Past Masters Seventy Three
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Once again, an anthology of short stories in the Life+70 public domain collected from newspapers and magazines and other sources. Christmas ghost from Kipling; Ernest M Poate under one of his pseudonyms; comedy from Morley Roberts; two stories from rare series by William J Makin; and more. 1: Without Air / Scott Campbell 2: Straight Enough / Douglas Newton 3: An Echo of the Quarter / Kenneth Herford 4: Smiley's Scoop / Kenneth Herford 5: The Phantom Rickshaw / Rudyard Kipling 6: The Lie-Detector / Frederick R Bechdolt 7: The Britisher / Ottwell Binns 8: The Egregious Goat / Morley Roberts 9: A

PAST MASTERS

SEVENTY-THREE

16 April 2022

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Without Air / Scott Campbell

2: Straight Enough / Douglas Newton

3: An Echo of the Quarter / Kenneth Herford

4: Smiley's Scoop / Kenneth Herford

5: The Phantom Rickshaw / Rudyard Kipling

6: The Lie-Detector / Frederick R Bechdolt

7: The Britisher / Ottwell Binns

8: The Egregious Goat / Morley Roberts

9: A Source of Irritation / Stacy Aumonier

10: A Study in Green / Scott Campbell

11: Framed at the Benefactors' Club / Achmed Abdullah

12: The Planes that Never Returned / William J. Makin

13: The Death Barge / William J. Makin

14: Doctor Grimes Awaits Probate / Arthur Mallory

15: The Invisible "Blinker" / Anthony M Rud

16: The Skipper's Scheme / Anonymous

Cumulative Index #61-73

________________

1: Without Air

Scott Campbell

(Frederick W. Davis, 1858-1933)

Detective Story Magazine 18 Nov 1919

"WAIT! Stop a moment, Joey." Glynn grasped the arm of his companion, Sergeant Joe Dakin of the city police. "What's hit that woman?" he asked. "She's as white as a sheet. There's something wrong in Judge Caldwell's house."

It was the now-celebrated Caldwell case, the diabolical nature of which, with its singular complications and mystifying circumstances, established a record in criminal annals— it was in this particular case that Mr. Clyde Glynn won something very much more than fame as a private detective.

Everybody in that community knew Mr. Sylvester Caldwell, a retired judge of the district court, formerly a prominent lawyer, a man whose legal business long had been confined to the administration of numerous trust estates. He was a wealthy bachelor of seventy, much too crabbed and arbitrary to have many friends. His mania for years had been the collecting of ancient gems and rare old curios, upon which he had expended thousands of dollars annually, not that others might enjoy inspecting his accumulated treasures, but only for his own pleasure in possessing them and writing up their history. Upon this occupation he spent much of his leisure time and the greater part of many a night, when he would much better have been abed and asleep.

It was from a side door of his massive stone residence that Detective Glynn, an attractive, clean-cut man of thirty, saw the woman emerge, very pale and agitated, as she hurried out to a grill gate in the stone wall inclosing the spacious corner estate.

It was near eight o'clock in the morning, and both men, then going downtown to business, hastened to learn the cause of her excitement.

"It's Mrs. Tate, Caldwell's housekeeper," said Dakin, while they crossed the broad avenue. "A very pretty girl lives with him, too, a distant relative, I believe; and also a nephew who recently returned from India. He's been abroad two years for antique gems and curios. The old judge is a nut along those lines. What's the trouble, madam?" he inquired, as both joined the elderly housekeeper.

"It's the master, sir, Judge Caldwell," she hurriedly explained. "He's locked in his room and I can't rouse him. He wasn't in bed last night, as I learned when I went to call him for breakfast. I've told his nephew, Mr. Ludwig, but he isn't down yet. He didn't come in till near daylight. I'm afraid the judge is very ill, or dead, perhaps, and—"

"Which room is he in?" Glynn interrupted, entering the gate.

"His gem room, sir, off his private library. The door is locked and the key is on the inside."

"I'll open it quickly enough," Glynn assured the woman. "Show me the way. Go with us, Joey," he quietly added. "This may be a case for the police— and a private detective."

"Go to it!" Sergeant Dakin smiled significantly and winked his approval. "Say what, Clyde, if you need help."

He was somewhat older than Clyde Glynn, a bit gray and grizzled, but they had been neighbors and warm friends for a long time, and he had a keen appreciation of Glynn's acumen and ability. He knew it had aroused secret antipathy and a spirit of bitter rivalry in the headquarters plain-clothes men, but his own leaning was strongly toward his friend, and this was not the first case he had left him to investigate without immediate police interference.

Glynn followed Mrs. Tate into the house, his heart pounding and his blood coursing rapidly. He was startled by the vision of girlish beauty that he met in the side hail. It seemed to him that he never had seen such surpassing loveliness, a dainty, graceful girl of nineteen, with a fair complexion, tear-filled blue eyes, and a sweet sensitive mouth; a face reflecting a mingling of fear and horror greater even than her grief. She was clad in a soft blue morning gown, trimmed with white lace, and appeared to be on the verge of fainting.

"Pardon!" Glynn paused involuntarily. 'Don't be alarmed, Miss—"

"I am Ethel Boyden, sir, Judge Caldwell's ward and assistant," she said with an effort. "I have lived here since childhood. He has been like a father to me. I am so afraid something terrible has happened."

"You wait here in the hall and let me find out," Glynn gently advised her. "Wait with her, Joey, please— or perhaps this gentleman will do so. You're Mr. Ludwig, I infer."

He had come down the front stairs, a tall, smooth-shaven man of forty, only partly dressed and enveloped in a voluminous, glaringly figured bathrobe; a very dark, cadaverous man with bristling black hair, cut pompadour fashion, which elongated his narrow head and swarthy face, giving him an altogether unprepossessing appearance. He looked jaded, too, and his darkly ringed black eyes evinced habitual dissipation.

"Mr. Ludwig— yes," he said brusquely, with a sharp stare at the detective. "You're Mr. Clyde Glynn. You have been pointed out to me. Sit down, Ethel, in the living room, while we learn what's wrong," he commanded with quite needless austerity. "Dry your tears. Don't cry before you're hurt. I can't believe my Uncle Vester is ill, much less dead. He may be asleep. Sit down and wait."

Glynn did not interfere, though he could have throttled him with right good will. There was a dagger gleam in his eyes when he hastened after the housekeeper, who was waiting for him at a door in the main hall.

"It's Judge Caldwell's private library," she told him, as they entered the room. "He lets others occupy it only when he is here. That's the door to his gem room."

Glynn merely glanced around the large square library. It was filled with takens of the owner's hobby. In glass cabinets and on the shelved walls were costly specimens of Oriental porcelain, Satsuma, Raku, and Arita; fine pieces of faience, peach bloom and celadon; Turkish arms and Japanese swords; the finest specimens of the lacquer ware of Shunsho, Kajikawa, and Korin; minia- ture figures exquisitely carved in ivory and wood; beaming Buddhas in gold and bronze, and rare bits of the gold and silver work of medieval Europe, with countless other treasures quite beyond enumeration..

Glynn had no eye for them at that time. He hastened to the door indicated, noting that it was unusually strong and heavy. He was rejoined almost immediately by Dakin and Mr. Ludwig, and the latter banged violently on a panel of the door and shouted his uncle's name. It brought no response, however, and he turned quickly to the detective.

"Break it open," he cried. "Force an entrance. Sarah, bring an ax from the cellar," he said to the housekeeper. "We must get in and—"

"Wait!" Glynn interrupted. "We can do so without violence, I think."

He was peering into the keyhole. "How about the windows?"

"There's only one," said Ludwig, impatiently. "You can't get in from out- side. It's barred like that of a prison. This room contains a fortune in gems and curios. Do something at once for the love of re

"I'm about it," Glynn again interjected.

"But my uncle may be dying."

"I'll get in more quickly with these than you would with an ax," said Glynn, a bit curtly.

He had turned the key with his knife blade and pushed it out of the lock. It fell audibly on the floor within. On a ring containing several skeleton keys he soon found one that served his purpose, and he sprang up quite abruptly, opening the door, and strode into the room,

It resembled the other. Glass cabinets flanked two of the walls. Into the third was built a large steel safe, which now was closed and locked. Glass-covered trays divided into small compartments, each neatly labeled as to its contents, covered two long, narrow tables. On a bare, polished mahogany table in the middle of the room was an ordinary standard lamp, the flame of which had expired. The oil in the glass fount was exhausted. Near by were two antique gems, several books and pamphlets, also writing materials and sheets of manuscript, showing how the venerable antiquarian was employed the night before. His pen had fallen upon the page on which he last was writing, causing a conspicuous blot of ink.

Though he still occupied his plain wooden armchair, he now presented a shocking and revolting picture. He had lurched to one side, and was partly hanging over the chair arm. His extended limbs were rigid in death. His hands were convulsively clenched, his face horribly contorted, as if he had died in awful agony, or in overwhelming terror. His soft flannel shirt— for he wore no coat— was torn open at the throat, but his tie, an ordinary four-in-hand, had slipped from under the soft collar, or had been forcibly removed and was so tightly drawn around his neck as to have strangled him. Not yet, even, had the knot slipped, and the tie was sunk deep into the swollen, blood-congested flesh.

Detective Glynn took in many of these details with a single swift glance, but he shrank almost immediately from the room. A hideous, depressing, ut- terly incomparable stuffiness pervaded it. A single inhalation of the noxious air nearly overcame him. It was unlike anything he had ever known. There was no odor, but only a horrible, depressing, dead atmosphere, as if absolutely void of oxygen or thoroughly impregnated with some mysterious, vitiating agent, the origin and nature of which was utterly inconceivable.

"Good heavens!" Glynn gasped while his companions stared in momentary mute horror. "He's dead, and no wonder! No man could live two minutes in that room."

Ludwig covered his eyes as if to shut out the shocking scene, but he turned almost immediately to the weeping housekeeper.

"Go break it to Ethel," he said. "Take her to her room, Sarah, and remain there with her. We want no weeping women here, but only men who can go to the bottom of this foul crime and unearth the criminal. Go at once."

Mrs. Tate hurried away and Clyde Glynn glanced at the police sergeant, who was about to enter the fatal room.

"Wait a bit, Joey," he advised, restraining him. 'We can do nothing in there at present. I'll open the way for some fresh air."

He drew a deep breath with the last, then rushed across the room to the single broad window. Quickly he unlocked it and threw it up, raising at the same time the roller shade, noting, as he did so, the strong steel bars set into the outer stonework. Not only did the crisp morning air sweep into the room, but also a flood of sunlight burst upon the dreadful scene. Then he darted back to the library and closed the door.

"We'll wait a few minutes," he said. "The air will soon become normal. Why did you infer so quickly, Mr. Ludwig, that a crime has been committed?" he inquired. "I heard what you said to the housekeeper."

"What else can you make of it?" Ludwig eyed him sharply. "I judged from a brief look at my uncle. His cravat is drawn tight around his neck. He appears to have been strangled with it by an assailant."

"Possibly," Glynn allowed.

"He was as well as usual when I left him at eight o'clock last evening," Ludwig added. "I did not return until five this morning. I'm somewhat of a night owl. I was playing cards at the club from nine o'clock till near daylight. Luckily, too, perhaps, in view of what has occurred. Suspicion might otherwise point to me— very possibly, as I am his only near kin and the probable heir to his estate," he observed, with unblushing assurance. "One cannot but think of such possibilities, you know."

"True," Glynn again admitted. "Where did you leave Judge Caldwell, and what was he doing?"

"Just where you saw him," replied Ludwig, pointing. "He was about to write up some of the gems I brought him from abroad. He often spent most of the night at such work. I returned only a month ago, after two years abroad in search of such baubles. But money was nothing to him in his zest to secure them. His collection is worth a quarter million, at least."

"But there appears at first sight to have been no robbery," Glynn pointed out. "I inferred from the condition in the room that leaking gas might have overcome him, or some other—"

"The room is not piped for gas," Ludwig said, interrupting. "Nor is it wired for electric lights. He would not have electricity installed, lest the wires serve as conductors for lightning and cause a fire, or irreparable loss. He always has used an ordinary oil lamp there. He was very set in regard to that room and this, his private library. He hardly allowed us to enter them alone, in fact, though Ethel often assisted him in classifying and tabulating his collection."

"Is she related to him?" Glynn inquired. His mind had reverted more than once to the sweet, sensitive face of the beautiful girl.

"Very remotely," said Ludwig, indifferently. "She's the only child of a third or fourth cousin. But she has lived here and been his ward since childhood. He holds her small fortune in trust."

Clyde Glynn did not reply. He did not quite like the cool, calculating assurance of this man, but there seemed to be no reasonable grounds for suspecting him of duplicity. He still wondered, nevertheless, at his having so quickly designated the fatality as a crime, and almost with the same breath voluntarily set up an alibi. Turning abruptly, he again entered the gem room.

"We can remain here now," he announced, as both men followed him. "The extraordinary stuffiness was due, perhaps, to the burning out of the lamp. The glass fount, you see, is entirely empty. There is no ventilation here when both the door and the window are closed, and the flame may so have consumed the oxygen in the room that Caldwell was overcome unawares, or while inadvertently dozing, if he worked far into the night, and he may have died a natural death."

"Nonsense!" Ludwig objected, and the police sergeant also appeared skeptical. "Note his position; his pen, just where he suddenly dropped it; his limbs, thrust out, and the disordered rug under his feet. Look at his tie, also, drawn so tight around his neck that it has eaten into the flesh. Could he have done that?" he demanded ironically. "The mere idea is absurd. There was a sudden struggle here, and he was strangled by his assailant."

"Strangled is right, Clyde, I reckon," Dakin muttered, brows knitting, while he grimly viewed the dead man's drawn face and contorted figure. "Your theory don't look good to me."

Glynn did not argue the point. He saw that Caldwell had been dead several hours. He turned to the table and glanced at the two engraved gems lying near the sheets of manuscript on which the pen had fallen. He took up the top one to read it.

"Let's see what he was writing," he remarked.

"His opinion of those two gems, most likely," said Ludwig, approaching. One is a Medusa's head, in profile, very finely cut in black jasper. It is full of spirit— a splendid specimen of late Greek style. I bought it for him in Athens. The other—"

"It's of that he was writing," Glynn glanced at the other gem, then read loud the last few lines penned by the dead man:

The significance of this rare subject, which is a boldly executed Roman intaglio on fine yellow sard, is unmistakable. Early mythology always depicted its Immortals, including the Fates, in the flower of life. This youthful, grave-faced figure is that of Fate itself. It is that of a youth with one hand hoIding a hoop behind him, symbolic of the circle of Time, while its position behind him signifies the past. With the other hand he is extinguishing a lighted torch, emblematic of human life. The device undoubtedly is that of Fate itself, the personification of Death—

There the great black blot ended the dissertation— as if the hand of Death had been laid upon him even while he wrote the fateful word.

ii

"BY JOVE, it's quite a singular coincidence, Clyde, that he was writing that word just as he was so near his own end," said Sergeant Dakin, unusually grave.

"I agree with you," Glynn replied, simply.

"I bought the gem for him in Florence," said Ludwig, with a quick glance from one to the other. "I was only vaguely aware of its significance."

Glynn did not reply. He replaced the sheet on the table. As he did so, standing where he caught the reflection of light from the window on the top of the bare table, he saw several oily blurs on the polished mahogany. He eyed them for an instant only, saying nothing, then he glanced at a pamphlet nearby. On the paper cover was a small hardly perceptible circle, scarce half an inch in diameter, as if an oily ring had been placed on it, and the oil absorbed by the paper. Glynn merely glanced at that, also, then turned to the police sergeant.

"You may be right, Mr. Ludwig. There certainly appears to have been a struggle," he remarked. 'Lend a hand, Joey. We'll try to sit him up straight."

Dakin hastened to comply. They raised the body wiih little diffculty and placed it against the back of the chair. Glynn then noticed that there was a watch in the fob pocket. He drew it out to open it, and the crystal fell in tinkling fragments in the palm of his hand.

"Ah!" he exclaimed quietly. "Strangled, Joey, is right, indeed. The crystal was broken when he was pushed violently against the arm of the chair. It also damaged the watch and caused it to stop. It's precisely two. That fixes the time of the crime all right."

"Let me see, too," Ludwig requested, bending nearer. "Unless," he quickly pointed, with a sharper gleam in his intense black eyes, "his assailant was crafty enough to set the watch at that hour and then break it. A shrewd man might do that, Detective Glynn, in order to establish a seemingly reliable alibi."

"True," said Glynn, nodding. "As a matter of fact, Ludwig, I did not think of that," he admitted, a bit dryly. "I'll bear it in mind."

"I merely suggested it as a possibility,' said Ludwig, drawing back.

"I understand."

Glynn replaced the watch a bit hurriedly, then began a hasty inspection of the disordered rug under the dead man's feet. Plainly enough, it had been displaced during a struggle. As he straightened it, turning one of the wrinkled folds, he found beneath the latter, unobserved till then, a dainty linen handkerchief with a fine lace border. He arose and examined it, but could find no sign of oil on it, nor any mark or initial.

"Was it here, Mr. Ludwig, that you parted from Judge Caldwell last evening?" he asked quite abruptly.

"It was," Ludwig bowed quickly, "About eight o'clock."

"Some one else was here, also, and most likely later," Glynn declared, with some emphasis. "Who in the house owns such a handkerchief as this?"

"Well, only one person, Glynn, I would say." Ludwig bent to gaze at it. "It's too fine for the housekeeper. It must belong to Ethel."

"Are there no other women in the house?"

"No, nor men," said Ludwig. "We four comprise the entire household. I have no doubt that it's Ethel's handkerchief. She may, however, have dropped it earlier in the day. It evidently had fallen under the table and escaped her notice. I'm sure I did not see it when I was here in the evening," he added, with a change of tone.

"See here, Ludwig!" Glynn noticed it. "That's not quite what you really think. This is a case of murder, mind you, and it's your duty to tell all you know," he said earnestly.

"I entirely agree with Glynn, to that extent."

"Had you any reason, except the one you stated, for suspecting this was a murder?"

"Well, I don't like to implicate others in a crime of this kind," Ludwig demurred, gazing straight at the detective. "If I was absolutely sure—"

"Oh, come! What do you—"

"Well, well, if you insist, I know Ethel has had some disagreement with my uncle over the funds he holds in trust for her," Ludwig now admitted. "I don't know that it was serious. I do know, however, that she has appeared quite nervous and dissatisfied, and that she telephoned to a friend early last evening and requested him to come here. I have no idea for what purpose," Ludwig added. "I know she was strangely cautious about it, however, for she closed the door of the living room while she used the telephone. Obviously, of course, she did not want to be heard. I passed through the hall just then and noticed the closed door. I wondered at it and paused to listen. I did not think it a matter for me to meddle with, apprehending nothing of this kind, and that's all I know about it."

"Do you know who it was she telephoned to?" Glynn inquired.

"To Thomas Ainsley, a young bank clerk," said Ludwig. "He resides in Brook Street, half a mile from here.. They have been quite friendly, and I think my uncle seriously objected to it. I don't know, however, that that has any bearing upon this crime," he added, in a noncommittal way.

"I'll soon find out," Glynn said curtly. "Call the girl. I want to question her.  One moment— not a word about what you have told me," he commanded. "Also, no questions or suggestions on your part, mind you, while I interrogate her. I'll shape my own course in this matter, Ludwig."

"That's your business, Detective Glynn, not mine." Ludwig bowed coldly. "I understand you perfectly."

Dakin eyed him grimly, as he turned and hurried from the room. "Hang ime, Clyde, if I fancy that fellow," he said, turning to the detective. "He's got a bad eye, infernally bad, and he's too cool and collected. It don't look genuine."

The detective did not appear to hear him. "What do you make of this, anyway?"

Glynn had whipped out a lens and was intently inspecting the door of the safe and the combination dial.

"There appears to have been no robbery, Joey," he said quickly. "We must seek some other motive. There are many finger prints on this door, but they are all alike and evidently those of Caldwell himself. The door is locked and the combination scattered."

"He's the only one who knew it, most likely," said Dakin.

"Possibly. Did you notice these?" Glynn had turned quickly to the table to study with his lens the oily spots on its polished surface. "They are finger marks, all right, but they are much too blurred to show the papillary lines. They are worthless, as finger prints, but in a way significant."

"They were left by the housekeeper, most likely, when she filled the lamp." Dakin peered at them, but they were hardly perceptible.

"Maybe so," Glynn allowed. He did not so much as glance at the tiny ring on the pamphlet. "Oil often sweats from the wick of a lamp, you know, and collects on the outside of the fount. It leaves a finger print, too, that's quite different from perspiration. It's very diffusive. It tends to spread and run together. But it's very persistent. It doesn't leave one's fingers so readily, and goes farther in causing prints or blurs that may easily be seen to be of an oily nature. Let's step into the li- brary before the girl comes down, Joey, and close this door. We'll spare her a view of the old man while he's in that condition."

"Sure!" Dakin nodded and followed him to the library. "That's like you, Clyde."

"It's odd his books are here, rather than in the gem-room safe."

"His books? What have they to do with it?"

"Nothing, Joey— perhaps!'

Glynn darted across the room, never- theless, and began to inspect with his lens the drawers and locks of a tall old-fashioned bookcase and desk near one of the walls. He found near the keyhole of the desk two small, fine scratches in the dry varnish, obviously very recently made, and as if with a wire, or something of the kind, with which an attempt had been made to pick the lock. He turned immediately, however, and without any comments, upon hearing Ludwig approaching with Ethel Boyden through the hall. His lens had disappeared and his hands were thrust into his pockets when both entered the room.

"I want to give you your handkerchief," Glynn told the girl, and tendered it while speaking. "I found it on the floor. I infer it is yours."

Miss Boyden took it almost mechanically. She was very pale, but had ceased weeping, and the expression of grief and horror in her wide eyes had given way to one of dread and apprehension. She gazed at Glynn's grave face and searching eyes for a moment, then at the handkerchief, and then she impulsively felt in her pocket and drew out another.

"Yes, it is— it is mine, sir," she faltered. "But I did not know I had two this morning, nor where I— where I dropped this one."

"It doesn't matter," Glynn said care- lessly. "I want to ask, though, whether you had any talk with Judge Caldwell after Mr. Ludwig left him last evening."'

"I did not, sir," said Ethel, "I heard him close and lock the door after Mr. Ludwig went out, as he always does when alone in that room. He was averse to being disturbed. He often remained there half the night. I did not see him again."

"Did you hear any visitor, or do you know of any?" Glynn inquired.

"Visitor?" Ethel hesitated. She was ghastly pale, now, and her lips were quivering piteously. She steadied herself with an effort, too obvious to be unobserved, and the glint of her dilated eyes, still meeting the searching gaze of the detective, sharpened slightly. "I do not," she said more firmly. "I know of no visitor."

"Did you spend the evening on this floor, Miss Boyden, or in your own room ?"' Glynn questioned deliberately.

"I was in my room, sir, after nine o'clock."

"In bed, or engaged in some way?"

"I did not go to bed until quite late. I cannot say just what time it was— nor do I see why you need to question me about that." Miss Boyden drew herself up and spoke with a momentary flash of resentment.

"I want to know if you were where you could have heard a visitor, if Judge Caldwell had one, or if any other man was in this house," Glynn told her quite sharply. "You know of none, you say."

"I already have said so,' Ethel retorted. "Will repeating it make it any stronger?"

"I  want the truth, Miss Boyden, and I'm going to have it, if possible," Glynn sternly informed her. 'How about the housekeeper. Where was she all the evening?"

"She went to her room before nine o'clock. It is on the top floor

"Where I could not have heard anything that took place down here." Mrs. Tate had suddenly appeared at the open door, with a countenance plainly evincing her indignation at the detective's inquiry. "If you think this sweet girl knows anything about this crime, you're mightily mistaken," she declared defiantly. "You don't need to pump her with insinuating questions. Or if you must, you might at least be decent about it. Can't you see she's near fainting?' she cried, and placed one arm around the swaying girl.

"Oh, you were stealthily listening, then." Glynn's keen, incisive voice rang ominously. "When I want any advice from you, Mrs. Tate, I'll ask for it. Take the girl into the living room," he sternly directed. "Wait there, both of you, until I'm ready to question you further."

Sergeant Dakin was puzzled. He never had seen such an exhibition as that on the part of Detective Glynn. He guessed there must be something under the surface, however, but he could not for his life have guessed what. But he did not interfere, nor did his grim, somewhat stoical face change by so much as a shadow. Mr. James Ludwig, in the meantime, appeared wholly indifferent to what occurred.

Glynn turned to both men after Mrs. Tate, with motherly solicitude, led Ethel Boyden from the room, but not without a last fiery glance at the frowning detective.

"The girl is lying, sergeant," he declared, with convincing vehemence. "She doesn't dare to tell the truth. I've found evidence that that desk was quietly opened last night. The lock was picked with a wire. That girl had a hand in it, most likely with a companion. They must have been discovered by Caldwell and a crime must have followed. It's long odds, Ludwig, that you've put me on the right track."

"I hope so, I'm sure, if any such foul crime has really been committed," Ludwig calmly told him.

"I have not a doubt of it," said Glynn, a bit hurriedly. "Go and get Ainsley, sergeant, at once." He turned and fiashed one swift, expressive glance into the eyes of the policeman. "Bring him here and I'll do the rest. Take it from me, Dakin, I'll wring the truth out of him and the girl. I suppose you'll find him either at home or at the bank, if he hasn't already bolted. Not a word to him, mind you, about the murder, or why he is wanted. Just arrest him and bring him here, sergeant, and I'll do the rest," he repeated, with emphasis.

"I'll do that, all right," said Dakin, nodding grimly.

"I know him by sight. He's a rugged chap," Glynn quickly added. "If he resists, or attempts to escape By the way, Ludwig, would you mind going with him to lend a hand in that case?" he queried, as if the idea had come to him all of a sudden. "It won't take long, you know, and you'll save me the trouble. I want to notify the coroner in the meantime, and see what more I can get from this girl. You're willing, I hope, in a case of this kind?"

"Why, certainly, if I can be of any service." Ludwig hesitated only for an instant. "I'll go with you, sergeant, if you like."

"Sure!" Dakin said, approving with quite remarkable alacrity. "It may be wise, at that."

Sergeant Dakin, in fact, was as much puzzled as ever. He was aware that Clyde Glynn knew him far too well to suppose that he really needed any help to arrest Mr. Thomas Ainsley.

iii

DETECTIVE GLYNN lost no time after Sergeant Dakin and Mr. James Ludwig hastened from the Caldwell residence. He did not notify the coroner, however, nor immediately resume interrogating the gentle girl then waiting with fear and trembling in the living room.

Instead, darting noiselessly up the stairs, he began a hurried inspection of the knobs of the doors of several sleep- ing rooms on the second floor. With his lens he soon found on one of them what he was seeking— a faint blur that could have been caused only by fingers on which a little oil, at least, still lingered.

Glynn entered the room and closed the door. Ten minutes had passed when he emerged. He then hastened down a side stairway, and while passing the open door of the dining room he observed two partly filled decanters on the sideboard. He stepped into the room and examined them. He found on the second one the same oily blur. As he was approaching the living room a moment later, he met Mrs. Tate in the hall.

"One moment," he said, stopping her. "When did you last fill the lamp in Mr. Caldwell's gem room?"

"Yesterday morning," she told him coldly.

"Did you fill it on the table, or take it from the room?"

"I took it to the kitchen."

"Get it and fill it again. I may want to use it for— no, wait! I'll bring it to you. I don't want you to enter that room." He was thinking only of the oily blurs on the table, and that she might possibly obliterate them.

"I don't want to enter it just yet," she retorted, shuddering.

Glynn brought the lamp and waited in the hall while she went and filled it. Taking it from her, he glanced at the quantity of oil in the glass fount.

"Was it as near full yesterday morning?" he inquired.

"About the same." Mrs. Tate eyed him curiously. She wondered how the oil lamp figured in the frightful crime.

"Did you have to do anything to the lamp after replacing it on the table?" Glynn glanced at the woman's quite large fingers, as large as those of most men. "I mean, did you do anything to it, like replacing the screw cap of the feeder, through which you filled it?"

"I did not," she replied. "I had done all that in the kitchen."

"Did Judge Caldwell light the lamp when he went to his gem room last evening?"

"I already had lighted it," said Mrs. Tate. "He sent me to do so just as he finished his dinner. He was going there to discuss some gems with Mr. Ludwig."

"Ludwig was dining with him, I suppose," Glynn remarked carelessly. "Did they go to the gem room together?"

"I'm not sure about that, but I think Mr. Ludwig went a few minutes before Mr. Caldwell."

"It's not material, Mrs. Tate, if you're not quite sure," Glynn said dryly.

"Thank you for refilling the lamp."

He left her quite abruptly and replaced the lamp in the gem room. Less than ten minutes had passed when, returning through the private library, he closed the door and hastened to join Ethel Boyden in the living room. There was an expression approaching that of absolute terror in her eyes when she saw him enter. Glynn observed it, and the last sign of severity vanished from his fine, frank face. It took on a look of gentleness and solicitude in vivid contrast with that which it had worn while he questioned her in the private library.

"Try not to think unkindly of me, Miss Boyden, because of my seeming harshness," he said kindly, taking a chair quite near her. "That was only a blind. I am likely to say and do almost anything when I think the circumstances require it. Don't misjudge me," he pleaded more gravely.  "I want only to aid and serve you."

"Aid and serve me?" The girl's large blue eyes met his with a look of wonderment, and much less apprehension. Clyde Glynn could be very effective on such occasions, and with such a subject.

"If you will let me," he told her, earnestly. "But you must tell me the truth. You haven't done so, Miss Boyden, and I suspect the reason why, I'm going to make it easier for you, now, by telling you just what I know and surmise. You made an appointment with Mr. Ainsley last evening," he went on gently. "You admitted him quietly, and with his aid contrived to open Judge Caldwell's private desk. You have had trouble with him over the estate he holds in trust for you, which had led you to fear, I think, that he may have used some of your funds in his extravagant expenditures for rare gems. I guess you wanted to see his books secretly, and have Mr. Ainsley, a bank clerk, familiar with bookkeeping and that sort of work, verify your own accounts by a comparison with those of your guardian. Last evening you tried to do that very thing. Come, now, doesn't that hit the nail on the head?" he asked, with a frank, friendly smile. "Tell me— oh, now, you mustn't feel that way about it!"

Miss Boyden, who had listened as if spellbound, staring at him, had sud- denly burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. Glynn digressed abruptly, and now he placed his hand on her arm, proceeding with exquisite gentleness.

"No, no, don't feel that way," he pleaded. "You have feared that Ainsley might be suspected of this crime, if not yourself, and you have been trying to shield him. That was like a very brave and loyal girl. But I don't suspect him, or you; far from it," he told her, with subdued feeling. "I would only need to look at you, Miss Boyden, to know you are incapable of doing anything wrong— unless, perhaps, you did it to shield another; even then with the sacrifice of yourself. Ah, that's better!"

She had raised her head suddenly, subduing her agitation, and was looking at him with a light in her glistening eyes that lingered long in his memory.

"Oh, Mr. Glynn!" she exclaimed, lips quivering. "I would not have be- lieved that any man could be both so severe and so considerate. You have relieved me so much, and your kindness and—"

"Hush! You'll make me vain." Glynn laughed softly. "But tell me, for my time is short, am I not right in what I stated?" he quickly added.

"Yes, yes, perfectly right," Ethel now admitted, quite eagerly. "It would be useless now to deny it. I did admit Mr. Ainsley, and for just what you suspect. He opened the desk with a wire. We took the books to my room, lest my guardian might discover us if we remained on this floor. It was near midnight when Mr. Ainsley completed his examination of the accounts. He found them entirely correct, and then replaced the books and relocked the desk. I still could see the light under the door of the gem room, but I did not dream of anything wrong. I was led to feel anxious about my funds only because my guardian has been so arbitrary and has refused to give me a statement."

"I understand," Glynn said, nodding. "You were quite justified in looking into the matter, if not entirely so in the means and methods you adopted."

"I have feared, since the discovery of my guardian's violent death—"

"I know about that, as I told you."

"And I have waited vainly for a chance to telephone Mr. Ainsley secretly to ask him what I should do," Ethel earnestly explained. "If he had told me to tell the truth—"

"You would have done so, of course." Glynn bowed and smiled assuringly. "But there was no need of it, you see, for I discovered it without any assistance. And that's not all I am going to discover," he told her, in tones of friendly encouragement. "Now, Miss Boyden, don't be alarmed, and don't feel that I— but no more at present." He glanced suddenly from the window and arose abruptly. "Mr. Ludwig and the police sergeant are returning. They are bringing Mr. Ainsley here, and we'll talk it all over a little later. But you must remain right here until I come to you again," he directed impressively. "Will you do so?"

"I will, Mr. Glynn, I promise you." The girl arose, regarding him with mingled gratitude and admiration, and impulsively gave him her hand. "I will do anything you direct— now!"

Glynn left her with eyes glowing and a tinge of red in her cheeks.

Ludwig was just entering as the detective strode into the hall, closely followed by Sergeant Dakin and Ainsley, a stalwart, attractive man of twenty-five, but then quite pale with excite- ment and indignation.

"See here, Glynn," he cried, striding toward the detective. '"What's this mean? Why have you had me arrested and—"

"You stop right there!' Glynn's face had gone flinty hard. "Anything you say will be used against you," he warned him sternly. "I'll not hear a word at present, Ainsley, not a word. Sit there, in the reception room, until I'm ready to talk with you. Sergeant, step out and find another policeman. Give him this note and have him deliver it as quickly as possible," he commanded brusquely. "One moment, Ludwig, if you please." He turned and drew him into the reception room, while Sergeant Dakin hurried out with a folded sheet of paper, which the detective had given him. "Was there any trouble in arresting this man?" he asked quietly.

"Why, no, none to speak of," Ludwig replied, yielding as did the others to Glynn's almost irresistible energy and influence on such occasions. "He came with us quietly enough."

Glynn questioned him as to what had been said and done, but only to give Dakin a little needed time, and then he took Ludwig's arm and drew him into the hall.

"I want a little information on a few other points before J question Ainsley," he explained. "He'll remain there, all right, and we'll not be very long. Go with me to the gem room again."

Ludwig made no objection, evinced no surprise— until they had entered the fateful room and the detective had closed the door.

The body of Judge Caldwell had disappeared. The rug under the table and his chair had been put in order. The window had been closed, the roller shade completely lowered, and the sub- dued light in the room seemed solemn and awe-inspiring, in view of what had occurred there,

Ludwig stopped short, glancing around sharply, and his heavy black brows dropped perceptibly.

"What's the idea?" he asked curtly, turning to the detective.

"The coroner came during your absence." Glynn told the falsehood with the slightest compunction. "He ordered the body removed for an autopsy. The law requires it. Mrs. Tate has since put the room in order. I told her to do so. Sit down, Ludwig, and I'll tell you what I have to say." He pointed to the chair from which the body had been removed.

"No, I thank you!" Ludwig shrank and shuddered. "I prefer this one."

He took a chair near by, while the detective coolly took the other.

"What do you mean? On what points can I give you any information? Have you learned anything more from Ethel Boyden?" he questioned, with sharper scrutiny.

"Not yet," Glynn replied. "I've been thinking, Ludwig, about some of the points in this case. Your theory in regard to the damaged watch, which stopped at two o'clock, is hardly tenable. I'm inclined to think it was broken in a struggle, and that it really fixes the time of Caldwell's death. It may, however, have been a death-struggle. Probably after losing consciousness, I think, and in the agony of suffocation in the vitiated air, Caldwell not only tore open his flannel shirt, but also got hold of his tie, drawing it so tight around his neck that it appeared to us to have strangled him. That is the only consistent way of looking at it, Ludwig, in view of the other evidence."

"What do you mean, other evidence?" Ludwig demanded.

"I'm about to tell you." Glynn appeared oblivious to the ghastly paleness that was settling on his hearer's face. "It may, with your help, be able to reconstruct some parts of this appalling crime. I think it was committed, Ludwig, by some man who, having secretly obtained one of Miss Boyden's handkerchiefs, dropped it here to implicate her and Ainsley, chiefly in order to divert suspicion from himself."

"Rot!" said Ludwig, scowling. "Why do you think so?"

"I'll tell you why," Glynn replied, with scarcely a change of voice or countenance. "You didn't happen to observe these blurs of—  Ah, I see that Mrs. Tate has refilled the lamp," he digressed, as he turned to the table. "It was a singular coincidence, as Sergeant Dakin said, that Caldwell was writing about Fate, and the extinction of a lighted torch, symbolic of human life, when he was so near his own end," he pointedly remarked. "The Torch! A lamp is a kind of torch, Ludwig, you know! Singular, wasn't it? In view of the noxious air we found here, this lamp, Ludwig, may have been a Death Torch. It—"

"See here!" Ludwig lurched forward, eyes gleaming. 'What do you mean by this? What are you leading up to? What—"

"Stop a moment!" Glynn interrupted. He still seemed to be blind to his hearer's perturbation, and his vain effort to govern it. "You did not happen to notice, Ludwig, these oily blurs on the table, and the small oily circle on this pamphlet," he resumed. "The blurs were caused by the fingers of a man who had handled the glass fount, to the outside of which some of the oil had oozed over the wick. The circle was caused by the small feeder cap, which he had removed and placed temporarily on the pamphlet. Why he removed it is the question. He ig

"Wait!" Ludwig gritted his teeth, in a desperate effort to compose himself. "All that is absurd. It was removed by the housekeeper, of course, when she filled the lamp. I don't believe one word you are saying."

"You will, Ludwig, presently." Glynn turned and faced him, His non- chalance had vanished. He now wore a look of terrible, accusing sternness. "You'll believe all I tell you. I have traced the same oily blur to a decanter from which the murderer, after having taken the one necessary step to insure his foul and treacherous crime, took a drink of whisky."

"You lie!' Ludwig gasped. "You can't—"

"I have traced it also to the knob of his bedroom door— your door, Mr. James Ludwig."

"I have searched your room and found—"

"By Heaven, I'll not stand for this!" Ludwig leaped to his feet. "You're framing me up! You—"

"Am I?" Glynn drew from his pocket a red tin box about two inches square, and quickly confronting him, displayed it in his hand. "I found this in your trunk, and—"

"I'll hear no more of this!" Ludwig shrank for an instant. A white froth had risen to his twitching lips. His ghastly face was as drawn and dis- torted as that of the man found dead in the same room a short while before. He raised his fist to strike, then seemed suddenly to think only of escape. "Out of my way or I'll—"

Detective Glynn struck him once, and dropped him senseless in the chair from which he had arisen.

Mr. James Ludwig, when he revived, found himself with handcuffs binding his wrists to the arms of the chair, and the chair securely tied with window cords to one of the long tables.

Detective Glynn sat watching him, with the tin box in his hand. He now had opened it, revealing in tiny compartments about a dozen gray pellets about the size of a pea. Only one compartment was empty.

"Oh, you're coming to, eh?" he said sternly. "You now realize, I think, that I mean every word I say. I was not long in suspecting you of this crime, Ludwig, and the course I then shaped, pretending to suspect Ethel Boyden, and getting rid of you by sending you after Ainsley, was only to blind you, that I might seek for the means you employed. I don't know what this box contains, but I have seen the hideous effect of one of these pellets, if dissolved in the oil of a lighted lamp. I know it emitted through the burning wick, or from the flame, an odorless, insinuating poison that so impregnated the air that it gradually overcame Sylvester Caldwell and caused his horrible death. I know of no substance or ingredient mentioned in the pharmacopoeia that will cause those effects, nor in any writings on toxicology— but you will inform me!" he predicted, with unabating severity.

"I guess not!' Ludwig found his voice. His haggard, cadaverous face was hideous in the dismay and fright that now possessed him. "I'll confess nothing, nor can you prove—"

"Stop."

Detective Glynn arose and lit the lamp. He then removed the feeder cap and dropped one of the gray pellets into the oil, replacing the cap. The pellet had almost dissolved before he had finished. He turned to Ludwig again, who sat staring in awful, overwhelming horror, and threatened him with a course from which no sane man, seeing and hearing: him, would for a moment have hoped he would deviate.

"Understand me!" he said sternly. "You will confess, Ludwig, or I will make you a victim to prove my theory, or to refute it. I will send Ethel Boyden and Ainsley to jail and hold them there till the test is over. I will exclude Mrs. Tate from this house pending further investigations. I then will leave you here alone until that lamp burns out, with the deadly contents I suspect, if it takes till this time to-morrow. Then I will claim that I talked with you this evening and had reason to suspect you, that I secured you here while seeking further evidence, and that I met with an accident which prevented my returning before you expired. But there'd be little need for me to seek extenuation for the experiment, if you are found dead here. God hearing me, Ludwig, I will do this and leave you to your fate, the end I suspect— the fate of the Death Torch!" he cried, with appalling severity, and his quivering finger pointed straight at the cringing fellow.

Ludwig glanced wildly at the burning lamp. He was shaking as if with the ague. His eyes were bulfing with overwhelming, horror from his distorted, dead-white face. Froth flecked his quivering lips and twitching chin.

"No, no, no!" he cried, gasping for breath. "For Heaven's sake, Glynn, don't do that! Don't leave me to meet such a fate as—"

"I will!" Glynn drew back toward the door. "Either that, or—"

"Wait— wait!" Ludwig screamed frantically. "I'll tell you! I'll confess! I admit you are right. I got the pellets from a doctor in India. I don't know what they contain. I did this to get my uncle's fortune. But we'll compromise, Glynn! For Heaven's sake, let's compromise! You shall have half of the fortune. Only you will ever suspect. Only you could have discovered it. I will pay wa

"The penalty!" Glynn said sternly.

"Never! You can't prove I confessed," Ludwig cried, with a wolfish snarl, with one last fiery flash of ferocity. "You can't prove it! You have no witness! You—"

"Haven't I?' Glynn drew up a little. "I gave Dakin written instructions, but not for another policeman. I sent him around the house to enter the rear door and hide in that closet. Come forth, Joey!" he cried. "Let him see for himself."

Sergeant Dakin stepped from the closet.

Ludwig shot one horrified glance in that direction. He saw on the closet floor behind the burly figure of the police sergeant, the body of the man he had murdered. And he crumpled forward in his chair, held there only by the handcuffs, as if the last ounce of strength had left him.

But James Ludwig did not pay the penalty required by the law. He contrived to open an artery in his wrist that night, and he bled to death in the solitude and silence of a prison cell.

_________________

2: Straight Enough

Douglas Newton

1884-1951

Leader (Melbourne) 9 Feb 1935

THE POLICEMAN who found old Dr. Washburn's body on the Common reported it as a natural death— no sign of injury or struggle. A Dr. Milsom, called from a nearby house, testified heart failure. It was well known in Goose Common that Dr. Washburn's heart had been in a dangerous state for years.

Dr. Washburn's nurse-secretary, Miss Cooper, identified the body at the police mortuary. She had no doubt about the cause of the death. Dr. Washburn, she said, had himself known how bad his heart was. He had even expected to die as he had— on his feet. He had declared it a much better death than lingering on in bed.

"Straight enough," nodded Dwyer, the detective. "How'd he come to be on the Common?"

As he was carrying his bag, the nurse supposed he had gone on a sick call. She could not be certain. It had been her night off. When she returned at 10.30 he had already left the house. It was not usual for him to take sick calls; his partner, young Dr. Ryves, did most of the night work. But occasionally he did go out when Dr. Ryves was already on a case, as he had been last night.

"Who called him out?" asked Dwyer

"I can't see it," the woman said. "There was no entry in the day book."

"That unusual?"

"I think so," Nurse Cooper declared. "Dr. Washburn was the most methodical man. But an emergency call so late may have flurried him."

"Was walking to cases his habit?"

"Well, Dr. Ryves had taken the car, you see, and perhaps the call was handy. And he liked walking," the woman's voice became distressed. "He was fond of it, and Dr. Ryves and I both implored him not to overtax himself."

"Old men are obstinate— Yeh," nodded Dwyer, opening the dead man's coat. When did he break this cross on his watch chain, madam?"

"Broken!" The woman looked closer. "Well, l declare! It shows how one doesn't use ones eyes. I didn't know it was broken."

"Which means it wasn't before last night, else you'd noticed," muttered Dwyer, lifting fragment of gold cross, it had snapped off just under the arms, and even those arms had an odd dip towards the centre.

"Fresh break, an' that bend's queer." Dwyer let the cross fall back to its natural resting place. "Just over the solar plexus, too."

"Medical officer's just arriving, Dwyer," the sergeant warned.

"Yeh— just a minute."

The detective's huge and sensitive hands made play over the clothing.

"You found the body, eh, Slack? notice anything— I mean about the pockets?"

"There was no sign of interference." the policeman answered doggedly "I put me hand in breast pocket for signs o' robbery, but deceased's pocket book, full o' money, was still there. Fact, corpse was as it dropped— just natural."

"Yeh," Dwyer commented. "Anybody here carry keys on a chain? Oh, you do, Black. In your trouser pocket? So—careful now, just slide your hand in an tell me where the keys are."

"Right at the bottom— o' course." Black told him.

"Specially of course," murmured Dwyer. "But you got other things in your pocket, too, like Dr. Washburn here, a handkerchief an' so on. Yeh, all the same your keys are at the bottom, bound to sink to the bottom. That's what I think. Dr. Washburn's aren't. They're on top of everything. Just pushed inside."

He studied the dead man with his heavy look as he slowly detached the ring of keys from the chain. The nurse identified them as the doctor's.

"All there?" he asked.

"As far as I know— yes," the woman said.

"Be sure," said Dwyer.

"Well, I am," the woman said sharply. "They re all there. Why shouldn't they be? They never left his person."

"We'll go and see what they fit," Dwyer said.

The medical officer came in. He nodded at the sergeant and Dwyer, and looked sympathetically at the dead man.

"Poor old Washburn," he said. "Overtried his brave old heart once too often, eh?"

"You've little doubt about that, doctor?" the sergeant asked.

"Not much. Everybody knows how rocky the dear old man has been lately."

"Yeh," mused Dwyer. "So rocky that, say, a hard punch to the solar plexus would finish him, eh? Specially if delivered with a knuckle-duster."

"What?" the MO was startled. "I understood— but who'd do such a thing ? The old man hadn't an enemy in the world."

"No?" said Dwyer. "But I'll be obliged, doctor, if you'd just lock and see if it wasn't a solar plexus punch that finished turn."

DR. RYVES was back from his case when Dwyer arrived at the house. He led the large, dull man to Dr. Washburn's consulting room. He, too, knew that heart failure alone had killed his partner. He was inclined to be scornful of Dwyer.

"This is the only place where poor Washburn kept anything under lock and key," he explained. "You'll see for yourself nothing has been tampered with."

"Safe looks easy," said Dwyer. "No combination lock."

"Quite," agreed Dr. Ryves. "But without a key you'd have to smash it open. No sign of that."

"Which key?" asked Dwyer, handing Dr. Washburn's key ring. Slightly taken aback, Dr. Ryves picked one out and opened the safe. Its neat and carefully ordered contents were yet another tribute to the dead man's methodical mind. Dr. Ryves pointed to a packet of notes held together with a rubber band.

"Yesterday's consulting room fees," he mocked. "Your crook seems to have overlooked the only worth-while thing in the safe."

"You think it a crook— or nothing?" Dwyer's stub-featured face watched the other woodenly.

"Naturally," Ryves snapped. "Who else would even want to go to the safe? No man in his senses would want to look, at its other contents—a set of doctors' case .and account books."

"So," said Dwyer. "Well— I'll look."

He was left, there working through the books and papers with the slow method of a tortoise. When he rang, Dr. Ryves found him sitting at the dead man's desk with a big loose-leaf ledger unlocked before him. Dr. Ryves exclaimed angrily when he saw that book.

"Hang it all," he snapped. "You've no right to look at that. It's strictly confidential. It's Dr. Washburn's case book!"

"Greek to me— mostly," Dwyer said. "An' I ain't reading for blackmail. Only for names. See, Dr. Washburn seems to have entered cases as they came in day by day. Regular as a clock. Was that his habit?"

"Of courser Ryves said stiffly. "He'd enter the facts as his patient sat there telling him the facts, or as he made-life examination."

"Yeh, that's how I see it," nodded Dwyer. "That's why I'm wondering why he didn't enter any yesterday."

"You're .right, that is strange," said Dr. Ryves, looking over has shoulder. "I never knew him miss a day like that. And I know he had patients."

He rang for the nurse.

"He had five," Nurse Cooper told them. "Old Major Frails, Mrs. Waterson, Sir Arthur Warry— they were the regulars. The new ones were young Miss Isabel Bertrand and Mrs. Linskell."

"And he wrote full particulars of them all here?" Dwyer asked, finger on the page.

"Of course. He had instructions for me about Major Frail."

The nurse had drawn close enough to see the pages, and she cried .out, startled: "But— someone's torn the page out!"

"Yeh," Dwyer opened a match box. It was empty save for a fragment of paper. It was tough paper, one edge of it showing a clear-cut quarter circle as though a hole had been punched through it.

"This shook out as I lifted the book;" Dwyer explained. "Looks like a bit of leaf made to go over the pillars of the loose-leaf binding. Should be some sort o' key to unlock the binding."

Dr. Ryves, who used a similar case book, had the key. They removed the back of Dr. Washburn's book and the various leaves until, at last, they came upon the remnants of a page still held toy the nickel pillars of the binding mechanism.

"Yeh," said Dwyer. "Yesterday's page was torn out. That's why someone borrowed the keys from the dead man's pocket.... Maybe it's why the old doctor died!"

"Good God!" cried Ryves. "But why? I see no reason in it."

"No?" said Dwyer. "I'd say the murderer thought no one ever could. Tore out the only clue, and heart failure would hide the rest. What about the five cases on that page?"

"Unthinkable!" Ryves burst out. "Frails, Mrs. Waterson, Sir Arthur, all patients of old standing. Commonplace cases, too. They'd have no reason for destroying that page."

"And Mrs. Linskell only came about her baby's teething," scoffed Nurse Cooper. "That leaves Miss Isabel Bertrand," said Dwyer. "Let me see, she's the daughter of Mr. Odo Bertrand, the millionaire crank, isn't she?"

"The scientist and eugenist," Ryves corrected severely. He hesitated for a moment. "I can tell you, in strict confidence, that Miss Bertrand was not exactly a case. She's to be married next month to Mr. Lance Hardy, the athlete. Her father, as you may know, holds the very strongest views about the need for absolute fitness in those who marry. Well, she came for that reason. Washburn, who was an old and trusted friend of all parties, undertook to give her— both the young people— a general overhaul and to certify their fitness or otherwise for marriage."

"Result?'' asked Dwyer.

"I don't know," said Ryves stiffly. Washburn had scarcely time to tell me; in any case his strong sense of professional decorum would probably prevent turn discussing the ease, even with me."

"All the same it's the page dealing with her that's torn out," grunted. "Has he examined Mr. Lance Hardy?"

"Not yet," said Ryves. "But one would hardly have any fears about him, seeing his athletic record."

"No— great feller," nodded Dwyer, but tie frowned. "Was the page full when you saw it last, nurse? No? Could there have been any other patients?"

"Not in consulting hours," she told him. "If he saw anyone later I don't know. I was off from seven to 10 30 remember."

"Nobody came before nine, anyhow" said Ryves. "I was in the house until ten."

"But somebody might have called later— unknown to the servants?"

'"Yes," agreed Ryves. "Doctors' front doors aren't usually locked. Somebody might easily have walked in on Washburn— but are you sure you aren't hunting a mare's nest? It seems so obvious poor Washburn died of heart failure; why, everybody knew his condition."

"Yeh, everybody knew; that's why someone counted on it as cover."

Ryves remained incredulous, but when the M.O. sought Dwyer out the next day, he had a different brand of incredulity.

"You're darn right, Dwyer. It was a solar plexus punch that killed Washburn. Delivered with a knuckleduster, too, I'll swear."

"Yeh, that's why the cross was bent. It was somebody pretty strong who did it, eh, doctor?"

"Exceptionally strong," nodded the M.O.

"Yeh, regular athlete— like Mr. Lance Hardy, for instance?"

"Lance Hardy! What the devil's biting you, Dwyer? Young Lance Hardy isn't the sort that kills people— especially old family friends."

"No ?" said Dwyer. "Here's a knuckleduster we dragged from the pond on the Common. The Hardy butler says it's like one of a pair young Lance has."

"Like! All knuckledusters are alike. Why pick on one of Lance Hardy's?"

"Had a sort of hunch where to look," said Dwyer.

"But, good lord," gulped. the M.O. "Lance is as decent a chap as they're made!"

"Yeh, but badly in Dutch with money-lenders. And engaged to a millionaire's daughter.'"

"But— hang it all, that cancels out! If he is in debt old Bertrand's settlements on Isabel will put him on his feet again:"

"Yeh, if there's a wedding, if that's stopped— a hell of a hole he'd be in."

"But, of course they'll marry," insisted the M.O. "They're madly in love. Nothing can prevent their marrying."

"There's her father's views on good health in marriage; eugenics, isn't it called?" Dwyer muttered, "Crank on it, ain't he?"

"Oh that— it might stop a marriage with anybody else but Lance, but he's an absolutely perfect specimen. Why, his athletic record proves that."

"So, but can't athletics hurt a man's health—too much of 'em?"

"They— might," frowned the M.O.  "Look here, Dwyer, have you really found anything against young Lance?"

"I think Dr. Washburn did— and died," said. Dwyer.

"Good God ! You mustn't sling accusations round like that, man... Besides it's nonsense. Washburn was a friend of Lance's family."

"Yeh," nodded Dwyer. "That's how he knew too much about the old gentleman's methodical habits, and weak heart and things." He turned to the sergeant. "I'll have a warrant made out for Lance Hardy— capital charge."

"ALL RIGHT," said Lance Hardy huskily when the sight of the knuckle-duster had fuelled his first blustered denial. "I'll own up. I killed Washburn."

"Got to warn you that all you say will be used in evidence against you," muttered Dwyer.

"I know— but I want to talk... Old Bertrand's confounded eugenics are back of this... they cornered me as it were. Oh, I'd consented to the overhaul by Washburn; why not? If any man had reason to feel he was at the top of has physical fitness a man with my athletic record had. I strolled in to see Washburn just after nine last night, as I often did, just to get what I thought a purely formal examination over. Imagine, then, the absolute knockdown blow it was when Washburn told me that my athletics had found out an hereditary weakness in my heart, and not only that, but one that must grow progressively worse as time went en. It was appalling. I simply could not believe it at first, but gradually the old man's solemnity made me see that it was to be the end of all my— my hopes with Isabel. That was the thing that turned me into a madman."

"And the money lenders waiting on the marriage," said Dwyer.

"Yes, everything conspired," Lance Hardy scowled. "I was crazy with shock— and cornered. Washburn refused to hush the matter up. He'd agreed— we all had— that the exact facts of the examination should be placed before Mr. Bertrand. He'd already shown me that Isabel had a clean bill. He was sorry, he said in answer to my pleadings, but it was a point of professional honor— and all the time he went on writing down the damning facts in that damned case book of his.

"I saw red— just that one frail old man with his groggy heart stood between me and Isabel— happiness. And then, just as I was touching the most rebellious fury of despair, he had to break off his writing to answer the telephone. He told me it was from Ryves saying he expected to be out on his case all night. It was that that gave me my idea. I knew the nurse was out that night. I knew nobody had seen me come in or knew I was there. If I could— could shut Washburn's mouth in such a way that nobody knew I'd done it I felt I could make everything safe."

"You mean— you then planned murder?" said Dwyer.

"What other way would shut Washburn's mouth?" said Lance Hardy wearily. "It was an old man's life against my young happiness, anyhow, and it was not so hard in the doing. I left the house as unobserved as I had entered it. I telephoned Washburn from a call box, pretending I was someone else— an urgent sick call. I gave an address that made it necessary for him to cross the Common. I met him there. I knew one punch would be enough— with his heart. It was. I took his keys, walked in through the front door of his house, as I always did, and again without anyone seeing me; opened his safe and tore the page containing the particulars of my-examination from his case book, it was., I knew, the only record he could have, though I saw to it there was no other clue to my visit. Then I returned the keys to his pocket. I thought I'd made everything safe. I didn't see how anyone could suspect .anything but his well-known heart disease. I was sure nobody'd ever dream of suspecting me. I meant to refuse any more medical examinations; sure I could persuade Isabel. It seemed foolproof. How did you trace me?"

"The keys for one thing," said Dwyer. "You left them at the wrong end o' the pocket. The keys meant you wanted to get at something in the safe, an' the page torn from the case book showed what that was. The nurse remembered the cases on that page. Miss Isabel Bertrand's was the only questionable one, an' that naturally led to you. But the real thing that gave you away was that knuckle-duster. It made you hit too hard, and broke the gold cross on the doctor's breast— an' that was no heart failure symptom."

"I used the knuckle-duster to make certain," sighed Lance Hardy. "We all make slips. You, for instance. I used those keys for something more than the safe. The poison cupboard. "

His hand travelled like a flash from his waistcoat pocket to his lips.

"All right— no correcting this mistake either— corrosive sublimate. It's— the— finish."

"Yeh," said Dwyer, looking down at Hardy's corpse. "Best perhaps."

_________________

I can find nothing about this author, except this story and the one that follows.

3: An Echo of the Quarter

Kenneth Herford

Geraldton Murchison Telegraph 29 Nov 1898

RENAUD! Ha, ha!

Old Renaud!

You remember him, Gustave? Renaud, the fiddler of the Rue Martin, that relic of dead days when the quarter was gayer— when Fantine lived—

No? Ah, yes. I remember now; he died before you came, died in his attic in the Rue Martin, alone, where it was cold and dark. He died as he lived, hugging a hope. And Fantine was not there. There was nothing there. Nothing but half a roll and broken mirror and a tiny decanter that had once held absinthe.

The absinthe? No, Gustave, not the absinthe. It was some-thing else. Old Renaud took to absinthe as a duck takes to water He called it "sweet, cooling absinthe." Cooling! Ugh! You remember how Eccles in the English play speaks of gin, "cool, refreshing gin?" Renaud's absinthe was "cool, refreshing"—to Renaud.

But then—

Did Lemarte ever tell you about the old man, his early days in the quarter, his later life— and his fiddle. Renaud used to say it was Renaud used to say it was a Strad, but we did not believe him. There was no stamp. True, the neck had the right curve and the varnish good, but there was no stamp, no stamp.

Tell you his story, Fantine, Vivette and all? Tres bien! It is not a long story, just a tale of hope and loss, of a woman and a fiddle. When the G string snapped Renaud too, snapped the cord that held him to earth and went to heaven, a place, as he said, of green grass, walls of anise and rivers of absinthe, everything green, bright, vivid, verdant green — the color of degeneracy.

But I anticipate—

Garçon!

Cognac!

Oui.

Renaud was young when he came, a boy with soft brown hair and eyes that talked, and lips like two split cherries for their redness. The women fell down and worshipped him. There was Fantine —before your day, Gustave— a model, Bleury's model, a country girl who came among us here as fresh is the breezes that blow across the fields of the south. And she never grew stale. She preserved that freshness— in cognac, Renaud used to say, and then would laugh. But that was long after, when the little miniature he wore around his neck, a tiny portrait of Fantine's face, had slipped from its cord and fallen somewhere and been lost— least-wise he never exhibited it as he had once.

Yes, she loved Renaud, as those girls do, you know. And he?— in his way, in his way. He thought he did and sometimes a thought is better than a reality, particularly in love, Gustave, particularly in love.

And then—

It was a long time that Fantine Renaud were lovers. He should have known better, you say? ha, ha! He would have had he been French. What, you had never heard? No, no; he was English. Came to study painting, failed, and turned to his music, his fiddle. He took the name Renaud. He was always called that. Even when we came to bury him we nailed a card on his box, "Renaud." We had forgotten his own name. He was French to look at, to talk to, to hear play, but his heart was English, a deep-loving heart, easily wounded and hard healing You know. Little Herbert was the same. He jumped in the Seine, though. Renaud didn't do that.

Renaud began with Bleury, clever at landscapes, and marines, but in figures— bah! I would not give that much cognac for all his figure pieces, and he made many of them. He thought he was a great figure painter, as a clown considers himself a great tragedian, and somehow or other he convinced little— the little Englishman who came to be Renaud.

Mon Dieu! How that boy painted. His drawing was wretched, but we would never tell him so. All day he would paint. Industrious? Most. Till Fantine came, and then his interest fell awav. There's not much soul in a tube of paint, Gustave. There's a world in a violin string. Renaud learned that then— when Fantine came. Of an evening he and she would its together by the tiny balcony window in his attic, he scraping out his heart, with his fiddle and his bow, she looking up at him like patient dog, only her eyes were blue.

He could do nothing after that but play— to her. Yes, he gave up painting entirely. Money? Some. He used to say an uncle had died and left him a few thousand francs. Maybe he had but we did not believe. Where did Fantine's money go? we asked ourselves. Into the Cafe Mercier, just out of the Rue Martin, for coffee and rolls, and an egg and cognac, we answered.

But Fantine was happy. She called him ingenious names of her own invention and every night climbed the stairs to his attic to hear him play to her. By and by after a year or two had slipt along the grooves of time, Renaud came among us and said he would like to play for us at a ball, an artists' ball— provided we paid him. That was his debut. I remember the night. The girls were all there. Fantine did not dance. She sat away at one end with Renaud and smiled at the others when they would shoot her glances of jealousy at her. That soft hair, those brown eyes, the cherry lips! Mon Dieu, every girl in the room loved Renaud. We others were nothing. But he seemed oblivious to them all. He loved Fantine. Loved her true— but, then, he was not French in his heart.

And then came Jean. He painted impossible figures with Bleury. "He will lose her," we all said. And he did. One night Jean told us he was going into the south the next morning. The next morning came. He had gone. So had Fantine.

After that Renaud played along, to himself in his attic. When Fantine had him all the other girls loved him, but when she went they laughed at him and called him the poor Renaud, and sneered. So there was no one to sit by him at the balls for many many months.

Then, in loneliness, Renaud learned to love the absinthe. After that he played in his attic to the decanter and the half a roll. His hair was a little grey around the temples and on the back, and his eyes were sunken a bit. We said among ourselves that he was going. Absinthe! And then we would smile. His dress came to be shabby, his trousers fringed at the heels, and his linen often trimmed with a little pair of nail scissors that he carried in his pocket. The old Renaud with the soft brown hair and melting eyes and cherry lips had died. Only an absinthine shadow of him lived and played the fiddle.

Then Vivette came—

She was from the south, too. We thought at first that in her he seemed to see a likeness to Fantine. But no, it couldn't be that, for her hair was black, the other's had been Titian. And she loved him him, yes. Deeply, strongly. She called him her angel, and other silly names, and Renaud seemed to be pleased and become more his old self. It went on for long that way. He played to her now and shared his roll with her, and taught her to like absinthe. She was a nice girl, but there were hundreds of others just as nice, and no one begrudged Renaud his sweetheart till after.

Three years had passed and then came the end of Vivette. He told her one night after playing three hours that he had never loved her, that he loved the other, Fantine, but that she had gone from him, and when she went he had sworn to be revenged on some woman who might love him. He cast Vivette aside that way. She was from the south, and did not know.

After many days they found her in the water. Renaud did not identify her. He said he had washed his hands of her and all other women. No, I don't know where they buried her, somewhere down there where they stow away those whom no one loves.

We came to hate Renaud for that. We did not have him play for us for many months, and then it was only once. He was so steeped in absinthe that he had forgotten how to keep time. When we would speak to him about it he would say he was doing all right, that our ears were wrong. But we knew better. We all knew what a five years' diet of absinthe and rolls means.

Renaud was a model a little while. He worked with half a dozen impressionists. They used to paint his head with its hollow cheeks and deep sunken eyes all surrounded with serpents and sleeping bats.

We no longer heard the music of the violin from Renaud's attic window. One night early in winter Georges saw the French-man with the English heart creeping along the Rue Martin and followed him. He passed the old Café Mercier in the shadow, and came out into the Rue Tivoli. There used to be a pawnshop there. Before the glaring window Renaud stopped. He stood there a few moments and then crept back along the wall in the shadow to his attic, Geoirges went to find what it was in the window that had caused Kenaud to come out in the cold to see. There, on a pile of slppers and baubles and knives and bits of yellow torn lace, rested a violin.

Georges smiled and ran back to the Cafe Mercier where we used to spend our evenings when there was music there, and told us that Renaud had pawned his fiddle and that he had just seen him looking through the shop window at it, then going away, his eyes hollower than ever.

After that for many days one or the other of us would catch sight of Renaud looking in at the pawnshop window in the night— at his fiddle. Each night he would go there, and then come away and seek his attic.

"I know," said Georges one evening; "he goes to see if it is still there. I believes he loves that fiddle even more than he loved Fantine. He thinks maybe that as long as the shopkeeper does not sell it there is a chance of his getting it back again."

Georges' speech set us thinking.

Rougemont spoke up and said, "Let's buy the fiddle back and take it back to Renaud on Christmas morning with a basket of eatables!"

"Good!" we all shouted. Georges, because he had made the discovery, was dispatched to the pawnshop. He returned to say the instrument was held at at ninety francs. We looked in our purses and poured out the contents on a table in the Cafe Mercier. Seventy-eight francs the pile amounted to.

"What shall we do for the rest?" cried Georges.

"I have it!" Rougement rose from his chair and ran out into the night. By and by he came back hugging a little picture to his breast. It was a tiny marine done in a splendid manner. Rougemont was so clever at marines. there in the cafe, beneath a yellow light on a table with seventy-eight francs piled in the middle of it, Rougemont stood and cried: "You stranger, look this way !" There were a dozen or more foreigners at the other tables. We had hardly noticed them. "What do you give me for this marine? It is worth a hundred francs. How much do you give me?"

There was some bidding. The bit of canvas went for thirty-seven france. Cheap! It was sacrilege! There was enough and to spare. We sent Georges to watch the pawnshop window.

The next Thursday was Christmas eve. He told the keeper that the violin would be redeemed that afternoon. Each night till then Renaud, shivering with the cold, would creep along the wall in the shadow, glance in at the window, see the violin, then go back to his attic and his decanter.

Georges stood there long on Christmas eve. It was snowing and freezing on the pavement, After hours he caught sight of the figure by the wall. it was Renaud. Georges smiles as he the tattered man would think when he was his beloved fiddle gone. We had bought it that afternoon.

The figure in the shadow slouched along and stopped before the pawnshop window. For an instant tottered, then fell to the snow. Georges did not move.

By and by Renaud rose and staggered back up the Rue Tivoli and turned into the Rue Martin. We laughed long in the Café Mercier that night. Ho, ho, for the morning, with its surprise to Renaud!

Twelve of us with a big basket of food for a feast, and the violin in a new case, clambered stairway to his attic soon after sunrise. His door was ajar. Noiselessly we swung it further open. A ray of the morning light shone through the little balcony window on a head of iron grey that lay on outstretched arms thrown over the table top.

"He is asleep," whispered Georges. We put the basket down and Rougemont went to the side of the still figure in the chair and roughly shook it by the shoulders.

"Wake up, Renaud, and see," he cried, and raised the head by pulling the long hair playfully. The head fell over the back of the chair. The jaw dropped and two eyes, sunken deep, stared up at the ceiling.

On the table lay a scribbled half bar of music with a pot of ink and a pen near by. At the top of the paper, as though it were the name of the unfinished song, had been written "A Fantine."

The absinthe decanter was empty.

________________

4: Smiley's Scoop.

Kenneth Herford

North Queensland Register, 2 Jan 1899

FORTY-FIVE minutes previous the jury had gone out.

Now they were coming in, through the little doorway at the end of the box, and one by one were taking their places.

'Gentlemen—'

The judge had turned in his wheel chair until he faced the twelve men.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'have you agreed upon a verdict?'

'We have,' said the foreman.

The judge looked down over his desk. 'Mr. Clerk, take the verdict.'

A hush of expectancy, impatience, fell over the dingy, crowded court room.

'Guilty, as charged!'

'The words were spoken by the foreman without hesitation, without feeling.

Then it seemed as if all those present exhaled their breaths at the same time. A sob came from a woman who, during the trial, had sat each day at the end of the jury box, her chair so placed that she could see and hear the attorneys in the case and watch the prisoner. She held a child on her lap, an infant, and at the words of the foreman she clutched the little one closer to her and breathed that sob against its cheek.

The judge wheeled half around is his chair. He faced . the prisoner. Those in the court room, before the bench, could not see his face, only his shoulder above the desk, and the back of his head.

'James Hogan,' he commanded, 'stand up.'

The man in the dock obeyed readily.

The judge, after searching his eyes and casting upon him a look that covered every bit of his person that was turned toward him, said:

'James Hogan, you have been found guilty of murder by a jury of your peers; have you anything to say why the sentence of this court should not be passed upon you?'

Hogan cast his roving eyes around the room, avoiding the corner where sat the woman with the child, and shook his head.

And then the voice of the judge was the only sound in the court room.

'There is no necessity of my reciting the details of the crime committed by you on the night of November 26. Those details are familiar to this jury and to all who have followed the course of this trial. You fell upon an old man and cruelly murdered him for the little money he had upon his person. You were apprehended in the act of raising his head from the pavement to which he had fallen as the result of the death blow you had struck him from behind. You were arrested oh the spot by a patrolman and taken to the cental station in the lower court you pleaded not guilty. You were indicted and in this court, but a few minutes ago, you were found guilty as charged. The evidence against you is overwhelming. The enormity of your crime does not entitle you to any mercy by the hands of this court. I sentence you to be taken to the county. jail, and there, some time between the lumrs of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., on Friday, the ninth day of Jauary, and hanged by the neck until you are dead.'

A faint moan came from where the woman was sitting. Only those nearest her heard it. The others in the court room whispered among themselves and cast furtive glances at the prisoner,who had seated himself again in the chair he had occupied during the trial.

The judge spoke a few words in an undertone to the sheriff. The court was adjourned.

The prisoner rose. Two officers stepped forward, one on either side of him, and submitted to having the double handcuffs locked on their alternate wrists. As the trio passed out of the room and through the long corridor of the court house to the central station where Hogan was to await his removal to the jail, later in the day, the woman, who sat at the end of the jury box and held the child, elbowed her way through the throng of the, morbidly curious and hangers-on of the building. She pushed a little ahead of the officers and then turning, faced them. They halted a moment in surprise! A moment was time enough for her. She threw her right arm around Hogan's neck and cried, 'Jim, I love you! They shall not take you away! Baby and I will go with you, Jim!'

The man could not raise his arms to hold the woman to his breast, but he kissed her on the forehead and, bending, kissed the tiny face of the staring-eyed infant, that she held on her hip in the curve of her left arm. The officers had allowed the little scene to be acted, but, at its conclusion the one nearest her thrust the woman aside and he and his companion passed on with their prisoner.

The judge remained in the room some minutes after the adjournment of court. Below his desk, outside the railing of the clerks, some four or five reporters wrote at a long table. The afternooa papers had lost the story of the last day of the trial so the men from The Times, The Herald, and The Advertiser were the only reporters in the room. They wrote on with a feverish, nervous haste, their fingers twitching at the pencil points, their brows contracted. Now.and then one of them would hesitate an instant as though turning a phrase, in hia mind before putting it to paper, then he would resume his writing. Closely scribbled sheets littered the table and three or four lay on the floor, blown there unnoticed by the breeze that wafted into the room from outside when the doorinto the corridor was opened by the sheriff.

The writers finished at about the same time. Two of them immediately thrust their copy into the pockets of their ulsters, and passing through the doorway wandered out upon the streets.

'Well, what do you think?' asked Reynolds of the Times, of Smiley of the Herald, as he caught up with him at th& foot of the stone steps where Smiley had stopped to light a cigarette.

'I don't know what to think,' was the reply, as the men walked along together. I was sorry to see Jim get iut so hard though. The judge could Just as well have given him a life sentence. I tell you, Jim isn't the only frad man in town; there are lots worse and they never stretch a rope. And he was always dead square with us. He's steered me against more good stories than any of those fellows who sit around the central station from one day's end to another and look wise. Yes, sir, I'm sorry for Jim. Well, I'll leave you here, old man. I'm past due now. The city editor will think I have fallen into the drink. See you at the bartenders' ball tonight? Good, that's my assignment. S'long!'

And Smiley of the Herald hurried down to the office of his paper and entering the City editor's room tossed his 'copy' on the desk.

'I'll go to dinner now, if you don't mind, sir,' he said to Mr. Cleaver.

The City editor did not look. 'All right,' he replied.

Once in a great while a City editor is agreeable. Cleaver was that night. Therefore he was approachable; therefore were there more than the usual number of reporters in his room before the evening assignments were taken up.

It was but natural, that, after a bit— after Smiley had come in— the conversation should have turned to a discussion of the trial, conviction and sentence of Jim Hogan.

The City editor was agreeable enough to agree with Smiley that it was too bad the judge had not sentenced him to imprisonment for life instead of to be hanged. Of course, there was no question of morals, nor of protection, to society, in that agreement. It was arrived at simply because Hogan had not been a bad fellow, as regarded the giving of 'tips' when he had them to give. All the newspaper boys in town knew him. And as Smiley had said, he had steered more than one of them against good stories.

For instance, what would the Herald have done, where would it have been, in that counterfeiting case, if it hadn't been for Hogan? He tipped off the game going on down the bay to Smiley one night, three years before, when he was an honest, upright citizen and tended bar for Larry Parrel in the latter's place on Chatham street, and was respected by every voter in the ward.

Smiley took that 'tip' and though it was in the dead of winter he went down the bay and skirmished .around until he found the cabin he had described to him. And he crawled to the rocf of it and lay there against the chimney, listening until he heard enough to convince him that 'queer' half-dollars were being made inside. Then he caught an 'owl car' and a little later rushed into the office of the Herald with the best story of the month. After his copy was in type and the hour for stopping composition in the other offices had passed the police were notified and the raid was made before daylight, it was a scoop. Not mother paper in town had a line about the arrest of the counterfeiters. There was an extra ten dollar bill in Smiley's envelope the next Monday morning. Wasn't Hogan to be, credited with that?

Of course he was a criminal; but what of it? He was a friend to every reporter in the city and not one had ever been deceived or misled by him. Why, wasn't it owing to this friendship that the boys had given him those great write-ups when he and Maggie Flynn were married.  Maggie Flynn, the daughter of contractor Michael Flynn, of the Eighth.

Never were reporters treated so handsomely as at that wedding. They all wore dress suits and attended in a body with a day City editor or two at their head. But that was long before; it was just six months later that Farrel began to miss money from his till and Jim was sent to the island for the 'tapping'.

That was the beginning. It was all down hill for Jim after that. He went from bad to worse, and after he had served a sentence for highway robbery he was no longer the old-time Jim, but plain, everyday, Hogan, a 'crook' who had been 'mugged,' whose portrait hung in the Rogue's Gallery, and who was known to every patrolman in the city.

But he never lost his:'pull' with Frank Tompkins, the proprietor of the saloon and gambling room at 34 Lafayette Place. Frank had found Jim the first in green goods operation, and to retain his services he drew him out of many scrapes that might have proved disastrous. In fact, if it hadn't been for Tompkins kindness in securing his release when his time was up, Jim would have been on the island when the murder of old man Raymond was committed.

Tompkins, in turn, had some sort of a 'pull' with the municipal courts. No one ever knew what it; amounted to, but he used it, and to effect, and it was even suggested in the office of the Herald that Saturday night that he took it into his .head to get Jim's sentence commuted he could do it. But there was little likelihood of that. Jim had fallen from grace even In the eyes of Tompkins. So that last avenue appeared to be closed.

All these incidents in Hogan's career; of his descent from the respectable station of genteel bartender through the varying stages of sneak thief, highway robbery, confidence man, to the plane of murderer, were gone over that night in the^ office of the city editor of the Herald.

It was the old story. It has been heard and repeated in different words, by different voices, dozens off times in every newspaper office in the land, yet Cleaver would insist upon drawing a moral from the tale, obviously for the benefit of the younger members of the litfe group at the end of his desk.

'Just look at it,' he said. 'Here is a man who at one time, not very long ago, either, was a respected member of society. See what he has—"

Just then the bell of the desk telephone on the shelf at his elbow rang shrilly.

The city editor held the tube to his ear and talked into the receiver calmly. The reporters could hardly distinguish the words of half of his conversation, though when he had takan up the instrument talking amongst them had ceased.

'About midnight, you say?'

Pause.

And then again into the receiver of the instrument: 'And keep it quiet, won't you. You've been, good to us before, and why not make this a scoop? Little favors aren't forgotten, yon know. We've lost one or two good stories lately, and we'd like to make up on this one. What's that? I can't bear you. Oh, you will? All right, captain. Much obliged. Goodbye.'

The bell rang again, this time a tiny tinkle, and turning to Smiley, Cleavber said, 'That was the captain down at the station that just called. He says they're going to take Hogan down to the prison tonight about midnight. Seems the jail's full. They've been waiting for permission from the governor. Captain says two men will walk him down probably, as he's requested to. It's only a few blocks, you know, and the captain said Jim had asked if he might not be allowed to see the old city for the last time by moonlight. I guess the moon comes up abou midnight. You can take a run over to Finnucan's hall where the bartender's ball is going to be held, and then I want you to go down to the prison with the officers and Hogan. It's worth a good story; a little pathos, you know; all about the prisoner's appearance and the sadness of a man's last look upon his old home. You catch the idea? Possibly he'll talk. If he should, remember every word he says. Work it up in good shape, terse, and all that, and I'll feature it. That's all."

'Yes, sir,' said Smiley. Then he tucked a roll of copy paper into one of the pockets of his ulster. He walked downstairs, shutting the elevator, and out upon the street, whistling, the while, softly, to himself.

One by one the other reporters went out on their assignments and by half past eight the City editor was left alone to blue pencil the late afternoon 'copy.'

From 8.30 till 10 the office of a morning newspaper is 'half dead.' The men put on their 'beats' and only the 'click, click' of the telegraph instruments toiling along toward '30,' or the unconventional dropping in of the heeler from the seventh breaks the chain of monotony.

It was twenty-five minutes past eleven when Smiley walked in to the city editor's office with his story of the ball.

Cleaver looked up sharply. 'You'd better hurry along down to the station,' said, 'And I guess you'd better take with you. He isn't doing anyiuet now. If I don't happen to here when you get back, give the story all it's worth and leave it on my  desk. When you've finished you may go home if you want to.'

Then he called Hughes and told him to consider himself under the order of Smiley.

As they stepped out into the night the two reports buttoned their coats tightly about their throats, for the air was stinging cold.

They walked down the street towards the station silently. They slipped into the alley leading to the turn-key's room and pushed open the heavy door of the station houses

A word was passed with the German at the desk, then they shambled up the old stairway, and, turning to the left at the top, entered the captain's office. A small squad of sergeants were being assigned their beats as the reporters stepped into the room. After they had filed out, swinging their long-nightsticks, the captain turned in his chair and gave the young men a cheery good evening.

'Yes, you're in time,' he replied in answer to Smiley's question. 'They're getting Hogan ready now. No, they won't take the wagon; he asked if he couldn't be allowed to walk out. He's a bad one, but he's harmless. He's aware that the game is up now, and there'll be no danger. He wants to see the city for the last time, you know. And I guess we might as well let him. He won't see anybody after to-night till the day of hangin', and then only the Father."

The whistle of the speaking tube was blown just then, and the captain put his ear to the funnel. He listened a moment, then muttered 'All right.'

Turning to the reporters, he said, 'They're going out the front way. You'd better walk a little behind until they get him off Adams street. When you turn on Water you can go alongside and talk to him if you want to; I've told the men to let you; there'll be two of them."

Smiley and Hughes stepped into the corridor and stopd near the door of the detectives room as the two officers passed up and down the hallway and through the Superior street entrance with Hogan between them.

Then, the reporters followed but into .the cold and darkness off the December night. The street in front of the station was deserted save for two tramps who hovered in the doorway of a little saloon on the other side and a woman carrying a child, who moved rapidly away as the officers stepped to the pavement.

A brisk step was taken by the guards but Smiley and Hughes lingered behind, in obedience to the captain's Instructions, until the little party had reached Water-street, the direct road to the prison, and then they hastened until they had caught up with the three men.

Hogan recognised Smiley, as with his companion, they passed unaer an electric light, and with a faint suggestion of a smile on his hard lips, asked if anything were wanted.

'Nothing,' replied Smiley. 'We just thought we'd go down with you, Jim, that is all. I'm sorry to see you down here, Jim. You've always i jiie the square thing by me, and I'd like to help you, but I guess I can't.'

The man between the officers turned his head.

'No, Smiley, I guess you can't,' he said. 'But we've always been good friends, ain't we,' he continued after a moment's pause. 'You're one of the best I've got among the newspaper gang, Smiley, and now I want you to promise me something. I want you. to sort o' keep an eye on Maggie an' th' kid, will you? She's a good girl— too good fer me— and I can't bear t' think o' any harm comin' t' her. Kind o'watch her, won't you? I won't see her no more, but I guess it's all right. I seen her a minute after the trial and kissed her good-bye then— and the kid. Poor girl, I'm sorry— poor Maggie—'

For the first time since his arrest the man's voice faltered— probably for the first time in years. And Smiley turned away to brush from his eyes the little drops of moisture that the cold had likely caused to gather in them. As he turned, he saw a dark form, like that of a woman, moving along in the shadow slants of the bill boards across the street, Evidently the gwds had not observed her. He said nothing, but when the little party readied the corner of the prison wall he turned again and saw hovering in the darkness the same form.

She had something in her arms, if a woman it was, but he could not make out, exactly.

Up above them towered the great, gray walls of the prison. To the right stretched out the half frozen river shrouded in an impenetrable cloak of black. Across the street—

Again a fleeting sight of the figure. Ten steps further along the wall, Smiley turned his head and looked back. It had crossed the street over and stood at the corner. It was watching, apparently, the little party make its way over the slippery flags to the great gate on the Water-Street side ot the building.

The entrance was reached.

'You go along inside,' said Smiley. 'I'll stay out here.'

Hughes followed the officers and their prisoner:

The heavy door swung on its hinges and was locked on the inner side by the guard.

As the lock snapped and the heavy bolts shot into their sockets, Smiley heard a scream as of a woman in agony.

Then there was silence.

He ran back to the end of the wall and reached It just in time: to see the figure in black jump from the dock to the ice below.

For an instant the young man hesitated. Everything he had seen and heard that day in connection with the Hogan trial flashed through his mind, and above all the man's own words, spoken to him, 'You'll kind o' keep an eye fer her, won't you?'

Then an idea struck him.

He thrust his hand into his waistcoat pocket and darted across the street. There on its post hung the patrol box.

The inserting into the lock of the little key he had taken from the pocket was the work off less than an infant. The door opened. He rang the bell and shouted half a dozen words into the cap of the instrument.

Then he closed the door, locked it, and stepping into the middle of the road stood there,with his head thrust forward, his hand to his ear, listening.

In a few seconds he heard the clatter of hoofs away up toward town. Then the two front lights of the precinct patrol bounded into view.

The galloping horses slipped and stumbled on the icy pavement. In another half minute they had drawn up at the corner of the prison wall where Smiley stood, waving his hands.

Three patrolmen jumped from the wagon.

'Come on,' cried the reporter, as he ran out upon the dock with the officers at his heels. 'There a woman out there on the ice and I guess it's Maggie Hogan, Jim's wife, but I don't know—'

They had all dropped down to the ice, Smiley was away in advance. The sergeant blew his whistle.

A shrill scream cut the air. It was followed by a splash. This was the only answer to the call..

Just then the moon broke through the clouds and flooded the entire breadth of the river with its silvery light. There was not a speck upon the ice. All was clear and silent, save the stream of inky darkness that flowed down the middle, scarce twenty feet in width.

The officers cast one look over the stretch of glistening ice, then went back to the wagon.

Hughes was standing by the box waiting. The two reporters rode into town with the officers.

And the Herald's story next morning was a scoop.

____________________

5: The Phantom Rickshaw

Rudyard Kipling

1865-1936

Quartette Christmas 1885

There is quite a tradition of Christmas ghost stories (Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' is a famous example. So is this…

May no ill dreams disturb my rest,

Nor Powers of Darkness me molest.

— Evening Hymn.

One of the few advantages that India has over England is a great Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills.

Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less today, if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and helpful.

Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon some fifteen years ago. He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's work, and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serious trouble.

Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on his private account— an arrangement of loose boxes for Incurables, his friend called it— but it was really a sort of fitting-up shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is always a fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.

Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariable prescription to all his patients is, "lie low, go slow, and keep cool." He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle," says Heatherlegh, "after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith–Wessington. My notion is that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him poor devil. Write him off to the System— one man to take the work of two and a half men."

I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be within claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even voice, the procession that was always passing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick man's command of language. When he recovered I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.

He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterward he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he preferred to die; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. I got his manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the affair, dated 1885:

MY DOCTOR tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not improbable that I shall get both ere long— rest that neither the red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of my doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shall learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too, judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth was ever so tormented as I.

Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, demands at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the man who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man in India. Today, from Peshawur to the sea, there is no one more wretched. My doctor and I are the only two who know this. His explanation is, that my brain, digestion, and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving rise to my frequent and persistent "delusions." Delusions, indeed! I call him a fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the same bland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you shall judge for your-selves.

Three years ago it was my fortune— my great misfortune— to sail from Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes Keith–Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of this sort there is always one who gives and another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and— if I may use the expression— a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plain to both of us.

Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective ways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season together; and there my fire of straw burned itself out to a pitiful end with the closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learned that I was sick of her presence, tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth. On her neither my openly expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I garnished our interviews had the least effect.

"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo cry: "I'm sure it's all a mistake— a hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day. Please forgive me, Jack, dear."

I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity into passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate— the same instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the season of 1882 came to an end.

Next year we met again at Simla— she with her monotonous face and timid attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every fibre of my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and on each occasion her words were identically the same. Still the unreasoning wail that it was all a "mistake"; and still the hope of eventually "making friends." I might have seen had I cared to look, that that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I maintain that she was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the black, fever-stricken night-watches, I have begun to think that I might have been a little kinder to her. But that really is a "delusion." I could not have continued pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It would have been unfair to us both.

Last year we met again— on the same terms as before. The same weary appeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming the old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart— that is to say, she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade were fantastically intermingled— my courtship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white face flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie" jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it already.

"So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear." Then, without a moment's pause: "I'm sure it's all a mistake— a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day, Jack, as we ever were."

My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't mean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!"

And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that I had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she had turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me.

The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory. The rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden, dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed a gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of the jhampanies, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington's down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She was holding her handkerchief in her left hand and was leaning hack exhausted against the 'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call of "Jack!" This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on horseback; and, in the delight of a long ride with her, forgot all about the interview.

A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of her existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy. Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her, except that at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I had disinterred what was left of our correspondence from among my scattered belongings and had burned it. At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I was at Simla— semi-deserted Simla— once more, and was deep in lover's talks and walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be married at the end of June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I did, I am not saying too much when I pronounce myself to have been, at that time, the happiest man in India.

Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight. Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals circumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement ring was the outward and visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured for one. Up to that moment, I give you my word, we had completely forgotten so trivial a matter. To Hamilton's we accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that— whatever my doctor may say to the contrary— I was then in perfect health, enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolute tranquil spirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there, regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring in the presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope that leads to the Combermere Bridge and Peliti's shop.

While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side— while all Simla, that is to say as much of it as had then come from the Plains, was grouped round the Reading-room and Peliti's veranda— I was aware that some one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me by my Christian name. It struck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I could not at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the road between the path from Hamilton's shop and the first plank of the Combermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might have committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have been singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my eye was arrested by the sight of four jhampanies in "magpie" livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back to the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without her black and white servitors reappearing to spoil the day's happiness? Whoever employed them now I thought I would call upon, and ask as a personal favor to change her jhampanies' livery. I would hire the men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs. It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories their presence evoked.

"Kitty," I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's jhampanies turned up again! I wonder who has them now?"

Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always been interested in the sickly woman.

"What? Where?" she asked. "I can't see them anywhere."

Even as she spoke her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin air.

"What's the matter?" cried Kitty; "what made you call out so foolishly, Jack? If I am engaged I don't want all creation to know about it. There was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you think I can't ride— There!"

Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a hand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, as she herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was the matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near the left railing of the Combermere Bridge.

"Jack! Jack, darling!" (There was no mistake about the words this time: they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) "It's some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, Jack, and let's be friends again."

The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith–Wessington, handkerchief in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.

How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably endeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind— as a child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark. I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring for me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my face stopped her.

"Why, Jack," she cried, "what have you been doing? What has happened? Are you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.

In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter. Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the year of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broad daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, in defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.

Kitty's Arab had gone through the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope that some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the 'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the presence of the 'rickshaw is in itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hillman!"

Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked with sudden palpitation of the heart— the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us.

Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road— anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our oldtime walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud.

As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies' Mile the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight— only the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and the golden head of the woman within— all apparently just as I had left them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that Kitty must see what I saw— we were so marvelously sympathetic in all things. Her next words undeceived me —"Not a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings!" Her wiry little Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty yards of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The 'rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the Arab passed through it, my horse following. "Jack! Jack dear! Please forgive me," rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:—"It's a mistake, a hideous mistake!"

I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at the Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still waiting— patiently waiting— under the grey hillside, and the wind brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had been talking up till then wildly and at random. To save my life I could not speak afterward naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wisely held my tongue.

I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men talking together in the dusk. —"It's a curious thing," said one, "how completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely fond of the woman ('never could see anything in her myself), and wanted me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I've got to do what the Memsahib tells me. Would you believe that the man she hired it from tells me that all four of the men— they were brothers— died of cholera on the way to Hardwar, poor devils, and the 'rickshaw has been broken up by the man himself. 'Told me he never used a dead Memsahib's 'rickshaw. 'Spoiled his luck. Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one's luck except her own!" I laughed aloud at this point; and my laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of 'rickshaws after all, and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?

And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington "Good-evening." Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to the Thing in front of me.

"Mad as a hatter, poor devil— or drunk. Max, try and get him to come home."

Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They were very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down.

The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, I was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was describing, with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that evening.

A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, as professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed. There was a moment's awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered something to the effect that he had "forgotten the rest," thereby sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart, and— went on with my fish.

In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine regret I tore myself away from Kitty— as certain as I was of my own existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh, of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.

My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he had been thinking over it all dinner time.

"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me before I was aware.

"That!" said I, pointing to It.

"That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don't liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's nothing whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it's Eyes. And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I'm on the Blessington lower road."

To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept about twenty yards ahead— and this, too whether we walked, trotted, or cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion almost as much as I have told you here.

"Well, you've spoiled one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to," said he, "but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through. Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you, young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and indigestible food till the day of your death."

The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.

"Eyes, Pansay— all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of these three is Stomach. You've too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the rest follows. And all that's French for a liver pill. I'll take sole medical charge of you from this hour! for you're too interesting a phenomenon to be passed over."

By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hanging shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh rapped out an oath.

"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside for the sake of a stomach-cum-Brain-cum-Eye illusion.... Lord, ha' mercy! What's that?"

There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side— pines, undergrowth, and all— slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had subsided, my companion muttered:—"Man, if we'd gone forward we should have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. 'There are more things in heaven and earth.'... Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg badly."

We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr. Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.

His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I bless the good-fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's best and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be recovered before she had time to regret my absence.

Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver pills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at early dawn— for, as he sagely observed: "A man with a sprained ankle doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be wondering if she saw you."

At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting benediction: "Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that's as much as to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss Kitty."

I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me short.

"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you're a phenomenon, and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. No!"— checking me a second time —"not a rupee, please. Go out and see if you can find the eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for each time you see it."

Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with Kitty— drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the fore-knowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.

Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings' house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road as of old.

I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. "Why, Jack!" she cried at last, "you are behaving like a child. What are you doing?"

We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of my riding-whip.

"Doing?" I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I."

" 'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth,

Joying to feel yourself alive;

Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth,

Lord of the senses five.' "

My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and white liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith–Wessington. I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have said something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on the road with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.

"Has it gone, child!" I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.

"Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all mean? There must be a mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake." Her last words brought me to my feet— mad— raving for the time being.

"Yes, there is a mistake somewhere," I repeated, "a hideous mistake. Come and look at It."

I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the 'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes.

"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's quite enough. Syce ghora láo."

The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had no self-respect. Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a distance, cantered up.

"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's signature to my order of dismissal and... I'll thank you for that lakh as soon as convenient."

Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter.

"I'll stake my professional reputation"— he began.

"Don't be a fool," I whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and you'd better take me home."

As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a cloud and fall in upon me.

Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table. His first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much moved by them.

"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with you."

"And Kitty?" I asked, dully.

"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. 'Says she'll die before she ever speaks to you again."

I groaned and turned over to the other side.

"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies' Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it."

During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering in a voice that I hardly recognized —

"They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give 'em fits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer."

Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past month.

"But I am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd never have come hack on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be left alone— left alone and happy?"

It was high noon when I first awoke: and the sun was low in the sky before I slept— slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too worn to feel further pain.

Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning that he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all sides much pitied.

"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded, pleasantly, "though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill. Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon."

I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already, old man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further."

In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the burden that had been laid upon me.

With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another world; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all ghosts; and the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devised to torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward for seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as expression-less and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent alteration— visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I found nothing.

On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs. Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to the bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had served for an excuse.

So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla— at Simla! Everyday, ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that— I mustn't forget that." Then I would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the prices of So-and-So's horses— anything, in fact, that related to the workaday Anglo–Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.

Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your hood and tell me what it all means?" The hood dropped noiselessly, and I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand; and the same cardcase in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a cardcase!) I had to pin myself down to the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road, to assure myself that that at least was real.

"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means." Mrs. Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used to know so well, and spoke.

If my story had not already so madly overleaped the bounds of all human belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one— no, not even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of my conduct— will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the Commander-inChief's house as I might walk by the side of any living woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the Prince in Tennyson's poem, "I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts." There had been a garden-party at the Commander-inChief's, and we two joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed that they were the shadows— impalpable, fantastic shadows— that divided for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said during the course of that weird interview I cannot— indeed, I dare not— tell. Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I had been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera." It was a ghastly and yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?

I met Kitty on the homeward road— a shadow among shadows.

If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would be exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly 'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company to and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd or yelling jhampanies; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the 'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have walked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the unspeakable amazement of the passers-by.

Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the "fit" theory had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods from the 15th of May up to today.

The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave Simla; and I knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover, that it was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations with my successor— to speak more accurately, my successors— with amused interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave.

August 27.— Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application for sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A request that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of five ghosts and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh's proposition moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not far off. Believe me that I dread its advent more than any word can say; and I torture myself nightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner of my death.

Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die; or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to take its place forever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm? Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity? Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time? As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living flesh feels toward escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion," for I know you will never believe what I have written here. Yet as surely as ever a man was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man.

In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is ever now upon me.

_____________________

6: The Lie-Detector

Frederick R Bechdolt

1874-1950

Sunday Times (Perth, W.Aust), 4 July 1943

"YOU'LL TAKE CARE of me, Lieutenant?" The voice of the cigar-stand proprietor was thin and anxious.

"I'll see what I can do, Louis." Detective Lieutenant Greggains glanced at his wristwatch. "Time's wastin'. And me with a murder case to crack before six o'clock, or else." He nodded at the insignificant little man behind the showcase, framed by festoons of magazines. "I might drop in tonight on my way home."

He looked bigger than he was, walking down the mean, narrow street. Younger men in the Homicide Bureau, trained in modern scientific methods, sometimes complained about his habit of laking time out, as he had just now with the cigar-stand proprietor, while he was busy on an important case.

Detective-Sergeant Lane, who had been teaming with him for two years, maintained that this continual harkening to requests for favors was a hangover from the rough old flatfoot days.,

It was nearly two o'clock when Greggains passed through the wide grim entrance of the Central Police Station. Half an hour later his partner entered the Homicide Bureau and found him sitting behind his desk, staring at a little key.

"Find anything new down on Howard-street?" Lane asked.

Greggains looked up and shook his head.

"No dice."

'If we don't crack this case be-fore six o'clock," Lane growled, "they'll spring Houseman on a writ." He scowled. "What's the big idea?"'

Greggains shoved back his chair and began talking slowly.

"On August second William Langdon drops out of sight. Last man seen with Langdon was James Houseman. They were seen leaving Houseman's office in the 800 block of Howard-street. Houseman says they walked up Howard nine blocks and parted at the corner.

"Houseman owns a .38 calibre police model Colt revolver. We found it in his apartment last night. It has been cleaned recently. The two men have been mixed up in the race handbooks, and Houseman is a big shot in that end of the town, if anybody could put the finger on him, chances are they wouldn't talk."

He ticked the key with his forefinger.

"We have pegged everything else that we took off him, but we don't know what lock this fits. There is a door somewhere; and when we find it I think we'll find what's left of Langdon."

He rose slowly from his chair. "We're going to take Houseman for a little walk."

Lane shook his head, "What'll that get us?"

"There is a gadget," Greggains said. "They call it the lie-detector. You clamp it on a man's arm and ask him questions. It has a graph connected with it to register his blood-pressure. When he tells the truth the pressure remains normal. When he lies, it takes a jump."

"We haven't got one," Lane reminded him.

"If we had one," Greggains said, "it wouldn't do any good, but it's given me an idea."

Lane glanced at his watch. "Only three hours to go. That idea better be good."

IT WAS after three o'clock when Lane slid behind the wheel and his partner settled down beside Houseman in the rear seat of a shabby prowl car.

"Park as near his office as you can," Greggains directed.

Houseman said nothing. He had spent most of the last 21 hours facing a bright light, listening to questions, answering some, ignoring others. He hadn't wasted any words.

If worry troubled him, he failed to show it. Lack of sleep had left him as unruffled as his pale grey suit with paler pin stripes. His hair was light, his eyebrows lighter. He looked as cold and colorless as an ice-cube.

The police car slipped through traffic, eased up to the kerb in the 800 block of Howard-street The three men got out and walked slowly up the sidewalk. House-man was looking straight before him until he felt the thick fingers; of Detective-Lieutenant Greggains upon his wrist. Then he turned his head and frowned.

"It's up to you," Greggains asserted. "I can cuff you to me if you would rather." His index finger slipped behind the base of Houseman's thumb and they walked on in silence.

They had gone five blocks, and were passing a five-storey building whose brick facade was dingy with smoke and dust The ground-floor entrance opened into a billiard parlor. The upper-floor windows were placaded with "For Rent" signs.

The three men were in front of the narrow stairway entrance when Greggains slackened his pace and looked sharply at Houseman. Four blocks further on they halted and started back to the car.

Repassing the spot where he had slackened his pace before, Greggains glanced at the prisoner again and nodded at the stairway entrance.

"That's the door."

To Lane's surprise it was. And as soon as he had opened it he knew what they were going to find. They climbed the stairs and the evidence became unmistakable. A thin film of perspiration was on Houseman's forehead.

The third floor was occupied by a long loft. The body was lying in the middle of the room. The prisoner said nothing when they halted before it, but he was breathing thickly. Greggains held him by the wrist and listened to the things which Lane told him.

"Slug entered the back of his head," Lane announced. "Passed out through the forehead.".

Less than half an hour after they had come here he found it embedded in the woodwork-beside a window.

"Thirty-eight calibre!" Lane's voice was exultant.

"The ballistics man will tie it to the gun we found in his room," Greggains said. Houseman's knees buckled, but he recovered himself at once.

Four hours later the two detectives were sitting in the Homicide Bureau.

"It's in the bag now," Greggains said. "We'll call it a day."

"The lie-detector!" Lane cried. "That was smart thinking!"

"His pulse jumped like a scared bullfrog when we passed that door." Greggains was smiling. "That science ain't so bad."

ON his way home to a late dinner he happened to remember the rabbit-faced little man, and he stopped for a few minutes at the cigar-stand. He looked about him to see that no one else was within earshot; and then he spoke; it was in an undertone.

"It's okay, Louis. The slug ties to his gun. He's cracking now, and he'll talk tomorrow. We won't need you to testify. I covered up for you by putting on an act. Scientific stuff. They all fell for it. Nobody knows that you saw Houseman and Langdon going up those stairs." He nodded benignly. "Much obliged."

__________________

7: The Britisher

Ottwell Binns

1872-1935

Bathurst Times (NSW) 24-5-6 Sep 1913

THE two rigid lines of rail, coming out of the East and running due West, shone like narrow ribbons in the morning sunlight, and on either side of them, seemingly illimitable, rolled the wheatfields, which in time are to make the Nor'-West the granary of the Empire. A mere handful of frame houses; and a strip of platform with another frame house upon it occupied the centre of the landscape, cutting the long lines of rail midway. At the gable end of the house on the platform was painted the name of the township— 'Moose Horn.'

On, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, the platform were several people waiting for the coming of the express yet eight miles away, a mere crawling dot upon the landscape. The station-agent was standing earnestly discussing a question of freight with a farmer whose English showed that he came from the French province of Quebec; two children stood with their mother, looking at the rails with fascinated eyes, and waiting for the steam monster of which they had heard so much, but seen only once in their lives before, having been born on a farm forty miles from the rail-track. Near them was a picturesque group made up of a sergeant and corporal of the Mounted Police, in scarlet tunic, blue breeches and top-boots, and a girl of perhaps three and twenty, whose smart riding costume of divided skirts proclaimed that even 'out West' she kept in touch with civilisation, and had the means to gratify her whims.

The three laughed and chatted merrily, exchanging gossip which, though it ranged over two hundred miles of country, was entirely local.

'Is it true that your father's lot up at the river forks is for sale, Miss Lawrie?' asked the sergeant as the gossip failed.

'Yes,' answered the girl.  'Dad's growing tired of doing so much, and says it's time he was taking a rest cure.'

'Rest cure! Him!' laughed the corporal expressively.

The girl laughed back. 'It is amusing, isn't it? One would as soon expect a whirlwind to want a rest. I told him so, and suggested that he should turn over River Fork to me that I might manage it. But he wouldn't. He's compromising, and instead of giving me the farm he's going to invest the money he gets for it in town-lots at Calgary, and that, he says, is to be my dot.'

The sergeant smiled approval.

'Then you'll be a millionaire one of these days, Miss Lawrie. Calgary town lots are going to boom.' The smile on his face died away, and he looked thoughtful. 'You'll be quite out of reach of us poor chaps then, and one of these days you'll be marrying a C.P. director, or one of those British swanks who come out to the Rockies bear-shooting.'

Clara Lawrie's eyes flashed. 'Why should you think that, Sergeant Hamilton? You know I'm not a snob, and as for marrying a Britisher, chance would be a fine thing?'

'And if you had it, what then?'

'I'd marry an Indian from the reserve, first,' laughed the girl. 'I can't endure their stuck-up airs.'

The smile came back to the sergeant's face.

'Then there's yet a chance for the force. I, for one, shall live in hope.'

Just the faintest splash of color showed on the girl's sun-browned cheeks as she laughed back, 'It is a sustaining diet— hope?'

Then the great engine thundered in. One of the two children gave a shriek of terror and buried its face in its mother's gown, the man from French Canada left off his argument with the station-agent to go to the baggage-car, and the sergeant and his companion took their seats, the former standing at the door to have a last word with the girl.

It thus chanced that from the next coach he saw the descent of the only male passenger for Moose-Horn. This was a tall, fair-skinned young man, with close-cropped hair and 'Kaiser William' moustache, who walked with the long, easy stride of a cavalry officer. He was (for the West) elegantly dressed in a Harris tweed shooting coat, wide khaki-colored riding breeches, the lightest of pig-skin gaiters, and boots to match.

He looked up and down the platform with an almost childlike curiosity, gave one glance at the township behind, then strolled slowly towards tho station-agent, whilst the conductor flung out a couple of leather valises and a guncase. The sergeant looked at him with a broad smile. Clara Lawrie also smiled.

'Here's your Britisher,' laughed the policeman, regardless of the fact that the new-comer had drawn near and probably could overhear him.

'He's a fashion-plate,' replied the girl in a half-whisper, 'a beautiful fashion-plate. This style forty-five dollars! The only thing that's wanting is the eye-glass.'

The 'fashion-plate,' who had overheard every word, beyond a little smile gave no indication of the fact.

'Has it in his pocket, I daresay,' laughed the sergeant. 'Afraid it would hypnotise the conductor if he wore it in the cars.'

The smile on the face of the 'fashion-plate' broadened.

Very deliberately he inserted a finger and thumb in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a single eyeglass, screwed it in front of his right eye, then with equal deliberateness surveyed the sergeant. The latter's face flushed a brick-red.

'Of all the damned cheek—' he began; but though the color had deepened in her own charmed face, the girl interrupted him laughingly.

'You brought it on yourself, Sergeant Hamilton. You shouldn't have let him overhear you. It really was rather mean of us to guy a stranger. In spite of that high collar it looks as if he had some sand in him.'

'Sand! It's confounded impudence! Just like those Britishers. They think they're the salt of the earth.'

The girl laughed again. 'Well, I suppose they are, though we who are Canadian-born think ourselves one better! I like that eyeglass though, and the way it was used. I don't know a Canuck who could have the pluck to do what he did. You see, having had a good look at you, fixed you with a stony British stare, he's put the glass away again. That shows it was for your benefit— and mine!'

The memory of the insolence was too much for the sergeant. He was still fuming when the engine shrieked.

The train drew away, leaving the sentence unfinished. The policeman waved his hand and the girl responded, then looked down the platform. The station agent had again been buttoned-holed by the French Canadian, the two children stared with round eyes at their mother who was laughing and weeping over a sister whom she had not seen for ten years, and the immaculate Britisher was lighting a cigarette.

He glanced whimsically at the agent, then turned to Clara Lawrie, and said smilingly, 'Excuse me troubling you, but the agent looks as if he were going to be held up for the rest of the day. Can you tell me if there is a hotel here?'

His voice was quiet, his words were almost drawling, his manner entirely self-possessed. Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did he betray the fact that. he. had heard every word relating to himself that she had spoken. The girl, for mere politeness' sake, was compelled to reply.

'There is a hotel of sorts— the Prairie Star. If you walk to the end of the platform you will be able to see it. The name is painted right across the front.'

'Thank you,' he said. 'I wonder how I am to get my luggage there?'

She laughed a little. 'I guess you'll have to carry it, unless you leavo it here and walk across. Then, maybe, they'll send a waggon over for it.'

'That will be better than carrying it, at any rate,' he laughed back. ' I hope you won't be disappointed in the accommodation at the. Star,' she said. ' I expect it isn't at all like your hotels dn England.'

'How do you know I come from England?' he drawled.

'How do I know?' She broke into laughter. 'Why, you have it written all over you. And if there were nothing else, that monocle shouts it aloud.'

He smiled cheerfully. 'Like a good many other things that are English, it is sometimes very useful.'

She knew that he referred to the confusion into which it had thrown the police-sergeant, but gave no sign that she understood.

'You surprise me!'

'I hope the hotel is not very bad,' he said with a manifest desire to continue the conversation.

'That depends on your expectations. You will get prairie cooking; and Jane Shamrocks' corn-husk beds are renowned from Winnipig to the Rockies.'

'To think I never heard of them!' he laughed. 'I'm awfully obliged for the news.'

The girl laughed back, and as she moved away he raised his hat, then stood and watched her whilst she unhitched her horse from the station rail and, mounting, rode away. He whistled softly to himself, and, admiring her riding, followed her with his eyes until she was lost to sight behind one of the frame houses.

Then he threw his luggage in a heap, interrupted the agent's argument with the farmer in order to say that he would send for the said luggage, and, leaving the station, strolled slowly in the direction of the Prairie Star.

ii

OLD Tom Lawrie, father of Clara, dismounted from his horse, threw the reins to a 'Barnardo boy' who, in the clean air of the West, was graduating for healthy manhood, and entered his roomy frame house.

'Well?' asked his daughter, looking up from the book sho was reading.

'It's a deal!' answered her father with a slow smile. 'There'll be seven thousand dollars to go into Calgary town-lots for you, my girl. Thinking I had to do with a fool, I tried to spring eight thousand, but it was no go. The fellow stared at me through that plate glass window of his, an' it just wilted. I'm going to take up an eye-glass myself; it's a wonderfully powerful machine when you're bargaining.'

Clara Lawrie laughed. 'You didn't mean to say, that you let a piece of round glass scare you?'

'Well, my dear, 'twasn't exactly a scare. It was what you might call a freezo-out. Made me feel a kind o' mean, somehow, and I came down to the proper figure like a lamb. The farm's worth every cent of seven thousand,' an' I'm glad it is. There's something, in dealin' with a gentleman, after all, an' though these aristocrats from the old country have the airs of Lucifer, I'm bound to say I'm glad I met this one, and that we'll have him for a neighbour. You'd best slick up that Chinese cook o' yours, for he's coming in to supper, an' I'd like to do the thing in style, just to show him we ain't altogether heathens.'

There was a little flash, in the girl's eyes.

'He must take us as he finds us,' she said. 'We're not Londoners with all the shops at the end of a telephone wire.'

Tom Laurie's quick car caught the snap in his daughter's tone; and though he made no comment aloud, the word 'sassy' shaped itself on his lips, and as he went to his' office to attend to some correspondence his face broke into a grin.

'There's something up,' he said, as he seated himself at the long table which served him for his desk. 'Kind o' thundery feelin' in the air! I wonder what it is?'

He had not found out when, two hours later, he introduced his daughter to the Britisher' who was bujing River-Park Farm, and, incidentally, provided her dot.

'My daughter, Clara, Mr. John Rowthorne—'

'We have met before, I think.'

'Yes,' answered the girl a trifle stiffly, 'on the station, if I remember rightly.'

'Your memory is quite accurate. It was on the station, and I am indebted to you for sending me to the Prairie Star. Jane Sharrocks' corn-husk beds are entitled to all their renown.'

'Never slept in a corn-husk bed before?' inquired Lawrie genially.

'Never! I have slept in all sorts of beds and in none at all—'

'None at all?' interrupted the girl in surprise.

'Yes, for nearly a year. It was in South Africa, during the war, you know?'

'You went through that?' she said, remembering the eye-glass, and considering his immaculateness.

'Most of it. I was with Buller's column, and got put out of action at Spion Kop, but afterwards I went up country and helped to chase De Wet and the guerillas in the bush.'

'You wore put out of action? Do you mean that you were hurt?'

He nodded. 'Mauser bullet through the shoulder. Beastly hard luck, you know; as I wasn't out of hospital in time to make the entry into Ladysmith, and had a brother shot up there, and there were a dozen cigars and a bottle of Pomeroy I'd been saving for him that we might celebrate. I didn't meet him for a year after!'

The girl looked at him in surprise. Her conception of the dandified . Britisher was tumbling into ruins. She herself came of a race that had 'done things' and who were not always over-modest of their achievements, and she was secretly astonished at the easy way in which this starchy-looking Britisher discussed his own doings, carelessly mingling great things and trivial as though they were of equal account.

'And you can settle to farming after that?' she asked, her surprise showing on her face.

'Must settle to something,' he answered lightly. 'I'm a younger son, you know, and the army didn't seem to offer much of a career in times of peace.  So I came out here. Thought once of going to help build Rhodesia. But I, always had a fancy for Canada, and as I heard there was a field for capital out West, I came.'

'An' when you've made your pile you'll, go back, I guess,' broke in Tom Lawrie.

'No,' was the answer, given slowly, 'I don't think so. I think it is likely that I shall stay and help to develop the West.' He laughed lightly. 'I'm a bit of a politician, you know— Imperialist and all that— and I have a fancy that with the invasion from the States that's going on just now, the more Englishmen there are out here the better.'

Clara Lawrie looked at him and surprised a light of enthusiasm in his eyes that gave her fresh food for thought. Dimly she perceived the dream and the high motive which together have established the English dominion in all the far corners of the earth, and in that moment a new respect for the Britisher kindled in her heart.

'You will make your home out here?' she asked.

He laughed. 'I hope so. You perhaps know Kipling's lines—

'By the bitter road the younger son must tread,

Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own—'

'This is my road, though I don't know that it is particularly bitter. I'm putting all the younger son's portion into this venture of mine, and when I pull it off I shall go into high politics and do what I can to link up this part of the Empire. I might have gone into politics at home if I'd wanted, but I thought I could serve better on the outside rim, so here I am to win hearth and saddle of my own.'

The girl was silent, but in her heart she was glad that her father had not 'sprung' him that other thousand dollars.

Tom Lawrie broke the silence by inquiring abruptly, 'Many like you about the Empire, Mr. Rowthorne?'

For a moment the ex-soldier. did not comprehend. Then he flushed a little and laughed.

'Scores! I know at least a couple of dozen fellows who were at Eton when I was, and who are about the world on the same game, some in Rhodesia, some in Nigeria; others in the Egyptian Soundan cotton-growing, and one- or two out here in the wheat-belt.'

'Then all I've got to, say is that the durned old Empire's going to last a bit longer, yet!'

'I hope so.'

At this point there was an intrusion from the Chinese servant.

'Me fixee supper allee light, Missie: Lawlee; come to tell you allee nicel'

'All right, Yang! We will' come!'

She rose and led the way to another room, but just as they wore sitting down, her father caught the sound of horses' hoofs and the ring of a stirrup iron. He crossed to the window.

'Here's more company,' he answered. 'Sergeant Hamilton's in the yard. Best tell Yang to bring in another plate.'

John Rowthorne glanced through the window and caught sight of the mounted policeman with whom he had had the encounter on the station at Moose-Horn. A little smile came on his face, and his hand travelled to his waistcoat pocket, and thence to his right eye. When it was removed the monocle was in place, and as she saw it Clara Lawrie broke into sudden laughter.

'Can't you forgive tho sergeant?' she whispered.

Before he could reply the mounted, policeman was in the room, and their host was introducing them.

'Sergeant Hamilton, Mr. Rowthorne! You two ought to get on together. The sergeant was out in South Africa, same as you, Mr. Rowthorne; went out with the Canadian contingent.'

The two men measured each other in the light of this piece of news, then the Britisher held out a hand.

'I'm glad to meet youj sergeant;' he said. 'I remember your fellows at the front.'

'Thank you,' answered the sergeant, a little stiffly, and a moment later the monocle was in the vest pocket once more.

'You've.forgiven him, haven't you?' whispered the girl as tho meal ended and they passed into the room, where a piano stood against the wall.

'I'd forgive any fellow a lot more than that, who fought as he fought for the Empire. So you can say the hatchet's buried.'

Clara Lawrie smiled, then moved to the piano.

'I hope you like music, Mr. Rowthorne. The piano is one of our great luxuries, and I don't think there's another within a hundred and fifty miles. I believe it brings Sergeant Hamilton this way oftener than anything else.'

As Rowthorne nodded, he glanced at the sergeant, and caught a look in his eyes which told him that something else besides music brought the mounted polieceman to the Lawrie homestead. He wondered how far the affair had progressed, and as the Kreutzer Sonata with its throb of eternal passion filled the room, he felt a stir in his own heart, and once more visioned himself in conflict with the sergeant, this time to a serious end.

As the music ended the girl turned round.

'Do you sing or play, Mr. Rowthorne?'

'Both, but not like that, Miss Lawrie. Please keep on.'

But Clara Lawrie rose from the stool and shook her head decisively.

'No, it's your turn. Father and the sergeant are dumb dogs where music is concerned. I insist!'

He laughed as he seated himself before the instrument. 'Don't blame me for the consequences.' His eyes sought the wall over the instrument, and for a minute or so his fingers wandered idly over the keys.

'Beware!' he cried jestingly, then broke out into the song— 'The Native Born.'

'I charge you, charge your glasses—

I charge you, drink with me

To the men of the four new nations,

And the islands of the sea—

To the last least lump of coral

That none may stand aside,

And our own pride shall teach us

To praise our comrade's pride.'

His voice was a baritone, and asvme by verse he chanted the paean of empire by the most patriotic poet of our times, his listeners caught fleeting visions of its vastness. 'The far-flung, fenceless prairie;' they were familiar; 'the smell of the baked Karoo,' 'the haze of the burned back-ranges,' 'the fire-fly in the cane,' all were envisaged for a moment, then came that which gave unity to the whole—

'To the hearth of our people's people—

To her well-ploughed, windy sea,

To the hush of our dread high-altar

Where the Abbey makes us We—'

And then with a crash of keys that startled—

'Last toast— and your foot on the table!

A health to the native-born!'

When he turned round there were tears in Clara Lawrie's eyes, the sergeant's face had the look of a man who sees visions, and only Tom Lawrie. could find words.

'Durn me, Mr. Rowthorno, you make me feel like snivelling. Guess I'll take a trip to England next fall.'

Rowthorne laugihed, a little laugh with a catch in it which told that he himself was shaken by the emotion his song had called forth, then he turned to the instrument again, and a moment later was singing 'When Drake went down to the Horn.'

'Mr. Rowthorne!' cried the girl as he ended, 'you are a social accession in these wilds. You must come and borrow our piano whenever you are able.'

'Thank you,' he laughed. 'I shall be delighted!'

As he gave the answer he met the sergeant's eyes, and for the second time that evening the two men measured each other, measured as rivals measure, but each in his heart saluting the other as a man.

iii

MOOSE-HORN was en fête. It was Dominion Day, and from, far and near farmers and their families and men had assembled in the township to celebrate the occasion. The Prairie Star was full.

The children set off fire-crackers, obtained from heaven knows where, shied pop-corn at their elders, and generally made themselves a nuisance. Those in their teens smiled at each other and surrendered themselves to love's young dream, whilst the elders discussed the price of wheat, the inquisities of the Elevator Company, or the chances of a bad winter; but when, in the tally afternoon, a gun was fired, one and all flocked to a piece of prairie- land by the side of the rail to witness the race for the Moose-Horn Dominion Cup.

There were eleven starters of all sorts of horses and of varying weights, and all the eleven were in deadlly earnest, particularly two of them, Sergeant Hamilton and John Rowthone, and both were in popular favor among those who made bets.

Old Tom Lawrie measured both men and horses with a calculating eye.

'I'll bet you five dollars that Rowthorne gets the cup, Clara.'

'Done!' laughed his daughter. 'I stand by the man of my clan. The sergeant for me.'

'You'll lose then, Miss Lawrie,' said the station-agent. 'If it was fifty miles in the saddle I wouldn't say, but in the mild race the Britisher is the better man. I'd cancel the bet if I was you.'

'Never!' laughed the girl. Then she cried suddenly. 'They're off! Now we shall see!'

In her heart she was not sure which she desired should win, and with musing eye's watched as the two men in whom she was most interested drew out of the ruck.

'The sergeant leads,' she said quietly.

'Wait-a-bit,' said her father. ' It's the finish that matters.'

A very brief time showed that barring accidents the race lay between the policeman and the Britisher, and as they thundered round the roped-off course the former led, to the delight of such as suffered from parochial prejudice.

'The Mounter! The Mounter leads!' they yelled joyfully.

But men who understood things smiled. The policeman was getting all out of his horse that could be got, the Britisher's mount, a thoroughbred Kentucky mare, had reserves of strength not yet brought into action.

As they flashed by the place where Clara Lawrie was standing, the policeman's horse was almost a length in front of the mare, but the horse was panting, and his rider was using the whip cruelly, whilst the Britisher sat his mare and waited. Ten yards from the judge's box he leaned forward, lifting his riding-switch once, and the mare leaped forward. The distance between them was annihilated in a second. Two seconds more it was reversed, and the mare shot home.

'He ran it rather close,' said the agent; 'but I guess he knew what he was about.'

'Say, Clara,' said Lawrie smilingly, 'I guess I'll collect five dollars that belong to me!'

'You're welcome!' laughed the girl. She knew her heart now, and was secretly glad that tho' Britisher had won.

But in the dance in the evening in the big barn at the Prairie Star she gave no sign of it, but dance by dance impartially divided her favors between them. The sergeant got Sashaz All, but the Britisher had Swing yer sawlogs and Idling your Lady apposyte, whilst to square the account the former was favored with All Promenade.

He was half-way through the dance when there was a stir at the door, and a voice shouted, 'Sergeant, you're wanted immediately!'

Something in the voice startled all present, and the dance finished abruptly. A trooper of the Mounted Police entered the room, sweating and breathless.

'There's been a hold-up of the train between here and Wolf Creek; an American gang from over the Montana border, by all accounts.'

'Get anything?' asked the sergeant, as he reached for his Stetson hat, 'Not a cent, but they hurt the fireman and killed the conductor. We've to go after them. It's supposed they're coming this way.' The sergeant nodded his farewoll to the dancers and left the barn, and immediately clamour and excited discussion of this unusual event fell upon the company.

Two hours later, riding homeward under the stars, John Rowthorne caught the tramp of horses and the sound of voices. He drew rein, thinking they were behind him, but they were travelling slowly, in- the opposite direction, and as he listened a voice reached him. 'There's 'ole man Lawrie's. He's a warm member. We'll be sure to git somethin' if we call 'there. An' it's no durned use drawin' a blank! Guess we gotter git a roll o' dollar bills to pay expenses o' this blanked trip!'

'Right yo' are, Bill! Old man Lawrie's is the ticket.'

The voices travelled out of range, but for a full minute John Rowthorne sat still considering what he had heard. It was dear to him that this was the hold-up gang, that on their way back they wore intending to call at the Lawries' homestead. In a moment he had decided on his course of action.

He dug the spurs into his tired horse and rode his hardest for River Fork. Reaching there he rushed indoors, armed himself with a Browning pistol, saddled a fresh horse, and onco more took the road, this time ,for the Lawries' farm.

He came in sight of its lights half an hour later, and had slowed down in order to make a cautious approach when a shot sounded through the darkness.

'Cr-rang!'

Then he flung prudence to the winds and rode his hardest, holding the Browning ready. A man on horse-back stood sentinel twenty yards from the House, and fired without hailing as the Britishor passed him. Rowthorne fired back and heard the horse squeal, but not for a moment did he delay. He rode straight for the house, flung off his horse, and crept into the open doorway.

In the room where he had dined on the accasion of his first visit a strange sight met his eyes. Old man Lawrie stood in a corner of the room, red of face and with eyes flashing angrily, his hands raised above his head. Clara stood just beside him, her cheeks dead white, but her eyes steady and unafraid. Her hands also were raked above her head.

Across the table, supine, lay the Chinese servant Yang, the blood from a wound in his shoulder stained the cloth, whilst just out of reach of his limp hands lay a silver-mounted pistol. Three masked men stood on one side of the room with pointed pistols, one of them addressing Mr. Lawrie.

'A thousand dollars is what we wants, an' yer've got to git 'em for us, daddy, or—'

'Hands up there. Quick!' Rowthorne's hail from the doorway startled the desperadoes. One of them dropped his pistol and promptly put up his hands, but the man who had been speaking swung round and fired towards the doorway without sighting.

He missed, and the Browning cracked at the same time, and he crumpled up on the floor.

Then a shot came, out of the darkness behind, and Rowthorne reeled against the door, then fell prone: A fourth masked man thrust his head in the doorway.

'Quit, boys! The Mounters are coming.'

The two desperadoes left standing in the room broke and ran for the doorway; from the darkness outside there came a couple of shots, the jingle 'of spurs, the rattle of carbines, and a scurry of horses' hoofs.

For two seconds Clara Lawrie stood listening, then she ran towards the Britisher lying prostrate in the doorway.

When Rowthorne came to himself he was lying on a sofa, and she was stooping over him; her concern showing in her eyes. 'Thank God!' she whispered. 'Thank God, you're not dead!'

A swift light came to his eyes, and a smile to his lips.

' Did' it matter so much?' he asked.

'What do you think?' she countered.

'Well, if I may please myself, 'I shall think—'. he stretched a hand, drew her. face still nearer, and kissed her gently— 'that!'

A step sounded in the doorway, and she hastily disengaged herself. It was the sergeant, and though he had seen and knew that for the second time that day he had lost, he gave no sign.

'Got 'em,' he said. 'They're tied up in the barn. I hope your father and you are all right, Miss Lawrie.'

'Yes, but Yang and Mr. Rowthorne are hurt.'

'That so?' The sergeant moved to the sofa and examined the wound. 'Um! not so bad!' he commented. 'You'll be all right in a month, and I don't suppose you mind a little thing like that!'

Rowthorne looked at him and read the knowledge in his eyes. ' I call it cheap at the price!'

Sergeant Hamilton nodded, then held out a hand. 'And you won the Cup! I don't believe I've congratulated you yet.'

'There's no need,' was the reply. 'It isn't always the best man wins!'

The sergeant smiled. 'I'm not so sure about that!'

Then they wrung each other's hands as men equal in mutual regard for each other.

___________________

8: The Egregious Goat

Morley Roberts

1857-1942

Strand Magazine, July 1921

IT was in her aunt's box at the Opera that Gwendolen Oakhurst first met Lord Bampton. They were playing something revolutionary by Stravinsky, but to Gwen the music was but the prelude to her own romance.

"He's certainly handsome," said Gwen pensively, as she looked across the theatre.

"And wishes to meet you, my dear," said old Lady Mary Warrington. "With a reserved nature like Harry's that speaks whole encyclopedias."'

"Tell me about him," said Gwen. really think I shall like him, Auntie."

"Like him? You will love him, my dear," said Lady Mary. "He has looks, brains, immense wealth, and is of the kindliest disposition. With such advantages one expects to find a failure somewhere, perhaps in manners. His are perfect. He possesses the magnificent calm which was held in my youth to distinguish the well-bred."

"Has he no faults whatever?" asked her niece.

"If he has one it is a virtue," replied Ldy Mary, "and one which should be an additional attraction to you. He adores animals. He even breeds wild horses in his park, and he asks to be introduced to you! Do you want an archangel?"

"Not exactly," said Gwen, pensively.

"I have none on my visiting list," said Lady Mary.

On one whose heart was also warm, who adored animals and was herself a notably sweet example of the type best represented by Gainsborough in his most successful portraits, such representations could not fail to have an instant effect, even if Lady Mary's collocation of wild-horse breeding and a desire for an introduction was somewhat startling. When representation was replaced by adoring reality the result was all that Lady Mary hoped for. It came about with such amazing rapidity that in less than a week there would have been news concerning his daughter to be imparted to Colonel Oakhurst, had not Gwen begged her lover to give her time to break it.

"As long as our marriage is not delayed," said Lord Bampton, amiably, "I do not mind postponing the news of our engagement. I will then call early next week and ask for permission to pay you my addresses, dearest.'

"They will be well received," said Gwen, smiling.

"And if your dear, ferocious, white-haired father is not amenable, I shall of course run away with you," said her lover, as he kissed her hand.

"With your wild horses, Harry?" asked Gwendolen.

"They would symbolize my feelings," said Lord Bampton. "But I'm very happy."

And so was Gwen, though she was a little nervous when her lover called at Warrington Grange a few days later. Even Mrs. Oakhurst did not know how far matters had really advanced, but the Colonel showed no irascibility when she hinted, not vaguely, that his daughter had made a more than notable conquest. It is true that he searched his mind for objections, but he owned presently that he had heard nothing against his would-be son-in-law save that he was, perhaps, somewhat eccentric in his devotion to the animal kingdom.

"Still, that's nothing, and if he don't shoot or hunt it can't be helped. It's his loss, not mine," said the Colonel. "I don't care a— a continental! He may come here with his wild horses if he likes, or with a chimpanzee! Didn't I hear he keeps 'em?"

"Will he really bring one with him?" asked Mrs. Oakhurst, anxiously. "I don't quite think I should care for a chimpanzee to come here. The animal might break something."

"Let him bring a gorilla if he likes, and break up the house," said the Colonel, chuckling. "I'lltell Benson that if Lord Bampton turns up with a Polar bear or a Bengal tiger it's to come into the drawing-room. For I'll say this much, that on thinking it over, my dear, there's not a man in England I'd prefer for a son-in- law. I remember Dicky Brown, who knows evervone on earth, sayin' Bampton had the manners of Lord Chesterfield and the morals of the Archbishop of Canterbury, while as for property, he owns half this county and a coal-mine in Yorkshire. If he brings the Zoo you'll see me take it like a lamb! like a lamb!"

"Look here, Benson," said the Colonel a little later, "Lord Bampton will call this afternoon about four."

"Yes, sir," said the butler.

"If everything isn't spick and span and as bright as blazes, there will be appointments vacant in this infernal neighbourhood," cried the Colonel, fiercely. "And if that damned Thompson drops the tea-tray again I'll drag him out into the garden and cut his throat from ear to ear."

"I will attend to everything myself, sir," said Benson.

"And another thing," said the Colonel, "his lordship is fond of pets."

"Yes, sir," said the butler.

"And I understand he takes them about with him," said the Colonel. "So if he brings a chimpanzee or a gorilla with him, it's to come into the drawing-room."

"How shall I know if it's a chimpanzee or a gorilla, sir?" asked the butler.

"By its bite, of course," replied the Colonel. "But when I say a chimpanzee or a gorilla, I mean any livin' thing— a Polar bear, or a Bengal tiger, or billy-goat. Do vou understand clearly— quite clearly?"

"Quite clearly, sir," said the butler, who by now was prepared to usher into the drawing-room any animal whatsoever, even if it were an elephant or a crocodile.

"I'm to know it by its bite, am I?" he said, bitterly. "At times there's no knowin' what to make of the Colonel. He's the most harbitrary gent in the county."

It was about a quarter to four when his lordship's car, driven unostentatiously by himself, stayed outside the imposing front entrance of Warrington Grange. By one of those highly remarkable coincidences which seem to happen in order to bring the pure logical sequence of the universe into contempt, a handsome voung billy-goat, about three parts grown, and that very day imported into the village by the blacksmith, had broken loose from its tether and wandered into the Colonel's grounds. Finding rich feed there, he had satiated his appetite, and was now resolved to satisfy the curiosity which seems inherent in the species. Having been brought up by hand, he was of an amiable and kindly disposition, and well-disposed towards humanity. It may be, of course, that Lord Bampton's fondness for pets of all kinds was by some mysterious means communicated to the goat, for the lively animal rushed from behind the car just as Lord Bampton alighted. The genial goat, pleased to be with company after a period of solitude, uttered a friendly baa as he mounted the steps side by side with the expected and honoured guest. At that very moment Benson appeared at the door, and Lord Bampton was ushered into the drawing-room with the goat following him. The butler, being much relieved that he was under no necessity to recognize the species of this unlikely pet by its bite, considered himself peculiarly fortunate in finding it not only gentle but tractable, and so much attached to its master that it entered the room without being coerced or chased into doing so.

Colonel Oakhurst was alone in the drawing-room when the curious pair entered. Mrs. Oakhurst considered it advisable to leave them alone for a while in order that Lord Bampton might be at full liberty to speak to Gwendolen's father. She and Gwen therefore waited a while in the library.

"I am delighted to meet you, Lord Bampton," said Colonel Oakhurst, "and as my wife and daughter are for the moment not here, you must allow me to introduce myself."

It seemed obvious to Lord Bampton that he and Colonel Oakhurst would be friends. For in order to please his guest the Colonel patted the goat, even while he wondered at his choice of pets, and the visitor was obviously touched by the affection displayed by its owner for this engaging animal. As the goat wandered round the room with all the curiosity characteristic of the race, host and guest alike expatiated upon its merits. It ate part of a cushion tassel, and though the Colonel cursed it in his heart, he smiled with what seemed ferocious tenderness.

"It's a very fine goat," said Lord Bampton. "Very fine indeed."

"Yes, a splendid animal— splendid. I— I love goats," sputtered the Colonel.  "It's well-bred, too, dashed well-bred."

The splendid weli-bred goat sampled another sofa-cushion. Lord Bampton couldn't help wondering at the splendid well-bred calm of his host. For, judging merely by his complexion and his fierce white moustache, he would have thought him rather more explosive than dynamite. It was odd that Gwen had not mentioned her father's passion for pets.

"I understand you have an uncommon love for animals yourself," said the Colonel.

"Immense," said Lord Bampton, fervently following the line of agreement indicated. "I adore them."

"You don't draw the line anywhere?" asked the Colonel, as the goat climbed the sofa and eyed a shining bureau which stood close by.

"Absolutely nowhere," said Lord Hampton; "Have you many pets of this kind?"

"Oh, yes, I have a most delightful pet lamb."

"Is it at all mischievous?" asked the Colonel.

"At times," said Lord Bampton; "but, like you, I love to see animals happy and active."

The happy and active goat made a wonderful spring and landed safely on the bureau.

"How beautifully he jumps!" cried the Colonel, wishing he could boil the animal in a brass pan.

"Magnificently!" said Lord Bampton, thinking his host must be mad to allow a goat in such a beautiful room. "But won't he break something?"

"It doesn't matter if he does," said the Colonel, looking at the goat as if he were hypnotized. "I— I rather want something broken."

"You do? Isn't that china good?"

"Not if the goat likes to break it," said the Colonel. "This room has been just the same for the last hundred years, and I'm tired of it, fairly wearied out by it."

"The goat, after balancing himself in the most beautiful manner, jumped from the bureau upon a table, and only dislodged an old punch-bowl.

"He jumps very skilfully," said Lord Bampton. "I thought he might bring everything down. How he does enjoy himself!"

"True," said the Colonel. "It affords me the deepest pleasure to see animals enjoy themselves. Some don't! Some men hate to! I absolutely know men who would cut that goat's throat, or boil it, or fry it!"

"Do you really?" asked Lord Bampton. "There is no end to human cruelty. I have rarely seen a goat who could jump better. You don't mind him chewing that curtain?"

"Not in the least," said Colonel Oakhurst. "It's old brocade, very old, too old! Let him do as he likes."

"You almost excel me in your love of animals," said Lord Bampton,warmly, "but there is, I maintain, no sign of an amiable nature so certain. I try all my friends by that test. This particular goat is really a most remarkable animal, and seems to have immense intellectual curiosity."

"It looks like it," growled the Colonel. "Now just you watch him! He's going to jump on that table."

"It looks a highly polished and very slippery table," said his guest; "will he be able to keep his footing? I am curious to see."

The goat made a spring and, landing on the table, slid with all four feet together, and only brought up on the edge.

"He seems to have scratched the polished surface," said Lord Bampton. ''Do you mind his scratching it?"

"Oh, no, not in the least," said the Colonel, with powerfully concentrated calm. "The table belonged to my great-grandfather, and it's high time it was scratched. Till now there wasn't a scratch on it."

"Does Mrs. Oakhurst like goats?" asked Lord Bampton.

The Colonel chewed at his lips and made curious sounds.

"Yes, she has a perfect passion for them. But being, as most women are, a trifle uncertain in her temper, she is apt to take a dislike to a particular goat."

"Surely not to this very delightful animal?" asked the courteous guest, with an air of warm interested surprise at the bare possibility.

"What! dislike a goat like that?" roared the Colonel. ''Such an active, inquiring animal! Oh, no! Why, if it was a simple dull goat she would sell it, and buy another like that!"

The goat immediately demonstrated that it was not dull by springing from the hitherto unscratched table that had belonged to the Colonel's great-grandfather to one which had belonged to his grandmother, and brought a large silver bowl with a crash to the ground as he and the table-cover and the bowl slid off together. With beautiful agility the goat avoided damage to himself, and, making a pleasing little buck, proceeded to eat some flowers from the bowl and drink a little of the water as it meandered over the parquet floor.

"And Miss Oakhurst? " asked Lord Bampton, wondering what he should do when thev were married if Gwen introduced goats into the drawing-room of Woodhurst.

"She also likes 'em— adores 'em," gasped the Colonel, wondering if a rich and noble son-in-law were worth the price he was paying.

"Does she fee! towards them as you do? "

"Oh, no!" said the Colonel. "I absolutely defy her to come up to the feelings with which I regard this goat. She couldn't do it! My feelings with regard to this goat are indescribable, perfectly indescribable!"

"They do you honour," said Lord Bampton.

THE goat now inspected an old Venetian mirror and, discovering a rival in it, after a few preliminary bucks rose up and charged the other goat, which so obviously intended to charge him. There was a fearful crash, and after a moment's surprise at his sudden victory the successful warrior sought other fields.

"I'm afraid he's broken that mirror," said Lord Bampton.

"It's time it was broken, full time," said the Colonel, desperately. "It's— it's only an old Venetian thing a silly ancestor of mine brought to England. I'll order a nice new one from Tottenham Court Road."

It was certainly remarkable that such a man should speak like that of an old Venetian mirror, but as Lord Bampton knew those who owned goats became mad so far as goats were concerned, a very common observation among those who kept other animals and went insane in other ways, he felt he could say nothing. The Colonel also felt for the moment that he could say nothing. A determination of blood to the head seemed to threaten him with apoplexy, and he was perfectly aware that his complexion was that of a ripe prize tomato as his hands shook with the madly repressed desire to strangle Lord Bampton's goat without delay. To save his own life and that of this accursed animal it was necessary for him to quit the room at all costs. He choked as he said he must leave his guest for a moment.

"I'Il see if my wife and daughter have got back," he sputtered. "You don't mind if I leave you and the goat for a minute?"

"Not at all," said Lord Bampton; "we shall no doubt enjoy ourselves while you are away."

AND even as the Colonel hastened blindly to the door the goat obviously took a fancy to something upon the mantelpiece. It was perhaps a piece of old Chelsea, or the photograph of the Colonel in a silver frame. The animal was not at all awed by the difficult approach to his desire, and Lord Bampton watched him with great curiosity, being firmly convinced it was not the first time the animal had been up there. By a very skilful use of a sofa, an occasional table, and the back of an easy-chair, Billy achieved his desire, and stood with all four feet together on the summit of his Matterhorn.

"Bravo, Billy!" said his lordship, and Billy baa-ed.

And so did the Colonel in the passage. For he ran against his wife and Gwendolen.

"How— how do you like him?" they asked, eagerly.

It was then that the Colonel baa-ed and made strange and peculiar noises.

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" they cried, in chorus.

"That— that accursed Bampton," said the Colonel, "he's wreckin' the house, fairly wreckin' it! "

"Oh, father," said Gwen, "what can you mean? Do, do be calm!"

"Ain't I calm?" roared the Colonel, as he tugged at his collar. "I'm so calm it's killin' me. The goat— the goat!"

"Tom, what goat are you speaking of?" asked his wife. "Tell us, do tell us! "

"Lord Bampton's goat, his pet goat that he brought with him," gasped the Colonel. "He says it's a splendid well-bred goat with amazin' intellectual curiosity, and by the Holy Poker if you want real cold-blooded calmness go in and see his infernal well-bred lordship fairly eggin' on the animal to do more damage! I think he must be mad, for there's nothing left— nothing! The room's a wreck, and so am I, and every time it smashed something he smiled, and said it was a well-bred goat, or a fine goat, or that it jumped beautifully, and I— what did I do?— why, I said. curse me! that it was a damned well-bred goat when the infernal beast was wrecking my house, and that it was a very, very fine goat— oh, lord!— and that it jumped, oh, so beautifully! Go in and see for yourselves. There, listen!"

And what they heard was the fall of a brass tray.

"Why the infernal thing must be on the mantelpiece— or perhaps his mad master is!" gurgled the Colonel. "Look here, Mary, I can't stand this, I can't!"

And the unhappy old gentleman took several short runs up and down the passage.

"There must be some mistake—" began his wife.

"Go in, go in and see!" said the Colonel. "Let me stay here. I'll put my head under the tap in the bathroom, and come back presently."

And he took a longer run for the bathroom.

"What shall we do?" asked Gwendolen's mother. "You said he was everything a man should be."

"And so he is," said Gwen, firmly. "I don't care if he does keep goats. I'll cure him of that later. Whatever happens, you must keep calm. Come in, or I'll go by myself."

Thus encouraged, Mrs. Oakhurst entered the drawing-room, and nothing but the sense of noblesse oblige kept her from uttering wild yells worthy of an East-end lady when the cat breaks ornaments in the parlour. For upon the mantelpiece, the lambrequin of which she had embroidered with her own hands, the goat was now disporting himself. At every step something came into the fender, and at every crash the goat was more and more pleased with himself. It seemed also that he pleased Lord Bampton, who did not observe the ladies come in.

"Bravo, Billy!" said his lordship.

"Baa!" said Billy.

"You're simply magnificent, Billy," said his lordship, "and the most remarkable goat I ever saw,"

By this time Mrs. Oakhurst had recovered herself. The damage was done, and could not be undone. But the possible match remained. That his lordship had desired to meet Gwendolen was much, but Lord Bampton, whose manners, if eccentric in points, were irreproachable, was said never to forgive want of manners in others. It suddenly occurred to her that it might even be that he had determined to put the Oakhursts to a severe test, the very severest he could devise. If that was so, she and Gwen, to whom she whispered her conclusions as Billy upset the other brass tray, would not fail to meet the occasion, whatever stress was put upon them.

"Good afternoon, Lord Bampton," said Mrs. Oakhurst. And when his lordship turned, and saw not only Gwendolen but her mother as well taking matters so sweetly, he was doubly impressed, once by the fact of their, calm, and again by the certainty that nothing but a series of similar dramas conducted on many other occasions by Colonel Oakhurst could possibly account for everything.

"As my husband is detained for a moment, my daughter must introduce us," said Mrs. Oakhurst. As was only natural, the conversation turned cheerfully and lightly upon goats in general, and particularly upon the goat in the room.

"The goat really seems to be enjoying himself to-day," said Mrs. Oakhurst, settling herself in the settee, from which she had an admirable view of the Matterhorn and the goat upon its dangerous traverse.

"Colonel Oakhurst made the same remark," said Lord Bampton. "It is delightful to find you are all so fond of animals."

"I told you I adored them," said Gwendolen, smiling.

"Do you like goats as well as your father?" asked his lordship.

"Even more," said Gwendolen, truthfully.

Lord Bampton allowed himself the trifling relaxation of a look of mild wonder.

"Dear me, you don't say so," he remarked. "Still, they have a peculiar elegance— of their own, and it does not really surprise me. I can forgive anyone anything who is fond of animals. I think, by the way, that the one on the mantel-piece is measuring with his eye the distance from his perch and your settee, Mrs. Oakhurst."

But before he or Mrs. Oakhurst could move, the goat launched himself into the air and, missing her head by some inches, landed on the bare parquet floor and slid for ten feet, thus well displaying the peculiar elegance for which his lordship commended the goat family. Mrs. Oakhurst, although it was the first time in her life that a goat had jumped over her from a mantelpiece, displayed a high-bred calm which pleased their guest, and led to the further reflection that if her mother was thus attuned to the peculiar harmonies of the Colonel's mind, and preserved the Horatian precept of keeping cool when in difficulties, her daughter was likely to make an equally good wife. Thus every action of the goat and Mrs. Oakhurst and Gwendolen riveted the fetters of love upon Lord Bampton.

Leaving the Himalayas of the mantel-piece, the goat proceeded to discover Caucasus in the grand piano, and perhaps imagining that a pile of modern music represented Elburz, leapt upon the piano lightly. The sound that proceeded from the beautiful wood top seemed to excite his curiosity, for he stamped as though trying the instrument's general resonance, and then climbed on the peak of music.

"You don't mind him being on the piano, I trust?" said Lord Bampton.

"Certainly not," said Gwen, "if it pleases the goat."

"He seems to take great interest in the music," said Lord Bampton.

"He may eat a great deal of Debussy without getting much further," said Gwen, as she saw the animal devouring "L'Aprés Midi d'un Faune."

When the goat tired of his meal and walked joyously up and down the keyboard his lordship pointed out how evident it was that the goat was pleased with the simple wood-notes which he evoked, and from it built up a theory as to the origin of much modern music. Gwendolen argued the point eagerly, for she adored the moderns, and Lord Bampton at last admitted that it was only his fun to decry them.

"One cannot deny that there is a simple wildness in the goat's performance which is distinctly pleasing. He has, as the critics say, an idiom of his own, not remotely like the Russian idiom."

"I think it would please my husband," said Mrs. Oakhurst.

"Then he likes music?" asked Lord Bampton.

"No, I cannot say that. What he likes are the simpler noises of the popular song," replied Mrs. Oakhurst. "But I wonder what detains him. Gwendolen, please see if your father is still manipulating that cold-water tap in the bathroom."

"Yes, mother," said Gwendolen.

"Has the water-supply gone wrong?" asked Lord Bampton, as the door closed.

"Oh, no," replied his hostess, "but when he gets excited about anything my husband puts his head under the tap, and he is apt to leave the water running."

"Has he been at all excited this morning?" asked his lordship. "Has anything occurred to disturb him?"

Once more the goat played an accompaniment to the conversation, but with no more than a casual glance at the performer Mrs. Oakhurst replied that the Colonel was not disturbed but excited by the surprising activity of the goat.

"Then I gather that you have never had a goat in here before?" asked Lord Bampton.

"Not that I remember," said Mrs. Oakhurst; "but you must not for a moment, one single moment, imagine that I object. I adore all animals, and so does Gwendolen."

What Lord Bampton said then was a proof of his real passion, for during one terrible moment he feared it was obscuring his discretion. The behaviour of Colonel Oakhurst in allowing valuable and beautiful things to be destroyed by a goat so distinctly out of place in a drawing-room, could possibly be understood. A wild military experience might account for much. But when Mrs. Oakhurst and Gwendolen as well displayed neither distress nor anxiety, even when the animal became musical, it opened to the lover the awful possibility of the whole household being alike afflicted. And yet it could not be! In town Gwen had spoken as if her father was capable on occasions of going directly contrary to all the dictates of reason. And was this not common in fathers, to say nothing of men generally? Lord Bampton accordingly put hesitation aside and seized the happy moment.

"You may have heard it stated that I am somewhat eccentric—"

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Oakhurst. "I cannot credit that!"

"I have known it said," declared Lord Bampton. "But I am only simple and direct. I shall be so now. I wish to be allowed to pay my addresses to your daughter. One moment, I beg! In London I admired her beauty and the eager interest she shared with me in music, but since observing in her whole family such a delightful sympathy with the animal kingdom, I own I am entirely conquered. May I reckon upon your assistance and that of Colonel Oakhurst in the achievement of my dearest wishes?"

And while Mrs. Oakhurst was expressing her sincere pleasure at the prospect Gwendolen was arguing with her outraged father.

"By Jehoshaphat, the man's mad!" said the Colonel, as he rubbed his head with a rough towel; "mad, mad as ten thousand hatters!"

"Oh, no, he is only a little eccentric," urged his daughter. "And mother says she thinks he has done it to try us."

"To try us?" roared the Colonel. "What the devil—"

"To find out if we really love animals," said Gwen, eagerly.

"You go in and tell him I loathe 'em—"

"Do, do be patient, dad. He's really such a dear. See how sweetly calm he is through it all."

"Look here! I'm your poor old father, and I like to behave decently, but if you talk like that you'll— you'll drive me mad. D'ye want me to have apoplexy through it all! My Venetian mirror! My great-grandfather's table and a goat! Tell him I won't stand it. I won't! Don't you see I can't? Calm, is he? Would he be calm if I visited his house with an unbroken jackass?"

"Oh, father, but this is only a sweet little goat," said Gwen. "He is really a duck."

"No," said the Colonel. "I may be mad and Lord Bampton may be madder, but I am not so mad as to think a goat is a duck. You ain't thinkin' of marryin' him after this, Gwen?"

"Oh, yes, I am," said Gwen.

"Don't," said her father, "don't! I beg you not to. A man that will bring a goat into an inoffensive stranger's house would put rattlesnakes into a  baby's cradle. What's your mother doin'?"

"She's so calm, so sweet," said Gwen. "Do, do be patient, father dear, and it will all come right. Please come back now. If vou don't he'll think you didn't like him! Oh, even when the goat jumped over mother's head she never turned a hair. She— she was quite majestic!"

"Was she now?" asked the Colonel, as he threw the towel into the corner. "She was majestic! And am I to be majestic too?"

"Yes," said Gwen, "do, do try!"

"Very well," said her father, in sudden gloom. "Come in and see me tryin'. Majestic! Oh, lord!"

THEY were just in time to see Mrs. Oakhurst trying to be majestic, and making very little of it. Although she sustained the conversation with serious sweetness during the absence of her husband and daughter, it was, as she owned later, a very considerable strain on her not to turn round while the goat broke the three lower glass doors of an eighteenth-century bookcase, while she discoursed to Lord Bampton about Gwen and the pictures in the room. But when Mrs. Oakhurst left her seat to point out a drawing attributed to Turner, the goat, having finished his work among the books, made three successive bucks and charged the mistress of the house from behind.

"Majestic!" said the Colonel. "That's your word, Gwen!"

"Oh!" said Mrs. Oakhurst.

"I trust most sincerely you were not hurt," said Lord Bampton, saving her from a fall.

"No, not in the least," said Mrs. Oakhurst, gasping, but recovering herself with great rapidity. "I don't suppose the dear creature meant any harm. It's— it's only his play."

"That's it," said the Colonel, thickly, "it's only his play."

Any further remarks on the part of the Colonel were stayed by the goat assaulting the window.

"He seems to wish to go into the garden," said the guest. "Perhaps it might be as well to let him out."

"It's a very fine garden," said the Colonel, "and in perfect order, quite perfect. That's my beastly gardener's fault. I hate order myself. What I like' is ruins, complete, majestic ruins! But my gardener doesn't. He's a very arbitrary gardener, there's no making him see reason. That goat will be a dead goat if you let him out."

"Do I gather you would rather the goat remained here?" said Lord Bampton.

"Oh, no," said the Colonel; "he seems cramped here. Would you like him to look at the rest of the house ? "'

"That is as you please, of course," said the guest. "Do you usually let goats go everywhere, or do you keep them to this particular room?"

"I don't keep 'em anywhere," said the Colonel, choking. "They only come in as visitors— just as visitors."

"Yes, only as welcome visitors," said Mrs. Oakhurst, eyeing her husband anxiously.

"Just as occasional visitors," said Gwendolen, sweetly. "Do you allow them all over your house, Lord Bampton?"

"I beg your pardon? " said Lord Bampton. "Do I allow goats all over my house? Oh, no, never! I don't in the least mind what they do elsewhere, but I draw the line there."

The Colonel jumped to his feet.

"Father!" said his daughter.

"I can't be majestic any more," the Colonel. "I must speak, I must! What's more, I will. Do you mean to say, Lord Bampton, that you never allow your goat to enter your house? Do you mean to tell us that you are so confoundedly unkind to a precious pet like a half-grown billy-goat as never to let him wreck a room full of valuable furniture, never to climb upon the mantelpiece, never to smash a few ancient mirrors, and, most of all, never to butt a visitor from behind?"

"Certainly not," said Lord Bampton, warmly. "I am, I may say, notoriously fond of animals, but though it affords me no inconsiderable pleasure to see others even more attached and devoted to them, the very last thing I myself should allow is a goat, however well-bred, to be in any of my own rooms. What goats, or other pet animals, do in other houses is, of course, a matter of perfect indifference to me."

"Stop," said Colonel Oakhurst; "stop before I break a blood-vessel! Perfect indifference! My hat—"

The Colonel's agitation was now so obvious that it would have been ill-breeding on the part of the calmest nobleman in the kingdom not to notice it. Lord Bampton did notice it.

"Did I say anything particularly remarkable?" he asked, with perhaps a tinge of rebuke in his voice.

"Oh, no!" said the Colonel. "After all that's happened, what you said in the way of not carin' a continental if I had a house over my head or not seemed like a long drink on a hot day! But, by this goat and all the goats that ever reared over end in a cabbage garden, there's nothing more to be said. It's no go. It can't be done. I won't allow it, I'd rather die first."

"Than do what, dad?" asked Gwen.

The Colonel gasped, and again tugged at his collar.

"You— you know! You can't marry Lord Bampton, you can't. I won't have it. He's mad, mad, quite mad!"

Mrs. Oakhurst rose in haste. Gwen made a step towards her lover, who looked the picture of well-bred amazement. After his own apparently sound doubts of the Colonel's entire sanity it was strange to discover that for some peculiar reason his own was doubted.

"Oh, father!" said Gwen.

"Oh, Tom!" said his wife.

"Don't Tom me!" roared the Colonel, savagely. "I forbid it, all of it. I won't have it. Mad, mad as a hatter!"

LORD BAMPTON perceived that he was in an awkward situation. He therefore sought to temporize with the Colonel,
knowing that to contradict a maniac in the acute stage was, by those best acquainted with the insane, considered both useless and dangerous. It seemed possible to the guest that he had unwittingly shown disapproval of the goat being in the drawing-room. He hastened to remove this impression.

"Perhaps I was wrong in saying something which seemed to imply a lack of feeling for this poor animal," he said, very earnestly. ''I assure you, Colonel Oakhurst, that when I said that what it did here was a matter of indifference to me I by no means meant that I was not charmed and interested by it. I trust you will not think me inconsiderate to animals."

Colonel Oakhurst went the colour of an oak-tree in autumn.

"Look here!" he said, and then stopped to catch his breath.

"Pray continue," said Lord Bampton.

"Take your damned goat out of my house," roared the Colonel, "or by the Holy Poker I'll get a gun and shoot it!"

"Take whose goat?" asked Lord Bampton.

"Whose goat? Whose goat?" repeated the Colonel.

"Yes, whose?"

"Yours! Yours!" said the Colonel.

And Lord Bampton, for the first time losing the calm which became him so well, sat down in the nearest chair with a positive thump. The goat came up to him, and his lordship absolutely glared at it.

"My— my goat?"

"Yes. Take it away, take it away quick! Before I explode," said the Colonel. ''Or else I'll do your cursed pet a mischief."

And Lord Bampton fairly collapsed.

"Its not my goat," he said. "Oh, no, it's not mine! I never saw the awful animal before."

"You never— never saw it before?" asked the Colonel, in a curious choked whisper.

"Never, never!" said his lordship. "Why, naturally enough, I thought it was yours!"

It was the Colonel's turn to sit down. He did so, and opened his mouth three times before he could speak.

"Oh, you thought it mine, did you?" he asked. "May— may I ask if you thought I was twice as mad as a March hare?"

"The possibility never entered my head," said Lord Bampton, earnestly. "I merely thought that your choice of a household pet was uncommon and the latitude you gave it surprising."

The Colonel mopped his face.

"But— but it came in with you," he urged. ''I saw it myself."

"So did your butler," replied Lord Bampton, "but that doesn't make him my butler. If I had come in with a tiger after me, would that have made him my tiger? Of course, I thought it was your goat."

"Then— then whose goat is it?" asked the Colonel, fiercely. "If Benson can't tell me he'll be no one's butler in two shakes of a lamb's tail! Let me get at him!"

And then Gwen, who had been speechless, burst into laughter, and interrupted her father at the door.

"Dad, didn't you tell poor Benson that Lord Bampton loved pets, and that if he brought one it was to come into this room?" she asked.

"You did, Tom," said Mrs Oakhurst, "yes, you did!"

"So I did," said the Colonel, "so I did! But I never, never, never reckoned on a goat! Look at the fiend now! He's eating my old Persian rug. Let him! What's it matter?"

But it did matter, for the goat was disappointed with green worsted, and eyed the whole party with malignancy.

"I apologize, Lord Bampton," said the Colonel. "I apologize humbly, and more than humbly. I— I—"

"Don't mention it," said Lord Bampton. "I have a confession to make."

The Colonel started.

"Look here, you ain't by any chance goin' to say it's your goat after all, are you? I tell you I couldn't, couldn't bear it!"

"No, Colonel Oakhurst," said Lord Bampton. ''But you seem to know that I came here to ask permission to pay my addresses to Miss Oakhurst. I confess such a question would have been disingenuous, since I have her permission to ask for her hand."

"My— my hat!" said the Colonel. "You don't say so!"

"I do say so,' said Lord Brampton firmly.

"Speak, Tom, speak," said Mrs. Oakhurst. But the Colonel couldn't speak. He looked round, and, catching Gwen's beaming eye, saw the only thing to do. He took her hand and made a step towards Lord Bampton. But he didn't deliver the goods. The goat did that.

_______________________

9: A Source of Irritation

Stacy Aumonier

1877-1928

The Century Magazine Jan 1918

Source for this anthology: Modern short stories: a book for high schools; USA 1918

A much reprinted Aumonier story, which I had read years ago and found again by accident in the American book above. Clearly that was its first reprint.

TO LOOK at old Sam Gates you would never suspect him of having nerves. His sixty-nine years of close application to the needs of the soil had given him a certain earthy stolidity. To observe him hoeing, or thinning out a broad field of tur- nips, hardly attracted one 's attention, he seemed so much part and parcel of the whole scheme. He blended into the soil like a glorified swede. Nevertheless, the half-dozen people who claimed his acquaintance knew him to be a man who suffered from little moods of irritability.

And on this glorious morning a little incident annoyed him unreasonably. It concerned his niece, Aggie. She was a plump girl with clear, blue eyes, and a face as round and inexpressive as the dumplings for which the county was famous. She came slowly across the long sweep of the down-land and, putting down the bundle wrapped in a red handkerchief which contained his breakfast and dinner, she said:

''Well, Uncle, is there any noos?"

Now, this may not appear to the casual reader to be a remark likely to cause irritation, but it affected old Sam Gates as a very silly and unnecessary question. It was, moreover, the constant repetition of it which was beginning to anger him. He met his niece twice a day. In the morning she brought his bundle of food at seven, and when he passed his sister's cottage on the way home to tea at five she was invariably hanging about the gate, and she always said in the same voice:

"Well, Uncle, is there any noos?"

Noos! What noos should there be? For sixty-nine years he had never lived farther than five miles from Halvesham. For nearly sixty of those years he had bent his back above the soil. There were, indeed, historic occasions. Once, for instance, when he had married Annie Hachet. And there was the birth of his daughter. There was also a famous occasion when he had visited London. Once he had been to a flower-show at Market Boughborough. He either went or didn't go to church on Sundays. He had had many interesting chats with Mr. James at the Cowman, and three years ago had sold a pig to Mrs. Way. But he couldn't always have interesting noos of this sort up his sleeve. Didn't the silly zany know that for the last three weeks he had been hoeing and thinning out turnips for Mr. Hodge on this very same field? What noos could there be?

He blinked at his niece, and did n't answer. She undid the parcel and said:

"Mrs. Goping's fowl got out again last night."

"Ah," he replied in a non-committal manner and began to munch his bread and bacon. His niece picked up the handkerchief and, humming to herself, walked back across the field.

It was a glorious morning, and a white sea mist added to the promise of a hot day. He sat there munching, thinking of nothing in particular, but gradually subsiding into a mood of placid content. He noticed the back of Aggie disappear in the distance. It was a mile to the cottage and a mile and a half to Halvesham. Silly things, girls. They were all alike. One had to make allowances. He dismissed her from his thoughts, and took a long swig of tea out of a bottle. Insects buzzed lazily. He tapped his pocket to assure himself that his pouch of shag was there, and then he continued munching. When he had finished, he lighted his pipe and stretched himself comfortably. He looked along the line of turnips he had thinned and then across the adjoining field of swedes. Silver streaks appeared on the sea below the mist. In some dim way he felt happy in his solitude amidst this sweeping immensity of earth and sea and sky.

And then something else came to irritate him: it was one of "these dratted airyplanes." "Airyplanes" were his pet aversion. He could find nothing to be said in their favor. Nasty, noisy, disfiguring things that seared the heavens and made the earth dangerous. And every day there seemed to be more and more of them. Of course "this old war" was responsible for a lot of them, he knew. The war was a "plaguy noosance." They were short-handed on the farm, beer and tobacco were dear, and Mrs. Steven's nephew had been and got wounded in the foot.

He turned his attention once more to the turnips ; but an "airyplane" has an annoying genius for gripping one's attention. When it appears on the scene, however much we dislike it, it has a way of taking the stage-center. We cannot help constantly looldng at it. And so it was with old Sam Gates. He spat on his hands and blinked up at the sky. And suddenly the aeroplane behaved in a very extraordinary manner. It was well over the sea when it seemed to lurch drunkenly and skimmed the water. Then it shot up at a dangerous angle and zigzagged. It started to go farther out, and then turned and made for the land. The engines were making a curious grating noise. It rose once more, and then suddenly dived downward, and came plump down right in the middle of Mr. Hodge's field of swedes.

And then, as if not content with this desecration, it ran along the ground, ripping and tearing up twenty-five yards of good swedes, and then came to a stop.

Old Sam Gates was in a terrible state. The aeroplane was more than a hundred yards away, but he waved his arms and called out:

"Hi, you there, you mustn't land in they swedes! They 're Mister Hodge's."

The instant the aeroplane stopped, a man leaped out and gazed quickly round. He glanced at Sam Gates, and seemed uncertain whether to address him or whether to concentrate his attention on the flying-machine. The latter arrangement appeared to be his ultimate decision. He dived under the engine and became frantically busy. Sam had never seen any one work with such furious energy; but all the same it was not to be tolerated. It was disgraceful. Sam started out across the field, almost hurrying in his indignation. When he appeared within earshot of the aviator he cried out again:

"Hi! you mustn't rest your old airyplane here! You've kicked up all Mr. Hodge's swedes. A noice thing you've done!''

He was within five yards when suddenly the aviator turned and covered him with a revolver ! And speaking in a sharp, staccato voice, he said:

"Old Grandfather, you must sit down. I am very much occupied. If you interfere or attempt to go away, I shoot you. So!"

Sam gazed at the horrid, glittering little barrel and gasped. Well, he never ! To be threatened with murder when you're doing your duty in your employer's private property! But, still, perhaps the man was mad. A man must be more or less mad to go up in one of those crazy things. And life was very sweet on that summer morning despite sixty-nine years. He sat down among the swedes.

The aviator was so busy with his cranks and machinery that he hardly deigned to pay him any attention except to keep the revolver handy. He worked feverishly, and Sam sat watching him. At the end of ten minutes he appeared to have solved his troubles with the machine, but he still seemed very scared. He kept on glancing round and out to sea. When his repairs were complete he straightened his back and wiped the perspiration from his brow. He was apparency on the point of springing back into the machine and going off when a sudden mood of facetiousness, caused by relief from the strain he had endured, came to him. He turned to old Sam and smiled, at the same time remarking:

"Well, old Grandfather, and now we shall be all right, isn't it?"

He came close up to Sam, and then suddenly started back.

"Gott!" he cried, "Paul Jouperts!"

Bewildered, Sam gazed at him, and the madman started talking to him in some foreign tongue. Sam shook his head.

"You no roight," he remarked, "to come b'argin' through they swedes of Mr. Hodge's."

And then the aviator behaved in a most peculiar manner. He came up and examined Sam's face very closely, and gave a sudden tug at his beaid and hair, as if to see whether they were real or false.

"What is your name, old man!" he said.

"Sam Gates."

The aviator muttered some words that sounded something like "mare vudish," and then turned to his machine. He appeared to be dazed and in a great state of doubt. He fumbled with some cranks, but kept glancing at old Sam. At last he got into the car and strapped himself in. Then he stopped, and sat there deep in thought. At last he suddenly unstrapped himself and sprang out again and, approaching Sam, said very deliberately:

"Old Grandfather, I shall require you to accompany me."

Sam gasped.

"Eh !" he said. " What be talkin' about t 'Company? I got these 'ere loines o' turnips— I be already behoind—"

The disgusting little revolver once more flashed before his eyes.

"There must be no discussion," came the voice. "It is necessary that you mount the seat of the car without delay. Otherwise I shoot you like the dog you are. So!"

Old Sam was hale and hearty. He had no desire to die so ignominiously. The pleasant smell of the Norfolk downland was in his nostrils; his foot was on his native heath. He mounted the seat of the car, contenting himself with a mutter:

"Well, that be a noice thing, I must say! Flyin' about the country with all they turnips on'y half thinned!"

He found himself strapped in. The aviator was in a fever of anxiety to get away. The engines made a ghastly splutter and noise. The thing started running along the ground. Suddenly it shot upward, giving the swedes a last contemptuous kick. At twenty minutes to eight that morning old Sam found himself being borne right up above his fields and out to sea ! His breath came quickly. He was a little frightened.

"God forgive me!" he murmured.

The thing was so fantastic and sudden that his mind could not grasp it. He only felt in some vague way that he was going to die, and he struggled to attune his mind to the change. He offered up a mild prayer to God, Who, he felt, must be very near, somewhere up in these clouds. Automatically he thought of the vicar at Halvesham, and a certain sense of comfort came to him at the reflection that on the previous day he had taken a "cooking of runner beans" to God's representative in that village. He felt calmer after that, but the horrid machine seemed to go higher and higher. He could not turn in his seat and he could see nothing but sea and sky. Of course the man was mad, mad as a March hare. Of what earthly use could he be to anyone? Besides, he had talked pure gibberish, and called him Paul something, when he had already told him that his name was Sam. The thing would fall down into the sea soon, and they would both be drowned. Well, well, he had almost reached three-score years and ten. He was protected by a screen, but it seemed very cold. What on earth would Mr. Hodge say? There was no one left to work the land but a fool of a boy named Billy Whitbread at Dene's Cross.

On, on, on they went at a furious pace. His thoughts danced disconnectedly from incidents of his youth, conversations with the vicar, hearty meals in the open, a frock his sister wore on the day of the postman's wedding, the drone of a psalm, the illness of some ewes belonging to Mr. Hodge. Everything seemed to be moving very rapidly, upsetting his sense of time. He felt outraged, and yet at moments there was something entrancing in the wild experience. He seemed to be living at an incredible pace. Perhaps he was really dead and on his way to the kingdom of God. Perhaps this was the way they took people.

After some indefinite period he suddenly caught sight of a long strip of land. Was this a foreign country, or were they returning? He had by this time lost all feeling of fear. He became interested and almost disappointed. The "airyplane" was not such a fool as it looked. It was very wonderful to be right up in the sky like this. His dreams were suddenly disturbed by a fearful noise. He thought the machine was blown to pieces. It dived and ducked through the air, and things were bursting all round it and making an awful din, and then it went up higher and higher. After a while these noises ceased, and he felt the machine gliding downward. They were really right above solid land— trees, fields, streams, and white villages. Down, down, down they glided. This was a foreign country. There were straight avenues of poplars and canals. This was not Halvesham. He felt the thing glide gently and bump into a field. Some men ran forward and approached them, and the mad aviator oalled out to them. They were mostly fat men in gray uniforms, and they all spoke this foreign gibberish. Some one came and unstrapped him. He was very stiff and could hardly move. An exceptionally gross-looking man punched him in the ribs and roared with laughter. They all stood round and laughed at him, while the mad aviator talked to them and kept pointing at him. Then he said:

"Old Grandfather, you must come with me."

He was led to an iron-roofed building and shut in a little room. There were guards outside with fixed bayonets. After a while the mad aviator appeared again, accompanied by two soldiers. He beckoned him to follow. They marched through a quadrangle and entered another building. They went straight into an office where a very important-looking man, covered with medals, sat in an easy-chair. There was a lot of saluting and clicking of heels. The aviator pointed at Sam and said something, and the man with the medals started at sight of him, and then came up and spoke to him in English.

"What is your name? Where do you come from? Your age? The name and birthplace of your parents?"

He seemed intensely interested, and also pulled his hair and beard to see if they came off. So well and naturally did he and the aviator speak English that after a voluble examination they drew apart, and continued the conversation in that language. And the extraordinary conversation was of this nature:

"It is a most remarkable resemblance,'' said the man with medals. "Unglaublich! But what do you want me to do with him, Hausemann?"

''The idea came to me suddenly, Excellency," replied the aviator, "and you may consider it worthless. It is just this. The resemblance is so amazing. Paul Jouperts has given us more valuable information than any one at present in our service, and the English know that. There is an award of five thousand francs on his head. Twice they have captured him, and each time he escaped. All the company commanders and their staff have his photograph. He is a serious thorn in their flesh."

"Well?" replied the man with the medals.

The aviator whispered confidentially:

"Suppose, your Excellency, that they found the dead body of Paul Jouperts?"

"Well," replied the big man. "My suggestion is this. To-morrow, as you know, the English are attacking Hill 701, which for tactical reasons we have decided to evacuate. If after the attack they find the dead body of Paul Jouperts in, say, the second lines, they will take no further trouble in the matter. You know their lack of thoroughness. Pardon me, I was two years at Oxford University. And consequently Paul Jouperts will be able to prosecute his labors undisturbed."

The man with the medals twirled his mustache and looked thoughtfully at his colleague.

"Where is Paul at the moment!" he asked.

"He is acting as a gardener at the Convent of St. Eloise, at Mailleton-en-haut, which, as you know, is one hundred meters from the headquarters of the British central army staff."

The man with the medals took two or three rapid turns up and down the room, then he said:

"Your plan is excellent, Hausemann. The only point of difficulty is that the attack started this morning."

"This morning?" exclaimed the other.

"Yes; the English attacked unexpectedly at dawn. We have already evacuated the first line. We shall evacuate the second line at eleven-fifty. It is now ten-fifteen. There may be just time."

He looked suddenly at old Sam in the way that a butcher might look at a prize heifer at an agricultural show and remarked casually:

''Yes, it is a remarkable resemblance. It seems a pity not to— do something with it."

Then, speaking in German, he added:

''It is worth trying. And if it succeeds, the higher authorities shall hear of your lucky accident and inspiration, Herr Hausemann. Instruct Ober-lieutenant Schultz to send the old fool by two orderlies to the east extremity of Trench 38. Keep him there till the order of evacuation is given, then shoot him, but don't disfigure him, and lay him out face upward.''

The aviator saluted and withdrew, accompanied by his victim. Old Sam had not understood the latter part of the conversation, and he did not catch quite all that was said in English; but he felt that somehow things were not becoming too promising, and it was time to assert himself. So he remarked when they got outside:

"Now, look 'ee 'ere, Mister, when am I goin' to get back to my turnips?"

And the aviator replied, with a pleasant smile:

"Do not be disturbed, old Grandfather. You shall get back to the soil quite soon."

In a few moments he found himself in a large gray car, accompanied by four soldiers. The aviator left him. The country was barren and horrible, full of great pits and rents, and he could hear the roar of artillery and the shriek of shells. Overhead, aeroplanes were buzzing angrily. He seemed to be suddenly transported from the kingdom of God to the pit of darkness. He wondered whether the vicar had enjoyed the runner beans. He could not imagine runner beans growing here; runner beans, aye, or anything else. If this was a foreign country, give him dear old England!

Gr-r-r! Bang! Something exploded just at the rear of the car. The soldiers ducked, and one of them pushed him in the stomach and swore.

"An ugly-looking lout," he thought. "If I wor twenty years younger, I 'd give him a punch in the eye that 'u'd make him sit up."

The car came to a halt by a broken wall. The party hurried out and dived behind a mound. He was pulled down a kind of shaft, and found himself in a room buried right underground, where three officers were drinking and smoking. The soldiers saluted and handed them a type-written dispatch. The officers looked at him drunkenly, and one came up and pulled his beard and spat in his face and called him "an old English swine." He then shouted out some instructions to the soldiers, and they led him out into the narrow trench. One walked behind him, and occasionally prodded him with the butt-end of a gun. The trenches were half full of water and reeked of gases, powder, and decaying matter. Shells were constantly bursting overhead, and in places the trenches had crumbled and were nearly blocked up. They stumbled on, sometimes falling, sometimes dodging moving masses, and occasionally crawling over the dead bodies of men. At last they reached a deserted-looking trench, and one of the soldiers pushed him into the comer of it and growled something, and then disappeared round the angle. Old Sam was exhausted. He leaned panting against the mud wall, expecting every minute to be blown to pieces by one of those infernal things that seemed to be getting more and more insistent. The din went on for nearly twenty minutes, and he was alone in the trench. He fancied he heard a whistle amidst the din. Suddenly one of the soldiers who had accompanied him came stealthily round the comer, and there was a look in his eye old Sam did not like. When he was within five yards the soldier raised his rifle and pointed it at Sam's body. Some instinct impelled the old man at that instant to throw himself forward on his face. As he did so he was aware of a terrible explosion, and he had just time to.observe the soldier falling in a heap near him, and then he lost consciousness.

His consciousness appeared to return to him with a snap. He was lying on a plank in a building, and he heard some one say:

"I believe the old boy's English."

He looked round. There were a lot of men lying there, and others in khaki and white overalls were busy among them. He sat up, rubbed his head, and said:

"Hi, Mister, where be I now?"

Some one laughed, and a young man came up and said:

"Well, old man, you were very nearly in hell. Who are you?"

Some one came up, and two of them were discussing him. One of them said:

"He 's quite all right. He was only knocked out. Better take him in to the colonel. He may be a spy."

The other came up, touched his shoulder, and remarked:

"Can you walk, Uncle?"

He replied:

"Aye, I can walk all roight."

"That's an old sport!"

The young man took his arm and helped him out of the room into a courtyard. They entered another room, where an elderly, kind-faced officer was seated at a desk. The officer looked up and exclaimed:

"Good God! Bradshaw, do you know who you've got there?"

The younger one said:

"No. Who, sir?"

"It 's Paul Jouperts!" exclaimed the colonel.

"Paul Jouperts! Great Scott!"

The older officer addressed himself to Sam. He said:

"Well, we've got you once more, Paul. We shall have to be a little more careful this time."

The young officer said:

"Shall I detail a squad, sir?"

"We can't shoot him without a court-martial," replied the kind-faced senior.

Then Sam interpolated:

"Look 'ee 'ere, sir, I 'm fair' sick of all this. My name bean't Paul. My name's Sam. I was a-thinnin' a loine o' turnips—"

Both officers burst out laughing, and the younger one said:

''Good! Good! Isn't it amazing, sir, the way they not only learn the language, but even take the trouble to learn a dialect!"

The older man busied himself with some papers.

"Well, Sam," he remarked, "you shall be given a chance to prove your identity. Our methods are less drastic than those of your Boche masters. What part of England are you supposed to come fromf Let 's see how much you can bluff us with your topographical knowledge."

"I was a-thinnin' a loine o' turnips this momin' at 'alf-past seven on Mr. Hodge's farm at Halvesham when one o' these 'ere airyplanes come down among the swedes. I tells 'e to get clear o' that, when the feller what gets out o' the car 'e drahs a revowlver and 'e says, 'You must 'company I—' "

"Yes, yes," interrupted the senior officer; "that 's all very good. Now tell me— where is Halvesham? What is the name of the local vicar? I'm sure you 'd know that."

Old Sam rubbed his chin.

"I sits under the Reverend David Pryce, Mister, and a good, God-fearin' man he be. I took him a cookin' o' runner beans on'y yesterday. I works for Mr. Hodge, what owns Greenway Manor and 'as a stud-farm at Newmarket, they say."

"Charles Hodge?" asked the young officer.

"Aye, Charlie Hodge. You write and ask un if he knows old Sam Gates."

The two officers looked at each other, and the older one looked at Sam more closely.

"It's very extraordinary," he remarked.

"Everybody knows Charlie Hodge," added the young officer.

It was at that moment that a wave of genius swept over old Sam. He put his hand to his head and suddenly jerked out:

"What 's more, I can tell 'ee where this yere Paul is. He 's actin' a gardener in a convent at—" He puckered up his brows, fumbled with his hat, and then got out, "Mighteno."

The older officer gasped.

"Mailleton-en-haut! Good God! what makes you say that, old man!"

Sam tried to give an account of his experience and the things he had heard said by the German officers; but he was getting tired, and he broke off in the middle to say:

"Ye haven't a bite o' somethin' to eat, I suppose. Mister; or a glass o' beer? I usually 'as my dinner at twelve o'clock."

Both the officers laughed, and the older said:

"Get him some food, Bradshaw, and a bottle of beer from the mess. We'll keep this old man here. He interests me."

While the younger man was doing this, the chief pressed a button and summoned another junior officer.

"Gateshead," he remarked, "ring up the G. H. Q. and instruct them to arrest the gardener in that convent at the top of the hill and then to report."

The officer saluted and went out, and in a few minutes a tray of hot food and a large bottle of beer were brought to the old man, and he was left alone in the corner of the room to negotiate this welcome compensation. And in the execution he did himself and his county credit. In the meanwhile the officers were very busy. People were coming and going and examining maps, and telephone bells were ringing furiously. They did not disturb old Sam's gastric operations. He cleaned up the mess tins and finished the last drop of beer. The senior officer found time to offer him a cigarette, but he replied:

'"Thank 'ee kindly, sir, but I 'd rather smoke my pipe."

The colonel smiled and said:

"Oh, all right; smoke away."

He lighted up, and the fumes of the shag permeated the room. Some one opened another window, and the young officer who had addressed him at first suddenly looked at him and exclaimed:

"Innocent! You couldn't get shag like that anywhere but in Norfolk."

It must have been an hour later when another officer entered and saluted.

"Message from the G.H.Q., sir," he said.

"Well?"

''They have arrested the gardener at the convent of St. Eloise, and they have every reason to believe that he is the notorious Paul Jouperts."

The colonel stood up, and his eyes beamed. He came over to old Sam and shook his hand.

"Mr. Gates," he said, "you are an old brick. You will probably hear more of this. You have probably been the means of delivering something very useful into our hands. Your own honor is vindicated. A loving Government will probably award you five shillings or a Victoria Cross or something of that sort. In the meantime, what can I do for you?"

Old Sam scratched his chin.

"I want to get back 'ome," he said.

"Well, even that might be arranged."

"I want to get back 'ome in toime for tea."

"What time do you have tea?"

"Foive o'clock or thereabouts."

"I see."

A kindly smile came into the eyes of the colonel. He turned to another officer standing by the table and said:

"Baikes, is any one going across this afternoon with dispatches?"

"Yes, sir," replied the other officer. "Commander Jennings is leaving at three o'clock."

"You might ask him if he could see me."

Within ten minutes a young man in a flight-commander's uniform entered.

"Ah, Jennings," said the colonel, "here is a little affair which concerns the honor of the British army. My friend here, Sam Gates, has come over from Halvesham, in Norfolk, in order to give us valuable information. I have promised him that he shall get home to tea at five o'clock. Can you take a passenger?"

The young man threw back his head and laughed.

"Lord!" he exclaimed, "what an old sport! Yes, I expect I can manage it. Where is the forsaken place?"

A large ordnance-map of Norfolk (which had been captured from a German officer) was produced, and the young man studied it closely.

At three o'clock precisely old Sam, finding himself something of a hero and quite glad to escape from the embarrassment which this position entailed upon him, once more sped skyward in a "dratted airyplane."

At twenty minutes to five he landed once more among Mr. Hodge's swedes. The breezy young airman shook hands with him and departed inland. Old Sam sat down and surveyed the familiar field of turnips.

''A noice thing, I must say!" he muttered to himself as he looked along the lines of unthinned turnips. He still had twenty minutes, and so he went slowly along and completed a line which he had begun in the morning. He then deliberately packed up his dinner-things and his tools and started out for home.

As he came round the comer of Stillway's meadow and the cottage came in view, his niece stepped out of the copse with a basket on her arm.

"Well, Uncle," she said, "is there any noos?"

It was then that old Sam really lost his temper.

"Noos!" he said. "Noos! Drat the girl! What noos should there bet Sixty-nine year' I live in these 'ere parts, hoein' and weedin' and thinnin', and mindin' Charlie Hodge's sheep. Am I one o' these 'ere story-book folk havin' noos 'appen to me all the time? Ain't it enough, ye silly, dab- faced zany, to earn enough to buy a bite o' some 'at to eat and a glass o' beer and a place to rest a's head o 'night without always wantin' noos, noos, noos! I tell 'ee it 's this that leads 'ee to 'alf the troubles in the world. Devil take the noos!"

And turning his back on her, he went fuming up the hill.

________________

10: A Study in Green

Scott Campbell

(Frederick W. Davis, 1858-1933)

Detective Story Magazine, 27 Aug 1921

SHERIFF CUDWORTH was very skeptical at first. While riding alone into the attractive residential town about dusk one May evening, he was suddenly startled by appalling cries for help from the direction of a narrow road through the wooded country beyond that outskirt of the town.

Sheriff Cudworth sprang from his car and ran through the intervening woods and shrubbery. He soon came in view of the sandy road. A girl of nine- teen, supporting a younger sister who was very near fainting, both of whom the sheriff knew well, uttered a cry of relief when she saw him approaching.

"Thank Heaven!" she exclaimed. "Courage, Mabel. Don't faint. Here's the sheriff. Oh, Mr. Cudworth, we have been terribly frightened."

"Frightened by what, Miss Venner?" he inquired, gazing sharply around.

"That man— that horrible man!" gasped the younger girl, still cowering close to her sister. "Has he gone. Clara? Has he—"

"Yes, yes, dear, he has gone. I never saw such a frightful "

"There, there, calm yourselves," Cudworth kindly interrupted. He was a big, genial man around fifty and very popular in Shelby. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Where did you see the man? What sort of a fellow was he?"

"Frightful!" Clara Venner repeated. "He came through the shrubbery over there and stood staring at us. We were afraid he was going to attack us. His eyes were like balls of fire. He was as green as grass."

"Green!" Cudworth echoed. "Do you mean he was a rube, a country- man?"

"No, no, not at all," Clara exclaimed. "I mean his color. He was bright green from head to foot."

"Nonsense!" Cudworth laughed. "Who ever heard of a green man? That's absurd. You aren't color blind, are you?"

"We aren't both color blind," said Mabel, hastening to corroborate her sis- ter. "The man was green, Mr. Cudworth, nearly as green as grass. I saw him plainly. He was horrible. A half-clad, gigantic—"

"No, no, Mabel, not gigantic," Clara interrupted more calmly. "Don't exaggerate. He was appalling enough without that. He was quite tall, Mr. Cudworth, but not uncommonly large. Mabel was so frightened that he looked to her like a giant."

"How was he dressed?" asked the sheriff, scarcely able to credit the strange story.

"He wore shabby gray trousers and a flannel shirt, both very much soiled, and a tattered felt hat. He had no coat or vest. His shirt was partly unbuttoned, exposing his neck and breast. They were a striking shade of green, Mr. Cudworth, like his hands and face. I think he must be that color from head to foot. This sounds incredible, I know, but it's absolutely true," Clara Venner earnestly insisted. "He looked like a crazy man, a maniac. I never saw such a shocking "

"Stop a moment," Cudworth interrupted. "There comes Doctor Wykoff. He also has seen this mysterious green man, perhaps, judging from the speed with which he is riding."

Doctor Alexis Wykoff was a prominent Shelby physician. He had more than a local reputation, too, due to his frequent contributions to the leading medical- journals, to his discovery of a valuable vaccine, to his successful ex- periments with electricity as a curative agent, and to his profound and practi- cal knowledge of botany and chemistry, having for years spent half his time in a well-equipped laboratory in the grounds of his estate. He was a well-built, impressive man of forty-five, with a strong and somewhat austere face, smooth shaven, with a very dark complexion and heavy brows. They were knit with a frown over his dark eyes when, mounted on a powerful roan horse, he approached in a cloud of dust through the woodland road and stopped near the sheriff and his companions.

"Well, well, what's wrong, Cudworth?" he inquired familiarly, evi- dently somewhat excited. "Good evening, young ladies. What's the trouble, sheriff?"

"Something more singular than seriously wrong, doctor, I imagine." Cud- worth eyed him a bit curiously. "What led you to think there was any trouble?"

"I heard screams and cries for help, or thought I did," said the physician. "I came to find out what caused them."

"You heard them, Doctor Wykoff, all right," Cudworth told him. "These girls were badly frightened by some fellow, either a lunatic or the good Lord knows what, who has stained himself grass green and "

"Grass green!" Doctor Wykoff exclaimed, interrupting. "Incredible! Where did you see him, Miss Venner?"

He turned abruptly to the elder girl.

"What was he doing? Where did he go?"

"He ran in that direction when we began to scream," said Clara, pointing into the woods. "He appeared like a wild man, Doctor Wykoff, and vanished as quickly as he came."

"I'll look for his footprints," Cudworth remarked. "I don't think, however, that we could trace him."

Doctor Wykoff dismounted and followed him, while the girls remained by the side of the road. The sheriff soon found several footprints in the damp earth under the shrubbery, one of which he carefully measured while telling the physician more precisely what the two girls had stated.

"I don't take much stock in it," he quietly added. "There was a man here, no doubt, but I guess the green stuff was an optical illusion. They were deceived in the dusk, or got their absurd impression in some way from the surrounding foliage. There's no lunatic asylum near here from which an inmate has escaped, and surely no sane man would stain himself bright green."

"He'd be a bird," Doctor Wykoff said dryly.

"Bird is right," Cudworth muttered.

"That really is your opinion, sheriff, is it?" Doctor Wykoff inquired casually.

"Certainly." Cudworth paused and nodded. "Have you any other ?"

"None whatever," said the physician. He turned to remount his horse, "I'll ride on a bit, nevertheless, and try to find the fellow. If I succeed—"

"Grab him and bring him to me," Cudworth interrupted. "Take it from me, doctor, I'll put him through a laundry that will wash the green off him. The girls still are nervous. I'll take them home in my car."

But it is doubtful if Doctor Wykoff heard the last, for he was already riding away at top speed.

Sheriff Cudworth was not deeply im- pressed. He did not think the incident of serious importance. He decided that the Venner girls were mistaken, that in their sudden excitement both had received a wrong impression of the unknown man, whom they had seen only for a moment in the twilight. That he was really green seemed too extraordinary, too absurd and fantastical, for serious consideration.

But Sheriff Cudworth soon changed his mind. Other persons saw the mysterious green man. They confirmed the statements of the Venner girls. None had more than a brief glimpse of him, however, always in some part of the woods, into the depths of which he fled when discovered, uttering wild, discordant cries and making fierce gesticulations. Children playing in the woods caught sight of him and ran home in frantic terror. Petty thefts soon were reported. Footprints identical with that measured by the sheriff were found in back yards and alleys. The marauder was prowling into the town by night. Women became alarmed and dared not venture out. Doors and windows were kept securely locked. Men who never had owned a weapon, and who scarcely dared to fire one, bought guns, revolvers, and pistols. All efforts to trace and capture the "green man" were proving futile.

Shelby was becoming terrorized. The report went abroad that in the woods was a dangerous madman, a green maniac, whom the police could not capture. Sheriff Cudworth found himself with his reputation at stake and his official head in danger.

"It's got to be done! I've got to get that green guy, by thunder, if I lose a leg," he told himself.

Sheriff Cudworth was alone late that evening in his office on the ground floor of the county court house. He had been detained by a storm, which still was raging. Vivid lightning flashes illumined the two uncurtained windows behind him, while he sat at his desk and tried to solve the exasperating problem.

"This alleged green man can't be any different from other men," Cudworth grimly reasoned, he did not pretend to be an expert detective, but he had plenty of good common sense. "There must be some natural cause for his extraordinary color. He can't be simply perpetrating a hoax. He wouldn't prolong it day and night for two weeks. Furthermore, he could not have come from any great distance, or he would have been seen in other localities. He must be some local man, therefore, familiar with the town and neighboring woods, or we very soon could have run him down. He sure is not green in woodcraft. Green be hanged! I don't believe it."

Cudworth' s frowning gaze rose a little. It rested on a mirror on a wall back of his desk. He felt a sudden chill. A vivid lightning flash illumined the window directly behind him, and he saw a man gazing through the window, his eyes were abnormally bright, and he had a round, repulsive face, drawn and tense, but void of any definite expression and of a peculiar shade of green.

Cudworth did not stir. He saw that his discovery was not suspected. He watched the uncanny figure in the feeble light from within when the glare without had vanished. Then the sheriff got up deliberately and removed his coat, as if the room was too warm and he had no intention of going out. Presently, without having glanced toward the window, he sauntered into the adjoining corridor. Then he hastened to the front door, stole quickly around the building, pistol in hand, and crept toward his office window. But his design had been suspected. The green man had fled.

Sheriff Cudworth made the most of what he had seen and of the deducions mentioned. He called late the fol- lowing afternoon on Mrs. Dudley Carroll, a wealthy widow, prominent in local society, and whose home was the most beautiful in Shelby. She was a very attractive woman of middle age and was well acquainted with Cudworth and his family.

"What have I done, sheriff?" she said jestingly, laughing when she received him in her library. "Are you after me for something?"

"I would be, Mrs. Carroll, if I were a single man and about your own age," Cudworth dryly told her. "No, I'm not after you," he said more seriously when seated. "I've heard that your colored chauffeur, Sam White, has been away for a month or more."

"Sam?" Mrs. Carroll queried. "Yes, sheriff, he has. You surely don't want him for any offense. He has grown up in my employ. He's as honest as the day is long. He's the best-natured man in the world."

"I agree with you." Cudworth told her. "I merely want to learn where he has gone."

The sheriff was acquainted with Sam White. He had often seen him going to church on a Sunday with Mrs. Carroll's youngest servant, a pretty mulatto girl, named Eliza Black. Their names had always seemed to him to be absurdly antithetical, for Sam White was very dark, and Eliza Black almost fair by comparison.

"Well, to tell the truth, sheriff, I don't know where Sam has gone," Mrs. Carroll admitted. "He asked permission to go away for a week or two about a month ago," she explained. "I gave him some money and told him to go ahead and enjoy himself as it was his first holiday."

"Did he say where he was going?" Cudworth inquired.

"He did not," Mrs. Cudworth said more gravely. "He was very reticent about it."

"What did he say?"

"He stated that he had a little scheme in view, strictly private, and that he wanted to investigate it. He did not tell Eliza about it, either."

"Did he say when he would return?"

"Probably in a week or ten days was the way he put it. He admitted, how- ever, that it might take a little longer."

"Have you heard from him during his absence?" Cudworth's calm blue eyes had narrowed slightly.

"Only once," said Mrs. Carroll. "Eliza received a letter from him three days after he left. The poor girl is dreadfully anxious about him. Perhaps he has been killed by that terrible madman we are hearing so much about. She made herself so ill over it that I called Doctor Wykoff yesterday. He prescribed for her, and said he thinks the madman will soon be caught. In fact, he is spending much of his own time trying to catch him."

"I heard so this morning," Cudworth informed her. "Did he say why he was specially anxious to secure the man?"

"He did not."

"He may want to diagnose the extraordinary case," Cudworth allowed; "experiment to learn the cause and cure of so singular a malady. He has a very strong propensity for that sort of thing."

"Very true; that same propensity has made him quite famous," Mrs. Carroll reminded him. "You may question Eliza if you wish, sheriff, but I feel sure she can add nothing to what I have told you. I guess Sam will return safely sooner or later."

"I think so," Cudworth told her. "Do you know what he wrote to Eliza?"

"Not a word relating to his little scheme, or regarding his whereabouts. He did say, however, that he was with a friend, that he was feeling fine, and that he reckoned as how she wouldn't know her big stick of licorice when he came back home," Mrs. Carroll told him, laughing. "That was just the way he put it."

"Do you know where the letter was mailed?" Cudworth inquired.

"In Nonh Shelby,'' Mrs. Carroll quickly informed him. "Eliza called my attention to the postmark. So you see, sheriff, Sam has not gone very far away."

"Yes, I see." Cudworth smiled a bit oddly. "No, I won't question the girl." he added as he rose to go. "You know, Mrs. Carroll, I've always thought pretty well of Sam."

"Why not?" she inquired. "He's an honest, simple, kind-hearted darky. Everybody thinks well of Sam."

Sheriff Cudworth had an idea that very few thought well of Sam about that time.

ii

SHERIFF Cudworth had rather more than an idea, when he first learned of Sam White's absence; when he also recalled the hurried arrival of Doctor Wykoff upon the spot where the Venner girls were so badly frightened.

Cudworth's idea had become a theory, and he looked more grimly determined, when he left and started for the home of the physician.

But Sheriff Cudworth did not call on the physician immediately. It was after six o'clock, and he figured that Doctor Wykoff probably was at dinner with his family, and that he could make the investigations he had in view secretly.

Cudworth strode on more rapidly and soon brought up at a low wall in the rear of the physician's extensive estate. It was about a quarter of a mile from the woodland road where the green man first had been seen. The sheriff deduced a point from the last, and hidden from observation by the intervening orchard, a stable, a garage, and a large cement laboratory, all of which occupied the rear grounds, he began an inspection of the earth on both sides of the wall.

Cudworth soon discovered what he was seeking, several footprints corre- sponding with that of the much wanted man. He found them on both sides of the wall, and he soon observed that all of them pointed away from the estate and toward the distant woods.

"Not one points toward the place," he muttered. "Plainly, then, he did not come this way and afterward depart. Instead, he only left in this direction and escaped toward the woods. The space between the tracks shows plainly that he was running. Directly in a line from the laboratory, too. Humph! I'll find out about that."

He sprang over the wall and stole through the orchard, where apple and peach trees were in blossom, sweet and beautiful in the softened light of the setting sun. He paused at the rear wall of the laboratory, where he briefly in- spected two ground glass windows and peered through a small hole where a piece had been broken from one of the panes. He could see indistinctly that slats appeared to be nailed across the window, and that the room contained a cot on which a wrinkled blanket and pillow were lying.

Cudworth's features had hardened. He stole around to the front door to be sure it was locked and that the building was unoccupied. Then he returned to the rear and quickly broke the other window sufficiently for him to open it and enter.

He climbed over the sill into a shelved closet, where there were count- less bottles, phials and jars, each labeled with a red sticker. It obviously was a closet in which poisons were stored for safe keeping.

Cudworth found the door unlocked, however, and he entered the adjoining room, a spacious, finely equipped laboratory. He had no immediate interest in the details of it, but hastened into a small rear room, instead, where he soon confirmed his suspicions. Stout slats were nailed across the window casing. The cot and the room itself were in some disorder. In one corner was a canvas extension case containing a quantity of clothing. The most of it had not been worn since it was laundered.

Cudworth crouched in the corner to examine the garments. The sun had set and the light in the room was waning, but after a brief search he found what he was seeking, the man's initials on one of the linen shirts. He was so intent upon his inspection of the garments that he had no thought of an intruder until a threatening voice spoke.

"What are you doing? Get up!"

The sheriff sprang up as if electrified, turned sharply toward the door, and saw Doctor Alexis Wykoff.

"What are you doing?" he repeated.

"Put down that gun." Cudworth eyed him sternly without moving. "It may go off by chance. You may end with killing me."

"You broke in here like a thief," Wykoff accused him with increasing sever- ity. "If I were to kill you, Cudworth, I could justify it in any criminal court."

"Could you justify it in your own conscience?" Cudworth demanded. "How about that?"

"A man with his liberty menaced, his reputation at stake, with his entire future involved and the happiness of his home and family, does not confer long with his conscience," Doctor Wykoff retorted. His voice trembled slightly, but he still maintained a threatening attitude.

"Put down the gun," Cudworth repeated. "You don't intend to shoot me, Wykoff, or you would have done so at once. Men bent upon murder don't stop to discuss the crime, or to point out to their victims the occasion for it."

"What are you doing here?" Wykoff again demanded.

"I want to learn what you know about Sam White," said the sheriff bluntly.

"Why do you suppose I know anything about him?"

"I know you do," Cudworth said sternly. "He has been confined here. That barred window tells the story. These garments, one bearing his initials, establish his identity. Come to your senses, Wykoff, and come across with the truth," he advised. "What experimental trick have you pulled off on Sam White, that has caused him to lose his head and turned him as green as a melon? Come across. Shooting me won't get you anything."

Doctor Wykoff drew up stiffly and tossed his pistol on the cot. 'T did not intend to shoot you, Cudworth, as you inferred," he said coldly.

"That's more like it," said the sheriff.

"I would not kill you, Cudworth, or any other man, to save my soul from perdition," the physician repeated.

"Now you're talking, Wykoff," Cudworth said approvingly. "What the deuce is the meaning of all this? I know you have something to hide, or you would have come forward at once with a frank and open statement. It goes without saying, Doctor Wykoff, that I'll do anything that I can for you," Cudworth assured him in a kindly manner characteristic of him. "If it is necessary to suppress—"

"No more of that." Doctor Wykoff checked him gravely and drew back into the laboratory. "Come this way, Cudworth, and sit down. I'll tell you all about it."

"Take your own course."

"I have repeatedly been impelled to do so. There is so much at stake, however, that I refrained as long as I had any hope of getting hold of Sam White again and setting him right without exposure. There is a point, you know, beyond which a physician is not justified in experimenting on a human subject. I went a step too far."

"I suspected it," Cudworth told him as they sat down in the laboratory. "If Sam White "

"I thought I possibly would find him here," Doctor Wykoff interrupted. "I hoped that I would, but I was not sure in what condition I would find him, or how violent he still might be. That's why I entered quietly and discovered you. I had my pistol only to awe and intimidate him. It's a singular case, Cudworth, and a most deplorable one."

"Tell me about it," said the sheriff. "I'll do all I can to aid you."

"You're very good." Doctor Wykoff thanked him with an appreciative nod. "But I must not go into the details at this time. It would take hours for me to state the scientific features of the case. I will tell you the superficial facts, however, and later give you all of the details."

"Very good," Cudworth said approvingly. "That may be sufficient."

"It is by no means a new thing, sheriff, for human beings to make alterations in their personal appearance, changes which they regard as improvements upon nature, or which fashion arbitrarily dictates. It began in the Garden of Eden and has been continued in every country and by every race up to the present day. Beauty is really a matter of taste and custom. Small feet is a requisite in China. The Fiji Islanders dye their hair various bright colors. Stained teeth and nails, painted bodies and— but, Lord Harry, why attempt to enumerate them!" he broke off abruptly. "You know all that as well as I."

"Certainly." Cudworth nodded. "Go on."

"It's common enough right here at home," Doctor Wykoff continued. "Women paint, pencil their brows and stain their lips. Specialists study the problem of removing wrinkles and the telltale traces of approaching age. One's complexion is often one's chief concern. Observe my own. I am very dark and swarthy. That is one reason, perhaps, why I have made a special study of the skin and sought ways and means to modify the pigment causing one's color and complexion."

"I follow you," said Cudworth. "I anticipate what is coming."

"Quite likely." Doctor Wykoff smiled faintly. "The color of the skin has always held an important place among physical criteria of the human race. Physiology explains color as a consequence of climate and even diet. This pigment, or coloring matter under the epidermis, or rather under the second skin, is not peculiar to the Negroid or other colored races, but is common to all human beings. It is simply more abundant in certain people."

"I understand," said the sheriff.

"But I must come to the point," Doctor Wykoff said, stiffening. "I have been trying for a long time to find some way to reach and modify this coloring pigment so as to permanently alter one's complexion. I thought I had succeeded, both by means of an ingredient taken internally, and by the injection of a chemical composition into the skin. I have invented an electrical machine with which the injection may be accomplished, somewhat as tattoo work is done.

"Having faith in it, I was very anxious to get a willing subject for the experiment. I realized that my reputation would be placed in jeopardy, but I felt so sure I was right that I resolved to risk it. It so happened, however, that the subject came to me voluntarily."

"How did that occur?"

"It appeared that Sam White heard me discussing the possibility of altering one's color with a friend one day," Doctor Wykoff explained. "Well, he came to me a little later and wanted to know if I could reduce his color, as he put it," said the physician. "I asked him why he objected to it. He said he didn't  specially object to it, but that he was in love with a mulatto girl, Eliza Black, who joshed him a good deal about his color, and that he feared she would not marry him because he was so dark."

"I see." Cudworth suppressed a smile.

"I told Sam I thought it could be done," Doctor Wykoff went on gravely. "I also was perfectly frank with him. I told him he would be taking a chance, that it was only an experiment, but he was very anxious for the operation."

"Sam is very fond of Eliza," Cudworth remarked.

"Well, to make a long story short, Cudworth, I consented to attempt it," said the physician. "I bound Sam to absolute secrecy." He paused, then shrugged his broad shoulders remorsefully. "Well, I performed the operation. Words could not describe my horror when I found, Cudworth, that the process not only had turned him green, but that the ingredients injected into his blood had also affected his brain.

"Sam went violently insane for a time," Doctor Wykoff continued. "I drugged him heavily to prevent his escape and kept him in the laboratory for two weeks, hoping his abnormal condition would in time be dispelled. It had begun to do so, I think, when he escaped. That was just before he terrified the Venner girls one evening. I was after him when I joined you at that time."

"I suspected it," Cudworth informed him.

"Since then I have been trying to get him back here," Wykoff went on. "I shall be ruined professionally and criminally liable unless he can be found and cured. I feel reasonably sure that he is gradually returning to a normal con- dition. I base that belief upon the latest descriptions of those who have seen him and say that his color is becoming darker and taking on a mottled appearance. If he could be found and brought here where I could give him proper treatment, I feel sure I could restore him to his normal condition. On the other hand, I will be hopelessly entangled "

"Stop a bit!" Cudworth leaned forward. "Hush! Not a sound!"

"What do you hear?" Doctor Wykoff whispered.

"Wait. Not a sound. Don't move."

Sheriff Cudworth arose and tiptoed toward the open front door. His trained ears detected a sound like stealthy footsteps back of the building. The physician waited, with ears strained and eyes aglow, his nerves quivering with suspense under a sudden unexpected hope the sheriff had inspired. Then he heard his voice from some point back of the building, shouting sternly:

"Hold on! I'll have you this time! Don't you bolt again, Sam, or I'll wing you with a chunk of lead. Come here. Come here at once, Sam, or I'll—"

Doctor Wykoff heard no more. He sprang up with a cry of relief and stag- gered toward the door just as Sheriff Cudworth, with a grip on the arm and neck of the much wanted man, returned to the laboratory.

It later appeared that Doctor Wykoff was right, that Sam White had begun to throw off his abnormal condition, that he had just begun to realize his own identity and that something was wrong with him, and he was returning to the physician for aid and advice.

It seems needless to add that Sam White received a generous amount of both. He came out of the experiment all right, and later married the mulatto girl. The true circumstances were never suspected by the public, much to Doctor Wykoff's relief.

The extraordinary feature of the case was that Sam White, when completely restored, was a shade darker than before.

_________________

11: Framed at the Benefactors' Club

Achmed Abdullah

(Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff; 1881-1945)

Detective Story Magazine 16 Apr 1921

1: Where Things Happen

ACTING on a headlong impulse, he called on Martyn Spencer. His motive was typical of Blaine Ogilvie's character and life as he had lived it these last ten years, since he had left college. Marie Dillon, Spencer's distant cousin, had told him of the latter's return to New York, a few months back, after a decade spent away from America, and had given him his address.

"Marie," Ogilvie had said, "he's the very man for me."

"To do what?"

"To help me."

"Do you really need help as badly as all that?"

Ogilvie wasn't a very good liar. He tried his best, though.

"Really, dear," he said, "don't you worry. I am all right—"

"Please, Blaine! Be truthful with me! That's our agreement, you know— the truth— always— be it pleasant or unpleasant."

Ogiivie sighed. "The truth is always unpleasant! Fact is— I am not starving yet!"

"I don't like that 'yet.' "

"Nor do I, Marie!" Ogilvie laughed. But, deep down, he was serious and just a little frightened. Life, financially, had not been kind to him of late. "That's why I have to do something— something that pays. And, too, after we're married, I don't want you to wear summer hats all during the winter!"

"Of course not," she replied with a smile. "But why appeal to Spencer?"

"Why not? I've tried all the men I know. But there isn't a chance. Business is rotten, and they're discharging people right and left. But Spencer was always a regular whirlwind at getting the coin. And he and I used to be friends."

"All right, dear, ask him. It can't do any harm."

"Indeed not. Press your darling little thumb for me. D'you mind?"

He found Martyn Spencer much the same man he had known at college: debonair, yet with an undertone of acrid sarcasm, quick of speech and repartee, yet curiously lumbering of gesture, direct in his opinions, yet at times with a queerly footling manner of commenting on life and life's problems. This was the Spencer he had known at college, and this was the Spencer whom he saw again to-day, in his wainscoted, cigar-flavored office, on top of the Macdonald skyscraper. Now the man was surrounded by a perfect array of steel filing cabinets, safes, noiseless typewriters, switchboards, marceled stenographers, and relays of private secretaries in immaculate, sober, pin-striped worsted, with an almost episcopal unction of voice.

The man's face, too, was as it had always been: massive jowled, dead white, and with an exaggerated beak of a nose, the smoke-blue eyes set close together beneath hooded, fleshy lids. If there was a change in him, Blaine Ogilvie did not notice it at first. Of course he had heard rumors about Spencer, but he had dismissed them. Not that he disliked gossip, since he had the average healthy male's appetite for the intriguing cross sections and cross currents of conflicting personalities.

But the rumors that had drifted through occasionally, via commercial traveler, returned globe-trotter or explorer, missionary on sabbatical leave, or rust-spotted freighter's skipper, from the exotic lands where Spencer was said to be piling up a shocking total of millions, were both too grim and too fantastic for the prosy twentieth century. Romance in business had died with Dutch patroons and Spanish privateers, Ogilvie used to say, and he would dismiss the tales with an incredulous laugh, as did the rest of New York that had known Martyn Spencer in the old days.

Ogilvie laughed now at the very thought.

Spencer had always been congenitally a money getter, nothing else, even at college. He seemed to have reached the height of his ambition. The man breathed moneyed success, a very surfeit of it.

Ogilvie, who had announced his coming over the telephone, had been civilly inspected and scrutinized by the private secretary in the outer office, by another private secretary— the first's twin brother as to well-cut clothes, pompadoured hair, and straw-colored mustache— in the inner office, and then Martyn Spencer greeted him with a hearty handshake and a fat, crimson- and-gold banded Havana.

"Ten years since we have seen each other, eh, Blaine?" he asked.

"Every day of it, Martyn!"

A rapid gathering-up of broken threads and college gossip, inquiries, as perfunctorily polite as perfunctorily answered, about the fortunes, marriages, and divorces of Tom "This" and Mabel "That" followed. Then suddenly, characteristically, Ogilvie came to the point.

"Martyn," he said, "I want a job."

"Why?"

"Simplest reason in the world. I need it."

"Broke?"

"Well— bent all out of shape! Don't you need a handsome, industrious, and intelligent junior partner— or office boy?"

"I don't need as much as a scrub- woman." "

"I beg your pardon!" Ogilvie said stiffly.

"Come, come. Don't fly off the handle. I am sorry, but honestly I don't need anybody."

"Seem to have a lot of affairs here?" Ogilvie pointed through the glass partition at the humming outside office.

"Affairs is right, but I am winding them up. I am going to retire from business."

"Rather young to do that, aren't you?"

"At times I feel seven years older than the hills!" Spencer passed a pudgy hand across his round, dead-white face. The hand trembled a little.

The other rose. "Sorry I bothered you, old man."

"Don't go yet. Perhaps I can help you."

"I wish you would. Really— I need—"

"What sort of a job do you want?"

"Anything— anywhere— where I can earn a decent living."

"What do you know? What can you do?"

"I've been to war. I can drill a company and—"

"I know, I know!" Spencer interrupted impatiently. "You can kill people according to the most scientific and up-to-date methods. But there's nothing to that. The world is still groggy. That last round lasted too long. What else do you know?"

"I have a smattering of languages— French, German, Spanish—"

"Which means that you can order a dinner without precipitating a riot be- tween the Alsation chef and the Polish head waiter, and that you can get the point of a joke in a French comic paper. Nothing to that. One can get any number of bright young Europeans at eighteen per, who can stenog and talk fluently in half a dozen languages. What else can you do?" he continued inexorably.

Ogilvie considered for quite a while.

"I am reckless," he replied.

"Hardly a paying quantity. What else?"

"Nothing."

"Well— marry money."

"But—"

"I've an aunt in Chicago who'll introduce you to the right sort of girl. Marrying off people is her particular avocation."

Ogilvie shook his head. "Marry— nothing!" he said with a laugh. "I asked you what I am going to do with myself, not with somebody else's daughter. Besides, I've the girl all picked out."

"Who is she, may I ask?"

"Marie Dillon, your cousin."

"Oh! What the deuce did you want to fall in love with her for? The Dillons haven't a blessed cent!"

"I'm contrary by nature, I guess."

"Well— what do you advise, Martyn?"

"Serious, are you? Really need the money?"

"Yes,"

Martyn Spencer was silent for several minutes. He turned slightly in his swivel chair and looked out of the window. It was winter, with a bitter, hacking north wind that rode a wracked sky and drove harshly across the roofs of New York. Tiny, sharp points of frozen snow rattled the panes and moaned dismally in the chimneys.

Ogilvie gave an involuntary shudder. His overcoat, though fashionably tail- ored, was a thin spring garment, and his gorgeously striped silk muffler was arrestingly ineffectual. Spencer's heavy ulster, lined with Russian sable, was tossed carelessly across a chair. He stared at it enviously, and the other noticed it out of the corner of his eyes.

"Peach of a coat, Blaine, isn't it?" he asked.

"I'll say so!"

"Unique coat, too!"

"Oh!"

"Yes. Imperial Russian sable— priceless— not another like it in America."

"Where did you get it ?"

"Grand Duchess Anastasia Michailovna gave it to me."

"Know her?" came Ogilvie's casual question.

"Ran across her in Moscow."

"I thought you were in Africa."

"I've kicked around all over."

"I see."

They were both silent. Then Spencer looked up. A vertical wrinkle cleft his forehead sharply and drew apart his close-set eyes as if he had been thinking deeply.

"Blaine," he said rather sententiously, "there are two types of man. One is the type, like myself, which goes after things, and the other the type which waits for things to happen. I think you belong to the latter."

"You do?"

"Right. You see, I've offered you an introduction to my aunt in Chicago— the finest matchmaker in seven counties— who would have shuffled the right girl, the rightly rich girl, out of the marriage deck for you. In other words, I asked you to go after things so that you might be able to achieve man's real object in life— a silk-hatted, patent- leather- shoe state of genteel vagabondage. You tell me that you are engaged to Marie Dillon, who is as poor as a church mouse. Very sentimental and honorable and charming and all that, I grant you, but hopelessly impractical. Very well. I see that you aren't the pushing sort. Therefore you've got to wait for things to happen to you."

Ogilvie rose impatiently.

"Wait!" came the other's smooth voice. "Things— to happen to you!" he repeated with a queer smile. "And— you said you are reckless?"

"You know I am!"

"Yes, yes." Spencer mused, smiled again, and continued: "Now, in all the world, there are exactly three places where a man can wait for things— things to happen. A man of your sort—"

"Meaning a reckless man?"

"Meaning a fool!"

"Sure I am?"

"Positive. I knew you at college."

"Thanks awfully. And where are these three mysterious places ?"

"One is a small and very smelly caravansery near the Kabool Gate in the city of Lahore, in India. One is the northern end of the great bridge at Constantinople—"

"Too far away— both of them— particularly for a chap who's broke."

"It'll cost you a nickel, and, perhaps, an extra two cents for a cross-town fare, to reach the third place."

"Oh—"

"Yes. It is right here in New York." Spencer pointed vaguely through the window, where the houses were running together in purple and gray spots beneath the sweep of oncoming evening.

"Really?" Ogilvie looked up, interested.

"Familiar with the slums of New York?"

"Quite. I had money once and used to dine there, eating beans at fancy prices, when we went slumming."

"Know Meeker Street?"

"I've been there— during my years of affluence."

"Know where Meeker and Commerce Streets come nearly together, in a sort of a triangle, pointing toward Seventh Avenue?"

"Yes."

Framed at the Benefactors Club Z

"Remember a crooked little side street, rather an alley, nearer Com- merce Street, which runs in the general direction of the river, like a drunken man?"

"I've a shadowy recollection, What's the name of the street ?"

"Braddon Street."

"Oh, yes, I recall now. Funny old brick houses, with Georgian columns and deep-set windows!"

"Exactly, Blaine."

"Well—what about this street?"

"Go there— to No. 17."

"What for?"

"If you want things to happen to you!"

"Do I?"

"I don't know, Blaine, I'm sure. But, at No. 17, you'll find a queer, old-fashioned restaurant, dating back to the days when Aaron Burr dreamed largely about empire and made a sorry mess of it. There's the place"— he slurred, stopped, went on— "the place for—"

"Things to happen?"

"Yes."

"Thanks for the tip, Martyn. I am going there." Spencer smiled lopsidedly. "I repeat," he said, "that you are a fool!"

"Thanks!" the other interjected.

"What I told you about the Braddon Street place is straight. It isn't a very nice place, Blaine."

Ogilvie laughed. "Oh, yes— you told me things happen there, didn't you?"

"To some people."

"Shall I carry a gun?"

"Heavens, no! Even the slums are well policed these decadent days. Only— well, I warn you. The beginnings and the ends of many things have been brewed in that restaurant— things which men do not speak of except in whispers behind closed doors."

Ogilvie looked up sharply. "As you are talking in whispers— right now!" he said, with a purring laugh. "As your door is closed— right now!"

"Exactly!" came the even, passionless reply. Spencer hesitated. "Blaine," he went on, "if I were you I would not go!"

"Why— you've made me quite anxious to see the place, old man. I guess I shall go."

"When?" came the quick question.

"The sooner the better. To-night's the night!"

Martyn Spencer studied the other's face for a few tense seconds. Then he gave a forced laugh.

"All right," he said. "I see that you have decided." He coughed, mused, looked at Ogilvie from beneath hooded eyelids. "If you get there after ten in the evening," he said very slowly, "you will find the place closed."

"That so?"

"Yes. But you can still get in."

"How ?"

"By knocking at the door. Two short knocks— a pause— then a double knock. A pause— then again a short knock."

"Seem to know all about the place and its habits, Martyn?"

"I've never been there in my life."

"Ah— tell it to the marines !"

"Never in all my life," Spencer repeated. "I'm speaking the literal truth."

Again both men were silent; they were studying each other sharply, un- winkingly.

Then Blaine Ogilvie asked a sudden, brutally direct question: "Why do you want me to go there?"

The other gave a start. "Wh-what?" he stammered. "What d-do you mean?"

"Just exactly what I said!"

Spencer flicked his cigar ash. "Go," he said, "and find out!"

Ogilvie smiled. "Don't want to tell me the reason," he said, "but you do want me to go! Is that right? Of course it is, old man! No use denying it!"

"I'm not saying anything."

"Sure you aren't. I know. Didn't we play stud poker at college, and didn't you always have a high pair back to back? Question is— to put it bluntly— how much is it worth to you if I go —to-night— after ten?"

"I believe I told you that you're a fool?"

"And I believe I told you that I'm broke? Well— how much?"

"Name your own price!"

"A thousand dollars ?"

Martyn Spencer laughed. "Blaine," he said, "I am a poor business man, for I'll give you more than you asked. Twenty thousand dollars— how'd that strike you?"

"Splendidly !"

"It's a bargain? To-night after ten, and you go alone— and tell nobody?"

"Right !"

Spencer walked to the safe, opened it, and drew forth a thick sheaf of high- denomination bills. "Here you are!"

"Thanks!" Ogilvie crammed the money into his inside pocket. "So long, Martyn!" He made for the door.

"Wait!"

"What is it now?"

"You'll catch your death of cold with that thin coat of yours."

"I'll invest part of the twenty thousand in a new coat on my way down Broadway."

"It's after six, and the stores are closed. I'll lend you my coat."

"But—"

"I am going to work for an hour or two and then I'll telephone to my valet to bring me another ulster. Better take this. It's terribly cold."

"I may hock it, old man. You told me it's priceless— and didn't you say something about a grand duchess who gave it to you— tender souvenirs, eh?"

"Not quite as tender as you imagine!" Spencer laughed disagreeably. "Come!" He helped the other on with the warm, soft sable-lined coat. "Bring it back when you're through with it."

"Sure—and thanks." He opened the door to the outer office, when he heard Spencer's voice:

"Blaine!"

"Yes?"

The latter turned. "What is it?"

"Oh— nothing, nothing— never mind."

"All right. Au revoir, Martyn!"

"Au revoir!"

And Blaine stepped out of the office into the street, not quite sure if the pleasantly warm feeling that suffused his body was due to the fur coat or to the twenty thousand dollars that nestled in his inside pocket.

IT WAS still snowing hard that night, with a bitter wind piping across the roofs of the city, a little before ten, when he left his modest hotel in the West Forties, after agreeably surprising the desk clerk by calling for his overdue bill and settling it in full.

"Stroke of luck, Mr. Blaine?" asked the clerk, familiar with the ups and downs of the Rialto.

"Luck— or the opposite; I'm not exactly sure yet, Tommy."

He felt a prey to a tremendous, voiceless excitement as he turned down Seventh Avenue. He preferred walking, thinking that the touch of the cold, snow-wet wind on his forehead would clear his mind. He had been reckless all his life, and usually he had come through with flying colors in the occasional small adventures such as he had run across in the streets of New York and in the Adirondacks and the Maine woods. Besides he had come out of the war unscathed. But the unknown adventure upon which he was embarking to-night— and he realized that there was a reason for it all, for Martyn Spencer was not the type of man to give away twenty thousand dollars, nor any part of twenty thousand dollars, without demanding full value— the unknown adventure upon which he was embarking to-night made him uneasy.

As he thought about Spencer, as he reconstructed the scene in the office, he remembered the man's nervous hands, the occasional look of fear which had come into the other's smoke-blue eyes, the suddenly lowered voice, the inter- rupted sentence when he had left. Doubtless the other had meant to warn him, and had then reconsidered and said nothing. He remembered, too, the vague, fantastic tales as to the origins of Martyn Spencer's wealth that had drifted into New York.

He went unarmed, for Spencer had told him that he would not need a gun. And the very fact that there was thus no prospect of physical danger made him yet more uneasy. He was a very sane and normal man, with sane and normal reactions, preferring physical contest, even physical danger, to the twisting, gliding struggle between soul and soul or intelligence and intelligence.

"I guess I'm a fool," he thought. "But— I am in love."

Obeying the suggestion of the last thought, he stepped into a telephone booth and called up Marie Dillon.

"I saw Spencer."

"Yes?"

"It's all right. He's giving me a chance, Marie!"

"I'm so glad, dear."

Then a few strictly personal remarks which caused listening-in central to make a sentimental aside to the girl at the next switchboard, and the receiver clicked down. The steely sound jarred Ogilvie unpleasantly. It seemed like an ending to a chapter of his life.

He walked down Seventh Avenue, and by short cuts into Meeker Street and toward Braddon, down through the evil, sodden alleys of that part of town, prurient with dirty memories of the past, slimy with refuse stabbing through the mantle of snow. Foul invectives in English, Yiddish, Greek, and Sicilian cut the air, while garish posters outraged the faces of the buildings.

Braddon Street leaped out of the snow with a packed wilderness of secretive, red-brick dwellings, with stealthy, enigmatic back yards, skulking gables, and furtive, reticent side entrances.

No. 17 was just beyond the corner. It assaulted the night with a flare of yellow lights. He consulted his watch. It was twenty-three minutes after ten. He knocked at the closed door, according to Spencer's directions: two short knocks, a pause, a double knock, another pause, then again a short knock.

The door swung open, and he entered.

2: No 17 Braddon Street

MOMENTARY hush of expectancy fell like a pall over the company gathered at No. 17 as Ogilvie entered. Spencer's sable coat was wrapped about him in loose, luxurious folds, with the light of the swinging kerosene lamp, in the doorless, octag- onal outer hall, stabbing tiny points of gold into the russet-black fur as the draft from the entrance door jerked his coat apart and exposed the lining. He noted in passing the man with the bulbous nose, the great hairy hands, and the exotic, spade-shaped red beard behind the cashier's desk, who looked at him and then turned away. Immediately— the hush of expectancy had lasted only a few seconds— the talk that filled the place like the droning of bees broke forth again; it even rose to a higher note as the hat-check boy—a snobbish anomaly for this part of town, Ogilvie reflected—took the ulster and handed it to a brown-eyed, high-colored, sweet-faced girl who presided over the clothes rack that stood beyond the outer hall, with a rapid stream of clipped, metallic Balkan jargon. Ogilvie did not miss the strange, almost pitying look in the girl's fine brown eyes as she took the coat, seemed to finger it for a moment as if enjoying the soft feel of it, and then said to him in guttural, broken English:

"Check, sir! Yes, sir— right check!"

Ogilvie held out his hand. "All right," he said, "let's have the check!"

"But,"— the girl shook her head and glanced over at the man with the red beard as if appealing to him— "you have the check, sir!"

"I have not, my dear!"

The girl seemed flustered.

"S'bog s'bogpie," she exclaimed, calling on some Slav deity for help; "you have, you have—"

Blaine Ogilvie laughed. He had always been an easy-going man, had always disliked arguments and quarrels.

"All right, all right," he replied, "have it your own way. Anyhow, that coat is valuable, and I want it back, check or no check. I have witnesses, eh?" He smiled at the red-bearded man, who smiled back with a flash of small, even white teeth.

"Yes, sir," said the girl dully, rather hopelessly. "Oh, yes, sir—

He tried to dovetail these impressions, between the moment he entered and the moment he sat down and asked for a drink— into a compendious whole— tried to riddle out their keynote.

His first reaction was emphatically tame. He felt disappointed. He had been keyed. up to expect something, if not thrilling or bloodcurdling, at least startlingly unconventional or intriguing, and all he saw was an old-fashioned restaurant, harking back, as Spencer had told him, to the days of Aaron Burr and the young Republic. It seemed like an archaic "saloon bar" of colonial days, with its two or three dozen oaken, strong-backed chairs, that stood against the farther wall, each fitted with an occupant, its black settle near the bar, redolent of a former generation when, doubtless, it had been filled by a pompous landlord holding forth, clay pipe in hand, on the comparative virtues of king or parliament. There was the neat, sanded floor, the small, round window high up on the wall with a wheel ventilator in one of the panes, a few quaint pictures in flat mahogany frames, a gayly painted Hadley dower chest, and quite a collection of Spode plates and old English flip glasses.

Altogether a charming, peaceful place— redolent, Ogilvie thought smilingly, of lavender and lace and potent rum toddies. As the outer door clicked in the lock he felt as if the New York that he knew, the brassy, hustling New York of motley, cosmopolitan throngs and hooting motor drays and elevated cars booming along their steely spider's web had been shuttered off, had been sucked back into an air pocket of time.

A purse-mouthed, crane-necked waiter— fully as much of an antique as the rest of the place, with his gray Dundreary whiskers and green baize apron and elastic gaiters—hovered about. Ogilvie gave his order, and, after he was served, lit a cigar and settled comfortably in his chair. Then, unhurriedly, he turned to study the occupants of the restaurant.

The latter were now paying no attention to him. They seemed the pleasant, bromidic folk of the neighborhood, small tradesmen and chauffeurs and skilled mechanics, talking in undertones unexcitedly, without gestures, sipping their innocuous drinks and puffing at well-blackened brier pipes and ten-cent cheroots. Some were playing checkers.

Among them only a few men stood out as types rather out of the ordinary. Thinking of Martyn Spencer's cryptic remarks, of the twenty thousand dollars, the unknown, mysterious reason for his being here, thinking finally of the signal code of knocks which had opened to him the outer door, Blaine Ogilvie studied these men more closely.

He tried to classify them logically in his coolly observant brain— for future reference, as he put it; although he added to himseif that he would give a good half of the twenty thousand dollars to know what exactly this reference might eventually point to—the reference, the explanation, and the end, the solution—

What end? End of what?

As the moments passed he became conscious of a queer, eerie sensation, like a clay-cold hand gently caressing his spine. It was uncomfortable. He tried to convince himself that it was a draft, the wintry wind booming through the cracked old walls. But he knew that he was lying to himself; knew that it was fear— fear of the unknown— the grayest, most tragic fear in the world! He watched his left hand that held the cigar. It trembled. Then he shook the feeling off suddenly, physically, with a jerk and heave of his broad shoulders, as a cat shakes off raindrops. He turned again to study the few people who seemed to stand out from among the rest of the crowd.

There was, of course, the man be- hind the cashier's desk, with the spade-shaped, flame-colored beard and the bulbous, large-pored nose. He seemed slightly nervous, shuffling with his finger tips the pages of the ledger in front of him, occasionally looking up in the direction of the door as if waiting for somebody to come. There was also the brown-eyed girl— doubtless belonging to some Slav race— who presided over the clothes rack. She gave a little guilty start as her glance crossed Ogilvie's. Then she turned her back on him and slumped down on her stool, facing the door. The boy in the outer hall, too, was staring at the door, standing quite motionless, tense, like a pointer at bay.

For a second or two Blaine Ogilvie felt fascinated by the grouping of the three figures ; it seemed both tragic and incongruous, like a tableau out of some cheap melodrama.

Then he looked away from them and toward the other occupants of the room whom he had decided to observe.

Not far from the black settle by the bar a party of three were sitting around one of the oaken tables, framed on either side by other groups, prosy, uninteresting, small tradesmen or mechanics, as Ogilvie had decided. But these three men were of a different stamp. They sat very quietly, very silently. There was something inhuman about their quietude. One seemed like an elderly roué, handsome in a way, yet amorphous, washed over by the pitiless hand of time and vice. He was smoking a straw-colored cigarette in a ten-inch holder of clear green jade. At his left was a tall, thin man with extraordinarily long arms, the cleaver-like sharpness of his face emphasized by the supercilious upsweep of a heavy black mustache. The third was a youth, not over twenty, dressed in an expensive but foppish manner, with his bench-made brogues, buckskin spats, and a hairy, greenish Norfolk jacket opening over a Tattersall waistcoat of an extravagant pattern. The canary diamond in his purple necktie, if genuine, was worth a small fortune.

In the center of the room, paying not the slightest attention to the click of the counters at the next table, where some men were playing checkers, a man sat alone, a little hunchback whose pear-shaped head just protruded above the table rim. His face was distinguished by an immense hooked nose, a grave brow curving over a tragic, portentous gaze— the look of a mad prophet— and his dome was surmounted incongruously, ludicrously, by a cap in a check of violent magenta and pea green, set far back on the perspiring head. There was something about him that reminded Ogilvie of the Old Testament; not racially, but rather  civilizationally— something like the bitter, pitiless logic of the ancient Hebrew annals,

And, finally, at Ogilvie's elbow were two men. One was tall, with a bald, pink head; the face itself, through a trick of the flickering shadows of the swinging kerosene lamps, was indistinct, wiped over with brown and ruby and muddy orange, all but the eyes that, beneath curiously straight and heavy brows, stared hard and shiny blue into vacancy arrestingly expressive of a certain contempt, tinged by a certain pity. The other man would have escaped Ogilvie's notice had it not been for his companion. For he seemed just an average New York business man, spotlessly neat from the exact parting in his honey-colored hair to the gray, herring-bone tweeds that fitted him without a wrinkle. His face was round like a baby's, with a nose inclined to be snub, and his fingers, drumming delicately on the table, were plump and excessively well kept.

There appeared to be nobody else in the restaurant worth considering or studying. Ogilvie tried to determine what these men were whom he had picked out, what they represented— socially, financially, or politically— in the vast macrocosm of New York, Presently, as he watched and thought and weighed, it became clear to him that there was between these men, from table to table, an undercurrent of mutual understanding, expressed by an occasional glance, a faint gesture, even the ghost of a cough. And then suddenly— and it was this which caused fear to rush back upon him— he seemed to notice, to feel more than notice, that all the other people in the room, whom he had dismissed as harmless denizens of the neighborhood, were also involved in this baffling, silent network of mutual understanding, of waiting for something to happen—what— and to whom?

What were these people expecting? Why had they admitted him? What was Martyn Spencer's connection with it all? The three thoughts tumbled over each other, then drew together, blended, crystallized into a third: Why was he here? Because Martyn Spencer had paid him twenty thousand dollars. The answer was obvious. But obvious, too, was the fact that he had earned it. For he had come here, and there was nothing in the agreement between him and Spencer that he had to remain here any specific length of time.

Very well, he thought, the next thing for him to do was to leave the place. He got up unhurriedly, and was about to cross to the entrance hall when the little hunchback in the checked cap spoke two words slowly, without the slightest emphasis:

"Don't go!"

"Why not?' Ogilvie turned and stared at the speaker.

"Because it would be so very useless, wouldn't it?"

The words were quite simple, quite gentle. The hunchback had not moved, nor had any of the other occupants of the room, who continued to converse in low undertones, playing checkers, sipping their drinks, puffing at their pipes and cigars.

But, somehow, through the mists of Ogilvie's apprehension, floated down the knowledge that he was standing on the brink of a catastrophe, a catastrophe of which he knew neither the beginning nor the end. Somehow, he knew that, whatever the reasons for their keeping him here, they would not let him go until their object, whatever it was, had been attained. It seemed inevitable, like fate, and a curious, helpless lassitude swept over him. He realized instinctively that it would do no earthly good to argue with these people. He had never seen them before, nor had they seen him, as far as he knew. And yet they were evidently acting according to a carefully preconceived plan. Too, he sensed that, for all the hunch-back's gentle voice, for all the general air of excessive quietude and peace that pervaded the room like a subtle, insidious perfume, it would be useless to bluff, as useless to show fight.

The odds were against him, and he felt more than ever sure of it when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that half a dozen men had risen and were approaching him very quietly, very unobtrusively, one stepping close up to him and asking him in flat, low accents to kindly sit down again. Ogilvie obeyed. He sat down with a little bow in the direction of the hunchback.

"Very well, sir," he said and lit his second cigar. "I fail to see, however, what—"

"It's really quite useless," said the hunchback.

"Quite, quite useless," echoed the red-bearded man with a curious sigh.

"No use arguing— you mean— asking questions?" suggested Blaine Ogilvie.

"Exactly!" replied the hunchback. "Isn't that so?"

He turned to the company, gathering eyes like a hostess, and there came a rumbling, affirmative chorus:

"Yes—yes—"

Blaine Ogilvie shrugged his shoulders. His thoughts were in a daze. The whole situation seemed unreal and negative. Momentarily he wondered if it were all a dream, from which he would awaken presently to find himself in bed, with the young sun streaming in through the window.

He smoked on in silence. When, a few seconds later, there was the roar of an automobile outside, followed by the code signal of knocks at the street door, he was more conscious of relief than of heightening fear. He looked up curiously as the door opened and admitted two men. One was short and stocky and rather ordinary, assisting a second man who seemed ill. The sick man was walking with evident effort, leaning heavily on a rubber-tipped stick, the feet dragging haltingly and painfully, the bent body huddled in a thick coat, the hat pulled down over the forehead.

He stood still for a second, blinking short-sightedly against the yellow light. A thin smile curled his bloodless lips.

"Is this the place, Hillyer?" he asked, turning to the man who was with him.

"Yes, Monro," replied the other, helping him off with his overcoat.

"And— when— do you suppose commenced the first man rather anxiously. "Though I really don't hope that—"

"Now, please! Sit down first, Monro! You need rest," interrupted the other, assisting him into a chair not far from Ogilvie's.

The latter felt completely mystified as well as disappointed. It was all so quiet, so well bred, so unexciting and unhurried. He was steadily becoming less intrigued than frankly bored. A faint suspicion came to him that the whole thing was nothing except a well-staged hoax, a practical joke of sorts.

He turned in his chair and motioned to the green-aproned waiter. The latter approached at a dignified, shuffling run.

"Yes, sir?" he inquired civilly.

"Bring me another—"

Ogilvie did not finish the sentence. For there came with utter, dramatic suddenness a crimson flash and a grim, cruel roar— a high-pitched cry cut off in mid-air— the dull sound of a falling body.

Instinctively he turned in his chair. Startled, frightened, he rose and stared wide-eyed.

"Oh—"

Through the pall of silence that had dropped over the restaurant, Ogilvie's choked exclamation cut with extraordinary distinctness.

There, curled up like a sleeping dog, in front of his chair, one arm flung wide, the other stretched up and out, with the fingers bent stiffly, convulsively, as if trying to claw at life, to snatch back the breath of it from the black abyss of oblivion, lay the second of the two men who had come in a few moments earlier, the one who had seemed ill. Something trickled slowly from a neatly drilled bullet hole in his left temple, staining his cheek, his chin, his collar a rich crimson. He was dead. There was no doubt of it.

Murder—thought Blaine Ogilvie. And, if premeditated murder, why had they kept him here? What was supposed to be his connection with it, or, if not his personally, Martyn Spencer's?

3: Bluecoats And A Carving Knife

EVEN at that tragic moment, Ogilvie could not rid his mind of the incongruous impression that the whole thing was unreal. For there was no such excitement as is generally supposed to follow the witnessing of a violent deed. The majority of the occupants of the restaurant had indeed risen, but there were no cries of horror and indignation, no hysterical exchange of comments and counter-comments. All seemed quiet, orderly, and well bred, as if murder were a commonplace, rather negligible occurrence.

Ogilvie himself had only turned after he had heard the shot fired. He had turned quickly enough, but even so he could not tell who was the assassin. There seemed to be no weapon in evidence, no telltale, guilty attitude.

Still there could be no doubt that some of the other people in the restaurant must have looked in the direction of the newcomers at the time, must have actually witnessed the killing.

Yet there was no sign of it: no pointing, accusing hands reached out, nobody gave way to the natural impulse of those who have witnessed a revolting crime—to hurl themselves upon the criminal, to strike him or do him injury.

The short, stocky man who had accompanied the murdered man was still sitting at the table, looking down upon the dead body, his face singularly unexpressive of any emotion whatsoever. He had not even dropped the cigar which he was smoking. The party of three whom Ogilvie hdd noticed earlier in the evening—the man who looked like an elderly roué, the one with the cleaverlike profile, and the youth in the foppish clothes—had got up, as had the party of two—he with the bald, pink head and the staring, contemptuous eyes, and the one who looked like an average business man. The five had joined and moved forward in a compact group in the direction of the door, talking in undertones to each other and looking not toward the murdered man, but— Ogilvie realized with a start— toward him.

The red-bearded man was still casually shuffling the pages of the ledger with his hairy fingers, while the brown-eyed girl at the clothes rack sat slumped in her chair, perfectly oblivious to everything, apathetic, and the boy in the outer hall leaned against the door jamb, hands in pockets, staring vacantly at nothing in particular.

Subconsciously, yet with the instantaneous fidelity of a photographic lens, all these physical details impressed themselves upon Ogilvie's brain, as did the fact that the hunchback was standing in a clear space, halfway between his and the murdered man's table. For a second, straight through the confusion in his mind, Ogilvie imagined that the latter must have been the assassin, judging from his position. But he dismissed the idea almost immediately, because he recalled that the man had a cigar in his left hand and a glass in his right. He must have risen, just as he was, the moment he had heard the shot or had seen the actual killing.

Presently, very calmly and unhurriedly, the hunchback crossed the room, exchanged a whispered word in passing with the red-bearded man, and stepped into the outer hall. The girl handed him his coat— Ogilvie noticed that it was next to his own, which was swinging from a peg at the near end of the rack— and the man stepped out into the night. The next moment there was the roar of a motor car gathering speed, then fading into the memory of sound.

And still the people in the restaurant remained as they were, quiet and orderly and unexcited. Only the group of five men had moved a little closer toward Blaine Ogilvie.

The latter was speechless. His thoughts were bunched into too violent a turmoil and commingling for immediate disentanglement. It was the first time in his civil life that he had seen death, and it appeared to him singularly undignified, singularly drab and commonplace. Even war gave it a certain dramatic mise en scéne. Yet the shock of it had cut deeply into his inner consciousness,

That thing there on the floor— with the crimson stain slowly trickling down and thickening blackly— the stiff, convulsive fingers— useless, hopeless, weakly ineffectual— and it had been alive a few minutes earlier— had smiled, breathed, talked, acted—

It was beginning to affect Ogilvie physically, and he felt slightly ill. The feeling increased, grew to a choking, nauseating sensation, gripped his chest, his throat, caused him to cough violently. Instinctively he turned from the table in the direction of the washroom, whose sign he had noticed on entering at the left of the outer hall.

He had hardly taken a step when quickly, yet without a word, the group of five men advanced toward him in a solid phalanx, threateningly barring his way. The youth in the Norfolk suit gripped his arm, and it was this physical contact which cleared Ogilvie's brain and caused him to act. Whatever the reason for Martyn Spencer's strange bargain with him, whatever the cause of the murder or the personality of the murderer, whatever the beginning and problematical end of it all, it became suddenly clear to him that he must get away as rapidly as possible.

Remembering football tactics on the college gridiron, where he had been fully as famous for the almost African power of resistance of his skull as for the sturdy speed of his legs, he bent almost double and made a flying leap in the direction of the door, head well forward and down, like a battering-ram,

The youth tried to stop him. Ogilvie caught him full in the pit of the stomach with his head. The youth dropped, with a funny, squeaky little noise of pain, while, at the same moment, the other four hurled themselves upon Ogilvie, their fists going like flails. Ogilvie kept his presence of mind and gave a short laugh. He had taken part in a féw rough-and-tumble fights and knew that when a number of men turn against one they usually interfere more with each other than they hurt the man whom they attack.

He fought well, careful to step back a little, with his back to the wall, at his left a table where, a few moments earlier, the waiter had carved a beef-steak,

He dodged and danced and grappled. His breath came in short, violent bursts. At one and the same time he was trying to land blow, to parry blow, to sidestep kicking feet and crashing elbows, and to make a dash for the door, the night, safety. The odds were against him. A rough knuckle caught him on the left temple, an open palm hit the point of his chin, the man with the bald, pink head dodged within the very crook of Ogilvie's powerful right arm and grappled, while the others, joined by the youth, who had revived, closed in the next moment like hounds pulling down a stag.

st under the armpits by a bearlike grasp. He reached back, his fingers closed, something ripped, tore, like cloth. He had no time to think what it was. For a moment he felt as if his ribs were crushing in his lungs. His temples throbbed. Blue wheels whirled in front of his eyes. The roof of his mouth felt parched.

Straining, cursing, he fell to the floor, one of the attackers on top of him, another booting him in the ribs, a third dancing about on the outskirts of the mélée, watching his chance for a knock-out blow. Bending down, he shot his fist to Ogilvie's jaw, but the latter jerked his head back in the nick of time, and the next second, with a sudden, hard crunching of muscles, he pinioned the arms of the man who was on top of him to both his sides, spread his strong legs, bridged his massive body, and tried desperately to pull himself up. He was succeeding in this when suddenly the first man, with a wolfish snarl, sank his teeth in his ear, "Curse you!" exclaimed Ogilvie in rage and pain.

Then, with a great jerk and heave, he freed himself, sending the first man crashing into the second, the second into the third. Jumping back, he saw the curved, razor-sharp, old-fashioned carving knife, which the waiter had left on the table, and reached for it.

He did it instinctively, unthinkingly. Hitherto, by the token of his class and training, he had been fighting according to the unwritten code, had still been playing, the game. Now his prejudices and inhibitions danced away in a mad whirligig of rage and resentment, and the carving knife leaped to his hand like a sentient thing, catching the rays of the kerosene lamp, so that the point of it glittered like a cresset of evil passions,

He used the knife like a rapier, with carte and tierce, with thrust and counterthrust and quick, staccato ripost, pinking here a leg, there a hand, and ripping through cloth as with the edge of a razor, stiffening or crooking his arm as he lunged to the attack or estrapaded sideways or feinted to parry clumsy, ineffectual blows and kicks. Some of the other people in the room had rushed up and were joining in the attack, but, as before, they only served to interfere with each other. Somebody threw a chair. It failed of its mark— Ogilvie's head— and hit the youth in the Norfolk suit, who dropped, hors de combat, this time for good. Another threw a bottle, it jerked high, crashed against the lamp, and the light guttered out. The room was plunged in coiling, trooping shadows, except for the few haggard rays that stole in from the lamp in the outer hall.

"Careful! Careful!" somebody warned. In the semi-darkness friend was hitting friend. At this moment the street door opened, and by the side of the hunchback two policemen entered, nightsticks readily poised. One of them flashed an electric torch, and the hunch-back took in the situation at a glance.

"Quick!" he said to the bluecoats. "There he is— trying to get away e

"Who?"

"The man I told you about— the murderer!" And he pointed straight at Blaine Ogilvie.

The latter's mind worked with the instantaneous precision of a photographic shutter. He saw the trap— he, the murderer— with a dozen witnesses against him! He acted even as he understood. He danced back from the attacking crowd, then forward suddenly, knife in hand. He catapulted himself through the mass with a sort of breathless, sullen audacity. He was too excited probably to feel ordinary fear at that moment. If he had time to think at all, he considered that he had no chance, in spite of his knife, to give battle to the two muscular, solid policemen who stood there on broad-planted feet, sticks ominously raised, ready to fell him.

He ducked very suddenly, before the two policemen had a chance to realize what was happening, before they had time to put the brake on their brawny right arms. Down came the night-sticks, and they hit each other, temporarily putting themselves out of commission instead of hitting Ogilvie.

With a triumphant little laugh he straightened up again, and, before anybody knew exactly what was going on, obeying some subconscious impulse which reminded him that the night was cold and the coat expensive, he tore Martyn Spencer's sable-lined ulster from the rack, flung it about his shoulders, and was out of the door and into the street.

The automobile which had brought the murdered man and which the hunchback had used a few minutes earlier was still in front, purring invitingly. He jumped into the driver's seat, and the chain-protected tires gripped the snow-crusted pavement. Momentarily the machine seemed to pause, to quiver, as if taking in a great lungful of breath, and a deep, expectant whine rose from its steely body. Then it plunged forward enthusiastically, like a being with a heart and a soul, making naught of the grimy, sticky, slushy snow puddles; and Blaine Ogilvie, who belonged to that new generation which is as alive to the personality and the idiosyncrasies of machinery as the older generation were to horseflesh, rode the steering wheel as he had never done before.

Gradually he increased the speed, sucking every ounce of strength and energy from gasoline and engine, as he heard the voices that poured from the restaurant increase, then diminish, and fade away, bending low as a revolver bullet whistled over his head. He made a corner at nearly a right angle, as if he were trying to lift the car along the pavement by sheer strength of muscle. Taking another corner on two wheels, shaving a lamppost, evading gesticulating policemen, twisting past top-heavy motor drays, scattering a crowd of homing theater-goers, he finally turned into the Avenue that rose out of the snow-blotched darkness between parallel curves of warm, lemon lights.

At Fifty-first Street he turned east until he reached a little house that seemed rather out of place, framed as it was on both sides by tall, pretentious apartment buildings. Small it was, compact, almost pagan in its Greek simplicity. Ogilvie stopped the car, jumped out, ran up the steps, and pushed the electric bell.

A moment later a white-haired servant opened the door.

"Yes, sir?" he inquired, blinking short-sightedly. Then a smile over-spread his wrinkled old features as he recognized the late visitor. "Why— Mr. Ogilvie—come in, sir! Please come in!"

"Is the big chief at home?" asked the other, stepping past the servant into the vestibule.

"He hasn't come in yet, sir."

"Very annoying."

"Won't you wait, sir?"

"I guess I will." Ogilvie threw off his fur coat. "By the way, will you go outside and drive my car into the garage, if you don't mind, Tompkins?"

"Right, sir."

"And— Tompkins—"

"Yes, sir?"

"All the other servants asleep?"

"Yes sir."

"Good! Don't mention to any of them that I'm here— that you've seen me to-night— I have my reasons,"

"Very well, sir."

And Tompkins bowed with the imperturbable calm of a British butler and withdrew, while Ogilvie entered the next room, occupied himself for a few seconds with a bottle of Bourbon and a syphon that were awaiting their master's return, chose a comfortable chair, and stretched himself luxuriously.

Presently he dozed off.

4: In His Pocket

HE was awakened— he did not know how much later— by a pleasant, laughing voice at his elbow.

"Hello, old man!"

Ogilvie sat up and yawned and looked at Gadsby, a tall, lean man with a square, angular jaw, thin, sensitive lips that subtended a quixotic nose, and dreamy brown eyes.

"Quite comfortable?" asked Gadsby with a smile.

"Like a bug in a rug, Bob. And"— he paused a little— "quite safe!"

He had given the last word the emphasis of a suddenly lowered voice, and Gadsby frowned perplexedly.

"What do you mean— quite safe?" he inquired.

"Aren't you the police commissioner?' came Ogilvie's counter-question.

"I have that distinction. What about it?"

"Well, I hardly imagine the police will look for me here in your private residence. Nor will they look for the car— which, incidentally, I swiped— in your immaculate garage."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing much. Only— well, your flat-footed minions are after me, hot on my trail."

"What have you done?"

"I was just a plain idiotic fool."

"That's nothing new," Gadsby returned ungraciously. 'What else have you done?"

"Nothing—I told you, didn't I? But the police have an idea that I committed—"

"What—for the love of Mike?"

"Murder!"

"Good heavens!"

"And that isn't all, Bob. They've a couple of bakers' dozens of witnesses, all cocked and primed to swear to it!"

Ogilvie lit a cigar while the police commissioner collapsed weakly into a chair.

Robert W. Gadsby was that curiously paradoxical and curiously effective combination: a materialistic idealist. He was both a doer and a dreamer; both a politician and an honest man; both a reformer and a sane man who saw people and conditions as they were, without the lying help of rosy-tinted, psychic spectacles.

Of fine old New York stock and immense wealth, and with a slightly provincial civic pride which had its roots in the days when New York was New Amsterdam, when people imported their liquor from Holland, when wild turkeys flopped their drab wings between Broadway and the Bronx, and when the Gadsby's had their country estate in the eventual neighborhood of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, he had gone in for local politics on leaving college as a simple matter of duty, because, as he put it, he was an American, a New Yorker, and a rich man. He had run for various offices, had been elected repeatedly, and when, at the last city election, the swing of the pendulum swept his party into the seats of the mighty, he had been given his choice of several appointments. Unhesitatingly, believing detection and prevention of crime to be the backbone of good city government, he had chosen the office of commissioner of police.

He was making good. Even his political opponents, in their newspapers, found it increasingly difficult to concoct and correlate statistics misleading enough to prove that crime had increased during his administration. Nobody could accuse him of corruption and graft, for he was a millionaire; nobody could ridicule him as an unpractical visionary and congenital reformer, for Scotland Yard had sent over experts to study some of his methods and innovations ; nobody could suspect him of too great political ambition, for a higher office than this would have been his for the asking.

He and Blaine Ogilvie were old friends— the sort who do not see each other with mathematical regularity, but who can continue a conversation, even after an absence of half a year, just about at the point where they had broken it off.

Gadsby looked at his friend. "Of course you are only joking?" he asked.

"I wish I were," came Ogilvie's reply.

"B-but—"

"I'm telling you the plain, unvarnished, rock-bottom truth, Bob!"

"Really ?"

"Abso-tively !"

"Great Cesar!" Gadsby walked up and. down excitedly. "Let's hear the whole story— every detail— omit nothing."

And Ogilvie told him. "What do you make of it?" he wound up.

"That you're in a pretty mess!"

"I am aware of that myself. What else do you make of it?"

Gadsby shook his head. "I don't know," he said slowly, dully, "I don't know!" He slurred, stopped, went on:

"Of course you've come here to give yourself up, I suppose?"

"Don't you go supposing things that aren't so, Bob, and you'll save yourself many a disappointment."

"Why— I don't understand!"

"If I had wanted to surrender, I wouldn't have made that rather sensational get-away, would I?"

"But, Blaine—"

"Well?"

"You are suspected of murder. There are witnesses— didn't you tell me?"

"A whole mob of them—they're all hand in glove—I see that now. What's that got to do with—"

"I must arrest you. There is my sworn duty."

"Forget your sworn duty, man! Didn't I hear you give a long spiel during the last campaign that the unwritten duty is fully as important as the written?" Ogilvie smiled. "I voted for your chosen party. Come on! Make good on your election promises !"

"But— my duty—"

"There you go again! You're becoming tiresome. You've duty on the brain. It's your duty— since you insist on arguing about it— to catch the guilty man, not a poor innocent sucker like myself."

"You're under suspicion until you've proved your innocence, Blaine."

"I know. Three cheers for the logic of jurisprudence! But, don't you see, old man, that I can't remove the suspicion until—"

"Well?"

"Until you've found and convicted the guilty party— the real murderer."

"Exactly! That's where I come in. I will—"

"You can't, Bob. First of all, why should the police trouble? Haven't they a number of witnesses to swear to my guilt? Do you want any more direct evidence? Why should the police trouble to look farther afield since they've got me?"

"I'll make them! I am the boss!"

"A fat lot of good that will do you and me. Don't you see? There are no other witnesses except those who will testify against me."

"You had no revolver!"

"They'll swear that I had one. I tell you the whole gang will stick together."

"But why?"

"I don't know why, but I do know they will. The whole thing was a most ingenious trap. Everybody played a part in it— even the girl at the hat rack and the waiter— everybody except myself and—"

"Who—"

"The murdered man! They got him there under some pretense. Bob, if you arrest me the district attorney's office will try me, and I won't have a chance in the world. It's a cinch that I'll decorate the electric chair."

There was a pause. Ogilvie poured himself another drink and tossed it down neat.

"Bob," he continued, "you're up against something brand-new. You will have to let me go— a man accused of murder, guilty by every last particle of direct evidence. You'll have to let the accused go, so that he can play detective and find the real murderer."

"What about Martyn Spencer?"

"I don't know yet. Haven't had time to think. But he must have known why he sent me there. Didn't he give me the twenty thousand dollars? And— that crowd didn't seem to know Spencer personally— otherwise why did they frame me up? No! Whatever his reasons, I don't think that Spencer will say much. Of course, I'll try and make him come through. But I haven't much hope. He's a business man, and he made a bargain with me— paid me— and— well, I lost."

"I'll put my own detective force on the job."

"What clews can they find? I am more liable to find them than they."

"Why, Blaine?"

"Because I am rather vitally interested in the affair."

"But I must arrest you. I'll do anything else I can. I'll hold up the case—"

"You can't for any length of time. The opposition papers will make it hot for you. They'll discover that you and I are friends. They'll influence public opinion. They'll force your hand. They'll make the district attorney try me and convict me in record time. And, if your detectives should find the real murderer—why, by that time I'll be buried in a prison cemetery. Bob, you'll have to forget your sworn duty for once."

Ogilvie turned and walked to the end of the room. Gadsby sat down, and his troubled face betrayed his preoccupation. Finally he looked up. "I'll do it," he said in a low, clear voice.

"Bully for you!"

"On one condition."

"Name it!"

"Any time I want you, you must— come in and surrender."

Ogilvie laughed. "No need for that, old man!"

"Why not?"

"Because you'll have me under your personal surveillance all the time."

"How so?"

"You have a spare bedroom, haven't you?"

"You— you mean—"

"Right!" continued Ogilvie with calm effrontery. "You're going to have a guest— oh"— he laughed— "a paying guest— for I still have Spencer's twenty thousand dollars—"

"But— listen if—"

"Your house is the only safe place for me. The police won't hunt for me here. Tompkins has known me since I was a kid in knickers— he worked for your father, didn't he?— sort of inherited him, British accent and 'yes, sir,' and 'thank you, sir,' and all. I've already slipped him a word of warning— all you'll have to do is to swear him to secrecy. As to your other servants—"

"Only one— Tompkins' wife. That part's all right—but—" Gadsby shook his head. "It's very unusual," he commented weakly.

"Very!" agreed Ogilvie. "Here am I, accused of murder, guilty by every last bit of direct evidence— playing my own detective and hiding in the private residence of the head of the police department. It's the most unusual thing I have ever run across." He rose. "We'll talk it over to-morrow. I'm too tired to-night, what with all this excitement and that potent Bourbon of yours. Where did you get it, Bob? I thought the country was dry!"

He poured himself a liberal goodnight cap, and fifteen minutes later was comfortably stretched out in one of the police commissioner's best four-poster beds, dressed in a pair of the police commissioner's silk pajamas, and reading the police commissioner's favorite volume of French poetry. Half an hour later he was fast asleep.

TOMPKINS awakened him with an appetizing breakfast tray, a newspaper, and an embarrassed cough.

Ogilvie sat up in bed and laughed.

"Don't look like a conspirator, Tompkins," he said.

"But— oh, sir—"

"Mr, Gadsby told you, I take it?"

"Yes, sir," came the despondent reply.

"All right. Forget it. I'm as innocent as a new-born lamb."

"Oh— thank you, sir!"

"Two pieces of sugar— that's right— a little more cream." Ogilvie sipped his coffee. "Want to do me a favor, Tompkins ?"

"Yes, sir."

"Call up Miss Marie Dillon— Spring 43789— and tell her—" He was puzzled. "What are you going to tell her?"

"Leave it to me, sir," replied Tompkins, a wintry smile lighting up his features. "I've been married thirty-nine years."

"Gosh! And I never knew you had a sense of humor!"

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me— thank your Creator. And now, the newspaper, please!"

"Here you are, sir. You'll find the headline quite interesting, sir."

And Ogilvie did. For, smeared across the front page of the Morning Sentinel in screaming, extravagant three-inch type, he read:

SENSATIONAL CRIME

Stranger Kills Well-known Philanthropist

Guest at Benefactors Club.

Assassin Makes His Get-away.

"Assassin will have another cup of the police commissioner's excellent coffee," said Blaine Ogilvie, and suited the action to his words,

The newspaper account related that No. 17 Braddon Street was a little res-
taurant, dating back to pre-Revolutionary days, which closed its doors to the general public at ten p. m After ten, the article went on, it served as a nightly meeting place for an "Organization which called itself the "Benefactors Club," which was composed of business and professional men, who met there to discuss art, politics, science, literature, religion, and other live topics.

The report gave a list of the club members. They had simple, prosy names and simple, prosy addresses: from Thomas W. Robinson, 22456 West Seventy-eighth Street to Doctor Jerome McNulty, 44589 Riverside Drive, from J. J. Mulrooney, 15826 East One Hundred and Eighty-third Street to Donald Kayser, somewhere on the French Boulevard—altogether, on the face of it, an apex of Gotham's civic virtues, a very epitome of all the upper West Side's, the Bronx's, and Chelsea's stout, burgess respectability.

It appeared that occasional late visitors, unfamiliar with the early closing hour of the restaurant proper, were usually turned away by the boy at the door or by the proprietor, who presided behind the cashier's desk and who was also a member of the club— the man with the spade-shaped red beard and the bulbous nose, Ogilvie added mentally as he read— but that last night a stranger had made his appearance around half past ten, evidently a well-to-do man about town, judging from his superb, sable-lined ulster.

Here followed an excellent description of Blaine Ogilvie.

This stranger had explained that he had lost his way, that he was tired and cold and hungry, and finally he had been allowed to come in and had been served with food and cigars.

Shortly afterward one of the club members, a certain Doctor Hillyer O. McGrath, of 11921 West Eleventh Street, had driven up in his automobile, accompanied by a friend not a member of the organization, Mr. Monro Clafflin, the well-known retired merchant and philanthropist. A few minutes latef, the report continued, without giving either reason or warning— in fact, without saying a word— the stranger had pulled out a revolver, fired point-blank at Mr. Clafflin, killing him instantly, and had made his get-away in Doctor McGrath's car, after a sensational fight.

Here followed a fairly accurate description of Ogilvie's battle and escape. It seemed that he had thrown the revolver away, and that it had afterward been picked up by Mr. Montress D. Clapperton, the president of the Benefactors Club, who— the hunchback, came Ogilvie's silent comment— had run out, a few minutes before the stranger's get-away, to fetch the police. Several of the club members had received minor injuries. Mr. Cornelius van Alstyne had been hit by a chair; Mr. Leopold Fischer had a black eye, besides having his clothes torn; while Captain Jeremiah Blount, Mr. Holister Welkin, and Mr, Audley R. Chester— addresses given in each case— had been wounded by a carving knife which the assassin had picked up.

Ogilvie smiled when he considered that here, doubtless, he had a list of the different men whom he had observed and scrutinized shortly after he had entered No. 17; and he smiled again when he read, in the last paragraph of the article, that the police so far had not discovered either the name or the whereabouts of the assassin, but that, given the accurate description, they expected no trouble in putting their hands on him within the next twenty-four hours— "thanks to the marvelously up-to-date and efficient methods of our police commissioner, Mr. Robert W. Gadsby."

"Bob," Ogilvie said to the latter, after he had shaved and bathed and dressed, pointing at the last line, "the newspapers are handing you a bouquet."

"They'll hand me a brickbat," said the other, "when they learn—"

"Please! No more 'duty' stuff! We had all that out last night. Now— for the real murderer."

"How are you going to discover him?"

"By looking for the motives."

"And how are you going to find his motives ?"

"By investigation and elimination. First of all, here's a list of names and addresses I culled from the morning paper. These are the people I specially noticed last night. Have your department look them up. See who they are, what they do, their reputation, and all that sort of thing, you know."

"Yes," said the police commissioner as he tucked the list of names away. "What else?"

"Get a general survey of the other members of the club. You'll find their names and addresses in the Morning Sentinel. Here—"

"What about Martyn Spencer?" asked Gadsby.

"I haven't much hope there. But get a line on him, whatever you can. See if you can make head or tail of any of the fantastic tales that used to be afloat about him."

"All right. I'll try."

"And—oh, yes—find out about Clafflin, the murdered man, you know, and that Doctor McGrath, who brought him and—'

"Pardon me, old man," came the police commissioner's ironic interjection, "what are you going to do? I had an idea you were going to play detective."

"I can't leave the house— at least not yet— can I, you chump? I am going to do my bit at long distance. I am going to correlate and eliminate and dovetail. Let's have a look at Spencer's ulster now. I told you— didn't I?— how the girl felt the fur and said something about my having the check 'the right check'— and how she looked over at the red-bearded man as if to appeal to him."

"Are you sure she didn't give you a check?"

"I am positive, Bob."

The police commissioner took out his cigar case. "Care for a smoke?" he asked.

"Thanks. I will."

Ogilvie took the cigar and groped in his left coat pocket for a match. Then he gave a little, startled exclamation.

"Hello! What's that?" He drew his hand from his pocket.

"Well? Found the check after all?" inquired Gadsby.

"No. I found this!"

Ogilvie opened his hand. It held a ragged bit of gray, herring-bone tweed, evidently, judging from fhe buttonhole, torn from a man's coat lapel.

"The gray suit—the fellow with the round, babyish face who looked like a typical business man— what's his name?' Ogilvie consulted the morning paper. "Oh, yes— Leopold Fischer— had his eye blackened and his suit torn—"

"What are you saying, Blaine?"

"I remember. I reached back of me in that rough-and-tumble fight. I felt something rip and give. Must have dropped it into my pocket without thinking. Here it is— and— oh— look, Bob!"

And he turned over the torn shred of tweed and pointed at a small, round metal disk which was fastened to it.

"Bob," he said, "the investigation begins right here."

And he bent closely over the little metal disk, while the other entered the next room to telephone to headquarters.

5:  Plain Fools Or Idealists

THE disk was round and flat, a third of an inch in diameter, with a narrow, well-beveled edge, and no marks of any sort on it except a number— 17— deeply engraved in the center. Ogilvie was still examining it when Gadsby returned from the next room, where he had had a lengthy telephone conversation with headquarters.

"I have sent some of my very best men out on the case," he said. "Detective Sergeant Miller is going to get a line on Martyn Spencer. O'Neale will investigate the murdered man and his connection with Doctor McGrath. And Campbell and Wimpflinger and a couple of others are going to see what they can find out about the different club members."

"That's bully."

"What do you make of that disk?"

"Oh, nothing much. I guess it's the badge of the Benefactors Club."

"Sounds fairly reasonable."

"There's only one thing about it that's puzzling me," continued Ogilvie.

"'What ?"

"Here!" Ogilvie gave the round bit of metal to the other. "See for yourself, then we'll compare notes. In the meantime I'll take a look at friend Spencer's luxurious ulster."

While the police commissioner examined the club badge, Ogilvie took the sable coat from the rack in the outer hall and scrutinized it narrowly.

Presently he got up and put on the coat.

Gadsby looked up. "Not dreaming of going out, are you?" he asked, alarmed.

"Heavens—no! I'm just going to reconstruct the scene in No. 17 when I entered. Look here a moment, will you—"

"Certainly."

"That's the way I came in. I took off my coat and gave it to the boy— like this. The boy gave it to the girl —this way. Watching?"

"Yes, yes. Go on."

"The girl " Ogilvie puzzled, then continued: "Wait! I remember! Yes. First she fingered the coat as if she liked the feel of it. And afterward—  afterward, Bob—she made that funny remark about my having the check—  'the right check'— and exchanged looks with the red-bearded man."

"Well, I fail to see—"

"Question is," said Ogilvie, "did she feel something which caused her to make that remark? Let me see if I can recall the scene. She took the coat with both hands—this way. No, no —wait—the other way! Her right hand like this—while her left hand slipped beneath the fur collar—here— watch—this way!" He suited the action to the words. "Now, what did she feel? Or what did she find?"

He turned up the fur collar, looked close for several seconds, and smiled.

"Bob," he said, "let's have that badge for a moment."

"Found a clew?"

"I think so."

The police commissioner came nearer. "Another such badge?" he inquired.

"No, but the marks of one. Look here! See where the fur has been rubbed off? Now watch!" He put the disk over the place he had indicated. "The disk fits it exactly—isn't that so?"

"Right. And—"

"It's quite clear. There was a badge fastened here when the girl took the coat. And— by jingo— Spencer knew it when he forced the coat on me!"

"Where is the disk now?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. The girl took it, or I lost it. 'The right check'— the disk she meant! And it was this disk, combined with the signal code of knocks at the door, which gave me the right to enter, or perhaps"— he slurred, then went on, instinctively lowering his voice— "the duty to enter?"

"What do you mean by that?" came the other's puzzled query.

"Just that."

"Listen!" said Ogilvie. "Wasn't Spencer afraid of No, 17?"

"Doubtless."

"Would he have been afraid unless it had been his duty to go there? If it had only been his right— why, man— he needn't have gone! That's clear, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And, furthermore, didn't he slip me twenty thousand dollars of the realm to go in his place? Weren't they expecting—"

"Not Spencer!" interrupted Gadsby. "Otherwise they wouldn't have framed you up, since they didn't know you— had no reason to od

"Well, they were expecting somebody—s omebody who was going to get it in the neck, for some reason or other. That's the knot we'll have to solve."

Ogilvie was silent for a few moments. He walked up and down, thinking deeply, presently turning to answer Gadsby's question what the puzzling thing was which he had noticed about the badge.

"Just this!" he replied. What metal is it made of?"

The police commissioner looked at it again. "I don't know," he admitted finally.

"Nor do I. Of course I am not an expert metallurgist. But I know enough to tell that it's neither gold nor silver "

"It isn't platinum, either."

"And it isn't steel or bronze or any other metal I am familiar with. Bob, please send Tompkins over to some jeweler on the Avenue and have him examine the thing."

"We've an expert assayist at head-quarters— one of my innovations," said the police commissioner rather proudly. "He'll give us a report by to-night."

"Bully!"

THE DAY crawled on leadenly. Gadsby left to attend to his duties at head-quarters, and Ogilvie fell a prey to certain violent reactions from his cheerful, jesting mood. He became nervous, fidgety, even afraid, as he stared out into the street, well hidden by the window curtains.

Day died, with a white, purple-nicked pall of snow, pierced by the crimson and gold lights reflected on innumerable windowpanes, and the dull, lemon glow of the street lamps, and melting, farther out, into a drab cosmos where the brown, moist haze from the Hudson drifted up, twisting and turning to the call of the river wind.

Night was coming. Night— thought Ogilvie, with just a trace of bitter self-pity— night, over on Broadway, with food and light phrases, with the festive hooting of motor horns and gayety and laughter and the tuning-up of the orchestras and the clapping of white-gloved hands! And here he was— suspected of murder— in hiding.

"Mr. Ogilvie! Please, sir!" Tomp kins interrupted the other's gray reveries.

"Yes—"

"I telephoned to Miss Dillon, sir. I met her and talked to her."

"Oh— good!" Ogilvie smiled as he regained his poise. "What particular lie did you tell her?"

Tompkins hesitated for a few moments. Then he spoke up straight: "Beg pardon, sir, but I told her the truth."

At first Ogilvie felt enraged. "What the mischief—" Then quite suddenly he smiled and shook the butler's wrinkled hand.

"Tompkins," he said, "you're an A Number 'One peach, and— take it from me— you do know women. Miss Dillon's the sort of girl one just naturally has to tell the truth to. You were right and I was wrong. How did she take it?"

"Well, sir, she took it very bravely. But then, of course, she had had a sort of a warning—"

"Warning! What do you mean?"

And, urged on by the impatient Ogilvie, the stoical old Englishman told him how he had telephoned to Miss Dillon, how suddenly he had decided not to trust his message to the telephone wires, but had made an appointment with her. He had met her in front of the public library. "Yes, sir," he added with a little smile, "I felt quite like I used to forty years ago; asked her to wear a red rose so I'd recognize her." Then he had related to her what had happened to her fiancé. She, on her side, had given him also some rather startling news to communicate to Ogilvie. For late last night— she was living alone in a tiny flat— a messenger had brought her an envelope. She had found in it a check for a hundred thousand dollars, drawn on the Drovers' National Bank, and made out by Martyn Spencer, with a note which she had given to Tompkins to bring to Ogilvie.

The latter read:

Dear Little Marie:

I haven't seen you since you were a small girl in short skirts and I quite a big boy, just out of college, up at Grandmother Ryerson's old farm in Vermont. But I haven't exactly forgotten you. I have made a lot of money these last few years, and so— please— accept the inclosed check with all my very best cousinly wishes. Don't be a silly little proud fool and refuse it. After all, we are cousins, and you may need the money; or, if not you, then the man you are engaged to marry, Blaine Ogilvie. And criminal lawyers are expensive. Don't call me up or write to me, as I am leaving the country to-night, and not even my office force has the faintest notion where I am bound for. Yours very cordially,

Martyn S.

The news of Spencer's having left the country was confirmed a few moments later by the police commissioner, who came in filled to the brim with the different reports he had received from his picked detectives, as well as from his expert assayist.

All the reports, according to the police commissioner's system, were in writing, and Detective Sergeant Miller's was explicit:

Martyn Spencer left last night for an unknown destination. I don't know yet whether by train, boat, or automobile. I questioned some of his employees, the help of the Hotel Stentorian, where he has taken a suite by the year, rent paid in advance, his valet, and the elevator starter in his office building. They are all new people whom he has hired since his return to New York, a few months back. They have orders to carry on the work which he has mapped out for them, mostly the selling of various parcels of real estate in the Bronx, and which will take them easily twelve months, Mr. Anthony Hicks, his private secretary, has been given power of attorney over whatever local business Martyn Spencer has in New York, with orders to transmit all money realized to the credit of Martyn Spencer with the branch of the British Linen Bank in Glasgow, Scotland. He has also been intrusted with a large sum banked with the Drovers' National Bank to pay the salaries of the office force and of Spencer's valet for the next eighteen months, as well as for overhead expenses and incidentals. I have started inquiries as to Spencer's former life and shall make a further report to-morrow.

"Found out quite a lot, didn't he?" complimented Blaine Ogilvie.

"Right," agreed the other. "Miller has a persuasive way and X-ray eyes. Oh—wait"—turning over the typewritten sheet. "Here's a postscript;" and he read:

I have furthermore found out that the Bronx real estate which Martyn Spencer has given orders to sell was only acquired by him during the last few months, after his return to America.

The police commissioner shook his head. "I don't see what good that particular bit of information will do us," he commented.

"Don't you?" asked Ogilvie softly.

"Do you?"

"You bet!" came the other's reply.

"In fact, I think that, taken in conjunction with the other business details, it's the most interesting and illuminating part of the whole report. I believe it constitutes that mysterious and romantic thing which you fellows of the police call a clew."

"Mind explaining?"

"Not a bit." Ogilvie leaned forward in his chair. "There's been a sudden and tremendous slump in business these last few months, hasn't there?"

"Yes," admitted the other rather sadly. "All my own investments—"

"Everything," interrupted Ogilvie, "has come tumbling down like a house made of cards, and chiefly real estate. There has been no building going on in Manhattan for over three months, isn't that right?"

"Perfectly. And—"

"Why, then, should Martyn Spencer— who is a business man, a mighty shrewd one and as rich as mud— take, for instance, that hundred thousand dollars he sent to Miss Dillon and the twenty thousand he slipped to me— sell at this moment, when prices are down to bed rock, instead of holding on and waiting for a rise? Furthermore, why does he, the wary, careful, farsighted financier, leave his local affairs in the hands of a recently hired office force and give his power of attorney to a youthful and recently acquired private secretary ?"

"Well, why? What's the answer?" asked Gadsby impatiently.

"Spencer got away in such a hurry that he didn't care, hadn't time to care, what happened to his business here. And, by the same token, it's evident that he does not intend to return to New York. On the other hand, when he came here, he took a long lease on his office space and on his suite at the Hotel Stentorian—which proves that originally he did intend to make a lengthy stay, perhaps to settle here for good. Therefore, he made up his mind to leave in a hurry, regardless of everything except—"

"His safety?" interjected Gadsby.

"Exactly! Clew, eh?"

"Clew is right!" said the police commissioner, and turned to the next report, O'Neale's, which dealt with the murdered man, Monro Clafflin, and his connection with Doctor McGrath.

O'Neale, too, had worked with efficiency and dispatch. Via the gliding gossip of the back stairs and the pantry and with the help of his honeyed Irish tongue, he had ascertained that Doctor McGrath— the same McGrath, he added incidentally, who had invented the famous McGrath pulmotor— had been Clafflin's physician for a number of years, that practitioner and patient were intimate personal friends, that the latter had been suffering for a long time from a complication of organic diseases, and that— here O'Neale had attached a verbatim report by Miss Maisie Heinz, nurse— he had not been expected to live the year out. For the last eighteen months Clafflin had been in almost continuous pain.

The report wound up:

For the last few weeks Mr. Clafflin appeared a little more cheerful. Once he mentioned to Josiah Higgins, his butler— whose verbatim report I attach— that there was a possibility of his recuperating, as Doctor McGrath had spoken to him about a remarkable young physician whom he wished to consult about the case. Last night Mr. Clafflin left in the doctor's car, coughing badly and evidently in pain, but cheerful and laughing in spite of it. The butler overheard the last conversation between the two. "Monro, old man," had said the doctor, "there's a pretty good chance that you'll be rid of your sufferings for good and all tonight!" "Rather quick cure?" Clafflin had replied, with a smile. "But possible!" had come the doctor's final words.

The police commissioner put down the report, and Ogilvie looked up.

"Bob," he said, "Doctor McGrath's prophecy came true, didn't it?"

"How so?"

"Well, Monro Clafflin did get rid of his sufferings for good and all last night, didn't he? He died!"

"That's one way of putting it," said the police commissioner, and added that he had met O'Neale coming up the Avenue on his way home, and that the latter, in the meantime, had made further investigations about Doctor Hillyer McGrath.

"Did he find out anything interesting?" asked Ogilvie.

"No. He called on the doctor— under some professional pretext, sore throat or something like that— and found him at home. He tells me the doctor lives in an extremely modest little apartment and seems to be a poor man.

"Funny!" commented Ogilvie.

"You mean—because Clafflin, his friend and patient, was rich?"

"No. But I would have imagined that the pulmotor he invented must have brought him in quite a lot of money."

"Perhaps he didn't have it patented," said Gadsby, and turned to the next report.

Detectives Campbell and Wimpflinger had been sent to investigate the hunchback, as well as the five men whom Ogilvie had particularly noticed at No. 17 and with whom he had had the fight.

It was pithy and succinct, and read as follows:

1. Montross D. Clapperton. Studied in Boston, Paris, and Freiburg. Forty-three years of age. Excellent reputation. Quiet, kindly, charitable. Engineer by profession. Inventor of the Clapperton automatic cream separator and the Clapperton self-adjusting tube wrench. Lives alone, in a modest two-room flat, without servants.

2. Cornelius van Alstyne. College man. Twenty-four years of age. Good reputation in his neighborhood, except that his landlady and the small shops where he trades complain that he is very slow pay. Chemist by profession. Was instrumental in separating and classifying a new metal, called rhizopodin, which may eventually revolutionize and cheapen the entire manufacture of electric globes.

3. Leopold Fischer. Studied at Berlin and Vienna, his native town. Thirty-nine years of age. Engineer by profession. Well liked by his neighbors, though he went into bankruptcy last year. Inventor of the Fischer piston pump, the Fischer water gauge, and said to be at work now on a new gyroscope.

4. Holister Welkin. Fifty-seven years of age. A native of England. Earlier life unknown. Came here twenty-odd years ago. Lives at Gordon Hotel, evidently in very straitened circumstances. Is a recluse, and nothing could be found out about him except that— according to the proprietor of a hardware store in his neighborhood— he was quite famous, twenty years ago, as the inventor of Welkin's electric windlass.

5. Audley P. Chester. Sixty-four years of age. Belongs to the well-known Chester family of Portland,, Maine. Very rich, though he lives in a modest hotel of the west forties. Is said to be a miser. The same Chester who was so viciously attacked a year or two ago by certain newspapers for his refusal to contribute to any of the war charities.

Gadsby folded the report and gave them to his friend.

"Here you have all of it."

"What about the disk?" queried the other. "Did your assayer examine it?"

"Yes. It's made of rhizopodin—"

"Oh, yes— that new metal, which our friend Van Alstyne of the green Norfolk and the buckskin spats separated. I might have known it. What about the other members of the club?"

"Oh, just a repetition of this special list. A few doctors and business men, but mostly engineers with a sprinkling of skilled mechanics."

"All rather poor?" suggested Ogilvie.

"Yes, with the exception of Chester. And all have excellent reputations. We looked up the records as much as we could, and not a single one of them seems to have ever been convicted of a crime or a misdemeanor, not even suspected or accused. And here they go and commit murder and frame you up."

He stopped, then continued :

"I wonder why they call that organization of theirs the Benefactors Club?"

"I don't wonder," replied Ogilvie. "I am beginning to understand."

"Oh—sort of ghoulish self-irony, you mean?"

"Not a bit of it. They are quite sincere— quite, quite sincere! The Benefactors Club! The very name for it!"

"Why?" asked the police commissioner.

"I'll tell you presently," replied the other, and added with cool arrogance, "just as soon as I have cleared up the rest of the case."

Gadsby gave a crooked smile. "The rest of the case?" he repeated in mockery.

"Exactly!"

"Pretty cocksure, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Ogilvie. "Fact is, after I get out of this pickle

"If you get out of this pickle!"

"I repeat— after I get out of this pickle, I shall apply to you for a job with the detective force. My boy, I am finding no fault with your methods, your elaborate system—" He pointed at the voluminous reports.

"Thanks!" the police commissioner said dryly.

"But," Ogilvie continued unabashed, "it takes a man like myself to use the information they contain, through a thing called applied psychology."

"And which," interjected the police commissioner, "might with equal truth be styled applied poetry."

"By the way," said the other, "do you happen to know anybody in Washington, in the patent office, some big bug, I mean?"

"Do you know him well. enough to get him on the long-distance telephone this time of night and have him look up certain records?"

"Well, yes. In my capacity as police commissioner I can cut a couple of miles of official red tape. Why do you ask ?"

"Because I want you to get your Washington party on the wire as quickly as possible. And I want you to introduce me to him over the wires as your confidential assistant— which, I repeat, I am going to become as soon as I'm out of this mess."

"More clews, I suppose?' asked Gadsby ironically.

"As right as rain!'

"But— in Washington?" queried Gadsby, seeing that his friend was serious.

"Yes. You see, I am curious to find out why all these people'—he pointed at the detectives' reports— "are so poor in spite of all their inventions. I want to find out if all of them neglected taking out patents for their brain chil- dren—if they are all plain fools or—"

"Or?"

"Idealists, Bob," said Ogilvie; "members of the Benefactors Club!"

6: Ogilvie States His Case.

IT was nearly three hours later— night had dropped like a veil, secret, mystical, netted in the delicate silver mist of the drifting snowflakes and with the sleepy voice of the city whispering through the heave and sough of the wind— that Blaine Ogilvie, after three long-distance conversations with Washington, finally slammed back the receiver and announced triumphantly:

"That little matter is settled!"

He entered the next room.

"Good thing," he said, "that Spencer slipped me that twenty thousand. Those toll charges to Washington are going to cost me a pretty penny."

Then he noticed that Gadsby was fast asleep in his winged chair in front of the open fire, and shook him awake.

"Bob," he said, "leave off sawing wood and listen to the words of Baruch, the son of the priest."

"What is it?" asked the police commissioner, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"I have found out what I expected to find—"

"Namely ?"

"That Doctor McGrath, Mr. Clapperton et alias are—"

"What?"

"Are not plain fools— unless you call idealists fools!"

"Would you mind being less philosophical and more explicit?" suggested Gadsby.

"That friend of yours at the patent office did a whole lot of tall hustling and doubtless disturbed the slumbers of half a dozen assorted Uncle Sam servants, working all of five hours a day and five days a week for thirty per of the taxpayers' hard-earned simoleons, but he roused them. He hustled and made them do likewise. He looked up dusty files and ledgers and card indexes and cross-reference books and loose-leaved records— and—"

"For the love of Mike! Come to the point!" exclaimed the police commissioner, exasperated.

"I am at the point! They looked up the records of the patent office— Bob— it's really tremendous news!"

"What, what?"

"Not one of the members of the Benefactors Club— neither McGrath nor Clapperton nor that green-tweed addict— failed to take out patents for their various inventions and discoveries. And they are all poor!"

"All except Chester."

"Right," agreed Ogilvie. "But he didn't invent anything!"

"Don't forget Martyn Spencer!"

"Who disappeared," commented Ogilvie, "but who did belong to their club just the same."

"I can't make head or tail of what you are intending to prove, Blaine."

"Intending to, did you say?" asked the other. "Boy, I have proved—"

"What ?"

"That here is an organization of people who all have most excellent reputation—"

"Except, perhaps, Spencer" sug gested the police commissioner,

"Who disappeared. Let me resume. This organization is largely composed of engineers and mechanics, many of whom have invented extraordinary devices, others of whom have doubtless helped with the perfecting and working out of these inventions, still others of whom— here's where I take a shot at the blue— are working at inventions and discoveries. They are not fools. But they seem to be idealists. For they have protected their brain children by patents— by the way, Bob, it takes money to get the right, waterproof sort of patent— and they have not made money out of their inventions, since they are all poor."

"Except two."

"Exactly— Chester and Spencer! As to the latter, allow me to repeat that he disappeared suddenly, scared to death, sacrificing a mint of money in doing so, while the former— well, Bob, I have an idea on the subject and I am going to find out presently if I am right."

The police commissioner lit a cigar.

"And still I fail to see," he objected, "how all these undoubtedly very interesting details will help you sidestep the electric chair?"

"Don't be so brutally realistic. Also, if you can't see, I can— chiefly after you have called in some of our best New York physicians and have them make another autopsy of Monro Clafflin's body."

"What for? The man was shot. A bullet pierced his brain. There's no doubt of it."

Ogilvie smiled.

"Perfectly correct," he admitted. "The man was shot— and a bullet did pierce his brain."

"Then—"

"Just the same, please do what I tell you, do you mind?"

"Well, if you insist on being mysterious—"

"I don't insist," replied Ogilvie. "But, first of all, there are your professional limitations which would keep you from understanding anything new and a littlé unorthodox."

"Thanks awfully!" came the dry rejoinder,

"Don't mention it. Secondly, I am dog-tired. I am off to bed." He rose, yawned, stretched himself. "Lend me a book, do you mind?"

The police commissioner crossed over to his bookshelves. "I don't see," he said, "how a man in your predicament can read frivolous French poetry. Why—  it's positively uncanny."

"I'm not going to read any French poetry to-night," replied Ogilvie. "You have quite a complete library, haven't you?"

"Fairly representative."

"I want you to find me a book— oh— a sort of encyclopedia, all about inventions and discoveries."

"Going to join the Club?"

"Possibly. I want a book about the inventions and devices people used to know centuries ago, but which have been forgotten— like the use of the pyramids and the tempering of copper and that sort of thing."

"More clews?" came the ironic query as Gadsby hunted among the shelves.

"You've guessed it first time, old man."

"Here's the kind of book you mean, I suppose," said Gadsby, taking out two volumes—" Forgotten Discoveries and Valuable Inventions Not Yet Made. "

"That's the dope!" replied Ogilvie, taking both. "By the way, think it'll be safe to telephone to Miss Dillon?"

"Quite. The police haven't yet discovered that the escaped murderer's name is Blaine Ogilvie and that he is engaged to her. Feel in a sentimental mood and want to phone?"

"No— in a scientific mood."

And he went upstairs to bed and read for a while. Finally he seemed to have found what he was after. For he made a note, called up Marie Dillon on the telephone which stood on his night table, talked for quite a while, then switched off the electric light and fell into dreamless, untroubled sleep.

HE CAME down to breakfast fairly late to find the police commissioner impatiently awaiting him. The latter looked up rather angrily as the other entered with a bright "Good morning!"

For, like most men of average honesty and average dyspepsia, he had occasional, spasmodic attack of antagonism even against his best friends— chiefly before breakfast.

"Heavens!" he exclaimed. "I could hear you snore clear down here. Detective Sergeant Miller asked me if I had a walrus visiting me."

"Oh! Has he been here?"

"Yes— confound his soul!" came the heated rejoinder. "He came an hour ago— before breakfast! Called me out of bed!"

"What did he want? Anything that bears on my case?"

"Yes. He found out quite a little more about Martyn Spencer."

"Let's hear it," said Ogilvie, neatly slicing a muffin in two, buttering it generously, and commencing breakfast with a hearty appetite, which Gadsby seemed to take as a personal affront.

Detective Sergeant Miller was the old-fashioned policeman, the sort whose sources of information are diversified, patchy, and often— if the truth be told— slightly muddy. The tale he had told his chief, and which the latter was now relating to Blaine Ogilvie, was a mosaic gathered here and there, partly by bullying and partly by cajoling, from a number of people, including two taxi-cab drivers, a Sicilian fruit vender, a Russian cobbler in a cellar on Charles Street, the head waiter of a Broadway restaurant, three sardonic and elderly reporters, one youthful and enthusiastic cub reporter, and the intoxicated mate of a disreputable Liverpool tramp ship that had just docked, after a smelly and uneventful voyage out of some West African port. The sum total of this information was that a man, closely resembling Martyn Spencer, had been seen going up the gangplank of another, equally smelly and equally disreputable Liverpool freighter, outward bound, dressed in the rough clothes of a deep-sea sailor, that he had been greeted by the captain of the ship with:

"So glad to see you, sir. Please, sir, won't you—" And that he had interrupted roughly with: "Cut it out, you poor fool! I am Tom Higgins, able-bodied seaman, and that's all you know—"

"Disguise and change of name," said Ogilvie, a little disappointed. "But nothing new—it really only corroborates my theory that Spencer is scared clear out of his wits."

"Yes," agreed the police commissioner, "but Miller also did a bit of cabling over to London— to Scotland Yard."

"What results ?"'

"He found out how Martyn Spencer made his money," said the police commissioner with pompous impressiveness.

Ogilvie laughed. "Why," he said, "I know how he made it."

"Oh— you do— you—"

"Yes," Ogilvie cut the other's words short.

"How?" asked Gadsby with satanic suavity. "Let's hear how clever you are."

"I am not clever. I only know that two and two makes four— and, at times, five," he said. "And chiefly in detective work— naturally so. For, since crimes are an extraordinary, and not an ordinary, thing, one must apply extraordinary, and not ordinary, logic and arithmetic."

"After which philosophic interjection—"

"After which philosophic interjection," said Ogilvie with a laugh, "I rise to maintain that Spencer, since he left New York, did a heap of traveling in the wilder places of the earth— Central Asia, Western China, South America, certain regions of Russia. Why there? Because, since he was out after new, exotic, and expensive minerals difficult to obtain, he specialized in mineral regions that had not a yet been exploited. Why did he need those minerals? Because the gentlemen of the Benefactors Club needed them for their new inventions, discoveries, and devices. So he kicked around a whole lot and bought up mining claims and concessions. Often he had to use a great deal of pull— pull which, on the other hand, cost him a great deal of money. With West African chiefs, for instance, and Manchu mandarins and Tartar Khans— and— oh, yes"— smiling reminiscently— Russian grand duchesses who, if extra well paid, extra well bribed, might throw in a priceless sable coat as a commission. Isn't that so?"

"Absolutely!" admitted the other just a little grudgingly. "But I fail to see how—"

"I repeat," said Ogilvie, "that two and two make five— and occasionally seven!"

"Don't be so supercilious!"

"Really, Bob, I didn't mean to be. Let's get back to Martyn Spencer. He was well paid for these voyages and these mining claims he accumulated the world over— by whom do you think?"

"Chester?"

"Move to the head of the class, sonny! By the millionaire who did not see fit to contribute to the war charities, but who, according to his own light, is quite a public benefactor. But Martyn Spencer was not rich. You see, you can work out your liver, but you simply can't beeome really rich on a straight salary— until rather more recently. Am I still right, old man?"

"Quite. That's what they cabled to Miller from Scotland Yard." Something like admiration had crept into Gadsby's accents.

"Perhaps," continued Ogilvie, "our friend only started making real money during the last year or eighteen months. Then he made it hand over fist."

"How—"

"By selling the foreign rights to various patents which were registered in his name."

"What patents?" asked the police commissioner.

"Oh—for instance, Doctor McGrath's pulmotor and the Clapperton automatic cream separator and the Fischer piston pump. He either sold them for cash or took a certain amount in the stock of the new foreign corporations founded for the exploitation of these various patents and devices."

"Perfectly correct," admitted Gadsby, consulting a London cable which Miller had decoded and read:

"Martyn Spencer, chairman of the board of directors of Pulmotor Limited, Rhizopodin Produce Limited, Clapperton—"

"Cream Separator Limited," interrupted Ogilvie, "and a few more Limited!"

To the other's question if he thought that the Benefactors Club, angry at having been cheated, had tried to frame up Martyn Spencer, getting Ogilvie into the trap by mistake, the latter replied that it was something like it, but not exactly so.

"That's just what Martyn Spencer thought," he added, "and I have an idea, yet to be proved, that he was a fool for thinking so, a fool for running away scared to death, when all he had to do was to keep his nerve and stand pat, when all he needed was a little knowledge of applied psychology. You see, it is clear that these people did not know him by sight, isn't it ?"

"Quite," said the police commissioner, "or they would not have mistaken you for him."

"Yes. I imagine the club has a number of foreign members and corresponding members in Europe."

"Indeed," agreed Gadsby, consulting the cables from Scotland Yard. "There are half a dozen belonging to it in London—"

"And doubtless in Paris and Rome and other parts of the world. Spencer, though an American, joined abroad. It's easy enough to figure out how. He must have made some small invention. He was poor then. His family, fine old American stock, knows the Chesters. Followed a correspondence between him and Audley Chester, the financial backer of the club. Gradually the correspondence became more intimate. Eventually Chester made him a proposition, and Spencer accepted it and joined. Then, when the club needed a man to pick up mining claims for them here and there, they naturally thought of Spencer. He proved clever and valuable, until in the course of time he became their confidential man, all the foreigns rights to the patents being registered in his name. Spencer kicked about from pillar to post these last years, without coming home; and these people never went abroad, because they were too poor and too much wrapped up in their Utopian dreams."

"Utopian?" echoed the police commissioner.

"Exactly! I'll explain all that presently— after I've made quite, quite sure —with the help of—"

"Who ?"

"Marie Dillon, I guess. I'll tell you later. Let's get back to Spencer. He and the members of his club here in New York never saw each other, that's quite clear, isn't it?"

"I guess so. But why did he return? Home-sickness?"

"Not a bit of it. Indirect, upside down, negative, vicarious fear!"

"I don't get you!"

"Listen, Bob!' Ogilvie went on. "When Spencer first decided to use these patents for the benefit of his own pocketbook—well, he just did it. He was money mad— he made up his mind— and that's all there was to it! He expected a big row, perhaps a civil or criminal action. He had prepared for these eventualities, had retained before-hand the best legal talent in New York and Europe, felt quite safe. But the members of the Benefactors Club did—"

"What?"

"Nothing, Bob! And that's what first made him afraid."

"Why should it?' asked the police commissioner.

"Because Spencer knew them. He knew what sort of people they were— idealists, terribly sincere, of single-track minds—and they did nothing. And, I repeat, he became frightened, nervous, uneasy. Do you know the old adage about the murderer who always returns to the scene of his crime? I guess it applies in Spencer's case, too. He grew more and more fadgety as the club remained silent, and so he decided to come to New York, perhaps to force their hand, to brazen it out, or to get it over with, once and for all. And still, even after he returned here, the club did nothing. They surrounded Spencer with a wall of complete, inhuman silence and inaction, and he became more and more uneasy— he imagined that this wall of silence would presently topple over and crush him. Then, one day— perhaps the very day I called on him or a few days before— he received a notification from the club to come to No. 17.

"By this time he was absolutely scared stiff. He imagined that they would either kill him or make such a scene that somebody would lose his head ; in the latter case he thought there would be a fight, he would find himself in a minority of one, battling for his life, and then in self-defense, but with a number of witnesses to deny it, he would draw a weapon. This part of his reasoning

"If he reasoned that way," sardonically interrupted the other.

"This part of his reasoning," Ogilvie continued, unheeding, "was remarkably lucid. You see, Spencer is no fool."

"If he isn't, why did he go to No. 17— make up his mind to go there at all?" demanded the police commissioner.

"Because he was getting crazy with that complicated and illogical emotion called fear. Because he had arrived at that stage where he preferred anything, even death, to waiting for something to happen. All right. I dropped in on him. We talked. He saw that I was stone broke. Right then, suddenly, he decided not to go, but to send me instead. He must have reasoned very quickly, must have said to himself that the only thing for him to do, now that the club was on his trail and had sent him notification to appear at their meeting, was to disappear under a different name, and there was that Liverpool freighter in port which doubtless belonged to him.

"He argued that the club members would pounce upon me quickly and kill me before I had a chance to explain that they were making a mistake, that I was not he, but an innocent party. Or, if they gave me time to explain, he thought they would calmly point at the club badge— which must have been fastened to the nether side of the lapel of the fur coat, remember— might even point at the sable-lined ulster itself, a quite extraordinary and priceless garment of whose acquisition by Spencer, in the course of some mining deal with the grand duchess, they may have heard—yes— they would have pointed at the club badge and discounted my denial that I was Spencer by a sudden desire on my part to bluff them, to fool them, to get away with a whole skin. Finally, he reasoned, if they did believe me, it would take a long time before they did. Either way, by the time I was killed, or got into the pickle into which I actually did get, or even persuaded them they had made a mistake, he would have escaped. Incidentally let's give the devil his due. He tried to be decent. He warned me against carrying a gun. But, not sure if I would take his advice, he sent that thumping big check to Marie in case she needed money for herself or me.

"At all events, as to the club members, he underestimated their intelligence, or he overestimated their brutality— it comes to the same thing. I repeat, all he needed was a little knowledge of applied psychology—"

Ogilvie interrupted himself.

He said that terribly idealistic people— and in his own mind he was convinced that those of No. 17 belonged in that category, from the hunchback down to the check boy and the brown-eyed girl— were also, when occasion seemed to warrant it, terribly cruel and shrewd and vindictive. It was as if, he added, the Creator did not want human virtues to run to extremes, for fear that they might run amuck. "Nature," he said, "always tries to strike a logical balance between good and bad. If we let our virtues overwhelm us we cease to feel sympathy and pity and tolerance for others less virtuous than ourselves. No, no, Bob," as the other made an impatient exclamation, "I'm not shooting off at a tangent. I am just trying to show you what a confounded fool Martyn Spencer was for being afraid."

"Seems to me, the way it panned out, that he had mighty good cause to be afraid," replied the other. "I agree with you that excessive goodness often leads to cruelty. Aristotle was right, virtue is the mean between two extremes. Witness the cruelty of the medieval reformers."

"But you must not forget that these people at No. 17 are removed from sixteenth-century fanatics by several hundred years of human development— call it inreased moral weakness, if you prefer. They are men of the twentieth century who have forgotten the clean, fearless brutalities of the Middle Ages. When their slightly hectic, idealistic virtues turned into the gall of hatred through another's— Spencer's guilt —they were weak enough or careful enough— it comes to the same thing —to stop short of murder. You see, they might have killed Spencer, but they didn't. So why, logically, should I assume that they killed Clafflin?"

"Well— if you didn't kill him, and if they didn't, who did, for the love of Mike?"

"Must, necessarily, anybody have killed him?" came Ogilvie's counter query.

"You don't mean to say suicide?" asked the police commissioner,

"I don't indeed!"

"Or accident?"

"Nor accident!"

"Well, what other possibility"

"Beg pardon," interrupted Tompkins, who had come in. "Miss Dillon to see Mr. Ogilvie."

7: "Neither By Murder, Suicide, Nor Accident."

DIRECTLY on the butler's heels Marie Dillon entered.

"Oh— Blaine! Blaine, dear!"

She threw herself into Ogilvie's arms and held him tight, quite disregarding the presence of the police commissioner, who after a moment or two, when a discreet, twice repeated cough had seemed to have made no impression on the girl, moved in the direction of the door with a rambled word that he hated to be in the way.

She turned. "Please, Mr. Gadsby," she said, "forgive me, won't you?" She smiled, and he smiled back at her.

"There is nothing to forgive, Miss Dillon," he replied, "except that instead of falling in love with a perfectly proper and perfectly respectable police commissioner—"

"She wastes her young affections on a reckless idiot who is going to become said police commissioner's chief assistant and confidential clerk," Ogilvie interrupted.

The girl laughed and kissed Ogilvie again.

She was small and strong, with russet, short-cut hair. You could tell by looking at her rather large, firm, well-shaped hands, her short, softly curved nose, and the straight black eyebrows which divided her gray eyes from the broad, low forehead that she had imagination and claims to independent ideas.

"Have you any influence over Blaine?" asked Gadsby in a martyred voice.

"How?"

"To make him less fresh!"

"I'll try to," she said, "after we're married."

The next moment she was serious and turned to Ogilvie. "Blaine," she said, "I did what you asked me to do last night over the telephone."

"Already ?"

"Yes, dear. I got up early."

"Succeed?"

"I guess so," she replied.

And, in answer to Gadsby's questions, Ogilvie explained that he had telephoned to Marie Dillon last night, after he had hunted through the two volumes on forgotten and not yet discovered inventions.

"I hesitated a long time," he said, "between the absolute, fool-proof gyroscope, the tempering of copper, and a self-adjusting linotype machine. Finally I decided that no woman takes an interest in that sort of thing, and that it might make the whole thing look fishy. Woman, I thought, housewifely duties— sewing machine! And so, in my poor male brain, I studied it. I decided that what the world needs is a new device which will sew on trouser buttons by a simple twist of the wrist— something like that. I wrote it all down— a lot of stuff— enough to fool a chap who isn't an engineer, but only a rich visionary— prompted Marie across the wires, and she went there this morning— didn't you, honey ?"

"Yes," replied the girl.

"Went where?' asked the exasperated police commissioner.

"Where do you think? To Audley Chester! To whom else?"

It appeared that the Chesters and the Dillons were old friends, as were the Chesters and the Dillons' cousins, Martyn Spencer's family. And so, asked Ogilvie, wasn't it perfectly natural that Marie Dillon, being poor, should go to her family's rich friend, Audley Chester, to ask him for advice and help with that marvelous invention of hers; and too, perhaps, though without saying so since she was not supposed to be familiar with Chester's connection with the Benefactors Club, indirectly, by mental suggestion, get the idea into Chester's brain that, as a budding inventress, she might be promising material for a member of the club which, added Ogilvie, had at. least one other woman member— the brown-eyed Slav girl who presided over the hat rack at No. 17?

"Good heavens, man!" exclaimed Gadsby. "You certainly drew a long bow! How did you imagine you'd get away with it? Didn't you consider that Chester, chiefly since the Clafflin murder, might suspect a trap?"

"Not in the least," replied Ogilvie. "Marie and I talked it all out over the telephone last night, point for point, logically and psychologically. We figured out the exact part she was going to play. An idealistic young enthusiast— can't you see her, with those wide gray eyes of hers? All for giving the benefit of her brain, her work, her invention, to the public, the world at large, long-suffering, long-overcharged humanity— and not so as to line her own pockets with gold! You see, these last forty-eight hours I've been considering what sort of people the gentry at No. 17 are— chiefly Audley Chester. So I couldn't very well go wrong, could I?"

"And you didn't," said Marie Dillon. "Chester was awfully kind and considerate and patient. He listened to me. Told me he would be glad to back me financially if my invention turned out feasible, that he knew very little, though, about mechanical details, and would: therefore find me some expert engineers and skilled mechanics to go over my plans, report on them, and help me, if practicable, with working them out and perfecting them—"

"Don't you see, Bob?" interrupted Ogilvie. "That's where the club members come in."

"Yes, yes," came the other's slightly impatient rejoinder. "You needn't cross all the t's nor dot all the i's. Once in  while, when a thing is as plain as a pikestaff, I can see it— even though I am only the police commissioner."

"Stop your quarreling, both you children!" said the girl. "Chester was delighted when I told him that I wanted to give my idea to the world, that I did not wish for any personal remuneration—"

" 'Except the satisfaction of a decent thing decently accomplished'— did you get in that line, Marie?" asked Ogilvie. "Remember— we rehearsed it last night over the telephone."

"I did," replied Marie Dillon, "and I improved on it on the spur of the moment. I said something to him about poverty not mattering as long as I knew that the rest of the world found life a little more easy to bear through my invention."

"Like the rest of the benefactors," commented Ogilvie. "Their idealism! That's what kept them so poor, and that's just why they are so terribly vindictive against Martyn Spencer. It wasn't really because he cheated them, stole money from them by appropriating their patents for his private use, but because he stole it, as they figured, from the public, the world, humanity at large."

Marie Dillon went on to say that toward the end of the interview Audley Chester, carried away by her carefully rehearsed, girlish enthusiasm, had become even more confidential. He had told her of the existence of an organization composed of people— as he expressed it—trying to do social uplift work not, as usually attempted, by giving money, thus pauperizing those whom they were trying to help, but by using their inventive brains and faculties so as to reduce the cost of living and to make life easier for the masses.

"If somebody invents, for instance, a new mangle," he had explained, "which reduces time and effort of labor by fifty per cent and incidentally does not ruin the linen or cotton which it rolls and smoothes, such an article, ordinarily, would cost the price of manufacture plus the overhead, plus the profit to the company which manufactures it, and plus the royalty to the inventor. We cannot always regulate the profit which the manufacturing company demands. But we can always influence it by giving our invention to a company which is more reasonable, and we always do cut out our own royalties, reducing the cost by just that amount to the poor woman who needs the mangle. We, as an organization, make therefore a gift to the people at large, not of money— no, no, no! We don't believe in that— but of our brains, our talents. We are the world's real benefactors!"

At the next meeting of this organization, he had gone on, he would mention the matter to the other members, and they would talk it over together. He had added that they had to be very strict and careful about whom to admit to their circle, because, on the very face of it, they had to rely absolutely on the honesty of each individual member. "Mutual trust is our motto," he had wound up, "and the moment anybody breaks this trust

"What happens then?" Marie Dillon had asked casually, but with enough of a shade of feminine curiosity to make the question appear natural.

And Ogilvie had smiled disagreeably.

"We rely on fate to punish him," he had replied. "Fate— possibly helped by— oh— deputy fate!"

"Deputy fate?" she had queried.

"Yes," had come Audley Chester's slow reply. "After all, even fate is more or less man-made. And— don't forget— we have in our organization some very great inventors, some very great physicians and surgeons and biologists!"

"Such as Doctor Hillyer McGrath," commented Blaine Ogilvie, "who had been Clafflin's physician for many, many years and knew all about the state of his health."

"What gets me," said the police commissioner, shaking his head, "is how any member of the Benefactors Club, be he the very cleverest physician, surgeon, inventor, or biologist in the world, can stage manage a death, clearly caused by a revolver bullet, since Clafflin's temples were pierced, which is neither due to murder nor to suicide nor to accident— to believe you," and he turned to Ogilvie.

"You'll believe me all right after your expert doctors at headquarters get through with the autopsy on Clafflin's body," replied the latter, "or I lose my bet."

"What bet?" asked Gadsby.

"Oh— long odds! My life against the district attorney's wits! For, of course, I realize that you can't keep me in hiding forever."

"Oh— please— please— Blaine!" exclaimed the girl, suddenly nervous and frightened.

"Don't worry, honey!" Ogilvie said. "I'm not worrying. Let's see— one hundred thousand bucks Martyn Spencer sent you. That'll get you a peach of a trousseau." He interrupted himself and turned to Gadsby.

"Look here, Bob," he said. "Show a little delicacy and leave the room when an engaged couple talk about intimate details. Too, you might run down to your office and see how that autopsy came out!"

IT WAS QUITE LATE in the afternoon when the police commissioner returned, accompanied by two men, whom he introduced as Doctor Elliot and Doctor Griffith, and— "Miss Dillon— and Mr. Blaine Ogilvie— the man who—"

"The commissioner told us about you," said Doctor Elliot, shaking hands with Ogilvie.

"Did he blacken my reputation?" demanded Oglivie with a twinkle in his eye. "Did he tell you a long sob story. of how I, a fugitive from justice, a supposedly crimson-handed assassin, took refuge in his house and caused him to be false to his sworn duty?"

"He did," said Doctor Elliot with a laugh.

"Heavens! I'm surprised he tried to put that one across!" said Ogilvie.

"But he has reformed," interjected the other doctor. "Mr. Ogilvie, let me be the first to tell you the good news. You are a free man. You can come and go where and as you please. You are no longer under suspicion."

"Which means you finished the autopsy and you found out—"

"Well, what did we find out?"

"That the revolver bullet which pierced Clafflin's temples was fired after the man had died," said Ogilvie. "That he died by natural causes, neither by murder, suicide, nor accident!"

"How did you figure it out?" asked the police commissioner with admiration.

"Why, you chump, I was trying to tell you straight along! Simply by figuring out the psychology of the case— the peculiar psychology of the gang of idealists at No. 17— Clapperton and McGrath and—"

"Incidentally," cut in Doctor Elliot, "it's that same McGrath whom you have to thank for the fact that you are free from all suspicion."

"Oh," asked Marie, "he confessed?"

"We didn't see him," said Doctor Elliot, "nor would he have had anything to confess. But Mr. Ogilvie has to thank McGrath for another of his marvelous medical discoveries, namely an instrument which, used during an autopsy, registers almost automatically to what cause death has been due. If death apparently has been due to more than one cause, it decides between them and points at the right one.

"It's the most delicate instrument you ever saw. You lay people wouldn't understand it. It looks rather like a tiny barometer, with a number of needles composed of a new metal. This metal has a great deal to do with the success of the instrument, since it has a peculiar, almost uncanny, power over blood circulation and blood pressure. It can, so to speak, catch the reflex action of blood even after death. The metal is called rhizopolin.

"We used the instrument," continued the doctor, "and we discovered that death was due to heart failure, while the heart failure, in its turn, was due to a complication of organic troubles which had ravaged poor Clafflin and had sapped his vitality for a number of years."

"Exactly," said Ogilvie. "And McGrath had been Clafflin's physician for a long time. He could read the state of his health— marvelous physician that he is— with the same ease as I can read a simple book. He took him to No. 17 that night. Everything had been minutely prearranged, minutely dovetailed. They were sure that Spencer would come. Perhaps Spencer telephoned or wrote them that he would, and, beforehand I mean before arranging for the date of Spencer's coming, McGrath had mathematically figured out that Clafflin would die that night— perhaps, though I don't know, kept him alive with powerful drugs until that very night."

"Medically quite possible," mented Doctor Griffith.

"He got Clafflin out of the house," went on Ogilvie, "under the promise— remember the testimony of Clafflin's nurse and butler— that he would meet a remarkable young physician who would cure him. All right; they came. I, whom they supposed to be Spencer, was there. Clafflin died suddenly— McGrath, the great physician, and absolutely, intimately familiar with the man's state of health, saw it at once, gave the signal, when I happened to be looking the other way. Then the shot, either fired by McGrath himself or by somebody else— it makes no difference— and there you are."

"Except," said the police -commissioner, "that I believe you have a clear case against the Benefactors Club for trying to frame you up. In fact, I think it is really my duty to—"

"Forget your duty!" interrupted Ogilvie. "After all, they are idealists, public benefactors, and they can't and shouldn't be measured with the ordinary yardstick of police morality. Just you go down there, Bob, to No, 17 some night and throw a good scare into them. By the way, how about that job as assistant something- or- other with your detective force you promised me?"

"I didn't promise," said Gadsby, "but you're on, old man."

"Thanks!" Ogilvie turned to Marie Dillon. "Shake hands with my new boss, honey," he said, "and smile at him. I need all the pull I can get in my new profession. My first job will be to trace Spencer and hand him the accumulated dividends of the Benefactors Club."

___________________

12: The Planes that Never Returned

William J. Makin

1894-1944

Blue Book Magazine, March 1935

A tale of the Red Wolf of Arabia

"VANISHED completely. Four planes and eight men. No trace of 'em found. Damned queer—"

Group-Captain Gould, chief of the Royal Air Force Squadron at Aden, turned from the other three men in the room and stared through a glass screen at the airdrome spread before him.

"And yet, from the political point of view," said the Resident, Sir John Robbins, "there isn't an enemy tribe within five hundred miles of Aden. As you know, a regular subsidy is paid to each of the leading sheiks in the district. They take the money and keep order. Blackmail, if you like, but cheap at the price."

"Meaning that you don't need a garrison to defend Aden— only a few air planes," growled the Group Captain.

"Exactly," said the Resident.

"Well, it may have been cheap before these airplanes and men began to disappear. Now it's dear— damned dear."

"It certainly is highly mysterious," pursued Sir John Robbins, stroking a cadaverous chin. "Airplanes don't disappear into thin air, do they?"

"Not my airplanes," the Group Captain snorted. "Or at least they didn't until a month ago. Then they began to disappear one after another, each with a couple of men."

"That's why I've brought Mr. Paul Rodgers, of the Intelligence, to see you, Gould," said the Resident quietly. "If anyone can discover that Sargasso of lost planes, I think it will be our friend here. The natives, you know, call him the Red Wolf of Arabia."

The Group Captain gave a curt nod at the introduction of the slim sun-browned man with flaming red hair who lounged indolently in the room.

"Searching the desert for lost planes is a new problem," smiled Paul Rodgers.

"It's easy enough to find a lost caravan of camels. They leave a trail. But not even the cleverest desert tracker could follow the trail of an airplane."

The leathery jaw of the Group Captain set grimly.

"That's where we beat the old buddu of the desert," he said. "We can trail each of our planes, once they climb the sky."

"How?"

He gestured to the fourth man, sitting at a table on which were ranged several shining instruments.

"By wireless. It is possible to keep in touch with each plane as it flies along the political boundaries. And that is what we're going to do with this particular plane now, from the moment it takes off. Have you fixed the wavelength, my man?"

The man at the table nodded briskly.

"Yes sir. As usual, sir."

"Good. And don't lose 'em for a moment."

"I'll do my best, sir. Atmospherics very tricky in parts, though, sir."

"Atmospherics be damned!"

Group Captain Gould was clearly annoyed at these mysterious happenings in his squadron. The loss of men and machines had led to a curt cable inquiry from the Air Marshal. And he was unable to send any explanation.

Now, with the exception of the wireless-operator, who remained tense at the table like one of his own robots, the three men were gazing down at the aerodrome of Aden from the glass cabin poised above.

The engines of a Bristol Fighter plane were already clocking over rhythmically. The Flight Lieutenant, helmeted and goggled, was in the cockpit feeling the controls, and an observer, adjusting his parachute, was climbing into the machine.

"Reynolds, isn't it?" nodded Rodgers, in the direction of the pilot.

"Yes," replied the Group Captain. "A clever youngster. He volunteered for this flight."

"Then this plane is definitely attempting to find that Sargasso of the air wherein your other planes disappeared?" asked the Resident.

"That's so," said the Group Captain brusquely. "Our own attempt to solve the mystery."

"What's their orders ?" asked Rodgers.

"To fly low over the whole circuit of the political boundaries, to keep in constant touch with us by radio, and report anything suspicious that they may see."

"And do you expect anything to happen to them?" asked the Resident.

"We shall know within an hour," said Gould grimly. "If they should meet anything in the air, or on the ground, they're well prepared. They're carrying two bombs, and there are belts of ammunition attached to the machine-guns in the cockpit. I can depend upon those youngsters to spot anything unusual even at eight thousand feet."

"And they're to follow the same route as the other four lost planes?" asked the Intelligence officer.

The Group Captain nodded.

"A purely routine flight."

As they watched the aircraftsmen taking the chocks away from the wheels, the Resident interposed his quiet voice.

"But why send only one plane, Gould? If the Arabs are shooting them down, surely it would be safer to send a formation, say three planes?"

"I did— yesterday. And a week previously."

"And what happened?"

"They returned safely."

"Nothing to report?"

"Nothing to report. That's the damnable queerness of it all. Each of those missing four planes was on a lone reconnaissance. Whenever our machines go out in the usual duck formation, three at a time, nothing happens. That's why I'm sending out another tempting solitary plane."

"Bait, eh?" mused Rodgers.

"Call it that," snapped Gould.

THERE was a roar from the Bristol Fighter on the airdrome; the brown desert dust swept up in a blinding cloud.

The aircraftsmen dodged away. A glimpse of a gloved hand waving farewell, the machine lifted its quivering tail, and within a hundred yards was climbing the pale blue silk of the sky.

It swung round, circled the aerodrome, displaying to the watchers the color-circles on the wings and the bright sunshine glinting on the propeller. Next moment it was heading north for the desert that stretched away from Aden.

Gould watched it until it merged into the haze. Then he swung round upon the radio operator.

"You in touch with 'em?"

"First message just coming through sir," replied the operator, the earphones clamped over his head. "I'll switch on to the loud-speaker, sir."

A flick of his finger, and a raucous, somewhat distorted voice issued from the black trumpet.

"Bristol Fighter 55, G Squadron, reporting to Aden.... Flying north to boundary line. Visibility excellent at two thousand feet. Passed over camel convoy going to Aden... Over."

Spluttering atmospherics followed.

"Got a map here ?" asked Rodgers. The Group Captain nodded. He produced a large folded linen map and spread it across another table. He jabbed a brown forefinger at Aden.

"Our flying-map of the area," he explained. "Here is where the machine should be at the moment, approaching Lahaj."

"Approaching Lahaj" spluttered the loud-speaker. " Natives at prayer in the square by the mosque. Startled a few goats. All O.K.... Over."

"Nothing ever happens at Lahaj," explained the Group Captain. "A good place to buy chickens, that's all."

His finger moved slowly northward. "And now they should be getting near the boundary at Hawashib. Just sand, and dirt and lice."

"Not altogether," smiled the Intelligence officer, lighting a cigarette. "I spent a night there recently. At least the coffee was good."

"What in heaven's name were you doing in Hawashib?" asked the Group Captain.

"Just riding a camel," replied Rodgers. "But that's another story."

"Crossed Hawashib, and now approaching boundary," announced the loud-speaker. "Visibility still excellent. We're down to fifteen hundred feet. No life visible. Request permission to turn and fly northeast.... Over."

Gould nodded to the radio-operator.

"Acknowledge, and tell 'em to fly northeast."

"Very good, sir."

The operator turned to a microphone.

"Aden airdrome calling Bristol Fighter 55, G Squadron.... Aden Aerodrome calling...  Your messages received. Group Captain's orders— fly northeast. Over."

Silence for some minutes.

"They should be halfway to Buthaina now," mused Gould. "That's our farthest point in the desert." He waited. "They're damned quiet. Give 'em a signal."

The operator tapped his Morse key. It brought the loud-speaker cackling into life again.

"Bristol Fighter 55 G Squadron reporting to Aden... Visibility not so good. Queer dust-storm near the ground. Have dropped to one thousand feet. Something very queer.... Can't see distinctly.... Looks like—"

The message ended in a spluttering of atmospherics in which Morse and howls mingled in a shrieking crescendo.

"What's the matter now?" snapped Gould.

"Sorry, sir. Signals usually fade out in that area. Dead patch, sir. We should hear them in a moment."

"It seems to me that signals are definitely fading in," murmured Red Rodgers.

"Sound like a P. and O. liner in the Red Sea sending a love-message by wireless," growled the Group Captain.

"And a very hot one," smiled the Resident.

A tearing, as of a sheet of silk, and the loud-speaker was silent. Equally, silence fell upon the four men, listening. The Group Captain accepted a cigarette from Rodgers, and lit it jerkily.

"Damn it! Eight minutes gone," he announced, looking at his wrist-watch. "They must be at the other end of the boundary line now. Give 'em a call!"

Obediently the operator leaned toward the microphone.

"Aden airdrome calling Bristol Fighter 55, G Squadron.... Aden aerodrome calling. . . . Where are you?"

His fingers twitched at the volume dial. Only a high-pitched whine....

"Are you on the right wave-length?"

"Yes sir."

"Well, try 'em on another."

"Very good, sir."

Once again the voice of the operator intoned :

"Aden airdrome calling Bristol Fighter 55, G Squadron.... Aden airdrome calling.... Where are you?"

Still no response but atmospheric gabble from the loud-speaker.

"They should be on their way back now," said Gould, but his harsh voice was hushed.

It was Paul Rodgers who announced calmly what they all had in their mind, but feared to utter.

"They should be on their way back," he said. "But they never will come back. Those poor fellows have gone the way of your other lost squadron."

The Group Captain feared to believe it. He stood there, his sun-reddened face sweating as he waited, tensely, for the sound of the roaring engine that would tell him of the Bristol Fighter returning. But a tropic stillness had fallen upon that glass-screened room.

With a futile effort to control himself, Gould turned to the operator.

"Don't sit dumb!" he snarled. "Keep on calling 'em!"

"Yes sir."

Like a wound-up automaton, the operator began his gabble:

"Aden airdrome calling Bristol Fighter 55, G Squadron.... Where are you? ... Where are you?"

INTO this broke the quiet voice of the Resident, Sir John Robbins.

"Well, it's your turn to step onto the stage now, Rodgers. What do you propose to do ?"

Rodgers dropped the end of his cigarette and ground it beneath his heel.

"I propose to join the Royal Air Force, sir."

Something like a sneer crossed the Group Captain's face.

"Going to fly another machine into that Sargasso, eh?"

Rodgers shook his head.

"No sir. I don't intend to fly. I'm going to join the non-flying section of the Royal Air Force. I apply for permission to join as aircraftsman."

"Safer, eh?"

Rodgers ignored, the remark.

"I venture to think," he added quietly, "that this mystery of the air will be solved on the ground."

The Resident looked at the Group Captain.

"Well, what do you say, Gould?"

The Air Force man shrugged.

"If it amuses you— by all means."

And he turned moodily to the glass screen again.

The radio operator was still repeating monotonously:

"Bristol Fighter 55 G Squadron.... Where are you?"

AIRCRAFTSMAN JONES was a character. Even the sergeant of Bhut, where the men slept, blasphemously admitted as much.

"Gawd knows where you come from, Jones," he growled, after a month's commanding of this blue-uniformed figure with red hair.

"I'm not entirely sure, myself, Sergeant," said Rodgers without the tremor of a smile.

"You're a damned good mechanic, and you know it."

"Yes, Sergeant."

"And I've never heard anyone play 'Stormy Weather' better on the canteen piano."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

"But"— and here the sergeant's face took on a purple tinge— "if I hear any more of your drunken gallivantings in Arab dance-halls in Aden, you're for the high-jump, my lad."

"Sorry, Sergeant."

"Sorry be damned. You've been thrown out of two places within the past week. Nice thing for the Air Force to have one of their kind handled by these budus. Lucky for you, the patrol wasn't there to pick you up."

"I observe the patrol keep to the respectable parts of Aden, Sergeant."

The sergeant went a shade more purple.

"Cut it out, my lad, that's all," he warned as he stamped out of the hut.

There was a general grin among the assembled mechanics.

"I guess you're going to stay in barracks tonight, Jones?" ventured one.

The steel-gray eyes of the Intelligence man opened wide in wonderment.

"On a Saturday night? Not me!"

"Taking a pal?"

"No. I like to find my own trouble."

And having buttoned up his uniform, Aircraftsman Jones gave a casual nod and swaggered after the sergeant....

The swagger departed from Rodgers as he started along the dusty road leading to the Arab quarter. For a month he had been seeking a solution of the mystery of the lost airplanes, without result. Nothing had happened. Not even another airplane had disappeared since the Bristol Fighter had been lost on lone patrol. Once, on parade, Paul Rodgers had caught the eye of the Group Captain. There was a suggestion of contempt in the glance. It rankled.

"Somebody in Aden knows and will spill the secret," decided the Intelligence officer, "And that somebody is sure to be a woman."

And with a tipsy hiccough he circumvented a squatting camel in the darkness, passed along a narrow alleyway, and stumbled through a doorway into one of the dirtiest Arab coffee-houses of the town.

"The mad Ingleezi," he heard whispered in Arabic as he lurched toward a table.

"Gimme some of that poison you call palm-wine!" he demanded thickly.

A squinting Arab with dirty beard reached out for a bottle beneath the rickety counter. At the same time a barefooted Arab girl, a tawdry piece of yellow cloth twisted about her bosom, padded over to him.

"You— geev— me drink?" she whined, with a pretence at a smile.

RODGERS yawned at her. "If you want to get drunk, take a chair," he indicated. "What's your name?"

"They call me— Zubayah," she said, seating herself.

"Sounds good," he nodded, taking the bottle from the bearded Arab and pouring the wine liberally into two glasses. "I like Arab girls."

"And I— I like Ingleezi."

They drank. Paul Rodgers, his cap jammed on his head in military fashion, was a strangely incongruous object in this Arab coffee-house.

Surrounding the table was that queer polyglot mixture that the extinct crater of Aden seems to attract. A fezzed Egyptian, whose bleary eyes told of the last stages of hashish-smoking, sprawled in a broken cane chair. Dhoti -clad Hindus scratched their hairy brown legs. A Parsee adjusted his spectacles over a hooked nose. Three fuzzy-haired Somalis squatted in a corner, playing a dice game with cowrie shells.

For the rest, the loungers in this café were Arabs. There were the indigo-skirted men from the desert, wearing curved knives at their waists. A bearded man whose bloodshot eyes told of long travels in sandstorms hunched himself over a hookah and smoked with placid content. And an Armenian youth in a dirty pink suit busied himself with a phonograph that was churning out an Egyptian love-song in a series of quarter-tone caterwaulings.

Rodgers drained his drink and slopped more from the bottle.

"Tell that feller with the phonograph to put on a dance record," he burbled to the girl, "and let's see you shuffle your legs."

"If nothing happens tonight, I'll go into the desert," decided the Red Wolf, gazing at the twisting, swaying girl.

"You want me— to dance?" she asked.

"That's it."

"And what you give me?"

"It's worth a rupee."

With a smile that showed her broken teeth, the Arab girl whispered to the Armenian. A moment later, a strange Arabic melody was wheezing forth. The girl began to shuffle and sway in the center of the room. Rodgers, his cap toppling to the floor, regarded her tipsily.

Actually he was wondering whether this was to be another wasted evening. It was a fortnight since he had last entered this particular coffee-house. But gossip along the narrow street had already named him "the mad Ingleezi."

Aircraftsman Jones was known in all the dubious places of Aden.

Yet so far, it had been useless. Though Aircraftsman Jones' face was blank when anyone spoke Arabic, his ears were very much acute. Not a word had he heard whispered in these coffee-houses regarding the missing airplanes. That, in itself, he decided, was suspiciously significant. In the ordinary course, every camel-man with a water-cart would have discussed the mystery of the missing bird-men.

"If nothing happens tonight, I'll go off into the desert," decided the Red Wolf of Arabia, gazing at the twisting, swaying Arab girl before him. As she swung round, he surreptitiously emptied the contents of the bottle on the floor and called out, drunkenly, for more.

THE whining cacophony reached a crescendo. The Arab girl whirled and spun like a dancing dervish. She was spinning toward the drunken, leering aircraftsman. As the music blurred to an end, she shrieked with delight and flung herself into the inviting arms of the blue-uniformed figure. A gasp of exhaustion, and she sank, laughing hysterically, onto his knees.

"Get up, you abandoned one!"

The stern command in Arabic came from the doorway. Instinctively Rodgers' grasp on the Arab dancing-girl tightened. But she struggled desperately.

"Leave me, Ingleezi! " she cried. And

The Brown Angel! Still holding the struggling girl, Rodgers leered across her shoulder. He glimpsed a tall, powerful Arab in a white burnous glaring at him with somber eyes.

"Leave the girl! " commanded the Arab in perfect English.

"Go to the devil!" burbled Rodgers in reply; and with a quick twist of his arm he brought the brown face of the girl to his own and kissed her.

A gasp of horror went round the coffee-house. Everybody became tense. Without hesitation the powerful man in white burnous strode forward, stretched out a brown hand and tore the girl away.

Rodgers staggered to his feet. His hand clutched the neck of the bottle on the table. He lurched forward.

But the Arab was quicker. One twist of his hand sent the girl spinning into a corner. Then he leaped forward. The bottle swished through the air, but missed and smashed against the wall. Rodgers did not try to avoid the impact of that leaping figure in the white burnous. He made an effort to ward off the powerful brown hands groping for his throat, and with a kick of his leg brought the table, himself and his opponent to the floor in a crash.

Rodgers was beneath. He allowed his body to go limp. At the same time through half-closed eyes he was aware that the Arab in the white burnous had whipped out a knife and poised it with deadly intent in the air.

"No, O Great One!" screamed a voice.

It was the dancing-girl who had struggled to her feet.

"Jackals must die!" snarled the Arab.

But the squinting Arab with the filthy beard had thrust his face forward and whispered something.

"By Allah! If what you say is true—" hesitated the figure in the white burnous.

"I swear it on the Koran!" was the reply. "He is the best mechanic among the white bird-men. He gives life to the machines. But he drinks, fights, and makes love to our women."

A grim smile crossed the somber face.

"We'll soon change that." His slippered foot kicked the prone figure on the floor. "Get up, you drunken dog!" he commanded in English.

Rodgers did not stir. From beneath the cap on his head a streak of blood dripped to the floor.

"He is stunned," nodded the man in the white burnous. "Carry him to my camel. See that he is hidden. Stretch a saddle-cloth over him. He will be useful to the Brown Angels."

"Yes, O Mighty One! " hastily replied the squinting Arab.

The Red Wolf felt himself lifted and carried, sacklike, through the door and along the narrow passage. There he was dumped across the mangy back of a camel, and a blanket thrown over him.

INSIDE the coffee-house a quick transformation was being effected. The table was righted. The broken bottle was swept aside. The dancing-girl was smoothing her yellow sash. The Armenian put another mournful record on the phonograph. The fuzzy-haired Somalis resumed their dice-game. The man in the white burnous gave a casual nod and strode toward the door.

But even as he reached it, there was the stamp of feet. A curtain was flung aside, and a patrol sergeant of the Royal Air Force, followed by four men, entered. He glanced round.

Nobody spoke. The sergeant turned to the squinting Arab behind the counter. "You seen one of our fellers here?" he asked.

The Arab shook his head. "No white man come here."

"This one did. He was seen coming here half an hour ago."

The dancing-girl started forward. But from behind a brown hand closed swiftly on her mouth.

"No white man come here," repeated the squinting Arab.

"Have a look round, lads!" ordered the sergeant.

They searched quickly, but they found nothing.

"All right!" said the sergeant. "Maybe we'll call again."

"You like drink?" smiled the squinting Arab.

"Not your poison," growled the sergeant, and stamped out after his men.

SILENCE reigned for a few seconds.

Deliberately the Arab in the white burnous reached for the dancing-girl, and hit her brutally across the face. She fell to the floor, whimpering. Then, without another glance, he strode out of the coffee-house.

A few minutes later he was mounting his camel. Dark, hooded shapes on other camels closed about him. With a grunting and slobbering of beasts, they ambled toward the gateway of the town. Tied securely beneath a blanket, Rodgers was jolted into acute consciousness. They passed the patrol.

"If I lay my hands on that aircraftsman, I'll teach him something before the

Group Captain sees him again," growled the sergeant. "Wasting my Saturday night"

Rodgers grinned.

A queer sight in the early morning sunshine of the desert.... Rodgers saw it as he dismounted stiffly from the camel he had been riding.

During the night, some miles away from Aden, he had been released from beneath the blanket and made to ride on the back of a spare camel. With the Arab in the white burnous and the attendant warriors, they had ridden swiftly through the darkness, and had now reached a point near the political boundary.

As the order came to dismount, they had reached the outskirts of an Arabic village. The cupola of a sheik's tomb gleamed white in the starlight. But it was not this at which Paul Rodgers gazed curiously. It was a palm tree, beneath the clustering leaves of which were hidden several black mica trumpets. He knew the thing at once. A detector set for airplanes.

"Ingenious, eh?" chuckled a voice at his elbow. "Gives us good warning, of the approach of your planes."

Bleary-eyed and unshaven, Rodgers turned. Standing at his side was the Arab in the white burnous.

"What's the game?" he asked sullenly. "Why have you brought me into this damned desert?"

The Arab smiled.

"Because you are Aircraftsman Jones, said to be the best mechanic in Aden. I hope you prove yourself such. Otherwise, I personally will have great pleasure in slitting your throat."

"I don't understand."

"You will," nodded the Arab. "It may interest you to know that in this desert oasis we possess three European planes of excellent workmanship. For reasons which I will not discuss, they are used to battle against patrol planes coming in this direction from Aden."

"So this is where our planes disappeared!" muttered Rodgers, instinctively gazing toward the sky.

"Exactly," went on the Arab. "These detectors warned us of their approach. If it was a solitary plane, our own airplanes took off and climbed above it. Our men are becoming expert in the use of machine-guns."

"Three against one, eh?"

"The odds are very necessary to us for our purpose," said the Arab, unperturbed. "But we won't discuss that. All that is necessary for you to know is that one of our planes was badly crippled in a fight about a month ago."

"Good old Bristol Fighter!" muttered Rodgers involuntarily.

Anger showed in those somber eyes.

"The Bristol Fighter was shot down and promptly destroyed," he went on. "One of our own planes, as I have said, was badly crippled. But it landed safely. Unfortunately, the machine-gunner, who was also our best mechanic from Europe, had been killed in the air. You are to have the honor of taking his place."

RODGERS blustered. "You expect me to fight against our own men? I'll see you damned first."

"Exactly what I expected you to say," sneered the Arab. "But if you persist in that attitude, your death will not be a pleasant one. I have reserved to myself the pleasure of slitting your throat. But we do not kill our enemies until we have exacted the last amount of amusement from their tortured bodies. I think I make myself clear?"

Paul Rodgers eyed him narrowly, determined to find out what plot was being hatched in this desert village. He must play the part of Aircraftsman Jones with all the realism he could command.

"Gimme a drink!" he begged hoarsely.

"That's better," smiled the Arab. He nodded to one of the bodyguards. The fellow thrust a bloated skin bag toward Rodgers, who gulped at it greedily.

"Water!" And he spat disgustedly.

"And only water for you to drink until that damaged plane is mended and ready to take to the air again. Make a good job of it, and I might dig up a bottle of whisky for you."

"Say! Where d'you get whisky in this budu village?"

"Loot of war," replied the Arab grimly. "And now walk into that tomb. It's going to be your quarters while you are with us."

"A tomb! Can't you find me a hut?"

"The tomb may surprise you," nodded the Arab. "Get a move on!"

He had slipped back the white burnous and displayed a Sam Browne belt with a military revolver attached. Also loot of war, decided the Intelligence officer with a feeling of cold hatred against this educated Arab. The hooded bodyguard were closing in upon him. With a shrug of his shoulders, Rodgers staggered through the sand into the cool darkness of the tomb.

BUT on the threshold, he rubbed his eyes. Instead of bare white walls and a stone coffin, he found himself gazing at a model little wireless station with electric plant attached. The instruments gleamed in the semi-darkness. A lamp glowed, and revealed a man in European clothes bent over the receiver. He stood up as the Arab entered. A Syrian, Rodgers decided.

"A companion for you, Tatiyah," introduced the Arab. "A drunken Ingleezi, Aircraftsman Jones. He's got to work for us. Also he may be of help to you. Keep a close watch on him. You know what to do if he tries to escape. Moreover, I'm leaving several of my body-guard outside while I go on to meet the ultan. You understand?"

The words were snapped out in Arabic. So was the response.

"You may leave him to me, O Exalted One."

Without a further glance at his captive, the Arab leader turned away and left the tomb. The Syrian regarded the blue-uniformed figure with contempt.

"Do you know anything about radio?" he asked in English.

"Not a thing," lied Rodgers, cheerfully. "Airplanes are my job."

"They'll be your job here, all right," said the Syrian.

"You fellows seem to have picked up English very well," said Rodgers carelessly.

The praise wiped the contempt from the Syrian's face.

"I worked for many years in Cairo," he explained. "I was a guide for tourists. That's where I learned to hate the English as well as speak English."

"And the fellow in the white dressing-gown who kidnaped me?"

"You are speaking of Sheik Subbaihah," warned the Syrian. "He has lived and studied in London, at the university there. It was in England that he learned to fly. Then he went to the Continent for the Sultan and there purchased the three planes that we now possess. He also has trained other Arabs as pilots. But good mechanics are scarce. Young Fritz Beisel was killed in the last air fight. That is why you are here."

"But what's the game?" asked the Intelligence officer, calmly seating himself in a chair.

"Chiefly, hatred of the English," said the Syrian grimly. "The rest you will learn for yourself." He pulled over a switch and bent his head in a listening attitude. Rodgers judged the detectors were in action. Apparently satisfied that nothing was disturbing the ether, he switched off again.

"And so this is where our planes vamoosed," murmured Rodgers aloud.

The Syrian nodded. "And we hope to get more yet!... Have a cigarette?"

He flashed a cheap case in front of Aircraftsman Jones.

"What really puzzles the fellows at our end," said Rodgers, accepting a light, "was the way the radio petered out when a plane was in this area."

Again the Syrian accepted the praise.

"Thanks to me!" he smiled. "With this set I jammed all their messages, played up atmospherics and generally made it impossible for Aden to get in touch with them. Cute, isn't it?"

"Very," agreed the Intelligence officer, puffing the cigarette with enjoyment.

A moment later one of the bodyguard entered the tomb. He had received orders to take Aircraftsman Jones into the village. Once again Rodgers mounted a camel and, surrounded by the hooded figures, rode through the cluster of white houses and overhanging date palms.

Within five minutes he had, as the Syrian had said, learned much for himself. The little cavalcade of camels and men entered what appeared to be a large suk or marketplace, covered in the usual Arab fashion with matting as a protection from the sun. But this was no ordinary marketplace: it was a miniature arsenal. Boxes of ammunition, machine-gun parts, rifles, hand-grenades—all the fiendish appliances of war—were stored carefully beneath that overhead matting. And one glance upward revealed to the Intelligence officer that the matting was brown colored cloth, desert camouflage dusted with sand, which would appear merely as a strip of waste land to any airplanes flitting above.

At the end of this desert arsenal was a huge hangar in which three fighting- planes were housed. One of the planes had a wing badly patched. This apparently was not the real trouble. The engine had been dismantled and lay upon a wooden platform. By that engine stood the Arab in the white burnous, Sheik Subbaihah, a smile on his somber face. Rodgers dismounted from the camel and was led toward him.

"There's your job," said the Sheik, nodding toward the dismantled engine. "Get that fixed, and I won't forget your bottle of whisky."

Rodgers gave it a professional glance.

"It looks a difficult job! " he said.

"If it is not finished in three days, you die," the Arab said bluntly.

With a sigh, Aircraftsman Jones unbuttoned his tunic.

"Who's going to fly the machine if I get it going ?" he asked.

"I am," said the Sheik simply, "you are going to be my first passenger... Get to work!"

The group of wondering Arabs clusttered round the sweating mechanic.

IN three days the job was finished.

Even Rodgers was pleased with it. He had discovered in himself an uncanny skill with engines. Those long, lean fingers that had so often strummed Debussy and Ravel from the rare but cracked pianos in the Red Sea region were also capable of tuning an engine to the correct pitch.

More than once, as Aircraftsman Jones, he had sat with grimy hands and oil-smeared face listening to the whine of an aero engine in full blast. His face had the rapt expression of one listening to a Cesar Franck symphony. He knew every motif, every crescendo of the piece. And the throaty clock-clock of an engine half-throttled was to him as enjoyable a sound as a Chopin Polonaise.

"You'll take the forward cockpit," nodded the Brown Angel, Sheik Subbaihah, adjusting his flying helmet.

"And remember, my friend, my pistol is ready for action."

Secretly, the Red Wolf admired the Sheik. This Brown Angel did not lack courage. He must have realized as they took off, that his life was in the hands of this drunken aircraftsman whom he had picked up in a brawl in a coffee-house in Aden. But he showed no sign of trepidation as he maneuvered the machine with easy skill in a sky that was warm and featureless like blue silk.

For his part, Rodgers was able to look down at the Arab village beneath and admire the skill and ingenuity that had camouflaged a modern arsenal in the desert. He had learned much during those three days of working on the plane. The Arab assistants had chattered much among themselves. The grandiose plan of the Sultan— whom Rodgers had never seen— was revealed. It was to drive the hated British out of Aden and overrun the peninsula with hordes of brown men.

Arabia for the Arabians! That was the catch-phrase. For the moment they could only content themselves with a guerrilla war in the sky. They hoped to deplete the air squadron at Aden to a point below the margin of safety. Three other planes were on order in Europe, and a group of pilots being trained there, secretly. The day of attack would synchronize with the arrival of the incoming and outgoing P. and O. steamers at Aden. There would be a rising in the town itself. In twelve hours the massacre would be complete....

The desert slanted toward him. In the distance, Rodgers caught a glimpse of shining sunlit sea.... Aden, its hotels and comfortable civilization— built in the crater of an extinct volcano! He wondered whether the chattering white men and women realized the upheaval already preparing in the desert. ... A bump— and they were taxi-ing back to the hangar.

"You've made a good job of it," nodded Sheik Subbaihah, tearing off his helmet. "Now you can get back to the tomb until you're wanted again. That bottle of whisky is waiting for you there."

"And I've earned it," said Rodgers.

Fifteen minutes later he was seated amidst the shining instruments of the radio set, convivially pushing the bottle toward the Syrian.

"Take a swig, Tatiyah," encouraged the dirty, blue-uniformed figure. "It's good stuff. I know, for it comes out of the officers' mess at Aden."

"And the only thing you live for, eh," said the Syrian, sullenly, but nevertheless pouring out a liberal drink for himself.

Cigarettes were produced. The bottle began to empty, quickly. Rodgers plied the Syrian with the liquor, but only to find that the renegade became even more sullen. While the fellow was helping himself from the bottle, the Intelligence officer strolled casually to the radio set.

"Guess I can put any fool airplane engine to rights," he chuckled thickly. "But these gadgets beat me. How d'you start her up, Tatiyah?"

"Connect to the motor with that switch to your right," said the Syrian carelessly.

Rodgers stretched out a hand, pulled down the switch, and the whole of the mechanism hummed with life.

"Here, that will do!" protested the Syrian, seeking to rise from the chair.

"Don't worry," grinned Rodgers. "I won't electrocute myself. Finish off the bottle. This is damned amusing."

HIS eyes had narrowed toward the sending key. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he adjusted the wavelength: Aden. The mechanism was still humming. Cautiously he stretched out a long lean hand toward the key. Gently he tapped. The splutter of a spark, and a high-pitched squeak from the aerial, caused the Syrian to rise angrily.

"I told you not to fool with it!" he said.

With a laugh, Rodgers took his hand from the key and gently pushed the Syrian back into the chair. He poured out drinks for two. At the same time his gaze slanted through the doorway, and saw, in the sunshine of the desert, the squatting bodyguard who always surrounded the tomb.

The radio was his only chance.

Tatiyah had slumped back in his chair. He was still mumbling aloud.

ONCE again the Intelligence officer stretched out a hand and sent out the call signal to Aden.

With feverish energy his fingers worked. He repeated the call signal five times. He prayed that the operator at Aden was on duty. With a quick gesture he slipped the earphones over his head.

" Aden...  Aden received," came the faint Morse message.

Painfully, slowly, because of his lack of skill, Rodgers began to send out the message.

"To Group Captain Gould. O. C., R. A. F. Aden. Paul Rodgers reports captive in village 16 degrees point 20 cross 46 degrees point 8. Send fighting squadron immediately. Bomb village. Large stores munitions. Arabs possess three fighting planes. Desperately urg—"

"That's Morse you're sending out, damn you!" yelled a voice in his ear.

Rodgers swiveled round to find the Syrian swaying before him, an automatic pistol in his hand. It pointed menacingly toward his blue uniform.

"Just amusing myself," laughed Rodgers, bluffing desperately.

"You don't bluff me," snarled the Syrian. "Paul Rodgers, eh? The man
they call the Red Wolf of Arabia! Oh, yes, I've heard about you. It is going to give me great pleasure to kill you!"

A brown finger curled on the trigger, Rodgers drew himself tense for a leap forward. It was his only chance. But even as he raised himself on his toes, a harsh voice shouted from the doorway, in Arabic.

"Drop that gun, you dogl"

Both men whirled round. A somber-eyed figure in a white burnous stood there. It was Sheik Subbaihah.

"Is this a drunken brawl, you misbegotten son?" he went on in Arabic to the radio operator.

The Syrian babbled wildly. While he talked, Rodgers prepared to spring for the door of the tomb. But even as the thought came to him, two Arabs with rifles materialized and blocked the way.

With a mixture of tears and wails the Syrian explained. The name "Rodgers" was shrieked aloud. At this, the figure in the white burnous turned and gazed fixedly at the Intelligence officer. The somber eyes were relentless. There was no amusement glinting them now.

"The Red Wolf of Arabia!" he murmured slowly. "So you have dared to match yourself against our brains?"

Rodgers made an ironical bow.

"But the airplanes, Exalted One!" babbled the Syrian. "He has commanded a bombing squadron from Aden."

The Arab in the white burnous nodded.

"Yes, and within half an hour they will be sending our stores sky high," he said.

"I sincerely hope so," agreed Rodgers.

"In which case I can promise you a seat at the show," said the Sheik. He turned to the Arabs in the doorway.

"Seize him! "

IN a few minutes, securely bound, Rodgers was being carried through the village to that camouflaged marketplace where the stores of ammunition and hand-grenades were collected. The Arab in the white burnous gave him a brief farewell.

"You will be able to judge whether your friends of the Royal Air Force are the excellent bombers they pretend to be," he murmured.

Then he turned his back upon Rodgers and moved swiftly to his airplane.

All around was bustle and confusion. Camels, whimpering and slobbering, were being driven into the desert. Men were seizing rifles and machine-guns. Women staggering under huge bundles were moving out of the mud houses.

A trumpet blared. A group of Arab horsemen, waving their rifles, galloped past. Behind them staggered some twenty black slaves, carrying a huge palanquin with curtains drawn, within which crouched the rebellious Sultan.

The dust of the desert rose in the air. It smothered the man in dirty blue uniform, who sprawled, hands and legs tied, in the midst of boxes of high explosives.

And through the detectors hidden in the palm tree near the white tomb with its cupola, came the faint thrumming of approaching airplanes. Then this sound was lost in the roar of three planes taking off from the airdrome near the village. The Brown Angels were climbing the sky.

Perspiration trickled down the face of the Intelligence officer as he tried desperately to free himself. Impossible!  The bonds were strong and well tied. Above him was the stretched brown cloth that had camouflaged this arsenal as brown desert. A few chinks let in the sunlight. For the rest, it was hot and stifling.

In the midst of his futile struggles, he inclined his head sidewise. He had heard something: the approaching drone of airplanes. He knew the sound of Bristol Fighters. It was a familiar symphony to him. So his radio message had got through, and the squadron was flying in formation to avenge their lost comrades!

The Arab plot had failed. But in a few minutes he himself would be blown sky-high. Once again he struggled desperately, and then he heard the first shots fired—the rattle of a machine-gun. It came from the sky. The Brown Angels had engaged in conflict.

But even before the rattling hail of bullets had ceased, there came the thud and detonation of the first bomb dropped by the squadron. It was followed by yells and screams of pain. Then came the whining tear of a plane zooming. The battle had begun.

Another bomb crashed in the desert. Nearer, this time. A groan escaped from the solitary man twisting himself among the boxes of explosives. But even as despair escaped from his lips, there was the slither of bare feet in the sand. A woman, an Arab woman with a dirty yellow scarf about her body, was bending over him with a knife.

One glimpse at those passionate, oblique eyes, and he knew the worst. It was the dancing-girl from Aden, the girl who called herself Zubayah. The dirt of the desert had drenched her. Obviously she had trailed after the caravan when he had been kidnaped. But weariness could not hide the gleam of her dark eyes. She had come to seek revenge.

Wearily Rodgers closed his eyes, and waited for the knife to plunge into him. Better death in this fashion than to be blown to pieces.... Another bomb crashed within a few yards of them. It shook the ground, and a thick shower of sand smothered them.

TO his astonishment, Rodgers found his hands free. He opened his eyes. The dancing-girl was cutting the thongs that bound him.

"I like—Ingleezi!" she said, grinning.

There was no time for ceremony. Rodgers struggled to his feet, seized the girl and ran madly with her from out that desert arsenal.

"Where— we— go?" she panted.

He did not answer, but dragged her along, unmercifully. His head was down. He dared not look skyward. A hundred, two hundred yards they stumbled. The next bomb came screaming through the air.

It was a direct hit. An ear-splitting crash, and the whole desert heaved. The explosion flung them like dolls to the earth. They lay there while the sky rained sand— and other things. Then, slowly and painfully, they struggled to their feet. Through bloodshot eyes they could see the village crumbling as though a tornado had struck it.

"The jinn are loose! " gasped the girl.

BUT once more Rodgers was dragging her ruthlessly toward the desert. They reached a sand-dune; and there, breathless, they crouched. A sky drama was unfolding before their eyes.

Rodgers could see the three planes of the Arabs diving down upon the two bombers that had released their bombs upon the village. Once again machine-guns rattled furiously in the sky.

But above those diving machines was the Aden squadron, flying in perfect formation. A wave of a gloved hand, and the British machines swooped down for the attack. Zooms, loops, the scream of overdriven engines, and the constant rattle of machine-guns. Smoke came from the tail of one of the Brown Angels. The plane seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then it nose-dived to the desert, streaming flame and smoke. It crashed, a heap of blazing wreckage.

A moment later a second machine was twisting and spiraling downward. A figure detached itself and jumped. A parachute burst open, and began to trail slowly downward. The clinging figure was wearing a white burnous. But there was no mercy for the Sheik. An airplane droned past; there was the rattle of a machine-gun; and the figure in the white burnous went limp.

The third machine was trying desperately to escape. It side-slipped, looped, banked and zoomed. But there was no escape. That hail of lead caught it; the petrol-tank burst into flames; and it came shrieking through the air to crash within a hundred yards of where Rodgers and the dancing-girl were crouching.

The trail of men and camels was being harried by two other machines. They flew low; then fire swathed the line of figures, crumpling them in the sand. The black slaves beneath the palanquin dumped their load in the desert and fled for their lives. The rest stood helplessly with their hands raised above their heads in token of surrender.

It was the end. One by one the British machines landed in the desert. Blue-uniformed figures began to appear amidst the wreckage of the village. Among them, a cane in his hand, strode Group-Captain Gould. He prodded with the cane among the wreckage with the distaste of a man walking amid dung-heaps.

Suddenly he stopped.

"Bless my soul!" he ejaculated. "It's—"

"Aircraftsman Jones, sir," said Rodgers, drawing himself up and saluting smartly.

There was something like a twinkle in the eyes of the Group Captain.

"And this?" he asked, pointing his cane at the disheveled Arab girl.

"My lady friend, sir," replied Rodgers without a smile.

The Group Captain nodded curtly.

"You will report to me in the morning, my man."

"Yes sir."

Another salute, and the Group Captain strode on.

LATE that evening they reached Aden.

"And what now?" asked Rodgers, regarding the Arab girl at his side.

"I go— to dance!" she nodded.

"But you've saved my life," protested Rodgers. "And the least I can do is—" He fumbled in his pockets for money.

But she shook her head.

"I no want money. It is only good for drink. But Ingleezi, you can do one thing for me."

"Yes?"

"Kiss me, as you did that night the Brown Angel took you away."

In the darkened street of Aden, Paul Rodgers clutched the girl to him and kissed her gratefully and passionately. Then she broke away. There was a happy sigh in the darkness, and she was gone.

Thoughtfully Rodgers plodded back to the barracks.

__________________

13: The Death Barge

William J. Makin

Blue Book Dec 1935

An Isaac Heron, Gypsy detective, case

THE aroma of brewing coffee surrounded the tall brown-faced gypsy bending over his smoky wood fire. Presently, at a hail from the canal which stretched at the foot of the slope where he camped, he twisted around.

"Reckon ye aint got a pipe of tobaccer to swap for a couple of duck eggs, Romany?" cried a corduroy-waistcoated man from a gayly painted barge.

"Reckon I might," smiled the gypsy, straightening himself. "Where are your eggs?"

"Where's yer tobaccer?"

With the slickness of a conjuring trick, the gypsy produced a dirty linen bag. The bargeman eyed it greedily. With practised ease he leaped from his barge to the towing-path, an egg in each of his grimy hands.

"They be good 'uns," he grinned, handing them to the gypsy, and taking in turn the linen bag, out of which he took a generous helping of tobacco. "Picked 'em out of the weeds a few miles back."

The gypsy nodded, and placed the eggs near his tent.

"Where are you bound?" he asked.

"Braunston," replied the bargeman. "Reckon all us boatmen get to Braunston sooner or later."

"And you're not staying?" asked the gypsy, stretching out a hand for the tobacco-bag as the bargeman moved off.

"Not me," grinned the other, tossing back the bag. "I keep on traveling. It's them as stays in one place as worrits. You Romanies ought to know that. So long, brother!"

And with a casual nod of farewell, he ran and leaped upon the barge that was gliding easily toward the Hammerton Tunnel.

The gypsy watched as the horse towing the barge gave a quick, strong pull, and was then neatly unleashed, and led up the bank.

HERON saw the gaily painted barge slide over the smooth surface into that gaping black mouth and disappear. A hundred yards farther on, it would emerge into the sunlight again, a rope would be tossed to the rider of the tow-horse, and the hauling resumed.

"A tempting life," murmured the gypsy to himself, pouring out the thick black coffee into a tin mug.

The keen mahogany features were set in lazy content. A blue shirt open at the neck, and a pair of corduroy trousers held up by a belt, constituted his chief garb.

He now drank his black coffee with an air, and with the grace of an animal stretched himself easily at the side of his little camp-fire.

Isaac Heron had run away....

He had abandoned his luxurious apartment in Jermyn Street with its strangely decorated walls, Bokharan rugs, and comfortable divans. "My West End tent!" was how he smilingly described that retreat to his friends. A man of considerable means, he had accidentally been able to help Scotland Yard in solving a murder mystery; and since that time he had frequently been called upon to help the Yard in cases where gypsies were concerned. For Isaac Heron was of Romany blood, with many friends among the Brethren of the Black Tents. At the moment he was lounging outside a different type of tent. It seemed a dirty strip of brown and weathered tarpaulin stretched across a few pieces of wood. The tent was pitched on a grassy slope that led down to a weed-smeared stretch of water known as the Thames and Severn Canal.

"The cut," as the barge-folk called it, here mirrored the rolling mass of foliage in its autumnal beauty, and also reflected the richness of the Gloucestershire countryside. From the black mouth of the tunnel the canal cut its way in an undeviating stretch that led to the lock-gates some six miles away.

"What a pity my friend Inspector Graves hates the country," mused the gypsy in his sprawling contentment. "Here, at least, a Scotland Yard man might decide that crime, except for the poaching of ducks' eggs, no longer exists."

THE thudding clop-clop of a horse's hoofs disturbed his reveries. Over the mound of earth that smothered the tunnel came a sturdy beast, with harness that caught the glint of the afternoon sun.

The gypsy eyed the horse approvingly. But much more attractive was the young woman in short skirts who rode astride the horse. Her bright red hair was ruffled by the breeze. A yellow kerchief was tied about her throat. And the tawny color of her clothes matched the beauty of her hair.

"There's something of the gypsy in all these barge-folk," murmured Heron with admiration.

With an easy grace the girl had slid from the horse as they came to the towpath beyond the tunnel. She gave a cursory glance at the gypsy beside the campfire, and then looked toward the tunnel ; she was waiting for the barge to slide out of that yawning hole into the sunshine.

"Hallo— hallo, Uncle Dick!" she cried, as the blunt but gaily painted nose of the barge came forth.

There was no answering hail. Slowly, ever so slowly, the barge began to emerge. First came the little wooden hood that led to the cabin beneath. Brightly painted buckets were ranged alongside.

Then came the tarpaulin-covered cargo. White smeared the black sheets. A cargo of flour, decided Isaac Heron, lazily watching the barge emerging toward the sunlight.

"Uncle Dick! Hallo— hallo!" cried the girl again.

The horse shook its head impatiently, and browsed at the grassy slope leading from the towpath.

IT was a very long barge. Three quarters of its length had now emerged from the tunnel. The man at the tiller, behind, must have been steering badly, for the nose of the barge was pointing toward the bank of the canal.

"Uncle Dick! Look out!" shrilled the girl again.

Still there was no answering hail, and with slow solemnity the barge continued its erratic progress....

At last the full length of the barge emerged from the tunnel, and the figure of a man could be seen lazily leaning against the painted tiller.

"Ready, Uncle?" cried the girl, a tow-rope in her hand and poised on the bank ready to throw it aboard.

The figure against the tiller made no response. He seemed to be drunk, for despite the smooth passage of the barge, he gave a sudden lurch sideways.

"What's the matter? Uncle Dick!" shouted the girl, alarm in her voice.

Instinctively, at that cry, the gypsy stiffened. His oblique eyes stared at the barge.

It was nosing toward the bank. The figure at the tiller made no effort to avoid the crash. Even as Isaac Heron rose to his feet, there was a bump and a splintering of wood as the nose of the barge collided with the bank, then sheered alongside with a grating of stone. At the same instant, the figure at the tiller tumbled over and lay prone on the little deck. There followed the deep hush of the countryside, and the lap-lap of water against the bank.

But a scurry of feet told of the girl running along the bank and leaping lightly onto the barge. Behind her padded the gypsy. He realized instinctively that something had happened.

Almost simultaneously they reached the sprawled figure by the tiller. The girl drew back with a gasp of horror. The back of her hand went instinctively to her mouth to stifle the scream that rose in her throat. For a trickle of blood came from the man lying there, and two deep wounds showed through cuts in the back of his gray shirt.

He had been stabbed from behind.

"Uncle Dick!" croaked the girl, finding her voice at last.

She dropped to her knees and put her arms about the prone figure on the deck. Swiftly she turned him over. The dead face of the bargeman, a spasm of pain in his eyes, stared up at her.

"Uncle Dick! Who's done this?" she shrieked aloud.

But death had been swift and sudden. There was no response. With a convulsive shudder, the girl gazed at that black mouth of the tunnel.

"He— he was alive when the barge went in at the other end," she sobbed. "I— I always hated that tunnel— black and slimy. Now it has killed him."

"Some one has killed him," corrected Isaac Heron quietly. "Who is he?"

FOR the first time the girl seemed to realize the presence of the gypsy. She gave a frightened glance at that brown face with its jet black hair.

"He— he's my uncle," she said, in the whisper that comes with the realization of death. "Dick Jackson. He can't be dead. He can't be—"

Her voice dribbled into a wail of despair.

Isaac Heron shook his head sadly.... One swift examination was enough.

"I'm afraid he's dead."

With a broken cry, her slim figure shaken with grief, the woman flung herself beside the dead man at the tiller. A tragic scene in that quiet backwater where the ripples caused by the entry of the barge had passed, and the canal reflected again the trees and the empty white sky.

Quietly Isaac Heron waited until the first paroxysm of grief had passed. Eventually, he saw that flaming mass of hair lift itself, and a tear-stained face staring up at him. There was a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

"Some one must have murdered him," she said savagely.

Isaac Heron nodded.

"And within the few minutes that he was in that tunnel," he pointed out. "In all probability the murderer is still there, inside the tunnel."

Once again the girl shuddered as her eyes turned toward that black mouth out of which the slimy water flowed.

"I can't understand it," she wailed, once again giving way to grief.

"Anyone else aboard the barge?" asked Isaac Heron.

She shook her head.

"No. Just the two of us. We were going to Braunston. Uncle Dick said he'd buy me a new frock, a yellow one. And we were going to meet my sweet-heart Tom Robbins, and have dinner in a real restaurant, and then go to a theater, and—"

Sobs again shook her. The gypsy took her gently but firmly by the hand.

"Listen to me," he said. "There's a village less than half a mile along the towpath. Hurry there at once and find a policeman. Bring him back with you. I'll stay here until you arrive."

His voice and commands seemed to steady the girl. She raised herself from the dead man. With a quick smother of her yellow scarf she wiped away her tears.

"I'll go at once!" she nodded. Her jaw set in a determined fashion. "I'll see some swine hang for this, or die myself. Keep a close watch on— him— will you?"

The gypsy nodded. The next moment she had mounted the horse and was urging it along the towpath in the direction of the village.

Isaac Heron was left, staring down at the deck of the barge where the dead man lay. But those oblique eyes were gazing not at the murdered man, but at a strange pattern on the flour-dusted deck.

Away from where the woman had knelt in her sobbing misery, was the cleanly defined outline of a naked foot.

It was stamped on the thin white dust near the tiller, at a point where a man might have clambered aboard.

And there was something about that outline of a bare foot that puzzled Isaac Heron. He knelt to examine it doser.

His lips tightened. Then his head twisted quickly in the direction of the tunnel. His own words were resounding in his mind:

"In all probability the murderer is still there, inside the tunnel."

He raised himself with swift decision. A moment later he had jumped ashore from the barge and was running lightly toward his tarpaulin tent.

IN less than two minutes Isaac Heron emerged. Except for the blue shirt he had twisted round his waist, he was naked. His lithe brown body, caught by the setting sun, gave him the appearance of a bronze statue. The muscles were firm, well developed. A sculptor would have been struck with admiration.

With hardly a splash he slipped into the canal, just beyond the barge. His jet black head broke the surface, and a few powerful strokes carried him to the mouth of the tunnel.

It seemed that a muttered thunder came from that slimy darkness. But the gypsy did not hesitate. He swam boldly forward and in a few moments the yawning mouth closed upon him.

Treading water for a moment, he stretched out a hand against the walls.

They were dank with green slime. Overhead, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could discern the curve of the stone roof. An eerie, unreal world in which to commit murder. Yet fifteen minutes previously, a man had been done to death in this slimy atmosphere.

Bravely, Isaac Heron struck out again. He was a powerful swimmer, but he was in an atmosphere which would deter even the stoutest. After every six strokes he paused, treading water, and gazed about him. Nowhere was there a niche in which a man could hide. Neither was there a foothold or even a hand-grasp to which a man could cling.

He heard the plop-plop of startled water-rats as he continued his underground swim. As the darkness fell away before his eyes, he could see the rats, streaking in ripples across the black, treacly surface. He also discerned bats hanging from the slimy curve of the roof. No wonder that girl had shuddered apprehensively as she gazed at the mouth of the tunnel.

Isaac Heron realized that the tunnel itself would give him no clue. He glimpsed the curve of dying daylight at the other end, less than a hundred yards away. He struck out quickly for that white patch. He had had enough of the tunnel.

Yet even as he was nearing the entrance at the other end, darkness blotted it out. So real was that obliteration that he almost shouted with alarm. It was as though he had lost himself in this subterranean canal and were swimming into the bowels of the earth.

The next moment he realized what had happened. A barge was sliding into the tunnel at the end toward which he was swimming. It almost filled the opening as, without a sound, it drifted in.

But the eyes of the gypsy had become accustomed to the darkness. Once again he trod water, and waited to see what chance there was for him to swim past the black bulk stealing onward. The barge was keeping almost to the middle of that channel of treacly water. Its blunt nose surged toward him. He dived, and came up against the dripping wall as the huge black bulk swirled past him.

Just at that moment a shaft of the setting sun stabbed into the darkness of the tunnel, and caused the gypsy to look upward. The huge rudder of the barge was nearing him. But he ignored it, for a much more startling sight.

A pair of naked feet dangled over the edge of the barge. One of these feet was curiously malformed. Two of the toes were missing. And the sight of that dangling foot above his dripping head made the gypsy remember that queer im print of a bare foot on the white-powdered deck of the barge that came out of the tunnel with a dead man. That imprint, too, had only three toes.

THERE was no time for reflection. Isaac Heron lifted a weed-streaked hand, and clutched at those dangling feet. There was a gasp of alarm, a shout— and the next moment the gypsy and the man he had pulled off the barge were down in the depths of that slimy water.

A struggle began in a few seconds. Isaac Heron realized that the man he was grappling with in the depths was also a powerful swimmer. He felt hands groping down toward him. Kicking himself free, he shot to the surface. A second later, another head burst the surface. It revealed an evil face, hair matting the eyes, and powerful hands cleaving the water.

There was no hesitation. The man was coming for him. As he came nearer, the gypsy saw one hand grope downward and fumble at his belt: his assailant was groping for a knife.

Instinctively, Heron dived. But he dived forward, clutching once again those naked feet, and dragging the man into the black depths. A desperate struggle ensued. The man from the barge was trying to grapple with the gypsy, and the knife was already clutched in his hand. One swift stroke, Isaac Heron realized only too well, and his corpse only would float out of that tunnel.

He threw himself backward. There was a jolt against his spine, and he knew then that his back was against the slimy wall— he could retreat no farther. A thrashing hand came toward him. Desperately, the gypsy thrust out his own hand and clutched the arm of his assailant.

But python-like, the other arm closed about him. With lungs near to bursting, they grappled in the black depths. Heron felt the other man drag away the hand that held the knife. If he could succeed in freeing that hand, the blade would sweep down with deadly effect.

IT was then Isaac Heron made a supreme effort. He jerked his knee upward. It caught the other man full in the stomach, causing him to gasp with pain and gurgle like a drowning man. But even as the fellow sank, the gypsy caught him by his shirt and dragged him to the surface.

Half-blinded, gasping for breath, Heron just managed to glimpse the gray opening to the tunnel. He turned over on his back, and with the half-drowned brute above him, kicked his way out of the tunnel.... It was a full three minutes before he could drag himself and his burden out of the canal onto the towpath.

Then for a minute he lay gasping alongside the man with the naked feet.

A policeman, a doctor and two villagers were kneeling beside the dead bargeman who was still sprawled by the tiller. The yellow light of a lantern gleamed queerly amidst the group in the gathering dusk.

The girl with the red hair stood apart, wringing her hands.

"I left the gypsy standing here," she was explaining. "He told me he would wait until I brought the police."

"Seems to me," muttered the village policeman importantly, "that this 'ere gypsy had something to do with the crime. He was anxious to get rid of you, I suppose?" he asked, turning to the girl.

"Yes, but he couldn't possibly have been the murderer," said the girl. "He sat by his camp-fire and watched the barge come out of the tunnel."

"There's no knowing what a gypsy can do," insisted the policeman. They're up to every trick, these Romanies."

A startled exclamation from the girl caused him to swing round.

"What's this?" he growled.

"The gypsy!" said the girl.

HERON, a strange half-naked figure with a shirt tied about his waist, staggered along the towpath. Over his shoulder he carried, like a sack, the bedraggled figure of a man with naked feet. And like a sack of potatoes he dropped the man at the feet of the astonished group on the barge.

"What's this?" asked the policeman, once again.

"The murderer, I think," said the gypsy wearily.

"Why, it's Sam Snape," said the girl.

"You know him, then?" asked Isaac Heron.

"Know him! Everybody between London and Birmingham knows this water-rat! He tried to get me to marry him. I refused him, time and time again. And Uncle Dick kicked him off the barge. When he heard that I was going to marry Tom, he swore he'd get even with us. And to think he murdered Uncle Dick!" She broke down, miserably.

"He's clutching a knife with his hand," murmured the doctor, who was kneeling at the side of the figure Isaac Heron had unceremoniously dumped before them.

"The same knife that killed Richard Jackson, I'll wager," said Isaac Heron. "He tried to plunge it into me as we struggled in the tunnel."

"D'you mean you've been swimming about in that black hole?" asked the astonished policeman.

Heron nodded.

"As a man had been murdered in there, I thought it worth while looking for dues. I didn't find any until a barge came sailing through with a couple of naked feet dangling over the side near the tiller. I grabbed them, and pulled the man into the water."

"Why?" the policeman demanded.

"Because if you will look on the deck of this barge, just near where Jackson was stabbed, you'll see the imprint of a naked foot in the flour that dusted everything." He took up the lantern and led the way. The group followed him. "You see," he pointed, "the imprint of a naked foot with only three toes. And this man has only three toes on his left foot."

"He must have been on that barge that was waiting outside the tunnel before we entered it, said the red-haired girl excitedly. "I remember now. Uncle Dick stopped the barge and asked if they were going through before him. But he was told to go ahead."

"And in the meantime, Sam Snape had stripped himself, dropped overboard, and swam behind the barge as it entered the tunnel," said Isaac Heron. "The moment they were inside, he swung himself aboard. He knifed Jackson from behind, twice, and then slipped back into the water. He swam back to his own barge. Jackson was already dead before he came out of the tunnel."

"There's a fellow on a barge farther down shouting that he's lost one of his crew," interposed a villager.

"Well, here he is," said the doctor. "And he'll be coming round in a moment. You must have given him a hefty jolt in the stomach," he added, turning to the gypsy.

"I had to," smiled Isaac Heron. "I know it isn't strictly according to rules, but it was his life or mine."

"I shouldn't say his life is going to be worth very much," said the doctor dryly, noting that the policeman was already bringing fortb his handcuffs.

FIVE minutes later, Sam Snape was blinking at the yellow lantern, and spluttering forth a confession with blasphemous hatred. The red-haired girl was weeping quietly at the side of her dead uncle. Only Isaac Heron was missing. He had dried and clothed himself, and was preparing a can of hot coffee over his fire, as the policeman approached.

"Of course, you'll have to give evidence," said the policeman. "You'd better remain in this district until I send for you."

Isaac Heron smiled.

"You'll find me in this tent for the next fortnight," he murmured, indicating the tarpaulin-covered shelter.

The policeman sniffed, and marched his prisoner away.

________________

14: Doctor Grimes Awaits Probate

Arthur Mallory

(Ernest M. Poate, 1884-1935)

Detective Story Magazine 22 Jun 1920

AT the window of his empty waiting room stood Doctor Madison Grimes. He was in rather a bad temper. Like many a better man, the doctor was in the act to destroy the ladder upon which he had climbed. Having attained a comfortable income by discreet, nocturnal ministrations to the criminals of New York, he was bitten by a rage for respectability. Upheld by vanity, he had resolved to sever all connection with his questionable patients. As physician to the underworld he had been a success; well, his abilities would doubtless serve him as satisfactorily with a more reputable clientele.

Wherefore the doctor had changed his office hour. Now he was accessible between ten and twelve of the morning. Of evenings he went to a theater or retired early, as an honest burgher should; and those furtive ones, his ex- patients, who tapped softly upon his door during the "burglars' calling hours," met with scant welcome.

Doctor Grimes had rid himself of all these undesirables without much difficulty; your crook is nothing if not sensitive. He does not trust his secrets to any unwilling one. They ceased to trouble him. Only his ancient enemy, Detective Sergeant Riordan, still maintained a stubbornly hopeless vigil from a convenient doorway.

Months had grown into years since their first clash over the person of one "Slippery Dick" simberg, whose incarceration as a suspicious character Doctor Grimes had prevented; but the policeman, as richly endowed with perseverance as he was lacking in perspicacity, still spent his scant leisure in dogging the physician's footsteps. Undeterred by repeated failures, only ren- dered more determined by humiliations, Sergeant Riordan obstinately held to his profanely expressed purpose: "To get the goods on that slick crook, Grimes."

Staring from his window, waiting rather bitterly for the respectable patients who did not appear, Doctor Grimes saw the detective, a burlesque Nemesis, hovering in the entrance of the Gansley Hotel across the way, and smiled mirthlessly.

An open carriage passed slowly by, an open victoria, perfectly appointed, drawn by splendid matched coachman and footman erect and rigid on the box. The doctor looked at this turnout curiously; such carriages are rare enough in this age of gasoline and machinery.

In the wide back seat huddled an old man wrapped in rugs, a very old man, stooped and shrunken to a mere shadow, his white head shaken by a palsied tremor so that its immaculate silk hat jerked grotesquely. His bearded face was turned full toward the window; his lips moved, As Grimes watched he leaned forward to address a stalwart figure on the little seat in front of him; a serge-clad, derby-hatted figure, evidently an attendant. The old gentleman seemed to be asking a question; a lean, shaking hand pointed toward the window.

Doctor Grimes drew back hastily, wondering; a little pulse throbbed in his temple. Was this old gentleman— evidently a man of means; such a private carriage as this is not maintained for nothing in the heart of Manhattan— was the old man a prospective patient? Despite its shrunken, skull-like contours, the aged face still bore a hawk's boldness; here was a born leader of men. If he could once be led to a confidence in Doctor Madison Grimes, who knew what a train of relatives, dependents, friends, might follow? A rich man, thought the doctor; a rich man with rich friends!

He smacked his lips unconsciously, smiling his secret smile, which seemed to draw the narrowed gray eyes nearer together. Rich patients, who would pay him rich fees! Never an idealist, Madison Grimes had always considered the practice of medicine in terms of money. Lean years had ingrained in him the hatred and fear of poverty; and then had come his rather unsavory prosperity. The doctor thought regretfully of his late patients; burglars, gunmen, thugs, who had accepted his treatment without protest and paid his stiff charges without demur, asking only secrecy. More than he knew, perhaps, those patients had changed his moral code, It is not easy to hold even to high ethical standards among men to whom assault with a deadly weapon is mere routine, and murder a matter of five hundred dollars at most— paid in advance, of course. And, at best, Doctor Grimes' morality had been decidedly liberal. Hitherto— save for one or two secret lapses— the doctor had held to the letter of the physician's code of ethics; but to-day, looking wearily about his empty office, he desired wealth— complete financial security— so fiercely that no empty standard could have stood between him and it.

Wearily he abandoned his vigil, picked up hat and stick, and crossed to the Gansley for lunch. In the hotel lobby he met Riordan face to face, and snarled at him fiercely, so that the hardened man hunter quailed and drew a little back.

An empty day followed, and a restless evening spent at a play which mirrored poverty so realistically that the doctor left his seat to wander about the streets. He dared not return to the office lest some undesirable appear to demand treatment.

So, at midnight, he found himself in Washington Square, staring moodily at the blank, unlit facade of that historic landmark, the Magner house. An enduring dignity in its very ugliness, it stood foursquare and solid, unchanged since its building, before the Revolution, by that Walter Magner who had once owned a quarter section of farm land in what is now the very heart of the metropolis. Doctor Madison Grimes glared at it hatefully, and the old mansion bore his gaze in stolid contempt, its unlighted, many-paned windows curtained like haughty, indifferent eyes closed against the opinions of all mankind.

Unconsciously Grimes shook a trembling fist. Somewhere behind that blind front was Walter Magner III, asleep in his old four-poster bed, no doubt; an old, old man, ancient as that one who had driven by the office only this morning; an old man who had withdrawn from active life more than twenty-five years ago to rest secure, protected from all vulgar contact by the wealth which he had inherited and multiplied. Walter Magner III., who might fold his hands in perfect con- tent, though he lived to be a thousand instead of ninety-six, knowing himself safe from care, since he was rich— rich!

And he, Madison Grimes, a better man by far— for the doctor knew the quality of his intelligence— must toil and slave, ministering to thieves and cutthroats, or fold his own hands, watching his scanty savings dwindle day by day, until such time as Walter Magner III and his ilk should send for him to minister to them also— to be a sort of upper servant, a medical valet to financial supermen.

The doctor spat, gnawing his well-kept nails! a very frenzy of bitterness overturned his usual cynical calm. To be rich— rich! He could think of nothing else. He pictured Simpson, Purdon, Graves— successful practitioners in their day, now superceded by younger men and more modern methods, slaving through declining years for a bare living, hoping only for death before disablement, lest they end in an almshouse— and cursed aloud. Beneath all the activities of physicians lies a spirit of service; deny and scoff at it as they may, sin against it as they often do, it still drives them on, groaning. Like an aged fire horse at the sound of the gong, so the old doctor, bone-weary from a toilsome day, rears from his hard-won bed to answer an emergency, grumbling, perhaps, blaspheming the very instinct that drives him, yet obey- ing it without question. Such go on while they can stand, measuring suc- cess in terms of service, unhonored he- roes of an unending war.

But Doctor Madison Grimes was not of these; and if one thinks in terms of money, the practice of medicine is a dog's life at best.

Still fuming, his absent eyes followed a slim, erect figure which walked swiftly through the little square. Something about its slender grace seemed vaguely familiar, and vaguely menacing in spite of its attraction. The unknown woman went straight up to the old Magner house, mounted its high stoop, and paused briefly as though fumbling a latch key. The door opened; a broad beam of yellow light struck across the foggy air of the park, as the glow of an opened fire box shines briefly through the dark above a moving train. It illumined a woman's graceful figure, wrapped in a long black cape; the small head, proudly held, was crowned with fair hair unhidden by a tiny cap of lawn.

Doctor Grimes started as though stung. Constance Haddon! And here, in the house of that aged millionaire! Let him look to himself, thought Grimes cynically; and shivering a little, for the night was chill, he turned toward home.

Next morning, when the empty formality of his office hour was nearly done, the doctor again saw that shining black victoria, its splendid horses mincing past at a decorous walk. This time it stopped; the same old gentleman, pointing at the doetor's house, seemed urging something upon his stolid companion. The palsied head jerked vehemently, setting its top hat awry; one clawlike, shaking hand clutched the other's arm.

Deeply interested, Doctor Grimes watched from behind his curtains. The old gentleman was insisting on something; was it on consulting Madison Grimes, M.D.? His attendant seemed to yield rather ungraciously and turned his head to speak over his shoulder to the coachman. The imposing equipage drew in to the curb, so that the doctor could almost decipher the monogram upon its polished door. The footman, correct to the last detail in buff-colored top hat, maroon livery, and shining Russia leather boots, dis- mounted and climbed the steps.

But he did not ring; in a moment he returned. Consumed with curiosity, Doctor Grimes raised the window a crack, "No, sir," he heard, "not Gryce— Grimes, sir."

The footman saluted and climbed back to the box; the carriage moved on. But Grimes imagined that the old gentleman still protested. His palsied head nodded rhythmically, like a mandarin toy; but it seemed to convey a final decision.

Doctor Grimes went out to his luncheon, wondering deeply

NEXT morning the office hour, still unattended, dragged less drearily. The doctor spent most of the time at his window watching for that mysterious victoria.

Sure enough, at twelve o'clock it appeared. And now it drew up to the curb, as by a previous command. The old gentlman remained in his seat, huddled beneath his rugs, but the gaunt, bearded head conveyed triumph in every tremulous nod.

With an ill grace his attendant snapped some order over one burly shoulder. The footman swung himself down mounted Doctor Grimes' steps. This time he rang, briskly, insistently, as one accustomed to carry the commands of authority.

"See who it is,Miss Briggs," directed the doctor.

His silent, self-effacing secretary rose, by the movement confessing life. Until addressed she seemed no more individual than the desk at which she worked so noiselessly. So discreet she was, so neutral-minded, that Doctor Grimes had long since lost all thought of her as human. She was an excellent piece of office equipment; a calculating machine, dictaphone, and automatic typewriter rolled in one. She was as incapable of error as of independent activity; like any other perfect machine, she needed only to be switched on and off. Wherefore the inner life of Doctor Madison Grimes was bared to her as fully as to his office chair; she knew more of him than any other living being; than did he himself.

Miss Briggs opened the door, much as does one of those contrivances in apartment houses which spring the latch when one presses a button. Disclosed in the aperture, the liveried foot-man saluted.

"Mr. Magner's compliments, miss," he said woodenly, "and would Doctor Madison Grimes step out to the carriage a minute?"

Mutely the secretary turned to her employer. He nodded.

"The doctor will be out as soon as he has finished with the patient he's treating now," she answered as mechanically as a phonograph.

The fiction of engagement came from her thin lips dryly, as by the perfection of coaching. Miss Briggs need never be instructed in such matters. Given an empty office and an idle employer, she could, by some dry card-index magic of her own, produce the illusion of a waiting room full of eager patients. In such things lay her value; she was the perfection of secretaries.

Saluting again, the footman about-faced.

"Walter Magner!" gasped the doctor.

So Doctor Grimes waited, a shrewd eye at the curtains, until his odd caller betrayed unmistakable signs of impatience; then he hurried out, bare headed, his heart pounding. He had greatly overestimated his adroitness, if he should prove unable to turn this meeting to account,

"So sorry to keep you waiting, sir," he apologized. "I was engaged for the moment."

The burly attendant scowled at him frankly, but a lean, shaking hand cut off his speech.

"I wanted to see you, Doctor Gryce," quavered the old gentleman, regarding him with a dim, veiled eye. "I knew your father."

"Sorry, sir," replied the doctor, his manner the pink of deferential cour- tesy. "My name is Grimes."

Walter Magner gestured impatiently. The continual nodding of his white head took on an air of irritation; bushy brows drew sharply down over his rheumy eyes.

"I know," he answered in that high, piping tone. "I know. Jackson told me. What's the difference? Grimes or Gryce? It's all one— all one, sir!" He struck the side of the carriage sharply. "I won't be contradicted, I say! I knew your father, Maddy Gryce, as well as I know you. His very picture, sir! Remarkable likeness—is it not, Jackson?"

"Of course, Mr. Magner," the big man responded soothingly, and turned a helplessly irritated, yet appealing, look upon the doctor. Behind Walter Magner's shoulder he tapped his forehead explainingly.

Doctor Grimes nodded. The old man was quite evidently a dotard, living in a dim half world of shadows, wherein living and dead are alike vague and misty abstractions. Grimes or Gryce; what difference, when both were but shades thrown against blackness by the light of a moment's fancy? His hopes dropped sickeningly; here was little chance for a patient. In an hour, doubtless, this senile Magner would have forgotten both dead friend and living stranger.

"Of course, Mr. Magner," he re- plied with almost affectionate courtesy. "I'm very like my father. Every one says so. Is there anything—"

The burly Jackson scowled again. Old Mr. Magner blinked and roused himself from reverie.

"Where are we, Jackson," he asked, bewildered. "Who is this gentleman?"

"Doctor Grimes," growled the attendant.

"Grimes?" repeated the old gentleman. "Grimes? No; Gryce, you mean. It's Maddy Gryce, isn't it? Haven't seen you for years, old boy." He leaned closer, nodding perpetually, and searched the doctor's face with cold scrutiny. "No," he went on uncertainly, "not Maddy— not Maddy— oh, yes, his son, of course! Old Maddy Gryce's boy. I'm an old man, Maddy— a very old man, and forgetful at times, You must forgive me." There was a wistful, stately courtesy in the words, "No, nothing you can do, my boy— nothing anybody can do for me. Glad to have seen you. A lawyer, aren't you? No, a doctor, of course— a doctor! A noble profession, my boy, even though there are plenty of rascals in it." He leaned closer, whispering shrilly. "I can't trust my doctors, Maddy— can't trust 'em at all." The constant nodding was portentous, mysterious.

The old eyes blinked. Peter Magner dropped back into that vague, remote state, communing, perhaps, with the dead he was so soon to join. His shriveled lips moved soundlessly. Then he roused again, starting.

"Drive on, Jackson," he ordered querulously. "Have them drive on! Why are we waiting here?"

Patently relieved, Jackson gave the order. Mr. Magner bowed courteously to Doctor Grimes, as to a perfect stranger, and the carriage rolled away, leaving him alone on the sidewalk.

He stood so for a moment, pondering, then turned back into the office.

"Walter Magner," said he aloud. He did not speak to his silent, aloof secretary; rather he soliloquized betore her as before the rest of the mute office furnishings. "Walter Magner! A millionaire— Heaven only knows how many times over. And he took me for his old friend's son. What a chance! What a chance!" And he laughed bitterly. "Only a dotard would have done it. And how I could work him— if only he were the least bit less of  a dotard! But it's too good, too good. He'd forgotten I was alive before I'd stopped talking. It's gone— gone! He'll never remember me. And he could have made me rich— rich—without ever feeling it!"

If he had looked, the doctor might have surprised on his secretary's normally blank face an expression of mingled sympathy and disapproval; but he did not look. The bare suggestion that Miss Briggs was capable of independent thought would have first amazed and then amused him. Impossible!

SO THE DAYS passed with Doctor Grimes growing more and more discouraged. Patients came; one or two, as in the time of his earlier struggle ; came doubtfully, went away— and stayed away. Once more the doctor came face to face with the brutal fact that he could not inspire confidence in honest folk.

Those were bitter days. Miss Briggs, if she had been capable of anything so human as resentment, must have strained the very limits of her self- control. But she remained unchanged, emotionless, the perfect machine; while Doctor Grimes grew hourly more desperate, until not only theft— which he had tried once or twice under lesser provocation— but murder itself would have seemed a price not too great to pay for success— for financial security.

Then an afternoon brought him a visitor. Miss Briggs, rising to don hat and coat, subsided into her usual chair and became once more an unconsidered office appurtenance while the doctor greeted this unexpected guest with mingled pleasure and apprehension.

"Why, Miss Haddon!" said he. "What brings you here?"

Throwing back her loose dolman, the girl gave him both hands.

"Aren't you glad to see me, doctor?" she asked with that wise, knowing smile which left her sapphire eyes cold and hard.

"Of course," answered Madison Grimes impatiently. "Of course!"

More than ever he felt that subtle repulsion, that hint of vague menace, which this woman's slender, blond beauty never failed to rouse in him. Irritably he wondered why her undoubted charm must always leave him cold, even when he knew her to be attracted to him.

"Of course I'm glad," he went on. "And what do you want this time? A new poison?" His tone carried the bitter rage of betrayed confidence. Behind him Miss Briggs stiffened in her chair.

Constance Haddon gazed at him in reproach; only her hard blue eyes mocked him. 'Why, Doctor Grimes!" she reproved. "Of course you're joking, but it's in rather bad taste, don't you think? Never mind all that now. Mr. Walter Magner wants to see you."

The doctor started. "Walter Magner!" he repeated. "Then it was you I saw that night, going into his house." His gaze accused her. Doctor Grimes was not yet wholly without scruple. "What have you been doing there, Constance Haddon ?"

Gray eyes battled a moment with sapphire blue; but it was the doctor who looked down first.

"I don't understand your manner, Doctor Grimes," the girl said, rebuking him. Injured innocence rang in her cool, silvery tones; but her eyes still mocked him. "I'm his nurse, of course. After poor, dear Mrs. Magner died last year, I stayed on to take care of him."

The doctor glared. "Poor M: Magner! Then that young bounder, Van Hooven, is Walter Magner's nephew!"

Miss Haddon nodded coolly. "Of course. And after Mrs. Magner had that stroke and died the old gentleman asked me to stay on. And I did."

Her unmoved calm shocked Doctor Grimes. He gripped the table edge, thrusting out a belligerent chin.

"And after you'd murdered her," he accused, "you 'stayed on'! Waiting your chance to do for the old man, too, I suppose, so your precious Rocky'd get his money. Still engaged to him, are you?"

Deeply absorbed, neither noticed how the silent secretary, all pretense of work dropped, had swung around in her chair to listen.

"You're acting very strangely, Doctor Grimes," came the hard, clear voice, undismayed. "Have you been drinking? I don't understand you at all."

The doctor snarled. "Of course not!" he declared viciously. "You didn't egg me on to write an article about rare poisons; you didn't listen in on my dictaphone in this very room"— he gestured wrathfully toward the stenographer's desk, and Miss Briggs whirled, pawing madly through the orderly papers before her, pretending to be deep-sunk in work. "You didn't get the idea of giving an old lady strophanthus out of my notes, and use it to commit a slow, safe, cowardly murder, did you? Oh, no— certainly not!"

Constance Haddon bore his heavy gaze unflinching, her delicate eyebrows raised a little. "You needn't shout," she answered coldly. "I hear perfectly. But it's too absurd even to deny. I took every care of Mrs. Magner; I loved her like a— like a prospective niece by marriage." 'The woman scarcely troubled to veil the derision of the clear, aloof tones; and it shone unchecked from her hard eyes. 'And when she died— a perfectly natural death, as all her physicians would testify— and she had several— I was truly grieved. It's very unkind of you to talk so." She dabbed at dry eyes with a wisp of lace and linen.

Doctor Grimes was silenced. How could he hope to break through: this impenetrable mask? None knew better than he, who had shaped this plan of poisoning in the abstract enthusiasm of the scientist, that if she had carried it out her guilt was beyond detection. And he had nothing but unsupported suspicion— nothing but an intuitive certainty— to justify an accusation,

He shrugged hopelessly. "Well," he conceded, "have it your own way. But please say what you want and go."

Miss Haddon smiled cynically. "You're inhospitable," she murmured. "T don't think I like you any more— but 1 came to say that Mr. Magner wants to see you."

"I won't go," cried Grimes defiantly. "T won't go, and that's flat. You can't mix me into it. I don't know what you're framing on the poor old devil, but I'll be no party to it."

"Don't be so vain,' the girl reproved. "Mr. Magner has plenty of doctors— much better ones than you. No, he wants you to make his will. He's suspicious of his lawyers."

"To make his will," repeated Doctor Grimes reflectively.

He was not greatly surprised, having experience of the vagaries of senile dementia. Like most doctors of several years' practice, he had already drawn up wills for two or three suspicious persons, whom not even approaching death could bring to a trust in lawyers.

"To make his will," said he, once more, this time in a wholly different tone. 'Well, provided I'm not drawn into it professionally, I don't see—" His voice faded away; he looked fixedly at his fair visitor. Gradually his mouth widened to a tight-lipped smile; his narrowed gray eyes seemed to draw closer together craftily.

"Poor Mr. Magner," Miss Haddon resumed nonchalantly. "His eyes are very bad, you know; he can't see to read. And he's afraid his lawyers might not write the will as he tells them to. So he sent for you. 'Maddy Gryce's boy,' he told me. 'He's a lawyer, or else a doctor— it's all the same. And Maddy Gryce's boy would never cheat an old man.' So I came for you, of course. Jackson told me about his mistake, insisting your name was Gryce."

Doctor Grimes continued to regard her speculatively. His last lingering scruples were professional— and he was not asked even to examine the old gentleman. He could never prove that this Haddon woman had hastened the end of Walter Magner's wife; even though she had applied the same means to Magner himself, no one could prove it. And in any case he, Grimes, could not be involved merely because he drew the old man's will.

"How much is he worth?"

"Something over twenty million, I believe," replied the girl. Despite her control, a greedy overtone rang in the silver voice.

"Oh, all right," said Grimes, yielding ungraciously, "Vl go, if that will quiet him, It's only a form, anyhow; he's incompetent. The will would never stand, even if it were probated."

He rose, picked up hat and stick, and followed his fair guide from the room,

Left alone, Miss Briggs closed her desk and pinned on her hat with shak- ing hands. Almost at the door, she met Detective Serge Riordan, with whose vigil she was as familiar as her employer. She threw him a glance, half fascinated, half fearful, and almost ran past him, thin lips tight closed,

The doctor and Miss Haddon rolled swiftly downtown in a huge imported limousine; Walter Magner did not scorn motor cars, in spite of a personal reference for horseflesh. Both sat erect and tense; neither spoke at all. Miss Haddon's profile, ivory-white in the gleam of passing street lamps, had the delicate sharpness of an old cameo— of the Empress Aggripina, perhaps. Doctor Madison Grimes noticed it only subconsciously; he was deep in that ever-recurring moral strife which all men know. But the result was inevitable, for in this war one conscious surrender forces a series of defeats, more and more crushing, up to the final debacle. Before they had reached Washington Square his decision was taken, his surrender conceded; silently he yielded the sword of conscience.

He followed the nurse up the high stoop and into a square, ugly reception hall hung about with smirking likenesses of long-dead Dutchmen.  Liveried footmen stood at attention, moveless as the paintings; an impressive, side-burned butler received them with a scant supercilious obeisance. Even in his dotage, Walter Magner III. lived regally.

Miss Haddon led the guest into a small reception room, crowded with clumsy old teakwood and mahogany. Here a stout, asthmatic personage rose to greet them, his black-ribboned pinc-nez shining inimicably.

Grimes recognized Doctor Featherstonhaugh— the eminent Doctor Featherstonhaugh, physician to the truly great— and his manner was tinged with a reluctant respect.

The authority acknowledged his humbler colleague's introduction with grudging civility.

"Yes, yes, of course, Doctor Graves— Grimes, you say. How do? You understand, of course, doctor, that this is merely to pacify Mr. Magner. He has asked to talk with you in private. All delusional, of course—misidentifies you— calls you Gryce. Very secretive, too— suspicious— as all these seniles are.' Subtle irritation rang in the doctor's brusque tones. Plainly Mr. Magner had refused to explain his intentions; and his medical attendant resented this secrecy. "Not a consultation, of course," he went on, emphasizing his words with pointed Oxford glasses. "Not by any means! Your visit has no professional bearing—none whatever! Get that clear in your mind, doctor."

"I quite understand, Doctor Featherstonhaugh," replied Grimes pacifically. "It would be presumptuous for me to imagine anything else, with you in attendance." Just as well to spread it on thick, he reflected cynically. These bumptious old parties would stand any amount of flattery. "I merely came, as any layman might, to gratify the whim of a senile dement."

"Of course— of course!" agreed the other, mollified. 'Nothing but the sus- picious attitude of a very old man. But don't assume," he went on, his thoughts shifting from his personal position to the abstract medical features of the case, "don't assume that Mr. Magner is by any means really demented. The condition is more arterio-sclerotic than senile." Grimes started at the word. "He has lapses of memory, confused states; but at other times he's quite clear, and even remembers what has been said when he seemed hopelessly muddled. I tell you this for your own guidance. Don't attempt to soothe him by lying; he's likely to find you out. The old gentleman is much more canny than he appears. Even now I'd hesitate to call him incompetent."

Doctor Grimes listened with an impatience barely masked by courtesy. tlow these old blow-hards did love the sound of their own voices! What did old Featherstonhaugh know about the senile dementias, anyhow? But this belief of his might be convenient enough— in case—

"Better go up now, doctor," directed the older man. "Mr. Magner will be getting impatient."

So Doctor Grimes again followed his guide, up a wide curving stairway and through a door where another footman stood on guard, The burly attendant, Jackson, hovering in the hallway, favored them with an ugly look.

Into a huge, darkened room he went, In its center stood a vast four-poster bed, its gloomy brocaded hangings pushed to head and foot. A nurse rose at their entry, with a crackling of stiff white skirts.

"All right, Monohan," whispered Miss Haddon, "you can go now."

And the other nodded, as to unquestioned authority, and rustled out.

Miss Haddon snapped on a cluster of ceiling lights. In the exact middle of the great bed, strangely shrunken and small, like a fairies' changling child, lay Walter Magner III. His emaciated frame scarcely made a hillock in the smooth fall of the counterpane; his old head rolled weakly on its pillow. With its thin white locks, penthouse brows, and still-vigorous beard, it might have belonged to King David. He shivered weakly beneath his coverings.

"Who is it?" he demanded in a spent whisper. The light threw eerie shad- ows on hollow temples and beneath cheek bones whose fleshy covering had wasted away. From beneath thick brows his dim old eyes sought feebly, almost sightless.

"Who is it? You, Jackson?"

"It's Connie, Mr. Magner," replied the girl softly; but the affection of her tone rang false and hollow to her auditor. It satisfied the invalid, however. He lifted a clawlike hand.

"Connie?" he quavered. "Little Connie Haddon. Did you bring him? Have you got Maddy Gryce there?"

"Right here, sir," interposed Doctor Grimes, stepping forward.

"Ah," sighed the old man, relieved. "Old Maddy— no, Maddy's boy, isn't it? Yes, yes! Come closer, boy; I can't see you. Want you to make my will. Can't trust my lawyers; I can't see to read. They might give the money to that scapegrace nephew of mine, Rocky. Won't do it. Give it to charity first. Can't even trust Featherstonhaugh. Trust you, though. Get paper, Maddy— get paper and write my will!"

He dropped back, spent and gasping with his vehemence. The bearded face was wax-white, wasted; great sweat drops stood out on its parchment forehead. Another twenty-four hours, Doctor Grimes' professional eye estimated, and Walter Magner III. would be one with Walter Magner II. and with old Walter Magner the first.

Doctor Madison Grimes settled himself at the little bedside table, groped for his fountain pen, and produced from an inner pocket one of those printed forms which lawyers use for wills. Years before he had secured a supply of these, and a smattering of professional verbiage, when another of his patients had demanded this same service. And so, to-night, he had come prepared.

"You're too weak to talk much, sir," said he smoothly. "I'll just fill out the usual forms and then you can tell me how you want your money divided."

"That's right, Maddy, boy," quavered the ancient. "Must save strength— nearly gone. I've been waiting for long, long years, Maddy— waiting to die until I thought the Lord had forgotten me. But He's calling me now, Maddy— calling at last. And I'll be going soon— back to your father and all my old friends. Dead and gone— dead and gone these many years!"

Madison Grimes, M. D., wrote busily, ignoring the pathetic words.

"I, Walter Magner, being of sound mind—" He grinned to himself— "of sound mind— Last will and testament.

"First: I direct that all my just debts and funeral expenses be paid—"

He looked up. "Now for the bequests, sir. We can omit any schedule of your estate. Just the estimated total."

"About twenty million," whispered the dying man.

"Twenty million!" repeated Doctor Grimes, tasting the words like a bon vivant mumbling port wine. He glanced up; from across the table two sapphire eyes transfixed him, luminous in that dim-lit chamber as a cat's eyes. He wrote briefly.

"And you want to leave it? the smaller bequests first, sir."

"Only a few," mumbled Walter Magner. "First, to Connie, here, ten thousand— for her kindness." The bearded lips essayed a grateful smile.

Constance Haddon made a little cooing sound as of protestant thanks; but her eyes flamed into those purblind ones.

"Twenty thousand, to be divided among servants," whispered the old man. "According to schedule. Lambert has it; my lawyer. And interest of twenty thousand more to Rockwell van Hooven— nephew; life interest only. Spendthrift; can't be trusted with money. Ingrate, sir— rascal!" The thin voice deepened with anger. Then he quieted. '"Can't explain— too weak," he mumbled. "Principal to revert to residuary legatee."

Doctor Grimes wrote the legacy to Constance Haddon; to the servants, then paused.

"And the residuary legatee, sir?"

The girl leaned forward.

Mr. Magner hesitated. "Charity, sir, charity! Who? Oh— You're a doctor, aren't you, Maddy? What hospital— you in?"

"St Paul's,"

"Give— everything St. Paul's hospital, then."

The old head dropped back; the dim eyes closed. Alarmed, Constance Had don busied herself with restoratives, held smelling salts beneath the bold curved nose, poured a dose of aromatic ammonia.

Unheeding, Doctor Grimes wrote on. As the old man moaned and reopened weary eyes, he finished and rose.

"Now to get in witnesses and sign this." His voice was uneven, as though he might suddenly burst into hysterical laughter. The hands which folded the long document shook so that it crackled again.

"Get— nurse— footmen," whispered the host. "You make third, Maddy."

So it was done. Incuriously the two employees signed beneath Walter Magner's weak, shaking scrawl. The paper was folded so that none saw its content.

"My will," quavered the old man. "Remember it, both of you."

And they went out.

Steadying his wrist with a shaking left hand, Doctor Madison Grimes affixed his signature also.

"You keep it, Maddy," ordered the old gentleman. "Keep it and probate for me— only a day or so, Maddy! Can't trust anybody else. Good boy! Can't thank you; won't insult you by offering pay. Like your father— a gentleman! Good-by."

Immediately he was sunk into the easy sleep of weakness and age.

Buttoning the paper beneath his coat, Madison Grimes tiptoed out. The girl followed him. In the hall he turned upon her.

"Where can we talk?" he demanded. His face jerked uncontrollably; he held his voice to a whisper as it were by the grip of both hands. "Quick!"

Infected by his excitement, she led him to a little sitting room; the footman stared after them, stolidly wondering.

Facing the young woman within a bolted door, Madison Grimes gripped her shoulders.

"Do you want nine million dollars?" he said between clenched teeth.

She showed no surprise; only chagrin. "Nine million? Is that all?"

He spread the will before her, a shaking finger laid upon its last clause.

"And I direct that the balance of my estate be divided equally between my beloved nephew, Rockwell van Hooven, and the society of the St. Paul's Hospital!" he read, half aloud. "Idiot! If I'd made it all to him somebody'd be sure to smell a rat. Now, even the trustees of St. Paul's will help. This will's going to stand, I say!" His voice rose; he shook her unresisting figure insanely.

"Good! Better half than none."

Neither considered the bat-eared Rocky for an instant. Though left to him, the money would be Constance Haddon's; that both accepted without argument.

The girl reached out a greedy hand, but Doctor Grimes snapped up the precious document.

"No!" he said, "not so easy. Where do I come in?"

Her fierce eyes challenged him, all pretense of coolness gone. Deliberately he folded the will and buttoned it away.

"I have a bill against Rockwell van Hooven for professional services." Doctor Grimes' manner was assured, triumphant. He was master of the situation. "Services to be rendered later, at his convenience. The amount is one million dollars!"

She clamored at him; for a moment they raged, furious, stripped of all con ventions— two greedy hyenas, quarreling over their kill. Yet neither forgot to hold their voices down lest some one hear. It added the last grotesque touch of sordidness; these two, hot-eyed, murderous, voicing their money lust in hushed half-whispers.

Then the woman yielded suddenly. "All right. I promise."

"Good," said the doctor. ''Remember, no double cross! I'll destroy the will. And if you steal it and try to go on without me I'll swear the old man was delirious— incompetent. And if that doesn't work I'll give the whole show away. I want mine— see? And I'm going to get it! Send your precious Rocky around with an iron-clad agreement, binding him to pay my million, and you get the will. You ought to be grateful— I might have asked half!"

In such a mood, the fruit of deceit close under one arm, hugging to himself wealth and an assured future, Doctor Madison Grimes left that house of the shadow of death.

On the way home he routed out a lawyer acquaintance, to borrow a book on contracts; he dared not ask legal advice in this matter. In his lonely office he worked and studied for hours, far into the night, laboriously framing an unbreakable compact.

It was scarcely done and painfully copied, one-finger fashion, on the type- writer, when a hurried knock came at the door. Sullen, awkward as ever, the irregular features of Rocky van Hooven greeted him. The fellow was brick-red and sweaty— an unpleasant sight.

"Here's your confounded paper," he mumbled. "Give me the will, quick! The old fool's dying, they say."

Doctor Grimes read the instrument with care. Almost word for word it followed his own contract, so that he nodded, relieved. Plainly the Haddon woman meant to play fair. It was signed and witnessed; but to make assurance certainty he led the sweating Rocky into the Gansley, across the way, and had him acknowledge his signature before night clerk and bell-boy captain.

With these two added witnesses' signatures attached, he accepted the new document and made his exchange. Surly and uncouth to the last, Rocky snatched at it and disappeared.

Doctor Madison Grimes lighted a cigarette, spread the paper before him on his desk, and settled to an all-night's vigil. How could he sleep? His labors were done. The old man would die to-night; then a brief wait—a month or two, while the will was probated— and then—

One million dollars.

_________________

15: The Invisible "Blinker"

Anthony M Rud

1893-1942

Detective Story Magazine 22 Oct 1921

"POSITIVELY not!" Tom Cuddy shouted his refusal, backing it up by the crash of a heavy fist on the chair arm.

"Very well," answered Kurt Barron quietly. "Those are the only terms on which I do business now. Good day, Mr. Cuddy!"

We novices, seated behind the panel where we could see and hear all, trembled for our chief. The "Old Roarer" of Wall Street was not used to cool refusals; that we knew. Rumor had it that no difficulty, inhibition, or extortionate price was allowed to balk his iron will; also we had heard that at times his wrath carried him far across the boundaries of— polite discourse. Even the loss of two or three personal- damage suits had not served to make him forget the days— days before he had risen to a high place among financial powers; when he was fighting his way to foremanships and superintendencies among manual laborers— when a knockout was his best syllogism. And Kurt Barron, sitting there, pale and quiet in the plaster cast which supported his broken collar bone, no longer was able to take care of himself in a battle of brawn.

Cuddy knew nothing of the cast, of course. Barron made no public display of his misfortune. A stock and high- buttoned coat made him appear merely to have abnormally heavy neck and shoulders. That was why we worried.

The Old Roarer stared unbelieving an instant. Then his blue eyes flashed, and he moved as if to fling himself forward. Bert Loder, sitting beside me, whipped out his revolver and stood up. I caught his arm, knowing how impulsive Bert can be at times.

"The chief has a gun, but he won't need it! He knows how to deal with strong-arm men," I whispered.

It was a fact. Barron could have mastered the situation in a dozen ways, yet he chose to inform Cuddy of the truth. Perhaps he liked the bluff old man for the very qualities which made him hated and feared by opponents.

Crisply Barron told of his own misfortune which, three weeks ago, had confined him to a wheel chair or the chaise longue on which he then lay. A fall down the well of a spiral stair had laid him low in the very prime of his career.

"So I can't come in person, no matter how badly you take it," he concluded. "I'm sorry, because you've indicated an interesting case, and I have ten capable young men working under my advice and supervision. We could have solved your problem for you."

Tom Cuddy was badly at a loss. He blushed— and a flood of color in those leathery old cheeks must have meant a peak of shame seldom attained in his slam-bang career.

"Sure an' I'm pickin' on a cripple now, is it?" he queried in his embarrassment reverting to a speech reminiscent of earlier times. "For Shame, Tom Cuddy! I'm sorry!"

Abruptly he thrust out a vein-lined hand, stubby, yet almost as broad as the blades of the spades he once had wielded. Barron smiled and grasped it. And it was Cuddy, not he, who grimaced.

"Lordy! You've got a grip if you are busted up!"

Behind the screen all of us smiled. Time had been when Kurt Barron, fencer, wrestler, and jujutsu expert, could have handled the muscle-bound Cuddy with ease.

"And say, I'm getting to like you. Suppose you trot out one of these young cubs you're training. I'll take a chance on him, with you back of him, even if it costs me big!"

Kurt Barron considered this a second. "All right," he answered slowly. "I'll put Jimmy Leffingwell on the case— making one condition— that you tell no one what I am planning."

"Fine!" and Cuddy grinned. Barron apparently was making good in large measure with him. "Only I tell my son pretty nearly everything—"

"No one!" repeated Kurt Barron, with unmistakable emphasis.

"Oh, all right. You're on. Lorry can take care of himself for a couple of weeks, I guess. But bring on 'Little Dog.' I'd like to hear him bark!" And Tom Cuddy settled back, crossing his short legs.

I was Little Dog. Barron buzzed thrice for me, and I descended the side way. I was reluctant— with the reluctance of a man who knows little or nothing of stock finance, and who is called upon to solve one of the toughest problems of an inner circle. Nevertheless I did my best to assume a confident manner when I faced the chief and Cuddy, and in some measure, no doubt, succeeded, as my college nickname was "Cuke"— referring to a supposed coolness inherent in my manner, Cuddy seemed less disposed to sneer than before.

Tersely, as though I had not heard every sentence from my place in the screened balcony, Barron explained the problem in hand. Tom Cuddy captained a ring of financiers sometimes called jocularly the "Phenol Ring," following a famous coup in American dye-stuffs and chemicals. The attention of the ring, however, was by no means confined to these products. Since the war the members had attempted many deals in other commodities, ranging all the way from steels to oil, and back through the lesser deities of investors.

Of late their plans had developed a sinister habit of going askew. If a raid on Consolidated Motors was contemplated, some one was on the ground before even their astonishingly speedy financial cohorts deployed. In case of a merger, a split, or a corner, news of the movement leaped out before the details of the transaction had been settled among them. Their perturbation and fright was acknowledged. In the space of a year this traitor or clairvoyant could ruin even a billion-dollar combination, if unchecked. And so far, in spite of numerous detectives employed, no clew either to the spy or to the method of spying used had been discovered.

"He's got us winging, and that's flat! If we hadn't taken precautions it'd be different, but we hold all our meetings after hours when it's dark and everybody's gone home. We set guards, too, regular sentinels, but still we're sold out every time!'' Cuddy declared, wiping away beads of perspiration from his brow. I noted this, comparing the fact with my knowledge that the room temperature was not above sixty. "Another bad day like the eleventh of August, and the ring will be nothing but junk metal!"

"You understand?" Barron asked, fastening his mild, dull eyes on me. "I give you one night's session to get the lay. After that you will devote your- self to one man. Other operatives will take care of the others. As it is your case, Leffingwell, I count on you to select the right man immediately. Getting something on him is a different matter. I'll help you with that, and it may take a longer time."

I bowed. Words might have sounded tawdry in that tremendous instant. There was no use to tell either Barron or Cuddy I should do my best. They took that for granted. Before Cuddy left, however, Barron asked him some pointed questions concerning stocks that even I knew did not amount to much. Cuddy answered soundly enough, but I saw a light of respectful curiosity growing in his eyes. While Barron scribbled away on a pad, Cuddy fidgeted.

"Say!" he burst out at length. "You know a lot about what maybe we'd thought of doing. Sure you ain't in with them spies?"

It was too ridiculous even to be an insult. Barron dropped his pencil and stared. In a moment Cuddy was apologizing.

"Pardon, of course! I didn't mean it, but I'm just like that sometimes. I can't keep hold of the old tongue like I should. But I know you're not—"

"Oh, so you're sure now that I'm not the robber, eh?" demanded Kurt Barron in an odd tone. "And you'll do what I say, without a question? For instance, if I drag in a man like McMillan?"

Cuddy's jaw fairly sagged.

"Mc—" he echoed. "The Strass-Lyons Company! Why, was it me as was saying you ought to be on the Street? Why, you're knowing more staying right here in your plaster nightgown! I've had enough— I'm going. Your Little Dog can trot along if he wants to. With him, maybe, I won't feel like so much of a dad-blamed idiot!"

The first session of the ring I attended was held in Cuddy's downtown office, and, because of a late deal in which all members had been "burned" according to the shares awarded them in the enterprise, each was suspicious of the others.

I saw the scowling, cigar-chewing Scarven Miller, a late comer on the Street, yet a wealthy man and a fighter whom Cuddy had been glad to recognize. His narrow eyes rested steadily upon me, and, though I make no pretense of close character reading, I felt that this man, while doubtless as wily as an Indian with his enemies, would not stoop to the double cross. Beside him sat Henry Randolph Morton, third, elegant, cool, and at ease, no matter what the flurry. I hesitated longer over him in my mind, yet passed on after I heard him speak about some matter of slight consequence— an idler in social life, perhaps, but rich, and of a family that approached the patrician as nearly as our red-blooded American ideals allow. No, he had no need and no excuse for double dealing, and a record of thirty years of integrity spoke for him.

Burton Lassiter was still more cryptic to me. A dried wisp of a man, well over sixty, he commanded more wealth than any in the room, and more power than any save Tom Cuddy. He was thin-lipped, tenacious— and he was more disturbed over the failures and losses of the ring than Cuddy himself.

"Confound the spy! Confound him!" he shouted, straining his thin, cracked voice with the exertion. "I dropped two hundred thousand there. Oh, wait till I catch him— and he's here with us this minute, I say!"

It struck me that Lassiter rather was overdoing it. He might bear close watching. Boggs and Arliss, former business partners, seemed innocuous enough— not the types of men at all one associates with high finance. Boggs was stubby, near-sighted, and phlegmatic. Blinking rapidly through horn-rimmed glasses, he gave the impression of just having awakened from a protracted nap. I did not hear him say a word. Arliss, pasty-faced, accipitrine, and round-shouldered, was nearly as silent; he turned his thin, unpleasant face from side to side, for all the world like a sated Cooper's hawk upon a branch. I did not credit him with amounting to much more than an able tool in the hands of the others, however; men who look overshrewd and avaricious usually aren't. Probably, for all his inane appearance, Boggs had been the brains of the old— and very successful— partnership. Nevertheless I thought Arliss, also, would bear watching.

Aside from these there was none present save Tom Cuddy and his son, Adelbert— the latter a youth of twenty, not yet a member of the Exchange, and naturally not given any voice among these old traders. He was allowed to be present merely out of respect for old Tom, who wished his son to cut his teeth on a hard crust indeed. To my eyes, this sleepy, bored adolescent should have been out playing ball or swimming instead of moping around ticker tape all day long and sitting up past midnight at these councils of the ring, in which he could not join. But that was old Tom's business. One glance at Adelbett Cuddy, half asleep in the overstuffed, leather rocker, made me count him out immediately ; his lack of brains, ambition, and initiative advertised itself too plainly. I imagined what a cross he must have been to the vigorous Tom Cuddy.

In the main, the activities of the ring were confined this evening to discussions of the common danger. At the tag end, however, Tom Cuddy broached
a matter which made me sit up and pay even closer attention, and waked up even the blinking Boggs and the somnolent Adelbert.

"Gentlemen, I have put through a little deal which will make more money for us than we lost last week!" Tom Cuddy announced, grim lines centering about the corners of his mouth. "I took the precaution this time, though, of placing my orders before bringing the matter up here. Now if we have a spy among us I suppose he can get aboard, but he cannot harm us much. I stand to win about half a million. Do you men want to get in before I tell you the details? If you do, come through with your checks in regular proportion right now, so that—"

"Do you think we're crazy?" cut in the hawk-like Arliss, with scorn. "After that last smash-up do you imagine we're looking for other quicksands right away?"

Some of the others nodded affirmation of this cautious sentiment. A

"Right-o!" acceded Cuddy grimly. "That was just what I hoped you'd do. I'll handle this myself to the last cent. It's the Strass-Lyons reorganization that I spoke of before. I've persuaded a big man to take hold of it. His name alone is worth a jump of fifteen or twenty points."

"McMillan!" whispered Miller. "Oh, I'll sit in on—"

"Too late!" Cuddy snappily informed them. "I'm taking this risk myself!"

With bated breath I watched the manner in which each of the ring accepted this fruit of their caution, as Cuddy went on to explain that at the opening of the Exchange next morning dummy agents of his would buy up Strass-Lyons quietly. About noon the rumor would gain circulation that Henry McMillan, the bank director and conservative financier, had consented to. take over the muddled Strass-Lyons affairs, and the stock of that nearly defunct company would jump immediately from near the zero mark to a figure commensurate with industry's trust in McMillan.

"Understand, now, no playing around by you fellows!" cautioned Cuddy in conclusion. "You had your chance, and you didn't trust the old man. Now you can sit and watch, for once."

Miller shrugged. "Fair enough," he said, and Morton nodded agreement. The others, while not so nonchalant, seemed to regard the matter as closed.

Curious to see how Adelbert was taking this interesting climax, I turned to look at him. He was !olling back in his rocker, eyes closed, his feet cocked on the dead ticker. This was surprising. Could the lad sleep while his father was fighting for his very financial existence?

Right then I noted a curious thing. Though Adelbert's attitude indicated intense boredom and a desire to doze, he was teetering the leather rocker back and forth with short, incessant, jerky motions. Now no one in his right mind who wished to rock would place his feet so high and recline almost on the small of his back. It did not look natural— perhaps because I had noted so little out of the ordinary I was magnifying motes into mountains. Nevertheless I watched Adelbert Cuddy from that moment on, with a growing conviction that here was the culprit!

Though his irregular rockings back and forth were translatable into no code known to me, they kept up for just about the length of a message and then stopped. Adelbert dropped his feet to the floor, rose to his lanky height, stretched his arms, and yawned.

"Ain't it about over?" he inquired with cool insolence.

"Yes!" replied Tom Cuddy without turning his head. "That is all for to-night, I guess, gentlemen. Meet to- morrow noon, if there is any development during the day. To-morrow night, here, anyway. I'll have something to tell you by then."

"I'd like to speak to you a moment, sir," I said aloud, as the others were filing out. Cuddy nodded and remained in his chair.

This break of mine was for a deliberate purpose. I wanted to see if any of the ring— or Adelbert— glanced back as they were leaving. It did not seem to me that a guilty man could leave Cuddy and a detective alone in the room without some curiosity concerning what was about to happen. But perhaps one of the other detectives who had worked on the case had tried this obvious test. At any rate none of the ring showed even a glint of interest. Even Adelbert Cuddy slouched out and away to the elevator without a back- ward glance!

"Well, what is it?" demanded Tom Cuddy.

"Nothing, sir, except I want to be allowed to remain here for a few minutes after every one is out of the building. I want you to follow the others, and see that all have left."

"Oh, all right."

Cuddy complied ungraciously. It was plain that he would have liked to know what I was about to do, but I did not see the necessity of explaining my suspicions just yet.

The second I was sure he and the others were out of the way, I darted for the overstuffed leather rocker near the ticker. It was one of those old- fashioned, monumental affairs with solid base, the rocker portion working forward and back on springs attached to that base.

It required all my strength to move, but by considerable effort I tipped it forward till it lay lengthwise on the floor. Just as I had hoped and feared— yes, feared, for I had grown to like the bluff old man— two wires appeared, coming up through a hole drilled in the loor and attaching somewhere inside the rocker itself!

Carefully removing the burlap of the bottom, I saw the mechanism revealed. Between the rocker and base was nailed a cushion of live rubber, to which the wires attached themselves. By rocking backward, an occupant of the chair could compress the cushion, making contact there between two small plates attached one to each wire and closing an electric circuit!

With extreme care now, I replaced the burlap, righted the chair, and affixed it in the same position it had occupied to an inch.

The other end of the communication was nearly as important as this, however. I surveyed the possibilities and saw that Adelbert Cuddy never would dare attempt to utilize his father's brokerage offices for the purpose. The wires must go through to the floor below.

I hastened down, only to find that this space was taken by a number of small law offices, all locked and empty now. But by aid of the slim kit Kurt Barron insisted upon having each of us carry, I managed an entrance.

It was a law office, all right, but long disused, if the dust which had gathered on all the books and files was any criterion. The roll-top desk was locked, but I did not concern myself with this. I knew that Adelbert had rented the place under another name, as surely as if I had seen him signing the lease.

The wires were hidden behing a perpendicular strip of molding, which- I tore off with ease. Following the wires, I discovered that they led straight to what was apparently a half gallon vacuum bottle, resting on the edge of the desk nearest the single window. When I lifted this queer bottle I found it weighed at least twenty pounds!

Nor was this its only odd feature. In place of the cork, or metal covering, was a glass lens, bluish in color.

Now I saw the idea clearly, or thought I did. The contacts made by Adelbert actuated long or short flashes here. These flashes were visible through the window and were read by a watcher in one of the windows across the narrow street!

Just to prove it, I bared the two wires of insulation and touched them together, expecting to see a flash from the vacuum bottle. None came! Though I tried again and again I could secure no result. Not the slightest light appeared. Even when I went back upstairs, made the regular contact, and came down to observe, there was not even a flicker.

I did not understand, yet I did what I considered to be the sensible thing. I loosened one of the connections of the bottle so no messages could be sent, replaced the molding, fixed the chair up-stairs again, and went with my great revelation to Kurt Barron.

The clock in his apartment was striking two in the morning when I reached him, yet, wheeling himself to the door to let me in, he was as affable and kind as if it had been afternoon. During the whole of my excited discourse he lay back, eyes closed, and a peculiar half smile upon his thin lips. At the end I received the only commendation from this great man which has been my portion thus far.

"Good work, Jimmy!" he said, and then: "You must be tired. Turn in here. I have an extra bed. I'll want you clear of mind to-morrow."

And, glad to shift the responsibility to more mature shoulders, I obeyed.

I WAS present at the noon session of the ring, but only to carry a message from Barron. Cuddy received it, but did not read it before the others. "You'll be down to-night?" he asked. I assured him I should appear. Before I did go, however, I had to memorize careful instructions from Kurt Barron, who, it seems, had laid his plans while I slept.

No new business was brought up before the evening session. Therefore Tom Cuddy launched directly into his part. I saw the beads of cold perspiration gathering on his broad forehead, so I knew that, despite his seeming nonchalance, he had been given a difficult task by Barron.

"Last night I told you about the coup I was putting through," he began without preamble. "Well, there's lot more to talk about now. Perhaps you noticed that Strass-Lyons didn't hop, and Independent Shoe Machinery did?"

Inarticulate exclamations from the circle testified that the assembled financiers had noticed just that. I saw Adelbert's eyes snap open.

"Well, that was part of my plan, gentlemen," continued Cuddy, "I'm glad you men played square with me. Why am I glad? Because I never bought a share of Strass-Lyons, and I never expected the stock to rise!"

"Eh? What?"

Boggs was blinking like an owl in daylight, and Morton was surprised from his elegant poise so far as to drop his cigarette. The others evinced vary- ing degrees of perturbation.

"Just what I said!" continued Cuddy crisply. "I laid a trap for Mr. Spy, whoever he may be, and he bit all right! There has been a steady demand for Strass-Lyons shares all day, and as a consequence the price has risen a point or two from rock bottom. I sold short enough to cover that demand— a demand made by our darling little spy!

"But now comes the funny part! I have had a little trouble with McMillan because of a vague rumor that he intended to take over Strass-Lyons. As I know you gentlemen did not release that rumor, the only possible source is our spy— as I pointed out to Mr. McMillan. He has no intention of monkeying with Strass-Lyons, of course. Yesterday I persuaded him to take on Independent Shoe Machinery, whose stock then was selling at one and one- quarter. To-morrow the news of that decision will be made public at the opening of Change. I don't care, as I have purchased already every available share of Independent stock! I shall make a hundred thousand out of the collapse of Strass-Lyons, and more than a million out of the rise in Independent. You'd better believe it!"

Hubbub broke loose, but through it I kept my attention on young Adelbert Cuddy. He had blanched, and his eyes had forsaken their seeming somnolence. He rocked back and forth furiously, and I smiled to myself at the knowledge that his message would not go through this time— albeit with a pang of genuine regret for old Tom Cuddy. The revelation would be a terrible blow to him. Then, according to instructions, I rose in meeting.

"Mr. Cuddy," I said, "I know who the spy is who has sold you out! Shall I name him, no matter who he may be?"

Quick anger flamed in his eyes. "Sure, spake out!" cried the Old Roarer, terribly excited. His eyes roved to Boggs and Arliss, and I saw the direction of his previous suspicion and was sorrier for him than ever.

I bowed. "The culprit is your son!" I said distinctly. "He has a flash-light telegraph line operating from the rocker on that chair—"

But I got no further. Adelbert Cuddy, while feigning a sleepy appearance for his own purposes, was a live wire in action. In the wink of an eye he was up, and two automatics appeared as if by magic, leveled at us.

"He's is right!' "Adelbert drawled. "But sit still!"

The last was shouted at Scarven Miller, who imprudently was rising in his excitement.

"I'll hand it to our Mr. Leffingwell," continued Adelbert, his draw! quickening. "He managed to tumble— how, I don't know. But he's got the right dope. From this chair I can get every single thought any one of you expresses. I've used it for three months, and in that time it has been worth a million and a half to me. This last trick costs me two or three hundred thousand, but still I've got a stake. Clever? I'll say it was! While you all thought I was a sleepyhead and harmless, I've piled up a real stake. Oh, you'll say it's dishonest, I know—"

"Your son!" groaned out Boggs, collapsing.

"No, not my son!" snappily retorted Tom Cuddy. He was glaring at the revolvers, yet not angry enough to dare their contents. I saw his big hands clasping and unclasping. "He is my wife's son by her first marriage! I have tried to make him my son, but you gentlemen see how the attempt has failed. Hereafter I have nothing to do with him!"

"It's little I care about you, you old fool!" said Adelbert deliberately. "You boasted to me how you fought your way up, making your first million in six years. Well, I made my first million in about twenty times less than that!

"You had detectives looking for wireless, for telegraph, and for every sort of signal. I stumped them all. You can find out how my system works for yourself!"

With that he backed to the doorway, turned the knob— and in the space of a second he was disarmed and borne to the floor by Bert Loder and two other of my associates. Behind them in the hall sat Kurt Barron, erect and smiling in his wheeled chair. In his lap was the mysterious vacuum bottle.

"I can tell you quickly how it works," said Barron, being wheeled into the room. "It is a flash light, in action quite similar to the pocket flashes used by you all at night. The only difference lies in the fact that this cylinder"— and he tapped the vacuum bottle— "contains lenses and a screen which shut out all visible rays of light. The message is carried by ultra-violet rays, which exist in all light. For that reason the other detective assigned to the case could discover no flashes.

"The other end of this system is directly across the street on the floor below. A clerk of McFarland & Peters, grain brokers, is Mr. Cuddy's first confederate. By means of a special glass which he put up in the window— a glass lined by strands of selenium and zinc, and charged to catch the ultra-violet rays— he ran a current through a succession of microphones and transmuted the invisible flashes into audible sounds. These were in code, of course.

"He translated the code and sent the messages, next morning, by phone to the Walters' brokerage concern, which acted as dummy agents. Thus no connection ever was established between the Cuddy office and the Street by other operatives. Isn't that the way?" He directed the last question at Adelbert Cuddy.

"Sure, that's it. Why ask?" said the latter sullenly. "You can't do anything to me, though. I haven't committed any crime."

"Crime?" Barron smiled quizzically as he spoke. "Well, perhaps not. But here: You'll either give up what you have made out of your associates, or your dishonor will be published broadcast throughout the country. Moreover we'll get it back by other means if you refuse to give up your loot voluntarily. Now, will you sign a check for all the losses you caused the ring, or not?"

At first Adelbert refused, but, after each member had stated his losses, he finally concurred. His check, written immediately, was for eighteen hundred thousand dollars.

"We'll keep you until that is cashed!" said Barron quietly. "Leffingwell, snap on the handcuffs!"

The young man struggled some, but with the others' help I managed to ad- just the manacles. Adelbert cursed vilely. I imagine he had thought of stopping payment on the check.

"When payment on that is made," Barron continued calmly, "you will be taken to the docks. Passage is reserved for you to Buenos Aires. I advise you to go calmly."

This was the end of Adelbert Cuddy.

It satisfied even the virulent Burton Lassiter, particularly ass he got back the money he had lost.

The members of the ring took equal shares in the Independent Shoe Machinery coup. To-day they form one of the most powerful combinations on Wall Street.

___________________

16: The Skipper's Scheme

Anonymous

Bathurst Times (NSW) 25 July 1914

SAM CAMPION, skipper and owner of the little schooner Good Intent, sat at the table in the little saloon. In front of him were several sheets of foolscap, which were covered with figures. For some time he worked away steadily, immersed in the intricacies of the calculations he was making. Presently he laid down his pencil, leant back in. the chair and heaved a sigh of relief.

"All bein' well, there'll be a little bit o' profit," he said to himself.

For some time past Captain Campion's mind had been in a very perturbed state. Until recently the fair sex had had no charms for him; but since he had seen Lizzie Baxter his feelings had undergone a violent change, and he was now seriously considering the advisability of marriage. He was not, however, disposed to venture rashly. He was desirous of seeing a little more of Miss Baxter, and— if possible— of ascertaining whether the business her father ran at present would eventually come to her. Captain Campion had always had an eye to the main chance; and he decided not to do anything in a hurry.

But now a disturbing element, in the shape of Mr. Henry Britton, his first mate, had arisen. Several times lately when he had dropped into the Baxter's shop he had found Britton there talking to Miss Baxter. Of course, there might be nothing in that— lots of young men would be glad to bask in the sunshine of that lady's genial, cheery smile— but, on the other hand, there might be a great deal. Anyway, Campion decided that the mate, being a smart, good-looking fellow, and several years younger than himself, must be got out of the way.

The skipper swept the papers together, locked them up in his drawer and then proceeded on deck.

"You've bin with me now some time. 'Arry," he observed to the mate.

"Five years come next July," was the reply.

"So long as that, eh?" replied the skipper pleasantly. "Lor'! 'Ow time does. fly to be sure."

There was a pause. Then the skipper said:

"Tain't much of a job for you 'ere, 'Arry, with no chanst of gettin' to be skipper.'

The mate eved him keenly.

"Is that a 'int for me ter go?" he said shortly.

" 'Arry!' said the skipper reproachfully. "I reely thought 'as 'ow you knoowed me b'etter'n that. 'Ave you ever knowed me sack a man as was a good man?— as wot I'll admit you are."

"No. Leastways not as I knows on," answered the mate.

"No, 'Arry, I don't intend sackin' you; but I've bin thinkin' on you a good deal lately and it struck me as 'ow it's time you 'ad command. I've bin offered a little schooner cheap— the 'Appy Morn, she's called, and a tidy little craft she is, too. I've bin thinkin' serious of buyin' 'er and givin' you command."

The mate looked pleased. "It's very good of you, sir," he said, "an' I takes it kindly. Are you goin to run 'er in this trade?'"

"No," replied the skipper. "I can put 'er in beter payin' trades nor this."

"Oh! Then why don't yer put the Good Intent in 'em? No use in droppin' money, unnecessary like."

The skipper looked— and felt— some-what non-plussed. "Er— she's not quite sootable for this line, 'Arry," he replied hurriedly, "and sim'larly the Good Intent ain't sooted to t'other trades. See?"

From the mate's look it was obvious that he did not see.

"I was thinkin' o' runnin' the 'Appy Morn in the Chiny clay trade in Cornwall, or with coals from Cardiff to Bridgwater and back with cement or sand," said the skipper. 'Ow would that do yer?"

"One trade's same as another to me," replied the mate tersely, "I shan't make no bones about that."

The skipper looked relieved.

"Right-o, 'Arry," he said, "I'll fix it up perwidin' we can come to terms."

"Wot's the terms, then?"

"Well," replied the skipper slowly, 'the wages'll be 'arf-a-crown a week less than 'ere— Lunnon trade's allays the best paid, o' course— but I am goin' to give you a little commission; so the better you works yer boat the more money you'll make. You see Freights round that part isn't overgood and the profits won't be nothin' startlin'— "

"Thought you sed it was a better pavin' trade nor this!" said the mate.

"Well— in a manner o' speakin' so it is,' said the skipper haltingly, "but you see— well—"

"There's summat queer about this,' said the mate suspiciously.

"No. It's all fair an' aboveboard, 'Arry," replied the Captain, "she— the  'Appy Morn, is an oldish craf, as'll want a bit of doin' up, and that's got to be taken into account."

This explanation did not seem, to be altogether satisfactory to the mate.- He thought for a moment and then said:—

"Well, 'sir, I've allus found you straight; but you must. admit' as you ain't over clear about this. If you buys the boat and offers me the skipper's job; well, I'll take it perwidin' you give me a signed contrack and guarantees the job for a couple o' years."

The skipper beamed. It was just what he wanted.

"I'll do it with pleasure, 'Arry," he said, "and wot's more you can 'ave the contrack drawed up by a lawyer and I'll pay."

"Right you are. That's settled then," said the mate, and they shook hands  on it.

MR. GRASPALL , the lawyer, indicated with his forefinger where Captain Campion was to sign. That worthy took the pen, put his head on one side with a judicial air, and laboriously traced his name. The lawyer bloted the signature, folded the document up and handed it to the mate.

"There you are, Mr. Britton,"he said, "All shipshape and Britol fashion."

"Thank you, sir," replied Britton, placing the document in his pocket and walking out of the door the lawyer was politely holding-open. When they were outside Britton turned to the skipper and said:

"I know you don't usually take nothin' in workin' hours, but serin' that this is a speshul occasion p'raps you'll jest join me and 'ave one."

The skipper acquiesced willingly, and the pair turned into the Ship and Anchor.

"Wot's yours, sir?" asked the mate.

"A drop o' Scotch."

When the drinks were placed in front of them the skipper raised his glass and nodded meaningly.

"Good luck and good 'ealth, Captain Britton," he said.

The mate smiled at the compliment and murmured:

"My best respects, sir."

The skipper emptied his glass and said— "And now just one wi' me."

The mate shook his head.

"Jest one. Fill 'em up again, Miss," said Campion affably

"I'm sorry for being so suspicious; like when you fust spoke o' this," said Britton as he sipped his drink, 'but I; couldn't quite understand it.'

'Don't menshun.it, that's all right,' said the skipper heartily. "There's just one thing as I'd like' to menshun, sir,' said the ex-mate after a pause. "I s'pose there'll be no objection to my taking my wife along with me until I fixes up where I'll live."

"Take yer whaat with yer?" gasped the skipper.

"My wife," replied Britton, grinning broadly.

The skipper groaned. "Wot's this. You never told me as you was married!"

"You never axed me."

"Oh, Lord," moaned thes skipper, " 'ere I bin and gone to all this, a purpose to—"

"Yes," replied Britton.

'Nothin'," replied Campion, closing his mouth like a trap.

Anyhow, thought the skipper, if Britton was married, that put him out of the running altogether.

" 'Ow long 'ave you bin' an 'usband, 'Arry?" he asked after a pause.

"About six weeks,' said Britton.

"Kep' it mighty quiet nayhow," said the skipper in an aggrieved tone.

"Yes. It was like this," said Britton, "The gal's father was agin' our marryin' until I wos a skipper; so Lizzie and me agreed to get spliced up and say nothin' ab—"

Campion grabbed Britton's arm with a grip that made the ex-mate wince.

"Lizzie 'oo?" he asked, in a sepulchral tone.

"Why! Lizzie Baxter, o' course," replied Britton.

__________________

Index to Past Masters Nos 61-73

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

Achmed Abdullah

Framed at the Benefactors' Club 73

W. L. Alden

After the Comet 67

Foote's Catorium 70

How the Fat Woman Eloped 68

A Scientific Balloon 72

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 Skipper's Scheme 73

The Stamp Thief 71

The Thriller 71

F. Anstey

Taken By Surprise  66

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

Stacy Aumonier

A Source of Irritation 73

Irving Bacheller

Holy Poker 71

The Prodigal Village 71

Robert Barr

The Last Straw 72

J. M. Barrie

My Brother Henry 72

John Arthur Barry

Baleston's Secret Reef 72

The Mystery of the "Mountain Maid"  64

Frederick R. Bechdolt

Before Michael Came  63

The Lie-Detector 73

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

Ottwell Binns

The Britisher 73

Christopher B. Booth

"Doc" Meets the Train (as by John Jay Chichester)  72

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

Guy Boothby

By Right Of Conquest 72

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

Without Air 73

A Study in Green 73

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

The Eminent Dr. Deeves 72

Faith, Hope And Charity 71

The Thirteenth Degree 72

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

Francis Flagg

The Superman of Dr Jukes  72

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

The Masked Monster 72

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

James Norman Hall

Death on an Atoll 72

Julian Hawthorne

Calbot's Rival 67

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Great Stone Face 66

Kenneth Herford

An Echo of the Quarter 73

Smiley's Scoop 73

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

Rudyard Kipling

The Phantom Rickshaw 73

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

William J. Makin

The Death Barge 73

The Planes that Never Returned 73

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

Abraham Merritt

The Woman of the Wood 72

William Henry Moberley

The Great Valdez Sapphire 63

C. S. Montanye

Old King's Coal   72

F. Frankfort Moore

Joan Dark 65

Ainsworth Morgan

Lady in Lower 11   72

Talbot Mundy

Bengal Rebellion 69

Edith M Nesbit

In the Dark 64

Man-Size in Marble  65

Number 17    61

Douglas Newton

Straight Enough 73

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

Doctor Grimes Awaits Probate (as by Arthur Mallory)  73

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

Morley Roberts

The Egregious Goat 73

Arthur Somers Roche (novelette)

In the Money 67

Anthony M Rud

The Invisible "Blinker" 73

Thorne Smith

Birthday Present 66

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

Charles B. Stilson

Dr. Martone's Microscope 72

The Sky Woman 67

The Soul Trap 72

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: Without Air / Scott Campbell
- 2: Straight Enough / Douglas Newton
- 3: An Echo of the Quarter / Kenneth Herford
- 4: Smiley's Scoop / Kenneth Herford
- 5: The Phantom Rickshaw / Rudyard Kipling
- 6: The Lie-Detector / Frederick R Bechdolt
- 7: The Britisher / Ottwell Binns
- 8: The Egregious Goat / Morley Roberts
- 9: A Source of Irritation / Stacy Aumonier
- 10: A Study in Green / Scott Campbell

- 11: Framed at the Benefactors' Club / Achmed Abdullah

- 12: The Planes that Never Returned / William J. Makin

- 13: The Death Barge / William J. Makin

- 14: Doctor Grimes Awaits Probate / Arthur Mallory

- 15: The Invisible "Blinker" / Anthony M Rud
- 16: The Skipper's Scheme / Anonymous
- Cumulative Index #61-73