Castletown is a large seaport, you know, and some of the worst of the foreign sailors occasionally desert their ships and go on the tramp up and down the country. Not many years ago a Spanish sailor named Garcia murdered a whole family for the sake of plunder that was not worth sixpence. They are hardly human, some of these fellows, and I am dreadfully afraid the poor girl must have come to an awful end."

"But no foreign sailor was seen by anyone about the country?"

"No; there is certainly that; and of course country people are quick to notice anyone whose appearance and dress are a little out of the common. Still it seems as if my theory were the only possible explanation."

"There are no data to go upon," said Dyson, thoughtfully. "There was no question of a love affair, or anything of the kind, I suppose?"

"Oh, no, not a hint of such a thing. I am sure if Annie were alive she would have contrived to let her mother know of her safety."

"No doubt, no doubt. Still it is barely possible that she is alive and yet unable to communicate with her friends. But all this must have disturbed you a good deal."

"Yes, it did; I hate a mystery, and especially a mystery which is probably the veil of horror. But frankly, Dyson, I want to make a clean breast of it; I did not come here to tell you all this."

"Of course not," said Dyson, a little surprised at Vaughan's uneasy manner. "You came to have a chat on more cheerful topics."

"No, I did not. What I have been telling you about happened a month ago, but something which seems likely to affect me more personally has taken place within the last few days, and to be quite plain, I came up to town with the idea that you might be able to help me. You recollect that curious case you spoke to me about on our last meeting; something about a spectacle-maker."

"Oh, yes, I remember that. I know I was quite proud of my acumen at the time; even to this day the police have no idea why those peculiar yellow spectacles were wanted. But, Vaughan, you really look quite put out; I hope there is nothing serious?"

"No, I think I have been exaggerating, and I want you to reassure me. But what has happened is very odd."

"And what has happened?"

"I am sure that you will laugh at me, but this is the story. You must know there is a path, a right of way, that goes through my land, and to be precise, close to the wall of the kitchen garden. It is not used by many people; a woodman now and again finds it useful, and five or six children who go to school in the village pass twice a day. Well, a few days ago I was taking a walk about the place before breakfast, and I happened to stop to fill my pipe just by the large doors in the garden wall. The wood, I must tell you, comes to within a few feet of the wall, and the track I spoke of runs right in the shadow of the trees. I thought the shelter from a brisk wind that was blowing rather pleasant, and I stood there smoking with my eyes on the ground. Then something caught my attention. Just under the wall, on the short grass; a number of small flints were arranged in a pattern; something like this": and Mr. Vaughan caught at a pencil and piece of paper, and dotted down a few strokes.

"You see," he went on, "there were, I should think, twelve little stones neatly arranged in lines, and spaced at equal distances, as I have shown it on the paper. They were pointed stones, and the points were very carefully directed one way."

"Yes," said Dyson, without much interest, "no doubt the children you have mentioned had been playing there on their way from school. Children, as you know, are very fond of making such devices with oyster shells or flints or flowers, or with whatever comes in their way."

"So I thought; I just noticed these flints were arranged in a sort of pattern and then went on. But the next morning I was taking the same round, which, as a matter of fact, is habitual with me, and again I saw at the same spot a device in flints. This time it was really a curious pattern; something like the spokes of a wheel, all meeting at a common centre, and this centre formed by a device which looked like a bowl; all, you understand done in flints."

"You are right," said Dyson, "that seems odd enough. Still it is reasonable that your half-a-dozen school children are responsible for these fantasies in stone."

"Well, I thought I would set the matter at rest. The children pass the gate every evening at half-past five, and I walked by at six, and found the device just as I had left it in the morning. The next day I was up and about at a quarter to seven, and I found the whole thing had been changed. There was a pyramid outlined in flints upon the grass. The children I saw going by an hour and a half later, and they ran past the spot without glancing to right or left. In the evening I watched them going home, and this morning when I got to the gate at six o'clock there was a thing like a half moon waiting for me."

"So then the series runs thus: firstly ordered lines, then, the device of the spokes and the bowl, then the pyramid, and finally, this morning, the half moon. That is the order, isn't it?"

"Yes; that is right. But do you know it has made me feel very uneasy? I suppose it seems absurd, but I can't help thinking that some kind of signalling is going on under my nose, and that sort of thing is disquieting."

"But what have you to dread? You have no enemies?"

"No; but I have some very valuable old plate."

"You are thinking of burglars then?" said Dyson, with an accent of considerable interest, "but you must know your neighbours. Are there any suspicious characters about?"

"Not that I am aware of. But you remember what I told you of the sailors."

"Can you trust your servants?"

"Oh, perfectly. The plate is preserved in a strong room; the butler, an old family servant, alone knows where the key is kept. There is nothing wrong there. Still, everybody is aware that I have a lot of old silver, and all country folks are given to gossip. In that way information may have got abroad in very undesirable quarters."

"Yes, but I confess there seems something a little unsatisfactory in the burglar theory. Who is signalling to whom? I cannot see my way to accepting such an explanation. What put the plate into your head in connection with these flints signs, or whatever one may call them?"

"It was the figure of the Bowl," said Vaughan. "I happen to possess a very large and very valuable Charles II punch-bowl. The chasing is really exquisite, and the thing is worth a lot of money. The sign I described to you was exactly the same shape as my punch-bowl."

"A queer coincidence certainly. But the other figures or devices: you have nothing shaped like a pyramid?"

"Ah, you will think that queerer. As it happens, this punch-bowl of mine, together with a set of rare old ladles, is kept in a mahogany chest of a pyramidal shape. The four sides slope upwards, the narrow towards the top."

"I confess all this interests me a good deal," said Dyson. "let us go on then. What about the other figures; how about the Army, as we may call the first sign, and the Crescent or Half moon?"

"Ah, there is no reference that I can make out of these two. Still, you see I have some excuse for curiosity at all events. I should be very vexed to lose any of the old plate; nearly all the pieces have been in the family for generations. And I cannot get it out of my head that some scoundrels mean to rob me, and are communicating with one another every night."

"Frankly," said Dyson, "I can make nothing of it; I am as much in the dark as yourself. Your theory seems certainly the only possible explanation, and yet the difficulties are immense."

He leaned back in his chair, and the two men faced each other, frowning, and perplexed by so bizarre a problem.

"By the way," said Dyson, after a long pause, "what is your geological formation down there?"

Mr. Vaughan looked up, a good deal surprised by the question.

"Old red sandstone and limestone, I believe," he said. "We are just beyond the coal measures, you know."

"But surely there are no flints either in the sandstone or the limestone?"

"No, I never see any flints in the fields. I confess that did strike me as a little curious."

"I should think so! It is very important. By the way, what size were the flints used in making these devices?"

"I happen to have brought one with me; I took it this morning."

"From the Half moon?"

"Exactly. Here it is."

He handed over a small flint, tapering to a point, and about three inches in length.

Dyson's face blazed up with excitement as he took the thing from Vaughan.

"Certainly," he said, after a moment's pause, "you have some curious neighbours in your country. I hardly think they can harbour any designs on your punch-bowl. Do you know this is a flint arrowhead of vast antiquity, and not only that, but an arrow-head of a unique kind? I have seen specimens from all parts of the world, but there are features about this thing that are quite peculiar." He laid down his pipe, and took out a book from a drawer.

"We shall just have time to catch the 5.45 to Castletown," he said.

2. The Eyes on the Wall

MR. DYSON drew in a long breath of the air of the hills and felt all the enchantment of the scene about him. It was very early morning, and he stood on the terrace in the front of the house.

Vaughan's ancestor had built on the lower slope of a great hill, in the shelter of a deep and ancient wood that gathered on three sides about the house, and on the fourth side, the southwest, the land fell gently away and sank to the valley, where a brook wound in and out in mystic esses, and the dark and gleaming alders tracked the stream's course to the eye. On the terrace in the sheltered place no wind blew, and far beyond, the trees were still. Only one sound broke in upon the silence, and Dyson heard the noise of the brook singing far below, the song of clear and shining water rippling over the stones, whispering and murmuring as it sank to dark deep pools.

Across the stream, just below the house, rose a grey stone bridge, vaulted and buttressed, a fragment of the Middle Ages, and then beyond the bridge the hills rose again, vast and rounded like bastions, covered here and there with dark woods and thickets of undergrowth, but the heights were all bare of trees, showing only grey turf and patches of bracken, touched here and there with the gold of fading fronds; Dyson looked to the north and south, and still he saw the wall of the hills, and the ancient woods, and the stream drawn in and out between them; all grey and dim with morning mist beneath a grey sky in a hushed and haunted air.

Mr. Vaughan's voice broke in upon the silence.

"I thought you would be too tired to be about so early," he said. "I see you are admiring the view. It is very pretty, isn't it, though I suppose old Meyrick Vaughan didn't think much about the scenery when he built the house. A queer grey, old place, isn't it?"

"Yes, and how it fits into the surroundings; it seems of a piece with the grey hills and the grey bridge below."

"I am afraid I have brought you down on false pretences, Dyson," said Vaughan, as they began to walk up and down the terrace. "I have been to the place, and there is not a sign of anything this morning."

"Ah, indeed. Well, suppose we go round together."

They walked across the lawn and went by a path through the ilex shrubbery to the back of the house. There Vaughan pointed out the track leading down to the valley and up to the heights above the wood, and presently they stood beneath the garden wall, by the door.

"Here, you see, it was," said Vaughan, pointing to a spot on the turf. "I was standing just where you are now that morning I first saw the flints."

"Yes, quite so. That morning it was the Army, as I call it; then the Bowl, then the Pyramid, and, yesterday, the Half moon. What a queer old stone that is," he went on, pointing to a block of limestone rising out of the turf just beneath the wall. "It looks like a sort of dwarf pillar, but I suppose it is natural."

"Oh, yes, I think so. I imagine it was brought here, though, as we stand on the red sandstone. No doubt it was used as a foundation stone for some older building."

"Very likely," Dyson was peering about him attentively, looking from the ground to the wall, and from the wall to the deep wood that hung almost over the garden and made the place dark even in the morning.

"Look here," said Dyson at length, "it is certainly a case of children this time. Look at that." He was bending down and staring at the dull red surface of the mellowed bricks of the wall.

Vaughan came up and looked hard where Dyson's finger was pointing, and could scarcely distinguish a faint mark in deeper red.

"What is it?" he said. "I can make nothing of it."

"Look a little more closely. Don't you see it is an attempt to draw the human eye?"

"Ah, now I see what you mean. My sight is not very sharp. Yes, so it is, it is meant for an eye, no doubt, as you say. I thought the children learnt drawing at school."

"Well, it is an odd eye enough. Do you notice the peculiar almond shape; almost like the eye of a Chinaman?"

Dyson looked meditatively at the work of the undeveloped artist, and scanned the wall again, going down on his knees in the minuteness of his inquisition.

"I should like very much," he said at length, "to know how a child in this out of the way place could have any idea of the shape of the Mongolian eye. You see the average child has a very distinct impression of the subject; he draws a circle, or something like a circle, and put a dot in the centre. I don't think any child imagines that the eye is really made like that; it's just a convention of infantile art. But this almond-shaped thing puzzles me extremely. Perhaps it may be derived from a gilt Chinaman on a tea-canister in the grocer's shop. Still that's hardly likely."

"But why are you so sure it was done by a child?"

"Why! Look at the height. These old-fashioned bricks are little more than two inches thick; there are twenty courses from the ground to the sketch if we call it so; that gives a height of three and a half feet. Now, just imagine you are going to draw something on this wall. Exactly; your pencil, if you had one, would touch the wall somewhere on the level with your eyes, that is, more than five feet from the ground. It seems, therefore, a very simple deduction to conclude that this eye on the wall was drawn by a child about ten years old."

"Yes, I had not thought of that. Of course one of the children must have done it."

"I suppose so; and yet as I said, there is something singularly unchildlike about those two lines, and the eyeball itself, you see, is almost an oval. To my mind, the thing has an odd, ancient air; and a touch that is not altogether pleasant. I cannot help fancying that if we could see a whole face from the same hand it would not be altogether agreeable. However, that is nonsense, after all, and we are not getting farther in our investigations. It is odd that the flint series has come to such an abrupt end."

The two men walked away towards the house, and as they went in at the porch there was a break in the grey sky, and a gleam of sunshine on the grey hill before them.

All the day Dyson prowled meditatively about the fields and woods surrounding the house. He was thoroughly and completely puzzled by the trivial circumstances he proposed to elucidate, and now he again took the flint arrow-head from his pocket, turning it over and examining it with deep attention. There was something about the thing that was altogether different from the specimens he had seen at the museums and private collections; the shape was of a distinct type, and around the edge there was a line of little punctured dots, apparently a suggestion of ornament. Who, thought Dyson, could possess such things in so remote a place; and who, possessing the flints, could have put them to the fantastic use of designing meaningless figures under Vaughan's garden wall? The rank absurdity of the whole affair offended him unutterably; and as one theory after another rose in his mind only to be rejected, he felt strongly tempted to take the next train back to town. He had seen the silver plate which Vaughan treasured, and had inspected the punch-bowl, the gem of the collection, with close attention; and what he saw and his interview with the butler convinced him that a plot to rob the strong box was out of the limits of enquiry. The chest in which the bowl was kept, a heavy piece of mahogany, evidently dating from the beginning of the century, was certainly strongly suggestive of a pyramid, and Dyson was at first inclined to the inept manoeuvres of the detective, but a little sober thought convinced him of the impossibility of the burglary hypothesis, and he cast wildly about for something more satisfying. He asked Vaughan if there were any gipsies in the neighbourhood, and heard that the Romany had not been seen for years. This dashed him a good deal, as he knew the gipsy habit of leaving queer hieroglyphics on the line of march, and had been much elated when the thought occurred to him. He was facing Vaughan by the old-fashioned hearth when he put the question, and leaned back in his chair in disgust at the destruction of his theory.

"It is odd," said Vaughan, "but the gipsies never trouble us here. Now and then the farmers find traces of fires in the wildest part of the hills, but nobody seems to know who the fire-lighters are."

"Surely that looks like gipsies?"

"No, not in such places as those. Tinkers and gipsies and wanderers of all sorts stick to the roads and don't go very far from the farmhouses."

"Well, I can make nothing of it. I saw the children going by this afternoon, and, as you say, they ran straight on. So we shall have no more eyes on the wall at all events."

"No, I must waylay them one of these days and find out who is the artist."

The next morning when Vaughan strolled in his usual course from the lawn to the back of the house he found Dyson already awaiting him by the garden door, and evidently in a state of high excitement, for he beckoned furiously with his hand, and gesticulated violently.

"What is it?" asked Vaughan. "The flints again?"

"No; but took here, look at the wall. There; don't you see it?"

"There's another of those eyes!"

"Exactly. Drawn, you see, at a little distance from the first, almost on the same level, but slightly lower."

"What on earth is one to make of it? It couldn't have been done by the children; it wasn't there last night, and they won't pass for another hour. What can it mean?"

"I think the very devil is at the bottom of all this," said Dyson. "Of course, one cannot resist the conclusion that these infernal almond eyes are to be set down to the same agency as the devices in the arrow-heads; and where that conclusion is to lead us is more than I can tell. For my part, I have to put a strong check on my imagination, or it would run wild."

"Vaughan," he said, as they turned away from the wall, "has it struck you that there is one point— a very curious point— in common between the figures done in flints and the eyes drawn on the wall?"

"What is that?" asked Vaughan, on whose face there had fallen a certain shadow of indefinite dread.

"It is this. We know that the signs of the Army, the Bowl, the Pyramid, and the Half moon must have been done at night. Presumably they were meant to be seen at night. Well, precisely the same reasoning applies to those eyes on the wall."

"I do not quite see your point."

"Oh, surely. The nights are dark just now, and have been very cloudy, I know, since I came down. Moreover, those overhanging trees would throw that wall into deep shadow even on a clear night."

"Well?"

"What struck me was this. What very peculiarly sharp eyesight, they, whoever 'they' are, must have to be able to arrange arrow-heads in intricate order in the blackest shadow of the wood, and then draw the eyes on the wall without a trace of bungling, or a false line."

"I have read of persons confined in dungeons for many years who have been able to see quite well in the dark," said Vaughan.

"Yes," said Dyson, "there was the abbé in Monte Cristo. But it is a singular point."

3. The Search for the Bowl

"WHO was that old man that touched his hat to you just now?" said Dyson, as they came to the bend of the lane near the house.

"Oh, that was old Trevor. He looks very broken, poor old fellow."

"Who is Trevor?"

"Don't you remember? I told you the story that afternoon I came to your rooms— about a girl named Annie Trevor, who disappeared in the most inexplicable manner about five weeks ago. That was her father."

"Yes, yes, I recollect now. To tell the truth I had forgotten all about it. And nothing has been heard of the girl?"

"Nothing whatever. The police are quite at fault."

"I am afraid I did not pay very much attention to the details you gave me. Which way did the girl go?"

"Her path would take her right across those wild hills above the house: the nearest point in the track must be about two miles from here."

"Is it near that little hamlet I saw yesterday?"

"You mean Croesyceiliog, where the children came from? No; it goes more to the north."

"Ah, I have never been that way."

They went into the house, and Dyson shut himself up in his room, sunk deep in doubtful thought, but yet with the shadow of a suspicion growing within him that for a while haunted his brain, all vague and fantastic, refusing to take definite form. He was sitting by the open window and looking out on the valley and saw, as if in a picture, the intricate winding of the brook, the grey bridge, and the vast hills rising beyond; all still and without a breath of wind to stir the mystic hanging woods, and the evening sunshine glowed warm on the bracken, and down below a faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the stream. Dyson sat by the window as the day darkened and the huge bastioned hills loomed vast and vague, and the woods became dim and more shadowy: and the fancy that had seized him no longer appeared altogether impossible. He passed the rest of the evening in a reverie, hardly hearing what Vaughan said; and when he took his candle in the hall, he paused a moment before bidding his friend good-night.

"I want a good rest," he said. "I have got some work to do to-morrow."

"Some writing, you mean?"

"No. I am going to look for the Bowl."

"The Bowl! If you mean my punch-bowl, that is safe in the chest."

"I don't mean the punch-bowl. You may take my word for it that your plate has never been threatened. No; I will not bother you with any suppositions. We shall in all probability have something much stronger than suppositions before long. Good-night, Vaughan."

The next morning Dyson set off after breakfast. He took the path by the garden wall, and noted that there were now eight of the weird almond eyes dimly outlined on the brick.

"Six days more," he said to himself, but as he thought over the theory he had formed, he shrank, in spite of strong conviction, from such a wildly incredible fancy. He struck up through the dense shadows of the wood, and at length came out on the bare hillside, and climbed higher and higher over the slippery turf, keeping well to the north, and following the indications given him by Vaughan. As he went on, he seemed to mount ever higher above the world of human life and customary things; to his right he looked at a fringe of orchard and saw a faint blue smoke rising like a pillar; there was the hamlet from which the children came to school, and there the only sign of life, for the woods embowered and concealed Vaughan's old grey house. As he reached what seemed the summit of the hill, he realized for the first time the desolate loneliness and strangeness of the land; there was nothing but grey sky and grey hill, a high, vast plain that seemed to stretch on for ever and ever, and a faint glimpse of a blue-peaked mountain far away and to the north. At length he came to the path, a slight track scarcely noticeable, and from its position and by what Vaughan had told him he knew that it was the way the lost girl, Annie Trevor, must have taken. He followed the path on the bare hill-top, noticing the great limestone rocks that cropped out of the turf, grim and hideous, and of an aspect as forbidding as an idol of the South Seas; and suddenly he halted, astonished, although he had found what he searched for.

Almost without warning the ground shelved suddenly away on all sides, and Dyson looked down into a circular depression, which might well have been a Roman amphitheatre, and the ugly crags of limestone rimmed it round as if with a broken wall. Dyson walked round the hollow, and noted the position of the stones, and then turned on his way home.

"This," he thought to himself, "is more than curious. The Bowl is discovered, but where is the Pyramid?"

"My dear Vaughan," he said, when he got back, "I may tell you that I have found the Bowl, and that it is all I shall tell you for the present. We have six days of absolute inaction before us; there is really nothing to be done."

4. The Secret of the Pyramid

"I HAVE just been round the garden," said Vaughan one morning. "I have been counting those infernal eyes, and I find there are fourteen of them. For heaven's sake, Dyson, tell me what the meaning of it all is."

"I should be very sorry to attempt to do so. I may have guessed this or that, but I always make it a principle to keep my guesses to myself. Besides, it is really not worth while anticipating events; you will remember my telling you that we had six days of inaction before us? Well, this is the sixth day, and the last of idleness. To-night, I propose we take a stroll."

"A stroll! Is that all the action you mean to take?"

"Well, it may show you some very curious things. To be plain, I want you to start with me at nine o'clock this evening for the hills. We may have to be out all night, so you had better wrap up well, and bring some of that brandy."

"Is it a joke?" asked Vaughan, who was bewildered with strange events and strange surmises.

"No, I don't think there is much joke in it. Unless I am much mistaken we shall find a very serious explanation of the puzzle. You will come with me, I am sure?"

"Very good. Which way do you want to go?"

"By the path you told me of; the path Annie Trevor is supposed to have taken."

Vaughan looked white at the mention of the girl's name.

"I did not think you were on that track," he said. "I thought it was the affair of those devices in flint and of the eyes on the wall that you were engaged on. It's no good saying any more, but I will go with you."

At a quarter to nine that evening the two men set out, taking the path through the wood, and up the hill-side. It was a dark and heavy night, the sky was thick with clouds, and the valley full of mist, and all the way they seemed to walk in a world of shadow and gloom, hardly speaking, and afraid to break the haunted silence. They came out at last on the steep hill-side, and instead of the oppression of the wood there was the long, dim sweep of the turf, and higher, the fantastic limestone rocks hinted horror through the darkness, and the wind sighed as it passed across the mountain to the sea, and in its passage beat chill about their hearts. They seemed to walk on and on for hours, and the dim outline of the hill still stretched before them, and the haggard rocks still loomed through the darkness, when suddenly Dyson whispered, drawing his breath quickly, and coming close to his companion:

"Here," he said, "we will lie down. I do not think there is anything yet."

"I know the place," said Vaughan, after a moment. "I have often been by in the daytime. The country people are afraid to come here, I believe; it is supposed to be a fairies' castle, or something of the kind. But why on earth have we come here?"

"Speak a little lower," said Dyson. "It might not do us any good if we are overheard."

"Overheard here! There is not a soul within three miles of us."

"Possibly not; indeed, I should say certainly not. But there might be a body somewhat nearer."

"I don't understand you in the least," said Vaughan, whispering to humour Dyson, "but why have we come here?"

"Well, you see this hollow before us is the Bowl. I think we better not talk even in whispers."

They lay full length upon the turf; the rock between their faces and the Bowl, and now and again, Dyson, slouching his dark, soft hat over his forehead, put out the glint of an eye, and in a moment drew back, not daring to take a prolonged view. Again he laid an ear to the ground and listened, and the hours went by, and the darkness seemed to blacken, and the faint sigh of the wind was the only sound.

Vaughan grew impatient with this heaviness of silence, this watching for indefinite terror; for to him there was no shape or form of apprehension, and he began to think the whole vigil a dreary farce.

"How much longer is this to last?" he whispered to Dyson, and Dyson who had been holding his breath in the agony of attention put his mouth to Vaughan's ear and said:

"Will you listen?" with pauses between each syllable, and in the voice with which the priest pronounces the awful words.

Vaughan caught the ground with his hands, and stretched forward, wondering what he was to hear. At first there was nothing, and then a low and gentle noise came very softly from the Bowl, a faint sound, almost indescribable, but as if one held the tongue against the roof of the mouth and expelled the breath. He listened eagerly and presently the noise grew louder, and became a strident and horrible hissing as if the pit beneath boiled with fervent heat, and Vaughan, unable to remain in suspense any longer, drew his cap half over his face in imitation of Dyson, and looked down to the hollow below.

It did, in truth, stir and seethe like an infernal caldron. The whole of the sides and bottom tossed and writhed with vague and restless forms that passed to and fro without the sound of feet, and gathered thick here and there and seemed to speak to one another in those tones of horrible sibilance, like the hissing of snakes, that he had heard. It was as if the sweet turf and the cleanly earth had suddenly become quickened with some foul writhing growth. Vaughan could not draw back his face, though he felt Dyson's finger touch him, but he peered into the quaking mass and saw faintly that there were things like faces and human limbs, and yet he felt his inmost soul chill with the sure belief that no fellow soul or human thing stirred in all that tossing and hissing host. He looked aghast, choking back sobs of horror, and at length the loathsome forms gathered thickest about some vague object in the middle of the hollow, and the hissing of their speech grew more venomous, and he saw in the uncertain light the abominable limbs, vague and yet too plainly seen, writhe and intertwine, and he thought he heard, very faint, a low human moan striking through the noise of speech that was not of man. At his heart something seemed to whisper ever "the worm of corruption, the worm that dieth not," and grotesquely the image was pictured to his imagination of a piece of putrid offal stirring through and through with bloated and horrible creeping things. The writhing of the dusky limbs continued, they seemed clustered round the dark form in the middle of the hollow, and the sweat dripped and poured off Vaughan's forehead, and fell cold on his hand beneath his face.

Then, it seemed done in an instant, the loathsome mass melted and fell away to the sides of the Bowl, and for a moment Vaughan saw in the middle of the hollow the tossing of human arms.

But a spark gleamed beneath, a fire kindled, and as the voice of a woman cried out loud in a shrill scream of utter anguish and terror, a great pyramid of flame spired up like a bursting of a pent fountain, and threw a blaze of light upon the whole mountain. In that instant Vaughan saw the myriads beneath; the things made in the form of men but stunted like children hideously deformed, the faces with the almond eyes burning with evil and unspeakable lusts; the ghastly yellow of the mass of naked flesh and then as if by magic the place was empty, while the fire roared and crackled, and the flames shone abroad.

"You have seen the Pyramid," said Dyson in his ear, "the Pyramid of fire."

5. The Little People

"THEN you recognize the thing?"

"Certainly. It is a brooch that Annie Trevor used to wear on Sundays; I remember the pattern. But where did you find it? You don't mean to say that you have discovered the girl?"

"My dear Vaughan, I wonder you have not guessed where I found the brooch. You have not forgotten last night already?"

"Dyson," said the other, speaking very seriously, "I have been turning it over in my mind this morning while you have been out. I have thought about what I saw, or perhaps I should say about what I thought I saw, and the only conclusion I can come to is this, that the thing won't bear recollection. As men live, I have lived soberly and honestly, in the fear of God, all my days, and all I can do is believe that I suffered from some monstrous delusion, from some phantasmagoria of the bewildered senses. You know we went home together in silence, not a word passed between us as to what I fancied I saw; had we not better agree to keep silence on the subject? When I took my walk in the peaceful morning sunshine, I thought all the earth seemed full of praise, and passing by that wall I noticed there were no more signs recorded, and I blotted out those that remained. The mystery is over, and we can live quietly again. I think some poison has been working for the last few weeks; I have trod on the verge of madness, but I am sane now."

Mr. Vaughan had spoken earnestly, and bent forward in his chair and glanced at Dyson with something of entreaty.

"My dear Vaughan," said the other, after a pause, "what's the use of this? It is much too late to take that tone; we have gone too deep. Besides you know as well as I that there is no delusion in the case; I wish there were with all my heart. No, in justice to myself I must tell you the whole story, so far as I know it."

"Very good," said Vaughan with a sigh, "if you must, you must."

"Then," said Dyson, "we will begin with the end if you please. I found this brooch you have just identified in the place we have called the Bowl. There was a heap of grey ashes, as if a fire had been burning, indeed, the embers were still hot, and this brooch was lying on the ground, just outside the range of the flame. It must have dropped accidentally from the dress of the person who was wearing it. No, don't interrupt me; we can pass now to the beginning, as we have had the end. Let us go back to that day you came to see me in my rooms in London. So far as I can remember, soon after you came in you mentioned, in a somewhat casual manner, that an unfortunate and mysterious incident had occurred in your part of the country; a girl named Annie Trevor had gone to see a relative, and had disappeared. I confess freely that what you said did not greatly interest me; there are so many reasons which may make it extremely convenient for a man and more especially a woman to vanish from the circle of their relations and friends. I suppose, if we were to consult the police, one would find that in London somebody disappears mysteriously every other week, and the officers would, no doubt, shrug their shoulders, and tell you that by the law of averages it could not be otherwise. So I was very culpably careless to your story, and besides, here is another reason for my lack of interest; your tale was inexplicable. You could only suggest a blackguard sailor on the tramp, but I discarded the explanation immediately.

For many reasons, but chiefly because the occasional criminal, the amateur in brutal crime, is always found out, especially if he selects the country as the scene of his operations. You will remember the case of that Garcia you mentioned; he strolled into a railway station the day after the murder, his trousers covered with blood, and the works of the Dutch clock, his loot, tied in a neat parcel. So rejecting this, your only suggestion, the whole tale became, as I say, inexplicable, and, therefore, profoundly uninteresting. Yes, therefore, it is a perfectly valid conclusion. Do you ever trouble your head about problems which you know to be insoluble? Did you ever bestow much thought on the old puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise? Of course not, because you knew it was a hopeless quest, and so when you told me the story of a country girl who had disappeared I simply placed the whole thing down in the category of the insoluble, and thought no more about the matter. I was mistaken, so it has turned out; but if you remember, you immediately passed on to an affair which interested you more intensely, because personally, I need not go over the very singular narrative of the flint signs, at first I thought it all trivial, probably some children's game, and if not that a hoax of some sort; but your showing me the arrow-head awoke my acute interest. Here, I saw, there was something widely removed from the commonplace, and matter of real curiosity; and as soon as I came here I set to work to find the solution, repeating to myself again and again the signs you had described. First came the sign we have agreed to call the Army; a number of serried lines of flints, all pointing in the same way. Then the lines, like the spokes of a wheel, all converging towards the figure of a Bowl, then the triangle or Pyramid, and last of all the Half moon. I confess that I exhausted conjecture in my efforts to unveil this mystery, and as you will understand it was a duplex or rather triplex problem. For I had not merely to ask myself: what do these figures mean? but also, who can possibly be responsible for the designing of them? And again, who can possibly possess such valuable things, and knowing their value thus throw them down by the wayside? This line of thought led me to suppose that the person or persons in question did not know the value of unique flint arrow-heads, and yet this did not lead me far, for a well-educated man might easily be ignorant on such a subject. Then came the complication of the eye on the wall, and you remember that we could not avoid the conclusion that in the two cases the same agency was at work. The peculiar position of these eyes on the wall made me inquire if there was such a thing as a dwarf anywhere in the neighbourhood, but I found that there was not, and I knew that the children who pass by every day had nothing to do with the matter. Yet I felt convinced that whoever drew the eyes must be from three and a half to four feet high, since, as I pointed out at the time, anyone who draws on a perpendicular surface chooses by instinct a spot about level with his face. Then again, there was the question of the peculiar shape of the eyes; that marked Mongolian character of which the English countryman could have no conception, and for a final cause of confusion the obvious fact that the designer or designers must be able practically to see in the dark. As you remarked, a man who has been confined for many years in an extremely dark cell or dungeon might acquire that power; but since the days of Edmond Dantès, where would such a prison be found in Europe? A sailor, who had been immured for a considerable period in some horrible Chinese oubliette, seemed the individual I was in search of, and though it looked improbable, it was not absolutely impossible that a sailor or, let us say, a man employed on shipboard, should be a dwarf. But how to account for my imaginary sailor being in possession of prehistoric arrow-heads? And the possession granted, what was the meaning and object of these mysterious signs of flint, and the almond-shaped eyes? Your theory of a contemplated burglary I saw, nearly from the first, to be quite untenable, and I confess I was utterly at a loss for a working hypothesis. It was a mere accident which put me on the track; we passed poor old Trevor, and your mention of his name and of the disappearance of his daughter, recalled the story which I had forgotten, or which remained unheeded. Here, then, I said to myself, is another problem, uninteresting, it is true, by itself; but what if it prove to be in relation with all these enigmas which torture me? I shut myself in my room, and endeavoured to dismiss all prejudice from my mind, and I went over everything de novo, assuming for theory's sake that the disappearance of Annie Trevor had some connection with the flint signs and the eyes on the wall. This assumption did not lead me very far, and I was on the point of giving the whole problem up in despair, when a possible significance of the Bowl struck me. As you know there is a 'Devil's Punch-bowl' in Surrey, and I saw that the symbol might refer to some feature in the country. Putting the two extremes together, I determined to look for the Bowl near the path which the lost girl had taken, and you know how I found it. I interpreted the sign by what I knew, and read the first, the Army, thus:

'there is to be a gathering or assembly at the Bowl in a fortnight (that is the Half moon) to see the Pyramid, or to build the Pyramid.'

The eyes, drawn one by one, day by day, evidently checked off the days, and I knew that there would be fourteen and no more. Thus far the way seemed pretty plain; I would not trouble myself to inquire as to the nature of the assembly, or as to who was to assemble in the loneliest and most dreaded place among these lonely hills. In Ireland or China or the West of America the question would have been easily answered; a muster of the disaffected, the meeting of a secret society; vigilantes summoned to report: the thing would be simplicity itself; but in this quiet corner of England, inhabited by quiet folk, no such suppositions were possible for a moment. But I knew that I should have an opportunity of seeing and watching the assembly, and I did not care to perplex myself with hopeless research; and in place of reasoning a wild fancy entered into judgment: I remembered what people had said about Annie Trevor's disappearance, that she had been 'taken by the fairies.' I tell you, Vaughan, I am a sane man as you are, my brain is not, I trust, mere vacant space to let to any wild improbability, and I tried my best to thrust the fantasy away. And the hint came of the old name of fairies, 'the little people,' and the very probable belief that they represent a tradition of the prehistoric Turanian inhabitants of the country, who were cave dwellers: and then I realized with a shock that I was looking for a being under four feet in height, accustomed to live in darkness, possessing stone instruments, and familiar with the Mongolian cast of features! I say this, Vaughan, that I should be ashamed to hint at such visionary stuff to you, if it were not for that which you saw with your very eyes last night, and I say that I might doubt the evidence of my senses, if they were not confirmed by yours. But you and I cannot look each other in the face and pretend delusion; as you lay on the turf beside me I felt your flesh shrink and quiver, and I saw your eyes in the light of the flame. And so I tell you without any shame what was in my mind last night as we went through the wood and climbed the hill, and lay hidden beneath the rock.

"There was one thing that should have been most evident that puzzled me to the very last. I told you how I read the sign of the Pyramid; the assembly was to see a pyramid, and the true meaning of the symbol escaped me to the last moment. The old derivation from up, fire, though false, should have set me on the track, but it never occurred to me.

"I think I need say very little more. You know we were quite helpless, even if we had foreseen what was to come. Ah, the particular place where these signs were displayed? Yes, that is a curious question. But this house is, so far as I can judge, in a pretty central situation amongst the hills; and possibly, who can say yes or no, that queer, old limestone pillar by your garden wall was a place of meeting before the Celt set foot in Britain. But there is one thing I must add: I don't regret our inability to rescue the wretched girl. You saw the appearance of those things that gathered thick and writhed in the Bowl; you may be sure that what lay bound in the midst of them was no longer fit for earth."

"So?" said Vaughan.

"So she passed in the Pyramid of Fire," said Dyson, "and they passed again to the underworld, to the places beneath the hills."

____________________

9: Just Like a Cat

Ellis Parker Butler

1869-1937

Cosmopolitan Feb 1909

THEY were doing good work out back of the Westcote express office. The Westcote Land and Improvement Company was ripping the whole top off Seiler's Hill and dumping it into the swampy meadow, and Mike Flannery liked to sit at the back door of the express office when there was nothing to do, and watch the endless string of wagons dump the soft clay and sand there. Already the swamp was a vast landscape of small hills and valleys of new, soft soil, and soon it would burst into streets and dwellings. That would mean more work, but Flannery did not care; the company had allowed him a helper already, and Flannery had hopes that by the time the swamp was populated Timmy would be of some use. He doubted it, but he had hopes.

The four-thirty-two train had just pulled in, and Timmy had gone across to meet it with his hand-truck, and now he returned. He came lazily, pulling the cart behind him with one hand. He didn't seem to care whether he ever got back to the office. Flannery's quick blood rebelled.

"Is that all th' faster ye can go?" he shouted. 'Make haste! Make haste! 'Tis an ixpriss company ye are workin' fer, an' not a cimitery. T' look at ye wan w'u'd think ye was nawthin' but a funeral!"

"Sure I am," said Timmy. "Tis as ye have said it, Flannery; I'm th' funeral."

Flannery stuck out his under jaw, and his eyes blazed. For nothing at all he would have let Timmy have a fist in the side of the head, but what was the use? There are some folks you can't pound sense into, and Timmy was one of them.

"What have ye got, then ?" asked Flannery.

"Nawthin' but th' corpse," said Timmy impudently, and Flannery did do it. He swung his big right hand at the lad, and would have taught him something, but Timmy wasn't there. He had dodged. Flannery ground his teeth, and bent over the hand- truck. The next moment he straightened up and motioned to Timmy, who had stepped back from him, nearly half a block back.

"Come back," he said peacefully. "Come on back. This wan time I'll do nawthin' to ye. Come on back an' lift th' box into th' office. But th' next time—"

Timmy came back, grinning. He took the box off the truck, carried it into the office, and set it on the floor. It was not a large box, nor heavy, just a small box with strips nailed across the top, and there was an Angora cat in it. It was a fine, large Angora cat, but it was dead.

Flannery looked at the tag that was nailed on the side of the box.

"Ye'd betther git th' wagon, Timmy," he said slowly, "'an' proceed with th' funeral up t' Missus Warman's. This be no weather fer perishable goods t' be lyin' 'round th' office. Quick speed is th' motto av th' Interurban Ixpriss Company whin th' weather is eighty-four in th' shade. An', Timmy," he called as the boy moved toward the door, "make no difficulty sh'u'd she insist on receiptin' fer th' goods as bein' damaged. If nicissary take th' receipt fer 'Wan long-haired cat, damaged.' But make haste. 'Tis in me mind that sh'u'd ye wait too long Missus Warman will not be receivin' th' consignment at all. She's wan ay th' particular kind, Timmy."

In half an hour Timmy was back. He came into the office lugging the box, and let it drop on the floor with a thud. Flannery looked up from his desk, where he was writing.

"She won't take no damaged cats," Timmy said shortly.

Mike Flannery laid his pen on his desk with almost painful slowness and precision. Slowly he slid off his chair, and slowly he picked up his cap and put it on hishead. He did not say a word. His brow was drawn into deep wrinkles, and his eyes glittered as he walked up to the box with almost super- naturally stately tread and picked it up. His lips were firmly set as he walked out of the office into the hot sun. Timmy watched him silently.

In less than half an hour Mike Flannery came into the office again, quietly, and set the box silently on the floor. Noiselessly he hung up his cap on the nail above the big calendar back of the counter. He sank into his chair and looked for a long while at the blank wall opposite him.

"An' t' think," he said at last, like one still wrapped in a great blanket of surprise, "t' think she didn't swear wan cuss th' whole time! Thim ladies is wonderful folks! I wonder did she say th' same t' ye as she said t' me, Timmy?"

"Sure she did," said Timmy, grinning as usual.

"Will ye think of that, now!" said Flannery with admiration. '''Tis a grand constitution she must be havin', that lady. Twice in wan afternoon! I wonder could she say th' same three times? 'Tis not possible."

He ran his hand across his forehead and sighed, and his eyes fell on the box. It was still where he had put it, but he seemed sur- prised to see it there. He had no recollection of anything after Mrs. Warman had begun to talk. He picked up his pen again.

"Interurban Express Co., New York," he wrote. ''Consiny Mrs. Warman wont reciev cat way bill 23645 Hibbertand Jones consinor cat is—"

He grinned and ran the end of the pen through his stubble of red hair.

"What is th' swell worrd fer dead, Timmy?" he asked. "I'm writin' a letter t' th' swell clerks in New Yorrk that be' always guyin' me about me letters, an' I'll hand thim a swell worrd fer wance."

"Deceased," said Timmy, grinning.

"Tis not that wan I was thinkin' of," said Flannery, "but that wan will do. 'Tis a high-soundin' worrd, deceased. "

He dipped his pen in the ink again.

"—cat is diseased," he wrote. "Pleas give disposal. Mike Flannery."

WHEN the New York office of the Interurban Express Company received Flannery's letter they called up Hibbert & Jones on the telephone. Hibbert & Jones was the big department store, and it was among the Interurban's best customers. When the Interurban could do it a favor it was policy to do so, and the clerk knew that sending a cat back and forth by rail was not the best thing for the cat, especially if the cat was diseased.

"That cat," said the manager of the live-animal department of Hibbert & Jones, " was in good health when it left here, absolutely, so far as we know. If it was not it is none of our business. Mrs. Warman came in and picked the cat out from a dozen or more, and paid for it. It is her cat. It doesn't interest us any more. And another thing: You gave us a receipt for that cat in good order; if it was damaged in transit it is none of our affair, is it?"

"Owner's risk," said the Interurban clerk. "You know we only accept live animals for transportation at owner's risk."

"That lets us out, then," said the Hibbert & Jones clerk. 'Mrs. Warman is the owner. Ring off, please."

Westcote is merely a suburb of New York, and mails are frequent, and Mike Flannery found a letter waiting for him when he opened the office the next morning. It was brief. It said:

"Regarding cat, W. B. 23645, this was sent at owner's risk, and Mrs. Warman seems to be the owner. Cat should be delivered to her. We are writing her from this office, but in case she does not call for it immediately, you will keep it carefully in your office. You had better have a veterinary look at the cat. Feed it regularly."

Mike Flannery folded the letter slowly and looked down at the cat. "Feed it!" he exclaimed. ''I wonder, now, was that a misprint fer fumigate it, fer that is what it will be wantin' mighty soon, if I know annything about deceased cats. I wonder do thim dudes in New Yorrk be thinkin' th' long-haired cat is only fainted, mebby? Do they think they see Mike Flannery sittin' be th' bedside av th' cat, fannin' it t' bring it back t' consciousness? Feed it! Niver in me life have I made a specialty av cats, long-haired or short-haired, an' I do not be pretindin' t' be a profissor av cats, but 'tis me sittled belief that whin a cat is as dead as that wan is it stops eatin'."

He looked resentfully at the cat in the box.

"I wonder sh'u'd I put th' late laminted out on th' back porrch till th' veterinary comes t' take its pulse? I wonder what th' ixpriss company wants a veterinary t' butt into th' thing fer annyhow? Is it th' custom nowadays t' require a certificate av health fer every cat that's as dead as that wan is before th' funeral comes off? Sure, I do believe th' ixpriss company has doubts av Mike Flannery's ability t' tell is a cat dead or no. Mebby 'tis thrue. Mebby so. But wan thing I'm dang sure av, an' that is that sh'u'd the weather not turrn off t' a cold wave by to- morry mornin' 'twill take no coroner t' know th' cat is dead."

He opened the letter again and reread it. As he did so the scowl on his face increased. He held up the letter and slapped it with the back of his hand.

"Kape it carefully in your office," he read with scorn. 'Sure! An' what about Flannery? Does th' man think I'm t' sit side be side with th' dead pussy cat an' thry t' worrk up me imagination t' thinkin' I'm sittin' in a garden av tuberoses? 'Tis well enough t' say kape it, but cats like thim does not kape very well. Th' less said about th' way they kapes th' betther."

Timmy entered the office, and as he passed the box he sniffed the air in a manner that at once roused Flannery's temper.

"Sthop that!" he shouted. "I'll have none av yer foolin' t'-day. What fer are ye puckerin' up yer nose at th' cat fer? There's nawthin' th' matther with th' cat. 'Tis as sound as a shillin', an' there's no call fer ye t' be sniffin' 'round, Timmy, me lad! Go about yer worrk, an' lave th' cat alone. 'Twill kape— 'twill kape a long time yet. Don't be so previous, me lad. If ye want t' sniff, there'll be plinty av time by an' by. Plinty av it."

"Ye ain't goin' t' keep th' cat, are ye?" asked Timmy with surprise.

"Let be," said Flannery softly, with a gentle downward motion of his hands. 'Let be. If 'tis me opinion 'tw'u'd be best t' kape th' cat fer some time, I will kape it. Mike Flannery is th' ixpriss agint av this office, Tim, me bye, an' sh'u'd he be thinkin' 'tw'u'd be best fer th' intherists av th' company t' kape a cat that is no longer livin', he will. There be manny things fer ye t' learn, Timmy, before ye know th' whole av th' ixpriss business, an' dead cats is wan av thim."

"G'wan!" said Timmy with a long-drawn vowel. "I know a dead cat when I see one, now."

"Mebby," said Flannery shortly. "Mebby. An' mebby not. But do ye know where Doc Pomeroy hangs out? Go an' fetch him."

As Timmy passed the box on the way out he looked at the cat with renewed interest.

He began to have a slight doubt that he might not know a dead cat when he saw one, after all, if Flannery was going to have a veterinary come to look at it. But the cat certainly looked dead— extremely dead.

Doc Pomeroy was a tall, lank man with a slouch in his shoulders and a sad, hollow- cheeked face. His voice was the deepest and mournfullest bass.

"The boy says you want me to look at a cat," he said in his hopeless tone. ''Where's the cat?"

Flannery walked to the box and stood over it, and Doc Pomeroy stood at the other side. He did not even bend down to look at the cat.

"That cat's dead," he said without emotion.

"Av course it is," said Flannery. "T'was dead th' first time I seen it."

'The boy said you wanted me to look at a cat," said Doc Pomeroy.

"Sure!" said Flannery. "Sure I did! That's th' cat. I wanted ye t' see th' cat. What might be yer opinion av it?"

"What do you want me to do with the cat?" asked Doc Pomeroy.

"Look at it," said Flannery pleasantly. "Nawthin' but look at it. 'Thim is me orders. 'Have a veterinary look at th' cat,' is what they says. An' I can see be th' look on ye that 'tis yer opinion 'tis a mighty dead cat."

"That cat," said the veterinary slowly, "is as dead as it can be. A cat can't be any deader than that one is."'

"It cannot," said Flannery positively. "But it can be longer dead."

"If I had a cat that had been dead longer than that cat has been dead," said Doc Pomeroy as he moved away, "I wouldn't have to see it to know it was dead. A cat that has been dead longer than that cat has been dead lets you know it. That cat will let you know it pretty quick, now."

"Thank ye," said Flannery. "An' ye have had a good look at it? Ye w'u'dn't like t' look at it again, mebby? Thim is me orders, t' allow ixamination be th' veterinary, an' if 'tw'u'd be anny comfort t' ye I will draw up a chair so ye can look all ye want to."

The veterinary raised his sad eyes to Flannery's face and let them rest there a moment. "Much obliged," he said, but he did not look at the cat again. He went back to his head-quarters.

That afternoon Flannery and Timmy began walking quickly when they passed the box, and toward evening, when Flannery had to make out his reports, he went out on the back porch and wrote them, using a chair-seat for a desk. One of his tasks was to write a letter to the New York office.

"W.B.23645," he wrote, "the vetinnary has seen the cat, and its diseased all right. he says so. no sine of Mrs. Warman yet but ile keep the cat in the offis if you say so as long as icann stand it. but how cann i feed a diseased cat. i nevver fed a diseased cat yet. what do you feed cats lik that."

The next morning when Flannery reached the office he opened the front door, and immediately closed it with a bang and locked it. Timmy was late, as usual. Flannery stood a minute looking at the door, and then he sat down on the edge of the curb to wait for Timmy. The boy came along after a while, indolently as usual, but when he saw Flannery he quickened his pace a little.

"What's th' matter?" he asked. "Locked out?"

Flannery stood up. He did not even say good morning. He ran his hand into his pocket and pulled out the key.

"Timmy," he said gently, almost lovingly, "I have business that takes me t' th' other side av town. I have th' confidince in ye, Timmy, t' let ye open up th' office fer me. T'will be good ixperience."

He cast his eye down the street, where the car line made a turn around the corner. The trolley wire was shaking. "Th' way ye open up," he said slowly, "is t' push th' key intogth' keyhole. Push th' key in, Timmy, an' thin turrn it t' th' lift. Wait!" he called as Timmy turned. "Tis important t' turrn t' th' lift, not th' right. An' whin ye have th' door open"— the car was rounding the corner, and Flannery stepped into the street— "whin ye have th' door open— th' door open"— the car was where he could touch it— "take th' cat out behint th' office an' bury it, an' if ye don't I'll fire ye out av yer job. Mind that!"

The car sped by, and Flannery swung aboard. Timmy watched it until it went out of sight around the next corner, and then he turned to the office door. He pushed the key in, and turned it to the left.

When Flannery returned the cat was gone, and so was Timmy. The grocer next door handed Flannery the key, and Flannery's face grew red with rage. He opened the door of the office, and fora moment he was sure the cat was not gone, but it was. Flannery could not see the box; it was gone. He threw open the back door and let the wind sweep through the office, and it blew a paper off the desk. Flannery picked it up and read it. It was from Timmy.

"Mike Flannery, esquire," it said. "Take youre old job. Im tired of the express bisiness. Too much cats and missus Warmans in it. im going to New York to look for a decent job. I berried the cat for you but no more for me. youres truly."

Flannery smiled. The loss of Timmy did not bother him so long as the cat had gone also. He turned to the tasks of the day with a light heart.

The afternoon mail brought him a letter from the New York office.

"Regarding W.B. 23645," it said, "and in answer to yours of yesterday's date. In our previous communication we clearly requested you to have a veterinary look at the cat. We judge from your letter that you neglected to do this, as the veterinary would certainly have told you what to feed the cat. See the veterinary at once and ask him what to feed the cat. Then feed the cat what he tells you to feed it. We presume it is not necessary for us to tell you to water the cat."

Flannery grinned. "An' ain't thim th' jokers, now!" he exclaimed. "Tis some smart bye must have his fun with ould Flannery! Go an' see th' veterinary! An' ask him what t' feed th' cat! 'Good mornin', Misther Pomeroy. Do ye remimber th' dead cat ye looked at yisterday? 'Tis in a bad way th' mornin', sor. Tis far an' away deader than it was yisterday. We had th' funeral this mornin'. What w'u'd ye be advisin' me t' feed it fer a regular diet now?' Oh, yis! I'll go t' th' veterinary— not!"

He stared at the letter frowningly.

An' 'tis not nicessary t' tell me t' water th' cat?" he said. 'Oh, no, they'll be trustin' Flannery t' water th' cat. Flannery has loads av time. 'Tis no need fer him t' spind his time doin' th' ixpriss business. 'Git th' sprinklin'-can, Flannery, an' water th' cat. Belike if ye water it well ye'll be havin' a fine flower-bed av long-haired cats out behint th' office. Water th' cat well, an' plant it awn th' sunny side av th' house, an' whin it sprouts transplant it t' th' shady side where it can run up th' trillis. 'T will bloom hearty until cold weather, if watered plinty!' Bechune thim an' me 'tis me opinion th' cat was kept too long t' grow well anny more."

MRS. WARMAN was very much surprised that afternoon to receive a letter from the express company. As soon as she saw the name of the company in the corner of the envelope her face hardened. She had an intuition that this was to be another case where the suffering public was imposed upon by an overbearing corporation, and she did not mean to be the victim. She had refused the cat. Fond as she was of cats she had never liked them dead. She was through with that cat. She tore open the envelope. A woman never leaves an envelope unopened. The next moment she was more surprised than before.

"Dear Madam," said the letter. "Regarding a certain cat sent to your address through our company by Hibbert & Jones of this city, while advising you of our entire freedom from responsibility in the matter, all animals being accepted by us at owner's risk only, we beg to make the following communication: The cat is now in storage at our express office in Westcote, and is sick. A letter from our agent there leads us to believe that the cat may not receive the best of attention at his hands. In order that it may be properly fed and cared for we would suggest that you accept the cat from our hands, under pro- test if you wish, until you can arrange with Messrs. Hibbert & Jones as to the ownership. In asking you to take the cat in this way we have no other object in view than to stop the charges for storage and care, which are accumulating, and to make sure that the cat is receiving good attention. We might say, however, that Hibbert & Jones assure us that the cat is your property, and therefore, until we have assurance to the contrary, we must look to you for all charges for transportation, storage, and care accruing while the cat is left with us. Yours very truly."

When she had read the letter Mrs. Warman's emotions were extremely mixed. She felt an undying anger toward the express company; she felt an entirely different and more personal anger toward the firm of Hibbert & Jones; but above all she felt a great surprise regarding the cat. If ever she had seen a cat that she thought was a thoroughly dead cat this was the cat. She had had many cats in her day, and she had always thought she knew a dead cat when she saw one, and now this dead cat was alive— ailing, perhaps, but alive. The more she considered it the less likely it seemed to her that she could have been mistaken about the deadness of that cat. It had been offered to her twice. The first time she saw it she knew it was dead, and the second time she saw it she knew it was, if anything, more dead than it had been the first time. The conclusion was obvious. A cat had been sent to her ina box. She had refused to receive a dead cat, and the expressmen had taken the box away again. Now there was a live, but sick, cat in the box. She had her opinion of expressmen, express companies, and especially of the firm of Hibbert & Jones. This full opinion she sent to Hibbert & Jones by the next mail.

The next morning Flannery was feeling fine. He whistled as he went to the nine-twenty train, and whistled as he came back to the office with his hand-truck full of pack- ages and the large express envelope with the red seals on the back snugly tucked in his inside pocket, but when he opened the envelope and read the first paper that fell out he stopped whistling.

"Agent, Westcote," said the letter. "Regarding W.B.23645, Hibbert & Jones, consignor of the cat you are holding in storage, advises us that the consignee claims cat you have is not the cat shipped by consignor. Return cat by first train to this office. If the cat is not strong enough to travel alone have veterinary accompany it. Yrs. truly, Interurban Express Company, Per J."

At first a grin spread over the face of Flannery.

"Not sthrong enough t' travel alone'!"' he said with a chuckle. "If iver there was a sthrong cat 'tis that wan be this time, an' 'tw'u'd be a waste av ixpinse t' hire a—" Suddenly his face sobered. He glanced out of the back door at the square mile of hummocky sand and clay.

"Return cat be firrst trrain t' this office," he repeated blankly. He left his seat and went to the door and looked out. "Return th' cat," he said, and stepped out upon the edge of the soft, new soil. It was all alike in its recently dug appearance. "Th' cat, return it," he repeated, taking steps this way and that way, with his eyes on the clay at his feet. He walked here and there, but one place looked like the others. There was room for ten thousand cats, and one cat might have been buried in any one of ten thousand places. Flannery sighed. Orders were orders, and he went back to the office and locked the doors. He borrowed a coal-scoop from the grocer next door and went out and began to dig up the clay and sand. He dug steadily and grimly. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world had a man worked so hard to dig up a dead cat. Even in ancient Egypt, where the cat was a sacred animal, they did not dig them up when they had them planted. Quite the contrary: it was a crime to dig them up; and Flannery, as he dug, had a feeling that it would be almost a crime to dig up this one. Never, perhaps, did a man dig so hard to find a thing he really did not care to have.

Flannery dug all that morning. At lunch-time he stopped digging— and went without his lunch— long enough to deliver the packages that had come on the early train. As he passed the station he saw a crowd of boys playing hockey with an old tomato-can, and he stopped. When he reached the office he was followed by sixteen boys. Some of them had spades, some of them had small fire-shovels, some had only pointed sticks, but all were ready to dig. He showed them where he had already dug.

"Twinty-five cints apiece, annyhow," he said, ''an' five dollars fer th' lucky wan that finds it."

"All right," said one. we are to dig for?"

"Tis a cat,' said Flannery, "a dead wan."

"Go on!" cried the boy sarcastically. "What is it we are to dig for?"

"I can get you a dead cat, mister," another. ''Our cat died."

"Twill not do," said Flannery. "Tis a special cat I'm wantin'. Tis a long-haired cat, an' 'twas dead a long time. Ye can't mistake it whin ye come awn to it. If ye dig up a cat ye know no wan w'u'd want t' have, that's it."

The sixteen boys dug, and Flannery, in desperation, dug, but a square mile is a large plot of ground to dig over. No one, having observed that cat on the morning when Timmy planted it, would have believed it could be put in any place where it could not be instantly found again. It had seemed like a cat that would advertise itself. But that is just like a cat; it is always around when it isn't needed, and when it is needed it can't be found. Before the afternoon was half over the boys had tired of digging for a dead cat and had gone away, but Flannery kept at it until the sun went down. Then he looked to see how much of the plot was left to dig up. It was nearly all left. As he washed his hands before going to his boarding-house a messenger-boy handed him a telegram. Flannery tore it open with misgivings.

"Cat has not arrived. Must come on night train. Can accept no excuse," it read.

Flannery folded the telegram carefully and put it in his hip pocket. He washed his hands with more deliberate care than he had ever spent on them. He adjusted his coat most carefully on his back, and then walked with dignity to his boarding-house. He knew what would happen. There would be an inspector out from the head office in the morning. Flannery would probably have to look for a new job.

IN THE morning he was up early, but he was still dignified. He did not put on his uniform, but wore his holiday clothes, with the black tie with the red dots. An inspector is a hard man to face, but a man in his best clothes has more of a show against him. Flannery came to the office the back way; there was a possibility of the inspector's being already at the front door. As he crossed the filled-in meadows he poked unhopefully at the soil here and there, but nothing came of it. But suddenly his eyes lighted on a figure that he knew, just turning out of the alley three buildings from the office. It was Timmy!

Flannery had no chance at all. He ran, but how can a man run in his best clothes across soft, new soil when he is getting a bit too stout? And Timmy had seen him first. When Flannery reached the corner of the alley Timmy was gone, and with a sigh that was partly regret and partly breathlessness from his run Flannery turned into the main street. There was the inspector, sure enough, standing on the curb. Flannery had lost some of his dignity, but he made up for it in anger. He more than made up for it in the heat he had run himself into. He was red in the face. He met the inspector with a glare of anger.

"There be th' key, if 'tis that ye're wantin', an' ye may take it an' welcome, fer no more will I be ixpriss agint fer a company that sinds long-haired cats dead in a box an' orders me t' kape thim throo th' hot weather fer a fire- side companion an' ready riferince av perfumery. How t' feed an' water dead cats av th' long-haired kind I may not know, an' how t' live with dead cats I may not know, but whin t' bury dead cats I do know, an' there be plinty av other jobs where a man is not ordered t' dig up forty-siven acres t' find a cat that was buried none too soon at that!"

"What's that?" said the inspector. "Is that cat dead?"

"An' what have I been tellin' th' dudes in th' head office all th' while?" asked Flannery with asperity. "What but that th' late deceased dead cat was defunct an' no more? An' thim insultin' an honest man with their 'Have ye stholen th' cat out av the box, Flannery, an' put in an inferior short-haired cat?' I want no more av thim! Here's th' key. Good day t' ye!"

"Hold on," said the inspector, putting his hand on Flannery's arm. "You don't go yet. I'll have a look at your cash and your accounts first. What you say about that cat may be true enough, but we have got to have proof of it. That was a valuable cat, that was. It was an Angora cat, a real Angora cat. You've got to produce that cat before we are through with you."

"Projuce th' cat!" said Flannery angrily, "Th' cat is safe an' sound in th' back lot. I presint ye with th' lot. If 'tis not enough fer ye, go awn an' do th' dirthy worrk ye have t?'do awn me. I'll dig no more fer th' cat."

The inspector unlocked the door and entered the office. It was hot with the close heat of a room that has been locked up over-night. Just inside the door the inspector stopped and sniffed suspiciously. No express office should have smelled as that one smelled.

"Wan minute!" cried Flannery, pulling away from the inspector's grasp. "Wan minute! I have a hint there be a long-haired cat near by. Wance ye have been near wan av thim ye can niver misthake thim Angora cats. I w'u'd know th' symbol av thim with me eyes shut. Tis a signal ye c'u'd tell in th' darrk."'

He hurried to the back door. The cat was there, all right. A little deader than it had been, perhaps, but it was there on the step, long hair and all.

"Hurroo!" shouted Flannery. "An' me thinkin' I w'u'd niver see it again! Can ye smell th' proof, Misther Inspictor? 'Tis good sthrong proof fer ye! An' I sh'u'd have knowed it all th' while. Angora cats I know not be th' spicial species, an' th' long-haired breed av cats is not wan I have associated with much, an' cats so dang dead as this wan I do not kape close in touch with, ginerally, but all cats have a grrand resimblance t' cats. Look at this wan, now. 'Tis just like a cat. It kem back."

______________________

The following three anonymous stories were collected by me from Australian newspapers about five years ago, with the view to identifying their authors. Every attempt failed. It is possible that, along with the authors' credits being missing, the titles may have been changed too. Hundreds of such syndicated anonymous stories have appeared in Australian newspapers over many years.

10: The Stamp Thief

Anonymous

Wodonga and Towong Sentinel 28 Jan 1938

THE DAY was hot. Bergen, wiping the perspiration from his brow, sat in the broad window seat, his eyes fixed on the sunlit driveway beneath.  A month ago he had read a newspaper article about Philip Reeves, millionaire stamp collector, who had recently acquired an uncancelled Cape of Good Hope triangular. Bergen know nothing about stamps, but when he had read that this one stamp was worth $20,000, it had made him think.

Twenty grand! If only he could steal that tiny scrap of paper. He could flee to Europe and sell it there..

His preparations for the theft had been expensive--the high rent of this small apartment he had taken directly above Reeves' suite in the exclusive Lancaster Arms, the pretence of wealth he had been obliged to assume. Then, too, it had been hard to scrape up a neighborly acquaintance with Reeves--he had been forced to pretend an amateurish interest in stamps.

Suddenly, Bergen bent forward. A car had entered the drive and stopped before the apartment hotel. He saw the chauffeur leap out and open the door-saw Reeves step out.

At last. In a few minutes he would go down to Reeves' apartment, ostensibly to pay a call.

He slipped, his gun into the pocket of his white linen Jacket. That would force Reeves to hand over the stamp. Then he had only to tie the collector up, lock him in somehow, and make his getaway. He know it was the valet's day off. Hence Reeves would not be discovered until the next morning, by which time he, Bergen, would be far away from the Lancaster Arms.

He waited ten minutes, then left his apartment and made his way down the stairs to the next floor. He rang the bell of Reeves' apartment. ,A moment later the collector had opened the door.

"Yes, Mr. Bergen?"

"Just dropped in to say hello." Bergen's manner was deferential. "You were saying the other day that you'd show me your collection. I'm especially curious to see the famous Cape of Good Hope triangular, so I thought, if you weren't too busy..."

"Glad to show it to you. We philatelists always like to exhibit our prizes," Reeves chuckled. "Come in."

Bergen followed him into the apartment. A large flat-topped desk at one side of the living room was piled high with pamphlets, papers, and dozens of loose, unmounted stamps. Near the desk was a wall safe, its door half open. . Reeves groped in the safe for a moment.

"Let's see now. Ah, here we are!" He cleared a" space on the desk, laid a small, three-cornered stamp down, and motioned Bergen to a position beside him.

"The interesting feature of this Cape of Good Hope is that it was printed by mistake on paper meant for the postage of other British Colonies."

"Hum," Bergen murmured, grasping the gun in his coat pocket. "Now, on turning it over you will notice that on the gummed side..."

Reeves broke off suddenly, staring in blank surprise at the automatic in his visitor's hand.

"Put 'em up!" Bergen snapped.

Reeves' eyes  flamed in sudden anger. With an amazingly swift movement he clutched Bergen's right wrist, deflected the weapon. Instantly Bergen reached out with his left hand and seized Reeves by the throat, stifling his cries for help. In a desperate struggle, the two men swayed across the desk top. Bergen, finding himself at a disadvantage because of the other man's longer reach, rolled backwards upon the desk.

This sudden action broke Reeves' grip on Bergen's right wrist. Before he could regain it Bergen fired. The collector staggered back, then slumped to the floor.

Bergen, perspiring, stood motionless for a moment, then bent to feel Reeves' wrist. There was no pulse. Murder... for a stamp. The chair!

With a shudder he straightened up, glanced at the desk top. In the struggle it had been swept clean.

Hastily he pocketed his gun, drew on a pair of gloves and began to look frantically over the jumble of papers and stamps which covered the floor. He examined each stamp, his fingers trembling, the sweat stinging his eyes so that he could scarcely see. The heat was suffocating. He tore open his collar, nervously continued his search.

There seemed to be stamps everywhere but he couldn't find the one he wanted. Suddenly the telephone rang. Its shrill, insistent note brought him to his feet. They must know downstairs that Reeves had come in. If the apartment did not answer...

Panic gripped him. He leaped across the room and dashed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. He ran along the corridor to the stairs. Downward, flight after flight, blindly, scarcely reallting what he was doing. At the third floor he caught sight of himself in a mirror. Collar undone, his linen suit wrinkled and awry, gloves on his hands. He tore the gloves off, and rearranged his dishevelled clothing. Then, carefully wiping the fingerprints from his gun, he threw it into a trash can.

With assumed coolness he continued down the stairs to the lobby. He found it deserted. Wearily he sank into the first chair he saw and lit a cigarette. What a mess. Murder... and for nothing. He had a strong impulse to flee, but flight would mark him as the murderer. No, the only thing to do was to stay put. He took a draw on his cigarette, picked up a newspaper.

Half an hour later the police arrived. Bergen, still seated in the lobby behind the newspaper, saw the excited manager of the Lancaster Arms lead them to an elevator.

"They can't get met" Bergen muttered. "There are no clues. No clues."

TWENTY minutes later he saw the manager and one of the detectives emerge from an elevator. The manager, catching sight of Bergen, murmured something to the detective. The two men came toward him. Nausea swept over Bergen. But they couldn't know. Couldn't. There were no clues.

"Mr. Bergen?" said the detective, stopping before him.

"Yes."

"Sorry to bother you, But there's been a murder upstairs. Mr. Reeves the stamp collector."

"Good lord!" exclaimed Bergen, in feigned horror. "I knew him. Poor Reeves!"

The detective nodded. "The manager says you've got the apartment above his, so I thought I'd like to talk to you. Maybe you saw or heard some. thing that might help. Could you come upstairs to Mr. Reeves' apartment?"

"Right." Bergen stood up. "Glad to answer any questions that may help to find the murderer, though I'm afraid I can be of little assistance to you."

Filled with relief that there was apparently no suspicion of him, Bergen started across the lobby. He had taken no more than three steps when the detective's voice cracked whip-like behind him.

"Stop! Don't move!"

Startled, Bergen obeyed. He felt the detective's gun dig into his back.

"So you want to help find the murderer, eh? Well, you have."

The detective ripped Bergen's coat off.

"Looks like you stamped yourself as the killer."

He held out the white linen jacket for Bergen to see. In the middle of the back, stuck to the sweat-dampened cloth, was the Cape of Good Hope triangular.

___________________

11: The Hat Trick

Anonymous

Albury Banner and Wodonga Express 31 January 1936

THE house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bendigo— the very charming and obviously newly married young couple who had recently come to the neighborhood— was outwardly exactly like all the rest of the 200 jerry-built little villas— all red tiles, white stucco and green paint— that had emerged from the cement-mixer overnight, as it  were, to form the stark new garden suburb.

Internally, however, it possessed— though this was not known to the neighbors— one rather curious points of difference.

For, Mr. Bendigo, immediately on taking possession of his new dwelling, had removed all the cheap stock, locks fitted by the builders, and replaced them with complicated Yale locks of his own choosing, to say nothing of securing all the windows with double catches. As Mrs. Bendigo had smilingly explained to her young cook-general: 'You see, Elspeth, I'm from the country, like yourself, and I never feel really safe in a town, with so many burglaries and other dreadful things always happening.'

But. P.C. Jones, Elspeth's policeman friend, who had supper in the kitchen quite frequently, thought that there were too few of the crimes that scared Mrs. Bendigo.

'I only wish we did have a burglary or two hereabouts,  he said, when Elspeth repealed her employer's remark. 'It might give a fellow a chance of promotion. But no suck, luck! This is just about the quietest and safest suburb around London.'

Mr. Bendigo, however, had strong private reasons for differing from this  view, as was evidenced one night a week later'

'Where did you hide the thing today?' he asked his wife abruptly.

'In your shaving-mug— under the soap.'

'H'm!'

'And yesterday it was in the canary's bath, and the day before that the bed-room clock.'

Mr. Bendigo slowly seated himself in his favorite armchair and .added heavily: 'Well, we've got to think of a safer place— somewhere outside the house.'

'Out with it, you boob!' commanded Mrs. Bendigo crisply. 'What  happened?'

'This morning,' said her husband slowly, 'when I went down for the milk, I found smears of wax all round the front-door keyhole. You know what that means. Somebody took an impression of the lock during the night. I 'm sorry, my dear, but I'm very much afraid that the Colonel's run us to earth at last.'

Mrs. Bendigo uttered a snappy little oath that, would, certainly have startled her ultra-respectable neighbors.

'Oh, he has— has he? Thinks, I suppose, that, after telling us that the job was absolutely impossible, and refusing to take any hand in it himself or allow any of the gang to do so, all he has to do now is to jump in on us and collar the boodle, eh! Well, he's, mistaken. I'll throw the damned thing in the river first! Do you hear me, Henry—?'

But at that moment Elspeth entered with a tray, and Mrs. Bendigo— better known in some circles as 'Light-fingered, Lil'— at once resumed her demure, bride-like manner. 'Oh, dinner ready, Elspeth?' she asked sweetly. 'Henry dear, hurry, up and wash. Elspeth has made some of your favorite fish patties for dinner to-night.'

But young Mr. Bendigo appeared -to have little appetite that evening, and as soon as the maid her withdrawn from the cosy little dining-room he returned to the subject of the threatened catastrophe.

'It was a real swell idea of yours; wasn't, it,' he said, 'this setting up as cooing turtle-doves in a silly little doll's house in a dull, respectable suburb?'

'A silly little doll's house where we've kept a stolen diamond worth £20,000 without a soul suspecting us, and where we've lived in perfect safety for three months— until a certain stupid young man let the Colonel get on his track!' replied his wife pointedly.

'Well, we've got to think of something pretty quick,' said 'Mr. Bendigo. 'I hear he's leaving for the States in a day or two― things in this country have been getting too hot for him; but before he goes he and some of his crowd are pretty certain to have a try for the diamond. Maybe tonight— maybe tomorrow night. They'll hold us up, or gas us in our sleep, and comb every inch of this potty little house. And they'll find the diamond. When it's a question of loot the Colonel's nose is sufficient to guide him.

'Then it mustn't be here,' said Mrs. Bendigo calmly. 'We'll get it out of the house to-night.'

Mr. Bendigo shook his head despondently.

'My dear, they're watching the house at this very moment!'

'We might, think of some way of sending Elspeth—' began Mrs. Bendigo,  then broke off.

'H'sh!'―Here she is, coming to clear the table.'

'Why, ma 'am, you hardly touched the fish patties!' exclaimed Elspeth in slightly disappointed tones as she began to collect. the dishes. 'I hope there was nothing wrong with them.'

Her mistress smiled apologetically. 'Your patties were delightful, Elspeth, but poor Mr Bendigo isn't feeling very well this evening and could hardly eat anything. I'll tell you what to, do. Warm them up and give them to your young man for his supper if he comes in tonight. They're  too good to waste.

'Thank you, ma'am. He's in now— just off his beat,' said Elspeth blushingly.

'Is he? How nice for you to have an attentive young man,' laughed Mrs. Bendigo. 'Well, warn him that I may pop into the kitchen to see that he is behaving himself.'

'You seem very, anxious to encourage matrimony between Elspeth and that young cop,' grumbled her husband, when the door had closed behind the maid. 'One would think you were fond of policemen!'

'I am — when they promise to be useful,' said Mrs. Bendigo. She regarded her husband with a quizzical look. 'Henry Bendigo, hasn't it occurred to you that this young policeman provides the solution to our problem?'

Mr. Bendigo stared blankly at her, then: 'By Jove! You mean—'

'I mean that P.C. Jones shall keep the diamond for us,' said his wife calmly.

'But, I say, old girl! How on earth—'

'Never mind asking questions just now,' said Mrs. Bendigo firmly. 'There's a bottle of gum in your roll-top desk. Go and get it. And you'll find a small pair . of pointed scissors in my work basket. I want them— and a sheet of tissue-paper.'

Leaving her husband gaping, she sped off to the kitchen. Ten minutes later Mrs. Bendigo returned to the dining-room with the policeman's' helmet in her hand.

'Told him that we thought of going to a fancy-dress dance— as Britannia and Nelson― and asked him to lend me his helmet for a minute to let you see how I looked in one,' she explained coolly. 'Quick! Hand me the scissors!'

Swiftly she cut through a few stitches, peeled back the circular piece of cloth lining in the crown of the helmet, pushed the diamond, wrapped in tissue-paper, into the ventilator cavity above it, and gummed the circle of cloth down into place again.

'There you are! Safe in the keeping of the law!' she announced triumphantly, as she picked up the helmet and left the room.

'Wonder what he'd say if he know he was carrying twenty thousand pounds' worth of stolen property on his head,' chuckled Mr. Bendigo, as they heard the policeman leave. 'Lil, old girl— you're it! And now let the Colonel do his damnedest!'

As it happened, however, the Colonel didn't trouble them. As they learned from the newspapers next morning. Scotland Yard had laid him safely by the heels.

Almost disappointing, in a way, after the trouble they had taken to circumvent him; but, as Mrs. Bendigo blithely pointed out, the rest of it was 'pie.'

No need to worry about the safety of the diamond. It was there— regularly paraded for their inspection, as it were, every time P.C. Jones's beat took him past the house. All they had to do was to wait for his next visit to his sweetheart, and then some other excuse would secure possession of his helmet for a couple of minutes. After that, with the Colonel out of the way, it would be quite safe to take the diamond to Amsterdam.

They hadn't long to wait. Five days later P.C. Jones was once more sitting with his sweetheart in the Bendigos' cosy kitchen.

He had loosened his tunic, and was contentedly stuffing himself with cold beef, and pickles when Mrs. Bendigo looked round the door.

'I just wanted to remind you, Elspeth, about tomorrow's laundry,' she said brightly; and then she seemed to notice the young man's helmet resting on a corner of the fender.

'Oh, that reminds me!' she cried gaily.  'That fancy-dress dance I told you about. Could I try on your helmet again before the mirror upstairs, constable— just to make sure how I look, you know?'

'Certainly, ma'am,' said P.C. Jones, smiling politely at her evident excitement.  'But I'm afraid you'll find this one is bigger than the last.'

Mrs. Bendigo's brightness faded. 'This one!' she faltered. 'Er— isn't it the same helmet?'

'No, ma'am, it isn't.'

Mrs. Bendigo clutched at the door.  'But I— or— don't understand. Where is your— er— old helmet?'

'Ask me another!' grinned the young policeman ruefully. 'You see, ma'am, I had a spot of trouble the other night with a drunken lighterman down by the Harbor, and in the tussle my helmet was knocked into the water. It's probably floating somewhere in the North Sea by now.'

________________________

12: The Thriller

Anonymous

Beverley Times, 20 Oct 1939

CROUCHED low in the high-backed armchair, the revolver gasped tight in his hand, Mr. Hilton watched the slim beam of white light slowly piercing into the darkened library. Although he was in the advantageous position of being able to see the midnight intruder without being seen himself, the faint moonlight through the open French windows was insufficient to give him any clear idea of the dim figure's identity. But the figure did not appear to possess much bulk, which gave Mr. Hilton a comforting self-confidence.

He knew what the burglar was after. It was the diamond necklace he had recently brought from the Continent. Some interfering idiot had written to the papers about it, and the fact that he kept it in the house had been broadcast all over the country.

He watched the white light finally come to rest on the safe. It was then that he decided to act. One hand reached out for the electric light switch and the other levelled the revolver.

Brilliant light flooded the room.

"Put your hands up," said Mr. Hilton crisply.

A pair of startled blue eyes blinked into his. The torch dropped to the floor. For a moment there was silence. The girl gave a shaky laugh.

"Heavens! What a fright you gave me." She drew a deep breath of relief, coolly ignored the menacing revolver and dropped into a chair. "My! I nearly died."

Mr. Hilton stared at her, helplessly inarticulate. In his mind be had thoroughly rehearsed the ensuing situation. But be bad failed to allow for the possibility of capturing a female burglar. She was pretty, too. Two dark curls peeped from the tight-fitting little hat that framed her face. Her shapely silk-clad legs magnetised Mr. Hilton's eyes. She was watching him carefully.

"Have you ever caught a burglar before?" she asked curiously.

"No."

"I thought not. You seem so— er— flabbergasted. Could you exactly describe to me your feelings at the present moment?"

Mr. Hilton recovered himself. "No," he said curtly. "I couldn't. What do you want here?"

She hesitated. "I should like drink," she admitted. "You gave me a very unpleasant shaking. My nerves are all jumpy. And I wish you'd put that nasty looking gun away. It's dangerous."

Mr. Hilton indicated the decanter and glasses on the table beside her.

"No, thanks," she smiled. "I never touch that stuff. I meant a glass of water."

"So that you can disappear while I fetch it?"

"Oh, no. If you think that, don't bother. I forgot for the moment I was a prisoner. What do you intend to do with me?"

Mr. Hilton slipped the revolver into his pocket and sat down facing her.

"I ought to send for the police," he said.

"That's the usual thing," she agreed. "Unless, of course, you would prefer to hear my story."

"It should be Interesting," Mr. Hilton admitted. "You are rather an unusual type of person."

"It depends," she said thoughtfully, "on your taste. Would you prefer a story of a girl driven to crime by her wicked step-father. Or would you rather hear something about a girl who burgled to save her lover from being sent to prison for forging his uncle's cheques? Or, perhaps―"

"I should prefer," said Mr. Hilton, coldly, "the truth."

"You wouldn't believe it," she said candidly.

"No doubt."

"But I'll tell you," she decided. "I'm a novelist and I came here for the purpose of working out one of my little theories. Do you believe that?"

"No," said Mr. Hilton frankly. "I don't."

"I thought you wouldn't. What I wanted to know is this. How long would it take anyone to open a safe, extract a diamond, and close it again? What is your opinion?"

"My opinion," said Mr. Hilton shortly, "is that you are the most impudent young woman I have ever met."

"Really?" Her blue eyes twinkled laughingly. "Do you know, I've got a lovely sob stuff story in my mind. If only you'd believe it―"

"I won't― I intend to send for the police."

"If you must " She shrugged. "Anyway, it'll be a bit of experience. All these little things count in the life of a writer, you know."

"I daresay," said Mr. Hilton sarcastically. "No doubt the inside of a prison will give you wonderful inspiration."

"It's quite likely," she agreed. "John Bunyan made his reputation In prison. May I look at your books while you are finding a policeman?"

Mr. Hilton watched her move over to the shelves, vaguely conscious of the fact that the situation was slipping past his control.

She suddenly turned and faced him.

"You read thrillers," she accused. "Nearly every one of Gloria Dorset's books are here."

"Gloria Dorset" said Mr. Hilton, "is an excellent writer."

"Of 'thrillers,' " she laughed. "Anyway, I congratulate you on your taste in literature. Have you ever seen a photograph of her?"

"No."

"I thought perhaps you had not. But aren't you going to get that policeman?"

"Yes," said Mr. Hilton uncertainly.

She looked at him wonderingly.

"Are you afraid I'm going to run away?" she asked. "I hope you're not thinking of tying me to a chair or something."

Mr. Hilton looked at her suspiciously. "I don't trust you," he admitted.

"No. I noticed the steely glint in your eyes. But, perhaps, if you shouted a policeman might hear. I believe there is one in the neighborhood— In fact I saw one coming this way when slipped through your gates."

"No tricks, mind, or I'll shoot!"

"I'll be good," she promised meekly.

He moved to the French windows and shouted across the town. "Constable! Constable!"

For some moments there was silence. He repeated his shout and suddenly saw at the gates a light. The light came towards him, then snapped out. A burly constable loomed through the darkness.

"Anything wrong?"

"Yes," said Mr. Hilton, moving aside to allow him to enter. "I found this— er— person in the act of opening my safe."

"Trying to," corrected the girl gently. At the sight of the constable she started up in pleased surprise. He stared at her, blinked, and stared again. He touched his helmet respectfully.

"Good evening, Miss Dorset."

"Good evening, Simmons. How is the baby?"

"Fine, miss. And the wife, too. It's wonderful how―"

"I say," protested Mr. Hilton, in amazement. "What the deuce— I called you into arrest this lady, not to discuss offspring."

"Don't worry," said Miss Dorset sweetly. "You see, Simmons is friend of mine. He once gave me an account of a burglary which I used in one of my best sellers. I've had some very valuable information from Simmons."

"Are you Gloria Dorset?" demanded Mr. Hilton.

"Of course. Didn't you know? Simmons knows."

The constable nodded. "I've known Miss Dorset for some time. Me and the wife always read her books."

"But— Great Scott!" ejaculated Mr. Hilton, "if that's the case— what the deuce were you doing at my safe?"

"I told you," said Miss Dorset patiently. "I want to know how long it takes to open a safe. Perhaps you can tell me, Simmons?"

The constable scratched his head dubiously.

"It depends on the safe," he explained, "and on the person that opens it. It might take two minutes and it might take two hours."

"That leaves me just where I started," said Miss Dorset, in despair. "My story is about a girl who steals a valuable diamond out of a safe. She doesn't know how the lock works, and she has just five minutes to do the trick. My publisher says it is impossible, so I determined to try it myself. All I've succeeded in doing is getting myself arrested for attempted burglary."

"Not at all," retorted Mr. Hilton, recovering his good humor. "I shouldn't think of charging you in the circumstances. I admire your work very much, Miss Dorset, and anything I can do to help you will be done with pleasure."

Miss Dorset looked at him in delight ."Thank you so much. If you let me work out my little idea I shall be eternally grateful. I should like you to accept this latest little book of mine in return."

She opened her neat leather handbag and extracted a book, on the brilliant jacket of which was a picture of herself: "It was my publisher's idea," she explained, "putting me on the front. I'm glad you like it. May I start now? Perhaps you will time me with your watch?"

"Delighted," said Mr. Hilton cheerfully. He put the light out. Simmons stood with his back to the French windows. For a long time there was silence save for the faint sound of Miss Dorset fumbling with the lock of the safe. Mr. Hilton sat In his arm chair near the light switch, waiting. At last she spoke.

"All over," she announced. "How long did I take?"

"Exactly seven and a half minutes," said Mr. Hilton, switching on the light.

Miss Dorset sighed. "I shall have to alter it after all," she said regretfully. "Perhaps you had better look in the safe to see that I haven't stolen anything."

"How absurd," said Mr. Hilton. But he looked, nevertheless. The only article in the safe was the necklace. He picked it up with reverent fingers.

"This necklace," he said, "is worth a fabulous sum. This is what I thought you were after."

Miss Dorset laughed merrily.

"I must go now," she assured him. "Simmons, will you escort me off the premises? And mind you read my book. You'll get at least one genuine thrill out of it."

"I'm sure I shall," agreed Mr. Hilton pleasantly. "Good-night, Miss Dorset. Good-night constable."

The constable did not leave Miss Dorset at the gate, but walked briskly with her to the car that waited on the corner. Before taking his seat behind the wheel, he exchanged his helmet for a soft felt hat and buttoned a grey overcoat over his uniform.

"He'll get at least one genuine thrill," murmured Gloria Dorset, as she settled herself comfortably beside him to examine the glittering necklace in her hand, "when he discovers that the jacket of that thriller is a fake."

"I rather think he'll get a bigger one," said the 'constable' softly, "when he discovers that his precious necklace is another fake."

____________________

13: Captain Rogers

W. W. Jacobs

1863-1943

Harper’s Monthly Magazine Feb 1901

A MAN came slowly over the old stone bridge, and averting his gaze from the dark river with its silent craft, looked with some satisfaction toward the feeble lights of the small town on the other side. He walked with the painful, forced step of one who has already trudged far. His worsted hose, where they were not darned, were in holes, and his coat and knee-breeches were rusty with much wear, but he straightened himself as he reached the end of the bridge and stepped out bravely to the taverns which stood in a row facing the quay.

He passed the "Queen Anne"— a mere beershop— without pausing, and after a glance apiece at the "Royal George" and the "Trusty Anchor," kept on his way to where the "Golden Key" hung out a gilded emblem. It was the best house in Riverstone, and patronized by the gentry, but he adjusted his faded coat, and with a swaggering air entered and walked boldly into the coffee-room.

The room was empty, but a bright fire afforded a pleasant change to the chill October air outside. He drew up a chair, and placing his feet on the fender, exposed his tattered soles to the blaze, as a waiter who had just seen him enter the room came and stood aggressively inside the door.

"Brandy and water," said the stranger; "hot."

"The coffee-room is for gentlemen staying in the house," said the waiter.

The stranger took his feet from the fender, and rising slowly, walked toward him. He was a short man and thin, but there was something so menacing in his attitude, and something so fearsome in his stony brown eyes, that the other, despite his disgust for ill-dressed people, moved back uneasily.

"Brandy and water, hot," repeated the stranger; "and plenty of it. D'ye hear?"

The man turned slowly to depart.

"Stop!" said the other, imperiously. "What's the name of the landlord here?"

"Mullet," said the fellow, sulkily.

"Send him to me," said the other, resuming his seat; "and hark you, my friend, more civility, or 'twill be the worse for you."

He stirred the log on the fire with his foot until a shower of sparks whirled up the chimney. The door opened, and the landlord, with the waiter behind him, entered the room, but he still gazed placidly at the glowing embers.

"What do you want?" demanded the landlord, in a deep voice.

The stranger turned a little weazened yellow face and grinned at him familiarly.

"Send that fat rascal of yours away," he said, slowly.

The landlord started at his voice and eyed him closely; then he signed to the man to withdraw, and closing the door behind him, stood silently watching his visitor.

"You didn't expect to see me, Rogers," said the latter.

"My name's Mullet," said the other, sternly. "What do you want?"

"Oh, Mullet?" said the other, in surprise. "I'm afraid I've made a mistake, then. I thought you were my old shipmate, Captain Rogers. It's a foolish mistake of mine, as I've no doubt Rogers was hanged years ago. You never had a brother named Rogers, did you?"

"I say again, what do you want?" demanded the other, advancing upon him.

"Since you're so good," said the other. "I want new clothes, food, and lodging of the best, and my pockets filled with money."

"You had better go and look for all those things, then," said Mullet. "You won't find them here."

"Ay!" said the other, rising. "Well, well— There was a hundred guineas on the head of my old shipmate Rogers some fifteen years ago. I'll see whether it has been earned yet."

"If I gave you a hundred guineas," said the innkeeper, repressing his passion by a mighty effort, "you would not be satisfied."

"Reads like a book," said the stranger, in tones of pretended delight. "What a man it is!"

He fell back as he spoke, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, drew forth a long pistol as the innkeeper, a man of huge frame, edged toward him.

"Keep your distance," he said, in a sharp, quick voice.

The innkeeper, in no wise disturbed at the pistol, turned away calmly, and ringing the bell, ordered some spirits. Then taking a chair, he motioned to the other to do the same, and they sat in silence until the staring waiter had left the room again. The stranger raised his glass.

"My old friend Captain Rogers," he said, solemnly, "and may he never get his deserts!"

"From what jail have you come?" inquired Mullet, sternly.

" 'Pon my soul," said the other, "I have been in so many— looking for Captain Rogers— that I almost forget the last, but I have just tramped from London, two hundred and eighty odd miles, for the pleasure of seeing your damned ugly figure-head again; and now I've found it, I'm going to stay. Give me some money."

The innkeeper, without a word, drew a little gold and silver from his pocket, and placing it on the table, pushed it toward him.

"Enough to go on with," said the other, pocketing it; "in future it is halves. D'ye hear me? Halves! And I'll stay here and see I get it."

He sat back in his chair, and meeting the other's hatred with a gaze as steady as his own, replaced his pistol.

"A nice snug harbor after our many voyages," he continued. "Shipmates we were, shipmates we'll be; while Nick Gunn is alive you shall never want for company. Lord! Do you remember the Dutch brig, and the fat frightened mate?"

"I have forgotten it," said the other, still eyeing him steadfastly. "I have forgotten many things. For fifteen years I have lived a decent, honest life. Pray God for your own sinful soul, that the devil in me does not wake again."

"Fifteen years is a long nap," said Gunn, carelessly; "what a godsend it'll be for you to have me by you to remind you of old times! Why, you're looking smug, man; the honest innkeeper to the life! Gad! Who's the girl?"

He rose and made a clumsy bow as a girl of eighteen, after a moment's hesitation at the door, crossed over to the innkeeper.

"I'm busy, my dear," said the latter, somewhat sternly.

"Our business," said Gunn, with another bow, "is finished. Is this your daughter, Rog— Mullet?"

"My stepdaughter," was the reply.

Gunn placed a hand, which lacked two fingers, on his breast, and bowed again.

"One of your father's oldest friends," he said smoothly; "and fallen on evil days; I'm sure your gentle heart will be pleased to hear that your good father has requested me—for a time—to make his house my home."

"Any friend of my father's is welcome to me, sir," said the girl, coldly. She looked from the innkeeper to his odd-looking guest, and conscious of something strained in the air, gave him a little bow and quitted the room.

"You insist upon staying, then?" said Mullet, after a pause.

"More than ever," replied Gunn, with a leer toward the door. "Why, you don't think I'm afraid, Captain? You should know me better than that."

"Life is sweet," said the other.

"Ay," assented Gunn, "so sweet that you will share things with me to keep it."

"No," said the other, with great calm. "I am man enough to have a better reason."

"No psalm singing," said Gunn, coarsely. "And look cheerful, you old buccaneer. Look as a man should look who has just met an old friend never to lose him again."

He eyed his man expectantly and put his hand to his pocket again, but the innkeeper's face was troubled, and he gazed stolidly at the fire.

"See what fifteen years' honest, decent life does for us," grinned the intruder.

The other made no reply, but rising slowly, walked to the door without a word.

"Landlord," cried Gunn, bringing his maimed hand sharply down on the table.

The innkeeper turned and regarded him.

"Send me in some supper," said Gunn; "the best you have, and plenty of it, and have a room prepared. The best."

The door closed silently, and was opened a little later by the dubious George coming in to set a bountiful repast. Gunn, after cursing him for his slowness and awkwardness, drew his chair to the table and made the meal of one seldom able to satisfy his hunger. He finished at last, and after sitting for some time smoking, with his legs sprawled on the fender, rang for a candle and demanded to be shown to his room.

His proceedings when he entered it were but a poor compliment to his host. Not until he had poked and pried into every corner did he close the door. Then, not content with locking it, he tilted a chair beneath the handle, and placing his pistol beneath his pillow, fell fast asleep.

Despite his fatigue he was early astir next morning. Breakfast was laid for him in the coffee-room, and his brow darkened. He walked into the hall, and after trying various doors entered a small sitting-room, where his host and daughter sat at breakfast, and with an easy assurance drew a chair to the table. The innkeeper helped him without a word, but the girl's hand shook under his gaze as she passed him some coffee.

"As soft a bed as ever I slept in," he remarked.

"I hope that you slept well," said the girl, civilly.

"Like a child," said Gunn, gravely; "an easy conscience. Eh, Mullet?"

The innkeeper nodded and went on eating. The other, after another remark or two, followed his example, glancing occasionally with warm approval at the beauty of the girl who sat at the head of the table.

"A sweet girl," he remarked, as she withdrew at the end of the meal; "and no mother, I presume?"

"No mother," repeated the other.

Gunn sighed and shook his head.

"A sad case, truly," he murmured. "No mother and such a guardian. Poor soul, if she but knew! Well, we must find her a husband."

He looked down as he spoke, and catching sight of his rusty clothes and broken shoes, clapped his hand to his pocket; and with a glance at his host, sallied out to renew his wardrobe. The innkeeper, with an inscrutable face, watched him down the quay, then with bent head he returned to the house and fell to work on his accounts.

In this work Gunn, returning an hour later, clad from head to foot in new apparel, offered to assist him. Mullett hesitated, but made no demur; neither did he join in the ecstasies which his new partner displayed at the sight of the profits. Gunn put some more gold into his new pockets, and throwing himself back in a chair, called loudly to George to bring him some drink.

In less than a month the intruder was the virtual master of the "Golden Key." Resistance on the part of the legitimate owner became more and more feeble, the slightest objection on his part drawing from the truculent Gunn dark allusions to his past and threats against his future, which for the sake of his daughter he could not ignore. His health began to fail, and Joan watched with perplexed terror the growth of a situation which was in a fair way of becoming unbearable.

The arrogance of Gunn knew no bounds. The maids learned to tremble at his polite grin, or his worse freedom, and the men shrank appalled from his profane wrath. George, after ten years' service, was brutally dismissed, and refusing to accept dismissal from his hands, appealed to his master. The innkeeper confirmed it, and with lack-lustre eyes fenced feebly when his daughter, regardless of Gunn's presence, indignantly appealed to him.

"The man was rude to my friend, my dear," he said dispiritedly.

"If he was rude, it was because Mr. Gunn deserved it," said Joan, hotly.

Gunn laughed uproariously.

"Gad, my dear, I like you!" he cried, slapping his leg. "You're a girl of spirit. Now I will make you a fair offer. If you ask for George to stay, stay he shall, as a favour to your sweet self."

The girl trembled.

"Who is master here?" she demanded, turning a full eye on her father.

Mullet laughed uneasily.

"This is business," he said, trying to speak lightly, "and women can't understand it. Gunn is— is valuable to me, and George must go."

"Unless you plead for him, sweet one?" said Gunn.

The girl looked at her father again, but he turned his head away and tapped on the floor with his foot. Then in perplexity, akin to tears, she walked from the room, carefully drawing her dress aside as Gunn held the door for her.

"A fine girl," said Gunn, his thin lips working; "a fine spirit. 'Twill be pleasant to break it; but she does not know who is master here."

"She is young yet," said the other, hurriedly.

"I will soon age her if she looks like that at me again," said Gunn. "By God, I'll turn out the whole crew into the street, and her with them, an' I wish it. I'll lie in my bed warm o' nights and think of her huddled on a doorstep."

His voice rose and his fists clenched, but he kept his distance and watched the other warily. The innkeeper's face was contorted and his brow grew wet. For one moment something peeped out of his eyes; the next he sat down in his chair again and nervously fingered his chin.

"I have but to speak," said Gunn, regarding him with much satisfaction, "and you will hang, and your money go to the Crown. What will become of her then, think you?"

The other laughed nervously.

"'Twould be stopping the golden eggs," he ventured.

"Don't think too much of that," said Gunn, in a hard voice. "I was never one to be baulked, as you know."

"Come, come. Let us be friends," said Mullet; "the girl is young, and has had her way."

He looked almost pleadingly at the other, and his voice trembled. Gunn drew himself up, and regarding him with a satisfied sneer, quitted the room without a word.

Affairs at the "Golden Key" grew steadily worse and worse. Gunn dominated the place, and his vile personality hung over it like a shadow. Appeals to the innkeeper were in vain; his health was breaking fast, and he moodily declined to interfere. Gunn appointed servants of his own choosing-brazen maids and foul-mouthed men. The old patrons ceased to frequent the "Golden Key," and its bedrooms stood empty. The maids scarcely deigned to take an order from Joan, and the men spoke to her familiarly. In the midst of all this the innkeeper, who had complained once or twice of vertigo, was seized with a fit.

Joan, flying to him for protection against the brutal advances of Gunn, found him lying in a heap behind the door of his small office, and in her fear called loudly for assistance. A little knot of servants collected, and stood regarding him stupidly. One made a brutal jest. Gunn, pressing through the throng, turned the senseless body over with his foot, and cursing vilely, ordered them to carry it upstairs.

Until the surgeon came, Joan, kneeling by the bed, held on to the senseless hand as her only protection against the evil faces of Gunn and his proteges. Gunn himself was taken aback, the innkeeper's death at that time by no means suiting his aims.

The surgeon was a man of few words and fewer attainments, but under his ministrations the innkeeper, after a long interval, rallied. The half-closed eyes opened, and he looked in a dazed fashion at his surroundings. Gunn drove the servants away and questioned the man of medicine. The answers were vague and interspersed with Latin. Freedom from noise and troubles of all kinds was insisted upon and Joan was installed as nurse, with a promise of speedy assistance.

The assistance arrived late in the day in the shape of an elderly woman, whose Spartan treatment of her patients had helped many along the silent road. She commenced her reign by punching the sick man's pillows, and having shaken him into consciousness by this means, gave him a dose of physic, after first tasting it herself from the bottle.

After the first rally the innkeeper began to fail slowly. It was seldom that he understood what was said to him, and pitiful to the beholder to see in his intervals of consciousness his timid anxiety to earn the good-will of the all-powerful Gunn. His strength declined until assistance was needed to turn him in the bed, and his great sinewy hands were forever trembling and fidgeting on the coverlet.

Joan, pale with grief and fear, tended him assiduously. Her stepfather's strength had been a proverb in the town, and many a hasty citizen had felt the strength of his arm. The increasing lawlessness of the house filled her with dismay, and the coarse attentions of Gunn became more persistent than ever. She took her meals in the sick-room, and divided her time between that and her own.

Gunn himself was in a dilemma. With Mullet dead, his power was at an end and his visions of wealth dissipated. He resolved to feather his nest immediately, and interviewed the surgeon. The surgeon was ominously reticent, the nurse cheerfully ghoulish.

"Four days I give him," she said, calmly; "four blessed days, not but what he might slip away at any moment."

Gunn let one day of the four pass, and then, choosing a time when Joan was from the room, entered it for a little quiet conversation. The innkeeper's eyes were open, and, what was more to the purpose, intelligent.

"You're cheating the hangman, after all," snarled Gunn. "I'm off to swear an information."

The other, by a great effort, turned his heavy head and fixed his wistful eyes on him.

"Mercy!" he whispered. "For her sake— give me— a little time!"

"To slip your cable, I suppose," quoth Gunn. "Where's your money? Where's your hoard, you miser?"

Mullet closed his eyes. He opened them again slowly and strove to think, while Gunn watched him narrowly. When he spoke, his utterance was thick and labored.

"Come to-night," he muttered, slowly. "Give me— time— I will make your— your fortune. But the nurse-watches."

"I'll see to her," said Gunn, with a grin. "But tell me now, lest you die first."

"You will— let Joan—have a share?" panted the innkeeper.

"Yes, yes," said Gunn, hastily.

The innkeeper strove to raise himself in the bed, and then fell back again exhausted as Joan's step was heard on the stairs. Gunn gave a savage glance of warning at him, and barring the progress of the girl at the door, attempted to salute her. Joan came in pale and trembling, and falling on her knees by the bedside, took her father's hand in hers and wept over it. The innkeeper gave a faint groan and a shiver ran through his body.

It was nearly an hour after midnight that Nick Gunn, kicking off his shoes, went stealthily out onto the landing. A little light came from the partly open door of the sick-room, but all else was in blackness. He moved along and peered in.

The nurse was siting in a high-backed oak chair by the fire. She had slipped down in the seat, and her untidy head hung on her bosom. A glass stood on the small oak table by her side, and a solitary candle on the high mantel-piece diffused a sickly light. Gunn entered the room, and finding that the sick man was dozing, shook him roughly.

The innkeeper opened his eyes and gazed at him blankly.

"Wake, you fool," said Gunn, shaking him again.

The other roused and muttered something incoherently. Then he stirred slightly.

"The nurse," he whispered.

"She's safe enow," said Gunn. "I've seen to that."

He crossed the room lightly, and standing before the unconscious woman, inspected her closely and raised her in the chair. Her head fell limply over the arm.

"Dead?" inquired Mullet, in a fearful whisper.

"Drugged," said Gunn, shortly. "Now speak up, and be lively."

The innkeeper's eyes again travelled in the direction of the nurse.

"The men," he whispered; "the servants."

"Dead drunk and asleep," said Gunn, biting the words. "The last day would hardly rouse them. Now will you speak, damn you!"

"I must— take care— of Joan," said the father.

Gunn shook his clenched hand at him.

"My money— is— is—" said the other. "Promise me on— your oath— Joan."

"Ay, ay," growled Gunn; "how many more times? I'll marry her, and she shall have what I choose to give her. Speak up, you fool! It's not for you to make terms. Where is it?"

He bent over, but Mullet, exhausted with his efforts, had closed his eyes again, and half turned his head.

"Where is it, damn you?" said Gunn, from between his teeth.

Mullet opened his eyes again, glanced fearfully round the room, and whispered. Gunn, with a stifled oath, bent his ear almost to his mouth, and the next moment his neck was in the grip of the strongest man in Riverstone, and an arm like a bar of iron over his back pinned him down across the bed.

"You dog!" hissed a fierce voice in his ear. "I've got you— Captain Rogers at your service, and now you may tell his name to all you can. Shout it, you spawn of hell. Shout it!"

He rose in bed, and with a sudden movement flung the other over on his back. Gunn's eyes were starting from his head, and he writhed convulsively.

"I thought you were a sharper man, Gunn," said Rogers, still in the same hot whisper, as he relaxed his grip a little; "you are too simple, you hound! When you first threatened me I resolved to kill you. Then you threatened my daughter. I wish that you had nine lives, that I might take them all. Keep still!"

He gave a half-glance over his shoulder at the silent figure of the nurse, and put his weight on the twisting figure on the bed.

"You drugged the hag, good Gunn," he continued. "Tomorrow morning, Gunn, they will find you in your room dead, and if one of the scum you brought into my house be charged with the murder, so much the better. When I am well they will go. I am already feeling a little bit stronger, Gunn, as you see, and in a month I hope to be about again."

He averted his face, and for a time gazed sternly and watchfully at the door. Then he rose slowly to his feet, and taking the dead man in his arms, bore him slowly and carefully to his room, and laid him a huddled heap on the floor. Swiftly and noiselessly he put the dead man's shoes on and turned his pockets inside out, kicked a rug out of place, and put a guinea on the floor. Then he stole cautiously down stairs and set a small door at the back open. A dog barked frantically, and he hurried back to his room. The nurse still slumbered by the fire.

She awoke in the morning shivering with the cold, and being jealous of her reputation, rekindled the fire, and measuring out the dose which the invalid should have taken, threw it away. On these unconscious preparations for an alibi Captain Rogers gazed through half-closed lids, and then turning his grim face to the wall, waited for the inevitable alarm.

__________________

Probably a pseudonym. The name appears on numerous stories in the 1930s, but nothing can be found about the author.

14: While on Remand

Valentine Gregory

The Australian Women's Weekly 1 Jun 1935

[20 Stories Magazine, Feb 1935]

"SO, knowing my sister to be absolutely incapable of the crime with which she's charged, I've come to you, Professor, in the hope that you'll help me to clear her."

The speaker, a refined and intellectual- looking man of between thirty-five and forty, bent forward in his chair and regarded the scientist with anxious, earnest eyes.

Professor Harkness leaned back and puffed furiously at his pipe.

"At the risk of hurting your feelings, Mr. Chatteris," he said, gravely, "I must say that the evidence, so far as it's been disclosed, weighs heavily against your unfortunate sister.

"I say unfortunate," he went on, "because your belief in her innocence— based, as you say, on your knowledge of her character— inclines me to the same opinion.

"Otherwise, I tell you candidly, I would not stir a finger to save her from what, on the face of it, would appear to be well-deserved punishment.

"The evidence— circumstantial, I grant you— points to her as having been a callous and calculating murderess."

The professor's caller moved impatiently.

"That's exactly the point," he said. "She's either entirely innocent, or else, as you say, she's a callous, calculating murderess.

"Well, I've known Myra since the day when she was born, and would stake my existence that she's no more capable of murder than— than your pipe is."

Immediately Rawlings had left the study, the professor turned again to his visitor.

"Suppose we go over the ground again— briefly." he said. "I want to make sure I've got the salient facts clear in my mind. Correct me if I go wrong, won't you?"

Chatteris nodded eagerly.

"Ten years ago," began Harkness, "your sister Myra married Jasper Stone, an outside broker with an office in Eagle Court, off Moorgate Street, in the City.

"Although there were no children of the marriage, they appeared to you to live reasonably happily together at their home in Golders Green, until about two years ago, when you noticed that your sister showed signs of nervous strain."

"I think it was nearer eighteen months than two years," interposed Chatteris.

"Very well," said the professor. "Exercising your right as her only brother and, I believe you said, her sole surviving near relation, you asked her whether anything was wrong. "After some hesitation, she admitted that she was concerned about her husband. Their relations, it appeared, were not what they formerly had been.

"They had had no quarrel, and he kept her well provided with money; but his manner had changed. He had become cold and indifferent, and spent less time at home than he had been used to do."

"My sister did not complain of her treatment until the Sunday following," interposed Chatteris, "when she merely said she wondered what sort of work it could be that kept an outside broker at his office night after night until the small hours.

"Jasper instantly flew into a violent rage. He stormed, and asked her what it was she dared to insinuate. He said that he expected the next thing she would do would be to spy upon him; but that, if she did. it would be the worse for her.

"As a matter of fact, he displayed so much passion that it strengthened her half-formed suspicions, and she flatly taxed him with being interested in another woman."

"That, I believe," interposed Harkness, "he as flatly denied."

"Not only that," confirmed Chatteris, "but his whole manner changed. He apologised for having lost his temper put it down to frayed nerves due to overwork.

"In short, there was a sort of reconciliation; and during the following week he showed my sister more attention than he had given her for months past.

"Twice he took her to the theatre, and passed the other evenings at home. He invited me round on the Friday evening, and I was relieved to find my sister looking more herself, and to notice that their relations appeared to be perfectly friendly if not exactly affectionate."

"And that was the last time you saw your sister prior to the commission of the crime?"

"Yes. The next time I saw poor Myra she was in custody, charged with the murder of her husband's typist at his office in the City."

"A little more whisky?" suggested Harkness, in an attempt to check his visitor's emotion, which threatened to escape control.

Chatteris waved the offer aside and furtively dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief.

"Anyhow," said the professor briskly,"what you've told me very usefully supplements the bald reports in the newspapers, and enables one to approach the crime with a clearer understanding of the circumstances that may have led up to it.

"Now, suppose you give me, once more, your account of what you assume to have happened on the Monday evening."

"I can only repeat what was told me by my sister, whom, you understand, I believe implicitly."

Harkness nodded. "Go on," he said.

"At about six o'clock that evening — the night of the crime— my sister received a telegram. It was signed 'Jasper,' and was to the effect that she was to call for him at his office at seven-thirty sharp, as he had tickets for a show.

"She was pleasantly surprised. The wire was a striking contrast to those she had been more accustomed to receive from her husband.

"Allowing herself ample time, so as to assure punctuality, she travelled by tube to the Bank, and walked from there to Eagle Court.

"She knew the way quite well having visited the office on two or three previous occasions— and turned out of Moorgate Street into Eagle Court just as the City clocks were beginning to chime the half-hour.

"Stone's offices occupy the whole of the first floor of a small, old-ashioned, three-story building that stands about midway up the narrow court.

"It was dark by this time, of course; and in the court especially so. A single street lamp shone dimly at the far end, where she could just discern a shadowy archway that leads. I believe, to a series of similar courts and alleys, with which the hinterland of Moorgate Street appears to be honeycombed.

"A police constable passed her as she approached No. 7, and as she entered the open door of the building she chanced to glance back, and noticed the policeman's form silhouetted against the brightness of Moorgate Street.

"She had an impression that he had been looking back at her; but as she paused for an instant on the step she saw him turn away and merge in the traffic of the busier thoroughfare.

"The offices on the ground floor occupied by some financial firm— were closed and in darkness; but a single electric lamp burning at the top of the staircase afforded a dim but sufficient light.

"She ran up, crossed the landing, and approached the glass-panelled outer door of her husband's suite of offices. As she drew near, she heard the rattle of a typewriter within.

"When she entered the lobby, which is partitioned to the ceiling on all four sides, and shut the door behind her, the sounds of typing ceased suddenly, and she heard light footsteps approaching.

"The next moment, a hatch in the partition was opened, and, framed in it, appeared the face of a girl.

"Myra told me she was struck equally by the girl's unusual beauty and the startled expression in her eyes, which deepened into a look of positive terror when my sister announced herself as Mrs. Stone and asked that her husband might be informed of her arrival.

"The girl replied nervously that Mr. Stone had left some time ago; but my sister said she would wait, since he was sure to be back, having wired her to meet him there.

"On hearing this, the girl opened the door alongside the hatch, came out into the lobby, and conducted Myra through another door into the waiting room, switching the light on as she did so.

"My sister was then left alone, while the girl, judging by the sounds that followed, resumed her typewriting.

"Presently the tapping ceased, and was followed by muffled sounds of movement in the room or rooms beyond, which were succeeded by a thud.

"After that there was complete silence, save for the loud ticking of the wall clock in the waiting-room.

"Glancing upwards, to find it was by now ten minutes to eight, Myra began to feel not only impatient, but a little nervous.

"She was certain her husband had not returned, else she would have heard him and he would have come to her.

"His inexplicable delay, combined with the surprise and dismay depicted on the pretty typist's face, began to make my sister imagine all sorts of possible and impossible things.

"In short, she soon worked herself up into a highly nervous state; and when the clock started to strike eight she believes she screamed involuntarily and sprang up out of her chair.

"Once on her feet, she could not compose herself sufficiently to sit down again, and for a while she paced up and down the little room, wondering what was best for her to do.

"Finally, she began to shed tears tears of vexation and disappointment— perhaps of alarm as well. To add to her discomfort, if not to her distress, she found she had lost her pocket handkerchief.

"At last indignation mastering her other emotions, she determined to go home, and there have it out with Jasper, if— and when— he should return.

"Too angry to stop and leave a message, she hurried into the lobby, opened the outer door on to the landing, and slammed it behind her— thinking that would be sufficient notice of her departure for such of the staff as might still be on the premises.

"When, tired and with her nerves on edge, she reached home, Jasper Stone was there, awaiting her. He had got back, he said, at six forty-five, expecting dinner as usual. And he emphatically denied all knowledge of the telegram that had purported to come from him.

"A violent quarrel followed. He insinuated that she had herself arranged for the wire to be sent, to provide her with an excuse to pry about his office; she retorted that he had purposely sent her on a wild goose chase, so as to get her out of the flat for some reason best known to himself.

"The following morning he left home for the City as usual, omitting, however, to say good-bye. And at four o'clock in the afternoon detectives from Scotland Yard arrived and arrested my sister on suspicion of having wilfully murdered Sandra Wade between seven-thirty and eight o'clock the previous evening at the Eagle Court office.

"That's my sister's story, Professor; and, for my part, I believe every word of it. You will take up the case?"

"Yes," replied Harkness. "It presents features which arouse my interest. Moreover, I shall be only too happy to do all I can for your most unfortunate sister."

"Your sister has been remanded twice, so far, at the request of the police, no evidence having as yet been produced in court.

"At present she stands remanded until this day week, when it is reasonable to suppose the police will produce sufficient evidence to justify the magistrate committing her for trial."

Chatteris shuddered, and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.

"That means we've got just a week in which to find the criminal, and thereby assure your sister's discharge instead of her threatened trial."

Five minutes later the professor was alone.

For a while he stood with his back to the fire. Then he rang for Rawlings.

"Have you any friends in the City, Rawlings?" he asked.

"No, sir," replied the man with indignant surprise. "I should rather think not, sir!"

"Then you'll make some to-morrow," Harkness informed him. "Immediately after breakfast you'll wend your way to Eagle Court, Moorgate Street, and learn all you possibly can about the tenants of No. 7, more especially the names and addresses of all the employees, male and female, of an outside broker named Jasper Stone, who has an office on the first floor. Is that quite clear?

"Now leave me. I shall be busy on the phone for a while. Don't disturb me for half an hour on any account."

The professor's first call was to Detective-Inspector Garton, at Scotland Yard.

"Is that you, Garton? Harkness speaking."

"Ha! Professor! What's this— just a friendly ring, or a cry for help?"

"A little of each, perhaps. This Eagle Court crime— what do you know about the victim?"

"You're not butting-in on that case, surely, Professor? It's cast iron, cut and dried; and no outside assistance, scientific or otherwise, is required, thank you."

"That's no reason why you shouldn't gratify my morbid curiosity, is it?" growled Harkness.

"If that's all it is— why, certainly not. Sandra Wade, age twenty-two, a good-looker, only daughter of respectable people living in North London. Was filling her second post since leaving training college.

"She'd been a bit irregular in her habits recently— getting home late at night, and spending more money on dress and beauty preparations than her salary appeared to warrant.

"In fact, she was causing her parents a bit of worry. Otherwise, she's reported to have been a sweet-natured kid, generous to a fault."

"Dear me," murmured Harkness. "A shocking fate for a young girl. And you've no doubt as to the identity of her assailant?"

"You've said it. On his own admission, her employer had been paying the girl a good deal of attention— taking her out to dinner and shows— you know the game.

"The wife gets to hear of it; probably spots them together, and then waits for an opportunity to do the kid in. Jealousy. You don't want a stronger motive than that, do you?"

"I suppose not," replied the professor. "How was she found?"

"By the first clerk to arrive in the morning. He was surprised to find the light still burning in the waiting-room, but when he opened the door of his boss' private office he had a bigger shock.

"The girl was stretched on the floor— dead. She'd been stabbed between the neck and shoulder. The weapon, by some unlucky chance, had just missed the collar bone, passed between the top ribs, and pierced the heart. It must have been a hefty blow; but a woman mad with jealousy can sometimes exert unnatural strength."

"What was the weapon?" asked Harkness.

"A long, narrow, steel-bladed paper knife that usually lay on the boss' desk. It was still sticking in the wound."

"That doesn't suggest premeditation, at any rate," interjected Harkness.

"It doesn't disprove it, either," retorted Garton. "The murderess might have thought it an improvement on the weapon she was no doubt carrying."

"Finger-prints on the handle?" questioned the professor.

"No; not a trace. But a gloved hand would account for that. And the gloved hand must have been that of the woman whose handkerchief was found between the dead girl's fingers."

"Doesn't it seem to you queer that the murderer should have left such a damning piece of evidence behind?"

"Not a bit. They always overlook something, whether it's detected or not. That's our experience at the Yard."

"And the handkerchief belonged to Mrs. Stone, eh?"

"Yes; she's admitted it, telling some cock-and-bull story about having lost it between the Bank Station, where she remembers having made use of it, and Eagle Court."

"Have you traced the sender of the telegram?" asked Harkness quietly.

"So you know something about that do you? Well, I'm afraid I can give you no further information, Professor. You must wait until the accused is brought up again, next week."

"All right," chuckled Harkness. "I won't press you. But don't be too sure that you've got hold of the right end of the stick. Remember my warning, won't you? Good night."

Harkness cut short Garton's indignant, spluttered reply by hanging up the receiver.

Then he rang up the police court where the preliminary proceedings were being conducted, and held a short but apparently satisfactory conversation with the person who replied.

NEXT MORNING, immediately after Rawlings had started off on his errand to the City, Professor Harkness made his way by taxi to the prison where Myra Stone was confined while on remand.

When the wardress had withdrawn out of earshot, Harkness spoke.

"Mrs. Stone?" he said, with a smile. "My name is Harkness— Professor Eldon Harkness. You may or may not have heard of me, but I have some sort of reputation as an amateur detective."

"I— I don't think I've heard of you, Professor Harkness," replied Mrs. Stone nervously, looking a little doubtfully at the tall, gaunt figure before her.

"I don't want to seem an alarmist, Mrs. Stone," returned Harkness gravely, "but your situation, I fear, is a little more serious then you appear to imagine."

"But," exclaimed the woman, "you can't possibly think that they might... that I'm in any danger of... Oh!" She shuddered. "How horrible!"

Harkness waited a moment, until she had recovered her composure. Then he spoke, quietly but impressively.

"Be perfectly candid with me," he said. "Had you ever seen the dead girl before the night of the murder?"

"No," was the firm reply—"not if the pretty typist I saw was the girl who was murdered. Otherwise, how should I know who it was? There may have been other girls in the office while I sat in the waiting-room, expecting my husband to appear at any moment."

"Quite so," agreed Harkness. "She did not tell you she was alone, then?"

"Certainly not. But she seemed thoroughly startled by my appearance. Why, I don't know."

"You didn't know her by name?"

"No. I was not acquainted with the names of any of my husband's staff."

"How often had you previously visited your husband's office?"

"Three times. I think."

"Had you seen the poor girl there on either of those occasions? Did you recognise her?"

"No."

"How long was it since you last were there?"

"About a month."

"And whom did you see on that occasion?"

"A youth, who showed me into the waiting-room, and a tall girl clerk, who looked in while I was sitting there, but went out again almost at once, without speaking."

"Your husband came to you that time, I suppose?"

"Yes; and we went off to dinner together."

"Were your relations with your husband at that time quite— shall I say friendly?"

Mrs. Stone looked down at her hands, as they lay in her lap, and the color slowly mounted in her cheeks.

"They were, and they were not," she answered, after an appreciable pause. "Shortly before, we had had a rather violent quarrel. He had been neglecting me, and I had accused him of running after other women."

"Had you any foundation for your charge?"

"Well— yes; a friend of mine had seen him at a restaurant one night with a young woman— one of the nights when I had been led to believe he was working late at the office."

"Did you ever identify his companion?"

"No; I made no attempt. Anyhow, we had some sort of a reconciliation which lasted until the night of the murder. When I returned home that evening and found him there, after waiting vainly for him in the office, I lost my temper, I'm afraid. So did he. We did not speak again after that.

"He left home in the morning without saying good-bye. In the afternoon, detectives came and arrested me."

"Have you seen your husband since then?"

"No. He has not taken the trouble to visit me. But he instructed solicitors to arrange for my defence, and I have had several interviews with lawyers."

"Can you imagine what has prevented his coming to see you?"

"I think so. He either believes, or is pretending to believe, me guilty." An expression of hot indignation burned in the wife's eyes as she spoke.

Harkness glanced at her sympathetically. Then he stood up.

"Well, Mrs. Stone," he said warmly, "it may be some comfort for you to know that I am absolutely convinced of your innocence, and that I shall do all that lies in my power not only to clear you but also to find the criminal."

Tears sprang to the woman's eyes as she rose and took the professor's out- stretched hand.

"Thank you, Professor Harkness. You've already made me feel very much less wretched..."

IT WAS on the stroke of four o'clock when Rawlings made his appearance in the study, after knocking timorously at the door.

"I've been to the City, sir," he began.

"I arrived in the vicinity of Eagle Court about half an hour before the houses opened, sir, so decided first of all to reconnoitre No. 7.

"On the off-chance of there being one, I inquired at the office on the ground floor for the housekeeper, and was informed that I should probably find him at the top of the house.

"I accordingly went up, noting Jasper Stone's office on my way, and found

the party I was in search of reading the newspaper in a cosy little sitting room under the roof.

"Did he know, I asked, of any house-keepers' jobs going in the neighborhood, as I wanted light occupation, with a small honorarium attached, to eke out my pension?"

Harkness smiled.

"A very neat way of introducing yourself," he said approvingly.

"Quite so, sir," acknowledged the butler, with a sly, answering smile.

"I soon established friendly relations with the party— a Mr. Wright by name— and in due course invited him out to join me in a glass, it being by that time close on half-past eleven.

"From that it was easy to lead him on to a discussion of the tenants of No. 7; and when I mentioned that I'd noticed a name on the first floor that gave me the shivers, namely, Jasper Stone— a cold and cruel-sounding name, sir— he lowered his voice and become more confidential than I had hoped to find him, judging by his face.

"Jasper Stone, he said, was in his opinion no blooming good. How could you respect a bloke, he asked, who allowed murders to be committed in rooms that he occupied on a tenancy agreement?

"In fact, sir, he couldn't have been more indignant about the crime if the girl had been his own daughter.

"There'd been carryings on in that office for some time past, he said, but it hadn't been none of his business. But when it came to murdering young girl typists like pretty little Sandra Wade, he thought it was high time something was done about it.

"The other girl wasn't a patch on her for looks, he said, or anything like so pleasant spoken. He never had thought much of Miss Ritchie, he said. She'd got a bit above herself, he thought, for some reason that wasn't nothing to do with him.

"Ritchie? I says, Ritchie? I wonder if she's the Miss Ritchie what lives at... Let me see now, what is the address?

"He fell into the trap, sir, and mentioned the address as glib as you please. Here it is, sir, on this slip of paper. I wrote it down when I managed to leave him for a minute."

The professor took the paper, glanced at it and placed it on his desk.

"Good man!" he said. "Did he mention any other members of the staff?"

"Yes, sir. He mentioned the two men clerks and the office boy."

"Names and addresses?"

"Names, sir. I've got them on this other slip. But I wasn't able to get their addresses nohow, sir— not even when I'd got him off the beer and on to whisky."

"Oh, well, perhaps we can manage without," said Harkness cheerfully. "Did he give you any details about the carryings on you mentioned just now?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes, sir. He hinted that for months before little Miss Wade joined the staff— which was only a few weeks ago— Mr. Stone used to keep Miss Ritchie late at the office several nights a week, and that he'd seen them leave together as late as nine or ten o'clock. Then they'd get into a taxi in Moorgate Street and drive off together, heading westward.

"However, after Miss Wade came, all that stopped, but in a week or so he began to keep her late, instead of the other.

"And I think that's about all, sir," concluded Rawlings, rising rather reluctantly to his feet.

"You've done very well— very well indeed," approved his employer. "I dare say you've guessed why I wanted the information?"

"Well, sir, I did venture to presume you was interesting yourself in the murder, sir. It seems quite in your line, if I may say so, sir."

Harkness laughed, and Rawlings left the room.

In less than five minutes he was back again.

"Detective-Inspector Garton has called, sir," he announced.

Harkness chuckled. "Show him in," he ordered.

"Look here, Professor," cried the detective, pushing past the servant, "I've just heard about your visit to Mrs. Stone this morning. I suppose you pulled some strings. But what's the idea?"

"Sit down, Garton. You're a little over-excited, I'm afraid. That's bad, for a man of your age and habit."

"Never mind my age, and my habits. I'm not excited— I'm a bit sore. You're butting in on this case, and I want to know why."

"In the interests of justice," retorted Harkness. "I'm very much afraid you've got the wrong person under suspicion."

"Fiddlesticks!" exploded Garton. "The woman Stone done it, and we've got her where we want her."

"If you're so sure, why have you come to me?" demanded Harkness sharply.

The detective glared back at his questioner in silence for a moment. Then he shifted his eyes unsteadily.

"We've got a cast-iron case," he said, a little less confidently. "But you mentioned something over the phone yesterday about the telegram, and— and— well. I'd like to know what you know about it?"

"Your case is that Mrs. Stone despatched it herself— isn't that so?"

"Exactly."

"Can you prove it?''

"Only by inference, perhaps— as you may say."

"In other words, it's the weak link Ii your chain of evidence," suggested Harkness.

"Well, perhaps it ls." agreed the detective reluctantly "But it's a link all the same."

"We'll see." retorted the professor. "I'm not so sure that it is— so far as Mrs. Stone is concerned. At what time was the wire handed in?"

"At five minutes past five."

"Where does Mrs. Stone say she was at that time?"

"At home— in her flat. But she can prove it."

"How's that?' tasked Harkness, looking a little disquieted for the first time.

"Well, you see, she'd given the maid the afternoon and evening off. And although she swears she was alone in the flat from three oclock until she left to go down to the City to meet her husband— which was about six-thirty— we've only got her word for it."

"Could she have handed in the wire at five past five and got home in time to receive it herself?"

"Sure! We've worked it out. And what's more, Professor," cried Garton triumphantly, "the messenger who delivered it says she'd got her outdoor things on when she opened the door to him!"

'That proves nothing," snapped Harkness. "She might have been on the point of going out."

"Oh, yes?" sneered the detective "That's just how she explained it. But If you ask me, she'd just got back from the City, and hadn't had time to take her hat and coat off."

"But does all this matter, if you've identified her handwriting on the telegram form?"

Garton looked nonplussed for an instant. Then he resumed his blustering air.

"Ah," he said; "she was too artful to write in her ordinary hand. She used printed characters."

Harkness laughed.

"It's perfectly clear," he said, "that you haven't the foggiest notion who sent that telegram; so, to fit in with your theory, you're trying your damnedest to fix it on to Mrs. Stone. How do you know that Stone himself didn't send it?"

Garton stiffened in his chair, and looked at the professor with distended eyes

"But— but the post office clerk says it was handed in by a woman." he protested.

"Pshaw!" ejaculated Harkness. "How could she be sure? In the rush hour, mind you when the counter was probably crowded.

"A form, with a shilling lying on it, or, perhaps, with the stamps already affixed, is pushed under the grille". Who is to say with absolute certainty whether a man or a woman pushed it under?"

"Yes," broke in Garton excitedly: "but if Stone himself sent it, it might suggest that he did so to throw suspicion on his wife meaning to commit the murder himself! By gosh!"

"As their maid was out— and he probably knew it— it was a simple matter for him to get into the flat unnoticed."

"But," the detective objected weakly "would he have had time to get back home first?"

"Why not?" retorted Harkness. "If as you assert, Mrs. Stone was able to send a wire to herself from Moorgate Street, and then get home in time to receive it, why shouldn't Stone have had time to kill the girl and get back to the flat before his wife, who probably remained in the office ten or fifteen minutes after the crime had been committed?"

Garton brought his hand down heavily on his knee.

"Bosh!" he shouted. "You're right Professor! There's as much evidence against him as there is against her, when you come to look at it. And," he added more quietly, "perhaps there's as strong a motive."

"What do you know about that?" questioned Harkness quickly.

"Well, you see, there was an autopsy on the poor kid, of course, and— well— you know. Things were like that."

The professor's face worked painfully for a moment.

"In that case," he said presently, "I could almost wish he were the guilty party."

"What do you mean?" demanded Garton. "Don't you think he did it, then, after all? Why, I thought you were proving it against him."

"Not at all. I was merely suggesting that, up to a point, there's as much evidence against him as against his wife— and you've shown that he might have had an even stronger motive than the woman's."

"Well, something's got to be done about it," said the detective uneasily. "As you say, it might very well have been him. I don't mind admitting it. As a matter of fact, it's more likely to have been him, when you come to look at it.

"He'd got himself in a mess with the typist, and he'd quarrelled with his wife. He wanted to get rid of both; so he worked out a way of killing two birds, as you may say, with one stone.

"Now I tumble why he hasn't been to see his wife while she's been on remand. He hasn't got the face! What a rotter!"

"D'ont go so fast, Garton," advised Harkness. "And, for your reputation's sake, don't think of releasing the wife and arresting the husband in her place; for, in my opinion, neither of them is guilty."

"What's that?" shouted Garton, starting up out of his chair "Neither of them? I don't want to be rude, Professor, but you are quite sure you know what you're talking about?"

Harkness looked sternly at the detective.

"I'll overlook your rudeness— on this occasion," he said, "because I can imagine the state of your mind. Now you'd better go. I dare say you've got some hard thinking to do."

Garton rose, and stood in obvious unease before the professor.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. Then he turned to go. When he reached the study door, he paused and looked back. Harkness, who was seated calmly at his desk, glanced up.

"If you care to be here at three sharp to-morrow afternoon," he said, "I shall have no objection to your making one of an interesting little party."

Garton's face brightened and he grinned broadly.

"Three o'clock will be O.K. by me, Professor," he said emphatically. The next moment Harkness was alone.

AT FIVE O'CLOCK the professor left his flat, taxied to the City, and made his way to No. 7. Eagle Court.

Climbing the stairs to the first floor, he stood for a moment or two, surveying the plan of the landing.

Facing him was an opaque glass panelled door inscribed with the name of Jasper Stone, under which appeared the word "Inquiries."

A short passage led off to the left, ending in a similar door, on which the name was repeated, with the addition of the word "Private."

The professor strode forward, opened the door facing him, and stepped inside. He at once recognised the lobby described by Chatteris.

Facing him was the closed hatch, and beside it the door through which the murdered girl had passed to conduct Mrs. Stone into the waiting room, the door of which appeared on Harkness' right.

Immediately facing this, on his left, was a third door, which, he imagined, led to the private room at the end of the passage.

The professor tapped on the partition, and without delay the hatch was

opened, disclosing the face of a youth, who looked inquiringly at the caller.

"Is Mr. Stone in?" asked the professor.

"I'll see, sir. What name, sir?"

"Here is my card."

"Will you take a seat in the waiting room, sir? Through that door, if you please, sir."

Harkness nodded, and stepped into the room indicated. A swift glance showed him that it was provided with only the one door. Its solitary window looked out on to a narrow, grimy courtyard

He had barely seated himself when the youth reappeared.

"This way, if you please, sir."

Harkness followed his guide across the lobby and through the door he had surmised might lead to the private room; and a moment later was ushered into the presence of Mr. Jasper Stone.

The professor was not too favorably impressed by the man who rose from his desk to wave his visitor to a chair, neither was he definitely repelled.

He saw before him a dark, clean shaven, middle-aged man of stout build, carefully dressed, who looked at him from under strongly-marked eyebrows with unsmiling eyes that held an expression of anxiety, if not fear.

"Will you be seated?" he said in a deep, musical voice. "To what do I owe this pleasure. Professor Harkness? Your name seems dimly familiar to me; but at the moment I cannot—"

"You may have heard of me as a scientist interested in the unravelling of crime mysteries, Mr. Stone," broke in Harkness, closely watching the effect of his words.

Jasper Stone dropped into his chair again, a faint flush suffusing his pale face.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Of course."

Then an angry light began to burn in his sombre eyes.

"Are you here on behalf of the police?" he demanded.

"No," replied Harkness; "on behalf of Mrs. Stone, your wife."

"This is very painful, very painful indeed," said Stone, fidgeting in his chair.

"Not so painful for you as it is for your wife, Mr. Stone," said Harkness bluntly. "Do you realise the peril she is in?"

"I'm not a complete fool, I hope, Professor Harkness," returned the other angrily.

"I should imagine not," came the retort. "Neither, I fancy, are you completely callous. Will you co-operate with me to clear your wife of this baseless charge of murder?"

"Baseless? Baseless?" repeated Stone. Then he laughed bitterly. "I would that it were."

Harkness waved that aside.

"I ask you again," he said. "Will you co-operate with me?"

"I will do nothing to impede the course of justice," replied the husband savagely. 'That poor, murdered girl was only twenty-two, and one of the sweetest, most loving and trusting creatures on God's earth.

"Whoever killed her," he went on, his voice quivering—"I say, whoever killed her— deserves worse punishment than the law provides. If my own flesh and blood had done it, I would say the same."

The professor's keen eyes had watched the man narrowly as he made his declaration.

"Mr. Stone," he said suddenly, "are you aware that there's no more evidence against your wife than there is against yourself?"

Stone sprang to his feet, glaring savagely at Harkness.

"How— how dare you!" he stammered. "What right have you to suggest such— such an absurdity?"

"I'm suggesting nothing," replied Harkness. "I'm stating a fact.

"Can you prove you did not send the telegram to your wife? Can you prove you were not lurking in this office when she arrived, and that you did not kill Sandra Wade while your wife was in the waiting-room, expecting your return; and that you did not slip out of that door"— here Harkness pointed—"to get home to your flat before her?"

Stone sank back in the chair and stared at Harkness stupidly, saying nothing.

"Can you prove," went on the scientist, "that you had not planned to throw suspicion on your wife— who, perhaps, had become inconvenient to you?

"Can you prove these things, I say? Can you account for your whereabouts in every detail during those critical hours and moments any better than your wife can?"

Stone moistened his lips, and made an effort to speak.

"It— it's unthinkable," he stammered. "I— I loved that girl. Don't you understand? How could I kill her? My wife had a motive. She must have got to know— somehow. She was jealous."

"Some people might say that you had an even stronger motive," retorted Harkness sternly. "An autopsy was performed on the body. Do you know what it revealed? Can you imagine?"

"Oh, my God!" gasped Stone, gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles were bloodless. "Not that! Don't tell me that!"

Harkness watched the agony depicted on the man's face with something akin to pity in his own.

"It's neither my business nor my purpose to increase your distress," he said, after a moment.

"I simply want to show you how easily suspicion might have fallen on you instead of on your wife."

Stone nodded vacantly. Then his expression changed.

"But her handkerchief was found in Sandra's hand!" he exclaimed. "That's a damning fact. That alone turns the scale against her, even though in other respects the evidence is equally strong against us both."

Harkness smiled grimly.

"Don't deceive yourself." he said. "I believe your wife's story that she lost her handkerchief.

"My theory is that she dropped it in the lobby, or on the landing, and that the murderer found it, and saw in it a means of increasing suspicion against your wife by placing it between the dead girl's fingers.

"I should have concluded that you had done so, if I'd believed you to be the criminal,'' added the scientist.

"Then you don't suspect me?" asked Stone, looking Harkness full in the face.

"No. I consider you culpable, and the indirect cause of the tragedy. But that's a matter for your conscience.

"What I'm here for is to shake your belief in your wife's guilt, and to persuade you to help me to unmask the actual murderer."

Stone was silent for a moment, apparently deep in thought. Then he gave Harkness a candid look.

"You've convinced me," he said. "After all, although my wife and I have not hit it off too well together for some time it does seem madness on my part to imagine her capable of murder. But what's to be done? I'm told she's certain to be sent for trial at the next hearing."

"Only the discovery of the real criminal will save her. Will you help?"

"Yes," replied Stone, without further hesitation. "Tell me what to do."

"Nothing to-night. But call at my flat at two-fifteen to-morrow afternoon. Then we'll have a further talk."

"I'll do that, certainly," promised Stone.

Punctually at two-fifteen the following day Rawlings announced the arrival of Mr. Jasper Stone, whom Harkness directed should be shown at once into the study.

The meeting between the two men was cool, though friendly.

When they were seated, Harkness pushed the telephone towards his visitor.

"Could you send for one of your clerical staff on some excuse?" he asked.

Stone looked surprised.

"I suppose I could," he replied. "Why?"

"Do you mind if I keep my reason to myself for the moment?" asked the professor. "It will be quite clear, later. You can trust me, you know."

"I suppose I can," replied Stone, with a smile. "But it sounds a bit mysterious."

"Amateur detectives have to be mysterious," laughed Harkness. "Otherwise, what would become of the thriller writers? Whom will you send for?"

Stone considered for a moment.

"I can't let the junior leave the office," he said at length. "Clark and Harris are very busy, too. I'm afraid it will have to be Miss Ritchie. I suppose a girl will suit your purpose just as well?"

"Oh, quite— quite. Let it be Miss Ritchie, by all means. Ask her to reach here by 3 o'clock, if you don't mind."

"Certainly," agreed Stone, dialling his number.

It seemed no time before Rawlings entered to announce the arrival of Miss Ritchie.

"Mr. Garton is here also," he added in an undertone to the professor.

"Show Miss Ritchie in, and, when I ring, Mr. Garton."

Tall, graceful, and intensely dark, Miss Ritchie entered the study with perfect self-possession.

"Ah!" said the professor, looking at the girl keenly, "so this is Miss Ritchie. Won't you please sit down?"

Frowning a little, the girl accepted a chair and cast an inquiring look at her employer.

Meanwhile, Harkness had pressed the bell, and, before any more words could be exchanged, Detective-Inspector Garton entered the study.

The professor beckoned him forward and turned to Jasper Stone.

"Let me introduce Detective-Inspector Garton, of the C.I.D.," he said. "This is Mr. Jasper Stone, Inspector. I thought you two ought to meet."

While speaking, the professor kept his eyes fixed on the girl, and saw her suddenly turn deathly pale.

"Aren't you feeling well, Miss Ritchie?" he asked, in a voice of concern.

"Yes— no. I shall be all right in a minute," murmured the girl in nervous distress.

Both Stone and Garton were looking at her in some surprise. Their regard seemed to increase her agitation.

"Don't show her too much sympathy," said Harkness suddenly, in a rasping voice.

The two men turned and gazed at him in mute astonishment.

"Shall I tell you why I wanted her here, Mr. Stone?" he went on.

"I think perhaps you'd better," replied her employer, in whose widely staring eyes comprehension was slowly beginning to dawn.

"It was so that she might tell you where she found your wife's handkerchief, which she placed between the fingers of the girl she murdered in your office— Sandra Wade."

A piercing shriek followed the professor's words, and the next instant the girl was stretched unconscious on the floor.

Stone was the first to reach the prostrate form.

Dropping to his knees, he raised her head and looked up at Harkness with something between appeal and anguish in his eyes.

"My God!" he gasped, "you don't mean to say that—"

Garton pushed him aside.

"I fancy I come in here," growled the detective, taking the girl by the shoulders and shaking her.

"There's no need for that, Garton," said Harkness sternly. "There's enough coming to her without any stupid brutality. Let Rawlings get by. He has some water."

Muttering under his breath. Garton moved aside and allowed Rawlings to administer the restorative.

Presently the girl's eyelids flickered. "She's coming to, sir," said Rawlings, in a hushed voice.

"Then get her away— at once, Garton," ordered Harkness, "before she realises she's admitted her guilt."

"YES," said Harkness, about half an hour later, when Miss Ritchie had been taken away under arrest in charge of Detective-Inspector Garton; "Jealousy was the motive— jealousy of your wife, as well as of her younger rival.

"Unfortunately, her cunning was as deep as her passion. Else she could not have conceived such a devilish plot to dispose of both her rivals at once.

"I don't affect to pose as a moralist or a puritan," he went on, "but it really would give me immense satisfaction if I had your assurance that this ghastly tragedy will have the result of bringing you and your wife together again, instead of widening the breach between you."

Jasper Stone looked up at the professor and held out his hand, which was accepted and shaken warmly.

"I'm satisfied," said the scientist.

"Only my wife can thank you sufficiently for what you've done," said Jasper Stone brokenly. "I can find no words. The horror of the whole affair, and my sense of responsibility for it, chokes me."

"Come, come!" cried Harkness, cheerfully. "Don't give way. Be thankful that your wife has been saved from a horrible and ignominious death— that her innocence has been established— while on remand."

_________________

15: Third Time Unlucky

Valentine Gregory

Australian Women's Weekly 21 Sep 1935

[The 20-Story Magazine, Aug 1934]

"A LADY to see you, sir."

Professor Eldon Harkness glanced up at his butler and made a movement of impatience.

"How often must I tell you that I will see no one except by appointment?"

"Quite so, sir," murmured Rawlings, rubbing his hands together nervously. "But I ventured in this case, sir... the lady appears to be in some distress, sir."

"What's that to do with it?" demanded Harkness, throwing down his pen savagely. "Your duty is to me—not to every distressed female who takes it into her silly head to knock at my door... Who is she? What's she like? What does she want?... Oh, show her in," finished the Professor, with a growl.

Harkness' irritation was perhaps excusable. Since eight-thirty that morning he had been engaged, without pause, in the preparation of an important paper on certain aspects of biology which he was to read before a learned society the following week.

And now had come an interruption that threatened alike to postpone the satisfaction of the one and hinder the fulfilment of the other.

There were times when Professor Harkness was inclined to regret his passion for criminology and bemoan the success that had attended so many of his amateur efforts at crime detection.

Although this had won him a measure of public fame, and the grudging respect of Scotland Yard, from which he was human enough to derive some satisfaction, he was guiltily conscious that these interests were inclined to encroach too much upon the time he should devote to the pursuit of pure science.

But he was so constituted that he could not ignore the challenge of an unsolved mystery. He knew his weakness, and, in consequence, always heard with a kind of pleasing dread Rawlings' announcement of some unknown caller.

Laying down his ancient brier, he heaved his tall, spare frame out of his chair and stood, feet apart, with his back to the fireplace, frowning over horn-rimmed spectacles at the door.

A discreet tap was followed by Rawlings' silent entrance.

HARKNESS fixed his penetrating gaze on the woman framed in the curtained doorway.

He saw a pale face, set with large, sombre eyes beneath a broad, low brow. The mouth was unnaturally red, and the full lips slightly parted.

The nose was well shaped, but perhaps over-narrow; and from the outer nostrils deep lines of grief, worry, or discontent ran to meet the corners of the mouth.

She was well but simply dressed, and had the poise of a lady, which somehow threw into stronger relief the signs of anxiety and distress plainly visible upon her face.

"Will you be seated, madam," said Harkness, at the same time dismissing Rawlings with a nod.

Instead of acting on the invitation, the woman advanced to within a couple of paces of the Professor and looked up into his face.

"Professor Harkness," she said in a rich contralto voice, clasping her well-gloved hands together, "I can't find words to thank you for seeing me, a complete stranger, without either introduction or appointment."

The Professor's hard, lined face softened as he made a slight gesture with his right hand.

"I should feel that my intrusion was unwarranted if I were not so desperately worried," she went on. "I've heard of the wonderful things you've done, and I thought you might be willing to help me."

"My name is Carstairs." she said. "Mrs. Norman Carstairs. We occupy a flat in Munster Gardens, where we have resided since our marriage five years ago.

"My husband is on the Stock Exchange, and partner in a firm of good standing in the city. Prior to our marriage he had spent several years abroad, being at the time connected with the rubber industry."

"In the East?" asked Harkness.

"Yes, the Straits Settlements," was the reply. "I don't know much about his life in those days, excepting that I understand he was very successful in business, and, as I believe is common in such cases, made one or two enemies as well as many friends."

Harkness folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. "May we come back to the purpose of your call?"

Mrs. Carstairs moved slightly, as though rearranging her thoughts with her attitude. Then she leaned forward.

"About three weeks ago my husband received an anonymous letter. It was delivered at the flat by hand. He opened it, read it, looked a little puzzled, and then tossed it across for me to read.

"I was horrified. I have it here."

Mrs. Carstairs opened her handbag, extracted a soiled white envelope and handed it to the Professor.

Before drawing out the enclosure, Harkness submitted the envelope to a close scrutiny, peering at it through a powerful magnifying glass, and paying special attention to the gum on the flap. Then he inspected the sheet.

This was of common writing-paper, quarto size, lined, and bearing on its top edge traces of adhesive matter suggesting that it had been torn from a cheap writing pad.

In roughly printed characters, across almost the full width of the sheet, appeared the following message:

Six years ago. Have you forgotten? It's taken me that long to get back home and find you. You left me ruined. I shall leave you dead. You know why.

—YOU KNOW WHO.

Harkness laid the paper down and looked keenly at Mrs. Carstairs.

"I understand that your husband's reaction to this communication was mystification rather than fear?"

"At the time— yes."

"What precisely do you mean by that, Mrs. Carstairs?" asked Harkness.

"Well, he was inclined to treat it as a sort of silly practical joke— until the later letters came."

"Later letters?" repeated Harkness, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes. Two others. I have them here."

And Mrs. Carstairs produced a couple of other envelopes from her handbag— each identical in outward appearance to the first.

Harkness placed them on the table before him.

"Go on, Mrs. Carstairs," he said, with a smile. "We'll look at these presently."

"Why, I was saying that at first he seemed to regard it as just nonsense.

" 'Some idiot in the "House" is trying to pull my leg,' he said.

"But I urged him to take it to the police, reminding him that he was abroad six years ago, and might have made an enemy more vindictive than he was aware of at the time.

"But he only laughed at me— until the second letter came."

"Let's see what that said," suggested Harkness, picking up the top letter of the two. "Is this it?"

Mrs. Carstairs nodded, and Harkness submitted the envelope to the same scrutiny he had bestowed on the first. Then he drew out the enclosure and spread it open before him.

The same roughly-scrawled printed characters were displayed, but the message was different:

You are one week nearer the end. If you're wise you'll settle your affairs. I've waited six years for this—but I give you three weeks.

YOU KNOW WHO.

"Then came this, I suppose?" asked Harkness, picking up the second envelope.

Mrs. Carstairs nodded. The Professor extracted the contents and read the following:

You have two more weeks of life. Make the most of them, for I shall strike suddenly.

—YOU KNOW WHO.

"When was this delivered?" asked Harkness.

"A week ago," was the reply. "Since then I've done my utmost to persuade my husband to do something, to take some precaution, to protect himself in some way; but he flatly refuses to go to the police. So I'm forced to only one conclusion."

"And what is that, Mrs. Carstairs?' asked Harkness.

"That there was something in his past that he's concealed from me," was the reply.

"I can't imagine his having done anything discreditable, but isn't it possible that, years ago, he inadvertently injured someone, who has brooded over it since, and now means to have revenge?"

Harkness looked at the woman in silence for a moment.

"Then you don't think there's a woman in it?" he asked suddenly.

Mrs. Carstairs lowered her lashes.

"I hardly know what to think," she murmured. Then she gave the Professor a penetrating look.

"Doesn't the handwriting tell you anything— as to the sex of the writer, I mean?" she said.

"Not at present," returned Harkness. "But it may— later."

"That sounds impossible," said the woman, smiling faintly.

"Science will admit nothing impossible— except reshaping the past," returned Harkness seriously.

"As to the sex of the writer of these letters, it may be betrayed by something other than the actual handwriting. Sex is more pervasive and penetrative than is generally supposed."

"I'm afraid that's quite beyond me," said Mrs. Carstairs, laughing a little nervously.

"How were they delivered?" he asked. "Evidently in no case through the post."

"No," replied the woman. "The janitor of the flats found them in the general letter-box and brought them up with other correspondence."

"In each case?"

"Why—yes; of course."

"Did you question him about them?"

"I believe my husband did."

"Why didn't you go to Scotland Yard?"

"Because my husband forbade me— but did not say I was not to consult you."

"But did you tell him your intention to see me?"

"No, I must confess I didn't. I was afraid he might object."

"Well, Mrs. Carstairs," said Harkness, "you've brought me a very interesting problem, and I will do my utmost to find the solution. If the, anonymous writer means business, we haven't much time to spare."

Mrs. Carstairs rose gracefully, and held out her hand.

"You've no idea how terribly relieved I feel, now that I've seen you, Professor. I know you'll avert this fearful tragedy that's hanging over my poor husband's head."

"I certainly will, if I can," replied Harkness, grimly. "I suppose I can get you on the phone, if necessary?"

"Yes. I'll leave you my card, Professor."

A few minutes later he rang up a city number.

"Mr. Carstairs in?" he asked.

"Mr. Carstairs is at lunch," came the reply, in a toneless feminine voice.

"When will he be in?"

"I'm unable to say."

"Will you give him a message?"

"Mr. Carstairs is out."

"Listen, young woman," said Harkness gruffly. "You've already told me Mr. Carstairs is out. Don't take too much advantage of his absence, but pay attention.

"This is Professor Harkness speaking... Yes... Ask Mr. Carstairs to ring me the instant he comes in. Got that?... Right. And don't forgetor you may rue it!"

Harkness hung up with a muttered exclamation of impatience. Then he picked up the three anonymous letters.

At 3.30 the Professor's telephone buzzed.

"Hello?"

"Is that Professor Harkness? This is Carstairs speaking. I understand you rang me up."

"Yes. Could you possibly come over to see me?... To-day. This afternoon. The sooner the better."

"I've heard of you, Professor, of course; but haven't had the pleasure of meeting you. Is it anything I can do for you?"

"On the contrary. It's something I may be able to do for you."

"I don't quite understand."

"I had a visit from your wife this morning."

"Did you, begad!" came the reply in a surprised tone. "All right. What's your address?"

Harkness gave it.

"I'll be with you within half an hour."

CARSTAIRS was as good as his word. It was on the stroke of four when Rawlings made his usual discreet appearance and announced the caller.

"Mr. Carstairs, sir."

"Come in. Glad to see you. Mr. Carstairs. Take this armchair. Rawlings, the whisky and soda."

"No, thanks!" exclaimed the visitor. "Too early for me. "

"I suppose that worried little wife of mine came to see you about those ridiculous threatening letters," said Carstairs, as soon as Rawlings had withdrawn.

"Yes." said Harkness looking intently at his visitor. "Are you quite sure they are ridiculous?"

Carstairs laughed easily.

"What else can they be? I've never " consciously made an enemy in my life."

"Your reservation is a wise one," said Harkness. "One of the penalties of success is to make enemies— knowingly or unknowingly. As a man of business, you must know that."

"I know," agreed Carstairs, "but I've searched my memory— which is a pretty good one— but for the life of me I can't recall a single incident in the past to justify even the mildest threat of vengeance, let alone a threat against my life. That's why I can't take the matter seriously."

"I wish I could agree with your attitude," said Harkness gravely. "I believe you are very definitely in danger. The fact that you can recollect nothing to justify the threats makes them, in my opinion, the more alarming.

"Please disabuse your mind of the idea that you are being made the victim of a practical joke. I firmly believe that the writer of these letters intends your— well, your elimination."

Carstairs' face paled a little, and he moved uneasily in his chair.

"Then why the devil doesn't whoever it is do me in and have done with it?" he demanded impatiently. "Why all this silly mystery— these weekly warnings? The darned fool must know he's lying— unless he's mad; and he must know that I know he's lying."

"It's exactly that view of it which disturbs me," responded Harkness. "I'm afraid there's method in that seeming madness. How old are you, Mr. Carstairs?"

"Forty-five," was the prompt reply.

"You scarcely look it," smiled Harkness. "You look very little older than your wife— to the male eye, at any rate."

Carstairs smiled complacently.

"Think so?" he said. "Then you'd be surprised. Why, Dorothy's only twenty-seven. I think she looks a bit more, though. Especially lately. These confounded letters have got her down, I'm afraid. But she'll pick up again all right when it's blown over."

"No doubt," was the Professor's comment.

"Well," he went on, "there seems little more to be said. But, at the risk of appearing an alarmist, I must beg of you to take these threats seriously. There are features about the whole affair which, to my mind, are very disturbing."

Carstairs' face seemed to age a little as Harkness spoke, and he passed bis tongue over dry lips.

"I hope you're only trying to put the wind up me," he said a little huskily. "It's a ghastly idea, that some unknown swine is waiting to take me for a ride or put me on the spot, as the saying goes. Dash it all, what can I do?"

Harkness stood up, and looked down seriously at the visitor.

"While hoping for the best," he said, "I should, if I were you, take the advice contained in the second letter, and put your affairs in order. You have your wife to consider."

"You really think that?" asked Carstairs, rising and standing a little un-steadily. "Well, I've nothing to do in that respect. My affairs are in order, and my wife is thoroughly protected. I've no worry on that score.

"Every bean I possess goes to her, and my insurance is not a small one. Look here. Professor, if I may, I'll change my mind about that whisky and soda. Upon my soul, I could do with a spot. I feel a bit shaken."

"Naturally," returned Harkness. "Perhaps you'll help yourself." And he indicated the decanter and siphon standing on a side table.

"Thanks," said Carstairs, proceeding to help himself generously.

"Well, what's the next step?" he asked, when he had tossed off his drink.

"I shall pursue a certain line of inquiry," replied Harkness. "But all I can recommend you to do is to take the utmost care during the next few days. Suspect everyone— everyone," he repeated impressively.

"Avoid isolation. I should even be inclined to suggest your going away somewhere for a fortnight, without telling a soul when and where you are going— unless you cared to take me into your confidence."

"But that's utterly impossible," replied Carstairs impatiently. "I'm handling some big business at the moment that needs all my attention. I couldn't get away."

"Well," said Harkness, with an undisguised sigh, "I must leave that to you."

At five o'clock Rawlings brought the Professor his afternoon tea.

"Would you like an evening out, Rawlings?" asked the master, plunging his teeth into a large cream bun.

"Not particularly, sir, thank you, sir. I was hoping to finish Robertson's 'Short History of Morals' this evening," replied Rawlings. "Moreover, sir, there's a broadcast of Stravinsky's music at eight o'clock, which I was looking forward..."

"Well, you must miss your morals and your music for once," interrupted the scientist. "I want you to deliver this letter to Mrs. Carstairs— in person, if possible, and while you're there make friends with the janitor of the flats."

"Make friends with him, sir?"

"Yes. Take him out. Get him tight, if you can do so without getting tight yourself, and extract from him all the information you can about the Carstairs— who their visitors are; what sort of life they lead; and any other domestic details. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." returned Rawlings a little hesitatingly. "But, if I may be allowed to say so, sir, it savors somewhat of espionage."

"Of course it does, man! Because that's exactly what it is," retorted Harkness impatiently. "And don't pretend you won't like doing it, you old hypocrite— because I know better."

"But, sir—" expostulated the butler.

"Listen, Rawlings," interrupted Harkness gravely. "I'm trying to save a man's life, and what I'm asking you to do is an essential part of my plan. Here's a pound for your expenses, and take care there's no change."

"In that case, sir," said Rawlings, picking up the note and speaking more cheerfully, "in the cause of humanity, I shall be only too glad to carry out your instructions."

Harkness did not return to his flat until a little past midnight.

Rawlings, rather flushed, was asleep in the entrance lounge, but struggled to his feet upon his master's appearance.

"Rawlings, I'm afraid you've been drinking," said the Professor, a glint of amusement in his keen grey eyes.

"Quite so, sir," admitted the man, a trifle thickly, taking his master's coat and hat.

"Come into the study, and tell me " all about it," said the latter, leading the way.

"You can sit down," he added, seeing that the butler was inclined to sway as he stood before the writing table.

Rawlings dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

"I handed your letter to the lady in person," he began. "She stated there was no reply."

"Was she alone?"

"So far as I know, sir. It's a service flat. The lady opened the door herself, and I saw no sign of a maid."

"Did you notice anything particular?"

"Only that there was some luggage in the hall, sir. A lady's dressing case and a suit case. Also I thought she seemed a little agitated, sir."

"What gave you that impression?"

"The way she tore your letter open, sir."

"Anything else?''

"No, sir. So I retired and renewed my acquaintance with the house-keeper, with whom I'd passed the time of day on my way up.

"I found him an agreeable personnot too well read, sir, but intelligent for a man of his class. So I invited him to join me in a glass."

"And what did his talk amount to?" demanded the Professor.

"Nothing to the discredit of the parties, so far as I could judge, sir."

"No male visitors during the husband's absence, eh?"

"Oh, no, sir; he didn't breathe a word of scandal. Certainly, he did say that Mr. Carstairs sometimes came home rather fresh. But as he was well on the way to the same condition himself when he made the accusation, I took it for what it was worth."

"No mention of quarrels?"

"No, sir. He seemed to think highly of the lady, but remarked that she hadn't seemed quite herself the last two or three weeks— more especially since he'd found two rather queerly addressed envelopes in the general box and taken them up to the flat."

" 'Not the sort of letters you'd expect a gent to receive,' he said.

" 'How do you know?' I asked. 'You didn't steam them open, did you?'

"Then he asked me what I thought he was, and explained that he'd referred to the outsides— the envelopes.

" 'If ever I've seen blackmailing letters,' he said, 'it was them two. Disguised 'andwritin'— like a kid trying to print,' he said. 'And no stamp on 'em.'

"That was the point that seemed to annoy him most, sir. Cheating the revenue, he said it was, and remarked that he'd like to catch the bloke what shoved them in the letter-box. I'm giving you his language, sir. I shouldn't like you to think that I..."

"Not for a moment," Harkness assured him. "But are you quite sure he referred to only two of such letters?"

"That I'll swear, sir. He was emphatic on that point. Not that I questioned him about it, not seeing any significance in the number.

" 'Since them two letters come addressed to her old pot-an'-pan,' he said, sir, 'she some'ow ain't bin the same woman. Not by a long chalk.'

"Of course, I gathered what he meant, sir. Then he went on to say that, anyhow, she keeps up her bridge do's— meaning parties, I presume, sir."

"Ah; bridge parties," repeated Harkness.

"Yes, sir. Three afternoons per week. And a nice lot of old hens she has there, he said. Hard-faced Janes was another of his phrases, sir. Moreover, he expressed the view that, judging by their clocks, they'd tear out the teeth of a dead corpse for the sake of the gold stopping. But not having seen the ladies, sir, I'm unable to confirm his opinion."

"I think you've done remarkably well, Rawlings," said Harkness, hiding a smile. "And now you'd better go to bed— unless you can recall anything else of importance?"

"Well, sir, I should like to say, in justice to myself, that I beat him at darts, sir!"

"Good man!" cried Harkness, rising. "Now, off you go. Good night."

"Good night, sir," returned Rawlings, slightly marring the dignity of his exit by tripping over a corner of the rug.

THE following morning Harkness rang up Carstairs at the latter's office in the city.

"Any further developments?" asked the Professor.

"No," came the reply; "except that my wife, feeling unable to stand the suspense any longer, took it into her head last night to go down to stay with friends who have a place in Sussex. I hope it'll do her good. She's been looking a bit peaky lately."

"Quite," agreed Harkness. "Rather a sudden decision, wasn't it?"

"Well, it was— rather. But she's a bit temperamental, you see; although, mind you, she's the best little woman in the world."

"Of course," returned Harkness. "But what about yourself? You'll surely not be staying at the flat alone?"

"Rather not! She made me promise to put up at an hotel in town while she's away, so I agreed. I've booked a room at the Royant. You can get me there any evening, if you want to. I suppose you've nothing to tell me?"

"Not yet," replied the Professor. "Probably, a little later on, I shall have some surprising information for you. Meanwhile, I mustn't detain you. You'll let me know if you change your plans—decide to go out of town, or anything—won't you?"

"Of course. But I'm not likely to do that. Good-bye, Professor."

ALTHOUGH he had formed a very definite theory as regards the anonymous letters, and took a serious view of their menaces, it was, after all, no more than a theory.

Besides, he was under the additional handicap of being an unofficial investigator, barred, on that account, from taking certain precautionary steps that his suspicions warranted, but the lack of tangible evidence forbade.

Towards evening, however, he was stirred into activity. There came a ring from Carstairs.

"That you, Professor?"

The voice sounded cheerful but a little excited.

"I've had a ring from the wife. She's begged me to go down to her, to-night. Says she can't stand the suspense any longer. Hates to think of me alone in town.

"I rather demurred, don't you know; but she said that's the only way she can assure herself of my safety. So, as she seemed in rather a ghastly state of nerves, I promised. I shall be leaving town immediately after dinner."

"I see," replied Harkness. "What time will that be?"

"Oh, nine-ish, I should say. It's barely a couple of hours' run in the car."

"So you're motoring down?"

"Yes; Dorothy's asked me to use the sports car. She thinks she might run up with me to-morrow, and prefers the open bus."

"You've no objection to giving me your address?" said Harkness. "One never knows— I might want to get in touch with you before to-morrow morning. Is there a phone in the house you're going to?"

"Yes ; Pulborough double- seven double-seven. The people are distant cousins of my wife. The Marchmonts. Quite a nice crowd."

"I know the Pulborough neighborhood fairly well," said Harkness. "Charming district. What did you say was the name of the house?"

"The Beech Knoll. It's close to Fittleworth. You know the old inn there, I dare say."

"Rather!" returned Harkness with enthusiasm. "I've fished near by. Well, a safe and pleasant run."

"Thanks. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye," repeated Harkness as he hung up the receiver. Then he folded and slipped into his pocket the sheet of paper on which, during the conversation, he had jotted down a few notes, and rang for Rawlings.

"Look up the trains for Pulborough," he said, glancing at his watch. It said six o'clock.

PROFESSOR Harkness alighted at Pulborough Station within a few minutes of half-past nine.

It is doubtful whether his most intimate friend would have recognised him, because this was one of the very rare occasions on which he had resorted to disguise.

An ancient suit of shabby, baggy tweeds hung loosely on his spare frame; one of his old golfing caps covered his head; and his chin was partly concealed by a short, iron-grey beard.

It was a cloudless summer's evening, and, thanks to daylight saving, was comparatively light. The sun had set only an hour before, and the west was still flushed with its dying glow.

The Professor made his way to the inn outside the station and regaled himself with a pint of ale and a crust of bread and cheese.

At ten o'clock, when the house closed, he left the inn, passed under the railway bridge, and took the westward road to Fittleworth.

He calculated that Carstairs was by now about an hour on his wayprobably approaching Horsham. He assumed that the stockbroker would follow the Billingshurst and Pulborough route, and turn into the road he was then traversing at about eleven o'clock.

Concluding, therefore, that he had about an hour at his disposal, he threw his shoulders back, lengthened his stride and swung easily on his way to Fittleworth.

Rather less than an hour's brisk walking brought him to the centre of the village.

By this time darkness had fallen. There was no moon and only a few dim lights showed in the upper windows of the cottages he passed. But stars shone brightly in the deep purple sky, affording light enough for the purpose he had in view.

Shortly after passing the church, he turned up a narrow, sandy lane, and came presently to a pair of white carriage gates. Looking closely, he was able to make out the name painted on the top bars. It was Beech Knoll.

A drive wound between trees to the house he could see standing beyond a lawn, about fifty yards from the road.

The lower windows were brightly lighted, and now and again he saw passing figures silhouetted against the glare. The music of a gramophone or radio floated out on the still night air, but otherwise complete silence brooded over the spot.

Satisfied with what he had seen, Harkness was about to turn and retrace his steps to the main road, intending to await, on the corner, the stockbroker's arrival, when he heard the sound of voices approaching from the house.

He stepped quickly into the dense shadow of the hedge in which the gates were set. A moment or two later the figures of a man and a woman reached and stood by the gate.

"I can't understand you, Dolly," said a man's pleasing tenor voice. "Why on earth did you ask him to come down? We've few enough chances of being alone as it is; and yet, as soon as we've an opportunity of being on our own, you spoil it. It makes me wonder whether you really do love me."

"You silly boy!" replied the woman whose voice Harkness instantly recognised. "That's exactly why I have sent for him— because I love you more than anything on earth, more than life itself, more than my own immortal soul!"

"Darling!" exclaimed the man. "I believe you, with my whole heart. But, even then, I can't make out why you should have asked him to come down to-night— of all nights."

"It was a gesture— call it a discreet move, if you like. But something tells me he'll not come."

"But you told me he said he would!"

"I know. But I've a feeling that something may happen to prevent him."

"But surely he'd have phoned if he'd changed his mind?"

"Oh, I don't know," returned the woman lightly. "You know what some men are. But come, let's go in, Mostyn. I feef a little shivery."

WITHOUT further speech, the pair turned from the gate, and Harkness, peering over the hedge, watched them for a moment as they sauntered towards the house.

Then he swung away from the hedge and hurried at his fastest down the lane.

"You fool!" he muttered to himself. "You utter fool!"

It was three o'clock the following morning before Harkness got back to his flat.

With some difficulty, he had finally succeeded in hiring a car at Pulborough to bring him up to town. He had dozed a little on the way, but was glad to get to bed and sleep soundly until Rawlings, entering with the tea, aroused him at eight o'clock.

At nine, the Professor passed into his study, and a few minutes later there came a ring on the phone.

"That you, Professor? Detective Inspector Garton speaking."

"Good morning, Garton. What's biting you so early?"

"I'm on a queer case. A man found dead in his flat by the janitor early this morning."

"Murder?" asked Harkness.

"That's what I'd like to know," returned the detective. "I'm on the spot now. P'raps you'd like to run over?"

"What address?"

"Munster Gardens."

"Munster Gardens!" repeated Harkness slowly. Then he spoke eagerly, urgently. "Is it No. 1040?"

"How the devil did you know?" came Garton's astonished voice.

"Never mind that— just now. I'm coming over— at once."

Harkness hung up, and in five minutes was speeding across the Park in a taxi.

A uniformed constable stood in the entrance of the block of flats where the Carstairs had their suite.

Harkness raced up the stairs to the second floor. On the landing, two plain clothes men appeared to be guarding a door.

"PROFESSOR HARKNESS?" asked one, as the scientist approached.

Harkness nodded.

"Inspector Garton's expecting you, sir," said the man, opening the door.

Detective-Inspector Garton, who, with his hands clasped behind his back, stood gazing out of the window opening on to the well of the building, swung round as Harkness entered.

"Ah, Professor!" he cried, stepping forward. "First of all, I want to know how you knew this address."

"That can wait. Garton," replied Harkness gravely. "This I fear, is a man named Carstairs."

Garton stared at the scientist with wide eyes and open mouth.

"Don't talk," added Harkness. "Let me get my own impressions first."

He dropped on one knee and gently uncovered the head of the dead man.

The face was distorted and discolored. Stamped upon it there was an expression of mingled anger, agony and fear.

Down the centre of the forehead, from where the hair started to within an inch of the top of the nose, was a deep scratch.

Harkness took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined the mark.

With a slight shudder, the scientist drew the rug over the dead man again and rose to his feet.

Silencing Garton with a gesture, he stood beside the corpse and looked slowly round the hall.

On a chair stood a suitcase. Beside it lay a pair of pigskin gloves. Over the back of the chair hung a leather motoring coat.

"He was either going or coming, from the looks of it," observed Garton, who had followed the direction of the Professor's gaze.

Harkness made no reply, but allowed his glance to wander here and there about the room. Then he stepped across to the fireplace, in front of which stood a Japanese screen.

In the hearth lay a tweed cap, of similar material to that of the suit of plus-fours the dead man was wearing.

Reaching down, Harkness very carefully picked up the cap with his gloved right hand. As he did so, there came a faint rattle on the tiles of the hearth.

Pushing the screen aside, he sank to his knees and searched around. Then, with a smothered exclamation, he drew the handkerchief from his breast pocket, dropped it over a small object, and transferred the two to his pocket.

"Have a look at that cap," he said, rising, "while I look round."

The detective took the article, smelled it, turned it inside out, read the maker's name, and then, holding it well away from him, appeared to admire its shape.

"A nice cap," he threw over his shoulder at Harkness, who was examining a glass specimen case fixed to the wall beside the fireplace.

The Professor turned, and walked over to the detective.

"The cap of death," he said, taking the article from the puzzled officer's hand.

"Now, I'd like to help you in the case, Garton," he smiled; "but if you want me to assist you. I must do so in my own way."

"Well, I don't mind admitting it's paid me in the past." laughed the detective.

"So it will in the present," Harkness assured him. "I don't wish to interfere in the routine work. Let that go on as usual.

"But I want you to get in touch, by phone, with the dead man's wife. She's staying at a house called Beech Knoll, Fittleworth, near Pulborough."

"We should have to do that in any case," returned Garton, with an official air.

"I know," agreed Harkness. "But do it now. There's the phone. It's a toll call. Pulborough double- seven-double- seven."

Garton picked up the receiver, dialled for tolls and gave the number.

"Can I Speak to Mrs. Carstairs?" he asked, after waiting a few moments.

"Right!"

"They're calling her," he whispered aside to Harkness.

"That Mrs. Carstairs?... Good. This is Detective-Inspector Garton, of Scotland Yard. I'm sorry to say your husband's met with a very serious accident..."

"Let me take the phone now," whispered Harkness, elbowing Garton aside.

"Mrs. Carstairs, this is Professor Harkness speaking also. Yes, it's more serious than the inspector has told you.

"Now, it's imperative that you should come up to town to-day. Can you do that?...No; not to your flat, or to Scotland Yard, but to my place. .

"Why? Oh, I think it will be more convenient for all concerned. Can you arrange to arrive at eight o'clock?... Very well.

"Er— there's Just one other suggestion. Persuade Mr. Mostyn Marchmont to accompany you, if you can.

"You don't understand? Well, I can't very well explain over the phone. But I strongly advise it... In his interests. That's right. Yes; eight o'clock precisely. Straight to my flat, please. The police are at yours. Good-bye."

"Who the devil"s Mr. Mostyn Marchmont?" demanded Garton as Harkness hung up.

"You'll know— this evening Now, I must be off. You'd better arrive at ten to eight at my place, with a couple of men— in case of need. Good-bye for the present."

AT EIGHT o'clock to the minute the same evening Rawlings entered the study to announce Mrs. Carstairs and Mr. Marchmont.

Harkness rose, but did not advance to greet his visitors.

"I'm glad you're punctual, Mrs. Carstairs," he said. "Please sit down."

Then he turned to the man.

"We've not met before, Mr Marchmont; but, knowing the deep interest you take in this lady, I thought it advisable for you to be present at this consultation."

The young man— for he looked barely thirty— flushed at the Professor's words, and seemed for a moment at a loss.

"Rawlings, request Detective-Inspector Garton to step this way," said Harkness.

Mrs Carstairs, looking pale and strained, moved uneasily.

"Professor Harkness," she said in her low voice, "I'm naturally terribly anxious to know what has happened to my husband...."

"Your husband, Mrs. Carstairs," replied Harkness impressively, "is dead."

At that moment Inspector Garton entered the room, bowed to the visitors, and took a seat near the door.

Marchmont had started violently at the Professor's words, and looked from him to the woman, as though astonished.

Mrs. Carstairs pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and then looked across at Harkness.

"Since the receipt of those wretched threatening letters I've been more or less prepared for this, as you'll understand, Professor. Yet, I feel almost too stunned for emotion. How I wish he'd gone to Scotland Yard as I begged of him!"

Harkness merely glanced at her. Then he opened a drawer and took from it the three letters to which she had referred.

"For the information of Inspector Garton, and for your enlightement, Mr. Marchmont, I will briefly relate the tragic story of Mr. Carstairs' untimely death," began Harkness, looking from one to the other of his auditors.

"A few days ago," he went on. "Mrs. Carstairs called upon me. She was a stranger, but had heard of certain successes I have had in the detection of crime.

"She informed me that her husband had received three anonymous letters, threatening his life. I have them here."

Harkness held up the three envelopes and replaced them on his desk.

"These letters, she stated, had been delivered by some mysterious hand at the block of flats where she resided with her husband, and had been brought up to their suite, with others, ordinary correspondence, by the housekeeper.

"The problem she presented to me was twofold: first, to discover the identity of the writer of the letters, and, second, to guard her husband against the danger that threatened him."

Harkness paused, and looked directly at Mrs. Carstairs. Then he went on again, speaking slowly and impressively.

"The first part of the problem I have solved. In the second, I have unfortunately failed. The criminal was too ingenious for me. Consequently, a fine gentleman, in the prime of life, has been done to death by a ruthless assassin."

Again Harkness paused, and his three auditors moved uneasily.

"Mrs. Carstairs and I," resumed the Professor, "discussed the probable sex of the writer of the letters. At the time, I was in doubt. Now I know. It was a woman "

Mrs. Carstairs flushed.

"Ah!" she said hoarsely; "then my suspicions were justified. He'd had an affaire when he was abroad— more serious than..."

"Please do not interrupt, Mrs. Carstairs," said Harkness sternly. "I have a good deal more to say.

"The sex of the writer of the letters was betrayed by traces of lip rouge on the gum of the envelope flaps. Chemical analysis has proved that.

"Of course, I do not exclude the possibility of there having been two in the conspiracy— a man and a woman— and that the woman may have sealed up the letters the man wrote. But, for certain reasons, I am perfectly satisfied that the murderess acted secretly, and alone."

Harkness had been watching Marchmont as he spoke, and saw him steal a furtive glance at the woman seated beside him.

"Now, it may seem strange to you, but only two of the letters were delivered in the manner described by Mrs. Carstairs. The third was introduced into the flat by some other method.

"My opinion is, that the writer herself placed the third letter among the general correspondence on the day it was received and opened by the dead man.

"Three is often credited with being a fortunate number. In this instance, however, it proved unlucky.

"I am fully aware of the extreme gravity of the charge I am about to make. Nevertheless, I say with absolute conviction that the woman who wrote and effected the delivery of the letters was— Mrs. Carstairs!"

With an incoherent exclamation, the widow sprang to ner feet.

"How dare you suggest such a thing?" she said hoarsely. "You lie! You must be a madman— or a fool. I'll hold you to account for your vile accusation. You shall hear from my solicitors. Come, Mostyn," she went on in a broken voice, turning to Marchmont, "take me away, please."

"I'm afraid you can't leave— just yet— ma'am," said Garton. "Not until Professor Harkness has completed his statement."

"What is this?" demanded the woman. "Am I under arrest? If so, where is your warrant? I demand to see it!"

"All in good time, ma'am," replied Garton. "You'd best sit down quietly."

With an expression on his face difficult to analyse, Marchmont drew his chair a few inches farther from the woman's, and sat down again slowly.

"Mrs. Carstairs came to me," resumed Harkness, after a few moments of painful silence, "to establish a sort of alibi for the crime she contemplated. She desired to be free of her husband. She had formed another attachment. Her affections were engaged elsewhere.

"She did not desire divorce, because that would have deprived her of the comfortable fortune she knew her husband intended to leave her. So she decided on murder, whereby she would be able to gratify both her passion and her greed."

Mrs. Carstairs looked up at the Professor for an instant with a face which terror had already made ghastly. Then, with a shudder, she resumed her former attitude.

"The weapon chosen by the murderess was this."

As he spoke, Harkness took from an open drawer at his side a small, dark, narrow object about an inch and a half long, and held it up between his fingers.

"This," he said, "is a poisoned arrow-head. It was taken from a specimen case in the flat and removed from its shaft. It is charged with poison of the deadliest description, capable of inflicting a horrible and agonising death in a few minutes. It is one of several similar objects which I presume Mr. Carstairs brought home with him among other curiosities from the East.

"Before Mrs. Carstairs left the flat to stay with her friends in Sussex, she very ingeniously fixed the poisoned barb in the peak of her husband's golfing cap, so that it was concealed between the stiffening of the peak and the cloth covering the under-part.

"Then her business was to make certain that her husband would wear that particular head covering.

"She had not been married for five years without becoming acquainted with his habits in regard to dress.

"Having persuaded him to put up at an hotel during her absence, she later, pleading anxiety for his safety, urged him to join her for the night down in Sussex— insisting on his motoring down in their open sports car.

"For what reason? She knew he would go back to the flat, change into plus-fours, and select the poisoned cap to wear on the journey.

"Everything turned out exactly as she desired. Her doomed husband did return to the flat. He did change into plus-fours.

"And then, when his bag was packed, his motoring coat and gloves lying ready on the chair, he pulled on the fatal cap.

"He pulled it down firmly by the peak— as she well knew was his habit. As he did so, the keen point of the deadly arrowhead inflicted a deep scratch on his forehead.

"Wondering, hurt, and perhaps enraged, he snatched that cap of death from his head and flung it violently from him. It fell on the hearth. It was there that I found it— together with this, the most foully murderous weapon on earth."

Harkness paused, and placed the arrowhead carefully on the table before him. Only the sound of his listeners' heavy breathing could be heard. Mrs. Carstairs, with her face still hidden, now sat rigidly erect.

"Within five minutes, but after intolerable agony, Carstairs was dead," concluded Harkness.

Then he stood up and, pointing an accusing finger, said loudly:

"I charge that woman with the murder of her husband!"

At his words, Mrs. Carstairs uncovered her bloodless face and rose slowly to her feet.

Stepping quietly towards Harkness, with her hands hanging loosely at her sides, she looked at him steadily— almost defiantly.

"You've been too clever for me," she said clearly. "I was a fool to come to you. I should have gone to Scotland Yard. But they'll never hang me— never!"

Her voice rose to a shriek and, with a sudden spring, she snatched up the poisoned arrowhead and stabbed it fiercely into her neck.

Then, before anyone could reach her, she flung the weapon violently across the room, and fell to the floor.

"Got an antidote, Professor?" shouted Garton, dashing forward and stooping over the woman.

"No," replied Harkness firmly. "Nor, if I had, should she have it," he added, but so quietly as to be unheard.

_______________

16: Faith, Hope And Charity

Irvin S. Cobb

1876-1944

Cosmopolitan April 1930

JUST OUTSIDE a sizable New Mexico town the second section of the fast through train coming from the Coast made a short halt.

Entering the stretch leading to the yards, the engineer had found the signal set against him; the track ahead was temporarily blocked. It was a small delay though. Almost at once the semaphore, like the finger of a mechanical wizard, made the warning red light vanish and a green light appear instead; so, at that, the Limited got under way and rolled on into the station for her regular stop.

But before she started up, four travelers quitted her. They got out on the off side, the side farthest away from the town, and that probably explains why none of the crew and none of the other passengers saw them getting out. It helps also to explain why they were not missed until quite some time later.

Their manner of leaving her was decidedly unusual. First, one of the vestibule doors between the third sleeping car and the fourth sleeping car opened and the trap in the floor flipped up briskly under the pressure of an impatient foot on the operating lever. A brace of the departing ones came swiftly into view, one behind the other. True, there was nothing unusual about that. But as they stepped down on the earth they faced about and received the figure of a third person whose limbs dangled and whose head lolled back as they took the dead weight of him into their arms. Next there emerged the fourth and last member of the group, he being the one who had eased the limp figure of Number Three down the car steps into the grasp of his associates.

For a fractional space their shapes made a little huddle in the lee of the vestibule. Looking on, you might have guessed that there was a momentary period of indecision touching on the next step to be taken.

However, this muddle— if that was what it was— right away straightened itself out. Acting with movements which seemed dif- ficult and awkward, the two burden bearers carried their unconscious load down the short embankment and deposited it on the cindery underfooting close against the flank of the slightly built-up right of way.

Number Four bent over the sprawled form and fumbled at it, shoving his hands into first one pocket and then another. In half a minute or less he straightened up and spoke to the remaining pair, at the same time using both hands to shove some article inside the vent of his waistcoat.

"I have got them," he said, speaking with a foreign accent. They pressed toward him, their hands extended.

"Not here and not yet, Señores," he said sharply. "First we make sure of the rest. First you do, please, as I do."

Thereupon he hopped nimbly up the shoulder of the roadbed and headed toward the rear of the halted train, slinking well in under the overhang of the Pullmans. His mates obeyed his example. They kept on until they had passed the tail coach, which was a combination coach, and then they stepped inward between the rails, still maintaining their single-file formation. Immediately the dusk swallowed them up.

There was something peculiar about the way each one of these three plodding pedestrians bore himself. The peculiarity was this: He bore himself like a person engaged in prayer— in a silent perambulating act of piety. His head was tucked in, his face turning neither to the right nor left; his eyes were set steadfastly forward as though upon some invisible goal, his hands clasped primly together in front of him.

Thus and so the marching three plodded on until the train, having got in motion, was out of sight beyond a curve in the approach to the station. Then they checked and came together in a clump, and then, had you been there, you would have understood the reason for their devotional pose. All three of them were wearing hand-cuffs.

The man who had spoken before unpalmed a key ring which he was carrying. Working swiftly even in the half-darkness, he made tests of the keys on the ring until he found the proper keys. He freed the wrists of his two fellows. Then one of them took the keys and unlocked his set of bracelets for him.

He, it would seem, was the most forethoughted of the trio. With his heel he kicked shallow gouges in the gritty soil beside the track and buried the handcuffs therein.

After that they briefly confabbed together, and the upshot of the confab was that, having matched for the possession of some object evidently held to be of great value, they separated forces. One man set off alone on a detour to the southeast, which would carry him around the town. His late companions kept on in a general westerly direction, heading toward the desert which all that day they had been traversing. They footed it fast, as men might foot it who were fleeing for their lives and yet must conserve their strength. As a matter of fact, they were fleeing for their lives. So likewise the one from whom they had just parted was fleeing for his life.

It was partly by chance that these three had been making the transcontinental journey in company. Two of them, Lafitte the Frenchman, and Verdi the Italian who had Anglicized his name and called himself Green, met while lying in jail at San Francisco awaiting deportation to their respective countries. Within a space of a month each had been arrested as a refugee from justice; the formalities for extraditing the pair of them were swiftly completed.

So, to save trouble and expense; to kill, as it were, two birds with one stone, the authorities decided to send them together across to the eastern seaboard where, according to arrangements made by cable, they would be surrendered to police representatives coming from abroad to receive them and transport them back overseas. For the long trip to New York a couple of city detectives had them in custody.

When the train bearing the officers and their charges reached a junction in lower California where the main line connected with a branch line running south to the Mexican border, there came aboard a special agent of the Department of Justice who had with him a prisoner.

This prisoner was one Manuel Gaza, a Spaniard. He also recently had been captured and identified; and he also was destined for return to his own land. It was not by prior agreement that he had been retransferred at this junction point to the same train which carried the Italian and the Frenchman. It just happened so. It having happened so, the man who had Gaza in tow lost no time in getting acquainted with his San Francisco brethren. For a number of reasons it seemed expedient to all the officers that from here on they should travel as a unit. Accordingly the special agent talked with the Pullman conductor and exchanged the reservations he previously had booked for a compartment adjoining the drawing-room in which the four from the city were riding.

It was on a Friday afternoon that the parries united. Friday evening, at the first call for dinner, the three officers herded their three prisoners forward to the dining car, the passage of the sextet through the aisles causing some small commotion. Their advent into the diner created another little sensation.

Since it was difficult for the handcuffed aliens to handle knife and fork, they were given such food as might readily be eaten with a spoon or with the fingers— soups and omelets and soft vegetables and pie or rice pudding. The detectives ate fish. They shared be- tween them a double order of imported kippers.

Presumably they were the only persons on the train who that day had chosen the kippered herrings. Shortly, the special agent was giving private thanks that his church prescribed no dietetic regulations for Friday, because within an hour or two after leaving the table, the San Francisco men were suffering from violent cramps— ptomaine poison had them helpless.

One seemed to be dangerously ill. That night near the border between California and Arizona he was taken off the train and carried to a hospital. During the wait at the station, a local physician dosed the second and lesser sufferer, whose name was McAvoy, and when he had been somewhat relieved, the doctor gave him a shot of something in the arm and said he ought to be up and about within twenty-four hours.

Through the night McAvoy slept in the lower berth of the compartment and the special agent sat up, with the communicating door open, to guard the aliens, who were bedded in the so-called drawing-room.

Their irons stayed on their wrists; their lone warden was accepting no foolish odds against himself. He had taken the precaution to transfer the keys of the Frenchman's handcuffs and the Italian's handcuffs from McAvoy's keeping to his own, slipping them on his key ring, but this had been done in case McAvoy should become seriously ill en route and it should devolve upon him to make a lap of the journey single-handed.

Next morning McAvoy was much easier but he felt weak, he said, and drowsy. Given a full twelve hours of rest, though, he thought he would be able to go on guard when the nightfall came. So he lay in his berth, and the special agent occupied an end of the drawing-room sofa. The trapped fugitives sat smoking cigarettes, and when the officer was not too near, talking among themselves. Mainly they talked in English, a language which Gaza the Spaniard and Lafitte the Frenchman spoke fairly well. Verdi or Green, as the case might be, had little English at his command, but Gaza, who had spent three years in Naples, spoke Italian; and so when Verdi used his own tongue, Gaza could interpret for the Frenchman's benefit. They were allowed to quit the drawing-room only for meals.

When dinner hour came on that second evening of their trip, McAvoy was in a doze. So the Department of Justice man did not disturb him.

"Come on, boys," he said to the three aliens; "time to eat again."

He lined them up in front of him in the corridor and they started the regular processional. It was just at that moment that the train broke its rhythmic refrain and began to clack and creak and slow for that unscheduled stop outside that New Mexico town. By the time they had reached the second car on ahead, she'd almost stopped and was lurching and jerking.

In the vestibule beyond that second car the special agent was in the act of stepping across the iron floor lip of the connection when a particularly brisk joggle caused him to lose his hat. He gave a small exclamation and bent to recover it. Doing so, he jostled Gaza, the third man in the line and therefore the next to him. The agile Spaniard was quick to seize his chance. He half turned, and bringing his chained wrists aloft, sent them down with all his might on the poll of the officer's unprotected skull. The victim of the assault never made a sound— just spraddled on his face and was dead to the world.

No outsider had been witness to the assault. No outsider came along during the few seconds which were required by the late prisoners to open an off-side car door and make their escape after the fashion which already has been described for you. Nobody missed them— for quite a while nobody did.

It wasn't until nearly nine o'clock, when McAvoy had roused up and rung for the porter and begun to ask questions, that a search was made and an alarm raised.

Penned up together through that day, the aliens had matched stories, one story against another. A common plight made them communicative; a common peril caused each to turn with morbid reiteration to his own fatal predicament.

Said the Frenchman to the Spaniard: "He"— indicating his recent cellmate, the Italian— "he knows how with me it stands. With him, I have talked. He speaks not so well the English but sometimes he understands it. Now you shall hear and judge for yourself how bad my situation is."

Graphically, this criminal sketched his past. He had been a Marseilles dock hand. He had killed a woman. She deserved killing, so he killed her. He had been caught, tried, convicted, condemned. While lying in prison, with execution day only a few weeks distant, he had made a getaway.

In disguise he had reached America and here had stayed three years. Then another woman, in a fit of jealousy, betrayed him to the police. He had been living with that woman; to her he had given his confidence. It would appear that women had been his un-doing.

"Me, I am as good as dead already. And what a death!" A spasm of shuddering possessed him. "For me the guillotine is waiting. The devil invented it. It is so they go at you with that machine: They strap you flat upon a board. Face downward you are, but you can look up, you can see— that is the worst part. They fit your throat into a grooved shutter; they make it fast. You bring your head back; your eyes are drawn upward, fascinated. Above you, waiting, ready, poised, your eyes see the— the knife."

"But only for a moment do you see it, my friend," said the Spaniard, in the tone of one offering comfort. "Only a moment and then— pouff— all over!"

"A moment! I tell you it is an eternity. It must be an eternity. Lying there, you must live a hundred lives, you must die a hundred deaths. And then to have your head taken off your body, to be all at once in two pieces. Me, I am not afraid of most deaths. But that death by the guillotine— ah-h!"

The Spaniard bent forward. He was sitting alone facing the other two, who shared a seat.

"Listen, Senor," he stated. "Compared with me, you are the lucky one. True, I have not yet been tried— before they could try me I fled away out of that accursed Spain of mine."

"Not tried, eh?" broke in the Frenchman. "Then you have yet a loophole— a chance for escape; and I have none. My trial, as I told you, is behind me."

"You do not know the Spanish courts. It is plain you do not, since you say that," declared the Spaniard. "Those courts— they are greedy for blood. With them, to my kind, there is not mercy; there is only punishment.

"And such a punishment! Wait until you hear. To me when they get me before them they will say: 'The proof is clear against you; the evidence has been thus and so. You are adjudged guilty. You took a life, so your life must be taken. It is the law.'

"Perhaps I say: 'Yes, but that life I took swiftly and in passion and for cause. For that one the end came in an instant, without pain, without lingering, yes, without warning. Since I must pay for it, why cannot I also be made to die very quickly without pain?'

"Will they listen? No, they send me to the garrote. To a great strong chair they tie you— your hands, your feet, your trunk. Your head is against a post, an upright. In that post is a collar— an iron band. They fit that collar about your neck. Then from behind you the executioner turns a screw.

"If he chooses he turns it slowly. The collar tightens, tightens, a knob presses into your spine. You begin to strangle. Oh, I have seen it myself! I know. You expire by inches! I am a brave man, Senores. When one's time comes, one dies. But oh, Senores, if it were any death but that! Better the guillotine than that! Better anything than that!"

He slumped back against the cushions, and rigors passed through him.

It was the Italian's turn. "I was tried in my absence," he explained to the Spaniard. "I was not even there to make my defense— I had thought it expedient to depart. Such is the custom of the courts in my country. They try you behind your back.

"They found me guilty, those judges. In Italy there is no capital punishment, so they sentenced me to life imprisonment. It is to that— that— I now return."

The Spaniard lifted his shoulders; the lifting was eloquent of his meaning.

"Not so fast," said the Italian. "You tell me you lived once in Italy. Have you forgotten what life imprisonment for certain acts means in Italy? It means solitary confinement. It means you are buried alive. They shut you away from everyone in a tight cell. It is a tomb, that is all. You see no one ever; you hear no voice ever. If you cry out, no one answers. Silence, darkness, darkness, silence, until you go mad or die.

"Can you picture what that means to one of my race, to an Italian who must have music, sunshine, talk with his fellows, sight of his fellows? It is in his nature— he must have these things or he is in torture, in constant and everlasting torment. Every hour becomes to him a year, every day a century, until his brain bursts asunder inside his skull.

"Oh, they knew— those fiends who devised this thing— what to an Italian is a million times worse than death— any death. I am the most unfortunate one of the three of us. My penalty is the most dreadful by far."

The others would not have it so. They argued the point with him and with each other all through the day, and twilight found their beliefs unshaken.

Then, under the Spaniard's leadership, came their deliverance out of captivity. It was he who, on the toss-up, won the revolver which they had taken from the person of the senseless special agent. Also it was he who suggested to the Italian that for the time being, at least, they stick together. To this the Italian had agreed, the Marseilles man, Lafitte, already having elected to go on his own.

After the latter, heading east by south, had left them, the Spaniard said reflectively:

"He is optimistic, that one, for all that he seemed so gloomy and downhearted today when speaking of that guillotine of his. He said he now had faith that he would yet dodge his fate. Five minutes after he is off that train he speaks of faith!"

"I cannot go quite so far," answered the Italian. "We are free, but for us there will be still a thousand dangers. So I have not much faith, but I have hope. And you, my friend?"

The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders. His shrug might mean yes or it might mean no. Perhaps he needed his breath. He was going at a jog-trot down the tracks, the Italian alongside him.

TAKE THE MAN who had faith. Set down as he was in a country utterly strange to him, this one of the fugitives nevertheless made steady progress. He got safely around and by the New Mexico town. He hid in the chaparral until daybreak, then took to a high- way running parallel with the railroad.

A "tin canner," which is what they were beginning to call an itinerant motor tourist in those parts, overtook him soon after sunup and gave him a lift to a small way station some forty miles down the line. There he boarded a local train— he had some money on him; not much money but enough— and undetected, he rode that train clear on through to its destination a hundred miles or so far- ther along.

Other local trains carried him across a corner of Colorado and clear across Kansas. Some forty-eight hours later, he was a guest in a third-rate hotel on a back street in Kansas City, Missouri. He stayed in that hotel for two days and two nights, biding most of the time in his room on the top floor of the six-story building, going down only for his meals and for newspapers. The food he had to have; the newspapers gave him information, of a sort, of the hunt for the three fugitives. It was repeatedly stated that all three were believed to be fleeing together. That cheered Lafitte very much. It strengthened his faith.

But on the morning of his third day in this cheap hotel, when he came out of his room and went down the hall to ring for the elevator— there was only one passenger elevator in this hotel— he saw something. Passing the head of the stairs, which ended approxi- mately midway of the stretch between the door of his room and the wattled iron door opening on the elevator well, he saw, out of the corner of one watchful eye, two men in civilian garb on the steps below him.

They had halted there. Whether they were coming up or going down there was no way of telling. It seemed to him that at sight of him they ducked slightly and made as if to flatten themselves back against the side wall.

He gave no sign of having seen them. He stilled an impulse to make a dash for it. Where was he to dash for, with the stairs cut off? He followed the only course open to him. Anyhow he told himself he might be wrong. Perhaps his nerves were misbehaving. Perhaps those two who seemed to be lurking just there behind him on those steps were not interested in him at all. He kept telling himself that, while he was ringing the bell, while he was waiting for the car to come up for him.

The car did come up and, for a wonder, promptly; an old-fashioned car, creaky, musty. Except for its shirt-sleeved attendant, it was empty. As Lafitte stepped in, he glanced sideways over his shoulder, making the movement casual— no sight of those two fellows.

He rode down, the only passenger for that trip, so there were no stops on the descent. They reached the ground floor, which was the office floor. The elevator came to a standstill, then moved up a foot or so, then jokingly down six inches or so, as the attendant, who was not expert, maneuvered to bring the sill of the car flush with the tiling of the lobby.

The delay was sufficiently prolonged for Lafitte to realize, all in a flash, he had not been wrong. Through the intervening grille of the shaft door he saw two more men who pressed close up to that door, who stared in at him, whose looks and poses were watchful, eager, prepared. Besides, Lafitte knew plainclothes men when he saw them.

Up above and here below, he was cut off. There still was a chance for him, a poor one but the only one. If he could shoot the elevator aloft quickly enough, check it at the third floor or the fourth, say, and hop out, he might make a successful dart for the fire escape at the rear of the hotel— provided the fire escape was not guarded. In the space of time that the elevator boy was jockeying the car, he thought of this, and having thought it, acted on it.

Swinging his fist from behind with all his might, he hit that hapless fellow on the point of the jaw and deposited him, stunned and temporarily helpless, on his knees in a corner of the cage. Lafitte grabbed the lever, shoved it over hard, and up the shaft shot the car. Before he could get control of it, being unfamiliar with such mechanisms and in a panic besides, it was at the top of the house.

But then he mastered it and made it reverse its course, and returning downward he pulled the lever, bringing it toward him. That was the proper notion, that gentler manipulation, for now the car, more obedient, was crawling abreast of the third-floor level. It crept earthward, inch by inch, and without bringing it to a dead stop he jerked up the latch of the collapsible safety gate, telescoped the metal outer door back into its folded-up self, and stooping low because the gap was diminishing, he lunged forward.

Now that elevator boy was a quick-witted, a high-tempered Irish boy. He might be half dazed but his instincts of belligerency were not asleep. He told afterward how, automatically and indignantly functioning, he grabbed at the departing assailant and caught him by one leg and for a fleeting moment, before the other kicked free, retarded him.

But by all that was good and holy he swore he did not touch the lever. Being down on all fours at the rear side of the slowly sinking car, how could he touch it? Why, just at that precise fraction of a second, the elevator should pick up full speed was a mystery to him— to everybody else, for that matter.

But pick up full speed it did. And the Irish boy cowered down and screamed an echo to a still louder scream than his, and hid his eyes from the sight of Lafitte, with his head outside and his body inside the elevator, being decapitated as completely and almost as neatly as though a great weighted knife had sheared him off at the neck.

TAKE THE Spaniard and the Italian: Steadily they traveled westward for nearly all of that night which followed their evacuation from the Limited. It put desirable distance between them and the spot where they had dumped the special agent down. Also it kept them warm. This was summertime but on the desert even summer nights are chilly and sometimes downright cold. Before dawn, they came on a freight train waiting on a siding. Its locomotive faced west. That suited their book.

They climbed nimbly aboard a flat and snuggled themselves down behind a barrier of farm implements. Here, breakfastless but otherwise comfortable, they rode until nearly midday. Then a brakeman found them. Harshly he ordered them to get out of there. Immediately though, looking at them where they squatted half hidden, his tone softened, and he told them he'd changed his mind about it and they could stay aboard as long as they pleased. On top of this, he hurried forward as though he might have important news for the engine crew or somebody.

They chose to get off. They had noted the quick start as of recognition which the brakeman had given. They figured— and figured rightly— that by now the chase for them was on and that their descriptions had been telegraphed back and forth along the line. The train was traveling at least twenty miles an hour, but as soon as the brakeman was out of sight, they jumped for it, tumbling like shot rabbits down the slope of the right of way and bringing up jarred and shaken in the dry ditch at the bottom.

Barring bruises and scratches, Green had taken no hurt, but Gaza landed with a badly sprained ankle. With Green to give him a helping arm, he hobbled away from the railroad. To get away from that railroad was their prime aim now. Choosing a course at random, they went north over the undulating waste lands and through the shimmering heat, toward a range of mottled high buttes rising on beyond.

It took them until deep into the afternoon to cover a matter roughly of five miles. By now, Gaza's lower left leg was elephantine in its proportions and every forced step he took meant a fresh stab of agony. He knew he could not go much farther. Green knew it too, and in his brain began shaping tentative plans. The law of self-preservation was one of the few laws for which he had respect. They panted from heat and from thirst and from weariness.

At the end of those five miles, having toiled laboriously up over a fold in the land, they saw close at hand, and almost directly below them, a 'dobe hut, and not quite so near at hand, a big flock of sheep. At the door of the cabin, a man in overalls was stripping the hide from a swollen dead cow.

Before they could dodge back below the sky line, he saw them and stood up expectantly. There was nothing for them to do except to go toward him. At their slow approach, an expression of curiosity crept over his brown face and stayed there. He looked like a Mexi- can or possibly a half-breed Indian.

When Gaza, stumbling nearer, hailed him in English, he merely shook his head dumbly. Then Gaza tried him in Spanish and to that he replied volubly. For minutes they palavered back and forth; then the stranger served them with deep draughts from a water bottle swinging in the doorway with a damp sack over it. The water was lukewarm and bitterish-tasting but it was grateful to their parched throats. Then he withdrew inside the little house and Gaza, for Green's benefit, translated into Italian what talk had passed.

"He says he is quite alone here, which is the better for us," explained the Spaniard, speaking swiftly. "He says that a week ago he came up from Old Mexico, seeking work. A gringo— a white man— gave him work. The white man is a sheepman. His home ranch is miles away. In a sheep wagon he brought this Mexican here and left him here in charge of that flock yonder, with provisions for a month.

"It will be three weeks then before the white man, his employer, comes again. Except for that white man he knows nobody hereabouts. Until we came just now, he had seen no one at all. So he is glad to see us."

"And accounting for ourselves you told him what?" asked Green.

"I told him we were traveling across country in a car and that going down a steepness last night the car overturned and was wrecked and I crippled myself. I told him that, traveling light because of my leg, we started out to find some town, some house, and that, hoping to make a short cut, we left the road, but that since morning and until we blundered upon this camp, we had been quite lost in this ugly country. He believes me. He is simple, that one, an ignorant, credulous peon.

"But kind-hearted, that also is plain. For proof of it observe this."

He pointed to the bloated, half-flayed carcass. "He says three days ago he found this beast— a stray from somewhere, he knows not where. So far as he knows there are no cattle droves in these parts— only sheep.

"She was sick, she staggered, she was dizzy and turned in circles as if blind, and froth ran from her mouth. There is a weed which does that to animals when they eat it, he says. So, hoping to make her well again, he put a scrap of rope on her horns and led her here. But last night she died. So to-day he has been peeling her. Now he goes to make ready some food for us. He is hospitable, also, that one.

"And when we have eaten, then what? We can't linger here."

"Wait, please, Senor. To my mind already an idea comes." His tone was authoritative, confident. "First we fill our empty stomachs to give us strength, and then we smoke a cigarette, and while we smoke, I think. And then— we see."

On frijoles and rancid bacon and thin corn cakes and bad coffee, which the herder brought them on tin platters and in tin cups, they did fill their empty stomachs. Then they smoked together, all three of them, smoking cigarettes rolled in corn-husk wrappers. The Mexican was hunkered on his heels, making smoke rings in the still, hot air when Gaza, getting on his feet with difficulty, limped toward the doorway, gesturing to show that he craved another swig from the water bottle. When he was behind the other two, almost touching them, he drew the special agent's pistol and fired once and their host tumbled forward on his face and spraddled his limbs and quivered a bit and was still, with a bullet hole in the back of his head.

This killing gave the Italian, seasoned killer as he was, a profound shock. It seemed so unnecessary, unless ? He started up, his features twitching, and backed away, fearing the next bullet would be for him.

"Remain tranquil, Senor," said the Spaniard, almost gayly. "For you, my comrade, there is no danger. There is for you hope of deliverance, you who professed last night to have hope in your soul.

"Now me, I have charity in my soul— charity for you, charity for myself, charity also for this one lying here. Behold, he is now out of his troubles. He was a dolt, a clod of the earth, a creature of no refinement. He lived a hermit's life, lonely, miserable. Now he has been dispatched to a better and a brighter world. That was but kindness." With his foot he touched the sprawled corpse.

"But in dispatching him I had thought also for you— for both of us. I elucidate: First we bury him under the dirt floor of this house, taking care to leave no telltale traces of our work. Then you make a pack for your back of the food that is here. You take also the water bottle, filled. Furthermore, you take with you this pistol.

"Then, stepping lightly on rocky ground or on hard ground so that you make no tracks, you go swiftly hence and hide yourself in those mountains until— who can tell?— until those who will come presently here have ceased to search for you. With me along, lamed as I am, me to hamper you, there would be no chance for either of us. But you, going alone— you armed, provisioned, quick of foot— you have a hope."

"But— but you ? What then becomes of you ?— You— you sacrifice yourself?" In his bewilderment the Italian stammered.

"Me, I stay here to greet the pursuers. It is quite simple. In peaceful solitude I await their coming. It cannot be long until they come. That man of the freight train will be guiding them back to pick up our trail. By tonight at latest I expect them."

At sight of the Italian's mystified face he broke now into a laugh.

"Still you are puzzled, eh? You think that I am magnanimous, that I am generous? Well, all that I am. But you think me also a fool and there you err. I save you perhaps but likewise perhaps I save myself. Observe, Senor."

He stooped and lifted the dead face of his victim. "See now what I myself saw the moment I beheld this herder of ours: This man is much my shape, my height, my coloring. He spoke a corrupt Spanish such as I can speak. Put upon me the clothes which he wears, and remove from my lip this mustache which I wear, and I would pass for him even before the very eyes of that white man who hired him.

"Well, very soon I shall be wearing his clothes, my own being hidden in the same grave with him. Within ten minutes I shall be removing this mustache. He being newly shaven, as you see for yourself, it must be that in this hovel we will find a razor. I shall pass for him. I shall be this mongrel dull wit."

A light broke on the Italian. He ran and kissed the Spaniard, on both cheeks and on the mouth.

"Ah, my brother!" he cried out delightedly. "Forgive me that for a moment I thought you hard-hearted for having in seeming wantonness killed the man who fed us. I see you are brilliant— a great thinker, a great genius. But, my beloved"— and here doubt once more assailed him— "what explanation do you make when they do come?"

"That is the best of all," said Gaza. "Before you leave me you take a cord and you bind me most securely— my hands crossed behind my back— so; my feet fastened together— so. It will not be for very long that I remain so. I can endure it. Coming then, they find me thus. That I am bound makes more convincing the tale I shall tell them.

"And this is the tale that I shall tell: To them I shall say that as I sat under this shelter skinning my dead cow, there appeared suddenly two men who fell upon me without warning; that in the struggle they hurt my poor leg most grievously, then, having choked me into quietude, they tied my limbs, despoiled me of my provender and hurriedly departed, leaving me helpless. I shall describe these two brutal men— oh, most minutely I shall describe them. And my description will be accurate, for you I shall be describing as you stand now; myself I shall describe as I now am.

"The man from the train will say: 'Yes, yes, that is true; those are surely the two I saw.' He will believe me at once; that will held. Then they will inquire to know in which direction fled this pair of scoundrels and I will tell them they went that way yonder to the south across the desert, and they will set off in that direction, seeking two who flee together, when all the while you will be gone north into those mountains which will shelter you. And that, Senor, will be a rich part of the whole joke.

"Perhaps, though, they question me further. Then I say: 'Take me before this gringo who within a week hired me to watch his sheep. Confront me with him. He will identify me, he will confirm my story.' And if they do that and he does that— as most surely he will— why, then they must turn me loose and that, Senor, will be the very crown and peak of the joke."

In the excess of his admiration and his gratitude, the Italian just naturally had to kiss him again.

They worked fast and they worked scientifically, carefully, overlooking nothing, providing against every contingency. But at the last minute, when the Italian was ready to resume his flight and the Spaniard, smoothly shaven and effectually disguised in the soiled shirt and messy overalls of the dead man, had turned around and submitted his wrists to be pinioned, it was discovered that there was no rope available with which to bind his legs. The one short scrap of rope about the spot had been used for tying his hands.

The Spaniard said this was just as well. Any binding that was drawn snugly enough to fetter his feet securely would certainly increase the pain in the inflamed and grossly swollen ankle joint. However, it was apparent that he must be securely anchored, lest suspicion arise in the minds of his rescuers when they arrived. Here the Italian made a contribution to the plot. He was proud of his inspiration.

With the Mexican's butcher knife he cut long narrow strips from the fresh slick cowhide. Then the Spaniard sat down on the earth with his back against one of the slim tree trunks supporting the arbor, and the Italian took numerous turns about his waist and his arms and the upper part of his body, and tightly knotted the various ends of the skin ribbons behind the post. Unaided, no human being could escape out of that mesh. To the pressure of the prisoner's trunk, the moist, pliant lashings would give slightly but it was certain they neither would work loose nor snap apart.

So he settled himself in his bonds, and the Italian, having shouldered his pack, once more fervently kissed his benefactor in token of gratitude, wished him success and made of! with many farewells.

So far as this empty country was concerned, the Italian was a greenhorn, a tenderfoot. Nevertheless, he made excellent progress. He marched northward until dark, lay that night under a murdered man's smelly blanket behind a many-colored butte and next morning struck deeper into the broken lands. He entered what he hoped might be a gap through the mountains, treading cautiously along a narrow natural trail halfway up a dauntingly steep cliff side.

He was well into it when his foot dislodged a scrap of shaly rock which in sliding over the verge set other rocks to cascading down the slope. From above, yet larger boulders began toppling over into the scoured-out passageway thus provided, and during the next five minutes the walled-in declivity was alive and roaring with tumbling huge stones, with dislodged earth running fluid like a stream, with uprooted stunty pifions, with choking acrid dust clouds.

The Italian ran for dear life; he managed to get out of the avalanche's path. When at length he reached a safe place and looked back, he saw behind him how the landslide had choked the gorge almost to its brim. No human being— no, not even a goat, could from his side scale that jagged and overhanging parapet. Between him and pursuit was a perfect barrier.

Well content, he went on. But presently he made a discovery, a distressing discovery which took the good cheer right out of him. This was no gateway into which he had entered. It was a dead end leading nowhere— what Westerners call a box canyon. On three sides of him, right, left and on ahead, rose tremendously high walls, sheer and unclimbable. They threatened him; they seemed to be closing in on him to pinch him flat. And, of course, back of him retreat was cut off. There he was, bottled up like a fly in a corked jug, like a frog at the bottom of a well.

Frantically he explored as best he could the confines of this vast prison cell of his. He stumbled upon a spring, and its waters, while tainted lightly with alkali, were drinkable. So he had water and he had food, some food. By paring his daily portions down almost to starvation point, he might make these rations last for months. But then, what? And in the meantime, what? Why, until hunger destroyed him, he was faced with that doom which he so dreaded— the doom of solitary confinement.

He thought it all out and then he knelt down and took out his pistol and he killed himself.

IN ONE OF HIS calculations that smart malefactor, the Spaniard, had been wrong. By his system of deductions, the searchers should reach the 'dobe hut where he was tethered within four hours or, at most, five. But it was nearer thirty hours before they appeared.

The trouble had been that the brakeman wasn't quite sure of the particular stretch where he had seen the fugitives nestled beneath a reaping machine on that flat car. Besides, it took time to spread the word; to summon county officials; to organize an armed searching party. When at length the posse did strike the five-mile trail leading from the railroad tracks to the camp of the late sheep herder, considerably more than a day had elapsed.

The track was fairly plain— two sets of heavy footprints bearing north and only lacking where rocky outcrops broke through the surface of the desert. Having found it, they followed it fast, and when they mounted the fold in the earth above the cabin, they saw the figure of a man seated in front of it, bound snugly to one of the supports of the arbor.

Hurrying toward him they saw that he was dead— that his face was blackened and horribly distorted; that his glazed eyes goggled at them and his tongue protruded; that his stiffened legs were drawn up in sharp angles of agony.

They looked closer and they saw the manner of his death and were very sorry for him. He had been bound with strands of fresh rawhide, and all through that day he had been sitting there exposed to the baking heat of the day.

Now heat, operating on damp new rawhide, has an immediate effect. Heat causes certain substances to expand but green rawhide it causes to contract very fast to an ironlike stiffness and rigidity. So in this case the sun glare had drawn tighter and tighter the lashings about this poor devil's body, squeezing him in at the stomach and the breast and the shoulders, pressing his arms tighter and tighter and yet tighter against his sides. That for him would have been a highly unpleasant procedure but it would not have killed him.

Something else had done that. One loop of the rawhide had been twisted about his neck and made fast at the back of the post. At first it might have been no more than a loosely fitting circlet but hour by hour it had shrunk into a choking collar, a diminishing noose, a terrible deadly yoke. Veritably it had garroted him by inches.

____________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-71

The "Author Index" to Issues 1-60 has been uploaded separately.

Achmed Abdullah

The Mystery of the Talking Idols 63

"A. E. P."

The End of Sherlock Holmes  67

W. L. Alden

After the Comet 67

Foote's Catorium 70

How the Fat Woman Eloped 68

Silver Plated   67

The Wild Man of Borneo 67

Mark Allerton

A Christmas Mix-Up 70

The Stanhope Scandal 70

Anonymous

The Diamond Necklace 62

The Great Auk's Egg Affair 61

The Hat Trick 71

Jacobs and Gale, Tobacconists 70

A Railway Murder 70

The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin 64

The Stamp Thief 71

The Thriller 71

F. Anstey

Taken By Surprise  66

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

Irving Bacheller

Holy Poker 71

The Prodigal Village 71

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

The Artificial Honeymoon 66

Death Gave Him His Chance  63

J. J. Bell

The Lovely Little Dinner 70

The Price of a House  63

"Sir William"  61

E. F. Benson

Negotium Perambulans  64

The Terrace 69

Harold Bindloss

Trooper Jenkins 68

Christopher B. Booth

Mr Clackworthy Collects 63

Mr Clackworthy Gets His Tonic 64

Mr Clackworthy Sells Short  63

Mr Clackworthy Stakes a Friend 70

Solly's Last Forgery 64

When Mr. Clackworthy Needed a Bracer 64

B. M. Bower

The Ghost in the Red Shirt  63

Jack Boyle

The Beauty-Fountain 70

A Woman Without Fear 70

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Good Lady Ducayne  71

Max Brand

Five Minutes to Twelve 61

Honor Bright 64

Lion Heart 61

Percy James Brebner

Cat or Devil 65

A Literary Secret  66

Scarsley Moor Mystery  66

Thomas Burke

The Bloomsbury Wonder 61

The Horrible God 62

Laughing Lillian 62

The Yellow Imps 62

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Who Murdered Mr. Thomas? 68

Ellis Parker Butler

Just Like a Cat 71

The Ninety And Nine  69

Sir Gilbert Campbell

The Mystery of the Essex Stairs 62

Scott Campbell

The Point of Contact 70

Under the Crown 70

Agnes and Egerton Castle

The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 70

Anna Alice Chapin

Through the Dragon's Valley  63

The Scales of Time 63

G.K. Chesterton

The Sword of Wood 65

Peter Cheyney

Cocktail For Cupid 65

Dance Without Music  64

Irvin S. Cobb

Faith, Hope And Charity 71

Sylvanus Cobb, Jun.

The Bottomless Jug  64

J. J. Connington

After Death the Doctor 63

Dorothea Conyers

Meave's Ride  69

E. M. Delafield

The Luggage in the Hall  66

Charles Caldwell Dobie

The Open Window 71

Sir Geo. Douglas, Bart.

Unconscious Interloper 69

L C Douthwaite

The London Guillotine 66

Richard Dowling

The Going Out of Alessandro Pozzone 62

Edward Dyson

A Golden Shanty 65

The Third Chair 65

George Allan England

Drops of Death  68

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Three Hours Between Planes 65

Mrs. May Agnes Fleming

How The Lone Star Went Down  68

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

Rejuvenation 66

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 Artful Mr. Glencannon 70

Crocodile Tears 68

The Glasgow Phantom 66

The Homestretch 61

Where Early Fa's the Dew 65

Susan Glaspell

A Jury of Her Peers 67

Frederick Graves

White Flame  62

Fred V Green

Markham's New Partner 65

A. S. Gregory

The Death Window 68

Valentine Gregory

Third Time Unlucky 71

While on Remand 71

Julian Hawthorne

Calbot's Rival 67

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Great Stone Face 66

Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

The Outcast 65

Headon Hill

The "Artemis" Mystery 65

The Bank Clerk's Love Story 65

The Dining-Car Clue 65

Limping Justice 65

W. W. Jacobs

Captain Rogers 71

A Love Knot 70

Malcolm Jameson

The Anarch  69

Val Jameson

"Burglin' ain't the game it was" 61

Otis Adelbert Kline

Stolen Centuries 65

Thomas H. Knight

The Man Who Was Dead 61

Henry Leverage

Black Light 66

The Crimp 66

Crooked Charity 67

R. C. Lehmann

The Umbrosa Burglary 67

Sinclair Lewis

The Cat of the Stars 68

Seven Million Dollars 68

The Willow Walk 61

H.P. Lovecraft

Obit: Henry St. Clair Whitehead 71

Marie Belloc Lowndes

An Unrecorded Instance 61

Richard Mace

The Emerald Beetle  62

Arthur Machen

The Shining Pyramid 71

Julia Magruder

The Secret of the White Castle 65

Don Marquis

Accursed Hat! 70

Huan Mee

The Russian Cipher 65

J. J. Meehan

The Squirrel Motor 69

William Henry Moberley

The Great Valdez Sapphire 63

F. Frankfort Moore

Joan Dark 65

Talbot Mundy

Bengal Rebellion 69

Edith M Nesbit

In the Dark 64

Man-Size in Marble  65

Number 17    61

David Wright O'Brien

Hokum Hotel  68

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

Sir Gilbert Parker

At the Sign of the Eagle  70

Max Pemberton

The Devil To Pay 63

G. G. Pendarves

The Black Camel  65

Hugh Pendexter

Lyacus Whittle— Globetrotter 70

Ernest M Poate

A Person from the Police 63

To Professional Services— $100,000 70

William Le Queux

The Baron's Snapdragon 68

The Faith of Men 62

The Mystery Man 68

The Mystery of the Third Thumb 68

The Story of the Chief of Police 61

The Third Cracker 68

The Velvet Hand  68

The Woman Who Hated London 68

The Yellow Jasmine 68

Walter Ripperger

The Cardboard Clue 62

School For Murder 69

Arthur Somers Roche (novelette)

In the Money 67

Thorne Smith

Birthday Present 66

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

Charles B. Stilson

The Sky Woman 67

Halliwell Sutcliffe

Handsome Jack  67

Miss Phyllis Brown 67

Murgatroyd's Wife  67

Emile C Tepperman

Coffin Cache 63

E. Temple Thurston

A Cameo 69

E Charles Vivian

How the Girl Came to Bentley's 62

R. A. J. Walling

A Chat With William Le Queux 68

Mrs. Rooth's "Murder" 61

The Spook of Cornelius 61

Stanley G Weinbaum

The Red Peri  69

Albert Richard Wetjen

The Chief of the Loch McCree 61

Fred Merrick White

Early Closing Day  64

Gentlemen of the Jury  65

The Purple Terror 66

Victor L. Whitechurch

The Convict's Revenge  61

How the Captain Tracked a German Spy 61

In a Tight Fix 61

Henry S. Whitehead

The Wonderful Thing  70

The Door 71

Raoul Whitfield

The Great Black 65

H. C. Witwer

Money to Burns 71

Mary E Wilkins

The Shadows on the Wall  64

Arthur Leo Zagat

Coward's Kill (novelette)  69

___________________

Table of Contents

1: Good Lady Ducayne / Mary Elizabeth Braddon

2: Money to Burns / H. C. Witwer

3: The Door / Henry S. Whitehead

Unnamed

5: Holy Poker / Irving Bacheller

6: The Prodigal Village / Irving Bacheller

7: The Open Window / Charles Caldwell Dobie

8: The Shining Pyramid / Arthur Machen

9: Just Like a Cat / Ellis Parker Butler

10: The Stamp Thief / Anonymous

11: The Hat Trick / Anonymous

12: The Thriller / Anonymous

13: Captain Rogers / W. W. Jacobs

14: While on Remand / Valentine Gregory

15: Third Time Unlucky / Valentine Gregory

16: Faith, Hope and Charity / Irvin S. Cobb

Cumulative Index #61-71